"*T 
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 / 
 
 )
 
 presented to the 
 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 
 Dr. Frederick Schilling
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP: 
 
 A DEVOTIONAL COMMENTARY 
 
 ON 
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 CHRISTINA G. RPSSETTI, 
 
 *s^~ 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SEEK AND FIND, "TIME FLIES, ETC. 
 
 "Thy judgments are a great deep." PSALM xxxvi. 6. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDEB THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. J 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, B.C. 
 
 NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 
 1895.
 
 RKHAKD CI.AY & SONS, LIMITED 
 LONDON & BUNGAY.
 
 TO 
 
 tir ffiotjjer, 
 
 FOR THE FIRST TIME 
 
 TO HER 
 BELOVED, REVERED, CHERISHED MEMORY.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 IF tliou canst dive, bring up pearls. If thou canst not 
 dive, collect amber. Though I fail to identify Paradisiacal 
 "bdellium," I still may hope to search out beauties of the 
 "onyx stone." 
 
 A dear saint I speak under correction of the Judgment of 
 the Great Day, yet think not then to have my word corrected 
 this dear person once pointed out to me Patience as our 
 lesson in the Book of Revelations. 
 
 Following the clue thus afforded me, I seek and hope to 
 find Patience in this Book of awful import. Patience, at the 
 least : and along with that grace whatever treasures beside 
 God may vouchsafe me. Bearing meanwhile in mind how 
 " to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him 
 it is sin." 
 
 Now if any deign to seek Patience in my company, I pray 
 them to remember that One high above me in the Kingdom of 
 Heaven heads our pilgrim caravan. 
 
 O, ye who love to-day, 
 
 Turn away 
 
 From Patience with her silver ray : 
 
 For Patience shows a twilight face, 
 
 Like a half-lighted moon 
 
 When daylight dies apace. 
 
 But ye who love to-morrow, 
 Beg or borrow 
 
 To-day some bitterness of sorrow : 
 For Patience shows a lustrous face 
 In depth of night her noon ; 
 Then to her sun gives place.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto 
 
 Him, to show unto His servants things which must 
 shortly come to pass ; and He sent and signified it by 
 His angel unto His servant John : 
 
 2. Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony 
 
 of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. 
 
 "Things which must shortly come to pass." At the end 
 of 1800 years we are still repeating this " shortly," because it 
 is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ : thus 
 starting in fellowship of patience with that blessed John who 
 owns all Christians as his brethren (see ver. 9). 
 
 More marvellous than many marvels subsequently revealed 
 is that initiatory marvel, the dignity of Him Who ministers to 
 His own servants. For God Almighty it is Who gives to Jesus 
 Christ His Co-Equal Son a Revelation for man. It reaches us 
 through Angel and Apostle, but these are the channel, not the 
 fountain-head, as St. Paul writes to his Corinthian converts : 
 " What hast thou that thou didst not receive ? now if thou didst 
 receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received 
 it?" 
 
 Wherefore are we God's creatures? To the end that He 
 may do us good. Wherefore are we Christ's servants ? To 
 the end that He may save us. And how helped He His 
 fallen creatures? By taking their damage upon Himself. 
 And how took He in hand to save His servants? By sacri- 
 ficing Himself for them. Did He at all need us as servants ? 
 Nay, but we needed Him. 
 
 Thee we needed, Thee we need, O Only Almighty, All- 
 merciful Redeemer. As Thou for us who needed Thee, so
 
 lo THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 grant that we may spend ourselves for any who need us ; nor 
 desire to have servants or dependents or inferiors except so far 
 as we may do them good, requiting to them what Thou hast 
 done to us. 
 
 [Such cannot be our honest theory, unless it be likewise our 
 honest practice.] 
 
 We may not connect so human a virtue as patience with the 
 blessed Angels, because exemption from sin seems to entail 
 incapacity for certain graces. But St. John, of like passions 
 with ourselves, may indeed have needed patience to " prophesy 
 again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and 
 kings " of that " whole world " whereof he himself avers that 
 it lieth in wickedness. 
 
 "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto 
 Him, to show unto His servants things which must . . . 
 come to pass." Christ reveals to us these things, and by 
 virtue of His Spirit dwelling in us, these and all things reveal 
 to us Christ. For while this Book abounds in the terror of the 
 Lord, through and above tumult of multitudes and their voice 
 as of voluminous waters or of mighty thunderings sounds the 
 dear word, " It is I ; be not afraid." 
 
 Teach us, O Lord, to fear Thee without terror, and to trust 
 Thee without misgiving : to fear Thee in love, until it please 
 Thee that we shall love Thee without fear. 
 
 " To show unto His servants." The promise is to " His 
 servants " only, in accordance with our Lord's own words : 
 " If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine. . ." : 
 he, not another. Obedience is the key of knowledge, not 
 knowledge of obedience. Yet this showing is not the same as 
 explaining : truths or events are certified to us, and in conse- 
 quence we know them ; but it by no means follows that we 
 can account for them or foresee the time or the manner of 
 their coming to pass. Even St. Paul was content to class 
 himself with his hearers when he wrote, " We know in part." 
 And St. Peter attests how the prophets " inquired and searched 
 diligently . . . searching what, or what manner of time the 
 Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify . . . Unto 
 whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us 
 they did minister . . ." 
 
 Seems it a small thing to minister rather than to be ministered 
 unto ? Nay : for thus did the Lord Jesus, Who likewise said, 
 " It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
 
 " The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise Thee." 
 
 Things there are which "the angels desire to look into."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 11 
 
 Somewhat of the manifold Wisdom of God was not known 
 unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places until the 
 Church brought it to light. 
 
 " Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, and with all the 
 company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy Glorious Name, 
 evermore praising Thee." 
 
 O Gracious Saviour, Who declaredst unto St. Peter, " What 
 I do, thou knowest not now ; but thou shall know hereafter " ; 
 give us grace now to answer Thee with his final submission, 
 that hereafter we may adore Thee with his insight. 
 
 O Gracious Saviour, Who bestowedst upon St. John a great 
 glory of humility when he bare record how Thou saidst not of 
 him, " He shall not die," grant unto us in mortal life humility, 
 and in life immortal glory. 
 
 Heaven is not far, though far the sky 
 
 Overarching earth and main. 
 Itjakes not long to Hve_and die, 
 
 Die, revive, and rise again. 
 
 Not long : Tiow long"? Oh long re-echoing song 1 
 O Lord, how long ? 
 
 "Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony 
 of Jesus Christ." Elsewhere St. John writes : " If we receive 
 the witness of men, the witness of God is greater." All truth 
 is venerable, let who will propound it ; now an Apostle, at 
 another time Caiaphas. Our Lord Himself said : " Ye sent 
 unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive 
 not testimony from man." Clearly then the Truth is to be 
 believed not for his word's sake who records it, but for His 
 Verity's sake Who reveals it. 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, who art" Truth and Wisdom, reveal 
 Thyself unto us, we beseech Thee. Thou art not far from 
 every one of us. Grant us good-will to draw nigh unto Thee, 
 Who deignest to draw nigh unto us. 
 
 " Who bare record ... of all things that he saw." J31essed 
 he who once and again saw and believed. None the less 
 Christ's promise stands sure to ourselves : " Blessed are they 
 that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
 
 O Saviour of men, Who sufferest not Thy beloved Disciple 
 to exclude us, even us, from any height or depth of beatitude, 
 give us grace to be of those blessed who not seeing believe. 
 
 3. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the 
 words of this prophecy, and keep those things which 
 are written therein, for the time is at hand.
 
 12 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " Understandest thou what thou readest?" asked Philip the 
 Deacon of the Ethiopian Eunuch. And he said, " How can I, 
 except some man should guide me ? " Whereupon flowed forth 
 to him the stream of light, knowledge, and love. Yet not then 
 did his illumination commence : it already was his in a mea- 
 sure to enjoy, respond to, improve, even before his father in 
 God preached Christ unto him. What could he do before 
 that moment? He could study and pray, he could cherish 
 hope, exercise love, feel after Him Whom as yet he could not 
 intelligently find. 
 
 So much at least we all can do who read, or who hear, this 
 Book of Revelations : thus claiming, and by God's bounty 
 inheriting, the covenanted blessing of such readers and hearers. 
 Any who pray and love enjoy already no stinted blessing. 
 Even the will to love is love. 
 
 A Deader and hearers stand in graduated degrees of know- 
 ledge or of ignorance, as the case may be. The reader study- 
 ing at first hand is in direct contact with God's Word : hearers 
 seek instruction of God through men. The reader requires 
 most gifts : hearers may exercise fully as much grace. Most 
 of us are hearers : having performed conscientiously the duty 
 of hearers, we shall be the less prone to make mistakes if ever 
 providentially promoted to be readers. Our dearest Lord, 
 Who deigned to become the pattern of every grade of aspirant, 
 as a Boy showed hearers how to hear (St. Luke ii. 46, 47) ; and 
 as a Man showed readers how to read (St. Luke iv. 16 27). 
 
 Lord, I am feeble and of mean account ; 
 Thou Who dost condescend as well as mount, 
 
 Stoop Thou Thyself to me 
 And grant me grace to hear and grace to see. 
 
 Lord, if Thou grant me grace to hear and see 
 Thy very Self Who stoopest thus to me, 
 
 1 make but slight account 
 Of aught beside wherein to sink or mount. 
 
 It suffices not to read or to hear the words of this prophecy, 
 except we also " keep those things which are written therein." 
 How keep them ? One part in one way, another part in 
 another : the commandments by obedience, the mysteries by 
 thoughtful reception ; as blessed Mary, herself a marvel, kept 
 mysterious intimations vouchsafed to her, and pondered them 
 in her heart. Yet never had she gone on in pursuit of all 
 mysteries and all knowledge if she had not first answered in
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 13 
 
 simple obedience : "Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it 
 unto me according to thy word." 
 
 O bountiful Lord, to Whom they who do the will of God are 
 as brother and sister and mother, number us in that blessed 
 company, that here we may obey and suffer as Thy patient 
 exiles, and hereafter rule and rejoice as Thy nearest and 
 dearest. 
 
 "Blessed are they ... for the time is at hand." Even 
 now, eighteen centuries later, we know not when that cry shall 
 be made, " Behold, the Bridegroom cometh ; go ye out to 
 meet Him." Nevertheless the time was then at hand, for so 
 the Bible ceitifiss us, and still must it be at hand. What 
 time? Doubtless the time of fulfilment after fulfilment until 
 all be fulfilled. Likewise also that (so to say) secondary time 
 when eacli one ofHSjliaving done with mortal life and pro- 
 bation, shall await judgment. For truly the end of all flesh is 
 at hand, whether or not we possess faith to realize how a 
 thousand years and one day are comparable in the Divine 
 sight. 
 
 " A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when 
 it is past, and as a watch in the night." 
 
 Blessed are the wise virgins whose lamps burn on unto the 
 endless end. " Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord 
 when He comelh shall find watching." "If ye know these 
 things, happy are ye if ye do them." 
 
 "The time is at hand," ever at hand ; yet it waits long for 
 us : " Who knoweth if he will return and repent ? " But if we 
 will not return or repent, " iniquity shall be to you as a breach 
 ready to fall . . . whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant." 
 
 O Lord God of time and eternity, Who makest us creatures 
 of time to the end that when time is over we may attain to 
 Thy blessed eternity ; with time, Thy gift, give us also wisdom 
 to redeem the time, lest our day of grace be lost. For our 
 Lord Jesus' sake. Amen. 
 
 Astonished Heaven looked on when man was made, 
 When fallen man reproved seemed half forgiven ; 
 
 Surely that oracle of hope first said 
 Astonished Heaven. 
 
 Even so while one by one lost souls are shriven, 
 
 A mighty multitude of quickened dead ; 
 Christ's love outnumbering ten times sevenfold seven. 
 
 Even so while man still tosses high his head, 
 
 While still the All-holy Spirit's strife is striven ; 
 
 Till one last trump shake earth, and undismayed 
 Astonished Heaven.
 
 14 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 4. John to the seven churches which are in Asia : Grace be 
 
 unto you, and peace, from Him which is, and which 
 was, and which is to come ; and from the seven Spirits 
 which are before His throne ; 
 
 5. And from Jesus Christ, Who is the faithful Witness, and 
 
 the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the 
 kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed 
 us from our sins in His own blood, 
 
 6. And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His 
 
 Father ; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and 
 ever. Amen. 
 
