vivors of the wreck, and their hearts burned with fresh hope within them, as he read to them the four deliverances of the 107th Psalm, ending with the words, 'Whoso is wise will ponder these things, and they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord.' 6. Sometimes, too, personal ruin is the accompaniment of overwhelming national disaster. It was so when after the fearful defeat of Jena in 1806 Prussia went down before the cruel and reckless ambition of Napoleon. On no heart did the throe of a nation's anguish fall with more agonising incidence than upon the young and beautiful Queen Louise. It meant the utter ruin of all her hopes. When she heard the news, she burst into uncontrollable weeping. How did she calm her anguish? It was the pious custom in Germany when a pupil left the school, to accompany him, singing the 37th Psalm-'Fret not thyself because of evil-doers'-of which the fifth verse is, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.' The young Queen sat down to her piano, and softly sang the Psalm. When she rose, we are told her eye was clear, her spirits tranquil. That same verse was the constant comfort of David Livingstone also, during all his perils and fevers and hungry wanderings in scorching Africa and its desert wastes. 7. There is one very terrible form of agony which affects some of the noblest souls: it is the sense of Sin, which sometimes drives men into deep religious despondency. Let us take the case of John Bunyan. 'One morning when I was again at prayer, and trembling under the fear that no word of God could help me, that piece of a sentence darted into my mind, "My grace DESPONDENCY 317 is sufficient." At this methought I felt some stay as though there might be hopes. But oh how good a thing it is for God to send His Word! For about a fortnight before I was looking at this very place, and then I thought it could not come near my soul with comfort; therefore I threw down the book in a pet. Then I thought it was not large enough for me; no, not large enough; but now it was as if it had arms of grace so wide that it could not only enclose me, but many more besides, and one day as I was in a meeting of God's people, full of sadness and terrorfor my fears again were strong upon me-these words did suddenly with great power break in upon me, "My grace is sufficient for thee!" (three times together); and oh methought that every word was a mighty word unto me, as "My" and "grace" and "sufficient" and "for thee." At which time my understanding was so enlightened that I was as though I had seen the Lord Jesus look down from heaven through the tiles upon me, and direct these words unto me. This sent me mourning home. It broke my heart and filled me full of joy, and laid me low in the dust.'1 'Search the Scriptures,' says an old bishop, 'and say if things ran not thus as their ordinary course. God commandeth and man disobeyeth. Man disobeyeth and God threateneth. God threateneth and man repenteth. Man repenteth and God forgiveth. "Abimelech! thou art but a dead man, because of Sarah whom thou hast taken;" but Abimelech restoreth the Prophet his wife, and God spareth him, and he dieth not. "Hezekiah! put thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live;" but Hezekiah turneth his face to the wall, and prayeth and weepeth, 1 Bunyan, Grace Abounding, pp. 206, 207. and God addeth to his days fifteen years. "Nineveh! prepare for desolation; for now but forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed!" but Nineveh fasted and prayed and repented, and Nineveh stood for more than forty years twice told. To show compassion and to forgive is the thing in which God most of all delighteth, but to punish and to take vengeance is (as some explain that passage in Isaiah) "His strange work," a thing He taketh no pleasure in. As the bee laboureth busily all the day long, and seeketh to every flower and every weed for honey, but stingeth not once unless she be ill provoked; so God bestirreth Himself, and He yearns to show compassion. Vengeance cometh on slowly and unwillingly, and draweth a sigh from Him. "Ah! I must-I see there is no remedy-I must ease Me of Mine adversaries. Yet how shall I give thee up, O Ephraim? Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore My heart is troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." Consider this, and take comfort, all ye that mourn in Zion, and groan under the weight of God's heavy displeasure. Why do ye spend your strength and spirit in gazing altogether with broad eyes on God's justice? Take them off a little and refresh them by fastening them another while on His mercy. Consider not only what He threateneth, but why He threateneth. It is unless you repent. He threateneth to cast down indeed, but into humiliation, not into despair. He shooteth out His arrow, but as Jonathan's arrow for warning, not for destruction. "Yea, but who am I," will some disconsolate soul say, "that I should make God's threatening void? or what my repentance that it should cancel the oracles of truth?" Poor and distressed soul that thus disputest COMFORT TO THE SOUL 319 against thine own peace, but seest not the while the unfathomed depths of God's mercy, and the wonderful dispensations of His truth!' Can it be true the grace He is declaring? O let us trust Him, for His words are fair! CHAPTER XXII THE BIBLE AND THE NATIONS. 'So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.'-Is. lv. 11. 'Upon the onely Scripture doth our Church Foundation lay, Let Patriarchs, Prophets, Gospels, and the Apostles for us say: For soul and body we affirm are all-sufficient they.' WARNER, Albion's England, ix. 32. I SHOWED in the last chapters that the separate phrases of Scripture have been, as it were, blazoned in letters of gold upon the souls of individuals. They have been no less mighty in their power to sway the destiny of entire nations. In the Bible, more clearly than from any other source, men have heard 'the voice of God sounding across the centuries the eternal distinctions of right and wrong'-for it was in the Bible that the voice of God taught us three thousand years ago that 'Righteousness exalteth a nation, but Sin is the reproach of any people.' 'No Book has been so often printed as the Bible. No fewer than 1,326 editions were published in the sixteenth century. Down to 1896 the British Bible Society printed no fewer than 147,366,660 copies of the Scriptures, and the American 61,705,000. The British Society issues 4,000,000 copies yearly, and the American 1,750,000.' |