The Silver Spring — And Its Lessons
Am sitting on this March, day under a warm, golden sunshine by the banks of the Silver Spring, in Florida. For several hours our little steamer threaded its tortuous way up the Ocklawahaw, amid dense forests of cypress and palmetto. The venerable cypresses, with their flowing gray beards of moss, gave a sombre gloom to the scenery. Suddenly our boat turned off into the bright and beautiful Silver Creek, where the water is so perfectly transparent that we seemed to be floating on air. Eight miles of this translucent navigation brought us to the fountain-head of the crystal creek in this marvellous Silver Spring. It is not only the gem of Florida, but one of the wonders of American scenery. I bend over the side of our little boat and look sheer down forty feet, and the shell-covered bottom seems only an arm’s-length off! A penny lying on the bottom is distinctly visible and the handwriting on the envelope of a letter is plainly seen! Not one particle of gross earth sullies the pellucid purity of this deep, cool spring, which is itself the birthplace of yonder fast-flowing little river.
As I look down into the magic mirror that reflects the tree-tops, I begin to repeat to myself these words: “He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” These words set me upon a meditation. If our Master were beside this bright fountain to-day, with his disciples, what a parable he would draw out of these pearly depths! He found his texts everywhere. Looking at the golden pitcher which the priests used in the Temple, he cried aloud: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink! He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” No emblem was more often employed by the Great Teacher, and in the descriptions of Heaven itself we are led beside the living waters.
The first thing that strikes me here to-day is the fulness of the fountain. This Silver Spring sends forth a body of water that amounts to more than an hundred hogsheads in a minute. The issuing creek is always full to the brim. Midsummer heats never diminish it. Beautiful emblem of that fulness of mercy in God that furnishes redemption for all sinners who seek it; and of that fulness of grace in Christ Jesus for the myriads of his disciples !# We run dry when we cut off our heart-connection with Jesus. This is the secret of the spiritual declension of many a church-member. He is out of communion with Christ. He no longer draws by prayer and by the activities of faith from the Great Reservoir. “Because I live, ye shall live also.” As soon as a
Christian finds himself growing dull and dry, as soon as he loses his relish for his Bible and his closet, his prayer-meeting, and the active duties to which he pledged himself, let him take the alarm. He has “forsaken the living fountain, and is hewing out for himself a broken cistern, that holds no water.” He is attempting to live on the mire and dregs of a dried-up experience. The water is not there. The recovery of such a backslider is not to be secured by the prayers of the church, or the preaching of his pastor, or by the advent of a “revivalist “; but by the return of his own soul to his own Saviour. He must go back to Christ in humble confession, and establish a new connection with Jesus, as the one only Fountain of all grace and strength. A genuine and powerful revival in a church is simply the outwelling of a Silver Spring from the hearts and lives of Christ’s brotherhood, and the outflow makes a blessed irrigation of the surrounding community. If Christians kept in constant communion with their Fountain-head, there would be no necessity for a revival. Oh! my soul, may thy every vein be filled with this quickening flow, so that my leaf be ever green, and my life be like yonder orange-tree, laden with golden fruit!
2. The next truth that bubbles up from this crystal spring is that the purity of the stream comes from the purity of the fountain. As we sailed up the Silver Creek, we observed that the whole stream was transparent as glass until it mingled with the more turbid waters of the Ocklawahaw. So the life of a true child of God is pure and holy as long as it flows out of Christ. This is the only “higher life.” As soon as a Christian runs into conformity with the world his conduct becomes riled and muddy. His whole life is discolored. He has ceased to be “peculiar and separate from sinners.” The sand and slime of a sinful world are too much for the crystalline character which grace begets, and he becomes polluted. The word “sincere” signifies transparent. His clear honesty of purpose and purity of aim and singleness of heart for Christ’s glory are all muddled with a new unclean contamination. He is no longer holy. Nobody “comes thither to draw’7 from him, as I see the people come and fill their buckets from this sweet, cool spring. He can not purify and refresh others, for he is not clean himself. He has not the crystal quality of that stream that floweth out of God and the Lamb. It is a suggestive fact that in proportion as Christians ally themselves to sin and the sinful, in the same degree do sinners draw away from them when they want help and spiritual good. “Keep thyself pure!”
I observe, too, how free this silver fountain is. Yonder poor negro freedwoman fills her bucket from the cool spring. Our New York nabob, who has come to visit the wonderful waters, quaffs a delicious tumbler also. The same fact I observe in Brother Moody’s multitudinous meetings. Rich and poor, cultured and illiterate, are cleansed by the same atoning stream from Christ. They all drink too of him with the same relish. Ho! every one that thirsteth! come ye to the waters! No man perishes for want of an atonement. None need die of thirst while the well-spring gushes out from Calvary.
I can not see whence this wonderful spring issues. Its source is invisible. The water steals in quietly and without cessation. So, blessed Jesus, may thy unseen Spirit feed the depths of my inmost heart with perennial grace and love and courage and holy joy; and then shall my life become more like unto that celestial stream that proceedeth out of the throne of our enthroned and glorious Head!
Florida, March 26, 1876.