Breeding in the Night

‘* The pestilence that walketh in darkness.’’ — Psatm xci. 6. THERE are deadly things which find their kingdom in the night. In the day-time they lose their sovereignty, but they recover it again in the darkness. I know there are fatal presences which are conceived in the sunshine, and they flourish and fatten in the prosperous day. There is a “destruction that wasteth at noonday.” In the day’s meridian this peril is at its height. “Tis the bright day that bringeth forth the adder.” There is an arrow that flieth by day, and many a man is slain in the hour when there is no cloud in his sky.

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But when the sun has gone down, and when the warmth of the twilight has faded away, and the night winds and the darkness possess our ways, other deadly perils creep out and assail our souls. And here is one which the psalmist portrays under the figure of a pestilence, ‘“‘ the pestilence that walketh in darkness.” It affects the spirit of man like a deadly atmosphere, like the gas which steals upon the men in the trenches, and the nobler powers of the soul are sunk into a fatal sleep. It bears down upon us when we are down, when the light of our joy has been blown out, and when our radiant hopes have gone out of our sky like meteors which have flashed into darkness. The pestilence claims us when we are depressed.

Sometimes the pestilence takes the form of pessimism, and it seems to make the soul incapable of thinking of the coming day. ‘* The radiant morn has passed away!’’ The golden day is behind us. Life has no longer any hidden uses or glory. All that is left of the harvest is the thrashed and empty straw. All of which means that this sort of pestilence puts all the forward-looking powers of the soul to sleep — its faith, its 162 Breeding in the Night

hope, the imagination which carries divine visions, its power of prayer, its patience, its perseverance. They all fall asleep under the nefarious influence of this ‘‘ pestilence which walketh in darkness.”

And sometimes the pestilence takes the form of cynicism. While pessimism throws a cloud over everything, cynicism turns everything sour. And it begins with “the milk of human kindness.” The genial instincts of the soul are embittered. Its gracious sympathies grow harsh, and are like fine apple trees which have retrograded to the crab. Life loses its sweetness, its noble healthiness, its soundness of temper and of spirit.

How are we to escape these pestilences which steal about in the night? The psalmist gives us the secret. We are to “dwell in the secret place of the Most High.’”’” When we dwell in the shadow of the Almighty our changing circumstances do not affect our spiritual atmosphere. Indeed, we take our climate with us, which is the climate of heaven, and midnight is just as healthy as morning, for it is sweet with the incensebreathing Presence of the eternal God.