/" ^■Wt w^^tm^in^ii^^^^ i^^mu^^^m^^^K IN rnK OCEAN CABILE. BV MAURICE S. BALDWIN, M.A. ^Uctor of the ^Jiirisli of JRontrcal, aub Canon of the CMiebral, ■Mtt 1 /VlONTREAL ; c V•:,.-- ^ , In considering the first question — *' How was the cable broken " — the Scriptures teach us that there was a time when man was in direct and constant communication with God ; when God spoke freely to him, and he to God ; when the joy of Heaven was man's joy, and all that God expected of man, that he hasted to yield f when sin, which has since brought such fearful havoc into the world, was unknown to him, then was his peace as a river, and his righteousness as the waves of the sea. He saw God walking amid the bowers of Eden ; he knew His gracious voice ; he believed His word ; he obeyed Hi» commands. God was " The spring of all his joys," " *rhe life of his dcilighte," " The glory of his brightest day," " Ani comfort of his nights." "^ BREAK IN THE OCEAN CABLE. |f: Such was man's state during that short, but happy period, in which he walked in sinless obedience to God. ..,;. „ ,^ ' v The one great characteristic of that most blessed life was — implicit FAITH in God's word. Our first parents, in their holy inno- cence, believed most sincerely, loved most fer- vently, and obeyed most faultlessly, all that God either promised or enjoined. . , , v.-. Now, as being absolutely essential to their own happiness, and to that of the countless millions who were to come after them, God positively required of them both that they should believe in a sentence of DEATH THREATENED. The sentence itself was as follows: — - . . ;. " The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it : for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt SURELY DIE." — Gen. ii. 17. Not only their happiness, but their life itself depended on their implicit faith in this most solemn utterance of God. And, therefore, so long as they did believe, and as a consequence, obeyed the Divine command, their peace flowed on uninterruptedly. Eden was their home, and 8 A BREAK IN THE OCEAN CABLE. God their Father and their Friend. This state, moreover, of perfect blessedness, might have remained to man until this day, for God, in His great love, had only restricted him in one par- ticular : — he was not to eat of the forbidden fruit. If he disobeyed, inevitable death was to be the consequence. Joy, peace, life, everything in fact, depended on their believing in this threat- ened sentence of death. All else that God had said was affirmative ; this was the one negative : " Thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The reason, therefore, that Adam and Eve abstained from eating the forbidden fruit, was, they BELIEVED : when they no longer be- lieved, they DISOBEYED. RUPTURE OF THE CABLE. Our great adversary, Satan, now appears upon the scene. He comes in the form of a serpent, and thus addresses Eve : — " Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" This is his first effort to introduce sin into the world. He does not, in this advance, even attempt to deny the truthfulness of God's word ; he only endeavours to inject into Eve's mind a doubt as to whether God ever uttered any such prohibition at all. He asks: — ^'Yea, halh God ."-■i -.,;■- ■ "- . ■■!-▼■ A BREAK IN THE OCEAN CABLE. ^ said ?" As if he would say, " Are you perfectly sure about this matter?" The temptation, ' insidious as it was, failed. Eye was sure as to the prohibition. She replied, " We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden ; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the- garden, Grod hath said, ' Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.' " Finding this effort thus abortive, Satan now advances boldly to deny God's word itself : — " Ye shall not surely die," he says, " for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, know- ing good and evil." Here, then, were two state- ments before Eve : — God's : " THOU SHALT surely die." Satan's : " thou shalt NOT surely die." Up to this time. Eve had implicitly believed God's statement; she now hesitates, trembles, and then finally accepts Satan's. The deed was done ; for though she had not yet committed that high-handed act of disobe- dience, by which many were made sinners, and by which death was brought into the world,, yet she had let spring into existence that terrible principle of UNBELIEF, from which disobe- dience resulted as its natural and legitimate 10 ^ BREAK IN THE OCEAN CABLE. fruit. First Eve, and then Adam, distrusted God. They believed, though they had G-od's own word directly to the contrary, that the eating of • the forbidden fruit would ameUorate their con- dition. It would make them, so the serpent said, as gods, knowing good and evil. Then it was the GREAT CABLE BROKE ! Man dis- ' trusting God; doubting Him, who is the I TRUTH itself The next question is :— HO W IS THE CABLE TO BE REPAIRED ? When the Atlantic cable snaps, ships are immediately sent to find out, if possible, where the break occurred. Sometimes, with incredible labour, the cable is raised, only to find they must go further ; but when at last they have firmly grappled the two broken ends, their work is virtually done, for that which remains is so easy of accomplishment, that it need cause them no anxiety. Now, precisely similar to this is the case of the great spiritual cable : where its BREAK occurred, there only can its parts be RE- JOINED. It would be of no avail for electricians to add plate to plate to their battery, in the fond liope that thus they could drive a message A BREAK IN THE OCEAN CABLE. H through the entire length of the broken cable. Only one way is open to them, and that is, to find out where the fault is, and there make the mend. Thus also is it with man in his spiritual relation to God. Where the spiritual cable broke, there only can its parts be re-joined. Now we have just learned that the cable was severed by UNBELIEF. The teaching of Scrip- ture is — it can only be united by FAITH. In order, however, that the reader may see more clearly God's way of peace, I will now place before him, both the break and the re-Joining :— i^m^— THE BREAK. God asked man, in the Garden of Eden, to believe in a sentence of death threatened. Man would not. On the contrary, he accepted a lying statement that he would NOT die, and that his condition generally would be much bettered by his sin. This led to his high-handed act of disobedience in plucking the forbidden fruit. The BREAK, however, occurred through his UNBELIEF. Second— TKE RE-JOINING. God now puts LIFE/r.