(Winslow, "Retirement, The School
and Discipline of Spiritual Life")
The frivolous and frothy literature of the day, of
which, alas! the press is so prolific, is exerting a
most baneful influence upon the spiritual life of
many Christian professors.
In numberless cases the exaggerated fiction;
the sensational story; the high wrought romance;
is supplanting those works contributed by the
most highly cultivated, spiritual minds.
The effect of this upon the Christianity of the
age, must be deteriorating and disastrous in
the extreme.
Hence the sickly life exhibited
by many religious professors!
The prevailing taste for this vapid, worldly
literature lowers the intellectual powers of the
mind, and impairs the spiritual powers of the soul.
What, then, is the great antidote to
this far circulating moral poison?
We unhesitatingly answer; the private and
devout study of God's word. We believe that
the Bible can only be spiritually and experimentally
understood as the student retreats from the arena
of religious controversy, into the privacy of his
chamber, and there, as upon his knees, invoking
the aid and teaching of the Holy Spirit.
It is not always in the crowd, and amid the
voices of conflicting interpreters, or even
from the pulpit, that the literal and spiritual
meaning of the Scriptures is understood; but,
when we withdraw into the privacy of the closet,
or the solitude of the sick chamber, He explains
to us, and causes us to understand, the mind of
the Spirit in the Word as at no other time and
in no other way.
And, oh! in the quietude of that separation;
in the stillness of that hour; you may have
closer communion with God; know more of
Christ and understand more of the truth,
than at any previous period of your spiritual
life! "And when they were alone, He explained
all things to His disciples."
Oh, it is thus when sequestered from man,
and only with God, we excavate the gold
and extract the honey from the Word!
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