arranged in ascending sections to represent the different processes and stages through which the granite passes, from the quarry to the polished issue. The pedestal is rough, jagged, and primitive, just as it left the quarry, bearing all the marks of the blasting. And then follow layer upon layer, each succeeding one being sub- jected to a more rigid discipline than its predecessor, until every uncouthness is left behind, and all its wealthy and exquisite veins are discovered in the refined and shining issue. And that, I say, is how many people reason about eternal life. Eternal life is just common life perfected. Common life is the rough-hewn block; eternal life is the same block, chastened and refined. The two do not represent a change of substance, they represent differences effected by labour and culture.1
iii. Eternal Life.
There are many words with which we have been so long and so intimately familiar that we never pause to ask ourselves what we mean by them. They form the basis of our reasoning, but, like the foundations of a building, we do not notice their depth or structure ; nay, for this very cause that they do underlie our common discourse, we cannot without a special effort gain any true idea of them. Now " life " is such a word as this. We all use it and argue about it, but can we explain it ?
■[[Think for one moment of the infinite chasm between life and nothingness. On this side there is the glow of health, the consciousness of bodily vigour, the full exuberance of strength and spirits : on that a dreary void. On this side there is the keen sense of the countless joys with which the earth is filled, the glad delight in sunshine and beauty, the rich treasures of a creative mind : on that a dreary void. On this side there is a marvellous power of traversing the whole world in a moment, of holding communion with all the noblest and the best of men, of rising with the chorus of angels even to the throne of God : on that still the same dreary void. Whichever way we turn we see within us a crowd of powers and feelings which minister to our happiness and quicken our susceptibility ; and the sum of these — this treasure beyond all treasures — we call " life." 2
1. The life which we have in Christ is eternal life. That
word " eternal " answers to some idea fixed in each of our souls,
and we need not try to define it. It is enough that our own
experience teaches us how vain it is to measure hope and joy,
1 J. H. Jowett. 2 B. F. Westcott.
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fear and sorrow, by days and years, and not by the intensity of their working. And so Holy Scripture tells us of no change, no succession, no time, in the world to come. The sun and moon and stars — the measures of our earthly periods — shall have passed away, and all shall exist at once in the immediate presence of God.
^[ Wherever there is eternal life there is some apprehension of God : perhaps I should have expressed it better had I said there is some appreciation of God, some " awareness " of His all- encompassing Presence. When our Saviour says, "This is life eternal, to know Thee ! " — I do not think the primary content of the word is mental illumination, although that will most assuredly be in the shining train ; but it fundamentally refers to the intelligence of sympathy, the correspondence of kinship, if you will, the telepathic communion of spirits, attuned to the same key.1
2. Life eternal is so to be developed hereafter that Scripture speaks of it often as if it began hereafter; but it really begins here, and develops here, and is already " abundant " (John x. 10) here. It is not merely the manifold delights with which the New Jerusalem shall be filled — those streets of gold and songs of angels and deep visions of the universe. If we truly live, these will be ours : but we must gain life first. The sun would shed no gladness on a corpse. Music would wake no echo in the dead. And this is Life Eternal, that we may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent — God has quickened us together with Christ — Christ is the Life, and they who are in Him shall live for ever.
^| There was one who said to me a little while ago, concerning a loved one who had been brought back to him after a long and troubled absence : " Even when I am at my desk, and immersed in my labour, there's a singing consciousness at the back of it all that she is in the home again ! " That singing apprehension of a presence, in absorbing labours and in relaxing hours, is symbolic of the apprehension which is theirs who know the Lord. " This is life eternal, to know Thee," to appreciate Thee, to have a singing consciousness that everywhere, in spheres of labour and rest, the Lord is in the house ! " Because he is at my right hand ! " That is the apprehension of God. "When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no ill, for thou art with