^ We all live in the sublime. Where else can we live ? That is the only place of life. And if aught be lacking, it is not the chance of living in heaven, rather it is watchfulness and medita- tion, also perhaps a little ecstasy of soul. Though you have but a little room, do you fancy that God is not there, too, and that it is impossible to live therein a life that shall be somewhat lofty ? If you complain of being alone, of the absence of events, of loving no one and being unloved, do you think that the words are true ? Do you imagine that one can possibly be alone, that love can be a thing one knows, a thing one sees ; that events can be weighed like the gold and silver of ransom ? Cannot a living thought — proud or humble, it matters not ; so it come but from your soul, it is great for you — cannot a lofty desire, or simply a moment of
1 F. W. Crossley, in Life, by J. Rendel Harris, 70,
2 S. C. Lowry, The Work of the Holy Sjririi, 20.
88 SPIRITUAL ARCHITECTURE
solemn watchfulness to life, enter a little room ? And if you love not, or are unloved, and can yet see with some depth of insight that thousands of things are beautiful, that the soul is great and life almost unspeakably earnest, is that not as beautiful as though you loved or were loved ? And if the sky itself is hidden from you, " does not the great starry sky," asks the poet, " spread over our soul, in spite of all, under guise of death ? " ^
Our souls go too much out of self
Into ways dark and dim : 'Tis rather God who seeks for us,
Than we who seek for Him.
Yet surely through my tears I saw
God softly drawing near; How came He without sight or sound
So soon to disappear ?
God was not gone: but He so longed
His sweetness to impart. He too was seeking for a home,
And found it in my heart.^ » jraeterlinck, The Treasure of the Rumble, 179. » F. W. Faber.
The Father and the Families.
8b
Literature.
Baring-Goiild (S.), Our Parish Church, 129.
Boyd (A, K. H.), Sunday Afternoons in a University City, 279.
Brown (J. B.), The Home, 217.
„ „ The Home Life, 288.
Cbadwick (W. E.), Social Relationships in the Light of Christianity, 173. Clarke (J. E.), Common-Life Sermons, 29, 52. Ewing (J. W.), The Undying Christ, 68. Harris (H.), Short Sermons, 268. Hull (E. L.), Sermons, i. 121. Laird (J.), Memorials, 167.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Epistle to the Ephesians, 128. Magee (W, C), Sermons (Contemporary Pulpit Library), i. 73. Pulsford (J.), Christ and His Seed, 106. Eidgeway (C. J.), Social Life, 103, Eobertson (F. W.), Sermons, iii. 181. Spurgeon (C. PL), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxii. No. 1309.
„ „ My Sermon Notes, iv. 272.
Vaughan (C. J.), Authorized or Revised ? 315. Westcott (B, F.), Social Aspects of Christianity, 19.
„ „ The Incarnation and Common Life, 161.
Cliristian World Pulpit, xl. 233 (MacDonald) ; Iviii. 19 (Fairbairn) ;
Ixxiv. 241 (Gore), Churchman's Pulpit: Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, xii. 201 (Arm- strong), 214 (Kenipthorne), 216 (Heber).
The Father and the Families.
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.— Eph. iii. 14, 15.
1. There are two great prayers in this Epistle. The first is in the first chapter. It seemed to Paul that the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible for men to see the glory of it unless they were taught of God, and therefore after his lofty account of God's purpose to bring the heavens and the earth into an eternal unity in Christ, he tells the Christians at Ephesus that he was continually praying that God would give them " a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him," and that the eyes of their heart might be enlightened that they might know the hope to which God had called them, and " the glory of his inheritance in the saints." Spiritual illumination is necessary if we are to know the contents of the Christian gospel ; for the gospel reveals invisible and eternal things lying far beyond the frontiers of the common thoughts of men.
The second prayer takes another form. Its central idea is strength. Strength is necessary as well as light. We cannot know the gospel unless its glories are divinely revealed to us ; and the spiritual energy necessary to receive it and to hold it fast must also come from God.
2. The prayer which he offers here is no less remarkable and unique in his Epistles than the act of praise in chapter i. Addressing himself to God as the Father of angels and of men, the Apostle asks that He will endow the readers in a manner corresponding to " the riches of his glory " — in other words, that the gifts He bestows may be worthy of the universal Father, worthy of the august character in which God has now revealed Himself to mankind. According to this measure, St. Paul beseeches
92 THE FATHER AND THE FAMHJES
for the Church, in the first instance, two gifts, which after all are one, — viz., the inward strength of the Holy Spirit (ver. 16), and the permanent indwelling of Christ (ver. 17). These gifts he asks on his readers' behalf with a view to their gaining two further blessings, which are also one, — viz., the power to understand the Divine plan (ver. 18) as it has been expounded in this letter, and so to know the love of Christ (ver. 19). Still, beyond these there rises in the distance a further end for man and the Church : the reception of the entire fulness of God. Human desire and thought thus reach their limit ; they grasp at the infinite.