III. Then, still further, take another thought that may be suggested
from this metaphor, the silence of the loudest note.

If you look at the context, you will see that all the ways in which the
word of the Lord is represented as sounding out from the Thessalonian
Church were deeds, not words. The context supplies a number of them.
Such as the following are specified in it: their work; their toil, which
is more than work; their patience; their assurance; their reception of
the word, in much affliction with joy in the Holy Ghost; their faith to
Godward; their turning to God from idols, to serve and to wait.

That is all. So far as the context goes there might not have been a man
amongst them who ever opened his mouth for Jesus Christ. We know not, of
course, how far they were a congregation of silent witnesses, but this
we know, that what Paul meant when he said, 'The whole world is ringing
with the voice of the word of God sounding from you,' was not their
going up and down the world shouting about their Christianity, but their
quiet living like Jesus Christ. That is a louder voice than any other.

Ah! dear friends! it is with God's Church as it is with God's heavens;
the 'stars in Christ's right hand' sparkle in the same fashion as the
stars that He has set in the firmament. Of them we read: 'There is
neither voice nor language, their speech is not heard'; and yet, as man
stands with bared head and hushed heart beneath the violet abysses of
the heavens, 'their line' (or chord, the metaphor being that of a
stringed instrument) 'is gone out through all the earth, and their words
to the end of the world.' Silent as they shine, they declare the glory
of God, and proclaim His handiwork. And so you may speak of Him without
speaking, and though you have no gift of tongues the night may be filled
with music, and your lives be eloquent of Christ.

I do not mean to say that Christian men and women are at liberty to lock
their lips from verbal proclamation of the Saviour they have found, but
I do mean to say that if there was less talk and more living, the
witness of God's Church would be louder and not lower; 'and men would
take knowledge of us, that we had been with Jesus'; and of Jesus, that
He had made us like Himself.

IV. And so, lastly, let me draw one other thought from this metaphor,
which I hope you will not think fanciful playing with a figure; and that
is the breath that makes the music.

If the Church is the tru