* John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and lAfe^ 119. 2 Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 286.
REVELATION xxi. i 311
uncertain. It could not be counted upon. There was something akin to treachery in its moods. "It is the scene," says Dr. Macmillan,^ " alternately of the softest dalliance, and the fiercest rage of the elements. Now it lies calm and motionless as an inland lake — without a ripple on its bosom — blue as the sapphire sky above — golden with the reflexion of sunset clouds — silvery with the pale mystic light of moon and stars ; and now it tosses its wild billows mountains high, and riots in the fury of the storm. One day it steals softly up the shore, kissing the shells and pebbles with a gentle sigh as though they were gifts of love ; the next it dashes its white-crested waves, laden with wrecks and corpses, against the iron rocks. Treacherous and deceitful it lures the mariner on by its beauty, until completely in its power ; and then it rises up suddenly in fury, and with an overflowing flood carries him away."
"You can domesticate mountains," says Oliver Wendell Holmes,^ "but the sea i^ferce naturce. It is feline. It licks your feet — its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you, but it will crack your bones and eat you, for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened."
St. John had had experience of the treachery of the sea in the early days of his manhood on the Sea of Galilee. And now as he looked back upon his life, what had the outward circumstances of it been but a sea of uncertainty, and even of treachery ? But the redeemed have sought and found a kingdom that cannot be moved. They have come to a city that hath foundations. In the New Earth the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.
1[ " You're quite a sailor, I suppose ? " I said to Em'ly.
" No," replied Em'ly, shaking her head, " I'm afraid of the sea."
" Afraid ! " I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big at the mighty ocean. " I an't ! "
" Ah ! but it's cruel," said Em'ly ; " I have seen it very cruel to some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house all to pieces."
" I hope it wasn't the boat that "
" That father was drownded in ? " said Em'ly. " No. Not that one ; I never see that boat."
* Bible Teachings in Nature^ 303. ■ AutocrcU oj t?ie Breakfast-Table.
312 NO MORE SEA
" Nor him ? " I asked her.
Little Em'ly shook her head. " Not to remember ! " ^
^ I remember once talking with a fisherwoman who had lost her husband and two sons at sea, away down in Cullercoats Bay on the Northumberland coast. I asked her what she liked most to think about when she thought about the land beyond, and I was not surprised to hear her say, " And there shall be no more sea." 2
I have desired to go
Where Springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail, And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be Where no storms come. Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea.^
(3) Separation. — This, we may be sure, was the chief thought in the mind of St. John as he stood on some rock in the little lonely isle of Patmos and looked out across the sea. His eye was toward Jerusalem. For he was an Israelite with an Israelite's love of Mount Zion, the place where God delights to dwell. The sea was the symbol of separation and exile. In Christ he had learned the meaning of the word pTiiladelpJiiay "brotherly love." He loved the brethren, fulfilling the New Commandment : " that ye love one another, even as I have loved you." And the sea now separated him from them. In the New World there will be no sea of separation. All will be one, and all will be together. Different as are our thoughts of the sea from St. John's thoughts, we are one with him regarding the pain of separation, let the sepa- ration be caused by sea or land, by life or death.
^ On that day, on that lovely 6th of April, such as I have de- scribed it, — that 6th of April, about nine o'clock in the morning, — we were seated at breakfast near the open window — we, that is, Agnes, myself, and little Francis. The freshness of morning spirits rested upon us ; the golden light of the morning sun illuminated the room ; incense was floating through the air from the gorgeous
* Dickens, David Copperfield, chap. iii.
* J. H. Jowett, The Silver Lining^ 221, ' Gerard Hopkins.
REVELATION xxi. i 313
flowers within and without the house. There in youthful happiness we sat gathered together, a family of love; and there we never sat again. Never again were we three gathered together, nor ever shall be, so long as the sun and its golden light, the morning and the evening, the earth and its flowers, endure.^