XXIV.
HIS SECOND COMING.
They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven ... and then shall all
the tribes of the earth mourn.—Matt. xxiv. 30.
Dearest Lord, is there a sadder word than this in the whole of the written Word?
Did a sadder ever fall from Your sacred lips? That when You come again to finish
the work of redemption by the destruction of the last enemy, death; to gather to
Yourself those for whose salvation You came down from heaven, and were incarnate,
and suffered, and died, and founded Your Church, and gave Your sacraments; those
whom You bade to watch and wait for You and lift up their heads at Your coming;
that when at last You come, this shall be Your reception—“then shall all the tribes
of the earth mourn”!
[Pg 96]
What an awful testimony to the decay of truth among the children of men, to the
unchristianising of the world! “All the tribes of the earth,” as if the elect would
be but as the ears of corn left on the field after the harvesting. O Messiah, so
long promised, so earnestly expected—is this the return of those to whom You were
sent, among whom You have lived as one of themselves, for whom You have sacrificed
everything You took from our nature?
“They shall see the Son of Man coming”—not now in the midnight silence as once to
Mary, not hidden under lowly accidents as through long centuries upon the altar,
but “in great power and majesty,” “the King in His beauty,” revealed to every eye.
“And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn.”
The awfulness of these words must have struck the Twelve as they sat about Your
feet that day on Olivet looking down upon Josaphat, for John re-echoed them from[Pg
97] Patmos half a century later: “Behold, He cometh with the clouds, and every eye
shall see Him.... And all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves because
of Him.”[77]
How our hearts would sink within us were it not for those other words equally with
these the words of truth: “He shall send His angels to gather together His elect
from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth, to the uttermost part of
heaven.”[78] From every corner of the earth will those blessed ones come trooping
in—“a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and tribes, and
peoples, and tongues”.[79]
Lord Jesus! Who would not desire with desire to be one of that great multitude,
were it only to console Your Heart for the losses of that day! Let this happiness
be mine, and that of as many as can be reached by the utmost stretching of Your
mercy, the fullest and farthest flowing of Your precious Blood!
[Pg 98]
Quaerens me sedisti lassus,
Redemisti crucem passus:
Tantus labor non sit cassus.
Have mercy, O Lord, on all the tribes of earth, that they may not perish, nor
bewail themselves because of You when You come to judgment. Have mercy, that when
the day of the Lord, that dreadful day shall come, the number of the elect may be
multiplied, and the thirst of Your Heart appeased.
[77]Apoc. i.
[78]Mark xiii.
[79]Apoc. vii.
[Pg 99]
XXV.
OUR EARTH.
Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei.—Psa. xviii. 1.
The heavens declare the glory of God. There are hours when the grandeur of the
midnight skies draws from our hearts: “Coeli enarrant,” and conversely: “Quam
sordet tellus!” “How vile earth appears when I look up to heaven!”[80] When we
would wish to be so far away from earth, so near to God, that we could cover it
with our two hands and shut it out with all its sinfulness from His sight.
And there are hours when we re-echo David’s other cry: “The earth is the
Lord’s.”[81] Studded with millions of stars—its sanctuary lamps—here in grand
constellations, there in solitary beauty amid the darkness, it [Pg 100]lies
outstretched before its Creator, a very heaven. Yes, speck as it is in creation,
our world has a beauty all its own in the eyes of Him Who made it. “There is not
found the like to it in glory.” Marred and sin-stained, it is still the dear world
of the Incarnation, the world God so loved as to give to it His Son. Its highways,
its fields, its waters have felt the tread of His feet; to the end of time He has
made it His home. “I have chosen and have sanctified this place, and My eyes and My
heart shall be there always.”[82] Always. His interest in it is as keen, as human,
as when, a wayfarer here, He shared its joys and sorrows. Its every man, woman, and
child to-day has a distinct place in His heart.
