christus consolator h.c.g.moule

7/28/2019 Christus Consolator H.C.G.moule

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CM.RISTVSflONSOLATOR

WDRDS FORHEARTSIN TROUBLEH.CG.MOULE.D.D

ofDurham


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FROM-THE- LIBRARY-OFTRIN1TYCOLLEGETORDNTO

Gift of the Friends of theLibrary, Trinity College


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C H RI STVSCONSOIATOR

WORDS FORHEARTSIN TROUBLE

ByH.C.G.MOULE,D.D.Bishop of Durham

Not without hope tve suffer and we mournLes croix sont ks marteaux pour forger la

couronne

TWENTY-FIRST THOUSAND

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE i68 HAYMARKET, LONDON, S.W.I

1917


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5

First Edition, June, 1915.Second Edition, August, 1915.Third Edition, October, 1915.Fourth Edition, January, 1916.Fifth Edition, October, 1917

spondents for the correction of two quotations (pages 73,96). In one case hearsay, in the other memory, had beenat fault.


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NoteTHIS book is intended principallyto remind those whose hearts theEuropean War has stricken of thehope and comfort which lie ready fortheir wounds in our Lord Jesus Christ.I shall be glad indeed if anything in mypages may bring help to other sorrowingsouls ; for grief and death do not suspendtheir normal visitation among us, theinfliction of the sore pains and losses ofcommon life, because of their tremendousactivities to-day on the field of battle, inthe war-hospital, and on the deep. ButI have written with these latter troublesmore directly in view. With reverentialsympathy I lay my little book at the feetof those who see their dear ones smittenand maimed, or who, with wet or withtearless eyes, lament their death, in thisawful struggle not of nations only but ofright with wrong, of light with darkness, of


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vi NOTEcauses dear to the God of truth, and peacewith the energies, I cannot doubt it anylonger, of dark powers of the Unseen, workingthrough misguided man. I dare to hopethat some, if only some, of the reflectionshere set out may tend to lift such sufferingspirits to the region where comfort, and thecalm of hope, and a victory in Christ overall embitterment and rebellion, will filland bless them, beginning already to transfigure sorrow into living peace. If it is soat all, to our heavenly Master all thethanks be wholly given.I add only that in the third and fourthchapters I am indebted for some important suggestions to a small book, as ableand suggestive as it is finely modest, ' Godand the World' (S.P.C.K.), by the Rev.A. W. Robinson, D.D.HANDLEY DUNELM.AUCKLAND GASTLB :June, 1915.

I take the opportunity of a second impression to saythat, since this book first appeared, I have been called(July 1 4th) very suddenly to surrender to her Lord'skeeping above the dear Wife whose sympathy, counselsand prayers lay behind every page which follows. Letme humbly affirm that in my own great grief Christ is theConsoler in deepest reality. H. D.

July, 1915.


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ContentsCHAPTER FAGV

I. THE SORROWS 3II. THE MYSTERY u

III. IN QUEST OF LIGHT (i) . 21IV. IN QUEST OF LIGHT (n) . . .31V. 'LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS' . . 43VI. UNTIL THE DAY DAWN ' . 55VII. CHRIST THE SUFFERER ... 67VIII. CHRIST THE CONSOLER ... 79IX. PASSING SOULS 91X. ' WITH CHRIST 103XL BROUGHT AGAIN WITH HIM > . 119XII. ' THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME ' 129

AN EPILOGUE : ' NEVERTHELESSAFTERWARD' .... 141


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He spread it before me, and it was written withinand without ; and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. EZEKIEL


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The Sorrows


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The air is full of farewells to the dying,And mournings for the dead ;The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,Will not be comforted.LONGFELLOW


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THE SORROWSI

The Sorrows

WE are living through a time ofsorrows untold, a valley of theshadow of death. The World-War is shaking every nation. It is costingan agony of stress and of loss to the peoplesactually engaged. Such is the universalupheaval, so are old landmarks altered,that the time before the war, though nota twelvemonth away from us as yet, lookslike another era, remote and different.' Behold darkness and sorrow, and thelight is darkened in the heavens ' aboveEurope and the world.Yet there are uncounted hearts forwhich this immense public tribulation,although indeed they feel its shock andalarm, is less oppressively sad by farthan their own personal sorrows. Theycannot help it, and their Maker doesnot ask them to help it. They love theircountry, and they pray for it, and sometimes they tremble for it. But whatpresses on them most intensely and continuously, and with the heaviest pain, is


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4 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORthe thought of the vanished hand and thebeloved voice that is still. They feel as ifthey were buried already in the graves, verylikely the unknown graves, of their dearest.And if that utmost grief is spared them,they are thinking day and night of the* missing ' ones, of whom no tidings come.Or they are tormented with the unbearable recollection of precious lives doomed tothe slow misery of the prisoners' camp, andthere too often exposed (if sober witness isto be believed) to privations, to indignities,the imagination of which is as a nightmare upon the loving soul. Or they haveseen the brave and buoyant son or brothersent out with all the hopes and prayersof loving pride sent back maimed forlife, or blind beyond hope of sight.The bereaved, the stricken, the unspeakably disappointed they know thedreadful difference between to-day andthat dear yesterday when all in life seemedto stand erect and flourishing for theirbeloved ones and for them. Life nowis like one of the wrecked dwellings of thebattle-country. It is a shattered andblackened home, struck to death by thisdire war. Who shall sum the aggregateof such sorrows ? Who shall rightly weigh


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THE SORROWSeven one unit of anguish, that helps tobuild up the mass ?

It is for hearts thus stricken that Iventure to write this little book. AndI begin by trying to place before my ownheart, in some sort of reality, their bowedand broken multitudes. In the great griefsof life, if one would have the 'least hopeof consoling, one must, however feebly,understand. If one would help at all,one must, in some little measure, share.

I had thought at first of giving in detaila few samples of sorrows of the war knownto me personally. I had put down descriptions of three bereavements, each of thembeing the hero-death of the loved and lovingson of one or another old Cambridge friendof mine ; young lives, all of splendid promise,cut down like the flower of grass. I had itin mind to tell of the anguish of suspensefelt at this moment by a widowed motherover her gallant son, last seen alivedefending a trench against hopeless odds,and of whom no word has been heard since.I was going with a great effort to tell thewhole story of a baby's ruthless murderbefore the eyes of the mother, who wasstruggling to get the little one home after


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6 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORthe declaration of war. That mother isin a private asylum now ; her desolatehusband, if he still lives, is at the front.But I do not pursue that plan. I feelsadly sure that, whatever incidents of woeI might produce from my own knowledge,direct or nearly direct, there would be somereader who would say (at least over allbut that last incident) that what I, hadrelated looked only gray beside the inkyshadow of his or her own desolation.After all, the obituaries in the morningpaper are as appealing as anything whichI could tell about the bereaved. With amonotony unspeakably moving, they recitethe deaths of this and that good soldier ;' only son,' ' only child,' * dear eldest son,'' dear youngest son,' * dearly loved husband.'And what a multitude which none cannumber these records represent ! In onedespatch we were briefly told how sixdays' tremendous combat had cost twothousand deaths to our ExpeditionaryForce. And every one of those lives* belonged to somebody.' The world isaltered from morning into midnight foruntold hearts by that one great killing.Kick. ii. < There was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.' So


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THE SORROWSread of the mysterious scroll spread outbefore Ezekiel's eyes. For us, anynumber of the daily newspaper may well bedescribed in the same terms, as we tryto realize what is meant by the columns of' casualties ' that ineffectual word, almostcynically inadequate.

So I will not try to elaborate a pictureof my own, marshalling in detail a procession of griefs. If I find the readers whomI presume to seek, personal sufferers andsorrowers in this dark time, that is indeedunnecessary.

I just place before myself the vastphenomenon of a host of bitter personallosses and distresses coming all together.At this moment I do not suggest one detailof consoling thought. I shall do what Ican in that way later. But for the presentI wish, if only for my own effort's sake, toplace the great shadow full in view. Letme recall deliberately for myself, if any consolation worth the naming is to be offered,the dark realities of the pangs around us,and the riddle, the mystery, of it all.


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How long, LORD ? Wilt Thou hide Thyself forever ? Wherefore hast Thou made all men for nought ?Tbf Book of Psalms


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The Mystery


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Are God and Nature then at strife,That Nature lends such evil dreams ?So careful of the type she seems,So careless of the single life.

I falter where I firmly trod,And falling with my weight of caresUpon the great world's altar-stairsThat slope thro' darkness up to God,Itstretch lame hands of faith, and grope,And gather dust and chaff, and callTo what I feel is Lord of all,And faintly trust the larger hope.

