Acts 10:9-16 On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew near to the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray about the sixth hour:… 1. Aspiring! Hungering! Sleeping! Such manner of creatures we are; strange conjunctions of spirit and flesh, of heaven and earth; in whom "thoughts that wander through eternity" are stopped by needs and cravings identical with those of "all cattle and creeping things"; in whom are arms that reach after the Infinite, with the stomach and the appetites of the behest; one minute lost in lofty meditation, the next yawning for bed, or responding with moist mouth to the odour of baked meats. Yet, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," and there eating and sleeping are never wholly of the earth earthy. The meal refines more or less toward the grace of a sacrament, and again and again into the slumber heaven opens. There is an ethereal way of getting your dinner, in which the soul both gives and receives; and some men are greater often in visions than others in their intensest and most active wakefulness. The apostle who prayed, slept after a godly sort, was capable of being Divinely touched and taught through his dreams. There is a latent heavenliness in the flesh of an eminent saint, and there are heavenly possibilities in the saint's sleep. He is more susceptible at all times to communications and impressions from the Lord. 2. Some men can hardly afford to stand at ease and unoccupied without running the risk of immediate invasions from beneath. An habitual downward bent leaves them open in their dreams to hell. But to the pure and lofty heart, its loose, lazy intervals are frequently among its most growing and nourishing times, when that which it loves supremely, and is accustomed to cultivate, visits it without being sought, when its very quiescence becomes a clear mirror, in which new Divine messages form and flash. If only we are earnest, thoughtful, and nobly aspiring, we need not be afraid in the least to pause and play now and then, nor imagine that such occasional abandonment must be fruitless in relation to our higher aims. We are revealed by that which flows in upon us in empty, unemployed moments; and blessed are they to whom in these moments the best has first and facile entrance, whose vacancies angels rush to fill, and with whose earthiest elements heaven can freely mix and blend. 3. But no heavenly susceptibility, however large and fine, will exempt us from having to ask at times, What is it? Is it phantom or reality? Is it God or devil? St. Peter was left wondering whether the strange scenery amidst which he had been moving in the land of slumber was really the shrine of a Divine communication, or merely a coloured vapour exhaled from the sensation of hunger. And how often, in our waking moments, have we been visited with mental glimpses or impressions that we could not understand! "Why," he asked, "have I seen this thing, which yields to my inquiry no fruit of admonition or instruction?" Yet such fruit it was designed to yield him, and would, ere long; not, however, by continued brooding over it, but in the course of events. Let him wait until summoned to come down to men who are even now on their way to the tanner's house, and then all will grow clear. Well, is it not often thus, that life comes in time to explain the Divine reason, concerning which we have wondered, perhaps fretfully, why we were submitted to them, and have thought that they might have been spared us without loss or detriment? And yet long afterwards, maybe, we have discovered that they were not for nothing. In some later crisis of life we have found them contributing to excite and strengthen us for it. We have lived to find in our life the fruit of some of those experiences, the Divine message of which we have been unable to read, have lived to learn that they were needful for us and could not have been spared. We have felt as, in listening to the deputation from Cornelius, St. Peter felt with respect to his mysterious dream. Ah! this is why they occurred; this is what they were intended to fit us for! (S. A. Tipple.) Parallel Verses KJV: On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: |
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