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Chapter I

God Bless You!

‘GOD bless you, Roy! God bless you!’

As to who they were, or what it was all about, I have no idea. I had noticed them standing near me on the Post Office corner, evidently waiting for a tram. He was a massively-built, middle-aged man, well-groomed in a becoming grey suit. She was a queenly little thing of twice his age, of singularly attractive countenance and beautiful snow-white hair.

Glancing at an approaching car, he stooped and kissed her—smilingly, affectionately, reverentially-and then strode out into the roadway. But, whilst he paused for a moment to allow a few ladies to precede him, she suddenly rushed to his side, threw her arms round his neck, kissed his cheek, and exclaimed fervently:

‘God bless you, Roy! God bless you!’

The movement of the tram tore them apart; and, since the car immediately behind it was my own, I lost sight of them both. But, somehow, the loveliness of her benediction has lingered with me, like a fragrance, ever since.

God bless you! Few of our human propensities are more interesting or attractive than the instinct that impels us to bless one another.

I passed by your window in the cool of the night.
The lilies were watching so still and so white;
‘And oh,’ I sang softly, though no one was near —
‘Good night and God bless you; God bless you, my dear!’

God bless you! We say it under all sorts of circumstances and conditions. And the strange thing is that we seldom say it mechanically and formally, as we utter other commonplace and oft-repeated expressions, but fervently, wholeheartedly and with a real depth of feeling.

I look back to-day on all the weddings that it has been my good fortune to celebrate. From the moment at which the prospective bride first calls at the manse to make arrangements, the minister feels his heart drawn out to her. He takes a personal and intimate and fatherly interest in her and does everything in his power to make her course easy and pleasant. And then, at last, there comes the poignant moment when, the ceremony over, the register signed and all the formalities completed, he takes farewell of her as, on the arm of her proud and happy young groom, she passes out from his presence. I should be sorry for the minister whose heart was not swept by profound emotion at that critical moment I have always intended to say something really worth while to my dainty little bride as I took farewell of her. But only one thing seemed to come naturally.

‘God bless you!’ I have exclaimed, as I have pressed her hand before she plunged into a brief hurricane of confetti and a long hurricane of experience, ‘God bless you!’ And I have invariably noticed a slight suspicion of moisture mingling with her smiles, and have felt convinced that I had said the right thing after all.

I look back to-day upon all the funeral services that I have conducted in the course of the years. From the moment at which the minister is first informed of the tragedy that has overtaken a familiar home, his deepest sympathies are enlisted. Instinctively, and not merely as a matter of duty, he weeps with those who weep. Then, during the next day or so, he devotes all his thoughts to the task of succouring and comforting the bereaved. And there comes at last the poignant moment when, the funeral over, he takes farewell of the crushed and broken spirit. How often I have made up my mind to say something really helpful to my widowed or orphaned friend in that last final act of parting! But, again, only one thing seemed to come naturally.

‘God bless you!’ I have exclaimed fervently as I have held and pressed the mourner’s hand, ‘God bless you!’ And I have invariably noticed, from the brave smile that shone through the tempest of tears, that it was the best thing that I could possibly have said.

Nobody can explain in so many words what it is that I do when I breathe my blessing on my friend. I do not know. He does not know. Yet I am conscious that virtue has gone out of me; and he is conscious that some emanation of my personality has been poured into his soul. May God bless you! is the natural expression of all that is best in my heart and it makes an irresistible appeal to all that is best in his.

Here are four stories—two from literature and two from my own experience. In a very moving passage, James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, speaks of Sir Walter Scott as the best-beloved figure in all the Border country. Many of the farmer folk, Hogg says, almost worshipped him. And then he tells of an incident that beautified and sanctified his own home. Riding over to Ettrick one day on Sibyl Grey, Scott dropped in to dinner at Mount Benger. Before leaving, he smiled affectionately at Mr. and Mrs. Hogg’s little daughter, walked round to where she was sitting, took her up in his arms, kissed her, set her down again, and then, laying his hand devoutly on her head, exclaimed fervently and impressively, ‘God Almighty bless you, my dear child! God bless you!’ After a moment’s tense and reverent silence, Scott took his leave, Hogg accompanying him to the stable to help saddle Sibyl Grey. When Hogg returned to the room, he found his wife crying as though her heart would break.

