eal with the seen and
the present only. Grace, in its victorious form of patient faith,
already takes hold upon the "afterward," and works on, and walks on, "as
seeing Him that is invisible."

With the thought of the witness-cloud around us, and "looking off" to
the Prince of Faith, ascended, yet present with us, and sure of the
ultimate and eternal "fruit of righteousness" which lies hidden in the
chastening of the Father of our spirits--we too will live by faith,
taking God at His word, and saying Amen to His will, even to the end.

CHAPTER XI

SINAI AND SION

HEB. xii. 14-28

The paragraph before us is largely concerned with the inner life of the
believing community, its cohesion member with member, and the call to
each member and to all to "walk warily in dangerous days," in the path
of evangelical holiness. The Writer lays it upon them (ver. 14) to
"pursue peace with all," such peace as always _tends_, even in bad
times, to reward the "sons of peace," while they so behave themselves as
never on their own part to contribute a factor to avoidable strife, and
while the influence of their meek consistency leavens in some measure
the mass around them. With equal and concurrent care they are to "pursue
sanctification." It is to be their strong ambition to develope and
deepen incessantly that dedication of themselves to the Holy One which
will give them at once the standard and the secret of holiness, by
bringing them into immediate contact with Him who is at once their law
and their life. They are to "live out," in the spirit of a resolute
quest after fuller and yet fuller attainment, the fact that He has
redeemed them to be "a people of His own possession"; remembering, with
a solemn simplicity of conviction, that only "the pure in heart" shall
ever be able to "see God." For the spirit which refuses to come into a
surrendered harmony with His Spirit might be set in the midst of heaven
itself, yet it would be blind, it would be blinded--by that _alien_
glory. They are to keep watch and oversight upon one another (ver. 15),
mutually observant all round, to see that the life of faith and love is
alive indeed. Does any one find his fellow-believer "falling short of
the grace of God," sinking into conduct no better than the world's? This
must at once disquiet the observer, and call out his loving warnings, or
at least his anxious intercessions; for the declining convert inevitably
extends an influence of declin