EXTRACT

What is divine is never lost; it may be covered with the plaster of this world, but whatever has been written on the fleshy tables of the heart will never be effaced. You will certainly sing again as in the days of your youth, but then you must be brought to the valley of Achor.

Achor is sorrow; it is morally the death of all that which turned away the heart from God, and this can take place without actual bereavement here. It is renunciation in sorrow. It is a condemning to death the natural attractions which stole the heart away from the bright line in which God has set it; and this is known by the consciousness the heart has of returning to where it had left off. Like one long absent from a loved home returning to it, or the hound returning to the lost scent, which delights and commands all the energies of his existence.

There is a sense of renewed connection with the light once enjoyed and the path once trodden; and there is the self-condemnation and repudiation of the imaginary pleasures which had diverted one from it. There must be in some way a discovering of the worthlessness of everything, to set one in the path of life with God.

J. B. Stoney (N.S. Vol. 12, p.58)

Published by F. C. Mutton, 22 Christchurch Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 4QY, England Printed by C. Ellis, Billericay, Essex, England