The Crown of Thorns | Page 4

Christ not
that they might see visions, but had been permitted to see visions that
they might follow Christ. Just previous to that celestial interview, Jesus
had announced to them his own painful doom, and had swept away
their conceit of Messianic glories involved with earthly pomp and
dominion, by his declaration of the self-denial, the shame, and the
suffering, which lay in the path of those who really espoused his cause
and entered into his kingdom. They needed such a revelation as 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