Sanctuary

“ How lovely is the sanctuary in the eyes of all that are truly sanctified! Gracious souls see a wonderful, an inexpressible, beauty in holiness, and in holy work. A tabernacle was a mean habitation, but the disadvantage of external circumstances makes holy ordinances not at all the less amiable; for the beauty of holiness is spiritual, and their glory is within. ”

“ The pedestal of the idol was of stone, square in form, and placed in the centre of the sanctuary. Several broad steps, fronting the doorway,—door there was not,—assisted devotees up to a platform, upon which stood a table curiously carved, and resting, as it were, under the eyes of the god. The chamber, bare of furniture, was crowded with pabas, kneeling and hooded and ranked, like their brethren outside. ”

“ Not one comer of our civilization, simply, should be set aside for a sanctuary, but the whole of it should be the yearning irrepressible, the upgrowth and outgrowth of our devotion to his glad-tidings preached for the renewing of this blind and diseased and suffering human congregation, into an image of the glorious hierarchies of Heaven. ”

“ The sanctuary is thronged from week to week with the desperation of a people stripped of every other diversion. It is the State of Colleges, Theological Schools, Bible, Missionary, Tract, and Colonization Societies. If ever there were a nation zealous of good works, here is their habitation. The atmosphere that overhangs the land is heavy with the odor of sanctity. ”

“ Forests of porphyry and marble! the air which the soul breathes under your arches is full of mystery and of peace! Let love and anxious cares seek shade and solitude under the green shelter of groves, to soothe their secret wounds. O darkness of the sanctuary! the eye of religion prefers thee to the wood which the breeze disturbs! Nothing changes thy foliage ”

“ When one enters the outer court, one feels the far-off sanctuary. Almost unconsciously one is aware that for that sanctuary all the rest of the temple was created; that to that sanctuary everything tends. And in spirit one is drawn softly onward to that very holy place. Slowly, perhaps, the body moves from courtyard to hypostyle hall, and from one hall to another. Hieroglyphs are examined, cartouches puzzled out, paintings of processions, or bas-reliefs of pastimes and of sacrifices, looked at with care and interest; but all the time one has the sense of waiting, of a want unsatisfied. ”

“ There seem to have been three sanctuary trees: one inhabited by a god, Vave; one respected in memory of a king; and one doing duty as a kind of figure-head, or representative of a king.
If my guess that the tree in the Arician grove was once a [Pg 220] sanctuary, or asylum for fugitives, including fugitive slaves, is plausible, I cannot, of course, conjecture as to the reason of its protective sanctity. ”

“ To allure our desires, he unveils the sanctuary above, and discovers the glories and joys of the blessed in the Divine presence, by a light so strong and lively, that all the glittering vanities of this world vanish in that comparison, and a sincere believer will despise them, as one of mature age does the toys and baubles of children. ”

“ The entire sanctuary service was an object-lesson of most important and vital gospel truth,—that of man's salvation and the atonement of sin.
23. What relation does the earthly sanctuary sustain to the heavenly?
“Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.” ”

“ Unlocking the door, we entered the little sanctuary, which looks as though it had remained undisturbed since the time when the Willoughbys were in the heyday of their power. The interior is plain and simple almost to ugliness, and a chill pervades the place that tends more to inspire a melancholy gloom than to attune the mind to reverent devotion ”

“ From yon beautiful cataract those lofty trees have disappeared, whose trunks were covered with deeply carved names, and mill-wheels dash passionately in this, Nature's once secluded sanctuary. The money-changers have come into the temple. ”

“ In the gamut of my remembrance I am once more in the poor, mean, lonely little sanctuary out on the prairie, with a handful of Christians, mostly women, gathered together in the freezing, draughty building. ”

“ If thou fallest from thy employment in public, take sanctuary in an honest retirement, being indifferent to thy gain abroad, or thy safety at home. When the north wind blows hard, and it rains sadly, we do not sit down in it and cry; but defend ourselves against it with a warm garment, or a good fire and a dry roof. So when the storm of a sad mischance beats upon our spirits, we may turn it into something that is good, if we resolve to make it so; and with equanimity and patience may shelter ourselves from its inclement pitiless pelting. ”

“ Within the most holy place of this vast sanctuary,――beneath the very center of that wonderful dome, which rises in such unequaled vastness above it, redounding far more to the glory of the man who reared it, than of the God whose altar it covers,――in the vaulted crypt which lies below the pavement, is a shrine, before which a hundred lamps are constantly burning, and over which the prayers of thousands are daily rising. ”

“ Upon the altar burns steadfastly the one light, waiting for him who at last has come and consecrated in his name. The door of the sanctuary is rock-ribbed and heavy, and he who has not the key may beat and call in vain, while within, unheeding, the woman guards her light.
Pitifully often the man does not care. Sometimes he does not even suspect that he has been admitted into the inmost sanctuary of her heart, for there are men who may never know what sanctuary means, nor what the opening of the door has cost. ”

“ Blind though she is, she often walks miles to church over uneven ground or hummocky ice, when away at the fishing places. She seems to take her part in the worship of the sanctuary thoroughly, whether in response or sacred song, or as listener with animated face and at times an overflowing heart. ”

“ And blessed and holy are those who, enjoying the privileges of the sanctuary, give such proofs and evidences of their sanctification that the heathen may know it is no less than the almighty grace of God that sanctifies them. Such have God's sanctuary in the midst of them, the kingdom of God within them, in the principles of the spiritual life, and shall have it so for evermore in the enjoyments of an eternal life. ”

