i call february the threshold of the year. in january we were indoors, beside the fire, and there seemed little of new and various to tempt us out. but february comes, and with it the first dream of change, the first scarce-heard whisper of the spring. the faint possibility of a snowdrop, hinting its yet undrooping white through a peaked green film; the distant hope of a primrose bud, peeping—with yellow point, for all the world just like that of a coloured crayon—out of the young, crisp, green leaves that are crowning the limp, ragged ones of last year; the wild dream of a find of those sweet buds—little geologists’ hammers, with white or violet noses—among their round seeds and drilled leaves, in some warmer corner;26 such, summonings as these woo the steps to the threshold on a strayed mild day late in february. the black, soaked trees have, we find, taken a warm hue of life; the dull willow bushes have the gleam of golden hair; the first soft air of the year comes to our hearts with a gush of promises; flowers and leaves seem possible to the heart waking from its winter stagnation; trees and men alike feel a new life, a fresh impulse. even though we have become hard wood and wrinkled rind, our sap is, nevertheless, stirred:

“and even in our inmost ring a pleasure is discerned, from those blind motions of the spring, that show the year is turned.”

and, perhaps, we are content to pause on the threshold, and lean against the lintel, and survey the smile close at hand, and the gleam far away; and, while the robin draws near in a cheerful, not to say jovial, sympathy with our humour, and the faint branchy shadows move tenderly on the glistening lawn, to muse on the year’s threshold, concerning the programme that the wind is whispering among the bushes, and the promises that the warm air is wafting into the heart.

* * * * *

musings on the threshold. such musings might take many an obvious high road, or quaint turn, we must feel, as we stand on the threshold of our house, and of the year, looking out upon the herald-gleam, and fanned by what seems a spring air; an air that summons sweet thoughts of march, april, may—scarce june yet; certainly not october or november. on the threshold of the spring; this we would rather say, and forget27 that it is really the threshold of the year,—that thing composed of smiles and tears, of gleams and showers, of full green boughs and bare sticks, of promises and disappointments, of growth and life, and decay and death. for instance, with regard to these threshold musings, how often, ere we shall have passed on so far in life’s journey, that we stand on the threshold of the next state,—how often do we pause for awhile upon some threshold, and lean back against the door and muse. on the threshold of joy, or on the threshold of misery; on the threshold of hope, or on the threshold of despair; on the threshold of school, or of the holidays; on the threshold of wearing tail-coats; of being flogged or expelled; of gaining the three head prizes of the school,—these gave musings to some in early days. later, on the threshold of a pluck, or of a double first-class; on the threshold of first love; and—oh, the dim, delicious look-out, and long, ecstatic musings!—on the threshold of being married; of parting with some beloved one,—and ah, how a stern hand seems to drag you forth from your contemplation here, when your musings were scarce begun! on the threshold of the first fall from purity or honour,—and, alas, the dismal journey that shall follow upon the threshold left, and the first step taken! on the threshold of repentance; and angel-eyes watch eagerly, and angel-hands poise above their golden harps; and at the first step forward a ringing rapture peals up into the trembling roof of heaven. “musings on the threshold”:—are there not then, highways and by-paths which such musings might well take? but it is time for us to choose our present road; and, to do so, we will even go back to the beginning of a certain well-trodden way,28 upon which every one of us is found, some far back, some near the middle, some tottering on close to the goal.

on the threshold of life. yes, once upon a time we stood there: and the spring air was rife with half-shaped songs and indistinct delicious whispers; and we knew that the hedges and copses were full of all sweet promise-buds; and there were songs in the distance, and an interminable thronging of inexhaustible flowers; and life seemed too sweet, when the first blossom that was our own was grasped in our hand, and the stir of life growing conscious and intelligent first made the heart glow and kindle, as we paused musing upon the threshold, and looked out upon the sweet, strange opening year of life.

