IT CONVERTS DEATH INTO GLORY.

35

tions; if ours is the spirit that scorns purity, meekness, faith, eternity; if pride, passion, pleasure are our ideals, we shall yet tremble with a deadly trembling, as the skeleton leaves of the trees that sigh and shiver and become castaway in the November wind.

III.

THE DEPARTURE OF THE VISION.

"As they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here."-LUKE ix. 33.

1. How painful is the awaking moment from a dream! "A dream is from God;"-whether that very ancient word be a truth, or no; whether the visions and voices that haunt us in sleep are strange, stuttering, ill-understood messengers of the Infinite, or no; we all know the sense of pain with which we have awakened from a pleasant dream; we all know how an undefined fear has sometimes interwoven itself with our waking hours after a horrible dream in the night. Or who among us has not played the seer over the winter fire? Who, lying on the grass in the sultry summer-time, has not been a dreamer of dreams? What mother has not bent over her boy until she has lost herself in visions of his manhood? What seaman has not seen visions and heard voices, goodly and fami

THE GOOD OF DREAMS.

37

liar, though all alone keeping watch on deck, a thousand miles from home? And what a pleasure has been torn from us when the vision has departed, and we have awaked from our dreamings to the real and the present!

2. Yet the dream and the awaking to find it only a dream are for good. The young need dreams to develop their energies. We all need to nurse our affections and imagination that when some droop, we who remain may come into the failing battle of life. Our visions are never realised. The golden islets far away pass into clouds. The gorgeous sparkle we gaze upon dissolves into the stern reality of storm and struggle. 'Tis well for the dream, interpreted aright, calls forth the spirit Endeavour, and out of the vision comes the angel Hope, to encourage the hand and nerve the heart. The dream may depart, the vision vanish, when the spirit the dream has evoked, and the angel which has visited us in the vision, have made us stronger to fight the fight of present life, made us better able to bear the contradictions, reverses, and trials which are in reserve for us. It was the weak, unthinking Peter exclaimed as the holy vision dissolved, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; let us build three tabernacles." It was the departing of the vision made Peter strong to meet

38

PETER'S ERROR.

the hard world, which was spread out at the foot of Hermon.

3. The Hermon vision was only for a little while. Peter would have the heavenly visitors tarry. He would detain them. For while they were present and held converse with Jesus, the hearts of the disciples were warmed, were filled with a holy rapture; their minds too were being enlightened; they were learning goodly lessons of truth. If they now departed, would they ever return? If they would but stay, what questions might they not answer, what doubts resolve. The good desire and the error of Peter are very manifest. He was ready to renounce the world; but rather by an outward separation from it, than by an inward life of the soul. He would perpetuate the good and delight of this spiritual fellowship; but rather by giving it an outward and fixed form, than by converting the temporary vision into a spring of hidden life and character. He would have Moses, Elias, and Jesus, for ever abide on the Mount; for then he and James and John would be truer, purer, stronger men; "not knowing what he said." But Moses went away, Elias went away, and the Glory departed; and the deserted Mount blessed Peter more than the Mount glorified, as the empty cradle has blessed many a parent more than the

SECLUSION NOT PURE RELIGION.

39

cradle filled. The blossom fades before the fruit Continuous sunshine would be a blessing

forms.

turned into a curse.

"Aromatic plants bestow

No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crush'd or trodden to the ground

Diffuse their balmy scents around."

4. If then, in these remarks, are correctly indicated Peter's thought and feeling which prompted his remark to Jesus, and the philosophy of the departure of Moses and Elias in opposition to his express desire, there are three divine truths revealed to us.

1. SECLUSION FROM THE WORLD IS NOT PURE

RELIGION.

"Now surely, thought I, there's enou'

To fill life's dusty way;

And who will miss a poet's feet,

Or wonder where he stray?

So to the woods and wastes I'll go,

And I will build an ozier bower,

And sweetly there to me shall flow
The meditative hour."

In this beautiful fragment poor Kirke White fondly indulges the dream of a hermit life, quiet, meditative, solitary. The dream is common to a certain period of life between boyhood and manhood, and to a certain period of mental and moral development. It