SOUL-REST.
AN EFFECT.
One of the beatific effects of the cleansing of the heart from all sin
is soul-rest. It always accompanies the glorious experience of entire
purity.
FACIAL INSCRIPTIONS.
This poor tired world of ours needs rest. Study the faces of the people
you meet in the streets, in the markets, in the cars, in the churches,
and there is one word NOT written on them, and that word is "Rest." You
will find many other words written on them. On some faces you see
"Selfishness" in crabbed, crooked letters; on others "Lust" in
bold-faced type; on others "Gluttony"; on others, "Self-Conceit"; on
others, "Craftiness"; and on through a thousand unworthy legends; but
the one thing which makes life worth living is not found except among
the sanctified.
VAMPIRES AND BATS.
It is wonderful how elusive rest is. You may search for it all your
days and grow gray and haggard, and sit down in the evening of life
with the vampires circling about you and be forced to confess, "I have
not found rest!" You may retire from business and say, "I will spend my
declining years in peace," but as the sun goes down the bats come out
and flap the black skinny wings of the sins of other days in your
affrighted face. If you are a student you may drop your books like Dr.
Faust and hurry to the country, but the imp of restlessness will dog
your steps and snare your pathway and you will carry home with you a
Mephisto who will never leave you.
THE SEEDS OF ANARCHY.
Some Christian people seek rest in changing preachers, but there is
nothing in that to bring it. You may leave the minister who thumps the
desk and listen to a man with a nasal twang, but you are still restive
and unsatisfied. You think the reason your peace of soul is disturbed
is that Mrs. Garrulous talked about you, or that the weather is rainy
and disagreeable, or that the meetings are dull, or that people are
selfish. The real reason is that you have a restlessness in your heart
characteristic of inbred sin. You possess the seeds of dissatisfaction,
and lawlessness, and anarchy, and nothing but holiness of heart will
expel them.
THE OCEAN DEPTHS.
Down in the unfathomed depths of old Ocean there is no movement, no
disturbance. Gigantic "Majesties" and "Kaiser Wilhelms" and "Oregons"
and "Vizcayas" plow and whiten the surface; tempests rage and
Euroclydons roar and currents change and tides ebb and flow, but the
great depth knows no ripple. It is said that down there the most
fragile of frail and delicate organisms grow in safety. In the depths
of the sanctified heart there is no storm and no breaker. Trials may
come and leave white scars; billows may beat and surges may roll, and
water-spouts and tornadoes may make the upper sea boil with anguish and
sorrow and grief, but deep in the heart there is calm. There the
delicate graces of the Spirit thrive and luxuriate. Great, soulless,
iron-keeled, worldly institutions and sharp-prowed cutters may ride
over your sensibilities, but the inner placidity is unbroken.
THE ETERNAL SABBATH.
God's plan is to rest us so we can work for Him with ease and success.
He institutes an everlasting Sabbath in the spirit that we may be
ceaseless in sanctified activities. If a man is always jaded and tired
he can not take hold of his work with much enthusiasm.
SPIRITUAL POISE.
There is no mistaking the man or woman who has found the second rest.
There is a poise of spirit and a sweet serious balance of soul which
can not be counterfeited. The preacher who appreciates spirituality
sees no sight more beautiful than the serene, calm faces of auditors
from whose souls the tempests have been cast. Life's toils and
distractions and disappointments have all been negatived by the power
of the all-conquering Christ.
A SCENE AT ALLENTOWN.
These words are being written in the city of Allentown, Pa., where the
writer is spending ten days in a series of Pentecostal services. Last
evening we saw a symbol of the rest Christ gives. We strolled along the
east bank of the Lehigh River about half an hour after sunset. All the
western sky was beautiful with an afterglow. The water of the river,
silver near the shore and golden toward the west, was as still as the
face of a mirror. The trees on the shore leaned over perfect pictures
of themselves. The hills, which fell back gracefully from the valley,
were covered with cloaks of gold and vermillion and emerald, and not a
leaf stirred in the evening air. Far up the river the tiny bell of a
canal-mule tinkled drowsily. On the veranda of a little cottage a young
mother crooned a lullaby to a slumbering child, and a little bird in a
thick grove called, "Peace! Peace!"
CALM.
If God can make so beautiful a scene in the physical world, what can He
not make in the spiritual? Thank God! He can excel anything the natural
eye ever beheld. He can hang the soul with paintings and turn the
"River of Life clear as crystal" through it, and fill the chambers of
the heart with lullabies and the song of birds crying, "Peace!" If
there are times when we are awed and charmed by
"All the beauty of the world"
let us remember that what we see is only a type of the grandeur and
glory and splendor He will put in our spirit-nature if we but permit
Him to sanctify us and cast out the storms and tempests.
THE PAIN OF SYMPATHY.
While we may possess and enjoy "the second rest" here and now, we need
not forget that another is promised to us. We get weary physically
sometimes here. The days frequently seem long and trying. There are
hours and hours of labor, and nights and nights of toil, but, thank
God! we can say at each sunset, "I am one day nearer rest." For while a
sanctified man is always at rest spiritually, he can not rest
physically to much satisfaction. In his dreams he can see the white,
drawn faces of the doomed, and hear the wild uncouth shriek of the
tormented. He remembers with horror that one hundred thousand souls are
rolled off into Eternity while the earth makes one revolution! He
thinks of cheerless homes, and torn and bleeding hearts, and wives
waiting for the sound of unsteady steps, and children friendless and
hungry, and figures leaping from bridges, and shaking hands holding
poison, and maniacs behind the bars glaring with wild eye-balls through
dishevelled hair! And he leaps from the couch with the cry, "O the pity
of it all!" And he can not be still, he can not be idle, but is
constrained to do his utmost by word and pen to save a sinking,
gurgling, drowning humanity.
WHEN IT IS ALL OVER.
But one day it will all be over. Soon we shall all have preached our
last sermon and prayed our last prayer and spoken our last word. Our
lives will soon have passed into history. That blessed hour will soon
be here in which we shall "lay down the silver trumpet of ministry and
take up the golden harp of praise." Hallelujah, it is coming! it is
coming! Praise the Lord!