ah well, the step soon has to be taken, that marks the beginning of separation from those lovely, unreal dreams. there is solomon’s way of leaving them—much labour, and little profit, and a bitter heart at the end. and there is that other way of leaving them—the hearing once and again, and gradually heeding, an oft-repeated solemn call, “follow me.” out of the sunshine into the shadow; away from dreamy threshold musings, into the rough and stony highway; drop the flowers and clasp the cross: for how run the instructions given long ago, and given to all; given by precept, and given by example? “whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

how true of those who—at last, and after long hesitation—take the first step, and leave the threshold of this world’s young dreams, and begin to follow him; how true that29 “little did they know to what they pledged themselves, when, in that first season of awe, they arose and followed his voice. but now they cannot go back, for they are too nigh to the unseen one, and his words have sunk deeply within them. day by day they are giving up their old waking dreams; things they have pictured out and acted over in their imaginations and their hopes, one by one they let them go, with saddened but willing hearts. they feel as if they had fallen under some irresistible attraction, which is hurrying them into the world unseen; and so in truth it is. he is fulfilling to them his promise: ‘and i, if i be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.’ their turn is come at last, that is all. before, they had only heard of the mystery; now, they feel it. he has fastened on them his look of love, even as on peter and on mary; and they cannot choose but follow, and in following him, altogether forget both themselves and all their visions of life.”

how strange it is, verily, after we have for many years now, followed that voice,—followed it, no doubt, with many a declension, many a wavering, many a wayward swerving, and almost turning back; yet, on the whole, followed it, and that with less of timidity, and more of implicitness, as experience justified hope;—how strange, about midway in the journey, to look back at life’s threshold! the january of infancy had past; the february of awakening, conscious life had come, and we came out from our dormant state, and paused upon the threshold, and looked forth upon the world. and now we look back, and with a strange, wondering interest, contemplate that single lonely figure that was ourself, leaning30 in wrapt musing; the small home behind it; and before, the siren murmurs, and warm, flattering airs of the fairy, enticing future. the magic dreams, the mirage-reveries, the profuse promises, the unshaped hopes, the just-caught notes of some divine, distant melody: all the flowers to blossom; and all the birds to come. ah, what sweet, wild musings were those! far away we seemed to catch a gleam of that

“light that never was on sea or land, the consecration, and the poet’s dream.”

and even tears had their sparkle, and melancholy its charm, and death its unreal beauty.

“to think of passing bells, of death and dying— ’twere good, methought, in early youth to die, so loved, lamented: in such sweet sleep lying, the white shroud all with flowers and rosemary stuck o’er by loving hands.”

thus, we remember, once stood that figure, solitary in its own individuality, upon the threshold, and looking out upon life. and, contemplating our present self, we feel that it is “the same, yet not the same.” how changed all has become! it is not only nor chiefly that flowers are less valued than fruit-germs, or sparkling glass than rough, hereafter-to-be-cut diamonds; it is not only, nor so much, that the world’s promises and life’s young dreams have failed us, as that we have turned away from them. that our taste has altered; that the things that then were all, are now nearly nothing; that what once rose before us a golden mirage, seems now as but bare sand; that what seemed gain, would be now held33 as loss; that what seemed too rare, and delicious, and high, and exquisite, and sublime, for more than trembling hope, has now become as refuse in our thought.

time was, when other thoughts and purposes than these which now possess us, held sway in our hearts. time was, when we stood on the threshold, dazzled, and wondering, in a delicious dream, which of all the sublime or lovely paths that opened before us we should pursue. time was, when at last we began to heed a kind, but still small voice, that had from the first been speaking to us; when a grave eye that had from the first watched us, at last fixed our attention. time was, when we were compelled as it were, at first with hesitating, reluctant step, to follow that voice and that look—away from those bright gay paths, or grand aspiring ways, down a lowly, narrow way, strewn with thorns and stones, and sloping into a mist-hid valley. time was—if we followed still—that the disturbing, distracting sounds and sights above being left behind and hushed,—the mist lifted, and, lo! the valley was a pleasant valley, an abode of “peace that the world cannot give”: and if the way were still rough sometimes, there were undying flowers of unearthly beauty here and there; and if the lark was away, the nightingale was singing; and it was answered to us, yea, our heart returned answer to itself, that, albeit narrow and strait at first, the name of that way was, in very truth, the way of pleasantness and the path of peace.

