Midnight Harmonies

44 God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night.” — Job xxxv. 10.

It will be acknowledged by all, competent to form an opinion in the matter, that a holyman is from the very necessity of the case a happy man. It is as impossible to separate happiness from holiness, as to separate light from the sun. The introduction of sin opened the door to all wretchedness; the restoration of divine purity closes the door by restoring the Divine image; and the nearer we approximate to the image of God, the more deeply we participate in the happiness of Grod. Sin is nothing more than a disturbance of the harmony once subsisting between the divine and the human will. Restore that harmony — let the will of Grod be done on earth as it is done in heaven — and earth will t 12 SONGS IN THE NIGHT.

again, as it once did, reflect back the puritj of heaven, just as the tranquil lake mirrors from its bosom the image and the splendor of the sun. A saint of God is, then, a happy man. He is often most so when others deem him most miserable. When they, gazing with pity upon his adversities, and his burdens, and silently marking the conflict of thought and feeling passing within — compared with which external trial is but as the bubble floating upon the surface — deem him a fit object of their commiseration and sympathy, even then, there is a hidden spring of joy, an under current of peace lying in the depths of the soul, which renders him, chastened and afflicted though he is, a happy and an enviable man. Worldling! refrain your tears, spare your pity. “Blessed are they that mourn now, for they are, and they shall be, comforted.” “Thus saith the Lord Grod: behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall wail for vexation of spirit.” “Weep not for him, but, 0 ye Christless souls! weep for yourselves!

How fully do the words placed at the head of this chapter sustain this train of thought. Midnight harmony! Who can inspire it? Songs in the night! Who can create them? (rod can, and God does. The “God of all consolation,” the “God who comforteth them that are cast down,” the “God of hope,” who causes the “bright morning star” to rise upon the dreary landscape, the “God of peace, who himself gives peace, always, and by all means;” even he, our Maker and our Redeemer, giveth songs in the night. All music is of God’s inspiration. The lark’s cheerful carol — the nightingale’s plaintive note — an infant’s praise, and the music of the spheres — is the voice of God. There is no instrument whose broken and untuned strings he cannot make discourse sweet strains — even a heart collapsed with grief. And there is no season in the Christian history which he cannot render vocal with a melody to which a seraph might breathlessly listen, from which he might derive new rapture, but which he would imitate in vain. Music, at all times sweet, is the sweetest amidst the sublimity of night. When in the solemn stillness that reigns — not a breath rustling the leaves, and echo herself slumbers, — when in the darkness that enshrouds, the thoughts that agitate, the gloomy phantoms that flit before the fancy, like shadows dancing upon the wall, there breaks upon the wakeful ear the soft notes of skilfully touched instruments, blending with the melting tones of well-tuned voices, it is as though angels had come down to serenade and soothe the sad and jaded sons of earth. But there are songs richer, and there is music sweeter still than theirs, — the songs which God gives, and the music which Jesus inspires in the long dark night of the Christian’s pilgrimage. To this harmony let us now hearken. Three reflections are suggested by the words — The night season, — the songs in the night, — and the author of these night-songs. “God, my Maker, who giveth songs in the night.”

The season referred to by the inspired penman is figurative of the sorrow, gloom, and despondency into which all Grod’s people are, more or less, brought, — the season of night. Designed though this little work is for the period of Christian solitude and sorrow, it is not improbable that it may find its way into the sick and gloomy chamber of a mind yet more sick and dark. It may not, then, be inappropriate to remark what an expressive imao;e is the season of night of an unconverted state — a state of spiritual darkness and of death. Night is the season of gloom, of slumber, of visions. Such is the moral condition of the soul, unenlightened, unawakened, unsanctified by the Holy Grhost. The apostle touches upon this state, in the contrast which he finely draws between the believer and the unbeliever. “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness, therefore, let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober; for they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.” What a solemn picture this, of an ungodly world, of our unconverted relatives; perhaps, my reader, of thyself. “Children of the night” — asleep — in darkness. Is not the night-season especially the season of dreams? Such is the spiritual night of the soul. Thus graphically is it described by the evangelical prophet Isaiah, — “As when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty; or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite.” Such is your state. You are asleep; the chains of spiritual slumber bind your moral senses; your plans, your pursuits, your pleasures, your realizations, all are but as the visions that sport around the pillar of night. You imagine you are happy, you fancy liberty in your fetters, substance in your shadows, reality in your visions. But, by and by, you awake to the conviction — 0 how keen — that all is but a dream! The spirit is restless, the mind is unfed, the heart is sick, the soul is unsatisfied; all, all is one dark and desolate blank. Yes, God will write, yea, God has written, the sentence of death upon the worldling’s enjoyment; and will teach him that all happiness is ideal, and all pleasure is unsubstantial that flows not from himself, and of which he is not the “exceeding joy.” Rouse you, then, from your sleep; the bridegroom is coming! the midnight cry of the approaching judge is about to break upon the slumber and darkness of your soul. It is high time to awake out of sleep. “What, if the words should startle you amidst your worldliness and folly, your sin and rebellion, your day-dreams of earthly good, —” Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!” “What, if you should awake up in hell! Horror of horrors! Listen to the warning of the Saviour, “What shall it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.” Then, “awake thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life.” Awful, if the present night of your unsanctified sorrow should be the harbinger, the prelude, the forecasting shadows of a future and an endless night of woe!

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