December 28

Twenty-third Saturday after Trinity

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne. Revelation 3:21.

LET the soul, feeding on its anticipated portion of promised bliss, go forth into the expanse of the unseen world, the unfolding mystery of the future. Many are utterly lost because their inward gaze is fixed on the clouds which perpetually hang around the horizon of their life. Yet the true life is beyond. Beyond is the only enduring vision. Beyond is the eternal. Beyond is the interpretation of the mystery of the dispensations, the secret of the all-ruling Mind, the only clue to what seems the ravelled skein, but really is only the marvellous interlacing of the manifold lines, of the providence of God. Beyond is the true Light which is the Life of men, which from behind the cloud shines through and within the soul that looks for it, the Light which irradiates the emancipated spirit's secret recesses, kindles its deeper thoughts, and sheds a halo around all the circumstances, even the most trying passages, of this passing state. Beyond is the hope, of which all present hope is the feeble reflection. Beyond is the joy, on the threshold of which the believing spirit waits, which thrills even now through all its inner senses, growing ever more and more into the delighted consciousness of "the powers of the world to come." And in this anticipated joy sorrow loses all its desolateness, pain ceases to be overpowering, loneliness is cheered, life's burden becomes easy, the bitterness of death is passed.

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour, humbly seeking Thy shelter when the darkness draweth nigh; Fain would our listening spirits hear Thee speaking; Be with us, Lord, and whisper, "It is I."

Comfort Thy weary ones, whose hearts are bending Beneath the burdens of this world of care; Show them in dreams "the life that hath no ending," And tell them of the joy that waits them there.