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17—ORCHIDS
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WE were when he rose from his knees that first Sunday morning after the first Easter Day. A mind like his, so sensitive, so sincere, and so loving, must have been unsparing in self-judgment; the faltering of his faith would not seem a little thing to him. “Let us also go, that we may die with Him,” had been his word before. The coldly cautious never speak so. To one who loved his Lord so dearly there must have been grief as well as joy as he heard his Master say, “Because thou hast seen Me thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” But he had certainty now. Had any questioned him about his faith he would have answered with the assurance of him who wrote,
Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die,
Another’s life, Another’s death,
I stake my whole eternity.
Any faith but one which is fixed in divine revelation seems to me to be like the Indian juggler’s rope thrown up in the air. The credulous may believe it can be climbed, they may even “see the juggler do it,” or more usually know someone who saw him do it. But he knows that he has never done it and never will. He throws up a rope indeed, but it falls down again. His nearest approach to the impossible is the bamboo trick. He poises a long, slender bamboo pole on hand, or hip, and another man climbs it. A photograph may show the man apparently sitting in air, for the pole is slender, it hardly shows in the sunlight. But a single slip, and the pole falls as certainly as the rope fell.
The thoughts and imagination of our hearts will not carry us far. They are as ropes thrown up into the air. They fall down again. At best they are like the bamboo pole, depending on a fellow man. At any moment they may slip. But there is a ladder set on the earth, and the top of it reaches to heaven. I am the Way, said the Lord Christ.