Lamps and paths

Front matter

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Preface

We have a custom in- North Adams of devoting a Sunday in June, each year, to a special service for the children of the Congregation. It is made a Festival of Flowers. All the beauty of leaf and blossom that can be won from garden and mountain-side — roses and larches, lilies of the field and laurel from the pastures, palms from the south and violets from the meadow, woven emblems of love and hope, and tender memorials of children gathered to the heavenly fold — are brought into the church and piled about the pulpit and chancel with a profusion that has no limit except room to contain it. It is a feast of tabernacles, — a carnival of floral beauty. But while considering the lilies, we also strive to tell the children the lesson they teach; and hence these brief and simple sermons preached as the occasion recurs. My present object is chiefly to secure a more enduring memory of them in the minds of those to whom they were addressed ; but it is possible that they may serve a somewhat wider use.

VI PREFACE.

While the story is the main medium for conveying moral truth to the mind of a child, there is still room for more systematic instruction ; and it is not well to omit this in the Christian education of children. It is hardly expected that many children will of themselves find their way through these pages, but under the guidance of parents they may, perhaps, receive from them a direct impression of duty such as the story does not always yield. If so, the little book will not be in vain.

I have joined to these discourses for children a Pastoral Address made to a large number of young persons who entered into the Church in March, 1883; and as the book is likely to fall into the hands of parents, and is, indeed, designed for the household, I have added a discourse on the Home in its Relation to Character, — believing that these additions will secure for the volume a more thorough unity.

No effort has been made to take out local color and allusion, either of place or occasion. All Berkshire is a poem of natural beauty, and it is kinder to offer it to the world than to hide it.

T. T. M.

NOTE ON THE SECOND EDITION.

THE second edition of this book is published with an addition of four chapters, in the hope that in this form it may be regarded as a fit prelude to "On THE Threshold," — a work designed for an older class of readers.

T. T. M.

North Adams, November, 1884.

Contents

PAGE

I. The Desert 13

II. Lamps and Paths 31

I. The Desert

44 Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I" Psalm lxi. 2.

HE first thing to do in a sermon is to explain the text, if it needs explanation, — as most texts do.

If you were to think of these words for a moment, I presume you would find yourself wondering why David, who wrote the Psalm, wanted to be led to a rock; and then why he wanted a rock higher than himself.

If he had lived here in Berkshire he would not need to have gone far ; and he might easily have found many higher than his head. But it is not so everywhere. In central New York — where I spent my childhood — there are no rocks worthy of the name, and it was not till I was a large lad that I saw one half as high as my head. I remember one about as high as a table, upon which the little lambs used to jump in play ; and it was the largest in all the country about. But then we felt no need of rocks, as David seemed to have felt. Indeed, we were rather better off without them ; and all the farmers about here will tell you that they wish they had fewer instead of so many. But for some reason, David prayed to be led to a great rock.

Now, to understand this we must take a long journey, a quarter of the way eastward around the earth, — to Syria and the great desert regions southward in Arabia, and farther east beyond the Jordan. Although David lived at Jerusalem when he wrote the Psalm, he had made long journeys and lived many months near these desert regions. When he was a young man, at one time he lived in a cave called Adullam, in a place where there were no houses nor trees. And afterward, when he was a king, he marched through deserts with his armies. And when he was a boy, and tended sheep, I presume he often had to lead the flock across desert places to find good pasturage. Now, there is no place where men travel that

