476 OPEN BIBLE AND BURNING HEART
events, and reveals a meaning in its darkest catastrophes. But what I am asking you to believe is something much more than this. All this might conceivably be granted by men to whom such a knowledge would bring only a certain degree of mental satis- faction. Even if they found in the history of Christ's life and work an explanation of the various enigmas that human life presents, they would not necessarily be quickened to a strong and eager spiritual life, nor experience any special personal blessedness. Still the deep fountains of truth and life might be closed to them. For the quickening of the spiritual energies comes from the contact of a living spirit with our own ; and the Scriptures become living books to us, helpful, stimulating, inspiring, when they cease to have only an historical interest, and, in the hands of a Living Teacher and Interpreter, become alive with new thought and power for the salvation and inspiration of the men and women of to-day.^
Slowly along the rugged pathway walked
Two sadden'd wayfarers, bent on one quest;
With them another, who had asked to share
Their travel since they left the city walls;
Their converse too intent for speed; and oft,
Where linger d on the rocks the sunset tints,
They check'd their footsteps, careless of the hour
And waning light and heavy falling dews.
For from the Stranger's lips came words that burn'd
And lit the altar fuel on their hearts
Consuming fear, and quickening faith at once.
God's oracles grew luminous as He spoke,
And all along the ages good from ill
And light from darkness sprang as day from night.
We, too, Are weary travellers on life's rough path. And Thou art still unchangeably the same. Come, Lord, to us, and let us walk with Thee: Come and unfold the words of heavenly life. Till our souls burn within us, and the day Breaks, and the Day-star rises in bur hearts. Yea, Lord, abide with us, rending the veil Which hides Thee from the loving eye of faith, Dwell with us to the world's end evermore, Until Thou callest us to dwell with Thee.^
» 0. S. Home. » E. H. Bickersteth.
ST. LUKE XXIV. 32 477
4. Now it is not suggested that Christ taught these disciples something new about the Scripture. What He gave them was a new interpretation of the old. These travellers were no strangers to the Scripture. They were Jews, and had read deeply m every book of it. When they were little children in their village homes, they had clambered round their father's knee on Sabbaths, and had listened to the stories of Moses and David and Daniel with the eagerness that our own young folk display. They had studied Jeremiah more intently than any of us, and they had heard it expounded in the synagogue. The Scripture was a familiar book to them. And what did our Lord do when He met with them ? He took the book they had studied all their lives. He turned to the pages which they knew so well. He led them down by the old familiar texts. And in the old He showed such a depth of meaning, and in the familiar such a wealth of love, and He so irradiated the prophetic mystery and so illumined its darkness with His light, that not by what was absolutely new, but by the new interpretation of the old, their hearts began to burn within them by the way.
II Christ does not startle us with unexpected novelties ; He touches with glory what is quite familiar. It is the familiar experiences that He explains. It is the familiar cravings that He satisfies. It is the familiar thoughts which have filled the mind since childhood that He expands into undreamed-of fulness. We have known what sin was since we were at school. Christ meets us and talks about our sin — and we learn that sin is more exceedingly sinful than we had ever thought in our most re- proachful moments ; we learn, too, that He died that we might be forgiven, and that there is pardon for our worst, this very hour. We have known what pain was and we have known what death was, and we have known that there was a heaven and a God ; but when Christ meets us as we travel by the way and talks to us of these familiar things, there is such promise and light and love about them all that everything becomes new.^
5. What was the effect 6f the interpretation ? Their hearts burned within them. " Was not our heart burning within us ? " they said. This was the first utterance that broke from their lips in the excitement of the actual discovery. They had been so riveted by His words that they could not think of parting with
^ G. H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, 140.
478 OPEN BIBLE AND BURNING HEART
Him when they reached their destination. " He made as though he would go further," but they constrained Him to remain. And then, while joining with them in their simple meal, as He took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them — whether the action recalled what they must have heard, the scene in the upper chamber before His death, or they saw the print of the nails — their eyes were opened, and they knew Him, and He vanished. A gladdening discovery, but it was not this that made their hearts burn within them ; it was the spiritual discovery of Himself to the soul before they knew Him thus.