^ How can a man, without clear vision in his heart first of all, have any clear vision in the head ? It is impossible ! ^
^ The Civil War did not originate in a conspiracy, but in a
' Clougli, Poams, 63. • ^ Carlyle, Past and Present, 83.
292 WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE SHALL BE
perverted state of mind, as other great conflicts have originated in a perverted state of mind. No one attributes the operations of the "Holy Office," the Inquisition, to a conspiracy; or the seemingly endless wars of religious persecution, to a conspiracy ; or the cruelties of the Spaniards in the New World, to a con- spiracy. Conspiracy is too insignificant, too weak a word to cover the terrible meaning of such events. We must get nearer human nature than a conspiracy can bring us : we must get close to the undeveloped reason and the undeveloped conscience, and the incapacity to interpret the simple laws in the economy of nature. The blind are not only they who will not, but they who cannot see. And in the history of civilization it is they who cannot see that will not, rather than they who will not see because they cannot.^
^ All shall see of Him just what they can see — what they are fit to find in that perfect, all-embracing, all-expressing face. Two men are charged with a crime, of which one is innocent, and knows that his innocence will be made plain, while the other is guilty, and has no hope of hiding his guilt. Think you they trace exactly the same expression on the face of their judge ? The fears of one fix his eyes upon the firmness, the resolution, the searching sagacity of nostril and mouth and eye ; and he trembles. The confidence of the other points him to the just, honourable, patient mien which gives him promise of a complete investigation ; and he exults. Both watch the same face at the same moment, but what they find there is not the same.^
Life's journey almost past, Tottering I stand at last
Close to the door; Weary the way hath been, And often sad through sin.
Now all is o'er.
The friends I walk'd beside At noon and evening tide
Went long ago, And evening's travel, grown Ever more chill and lone,
Seem'd to pass slow.
Yet was it night, not day,
Thus slowly waned away — Now dawn is nigh ; * The History of North America, xv. 226. « G. A. Chadwick, Pilate's Gift, 187.
I JOHN III. 2 293
The daystar's warning bright Tells me the shades of night All soon will fly.
Beyond that welcome door I know — and oh, for more
Why should I care? I shall my Saviour see As now He seeth me;
Jesus is there!
The Power of the Christian Hope.
agS
Literature.
Ainger (A.), Sermons in the Temple Church, 13.
Bushnell (H.), The New Life, 176.
Campbell (R. J.), A Faith for To-day, 107.
Cooper (T. J.), Love's Unveiling, 144,
Dale (R. W.), Christian Doctrine, 198.
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 162.
„ (J.), The Kingdom without Observation, 84. Eadie (J.), The Divine Love, 104. Eyton (R.), The True Life, 207. Farrar (F. W.), Truths to Live By, 61, 197. Glazebrook (M. G.), The End of the Law, 71. Harris (S. S.), The Dignity of Man, 222. Hoare (E.), Great Principles of Divine Truth, 256. Holland (W. L.), The Beauty of Holiness, 68. Hopkins (E. H.), The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 1. McGarvey (J. W.), Sermons (1894), 16. Maclagan (P. J.), The Gospel View of Things, 57, 130 Maclaren (A.), A Year's Ministry, i. 3. Murray (A.), Like Christ, 241.
Parkhurst (C. H.), A Little Lower than the Angels, 91. Punshon (W. M.), Sermons, i. 66. Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 479. Robertson (F. W.), The Human Race, 43. Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 65. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xliii. (1897) 133.
„ „ Grace Triumphant, 199.
Talbot (E. S.), Some Titles and Aspects of the Eucharist, 19. Vincent (M. R.), 21ie Covenant of Peace, 174. Westcott (B. F.), Village Sermons, 82.
9g6
The Power of the Christian Hope.
And every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. — i John iii. 3.
1. St. John has been urging upon his poor, obscure brethren the fact that now, even in this life, with its infirmities, and weak- nesses, and limitations, and sins, men are the children of God; that the very fact that God calls us children reveals the greatness of His love for us ; that sonship here is a promise of glory here- after ; that that hereafter is to be lived with Christ, and in a state of likeness to Christ; that though we cannot form a definite conception of the greatness, and glory, and dignity of sonship in the Father's house, yet we may know that as He — the Christ — is, 80 shall we be :
Soul and body Shall His glorious image bear.
This hope is a light that burns above the darkness of this world's troubled sea, and to it they may look as to the beacon light which directs them home. Beyond the sorrows, and per- secutions, and wearinesses of life, they may look for their perfect consummation and bliss, of both body and soul, in the heavenly kingdom, in the Father's House, towards which they are all hastening. And then from the unimaginable splendours of this Beatific Vision he passes to the plainest practical talk : — If you entertain this hope, you must remember that there are conditions connected with it ; to be Jesus Christ's there, you must be Jesus Christ's here ; to attain to the fulness of His likeness in heaven, you must have here and now the elements of His character ; sonship in heaven means sonship on earth ; seeing God there means purity here. "Every man that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."