LIGHT AT EVENING-TIME.
Zechariah xiv. 7.
The promise, or prediction, to be found in the words of the son of Berechiah, that “at evening-time it shall be light,” is gratefully accepted by devout souls in perhaps a strained and wrested sense; but a sense so comforting, so full of tenderness and beauty, that one is fain to believe the words may favour, if they cannot be said to warrant, this “accommodation of Scripture.” Divines are fain to give technical divinity the go-by for the nonce, while, as they confess, the deepening twilight seldom fails to suggest to them this cheering promise, a promise which “tells how the Christian’s day shall end, how the day of life may be somewhat overcast and dreary, but light shall come on the darkened way at last.” In the same spirit are welcome the words of Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, concerning One who turneth the shadow of death into the morning. To Him the darkness and the light are both alike; and at His bidding, when despondent sufferers are in a horror of great darkness, and say surely the darkness shall cover them,—even the night shall be light about them; and in some sort to them, even as to Him, the night shineth as the day; or at least, in the language of Zechariah, there is light, which if not clear, is yet not dark; neither wholly day nor night, but twilight—soft, soothing, tranquillizing—instead of the dreaded darkness which may be felt. Even thus He brings the blind by a way that they knew not, making darkness light before them.
Even thus, at the last, He delivers them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Bunyan exemplifies such in Mr. Fearing, the pilgrim, who at the entrance of the Valley of the Shadow of Death was “ready to die for fear.” But the valley was quiet from troublers. “I suppose those enemies here had now a special check from our Lord, and a command not to meddle until Mr. Fearing had passed over it.” “And here also I took notice of what was very remarkable—the water of that river was lower at this time than ever I saw it in all my life; so he went over at last, not much above wetshod.
“Honesty: Then it seems he was well at last?”
“Greatheart: Yes, yes; I never had a doubt about it.”
Often, observes Schleiermacher in one of his letters, the last radiant moment is called rapidly into being, even in souls wherein the eternal Light has not always shone with bright effulgence.
Biographers of Dr. Johnson tell us how, when at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from his mind; how his temper became unusually patient and gentle, and he ceased to think with terror of death, and of that which lieth beyond death, and spoke much of the mercy of God and of the propitiation of Christ. One might apply to him in effect the lines of the poet of the Seasons.
Meditating on various senses in which the words of the promise of light at evening-time speak truly, in which its great principle holds good, the signal blessing shall come when it is needed most and expected least, Dr. Boyd, thinks mainly how sometimes, at the close of the chequered and sober day, the Better Sun has broken through the clouds and made the flaming west all purple and gold. He pictures the chamber of death, while hushed and mournful gazers see also the summer sun in glory going down. “But it is only to us who remain that the evening darkness is growing, only for us that the sun is going down.” As the evening falls on us, but not on the departing believer; as the shadows deepen on us, but not on him; as the darkness gathers on us, but not on him; the “glorious promise has found its perfect fulfilment, that ‘at the evening-time there shall be light.’”
Secular literature has its analogous instances. Dr. Holmes describes Elsie Venner’s storm-tossed, vagrant spirit as composed and serene at the last; the cold glitter died out of the diamond eyes, and the stormy scowl disappeared from the dark brows. “It seemed to her father as if the malign influence—evil spirit it might almost be called—which had pervaded her being had at last been driven forth or exorcised,” and that the tears she now shed were “at once the sign and the pledge of her redeemed nature. But now she was to be soothed and not excited. After her tears she slept again, and the look her face wore was peaceful as never before.” And the devoted father, to whom her life-long career had been until now a perturbing trial, now thanked God for the brief interval of peace which had been granted her, and for the sweet communion they had enjoyed in these last days. There are those of whom it may be said that it comes to pass, when midday is over, and they cast wistful glances, and perhaps even reproachful petitions heavenwards, until evening-time, that there is from above neither voice, nor any to answer, nor seemingly any that regardeth; but with evening-time comes an answer and comes light. Applicable to the subject, in this sense, are the lines in “Paracelsus,” on one who lived without God in the world:—
Of Margaret Arundel, in “The Gordian Knot,” we read, in her hour of household desolation and distress, that could we have seen her fair face, now pale with pain, now flushed with emotion, we should have pitied her; but “it may be that some superior intelligence witnessed her suffering, and pitied her not; knowing that all she was to undergo was but the fiery trial destined for those for whom in the evening there is light.” Stephen Blackpool, in “Hard Times,” who has found life “aw a muddle,” and meets with his death in the pit, is tranquillized with light at the last—light which he identifies with the star that shone upon him while he lay mangled in the old shaft. “Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin’ on me down there in my trouble, I thowt it were the very star as guided to our Saviour’s home. I awmost think it be the very star.” His rescuers lift him up, and he is overjoyed to find they are about to take him in the direction whither the star seems to him to lead. Very gently they carry him along the fields and down the lanes; but it is soon a funeral procession. “The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor; and through humility and sorrow and forgiveness, he had gone to his Saviour’s rest.” It is not every life the early prime of which has been blissful enough to warrant the exclamation,—
For sometimes the light comes at evening-time that has never come before.
