Twice a day, morning and evening, came the officiating priest with his
pan of coals and incense, and laid it there; and during all the
intervening hours between the morning and the evening the glow lay half
hidden in the incense, and there was a faint but continual emission of
fragrance from the smouldering mass that had been renewed in the
morning, and again in the evening. And does not that say something to
us? There must be definite times of distinct prayer if the aroma of
devotion is to be diffused through our else scentless days. I ask for
no pedantic adherence, with monastic mechanicalness, to hours and
times, and forms of petitions. These are needful crutches to many of
us. But what I do maintain is that all that talk which we hear so much
of in certain quarters nowadays as to its not being necessary for us to
have special times of prayer, and as to its being far better to have
devotion diffused through our lives, and of how _laborare est
orare_--to labour is to pray--all that is pernicious nonsense if it is
meant to say that the incense will be fragrant and smoulder unless it
is stirred up and renewed night and morning. There must be definite
times of prayer if there is to be diffused devotion through the day.
What would you think of people that said, 'Run your cars by
electricity. Get it out of the wires; it will come! Never mind putting
up any generating stations'? And not less foolish are they who seek for
a devotion permeating life which is not often concentrated into
definite and specific acts.
But the other side is as true. It is bad to clot your religion into
lumps, and to leave the rest of the life without it. There must be the
smouldering all day long. 'Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing.' You
can pray thus. Not set prayer, of course; but a reference to Him, a
thought of Him, like some sweet melody, 'so sweet we know not we are
listening to it,' may breathe its fragrance, and diffuse its warmth
into the commonest and smallest of our daily activities. It was when
Gideon was threshing wheat that the angel appeared to him. It was when
Elisha was ploughing that the divine inspiration touched him. It was
when the disciples were fishing that they saw the Form on the shore.
And when we are in the way of our common life it is possible that the
Lord may meet us, and that our souls may be aspiring to Him. Then work
will be worship; then burdens will be lightened; then our lamps will
burn; then the fruits of our daily lives will ripen; then our lives
will be noble; then our spirits will rest as well as soar, and find
fruition and aspiration perpetually alternating in stable succession of
eternal progress.