Unfinished Rainbows, and Other Essays

by GEORGE WOOD ANDERSON
THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI
Copyright, 1922, by GEORGE WOOD ANDERSON
Printed in the United States of America

The rainbow was only a fragment of an arch because the needed sunshine was withheld. Had the sunlight been permitted to permeate all the atmosphere with its golden glow, the arch would have spanned the entire heavens.
This is the reason why, in hours of sorrow, we do not grasp the fullness of God’s promise; we permit the denser clouds of doubt and faithlessness to keep the light of God from shining through our griefs; or, with a little faith, we get a gleam of light that gives us but a tiny fragment of the bow.
While all the operations of this natural world are tokens of God’s unfailing thoughtfulness in keeping his covenant with man, a great event has made the rainbow peculiarly the embodiment of that thought. Looking from the narrow window of the wave-tossed ark, upon the silent grandeur of a world slowly arising from the waters of an universal flood, Noah beheld the rainbow and rejoiced in the blest assurance, that, while the things of man are subject to the ravages of time and destruction of contending elements, the things of God are always stable and secure. The most permanent products of man’s hand and mind are soon swept away, but the things of God endure, and continue faithful, in working out their appointed courses. Through storm or calm, events march with steady, unceasing tread, knowing that God’s roads are never worn, and God’s bridges never tremble and fall. Above the placid, mysterious world, calmly emerging from the muddy, wreck-strewn waters, was the peaceful, radiant bow, smiling in confidence upon him and his companions. The world had changed, but the rainbow was just as it had always been, stately, serene, and unaffrighted. The crumbling, flood-torn earth had not weakened its foundations, the drenching rains had not faded its colors, the hurrying, wind-swept clouds could not disturb it. Though it were made out of hurrying light and drifting mist it would not be swayed or moved even a little. Under its archway walked the guarding angels of God. Over the waters came the clear voice once heard in Eden, uttering the promise, “And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember my covenant.”