During the year 1538 an Italian spent long weeks in a noisome
underground prison cell, where he was kept on account of religious
differences. For a precious hour and a half of each day, when the light
struggled in through a tiny window, he read the Bible, especially the
Psalms. Among the Psalms that meant most to him was the one hundred and
thirtieth, whose beginning "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O
Lord," expressed the longings of his heart for companionship and
comfort.
Exactly two hundred years later, on May 24, 1738, John Wesley, then in
the midst of the greatest anxiety and longing for God, heard the choir
at St. Paul's Cathedral sing, "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee,
O Lord." The words brought joy to him. From the depths in which he found
himself that afternoon he cried unto God, and that evening there came to
him the knowledge of God's presence that gave him strength to begin the
wonderful work that built up the great Methodist Church.
These same words meant much to Josiah Royce, the American teacher of
philosophy, who died in 1916. In one of his later books, he wrote:
"We come to such deep places that we can only cry. We are astonished
that we can cry. And then we become aware that our cry is heard. And he
who hears is God. And so God is often defined for the plain man as 'He
who hears man's cry from the depths.'"
One who knew Professor Royce well wondered if he did not enter the
depths from which he cried to God and received such satisfying response,
after the death of his only son. In the same way those who delight in
the message of Psalm 130 wonder what could have been the experience of
depression that opened the way for his reception of God's blessing.
We can only speculate about these things. But there is one thing of
which we can be absolutely sure: there is no depth so low that the cry
of one of God's children will not reach from it to the heart of the
Father; no sorrow so crushing, no anxiety so overwhelming, no pain so
intense, no difficulty seemingly so unsolvable, no sin so awful, that
eager, earnest prayer will not bring God to the relief of the sufferer.
"If out of the depths we cry, we shall cry ourselves out of the depths,"
one has said who has written of the words that Professor Royce found so
helpful. Then he asks: "What can a man do who finds himself at the foot
of a beetling cliff, the sea in front, the wall of rock at his back,
without foothold for a mouse, between the tide at the bottom and the
grass at the top? He can do but one thing, he can shout, and, perhaps,
may be heard, and a rope may come dangling down that he can spring at
and catch. For sinful men in the miry pit the rope is already let down,
and their grasping it is the same as the psalmist's cry. God has let
down His forgiving love in Christ, and we need but the faith which
accepts it while it asks, and then we are swung up into the light, and
our feet set on a rock."
Each one has depths peculiarly his own, and longs to be out of them.
Then why not call to Him who hears men's cry from the depths, with the
quiet confidence of quaint old Herbert, who wrote:
Of what an easie quick accesse,
My blessed Lord, art Thou! how suddenly
May our requests thine ears invade!
If I but lift mine eyes my suit is made;
Thou canst no more not heare than Thou canst die.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.
Page 44, "conjuctions" changed to "conjunctions" (prepositions, and
conjunctions)
Page 56, "year'sexpenses" changed to "year's expenses" (next year's
expenses)
Page 62, "throughness" changed to "thoroughness" (thoroughness by
performing)