 " John to the . seven Churches." Gracious the speaker, 
 because his mouth was rilled with a grace not his own. Whoso 
 speaketh for_C^od must take heed to speak like God. If St. 
 Paul made himself all things to all men, that he might by all 
 means save some, how much more Christ ! St. John saluteth, 
 but not with his own salutation : " What hast thou that thou 
 hast not received ? " 
 
 Nothing perhaps ever brought more vividly home to me the 
 condescension, not of the servant, but of the Master, than once 
 when at a Communion which was to me almost a sick Com- 
 munion, the Celebrant in administering moved a chair slightly 
 for my greater convenience. " He knoweth whereof we are 
 made ; He remembereth that we are but dust." 
 
 " Grace be unto you, and peace." Before we tremble, God 
 reassures us. " Yea, like as a father pitieth his own children, 
 even so is the Lord merciful unto them that fear Him." 
 
 O God Almighty, by Whom and before Whom we all are 
 brethren, grant us so truly to love one another, that evidently 
 and beyond all doubt we may love Thee. Through Jesus 
 Christ Thy Son, our Lord and Brother. Amen. 
 
 "Grace . . . and peace." "Thou shall keep him in 
 perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee : because he 
 trusteth in Thee." 
 
 " From Him which is, and which was, and which is to 
 come." Not "was is is to come." " Is" abides perpetual, 
 unalterable, dominant. Antecedent to creatures, antecedent 
 to time, is revealed to our finite conception by " was " : out- 
 lasting time, by " is to come " : whilst parallel with creatures, 
 with time, with all beginnings and all ends, abides the eternal 
 "is." We creatures of time, who might instinctively have 
 written " was is is to come," are thus helped, not indeed 
 to understand, but to adore the inconceivable, eternal,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 absolute Unchangeableness of God. We run a course; not 
 so He. 
 
 " And from the Seven Spirits which are before His throne." 
 These words appear to correspond with those of Isaiah : " The 
 Spirit of the Lord . . . the Spirit of wisdom and understand- 
 ing, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge 
 and of the fear of the Lord." Also with the description of the 
 golden candlestick in the Mosaic Tabernacle: "And thou 
 shall make a candlestick of pure gold . . . And thou shall 
 make the seven lamps thereof : and they shall light the lamps 
 thereof, that they may give light . . ." 
 
 A mystery confronts us. We read of Seven, yet we dare not 
 think except as of One. 
 
 " O God the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and 
 the Son: have mercy upon us, miserable sinners." "Lighten 
 our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord." 
 
 Multitude no less than Unity characterizes various types of 
 God the Holy Spirit. Water indefinitely divisible, and every 
 portion equivalent in completeness to the whole. Fire kind- 
 ling unlimited flames, each in like manner complete in itself. 
 Dew made up of innumerable drops : so also rain, and if we 
 may make the distinction, showers. A cloud as a cloud is 
 one, while as raindrops it is a multitude. And as in division 
 each portion is a complete whole devoid of parts, so equally in 
 reunion all portions together form one complete whole simi- 
 larly devoid of parts : let drops or let flames run together, and 
 there exists no distinction of parts in their uniform volume. 
 
 " Before His throne." As the golden candlestick stood 
 before the Holy of Holies. 
 
 "And from Jesus Christ, Who Is the Faithful Witness." 
 Not John, but Jesus : or rather Jesus through John, and John 
 only because of Jesus. St. John, the Apostle of love, becomes 
 here the mouthpiece of very Love. So that in this Apocalypse 
 not glories only, joys unutterable, perfection, are witnessed to 
 us by Love, but terrors likewise, doom, the Judgment, the 
 opened Books, the lake of fire. Love reveals to us these 
 things, threatens now that it may spare then, shows us dc- 
 structionTest we destroy ourselves. 
 
 Let us not in all our tremblings forget or doubt that it 
 is Faithful Love which speaketh. 
 
 My God, Thyself being Love Thy heart is love, 
 And love Thy Will and love Thy Word to us, 
 Whether Thou show us depths calamitous 
 Or heights and flights of rapturous peace above.
 
 16 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 O Christ the Lamb, O Holy Ghost the Dove, 
 
 Reveal the Almighty Father unto us ; 
 
 That we may tread Thy courts felicitous, 
 Loving Who loves us, for our God is Love. 
 Lo, if our God be Love through heaven's long day, 
 
 Love is He through our mortal pilgrimage, 
 
 Love was He through all aeons that are told. 
 We change, but Thou remainest ; for Thine age 
 
 Is, Was, and Is to come, nor new nor old ; 
 We change, but Thou remainest : yea, and yea ! 
 
 "The Faithful Witness" demands faith : "the First Begotten 
 of the dead " invites hope : " the Prince of the kings of the 
 earth " challenges obedience. Nosv faith may be dead, hope 
 presumptuous, obedience slavish. But " He that loved us " 
 thereby wins our love : and forthwith by virtue of love faith 
 lives, hope is justified, obedience is enfranchised. 
 
 Loveless faith is dead, being alone. Loveless hope leads to 
 I shame. Loveless obedience makes fair the outside, but within 
 / is rottenness. Balaam seems to exemplify all three. 
 
 " Without shedding of blood is no remission," wherefore 
 Christ washed us from our sins in His own blood. 
 
 But God Almighty declared of old : "Surely your blood of 
 your lives will I require." Whence it follows that if after such 
 cleansing we give ourselves over to pollution, we become guilty 
 of the Blood of the Lord, and bring upon ourselves destruction. 
 Our sins crucified Him once, and He forgave and cleansed 
 us : if by obstinate sin we crucify the Son of God afresh, who 
 shall again cleanse or forgive us ? for there remaineth no more 
 offering for sins. 
 
 Lord, by Thy Love of us, that great Love wherewith Thou 
 hast loved us, let not our latter end be worse than our beginning. 
 
 " Kings and Priests." At the least and lowest, each of us 
 king with subject self to rule ; priest with leprous self to 
 examine and judge. At one step higher "the King's face gives 
 grace," and we edify our brethren. " Let your light so shine 
 before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify 
 your Father which is in Heaven." Another step upward, and 
 we execute our priestly function of intercession, offering up 
 prayers and thanks for all men : and highest of all, we offer up 
 ourselves to God in will and in deed as His reasonable and 
 lively sacrifice, beseeching Him to sanctify and accept our self- 
 oblation. 
 
 O Good Lord God, Who uniting us with Thine everlasting 
 Kino; and Priest Jesus Christ, makest us unworthy in Him to 
 be Thy kings and priests, constitute us what Thou requirest, 

 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 17 
 
 endow us with what Thou desirest. Give us royal hearts to 
 give back ourselves to Thee Who bestowest all, and priestly 
 hearts to sacrifice ourselves to Thee, and keep back nothing, 
 through the grace of Thine indwelling Holy Spirit, by Whom 
 Christ dwells in His members. We ask this for His sake, for 
 Whose sake we cannot ask too much. Amen. 
 
 Long and dark the nights, dim and short the days, 
 Mounting weary heights on our weary ways, 
 
 The our God we praise. 
 Scaling heavenly heights by unearthly ways, 
 Thee our God we praise all our nights and days, 
 
 Thee our God we praise. 
 
 "The First begotten of the dead." "The Firstborn of 
 every creature." " He is not a God of the dead, but of the 
 living : for all live unto Him." " To this end Christ both 
 died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of 
 the dead and living." Thus tenderly does God provide for all 
 estates of men, whether dead or alive. Though His elect be 
 dead, He accounts and keeps them alive in Christ, and blots 
 not their names out of the book of His remembrance, and 
 suffers not earth so to cover their blood that they should be 
 overlooked, and knows whence to recover their dust, and holds 
 their souls in His hand. " The souls of the righteous are in 
 the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them . . . 
 They are in peace." 
 
 St. Paul has left us words of mutual comfort : " I would not 
 have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are 
 asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 
 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them 
 also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this 
 we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are 
 alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent 
 them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend 
 from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 
 with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first : 
 then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together 
 with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so 
 shall we ever be with the Lord." 
 
 And years before, as one whom his mother comforteth, 
 saintly Martha had been comforted by Christ Himself: " I am 
 the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in Me, though 
 he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and 
 believeth in Me shall never die." Amen, Good Lord. 
 
 8
 
 18 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 [Our Church Palms are budding willow twigs.] 
 
 While Christ lay dead the widowed world 
 
 Wore willow green for hope undone ; 
 Till, when bright Easter dews impearled 
 
 The chilly burial earth, 
 All north and south, all east and west, 
 
 Flushed rosy in the arising sun ; 
 Hope laughed, and faith resumed her rest, 
 
 And love remembered mirth. 
 
 "The seven Churches in Asia" on whom first alighted so 
 great a benediction ceased centuries ago to flourish locally : 
 nevertheless the Divine salutation has not returned unto God 
 empty. All Christendom being the abode of the Son of peace, 
 peace rests upon it and will rest to the end, although without 
 respect of particular place or particular person. Those Seven 
 Churches are representative of the entire Church Militant, the 
 number seven standing for completeness : as seven tints paint 
 the rainbow, and Wisdom hews out her seven pillars, and after 
 seven weeks of years dawned the new year of the Jewish 
 Jubilee, and a mystical seventh day closes the great week of 
 time. 
 
 Yet as to forgiveness, seven sums not up our debt : 
 "Peter . . . said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against 
 me, and I forgive him ? till seven times ? Jesus saith unto 
 him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times : but, Until seventy 
 times seven." 
 
 O Christ our God, Who of us requirest so much, suffer us 
 to plead with Thyself for more than that measure which from 
 us Thou requirest. For Thine own love's sake. 
 
 " Shall mortal man be more just than God ? shall a man be 
 more pure than his Maker ? " 
 
 If thou be dead, forgive and thou shall live ; 
 
 If thou hast sinned, forgive and be forgiven ; 
 God waiteth to be gracious and forgive, 
 And open heaven. 
 
 Set not thy will to die and not to live ; 
 
 Set not thy face as flint refusing heaven ; 
 Thou fool, set not thy heart on hell : forgive 
 And be forgiven. 
 
 How can man effectually ascribe to Christ "glory and 
 dominion for ever and ever"? Not merely by uttering Amen, 
 but by living Amen. To use the grace of God's most bounti- 
 ful salutation, thereby attaining His peace, constitutes us His 
 faithful servants and patient saints : servants who shall see His 
 face and serve Him in perfection j saints in whom He shall be
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 19 
 
 glorified when He cometh to be admired in all them that 
 believe. 
 
 " Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief." 
 Lord Jesus, what joy was that, what covetable good, for 
 whose sake Thou didst endure the Cross, despising the shame ? 
 Not for glory and dominion for ever and ever simply and for 
 their own sake. Already Thou hadst glory with the Father 
 before the world was, and dominion and fear were with Thee 
 before man transgressed Thy commandment. Nay, rather, it 
 was that as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so 
 mightest Thou rejoice over us. If Thou hadst given no more 
 than all the substance of Thy house for love, it might have 
 been contemned : but Thou hast given Thyself. What shall 
 we give Thee in return ? What shall we not give Thee ? 
 
 7. Behold, He cometh with clouds ; and every eye shall see 
 Him, and they also which pierced Him : and all 
 kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. 
 Even so, Amen. 
 
 Once to Nicodemus our Lord said : " Verily, verily, I say 
 unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have 
 seen : an'd ye receive not our witness." So now St. John, on 
 the threshold of his revelation, cries to us : " Behold " being 
 about to make us see with his eyes and hear with his ears, if 
 only we will understand with hearts akin to his own. 
 
 Dare we then aspire to become like St. John ? Wherefore 
 not, when we are bidden and invited to become like Christ ? 
 
 Our likeness to St. John (if by God's grace we assume any 
 vestige of such glory) must include faith and love, but need 
 not involve more than an elementary degree of knowledge. 
 
 Humility and prayer will guard us against culpable misunder- 
 standing, but may not for the present confer understanding. 
 I once heard a teacher instruct his class that Joshua when he 
 bade the sun stand still, himself rightly conceived the astro- 
 nomical position, whilst he spoke according to the opinion 
 of his hearers. Wherefore suppose this ? Faith alone, not 
 knowledge, seems essential to the miracle. 
 
 Similarly in our present study faith is required of us, and 
 faith *nay consist with either ignorance or knowledge. We 
 are bound to believe and obey: we may live, and haply we may 
 die, before being called upon to recognize hidden meanings. 
 
 St. John himself, illuminated as he was beyond mortal wont, 
 becomes our pattern of a gracious partial ignorance when he 
 records how the Lord said not of him, " He shall not die ; but,
 
 20 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? " 
 Certain disciples thinking to understand, misinterpreted : he 
 himself abiding by the simple letter of God's word, awaited 
 what the day should bring forth. 
 
