Part 7

My cares, dear Lord, are known to You, and not known only, but laid upon me by Your own hand. They weigh heavily at times. The interests at stake are so tremendous, and my ignorance and helplessness so great. Often enough I do not see what to do for the best; oftener still I cannot take the course that seems to me best. I am afraid of a false step; I am afraid of missing opportunities. Where to make a stand, and where to yield; when to command, and when to entreat; when to offer a word of remonstrance or of counsel, and when to say nothing and trust to prayer--all these are perplexities in which I need and pray for the guidance of Your holy Spirit. There is a time to speak and a time to keep silence, but this is Your secret, O Lord! Give me the opportunities won by long prayer. Put upon my lips the well-timed word. Send me the success that comes of casting out the nets at Your word, under Your eye, with Your blessing.

And solve for me other problems--how to teach my children to take their place befittingly in the world without being of the world; how to train them for the battle of life; to provide them with an equipment for mind and heart that will suffice for the needs of these perilous times; to strengthen them by self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-control against the intellectual and moral dangers they will have to face, and prepare them for the burning questions of the day before they are flung into their midst. I tremble at the sight of these dangers beginning so early now when life is lived so fast. And the mother’s words, the mother’s arms do not reach as far as heretofore. She can only pray and trust. How earnestly You bid us trust, O Lord!

“Fear not: for the battle is not yours, but God’s.”[143] “Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.”[144] “Be quiet, fear not, and let not thy heart be afraid.”[145]

“I shall fear but I will trust in Thee.”[146] “My God is my helper, and in Him will I put my trust.”[147] “In my affliction I called upon the Lord, and I cried to my God.”[148] “How long, O Lord, wilt Thou forget me, how long dost Thou turn away Thy face from me? Consider, and hear me, O Lord my God.”[149]

* * * * *

“_Behold I and my children, whom God hath given me!_” I gather them round me here at Your feet. I trust them to Your care. Keep them in Your faith and in Your love, and bring them safely through the dark perils of this life to the haven of salvation.

“_Behold I and my children, whom God hath given me._” Let me say this one day as we stand in the brightness of Your Presence. Let me say in the fulness of my joy: “Of them whom Thou hast given me, I have not lost one.”[150]

* * * * *

“Fear not! stand and see the great wonders of the Lord, which He will do.”[151] “I will seek that which was lost, and that which was driven away, I will bring again; and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak.”[152] “I will give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of My hand.”[153]

[131] Ecclus. xxxiv.

[132] Rom. xii.

[133] Job xii.

[134] Heb. iv.

[135] 2 Cor. v.

[136] John xiii.

[137] Deut. xxxii.

[138] Isa. lxvi.

[139] Rom. viii.

[140] Luke v.

[141] 1 Peter ii.

[142] Heb. iv.

[143] 2 Par. xx.

[144] Psa. liv.

[145] Isa. vii.

[146] Psa. lv.

[147] Psa. xvii.

[148] _Ibid._

[149] _Ibid._ xii.

[150] John xvii.

[151] Exod. xiv.

[152] Ezech. xxxiv.

[153] John x.

XL.

LIFE.

As long as the heir is a child, he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father.--_Galat._ iv. 1, 2.

Life is a school--neither more nor less. _Not more._ Therefore we must not expect to find it satisfying. We must not look here for the freedom, the gladness, the warmth, the indefinable happiness of home.

But surely the eternal Home is worth waiting for! “It hath not yet appeared what we shall be.”[154] “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.”[155] Yet we may infer something of the grandeur and blessedness of the life to come from the study of our own souls, from the vastness of their capacity, their insatiable thirst for knowledge, the depth and tenderness of their affections. Capacity supposes complement. The aspirations God has given He will surely satisfy. And therefore all that the noblest, the most highly gifted, the most loving of our race have desired for their perfect happiness, will be given to them in a fulness of which they can form no conception--“good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over”.[156] The most far-reaching penetration of the secrets of nature and of grace; the perfect realisation and more a thousand times than realisation of home; the satisfaction of all the cravings of kindred and of friendship, to say nothing of the essential joy of which these are but the redundance--this is what awaits us hereafter. Not here, nor yet. We must not look now for anything but the faintest anticipation of what is in store for us--_we are at school_.

How is it that this elementary truth has so little hold upon us? Life would be much less of a disappointment if we remembered its true character and purport, if we had more of the wisdom of the schoolboy who lives with his heart in the future, and for the rough discipline of the present is for ever promising himself the compensations of home.

Life is a school. _Nothing less._ Therefore we must beware of squandering the time given us to prepare for our final state. We are here for our training, not for our enjoyment, and must go in for the experiences and the work our education demands. We have to drill ourselves in regard to our pleasures and our pains. Pleasure must not be suffered to monopolize our interest. It is but the half holiday thrown into school life to make its pressure bearable. Pain must not cast us down utterly, but detach us from our surroundings here, and foster in us the homesickness of the saints. And we have to work, work seriously at the formation of mind and heart--the task allotted us in this world. Both have to be conformed to the likeness of Him Who is the pattern of all the elect. Both have to be brought into harmony with the surroundings in which they will find themselves directly. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”[157] “Our conversation must be in heaven.”[158]

Meantime we have with us, not only as Master, but as Father and Elder Brother, Him Who has passed through the experience of human life; Who, “because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, hath also Himself in like manner been partaker of the same,”[159] “like to us in all things excepting sin”;[160] Whose word of comfort as we take to Him our weary tasks is a reminder at once of their necessity and of their recompense: “Work your work before the time, and He will give you your reward in His time.”[161]

My God, I thank You for the immortal spirit You have given me. I thank You for its vast capacity, which I recognise in a craving that nothing here can sate. Its very neediness appeals to Your beneficence, “abyss calleth upon abyss.”[162] Keep up the keenness of its desire, the hunger and thirst which You have declared blessed, till the time comes for satisfying it fully. Let me not seek to assuage it by anything transitory. Let me “so pass through the things of time as not to forfeit those of eternity”.[163] Let me be schooled by the tasks and trials, the little joys and sorrows and passing brightnesses of this life for the great future, the true life that lies beyond. May my happiness no less than my duty be found in preparing now for what I am to do and to be hereafter.

And when my school days are over and my lessons here are learned--dear Father, take me Home!

[154] 1 John iii.

[155] 1 Cor. ii.

[156] Luke vi.

[157] Philip. ii.

[158] _Cf._ _Ibid._ iii.

[159] Heb. ii.

[160] _Ibid._ iv.

[161] Ecclus. li.

[162] Psa. xli.

[163] Collect for 3rd Sunday after Pentecost.

THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text.

In the footnotes, 1 Par. and 2 Par. refer to the first and second Books of Paralipomenon, which are also known as the Books of Chronicles.

Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the ends of their chapters.

Missing italics markings in chapter subheads have been silently corrected.

Itemized changes from the original text:

On page 37, changed “may-be” to “maybe”, near “are deterred from visiting” On page 59, changed “heavy laden” to “heavy-laden”, near “within a stone’s throw” On page 69, changed “fault ” to “fault.”, in “through my fault” On page 69, changed “fail ” to “fail.”, in “will never fail” On page 96, changed “3 Kings” to “1 Kings”, in “Footnote 58” On page 115, changed “Ps. xxiii.” to “Psa. xxiv”, in “Footnote 81”