Second Causes
‘’THEN BAID MABTHA UNTO JESUS, LOBD, IV THOU HAD8T BEEN HEBE, ICr BBOl’HBB HAD NOT DIED.” — JOHN zi. 21.
“then WHEN MABT WAS OOHB WHEBE JESUS WAS, AND SAW HIV, SHE FELL DOWN AT HIS FEET, SATING UNTO HIV, LOBD, IF THOU HADST BEEN HEBE, BT BBOTHEB HAD NOT DIED.” — JOHN xL 32.
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|T no time more than on the occasion of early deaths and early graves does the sad brooding over second causes ’ come into painful, and sometimes unworthy conflict with the Christian’s better faith and loftier confidences.
The words of both the Bethany mourners, which head this meditation, the natural expression of their sorrowing spirits, may help to carry with them to the heart of the bereaved, lessons alike of tender rebuke and of patient resignation.
It is unnecessary again to rehearse the narrative, which has furnished us with the subject of a previous paper* Martha had already, in her interview with her Master, and her sister Mary now repeats in broken accents, ‘^ Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” Often at a season of sore bereavement some one poignant thought or reflection takes possession of the mind, and, for the time, overmasters every other. This echo of the one mourner’s utterance by the other, leads us to conclude that it had been a familiar and ofbquoted phrase during these days of protracted agony. This independent quotation, indeed, on the part of each, gives a truthful beauty to the whole inspired story.
The twin sisters — musing on the terrible past, gazing through their tears on the vacant seat at their home-hearth — had been every now and then breaking the silence of the deserted chamber by exclaiming, “If Se had been with us, this never would have happened! This is the bitterest drop in our cup, that all might have been different! These hot tears might never have dimmed our eyes; our loved Lazarus might have been a living and loving brother still! Oh, that the Lord had delayed for a brief week that untoward journey to Peraea, or anticipated by four days His longed-for return; or would that we had despatched our messenger earlier for Him! It is now too late. Though He has at last come. His advent can be of little avail. The fell destroyer has been at our door before Him. He may soothe our grief, but the blow cannot be averted. Sis friend and our brother is locked in sleep too deep to be disturbed!”
Is it not, we repeat, the same unkind surmise which is still ofben heard in the hour of bereavement and in the home of death? — a guilty, unholy brooding over second causes. ‘If such and such had been done, my child had still lived. If that mean, or that remedy, or that judicious caution had been employed, this terrible overthrow of my earthly hopes would never have occurred; that loved one would have been still walking at my side; that chaplet of sorrows would not now have been girding my brows; the Bethany sepulchre would have been nnopened — ‘This my son, my daughter, my sister, my brother, had not died! ’
Hash! hush! these guilty insinuations — that dethroning of God from the providential sovereignty of His own world — that hasty and inconsiderate verdict on His Divine procedure*
“If TliOM hadst been here! “Can we, dare we doubt it? Is the departure of the immortal soul to the spirit-world so trivial a matter that the life-giving God takes no cognisance of it? No! Afflicted one, in the deep night of thy sorrow, thou must rise above” untoward coincidences “— thou must cancel the words ‘^ accident” and “fate” from thy vocabulary of trial. God, thy God, was there! If there he perplexing accompaniments, be assured they were of His permitting; all was planned — wisely, kindly planned. Question not the unerring rectitude of His dealings. Though apparently absent. He was really present. The apparent veiling of His countenance is only what Cowper calls “the severer aspect of His love.” It is not for us to dictate what the procedure of infinite love and wisdom should be. To our dim and distorted views of things, it might have been more for the glory of God and the Church’s good if the poet’s “beautiful bird of light,” quoted in our last, had still “sat with its folded wings” ere it sped so soon to nestle in the eaves of heaven. But if its earthly song has been early hushed — if those full of promise have been allowed rather to fall asleep in Jesus, — be assured it was from no want of power or abUity on God’s part that they were not recalled from the gates of death.
Mourner! if the child whom you bewail be now in glory among the ingathered multitude, for ever beyond reach of sinning and sorrowing, the turmoil and the battle, — can you upbraid your God for his early departure? Would you weep him back, if you could, from his early heritage of bliss?
Fond nature, as it stands in trembling agony watching the ebbing pulses of life, would willingly arrest the pale messenger — stay the chariot — have the wUdemess relighted with his smile, and the future radiant with the gleams which youthful intelligence and truth had promised.
But when all is over, and you are able to contemplate, with calm emotion, the untold joy into which the unfettered spirit has entered, do you not feel as if it were cruel selfishness alone that would denude that saiiyted one of his glory, and bring him back to grapple with earth’s cares and tribulations?
We sadly watched the close of all,
Life balanced in a breath;
We saw upon his features fall
The awful shade of death.
All dark and desolate we were,
And murmuring nature cried — ‘Oh! surely, Lord! hadst Thou been here
Our brother had not died 1 ’
But when its glance the memory cast
On all that grace had done,
And thought of life’s long warfare passed.
