Please remember that these are flood-tide results. Some good people will never know them except in a very limited way. For they do not open the sluice gates wide enough to let the waters reach flood-tide. These results will vary in degree with the degree and constancy of the yielding to the Spirit's control. A full yielding at the start, and constantly continued will bring these results in full measure and without break, though the growth will be gradual. For it is a rising flood, ever increasing in height and depth and sweep and power. Partial surrender will mean only partial results; the largest and finest results come only as the spirit has full control, for the work is all His, by and with our consent.
In one of her exquisite poems Frances Ridley Havergal tells of a friend who was given an aeolian harp which, she was told, sent out unutterably sweet melodies. She tried to bring the music by playing upon it with her hand, but found the seven strings would yield but one tone. Keenly disappointed she turned to the letter sent before the gift and found she had not noticed the directions given. Following them carefully she placed the harp in the opened window-way where the wind could blow upon it. Quite a while she waited but at last in the twilight the music came:
Like stars that tremble into light
Out of the purple dark, a low sweet note
Just trembled out of silence, antidote
To any doubt; for never finger might
Produce that note, so different, so new:
Melodious pledge that all He promised should come true.
Anon a thrill of all the strings;
And then a flash of music, swift and bright,
Like a first throb of weird Auroral light,
Then crimson coruscations from the wings
Of the Pole-spirit; then ecstatic beat,
As if an angel-host went forth on shining feet.
Soon passed the sounding starlit march,
And then one swelling note grew full and long,
While, like a far-off cathedral song,
Through dreamy length of echoing aisle and arch
Float softest harmonies around, above,
Like flowing chordal robes of blessing and of love.
"Thus, while the holy stars did shine
And listen, the aeolian marvels breathed;
While love and peace and gratitude enwreathed
With rich delight in one fair crown were mine.
The wind that bloweth where it listeth brought
This glory of harp—music—not my skill or thought."
And the listening friend to whom this wondrous experience is told, who has had a great sorrow in her life, and been much troubled in her thoughts and plans replies:
... I too have tried
My finger skill in vain. But opening now
My window, like wise Daniel, I will set
My little harp therein, and listening wait
The breath of heaven, the Spirit of our God.
May we too learn the lesson of the wind-harp. For man is God's aeolian harp. The human-taught finger skill can bring some rare music, yet by comparison it is at best but a monotone. When the instrument is set to catch the full breathing of the breath of God, then shall it sound out the rarest wealth of music's melodies. As the life is yielded fully to the breathing of the Spirit we shall find the peace of God which passeth all understanding filling the heart; and the power of God that passeth all resisting flooding the life; and others shall find the beauty of God, that passeth all describing, transfiguring the face; and the dewy fragrance of God, that passeth all comparing, pervading the personality, though most likely we shall not know it.