Cellini opens his autobiography with a placid record of the enjoyment of his present lot, in life’s decline, in contrast with the storms and turmoil of his previous course. We read of James Watt, that not until he had reached what is termed the grand climacteric of man’s life did he know real freedom from bodily infirmities; and that his spirits became more equable as the principal causes of his anxiety and occasional depression were removed; so that although he was destined to be one of those “who are so strong that they come to fourscore years,” his strength even then, while it could scarcely be termed “labour,” was certainly very far from “sorrow.” The cloud which had so long hung over him was gently lifted up, and the curtain parted, to disclose a happier scene. “It is curious that even physical ease and enjoyment should come so late; but so it was. The term which commenced with his release from the evils of active business was a serene and golden time, in which he found repose”—with the softening retrospect of a struggle past and a victory won. John Galt, in “The Entail,” exemplifies a kindred experience in the widow Walkinshaw, whose deliverance from an all but lifelong thraldom, late in the day as it came, yet came in time enough to “allow the original brightness of her mind to shine out in the evening with a serene and pleasing lustre.”
Dr. Boyd quotes the dying speech of a poor English day labourer, than which, he affirms, few sentences ever touched him more with their hopeless pathos: “Wut wi’ faeth, and wut wi’ the earth goin’ round the sun, and wut wi’ the railways all a-whuzzing and a-buzzing, I’m clean muddled, confoozled, and bet!” It is Stephen Blackpool again in spirit, and to the letter. With that sentence the dying man is said to have feebly turned to the wall, and spoken no more. “Well, let us hope that light came at the evening-time upon that blind, benighted way.”
Among the dying words of Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, honourably known by her “Memoirs of Port Royal,” and other works, the remark is preserved that she had often in her life been inclined to occupy herself with the prospect close at hand, from finding the bleak, hard outline of the eternal hills cold and barren to her sight; but that, as she drew nearer, God’s mercy made His light to shine full upon them, so that she could now perceive they were covered with magnificent trees of the forest, and were rich in fruit and flowers far more pleasant than those close at hand, and yet a continuation of them.
A commentator on the text of “promised light at evening-time,” explains that by evening is understood the gradual withdrawal of the light; it is the lessening light that makes the evening-time: because of that the daisies close, and the birds fly to their nests, and a hush comes over nature. And it is just because evening is the time when, in the ordinary course of things, the light is going and the darkness is coming, that there is found to be anything remarkable in the text of um den Abend wird es licht seyn, as Luther’s version runs. The promise, or prophecy, is that “light shall come at a time when it is not natural, when in the common course of things it is not looked for.” It would be no surprise, as this divine proceeds to remark, that light should come at noonday: we expect it then, it is just what we are accustomed to see. “But if, when the twilight shadows were falling deeper and deeper, ... with a sudden burst the noonday light were to spread around,—that would be a surprise.” One of his personal illustrations of its import is the instance of the Christian poet who passed away almost in despair,—the gloom that overshadowed his spirit enduring almost to the end: “but even in the last moment there came a wonderful change”—and they tell us how even on his dead face there remained, till it was hidden for ever, a look of bright and beautiful and sudden surprise; the reflection of that light at evening that had been long in coming, but had come at last. At eventide light may break forth as the morning; light rising in obscurity, and darkness becoming as the noonday.
Light in darkness—light springing up out of darkness—the blessedness of this is emphatically recognised both by signal example and in special promise, in Holy Writ. When the hand of Moses was stretched out toward heaven, and darkness fell over the land of Egypt, even darkness which might be felt—a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days—the Egyptians saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. “When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.” “For thou wilt light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.” In the same Psalm that tells how clouds and darkness are round about Him, the Father of lights, is contained the exulting assurance, that “light is sown for the righteous.” The light of the righteous rejoiceth, when the lamp of the wicked hath been put out. Well may spiritual aspirations be fervent for light to be sent forth, to lead and to guide to His holy hill and tabernacle, lest the feet of the wayfarer slip in a way that he knows not; and, above all, when they stumble on the dark mountains, or lose their footing in the swelling of Jordan.
Lux è tenebris—who will not prize it? who does not need it? For—
An exceeding bitter cry this crying for the light sometimes is, in such as those, for instance, whom Robertson of Brighton describes as “turning from side to side,” feeling with horror the old, and all they hold dear, crumbling away—the ancient light going out—more than half suspecting the falsehood of the rest, and with an earnestness amounting to agony, leaving their home, like the Magians, and inquiring for fresh light.
Turning from side to side, with the wailing note of interrogation, “Who will show us any good?” And then, more earnestly than ever, “Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us.” In vain we turn from side to side. To whom should we go but unto Thee? Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts; show the light of Thy countenance, and we shall be saved.
