I Believe … in the Communion of Saints

There is Communion in Worship. How often we have recited these words to ourselves, when alone in some distant land, or voyaging across the waste of waters, or detained by illness, either personal or relative, in our home, whilst the stopping bells told of the whole multitude gathered within the familiar walls. We have taken up the Prayer-Book and slowly recited the office, we have read the Psalms and sung the hymns, we have compared Lesson and Collect, till the Message of the Christian Year has sunk into mind and soul; and suddenly our chamber has become filled with holy presences, and we have realised that we were not alone, but formed part of an innumerable company, which no one could number, who with us are ascending the steps of the Heavenly Temple. Their songs are wafted to our ears, the very atmosphere they breathe enwraps us also.

How much blessing would accrue to those who are detained from Church on Sunday morning or evening, if they would cease to think of the physical deprivation, and would remember that they 202 were spirits who, though apparently imprisoned and confined by the body, were really independent of it, and could go forth to mingle with the vast crowds that surround God’s throne, in ceaseless worship.

Call me, rather, silent voices,

Upward through the starry tract,

To the glimmering heights beyond me,
On and always on.

There ts Communion in Prayer and Service. “If two of you,” said the Master, “‘ agree as touching anything that yeask ...” The word translated agree is “are in symphony.” When the Holy Spirit strikes two spirits, in accord with Himself, and they utter the self-same prayer or breathe - the same desire, there is a lovely symphony, which is very dear to God. They may not be conscious of the oneness, and have entered into no compact with each other; their concert is altogether due to the Spirit, but such prayer never miscarries. Cornelius prays in his house, and Peter on the house-top; Ananias prays in his home at Damascus, and Saul in the house of Judas; these are but specimens of myriads of instances, in which spirit has blended with spirit before the mercy-seat.

In his Revival Lectures, Finney tells of a pious man in Western New York who was sick of consumption. He was poor and had been sick for years. An unconverted merchant was very kind to him, and the only return he could make was to pray for his salvation. By-and-bye, to the astonishment of everybody, the merchant was converted, and a great revival followed. After the death of this poor man, his widow put his diary into Mr. Finney’s hands, from which it appeared that he had been in the habit of setting apart certain hours in the day to pray for certain churches and missionary stations. His diary contained entries like the following: ‘“To-day I have been enabled to offer the prayer of faith for the outpouring of the Spirit on Po Ad at was subsequently discovered that mighty revivals had commenced and swept over those localities, nearly in the exact order of his praying. It was thus that he was able to take part in the work of God in places that he would never visit.

A station under the care of a missionary in connection with the China Inland Mission was the scene of constant revival; and the secret only leaked out on the return of Mr. Hudson Taylor to England, when he came in touch with a single disciple who made it the subject of his unceasing prayer.

There ts Communion in Suffering. Whenever a colliery accident, a massacre of Armenians or Bulgarians, a shipwreck, a railway accident, or a battlefield strewn with wounded, elicits sympathy, prayer, and ready help, throughout Christian communities, there is a blessed manifestation of the communion of saints. One member suffers, and all the other members suffer with it.

“As there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one Hope of our Calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, may we henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of Truth and Peace, of Faith and Charity, so that we may with one mind and one mouth glorify Thee, O God, our Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”