The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 94

"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy if I could say how much." And the sentiment is not uncommon. "Does the wind write what it sings in those sounding leaves above our heads? Does the sea write the moaning of ite eurge? Nothing is fine that is written; the divinest in man's heart never issues forth. The instrument is flesh, the note is fire. What would you have? Between what one feels and what one expresses, there is the same space as between the soul and the twenty- four letters of the alphabet; that is to say, the Infinite. Can you on a rosewood flute give forth the harmony of the spheres?" (Raffaelle ). 2. Bil,en,ce is often mor~ ,mpre,sive than any spooch. "The silence of pme innocence Persuades, when speaking fails.'' So also do the silence of deep feeling and of strong passion, uttering "speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture." Christ but looked on the recreant Peter- after his miserable desertion and denial. Yet that silent look, as the denied One passed him in the hall, was eloquent of wounded love, and cut the denier more keenly than any words. No word was uttered on the cross where the dying thief was brought to. faith. The God-like fortitude, the ineffable meekness of the Saviour, suffering silently the devilish malice of sin,-it was that broke his heart and won his free allegiance. In. this dumbness was speech to the power of which articulate speech admits of no com- parison. The gift of being "eloquently silent" is one that is not unworthy of more general cultivation. To Israel the sudden silence of the prophets, after centuries of expostulation, would tell its own startling tale. It would indicate discouragement and. disgust, and duplicate to their minds the " let him alone" (Hos. iv. 17) of Di vine· desertion at a similar crisis. And this unequivocal proof that they are given up might bring the tardy repentance which all else had failed to stir. When communications are· broken off, the dream of a lasting peace is over. The patient will believe that death is at hand when the physician turns away and refuses to prescribe. 3. Silence is alway11 better than haphazard speech. When a man knows not what to say he should guard against saying he knows not what. "Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion." Peter would have escaped some blunders and rebukes if he had followed this rule. But it was when "he wist not what to say " (Mark ix. 6) that he was given to saying most. Such speech is more likely to be inappropriate than silence, and being inappropriate there are many more ways in which it can work evil. Hence the numerous Sc1;pture references to the tongue, the power of it, the difficulty of governing it, and the danger of it if unruly. Indeed, so liable are men to err and so epecially liable to err in speech as compared with overt act, that the proper government of the tongue ia made the highest religious act (Jas. iii. 2). II. WHEN IT IS EVIDENT THAT SPEECH ll£UST BB UNAVAILING. There are many such cases. 1. Sometimes men will refuse to listen. The Jews did in the beginning of the- gospel. Faithfully and firmly Stephen presses the truth home ; but they "stopped their ears, and ran upon him" (Acts vii. 67). Here was a case for silence. Speech, had it been possible, would have been unheeded. Those men, with murder in their hearts, and their fingers in their ears, would listen to no words. With Israel now things had come to a like pass. Their ears were stopped, and their hearts within them were set to do iniquity. For such a state of matters the appropriate measure is the silence which the prophet predicts. And all God's servants, in the exercise of theii, enlightened judgment, will do likewise in a like case. When men will not hear, they- will refuse to waste on them unregarded speech. Bawling into an ear that is deaf or stopped is effort thrown away, and unworthy of common sense (Matt. x. 14; Mark vi. 11). 2. Sometimes evil has gone so far that words can be of no avail. God's Spirit will' not always strive. With the antediluvians by Noah's preaching he strove above. a century, but when iniquity reached a certain stage he ceased, and his ultima ratio was. the Deluae. He strove with Saul for years, but when insensibility and hardness became· confirmed communications wero broken off; and whether by dreams, or by Urim, or \,y proph~ts, God spoke no more (1 Sam. x:~viii. 6).. He strove with Israel durin~ the ministry of our Lord, but they would not listen to his word, and at last he was silent, and the doomed people were left to die (Luke xix. 42). God ceases to speak whet\  THE BOOK OF AMOS. [CH, V. 1-27,