[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0725":3},"JULY 25\r\nWhat I do thou knowest not now, but thou shaft know hereafter (John 13:7).\r\nWe have only a partial view here of God's dealings, His half\r\ncompleted, half-developed plan: but all will stand out in fair and   graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of Eternity! Go, in the reign of Israel's greatest king, to the heights of Lebanon.\r\nSee that noble cedar, the pride of its compeers, an old wrestler\r\nwith northern blasts! Summer loves to smile upon it night spangles its feathery foliage with dewdrops, the birds nestle on its\r\nbranches, the weary pilgrim or wandering shepherd reposes under Its\r\nshadows from the midday heat or from the furious storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall. The aged denizen of the forest is\r\ndoomed to succumb to the woodman's stroke!\r\nAs we see the axe making its first gash on its gnarled trunk, then the noble limbs stripped of their branches, and at last the \"Tree\r\nof God,\" as was its distinctive epithet coming with a crash to the\r\nground, we exclaim against the wanton destruction, the demolition of this proud pillar in the temple of nature. We are tempted to cry\r\nwith the prophet as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier\r\nstem-invoking inanimate things to resent the affront- \"Howl, fir tree; for the cedar has fallen!\"\r\nBut wait a little. Follow that gigantic trunk as the workmen of\r\nHiram launch it down the mountain side; thence conveyed in rafts\r\nalong the blue waters of the Mediterranean; and last of all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of God. As you see\r\nits destination, placed in the very Holy of Holies, in the diadem\r\nof the Great King--say, can you grudge that \"the crown of Lebanon\"\r\nwas despoiled, in order that this jewel might have so noble a setting?\r\nThat cedar stood as a stately prop in Nature's sanctuary, but \"the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former!\r\nHow many of our souls are like these cedars of old! God's axes of  trial have stripped & bard them. We see no reason for dealings so  dark & mysterious, but He has a noble end & object in view; to set  them as everlasting pillars & rafters in His Heavenly Zion; to make them a \"crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, & a royal diadem in the hand of our God.\" --Macduff.\r\nI do not ask my cross to understand, My way to see--\r\nBetter in darkness just to feel Thy hand, And follow Thee.",1783499793240]