1 J. Wilbur Chapman, Bells of Gold, 38. 2 Richard Baxter.
REVELATION v. 9 163
5. Four terms ("tribe," "tongue," "people," "nation") are employed, as if to give emphasis to the universality of redemp- tion, for four is the number of extension in all directions. The suggestion is that the redemption of Christ is world-wide. There is nothing local in it. There is no restriction in its intention, and there is no restriction in its application. It is co-extensive with the earth in its design ; it is co-extensive with human nature in its efficacy. There is no disposition, no conformation, no peculiarity of temper or understanding, of state or of heart, which " the purchasing blood " cannot reach and meet. And it will be seen that it has reached, that it has met all. It will be seen that, where it has failed to save, it has not been because it was inappropriate, but only because it was unappropriated ; because men would not use it, not because it was even for them useless.
K Kindred, tongue, people, nation, will not, it appears, be obliterated from the Communion of Saints. Since in that blessed company similarities and varieties will alike become bonds of affection, motives of sympathy, we see as in a glass what they should even now already be to us who are militant here on earth. For earth holds heaven in the bud ; our perfection there has to be developed out of our imperfection here.
By grace love of kindred learns to embrace the whole human family. By grace nations become bound and welded together in the unifying Presence of God (see Zech. viii. 20-23). By grace ; but not by nature. Now even kindred often lack warmth, tongues make discord, peoples encroach on one another, nations learn and practise war. — Lord, forgive and help us.
A lesson against antipathies. Every kindred, every tongue, every people, every nation, promises to be represented there and associate there: French with Germans, Italians with Austrians, English with Irish, whites with blacks, all ranks with all ranks, all men with all men, — an alarum against antipathies ! ^
They are flocking from the East
And the West,
They are flocking from the North
And the South,
Every moment setting forth
From realm of snake or lion,
Swamp or sand,
Ice or burning.
Christina G. Rossetti, The Face, of the Deep, 185.
i64 AN OPENED BOOK AND A NEW SONG
Greatest and least,
Palm in hand
And praise in mouth,
They are flocking up the path
To their rest,
Up the path that hath
No turning.
Up the steeps of Zion
They are mounting,
Coming, coming,
Throngs beyond man's counting;
They are thronging
From the East and West,
From the North and South;
Saints are thronging, loving, longing,
To their land
Of rest.
Palm in hand
And praise in mouth ^
11.
The Opened Book.
1. The "new song" vindicates for Jesus Christ the unique place which He has taken in the history of the world. By a supreme act of self-sacrifice He has purchased men of all races and nationalities for the service of God, founded a vast spiritual Empire, and converted human life into a priestly service and a royal dignity. He who has done this is worthy to have committed into His hands the keeping of the book of destiny, to break its seals and unroll its closely packed lengths.
In the opinion of the author of the Apocalypse, life with its problems is a sealed book. That is absolutely in accordance with universal human experience. We are asking to-day the same questions as men asked in the earliest days of which we have any record. Look at that old stone Sphinx lying upon the sands of Egypt, relic of those dim, unmeasured stretches of time prior to the Bible. What is it but an effort to express the insoluble
* Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical IForks, 256.
REVELATION v. 9 165
riddle of the world ; to set forth the complex consciousness of a mystery, which has seemed at times terrible as a lion, at others fascinating and inconsistent as a woman ? The elusive smile that still lingers on its face has done successful battle with the sand- storms of long ages ; and, in answer to the perennial questions, What ? Whence ? Whither ? seems mockingly to say, " Nothing is known, nothing."
^ We reached Cairo on Christmas Eve [1886], and during the week we saw something of old Cairo under the guidance of friends. Through the kindness of the Sirdar we were able to stay a few days at the deserted villa just under the Pyramids, built many years before by the Khedive for the use of the Empress Eugenie. The Sphinx had at once enthralled Signer ; he therefore greatly wished to stay near it, and so be able to see it under various conditions of light. New Year's Day found him, in its early hours and late, studying this riddle of the ages ; " itself a symbol of time," he said, " strong and calm, inexorable, with a smile that is cruel. No words can have described, or I think ever can describe, the Sphinx. It is not beautiful in the ordinary sense, yet it has some elements of unexampled beauty. It exercises an extraordinary fascination. The line of the cheek, as seen against the sky, is surprisingly beautiful — a sweep of twenty feet, and the expression of the face, battered out of shape as it is, has still something indescribably impressive." He knew he had undertaken much when he set himself to paint the portrait of the Sphinx ; he tried for the massiveness and the weight of this rock-hewn giant, with yet a certain delicacy, and even tenderness, both from the quality of line and from the crumbling surface of the sandstone, at the same time wishing to express what he perceived in it — an epitome of all Egyptian art, its solemnity, mystery — infinity ! ^