^At the great spring Dromenon the tribe and the growing earth were renovated together : the earth arises fresh from her dead seeds, the tribe from its dead ancestors; and the whole process, charged as it. is with the emotion of pressing human desire, projects its anthropomorphic god or daemon. A vegeta- tion-spirit we call him, very inadequately ; he is a divine Kouros, a Year-Daemon, a spirit that in the first stage is living, then dies with each year, then thirdly rises again from the dead, raising the whole dead world with him — the Greeks called him in this phase " the Third One," or the " Saviour." The renovation ceremonies were accompanied by a casting off of the old year, the old gar-
2 COR. V. 17 185
ments, and everything that is poHuted by the infection of death. And not only of death; but clearly, I think, in spite of the protests of some Hellenists, of guilt or sin also. For the life of the Year-Daemon, as it seems to be reflected in Tragedy, is generally a story of Pride and Punishment. Each Year arrives, waxes great, commits the sin of Hubris, and then is slain. The death is deserved ; but the slaying is a sin : hence comes the next Year as Avenger, or as the Wronged One re-risen : " they all pay retribution for their injustice one to another according to the ordinance of time." It is this range of ideas, half suppressed during the classical period, but evidently still current among the ruder and less Hellenized peoples, which supplied St. Paul with some of his most famous and deep-reaching metaphors. " Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." " As he was raised from the dead we may walk with him in new- ness of life." And this renovation must be preceded by a casting out and killing of the old polluted life — " the old man in us must first be crucified." ^
^ Midway down the Simplon pass the traveller pauses to read upon a stone by the wayside the single word, "Italia." The Alpine pines cling to the mountain-sides between whose steeps the rough way winds. The snows cover the peaks, and the brooks are frozen to the precipices. The traveller wraps his cloak about him against the frost that reigns undisputed upon those ancient thrones of ice-bound rock. But at the point where that stone with the word " Italia " stands, he passes a boundary-line. From there the way begins into another world. Soon every step makes plainer how great has been the change from Switzerland to Italy. The brooks, unbound, leap laughing over the cliffs. The snows have melted from the path. The air grows warm and fragrant. The regiments of hardy pine no longer struggle in broken lines up the mountain-side. The leaves of the olive trees glisten in the sunshine. The vines follow the wayside. The sky seems near and kind. And below, embosomed in verdure. Lake Maggiore expands before him. As he rests at evening time he knows that the entrance into a new world was marked by the word " Italia " upon that stone at the summit of the pass. Humanity has crossed a boundary-line between two eras. Up to Bethlehem was one way, growing bleaker, and more barren, and colder, as man hastened on. Down from Bethlehem has been another and a happier time. The one civilization was as Switzerland shut in among its icy Alps ; the other is as Lombardy's fruitful plain.^
' Gilbert Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion, 46. * N. Smyth, Christicm Facts and Forces, 4.
86 IN CHRIST A NEW CREATION
0 all-surpassing Splendour! — one alone Of earthly race hath seen that vision fair ;
The present God, the rainbow round the throne, And the elect, descending through the air,
His Tabernacle, — He their glorious light;
For in His presence there can be no night.
"All New," — a higher world then had been made In the past-workings of omnipotence,
Wills without sin, — Earth's precious stones displayed Tell faintly some Divine magnificence.
Of that regenerate sphere, the pure abode
For sons and daughters of the Immortal God.* * W. J. Irons.
The New and the Old.
il7
Literature.
Arnold (T.), Sermons, i. 10 ; iv. 274.
Bonar (H.), Family Sermons, 435.
Calthrop (G.), in The Penny Pulpit, No. 853.
Dewey (0.), Works, 759.
Dykes (J. 0.), Sermons, 249.
Gibson (J. M.), The Glory of Life, 35.
Gladden (W.), Where does the Sky Begin, 187.
Gwatkin (H. M.), The Eye for Spiritual Things, 49,
Jowett (B.), Sermons Biographical and Miscellaneous, 356.
Martin (G. C), in Great Texts of the New Testament, 127.
Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, v. 164.
Perowne (J. J. S.), Sermons, 172.
Westcott (B. F.), Christian Aspects of Life, 86.
„ „ The Historic Faith, 129.
Wordsworth (J.), Sermons Preached in Salisbury Cathedral Church, 97. Christian World Pulpit ; xxxv. 346 (G. Matheson) ; lii. 187 (T. V. Tymms) ;
Ixvii. 86 (K. Lake) ; Ixix. 262 (W. L. Watkinson). Churchman's Pulpit : Easter Day and Season, vii. 342 (A. M. Mackay). Clergyman't Magazine, 3rd, Ser., viii. 93 (Q. Calthrop).
The New and the Old.
The old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.— 2 Cor. V. 17.