In Mtmoriam


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THE MTSTERTII

''The Mystery

THEword ' mystery ' was the closingnote of the last chapter. I wrote

it there on purpose. Our chiefthought had been the sheer agony whichthe war has inflicted upon poor humanhearts. Here are these innumerable wrecksand deaths, these tremendous lists ofc casualties.' The pain of them, to thosewho love the sufferers, is made all theheavier, of course, by the recollection ofthe terrible means which, more in thisconflict than ever before, have been usedto maim and to destroy.The heart trembles when our belovedfall asleep in the quiet bedroom, on thewhite pillow, fondly tended, cheered withtext and prayer, whispering back a lastword of perfect peace in the hush of listening love. Even where death is not inimmediate question, we watch the physicaldistress of a racking malady, amidst everyalleviating aid, with a mental sympathywhich passes into physical pain in ourselves. But alas for those who know that


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iz CHRISTUS CONSOLATORtheir dearest have suffered, have died, inthe dreadful throng, the dreadful solitude,of the battle. And these black centralshadows, as we have remembered, havethe dark fringe all around them of troublesonly less heavy, as beloved ones are thoughtof as maimed> or ' missing,' or imprisoned.How many are the wives, parents, sisters,who cannot for one waking hour gettheir thoughts away from the misery ofit all ?

But it is the mystery, rather than eventhe sheer misery, that I pause upon here. Imust do so for myself, if I want to applythe least real consolation to these wounds.As I said before, if I would help, Imust first share. And God knows thatI do share, in the depth of the soul, thedistressing sense of the mystery of thething. Why is all this allowed to be ?What is the matter, that this tremendouswreckage of human hearts is possible andis actually going on ? Put this immensescene of pain, death, and waiting, side byside with the idea, which we try to believeto be true, of a universal order workingfor right and good. Put this wildernessof wrong and wretchedness beside the creedwhich seats almighty Love on the throne


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THE MTST&RT 13of existence. What are we to say ? Isnot the mystery absolute and intolerable ?Can such things be, and can we yetbelieve, with the happy girl in Browning,that

* God's in His heaven ;All's right with the world* ?

Can we speak so, with an unshakenheart ?* Unshaken ? ' No ; that cannot be.

6 At this also my heart trembleth, and is Jobmoved out of its place.' All these wreck XXXV11 - Tand horrors, in which physical and moraldreadfulnesses go together, are just a fragment, a specimen, though a heavy andragged one, of the whole great riddle ofevil as we see it working in a world whichwe Christians yet say has a central andsovereign throne, on which sits neither aruthless Despot, nor a soul-less First Cause,neither bad nor good. No, that seat isoccupied, we affirm, by a Being infinitelyconscious, infinitely present everywhere,living in all things while He also is sovereignover them, good beyond our highest dreams,perfectly just and perfectly kind, andwhom we worship as the God and Fatherof our Lord Jesus Christ.


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H CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORIt is a very ancient trouble, this riddleof wrong and sorrow in a God-created

job ill. world. This was the torment of Job'sl6' 24 &c< mind in that majestic Biblical poem; itmade his soul even more miserable thanhis grievously suffering body. It was thiswhich very nearly goaded Asaph, in theseventy-third Psalm, to renounce his faith

PS. ixxiii. in a good God. ' I had almost said even(Prayer as tkey ' Almost he had lost patience.Book) Almost he had ' reproached God.'From many sides comes this temptation to troubled silence, to doubt, despair,denial. Now it is from ' Nature, red in

tooth and claw,' from the universal waramongst animal existences, the malignantinstruments with which the tiger, thecobra, and a host of other creatures, largeor little, come into being. Now it is thedesolating convulsions of land, sea, air,'When earthquakes swallow or when tempests sweepTowns to one grave, whole nations to the deep.'Now, and oftener, and bringing astronger and harsher challenge still, fromfurther down in the darkness, it is themoral miseries of man's world. We thinkof the silent horrors of treachery andcruelty, in dark places of the earth,


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THE MTSTERT 15uncivilized or civilized. We see in oursouls, perhaps with our eyes, the helplessvictims of the petty tyrant, whose lips quitepossibly are specious with smooth economicmaxims, and who is hard as the millstone. Then there is the world of woecreated always anew, every day and night,by lust and by drink. Here and now arethe evils, tempestuous, murderous, thunderous, of war and battle, with their ghastlyaccompaniments, as possible to-day aswhen Sennacherib or Attila made a campaign the fire, the plunder, the outragesmuch worse than death, let loose togetheron poor pretty villages and on harmlesslives, while from far away comes, like along echo of the local horrors, the sound ofthe wailings of the distant lovers of thefallen fighting-men. Probably my reader'sheart makes one note in that choir ofsorrow.We do our best, and rightly, to limitand reduce the vastness of the mystery ofevil. We divide deeply between one sortof evil and another. On one side we setpurely physical pain ; this plainly, in countless cases, does not rise directly from moralwrong, and often it proves even neces-gary in the cause of mercy and righteous-


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i6 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORness. We set in quite another columnthe fathomless evil of the will, the injustice,the falsehood, the hardness, the cruelty,the bestial violence, and at the back of itall the hideous selfishness, with which mancan make man so miserable. Even withinthat dread class we can find, with solemnfeelings, a mitigation of the mass of woe,as we see the grand results in moral goodwhich can be struck out by the cruel blowsof moral evil. We watch the meek butglorious victory of some patient sufferer,some Uncle Tom in the immortal slave-story, and the question is almost forcedon us, whether such splendid goodnesscould come to being at all without suchevil to give it call and cause.But when in this direction, and in ahundred others, we have done our best tosee the darkness less dark and less vast, dowe not seem to listen again, and to hear asigh, a groan, almost universal ? We ask, isnot finite existence, ( creation,' the outcomeof the fiat of an ultimate Author, believedto be good ? Does it not, in our creed, restfor its continuance, moment by moment,on a sovereign will, thought to be perfectand acceptable ? Then how comes intobeing this enormous mass of trouble, not


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THE MTSTERrmerely in the shape of disciplinary pain,but of hideous injury and ill-will ? Whythis moral wrong, seething everywhere inmanhood, and bursting out into all thevarieties of conscious woe ?

Yes, the heart is indeed shaken. Perhaps we are very near to * saying even asthey.' And part, no small part, of theanswer must come for the present in thatwise saying of the Rabbis of old : ' Teachthy tongue to say, / do not know*

Friday asked Crusoe, in a memorabletalk,

'If God much stronger, why God nokill the devil ? ' And Crusoe found, so he

tells us, that ' though I was now an oldman, yet I was but a young Doctor, andill qualified for a solver of difficulties ; andat first I could not tell what to say.'

' Teach thy tongue to say, / do notknow* Yet that confession, rightly made,will mean an ignorance not hopeless andsullen, but humble and reliant, at the feetof Him who knows, and whom to know islife. But we approach the fulness of thatthought of peace by some further steps ofrecollection.


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Righteous art Thou, O LORD, when I plead withThee : yet let me talk with Thee of Thy judgments.JEREMIAH


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In Quest of Light


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Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged : andthough I forbear, what am I eased ?But now He hath made me weary : Thou hastmade desolate all my company.

The Book of Job


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IN QUEST OF LIGHTIII

In Quest of Light(i)

' f I ^HEY feared as they entered Luke ix.into the cloud.' So felt the 34A three great Apostles under theradiant canopy which spread itself overand around their transfigured Lord andthem. It was natural ; they were movedall through by those ( powers of the world Heb. vi. 5to come,' before which the human spirit,always more in proportion to its depthand insight, stands awed. The fear foundrelief out of the bosom of the mystery.From the cloud came a voice, divine inorigin, human in accent : ' This is mybeloved Son ; hear Him.'Dark clouds as well as bright, fogs ofthe abyss as well as blinding splendours ofthe throne, have to be entered by ourhearts. We are within such shadows now,and we fear. But for us also there cancome relief. Through these black folds,as through the * uncreated light ' of theTransfiguration, can come a voice, divine


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22 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORand human, a voice to tell us at least this,that the cloud is not everything, thatthings greater than the cloud are eternallyreal, that light is larger than night,that God, the Father of our Lord, istranscendent over the anti-god, the EvilOne.

I am about to place before my readersome thoughts in that direction, and tofollow them on with others, bringing us, Ihope, nearer and nearer to the centralcertainties of faith and hope. Perhapseven in this first study of helps in face ofmystery we shall find the true light breaking in on the great shadow, and evenpiercing through it, enough to strengthenus to wait for the perfect day in peace, andto set ourselves, in spite of all our grief, tolove and serve. I do not think we shall seethe full sunshine over any mystery till theeternal day begins. The twilight will notquite pass here. But we may discerneven here that the twilight is of the dawn,not the evening. We may know where thesun will come glittering up in due time.So, for what remains of our| mortal work-time, we shall set our seat not in thedark corner of the chamber but at theopen window, looking to the East.


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IN QUEST OF LIGHT 23So I approach some counter-thoughts

to our sad contemplation, attempted inthe last chapter, of the dark riddle ofevil.

But first one preliminary word, tomeet the heart of a very possible reader.I shall try here to treat this grave subjectin the way of ' guesses at truth,' suggestionsdrawn rather from what may be than fromcertainties. And very likely I may expresseven these less clearly and less convincinglythan another expositor might do. If myfriend seems to find this chapter andthe next rather perplexing than illuminating, then I beg him to consider themunread, and to forgive the writer, andto go on to the following pages. There,if anywhere in the book, I shall handlecertainties and point straight to the light.The present chapters will matter less thanwhat follows in our search for a deep andabiding * comfort and good hope.'And now let the reader who may careto follow me here remember that I am notwriting for students and philosophers, butfor hearts acquainted with grief. To themI pray God that I may bring some genuinehelp, even in these first guesses and suggestions, making it a little easier to let


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24 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORdrop that sad weight of mental bewilderment which can form so grievous anaddition to the load of heart's sorrow.

