Bible Commentaries

The Song of Songs

Song of Solomon 1:4). There is a drawing force in life, a gracious impulse; not an impulse that thrusts men forward by eager violence, but that lures them, beckons them, draws them, by an unspeakable but most mighty magnetism. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Observe the difference between the words to draw and to drive. It is the special function of love to attract, to fascinate, to shut out all other charms, and to fix the vision upon itself; and under that sweet compulsion men will dare any peril, face any darkness, traverse any distance, though the road be lined by ravenous beasts. "We love him because he first loved us." God does not ask from us an affection which he himself has not first felt: the love is not on our side, except as an answer; the love is on God's part, as origin, fountain, spring, inspiration. "God is love." If God were only "loving" he might be something else—a mixture, a composition of elements and characteristics: God is more than loving, or he is loving because he is love. We say of some men, They are not musical, they are music; they are not eloquent, they are eloquence. In the one case you would but describe a feature or a characteristic; in the other you indicate an essence, a vitality, an individualism bound up with the thing which is signified. This love may be resisted; this drawing may be put aside. We may say even to him who is chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely, We will not have thee to reign over us; we have made up our minds to turn the day into night, and the night into one horrible revelry, and we would not have thy presence amongst our orgies and supper or feast of hell. Thou wouldst plague us; the feast would turn to poison under thy look or touch; so we banish thee, and enclose ourselves with evil spirits, that we may make night hideous. A tremendous power is thus given to man. He could not be man without it. Every man has the power to leave God, but no man has the right to do it. Am I asked what is this drawing? Hear the apostle when he puts the inquiry, "Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" Do not mercies break thee down in tears? Does not daily kindness penetrate thy obstinacy, and turn thy stubbornness into prayer? This is an appeal which is manifest, and not merely sentimental. The appeal is founded upon the goodness of God, and the goodness of God is the common story of the day; it begins to be seen when the dawn flushes the awakening earth with earliest light; it grows with the growing sun; it burns visibly and comfortingly in the setting day; all night it breathes its whispered gospel upon the heart of man;—it is written on the front-door of the house; it is inscribed on every window-pane through which the light comes with its needed blessing;—it is in every loaf, turning it into sacramental bread; it is in the cup, stirring the contents into holy wine, as sacramental blood;—the goodness of God was at the birth of the child, rocked the cradle of the child, watched over the growing life of the child, and will never forsake the advancing life, unless indeed that life shall grieve the Spirit, and quench the Holy Ghost. Doth not the goodness of God lead thee to repentance—charm thee, lure thee, fascinate thee? It was not meant to be a providence only, but a gospel; a gospel speaking through Providence; a great spiritual revelation incarnating itself in the house and home, and bread and garments, and all that makes life substantial and enjoyable. Where men do love the Son of God they are the first to acknowledge that their love is only an answer; they say, We love Christ, because he first loved us; when his love began to operate we cannot tell; we have searched into the history of this Man Christ Jesus, and we read that he was slain from before the foundation of the world; and verily that is true, for all his love comes to us with an impress of venerableness, a touch of eternity, a mystery not time-bound; it must be a love ancient as the duration of God.

This is what is meant by it being "all of grace." It never occurred to the heart of man to seek God or to love God. Who can love omnipotence? Who can love omniscience; or who can love ubiquitousness, omnipresence—a mere occupation of space? Love does not answer such ideas; there may be a bowing of the head, a closing of the eyes, a wondering of the imagination, a standing back as from an intolerable glory; but love does not know that sphere, love does not speak that language. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son": now we begin to feel a new emotion, there is upon our arm a human touch; there is mingling with our fellowship a human voice; there is a shrouded Deity, a concealed God. "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh." Accompanying that revelation there is a drawing power, and having been once drawn we wish to be closer still; our cry every day Song of Solomon 1:6). Here is an acknowledgment of personal shortcoming, neglect, unfaithfulness; and yet the love of Christ is not suspended or withdrawn. Were God to withdraw his love from us because our prayer was short or meagre, because the day was marked by neglect, because we sometimes, in a cowardly spirit, evaded duty, who could live before him? Where sin abounds grace doth much more abound. Some can say, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee: though but yesterday I denied thee, though but a week ago I played the coward, traitor, blasphemer, yet deep, deep down in my heart is a passion which the sea cannot drown. I love thee, thou Son of God! Who does not know that mixed experience,—hating oneself, yet loving Christ; doing the forbidden thing, yet turning to the forbidding God with a look all tears, a sigh that trembles with contrition, and a consciousness that within us is the seed of God which cannot die? Have we this love? The signs will be clear: "Perfect love casteth out fear": "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren": "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" Beware of the mere sentiment of love; the flower is more than the fragrance. What did Christ's own love lead him to do? let that be the standard. O Saviour of the world, thou didst love us: what did thy love lead thee to do? Hear the answer given in the Scriptures: "He was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor"; he "gave himself for our sins"; he "went about doing good." These are the standards: can we set ourselves beside them, and abide the result? A love that is nothing but song is no love at all. A love that expires in rapture never began in reason. If we have the love of God within us, then shall there be in us the mind "which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a Song of Solomon 5:10, Song of Solomon 5:14; Song of Solomon 7:2), that every generation has its own notions of delicacy (the most delicate in this sense being by no means the most virtuous), that nothing is described but chaste affection, that Shulamite speaks and is spoken of collectively, and that it is the general truth only which is to be allegorized, the whole will appear to be no unfit representation of the union between Christ and true believers in every age. It may be added, however, that it was the practice of the Jews to withhold the book from their children till their judgments were matured."—Angus's Bible Handbook.

Black, But Comely

Song of Solomon 1:5

The blackness was caused by the look of the sun—"Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me" ( Song of Solomon 1:6). The image is a very striking one. Not only did the sun glare upon the observer, but it was like the brilliant eye of a bird of prey, looking down from some great height upon that which it proposed to seize and destroy. The text is wholly Oriental in its figure, and has been thus rendered—"Dark as the Kedareen tents of black goat's hair, beautiful as the royal pavilions with their rich hangings." The passage may be so adapted as to bring into view the twofold quality of human nature as revealed in the Scriptures: in one respect black enough; in another respect comely beyond all other loveliness. This would be fanciful and doubtful if the verse stood alone; but it does not. Throughout the Bible this doctrine is presented as the true view of human nature, namely, "black, but comely." The whole Bible preaches with unity this fundamental and sacred doctrine. To force this particular text into this particular meaning would be unjust to the writer of the song; but the contrast is so established and elaborated and illustrated by other parts of the Bible, that it becomes legitimate to seize this beautiful expression as indicating in very graphic terms the reality of the aspect which we present to heaven as men, namely, "black, but comely." Let us see if this be not Genesis 25:13, Genesis 25:16). The word Kedar signifies "black," and the tents of the tribe, like all those of the Bedawin of the present day, were black ( Song of Solomon 1:5); hence some have supposed that the name was given to the tribe because of the colour of their tents. Others think that the name originated in the darkness of their complexion (Bochart, Opera, 1:216). This is all mere conjecture. The name was first borne by the son of Ishmael; but whether it originated, like that of Esau, in any peculiarity in the child, or in any event in his after life, we cannot tell. The tents of the nomad tribes of Arabia are black, and the colour of their skin is uniformly of a light bronze hue, so that the name Kedar was in these respects no more applicable to one tribe than another. The "children of Kedar" ( Isaiah 21:17) were well known to the Israelites, and are more frequently spoken of in Scripture than any of the other Arab tribes.... They were also celebrated as warriors. Isaiah 21:16-17)."—Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature.

