THE STREAM OF SACRED HISTORY.
There is something beautifully suggestive in the course taken by the stream of sacred history. It seems to wander along at its own “sweet will” through all possible variety of circumstances. Like a natural river, which glides onward through light and shade, now dashing in wild music over rocks and down the gorges, anon skirting with rippling tides the base of the mountain and the slope of the hill, and then winding away through quiet valleys and shaded glens, through broad fields and open plains, on its onward journey to the far-distant sea—so the river of Bible history. Starting on its course in a garden, then turning to the eastward of Eden and passing hurriedly through the land of Nod, it meanders through the rural realms of patriarchs, then roughens and deepens and widens into a flood, swollen by all the fountains of the great deep and the opened windows of heaven—a flood which became the grave of the old world, yet bearing upon its bosom the cradle ark of the new. It narrows again within its banks, and pouring down the sides and kissing the feet of old Ararat, the first-mentioned mountain and sentinel of a restored earth, it moves with rapid current over the plain of Shinar, reflecting on its waters the tower of Babel. We see it threading its path among the cities of the plain, zigzagging with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; rushing with haste through the ravines among the mountains of Seir, past the encampments of the “dukes of Edom” and the “mighty men of Moab;” rolling like another “river of Egypt” through the valley of the Nile; sweeping the strength of the fields of Zoar, the yeomanry of Ham and their rebellious king, into the Red Sea. But even here it is not lost; for, passing through the Red Sea, like Jordan through the Gennesaret, without mingling with its waters, it follows the track of a new nation through the wilderness, and enters with them the portion of their inheritance. Here it increases in volume and pace as it traverses the times of the conquest, and then is content to confine for ages its main course within the limits of the wonderful Land of Promise. It reflects in its mirroring waves all phases, and conditions, and circumstances of society. As the spreading sycamore, and the lofty elm, and the stalwart oak cannot exclusively claim the right of cooling their feet by the watercourses, but must also admit the aspen, the alder, and the willow, the lowly herb, the fern, the brake, and the bulrush to the same privilege, so also on the bank of this stream. Not only the cedars and oaks—kings and captains—cast their shadows, but also the poor and the lowly, the widow and the orphan, have here a place. It floats by mighty cities—Jerusalem, Nineveh, Babylon—bearing their memorials to future generations; but it forgets not in its course the humble hamlets and peaceful villages, Zarephath, Nain, Bethany. It dashes against the walls of royal palaces—walls which echoed to the voices of Pharaoh, Eglon, David, Solomon, Belshazzar, Cyrus, Ahasuerus, and Herod. It also lingers and eddies by the lonely cottage home; by Deborah under the palm tree; by the tent of Jael; by Gideon threshing wheat by the winepress; by “the house of Obededom the Gittite,” the man who took such loving care of the ark during its temporary sojourn that the Lord blessed him and all his household; by the house of Zacharias and Elizabeth in the hill country, the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Paul’s hired house, and John’s island exile. This wonderful stream dashes through “the pomp and circumstances of war;” it also “glides along in a trance of song” through vales and meadows of peace. Its still waters slowly meander through many “green pastures” of prosperity; they also creep through many barren moors and desolate wastes, rehearsing in their murmurs many a tale of sin, and suffering, and distress. As we trace the winding course of this stream for four hundred years, it culminates at the foot of Calvary. “In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o’er the wrecks of time:
All the light of sacred story
Gathers ’round its head sublime.”
His death is the explanation of the past, the promise of the future, the key to all history.—Sunday Teachers’ Treasury.