I WANT to tell you one more of the stories told by Baeda in his history; a very touching story it is, and one which may well make you pause, dear children, as you read it, and thank God for His goodness to you. In these days in which you live, in your happy English homes, the light of God's truth is shining all around as freely as the light of day, but in those far away times, though the sun shone bright and warm on wooded hill and fair green valley, it might still be said, in a very terrible sense, of our country, that "darkness covered the land, and gross darkness the people.”
Do you remember a long Psalm of twenty-six verses, each verse ending with the words for His mercy endureth forever"?
Yes, you are right; it is Psa. 136 Now, if you turn back a little and find Psa. 117, that short Psalm of only two verses, you will see some words which give us another reason for praising God, "for His truth endureth forever.”
I want you to carry these thoughts of the everlasting mercy and the everlasting truth of God in your hearts, while you read about the dark hours of which we are now speaking, in the history of our country, that you may observe the way in which He caused both His mercy and His truth to shine forth even in those sad times, and so may understand the loving kindness of the Lord.
Some children the other day were reading the first of these Psalms; they had particularly chosen to read it, because they liked the way in which all the verses ended alike.
But as they read, one after the other, they hurried over the words "for His mercy endureth forever," almost as if they had been the words of a game, not part of a song of praise to God. It was plain to anyone who heard them read that these children were not thinking just then of what book they were reading.
Presently, however, they were asked a question, and they began to look at their Bibles very carefully to find the answer.
The question was something like this, “There are some things mentioned in this Psalm as reasons why we should give thanks to the Lord which do not apply to us in the same way as they did to the people who first sang it; can you find any of them?”
You see any child who thought for a few moments could tell that it was God's people Israel who had to thank Him for smiting Egypt and bringing them out of that land of slavery; for dividing the Red Sea, and causing them to pass through, while Pharaoh and his host were overthrown; for leading them in such a wonderful way through the wilderness, and then giving them the land of great and famous kings for an heritage;—all this was the mercy of God to His ancient people; not to us; so that question was soon answered.
I think you can guess what the next was. Yes; the children had found out what things the people of Israel had especially to praise God for. Now they were asked to find some things mentioned in this song for which we, as well as they, could thank the Lord.
You know the early part of the Psalm speaks of the wonders of God's creation, so you may be sure that there were many answers such as this: "We can praise God for making the heavens, and the sun and moon and the stars;" and this, "We can praise Him for stretching out the earth;" and this, "We can praise God for giving us food to eat." All these answers were given, and very right ones they were; but at last a little boy who had not yet spoken gave an answer which showed that he was really thinking now, if he had not been very attentive before. "We must praise Him," he said, "because He redeemed us;" then another little boy said, "And because His mercy is forever;" and the one who had first spoken added, "And because He gave us His word.”
Perhaps you will say the last answer was not right, for the word of God is not spoken of in this Psalm. That is true, but still I think it was a good answer, for it is part of the mercy of the Lord, which is forever, that He has. given us His word which teaches us the beginning and the end of everything, to be to all who will heed it as a lamp ever shining clear and bright, showing the way through this dark world; a light which can never fail, nor grow dim, for it has been lighted by God Himself, whose "truth endureth forever.”
But we must not forget that we were going to speak of another of Baeda's stories. I daresay you remember that when the strangers from Rome came with such pomp and show to "make Christians" of the wild Kentish folk, they were received by Queen Bercta, the Christian daughter of a French king who had married the King of Kent, and made her home in England.
Now in those days there was a very powerful king in the north of England named Edwin; you may think of him if you ever go to Edinburgh, for he built that city, and called it after his own name. King Edwin was a mighty warrior, and when he went through his kingdom, a great flag, blazing with purple and gold, and a waving plume of feathers were carried before him. He subdued many peoples to his will, and earned the name of "Wide Ruler." As time passed on, Queen Bercta's daughter, Ethelburg, grew up. Her mother had taught her the true faith, but the day came when she had to leave her southern home, and travel far away to the north country, for she was to be the Queen of the mighty King Edwin. With Ethelburg went a friend of Augustine's named Paullinus, a tall, dark man, with black hair, long remembered by the northern folk. When the Queen's first little daughter was born, she persuaded the King to allow the baby to be baptized by Paullinus, for she thought, unless the little child were baptized, she could not be a child of God, or be brought up in the Christian faith.
