^ The one thought which possesses me most at this time and, I may say, has always possessed me, is that we have been dosing our people with religion when what they want is not this but the Living God, and that we are threatened now, not with the loss of religious feeling, so-called, or of religious notions, or of religious observances, but with Atheism. Everywhere I seem to perceive this peril. The battle within, the battle without, is against this ; the heart and the flesh of our countrymen is crying out for God. We give them a stone for bread, systems for realities; they despair of ever attaining what they need. The upper classes become, as may happen, sleekly devout for the sake of good order, avowedly believing that one must make the best of the world without God ; the middle classes try what may be done, by keep- ing themselves warm in dissent and agitation, to kill the sense of hollowness ; the poor, who must have realities of some kind, and understanding from their betters that all but houses and lands are abstractions, must make a grasp at them or else destroy them. And the specific for all this evil is some evangelical discourse upon the Bible being the rule of faith, some High Church cry for ^ J. Hunter, De Profundis Clamavi, 15.
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tradition, some liberal theory of education. Surely we want to preach it in the ears of all men. It is not any of these things or all these things together you want, or that those want who speak of them. All are pointing towards a Living Being, to know whom is life, and all, so far as they are set up for any purpose but leading us into that knowledge, and so to fellowship with each other, are dead things which cannot profit.^
2. No one can call from the depths until he has gone down into the depths ; and no one can reasonably expect God to be " attentive unto the voice of his supplication " until he cry " out of the depths." There is much outward prayer in the present day. Services, and means of grace, and administrations of the Sacraments are multiplied, and many wonder that there is not a corresponding visible result in life and morals. Is it not possible that the failure may arise from the conditions of successful prayer not being fulfilled ? May not the charge against Israel be partly true against ourselves — This people honoureth me with their lips ; but their heart is far from me ? They have fasted to the letter and not to the spirit. The " cry," the worship, the prayer, may not have come from the " depths " of conscious spiritual need, and so it has not reached the everlasting hills ; it has not risen to the throne of the Lord's Presence ; it has not awakened and could not awaken a responsa How can we expect the great and holy God to be " attentive " when we are scarcely attentive ourselves, when our utterances are merely formal, dictated by no feeling of penitence or awe ? To approach God acceptably, to speak to Him aright, the cry must come " out of the depths " of the soul, and to do this a man must go down into those depths.
The Psalmist went down into the depths of shame on account of his sin, and his cry is therefore the sharp cry of penitence. This is plain from his words ; for he adds, " If thou. Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, 0 Lord, who shall stand ? But there is forgive- ness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." His conscience had been awakened. He had realized the enormity of sin. His accuser had stood before him, charging him with faults enough to condemn him for ever. He had seen that he was full of sin, burdened with guilt, in imminent danger of punishment. He sank into the depths, overwhelmed by fear, beholding the justice
^ The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, i. 369.
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of God and His power to inflict penalty, swallowed up in despair and the consciousness of guilt.
^ The Cross of Calvary which tells of the awfulness of sin speaks also of the mercy of a sin-forgiving God. The soul looks to the completed sacrifice of propitiation and thence to the risen, living Saviour, who continues to make intercession for us. Well has the poet Tenner expressed the experience —
Up from the deeps, 0 God, I cry to Thee,
Hear my soul's prayer, hear Thou her litany,
O Thou who sayest, " Come, wanderer, home to Me."
Up from the deeps of sorrow, wherein lie Dark secrets veiled from earth's unpitying eye. My prayers, like star-crowned angels, Godward fly.
Not from life's shallows where the waters sleep, A dull, low marsh where stagnant waters sleep. But ocean-voiced, deep calling unto deep.
3. In the lowest depths the cry of the soul becomes most im- portunate. Down in the depths the suffering soul instinctively reaches out its hands even though manacled by doubt — instinctively raises its voice, even though bitter with rebellion — for God, for nothing less than God, for God as the only One sufficient for the awful needs of the lonely failing heart. Such depths are places of revelation. They show what even the common superficial life needs, though it may not be aware of it. They bid us know our real Helper, that when we rise again to the common level we may not forget the supreme lesson taught us by this ghmpse, through tears, into the tremendous realities of life.