Perhaps your great difficulty consists in this, that you yourself are still without Christ. If it be so, seek salvation without delay-for your own sake and for the sake of the precious souls who are committed to your care. So long as you continue unsaved, you cannot discharge aright either this duty or any other. There is free forgiveness for all your guilt, through the precious blood of Christ; and you have but to go to him repentant and believing, in order to secure at once the pardon of every sin. Let yours be the noble resolve of Joshua, and my house, we will serve the Lord." "I DIDN'T LOOK HIGH ENOUGH." "As for me, Ir had been a fine day, one of those warm, genial days which we naturally call lovely, rare but precious in our often ungenial spring, harbinger of the long expected summer. The earth, the air, the sky seemed full of life; and the little hills; to use the figure of Scripture," rejoiced on every side." New life was in the song of the birds, in the bursting of the buds, in the flush of green which covered the brown fields; and new life seemed to fill and cheer every heart. The bare, bleak cold winter time was once more gone, and a pleasant, buoyant feeling in one's own mind, half hope and half sensation, made all things seem glad. But, April like, the sunshine was not long without a cloud, and towards sunset a gentle but copious shower, soft and pleasant as the day itself had been, began to fall. Still the sun continued shining; and knowing, therefore, that there would be a rainbow to be seen I hastened to tell my children. All children like rainbows. Who cannot remember, almost as if it were yesterday, the enchantment of the scene as it appeared to him in childhood, when the bow in the cloud spanned the earth with its beauty, and when he thought of that which Noah saw as a token that the waters should no more cover the earth? So, as I like children to love all sights and sounds of nature, and especially those which had a charm for my own childhood, I said, "Come and see the rainbow, there's one at the back of the house." my So we went to the back of the house to see the rainbow, and we looked and looked, but there was no rainbow to be seen. Now as the sun was still shining and the rain still falling, of course there was one; so I looked again all round, thinking it might be a somewhat faint reflection, though as the shower was heavy and the sun bright, I did not see how that could be. But in vain, no rainbow did I see. But just as I was turning away, I cast my eyes upward, and there, resplendent in all its beauty of brilliant but blended colouring, a mighty arch, extending far up in the sky, was the bow in the cloud. Why did I not see it before? Just for this simple reason: I forgot, at least did not think of the fact, that in proportion to the nearness of the sun to the horizon must be the height and span of the bow, and I had been looking near the opposite horizon for that which was far up in the sky. I did not look high enough. Its beauty soon faded, and the children soon went to bed, to sleep none the less sweetly and dream none the less pleasantly, that the last thing they saw before closing their eyes was one of the most lovely of God's wonderful works, and one which he has chosen to symbolize the glory of the Redeemer,* no less than to be witness of his covenant with man. But I thought, as I also turned away from the rapidly fading glory, there is in this a lesson. "I did not look high enough." Some people it is true look too high. "They set their mouth against the heaven, and their tongue walketh through the earth." They speak loftily, and have a haughty look and a proud heart. Nothing seems good enough for them, and their fellow-creatures are as the dust beneath their feet. These, however, though they look high enough, and too high in one sense, yet really are grovelling and contemptible. Their thoughts and looks are confined after all to the narrow range of their own selfish lives. They are shut in their pride as in a prison, and can look no higher than the ceiling of their prison cell. But there are others who from despondency or unbelief do not look high enough. They look to themselves, and so have sorrow in their hearts daily. They look to the world or to earthly helpers, and so fail to see the bow of hope which is spread upon the face of the sky. They look to their troubles, and sit and brood over them shut up in themselves, or they carry them with them wherever they go, and bear them sadly and wearily with looks cast down to the earth. They count up their many trials and burdens, and look at them one after another, and when they have come to the *Rev. iv. 3. See also Ezek. i. 28. Psa. lxxiii. 9. end of the list they begin again till there seems to be no end of them. It is all cloud and rain with them; and though they know there is a bow of hope above them, they will not look for it high enough. "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help." So said the psalmist, and here his help was found. He looked high enough. And so if we look high enough we shall find in our greatest troubles some comfort, some joy, and with that, hope-hope in God. The bow has always been regarded as the emblem of hope, and of hope breaking through in the midst of sorrow. It tells that the storm is passing, has almost passed, and that we may look for the bright sunshine. There is an old saying,— "A rainbow at night Is the shepherd's delight." So when we see the bow in the evening high up in the heavens opposite the sinking sun, we may take it as an emblem of hope springing up in the midst of sorrow and beaming joyfully even with the night coming on. The sun as it goes down transforms the shadow of the clouds into glorious gem-coloured light. Only, when the bow comes at eventide, we must look high enough. 