THE DESERT. I 5 is so hard and painful as a desert, — it is worse than arctic ice or tropical forests. In arctic regions exercise keeps one warm, and in the tropics the trees afford shade, and there are many beautiful and interesting things to engage the attention. But in the desert there is almost everything to make travelling uncomfortable, and nothing to make it pleasant. Deserts are very warm places. The sun shines fiercely, and the sand becomes hot. There is no cool, green grass ; there are no trees for shade, — only a great wide stretch of sandy waste. Sometimes the ground is rough and flinty, but oftener it is just a level stretch of sand. Think how 7 desolate and tiresome it must be, — no trees, no grass nor flowers, nor ferns nor mosses; no rivers nor brooks; no hills, no houses, no roads even, but just the level sand below and the blue sky above, filled with dazzling and burning light ! Not a very nice place to be in, you see. Yet a great many people live near these deserts, and are forced to cross them, — sometimes making journeys weeks long. And, strange to say, these people get to love the deserts. Indeed, people generally love the place where they were born, and where they live. The Icelanders say that " Iceland is the best land the sun shines on," though the sun scarcely shines enough to melt the ice in summer. And so the Arabs who live about the deserts get to love them, and doubtless think that a sandy desert is finer than a grassy field. And there is something about desert-life that tends to make them very thoughtful and wise. A great many of the wisest sayings ever uttered have come from these desert-dwelling Arabs. I presume it may be because in their long journeys and in their quiet lives they have a great deal of time for thinking. They have a very firm belief in the one God, and are very particular to pray to Him several times a day. Their religion requires them always to wash their hands before praying. Often in the desert they can get no water, and so they wash their hands in the clean sand ; which shows how particular they are about their worship.

I read this story the other day, showing how an Arab proved the existence of God : —

" A Frenchman who had won a high rank among men of science, yet who denied the God who is the

THE DESERT. I 7 author of all science, was crossing the Great Sahara in company with an Arab guide. He noticed, with a sneer, that at times his guide, whatever obstacles might arise, put them all aside, and kneeling on the burning sands called on his God. Day after day passed, and still the Arab never failed ; till at last one evening the philosopher, when he rose from his knees, asked him, with a contemptuous smile, ' How do you know there is a God? ' The guide fixed his beaming eyes on the scoffer for a moment in wonder, and then said solemnly: 'How do I know there is a God? How do I know that a man, and not a camel, passed my hut last nis:ht in the darkness ? Was it not bv the print of his feet in the sand ? Even so,' — and he pointed to the sun, whose last rays were flashing over the lonely desert, — ' that foot-print is not that of a man.' "

I think this was very beautiful, and also very good proof of the existence of God. I wish all of you, when you see the sun sinking behind the Taconics, into a bed of red and golden clouds, would stop and think that God is the source of all that beauty and glory.

A great many of these Arabs also, in all ages, have been very just and good men. We have many stories, in prose and verse, to illustrate this ; but I think none are finer than the little poem by Leigh Hunt, entitled " Abou Ben Adhem," which I wish you all knew by heart : —

" Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase !)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold ;

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the Presence in the room he said :

'What writest thou ? ' The Vision raised its head,

And, with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered : ' The names of those who love the Lord/

'And is mine one ? ' said Abou. ' Nay, not so/

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerly still, and said : ' I pray thee, then,

Write me as one who loves his fellow-men. '

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again, and with a great waking light,

And showed the names whom love of God had

blessed, — And, lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest ! "

They have also uttered a great many very wise and useful truths under the form of fables and parables. There is one that shows how an evil habit — like drinking, or any kind of vice — grows and gains on one till at last it destroys him. When the Arab is travelling across the desert, he pitches a little tent for himself to keep out the cold, — for often the nights are chilly, — and ties his camel just outside. This is the fable : —

" One cold night a camel, thus fastened by a long tether, thrust his nose into his master's tent, and said : i It is very cold, — let me put my nose within the tent ; ' and the indulgent master consented. Then the camel said : ' It grows colder, — let me thrust in my whole head.' Growing presumptuous, he at length pushed in the whole length of his crooked neck, and finally the entire bulk of his uncouth and ill-savored body. And when the master, remonstrating, said, ' There is not enough room for me and thee/ the camel replied : ' It is verily so ; you may go out of the tent, — I shall remain/ "

This fable is for us all, young and old. It shows how if we indulge in any evil habit, it grows and grows, and consumes more of our time and takes up our thoughts, and crowds out everything good and noble, till there is nothing left but the evil habit. This is especially so in the habit of drinking. The boy or young man says, " Just a glass of beer now and then," — and soon it is wine, and then it is whiskey ; and before long he feels he must have it every day, till the terrible habit takes full possession of him, as the camel filled the tent. The moral is — Do not begin ! If the Arab had not let the camel thrust in his nose, it would not have turned him out of his tent. Do not begin to swear, to tell lies, to cheat, to drink. A bad beginning makes a bad ending ; and all bad endings begin in something small and slight : hence we need to be very careful.

