Thereafter it became the commission of the Church to proclaim and teach and exemplify how the flesh may in turn become the Word, and every believer be a dwelling-place for the Spirit of Christ. Tlie reverence that once gathered around His own visible person could still influence men through every witness in whom His Spirit dwelt. The con- dition of life and service was fixed, namely, 'As he is, so are we in this world ' (1 Jn 4"). And so in the Apostolic preaching of the gospel the living personality of Christ was never lost in the analysis of His mind and nature. Instead of the parched abstractions that with us so often take the place of the mystical indwelling, they preached ' Jesus and the resurrection' (Ac 17'*), ' Jesus Christ and liira crucified' (1 Co 2=).
Can it be said to-day of Christian sainthood and the service of the missionary gospel, that the per- son of Christ is thus central, His presence an indis-
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pensable necessity, likeness to Him tlie recognition mark of His Church, and the conquest of the world the consummation of its appointed labours ? If it be otherwise, certain signs may be expected to manifest tliemselves. Christ will be little more than a beautiful name in His Churcli, an idea developed and resident in our minds. The work of the Holy Spirit in bringing and revealing the things of Christ will be shadowy and almost super- fluous to those wlio have already reached a com- plete conception of Christ by philosophical method applied to the study of doctrine. The question, ' Is Christ divided?' (1 Co 1'^) will cease to startle and distress, and the loyalty due to the Head of the Church and to the universal kingdom will be pledged to sectarian trusts and the watchwords of exhausted controversy. When the one standard of elevation, the stature of Christ, is withdrawn. Church distinctions will be restricted to the super- ficial dimensions of mere historical length and doctrinal width. In the ideal picture of the future fold, the one flock still needs the presence of the one Shepherd ( Jn 10"). Through this visible union in Him, Christ will be glorihed ( 17'"), and solely to its manifestation is promised the conque.st of the world (v.-').
LiTERATCEE.— Fowler and Wilson's Principles of Morals, Oxf. 1894, p. 101 ; Kidd, Morality and Religion, Edin. 1895, p. 187 ; Davidson, Theism and Human Nature, p. 279; and on Christ's awe, Swete's St. Marh^, 1902, p. 342 (on Mk 14S»).
G. M. Mackie. AXE. — This word occurs twice in the Gospels (Mt 31", Lk 3^), each time in the report of the preaching of the Baptist. The old familiar tool of
Eeaee and weapon of war (I K G', Ps 74^*, Jer 51™) as become a metaphor for the ministry of men with a mission of reform. This suits the spirit of one who, like John the Baptist, is filled with the teaching of the OT. For the axe gleams in its histories and flashes in its songs, while in prophetic mood the tool is clianged to the person— the wielder is himself the weapon (Is 10^"'-, Dn 4", Jer 51="). All this is the forerunner's inherited world of ideas on this implement of industry and weapon of attack. He is a part of all that his race has been. He sees the men of old times ' as men that lifted up axes upon a thicket of trees' (Ps 74^). The
Messiah, the Coming One, is the last of the line. Nor are all in that line of the lineage of the house of David. 'As the Assyrian axe in the days of old, so now the Roman axe was laid at the root of Israel' (Philuchristus, oh. 4). Thoroughly as these powers had done their part, yc( more drastic was to be tlie work of the fudiiv ('■ t-xrry I ive,' Mt 3"). Under tliis image of tlir :i\:\ ilic road-maker (Mt3-') has liis vision of the woodcutter and his efl'ectual working (v.'").
But 'God fulhls Himself in many ways.' And when the Carpenter laid aside the axe of the work- shop in Nazareth, the wood-cutter, ' thoroughly furnished unto every good work, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,' was already prepared for going up against the trees. Jesus had been tempered by waiting, in solitude and temptation. And the stroke of His axe, when it fell, was de- liberate, radical, universal (cf. He 4''-''). Men and institutions, the priests, the temple felt it. He would save the tree of humanity, even ' as a tree whose stock remaineth when they are felled ' (Is 6"). Therefore He struck at the root of the evil in man and nature— sin. And because the strokes were meant to be regenerating and reforming, they were clean, swift, sharp, and stout (Jn 2" 8'"', Lk ISif-).
Finally, the axe is not only the sign-manual of the mission of the forerunner and the Fultiller,
it is that of reformers in general. As the axe of the backwoodsman has been tempered in lire and water past the useless state of brittleness and beyond the extremity of hardness, so the temper- ing of the reformer is done, on tlie one hand, in a series of Divine and delicate processes in the personality of him who is being touched to fine issues by the Spirit, for the service of God and man, and, on the other hand, in a parallel series of providential dispensations in the mind and environ- ment of the people, the race, or the institution with which he has to deal.