threateningly over our country; the risk lest, through an exaggerated anxiety respecting contingencies remotely affecting one portion of the empire, we should be hurried. into an expenditure of blood and treasure in behalf of an ancient system of misgovernment and wrong which might already seem to be passing away before our eyes. May He Who "disposes and turns the hearts of kings as it seemeth best to His Godly Wisdom," so dispose and govern the hearts of our rulers that we may escape responsibility for such a war as this, and that this cloud which has added to the depression of our short December days may quickly and utterly roll away! a It would be untrue to say that, in a free and, practically speaking, self-governing country, all the evils which I have mentioned are beyond the reach of individual action. Doubtless some among us can do much to prevent them; and all of us may do something-each in his place and station-by the conscientious formation and utterance of opinion, and resolute discharge of personal duty. But, for the most part, these great issues are beyond us; and if, in stirring and anxious times, we cannot help thinking of them, we had better not think of them too much, or we shall neglect the duties, as well as the evils, of our daily life. The best service of the State. is rendered by the man who makes duty, honesty, disinterestedness, his guiding principles, even though it be not his business to "regard the clouds." And there are clouds in the religious sky, too. Who does not see them? The entirely new position which has been assumed by unbelief within the last twenty a Prayer for the Queen, Communion Service. b The reference is to the apprehension of a war with Russia at the close of 1877. a years; the unrebuked denial of revealed truths even by teachers of religion; the deep divisions between Christians, in face of the advancing foe; the war of brother with brother, and that before those who do not share our faith; and then, as a natural result of this, the tendency of some minds, anxious to find at any price a refuge from the blasts of controversy, to accept imposing claims and tenets which were unknown to the Christianity of the first ages, but which render a religious system, if not true, at least highly organized and strong,—these are clouds which darken the sky of faith. And it is difficult for those who feel deeply about these things to keep their eyes off such clouds, and to set about their humble daily round of Christian duties. Certainly we can do something, nay, much, in respect of these anxieties; we may make them subjects of prayer. It is better to complain to God than to man; better in itself, and more remunerative. But having done this, it is of no real use to look continually at the clouds. If God had placed us like the Prophets of old on their watch-towers, or like a Christian Bishop on the spiritual observatory of his Diocese, it would be a duty, no doubt, to give not less attention to the clouds than to the stars and to the sun. As it is, whatever is close to us, around us, before us, within us, has a first claim on our thought and effort. с Clouds, too, there may be in the sky of the family, or in the sky of the soul. Loss of means, loss of friends, the failure of well-meant designs, the misconduct of children, -these things weigh on us. We try to get rid of them, but we find ourselves reverting to them when alone, by day and by night; we "regard the clouds." And, in the soul's life, the unaccountable decay or loss of spiritual b Ps. xviii. 5. c Isa. xxi. 6-8; lxii. 6. a I Cor. vi. 6. insight, the paralysis, during considerable periods of life, of the power of prayer, the dark thoughts which impair the will and chill the affections, the strange and mysterious influences which contact with the bodily frame does undoubtedly exert over the spirit,-these are inward troubles which cause deep and painful apprehension. Of these trials some may be conquered by resolute service, all may be alleviated by prayer. But, alike in the family and in the soul, there are clouds which we cannot banish. Let us not "regard" them; let us leave them to God. a Yes! as we stand on the threshold of another year; as we cast a thought backwards at those who were among us twelve months ago, our friends, our relatives, our teachers, our rulers, and who have now passed into the unseen world; as we strain our eyes to look forward, if possible, into the depths of the awful future, and trace, if it may be, any intimation of what is in store for us; we must feel that we may not waste much thought, passion, energy, on evils which we cannot hope to modify or remove. Life is too short, its real business too urgent, its issues too momentous. And, above all, God, Who maketh the very clouds which disquiet us the chariots of His Providences through the courses of time, is always near us; He is with us. God, the Everlasting and the Infinite, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise, the All-Good; God the Father Who created, the Son Who has redeemed, the Spirit Who sanctifies us; God Who is the Source and the true End of our several existences, and Who teaches us at Bethlehem, as on Calvary, the boundlessness of His Love; God bids us remember that He is Lord not only of the sunshine, but of the clouds, and that to trust Him perfectly, instead of regarding them too anxiously, is to prepare to reap the Eternal Harvest. a Ps. civ. 3. SERMON XVII. LIGHT FROM HEAVEN. (SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.) Ps. XXVII. I. The Lord is my Light. AVID is in exile; he is engaged in some fierce struggle DAVID a on the frontiers of the Holy Land. His foes have received a check. "When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me, they stumbled and fell." But another and more desperate conflict is evidently at hand, .when "an host of men will encamp against him." He is closely watched, but he is already confident of victory; he will yet end his life near the Tabernacle, and will offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. All seems to point to the later stage of Absalom's rebellion, when the final battle was imminent, and David had recovered in part from the deep despondency of the preceding period. "I should utterly have fainted, but that I believe verily to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." "One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require, even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit His Temple." For "the Lord is my Light and my Salva C tion; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the Strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?" "The Lord is my Light." Here only does David so speak of God; and, indeed, the exact expression occurs only twice in the Old Testament. "When I sit in darkness," says the Prophet Micah," the Lord shall be a Light unto me." Elsewhere light is spoken of as given by God to His servants. "In Thy light we shall see light; “There is sprung up a light for the righteous; is the Lord Which hath showed us light; "a "Thy Word is a lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my paths.' " b "God ,, е And David means by "light," that blessing in the life of the spirit which answers to the light of day that we see with our bodily eyes; that entirely immaterial but most real assistance by which, in respect of itself, and other creatures, and the Being of beings, the soul sees things, not in a mist and confusedly, but as they are; that endowment from on high which discovers the path it has to follow, and the difficulties which await, and the encouragements that should sustain it, so clearly and directly, that it cannot mistake. And this light, as David experienced it, was twofold. It was from without and from within, but in both cases from God. It shone on David's soul from the outward Revelation of Sinai, which was to him, as to the Psalmist of the Captivity, a lantern unto his feet." It shone within him from the natural moral sense enthroned in his conscience, which was in harmony with the light that streamed on him from the outward Revelation. But this is the peculiarity of David's expression, that he sees in or behind this light, whether of the Law or of the conscience, a Higher Presence from which it really streamed. "The Lord," he says, as a Micah vii. 8. b Ps. xxxvi. 9. c Ib. xcvii. II. |