But I must get back to the text. We have not yet found out why David prayed to be led to a rock higher than himself. I will tell you at once, and explain it afterward. It was because he wanted shelter. It was shelter that David prayed for; shelter from one of two things, — heat or storm.

In order to understand this, we must imagine ourselves making a journey across a desert, — not a level, sandy desert, but a rough, stony, barren waste like that south of Beersheba towards Arabia. Imagine we have left this place in the morning, and are going to visit Mt. Sinai. The air is fresh and cool ; we leave the vineyards and olive orchards, and enter the rough, wild waste. Soon not a tree is to be seen, nor any green thing. The sun mounts higher in the sky, and his rays beat fiercely upon us. We keep on bravely for a few hours, but towards noon the sun is so hot, and the way is so dry and rough, and we become so weary and oppressed with heat, that we are ready to faint. The sun's rays are everywhere ; they prick us like hot needles, and everything we touch burns and blisters the skin. It is in vain to look for the shade of a tree, or a grassy ravine with springs of cool water. There are no villages nor houses where we can stop till the sun begins to go down ; there is only the clear, burning sky above us and the dry, burning earth around us. Our only hope is to find some great rock so high as to cast a shadow, or with an overhanging arch under which we can hide ourselves till towards nightfall, when we can start again.

Now suppose you were lost in such a desert and under such a sky. You have wandered till you are weary and ready to perish ; it is in vain to pray for what is not there ; so you pray that God would lead you to some high rock where you can rest and find shelter, and perhaps meet other travellers who will show you the way. Often at the foot of such rocks in the desert there are springs of cool water, and a little grass that the camels can eat; so you would find both shade from the sun and the refreshment of water.

But there are worse things in the desert than clear, hot sunshine. There are storms ; and desert-storms are the worst that blow. It is terrible to be out upon the ocean in a tempest, or off upon the mountains when winter-storms are raging; but neither at sea nor in the mountains are storms so fearful as in the desert. At sea the danger is from water ; in the desert it is from sand and dust and heat. In the mountains the danger is from cold and snow. These storms are called simoons. There is simply a fierce wind; but as it sweeps along it gathers up the dust and sand in such quantity that the sky is filled with it, — a great yellow, whirling, driving cloud. When the traveller sees it coming out of the red sky he is terribly frightened, for if it blows any great length of time it will smother him to death. The camels fear it as much as their riders. They lie down and bury their noses in the sand, and wait till the fierce wind has passed by ; and the men dig holes in the earth, if they have time, where they can protect themselves. The danger comes from two sources, — dust and heat. The dust — finer than any we ever saw — fills the nostrils and lungs, causing hemorrhage, or bleeding and suffocation. And then the heat is so intense that men and animals wilt and faint, and at last die. I would rather be caught out upon Greylock in the wildest storm that ever beat against it, than to be overtaken by a simoon in the desert.

When the traveller sees the simoon coming, he immediately looks about for shelter. His tent could not stand before the wind. If he digs a hole in the earth, it may be filled with driving sand ; for the sand drifts just as the snow does here. What he wants most is a great high rock, — higher than himself. If he can get behind such a rock he is safe. It will keep off the driving dust; and perhaps there may be a cleft into which he can creep, and so hide himself. And this is what the hymn means, —

" Rock of Ages, cleft for me : Let me hide myself in thee ! "

Now I think you all know what David meant when he prayed to be led to a rock higher than himself ; he wanted shelter against the burning heat of the sun and against storms.

