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do not find Him in the stillness, and so He is compelled to come in the storm. But He would rather take the gentle way.
Are there not, then, two musics unto men ? —
One loud and bold and coarse,
And overpowering still perforce
All tone and tune beside ;
Yet in despite its pride Only of fumes of foolish fancy bred, And sounding solely in the sounding head;
The other soft and low,
Stealing whence we do not know, Painfully heard, and easily forgot, With pauses oft and many a silence strange (And silent oft it seems, when silent it is not), Revivals too of unexpected change: Haply thou think'st 'twill never be begun, Or that 't has come, and been, and past away:
Yet turn to other none, —
Turn not, oh, turn not thou! But listen, listen, listen, — if haply be heard it may ; Listen, listen, listen, — is it not sounding now?^
1. In quietness there is power. — This is a truth which in these days we are very apt to forget. We have fallen upon a genera- tion of fuss, and bustle, and trumpet-blowing, and advertising. It would almost seem as if many of us believed that we were to take the world by storm. We get up excitements in mass- meetings, and pass resolutions, and listen to eloquent orators, and make thundering plaudits, as if these alone were to win the day. We have more faith in the whirlwind and the earthquake than in the still small voice ; and we mistake a momentary out-flashing of enthusiasm for the celebration of a final triumph. The sensational is everywhere in the ascendant. We see it in the extravagance of dress that seeks to call attention to itself ; we see it in the domain of literatm-e, in the highly coloured and hotly seasoned romances; we see it in feverish speculations. Surely there is something in this vision for our sensation-loving life. It were well that we had less faith in noise, and more in that which is the most God-like thing on earth, namely, a character moulded after the example of Christ, and created and
» Clough.
I KINGS XIX. II, 12 447
sustained by the agency of the Holy Ghost. It were well that the voices among us were less loud, and the deeds were more pronounced. Life is more potent than words ; and character, though quiet, is more influential in the long-run than any immediate sensation that flares up and crackles like a blaze of thorns.
^ God's greatest works are carried on in silence. All noise- lessly the planets move in their orbits ; " there is no speech nor language ; their voice cannot be heard " as they sweep on through their appointed paths in space. No sound attends the crystallization of the dewdrops on the myriad blades of grass in the summer evenings; and while the crops are growing in the fields, so profound sometimes is the stillness that all nature seems asleep. What greater revolution can there be than that which recurs at every morning's dawn when night quits her "ebon throne " and resigns her empire to the king of day ? Yet how quietly it is accomplished ! There is first a streak of light along the edge of the eastern horizon, so faint that you wonder whether it has not shot out from that brilliant star ; then a few stray gleams of glory, as if the northern aurora had flitted to another quarter of the heavens; then a flush of ruddy beauty before which the stars begin to pale ; and as we watch how one by one these faithful sentinels put out their lamps, the sun himself appears, and becomes the undisputed monarch of the heavens. But it is all so silent that the sleeper is not awakened on his couch, and the pale, sick one who has been longing for the morning knows not it ia there until through the shadowed casement it looks in upon him with its benignant smile.^
^ I look upon my study walls and see Munkacsy's great picture, " Christ before Pilate." There is a vast, howling mob, the very incarnation of brutal and irresistible force. It seems as though the violent crowd can carry all before it. Standing before the surging, shouting throng is the meek figure of the Master! It seems as though one hand out of the violent mob could crush Him like a moth ! And yet we now know that in that silent figure there dwelt the secret of Almightiness, and the Lord was not in the mob.2
^ The quietest room in a Lancashire cotton mill is the engine- room. It is significantly called "the power-room" of the mill. But from that quietest room emerges all the force which speeds the busy looms in their process of production. Let the engine be neglected, let countless looms be added without proportional
1 W. M. Taylor. 2 j, h. Jowett.
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increase of power, and the mill breaks down. We have been neglecting our quietest room, our power-room ; we have been adding to the strain without multiplying the force, and the effects are seen in weariness, joylessness, and ineffectiveness. We must not work less, but we must pray more. We cannot minimize our activities ; but we must sustain them with those more adequate supplies of grace that come in answer to common prayer.^