The Harvest of a Quiet Eye: Leisure Thoughts for Busy Lives

There is certainly, in the present age, a want of writing that shall rest and brace the mind; of meditative writing of a tendency merely holy and practical, rather shunning than plunging into controversy:—not the cry of the angry or startled bird, but its evening and morning orisons rather. A contemplative strain; one linked with things of earth, and hallowing them—one heard beside “the common path that common men pursue”:—one rising from the common work-a-day experiences, joys, and pains—rising from these and carrying them up with it heavenward, until even earth’s exhalations catch the light of an unearthly glory. We want more of this spiritual rest; more of this standing apart from the perturbations of the day; more of retirement and retired thought—thought that shall leave the throng, with its absorbed purpose and pushing and jostling, always eager, often angry; and having secured a lonely standing-point apart from it all, become better able to judge of the real truth and importance, also of the just relation of things. I cannot claim to have done more than make a slight attempt towards the supply of this want. Nay, I would rather lay claim not to have attempted. This is the age of effort and strain; it were well that thought were sometimes permitted to be natural, spontaneous, and simply expressive of that which the heart’s meditations have laid by in store. A stream thus welling up will want the precision and the single aim of the artificial jet, but it will have its modest use and value to cheer and to refresh lowly grasses, and perhaps to water the roots of loftier growths in its vagaries and meanderings. In these times men will be held nothing if not controversial; and rival parties will skim the book for shibboleths before they read or throw it by. Assuredly fixed principles and definite teaching are (if ever at one time more than another) of special importance in the present day; and I am not one who think it well to blow both hot and cold at pleasure. Only I would ask, is there absolute need that we be always blowing either? may we not sometimes be permitted simply to breathe? There are occasions on which I find myself compelled to blow one or the other, but I grudge the good breath spent in the exertion, and prefer to return to the normal state of even respiration. A story, told of Archbishop Leighton’s youth, is to the point:—“In a synod he was publicly reprimanded for not ‘preaching up the times.’ ‘Who,’ he asked, ‘does preach up the times?’ It was answered that all the brethren did it. ‘Then,’ he rejoined, ‘if all of you preach up the times, you may surely allow one poor brother to preach up Christ Jesus and eternity.’” No doubt, we must be militant here on earth, militant against every form of error—old error undisguised, and old error in a new dress; but the more need that we should secure breathing times when we may sheathe the biting sword and lay the heavy armour by. Perhaps many with whom we war, or from whom we stand aloof in suspicion, would be found, when the vizors were raised, to be brothers, and henceforth warriors by our side.