Times of Retirement

At the request of many I have collected these fugitive devotional pieces which at stray moments I have been contributing to an organ of the Church of Scotland — “Saint Andrew.” They have been the diversion from sustained work, and in no other light do I offer them. Yet there are some who cannot study sustained work; they have not leisure enough or they have not health enough. For such, truth must come ‘’in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” Any one of these meditations can be read in three minutes; yet three minutes may influence a whole day. Accordingly, I have consented to give them collective form. They will not all appeal equally to every mood of mind. Where one does not appeal, lay it aside, but do not throw it away; what is not your message to-day may be your message to-morrow. It is often said that devotion is a thing of the heart. I do not think it is either merely or mainly so. I hold that all emotion is based upon intellectual conviction. Even your sense of natural beauty is so based. Whence comes that joy with which you gaze on a bit of landscape you call “a picturescene “? Precisely from your intellectual conviction that it is not a picture; if you believed it to be a painting, your emotion would die altogether. A man may have faith in what he does not understand, but he cannot have emotion in what he does not understand. The heart must have a theory for its own music. Therefore the devotional writer must have a message as much as the expositor. Devotion must be the child of reflection; it may rise on wings, but they must be the wings of thought. The meditations of this little book will appeal to the instinct of prayer just in proportion as they appeal to the teachings of experience; therefore, before all things, I have endeavoured to base the feelings of the heart on the conclusions of the mind.

G. M.
Edinburgh, 1901.

“Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with.”

St. John iv. II.

THE Woman of Samaria has struck the marvel in the life of Jesus; He had nothing to draw with. The most attractive figure in the fields of time had no outward cause for His attractiveness. He says so Himself, ‘’ I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” His drawing will be proportionate to His zt’///idrawing, to His shrinking within Himself, to His sacrifice. The greatest compliment you can pay to man or woman is to say that they attract without adornment. There are some who would reveal their birth in any garb — in the meanest, in the poorest. You might clothe them in rags; you might lodge them in hovels; you might surround them with the humblest furniture; but their speech would betray them to be “not of Galilee.” They have nothing to draw with, but they themselves draw. They may stand before the judgment-seat of a Pilate; but their attitude says “I am a king.”

So is it with Thee, Thou Son of the Highest. Thou hast nothing to attract but Thine own beauty. Thou hast put off the best robe of the Father; Thou hast assumed the dress of the prodigal son. It is in a soiled garment that Thou hast solicited my love. Thou hast come to me footsore and wxary — a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Thou hast offered me no gifts of material glory. Thou hast asked me to share Thy poverty. Thou hast said: ‘’ Wilt thou come with me to the place where the thorns are rifest, to the land where the roses are most rare? Wilt thou follow me down the deep shadows of Gethsemane, up the steep heights of Calvary? Wilt thou go with me where the hungry cry for bread, where the sick implore for health, where the weary weep for rest? Wilt thou accompany me where pain dwells, where danger lurks, where death lies?

Wilt thou walk with me through the lanes and alleys where the poor meet and struggle and die? Wilt thou live with me where the world passes by in scorn, where fashion pauses not to rest, where even disciples have often forsaken me and fled? Then is thy love complete, my triumph perfected. Then have I reached the summit of human glory; for thou hast chosen me for myself alone, and without the aid of earth I have drawn thy heart to heaven.”

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