The Safety of Christian Fellowship

Song of Solomon 1:8

What would you say to a little child who had gone forth with his mother and brothers and sisters to see some great and exciting spectacle in the streets, and had wandered away from his guardians and companions, and had become lost in the crowd? In what speech would you address him? You would say to the little vagrant, You should not have left us, you should have kept close beside us: did I not tell you not to go away from me? why did you not take hold of me, and then you would not have been lost? And your speech, not angrily but pathetically spoken, would probably leave a happy impression upon the mind of the young offender. What would you say of a man who appears in the bankruptcy court, and concerning whom it is discovered that he set aside all precedents, all the acknowledged and established canons and laws of business, and separated himself wholly from all that had ever been done in the business world? This would be your speech: Foolish fellow, what else could he expect? he never acted as any other person did; he despised all that had been tested in the commercial circle: he took the whole case into his own wild head and wild hands, and it has come to this: anybody with a head upon his shoulders could have foreseen the short gallop into this bitter ruin. Your speech would have sense in it. Few wise men would attempt to gainsay it.

What would you say of a man who never took anybody's advice upon any subject that ever occurred to him? You would say, He is a genius, or a fool. These inquiries and illustrations give us the solemn teaching of this text. Keep on familiar ground; do not stray away from the line of footsteps; be near where you can hear the pipe, or the flute, or the trumpet of the camp. Do not go away upon barren rocks and into dreary sands. Do not detach yourselves from the great company of the Church, but, wherever you are, see that your method of communication is in good working order: if you go a mile away, be sure you leave the road open that you can return to the main body in the event of danger surprising you in your loneliness, or pain befalling you in the silence and helplessness of your solitude. Of course, if it can be proved that you are a genius, then take the license of genius; but first let the case be twice proved; do not take the very first impression that may be given to you of your inspired and infallible genius; rather suspect the flatterer than flatter yourself.

If it could be proved once, twice, and again, and six times over, that you are an appointed herald of God to go away on lonely seas and up inaccessible mountains, make your calling and election sure. But to the rank and file, to the commonalty of the Church, we say: Let us go forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed our kids beside the shepherds" tents: let us not lose the benefits of community and companionship: forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is: do not attempt the genius if you have only the name and not the fire.

There is some need that this occasional word should be spoken, when every man is determined to strike out his own path in religious thinking. I repeat, I have nothing to say to some few daring prophets, who seem to be called to wildernesses far away, and to make lonely roads over towering and barren rocks; wherein they fulfil their election, strength and comfort will be given to them from heaven: but, speaking to the general company of the Church, I stand by the general exhortation of the Church. Nor is this the exhortation of fear; it is the precept of sense; it is the dictate of reason; it is the calm, strong, solemn view of history and experience.

Let us imagine that we go into a foreign land—any party of six. We cannot speak the language: we go in a small band that we may keep one another in countenance, and in various ways supplement and cheer one another. But there is suddenly developed amongst us a daring genius. One of the six is absent. Where is he? No information can be obtained. An hour passes, and still he does not appear. We want to go, we cannot move comfortably without him. Another hour, and two more, and the eventide comes and it is night, and still the genius arrives not. But see, yonder he comes—he went out nearly six feet high, he comes back little more than five. He went out comparatively young, he comes back all aged and worn. Where have you been? "Been? do not ask me." But what have you been doing? "Why, like a fool, I strayed away down there, and I could not ask my way back again, for I did not know a word of the language: I made signs, and pointed this way and that way, and have wandered miles and miles. Pity me, forgive me—you will never lose sight of me again until we return to our native land." It is even so in the Church. There are persons who go off alone, that never tell where they are going: they know nothing of the language of the provinces into which they are moving: they are called, perhaps too harshly, heretics and religious vagrants, and other epithets not respectful are attached to their names when they are mentioned. Yet they are blameworthy: they ought not to have left the party; it was unjust to their fellows, it was perilous to themselves, and nothing but mischief can come of this self-detachment and this disloyalty to the spirit and genius of the commonwealth of Christ.

Sometimes it may be legitimate to go off a little way alone, when you are upon the mountains. It is a delight of my own: I like to escape noise and chatter: when I am in the church of the mountains I do not want little questions upon little subjects, and small remarks upon infinitesimal topics. I love the awful silence. Going down on one occasion from the Wengern Alp to Lauterbrunnen I went off alone, and the mists came on suddenly. What did I look for? For the footsteps. As the mist thickened, I bent more closely to the ground. While I could see footsteps I had no fear. Here and there they seemed to get confused, so that I could not follow the line of my journey, and at these points of confusion my fear was excited, and I dared scarcely move. I looked back; I listened; I longed to be near the tents of the shepherds. But footsteps are companions: you cannot tell what a picture of a footprint is until you are left lost among the mountains: to come suddenly upon a line of footprints is to be at home.

