Twilight and Dawn; Or, Simple Talks on the Six Days of Creation
by Caroline Pridham · English · Gutenberg #8156 · 608,340 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Twilight and Dawn; Or, Simple Talks on the Six Days of Creation
Author: Caroline Pridham
Release date: May 1, 2005 [eBook #8156]
Most recently updated: December 26, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8156
Credits: E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT AND DAWN; OR, SIMPLE TALKS ON THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION ***
E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
TWILIGHT AND DAWN
OR
SIMPLE TALKS ON THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION
by
Caroline Pridham
(Mrs. L. G. Wait)
"KNOWN UNTO GOD ARE ALL HIS WORKS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD."
"THE LORD SHALL REJOICE IN HIS WORKS."
"HIS TENDER MERCIES ARE OVER ALL HIS WORKS."
CONTENTS.
GOD'S BOOK
"IN THE BEGINNING": CREATION
RUIN AND DARKNESS
FIRST DAY. LIGHT
SECOND DAY. THE OCEAN OF AIR
THIRD DAY. THE WORLD OF WATER
" " THE EARTH BENEATH
" " THE GREEN EARTH
FOURTH DAY. SUN, MOON, AND STARS
STORY OF A DEAF BOY WHO HEARD THE SUN PROCLAIM THE GLORY OF GOD
THE STONE BOOK
FIFTH DAY. "THE MOVING CREATURE THAT HATH LIFE"
" " "FOWL OF THE AIR, AND FISH OF THE SEA"
" " FLYING FOWL
" " CREEPING THINGS
SIXTH DAY. THE ANIMAL WORLD
" " THE CROWN OF GOD'S CREATION
"Everywhere, everywhere
A tale is told to me--
It is told in the sunny air,
It is told on the sparkling sea.
"It is told in the forest brakes,
It is told on the purple hills,
By the silent mountain lakes,
By the singing and leaping rills.
"In the meadows that stretch away
As a sea of golden green,
With hedges of sweet white may
And the reedy brooks between.
"Where I wander and run and rest,
The tale is told to me,
The sweetest tale and the best
Of all the tales that be.
* * * * *
"The tale is the tale of Jesus;
It is told in heaven above,
On the sea and the moors and the mountains,
In language of all the peoples,
The speech of love.
"The morning star and the dayspring,
The sun and the cloud and the shower,
The grass and the rose and the cedar,
His glory and love are telling
From hour to hour.
"The birds in the green wood singing,
The sea that is wide and deep,
The sheep in the folds of the mountains,
The corn in the golden valleys,
And all beside.
"All round me are glorious pictures
Of him who has made them fair;
Through the long bright day I can see Him,
And I fear not the silent darkness,
For He is there,"
--FRANCES BEVAN.
Taken, by permission, from _Hymns by Ter Steegen and Others_ Second series.
INTRODUCTORY.
Ten years have passed since this book was first published, and in issuing a
third edition it seems desirable to say a few words as to the object with
which it was written, and to explain why some additions and alterations
have been made.
The earlier chapters remain pretty much as they were, but the latter have
been recast; and the writer's original endeavour to show that the Story of
Creation is not the Story of Evolution, as set forth in many attractive but
misleading books for the young, has been more constantly kept in view.
It is hoped that by this means the end sought may be better reached, and
that the young readers may be furnished with the truth before they meet
with false teaching on this important point. The mind which has been
carefully grounded in what is true may confidently be expected to detect
and refuse what is erroneous, however fair may be its show; and if the need
for early training on the lines marked out for us in Scripture was apparent
some years ago, how much more imperative is it now, when the authority of
God and of His Word is questioned on every hand?
It has been argued, with some reason, that the early chapters of these
"Simple Talks" are "too childish" when compared with the latter part of the
book; but it may be said in excuse for this seeming inconsistency that the
wish of the writer was to furnish assistance to mothers and those who train
young children. She therefore began at the beginning, intending the early
chapters to be read aloud, with additions and omissions, as the young
listeners were "able to bear." These chapters, therefore, are full of
repetitions, of which the young mind does not weary, but which are
necessary as long as it can only receive "here a little and there a
little," without overstrain.
The later chapters will be found more suited to children of larger growth,
who will be able to enjoy reading for themselves, without needing the "line
upon line and precept upon precept," apart from which it is vain to attempt
to teach the little ones.
How imperfectly the work is done will be manifest to those who know
anything of the subjects, which are touched upon rather than explained. The
difficulty of deciding how much to tell, and how much to leave untold, has
sometimes made the writer's task seem an almost impossible one; but she has
taken courage to go on by remembering a wise saying--that if we shrink from
attempting any little work which comes in our way from the fear of making
mistakes, it is easy to make the great mistake of doing nothing at all.
If what has been a labour of love to the writer should be of some interest
and profit to readers, young or old, that labour will be amply repaid.
The book is now sent forth again, with prayer that He who said, "Suffer the
children to come unto Me," and who "took them up in His arms, put His hands
on them, and blessed them," may be pleased to use it in His service and for
His glory.
EVESHAM.
TWILIGHT AND DAWN.
GOD'S BOOK.
"_As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to
them that send him: for he refresheth the soul of his masters._"--PROVERBS
xxv. 13.
"_The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of
earth, purified seven times._"--PSALM xii. 6.
I wonder whether you are as fond of asking questions as I was long ago--so
fond that I did not mind asking them when I well knew I could get no
answers, because I spoke to things, not to people who could speak to me
again?
Still, if any mere thing could be supposed capable of answering for itself,
I think a book might; and so perhaps as you take this book of mine into
your hand, and run away to some quiet place to have a look at it, you may
be taking it into your confidence, and asking it some such questions as
these:
(_a_) What are you all about? Are you a lesson-book?
(_b_) Have you any stories--real stories, not made-up ones?
(_c_) Any pictures?
(_d_) I wonder whether I shall like you? Does the person who made you like
children, and know the sort of things they care for?
Now before you put any more questions to my book, I will answer for it; and
that we may not miss any, we will call them questions (_a_), (_b_), (_c_),
(_d_), and answer one at a time.
Your first question (_a_)--the first part of it at least--is what grown
people as well as children have a right to ask of a book; and it would be a
poor thing for the book to answer, "Oh, I am about nothing in particular! I
can't quite tell you why I was written." But most books are about something
in particular, and what that is you can best find out by reading them right
through; for many people miss their way in a book by beginning at the end
and travelling backwards, or beginning about the middle, and not knowing
whether to go backwards or forwards. So you see I want you to find out for
yourself the answer to question (_a_), only I will just say that the book
is mostly about your own dwelling-place. I do not mean your body, though
that is, in one sense, your dwelling-place; neither do I mean your own
home, nor even that part of England where you were born. By your own
dwelling-place I mean this wonderful world which you see all around you,
where God has made so much for you to see and enjoy; and learn about too,
that you may use and enjoy it better.
[Illustration: GOOD-BYE TO THE SWALLOWS]
So you will find in this book something about the firm ground upon which
you trod as soon as you were old enough to run about the fields and pick
the daisies. Something too about the blue sky, where the lark sings and the
swallows fly; and the great wide sea, where the fishes live; and a little
about what the Bible tells us of how all that you see around you came to
be; long, long ago, when everything was quite new and beautiful, and God
said that all that He had made was "very good."
"Then it is a lesson-book?" I hear you say.
Yes, in one way, and yet not quite all lessons, for you will find some
stories here too.
And now I must answer the (_b_) question about these same stories, for I
want you to know, before you begin to read them, that they are all true,
and there is no pretending or making-up about them.
Question (_c_), about the pictures, you can soon answer for yourself; so
now I have only the (_d_) question to answer, and I can only say for my
book, that I do not know whether or not you will care for it; but I do know
that the person who made it loves children, and very much likes teaching
them and talking to them. And that you may better understand that I know
something about children, I will explain that, though I am only talking
to you just now, I shall tell you in this book the very same things which
I told to some children who came every morning to do their lessons at my
house, three or four years ago--at least, I will write down for you all I
can remember of the talks these children and I had together, and I will
tell you the same true stories which I told them. I used to ask them to
give me their ears, and I must ask you to give me your eyes; for writing is
different from talking, is it not? You cannot look up in my face and ask me
questions as my children did; and when I ask you a question, I cannot hear
you answer, but am obliged to fancy what you would be likely to say. Still,
I think we shall be friends, and get to know each other a little, even by
means of this dumb-show talk, as I speak to you with my hand and you listen
to me with your eyes.
And now I want to tell you about my children. It was a beautiful morning in
September when I opened the schoolroom door, and found them, all the seven,
sitting round the table, waiting to begin school again, for the long summer
holidays were over. I was afraid they would think it rather hard to sit
still and do lessons, especially when the sun was shining brightly and it
was as pleasant a day as could be out of doors; but as I looked at their
bright faces, I thought they did not seem as if they minded coming back to
school so very much after all.
I wonder what you feel like, when the holidays are over and your little
work-a-day world begins again? Does it seem too bad to be true? or are you
just a tiny bit glad to have something that you really must do, instead
of all play and no work? Do you know--and you remember I told you I knew
children pretty well--I have actually met with girls, and boys too, who
have sometimes, especially on a very wet day in the holidays, found this
delightful having nothing to do all day long harder work than the most
difficult of their lessons?
And now for the names of my children. You would like to know them, would
you not? for they are real boys and girls, not children in a story book.
My eldest boy was Ernest, and he sat at the bottom of the table, opposite
the place where I always sat, and where someone had put a chair for me.
Next in age came Charlotte, Ernest's sister; and then Chrissie, the elder
brother of Eustace and Dick. I put Sharley and Chrissie together, because
they were both ten years old and did most of their lessons out of the same
books. Next came another little pair: May, Ernest's younger sister, and
Eustace. Last of all, the little ones: Ernest's youngest brother, Leslie,
and Chrissie's youngest brother, Dick. These little boys were only six
years old.
Now that you know the ages of my children you will be able to tell whether
any of them were about your own age; perhaps you may be older than Chrissie
and Sharley, or even Ernest, who was nearly twelve, but I am quite sure
that if you are younger than any of my elder children, you will be able to
understand some of the lessons which we had from the Bible every morning.
Before the holidays we had been reading in the New Testament, and had
finished the Acts of the Apostles; and it was settled that when they came
back to school we should read some of the Old Testament, and begin at the
beginning. The children remembered this, and were just going to open their
Bibles and find the first chapter of Genesis, when I said that I should
like to ask them one question before a word was read.
I should like you, too, to think about it, and try to give an answer; for
my question--
Why is the Bible different from any other book?
concerns you as well as the children of whom I asked it.
They all said at once that the Bible is different from every other book in
the world because it is God's Book. Yes, that is the great difference; the
Bible is God's own Book, in which He has spoken to us His own words, and it
is the only Book in the world which tells us all the truth.
How wonderful it is to think of this, that every child who can read, and
has a little Bible of his own, can learn what God has said!
Will you try to remember when you open that beautiful Bible, which was
given you on your birthday, that there God is speaking--speaking to you
just as much as if you were the only person in the world?
If you think of this it will make you very still and quiet, that you may
hear what He says to you.
When we say that God has spoken to us, we mean that long ago He told those
holy men whom He allowed to write His Book exactly how He would have them
write. When you read in your Bible, you do not read what Moses and David
wrote out of their own minds. God gave them His words to write for Him, so
that we might know for certain, not what they thought God meant them to
say, but what He really did say.
Do you understand this?
Perhaps not quite; so I will tell you a story to make it plainer.
I know a boy who is very fond of running errands, and a very useful boy
he is. If I give him a message he is off like a shot, and back again with
the answer almost before I know that he has gone. So willing and quick a
messenger is Willie, that it is a pleasure to send him anywhere.
But there is just one thing that has sometimes hindered him from being a
really good messenger. Can you guess what it is? You will soon find out
if you remember that, besides being willing and quick, a messenger must
deliver the exact message entrusted to him. He must give it just as it was
given to him if he would deliver it faithfully.
Now Willie prefers to give his messages in his own way, and so, although
he is willing and quick, he cannot always be relied on as a faithful
messenger.
One day, when his mother said "Willie, run to the nursery and give Nurse a
message for me," the little boy hardly waited to hear what the message was,
but ran upstairs as fast as his feet could carry him. Very quickly back he
came and went on with his play--I think he was just then building a fine
house with wooden bricks. Now, as the message was an important one, his
mother wished to be quite sure that it had been correctly delivered; so
presently she said, "What did Willie say to Nurse?"
"The right thing," said he, going on with his building, quite unconscious
that this was not enough for his mother, who must know exactly what Willie
had told Nurse, or go upstairs to see whether she was doing what she had
desired her to do.
You understand now, I am sure, that we could not be quite certain that we
had God's message--and the Bible is a message or letter from God to us--we
could not be sure that we had it right, if we did not know that He had
given it to us in His own way and in His own words.
So, then, our question is answered. The Bible is different from any other
book because it is God's Book, in which He speaks to us. Now I am going to
ask you one more question.
If it is God who is speaking, and if He speaks to you, what must you do?
You must listen, not only with your eyes, when you read the words, or with
your ears, when someone reads to you, but with your heart.
Do you remember what we are told in the Bible about a child to whom God
once spoke? It was in the night that this boy heard God's voice calling
him by his own name--the name which his mother had given him when he was a
baby. Samuel had never heard the voice of God before, and he did not know
who was speaking to him in the quiet night.
But he did what he was told to do by one who knew that God was calling
him, and the next time the voice came he answered, "Speak, for Thy servant
heareth."
Then, when God spoke again, he listened to the message which God gave him
to give for Him.
How near God was to this child!
Yes, He was very near to Samuel as he slept; but He is as near to you, as
you lie in your own bed at home. He keeps you safely all through the dark
night: when you cannot even think about yourself He thinks about you and
cares for you; and He speaks to you by His Holy Word just as much as if He
called you by your own name.
Do not forget that it is really true that when you take God's Book into
your hands, and open it, and listen with your heart, God is near you and
speaks to you, your own self. For this reason, when we read the Bible,
as the children said, "We must attend, or we shall not know what God has
said."
And for another reason, too, we must attend: that is, because it is God who
is speaking.
God's Word is the only thing in this world that is quite sure; but it is,
because it has come straight from Him, and He is the God of truth.
God's Word can never pass away; for He has said that it endures for ever.
God's Word can speak, even to a child, and can make that child "wise unto
salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus."
For it is of Jesus, the Son of God, that God has spoken to us in His book.
I think you will like this poem, which speaks of a time when the Bible was
not only a rare, but in most countries a forbidden book, bought in secret,
and read in fear by those to whom it became all the more precious because
it cost them so dear. We are told that at this time the actual cost of a
Bible was £30, and that the wages of a labouring man were only 1-1/2d. a
day; so that he would have to work fifteen years to pay for one copy of the
Word of God!
"THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.
"'Oh, lady fair, these silks of mine
Are beautiful and rare;
The richest web of the Indian loom,
Which beauty's queen might wear.
And my pearls are pure as thine own fair neck,
With whose radiant light they vie;
I have brought them with me a weary way--
Will my gentle lady buy?'
"And the lady smiled on the worn old man
Through the dark and clustering curls
Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view
His silks and glittering pearls;
And she placed their price in the old man's hand,
And lightly turned away;
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call--
'My gentle lady, stay!'
"'Oh, lady fair, I have yet a gem
Which a purer lustre flings
Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown
On the lofty brow of kings:
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price,
Whose virtue shall not decay;
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee,
And a blessing on thy way!'
"The lady glanced at the mirroring steel,
Where her form of grace was seen,
Where her eye shone clear and her dark locks waved
Their clasping pearls between--
'Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth,
Thou traveller grey and old;
Then name the price of thy precious gem,
And my page shall count the gold.'
"The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow,
As a small and meagre book,
Unchased with gold or gem of cost,
Prom his folding robe he took;
'Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price:
May it prove as such to thee;
Nay, keep thy gold; I ask it not,
For the Word of God is free.'
"The hoary traveller went his way,
But the gift he left behind
Hath had its pure and perfect work
On that high-born maiden's mind;
And she hath turned from the pride of sin
To the lowliness of truth,
And given her human heart to God
In its beautiful hour of youth."
J. G. WHITTIER
"IN THE BEGINNING": CREATION
"_Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and
the heavens are the works of Thine hands: they shall perish; but Thou
remainest._"--HEBREWS i. 10.
To-day let us talk a little about the very first words which God has
spoken to us in His Book. You would like to find them in your own Bible, I
daresay.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
And we will find one other verse, because it is the first verse of a
chapter which also speaks of "the beginning."
"Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?" (Prov. viii.
1).
Now that we have read these verses; I must tell you that Ernest and Chris
and Charlotte and May used each to learn a verse for me every day, and say
them in turn; indeed, they usually said two verses, for I liked them always
to repeat along with the new verse the one they had said the day before, in
order that they might not forget it. I am glad to tell you that the verses
were generally learned so perfectly, and repeated so distinctly, that it
was quite a pleasure to hear them; for even little May knew that if we
repeat anything from God's Book we must be careful not to put in any words
of our own. If we did, we should be like Willie, giving the message in our
own way, should we not? Then, every one of God's words must be remembered,
and none left out; not even a little word like "and" or "the," which
perhaps would not very much matter if we were repeating merely what men had
said.
Perhaps you may think this chapter about Wisdom was a difficult chapter for
my boys and girls to learn, and not so interesting as some of those which
you know. I will tell you the reason why I especially wished them to learn
it; but I will first ask you to find in the New Testament three verses
which also tell us of "the beginning"--
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God.
"The same was in the beginning with God.
"All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that
was made" (John i. 1-3).
The "Word" is one of the names of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a beautiful
and wonderful name. Suppose you have been playing with something that has
made your hands very dirty, and mother says, "Come to me, dear, and I will
make them clean." Through mother's words you know what is in her heart; you
know that she loves you, and wants you to be with her, and fit to be with
her. So it is through the Word, the One who was with God in the beginning,
the One by whom everything was made, that God has spoken to us so that we
may know His thoughts about sin, which made us unfit to be with Him, and
His feelings towards the men and women in the world, who are His creatures,
and yet have tried to find happiness away from Him. But it was because the
chapter, which my elder scholars were learning, speaks of the Lord Jesus by
another wonderful and beautiful name that I wished them to learn it. He is
called "Wisdom" not only in the Old Testament, where we are told in other
verses of the same chapter (Prov. viii.) that He was "from the beginning"
with God (vv. 22-31), but also in a letter which the apostle Paul wrote to
some clever people who lived in Greece long ago he speaks of Him as "the
power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. i. 24).
I can remember that we had a good deal of talk after we had read the verse,
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"--those few words,
so quickly read, in which God has told us what the wisest man of all the
wise men who ever lived could not have found out for us; for God alone can
speak about what He did so very long ago, before the sun shone, or the
grass and the trees grew, or the birds sang in the branches, or lambs
played in the fields.
Did you ever think, as you watched the great sun going down behind the
crimson clouds, that there was a day, long, long ago, when that sun, in all
its glory, set for the first time?
