No Rest Here
“Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest.” — Micah ii., 10.
HIS was the drum-beat of a prophet who wanted to
arouse his people from their oppressed and sinful condition; but it may just as properly be uttered now as then. Bells, by long exposure and much ringing, lose their clearness of tone; but this rousing bell of the Gospel strikes in as clear a tone as when it first rang on the
air.
As far as I can see, your great want and mine is rest. From the time we enter life, a great many vexations and annoyances take after us. We may have our holidays, and our seasons of recreation and quiet, but where is the man in this house, come to seventy years of age, who has found entire rest? The fa.ct is that God did not make this world to rest in. A ship might as well go down off Cape Hatteras to find smooth water as a man in this world to find quiet. From the way that God has strewn the thorns, and hung the clouds, and sharpened the tusks; from the colds that distress us, and the heats that smite us, and the pleurisies that stab us, and the fe¬ vers that consume us, I know that he did not make this” world as a place to loiter in. God does every thing successfully; and this world would be a very different world if it were intended for us to lounge in. It does right well for a few hours. Indeed, it is magnificent! Nothing but finite wisdom and goodness could have mixed this beverage of water, or hung up these brackets of stars, or trained these voices of rill, and bird, and ocean — so that God has but to lift his hand, and the whole world breaks forth into orchestra. But, after all, it is only the splendors of a king’s highway, over which we are to march on to eternal conquests.
You and I have seen men who tried to rest here. They builded themselves great stores. They gathered around them the patronage of merchant princes. The voice of their bid shook the money-markets. They had stock in the most successful railroads, and in “safety deposits” great rolls of government securities. They had emblazoned carriages, high-mettled steeds, footmen, plate that confounded lords and senators who sat at their table, tapestry on wdiich floated the richest designs of foreign looms, splendor of canvas on the wall, exquisite¬ ness of music rising among pedestals of bronze, and dropping, soft as light, on snow of sculpture. Here let them rest. Put back the embroidered curtain, and shake up the pillow of down. Turn out the lights! It is eleven o’clock at night. Let slumber drop upon the eyelids, and the air float through the half-opened lattice drowsy with midsummer perfume. Stand back, all care, anxiety, and trouble! But no! they will not stand back. They rattle the lattice. They look under the canopy. With rough touch they startle his pulses. They cry out at twelve o’clock at night, “Awake, man! IIow can you sleep when things are so uncertain? What about those stocks? Hark to the tap of that fire-bell: it is your district! How if you should die soon? Awake, man! Think of it! Who will get your property when you are gone? What will they do with it? Wake up!
Riches sometimes take wings. How if you should get poor? Wake up!” Rising on one elbow, the man of fortune looks out into the darkness of the room, and wipes the dampness from his forehead, and says, “Alas! For all this scene of wealth and magnificence — no rest!”
I passed down a street of a city with a merchant. He knew all the finest houses on the street. He said, “There is something the matter in all these houses. In that one it is conjugal infelicity. In that one, a dissipated son. In that, a dissolute father. In that, an idiot child. In that, the prospect of bankruptcy.” This world’s wealth can give no permanent satisfaction. This is not your rest.
You and I have seen men try in another direction. A man says, “If I could only rise to such and such a place of renown; if I could gain that office; if I could only get the stand, and have my sentiments met with one good round of hand-clapping applause; if I could only write a book that would live, or make a speech that would thrill, or do an action that would resound!” The tide turns in his favor. His name is on ten thousand lips. He is bowed to, and sought after, and advanced. Men drink his health at great dinners. At his fiery words the multitudes huzza! From galleries of beauty they throw garlands. From house-tops, as he passes in long procession, they shake out the national standards. Here let him rest. It is eleven o’clock at night. On pillow stuffed with a nation’s praise let him lie down. Hush! all disturbant voices. In his dream let there be hoisted a throne, and across it march a coronation. Hush! Hush!
“Wake up!” says a rough voice. “Political sentiment is changing. How if you should lose this place of honor? Wake up! The morning papers are to be full of denunciation. Hearken to the execrations of those who once caressed you. By to-morrow night there will be multitudes sneering at the words which last night you expected would be universally admired. How can you sleep when every thing depends upon the next turn of the great tragedy? Up, man! Off of this pillow!” The man, with head yet hot from his last oration, starts up suddenly, looks out upon the night, but sees nothing except the flowers that lie on his stand, or the scroll from which he read his speech, or the books from which he quoted his authorities, and goes to his desk to finish his neglected correspondence, or to pen an indignant line to some reporter, or sketch the plan for a public defense against the assaults of the people. Happy when he got his first lawyer’s brief; exultant when he triumphed over his first political’ rival; yet, sitting oil the very top of all that this world offers of praise, he exclaims, “No rest! no rest!”
