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It is His intention to deliver us from the coldness of a wandering love. When perilous influences try to draw us from the only life that is worth living there is resistance something like that which Southerns describes in his Electricity and the Structure of Matter.
If a plate of copper be held in the hands between the poles of a powerful electromagnet, all is quiet. But if it be “suddenly snatched away from the magnet, a considerable resistance is felt, as though some invisible agency were trying to prevent its motion—which indeed is the case. If one could see the electrons in the plate while it is being moved rapidly through the strong magnetic field which exists between the poles, they would be found to be circulating energetically in closed curves within the metal, and continually bombarding the atoms of the metal.”
In the poles of the powerful magnet I see the powers of the love of God; in the field of magnetic force, the sphere of that love; in the copper plate, the lover who would fain abide there. (Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe.) And should another try to interfere and snatch him away from that place of his choice, something within him instantly resists, “as though some invisible agency” were set upon preventing his withdrawal.
For so, in very truth, the Spirit within him strives, that blessed Spirit of whom it is written that He yearneth over us. Who does not know the agitation, the turmoil of the soul that is in danger of leaving the place of its rest? Not easily do we drift from our home in the love of God. And this brings us to our knees. “O Thou Good Omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us as if Thou caredst for him only; and so for all, as if they were but one; let me know Thee, O Lord, who knowest me: let me know Thee as I am known. Power of my soul, enter into it, and fit it for Thee, that Thou mayest have and hold it without spot or wrinkle.”
There is a way into the greenwood which is not much used in these days of feverish rush. Its name in the Scriptures is Meditation. (“Let my meditation be sweet unto Him.”) We would plow a deeper furrow if we knew more of that way. We would be quieter then, and there is nothing creative in noise. “Friend, when dost thou think?” asked an old Quaker after seeing a student’s class schedule. We cannot think by acting like machinery. We cannot consider the lilies without giving time to the lilies. Often our flash of haste means little. To read a book in an hour (if the book has taken half a lifetime to write) means nothing at all. To pray in a hurry of spirit means nothing. To live in a hurry means to do much but effect little. We build more quickly in wood, hay, and stubble than in gold, silver, precious stones; but the one abides, the other does not.
If he who feels the world is too much with him will make for himself a little space, and let his mind settle like a bee in a flower on some great word of his God, and brood over it, pondering it till it has time to work in him, he will find himself in the greenwood.
He will meet his Lord there, and then quite certainly he will soon be looking with his Lord’s eyes upon the world. He will see it as Nehemiah saw the city wall, broken down, its gates burned with fire. He will hear great words of commission: “So shalt thou be called a Repairer of broken walls, a Restorer of paths leading home.”{11} He will gather others around him: “Come, let us build up the walls.” He will find something that fits his mood in the brave story: “So we labored in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared.” And as he reads he will be all a prayer:
Make me Thy laborer.
Let me not dream of ever looking back;
Let not my knees be feeble, hands be slack;
O make me strong to labor, strong to bear,
From the rising of the morning until the stars appear.
Make me Thy warrior,
On whom Thou canst depend to stand the brunt
Of any perilous charge on any front;
Give to me skill to handle sword and spear,
From the rising of the morning until the stars appear.
Not far from us, those stars—
Unseen as angels, and yet looking through
The quiet air, the day’s transparent blue.
What shall we know, and feel, and see, and hear
When the sunset colors kindle and evening stars appear?”