The sun and spheres.
* Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 477.
* J. Brierley, Religion and To-Day, 45.
REVELATION xxi. i 303
All things that be, all thought, all love, all joy
Spell-bind the man As once the growing boy,
And point afar —
Point to some land of hope and crystal truth,
Of life and light, Where souls renewed in an immortal youth
Shall know the infinite.
That ladder has ceased to be astronomical and has become flesh. The ascending and descending blessings and communications linking heaven with our hearts are now " upon the Son of Man " ; by Him come down those white thoughts and forces of grace which prove God near, and by Him we climb to God's feet. You cannot throw off the leash of His Spirit.^
1 R. E. Welsh, Man to Man, 42.
No More Sea.
REV. — 20
Literature.
Burns (D.), Sayings in Symbol, 85.
Bushnell (H.), Moral Uses of Dark Things, 402.
Campbell (R. J.), City Temple Sermons, 234.
Forbes (J. T.), God's Measure, 75.
Hay (W.), Go^s Looking -Glass, 116.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Epistles of John to Revelation, 355.
„ „ Sermons Preached in Manchester, ii. 325.
Macmillan (H.), Bible Teachings in Nature, 291. Matbeson (Q.), Moments on the Mount, 32. Parkhurst (C. H.), The Blind Man's Greed, 219. Spurgeon (C. H.), Evening by Evening, 356.
„ (T.), Down to the Sea, 45. Stuart (A. M.), The Path of the Redeemed, 178. Christian World Pulpit, lii. 374 (J. H. Burkitt); Ixviii. 195 (H. S.
Seekings).
306
No More Sea.
And the sea is no more.— Rev. xxi. i.
1. We love the sea. A preacher who spent his holiday in Braemar, writes enthusiastically of its frowning mountains, the silver streak of its beautiful river, the inspiration of its bracing air. But it lacked one thing. There was no glimpse to be had of the sea.
II There is a most charming passage in the Life of Gladstone where Mr. Morley is recalling the talks at Biarritz during the very last years, in which he tells of the old man's passionate delight in the buoyant breakers thundering home on the reefs. He felt as if he could hardly bear to live without the sound of the sea in his ears. He had, indeed, that within him which beat in response to that tumult of waters, to that titanic pulse of the Atlantic. But he had in him a note of something deeper still. Not in tumultuous buoyancy, not in passionate upheaval, lay the secret of his primal powers. Eather you felt in him, behind and beyond this energy of elemental vitality, the spirit of the serious athlete, in possession of his soul, disciplined in austerity, secure of a peace that passeth understanding, held fast, in hidden calm, by the vision of a quiet land in which there is no more sea.^
^ I lie in my niche under the stunted hawthorn watching the to and fro of the sea, and ^olus shepherding his white sheep across the blue. I love the sea with its impenetrable fathoms, its wash and undertow, and rasp of shingle sucked anew. I love it for its secret dead in the Caverns of Peace, of which account must be given when the books are opened and earth and heaven have fled away. Yet in my love there is a paradox, for as I watch the restless, ineffective waves I think of the measureless, reflective depths of the still and silent Sea of Glass, of the dead, small and great, rich or poor, with the works which follow them, and of the Voice as the voice of many waters, when the multitude of one mind rends heaven with alleluia : and I lie so still that I almost feel the kiss of White Peace on my mouth.^
1 H. S. Holland, Personal Studies, 45.
8 Michael Fairless, The Boadmender (ed. 1911), 9. 307
3o8 NO MORE SEA
% A little girl friend of mine, whose home was by one of the great sea-lochs of the West Highlands, was being taught about heaven by her mother, and was told that there would be no sea. " Then," she said, " I shall not like it." All the child's pleasures nearly were associated with the sea — bathing, fishing, boating. On that changeful coast what is one hour mist and dulness and gloom, grey rock and wan water, is the next a fairyland of lights and colours most strange and beautiful, on which to look is enough delight. All island and peninsular nations are lovers of the sea. When Xenophon's Greeks, retreating after the battle of Cunaxa, came, after long desert marches and conflicts, in sight of the Black Sea, they burst out into joyous cries — " Thalassa ! Thalassa ! " A modern poet has expressed the strange fascination that the sea has for the men of these isles, in spite of all its fickleness and changes, thus :
" Ye that bore us, O restore us !
She is kinder than ye ; For the call is on our heart-strings,"
Said the men of the sea.
" Ye that love us, can ye move us ?
She is dearer than ye; And your sleep will be the sweeter,"
Said the men of the sea.
"Oh, our fathers in the churchyard,
She is older than ye; And our graves will be the greener,"