_It was the Christ_.

It proved a ruinous transaction.

XIV.

Ever the Same.

A New Year's Greeting.

_"Blessed be the name of G.o.d for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are His: and He changeth the times and the seasons."_--Daniel ii.

20, 21.

_"I am the Lord, I change not."_--Malachi iii. 6.

"He changeth the times and the seasons." What a beautiful thought it is!

Instead of the hard compulsion of some inexorable and unchanging law fixing summer where it must, and planting winter in our midst whether it be well or ill, here is the sweet a.s.surance that the seasons change at His command; and that the winds and the waves obey Him. It is not some abstract and unknowable force, taking no account of us and ours, with whom we have to do, but a living and ruling Father: He who maketh small the drops of water that pour down rain; He who shuts up the sea with doors, and says: "Here shall thy proud waves be stayed"; He who maketh the south winds to blow, and by whose breath the frost is given; He who teaches the swallow to know the time of her coming, and has made both summer and winter, and the day and the night His servants--He is our Father. How precious it is to feel that our times are in His hands; and to know that, whether the year be young or old, He will fill it with mercy and crown it with loving-kindness!

Do not be deceived by the modern talk about the laws of Nature into forgetting that they are the laws ordained by your Father for the fulfilment of His will. Every day that dawns is as truly G.o.d's day as was the first one. Every night that draws its sable mantle over a silent world sets a seal to the knowledge of G.o.d who maketh the darkness. Behind the mighty forces and the ceaseless activities around us stands the Sovereign of them all. The hand of Him who never slumbers is on the levers. The earth is the Lord's, and His chosen portion is His people; and when "He changes the times and the seasons," He fits the one to the other.

It is with some such thoughts as these that I send out a brief New Year's Greeting to my friends. I wish them a Happy New Year, because I feel that G.o.d has sent it, that He wills it to be a happy year--a good year: that in all the changes it may bring, He will be planning with highest benevolence for their truest welfare. Whether, therefore, it holds for them sorrow or joy, it will be a year of mercy, a year of grace, a year of love. "Blessed be G.o.d for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. He revealeth the deep and secret things. He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him."

Let us, then, go forward, and fear not.

I.

_Material Changes._

All things that touch the life of man are marked for change. As knowledge advances, and men come nearer to the secrets of the world in which they live, they find how true indeed it is, that man is but "a shadow dwelling in a world of shadows." Everything is changing--everything but G.o.d. The sun, the astronomers tell us, is burning itself away. "The mountains," say the geologists, "are not so high as they once were; their lofty summits are sliding down their sides year by year. The everlasting hills are only everlasting in a figure; for they, too, are crumbling day by day. The hardest rocks are softening into soil every season, and we are actually eating them up in our daily bread."

The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mists, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

The great ocean-currents are changing, and vast regions of the earth's surface are being changed with them, and Time is writing wrinkles on the whole world and all that is therein.

But, above it all, I see One standing--my Unchanging G.o.d. "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thine hands; they shall perish, but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail."

What a contrast there is between the Worker and His work, between the Creator and the creature! We see it in a thousand things; but in none is it so manifest for the wayfaring man, or written so large upon the fading draperies of time, as in this: "_They shall perish, but Thou remainest_."

And greater changes yet seem to lie ahead. A universal instinct points to the time of the rest.i.tution of all things. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, waiting"--and it has been a long, weary waiting--"for deliverance." But the day of the Lord will come. "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." In his vision John saw, as it were, a picture of that final change. "Lo," he says, "there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sack-cloth of hair"--it looks as though the wise men who say it will burn itself out are right!--"and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." What a combination of astounding catastrophes is here! Earth and stars are to meet in awful shock! Sun and moon to fail! Cloud and sky to disappear; the elements to melt with fervent heat--a world on fire!

But, above it all, the Lamb that was slain will take His place upon the Throne--unmoved, unchanged, amidst the tumult of dissolving worlds. My G.o.d, my Saviour, in Thy unchanging love I put my trust:--

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress; 'Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, With joy shall I lift up my head.

II.

_Changes of a.s.sociation_.

But far-reaching as are the changes in our material surroundings, those with which we have to battle in our personal a.s.sociations are often as great, and are often much more painful. Indeed, man himself is the most changeable thing in all man's world.

It is not merely that our companions and friends and loved ones die--the wind pa.s.seth over them, and they are gone, and the dear places that knew them know them no more--it is not merely this; nor is it that their circ.u.mstances change, that wealth becomes penury, that health is changed to weakness and suffering, and youth to age and decay--it is not merely this, but it is that _they_ change. The ardour of near friendship grows cold and fades away; the trust which once knew no limitations is narrowed down, and, by and by, walled in with doubts and fears; the comradeship which was so sweet and strong, and quickened us to great deeds, as "iron sharpeneth iron," is changed for other companionships; the love which seemed so deep and true, and was ready "to look on tempests" for us, becomes but a name and a memory, even if it does not change into a well of bitter waters in our lives.