ah, yes, if once we, with purpose of heart, set ourselves to follow his guiding, how god draws us on! we clutch at this, and would rest at that; and surely this is the chief good, and34 the ideal beauty? but no; the early flowers depart, and the late, and we leave the threshold and wander on; and february goes, and march goes, and even june, and august; and sorrowfully and wonderingly we look up at god, following him on through life, even into the grave september, and the hushed october, and the tearful november; and so into the winter of alienation from the world, which death’s snow comes to seal.

but ere this we have found out his meaning in life, and the flowers of earth are no more regretted; and there is no point at which we would choose to have rested, now that we look back upon the past experiences and events of the journey; and both our hands are laid in his, and we look up with unutterable trust and ineffable love. it was not so once:

“i was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou wouldst lead me on; i loved to see and choose my path, but now lead thou me on.”

and then he has led you, little by little, with gentle steps, hiding the full length of the way that you must tread, lest you should start aside in fear, and faint for weariness. and as it has been, so it must be; onward you must go; he will not leave you here; there is yet in store for you more contrition, more devotion, more delight in him. a few years hence, and you will see how true these words are. if by that time you have not forsaken him, you will be nigher still, walking in strange, it may be solitary paths, in ways that are “called desert”; but knowing him, as now you know him not, with a fulness of knowledge, and a bowing of heart, and a holy self-renouncement, and a joy that you are altogether his. what35 now seems too much, shall then seem all too little; what too nigh, not nigh enough to his awful cross. oh, how our thoughts change! a few years ago, and you would have thought your present state excessive and severe; you would have shrunk from it then, as at this time you shrink from the hereafter. but now you look back, and know that all was well. in all your past life you would not have one grief the less, or one joy the more. it is all well.

and so it is, then, that we are led on from our february threshold, on through the maturing, decaying months, until the silent winter comes. and what then? is it to be the same over again—the same promises and disappointments, the same dreams and awakenings, the same unreal glory at the threshold, and the same gradual weaning from it on the journey?

not so. to us the years are not repeated, nor is the “second life, only the first renewed.”

“i know not, oh, i know not what joys await us there; what radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.”

but i love to wander, nevertheless, in my musings far beyond the journey to the land whither the journey is tending. beyond this state of probation to that of fruition; beyond striving, to attainment; beyond discipline, to perfection; beyond warfare, to victory; beyond labour, to rest; beyond constant slips and shortcomings, and half-heartedness at best, to stedfast holiness; beyond the cross, to the crown. we are yet within doors: oh, what will open before us on the threshold of that next year!—when the first wonder of its january36 has passed, and the amazed and almost dizzied soul has straightened and uncrumpled its wings, and collected its powers, and can calmly begin to understand its change, and to muse on its future, and to grasp the idea of the possession upon which it has come: to anticipate the endless succession of amaranthine flowers, ever increasing in glory throughout the months of eternity, and the songs that shall ever throng more and more abundant and ecstatic, and never migrate nor pass away!

on the threshold. those in paradise are now musing on the threshold, waiting for their full consummation and bliss both in body and soul, waiting for that coming of the lord with regard to which they are still crying out, “how long?” and are bid to “rest yet for a little season.” and so then they rest, and wait upon the threshold, and contemplate the mighty and magnificent panorama outspread before them as their future. the voice is still there, and the look; and they wait its summons, to leave the threshold, and to follow once again. but how different that following then! how far other than of old that summons! not to paths of humiliation and discipline, and hills of difficulty, and valleys of shadow, but to realms of brightness and beauty unspeakable, and to heights to which earth’s ambitions never soared. from the threshold of blessedness into the domain of glory; from abraham’s bosom to the throne of the lamb; from a star to the sun in his strength.