The very world that now applauds will soon hiss. That world said of the great Webster, “What a states¬ man! What wonderful exposition of the Constitution! A man fit for any position.” That same world said, after a while, “Down with him! He is an office-seeker. He is a sot. He is a libertine. Away with him!” And there is no peace for the man until he lays down his broken heart in the grave at Marshfield. While Charles Mathews was performing in London, before immense audiences, one day a worn-out and gloomy man came into a doctor’s shop, saying, “Doctor, what can you do for me?” The doctor examined his case and said,
“My advice is that you go and see Charles Mathews.” “Alas! alas!” said the man, “I myself am Charles MathewTs.” Jeffrey thought that if he could only be judge, that would be the making of him; got to be judge, and cufsed the day in which he was born. Alexander wanted to submerge the world with his greatness; submerged it, and then drank himself to death because he could not stand the trouble. Burns thought he would give every thing if he could win the favor of courts and princes; won it, and amid the shouts of a great entertainment, when poets, and orators, and duchesses were adoring his genius, wished that he could creep back into the obscurity in which he dwelt on the day when he wrote of the
“Daisy, wee modest, crimson-tipped flower.”
Napoleon wanted to make all Europe tremble at his power; made it tremble, then died, his entire military achievements dwindling down to a pair of military boots which he insisted on having on his feet when dying. At Versailles I saw a picture of Napoleon in his triumphs. I went into another room and saw a bust of Napoleon as he appeared at St. Helena; but oh, wThat grief and anguish in the face of the latter! The first was Napoleon in triumph, the last was Napoleon with his heart broken. How they laughed and cried when silver-tongued Sheridan, in the midday of prosperity, harangued the people of Briton, and how they howled at and execrated him when, outside of the room where his corpse lay, his creditors tried to get his miserable bones and sell them!
This world for rest? “Aha!” cry the waters, “no rest here — we plunge to the sea” “Aha 1” cry the mountains, “no rest here — we crumble to the plain.” “Aha!” cry the towers, “no rest here — we follow Babylon, and Thebes, and Nineveh into the dust.” No rest for the flowers; they fade. No rest for the stars; they die. No rest for man; he must work, toil, suffer, and slave.
Now, for what have I said all this? Just to prepare you for the text: “Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest.” I am going to make you a grand offer. Some of you remember that when gold was discovered in California, large companies were made up and started off to get their fortune. To-day I want to make up a party for the Land of Gold. I hold in my hand a deed from the Proprietor of the estate, in which he offers to all who will join the company ten thousand shares of in¬ finite value, in a city whose streets are gold, whose harps are gold, whose crowns are gold. You have read of the Crusaders — how that many thousands of them went off to conquer the Holy Sepulchre. I ask you to join a grander crusade — not for the purpose of conquering the sepulchre of a dead Christ, but for the purpose of reach¬ ing the throne of a living Jesus. When an army is to be made up, the recruiting officer examines the volunteers; he tests their eyesight; he sounds their lungs; he measures their stature; they must be just right, or they are rejected. But there shall be no partiality in making up this army of Christ. Whatever your moral or physical stature, whatever your dissipations, whatever your crimes, whatever your weaknesses, I have a commission from the Lord Almighty to make up this regiment of redeemed souls, and I cry, “Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest.” Many of you have lately joined this company, and my desire is that you may all join it. Why not? You know in your own hearts’ experience
NO BEST HEBE.
that what I have said about this world is true — that it is no place to rest in. There are hundreds here weary — oh, how weary — weary with sin; weary with trouble; weary with bereavement. Some of you have been pierced through and through. You carry the scars of a thousand conflicts, in which you have bled at every pore; and you sigh, “Oh that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly away and be at rest!” You have taken the cup of this world’s pleasure and drunk it to the dregs, and still the thirst claws at your tongue, and the fever strikes to your brain. You lrave chased Pleasure through every valley, by every stream, amid every brightness, and under every shadow; but just at the moment when you were all ready to put your hand upon the rosy, laughing sylph of the wood, she turned upon you with the glare of a fiend and the eye of a satyr, her locks adders, and her breath the chill damp of a grave. Out of Jesus Christ no rest. No voice to silence the storm. No light to kindle the darkness. No dry dock to repair the split bulwark.
Thank God, I can tell you something better. If there is no rest on earth, there is rest in heaven. Oh ye who are worn out with work, your hands calloused, your backs bent, your eyes half put out, your fingers wTorn with the needle that in this world you may never lay down; ye discouraged ones, who have been waging a hand-to-hand fight for bread; ye to whom the night brings little rest and the morning more drudgery — oh ye of the weary hand, and the weary side, and the weary foot, hear me talk about rest!
Look at that company of enthroned ones. Look at their hands; look at their feet; look at their eyes. It can not be that those bright ones ever toiled? Yes! yes! These packed the Chinese tea-boxes, and through missionary instruction escaped into glory. These sweltered on Southern plantations, and one night, after the cotton¬ picking, went up as white as if they had never been black. Those died of overtoil in the Lowell carpet factories, and these in Manchester mills; those helped build the Pyramids, and these broke away from work on the day Christ was hounded out of Jerusalem. No more towers to build; heaven is done. No more garments to weave; the robes are finished. No more harvests to’ raise; the garners are full. Oh sons and daughters of toil! arise ye and depart, for that is your rest.
