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What is silence? You often use the word, but are you sure that you always use it correctly? or that you are able to discriminate between the literal and the metaphorical use of the word? Strictly speaking silence is the suspension of articulate speech, though by a metaphor we transfer the term to a cessation of any sound whatever. Thus, we read of the hushed silence which, in tropical countries, precedes the shock of the earthquake; and we have all been awed by the silence which fills up the intervals between the peals in the thunderstorm. But in these instances the word silence, which strictly means the pause of articulate speech, is not used in its primary and literal sense, but figuratively or metaphorically. The Psalmist calls the human voice "man's glory"; and so it is, as sharing with the possession of reason "the glory " of distinguishing between man himself and the coasts that perish. And our Lord warns us against the vain and idle use of this great gift, by the solemn declaration that "by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned"; and again, that "for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." But if the faculty of speech be thus wonderful and sacred, and if a responsibility thus strict and awful attach to its right employment, must not something of the like sacredness, something of the like responsibility, belong also to that correlative power — the power of silence?

I. THE SILENCE OF WORSHIP, OF AWE AND REVERENCE. "The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him." When we come up to the house of prayer, to meet Christ upon the mercy-seat, — to hear His voice speaking to us in the read and spoken word, — to receive Him into our very souls in the Sacrament of His broken body and shed blood, we are bound to observe the silence of awe and reverence. Except when we open our lips to join in prayer or praise to God, our attitude within these hallowed walls should be that of silence, of those who are impressed with the sanctity of the place, and who know and feel that the Almighty God is indeed in their midst. Yes; and it would be well, could we put more of this holy silence into all our religious acts. Our religion shares too much in the faults of the age in which we live. It is too public, too outspoken, conducted too much as a business; and so the inner and contemplative element is too much lost sight of. "Commune with thine own heart, and in thy chamber, and be still"; this is the direction of the Psalmist, and it is a direction to which we shall do well to give heed in this busy, noisy, bustling generation. Do not suppose that it is only the clergy, or persons of retired life, or those who have given themselves up to the attainment of a higher sanctity, who must court the silence of prayer and meditation. It is even yet more necessary for you whose lives are spent amid the busy competition of trade, or professional enterprise, or manual labour, — whose thoughts from early morning till late night are almost uninterruptedly engrossed with the cares and riches and business of this life, — it is absolutely necessary for you if, while living in the world, you would live with God and for God, that you make a point each day of withdrawing yourselves, if it be but for a quarter of an hour, from the outer world, and retiring into yourselves, to meditate on your own spiritual state, and on God's great love and goodness towards you. Devotion is possible even in the busiest life. Never plead worldly business as an excuse for irreligion, or for deficient fervour in religion. On the contrary, worldly business will be a great help to your religion if only you recollect that, in order to make it such, you must ever cultivate — educate that inner life of the soul which naturally aspires after God. And how will you cultivate and educate it? You can only do it by diligent seeking, and faithful use each day of a period of silence, — silence for prayer, for penitence, for communion with the Unseen and the Eternal.

II. THE SILENCE OF PREPARATION. Every great achievement, whether in the moral or the intellectual world, has been in a sense like Solomon's temple, — it has risen noiselessly, silently, without sound of axe or hammer. Therefore is that great primary act in religion — the conviction of sin — invariably preceded by deep and solemn silence, while the sinner stands before God self-accused and self-condemned. Therefore, also, is silence ever present at all the more solemn passages of our life. Sorrow — real, genuine sorrow — is ever silent. A cry! — a tear! — what relief would these be, — but they must not intrude into the sacred ground of sorrow, — the sorrow of the just-bereaved widow or orphan. And so, too, sympathy with sorrow is ever silent. Idle words, or still idler tears, — these are for false comforters, like those that troubled the patriarch Job: the true sympathy is the sympathy of a look, — of the presence of silence, not of uttered consolation.

III. But I must name that last silence, — a silence that we must all experience, and for which, by silence, we must prepare now — THE SILENCE OF DEATH. What exactly the silence of death is, none but the dying can know. When that silence comes upon us, and come upon us it must, with a certainty to which no other future certainty bears the slightest resemblance, may it find us experienced in silence. May we have sought it, may we have profited by it, may we have practised it, while it was still ours to choose or to refuse. May we have known what it was, day by day, to be many times alone with that God who must then be alone with us, to judge or else to save.

(C. H. Collier, M. A.)

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KJV: But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

WEB: But Yahweh is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!"