Practical religion: a help for the common days

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — The Sweet Odor of Prayer 9

II. — The Blessing of Quietness 19

I. The Sweet Odor Of Prayer

" When I look from my window at night, And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars, Among the majestic is standing Sandolphon, the angel, expanding His pinions in nebulous bars."

Longfellow.

rpRUE prayer is fragrant to God. This was "** taught in the Old Testament in one of those emblem-lessons which, when read in the light of the gospel, mean so much. The golden incensealtar was the altar of prayer, just as the altar of burnt-offering was the altar of atonement and consecration. So every believing, loving heart is now a golden altar from which rise up to God sweet odors, bathing his very throne in fragrance. In Saint John's Apocalyptic visions we find again the emblem of incense as a feature of the heavenly state. The redeemed are represented as having in their hands " golden vials, full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." The meaning is not that the saints in glory offer up prayers to God. Rather, the thought seems to be that earth's supplications rise up into heaven as sweet incense — that while humble believers in this world are engaged in offering up prayers and supplications holy odors are wafted up before God. The picture seems designed to show us the heaven-side of earth's true worship — how our hearts' breathings of desire appear within the veil.

For one thing, it shows that the prayers of believers are not lost. Some people tell us there is no ear to hear when we speak our words of request and desire — that our petitions merely float off into the air, and that is the end of them. But here we get a glimpse inside heaven, and find our prayers caught and preserved in golden bowls. The thought is very beautiful.

In one of the psalms there is a similar hint regarding the tears of God's people. " Put thou my tears into thy bottle," cries David. In ancient times tear-bottles were sometimes used. When a man was in some sore distress, his friends would visit him, and, as he wept, would gather his tears and put them in a bottle, preserving them as sacred memorials of the event. Something like this appears to have been in David's thought when, in sore distress, he made the prayer, " Put thou my tears into thy bottle." The words suggest the precious truth that God does indeed take notice of all our sorrows, and that he treasures up the remembrance of our griefs. Our very tears he gathers, and as it were puts them in bottles, that they may not be lost or forgotten. This is one of those incidental allusions which show us how deeply God loves us and how tender is his care.

The picture of the golden bowls in heaven containing earth's prayers shows us like precious regard in the divine heart for the desires and supplications which believing ones put up to God. As they rise in holy breathings or in earnest cries he receives them — every sigh, every yearning, every pleading, every intercession of love, every heart-hunger — and puts them all into golden bowls, that none of them may be lost. Often our prayers may seem to remain long unanswered, for some blessings are so rich that they cannot be prepared for us in a day, but we may be sure that they are not lost nor forgotten. They are sacredly treasured and are always before God, and in due time they will receive gracious and wise answer.

The picture of the incense in the golden bowls in heaven shows, also, that the prayers of believers are t very precious in God's sight. Burning incense made a most grateful and delicious perfume. Frequently in the Scriptures acceptable prayer is described as producing before God a sweet odor. "The Lord smelled a sweet savor" is the Bible way of saying that God was pleased with the worship rendered to him. There is an exquisite beauty in the thought that true prayer is fragrance to God as it rises from the golden altars of believing, loving hearts. The pleadings and supplications of his people on the earth are w r afted up to him from lowly homes, from humble sanctuaries, from stately cathedrals, from sick-rooms and from the darkened chambers of sorrow as the breath of flowers is wafted to us from rich gardens and fragrant fields.

" There was a fitness, in the nature of things," says Dr. MacMillan, in a sermon on fragrance, " in incense being regarded as embodied prayer. Perfume is the breath of flowers, the sweetest expression of their inmost being, an exhalation of their very life. It is a sign of perfect purity, health and vigor, it is a symptom of full and joyous existence — for disease and decay and death yield, not pleasant but revolting odors — and, as such, fragrance is in nature what prayer is in the human world. Prayer is the breath of life, the expression of the souFs best, holiest and heavenliest aspirations, the symptom and token of its spiritual health. The natural counterparts of the prayers that rise from the closet and the sanctuary are to be found in the delicious breathings, sweetening all the air, from gardens of flowers, from clover-crofts or thymy hillsides or dim pine woods, and which seem to be grateful, unconscious acknowledgments from the heart of Nature for the timely blessings of the great world-covenant, dew to refresh and sunshine to quicken."

