The Thing God Will Not Let Die
“I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou breakest.” — Dedt. x. 2.
How very parsimonious is this promise! — such is the thought which first suggests itself. “I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables “; one is apt to cry, Is that all! The first tables had been broken; it was a lost revelation. We should have thought it would have been replaced, not by a mere repetition, but by something higher. Even if the same song be sung twice by one singer, the second should be better than the first through increased confidence. But why should God be limited to one song! Is not His voice as the sound of many waters! Why should He speak the old things, repeat the old words, reveal the old scenes in the kaleidoscope! Why not press on to a revelation of the future! Why not open the windows of heaven and let us see through! Why keep us in the sphere of prosaic precepts which belong to a child’s prayer-book! — “Love God!” “Love man!” “Love parents!”
“Love neighbours! “’ Love justice, and gentleness, and truth, and purity!” The first tables had the precepts of earth; ought not the second tables to have had the precepts of heaven!
My soul, hast thou considered the reason why it is not so? There can be no new morality in heaven; other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid in the first tables. The Ten Commandments are for heaven as much as for earth; death may break these tables, but eternity will reconstruct them. There will never for thee be another moral law; go where thou wilt, thou shalt find the old writing. Many things may be new to thee in the silent land. The eye may have colours unseen to-day. The ear may have sounds unheard to-day. The hand may have measurements undreamed of to-day. There may be new laws of motion; to think of a presence may be to fly to it. There may be new laws of health; disease may be banished by an act of will. There may be new laws of politics; the faithful servant may be the crowned king. There may be new laws of knowledge; truth may come without training, and science without school. But there will never be new laws of goodness. Wheresoever thou goest, thou shalt never go beyond the writing on the first tables. There will never come to thee
83 F 2 a time when righteousness will be other than righteous, purity other than pure, holiness other than holy. The heavens may change, but the heart will abide. Gravity may be suspended, but grace will abide Lights may be extinguished, but love will abide. Not empty shalt thou enter within the vale; the tables prepared for thee m the wilderness shall meet thee in the house of the Lord. Goodness and mercy shall follow thee, nay, accompany thee — be carried over in thy heart across the flood. Other things may drop from thee in the rush of waters. Vanities will vanish; pride wiL perish; selfishness will sink; enmities will end. But God has set eternity in thy heart, and the things of the heart will cross over. Thy love will leap the flood, thy spirit of sacrifice will bridge the sea. Thy purity shall be transplanted; thy kindness shall be rekindled; thy justice shall be rejuvenated; thy compassion shall be continued; thy tenderness shall be translated; thy charity shall be Elijah’s chariot connecting earth with heaven. The writing on thy walls shall appear amid the wreck of Babylon; magnify thine immortahty, O my soul I