I daresay you never thought of the beginning of the sun, or of the first
time that it set, but were just pleased to see the sky so red and glowing,
and sorry when the beautiful sunset colours faded and the clouds became
cold and grey.
Or perhaps, as you have shaded your eyes from his noonday splendour, you
may have remembered that it was God in heaven who made that wonderful sun
to light up the sky, and that he has been shining down upon this earth ever
since; but did you ever stop to ask such a question as this--
How long has that great sun, which is now above my head, been shining in
the sky? Or, again, as he passed in glory out of sight, How many beautiful
sunsets have there been since he first began to "rule the day" and to rise
in the east and set in the west?
Ah! so long a time that no thought of ours could measure it; so many
sunsets that we could never count them. All we can know about it is that
there was a time, long, long ago, when the sun first set and a time when he
rose upon the earth, which was then so beautiful--fresh from the hand of
God.
This world of ours is a very old world, but there was a time when all was
new; not only the sun and moon, but all that you see around you had a
beginning--a birthday. There was a time when no such things were, and there
was a time when they began to be. Now it is about this beginning that I
want you to think a little.
[Illustration: "HOW PLEASANT THE LIFE OF A BIRD MUST BE!"]
As we open our eyes to-morrow morning and see the light come in at the
window, let us thank God that He has made His sun to shine upon us, to send
away the darkness and bring a new day. And as the light grows and grows,
and we lie awake and listen to the morning songs of the thrushes and
blackbirds and the chatter of the sparrows, do not let us forget that God
gave its own sweet note to every one of those warblers, and that the air
has been full of the songs of birds ever since the day, so long ago, when
the first little lark flew up, up, up into the blue sky and sang its first
song, so full of gladness. Then, as the pleasant sound of the lambs,
bleating after their mothers, comes to us from the fields, let us remember
there was a day when that sound, which you know so well, was heard for
the first time; and as we go for our walk and look around us at the green
fields and the trees with their leaves and blossoms, and then far away to
where the strong mountains lift their heads against the sky, let us say to
ourselves, "All these things, which seem as if they had been there always,
had a beginning; there was a time when there were none of them, and then
there came a time when they were there, for God had made them to be."
While we were talking about this, the elder children and I, the little boys
were very quiet; but I was afraid it was all rather difficult for them,
so I asked Leslie and Dick to tell me what we mean when we speak of the
beginning of anything.
I forget whether I got the answer from them or from one of the elder ones,
but I know I thought it a good answer when somebody said, "The beginning of
a thing is the first of it."
Then we spoke about the beginning of the table at which we were sitting--I
suppose we chose that to talk about because it was so close to us--how it
was made of wood, and the wood was once a tree; and if it was an oak, that
giant tree must have been long, long ago only a tiny acorn in its pretty
green cup. Each of those children, too, as they sat round the table, had
had a beginning. Have you ever thought of this? There was a time, not so
very long ago, and yet you cannot remember it, when your life had not
begun. And then your birthday came, the first of all the birthdays; that
day when your dear father and mother thanked God for giving you to them to
love and take care of, and everyone at home was so glad because God had
sent a little child to the house; someone who had never been there before.
Just think, you were that little child; only a tiny thing, but as you
opened your baby eyes to the light, and stretched out your little clasping
fingers, your first cry, and every movement of your little body, showed
that you were alive. Then, by-and-by, the nurse said, "Hush, baby is
asleep!" and everyone moved about softly, so as not to wake the little
creature, who had not been there yesterday, the baby whose life had just
begun, the little traveller who had just started on its journey through
time to the great eternity beyond.
But you knew nothing about this; only your mother knew, as she watched you
in your sleep, that one more tiny vessel had been launched upon that stream
which flows on, on, till it meets the ocean which has no shore--the time
which never ends.
I remember, a very long time ago, how fond I used to be of making boats.
Not far from where I lived a real ship was being built, and I used to watch
how it was made, and think that when I grew up I should like above all
things to be a shipwright, for I had heard someone say that was the name of
the man who was building this beautiful vessel. Of course, the boats which
my brother and I used to make were only toy boats--we generally made them
of paper--but however small they were, we were very particular to give each
of them at least three tall masts. Then, when it came to sailing them,
we had to be content with any water we could find, and generally these
three-masted vessels made very short voyages, from one side of a big tub to
the other; and though, by rocking the tub, we used to manage to make pretty
stormy weather for them, they generally reached the end of their voyage in
safety. It was quite another thing when we set our vessels afloat upon what
we thought a real river, like the Thames or the Severn; but it was only a
brown stream, which, ran along the bottom of a meadow, and was crossed, not
by a bridge, but by stepping-stones. Sometimes, on a lovely day in June, we
were allowed to go down to our river, and we used to sit for hours among
the flags which grew beside it, hidden by the tall reeds and the yellow
flowers, making little green boats out of the broad leaves of the flags,
while the sound of "Cuckoo, cuckoo" came from the orchard close by.
When we had made as many boats as we could carry, each with a curly-whirly
bit of a leaf for its sail, we used to balance ourselves carefully on the
stones--for we knew that if we got wet we should not be allowed to go to
our river again--and launch our little fleet, one by one, on the brown
water, and then eagerly watch each green vessel upon its course. We wanted
them to sail across to the other side; but I need not tell you that the
river water was very far from being so calm as the water in the tub, and I
do not think many got safely over.
One little boat would start off very straight, and then suddenly stop
because it had run against some hidden rock; the greater number, in spite
of all our efforts to steer them, would get into the current, and so be
carried down the stream out of our sight; while some at once turned on
their sides, got filled with water, and became dismal wrecks.
I can remember well how happy we were in spite of all such disasters and
losses!
But we should have been surprised indeed in those days if anyone had told
us, as we launched our boats, and watched them sail away from land--to
"America" or "India," or any of those far-away places where we used to
pretend they were going--that we were like those boats of ours. And yet it
would have been true, for we too had been launched; the voyage of life had
begun for us; and every birthday that came found us a little farther from
the place from whence we had started--a little nearer to the end of the
voyage, the place whither we were bound. Yes, in this sense you and I and
all the people in the world are voyagers on the stream of time. But this
voyage of our life--how long will it be?
That is one of the things which no one can tell. God alone knows.
In one sense the story of your life may be soon told; your little voyage
down the stream of time may be very short, and your boat may reach the
great ocean of eternity before many birthdays have come and gone. But in
another sense it is a story without an end; and this is what makes your
beginning such a great thing to think of. It is a beginning which has no
end; the part of you which is most really yourself, must live on always.
You can never stop living for one moment; for there is on board your little
boat a wonderful passenger. God has put into you a living soul, which can
never die.
But how soon God may call that soul back to Himself, away from the body,
where it lives now, who can tell?
I am just now thinking of some young voyagers whose passage from time to
eternity was indeed short, but the story is so sad that I could not tell
you about it if I did not remember what the Lord Jesus once said, when He
was teaching His disciples. He called a little child to Him, and began
to speak to them about such little children, and one of the things which
He said was this, "The Son of man is come to save that which was lost"
(Matt. xviii. 11). And again He said (you will find this verse in the same
chapter), "It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one
of these little ones should perish."
Since even the very little children have gone astray from God, so that the
Lord Jesus spoke of them as "lost" and "perishing," how could I tell you
this story, if the Lord from heaven, He who called Himself the "Son of man"
when He was here in this world, had not come to save that which was lost?
This is the sad, true story:
It was on a beautiful Monday morning, in the bright June weather, that the
scholars belonging to a large Sunday-school in Ireland were travelling with
their teachers and friends from the town where they lived to spend the day
at a lovely place by the seaside. How proud and happy they were, all these
boys and girls, as they marched through the town waving their flags and
singing, and how much they had to say about the grand time they were going
to have! You may be sure they liked a long holiday out of doors, with games
and races, and buns and oranges, as much as you do, and so they got into
the train in high glee.
But that train never reached the lovely place at the seaside. Before it
had gone very far on its way there was a dreadful accident; some of the
carriages were crushed and broken, as if they had been matchboxes, and
many of those bright boys and girls were killed all in a moment--the short
voyage of their life was over; oh, how soon! By-and-by some doctors came
hurrying to the place where the ruined train lay, and began to look about
to find those who might not be dead, only hurt. It was a sad sight they
saw, and one they can never forget. While they were busy, giving help here
and there, someone noticed two little ones, sitting on the green bank,
beside the wreck of the train. A doctor went up to see if they were hurt.
No, they were picking the daisies which grew among the grass; they were too
young to understand what a dreadful thing had happened.
"Were you in the train, my dears?" said the kind doctor.
"Yes," said a little girl of six years old, "we were in the train, and she
was too," and she pointed to where another child lay quite still upon the
grass; not picking daisies--no, she could not speak or move, she was dead.
Put your finger on your wrist, and keep very still for a moment. Listen.
You feel something, do you not? Something alive, and it goes beat, beat;
one, two, three, like the ticking of a watch. As long as you live, that
tick, tick will go on; but for this little girl it had stopped, because her
heart had ceased to beat. When the doctor put his hand upon her wrist, he
could feel nothing moving there. "She is quite dead," he said, as he took
her body up from the grass that it might be carried back to her home, the
home which she had left that morning, so happy and gay.
At the Sunday-school these children had been taught about the "wondrous,
glorious Saviour," of whom you sometimes sing, and we may believe that the
spirit of this dear child, redeemed to God by the precious blood of Christ,
went straight from that wrecked train to spend its long for ever with the
One who had loved her and given Himself for her; and that God, who takes
care of the poor little body which was laid low in the grave with many a
sad tear, will raise it in glory, one day, when "death is swallowed up in
victory."
But there were not only very little children in that wrecked train. We are
told of a boy who was terribly hurt, but lived an hour after the crash
came. As he lay by the wayside, a young girl with a pitiful heart came and
knelt beside him.
"I will pray you up to heaven," she whispered.
"I am going there!" said the dying boy; "Lord Jesus take me, I am ready."
Of another his poor mother said--
"I asked him before he started--'Well, dear, have you committed yourself
to your heavenly Father?' 'Yes, mother, I have,' he said. So I gave him
my blessing and sent him off, and that was the last time I ever saw him
alive."
These boys did not think as they left their homes that morning that they
would never return, but they had learned to know the Lord Jesus Christ as
their own Saviour, and so when danger and death came, they were ready to
leave this world and go to Him: their boats were not wrecked; they sailed
right into port.
And now that we are coming to the end of our lesson for to-day, let us
"think back," and see if we can remember what it is all about, and then we
will mark the subjects (_a_), (_b_), (_c_), (_d_), to help us to keep them
in mind.
The subjects were--
(_a_) That very far away time which God speaks of as "the beginning."
(_b_) It is God alone who can tell us about this time.
(_c_) God, who made all that has a beginning, Himself had no beginning.
This means that there never was a time, no matter how long ago, when God
was not. If you think back, back, even to the time when there was no sky,
no earth, no great ocean, you can never come to a time when there was no
God.
(_d_) "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God." The "Word" is one of
the names of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to this world that He might
show us how very much God His Father loves us, and who could say, "He that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father."
For He who was once born a little child in this world and laid in the
manger at Bethlehem, and who grew up in the home of Joseph and Mary at
Nazareth, is the Same who was "in the beginning with God," for He "was
God."
This is what God has told us about His great Eternity, when Time, with its
days and weeks and months and years, had not begun.
"TIME AND ETERNITY.
"How long sometimes a day appears!
And weeks, how long are they!
Months move as slow as if the years
Would never pass away.
"It seems a long, long time ago
That I was taught to read;
And since I was a babe, I know
'Tis very long indeed.
"Days, months, and years are passing by,
And soon will all be gone;
And day by day, as minutes fly,
Eternity comes on.
"Days, months and years must have an end;
Eternity has none.
'Twill always have as long to spend
As when it first begun.
"Great God! no finite mind can tell
How much a thing can be:
I only pray that I may dwell
That long, long time _with Thee_."
JANE TAYLOR.
RUIN AND DARKNESS.
"_Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word
of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do
appear._"--HEBREWS xi. 3.
"_Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the
seas, and all deep places._"--PSALM cxxxv. 6.
There are three words which God has used to tell us about His work which we
call "The Creation."
We read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
"And God made two great lights."
"And the Lord God formed man."
"Created," "made," "formed," these are the words; and it is of the first of
them we shall speak a little to-day.
Before my children came, I had been thinking how I could make it plain to
the little ones that there is a very great difference between being able
to create and being able to make anything. It happened that when they came
in they were all talking so fast, of something which had greatly delighted
them, that it was some time before I could find out what it was all about.
At last Sharley told me that as they were racing along with their hoops a
strange dog had followed them, and rubbed his nose against their hands,
wanting to make friends with them.
"We are quite sure it is nobody's dog," she said; "or at any rate it is
a dog that has lost its master, and has no home now. So after lessons we
are going to call it, and get it to follow us home. It is waiting for us
outside the door this minute."
"And I am going to make a kennel for it," said Ernest, who was very fond of
sawing and hammering away in the shed behind, the house, and wished to be
a carpenter, when he grew up; "at least, I am going to try, and I think I
can."
I may as well tell you at once that this little stray dog soon got tired of
waiting, outside the door. When lessons were over, and the children went to
look, no doggie was to be found; and as they did not know his name it was
not easy to call him. I have no doubt he found his own master and his own
home again, and was much better off there than he would have been in the
best kennel Ernest could have made, with seven boys and girls to take him
for a walk every day.
However that may be, I tell you of this dog because it was while Ernest was
talking about making a house for it that I was saying to myself, "I wonder
whether this plan of Ernest's about making a kennel will help them to
understand, what I so much want them to learn, about the difference which
there is between the words make and create."
First of all I had to tell them not to talk any more just then, but to
repeat their verses. Then we read--more than once--for Leslie and Dick
would not have liked to miss their turn, and there were not enough verses
for each to read one--what God has told us in the first five verses of His
book.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
"And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from
the darkness.
"And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the
evening and the morning were the first day."
When we had finished I asked Chrissie what it means when we read that "God
created the heaven and the earth." Why is the word "created" used? Would
any other word have done instead of that one?
Chrissie said no other word would do, because to create means to make out
of nothing. He was right, was he not?
The next question was, "Why is create a word which can never be used except
when we are speaking of God?"
I don't know who answered, but someone gave the right reason--"Because only
God can make a thing be when there was nothing before it; nothing to make
it out of."
This seems quite plain, does it not? But do you know there was once a boy,
who did not believe that he could not create things until he had tried to
make something out of nothing, and found that only nothing came. He was
quite sure he could create anything if he only told it to come; so at last
his teacher said, "You had better try."
He was only a very little boy, so he thought he would try, and up he got
and stood as straight as he could on his chair, while he said with a loud
voice, "Fishes, be!"
Perhaps it was a good thing that this boy should thus prove for himself
that it is only God who can create anything; only God of whom it could be
said, "He spake, and it was done."
I did not tell this little story to the children, but I said to Leslie,
"You heard Ernest say just now that he was going to make a kennel for your
stray doggie; do you think he could make one?" Leslie thought perhaps he
might if he worked very hard; and then I asked them all whether, if he
worked very hard, day and night, for a long, long time, Ernest could create
a kennel?
"No, indeed he could not. He never could, no matter how hard he worked."
Everybody was sure of this; for even little Dick quite understood that if
the cleverest and handiest boy in the world were told that he must make
a box, he could not even begin to make the commonest box unless he had
something given him to make it out of, and something too to make it with.
"He would need wood," they said, "and nails, and a hammer and saw; and if
it were to be a nice box, to last long, he would want paint, and a lock and
key, and hinges; and if he wished everyone to know that it was his own box,
he must mark it with his name when it was finished."
Now I am sure you quite understand that this word "created," which you find
in the very first verse of your Bible, is a word which you must not forget
to notice whenever it is used, because it is a wonderful word, which can be
used only in speaking of God, the Creator, and of the Son of God, by whom
and for whom all the things that we can see, and all that we cannot see,
were created; and in whose power they stand together.
Now I want you to read again very carefully the verses which we have read,
and to notice that we have only one verse to tell us what God did at the
beginning; this one verse explains that it was then that He created the
heaven and the earth. This is all that God has told us, and it is just what
we need to know; for how could we ever have found out by what means this
earth of ours came into being, at the very first, if God had not been
pleased to tell us that He created it?
But what a happy thing it is just to listen to the account which God
Himself gives us, telling how the heaven and the earth came into being!
One who simply receives God's word into his heart will understand more than
the cleverest man who ever lived, who tries by his own mind to search into
the beginning of things, and to account for all that we now see around us
by any other way. We read, "By faith we understand that the worlds were
framed by the word of God." Faith does not wait till it sees, but believes
what God says, because He says it. We may say that we cannot understand
what creation is, but we can find rest for our restless thoughts by saying
"Yes" to all that God has told us--and the very first line of His Book
explains all that we need to know about, how the heaven and the earth came
into being, when it tells us that God created them in the beginning.
We read next, "And the earth was without form and void." We are not told in
the verse which follows anything more about the "heaven"; that means the
vast universe of which our earth is but a tiny part; but of the earth we
read two things which are very surprising, when we think of what it is like
now:
"Without form and void"--what does that mean?
After I had explained to the elder children that these words, which are
used to describe the earth, mean that it was waste and desolate and without
order, we looked for a verse in the New Testament which tells us that "God
is not the author of confusion" (1 Cor. xiv. 33); and then we spoke about
how we can be quite sure that the earth, which is part of God's creation,
was not in disorder, not a waste and desolate place in the beginning; and
we found in the Old Testament this other verse:
"For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed
the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain,
He formed it to be inhabited; I am the Lord; and there is none else"
(Isaiah xlv. 18).
The reason why we found this verse was because I wanted to show Sharley and
Chris and Ernest that there the same word is used about the earth as in the
verse in Genesis of which we had just been speaking. The words "in vain"
are the same which were there translated "without form" by the people who
turned the Hebrew, in which most of the Old Testament was first written,
into English, that we might be able to read it. So you see how very
important words are, and learn that when God tells us in one part of His
Book that He created the earth not "without form," and in another part
that it was (or became) "without form," the state of the earth as it is
described in the second verse of the first chapter of Genesis was different
from its condition when God created it in the beginning. Between these two
verses, so close together in your Bible, ages upon ages may have run their
course; a distance of time may have passed so great that we cannot measure
it by any thoughts of ours.
What happened between the time, which God calls "the beginning," the time
of the earth's creation, and that time when what He created had become
"waste and desolate," we do not know. What this earth was like, when God
first created it, we do not know. How the plants and animals, which now lie
buried deep beneath the ground upon which we tread, and shut up within the
rocks, lived and died, we do not know. How confusion and desolation came,
we do not know. And why do we not know?
Because God has not told us. People have thought a great deal about it, and
they say that upon the earth itself may be read, as in a book, marks of
the many changes which it went through during that far, far away time; but
what we have to remember is that God does not tell us anything about it in
His Book; it is with the days and weeks and years of Time and the "from
everlasting to everlasting" of His great Eternity, about which He does
speak to us, that we have to do.
God speaks to us, the inhabitants of the earth, of what it concerns us to
know--and the first thing we learn about this earth upon which we live is
that it was created by Him.
