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those in place and power on the despised Nazarene, who dared to lay His impious hand on God s own
ark this you can see to be impossible.
He was too pure and good to escape envy, too uncompromising and earnest not to provoke jealousy.
His doctrines were too searching to be popular; His life precepts too spiritual to suit an age of luxury and
ease. And so the age that could not receive the advanced truth crucified Him who taught it. The age of
hollowness and impurity revenged itself on the pure and holy Son of Truth by hanging Him on the tree of
shame between the representatives of crime.
So it was. So in many cases it is still in intent, if not in deed. There have been reformers who have meted
out to an age, over which a wave of Divine enthusiasm has just passed, that aspect of truth which
commends itself to them, and so have found acceptance for their message, and have won honour and
renown in its preaching. There have been others, too, who have had more of the world s wisdom and
discretion, and so have been of higher service. But these are rare. To most, as to the Anointed One,
death comes with contumely and open shame as the reward of truth. Death to the teacher, but
resurrection and new life to His teaching. It is not till the instrument is lost sight of that the value of the
message is realised. We need not draw out the parable at length.
Hanging on the cross, the friends of the Christ were few indeed a few women whose readier instincts
and affections were true and firm in the hour of deepest darkness; and two of those who should have
been nearest at hand, Joseph and Nicodemus, the two, be it known, who had made least open
profession, and had even seemed most cowardly. All the rest were fled. The Teacher of new truth, the
preacher of a new dispensation, where was He? Dead. And where was His gospel? Dead, too, to all
appearance. None rememberd, none heeded it or Him. But men judge hastily. None knew who rolled
that stone from the tomb s mouth, save that it was done by that might of Spirit wherewith ever and anon
your world is regenerated, and death turned into new life. An angel did it; and the same power that
opened that tomb and stirred its occupant whom men thought dead and buried out of sight availed to
vivify His message, and to nurture it through evil and good report, until it dominated the nations, and
became in its age a mighty engine of spiritual truth.
Turn now to the individual soul. Its lot is much the same. Whether its message of what to it is Divine truth
is one that makes its impress on the age or not: whether, if it do, it be received as the needful word in
season, or as the impertinence of a meddling innovator, it will, almost surely, have to make its way
through conflict to acceptance. Such is the Divine method of sifting. And in proportion to the severity of
that conflict will be the vigour with which it will be found to have taken hold of men. The roots will be all
the deeper and firmer fixed in proportion as the ground above has been trampled down by contending
feet. Whether the life of conflict end as did the life we contemplate, or whether feebler zeal or larger
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discretion preserve the teacher from the same fate, matters little. The word of truth must pass through the
conflict to final victory, even as the soul in its solicitude and isolation must contend with tempters and
with foes till it becomes perfect through suffering, and wins the crown by the cross.
The life of the Christ during such time as He remained on earth after His resurrection was symbolic of the
change that passes on the risen life of spirit. In the world, but not of it: moving in it as a visitor who
conforms to but does not belong to it. He was animated by that most potent law of spirit which you may
trace in all the ways of spirit-influence the law of love. Whenever He appeared, whatever He did, this
was the motive. The records left to you, both meagre and erroneous as they are, are yet sufficiently full
to show this. He fulfilled the law of love, and then ascended to His own proper sphere: no longer seen,
but felt: no longer a personal presence, but an effluence and influence of grace.
So the souls who voluntarily linger around your earth are those whose motive-spring is love, or they
whose mission is animated by the same master principle. Personal affection or universal love are the
motives that draw the higher spirits down to you. And when the duty is discharged they too will ascend
to the common Father and the Universal God.
Be of good hope! You are too apt to fancy that truth is dead. When the cold dark days of winter are
with you, you are chilled. You forget the spring that has dawned on many a winter past. You forget that
death leads to resurrection, and on to regenerated life life in a wider sphere, with extended usefulness,
with nobler aims, with truer purpose. You forget that death must precede such life that what you call
death, so far as it can affect Divine Truth, is but the dying of the grain of seed which is the condition of
abundant increase. Death in life is the spiritual motto. Death culminating in a higher life. Victory in the
grave, and through death. In dealing with spiritual truth do not forget this.
In times of brightness and calm you may fear. When the air is stagnant and the heat scorching, when the
moisture is dried up, and the fierce sun beats down with untempered splendour, the tender plant may
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