1 J. LI. Da vies. 2 J. Parker.
12 THE CHURCH
defacing hand ; but as in that there may be the crushed and defaced pillar, and the ugly rents and fissures and gaps even in the central tower, so the visible Church of Christ has been torn by heresies and schisms, her very safety threatened, her very central tower shaken and ready to fall, had not the hand of God stayed up her pillars and repaired her ruins.
^ The situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yet, here in this miserable, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, — here or nowhere is thy Ideal ! Work it out therefrom ! ^
^ Eemember, it is the Ideal that rules the world, that moves the world ; and the true Church of Christ is ever an ideal, a dream, a prophecy, a vision, an aspiration ; but a dream, a prophecy, a vision of the future, in seeking after which is ever found the best hope for the practical life of the present. For it is the idealists, the seers of the race, who are ever the reformers ; it is the men who see visions and dream dreams of possible progress and happiness, and not the pessimistic and social agnostics, who make the crooked straight, and the rough places plain .^
^ The intense enthusiasm with which Mr. Gladstone entered into the subject and the object of the moment was apt to dim, if not obliterate, the little loves and affections which crowd the life of smaller men. The execution of his great work was the one thing in his eyes, and the instruments and tools he used were dearer to him than anything else ; and the men associated with him at the moment were always greater than the men who had passed away. He became absorbed in the task, whatever it might be, which he had set himself to do ; he was not one of those who, having put their hand to the plough, knew what it was to turn back.2
Have we not all, amid life's petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a noble life
That once seemed possible ? Did we not hear
The flutter of its wings, and feel it near.
And just within our reach ? It was. And yet
We lost it in this daily jar and fret.
And now live idle in a vague regret.
But still our place is kepi, and it will wait,
Eeady for us to fill it, soon or late;
No star is ever lost we once have seen,
We always may be what we might have been.
^ Carlyle. ^ C. W. Stubbs, ' Algernon "West, HecoUcctions, ii. 33.
EPHESIANS I. 22, 23 13
Since Good, though only thought, has life and breath,
God's life — can always be redeemed from death;
And evil, in its nature, is decay.
And any hour can blot it all away ;
The hopes that lost in some far distance seem,
May be the truer life, and this the dream .^
III.
The Ideal made Actual.
How is this ideal Church to be made the Church that we see and know ? How is the Church to fulfil its office as the Body of Christ? How is it to be the Body of Christ in deed and in truth ? That is the great question which when answered answers all other questions concerning the Church.
1. The Church must establish a living relationship with the risen Lord. — " And gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body." The figure used by the Apostle shows what kind of relationship exists between Christ and His Church. In this relationship we see the fundamental truth, the central truth, the truth which contains every other truth, concerning the Church. One of the Old Testament prophets — Isaiah — poetically describes God's constant remembrance of His own, " Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." This poetic imagery has become a glorious fact in Jesus Christ. Through His Incarnation and Crucifixion and Eesurrection, we can say that God now has the marks of the nails upon His hands which always make Him mindful of His own. As King and Head of the mediatory kingdom, Christ must have His people even as a sovereign must have his subjects. And they need not only His rule but also His Divine strength in them. The Church can never succeed without Christ. The risen Lord made the Church, the risen Lord keeps the Church, the risen Lord fills the Church all in all. " That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him
' Adelaide Procter.
14 THE CHURCH
/
from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is hia body, the ulness of him that filleth all in all."
^ The communion which the members of His body have with the Head is threefold. (1) It is a communion of mind. "We have the mind of Christ." " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." (2) It is a communion of heart. " Fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." " The fellow- ship of his sufferings." (3) It is a communion of power. " Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me." This threefold communion with the risen Lord is finely expressed in F. W. H. Myers' Saint Paul: