CHAPTER VI.

THE MORNING.

"THE watchman said, The morning cometh" (Isa. xxi. 12); and though, while making this answer, he forewarns us of night, he also assures us of morning. There is a morning, says he, therefore do not give way to faintness of spirit; but there is a night between, therefore take warning: that you may not be surprised nor dismayed, as if the promise were broken, or some strange thing allowed to befall you.

There may be delay, he intimates, before the morning,-a dark delay, for which we should be prepared. During this he calls to watchfulness: for the length of the night is hidden, the time of day-break is

left uncertain.

We must be on the out

look, with our eyes fixed on the eastern hills. We have nothing wherewith to measure the hours, save the sorrows of the church and the failing of hearts.

During this delay the watchman encourages us to "inquire," to "return," to "come." He expects us to ask "how long," and say, "When will the night be done?" He takes for granted that such will be the proceeding of men who really long for morning. To the hills of Seir they will again and again return, to learn from the watchman what is the promise of day. For no familiarity with the night can ever reconcile them to its darkness, or make morning less desirable and welcome.

It is right for us to desire the morning, to hope for it, to weary for it, to inquire as to the signs of it hour after hour. God has set this joy before us, and it were strange indeed if, when compassed about with so many sorrows, we could forget it,

or be heedless as to its arrival.

For the

coming of the morning is the coming of Him whom we long to see. It is the coming of Him" who turneth the shadow of death into the morning." (Amos v. 8.) It is the return of Him whose absence has been night, and whose presence will be day. It is the return of Him who is the resurrection and the life, and who brings resurrection with Him; the return of Him who is creation's Lord, and who brings with Him deliverance to creation; the return of Him who is the church's Head, and who brings with Him triumph and gladness to his church.

All the joy, the calm, the revivifying freshness of the morning are wrapt up in Him. When He appears, day appears, life appears, fruitfulness appears. The curse departs. The "bondage of corruption " is no more. Clouds, storms, troubles, sorrows vanish. The face of nature reassumes the smile of unfallen times. It is earth's fes

tival, the world's jubilee. "The heavens rejoice, the earth is glad, the sea roars and the fulness thereof, the fields are joyful and all that is therein, the trees of the wood rejoice, the floods clap their hands, and the hills are joyful together before the Lord; for He has come, for He has come to judge the earth; with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with his truth." (Psa. xcvi. 11; xcviii. 7.)

This morning has been long anticipated. Age after age it has attracted the church's eye, and fixed her hope. On the promise of it her faith has been resting, and towards the hastening of it her prayers have gone forth. Though afar off, it has been descried, and rejoiced in as the sure consummation towards which all things are moving forward according to the Father's purpose. "There is a morning" has been the word of consolation brought home to the burdened heart of many a saint when ready to say, with David, "I am desolate," or with

Jeremiah," He hath set me in dark places as they that be dead of old."

Let us dwell for a little on some of these Old Testament allusions to the MORNING. Let us take first the 30th Psalm.

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David had been in sorrow, and in coming out of it he makes known to the saints his consolations :- Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. For there is but a moment in his anger; in his favour is life; weeping may endure for a night, but JOY COMETH IN THE MORNING." (Psa. xxx. 4,5.) The earnest of that morning he had already tasted, but the morning itself he anticipates. Then joy has come. Then he can say, (verse 11,)"Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness." But it is the voice of a greater than David that is heard in this Psalm. It is one of Christ's resurrection Psalms, like the 18th and the 116th. He was "lifted