(Delivered at Boston, Sunday, March 13, 1887.)
“Thou art, O God, as the shadow of a rock in a weary land.”
Whoever has journeyed across a great desert, whether of Arabia or the desert of your own Western plains, well understands this Oriental expression unto God.
You think, who dwell amid the mists, and the clouds, and the rain, and the shadows of your climate, or those who dwell in the ever mist laden climate of England think, that the sunshine is the greatest blessing that can come. In its light the spring-time flowers are quickened into birth, in the summer time your harvests are ripening, and the great flow of life responds to this quickening power. But out upon the plains the merciless sun beats down upon the weary traveler, there is no shelter from morning unto eventide, he must go on and on. The great red sun rises unpityingly in the morning; it ascends unto the zenith; still he must plod on his weary way; over the sands that burn his feet and reflect the glare of the midday sun; until eventide comes there is no respite. Along the borders of the desert in Arabia, where the ancient nomadic tribes were wont to assemble, were great rocks thrown up in some of the wonderful convulsions of nature; and if, perchance, the wanderers could reach the shelter of one of these rocks and rest at midday, it was the greatest boon to the travelers, the glare of the sun nearly blinding them in the great waste; so to find shelter beneath one of these rocks was the only boon to the pilgrim or traveler journeying in the desert when they were approaching Jerusalem, the gate toward the desert being the smallest gate in that wonderful city, the travelers hurried that they might find the protecting shelter of the wall, even though they could not enter the gateway after nightfall. Thus it is that the human heart prays for the shadow. It is often considered when people are in sorrow, when they are in the midst of doubt, in the shadow of gloom, that darkness or shadow is the great curse of the world; but it is beneath the shelter of the Alpine rock, underneath the drifted snows, that the small flower finds its germination. Far upon the heights of the Rocky Mountains, where the tempests have full sway, you will look in the crevices of the rocks and find the blushing mountain pink, and the beautiful petals of the mountain lily, growing securely beneath the folded palms of the giant rocks, you are filled with joy to find the blossoms there.
There is no desert greater than that of unlimited success. You might ask for some raindrops to descend, for some dews to fall, that, like tears, should give you shelter.
In the shadows of material life you cry out for greater prosperity. Was it not in the arid wastes of prosperity, the great wide desert of human success, that Egypt was sunk? Was it not the burning, scorching sand of material power that quenched the light of the primal nations of the earth? Is not the earth itself typical of what befalls nations in the glamour and glare of material prosperity alone? Look to ancient Egypt, the Empress of all the Eastern world, unto her came the riches of every land, and into her treasuries poured offerings of gold, silver, and precious stones; her cities and temples were builded to the sun, yet the sun of material power quenched her life and she might have well prayed, ‘Oh, for the shadow of a great rock in this weary land!’ Weary with success; weary with the routine of prosperity; weary with kings who governed the power and wealth of the world; weary with all the pride and glamour of material pride and conquest! There is no desert greater than that of unlimited success. You might ask for some raindrops to descend, for some dews to fall, that, like tears, should give you shelter. On the way to that material power, that thriving only on prosperity, forgets the weariness and desolation of those who toil, forgets the shadow that broods above those who mourn, there is no respite. You may take the lesson of ancient Rome, the empress at one time of all the civilized world, after Egypt; you will find into the sunshine of her prosperity there came the desert sands of human desolation, vanquishing the Orient and the Occident, her son of splendor had arisen to the zenith, then the greatest of all her prophets might have cried for the ‘shadow of a rock in that weary land.’ Modern Europe is crying out today from the desert wastes of the worship of Mammon, from the desolation, travail and pain of the monarchies of the world the cry goes forth for this shelter, this one Rock of Truth that shall bring them strength.
The symbol of the ancient prophets is in the world today. Every human life covets prosperity, every human heart rebels against adversity; the individual sorrows that beset you form especial griefs; each individual life complains of its own bitterness; there are no trials you think so hard as those that you each, individually, have to bear; every mother whose darling is laid away to sleep in the grave, feels that there never was grief like hers: every child left to mourn her on earth, feels that no one ever mourned so much for a dearly loved parent; when wealth and prosperity seems to take wings and fly away you feel, each of you, that the hand of fate is laid more heavily upon you than upon any other; but look, if you can, with unbiased eyes at those who have prosperity, unqualified prosperity; would you change places with a king or worldly magnate? Do you think you would change the shadow of your rock, the shadow with the brightness of its refreshing tears, the adversity that brings with it patience and growth, for the unalloyed splendor that satiates and wearies? If you ask for the crown of kings it brings you bitterness, trials, doubts, suspicion and fear of death. If you ask for the prosperity of riches, it brings you what? All worldly praise, all empire over human things, but over the heart no power. Seared by the sunshine of continued prosperity, those who revel in what the world offers of material life and power, often cry out in the satiety of wealth and luxury for the shadow of the rock.
