Interrupted Communion

“Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.” — Exod. xxxii. 7.

“Go, get thee down;” it was surely a hard, an unlikely mandate. Was it not a command to go forth from the secret of God’s pavilion, from the Mount of Divine vision and Divine communion into the vision of things that were not Divine, into communion with things that were not holy? You and I have been forced at times to feel what Moses felt. We have had moments of rapture, in which we have been allowed to stand on the very top of the mountain and to see, as it were, the face of God unveiled — moments when His countenance was radiant as the light and His raiment dazzling as the sunlit snow. But presently a cloud has fallen over the vision and the glory has vanished from the scene. The rapture is turned into coldness, and the mountain sinks into a common plain, filled with the concourse of the multitude, and echoing with the cries of human struggle; a voice has sounded in mine ear and said, “Go, get thee down.”

Yes, my soul, and has it not brought to thine ear the reason of its sounding? Why has it commanded thee to quit the glorious mountain for the common plain? It is because it is a common plain. It is because on that plain there is a concourse of living beings who are unfit for the glorious mountain. They have no vision from a height, and therefore they are oppressed by life’s labour and its ladenness. They want some one to heal them, some one to lift them, some one to inspire them with the breath of a presence that has dwelt aloft. Thou mayest be that presence. If thou hast gazed on the face of God, thou hast a mesmeric passport into the heart of thy brother man. He shall lift up his eyes unto the hills, whence cometh thine aid; make no tarrying to go down, 0 my soul.