Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms Part 28

What would you think of a boy if, when he had just been taught to draw with a pencil, he said to his master, 'Do you think I shall ever be able to draw as well as Raphael?' His teacher would say to him, 'Whether you will or not, you will be able to draw a good deal better than now, if you try.' We need not trouble ourselves with the questions that disturb some people until we are very much nearer to perfection than any of us yet are. At any rate, we can approach indefinitely to that ideal, and whether it is possible for us in this life ever to have hearts so continuously fixed as that no attraction shall draw the needle aside one point from the pole or not, it is possible for us all to have them a great deal steadier than in that wavering, fluctuating vacillation which now rules them.

So let us pray the prayer, 'Unite my heart to fear Thy name,' make the resolve, 'My heart is fixed,' and listen obediently to the command, 'He exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they should cleave unto the Lord.'

WAITING AND SINGING

'Because of his strength will I wait upon Thee: for G.o.d is my defence.... 17. Unto Thee, O my strength, will I sing: for G.o.d is my defence, and the G.o.d of my mercy.'--PSALM lix. 9, 17.

There is an obvious correspondence between these two verses even as they stand in our translation, and still more obviously in the Hebrew. You observe that in the former verse the words 'because of' are a supplement inserted by our translators, because they did not exactly know what to make of the bare words as they stood. 'His strength, I will wait upon Thee,' is, of course, nonsense; but a very slight alteration of a single letter, which has the sanction of several good authorities, both in ma.n.u.scripts and translations, gives an appropriate and beautiful meaning, and brings the two verses into complete verbal correspondence.

Suppose we read, 'My strength,' instead of 'His strength.' The change is only making the limb of one letter a little shorter, and as you will perceive, we thereby get the same expressions in both verses.

We may then read our two texts thus: 'Upon Thee, O my Strength! I will wait.... Unto Thee, O my Strength, I will sing!' They are, word for word, parallel, with the significant difference that the waiting in the one pa.s.ses into song, in the other, the silent expectation breaks into music of praise. And these two words--_wait_ and _sing_--are in the Hebrew the same in every letter but one, thus strengthening the impression of likeness as well as emphasising, with poetic art, that of difference. The parallel, too, obviously extends to the second half of each verse, where the reason for both the waiting and the praise is the same--'For G.o.d is my defence'--with the further eloquent variation that the song is built not only on the thought that 'G.o.d is my defence,' but also on this, that He is 'the G.o.d of my mercy.'

These two parallel verses, then, are a kind of refrain, coming in at the close of each division of the psalm; and if you examine its structure and general course of thought, you will see that the first stands at the end of a picture of the Psalmist's trouble and danger, and makes the transition to the second part, which is mainly a prayer for deliverance, and finishes with the refrain altered and enlarged, as I have pointed out.

The heading of the psalm tells us that its date is the very beginning of Saul's persecution, when 'they watched the house to kill' David, and he fled by night from the city. There is a certain correspondence between the circ.u.mstances and some part of the picture of his foes here which makes the date probable. If so, this is one of David's oldest psalms, and is interesting as showing his faith and courage, even in the first burst of danger. But whether that be so or not, we have here, at any rate, the voice of a devout soul in sore sorrow, and we may well learn the lesson of its twofold utterance. The man, overwhelmed by calamity, betakes himself to G.o.d. 'Upon Thee, O my Strength! will I wait, for G.o.d is my defence.' Then, by dint of _waiting_, although the outward circ.u.mstances keep just the same, his temper and feelings change. He began with, 'Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord! for they lie in wait for my soul.' He pa.s.ses through 'My Strength! I will wait upon Thee,'

and so ends with 'My Strength! I will sing unto Thee.' We may then throw our remarks into two groups, and deal for a few moments with these two points--the waiting on G.o.d, and the change of waiting into praise.

Now, with regard to the first of these--the waiting on G.o.d--I must notice that the expression here, 'I will _wait_,' is a somewhat remarkable one. It means accurately, 'I will watch Thee,' and it is the word that is generally employed, not about our looking up to Him, but about His looking down to us. It would describe the action of a shepherd guarding his flock; of a sentry keeping a city; of the watchers that watch for the morning, and the like. By using it, the Psalmist seems as if he would say--There are two kinds of watching. There is G.o.d's watching over me, and there is my watching for G.o.d. I look up to Him that He may bless; He looks down upon me that He may take care of me. As He guards me, so I stand expectant before Him, as one in a besieged town, upon the ramparts there, looks eagerly out across the plain to see the coming of the long-expected succours. G.o.d 'waits to be gracious'--wonderful words, painting for us His watchfulness of fitting times and ways to bless us, and His patient attendance on our unwilling, careless spirits. We may well take a lesson from His att.i.tude in bestowing, and on our parts, wait on Him to be helped. For these two things--vigilance and patience--are the main elements in the scriptural idea of waiting on G.o.d. Let me enforce each of them in a word or two.

