“mourn on, mourn on, o solitary sea i love to hear thy moan, the world’s mixed cries attuned to melody in thy undying tone. lo, on the yielding sand i lie alone, and the white cliffs around me draw their screen, and part me from the world. let me disown for one short hour its pleasure and its spleen, and wrapt in dreamy thought, some peaceful moments glean.”
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the tide is coming in; the waves are big enough to be called waves, yet they break upon the shelving shore from a perfectly calm sea. and the long ranks rise and fall at my feet, curving and breaking in endless succession; line after line sent forth by the stern mandate of general ocean, to die each in his turn upon the impregnable rampart of the land. ever since the third day of creation has this assault been protracted, now by craft, now with the thunder of artillery and the violence of the storm; although it be really so hopeless that186 the balance of things remains about as it was at the beginning. if the armies of the sea have made a breach here, fresh earthworks have been thrown up in another place by its stubborn antagonist, and the interminable strife remains equal still.
but the solemn sea forbids longer trifling; and its oppressive vastness, and melancholy murmur, and mysterious whisper of ever born and ever dying waves, own, surely, some grave meaning.
“the earnest sea, which strives to gain an utterance on the shore, but ne’er can shape unto the listening hills the lore it gathered in its awful age—”
it seems to demand an interpreter. let it be my mood to disentangle some of its utterances. let me employ this hour of thought upon the lonely shore, in guessing at the meaning of the voice of the long lines which ever bow to the ground before me with eastern salaam, and then retire, having delivered their message.
“the sea approaches, with its weary heart mourning unquietly; an earnest grief, too tranquil to depart, speaks in that troubled sigh; yet the glad waves sweep onward merrily, for hope from them conceals the warning tone, gaily they rush toward the shore—to die. all their bright spray upon the bare sand thrown, how soon they learn their part in that old ceaseless moan!”
yes, this well-worn lesson shall be the first that the waves shall teach us—the vanity and disappointment of human aspirations and early hopes and dreams. see now how glad187 and gleeful and bright and energetic they come on, twinkling with a myriad laugh, line behind line, eager ridge chasing eager ridge; all setting towards the cold sullen shore of the unsympathetic earth. oh the clear pure curve, and the unsullied transparency; and the glancing crest of feathers and diamonds, and the rainbow tints as at last the longed-for shore is reached, and the eager plunge made! oh the dis-illusion, the broken enchantment, the check, the change, the fall, when the white glittering spray lies now, lost and sullied and broken, upon the defiling earth; and the wave—amazed, daunted, shattered, quickly changing from over-hope to over-despair—flees back with a wild cry to the great sea. another and another and another, the warning is not taken; it is true that earth scattered this bright hope, this strong purpose, this brave design, this gleaming ambition; it is true that the yellow sands have been busy, ever since the fall, inviting and then defeating the eager waves; receiving, marring, and sucking in the trembling snowy spray, the rainbow-tinged bubble dreams that the heart lavished upon them; and changing joyous onsets into moaning retreats. yet who will expect the young heart to believe in the destiny of all its mere earth-dreams, so long as, within it, the tide is coming up? you almost smile, though with no scorn, to hear that momentary despairing sigh. for you stand now on a point from which you can see a seemingly exhaustless and endless array of ever-new schemes, and hopes, and fancies, and purposes, and ambitions and dreams, line chasing line, towards that magic disenchanting shore. those behind cry “forward!” vain for those before to cry “back!” yea, themselves soon pick up their broken forces, and swell the188 energy and join in the advance of the crested lines that chase one another to the shore.
this, then, is to me one lesson of the waves coming in. human aspirations and dreams, advancing gaily in youth, awhile seeming to make some progress; but learning at high tide that they have but been conquering unprofitable tracts of barren sand. then yielding ground inch by inch, losing their grasp of the world and relinquishing the very lust thereof; and spoiled, and stained, and marred, and with a very heart-moan, sinking to low ebb as life turns. was not this solomon’s story? wave after wave dancing to the shore, curve after curve breaking eagerly upon it, scheme after scheme, toil after toil, pleasure after pleasure, hope after hope, ambition after ambition, dream after dream; the eye is bewildered and dizzied with the ceaseless motion, the steady endless advance of the gay and crested waters—“whatsoever mine eyes desired i kept not from them, i withheld not my heart from any joy: for my heart rejoiced in all my labour.” it was gladdening, exhilarating, exciting to see the flashing battalions of earthward plans, and earthward dreams, pressing each close upon each, to the inexorable, impassive line of rocks or sand—what matter that here one shattered with a crash against a cruel blunt crag, and fled with a scream, and that another left its light and beauty trembling and sinking into the sand, while itself slunk back with a hollow sigh; what matter these single and insignificant experiences of the vanity of things mundane, while there was yet a whole rising tide of wildly eager waters, coming in fast, fast, exhaustless, infinite, flashing and gleaming and dancing in189 the sun? on, gaily on, and what if some die? are there not myriads to follow! why heed the waste, amid youth’s profusion?
but a pause comes over all the glad onset; a stagnant time, a period of neither advance nor retreat: the tide is at the full. you mark no change for awhile either way: then at last a space of wet sand begins to border the line of dying spray. broadening and broadening; but it was quite enough that it had once begun. the tide has turned. here is “the check, the change, the fall.” an eager strife, a wild race, an190 impetuous advance, a profuse and uncalculating spending all youth’s energies, and purposes, and powers, and aspirations; an excited resistless march. and with what result? an unprofitable and transitory conquest of a narrow track of barren sand.
oh draw off, draw off your broken forces, defeated in that they were victorious; disappointed by the very fact of attainment; steal back with that heart-sigh of “vanity, vanity, vanity: all is vanity,”—back into the deep sea again! leaving, it is true, the colour, and the light, and the gladness, and the purity; the crested spray, the diamond drops, the rainbow gleam; all lying wrecked and sucked in by the hungry shore. leaving the spoils of youth, yet glad anyhow to get away; for what can equal the bitterness of that moment when the tide, long sluggish, begins at last to turn?
“then i looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that i had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”
no,—and the bitter thought is, that not the missing, but the attaining the prize, has disappointed; not failure, but success, has embittered: and that it might have been known from the very first that thus it must be—that the coveted possession was but lifeless rock or bare sand. there was a warning voice to this effect, but, oh, who heard or heeded it in that glorious advance of the long battalions of battling gleaming waters? and, to add bitterness to the cup, this was all an old story; we were not, as we dreamed, invading new worlds; no, those ancient sands have borne the furrows of myriads upon myriads191 of just such excited, eager, leaping tides. the anguish has not even the pathos of novelty; it is actually commonplace. that which seemed so new to us, at what more than millionth hand we received it!
“the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
“is there any thing whereof it may be said, see, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.”
and so hark to the moan of the waves as they draw off, when the tide has turned, and the disenchantment has come, sigh after sigh, moan upon moan, in the weary and desolate retreat. “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” yes; and farther on, a more bitter wail, as it passes back over some spot where some of the gayest morning hopes were spilt: “i have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” lower and lower yet, with yet duller and heavier moan: “what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? for all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. this is also vanity.” and now an almost fierce and angry cry: “therefore i hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me; for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”
and what then? is this the end of all? is there no hope for the wailing tide; no redemption for the scattered spray?
i have seen what has seemed to me a sweet and touching answer to this question. over the desolate sands a quiet mist has been drawn, while the sea moaned far away down192 at low tide. and i seemed thus taught how even earth’s wrecks may be repaired, and earth’s ruin turned into gain. better to give to god the fresh sparkle and the first eager and joyous onset of life. but if not, and if the waves must set towards some earth shore, until they are broken, sullied, and wrecked there, see what the rising mist teaches. let them remember themselves, and at last come homeward, leaving the stain and the defilement behind. so merciful is god, that even these ruins and disappointments are all messages of his patient love to us. if we will not turn at first to him, he will let us break our hearts upon the shore of earth, content if but at last our hopes and aspirations will rise in a pure repentant mist from their overthrow and ruin, and wait beside the gate of heaven, touched now with the clear moonlight of peace, and expecting the rich sunburst of glory hereafter. the very overthrows and dissatisfactions of earth may thus rise, spiritualised and purified, to god at last.
this, no doubt, is the intention of the disappointments and inadequacies of this earth, upon which the heart, at the time of the coming in of the tide, spends so much of its powers, and against which it bursts and dies down into wild cries and weary sighings. this is the intention—an intention, alas! too often unfulfilled. for if god is saying, “turn, my children, from that careless dwelling upon earth’s pursuits, excitements, and enterprises, to heavenly aspirations, letting your heart and mind, like rising mist from broken waves, ascend, instead of dwelling in tears on the bare sands that were never worth the winning—ascend thither, whither he who loved you is gone before, and continually dwell with him, in the place called193 fair havens, where the waves of this troublesome world have ceased their restless eager quest, and are lulled into a peace beyond all understanding”—if god thus invites us, even by that sigh of our broken retiring waves, there is another voice, commonly heard, and too often heeded—a voice counselling hardness, repining, rebellion: a moan of sullenness, of despair, of defiance—a voice that whispers, “curse god and die,” rather than, “though he slay me, yet will i trust in him.” the voice, oh let us be assured, of folly, not of wisdom; of our enemy, and not of a friend.
the waves are still tumbling upon the shore; with scarce perceptible progress they have advanced really a broad piece since i took my station here. ever gathering their forces in long parallels, ever bending and falling, and seething back in194 wide sheets of white foam, seemingly ever repulsed, but really ever advancing, they bring to my mind an idea of great beauty and truth that i have somewhere met with, though where i cannot recall. it was a comparison of the earnest humble christian’s progress in holiness to this coming in of the tide. the healthy christian life will always be advancing; there must ever be a progression in holiness. stagnant water is deteriorating water; it does not remain the same as when it ceased to flow. and this oft-repeated truth will come sadliest home to the more earnest, who are therefore the more humble. there ought to be, there must be an advance, if the water be a living sea, and not a stagnant pool.
