15 FEBRUARY 1930, Page 6

s In Defence of the Faith XIII.—Silent Worship

[Professor Rufus Jones, the author of this article, is one of the most distinguished members of the Society of Friends, and is well known for his works upon Christian Mysticism.]

APPRECIATION of the value of silence in the religious life of man is as old as smiling and weeping, for there have been very few types of worship down the ages from which the use of silence has been wholly absent. It may be taken as a demonstrated fact that in some way, usually unanalysed and unexplained by the worshipper himself, hush and silence minister psychologically to a consciousness of mutual and reciprocal communion with God. The soul seems in other words to be both giving and receiving—to be breathing in a Diviner Life, and to be pouring out in response its own highest and noblest qualities.

If it is true that silence is a fundamental aspect of religion at very different stages of its development and in a great variety of historical races, it would seem that we might possibly find in the cultivation of silent worship one point of unity, communion and fellowship between the great religions of the world to-day and between the numerous branches of our common Christianity. In the sphere of ideas, interpretations, explanations and beliefs we are often far apart. We differ widely in our emphasis on what is essential for an authoritative faith or practice, but most of us of all faiths and of all ecclesiastical systems find ourselves moved, quickened, vitalized, refreshed and girded for the duties and burdens of daily life by periods of expectant, palpitant hush in fellowship with others who arc fused together into one body of worshipping men and women. And since the War we have had many experiences of silence in which a whole city, or even an entire nation, seemed somehow to find itself unified through an awe-inspiring hush, and, more than that, lifted into communion with a vast invisible fellowship of those who went and who returned not.

It is much easier to recognize the fact that silence does heighten life and bring an increase of energies to live by than it is to explain why this is so. Most generations have been satisfied with the fact, have used the resource, have enjoyed this " way of wonder," and. have not- cared to formulate reasons for the fact. Awe and mystery were best left without too many disturbing interrogation points. We, however, live in an age of question-marks and we press for reasons.

I think there can be little doubt that corporate silence is more powerful and effective than is the hush of a soli- tary individual. In the former case there is a cumulative power like that produced by an expectant audience waiting for the words of a great orator who voices what is in all hearts. Nothing of this sort happens, of .course, in dull, Passive silence. Slowing down the wheels of life to zero will work no miracles. A mere absence of words or of action sets free no new currents of life. The cumulative power works only where the corporate group is eapeetant, only where there is spiritual team work, only where each one by a kind of spiritual fecundity lends his mind out to help others. When that is the case there seems :to be a kind of subtle telepathy operating, the spirit- flowing from vessel to vessel, hearts communicating even when lips are sealed. It may be a contagious radiance caught _frozn,face to face, a. throb and pulse of life dimly felt, somewhat as homing birds, find their way without knowing how they do it.

In any case, whether we can explain it or not, deeper .strata.of life come into play in ways that are not -usual in our more focussed and action-centred states of con- sciousness. As Whittier has well- put it, in " Pennsyl- vania- Pilgrim '!

. - " Without spoken -words - low breathings stole

Of a diviner life, from soul to soul, Baptizing in one tender thought, the whole."

Many, persons have supposed, and some still suppose, that the main advantage of occasions of worship is the opportunity they afford for quiet, undisturbed thinking. It ,is assumed that this retreat from the turmoil and bustle of life, with its drive and its noisy din, can best be used in uninterrupted reflection upon some spiritual topic.

That, however, is not the view—at least not the ideal—held by the expert in the practice of silent worship. ,Those who are seasoned and spiritually matured have learned- that there are stages of experience that are deeper than " thought " and more vitalizing than reflection." Sometimes it may be as important to get away from the problems of thinking as it is to get away from the yoke of business or the press of the crowd. There is as much need of a holiday from the problems of the mind as there is for relief from hurry and worry and grind.

There are deeps in us all far below our ideas. There is 'in --fact a substratum which is the mother-soil out of -which all our ideas and purposes are born, as capes of cloud are born out of the viewless air. To feed or to fer- tilize that sub-soil of our conscious life is far more im- portant than to capture and to organize a few stray thoughts. To discover how to flood with power and to vitalize this fundamental stratum of our being is, after all, to uncover one of the master secrets of life. Just that is what seems to happen to some of us in the hush and mystery of intimate contact with Divine currents, in the living silence of corporate worship.

It is like a ship in a lock. Here the ship is, shut in by 'great gates' before and behind. Its driving engines have I have been reading of a nurse who, during the influenza epidemic of 1918, became utterly worn out and incapable any longer., of coherent effort. One day when at the limit of herself she resolved to slip away and sit in the quiet with a group of worshippers. She did so. The result was that the whole current of her life was altered in the hour of genuine worship. She felt herself restored, calmed and rebuilt. She returned to her work with a freshness of spirit, a renewed will, and she found herself raised to . a new level of life and action, like the ship emerging from the lock.

There are moments in , our lives which psychologists call " borderland states." They are moments when the _walls between the seen and the unseen appear to grow thin and almost vanish away, and one feels himself to be in contact with more than himself. The threshold, which in our attentive and focussed states of conscious- ness bars the entrance of everything that does not fit the business in hand, drops to a different level and allows a vastly widened range of experiences, and we suddenly discover that we can draw upon more of ourself than at other times. And in these best moments of widened range, when we share the co-operative influence of many expectant worshippers around us, it seems often as though streams of life and light and love and truth flow in from beyond our margins, and we come back to work and business and thought again, not only calmed, rested and made serene, but also more completely organized and vitalized and equipped with new energies of the slowed down. Its speed has diminished to naught. It is no longer going anywhere. And yet all the time the water is rising underneath the ship, and when the gate in front swings open, and the ship emerges from its period of full stop, it will go out for its journey on a higher level and carry its burden of freight henceforth on a new plane.

spirit. Rums M. JONES. Haverford, Pennsylvania.

The fourteenth article in this second series will appear next week. Mr. Seebohni Rowntree will write on " Christianity and Business." Previous articles have been " The Modern Outlook in Theology," by the Bishop of Gloucester ; " The Modern Attitude to the Bible," by Canon Vernon Storr, of Westminster ; " Providence and Free Will," by Rev. F. H. Brabant; "Christianity and the Beyond," by Dr. Edwyn Bevan ; " The Wondrous Fellowship," by Mr. Algar Thorold ; " The Mystery of Suffering," by Rev. Dr. Maltby ; " Faith and Works," by Dr. Rudolf Otto, translated by Professor John W. Harvey.; "Personal Immortality," by Dr. Alhert ,Peel ; " The Interior Life," by the Bishop of Southampton ; " The Nature of Prayer," by Dr. A. H. McNeile ; • " Why go to Church ? " by „Dr. H. L. Goudge; and " What Mysticism Is," by Abbot Butler.