David in a Fog, and How He Got Out

The Experience Book.

EXPERIENCE is the best teacher, and charges the biggest fees. We really know only what we experience, what we go through, and what goes through us. The rest we only know about. And there’s a world of difference.

The next best thing to having an outstanding experience, is to listen to some one else tell of the experience he has been through.

There is a peculiar fascination in hearing some one tell, rather fully, the difficult or dangerous or thrilling experience he has been through. We’re caught by the story, as the story teller lives it all over again for our hearing.

Here is a big part of the peculiar attraction this old Book of God has. It is distinctively full of human experienees of all sorts.

Indeed this singular Book is like the Man, the singular’ God-Man. No draughtsman’s pencil has ever yet drawn the line between the God part of Jesus and the human part.

And so with the Book. And the wealth of human experience in its pages tells much of the pull it has had, and has, upon the human imagination and heart.

Now, we want to turn to one of the intense human experiences pictured in the Book, in vivid rich colours.

It’s a story of David, great, human David. It is a story of David’s prayer life. And who could pour out his heart, all the emotions of it, in prayer, as David could, and did.

It’s a story of this David, in a fog, in his prayer life. And that does indeed seem strange. Yet when we think of just one fog, in the life of a man whose prayers climb the mountain ranges, with their rare clear atmosphere and far view, that one becomes a background, throwing all the rest out in boldest relief, the relief of sharpest contrast.

Fogs are mean things. Whether the pea-soup fog of London, or its black fog, or the soft gray clinging fog of the Scottish moors and highlands, or of the Newfoundland Banks, with their mystery and uncertainty and possible danger hidden.

It is such a relief when they clear, or you ride out of them. What a comfort to breathe freely in the clear again where you can see ahead where you are going.

Everybody gets into a fog sometime. The thing to watch is that the fog doesn’t get into you, blurring your vision, and choking your breathing, and maybe stinging your nostrils as they take in the befogged air.

Fogs in prayer, fogs in faith, fogs in friendship, fogs in the road of conduct, fogs in the upper spirit air! Ugh!

How disturbing and distressing when they do blow in! What a relief when they go! How one does welcome the brisk bracing air from the mountains that blows them clear away.

This fog of David’s was really a black fog. It seemed quite impossible to grope along. It quite took his breath, and sent him stumbling choking along in the dark, Then it lifted. It lifted!

The story is told in the Psalms. How grateful one must be for David’s pen. How it warms one’s heart that he used it so freely. He dipped it into his heart’s blood, and wrote in colours of living hue, the varying experiences he went through.

And he did go through a lot of them. And they varied from blackest midnight of the sun’s hiding, to the sweet fresh dawning of a new day, and the glory of the new flood-tide of blazing glory-light.

The shepherd lad out with his sheep, the fugi- - five hunted like a wild hare, the penitent sobbing his contrition out of an utterly broken spirit, the exile fleeing from his handsome wayward spoiled son, the king singing the nuptial wedding song, the prophet seeing clearly the glory of a coming King and day, what a picture gallery these psalms are of human emotion!

The Fog Psalm.

But now to the fog psalm, with the harp hung on the drooping willows, by the sobbing waters. And then, and then, that same harp drumming the most joyous strains. Its concerting harmonies set all the air currents a-thrill with their wondrous symphonies.

It is the psalm marked off in our English Bible as the Seventy-seventh. It is most significant that the last bit of the psalm is put first. The end is at the beginning.

There’s a look from the mountain peak before you clamber down into the fog-bewildering valley. The music begins with a joyous chorale before the minor dirges pull so on your heart, and take you into the depths.

There’s fine diplomacy in this. David is saying in effect: the valley did go down, down low, but there was a mountain on the other side. I climbed up. I didn’t stay down.

The dark gets so dark that you might be tempted not to go clear through with him to the bright shining.

So David says, ‘‘I’m taking you down where I slipped, but, hold steady, hold steady, the road leads up, up again, up to the heights.’’ So we know when we start down that we’ll be ending up up.

Look now at the conclusion this man has reached when he has gotten out of his fog experience in prayer. And the Revisions are more accurate here.

Listen:

‘* T will ery unto God with my voice,
Even unto God with my voice;
And he will give ear unto me.’’

