until the day of Jesus Christ." The grace has not had full room to expand itself and show all the vastness of its compass. Our life is hid ; our glory is hid ; our inherit- ance is hid ; our city has not yet come down out of heaven from God. In the pit of Dothan it did not appear what Joseph was to be. His strange dreams did betoken something, yet who could have thought that he was to sit upon Pharaoh's throne ? It did not appear what Ruth was to be when she lived in Moab, a stranger to the true God, or even when she left home and kindred to cast in her lot with Israel. That blessed scene of love and faith when " Or- pah kissed" and "Ruth clave," giving forth a heart of no common mould, did in- timate something, but who could have thought that she was to be a mother in Israel, from whom Messiah was to spring ? So we do not now wear the aspect of that which we shall be. We do not look like kings. And though at times, whe
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we get a glimpse of the promised crown, and when a vision of its nearness passes before us, our face flushes, our eye kindles, our gait unconsciously assumes unusual dignity, yet in general we look very unlike that which we shall be. Sometimes the star of nobility— the badge of our order — flashes out from the sordid covering and glitters on our breast, yet this is seldom; more seldom now in these last days than formerly. For religion, even the best, has sunk down from its primitive loftiness into a tame, second-rate, inferior thing, and the still-clinging garments of the old man cover in or quench every rising ray of anticipated glory.
What different beings grace would make us would we but allow it! Yet, instead of allowing it, we put it from us, content with just as much of it as will save us from the wrath to come. We shrink from its fulness, as if we should thereby stand committed to a far holier walk and higher style of
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living than we are prepared for. For " the grace of God that bringeth salvation teach- eth us to deny ungodliness and worldly- lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious ap- pearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works."
The grace that flowed in upon us dur- ing our long night has been large and manifold ; but it is not ended with the night. The morning brings with it new stores of grace. When that grace unfolds itself, then shall it appear what we really are. Our present guise will fall from us, we shall stand forth as " heirs of God," and he who hath given us grace shall also give as glory; he who led us through the night shall bring us forth to the joy of the morning.
CHAPTER XIL
THE GLORY.
Not only a man's true life, but a man's true history begins with his conversion. Up till that time, he is a being without a history. He has no story to tell. He is but part of a world lying in wickedness, having nothing about him worthy of a record.
But from the moment that he is born again, and thus taken out of the mass, he receives a personality as well as a dignity which fit him for having a history, — a his- tory which God can own as such, and which God himself will record. From that time he has a story to tell, wondrous and divine, such as angels listen to, and over which there is joy in heaven.
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In that broad ocean, there are millions of drops ; yet they are one mingled mass of fluid; no one of them has a history* There may be a history of the ocean, but not of its individual drops* But, see, yon drop is beginning to part from the mass, It takes hold of a sun-beam and rises into the firmament. There it gleams in the rainbow or brightens in the hues of sun-set. It has now a history. From the moment that it came out of the mass and obtained a personality, it had a story to tell, a story of its own, a story of splendour and beauty*
In those vast blocks of unquarried rock what various forms are lying concealed ! what shapes of statuary or architecture are there ! Yet they have no history. They can have none. They are but parts of a hideous block, in which not one line or curve of beauty is visible. But the noise of hammers is heard. Man lifts up his tool. A single block is severed. Again lie lifts up his tool, and it begins to assume
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a form ; till, as stroke after stroke falls on it, and touch after touch smooths and shapes it, the perfect image of the human form is seen, and it seems as if the hand of the artist had only been employed in un- wrapping the stony folds from that fair form, and awakening it from the slumber of its marble tomb. From the moment that the chisel touched that piece of rock its history began.