(2) The truest evidence of the reality of this life is that sense of common love, that thrill of common sympathy, which leads us to care for others and to work for others. Let us determine that the world shall be somewhat the better that we are living in it, and we shall be giving practical outward expression to that " mystery hid from the foundation of the world " — " Christ in you, the hope of glory."
^ I remember the morning on which I came out of my room after I had first trusted Christ. I thought the old sun shone a good deal brighter than it ever had before — I thought that it was just smiling upon me ; and, as I walked out upon Boston Common and heard the birds singing in the trees, I thought they were all singing a song to me. Do you know, I fell in love with the birds. I had never cared for them before. It seemed to me that I was in love with all creation. I had not a bitter feeling against any man, and I was ready to take all men to my heart. If a man has not the love of God shed abroad in his heart, he has never been regenerated. If you hear a person get up in the prayer-
^ B. Wilberforce, Speaking Good of His Name.
452 CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY
meeting and begin to find fault with everybody, you may doubt whether his is a genuine conversion ; it may be counterfeit. It has not the right ring, because the impulse of a converted soul is to love, and not to be getting up and complaining of every one else and finding fault.^
Why do I dare love all manldnd ? 'Tis not because each face, each form
Is comely, for it is not so ; Nor is it that each soul is warm
With any Godlike glow. Yet there's no one to wliom's not given Some little lineament of heaven, Some partial symbol, at the least, in sign Of what should be, if it is not, within, Eeminding of the death of sin
And life of the Divine.
There was a time, full well I know, When I had not yet seen you so;
Time was, when few seem'd fair; But now, as through the streets I go. There seems no face so shapeless, so
Forlorn, but that there's something there That, like the heavens, doth declare The glory of the great All-fair; And so mine own each one I call; And so I dare to love you all.^
4. These signs appear when Christ is in us —
(1) Life is sanctified. — Sad it is that so many of the most earnest souls are looking in the wrong direction for sanctification. It comes not along any path outside of us. It journeys by the inward way. It is by the yielding up of the nature to the indwelling Christ that true holiness is achieved.
Christ is far more than One who stands behind all the develop- ments of life, as originating Source. It is equally true that in Him all things consist. The bond of inter-relationship between all life and all lives is His essential Being. All the rhythmic order of the universe is created by the presence of the Christ, so that He is immanent, the Centre of the believer's life, and transcendent,
^ D. L. Moody, in Life, by his son.
^ Henry Septimus Sutton, A Preacher's SoKloqity and Sermon.
COLOSSIANS I. 27 453
its Sphere, Wherever the Christian looks he sees the Christ. At dawning of the morning His face makes it more beautiful. When the sun goes westering, and the shadows of the evening are growing, the consciousness of His presence is sleep. When the battle thickens, He rides at the head of His battalions, and leads to victory. When peace is declared, it is His benediction falling upon the sons of men. Christ is everywhere, and to the man who knows what it is to have Christ in him, the hope of glory, whether he look up or down or out or back Christ's face is there.
^ Christianity is in its essence devotion to a Person — not to a sacred memory, not to an ideal of conduct, not to any glorious hope for the future, but to a living Person who stands before us to-day as really as He stood before the disciples of John, as really as He stood before Pontius Pilate, some nineteen centuries ago. " What shall I do, then, with Jesus Christ ? " This is the practical question that is left with us by the answering of our riddle ; by the appearing before us of Christ, the final answer. His way of giving answer is to enter into our life as Saviour and Teacher and Friend. And it is only by our coming thus into fellowship with Him, and allowing our characters to be transformed into the like- ness of His own that He can be to us in the final and complete sense the answer to our riddle. " Prophet and apostle can only be understood by prophet and apostle," says Emerson. And Carlyle gives expression to the same truth when he says that " the sincere alone can recognize sincerity." A spirit can be understood only by a kindred spirit. To understand another, one must have with that other some common ground ; and perfect understanding can come only with perfect likeness. It is only when we begin to be like Christ that we begin to know Him as He is. And He comes to us, to open our eyes and to change our hearts, that we may both see Him and be like Him.^