GREETINGS OF THE FUTURE. 317 opening to receive the crowding multitudes who are hasting onward! Ah! When these great realities shall become the realities of living experimental apprehension, then will the church arise for the conquest, and then shall the battle be fought and the victory won. There is one way in which we may shadow, dimly to ourselves, the power of the church, then. Suppose every church in the world revived at the same moment, greetings from the north and from the south and from the east and the west, coming in from every city and town and hamlet and habitation, "The Lord is here!" "The Lord is here!" Then suppose that to go on from year's end to year's end unceasingly no longer in spasms, chills and fevers no more alternating, but ever and ever the Lord working His works; sinners seeking and finding the Saviour; Jesus the hope of glory - every man's theme! Ah! That would be glorious! But even then, you must add the higher element of power. Jesus our sanctification, filling every man's cup of blessedness to overflowing, before the picture is complete. When Jesus was on the earth in person, and the people saw him with their eyes, and heard him with their ears, they thronged him, and wondered at all his mighty works. Then he was only in one place at a time. The economy of God for the future is that of the presence of Jesus in all the plentitude of his grace and power in every place at the same time; working works of salvation more wonderful than miracles, and his presence realized by faith so that it is really substantial; that is actual. In the days of His flesh, even his disciples failed to understand the nature of His kingdom and the glory of His designs. God's economy for us in the future is that we shall be strengthened with might in our hearts, that Christ may dwell in us by faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able with all saints to comprehend the length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, and to be filled with all the fulness of God. Then, when this is the status of universal experience, and when Christ is realized as present in every church, working in power, not limited by unbelief, as it was in the days of His flesh, and when the cry of every church is, The Lord is with us! The Lord is with us! and the glory of every soul is Christ the hope of glory- then will the church come up to its normal state and to its predicted efficiency. And then a short work the Lord will make of it in the earth. For then he who stands out against the power of truth and grace will soon be cut off by the righteous hand of unsparing judgment. Amen. Even so come Lord Jesus. Come quickly. Amen and Amen. CHAPTER VIII. CLOSING COUNSELS AND PARTING WORDS. THE WAY OF PROGRESS. DANGERS AND DIFFICULTIES. A FOURTH PART should, of right, be added, if our limits were not already reached. Many practical questions of deep and general interest, such as growth in grace, discipline, temptations, self-examination, watching and prayer, reading, study of the Scriptures, methods of doing good, and the like, might well form the conclusion of a work upon experimental religion. However, if we must leave these topics untouched, it is a consolation to know, that whoso shall find Christ in His fulness, and dwell in Him, will have in Him, and in His Word, and His Spirit, counsel and strength which no work of man no human hand or human heart could give. At best, authors or ministers, are but like the finger and the tongue of John the Baptist pointing to Jesus always present-as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. We must get beyond the minister, however wise and good he may be; and beyond the book, however full and clear its teachings, to find Jesus. The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's, gives the truth in words of honied sweetness, when the bride is made to say, "I sought him but I found him not: “I will arise now and go about the city in the streets, "And in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him but I found him not. "The watchmen that go about the city found me : "It was but a little that I passed from them; "I held him and would not let him go." Ah! when we find him, and while we will not let him go there is safety, progress, happiness, usefulness, for us. Satan cannot lay hold on us. A little child, who was told by her mother that the tempter could not get her, because Jesus would be with her, answered, "Why, mother, I am in Jesus!" We are in Jesus, if we abide in him. Therefore it is that exhortations may be dispensed with, because abiding in Jesus we shall be watchful and prayerful, diligent and faithful, secure from the adversary and cheerful as the lark. Like jets and chandeliers connected by hidden DIM LINE OF UNCERTAINTY LEFT BEHIND. 321 pipes with the great meter at the works, our light will burn on, and shine evermore, because Christ is our unfailing fountain head. He in whom Christ dwells by faith will pray with all prayer and without ceasing, because prayer has become his vital breath; and like the beating of his heart and the heaving of his lungs, his soul will go out in prayer and praise, spontaneously without the lashings of conscience and the urgencies of duty. Songs in the night will come welling up from the overflowing joys of his heart; and his very dreams will take on heavenly hues and shapes. He will be active. The spirit in him will be love; a constraining fire in his bones; he cannot but be He will be generous. If he abide in active. Christ, poor, - he who, though rich, for our sakes became himself the free gift of God to us cannot but give freely for his Master and his Master's cause. He will grow in grace; for he has a living union with Him who is full of grace and truth; and from Him he will receive grace for grace. He will have no longer occasion to examine himself to see whether he is a Christian at all or not saying and singing the mournful strain, "Oft it causes anxious thought; Am I his or am I not?" For he will have left the dim line of uncertainty so far behind in his race, that his days of groping |