Article October 23, 1926 Issue

"The place where thou standest"

MARGARET T. CAMPBELL

Into the lives of each one of us come experiences that test our very fiber—experiences that seem like the wrestling of Jacob, that will not let us go till we have received their blessing. It is well that we are held to them until we have grown to the point where we are ready to behold the good they have for us and to reap the blessing in them.

The question may well be asked: Have we gathered all the fruits from a particular experience? Have we reaped the harvest, gleaned the fields, picked up all the windfalls, gathered the "fragments ... that nothing be lost"? Every crumb of wisdom may be stored up for the use of some needy one; every bit of love may be garnered and given out again; every gleam of light gratefully reflected outwards into the world. Have we stayed our impetuous feet when the voice of wisdom counseled a halt? In our eager planning and reaching out, have we, in the words of Whittier, hushed the thought "storming at the gates of sense," that we might listen more earnestly for God's voice? Have we stayed, when we might have rushed; relinquished, when we might have grasped; given up, when we might have clung; and so found ourselves in the midst of the heavenly city after all, when we thought we were "a great way off"?

Moses was told to stop where he was, "for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." There was nothing in the ground that could be called holy; the place was holy because of the revelation of God's presence that came to Moses there, the great light that shone, the message that was spoken. If Moses could receive such a message where he was, in the desert, alone, separated from his people, what is to hinder us from receiving good in the place where we are now standing? Moses surely needed to be just where he was, for his own hastiness had driven him thither. He learned his lesson well, however; and this lesson enabled him to take his next step.

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