Joshua 3:9

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God." Jos 3:9

In the Old Testament, the question of place has never been regarded as inferior. To us locality is a matter of little or no importance, but to the Hebrew locality was an element of true worship. The Israelites were in this instance invited to a particular place, in order that they might hear the words of the Lord. Christianity so far enlarges this idea as to find in the sanctuary the place in which God especially reveals himself to earnest and expectant worshippers. Jesus Christ went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-days. Jesus Christ also withdrew from the crowd in order that he might alone commune with God in the silence of night and the solitude of the mountain. There is no doubt an utter destruction of the idolatry of place in Christianity; but the destruction of idolatry is not equal to the deconsecra-tion of given places of worship: the altar is still holy; the church is still recognised as praying-ground in an especial sense, namely, the sense of bringing together men of common sympathies and common aspirations, and giving them to feel the security of nearness and multitude. Whilst it is possible to pray in the great throng, and even to commune upon deep subjects amid the noise of the world, yet Silence will ever be regarded as constituting a kind of sanctuary in which the soul more especially delights. Every Isaac will feel a pleasure in going into the fields at eventide to meditate. There is a kind of thought which may be said to have its residence in the mountains, and a kind of praise which may be said to reach its noblest expression amid the waves of the great deep. The mere act of "coming" is itself a religious exercise; it means withdrawment from usual avocation or entertainment, and specialty of thought and service: it breaks up the idea of commingling and intermixture, which too often tends towards earthliness rather than towards heavenliness, and constitutes in itself a severe trial of intellectual attention and moral expectation. Such coming means willingness to set apart time for Christian purposes, and to create opportunities for spiritual education. Coming is thus, in some degree, a sacrifice, a token of the heart's willingness to obey God rather than yield to the clamour of earthly appeals. All men are the better for coming together for religious service. We get something in fellowship which we can never get in solitude. Men belong to one another in this sense, and are not complete in the absence of one another. Even where physical association is impossible, the very act of yearning after the absent, and compelling them to be spiritually present, is in itself an expression of the noblest religious feeling. Atmosphere will always have its effect upon moral education. Here the great subject of environment shows its importance. Whilst there may be some minds so strong and independent as to create their own atmosphere, yet looking at men in the generality, they require the help of locality and all the subtile suggestion of association and habitude in order to excite religious impulse and expectation to the highest point. -There is great plausibility in the sophism that men can hear the words of the Lord anywhere. Jesus Christ did not mean to teach that doctrine when he told the woman at the well, "Neither in this place, nor at Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father;" he merely meant to destroy the idolatry of place, not its consecration; his idea was one of inclusiveness, not of exclusiveness; and his purpose was to show that men could everywhere pray, and that, when compelled to abstain from consecrated places, that compulsion would not interfere with the integrity or prevalence of prayer. Men can live everywhere, but they can live best at home. Men can express their thoughts in any language, but there will always be about the mother-tongue a tenderness which cannot be communicated by any other. Men can see in other men brothers, but they can see in family likenesses and feel in family sympathies what cannot be found elsewhere. It is so with religious life in relation to the Church. The fact that some men are superstitious upon these points must not destroy rational veneration. So long as the Church preserves the peculiarity of its function, and strenuously endeavours to meet the abiding demands of human instinct and reason, it can never lose its hold upon the confidence of the world.