But he meant a little more than this, or rather something like this. David is not thinking about an actual rock, and real heat and storm, but about religious things that are like them.

We are all of us making a journey through life, and it is somewhat like a journey through a desert. We meet certain dangers and troubles against which we need protection. And these dangers and troubles are very well represented by heat and storm. The dazzling and wilting heat of the sun may stand for temptation, and the storms may stand for troubles like sickness and death and great disappointment.

I suppose all of you know the power of temptation to do wrong, because you have felt it, — temptations to deceive your parents in order to please yourselves ; to go skating or hunting birds'-nests, or some such thing contrary to their orders ; secretly to disobey their wishes ; to render false excuses to your teachers ; to read bad books ; to revenge yourselves, or " pay-off " those who have injured you ; to pride yourself upon your better dress ; to jeer at the peculiarities or clothes or conduct of others ; to use bad language, — words that would make you blush if you knew a lady heard you.

Now these temptations are very like a hot sun in the desert ; they so dazzle you that they seem for the time to be all right. And then all your better feelings and thoughts wilt and languish; and soon conscience begins to burn and prick you, and you begin to find out that it is a terrible thing to yield to temptation. Now at such times you need God more than you need any one else. You need Him to hear your repentance, for you have sinned against Him, and you want Him to forgive you ; and you need Him to keep you from all these temptations, and to shelter you against their fierce and blinding beams. At such times God is your rock, — a high rock, — under the shadow of which you can think and pray, and get strength for the temptations of to-morrow.

In Walter Scott's " Ivanhoe," which I presume many of you have read, you will find in the thirty-ninth chapter a beautiful hymn sung by Rebecca the Jewess when she was exposed to great temptation, in which are these two lines that we all ought to know by heart : —

"Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen To temper the deceitful ray ! "

And then there are the storms. I am glad that you do not yet know much about the storms of life, and I shall not say very much to you about them. But perhaps some of you have already had heavy sorrows ; perhaps you have sometime lost a little sister or brother, so that your heart was almost broken. And some of you may have lost a mother or father; or you may have to work very hard ; or you may have sharp pain to bear. Well, these are storms; and when they come, all you can do is to fly to God, — just as if you were overtaken by a storm in the desert you would fly to some great rock near you. God will take you in His arms and comfort you, and hold you safe all your life through.

Thus, when the lamp that lighted

The traveller at first goes out, He feels awhile benighted,

And looks around in fear and doubt. But soon the prospect clearing,

By cloudless starlight on he treads, And thinks no lamp so cheering

As that light which Heaven sheds.

God shall be my hope, My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.

King Henry VI. , Part II. ; ii. 3.

Oh, say not, dream not, heavenly notes

To childish ears are vain ; That the young mind at random floats,

And cannot reach the strain.

Dim or unheard the words may fall ;

And yet the Heaven-taught mind May learn the sacred air, and all

The harmony unwind.

Christian Year: " Catechism."

II. Lamps And Paths

" Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light tmto my path." Psalm cxix. 105.

F we were not so used to reading the Bible without thought or auestion, this verse would strike us very strangely. Commonly a light is for the eyes rather than for the feet, and a lamp is to read or sew by rather than to walk by.