What, then, is one chief mental alleviation, as it seems to me, in pondering themystery of evil in the universe of createdbeing ?

Let us first think, very simply, of somechief evidences for the good origin of theworld. The Greeks called the universethe cosmos, that is, the order. Theword expressed the deep impression lefton man by the visible course of 'Nature,'the march of sun and stars, the round ofseasons, the steady sequence of the sameeffects on the same conditions, and again theinfinite delicacy of even the smallest thingsin Nature (so wonderfully opened up inmodern times by the microscope), and,generally, the tendency of natural growths,as trees and plants, towards beauty notdeformity. It expressed the fact, whichour latest knowledge always makes surer,that ' creation ' does not run wild, withoutlimits and a plan. It is not a chaos,6 without form and void ' ; it is a cosmos,an order, all through its heights and depths.And it suggests, on the whole, that goodrather than evil lies at the root, at the


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IN QUEST OF LIGHTfountain. Things are evidently, to a vastdegree, adjusted aright to one another,not arranged to spoil one another. As Isaid just above, there is a tendency tobeauty in them as a whole, and that is good,not evil. An ancient observer of Christianlife, one Aristides, writing about the year130, speaks of the noble and admirablelives of the disciples of the Lord, as hewatched them. And he says that theirpurity and kindness seems to result intheir experiencing a wonderful delight inNature ; ' thus there flows out to them,'he says, c the beauty that is in the world.'Such ' beauty ' he assumes there is, inherentin the world, a glorious characteristic ofthe cosmos, and such as to be responsiveto the moral beauty of a good soul. Washe not right ? Is not such ' optimism ' trueto our deepest insight ? Alike the starrymarch of the silent skies and the tendergrace of the flower in the hedgerow suggestnot only order but a beautiful and liberalkindness lying hid behind it.And then, what of the observer, Man,and what of that cosmos which exists inhis own being ? Is there no ' optimistic 'witness present here when we think of certain facts within ourselves ? Is it nothing


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26 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORthat we find within us faculties perfectlyadjusted for use and life in this worldaround us, a favourable order here also ?Then, deep within all our powers, lies thedeepest and greatest thing of all, conscience,moral instinct and insight. That mysteriouspresence is such that we cannot for amoment, if we are in health of mind andheart, praise what it condemns and feelblame and shame for what it praises. Isnot this an ' optimistic ' witness, a signalthat our source of being is good, not evil,righteous, not wicked ? For it is unnaturalto think that our soul, conscious, active,capable of unselfish love, has flowed uphillfrom a cause morally below it. It joins withthe wonderful order of Nature, and says, ina noble harmony of testimony, that outwardbeauty, endless delicate correspondence,and also will, love, sense of right, all lifttheir hands and point towards an Originwhich is at least all we can mean by personaland good. They join to declare the factand the glory of God.Then comes in Revelation. It takes allthese hints and leadings, and transfiguresthem into life indeed. Revelation comes tous I will not say in Christianity, but inChrist, who is Christianity in person. And


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IN QUEST OF LIGHT 27He says, with the accent of infinite certainty,that God is all-holy, and all-kind.So I have tried to outline the * optimistic ' aspect of being. But now, andperhaps with all the heavier sense of pain,we face the dreadful anomaly, the discord,the contradiction, of the evil that is in thisworld, the cruelty found amidst the kindness, the deformity breaking in upon thebeauty. Think of the terrors of Nature, theconvulsive forces of the earthquake or thecyclone. Ponder the ravages of disease ;' dire is the tossing, deep the groans.' Thecruel animal lurks amidst the gloriousforest of the tropics. And not only inthe war-stricken countryside or in thecamps of savages, but in rustic cottagesand elegant mansions, is to be found thetreacherous, tyrannic, lustful, pitiless man.Alas for the mystery, which is soterribly a fact. Why is it all, and whencedoes it all come ? We are right, as wesaw before, to make all possible reductionsof the dark fact. Great students of Natureremind us, for example, that the sufferings ofanimals, real as no doubt they are, are notlike those of men, with man's developed consciousness. In many forms of life, insectsand fishes, for instance, they are probably


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28 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORvery slight, and even the highest animalscannot be believed to feel quite as wedo. The same is true, in measure, ofthe lowest types of mankind. And, tolook quite another way, we are surelyall aware of a merciful ' law ' by whichwe remember past pleasure more vividlythan past pain. But when we have saidall we can, is it not a tremendous facton the wrong side, a ' pessimistic ' fact,this presence of disaster and disorder,of pangs and of fears, this chaos in thecosmos ?

Yes, it is even so. I need not retraceold ground about it, and write our secondchapter over again. Rather my purposenow is to suggest some thoughts aboutit which may help to bring back the* optimism ' of patience, faith, and hope.


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In Quest of Light


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THE ENEMYSole Positive of night !Antipathist of light !

Fate's only essence ! primal scorpion rodThe one permitted opposite of God!Condensed blackness and abysmal stormCompacted to one sceptreArm the grasp enorm ;The Intercepter,The substance that still casts the shadow, death.

S. T. COLERIDGE

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but againstthe rulers of the darkness of this world.

ST. PAUL


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IN QUEST OF LIGHT_31IV

In Quest of Lighti4 N enemy hath done this.' So Matt.L\ the master of the field, in our xiii ' 28.//JL Lord's parable, said to his servants,

his people from the farm, when they cameto tell him with troubled looks that thewell-sown wheat-field proved to be dottedall over with tares. He was a good master,and a good agriculturist, and he had sowedexclusively good seed. But he had anenemy, and the enemy had stolen out inthe night, and sowed bad seed in thefurrows meant only for the good.The parable may help us to see lightnot only in those problems of sin and salvation which were its first concern. It maygive us one clue at least amidst the problemsof world-evil, of the chaos in the cosmos.The Holy Scriptures open with a Gen. i.majestic vision of creation. God plansan abode for His dear creature, Man,made in the Maker's likeness. Onewonderful ' day ' after another rolls outof darkness and into it again. And behold


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32 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORa cosmos of light, and order, and vastlyvaried life and then at last man, made tobe the happy friend of God. And all, fromGod's view-point, for each thing's purposeand end, is good.Gen. iii. But what does the strange, deepnarrative, picturing mighty realities likean Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription, goon forthwith to tell us ? We see thecosmos invaded by a power which bringsin chaos. An c enemy ' appears, andapproaches man, and man's world. Awill is at work, hostile to God a subtleand deadly conscious influence, a being(not a thing, but a person) who hatesGod, and speaks lies about Him to man,and draws man into that dreadful discord with God which we call sin. Thenmischief is seen in Nature too, for Natureis in deep connexion with man. Theground is ' cursed.' The world-order isdisturbed. We turn a page or two, andwe find Nature turning in ruin uponman, whelming him in the flood.Thus man himself, and man's world,are shewn to us as hurt and altered,stricken with disease and disaster, whichwere no more part of the Maker's plan thanfever or cancer is part of the plan of the


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IN QUEST OF LIGHT 33body. In a noble little poem, * At asolemn Musick,' Milton speaks in his ownlofty way of this, using the musical imagerywhich he loved :

* Disproportion'*! sinJarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh dinBroke the fair music which all creatures madeTo their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'dIn perfect diapason, while they stoodIn first obedience and their state of good.'

I have called this story of the Fall, inGenesis, a sort of hieroglyphic. Hieroglyphics set forth records, just as historiesprinted in alphabetical writing do. Buthieroglyphics are not letters but pictures ;and as such they seem to me to illustratethose first grand and profound pages of theBible. There the foundation facts of manand the world are given to us under imagesand mysteries, in a manner different fromcommon narrative, while true to the factsof God's ways with creation and with man.Do they not give us an illuminating suggestion here ? Do they not make it easier tothink that, whatever there is of real evil inNature, real disorder and disaster, realcruelty and ' dreadfulness,' it is not partof the Master's plan at all ? ' An enemyhath done this.' Yes, we are led up to


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34 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORthe thought that a dread personal Powerhas been about ' in the night,' the lordof the darkness, and has tampered withthe world. It is not too much to believethat he has been permitted to misguide,with subtle skill and power, the courseand evolution of things. He has turned,for example, the innocent energies ofanimal life into strife and struggle growinginto ferocity. He has somehow gotleave to wield the motions of air, earth,and seas, so as to compass his evil purposes,as when he let loose the whirlwind upon the

Markiv? family of Job, and when he worked the39 Galilean waters into fury to overwhelm,if it might be, the sleeping Christ. Hecrept into the course and development ofhumanity, and, in the earliest dawn ofhuman things, perverted instincts of desire,innocent in themselves, into that self-will ofthe moral being which sets the being inantagonism to God.Are we prepared to say, as the Sadducees

ram 8 sa^ so l n& a?> t^iat ' tnere is neitherangel nor spirit ' ? That denial is asarbitrary, as unscientific, now as it wasthen unless we moderns have acquireda knowledge of the unseen world which ispractically omniscient. Less and less, in


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IN QUEST OF LIGHT 35our day, do the wisest minds allow themselves in such sweeping denials. Moreand more they realize the vastness of whatwe do not know, and are humble about it.Now and then I am struck by words whichown the probability of the very mystery Iam speaking of, words from quarters farremoved from * obsolete superstitions.'Only lately I came upon the utterance ofa thinker, altogether modern, forced fromhim by the facts of this world-war. Heconfesses himself convinced that its horrors,its deliberate and calculated savagery, canonly be explained by the action of a mightypersonal power of evil behind the scenesof the visible.

