ours by faith; and blessedly and Divinely by the self-communication of Christ to us and in us." "Jesu, to Thy table led, Now let every heart be fed When we taste the mystic Wine, Amen. Teach us, Heavenly Father, to be very reverent; as we cannot understand the mystery of existence, nor the vastness contained in the smallest atom of matter, make us willing to remain without full knowledge of the union of Divinity and Humanity in the Man, Jesus; and willing to know but very little how the glorified Manhood enters our New Life for its glorification. In that glorification completed in the Heaven of heavens we shall know even as we ourselves are known. Meanwhile, as "Every evil thought we ever thought, crowd upon our memory, help us to forsake them all; and to enter fully and for ever into that blessed and perfect forgiveness and salvation which came to us in our loving and abiding union with Christ-He in us, we in Him, "O the All-Great is the All-Loving too." "Now at last, Old things past, Hope, and joy, and peace begin : Now once more Eden's door Opened stands to mortal eyes; For Christ hath risen, and man shall rise!" G CHAPTER IX. THE MYSTERY OF SORROW. "And God be praised, that to believing souls Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, IN the glorified world will be a glorified feast; but, meanwhile, an unseen fact that we are all conscious of, that affects ourselves and others, the pain of martyrdom and sacrifice, is a great reality. So great a reality, indeed, that it almost seems God's work in the world: for all human pain and loss appear to identify themselves, in purpose, with the sufferings of Christ. Christ, the Son of God, as were He the best gift of His Father, and as if He, the Son, chose it being the most honourable, assumed our pains and sorrows that He might take them away; and show, in so doing, that God's highest joy is found in His creatures' good. Christ's choice should be ours. If He chose to suffer for others, counting the sacrifice of Himself a grand and honourable thing, as accomplishing a most glorious work-the restoration, purifying and glorifying of worlds; we surely ought to desire to have His life renewed in us. What can so fill our nature, and ennoble it with dignity as this-that His work not only be fulfilled in us, but by us; that we be one with Him, every man accomplishing St. Paul's words: "I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ, for His body's sake, which is the Church?" If you are a Christian, all your weariness and sadness, every cry and pain, is related to a purpose which, of all purposes, is the best. 'Art thou weary, art thou languid, Art thou sore distrest? O Come to Me,' saith One,-' and coming, Be at rest!'' John Mason Neale, from Greek of Stephen the Sabaite. Christ was the more a man that He shrank from the great depths of distress—“O, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" (Matt. xxvii. 39), and Christ was the greater man that, knowing He was to be perfected through suffering (Heb. v. 9), and the world to be redeemed by it, He added, "Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done " (Luke xxii. 42). O, it was a grand resolve, that resolve of His! to perfect everything by the mysterious process of being perfected in suffering. What name so great as the name of Jesus? "who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared" (Heb. v. 7). "Jesu! the very thought is sweet : In that dear Name all heart-joys meet: No tongue of mortal can express, John Mason Neale, from Latin of St. Bernard, |