 "Behold, He cometh with clouds." " Behold, the Bride- 
 groom cometh ; go ye out to meet Him." Who shall go out? 
 Nay, who shall tarry within? "The virgins love Thee"; and 
 the wise virgins at length after patient watching and waiting go 
 out. The foolish virgins too go out ; but alas ! they are not of 
 those who shall go in to the marriage. They that are in the 
 graves go out, some to everlasting life, some to shame and 
 everlasting contempt. The sea casts up her dead. North and 
 south, east and west, the winds, the ends of heaven, all give 
 back, all bring back, the dead. A very great army. 
 
 "And every eye shall see Him." All impelled in one 
 direction, all looking in one direction. Even a very small 
 crowd doing the same thing at the same instant has a thrilling, 
 awful power ; as once when I saw the chorus of a numerous 
 orchestra turn over their music sheets at the same moment, it 
 brought before me the Day of Judgment. 
 
 "He cometh with clouds." "Clouds and darkness are 
 round about Him ; righteousness and judgment are the habit- 
 ation of His throne." But we know not whether at that 
 supreme moment any one will even notice clouds, or angels, 
 or subordinate terrors. Now is our time to notice and avail 
 ourselves of them, if we aim at living by every word that pro- 
 ceedeth out of the mouth of God. 
 
 Each common cloud in this our cloudy climate may serve 
 to remind us of the cloud of the Ascension, and of the clouds 
 of the second Advent. Also of that great cloud of witnesses 
 who already compass us about, who one day will hear our 
 doom pronounced ; who perhaps will then for the moment 
 become as nothing to us when we stand face to face with 
 Christ our Judge: "At the brightness of His presence His 
 clouds removed." 
 
 " Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the 
 eyes to behold the sun." Good also are clouds when they 
 recall our thoughts to Christ ; yea, good is a horror of great 
 darkness, if thereby He vouchsafe us a revelation. 
 
 O all-sufficing Lord Jesus, our fear and our hope, nourish 
 in us the fear Thou requirest, and the hope Thou acceptest ; 
 that by fear we may become bold in obedience, and by hope 
 indomitable in perseverance, lest we fall and perish at Thy 
 presence.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 21 
 
 Ah, Lord, we all have pierced Thee : wilt Thou be 
 
 Wroth with us all to slay us all ? 
 Nay, Lord, be this thing far from Thee and me : 
 
 By whom should we arise, for we are small, 
 By whom if not by Thee ? 
 
 Lord, if of us who pierced Thee Thou spare one, 
 
 Spare yet one more to love Thy face, 
 And yet another of poor souls undone, 
 
 Another, and another God of grace, 
 Let mercy overrun. 
 
 We all have pierced Him, and wicked Christians far more 
 cruelly than did those who of old knew not what they did. 
 Yet to those men who handled the nails and the spear (to any 
 of them who repented not) seems to appertain one special pang 
 of recognition, their pang and not another's a pang not 
 awaiting any who even from the left hand can answer, Lord, 
 when saw we Thee ? 
 
 No retributive agony for offences against our neighbour may 
 equal the sight of Christ Himself recognized too late. Yet 
 may it be but the extreme instance of what we incur daily, 
 hourly, by such offences, whether of commission, omission, 
 malign influence. What will it be to meet again those whom 
 we would have the mountains fall upon, and the hills cover? 
 souls whose blood cries out against us? some twofold more 
 child of hell of our own making? What will it be to depart 
 with our victims into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and 
 his angels ? O my God, what would it be by some miracle of 
 Thy mercy ourselves to stand safe while we behold one whom 
 we have corrupted depart into everlasting punishment ? 
 
 David when he beheld his own misdeed visited upon his 
 people " spake unto the Lord . . . and said, Lo, I have sinned, 
 and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they 
 done ? let Thine hand, I pray Thee, be against me . . . " 
 David, a man after God's own heart, saintly in his penitence. 
 Long before him Moses, by the grace of God, had freely identi- 
 fied himself for love's sake with his self-destroyed people : 
 " Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have 
 sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet 
 now, if Thou wilt, forgive their sin ; and if not, blot me, I pray 
 Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written." And once 
 again, centuries afterwards, St. Paul, rapt out of himself by love, 
 deliberately put on record : " I could wish that myself were 
 accursed from Christ for my brethren." For the spiritual world 
 also has had its giants, mighty men that were, of old, men of 
 renown.
 
 22 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Now we have been created small, and not great, and further, 
 we may have stunted and dwarfed ourselves by sin ; and if so 
 (at least for the present) it may both seem and be simply 
 hopeless for us to aim at heights or at depths. Still, however 
 ignominious our level, the person we have wronged has a 
 present, urgent, instant claim upon us, and if we can do nothing 
 else by way of reparation, we can pray for him. " Yes, verily, 
 and by God's help so I will." 
 
 O Lord God, Almighty and All-merciful, cleanse those whom 
 I have denied, heal those whom I have wounded, strengthen 
 those whom I have enfeebled, set right those whom I have 
 misled, recall to Thyself those whom I have alienated from 
 Thee. I pray Thee, save these sinners, save all sinners, and 
 amongst all sinners save me the sinner. For Jesus' sake, the 
 Friend of sinners. Amen. 
 
 " All kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him " or, 
 as in the Revised Version : " All the tribes of the earth shall 
 mourn over Him." The two translations suggest different 
 trains of thought. 
 
 The first seems to set before us those whose resurrection 
 bodies being still of the earth earthy, their resurrection cannot 
 but be the resurrection of damnation. "Kindreds of the 
 earth," and by their own free will wedded to earth, the union 
 abides indissoluble even while earth and all that is therein 
 are being burnt up because the Day of the Lord is come. 
 " There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." They whose 
 whole lives have clamoured to God to depart from them must 
 abide by the awful sentence, " Depart from Me." 
 
 But the second reading has a different sound, rather as if 
 all souls alike should go forth and weep bitterly, alike, yet 
 how unlike. Saints mourning because they have never mourned 
 enough over the sins which slew their Beloved, because they have 
 never loved enough the Beloved of their souls. "They shall 
 look upon Me Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn 
 for Him as one mourn eth for his only son, and shall be in 
 bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." 
 
 Yet not to picture saints as mourning when the days of 
 mourning are ended, I set aside my own thought, and dwell 
 upon it only so far as to realize vividly the unworthiness of 
 even the most worthy, and (if such grace be granted me) to 
 nurse tenderness and contrition in my own hard heart. 
 
 Lord, now give us tears, yea, always tears so long as they 
 shall be to Thy glory ; tears acceptable to Thee, stored in Thy 
 bottle ; tears which Thou Thyself wilt wipe away.
 
 tHE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Thy lovely saints do bring Thee love, 
 
 Incense and joy and gold ; 
 Fair star with star, fair dove with dove, 
 
 Beloved by Thee of old. 
 I, Master, neither star nor dove, 
 
 Have brought Thee sins and tears ; 
 Yet I too bring a little love 
 
 Amid my flaws and fears. 
 A trembling love that faints and fails 
 
 Yet still is love of Thee, 
 A wondering love that hopes and hails 
 
 Thy boundless love of me ; 
 Love kindling failh and pure desire, 
 
 Love following on to bliss, 
 A spark, O Jesus, from Thy fire, 
 
 A drop from Thine abyss. 
 
 " Even so, Amen." " Amen " alone closed the doxology 
 (ver. 6), but here where judgment is the theme, St. John doubles 
 his assent. A lesson of adhesion to the revealed Will of God, 
 be that Will what it may : a foreshowing of the perfected will 
 and mind of all saints at the separating right and left of the 
 final division : an example of the conformity we must now pray 
 and strive after : even so, Amen. . 
 
 8. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, 
 saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is 
 to come, the Almighty. 
 
 " I am Alpha and Omega." Thus well-nigh at the opening 
 of these mysterious Revelations, we find in this title an instance 
 of symbolical language accommodated to human apprehension ; 
 for any literal acceptation of the phrase seems obviously and 
 utterly inadmissible. God condescends to teach us somewhat 
 we can learn, and in a way by which we are capable of learning 
 it. So, doubtless, either literally or figuratively, throughout 
 the entire Book. 
 
 Such a consideration encourages us, I think, to pursue our 
 study of the Apocalypse, ignorant as we may be. Bring we 
 patience and prayer to our quest, and assuredly we shall not 
 be sent empty away. The Father of lights may still withhold 
 from us knowledge, but He will not deny us wisdom. 
 
 M Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things 
 out of Thy law." 
 
 If a letter of the alphabet may be defined as a unit of 
 language, then under this title "Alpha and Omega" we may 
 adore God as the sole original Existence, the Unit of Existence
 
 24 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 whence are derived all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
 tongues ; yea, all other existences whatsoever. 
 
 This title derived from human language seems to call espe- 
 cially upon " men confabulant " for grateful homage. As said 
 of old the wise son of Sirach : " The Lord hath given me a 
 tongue for my reward, and I will praise Him therewith." Or 
 as the sweet Psalmist of Israel declared : " I will sing and give 
 praise with the best member that I have." 
 
 Alas ! that men often pervert their choicest gifts to their 
 soul's dire destruction. For St. James bears witness against 
 the tongue: "The tongue is a little member, and boasteth 
 great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth ! 
 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity : so is the tongue 
 among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and 
 setteth on fire the course of nature ; and it is set on fire of 
 hell . . . The tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly 
 evil, full of deadly poison." 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, Wisdom and Word of God, dwell in our 
 hearts, I beseech Thee, by Thy most Holy Spirit, that out of 
 the abundance of our hearts our mouths may speak Thy praise. 
 Amen. 
 
 " The beginning and the ending." "The beginning " abso- 
 lutely and in every sense, antecedent to all, cause of all, origin 
 of all. 
 
 Not so "the ending" ; for by God's merciful Will whilst all 
 creatures have a commencement, many abide exempt from any 
 end, being constituted to share His own eternity. Yet in a 
 different sense God is " the Ending " of all creation, inasmuch 
 as all permanent good creatures converge to His Beatific 
 Presence, find their true unalterable level at His right hand, 
 rejoice in His joy, and rest in His rest for ever and ever. 
 In Him all, out of Him none, attain to fulness of life immortal. 
 " He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall 
 abide under the shadow of the Almighty." 
 
 Contrariwise, obstinate sinners who finally and of set purpose 
 approach not unto Him by attraction of love, dash themselves 
 against Him in endless rebellion of hatred; as miry waves 
 upheaved over and over again from the troubled deep might 
 shatter themselves over and over again against the Rock of Ages. 
 
 " Fear ye not me ? saith the Lord : will ye not tremble at 
 My presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the 
 sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it : and though 
 the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail ; 
 though they roar, yet can they not pass over it ? "
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 25 
 
 " If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there : if I make my 
 bed in hell, behold, Thou art there." 
 " The Almighty." 
 
 O Lord Almighty, Who hast formed us weak, 
 
 With us whom Thou hast formed deal fatherly ; 
 Be found of us whom Thou hast deigned to seek, 
 
 Be found that we the more may seek for Thee ; 
 Lord, speak and grant us ears to hear Thee speak ; 
 
 Lord, come to us and grant us eyes to see ; 
 Lord, make us meek, for Thou Thyself art meek ; 
 
 Lord, Thou art Love, fill us with charity. 
 O Thou the Life of living and of dead, 
 
 Who givest more the more Thyself hast given, 
 Suffice us as Thy saints Thou hast sufficed ; 
 
 That beautified, replenished, comforted, 
 Still gazing off from earth and up at heaven, 
 
 We may pursue Thy steps, Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Christ said : " I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear 
 Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; 
 yea, I say unto you, Fear Him " words to awaken fear : may 
 it be a godly fear. 
 
 Meanwhile in these words of dread lies a great encourage- 
 ment. The power to destroy us is limited to the Almighty, 
 and He is the All-merciful. 
 
 " O God, Who declares! Thy almighty power most chiefly in 
 showing mercy and pity ; mercifully grant unto us such a 
 measure of Thy grace, that we, running the way of Thy 
 commandments, may obtain Thy gracious promises, and be 
 made partakers of Thy heavenly treasure ; through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. Amen." 
 
 "The Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am 
 the Almighty God ; walk before Me, and be thou perfect." 
 "When the Almighty scattered kings for their sake : then were 
 they as white as snow in Salmon." 
 
