'To guide our feet into the way of peace.' This Sun stoops to the
office of the star that moved before the wise men and hovered over
His cradle, and becomes to each individual soul a guide and
director. The picture of my text, I suppose, carries us on to the
morning, when the benighted travellers catch the first gleams of the
rising sun and resume their activity, and there is a cheerful stir
through the encampment and the way is open before them once more,
and they are ready to walk in it. The force of the metaphor,
however, implies more than that, for it speaks to us of the wonder
that this universal Light should become the special guide of each
individual soul, and should not merely hang in the heavens, to cast
the broad radiance of its beams over the whole surface of the earth,
but should move before each man, a light unto _his_ feet and a
lamp to _his_ path, in special manifestation to him of his duty
and his life's pilgrimage.
There is only one way of peace, and that is to follow His beams and
to be directed by His preceding us. Then we shall realise the most
indispensable of all the conditions of peace--Christ brings you and
me the reconciliation which puts us at peace with God, which is the
foundation of all other tranquillity. And He will guide docile feet
into the way of peace in yet another fashion--in that the following
of His example, the cleaving to Him, the holding by His skirts or by
His hand, and the treading in His footsteps, is the only way by
which the heart can receive the solid satisfaction in which it
rests, and the conscience can cease from accusing and stinging. The
way of wisdom is a path of pleasantness and a way of peace. Only
they who walk in Christ's footsteps have quiet hearts and are at
amity with God, in concord with themselves, friends of mankind, and
at peace with circumstances. There is no strife within, no strained
relations or hostile alienation to God, no gnawing unrest of
unsatisfied desires, no pricks of accusing conscience; for the man
who puts his hand into Christ's hand, and says, 'Order Thou my
footsteps by Thy word'; 'Where Thou goest I will go, and what Thou
commandest I will do.'
Brother, put thy hand out from the darkness and clasp His, and 'the
darkness shall be light about thee'; and He will fulfil His own
promise when He said, 'I am the Light of the world. He that
followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of
life.