I have a room whereinto no one enters
Save I myself alone:
There sits a blessed memory on a throne, There my life centres.
While winter comes and goes — oh tedious comer ! —
And while its nip- wind blows ;
While bloom the bloodless lily and warm rose Of lavish summer.
If any should force entrance he might see there
One buried yet not dead,
Before whose face I no more bow my head Or bend my knee there ;
But often in my worn life's autumn weather
I watch there with clear eyes.
And think how it will be in Paradise When we're together,^
2. Let the word of Christ dwell in the imagination. — Memory combined with imagination is a very marvellous power, but alone it is of very little use. A man's memory may be packed with great principles, but they are of no use to him, because they have not entered into his life through faith. But what is faith ? It is trust in a person ; dependence upon the word of the person. But it is more than that ; it is the imagining power of the soul. " Faith is the substance of things hoped for ; it is the evidence of things not seen." Let the word of Christ dwell in your imagina- tion. Brood over it. Give yourself to it until all doubt, all mists of obscurity pass away. Eise with it to the heavenlies where Christ sits at the right hand of God.
^ I had a hot march to Blonay among the vines, and between their dead stone walls ; once or twice I flagged a little, and began to think it tiresome ; then I put my mind into the scene, instead of suffering the body only to make report of it ; and looked at it
* Dr. Kidd of Aberdeen, .'>. * Christina G. Rossetti, Poems, 334.
COLOSSIANS III. i6 533
with the possession-taking grasp of the imagination — the true one ; it gilded all the dead walls, and I felt a charm in every vine tendril that hung over them. It required an effort to maintain the feeling : it was poetry while it lasted, and I felt that it was only while under it that one could draw, or invent, or give glory to, any part of such a landscape. I repeated " I am in Switzer- land " over and over again, till the name brought back the true group of associations, and I felt I had a soul, like my boy's soul, once again. I have not insisted enough on this source of all great contemplative art. The whole scene without it was but sticks and stones and steep dusty road.^
3. Let the word of Christ dwell in the affections. — Pascal said faith must be imbued with feeling or else it will always be vacillating. Of how much modern scepticism have you not there the explanation ! A man does not feel deeply his faith, else he would not wave to and fro and be shaken by every wind of doctrine. The word of Christ will not dwell in a man's mind unless it dwells in a man's heart ; it will not give the intellect contact with truth unless it graciously sways the currents of his feelings. There are some scents which are as exquisite as the breath of spring, but they are faint and evanescent, you hardly discern them in the air before they are gone ; there are others that cling to us and yet never pall. So it is with sounds ; there are some tunes that cling to us, that we cannot banish, and that we would not banish if we could.
^ I remember reading, in a book about travels in South America, about the water-vine. A traveller may be going about not knowing how to quench his thirst, but if he sees one of these plants growing his difficulties are at an end, for he has only to sever the stem and a stream of fresh cold water flows forth to quench the thirst. The reason is the plant is full of sap. The character is full of sap if the word of Christ really dwells in a man's heart.^
^ Jesus' idea lifts Christianity above the plane of arid dis- cussion and places it in the region of poetry, where the emotions have full play and Faith is vision. Theology becomes the explanation of the fellowship between the soul and Jesus. Eegeneration is the entrance into His life, Justification the par- taking of His Cross, Sanctification the transformation into His
^ Ruskin, in E. T. Cook's Life of John Buskin, i. 246. • W. T. Davison.
534 THE INDWELLING WORD
character, Death the coming of the Lord, Heaven His unveiled Face. Doctrines will be but moods of the Christ-consciousness ; parables of the Christ-life. Suffering will be the baptism of Jesus and the drinking of His cup, and if every saint has not the stigmata on his hands and feet, he will at least, like Simon the Cyrenian, have the mark of the Cross upon his shoulder. And service will be the personal tribute to Jesus, whom we shall recognize under any disguise.^
4 Let the word of Christ dwell richly in the will. — Character lies pre-eminently in the sphere of the will. He who would achieve much in the moral life must be capable of mighty endeavours. The place of will in influence is hardly less obvious. Only he who can set his goal and steadily and firmly pursue it can hope to count greatly with others.