Godhead still must lie hidden and dark to me, only the prophet shows me how to go forward with the accomplishment of the call and how to become holy: —"Give ear, O Lord, to my words and understand my cry—for to Thee will I pray. In the morning I will stand before Thee and will see, because Thou art not a God that wiliest iniquity," (I promise Thee I shall make my morning meditation.) "Neither shall the wicked dwell near Thee, nor the unjust abide before Thy eyes. (Ps. v.) What a glorious truth! Prayer will do the work of spiritualizing us. After standing thus before the face of Jehovah in meditation our vices and faults cannot intrude; they must melt before the fires of His eternal gaze.
The slayer of a God cannot well gaze upon his victim without a revulsion of sentiment, pity and love.
Face to face, however, in prayer and meditation, with the bloody work of sin, one will not be swift to repeat the offence. Ah, this is what makes it so hard for men to pray; they fear to look upon their dead, stabbed Saviour. The murderer at the bar shudders at sight of his victim's clothes and the incriminating blood-spots. My life is set henceforth to be so sin-free that it may repeat the prayer of David: "I will give glory to the Lord and will sing to the name of the Lord the Most High." (Ps. vii, 107.) But only by "the word of His grace Who is able to build up and give an inheritance among all the sanctified." (Acts, xx, 22.) Yes, by the word of His grace, by the Holy Ghost, shall I enter the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem.—"Being bound in the spirit, I go to Jerusalem," says St. Paul. (Acts xx, 22.) Burnings, shadows, tears, tortures, pains, aches, the tragic earth-poem will be played out, with its full orchestra of moods and passions; the Holy Ghost, in faith, so prophesied:—"The Holy Ghost, in every city, witnesseth to me, saying, that bond and affliction wait for me." (v. 23.) "But I fear none of these things," says St. Paul. Nor shall we fear any or all the devil's, the world's, our fellowmen's or even our own perfidies, if by faith we learn and love and strive, if by faith we judge and act, and by faith are prompted, if, in a word, we are "bound in the spirit,"
"the obedient slaves of grace and our lives are made to testify to the Gospel of grace," and bear, on their reverse side, the indorsement of the Holy Ghost. The promissory notes and checks drawn on heaven shall not be honored unless they have, in their motive and accomplishment, the indorsement of the august name of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity —Come, Holy Spirit!
