The golden sceptre grants No vengeance threatens o'er our head, CHAP. VI. VER. 31. And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile :` for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. THERE is a world, in which, without any weariness of frame or spirit, we may hope, day and night, and without ceasing, to proclaim the praises of God and of the Redeemer. But, in our present fallen state, the infirmities of body and mind demand an occasional cessation, even from the most delightful labours; and a retreat, from the tumult of society, to the inner chambers of quietness and repose. "Come ye," said our Lord even to the few individuals on whose labours, humanly speaking, the conversion of the world seemed, for the time, to be suspended, "come ye apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." How great is the mistake into which multitudes appear to fall as to this point! To labour in public; to let their voice be heard in the great assembly; to stand at the wheel, and set the machinery to work by which the world is to be drawn within the pale of the visible church, is, to them, the whole of religion. Have such persons considered the commands; "Commune with your own heart, in your chamber, and be still;""Meditate on these things; give thyself wholly to them?" Have they made the experiment, and have they not learned that the heart requires, from hour to hour, to be softened by the still streams of meditation and prayer? -Let them observe the practice of 66 the true servants of God:-" Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the even-tide." The language of David is, O how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day: "" Mine eyes prevented the night-watches, that I might meditate on thy word." Mary pondered these things in her heart."-And how, without this occasional, and even frequent, retirement, can we hope to descend into ourselves;' to hold converse with the man within;' to prove all things, and hold fast" only "that which is good;" to ascertain whether our emotions in religion are not the result rather of excitement than of principle, and of excitement cherished rather by the breath of human applause than by the Spirit of the Lord?-It has been said, that a certain measure of 'loneliness and leisure' are essential; 66 even in the pursuit of secular learning, to the highest order of thoughts and compositions. Shall not, then, the sublimest of all pursuits, and the very highest order of thoughts and sentiments, be allowed a degree of leisure and repose commensurate to their value and sublimity? Let us, if we desire to attain to the purity and elevation of the real servant of Christ, endeavour often to retire into the secrecies of the sanctuary, and place ourselves alone with God. Let us often stand, as if under the direct scrutiny of that Eye of Fire to which every heart is open, and every desire known. To rest for the indulgence of the flesh, is one thing: to rest for the recruiting of our bodily or spiritual strength, is another. Go apart, if thou wouldst be fitted to act in pub |