The next thing that we learn is that the earth which He had "formed to be
inhabited" was "without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of
the deep." This was the state of the earth which God had created, when He
began the work of His wonderful "Days," and brought what had become a scene
of desolation into order and beauty, a place prepared for men to dwell in.
And now there is one more verse to find, because it speaks about those SIX
DAYS in which God "made" (not "created") the heaven and the earth. "In six
days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is."
(Exodus xx. 11.)
How wonderful it is, is it not? that God should tell us so much about His
work! He might have made everything in a moment, by one word, but He was
pleased to take all these "Days," and to tell us about the wonderful things
which he made upon each of them, and at the end of them all we read--
"And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold it was [not waste and
desolate any more, but] very good."
I wish that I could look over your shoulder as you are reading, and ask you
whether there is anything you want to have explained. Ah, well! I cannot,
and, perhaps, if I could I should not explain to you nearly so well as
father or mother would. Only be sure you ask questions, if there is
anything you do not understand, that you may have it made plain to you.
I once told my children about a little girl I knew, who very much wanted to
know things, but sometimes she went on ever so long without knowing, just
because she was too proud to ask; she could not bear for people to find
out that she did not know all that she thought a child of her age ought
to know. But children of any age cannot know things without being taught,
and so it came to pass that this child grew to be quite a big girl without
knowing how to tell the time. Once, when her mother said, "Run and tell
me what o'clock it is," Lucy ran off as quickly as if she knew all about
it, and then she stood at the foot of the stairs and looked at the clock,
and wondered why one hand was still and the other moved, and how grown-up
people knew what time it was by just looking at their watches for half a
minute. Before she had found out any of these puzzling things, all at once
Lucy heard her mother's voice calling, "Lucy, Lucy," and she ran back to
her in a great hurry.
When asked why she had been so long, this poor, proud child made some
excuse. And then--I am ashamed to tell it, but it only shows what becomes
of pretending to know, instead of asking to be taught--she told her mother
what she guessed would be about the right time.
Her mother never thought she had been deceiving her; but Lucy went back to
her play with a very heavy heart, and a miserable feeling of how naughty
she had been, and how God knew all about it; and this was not the last time
that the wish to be thought clever--so clever as not to need to be taught
like other children, but to be able to find things out for herself--brought
her into sad trouble.
After having heard the story of Lucy and the clock, my children knew how
much I like them to ask questions, and were sure that I would answer them
if I could; and so Sharley asked me about something which she could not
understand.
"When God created the heaven and the earth, did He create the angels too?"
she said. "Were there angels in the beginning?"
Now the first part of Sharley's question I could not answer. I could only
say about it, "We do not know, because God has not told us."
Remember always, that when God does tell you a thing you must believe it,
just because it is God who has said it; and it is only by believing what
God tells you that you can understand it. But when you are quite sure that
God has not told you about something which you would like to know, you must
never try to guess at it, or make up something about it out of your own
head. Our thoughts and fancies may seem very pretty, and please us very
much; but we are quite sure to be wrong when we try to peep at what God has
not shown us in the wonderful glass of His word.
But there is an answer to the last part of Sharley's question, and she
found it in the Book of Job. When God was taking a great deal of pains to
teach Job not to think himself wise or good--really not to think of himself
at all--He asked him a great many questions which Job could not answer.
This was one of the questions: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations
of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.... When the morning
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job
xxxviii. 4-7).
From this question, which the Lord asked Job, we know that at the world's
birthday, when its foundations were laid, angels were there, rejoicing in
God's works, though we do not know when these "sons of God" were created.
Angels are happy, blessed creatures; they are God's messengers, who "excel
in strength and do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His
word."
All we are told about angels is very beautiful. When the Lord Jesus was
born, you know it was an angel who brought to the shepherds of Bethlehem,
as they watched their flocks, the "good tidings of great joy," that to them
was born a Saviour, Christ the Lord. How glad he must have been to fly with
such a wonderful message! And how the "multitude of the heavenly host" must
have rejoiced as they praised God, saying, "Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke ii. 14).
It is beautiful to see that angels rejoiced at the world's birthday, and
also at the birth of Him who is the Saviour of the world. And there is "joy
in the presence of the angels of God"--the Lord Jesus Himself has told us
of this--whenever anyone is sorry for his sins and turns to Him.
And there is another thing very beautiful to think of about the angels.
They are God's ministers, or servants, who do His pleasure in serving His
children here in this world; taking care of them, because they are so
precious to Him.
I want you to find the verse which tells us about this "ministry of
angels," and then I will not ask you to look for any more references
to-day. It is at the end of a chapter in the epistle to the Hebrews.
"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who
shall be heirs of salvation?" (Hebrews i. 14).
Remember that in the Bible the word "minister" means servant, and so to
minister means to serve. And we must not forget that in the last book of
the Bible we read of a "new song;" which no angel can sing, for it is known
only by the great multitude of the redeemed; and though it will be sung
in heaven, it is learnt on earth. Angels may join in the mighty chorus of
praise to which every creature will add its voice--but it is those who have
been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ who will lead that song and
say, "Thou are worthy, for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed to God by Thy
blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."
How much is told us in the first three verses of God's Book? We have read
that this earth, now so full of beauty, was once waste and desolate; there
was no life there, and no light--for "darkness was upon the face of the
deep." How long this state of ruin continued we do not know; but the next
thing we are told is very solemn and wonderful--"the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters." Then, in the next verse we read, "and God
said." The Spirit of God and the word of God are spoken of together here,
where we read of His mighty working in the past in bringing the earth out
of ruin and darkness into light and life and beauty; and it is by His word
and His Spirit that the soul is turned from darkness to light, and is born
again--born of God--now.
So that God has given us here a picture or type from which we can learn;
but I hope to tell you a little more about this another time. Just now I
should like you to look for a very beautiful verse (Deut. xxxii. 11) which
compares the care of God for His chosen People to that of the eagle for her
young; because the word there translated "fluttereth" is the same which
in the second verse of the Bible is translated "moved," as we read, "the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
It is that Holy Spirit who alone can explain to us the meaning of such
words, for it is written, "The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit
of God."
"Songs of praise the angels sang,
Heaven with hallelujahs rang,
When Jehovah's work begun,
When He spake and it was done.
"Songs of praise awoke the morn
When the Prince of Peace was born;
Songs of praise arose when He
Captive led captivity.
"Heaven and earth must pass away,
Songs of praise shall crown that day;
God will make new heavens and earth;
Songs of praise shall hail their birth."
J. MONTGOMERY.
THE FIRST DAY.
LIGHT.
"_Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the
place thereof?_"--JOB xxxviii. 19.
"_He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with
him._"--DANIEL ii, 22.
"_God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ._"--2 COR. iv, 6.
I want you to notice, in the beautiful verses which speak of "light," that
God does not at first tell us anything about Himself. He speaks to us of
what He did when in the beginning He created the heaven and the earth, and
of what He said at the time when the earth lay in darkness, buried beneath
the waters. In the midst of the silence and darkness a voice was heard, the
voice of God, "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." This
we read in the first page of God's Book; but it is very near its end that
God makes it known that the One who made the light, the One at whose word
light came from darkness, is Himself Light. It is His very Nature.
"God is light." Now we learn from God's Word that there are two kinds of
light, and two kinds of darkness; let us talk a little about this.
We can well understand one kind of darkness, because we can see it: and
we know it is caused by the absence of light. It grows dark when the sun,
which makes our day, has set to us, and the night has come to wrap us
round, as it were, in a curtain of shade that we may sleep quietly. It is
dark too, not only by night, but all the day long in the deep caverns where
the miner must carry his lamp to light up those dismal places where the sun
never shines. This darkness, like that which rested upon the face of the
deep before God spoke that word which brought the light, is caused by there
being no light, and as soon as the light comes the darkness goes. The other
kind of darkness we cannot see: it has to do, not with places, but with
people, and we read about it very often in the Bible. It is that dreadful
kind of darkness which has come through sin, and has settled down upon the
heart of every one of us. This darkness God sees, and He speaks about it in
His Word.
We find it hard to believe that our hearts are all dark when God looks at
them; that He finds no love to Himself there; no bright spot anywhere; but
God, who is Light, as He looks straight down to the depths of those hearts,
and sees us through and through, has told us the truth about ourselves, as
He sees us.
You do not like darkness better than light; the night better than the day,
do you?
I remember how sorry I used to be when night came, and how fond I was of
saying to myself a verse I had learnt, as I lay awake in the early morning
and watched the dawning light--
"I saw the glorious sun arise
Far o'er yon mountain grey,
And as he rode upon the skies
The darkness went away;
And all around me was so bright
I wished it would be always light!"
Yes, we naturally love the light which is so cheerful, and shows us so
plainly all the beautiful things around us.
But that other kind of light which shines from God into our hearts, do we
like it?
No; one sad thing that sin has done is to make us love the dark, because we
feel as though there we could hide away from God. We know quite well that
if God is looking at us He sees us right, just as we are, not as we like to
think we are, and this is why we try to forget that He is always looking
at us. I know a little boy, who had done something naughty, and had been
hiding it all day. No one saw Georgie go to the cupboard and take a piece
of sugar. He had eaten it, and had gone back to his play as if nothing had
happened, before his grandmother came back into the room. All day long
Georgie kept in the dark; a darkness which could not be seen ruled in
his heart--but it was a darkness that might be felt, and which made him
miserable. At last when bedtime came, and he had said good-night to his
grandmother, upstairs in his little room his aunt knelt down beside him and
began to pray. Presently something happened which showed that Georgie was
praying really himself, while Auntie said the words. He looked up for a
moment and said softly, "Tell God about that sugar."
And then he went to bed, oh, so much happier than he had been all those
long hours before he had come into the light, and told the truth about what
only God and Georgie himself knew--nobody else in the world!
But while I say this I think I am forgetting what we so often forget when
we do wrong. Satan knew about it, and he had tried all day long to keep
this little boy away in the dark, hiding from God, and to make him think it
was not worth while to tell the truth about such a little thing as a piece
of sugar. If any such thought as that comes into your heart when you have
done wrong, do not listen to it for one moment. Remember that the darkness
and the light are both alike to God.
And now I want to tell you about another boy, older than Georgie, who was
made very unhappy by the thought that he could not get away anywhere to
hide from God. But why did Johnny want so much to hide from God? Had he
been very naughty? It was not because he had done anything very naughty
just then, but because something inside him--that voice that perhaps often
seems to speak deep down in your heart--spoke to him and made him afraid.
He did not like that God, who is Light, should come close to him. When
people saw him crying, and said kindly, "What is the matter, my boy?" poor
Johnny could only say, "God is looking at me." He had just this one thought
always with him--God was looking at him, and God could see what no one else
could, the real Johnny, and all the secret things which he could not bear
that anyone should know.
But had God only just begun to look at this boy? No; all his life
long--more than twelve years, I think--the eye that never sleeps had been
watching him. Johnny had tried to hide himself behind his play and his
pleasures, and, as he grew older, behind his carelessness; but now he had
learnt that none of the things which may hide us from ourselves and from
others, can hide us from God. He could only feel that God was looking at
him, and in this way Johnny learned something of the meaning of the words
"God is light." That is what God has to teach us all, and it would be a
lesson too terrible for anyone to learn, if that were all God has been
pleased to tell us about Himself. But there is another part of God's
message to us, and it was when Johnny had learned it that he was not afraid
or unhappy any more.
It was because God was looking for him that He allowed this boy to have
that dreadful feeling that there was someone, from whom he could not hide
away, who knew him perfectly. Johnny learnt this lesson, and then God
taught him not only that "God is light," but that he need not be afraid to
stand, just as he was, in the light which shows everything, because of this
other wonderful little verse which tells us that "God is love."
And so at last Johnny learned to say to God what king David said--after he
had told God all the truth about what he had done, and God had forgiven
him--"Thou art my hiding-place." I have heard a very wonderful thing; but
I believe it is true. It is said of light that "it conceals more than it
reveals"; that there is no hiding-place like light, if it is only bright
enough; and the brighter the light is, the more impossible it is to find
what has been hidden there!
I remember when I first saw the electric light; it was in the middle of the
night, as the boat on board which I had been crossing the sea which divides
Wales from Ireland, came in at the pier. All around, the whole scene was
lighted up; the dark water shone, and the people came on shore and looked
for their luggage, and took their places in the tram, no one thinking of
such a thing as a lamp, for all was clear as daylight.
But this light, bright as it was, lighted only a very little space; as the
train moved off we left it behind us, and hurried on into the dark night.
How much more wonderful is the light of the sun which shines night and day,
always giving light to some part of the world!
But sunlight, moonlight, and electric light, all these shine upon the
outside, upon what we can see. God, who is Light, shines upon what is
within, upon that heart which is by nature so dark that there is not one
bright spot there, so that if God did not shine into it no light could ever
come.
Have you ever seen, when the moon has been shining over the sea, making a
long, broad pathway of brightness, a ship, as it sails along, suddenly come
into that bright track? It is a beautiful sight; just for one moment every
mast and sail all stand out with such distinctness that you say, "Oh, I can
see her now perfectly!" Then, while you look, she has crossed the shining
path, and you can but just trace her dim outline, and know that a ship is
sailing there.
[Illustration: CROSSING THE SHINING PATH.]
When the Lord Jesus Christ was in this world He said, "As long as I am in
the world, I am the light of the world." He showed people plainly that He
knew them in a way that no one else could. Some people were glad; one poor
woman, who had been in the dark all her life, went and told everyone about
Him, and said, "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did."
Others could not bear that that light should show them to themselves, so we
read that one day those who had been with Him, "went but one by one," until
they were all gone. Which would you rather be like--the people who went
away into the darkness, rather than be found out by the Light, or the one
who stayed, and heard those words she could never forget--"Neither do I
condemn thee; go and sin no more"?
The only way not to be afraid of the light is to come to the Lord Jesus
Christ, who has said of every one that follows Him, that he shall not
"abide in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
But hiding--hiding from God--only means getting deeper into the dark,
farther away from Him who is Light.
Now that we have spoken of these solemn and important things--things which
I like to speak to you about, but which God alone, who loves you so much,
can really teach you:--I should like to tell you a little about the light
as we see it all around us.
Now, what can we learn about it?
First, we learn that it was called into existence by the voice of God. God
said, "Let there be light; and there was light" on the FIRST DAY, but it
was not until the FOURTH DAY that those great light-bearers--the sun and
the moon--were made lights to the earth, and set "for signs, and for
seasons, and for days and years." But the question, "What is light?" is not
one easily answered.
We can all understand that light is that which makes everything visible,
but you will perhaps be surprised to hear that it has taken a very long
time even to find out how the light comes to us.
It is now generally believed that light, which is one of the strongest
powers in the world, is caused by motion; and that it is because every
light-giving body is always moving very fast, that it gives out light. But
no one can explain how this rapid movement began, nor what that "ether" is
through which the "vibrations" travel until they reach a wonderful little
screen which we have at the back of each of our eyes, by means of which we
are able to see.
We may think of the air around us as a vast ocean, through which waves
conveying light and sound are constantly travelling. When a sound-wave
strikes the ear, we hear; when a light-wave, moving like a water-wave,
reaches the eye, we see. Light comes chiefly from the sun: it is beautiful
to think, is it not?--of waves of light streaming always, day and night,
from that wonderful sun so far away, and coming, wave after wave, to paint
beautiful pictures on our eyes! For if you and I both look at the same
lovely view, we have each a picture of it--the mountains, and sea, and
green fields, and houses--all to ourselves; and so it would be if, not two
people, but two hundred were looking. One thing about light of which we are
quite sure is, that it travels very quickly. It makes its noiseless journey
all round this great earth eight times in one second--in less time than it
takes for my watch to give one tick; and it comes all the long, long way
from the sun to the earth in less than ten minutes.
I spoke just now of the light painting pictures upon our eyes. Did you know
that if there were no light there would be no beautiful colours? Where the
sun shines very brightly, in those parts of the world called the tropics,
it is not only very hot, but travellers tell us that there the green of
the leaves is darker than we are accustomed to see it, and the colours of
the flowers and of the birds' feathers are more brilliant than in our own
country, where the sunlight is never so strong.
Then, though the sunlight gives their lovely colours to the anemones and
seaweeds, as it shines into their homes in the shallow places near shore,
if you could go far down into the ocean depths, where the light can hardly
reach, you would find the colours of any creatures, or plants, or shells
that might be there soft and pure, but not brilliant.
But how does the light make the colours? It seems only white, or perhaps
gold-coloured, in itself.
This is what I should like to explain to you, for it is a very beautiful
lesson, and not difficult to learn.
When I asked the children if they could tell me what we mean when we say
that a thing reflects the light, Chrissie said he had often seen the red
sunset reflected by the windows opposite, but he could not quite tell how
to explain it.
We may read in books this explanation: "The reflection of light is the
turning back of its rays by the surface upon which they fall." And while we
read this we must remember that the surface or outside of everything has
some peculiarity about it, which affects the light as it falls upon it.
The light of the sun is made up of seven colours, though God has so
perfectly blended them that we see only white light; but all these colours
may be traced in the seven-coloured arch, which is a token to men of His
mercy, and a sign that while the earth remains "seed-time and harvest, cold
and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."
The smallest portion of light which we can speak of is called a ray of
light. You have seen, when what you call a beam of light comes in at a
hole, before the shutters have been opened, how the little specks of
dust glance up and down in it, as if they were at an endless game of
puss-in-the-corner. But have you ever seen beautiful colours, like those of
the rainbow, dance about the room--now on the ceiling, now on the floor?
You can best see this lovely little rainbow by darkening the room, and
letting just one ray of light stream in through a small hole. Then take
a bit of glass, cut so that it has at least three sides--a "drop" of cut
glass from the lustre on the mantelpiece will do--and hold it up between
you and the light. This little piece of glass, which is called a prism,
because it has been sawn or cut, will do a wonderful thing, as you turn
it about in the sunbeam. The ray of light, as it passes through the
three-cornered bit of glass, will be turned out of its straight path, and
this causes it to be split up into many colours, so that you will have a
tiny rainbow, which can be seen beautifully if you allow it to fall upon a
sheet of white paper; and the colours are always arranged in the same way.
Look! in the centre of your rainbow there are green and yellow; then comes
red, then blue, then violet. You can easily see these five colours; and two
more are counted; indigo, or dark blue, and orange. The only difficulty
about saying how many colours you can see is this. If you begin with the
violet, and count till you come to the red, you will find that the soft
hues are so blended, or run into each other, that it is not easy to see
where one ends and the other begins.
I want you to make this little rainbow, not only because the colours which
it paints upon the ceiling are so pure and beautiful, and it is so curious
to see the bright band of red and blue and green dancing from place to
place as you turn your bit of glass, but because you can see in this way
how a ray of light spreads itself out when it passes through this glass
with three sides. The colours are separated from each other because no two
waves of light are of quite the same length; some move slowly and others
fast, and the faster a wave travels the more it is turned aside out of the
straight road.
