THE GRACIOUS WORD
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this
is the place of repose"—
"Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your
servant loves them." Psalm 119:140
This is the precious dew of the Spirit dripping from
the branches of the heavenly Palm. As Jonathan, when faint and downcast
and weary, found strength and refreshment in partaking of the honey dropping
from the trees in the tangled thicket (1 Sam. 14:27); so can every true
believer—every true Jonathan ("the beloved of God,") tell as their
experience, "Your Word is sweet unto my taste." "Sweeter than honey, than
honey from the comb" (Ps.19:10).
In the midst of our duties and difficulties, our cares
and perplexities, how many a pang and tear would it save us, if we went with
chastened and inquiring hearts to these sacred pages! How many trials would
be eased—how many sorrows soothed, and temptations avoided, if we
forestalled every step in existence with the inquiry, "What says the
scripture?"—if we preceded every desert encampment with the inquiry what
the will of the Lord is? How few, it is to be feared, make (as they should
do), the Bible a final court of appeal—a judge for the settlement of all the
vexed questions in the consistory of the soul; allaying all misgivings with
the resolve, "I will hear what God the Lord will speak." May we be preserved
from that saddest phase of modern infidelity, the Sacred Volume classed
among the worn and barren books of the past, regarded only with that
misnamed "veneration" which the collector bestows on some piece of
mediaeval armor—a relic and memorial of bygone days, but unsuitable for an
age which has superseded the cruder views of these old "chroniclers," and
inaugurated a new era of religious development. Vain dreamers! "Forever, O
God, Your Word is settled in heaven." "The law of the Lord is perfect,
converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the
simple." "The Word of the Lord is tried."
What a crowd of witnesses could be summoned to give
personal evidence of its preciousness and value. How many aching heads would
raise themselves from their pillows and tell of their obligations to its
soothing messages of love and power! How many deathbeds could send their
occupants with pallid lips to tell of the staff which upheld them in the
dark valley. How many, in the hour of bereavement, could lay their finger on
the promise that first dried the tear from their eye and brought back the
smile to their saddened countenances! How many voyagers in life's
tempestuous ocean, now landed on the heavenly shore, would be ready to hush
their golden harps, and descend to earth with the testimony that this was
the blessed beacon-light which enabled them to avoid the treacherous
reefs—perilous rocks of temptation—and guided them to their desired haven!
Reason, with your flickering torch, you have never
yet guided to such sublime mysteries as these! Philosophy, you have
never yet, as this Book has done, taught a man how to die! Science,
you have penetrated the mysteries of nature, sunk your shafts into earth's
recesses, unburied its stores, counted its strata, measured the height of
its massive pillars down to the very pedestals of primeval granite; you have
tracked the lightning, traced the path of the tornado, revealed the distant
planet, foretold the coming of the comet and the return of the eclipse. But
you have never been able to gauge the depths of the human soul, with its
mighty cravings and yearnings, or to answer the question, "What must I do to
be saved?"
No; this antiquated Volume is still the "Book of books,"
the oracle of oracles, the beacon of beacons; the poor man's treasury, the
sick man's health, the dying man's life. It has shallows for the child to
walk in, depths for giant intellect to explore and adore! Philosophy, if she
would admit it, is indebted here for the noblest of her maxims. Poetry, for
the loftiest of her themes. Painting has gathered here her noblest
inspiration. Music has ransacked these golden stores for the grandest of her
strains. And if there be life in the Church of Christ—if her ministers and
missionaries are carrying the torch of salvation through the world, where is
that torch lighted but at these same altar fires? When a philosophy,
"falsely so called," shall become dominant, and seek, with its proud dogmas,
to supersede this divine system; when the old Bible of Augustine and Luther,
of Baxter and Bunyan, of Brainerd and Martyn, is clasped and closed—the only
code of morality worth speaking of will have perished from the earth. Dagon
will have taken the place of God's ark; the world's funeral pile may be
kindled.
Let us value our Bibles, "dwelling," like Deborah,
under these heavenly palm-trees. As they are the souvenirs of our earliest
childhood, the gift of a mother's love, or the pledge of a father's
affection, so let them be our fondest treasures—the directory of
daily life, the friend of prosperity, the solace in adversity,
the soothing in suffering, the balm in bereavement; and in the
prospect of our own departure let them be the keepsakes and heirlooms which
we are most desirous to transmit to our children's children. As we sat under
this Elim shade in life's earliest morning, let us be found under it at
life's sunset hour; when, stirred by the breath of evening, the fronds
whisper to the last, the name of Jesus!
"We praise Thee for the radiance
Which from the hallowed page,
A lantern to our footsteps,
Shines on from age to age.
"It is the golden casket
Where gems of truth are stored;
The never-failing Treasure
Of the Eternal Word.
"It is the chart and compass
That o'er life's surging sea,
Mid mists and rocks and quicksands,
Still guide, O Christ, to Thee.
"Instruct Thy wandering pilgrims,
By this their path to trace,
Until, clouds and darkness ended,
They see Thee face to face."
"I wait on the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put
my hope."