My Knowledge of God a Recognition

“Return unto thy rest, O my soul!’’ — Psa. cxvi. 7.

= ETURN unto thy rest.” Why “return”?

Why not say “enter into thy rest”? It is because the Psalmist feels that the atmosphere of goodness is the soul’s native air. We breathe it like a former atmosphere; we feel at home in it. When we do wrong we have not the sense of being at home. Even the worst man is not quite comfortable in the air of evil; he does not breathe freely. But when a bad man is surprised into doing something good he does breathe freely. His sensation may be unusual; but it is recognised by him as his normal state, the state which suits him. However unusual your sense of comfort may be, the fact that it is comfort proves it to be normal. I could not rest in anything

which was quite new to me. What is rest but congruity? That in which my soul reposes must be a previous possession of my soul. It matters not how far I have wandered from it, it matters not how long it be since I have seen it; if my sight of it brings repose it must somewhere, somehow have been in contact with me. All rest must be a return. Nothing is rest at the beginning; all first meetings are painful to the soul. A meeting which brings rest proves that between me and the other there has been a previous acquaintance. If the voice fails to ruffle me, it is because it is the voice of long ago.

Thou Christ of Calvary, my meeting with Thee has been a recognition of Thee. In that meeting I have found rest unto my soul. I could not have found rest to my soul if I had not met Thee before; flesh and blood could never have revealed it. The song of Bethlehem came to me as no new song. I seemed to remember hearing its cadences in the long long ago. Not as a stranger did I go forth to greet Thee. Something in my heart responded to the ocean of Thy love. <A drop of its spray must have fallen there in the days of yore. The voice of my heart became the murmur of the shell sighing for its parent sea. And when the sea rolled in, when the ocean of Thy love broke upon my shore, deep called unto deep.

I recognised the old home; I distinguished the old song. The murmur of my heart went out to meet the murmur of the great sea. The imprisoned drop of spray leapt up to greet the spray of the living waters, the fountains of Thy life. I knew Thee; I remembered Thee; I recognised Thee. I knew Thee better than I knew the husks of the far country which had been my country. I had lived among them for years, and I had seen Thee but for a moment; yet they were foreign to me; Thou wert home, sweet home. In coming to Thee I do not feel that I have risen; rather do I seem to have resumed my native air. The lark and the eagle soar beyond their nest; but my heart soars to find its nest, and the burden of its song is ever this, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul!”