Truth for truth, and good for good ! The Good, the True,
the Pure, the Just ; Take the charm "For ever" from them, and they crumble into
dust.i
3. Jesus Christ is the clearest evidence as well as the fullest interpretation of the unseen. It was not possible for the Jewish race of that day by any principle of evolution to have produced Him. He came from elsewhere. No one has ever lived after His fashion, with such becoming perfection. He belonged to elsewhere. Death did not bury His life ; it remains unto this day the chief moral energy in the world. While He moved among men He suggested that other world where the hopeless ideals of this life are fulfilled. His biography breaks the bonds of sight ; it lays the foundation for faith.
^ Years ago the English Academy and the French Sal6n con- tained at the same time two pictures which, if they had been painted for the purpose, could not have been a more perfect illustration of St. Paul's great utterance. In one the king is lying on his bed the moment after death — he was the mightiest monarch of his day — and the sceptre has just dropped from his hands. And behold, the servants who an hour ago trembled at his look are rifling his treasury and dividing his possessions. Below with fine irony was written the title, " William the Con- queror " — his conquests had ceased. In the other, a man is lying » J. E. C. Welldon, The Spiritual Life, 61.
126 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN
in a rocky tomb ; His conflict is over, and His enemies have won. He denied the world, and the world crucified Him ; He trusted in God, and God left Him to the cross. But love has wrapped His body in spices, and given Him a new tomb amid the flowers of the garden ; love is waiting till the day breaks to do Him kind- ness. The Angels of God and not the Eoman soldiers are keeping guard over Him while He takes His rest, after life's travail. When the day begins to break. He will rise conqueror over death and hell — Lord both of this poor world which passeth away, and of the riches of the world which remaineth for .ever.^
III.
The Seen is the Shadow, the Unseen the Substance.
1. All the deeper realities of life are conveyed to us by intimation rather than by demonstration. They come to us by other roads than those of the senses. The persons to whom we are bound in the sweetest relationships or by the noblest compul- sion are never really seen by us. We see and touch their gar- ments ; we never see or touch them. They may live with us in the closest intimacy, and yet no sense of ours ever made a path of final approach between us. When they vanish out of life, they leave behind them all that we ever saw or touched ; but how patheti- cally unavailing is the appeal of the heart to the garment laid aside in the haste or pain of the final flight ! All we ever saw is there, and yet it is nothing ! That which we loved, and which made the world dear and familiar through the diffusion of its own purity and sweetness, we never saw or touched. It was never within the reach of our senses ; it was accessible only to our spirits. So sacred was it that the final mystery was never dissipated; so Divine was it that the final veil was never lifted. One came our way and dwelt with us in a tabernacle of flesh, even as Christ did, and then departed, leaving behind all that we ever saw or touched, and yet taking with her all that was real, companionable, com- prehensible. And yet with this constant and familiar illustration of the presence of a reality which we never touch or see under our roof and by our side, we reject the intimations that come to us from every quarter and bring us the truths by which we live.
^ J. Watson, The Inspiration of our Faith, 358.
2 COR. IV. i8 127
2. The eternal persists in spite of outward changes. There is always a continuity in the midst of change, always something eternal rising out of decay, always something immortal to rebuke our mortal fears ; there is a human love in us that never dies ; there are hopes that never perish ; there is a growth that never ceases; there are good thoughts that never leave us; there are joys which no man can take away ; there is something always beyond that we are drawn to ; there is something out of sight, to which we are always stretching our unsatisfied and aching hands. The body pants for a deliverance which lies beyond ; the soul hungers for a larger portion than it has ever known ; the whole of our nature cries out for that future which is still unrevealed. And God has written eternity in the hidden heart of all things, not to mock us with vain dreams, but to make us certain that there is a happier and nobler life behind the veil.
3. Let us make the most of the seen by living in the unseen.