Hold it to the little ear,
Children, tell me what you hear.
Nothing? No, you cannot know
All this human tide of woe.
Would I be a child again,
Not to know another's pain?
Mourn like some for childhood's hours,
Gathering nought but summer's flowers?
No. I want the power to tell,
Power to hear the murmuring shell,
Power to catch the rising moan,
Power to make its wail my own.
Learning thus to feel with pain,
I shall be a child again,
But a child experience taught,
Child in heart--a man in thought.
Then I'll hear the echoing swell
In the murmur of each shell,
And with touch of friendship warm,
Try to lull the raging storm.
Lulled to rest, its song shall be,
Murmurs of _another_ sea--
Heavenly love shall thrill and dwell
In the murmur of the shell.
* * * * *
Of that higher sea to tell,
Make me, Lord, an echoing shell,
That the world may hear in mine
Echoes of the love divine.
*The Calf.*
"Ye shall go forth and gambol as calves of the stall."--Mal. iv. 2
(R.V.).
Malachi is known as "the last of the prophets." With him the sun of a
thousand years was sinking in the west. It had its rise in the
prophetical school of Samuel, its zenith in the glowing visions of
Isaiah, and its setting in the earnest appeals of Malachi. But before
it loses all its glory in the gathering twilight, it gives the fair
promise of another and better sun. Malachi is led to write--"Unto you
that fear My name shall the _Sun of righteousness_ arise with healing in
His wings; and ye shall go forth and gambol as calves of the stall." He
had frequently seen the young calves let loose in the morning sunshine,
and as he stood and watched their happy gambols, they became a kind of
illustration to him of far higher joys. They led him to think of the
coming "day of the Lord," when, in the brightness of that better Sun,
those that feared His name would rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory. They too would go forth like the beasts of the field and skip
and play in the sunshine.
"To hail Thy rise, Thou better Sun,
The gathering nations come,
Joyous, as when the reapers bear
The harvest treasures home."
The Bible imagery of the calf, however, has much more to tell us than
this, and I propose to-day to direct your attention to three points.