Shaken of the joy of giants,
The joy without a cause.”
And as his men saw him coming, they thought it was with the old vain word of a sure victory, and they were about to tell him in advance that if he came with such a message they would follow him no more. But not now was Alfred’s word the easy word. No, but—
“This is the word of Mary,
The word of the world’s desire;
‘No more of comfort shall you get
Save that the sky grows darker yet,
And the sea rises higher.’”
And in front of that darkening sky and that rising sea his men rose up to go with him, and this time, from the darkest night they had ever known, came the bright morning of their lasting victory. Thank God, we are not called out on any soft errand under the incitement of bright choices, but challenged by great difficulties, black nights and rising storms, to work in the hope of that which is invisible and which lies beyond. It is by hope, and hope that lies behind impenetrable clouds, that men are nerved and empowered. It is because the world is so black and dark to-day that we walk out into it smiling in its face, knowing that behind all this the morning the more surely waits, the morning in which the men believe who have faith and love and hope.
And it is by hope that our comforts are drawn down into our lives when the darkest of all days come, and everything is quiet about the house and the little feet that had run to and fro are still. We say, “Yes, a little while and then those angel faces will smile, that I have loved and lost and love.” What would we do in those hours if it were not for the sure hope? Saint Paul lays his own heart open to all his friends in one of his epistles: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”