Said the men of the sea.
11 The sea is our life's symbol, the port for which we sail, that heaven on which our hearts are set, and " we are as near heaven by sea as by land." Because we are a maritime people we symbolize the ultimate, to which we go, as a royal port. It is a simple affair to us to consider all our aids for the journey in terms of the voyage. Thus does Eeligion use the sea for its purpose, and it seems natural that it should do so when we remember that, in the region of fact as well as in that of imagina- tion, Eeligion has used the sea. And it seems a natural use, for v/hen a man's mind is exercised by the highest emotions at the same time that he is about to contend with the dangers of a natural element, it is easy to believe that, from that moment, the association between emotion and element becomes for ever estab- lished in his mind, and in the mind of his kind, and that so deep
REVELATION xxi. i 309
is the impression made by the element that it becomes his symbol nearest at hand for the struggles in relation to which the emotions are aroused. In such manner may old thinkers have written, their mind in both worlds. And when we use a symbol such as this we do not draw a firm line between emotion and element. An earthly voyage may also signify a heavenly.^
2. But the sea did not appeal to the Israelites. They never were sailors. In the only period of their history in which they did much voyaging their ships were manned by Phoenicians — " shipmen that had knowledge of the sea." And St. John had special reasons for disliking it. We know that he took no merely material interest in the future, and that when he says " the sea was no more," he was drawing no map of the geography of the new heaven and the new earth. But he had his reasons for choosing the symbol of the sea, for using it as a figure of the things which were to be absent from the world of the redeemed. We shall find his reasons if we consider what the sea stood for to the Apostle.
(1) Mystery. — It is largely a mystery still. It is largely un- fathomed and unknown. It is our great undiscovered continent.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
It is itself a mystery. Says Jefferies : " There is an infinite possi- bility about the sea ; it may do what it is not recorded to have done. It is not to be ordered. It may overleap the bounds human observation has fixed for it. It has potency unfathomable. There is still something in it not quite grasped and understood — something still to be discovered — a mystery."
This aspect of the sea impressed itself upon the Israelites. ** Thy way," says the Psalmist, " was in the sea, and thy paths in the great waters, and thy footsteps were not known." And so Cowper :
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm. ^ Frank Elias, Heaven and the Sea, 6.
/
3IO NO MORE SEA
The mystery of the sea is a figure of the mystery of life. It is an aspect of life that appeals to every one. " This world," said Charles Dickens, " is a world of sacred and solemn mystery ; let no man despise it or take it lightly." Christina Eossetti sings :
The mystery of Life, the mystery
Of Death I see Darkly, as in a glass; Their shadows pass,
And talk with me.
The prophets have felt the mystery of life more than all others ; and St. John was a prophet. Often had he prayed with Job, '' Oh that I knew where I might find him ! " Then Jesus came and called him. The mystery of the past, of the present, of the future — all the mystery of life was dispelled. He knew that in the redeemed world there would be no baffling questions remaining. " I am the light of the world : he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life."
^ The sea is the emblem of mystery, and each wave unfolding itself from its bosom seems about to tell the secret. But it falls back, and man cannot catch its whispers ; " the sea saith, It is not in me." But the time is coming when the ocean of mystery shall open its breast and " the sea give up its dead." ^
Heaven overarches earth and sea,
Earth-sadness and sea-bitterness. Heaven overarches you and me: A little while and we shall be — Please God — where there is no more sea
Nor barren wilderness.
Heaven overarches you and me,
And all earth's gardens and her graves.
Look up with me, until we see
The day break and the shadows flee.
What though to-night wrecks you and me If so to-morrow saves ?2
(2) Treachery. — The Israelites were struck with the restless- ness of the sea. But its restlessness suggested purpose. It was