We live in a day of religious adventure, of high and daring enterprise. Man after man is going off to carve his own way through the mountains, or to navigate his ship by a course of his own devising. Be careful. If you are a genius, twice baptised, thrice anointed from heaven, with a cloven tongue upon your head, go—but make very sure about these signs before starting. The lamp of genius is not often kindled in one century, and there is no fool so gigantic and so pitiful as the man who mistakes himself for a genius. Little boats, keep near the shore; little children, take hold of your mother's dress; poor scholars, wait upon your teachers; feeble and timid, never go out of sight—forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. "Brethren," says Paul, "be ye followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample."

Loneliness has its perils in the religious life. We hear now and again of a man who says he is going to give up all religious associations of a public kind, and is going to remain at home. Some men are now boasting that they are Christians unattached; independent Christians. What is this religious independence as interpreted by these men? Not one little gaslight is independent; every one of them is a blink of sunlight. Here is a star independent of the universe. If we saw it coming we should get out of its road. Tell me that all the stars are caught in one great scheme, and that not a sparkle of the glory of the least of them can be lost, and I am proportionally at rest. Loneliness, I repeat, has its perils in the religious life. When the devil gets a man absolutely alone, who will win? Not the man—in the vast proportion of cases. There was only one man that won in single fight, and that man was the Lord from heaven. Oh, let us shelter one another; let us be mutual protections; let us have a commonwealth of interest and sympathy; let us live in one another's prayers and sympathy and love. Union is strength; two are better far than one—if the one fall, he can be lifted up gain; but if he fall alone, who will assist him to his feet? Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.

"Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds" tents." This poor woman in the song had lost her loved one, and she was told that if she wanted him she would find him on accustomed beats and familiar paths. God leaves his footsteps on the earth, and if we follow his footprints we shall find him. He has built his churches, raised his altars, and he says, "Where my name is recorded, there will I meet thee, there will I bless thee." Be in the way of blessing: if you cannot find God himself, find his footprints; go to his altar and say, He ought to be here; he has sworn to be here; and whilst thou art yet speaking the apparently dead cold ashes will glow, and on that altar there shall rise up a living flame, and out of the fire thou shalt hear the voice of thy God.

Feed thy kids beside the shepherds" tents. Then we shall have communion. We must speak to one another now and then, or the poor aching heart would die. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it. Christianity institutes a fellowship, a community of interest and purpose. We are the complement of each other. No one man is all men. You have something I want; I have something you want In these higher meanings, let no man call aught that he has his own. Let us have all our highest thoughts and sympathies in common, so that there shall be no poor man in the Church—the poorest scholar having access to the richest thoughts, the dullest ear the opportunity of listening to the sweetest music.

In the tent of the shepherd there was always some instrument that could be used for the soothing of fear and the excitement of hope. It might be a poor small instrument, but it was of infinite value in the lonely places. It is related how the commander of the ship Fox, when his crew rose almost in mutiny, and his passengers accorded him nothing but the coldest looks, when he reached land, said, "Thank God, there was one relief, and one only: I had a fiddler on board." That musical instrument brought the hearts together when nothing else could. A snatch of a song a strain of some forgotten music, one touch of nature—and that did far more than all the captain's orders, exhortations, and attempts to persuade his all but mutinous companions that all was right. Do not stray away from the music of the Church: do not suppose you can hum tune enough for your own soul, or whisper yourself into victory and triumph: your mouth will dry, and your tongue will cleave to the roof of your mouth. Oh, there are times when I love the dear old tunes! They redeem common metre from commonplace, and lift up ordinary words into high meanings, and send the soul a-throb and a-swaying with such a hearty, happy rhythm. This I never feel so much as when in foreign lands, where there is no Sabbath, no church that is cared for, no voice attuned to gospel messages. To get back again to the old Song of Solomon 1:9