This is a difficult subject, but I think you will understand that if all
rays were alike, the whole beam would be bent; but as some are more easily
bent than others, as they pass through the prism they are spread out.
Long ago, the great philosopher Newton bought a prism, and thus "analysed"
or broke up the sunbeam, and discovered what is called the "prismatic band"
of colours. He found that what seemed to be white light was made up of
tints really infinite in number; for though we count only seven prismatic
colours, they are shaded off, one into the other, as you see.
Having thus broken up the beam of light, Newton, by means of two prisms,
put together again the rays which he had separated, and the sunbeam was
"white" as before. Perhaps you wonder why we do not always see coloured
light: the reason is that the waves of light, unless interfered with and
turned out of their straight path, all travel together in their rapid,
noiseless course, and so remain unbroken.
You will find it very interesting to make the first of Newton's experiments
yourself, and some day perhaps you will hear what wonderful things about
the sun and the stars are being learnt in our own time by means of the
spectroscope, which is an instrument having a fine slit through which the
ray is passed before it is allowed to fall upon the prism.
And now what do we mean when we talk of things being of different colours?
When we say of snow that it is white we mean that, as the light falls upon
the snow, it is all sent back again. The surface of the snow reflects all
the light, and keeps none. The other day, when I was buying some flowers
to plant in the garden, the woman who was selling them showed me a black
pansy. "I am sure you would like to have this root," she said, "black
pansies are so rare."
[Illustration]
I did not buy the flower, for I did not think it nearly so pretty as the
purple and yellow pansies, which seemed to look up at me with such knowing
little faces; but I was interested to see it, because (and are you not glad
that it is so?) black flowers are very rare. But why was this pansy black?
Ah! it was quite different from the snow; it kept all the light which fell
upon it, and gave away none. You see that God has given to some things the
power of absorbing light and to others that of reflecting it. If it were
not so, our world would be very different from the beautiful world which it
is--as different as an engraving is from a coloured picture, with fields,
gardens, sea and sky all of varied hue. Almost all the flowers are so
beautiful because, while they keep some of the colours from the light which
falls upon them, they do not keep all.
Now look at the flowers in that glass upon the table. The lovely rose keeps
part of its ray of light, but gives us back the red; the larkspur gives
back the blue; and those pure white lilies, which show so fair beside the
roses, give back all the light in its bright whiteness just as it comes to
them, so that a poet, who loved them well, calls them "those flowers made
of light."
And the water in the glass, why is it white?
Because water is what is called transparent; it does not drink in the
light, but lets the whole ray pass through it, as it passes through the
window-pane.
Now my lesson about colours is over, and I will tell you a story. I don't
know whether you have as good a memory as some of my children had, and
whether you remember my promise to explain to you about types. I daresay
you have heard this word used in more than one way, and a word which has
two meanings is rather a puzzle, is it not? I know how it used to set me
thinking, when I heard someone say of a new book that it was pleasant to
read, because of its good type; the word was not new to me, but I had heard
it used in quite another way, the way in which it is used when we say of
the serpent of brass lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, that the dying
people might look at it and live--that it was a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ lifted up upon the cross, as He Himself tells us it was. I daresay,
if I could ask you, you would tell me that "type" used in this sense means
a picture. That was what Chris and Sharley said, but it was because I
wanted the little ones as well as the elder ones to understand that meaning
of the word that I told them this story which a friend of mine once told
me, and which I am sure you will like to hear,
We were saying just now how dark it would be in the deep mines, far
underground, where no daylight can come, if it were not for the lamp which
the miner carries with him wherever he goes. You may think you would rather
like to go down a mine, just for once, if you were quite sure of being
drawn up safely in the miners' cage, but I think you would not go down,
if you thought you would have to stay even a whole week in such a dismal
place.
My story is about a boy who had never been anywhere else, for he was born
in a mine, and all his childhood, while other children were running about
in the fields, looking up at the sky and breathing the fresh air which
makes your cheeks so rosy, this little boy might turn his bright eyes this
way and that, but no trees and houses and gay gardens were to be seen, far
or near; for though he was five or six years old, no one had ever taken him
up to the top of the mine and let him see the sky, and pick the daisies,
and feel the warm sunshine. Poor boy, he was an orphan; both his parents
had died before he could remember, and he had no one to care for him in the
way in which your dear father and mother have always cared for you. At last
one of the miners thought what a sad life it was for a child to be always
down underground, and he began to take notice of the lonely little boy,
who had no father and mother to love him and be good to him, and in the
evenings, when his work was done, he coaxed the child to come on his knee,
and used to tell him stories about that wonderful world above ground which
he had never seen.
Do you not think it must have been very difficult for the kind miner to
talk about the blue sky and the birds, and the grass and trees, and all the
beautiful sights which most children know so well, to a child who had never
seen any of them? It was indeed a difficult task, but you know there is an
old saying about difficulties which tells us that "love will find out the
way" to overcome them. The miner became very fond of his pet, and he found
out a way of making the things of which he spoke seem real to him.
"He could show him pictures," you will say. That was what little May
thought, and it would have been a very good way; but remember that there
were no beautiful picture-books such as you have, down in the mine. How
then could the miner teach his little friend about things above ground?
The only way in which he could do this was by means of things in the mine
which the boy knew well, and had been used to all his life. So he would
take his lamp, and talk to him about it, and show him how its tiny flame
lighted up the darkness, and then he would point upwards, and say that far
above ground there was a great lamp burning all day long, and giving light
to the people who lived in that upper world.
Now you would say that a miner's lamp was a very poor picture of the
glorious sun; still, this child saw that in the under world, where he
lived, it made all the difference between light and darkness whether the
lamps were shining or not; so the lamp was like the sun, at least in that
respect, though it was so poor and dim, and such a tiny likeness of it.
In the same way--when his kind friend made the little boy look at the pails
of water which were swung down into the mine, and explained to him that
above ground, in that new world which he had never seen, the water ran
along quickly in great streams called rivers, and that there was a great,
great world of water called the sea--though you might say that a pail of
water in a mine, water which would soon be used for the miners to drink or
for cooking their food, would give a very poor idea indeed of the mighty
ocean with its rolling waves, where the whales spout, and the ships sail
on their long voyages; still, poor as it was, that water in the pail was a
likeness, a type of the rivers and seas, was it not?
The children were interested in this little boy, and they wanted to know
how long he lived in the mine, and what became of him afterwards; but this
I could not tell them, for I never heard any more about him.
And now I want you not only to be interested in this story, but to remember
why I have told it to you. You understand now, I am sure, that a type is
a figure of something not present; of course, inferior to the thing it
represents, as the miner's lamp was inferior to the sun, or a man's shadow
on the wall is to the man himself, but giving a true idea to a certain
degree.
The light given by the miner's lamp was bright when compared with that
given by one little candle in a cottage window, and yet that feeble ray,
quietly shining night after night, served to guide many a fisherman safely
past a dangerous rock, which juts out into the sea, on the coast of one of
the Orkney Isles. It was a young girl, the daughter of a fisherman, who
lighted that candle and kept it burning. Her father's boat had been wrecked
one wild dark night on "Lonely Rock," and his body washed ashore near his
cottage. The girl, in her grief, remembered other poor fishermen, and when
night came on she set a candle in the window, and watched it as she sat at
her spinning wheel. She did not do this once, or twice, but through long
years that coast was never without the light of her little candle, by which
the men at sea might be warned off the neighbourhood of the terrible rock.
In order to pay for her candles, this lonely girl with a faithful heart
spun every night an extra quantity of yarn--for she earned her own living
by her spinning wheel--and so the tiny flame was kept alight, and she found
comfort in her sorrow by doing what she could, in her unselfish care, for
"those in peril on the sea."
The meanest candle is a luminary in its way, for it possesses light, while
the most brilliant diamond has none in itself, and can give back only what
it receives.
And now that our lesson about the FIRST DAY is finished, we must not forget
what we have been learning.
God, the Creator, alone in creation,
(_a_) "said, Let there be light: and there was light." (_b_) "saw the
light, that it was good." (_c_) "divided the light from the darkness."
(_d_) "called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night."
"And the evening and the morning were the first day."
The astronomer Proctor, in his beautiful book, _Flowers of the Sky_, says
that "light is the first of all that exists in the universe." And we are,
told that the action of light was necessary to prepare the way for all
life; but this is far too great a subject for us to speak of in this little
book. Let us remember that God saw the light, that it was good, and that
He made the division between light and darkness in nature which He uses as
a figure in the New Testament, where we read that the children of God are
called "children of light," and "not of the night nor of darkness"; and
where "goodness, and righteousness, and truth" are spoken of as "fruits of
the light," in contrast with "unfruitful works of darkness."
In all that is around us in this world which God made, if we had eyes to
see, we should find pictures of the things which are unseen, but yet very
real; so in the Book which He has written, He has given us pictures. The
description in verse 2 of the waste empty earth, with darkness upon the
face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters,
is a picture of the condition of everyone born into this world.
In verse 3 we have a picture of God as Light shining into the dark and
empty heart.
In verse 4 we see that God separates good from evil.
Now I want you to think of these things, and as we have been talking of the
words,
God is Light,
God is Love,
I am going to copy for you a hymn, which speaks of them very beautifully;
my children know it well, and often sing it.
"God in mercy sent His Son
To a world by sin undone.
Jesus Christ was crucified;
_'Twas for sinners Jesus died_.
Oh! the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Saviour's face,
Telling sinners from above,
'God is Light,' and 'God is Love.'
"Sin and death no more shall reign,
Jesus died and lives again!
In the glory's highest height--
See Him God's supreme delight.
Oh! the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Saviour's face,
Telling sinners from above,
'God is Light,' and 'God is Love.'
"All who on His name believe,
Everlasting life receive;
Lord of all is Jesus now,
Every knee to him must bow.
Oh! the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Saviour's face,
Telling sinners from above,
'God is Light,' and 'God is Love.'
"Christ the Lord will come again,
He who suffered once will reign;
Every tongue at last shall own,
'Worthy is the Lamb' alone.
Oh! the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Saviour's face,
Telling sinners from above,
'God is Light,' and 'God is Love.'"
H. K. BURLINGHAM.
THE SECOND DAY.
THE OCEAN OF AIR.
"_Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of
Him which is perfect in knowledge?... Hast thou with Him spread out the
sky?_"--JOB xxxvii. 16-18.
"_When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass upon
the face of the depth: when He established the clouds above: when He
strengthened the fountains of the deep._"--PROVERBS viii. 27, 28.
"_Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out
heaven with the span?_"--ISAIAH xl. 12.
In reading these beautiful verses, let us remember that in the second of
them it is the Lord Jesus Christ who says of that time when God prepared
the heavens, "I was there." And now, as we are going to think about what
God did on the SECOND DAY of Creation, I want you not only very carefully
to read those verses in the first chapter of Genesis which tell us about it
(verses 6-9), but to keep your Bible open at the place, so that you may be
able to refer to them constantly.
When we had read them together, my children noticed that in these verses we
find once more three words which are used to tell us about the work of God
upon the FIRST DAY. You see these words, do you not?
"God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters."
"God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters
which were above the firmament."
"God called the firmament Heaven."
And there is one word which has not been used before: "And God made the
firmament."
It is quite simple to see this, but I daresay you want to know, as all the
children--even the elder ones--did, the meaning of one very uncommon word
which we find in each of these verses. "What does 'firmament' mean?" they
said.
I told them that the word conveys the idea of something firm and strong and
steadfast; and then I asked Sharley, who has a reference Bible, to look in
the margin, and tell me what word she could find there which might be used
instead of this uncommon one. She found, as you will find if there are
references in your Bible, that the word is there translated "expansion."
And what does that mean?
You can understand something spread out wide, can you not?
Those who turned the Hebrew word into English long ago thought
"firmament"--that which stands fast--was a better word than "expansion,"
which simply means what is stretched or spread out--as the heaven is spread
above the earth "like a curtain." The expanse, then, which God made on the
SECOND DAY, is what we call, the sky, as we look up and see the
"... tapestried tent
Of that marvellous curtain of blue and gold,"
which is high above our heads, and stretches away far, far as our eyes
can reach. And this tent, under whose shadow we dwell, is not firm and
solid, but is really a globe of vapour, which surrounds us everywhere, and
reaches, not all the way up to what we call the blue sky, but very much
higher than any bird could fly or balloon float--as high as forty or fifty
miles above the earth. God has fixed its height; if it were less, every
breath we take would hurt us; if it were much greater, we should be always
tired.
But before we speak of this atmosphere, or globe of air, which surrounds
the earth, I want you to remember, as you read of the work of God on the
Six Days of creation, that each one of these Days led, in a beautiful
order, to the next, and that in all of them God was preparing the earth,
which He had created in the beginning, for the creatures which He had not
yet formed. For each kind of creature a place was found fit for it to live
in, whether that dwelling-place was the earth, or the great and wide sea,
or the boundless fields of air. And each creature, as it came from God's
hand, was fitted to live where God had placed it: for every living thing
the means of living was provided. Thus on the First of His Days God called
for the light. What would the face of all the world be without it? Then on
the SECOND DAY He not only provided the place in which the happy winged
creatures fly and utter their sweet songs, but that by which all living
things, whether they were plants or animals, should be kept alive. I am
sure you know that without air you could not breathe; but perhaps you have
never thought that without it no plant could live, not even the smallest
blade of grass. Every green thing lives by breathing the air, and if there
were no air which it could breathe, it would soon die.
How freely God has given us this great blessing! His air is all around us,
as is His presence. When people wish to speak of what belongs to everyone
alike they sometimes say, "It's as free as the air you breathe"--this
wonderful air, which we cannot see, but which helps to make the sky so
blue, without which no fire could burn, no robin sing to its mate, no lamb
bleat after its mother, no merry voices of boys and girls at play be heard.
God has indeed made it free to us; but let us never forget that we are, as
His creatures, dependent upon Him for every breath we draw.
Now while we speak of the way in which this world was created by God, and
fitted to become the dwelling-place of His creatures, we may remember how
the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples, after He had told them that He would
be only a little while with them, about the place He was going to prepare
for them. This reminds me of a little incident which I should like to tell
you, because it is so beautiful to know that the Lord of glory, who was
allowed no place here, He who
"Wandered as a homeless stranger,
In the world His hands had made,"
has indeed gone to prepare a place for those whom He has, by His death and
resurrection, made ready to dwell there.
In a quiet market-town in the North of England an aged Christian had
invited a number of those of whom our Lord says, "whensoever ye will ye may
do them good," to take tea with him and his friends. After they had enjoyed
what loving hands had made ready, their host took out God's book, and
turning to the second verse of the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel,
read it, and then said, "It comes to me in this way, dear friends: If our
Lord is preparing a place, He wants a prepared people."
He then went on to say that we all need preparing, that is making ready,
to dwell in the place of which the Lord Jesus Christ spoke as "My Father's
house"--the place which was always His own home--and then he told once
again the story which you have so often heard--
"... the old, old story
Of Jesus and His love."
The Lord often spoke to His own disciples about His Father. He said, "I
came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the
world, and go to the Father," and when He spoke of leaving them He said,
"If ye loved Me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father."
But we know that those who had been with their Master for so long did not
rejoice when He spoke of going away: their hearts were filled with sorrow.
When He said to them, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know," Thomas
replied; "Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the
way?"
What did the Lord say?
He said that He was Himself the way to the Father--"I am the way, and the
truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me."
But if the Lord was going back to His Father's House--the place which was
always His home--He was not willing to go alone. He might have gone back at
any time, but if He would have those who could neither cleanse nor clothe
themselves, who were sinful and unfit for that Home of love and light, He
must go by the way of death, giving up His own life, that He might make
them ready to dwell with Him in His Father's house; so that when He said,
"I go to prepare a place for you," He, the Son of God, in His wonderful
love, was going to do that which alone could make anyone fit to enter
there, and be at home for evermore.
But then we sometimes go on as if we were to live in this world for ever,
and do not come to Him who says, "I am the way." Or perhaps we think we can
make ourselves ready by trying to be good--forgetting that the One who is
Himself the Truth said, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that
which was lost," and that if the Lord is preparing a place, He wants a
prepared people.
But we were speaking about the way in which God, when He made this world in
which we live, prepared it for the creatures to whom He would give it to
be their dwelling-place; and especially of the globe of air with which He
has surrounded the earth--that wonderful ocean of air in which we live and
move, just as the fish live and move in their ocean of water.
Let us see if we cannot learn something more about the atmosphere. But
first of all let me ask, What can you tell me about it?
"You cannot see the air; you can feel it, and often hear it."
Yes, indeed we can. How delightfully fresh it comes to us as we swing, or
when we are driving fast, or sailing; and how terrible its force is when
the stormy wind rushes past, driving everything before it! It is then we
can understand that the gentle air, which yields to the slightest touch,
may be a very mighty power indeed.
And now I am going to tell you something about the air which may surprise
you. We often say of a thing that it is "as light as air"; but air is not
really light, it is so heavy that it would press upon us and crush us, just
as a great hammer might crush your little finger, only that this heavy
weight of air presses quite evenly everywhere all through our body, within
and without, upward as well as downward, and yields at once when we move,
so that we do not feel its weight.
Just think of the weight of water which lies above a little fish as it
swims far down in the sea. Why is it not crushed by it? Just for the same
reason; the water is all round the fish, as the air in our ocean is all
round us; and it presses so evenly that it cannot be felt in any particular
part.
Another very wonderful thing about the atmosphere is that what we call the
air is made up of two airs, or gases, as different as possible from each
other, but mixed so as to make exactly that particular sort of air which is
fit for us to breathe.
One of these gases, named oxygen, might well be called "life-sustainer"; it
forms about one-fifth of the air we breathe, and is that part of it which
makes our fires burn and our lamps give light, and keeps us and all the
animals alive. The other gas is called nitrogen; it is a dull gas, with no
life in it, and remains behind when all the oxygen is taken out of the air.
But this part of the air is very useful; it prevents the breathing of men
and animals and the burning of fires and lamps, from going on too fast. If
you had only the life-sustaining part of the air to breathe, you would soon
die; and if the air was all made of that part which burns so well, one
spark falling upon it would be enough to burn up the whole world, for no
one could put the fire out.
These two gases are mixed in nearly the same proportions in all climates
so as to make the beautiful pure air which God has given us to live and
go about in. There is another gas, called carbonic acid, made partly
of oxygen and partly of carbon, or burnt wood, which might be called
"life-destroyer," for it will put out light and make an end of life. It is
one of the most deadly poisons, and forms the "choke-damp" which too often
suffocates the miner; but what we call fresh air contains such a very
small proportion of this dangerous gas that it is harmless. Still we must
remember that every time anyone or any animal breathes, some of the air
by which we live is taken away from that which surrounds us, and some of
this poisonous air is thrown into it. If this is the case, should we not,
by degrees, find the air becoming less and less pure and fit for us to
breathe?
Certainly it would be so, if God had not made a beautiful provision for
keeping the air fresh, which I will try to explain to you.
You may remember that the Lord Jesus, after He had made the five barley
loaves and two small fishes prove enough for thousands of hungry men and
women and little children, turned to His disciples, and said, "Gather up
the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." So, in the world around
us, we may often see that God gives freely, but does not allow what He has
freely given to be lost or wasted.
Now when you take a long breath, and breathe in the air, you presently
breathe it out again. But what you breathe out is not the same; the part
of it by which you live is gone, and a poisonous air has taken its place.
Then, if every person in the world, and even the smallest animal, is
constantly using up the good part of the air, and breathing out that which
has been spoilt for animals, and would kill them if they had nothing else
to breathe--why are not all animals poisoned? What becomes of this air
which has been spoilt for them? Is it good for anything?
Ah! there is a wonderful, beautiful answer to these questions going on all
day long, surely and silently, unseen by any of us.
This air which has been used by us, and is no longer fit for our use,
feeds the plants and trees, the grass, and all living things which are
not animals; the plants, through tiny mouths at the edge of their leaves,
breathe it in. They grow by it; and, wonder of wonders, all day long, if
only the plant is where the sun can shine upon it, every green bit of it
is busy making this same air fit for us to breathe again; using up what it
wants, and what we do not want; every fragment, as it were, being gathered
up, and nothing lost.
I used to think, when I first learnt this beautiful lesson, that every part
of a plant was useful in purifying the air, and also that plants are always
busy at this purifying work, and so I liked to keep geraniums and fuchsias
in my room at night, for I thought that while I was asleep they would keep
the air fresh and sweet. But now I know--for as long as we live in this
world we can always be learning--that it is only in the daytime, when there
is light, that a plant can keep the air pure, by using up what we have
spoilt for our own use, and giving away what is good for us to breathe; and
also that, it is only the green part of it that has the power to take out
of the air the carbonic acid which we are constantly breathing into it,
using the carbon for its own food, and giving the oxygen back into the air
for our use; the parts which are not green, such as the roots and flowers,
breathe just as animals do, and spoil the air for us instead of making it
more fit for us to breathe.
You never thought, did you, that you help to feed the trees, and to keep
them alive and green, and that the trees and grass in their turn help to
keep you alive?
We were saying the other day how a ray of light will come through a little
round hole in the shutters when they are closed, or by any cranny through
which it can force its way. As long as that one ray is shining into the
darkened room you may watch the little grains of dust, like bright specks,
dancing up and down in it. But someone opens the shutters, the room becomes
all light, and you no longer see those tiny specks--and yet the dust is
still there, not only where you saw it, but all over the room.
Why could you see the dust just where the ray of light shone, and nowhere
else? The light did not make the dusty specks, they were in the room
already, but it showed them to you.
Just so there are many wonderful things going on around us in earth and sky
and sea--in what people call Nature--which we cannot see or hear or feel;
for God is always working mightily and graciously, unseen and unheard by
us, though He does allow us to know "parts of His ways," and to look with
wonder upon many more which we cannot understand.
We are apt to think that all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the world: but in reality the earth is never at rest; it has
passed through many changes, and still the old story goes on; on the one
hand there is change and decay, and on the other that constant building up
and repair by which "the face of the earth" is "renewed." Nothing is lost;
nothing stands still; and things which seem to have no relation to one
another, yet depend upon each other and work together in ways more
wonderful than we could ever have imagined: each is a part of the great
whole, and you could not take away any portion without spoiling the rest.
And now let us read again the 7th and 8th verses of our chapter.
"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the
firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were
the second day."
What are the "waters which were above"?
They are those beautiful clouds which seem to float in the ocean of air. I
am sure you have often wondered at their pure loveliness, as they sailed
over the sky, soft and white against the blue, as the foam upon the sea.
It was such clouds as these which two little boys saw once when they were
out driving. They were sitting close together in the back seat, and their
father heard them talking about the sky.
"Look," said one of the children, "God lives in the blue."
"No, Georgie," said his brother, "He lives in the white."
They were both right, for God is everywhere.
A little child of whom I have heard used to think, because she understood
that brightness and glory go together, that the stars were holes in the
floor of God's dwelling, to let the glory through. In the book of Job the
clouds are spoken of as "the treasure-house of the rain and snow," and
as the "bottles of heaven," and these names become full of meaning when
we know that the water, which falls from the clouds at every shower, is
constantly being drawn up again to fill them once more. This is done by
what is called evaporation, and very much of the water which rises to the
clouds comes from the sea, along shore, as well as from rivers and lakes.
Have you seen a pond dry up in summer? No? Then perhaps you have looked
into the ink bottle when all the ink had gone, and only some dry black dust
was left in it. What has happened? All the water in the ink has flown away;
the heat has turned it into vapour, which is lighter than air, and so it
has risen up through the air to form part of those snowy clouds which you
love to watch, when the light of the setting sun turns them to crimson and
gold. This change of water into vapour is one of the beautiful things which
we cannot often see, but which is always going on. The rain from heaven
falls upon the thirsty land, making it bring forth and bud, that there may
be bread for us, and food for every living thing; and then, when its work
is done, all that is not wanted goes back again, and is stored up in the
treasure-house of the clouds--nothing is lost.
I remember when we were speaking of this, I asked my children what the
earth would be like if all the rain that fell remained upon it. Chrissie
was the only one who had an answer ready; he said it would soon be a swamp,
and nothing could grow well, and no one could live. We can all understand
that if there were no rain to "satisfy the desolate ground," the earth
would soon be a parched desert; but it is just as true that, while the
rain is such a blessing, if God had not provided for its returning to the
clouds, the earth would indeed become a desolate waste of water. I must
tell you that little Dick was very much interested about this, and he
remembered that he had seen, in a place where the sun was shining, the
water going back from the earth to the clouds. "It went up in streaks," he
said, "and I saw it quite plainly."
Generally we look up at the clouds, but I remember once looking down and
seeing them below me. I had climbed a high mountain, and just when I got to
the top it happened that the peak was quite clear, but around it, a little
lower down, a wreath of white cloud was floating. Every now and then,
through a rift in the cloud, I could see the beautiful valley below, with
its smiling fields and winding river, and far away there was the sea, with
hundreds of green islands; all this I saw for a moment, as if through a
soft thin veil, and then the cloud closed again, and shut out the view.
I can quite understand travellers saying how lovely it is when they sail
through the air in balloons, to get up into a clear still height, and see
the "plains of clouds" below them. But there is one thing which makes
voyages in balloons dangerous. The higher people go, the more thin and
difficult to breathe the air becomes. One celebrated traveller, when he
had got as high as seven miles in his balloon, lost his senses, and his
companion was nearly frozen to death by the piercing cold. This traveller
tells us that about six or seven miles above the earth no sound can reach
the ear to break the perfect stillness and silence. This is because the
air at this height is so thin. On the top of Mont Blanc a pistol-shot can
scarcely be heard even though it is fired quite close; but if the same
pistol were to be fired off in the next field you would hear it, and put
your hand to your ears because the report was so loud.
But what makes the report? The pistol was fired into the air, and hit
nothing.
It was the air which was struck, and which sent back the sound. You
remember learning how light is turned back or reflected. Just as the
light-waves come back again, so do the sound-waves; very quickly if the
reflecting surface is near; after some time if it is far off. You know what
an echo is. There is a lovely place where some children I know used often
to go for a picnic. What they cared for most in Coombe Dingle was a wood
which they called the "Echo wood." They would stand beside a gate, and call
across the fields, and then listen. Very soon their own words, and even
their own tones, were sent back to them. The waves of air carried the
sounds along until they reached a pine wood which shut in the field. They
struck the tall trees, and were reflected, or sent back again, almost as
clearly as when first spoken.
Just in this way echoes of sound are, like birds, ever on the wing: the
whole air is alive with them. The walls of our rooms give back the tones
of our voices, but we hear no echo, because they are so near that the
repeating of the sound comes almost at the same moment as the sound itself.
There are echoes on all sides of us, and no sound is ever lost. How can
this be?
If you stand beside a quiet pool, and drop a stone into it, the stone sinks
down to the bottom and lies there; but from the spot where its fall broke
the calm surface, ring after ring ripples the water. Just so a single word
dropped from the lips of a child into the ocean of air is carried on, wave
after wave; so that, as a great philosopher once said, "the air is one vast
library, on whose pages is for ever written all that man has ever said or
even whispered."
[Illustration: THE "ECHO WOOD"]
There is a poem which you may know, that begins with this line--
"Kind words can never die."
This is quite true; but we might alter the first part of it a little, and
say, "No word can ever die." Not only the soft, loving words, but the
rough, angry ones, which we may well wish we had never spoken, all live in
this "vast library," and tell their own story.
How much it ought to make us think about our words, to know they can never
be lost!
THE RED, RED SKY.
"In the early, early morning, beyond the islands green,
Beyond the pines and palm trees, and the purple sea between,
Like the glow through a crimson window the morning rises slow,
And the isles lie dun in the glory, and the sea is all aglow.
"In the dim and misty evening the purple mountains stand,
And the glooms that hush the woodlands lie over all the land,
And high in dark blue heavens the red light bums and glows.
Like the Jasper of God's city, like the deep heart of the rose.
"Oh, why does morning dawn, and why ends the golden day,
With the crimson glow and glory, while the children kneel and pray?
Is it thus that God would tell me before the day begins
Of the morn of the Day of pardon, the Blood that has washed my sins?
"The morn of the day of gladness, the day of His love and grace,
When like the sun in his glory, the Lord unveiled His face,
And His love shone forth in beauty where all was dark before,
For the Blood had been shed which saved me, once and for evermore.
"Is it thus that God would tell me the evening draweth nigh,
When we pass beyond the mountains, beyond the purple sky?
And then, in God's great glory, the golden gates I see,
And sing, 'The Blood of Jesus has opened them for me!'"
FRANCES BEVAN
Taken, by permission, from _Hymns by Ter Steegen and Others_. Second
series.
THE THIRD DAY.
THE WORLD OF WATER.
"_The sea is His, and He made it._"--PSALM xcv. 5.
"_Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand?_"--ISAIAH xl. 12.
"_Who layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters._"--PSALM civ. 3.
"_He hath compassed the waters with bounds._"--JOB xxvi. 10.
We have been learning something about the wonderful world of air, in which
we live and move about. To-day we shall think a little of that vast world
of water which is the home of so many of God's creatures. I daresay you
know a pretty song about the ocean, beginning in this way (it is meant to
be sung by a sailor):
"The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies."
The philosophers say that if our earth were quiet and at rest, instead of
being the never-resting traveller that it is, the great mass of water would
surround it everywhere, just as the atmosphere does. We cannot imagine such
a thing, but we can see many ways in which the two great oceans are alike.
Both have their waves. Though we cannot see those in the world of air, we
can hear them, as you know.
Both are colourless in themselves, yet blue in their heights and depths.
Both are made of two airs or gases, beautifully combined.
At first sight we might say that this is almost too strange a tale to be
a true one; for few things seem more unlike than air and water. You will
think it stranger still when I tell you that one of the gases which goes
to form water is that same oxygen which gives life to the air we breathe,
and which will burn so fast if only a tiny spark comes in contact with it;
while the other is the gas called hydrogen, the "water-maker," which also
burns. And yet these two fiery gases make the water which the brave firemen
pump in streams upon a burning house to put out the flames. How wonderful
this is! If you were to mix them together as carefully as you could, using
exactly the same proportion of each as is found in water, you would make
something very dangerous, which might blow up with a terrible noise like
gunpowder. It is only when they are "combined," which means very closely
joined together, that they form water.
Perhaps this is rather hard to understand; but we have been taking only a
very little peep into that page of what is called the Book of Nature, which
tells to those who will take the trouble to read it something about the
chemistry of things--not so much how they are made, for that is a lesson
too great for us, but what goes to the making of them.
And now we are going to read the verses in our chapter which tell us of the
time when, at the word of God, "the sea and the dry land" were made.
"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto
one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the
dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas:
and God saw that it was good."
Once more you have read these words, "God said," "God called," "God saw."
They are quickly read. But who shall say how wonderful is that of which
they speak? God has been pleased in these few words to tell us what no
one could ever have found out about the birthday of that mighty world of
waters, when it was gathered together unto the place which He had prepared
for it, and received its name from Him.
I wonder whether you have ever seen the sea. If you have, you know it and
love it so well that there is no need for me to try to describe it to you.
If you have not, if your home has always been in the country among the
quiet fields, far away from the sound of the waves as they break upon the
strand; or if you have lived all your life in the town, where the streets
are full of noise and bustle, and busy folk hurrying to and fro--then I
think it would be almost as difficult for me to give you an idea of what
the boundless ocean is like, as it was for the kind miner to make his
little friend understand all about seas and lakes and rivers, as he talked
to him over that poor little pail of water, deep down in the dark mine.
Ah! you must see the great ocean-world for yourself; you must sail over the
crests of the waves, and learn to swim and dive. If you have never yet been
to the seaside, there is indeed a treat in store for you some day, and I
should like to be with you when that day comes, and catch a sight of your
face, so full of wonder and pleasure. I remember hearing of a little "city
sparrow" of a boy who was taken with a great many town children to spend a
long summer's day by the seaside. When he first came in sight of the bay,
with its bright, dancing waters, and saw the tide rolling in, wave after
wave, upon the yellow sands, he gave one long, satisfied look, and then
said, "How nice it is to see plenty of anything!"
Poor child, these words of his told their own touching tale; he had never,
in his parents' home, known what plenty was, and so his first thought about
the "great and wide sea" which God had made, was that there was enough of
it and to spare--no stint there, at any rate. To another little boy, the
first sight of the sea brought this thought, "How great God, who made it,
must be!"
It is delightful to live, as I did when a child, within sight and sound
of the sea; but I suppose it is only those who really live upon the world
of waters, sailing away in a swift ship, day after day, for thousands
of watery miles, and seeing nothing but the two oceans, "the blue above
and the blue below," as that same sailor-song says, who can really know
anything of its vastness. How strange it must seem, to be neither a fish
nor a bird, and yet to live as it were between sea and sky; each morning
finding yourself farther away from land, each night lying down to be
"rocked in the cradle of the deep," and to hear the wash of the waves
as the boat cuts her way through them, and the sighing of the wind, not
through the trees on the lawn, but among the sails and ropes of your
floating home!
I have sometimes thought that the sight of "water, water everywhere,"
during a voyage of three months, must make one more ready to believe what
we are told by those who have done what they can in the way of weighing
and measuring--that upon our globe "water is the rule, and dry land the
exception"; and also that, although we read in geography books about the
five great oceans, yet the ocean is really one, for it "embraces the whole
earth with an uninterrupted wave." As we think of this wonderful wave which
thus girdles the earth about, constantly breaking against the shore, yet
always flowing back again, at its appointed time, into its own place, we
may well remember that THIRD DAY of Creation, when "God spake, and it
was done; He commanded, and it stood fast"; when "He gave to the sea His
decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment."
In a Psalm which has been called the "Psalm of Creation," because it speaks
of the greatness and glory of God, and of how the Lord shall rejoice in
His works, we find a description of what happened at this time. There is a
beautiful verse which speaks of God covering the earth "with the deep as
with a garment"; and of a time when it was so covered and hidden that "the
waters stood above the mountains."
[Illustration: "WHEN SPRING-TIDES ARE LOW"]
And then we read how, at God's word, that waste of waters went into the
place prepared for it, and the dry land appeared. "At Thy rebuke they fled;
at the voice of Thy thunder they hasted away. The mountains ascend, the
valleys descend, unto the place which Thou hast founded for them" (you will
find the verse reads like this in the margin of your Bible). "Thou hast set
a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the
earth" (Psalm civ. 7-9). I was very young when I learnt this long Psalm;
and though I understood very little of it, and certainly did not know
that these verses spoke about what we have been reading of in the Book
of Genesis, I was very fond of repeating it, and I especially liked the
part which describes the "great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping
innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is
that leviathan, whom Thou hast made to play therein." Of course I need not
tell you that I did not know what the leviathan was; but I liked the name
because it was such a long, difficult word, and I have known other children
who were particularly fond of strange and hard names. As we grow older we
learn many things; and so--for I told you my home was by the sea--I got, in
time, to know the meaning of a very difficult verse; that one which speaks
of the "bound" which God has set, beyond which the sea with its proud waves
"may not pass." When the tide was coming in I used to watch the long blue
waves with their foamy crests coming nearer and nearer, and when I heard
them break with a loud noise against the strong rocks I was quite sure that
those stern barriers were the "bound" which kept them back, and would not
allow them to come any further.
But by-and-by I went to a place where the shore was quite different. There
were no rocky cliffs, like giants, guarding the land; only a long reach of
soft white sand, with which I was never tired of playing--making forts with
moats round them to keep off the enemy; or gardens with straight paths, and
trim beds in which I planted sea-daisies and poppies.
It seemed as if there was nothing about this shore strong enough to keep
back the great waves. They rolled in upon the sand with an angry roar when
the wind was high, and swept away my castles and gardens in no time. Still,
even here there was a bound, for the sea did not overflow the land; and so
I learnt that those waves, which threaten to overwhelm everything in their
resistless march, are kept in their place by God, who alone can say to the
restless ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall
thy proud waves be stayed."
As the poet George Herbert has beautifully said,
"Tempests are calm to Thee; they know Thy hand,
And hold it fast as children do their father's,
Which cry and follow, Thou hast made poor sand
Bound the proud sea, even when it swells and gathers."
I do not mean that the waves, as they rush like an invading army upon the
land, have no effect upon it. Look at the Map of England, and see how the
outline of the coast on the east and south has been jagged and broken. Or
go and see the Needles in the Isle of Wight, and you will learn how the
constant dash of the ocean can hollow out not only caves, but deep coves
and spreading bays, especially when the land against which it breaks is
made of chalk, or some of the softer rocks. Thus in the course of long
centuries, the seashore may rise or sink; peninsulas may become islands
by the narrow neck which united them to the mainland sinking into the
water--but whatever the land loses in one place, it gains in another, by
the quantity of sand and mud cast up by the waves. Many changes are caused
by the restless sea, but yet, even in its wildest moods, it owns the
curbing hand of its Maker; it may ebb and flow, but still keeps in its
appointed place.
This ebbing and flowing, which is caused by the coming in and going out
of the tides, was a great puzzle to me long ago. I used often to hear the
fishermen say at what hour it would be "full tide"; but I saw no mark which
could help them to fix the time, and wondered, when I found their words
came true, how they could know so surely. When I was older I learnt, what
is very interesting, that the gradual rising of the ocean, which is called
the "flow," and the gradual going back again of the water, which is called
the "ebb," do not happen at any chance time, for nothing is by chance in
God's creation, but at regular intervals, and in obedience to one of those
wonderful rules made by God, which people call the "laws of nature"--rules
which never change as the rules which men make so often do. And so we
notice that for about six hours from the time when the tide begins to rise,
the sea gains upon the land, either stealing on, step by step, over the
pebbly beach, and creeping tip the mouths of the rivers, or, when the winds
are abroad, rushing over the sand, and dashing against the rocks, as if it
would sweep all before it. No power upon earth can stop that steady onward
march of wave upon wave, until the unseen boundary is reached. Then we say,
"It is full tide." The mighty ocean seems to pause for a few minutes, then
some old fisherman, who has known that shore all his life, says, "The tide
has turned"; and for six hours the gradual fall goes on. At last the lowest
point of the "ebb" is reached--a few minutes' rest, and then the "flow"
begins again.