66 And if we do we shall always see the bow of hope even amid the heaviest storm, faintly perhaps at first, not readily discernible, but growing brighter and brighter as we look. David's experience, as it is written in the forty-second Psalm, is very encouraging on this point. His tears had been his meat day and night, and his soul was poured out within him in his grief. Yet he can and does plead with himself against this state of feeling. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance." But the victory was not yet entirely The crushing weight of his sorrows came down upon him again, and he cries out, "O my God, my soul is cast down within me." But hope again responds, "therefore will I remember thee." Again he is whelmed beneath the resistless tide of sorrow. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me." Yet even out of those depths he can hope, "The Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer to the God of my life." Yet again the cry of won. 66 anguish bursts from his too full heart, "God my rock! Why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones my enemies reproach me." But again comes the response of hope striving against and rising above the tumult of the soul, like a white-winged bird against a sky black with storm. 66 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance, and my God." He looked high enough and saw the bow in the cloud. Yes! and if we would see the bow in the cloud of sorrow, we must look high enough, even to the highest point of sight, and beyond sight; for we must look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. Our bow of hope is discerned by faith, not by sight. We may often see, if our hearts are right, many things to modify our sorrows, to lighten our trials, to awaken feelings of hope in the midst of them even in the things which surround us. We need not look on the darkest side, and on that only. There is a bright side to most of our troubles. But it is with sorrows as with those who offend us, we look so persistently at the bad side of them, that at last if any one says, "look on the bright side," we are sure to reply, "they have no bright side." But rarely, very rarely is it One of our poets says, So. "There is a soul of goodness in things evil, And the Christian who believes that "all things work together for good to them that love God," and who recognises that the pith of that saying lies in the word "all," will, or ought to be, the last to say there is no bright side. Even if he sees it not now, he will hereafter. Besides, it is always well to remember that the sun still shines, though the cloud hides it. But above and beyond all such considerations as these, valuable as they are to mitigate and modify our sorrow, there is one source of hope which can never fail. These may fail, all earthly helps may fail. We may be unable to recognise any consideration which helps in any degree to modify or lessen our grief. The burden may seem altogether too heavy to be borne, and although crushed with its weight we may be able to find no deliverance. But there is one who can deliver, who can save, who is all gracious, all wise, almighty. "Commit thou all thy griefs And ways into his hands, To his sure truth and tender care Who earth and heaven commands." And we must look to Him. We cannot look higher. We must look to nothing lower. Daily experience is teaching us how useless are earthly wealth, earthly happiness, earthly circumstances of any kind, to prevent, or even to alleviate sorrow. It may be questioned whether sometimes they do not aggravate it; whether the thought of the uselessness of all these things which we may possess, does not tend to excite still more our feeling of resentment against trouble. We think-" here we have all these conditions of happiness, and yet not all of them avail to remove or to lighten this load." But the man who trusts in God and looks to him, looks alike beyond these earthly helps, and his earthly sorrows. He comes into the presence of the Eternal, and the things of earth sink into insignificance. But in Him who dwells in that eternal light he recognises also a friend, to whom he can commit his least cares, to whom he can look for help in bearing his burdens. He places himself and all his concerns in his hands. He looks to Him, right up far away above the darkness of earth, above the stormy clouds and louring sky, up to the serene heaven of heavens, the light and glory inaccessible where He dwells who condescends "To be our Father and our Friend." And so he has hope. There he recognizes the bow of hope, "in sight like unto an emerald,"* set round the throne of Him in whom he trusts, and to whom he has committed the keeping of his soul, "as to a faithful Creator." The storm may still rage, the clouds may still gather blackness, but the bow is the token of a covenant of peace, and tells of the time when storm and darkness shall for ever pass away; when "the Lord shall be our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning shall be ended." Only, we must look high enough! * Rev. iv. 3. † 1 Peter iv. 19. Isaiah lx. 20. |