The Grace of Silence

“I was dumb with silence.” — Psalm xxxix, 2.

Or if we translate it still more literally, “I was silenced with dumbness.” The Psalmist adds to this “I held my peace.” A little farther on he says again, I am silenced. I will not open my mouth, because Thou didst it.” A wise man was the Psalmist when he wrote these words. He knew what an unruly member a tongue often is; so he determined to for his mouth a muzzle” while the prosperity of the wicked moved him to murmuring.

In these passages, David reiterates the grace of silence and uion this topic let us gather some suggestions for everyday use. There is a time to speak out, a time to be heard, when muzzled lips would betray cowardice and be treason to the truth. At such times “speech is silver,” but there are other occasions when “silence is golden.” And such occasions I will now point out to you.

I. The first occasion is when we are under the pressure of sheer inquisitiveness. There are some people who have a chronic itch of curiosity; they are the “busy-bodies in other men’s matters.” Instead of minding their own business, they xpry into the affairs of their neighbors — not for the purpose of help, or sym-I)athy, but for the gratification of insatiate curiosity. Now such persons ought not to be encouraged by being gratified. There are many things which we have a right to keep to ourselves, and which the public has no business with. Our newspapers (I am sorry to say) publish quite too often what ought to be irivate. Every man’s *’ house is his castle “; if he chooses to let the whole community in, then he is responsible for the discoveries made — whether of silver on his table or of” skeletons in his closets.” A wise man will keej) his own secrets; the discreet and self-respecting will keep to themselves all those matters with which “the stranger” has no right to “intermeddle.” There are sore spots in almost every household that delicacy ought to conceal; why allow unfeeling hands to increase their festering or make them bleed? A thousand domestic difl- culties, a thousand scandals would never get wind, if people were wise enough to padlock their own tongues about their own affairs. Be careful whom you make your confidants; “a tale-bearer revealeth secrets; but he that is of a trusty spirit concealeth the matter.” As for the crime of divulging what is entrusted to you in secret confidence, it is a crime compounded of falsehood and treaclieiy. Upon the whole subject two sound rules ought to be observed — one is: never to ask Avliat you have no right to know — the other rule is never to tell other people what they have no right to know. So high was the apostle’s estimate of the grace of silence that he declares that “if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body.”

II. A second occasion for silence is when you are strongly tempted to dis^arage others. Remember that the tongue is a sharp instrument; it cuts deep, it often draws blood; you may commit murder with it as truly as with a dagger or a pistol. Alas! how many there are who limj) along wounded, or carry the ugly scar which cruel slander has inflicted!

Wilful slander you will all detest, but a 13eculiar temxtation to detraction often comes in this wise. We hear somebody extolled greatly; he or she has won great success, or received high praise. Envy (that hateful spirit that often disguises itself under the name of ‘Justice”) says to us, “That person is set up too high; he or she ought to be taken down.” So we set over against their virtues some deformities of character or some evil things that we know about them. Grant that we do know them — why speak of them? Why fling a nasty “fly” into that sweet ointment? When so fine a picture has been drawn, why thrust a daub of detraction over it? Grant it, even farther, that the person thus extolled has once slighted or injured you, and here is a chance for retaliation. In the name of generosity, “hold your peace.” If you cannot honestly join in the praise, do not let your tongue croak an envious discord; if you cannot help to set another up, do not endeavor to pull him down. Silence is sometimes as magnanimous as a speech of vindication is at other times. Nay, my dear friends, if we cannot sincerely say anything good about our fellow-creatures, is it not better to say nothing at all? “Throwing mud” is always dirty work; if you do not defile the individual you aim at, you are pretty sure to soil your own hands.

If you will only remember how you have smarted yourself, or suffered yourself from the razor tongue of defamation, you will surely learn to” bridle” your own tongue. Be careful lest in condemning another, you condemn not yourself, for that very blunt ajDostle, James, has warned us that “if any man seem to be religious and bridle th not his tongue, that man’s religion is vain.”

Silence (let me add here) is often the best answer to sharp things or offensive things said against us. If they are said in jest, laugh at them; if said spitefully, forgive them; if they are true, then let us secretly be thankful for the criticisms, and mend our ways.

III. Thirdly. If silence be golden under the circumstances of which I have already spoken — then does it shine with a peculiar luster when it is maintaiaed under great x)rovocation.

