Light at Evening Time

I once ascended Mount Washington with a party of friends on horseback, and we were overtaken by a violent storm, followed by a blinding mist. After our rough scramble over slippery rocks, it was a woeful disappointment to find, on our arrival at the *Tip-top House,’’ that we could not see any object two rods from the door. But late in the afternoon the clouds began to roll away, and one mountain after another revealed itself to our view. At length the sun burst forth, and overarched the valley of the Saco with a gorgeous rainbow; we came out and gazed upon the magnificent panorama with wondering delight, and, as the rays of the setting sun kindled every mountain peak with gold, we all exclaimed, “At evening time it shall be light!” 163

My experience on that mountain top is a striking illustration of the experiences of God’s people in all ages. Faith has had its steep Hills of Difficulty to climb, and often through blinding mists and hurtling storms. Unbelief says, “halt,” and despair cries, ‘’go back!” But hope keeps up its steady, cheery song, “It will be better further on.” The poor old patriarch Jacob wails out that all things are against him, and that he will go down to his grave mourning. Wait a little. Yonder comes the caravan from Egypt laden with sacks of corn and bringing the good tidings that Joseph is the prime minister of Pharaoh’s government! To the astonished old man at evening time it is light!

The office of faith is to cling to the fact that behind all clouds, however thick, and all storms, however fierce, God is on the throne. It is the office of hope to look for the clearing of the clouds in God’s good time. If we had no storms we should never appreciate the blue skies; the trials of the tempest are the preparation for the 164 afterglow of the sunshine. We ought never to think it strange that difficuUies confront us, or trials assail us; for this is but a part of our discipline, and in the end all things work for good to them whom God loveth and who trust Him. It is according to God’s established economy that we should be exposed to temptations, and often to trials which threaten to drive us to despair. All this is to teach us our dependence upon Him. No climb of duty is so high, so steep, or so hard, but God is standing at the top! No honest work for Him is ever entirely in vain. I will go farther and affirm that no honest prayer was ever yet uttered in the right spirit, and failed to get some answer; if not the thing asked for, yet some other good thing has been granted. And oh, how often God surprises us after a long day of struggles and discouragements by a glorious outburst of light at evening time!

There is hardly any passage in our Bible that is more full of encouragement to faithful ministers and teachers and parents, and 165 to all who are toiling in Christian enterprises than this very text that suggests this article. Things easily done are generally of small value; it is the costly undertakings that counts. From the days of Bethlehem, Gethsemane and Calvary the history of the Christian Church has been: conflict before victory, labor before reward, shadow before sunlight. When Europe had long been enshrouded in the “dark ages” Martin Luther seized the trumpet of the Saxon tongue and blew a blast that rang from Rome to the Orkneys. I well remember when my friend John G. Whittier was threatened with personal violence on account of his advocacy of negro emancipation; the grand old poet lived to sing the triumph of union and liberty. I could recall incidents in my own experience that illustrate how, after dark days of discouragement, at evening time it was light. In my first pastoral charge of a small church, the discouragements were so great that I was under a strong temptation to abandon the difficult field of labor entirely. Suddenly 166 there came the most remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit that I have ever witnessed during my whole ministry! That revival was worth more to me than any year in the theological seminary.

This beautiful passage of the bright eventide is finely descriptive of a Christian old age. Some people have a pitiful dread of growing old, and count it a disgrace. They possibly think that if the line in their family Bible that records the day of their birth were subjected to the fashionable process of the ‘’higher criticism,” it might prove to be erroneous! But if life is spent in God’s service its later years may be well described in the quaint Scotch version of the 92d Psalm:

And in old age when others fade,
They fruit still forth shall bring;
They shall be fat, and full of sap,
And aye be flourishing.

The October of life frequently yields its richest and ripest fruitage. The Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs delivered his most magnificent sermons and addresses after he had 167 passed three-score. The most majestic and thrilHng burst of eloquence that ever flowed from Gladstone’s lips was that appeal for bleeding Armenia, when his life-clock had already struck eighty-six! Why should not the Indian summers of a well-spent life show every leaf on the tree blazing with ruddy gold? That noble old Christian philanthropist, William Wilberforce (who had suffered severe pecuniary losses), wrote in his diary, *T sometimes understand why my life has been spared so long. It is to prove that I can be just as happy without my fortune as when I possessed it. Sailors, it is said, when on a voyage at sea, drink to ‘friends astern’ until they get half away across, and then to ‘friends ahead’ for the rest of the voyage. With me it has been friends ahead for many a year.” Wilberforce was not the only veteran Christian who got glimpses of the friends ahead in the bright afterglow of life.

If it is true that the old age of a faithful follower of Christ exhibits the light at eveni68 tide, still more impressively does this often apply to his or her dying bed. During my active pastorate I sometimes get better sermons from my people than I ever gave to them. I recall now a most touching and sublime scene that I once witnessed in the death-chamber of a noble woman who had suffered for many months from an excruciating malady. The end was drawing near. She seemed to be catching a foregleam of the glory that awaited her. With tremulous tones she began to repeat Henry Lyte’s matchless hymn, “Abide wdth me, fast falls the eventide.” One line after another was feebly repeated until, with a rapturous sweetness, she exclaimed:

Hold Thou Thy Cross before my closing eyes, Shine through the gloom and point me to the

skies, Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain

shadows flee, In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

As I came away from that room, which had been as the vestibule of heaven, I understood how the “light at eventime” could 169 be only a flashing forth of the overwhelming glory that plays forever around the throne of God!