‘He will make me to walk upon my high places.’  One sees the herd on the skyline of the mountain ridge, and at home up there, far above dangers and attack; able to keep their footing on cliff and precipice, and tossing their antlers in the pure air.  One wave of the hand, and they are miles away.  ‘He sets me upon my high places’; if we will keep ourselves in simple, loving fellowship with God in Christ; and day by day, even when ’the fig-tree does not blossom, and there is no fruit in the vine,’ will still ‘rejoice in the God of our salvation,’ He will lift us up, and Isaiah’s other clause in the verse which I have quoted will be fulfilled:  ‘They shall mount up with wings as eagles.’  Communion with God does not only help us to plod and to travel, but it helps us to soar.  If we keep ourselves in touch with Him, we shall be like a weight that is hung on to a balloon.  The buoyancy of the one will lift the leadenness of the other.  If we hold fast by Christ’s hand that will lift us up to the high places, the heights of God, in so far as we may reach them in this world; and we shall be at home up there.  They will be ’my high places,’ that I never could have got at by my own scrambling, but to which Thou hast lifted me up, and which, by Thy grace, have become my natural abode.  I am at home there, and walk at liberty in the loftiness, and fear no fall amongst the cliffs.

Are you and I familiar with these upper ranges of thought and experience and life?  Do we feel at home there more than down in the bottoms, amongst the swamps, and the miasma, and the mists?  Where is your home, brother?  The Mass begins with Sursum corda:  ‘Up with your hearts,’ and that is the word for us.  But the way to get up is to keep ourselves in touch with Jesus Christ, and then He will, even whilst our feet are travelling along this road of earth, set us at His own right hand in the heavenly places, and make them ‘our high places.’  It is safe up there.  The air is pure; the poison mists are down lower; the hunters do not come there; their arrows or their rifles will not carry so far.  It is only when the herd ventures a little down the hill that it is in danger from shots.

But the elevation will not be such as to make us despise the low paths on which duty—­the sufficient and loftiest thing of all—­lies for us.  Our souls may be like stars, and dwell apart, and yet may lay the humblest duties upon themselves, and whilst we live in the high places, we ‘may travel on life’s common way in cheerful godliness.’  Communion with Him will make us light-footed, and lift us high, and yet it will keep us at desk, and mill, and study, and kitchen, and nursery, and shop, and we shall find that the high places are reachable in every life, and in every task.  So we may go on until at last we shall hear the Voice that says, ‘Come up higher,’ and shall he lifted to the mountain of God, where the living waters are, and shall fear no snares or hunters any more for ever.