How much does that really mean? Note carefully that its meaning depends entirely on who is saying it. If it is some easy-going, comfortably-circumstanced man, who knows nothing much of the stiff battle of life, and is perfunctorily reciting the creed of his church, at the Sabbath morning service, if so, it really is meaningless. It means nothing, nothing at all. It is proper words mechanically repeated. There is no breath of life in it.

But, but, if it is a man who had had full faith in God, of a real sort, as a fixed habit, and then he lost his faith, lost it completely;

There’s a dead blank wall right across. And then he comes out into the open again, with faith in full fresh action, if so, ah! then the thing is different.

There’s no perfunctory reciting of mere words now. The man is singing the words. He’s singing them in a riotously joyous shout. The music is pitched in the major key, the stops of the grand organ are out, and the crescendo swell in full tone, — ‘‘I will cry out aloud unto God — and he will give ear unto me.’’

Then he goes back and tells about that blackfog experience. Over a third of this psalm is devoted to telling that disheartening story.

Listen: ‘‘In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord.’’ Some trouble had come. And he had prayed.

Everybody does that. Emergency will pull anybody to his knees. Emergency praying is very common, in America. If there were more habitual praying there would be less emergency praying; less need; fewer emergencies.

‘*My hand was stretched out in the night, and slacked not.... Thou holdest mine eyes watching (or waking).’’ It was night time. He had gone to bed. He was tired in body and spirit. But he couldn’t fall asleep.

There he lies, turning and tossing in feverish unrest. He can’t find the cool side of the pillow, nor the soft spot in the bed. ‘‘My soul refused to be comforted.’

Bits of comforting truth came into his mind, suggested probably by the Holy Spirit, but he turned a deaf ear to them. He set himself even against the truth he knew.

“‘T remember God and am’’ — at rest? That’s the way it should read. When things are as they should be remembering God brings fresh peace, a new touch of inner quiet.

No, he doesn’t say that. Things have gotten into pretty bad shape with him. He says, ‘‘I remember God, and am disquieted.’’

Pretty bad that. ‘‘I complain (evidently) and my spirit is overwhelmed.’’ He is clean swamped. The fog is getting thick and black. It bothers his breathing seriously.

“‘T am so troubled that I cannot speak.’’ Yet he seems to have rather remarkable freedom of utterance. It is striking how despondency loosens the tongue; depression runs clean away with thoughtful sensible talking things over.

And there he is, in bed; it’s night time; the lights all out; it is dark everywhere in the room, and in his spirit.

He is turning restlessly, this way and that, and talking, criticizing, uncontrolled talking. The tongue runs loose. The safety valve is unscrewed. Things look pretty bad, certainly pretty bad for faith. It seems to have no chance at all.

Then he takes to reviewing things. With the calmness of desperation, the yellow tinge of deep depression, he goes over the situation all afresh.

Listen to him. ‘‘I have considered the days of old.’’ It wasn’t always like this. ‘‘I call to remembrance my song in the night.”’

He used to sing when sleep didn’t come. What fine psychology, in its physiological influence. ‘‘I commune with my own heart; and my spirit maketh diligent search.’

And here is what he is saying in his heart communings, and his diligent inner search, — *“Will the Lord cast off forever? ’’

He is casting me off, actually, throwing me off to one side. Will it be forever?

‘* Will he be favourable no more?’’? He used to favour me. But that’s gone, ‘Will it ever return? Never return?

‘*Tg his mercy clean gone forever?’’ It’s gone. It’s clean gone. He’s failed me. Is it a complete going? No bits left; and for always? No possible return?

Then he piles the words up, in a way common in the deep fog of depression. How the sentences do clamber over each other!

*“Doth his promise fail??? Actually failing to keep his promised word to me. Is it ‘‘forever more’’? Or, will God possibly relent?

‘**Has God forgotten 2”? Ah! yes, he’s a very busy God, looking after the whole universe of things. I’ve slipped out of his memory. So many things crowding in; they have pushed me out.

“In anger’’ — *‘shut up — his tender mercies?’’ He’s angry with me. He shut me out.

Notice keenly the underneath, unworded strain: J am all right; nothing wrong with me. It’s God; it’s God’s fault. Criticizing God!

Did you ever know any one like that? Night time; in bed; all tired out in body; but sleep won’t come; more tired out and fagged in spirit; and then take to criticizing God, and, by direct inference, pretty well content with one’s self? Did you ever know anybody like that?

The Pog Lifts.

