^ Edward Dowden.
COLOSSIANS III. 2-4 505
each other never find expression in words. There is more in one look that the eye gives than in all that the tongue utters in a lifetime.
When the Apostle, therefore, speaks of the Christian life as a hidden one, it is neither a paradox nor a mystery, though at first it may strike one as being so. Interpreted by the analogy of the soul's best habits, it is only declaring the Christian's hope to be the secret and spring of all the rest of his life. That which is the strongest in him, that which is the truest to his Divine nature, that which he considers the best part of him — in short, that which he will call his real life — is hidden. "Your life is hid with Christ in God."
^ To his sense of responsibility to the Faith and the Church must be added his sense of responsibility as Bishop and Primate for national life. The three things went together ; they would stand and fall together. The conviction came to him originally through his reading of Coleridge : " Christianity is not a Theory, or a Speculation ; but a Life. Not a Philosophy of Life, but a Life and a living Process." Dr. Temple applied this principle to all doctrines — notably to the doctrine of Easter Day. " Try to live by it," he says to the boys at Eugby : " Try to live as if that other world were immediately before your eyes ; try to live as if you were following your great Captain on the road to victory ; and, believe me, you will never find the doctrine stale or commonplace or powerless ! " This conviction only deepened as he grew older.^
^ As you cross a Highland moor you may come upon a curious bright streak of green, winding in and out among the heather, its pure and shining verdure clearly marked against the dull brown of its immediate surroundings. What is it, and how came it there ? Whence rises the sap to feed this soft elastic ribband of turf ? There is a tiny stream below, a runnel of sweet water flowing down there out of sight, only hinting its presence by the green beauty above. So the springs of Christian life are hid, hid with Christ in God.^
2. The Christian life is hidden inasmuch as here on earth
action ever falls short of thought, and the love and faith by which
a good man lives can never be fully revealed in his conduct and
character. Electricity cannot be carried from the generator to
^ Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbiiry, ii. 670. 2 H. R. Mackintosh, Life on God's Pla7i, 148.
5o6 THE HIDDEN LIFE
the point where it is to work without two-thirds of it being lost by the way. Neither word nor deed can adequately set forth a soul ; and the profounder and nobler the emotion, the more inadequate are the narrow gates of tongue and hand to give it passage. The deepest love can often only " love and be silent." So, while every man is truly a mystery to his neighbour, a life which is rooted in Christ is more mysterious to the ordinary eye than any other. It is fed by hidden manna. It is replenished from a hidden source. It is guided by other than the world's motives and follows unseen aims. Therefore, the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.
^ There is an old and beautiful Spanish legend of a certain Convent of St. Benedict, not far from the old city of Toledo, which was the retreat of a sisterhood embracing some of the noblest blood of all Spain. When the Moors overran the country after Don Koderick and his fine chivalry were slain, they came to this convent and vowed its destruction. But just as they were making their final assault the convent disappeared. Cloisters, cells, chapel, belfry, with their inmates, sank underground. Forty years after a lonely traveller, journeying through the forest at eventide, heard in an open space of rising ground the mysterious echoes of vesper bells and voices floating on the still evening air, as they breathed forth the praise of evensong. Nothing but a moss-grown stone pinnacle surmounted by a Cross broke the dark glades of forest on either hand. Yet the harmonies from that buried convent thrilled his heart with wonder and awe. Ethereal, mystic, heavenly, they broke upon the ear like the echoes of another world. Such is the Christian life ever since the first Easter Day, buried away out of the sight of men, stolen from the grasp of the boasting foe, " hidden in the sealed stone," yet still exerting its powerful spell almost unrecognized over the hearts of men, still breathing forth its heavenly music to souls who have spiritual leisure to hearken to it, still filling the solitary place with mysterious praise.^
3. This life is hid, because Christ has gone out of sight, bearing with Him the true source and root of our lives into the secret place of the Most High. Therefore we no longer belong to this visible order of things in the midst of which we tarry for a while. The true spring that feeds our lives lies deep beneath all the surface waters. These may dry up, but it will flow. These