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IN THE DARK

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, May 13, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 20

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IN THE DARK.

I stood, with a beautiful child, trying to look out into the night. There was no moon; the stars were hidden behind a dense canopy of clouds, and as we pressed our faces against the pane, only blackness of darkness met us from outside.
“Ah, this is dreary enough,” I said to my own heart. “This is like some people’s lives—dark to hopelessness, no ray of cheer before them, let them strain their eyes as they may.”
But I kept my thoughts to myself; for young people should not know how closely life and nature correspond in some gloomy times. Suddenly a light rippling laugh broke from my companion.
“How very dark!” she said. “This is a night of all others such as I love!”
“This night!” I exclaimed,—“this black, gloomy night, when no one can see a step that he must take?”
She laughed again.
“But I do not want to see a step that I take,” she said. “I do not walk; I drive home always with my father. That is the reason why I take so much pleasure in the dark.”
“But even then,” I said, “I do not understand. It must be pleasanter, even if you do not walk, to go under bright skies, with the stars shining above you and a clear light upon the road.”
She shook her head, and looked at me with earnest, thoughtful eyes.
“I do not know,” she said. “I cannot tell you how it is. When the road is so light that the pony hardly seems to need any driving, my father lets me take the reins, and we laugh and chat together as we drive along; but on a night like this it is very different. He takes the reins in his own hands then, and is so busy watching the road that he hardly speaks to me all the way. Then I creep in among the cushions and lie still, and have such a happy time by myself thinking how dark it is, and how I cannot see whether we are in the track, or just on the brink of a precipice, or even lost, but that my father can, and though I cannot see his form, he is close to me, holding the reins in his own strong hand, and never taking his eye from the way for a single instant! Oh, it is better than all the bright nights together; and when, once in awhile, he turns his head and says, ‘All safe, my little one!’ I say, ‘All safe,’ and then I curl down closer in my corner and feel such a glow rising up in my heart, it keeps me warm on the coldest night. And then at last—it seems very long sometimes—I hear his voice again, saying, ‘Here we are!’ and I look out and see the bright light streaming from the windows, and we are at home!”
I took the pure child-face gently in my hands, and looked into the upturned eyes.
“I understand now,” I said; “but how would it be if some one else than your father were driving, and you did not even know who had the reins?”
A look half of dismay and half of surprise, answered before her words.
“Why, what a strange question!” she said. “Of course I should not like it then! I should be terrified, and crying to every one we met for a little light. But that will never happen, for my father always goes with me; he will never trust me to any one but himself!”
Ah, sweet child, what a lesson you have taught us! There are dark nights in our lives, as well as in our world; but in the most rayless of them all, our rest may be most sweet, the glow in our hearts most warm and bright, if we take our refuge in remembering whose hands hold the reins; and when dark and storm are safely passed, we shall see light flaming before us and know we have reached home at last.—Selected.