Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons

by William Gray Elmslie

IV.

Read Ps. xlvi., and Phil. ii.
Victory by Surrender.
"As a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child."

It is good to cheer men on in a noble strife by speaking of the certainty of victory, and by the story of heroic deeds to nerve their arms for battle and stir their hearts to war. But that is not enough. They want more than that. They want to learn how to wage a winning war, how to secure the highest triumph, how out of conflict to organise peace. In the good fight of faith what is the secret of success? Has our Psalm any light on that point? By what method did the poet still the turmoil of his doubt and reach his great peace? The process is finely pictured in a homely but exquisite image: "Like a weaned child on its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me." What does that mean? Torn by an insatiable longing to know the meaning of God's mysterious ways, he had struggled fiercely to wring an answer from the Almighty. His heart was long the abode of unrest, and storm, and tempest. At length peace falls on the fray; there is no more clangour of contention: all is quietness and rest. How is this? Has he succeeded in solving the enigmas that pained him? Have his cravings for an answer from God been gratified? If not, how has he attained this perfect repose? His peace is the peace of a weaned child. Not, therefore, by obtaining that which he craved has he found rest; for the rest of a weaned child is not that of gratification, but of resignation. It is the repose, not of satisfied desire, but of abnegation and submission. After a period of prolonged and painful struggle to have its longings answered, the little one gives over striving any more, and is at peace. That process was a picture to our poet of what passed in his own heart. Like a weaned child, its tears over, its cries hushed, reposing on the very bosom that a little ago excited its most tumultuous desires, his soul, that once passionately strove to wring from God an answer to its eager questionings, now wearied, resigned, and submissive, just lays itself to rest in simple faith on that goodness of God whose purposes it cannot comprehend, and whose ways often seem to it harsh, and ravelled, and obscure. It is a picture of infinite repose and of touching beauty—the little one nestling close in the mother's arms, its head reclining trustfully on her shoulder, the tears dried from its now quiet face, and the restful eyes, with just a lingering shadow of bygone sorrow in them still, peering out with a look of utter peace, contentment, and security. It is the peace of accepted pain, the victory of self-surrender.

The transition from doubt to belief, from strife to serenity, is remarkable. We want to know what produced this startling change of mood, what influences fostered it, what motives urged it, what reasons justified it. Perhaps a glimpse, a suggestion of the process is hinted in the simile chosen from child life. The infant takes its rest on the breast of its mother—of its mother, whose refusal of its longings caused it all the pain and conflict, whose denial of its instinctive desires seemed so unnatural and so cruel. How is it, then, that instead of being alienated, the child turns to her for solace in the sorrow she caused, and reposes on the very breast that so resolutely declined to supply its wants? It is because over against this single act of seeming unkindness stand unnumbered deeds of goodness and acts of fondness, and so this one cause of doubt and of aversion is swallowed up in a whole atmosphere of unceasing tenderness and love. Besides, rating the apparent unmotherliness at the very highest, still there is no other to whom the child can turn that will better help it and care for it than its mother. So, since it cannot get all it would like, the little one is content to take what it may have—the warmth, and shelter, and security of its mother's breast.

This process of conflict between doubt and trust, rebellion and resignation, which half-unconsciously takes place in the child, is a miniature of the strife that had surged to and fro in the poet's soul. Pained and perplexed by the mystery of God's ways, foiled in his efforts to fathom them, denied all explanation by the Almighty, he was beset by the temptation to abandon faith and cast off his allegiance to his heavenly Friend. But he saw that that would not solve any enigma or lighten the darkness. Rather it would confront him with still greater difficulties, and leave the world only more empty, dark, and dreary. Then, benumbed and tired out, he gave over thinking and arguing, and was content for a little just to live in the circle of light and sunshine that ever is within the great darkness. Gradually it dawned upon him that in the world of men's experience there was much, very much, of goodness that could only be the doing of the God that moves in the mystery and in the darkness. The warmth of the thought crept into his heart, softer feelings woke, love and lowliness asserted themselves, and at length he became content to just trust God, spite of all perplexities, partly because there was so much undeniable proof of His tenderness, and partly because there was more of rest and comfort in this course than in any other.

