^ So far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple ol the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love, — so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light, — shade as of the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea ; — so far it vindicates the name, and fulfils the praise, of Home.*
(3) In the Church. — In that temple of God which we call the Church, upon the altars of our sanctuaries, the holy fire ought ever to be kept burning and never be suffered to go out. We shall not quarrel about words and phrases, and mistake form for substance and semblance for reality, but it is prayer and the prayer-spirit which make a Church out of a congregation. Gatherings together to hear argument and rhetoric, anecdote and music, may be good in their way, and serve some useful purpose, but they are not such gatherings together as make one feel and say, " the Lord is in His holy temple."
^ It seems to me that what we most need in our land and day is an order of churches which unite great spirituality and deep devotional power with pure and high intelligence, and can be satisfied with naught but reality and truth ; Churches of the Reconciliation, we might call them, for they would stand for the union of the devout and fervent spirit with the open and enlightened mind, and with the whole scope and temper of modern Christian thought.^
IL
How IS THE FiRK Kindled?
1. Recall the circumstances in which the words of the text
were spoken. The altar of which the writer of the Book of
Leviticus speaks was the brazen altar that stood at the door of
the Tabernacle of the congregation. It was there that the aaori-
' John Hunter. ' Euskin, Sesame- artd Lilies, 187.
LEVITICUS VI. 13 339
fices were ofifered unto God by Israel ; and the sacrifices were all of them of necessity consumed by fire that was God-kindled When the Tabernacle was completed and the worship of God begun in it, Moses and Aaron complied with every direction for the ofifering of sacrifice which God had given them. The wood was laid upon the altar ; the body of the victim was laid upon the wood ; a cake of meal-ojSering was laid upon the body of the victim ; the incense and the salt were laid upon the cake ; the blood was poured out about the altar ; and the wine was mingled with the blood ; and every direction that God had given them was fulfilled. But there the sacrifice lay upon the altar a dead thing ; and then fire came down from the Lord, kindled the wood, consumed the sacrifice, and the offering came up into the presence of the Eternal through the fire which He had given. Precisely the same scene is repeated when the Tabernacle gave place to the Temple. Solomon again obeyed each of those ritual laws. And then he prayed ; and it came to pass, " when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices." And when the people saw it they said: " The Lord is good; His mercy endure th for ever." It was an old law of Israel that no offering could come up for acceptance before God unless it were burned with fire that came down from God.
2. Now this altar is the altar of the Christian heart, and the sacrifice is the offering of the Christian to God in Christ to live the Christian life, and the power to live the Christian life is, in the grace of God, through the fire that God the Holy Ghost kindles in the heart.
Spring may come, but on granite will grow no green thing;
It was barren in winter, 'tis barren in spring;
And granite man's heart is, till grace intervene,
And, crushing it, clothe the long barren with green.
When the fresh breath of Jesus shall touch the heart's core,
It will live, it will breathe, it will blossom once more.^
3. The fire is looked upon as being the type of what old theologians called " effective grace." What they meant by that was this. Fire typifies grace when it comes to act effectively upon
' Jakluddiu Kami, in Field's Book of Eastern JFisdom, 67.
340 THE CONTINUAL FIRE
the one who is the subject of that gracious influence. There comes the wonderful influence of the Holy Spirit, and the grace of regeneration — what we call conversion — becomes effective as the one great shaping, living force that acts within the soul of the believer.
^ Grace does not altogether change nature, but uses it as it finds it. For instance, when a man who is kind and gentle by nature is turned to the faith, like Nicolas Hausmann, grace makes him a tender and gentle preacher ; whilst of a man naturally given to anger, hke Conrad Cordatus, it makes an earnest, serious preacher ; whilst if another has a subtile and powerful understanding, that is used for the benefit of the people.^