Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1877 — Fraying in the Night Watches. [ARTICLE]

Fraying in the Night Watches.

, I am not surprised at David’s praying to God in the night-watches; at his rising from his bed, and ascending to the roof of his house, and when the mighty heart of the city was still, and the mountains round about Jerusalem were sleeping in the calm brilliancy of an Eastern night, that he should gaze with rapture on the sky, and pour forth such a psalm of praise as “When I .consider the Heavens the work Of Thy fingers,”, etc. The night is more suited to prayer than the day. I,never wake m the middle of the night without feeling induced to commune with God. Grie ftels brought more in contact with Him. The whole world round us, we think, is asleep. But the great Shepherd of ‘lsrael slumbers not, nor sleeps. He it. awake, and so are we. We feel, in the solemn and silent night, alone witn God. And then there is every; thing in tbe circumstances to lead oi eto pray. The past is often vividly recalled. The voices of the ,dCad Are heard, and their forms cro»d around you. No sleep can bind them. The night seems the time in which they should hold spiritual

communion with man The ftitnre, too. throws its dark shadow over yon - the night ot the grave, the certain death-bed,-the night in which no man can work. And then everything makes such an impression on the mind at night, when the brain is nervous and susceptible. The low sough of the wind among the trees; the roaring*or eerie whi»h pf some neighboring stream; the bark, or' low how rdf the dog; the general impressive silence, all tend to sober and solemnize tbe mind, < and. to force it from the world and Its vanities, which |tben seem asleep to God, who alone can uphold and defend it.— Norman Macleod. I .>,