 Because our God is Almighty, therefore can He demand of 
 us purity and perfection, for by aid of His preventing grace we 
 can respond to His demand. Thanks be to Him, through 
 Jesus Christ our Righteousness. 
 
 How light a heart befits one whose burden the Almighty deigns 
 to carry with him. "Why art thou so heavy, O my soul : and 
 why art thou so disquieted within me? Oh, put thy trust in God." 
 
 9. I John, who also am your brother, and companion in 
 tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus 
 Christ, was in the island that is called Fatmos, for the 
 word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
 
 26 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " Your brother, and companion ... in the kingdom . . . 
 of Jesus Christ." Thus far St. John addresses all baptized 
 Christians ; but not necessarily all, as concerns " tribulation " 
 and "patience." The first and obvious privileges are ours by 
 Royal gift ; the second and less obvious are likewise ours 
 potentially and in the germ, yet neither effectually nor in 
 maturity unless our own free will co-operate with God's pre- 
 disposing grace. 
 
 Patience is a great grace ; but is it at all a privilege ? Yes, 
 surely. The patient soul, lord of itself, sits imperturbable amid 
 the jars of life and serene under its frets. " Let patience have 
 her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting 
 nothing." Hence we infer that where patience is perfect, 
 nought else will remain imperfect. 
 
 Tribulation cannot but be a privilege, inasmuch as it makes 
 us so far like Christ. 
 
 O Tender Lord Jesus, Who layest not upon us more than 
 we can bear, give us patience in tribulation ; a courageous, sweet 
 patience ; a patient, indomitable hope. 
 
 "I John . . . was in the isle that is called Patmos, for 
 the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." All 
 for edification, nothing for self-glorification : so much and no 
 more does St. John tell us of his confession and exile. 
 
 Christians should resemble fire-flies, not glow-worms ; their 
 brightness drawing eyes upward, not downward. 
 
 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind 
 
 me a great voice, as of a trumpet, 
 
 11. Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last : 
 
 and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto 
 the seven churches which are in Asia ; unto Ephesus, 
 and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto 
 Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and 
 unto Laodicea. 
 
 "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." Rome and St. 
 John had come to an issue. Rome had power of life and 
 death, chains and sentence of banishment on its side : St. John 
 on his side had the defence of the Most High and the shadow 
 of the Almighty. " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is 
 liberty," neither was the Word of God bound. Immovable as 
 Patmos the rock amid buffeting winds and waves, St. John 
 stood fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made him 
 free.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 27 
 
 Earth cannot bar flame from ascending, 
 Hell cannot bind light from descending, 
 Death cannot finish life never ending. 
 
 Eagle and sun gaze at each other, 
 Eagle at sun, brother at Brother, 
 Loving in peace and joy one another. 
 
 O St. John, with chains for thy wages, 
 Strong thy rock where the storm-blast rages, 
 Rock of refuge, the Rock of Ages. 
 
 Rome hath passed with her awful voice, 
 Earth is passing with all her joys, 
 Heaven shall pass away with a noise. 
 
 So from us all follies that please us, 
 
 So from us all falsehoods that ease us, 
 
 Only all saints abide with their Jesus. 
 
 Jesus, in love looking down hither, 
 Jesus, by love draw us up thither, 
 That we in Thee may abide together. 
 
 "A great voice, as of a trumpet, saying . . ." Now if the 
 trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to 
 the battle ? But this trumpet voice uttereth no uncertain 
 sound, but a great alarum, sounding an alarm in God's holy 
 mountain, and bidding every soul make ready against the 
 sounding of that other trumpet-blast which will compel a 
 response from living and dead, one and all. 
 
 If we entertain any uncertainty as to this voice, the un- 
 certainty lurks in ourselves, not elsewhere. So when long ago 
 sundry men appeared " as trees, walking," any peculiarity 
 observed resided in the vision of him who gazed, not in 
 the appearance of them who walked. 
 
 Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Grant us ears to 
 hear, eyes to see, wills to obey, hearts to love : then declare 
 what Thou wilt, reveal what Thou wilt, command what Thou 
 wilt, demand what Thou wilt. Amen. 
 
 The clause, " I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the 
 Last," is here omitted by the Revised Version. Very nearly 
 the same words have already occurred (ver. 8) and will recur 
 (xxi. 6 ; xxii. 13). 
 
 "What thou seest, write in a book, and send it . . ." 
 " Write," and forthwith St. John wrote. " Send it," and when 
 the moment came, means of transmission would be forthcoming. 
 Could St. John forecast those means ? Very probably not ; but 
 like another blessed saint before him, he did what he could.
 
 28 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Not so we. We make sure that the first step which depends 
 on ourselves can be taken, but we indulge misgivings as to the 
 second step which depends upon God alone. Whereupon we 
 omit that first step divinely put within our own power. God 
 condescends to trust us, and we will not trust Him. 
 
 Lord, I am here. But, child, I look for thee 
 
 Elsewhere and nearer Me. 
 Lord, that way moans a wide insatiate sea : 
 
 How can I come to Thee ? 
 Set foot upon the water, test and see 
 
 If thou canst come to Me. 
 Couldst Thou not send a boat to carry me, 
 
 Or dolphin swimming free ? 
 Nay, boat nor fish if thy will faileth thee : 
 
 For My Will too is free. 
 
 Lord, I am afraid. Take hold on Me : 
 I am stronger than the sea. 
 
 Save, Lord, I perish. I have hold of thee, 
 I made and rule the sea, 
 
 1 bring thee to the haven where thou wouldst be. 
 
 "To the seven Churches which are in Asia." What St. 
 John saw and wrote concerns Christendom of to-day, no less 
 directly and urgently than it concerned the seven Churches of 
 the Apostolic day. The great voice as of a trumpet adjures 
 every soul within hearing. 
 
 As a matter of history, those seven Churches were in the 
 main swept away long ago, misbelief ravaging and occupying 
 their territory. Their charge has been transferred to us, their 
 burden laid upon us : it is we who are called upon to overcome. 
 Amen ! 
 
 12. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. 
 
 And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks ; 
 
 13. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto 
 
 the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the 
 foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 
 
 14. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white 
 
 as snow ; and His eyes were as a flame of fire ; 
 
 15. And His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a 
 
 furnace ; and His voice as the sound of many waters. 
 
 16. And He had in His right hand seven stars : and out of 
 
 His mouth went a sharp two edged sword: and His 
 countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. 
 
 " When Thou saidst, Seek ye My face ; my heart said unto 
 Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 29 
 
 At the call of Jesus the saints turn as doves to their windows. 
 Are then their faces ever set from and not towards their Lord ? 
 Yes, by a figure, and so far as to confirm what St. John himself 
 elsewhere avers: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
 ourselves." Mortal saints at the best are such as St. Paul 
 describes himself as being: "Not as though I had already 
 attained, either were already perfect : but I follow after, if that 
 I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 Christ is our fountain-head and our abyss ; we begin from 
 Him, we end in Him. What He maketh us we are ; what He 
 bestoweth upon us we possess. We, as it were, pour and 
 empty ourselves and our treasures into Him, yet we enrich 
 Him not : what have we that we have not received ? The 
 gifts He giveth us are and remain His : we only ourselves, 
 unless we abide in Him, fetain neither life nor portion. 
 
 " All the rivers run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full ; 
 unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they 
 return again " this is true of earth's sea and of all which it 
 typifies : full it is, yet not filled, and it moans as with a craving 
 unappeasable. 
 
 Let us not refuse fulness to choose emptiness. " Behold 
 your God ! . . . Behold, the nations are as a drop of a 
 bucket . . . And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the 
 beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering." 
 
 " I sleep, but my heart waketh : it is the voice of my 
 Beloved." As sleep with a wakeful heart soon to be fully 
 awakened, as the needle's trembling to and fro to find its 
 rest, so is the saint's turning from and turning back to Christ. 
 The sanctified heart was neither slumbering nor estranged, but 
 the face had as it were perforce been turned away while the 
 feet sped on some Divine errand. " Turn again then unto thy 
 rest, O my soul." " I turned myself to behold Wisdom." 
 
 "And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and 
 in the midst of the seven candlesticks One like unto the Son 
 of man." St. John first saw, or at least he first mentions 
 having seen, not the One like unto the Son of man, but the 
 seven surrounding candlesticks. Even in that overwhelming 
 Presence, and at that moment of visible reunion, those likewise 
 he beheld : thus vividly bringing home to us the precept : 
 " That he who loveth God love his brother also." 
 
 O Gracious Lord Omniscient, Who hast forewarned us that 
 if we love not the brother we see neither can we love Thyself 
 unseen ; replenish us with such grace that we may love our
 
 30 THE FACE OF THE DEEP, 
 
 brethren much for Thy sake, and Thee much more for Thine 
 own sake. And if any love us, grant us our heart's desire 
 that from love of us they may ascend to the supreme love of 
 Thee. Amen, merciful Lord Jesus, Amen. 
 
 Moreover, who were they that St. John saw ? 
 
 Not (so far as we read) St. James his brother and fellow- 
 heir, not St. Peter with whom he had walked in the House of 
 God as a friend, not one by one any of those elect persons 
 whom he loved in the truth, and to one of whom he wrote : 
 "And now I beseech thee . . . that we love one another." 
 He beheld, and merely in a figure, congregations of Christians, 
 the majority of whom he may never have seen face to face in 
 the flesh. 
 
 Now St. John wrote by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
 "Saith He it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no 
 doubt, this is written." 
 
 If St. John, a man so greatly beloved and so greatly corre- 
 sponding to the Divine Love, recovered not in that moment of 
 ecstasy the visible presence of saints personally dear to him, 
 much more may we believe that from our frail selves the 
 prospect of such reunions is kept veiled purposely and in 
 mercy. As it is and thus relegated to the background of 
 celestial prevision, the hope of reunion eclipses all earthly 
 hopes : placed in the foreground, it might block out even our 
 hope of the Beatific Vision. 
 
 O Gracious Lord God, Who deignest to make of man Thy 
 mirror, that we in one another may behold Thine Image and 
 love Thyself; unto every one of us grant, I beseech Thee, 
 thus to love and thus to be beloved. For our Lord Jesus 
 Christ's sake, Son of God and Son of man. Amen. 
 
 "Seven golden candlesticks." "The King's Daughter is 
 all glorious within : her clothing is of wrought gold." " Is 
 not . . . the body [more] than raiment?" So likewise the 
 light of the candlestick is more than the gold thereof. 
 
 Exterior gifts and privileges adorn and dignify Christ's 
 Bride, interior grace makes and keeps her His. True alike of 
 church, of congregation, of two or three gathered together, of 
 each solitary soul. 
 
 The golden candlestick is the vessel appointed to honour : 
 the light freely received must freely be given forth. The gold 
 is personal, yet by sympathy becomes common to all : if 
 " one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." 
 The light too is personal, but by emission is shared by all : 
 set on its candlestick it gives light to all that are in the house.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 31 
 
 " Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is 
 more blessed to give than to receive." 
 
 O Lord, on Whom we gaze and dare not gaze, 
 
 Increase our faith that gazing we may see, 
 
 And seeing love, and loving worship Thee 
 Through all our days, our long and lengthening days. 
 O Lord, accessible to prayer and praise, 
 
 Kind Lord, companion of the two or three, 
 
 Good Lord, be gracious to all men and me, 
 Lighten our darkness and amend our ways. 
 Call up our hearts to Thee, that where Thou art 
 
 Our treasure and our heart may dwell at one { 
 
 Then let the pallid moon pursue her sun, 
 So long as it shall please Thee, far apart, 
 
 Yet art Thou with us, Thou to Whom we run, 
 We hand in hand with Thee and heart in heart. 
 
 " Moses hid his face ; for he was afraid to look upon God." 
 
 The unutterable, unapproachable Majesty of " One like unto 
 the Son of man " bids us fall prostrate. " Be not rash with 
 thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything 
 before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: 
 therefore let thy words be few." 
 
 I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, co- 
 eternal and co-equal with the Father. 
 
 Daniel the prophet "beheld . . . and the Ancient of Days 
 did sit, Whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His 
 head like the pure wool. ... A fiery stream issued, and 
 came forth from before Him. . . . And, behold, One like 
 the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to 
 the Ancient of Days." So now St. John beheld " One like 
 unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the 
 foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head 
 and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow ; and His 
 eyes were as a flame of fire ; and His feet like unto fine brass, 
 as if they burned in a furnace." 
 
