^ In the best pictures of great masters, tone is almost every- thing. Form goes for much. Form, indeed, and the steadiness of the drawing, go for very much in the " composition " of the
^ Walter C. Smith, Thoiights and Fancies for Sunday Evenings, 104. 2 H. van Dyke, The Open Door, 39. ^ A. C. Benson, Leaves of the Tree, 171.
COLOSSIANS III. 1 495
picture ; but deprive it of the wonderful non so che called tone, and it stands out hard and unpleasing, and supplies to the soul no real pleasure. On the other hand, let the tone of the true artist be there, and how it covers in a great degree even badness in the drawing. In the same way, in nature, atmosphere counts for much, very much, in the charm of a scene, in its power, that is, to touch the heart; and when you come to personal life, what tone is to the picture, what atmosjjhere is to the landscape, such is general temper to the human character. Now the power and beauty of " the things which are above," and the consequent necessity and blessedness of seeking them — all this is placed in evidence by the altered temper of the life in an advancing Christian.^
Lord, grant us wills to trust Thee with such aim Of hope and passionate craving of desire That we may mount aspiring, and aspire
Still while we mount; rejoicing in Thy Name,
Yesterday, this day, day by day the Same: So sparks fly upward scaling heaven by fire, Still mount and still attain not, yet draw nigher,
While they have being, to their fountain flame.
To saints who mount, the bottomless abyss Is as mere nothing, they have set their face Onward and upward toward that blessed place Where man rejoices with his God, and soul
With soul, in the unutterable kiss
Of peace for every victor at the goal.^
* W. J. Knox Little, Character istics and Motives of the Christian Life, 33.
* Christiaa G. Rossetti, Out of the Deeji, 9.
The Hidden Life.
EPH.-COL. — 32
Literature.
Alexander (W. L.), Sermons, 309.
Beecher (H. W.), Sermons, 2nd Ser., 508.
Cook (F. C), Church Doctrine and the S^nritual Life, 53.
Davison (W. T.), The Indwelling Spirit, 297.
Dearden (H. W.), Parochial Sermons, 75.
Findlay (G. G.), Tlie Things Above, 1.
Gladden (W.), WTiere does the Sky Begin ? 208.
Grimley (H. N.), Tremadoc Sermons, 1.
Gurney (T. A.), The Living Lord and the Opeiud Grave, 80.
Honchin (J. W.), The Vision of God, 149.
Huntingdon (F. D.), Sermons for the People, 310.
Kelman (J.), Ephemera Eternitatis, 266.
Mackintosh (H. R.), Life on God's Plan, 143,
Russell (A.), The Light that Lighteth every Man, 248.
Smith (W. C.), Sermons, 216.
Wilberforce (B.), The Secret of a Quiet Mind, 103.
Wilson (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Clifton College Chapel, 41.
Christian Age, xlvi. 402 (Abbott).
Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 166 (Scott) ; Ixii. 2 (Henson).
Church of England Pulpit, xlvii. 181 (Carpenter).
Churchman's Pulpit : St. Matthias, xiv. 298 (Burgon).
Expositor, 3rd Ser., iii. 434 (Maclaren).
498
The Hidden Life.
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory.— Col. iii. 2-4.
1. The mind of St. Paul moves in this Epistle on a very high level. He is speaking to the men of Colossae of one who, in the estimate of unbelievers, was no more than a dead man. Whatever Christ had been, He is gone ; and the new truth St. Paul is intro- ducing to the consciousness of the world notwithstanding, is that there has been no severance between the life of Him who has gone and that of men now living on the earth. He is not like any- other dead man ; He is One who rose from the dead, and though He has since disappeared from sight, His resurrection is that characteristic thing which makes Him diiSerent from all other men who have lived and died. It is not only a physical but a moral resurrection ; the coming to life again of all those holy principles of action and elements of power which seemed for a moment to have been overshadowed by the darkness of the grave. He is now not dead but unchangeably living. And together with this the Apostle insists on the indissoluble character of the common life between Christ and His disciples. That which has gone out of sight is the mere form and semblance of the Man Christ Jesus ; the true Christ is risen and ascended. And if there be this indis- soluble union, men now living on the earth have risen with Him ; they are sharers, in a mystic sense which yet is consistent with the deepest reality, in that higher life of His in the heavenly places. <ro the old life which sought its Paradise on the earth which made this world the sum and substance of existence, they have died ; they are now sharers with Him in the pure and holy life which has only one supreme ambition, the doing of the
500 THE HIDDEN LIFE
Heavenly Father's Will. " Your life," says the Apostle^ " is hid with Christ in God."