‘Why, whatever’s the matter?’ he inquired in surprise.

‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘I would have given everything that I possess in this world-everything-everything-if only he had done the same to all the children!’

My second story comes from Devonshire. As a very old man, Cardinal Newman went down into Devonshire to stay with the Pattesons—the family from which John Coleridge Patteson, the Martyr Bishop of Melanesia, had sprung. One morning the aged Cardinal came down late to breakfast. He had asked them not to wait and they had taken him at his word. As he entered the room, moving slowly toward the vacant place at the table and receiving smilingly the greetings of the family, his eyes became fascinated by a tiny child, with blue eyes and flaxen hair, who occupied a high chair immediately opposite his own. The aged prelate stood for a fraction of a moment lost in ecstatic admiration.

‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ he asked. ‘I must give him my blessing!’

He moved softly round to the high chair and laid his two wrinkled hands on the fresh young head of the child. Everybody instinctively rose. And then, after a second’s impressive silence, the Cardinal pronounced a benediction in Latin. Nobody knew exactly the significance of the words uttered; but, as he lifted his hands from the child’s head and quietly took his own seat, there were few dry eyes in the room.

These are the two stories from literature. Now for two from my own experience. Granny, with whom I had to do in my earliest days at Mosgiel, was a pioneer. When the Free Church of Scotland announced its intention of establishing a colony on the virgin shores of New Zealand, Granny and her young husband offered at once for the great adventure. They came out on the very first ship. They landed on a shore on which they would have to deal first-hand with Nature—no tracks, no buildings, no commodities or conveniences of any kind. Not a tree had been felled. Forty-seven years later, I myself arrived in New Zealand. By that time a big homestead had sprung up around her, and she sat enthroned in her cosy armchair, loved and honoured by her children and grandchildren.

I shall never forget my last visit to her. When I rose from my knees beside her bed, the setting sun was slanting in through her western window. It transfigured her wan face and wandering hair as it fell upon her snowy pillow. As I took her poor thin little hand in mine to say good-bye, a thing happened that I shall remember when all things else have been forgotten.

To my amazement, Granny rose and sat bolt upright. In the glory of the setting sun, she seemed more than human. ‘Doon!’ she exclaimed, ‘Doon!’ and motioned me to kneel once more by the bedside. I obeyed her. And, as I knelt, I felt her thin fingers in my hair and I heard her clear Scots accents once more.

‘The Lord bless ye,’ she said, in slow and solemn tones. ‘The Lord bless ye and keep ye! The Lord bless ye in your youth and in your auld age! The, Lord bless ye in your basket and in your store! The Lord bless ye in your kirk and in your home! The Lord bless ye in your wife and in your bairns! The Lord bless ye in prosperity and in adversity. The Lord bless ye in your goings out and in your comings in from this time forth and even for evermore!’ I have bowed my head to many benedictions in my time, but I have never known another like that. Her frail form completely exhausted, poor Granny sank back heavily on her pillow. In a very little while she had passed beyond the reach of my poor ministries. But I often feel her thin fingers in my hair; and that last blessing will abide, like the breath of heaven, upon my spirit till I shall see her radiant face once more.

The other incident occurred many years later. I was in Sydney and, walking one day down George Street, was suddenly accosted by a clergyman, a perfect stranger to me. When he told me his name, I immediately recognized it as that of a High Anglican of whom I had often heard. He was good enough to say, with evident sincerity and even an approach to emotion, that my books had meant much to him in his life and ministry. After a brief conversation, he asked me if I had time to look through his church. He drove me to it and I spent a pleasant and profitable half-hour within precincts whilst he explained to me the spiritual significance that he attached to the vestments, processions, and genuflections employed in his ritual. When at length I thanked him and extended my hand by way of taking farewell, he begged me to accompany him once more to the altar.