It is thus that love multiplies itself by many images. Love consecrates all things beautiful by turning them into symbols and pictures and suggestions of its own idol. There is no end to the creations and appropriations of love. Love sees the image of its dearest one everywhere, and claims it as its own. As Jesus Christ has found in this chapter images of the kingdom of heaven everywhere, so love in all ages and in all places has created for itself new heavens and a new earth, and has given a new reading to all the things therein, and has thus multiplied the literature which no eyes but its own can accurately read. I want to look at the power of fancy, this creative and symbolising power, this power of reading the inner mysticism and ideality of things, as a Joy, a Danger, and a Responsibility. Let us look at it first as a joy.

In finding new symbols we find new pleasures, and in the inspiration of our love we turn all things visible to new and sacred uses. Love turns water into wine at every feast: that which was a miracle at the first is a commonplace in the long run: love widens ever. We give a language to flowers, we make the stars talk, we turn the horses in Pharaoh's chariots into meanings which the proud Pharaoh never saw. We make business itself into a religion, and write upon our gold an image better and purer than the image and superscription of Cæsar. This love embodies itself in all things lovable. We own what we love. We have only the meanest property in things that we do not love. Now this is the joy of Christ himself in this thirteenth chapter of the Gospel by Matthew. The object of his love was the kingdom of heaven, and day by day he compared it with new comparisons, and so gave his Church the treasure of his parables. Jesus Christ said, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto..." That is the entrance to the great picture-gallery, the great paradisaic beauty by which he imaged that wondrous and immeasurable quantity. Like unto a sower, a goodly pearl, treasure hid in a field, a hidden haven, a grain of mustard seed, a net cast into the sea, a king travelling into a far country, virgins going forth to meet the bridegroom—by so many images did he make plain to us that manifold kingdom of his.

This is the way of love: it is a parable-making power, it lives in poetry, it delights in the creation of new images, it yokes itself into new relationships, and calls all ministries and agencies to yoke themselves into its chariot, and draw its chariot forward in triumphant and right royal progress. Wondrous in this way have been the creations and adaptations of love. Who could pluck a little rosemary and make anything of it but rosemary? Love could. Love says, "You shall be a symbol of remembrance and affection." Thus poor Ophelia gathers to her madness a new pathos—she plucks and gives the rosemary. What is a pansy? Nothing to him who has nothing in him, but to the man who has the seeing eye, the cunning, all-interpreting love, the pansy is the English for pensee, the French thought. So when I cannot tell you all I want to say I slip the little meek-eyed pansy, pensee, into my envelope, and you read all the meaning, great utterances of heart speech—you understand the little parable of the pansy.

The timid youth whose love almost chokes him when he is going to speak it does not know what to do till the florist tells him to pluck an acacia leaf, and he says to him, "She will understand that parable. The acacia leaf stands for platonic love—the acacia leaf which stands for such love does not admit of vulgar interpretation. You slip in the acacia leaf, and she will understand all about it."

I cannot speak to my friend yonder, bowed down with a thousand distresses, burdened with affliction. He has lost again and again the lives he loved most, and his life is now a process of grave-digging, and any words of mine would but augment the grief which I would seek to alleviate. But I am cunning in the use of floral eloquence: I know what I will do, I will pluck a sprig of amaranth, and send it to him. When he sees it he will see in that sprig of amaranth a symbol of the everlastingness of God, the immortality and unquenchableness of the true life, and in that amaranth he will see revelation and parable and sacred vision. When I cannot tell all my affliction to my dearest friend I will put in some bitter aloes, and the heart that receives the token will understand the sad sign.