But it was not always so. When David put these words into one of his Psalms, people read very little and walked a great deal, because they had few books to read and no carriages to ride in ; there was more walking than reading. More than that, the roads were such that, if one had occasion to go anywhere in the night, it was necessary to take a lamp, both in order to find the road and to avoid the dangers of getting out of it. In all that land of Judaea, where David lived, there was nothing that we would call a road, — that is, a good broad highway, with sidewalks and fences. There was not anything like a good " country road," nor even like our paths through the forests where wood and lumber are drawn out. Instead, there were simply foot-paths or mule-paths leading from one village to another. They were easy enough to find in the daytime, but they were very rough ; they were not " worked " at all. If they led to a hill or a precipice, the traveller clambered up or down, or went around, as best he could. There were no fences enclosing them, no bridges over the streams ; and even in the towns and cities there were no lamps burning gas or kerosene. In the matter of travelling one had to pick his way over the country pretty much for himself. Sometimes he did not even try to keep in the path, but travelled straight on across fields, up hill and down dale, just as he liked. It is almost exactly the same in that country now. There is but one road that we would call such in the whole country. It leads from Berut to Damascus, under Mt. Lebanon. If you were to make that journey, you would ride in a stagecoach ; but if you were travelling anywhere else in Syria, you would either go on foot or on horseback. A great number of tourists from England and America go every year from Jaffa to Jerusalem ; but all must go on horses, and along a path that wanders here and there, over the hills and through the valleys, very much like the paths made by sheep and cows on our hillside pastures. As the journey is rather too long for one day, they are forced to spend the night on the way; and they are very careful to start in time to reach the stopping-place before dark, for if night should overtake them, it would be difficult even for the guides to find the path, and they would also be in danger of falls and bruises amongst the rocks and steep places on every side. But if by chance a party of travellers going from Jaffa to Jerusalem were to be overtaken by night on the way, there would be nothing for them to do but to light a lantern, and, holding it close to the ground, try to keep the path by finding the hoof-prints of the horses that have gone before them. They would hold the lamp down low, about their feet, rather than up high about the heads ; and so David, in this Psalm of his, speaks of "a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

If they had had such lanterns as we have now, that shed a powerful light all around, they might have held them up ; but their lamps were very simple, — just a little earthen lamp with two holes — one in which to pour the oil, made from olives, and the other for the wick, which was of flax.

Such a lamp would not shed much light, — not enough to see far ahead, but only a few feet, when held close to the ground. I have heard it said that sometimes they fastened the lamps to their feet ; but I can hardly believe this. When w r e see Dr. Jessup, of Berut, we will ask him if it is true.

Now I think we all understand the text, or, rather, what is meant by a lamp for the feet. David says that God's Word is like this lamp. It shines all about our path, and shows us which way to go.

This text implies several things. By imply I mean this : if you ask for food, it implies that you are hungry ; if you ask the way to such a store or house, it implies that you do not know the way ; if you call out for a light, it implies that it is dark about you and that you cannot see. If we did not sometimes use hard words and explain them, you would never find out what they mean.

So this text implies three things that I shall now speak to you about.

1. It implies, or means, that it is a dark world. It is a very good world ; but there are some things about the world and about life that are very dark. There are some important truths that we ourselves cannot be sure of. There are many things that we know perfectly. We know that there is a solid earth under our feet ; we know that we see one another, and that the mountains rise about us, and that the sun shines, and that the rain falls; we know that twice two are four. But we are not so sure about some other things. We do not of ourselves really know there is a God. We might guess it, and feel pretty sure of it, as the heathen do ; but we might get no nearer right than they. And if we did not know there is a God, we could not know how the world came to exist. It is a great puzzle now, — how all this beautiful framework of nature came to be ; but if we had been left to our own guesses, we could have been sure of nothing about it. And in the same way we could not have known anything about ourselves, —how we came to exist. And so, if we had to trust to ourselves, there would be a great cloud of uncertainty shutting us in, like the clouds that settle on Greylock in November days ; we know Greylock is there, but we can hardly persuade strangers that there is a great mountain within the mist. But when we open the Bible, we find that there is one God, who made the heavens and the earth and the animals and man. This simple fact throws out light, like a great lantern or sun, and makes a great many things plain. God made the world ; God made us ; God made all things. But it is a dark world in another respect. Of ourselves we could never surely know that there is another life after this. We might hope there is, but we could not be sure. We might make all sorts of guesses, as the old Greeks did about Pluto's realms ; but they would be only guesses. But in the Bible Christ tells us that God's universe is full of mansions or homes, and that He went away from the earth to prepare them for us. We need not be greatly troubled about death when we remember that so dear a friend as Christ is to prepare our place for us when we die. If we love and obey Christ, the place will be with Him where He is, and all ready to receive us.