Perfect Trust

“This is the rest wherncith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing’’’’ —

“23e still, anU hnoijr tfjat 31 am ffitoS.” — Ps. xivi. lo. “2 fenoio, ILorB, Hjat Ojg judgments are ti’g{)t.” — Ps. cxix. 75.

As we are seated, it may be, in loneliness Perfect Crust, and sadness, with, perhaps, a dreary sense

of mystery, under one of the wilderness palms, God thus addresses us in the first of these motto-verses. Happy for us, if we can respond to the whispering fronds above us, in the words of the second.

Not such, however, is generally (or, at all events, in the first moments of trial), the utterance of cheerful acquiescence on the part of the smitten, or wounded, or broken spirit. On the contrary, in the midst of dark dispensations, how apt are we to impugn the Almighty’s faithfulness, question the wisdom of His procedure, and set up our wills in opposition to the Divine. Nor are these misgivings confined to the case of personal and domestic afflictions. To take no unfrequent illustration, in which not individual interests, but the welfare of the Church seems involved. Here is an honoured Ambassador of Christ; a faithful witness of the truth, unwearied in his endeavours to awaken the careless, comfort the mourner, soothe the suffering, and befriend the dying.

Though others might be arrested in the midst of health, and laid on couches of languishing, methought that, for the world’s good, and the glory of the Master he serves, a rampart of defence would have been thrown around a life of earnest love, and zeal, and unselfishness. Yet, while other weaklings and “Ready-to-halts” are spared, this standard-bearer, this Asahel, swift of foot and daring in deed — has fallen in the field — just when his courage, and heroism, and example, were most needed, to nerve his comrades and turn the tide of battle. Many decayed and gnarled trunks are left, to occupy their place in the forest, while the strong of stem, and green of leaf, and majestic in shadow, are rooted up. Old crumbling pillars are suffered to remain, while polished shafts, fresh from the quarry, have been struck and shivered with lightning! Where is He who guides with unerring rectitude the destinies of the universe? “Hath God forgotten to be gracious?” “Surely the Lord doth not see, neither doth the God of Jacob regard!”

Or, to take the case which comes most deeply home to the individual heart. Where is the mercy or tenderness in that sudden banishing of life’s summer dream — that rude demolition of the most cherished vision of earthly bliss? I was taught to imagine that His dealings to His own were those of a Father, not retributive or judicial, but paternal; that I could see no hand, and hear no lullaby but love. Why has the promised parental solicitude been superseded by the harsh voice and the rebuking rod? Why has the All-loving belied His own saying, “As one whom his mother comforteth “?” Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; Thy name is from everlasting Where is

Thy zeal and Thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of Thy mercies toward me? Are they restrained?” (Isa. lxiii. 15, 16).

What is the answer to these and suchlike unworthy surmisings? “Be still, and know that I am God.” To the eye of sense, however baffling and mysterious be the ways of the Supreme, it is not for us to judge, and surmise, and conjecture, but to believe; not to question, but, like Job, to kneel and to adore. If we allowed our own short-sighted wisdom to sit in judgment on the Divine procedure, each one of us would at times be tempted to turn away in sullen discontent from many a providential message.

The disciples on their way to Emmaus were cherishing such a spirit. With their back to their Lord’s cross, and their faces bent on the ground, they muttered in despair, “We trusted it had been He that should have redeemed Israel.” Little did they dream, amid these pensive musings and carnal reasonings, that the Messiah of their nation and of the world was walking by their side!

Martha and Mary were cherishing such a spirit, when they rushed to the uplands of Bethany and gazed with wistful eye across to the Moab mountains, “as to a world beyond the grave,” for a tarrying Lord. If their inmost souls had been disclosed — if we could have listened to their words, we should have heard them thus pouring out their disconsolate soliloquy — ‘We thought He would not so have lingered; that His omniscient eye and omnipotent love would have discerned and pitied our tempest-tossed barque in its sea of sorrows. It is unlike His kind heart thus to mock our grief. It is unlike His righteous wisdom thus to single out His and our loved brother for a premature grave. We had felt fondly convinced that darkened and desolate as other homes in Judea might be, the last light He would have extinguished would be that in the Bethany dwelling — the last star expunged from the firmament one so bright with promise!’ Nay, hush, unbelieving one: “Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?”

Oh, for an unquestioning faith! We often reason, and conjecture, and ‘think,’ when, in the circumstances, it is aUke our duty and our privilege to listen simply to the voice of Jehovah; not venturing to arraign the faithfulness and love even of dispensations the most inscrutable; but rather, in reverent submission to say, amid crossed wills and frowning providences — “I will hear what God the Lord will speak, He will speak peace to His people and to His saints.”

“I think if thou couldst know,
Oh soul, that will complain
What lies concealed below
Our burden and our pain.

“I think if thou couldst see

With thy dim mortal sight,
How meanings dark to thee
Are shadows hiding light.

“Truth’s efforts crossed and vexed,
Life’s purpose all perplexed, — If thou couldst see them right,
I think that they would seem all clear, and wise, and bright. “”

“Well may Thy happy children cease
From restless wishes prone to sin,
And, in Thy own exceeding peace.
Yield to Thy daily discipline.

“We need as much the cross we bear
As air we breathe — as light we see,
It draws us to Thy side in prayer,
It binds us to our strength in Thee.”

“and they that know thy name will put their trust

IN thee.”