To those who have seen it all their lives there is nothing strange about
this, but when some brave Roman soldiers, who were accustomed to conquer
wherever they came, saw for the first time this ebb and flow of the tide,
they were more frightened than they would have been if they had seen an
army of savage men with spears and clubs rushing upon them with their
fierce war-cry. They were in the presence of a power which they could not
understand, and in terror they besought their general to lead them against
foes whom they could face, or to take them back to their own land!
By-and-by you will be interested in learning more about the tides, but I
will only tell you now that they are caused by the sun and moon. Two pair
of waves travel round the earth every day, the greater pair obedient to the
moon, which, because she is so much nearer to us, has a greater power of
drawing the water to herself than the sun has; the lesser pair obedient, in
like manner, to the attraction of the sun. This is all that I can tell you
now about a very difficult subject, and it is more than I told Chrissie or
Ernest when we were talking about the sea; but then you know we had not
much time for matters hard to be explained. One thing which I think we did
talk about was the depth of the sea, and I know there were some differences
of opinion about this as well as about its colour.
First of all, then, How deep is the "deep, deep sea"?
Actually, in some places, five miles deep, about the height of the loftiest
of mountain-peaks. I have heard that these far-away ocean-depths are very
quiet and still--no rolling waves ever break their stillness, and this is
proved in a very beautiful way. At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where
overhead great billows which seem mountain-high are in ceaseless motion,
there lie beds of delicate shells, so small that you need a microscope to
see their beauty, yet these shells are unbroken; no storm ever reaches
their quiet home; they are among the lovely things which the ocean hides in
its "treasure-caves," and they only come to light when the long line with a
clip at the end, which is used for deep-sea soundings, brings them to the
surface from those
"Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream."
These delicately "chambered" shells were once the homes of creatures which
lived in the sunless depths of the ocean, for though it is totally dark at
the bottom of the deep, deep sea, life is now known to exist at all depths
below the surface of the ocean; on the ocean-floor starfishes and their
relations abound, and some of those brought from a great depth are very
beautiful indeed--telling to those who have eyes to see, the same tale as
the little fern buried in the coal--that it is the glory of every created
thing to show forth something of its Creator, even in hidden places where
no human eye can trace its loveliness.
I am sure when we speak of the treasures of the sea, you are thinking of
places where pearls lie deep, hidden in the shell of the oyster--but I did
not know until lately that not only iron and copper, but also gold and
silver, are found in sea water.
And now what can we say of the colour of the sea? I used to think that
it was always a clear green, but that was because the sea which I knew
appeared to be that colour, for I had seen it only near the shore, where
the bottom was fine white sand, and the sunset light made the water shine
like an emerald. And so the sea was green to me, and I was often puzzled
and vexed to find that I could never catch this beautiful green water;
for you know that if you dip your bucket where the sea looks greenest
or bluest, all the lovely colour will seem to be left behind, and your
bucket-full will look as colourless as water drawn from a well. Where the
sea is dark blue, you may be sure that it is deep where it looks gold and
purple, the sun has tinged it with the glory of his rising and setting;
where it is grey and sad, it takes its sorrowful hue from the rain-clouds
overhead. These are some of the reasons why the sea is of such different
colours, but the water is sometimes coloured, to some extent, by myriads of
living things which give it a reddish tinge; in the cold Northern Ocean,
where the icebergs are, travellers tell us the sea is green because there
its tiny inhabitants are green; while those who have sailed in the South
American waters tell of countless swarms of minute creatures which make
them glow like fire on a dark night, lighting up the crest of every wave as
it rolls past the ship.
The sea is also coloured by those beautiful plants which we often call by
one common name--seaweeds, but which are almost as varied in their way as
the land plants are.
Columbus, when sailing sadly through unknown seas in search of the New
World of which he had dreamed so long, came upon water so covered with long
green weeds that it seemed like a floating meadow, while his vessels could
hardly make their way through the grassy tangles of what is now known as
the Gulf-weed.
I have seen the sea off the coast of Ireland green for miles, with long,
ribbon-like plants covering its sandy bottom, sheltering, and perhaps
helping to feed, the millions of crawling and running and swimming
creatures, many of them so small as to be nearly invisible, which find
their home there. This sea-grass, or Zostera, the only flowering plant to
be found in the sea, is very useful to the poor people who live near the
coast. They gather it when the tide is low, and dry it in the sun, and it
serves them for nice soft beds; though I should think they must always keep
a briny, fishy smell about them.
[Illustration: "O'ER BANKS OF BRIGHT SEAWEED, THE EBB-TIDE LEAVES DRY."]
The Irish fisher-folk also gather the common brown seaweed with pods, which
are really air-bladders, and serve to keep it afloat. I have many a time
watched the women and children wading among the pools, cutting it from the
rocks with sickles, and putting it into baskets, which they carry home
on their backs; for this precious harvest of the sea is what they depend
upon to make their potatoes grow well and yield a plentiful crop. There is
another kind of seaweed, of a pretty purple colour, which they eat, and
call it by an Irish name which means "leaf of the water."
But it is far away in the watery valleys of the great Pacific, where the
sea is very calm, that the ocean forests grow. I have read that there giant
leaves of the sea grow upon stems longer than those of our tallest trees,
and spread abroad like waving palms. Though you are not likely ever to
see such seaweeds as these, you will find, wherever you may be, though
much more abundantly on some shores than others, some of those beautiful
"weeds"--green, red, or brown--which have their use as well as their
beauty; for they help to purify the water, just as plants do the air.
Perhaps I should not promise more than the brown Tangle and the green Ulva,
with its bright lettuce-like leaves; for red seaweeds belong to deep water,
and are not easy to find. Many an hour have I spent peering and groping
in the little pools at low water in search of these same much-prized
rosy-tinted "flowers of the sea"; and many a disappointment I have had,
even after a fortunate find, in seeing how soon the lovely colour faded, in
spite of all my efforts to keep it.
We often speak of the "salt sea" or "the briny ocean," without perhaps
thinking how it comes to be salt. I used to think it was because there were
vast salt mines at the bottom of the sea; but that was only a guess at the
truth.
Let us think what happens when there is a heavy shower; how quickly the
raindrops gather force until they run down the street, making gutters on
each side! But how unlike the muddy water in these gutters is the rain as
it fell from the sky--how is this? It is the same water, but as it hurries
along each drop picks up and carries with it its own little grain of sand
or dust. If tiny gutters are tinged by the mud which they carry with them,
how much more must this be the case with the great rivers which empty
themselves into the ocean! They carry with them not only sand and earth,
but the minerals and salts which are contained in them, to form the bed of
the ocean. The salt which is thus washed out of the soil by streams and
rivers is not evaporated, but remains behind, for the sea has no outlet
through which it can again be carried away.
If you go to Switzerland, you will be able to see for yourself how a great
river as it rushes along its course washes away the soil. The Rhone, when
it enters the Lake of Geneva, is so laden with mud that its waters are
brown and turbid. For some distance you can trace the course of this brown
water as it makes its way through the deep blue of the lovely lake, not
mingling with it--but by the time the river reaches the other end of the
lake it has rid itself of its burden: the mud has sunk to the bottom, and
the Rhone flows out a clear stream. This is a strange and beautiful sight
which perhaps you may see some day.
Have you ever noticed how often the sea is mentioned in the New Testament?
We read of the Lord Jesus walking beside it, and sailing over it in the
boat with His disciples. And I daresay you remember how He once sat in the
boat upon the sea, while He taught the people who were upon the shore. The
Sea of Galilee must have been calm and quiet then, but it was not always
so. Travellers tell us a great deal about the beauty of this lake, when the
sky is clear, and the crimson bloom of the Oleanders is reflected in the
still water. But they speak also of the sudden and dangerous storms, which
rush down from the mountains, and turn the glassy lake into a raging sea.
In the gospel by Mark we read of just such a storm of wind, when the Lord
Jesus Christ was in the little boat with His disciples crossing over to the
other side. It was such a terrible storm, that the waves dashed into the
boat until it was filled with water.
"And all but One were sore afraid
Of sinking in the deep;
His head was on a pillow laid,
And He was fast asleep."
Yes, amid all the tumult and alarm, the Saviour who was often weary in this
sad world, was sleeping upon the cushion of the boat. He slept on until the
disciples came and awoke Him with their cry, "Master, carest Thou not that
we perish?" Then the voice of the Lord was heard above the rage of wind
and water, and their cry of terror, as He rose and rebuked the wind, and
said unto the sea, "Peace, be still." The proud waves obeyed that voice of
power, the wind was hushed, "and there was a great calm."
Do you remember what the Lord said to His disciples, and what they said to
one another, as they "feared exceedingly"?
Perhaps you wonder how anyone could be afraid, no matter how dreadful the
noise of the winds and waves might be, when the Lord Jesus was there. It
is true that in that little boat, tossing upon the dark stormy lake, was
the One who upholds all things by the word of His power, the One whose word
those stormy winds fulfil; but the disciples, though they had been so much
with Him, were now to learn a little more who their Master was, and to find
that there was no fear of perishing when the Lord of life was with them.
They seem to have forgotten, too, that He had said, before they launched
the boat, "Let us pass over unto the other side"; or they might well have
afforded to be quiet when He slept, for after He had said those words, they
were as sure of being there with Him as if already landed.
How kind it was of the Lord to put the disciples with Himself, and say,
"Let US pass over"; and how safe and free from fear of harm are those happy
people who have trusted themselves, with all they are, and all they have,
for this life and the long life that is to come, to this mighty, gracious
Saviour and Lord! One who knew this great happiness, once wrote these
beautiful verses about having Christ in the boat as he sailed over the
ocean of life, with its many storms. He said--
"My bark is wafted from the strand
By breath divine;
And on the helm there rests a hand
Other than mine.
"One who has known in storms to sail
I have on board;
Above the raging of the gale
I hear my Lord."
Once again in the same gospel by Mark we read of a tempest coming on while
the disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee; but this time their Master
was not with them in the boat. He had told them to go to the other side
while He sent away the crowds of people whom He had been feeding with the
five loaves and two fishes--and then He had gone into the hill-country to
pray.
The evening came on, the sky growing dark much more quickly than it does in
our country, and Jesus had not come to them. Still the disciples rowed, and
tried to get their boat to land, and still the storm grew louder.
"Fierce was the wild billow,
Dark was the night,
Oars laboured heavily,
Foam glimmered white."
How they must have longed to hear again that well-known voice rebuking the
rough wind, and saying to the angry waves, "Peace, be still!"
But the tired disciples rowed on; and Jesus had not come to them. They did
not know what we know, that their Master was watching them; He knew that
they could not bring their boat to land, and that they were worn out with
toiling at their oars, and were sad at heart too. And so, just at the
darkest, coldest hour of that night of fear, the Lord came to His beloved
ones. I have seen a picture of the weary men in their tossing boat, and
a shining figure which is meant for the Lord Jesus, as He came to them,
walking upon the white crests of the waves. But no picture can give a true
idea of that wonderful scene.
Do you remember how frightened all in the boat were before they knew that
it was the Lord?
They cried out for fear; and in answer to their cry they heard their
Master's own voice talking with them, and saying, "Be of good cheer: it is
I; be not afraid." Ah, what a change was there!
"Sorrow can never be--
Darkness must fly,
When saith the Light of light,
'Peace; it is I.'"
And now, before we come to the end of this "world of water" chapter, listen
to a wonderful story of the sea, told by the only one who could tell
it--the heroine of the tale.
Look at the map of Scotland, and you will find its most northerly county,
Shetland of the Hundred Isles, lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the
North Sea. Perhaps you know this part of the world mostly in connection
with the pretty little shaggy Shetland ponies which feed upon the young
heather, and are brought to England for children to ride; but those who
have visited it can tell very interesting stories about the wild country,
with its warm-hearted kindly fisher-folk, and they often bring home with
them beautiful shawls which the women and girls knit from the soft wool of
their sheep.
They tell us that of the hundred islands, about thirty are inhabited. Some
are large, but others so small that only one or two families live upon
them; and others are little more than rocks--the home of sea-fowl of every
wing.
In the largest island you will soon find Lerwick, the chief town. Now look
to the very south for the lofty cliff called Sumburgh Head, and near it
Grutness Harbour, where they catch the grey fish.
It was from this harbour that a small vessel, the _Columbine_, set sail on
Saturday, January 30th, 1886, intending to make the voyage--rough at all
times, but often very perilous in winter--along the coast to Lerwick.
Many a boat had perished on these cruel shores, even since lighthouses have
been placed to warn the seamen from the most dangerous rocks. If you had
asked the captain of the _Columbine_ about his route, he would have told
you that he must steer past Cape Noness, then close to the Isle of Mousa,
with its ancient castle built in the time of the Picts; Bressay Island
would next come in sight, and then the tall lighthouse which guards Lerwick
Harbour. He might have told you, too, that upon that January morning he was
starting with only one passenger on board--an elderly woman who was leaving
her home in the south of the island to go and see a doctor at Lerwick, as
she had been ill for some months.
The two men who formed the crew of the _Columbine_ returned the same day as
they had set sail, in an open boat belonging to their vessel. They said it
had been blowing hard when they started, and they had not got more than
four miles on the way when the captain was knocked overboard by a sudden
jerk of the boom. They quickly lowered the boat, and rowed hard to save
him; but, sad to tell, all their efforts were in vain, and they were at
length obliged to give up the attempt as hopeless, and were about to return
to the ship, when, to their dismay, they saw that she had drifted out to
sea, and, with her helpless passenger on board, was now far beyond their
reach.
The men pulled with all their strength; but the sea was so heavy, and
the _Columbine_ drifted so fast, that the distance between them rapidly
increased; and at last they had to turn and make for the shore, which they
reached with difficulty in their little open boat.
They told their tale, but nothing could be done to reach the drifting
vessel. Towards nightfall, some fishermen on the Isle of Mousa, where
opposing currents meet, and the sea is white with foam, saw the _Columbine_
pass, driven along by the wind. She was soon out of sight, and was heard of
no more upon the shores of Shetland.
And what became of Elizabeth Mouat, the sick and lonely passenger, who
shared the fate of the abandoned ship?
You must hear her story, for, wonderful to say, she lived to tell it; and
I know those who saw her safe and sound in her Shetland home, and heard it
from her own lips. But she had been to Norway meanwhile, a much longer
voyage than to Lerwick.
Below in the little cabin on that Saturday morning, weak from ill-health
and very sea-sick from the rolling of the vessel, Elizabeth heard the
alarm on deck caused by the accident to the captain, but knew not what had
happened. Presently she heard the boat suddenly lowered, and a terrible
fear took possession of her mind.
"I am deserted!" she said. "The men have gone off and left me alone in the
ship."
With the strength of despair she left her berth, and tried to get on deck;
but just as she was about to mount the ladder, it fell to the ground. She
had not power to lift it and put it in its place again, though she tried
hard and often. But although unable to get on deck, she was just tall
enough to look out of the open hatchway; and as she looked this way and
that, neither captain nor crew were to be seen, only the little boat, which
the _Columbine_ was fast leaving behind; and she knew that her worst fears
were realised, and she was indeed left alone.
Presently she began to consider what it was best for her to do, in her
solitary condition, as far removed from human aid as poor Robinson Crusoe
upon his island.
There was plenty of food on board, but it was impossible for her to reach
it, and she had with her in the cabin only a bottle of milk and two
biscuits.
As night came on, and the vessel still drifted, carried by the wind, she
knew not where, if Elizabeth had not known how to "cry unto the Lord" in
her trouble, how terrible her feelings would have been! As she stood with
her head just above the hatchway, ever keeping her anxious watch, and
searching the horizon in vain for a sail, the wild seas dashing over the
vessel often drenched her through and through. She knew that her cries
could reach no mortal ear; and still the masterless vessel drifted, drifted
on into the night. But Elizabeth had a strong Refuge. She quietly committed
herself and the ship to Him, who is "the confidence of all the ends of the
earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea." And when the long night
wore through, and morning broke, again she searched the waste of waters
with eager eye, but in vain--no land was in sight, no friendly sail showed
white against the red dawn. Far as eye could reach, nothing could be seen
but the sky above, and the heaving ocean below.
But from that time, during the seven days and nights which followed,
Elizabeth never lost hope. When she told the story of those days, she
simply said that she put her trust in God, and that she believed He would
bring her safely to land. For a whole week she never slept, but every now
and then stood up and looked around for the sail which never appeared, or
for the light which, shining through the darkness, should give token that
help was at hand. Once indeed she saw the red light of a ship, and her
heart beat high; but the vessel went on its way, knowing nothing of the
lonely voyager.
The two biscuits were carefully hoarded, but at last not a crumb remained,
and for four days she was without food. But in telling her tale, Elizabeth
said that she suffered more from wet and from thirst than from hunger. To
allay her thirst, she used to lick the drops of rain from the window panes.
At last, becoming too weak to keep her constant watch, she tied herself
close to the hatchway, fearing lest she might roll away from her post of
observation, and be unable to get back to it. And so, for eight days, the
_Columbine_ and her passenger--so weak and helpless in herself, so strong
in her trust in God--drifted over the wild waves of the North Sea.
It was on Sunday morning, February 7th, that a vessel which had lost her
mast came ashore among the rocks near Aalesund, in sight of a crowd of
Norwegian villagers. As she drifted in, a woman's head was distinctly seen,
and a brave young fisherman, taking a rope with him, swam out to her,
climbed on board, and found Elizabeth tied to the hatchway, still alive,
still confident.
She was drawn ashore by the rope, and thus her long voyage to Norway ended.
She found herself among strangers truly, who spoke a tongue unknown to
her, but was kindly cared for at a farm-house, until she was sufficiently
recovered to be sent home to Shetland, where she received a letter which
must have, indeed surprised and pleased her. It was from our gracious
Queen, and contained a present for Elizabeth of twenty pounds. I am sure
you will like to read the letter, so here it is:
"WINDSOR CASTLE, _March 27th_, 1886.
"The Queen has been much touched by the account of the sufferings of Miss
Mouat, and was pleased to learn, by her brother's letter of the 20th, that
she is recovering her strength."
[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE.]
Do you not think Elizabeth must be very proud and pleased to show the
Queen's letter to those who ask her about her voyage to Norway?
A Norwegian gentleman, writing about the place where the dismasted,
unpiloted vessel drifted ashore, says:
"Had not the _Columbine_ been steered by an invisible but almighty Hand,
she would never have got clear of the thousands of rocks. So furious was
the storm that all the boats not taken ashore went down at their moorings;
and yet the _Columbine_ escaped the network of rocks and skerries, and
picked out the only place where she could have beached!"
Elizabeth did not see the Lord Jesus walking upon the waves, and drawing
near to her in the dark night, as the disciples did; but surely she heard
His voice through the storm, hushing her spirit, and saying to her, as He
did to them, "It is I; be not afraid."
