> T. R. WilliauM.
GENESIS V. 24 155
be reconciliation. " How can two walk together, except they be agreed ? " Amos asked that question, and there is logic in that little word " can." An appeal is it to the nature of things, and "the nature of things is the law of God." Harmony of sound is music. Harmony of word to thought is poetry. Harmony of colour is beauty. The most beautiful thing in nature is the rainbow; God blends the colours. Life, the philosophers are telling us, is correspondence with environment. In disease or death something is thrown out of correspondence. The deaf man is thrown out of correspondence with the world of sound; the blind man with the world of beauty. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Co-relation of part with part is intimate, and any interference means friction. The perfect workmanship is frictionless. Sin is disagreement, fermentation, rebellion, alienation, estrangement, mutiny, discord — the one all-pervading discord of the universe.
^ The great dramatist, in the Tempest, makes Ferdinand and Miranda fall in love at first meeting. A glance, he says, and they " changed eyes." The man who " walks with God " is he who has changed eyes with God. He sees as God sees. " There is not an honest student of the Bible anywhere," says Joseph Cook, "who is not willing to admit that salvation is harmony with God " — loving what God loves, and hating what God hates.
^ Culture is pained by contact with coarseness. The eye of the artist is troubled with a false blending of colour. The ear of the musician is tortured with dissonance. Handel tells us that a flatness felled him like a blow. And a high, lofty moral nature is wounded by the world's sin and shame, and shrinks with grief at its beholding. Love and hate can never be at peace. Corruption and cleanliness must necessarily quarrel. This is a law woven into the nature of things. Until a man is washed by the blood of Jesus from the guilt of sin and the power of sin and the love of sin, he cannot be at peace in the presence of infinite holiness.^
3. But, again, to walk with God is to keep the commandments of God. For what supremely attracts the Divine approbation is not greatness, but goodness, moral goodness. Enoch had neither worldly wealth, nor grandeur, nor power. He was not famed for any of these. His excellency in the sight of Grod, and what
» M. J. M'Leod.
156 WALKING WITH GOD
distinguished him from his contemporaries, was his personal purity. " Blessed are the pure in heart ; for they shall see God." That is the condition of the beatific vision. Only the pure in heart can see God, and only in the degree in which they are pure. The pure in heart behold Him here. The impure could not see Him even there — the vision of God, the sight of the King in His beauty, and of the land that is very far off, is vouchsafed not to science but to sanctity, not to talent but to love. In the spiritual world a man is measured, not by his gifts but by his graces, not by his intellect but by his likeness to God. God does not reason or remember, perhaps, just as we do, but He loves. He cannot believe, for He fills immensity; He cannot hope, for He inhabits eternity ; but He can love.
H All the world praises the clever men; the talented originators, the ingenious inventors. They never lack crowns and rewards. But is there not something to be said for the men and women who have simply purity and elevation of character ? The man who sends a current of pure air or purifying example through the world's work-field is at least as praiseworthy as the man who supplies its machinery. Some men serve the world by what they are rather than by what they do. Economically, they are cyphers, but as sweeteners of the world's life they are worth more than gold. I have known a few men and women who have done more to make me believe in God and goodness than all the books I ever read. Their names never get into the newspapers, but their sanctity pervades the air like a perfume from the heavenly fields. When they die, they leave no fortune or triumphant record of startling deeds ; they leave only the sweet memory of what they were. We felt their healing touch as they passed by, and we are far better men for having known them. And their epitaph is fitly written in such words as these : " He walked with God : and he was not ; for God took him." ^
4. Once more, to walk with God means progress. Not only does it mean that progress is being made. That is true. For in the spiritual life as in all life, there is no standing still. But it also signifies that some maturity of religious consciousness has been attained. There is a sense of Divine companionship, of harmony with the higher will ; there is a conquest of the life of sense, an at-home-ness in the spiritual life.
' J. G. GrMDhoogh.
GENESIS V. 24 157
^ The conquest of the spiritual over the natural life is not unlike the advancing light of the morning sun. At Grind el wald I remember watching it. At first it only just tipped the very highest of the mountain peaks ; gradually the whole peak was in the brilliant light, all the valley still in shadow. But the peak in the light was guarantee that the shadow was doomed. Watch it: inch by inch the shadow is chased down the hill until the lowliest flower in the valley stands bright in the victory of day. At first the sense of God illumines only our best moments — those whitest and highest parts of our life, those mountains of trans- figuration where we do not build tabernacles nor remain. Yes, God's light is there, but life is mostly valley still in the shadow. Let us take heart. Let us keep our eye on those shining heights. All the shadows are doomed ; it is in the nature of that sun to conquer. " He which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ " (Phil. I 6)}