Scovill M‘Callum, a boy of my Sunday-school, while dying, said to his mother, “Don’t cry, but sing, sing,
“‘ There is rest for the weary,
There is rest for the weary.’”
Then, putting his wasted hands over his heart, said, “There is rest for me.”
But there are some of you who want to hear about the land where they never have any heartbreaks, and no graves are dug. Where is your father and mother? The most of you are orphans. I look around, and where I see one man who has parents living, I see ten who are orphans. Where are your children? Where I see one family circle that is unbroken, I see three or four that have been desolated. One lamb gone out of this fold; one flower plucked from that garland; one golden link broken from that chain; here a bright light put out, and there another, and yonder another. With such griefs, how are you to rest? Will there ever be a power that can attune that silent voice, or kindle the lustre of that
closed eye, or put spring and dance into that little foot? When we bank up the dust over the dead, is the sod never to be broken? Is the cemetely to hear no sound but the tire of the hearse-wheel, or the tap of the bell at the gate as the long processions come in with their awful burdens of grief? Is the bottom of the grave gravel, and the top dust? Ho! no! no! The tomb is only a place where we wrap our robes about us for a pleasant nap on our way home. The swellings of Jordan will only wash off the dust of the way. From the top of the ‘grave we catch a glimpse of the towers glinted with the sun that never sets.
Oh ye whose locks are wet with the dews of the night of grief; ye whose hearts are heavy, because those well-known footsteps -sound no more at the doorway, yonder is your rest! There is David triumphant; but once he bemoaned Absalom. There is Abraham enthroned; but once he wept for Sarah. There is Paul exultant; but he once sat with his feet in the stocks. There is Payson radiant with immortal health; but on earth he was always sick. Ho toil, no tears, no partings, no strife, no agonizing cough, no night. Ho storm to ruffle the crystal sea. Ho alarm to strike from the cathedral towers. Ho dirge throbbing from seraphic harps. Ho tremor in the everlasting song; but rest — perfect rest — unending rest.
Into that rest how many of our loved ones have gone! The past summer has been one of unusual fatality. Factory, railroad, and steam-boat casualties have multiplied. Whole families ‘have perished through the carelessness of officials. The land is in mourning for the dead. Hever in one summer of my ministry have so many, of my congregation been swept off by disease. The little children have been gathered up into the bosom of Christ. One of them went out of the arms of a widowed mother, following its father who died a few weeks before. In its last moment it seemed to see the departed father, for it said, looking upward with brightened countenance, “Papa, take me up!”
Others put down the work of midlife, feeling they could hardly be spared from the store or shop for a day, but are to be spared from it forever. Two of our people went in old age. One came tottering on his staff, and used to sit at the foot of the pulpit, his wrinkled face radiant with the light that falls from the throne of God. Another that was nearer to me than them all: from my own circle she went up. Having lived a life of Christian consistency here, ever busy with kindnesses for her children, her heart full of that meek and quiet spirit that is in the sight of God of great price, suddenly her countenance was transfigured, and the gate was opened, and she took her place amid that great cloud of witnesses that hover about the throne!
Glorious consolation! They are not dead. You can not make me believe they are dead. They have only moved on. With more love than that with which they greeted us on earth, they watch us from their high place, and their voices cheer us in our struggle for the sky. Hail, spirits blessed, now that ye have passed the flood and won the crown! With weary feet we press up the shining way, until in everlasting reunion we shall meet again. Oh! won’t it be grand when, our conflicts done and our partings over, we shall clasp hands, and cry out, “This is Heaven?”
But how if we do not meet our heavenly friends? We can not meet them unless we travel the same path they trod.
There is an old hymn, only a part of which I can think of now:
“Oh! there will be mourning, mourning,
Mourning at the judgment seat of Christ.
Parents and children there will part,
Parents and children there will part,
Will part to meet to no more.
Oh! there will be mourning, mourning,
Mourning at the judgment seat of Christ.
“Brothers and sisters there will part,
Brothers and sisters there will part,
Will part to meet no more.
Oh! there will be mourning, mourning,
Mourning at the judgment seat of Christ.
Wives and husbands there will part,
Wives and husbands there will part,
Will part to meet no more.”
It is sad to say farewell on earth, but how sad to say farewell in the judgment — to gaze eternally up toward the place where our loved ones dwell, but be ourselves thrown out! Oh the bitterness, and the agony, and the heart-break of that last parting! By the thrones of your departed kindred, by their gentle hearts, and the tender¬ ness and love with which they now call you from the skies, I beg you to start on the high-road to heaven.