And find new birth in death.
He will not leave my soul forlorn ;
I still must find Him true, Whose mercies have been new each morn
And every evening new.
Upon His providence I lean,
As lean in faith I must: The lesson of my life hath been
A heart of grateful trust.
And so my onward way I fare
With happy heart and calm, And mingle with my daily care
The music of my psalm.1
(3) It is enough to name one further aspect of faith : Faith is spiritual insight. — This is the way in which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews regards faith. He says it is " the sub- stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." These words impress upon our minds the thought that, correspond- ing to all the longings which possess the Christian soul, to all the desires and yearnings which spring up within the soul that is earnestly striving to attain to the Christlike and Divine — corresponding to all these are glorious realities; that the up- springing desires shall not be in vain; that the soul which remains steadfast in hope, which clings with brave perseverance to the hopeful yearnings which from time to time unfold them- selves to consciousness within its inward recesses, begins by-and- by to feel by anticipation the very substance of what it has hoped for within its grasp, by-and-by attains to the power of seeing before it in mystic vision the glorious spiritual realities, the thoughts of which presented themselves at first only as dimly discerned but irrepressible desires. Faith then is spiritual in-
1 Frederick Lucian Hosrner.
4oo THESE THREE
sight. It has been called the eye of the soul. It is more than this ; it is the soul seeing, the soul beholding, the things of heaven ; the soul looking upon the things not seen by the bodily eye — looking upon the glories of the spiritual world, upon the wonders of that invisible world which is ever around us, ever underlying the natural world.
Tf By the aid of that mental insight, which, because it is directed towards matters of a scientific import, has been called scientific imagination, men have been able to have within their minds a vivid representation of the marvellous vibratory move- ments of the mysterious ether, and their rapid transmission in one vast tide of light through the infinite space around us. By the aid of the same power of imagination, that other swiftly- acting vibratory motion which has only in recent times become obedient to man's control, that vibratory motion which enables us with magic speed to send tidings even to countries separated from us by ocean abysses and by wide-spreading continents, — by the aid of the same imaginative power, the mind is able to discern the vibrations of the all-pervading ether with which we associate the term electricity. God who thus endows that part of our 'nner being which we call the mind with marvellous powers, also endows that which we speak of as the soul — of which the mind is indeed but a faculty — with corresponding powers. Within all souls longing after a fuller knowledge of Divine things God is ever breathing the breath of a diviner life ; and as this sacred breath — this Holy Spirit — abides with us to animate us, our enkindled spiritual imaginations discern more and more of the mystic glories of heaven towards which the longings of our souls have been directed. This spiritual imagination which enables us to see as in a vision the substantial realities which the soul has been possessed with longings for ; which enables the soul to have a vivid conviction that it has entered upon the life of reconcilia- tion with God, which enables it to discern the transcendent glory of the future life of ever-advancing union with the Divine, which enables it to discern the underlying import of such words as Atonement and Sacrament, to recognize the oneness of the life of the redeemed on earth and in heaven with the great life of God, to behold the unity which binds things seen with things unseen, the correspondence which exists between things natural and things spiritual, — this spiritual imagination which has such potency within us, is the Divine gift of faith which is defined for us in the Epistle to the Hebrews in such suggestive words.1
1 H. N. Grimley.
i CORINTHIANS xitt. 13 401
Canst thou discern — beneath all outward seeming, The hidden meaning, oft concealed from sight ?
The secrets wherewith nature's heart is teeming, The deep soul-vision of a clearer light ?
Say, dost thou understand the whisper'd token, The promise breath'd from every leaf and flower?
And dost thou hear the word ere it be spoken, And apprehend love's presence by its power ?
Canst thou discover in the lives around thee, How small events to mighty issues lead ?
And does the storm's voice nevermore astound thee, Since every God-sent message thou canst read ?
Then, Heaven-gifted thou, to whom is broken Th' eternal revelation, calm and clear —
As they to whom, long since the words were spoken, "He that hath ears to hear" — yea, let him hear.1
HOPE.
1. The question occurs to us sometimes, more or less con- sciously, why hope should be ranked so high, placed on a level with faith and love. We can understand why faith should be so singled out; it is the foundation of the whole structure of religion; it is the bond between the creature and his invisible Maker and God; it is the special title of his acceptance; it is the ground of his self-devotion and obedience, of his highest and noblest ventures. Still more can we understand it of love ; for love brings us near, in the essential qualities of character, to Him whom we believe in and worship ; love is the faint and distant likeness of Him who so loved the world that He gave His only- begotten Son to save it ; love must last and live and increase, under whatever conditions the regenerate nature exists, the same in substance, however differing in degree, in the humblest penitent on earth and in adoring saint or seraph in the eternal world. But hope is thought of, at first sight, as a self- regarding quality; something which throws forward its desires into the future, and dwells on what it imagines of happiness for itself. And hope, of all things, is delusive and treacherous ; it tempts to