 Daniel beheld a garment white as snow, but saith not that it 
 was girded. St. John beheld a girded garment, but nameth not 
 its colour. God, as God, is not girded : " The Father In- 
 comprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost 
 Incomprehensible. And yet they are not three Incomprehen- 
 sibles, but One Incomprehensible." God, as Christ, is girded : 
 " He took on Him the seed of Abraham." Once even He 
 deigned to say : " How am I straitened . . . ! " God in- 
 habiteth eternity : Christ was sent forth in the fulness of time, 
 and before His Passion spake saying : " My time is at hand."
 
 32 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The white garment recalls that light which no man can 
 approach unto, wherein God dwelleth. But Isaiah in vision 
 beheld Christ red in His apparel when, wearing the girded 
 garment, He proclaimed Himself Mighty to save. 
 
 Our Lord's own gracious words express to us the mystery 
 of His eternal glory with the Father, and of His somewhile 
 self-restriction to the limitations and poverty of time : " I 
 have glorified Thee on the earth : 1 have finished the work 
 which Thou gavest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify 
 Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had 
 with Thee before the world was." 
 
 " Clothed with a garment down to the foot." Behold our 
 great High Priest ! 
 
 Now under the Mosaic dispensation, how was Aaron the 
 first high priest clothed, and wherewith were his sacred vest- 
 ments overclothed ? King David partially informs us : 
 " Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell 
 together in unity ! It is like the precious ointment upon the 
 head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard : 
 that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew 
 of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the moun- 
 tains of Zion : for there the Lord commanded the blessing, 
 even life for evermore." 
 
 That unction symbolic of God the Holy Spirit overflowed 
 not Aaron's person only, but his robe also : in like manner 
 Christ's Divine graces overflowing from Himself the Head, 
 pour down upon His members, until the least little one whose 
 life is hid with Christ may sing merrily : " I will greatly rejoice 
 in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God ; for He hath 
 clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered 
 me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh 
 himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with 
 her jewels." For if brotherly unity be like that precious 
 ointment, then is that precious ointment under some one of 
 its many aspects like brotherly unity : which unity with one 
 another, yea, with Christ Himself, it lies within our own 
 option to clench and perpetuate according to His benign 
 announcement : " Whosoever shall do the will of God, the 
 same is My brother, and My sister, and mother." 
 
 God's commandment is exceeding broad, not by us limitable. 
 Amongst its incalculable treasures we here find our own com- 
 manded blessing, even life for evermore, Christ, Who is our 
 life. "The King . . . asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest 
 it Him, even length of days for ever and ever."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 33 
 
 "And girt about the paps with a golden girdle." This 
 girdle lying next the Sacred Heart, as it were binds and 
 constrains it. Now gold Christ hath in common with the 
 saints who all together make up the Church's golden candle- 
 stick. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, 
 flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, may seem memorialized 
 in this golden girdle which, not for malediction but for bene- 
 diction, Christ weareth for a girdle wherewith He is girded 
 continually. 
 
 O Lord, Who so hast loved us, Who so lovest us, grant us 
 grace so to love Thee that we may never fall away from Thy 
 love. 
 
 "His eyes were as a flame of fire." "Who among us shall 
 dwell with the devouring fire ? who among us shall dwell with 
 everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and 
 speaketh uprightly . . . Thine eyes shall see the King in 
 His beauty." 
 
 God is Light : Christ is Light of Light, Very God of Very 
 God. His eyes are light, all-seeing : " Yea, the darkness is no 
 darkness with Thee, but the night is as clear as the day : the 
 darkness and light to Thee are both alike." 
 
 O Lord, Who beholding Adam and Eve in their misery 
 didst find comfort for them, Who beholding David in his 
 pollution spakest the word that he should not die ; Thou, 
 Lord, Who hast beheld all sinners from the first sinner, and 
 wilt behold us all even unto the last ; turn Thy face from our 
 sins, but turn it not from us. 
 
 These are the very Eyes which I myself at the last day may 
 look upon, and which will look upon me. 
 
 " In the Day of Judgment, good Lord, deliver us." 
 
 O Jesu, gone so far apart 
 
 Only my heart can follow Thee, 
 That look which pierced St. Peter's heart 
 Turn now on me. 
 
 Thou Who dost search me thro' and thro' 
 
 And mark the crooked ways I went, 
 Look on me, Lord, and make me too 
 Thy penitent. 
 
 " His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a 
 furnnce." "I will make the place of My feet glorious." 
 
 These dazzling Feet before which the sun running his course 
 as a giant and the moon walking in brightness are ashamed, 
 whence came they ? Out of great tribulation. These are they
 
 34 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 which went about doing good, and grew weary along the paths 
 of Palestine, and climbed Calvary, and were nailed to a cross. 
 These are they which a penitent sinner and an accepted saint 
 washed with tears, kissed, anointed with precious ointment, 
 dried with tresses of hair. These are they which in infancy a 
 Virgin Mother swaddled, and which after the Resurrection 
 holy women were permitted to touch. 
 
 No cross, no crown : no humiliation, no glory. Such is the 
 rule for fallen man. And Christ, Who took upon Himself our 
 nature and calls us brethren, exempted not Himself from the 
 common lot. 
 
 He willed thus to become like us. We by following Him 
 shall in our turn put on a measure of His likeness. To-day 
 He denies not to His beloved crosses and humiliations : to- 
 morrow what will He deny to them whom He invests with 
 crowns and glory ? " What shall be done unto the man whom 
 the king delighteth to honour ? " 
 
 I have read of a holy person who said : " O my feet, ye shall 
 tread upon the stars." Feet that would climb up into heaven 
 must wend their way thither by treading in Christ's footsteps. 
 " Feet was I to the lame," said righteous Job, whose end was 
 better than his beginning. 
 
 Now to walk in Christ's incomparable footsteps is both easy 
 and difficult. The easiness lies in our surroundings, the diffi- 
 culty in ourselves. Flesh is weak, and spirit too often unwilling ; 
 otherwise London or any other neighbourhood might become 
 to us holy as Palestine. There waits in every direction 
 abundant good to be done, if only we have the will patiently to 
 do it, first counting the cost. For though no literal mountain 
 obstruct our path, mountainous opposition may confront us; 
 and if it please not God to remove it, then in His strength, 
 weary and heartsore as we may be, we must surmount it, 
 " looking unto Jesus." " But as for me, my feet were almost 
 gone ; my steps had well-nigh slipped." 
 
 " No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath 
 sent Me draw him." 
 
 " Draw me, we will run after Thee." 
 
 " Feet have they, but they walk not," writes the Psalmist, 
 in his description of idols : and he appends thereto, " They 
 that make them are like unto them." Thus we behold the 
 idolater furnished with useless feet; and so far like him 
 appears the sluggard, standing here all the day idle on feet 
 useless because unused. 
 
 " O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 35 
 
 the Lord straitened ? are these His doings ? do not My words 
 do good to him that walketh uprightly ? . . . Arise ye, and 
 depart ; for this is not your rest." 
 
 "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy 
 testimonies." 
 
 How beautiful upon the celestial mountains will be those 
 feet which, ever following in the steps of Jesus, at length 
 ascend into the hill of the Lord, and stand in His holy place ! 
 Surely it is no mean privilege here to wash feet which shall be 
 dazzling there. It is good to wash them, it is better to follow 
 them. Worthily to wash the saints' feet we need ourselves to 
 be saints. It is a blessed communion of mutual service which 
 our tender Lord enjoins upon us when He says : " Ye also 
 ought to wash one another's feet " having first by His 
 loveliest example commended to us His lovely precept. 
 
 " What shall I say ? He hath both spoken unto me, and 
 Himself hath done it." 
 
 What will it be, O my soul, what will it be 
 To touch the long-raced-for goal, to handle and see, 
 To rest in the joy of joys, in the joy of the blest, 
 To rest and revive and rejoice, to rejoice and to rest ! 
 
 " His voice as the sound of many waters." Blessed be God 
 Who hath vouchsafed us the revelation : " Many waters cannot 
 quench love, neither can the floods drown it." Our loving 
 Lord hath declared : " My sheep hear My voice, and I know 
 them, and they follow Me" " Every one that is of the truth 
 heareth My voice." 
 
 We are of those who tremble at Thy word ; 
 
 Who faltering walk in darkness toward our close 
 Of mortal life, by terrors curbed and spurred : 
 We are of those. 
 
 We journey to that land which no man knows, 
 Who any more can make his voice be heard 
 Above the clamour of our wants and woes. 
 
 Not ours the hearts Thy loftiest love hath stirred, 
 
 Not such as we Thy lily and Thy rose : 
 Yet, Hope of those who hope with hope deferred, 
 We are of those. , 
 
 Centuries before St. John, the Prophet E/ekiel beheld and 
 heard the Divine Glory and Voice : " Behold, the Glory of 
 the God of Israel came from the way of the east : and His 
 Voice was like a noise of many waters : and the earth shined 
 with His Glory."
 
 36 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 It is the same Voice and the same Glory. " I am the Lord, 
 I change not ; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." 
 
 Still waters are silent ; flowing waters find a voice. This 
 " voice as the sound of many waters " seems to address man 
 not from the eternal calm of Christ's Godhead ; but rather 
 from that veritable and accessible Humanity which He assumed, 
 which can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, which 
 was symbolized by the smitten rock whence water gushed out, 
 and which on the cross yielded water as well as blood from a 
 pierced side. 
 
 Therefore, though it be"& Voice to shake not earth only, but 
 also heaven, to us who are bone of His bone and flesh of His 
 flesh, it conveys not awe alone, but therewith courage and 
 comfort. It hath " a sound of abundance of rain " when it 
 certifies the outpouring of God the Holy Ghost in the waters 
 of Baptism ; and a tone of tender reassurance in the protest 
 that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth ; and 
 a promise to saints that the one cup of cold water shall by no 
 means remain unrequited ; and a hope for penitents that God 
 keepeth a bottle for our tears. It crieth : " Ho, every one 
 that thirsteth, come ye to the waters " : and lo ! these are 
 waters of comfort beside which the Lord Himself will lead us. 
 
 The Prayer-book version of that lovely twenty-third Psalm 
 gives " waters of comfort," whilst its Bible equivalent is " still 
 waters." If we may figuratively connect one phrase with our 
 Lord's Godhead, the other with His Manhood, then indeed 
 are we reminded of God's promise to make His elect 
 "partakers of the Divine Nature." 
 
 God the Son clothed Himself with our nature to the intent 
 that He might clothe us with His own. 
 
 "There was no more spirit in her. And she said to the 
 King . . . The half was not told me . . . Because the Lord 
 loved Israel for ever, therefore made He thee King, to do 
 judgment and justice." 
 
 Lord, Thou art fulness, I am emptiness : 
 Yet hear my heart speak in its speechlessness 
 Extolling Thine unuttered loveliness. 
 
 "And He had in His right hand seven stars." In His mortal 
 day our Lord had said : " My sheep hear My voice, and I know 
 them, and they follow Me : and I give unto them eternal life ; 
 and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them 
 out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 37 
 
 than all ; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's 
 hand. I and My Father are one." 
 
 " His right hand doth embrace me," saith peacefully the 
 Bride of the Canticles. 
 
 All weareth, all wasteth, 
 
 A'l flitteth, all hasteth, 
 
 All of flesh and time : 
 
 Sound, sweet heavenly chime, 
 
 Ring in the unutterable, eternal prime. 
 
 Man hopeth, man feareth, 
 
 Man droopeth : Christ cheereth, 
 
 Compassing release, 
 
 Comforting with peace, \S 
 
 Promising rest where strife and anguish cease. 
 
 Saints waking, saints sleeping, 
 
 Rest well in safe keeping ; 
 
 Well they rest to-day 
 
 While they watch and pray, 
 
 But their to-morrow's rest what tongue shall say ? 
 
 " Out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword." Thus 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews : " The word of God is quick, 
 and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing 
 even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the 
 joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and 
 intents of the heart." 
 
 Four points I note : life, keenness, in the weapon ; depth, 
 subtilty, in the wound. That which probes and sunders me 
 will never of its own proper nature slay me ; for life it is, not 
 death, that thus cleaves its way into my heart of hearts. It will 
 do its work exquisitely, for it is sharp ; and thoroughly by 
 reason of the might and skill of Him Who wields it. It may 
 not spare for my crying ; nevertheless not a hair of my 
 head need perish, and dear is my blocd in His sight Who 
 smites me. 
 
 No mere surface work can possibly be this saving work of 
 which the text speaks : a religion without depth is not Christ's 
 religion. The necessity of depth is set forth in the Parable of 
 the Sower : the seed enters not at all into the first refuse soil, 
 and barely penetrates into the second ; in the third it perishes 
 from a different cause ; in the fourth and good ground alone 
 does it take root downward and bear fruit upward. 
 
