The Anchor of the Soul and Other Sermons

IN the margin of the ocean that surrounds and laves our island home, an object of absorbing interest may often be observed, — a ship riding at anchor near a lee shore in an angry sea. She has drifted, ere she was aware, too near a rock-bound coast: the wind is blowing direct on shore: there is not room to tack: whether she should point her prow north or south, she will strike a projecting headland ere she can escape from the bay. One resource remains, — to anchor where she is till the wind change.

There she lies. Stand on this height and look down upon her through the drifting spray. I scarcely know in nature a more interesting or more suggestive sight. The ship is dancing on the waves: she appears to be in their power and at their mercy. Wind and water combine to make her their sport. Destruction seems near; for if the vessel’s hull is dashed by these waves upon the rocks of lo THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL.

the coast, it will be broken into a thousand pieces. But you have stood and looked on the scene a while, and the ship still holds her own. Although at first sight she seemed the helpless plaything of the elements, they have not overcome — they have not gained upon her yet. She is no nearer destruction than when you first began to gaze in anticipation of her fate.

The ship seems to have no power to resist the onset of wind and wave. She yields to every blast and every billow. This moment she is tossed aloft on the crest of a wave, and the next she sinks heavily into the hollow. Now her prow goes down beneath an advancing breaker, and she is lost to view in the spray; but anon she emerges, like a sea-fowl shaking the water from her wings and rejoicing in the tumult. As she quivered and nodded giddily at each assault, you thought, when first you arrived in sight, that every moment would prove her last; but now that you have watched the conflict long, it begins to assume in your mind another aspect, and promise another end. These motions of the ship now, instead of appearing the sickly movements of the dying, seem to indicate the calm, confident perseverance of conscious strength and expected victory. Let winds and waves da their worst, that ship will meet them fearless, will hold her head to the blast, and maintain her place in defiance of their power.

What is the secret of that ship’s safety.? No other ship is in sight to which she may cling: no pillar stands within reach to which she may be moored. The bond of her security is a line that is unseen. The ship is at anchor. The line on which she hangs does not depend on the waters, or anything that floats there; it goes through the waters, and fastens on a sure ground beyond ‘them.

Thus, though the ship cannot escape from the wild waters, she is safe on their surface. She cannot, indeed, take the wings of a dove and fly away so as to be at rest; but the sea cannot cover her, and the wind cannot drive her on the beach. She must, indeed, bear a while the tempest’s bufletings; but she is not for a moment abandoned to the tempest’s will. The motto of that ship is the motto once held aloft in triumph by a tempted but heroic soul: “We are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. iv. 8, 9).

An immortal creature on this changeful life is like a ship upon the ocean. On the strength of that obvious analogy the apostle intimates, by a bold yet perspicuous figure, that we have “an anchor of the soul.” The soul, considered as a passenger on the treacherous sea of Time, needs an anchor; and an anchor “sure and steadfast” is provided for the needy soul.

In many respects the world, and human life on it, are like the sea. Itself restless, it cannot permit to rest any of the pilgrims that tread its heaving, shifting surface. At some times, and in some places, great tempests rise; but even in its ordinary condition it is always and everywhere uncertain, deceptive, dangerous. Currents of air and currents of ocean intermingle with and cross each other in endless and unknown complications, bringing even the most skilful mariner to his wit’s end — making him afraid either to stand still or to advance. On this heaving sea we must all lie. Even our Father in heaven does not lift up his own, and Christ the Son does not ask him so to do: “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world; but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” The best that can be done for them, in this world, is to preserve them from sinking or striking on the shore. The soul is tossed by many temptations; but the anchor of the soul is sure and steadfast within the veil. Without are fightings, within are fears, — all these are against us; but one thing will over-balance and overcome them — “Our life is hid with Christ in God.”

Hope sometimes signifies the act of a human spirit laying hold of an unseen object, and sometimes the object unseen whereon the human spirit in its need lays hold. These two significations may be combined together: they are so combined here. “The Hope set before us,” is Christ entered for us now within the veil; and the hope that “we have,” is the exercise of a believing soul when it trusts in the risen Redeemer. These two cannot be separated. The one is the grasp which a believing soul takes of Christ, and the other Is the Christ whom a believing soul is grasping. These two run so close together that you cannot perceive where the joining Is. “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” Even so. Lord; and what human eye can tell the very line which marks where the branch ends and the vine begins? Christians are members of Christ, — of his flesh and of his bones. “■ As he is, so are we in this world.” “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me.-*” “Which Hope we have.” If you ask me, Whether does he mean, by hope, the Christ on whom his soul is leaning, or his own act of leaning on Christ y I answer, Both. You cannot have one of these without having both. The branch has the vine; but it has also its own living growth into the vine. And if it had not that living growth into the vine, it would not have the vine. So the soul has Christ, and also its own living faith in Christ, wanting which it would have no Christ.

Mark well here what it is that renders a disciple safe and firm as he floats on the rushing tide of Time. It is not terror of the Lord in his conscience. Such terror may awaken a slumberer, and make him flee to that which will keep him; but the terror itself cannot keep him. Fear repels; it is hope that holds; — blessed hope!

Keep reading