INTO THE DARK TUNNEL

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 6, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 14.

INTO THE DARK TUNNEL.

A FEW days ago I had occasion to pass over the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad from Hoboken, and was reminded of an incident some years before, when for the first time I made the same journey. While seated in the waiting-room for the starting of the train, I observed a party consisting of a gentleman and lady, two little girls and a nurse. It was evidently a family, well-dressed and of such appearance and manners as denoted cultured, well-to-do people. I wondered who they were, but never found out.

When we had taken our places in the car, the nurse and children were seated directly behind the parents. Very soon after starting, the mother turned around, took hold of the younger child and gently lifted her over the back of her seat, placed her on her lap with her face to her own, raised the little girl's arms and brought them around her neck, and placed her own around the child's body, holding her close in her embrace. Not knowing what was before us, I was kept in wonder what these movements all meant; but as soon as we entered the tunnel and the darkness covered us, then light flashed out of darkness, and I understood. The dear mother feared that the child would be frightened, and so she took her in her arms; nor did the child by a sound or a movement show that she felt alarm. That warm, protecting embrace

killed all fear of evil; how could any harm reach her!

How could the thought of God hiding some beloved soul, in time of trouble, in his pavilion, in the secret of his presence, be kept from one's reflections? Has not one of our old English devotional writers, Baxter or Doddridge, said that "when God foresees great trials for a believer, he takes care to prepare that one by gracious manifestations?"—New York Evangelist.