344 SOLICITUDE ABOUT TRIFLING INTERESTS.

nothing. God answers prayer, and waits for prayer before He blesses. Chief of all, let this prayer be ours, 'Lord, teach us to pray.'

one,

999

5. Solicitude about trifling interests. How many of our last regrets are concerned with our profuse waste of thought and feeling and exertion, lavished on matters how trifling and unworthy! And how slight at the last appear those which once filled all our horizon! "I obtained my highest wishes," writes a certain "but was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow." M. Monod draws a very acute distinction between little duties and great duties. The great duties so called-are often less than the other: for in great duties we are nerved to the point, the eyes of many are upon us, and our pride finds satisfaction in our achievements; but in little things we have only God, our family, and our friends for witnesses. "O my God, how few in number are consistent Christians! . . . . If you knew, my friends, how, when we see ourselves at the point of death, all these illusions disappear; how all that is little then appears in its littleness; how that alone appears great which is great in the sight of God; how we regret that we have not lived for God, even as Jesus lived; and how, if we had to go through life again, we would desire to live our life in a manner more solemn, more full of Jesus Christ, of His word and His example; -if you knew it, at this very moment you would put forth your hand to the work; you would beseech God

66

THE STORY OF A DREAM.

345

to cause your conduct to correspond with your opinions and your faith; you would succeed in your efforts, as so many others have succeeded, because they have cried to God, and formed sincere resolutions in His sight.'

Last regrets, such as these, must more or less be felt by all God's children. And if such poignant regrets are theirs, alas for the despairing regrets of those who have never, in the settled purpose of their heart, sought to live for God. "If the righteous scarcely can be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" May not we often recur to such regrets as these, and anticipate the time when they will be our last regrets of all, and seek, while there is still room for pardon and repentance left, to live now as we should then desire to have lived? I recollect hearing a very striking anecdote from a Scottish minister. A man lay on his death-bed. His last regrets gathered thickly around him. He longed for some brief further space of life wherein he might attain to peace with God, and do some work for Him while yet life might be spared,-only a year, a month, a day. Suddenly that man awoke. It was only a dream. The bright light of the Sunday morning was streaming into his room. Health was yet his own,

Surely, in a fuller sense

life was still before him. than the great heathen deemed of, "the dream is from on high." The anecdote has a teaching for us. The hour of that dream will come to us in its final

346

REGRETS FOR REGRET.

reality. Let us anticipate it, and make the bright revival our own. Let us look upon our present regrets as if they were the last regrets of all. So shall we learn to number our days, and apply our hearts unto wisdom.

That great moralist, Dr. Johnson, tells us of his Prince of Abyssinia, that regret absorbed a great deal of his time, and afterwards he regretted his regret. Regret is indeed to be regretted, if it does not enable us to "bring forth fruits meet for repentance." An old writer has wisely said, that a bruised heart is a good thing, but a healed heart is a better. Then alone shall we learn to look without regret upon the flight of the rapid years, looking back upon the past and looking forward to the future without dismay, when the sense of healing and pardon has possessed the soul. Doubtless we shall have our last regrets. But, thank God, ours may be other feelings also, in which their poignancy will be lost. The past life, purified and forgiven, will not then have a hostile and foreboding look, but there will be the sense of reconciliation, of peace, of affiance in God. In the fullest sense, we shall forget the things that are behind, and press forward to the things before. Soon every tear of our last regrets shall be wiped away, and regret for ever be lost in the glory to be revealed.

THESE words were said at the Last Supper. Our Lord had spoken that which had well-nigh broken faithful hearts with sorrow. He had told them that there was a traitor among them, and the traitor had left their company. He had told the most ardent and tourageous of their scanty band, that ere the night. was fully past he should deny Him thrice. Chief of

all, He had told them that He was with them now but for a little time, and that whither He went, there they could not come. And yet, notwithstanding all this, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, and ye believe in Me."*

Now, if we have that same faith in all its reality, -if we believe in God, and can cry as children, Abba, Father, and have the like precious faith in our Redeemer Christ,-then also the same consolation may be ours. That solemn evening our Lord spoke and prayed, not only for His disciples, but for "all those who should believe in Him through them."

*This rendering, which is Luther's, seems preferable.

348 "LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED."

Affliction comes-who is there of the sons and daughters of earth that knows it not?-affliction of mind and body and estate. At times sorrow overflows each heart. We may feel with awe that God's hand is upon us, or think with bitterness that God is forsaking us. Hope is disappointing, friends are faithless, health is failing, life is ebbing away: we draw nigh to calamity, desolation, or death. We feel unsettled, and the mind becomes a tumult. We cannot hope; we cannot argue; we cannot quietly deliberate.

Ah, do not try! Rather let these blessed words sink deep into the unquiet soul, till they work their own peace, and bring their own calm: "Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God, and ye believe in Me." You believe in God as your Father and your Friend. Ye believe in Christ as your loving Saviour, who, having loved His own, will love them to the end. Ye have been told that troubles must come. Ye have been told, too, that these troubles shall prove your eternal good. If we sorrow, we sorrow with a hope. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Our Lord goes on to give them an express consolation: Remember, in all your troubles, that there is a heaven where trouble never comes. That heaven is My Father's house: "In My Father's house are many mansions”—mansion, an abiding-place, and a home. Take an all-sufficient illustration. Lift up your eyes on the nightly heavens, where innumerable