•[f Gladstone, Newman and Eainy — perhaps the three most remarkable men of their day of those who really applied their minds lo the matters of Christian faith — were all in agreement not only as to personal experience of religion but also — if we except certain matters about the Church (and these are not in the Creed) — as to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. But the intellectual attitude of each of these minds to these doctrines was distinct. Gladstone's mind was essentially and constitutionally orthodox and he was never critical regarding ecclesiastical dogma. Newman's was essentially and constitutionally sceptical, and the Church's authoritative system was to him less the native home of his mind than its only refuge. Eainy's mind was well content to lodge in Catholic forms of doctrine, but he neither denied the element of imperfection and difficulty in such forms nor was dis- turbed by it, for this only made him more deeply feel " how great a thing it is to believe in God." ^
IL
Vision.
"They shall see his face." This is the highest station of honour in the service of God.
1 Dora Greenwell, The Patience of Hope (ed. 1894), 139.
* P. Carnegie Simpson, The Life of Principal Rainy, i. 287.
REVELATION xxii. 3, 4 351
To stand in the presence of the Great King, is the station of princes, the honour that belongs only to the royal family of heaven. In them the saying is fulfilled, " He raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill ; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people." Theirs is the dignity of a life at court, the court of the " Ancient of Days."
1. The face is the index to the character and distinctive attributes of any being. In the poetry of the primitive ages, the " face " is another word for the character ; and thoroughly to know it, and see into it, is thoroughly to know the real man. " The face of God," let it be reverentially spoken, is the character of God ; to see it is to know what God is. The greatest revelation of the Father, according to St. Paul's teaching, was in " the face " of the Eedeemer. St. John here tells us that this is the face which Christ's servants shall see by and by. But had not John seen this face already ? Yes, in a sense. He had leaned upon the Master's bosom many a time, and looked up into that face, and if there was anything in Christ's human nature that expressed to John His Divine glory and tenderness beyond all other, it was that countenance. But John also saw only as much of that face as to awaken within him an intense yearning to see more. " We shall see him as he is," and " they shall see his face," are his fond refrains. He practically says, " It is true that for a brief time I saw His face, but there was so much of hiding in His incarnation, that I only saw dimly its deep meaning. By and by I shall see Him without any of the mist of His humanity that gathered round Him while on earth to lessen the brightness of His glory or the full beauty of His face."
If For anyone who knew the previous life of the author, the fitness of her roadmender to present herself and her ideals was obvious. "After all," he says for her in that opening chapter, "what do we ask of Hfe, here or indeed hereafter, but leave to serve, to live, to commune with our fellow-men and with ourselves, and from the lap of earth to look up into the face of God ? " That aspiration to service and communion had been in her no affair of mere aspiration: it had been a burning force, not a quietistic scheme. Yet always her heart and soul rested gladly in " the lap of earth " ; and she turned her face towards tlie face of God as
352 THE PERFECT LIFE
she discerned that vision everywhere, in earth and earth's little ones, and in the face of man.^
^ Day after day, 0 lord of my life, shall I stand before thee face to face ? With folded hands, 0 lord of all worlds, shall I stand before thee face to face ?
Under thy great sky in solitude and silence, with humble heart shall I stand before thee face to face ?
In this laborious world of thine, tumultuous with toil and with struggle, among hurrying crowds shall I stand before thee face to face ?
And when my work shall be done in this world, 0 King of kings, alone and speechless shall I stand before thee face to face ? 2
^ " It comforts me much," said Whitefield in the last sermon he ever preached in London, " to think that, whenever God shall call for me, angels will carry me into the bosom of Abraham ; but it comforts me more to think that, as soon as they lay hold of me, my first question to them will be, * Where is my Master ? Where is my Jesus ? ' And that, after all my tossings and tumblings here, I shall be brought to see His face at last." ^