Evening Thoughts — March 30

And he said unto them, Come you yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." Mark 6:31.

SUFFER me, dear reader, to urge upon you the daily and diligent cultivation of that Christianity which derives its freshness, its vigor, and its radiance, from much hidden communion with Jesus. We plead not for the religion of the recluse. A monkish Christianity is not the Christianity of the Bible. When God, in the exercise of His sovereign grace, converts a man, He converts him, not for himself only, but also for others. He converts him, not for the Church alone, but also for the world. He is to be a monument, whose inscription all may read—a city whose beauty all may admire—a burning and a shining light, in whose radiance all may rejoice. He is to live and labor, and, if need be, die for others. But we plead for more of that Christianity which is often alone with God: which withdraws at periods from the fatigue of labor and the din of strife, to renew its strength, and to replenish its resources, in a secret waiting upon the Lord. Christians must be more alone with Jesus. In the midst of what a whirlpool of excitement and of turmoil do numbers live! How few withdraw from domestic and public enjoyments—the calls of business, the duties of committees, of secretaryships, and of agencies—to hold communion alone with God! This must not be. The institutions which they serve, the calling at which they toil, the families for whom they labor, would be the gainers, rather than the losers, by their occasional sequesterment from the world, to be alone with God. And were our Lord still upon the earth, contemplating their incessant action, their little devotional retirement, and consequent leanness of spirit, would He not be constrained to address them as He once tenderly did His jaded and exhausted disciples, "Come you yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." He would allure them from others to Himself.

Do not be surprised at any way which the Lord may take to bring your weary soul to rest in Himself. It is not always in the crowd that He speaks most tenderly to the heart. More frequently He leads His people out, and takes them apart by Himself alone. It is often in the privacy of separation and retirement, when the soul is curtained within his pavilion, that the greatest and the sweetest nearness to Jesus is experienced. "Behold, I will allure her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her,"—(margin, speak friendly to her heart). Has the Lord been leading you about—severing this tie, and breaking up that repose; disappointing you here, and thwarting you there? Amazed, you have asked, "Lord, why this?" And the only reply has been the comfort which He has spoken to your weary, desolate heart. Thus does He make good in your experience His own exceeding great and precious promise—"I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul."