out observation, of a spirit of heaven that had
sojourned for a time on earth. Men sought him, because they felt the
loss of his presence among them. But they knew that God had taken him.
They inferred his story from his character. In Enoch we have an instance
of faith as the faculty of realising the unseen, but not as a power to
conquer difficulties.

Compare this faith with Abraham's. "These,"--Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob,--"all _died_ in faith," or, as we may render the word, "according
to faith,"--according to the faith which they had exhibited in their
life. Their death was after the same pattern of faith. Enoch's
contemplative life came to a fitting end in a deathless translation to
higher fellowship with God. His way of leaving life became him.
Abraham's repeated conflicts and victories closed with quite as much
becomingness in a last trial of his faith, when he was called to die
without having received the fulfilment of the promises. But he had
already seen the heavenly city and greeted it from afar.[266] He saw the
promises, as the traveller beholds the gleaming mirage of the desert.
The illusiveness of life is the theme of moralists when they preach
resignation. It is faith only that can transform the illusions
themselves into an incentive to high and holy aspirations. All profound
religion is full of seeming illusions. Christ beckons us onward. When we
climb this steep, His voice is heard calling to us from a higher peak.
That height gained reveals a soaring mass piercing the clouds, and the
voice is heard above still summoning us to fresh effort. The climber
falls exhausted on the mountain-side and lays him down to die. Ever as
Abraham attempted to seize the promise, it eluded his grasp. The
Tantalus of heathen mythology was in Tartarus, but the Tantalus of the
Bible is the man of faith, who believes the more for every failure to
attain.

Such men "declare plainly that they seek a country of their own."[267]
Let not the full force of the words escape us. The Apostle does not mean
that they seek to emigrate to a new country. He has just said that they
confess themselves to be "strangers and pilgrims on the earth." They are
"pilgrims," because they are journeying through on their way to another
country; they are "strangers," because they have come hither from
another land.[268] His meaning is that they long to return home. That
he means this is evident from his thinking it necessary to guard himself
against the po