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by L B Cowman
The Captive
There is no commentator of the Scriptures half so valuable as a captivity. The
old Psalms have quavered for us with a new pathos as we sat by our "Babel's
stream," and have sounded for us with new joy as we found our captivity turned
as the streams in the South.
The man who has seen much affliction will not readily part with his copy of the
Word of God. Another book may seem to others to be identical with his own; but
it is not the same to him, for over his old and tear-stained Bible he has
written, in characters which are visible to no eyes but his own, the record of
his experiences, and ever and anon he comes on Bethel pillars or Elim palms,
which are to him the memorials of some critical chapter in his history.
If we are to receive benefit from our captivity we must accept the situation and
turn it to the best possible account. Fretting over that from which we have been
removed or which has been taken away from us, will not make things better, but
it will prevent us from improving those which remain. The bond is only tightened
by our stretching it to the uttermost.
The impatient horse which will not quietly endure his halter only strangles
himself in his stall. The high-mettled animal that is restive in the yoke only
galls his shoulders; and every one will understand the difference between the
restless starling of which Sterne has written, breaking its wings against the
bars of the cage, and crying, "I can't get out, I can't get out," and the docile
canary that sits upon its perch and sings as if it would outrival the lark
soaring to heaven's gate.
No calamity can be to us an unmixed evil if we carry it in direct and fervent
prayer to God, for even as one in taking shelter from the rain beneath a tree
may find on its branches fruit which he looked not for, so we in fleeing for
refuge beneath the shadow of God's wing, will always find more in God than we
had seen or known before.
It is thus through our trials and afflictions that God gives us fresh
revelations of Himself; and the Jabbok ford leads to Peniel, where, as the
result of our wrestling, we "see God face to face," and our lives are preserved.
Take this to thyself, O captive, and He will give thee "songs in the night," and
turn for thee "the shadow of death into the morning." --William Taylor
"Submission to the divine will is the softest pillow on which to recline."
"It filled the room, and it filled my life,
"As I was among the captives by the river of Chebar,
the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God . . . and the hand of the Lord
was there upon me" (Ezek. 1:1,3).
With a glory of source unseen;
It made me calm in the midst of strife,
And in winter my heart was green.
And the birds of promise sang on the tree
When the storm was breaking on land and sea."
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