There is no waiting on G.o.d for help, and there is no help from G.o.d, without watchful expectation on our parts. If ever we fail to receive strength and defence from Him, it is because we are not on the outlook for it. Many a proffered succour from heaven goes past us, because we are not standing on our watch-tower to catch the far-off indications of its approach, and to fling open the gates of our heart for its entrance.

He who expects no help will get none; he whose expectation does not lead him to be on the alert for its coming will get but little. How the beleaguered garrison, that knows a relieving force is on the march, strain their eyes to catch the first glint of the suns.h.i.+ne on their spears as they top the pa.s.s! But how unlike such tension of watchfulness is the languid antic.i.p.ation and fitful look, with more of distrust than hope in it, which we turn to heaven in our need! No wonder we have so little living experience that G.o.d is our 'strength' and our 'defence,'

when we so partially believe that He is, and so little expect that He will be either. The homely old proverb says, 'They that watch for providences will never want a providence to watch for,' and you may turn it the other way and say, 'They that do _not_ watch for providence will never _have_ a providence to watch for.' Unless you put out your water-jars when it rains you will catch no water; if you do not watch for G.o.d coming to help you, G.o.d's watching to be gracious will be of no good at all to you. His waiting is not a subst.i.tute for ours, but because He watches therefore we should watch. We say, we expect Him to comfort and help us--well, are we standing, as it were, on tiptoe, with empty hands upraised to bring them a little nearer the gifts we look for? Are our 'eyes ever towards the Lord'? Do we pore over His gifts, scrutinising them as eagerly as a gold-seeker does the quartz in his pan, to detect every s.h.i.+ning speck of the precious metal? Do we go to our work and our daily battle with the confident expectation that He will surely come when our need is the sorest and scatter our enemies? Is there any clear outlook kept by us for the help which we know must come, lest it should pa.s.s us un.o.bserved, and like the dove from the ark, finding no footing in our hearts drowned in a flood of troubles, be fain to return to the calm refuge from which it came on its vain errand?

Alas, how many gentle messengers of G.o.d flutter homeless about our hearts, unrecognised and unwelcomed, because we have not been watching for them! Of what avail is it that a strong hand from the beach should fling the safety-line with true aim to the wreck, if no eye on the deck is watching for it? It hangs there, useless and unseen, and then it drops into the sea, and every soul on board is drowned. It is our own fault--and very largely the fault of our want of watchfulness for the coming of G.o.d's help--if we are ever overwhelmed by the tasks, or difficulties, or sorrows of life. We wonder that we are left to fight out the battle ourselves. But are we? Is it not rather, that while G.o.d's succours are hastening to our side we will not open our eyes to see, nor our hearts to receive them? If we go through the world with our hands hanging listlessly down instead of lifted to heaven, or full of the trifles and toys of this present, as so many of us do, what wonder is it if heavenly gifts of strength do not come into our grasp?

That att.i.tude of watchful expectation is vividly described for us in the graphic words of another psalm, 'My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.' What a picture that is! Think of a wakeful, sick man, tossing restless all the night on his tumbled bed, racked with pain made harder to bear by the darkness. How often his heavy eye is lifted to the window-pane, to see if the dawn has not yet begun to tint it with a grey glimmer! How he groans, 'Would G.o.d it were morning!' Or think of some unarmed and solitary man, benighted in the forest, and hearing the wild beasts growl and scream and bark all round, while his fire dies down, and he knows that his life depends on the morning breaking soon. With yet more eager expectation are we to look for G.o.d, whose coming is a better morning for our sick and defenceless spirits. If we are not so looking for His help, we need never be surprised that we do not get it.

There is no promise and no probability that it will come to men in their sleep, who neither desire it nor wait for it. And such vigilant expectation will be accompanied with patience. There is no impatience in it, but the very opposite. 'If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.' If we know that He will surely come, then if He tarry we can wait for Him. The measure of our confidence is ever the measure of our patience. Being sure that He is always 'in the midst of'

Zion, we may be sure that at the right time He will flame out into delivering might, helping her, and that right early. So waiting means watchfulness and patience, both of which have their roots in trust.

