John R. Macduff

“ Prodigal!—wanderer from God, exile from peace, roaming the forest-haunts of sin, plunging deeper and deeper into their midnight of ruin and despair—has an arrow, either from the quiver of man, or of God, wounded thy heart? Art thou, in thy agony, seeking rest and finding none,—having the gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction with all created things, and an undefined longing for a solace they cannot give? Yes! for thee, too, for thy gaping, bleeding wound there is "balm in Gilead, and a Physician there." ”

“ All know the story of the little child who, in simple accents, quieted its own fears and that of others in the midst of a storm. When the planks were creaking beneath them—the hoarse voice of the thunder above mingling with that of the raging sea;—his tiny finger pointed to the calm visage of the pilot, who was steering with brawny arm through the surge, "My father," said he, "is at the helm!" Would you weather the tempests of life, and sit calm and unmoved amid "the noise of its many waters," let your eye rest on a living God—a loving Father—a heavenly Pilot. ”

“ That cedar stood as a stately beam and pillar in nature's temple, but the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former. How many of our souls are like these cedars of God! His axes of trial have stripped and bared them,—we see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious; but He has a noble end and object in view—to set them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His heavenly temple, to make them "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God!" ”

“ Are you feelingly alive, painfully conscious that your love, like that of many, has waxed cold;—are you mourning that you have not the nearness to the Mercy-seat that once you enjoyed,—not the love of your Bibles, and ordinances, and sacraments that you once had,—that a heavy cloud mantles your spiritual horizon,—God's countenance, not what once it was, irradiated with a Father's smiles,—nor heaven what once it seemed, a second home? ”

“ Have any of you ever known this acutest anguish of the human spirit,—those appalling moments of doubt, when for a moment the whole citadel of truth seems to rock to its foundations,—when the soul becomes a dungeon with grated bars, or in which the light of heaven is transmitted through distorted glass, and the finger of unbelief is pointed inwards, with the old sneer, "Where is the God you were wont to boast of in your day of prosperity? ”

“ Are we not warranted to infer that it was the wounded stag which David now saw, or pictured he saw, seeking the brooks?—the hart hit by the archers, with blood-drops standing on its flanks, and its eye glazed with faintness, exhaustion, and death? But for these wounds it would never have come to the Valley. It would have been nestling still up in its native heath—the thick furze and cover of the mountain heights of Gilead. But the shaft of the archer had sped with unerring aim; and, with distended nostril and quivering limb, it hastens to allay the rage of its death-thirst. ”

“ You may be as stranded vessels on the sands of despair; but the tide of His ocean-love is able to set you floating on the waters. Repair, without delay, to His mercy-seat. Cast yourselves on His free forgiveness. Every attribute of His nature which you have now armed against you, is stretching out its hand of welcome and entreaty. Each is like a branch of the tree of life, inviting you to repose under its shadow. Each is a rill from the everlasting fountain, inviting you to drink of the unfailing stream. ”

“ Why forbid the angel of bereavement [71] to drop from his wings the balmy fragrance, "Thy Father hath done it?" How it would take the sting from many a goading trial thus to see, as Job did, nothing but the hand of God—to see that hand behind the gleaming swords of the Sabeans, the flash of the lightning, and the wings of the whirlwind—and to say like David, on the occasion of his mournful march to these very wilds of Gilead, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it." (Psalm xxxix. 9.)
The thought of a living God forms the happiness of Heaven. It is the joy of Angels. ”

“ Every church is a Peniel, where God meets His people, as He met the patriarch of old at the brook Jabbok. Go and see what may be effected by one lowly, humble, seeking soul—some wrestling Jacob, who, like "a Prince," has "power with God, and prevails!" The lowliest tabernacle on earth is glorified as being the House of God—the dwelling-place of Omnipotence and Love—the hallowed "home," where a loving Father waits to dispense to His children the garnered riches of His grace! The time may come when the holy and beautiful sanctuary where we worship may become a heap of ruins. ”

“ When it is so, the result is every now and then a collapse; like a child building his mimic castle too high, the perpendicular and equilibrium are lost. It totters and falls, and he has just to begin again. The dew distils, and hangs its spangled jewels on blade and flower, gently and in silence. The rain comes down in tiny particles and soft showers, not in drenching water-floods. So the healthy Christian holds on the even tenor of his way, unaffected by the barometer of feeling. He knows this is apt to be elevated and depressed by a thousand accidents over which he has no control. ”

“ There is nothing more sad or touching in the midst of a storm,—when the vessel is reeling on the waves, and little expectation of safety is left,—than to see, amidst the settled gloom of despair, the little child playing on the deck, all unaware of what is impending;—or, at a time of heart-rending bereavement, when every face of the household is muffled in sadness and suffused with tears, to hear the joyous laugh and playful prattle of unconscious infancy. ”

“ He gets habituated to the winning ways, and loving words, and constant companionship. He comes to regard that little life as part of himself. He does not fully realise the blessing, because he has never dreamt of the possibility of its removal. But when the startling blow comes,—when death, in an unexpected moment, has severed the tie,—when his eye lights on the empty chair or the unused toy,—when the joyous footfall and artless prattling are heard no more,—then comes he to gauge all the depth and intensity of his affection, and to feel how tenderly (too tenderly!) ”

“ God's mercy we imagine to be "gone for ever." He seems as if He would be "favourable no more." There is no comfort in prayer—no brightness in the promises; the Bible is a sealed book;—the heavens [171] have become as brass and the earth as iron! Oh, so long as we had merely external trials, we could brave and buffet the surrounding floods. So long as we had the Divine smile, like the bow in the cloud, resting upon us, we could gaze in calmness on the blackest sky;—yea, rejoice in trial, as only unfolding to us more of the preciousness of the Saviour. ”

