centuries, not as "fictions founded on fact," not as dry abstractions, or sounds without significance conveying no impulse to our hearts; some names and deeds, some personal inspirations from the remotest and obscurest periods are with us to-day, not as the fleshless skeletons of what once was a force making only a hollow rattling noise in our ears, but are here as the living ministers of most benignant gifts, the active helpers of our highest social and spiritual nurture. What is the discriminating principle thus at work continually? What, that thus saves from and consigns to forgetfulness? We may not respond to such a question hastily or sweepingly. Historic problems are complicated with many considerations often not easy of evolution. But leading facts and laws of the world's progress offer us safe guidance along this path. We are not called upon to speculate, but to observe. One of the most suggestive of modern authors, Charles Julius Hare, in "Guesses at Truth," has some thoughts on this precise topic, which slightly condensed, we make no apology for impressing into our service: Of all the works of all the men who were living eighteen hundred years ago, what is remaining now? One man was then lord of half the known earth. In power none could vie with him, in the wisdom of this world few. He had sagacious ministers and able generals. Of all his works, of all theirs, of all the works of the other princes and rulers in those ages, what is left now? Here and there a name, and here and there a ruin. So of those whose weapons were mightier than the sword-drawn from the armory of thought- some live and act, and are cherished and revered by the learned; but on a narrower range of influence, confined to a few of the meditative, not the active hours, of the few. But at the same time there issued from a nation among the most despised of the earth, twelve poor men, with no sword in their hands, scantily supplied with the stores of human learning. They went forth into all quarters of the world. They were reviled; trampled under foot; every engine of torture, every mode of death was employed to crush them. And where is their work now? It is set as a diadem on the brows of nations. Their voice sounds at this day in all parts of the earth. High and low hear it; kings on their thrones bow to it; senates acknowledge it as their law; the poor and afflicted rejoice in it; and as it has triumphed over all the powers that destroy the works of man as instead of falling before them, it has .. • gone on increasing, age after age, in and in glory power so it is the only voice which can triumph over Death and turn the king of terrors into an angel of light. . . . . Thus, too, will it be eighteen hundred years hence, if the world lasts so long. Of the works of our generals and statesmen, eminent as they have been, all traces will have vanished. For they who deal in death are mostly given up soon to death. Of our poets and philosophers some may survive; and many a thoughtful youth in distant regions may repair for wisdom to the fountains of Burke and Wordsworth. But the works which will assuredly live and be great and glorious are the works of those poor, unregarded men, who have gone forth in the spirit of the twelve from Judea, whether to India, to Africa, to Greenland, or to the isles of the Pacific. So inherent is permanence in religion, so akin is it to eternity, that the monuments even of a false and corrupt religion will outlast every other memorial of its age and people. With what power does this thought come upon us when standing amidst the temples of antiquity. . . . . The country about, a wide waste; the earth barren with age; Nature herself grown old and dead yet the mighty columns lift up their heads toward heaven a lesson how the glory of all man's works passes away, and nothing of them abides save that which he gives to God. When Mary anointed our Lord's feet, the act was a transient one; it was done for his burial: the holy feet which she anointed ceased soon to walk on earth. Yet he declared that wheresoever his gospel was preached in the whole world that act should also be told as a memorial of her. So has it ever been with what has been given to God, albeit blindly and erringly. While other things have perished, this has endured. ... A distinguished scholar, Von Müller, "the German Tacitus," tells us as the result of his researches, that "Jesus Christ is the centre of the history of the world, and the only key to the solution of its mysteries." Paul told the Colossians the same thing, with perhaps a much profounder conception of the truth, when he wrote them that "in Christ all things were created," his existence being the condition of all creation; and that "in him all things subsist," the life of the universe being conditioned by his life; "that in all things his place might be first." If the person and kingdom of Christ be thus the key and the keystone, the unifying fact, of the entire finite system, we can see the connection of an act of love to him, be it noth *Cf. Coneybeare's and Howson's Translation and Notes. ing more than the gift of Mary, with a deathless remembrance and an everlasting praise. It was laid on the right altar. That deed went up among the constellations to shine down on our pathway as constantly as Arcturus or the Pleiades. So the widow's two mites, and the cup of cold water, and the Good Samaritan's oil and wine. The epitaph which, cut