(2) There must be no deformity in the stones. — You have probably visited one or another of our cathedrals, and, if so, you may have noticed that a process of repair is always going on in some part of the building. Stones once thought good and sound have developed a flaw ; or under the influence of the rain and frost and gases of the atmosphere have been found to be losing their solidity, turning back and crumbling into their original sand. As material stones, this is only according to nature ; there is nothing to be done but to remove them and put good ones in their places. But in the spiritual building the conditions are not the same. We who are living stones can by G-od's help resist the deteriorating and wasting forces of the world. If we will, we may retain our solidity, our firmness, our strength, yes, even our polish and our lustre ; and it is our duty so to do. We may be stones placed in inconspicuous positions. But if we are so honoured as to have any, even the most obscure, place in such a temple, how great should be our joy ! We may be like those stones Kuskin found built in where they could not possibly be seen save by those who sought them, but still carved and finished as exquisitely as those that were in the fagade of the building. If the master Builder knows that we are there, is not that enough to induce us to resolve that by Divine help not a whit of our symmetry and beauty shall be lost ?
^ A beloved and beautiful memory rises before me — a friend of my early undergraduate days, called to die before his own degree, but first called to live, as a living stone. Before he entered Trinity College he had passed through a military academy, a place which at that time was a scene of deep moral pollution. Gentle and even facile as he was by nature, G-od, just as he entered the place, had made him " a living stone." With quiet, unshaken, unswerving steadfastness, under acutest difficulties, he lived, and he was a rock. And by the time he left the academy — I record a fact — vice was out of fashion there.^
(3) The building is ever going on. — The workers are legion. Paul, with his relentless, flaming logic; John, with eagle eye, scanning and then writing of the future and the past ; Augustine,
1 A. G. Brown. ^ H. C. G. Moiile, The Secret of the Presence, 214.
I PETER II. 4, 5 71
with his pauseless, countless toils of pen and speech ; Chrysostom consecrating his golden eloquence to themes of transcendent and golden worth ; Bede labouring on our own northern shore, and in making the blessed Gospel accessible to the Saxon people finding "the last dear service of his parting breath"; Luther, with his strong human tenderness and unquaihng knowledge ; Calvin, with his severe purity and indomitable industry; Latimer, with his home-spun, ready, and racy heart-compelling speech ; Bunyan, that true Greatheart of countless pilgrims ; Wesley, that states- man ; Whitefield, that captain of preachers. Time would fail us to tell of the great preachers and teachers with voice and pen who have lived to win souls to Christ. If His service can be ennobled by human associations, it is ennobled by such names as these. Let us be worthy of them. And Christ's work is ever going on ; His temple is ever rising. Men of varied faculty are engaged in the one work. The builders are many, the Architect is one. Builders pass, but new builders take up the work and it goes on. New methods of Christian labour may supplement the old. The " tongues " of old theology may cease in a larger and more loving language ; but, amid all, the Spiritual Temple is rising.
^ In the crypt of Fountains Abbey, as in other ancient build- ings, you may see windows of varied kinds of architecture — Saxon, Norman, Gothic. The Abbey was long in building. The first builders died. But by other hands, and in other styles, the unfinished work went on. So in Christ's Church. New styles, so to speak, may mark it from age to age. But though builders die, the Divine Architect survives. And He sees to the continuity of the work.
Have you heard the golden city
Mentioned in the legends old? Everlasting light shines o'er it.
Wondrous tales of it are told. Only righteous men and women
Dwell within its gleaming wall ; Wrong is banished from its borders,
Justice reigns supreme o'er all.
We are builders of that city ;
All our joys and all our groans Help to rear its shining ramparts,
All our lives are building stones.
72 THE TEMPLE OF LIVING STONES
But a few brief years we labour, Soon our earthly day is o'er,
Other builders take our places, And our place knows us no more.
But the work which we have builded,
Oft with bleeding hands and tears, And in error and in anguish,
Will not perish with the years. It will last, and shine transfigured
In the final reign of Eight ; It will merge into the splendours
Of the City of the Light.^