The platted thorns that pierced His bleeding brow, The cross of shame, the spikes that tore His palms,
Are blazoned o'er her banners, treasured now. All consecrate with martyrs' dying psalms.
Sweet daughter of the King ! — her beauty bright Hath yet the bloodstains starred upon her vest,
Of faithful hearts, who, through a loveless night Of flame and sword went gloriously to rest.^
* L. Macleau Watt, In Poets' Comers 66.
Walking with God.
Literature.
Banks (L. A.), The Great Saints of the Bible, 21.
Barton (G. A.), 2'he Roots of Christian Teaching, 88.
Burrell (D, J.), The Religion of the Future, 137.
Da vies (J.), The Kingdom without Observation, 172.
Qreenhough. (J. G.), Old Pictures in Modern Frames, 1.
Greer (D. H.), From Things to God, 123.
Horton (R. F.), Lyndhurst Road Pulpit, 51.
Jenkins (E. E.), Sermons, 249.
Lilley (J. P.), The Pathway of Light, 19.
Lonsdale (J.), Sermons, 135.
McLeod (M. J.), Heavenly Harmonies, 9.
Morris (A. J.), The Open Secret, 162.
Myres (W. M.), Fragments that remain, 94.
Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, i. 416.
Pearce (J.), Life on the Heights, 9.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, i. 81 ; x. 65.
Purves (G. T.), Faith and Life, 215.
Raleigh (A.), The Way to the City, 408.
Roberts (E.), in The People's Pulpit, ii. No. 43.
Ryle (J. C), The Christian Race, 243.
Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 4.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, ?xii. No. 1307.
Thomas (J.), Myrtle Street Pulpit, iv. 35.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxix. 139 (Goadby) ; xl. 366 (White);
Hi. 328 (Stalker) ; Ixxi. 97 (Jowett). Expositor, 2nd Ser., vii. 321 (Cox).
■••
Walking with God.
Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.— Gen. V. 24.
How strange it is, if you are reading the Bible from the beginning, to come to this text ! Here was a man in the very childhood of the world, who seemed distinguished from those who lived around him and from those who came after him, because he walked with God. What does it mean ? The words which would explain it are so simple, and the thoughts which they contain are so sublime, that one almost hesitates to speak about it. Yet we might shape it perhaps, at any rate in outline, according to our own experience, and we might say, this primitive man, not seeing or touching God any more than we do, yet realized habitually His existence; recognized His presence — His close presence — with Him every day; as one would pass many days in the society of some dear friend, so he passed his days in the society of God, but with this beautiful difference : we cannot spend many consecutive days with our dearest friends ; some of them we are obliged to leave, others we are obliged to lose ; with God the companionship need not be intermitted. It was not necessary to leave Him, and the man therefore kept up a companionship unbroken. When he woke from sleep in the morning, the first thought that rushed into his mind would be : —
Still, still with Thee,
When purple morning breaketh, When the bird waketh,
And the shadows flee.
And as he went about his business — the business of the herd, or of the ploughing, or the ordering of his household — the sweet consciousness of that companionship might be submerged beneath the surface for a little, but surely to emerge again directly
152 WALKING WITH GOD
the occasion was presented. The occupations of the day did not disturb the reality of the life, any more than business men, who love their wives and children, feel that their love is in the least affected because they have to go into the city in the morning, and to be plunged into the toil and the cares of the day's business. Quite the contrary, it is that love which animates their toil and keeps them close to the task, and it is the thought of coming home in the evening, the welcome of the wife and the smiles of the children, which presents itself to them as the reward of their labour. Just so, when the pressure relaxed, Enoch would exclaim: "Keturn unto thy rest, 0 my Soul; resume thine intercourse with thy Beloved." We may fancy also that he talked with God, talked sometimes aloud, talked also when in the presence of others it was necessary to talk in silence. Sometimes his words were uttered in the presence of God, as in the presence of a mighty Potentate, and words would come slowly, with trembling and fearfulness. But much oftener he would talk to God familiarly, and in a childlike way ; would tell Him of the cares and anxieties of the day ; would ask his God to come and share his deepest joys ; and would not hesitate to ask whatever he wanted, keeping up an hourly conversation with Him. This " walk with God " would be the dominating fact of the man's life : the foundation on which the palace of life would be built : the ground harmony from which the variations of his music would be developed. And such a walk with God, maintained for some years, would render it inapplicable to speak of death in connexion with the man ; and, when death came, it would be necessary to use another phrase altogether, and to say, " He was not ; for God took him."