This thought is very beautiful — that the fragance which rises from garden, field and wood is earth's prayer to God — but still more beautiful is the thought that true prayer is itself fragrance to God, that he delights in it as we delight in the perfume of sweet flowers.

There is also rich instruction for us concerning prayer in the way the incense was prepared and offered. For one thing, the ingredients for the incense were divinely prescribed : " The Lord said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum ; these sweet spices with pure frankincense : of each shall there be a like weight : and thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy." The priest might not prepare any sort of mixture he pleased, but must use precisely what God had commanded. Any humanly-devised compound was an abomination. In like manner are there divine instructions concerning the elements that must mingle in acceptable prayer. It must be the prayer of faith. There must be penitence and contrition in it. It must contain thanksgiving and submission. It must be the kind of prayer that God has commanded or it will not rise to heaven as sweet incense.

The incense did not give forth its perfume until it was burning, and the only fire allowed to be used in kindling it was holy fire from the altar of burnt-offering. Mere cold words do not make prayer. There can be no incense-prayer without fire — the fire of love ; and the fire must be kindled in the heart by coals from the altar of Calvary, by the love of God shed abroad by the Holy Spirit.

There is another rich suggestion concerning the incense as used in the ancient service. At the same time that the incense was burning on the golden altar within the sacrifice of atonement was burning on the altar of burnt-offering in the court without. The fire was carried from the sacrificial altar to kindle the incense. No other fire was permitted. The incense-odor would have been an abomination to God had not the smoke of the burnt-offering mingled and ascended with it. The teaching is that there will be no sweet savor in our prayers, no acceptableness before God, unless they are cleansed by the merits of Christ's atonement. We can approach God only in the precious name of Jesus Christ and in dependence on his sacrifice for us. There is another Apocalyptic picture which has also an interesting suggestion : " Another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer ; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar." The teaching is that the prayers of believers, even of the holiest saints, are not in themselves acceptable to God. At the best they are imperfect and defiled, because they come from imperfect and defiled hearts. The " much incense " that was added to the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar was nothing less than the odors of the precious sacrifice and everavailing intercession of Christ, "who hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savor."

If we would pray acceptably, it must be, therefore, in dependence on Jesus Christ, our High Priest in heaven, who shall take the petitions from our stained and unholy lips, cleanse them of their sin and fault and defilement, and then add to them the pure incense of his own holy offering and intercession and present them to the Father. That is what praying in the name of Christ means. Praying thus, our prayers are sweet odors to God. The thoughts and words that leave our hearts and lips spotted and unholy, without any beauty or sweetness, when they come up before God have become precious perfumes.

The old Talmudic legend of Sandolphon, the angel of prayer, suggests a like wonderful transformation as taking place in the human petitions that go up from earth's lowly places and from unholy lips to heaven's gate. Longfellow has wrought the beautiful legend into verse, telling of Sandolphon, the angel of prayer —

"How erect at the outermost gates Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light,

That, crowded with angels unnumbered, By Jacob was seen as he slumbered Alone in the desert at night."

Then the poet goes on to tell how serene in the rapturous throng, unmoved among the other angels,

"the deathless Sandolphon stands listening breathless To sounds that ascend from below —

"From the spirits on earth that adore, From the souls that entreat and implore

In the fervor and passion of prayer ; From the hearts that are broken with losses, And weary with dragging the crosses

Too heavy for mortals to bear.

"And he gathers the prayers as he stands, And they change into flowers in his hands —

Into garlands of purple and red ; And beneath the great arch of the portal, Through the streets of the City Immortal,

Is wafted the fragrance they shed."

This old rabbinical legend, though but a legend, surely does not exaggerate the truth about the acceptableness of prayer. Earth's sighs of faith and love and heart-huuger, though without beauty or sweetness or worthiness in themselves, float upward and are caught by the listening Intercessor, and in his holy, radiant hands, bearing yet the nailmarks, are transformed into lovely and fragrant flowers, and pour their perfume throughout all heaven's glorious mansions.

II. The Blessing Of Quietness

"Drop Thy still dews of quietness Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of thy peace."

Whittier.

QUIETNESS, like mercy, is twice blessed: it blesseth him that is quiet, and it blesseth the man's friends and neighbors. Talk is good in its way. " There is a time to speak," but there is also " a time to be silent," and in silence many of life's sweetest benedictions come.

