148 LIFE AND LIGHT
No natural light can clear up this. There must be a li^ht from outside, a liglit from above. " In thy light," the soul will have to say at last out of all its searchings — " in thy light shall I see light." Down in those hidden crevices of my own innermost, blackest being, Lord, give me light to see clearly what I am.
^ "John Leech," says Dean Hole, "had an oricrinal and effec- tive method of reprimanding his children. If their faces were distorted by anger, by a rebellious temper, or a sullen mood, he took out his sketch book, transferred their lineaments with a slight exaggeration to paper, and showed them, to their shameful confusion, how ugly naughtiness was." ^
3. The full effulgence of the Divine Light was manifested in Christ, wlio is both God and the Revealer of God. He is tlie light which alone is uncreated light, " bright effluence of bright essence increate " — language which Milton strangely enough has applied to material light, but which is inappropriate unless applied to Him who is the true Sun of Eighteousness. As for material light, however subtle and ethereal, it is not Divine ; the creature is not to be confounded with the Creator in this way. The language of the Psalmist is more careful and guarded : Thou " coverest thyself with light as with a garment." Light, in fact, is like a garment, or veil, or fleecy cloud, across the moon's disc, which part reveals and part conceals. So it is of all the material works of God, and hence the allegory of the ancients was not in- exact which represented nature by the symbol of the veiled Isis. There is something seen through the veil, but more remains be- hind which we cannot see through. The same symbol was seen in the sanctuary, where a thick curtain hung between the Holy Place and the Most Holy of All ; that curtain, woven within and without with cherubim, signifying this, that what was seen was the multiform appearance of creation, of which the cherubim were the symbol, while behind was that which no man hath seen or can see — God in Himself.
(1) Christ lights up the unlighted lustre in our nature. — Con- version is the lighting up of our nature with the spark of God's Holy Spirit out of heaven. When a man is converted he does not get new brains ; he does not get new senses or capacities ; he is still surrounded by the old relationships, and he still moves in 1 R. E. Welsh, Ood'a Oentlemen, 41.
PSALM XXXVI. 9 149
the selfsame world. But men have been heard to tell the story of their conversion, and they have said, " The stars seemed new to me, and even the sun shone differently." And we have known men who had made every one round them miserable develop into true gentlemen when God met with them. Nor can any one move among our peasantry, and see the wisdom and weight and power of certain characters, without perceiving how much it has meant for them that they have known the living and true God. What has happened to them ? Have they received new faculties ? No, it is not that — the lustre was always there. But the light of all light has entered their circuit now, and the spark that is God's has kindled the spiritual candle : it is not a differ- ence of added lustre ; it is just that the lustre has been lighted up,
^ The doctrine of conversion played so large a part in Bishop Wilkinson's life that it demands a few words, because it is so often misunderstood. Conversion, in its perverted sense, is often used to describe a sort of mental crisis in which, under the influence of hysterical excitement and rhetorical intoxication, the spirit is hypnotized into an experience so abnormal that it often has a permanent effect on character, and has in retrospect the appearance of a Divine interposition. That was not what Wilkinson meant by conversion. He believed, indeed, that it often came suddenly upon the soul, but that it was only a natural step in a chain of circumstance, lilvc the parting of the avalanche from the snowfield. What he meant by it was a realization of truth, of the personal relation with God, so vivid and indubitable that the soul could never be in any doubt as to its redemption and its ultimate destiny. But he believed that this might be a tranquil and reasoned process, though in the case of sin-stained lives he was inclined to feel that the break with the past must often be of the nature of an instantaneous revulsion, a sudden per- ception of the hideousness of sin, and a dawning of the light of God.i
(2) Christ sheds light for us on the manifold paths of duty. — It is wonderful how, when a man lives near God, he comes to know what he ought to do. That great Light, which is Christ, is like the star that hung over the Magi, blazing in the heavens, and yet stooping to the lowly task of guiding three wayfaring men along a muddy road upon earth. So the highest Light of God comes down to be a Lantern for our paths and a Light for our feet. * A. C. Benson, The Leaves of the Tree, 116.