Then there’s a pause, a break. The word

“Selah”? is put in. Just what that word means our Hebrew scholars are a bit puzzled over. It may mean this, or this, or maybe this other thing. The thing they seem to come nearest to agreeing about is, that it is a music word. It is put in to guide the musicians. They think it may mean that there’s a change in the music, a shift to another music key.

Certain it is that at this point the music changes. And it’s a decided, a radical change. From a dripping sobbing dirge it makes a sharp turn, and becomes a wondrously joyous major, with the swells pressed, and the crescendo stops out all the way.

A bit of free translation, or paraphrase, is necessary here to make that next sentence say, in English, what David is really saying in his mother tongue. This need is indicated by the marginal reading in the revision.

In very blunt English, in effect, David says ‘¢What a fool I am! How weak! This is a grievous infirmity on my part.”’

Ah! his whole point of view has swung clear to the other side of the compass. He had been quite satisfied that he was right. It was God who was wrong; not he.

Now, the needle of the compass suddenly, violently, swings clear to the opposite side. God is right; of course; God is always right. I, I have been wrong, clean clear wrong.

His eyes have changed direction; they had been turned in; now they are turned up, to God. And, and, now, so turned, he sees 2m clearly, accurately. Very striking that when he looks up and sees God, he begins to see within himself, as things really are.

The next sentence is really an exclamation. ‘“‘That the right hand of the most High doth change!’’ How absurd! How utterly ridiculous! God — change! Unthinkable! This is what David is saying here.

His whole point of view is radically reversed from this on. Now, he is looking up at God. He is thinking about God.

God is the one unchanging, unchangeable, quantity in all life, if I may put it in such words, with utmost reverence.

Everything else changes. Everybody else changes. There is never any shadow cast by God’s turning, so much as a thin hair, from his purpose, his love.

This tenth verse is the ‘‘Selah’’ of the psalm. The music changes. The doleful dirge changes abruptly to a Hallelujah Chorus. The contrast could not be sharper.

The fog has lifted. It has clean gone. The sun is shining’ clear. The bracing air of the mountains is in David’s face, and spirit.

This tenth verse is the hinge of a door. The door swings open on the hinge. It’s a door out to a large place. It leads into a symphony concert chamber. Let us follow David in, and listen to the music.

And the music is made by memory. The music score is written on the pages of the past. There is a calling up to mind of what God had done, and what he has been.

For the great swelling undertone throughout is this: God doesn’t change. His love, his power, are unchanged and unchangeable. Hig heart still beats as tenderly as it ever did. His power is as resistless, in its onsweep against opposition, as it ever has been. This fills the remaining stanzas of the psalm.

Listen a bit: ‘‘I will make mention of the deeds of the Lord; for I will remember thy wonders of old.’’ For, what he has done, he still does, and he will do. He doesn’t change.

Chewing the Cud.

“*T will meditate also upon all thou hast done, and muse upon thy doings.’’ Those two words *‘meditate’’ and ‘‘muse”’ are really interchangeable words, with the same practical meaning.

There’s another word which is very close akin.

That is the word ruminate, which means to chew the cud. In effect, though not literally, this is the sort of word used here.

Chew the cud! What an expressive picturesque word. The cow is called a ruminant because she chews the cud. She will lie quietly for hours, in the field, tirelessly chewing the cud of the food she has been eating.

So all the rich nutriment in the food is extracted and is absorbed. And so we get rich milk and cream and butter and other milk products, and fine meat foods, through that chewing of the cud.

David says here, in effect, I will spend hours chewing the cud of thy wondrous doings. So his very being was fed, with the rarest nourishment of spirit and of faith, through that mental cud-chewing.

There might well be more human ruminants, chewing the cud of God’s Word, and of what he has done.

And as he so chewed the eud of what God has done for his people, David breaks out in an involuntary burst of praise.

Listen: ‘‘Thy way, oh God, is in the sanetuary.’’ Again, a bit of freer translation makes clearer just what he means. ‘‘Thy way, oh God, is in holiness,’’ or better yet, ‘‘Thy way is a whole, a fully-rounded-out, a perfect, way.’’ There are no flaws nor slips in it.

And as that grows upon him, in his quiet deep meditation, he burst out again, ‘‘ Who ts a great god like unto God?’’

And then David takes a big climb up the ladder of faith, an exultant faith. He says, ‘‘Thou art the God that doest wonders.’’