V.

Read Gen. xxxii., and Rev. vii.
The Recompense of Faith.
"Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever."

Who has not wondered why there is so much mystery in the universe, such perplexity in our life, and in revelation itself why so many doubts are permitted to assail our souls and make it hard for us to be Christians? Is this wisely or kindly ordered? Perchance it is necessary, but is it not evil? Can warfare ever be aught but loss and not gain? The question is natural, but the answer is not uncertain. The fight of faith is a good fight. Success means no bare victory, but one crowned with splendid spoil. We shall be the better for having had to fight. The gain of the conflict shall out-weigh all the loss, and in the final triumph the victors shall manifestly appear more than conquerors. This is no paradox, but the common law of life. The same principle rules in the homely image of the child. Weaning is not needless pain, is not wasted suffering. It is a blessing in disguise. The distressing process is in truth promotion. It is the vestibule of pain that leads to a maturer and larger life. In like fashion the struggles of doubt are inevitable, if faith is not to remain feeble and infantile. Only in the furnace of affliction does it acquire its finest qualities. Were there no clouds and darkness around God's throne, how should men learn humility and practise reverence? Human nature is too coarse a thing to be entrusted with perfect knowledge. A religion of knowledge only were a hard and soulless thing, devoid of grace, and life, and love; for sight and reason leave nothing for the imagination, and rob affection of its sweet prerogative to dream and to adore. Without the discipline of toil and the developing strain of antagonism, how should faith grow strong, and broad, and deep? Most of us start in the life religious with an inherited, fostered, unreasoning belief, which therefore is weak, puny, and unstable. It is the storms of doubt and difficulty that rouse it to self-consciousness, stir it to activity, urge it by exertion to growth and expansion, and compel it to strike deep roots in the soil of reality. For in such conflict the soul is driven in upon God. It is forced to make actual proof of its possessions, to realise and employ properties that hitherto were known to it only through the title-deeds or as mere assets available in case of necessity. With wonder faith discovers the rare value of its inheritance, and enters for the first time into actual enjoyment of its spiritual treasures. It is no longer faith about God, but is now faith in God. In its agony and helplessness the soul is compelled to press close up to God, to take tighter hold of His hand, to fling itself on Him for help and comfort, just as a sick child clings to its mother. And ever after such a struggle there are a fresh beauty and sacredness in its relation to God. There is that pathetic tenderness of affection friends have who by some misunderstanding were well-nigh sundered, but having overcome it, are nearer and dearer to each other than ever before. There are a quiet community of knowledge, and a restful confidentiality of affection, that were not there before, that come of having had to fight that you might not be severed from each other. The recoil of joy from the dread of loss, and the memory of the agony that thought was to you, make God dearer to you now than ever. Out of the very strife and doubt there is born a new assurance of your love, in the consciousness you have acquired of the pain it would be to you to be deprived of your Divine Friend.

The experience is of general application. It is the secret of serenity amid the world's mystery and life's pain and perplexity. Therefore, when at any time the clouds gather around you, and their blackness seems to darken on the very face of God, do not turn away in terror or anger, but cling the faster to Him, even if it be by the extreme hem of His garment. What wonder if your feeble eye fails to read clear and true each majestic feature of that Divine face which is so infinitely high above you? What matter if sometimes its radiance is obscured by the chill fogs and creeping vapours of earth's mingled atmosphere? The darkness is not on God's face, but beneath it. One day you shall rise higher, and you shall see Him as He is. Meantime, in your gloomiest hour, when overwhelming doubts, like hissing waves, wind and coil around your heart, and seek to pluck it from its hold, then do but let all other things go, and with your last energy cling to this central, sovereign certainty, that whatever else is true, this at least is sure, that God is good, and that He whose doings you cannot comprehend is your Father. And so, weary of dashing yourself vainly against the bulwarks of darkness that girdle His throne, be content to lay yourself down humbly as a tired child on the breast of your heavenly Father. Thus, with your questionings unanswered, with the darkness not rolled away, with a thousand problems all unsolved, be quieted, be hushed, be at peace. Lay down your head, your weary, aching head, on the great heart of God, and be at rest.