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HOSES AT THE BURNING BUSH DI VINE. DIREC.. ION
T should not be thought a thing incred
ible for God to speak to His Children
without a “Medium.” Nature is full of
seeming mysteries, but are they mys
teries when we really get close enough
to our great mother to hear the whis
per of her secrets? I stand here and
speak to you and the undulating air as
sound waves bears you my words which,
I
in some way, between here and there are trans
formed into thought. Currents of electricity bear
our words across seas and continents, preserving as
they fiy the very intonations of our voice. And
what is more mysterious still, men have grown so
familiar with nature that she has told them how
to control the ether waves that encircle the globe
so that without wire or any other visible means
of transmission we may speak out into viewless
air and have our words recorded on the other side
of the world. They are even using the wireless
telephones in the East, attaching one to an auto so
that if an accident occurs and help is needed they
can communicate with the garage at once. We
say it is all wonderful and mysterious, but is it?
These are only a few of Nature’s secrets which she
has kept locked up from the ages past only to reveal
them to our day and generation There was as
much electricity in Eden as in Beaumont, but no
one knew how to handle it. The closer we get to
nature the easier may she whisper to us her seciets,
and the closer we get to God the more clearly shall
we understand. His voice.
Moses was willing to pause by the wayside if
pausing he might catch the rhythm of divine mel
ody. He says: “I do not understand this thing.
There is a bush all ablaze and yet not consumed.
I wonder why? There must be some secret to it. I
will turn aside and see,” and as he tarried the fire
blaze became the shekina glory of the Eternal God
and from out the crackling branches came coined
words from Almighty lips. This pausing by life’s
way for divine direction is a paying business.
The Vision and Its Victory.
Moses caught a vision of God before he knew
what it was. He had to linger in its presence for a
fuller revelation; but the explanation is sure to fol
low the vision. What we need is power to see.
One vision of God will settle a hundred puzzling
questions. I read of a pool* seamstress who toiled
day and night until at last her eyesight almost com
pletely failed. Consulting an oculist she was asked
if she could take a trip to the mountains to some
high altitude. She said it was impossible. Then
said the oculist, “What can you see from your win
dw?” The poor woman declared that she could see
a meadow and a winding brook, and a blue moun
tain in the distance. “That is enough,” exclaimed
the oculist. “What you need is a broad vision and
you may get it from your very window. Lay down
your needle and patch work and strain youi eyes
sweeping God’s horizon.”
The need of the poor woman is the need of each
one of us—a real sweeping vision. When the Apos
tle Paul lay listening to the murmurs of the Aegean
sea he heard, borne in by n’ght winds, the voice
of God calling him into higher and holier service.
In speaking of it years later he dec’ared: “I was
not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” One evi
dence of real wisdom in the magi who worshipped
'the infant Christ lies in the fact that they not only
saw, but followed the star to where the young child
lay.
Every life that is worth the living has a vision
of something better than existing things, and wheth
er a man obeys, or is disobedient to his vision de
termines his destiny. Jhe little gill crooning to
her doll has a dimly formed vision of maternal
cares, the boy busy with hammer and nails fore
sees himself an architect. If, looking at the vision
of the man he OUGHT to be, he deliberately turns
his back upon it, he is a reprobate. If he gazes
upon the vision admiringly and yet puts forth no
effort to make it real, he is none the better toi hav
ing had it.
The Pilgrim Fathers followed a vision of faith and
freedom to a new world and we are their benefi
ciaries today. George Washington had a vision of a
The Golden Age for June 23, 1910.
“government of the people, by the people, and for
the people,” and he followed his vision to Yorktown,
where it became a fact.
The old time tri-reme warship was run by galley
slaves who occupied separate galleys and had no
communication the one with the other; but their
stalls were so built that each one could see the
captain as he stood on deck signalling how to use
the oars. It has not been given to us to know the
intricacies of God’s plans and the ultimate of His
purposes, but with eyes fixed on Jesus we may have
his directions which will guarantee success. This
burning bush was the pivot-point around which the
future successes of Moses revolved. Mrs. Browning
has well said that every bush is ablaze with God
but only he who sees takes off his shoes, and we
might add that only he who stops on life’s hot road
and turns aside ever sees.
The Purpose and Its Power.
The only resolves that are ever kept are those
made in the light of a vision. We will not resolve
until we have seen new possibilities, new heights,
new opportunities and new glories. Purpose is a
stronger word than resolve. Every letter in pur
pose is shot through with action. To resolve is the
kindlings of the first fire in the forge, but to pur
pose is the flying of the sparks from the heated
metal.
John Marshall, because of his strength of purpose,
was a chief justice while yet in college, being called
upon to settle disputes between his fellows. The
power of a purpose transformed John Howard, the
pleasure seeker, into John Howard, the prison evan
gelist. Under the same holy flame Augustine the
indulgent became Augustine the saint. Looking
through the prismatic lens of a holy purpose Colum
bus saw a new continent swinging out in propless
space and set sail across unknown seas with muti
nous men to find it. The emerald glory of San Sal
vador repaid him for all he suffered. A falling ap
ple at a Newton’s feet became an event in science
because it fathered a meditation which grew into a
clearly defined conviction which at last gave the
world an explanation of the law of gravitation. The
boiling of a tea kettle sings the song of a mogul
if only a Watt is present to hear it.
