CHAPTER X.THE LIGHT BEHIND THE CLOUD.
Wasthere such a light? It was one of the saddest of calamities, desolating at a stroke many a bright home, and nipping in the bud some of the fondest hopes and purposes. Was there such a light? The disaster swept away two hundred and twenty lives, around which many other lives twined like the gentle tendrils of a vine, and who will, perhaps, wither now that the props to which they sweetly clung have been torn ruthlessly away.
Was there such a light? The aged and the young went down together into the same grave. The infant child of four months old was dashed far away from the sinking mother’s breast, and heroism of the loftiest type received no higher reward than the dullest, basest cowardice.
Was there such a light? The refined scholar, for whom his pupils wait—the tender father, for whom a widow and six children, with only slender means for their support, anxiously look out—the gently strong John Woolley has gone down into the deep, and the sea has taken no more account of his worth and power than it has of the fool.
Was there such a light? Captain Martin has gone; the man who fearlessly traversed the ocean for years, who had often smiled at danger, and had gone between Melbourne and London until the path was as clear to him as the turnpike-road to the waggoner. The gentle, courageous good man will never more be greeted by his relatives, and the wide circle of friends who loved him will see him no more.
Was there such a light? Daniel Draper is lost to thechurch and to his only son; his brethren in the ministry will no longer be able to depend upon his wise suggestions; and souls unnumbered are still white unto harvest, while the successful reaper suddenly drops his sickle, and will gather in no more sheaves.
Was there such a light? and in what quarter of the heavens did it glow behind the great darkness in which the good ship went down into the whirlpool of destruction with 220 lives on board?
There was such a light, and we have no doubt of its beaming over this dark catastrophe still,—the light which shines through the words,
God is love.
That those who now most need the light of this truth to guide them will see even the faintest glimmering of it, we cannot say; but when the blindness occasioned by the smart of tears has cleared away, we are sure, that if they will look up there will be the truth mildly shining behind the calamity, dark though it be. The mystery, appalling though it be, can, in this world, receive no truer solution, but a lifetime may pass away without our even having learnt the letters by which the truth is to be slowly spelt out.
But while the mystery remains, the calamity loses much of its horror, if we lay to heart the truth of the over-ruling providence of God. “It is appointed unto man once to die,” and the Omnipotent one has ordained the place, the time, the circumstances. Good and faithful servants were in the ship, and the summons that told them their way unto the Lord’s presence was through the deep, brooked no delay; but the road was not half so strange to them as it seems to us. Beforetheir eyes a light was shining which is hidden from our view, and by it they were conducted to their Father’s house as serenely as if they had breathed their last on downy pillows. Down into the great deep they plunged, and then?
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, they had left their sea-soaked raiment behind them, and they were at rest amid the blessed calm on which no tempest shall ever, ever, ever break. A rich feast was awaiting their arrival; bright and happy faces were around the board to welcome the guests who had come through the flood and tempest; and God Himself wiped away all tears from off all faces, and the voice of eternal love thrilled their hearts as it whispered, “There shall be nomoredeath, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.”
Oh! could we think a little more of this scene beyond the flood, and less of the terrible shipwreck, we should assuredly catch glimpses of the light behind the cloud. From the eternal shore the voices of the faithful reach our world, saying, “Men of England, men of Melbourne, weep not for us, for we have all got safe to land; and the land is good, and, behold we were not told the half concerning it. See to it, that ye prepare to follow us in the way our Father sees best.”
But through the sea? Yes, for the sea is his, and He made it; and God may use it as He did in the case before us, not as a minister of wrath, but of mercy, to conduct his chosen ones to Himself.
But through all the agony which preceded the struggle, and through such a struggle?
Yes; if that too be the Divine will, for who was it that for our sakes chose the saddest and most lingering of deaths? and who, in the anguish of a fast breaking heart, cried,“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!”
But let us say that friends and relations are in danger of making by far too much of the agony, and not enough of the heavenly help that came to the shipwrecked ones, to enable them “to suffer and be strong.”