When our house takes fire, the first inixDulse is to go after a bucket of water. But if temper takes fire, the first impulse is to throw on more fuel. Now, the best water-bucket for aroused temper is resolute silence. If, whenever a provoking word were spoken to us, or an irritating act were done, or an injury struck us, we should firmly seal our lips for even ten minutes, we would save ourselves many a quarrel, many a heartburn, many a mortification, many a disgrace to our religious profession. Speech is often explosive and shattering. Silence is cooling. It cools us off, and cools other people. One of the calmest men I ever knew told me that he used to be violently passionate, but he broke his temper by resolutely bridling his tongue until he cooled down.

What answer that can be given to many an irritating word, and even to a just provocation, is as effective as dignified silence? What eloquence there is sometimes in lips sealed tight by self-control, by patient fortitude, by the serene sense of right! What sublimity there is in silence when innocence reviled, reviles not again! How divine was the silence of our adorable Master, when, under all the buffetings and insults of His brutal enemies. He ox)ened not His holy lips! Those lips might have summoned legions of angels to His rescue! That tongue might have shot the lightnings of heaven into the fiendish crowd of persecutors who hunger for His blood. “Answerest thou nothing?” exclaimed the enraged High Priest. “But Jesus held His peace.” Then Pilate breaks in, “Answerest thou nothing? behold, how many things they witness against Thee!” But Jesus yet “answered not a word.” Other men have died for what they have said. Here was a personage who died for what He would not say, and was calmly silent. Wonderful comj)osure! Wonderful silence of conscious innocence and divine holiness! Wonderful patience of the Son of God! “He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheei3 before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth!”

Having reached this sublimest of all illustrations of silence before men, let us go on to consider the grace of silence toward God. At first sight the question may arise, can this ever be a virtue? Does not God demand perpetual confession and perpetual praise? “Open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise; let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.”

Yet the very same Psalter which contains these repeated calls to adoration and tluinksgiving contains such passages as those now before us. “I was silenced with dumbness! I held my peace even from good things.” “I am silenced! I will not open my mouth, because thou didst it!” Lo! David the singer has become David the silent! The great musician is mute! the harp is hung up! The most eloquent of his generations is speechless? And why? Is his heart so bowed down and so utterly broken that he becomes dumb This does not exylain the case. Grief does indeed sometimes strike the sufferer dumb, and congeals the very fount of tears, so that they cannot weep. I have seen such, to whom the very relief of tears seemed to be denied. But David’s silence was not of that character; he has told us why he opened not his mouth. He had come uj) face to face with this tremendous fact. “Thou didst it!” Jehovah of Hosts had laid his hand heavily on David’s back, and the Psalmist laid his own hand on his mouth. “I am silenced now; I will quiet myself as a child that is weaned of its mother.”

Ah! my friends, it is a glorious discovery that we make wdien we discover God’s hand in an experience of joy or an experience of sorrow. If a fellow -man has done us a wrong, we may kindle into resentment; we may scold at his stupid blunder, or vent our indignation at his willful unkindness. But when we come up to face our Heavenly Father and recognize His great over-shadowing hand, then there is nothing for us but silence and submission! Further questionings will do us no good; for God keeps bis own secrets. Murmurings will do us no good, but only aggravate our sorrows. Rebellion is ruin. Push as far as we can, press as hard as we may, we cannot get beyond this tremendous truth: God did it, God did it! Grasp that truth, hold to that truth, and open your soul’s eyes to that truth and you have learned what?

First, you have learned that an all-wise Father did it. There was no hap-hazard blunder about that stroke.

Why God’s treatment of me was wise I do not comprehend any more than your little boy comprehends the inner works of a clock when he looks at its face and reads the figure “Yin.” Then he says, “It is time to go to school.” He accepts the fact without going behind it. This tangled web of God’s providence I am not wise enough to unravel. God’s wisdom can and will.

My poor

“Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain,
God is His own interpreter
And He will make it plain.”

His own command is, “Be still and know that I am God!” Another glorious thought is wrapped up in these words, “Thou didst it.” Then a loving Father did it. That is a precious discovery, for we can bear almost anything if we are sure that love is behind it. Love never wrongs us. Love never tortures us. Love never robs us. Love never lays on us a needless load. The love that “spared not His own Son” can be trusted behind the heaviest blow or the darkest cloud. But some of you may say, “I cannot understand how a loving Father could lay His hand on me so heavily.” Good friend! This is not the world to unravel mysteries in, or get explanations from God. Heaven is the world for enlarged knowledge. There “we shall know even as we have been known.”

