Hidden Springs

IT have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” — Puit. iv. 11. THROUGHOUT this epistle to the Philippians, there is a heightening tone of filial thankfulness and saintly triumph. Its first word is one of thankfulness, its last. of benediction. The Apostle gladly announces that the most contrary events have “fallen out unto the furtherance of the gospel,”’ — his very bonds had caused many of the brethren to “wax confident.” He says, “I joy and rejoice with you all;” he calls the church his “joy and crown;” and ina moment of high exultation and overbrimming gladness, he exclaims, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Once again he says, “Rejoice in the Lord.” Joy is the key-note of this melodious letter. Why should this be accounted a remarkable circumstance? Might not joy sing in an apostle’s heart, as well as in the heart of garlanded conquerors and throned kings? The remarkable fact is this, that the man who thus rejoices, and summons

IB y, HIDDEN SPRINGS.

other persons to kindred gladness, isa prisoner! In his external condition there is nothing calling for joy of heart. The criminal’s chain is on the author’s hand, and even on that symbol of degradation he has no curse to pronounce. So happy a man never was bound to the throne of Nero. The chain binds him rather to the cross of Jesus than to the dungeon of the emperor. You expected the moan of angry discontent from the wronged bondsman, and lo, a happy song is on his lip! You expected to see a man bowed down with grief, and lo, a plumed head is lifted up in the sunshine! You thought his letter would have been deep-bordered with the blackness of mourning, and behold, it is fringed as with refined silver!

This problem must be solved. The man is mad, or the discontented world is mad. The secret must be examined and pronounced upon. When men are borne up in such ecstatic experiences, when their strong, free wing nears the sun, they necessarily express themselves in language dimly intelligible to men who are grovelling in the dust. Their glowing words are deemed poetic rather than practical; they are lethargically pronounced rhapsodical and extravagant; there is an unearthliness in their victor-tones; and men who never climbed a tree wonder how others can scale the stars.

What a banner is this that the Apostle floats from his Roman prison! Did ever human madness conceive so strange a device as that which it bears?

While men are on every hand complaining and repining, one voice is lifted up higher than all others, and its sweet word is — “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” There is an air of impossibility about the utterance. The speaker is in such a marked minority that we would gladly, in self-defence, charge him with insanity. We feel this all the more that the voice comes from the prison and not from the palace. It is not the imperial voice of Ceesar, but the voice of Czesar’s prisoner. The Festusworld is indignant, and cannot withhold the exclamation, “Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.” Yes; “beside thyself:” the world is in deep debt to its madmen. These madmen keep the chariot-wheel in motion. They climb heights, and fathom depths, which strike terror into the coward-heart of their contemporaries. A man cannot attain any sublime moral experience without incurring the charge of madness. Christ was plainly told that He had a devil; and the men who told Him this would not scruple to call Jehovah Beelzebub. lt is difficult to interpret men who are upon a higher plane than ourselves; and, failing to interpret them, it is easy to roar up into the higher spheres a vague charge of madness. The madness of one age is the sobriety of the next. We must allow for a little foam: when the sea has lost its foam it may still be majestic, but I shall deem that its pulse has ceased and its eternal hymn been hushed in death.

“I have learned.” Special emphasis and fervour - must be thrown into this word “learned,” for it is one * of the key-words of the passage; it is a multitudinous word. It speaks of a school, and of education, of drilling and many-sided discipline. The whole utterance is that of a man who has been undergoing a process; who has been immured in alibrary, and who, having patiently read page after page, and undergone a severe and exhaustive examination, pronounces himself “learned.” If we stumble at the word “learned” we shall stumble all through the exposition. A man cannot come to this moral eminence by intuition: it is not to be attained in a moment of high inspiration of genius; nothing but the ripping plough, dragged by a fire-breathing team, and the pulverizing harrow, and the crushing roller: nothing but a discipline that grinds the bones, and racks the heart, and strains the very last suggestion out of the over-goaded brain: nothing but the hardships of earth, sanctified by the Spirit of heaven, can make the “learned” man of the text. Not books, but heavy burdens, — not gifts-of the intellect, but griefs of the heart, — not paid schoolmasters, but invisible, despotic, inexorable tutors, can carry us through the education which ends in this lofty refinement of learning.

The Apostle’s autobiography is at hand, and that will tell us somewhat of the educational course through which he passed : — “In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings:... by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceiver, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”

What think you of that? A man striking and swiftly recoiling, — hardly in one condition until he is thrown into another; just rising into honour, and suddenly plunged into dishonour; on the point of imagining himself well known, and in a moment the world shuddering with horror at the mention of his name! This rapidly alternating experience gives a man profound lore. It is not the gradual transition by which day darkens into night, and night brightens into day. If an analogy can be found in the firmament, it must be when storms are raging there, and light breaking through the gloomy masses: now is there a wing of deep blue, and anon the clouds shut it out from the eye of the admiring earth: this moment there is a fringe of beauty on the dark storm-cloud; and the next, thunder roars as if cursing the intrusion. We must not only have variety, but also suddenness and violence of alternation. Our bread must be snatched out of our hand at the very moment that our hunger pines for it, and the water dashed from our grasp when the fire is scorching our tongue. A discipline of

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