An Italian proverb says, " He that speaks doth sow ; he that holds his peace doth reap." We all know the other saying which rates speech as silver and silence as gold. There are in the Scriptures, too, many strong persuasives to quietness and many exhortations against noise. It was prophesied of the Christ: "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street." As we read the Gospels we see that our Lord's whole life was a fulfillment of this ancient prophecy. He made no noise in the world. He did his work without excitement, without parade, without confusion. He wrought as the light works — silently, yet pervasively and with resistless energy.

Quietness is urged, too, on Christ's followers. "Study to be quiet," writes an apostle. " Busybodies " the same apostle exhorts that " with quietness they work." Prayers are to be made for rulers "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life." Another apostle, writing to Christian women, speaks of their true adornment as being " the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." Solomon rates quietness in a home far above the best of luxuries :

"Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, Than an house full of feasting with strife."

A prophet declares the secret of power in these words : " In quietness and confidence shall be your strength ;" and likewise says, " The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." It is set down also as one of the blessings of God's people that they shall dwell in "quiet resting-places."

These are but a few of very many scriptural words concerning quietness, but they are enough to indicate several lessons that we may profitably consider.

We should be quiet toward God. The expression " Rest in the Lord," in one of the Psalms, is in the margin " Be silent to the Lord." We are not to speak back to God when he speaks to us. We are not to reason with him or dispute with him, but are to bow in silent and loving acquiescence before him : " Be still, and know that I am God." It is in those providences which cut sorely into our lives and require sacrifice and loss on our part that we are specially called to this duty. There is a pathetic illustration of silence to God in the case of Aaron when his sons had offered strange fire, and had died before the Lord for their disobedience and sacrilege. The record says, "And Aaron held his peace." He even made no natural human outcry of grief. He accepted the terrible penalty as unquestionably just, and bowed in the acquiescence of faith.

This silence to God should be our attitude in all times of trial when God's ways with us are bitter and painful. Why should w r e complain at anything that our Father may do ? We have no right to utter a word of murmuring, for he is our sovereign Lord, and our simple duty is instant, unquestioning submission. Then we have no reason to complain, for we know that all God's dealings with us are in loving wisdom. His will is always best for us, whatever sacrifice or suffering it may cost.

"Thou layest thy hand on the fluttering heart,

And sayest, " Be still !"

The silence and shadow are only a part

Of thy sweet will; Thy presence is with me, and where thou art

I fear no ill."

We should train ourselves to be quiet also toward men. There are times when we should speak and when words are mighty and full of blessing. Universal dumbness would not be a boon to the world. Among the most beneficent of God's gifts to us is the power of speech. And we are to use our tongues. There are some people who are altogether too quiet in certain directions and toward certain persons. There is no place where good words are more fitting than between husband and wife, yet there are husbands and wives who pass weeks and months together in almost unbroken silence. They will travel long journeys side by side in the railway-car, and utter scarcely a word in the whole distance. They will walk to and from church, and neither will speak. In the home-life they will pass whole days with nothing more in the form of speech between them than an indifferent remark about the weather, a formal inquiry and a monosyllabic answer.

"According to Milton, Eve kept silence in Eden to hear her husband talk," said a gentleman to a lady, adding in a melancholy tone, "Alas ! there have been no Eves since !" — " Because," quickly retorted the lady, "there have been no husbands worth listening to." Perhaps the retort was just. Husbands certainly ought to have something to say when they come into their homes from the busy world outside. They are usually genial enough in the circles of business or politics or literature, and are able to talk so as to interest others. Ought they not to seek to be as genial in their own homes, especially toward their own wives? Most women, too, are able to talk in general society. Why, then, should a wife fall into such a mood of silence the moment she and her husband are alone ? It was Franklin who wisely said, "As we must account for every idle word, so must we for every idle silence." We must not forget that sileuce may be sadly overdone, especially in homes.

There are other silences that are also to be deplored. People keep in their hearts unspoken the kindly words they might utter — ought to utter — in the ears of the weary, the soul-hungry and the sorrowing about them. The ministry of good words is one of wondrous power, yet many of us are wretched misers with our gold and silver coin of speech. Is any miserliness so mean? Ofttimes we allow hearts to starve close beside us, though in our very hands we have abundance to feed them. One who attends the funeral of any ordinary man and listens to what his neighbors have to say about him as they stand by his coffin will hear enough kind words spoken to have brightened whole years of his life. But how was it when the man was living, toiling and struggling among these very people? Ah! they were not so faithful then with their grateful, appreciative words. They were too quiet toward him then. Silence was overdone.

