Unto His Nest Again

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain;
Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson.

One day, President Lincoln and a friend were walking together in a field, when they found a little bird fluttering in the grass. It had fallen out of its nest in the bushes, and could not get back again. The great, gentle-hearted man stopped in his walk, stooped down, picked up the little thing, and put it back into its place. If it was a noble deed for a great man to lift a fluttering bird back into its place; if even helping one fainting robin unto its nest again redeems a life from uselessness, what work of high honor is it to help back a fainting human soul into its nest of faith and love in the bosom of Christ! That is the work Christ is doing continually.

That is what he wants us to do in his name when we find a soul that has fallen out of the nest of trust and peace.

John the Baptist had lost the perfectness of his confidence. This seems very strange to us. We remember his noble words, as he foretold the Messiah, then as he pointed him out to his disciples and spoke of his glory. We remember his sublime courage when he faced the terrible Herod and reproved him for his sin. Is it possible that a shadow of doubt ever came over his sky? Yet listen to the question which his disciples are sent to ask Jesus: “Art thou he that should come? or do we look for another?” Why should such heroic faith as we see in John by the Jordan be changed to doubt and fear a little later?

We must remember John’s circumstances. For a few months, multitudes flocked to hear him preach, and then the throngs melted away. His mission was only to prepare the way for Christ, and when Christ came John paled, as the morning star pales before the sunrise. It is hard to be forgotten by those who a little while ago sang one’s praises. Then, John was now in prison in one of the gloomiest castles ever built, in one of the most desolate places of the earth. To any man such a prison must have

22 had its dreadful horrors, but to John this imprisonment must have been an unspeakable bitterness. He had lived, a child of nature, in the freedom of the mountains and the deserts, breathing the air of heaven and gazing up by night at the stars. Worse than death to this untamed, passionate spirit was the prison of Machaerus. No wonder that, shut up in its desolate dungeon, this great eagle soul began to lose its majestic courage.

Meanwhile, to his prison there came fragmentary reports of the ministry of Jesus. He was very popular. Throngs followed him. He wrought many miracles. But why was his forerunner left unhelped, undelivered, in this dark dungeon? He had been faithful to Jesus; why did not Jesus come and open these prison-doors for him? Among so many mighty works, could not one be wrought to release him? Was it just, was it right, that he should be neglected here, in the darkness and the wretchedness, while Jesus was in the midst of great honor? Perhaps such questions arose in the mind of John, as he lay in his dungeon and heard of the works of Jesus. Is it any wonder that “the eye of the caged eagle began to film”?

There are true Christians in every age who have their times of spiritual discouragement.

No doubt a child of God should always rejoice. Yet some of the holiest saints who ever lived have had experiences of disheartenment. What earnest soul is there that never finds in the passionate supplication and longing of the forty-second psalm its own liturgy of longing?

There are many causes which may produce spiritual depression. Some people have a gloomy temperament. They live in the valleys, and the valleys do not catch the morning sunshine until long after the mountain tops have been gilded. Thus Thomas was the last of the disciples to get the joy of the resurrection. This same disposition keeps many good Christian people much of the time in the shadows. Sometimes sickness is the cause of despondent feelings. Ofttimes persons whose faith is ordinarily bright and clear are cast into gloom when there is no spiritual reason whatever, solely by their physical condition. Sore trials sometimes cause the clouding of faith. Peter wrote: “Ye are in heaviness through manifold trials.” Sometimes, in the sharpness and in the continuance of affliction, the heart grows weary and is thrown out of its nest of peace. Or there may be mental perplexities caused by questionings that receive no answer.

These are a few of the causes which tend to

24 produce spiritual disheartenment, and lead good people to ask whether or not Jesus is the Saviour and the Friend they had supposed him to be. We all know that we do not need to have these doubts and fears, that we should never be shaken for a moment out of our nest of confidence and peace. The word of God is: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.” Amid all trials, gloom, sorrows, mysteries, questionings, there is one blessed truth on which we may rest. Browning puts it in one great, noble sentence:

lt God, thou art love; I build my faith on thee.”

Yet we are all human, and weak because human. The strongest of us may be swept away for a time from our refuge, or at least may lose the full joy of our Christian hope.

