The apostle does not tell us, in so many words, when this perfection of vision is to be attained; but there can be little doubt both from the nature of the case, and from his own statements elsewhere, that he is referring to the liberation and exaltation of the child of God at death. It is the "vile body" that clogs us here. Shut up in flesh, we cannot expatiate at will throughout the creation of God. Besides, it is only through our bodily senses that the confined spirit can receive impressions and information from without. But "absent from the body," we shall be "present with the Lord;" and "to be with Christ" shall be "far better." The dying Stephen "looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." In all probability, whenever the believer dies he beholds "angels" ready to receive his emancipated spirit-either seraphic attendants, or glorified saints, commissioned to guide him home. Indeed, the partition between the visible and invisible world seems sometimes to be broken down before death; and glimpses of coming glory stream in, prophetically, through the opening chinks. Whenever the departing spirit loses sight of weeping friends (who should rather rejoice), he catches sight of these bright messengers; and, with a celerity of which he had no idea before, and which telegraphic speed only faintly adumbrates, he is borne upward to bliss. Now he sees heaven " face to face." He sees the redeemed church "face to face." He sees myriads of ministering spirits "face to face." He sees Jesus "face to face." He sees the Deity "face to face." O how wondrously will his ideas of the Atonement, of Divine Love, of the Universe, and of all God's perfections be rectified and enlarged! The work of increased enlightenment will, doubtless, be progressive; but so immense a stride will be taken at once in knowledge and light, that the hour will be memorable for ever and ever. If the first hour of the experience of grace can never be forgotten, much less can the first hour of glory. The first look of the jasper walls!—The first look of the pearly gates! -The first look of the river "whose streams make glad the city of our God!"-The first look of the glory of the Lamb! Ah! we thought we saw the truth pretty clearly on the earth; but the sacrifice looked far away at Gethsemane, at Kedron, and at Calvary! But how near and how clear will it seem, when we are told that yonder indescribable lustre is the glory of the Lamb, revealed "face to face!" Another remarkable expression that is used here will help us to understand yet more distinctly the contrast between the attainments of heaven and the attainments of earth: "Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Even as God knows me, I shall know him! Not that my knowledge shall equal his in extent of sweep and comprehension; but it shall be the same in kind,—the same direct interpenetration of Spirit by spirit, without any material bar, or hazy obscuration. That army is at a great disadvantage, on a dark night, which is revealed to an enemy by its numerous camp fires, but which cannot see that enemy in turn. Joseph knew his brethren; but his brethren knew him not, in the fulness and nearness of his relationship. But when "he wept aloud, and the Egyptians of the house of Pharaoh heard; and when he said "I am Joseph: doth my father yet live?" -they were raised to the same platform of knowledge with himself, and "knew even as also they were known." Beautiful type and illustration, not only of the revelations of grace on earth, but also of the revelations of glory in heaven! When that superior stand-point is reached, all difficulties and differences on predestination, incarnation, Trinity, and other mysteries, shall have vanished; all God's people will see eye to eye; for lo! "they shall know even as also they are known!" Lord, cleanse us and purify us that we may be able to bear the deep and searching investigations of thine all-penetrating Eye, so that since thou knowest us thus completely, thou mayest know us to be thine altogether! What practical influence should this subject have upon our hearts? Plainly, (1.) It should be our chief business here to lay up treasures in the world to come. If life's short pilgrimage be but the vestibule of our being, if the soul shall live for ever, when the body has become inanimate clay, should not the things of the soul be regarded by us as of unspeakably greater importance than the things of the body? Our hearts should not be set chiefly upon dressing, feeding, or caring for the fragile frame, but upon attending to the welfare and sanctification of the never-dying soul. A O ye (2) The Christian should be glad to die when it is God's will. Dying, he only departs to the university of heaven. What is the University of Glasgow, of Oxford, of London, or of Paris, to the magnificent University of Heaven? tiny candle compared with the immense majestic sun! who have long mourned over your want of early opportunities, and the deficiency of your education,-who have gazed wistfully after students in the streets and have envied them their privileges, the tables shall be turned in your favour yet. What think ye of an eternity spent in "knowing as ye are known?" Gray, in his church-yard elegy, mourns because "village Hamp dens" have been rudely nipped in the bud, or have died unknown, for want of due developement. But shall they not be developed in the heavenly world? Shall not the yearning of many a young aspirant after ministerial work be gratified in the spacious halls of a celestial Alma Mater, and a field wider than the world, even the world to come? (3) Do not mourn your friends who have died in Christ. With them" that which is perfect is come." No longer do they look into the mirror, their eyes blinded with tears; for they look upon the Master unveiled, and every tear is dry. They have only got away to the celestial college before you,-whence they never wish to return to this earth's initiatory blundering schools again. (4) Esteem love more highly than knowledge. That is the great argument of the chapter into which the paragraph we have been commenting on is introduced, by way of a logical parenthesis. The knowledge we have here shall be supplanted by the knowledge of heaven; but the love that is shed abroad in the believer's heart on earth, is the very same holy fire that shall burn upon heavenly altars. A man may have much knowledge and yet not be an eminent Christian, but He's an heir