This fact of human mutability, this inherent changeableness in man, is the key to many of the darkest chapters of the world's history. The prodigal, the traitor, the vow-breaker, these have ever been far more fruitful sources of anguish and misery than the life-long rebel and law-breaker.

The Psalmist touches the inner springs of sorrow when he says, "All that hate Me whisper together against Me; yea, Mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of My bread, hath lifted up his heel against Me."

No one who has once read it can forget that revelation of the pent-up shame and agony in David's heart, which was voiced in his cry, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would G.o.d I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"

The human heart probably fell to its lowest depth of ingrat.i.tude and sin when poor Judas changed sides and sold his Lord. What a change it was!

Alas, alas, what a quagmire of uncertainties and shifting sand unsanctified human nature must be! Nay, _is_.

I suppose that few of us have escaped some sorrowful experiences of this kind. Even to those who have not tasted the fruits of human fickleness in the great affairs of Christ's Kingdom, there has generally come some share of it into the more private relationships of life. In the home, in the family, or in the circle of friendship or comradeship, we have had to lament the failure of many tender hopes. But, blessed be the name of our G.o.d, who knoweth what is in the darkness, amidst the changing scenes we have found one Comfort. Above the strife of tongues, and over the stormy seas of sorrow, when, as Job said, even our kinsfolk have failed, and our familiar friends have forgotten us, there is borne to us the voice of One who sticketh closer than a brother, saying, "I am the Lord; I change not.

With Me there is no variableness, neither the shadow of turning. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." The more men change, the surer G.o.d will be; the more they forget, the more He will remember; the further they withdraw, the nearer He will come.

III.

_Personal Changes_.

And we, ourselves, change also. As the years fly past, the most notable fact about us, perhaps, is the changes that are going on in our own experiences, our habits, our thoughts, our hopes, our conduct, our character. How much there was about us, only a few years ago, which has changed in the interval--nay, how much has grown different even since last New Year's Day! Indeed, might we not say of a great deal in us, which to-day is, that to-morrow it will be cast away for ever?

Have you, my friend, not had to mourn over some strange changes?

Has not your joy been often so quickly turned to sorrow that you have wondered how you yourself could be the same person? Has not some trifling circ.u.mstance often seemed to cloud your sky for days, darkening all the great lights in your heaven, so that your whole past, and present, and future have seemed different to you, and you stood in the stupor of astonishment at the gloomy change? Has not your zeal for souls been subject to like strange and unaccountable changes, so that the work you once thought impossible you have found easy; or the work you once delighted in, you now find hard, difficult, and barren? Has not your freedom in prayer, and your desire for it, wavered between this and that until you have not known what to think of yourself?

Has not your perception of duty, and your devotion to it, at one time clear and strong, become at another so dim and feeble, that you have been utterly ashamed of your wobbling and cowardice, and amazed at your failure? And, most sorrowful of all, has not your love for your G.o.d and Saviour been up and down--shamefully down--so that when you have afterwards reflected on your coldness towards Him and His cause, you have been covered with confusion and astonishment at the fickleness of your own heart?

And more than this. How great are the changes wrought in us by the curbing influence of time! How much that in youth and early manhood we meant to do, and could do, and did do, has to be laid down, or left to others, as our years approach the limits of their pilgrimage! I have known some men who, for this reason alone, did not desire to live beyond the years of strength and vigour--they preferred "to cease at once to work and live."

The loss by death, or disappointments worse than death, of our friends and dear ones--what changes this also works! Unconsciously men narrow the sphere of their sympathies. The mainspring of life--love--grows slowly rusty for want of use, and from some hearts that were once true fountains of joy to those around them, the living water almost ceases to flow.

Criticism, and fault-finding, and censoriousness too often take the place of generous labour for the welfare of the world. This may, no doubt, arise in part from the natural desire that others should profit by our past experiences, which renders us the more observant of their conduct the more we love. But, no matter what the cause, certain it is that within and without all seems to change.

Is it not, then, a joy unspeakable that, amidst all this, whether we are or are not fully alive to the weakness, and variableness, and deceitfulness of our own hearts, we can look up to the ROCK that changeth NOT? In the darkest hour of disappointment with ourselves; in the depths of that miserable aftermath of sorrow and failure which follows all pride and foolish self-a.s.sertion; in the miry pit of condemnation and guilt in which sin always leaves the sinner, we can look up to Him whose power, whose grace, whose love is ever the same.

Do you really believe it? There is a great hope in it for you if you do.