§ 3. A third way in which God makes His will known to man is by His silences, silences which are always eloquent. As experience has taught us, silence can convey a message just as readily as speech sometimes, or even more readily. The silence of the Easter tomb was the first voice that told of the Resurrection. The loved disciple read the message of the orderly silence of the place where the Lord had lain; "he saw and believed." Silence has expression and accent telling of sympathy, rebuke, anger, grief, as occasion may require. The silence of Jesus before the importunate appeal of the woman of Canaan, was full of sympathy and encouraged her faith to rise to sublime heights. Whereas His silence before the accusations of His enemies during His trial was so eloquent as to establish His innocence even in the eyes of a Pontius Pilate. And if God is silent now at times when we long for some sign from Him, it is because by means of silence He can best make known to us His mind. His silence may mean that our request is so foreign to His will, that it may not be heeded without hurt to the petitioner. Or, on the other hand, He may be luring on our faith and inciting it to a more ambitious flight. Or, again, it may be that His silence is His way of telling us that the answer to our query or petition lies in ourselves. God never tells man what man can find out for himself, as He never does what man can do for himself. The result of giving a person what he should earn is pauperism. As God will do, nay, can do, only what will enrich human nature, it would be a contradiction of Himself to answer what we can find out for ourselves, or give what we can gain by our own efforts. Love lies within God's silences as their explanation.[9] The mother refuses to answer her child's questions because the child by a little observation and thought can itself get at the truth, and truth won by struggle is the only truth that we really possess. If God is silent when we ask for new knowledge of His Person and His love, may it not be that it is because we are substituting books about the Bible for an earnest study of the Bible itself, which contains a full answer to our prayer? Or if, when day after day we have prayed for the conversion of a relative, no response comes, may it not be that we have never put ourselves at the disposal of God to be the instrument for working out what is at once our desire and His purpose? At any rate, whatever be the explanation of a silence in this or that special instance, God is never silent excepting when silence speaks more clearly than a voice. So the sure response comes to speech Godward in an action, or a voice, or a speaking silence. The persevering, faithful, attentive soul will never fail to discern God's answer to prayer, nor be disappointed in the quality of that answer when it comes. God is more ready to hear than we to pray, and it is His wont to give more than either we desire or deserve.[10] FOOTNOTES: [7] _St. Mark xi: 24._