The sense of life that knows no death, Sometimes there happens on the ocean an experience, entirely familiar to sailors, but which always has in it something beautiful and strange. A vessel, some day, is lying, as seamen say, stark-becalmed, powerless to reach her harbor; but, as the sailors wait and watch, they notice that while there is no ripple on the water or breeze upon their faces, the little pennant far up at the masthead begins to stir and ripple out. The breeze is all aloft, they say. It does not strike down upon the surface of the sea. At once they spread their upper sails, to catch the current which is all unfelt below, and very quietly, straight across a sea which looks hopelessly flat and calm, the vessel holds right on under the impulse of that upper air. So, sometimes, the spirit of God moves over the lives of men : "All powerful as the wind it comes, As viewless too," and in the lower levels of life all is still motionless. You seem to be under the dominion of a law which chains you in its flat and dull monotony. You feel no breath of the spirit on your cheek. But aloft is stirring the cur rent of the higher law; and the life that spreads its upper sails finds itself borne along as by a miracle across the flatness of life, under the breeze which is at once both Law and Liberty. 85 XI THE DEPARTING GLORY Thou shalt stand upon the rock, and . . . I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand until I have passed by: and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back: but my face shall not be seen. - Exodus xxxiii. 21-23. HIS is a graphic, Oriental, dramatic way of describing what happens in many a life. Moses wants to be perfectly sure that God is with him, and prays: "Show me Thy ways; show me Thy glory;' but Jehovah answers: "That I cannot do, for it is not possible for a man to look straight into My face and live. But I will do this: I will set thee in a cleft of the rock as My glory approaches thee, and will hold My hand before thine eyes as I pass by, and then, as I depart, I will take My hand away and thou shalt see the vision of the departing glory." To see the truth of things as they were going away, to be hidden in a rocky cleft with a hand before his eyes, and to know the glory and greatness of experience only when it was over, that was as near as Moses could come to the direct revelation of the presence of his God. Is it not much the same with almost every life? A man sees some special incident of his experience approaching him, a young man looks out into the years of his college life; a young woman pauses and asks herself the meaning of her hurrying, busy, happy winter, and they eagerly desire to be perfectly sure of the presence and guidance of their God. "Show me Thy ways," they cry; "show me Thy glory." "Let the meaning of life be disclosed to me while it is yet here." "Oh, to discern, amid the hurry and routine and frivolity and insignificance of life the immediate signs of what is sacred and divine!" But how often it happens that one is not permitted to see this great light shining into his little life. It is as if a hand were placed before one's eyes and he was held in a cleft of the rock, so that the routine and commonplace of life barred out the heavenly vision. The college year slips by, the busy winter vanishes, with no sense of glory in them, but only thoughtlessness or dulness or overwhelming care. And then, some day, just as such experiences depart, the hand is taken away from one's eyes, and he recognizes how beautiful and gracious had been the privilege which had been so slightly used and which is now but a departing glory. Thousands of men all over this country look back in precisely this way on the collegedays which they once had at their command. While they were here they lived without adequate appreciation of the liberty and poetry and charm of it all; shut within the little Icleft of their own set or interest or immaturity; but as these days recede their brightness is revealed, and they take on a peculiar color and charm; and all through the soberer years of later life a man says to himself: "Those, after all, were the golden days, the years of sheer delight and of irresponsible joy." And all this is equally true of the more serious experiences which come to every life. You are set some day in the valley of shadow, where you have to meet anxiety or solitude or trouble or care; and, with a new terror in your voice, you cry to God: "What does this mean? If Thou art here, show me Thy glory. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" But there comes to you no open vi |