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There is an eloquence that lives not in words. There is an appeal to the heart, ay, and to the reason too, in the language of silence. The child that wakes in the night and listens for a sound and hears none, realises loneliness, and vastness, and the sense of mystery, and cries out for fear. There is a voice in the silence of old associations, as we stand amid the relies of the past. There is a silence too amongst men that speaks most unmistakably, — the silence of deep feeling, whether of sorrow, or rage, or attention, or determination, when men have ceased to talk, because they feel words are out of place, and the time for work has come. The silence spoken of in the text is a silence created by a sense of the present majesty of God.

I. THE PRESENCE OF GOD. He has Himself declared His omnipresence. He condescended to dwell in the tabernacle and the temple. In the newer dispensation there were manifest declarations that God is among His worshippers of a truth. It is no relic of a bygone superstition to assert that God is in the midst of us. At the present day, with altered circumstances externally, are we to suppose the reality is changed? Because the temple gave way to the riverside or the catacombs, and they in turn to the Basilica and the Church, are we to think that God has failed His people or broken His covenant? Are we to imagine that God does not now draw near to hear the prayer addressed to Him, or that, while He is present everywhere else, He excludes Himself from those sanctuaries where His people specially desire His presence? We are here for a festival of parochial choirs. But in whose honour is that festival? Our own or God's?

II. THE WORK OF MUSIC. Regard it as an influence. Which of us is altogether insensible to it? And as a means of expression. The influence of music must lead on to something further. If we feel it in any degree, we are bound to make it our own, and employ it till we realise something of the worth of music as a means of expression. When Mendelssohn, as a boy, had seen anything very beautiful, if he was asked to describe it, he would say, "Oh, I can't speak it, I will play it to you," and would then sit down and draw out of the instrument tones that expressed the deep impression which the beautiful had made on him. We are not all so. Still we all have some such power in some degree.

III. WHAT HAS THIS TO DO WITH SILENCE? A great deal. For all great works great preparation is needed. For the true preparation of the music of the sanctuary, silence is necessary. The music we have been speaking of is the music of worship, and the music of hearts. Silence is the attitude of listening and attention. What is necessary in God's house is silent reverence. And it is the condition of real work, — of most work with the hand, of all real work with the head. The silence of preparation is like a dam across a stream. In the silence of thought, in the silence of humility, in the silence of reverence, in the silence of deep feelings, in the silence of earnest determination, we prepare an offering of prayer and praise, which wells forth, not from the noisy utterance of our lips, without influence and without expression, but a strong deep flood from the heart itself, which flows, and will flow on and on for ever, which has God for its object, our own deepest interest for its subject, our whole life for its channel, and eternity for its end.

(G. C. Harris.)

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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!"