So we too have our parables. I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a sower, like unto treasure, like unto a goodly pearl, like unto a net, like unto virgins going forth to meet the bridegroom. My love hath ten thousand images and symbols, infinite jewellery of expression—who then can be poor who really loves? If we loved more we should have more. This is the alchemy that transforms the base into the real and intrinsically valuable. Encourage the soul in its love of beauty. You cannot go too often into the garden if you go to turn every flower into a speaking angel. It will be a dark day for you when beauty ceases to talk to your heart and preach the sweet gospel of hope. Well said Festus, "Some souls lose all things but the love of beauty: by that love they are redeemable, for in love and beauty they acknowledge good, and good is God, the great Necessity."

Whilst most of us have entered somewhat, or at some time, into the passion of this rapture, and have created a thousand images and symbols by which to typify our love and our supreme ambition, I have now to remind all such that not only is this power of fancy a keen and thrilling joy, but it is a positive and an immediate danger. The danger arises from the fact that we may consider our duty done when we have instituted a beautiful comparison. Our religion may perish in sentimental expressions—you may die in words—you may say, "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me: my beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of En-gedi." Christ is the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley—as an apple-tree among the trees of the woods. We may see him coming out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchantman, and yet our love may pass off as an evaporation, and never embody itself in one act of sacrifice or in one attempt at service. That is the danger of living wholly in the fancy, or largely in the higher range of the creative faculties of the soul. We may create wit for the laughter of others and forget to keep any of it for the rejoicing of our own house. The danger is that if we live the parabolical life, contenting ourselves with making parables, that we may never advance to Gethsemane and Golgotha. We may create a kind of artificial life and thus miss the great utilities of our being. Not the heart that is swiftest and surest in the creation of symbols is always to be trusted in the hour of pain and distress. This love-sick woman in the Canticles writes her own condemnation as the victim of supineness and indolence. How lovingly she yearns over the absent one, how she charges others to take care of him and watch for him, and yet once he came to the door and knocked, saying "Open to me, for my head is filled with the dew, and my locks with the drops of the night,"—he was actually at the door, his hand upon it, his voice sounded through it, and what answered she? This was her mean reply. "I have put off my coat, and how can I put it on?" See how great is the danger of the fancy-power, of the parable-making faculty, how possible it is to get into high ecstasy of poetry, and to forget the courtesies and rigid duties of life. Says she, "I have put off my coat, and how can I put it on?" and though finally she roused herself, and put on her coat, her beloved had withdrawn, and was gone. She called, but she could not find him, she sought him, but no answer came back through the air, and the watchmen mocked, and the keepers of the walls joined with the watchmen, and they smote her and wounded her, and tore off her veil, and left her—she who was wild in poetry, so grand in the creation of high sentiment—she who lay in the midst of the gardens of flowers, and spoke beautiful things about her absent one, saying, "I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in the king's chariot."

There is then a great danger in living the poetical life. You praise your parents—do you obey them? You sentimental, rhyming, filial poet, do you obey your venerable father, your aged and loving mother? I do not ask if you send them a little blank verse now and then, or a verse of rhyme—do you study their comfort, anticipate their wishes, and show the devotion of real sympathy, gratitude, and love? I have heard many a young man talk about his parents in polysyllables, and thus make a fool's ineloquent speech about them, who has yet not had the grace to obey a single commandment. Take away your poetry, eat it and choke yourself with it—it is a lie. We seek for one poetry only, and that the blossoming and the fragrance, and the fruitfulness of real duty and obedience.

There is also another danger which many young men would do well to take heed to, and that is the danger of reciting poetry and living prose. Be very careful, you devotees of poetry and you reciters and treasurers of miles of jingling rhyme, take care that you do not recite your poetry and live your sapless prose. It would be a disastrous irony, it would be the most perfect and cruel sarcasm. Rather on the other hand say no poetry but live much. If it must come to a choice of one or the other, let this course be mine to live the poetry, to prove the sublimity by many a gentle, loving action. If I can unite the two and be as eloquent in service, so be it; but if the one only can be adopted, let me urge you to adopt the eloquence of loving obedience and noble self-sacrifice.

