If we are so walking, it is no piece of fanaticism to say that there will be mutual communications.  Do you not believe that God knows His way into the spirits that He has endowed with conscious life?  Do you not believe that He speaks now to people as truly as He did to prophets and Apostles of old? as truly; though the results of His speech to us of to-day be not of the same authority for others as the words that He spoke to a Paul or a John.  The belief in God’s communications as for ever sounding in the depths of the Christian spirit does not at all obliterate the distinction between the kind of inspiration which produced the New Testament and that which is realised by all believing and obedient souls.  High above all our experience of hearing the words of God in our hearts stands that of those holy men of old who heard God’s message whispered in their ears, that they might proclaim it on the housetops to all the world through all generations.  But though they and we are on a different level, and God spoke to them for a different purpose, He speaks in our spirits, if we will comply with the conditions, as truly as He did in theirs.  As really as it was ever true that the Lord spoke to Abraham, or Isaiah, or Paul, it is true that He now speaks to the man who walks with Him.  Frank speech on both sides beguiles many a weary mile, when lovers or friends foot it side by side; and this pair of friends of whom our text speaks have mutual intercourse.  God speaks with His servant now, as of old, ’as a man speaketh with his friend’; and we on our parts, if we are truly walking with Him, shall feel it natural to speak frankly to God.  As two friends on the road will interchange remarks about trifles, and if they love each other, the remarks about the trifles will be weighted with love, so we can tell our smallest affairs to God; and if we have Him for our Pilgrim-Companion, we do not need to lock up any troubles or concerns of any sort, big or little, in our hearts, but may speak them all to our Friend who goes with us.

The two may walk together.  That is the end of all religion.  What are creeds for?  What are services and sacraments for?  What is theology for?  What is Christ’s redeeming act for?  All culminate in this true, constant fellowship between men and God.  And unless, in some measure, that result is arrived at in our cases, our religion, let it be as orthodox as you like, our faith in the redemption of Jesus Christ, let it be as real as you will, our attendances on services and sacraments, let them be as punctilious and regular as may be, are all ’sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.’  Get side by side with God; that is the purpose of all these, and fellowship with Him is the climax of all religion.

It is also the secret of all blessedness, the only thing that will make a life absolutely sovereign over sorrow, and fixedly unperturbed by all tempests, and invulnerable to all ’the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.’  Hold fast by God, and you have an amulet against every evil, and a shield against every foe, and a mighty power that will calm and satisfy your whole being.  Nothing else, nothing else will do so.  As Augustine said, ’O God!  Thou hast made us for Thyself, and in Thyself only are we at rest.’  If the Shepherd is with us we will fear no evil.