 Are we afraid of a dividing asunder of our very selves ? Nay, 
 and if we be, let fear nerve us to endure it ; for more dreadful 
 will be the cutting asunder of the reprobate servant.
 
 38 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 This whole passage (vers. 13 16) sets our adorable Lord 
 before us under an aspect which recalls St. Paul's prophecy con- 
 cerning Him as the destroyer of antichrist : " Then shall that 
 wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the 
 Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His 
 coming," and more remotely that Divine announcement con- 
 cerning Leviathan : " He that made him can make His sword 
 to approach unto him." Further on (xiii. 10) we shall 
 read : " He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the 
 sword," or according to the Revised Version : " If any man 
 shall kill with the sword, with the sword must he be killed " : 
 whence by analogy it appears that he who must be slain by the 
 sword of Christ's mouth, cannot but be one whose own tongue 
 has been a deadly sharp sword. So Daniel saith of the " little 
 horn," that it had " a mouth speaking great things," and again : 
 " a mouth that spake very great things." 
 
 Now without aiming at matters too wonderful for me which I 
 know not, and amongst them must obviously be included those 
 times and seasons which the Father hath put in His own 
 power; and therefore without hazarding conjectures touching the 
 coming of the last antichrist, I turn to St. John's first Epistle 
 and read : " Little children, it is the last time : and as ye have 
 heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many 
 antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time . . . 
 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? 
 He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son . . . 
 Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in 
 the flesh is not of God : and this is that spirit of antichrist, 
 whereof ye have heard that it should come ; and even now 
 already is it in the world." 
 
 Alas then for much which at this day is said and written 
 amongst us upon whom the ends of the world are come. "And 
 if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the 
 light is darkened in the heavens thereof." 
 
 It is wiser to remain ignorant than to learn evil. 
 
 Evil knowledge acquired in one wilful moment of curiosity 
 may harass and haunt us to the end of our time. And how 
 after the end of our time ? 
 
 It is better to avoid doubts than to reject them. 
 
 To study a difficulty is too often to incur one. 
 
 " Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's 
 servant ? " They especially are bound to such reserve who 
 have been in familiar contact with any living example of holy 
 intellectual self-restraint : and amongst these am I, who for
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 39 
 
 years enjoyed intercourse with one thus truly wise, and before 
 me in many gifts and graces. 
 
 "And His countenance was as the sun shineth in his 
 strength." " The sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of 
 his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His 
 going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto 
 the ends of it : and there is nothing hid from the heat 
 thereof." "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man 
 that cometh into the world " : or as in the Revised Text : 
 "There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every 
 man, coming into the world." 
 
 What, every man ? Yea, for the truth certifies it. Never- 
 theless, " that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be 
 far from Thee : shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? " 
 This Same is He Who having long made His sun to rise on the 
 evil and on the good, will at length judge every man according 
 to his works. 
 
 Job bears witness against sinners : " They are of those that 
 rebel against the light ; they know not the ways thereof, nor 
 abide in the paths thereof." Here it is not the light that with- 
 draws from them, but they that withdraw from the light. 
 Whilst in the Answer from the Whirlwind we read : " Hast thou 
 commanded the morning since thy days ; and caused the day- 
 spring to know his place ; that it might take hold of the ends 
 of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it ? . . . 
 And from the wicked their light is withholden." Here the light 
 seems to reveal and overwhelm, yet penally to be kept back. 
 
 And our Lord instructing Nicodemus declared: "This is 
 the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men 
 loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 
 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh 
 to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that 
 doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made 
 manifest, that they are wrought in God," setting forth in 
 harmony Divine free grace and human free will. And else- 
 where He proclaims : " I am the Light of the world ; he that 
 followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the 
 light of life." 
 
 Does light reveal the colours of coloured objects, or does it 
 impart colour to objects in themselves all alike colourless ? 
 Colour appears to be simply an analysis of light ; if so, the 
 withdrawal of light involves no mere disappearance of colour, 
 but its absolute absence. Thus objects shut up in darkness 
 would needs become part and parcel of that darkness, not
 
 40 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 because of any infliction from without, but because of what 
 they themselves intrinsically are. 
 
 By an awful parallel this suggests how " he that hath the 
 Son hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God hath 
 not life." How " he that hath not" must be deprived even of 
 that which he seemeth to have. How amongst the lost there 
 may not be found any mixed characters, any redeeming points 
 such as used to endear many a wilful sinner even to penitents 
 and saints. For " every good gift and every perfect gift is 
 from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." 
 Cut off from the dayspring of colour, there can be no colour ; 
 from the Source of goodness, no goodness ; from the Fountain 
 of grace, no grace ; from the root of life, no life. " O Israel, 
 thou hast destroyed thyself: but in Me is thine help." "To- 
 day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." 
 
 Lord Jesus, Who lightest every man that cometh into the 
 world, suffer us not for any snares of life or pains of death to 
 fall from Thee. 
 
 But not only are we warned that he " that hath not " 
 forfeits what seems his, elsewhere we see the one talent 
 transferred from the slothful to the diligent servant. What 
 does this indicate ? Can it be that so we are taught how 
 heaven can be made heaven even to those who may enter it 
 bereft of some they loved on earth ? 
 
 If we analyze love, what is it we love in our beloved ? 
 Something that is lovable, not any hateful residuum ; 
 something that kindles admiration, attracts fondness, wins 
 confidence, nourishes hope, engrosses affection. If love arises 
 from a mere misreading of appearances, then deeper insight 
 may suffice to annul it. But if it arises from a genuine, 
 though alas ! transitory cause, then a transference of the 
 endearing grace to another might seem the remedy. On earth 
 the hollow semblance or the temporary endowment is believed 
 in and preferred ; in heaven the perpetual reality. Crown and 
 love together are transferred from Vashti to Esther ; the 
 satisfied heart accepts Jacob as " very " Esau. 
 
 Not that flesh and blood may be able to endure the 
 foresight. But as man's day so shall his strength be, and 
 flesh and blood are not called to inherit the kingdom of God. 
 
 Lord Jesus, save us from any such experience, Thou Who 
 loving Thine own lovest them unto the end. Amen. 
 
 Light colourless doth colour all things else : 
 Where light dwells pleasure dwells 
 And peace excels.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 41 
 
 Then rise and shine, 
 
 Thou shadowed soul of mine, 
 
 And let a cheerful rainbow make thee fine. 
 
 Light fountain of all beauty and delight 
 
 Leads day forth from the night, 
 
 Turns blackness white. 
 Light waits for thee 
 Where all have eyes to see : 
 Oh well is thee and happy shalt thou be ! 
 
 17. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And 
 
 He laid His right hand upon me. saying unto me, Fear 
 not : I am the First and the Last : 
 
 18. I am He that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am 
 
 alive for evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of hell 
 and of death. 
 
 "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." "The 
 righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of 
 God : no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is 
 before them. All things come alike to all : there is one event 
 to the righteous, and to the wicked ; to the good and to the 
 clean, and to the unclean. . . . There is one event unto 
 all." In this world and on the surface so it is : God's elect 
 seem to die, and their departure is taken for misery and their 
 end to be utter destruction ; yet are they in peace. Even St. 
 John the beloved Apostle when he beheld the glory of his 
 ascended Lord fell at His feet as dead : " cast down, but not 
 destroyed." 
 
 Another there is, "that wicked," whom the Lord shall 
 destroy with the brightness of His coming. God putteth a 
 boundless difference between clean and unclean even here, 
 where yet there is one event unto all. 
 
 The very holy are of all saints those most ready to fall at 
 Christ's feet as dead. Who else can realize so vividly His 
 Purity and their own defilement, His Glory and their own 
 shame? With David they weep for love till they exceed ; with 
 Esther they faint in approaching their King : their eye seeth 
 Him, and they abhor themselves and repent in dust and 
 ashes ; they are jealous for His sake with a godly jealousy, 
 and jealousy is cruel as the grave. But He bringelh down to 
 the grave and bringeth up. And though the spirit fail from 
 before Him and the souls which He hath made, yet truly these 
 are they who hearing His Voice have turned to see Him that 
 speaketh with them, who know His Voice, and being raised 
 more and more continually to newness of life follow Him.
 
 42 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 They come to Christ and He giveth them eternal life, as 
 His own words of rebuke promise by implication : " Ye will 
 not come to Me, that ye might have life." 
 
 He to whom Christ cometh for destruction hath not come 
 to Christ 
 
 Let us encourage ourselves though He slay us yet to trust in 
 Him, by help of some of those parables of nature familiar to 
 us all which speak of life reborn from lifelessness, or from 
 death or from decay. A leafless tree, a chrysalis, a buried 
 seed, an egg. 
 
 The twig sprouteth, 
 
 The moth outeth, 
 
 The plant springeth, 
 
 The bird singeth : 
 
 Tho' little we sing to-day, 
 
 Yet are we better than they ; 
 
 Tho' growing with scarce a showing, 
 
 Yet, please God, we are growing. 
 
 The twig teacheth, 
 The moth preacheth, 
 The plant vaunteth, 
 The bird chanteth, 
 God's mercy overflowing 
 Merciful past man's knowing. 
 Please God to keep us growing 
 Till the awful day of mowing. 
 
 St. John " heard " and endured to hear : not till he " saw " 
 fell he as dead. Hearing prepares for sight. To-day is our 
 day for hearing, faith, preparation. Lord Almighty, so make 
 it full of grace to each of us, for Jesu's sake. 
 
 Lord Jesus, how dare we at all times offer our petitions in 
 Thy Name and for Thy sake ? What, lovest Thou us so 
 inexhaustibly that not one praying sinner of us all risks 
 lighting upon the moment when it would not pleasure Thee 
 for the Father to show us mercy, for the Holy Spirit to succour 
 us? This, Lord, I believe. I believe that when I ask 
 salvation in Thy Name, Thou Thyself askest it for me : yea, 
 I believe that many times Thou intercedest for us when we 
 ask not at all or ask amiss. "For Thy sake" investeth us 
 with Thine own claims : what is done for us Thou accountest 
 as done for Thee. " Thy sake " moveth God to pity us ; let 
 Thy blessed sake move us likewise to pity each other. Give 
 us grace to comfort ourselves and one another by memorials 
 of Thy love ; much more comfort Thou us by assurance of 
 Thy love.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 43 
 
 " As dying, and behold we live ! " 
 
 So live the Saints while time is flying; 
 Make all they make, give all they give, 
 As dying ; 
 
 Bear all they bear without replying ; 
 
 They grieve as tho' they did not grieve, 
 Uplifting praise with prayer and sighing. 
 
 Patient thro' life's long-drawn reprieve, 
 
 Aloof from strife, at peace from crying, 
 The morrow to its day they leave, 
 As dying. 
 
 " And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, Fear not." 
 That same Right Hand which holdeth the seven stars and hath 
 the care of all the Churches is laid on one saint to comfort and 
 reassure him. 
 
 Think upon us all for good, think upon us each for good, O 
 good Lord Jesus ! 
 
 Christ spake from the troubled sea : " Be of good cheer ; 
 it is I ; be not afraid." He saith in Heaven : " Fear not." 
 "Jesus Christ the Same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." 
 
 " I am the First and the Last " Christ's Godhead : " I 
 am He that liveth, and was dead : and behold, I am alive for 
 evermore, Amen" Christ's Manhood. 
 
 There is no grief of ours which Christ cannot and will not 
 console. St. John falls as dead ; and his tender Master and 
 Friend forthwith brings to remembrance how He Himself had 
 verily been dead Who now was alive for evermore. In all our 
 afflictions He was afflicted. We have not an High Priest 
 which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. 
 
 In the Revised Version we read : "I am the First and the 
 Last, and the Living One; and I was dead . . ." This 
 punctuation by removing "the Living One" from the second 
 to the first clause, seems to remove it from the Manhood to 
 the Godhead, setting forth with exceeding vividness Christ's 
 Unity of Person. 
 
 " Behold," He saith. Who shall behold ? Shall St. John 
 and shall not I ? I also ; because for me no less than for St. 
 John He lived and was dead and is alive for evermore. 
 " Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the 
 company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name; 
 evermore praising Thee." 
 
