These great words, " the glory of the Lord," ought not to be merely a vague phrase to us. You remember what power upon our spiritual life St. Paul associates with that glory. " We all with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit." So he says in another place, " That which is illuminated is light." The personal transforma-
* Oliye Schreiner, Trooper Peter Halket,
442 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
tion which the best of us are still conscious of needing — the change from fleshly creatures into spiritual, from what we have been into what we may be — is to be wrought through our sub- mitting ourselves with inward willingness and desire to the glory which shines upon us. Divine light cannot be divorced from warmth and quickening. The Spirit is always proceeding from the Father and the Son. In all who set their spiritual eyes upon the glory of the Lord, the life-giving power of the Spirit is working, and is effecting that blessed transformation. They are being transformed into an image for which they were created. And the image is that of the King of Glory, who is Himself the image of God.
Christ is not to be reduced into words. That very word " glory " itself testifies that He transcends all words. Yet there are two words which let us into the secrets of the revelation of the Divine nature in Christ. They are ** grace " and " righteousness " ; we can hardly make too much of these, as indicating the Image which is shown to us, and into which it is our high destiny to be transformed. These two words are of unlimited significance ; the powers they signify are able to invest themselves with all ideals which should draw us upwards and onwards. Grace and righteousness are as windows through which we may gain trustworthy visions of the incomprehensible nature of our God, and they are adequate characters of the nature into which we ourselves are to grow. Grace is the compassionate issue of the eternal love ; righteousness is the expression of the Divine order. To what better things can we look up, towards what better things can we strive, than grace and righteousness ?
There are three ways in which the glory of the Lord manifests itself in life —
1. In the majesty of holiness. — Holiness means, literally, separateness from sin, by dedication to God ; from the world, in living by heavenly laws and aspirations. In saying this, we must carefully avoid an error. Our fathers, in the early centuries, drew a broad outward line of demarcation between the Church and the world. That was their fault ; but it was in harmony with the tendency of the age. We are not likely to
ISAIAH 443
fall into such an error. Men now are, perhaps, too much afraid of standing alone. The hollow spirit of a hollow Christianity sneers at the lonely grandeur of a saint. The endeavour of many Christian people seems now to be to conform as much as possible to the world, without being excluded from the pale of the Church. One result of this is that the power of the Christian Church has greatly fallen away. But we must remember that Christian separateuess is not external noncon- formity. It is being in the world and yet above it ; — having saintly separateuess of soul amidst all the duties ; — making men feel that your inner life is apart from the business of the world ; that your heart is in eternity. Now this must result from the dawning of the light. He who communes with God will not fear to be alone. Seeing the Invisible, he will have too strong a faith in the Kingdom of heaven to seek to uphold it by excitement, convulsive effort, or outward show. A pilgrim of the morning, he will not go with the tide of the world. In him there will be a solemn sense of eternity — the looking onwards of an eye that beholds the dawning glory. And this is power — the truest, deepest power.
2. In the heauty of unselfishness. — The life of God is the life of the Cross in the heart. This is a manifestation of God's light in the soul. Let that light dawn, and men will see the Cross- life there. This is the light which the world so much needs to-day. This is the light which made the Pantheon crumble, and the Greek altars fall. Men believe in Christ as a beautiful image — in Christianity as an old fable. Show them His reality, and reveal to them its power in your daily lives.
3, In the earnestness of your efforts for men. — If the light has risen, you know its power. If the glory has dawned, you feel the realities of life. In that illumination who can be sloth- fully calm ? There is a spirit of so-called refinement abroad now which makes men afraid to speak of those things which lie deepest in the heart. Was it so with the great ones of old ? Was it so with Paul ? Was he afraid to speak in the name of Christ before Agrippa ? Did he shrink before the fiery scorn of Festus ? Go, then, bear witness of that light. Live out your prayers in daily actions. You say it is hard, difficult, im- possible. Yes, it is hard — in all ages men have found it so : but