ce'; the Christian attitude,
'wherein we stand'; and the Christian means of realising that ideal,
'through Christ' and 'by faith.' Now let us look at these three
points.

I. The Christian Place.

There is clearly a metaphor here, both in the word 'access' and in
that other one 'stand.' 'The grace' is supposed as some ample space
into which a man is led, and where he can continue, stand, and
expatiate. Or, we may say, it is regarded as a palace or
treasure-house into which we can enter. Now, if we take that great
New Testament word 'grace,' and ponder its meanings, we find that
they run something in this fashion. The central thought, grand and
marvellous, which is enshrined in it, and which often is buried for
careless ears, is that of the active love of God poured out upon
inferiors who deserve something very different. Then there follows a
second meaning, which covers a great part of the ground of the use of
the phrase in the New Testament, and that is the communication of
that love to men, the specific and individualised gifts which come
out of that great reservoir of patient, pardoning, condescending, and
bestowing love. Then there may be taken into view a meaning which is
less prominent in Scripture but not absent, namely, the resulting
beauty of character. A gracious soul ought to be, and is, a graceful
soul; a supreme loveliness is imparted to human nature by the
communication to it of the gifts which are the results of the
undeserved, free, and infinite love of God.

Now if we take all these three thoughts as blended together in the
grand metaphor of the Apostle, of the ample space into which the
Christian man passes, we get such lessons as this. A Christian life
may, and therefore should, be suffused with a continual consciousness
of the love of God. That would change everything in it. Here is some
great sweep of rolling country, perhaps a Highland moor: the little
tarns on it are grey and cold, the vegetation is gloomy and dark,
dreariness is over all the scene, because there is a great pall of
cloud drawn beneath the blue. But the sun pierces with his lances
through the grey, and crumples up the mists, and sends them flying
beneath the horizon. Then what a change in the landscape! All the
tarns that looked black and wicked are now infantile in their
innocent blue and sunny gladness, and every dimple in the heights
shows, and all the heather burns with the sunshine that falls upon
it. So my lonely doleful