Evening, April 4
Go To Morning Reading
“Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.”
Isaiah 2:3
It is exceedingly beneficial to our souls to mount above this present
evil world to something nobler and better. The cares of this world
and the deceitfulness of riches are apt to choke everything good within
us, and we grow fretful, desponding, perhaps proud and carnal. It
is well for us to cut down these thorns and briers, for heavenly seed
sown among them is not likely to yield a harvest; and where shall
we find a better sickle with which to cut them down than communion
with God and the things of the kingdom? In the valleys of Switzerland,
many of the inhabitants are deformed, and all wear a sickly appearance,
for the atmosphere is charged with miasma, and is close and stagnant;
but up yonder, on the mountain, you find a hardy race, who breathe
the clear fresh air as it blows from the virgin snows of the Alpine
summits. It would be well if the dwellers in the valley could frequently
leave their abodes among the marshes and the fever mists, and inhale
the bracing element upon the hills. It is to such an exploit of climbing
that I invite you this evening. May the Spirit of God assist us to
leave the mists of fear and the fevers of anxiety, and all the ills
which gather in this valley of earth, and to ascend the mountains
of anticipated joy and blessedness. May God the Holy Spirit cut the
cords that keep us here below, and assist us to mount! We sit too
often like chained eagles fastened to the rock, only that, unlike
the eagle, we begin to love our chain, and would, perhaps, if it came
really to the test, be loath to have it snapped. May God now grant
us grace, if we cannot escape from the chain as to our flesh, yet
to do so as to our spirits; and leaving the body, like a servant,
at the foot of the hill, may our soul, like Abraham, attain the top
of the mountain, there to indulge in communion with the Most High.