He goes from ‘‘wonders of old’’ to ‘‘doest wonders.’’? What a swing forward! How far is it between those two phrases? Farther than some of us ever get.

There’s all the distance between some one else’s experience in the past, and our own experience to-day. There are a lot of people whose tents are pitched back in verse eleven, ‘‘ wonders of old.’’

And they are choice saintly people, too. They feed upon the record in this blessed old Book, of what God has done for his people. And a blessed diet it is, too, with rich nourishment for the life.

But there’s yet better nourishment, if we will take it. Trust God to-day, as he clearly leads. Step out when and where he clearly beckons, even though you can’t see the way through and out.

Move out of verse eleven up into verse fourteen. Change the grammar of your faith into the present tense, ‘‘doest wonders.’’

“‘Thy wonders of old;’’ that’s back a long way. It’s over in the near Orient, the Red Sea deliverance, water from the flinty rock, the Jordan turning back for dry-shod going into the land of promise.

That’s a blessed place to pitch your tent, and pause quietly, and chew the eud, till the blood of your faith is fed and enriched.

*““A God that doest wonders.’’ Ah! that’s to-day. Some of us might readjust our calendars. Keep the calendar of the past hanging out on the wall in plain sight.

Then hang up a new calendar, the calendar of the present, of trusting God’s clear leading to-day, even though we can’t see how things will come out.

Use the past to stir the present. Let the present be fresh proof of the past. He is the same God whether then or now, whether Egypt or the Levant, or the street and town where you live.

The thing to be clear about is the Holy Spirit’s clear gracious leading. There’s to be no jumping off the pinnacle of the temple at some sudden impulse or suggestion.

There is no one so sane as one led and swayed by the Holy Spirit. He is such a sane sensible Holy Spirit. Be clear of his leading.

But, one can live in the present. Faith can be as fresh as the dew of the new morning after a still clear night. Let the past prod the present.

This is just what David does here. He stirs up his newly-recovered faith by recalling what God did do long before.

Listen again: ‘‘Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people.’? He’s back in Egypt now, back at the Red Sea, back at the Holy Mount, back to the Jordan crossing.

For the greatest event in Israel’s history was the deliverance that began at the Red Sea and came up to its full climax in the Canaan victories.

The high-water mark of God’s power in the Old Testament is the Red Sea deliverance. The high-water mark of God’s power in the New Testament is the resurrection of Jesus. The two are akin. They are both resurrections, a coming up out of death into life. ae

Any one of us may expect to experience power up to this high-water mark, at least, as the need may be, and as the Holy Spirit may see wise to lead us.

Sleep as a Confession of Faith.

And the remainder of the psalm is taken up in a vivid description of the great deliverance out of Egypt, through the Wilderness, and then on into the new home-land of Canaan and victory.’

And this ig the last word, a tender personal word:

“‘Thou leddest thy people like (a shepherd leads) a flock,

By the hand of Moses and Aaron.’

The oriental shepherd ghares his life with the Sheep. He eats with them, sleeps with them, carefully anoints their wounds with healing oil, fights their enemies, risks his life for them if need be.

That’s what God is like, this old-time shepherd psalm-writer says. And he said it out of his experience with sheep, and with God. He says it out of his inmost heart.

And now David ties the knot on the end to hold the seam in place. He putg the last word

* Verses 15 to end of psalm, with Exodus 14:21 and on; and Judges 5:4-5, and Psalm 18:13-15.

in. It is the word he so carefully put in at the first.

So now the end, put in at the beginning, slips into its place, at the close of the story. Out of the fog of the low-lying swamps of doubt, and dank darkness, rings out the clear closing note: **T will cry unto God with my voice.

*¢Hven unto God (and no other one) with my (living) voice (ringing out clear and sure); and he will give (an attentive eager) ear unto me.’’

And now, that man lying there in the dark, a bit ago, tossing restlessly, he’s found the soft spot in the bed; he’s found the cool side of the pillow. He’s off in a quiet, deep, refreshing sleep.

Sometimes sleep is a confession of faith. Some people ought to wake up. They are quite too skilled in sleeping, on their feet, with their eyes open.

But some people ought to sleep, and sleep more, and sleep quietly. Sleep may be a very real expression of confidence in God, regarding the outcome of some personal ticklish situation.

When this same David was fleeing for his life, in his old age, from Absalom his son, that first night out, he slept.

