withstanding all their surface occupation with
the distractions and duties and enjoyments of the present, deep down in
their centres are knit to God. Our lives may on the outside thus be
largely amongst the things seen and temporal, and yet all the while may
penetrate through these, and lay hold with their true roots on the
eternal. If we have any religious life at all, the measure in which we
possess it is the measure in which we may ever more dwell in the house
of the Lord, and have our hearts in the secret place of the Most High,
amid the stillnesses and the sanctities of His immediate dwelling.

Our Master is the great Example of this, of whom it is said, not only
in reference to His mysterious and unique union of nature with the
Father in His divinity, but in reference to the humanity which He had in
common with us all, yet without sin, that the Son of Man came down from
heaven, and even in the act of coming, and when He had come, was yet the
Son of Man 'which _is in heaven_.' Thus we, too, may have 'a place of
access among them that stand by,' and not need to envy the angels and
the spirits of the just made perfect, the closeness of their communion,
and the vividness of their vision, for the same, in its degree, may be
ours. We, too, can turn all our desires into petitions, and of every
wish make a prayer. We, too can refer all our needs to His infinite
supply. We, too may consciously connect all our doings with His will and
His glory; and for us it is possible that there shall be, as if borne on
those electric wires that go striding across pathless deserts, and carry
their messages through unpeopled solitudes, between Him and us a
communication unbroken and continuous, which, by a greater wonder than
even that of the telegraph, shall carry two messages, going opposite
ways simultaneously, bearing to Him the swift aspirations and
supplications of our spirits, and bringing to us the abundant answer of
His grace. Such a conversation in heaven, and such association with the
bands of the blessed is possible even for a life upon earth.

Secondly, let us consider this promise as a pattern for us of what
Christian life should be, and, alas! so seldom is.

All privilege is duty, and everything that is possible for any Christian
man to become, it is imperative on him to aim at. There is no greater
sin than living beneath the possibilities of our lives, in any region,
whether religious or other it matters not. Sin is not o