Feature
“l Will Keep
the Morning
Watch”
Making Devotions a Priority
BY EDWARD ALLEN
he night is divided into three watches on a
sailing ship: first, middle, and morning. The
middle watch is the most difficult. Everything
is dark. The watch comes on duty at midnight and sees
only the inky blackness of the waves, hiding a multi-
tude of potential dangers. When the morning watch
begins at 4:00 a.m., the darkness is as heavy as it was at
midnight, but the morning watch sees the sky begin to
brighten, the stars disappear, and the sun emerge from
the sea. What had been hidden is now visible. Land
emerges from the fog. Dangers that were unknowable in
the darkness now menace. The morning watch sees the
ship transformed from an inert construction of wood to
a living home for sailors and passengers.
AN APPROPRIATE METAPHOR
The image of the morning watch became a metaphor
for the Christian's personal time with God in the
morning. The practice of the Morning Watch first came
into focus in the life of Handley G. C. Moule, principal of
Ridley Hall, an evangelical theological training school at
Cambridge in England. Moule and Ridley Hall were part
of an interdenominational movement that drew from
many traditions in the English church.
Shortly after Moule became principal in 1880, Dwight
L. Moody and Ira Sankey arrived in Cambridge. Moody
had been reluctant to speak at the great centers of
English education, since he had very little formal educa-
tion. His simple heartfelt messages made a deep impact
on a wide variety of students, however. The students
at Ridley Hall, impressed by Moody's ministry, soon
noticed that Moule was up at 6:30 a.m., walking the