^ There is in many minds something which makes them crave for proofs of the presence and power of God in remarkable inter- ruptions of nature and providence rather than in their orderly course. It is a perversion of the truth. If a miracle is sublime, how much more sublime is the unity and greatness of the order which it seems, on some singular occasion, to interrupt. The mind which has learned to see God in the daily course of nature and providence comes nearer to the happy truth than that to which this order is meaningless, and which cries out to Him to raise up His power and come and declare His presence by miraculous wonders. Is it not better for us to learn that God is near in the daily exhibitions of His goodness than to look for Him only in those rare events in which we try to persuade
1 J. G. Whittier.
I KINGS XIX. II, 12 451
ourselves that He has worked a miracle in answer to our cry ? For one miraculous we enjoy a thousand customary gifts of grace and kindness. Happy are we if in our deep hearts we consent that this is so, and that this is best.^
2. We must not undervalue agencies because they seem to be insignificant. It was said of the Lord Himself, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " and the first apostles were despised as " unlearned and ignorant men." Yet though God used only " the weak things of the world," He did confound with them " the things which are mighty." The big trees in California have sprung from seeds each of which is no larger than a grain of wheat ; and the river which at its source is a tiny tinkling rill over which a child may stride, is at its mouth broad enough and deep enough to bear a navy on its bosom.
^ It used to be thought that the upheaval of the continents and the rearing of the great mountains was due to cataclysms and conflagrations and vast explosions of volcanic force. It has long been known that they are due, on the contrary, to the in- conceivably slow modifications produced by the most insignificant causes. It is the age-long accumulation of mica-flakes that has built up the mighty bastions of the Alps. It is the toil of the ephemeral coral insect that has reared whole leagues of the American Continent and filled the Pacific Ocean with those un- numbered isles
Which, like to rich and various gems, inlay The unadorned bosom of the deep.
It is the slow silting up of the rivers that has created vast deltas for the home of man. It has required the calcareous deposit of millions of animalcule to produce even one inch of the white cliffs along the shores.^
^ Some time ago I was in Stirling Castle, and the guide pointed out to me the field of Bannockburn, and revelled in his description of the bloody fray. I turned from the contemplation of material strife and I saw John Knox's pulpit ! I allowed the two symbols to confront each other, and they enshrined for me the teaching given to Elijah in the days of old. The ghostly power suggested by the pulpit was of infinitely greater import than the carnal power suggested by the battlefield. I remember one day passing along the road, by the far-stretching works of Messrs. Armstrong, that vast manufactory of destructive arma- 1 G. R, Wynne. 2 F. W. Farrar.
452 A STILL SMALL VOICE
ments. I was almost awed by the massiveness of the equipment and by the terrific issues of their work. Near by I saw a little Methodist Chapel ; it could have been put in a small corner of Armstrong's works, but it became to me the symbol of the en- during and the eternal. The ghostly breathing was in the plain little edifice, and the creations of its ministries will be found when the bristling armaments have crumbled into dust.^
Ill
A Voice.
All through the ages God has manifested Himself as a Voice, as the voice of conscience in the hearts of men. He has left no man utterly without guidance. Often, however, the voice is almost silent, because dulled by its faulty medium, man. But to-day we are not dependent on the voice of conscience alone.
1. There is the voice of the human Jesus. Was not Jesus God's " still small voice " when in His human garb He walked the plains of Galilee, and declared His Father's glory and His Father's will ? The bruised reed He never broke ; the smoking flax He never quenched. He did not strive, nor cry, nor lift up His voice in the street. Despised in His littleness, that " voice " was, nevertheless, the great power of Jehovah ; and, calm as were those loving lips, they uttered the mandates that all worlds obeyed. Evil spirits cowered at His presence; sickness, and sorrow, and death fled before Him. Against the dark background of the penal law. He declared the Gospel's peace. And when, on the Mount of Beatitudes, that " voice," long silent, began, in its own gentleness, " Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," Sinai's trumpet grew silent! And when He stood, and called so lovingly, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" — who remembered, then, any more, the blackness, and the darkness, and the tempest ? And when, at last. His dying lips spoke those words of Godhead, " It is finished," did not every adoring angel, as he stooped to the sound, confess that all the displays that had been made of God, in His own universe, were in magnificence as nought to that one " still small voice " of Calvary ?