1 R. W. Barbonr, Thoughts, 10.". 112.
s A. Mu'lareu, A Rotary of Christian Grace*, 154.
ST. MATTHEW xi. 29, 30 279
III.
The Rest.
"Ye shall find rest unto your souls."
1. When we respond to Christ's invitation and come to Him, we enter into the rest of faith. The very act of trust brings tranquillity, even when the person or thing trusted in is human or creatural, and therefore uncertain. For, to roll the responsi- bility from myself, as it were, upon another, brings repose, and they who lean upon Christ's strong arm do not need to fear, though their own arm be very weak. The rest of faith, when we cease from having to take care of ourselves, when we can cast all the gnawing cares and anxieties that perturb us upon Him, when we can say, " Thou dost undertake for me, and I leave myself in Thy hands," is tranquillity deeper and more real than any other that the heart of man can conceive. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." Cast yourself upon Christ, and live in that atmosphere of calm confidence; and though the surface may be tossed by many a storm, the depths will be motionless and quiet, and there will be " peace, subsisting at the heart of endless agitation."
TJ Two painters each painted a picture to illustrate his concep- tion of rest. The first chose for his scene a still, lone lake among the far-off mountains. The second threw on his canvas a thunder- ing waterfall, with a fragile birch-tree bending over the foam ; at the fork of a branch, almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin sat on its nest. The first was only Stagnation; the last was Best. For in Best there are always two elements — tranquillity and energy ; silence and turbulence ; creation and destruction ; fearlessness and fearfulness. This it was in Christ.1
2. This was Christ's own rest. In reading the story of Christ's life you are struck by that wonderful self-possession, that quiet dignity of soul which never forsook Him. There is never any- thing approaching to the agitation which betokens smaller minds. There is that large equanimity which never forsakes Him even in
1 Henry Drummond.
28o REST UNDER THE YOKE
the hour of profoundest distress. Look at Him during the quiet years in the home. Though conscious of the high calling which awaited Him He never showed any impatience during those thirty years. Though He knew He should be about His Father's business, He first found it in the little home in which He lived. Watch Him, too, when He moves out into the busy activities of His ministering life; you still find the same quiet self-possession and restfulness of soul. He stands absolutely unmoved amongst those temptations and seductions which were set before Him. So, when the crowd thronged round Him while on His way to the healing of Jairus's daughter, you see His quiet- ness, self-possession, and restfulness of spirit. Even when you come to the final scenes of the agony, there is the same equanimity, for it is equanimity which can detach self from the urgency and the duties of the moment. When you turn to the pages of the evangelists, what is uppermost in the mind surely is this, the thought of the quietness, the dignity, the unrivalled tran- quillity, the self-possession, the restfulness of soul which never deserts their Lord and Master. Throughout all, He possessed that restfulness of soul of which He speaks here. And this is the secret which the world has so often longed for. All men are disposed to say at a later stage of their life, " Give us what you will, I do not ask now for joy or happiness ; give me the capacity for sweet contentment, give me quietude of soul, give me the power to be at rest."
^j We can no more leave the path of duty without danger of ruin than a planet could without danger break away from the path of its orbit. The moral law is as binding and beneficent in its action, if duly obeyed, as the physical law. The yoke is a badge, not of servitude, but of liberty ; duty and law are not stern and forbidding, but gentle and friendly ; they are but two names for the fostering care of God over all His works. Wordsworth, who with clearer insight than all others caught a glimpse of the face of God beneath the veil of Nature, thus addresses Duty :
Stern Lawgiver ! Yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads;
ST. MATTHEW xi. 29, 30 281
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.
To humbler functions, awful Power
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end !
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live.1
3. This strange gift of rest is at once immediate and pro- gressive. " I will give you rest," that is, " on your coming to Me " ; and " ye shall find rest," that is, " on your continuance with Me." The experiment of faith is to issue in an experience of rest which pervades every part of life until the whole is under its dominion, and until the peace of God reigns unhindered in the throne-room of the heart. As the tide setting in from the deep rises steadily until every dry inlet and creek along the coast-line is filled with the ocean's fulness, so is the experience of Christ's rest to increase and enlarge in the lives of His people. No man has learned all there is of a language or its literature when he has but mastered the alphabet. And no man finds all that the rest of Christ is who is content with a mere casual acquaintance with the Son of God. For the relationship which is adjusted on our first coming to Him must be strengthened on our side by a constant increase of the area of surrender, answer- ing to increasing light. And it is in this ever-enlarging obedience that rest is increasingly found.