Listen to him telling about it afterwards: ‘‘T laid me down and slept; I awaked (refreshed); for the Lord sustaineth me.’’*

So here, you listen to David’s quiet deep breathing in sleep. The very rhythm of the breathing in sleep tells out the story of the rest of faith.

1Psalm 3:5.

So the fog lifted. The air cleared. David’s out of the swamps now, with their mean foggy poisonous vapours. He’s up on the mountain tops, with the bracing air, and the far view, with the peace in his heart, and a song on his lips. Let us join him up there, and help swell the chorus.

“‘Lest We Forget.’’

And it was memory that took him by the hand, and led him gently up the hill, out of the foggy lowlands, up the heights. He remembered past difficulties and deliverances. But memory is treacherous sometimes, with some of us. We forget, easily, sometimes.

Does this explain that refrain, running through those Deuteronomy talks of Moses in the Plains of Moab, ‘‘Lest thou forget;’’ ‘‘lest thou forget.”’

What music that refrain makes in the Jubilee Recessional Hymn of England’s non-titular poet laureate, ‘‘lest we forget.’’

And there is a rare touch of humannegs in that word of David’s ‘‘and forget not all his benefits.’’* We can’t remember them all. But we are told here to be careful not to forget them all. That leads straight down into the fogs, and the murky swamps.

Before the World War, Waterloo has stood out in our thinking as one of the greatest of the many great battlefields.

No bit of the earth’s surface had been more

+Psalm 103 :2. plowed up by shot and shell, nor more soaked and drenched and consecrated by precious human blood.

And, likewise, no bit of the earth sees such a great profusion of sweet forget-me-nots every springtime. They delight the eye with their rare beauty of blue.

This is the friendship flower of the western hemisphere. In almost every language of Europe it bears a name, the same in meaning as our own English forget-me-not. It is peculiarly memory’s flower.

It is as though the countless hosts of brave men who there, at Waterloo, gave up their lives for liberty, are speaking: ‘‘ Forget-me-not’’ they say, ‘‘Remember me.’’ The very earth’s soil sends out their plea, every new springtime, for remembrance.

It is with a hush of tender awe that one remembers that we Christ people have a memory plea, an outstanding, hallowed, hallowing, plea. It, too, comes to us in the plea of blood, blood shed, freely, voluntarily.

Out from that last night, that first observance of a memory meal, come the words: ‘‘This do in remembrance of me.’’

Out from Calvary it comes, and from Joseph’s Tomb, and from the Ascension Cloud, and, too, out from that Throne. Above the storm, in the crystal clear, rings out the word: Remember; *“do this in remembrance — of me — till I come.”’

Memory takes us back to Calvary, and up to the Throne, and points forward to the coming day of victory on the earth.

Let memory plant flowers in the garden of our hearts to-day. Their sweet true blue will hold us steady, till the day dawn, and the shadows flee away.

I love to tell the incident that occurred, late one afternoon, years ago, on the Scotch ridge running out of Pittsburgh into Ohio.

A lady came up at the close of a service, and abruptly asked, ‘Does God answer prayer?”? And the expression of pain in her mature thoughtful face told from what depths the question came up.

I didn’t say ‘‘Yes.’? That seemed quite too tame with those pain-haunted eyes looking into mine. I simply said, ‘‘Sit down a moment. Has he ever answered a prayer for you, once?”’

And a quick startled look came into her eyes. And in a softened voice, half to herself, she said, “Oh! I forgot.?? Then, under my questioning, she told the story that memory brought up.

Years before her daughter, then a young child, had been seriously ill. The physician had said it would be necessary to use the knife. Her mother instinct recoiled. The surgical knife was not used so freely then as since.

She asked if she might have time to think about such a serious matter. And the physician assured her that a brief delay would not be serious.

That night late she had knelt at her bedside, and made special prayer for her daughter. She did not pray for healing. She had not been taught about that. It did not come into her thought. It was simply an intense cry for help.

The morning came. The physician made his examination. A startled look came into his thoughtful face, as he said quietly:

“This is strange. I don’t understand. There’s a distinct change in your daughter’s condition. I can’t quite make out how it can be. But I’ll not need to use the knife. She will get well without it.’? And she did.

And the sweet gentle stirrings of memory brought the answer to that tense question, out of her own intimate experience. Let us say with David, ‘‘Z will remember.’’ It will clear many a fog.

