He goes on to describe, in words worthy of what he praises, the beauty and blessedness of love. The ultimate distinction that he ascribes to it is that it lasts ; it does not fail, or undergo changes, it abides. Herein especially was it contrasted with prophesying and tongues and knowledge. Prophecies will be done away, tongues will cease, knowledge will be done away. ' St. Paul was no doubt referring here to the emotional gifts which were used and valued in the Churches of that age. But he lets us see that he regards these as representing all intellectual conceptions and utterances concerning spiritual things. " For we know in part, and we prophesy (or preach) in part: but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." St. Paul would hardly have spoken thus if he had not
himself been perplexed by the incompleteness and unsatisfying
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character of the accounts which we can give to ourselves and others of the ways of God. He was accustomed to take refuge in the thought that our conceptions and language are the expressions of partial knowledge, such as will be superseded in time by maturer and completer knowledge. And he had evidently found support in the two analogies which he proceeds to give.
(1) " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child : now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things." Every grown-up person is familiar with this experience. We can remember fanciful conceptions of our childhood which now make us smile; things appeared to us in very different proportions from those in which we see them now. Our knowledge has grown, and the growth of it inevitably alters our apprehensions and judgments. It is not unreasonable to expect that what has already happened to us will happen to us again. May we not hope that in the future world, which we cannot now understand, but which will seem so different to us from the present, the contradictions and perplexities which baffle us now will in some way be made to disappear ? There is a pre- sumption that, even on this side of the grave, as the generations of Christians grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, they may outgrow doctrines and rules which were natural to earlier stages.
(2) The other analogy is that which forms our text. We are reminded of the difference between a person seen as reflected by an imperfect and confusing mirror and the same person seen face to face. Let us hold — the Apostle taught — that God is now seeing and knowing us ; but let it not be assumed that we as yet see and know God — except most imperfectly.
2. The expression which St. Paul here uses is a very suggestive one. He has been speaking of the contrast in value between knowledge and love, showing that all our knowledge, of whatever sort it may be, is of little worth compared with love. Love is that which alone is truly precious in human life, and love endures; while all our ideas are destined to dissolve and pass away, like the changing shapes of the clouds from the heaven's azure. Love is that constant blue above, and love above is
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eternal. Knowledge is partial, and therefore the utterance of the truth in prophecy or preaching must be partial. And just as the man puts off the thoughts of the child, so the man is ever putting off and changing even his manhood's thoughts that have been as those of a spiritual childhood, for those that are to him new and better, even as he changes his raiment. This process must go on to the last hour of mental life and activity; and what we think the best thought must in time give place to a better; and the best that can be dreamed is still a dream and a shadow compared with the substance and the reality itself. "For," says the Apostle (to render his words quite literally), " we are looking now through a mirror in (or upon) an enigma."
3. Human knowledge is imperfect, fragmentary, partial. We can scarcely be said to " know " ; we are only " learning to know " by slow and painful effort; our best attainment is one-sided, relative, incomplete. Our expression even of what we think we know is partial and imperfect. Not only do we " know in part," but we " prophesy in part." Even those whom God has called to be His spokesmen can but communicate their message in language which is inadequate to express the truth fully. And why ? Because here and now, in this present life and with our limited faculties, we can only see " by means of a mirror." All that we can discern is as it were but a reflection of the absolute archetypal realities, a blurred, confused, imperfect image of glory upon which as yet we cannot gaze. And even that reflec- tion which we seem to see can only be described in language which is like a riddle, challenging us to guess its meaning and unravel its secret, but hinting, not defining, hard to interpret, liable to be misunderstood. In the face of eternal truths we are but children; thinking, feeling, speaking, with the limited capacities, the baffled eagerness, the constant and inevitable misunderstandings of children: yes, but like children too, with the hope and promise of growth, development, attainment here- after.