I seem to hear a deep sigh from the heart of many a true servant of God, “faint yet pursuing,” whose soul is athirst for the Living God and for the calm and the silence in which he may hear the Divine voice, but who sees no way of escape from the pressing claims of earthly duty. The case of such (which has also been my own) calls forth my deepest sympathy. “With God all things are possible.” Cease from conflict with circumstances, from this “toiling in rowing,” from this breathless swimming against the tide. Put the matter into His hands. “There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour” at His command; silence even of the angelic voices. He can create a silence around you, and trace a clear path for your feet to enter into the Holy of Holies, where you shall find Him and hear His voice.
But even then—perhaps you tell me—when the pressure of earthly claims is lightened, and a season is granted in which nothing from without holds you back, and you enter alone into His presence, even then it is found impossible to concentrate the mind, to shake off outward anxieties and the intrusion of restless thoughts concerning the work of your life. The well by which you rest is deep and full, but you have “nothing to draw with.” The opportunity is there, but the soul is dry, and the brain inexpressibly wearied. Again, “with God all things are possible,” and “all things are possible to him that believeth.” Put this also into His hands—this incapacity for rest, even when the hour of rest is granted. He knows the deep desire of your heart to draw near to Him. Your desire for communion with Him is prompted and created by His own desire to draw near to you, to grant you the anointed eyes of a humble seer, and to impart to you His own deep secrets of love.
But to many this thirst of the soul is unknown, or once known is suffered to rest unslaked. Many continue to postpone and to subordinate the claims of the spiritual life to the constantly pressing claims (sacred claims also) of their fellow creatures, and of the good works in which they are engaged. At the last, when earth’s claims are fading and the spirit is called into the presence of God, conscience will speak, and the poor soul may reproach itself in the spirit of the lament which Shakespeare put into the mouth of Wolsey in his last moments: “O Cromwell, Cromwell! had I but served my God with half the zeal that I have served my king!” In the clearer light of eternity all things assume their right proportion. We have worked, we have slaved for duty, we have worn ourselves out in the service of humanity. That is good, that is noble; yet an inward voice will tell us in some silent hour that we should have worked better and served humanity better had we possessed the moral force to withdraw at times from life’s crowded avenues, had we firmly refused some of the thousand claims which pressed upon us in order that our speech and our action might have possessed more of the Divine, more of “spirit and of life.”
[CHAPTER XVII.]
THE STORM-BELL.
The Storm-Bell rings,—the Trumpet blows;
I know the word and countersign;
Wherever Freedom’s vanguard goes,
Where stand or fall her friends or foes,
I know the place that should be mine.—Whittier.