If we take Holy Scripture in any realsense as an authoritative guide to ourthinking, can we hesitate over our answerto the question : Is a personal Adversaryof God and of good thinkable ? Not lessbut more, as the Book leads us out of thedawn of Revelation to its sunrise and itsnoon, that shadow falls across the scene.Beyond all question the Evil One was atremendous reality to the Holy One Himself,and to the teachers whom He trained andinspired. Not it but he assailed Himwith all subtlety of allurement in the


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36 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORLukeiv. desert, tempting Him through good toevil, and incidentally, but seriously, claiminga vast and mysterious permitted power overMatt. xvi. human history. Not it but he spoke to the22, 23 Christ a deadly suggestion through theLuke ^Ps ^ Peter ' Not *'* but he was permittedxxii. 3, 31 to put

theApostles

to fiery tests, to possessone of them fully and finally, and to draganother into the great denial.It is easy to spend badinage and jests

upon this dark Form. Is it not worth thewhile to say that, supposing him toexist, it would inevitably be a part of hisstrategy to suggest to man that thethought is absurd, that he is not ?Why, in a book which is written toconsole, do I speak of this saddest ofall sad mysteries? Not with the vainhope of explaining the unexplainable. Notas if I could answer Friday's question toCrusoe. Not as if the bad thought or act,the horrible disaster, the world-ruiningwar, were made in themselves less evilbecause an invisible Enemy, an Evil One,is in the question. Not so. But then itis something to recognize at least this, thatthe crop of tares, the real harvest of wrongand misery, is not the unkind or carelesssowing of the Master, but is done by an


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IN QUEST OF LIGHT 37Enemy. It sets the dread facts in anotherperspective. It lets us, in a sense, seelight beyond them. It releases us fromthe agonizing question whether the immediate will of the true God is behindthe shriek of the cyclone, the rage ofthe

tiger,the stab of the assassin, the

lust of the human fiend, the boundlessdesolation of a modern war. It is a lessintolerable thing by far to think thatthe Enemy of the eternal Goodness hasdone it.

Then further the mind is relieved bythis thought so far as it helps us to seethat this awful interference of an evilpersonality in the Unseen resembles inkind, however incalculably greater it is in' / Odegree, evil facts with which we are allacquainted,

and which we do not allow todestroy our faith. We read in history,we observe perhaps in our own experience,the dark phenomenon of a bad man permitted to disturb, to destroy, the peaceand good of a family, of a nation, of acontinent. He may be a mad Caligula,a soul-less Nero, a savage Timour, or hemay be the * petty tyrant ' who breakshis wife's heart and turns his home into ahell. He is a mystery ; every day he is


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38 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORpermitted to have his way he is a mystery.' Why God no ' stop him ? We cannottell. But every voice of reason as well asof faith tells us that over such mysteriesof evil reigns and rules the infinite Mysteryof good silent, patient because eternal,waiting the time for retribution and restoration. So with the vaster fact, the cosmicevil, material and moral. It is permitted.It has not overcome the good, it has notdethroned God. He who sits on the throneis not defeated because, for a while, Hepermits it, seeing all things. * For a season,

Rom viii. ^ need be,' the cosmos suffers, * groaning22 and travailing in pain.' But it is underthe unsleeping eyes and the unfalteringhands of the All-Holy One, who is also, as

such, for ever and of necessity, theAlmighty. It is for a time. It is for apurpose, inscrutable but good. Thatpurpose, ' the end of the Lord,' will bejames Disclosed above. It will be seen at length,by all conscious beings in all worlds, howeternal Goodness could overrule its darkAdversary.

Let our thought, as well as our heart,PS. xci. abide in peace within ' the shadow of the

Almighty.' Be patient ; He will ' subdueall things unto Himself.' Even of the


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IN QUEST OF LIGHT 39Enemy who sows the tares the poettruly says :

* 'Tis Lucifer, the son of mystery ;And, since God suffers him to be,He also is God's minister,And labours for some goodBy us not understood.'

' God suffers him to be.' Our ultimateresort is sheer personal reliance on theHighest. The infinite Commander, theKriegherr, the Lord of the spiritual War

in Him lies our final and immeasurablerest and hope. The campaign we do notunderstand. But we know HIM.


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Clouds and darkness are round about Him ;righteousness and judgment are the habitation of Histhrone.

Light is sown for the righteous.The Book of Psalms


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'Lift up your Hearts'


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He pleased God, and was beloved of Him, so that hewas translated.He, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a

long time.Wisdom of Solomon

They are not lost whom we love in Him whom wecannot lose.ST. AUGUSTINE


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' LIFT UP TOUR HEARTS ' 43

'Lift up your Hearts'

HAVEI met at all the questionings

of the reader's heart ? Happyam I if it is so. What has been saidis only what has brought to myself a genuinehelp towards patience and hope. For me,it has tended to place the mystery ofdarkness in a perspective, in a proportion,which lets us see beyond it and around it.The cloud is vast, but it is not the sky.The sky is larger, infinitely, than the cloud.The enemy is strong and subtle. But theMaster of the field is almighty, eternal, andentirely good. He supremely dominatesthe position. Only, He reserves to Himselfthe ways and methods, and also the timesand seasons, which He ' hath put in His Acts i. 7own power.'One gain which we win by our thoughtson the sowing of the tares is that we canlook up with all the more freedom andcertainty in an appeal to the eternalGoodness against the chaos wrought bythe Evil One. We can pray with a newinsight and conviction not only for the


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44 CHRISTUS CONSOL^TORvictory of man over man in the cause ofright, but for God's own victory over thedevil and all his works. Such prayerbrings at once a solace and a strength.And then again, by lifting our mindsbeyond the evil of evil men to the darkpower behind them, it helps us to think ofthe human wrong-doer, not with less shameand shock about the wrong, but with lesstemptation to hatred and revenge. For

PS. xcvii. we thus pass behind all other * clouds and2 darkness ' to the great central evil, and thatevil we carry to the Throne with an appealstrong and stern enough, but calmed by thedread solemnity of the matter. We callhumbly but aloud upon the King Eternalto deal victoriously with His awful Adversary, till He says to him, in the thunder-

Ps. ix. 6 voice which all the worlds shall hear, 'thou enemy, destructions are come to aperpetual end.'But let us pass on. We have looked atwhat I may boldly call treasures of thedarkness, reasons for re-assurance drawnfrom the world's deepest evil. Soon I shallask my reader to go with me to the treasuryof light itself, and to take and handlesome of the precious things, some gems outof the ' unsearchable riches,' which lie hid


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'LIFT UP TOUR HEARTS' 45in CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR, the living andperfect Consoler. But on the way thitherlet us pause a little over some thoughtswhich may quiet the spirit yet further inits hour of grief, and prepare it better for adirect and deliberate meditation upon Him.Let me talk a little with my mourningfriend over some noble sides of his, or of her,grief on our way, as it were, to the centralsanctuary of peace.

i. First then I make mention of the solacewhich lies in the great, the heroic, aspectsof your trouble. I read recently, withinthe same quarter of an hour, two letters.Each dealt with a very real sorrow. Inthe one, a mother wrote about the death ofher great-hearted son, slain in action,leading on the men who rejoiced to followhim. The very page seemed shadowedby the immense loss. The photograph,printed on the memorial card, shewed allthe blended strength and sweetness of theperfectly true man ; and now the manwas dead and buried. But the letter wasnot all shadow. It was even more conspicuously bright, bright with a conqueringexultation over the splendid victory whichthat young Christian patriot's fall hadbeen. No Spartan mother ever was more


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j6 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORproud of her son borne home upon hisshield. Only, this mother was better thanSpartan ; she saw it all in the light of God,in the peace of Christ.The other letter discussed a life-longtrouble. It spoke of a wife, self-forgetting,unchangeably devoted, born to be happyand to make happiness around her. Whatwas her affliction ? It was not of the heroictype, one on which poets might lay wreaths,and sing,

' How sleep the brave, who sink to restWith all their country's wishes blest ! 'It was just this, that in her isolatedhome, in a distant country, her everyplan was persistently crossed, her everypleasure and comfort hurt, by the invariably selfish outlook of her husband,a man of blameless repute, in the commonmeaning of those words, but unable everto see life through other eyes than hisown.

I pitied the subject of the secondletter much more than the writer of thefirst. The first sorrow was glorified by itsconditions. The second had no lightabout it.