and so may we think of our dead that fell asleep in jesus, as waiting upon that blessed threshold, contemplating that ravishing prospect, which is theirs, and may be ours. nor37 do we enough thus think of and realise the state of the departed. the poisonous fungi of error have made us shy of the mushroom of truth. “the superstition of ages past has recoiled into the sadduceeism of to-day.” and so we, the dying, compassionate those who have begun to live, and who stand upon the threshold of the yet higher and more perfect life of the resurrection. let us think of them more nobly, more worthily, more truly. let us not heap their burial with gloom; let not our souls dwell with their bodies under the sodden clay. they are changed, but they are not lost; they are “still the same, and yet are not what they were; they have passed from the humiliation of the body to the majesty of the spirit. the weakness, and the littleness,38 and the abasement of life are gone; they are now excellent in strength, full of heavenly light, ardent with love, above fallen humanity, akin to angels.” “blessed and happy dead!—great and mighty dead! in them the work of the new creation is well-nigh accomplished; what feebly stirs in us, in them is well-nigh full. they have passed within the vail, and there remaineth only one more change for them,—a change full of a foreseen, foretasted bliss. how calm, how pure, how sainted are they now! a few short years ago, and they were almost as weak and poor as we; burdened with the dying body we now bear about; harassed by temptations, often overcome, weeping in bitterness of soul, struggling with faithful, though fearful hearts, towards that dark shadow from which they shrank, as we shrink now.”

we on our threshold and they on theirs; then let us think of them and of ourselves so. we have left the threshold of life, and are nearing the threshold of death, or rather of the beginning of life indeed. they behold the prospect at which we guess, and which we burn to see. but because it may be ours one day, we are already sharers with them, and our higher union is rather cemented than interrupted. “the unity of the saints on earth with the church unseen is the straitest bond of all. hell has no power over it, sin cannot blight it, schism cannot rend it, death itself can but knit it more strongly. nothing is changed but the relations of sight: like as when the head of a far-stretching procession, winding through a broken, hollow land, hides itself in some bending vale, it is still all one; all advancing together; they that are farthest onward in the way are39 conscious of their lengthened following; they that linger with the last are drawn forward as it were by the attraction of the advancing multitude.” or, in another figure, beautifully has it been said, that when the sun of righteousness passed out of sight, the splendour of his hidden shining is reflected by his saints, “till the night starts out full of silver stars.” “in stedfast and silent course” they pass on, some disappearing below the horizon, some resplendent in mid-heaven, some just emerging from the other boundaries. and when the last has arisen, and some are yet sparkling in the blue vault, the sun shall arise with sudden glory, and they all shall render to him their light. but until that time, which no man knoweth, neither the angels of heaven, it is awaiting upon the threshold, in mighty musing upon the glory yet to be revealed; and, “until all is fulfilled,” the desire of the church unseen is stayed with the “white robes” and the sound of the “bridegroom’s voice.” let us comfort one another with these words and these thoughts.

and now thus have we mused upon the threshold, beginning first with the threshold of the life that is expecting death, and then soaring boldly to the threshold of the life that is expecting the resurrection. we need reminding in this age that there are two sides to this expectation. there is “a certain fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation,” as well as an ardent, and eager, and rapturous anticipation and longing for his coming who cometh quickly, though he seem to tarry. and it is well to ask, when death ends our journey here, upon which threshold shall we prefer to wait, and which musing shall be our choice: the dreadful40 looking-for of judgment, or the ecstatic longing to hear that voice which once said, “follow me,” speak again to us, even to us, the incredible words—“well done, thou good and faithful servant: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” choose we, my friends, carefully, prayerfully, deliberately, finally, and at once; for “behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”