We tell you that the grief you feel for those who have passed beyond the shadow of death, is the shadow that leads to immortal life. We tell you that when the wings of adversity brood over you it is the shadow of God’s rock of safety.
What will you have; continued sunshine? Then the flowers that spring up in lowly places will not grow in your hearts; you cannot find violets on the desert; the lilies of the valley do not blossom in the garish light of the sun, even roses in tropical climates bloom and fade away before the summer has fully come; so do they hasten on to their bloom and their decay. What will you have; unqualified earthly prosperity, that you may sear your conscience over with gold, and obscured in the light of its material splendor forget the refreshing tears that bring forth the flowers of patience and fortitude? We tell you that the shadow of the rock is the safety of the world, that the great sorrows that sweep over human lives are the refuge and strength that God gives to man. We tell you that the grief you feel for those who have passed beyond the shadow of death, is the shadow that leads to immortal life. We tell you that when the wings of adversity brood over you it is the shadow of God’s rock of safety.
One who spoke in your midst more than a quarter of a century ago, said to his congregation of several hundred people: ‘I never had a sorrow that I could spare.’ He felt the need of the shadow, he felt that in the walks of silent grief and discipline, the great truths of the world are nourished into being; and as the wind blows the seed into the crevice of the rock and it germinates there, or the winged bird may bear it to the mountain height in his beak, so the seeds of truth, and love, and hope, and fortitude, are planted in human hearts; but woe unto those who have only the sunshine of material prosperity! Their lives are short in happiness, they blossom as poppies for an hour; they are like roses in the tropics, that early spring to bloom and are early to depart; or flowers that yield no splendid fruition. So lives that have not grown up through the shadow into the glory of perfect truth, they do not know of God’s presence in their midst.
The side of heaven that is turned toward man is the shadowy side; it is needed; with your eyes of earth you cannot see the perfect light of truth, it would blind your vision; you would be dazzled by its perfect power. So the great rock broods between you and the perfect light that in its reflected rays you may grow toward immortality. You cannot bear the great heat-light of prosperity; when the world has conquered selfishness then all material treasures will flow toward mankind; but never believe until then, that human hands will receive without labor, or that labor will cease to be in some instances oppressive. It is needful that men shall toil, it is needful that they shall have for their bodies the sustenance that they win, it is needful in spirit that they climb up to the jagged height to win the glory that is to be seen beyond.
If one should pray for the shadow the whole world would cry out in alarm. But what is the meaning of the shadow? When the sun has gone and the golden pinions of the sunset are folded away in the softest silence, and the gray night dawn has not yet come, the very voices of the stars are heard in the skies, and man exchanges the glamour of one sun for the splendor of a system of constellations, the whole heaven is full of suns; the glory of the starry firmament would never have been revealed to the vision of man but for the ‘shadow of the rock’ in the nature that brings the repose of night. Still you complain when the day is gone, of the allotment of the hours of rest that takes you away from Mammon. Even thus it is, if the shadow of refuge be not in the weary land of earth you become satiated with material things, bloated with the pleasures of the senses; the prosperity that is coveted is despised as soon as it is won; the ambition that men seek to have crowned with laurel and bay, they find is but a fading garland after all. The glory of spiritual truth is nourished in the shadow; the wisest provision of nature is that germination never takes place in the light. Study nature as you will her seeds are sheltered beneath the sod, her generation is hidden in its primal sources, and silently and beneath the shadows, every form of life has its birth.
The materialist, as a God, would have a world that would be a desert, for the sun would shine all the time, and the shadow of the rock would never be found.
Under the shadow of what is the light of truth beyond, man’s spiritual being has growth and unfoldment; here beneath the shadow of the rock of material things he finds shelter until the spiritual germs begin to grow, then he may throw off the shadow, it has partially tempered the light to his understanding, has fed from the fountain source and he can bear the light; but even then the great wings of God’s Love overshadow him according to his state, he only has the truth that he can bear; let no one make the mistake and believe that if the truth was present in its entirety he could understand it today; let no one believe that if God’s love were shown to him in the especial way that he desires that he would be satisfied; let no one make the mistake because the materialist or atheist or blind worshipper of the senses has said, ‘But if I were God I would have no sin, no sickness, no suffering in the world.’ No, not if you were the God of the senses; but if you were God, and had charge of immortal souls, you would make the shadow of the rock manifest to them in order that they might behold the light, and prove that the great background of material things, which constitutes the shadow, is that upon which the glory of the Angel is painted. The materialist, as a God, would have a world that would be a desert, for the sun would shine all the time, and the shadow of the rock would never be found.
