The Latest Voice of God
“He shall not speak from Himself.”
John xvi. 13,
IT is the Holy Spirit that is here spoken of — the ripest fruit of the reHgious life. I take the meaning of the passage to be that, when religion in the soul is perfected, it will not have a voice separate from other things, but will blend with all the voices of nature. In the early stages religion is apart from other things. We distinguish, in those days, between nature and grace, secular and sacred, world and Church, week-day and Sabbath. The voice of God does not come to us through the events of the common hour; it speaks ‘’ from itself “— from its own lofty height in the heavens. To hear it we must come out from the madding crowd into a region of purer air and more seraphic rest. So is it at the beginning. But our Lord says there is a time coming when we shall think differently. He says there is a time coming when the voice of God shall not speak ‘’ from itself,” but shall send its message through secular voices. There is a time coming when the services of religion shall not be limited to the sanctuary, when piety shall not be confined to prayer, when psalmody shall not be monopolised by the psalter. There is a time coming when the voice of the Spirit shall call from the windows of man’s house. It shall call from the scenes of nature; it shall call from the heights of poetry; it shall call from the galleries of art. It shall speak from the crowded marketplace; it shall speak from the seat of custom, and from the wheels of traffic. It shall sound from the haunts of pleasure; from the dance and the music; from the holiday and the feast. No spot shall be without an altar, no scene shall escape a sacrifice; for the Cross that once was planted only at Jerusalem shall be carried to Cana of Galilee.
Hasten that time, O Lord — the time when all things shall carry Thy message! Thy message as yet can only come to me from Thyself;
I can only hear it in Thine own house. It is to Thy house that I go for revelation. It is within the walls of Thy temple that I look for the rending of the veil. I think of the world’s voices as drowning Thy voice; it never occurs to me that they may be Thy telegrams. Tomorrow I shall know it — when Thy spirit shall come. Tomorrow I shall learn a new experience; the world itself shall reveal Thee. Thou shalt speak to me in voices not Thine own — voices which I used to call secular. Thou shalt speak to me in babbling brook and murmuring stream. I shall hear Thee in sighing wind and plashing fountain. I shall catch the tread of Thy feet in the haunts of the scientist; in what men call evolution I shall hear Thee climbing the hill. On every mount of aspiration I shall listen to Thy preaching; on every pinnacle of temptation I shall listen to Thy warning; in every valley of humiliation I shall listen to Thy Garden prayer. In all breaking of bread I shall see Thy hand. In all healing of pain I shall feel Thy touch. In all stilling of passion I shall read Thy mandate. In all marriage feasts I shall seek Thy j)resence. In all dreams of youth I shall behold Thy dove descending. In all Magdalene homes I shall hear Thy words of pardon. In all children’s hospitals I shall discern Thine outstretched arms. Thy voice shall be the world’s voice in the sweet by and by!