X. THE LOVING CHASTENER AND SYMPATHISER. 66 AS MANY AS I LOVE, I REBUKE AND CHASTEN."-REV. iii. 19. 66 FOR IN THAT HE HIMSELF HATH SUFFERED, BEING TEMPTED, HE IS ABLE TO SUCCOUR THEM THAT ARE TEMPTED."-HEB. ii. 18. THE LOVING CHASTENER AND SYMPATHISER. ET these two verses be conjoined; we shall see the reason as we proceed. chasten!" (1.) "As many as I LOVE I rebuke and What! speak of loving dealings when "the axe is being laid to the root of the tree;" its ringing sound heard amid cherished earthly groves; the ground strewn with lopped branches, scattered leaves, aye, too, and unspared, young saplings of promise! Yes! It is even so. "The wind passeth gone, and the over it and it is place thereof shall know it no more! But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him" (Ps. ciii. 16, 17). The words of this first of our motto-verses, moreover, observe, were spoken, not by the lips of Christ the Sufferer on earth, but by the glorified lips of Christ the Exalted King. They come wafted to us from within the Heavenly gates. "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous!" This dispensation from which you are now suffering may be utterly incomprehensible. Jehovah's name to you, as it often has been to His tried and afflicted children, may be that which He gave to Manoah-" Wonderful," "Secret," "Mysterious." But, be assured, that your present place and season of bereavement is the figurative "wilderness," whither He "allures" His people (Hosea ii. 14); rousing them from the low dream of earth, from the sordid and the secular, from busy care and debasing solicitude, to the divine and the heavenly;-leading "them to exchange the mess of earthly pottage for the bread of life, perishable substance for the fine gold of heavenly gain and durable riches. Yours is the cruel blighting of young hope and pure affection-holiest ties formed, the memory of which is all that remains; the music of the streams and rivulets which once gladdened your pilgrim-way heard no more. rills are dried by Him to lead to the great Fountainhead; the earthly links are broken in order that stronger and more enduring ones may be formed above; the rents have been made in the house of clay, only to render more inviting "the building of God, the house not made with hands;" stimulating to live more for that world where all is perfection, where we shall stand "without fault before the throne." A writer notes that migratory birds are carried high by contrary winds, and that, by being so carried, their flight is assisted. So is it with trial. "The wind is contrary," but it impels to an upward and a Godward The flight. It is often in the cloudy day that the mountains look near us; so often in the soul's gloomiest seasons the hills of God are brought nighest. Tribulation is the first link in the Apostle's golden chain. Dr. Trench, in his "Study of Words," tells us that "tribulation" is derived from the Latin tribulum, which was the machine by which the grain was sifted. Tribulation is the process of sifting, by which God clears away the chaff and the golden grain is retained. See, too, the gracious result of this sifting process. "Tribulation," to use the comment we have heard in applying the reference, "worketh," what? We might have expected the natural result, "impatience." It is the reverse; by the imparted grace of Him in whose hands the tribulum is, "tribulation worketh patience" (Rom. v. 3). Suffering Christian! you may well trust Him who uttered the startling saying which heads this meditation, who gave the mightiest pledge of love He could give by giving His own life, that there is wise "needs be " in the trial He has laid some allupon you. It is one It is designed to bring you nearer Himself. of His own appointed gateways, opening up and admitting to great spiritual blessings. He rebukes and chastens just because He loves; and, contradictory as the remark may seem, we believe never is His love more tender than when the rod is in His hand and the rebuke on His lips. The rebukes of other earthly friends are often mistimed; the result, it may be, of passion or caprice :-" but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness" (Heb. xii. 10). "I do not ask my cross to understand, Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand, То God our Maker is said to give "songs in the night." The birds of earth which "sing among the branches" are silent save in the day. Not so with those perched on the Tree of Life, His true people. Their melody often most sweetly rises in hours of darkness. change the figure, are they themselves "Trees of Righteousness"? Often in the gloom of sorrow their foliage may appear to be dripping with rain, when they are in truth laden with the night-distilled dews of heaven! Had Christ, indeed, seen meet, He might have ordained that His people's pathway was to be without gloom or darkness, trial or tear; leading along sunny slopes, verdant valleys, and bright clusters of palm, with sunlit fronds. But to keep them humble, to teach them their dependence on Himself, to make their present existence a state of discipline and probation, He has ordered it otherwise. Their journey, as travellers, is at times through mist and cloudland; their voyage, as seamen, through alternate calm and storm. They are like the vessel building in the dockyard. The unskilled and uninitiated can hear nothing but |