Hard sayings Author:George Tyrrell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PRESENCE OF GOD. Quo ibo a sfiritu tuo et quo a facie tua fugiam. "Whither shall I fly from Thy Spirit, whither escape from Thy presence ?"—Psalm cxxxviii... more ». We are always told before entering on prayer to " put ourselves in the presence of God ; " and at all times to endeavour "to live in the presence of God." Indeed, it may be said that sanctification lies in a practical realizing of the presence of God. For Heaven is the state in which we see God face to face and stand in His presence continually; and sanctity is but Heaven begun upon earth. In proportion, therefore, as we live in God's presence, do we enter into the lot of the saints in light. Plainly, if God is omnipresent, if all things are naked and open to His sight, whether we like it or not we are always equally in His presence ; that is, we are equally present to Him. But local or physical presence is one thing, and conscious presence is another. Two trees are physically present one to another in the same garden, and this relation is necessarily mutual. But while a tree is present to the touch or sight or consciousness of an observer, the observer is not present to the consciousness of the tree, for it has none. So too, one person may be present to the consciousness of another who isthinking of him, or looking at him, or listening to him, and yet that other may not be present to him. To live in God's presence, or to put ourselves in His presence, means to become actually conscious of God as present; or at least so to live as though we were thus actually conscious. For at times the presence of others will act as a check upon us even when we are not positively thinking about them at all; because we have a sort of latent sense, or sub- consciousness of being watched and observed. I suppose it may be explained by...« less