September 10

Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.—Psalms 4:4.

Commune with your own heart. Or, as some render it, examine yourselves. Oh, how few do this! Men live abroad, and are indeed strangers at home: the great work of human madness, to delight in speaking and hearing of what concerns others, "While no individual will attempt to descend into himself." Yet this faculty, which we call reflection, is the peculiar privilege of human nature; and to be borne on wholly by external objects, is indeed brutal. And oh, what heaps of disorder, what odious filthiness must there necessarily be in a breast which is never looked into and cleansed out! Dear youths, if amid all your other studies, you do not learn to converse and commune with your own selves, whatever you know, or rather, whatever you imagine you know, I would not purchase it at the expense of a straw!

On your bed. Or, as some would render it, in your secret chambers, when free from the noise of the world, and hurries of their daily business. An ancient said, "The reflections of the night are deepest." And it has been observed, that David, in the nineteenth Psalm, ascribes speech to the day, and wisdom to the silent night. It is an excellent advice of Pythagoras, and the verses that contain it do indeed deserve to be called golden, that, "We should not allow ourselves to go to sleep, till we have seriously revolved the actions of the day, and asked ourselves, 'What have I done amiss? What good have I done, or neglected to do?' that so we may reprove ourselves for what has been wrong, and take the comfort of what has been as it ought." Or, as Mr. Rowe translates and paraphrases it:—

"Let not the stealing god of sleep surprise, Nor creep in slumbers on thy weary eyes, Ere every action of the former day Strictly thou dost and righteously survey. With reverence at thy own tribunal stand, And answer justly to thy own demand, Where have I been? in what have I transgress'd? What good or ill has this day's life express'd? Where have I fail'd in what I ought to do? In what to God, to man, or to myself I owe? Inquire severe, whate'er from first to last, From morning's dawn till evening's gloom has past. If evil were my deeds, repenting mourn, And let thy soul with strong remorse be torn. If good, the good with peace of mind repay, And to thy secret self with pleasure say, 'Rejoice, my heart, for all went well to-day.'"

And be still. This refers not so much to the tongue, as to the mind : for what does an external silence signify, if the inward affections be turbulent ? A sedate and composed mind is necessary in order to know ourselves and to know God, as the Psalmist hints, Be still and know that I am God. Such wisdom both deserves and demands a vacant soul : it will not, as it were, thrust itself into a corner, nor inhabit a polluted or unquiet breast. God was not in the whirlwind, nor in the fire, but in the still small voice. The Holy Spirit is peaceful and pacific, but wicked men are turbulent and stormy, driven like the sea, whose waves are tossed about, and throw up continually mire and dirt. Impurity is the inseparable attendant of this inquietude : but the wisdom that is from above, is first pure, then peaceable,—pacific; and in that blessed country to which it teaches us to aspire, there is the most perfect and everlasting cohabitation of purity and peace.