The Noontide Eclipse

The Noontide Eclipse
From Timeless Grace Gems
by William Bacon Stevens

"In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight!" Amos 8:9

The sudden shutting out of sunlight by an eclipsing moon, is a solemn and impressive scene. The face of nature wears, at such times, a strange and peculiar aspect. The animal creation is overcome with instinctive dread, and man, even though science has taught him to unveil this mystery of the skies, is awe-struck and humbled by the sublime phenomenon.

As the earth enters the penumbra, and the rays of the sun are first shorn of their light and heat, there arises a general feeling of expectation mingled with fear. Millions of eyes are turned heavenward, and when at last the moon encroaches on the sun's eastern limb, and slowly but surely obscures his bright disc, nearly every face in the shadowy belt is gazing upon the apparently extinguished orb in wonder, and unwillingly admitted alarm.

And is not the going out of a great life, like the noontide eclipse? Is there not in the covering up in the grave of a form, once noble, active, and influential, something like the obscuration of the midday sun?

There certainly is, and it requires but a slight effort of imagination to seize upon many of the points of parallel.

In human estimation the horizon of life, that point where the confines of the two worlds, the present and the future, meet and intermingle, is the far-off period of old age. Every man looks forward to the setting of his sun of life behind that western horizon, and scarcely dreams that it may go out suddenly at midday. Hence, death, in the years of manhood or womanhood — after the powers of mind and body have reached their meridian height, and before the shadows of the evening begin to be stretched out — may be termed a noontide eclipse — a going down of the sun at midday.

It seems, at times, strange to us that God should so often call away people from the active and influential duties of middle life, when they are apparently in the very zenith of their usefulness, and most needed in the world. We can only stand by in mute wonder and submission, as we behold the great props of the nation or church stricken down — when their supporting shoulders were most needed to uphold the incumbent edifice; or witness the great lights of learning and science gradually fade away in the firmament — when their beams were most vivifying and enlightening. We ponder with ourselves, how differently we would have arranged the event; we even, perhaps, question the wisdom of the deed, and we ask, with an ill-concealed repining at the Divine will: Why does God these things?

But in this we are both ignorant and foolish. We are so accustomed to associate human machinery with divine purposes, that, when we behold a person occupying an important post in the councils of the church or nation, we at once associate the idea of such a necessary connection between the two as to make his removal perfectly disastrous.

Here is one surrounded by a large family — its supporting life and center — to take him away is like removing the nave of a wheel — the radiating spokes have no support, and the wheel is crushed and splits asunder at the first revolution. Here is another, the head and leader of an important system of agencies for the extension of Christ's kingdom; nothing apparently can be done without his aid and counsel; and to remove him would derange a whole system of well-devised plans, and, perhaps, destroy them altogether. Here is another, a minister of Christ, the pastor of a large and influential congregation, the wielder of great moral strength, the doer of important service to the church, the motive power to a moral enginery, the value of which cannot be computed. His life seems essential to the church, vast schemes of benevolence are hinged on him, and to do without him is to have a noonday eclipse. He cannot be spared; he must live — or the cause he sustains, like a tower of strength, will fail. Such are, oftentimes, men's views of their fellow men, and taking it for granted that they are true, they act accordingly.

Several circumstances here conspire to make our views on this point exceedingly defective. One is, that we look only at a small segment of the great circle of life, while God regards, with omniscient eye, the whole circumference of our being. How often has our own experience taught us that things which we earnestly desire, and even sinfully covet as necessary to our usefulness or comfort — would have proved, had they been granted to us, sources of real evil and permanent sorrow! How often have we formed, as we supposed, wise plans; secured, as we thought, their completion, been suddenly disappointed in carrying them into full execution, wept bitter tears perhaps over our failure — and then found, a few months or years afterwards, that, had those plans been successful, and our long-cherished hopes been gratified, it would have been most disastrous to our peace, and ruinous to our well-being!

We make these mistakes daily; we are continually correcting and readjusting our hopes and aims, and all this arises from the fact previously stated, that we look at our life only in the small section which is presented to us day by day, and cannot take those comprehensive views which sweep around its entire circumference, and survey the whole at a glance.

So when we see a standard-bearer of truth, a mighty man of intellectual valor, a great central light in the moral firmament, fall in the midst of the battle, or faint in the heat of the conflict, or go out like an eclipsed sun at midday — we feel too much as if some great calamity had befallen our world which could not be repaired, and are too often led into murmuring as unfitting as it is unwise. Could we, for a moment, occupy God's point of view, and see the plans of human existence as He sees them — we would immediately perceive the infinite wisdom of causing these dreaded eclipses in human life, and in thus cutting off our hopes at the moment of expected fruition.

Not only is our range of thought limited to a very small segment of life's circle — but we still further err in basing all our views on things as they appear on earth. We judge according to the worldly aspects of the case, according to its temporal influence; not considering that the relations of each individual, not only to this earth — but to time itself, are but a very small part of his outstanding relations to a world to come, and the eternity that stretches away beyond the grave. "No man," says the Apostle, "lives to himself;" and we see, with our own eyes, how impossible it is for man to isolate himself from his fellows; and may it not be that other, though to us invisible connections, may link us to other classes of beings, and to future cycles of existence, which render the breaks and interruptions of earth necessary. And hence, those things which seem to mar the harmonies of life, and make discords and woes in society, are requisite to the filling up of God's designs, which take in all worlds, all space, all duration. We are, certainly, not prepared to pronounce any event disastrous, evil, or unwise — until we have made ourselves acquainted with all the bearings and influences of that event in all worlds, through all space, and for all time; until, in fine, we occupy the stand point of Divinity itself.

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