220 THE AMAZING GIFT OF LOVE
folded his arms, extended himself in the boat, and awaited with perfect calmness his inevitable fate. In a few moments he was whirled down the Falls and disappeared for ever.^
The scene is terrible enough. But the perishing of a man's body is a light thing in comparison with the perishing of his soul.
(3) The light and the darkness, the Light of Light and the blackness of darkness, salvation and perdition — between these two extremes the inhabitants of this earth occupy the middle place. We move on the neutral ground, between the armies of Heaven and the legions of Satan, in the debatable territory — this world is the region of our option and the scene of our free decision. Out of Christ there is no salvation to any man : neither in this world nor in the world to come. "There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved," but the great name of Jesus. Faith in Him is, as He Himself is, the gift of God, but it is the gift of the Spirit inviting, persuading our will, not compelling it. To refuse these gifts is to perish ; to reject them now is to be rejected at the last day. To lose them here is to learn their value by contrast hereafter and to weep their loss for ever.
^ In the Koyal Academy of 1908 there was a picture by the Hon. John Collier which will always attract attention. It is called "Sentenced to Death." We are introduced into the consulting room of a great physician, and facing us is a young man who is hearing from the doctor the result of his diagnosis. The doctor is telling him that he is a doomed man, that he will presently die. The young man sits there in the chair, faultlessly dressed, handsome, with all the promise of youth in his face, and there is no special look of illness except perhaps to a doctor's eye. He has just received his sentence of death, and has strung himself to endurance.
I thought I saw in the intention of tlie artist the dawning of a vision in the young man's eyes, as if he were seeking for an inward hope, or trying to fix his thought upon a faith that he half knew. As I looked into his face how I longed, though it was only a picture, how I longed to tell him that if he believed in Jesus he had everlasting life, that he need not be afraid, he need not even be cast down. Believing in Jesus he has everlasting life. As I looked at the picture I so longed to tell him, that I turned my face away lest I should cry out in the room.'^
1 The Greville Memoirs, i. 254. = r, y. Horton.
ST. JOHN III. i6 221
2. Eternal Life. — Eternal life comes, and can come, only by a vital fellowship with the Ever-living God; and the reason why this believing in Jesus brings eternal life is that it hrings us into vital fellowship with God. Through Christ, through faith in Christ and the comniittal of the soul to Him, we find we have come into vital contact with God. We have touched the source of Life — Eternal Life.
C^(l) It is called eternal life, which does not mean that it is a life in a future world ; but it is called eternal life here and now, because here and now this life which means vital fellowship with God is established, and begins to run on into Eternity. A life begins here and now which continues there and then — beyond and for ever. Believing in Christ means that we have come into contact with the very Fountain of Life — God Himself, the Eternal and Ever-living God ; and therefore, believing, you have eternal life. When we believe in Christ, eternal life has begun in us.
^ God does not help His children now and then, but now, always now. There is no " then " ; it exists only in imagination. The only time we ever actually need God is now. If "then" troubles us in imagination and we wonder what will become of us then, let us learn to live with God now. Form the habit of using God and being used of God, and the imaginary and dreadful " then " will be swallowed up in the stream of now when the time comes. No clocks keep time to-morrow. Springs push and hands point now. Now is the appointed time for clocks as well as people. God never helped anyone to-morrow. He is a very present help. What is eternity but God's now ? Let us then live the eternal life with God now.^
(2) The end God has in view in such belief is our largest opportunity. He calls it eternal life. It is fulness of everything that makes man great and existence sweet. It is not mere immortality. Immortality simply gives the ennobled spurit its endless perfect province. Eternal life is realized when a man comes to his better self ; when he is saved from being " frittered away in frivolities, from being consumed by the canker of avarice, from being palsied by the mildew of idleness, from being ener- vated by luxury, from being crippled by the paralysis of doubt." Eternal life is rescue from perishing in selfishness, animalism, hate ^ M. D. Babcock, ThougMsfor Every-Day Living, 44.