Observable for special application is what Locke makes observable as a general fact, that new-born children always turn their eyes to that part whence the light comes, lay them how you please.
When the blind are operated on for the restoration of sight, it is suggestively remarked by an eminent author, that the same succouring hand which has opened to them the visible world, immediately shuts out the bright prospect again for a time, a bandage being passed over the eyes, lest in the first tenderness of their recovered sense, they should be fatally affected by the sudden transition from darkness to light. But, as he goes on to say, between the awful blank of total privation of vision, and the temporary blank of vision merely veiled, there lies the widest difference. “In the moment of their restoration the blind have but one glimpse of light, flashing on them in an overpowering gleam of brightness, which the thickest, closest veiling cannot extinguish. The new darkness is not like the void darkness of old: it is filled with rapid, changing visions of brilliant colours and ever-varying forms, rising, falling, whirling hither and thither with every second.” And thus is it made evident that even when the handkerchief is passed over them, the once sightless eyes, though bandaged fast, are yet not blinded as they were before. All the more, however, they now dread the blankness of that total eclipse, now that, as it were, to them that walked in the shadow of death, light is sprung up. Light, how much the more precious for that background of blackness of darkness, darkness that still may be felt!
Light that may be felt, is the theme of blind old Œdipus, in Sophocles, at the hour of his mysterious departure—the hour and the power of darkness. Farewell he bids to—
Immortal as Homer is the prayer of his Ajax to die, if die he must, in the light. Contrast with this the modus moriendi of Pompey the Great, as pictured in Corneille:—
So with the Greek wife in Landor’s Hellenics, who resists the bidding to fall not on her knees, but to look up:—
But to die in the light is the almost universal craving. “As a matter of fact, nothing,” it has been remarked, “is more common than the craving and demand for light a little before death;” a remark confirmed by the sad experience of many who have tended and watched the last moments of a friend. “What more frequent than a prayer to open the shutters, and let in the sun? What complaint more repeated, and more touching than that ‘it is growing dark’?” We are told of a sufferer who did not seem in immediate danger, suddenly ordering the sick room to be lit up as for a gala. When this was mentioned to the physician, he said, gravely, “No worse sign.” We all remember the tenor of the last words of Dr. Adam, of the High School, Edinburgh, as recorded (however variously) by Scott and Lord Cockburn and others. It was in his bed-chamber, and in the forenoon, that he died; and finding that he could not see, the old schoolmaster, believing himself in the familiar school-room, exclaimed, “It is getting dark, boys; we must put off the rest till to-morrow.” It was the darkness of death. And to the living, to-morrow, above all, that to-morrow, never comes.
M. de Lescure, dying of the wounds he had received at the battle of Chollet, awaited with his usual serenity the advent of his last hour. “Open the windows,” said he to his wife, who was watching by his bedside, “is it clear?” “Yes,” she said, “the sun is shining.” “I have, then,” replied the dying general, “a veil before my eyes.” A veil that no man could raise. Chateaubriand, in describing the last hours of his sister, Madame de Beaumont—the Lucile of his “Memoires d’outre-tombe”—incidentally relates that “she begged of me to open the window.... A ray of sunshine rested upon her bed, and seemed to rejoice her spirit.” The same circumstance is related of the dying Emperor Alexander. So it is of Dr. Channing. Karl Ludwig Sand, on the scaffold, begged that the bandage over his eyes might be so placed that he could, until his last moment, see the light. And it was so. Turner’s biographer tells us that almost at the very hour of the old painter’s death, his landlady wheeled his chair to the window, that he might see the sunshine he had loved so much, mantling the river, and glowing on the sails of the passing boats. “The old painter died with the winter-morning sun shining upon his face, as he was lying in his bed. The attendant drew up the window-blind, and the morning sun shone on the dying artist—the sun he had so often beheld with such love and such veneration,” and painted, at sundry times and in divers manners, with such force.
Rousseau’s wish, when in a dying state, to be carried into the open air, that he might have “a parting look at the glorious orb of day,” is referred to by one of the many biographers of Robert Burns, in recording that poet’s remark one beautiful evening, when the sun was shining brightly through the casement. The hand of death was then upon him, and a young friend rose to let down the window-blinds, fearing the light might be too much for him. Burns thanked her, with a look of great benignity, but prayed her to let the sun shine on: “he will not shine long for me.”
Tender and true is the pathos in one of Mrs. Richard Trench’s letters, touching the death of her endeared child, Bessy, where we read: “The last phrase she uttered, except those expressive of her latest wants and pain, was a desire the window-curtain might be withdrawn, that she might look at the stars.” Sunlight or starlight, it is light we cherish, and that cherishes us. Light from the first, light to the last. Happy, if the light we cherish is the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
Another set of variations on the same theme will form the section next ensuing.