1 Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies ( Works, xviii. 186).
438 THESE THREE
There we shall see face to face. So it is clear that faith cannot be altogether the same as here. But in every essential point, it will be the same. For what is the ground of faith ? What leads me to act on God's word, though I have never seen God, have never heard His voice ? Is it not that I trust God, that I am content to leave myself in His hands, that I have confidence in His doing all things well ? Is not this the essence of faith in ordinary life? Is it not that we trust one another, and have confidence in men doing their duty, and so we leave important matters to be transacted for us by others, having faith in them, as we express it ? And in this its ordinary sense, will not faith remain in our new and higher state of being ? Will not entire and unwavering trust in God form a component of the character of the saints in glory — a confidence compared to which the most perfect assurance ever attained here below is but doubt, an entire resting for the present and for the future on His wisdom and His love, of the perfect value of which we know nothing here ?
If Caesar Malan's death-bed seemed to those who witnessed it the most surprising of all his achievements. Said the doctor to me one day on leaving him, " I have just beheld what I have often heard of, but what I never saw before. Now I have seen it, as I see this stick I carry in my hand." " And what have you seen ? " I asked. " Faith, faith" he answered ; " not the faith of a theologian, but of a Christian ! I have seen it with my eyes." 1
3. It would be a most serious mistake to think that there ever was a time in the history of our creation in the past, that there is any part of the infinite creation now, that there ever will be a time in the history of any conceivable creation of the future, in regard to which it has been, is, or shall be true that the spiritual life of creatures made in the image of God is not lived by faith in God. For what is the life of faith but the living, not inde- pendently and with self-reliance, but by the receiving of the life of God ? And how can it accord with the relation between the Creator and the creature, that there should ever be any other spiritual life than this ?
I singularly moved
To love the lovely that are not beloved,
Of all the Seasons, most
1 The, Life, Labour, and Writings of Caesar Malan, 459.
i CORINTHIANS xm. 13 439
Love Winter, and to trace
The sense of the Trophonian pallor on her face.
It is not death, but plenitude of peace;
And the dim cloud that does the world enfold
Hath less the characters of dark and cold
Than warmth and light asleep;
And correspondent breathing seems to keep
With the infant harvest, breathing soft below
Its eider coverlet of snow.
Nor is in field or garden anything
But, duly looked into, contains serene
The substance of things hoped for, in the Spring,
And evidence of Summer not yet seen.1
ii. Hope Abides.
1. Hope shares the prerogative and dignity of love, to stand on the wreck of worlds and gaze on the eternal Face which sinners may not see and live. The works of God shall pass away. The law of decay is not more plainly written on our mortal bodies than on the mightiest star that walks the frozen verge of heaven. Even spiritual gifts shall perish, unless faith and hope and love throw over them the asbestos robe of immortality. If prophecies there be, they shall be needed no more; if tongues there be, they shall cease; if knowledge there be, it shall be needed no more: but hope along with faith and love abideth evermore. There is room and work for hope even in the world where we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. If heaven is not poorer than earth, there must be unmeasured room for hope in revelations far beyond all that sinners can ask or think — revelations rising through the years of eternity, but always revelations of our Heavenly Father's love in Christ.
2. It is no more a Scriptural idea that hope is "lost in fruition " than it is that faith is lost in sight. Kather that future presents itself to us as the continual communication of an in- exhaustible God to our progressively capacious and capable spirits. In that continual communication there is continual progress. Wherever there is progress there must be hope. And thus the fair form which has so often danced before us elusive, and has led us into bogs and miry places and then faded away,
1 Coventry Patmore.
440 THESE THREE
will move before us through all the long avenues of an endless progress, and will ever and anon come back to tell us of the unseen glories that lie beyond the next turn, and to woo us farther into the depths of heaven and the fulness of God. Hope "abides."