I know a little girl, older than Sharley or May, who is fond of repeating
a beautiful poem about the storm on the Lake of Galilee. Perhaps you would
like to learn it for your next hymn. It is called
"TO YONDER SIDE."
"Behind the hills of Naphtali
The sun went slowly down,
Leaving on mountain, tower, and tree
A tinge of golden brown.
"The cooling breath of evening woke
The waves of Galilee,
Till on the shore the waters broke
In softest melody.
"'Now launch the bark,' the Saviour cried;
The chosen Twelve stood by;
'And let us cross to yonder side,
Where the hills are steep and high.'
"Gently the bark o'er the waters creeps,
While the swelling sail they spread;
And the wearied Saviour gently sleeps,
With a pillow 'neath His head.
"On downy bed the world seeks rest;
Sleep flies the guilty eye;
But he who leans on the Father's breast,
May sleep when storms are nigh.
"But soon the lowering sky grew dark
O'er Bashan's rocky brow;
The storm rushed down upon the bark,
And waves dashed o'er the prow.
"The pale disciples trembling spake,
While yawned the watery grave;
'We perish, Master--Master, wake;
Carest Thou not to save?'
"Calmly He rose with sovereign will,
And hushed the storm to rest;
'Ye waves,' He whispered, 'Peace, be still!'
They calmed like a pardoned breast.
"So have I seen a fearful storm
O'er wakened sinner roll,
Till Jesus' voice and Jesus' form
Said, 'Peace, thou weary soul'
"And now He bends His gentle eye
His wondering followers o'er;
'Why raise this unbelieving cry?
I said, To yonder shore.'
"When first the Saviour wakened me,
And showed me why He died,
He pointed o'er life's narrow sea,
And said, 'To yonder side.'
"'I am the ark where Noah dwelt,
And heard the deluge roar--
No soul can perish that has left
My res--To yonder shore.'
"Peaceful and calm the tide of life
When first I sailed with Thee;
My sins forgiven, no inward strife,
My breast a glassy sea.
"But soon the storm of passion raves;
My soul is tempest tossed;
Corruptions rise, like angry waves--
'Help, Master, I am lost!'
"'Peace, peace, be still, thou raging breast:
My fulness is for thee'--
The Saviour speaks, and all is rest,
Like the waves of Galilee.
"And now I feel His holy eye
Upbraids my heart of pride--
'Why raise this unbelieving cry?
I said, To yonder side.'"
McCHEYNE.
THE THIRD DAY.
THE EARTH BENEATH.
"_He hangeth the earth upon nothing._"--JOB xxvi. 7.
"_The pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon
them._"--1 SAM. ii. 8.
"_As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it
were fire. The stones of it are the place of sapphires; and it hath dust of
gold._"--JOB xxviii. 5, 6.
Have you ever noticed that some words have two meanings, both their own,
but giving us very different thoughts about the things of which they speak,
according to the way in which we use them?
It is so with our earth. We may speak of it as the firm ground upon which
we stand, and may think of the wonderful time of which we are going to read
in our chapter in Genesis, when God caused it to bring forth and bud, and
clothed all its waste places, so that it has been ever since the green
earth which is so fair to look upon. This is the way in which we generally
speak of the earth, is it not?--but we may also think of it, not as it
appears to us, but as a great globe hung up in the heavens by the mighty
hand of God, who "hangeth the earth upon nothing"; for "the pillars of the
earth are the Lord's, and He hath set the world upon them."
If you could look at a star through a telescope, I think the first thing
that would strike you is that there is nothing by which it is upheld and
kept in its place. You might say, as you saw it, as it were, hanging in the
depths of the sky, "Why, it is hung upon _nothing_!"
It is just so with our earth: there is nothing that we can see by which it
is supported, no "pillars" for it to rest upon--but yet it is kept in its
place. God set it there, and God keeps it there.
The Hindu has tried to account for this in his own way: he says the earth
does rest upon something; it is supported upon the backs of four great
elephants and when he is asked, "Where do they stand?" he replies, "Upon
the back of a huge tortoise." This shows the folly of men who have tried
to explain what filled the patriarch Job with awe and wonder, even before
God had asked him those questions which He alone could answer. "Where
wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast
understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who
hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof
fastened? or who hath laid the corner stone thereof, when the morning stars
sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Once in a time of great danger and trouble, Luther wrote thus to a friend:
"I recently saw two miracles; you listen to hear of something startling:
some great light burning in the heavens, some angelic visitation--some
unusual occurrence; but you hear only this. As I was at my window, I saw
the stars, the sky, and that vast and glorious firmament in which the Lord
has placed them. I could nowhere discover the columns on which the Master
has supported this immense vault, and yet the heavens did not fall! And
here was the other miracle: I beheld clouds hanging above me like a vast
sea--I could neither perceive ground on which they reposed, nor cords by
which they were suspended, and yet they did not fall upon me."
We find it difficult to think of our own globe as a star; but so it is, and
when you go out at night and look up at the sky, all covered with little
points of light, you may remember that our great earth, with its mountains
and forests, seas and plains, and all its cities and towns alive with busy
men and women, is but a tiny speck in God's universe; many of those stars
which seem so small, as their "twinkle, twinkle" comes from so far away,
are themselves suns, larger than that mighty sun of ours which it takes the
earth a whole year of days to travel round; and all these wonderful worlds
belong to Him "for whose pleasure they are and were created."
Looked at in this way, our earth is but one of a group of eight stars,
which have been called planets, or wanderers, because, while other worlds,
which are called fixed stars, keep constantly in the same position with
regard to each other, these planets are always moving. They have two
movements; I think you know that our earth turns round upon itself, as your
top does when it spins, and that in this way the changes of day and night
come to us; the other movement is that by which it, along with the other
planets, travels round the sun.
This yearly journey round the sun which the earth takes is a long one, but
so swiftly does it move that it may be said rather to fly than to wander.
Shut your eyes and count "One," "two," "three," "four," "five"; in this
little moment of time the earth will have got over a hundred miles of its
journey. You see it flies along faster than any bird; and what a noiseless
flight it is! How is it that we do not feel it moving? Ah, you must
remember that the earth carries _you_ along with it; you know nothing about
the rapid journey, and yet you are a traveller in spite of yourself--a
traveller round the sun.
All the planets, like our earth, move round the sun, and are kept in their
places by means of a wonderful power which we cannot see, but which is one
of those "laws of nature," as the rules which God has made for His great
universe are sometimes called, about which I told you that they never
alter. It is a law, or rule, that, in the world around us, "the same causes
always produce the same effects." If you think a little about this, it will
become plain to you that it is so, and if you observe carefully you will
see that this rule is the same in connection with the smallest as well as
the greatest things; if it ever seems that it is not so, be sure that this
is only because you do not yet know all about what you have been observing.
And now learn a little about the beautiful rule by which the planets are
kept in their places.
Two hundred years ago, Sir Isaac Newton discovered that everything in the
universe attracts or draws every other thing to itself, and this power or
attraction he called "the force of gravitation." I cannot do much more than
tell you the name of this "law," but you will learn more about it one day I
hope, and see how simple and yet how wonderful it is. An astronomer of our
own day says, in his _Story of the Heavens_, that there are "grounds for
believing that the law of gravitation is obeyed throughout the length, the
breadth, the depth, and the height of the entire universe," and a little
observation and thought will enable you to see something of its working in
the world around us.
Do you remember my telling you how fond I was of swimming boats long ago?
When my brother and I used to launch our paper boats--not on the river,
but in that big tub in the yard--our great difficulty was to keep them
from running each other down, and becoming dismal wrecks before they had
completed their first voyage. We did not know why, but it seemed as if the
vessels of our tiny fleet _would_ drift towards each other, in spite of all
our efforts to keep them apart. Have you not found it so with your boats?
It certainly was with ours, but we should have been surprised if anyone
had told us that as they ran against each other, our paper boats were but
obeying the "law of gravitation," each little vessel drawing the other to
itself by a power which it had of attracting it. Knowing this rule makes
many things plain. If you throw your ball high into the air, it is sure
to come down again. Why? Because the earth, which is a much larger ball,
attracts it to itself by the law of gravitation; by the same law, the drops
of rain in a shower fall to the ground; by the same law, we and all the
people upon the globe are able to stand firm on it; by the same law, the
great earth itself, the moon, and all the planets are kept in their places.
But what is the mighty magnet which has power to draw the earth to itself?
It is that wonderful globe the sun, which is more than a million times
as large as the earth; and though it is so far, far away--at a distance
greater than we can have any idea of--yet by its mighty power of drawing
them to itself, makes our earth, as well as the other planets, move round
it in the most beautiful order, and keeps them all in their places.
Although Newton felt sure that this unseen but resistless power, of which
he afterwards spoke reverently as "the finger of God," kept the moon going
round the earth and the earth round the sun, yet he was at first silent
about his great discovery; he worked and waited for long years, until he
had proved that it was not merely a happy guess, but that he had really
discovered the rule which governs the motion of sun, moon and stars. Then
he explained the reason why the moon is always moving _round_ the earth,
and the earth and other planets _round_ the sun, instead of all moving on
in a straight line; it is because everyone of the heavenly bodies attracts
all the rest, and thus the smaller move round the larger, all in perfect
order and harmony.
[Illustration: SAILING THE BOAT]
You must not think that this force set them all moving; it only governs
their movements, the earth pulling the moon to itself, and the sun in
like manner pulling all the planets with gentle but resistless power, and
keeping them all moving round himself--their glorious centre.
You will learn by-and-by what has been found out about the other planets.
All I shall tell you of them now is, that they are, like the earth, quite
dark in themselves. The light they give is reflected light from the sun;
just like the light which comes to us from another planet, which belongs,
not to the sun, but to our earth, and indeed is so near home that I am sure
you can find out its name for yourself. Of the seven other planets which
belong to the sun, the nearest in size to our earth is one which shines
with a lovely soft light, and is sometimes the evening, sometimes the
morning star. Ask someone to show you Venus; and I think you will soon
learn to look for her in the evening, and to love her pure, calm radiance.
This star is peculiarly beautiful in the early morning, when she seems to
shine alone in the sky, and reminds us how, in the last book of the Bible,
the Lord Jesus speaks of Himself, and says, "I am the ... Bright and
Morning Star." What a beautiful name for us to know the Lord Jesus by!
There are some children who know Him by that name, and they are watching
for that bright star to appear.
I will tell you of one. Her name is Sharley; but she is not May's sister
Sharley, and I do not think she is quite so old. This little girl had been
obliged to go away from her home, to stay for some time in the Children's
Hospital. This is a bright, pretty place, with pictures and flowers and
toys. But it was not at all like home to poor little Sharley; and as she
thought of her mother and her sisters she sobbed and cried in her little
bed, and buried her head under the pink quilt, and refused to be comforted.
A lady came to see her, and brought her a picture-book; but still she hid
her face, and cried, "Oh, do let me go home!" The lady tried to please
her by showing her a stuffed squirrel, and telling stories about how she
had seen the merry little creatures, with their bright eyes and red bushy
tails, running about in the beech-woods, eating nuts. But no, nothing that
she could do or say would win a smile or a bright look. At last she noticed
a little Testament lying upon the tray across her bed, beside the toys
which had been given her to play with, and she said, "Is that your own
Testament, Sharley? Will you find the place and read me your favourite
verse?"
In a moment the little girl stopped crying, and turned over the leaves of
her Testament till she came to the very end; and she put her finger on the
verse, "Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." As she
pointed to the words the lady read them, and then asked, "Do you want Him
to come?"
Sharley did not speak, but nodded her head.
"Why do you want to see Him? What has He done for you?"
"He died for me," said the little girl. And then she asked just one
question, "If the Lord Jesus hasn't come before Monday, do you think mother
will come and take me home?"
I am glad to tell you that little Sharley had not long to stay in the
hospital; she soon got well enough, to be allowed to go home. But I
tell you about her that yon may see that she was not too young to know
what the Lord Jesus had done for her, and to be looking out for Him to
come--watching for the "Bright and Morning Star."
And now I want you to find one more verse about the earth as it hangs in
the sky, a very beautiful verse in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. "It is
He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof
are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and
spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." What is meant by the "circle of
the earth"? You have learnt that the earth is round, like the sun and moon;
for you see how round the globe in the schoolroom is, and you know that it
is meant to be as like the earth in shape as it can be made. Besides, you
have read of sailors who have made voyages round the world, and brought
their ships back again to the very place from whence they set sail. It
seems quite plain to you, now that you have been taught so much about the
form of the earth, that it must be round. But I wonder whether you have
ever thought that, long before a geography-book was written or a globe was
made--at a time when no one had ever sailed round the world, but all the
wise men thought the earth was flat (except where the mountains and hills
were), and that if they could only travel far enough, they would in time
get to the world's end--God had spoken of it as round. He had spoken of
Himself as the One who "sitteth upon the circle" (or "arch") "of the
earth"; and of the inhabitants thereof--all the people who have lived and
died upon it--as "grasshoppers"; creatures of a day.
When we learn something about other worlds, and find out that this world,
so large in our eyes that we cannot think of anything to compare with it
for greatness, is yet so small that it is like a grain of sand in the vast
universe which God created at the beginning, we may well ask
"Why did the Son of God come down
From the bright realms of heavenly bliss,
And lay aside His kingly crown,
To visit such a world as this?
"Why in a manger was He born,
Who was the Lord of earth and sky?"
The answer to this question is to be found in the verse which you know so
well, where the Lord Jesus Christ Himself tells us that "God so loved the
world"--this place which is "a little city" indeed compared with other
worlds; and the "few men within it"--all sinful people who had gone away as
far as they could from Him--God so loved this lost world, "that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life." The Son of God gave up "all that He had" to buy
back this lost world, for the sake of the treasure which was hidden there.
Do you know what that treasure is?
And now we will look again at a verse in the Book of Job, which tells us
something very wonderful about the inside of this great globe of ours, upon
the fair outside of which we live and move. You would never have thought
it possible that such a great ball could be weighed. But by weighing and
measuring--not with scales and weights, you may be sure, but by clever ways
which are known to learned philosophers--it has been found out that our
earth is very, very heavy. The philosophers thought it could not be so
heavy if it were made of earth and rocks all through, and they wondered
what could be far down beneath the deepest mines, in those secret places
which they could not reach. But long before these wise men had begun to
weigh and measure, and to guess and wonder, God had said, "As for the
earth, out of it cometh bread"--you know that in many places the surface of
the earth is rich with waving corn--"and under it is turned up as it were
fire."
I remember well when I first heard about this fire always burning at the
heart of the earth. I had been told that the world was round like a ball,
and yet that people lived upon every part of it. And when I turned the
globe in the schoolroom round until I had found New Zealand--that land
which is just opposite our own country, as you can see for yourself if you
look--I used to think how wonderful it was that the New Zealanders should
be there "walking about under my feet," as I had been told they were; and a
great desire came into my mind to make a way right through to them, and see
what they were like. I believe I thought they were men who walked on their
heads, for in those days I much preferred guessing at things I did not
understand, to asking someone who knew how to explain them to me. So you
see I understood so very little, that I actually thought that by getting up
early and working hard it would be quite easy for me, with my little spade,
to dig right down to the other side of this mighty globe!
However, one day, before I had made more than an opening to my tunnel, I
listened to a conversation about digging deep wells and mines. I could not
understand most of what was said, nor did I know the meaning of any of the
long words which I then heard for the first time; but there was one thing
which I did understand, and this made me stop short in my work, afraid to
dig another spadeful of earth. I had thought it would be so delightful to
walk through my tunnel, and come out at the other side where the strange
New Zealand people lived; but now my great dread was lest I should get to
the inside of the earth before I was aware of it, when I had dug perhaps
only a little hole; for those who were speaking about it, said how
impossible it was to get very far below the surface,--or, as they called
it, very deep into the "crust" of the earth--because of the great heat,
which makes the men who work in deep mines glad to throw off their clothes.
"The deeper the bore, the greater the heat," they said; and then went on to
speak of this crust as if it covered the earth as the shell covers an egg,
so that I thought it might perhaps be broken just as easily. "And how
dreadful it would be," I said to myself, "if I could get to the inside of
the earth and find it all on fire!"
It was a pity that I did not ask a little about what surprised and
frightened me so much, and especially that I did not get someone to explain
to me the meaning of this new word, the "crust" of the earth. I know now
that it is the name that has been given to that part of the earth which is
known to be firm and solid--the bed of the ocean as well as the dry land.
Beneath this crust lies the inner part or kernel of the earth, and no one
knows of what it consists; all that can be done is to examine the rocks
which rest upon it, and whether the lowest of these layers of rock has
yet been reached, we do not know. If you have ever been to a quarry where
the rocks have been blasted and cut away, you have seen a little way down
into this earth-crust. I remember once, when I was living in a country
warmer than England, seeing a beautiful sight. It was a great quarry in a
hillside. In part of it men were busy, cutting out the stone and carrying
it away; but all over one side, which was no longer worked, a beautiful
vine had woven its lovely green leaves and purple clusters of grapes.
You would have thought, perhaps, that the side where the rough, hard rock
was hidden by the fruitful vine, was the only part of the quarry worth
looking at; but the other side, where the quarrymen were at work, was very
interesting to anyone who would take the trouble to notice how the rocks
lay, piled one upon another, and especially to one who had learnt a little
about the different kinds of rock of which the earth-crust has been made.
Even if you have never learnt much of what is called geology, by keeping
your eyes open and your mind awake you may see a great deal in the stones
which have perhaps seemed to you most uninteresting. A block of granite
from one of the Dartmoor hills, and a piece of slate from a Welsh
quarry--how different these two kinds of stone are! We see this at once;
but they become much more interesting when we know that each has its own
history. The granite is one of the fire-made rocks, so called because there
are marks upon it, like letters written long ago, quite plain to those who
have the skill to read them; which show that though it is now so hard, it
was once soft, as soft as iron becomes when melted by very great heat.
The mountains of Devon and Cornwall, the Grampians of Scotland, even Mont
Blanc, the "Monarch of Mountains," are made of the grey or red granite
which takes such a beautiful polish when cut that it is much prized for
buildings.
The piece of slate has quite a different history. It is one of the
water-made rocks, in which so many fossils have been found; while in
the fire-rocks there are no remains of anything which ever lived. The
water-rocks are so called because water has had so much to do with the
making of them; for they have been very slowly formed by the gravel and
grains of sand which have been washed down by streams and torrents, and
left behind in their course. In these slate and sandstone rocks the
wonderful fossil animals, which are to be seen in the Museum, have been
found. A fossil means what has been dug out of the earth; and numbers
of animals are to be found buried deep in the rocks along the coast of
Yorkshire--huge creatures which lived on the earth long, long ago, of which
the hard parts, such as bones and teeth, have gradually been turned into
stone.
All this is very wonderful to think of, and I am sure the poet, who spoke
of finding "sermons in stones," was wiser than he knew; but what will you
say when I tell you that one kind of rock--the chalk with which you are so
fond of drawing upon the black-board--is made of shells, most of them very
tiny ones, which can be seen only by a microscope? What myriads of living
things once made their homes in those little shells, and what sort of
life they lived, we cannot tell; but there the shells remain in the white
chalk, and the microscope will show them to you, as it shows so many hidden
wonders in this wonderful world, where the very great and the very small
meet on every hand.