Behind this wonderful shelter in the midst of the arid wastes and wildernesses of life, under this protecting shadow of grief, all souls are nurtured.
Speak of blessedness! It is when the shadow falls above the tomb, and the tears are shed there for your loved ones, that the shadow of a great rock is felt, and you wonder that God’s hand is not stretched out to remove the gloom; soon from between the crevices of the rock, from the great splendor that is above, in your grief there comes the strength, and the trickling waters of spiritual life flow down into your hearts, your pain is assuaged. The joy that comes of resignation is much greater than the joy which preceded it, as is the height of one who climbs from the valley greater than that of the one who remains in the shadow; then out of this resignation comes the knowledge of the great light that is beyond. How could you, immured in time and sense, know of immortality had it not been for that ‘shadow’ in the weary land of earth?
Watch those who follow in the treadmill of fashion, butterflies who hover around the lamps that destroy them, votaries of pleasure whose whole seekings are to satisfy the appetites and tastes until they are turned away human wrecks; watch those who follow any physical appetite or passion; you will see them as weary travelers on the desert of human life, parched and thirsting; and then if only they can reach the shadow of this great rock, that would give them brief oblivion; then watch how, beneath this sheltering shade, when their sins are repented of, when their weakness is forgotten, when their spiritual strength rises within them to overcome, when they are ministered to by angels in the shadows, watch the dawn of the higher life; see how the wrecks revive; see how chastened and subdued from material conquest and material discord, they rise to a knowledge of the spirit; then question if you can the wisdom of this surpassing shelter. That which is typified most fully in this wonderfully poetic explanation is: the rock was the symbol of God’s unchangeableness, was that within it were held all germs of life, all known forms of being that have been enfolded and laid away in the crevices of the rock and, by the trituration, and trickling of waters, gradually that which rests in the shelter of the rock suddenly up springs as flowers; there also are, oftentimes, cooling drops that quench the thirst of the traveler. In the great alchemy of nature all things revealed are illustrations of truth to those who perceive nature aright; and so that which is in and around you by which life is overshadowed, would seem useless when you interpret it in the light and glamour of the material senses.
What would you do with the rare gleam of immortal life thrown suddenly in your mind, if you had never thought of it before? You would feel that your mind was exposed to the sun pitilessly; you would have some shade fall between you and this light.
Let no human heart make the mistake of supposing that the great, white light of spiritual truth can be turned loose upon the world and man survive it. Even as those who ascended with Christ to the Mount of Transfiguration fell down before the burning light of the angels and spirits whom they saw; Moses, Elias, and Christ transfigured before them, so if, instead of in the shadow, you were upon the white side of the rock of spiritual truth, you could neither bear the transfigured Christ of truth, nor could you even bear the resurrection in the form of the angels of those whom you love. Spirits have to descend to mortal states; those who pass the shadow of death come back and gently knock at the outer door of your dwelling; they must appeal to the shadowed light in your senses or you do not understand them. What would you do with the rare gleam of immortal life thrown suddenly in your mind, if you had never thought of it before? You would feel that your mind was exposed to the sun pitilessly; you would have some shade fall between you and this light. Have you never known that a stupendous truth constantly forcing itself upon the outward human consciousness has made men mad? The whole world would go mad in the unqualified sunshine of spiritual truth until they grow to understand it. Teach a child geometry and the child will be an idiot; teach it the small numerals and the child will grow to geometry in due course of unfoldment. You must place the shadow perhaps of ignorance, between perfect knowledge and the state that cannot bear perfect knowledge. Men have blamed priests and initiates in the ancient temples for veiling the truth from mankind; they were but instruments in the hands of a higher power and veiled that which could not be understood, until the world grew to the stature of spiritual comprehension. You may understand the meaning of a triangle today, and the mystic meaning of the sphere, and the circle; but in the days when these were symbols of divine truths the masses could not understand them, they must be veiled until the people grew to the knowledge of their meaning. The whole world is a school for adepts today, but in ancient times the divine geometry of the skies was veiled in symbols that mankind could not understand, because of their ignorance, and only doled out to them in piecemeal, until at last the world should grow to the stature of those who had first received these primal truths.
You may stand in the temple of nature today and unqualifiedly receive some of the divine propositions of the universe; but there are others that are hidden, they are wisely hidden for you would not perceive them even if they were revealed; if an angel, speaking the language and thought of the absolute truth of the celestial heavens, were in your midst today you would not understand that which was taught. Many people say, ‘I know I have grown to an appreciation and understanding of what I once rejected.’ Compare what you receive today with what you received a quarter of a century ago; compare the average thought in the world today with that of fifty years ago, you will find that that which could not then be spoken, which people did not understand, which they have grown to realize, has now become the common phraseology of mankind. A half of a century, or quarter of a century, has sufficed to create a new language; new forms of thought; new orders of ideas; and has introduced into existence a whole superstrata of a new mentality pertaining to man’s spiritual being. This has been variously introduced: in the form of psychological words and phrases; in the form of man’s perceptions and gifts; but the whole have revolved around the one center of spiritual truth that is in the world today; and the shadow under which you have rested will still support you until you grow to the knowledge of that which is more and more divine.
