Evening, April 8
Go To Morning Reading
“I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.”
Psalm 23:4
Behold, how independent of outward circumstances the Holy Ghost can
make the Christian! What a bright light may shine within us when it
is all dark without! How firm, how happy, how calm, how peaceful we
may be, when the world shakes to and fro, and the pillars of the earth
are removed! Even death itself, with all its terrible influences,
has no power to suspend the music of a Christian’s heart, but rather makes that music become more sweet, more clear,
more heavenly, till the last kind act which death can do is to let
the earthly strain melt into the heavenly chorus, the temporal joy
into the eternal bliss! Let us have confidence, then, in the blessed
Spirit’s power to comfort us. Dear reader, are you looking forward to poverty?
Fear not; the divine Spirit can give you, in your want, a greater
plenty than the rich have in their abundance. You know not what joys
may be stored up for you in the cottage around which grace will plant
the roses of content. Are you conscious of a growing failure of your
bodily powers? Do you expect to suffer long nights of languishing
and days of pain? O be not sad! That bed may become a throne to you.
You little know how every pang that shoots through your body may be
a refining fire to consume your dross—a beam of glory to light up the secret parts of your soul. Are the
eyes growing dim? Jesus will be your light. Do the ears fail you?
Jesus’ name will be your soul’s best music, and his person your dear delight. Socrates used to say,
“Philosophers can be happy without music;” and Christians can be happier than philosophers when all outward
causes of rejoicing are withdrawn. In thee, my God, my heart shall
triumph, come what may of ills without! By thy power, O blessed Spirit,
my heart shall be exceeding glad, though all things should fail me
here below.