Well, and what then? Can there be a December to follow upon and beautify those sad chilly hours? I think so. Sometimes it is just when the leaves are all fallen, and the flowers all dead, and the fruits only represented by a straggler lying here and there, and when the bare boughs are strung with trembling tears that gleam with a dull light in the heavy enfolding mist; sometimes it is even then that a wondrous work is wrought. A pinching frost comes with, as it seems, the finishing stroke, and the last sere leaf circles down, and even the fading chrysanthemums blacken, and the little robin lies dead on the iron border. A dim sky overglooms all, and you go your sad way from the scene as night deepens over it. But God wakens you some morning, and bids you look out of the dim-lit room in which your heart was shut; and lo! a strange transformation! His consolations, and His teaching of the deep meaning of things, have descended thick and abundant from heaven, and even earth’s dull ruins and desolations are glorified and transfigured by the beauty of that heavenly snow. You are content now that the earthly foliage should have made way for and given place to that unearthly glory which reclothes earth’s bare boughs; you can think calmly, quietly, without any anguish, of those desolate leaves, and stained flowers, and cold robin, that all sleep undisturbedly under the snow. God’s snow, I think—the snow which He sends down upon hearts desolate and deserted,
“That once were gay, and felt the Spring.”
God’s quiet snow, I think, that succeeds all the Spring and Summer excitements, and ecstasies, and heats of life, is just that peace of God which passeth all understanding sent down to keep our heart and mind, that its life be not destroyed nor its aspirations all cut off, but that it may be folded over warm and safe until the Resurrection, that Spring time, better than earth’s Springs, which do but reform perishable buds and leaves; a Spring which shall know no November, no Winter days; a Spring which shall no doubt revive and recover every feeling, and thought, and love, and aspiration which was really God-given and beautiful, and shall make those blighted hopes bright with the blossom of unearthly beauty, and shall bend the bare boughs of those unquiet inexpressible yearnings low towards Him with the abundant fruit of satisfaction.
“Brighter, fairer far than living,
With no trace of change or stain,
Robed in everlasting beauty,
Shall we see them once again.”
I think the contemplation a little way off, of any sorrow or bereavement, bears out what I have said concerning the anticipation of Winter being really the worst and most cheerless time—a time when only the chill, and the death, and the dreariness is in our thoughts, and we do not suspect the strange beauties that will accompany it, nor the warm glow that is hidden in its heart. We only see the trouble coming, and we know not, until the time of need is even with us, of the consolation, and the support, and the spiritual loveliness that are coming too; coming with the silent step of the snow, or the unseen breath of the frost, to adorn thoughts, and feelings, and character with a fringe and foliage of heavenly beauty; coming with a glow of consolation, like Christmas in the heart of Winter—the warm fire of God’s love, which can keep out earth’s sharpest and most piercing cold. So that when the Winter has really come, and we look out on the soft snow of God’s peace, and creep closer to the fire of God’s love, we find that even the sharpest Winter days are not so terrible as November painted them; and, revolving and realising their beauty and their use, we can enter into his feelings who said, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted”; and say Amen with quiet grateful hearts to those once inexplicable words, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
* * * * *
The thought of Winter days seems to lead us at once, by analogy, to the Winter of Death drawing near any one of us, old men and maidens, young men and children. And indeed this time, seen from the misty avenues of November, is apt to seem chill and cold to the mind and heart. Still, I am sure that death, since the Saviour died, is not a time of real unlovely or uncomforted gloom to the obedient and faithful child of God. Oh no! when that Winter has indeed come, such a one then perceives and realises its Christmas heart of warm comfort, and its unearthly frost work of strange sweet thoughts and teachings. To such a one, if gloomy, it is only gloomy by anticipation, and while the traces of earth’s Summers yet linger, and the tears and regrets of earth are yet glittering on the empty trees, bare lands, and faded flowers; only gloomy until God has quite weaned us, first by His chastenings and then by His consolations.
How sad it is that, in our common ideas, and representations, and modes of speech, Death, even the good man’s death—should be overshadowed with such dismal gloom! I remember a curious proof of this, if proof were needed.
In a small illustrated edition of Longfellow’s poems, the artist has chosen for illustration those sweet verses, “The Reaper and the Flowers.” You know them, of course, my reader, by heart. You remember these graceful lines:—
“He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in his sheaves.