Further, we have here set forth not only the nature, but also the object of this waiting. 'Upon Thee, O _my Strength_! will I wait, for G.o.d is _my Defence_.'

The object to which faith is directed, and the ground on which it is based, are both set forth in these two names here applied to G.o.d. The name of the Lord is Strength, therefore I wait on Him in the confident expectation of receiving of His power. The Lord is 'my Defence,'

therefore I wait on Him in the confident expectation of safety. The one name has respect to our condition of feebleness and inadequacy for our tasks, and points to G.o.d as infusing strength into us. The other points to our exposedness to danger and to enemies, and points to G.o.d as casting His shelter around us. The word translated 'defence' is literally 'a high fortress,' and is the same as closes the rapturous acc.u.mulation of the names of his delivering G.o.d, which the Psalmist gives us when he vows to love Jehovah, who has been his Rock, and Fortress, and Deliverer; his G.o.d in whom he will trust, his Buckler, and the Horn of his salvation, and his _High Tower_. The first name speaks of G.o.d dwelling in us, and His strength made perfect in our weakness; the second speaks of our dwelling in G.o.d, and our defencelessness sheltered in Him. 'The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.' As some outnumbered army, unable to make head against its enemies in the open, flees to the shelter of some hill fortress, perched upon a crag, and taking up the drawbridge, cannot be reached by anything that has not wings, so this man, hard pressed by his foes, flees into G.o.d to hide him, and feels secure behind these strong walls.

That is the G.o.d on whom we wait. The recognition of His character as thus mighty and ready to help is the only thing that will evoke our expectant confidence, and His character thus discerned is the only object which our confidence can grasp aright. Trust Him as what He is, and trust Him because of what He is, and see to it that your faith lays hold on the living G.o.d Himself, and on nothing beside.

But waiting on G.o.d is not only the recognition of His character as revealed, but it involves, too, the act of laying hold on all the power and blessing of that character for myself. '_My_ strength, _my_ defence,' says the Psalmist. Think of what He is, and believe that He is that for _you_, else there is no true waiting on Him. Make G.o.d thy very own by claiming thine own portion in His might, by betaking thyself to that strong habitation. We cannot wait on G.o.d in crowds, but one by one, must say, '_My_ strength and _my_ defence.'

And now turn to the second verse of our two texts: 'Unto Thee, O my Strength! will I sing, for G.o.d is my defence and the G.o.d of my mercy.'

Here we catch, as it were, waiting expectation and watchfulness in the very act of pa.s.sing over into possession and praise. For remember the aspect of things has not changed a bit between the first verse of our text and the last. The enemies are all round about David just as they were, 'making a noise like a dog,' as he says, and 'going round about the city.' The evil that was threatening him and making him sad remains entirely unlightened. What has altered? He has altered. And how has he altered? Because his waiting on G.o.d has begun to work an inward change, and he has climbed, as it were, out of the depths of his sorrow up into the sunlight. And so it ever is, my friends! There is deliverance in spirit before there is deliverance in outward fact. If our patient waiting bring, as it certainly will bring, at the right time, an answer in the removal of danger, and the lightening of sorrow, it will bring first the better answer, 'the peace of G.o.d, which pa.s.seth all understanding,' to keep your hearts and minds. That is the highest blessing we have to seek for in our waiting on G.o.d, and that is the blessing which we get as soon as we wait on Him. The outward deliverance may tarry, but ever there come before it, as heralds of its approach, the sense of a lightened burden and the calmness of a strengthened heart. It may be long before the morning breaks, but even while the darkness lasts, a faint air begins to stir among the sleeping leaves, the promise of the dawn, and the first notes of half-awakened birds prelude the full chorus that will hail the sunrise.