of heaven who feels Be more concerned about moral goodness than intellectual acquirement. If any day you have "suffered long," rejoice more in this than in having studied long. Be more anxious to "bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things," than, by mere mental effort, to read all things, and reason in all things, and know about all things. Of course, we must make an exception in favour of "the knowledge of the truth," which is the foundation of all spiritual experience; although, as already observed, our acquaintance with the love and self-sacrifice of the Lamb shall be largely augmented in heaven. All-important is the gaze into Calvary's glass, by which "we are saved, if we keep in memory what is preached unto us." But it seems to be the prime lesson of this whole paragraph, that moral attainment, summed up in the one word "love," excels mere intellectual acquirements, and is even superior to the soul-saving knowledge of the truth, as the end is superior to the means; and as the land "flowing with milk and honey," is superior to the desert-path that leads to its unsearchable riches. "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." F. F.—G. THE PRIMARY FACT ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS BASED. THE Incarnation of the Son of God is the primary fact on which christianity finds its proper basis. The fact is announced by the Evangelist John, in the following terms :-" The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (Chap. i. 14.) The simple grandeur of this announcement, and the fulness of meaning contained in it, must be hidden to every eye that has not calmly contemplated and seriously pondered the first thirteen verses of that Gospel, in which the evangelist speaks of the Word before he "became flesh." This Word did not come into being when he became flesh. He never came into being at all. He is without beginning of days; and his life shall have no end. In the beginning of the creation he "was with God; and he was God." "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." The "life" that animates so many created existences, that trembles in every leaf and flower; that pulsates in the hearts of all the animal creation, and kindles the light of reason in all created intelligences, emanated from him; for in him was "the fountain of life." His life, too, as manifested among men, was the light of men. He was "the true light which lighteneth every man who cometh into the world." He was in the world before he became flesh, "and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." "He came into his own land, and his own people received him not." But though almost universally rejected in the approaches of his love, so far from leaving men to perish in their gross darkness, he made a nearer approach to them still; and the glorious light of his love shone more conspicuously than ever amid the darkness that comprehended it not. He "became flesh, and dwelt among us. He was born in a stable, cradled in a manger, reared in obscurity, amid sin, trouble, and distress; he was educated by sorrows, perfected through sufferings; and, finally, crucified on the cross. Had we witnessed his majesty, as John did; had we seen him at prayer, when baptized, or afterwards, and Marked the mild angelic air, had we seen with what gentleness he bound up the wounds of humanity, "plucked from the memory a rooted sorrow, and razed the written troubles of the brain ;”—then we could have joined in testifying to the glory of his character, "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." THE PRIMARY FACT ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS BASED. 111 Even those who are disposed to deny the fact of the incarnation, will, if reasonable and capable of taking a wide and liberal view of things, admit that there was such a person as Jesus of Nazareth; that his appearance was a great turning point in the world's history, the origin of one of the greatest revolutions the world has ever witnessed. Renan himself admits all this in his attempt to write a history of the origin of Christanity, and to hew out for Christ and his religion a new sepulchre. It must be admitted, too, that from the earliest times, Christians have rendered divine worship to Christ, and that their belief in his divinity was the inspiration of all that self-denying devotion, and invincible courage, which emboldened thousands of them to die a martyr's death rather than renounce their faith. Was their faith grounded in a lie? Is it to the power and energy of that lie, working in their minds, that we must trace those heroic deeds, not of blood, but of self-sacrificing love, which illumine the pages of the church's history, as the stars illumine the sky? We like to have more moral order in our little mental world than to cherish such a supposition, more especially when we bear in mind that the revolution which is associated with the name of Christ, has been the greatest blessing that has ever befallen our world, that in its progress it has undermined the throne of tyrants, led the van of freedom's battle, freed the slave, and proclaimed, with a force all its own, the common brotherhood of man. The most noble specimens, moreover, of human characters became what they were, and are, by means of the influence of the christian gospel. Can, then, that gospel be a falsehood? God forbid! There is nothing in the incarnation, as announced by John, that is incongruous, irrational, or absurd. We may be unable to answer the question-How can the Infinite Divine Being be personally joined to the finite human being? But we are as really unable to answer this other question-How can a finite mind be joined to finite matter? Yet we believe that it is. Why may we not, then, also believe that God and man are conjoined in the person of Jesus Christ? It is true that this great fundamental fact of christianity is extraordinary. God is so great, and man is so small and feeble, that one is tempted to think it very strange, and almost incredible, that the natures of both should be personally joined, the one to the other, in the holy child Jesus. Shall the Eternal become, in one of his new relationships, an infant of days? Why should he not? While an infant is a very little thing to the natural eye of man, it is not so to the eye of God, who looks at the end as well as the beginning of created life. When laid in the balances of God,-which are the balances of truth,-the soul |