His sacramental Presence sanctifies it from pole to pole. On each of its altars a
divine sacrifice is offered day by day. In each of its tabernacles is gathered up
the worship of all creation. From each an unceasing praise goes up to the Throne of
God,[Pg 101] infinitely transcending the paltry outrages of man. From each radiates
a divine life, communicating itself to all the members of the Body of Christ. From
each as from a well-spring go forth all graces of light and strength; all holy
impulses and high resolves; all courage, steadfastness, perseverance in well-doing;
all works of love to the members, born of love to the Head. All spiritual energy,
from the robust virtue of the saint to the weakest supernatural act of the
repentant sinner, is flowing this hour from earth’s countless tabernacles, giving
to God a glory before which the material glory of the starry heavens pales into
insignificance.
O hidden God, I adore You as the source of all this glorious life. Who would not
love the world, which You have so loved as to make it Your home all days even to
the end of time? Who would not strive with You and for Your sake to light up its
dark places, to cleanse its foul places, to spread far and near the saving
knowledge of its[Pg 102] Redeemer, that so the love poured out upon it, the Blood
shed for it, may not have been in vain?
What can I do, O Lord, within my narrow sphere to help on the coming of Your
Kingdom in the world? What have You given me to give away again in Your service? As
to what do You say to me: “Freely have you received, freely give”?[83] Is it
health, wealth, talent, influence, leisure for good works in any of the various
fields calling for my aid and open to me? Is it devotedness and self-sacrifice in
the apostolate of home life? Or is it the noblest and most far-reaching of works
for God, the training of young souls in His love and service? Am I doing good work
for You in my allotted sphere? What account am I preparing to give You of the
talents entrusted to me? How could I bear it, O my Lord, should You ever have to
reproach me, as “an evil and slothful servant,” with hiding the talent given me for
[Pg 103]Your service? What am I doing with my life, with its energies, its
opportunities, its responsibilities, its graces? Where are the souls I am helping
to save? Where is the lot I am brightening, the cross I am lightening for Your dear
sake? In what direction am I furthering Your interests and sacrificing self to Your
glory? Unless I can lay my hands in Yours, and look up trustfully into Your Face
with “Lord, Thou knowest” my daily prayer, “Thy Kingdom come” is a mockery, a self-
delusion, a sham.
[Pg 104]
[80]St. Ignatius.
[81]Psa. xxiv.
[82]2 Par. vii.
[83]Matt. x.
XXVI.
CHRIST OUR STUDY.
You have not so learned Christ.—Ephes. iv. 20.
It behoves us to have right conceptions of the great spiritual realities which
affect our life here and our destiny hereafter. Above all must we learn aright Him
Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Gradually, from our earliest childhood,
the idea of Christ has been forming, developing, taking definite shape in our
minds. May-be it is stereotyped by this time. It is all-imperative for us that the
Christ we have so conceived should be the true Christ—“the Christ, the Son of the
Living God”. Tout sort des idées. Our idea of Him will not affect Himself or alter
our fundamental relations with Him, but it will affect the whole moulding of our
spiritual life, our whole character, our every thought,[Pg 105] word and deed here,
and our whole eternity hereafter. Surely, then, we must examine our impression of
Christ, and should we find that the influence of early education, of a false creed,
of unwholesome reading or association, or the trend of our character has distorted
in our minds the true Christ as reflected in the Gospels, we must at all costs
correct that impression. If it has become stereotyped we must break up our mould
and start our work afresh.
Meditation upon the Gospels; the quiet, steady gaze of the inward eye on Christ;
the study of Him day after day under all circumstances and amid ever shifting
scenes, and not of His outward bearing, His words and actions only, but of the
Heart from which these spring—thus it was that the saints built up His image in
their souls, a true living image which transformed them into the likeness of
itself, and became a power within them, drawing all things to Him Who was to them
all in all.
You have not so learned Christ. If Christ[Pg 106] our Lord has not as yet drawn me
wholly to Himself, it is because my conception of Him is faulty. Whether this is
the result of simple carelessness which has allowed His image in my mind to take
shape anyhow, or of Jansenistic habits of thought that have fashioned for me a Lord
stern, exacting, repellent, a very caricature of the Christ of the Gospels, Christ
our Lord; or whether it is my own character, timorous, suspicious, selfish,
unsympathising, that has inspired my present idea of Him—from whatever source the
misconception has come, it must be set right, or its results will be simply fatal—
fatal to the growth of anything like personal love and familiar friendship with
Him; fatal to His influence on my life, my actions, my work for Him in the souls of
others.
