I went to bed, which is often the very best thing a man can do; for sleep will bring him from God that which no effort of his own will can compass. I have read somewhere—I will verify it by present search—that Luther’s translation, of the verse in the psalm, “So he giveth to his beloved sleep,” is, “He giveth his beloved sleeping,” or while asleep. Yes, so it is, literally, in English, “It is in vain that ye rise early, and then sit long, and eat your bread with care, for to his friends he gives it sleeping.” This was my experience in the present instance; for the thought of which I was first conscious when I awoke was, “Why should I talk about death? Every man’s heart is now full of death. We have enough of that—even the sum that God has sent us on the wings of the tempest. What I have to do, as the minister of the new covenant, is to speak of life.” It flashed in on my mind: “Death is over and gone. The resurrection comes next. I will speak of the raising of Lazarus.”
The same moment I knew that I was ready to speak. Shall I or shall I not give my reader the substance of what I said? I wish I knew how many of them would like it, and how many would not. I do not want to bore them with sermons, especially seeing I have always said that no sermons ought to be printed; for in print they are but what the old alchymists would have called a caput mortuum, or death’s head, namely, a lifeless lump of residuum at the bottom of the crucible; for they have no longer the living human utterance which gives all the power on the minds of the hearers. But I have not, either in this or in my preceding narrative, attempted to give a sermon as I preached it. I have only sought to present the substance of it in a form fitter for being read, somewhat cleared of the unavoidable, let me say necessary—yes, I will say valuable—repetitions and enforcements by which the various considerations are pressed upon the minds of the hearers. These are entirely wearisome in print—useless too, for the reader may ponder over every phrase till he finds out the purport of it—if indeed there be such readers nowadays.
I rose, went down to the bath in the rocks, had a joyous physical ablution, and a swim up and down the narrow cleft, from which I emerged as if myself newly born or raised anew, and then wandered about on the downs full of hope and thankfulness, seeking all I could to plant deep in my mind the long-rooted truths of resurrection, that they might be not only ready to blossom in the warmth of the spring-tides to come, but able to send out some leaves and promissory buds even in the wintry time of the soul, when the fogs of pain steam up from the frozen clay soil of the body, and make the monarch-will totter dizzily upon his throne, to comfort the eyes of the bewildered king, reminding him that the King of kings hath conquered Death and the Grave. There is no perfect faith that cannot laugh at winters and graveyards, and all the whole array of defiant appearances. The fresh breeze of the morning visited me. “O God,” I said in my heart, “would that when the dark day comes, in which I can feel nothing, I may be able to front it with the memory of this day’s strength, and so help myself to trust in the Father! I would call to mind the days of old, with David the king.”
When I returned to the house, I found that one of the sailors, who had been cast ashore with his leg broken, wished to see me. I obeyed, and found him very pale and worn.
“I think I am going, sir,” he said; “and I wanted to see you before I die.”
“Trust in Christ, and do not be afraid,” I returned.
“I prayed to him to save me when I was hanging to the rigging, and if I wasn’t afraid then, I’m not going to be afraid now, dying quietly in my bed. But just look here, sir.”
He took from under his pillow something wrapped up in paper, unfolded the envelope, and showed a lump of something—I could not at first tell what. He put it in my hand, and then I saw that it was part of a bible, with nearly the upper half of it worn or cut away, and the rest partly in a state of pulp.
“That’s the bible my mother gave me when I left home first,” he said. “I don’t know how I came to put it in my pocket, but I think the rope that cut through that when I was lashed to the shrouds would a’most have cut through my ribs if it hadn’t been for it.”
“Very likely,” I returned. “The body of the Bible has saved your bodily life: may the spirit of it save your spiritual life.”