I am weary of my life.
--Throughout the whole of man’s marvellous pilgrimage on earth, or at least from the time that he became truly intelligent, the same haunting mysteries hover around him; the same unappeasable hunger, the same quenchless thirst, and the same abiding restlessness characterize all human life. One blood circulates throughout the whole family of man. And so, in these words of our text, Rebekah speaks for us all. She anticipates the inquiry of Mr. Mallock. “Is life worth living?” She discloses a difficulty which we still feel, a difficulty which all the mighty discoveries of modern science are powerless to remove, or even to alieviate. We are still as far as Rebekah was from finding on earth any real and abiding object for our lives. Illusion spreads itself over our whole life. Our present is for ever discrediting our past, to be itself also discredited in its turn. Our different moods of mind have not the smallest faith in each other. Youth finds out the illusions of childhood; manhood finds out those of youth; and old age finds them both out, and too often sheds all further belief or hope, as trees shed their leaves in autumn. It often seems as if nature took a kind of pleasure in deceiving us, or sporting with us. In the realm of nature nothing is, but all things are becoming. Nature is a sort of embodied illusion. She tempts us to take refuge in utter sceptism. We no sooner get accustomed to some of her ways, than forthwith she proceeds to alter them. As soon as we find out one of her illusions, she immediately presents us with another. She makes us laugh and cry almost in the same moment. Nature mocks at the staid seriousness of the human soul. But not in nature is our chief or strongest hope of finding a settled home for our spirits. Man is far dearer to us than nature can ever be. “A man” would indeed be to us a “hiding-place,” if only we could find a real and genuine man. Rebekah is not much troubled by the spiteful duplicity of nature, so long as she has the heart of Jacob her son entirely for her own. Sublime and full of prophetic glory are the grand illusions of the human heart. What tender, fervent soul has not at some time thoroughly believed in them? Every deep human affection has its strange mystic transfiguration on the high mountains of exalted nobleness. Earth appears the very vestibule of heaven; and we gratefully exclaim with St. Peter, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” Here we seek to make tabernacles, in which to entertain for ever the celestial visitants. But by and by the vision vanishes. The voice of the prophets is heard no more. The sterile bleakness of the mountain discloses itself; and affection such as we had dreamed of appears a romantic impossibility. Down we come from our mountain of transfiguration, to tread with perplexity and weariness the old dusty road that seems to lead to no particular goal. “Our silver is become dross, our wine mixed with water.” Our sacramental elements are common bread and common wine. Jacob is sent away from his mother; and the very soul of Rebekah becomes inert and objectless. And so we learn how essentially solitary the human soul is here on earth. We learn that no one human being is adequate to the complete and permanent satisfaction of any other human being. We learn that Rebekah was not wise to seek the true centre of her life in the unstable heart of Jacob her son. We learn that souls, like atoms, never really meet or coalesce, that every human spirit is in truth an island surrounded by the dark waters of innavigable seas. It is only on certain rare, sacred days that divine miraculous ships of the Lord affords a means of communication to these lonely islands. We pilgrims must learn to live on such divine mana of human affection as God may send us from day to day. We may not store it up in great strong barns of our own devising; for it will not keep. Earthly friendships are only “ brooks in the way,” of which we may drink freely now and then during our long dusty pilgrimage, and so “ lift up our heads,” and walk with freshened energy towards the far-off land of changeless realities. The friendships of earth are but transient foregleams of deep, unchanging, mystic glories in the world to come. Failing, then, to find an anchor for the soul, or a real centre in the hearts of our brethren, can we find it in work, in some great aim which shall occupy all our energies, and lift us up above the fret and worry and the vain longings of life? Without religion I think that we cannot; and even with this aid we can only do so to a certain extent. The pilgrim must still remain a pilgrim. The simple fact that we ourselves are always changing, always growing, never “continuing in one stay,” obviously renders it impossible for us to find permanent satisfaction in any one pursuit. Of each successive object of man’s devotion and attachment we may truly say, in the sad language of the Psalmist, “In the morning it is green, and groweth up; but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.” An ever-tantalizing, ever baffling limitation mars and spoils all human objects of pursuit. We need God’s dew from heaven to revive and water even our fading and languishing ideals. (A. Craufurd, M. A.)
Lessons
1. Good wives are ready in straits to unbosom themselves to good husbands.
2. Good mothers are in great trouble for the good and safety of their children.
3. Gracious women are burdened with the impieties of rebellious and wicked allies in their families.
4. Wicked matches are burdens to the very life of gracious parents.
5. God sometimes makes gracious mothers more solicitous to stir up fathers for right disposing of their children (Genesis 27:46). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
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