in marble or not, never fades out, is this "And for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted." Who said this to the Ephesian disciples need not here be recorded. We have wished, in a few pages, rather to point to a track of remunerative thought than to pursue the road very far ourselves in this paper. We think we have come upon the true direction of the religious spirit; consequently, upon the true line of individual life and ambition; that just here lies the law of the permanent and of the perishable, alike for nations and for individuals. Little as it now may look like it, a time may arrive when "the noblest memorial of England (we quote again from Archdeacon Hare) will be the Christian empire of New Zealand." The future will test the prophecy. Meanwhile, we fall back upon the less public walks of men, and are quite sure of carrying the reader to the side of our pleasant friend of the "Urn-burial," in another of his apt allusions: "To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with one. And who had not rather have been the good thief than Pilate?" So Wordsworth sings the satisfying consciousness and lasting remembrance of— "That best portion of a good man's life; His little, nameless, unremembered acts Interpreted under the rule of a genuine consecration to Christ, this is the really imperishable memorial whether of few or many years. Tennyson might have written his charming stanza "after reading a life and letters," of thousands of Christian workers in lowly places, as well as of a single one: "But you have made the wiser choice, A life that moves to gracious ends A deedful life, a silent voice;" which is only braiding into four lines a bit of gold that the great dramatist has run into a single verse of his own matchless finishing, "So shines a good deed in a naughty world." ARTICLE VI. AN EXEGESIS ON EPHESIANS I.: 3-6. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; (4.) According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love; (5.) Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, (6.) To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved." The persons addressed in this passage are Christians. For they are "blessed with all spiritual blessings," and have "the adoption of children." In the context they are called "saints,' and "the faithful," and those who have "trusted in Christ." They have "believed" in him, and are "sealed with the Holy Spirit." So they have "the forgiveness of sins," and in prospect "redemption" and "an inheritance" through Christ. Such persons are Christians. They are not Jews, as such, nor yet Gentiles, in distinction from Jews. They are rather the body of believers embraced in the church at Ephesus, in which Jews and Gentiles were mingled. This body, referred to in the text and context, has not the characteristics of a national, but of a spiritual body. So their blessings, for which Paul is so grateful, are spiritual, and come on them as individuals. These persons were made Christians in accordance with a previous purpose and plan. This is the import of the connective clause that introduces the fourth verse, "According as." That is, in a compliance with, and in the carrying out of, a previous arrangement. So we find the same Greek word, kafos, used elsewhere in the New Testament. "The disciples went and did as [κatus] Jesus commanded them." Matt. xxi. 6. "One of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray as [xatùs] John also taught his disciples." Luke xi. 1. These blessings enjoyed so richly by those individuals at Ephesus - this great and so manifest fact that they were Christians, came not at haphazard, or incidentally. Such result came from the intention, arrangement, and working cause of God. The plan indicated by the words "according as," is set forth specifically in the phrase following: "According as he hath chosen us." In that word" chosen," there is wrapped up a purpose and plan, in the execution of which there is discrimination and separation, as a taking and a leaving, a giving and a withholding. A few examples of its use in the New Testament will make this evident. "He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out [égeλéyovтo] the chief rooms." Luke xiv. 7. Here is seen the radical idea of the word. There is an intentional occupation of "the chief rooms," and as intentional a neglect of the others. "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." 1 Cor. i. 27. Of all the things offered, he takes these by preference. "When it was day he called unto him his disciples; and of them he chose twelve." Luke vi. 13. "I speak not of you all; I know whom I have chosen." John xiii. 18. "Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you." John xv. 16. In these three passages the Saviour refers to that discriminating, separating love, by which he fixed on and drew unto himself the twelve. It was not a call for twelve volunteers, nor yet the acceptance only of twelve uncalled and offered. It was a specific and efficient selecting of twelve certain ones out of a multitude. In the case of filling the apostolate vacated by Judas, the exactness of the idea in the word "chosen," as an act of thoughtful and matured preference, is very sharply set forth. They prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen." Acts i. 24. No less plain is the case of the choice of the seven deaThe twelve would be relieved of secular cares, and so cons. 66 |