Prolonged commune with God.
Prolonged commune with God is the soul's truest strengthening, and sweetest refreshment. Without it our spirits languish—we grow weary and faint—worldliness creeps upon us—our thoughts and discourse become "of the earth, earthy"—we have no life or liveliness in ourselves, and can impart none to others. Moses' commune was abnormal, extraordinary, inimitable by us in its main features—its duration, locality, nearness of access, and completeness of isolation. But it may serve as a pattern to us in many respects, nevertheless.
I. IN THE PREPARATION FOR IT. Here we note
II. IN THE PLACE OF IT. A holy place—"the mount of God"—a place sacred from common uses—into which worldly thoughts could scarcely penetrate. We, who have no Sinai, have at any rate our churches, and other sacred buildings—some of them always open, not merely for public worship, but for private prayer and meditation—inviting us to enter in and draw nigh to God. In our houses we have, or may easily have, our oratories—spots reserved for prayer and praise, and sacred thought—sanctuaries in the desert of life—places in which all that we see will remind us of heavenly things.
III. IN THE SECLUSION OF IT. The world was shut out. Relations, elders, people, left below in the plain—left with strict injunctions to remain—"Tarry ye here." Even the faithful Joshua parted from—and "the cloud" entered. The cloud—the awful cloud—"thick darkness" (Exodus 20:21); yet within the darkness a marvellous light. Such seclusion we cannot obtain—but we may obtain an approach to it. We may "enter our closet, and shut to the door" (Matthew 6:6), and let it be known that we would be undisturbed; or we may seek the solitude of a church at an hour when there is no public service, and no one present who will meddle with us; or we may, even at the present day, find solitudes in nature, deep woods, or lone mountain tops, or unfrequented glens, where we may feel ourselves secure from intrusion, and stand face to face with God, and know him near, and pour out our hearts before him. A modern poet, in one of his better moments, says—
"My altars are the mountains, and the ocean,
Earth, air, sea—all that springs from the Great Whole,
Who hath produced, and will receive the soul"—
and truly on any lone spot an altar may be raised, and worship offered, as acceptable to God as any that is addressed to him "in pillared fanes, 'neath fretted roofs, 'mid storied glass or sculptured monuments." Even in the whirl and bustle of a great city, solitude is not very far from us. Half an hour's journey by steamer or rail, and ten minutes' walk, may take us into still woods, or shady lanes, or on to open heaths, where we shall not see a fellow creature or hear a sound reminding us of man.
IV. IN THE CONTINUANCE OF IT. "Forty days and forty nights!" As we cannot have the complete seclusion which Moses enjoyed, so neither can we look for such sustained commune as his. We must eat and drink—we can rarely leave our worldly work to others—family claims, correspondence, business imperatively require our attention—six weeks' interruption of communication between ourselves and the outer world would, in most cases, break or tangle all the threads of which our life is composed. But still some prolonged periods of religious contemplation and commune between the soul and God are needed, if the soul is to retain the vigour of its life, or its ability to be of service to others. With this view religious "retreats" have been devised, lasting sometimes a week or ten days. Where men's duties allow of it, they may be well worth a trial. The weary spirit may derive more refreshment from them than from the ordinary "holiday." The heart may be purified, the aspirations raised, the insight into doctrinal truth augmented, above all, the love of God so intensified in the soul, by the suspension of all secular thought and the devotion of the whole mind to religion and worship, during the three, or five, or seven, or ten days of a "retreat," as would scarcely be possible, under the present conditions of our life, in any other way.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR