1 T. R. Williams.
244 NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL
sanctuary of the soul, the door of which is closed to all except a very few, if not indeed to everybody. Eeligion has its outward and visible side ; its public acts of homage ; its recognized obliga- tions. But its real strength and empire is within; it is in regions where spiritual activity neither meets the eye nor commits itself to language. All to whom our Saviour is a real Being know that their souls have had, and have, relations with Him which belong to the most sacred moments of life. If we may employ a metaphor which Holy Scripture suggests, they hesitate to discuss these relations almost as naturally as a bride would shrink from taking the world into her confidence.
TJ Often in exact proportion to the reality of a religious experience may be the difficulty of making it public property; and one of the most trying features in a man's work may consist in his having to make a perfectly sincere proclamation of that which he knows to be true, after actual contact with it in the chambers of his own soul. Doubtless a nature so human and sympathetic as St. Paul's would have felt this difficulty in its full force ; yet we know how completely, how generously, he overcame it. In his large, self-forgetting charity, he has made his inmost life — its darkest as well as its brightest passages — the common heritage of the world. If he did not yield to the instinct which would have sealed his lips, this was because he knew that the Gospel of his Lord and Master was not really, like some family secret, a private matter. The Friend of his soul, Who knew its wants and weaknesses, Who had healed its diseases, Who was privy to its inmost confidence, was surely the true and much- needed Friend of every human being; and therefore no false reserve could persuade St. Paul to treat the Gospel as if it concerned himself alone, or to shrink from saying with the Psalmist, " Come near, and hearken, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul." 1
T| In St. Paul the personal has become the universal, and it has become somehow the universal pleading with each. If he speaks of himself, it is not that you may take note of him personally ; it is that you may see in him what you can be and have and know; it is that you may feel through him who has known it something that is the common need and hope of humanity. The secret of St. Paul is that when he speaks of himself most directly, when he places himself in the very centre of the picture, he has entirely forgotten himself, he hardly knows
1 H. P. Liddon.
ROMANS i. 16 245
that he exists or counts. " Not I, but Christ that dwelleth in me." 1
III.
Why is he not Ashamed of It?
1. Because, with all its seeming weakness, the Gospel is Power. The Apostle's word is used to indicate inherent power in active operation. In the Gospel there is a certain force which is brought into exercise every time it is received — a force so great, so mani- fest in its effects, that it may be placed alongside those great natural forces in the world which modern science has made so vivid and real to our minds. We shall not err if we think of it as a force in the same sense as that in which science has revealed to us the great forces of nature. It is a principle operating in the world of human nature on a vast and continually enlarging scale, and taking effect in a countless number of individuals to their moral and spiritual betterment. In its own particular sphere of operation, it may be thought of in the same way as we think of a force like heat, or electricity, or gravitation, in its sphere. These are different and familiar forces, each with its own distinctive powers, capable of producing certain well-known effects. They are real forces with which we have to reckon, and which we can neither make nor unmake, mend nor mar. We may not understand everything about them ; we may not be able to explain their origin, as we certainly are unable to produce them. They are there, and their powers are forces which we neglect at our peril. They testify to their existence, and to what they can do, by their effects. They are silent in their working, and, but for the effects produced, we could have no proof of their existence. A volcanic upheaval, an earthquake that changes the configuration of the countryside, a hurricane that flattens a forest, all work unseen, all are the outcome of hidden force, and are only made manifest in their effects. Such a force or power is the Gospel in a higher sphere. It is a force whose reality is demon- strated, not by the arguments of the theologian, but by what it does. Its proof is dynamical, not logical. It has proved itself in human experience as a power to arouse the conscience
1 A. L. Lilley.
246 NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL
to bring it into activity and give it direction, to inspire devotion and reverence, and to kindle affection for what is pure and good, holy, and godlike.