Quiet talks on the deeper meaning of the war, and its relation to Our Lord's return

Front matter

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Preface

The world is trying to catch its breath. Such an upheaval, in extent and in intensity, has not occurred for centuries, at the least. Thoughtful men have been trying to sense its meaning. An interpretation that is sane, and sufficient to all the facts, has been difficult to get.

The interpretation I have ventured to suggest here came slowly through the long years of the fighting. The teachings of the Bible, with which it is coupled, came more slowly through longer years. It has all been dug out simply to answer my own questions. It is given here in response to strong pressure.

Regarding the teachings of the Bible here I have tried not to express any personal opinion. My task has been simpler. It has been to gather out such passages as seem, in their first meaning, to refer to things that clearly have not yet taken place, and so are distinctly future; and then to put them together in what seemed the logical, connected, common-sense order.

I would never have ventured on such a risky thing as seeming to forecast the future, but for a deep and deepening conviction that the interpretation given here is, in the main, accurate. There can be no question of the full depend- 5

6 Preface

ability of the Word of God throughout. It's wholly a matter of interpretation.

This is the third little book I have ventured to send out about Christ's Return. The studied limitations of each will indicate the distinctive difference of each from the others, and so the definitive scope of the present one. "Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return" is confined to a detailed study of the New Testament teachings on the subject. "Quiet Talks About the Crowned Christ of the Revelation" is devoted wholly to a detailed study of the last book of the Bible. "Quiet Talks on the Deeper Meaning of the War and Its Relation to Our Lord's Return," in this division of its contents, is confined to a detailed study of the Old Testament teachings on the subject, except enough of a rapid review of the New Testament teachings to adjust the two groups of teachings together, and so get a summary of the teachings of the whole Bible on this subject.

The Scripture quotations are from the Revised Version, except where otherwise noted. Where they vary from the English Revision it is because the American is judged in those particular cases to be more nearly accurate. A number of times I have made free paraphrases so as to express more clearly and fully the thought of the language underneath.

S. D. Gordon.

New York City.

FRANCIS THOMPSON

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days ;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years ; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind ; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes, I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat — and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet — "All things betray thee, who betray est Me."

J The love of God, strong as a father's, tender as a mother's, eager as a lover's, undiscourageable as a true friend's, persistent as God's own only is, is so simply, exquisitely portrayed in this poem of Francis Thompson's that I have obeyed an insistent inner urging in giving it a fresh errand here. God's purpose, that is, Love's purpose, never gives up its eager pursuit of every man, and of the race, and of His ideal for both. And that is the story of this little book on the War and Christ's Return.

I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red,

Trellised with intertwining charities ; (For, though I knew His love Who followed,

Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.) But, if one little casement parted wide,

The gust of His approach would clash it to. Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars ; Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon. I said to dawn : Be sudden ; to eve : Be soon — With thy young skyey blossoms heap me over From this tremendous Lover !

Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see !

I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me,

Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue ; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue ;

Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged His chariot 'thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet : — Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

Still with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

Came on the following Feet,

And a Voice above their beat — "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

I sought no more that after which I strayed

In face of man or maid; But still within the little children's eyes

Seems something, something that replies, They at least are for me, surely for me ! I turned me to them very wistfully ; But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair

With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.

"Come then, ye other children, Nature's — share With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship; Let me greet you lip to lip, Let me twine with you caresses,

Banqueting With her in her wind-walled palace, Underneath her azured dais, Quaffing, as your taintless way is, From a chalice Lucent- weeping out of the dayspring." So it was done :

I in their delicate fellowship was one — Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.

I knew all the swift importings On the wilful face of skies; I knew how the clouds arise, Spumed of the wild sea-snortings ; All that 's born or dies Rose and drooped with ; made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine — With them joyed and was bereaven. I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanctities. I laughed in the morning's eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,

Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine ; Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat ; But not by that, by that, was eased my human

smart.

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's gray

cheek.

For ah ! we know not what each other says,

These things and I ; in sound I speak — Their sound is but their stir, they speak by

silences.

Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth ;

Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom- veil of sky, and show me The breasts o' her tenderness:

Never did any milk of hers once bless My thirsting mouth.

Nigh and nigh draws the chase,

With unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

And past those noised Feet

A Voice comes yet more fleet — "Lo! naught contents thee, who content 'st not Me/'

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,

And smitten me to my knee ;

I am defenceless utterly.

I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers,

I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me ; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years — My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.

Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist ; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding ; cords of all too weak account For earth, with heavy griefs so overplussed.

Ah ! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,

Suffering no flowers except its own to mount ? Ah ! must — Designer infinite ! — Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst

limn with it ?

My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the

dust; And now my heart is as a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, split down ever

From the dank thoughts that shiver Upon the sighful branches of my mind.

Such is ; what is to be ?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind 1 I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds ; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity: Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Kound the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again ;

But not ere him who summoneth

I first have seen, enwound With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned ; His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. Whether man 's heart or life it be which yields

Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields

Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit Comes on at hand the bruit ; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: "And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard?

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fly est Me!

Strange, piteous, futile thing! Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He

said), "And human love needs human meriting:

How hast thou merited — Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

Save Me, save only Mef AU which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms, But just that thou might' st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come.' 9

Halts by me that footfall : Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly ? "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."