Gracious Mitigations
ARE BTATETH HI8 BOUGH WIND IH THE DAT OF THE EAST WIND.”
ISA. XXTli &
HIS is a comforting verse to those who, in a figurative sense, are exposed to the swoop of the desert simoom. Come, sorrowing one.
and calmly meditate on the blessed promise, here given under expressive imagery, that God will never allow your trials or His chastisements to go too far.
It is the “rough wind” and the “east wind “’ that may now be visiting you. Seated in thought, or in reality, by your early grave, and musing on your blighted blossom, you can too truly say, “As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For t?ie wind passeth aver ity and it is gone” (Ps. ciii. 15, 16).
The Almighty does not conceal that it is He who sends the tempest. It is specially spoken of and designated by the prophet as “His rough wind.” In the blighting of Jonah’s gourd, the picture we have so often had occasion to refer to, we are told, “The Lord prepared a vehement east wind.” In the bold and sublime language of the Psalmist, He is similarly represented as “walking on the wings of the wind.” So too in moral hurricanes. “Who knoweth not in all these things that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?”
meditation regarding your beloved dead, may you not transfer, by anticipation, their comfort to yourselves? When that supreme hour which has come to them comes to you; — when you, too, are laid on your deathcouch; — when the tent is about to be struck for prosecuting the mysterious journey — death, the hour that thousands on thousands have shrunk from and dreaded, — ay! the hour which none can contemplate without profound emotion; yet when it does come — when the house of the earthly tabernacle rocks and trembles under the blasts of that inexorable ’ east wind,’ be assured you will find the Great Promiser true to His declaration. The * rough wind ’ is stayed. You may feel the rush of the final hurricane, but you will rise above it with the glorious compensating supports and comforts then vouchsafed. In that solemn season the eyes of many of God’s children, dimming to human smiles, have had revealed to them a Mightier Presence, which the gathering darkness only renders more visible. When those around can think, perhaps, only of the terribleness of grappling with the tempest which in a few moments will reduce to a heap of ruins; with their last breath they have risen above the storm, and in trembling accents given some such testimony as this: — * Hush your fears! I am walking through the Dark Valley, but He is giving me dying grace for a djring hour: ‘- — “Jle stayeth His rcmgh wind in the day of the east wind!”
THE STAYING OF THE ROUGH WIND.
“I will iing 0/ mercy and Judgment.** — Vb. ci. x.
Say, do no solaces remain to cheer, Mourner, thine altered lot? Hast thon alone A broken lyre to dirge its plaintive strains?
Rifts ever are amid the thunder- clouds.
In the Gethsemane of deepest gloom
God sends His strengthening angels. He lias stored
Ichor undreamt of for thy smitten heart.
While one belovM link has severed been,
Say, do not hallowed friendships still sui-vive
To gladden thee? Has He not also spared
In tenser woes, beyond the reach of tears?
There are unspoken sorrows, cutting wounds,
Too deep for solace! — lacerated hearts
Bleeding in secret over woes they dare not
Confide to earthly eara; the Valley-gloom
Without one ray of comfort — saddest pang I —
The agony of watching by the couch
At which you dare not say,” To die is gain!
The hopes of immortality proscribed.
A thousand deaths (if the beloved’s sleep
Can be so called) is nothing to one such!
Nor, with reversions nobler in the skies,
Are sacred memories to be consigned
To blank oblivion. Crushed and fallen leaves
Exude a lasting fragrance in decay.
Though hid from view amid the burning ranks
Of seraphim, with dear and sainted dead
Ye still hold blessed converse. Many an hour, —
In murmur of dense crowd, or in the hush
Of nninyaded solitade, — there comes
Back on the ear the well-remembered tones.
Although the voice has ceased, sweet echoes still
Tremblingly float among the earthly hills.
Asleep in Jesus! — earthly ties dissolved
Only to draw thee nearer to the skies
By everlasting cords of sacred love;
Leading affection to associate
Sweetly in thought a glorified Redeemer
With those now at His side. Thou hadst a loan, —
No more; and if the Great Proprietor
Sees meet the boon He lent thee to recall,
Becomes it thee to murmur?” Even so!
My Father! good it seemeth in Thy sight!”
Die whoe’er may, Chbist lives ! — that thought is bliss I
Amid the scorching flames didst thou not see
“One in the furnace like the Son of God,”
Whose gracious presence caused thee pass unscathed
The fiery ordeal? Or, when called by Him
To climb the Mount of trial, hast thou not
Refreshing hours enjoyed? Kv’n from the cloud
That frowned in terror over thee, there burst
Upon thy sight, in bright apocalypse.
Resplendent visions of redeeming grace.
The antepast of Heaven! Withdrawn may be
The angel-smiles of those beloved on earth.
As was the voice of the twin delegates
On Hermon’s hill; but like the Three,** thou hast
Thy BEST Friend left. Dissolved though human ties,
The Lord along with thee the Mount descends,
VouchsafiDg fellowship that knows no change.
And love that cannot die. Consoling words:
Lo I * I am with you, to the end of Time!’
1 1
GRACIOUS MITIGATIONS. 19s
To fill the vacnum of the aching heart
This portion still survives — Omnipotence!
Thon need*8t no other. Compensation great!
When the £temal One the cistern hreaks,
That He may prove Himself the “All in All!”
Bark though the present he, and low*ring storm
O’er canopy thy head: yet turn and see
How He delights to temper trial-hour
With gracious mitigations; and, in time
“Of blighting east wind doth His. rough tcind stay I**
EBENEZER.
I will remember all the way
By which the Lord my God hath led me;
A fire by night — a cloud by day — With heavenly manna He has fed me.
The Marah- streams of sorrow few
Have with their bitter waters found mc;
While Elim’s mercies, ever new,
Have spread their palm-shade oft around me!
While yet I tread this Vale of Tears,
While yet this tongue hatU strength to praise Thee;
Let me, throughout my waning years,
New Ebenezers fondly raise Thee I
And when I reach eternal day, —
The manita ceased, on earth which fed me, —
Still I’ll remember all the way
By which the Lord my God hath led me!