Norwich bulletin., 1922-12-16
SUNDAY MORNING TALK
SEEKING THE FACE OF GOD.

When Thou saidst, Seek ye My. face; my heart said unto Thee Thy face. Lord.
 will I seek. Hide not Thy face from me. Ps. 27; g.
 There appears to be good deal of au-
 tobiography in this psalm. The writer,
 whom we take to be David, travelled back
 in thought to the past of his life and his
 backward gianees fixes on two distinct
 objects At one time he thinks of the
 past as Gods past, all illumined by the
 radiance of His favor, and helped by the
 might for His imparted strength; at an other he thinks of it as his own past wherein he strove to love and serve his keeper, God; and from both these as poets of the days that are gone he draws encouragement to have faith that God will be the same, and resolves that he will trust and obey in the future. In the ! words of the psalm. these two ways of l looking at the past are woven into one strong cord, that he may hang his confi- I dence and prayers on.
 There is here Gods voice to the heart. We have here, as it were, summed up in l kind of dialogue Of two phrases the I whole speech of God to us, and the in- | most meaning of all that -devout souls I say to God. Seek ye My face" Such | is the essential meaning of all God's I words and works. 'Thy face, Lord, will
 I seek" Such is the essential meaning
 of all prayer, worship and obedience. The call is Seek ye;' the answer is l ''I will seek" That is what we have all ! to do with Gods words. He sows His 1 invitations broadcast; We have to make 1 them our own. He sends out His mercy 1 for a world we have to claim each our portion Nothing in all the world is so blessed as to hear the wonderful be-
 seeching call sounding in every proyi- dence, traveiing to us from every corner of the universe, speaking to us in the i light of setting suns and in the hush of i midnight skies sounding in the waves on 1 the beach and in the rustic of the leaves 1 in the forest depths. whispsring to us in I the depths of our own hearts and wooing us to our God. That is heaven on earth
 nobleness, peace and power, to stand as
 at the point of some great ellipse to
 which converge from all sides the music of Gods manifold invitations and listen ing to them, to say, hear. and I obey.
 Thou dost call, and I answer Lo! here
 am I.
 There is here the hearts cry to God
 founded on both the Divine voice and the
 me" is clearly a prayer built upon both
 these elements in the past. Gods invi- tation and my acceptance of both give
 me the right to pray thus, and are pledges of the answer.
 : As to the former, hThou saidst Seel | ye My face" Hide not Thy face from 7 me- is but the vivid way of putting tho thought that God cannot contradict Him self. st As to the second ground for this pray t CT, it rests on my part as well as ol Gods. It is the confidence that becaus T we seek we shall find. He fills the .yes el Eels we bring, be they large or small ] My feeblest desire brings answers cor } i,reSpondent to it's strength and purity. / 5 Seek His face eTermore, and your If e will be bright because you will walk i e the light of His eountenance always y That face will brighten the darkness c Y death :. and when you reach the land be [ yoad you, you will enter it with the wor - decful hope on your lips "As for me,
 shall behold Thy face in righteousness r and heavens heaven will be that "FT L- servants serve Him. and see His face"