as orthodox as you
like, our faith in the redemption of Jesus Christ, let it be as real as
you will, our attendances on services and sacraments, let them be as
punctilious and regular as may be, are all 'sounding brass and tinkling
cymbal.' Get side by side with God; that is the purpose of all these,
and fellowship with Him is the climax of all religion.

It is also the secret of all blessedness, the only thing that will make
a life absolutely sovereign over sorrow, and fixedly unperturbed by all
tempests, and invulnerable to all 'the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune.' Hold fast by God, and you have an amulet against every evil,
and a shield against every foe, and a mighty power that will calm and
satisfy your whole being. Nothing else, nothing else will do so. As
Augustine said, 'O God! Thou hast made us for Thyself, and in Thyself
only are we at rest.' If the Shepherd is with us we will fear no evil.

II. Now, a word, in the next place, as to the sadly incomplete reality,
in much Christian experience, which contrasts with this possibility.

I am afraid that very, very few so-called Christian people habitually
feel, as they might do, the depth and blessedness of this communion. And
sure I am that only a very small percentage of us have anything like the
continuity of companionship which my text suggests as possible. There
may be, and therefore there should be, running unbroken through a
Christian life one long, bright line of communion with God and happy
inspiration from the sense of His presence with us. Is it a line in _my_
life, or is there but a dot here, and a dot there, and long breaks
between? The long, embarrassed pauses in a conversation between two who
do not know much of, or care much for, each other are only too like
what occurs in many professing Christians' intercourse with God. Their
communion is like those time-worn inscriptions that archaeologists dig
up, with a word clearly cut and then a great gap, and then a letter or
two, and then another gap, and then a little bit more legible, and then
the stone broken, and all the rest gone. Did you ever read the
meteorological reports in the newspapers and observe a record like this,
'Twenty minutes' sunshine out of a possible eight hours'? Do you not
think that such a state of affairs is a little like the experience of a
great many Christian people in regard to their communion with God? It is
broken at the best, and imperfect at the completest, and sh