It is beautiful, I think, to see how in the compa.s.s of this one little psalm the singer has, as it were, wrought himself clear, and sung himself out of his fears. The stream of his thought, like some mountain torrent, turbid at first, has run itself bright and sparkling. How all the tremor and agitation have gone away, just because he has kept his mind for a few minutes in the presence of the calm thought of G.o.d and His love. The first courses of his psalm, like those of some great building, are laid deep down in the darkness, but the s.h.i.+ning summit is away up there in the sunlight, and G.o.d's glittering glory is sparklingly reflected from the highest point. Whoever begins with, 'Deliver me--I will wait upon Thee,' will pa.s.s very quickly, even before the outward deliverance comes, into--'O my Strength! unto Thee will I sing!' Every song of true trust, though it may begin with a minor, will end in a burst of jubilant gladness. No prayer ought ever to deal with complaints, as we know, without starting with thanksgiving, and, blessed be G.o.d, no prayer need to deal with complaints without ending with thanksgiving. So, all our cries of sorrow, and all our acknowledgments of weakness and need, and all our plaintive beseechings, should be inlaid, as it were, between two layers of brighter and gladder thought, like dull rock between two veins of gold. The prayer that begins with thankfulness, and pa.s.ses on into waiting, even while in sorrow and sore need, will always end in thankfulness, and triumph, and praise.

If we regard this second verse of our text as the expression of the Psalmist's emotion at the moment of its utterance, then we see in it a beautiful ill.u.s.tration of the effect of faithful waiting to turn complaining into praise. If we regard it rather as an expression of his confidence, that 'I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance,' we see in it an ill.u.s.tration of the power of patient waiting to brighten the sure hope of deliverance, and to bring summer into the heart of winter. As resolve, or as prophecy, it is equally a witness of the large reward of quiet waiting for the salvation of the Lord.

In either application of the words their almost precise correspondence with those of the previous verse is far more than a mere poetic ornament, or part of the artistic form of the psalm. It teaches us this happy lesson--that the song of accomplished deliverance, whether on earth, or in the final joy of heaven, will be but a sweeter, fuller repet.i.tion of the cry that went up in trouble from our waiting hearts.

The object to which we shall turn with our thankfulness is He to whom we betook ourselves with our prayers. There will be the same turning of the soul to Him; only instead of wistful waiting in the longing look, joy will light her lamps in our eyes, and thankfulness beam in our faces as we turn to His light. We shall look to Him as of old, and name Him what we used to name Him when we were in weakness and warfare,--our 'Strength' and our 'Defence.' But how different the feelings with which the delivered soul calls Him so, from those with which the sorrowful heart tried to grasp the comfort of the names. Then their reality was a matter of faith, often hard to hold fast. Now it is a matter of memory and experience. 'I called Thee my strength when I was full of weakness; I tried to believe Thou wast my defence when I was full of fear; I thought of Thee as my fortress when I was ringed about with foes; I know Thee now for that which I then trusted that Thou wast. As I waited upon Thee that Thou mightest be gracious, I praise Thee now that Thou hast been more gracious than my hopes.' Blessed are they whose loftiest expectations were less than their grateful memories and their rich experience, and who can take up in their song of praise the names by which they called on G.o.d, and feel that they knew not half their depth, their sweetness, or their power!

But the praise is not merely the waiting transformed. Experience has not only deepened the conception of the meaning of G.o.d's name; it has added a new name. The cry of the suppliant was to G.o.d, his strength and defence; the song of the saved is to the G.o.d who is also the G.o.d of his mercy. The experiences of life have brought out more fully the love and tender pity of G.o.d. While the troubles lasted it was hard to believe that G.o.d was strong enough to brace us against them, and to keep us safe in them; it was harder still to think of them as coming from Him at all; it was hardest to feel that they came from His love. But when they are past, and their meaning is plainer, and we possess their results in the weight of glory which they have wrought out for us, we shall be able to look back on them all as the mercies of the G.o.d of our mercy, even as when a man looks down from the mountain-top upon the mists and the clouds through which he pa.s.sed, and sees them all smitten by the suns.h.i.+ne that gleams upon them from above. That which was thick and damp as he was struggling through it, is irradiated into rosy beauty; the retrospective and downward glance confirms and surpa.s.ses all that faith dimly discerned, and found it hard to believe. Whilst we are fighting here, brethren! let us say, 'I will wait for Thee,' and then yonder we shall, with deeper knowledge of the love that was in all our sorrows, sing unto Him who was our strength in earth's weakness, our defence in earth's dangers, and is for ever more the 'G.o.d of our mercy,' amidst the large and undeserved favours of heaven.

SILENCE TO G.o.d

'Truly my soul waiteth upon G.o.d.... 5. My soul, wait thou only upon G.o.d.'

PSALM lxii. 1, 5.