Your grief, friend and reader, is of the


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' LIFT UP TOUR HEARTS ' 47glorified kind. Do not forget, amidst theworst realities of its pain, to be thankfulfor the beauty and dignity which courageand sacrifice have shed around it.

ii. Particularly, let me say this in thesecond place, cherish the thought ofthe sacrifice. This death, this wounding,this ruthless imprisoning, are thingssanctified by an altar. At that altar,red with the blood of loss, sweet with theincense of surrender, two priests minister ;one is that dear husband, son, or brother,the other is yourself. He gave himself,you have given him, for the infinitelygood cause of a beloved and imperilledcountry, and for the sake of eternal rightand truth, and liberty, and mercy. Isthere anything in this world, or the other,more great, more purely noble, than a6living sacrifice

'? Reverence your owncall, and your beloved one's call, to enter

personally into its dignity and glory.Be very sure that it is precious in thesight of God. What is the beating heartof the Christian faith ? It is the sufferingglory of a self-sacrificing God. The Fatherspared not His Son. The Son sparednot Himself. The eternal heart is unspeakably near to you who have given up your


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48 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORdear treasure, to fall, or to be broken,or to be taken. It is near, with the closeness of a supreme fellow-feeling, to himwho gave himself, his all. True, the OneSacrifice offered for our sins stands uniqueand apart for ever. But let us be sure thatour self-sacrificed Lord, while He gives allHis mercy, absolutely free, to the humblest,simplest, least articulate, trust in Him,takes note and account, special and tender,of man's self-sacrifice for others and forright, and crowns it with His own peculiarpraise.

Such sufferers are more than sufferers.All unselfish dying has something in itof the quality of martyrdom. An oldfriend of my own wrote the other dayabout his much-loved youngest brother'sdeath. The lad went into the army andto the battle-field with no instinctivemilitary ardour. It was not his way.He heard a clear call to give himself upto the tremendous danger because of asacred cause. He had a solemn forecastthat he would not return. But he tookhis place quietly and firmly in the fighting-line, believing it to be the will of God.His brother rightly says, ' I reckon hima true martyr.' So does his Saviour,


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'LIFT UP TOUR HEARTS' 49beyond a doubt. * Well done, good and Matt,faithful ' ; that assuredly is said with an xxv - 2Iaccent all its own to the servant who notonly has faithfully traded with his talentbut has willingly suffered in the work.A striking and affecting picture haslately attracted wide attention. It is agood sign of our time that it was producedby a great daily newspaper. A youngEnglish soldier lies dead ; the mortalbolt has pierced his forehead. He liesat the foot of a cross. His right hand,before life fled away, has somehow feltfor and touched the foot, almost levelwith the ground, of the Crucified. Theholy Face above, full of life, circled withits aureole, looks down upon the boy whohas just poured out his soul to death ;and the gaze is full of a solemn love,an untold benediction, as our Sacrificecontemplates the sacrifice at His feet.This picture is a pregnant parable. Theyouthful countenance, beautiful in its simplicity and in its last sleep, the hand justtouching our Salvation with that touchwhich is life eternal, and then that Other,that Sufferer supreme, nailed for sinners tothe Tree, yet alive for evermore, and lookingan unspoken and unspeakable fellowship


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So CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORupon

the fallen it all seems eloquentof the whole truth you need, sorrowerfor your beloved, truth great and radiantenough to ' quiet you in a death so noble.'

Again and yet again I have looked uponthat picture. Its message seems alwaysnew, alive with the Gospel of peace andwith the hope of glory. It is an inspiringthought that our glorious men, in theiralways growing numbers, seem to bemore and more animated, deep underneath what one may call the cheerfulreserve of the British soldier's spirit, with

Rom. the thoughts which mean a sacrifice,xii - l ' acceptable, well-pleasing to God.' Thiswas evidently the impression left on the

Bishop of London's mind by his memorableEaster visit to the front.He who set us the infinite example, aswell as offered for us the infinite sacrifice,is surely gathering a glorious harvest ofresults * out there ' from the travail ofHis soul. And you also, my friend, youhere at home, as you lay your sufferingheart at the foot of His Cross, and sayAmen over it, are one of those results.

iii. One sad thought, I well know, sighsand cries in many a stricken heart, thethought that the life, so strong, so gifted,


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'LIFT UP TOUR HEARTS 9 51^so full of

possibilities,so loveable, so loving,

is wasted now, cast useless on the ' scrap-heap ' of the battle. That distress canrise into an agony, blinding the inner eyeseven to the glory of heroic sacrifice whichwe have just thought of. If only yourdear one had so died that all could see thesplendid importance of his death ! Youcould bear it a little better then. But he fellso soon, so little noticed, so patheticallyunrecorded, except in the dreary list ofc casualties,' and on the aching tablet ofyour

heart.This, like every other phase of these

sorrows, is wholly known to thatCONSOLATOR of whom we shall say morepresently. Tell HIM all this trouble, abatingnothing, whatever else you do. But on theway to that interview, will you recall oneor two sure facts ? First of all, to theChristian soul there is no blind chance.Not fortuitously, but in the plan of God, onelife passes away in babyhood, another atninety. To Him, both lives are ordered andcomplete. High above all the heart-breaking* second causes/ He, Father of mercies,sanctioned that desolating ' casualty.'And He will explain why, another day.

Next, be firm enough to recollect that,


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^ Until the Day Dawn'


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* Never again ! ' so speaks the sudden silence,When round the hearth gathers each well-known face,But one is missing, and no future presence,However dear, can fill that vacant place ;For ever shall the burning thought remain* Never, beloved, again ! never again ! *' Never again ! ' so but beyond our hearingRing out far voices fading up the sky ;Never again shall earthly care and sorrowWeigh down the wings that bear those souls on high ;Listen, oh earth, and hear that glorious strain* Never, never again ! never again ! '

A. A. PROCTER


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' UNTIL THE DAT DAWN* 55VI

'Until the Day Dawn 9

LETus follow out a little further

these suggestions of consolation,these reasonings for the heartrather than the head, recollections whichmay lift us, and tranquillize us, and fit us allthe better for a direct contemplation ofChrist the Consoler Himself.

i. Take this then as a condition of yoursorrow which is meant to solace and to liftyou up the fact that in this great valley ofthe shadow you are not alone. Your loss,your pain, brings you into a sacred fellowship, a large yet intimate companionship.' The same afflictions are being accomplished ! pet.in your brethren that are in the world.' I

v - 9know very well that in every great grief thereis a secret something which is incommunicable. ' The heart knoweth its own pr0v.bitterness.' Only the Maker of the heart, v. 10who having made it offers also to live init,

can quite enter into that recess. Yetit is a strong and tender consolation toour human souls to know that we do notpine alone in the midst of a surrounding


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56 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORwilderness of comfortable and indifferentease. There is a fine and beautiful freemasonry in the shared experience ofaffliction. Whatever else this gives you,it confers of necessity the high privilege ofthinking of other children of sorrow, ofpraying for them, perhaps of speakingwith them, not as an amateur but as anexpert. You are a privileged person ; youhave title and qualification for entranceinto the fraternity. You may withoutintrusion approach these others, not indeedto talk to them about your own troubles,at least not much, but to speak with themin a new way, intimate, reverent, in theliving accent of knowledge, about whathas fallen on them.The time will come, as you use thusyour experience of great pain, when youwill even say to yourself that you wouldnot, for all the world, not have suffered,and suffered greatly. Entering into thebroken hearts of others with the talismanof your own trouble, thus consecrated tobeautiful use, you will find a strange joyspring up amidst the pain. You willrealize in a wonderful way that there is ahigh and holy vocation in sorrow ; thatyou are getting out of it, what you could


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' UNTIL THE DAT DAWN 57not have without it, a sacerdotal call, a giftfor service, a precious * grace ' to ministerwith to those who want precisely theministry of a real and understandingfellowship. Very humbly, you will findyourself treading in the footprints of yourLord. ' In that He Himself hath suffered, Heb. ii.being tempted, 5 being tried and strained lunder the tremendous test of anguish, ' Heis able to succour them that are tempted.'To Him the supreme joy that followedHis great pain was just this, that He wasable thus to ' succour,' as a sorrowlessSaviour could not have done. Is it notspiritually good and beautiful so to followthe Son of God ? Is it not the innermostprivilege of those who are the sons of Godin Him, to suffer that they may succour ?No lower vocation is worthy of the greatnessof their title. Upon every brow that cantruly shew even the faintest reflection ofHis glory there will be found something, Ithink, like unto a crown of thorns.Venture then to thank God, for yourfellows' sake, that you are called to thefellowship of grief. And for your ownlife's sake too. Is it too much to saythat, in our mortal state, the soul onlygets to understand its own depths, and to


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58 CHRISTUS CONSOLAZORreach its own heights, through pain ?A young singer, of superb organic power,was heard in one of her first appearancesby a great master of music. ' She wantsonly one gift more to be the finest vocalistin Europe, and that is a broken heart.'

ii. Yet another ray, a light of sacredhope, can be seen falling on your sorrow, ifyou look. Be sure of this, that there is notrouble, I dare to say not one, which maynot prove in the end to be the seed, theembryo, of a joy. Take it as it is, withall its pain, to God, and so save it frombeing that really evil thing, a wastedsorrow and it shall be thus. ' Your sorrowJohu xvi. s}iall be turned into joy/ So the Man ofSorrows, who is also the Prince of life andlight, assured His followers, on the vergeof His own great darkness and their desolation. Take note that He does not merelysay that one day your sorrow shall be madeto cease and then, after it, as the nextchange in a shifting scene, shall come ajoy. No, the two things are in a connexionvital, necessary. There are, in a wonderfulway, two aspects of one thing. The joyshall be the sorrow transfigured. It shallbe such that without the antecedent painit would not have been. You shall taste


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' UNTIL THE DAT DAWN 59the joy, and find it so pure, so true, sobeautiful, so lofty, so fruitful of everygrowing and benignant good, that youcould not bear to have missed the anguishwhich came before it.

