“Undiscovered country, from whose bourne
     No traveller returns”

Some day, thank God! the Bridegroom will step out upon the balcony of heaven and look at us and speak to us in a tone inaudible to all but ourselves, and our souls will bound with rapture and the earthen vessel will crumble and we will spread snowy pinions and wing our flight up to the presence of our soul’s King!

CHAPTER VIII.

Soul-rest.

AN EFFECT.

One of the beatific effects of the cleansing of the heart from all sin is soul-rest.  It always accompanies the glorious experience of entire purity.

Facial inscriptions.

This poor tired world of ours needs rest.  Study the faces of the people you meet in the streets, in the markets, in the cars, in the churches, and there is one word not written on them, and that word is “Rest.”  You will find many other words written on them.  On some faces you see “Selfishness” in crabbed, crooked letters; on others “Lust” in bold-faced type; on others “Gluttony”; on others, “Self-Conceit”; on others, “Craftiness”; and on through a thousand unworthy legends; but the one thing which makes life worth living is not found except among the sanctified.

Vampires and bats.

It is wonderful how elusive rest is.  You may search for it all your days and grow gray and haggard, and sit down in the evening of life with the vampires circling about you and be forced to confess, “I have not found rest!” You may retire from business and say, “I will spend my declining years in peace,” but as the sun goes down the bats come out and flap the black skinny wings of the sins of other days in your affrighted face.  If you are a student you may drop your books like Dr. Faust and hurry to the country, but the imp of restlessness will dog your steps and snare your pathway and you will carry home with you a Mephisto who will never leave you.

The seeds of anarchy.

Some Christian people seek rest in changing preachers, but there is nothing in that to bring it.  You may leave the minister who thumps the desk and listen to a man with a nasal twang, but you are still restive and unsatisfied.  You think the reason your peace of soul is disturbed is that Mrs. Garrulous talked about you, or that the weather is rainy and disagreeable, or that the meetings are dull, or that people are selfish.  The real reason is that you have a restlessness in your heart characteristic of inbred sin.  You possess the seeds of dissatisfaction, and lawlessness, and anarchy, and nothing but holiness of heart will expel them.

The Ocean depths.