We have here two corresponding clauses, each beginning a section of the psalm. They resemble each other even more closely than appears from the English version, for the 'truly' of the first, and the 'only' of the second clause, are the same word; and in each case it stands in the same place, namely, at the beginning. So, word for word, the two answer to each other. The difference is, that the one expresses the Psalmist's patient stillness of submission, and the other is his self-encouragement to that very att.i.tude and disposition which he has just professed to be his. In the one he speaks of, in the other to, his soul. He stirs himself up to renew and continue the faith and resignation which he has, and so he sets before us both the temper which we should have, and the effort which we should make to prolong and deepen it, if it be ours. Let us look at these two points then--the expression of waiting, and the self-exhortation to waiting.

'Truly my soul waiteth upon G.o.d.' It is difficult to say whether the opening word is better rendered 'truly,' as here, or 'only,' as in the other clause. Either meaning is allowable and appropriate. If, with our version, we adopt the former, we may compare with this text the opening of another psalm (lxxiii.), 'Truly G.o.d is good to Israel,' and there, as here, we may see in that vehement affirmation a trace of the struggle through which it had been won. The Psalmist bursts into song with a word, which tells us plainly enough how much had to be quieted in him before he came to that quiet waiting, just as in the other psalm he pours out first the glad, firm certainty which he had reached, and then recounts the weary seas of doubt and bewilderment through which he had waded to reach it. That one word is the record of conflict and the trophy of victory, the sign of the blessed effect of effort and struggle in a truth more firmly held, and in a submission more perfectly practised. It is as if he had said, 'Yes! in spite of all its waywardness and fears, and self-willed struggles, my soul waits upon G.o.d. I have overcome these, and now there is peace within.'

It is to be further observed that literally the words run, 'My soul is silence unto G.o.d.' That forcible form of expression describes the completeness of the Psalmist's unmurmuring submission and quiet faith.

His whole being is one great stillness, broken by no clamorous pa.s.sions, by no loud-voiced desires, by no remonstrating reluctance. There is a similar phrase in another psalm (cix. 4), which may help to ill.u.s.trate this: 'For my love they are my adversaries, but I am prayer'--his soul is all one supplication. The enemies' wrath awakens no flush of pa.s.sion on his cheek, or ripple of vengeance in his heart. He meets it all with prayer. Wrapped in devotion and heedless of their rage, he is like Stephen, when he kneeled down among his yelling murderers, and cried with a loud voice, 'Lord! lay not this sin to their charge.' So here we have the strongest expression of the perfect consent of the whole inward nature in submission and quietness of confidence before G.o.d.

That silence is first a silence of the will. The plain meaning of this phrase is resignation; and resignation is just a silent will. Before the throne of the Great King, His servants are to stand like those long rows of attendants we see on the walls of Eastern temples, silent, with folded arms, straining their ears to hear, and bracing their muscles to execute his whispered commands, or even his gesture and his glance. A man's will should be an echo, not a voice; the echo of G.o.d, not the voice of self. It should be silent, as some sweet instrument is silent till the owner's hand touches the keys. Like the boy-prophet in the hush of the sanctuary, below the quivering light of the dying lamps, we should wait till the awful voice calls, and then answer, 'Speak, Lord!

for Thy servant heareth.' Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills antic.i.p.ate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which G.o.d speaks.

Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till G.o.d's hand gives the impulse and direction.

Such a silent will is a strong will. It is no feeble pa.s.siveness, no dead indifference, no impossible abnegation that G.o.d requires, when He requires us to put our wills in accord with His. They are not slain, but vivified, by such surrender; and the true secret of strength lies in submission. The secret of blessedness is there, too, for our sorrows come because there is discord between our circ.u.mstances and our wills, and the measure in which these are in harmony with G.o.d is the measure in which we shall feel that all things are blessings to be received with thanksgiving. But if we will take our own way, and let our own wills speak before G.o.d speaks, or otherwise than G.o.d speaks, nothing can come of that but what always has come of it--blunders, sins, misery, and manifold ruin.

We must keep our _hearts_ silent too. The sweet voices of pleading affections, the loud cry of desires and instincts that roar for their food like beasts of prey, the querulous complaints of disappointed hopes, the groans and sobs of black-robed sorrows, the loud hubbub and Babel, like the noise of a great city, that every man carries within, must be stifled and coerced into silence. We have to take the animal in us by the throat, and sternly say, 'Lie down there and be quiet.' We have to silence tastes and inclinations. We have to stop our ears to the noises around, however sweet the songs, and to close many an avenue through which the world's music might steal in. He cannot say, 'My soul is silent unto G.o.d,' whose whole being is buzzing with vanities and noisy with the din of the market-place. Unless we have something, at least, of that great stillness, our hearts will have no peace, and our religion no reality.

