A recent writer, in a brilliant essay on the music of today, tells us that we are living nowadays under "the dominion of din." And whether or not that is true of music, of which I am not qualified to speak, it is certainly true of ordinary life.
Our forefathers may have had very imperfect ideals of Christian service. They may have tolerated social abuses which we would never tolerate today. But they had one element in their Christian life in more abundant measure than we have it, and that was the blessed element of silence.
What peace there was in the old-fashioned Sabbath--what a reverent stillness in the house of God--what a quiet and peaceful solemnity in worship at the family altar!
And if today we cannot but be conscious that something of that old spirit has departed, we know that something precious has been lost.
It is gain to be immersed in service. It is a high ambition to be energetic. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.
And yet the Bible never says to us, "Be energetic, and know that I am God." It says, Be still, and know that I am God.
Indeed, we are so in love with noise today that stillness is commonly looked upon as weakness.
And it is well to remind ourselves occasionally that often the very opposite is true.
When the rain beats against the window pane, we are awakened by its noise. But the snow falls so silently, that never an infant stirs within its cradle. And yet the snow may block up every road quite as effectually as a landslide and dislocate the traffic of a kingdom.
Set a thousand digging shovels to work, and you produce a certain effect upon the soil. But when the frost comes with her silent fingers and lightly touches field and meadow with them, in a single night that silent frost will work more effectually than a thousand shovels.
God does not work in this strange world by hustling. God works in the world far more often by hush.
In all the mightiest powers which surround us, there is a certain element of stillness.
And if I did not find in Jesus Christ something of that divine inaudibility, I confess I should be tempted to despair.
When Epictetus had had his arm broken by the savage cruelty of his master, he turned round without one trace of anger, and said to him quietly, "I told you so."
And when a heathen satirist taunted the Christians, asking what nobler thing their Master did, one of them answered, "He kept silence."
There is a silence that may speak of weakness. There is another silence that is full of power. It is the empty husk that rattles in the breeze. It is the brook and not the river that makes the noise.
And it is good that we should remember that when we are tempted to associate quietness with weakness, as perhaps we are all tempted nowadays.
~George H. Morrison~