"Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come,
From God, Who is our home."
And we may be perfectly certain that God does not send us into this world with a rainbow round our souls if it is impossible to preserve the brightness and the purity of that rainbow in the world to which He sent us.
Having realized the possibility of it, the next thing to realize is that it is absolutely essential. No one without that rainbow can pass to the throne of God. There are many here, perhaps, who say, "Ah! it is too late to teach me that now; my rainbow, if I ever had one, faded from round my brow long ago." My brother or sister, did we not see that a rainbow was made by the light shining upon rain, and do we not believe that, if any single one here brings the tears of real penitence, that there shall be round him again, or round her, the most beautiful rainbow, the rainbow of the light of forgiveness shining upon penitence? During these six weeks, let us then look into our own souls, and ask ourselves in the light of God, "Where are we! how about our thoughts? how about our words? how about our characters? where is the pristine purity of youth? what about our lives today?" If such questions draw us on to our knees, with tears of penitence, to beg God again of His mercy to make a rainbow shine around us, there shall still be a rainbow round the throne in our hearts.
And, while we look into our own hearts, and remember the rigorous demand of God for the pure heart, lastly, let us safeguard our children. "Whoso shall cast a stumbling block in the way of one of these little ones, it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea." Why? Because it robs them of the joy of the rainbow, because that subtle suggestion, that careless talk, that stumbling block placed in the way, dims the children's view of Heaven, "where their angels do always behold the face of our Father Which is in Heaven." I pray you, then, my friends, safeguard the rainbow for your children, as well as for yourselves. Many careful writers, among others the Head Master of Haileybury, recommend, as a great safeguard, the teaching to children, before knowledge is conveyed to them from impure sources, the simple facts of life. "They are innocent," says the latter writer, "of impurity, indescribably eager for wholesome knowledge, perfectly trustful of their parents, and, though self-absorbed, are capable of being easily trained to a tone of mind to which sympathy is congenial and cruelty abhorrent. Such a description is literally true of the great majority of quite young children, and we believe that qualities such as these elicited the great saying, 'Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.'" He goes on to say that "such a trustful, innocent frame of mind is the very frame of mind to receive from the father and mother this simple instruction in the facts of life which would save many a fall and many a misery in the days to come; and is far," he says, "from sullying the purity of the child's mind." "People sometimes speak of the indescribable beauty of the children's innocence, and insist that there is nothing which calls for more constant thanksgiving than their influence on mankind, but I will venture to say that no one quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being the first to set before them the true meaning of life and birth, and the mystery of their own being. Not only do we fail to build up sound knowledge in them, but we put away from ourselves the chance of learning something that must be divine." [1] God help us, then, for ourselves, in our home, in the nation, and, above all, among the children, to secure that in the coming reign, and through the coming century, there may be a rainbow round about the throne.
[1] Rev. E. Lyttelton, "Training of the Young in Laws of Sex," pp. 16, 17, 109.
IV.
THE LAW OF KINDNESS.
"In her tongue is the law of kindness."—Prov. xxxi. 26.
We have reached our last lesson from the life and character of Queen Victoria. Some will be surprised that this lesson should have been kept for the last one, as the kindness and sympathy of the late Queen was a proverb among her people. But, if we come to think of it, it is far best to have kept it to the last. Mere kindness, apart from sincerity, apart from moral courage, without the rainbow of purity, counts low among the virtues. We have known kind people, have we not, who were weak, who were fickle, who were even treacherous, and there is a sad truth in that half-cynical statement that it is the province of the wise to remedy the mistakes of the good. But what captivated the whole Empire in the sympathy of Queen Victoria was its strength; that one so strong should be so kind; that one so fearless should have so much sympathy; that one whose moral standard was so high should be full of mercy and gentleness. It was that which gave a force to those many stories which came to us about the visits to the little lonely cottages in the Highlands; the telegrams to the women huddled by the pit-mouth in their misery; the letter to the mother of the young officer who had died for his country—what gave force to it all was its strength, the fact that it was no passing impulse, but the deep beating of a true mother's heart, that it was the outcome of character; and that, as is so beautifully said in this description of the virtuous woman in the Book of Proverbs: "In her tongue was the law of kindness." And when we turn from the pattern to the prototype—and never, for a moment, during Lent, can we afford to take our eyes off Jesus Christ Himself—when we turn from the Queen to the Saviour, in Whom she had so simple and so touching a faith, the first thing we find to our comfort is that He, too, felt the need of sympathy. Is there any picture in the whole of the New Testament more touching than that which shows us how He goes just before His greatest trial to seek sympathy from His followers, how He, the Head, the Leader, does not disdain to turn to the very followers who trusted in Him for sympathy? "Couldst thou not watch with Me one hour?" And the picture is so comforting, because it tells us that that craving for sympathy, which all of us feel at times, is a true human instinct, that there is nothing wrong in it, that one of the things that we can do for one another is to be like comrades on a night march, when one or another is stricken down, to stand over him, and be ready, at any moment, with the cup of sympathy to give him. And when Jesus goes to His own disciples to ask them for sympathy, it is a lesson that the need for sympathy is a true need, and the desire for it a true instinct of the human heart.
But, then, remember, the sympathy He looks for is the sympathy which He always gave, something as tender and gentle as the touch of a good surgeon's hand upon a wounded limb, but also something as strong, and as firm, and as helpful. Why sympathy gets discredited, why people speak of "a morbid craving for sympathy," is because so much sympathy is sympathy of the wrong sort. There is some sympathy which enervates instead of strengthening. It thinks of itself, it thinks of the happiness of having to itself the object of its sympathy, it seeks merely to soothe. But the true sympathy goes far beyond that; the true sympathy never thinks of itself at all. It is simply concentrated upon one thought—how can I, in this trial-time, when my brother or my sister is stricken down by my side, how can I nerve and strengthen him or her to rise to the glorious vocation to which God has called him or called her, to strengthen them to be what God would have them be? And that was the sympathy, was it not, that Christ gave perpetually. It was within Him like a spring working by law, a spring which had all the regularity, as well as the spontaneity, of some beautiful spring among the hills, and it was at the service of every sufferer that came to Him; but He never hurt people when He tried to comfort them, because He gave them the nerving and strengthening sympathy of love. And then, again, notice how constant it was with Him. He was never too tired to be kind. He might be disappointed forty-nine times, but the fiftieth time found Him perfectly ready still. Wake Him up from His sleep, and He is ready to do an act of mercy. Place Him, tired, by the well, and He is ready there to try and help a sinful soul. Let Him have a little quiet time far away but the multitude find Him out, and then sympathy for them is ready to spring to His lips, for "He had compassion on the multitude," we are told, and in His tongue was the law of kindness.