What should we do in such experiences? We have the answer in the example of John. He sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask him plainly, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” Instead of nursing his questionings, in the gloom of his dungeon, he laid them at once before Christ. That is what we should do with all our fears and perplexities — take them to Christ. No other can answer them so well as he can. No other will answer

25 them so gladly, so wisely, so lovingly. He was not impatient with John when he sent to ask his question. Good men sometimes are impatient with any who have doubts, or who are swept away from their moorings. But Jesus never was. With unbelief he had no sympathy. He not only marveled at men’s unbelief; it angered him. But with doubt, or sincere questioning, he had infinite patience, and took the greatest pains to help the inquirer into the full, clear light.

Mark well the distinction between doubt and unbelief. “Doubt is can’t believe,” says a recent writer; “unbelief is won’t believe. Doubt is honesty; unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with the darkness.” Jesus severely reproved unbelief; but when any one came to him with questionings, seeking light, desiring to find the truth, he dealt with him with wondrous gentleness. He sat down and talked with Nicodemus. He showed Thomas the wounds in his hands and feet. He let the Baptist know the beautiful work he was doing. He is the same to-day. If we have questionings or fears, we may be sure of most patient, gentle dealing if we bring them to him. He will never chide for our dullness and slowness in understanding; he will teach us what we want to know. One writes:

The years
Roll back, and through a mist of tears
I see a child turn from her play
And seek with eager feet the way
That led her to her father’s knee.

“If God is good and kind,” said she,
“Why did he let my roses diei”
A moment’s pause, a smile, a sigh,
And then, “I do not know, my dear;
Some questions are not answered here.”

“But is it wrong to ask?” “Not so,
My child. That we should seek to know
Proves right to know, beyond a doubt;
And so some day we shall find out
Why roses die.”

And then I wait,
Sure of my answer soon or late j
Secure that love doth hold for me
The key of life’s great mystery;
And, oh! so glad to leave it there!
Though my dead roses were so fair.

Our Lord’s own word is comforting: “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” It is faith we want. Faith is believing when we cannot see. Wait a little longer and all the sad mystery shall be cleared away. A tourist tells of sailing out of the muddy waters of Lake Huron into the crystal

27 waters of Lake Superior. When night came on, the vessel was in Lake Huron and his eye could not penetrate beneath the surface. Rising in the morning, he came on deck, and looking over the prow, he was surprised to find how clear the water was through which the vessel was moving. He could see the great jagged rocks, and it seemed as if the keel would strike upon them. In reality, however, they were fifty or sixty feet below the surface. The water was so clear that the depth appeared to be only a few feet.

We are moving now through dark, cloudy waters. Mysteries impenetrable surround us. We cannot understand the things that befall us. We cannot comprehend the deep things of God, of Christ, of the Bible, and of Providence. But as we move on we shall pass at length out of the obscurities and mysteries into the clear, crystal knowledge of heaven. It is said in Revelation that there shall be no more sea in heaven. To the ancients the sea was the emblem of mystery. To say there shall be no sea in heaven means that there shall be no mystery there. All that here is dark and strange shall there be made clear.

The comfort Christ gives to those who come to him with their doubts and fears may not be the removal of the things that cause the darkness. John was not released from prison after he had sent his disciples to Jesus. Jesus did not go out to the desert and tear down the frowning walls that shut his friend away in the gloom. John was left there, and before a great while died as a martyr. But when the messengers returned and told their master what they had seen and what Jesus had said to them, we may be sure John’s doubts fled away and assurance of peace came again into his heart.

Nor will Jesus now always remove the things that discourage us. But he will give us grace to believe in his love even when we cannot see, and to wait in faith for the fuller, clearer revealing. Indeed, sometimes the sorrows and losses that cause us so much darkness and doubt are caused by the removing of obstacles in the way of our wider vision. There were some lilac bushes at the window of a farmer’s house. They kept out the sunshine and air, and they obstructed the view so that the mountains could not be seen. One day the farmer’s axe was heard, and bush after bush was cut away. “Only a little more cutting,” he said, “and we shall get it.” Then the mountains could be seen from the window. It is ofttimes thus with our earthly joys. They are very sweet, but they hide our view of the Delectable Mountains. Money is lost. Loved ones are taken from us. Earthly honors are cut off. Luxuries are swept away. Remorselessly the axe cuts into our hedgerows of beauty and we cry out in alarm. But when the cutting is done we see more clearly; we have wider views; we behold lovely things we had never seen before. One says, “I never knew the meaning of that precious text till my trouble came.” Another says, “I never loved God so much as since he took my baby home.” Another says, “I never knew what it was to trust God and rest in his love, until my money was taken away.” Thus our very trials, which at the time darken the sky for us, help, ofttimes, to lead us to firmer faith and securer trust.

