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to exercise their imagination in the practical conduct of life. They lose sight of the ideal in character and action. They seek to achieve practical successes by unworthy compromises. They allow their aspirations and inspirations to be chilled and frozen by their experience. They settle down into a hum-drum, prosaic, and even worldly habit of mind; and herein lie their weakness and their danger. Hence it is that men who have passed safely through the temptations of youth-having been borne over them on the high tide of generous emotion-sometimes fail and fall in middle life. They pride themselves on their freedom from illusions. They fancy that they see things as they really are, because they are walking "by sight," and not "by faith"!

How are we to meet and overcome these temptations and dangers of experience? By seeking to live in the light of that Son of God who once lay as a little child in the manger at Bethlehem. By all means let us learn those lessons which experience can teach us; but let us regard experience as simply one teacher in the school of Christ. Let us see to it that, first and foremost, we are Christ's scholars. He is the Great Teacher; and He employs other teachers besides experience, to whom we shall do well to listen. Imagination, conscience, intuition, faith, love; these have something to say to us. Above all, let us keep "in touch" with Christ Himself; let us sit at His feet and learn of Him. The Child of Bethlehem, as He grew in years, "grew in wisdom"; but He never lost the child-heart. He trusted His Father utterly; and He ever maintained that loving spirit which believes the best possible, and hopes the best possible concern

ing men. He "knew what was in man"; and He used this knowledge, not for His own aggrandisement, but for their welfare. He believed that the lowest of men were capable of redemption, and were worth redeeming. Let us, then, keep close to the world's Redeemer, that we may keep the ideals of life before us, and keep fresh within us that spirit of trust and hope which is born of a pure heart and a generous love. Thus shall we rise above the temptation to acquire experience at the cost of self-degradation. Thus also shall we rise above the temptation to use our experience as the mere handmaid of selfishness; for we shall catch the spirit of Him who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” And thus, too, shall we rise above the temptation to bury our hopes for mankind in a cynical distrust of God and of humanity; for we shall cling to Him who is the Revealer of God and the Redeemer of humanity, who has already by His gospel and His Spirit wrought so mightily in the world, and who, as the "bright and morning star," is the pledge and prophecy of "the perfect day."

THE CONCEALING POWER OF LIGHT.

[Reprinted from The Manchester, Salford and District Congregational Magazine, November, 1879.]

WE talk of the "curtain of the night," but the day has its curtain also. The sun conceals a far larger portion of the universe than he reveals. In showing us the earth, he hides the heavens. How much knowledge we should have missed but for the teachings of night! The wonder and awe with which we look up into the starry firmament-the visions which we have of an immensity peopled by myriads of worlds-these would have been lost to us through the concealing power of a perpetual day. It is not that darkness is, in itself, a revealer. We could have no knowledge of the starry firmament but for the light which comes to us from the stars themselves; nor could we have rightly interpreted the revelations of the night, unless we had also been instructed by the teachings of the day. It is light, and not darkness, that is the revealer; and yet light may become a concealer also, when, by its nearness, or glare, or glory, it hides other lights from our view.

This concealing power of light is a fact which

has its analogy in other regions than the physical. God is the one ultimate source of all truth; but truth shines in upon our minds through very diverse channels. Thus it becomes quite possible for us so to live in the light of this or that truth as that other truths of great importance may be practically hidden from us. A man may be so fascinated by one department of knowledge as to overlook some other department which might prevent him from falling into erroneous inferences. He may be so dazzled by the light of some new instruction as to forget old lessons which he had formerly been taught. It is well, therefore, to be on our guard against this tendency, and to welcome those teachings of history and providence by which this tendency is naturally corrected.

The history of Asceticism furnishes us with a striking illustration of the concealing power of light. The wonderful revelation of God in Christ-the nearness and glory of the spiritual world-the tremendous issues of the future life-the possible nearness of Christ's appearing-so took possession of some in the early Church that they completely lost sight of the value and importance of earthly duties and relationships. They were indeed "children of the day"; but they were almost blinded by the excessive radiance of the sun. Having come "out of darkness into God's marvellous light," they lost sight of old truths, in the surpassing brilliancy of the new. We, looking back on that night of Paganism, can see that it had its starlight. We can see that many of the early Christians might have been saved from the errors of a false spiritu

ality and an inhuman asceticism, if only they had recognized the fact that the gospel did not despise or reject anything that was true and good in the old civilization. God was teaching men through the Greek, appreciation of nature and of human faculty; and through the Roman, appreciation of law and duty, of manly courage, and of domestic ties; but when the gospel flooded the world with its light, there was little wonder that many lost sight of those old teachings in the surpassing glory of what was special and peculiar in the new revelation.

And it is in this way that errors have often arisen in successive ages of the church's history. Heresies have sprung up in many instances simply because men would live exclusively in the light of one set of truths, or of one aspect of the truth. Thus there have been those who have dwelt so exclusively on the doctrine of Christ's divinity, that it has banished from their sight the reality of His human nature, and led them to speak of Him in such a manner as to remove Him to a distance from the sympathies of men. Whilst, on the other hand, some have been so fascinated by the vision of Christ's perfect humanity, that they have lost sight of His superhuman glory. Then, again, there have been those who have been so blinded by the dazzling radiance of the divine Sovereignty, that they have lost sight both of the responsibility of man and the compassion of God, and have spoken of the "Faithful Creator" as if He were the destroyer, rather than the redeemer, of our race! Whilst, on the other hand— and this is rather the danger of our own times—there are those for whom the glorious light of the universal Fatherhood and love of God has practically shut out

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