That rare man of God, George Mueller, whose Bristol orphanages put faith into enduring brick and mortar, tells of a simple experience he had one time with a fog.

He was approaching Canada, by the St. Lawrence route. The fogs, so frequent on the Newfoundland banks and thereabouts, slowed up the ship’s speed. There was danger of getting in too late for a certain speaking appointment Mr. Mueller had, I think, in Montreal.

In his concern, Mr. Mueller spoke to the captain of the ship about his appointment, and the need of the ship’s getting in on time.

The captain doubted if it were possible to make port on schedule. In his quiet way Mr. Mueller said he had been praying for the fog to lift, so his appointment might be kept.

The captain was quite incredulous about such a use of prayer. He exclaimed, ‘‘Do you know what a dense fog this is?”’

And Mr. Mueller quietly said, in his gentle measured tones, ‘‘Do you know what a great God we have?’’ And the fog did lift. And the boat docked on time, and the appointment was kept.

Prayer can clear fogs, both kinds. And simple faith in God prompts simple clear Spirit-suggested prayer. And memory stimulates faith. Let us ‘‘forget not’’ — our wondrous God.

Watch the Man in Command.

J a

May I tell a very quaint, homely story? It is a story out of real life, so it has a tang to it, the tang of reality.

A friend was waiting at the curb at New York City’s busiest traffic corner, or one of them, Broadway and Forty-second Street. That is one of the most congested corners to be found anywhere.

The exception would be the Bank corner, in the City, in London, which probably knows the thickest congestion to be found in any city in the world.

As the friend waited for the crossing to be cleared by the traffic officer, a cat came to the curb. It was a mother cat holding her baby kitten in her mouth, by the scuff of the neck, eat style.

The cat evidently wanted to cross the street. But the crossing was crowded thick with the traffic, taxis, trucks, trolleys, and other vehicles.

The cat made a start and then drew back. It was too dangerous. <A second start was made, and again the retreat to the curb, and a third attempt and retreat.

Then the traffic officer saw the cat. How do you suppose his eye lighted on that cat in that confused maze? Well, he did see the cat. He was probably an Irishman, with a heart as warm as his body was big.

At once he put up his hand for the traffic to clear. And the traffic officer’s hands are not a request, not exactly. Any one who drives an automobile knows that. All the authority of the city government is back of the uplifted hand of the traffic officer,

He lifted up his hands, and signalled for the traffic to clear, at the intersection of the streets, both ways. He didn’t know which way that cat wanted to go.

The cat watched alertly. What was this? Some new danger? The crossing suddenly so cleared? Looking quickly this way and that, the cat darted across, and gained the other curb in - safety with her baby. Then the officer’s hands signalled again, and traffic was resumed. And the cat never knew how it happened.

The moral traffic is pretty badly congested these days. It’s difficult going. And the moral fogs have made the streets and roads very slippery. Skidding is very common, moral skidding, by those a-wheel, and slipping by those a-foot. Many a man cautiously waits at the curb, studying the chances for getting across in safety.

With the utmost reverence, may I say, there’s a Traffic Officer, in the thick of it all, keeping careful watch. His hands go up many a time on behalf of some threatened, troubled pedestrian.

And they are pierced hands. They are hands of power, resistless power. And they are obeyed, absolutely, in the unseen spirit world, even by. those who hate him. They must be obeyed. They are.

Many a time the crossing, in the thick of thickest traffic, has suddenly, quietly, cleared. Those pierced hands were in action in the spirit atmosphere. And we have gotten safely through, and gone on our way, breathing more freely, singing a bit.

Have we sometimes been like the cat, quite unconscious of the Traffic Officer?

Jesus, Lord Jesus, thou hast been down here. Thou knowest about the fogs, the blinding bewildering fogs, the Nazareth fogs, the Wilderness fogs, the Gethsemane fog; Aye, the terrific Calvary fog, and the close-hugging Joseph’stomb black fog.

But thou dost know, too, the bracing mountain air; the bracing air of the Transfiguration Mount, and the Father’s reassuring voice, and the Third Morning After, yes, and the Ascension glory-cloud, and the Throne up above the storm in the crystal clear.

Help us keep our eye on thee, as we stand down here, on the curb, in the thick of traffic, in the blinding blurring fog, till we see thee face to face, yonder, or — here, with all clear.

In thy Name, the one Name, Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.