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Eb Virgil i.t State l,l1'rnr^H
I '
VOL. IV. RICHMON
"HE IS TH
'Hie full meaning of Scripture never lies on
the surface. Much of it is here, however;
enough that he who runs may read, enough for
the way-faring man, though 'he be a fool. Yet,
to enter into a just appreciation of the content
of any scripture we must ponder it long and
well. So many gibritux truths and noble inspirations
of God's Word are missed by the
average reader because he can neither see nor
feel them in his galloping race .to get to the end
of his accustomary chapter or verse, as the selfappointed
task may be. Read one verse rightly
rather than a whole chapter raeincrlv. T? wiinv
w %r
the beauties of a picturesque landscape, the
traveller must linger long enough within its purview
to note and mark it* salient features, and
to study carefully the several combining and
di 4inguishinjt relations of these features. So,
too, with a/tej|p>*? Scripture; we must pause
sulheitntljy(n^j^r(^^*^L^look around us and
to compa^Ofr ^nfcra^t. thj^^oughtB suggested.
This rute of appjtes to all Scripture,
but in a muehgreator degree to those parts of
poetic or of highly figutogve nature. We must
then pause not only to grasp the context with its
relations, the meanings of the words, phases
iind clauses, but also to trace out those allusions,
comparisons and tropes which play such lively
ports in enriching the color, tone and vivacity of
all true poetry.
Let us then with the light of this governing
principle endeavor to meditate upon the arresting
figure which constitutes our short but stimulating
text; and may its vivifying truth quicken
to fresh life our faith, hope and love.
It is taken from that grand final ode nf
tlie mighty man of God, whose spirit is moved
to organ-like eloquence under the prophetic
heights of Mount Nefoo, while his richly ladened
memory pours forth her precious treasures massed
out of a long and unique experience in the
things of God and man. As by an orchestral
hurst he startles attention, immediate and intense,
hy a sudden introduction of his lofty
theme, which is nothing less than tohe Deity:
"Give ear, 0 ye heavens, and 1 will speak; and
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine
shall drop, as the rain, my speech shall dist>'l
as (he dew, as the small rain upon the tender
herb, and as the showers upon the grass: Beeause
J *1*11 1 * *
- ~ ,/hiumii. me name oj me ijord: ascribe
ye fjreatness unto our God."
In pursuance of his promise to publish the
name of the Lord, he sustains our interest with
'be declaration of the text, "He (Jdhovah) is
'be Rock." Truly, this is a bold figure to apply
'" the Deity, and is no sooner hoard than compels
the inquiry: By what association of ideas
(,?n Moses liken Jehovah to a rock? "What
sPeoial line of thought leads him to declare so
definitely of the Almighty, "He is -the Rock?"
* +
D, NEW ORLEANS, ATLANTA, AUGl
E ROCK
All the more eagerly, too. do we ply our questions
on the preliminary assurance he has given
that their proper answers will be to our thirsty
spirits what the small rain is to the tender
herb; what the gracious showers are to the grass.
IMAGE NOT ARBITRARY.
Ijot us be confident at the very outset, the image
is not an arbitrary one, lawlessly sprung
from the wild, undisciplined fancy of the primitive
poet. Nature abounds in shadows of the
spiritual. Has not one of our own poets musically
admonished us?
"To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware."
Then, "Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around?
Karth and her waters, and the depths of air?
Comes a still voice, 'She speaks to him who
hears.' "
While it is most true that her laws belong to
her own domain and do not as taw^ extend beyond
her borders, it is likewise most true that
nature teems with types and parallels, analogues
and il'nstrations, by whose olear suggestions and
ltiiuinons hints the reverent mind is led from
mo fn?>iol ^ - ?? *?- J??1 ~ 1
v..v uxiiti <oj aim viiau(jiU|J l/U lilt SJJIX'ILUUI 111111
denial?is induced to look from nature up to
nature a Cod. " For," says one high in authority.
" the invisible things of him from the creation
of Ihe world are clearly seen, being understood
by t'he things that are made."
Forty long years the Children oi Israel had
lieen close to nature's great heart and had seen
her in many a varying mood. Doubtless there
was not a great number of that vast throng who
learned all the inarticulate but pregnant lessons
taught by the great iiommim Mother, but so patent
and insistent were some of her teachings that
the dullest and roast listless minds must have
been awakened to their clamorous import. All,
but the dead, must have heard.
Now, there was no feature of this wilderness
way taken hy Israel, so emphasized 'by constancy
or hy sublimity a? that of its rocks. Even today,
after more than thirty centuries of disintegration,
travelers to those lonely regions tell us,
with forceful reiteration, of the limestone and
the sandstone, of the porphyry and the sienite,
of the granite and the dikes of diorite and dolerite.
They speak oi bluffs and peaks and pinnacles
of stone; of crags and ridges and plateaus,
of table-lands and rocky heights, and beetling
cliffs; gorges, canons, ruinous precipices and
)W / Z~)rit? r~ r*>\ ^ < - - - ^
sil. i-rrc.^D*Dr / a rr//\n &
t/ern Presbyter/an
)ST 28, 1912. NO. 35.
== Deut. 32:4 =
Rev. Geo. H. Cornelson, Jr.
yawning chasms, but always it is the rough,
stern, grand vocabulary of the mountains. The
lVnii.sular >f Sinai through which their
.iuurncyings so largely wandered is one of the
most mountainous and intricate countries in the
world. All roads there run through a labyrinth
of narrow rock-bound valleys. "It is a desert
in the fullest sense of the word," says one of
these travelers, "but a desert of rock, gravel and
boulder, of gaunt peaks, dreary ridges and arid
valleys; the whdle forming a scene of the utmost
grandeur.". The entire peninsular is a sea of
ipountains, in which peaks on peaks are seemingly
tossed up like waves on old ocean's stormluslied
bosom. Rock, rock, rock?the Children
of Israel had seen little else during their weary
wanderings. The older men among them couild
recall the awful seclusion and granitic sublimity
of the vast natural rock sanctuary at Sinai,
where the fierce lightning leaped and blazed from
peak to peak, and the very earth quivered under
the vibrant thunder's majestic detonations,
'bounding and rebounding from crag to crag.
The whole congregation remembered having
mourned for Aaron under the grim shadow of
Mount Iior, rising high aloft into the blue sky,
like a huge, grand, but shattered rock city, with
vast cliffs, perpendicular walls of stone, bare
pinnacles and naked peaks of every shape. And,
now, they stood listening to the last accents of
their great rocklike leader under the frowning
front of mighty Nebo, surrounded by the rockribbed,
rock-floored plateaus of immemorial
Moab.
With these thrilling sacred memories, amid
such imposing surroundings, with what telling
force this image of Jehovah as the Rock would
strike the minds of Israel's multitudes! The awfulness,
the grandeur, the immortality, the
ct ??ur?f*l U /I - -? ** 4 1 1
m..uKi? cwixi me cvmiiusiuigTiess oi ivimignty
Ood, how impressively they are suggested by the
primeval rock whieh encompassed them, before
and behind, on the right hand and on the left!
(}od is the Rock by his eternal existences "Before
the mountains were 'brought forth, or ever
thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."
He is the Rock in the omnipotence of his might.
"TTe doeth according to his will in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay 'his hand, or say unto him,
what doest thou? He is the Rock in the immutability
of his purpose; "The counsel of the Lord
standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to
nil generations." He is the same, yesterday,
today, and forever." "Forever, 0 Jehovah, thy
word is settled in heaven." Yes, from those
stern old mountains, from those everlasting hills,
the Ohildren of Isreal would gain elearer and
more positive conceptions of their King and
God, Jehovah, the Eternal I am.