A thoroughly satisfactory book of devotional reading is always hard to find. There is a certain flabbiness of thought and insipidity of sentiment about most books of this class that suggest the description "spirituality and water." There is too often a hectic flush on the piety depicted, that is quite different from the glow of health. This is the more to be regretted because good devotional reading is so very edifying; it is always helpful, but peculiarly so in the present state of the Church. The tendency of our religious ...
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A thoroughly satisfactory book of devotional reading is always hard to find. There is a certain flabbiness of thought and insipidity of sentiment about most books of this class that suggest the description "spirituality and water." There is too often a hectic flush on the piety depicted, that is quite different from the glow of health. This is the more to be regretted because good devotional reading is so very edifying; it is always helpful, but peculiarly so in the present state of the Church. The tendency of our religious life is strongly utilitarian; missions, reforms, improved methods, and beneficence are the fruits of Christianity we boast of to-day. This is well; but there is a very real and practical danger that we come to look on these activities as constituting our religion. No doubt charity is the sweetest, fairest fruit of Christianity, but it is a fruit -- not the root. The life, that life from which all virtues grow, is " hid with Christ in God." Whatever helps to draw us closer to that hidden source of life, whatever helps to wrap the mantle of devotion about our face that we may reverently listen to the "still small voice " of the Holy Spirit, is very helpful. Dr. Matheson has by his "Voices of the Spirit" added a contribution of real value to our slender store of books that are helpful to moments of devotion. The purpose of the book is stated in the preface as an attempt to aid the moments of devotional life "and the author adds," I do not believe, however, that the moments of devotion are moments of mental vacancy; the wings on which the spirit soars must always be wings of thought." Inform the book is a series of short meditations on passages of Scripture in which the Holy Spirit is mentioned. Each meditation begins with a clearly expressed idea, not always drawn from the text, but suggested by it through some association. This leading idea is followed in -- not out -- to contemplation of personal need, spiritual aspiration and prayer. This is the almost invariable order, and the transition is so simple and natural that we rarely mark where meditation ends and prayer begins. In some cases the thought presented is very remotely connected with the text. For example, the text. "As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest," calls forth this: "Their, the beasts, rest, is reached by unrest, by movement downward. Even so is thy spiritual rest. It is only in the valley of humiliation that thou canst find it. Thou ait standing on the hill-top of vanity, etc." The text, " And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance, '' suggests this: "The great advantage of the Spirit is that it (?) gives me a common language. Before the Spirit comes I speak in my own tongue; I cannot interpret the language of my brother. But when I get the Spirit, I get the thing called sympathy, the power to feel with another." These are beautiful thoughts, but they are poetry, not exegesis. -- The Presbyterian and Reformed Review , Volume 1
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