The Crown of Thorns | Page 4

this, then, upon the Mount of Transfiguration, to support them under the stroke which had shaken their earthly delusion, and let in glimpses of the sadder truth. It was well that they should behold the leaders of the old dispensation confirming and ministering to the greatness of the new, and the religion which was to go down into the dark places of the earth made manifest in its authority and its source from Heaven. It was well that they should see their Master glorified, that they might be strengthened to see him crucified. It was well that Moses and Elias stood at the font, when they were about to be. baptized into their apostleship of suffering, and labor, and helping finish the work which these glorious elders helped begin. But that great work still lay before them, and to rest here would be to stop upon the threshold;--to have kept the vision would have thwarted the purpose. Upon a far higher summit, and at a far distant time--with fields of toil and tracts of blood between--would that which was meant as an inspiration for their souls become fixed for their sight, and tabernacles that should never perish enclose a glory that should never pass away.
You may have anticipated the lessons for ourselves which I propose to draw from this unconsidered request of Peter. At least, you will readily perceive that it does contain suggestions applicable to our daily life. For I proceed, at once, to ask you if it is not a fact that often we would like to remain where, and to have what, is not best for us? Do not illustrations of this simple thought occur easily to your minds? Does not man often desire, as it were, to build his tabernacles here or there, when due consideration, and after- experience will convince him that it was not the place to abide; that it was better that the good be craved, or the class of relations to which he clung, should not be permanent? In order to give effect to this train of reflection, let me direct you to some specific instances in which this desire is manifested.
Perhaps I may say, without any over-refinement upon my topic, that there are three things in life to which the desires of men especially cling, --three tabernacles which upon the slope of this world they would like to build. I speak now, it is to be remembered, of desires of impulse, not of deliberation, --of desires often felt, if not expressed. And I say, in the first place, that there are certain conditions in life itself that it sometimes appears desirable to retain. Sometimes, from the heart of a man, there breaks forth a sigh for perpetual youth. In the perplexities of mature years, -- in the experience of selfishness, and hollowness, and bitter disappointment; in the surfeit of pleasure; in utter weariness of the world, --he exclaims, "O! give me back that sweet morning of my days, when all my feelings were fresh, and the heart was wet with a perpetual dew. Give me the untried strength; the undeceived trust; the credulous imagination, that bathed all things in molten glory, and filled the unknown world with infinite possibilities." Sad with skepticism, and tired with speculation, he cries out for that faith that needed no other confirmation than the tones of a mother's voice, and found God everywhere in the soft pressure of her love; and when his steps begin to hesitate, and he finds himself among the long shadows, and the frailty and fear of the body overcome the prophecies of the soul, and no religious assurance lights and lifts up his mind, how he wishes for some fountain of restoration that shall bring back his bloom and his strength, and make him always young! "Why have such experiences as decline, and decay, and death ?" he asks. "Is it not good for us to be ever young,? Why should not the body be a tabernacle of constant youth, and life be always thus fresh, and buoyant, and innocent, and confiding ? Or, if we must, at last, die, why all this sad experience, -- this incoming of weakness, --this slipping away of life and power?"
But this is a feeling which no wise or good man ever cherishes long,. For he knows that the richest experiences, and the best achievements of life, come after the period of youth; spring out of this very sadness, and suffering, and rough struggle in the world, which an unthinking sentimentality deplores. Ah, my friends, in spite of our trials, our weariness, our sad knowledge of men and things; in spite of the declining years among which so many of us are standing, and the tokens of decay that are coming upon us; nay, in