Only the other day, May brought me a lovely branch of white coral. "Look,"
she said, "when baby was out for a walk, a lady gave her this." She thought
it very pretty, but she was surprised when I showed it to her through a
magnifying-glass, and told her that it had been made by a very tiny kind
of jelly-fish; a plant-animal some people call it, of the same kind as the
sea-anemone; and she wondered still more when we found in a book a picture
of a coral island, and I told her that such little creatures have been busy
ever since the world began, constantly building up the coral-rocks. These
rocks, which are strong enough to resist the force of the waves, rise out
of the sea naked and bare, but are soon covered with green, and become the
resting-place of the sea-birds, until at last they are like that lovely
island, fringed with tall cocoa-palms, which we saw in the picture. If it
were not for the myriads of tiny jelly-fishes, who work on and on, each
forming its own little bones from the lime it gets from the sea-water,
dying, and leaving its skeleton behind for others to build upon, there
would be none of these beautiful green isles of the sea of which sailors
love to tell us.
We were speaking of contrasts some time ago; now for a contrast. Beside the
coral, with its lovely branching sprays, we will put a piece of coal. You
think the coal very black and ugly, not fit to be put alongside the white
coral; but let me tell you that there is that in the coal which was once
far more beautiful than the coral--which is only a bare skeleton after
all--could ever be; for, though coal and coral are alike dead now, both
were once full of life.
But the coal, which is certainly more useful than beautiful at present, has
had a wonderful past. Besides the fossil-animals which are dug out of the
earth's crust, there are also fossil-trees and ferns, and it is of them
that coal, which seems only like a black stone, is made. I have read that
in a part of England where there are now great coal mines, for a long time
no one knew the worth of coal except some old women, who said they could
make their fires burn beautifully by putting those black bits of stone upon
them. How strange this seems; and what should we do now if we had not these
black stones to burn? Coal is generally called a mineral, as all things
which are dug from mines are called; but it is really a vegetable. You may
perhaps pick up in some swampy place, a piece of wood, very black, which
breaks as you handle it. Look at it well, for this wood is being turned
into coal; but for what was once a forest to become a coal-mine takes a
very long time indeed, with a strange history of change and decay; yet it
is true that the coal dug out of mines is nothing else than trees and ferns
and mosses, long ago buried by mud and sand, and so crushed together that
they have become like a piece of black stone.
The other day Chrissie had what you would consider a rare treat, for his
father took him and his brother down a coal-mine. They put on some of the
miners' clothes, and then got into the "cage," and were let down by a
strong chain; down, down, until they reached the bottom of the shaft, as
the tunnel from the mouth of the coal-pit to the place where men are at
work below is called. I have never seen a mine of any kind, but if I ever
find myself at the bottom of a coal-pit, I think I shall use my eyes, and
see whether, even in such a grimy place, I cannot find something beautiful.
I shall hold my safety-lamp high, and look carefully at the roof and sides
of the mine, for I have been told that in all coal-mines remains of the
plants from which the coal is made are to be found; so I should not be
surprised to find here and there in the dark shining walls traces of leaves
and branches; and upon the hard clay which forms the roof, beautiful
patterns of ferns, which lived long, long ago, and have lain buried for
ages.
"In a valley, centuries ago,
Grew a little fern-plant, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibres tender,
Waving in the wind, crept down so low;
Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it;
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it;
Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it;
But no foot of man e'er came that way,
Earth was young and keeping holiday."
We can speak of the roof and the floor of a coal-mine, because the coal
lies in what are called seams, between layers of slate or hard clay. I
cannot tell you much about the sedges and reeds and giant ferns, the
remains of which have been found in these seams of coal, but I know that
they are of the same kind as plants which are now found in damp and warm
places, though they were giants indeed compared with them. Some of these
old-world plants would not grow in our country now, but there are great
mare's-tails, just the same as the small ones which I have often found
beside a pool of black water on an Irish bog; and I have read that some
plants with stems fifty feet long, which are found in coal, are of the same
kind as a pretty little moss which grows upon the mountains almost all over
England.
You remember the story about the boy who was brought up in a mine. Now I
want to tell you about a little girl who did not live in a coal-mine, but
was often taken there by her father. Her mother had died when she was a
baby, and as she grew older her father was her constant friend, and loved
his little daughter so much that he liked to have her always near him. And
so, though she was only seven years old when he came to work in this mine,
he very often took her with him in the cage, and she had leave to stay
underground until his work was done and he could take her home again.
Children can always find ways of amusing themselves, and this child had a
happy time in her strange nursery, and many a merry game she played among
the coal. As she grew older her father allowed her to carry a lantern, as
the miners did, and she would go fearlessly through the dark passages by
herself, until she knew all their windings as well as you know the paths in
your father's garden.
But all at once this happy life came to an end: three years had passed, and
she was just ten years old, when a great sorrow came to this child. As her
dear father was going down the shaft one morning the chain broke, and the
cage fell to the bottom of the mine. When his mates ran to the spot, they
knew at once that he had been killed by that terrible fall, and slowly and
sadly they took up his crushed and wounded body and carried it home. The
first thing that the dear little daughter knew about the accident which had
made her an orphan child, was when she saw the men, who had worked with her
father, coming towards his cottage with their sad burden.
She at once ran to meet them, asking when father would be home; but the
sight of their faces soon told her, young as she was, all the truth. When
first she understood what had happened she cried with a bitter cry, for her
father was all she had in the world. Then, while the rough miners, amid
their tears, tried to comfort her, she suddenly knelt down on the grass
where they had laid the body and prayed as her dear father had taught her
to pray.
[Illustration: THE MINER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER.]
What a touching thing it must have been to see the child kneeling there,
and to hear her, in her great grief, say three times over, "Thy will be
done!"
One of the miners took her to his home, and they all tried to comfort her.
At first it seemed as if she could not recover from the shock, and they
feared she would die of grief; but by-and-by she began to try to help
the kind woman--who was like a mother to her--in the care of her little
children, and at last she got courage to go down into the mine again, to
the very place where her poor father had been killed.
But she did not come now to run about and play hide-and-seek among the
winding ways; those days were over, and the sorrowful time, which had
passed since then, had taught her precious lessons. Her father's Friend
was _her_ Friend now, and she loved to carry the Bible, which had belonged
to her father, down into the mine, and while the miners were taking their
dinner or their short rest, she used to sit beside them and read them
chapters and psalms, and so became a little messenger to tell them of the
love of God. Do you know a hymn about shining in this world--where so "many
kinds of darkness" are found--for the Lord Jesus Christ? I do not know
whether this child had ever heard of it, but it is very sweet to see that
the Lord had taught her to shine--as the hymn says--"first of all for Him";
then in her little corner in that humble cottage where she tried, in spite
of her own sore trouble, to be a cheer and comfort to the miner's wife; and
then He gave her a little corner in the dark mine where she might shine
"Like a little candle
Burning in the night."
The rough men loved this gentle child who had known sorrow so early. They
listened as she read to them, and used to say she was their good angel. If
we remember that an angel means a messenger, we shall perhaps think it not
a wrong name to give to her, since she read to them God's Book, which is
His message to us.
While we were talking about the earth-crust, I daresay you were wishing to
know, as I did, how thick it is--how far down the layers of rocks go, and
what lies underneath the lowest layer of all.
These are questions which cannot be answered; for no one has ever been able
to search so far into the hidden parts of the earth as to tell us what lies
beneath those fire-rocks, which are the lowest known, although they are
sometimes found upon the tops of mountains, cast up by a mighty heaving of
the crust, such as happens when there is an earthquake, or what is called
the "eruption" of a volcano.
But what power could be strong enough to heave up solid rocks, and to make
the firm ground upon which we tread, and upon which the houses are built,
waver to and fro like the restless sea, so that the strongest buildings
begin to totter and fall, and the bravest men run for their lives?
It is the mighty power of steam--caused by the great heat far down
below--which, when it does come to any part of the earth's surface, makes
itself known in very terrible ways.
We do not often hear of earthquakes near home; but in some of the most
beautiful parts of the world they are so common that the houses are built
only one storey high, and of wood, not stone, because low houses are less
likely to fall, and wooden ones are easily built up again, if overthrown. I
think you have heard of the boiling springs in Iceland, which burst through
the ground, shaking it and making it tremble; just as the steam shakes the
lid of the teakettle; and rising almost to the clouds, with a noise like
fireworks; and perhaps you may have seen the hot springs at Bath, from
which a cloud of steam rises almost in the heart of the beautiful old city,
and which are believed to come from a depth of nearly a mile.
Such is the force of this steam that even the bed of the sea has been
heaved up by it into a burning mountain, from which great stones are cast
high into the air; while down its sides flow melted rocks and metals,
forming the lava which, when seen at night, looks like a stream of liquid
fire, but quickly cools into a river of mud. All these strange things tell
us terrible tales of the great heat which is somewhere in the heart of the
earth, and help us to understand the verse which tells us all we really
know about it: "As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is
turned up as it were fire."
New Zealand is a country where there are many hot springs, and several
mountains which were once volcanoes, but were supposed to have died out.
One of these, Mount Tarawera, was situated in what was called the Hot Lake
district, because there were not only boiling springs, but pools of hot
water there. The Hot Lakes valley was not only a lovely green spot, but
it was noted for the wonderful Pink and White Terraces, which were so
beautiful as to be one of the sights which people from all countries came
to see.
Imagine, if you can, basins of white and pink marble rising one above
another, filled with water of the deepest blue, by a warm stream which kept
flowing over them in a constant cascade. You would have enjoyed a bath
there, I am sure, and would have been interested to see the country-people
cooking their food in some of the neighbouring springs where the water came
from so great a depth that it was always boiling.
But this lovely place was full of hidden dangers; for miles around these
lakes the ground was hot and crumbling, and in many places so thin that if
you did not tread very carefully, you might find yourself sinking into hot
mud.
It was in June, which you know is winter-time in New Zealand, in the year
1885, that the people of Wairoa, a beautiful place where some missionaries
had settled that they might teach the Maoris, were awakened at midnight by
a heavy shock of earthquake, accompanied by a fearful roar, which made them
rush out of their houses in terror. The sight which greeted them was grand
but awful. Ernest has a picture of it in his room; but I suppose it would
not be possible for any picture to give an idea of what the poor frightened
people saw. Mount Tarawera had been asleep for a hundred and twenty years,
so that it was supposed to have burnt itself out, and to be no longer
dangerous. But it was awake now: the fearful roar which had aroused the
sleepers was caused by its having suddenly burst into flame; and it
continued to throw high into the sky fire and mud and stones, while the
inhabitants of the peaceful little village saved what they could carry, and
then fled away in their night-dresses.
As morning broke, a dense pillar of ashes rose from the burning, roaring
mountain; the school-house, where sixty Maori boys and girls used to be
taught, was struck by lightning; and while burning, overwhelmed with
torrents of hot mud and stones. Sad to say, the schoolmaster and most of
his family were killed, the two eldest daughters only being rescued from
the buried house. How well it is to know that Mr. Hazard and the four
children who were taken out dead from the ruins, were ready, quite ready
for whatever might happen, because they knew the Lord Jesus Christ as their
Saviour!
God allowed them to lose their lives upon that dreadful day; but for them
the eruption of the volcano was only the "chariot of fire" by which He was
pleased to take them away in a moment, to be for ever with the Lord, who
had loved them and given Himself for them.
The darkness caused by the ashes which fell in a ceaseless shower for
eighteen hours, continued till noon the next day, when it was seen that not
only had the beautiful marble terraces vanished, but the whole valley had
been blown into the air by the tremendous force of imprisoned steam. A
traveller describing the scene of desolation says,[Footnote: Miss Gordon
Cumming on "The Eruption of Tarawera in 1885."] "Even living birds were
coated with mud, while for some days after the eruption the poor bewildered
cattle roamed about this dreary wilderness mad with hunger and thirst,
gnawing boughs of trees or decayed wood, bellowing pitifully, and with eyes
bloodshot and nostrils choked with greasy slate-coloured mud, which lay an
inch thick all over their coats." And of the smiling valley itself, she
says: "Where, but a few days previously, the wild fowl were swimming
securely among the reeds and sedges which bordered the quiet lakes, there
now exists only a chaotic wilderness of cones and craters all in hideous
activity, ejecting clouds of pestilential black smoke and showers of
stones. One large crater was in full action on the spot where the beautiful
Pink Terrace had hitherto gladdened all visitors by its loveliness, and
another apparently close to the White Terrace was throwing up masses of
black dust and steam, which rose in columns thousands of feet in height."
There is a verse in the hundred and fourth Psalm which tells how God
"touched the hills, and they smoke." There are many burning and smoking
mountains in different parts of the world, besides those which have risen
from the depths of the sea; some of them have destroyed whole cities by hot
streams of lava or showers of ashes; there are some whose high peaks are
covered with snow, and yet from those snowy heights the fire sometimes
breaks forth; and there are others which are called extinct volcanoes,
because the fire no longer breaks forth from them as it once did; but Mount
Tarawera has taught us not to be too sure that a volcano which has been
quiet for more than a hundred years is really extinct.
Hot springs, earthquakes, burning mountains, all tell the same tale:
somewhere beneath the earth's surface there is a quantity of heated
material, and these "convulsions of nature" which are so terrible in their
effects come from the efforts made by it to escape from its prison. A
friend who had been in a South American city during an earthquake told me
of the terror-stricken feeling which he experienced when he ran out of the
house in alarm, only to see buildings reeling and falling, and to feel the
solid earth itself rocking beneath his feet, while from beneath came a
rumbling noise, and a sound as of the clanking of chains. This trembling
and rocking of the earth has led savage nations to speak of some monster
underground turning his huge body. Shocks of earthquakes are occasionally
felt in England, and in the north-west of Ireland sheets of lava show that
volcanoes were once nearer home than we think. The Giants' Causeway, in
the north of Ireland, and Fingal's Cave, in the Island of Staffa, off the
north-west coast of Scotland, have been made by this lava having cooled and
split up into beautifully formed columns, which look like stone pillars.
"BEAUTIFUL THINGS.
"What millions of beautiful things there must be
In this mighty world!--who could reckon them all!
The tossing, the foaming, the wide flowing sea,
And thousands of rivers that into it fall.
"Oh, there are the mountains, half covered with snow,
With tall and dark trees, like a girdle of green,
And waters that wind in the valleys below,
Or roar in the caverns too deep to be seen.
"Vast caves in the earth, full of wonderful things,
The bones of strange animals, jewels and spars;
Or far up in Iceland, the hot boiling springs,
Like fountains of feathers or showers of stars!
"Here spread the sweet meadows, with thousands of flowers;
Far away are old woods, that for ages remain;
Wild elephants sleep in the shade of their bowers,
Or troops of young antelopes traverse the plain.
"Oh yes, they are glorious, all to behold,
And pleasant to read of, and curious to know;
And something of God in His wisdom we're told
Whatever we look at--wherever we go!"
ANNE TAYLOR.
THE THIRD DAY.
THE GREEN EARTH.
"_The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof._"--PSALM xxiv. 1.
"_Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it:... Thou preparest them corn,
when Thou hast so provided for it._"--PSALM lxv. 9.
"_Every tree is known by his own fruit._"--LUKE vi. 44.
I want you to read carefully verses 11, 12, 13, and then 29 and 30, of our
chapter in Genesis; for in them God has told us of His work upon the THIRD
DAY of Creation, when at His word the earth--no longer waste and bare, as
when it came up from beneath the waters--was clothed in garments of beauty;
"dressed in living green," as the hymn says.
I remember that when we began our morning lesson about the THIRD DAY, we
noticed that God caused the earth, which had no life in itself, to bring
forth that which was alive; for every green thing which grows upon the
surface of the earth, no matter how tiny it may be, is quite different from
those rocks which form its crust, about which we have been learning. Rocks
and stones are without life, but every blade of grass which you tread under
your feet, every blossom which scents the breeze, is alive.
We had a good deal of talk about this, for life is a very wonderful thing;
one of those "secret things" which belong to God, and which no one has ever
been able to understand. But though we cannot know what this wonderful
secret is, we can understand how great a difference there is between living
things and those which have never had any life in them. If you were to take
a pebble and hide it in the earth, you might water it every day, and the
sun might shine upon it, while you waited and waited till you were quite
old; but no change would come to the pebble, If you dug for it you would
find it a pebble still.
But with a plant, how different! See how those weeds in your garden grow.
You may cut them down, or bury them underground--do anything indeed except
pull them up by the roots--and still they will force their way through the
soil which you pressed down so tightly over them; their leaves will push
themselves up into the light and air, and their roots will strike deep into
the earth, for every bit of them is alive; as the "Song of the Crocus"
says--
"My leaves shall run up, and my root shall run down,
While the bud in my bosom is swelling."
Long ago, when I was a child, I saw a field covered with beautiful white
things, smooth and rounded like the top of an egg, which seemed to rise
here and there from the grass. They grew out of the ground, but yet they
did not look like any flowers I had ever seen. I was told that the pretty
white things were mushrooms, and that I might gather as many as I could in
my pinafore, and take them home for breakfast.
You may fancy how delightful it was to search about in the dewy grass,
every minute finding a mushroom finer and whiter than the rest; but what
puzzled me was the wonder of it--how had they all come there?
They had grown up in the night, I was told, while I had been asleep in
my bed; and I knew it must be so, for I had been in that field only the
evening before, and had seen nothing there but the sheep, eating the grass
and daisies.
The thought of these beautiful white things growing up so quietly in the
night-time, when no one could see them, was very wonderful to me, and I
only wished that I might stay up all the next night in that field, and see
them come, and find out how they grew: I was sure I could keep awake all
night!
But since then I have learnt that there are many, many things about which
we grown people, as well as you children, may ask questions, and say, "How
do they come?" and there is no answer ready for us except that old wise
answer--God has made them to be.
I daresay you may have a little garden of your own. Did you ever, in
spring-time, make a hole in the soft brown earth, and drop into it a little
black round seed? Perhaps last March you put in a good many sweet peas, and
then covered each one up in its earthy bed, and left them. People told you
not to forget to take care of your garden, and so you often watered the
place where the seeds lay hidden, and at last you saw something very tiny,
but fresh and green and full of life, where only the dark brown earth had
been the day before. You clapped your hands for pleasure, and ran to tell
everybody: "My sweet peas are coming up!" You see you can tell when the
seeds are growing, but you cannot tell how they grow; you can water the
ground where they are lying hidden from your sight, but when you have done
all you know how to do, you must still leave them to God's care; for He
alone can make those little dark balls spring up and grow, and blossom in
sweetness and beauty.
What wonderful thing it was that went on underground so quietly, while you
were asleep or at play, neither you nor I can tell; and this dead-like seed
coming to life and springing up into beauty is only one of the many things
which go on in this world all around us, seen and known only by God, who
says of the seed of His word, sown by His servants--not in the ground, but
in the hearts of people--that it is He who "giveth
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