By-and-by it got abroad that the Queen and her friend, the dark-haired stranger, had almost persuaded the great King himself to quit the worship of Woden; and the wise men of the great northern kingdom came together in a great assembly to ask the meaning of this strange story, and to inquire concerning the new faith. You must not forget that when this meeting took place, as far as we know, through all the north of England the people were sunk in the most hopeless heathenism.
Baeda tells us that when the great council was assembled a very aged man stepped forth into the midst, and spoke thus: — "The life of man, O king, which we know on this earth, if we set it by that life which we know not of, seems to me even thus. When you are sitting at meat with your lords at winter-tide, with the great fire lighted on the hearth, so that it is warm and bright within, but the icy rainstorm rages without, sometimes, then, a sparrow will fly in at one door, tarry for a moment in the light and heat of the hearth-fire, and then fly forth from the other. While it is in the hall it is at peace, and unhurt by the winter storm for a little space, but it flies out again straightway into the cold gloom from whence it came, and your eyes behold it no more. So tarries for a moment the life of man in our sight; but what hath gone before, or what shall follow after, we know not at all. If this new teaching tells us aught certainly of these things, let us follow it.”
So the aged man spoke. After him arose Coil, a great man, priest of the idol temple. Before all the people, he addressed the king: "No man ever," he said, "O king, hath served the gods more faithfully than I, seeking the truth diligently, but ever the less I found it. If these gods were good for anything they would help their worshippers. Let us burn their temples, and cast down their altars!”
The people watched, with awe upon their faces, as Coil armed himself as a warrior, and then rode forward, and cast his lance into the sacred temple which stood on the green banks of the Derwent. Surely, they thought, the gods will slay their false priest even in the very act of daring impiety! But when they saw no harm come to him, they, too, lost faith in the old gods, and were ready to listen to Paullinus.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, we read that a poor father, who had brought his only son to Him, hoping that He would heal the child of his sore disease, cried out, "If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." Just such a despairing cry was that of the aged man of Baeda's story. He had lived a long life in this world, and now he knew that he must soon leave it, and go— whither? Ah! that was what he longed to know; it was the sense that there surely was a life beyond the grave, and a feeling of dread and uncertainty as to what that unknown future would be for him— the sense that there was somewhere the God who had given him being, and to whom he must give account, that made him say, "If this new teaching can tell us anything certainly, let us follow it." We see the mercy of God in making this aged man think of the future, for such thoughts as these do not arise in our hearts of their own accord. By nature everyone only tries to get further and further away from God, but if His Holy Spirit speaks in the heart and conscience, and makes an old man or a little child feel a great want— the want of someone to take him by the hand and lead him away from himself, and all his sin and misery, to One whom he can trust with that precious, wonderful thing, his soul— this is a great mercy.
When all was dark above and around this earth God's voice was heard amid the silence and the great darkness. "Let there be light," God said, and the light was. In like manner, when God speaks, light shines into the dark chambers of the human heart, and none can hinder its shining.
This is our comfort when we think that, while at the coming of Christianity to Britain there were many hearts all ready to receive the truth, the missionaries who came to teach it were themselves so far from having learned the story of the grace of God in the simple and beautiful way in which the Bible tells it.
You remember how, when they came to Canterbury, instead of telling the poor heathen people that "God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," they sang Latin psalms, praying God to turn away His wrath from the people and the city. Though they made many sad mistakes, and sorely misrepresented the gospel, the missionaries from Rome did, no doubt, tell of the love of Christ, and of His death for us. But they did not fully know what the Lord Jesus spoke of as the" gift of God," and so thought people could help to move His heart towards them by their prayers and by doing things, which they called good works, to make Him care for them. I wonder whether, when Paullinus heard the aged Northumbrian comparing the life of man to the flight of a sparrow, he thought of the words of the Lord to His disciples about the little birds which were sold in the streets of their towns, when He said, "Not one of them is forgotten before God; fear not; ye are of more value than many sparrows," and whether he repeated to him those other words of blessed welcome to the weary, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"?
C. P.