SORROW
UNSOOTHED. “When I think,” says this idol of millions, on the eve of leaving his home at the bidding of stern necessity and financial pressure; “when I think what this place now is, compared with what it has been not long ago, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of all my family, I am an impoverished and embarrassed man.”
Farther, he thus touchingly wails: “Death has closed the dark avenue of love and friendship. I look at them as through the grated door of a burial-place, filled with monuments of those who once were dear to me, and with no other wish than that it may open for me at no distant period.”
And as if to show that all his anguish did not come from without, the great Novelist says, “Some new object of complaint comes every moment. Sicknesses come thicker and thicker; friends are fewer and fewer. The recollection of youth, health, and power of activity neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort. The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all.”[42]
THE MIMIC IMMORTALITY.
THE MIMIC
IMMORTALITY. Now, it will be noticed in these extracts that it is the grave which closes the vista of that greatly gifted man; at least he never refers to the bright ulterior of which the tomb might be the portal.—“I have no other wish than that the grated door of a burial-place may open for me at no distant period.”—“The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all”—it is there that the mind seems to rest. It never rises into the region of immortality. It does not refer to that favour of God which is life. As far as these mournful records tell, that soul had nothing to repose on but what was soon to enwrap the body—the earth, and earthly things. Dazzled even to blindness by the mimic immortality which man bestows on man, the life and immortality of the Gospel were ignored. Steeped in the possessions which only increase the thirst which some suppose they quench, that man discovered and confessed that he was “an impoverished and embarrassed man,” when he might have exulted in the unspeakable gift, the unsearchable riches of Christ.
THE BROKEN HEART.
Now, it is thus that men sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, by expecting that joy from things which are seen and temporal, which can be found only in the things which are unseen and eternal; and it is thus that the men who
“Hunt their misery with a zeal to die”
proclaim to all who have ears to hear, that if we would have joy to the full, and blessings such as can satisfy the soul, they must be sought in Him who is our peace, “of whom and to whom are all things.” “Surely he is, or ought to be, a happy man,” said a visiter at Sir Walter Scott’s abode. THE
BROKEN
HEART. “When I think of what it is now ... I think my heart will break”—is his own dirge-like response.
But it is not merely in the high concerns of eternity that a man of God finds sources of joy. Even amid the cares and distractions of earth, he has often a peace which is independent of all earthly sources. He sees God in all events, and soon discovers that they all work together for his good: however diverse in their origin or aspect, they sweetly blend into one harmonious whole, of which blessedness is the product to a child of God. Think of the complex machinery which pours such wealth into the lap of our nation, by multiplying manifold its productive power. How intricate in its parts! how apparently incomprehensible to an inexperienced mind; yet how simple, how exquisitely beautiful in its results! Or think of the sunlight in which all nature rejoices. It can be decomposed into seven primary elements, yet how simple and how lovely is the product of their combination! And so it is in the various events of providence: they all blend into one harmonious result; they are all presided over by our Father who is in heaven; and they all pour into the soul of a believer more real joy than the world can know, even “when its corn and its wine are increased.”