How possible it is to sing hymns and to be acting blasphemies. It is possible. Consider that for one moment, because at the first blush it would seem to be utterly beyond the bounds of possibility to sing in an oratorio and then to act dishonestly, to sing an anthem and then to tell a lie, to utter a hymn and then to perpetrate a cruelty. The poetry is at the wrong end in such cases. O let me have prose climbing up into poetry and not poetry sinking down into contemptible prose; see to it that though you have many crucifixes in the house you have a cross in the heart, though you compare your beloved to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariot, you also transfer that love into noble charity and sacrifice and sweet service which will benefit mankind, as well as enchant their fancy and please their literary taste.

Not only is this power of making parables and comparisons a joy and a danger, it is also a responsibility. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. If the Master is beautiful, so must the servant be. Shall the Master be a sweet rose and the servant a stinging nettle? Is that not very often the case? Shall the master be a fruitful tree making the city glad and the servant be as a upas, casting its deadly shade upon all living things? Let us understand that every compliment we pay to Christ is an obligation we lay upon ourselves if we are his faithful followers. Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure, that is the sacred law. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. We are to be transformed by the beauty we admire. This is the great law, namely, we shall be like him, for—mark the reason—we shall see him as he is. The sight will be transfiguring: to look at beauty will be to be made beautiful; to see God will be to be made divine, the fair vision shall make us also fair, otherwise it is wasted upon us, and we do not really see it. It will be impossible to see Christ as he is without being transformed into his beauty. But do we not all see Christ as he is when we come into the sanctuary? Far from it. We see sections of Christ, phases of Christ, we hear something about Christ, but we do not see the whole Christ in the absoluteness of his integrity and the ineffable-ness of his beauty, or we should be caught in a transfiguring and transforming power, and the very visage of our face would be changed.

Here, then, are abundant lessons for us all. The power of comparison is to be cherished and developed. Compare your living Saviour to all things beautiful, make every flower of the field into a parable, the summer will grow too few flowers to set forth all his beauties. Go out this coming summer and attach to every flower some name that shall indicate some beauty in your Lord; watch for the coming stars, and according to the beauty of each name it, and, so to speak, baptise it in the Lord's name, that when you see it again it may remind you of some high ecstasy of the soul. All that is wise, beautiful, legitimate, it gives ennoblement to the mind and enlargement to the whole sphere of the imagination, it refines and elevates the taste by great purification and enrichment, but do not rest there. Not every one that saith unto me "Lord, Lord," shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Are we not all witnesses to the wasting power of rapture, to the enervating reaction of high rhapsody in any service? Have we not been on the hill of transfiguration and desired to build tabernacles there, and never to come down into the cold and tumultuous world again? Mark the danger. Life is real, sad, tragical, a great daily pain, as well as an occasional rapture and a high realisation of the noblest intellectual conceptions and experiences.

In comparing Christ with things beautiful, noble, grand, we are writing a heavy indictment against ourselves if we profess to be his followers, and do not rise to the grandeur of the occasion. Shall we be found in the king's procession who have about us anything that is mean, worthless, vile, corrupting? Shall we not make it our endeavour to be in some sort worthy of the royal procession and worthy of its high meaning? Herein is the responsibility arising from the power we have of seeing the beautiful and acknowledging it. This is our calling in Christ Jesus: as he was so are we in this world. Men are to take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus and have learned of him. As he who passes through a garden of roses brings with him part of the fragrance breathed from the beauteous flowers, so we who come forth from the fellowship of Christ are to show somewhat of the radiance of his countenance, and to speak somewhat with the eloquence of his accent. This is the incarnation which he desires at our hands, not only to compare him with things royal and beautiful but to incarnate him in actions more eloquent than the pomp of speech or the melody of music.

Who can carry out that high vocation? Who would not rather sit in his garden and make parables and blow them from the pipe of his imagination like gilded bubbles into the summer air? That would be easy, that would be a pious luxury; but to cut off the right hand, to pluck out the right eye, to slay the inner offence, to test the soul as by fire, who can submit to this inexorable discipline? And yet, if we fail here it will but go to the aggravation of the account against us that we have compared our Saviour to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariot, and have talked about him in foaming poetry, but have lived mean, petty, worthless lives. The God of the heavens give us wisdom.