2 TIMOTHY I. lo 169
pass through moods of fierce depression, but He who holds the
keys is in the shadows of the background and the desolation passes as His footsteps are heard moving in the dread silences. So has Jesus changed the outlook for all who accept His message and rest upon His work. He cannot betray our hope.
^ Near a small Norman town there is a stream which local superstition has invested with magic virtue. It is said that who- ever drinks of its waters will come back to end his life at Gisors. Many a conscript, on his last night at home, has bowed to take a deep draught from the stream and has then been hurried away to light in wars of which he had little understanding. It is needless to say that amid the fevers of the tropics and on the fire-swept battlefield he has enjoyed no greater security from death than his comrades of other provinces. As the writer who gives the tra- dition says, " How often must these smiling waters have broken faith ! " Jesus who abolishes death and destroys its power is no preacher of vain hopes. He does not beguile us with a pathetic romance. He knows the sure foundations upon which immortal- ity rests, and He has verified His own message in those inscrut- able realms from which we shrink back. "He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him, it shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life." ^
^ A striking proof of the different outlook produced by the coming of Christ may be found in the contrast between the epitaphs of the early Christians and those of their pagan con- temporaries. In place of hopeless resignation and grief there is glad confidence in the continued life of the departed, and in their safety and well-being. " Live in peace and pray for us." *' Pray for us because we know thou art in Christ." " Thy spirit rest in God." " In contrast to the pagan custom, even the noblest of the Christians recounted none of the honours of their offices and rank, except that the initials V. C. {vir clarissimus) C. F. {darissima femina) were not uncommonly inscribed to indicate membership in the senatorial order. The Christian attitude was that of look- ing forward beyond the tomb rather than back over the course of earthly honour and success; recessit a saeculo became a familiar formula in the fourth century." ^
(2) He made it applicable to practical life. — All the powerful and invigorating motives brought to operate on the Christian mind, to animate and to purify it, are drawn from the views given
1 T. G. Selby, The Strenuous Gospel, 24-1.
• W. Lowrie, Christian Art and Archceology, 67.
I70 LIFE AND IMMORTALITY
by Christ of the future world, and from Himself as connected with it — as securing it by His passion, preparing it by His power, adorning it with His presence, and filling it with His glory. In the Old Testam'ent, motives for action are drawn from the grave — from its silence and darkness, its weary solitude, its lying beyond the region of " device " and " knowledge," " wisdom " and " work." The " fear that hath torment " and that drives to duty predominates over the love that enlarges the heart and makes obedience a joy. In the New Testament, the grave is almost lost in the vision of " the glory that is about to be revealed " ; that glory breaks forth, gleams, and gushes over the path of the faith- ful, compelling them, as it were, to keep looking to the place where their Lord lives, and to rejoice in the prospect of living with Him. The resurrection of the dead ; the transfiguration of the living ; the " vile body " changed into the likeness of Christ's "glorious body"; the earthy and corruptible image of the first man giving place to that of the second, " the Lord from heaven " ; " the glorious appearing of the great Grod and our Saviour Jesus Christ " ; " the grace that is to be brought unto us," when " we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is " ; " our gathering together unto him" — these things, and such as these, are the constant burden (or the ceaseless joy, rather) of apostolic pens ; the themes with which the writers glow and burn, to which they are continually referring with delight, and by which they endeavour to diffuse throughout the Church the atmosphere of spiritual health — the conservative element of practical obedience.
^ There is an old legend that after the crucifixion Peter went away, alone, and sat apart in utter misery. After that first out- burst of bitter weeping outside Caiaphas' palace, he had not shed a tear. His heart was full of the horror of his shame. At mid- night of Saturday John came to Mary and said, " Mother Mary, I am afraid for Peter. He sits alone in the dark and will not speak, nor eat, nor weep, and his soul seems dead within him." Then Mary took the seamless robe which the centurion had kindly given her, and said, " Take this to Peter." So John took it and went back to Peter, whose room was then a little lighted by the coming dawn, and put the garment in his hands, simply saying, " It is His robe." And after a little Peter buried his face in the well-known garment and wept like a child, penitently now, now bitterly. And, says the legend, it was at that same moment