There must be the silence of the _mind_, as well as of the heart and will. We must not have our thoughts ever occupied with other things, but must cultivate the habit of detaching them from earth, and keeping our minds still before G.o.d, that He may pour His light into them. Surely if ever any generation needed the preaching--'Be still and let G.o.d speak'--we need it. Even religious men are so busy with spreading or defending Christianity, that they have little time, and many of them less inclination, for quiet meditation and still communion with G.o.d.

Newspapers, and books, and practical philanthropy, and Christian effort, and business, and amus.e.m.e.nt, so crowd into our lives now, that it needs some resolution and some planning to get a clear s.p.a.ce where we can be quiet, and look at G.o.d.

But the old law for a n.o.ble and devout life is not altered by reason of any new circ.u.mstances. It still remains true that a mind silently waiting before G.o.d is the condition without which such a life is impossible. As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by his s.h.i.+ning, so must we, if we would know the joy of G.o.d, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warms, whose truth makes fair, our whole being. G.o.d speaks for the most part in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling noises, His voice is little likely to be heard. As in some kinds of deafness, a perpetual noise in the head prevents hearing any other sounds, the rush of our own fevered blood, and the throbbing of our own nerves, hinder our catching His tones. It is the calm lake which mirrors the sun, the least catspaw wrinkling the surface wipes out all the reflected glories of the heavens. If we would mirror G.o.d our souls must be calm. If we would hear G.o.d our souls must be silence.

Alas, how far from this is our daily life! Who among us dare to take these words as the expression of our own experience? Is not the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, a truer emblem of our restless, labouring souls than the calm lake? Put your own selves by the side of this Psalmist, and honestly measure the contrast.

It is like the difference between some crowded market-place all full of noisy traffickers, ringing with shouts, blazing in suns.h.i.+ne, and the interior of the quiet cathedral that looks down on it all, where are coolness and subdued light, and silence and solitude. 'Come, My people!

enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee.' 'Commune with your own heart and be still.' 'In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.'

This man's profession of utter resignation is perhaps too high for us; but we can make his _self-exhortation_ our own. 'My soul! wait thou only upon G.o.d.' Perfect as he ventures to declare his silence towards G.o.d, he yet feels that he has to stir himself up to the effort which is needed to preserve it in its purity. Just because he can say, 'My soul waits,'

therefore he bids his soul wait.

I need not dwell upon that self-stimulating as involving the great mystery of our personality, whereby a man exalts himself above himself, and controls, and guides, and speaks to his soul. But a few words may be given to that thought ill.u.s.trated here, of the necessity for conscious effort and self-encouragement, in order to the preservation of the highest religious emotion.

We are sometimes apt to forget that no holy thoughts or feelings are in their own nature permanent, and the illusion that they are so, often tends to accelerate their fading. It is no wonder if we in our selectest hours of 'high communion with the living G.o.d' should feel as if that lofty experience would last by virtue of its own sweetness, and need no effort of ours to retain it. But it is not so. All emotion tends to exhaustion, as surely as a pendulum to rest, or as an Eastern torrent to dry up. All our flames burn to their extinction. There is but one fire that blazes and is not consumed. Action is the destruction of tissue.

Life reaches its term in death. Joy and sorrow, and hope and fear, cannot be continuous. They must needs wear themselves out and fade into a grey uniformity like mountain summits when the sun has left them.

Our religious experience too will have its tides, and even those high and pure emotions and dispositions that bind us to G.o.d can only be preserved by continual effort. Their existence is no guarantee of their permanence, rather is it a guarantee of their transitoriness, unless we earnestly stir up ourselves to their renewal. Like the emotions kindled by lower objects, they perish while they glow, and there must be a continual recurrence to the one Source of light and heat if the brilliancy is to be preserved.

Nor is it only from within that their continuance is menaced. Outward forces are sure to tell upon them The constant wash of the sea of life undermines the cliffs and wastes the coasts. The tear and wear of external occupations is ever acting upon our religious life. Travellers tell us that the constant friction of the sand on Egyptian hieroglyphs removes every trace of colour, and even effaces the deep-cut characters from basalt rocks. So the unceasing attrition of mult.i.tudinous trifles will take all the bloom off your religion, and efface the name of the King cut on the tables of your hearts, if you do not counteract them by constant earnest effort. Our devotion, our faith, our love are only preserved by being constantly renewed.