The Glory in the Gloom

‘We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth ina dark place.” — 2 Prr i. 19.

HERE is nothing which predicts greatness

so strongly as a light shining in a dark place. If you saw a youth who had been bred in poverty, who had lived in squalor, who was surrounded with the meanest companions and environed by the most ignoble associations, and who yet in every feature and movement betrayed an aristocratic air, what would you conclude? That his ancestors had seen better days, that he was born to better things, that he would probably rise to better circumstances, You would conclude this by reason of the present darkness. You would see nothing in the present to account for these flashes.

If he had been surrounded by culture, the flashes would prove nothing as to his origin; education would explain them. But when these have come forth out of darkness, when there is nothing around to elicit them, when they are in manifest contrast to their environment, you know assuredly that they are the proof of a lofty birth. Now, this is exactly the state of the human soul. The light within the soul comes from its darkest place. What is the darkest place of the soul? It is sin. That is the ignoble corner, the gloomy chamber, the unhallowed room. Yet it is in this room that the prophetic glory shines. As it shone out on Bethlehem’s midnight, so shines it on the midnight of the spirit. It is from my sense of sin that my sense of greatness comes. Where do I get my sense of sin? It cannot be from sin itself. Can darkness see darkness! Can impurity read impurity! Can the dead speak to the dead! If the prodigal can detect his own rags in a world where all are prodigals, surely he must have in him the heredity of another world! Surely he must have somewhere gazed on a seam-~ less robe and a spotless vesture! Surely he must have been born to wear the garment of Christ’s righteousness and to be clothed in the livery of the MHouse of

God!

O Lord, I thank Thee that Thou hast made my weak spot the revealer of my strength. I thank Thee that in my darkest place I have learned the secret of my greatness. My hour of sorest pain, my hour of deepest humiliation, has been the hour which has whispered the tidings of my birth. There is a part of my house in ruins — the moral part; but it is through these broken walls I hear the music. How do I know that Thou hast an interest in my soul? Is it from the unhurt powers of my nature? No. Imagination could not tell me; it shows me such a vast world that I cry, “What is man!” Reason could not tell me; it cannot reach beyond the steps of its own ladder. The sense of beauty could not tell me; that has no voice for natures not sublime. But the wounded conscience tells me. None but Jacob’s angel could inflict that wound — no hand but Thine, O Lord. My remorse is Thy remembrance of me; my pain is Thy pity for me; my groaning is Thy grief for me. Thou art never so near to me as in my moral storm. Could I hear that storm if Thy feet were not on the sea! Nay, my Christ, it is Thou that wakest my tempest; it is Thou that stirrest my soul; it is Thou that breakest my peace of death. My cloud is Thy shadow. The wind upon my sea has been wafted by Thy wings; it is Thy Spirit that moves on the face of my waters. I have seen the surrounding darkness because Thou hast said, “Let there be light!”