He is not a man of little faith who puts little things into his prayer. That very thing shows him to be a man of great faith. A feeble pulsation in the heart may keep the life-blood circulating for a while near the centre and in the vitals ; but it requires a great strong life in the heart to send the blood down into the tips of the fingers, and make it circulate through the outmost, smallest branches of the veins. In like manner, it is the strongest spiritual life that animates the whole course, even to the minutest transactions, and brings to God the smallest matters of our personal history as well as the great concern of pardon and eternal life.
^ A multitude of little pimples may be quite as painful and dangerous as a large ulcer. A cloud of gnats may put as much poison into a man with their many stings as will a snake with its one bite. And if we are not to get help from God by telling Him about little things, there will be very little of our lives that we shall tell Him about at all. For life is a mountain made up of minute flakes. The years are only a collection of seconds. Every man's life is an aggregate of trifles.^
1 Bishop Walsham How. ^ A. Maclaren.
Christ in You the Hope op Glory.
in
Literature.
Allon (H.), The Indwelling Christ, 1.
Banks (L. A.), Sermons which have Won Souls, 445.
Burrell (D. J.), The Religion of the Future, 74.
Chapman (J. W.), Pocket Sermons, i. 1.
Davies (T.), Sermons and Homiletical Exjtositions, 3,
Davison (W. T.), The Indiuelling Spirit, 269.
Ingram (A. F. W.), The Mysteries of God, 33.
Kuyper (A.), The Work of the Eoly Spirit, 333.
McConnell (S. D.), Sons of God, 55.
Macgregor (W. M.), Jesus Christ the Son of God, 241.
Moore (E. W.), Christ in Possession, 1.
Morgan (G. C), Christian Principles, 90.
Morison (J.), Sheaves of Ministry, 35.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, xi. 361.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxix, (1883), No. 1720.
Swan (F. R.), The Immanence of Christ in Modern Life, 17.
Wilberforce (B.), Speaking Good of His Name, 91.
„ „ The Secret of the Quiet Mind, 13.
„ „ The Hope of Glory, 1.
Williams (T. R.), The Christ Within, 1. Wilson (J. M.), Rochdale Sermons, 1. Young (D. T.), The Crimson Book, 140. American Pulpit of the Day, iii. 161 (PerincTiief). Christian World Pulpit, xlix. 248 (Eland) ; Ixxvii. 120 (Ingram). Church of England Pulpit, Iviii. 14 (Forrest).
Expositor, 1st Ser., ix. 264 (Matheson) ; 3rd Ser., ii. 106 (Maclaren). Guardian, Feb. 18, 1910 (Ingram) j May 27, 1910 (Rashdall). Eecord, Nov. 6, 1908 (Nickson).
406
Christ in You the Hope of Glory.
To whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. — Col. i. 27.
1. The word "mystery" is one which has acquired in modern English a sense remote from its original signification. No one who recalls the original sense of the word — the sense which it- bore for pagan ears — will suppose that when St. Paul talks of the mystery of the Gospel he means a doctrine which it is difficult or impossible to understand, and which has just to be accepted on authority. When an ancient Greek was initiated into the mysteries at Eleusis or Samothrace, he was not told something which he could not understand. The rites were called mysteries because they had a secret meaning — not known indeed to the world at large, but quite known and intelligible to the privileged body of the initiated. And so, when St. Paul borrows the word to express a Christian meaning, it is never a difficult or unin- telligible truth that he has in view, but some truth which was once hidden, but is now revealed — revealed to all who have accepted the revelation of God in Christ. What he calls a mystery is always, indeed, a truth known only to the initiated, but the initiated for St. Paul are the whole body of baptized believers in Jesus.
^ As when, in the early morning of a glorious summer day, the wreathing mists hide the mountain slopes and cover the valleys beneath, then, under the breath of the freshening wind, gradually lift and open, revealing some giant mountain top lost in the sky or woods and rocks on the hillsides, a ravishing vista of varied landscape, delighting the eyes and stimulating the imagination, showing that what was at first seen was cloud-like appearance only, and making manifest the solid realities and
438 CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY
dawning splendours behind and beyond — so a glimpse has been granted to us of the great purpose of God, seen in Christ, but only so far seen as to hint at unimagined reaches beyond — Christ in you, the hope of glory ! St. Paul can hardly control his feelings as he approaches this theme. You have watched a smouldering match when plunged into a jar of oxygen burst into bright flame. So, when this messenger of Christ breathes the atmosphere of this Gospel, he flames forth in its celebration — "preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a minister ! " ^