We believe in the superiority of Divine grace to the mere natural feeling of pain and anguish, and that when Divine strength nerves the soul, the keenest physical tortures are all outside things. The martyrs of old could without pretence woo the flames that consumed them, clothe themselves cheerfully as with a garment of fire; and while the chain around him grew red hot, one could talk of his dying thus, as if he were on a bed of roses! And He who for some inscrutable but all-wise and loving purpose permitted the calamity of the shipwreck, may have thus supported his servants, and deprived them of agony as He had previously deprived them of fear—the greater agony of the two.
Is there not also a light behind the cloud, when the fact is called to mind how faithfully the gospel was preached, and how fervently most of those on board engaged in acts of devotion? There have been scenes of horror on board shipwrecked vessels which baffle all description, when it has been made known that the ship must go down. Then, shouts of cursing, despair, and drunken revelry have been heard above the fury of the gale, and mocked the very groans of the dying.
“Then rose from sea to sea the wild farewell,Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave.”
“Then rose from sea to sea the wild farewell,Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave.”
“Then rose from sea to sea the wild farewell,Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave.”
“Then rose from sea to sea the wild farewell,
Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave.”
But on board the sinkingLondon, amidst the storm, the gospel was preached, earnest prayers presented, the Bible read, and anxiety for the soul experienced. All as yet at least were in the place of hope on which the gospel ladder wasplanted, the top whereof touched heaven. They had not passed away to the region where faith would be impossible, and from whence there could be no escape. The way of salvation was singly pointed out to them again and again. They were not, we may be sure, burdened with details and theories, but the simple yet glorious truth was proclaimed, “Here is a Saviour waiting to save you, believe in Him and be saved. You are a sinner, but He died for sinners; you are the very one He came to seek; trust yourself entirely to Him; turn with a holy hatred and grief from your sins, and rely upon his promise to save you, if you only this moment, with all your heart, ask Him to do so.”
And we may believe, and we ought to believe, that the gospel does not onlyofferimmediate salvation, but that Christ does grant it to every man who penitently asks His help. The gospel preached during the storm was not, “Repent and believe the gospel, and you shall be saved at some future day;” the promise was, “You shall be savednow, and this day, though thy body may go to the bottom of the sea, thou shalt be with Christ in Paradise.” Poor sinking one, only believe, and thou shalt see the glory of God.
There is light behind the cloud indeed, in the remembrance that such a gospel was proclaimed hour by hour; and in the conviction we also cherish that many believed it, gave themselves up to the influence of its promises and encouragements, and were so filled with faith in Him who had died to put away their sins and open the kingdom of heaven to them, that they were not afraid to die, seeing not death but heaven before them.
“Where all the ship’s company meet,Who sailed with the Saviour beneath;With shouting each other they greet,And triumph o’er trouble and death.The voyage of life’s at an end,The mortal affliction is past,The age that in heaven they spend,For ever and ever shall last.”
“Where all the ship’s company meet,Who sailed with the Saviour beneath;With shouting each other they greet,And triumph o’er trouble and death.The voyage of life’s at an end,The mortal affliction is past,The age that in heaven they spend,For ever and ever shall last.”
“Where all the ship’s company meet,Who sailed with the Saviour beneath;With shouting each other they greet,And triumph o’er trouble and death.The voyage of life’s at an end,The mortal affliction is past,The age that in heaven they spend,For ever and ever shall last.”
“Where all the ship’s company meet,
Who sailed with the Saviour beneath;
With shouting each other they greet,
And triumph o’er trouble and death.
The voyage of life’s at an end,
The mortal affliction is past,
The age that in heaven they spend,
For ever and ever shall last.”
“And so,” doubtless it will be said, “you want to make them all religious, before the ship went down?” We would, indeed, kind reader, that we could cherish this hope concerning all, for then the light behind the cloud would increase in brightness every day. As sinful men opposed to God we would have had all on board believers in the Great Reconciler, who can make both one, and fill the souls of those who trust Him with the most blessed assurance that there is no longer any gulf of separation between them. Where there is this faith there is no fear, neither of dying, nor of what lies beyond death.
And, reader, in the hour that is before thee, as surely as it was before those that went down in the Bay of Biscay, it is only this faith in Christ that can impart courageous strength to thine own spirit, and solid consolation to the mourners who will presently bewail thee gone. If thou hast it, thou wilt go thy journey undismayed, while the heaven, to which thou art gone will shine brightly behind the cloud, and tell those who grieve thine absence most, that they need not sorrow as those who have no hope.