but dare we hope that there is any such progress, such steady continuous advance in our own christian life? alas! we look sadly back at it and see long lines of earnest endeavours, at least of passionate yearnings, after better things, after perfection, after the beauty of holiness, after christ-like consistency: they came in, and come in still, bright perhaps, and intent, and resolved; and, lo! how they trip and fall as they reach the shore of trial, and slide back, losing all the ground again! ever advancing, only to recede; ever rising, but to fall; ever trying, yet still baffled; only able to weep over their own weakness, and to sigh continually with a depression that men call a morbid pain. new yearnings at every special time of solemn self-examination; new resolves, driven on by the breath of prayers; new endeavours; and, after all, old failures! how the waves come in, earnest, but impotent, each running up the little way on the shore that its195 predecessor had attained, and giving ground again, to be succeeded by another as weak.
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but to cheer and encourage us sometimes, amid all this depressing history of failures, which may well serve to keep us humble, there is another analogy with the rising tide besides that of its endless endeavours and endless failings. there is, as with the waters, an advance upon the whole, though they seem to keep at much the same point, and to be doing little but ceaselessly recede and fail. you might mark, were you a watching angel, how this point is reached, and that passed; and how, though (and better for them here and now) the sighing waters perceive it not, each day’s expiring and almost despairing, but still earnest and prayerful efforts, have increased a little upon the shore to-day, and deepened and secured yesterday’s work. and quiet earnestness seems recommended by this thought: for have we not seen some impetuous waves come dashing in, as though to take the shore at one rush? and it is these most commonly which, meeting steady and sustained resistance, and feeling the strength which excitement had lent dying out from them; it is these impatient spirits that then lose heart most deeply, and sink back the farther, and sometimes quite fall away with a shrill and bitter cry, and lose themselves in the deep, too dismayed to return,—rather, too little really in earnest to face the necessity of the daily, hourly strife—the inch by inch advance, the little by little, the day of small things.
if we are humbly in earnest, and if we are stedfastly, quietly striving, with unyielding watch and instant prayer,196 and faithful use of every means of grace, then we may hope, amid that which seems sometimes scarce anything but a sad history of failures, that thus there may be yet advance upon the whole.
but now i remember that there is, in appearance, and to the unpractised or uncareful beholder, little difference between the tide that is advancing and that which is going down. still the endless hurry of flocking waves, still the appearance of life and purpose, still the advance and retreat upon the shore—and what is the difference? if there are many, many broken, defeated, and baffled endeavours, why so there were when the tide was rising. ay, but there we found advance,—here we find retrogression—upon the whole. alas! how great is the danger that is subtle and unseen; and in a spiritual falling back, it is the very slightness and imperceptibility of the loss of ground that makes the case so perilous. they have given over their watchfulness, their close observation of marks; the breath of prayer has fallen to a stillness; the waves seem to gleam and ripple and rustle as of old, and how shall the unearnest heart and the unwatchful eye ever know that the tide is going down?—a sinking so gradual, so stealthy, with such slight difference from day to day.
many noteworthy causes there are of this lamentable failure and decline, many subtle enemies, that is to say, to diligent watchfulness and continual prayer. “much trading, or much toiling for advancement, or much popularity, or much intercourse in the usages and engagements of society, or the giving up of much time to the refinements of a soft life—these, and many like snares, steal away the quick powers of the heart,197 and leave us estranged from god.” “how awfully do people deceive themselves in this matter! we hear them saying, ‘it does me no harm to go into the world. i come away, and can go into my room and pray as usual.’ oh, surest sign of a heart half laid asleep! you are not aware of the change, because it has passed upon you. once, in days of livelier faith, you would have wept over the indevoutness of your present prayers, and joined them to the confession of your other backslidings; but now your heart is not more earnest than your prayers, and there is no index to mark the decline. even they that lament the loss of their former earnestness do not half know the real measure of their loss. the growth of a duller feeling has the power of masking itself. little by little it creeps on, marked by no great changes.” and yet you would start, had you an angel’s point of view, to see how wide a strip of former advance is relinquished now. the treacherous sands suck in the wet line, and it ever seems just before you—just a narrow band such as always edges the advancing and retiring waters, whether at ebb or flow. and how great does this danger then appear to be!—how deadly the craft of an enemy too subtle ever to startle us!—how needful to watch for that retrogression which can hardly be perceived! little by little we advance, and commonly little by little we decline. even a great fall, it has been pointed out—one which seemed a sudden catastrophe, unheralded by any warnings—what a slow gradual process of “retirement neglected and hurried prayers” had been long preparing secretly for this. but now a saint, men think—and on a sudden a notorious sinner! ah, they know not for how long, how secretly, how198 imperceptibly and undetected, how surely and how fatally the tide had been going down.
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enough of these desultory musings. let us pause awhile in reverent silence, contemplating the mighty sea as a whole, assuredly of things upon this earth our greatest emblem—an emblem grand, oppressive in its vastness—of eternity and infinity.
