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The Christian often has to walk in the night. Clouds and gloom are round about him. Physical weakness, mental infirmity, relative anxiety, and spiritual distress, — these are part of his earthly lot.

I. UPRIGHT MEN SHOULD BRAVELY WALK ON IN DARKNESS. That is heroic: but it is difficult. The heart seeks for recognition of its rectitude. Flowers love sunshine, and so do the spirits of men. Job seems to have missed the greetings in the market-place as much as anything. There is a tone of peculiar poignancy in his grief about that. I do not wonder at it. We all like to be loved: we all like to be thought right. It is much easier to walk on against sleet, hail, wind, right in your teeth, than it is to move forward against the prejudice, the peevishness, or the misconception of others. When the sluggish waters of the Ouse rolled at the feet of Bunyan's prison, with the blind child clasping his feet, and a dim light falling on the Bible on his rude table, — he bravely bore on through the persecutor's night. When the dark fortress of Wartburg shut its gates on Luther, he bore worse ills than bodily sickness, — he fought in fancy with darkest forms of evil.

II. UPRIGHT MEN ARE LIVING FOR ALL THE COMING AGES WHEN THEY ARE WAITING FOR THE LIGHT. The worthies of the old world live now: being dead they speak to us: and, in a special sense, they affect us in two ways.

1. They lead us to recognize the law of right. We are often endangered by the sophisms of expediency. "Wait," — says Policy, it will be time to-morrow to leave Egypt, and make an enemy of the powerful Pharaoh; do not smite the idols now, — the idolatries left alone will die out! "Trust in God, and do the right," — says Conscience. Obey and suffer. Never mind the darkness, — the day-star will soon arise. You are not living for yourselves alone, — the beacon-light of your conduct will guide the after-ages of the world.

2. They lead us to recognize the fidelity of God to His promises. They claimed no strength of their own, apart from the inspiration of God. In the calm heights, where God dwells, they had full communion with Him, and there the fevered heart was comforted and cooled.

III. UPRIGHT MEN ARE NOT WHOLLY DEPENDENT ON OUTWARD LIGHT. This is refreshing to them as well as to others. I mean, of course, by outward light, that which arises from visible associations. We might as well try to pluck a star from the heavens, or imagine that the storms can waft out the light of the sun, as to suppose that the God-light within us can be dimmed or quenched. No! "The path of the just is as the shining light," etc.

IV. UPRIGHT MEN BRING FORTH BEAUTIFUL GRACES IN THE DARKNESS. Naturalists will tell you that there are few night-blowing flowers; they are very rare, for as a rule night opens no petals, but shuts up the bloom. It is otherwise in grace. Many of the sweetest and most fragrant graces of the spiritual nature blossom in the night season of affliction and trial. And why is this? Because God is able to make all grace abound to us in seasons when nature has withdrawn from us her most cheering beams.

V. UPRIGHT MEN MAY HAVE THEIR MINDS CLOUDED WITH DOUBT. Probably they will. The more upright they are the more anxious will they be to have the foundation of God which standeth sure. Some of the devoutest minds have had seasons of mental trial merging almost into agony. We can see the outward forms that men's opinions at last have shaped themselves into, but any acquaintance with the thought-struggles of , of Anselm, of the great thinkers of the Middle Ages, — whether they were Nominalists or Realists in their philosophy, — shows us that in the search for truth there are forests to be traversed that sometimes hide the light. But where there is simplicity of mind, sincerity of heart, spirituality of soul, God leads the mind that trusts in Him out into the perfect day.

(W. M. Statham, M. A.)

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KJV: Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.

WEB: Light dawns in the darkness for the upright, gracious, merciful, and righteous.