Art Treasures Exhibition in 1878, the Bishop said : " I have no wish, like Mr. Euskin, to retire into the solitude of a Westmore- land valley. I like to hear the thud of the steam-hammer and the whistle of the locomotive. I like to live in the midst of men and women who are dependent on their industry for their daily bread. Where I find content and good relations subsisting be- tween men, that is my bit of blue sky, of which I want to see more and more." ^
2. It is a city of reunion. — Scripture leads us to associate the reunion of dead and living with a world from which all idolatry and all selfishness will have been for ever cast out by the unveiled presence of that one Person whom to know is life, whom to serve is glory. St. Paul used to speak of meeting there his own converts, Asiatic and European, and seemed to say that it would scarcely be heaven to him if they shared it not with him. "He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us — vnth you." " What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing ? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming ? " So large was his conception of the ampli- tude of the glory, and of its characteristic features of human sympathy as well as of Divine communion.
If Surely there, amidst the solemn troops and sweet societies, the long-loved, long-lost, will be found again. I cannot believe that, like the Virgin and Joseph, we shall have to go wandering up and down the streets of Jerusalem when we get there, looking for our dear ones. " Wist ye not that I should be in the Father's house ? " We shall know where to find them.
We shall clasp them again. And with God be the rest.^
3. It is a city of abiding. — The city is the emblem of security and of permanence. No more shall life be as a desert march, with changes which only bring sorrow, and yet a dreary monotony amidst them all. We shall dwell amidst abiding realities, our- selves fixed in unchanging, but ever growing, completeness and peace. The tents shall be done with ; we shall inhabit the solid mansions of the city which hath foundations, and shall wonder- ingly exclaim, as our unaccustomed eyes gaze on their inde-
* T. Hughes, James Fraser, Second Bishop of Manchester, 242,
• A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry , i. 52.
390 THE PRIVILEGES OF THE BLESSED
structible strength, " What manner of stones, and what buildings are here ! " — and not one stone of these shall ever be thrown down.
^ The third essential development of Marius' thought is that of the City of God, which for him assumes the shape of a perfected and purified Rome, the concrete embodiment of the ideals of life and character. This is indeed the inevitable sequel of any such spiritual developments as the fear of enemies and the sense of an unseen companion. Man moves inevitably to the city, and all his ideals demand an embodiment in social form before they reach their full power and truth. In that house of life which he calls society, he longs to see his noblest dreams find a local habitation and a name. This is the grand ideal passed from hand to hand by the greatest and most outstanding of the world's seers — from Plato to Augustine, from Augustine to Dante — the ideal of the City of God. It is but little developed in Pater's " Marius the Epicurean," for that would be beside the purpose of so intimate and inward a history. Yet we see, as it were, the towers and palaces of this " dear City of Zeus " shining in the clear light of the early Christian time, like the break of day over some vast prospect, with the new City, as it were some celestial new Eome in the midst of it.^
ii. Access to the Tree.
As the city is social, the tree of life is individual. In the city we enjoy the society of the redeemed ; at the tree of life we enjoy fellowship with God, a fellowship which is the peculiar privilege of each one of those who have washed their robes. We receive a name which no one knows except the Giver and the receiver of it. The promise is particular : " If a man love me, he will keep my words : and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."
The tree of life stands out in the first page of God's Word as a sacramental symbol to unfallen man. It was a visible and tangible thing — a tree growing in the garden like other trees, but so inscribed with the word of God that in the use of its fruit unfallen man could receive the spiritual assurance of God's love and favour. In this respect it differed from the other trees of the garden. They were God's permitted gifts to satisfy man's animal wants ; but the tree of life has regard to the higher needs of his spiritual nature, which even then had a genuine sacramental ^ J. Kelman, Among Famous Books, 61.