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We must not think of the Resurrection-Life as if it were a completed Life. It is but the beginning of the Ascension. So with ourselves also, our resurrection in Baptism along with Christ is not a completed state. It is to be developed in glory along with Jesus. Those who are thus risen with Him must seek the things which are above, that they may continually in heart and mind ascend whither He is gone before, and by the disciplinary exercise of His grace may experience the transforming power of His Ascension, as they are changed from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.

'He to whom I ascend is your Father as well as Mine, yours because Mine, yours in Me, yours therefore while you abide in Me and ascend to seek Him along with Me.' Such is the purport of our Lord's message, a message whose power lasts from age to age. We must be ascending along with Him or we cannot be really subject to the influence of His Life. If ye loved Me ye would rejoice because I said I go unto the Father,' and if ye know Him to be your Father, ye must be striving to follow along with Me.

Sonship to God involves the consecration of the whole nature to God. The consecration effected by our voluntary co-operation on earth involves the ascension of the whole nature to become perfectly identified with the action of the Divine Nature as soon as the impediments of our earthly surroundings are removed.

As the stone rests on its centre of gravity, so the regenerate soul rests upon God. Even in seeking

for God we seek for Him as having found Him, and experiencing the powerful attraction of His Divine will. God draws us towards Himself, and in yielding ourselves to the law of that power which holds us, we are acting true to the new nature which we have received. The soul gravitates upwards to God by the power of the unifying Spirit. We are drawn towards God as a result of being substantially united with Him. The consciousness of having attained to this absorbing unity is the joy of the soul throughout eternity, and our whole life upon earth ought to be an increasing participation in this joyous consciousness of the Divine Life, a Life above ourselves, yet given to us that it may be ours, and drawing us upward that we may lose ourselves in it.

O Jesu, ascended now to the Right Hand of the Father, draw our hearts in union with Thyself that we may always remember the purpose wherefore Thou hast raised us out of our natural estate, even to abide with Thee in the glory of the eternal kingdom.

If thou wouldst ascend along with Me, thou must look steadfastly upward after Me. Look not behind thee to any of the things of earth, however much they may allure thee. If thou findest pleasure in that which thou leavest, thou canst not learn the joy of what is yet in store.

O Jesu, I desire to follow Thee with an undivided heart. As Thou hast been pleased to call me out of the world, that setting all earthly things aside I might follow Thee alone, fill my heart

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with Thy perfect joy, that I may increasingly delight in the vocation which Thou hast given me.

O My son, consider well the dignity of that Divine sonship in which I have called thee to share. with what loving joy must the son of the Eternal Father press forward to claim the glory of his inheritance! So have I pressed forward. So must thou follow Me.

Yea, Lord, I will endeavour to follow Thee in the power of that new life which Thou hast given me. How can I seek the things of earth when Thou hast given me the things of heaven for mine eternal portion? Nay, let me cast all earthly things aside that I may enjoy Thy heavenly treasures with unmixed delight. I know myself to be living with Thy life while I experience the increasing joy of Thy changeless love. Oh, as I continue in Thy love, let me find continually its sweet power shining out more and more within my heart, that in its brightness I may rise unto Thyself and be accepted of Thee in the fulness of the Father's benediction.

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MEDITATION XI.

The Appearance of Jesus to the Women.

And behold, Jesus met them,' saying, All hail. And they came and took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then aith Jesus unto them, Fear not: go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see me.-St. Matt. xxviii. 9, 10.

Moreover certain women of our company amazed us, having been early at the tomb; and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them that were with us went to the tomb, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.-St. Luke xxiv. 22-24.

1. THEIR RETURN TO THE TOMB.

MARY and Salome had come to the assembled disciples with the message of the angel who rolled away the stone. Joanna and her companions had followed shortly afterwards with an account of their search for Jesus, in which the two men in dazzling apparel had reproved them for seeking the living among the dead. Finally, Mary Magdalene had arrived with tidings of a still more interesting kind. Jesus was not only risen, so that they might expect to see Him some days hence in Galilee, He was near them even now. He had appeared to her and charged her with a message to their company of a still more solemn and stimulating kind than any which had yet been given. He is not only to meet them as of old in Galilee, but they must look upon His visitation as a

See Note at end of Meditation.

transitional manifestation. He is risen from the dead not for the purpose of abiding here below, but so as to be on a heavenly progress, ascending to the Father, and though He is thus entered into His glory He is not ashamed to call them brethren, but requires them to recognise His own Father as being their Father also, so that they may abide with Him in the newness of life which is henceforth to be made known.

Such tidings might well stir the hearts of the disciples. The tomb, though empty, would be felt by them to be a centre of power, a wellspring of life, because it had ceased to be the prison-house of death.

Who could turn from such thoughts to the ordinary things of earth? Surely this is the Lord's day, and no other thought can occupy the mind but the thought of Him, the living Lord!

How true such thoughts were! More true than they who thought them could possibly know! That empty tomb was to be a wellspring of regeneration to all the nations of the earth. Jesus was to fill His tomb with a flooding stream of illuminating grace by which the world should be quickened into a participation of that Life which was His own, yea, rather, that Life which was Himself.

None could know that life but through that tomb. Those who would know it must come there to seek it, there to be buried with Him by Baptism into death, that they might henceforth walk in newness of life.

When they heard the strange and joyful news, how eagerly would they go to that tomb, hoping that as Mary Magdalene had seen, they might see also.

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