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18—VEILS
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THERE is peace in the picture. “Those words, peace, silence, rest, and the others, take on a vividness in the midst of noise and worry and weariness, like lighted windows in the dark”:
Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, doth greatly please.
The picture has the look of evening, but it belongs to any hour of the day’s life. There is no need to wait till sunset to behold with open face as in a glass the glory of the Lord. The vexations which may harass even morning hours need not make a veil between the soul and its sun.
There is nothing of light in the rock; it is as other rocks. But it is bathed in light. As so often in a picture, it is the light that makes the difference. (“And because my thought so shone, I knew she had been shone upon.”) Even on a dark and cloudy day, if our inward beholding be not hindered we shall be surprised by sudden lightenings,
Radiance that comes we know not how nor whence;
Rainbows without rain, past duller sense.
It is of no account that we are naught. He shines upon His dust and His dust shines.
But if there be a dimness, not a shining, is it because we see too much of man and too little of our Master? We cannot make His way known to others unless we abide in the light of His countenance. To be with our fellow servants is not enough. “Tell me, O Thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I lie as one that turneth aside by the flocks of Thy companions?”