THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3522, 13 September 1921, Page 51

THE GARLAND.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR. No. 420.

By

DUNCAN WRIGHT. Dunedin

THE LOOM OF LIFE. To-day we are indebted to the London Sunday School Union for quotations from a dainty and delightful brochure from the gifted pen of a highly-cultured teacher, the Rev. F. X. Peloubet, D.D., an honoured name in connection with Sunday School work: Like a blind spinner in the sun I tread my days; t know that all the threads will run Appointed ways; I know each day will bring its task, And, being blind, r.o more I ask. I die not know the use or name Of that I sxrin; I only know that someone came And laid within My band the thread, and said, “Since you Are blind, but one thing you can do.” Sometimes the threads so rough and fast. And tangled fly, I know wild storms are sweeping past, And fear that I Shall fall; but dare not try to find A safer place, since I am blind. I know not why, but I am sure That tint and placein some great fabric to endure Past time and race My threads will have; so, from the first, Though blind, I never felt accursed. 1 think perhaps this trust has sprung From one short word Said over me when I was young,—So yo-ung, I heard) It knowing not that God’s name signed My brow, and sealed me His, though blind. But whether this be seal or sign Within, without, It matters not. That bond divine 1 never doubt. I know He set me here, and still, And glad, and blind, 1 wait His will; But, listen, listen, day by day, To hear their tread Who bear the finished web away, And cut the thread, And bring God’s message in the sun “Thou poor blind spinner, work is diene.” —By Helen Hunt Jackson. Then writes Dr Peloubet:—

“I was visiting one cf the largest factories in this country, and for the first time watched the famous Jacquard looms weaving Brussels and velvet carpets as the simple threads of the woof and the , bright lines of the warp were combining in the most beautiful designs of colour and form. “But the most wonderful thing about this weaving was the fact that, while low before our eyes lay the warp, and the shuttle playing to and fro between the changing threads, the pattern to be woven was decided above. Overhead in the upper part of the loom were rows of perforated cards on which was written, in a language I could not understand, the exact pattern which the shuttle was weaving below. Thus, while the shuttle moved back and forth seemed to make all those beautiful forms, in reality the whole design of the weaving was decided and controlled from above. “There, thought I, is a type of our lives. Man’s free-will and God’s control are set forth by these wonderful lodms. Our free-wills, like these shuttles, carry the threads of our choices, our purposes, and our deeds through the divine warp of our lives, —the circumstances and influences that surround us, the laws by which we j live, the endowments and powers of our natures. For, choose, determine, and plan all we may, feel we never so strong and wise to control our own destiny and work out our own success, yet God holds the warp of our lives in His own hands, and there are in every life a thousand things as much beyond our control as the march of the stars through the sky. . . . “I have watched the weavers in the famous Gobelin factories at Paris making those exquisitely beautiful tapestries, in which woollen threads have been woven by hand into pictures almost as delicately shaded and perfect in form as the best paintings wrought by the hand of genius. “Almost every representative scene on earth, from the carnage of war to those ‘everlasting gardens where angels walk and seraphs are the wardens,’ from the hand of the persecutor to the heroism of the martyr,—all have been woven in simple looms from threads of wool. . .” ! In Childhood an imperfect gleam, 1 A moonlight bower, a summer dream; j Glimpses of some far-sinning stream, j A rosy wreath, the blessed beam j That dwells in mother’s eyes. j In Youth an urn brimmed with delight, ; Swift thronging fantasies cf light; i Soft music on a summer’s night; j Meek eyes, with love’s own radiance bright; Hope buddliag into joy. I In Manhood —a benighted shore, I With wrecks of bliss all scattered o'er; j Dark swelling doubts; fears scorned before; j A spirit withered at the; core; j A sea of storm and strife. j In Ago the calm undazzled eye : Living in moulds of memory,— . Low breathed thanks for love on high, | A patient longing for the sigh That wafts it into rest. I Dr Peloubet continues : | “[ stood beside the most beautiful j .Aubusson tapestries, made to adorn the ! walls of a palace, and on my asking the J attendant to show me the reverse side, he | took down instead a miniature loom on ; which was a tapestry partly woven. Jhe ! back was covered with the ends of the ! artist’s threads, a confused jumble of ■ colours without order or meaning, and resembling the picture on the right side only as the tuning of an organ resembles an oratorio. “The artist, he said, stands behind his web, and does all his weaving from this reverse side. He doesn’t see the picture as it comes into being. But with the materials at his side, and the copy he is to follow above him, by imitating that exactly in every form and colour, though working on the* wrong side where he cannot sec Iris unfolding work, he yet weaves the true picture in his loom.” The comparison of life to spinning or weaving is almost as old as literature. The ancient Greeks saw the three Fates spinning the thread of human life, Clotho, with a crown of seven stars and a robe like the rainbow, holding the distaff; ! Lachesis twisting and allotting the thread ; and Atropos cutting it off by death, j Clothe spin, Lacliesis twist, Atropos the thread to sever; | So weave the web of human life, — God’s looms go on for ever. Just how much Job saw when he said, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,” I do not know; but certainly for us there is a wide and deep meaning. You remember the picture Tennyson gives of the Lady of Shalott in her high tower by the river v weaving steadily : There she weaves by night and clay A magic web with colours gay. And moving through a, mirror clear i That hangs before her all the year • Shadows of the world appear. , Ail the scenes of earth are reflected in her mirror and woven in her magic wen. So all that is reflected in the mirror of our souls like the shadow pictures of a camera obscura, every scene, every thought, every emotion, every truth, is being woven into the web of our lives. If God should touch our senses as He did those of Elisha’s servant, so that we could see the j invisible and hear the inaudible, this [ world would appear full of looms like a j great factory; the air would be tilled with [the hum of machinery; every man, j woman, and child would be seen busy at J his loom weaving the web of his own life, | We should hear the clatter of the shuttles, i and see the pictures which their lives have been spent in weaving, some just i begun, others almost completed; some simple in their loveliness, others exquisitely beautiful ; some, possibly poorly ami meanly done, and some so well wrought with tin rads of love and peace and self-denial and duty as to be worthy of a place in the King’s palace near the throne. The 11th chapter of Hebrews is a catalogue, with brief description, of some of ; the pictures woven by noblemen of old. j But each one of us is speeding the shuttle | and weaving some kind of picture for : eternity.

There is a little spader Which weaves a web so fine, It might be lying a.t your feet With every thread in it complete And you not. see a line. But early morning shows it Agleam with pearly dlew. And in the rising sun it lies Bright as the walls of Paradise With gems of every hue. S > you and I are weavers, And only God can see The woof and warp of deed and thought By which the wondrous robe is wrought Which covers you and me. God’s plan is our best. And wheresoever our lot is cast, by doing the duties God bids us to do, by bearing the burdens His love lays upon us, by a heart full of love, by a childlike trust in o^ - Saviour, we are certain to weave a life that will be a joy and blessing throughout the eternal ages, and will win God's “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of the Lord.” I love to think the sweet will of his God Would) seem as gracious in a seraph’s eyes, In the dark and miry crowded lanes of earth, As ;n the ambrosial bowers of Paradise; That those fair hands which lately swept the lyre Would not against their lowly work rgbel, But, as they ever wrought His will in heaven, Would! work it here as faithfully c-nd well.