reaks
under it, He waits that fullest opportunity shall be given His followers
to be true. If His Church is set aside it will be only at the last
moment when her failure is utterly hopeless. If the candlestick is
removed out of its place, it will be only after it has completely
removed itself out of all touch with the Light. A candlestick holding
out no light is an utterly useless thing to the man in the dark.

It is possible for the Church to be a magnificent organization, an
honoured institution, exerting immense influence in national politics,
enormously rich in gold and in scholarship and in traditions, and even
in carrying forward an aggressive missionary propaganda, and yet be
faithless to its one mission. If the Church should fail in this its one
mission, then the waiting time is over. The way is clear for the next
step in the world plan. And a momentous step that would be, beyond our
power to grasp. But the waiting time still holds out.

This is the simple, tremendous plea of this new sight of the crowned
Christ as He is shown here. The centre of the universe to Him is this
earth. The centre of things on the earth is His Church. The centre of
things in the Church is its giving Jesus the Light out to all the earth.

And if this be the way things looked to His eye at the close of the
first century, how, think you, do they look at this beginning of the
twentieth? Has that momentum of movement toward increasing smokiness
slacked? Is the waiting time nearly run out?

The present is a momentous time. Even men of the world speak of the
world-wide restlessness as pointing to some impending event of world
size. And he who is in some sort of simple touch with the spirit world
can feel the air a-thrill with the possibility of world events
impending, even while he wonders just what and when.

One in the Midst.

It is most striking how it came about that John got this sight of
Christ. The change was not in Christ's presence, but in John's eyes.
Christ did not come. He was there. John's eyes were opened. Then he saw
Him who stands watching and waiting. _Christ is here._ The Man of Fire
and of restraining love is here on the earth in the midst of His Church
looking and longing, listening, and feeling.

If only our eyes were opened to see! There standeth One in our midst
whom we recognize not. Wherever any company of believers banded together
as a Church to worship and pray and break holy bread are gathered, under
wha