 "And have the keys of hell and of death." Here hell is 
 " Hades," the land of the shadow of death, the abode of 
 disembodied souls ; it is not Gehenna, the place of punishment
 
 44 THE PACE OP THE DEEP. 
 
 Our Lord Jesus hath the keys of death and of Hades. He 
 it is Who unlocked the gate for those we love and whose 
 memory is blessed. He it is Who will once again unlock that 
 gate for them in the day of the restitution of all things : He, 
 not another. Surely they were not so greatly afraid or in any 
 wise damaged what time He fixed the bounds of their 
 habitation and brought them to their quiet lodging and settled 
 them therein. "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant 
 places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage." 
 
 But I, Lord, am sore afraid. I am afraid of Thee, of death, 
 of myself: yea, rather, I am afraid of Thee and of that 
 because I fear mine own self. The sting of death is sin. 
 God be merciful to me a sinner. 
 
 In that veiled land saints abide. Some saints who loved 
 us on earth are there, saints whom we loved and love. If we 
 call they do not answer. Surely one reason why they neither 
 appear nor audibly respond to our desolate cry, may be that 
 if it is hard for us now to love supremely God Whom we see 
 not, it would be yet harder then were those who even in His 
 eyes are lovely and desirable to woo us heavenward with 
 unforgotten familiar human tenderness. Any of us who have 
 lost our nearest and dearest may realize how keen would be 
 the temptation to love alas ! it may be to go on loving the 
 creature more than the Creator. 
 
 This separation to them is not grievous, and for us it is safe. 
 
 Disembodied saints are there. And no sinners? On the 
 contrary, who beside sinners ? For these are the fruits of 
 Christ's Passion, and He came not to call the righteous but/ 
 sinners to repentance. " Lord, remember me when Thou 
 comest into Thy Kingdom." 
 
 To join the congregation of cleansed sinners we too may 
 aspire : let us aspire. 
 
 Liltle Lamb, who lost thee? 
 
 I myself, none other. 
 Little Lamb, who found thee? 
 
 Jesus, Shepherd, Brother. 
 Ah, Lord, what I cost Thee ! 
 
 Canst Thou still desire ? 
 Still Mine arms surround thee, 
 
 Still I lift thee higher, 
 
 Draw thee nigher. 
 
 " The keys of hell and of death." No key need be preserved 
 to the end were the door not at last to be re-opened. Many 
 times opened to admit, once for all it will be re-opened to 
 release. " There is hope in thine end."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 45 
 
 19. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things 
 
 which are, and the things which shall be hereafter ; 
 
 20. The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in 
 
 My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. 
 The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches ; 
 and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the 
 seven churches. 
 
 " Write " not any ecstasy of thy love even in this moment 
 of reunion. " Write " little for the indulgence of thine own 
 heart, unless it be meat and drink to thee to do the Will of 
 Him that sendeth thee, and to finish His work. "Write" 
 that which shall glorify God, edify the Church, bear witness 
 against the world. John the beloved and the true lover could 
 endure this word : if it seems cold and disappointing to us, 
 it seems so because we have not yet the mind of St. John ; 
 much less the mind of Christ. 
 
 These who met after separation were not only God and 
 man, Creator and creature, Lord and servant : they were like- 
 wise Friend and friend ; each to the other (if reverently we 
 may say it) as his own soul. Yet still the standard is : If thou 
 love Me keep My commandments ; and still the silence of the 
 responsive soul makes answer : " Let my Lord speak ; for Thou 
 hast strengthened me." 
 
 Love, to be love, must walk Thy way 
 
 And work Thy Will ; 
 
 Or if Thou say, "Lie still," 
 Lie still and pray. 
 
 Love, Thine own Bride, with all her might 
 
 Will follow Thee, 
 
 And till the shadows flee 
 Keep Thee in sight. 
 
 Love will not mar her peaceful face 
 
 With cares undue, 
 
 Faithless and hopeless too 
 And out of place. 
 
 Love, knowing Thou much more art Love, 
 
 Will sun her grief, 
 
 And pluck her myrtle leaf, 
 And be Thy dove. 
 
 Love here hath vast beatitude : 
 
 What shall be hers 
 
 Where there is no more curse, 
 But all is good?
 
 
 46 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The revelation and record are to be of things seen, and 
 which are and which shall be ; not of opinions or of fancies. 
 A world of mere opinions and mere fancies, of day-dreams 
 and castles in the air, is antagonistic to the true and substantial 
 world of revelation, and is more hollow and unavailing than 
 was Jonah's gourd. " Now it is high time to awake out of 
 sleep." 
 
 The mystery of the seven stars and the seven candlesticks 
 is both revealed and explained. Thenceforward mystery after 
 mystery will be revealed, but not necessarily explained. It is 
 nobler to believe than to understand. 
 
 O only Lord God, Father of lights and Maker of darkness, 
 send forth Thy light and Thy truth that they may lead us 
 through dimness of things seen to clarity of things unseen. 
 For our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, the Light of the world. 
 Amen. 
 
 " Behold the height of the stars, how high they are !" 
 The star floats in heaven, and has no contact with earth 
 except by sending thither its own radiance. It bestows light, 
 and grasps at nothing in return. Earthborn clouds stop short 
 at an immeasurable distance below its altitude : it is a celestial 
 creature, a recluse by day, a watcher by night ; its bands regu- 
 late it within its assigned orbit, its sweet influences stream 
 forth unbound to all within its radius. God Almighty, without 
 Whom was not anything made that was made, made the stars 
 also. 
 
 The candlestick is of gold, weighty, firm, and it cannot stand 
 without a foundation. Its luminosity is derived, being no 
 feature of its original self; effectually kindled, yet ever liable 
 to extinction. Without fuel the flame expires, without air it 
 cannot exist : it cannot kindle or rekindle itself, or feed itself, 
 or maintain itself. " What hast thou that thou didst not 
 receive ? " 
 
 A Bishop and a Church should be congruous each with its 
 symbol. 
 
 O God, our God, Who makest both high and low, grant 
 unto the lofty to look down in Christ-like self-abasement, and 
 unto the lowly to look up in Christ-like self- oblation. Accept 
 Thy great and small, I beseech Thee, in Jesus Christ, Who 
 loveth first and last. Amen.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1. Unto the angel of the Church of Ephesus write ; These 
 things saith He that holdeth the seven stars in His 
 right hand, Who walketh in the midst of the seven 
 golden candlesticks. 
 
 " He telleth the number of the stars ; He calleth them all 
 by their names." 
 
 Concerning Himself God Almighty proclaimed of old : " I 
 AM THAT I AM," and man's inherent feeling of personality 
 seems in some sort to attest and correspond to this revelation : 
 I who am myself cannot but be myself. I am what God has 
 constituted me : so that however I may have modified myself, 
 yet do I remain that same I ; it is I who live, it is I who must 
 die, it is I who must rise again at the last day. I rising again 
 out of my grave must carry on that very life which was mine 
 before I died, and of which death itself could not altogether 
 snap the thread. Who I was I am, who I am I am, who I am 
 I must be for ever and ever. 
 
 I the sinner of to-day am the sinner of all the yesterdays of 
 my life. I may loathe myself or be amazed at myself, but I 
 cannot unself myself for ever and ever. 
 
 " O Lord, I am oppressed ; undertake for me." 
 
 There is no refuge, no hiding-place in multitude. The 
 associated stars and candlesticks conceal not nor shelter that 
 one star and one candlestick which God bringeth into judgment. 
 Yet whilst no man may deliver his brother, there is dignity, 
 joy, comfort, a present blessing and a future beatitude in the 
 Communion of Saints. 
 
 Lortl, make me one with Thine own faithful ones, 
 Thy Saints who love Thee and are loved by Thee ; 
 Till the day break and till the shadows flee 
 
 At one with them in alms and orisons : 
 
 At one with him who toils and him who runs
 
 48 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 And him who yearns for union yet to be ; 
 At one with all who throng the crystal sea 
 And wait the setting of our moons and suns. 
 Ah, my beloved ones gone on before, 
 
 Who looked not back witli hand upon the plough ! 
 
 If beautiful to me while still in sight, 
 How beautiful must be your aspects now ; 
 
 Your unknown, well-known aspects in that light 
 Which clouds shall never cloud for evermore. 
 
 2. I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, 
 
 and how thou canst not bear them which are evil : 
 and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, 
 and are not, and hast found them liars : 
 
 3. And hast borne, and hast patience, and for My Name's 
 
 sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. 
 
 Our Lord saith, " I know," and proceedeth to enumerate 
 the graces of His Church, as the bridegroom sets forth the 
 loveliness of the bride. "Behold, thou art fair, My love; 
 behold, thou art fair." He will not blame until first He hath 
 praised : He lays the firm foundation of His approval before 
 He upbraids for a spreading leprosy in her superstructure. 
 He doth not change His affection though He must needs 
 change His voice : " O, My dove, thou art in the clefts of 
 the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let Me see thy 
 countenance, let Me hear thy voice : for sweet is thy voice, 
 and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little 
 foxes, that spoil the vines : for our vines have tender grapes." 
 He Who is Himself the True Vine, He best knoweth what 
 shame it is, what loss, what ruin to any branch which is 
 spoiled. Better the smart of to-day's pruning than of to-morrow's 
 lopping. 
 
 The Church of Ephesus seems prepared to say : " All these 
 things have I kept from my youth up : what lack I yet ? " 
 and we to answer : " Surely the Lord's anointed is before 
 Him." For how many of ourselves perform half the deeds 
 which yet availed not to clear Ephesus? 
 
 Here are genuine works, not mere eye-service ; labour 
 through the burden and heat of the day ; patience tried and 
 not found wanting; abhorrence of what is abominable; sifting 
 and upholding of truth to the unmasking of Satan, though he 
 simulate an angel of light ; endurance outliving impulse ; and 
 in this catalogue of virtues, two which appear at the beginning 
 reappear at the end ; patience whose silver cord has not 
 broken despite the long, strong strain put upon it, and labour
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 49 
 
 now certified as done for Christ's Name's sake. Moreover, 
 the doer of these great things fainteth not, but at the weakest 
 moment is at least as Gideon with his three hundred of old, 
 faint yet pursuing. 
 
 May not Ephesus aver : " Lo, these many years do I serve 
 Thee, neither .transgressed I at any time Thy commandment " ? 
 Nay, of a truth : Ephesus may not so much as plead trem- 
 bling : " We are unprofitable servants : we have done that 
 which was our duty to do." 
 
 4. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because 
 thou hast left thy first love. 
 
 Behold the worm in the gourd ! All that gracious verdure 
 and flourishing luxuriance is death-stricken. " The voice 
 said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry ? All flesh is grass, 
 and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field : the 
 grass withereth, the flower fadeth : because the Spirit of the 
 Lord bloweth upon it : surely the people is grass. The grass 
 withereth, the flower fadeth : but the word of our God shall 
 stand for ever." 
 
 Love shaken, all totters. Love expiring, all perishes. For 
 the first and great commandment is in effect : Thou shall love 
 the Lord thy God with all thy being, and with all thy powers. 
 Whoso transgresses this commandment is verily guilty of the 
 whole law. 
 
 Alas for each spiritual Ephesian who did run well, and 
 afterwards loses ground. 
 
 It is not that such an one offers nothing, but he has volun- 
 tarily come down to offering less. He is as an ebbing, who 
 was as a mounting wave. Many a leaf still green hangs long 
 in autumn, but only the green leaves of spring attain to 
 summer perfection. Ananias and Sapphira offered somewhat, 
 for aught we know they offered much ; but they possessed 
 more than they offered, and what they withheld and the spirit 
 in which they withheld it invalidated what they presented. 
 
 Th*e Searcher of hearts saith not that Ephesus had renounced 
 love, but that Ephesus had left its first love. 
 
 Whereby one or both of two lapses may be understood : a 
 decline from a standard once attained, or a turning aside from 
 a former centre of attraction. Either lapse must perhaps 
 entail the other ; the second inevitably the first. 
 
 O, my God, Fountain of Love, we know not but Thou 
 knowest which of us hath fallen from first love. Have patience 
 with us and we will pay Thee all, Thou Thyself furnishing 
 
 D
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the love we owe. If Thou furnish it not, whence shall we 
 fetch it? Have pity, have mercy upon us and we will pay 
 Thee all, hiding ourselves in the merits of Jesus Christ. 
 Amen. 
 
