retires up into a mountain apart to pray, and continues all night in prayer to God. What a lesson! The crush and press dismissed; even the closest and most intimate companions avoided, and a quiet time secured for we know not what prayers to the co-equal Father.
Ah, that we more entirely followed His example: how, if our prayers had more leisure secured for them, were more strictly protected from intrusion and disturbance, more lonely—how they would aid us to breathe the air of the mountain, to keep ever before us its wider view, even when we had descended to mix again with life’s thronging necessities in the plain. Even in our room, when the door is closed upon us (for I am speaking here of private prayer, not of public worship),—even thus, we are not necessarily upon the mountain, speaking through the stars to God. The larger crowd may have been satisfied and dismissed, but we have taken with us into our retirement some few that were more intimate and close to our heart, and we have not been careful enough to be alone. The preparation of dismissing the multitude, and even the disciples, then the ascent of the mountain, by the winding path of meditation, and then the unrestricted view, the sky nearest, indeed touching us, and earth spread out far below, and the soul left to calm, leisure, unharassed communion with God; all these are necessary; all these we learn from the example of that mild yet awful Being who is God manifest in the flesh. Let us arm ourselves with the same mind.
But my thoughts, returning to that morning walk which introduced this essay, remind me that there is one suggestive point in it which deserves a little attention. It is the time of day at which the ascent was made. Early prayer, while the world’s cares are asleep, and the road lies hushed and still, not thronged with jostling passengers, nor stunned with noisy vehicles—this is that, which of all our private devotions, most aids in consecrating life to God. Descending from that early hour of high communion, to take our part in the awakening toil and interest of earth, it is then easier to give their proper proportion to the events and employments of the day. Be it a joy or a sorrow, be it a loss or a gain, it takes its just place in the grand scheme of things, and does not monopolise the heart, nor obscure the vision; far less will the mere straws in the path, or the butterflies that dance by, catch and retain the absorbed regard of the heirs of immortality. The trifling irritations, the mean jealousies, the little rankling grudges, the petty quarrels, also the transitory enjoyments and short-lived profits, of each day’s life, will not greatly, nor for long, move the heart that retains its memory of that far-stretching Morning view. And it will be less difficult to rescue life from its proneness to become ignoble, and to free ourselves from the narrowing, stunting, dwarfing process which it often is, but which it was never intended to be. Yet, but for these mountain-pauses, but for these retirements from the over-familiarity and intrusiveness of trifles, how shall we avoid the danger of habitually, and soon, entirely bounding our view and mode of thought by the hedges which shut in our eyes and hearts, down in the valley of our ordinary employments?
And how much the saints of God have valued this early hour of prayer! It has been called the Dew which the later hours have irretrievably dried up; the Manna which has vanished when the sun has gained strength. And there is no doubt in my mind that the quality of the spiritual life greatly depends upon the jealous guarding of this priceless hour, which so easily and quickly escapes us. At that hour Jordan stands in a heap, and leaves us a clear passage heavenward, but the rapid stream of cares, businesses, anxieties, worries, returns to its strength as the morning appeareth, and if we would cross at all, it must be during a distracting and wearisome buffeting with those crowding waters.
Let me say here how valuable appear to me to be the retreats that are being established in many parts of England. Who does not know how the routine of little cares, and small wearing anxieties, and petty, yet necessary employments, are apt to eat out the spirituality from even the clergyman’s life, especially if he be placed in a sphere which presents labour after which he is ever toiling, but which he can never overtake? They seem to me, at least, formed upon the very model of our Lord’s custom, and at once to commend themselves to any unprejudiced mind, or even any prejudiced mind that has preserved the power of calm and fair thought. I will let Cowper continue and conclude this train of musing for me:
“Not that I mean to approve, or would enforce
A superstitious and monastic course;
Truth is not local, God alike pervades
And fills the world of traffic and the shades,
And may be feared amid the busiest scenes,
Or scorned where business never intervenes.
But ’tis not easy, with a mind like ours,
Conscious of weakness in its noblest powers,
And in a world, where, other ills apart,
The roving eye misleads the careless heart,
To limit thought, by nature prone to stray
Wherever freakish fancy points the way;
To bid the pleadings of self-love be still,
Resign our own, and seek our Teacher’s will;
To spread the page of Scripture, and compare
Our conduct with the laws engraven there;
To measure all that passes in the breast,
Faithfully, fairly, by that sacred test;
To dive into the secret deeps within,
To spare no passion and no favourite sin,
And search the themes, important above all,
Ourselves, and our recovery from our fall,
—But leisure, silence, and a mind released
From anxious thoughts how wealth may be increased;
How to secure, in some propitious hour,
The point of interest, or the post of power;
A soul serene, and equally retired
From objects too much dreaded or desired,
Safe from the clamours of perverse dispute,—
At least are friendly to the great pursuit.”
To complete the ideal of a mountain, at least in a picture, it seems necessary to see a lake lying at its foot. I have such a picture in my mind’s eye, besides that of Scott’s,
“—On yonder liquid lawn,
In hues of bright reflection drawn,
Distinct the shaggy mountains lie,
Distinct the rocks, distinct the sky.”