It is a sure spiritual fact that, as sorrowendured with revolt or indifference can onlyharden, so sorrow hallowed can be the mostpurifying and enriching of all forces inhuman life. Accept it, understand itI mean, understand that it has a purposenot of evil but of good and it will be as inthe often quoted parable. The refiningof the silver is worked out in a glowingcrucible. And the refiner sits by it andlooks down upon it, and he hails theresult achieved when in the much triedmetal he sees the image of his face.Wonderful

insightsinto that secret

have been given to suffering souls whichI have known. c I see now that I could notenter into life except as maimed.' Thelips which said those words were young.I watched that happy morning turned earlyinto the dusk of death. I knew howunspeakably much it had cost the sick oneto lay every bright anticipation down at thefeet of the Lord. But it was done. Andthe conviction, uttered from a deep soul


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6o CHRISTUS CONSOLATORin these simple words, was no form of onlypassive resignation. It made a positivebrightness in the shadows, a dawn arisingin the West.

iii. Rapid lessons in the science of faithare often learnt in the school of suffering.One such lesson is how to keep trust firmand patience steady under the stress ofapparently unanswered prayer. That is astern and heavy trial. You have prayed,oh how earnestly, how persistently, withyour hand upon the promises of God, andit has seemed to be in vain. In this war,you have cried out for the invisible shieldto keep that beloved head ; perhaps astrong conviction of the consent of theHearer has seemed to come. And thenarrives the notice from the War Office, withthe great Chiefs regret and sympathy ;it is the death warrant of your hopes. Haveyou spoken to a deaf Heaven ? Was itonly the air into which you cried, and notthe presence of God ? Your anguish ofquestioning, be very sure, is understoodand loved by Him. He is not angry. ButHe has wonderful reassurances to give you,as you listen at His feet. If He is indeedblessing your spirit through its other formsof pain, He will bless you through this.


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* UNTIL THE DAT DAWN ' 616 Though He slay me,' though He slay job xiii.my beloved, which is harder, ' yet will I5I trust in Him.' Yes, simply because it isHe. I have seen His face, therefore Iwill not be afraid of His hand, no, notthough it c takes away the desire of my eyeswith a stroke,' and though He seems as if v ' I(He did not hear, and would let me hearnothing. As sure as His existence is thefact of His hearing. As sure as Hispresence is the regard of His love and power.But He has the right, having shewn yousomething of Himself, to ask for your unrelieved submission, ' for a season, if need i Pet. i.be.' Go to Him with your pang of per- 6plexity about Him, and you will find thatyou can wait.When John the Baptist was murderedin the vaults of Herod's castle it was atremendous instance of apparently uselessand disappointed faith. To John himselfhis captivity had plainly been a verydark mystery. The Messiah, mighty tosave, had left His own Forerunner alone,without the semblance of rescue, in thetyrant's hands. And the tyrant, andthe tyrant's paramour, did their willupon him, and killed him, and his poordisciples knew not what to say. Happily


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62 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORMatt. t^iey knew, however, what to do. ' Theyxiv. 12 went and told Jesus.' And we gather thatthey found rest and hope in simply doingthat because of the Person to whom

they told it. Take their method, and youwill find that the seemingly fruitless prayershall even now begin to be fruitful. * Hegives us what we ask, or He gives us something better.' Yes, He does, if we lie quiet

jolm in His hands. * Thou shalt know hereafter.'xiii. 7

6 Thou shalt know hereafter.' Thissmall book may possibly be read by, orread to, some young soldier called to thevery heavy cross of early and lasting disablement ; loss of limbs, loss of sight, loss ofthe mighty nervous force of glorious youth.To such I speak with a special humblenessof soul. Words cannot utter the reverencewith which I think of such courage andsuch long, slow, sacrifice as theirs. Tothem what shall I say ? I can teach nophilosophy of Stoical endurance. I canbut pronounce the name of Jesus Christ,the Prince of sufferers, supremely intimatePartner with sufferers for ever. And Isay, from His lips, that * thou shaltknow hereafter.'You are invited, you are welcomed


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* UNTIL THE DAT DAWN ' 63with both His hands, to know HIM now.And you are promised that you shall knowall about His ways with you hereafter.Great word and beautiful HEREAFTER !Let Him, standing close beside you to-day,lay it upon your life's great wound.


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Life ! without thy chequered sceneOf right and wrong, of weal and woe,Success and failure, could a groundFor magnanimity be found,For faith, 'mid ruined hopes serene ?Or whence could virtue flow ? WORDSWORTH


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Christ the Sufferer


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'THE TRAVAIL OF HIS SOUL'The gloomy Garden, blood-bedewed,The midnight scene of shame and scorn,The scourge, the wreath of rending thorn,The tortures of the dreadful Rood ;These were the billows of Thy death,The storm-tost surface ; but the cry,Thy spirit's woe, Sabackthani,Rose from the ocean underneath.

Man has no line that sea to sound,The abyss of night whose gulfs withinNow lies entombed our weight of sin,Forgotten, never to be found.

H. D.


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.CHRIST THE SUFFERER 67VII

Christ the Sufferer

WEhave walked together, my

reader and I, up a series of steps.We have thought of variousthings which, now to the mind, now

to the tried heart wounded with its* war-sorrow,' may bring relief, reassurance, hope. Here, in this chapter, wereach the top of the steps, and approacha sanctuary built aloft and apart. Wehave considered reasons and truths, givenus sometimes from within our human experience, sometimes from beyond it. Wenow approach and consider a Person. Wedraw near to the Name of all names, theLord Jesus Christ. We come to receiveon our troubled hearts the impression ofwhat He is, what He has endured andknown, what He can say and do, c to bindup the broken-hearted.'On a previous page we recollected thewide difference, in the science of the humansoul, between the amateur and the expertin sorrow. We are coming now to thegreatest Expert of all. For a little while


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68 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORwe will concentrate our souls on the experience which constitutes Him the Expert.Will it be lost time for you, friend, toturn deliberately for the moment fromyour griefs to His ? I hope that it will onlyhelp us to come afterwards to your griefswith an anodyne which is nowhere foundbut in the sanctuary, and with the Person,before us now.

This sanctuary is altogether of its ownkind. Here is no structure of pillaredporticos and gilded roofs. We see a hill,gray with rock, green with the grasses ofthe spring. On its summit stands a Romancross, hideous instrument of a deathagonizing, and also shameful, to the uttermost ; the wood is red with recent blood.In the steep scarp of the little hill is a cave,whose mouth is carved to indicate a richman's sepulchre. The orifice has for itsdoor a large millstone (such is the shape),rolling in a hewn groove, and rolled nowto the side, leaving the death-chamber open.By the opening stands 'one like unto theSon of Man' and Son of God. He waslately dead, the lacerated victim of thatcross above Him. His, not many hoursago, was the corpse, rolled round andround with grave-cloths, laid in the tomb


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CHRIST THE SUFFERER 69beside Him. Now He is alive for evermore. He holds the keys of death, and Rev. iof the hidden world. Yet more, He holds l8*the keys of the human heart, and canopen it, and no man shall shut it. Hecan enter it, and make His chosen andbeloved home within it, passing in throughthe very breach which agony has wrought,and carrying in a wonderful healing withHim.We need not hesitate to approach thisRisen Christ. He is the most accessibleof all beings. When He left that cavernnow long ago in history, but this event isalways present His very first act was to Johnlay Himself out to heal a desolate woman's IX~l8broken heart, and to fill her with the immense joy of Himself, her Lord, givenback to her again. Let us draw verynear to Him, my friend and me together.And first, being thus near, let us adoreHim. Such is He that without ' reverenceand godly fear ' He cannot be understood.Only, we remember what godly fear is.It is not a shrinking apprehension ; itis love upon its knees.We adore Him then, getting down lowat His feet. For this recent Victim, thiaoccupant so lately of a grave, is no less


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TO CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORa being than eternal God made Man.The faith which we call Christian, fromthe very first days of its entrance into theworld, (I say what is historically certain,) hashad this for its living heart the wonder,the glory, the beauty, of a self-sacrificing,suffering God made Man. It was God theSon of God who not only looked down but,for our sakes, came down to the cradle,the workshop, the homeless wandering,the agony, the crucifixion. To save menHe became Man. But never for a momentwas He not God. Lord Jesus Christ,Friend, Brother, Sacrifice, Thou art alsoalways our Maker, our eternal Master ; weworship Thee.But now, we look with reverent loveupon His presence. Behold His hands, Hisfeet, and the great scar of the lance in Hissacred side. And are there no traces ofthe pitiless thorns of the crown upon hisimmortal brow ? He has passed throughthe fire of utmost physical pain, this Lordof our salvation. We need not accumulate details. But let us not forget thefacts of these six hours of incalculableanguish, endured in the publicity of acircle of spectators railing and insulting.And let us recollect, most gravely, what


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CHRIST THE SUFFERER 71all experience testifies, that physical sensibilities are always more alert and intensein proportion to physical refinement. Andthe physique of the Christ of God immaculate, absolute in every development offaculty and sensation what was the distressunspeakable inflicted upon It in the houseof the High Priest, under the horriblelead-laden scourge of Pilate, and on the* accursed tree ' ? He has been throughit all, this gracious Being, standing closeto us beside His garden-grave. True, it ispast. Thanks be to God, it is past. Ido not think I am alone in the feeling,when Good Friday is with us, and wehave attended, perhaps, the Service ofthe Three Hours, that the striking at lastof three o'clock brings with it a strongsense of bodily relief. ' Now doth theLord in peace recline.' It is all over forHim. The sacred Body has endured, overcome, and sunk into the rest of death.Soon the cool grave will be ready, and thewhite linens will be wound about thelimbs, and the spices will sweeten the airof the sepulchre, and He will lie long at rest.It is past. Yes, but do you rememberthat pregnant French saying : Souffrirpasse ; avoir souffert demeure eternellement :


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72 CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR' Suffering passes ; to have suffered abidesfor ever ' ? The being which has once descended into the fiery bath of uttermostpain can never be the same again.Somehow it always keeps the scar.But we are not yet at the end, by anymeans, of our contemplation of this adorableSufferer. The tribulations of His holybody were unspeakable. I do not thinkit is too much to say, remembering thesacred sensibilities of that Humanity, thatthey were deeper, more intense and intimate,more searching in the secret consciousness,than what any other sufferer has everknown. Yet, after all, they were the surfaceof the Passion, not its depths. The Biblerefers again and again, alike in the prophecies and in the history, to the mightysorrows of the soul undergone by our Lord

isa. mi. Christ. * He poured out His soul unto" I2 death'; 'He shall see of the travail ofMatt. His soul ' ; ' My soul is exceeding sorrowful,xxvi. 38 even unto death.' It is remarkable that

the nearest approach He made to sinkingand giving way under the mystery of aninfinite burthen was not when every nerveand bone were on the rack of the cruci-

Luke fixion, but when He knelt in the silentxxii - 44 olive-garden, and the sweat of blood, forced


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CHRIST THE SUFFERER 73by the mind from the body, droppedupon the grass. Then, when the nextday had worn to its terrible afternoon,one cry of immeasurable distress, and onlyone, was heard from the Cross. And itspoke not of a physical horror almostintolerable; nothing is clearer than thatHe bore that, when it came, with a firmnessfor which heroism is a feeble word. No,the overmastering, bewildering, blinding woewas of the spirit : * My God, my God, why Matthast Thou forsaken me ? ' xxvi. 46

In the ancient English ' Golden Litany'one suffrage runs : 4 For Thy torments thatwere unknown?

Out of the vast and mysterious shadowwhich covered Jerusalem for three wholehours after midday, that cry, loud and long,broke from the unknown sufferings. Didit not indicate, as I suggested just now,that the tortures of the unsinning body ofthe Lord were indeed as the mighty billows,but that the woe of His soul was as theabysmal depths of the central ocean, underneath all waves, an unsounded night ofwaters ?And He, upon the Cross, encounteredboth sorts of suffering together. Great painis a great trial when a man is ever so well off


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74 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORin respect of mental peace. Great mentalmisery is terrible when the physical health isever so sound, and not an ache troubles jointor limb. But the two forms of ill, comingtogether, are indeed formidable to man.And the Man of men endured them both,in their awful maximum, at once.

Avoir souffert demeure eternellement. Wefive

humble thanks that our Redeemer'sama sabacbthani, once uttered, is goneand done. It is even so. But to havehad that cry forced from His soul underthat black eclipse this lasts, and will lastfor ever, even in the coming Heaven. Hisredeemed will never forget it. They willsing eternally, in the music of a life tuned

Rev v to the glory of the will of God, that He is9, 12 worthy who was slain, and slain with sucha death. And He will never forget it.

It is part of His being, for ever, to havesuffered, and to have suffered so; thesupreme Expert in the lore of grief.

Once, in St. Paul's Cathedral, I waslistening to the magnificent chanting of"the Nicene Creed. The setting I knownot now who was the composer reiteratedand lingered over that one clause, ' Hesuffered* * He suffered, He suffered ' ; itwas as if the singers could not get themselves


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CHRIST THE SUFFERER 75away from the possessing word. They werebut preluding the song of Heaven. TheLord whom we shall worship, and rejoicein, and serve, for ever He is for ever Hewho suffered, and suffered so that to havesuffered abides in Him in power through allthe endless age.


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To the still wrestlings of the lonely heartHe doth impartThe virtue of His midnight agony,When none was nigh,Save God and one good angel, to assuageThe tempest's rage.KEBLE


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Christ the Consoler


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Our Fellow-Sufferer yet retainsA fellow-feeling of our pains,And still remembers in the skiesHis tears, His agonies, and cries.In every pang that rends the heartThe Man of Sorrows had a part ;He sympathizes with our grief,And to the sufferer sends relief.With boldness therefore at the throneLet us make all our sorrows known,And ask the aids of heavenly powerTo help us in the evil hour.

MICHAEL BRUCE


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CHRIST THE CONSOLER 79VIII

Christ the Consoler

WE have approached our mostblessed Lord beside His Crossand His grave. We have adoredHim as our self-sacrificing, suffering,God Incarnate. We have deliberately remembered that for Him supremely, as forevery bearer of great pain, * to have sufferedabides for ever.' What He has gonethrough, what He has undergone, thattremendous ' cup ' which He consented,after agony, to drink to the dregs it isall part of His being, to-day and everlastingly.

Holy Scripture tells us great thingsabout the results of that suffering, for usand our salvation. It makes it as clearas the noon that the Cross was enduredbecause of our sins, and that our sins,because of the Cross, find, when we yieldto God, a willing and wonderful pardonand oblivion, impossible otherwise. Thatatoning work, that ' peace through the Col. i. 20blood of the cross,' who shall speak worthilypf its glory ? Shall our narrow thoughts


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8o CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORdare to limit the gladness and the largenessof that mercy, the fulness of the stream oflife and love poured down the channelwhich was cleft once for all in the Rock ofAges ?But just now we are thinking not of theredeeming virtue of the crucified Lord.Rather, we are looking on Him as wonderfully fitted, by the ' unknown ' sufferingsof His sacrifice, to be CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR.We have thought about His heart, brokenfor our sakes, only that we may get intothe living depths of the truth that He nowis able, indeed able, ' to bind up the broken-

ixi/ j hearted.'To get thus at Him we have togetherclimbed the steps of some subordinatereasons for hope and cheer, advancing allthe while towards the sanctuary of peaceat the top. And here, on the quiet summit,we find, as we have seen already, not atruth merely but a Person. Strong in Hispersonal love and willingness, rich with Hisunspeakably personal experience, He isHeb. iv. able to ' be touched with the feeling of

15 our infirmities ' and our wounds. He isHeb. vii. < akje to save> to ^ uttermost,' from alltheir wearinesses and their heavy loads,those who will let Him have His way. He is


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CHRIST THE CONSOLER 81able, with personal methods of His own, totransfigure sorrows into joys. ConsiderHIM. Let it sink always deeper into yourtorn and tired spirit that such a Personexists, that this Person exists living,loving, accessible. He is c the Man at theGate

' whom readers of the ' Pilgrim'sProgress ' will remember. c Here is apoor burthened sinner,' said the Pilgrim ;' I would know, Sir, if you are willingto let me in.' ' Here,' let us say, ' arestricken and broken hearts ; we have heard,Sir, that your heart was once broken, andhas stood open ever since, and that itsgreat rift is turned into a gate by whichmen go in and find peace. We wouldknow if you are willing to let us in.'* I am willing with all my heart,' saidthe Man ; and with that He opened thegate.

Nothing is more characteristic of thisMan than that He should welcome troubledpeople to come as close to Him aspossible. He exists to be intimatelyapproachable.

