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The demand for response is a thing instinctive in us, native to our feelings. We are so made that when any emotion is stirred in the heart, and breaks out into expression, there must be answer or we suffer. The very mechanism of Nature seems to have been planned with reference to this spiritual fact, and, as it wore, in illustration of it. Motion has its rebound, light its reflection, sound its echo. Nature may be, and, as we have too good reason to know, is, upon the highest topics, dumb to man, but to herself she is vocal. Action and reaction, play and counterplay, are the very groundwork of her being. When now we pass over the invisible line that marks off the confines of external Nature from those of human nature, and open our eyes upon the field of our own inner experience, what do we see? We see everywhere the same need of, the same demand for the response; but we do not everywhere see the need satisfied, or the demand met. On the contrary, appeal upon appeal, cry after cry, go out upon the air, and there comes nothing back. And yet the call for response is as real a thing as anything in us. What can the orator do with the unresponsive audience? lie may be able to struggle through the sentences he has prepared himself to utter, but if it is plain to him as he goes along that what he says is nowhere calling forth assent on the part of the listeners, he is half-paralysed. Liturgical worship, as an institution, may be said to rest upon this same principle. A recognition of the mutual interest that lies between minister and people in the act of worship is what makes The Book of Common Prayer the thing it is. "Lift up your hearts," that is well, but how much better to have the reply come back, full and strong, "We lift them up unto the Lord." These are but detached illustrations of the general principle that there is rooted in human nature a craving for response. "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." The question arises, Has man a right to demand, or to expect, from his Maker the responsiveness which he instinctively looks for from his brother man? First, then, is it a reasonable expectation on our part that God should take notice of our sorrows and our griefs, and in some way speak, to us about them? The Bible warrants me in answering, Yes. It is the teaching of the Christian religion that whatever there is in man that is good is also in God, and more besides. This is a general inference from the declaration that man was made in the image of God. The original has many characteristics which the image has not. But still the image has resemblance, even though it have not identity. If it had not resemblance, it would not be the image. Hence when we find in the works of Nature certain laws of number and proportion accurately followed; when we discover by chemical process that the same substances always combine according to the same fixed weights; when botany has shown us that the stalks and leaves of a plant are arranged in a carefully adjusted numerical order, we infer that a mind not unlike our own minds, in its general characteristics, must have planned and calculated such results. Apply this reasoning to the facts of the spiritual universe, and what have we as a result? Take the sentiment of pity, that compassionate feeling which strength may entertain towards weakness. It may not be possible to define it satisfactorily in words, but we all know what it is, and we know also that it is found most fully developed as a characteristic in the noblest natures. But why stop at this point? Why make the noblest man you can imagine the supreme illustration of this grace? God is above man, for God made man, and must of necessity, therefore, be man's superior. And shall we suppose that compassion ceases to be possible after we have soared up above the level of man's being? Nay, ought we not to expect to find in man's Maker a larger, deeper, broader compassion than we found in our very noblest man? There is an immense wealth of argument hidden in that question of the Psalmist. "He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" With equal emphasis we have a right to ask, He that formed man's heart so that it could be pitiful, shall not He pity? We do not hold our peace at the tears of others, when we honestly and sorely grieve for them. Why then should He hold His peace at our tears, if pity us He really does? Is there then any way of satisfactorily accounting for the apparent dumbness of God's pity? Does He really, as it might seem that He does, hold His peace at our tears? Instead of directly answering these questions, I purpose to meet them indirectly by suggesting a few thoughts to be pondered by all whom this inquiry in any degree interests. Here is one such suggestion. A voice, in order to be real, need not necessarily be an articulate voice, need not necessarily employ audible sounds. Of our various teachers there are few indeed that speak to us more effectively than the artists and the composers. They do it through the instrumentality of forms of speech peculiar to themselves. So, then, let us not look to God for a sort of utterance He has never vouchsafed, unless by miracle, and let us be reconciled to the thought that if He is to speak to us, it will be in what must seem to all except ourselves the deepest silence. Unquestionably there does sometimes come to persons in affliction, when they take their sorrows patiently, a certain quietness of soul, a calm tranquillity of which all about them take notice. Why is it not a reasonable inference, at least for a religious mind disposed to think the best rather than the worst things of God, why is it not a reasonable inference that this very stilling of the waves is the direct result of God's having spoken? We charge Him impatiently sometimes with holding His peace, when really the fact is that He has been bestowing His peace, and in doing so has spoken in the very truest and most satisfactory sense of all. Under the shadow of some weighty sorrow a group of friends sit silent in one another's presence. Shall we say of them that because their grief is speechless, therefore they are of no help to one another? Most assuredly, No. Do you tell me that the parallel fails, because in the case of the friends their silent sitting in one another's presence is comforting and helpful wholly because at other times, and in other places, they have spoken often and much? And so, I answer, has God in the past spoken often and much, spoken more than once, and more than twice. Through the lips of holy prophets, since the world began, He has from time to time communicated to the human family messages of reassurance. They tell of a new heavens and a new earth; they foretell the day when God shall wipe away all tears from off all faces; they predict a triumph over the grave, and the swallowing up of death in victory. No one can rob us of our heritage in words like these; they have been spoken; they have never been taken back; they are the common property of all of us; and while they stand we have no valid reason for complaining that God holds His peace at our tears. But I have kept the richest and most helpful suggestion till the last. CHRIST is really God's word of answer to those who turn to Him in trouble, all eagerness for His response. Baffled, disheartened, afflicted, distressed, we look at Him, and faith is born afresh. With what tenderness and graciousness, and at the same time with what a masterful touch does He sketch for us the true likeness of the Divine Majesty. Look at Him as the Good Shepherd leading His flock in green pastures, and beside still, waters! Look at Him as the Man of Sorrows, a homeless pilgrim, a seeker of mountain solitudes, misunderstood, plotted against, spitefully entreated, cursed, mocked, and scourged! See how full of pity He is for all who sorrow and all who suffer!" These three are the great ills of life: sin, disease, and sorrow. We note His attitude towards each of them, and it is plainly that of pardoner, physician, consoler. If any word can be imagined more full of meaning than this Word made flesh, speak it out, and let us know what it is. Failing to do that, no longer think of God as one who will not answer, who holds His peace at tears, but trust Him, trust Him as your everlasting Friend.

(W. R. Huntington, D. D.)

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KJV: Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.

WEB: You have covered with anger and pursued us; you have killed, you have not pitied.