And endless victory won;
Then faith, prevailing, wiped the tear,
And looking upward, cried — * O Lord! Thou surely hast been here;
Our brother has not died! *”
Yes, “Thou hast been here!” All has been ordered, arranged, appointed. Believer! how tenderly considerate is your dear Lord! Well may you make it your prayer, “Let me fall into the hands of God, for great are His mercies!” When a father inflicts on his wayward chUd the severest and harshest discipline, none but he can tell the bitter heart-pangs of yearning love that accompany every stroke of the rod. So it is with your Father in heaven; with this difierence, that the earthly parent may act unwisely, arbitrarily, indiscreetly — he may misjudge the necessities of the case — he may do violence and wrong to the natural disposition of his offspring. Not so with a wise Heavenly Parent. He will inflict no redundant or unneeded chastisement. Man may err, has erred, and is ever erring; but “The Lord is righteous in all His ways!”
DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY.
Oh, sad are they who can descry
No higher God than destiny
Ruling this world so fair;
Who in life’s loom the shuttles see
Weaving their web capriciously.
Without Artificer;
Their bark, unpiloted, astray,
The sport of fitful winds and spray.
Like self -abandoned castaway,
Drifting they know not where!
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The Lord reignetk.” — Ps. xcvii i.
Blest source of comfort! Although deeper wells
Invite the weary, yet we gladly pause
By this primeval fount — this parent rill
Of solaces. “As for the water-brooks
Panteth the wounded hart, so pants my soul
For Thee, THE LIVING God!”
I love to think That high above the valley-gloom, on throne Of universal empire, seated is The Great Supreme; the volume, many -paged. Of mystic Providence committed safe Into His hands. In all His vast domain Nothing too great to be beyond His sway, Nothing too small to be beneath His care. While it is He who wheels in realms of light Worlds upon worlds; gives to the wand’ring comet Its tortuous course, tracking immensity. In cycles measuring a thousand years; Locks and unlocks the fountains of the deep; Of the great sea intones the tidal song; The volleyed lightning speeds with burning wings :- *Tis He who “feeds the ravens when they cry;” Pencils the hue of every desert flower, Or spreads a pillow for its lowly head; The summer verdure upon every blade Of grass bestows; of every forest leaf The fall He watches; and of every pulse
He marks the beat. The swarming myriads
In boundless space each movement owe to Him,
From tiny insect fluttering in the breeze.
Up to the waving of the angel- wing
Before the throne! Ye votaries who raise
Your altar to an “Unknown God!” — the God
Ye deify as Chance and Accident,
And call His will ‘inexorable fate,*’ —
There is no chance-work in the oracle
Of righteous Heaven ! — each high behest comes forth
The ordination and supreme decree
Of wisdom, love, and mercy infinite I
The parent mourns his child’s untimely end —
Snatched from him in the twinkling of an eye;
Was it the lightning-flash that struck him down?
Traced was the lightning’s winged path by God.
Was it the waves engulfed him? Every billow
Rolled at His bidding: — Suffered not to go
Beyond His mandate. This the history
Of every death: The sufiering He ordained —
Prepared the sable shroud and early grave!”
Our times are in His hands; and at the hour
He thinks befitting, but no sooner. He
Our breath recalls. — ‘Tis His prerogative
To do with us and ours as pleaseth Him.
Left to ourselves, how oft might we incline
To choose the evil and refuse the good!
But He selects for each their earthly lot,
With an unerring faithfulness.
Full well
Does every broken-hearted mourner know
How difficult it is, at times, to raise
The languid, drooping wing, for upward flight
To such high argument!
It easy is, When the sun shines resplendent and the birds Wake up the groves with melody, to rear The eucharistic altar, — praising Him On the load cymbals and His sovereign mle Make theme of glad rejoicing. Not so, when These groves are dumb and voiceless; when no bow Arches the cloud; when home and heart are swept. And nought remains except the smouldering patch Of ashes, to recall the spot where once The tent was pitched* ‘Tis easy to repose Beneath the Almighty’s wings when they are seen, Bright and refulgent, flashing in the light Of His own goodness and transcendent love. Not so, when deepening darkness only seems To falL A strength, not ours, then needed is. That faith may take her slumbering harp and sing — “How excellent Thy loving-kindness, Lord I Therefore beneath the shadow of Thy wings Thy children put their trust!”
Christian! rejoice
That though mysterious may at times appear
His sovereign dealings, finite wisdom has
No place in His procedure. Soon will come
The hour when He will vindicate to all
His faithfulness unswerving, and receive
The homage from ten thousand thousand tongues — “Righteous art Thou, O Lord I”
Then join the crowd; Go let thy pitcher down to fetch a draught Up from this Fountain. And as IsraeFs tribes. The princes and the nobles, with their staves. Awoke the echoes of the wilderness At Beer of old; when, at their leader’s call, They gathered round the pool and raised the song —
Spring up, O well, and sing ye unto it 1 “* So let God’s pilgrim Israel of all time, Amid their desert sands and vales of tears, Attune their yoices for that glorious strain Of praise, in which the world is called to join- ‘* Jehovah rdgneth I let the earth he glad I”
“* Numb, zxi 17, 18.