For, ah ! the Master is so fair
His smile so sweet on banished men,
That they who meet it unaware Can never turn to earth again;
And they who see Him risen afar. At God's right hand to welcome them,
Forgetful stand of home and land, Desiring fair Jerusalem.
132 WALKING BY FAITH
^ St, Paul stood between two worlds ; he felt the whole attraction of both ; in the earnest of the Spirit he knew that he had an inheritance there as well as here. It is this consciousness of the dimensions of life that makes him so immensely interesting ; he never wrote a dull word ; his soul was stirred incessantly by impulses from earth and from heaven, swept by breezes from the dark and troubled sea of man's life, touched by inspirations from the radiant heights where Christ dwelt. We do not need to be afraid of the reproach of " other- worldliness " if we seek to live in this same spirit ; the reproach is as false as it is threadbare. It would be an incalculable gain if we could recover the primitive hope in something like its primitive strength. It would not make us false to our duties in the world, but it w'ould give us the victory over the world.^
2. Two kinds of walking are here contrasted. " We walk not by sight." How then ? " We walk by faith." St. Paul speaks of life not as the three score years and ten, with all its natural divisions of childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, and all its circumstantial divisions of education and profession, prosperity and adversity, happiness and bereavement, concerning which as going home a good man says, " God shall be my guide through it unto death." He speaks of life as a succession of days, each with its morning and its evening, each with its little detail of thought and speech and feeling and action ; and he says that there are two ways of living such a life. We may believe what we see, or we may see what we believe. We may walk, that is live, by faith in the unseen, or we may walk by sight, by what we see and taste and handle. We may take the next step in trust or we may refuse to take it until we see what it is.
^ We never know what lies before us. Sorrow may be wait- ing, or sore temptation, or death. We see not a step before our feet. But no matter, if God is leading; for He knows all that lies before us. A young man had almost decided to become a Christian. But one doubt held him back; he did not see how he could continue faithful all through his life. He spent an evening with his minister, and they talked long on the subject. Still his fears and his indecision remained. As he left, the pastor observed how dark it was, and getting a lantern handed it to the young man, saying, " This little light will not show at once the whole way to your home, but only one step at a time ; yet take that
* J. Denney, The Second Epistle to the Corinthiant, 183.
2 COR. V. 7 133
step, and you will reach home in safety." As the young man walked homeward he pondered, " Why can I not trust my Heavenly Father, even if I can't see my way clear to the end, if He gives me light for one step ? " Only as we go on, step by step, does God disclose to us His will and plan for our life. Thus the joys of life do not dazzle us, for our hearts have been chastened to receive them. The sorrows do not overwhelm us, because each one brings its own special comfort with it. But, if we had known in advance of the coming joys and prosperities, the exultation might have made us heedless of duty and of danger. We might have let go God's hand and grown self-confident, thus missing the benediction that comes only to simple, trusting faith. If we had known of the struggles and trials before us, we might have become disheartened, thus failing of courage to endure. In either case we could not have borne the revealing, and it was in tenderness that the Master withheld it.^
I do not ask, 0 Lord, that Thou shouldst shed
Full radiance here: Give but a ray of peace, that I may tread
Without a fear.
I do not ask my cross to understand.
My way to see ; Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,
And follow Thee.2
t
Not by Sight.
1. There is a serine in which no man walks hy sight. — " We walk not by sight." The exact expression, as given in the margin, is " by means of an appearance," that is, a shape and form visible to the senses. It is evident, though not always pondered as it should be, that no man really walks by sight. To do this would cut him off from life, the whole world of the past, the whole world of the future, and more than half the world of the present. A man who consistently carried through the endeavour to walk by sight would discard history as fable ; would neither sow his field nor educate his children ; would count feeling fancy and affection folly ; would » J. R. Miller, " Adelaide A, PrpcUr,