( Come unto me, all ye Matt. xi.that labour and are heavy laden.' This 28is an invitation as inclusive as it is pressing.It is often, and most rightly, read as acall to the sin-burthened soul to come,


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82 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORnot to c tarry till 'tis better,' but to comeat once into contact with Him who sufferedso much on purpose that the man mightat once find all forgiven, and begin at onceto see the secret how to tread the forgivenevils underfoot. But the Lord does notlimit His call so. He who bore our sinstasted our sorrows, and is willing to dealwith them also : c I am willing with all myheart,' saith He. It is His function, Hismetier, if I may dare to use the word. Itis His commission ; so he says Himself ;His Father has expressly given it Him

isa. to do ; ' He hath sent me to bind up theixi. i brokenhearted.' And He who sent Him

has qualified Him for the work how ?By making Him the great Expert. HeHeb. ii. ' made the Captain of our salvation per

fect ' for His function ' through sufferings.'Shall I try to divine, heart-wounded

friend, how He will do it in your case ?I can at best but guess, at least as to theorder and detail. For He is so perfect asympathizer, so large of insight and experience, that He has His special touch andway with every individual. But we maybe fairly sure that somewhere into His personal treatment of you something of thesefollowing elements will enter.


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CHRIST THE CONSOLER 83i. He will apply to your aching and

bleeding spirit the great anodyne of thethought that He knows, as the Sufferer-in-chief alone can know, all about it. He willnot say to you, as He touches your spirit withHis, that He has passed through infinitelymore pain, and that therefore you mustnot overestimate yours. He is a Consolertoo skilful, because too wholly loving,for such ruthless sorts of comfort. In ourhuman experiences, those who have bornegreat sorrows greatly are often just thetenderest I had almost said the humblestconsolers of, let us say, the cries and tearsof a little girl. They have known sorrowso large that it has filled their whole largesky. And it is when sorrow seems to fillthe sphere, and we cannot look round itsedge, that it presses hard as death. Well,the little girl's trouble seems to her to fillall her little sky ; is it not so with thechildren's passionate griefs ? And thisthe deep elder heart knows, and talks tothe child about the happiness so sure tocome soon from beyond, as if a child werespeaking, yet with the tender power of theman's own greater suffering, rightly borne.Such, multiplied by infinity, is the way inwhich the Lord Jesus Christ, eternally


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84 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORperfect as a sympathizer, perfect throughHis own sufferings, will lay Himself besideyour trouble. He will not underweighone grain of it. He will see more in itthan even you do. He will reverenceit. And He will give you time, in Hisgreat gentleness, to take home to yourvery centre the consolation of having closebeside you a God and Lord who is yourCompanion in the experience of tears, ofbewilderment, of blinding darkness, ofthe awful sense of desolation, and who now,

PS. xxi. while Himself'

most blessed for ever,' has6 that experience for ever woven into Hisbeing.

ii. Another element of the consolationsof our Fellow-Sufferer will come from theside of His greatness. Not the greatnesswhich awes and terrifies ; not at all. Imean the greatness of Him who, havingborne and transcended the * unknown ' sorrows, can bid you trust Him when He tellsyou that for you, as for Him, the lightwill yet overwhelm the darkness, the sorrowshall be turned into joy. He has the right tobe believed, without elaborate explanations.For He stands where He can see aboveall clouds His own clouds first, and thenyours. Scripture assures us that He Him-


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CHRIST THE CONSOLER 85self, * in the days of His flesh,' overcameby reliance without sight. He, the Christ,* walked by faith, not sight.' He was ' the Heb.leader and perfecter of faith,' 1 in other xii - 2words, the supreme Believer. ' For thejoy that was set before Him,' a joy notpresent, not visible, but believed in, 'Heendured the Cross.' Now, crowned withthat joy, but also with the eternal factthat He wore the thorns, He asks you totake His word for it that the like transfiguration, worked out by Him, is to cometo you. He asks you, in your turn,

'To trace the rainbow through the rain,And feel the promise is not vainThat morn shall tearless be.'* What I do thou knowest not now, joha

but thou shalt know hereafter.' He gives *iii. 7you that prospect on the word of Himself,supreme believing Sufferer, Lover of yoursoul, Master of your life.

iii. As he accustoms you to His companionship, and draws more and more outof you your heart's communicating power,He will let you feel the vivid solace of' conversation ' with Him. As in our earthlyintercourse, so in this walking and talking

1 The word ' our ' before ' faith ' is absent in the Greek.


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86 CHRISTUS CONSOLATORwith God Incarnate, it is not only throughinformation and explanation that we getour troubles calmed. Calm comes through

the healing freedom of intercourse, throughspeaking all out to a trusted soul, noblerthan our own. We noticed on a previouspage how John the Baptist's disciples

Matt. got an anodyne to their woe by going andxiv. 12 telling Jesus. Laid upon His heart, thetrouble was already partly drawn awayfrom theirs. Tell the great Sufferer allabout your suffering. Let Him hear theinmost and the worst of it, the wreck of

your home, the paralysis of your hopes,the harsh daily anxieties that onlymake sorrow more crude and heavy, themysteries and riddles about your belovedones gone. He knows everything ; butHe wants you to tell Him. He sees theunmeasured joy yet to come which willexplain why He saw it worth while tolet the dreadful antecedent blow fall onyou. But He knows that you do not seeit. And He wants you to use Him meantime as the receptacle for your burthen,entrusted with all the mystery, and sowith the worst of the pang.

iv. Lastly, to take one final suggestionout of the innumerable methods of His love,


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CHRIST THE CONSOLER 87He will bind up the broken heart by teachingthe sorrower, in His own way, to see thesorrow from a new point of view. InNature, it is possible for new effects oflight, altered angles of vision, to transforma frowning cliff, or a cloud-laden threateningsky, into the semblance of a ladder builtfrom earth to heaven.

The Lord Jesus Christ can so give youa new perspective, can so shed the lightof His presence, and of the prospects of Hiscoming glory, over your trouble, that, whileit is by no means melted away, it yet shallbe transfigured. You shall see its hiddenvirtues shining out already, as you realize,perhaps on a sudden, how it, and it alone,is qualifying you for a nobler service of othersand a new sort of glorification of God.And you shall see it also in its relation to theeternal peace and joy the rocky ladderto the Father's house, the crosswise hammerthat is beating out the crown.


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We have not an High Priest which cannot be touchedwith the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all pointstempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us thereforecome boldly unto the throne of grace.

The Epistle to the Hebrews


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Passing Souls


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I would not exchange my dead son for any livingson in Christendom.JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF ORMONDE

I have but Thee, my Father ! let Thy SpiritBe with me then, to comfort and uphold ;No gate of pearl, no branch of palm, I merit,Nor street of shining gold.Suffice it if my good and ill unreckoned,And both forgiven through Thy abounding graceI find myself by hands familiar beckonedUnto my fitting place ;Some humble door among Thy many mansions,Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease,And flows for ever through Heaven's green expansionsThe river of Thy peace.

WHITTIER


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PASSING SOULS 91IX

Passing Souls

LET me transcribe a hymn 1 latelygiven me :

' For the passing Souls we pray ;Saviour, meet them on their way ;Let their trust lay hold on TheeEre they touch Eternity.'Holy counsels long forgotBreathe again 'mid shell and shot ;Through the mists of life's last painNone shall look to Thee in vain.'To the hearts that know Thee, Lord,Thou wilt speak through flood or sword ;Just beyond the cannons' roarThou art on that further shore.

'For the passing Souls we pray;Saviour, meet them on their way;Thou wilt hear our yearning callWho hast loved and died for all.'

Question upon question comes whispering into the bereaved heart. Deathlooks so strangely like the end of all ; is1 By Lady Coote.


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2 CHRISTUS CONSOL4TORit so ? Is there indeed survival, so thatthe self outsoars that seeming end ? Ifso, is it in consciousness that it goes forth ?And what do we know of that other life,its conditions, its scenery, its occupations,its continuity with the past, its difference,its transcendence ? Can we hold communion, intercourse of spirit, with thedear outgoers ? Can we do anything forthem ? Can we look forward with assuranceto reunion, to recognition ?

Again, what shall we think about thespiritual state in which they went out ?Were they ready for the great transition,into the unseen and eternal, the regionwhere all things seem as they are indeed,and evil and good are not mingled andconfused as here ? Were they preparedto meet God ?

I have written down a long list ofquestions. Not that I may try to answerthem one by one, and say precisely thatthis is the solution. Not one of these isthere which does not ' go off into mystery.'Very few questions about things invisiblei Cor. admit of answers neatly rounded off. * I

xiii. 12 know in part ' ; * we see through a glass,darkly.'But some reverent answers ' in part '


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PASSING SOULS 93are possible, and some humblest guessesand suggestions. Let me attempt a littlethus, in this chapter and in the next.To begin at the end, with that tender,awestruck asking, Was he ready ? I assumethe question to be put, deep in the silentheart, in some case where longing affectionhesitates to say that in life the beloved oneshowed that he loved God.

Let me not minister too easily and lightlyto such a soul-penetrating care. Nothingis more evident in the Bible than itsinsistent, its anxious, appeal to come, andcome now, to the open arms of the Lord ; Deut.to ' choose life ' ; to c make your calling x**- x?sure ' ; to ' fly for refuge to lay hold \Q eupon the hope set before us.' And the Heb. vi.Book is, to say the least of it, profoundly l8reserved as to saving processes beginningafter the parting of soul and body, thatcomplex state of our being with which Ithink revelation closely connects the layingof the lines of charact

christus consolator h.c.g.moule

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