* M. Brokenshire.
ST. JOHN XX. 30, 31 401
emphasis to those who are to come after. To secure this he depends, not on the quantity, but on the quality, of the matter chosen. We know, even in his own case, that the years as they pass over him have taught him the same lesson — to pare down rather than to expand. Fewer and fewer words, we are told by St. John, have become necessary to him ; he would rather repeat and repeat those familiar phrases, into which he had concentrated all his love, than search about for other and more varied expressions.
^ To get at the heart and the mind of a person we turn to the characteristic deeds and words which come from him at the most cardinal and critical moments of his life. We can afford to omit, forget, a thousand details if only we can single out and fasten upon those peculiar, those unique, expressions which'have upon them the special stamp of his individuality. It is the typical facts that we require when the fullest secret of His being emerged and flashed. To know Him, then, at such vivid moments, is to know Him for ever, for it is to know Him as He is. A multitude of minor events and records would be full of interest, no doubt, but they would not be essential, they would not really add to our knowledge, they would but corroborate and confirm it. Take the case of a dear friend passed away from us in death. What is it that lives in our faithful memory of him, what is it we love to bring up in imagination and brood over and caress, as it were, with an affectionate recollection ? Not, I think, a quantity of details, but rather, I think, the few singular and intimate and memorable characteristics which marked him out from all others, the things which gave him his personal uniqueness, the things which no one else could have done or said, the points at which his innermost nature shot up to the surface, and looked out at us with a sudden intensity, before it fell back again under the veil of ordinary existence. Certain single moments there have been that abide in our mind when he turned his face full upon us — the man himself ; certain actions there were that stand out clear from all others as stars in the night. They may be great or little, but they were the windows through which we saw into his soul. Perhaps it is the ring of his voice on a certain phrase that will haunt us ; or the turn of his head, as he looked back and smiled ; his gait, as we caught sight of him some day, that we remember so well ; or that way he had of laying his hand on our arm, and we can feel it warm there to-day ; or the sort of word he used, that was a favourite one on his lips, the word that was the key to so much in him in which we delighted; or some one happy day,
ST. JOHN (2) — 26
402 CHIEF PURPOSE OF THE GOSPEL
when the blessed home was full of his delightful presence ; or, above all, the tune of his laugh when he was merry, or the look in his eyes at the time of some deep sorrow — these are the things that we cling to, and to these and no more than these.^
4. But, besides the fact that a selection of signs is more impressive than an accumulation of them, there is another reason why St, John selects the few signs and omits the many. Because Jesus Christ is still alive and at work ; Jesus Christ is a living Person, ascended to the right hand of God, reigning in the midst of His Church, He, through His Spirit, is here ready to meet difficulties as they arise, ready to answer the questions suggested by His words, ready to lead His believers on and on in the path on which they have set out. All the Christian religion lies in that ; it lies in the actual communion between the living soul and the living Christ, not ' in reading about Him, not in hearing about Him, not in remembering things that He did, or being convinced that He really did them, or in admiration for His historical character, or in approving the excellence of His teaching, or in a touching sentiment from the beautiful drama once enacted by Him " who for us men, and for our salvation came down . . . and was made man" — not in any of these does the religion of Christ consist. It begins and ends wholly in an active and energetic contact between the Person of Jesus Christ and the person of His followers,
^ If we have not the realized presence of Christ, nothing can bring us together ; if we have it, nothing can keep us apart.^
^ " Who is it that is passing by ? " A personal presence ? It is enigmatical enough; it is bewildering, it amazes, it says but few things plainly. But there it is ; we cannot escape it ; it is a presence which is not to be put by. That is its challenge: it stands there delivering the challenge by its sheer existence — not by arguments, not by explanation, not by persuasion. Not by those weapons does it make its attack ; no, but by being simply what it is. " I am what I am, I am that which I have been tell- ing you." "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" That is the voice that speaks through the written records, speaks as none other ever spoke. And it is the voice of a living man, not of a book, using a book through which to speak, but Himself the key of the written word, Himself the power in the book; 1 H. Scott Holland. " Cliarlea A. Berry, 127.