Quietness is carried too far when it makes us disloyal to the hearts that crave our words of love and sympathy. But there is a quietness toward others which all should cultivate. There are many words spoken which ought never to pass the door of the lips. There are people who seem to exercise no restraint whatever on their speech. They allow every passing thought or feeling to take form in words. They never think what the effect of their words will be — how they will fly like arrows shot by some careless marksman and will pierce hearts they were never meant to hurt. Thus friendships are broken and injuries are inflicted which can never be repaired. Careless words are for ever making grief and sorrow in tender spirits. AVe pity the dumb whom sometimes we meet. Dumbness is more blessed by far than speech if all we can do with our marvelous gift is to utter bitter, angry, abusive or sharp, cutting words.

" I heedlessly opened the cage

And suffered my bird to go free, And, though I besought it with tears to return,

It nevermore came back to me.

It nests in the wildwood and heeds not my call ; Oh, the bird once at liberty who can enthrall ?

" I hastily opened my lips

And uttered a word of disdain That wounded a friend, and for ever estranged

A heart I would die to regain.

But the bird once at liberty who can enthrall ? And the word that's once spoken, oh who can recall ?"

Rose Terry Cooke in one of her poems — " Unreturning" — shows in very strong phrase the irreparableness of the harm done or the hurt given by unkind words. Flowers fade, but there will be more flowers another year — -just as sweet ones, too, as those that are gone. Snow melts and disappears, but it will snow again. The crystals of dew on leaf and grass-blade vanish when the sun rises, but to-morrow morning there will be other dewdrops as brilliant as those which are lost. But words once uttered can never be said over to be changed, nor can they ever be gotten back.

" Never shall thy spoken word Be again unsaid, unheard.

Well its work the utterance wrought, Woe or weal — what'er it brought : Once for all the rune is read, Once for all the judgment said.

Though it pierced, a poisoned spear, Through the soul thou holdest dear, Though it quiver, fierce and deep, Through some stainless spirit's sleep ; Idle, vain, the flying sting That a passing rage might bring, Speech shall give it fangs of steel, Utterance all its barb reveal.

" Give thy tears of blood and fire, Pray with pangs of mad desire, Offer life and soul and all, That one sentence to recall ; Wrestle with its fatal wrath, Chase with flying feet its path ;

Kue it all thy lingering days, Hide it deep with love and praise, — Once for all thy word is sped ; None evade it but the dead.

All thy travail will be vain : Spoken words come not again."

Another kind of common talk that had better be repressed into complete silence is the miserable gossip which forms so large a part — let ns confess it and deplore it — of ordinary parlor conversation. Few appreciative and kindly things are spoken of absent ones, but there is no end to criticism, snarling and backbiting. The most unsavory bits of scandal are served with relish, and no character is proof against the virulence and maliciousness of the tongues that chatter on as innocently and glibly as if they were telliug sweet stories of good. It certainly would be infinitely better if all this kind of speech were reduced to utter silence. It were better that the ritual of fashion prescribed some sort of a dumb pantomime for social calls, receptions and Ute-d-tMes in place of any conversation whatsoever if there is nothing to be talked about but the faults and foibles and the characters and doings of absent people. Will not some new Peter the Hermit preach a crusade against backbiting ? Shall we not have a new annual " week of prayer " to cry to God for the gift of silence when we have nothing good or true or beautiful to say ? No victories should be more heroically battled for or more thankfully recorded than victories of silence when we are tempted to speak unhallowed words of others.

Silence is better, also, than any words of bickering and strife. There is no surer, better way of preventing quarrels than by the firm restraining of speech. "A soft answer turneth away wrath ;" but if we cannot command the " soft answer " when another person is angry, the second-best thing is not to speak at all. " Grievous words stir up anger." Many a long, fierce strife that has produced untold pain and heartburning would never have been anything more than a momentary flash of anger if one of the parties had practiced the holy art of silence.

Some one tells of the following arrangement which worked successfully in preventing family quarrels : " You see, sir," said an old man, speaking of a couple in his neighborhood who lived in perfect harmony, " they had agreed between themselves that whenever he came home a little contrairy and out of temper he would wear his hat on the back of his head, and then she never said a word ; and if she came in a little cross and crooked, she would throw her shawl over her left shoulder, and he never said a word." So they never quarreled.