If we were to form a prayer best adapted to human need we should say continue the shadow of the rock, O God, as long as human spirits are veiled in human life, as long as human existence is limited by human sensations; for so needful is the shadow when one would have rest and growth.
Many people suppose that fruition can come without germination and growth, that they can attain the result without the needed steps; this comes of the mistake of supposing that the kingdom of heaven could be attained without individual merit, it is the fictitious glamour and glare of a salvation that is offered without each one walking in the shadow that has made theology a bare and barren desert; but the Christ who walked in the shadow of the Cross, who suffered pain; or the Buddha who received the light beneath the shadow of the wonderful Tree that gave unto Asia her mystic, yet wonderful religion; all prophets, teachers, and Messiahs, who have symbolized the light of truth; have done so through the shadow, by walking in the valley of self forgetfulness by turning man’s thoughts to Spiritual things, and to the knowledge that every material pain is because of the material shadow.
The great Christ truth of the world has never been won at a single bound, and no nation or individual leaps up to meet it without growing in the shadow and being nurtured in the darkness. We know what individuals will say: ‘Still I think I have had my share of the shadows,’ but do you know what it means to have your share of the shadows? If you have noticed the light when the sun is veiled by the mists the shadows are not usually so marked, and that in exact proportion to the depth of the shadow so is the brightness of the light. The electric light, which flashes in upon the darkness of your crowded cities, makes the distinct outlines of every leaf and twig, almost the silken hair of a lady’s tresses is reflected in shadows at your feet; what does this mean? In exact proportion as the light is white toward which you are tending, so will the shadows be deep. Those who live in the twilight state that is neither light nor shadow, have less knowledge of that toward which they are tending. Never covet the veil of thin mist that divides you from the shadow, for it divides you from the light also; by the sign of the shadow you know what light is yours.
Whoever heard of an absolutely unselfish life that felt suffering? Never doubt for a moment that most of the pain that each life bears is not for another but for wounded self. If you really have compassion for another, the effort to remove their grief, the sympathy for their sorrow, will make their sorrow greatest not yours.
God means that every soul shall be tested by the hand of the shadow that is his; even in the outlines you despise; and if as did Richard III, you make faces at your own shadow, and call the life accursed that is reflected there, then remember that the shadow which you persist in seeing is only there because you are there, and if you could turn courageously toward the light you would behold no ungainly shadow at all; we mean that human selfishness, human pride, human ambition and passion constitute half the shadows that are seen, and that needed shelter within the shadow of the rock is all that God implies by any sorrow or suffering that comes to man. Whoever heard of an absolutely unselfish life that felt suffering? Never doubt for a moment that most of the pain that each life bears is not for another but for wounded self. If you really have compassion for another, the effort to remove their grief, the sympathy for their sorrow, will make their sorrow greatest not yours. No nurse entering a hospital sits down and wails over the suffering that is there; no one sees the miseries of the world who deplores them without an effort to alleviate them; the cheerful physician relieves pain and becomes valuable, and both nurse and physician are content to alleviate the suffering.
The great wisdom of God is manifest, that just as soon as you turn away from the contemplation of self, you turn more and more toward the light, and that which was the shadow becomes the light.
In the great glory and wonder of Spiritual existence earthly brightness would fade away, and in the midst of celestial splendor no glamour of gold, no consciousness of the splendor of earth and its sun can ever come; you turn as gladly to walk the pathway of pain as of pleasure, knowing that all ways lead unto truth. The carefully attuned and adjusted life does not cry out for Truth and Love and Wisdom, which are as much greater than happiness as is the light of heaven greater than the light of earth. So you may perceive that even now rising beneath the shadow of God’s love, beneath that great rock of strength and safety, beneath all that seems discordant and terrible in human life, the white lily of immortality is blooming within your souls and the germ, expectant, but waits for your state to come forth and adorn and beautify the outer world. Now that the great desert of Mammon has been encompassed, you are approaching that wonderful Shadow of the Rock of Eternal Truth, wherein all germs are nurtured and all divine possibilities are hidden; and at last the giant power of God’s love shall reveal unto each the wonderful ministry of the shadow, and you shall behold how fair and perfect is that wisdom that leads you to rest beneath the Shadow of this Rock in the weary desert of your earthly pilgrimage.