In this world the great purjDose is the develoj)ment of character. This is the school-life. You and I are little scholars. And when the Almighty, all- wise Teacher is speaking, the child should keep still. When He appoints us hard lessons, we should learn them. The mightiest lesson to be learned in this world is to let God have His way. Your brain and my brain are not big enough to comprehend the mysteries of Divine Providence; but your heart and my heart may trust Him enough to say: I will submit! I am silenced! I open not my mouth because Thou didst it I

A most rare and difficult grace is this grace of silence before God, but it is one of the most beautiful. None is more pleasing to God; none is more attractive before the world, none does more to finish and beautify character. But, Oh! we shrink from the process of acquiring it! How often we pray,” let this cup pass from me.” None of us loves to suffer; none of us loves to have his plans defeated, or his house emptied, or his treasures taken away! We shudder at the sight of the surgical knife which our loving Father is using upon us. But when He who wounds in order to heal is engaged in amputating a wicked lust, or cutting off a diseased limb of pride, or cutting out an ulcer of sin, our duty is to hold still. “Keep still, my friend! keep still,” says the surgeon to the soldier. Kestlessness only endangers a false cut of the knife, and aggravates the process. The soldier is not now in the hands of a murderous enemy, but of a kind, skilful friend. So if he be wise he will reply, “Doctor! do as you like; I’ll try to keep still. Go as deep as you can; but only be sure to bring out the bullet.”

Ah! brethren! the battlefield often costs less suffering and requires less courage than the hospital. So in the spiritual conflicts of life the onsets of duty, with bugles sounding and drums beating, do not so test the metal of our graces as it does to be thrown down wounded and to be carried to the rear. Doing is always easier tliaii bearing! Activity is more than quiet submission. To shout the battle-cry or huzza from the battlements is easier than to put our hands on our mouths and sit down speechless because “God does it!”

My hearers! This is one of the most practical of themes that I am presenting to you to-day. Everyone of us has occasion to practice silence before God, everyone of us should be learning when to keep still. Everyone of us is confronted with the mysteries of God’s dealing, with ourselves and with others. If He is silent as to exj)lanations of His course, we must be silent in our unquestioning submissions. K we do not know the “whys” and the “wherefores” God does.

“He knows the bitter, weary way,
The endless strivings day by day — The souls that weep — the souls that pray:
He knows.

“He knows! Oh, thought so full of bliss,
For though on earth our joys we miss,
We still can bear it, feeling this:
He knows.

“God knows! Oh, heart, take up thy cross And learn earth’s treasures are but dross, And He will turn to gain our loss: He knows! He knows!”

I have been recounting some of the many occasions in life when it is the course of wisdoni to keep still. Silence is the requisite of a good listener; let us hear what other people can tell us. Above all let us be still and hear what our Heavenly Father shall say to us. Silence is the best state for meditation; if we thought more and talked less, we should be better worth hearing when we did speak. Silence is a sedative to the soul; murmuring and quarreling with God only tears sorrows open and keeps them festering. Fellow-students in God’s school! You and I are being educated for eternity. Some things Ave can know; we can know God and trust Hhn. We can know Jesus and love Him. We can know our Bibles and follow them. And what we know not now we shall know hereafter.

One of the greatest of living preachers has beautifully told us that “over the arched gate of the Syanish Alharabi’a there is sculjDtured an open hand; over the next arch a key. The haughty Moors who held that palace-fort for so many years used to boast that the gate of the Alhambra never would be opened to the Christians until that hand should take that key Many a Providence, like that Moorish fortress, contains within its frowning battlements, sparkling fountains of living waters. How many of you have been forced to stand before one of God’s heart- trying mysteries — to stand silent — opening not the mouth because

*Rev. Dr. Marvin R. Vincent.

‘Thou didst it! ‘Oh, my friend, stand still a little longer! stand not in despair, but in patient hope! By and by the hand will take the key; the gate shall open into the heart of the Providence, and behind the stern ‘Thou didst it’ shall be revealed everlasting love and everlasting peace.”

“Sometime when all life’s lessons have been learned And sun and stars forever more have set, The thmgs which our weak judgments here have spurned, The things o’er which we grieved with lashes wet, Will flash before us, out of life’s dark night, As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue; And we shall see how all God’s plans are right. And how what seems reproof was love most true.

“But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart!

God’s plans, like lilies pure and white unfold. We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart.

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold. And if through patient toil we reach the land

Where tired feet with sandals loosed, may rest. When we shall clearly know and understand,

I think that we will say, ‘God knew the best.’”