by John MacDuff
Preface
"By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on
their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so
that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day
nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people."
Exodus 13:21-22
This book is addressed to those in AFFLICTION.
There is a touching tradition, to which he has elsewhere referred, regarding
the Jewish Temple of old, that it had a gateway reserved exclusively for
mourners. Such is the present volume. It opens up a pathway to God's
sanctuary trodden by the footsteps of sorrow. It is sacred to dimmed eyes,
and broken hearts, and tender memories. Moreover, though not exclusively, it
is the wide family of the bereaved the writer has chiefly in view.
A few words on the TITLE. Nothing is more impressive in
the desert journeys of the Israelites, than the miraculous moving Pillar
which preceded them. That Pillar, as they advanced by day, took the form of
a column: when they halted, it spread itself over the tabernacle as a canopy
of cloud. It was nothing else than the Shekinah—the visible symbol of the
Divine Presence. It resolved itself into a flaming fire by night; an equally
glorious emblem, under the star-lit vault of heaven, of Jehovah's guidance.
"Gathering up its luminous folds," it led the sacramental host in silence
along plateau and valley. Rising high, it was seen far and wide by the vast
caravan: the gleam—the lurid coruscation—now lighting up the mysterious
cliffs of the Mount of God, now projected through wastes of sand to the rim
of the horizon, creating, athwart leagues of desert, an illuminated golden
pathway. It had even a gracious natural use. As the day-cloud tempered the
tremulous palpitating heat, screening from the glare of sunlight—"the sun
shall not smite you by day,"—so the holy fire, kindled at the setting in of
darkness, helped to disperse the damps and chill dews of night. Regarding
both aspects of the one Pillar, it could be said, in the words of the Book
of Proverbs, "When you go it shall lead you: when you sleep it shall keep
you: and when you awake it shall talk with you," (Prov. 6:22).
The flaming column, moreover, it may not be out of place
to note, continued its significant lessons in the Gospel age. In the
anniversary Jewish festival, the Feast of Tabernacles, when at each
returning autumn in Palestine the wilderness journeyings were commemorated,
the impressive symbol was not forgotten. During the day, the leafy
encampments (Succoth) on the Mount of Olives and in the environs of
Jerusalem, rehearsed the old nomad life with its "dwelling in tents." After
the hour of sunset, the torches carried by the crowd; above all, the
gigantic candelabra, lighted high on the Temple platform, and which
illuminated hill and valley, terraced vineyard and olive grove, as well as
court and cloister, recalled the glow of "the Pillar in the night"—while, at
the same great gathering, Christ, with purposed allusion, revealed Himself
as the true Pillar of Fire—"I am the Light of the world" (John 8:12).
With Israel, the mystic type left its varied memories, by
the Red Sea, Migdol, Elim, Marah, Rephidim, Horeb; until, Jordan reached,
its light was needed no more. So is it associated still, in a deeper
spiritual sense, with all the diverse experiences of "the pilgrims of the
night." Could there possibly be a more significant emblem of God's
constant presence, His protecting care and love, His sympathy specially in
the deep gloom of bereavement? When human helps are gone, when moon and
stars, human luminaries and satellites have paled in the skies, and the way
is pursued in loneliness and darkness, He lights a beacon in "the sea
of the desert." A Pillar, gleaming with ruby splendor appears, respecting
which this is the Divine legend on the lips of many a child of sorrow—"He
LED them all the night with a LIGHT of fire."
Yes, the Jehovah of the Pillar which moved along the
Sinai route, keeps nightly vigil over His people still; and it is not in one
trial, but in all trials—"Your faithfulness (marginal rendering) in the
nights" (Psalm 92:2). "He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor
sleep." He makes the night of pain and separation and death, luminous. "The
great and terrible wilderness" becomes a Peniel; so that the
experience of His people is often that of a kindred patriarch-sufferer, "By
His light I walked through darkness" (Job 29:3), or, of another, "If I say,
surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me"
(Psalm 139:11).
Of how many among the white-robed multitude above, who
have "come out of great tribulation,"—those who are done with the desert and
crossed the typical Jordan—may it be said, in the remembrance of the fiery
Pillar, "It gave light by night to these!" (Exod. 14:20). Happy, O Israel,
of all ages, amid the dreadful sanctities of sorrow, to be bathed in that
"excellent glory"; to love God's own beacon, gleaming with love and promise,
illuminating your darkened way, until you reach the land where, in His full
vision and fruition, symbol is unneeded—for "there shall be no night there";
"The Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning
shall be ended" (Isaiah 60:20). Pause, meanwhile, under the radiance of the
Pillar, and make it your prayer—"If Your presence goes not with me, carry us
not up hence." Hear the gracious response, "My presence shall go with you,
and I will give you rest" (Exod. 33:14, 15).
Affliction has ever been the gracious season for revival,
quickening, restoration. Remember, in the case of the Hebrew host, it
was when the night and its shadows were gathering, that the invocation—the
sweet Angelus of the desert—was heard (may it have its responsive
meaning in the case of many): "Return, O Lord, unto the many
thousands of Israel!" And when the last night of the journey arrives, may it
be ours, under the gleam of the Pillar, to sing in the retrospect the
refrain of the great Psalm of the Exodus: "To Him who led His people
through the wilderness; for His mercy endures forever!"