20. Home Sickness
Home-Sickness "When shall I come and appear before God? "—Psalms 42:2.
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion"—Psalms 137:1. The "Globe" has a paragraph upon homesickness worth preserving, and, as the Puritans would say, improving.
"Among minor maladies of the sentimental order is one from which probably a good many of our army-reserve men are Buffering more or less severely just now. 'Home-sickness' is usually regarded as something altogether peculiar to schoolboys. According to Dr. H. Rey, who calls it nostalgia, and who has just written an interesting article on the subject, this is by no means the case. He considers it a form of insanity from which grown men often suffer severely, and of which they sometimes die. He gives particulars of his observations among the French soldiery, where it is of very frequent occurrence, more particularly among the infantry. The cavalry man, he thinks, is less liable to suffer in this way, probably because he has less leisure time on his hands. It is the young foot soldier who is most prone to pine for his native place, and this is pre-eminently the case with the men of Bretagne, among whom he has observed more instances than in those from all parts of France together. The young conscript, he says, becomes gloomy and taciturn, loses his appetite, is fond of solitude, and often gives way to tears. Then follow evident effects of this upon his general health. He suffers from incessant headache, and is unable to sleep, and after a while, unless he can be aroused and interested in his surroundings and distracted from his dreams of home and friends, gradually becomes the victim of general prostration, followed by delirium, and sometimes by death. Dr. Rey believes that children do not often suffer in this way, nor do very old persons; and women, he has observed, are less liable to it than men, especially men who have been transported from quiet country scenes, town men for the most part forming new associations far more readily than the natives of a country place."
If these men, the most of whom were born in some poor village, by. no means remarkable either for architecture or for scenery, pine for their homes, how much more may those who have a mansion above, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Born from above, our native country is heaven itself and sometimes the longing to be there steals over us. It is no insanity, but it is a panting which the ungodly cannot comprehend. We grow weary of the temptations, the disquietudes, and the failures of earth, and sigh for the fair city within whose gates there shall never enter anything that defileth: our heart goes out towards the Lord Jesus, who is altogether lovely, and then we pant for the day when we shall see the King in his beauty, and the land that is very far off. The more we love, the more we long to be with the object of our affection. It is not that we are miserable here below, for godliness hath the promise of the life which now is, and we have foretastes of glory even now; but still the Father's house is very dear to the loving child, and the sight of the heavenly Bridegroom is longed for by his expectant spouse. "When shall the marriage supper be set, and the guests be invited? It seems a long and weary time since he went up to prepare a place for us. Has he not finished that work ere this, and will he not soon come according to his promise to receive us unto himself, that where he is there we may be also? It is no marvel if a believer has to describe himself as Samuel Rutherford did, as" a man often borne down and hungry, and waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb." Very naturally do saintly souls sing—
"With hope deferr
Let not the Saviour chide my haste, For then would I reply:
'May not an exile, Lord, desire His own sweet land to see? May not a captive seek release, A prisoner to be free?
'A child, when far away, may long For home and kindred dear; And she that waits her absent lord May sigh till he appear.
'Ah, leave me not in this base world, A stranger still to roam;
Come, Lord, and take me to thyself, Come, Jesus, quickly come! '"
Do my readers confess that such a feeling never affects them? Does that homesickness never come over you at all? Let the fact cause you great searchings of heart, for surely something is amiss. Have you a home above? Are you quite sure? If so, if you never sigh to enter it, are you not rooting yourself too closely to the world? "Ah," said one, when he looked upon a friend's house and gardens," these are the things that make us loth to die!" Wealth, or even moderate comfort, will often act like birdlime and hold the birds of Paradise prisoners to carnal joys. When the nest is well lined men do not wish to quit it; they dread the very thought of dying, and have no desire to depart and to be with Christ. It should not be so: if this world of vanity seems better to you than the realm of glory, your judgment is diseased, and the carnal nature is sadly hindering the aspirations of the divine life.
Still, we may not allow homesickness to unfit us for present duty, or cause us in any way to desert our colours. It is wrong to pine to be in heaven because we are growing idle, A labourer who is always longing for Saturday night, or watching for the time to leave off work, is a sorry specimen of the British workman. A gardener was overheard to say that the days were not long enough for him, for so much needed doing. This was more like the true spirit; but there are not many of his stamp. Many do as little as ever they can, and would welcome any sort of excuse for seceding from the busy throng, and living for ever with Lord Do-no-more. Of the service of our great Master it is wicked to grow weary. Because we are not successful in preaching,, or because we cannot win every child in our Sunday-school class to Jesus, shall we become sluggards, and sigh for the wings of a dove that we might fly away and be at rest? While there are souls to be won for Jesus here below by our means we are not wanted in heaven, nor should we be welcome there if we could go. We should evidently be out of sympathy with the heavenly host, who never indulge the thought of escaping from their Master's service.. Shall heaven be a rendezvous for runaways, a shelter for idle heads? Is it not written that the glorified serve the Lord day and night in his temple? How would this suit the deserter? He dreams of flowery mounts and seas of heavenly rest, but there are no such things in heaven or earth for those who are unfaithful to their Lord. Did Jonah find rest when he fled from the presence of the Lord to go unto Tarshish? Did he not many a time wish himself at Nineveh rather than in the depths of the sea? As long as there are poor people to be comforted, ignorant children to be instructed, desponding spirits to be lifted up, so long as God has any work for us to do, let us stand to our guns and never dream of going home.
Neither may we whine out a desire to go to heaven because we are in a spiritual pet. There are some who do this; they become sulky and disagreeable with everybody and everything. Nothing suits them; the church, which appears to others warmhearted, they denounce as having neither love nor life in it; and the service, in which others find pleasure, has grown flat, stale, and unprofitable to them. The world is a howling wilderness to them, and they take care to keep up the howling themselves; the church is cold and lifeless, and they seem anxious to be in their own souls fair samples of it, and then they cry, " Woe is me," and wring their hands and wish to be gone. They prognosticate terrible calamities, and to save their own skins they pray it may not be in their days, but that they may be taken from the evil to come. "Worse than this, they even quarrel with their Lord. They have served him these many years, and yet he has never given them a kid that they may make merry with their friends'; they rebel against their afflictions, and, by kicking against the pricks, they drive the goad further into their flesh, and then sigh to be gone from this weary world. Like naughty little children, who will not play any more because they cannot have everything their own way, they want to leave the engagements of life and go they scarce know whither. If we are homesick for this reason, we may depend upon it that we shall not at present go home to heaven, for we are not in a fit state for that holy region. They do not want rebellious spirits and sulky souls up yonder, for there the will of the Lord is the joy of all his servants. When faith and love and hope produce the feeling, it is well to be in a strait betwixt two, willing to depart, but yet feeling that to abide in the flesh is more needful for the good of some whom we would benefit, for Christ's sake. It is the sign of a right state of heart when this homesickness comes upon us, not because we are tired, nor because we are angry, but simply because we long to be rid of infirmity and imperfection, because we desire to escape from temptation and from the filthy conversation of the wicked, that we may see the face of our Lord, and bow before his glorious majesty. In such a spirit we may cry with Rutherford—" O when will we meet? Glorious Lord Jesus take wide steps! O, my Lord, come over the mountains with a stride! O, fairest among the sons of men, why stayest thou so long away? O heavens, move fast! O time, run, run, and hasten the marriage day!"