Do not let us forget that it is Christ who links into unity the low house and the high. He knows them both. He left the dignities and delights of the one for the humiliations of the other ; and, having served and suffered within its doors, He has returned again to the palace of the King. Why was it that He went out and came back ? It was to taste all my need, to cancel all my sin, to open to my soul the gates of life everlasting I look on Him, I believe in Him, I love Him, and thus I have the assurance of the incorruptible inheritance. Jesus in the heart is heaven in the heart here and now, and it will be the heart in heaven ere long. And thus the contrite spirit comes to the high and holy place.^
IT AVilliam Morris, the poet, was also an art-dealer, a painter, a manufacturer of porcelain, and an advanced Socialist, and appeared once to show sympathy with Socialists persecuted for free
» A. Smellie.
428 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
speech. He dwelt in the high and holy places of song and beauty and with the despised, police-hunted East End Socialists. All these relations are congruous, though some might abstractedly argue against their unity in one man. The largeness of the uni- verse only discloses the sufficiency of Christian faith. The light in the eye can say : I dwell in the eye and in the vast fields of space. The air in the lungs can say the same. "We must connect in thought the immanent and transcendent God ; Christ in you the hope of glory ; Christ as thine and filling all things. If God is thus so great and rich in His revelation to us, then we have explained to us the secret of the power and blessedness of Christian experience. It is communion with the High and Mighty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.^
H That light and heat rays are both present in the sunbeam is a familiar fact, but it is not so well known that the optic nerve which is sensitive to the light rays is unconscious of the presence of the heat rays. Professor Tyndall verified this fact by a most interesting and critical experiment. Having prepared a slide by a chemical process which made it exclude the light rays and give free admission to the heat rays, he cut a small hole in a screen so that the heat rays passing through the slide could fall upon a piece of platinum foil. The platinum at once grew red-hot. At the risk of destroying his own sight he then brought the retina of the eye into the focus of the heat rays. Not the shghtest sensa- tion of heat was experienced. The explanation, he tells us, is pro- bably this — the oscillations of the heat rays, which differ from those of the light rays, are not timed to the conditions of the optic nerve. That nerve has been so adjusted that it responds only to the light rays with which it is in consonance, and is quite dead to the heat rays which elude its consciousness. And is it not thus with that sense of God which awakens within us ? Power and love unite themselves in His person, but the scientist fails to realise His power, whilst the penitent is vividly sensible of His tenderness.^
1[ " I dwell in the high and holy place ; with Him also ! " What a wonderful conjunction ! I could not but think of the great gathering of waters in the Elan Valley, and then the further thought that that vast volume limits itself to enter my own home. Every day I have water from the Welsh hills ! "
Lord ! Thou hast told us that there be Two dwellings which belong to Thee, And those two, that's the wonder, Are far asunder.
1 J. Matthews. 2 rj- (j_ ggity^ s j_ jj jowett.
ISAIAH 429
The one the highest lieaven is, The mansions of eternal bhss ; The other's the contrite And humble sprite.
Not like the princes of the earth, Who think it much below their birth, To come within the door Of people poor.
No, such is Thy humility, That though Thy dwelling be on high, Thou dost Thyself abase To the lowest place.
Where'er Thou seest a sinful soul Deploring his offences foul,
To him Thou wilt descend. And be his friend.
Thou wilt come in, and with him sup, And from a low state raise him up. Till Thou hast made him eat Blest angel's meat.
Thus Thou wilt him with honour crown Who in himself is first cast down, And humbled for his sins, That Thy love wins.
Though heaven be high, the gate is low, And he who comes in there must bow ; The lofty looks shall ne'er Have entrance there.
0 God ! since Thou delight'st to rest In the humble contrite breast First make me so to be. Then dv/ell with me.^
* Thomas Washbourne,
Arise ! Shine !
Literature.
Chadwick (G. A.), Pilate's Gift, 162.
Cornaby (TV. A.), In Touch with Reality, 83.
Henson (H. H.), Light and Leaven, 99.
Holland (H. S.), Pleas and Claims, 108.
Hull (E. L.), King's Lynn Sermotis, i. 61.