It is interesting to notice the way in which Jesus answered John’s doubts. While the messengers were present, waiting for the answer, Jesus cured many persons of diseases and plagues, and of evil spirits, and on many blind he bestowed sight. Then he said: “Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them.” John had had wrong views of Christ’s mission. Jesus shows him that the true glory

3° of his Messiahship was in its tenderness and grace, its gentle deeds, its blessings of healing and comfort, its thoughtfulness for the poor.

What was it in these works that proved Christ’s Messiahship? Was it the fact that they were supernatural? No; it was primarily the fact that they were deeds of love. We may not undervalue the supernatural in the ministry of Christ, as evidence of his divine mission. The God shines out in all his life. Yet he never wrought a miracle merely for display, or to prove his divinity. The real glory of Christ was in the divine love that wrought in and through all his miracles as well as in his most common acts. The glory of Christ is seen to-day wherever Christianity has gone. Look at the works of mercy which are wrought in Christ’s name. Go among the hospitals, into asylums for the blind, refuges for orphans, and homes for the aged and for the poor. Follow the Christian workers of any true Christian church in their rounds of blessed ministry among the sick, the troubled, the sorrowing, and in their visits to the poor, the outcast, and the prisoner. Men say miracles ceased with the apostles. Well, grant it; but “the greater works” which Christ said his followers should do — greater than he had done — have never ceased.

The power of Christ is working in his church to-day as really as ever it did. It is hampered and hindered, and ofttimes balked of its loving purpose, by the imperfection of the lives of those who represent Christ; the grace of Christ loses much of its sweetness and its power in its transmission through the poor human lives which are the lines of communication between God and the world. Yet with all that is imperfect in the church, God’s glory is flowing everywhere, and the world is being blessed.

There is a practical lesson which we should not fail to take in passing. If we would give the world evidence that Christianity is divine, we must do as Jesus did when he would answer John’s question. We are not called to open blind eyes, to unstop deaf ears, to heal the lame, to raise the dead; but we are called to be loving and sympathetic, comforters of sorrow, friends to the widow and orphan, and a blessing to every life that touches ours.

One who had been a student of theology writes:” One of my beloved professors had been giving us a very able lecture upon some of those risk questions of biblical criticism, questions which somewhat induced doubt and tended to unsettle. But it so happened that that very afternoon, when the lecture was over, I had to crush my hat on

32 my head and run to my district. I had something there to do which checked and corrected all unsettling effects of biblical criticism. I had to go into one house where, upon the only table in the room, there was a long coffin, with two small ones beside it. The mother had died suddenly, and two little children also had died within the same day. As I stood there, all notion of being unsettled by what I had heard an hour before utterly vanished from me.”

There is no other cure for doubt so effective as to take up the cross of Christ and go after him into the lanes and alleys, and amid the world’s poverty, and need, sorrow, and sin, setting our feet in the prints of his shoes, and carrying his gospel into the darkest places. In doing his will we shall learn to know of the doctrine. In trying to do his work we shall find solution for the mysteries that perplex us. Instead, therefore, of troubling ourselves over the difficulties that men are finding, perplexing ourselves over the questions they are raising, we should turn our faces toward the world’s suffering and woe, and seek to carry into it a little of the love and grace of Christ. This is a better cure by far for our doubts and perplexities than we can ever find in controversy and disputation.

Longfellow, in one of his poems, tells of c 33 passing through his garden and seeing on the ground a fallen bird-nest, ruined and full of ruin. But when he looked up into the tree he saw the little birds, uncomplaining, busy there among the branches, building a new nest for themselves. Here is a lesson for any who have lost the joy of their Christian faith. The nest of trust in which they once found such sweet peace has been torn to shreds by the storms of trial or by the wintry winds of doubt. It seems to them, perhaps, that they can never again have the joy they once had in Christ. They are disheartened, almost in despair. But is it not worth while to fly up again among the branches and to rebuild the torn and ruined nest? Doubt is too sad a state to stay in even for a day. Believe in the love of God, the divinity of Christ, the atonement made on the cross, and the revelation of God in his word. Seek to realize in your own life the gentleness and mercy of the love of Christ. Thus you will build again a nest of peace for your soul, and your lost joy will be restored.