‘Will you please kneel?’ he asked, ‘I should so much like to give you my blessing!’ And, as I knelt, he laid his hands upon my bowed head and solemnly pronounced his benediction. It was a little thing, but it strangely moved me at the time and has awakened a wealth of thought and feeling within me in the course of the years that have followed.

I like to think that, when Almighty God provided for the blessing of His people by His priests, He did not leave it to the caprice of Aaron or of his sons and successors to select the phraseology that should be employed. On this wise, He said, shall ye bless the children of Israel, saying unto them: The Lord bless thee and keep thee: the Lord make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace.

Is it fanciful to assume that the three clauses into which this divinely-ordained blessing is divided represent the blessing of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost? It almost seems as if Scripture exercises a certain reverent reticence in regard to the thought of the Trinity. It often reveals the sublime truth without mentioning it. Thus we are told that, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. But, in the prologue of John’s Gospel, it is declared that by the Son all things were made. And again we are assured that it was when the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters that the mighty pageant began to unroll!

The same holds true of Redemption. Of the Saviour it is written that He, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God. The Son! The Spirit ! The Father!

The Bible itself is spoken of as the Word of God. Again, we are bidden to let the Word of Christ dwell richly within us. And, yet again, we are informed that the book only came into existence because holy men of old spoke as they were borne along by the Holy Spirit.

Holy; Holy; Holy! cried the seraphs in Isaiah’s glowing vision. What can it mean but Holy Father, Holy Son, Holy Spirit? How else are we to interpret the pronouns in the subsequent question: Whom shall I send and who will go for us?

The Lord bless thee and keep thee! Is there not something essentially fatherly about the thought Of blessing and keeping? The two seem wedded to each other. ‘God bless you and keep you, dear Mother Machree!’ It is the Father who blesses: it is the Father who keeps.

The Lord make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee! Our minds turn naturally to Jesus, the Saviour, when we think of the Shining Face and the Abounding Grace. There is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth. And where is that joy that the angels witness but in the face of the Highest? The Shining Face and the streams of grace are the triumphs of the Cross.

The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace! I can never recite this clause of the benediction without recalling a simple little happening of long, long ago. Engrossed in a book, I was reclining in a deckchair on the lawn. A toddler was playing on the grass beside me. I had been vaguely conscious of her attempts to attract my attention; but had, I am ashamed to say, ignored them. Presently, however, she came closer and made a direct and pointed approach.

‘Lift up your face, Daddy,’ she said, ‘Sezza wants to see you!’

The uplifted countenance. The child wants to see the Father’s face. And is it not the prerogative of the divine Spirit to vouchsafe to me that revelation? And is it not the prerogative of the divine Spirit to instil into my troubled soul the priceless boon of peace?

He came in semblance of a dove,
With sheltering wings outspread,
The holy balm of peace and love
On earth to shed.

And so I seem to see the distinctive thought of the Father in the blessing and the keeping. I seem to see the distinctive thought of the Saviour in the Shining Face and the Abounding Grace. And I seem to see the distinctive thought of the Holy Spirit in the unfolding of the Father’s countenance and in the m t t m of heaven’s perfect peace.

III

On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them: The Lord bless thee and keep thee: the Lord make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace!

Can anybody imagine that the Lord God of Israel would have instructed Aaron so to bless the people unless He Himself intended to bestow upon them all the boons and benisons of which He spoke? In the verse that follows the stately words, God as good as says that, if Aaron promises, He Himself will perform.

Would a father encourage his little girl to ask Santa Claus for a doll unless he had it firmly in mind to include a doll among her Christmas presents? So that, unlike many of our pious aspirations and ejaculations, this is no mere gust of wishful thinking. It is a pledge and a covenant. God bids His ministers breathe this lovely benediction upon His people because He has Himself resolved to bless them and to keep them; to show them His Shining Face and His overflowing grace; to reveal Himself to them in beauty and in majesty; and to pour into their fevered hearts the peace that passeth all understanding.

-F.W. Boreham