% The truth revealed in the Scriptures, indeed, is the instrumentality which the Holy Spirit employs for communication of the life of God to the soul. " Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth." And by the same instrumentality is this life sustained. The prayer of our Lord for His disciples was, " Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy word is truth." Hence, the apostolic exhortation, " As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."
H But it is most important to observe the order here. The order is first prayer, and then the reading of the Word. A gentleman was asked by an artist friend of some note to come to his home, and see a painting just finished. He went at the time appointed, was shown by the attendant into a room which was quite dark, and left there. He was much surprised, but quietly waited developments. After perhaps fifteen minutes his friend came into the room with a cordial greeting, and took him up to the studio to see the painting, which was greatly admired. Before he left, the artist said laughingly, " I suppose you thought it queer to be left in that dark room so long." " Yes," the visitor said, " I did." " Well," his friend replied, " I knew that if you came into my studio with the glare of the street in year eyes you could not appreciate the fine colouring of the picture. So I left you in the dark room till the glare had worn out of your eyes." ^
(3) The Use of the Holy Eucharist. — There is nothing which feeds the Divine fire within us like receiving with penitent heart and lively faith that gift which seems to be the very anticipation of heaven itself, that gift of our Lord as the bread of life in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
At the Lord's Table waiting, robed and stoled,
Till all had knelt around, I saw a sign !
In the full chalice sudden splendours shine, Azure and crimson, emerald and gold.
I Btoop'd to see the wonder, when, behold! Within the cup a Countenance Divine Look'd upwards at me through the trembling wine,
Suffused with tenderest love and grief untold.
' S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks tm Prayer, 181.
348 THE CONTINUAL FIRE
The comfort of that sacramental token
From Memory's page Time never can erase;
The glass of that rich window may be broken, But not the mirror'd image of His grace,
Through which my dying Lord to me has spoken, At His own Holy Table, face to face ! ^
3. These means must not only be used but they must be used habitually, that the fire may not go out. To produce any activity that is meant to be a continuous element in life there must be un- remitting attention to the conditions of its development and use. The masters of music are always in training ; they not only give years of laborious study to the discipline and education of their musical power and taste, but after all their preparatory studies they do not neglect the daily practice. But with regard to the devout spirit and life we are slow, almost reluctant, to learn that we must make much of method and habit, and that without persistent fidelity there can be no attainment. We know and are persuaded that to attain any other kind of excellence, to excel as students of physical science, as painters, singers, pianists, violinists, we must give time and thought to it, resolute purpose and steady practice; but somehow we imagine that excellence in a life infinitely higher than the scientific or artistic life does not require any such earnest and ceaseless endeavour ; that the finest powers and affections of our human being — the capacity of religious in- spiration, the power to draw near unto God and to enter into the communion of His Spirit — that these powers, compared with which genius in music or painting or science is but a small thing, may be preserved and nourished into strength and beauty without the systematic care and culture which other and lower faculties and tastes and any mechanical or professional success require and demand.
^ I shut myself up and practised twelve hours and more a day, until one day my left hand was swollen to about twice its usual size, causing me considerable anxiety. For some months I hardly ever left my rooms, and only when I received invitations to houses where I knew I should meet, and perhaps hear, Chopin.'
*[| We often hear men speak about the spirit of prayer as being enough. Yes ! it is enough ; but how are we to have and to keep the spirit of prayer save as we have and keep the spirit of
^ Frederick Teanyiion. * Lift m\U LetUra of Sir Charlet ffcUld, 32.
LEVITICUS VI. 13 349
knowledge, the spirit of art, the spirit of love, or the spirit of anything else, save by fulfilling the conditions of having and keeping it ? In pleading for devotional observances and habits, I am pleading the cause of the spirit. The men who may be said to pray without ceasing, who live almost unconsciously in an atmosphere spiritual and vital, and to whom God is the Great Companion of their days, are not the men who slight the habits of prayer ; and they — the men who have mastered the art of living with God — are the only persons who can speak with any real authority on this subject. One of them says : " Evening, morning, and at noon will I cry unto thee." Jesus Christ was full of the spirit of prayer, His heart was a shrine of unceasing worship, and His life was a constant walk with God; yet even He felt the need of method and habit, and obeyed the law which moves the devout soul to seek occasions of formal and concrete expression of its spiritual passion. He who lived in unbroken conmiunion of spirit with His Father would yet spend whole nights in prayer, and make it His custom to go into the synagogue every Sabbath day.^