To be near unto God - pagina 44

endeavor to confirm and make more real the fellowship with God, the inner life of the soul is strengthened and upbuilt. Moreover, such godlymotions are medicine against sleeplessness itself, while rebellious restlessness fosters and prolongs To fight God in such an hour makes restlessit. ness, it gives rise to feelings of oppression and renders sleep more and more impossible. While fellowship with God at such a time brings rest and calm to troubled minds and sleep to weary eyelids.

this is only a by-product. The main point that a sleepless night is the time in which to seek the Lord, and to test the word of the Psalmist: "It is good for me to hold me fast by God." The strenuous activities of life, the constant noise on every side, and the absorbing occupations of the mind by day, hold us off and estrange us from God. But in the quiet hours of night nothing at all diverts us. The darkness is restful to the eyes. The stillness of night puts the ear on the retired list. No work of any sort engages us. Hurry has given place to calm. Nothing, indeed, diverts. There is no one near to trouble us or to detain us. All the conditions are there for undisturbed fellowship with God. Such hours of night invite us, more than any other, to enter into the sanctuary of the Most High. The midnight watch has something of Sabbath stillness about it, which is inaugurated by the evening reading of God's Word, and by the evening prayer, when on bended knees the soul was poured out before God. At length we are at rest. And now the cares and anxieties of the day must either be resolutely put aside or we must enter

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