But in the real of life there is even a higher pur
pose than this. It is said of Daniel that he “pur
posed in his heart.” It was such a purpose as this
that transformed Moody, the shoe clerk, into Moody,
the great evangelist. It made the Apostle Paul out
of Saul of Tarsus. Saul was an imperialist until he
met Jesus in the way and ever afterwards he was
“the bond slave of Christ” and gloried in the appel
lation. If we get the vision and have our hearts
gripped with God’s highest resolves, there will go
out from our lives sweetest music to cheer the
cheerless and comfort the comfortless and strength
en the faint hearted ones along life’s lonely road.
May the Lord make us each a blessing to some other
soul! The Plan and Its Preciousness.
Following the vision and the turning aside and
the holy resolves of Moses, came the divine plan
for his life. Only in the dimmest sort of way had
he seen his relation to the great God, and poorly
had he comprehended the divine plan into which
his life must fit; but standing in the presence of
the burning bush he received a new plan. God
spoke to him out of the holy flame and told him
(hat ever afterwards he was to say: “I am Gods
man. I am on a holy errand. The great I am hath
sent me.”
The consciousness of being divinely sent steadies
a man at every turn of the way. To know that I
am acting inside the divine will and protected by
divine power and aided by the Divine Spirit is all I
ask at any time for anything. It took an all night
scuffle to bring Jacob up to where he could see
God’s plan for his life, but when he saw it he became
a new man with new power and new aims for the
future. Standing inside the walls of Jericho, Joshua
was attracted by the glitter of a new sword in a
seeming stranger’s hand. Drawing closer a revela
tion gave him a vision of God anil out ol the vision
was evolved a new life with new purposes and new
plans. Job was reduced to poverty and shame and
suffering, but when once he saw God face to face,
Caleb A. Ridley.
all was changed and the best man in the world be
came the richest man in Uz with the finest family
in all the land.
But we want to bear in mind that visions and
purposes and plans are all given us that we may
serve our day and generation. A vision of suffering
out of which does not grow plans for alleviation, is
a vision lost. A vision of unsealed heights that do
not beckon us onward and upward had better never
come. A vision of sinfulness within our own hearts
that does not result in our cleansing will leave us
the worse for it.
When we shall be able to bring our lives up to
God’s high standard of service, we will then begin
to see how blessed it is to live. I sat in my study
one day and listened to an organ tuner tune our
great organ. He first found the key note and then
one by one brought the others into harmony with
it. There was a grind and a squeak and a jar, but
at last concord. 1 found my heart crying unto God
for this harmony with the Infinite.
After Jennie Lind had left the stage and given
herself to the service of God, she was approached
one day as she sat beside a river with an open
Bible in her lap. Said her friend: “I am anxious
to know what led you to abandon the stage when
riches, fame and an applauding world were at your
feet?” Pointing to bending trees and singing birds
and rolling waters she said: “The stage was destroy
ing my love for these. And then I was losing inter
est in this old Book, and almost forgetting that
there was such a thing as a suffering world.” But a
new vision brought a higher service.
At Tybee beach near Savannah, one day I watched
the children play with the sportive waves of the
sea. In silvery ripples they would roll over tha
children’s feet and then recede only to be met by
others whose graceful curves and rhythmic swish
were restful to eye and ear a’ike. At last, the little
ones resolved on a change of play and began digging
wells in the sand; but the same little waves woubl
level every hillock from sight and fill to the verj
brim every child’s play-well.
And I said: So it is in God’s great Kingdom of
grace. We are all but children at play digging our
little wells, thinking to exhaust his infinite fullness
of love and power, when we should remember that
every drop of the ocean’s fullness returns thither
again and that our Father can enrich us with the
fullness of Hiis power without in any way impover
ishing Himself or diminishing the store for the rest
of mankind. Our strength is in Him and our help
must come from Him.
One of the finest pieces of art to be seen in Amer
ica is the statue of Phillips Brooks in Boston. The
great preacher is standing with uncovered head,
supporting the Bible with his left hand and his right
resting thereon. Behind him, as a faint shadow,
stands the Lord Jesus with three of his fingers rest
ing on Brooks’ shoulder. It is an artist’s way of
saying that the secret of Phillips Brooks’ great pow
er lay in his touch with Jesus. The same thing will
be true in your life and mine. Just as he fills us
will we have power and just as he gives it will suc
cess crown our efforts.
Livingston wandered over the desert, and by the
swift flowing streams, and through th edepths of I he
wildest wilderness trying to tame the savage and
rescue the perishing, because she Spirit of the Mas
ter was upon him. When at last God called him
from labor to rest, he was upon his knees in prayer
for the Dark Continent. It was the life within ex
pressing itself. Such living and such dying is only
possible to him who has a real vision of God’s pres
ence, and knows He never forsakes.
And thus through the centuries has God been re
vealing Himself. Slowly, but surely, has the dark
gulf of futurity over which philosophy hangs with
weary wing been lighted up by the rays from His
face. With a veiled promise to Adam as he left
Eden; with a twilight message through the prophets
of old, and at last with a duplicate of His own per
son in Jesus Christ, has God been revealing Himself
to this world. It is ours to catch the first gleams
of morning light, and shout daybreak to the slum
bering hosts.
Beaumont, Tex.
