Spiritual Effluence [pp. 437-439]

THE LADIES' REPOSITORX.
I can not write thus without calling to mind a
recent experience. I was more than usually
dreamy one day. Even material existences had
dim outlines for me, taunting me with foolish
questions in reference to the proofs for their existence; and right and wrong seemed strangely
mingled. In the evening there was a Church
sociable at my fathler's house. I wandered
through the rooms, and listened to laughter
which seemed like mockery, and to solemn talk
which sounded to me quite automatic. When
the party was about to separate, our minister,
according to the custom of our church meetings, read a chapter from the Bible, and offered
prayer. There was somethling in his tone while
reading which awoke me from my dream. He
had selected the fourteenth chapter of St. John,
and I thlought to myself-the man reads as if
he were acquainted with the One whose farewell words he gives us. And when he prayed,
his prayer was such an earnest, loving talk with
Heaven that God, so very real to him, became
quite real to me. Just a little afterward, going
out upon the portico, I found again our minister
who was sitting alone upon the steps. "It's
you, is it, my child," hle said; "I have been sitting here, thinking over the words I have just
read you, good-by words from the dear One
who left us, yet is with us still."
Perhaps this good man's sentence holds for
you no peculiar meaning. May be it sounds
quite common-place. I can not tell. It was
not the words themselves which so much affected me, but I caught from sympathy, or from
some kind of spiritual effluence, the confidence
of his trusting spirit. His words were full of
wa;m, throbbing life, because spoken by one
whose whole soul was so filled with the Holy
Influence that whatever he said must have more
than human power. The same words uttered
by you or me might have been trite or cold, because we live so far from heaven, and have so
little inspiration in our souls. But he, or God
inz him, brought back to me my faith in all
things good.
Only a few words he said to me before we
were called in-only a few, simple wordswords spoken with little effort, and with no conscious influence. Yet they were so full of the
Spirit to whose guidance he had given his life,
that tLey were more to me than many sagest
sermons, or volumes of profoundest erudition.
The faith which was strong within his heart infused itself into my own. Religion was his
hourly life, and sitting close beside him, I could
but drink in the emanations of his Christly
spirit. Heaven, and eternity, and God were
verities to me again.
Indeed, it seems to me that it is always the
testimony of the life which refutes infidelity
more strongly than all the sagest reasoning.
Arguments do not always, at least not always
immediately, change our feeling. It often takes
a long time for the plainest truth to settle down
from the intellect into the heart, becoming thus
a practical belief. A religious creed may be all
evangelical, and yet be dead to us. The truth
may not seem true, and we shall make others
feel our skepticism-however much we try to
claim sound orthodoxy.
Men are quite apt to doubt, to hold all glorious truths too loosely, not making them the
central truths of their experience. The Christian's work is to make God and good seem real
to the skeptical world he lives in, to let the loving, Christly life so lavishly outflow that men
around must drink in good.
There are some who do this. I have come
into contact with a few who always bring to me,
whlerever I may meet them, the startling consciousness of God's immediate presence; some
who often open heaven for me, making all
spiritual truth so fresh and certain that it has
seemed as if it were all new to me-some who
always bring the angels with them. I have
heard trite common-places of class meeting talk
from men whose souls were full of God, when
it has seemed as if I had never heard the words
before, so strangely, so gloriously significant
they were. It was not the effect of their oratory, or my own partiality. But some men
carry so much of Heaven within them that while
near them you can not fail to feel its radiation.
They have themselves so distinct a consciousness of God that they impress you with it. You
lose the fret of life in their peace and patience.
You lose your interest in your petty schemes
for power and precedence sitting by those who
deem the highest earthly rank below the title
of God's simplest child. Indeed, your whole
life of thought and feeling is changed by contact with strong and holy characters.
Alas! that all who dare call themselves believers, do not, like these, have faith enough
within their own souls to infuse some Christian confidence into those who are about them.
Sad, indeed, it is, that so many of our hearts
are so full of the din of the world and the clamors of our own selfish passions, that we hardly
hear ourselves "the still, small voice," still less,
let any message from the God within reach the
careless world outside.
O! that all men who call themselves God's
children could prove their glorious parentage
by the sensible influence of their presence-the
fragrant emanation from their daily life!
A38
I
I
I
I
II
i
I
i
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I