He who has learned to be silent spares himself ofttimes from confusion. Many men have owed their reputation for great wisdom quite as much to their silence as to their speech. They have not spoken the many foolish things of the glib talker, and have uttered only few and well-considered words. Says Carlyle, denouncing the rapid verbiage of shallow praters, " Even triviality and imbecility that can sit silent — how T respectable are they in comparison !" An English writer gives the story of a groom wedded to a lady of wealth. He was in constant fear of being ridiculed by his wife's guests. A clergyman said to him, "Wear a black coat and hold your tongue." The new husband followed the advice, and soon was considered one of the finest gentlemen in the country. The power of keeping quiet would be worth a great deal to many people whose tongues are for ever betraying their ignorance and revealing their true character.

All true culture is toward the control and the restraining of speech. Christian faith gives a quietness which in itself is one of life's holiest benedictions. It gives the quietness of peace — a quietness which the wildest storms cannot disturb, which is a richer possession than all the world's wealth or power.

" Study to be quiet." The lesson may be hard to many of us, but it is well worth all the cost of learning. It brings strength and peace to the heart. Speech is good, but ofttimes silence is better. He who has learned to hold his tongue is a greater conqueror than the warrior who subdues an empire. The power to be silent under provocations and wrongs and in the midst of danger and alarms is the power of the noblest, royalest victoriousness.

III. Ye Have Done It Unto Me

"Without a recognition

You passed Him yesterday — Jostled aside, unhelped, his mute petition — And calmly went your way.

"Oh, dreamers, dreaming that your faith is keeping All service free from blot, Christ daily walks your streets, sick, suffering, weeping, And ye perceive him not."

Margaret J. Preston.

fTIHOSE certainly seem strange words which our Lord says he will speak on the judgment-day to the multitudes before him. We are taught elsewhere that faith in Christ is the vital thing in determining one's eternity, yet Christ himself, in portraying the judgment, says not a word about believing on him or confessing him. Those who are welcomed to the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world are those who have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, covered the shivering and cold, visited the sick and cared for the prisoner. Are we, then, to reverse our cherished evangelical belief that men are saved by faith, and not by works ? May we not say that the good deeds here described are the fruit of grace in the heart ? We are not saved by our own ministries of love ; but if we are saved, these are the acts we will perform.

Our Lord's words show us the kind of Christian life we should live in this world. We say we love Christ, and he tells us that we must show our affection for him in kindnesses to his friends. Then he goes farther and puts himself before us, to be served and helped as if personally in every needy and suffering one who comes to us : " I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat. ... I was sick, and ye visited me." — " When saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee ? . . . When saw we thee sick . . . and came unto thee?" — " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

There is something inexpressibly beautiful in the revelation which these words of our Lord bring to our hearts. Christ himself is ever standing before us, appealing to us for love, for sympathy, for ministry. How all human lives about us are transfigured by this word which tells us that in the lowliest Jesus himself waits ! No wonder this sweet truth has wrought itself into numberless legends beautiful telling how abject forms, when served in the Master's name in time of need, suddenly changed into radiant loveliness, revealing themselves as Jesus the glorious One. There is the legend of St. Christopher, who in carrying the little child over the wild stream in the darkness and the storm found that he was bearing the Christ himself. There is the story of Elizabeth of Hungary, whose kindness to the sick and the poor was so great. Once she brought a leprous child to her palace and laid it in her own bed, because there was no other place to lay it. Her husband heard of it, and came in some displeasure and drew down the cover of the bed to see if the object concealed there was really so loathsome as he had heard, and, lo ! instead of the festering and leprous body, he saw the Saviour radiant with glory, and turned awestricken, and yet glad. Then the legend of the Holy Grail is familiar to all. The Holy Grail was the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. According to the tradition, this cup was lost, and it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in quest of it. One of the most delightful of these stories is that which Mr. Lowell tells in his "Sir Launfal." Far away over cold mountains and through fierce storms rode the brave young knight till youth turned to age and his hair was gray. At last, after a vain search, he turned homeward, an old man, bent, worn out and frail, with garments thin and spare. As he drew on there lay a leper, lank and wan, cowering before him. " For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms/' the leper said. Sir Launfal saw in the beggar an image of Jesus.