Not any Christ, the creature of my own distorted fancy, but Him Whom the Father has
sent, I am to fall down and worship. He alone has power as He alone has right to
occupy and absorb my whole interest, my[Pg 107] whole affection, my whole self. He
alone can be a living influence radiating from my own life to the lives of others.
O Christ my Lord, give me so to know You that my knowledge may be glory to You, and
life to my own soul and the souls of others. “This is eternal life: that they may
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.”[84] Be
Yourself my Master in this one thing necessary. And let me go to the source to draw
—learning You from the scenes of Your life. Let me stand by the well of Samaria,
and the pool of Bethsaida, and the bier at Nain—and watch and listen. Let the charm
of Your divine Person subdue and win me, and the sound of Your voice be familiar to
me. Let the knowledge of Your ways with the sinner, the sufferer, the little
children, grave such a picture of You in my heart that not even its perversity can
bring before me when I say “Jesus” any other form than that of [Pg 108]the most
beautiful, the most tender, the most compassionate of men.
Veronica wiped Your sacred suffering Face, and received as the greatest of rewards,
stamped on her veil, and still more upon her heart, that vera icon—that true image
of Christ which was thenceforth to be inseparable from her memory, the very name by
which all ages were to know her.
Stamp on my heart, dear Lord, the true likeness of Yourself. And as this likeness
must be ever growing, let me come often to the altar rails to learn You more and
more. The tabernacle is the Gospel history continued. Time has not dimmed Your
fairness, O beautiful One, nor dulled the sympathy of Your human Heart. All that
You were to Your own in this world, all that You are to them this hour in heaven,
is here within the tabernacle, is here for me. Here then let me come to study You—
patient, tender, obedient still, meek and humble of heart, Jesus, yesterday, to-day
and for ever!
[84]John xvii.
[Pg 109]
XXVII.
OUR FATHER.
O clap your hands, all ye nations; shout unto God with the voice of joy.—Psa. xlvi.
1.
My God, what would have become of us had You shown Yourself to us as the All-just
instead of the All-loving One You are? Had You been more mindful of Your Majesty
than of our need? We know so little how to comport ourselves in Your presence, that
it might have seemed more fitting You should remain in the recesses of Your
Godhead, manifest Yourself but dimly and rarely, and restrict our worship of You to
the most distant homage. It would have been but the manifestation of another
attribute in place of that sweet mercy which has shaped the whole course, not of
redemption’s plan only, but of the inner life of each one of us.
[Pg 110]
My God, it might have been so—and what then would have become of us? Where would
praise have been, and trust, and loving return to Your arms after a fall? Blessed
be Your name that You willed to show Yourself our Father, willed that with the
younger race, Your human family, mercy should ever be in the ascendant.
“Blessed be You for ever, my God, my Mercy,”[85] for having shown Yourself to our
weak sight in this softened light, the light that begets love—as One easily
appeased, as One constraining trust, as One with arms widespread to Your timid
children—the All-forgiving, All-tender, All-compassionate—our Father Who art in
heaven.
[85]Cf. Psa. lviii.
[Pg 111]
XXVIII.
HEREAFTER.
Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.—John xiii. 7.
I look forward into the eternal years and see myself at last in my rest on the
bosom of God. All over! Life, and uncertainty, and death, and judgment, and
purgatory. And with my head on the Heart of Him Who has loved me to the end, I look
back. How clear everything is from this height, in this unclouded light and this
untroubled peace! All mists swept away; all doubts dispelled; all questions set at
rest; all cravings satisfied.
Thou shalt know hereafter. Why that persistent prayer remained unanswered; why evil
prospered and good was overcome; why in spite of every effort those difficulties
remained[Pg 112] difficulties to the last—how plain it all is now! I see now the
everlasting results of the thoughts, and words, and acts that sped so quickly by. I
see the distinct work of each in shaping my eternity. I see the relation of grace
to glory; why I enjoy the blessed vision of God thus far and no farther. Where I
guided my steps by the light of faith, clung to God in the darkness, “joined myself
to Him and endured”—what fruit of joy for eternity! Where there was cowardice,
self-seeking, above all, mistrust of God—what loss that can never, never be
repaired! Oh, why did I not realise that I was meant to live by faith during my
little life down there, in order to enjoy the fruits of faith in this real life of
eternity!
Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. But I may know now if I pray
for light and strength. I may know now the things that are for my peace. I may have
now the spiritual insight, the lumen cordium which the Holy Spirit gives to all who
ask.
[Pg 113]
Lord Jesus, here really present, make me see now by the light of faith what I shall
see almost directly in the light of eternity; when I look back on life, and grace,
and sacraments, and opportunities, on worldly aims and worldly honours—from my
place in heaven. By the tears You shed over Jerusalem that knew not the day of her
visitation, grant that I, that all I love, that all men may know in this our day
the things that are for our peace.
Dawn now—the hours of earth’s expectancy,
From the grey heaven enough of light to guide
The wary feet—no more; enough to trace
Against the sky in outline faint and blurred
Fair forms, their fairness shrouded for the nonce:
In every line of grace and symmetry
And tender hue to be revealed, when day
This hazy scene shall flood with living light,
Bathing all things in beauty. Now we know
In part, the noontide comes and we shall see.
O restless heart! resenting mystery,
Angry with night, that by Divine decree
Divides with day the task of perfecting
God’s world of souls—fret not against the gloom
That, baffling, humbles thee. Why this reverse,
This wrong defeating right, brave effort crowned
[Pg 114]
By failure, good with itself at variance,
Thou know’st not now; now the strong trial of faith,
The clinging, blind with tears, unto thy God
In patient trust—hereafter thou shalt see.
[Pg 115]
XXIX.
MY VINEYARD.
Let us see if the vineyard flourish.—Cant. vii. 12.
The vivid lightnings of the East that reveal in all the brightness of day what lay
hidden in darkness, have their parallel in the flood of light flashed at times upon
the soul. Without warning, without apparent cause, it comes—a momentary brightness,
but lasting in its effects. Imagination, mind, heart, all have been steeped in it;
henceforth the truth it has lit up becomes a force to influence our life here and
our eternity hereafter.
Has our responsibility to others been ever thrust upon us in one of these bursts of
light? Have we realised, as it were for the first time, the influence which in
God’s inscrutable designs we have over the destiny of others; the dread power which
wittingly[Pg 116] or unwittingly, for good or for evil, we are ever exercising over
those around us; the account which will be demanded of such a trust?
O God, You have given “to every one of us commandment concerning our neighbour”.
[86] What kind of influence has mine been thus far? At the sixth, the ninth, the
eleventh hour it was said to me: “Go you into My vineyard”.[87] What has been the
result of that call and of that mission? There has been a corner of that vineyard
marked out for me to tend. Am I labouring in it with earnestness, with self-
sacrifice, with the purity of intention that overcomes difficulties, and survives
disappointment, and is undisturbed by failure, because it looks to You alone, works
not for self but for Your glory? Or am I slumbering at my post? With what feelings
do I hear You say to me: “Let us see if the vineyard flourish, if the flowers be
ready to bring forth fruits”![88] Is it of me You say: “I [Pg 117]passed by the
field of the slothful man, and by the vineyard of the foolish man. And behold it
was all filled with nettles, and thorns had covered the face thereof, and the
stone-wall was broken down”?[89] Must I own in my shame, “My vineyard I have not
kept”?[90]
O Lord of the vineyard, Whose love and trust are shown in this, that You have
called me to labour for what is dearer to You than Your very life—how have I
justified Your trust? Do not punish my slothfulness by making over to another’s
more earnest toil what has been given into my care. But rather stand by and help me
to work according to Your will, that nothing may perish or suffer loss through
fault of mine. Help me to watch vigilantly the little plot committed to me; to cast
out carefully all noxious weeds; to dig, to prune, to bind up and strengthen what
is weak; “in solicitude not slothful, in spirit fervent serving the Lord”.[91] Then
shall my vineyard flourish and bring forth fruit to Your glory in due season.
[86]Ecclus. xvii.
[87]Matt. xx.
[88]Cant. vii.
[89]Prov. xxiv.
[90]Cant. i.
[91]Rom. xii.
