And in the garden secretly,
And on the cross on high, Might teach His brethren, and inspire
To suffer and to die.
(4) And then you watch the early beginnings of the Christian Church ; you see Peter boldly standing up in Jerusalem to preach the new faith, and to declare the glad tidings; you see Paul, himself a persecutor, suffering persecution for the Cross of Christ ; you see him at the risk of offending his fellow-apostles, crossing the boundaries of Judaism, and carrying the gospel to the Gentiles throughout Asia Minor and into Europe; and always against resistance, always in the teeth of opposition ; always amid great difficulties, and with infinite labour; and you see the Churches, set as a light in the midst of the people, treasuring the sacred deposit of the faith against the threatenings of heathen idolatry, and heathen philosophy, and their own weakness, mistakes, and infidelity ; and always trying amid bafflements, and always fighting amid seeming failure, and always aspiring ; and
126 THE TREE OF LIFE
these, what are they doing ? They too are on the pathway that leads to the tree of life, and they are measuring themselves, to the top of their power, against the sword and against the guardian Cherubim.^
1 The benefactors of men have always been compelled to confront that sword. In the smallest thing it is true. The man who makes a new discovery, the man who has invented something which will be a benefit to his fellow-men — how truly has he to encounter the sword and the flame of criticism. The sword and the flame distress all his fellows. Why does Koger Bacon fly for his life except that an ignorant public cannot understand the benefits that he is prepared to confer upon them ? Why should men like Galileo be put to shame, but that the world stands with its sword and says, "We refuse to let you confer these blessings unless you pass the sword which we hold in the way of all " ? There is the one profound illustration of all. When eager, ambitious souls that saw things only after a worldly fashion were ready to come and take Him by force and make Him a king, He stood amongst His disciples and said, " The crown, that is, the power of conferring benefit upon men — the crown, that is, the capacity of helping My brother man, can be won only through the Cross."'
3. So true is the beginning of the Bible to our continual life. So in our own experience we find the everlasting warrant of that much-disputed tale of Genesis. But, thank God, the end of the Bible is just as true. As true as this universal fact of all men's failure is the other fact, that no man's failure is final or necessarily fatal ; that every man's lost tree of life is kept by God, and that he may find it again in God's Paradise if he comes there in humble consecration.
IF Let us put figures and allegories aside for a moment. The truth of Christianity is this : that however a man has failed by his selfishness of the fulness of life for which God made him the moment that, led by the love of Christ, he casts his selfishness aside and consecrates himself to God, that lost possibility re- appears ; he begins to realize and attempt again in hope the highest idea of his life : the faded colours brighten ; the crowding walls open and disappear. This is the deepest, noblest Christian consciousness. Very far off, very dimly seen as yet, hoped-for not by any struggle of its own but by the gift of the Mercy and Power to which it is now given, the soul that is in God believes * £. W. Lewii. " W. Boyd Carpenter.
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in its own perfectibility, and dares to set itself perfection as the mark of life, short of which it cannot rest satisfied.
And when this change has come, when a soul has dared again to realize and desire the hf e for which God made it, then also comes the other change. The hindrances change back again to their true purpose and are once more the helpers. That, too, is a most noble part of the Christian's experience, and one which every Christian recognizes. You prayed to God when you became His servant that He would take your enemies away, that He would free you from those circumstances which had hindered you from living a good life. But He did something better than what you prayed for. As you looked at your old enemies they did not disappear, but their old faces altered. You saw them still, but you saw them now changed into His servants. The business that had made you worldly stretched out new hands, all heavy with the gifts of charity. The nature which had stood like a wall between you and the truth of a Personal Creator opened now a hundred voices all declaring Him. The men who had tempted you to pride and passion, all came with their opportimities of humility and patience. Everything was altered when you were altered. The Cherubim had left their hostile guard above the gate, and now stood inviting you to let them lead you to the tree of life. This is the Fall supplanted by the Redemption. This completes the whole Bible of a human life.^