Revelation

u Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.” — Ps. cxix. 18.

Wheeefoee is it, my soul, that in thy cry for revelation thou lookest ever to the rending of an outer veil? It seems to thee that if there could only be a parting of the clouds, thou wouldst have a vision of things unutterable, that if thou couldst be transplanted beyond the clouds, the glory of the Lord would be revealed. And so it is to death thou lookest as the great revealer, to that hour when the silver cord shall be loosed and the golden bowl shall be broken. Nay, my soul, but thou art looking too far for thy revelation. Thou dost not need to wait for the loosing of the silver cord or the breaking of the golden bowl. What thou neeclest is not a new scene, but a new sense. There are beauties undisclosed lying at thy feet waiting for that sense to come. The prayer for thee is: “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things.” The wondrous things of thy God are already around thee; they are lying at the door of thy being, they are touching the hem of thy garment. To see them thou dost not need to ’ he transplanted either by life or by death. Thou dost not need to change thy place even by an hair’s-breadth; thou hast want only of an eye. One other spiritual sense would make to thee a new universe, another world without and within. It would clothe the woods in fresh verdure, it would paint the flowers in new beauty, it would gild the sunbeams in unwonted glory. It would throw light upon dark places of creation, it would illuminate unfrequented depths of thought, it would make clear in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, problems that have wrung the heart with pain. What thinkest thou mean these words, “And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket “? He had been perplexing his mind as to where he should find a burnt -offering — a substitute for his own pain; this ram caught in the thicket came to him as a revelation. Yet whence came the revelation? Only from the lifting up of his eyes. The ram had all along been in that thicket; he merely needed to see it. “While he had been waiting for his consolation, his consolation had been waiting for him. The boon which he sought was already :c behind him;” he had passed it by on the way. When he opened his eyes what he saw was his own past — the glory of something which had escaped him on the journey. Even so, my soul, is it with thee. There are passages of God’s law, written and unwritten, which thou art passing heedlessly by, which thou hast perused without interest as slight and commonplace things. One day thou shalt know that thou hast been in contact with angels unawares. One day thou shalt know that wdiat thou hast passed by on the way was a treasure of purest gold. Thou too, like Abraham, shalt look behind thee and find in these neglected things the remedy for all thy pain; when thine eye shall open upon thy past thou shalt awake to the vision of its wondrous glory.