“ May this sanctuary, when completed, long remain a house of prayer for all people, where incense shall be offered unto thy name, and a pure offering, and thy word and ordinances by the influences of the Holy Ghost. Here may multitudes be born again, and be nurtured in knowledge and piety; so that they may be prepared, in the kingdom of thy glory. We are unworthy, O Lord, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice ”

“ Thus, then, against Cæsar’s wishes, was the sanctuary set on fire.
Deeply as one must mourn for the most marvellous edifice which we have ever seen or heard of, whether we consider its structure, its magnitude, the richness of every detail or the reputation of its Holy Places, [315] yet may we draw very great consolation from the thought that there is no escape from Fate, for works of art and places any more than for living beings. ”

“ For while its strength and splendour have for ever fled, the humble sanctuary has renewed its youth; and, though the forms of faith suffer change, it has a good hope that in the far summers which we shall not see it will still be fulfilling its gracious and hallowed offices. ”

“ You pass by and wonder what mysterious rites are going on in there, what prayers, what visions? The privileged men, the lover, the husband, who are given the key of the sanctuary do not always know how to use it. ”

“ For a while there was silence, till suddenly a sound was heard in the dark sanctuary where stood the statue of the god, a sound as of a stick tapping upon the granite floor. ”

“ Two or three young women of the better class went so far as to seek a sanctuary in Father Benet's chapel; while their fathers hid their little hoards, and their mothers took heed to quench the fires, and some threw water on the thatch--sad precautions which necessity had made second nature in many a hamlet and many a market-town of France. ”

“ Now then, whenever we want to understand about the heavenly sanctuary, we must turn to Moses's description of the sanctuary in the wilderness, which he made after the pattern God gave him; which Paul says were shadows of heavenly things. How will a man dare (in the face of all this inspired testimony) to stand here on God's earth, and assert that the heavenly sanctuary with all that pertains to it is a FIGURE, and spiritualize it away. ”

“ The evils from which we have fled to these false deities and shelterless sanctuaries will pursue us across the threshold; and as Elijah did with the priests of Baal upon Carmel, will slay us at the very foot of the altar to which we have clung, and vexed with our vain prayers. There is only one shrine where there is a sanctuary, and that is the shrine above which shines 'the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ'; into the brightness of which poor men may pass and therein may hide themselves. God hides us, and His hiding is effectual, in the secret of the light and splendour of His face. ”

“ In a desert land, and where there is no way, and no water: * so in the sanctuary have I come before Thee, to see Thy power and Thy glory.
For Thy mercy is better than life:* Thee my lips shall praise. ”

“ The material sanctuary, then, was God's visible dwelling-place, where he manifested himself to his people, and received their worship according to the rites of his own appointment; the whole being, as we shall see, typical of higher realities pertaining to our redemption through Christ. ”

“ The construction and arrangement of this sanctuary were determined in all respects by God Himself, who showed to Moses, when upon the mountain, a pattern of the dwelling and its furniture, and prescribed with great minuteness both the form and materials of all the different parts of the sanctuary and all the things required for the sacred service. If the sanctuary was to answer its purpose, the erection of it could not be left to the inventive faculty of any man whatever, but must proceed from Him, who was there to manifest Himself to the nation, as the Holy One, in righteousness and grace. ”

“ I enjoyed the ease with which, by opening the glazed sash-door, I could get out, if disposed for a short walk, into the pleasant fields; and so completely had I made this sanctuary my own, that not only my man-servant knew that I was never to be disturbed when in it, except by the summons of a patient, but even the housemaid was forbidden to enter it with broom or duster, except upon special invitation. The last thing at night, before retiring to rest, it was the man-servant’s business to see that the sash-window was closed, and the gate to the iron palisade locked ”

“ In what state, then, shall we hand on to those who follow us these sacred temples of Nature, which, as even so old-fashioned a writer as Wordsworth asserted, are “a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy”? The day cannot be far distant when our choice must be made, and it is between a sanctuary and a slag-heap that we must choose. ”

“ Even the poorest and most secluded village sanctuary was in the early times overflowing with wealth and objects of beauty, which loving hands had gathered to adorn God’s house, and to make it, as far as their means would allow, the brightest spot in their little world, and beyond doubt the pride of all their simple, true hearts. ”

“ For the longer you look at these temples and the greater the distance from which you behold them, the more fully do you realize that whatever race first built a shrine here chose the spot which, of all their land, had the largest, noblest setting for a sanctuary; and the better also do you understand that these structures had to be made unique in their grandeur because anything less imposing would have seemed paltry in comparison with the surrounding glories of nature. ”

“ A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. The temple at Jerusalem, where God manifested his special presence, where the lively oracles were lodged, where the people paid their homage to their Sovereign, and whither they fled for refuge in distress, was the place of their sanctuary. ”

“ Every hour of the day, and even far on into the night, the voice of praise and prayer has been heard in some part of the building. Even in the vaults beneath the pavement was a little sanctuary made. Under the very stones, before trodden by them as homeless wanderers, some have joined in asking the Lord's blessing on those who had rescued them. ”

“ A large house belonging to the sanctuary is filled with books, some of them from the time of the first temple, and some from the time of the second temple, and he who has no sons consecrates his books to its use. ”

“ And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the Porch from the Sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his Masonic labor—here he must enter upon those glorious, though difficult researches, the end of which is to be the possession of divine truth. ”

“ The east gate of the sanctuary shall be always shut. The uncircumcised shall not enter into the sanctuary: nor the Levites that have served idols: but the sons of Sadoc shall do the priestly functions, who stood firm in the worst of times. ”