To be near unto God - pagina 24

these are not fellowship with the Eternal. He fears the Lord does not rest until he has entered into such conscious fellowship with Him that there is mutual knowledge between the two. Even the clear sense that God knows him and that he knows God. What we call friendly intercourse among men, intimate fellowship, sympathy of heart with heart in faithfulness and love, is the meaning of Ps. 25; 14: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant." As close friends on earth go through life together and reveal themselves to each other, and in this intimate walk become the confidants of each other's secrets, so it is told of the Old Testament heroes of the faith that "they walked with God." And although these are but figures and terms that are borrowed from human experiences, and although we ought not to use them ourselves when we would speak of our fellowship with God except with greatest reverence, it is equally sure that God has pointed them out to us for this end. To picture this Divine fellowship the Scripture even borrows figures from animal life. Jesus illustrated his tender love for Jerusalem by the figure of the hen that gathers her chickens under her wings. David boldly declared before God that he would not only dwell in the house of the Lord forever, but that he would even make his refuge "in the covert of God's wings". (Ps. 61:4.) And why not? Did not God put his tender expression of fellowship in the world of winged creatures as an intimation of what moves his own Divine heart? And is not every suggestive and touching instance of loving fellowship in the life of nature a Divine-

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