THE VALUE OF MEDITATION.
By Rev. D. Sutherland
MARK GUY PEARSE speaks of meditation as "a lost art," and there is but too much truth in the opinion he has thus expressed. The conditions of life in our day are unfavorable to that concentration of thought and isolation of spirit which are of the very essence of meditation. Life is lived now at a pressure and amid distractions practically unknown in the good old times, when men had leisure enough to taste to the full the sweets of reflection, if they were so disposed. The altered conditions of life in our day only emphasize the need for and the value of meditation. The tyranny of the world is felt keenly by every thoughtful mind. The exacting demands of professional activity, the exhausting rush of business claims, and the weary routine of domestic cares, make all of us prisoners. We are shut up in the cell of our own occupation. Two doors open a way for us out of the influences which "crib, cabin, and confine" us. One is sleep, the other is meditation. Sleep leads us into the green fields of dreamland, where the sun always shines, where the fragrant flowers are always in bloom, and where the dust and din of the city are unheard. Meditation takes us by the hand out of the pestiferous atmosphere and hard ways of the world in which most of us have to live, into quiet pastures, where a healing benediction falls on the weary spirit, and new strength comes with the endeavor to live a nobler life. The value of meditation is indorsed by the habitual custom of the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ. It was his practice to rise early in the morning and retire to some solitary place, in which he gathered strength for the work of the day. Such seasons of solitude were highly prized by him. There can be no doubt that the unbroken calm and restful energy which characterized his activity found their source in these morning meditations. As it was with the Master, so has it ever been with his most distinguished disciples. In the moods and places of silence, where man was far away but God was very near, they won the serenity of spirit and power of endurance that enabled them to fulfill their mission in life. Paul received a training in the seclusion of Arabia which equipped him more effectually for his apostolic labors than all the lessons he was taught at the feet of Gamaliel. The lonely Isle of Patmos was for John the Divine a school in which the deepest mysteries of the spiritual life were unveiled. Martin Luther could not have been the Reformer of the Middle Ages but for the convictions formed in the solitary struggles of the monastery. John Bunyan's silenced lips and prison meditations brought to Christendom the gift of the "Pilgrim's Progress." Other examples must rise to the reader's memory of eminent workers for God who found inspiration in meditations which led them into the secret place of the Most High. The old Puritan theologians used to say that three things went to the making of a theologian. These were meditation, temptation, and prayer. It may be that much of the shallowness of the thinking of our day on the problems of experimental religion is due to the neglect of meditation. One thing is certain: a firm grip of and a living acquaintance with the fundamental experiences of the Christian281life can be had only by long and solitary pondering over spiritual truths. As the river is fed by the little streams it takes to itself on its way to the sea, so the life large with the largeness of Christ is fed by the moods of meditation which the experiences of each new day bring to the Christian eager to improve his opportunities of spiritual culture. Gurnall says that "meditation is prayer's handmaid." Another Puritan writer declares that "meditation and prayer are like the spies that went to search the land of Canaan; the one views and the other cuts down, and both bring home a taste of the fairest and sweetest fruits of heaven. Meditation, like the eye, views our mercies, and prayer, like the hand, reacheth in those mercies." The truth of this utterance will be cheerfully corroborated by every reader who has tasted the fruits of devotional meditation—fruits which are as real a foretaste of the joys of heaven as the grapes of Eschol were of the fruits of the promised land. A sharp distinction must be drawn between meditation and reverie. Too many Christians think they are meditating when they are only dreaming. Sitting with an open Bible on your knee and thoughts wandering at random may be pleasant, but it cannot be helpful, for it is merely a passive condition of the mind, which verges on vacuity. While meditation has in it a passive element, it is largely active in its concentration of the mental faculties upon the object of contemplation, whatever that may be—whether the person of Christ, his redemptive work, or the revelation of his mind and will in the Scriptures. Christianity is strenuous in thought as well as in action. The more intense the meditation, the more precious the blessings it brings. Meditation's supreme value is the door it opens into communion with God. George Macdonald says beautifully and truly in one of his best books: "Every door leading to God is a door opening outward—out of self, out of worldliness, out of sinfulness." He who keeps the door of meditation shut, bars himself out of the sweetest experiences of life, for he refuses to enter that inner chamber where our Father in heaven is waiting to talk with his children. God is always speaking to us, in the voices of his revelation, of his providence, and of his Spirit, but for most of us the voices of the world are so loud that they silence the voice of God. In the hushed stillness of the sanctuary of meditation it is very different. There the voice of love sounds like music in our ears, the restfulness of God calms the fever of life, and the peace which passeth understanding rests like a benediction upon our spirits. However busy the day may be, we must resolutely strive to sweeten and strengthen it with golden minutes of meditation. Even ten minutes of solitary communion in the morning will make the day what otherwise it cannot be. It will bring us into fellowship with God, and carry into our work a transforming influence which brightens with the glory of heaven the prosaic tasks of earth.—New York Observer.