“ Above all, be it yours to enjoy what David knew imperfectly, the conscious nearness of a living Saviour,—a Brother on the throne of Heaven—"Christ our life"—God in our nature—"the man Christ Jesus,"—susceptible of every human sympathy—capable of entering, with infinite tenderness, into every human want and woe—bending over us with His pitying eye—marking out for us our path—ordering our sorrows—filling or emptying our cup—providing our pastures, and "making all things work together for our good!" ”

“ They rise and circle in wreaths of fantastic vapour, disclosing to the wounded Hart "the springs in the valleys which run among the hills; which give drink to every beast in the field, and where the wild asses quench their thirst." The wilderness has become once more "a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." Rebuking his unworthy tears, Faith once more takes down her harp, and thus wakes its melodies,—"I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I HOPE." "Let Israel HOPE in the Lord." ”

“ You may lull yourselves into the atheist dream, that the world is governed by blind chance and fate, that His heaven and His hell are the forged names and nullities of credulity and superstition. As you see the eternal monuments of His power and glory on rock and mountain, you may affect to see in these only the dead hieroglyphics of the past—the obsolete tool-marks of the God of primeval chaos, who welded into shape the formless mass, but having done so, left it alone. ”

“ Sinner! these waves swept over the Rock of Ages, that they might not sweep over you! Sheltered in these crevices, you will be eternally safe. Not one blast of the storm, not one drop of the rain-shower of vengeance, can overtake you. When the billows of wrath—the deluge of fire—shall roll over this earth, safe in these everlasting clefts, you may utter the challenge, "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?" ”

“ Ere long, these surging waves will settle peacefully around you, the shadows of heaven reflected in their glassy surface; and better still, strengthened and renovated by that season of trial, you will go forth from the Graver's hands more ready to brave the billows, grapple with the tempest, and reach at last the haven where you would be!
It is hard discipline—the undowny pillow, the trench-work and midnight vigils—which makes the better soldier. The type of strength in the kingdom of inanimate nature is not the sickly plant of the hot-house, or the tree or bush choked in the dark jungle ”

“ Amid the roll of the billows—the moaning of the blast—he listens to celestial music. Its key-note is "the loving-kindness" of his God. While the heavens are still black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of faith above the war of the storm, and thus sings:—"Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life!"
"Yet the Lord!" The believer, even in his deepest and darkest season of trouble, has always this alternative word—"Yet the Lord will!" ”

“ There are deeps, unfathomed deeps, of calm rest and peace, down in that ocean's undisturbed recesses.
Believer in Jesus! with all thy trials, thou art a happy man. Go on thy way rejoicing. Tribulation may fret and ruffle the calm of thy outer life, but nothing can touch the deeps of thy nobler being. Troubles may rise, and "terrors may frown," and "days of darkness" may fall around thee, but "Thou wilt keep him, O God, IN PERFECT PEACE whose mind is stayed on Thee!" ”

“ If there be one being on God's earth more to be pitied than another, it is the mother of a once joyous home, turned adrift, in the hour of her widowhood, with her ragged children;—forced to sing, from door to door, to escape the jaws of hungry famine,—ill disguising, under her heap of squalid rags or her trembling notes of sorrow and despair, the story of brighter days. ”

“ How easily might He have resented and answered the challenge by a descent from the cross, by having the pierced feet and hands set free,—the crown of thorns replaced by a diadem of glory, scattering the scoffing crew like chaff before the whirlwind! But in meek, majestic silence the Lamb of God suffers Himself to be bound, the Victim gives no struggle. Let them scoff on! He will save others, Himself he will not save! Nor did all their scoffing, their taunts and ridicule, tend for a solitary moment to shake His confidence in His heavenly Father. These fell like spent spray on the Rock of Ages. ”

“ No satellite, with its borrowed light, will compensate for the loss of the sun. You may as well expect the caged wild beast to be happier within the iron bars of his den than roaming lord of the forest, as for the human spirit to be content with the present and the finite as a substitute for the immortal and the infinite! The water-brooks alone could slake the thirst of that roe on the mountains of Gilead. You might have offered it choicest pastures. You might have bid it roam the sunniest glades of the forest, or repose under the majestic shadow of the monarch-oaks of Bashan ”

“ He puts on record a solemn and beautiful liturgy—"I will say unto God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"
How wonderfully does God thus overrule His darkest dispensations for the exercise and discipline of His people's spiritual graces! In their overflowing prosperity they are apt to forget Him. He sends them afflictions. Trial elicits faith—faith drives to prayer—prayer obtains the spiritual blessing! ”

“ All recent explorers of Palestine speak in glowing terms of that "solemn eastern background," with its mellow tints of blue and purple, rising conspicuous, as if a wall built by giants, from the deep gorge or valley of the Jordan. This mountain range, and especially the hills of Gilead, with their rugged ravines and forests of sycamore and terebinth, are full of blended memories of joy and sadness. From one of these slopes, the Father of the Faithful obtained his first view of his children's heritage. ”

“ As the face, the hidden face of God, beamed upon the Son of His love in the midst of that apparent desolation, so will it be, children of affliction and sorrow! with you. Others may see in your tears nothing but an indication of the desertion of God,—the visitations of His wrath and judgment. But believe it, these very experiences of trouble and calamity, of bereavement or death, are all meted out and apportioned for you in love—drop by drop, tear by tear. Seek to see God's hand in all that befalls you. Try, even in the most adverse providences, to rise above second causes. ”

“ Do not remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbour. The religious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy tide-mud, as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. ”