2. The name on the forehead means that the imprint of the Divine perfections will be open and visible. By the seal of the Spirit the servants of God even on earth bear this impression;
^ H. S. Streatfeild, Glimpses of Indian Life, 4.
« J. T. Stoddart. The New Testament in Life and Literature (1914), 358.
REVELATION xxii. 3, 4 357
and it is essential, in order to authenticate their claims. But, too frequently, the mark is scarcely seen ; it is within their hearts, but it is not upon their foreheads, to be known and read of all men. Only He who knows the heart can trace it with absolute certainty. Infirmities disguise, or obscurities of station hide from view, the mystic name written on many a pillar of grace. It is like some dim inscription on a monument, mouldering into indistinctness, and veiled by trailing leaves, overlooked by the casual traveller, and deciphered only by the antiquary's eye.
^ As fire is hidden in the unstruck stone, as the future flower is hidden in the present root, as the gem is hidden by the rough incrustation round it, the grace of God is frequently hidden by the weakness and waywardness of man. But there it will not be so. No one in that world will be satisfied with a secret and latent piety ; not one will say, " I make no profession " ; no deprecating voice will make the plea, " Lord, I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth ; lo, there thou hast that is thine ! " To intimate that the name of Jehovah will be so conspicuously visible on all His servants that you must see it if you see them, it is said to flame upon their very foreheads.^
^ The forehead is in itself an inscription ; it is the mark of Man. For no other creature bears this smooth-domed architrave and metopon over the portal of its communication with the world. The birds, with their swiftness and airiness of motion, lack the forehead altogether; and the beasts, notwithstanding broad and heavy frontlets, designed, as it were, to push and thrust through the jungle or against the foe, have not the arched dome on which a name might be written. When there is the lofty dome of Shakespeare or of Sir Walter Scott, or "the bar of Michael Angelo," we estimate the genius which resides and works within by the stately span of the arched building. But even the humblest human brow is far removed from that of the noblest ape ; on the ape's brow nothing can be written, but on the man's is at least written this : that he is a Man. It is this meaning and mark of the forehead which gives the imaginative glory to Milton's figure, when he says that the Star
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky,* 3. The name is where others can see it, but where it is not
1 C. Stanford, CmtraZ Truths, 231.
» R. F. Horton, The ChHstian Wcyrld, March 24, 1910.
358 THE PERFECT LIFE
seen by the person himself. You cannot see your own forehead, and you are not aware of the nobleness or the brightness that others see there. This unconsciousness of the radiance on the face is part of the splendour ; to be aware of it would be to dim the brightness. We know that when any one is conscious of the beauty or the refinement stamped on his face, a great part of the beauty or the refinement is gone. So self-consciousness mars spiritual loveliness. When a man knows that he is humble, he is no longer humble. The man who is truly poor in spirit is not himself aware of the shining of his life, the splendour of his deeds, the power of his words, or of his ministries. The best people are always the least conscious of their goodness and worth. Others see the shining, but they themselves do not.
^ In meditation his face appeared to some a little severe ; in relaxation none could be more gracious and genial. In his last years the light of heaven played about his features. This radiancy, which was but the symbol of the life within, was startling at times. On one occasion an Irish servant-girl opened the door for him at a house where he was calling, and on announcing him said that she had forgotten his name, but that he certainly had the face of an angel. This strange spiritual light was neither the silver shimmer of the hair nor the deep benignity of the far- shining pupil, nor the calm of the features. It seemed to be all these suffused with something else too subtle for description, something ethereal, rare, beatific.^
They do His will, they see His Face, their foreheads bear His
name, Who stand before the throne of God, and give the Lamb
acclaim ; No curse can ever enter in, no night the glory dim, Where shining souls, thus triple-crowned, eternal praises
hymn.
Obedience such as theirs, 0 Lord, teach me even here
below ; The vision of Thy blessed Face in bright effulgence show; Thy name and image, clear and pure, grave deeper on my
brow. Till all shall see that I am Thine — my Lord and Master