Spiritual depression

  I wish that the Christian life were spent on the mountain tops, but such is not the case. Rather, most of life is spent in routine and we struggle as not to let the worries and responsibilities of this life rob us of our joy and hope. The following piece describes the battle and the victory in a most beautiful way.

  The real marrow of life is in its higher experiences. The exultant moods are always the most joyous. We manage to endure a great deal that is disagreeable and depressing, if now and then comes seasons of spiritual uplifting, moments of soul-glow and sunrise, when we are translated from the low flats of a dull, earthly monotony, to higher levels and better fellowships.

  Then, too, after a season of spiritual depression; where you had gone mournfully with a sense of barrenness and burden, the painful spell was finally broken….. You remember how the spring odors of the tender-leaved woods seized your finer sense as you came forth from the place of prayer, and wafted your thoughts to the trees of Paradise; and how, on the billowy splendors of indescribable sunsets, you were borne to the gates of light, which seem uplifted, as if to welcome the King of Glory; and how, on the mountain-top, as a day flung its roses over the sky, and kissed the wide waters to crimson, you were borne afar; and how, awed and ravished beneath the midnight stars, you seemed to wander through the eternal deeps amid the blossoming constellations, until you almost heard the sphery harmony, and touched the uncreated throne! More than once, in the solitude and by the sea, amid the noon’s delicious peacefulness, and when the fresh winds blew health and music out of the west, over leagues of prairie starred with unnumbered flowers, your heart overran with sacred emotion, and expanded to embrace the beautiful repose! Wings were yours.