CHAPTER XIV.

THE SOUL IN SILENCE.

"There stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren."-GENESIS xlv. 1.

"With men we only have to talk, but with God we learn to be silent."-ANTONIO DE GUevara.

"And Power was in him in the night

Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone,

But in the darkness and the cloud,
As over Sinai's peaks of old."

TENNYSON.

Ir is always in silence that God is known. It is the crowd, the noise, the many voices of the world that hinder men from knowing, hearing, seeing, feeling God. It is part of the business of the world to multiply and intensify the din and hurry of life, that the soul may never be silent and alone with. God. Notice some of its common phrases, for there is much force and meaning in common words. Thus we hear of "diversions," "pastimes," and such like. From what do they "divert" the mind very often, but from God? Is not their intention and object to "pass away the time" that might otherwise be

unbearable in the dreaded presence of God? See, then, the reason that "the world" is so terribly denounced by our Lord. Gross open sin has its reactions; there are dismal silences after it of misery and remorse, and in those silences the merciful One draws near to the soul, and whispers words of remonstrance, and tender pleas, and most loving offers of pardon, and often the sin-laden soul yields; deep answers to deep, the love of the Crucified kindles a response of love in the soul for whom He bled and died, the smoking flax kindles up into a bright flame, in the silence the sinner and the Saviour are sensibly brought face to face; and whenever this happens there is but one result-the sinner loathes and confesses his sin, and cries for pardon and cleansing, and the Saviour at once responds, "I will; be thou clean. Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace;" and that soul passes from death into life.

But where is there opportunity for this in the soul that is given up to worldliness? Its sins are not crying sins that result in remorseful bitterness. It does but skim the surface of wickedness; its guilt never frightens it by its intensity, it has not broken with God; diplomatic relations, courtly courtesies, are still maintained; the one thing that it dreads is solitude. For solitude there cannot ever really be, because when the soul is alone, the presence of God is felt in the silence. Hence the fevered thirst for diversions, distractions, pastimes, novelties, companions-anything to banish solitude, any voice to break that hated silence; for in silence God speaks,

in silence His awful Face comes up; anything to put off the meeting with God, anything but "that torment before the time." Alas! that it ever should be so. Never has there been, never can there be a lost soul, but that soul has perished by its own act and choice. God, Who created that soul, died to redeem it from sin and Hell. God has pleaded with that soul in many silences, silences that it could not escape in spite of all its contrivances.

But turn we gladly from these dreadful thoughts to the happy side of this great truth. God manifests Himself in silence. See it in creation. Created things are full of sound, but the Creator is silent. Men listen and listen; they hear nature's many voices, but they hear no voice of God; and so some hard souls turn round and proclaim their discovery by their small wisdom, that there is no God, but only nature. See it in His dealings with men. How often do we read of His revelation of Himself in the silent night!* The Nativity was at night; the Resurrection was at night; the great Advent, it would seem, will be at night. How silent is the course of His providence, even with the clues given us in Scripture! How hard to trace out His path when He goes with noiseless footsteps through history! But all this is little to us compared with His dealings with individual souls in the same wonderful silence.

"It is literally true that darkness reveals God. Every morning God draws the curtain of light across His eternity; we look down upon earth instead of up to heaven."-F. W. Robertson.

No one doubts that Joseph is a type of Christ; in nothing is he more so than in that significant record, "There stood no man with him while Joseph made himself known to his brethren." Egypt and its idols were shut out; Pharaoh and his pomp; officers of state; obsequious servants; men of business-" he caused every man to go out from him;" and then in the silence he spoke in his own Hebrew tongue, with no interpreter then, and made himself known to his brethren. What is this most plainly and evidently but a parable of God and the soul? What is prayer but a speaking to God in silence? Silence is the height of worship. Conversion is silencing the world, silencing the tumult of sin, silencing the clamour of the passions. Growth in grace and holiness is but silencing human interests, human love, human pleasures. What is God's purpose in sickness but to create a silence in the soul in which He may make Himself known? So with sorrows, losses, deaths, calumny, persecution: they make a solitude round th soul; "there stands no man with us," but God stands with us, and it is far better.

And what are all these things but preparations for, rehearsals before that great last reality, death? At that hour the soul is alone, and a great silence reigns; one by one all persons and things have been severed from the soul; one by one the senses fail, and all communion with the world and with creatures is cut off; most familiar things, most necessary things, faces, sounds, acts, all are not; the soul lives,

but lives in silence; the silence deepens and deepens till it becomes absolutely perfect, and then death has come, and the soul finds itself sensibly face to face with God. This is the end of all human life. This is before each one of us; nothing can prevent our going through it, and it may come at any time, for death may come at any time. Let us prepare ourselves for it. To be with God is the soul's destiny, the soul's only rest and joy; and it is only in silences that this can be anticipated and prepared for in this world. The regenerate soul knows this. Even blind human instinct, feeling after God, taught this. The lonely mountain-top; the silent watches of the night; the dim quiet of the adytum of temples, shut in by massive walls, approached by long avenues gradually closing in the worshipperthere was a deep truth underlying all these accessories of mere human systems. It was a true instinct, if it was not something more, and the clear revelation of truth by the Son of God has not contradicted the old theory of worship and communion with God, but confirmed it: "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret." So with Holy Communion, so with Lent, so with all the ordinances of the Church; they have this one end in view, to bring God and the soul together, to make a silence about us for a little while, in the midst of which God may make Himself known to us.

O golden silences, most precious to God-loving souls! the silence of the Church, where Christ Him