There is a story of shipwreck which yields an illustration that comes in just here. Crew and passengers had to leave the broken vessel and take to the boats. The sea was rough, and great care in rowing and steering was necessary in order to guard the heavily-laden boats, not from the ordinary waves, which they rode over easily, but from the great cross-seas. Night was approaching, and the hearts of all sank as they asked what they should do in the darkness when they would no longer be able to see these terrible waves. To their great joy, however, when it grew dark they discovered that they were in phosphorescent waters and that each dangerous wave rolled up crested with light which made it as clearly visible as if it were mid-day.
So it is that life's dreaded experiences, when we meet them, carry in themselves the light which takes away the peril and the terror. The night of sorrow comes with its own lamp of comfort. The hour of weakness brings its own secret of strength. By the brink of the bitter fountain itself grows the tree whose branch will heal the waters. The wilderness with its hunger and no harvest has daily manna. In dark Gethsemane, where the load is more than mortal heart can bear, an angel appears, ministering strength that gives victory. When we come to the hard, rough, steep path we find iron for shoes. The iron will be in the very hills over which we shall have to climb.
So we see that the matter of shoes is very important. We are pilgrims here and we cannot walk barefoot on this world's rugged roads. Are our feet shod for the journey?
"How can I get shoes, and where?" one asks. Do you remember about Christ's feet, that they were pierced with nails? Why was it? That we might have shoes to wear on our feet, and that they might not be cut and torn on the way.
Christ's dear feet were wounded and sore with long journeys over thorns and stones, and were pierced through with cruel nails, that our feet might be shod for earth's rough roads, and might at last enter the gates of pearl and walk on heaven's gold-paved streets.
Dropping all figure, the whole lesson is that we cannot get along on our life's pilgrimage without Christ; but having Christ we shall be ready for anything that may come to us along the days and years.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE SHUTTING OF DOORS.
"Never delay
To do the duty which the hour brings,
Whatever it be in great or smaller things;
For who doth know
What he shall do the coming day?"
The shutting of a door is a little thing and yet it may have infinite meaning. It may fix a destiny for weal or for woe. When God shut the door of the ark the sound of its closing was the knell of exclusion to those who were without, but it was the token of security to the little company of trusting ones who were within. When the door was shut upon the bridegroom and his friends who had gone into the festal hall, thus sheltering them from the night's darkness and danger, and shutting them in with joy and gladness, there were those outside to whose hearts the closing of that door smote despair and woe. To them it meant hopeless exclusion from all the privileges of those who were within and exposure to all the sufferings and perils from which those favored ones were protected.