 " Somewhat against thee," saith the patience and meekness 
 of Christ, Very God and Very Man. He rejects not a scanty 
 remnant ; rather He stoops to gather up the fragments that 
 remain, that nothing be lost. In the former days having feasted 
 others on whole barley loaves He deigned Himself, as I suppose, 
 to eat of the broken victuals. Now by a more amazing con- 
 descension He stoops to crave a revival of love. He seeketh 
 His one strayed sheep, although not alone the ninety and 
 nine which went not astray are His, but so also are all the 
 beasts of the forest and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 
 
 Long ago God Almighty had said : " If I were hungry, I 
 would not tell thee " ; now, on the contrary, He tells us, as 
 though to sinners might be applied that sacred sentence : 
 "Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a 
 blessing behind him ; even a meat offering and a drink offering 
 unto the Lord your God ? " 
 
 "Thou hast left." My fault, my own fault, my own most 
 grievous fault. 
 
 Shepherd with the bleeding Feet, 
 Good Shepherd with the pleading Voice, 
 
 What seekest Thou from hill to hill ? 
 Sweet were the valley pastures, sweet 
 The sound of flocks that bleat their joys, 
 
 And eat and drink at will. 
 
 Is one worth seeking, when Thou hast of Thine 
 Ninety and nine ? 
 
 How should I stay My bleeding Feet, 
 How should I hush My pleading Voice ? 
 
 I Who chose death and clomb a hill, 
 Accounting gall and wormwood sweet, 
 That hundredfold might bud My joys 
 For love's sake and good will. 
 
 1 seek My one, for all there bide of Mine 
 
 Ninety and nine. 
 
 Lord, dost Thou seek us, and will not we seek Thee? 
 God forbid. 
 
 5. Eemember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and 
 repent, and do the first works ; or else I will come 
 unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out 
 of his place, except thou repent
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 1 
 
 Ah, Lord, Who biddest us remember our shameful falls, re- 
 member Thou Thy long-suflering and bounties. As righteous 
 Zacharias attested Thy remembrance of Thy holy covenant, as 
 St. Mary, blessed to all generations, bore witness that Thou 
 hast holpen Israel in remembrance of Thy mercy, so for good 
 remember us. 
 
 As the thief on his cross besought Thee, saying, " Lord, re- 
 member me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," so no\v 
 and ever remember us. 
 
 By all that Thou alone rememberest, O Thou, Whose is the 
 awful Book of Remembrance, for good and not for evil re- 
 member us. 
 
 " Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy : when I fall, I 
 shall arise ; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light 
 unto me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I 
 have sinned against Him, until He plead my cause, and execute 
 judgment for me : He will bring me forth to the light, and I 
 shall behold His righteousness." 
 
 " Repent, and do the first works." 
 
 What wearied me once, must I do yet again ? 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Is there no alternative ? 
 
 " None, except destruction, a certain fearful looking for of 
 judgment and fiery indignation." 
 
 Is there no help? 
 
 " Not until thou begin to help thyself." 
 
 Is there any hope ? 
 
 " Yea, assured and boundless hope. For if what man has 
 done, man may do, much more what a man has once done, he, 
 by God's help, may do again ; and that very word, ' do the 
 first works,' certifies that when formerly done they were 
 acceptable. Do them once more, cease not to do them, do 
 them with thy first love, do them with more love than ever 
 because now thou more needest forgiveness, and at the eleventh 
 hour well is thee and happy shall thou be." 
 
 It often happens at church that wandering thoughts are 
 recalled at a moment when no prayer specially interesting to 
 ourselves is being offered ; we are tempted to catch up one 
 we have missed, or to look forward to one still to come. Yet 
 here at this very point lies our vantage-ground ; now is our oppor- 
 tunity for self-discipline. By resolutely checking any indulgence 
 of favourite petitions; by instantly, simply, honestly concen- 
 trating attention on the matter in hand, there seems good hope 
 that gradually a habit of attention may be formed.
 
 52 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Shrink as we may from facing the consequences of our faults, 
 yet lost opportunities are and must remain lost. If I pray not 
 at the hour of prayer, the hour passes, and I have not prayed ; 
 if I pray not the appointed prayer at the appointed moment, 
 the moment passes and I have not obeyed. In God's strength 
 let us face the consequences of our sins. Sins are worse than 
 their consequences. 
 
 To improve all our prayers is to improve our favourite 
 prayers amongst the rest. Is not this appealing to a secondary 
 motive ? Yes ; and I hope innocent secondary motives may 
 be called in to reinforce the prime motive ; our whole strength 
 thus becomes concentrated in one effort made in one direction. 
 The spring-tide is strong, the neap-tide comparatively weak, 
 because the first obeys sun and moon attracting in unison, the 
 second is subject to their forces acting at cross purposes. 
 
 " Or else I will come unto thee quickly," the desire and 
 salvation of saints, the horror and overthrow of impenitent 
 sinners. He Who comes is the same ; in them to whom He 
 comes lies all the difference. To such a word St. John will 
 afterwards reply : " Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Lord, teach 
 us to pray. 
 
 "Quickly." Guilty fear mutters, "Art Thou come hither 
 to torment us before the time?" Innocence and sanctity cry 
 out, "Why tarry the wheels of His chariots?" Penitence re- 
 joins meekly: "The Lord is good unto them that wait for 
 Him. to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man 
 should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." 
 
 " Remove thy candlestick out of his place." He saith not 
 abolish or extinguish, but " remove " ; surely there lingers a 
 gleam of hope for them whose candlestick is as yet only 
 removed. Judah carried afar into captivity, repented, and was 
 brought back to his own borders. 
 
 Repentance averts judgment, repentance reverses judgment, 
 repentance recovers " two legs, or a piece of an ear " out of 
 the very mouth of the lion. 
 
 To repentance all is promised. But alas ! to us repentance 
 itself is not promised. 
 
 Lord Jesus, the Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, 
 Who promisest forgiveness to penitence, but reserves! penitence 
 to Thyself to give or to deny ; deny us not that penitence 
 which Thou acceptest, and which Thou alone canst give. 
 
 6. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the 
 Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 53 
 
 " Ye that love the Lord, hate evil ; He preserveth the souls 
 of His saints." 
 
 Good it is to hate what Christ hateth ; better still to love 
 what He loveth, and what He is. If hatred be our strongest 
 feature of Christ-likeness, well may we betake ourselves to dust 
 and ashes, to repentance and first works ; for without love, to 
 hate even the same object is to hate it out of a far different 
 heart. Pride may hate much that is contemptible, fastidious- 
 ness much that is foul, softness much that is cruel ; but what 
 has pride or fastidiousness or sensual softness in common with 
 Christ? If all human virtues are to be mistrusted, sifted, 
 tested, not least that virtue of hatred which has for counterfeit 
 a deadly sin. 
 
 Nevertheless Christ clearly commends hatred, and what He 
 commends we are bound to aim at. For great saints there may 
 be a direct royal road thither, for ordinary sinners a circuitous 
 path may possibly prove safer if not shorter. 
 
 Extremes meet ; therefore let us work our way round to 
 hatred by way of love. A long round perhaps, but an abso- 
 lutely safe one. Were we even to die in mid-pilgrimage we 
 might hope to be accepted according to that we had, if not 
 according to that we had not. 
 
 Moreover, however slowly, yet surely, love does infallibly 
 breed a hatred akin to the Divine hatred. Such hatred abso- 
 lute, unqualified, irreconcilable, is restricted to the one odious 
 object. To love involves of necessity the capacity for hatred ; 
 how shall we not hate that which may sever ourselves from the 
 supreme desire of our hearts, or may destroy others whom we 
 love as ourselves ? 
 
 And when we have learned so much of the science of love 
 and hatred, we shall be ready to add: How much more shall 
 we not hate that which doeth despite to the God of all good- 
 ness ? Which solitary odious thing is sin. 
 
 The difficulty of hating aright is intensified by our predis- 
 position towards hating amiss. 
 
 Lord of all power and might, bestow upon us, I beseech 
 Thee, both love and hatred ; but only that hatred which is a 
 form and fruit of love. For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 "The deeds of the Nicolaitanes." Commentators explain 
 that the Nicolaitanes (see also ver. 15) were misbelievers of 
 impure life. A suggestion which brands as their founder 
 Nicolas of Antioch, seventh on the catalogue of the first- 
 ordained seven deacons (Acts vi. 5, 6), is not to my knowledge 
 supported by historical proof.
 
 54 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Whoever was their founder, their deeds and doctrines were 
 hateful to Christ, Who is both righteousness and truth. St 
 John instructs us how "he that doeth righteousness is righteous" ; 
 thus doing, we shall keep free from the guilt of the Nicolaitanes ; 
 moreover thus doing we shall escape the contamination of their 
 doctrines, in right of our Lord's own comforting declaration : 
 " If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
 whether it be of God." 
 
 To avoid the contagion of their example is the essential 
 point. If still we feel curious to ascertain what the Nicolaitanes 
 actually professed and did, although clearly such knowledge is 
 not necessary to our salvation, let us rather ponder the words 
 of St. Paul on a congruous subject : "It is a shame even to 
 speak of those things which are done of them in secret," lest 
 we should degrade ourselves like any against whom elsewhere 
 he bears witness : " Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving 
 is nothing pure ; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." 
 
 Ignorance is often a safeguard and a privilege. 
 
 Lord, make me pure : 
 Only the pure shall see Thee as Thou art, 
 
 And shall endure. 
 
 Lord, bring me low ; 
 For Thou wert lowly in Thy blessed heart : 
 
 Lord, keep me so. 
 
 7. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
 unto the churches ; To him that overcometh will I give 
 to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the 
 paradise of God. 
 
 Not the promise only, the preamble also is full of grace. 
 
 By it we are instantly reminded of that reiterated saying of 
 our Lord's, recorded in their Gospels by SS. Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, but not (I believe) by St. John : " He that hath ears to 
 hear, let him hear." 
 
 If I may venture to study both the similarity and the difference 
 between the two forms, it seems to me that our Master's in- 
 vitation has a wider and (if I may call it so) a more elementary 
 sound. He appeals to all within reach of His blessed Voice : 
 u To you is the word of this salvation sent." It was at the 
 outset of a new dispensation, a first call of sinners to come 
 out of the world and become saints. It was, as by the prophet 
 of old, " Ho, every one." The words of winning mercy issued 
 from the lips full of grace ; the Aspect of unutterable attraction,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 55 
 
 as He spake, was visible to all who would behold. In that 
 day He called not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 
 
 The message of the Spirit being addressed " unto the 
 Churches," suggests that the hearer who is called upon to hear 
 it is in heart no alien, but one already concerned in the import 
 of the message ; one who, having actually started on his course, 
 now needs the advanced graces of perseverance and patience ; 
 or at the very least one who, being predisposed with open face 
 to behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, is apt to be 
 changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by 
 the Spirit of the Lord. The mere word " an ear " instead of 
 " ears," reminding us of that single eye which is the light of 
 the body, suggests that this is the parallel ear, the purged ear 
 which hearing the Word of God is blessed, inasmuch as he that 
 heareth is a doer and not a hearer only. 
 
 But there is a quite different train of thought unconnected 
 perhaps with any argument to be founded on the words of our 
 text, yet to which these may lead us as to a blameless, pious 
 contemplation and exercise of devout gratitude. "An ear": 
 how does God accept the poorest offering if it be all a man 
 has to proffer. Thus elsewhere we are certified of the one- 
 eyed, one-footed, one-handed penitents who shall enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven. The lame and the blind might be 
 hated of David's soul ; to the Son of David they are dear as 
 the apple of the eye. 
 
 Of old Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt Thou also 
 destroy the righteous with the wicked? and urging his in- 
 tercession onward and downward, at length obtained a promise 
 of safety for all the cities of the plain, could ten righteous 
 be found in Sodom. He fixed ten as the extreme boundary 
 of what he dared implore; at ten he became dumb, and 
 opened not his mouth, for it was God's doing ; could ten 
 not be found, Abraham acquiesced in the threatened de- 
 struction. But long ages afterwards, what saith God Al- 
 mighty Himself of that Jerusalem which by the mouth of 
 Isaiah He once upbraided under the name of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah ? Speaking yet again by the Prophet Jeremiah, He 
 saith : " Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, 
 and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, 
 if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, 
 that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it." 
 
 Human charity laid hand on mouth at ten. Divine charity 
 sought and sifted, and would have pardoned for the sake 
 of one.
 
 56 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 O God, all-Good, Father all-Merciful, Who didst provide 
 Thine own Lamb for Thy Burnt Offering, even the One Man 
 for Whom Thou soughtest ; for His sake Who died in our 
 stead that we should not also die, pardon and save us, the 
 very sinners for whom He died. 
 
 " What the Spirit saith." Is it then no longer Christ that 
 speaketh ? Surely it is the All-Holy Christ Who speaketh by 
 His Spirit ; and the All-Holy Spirit Who speaketh being One 
 with the Father and the Son. Whatso each Divine Person 
 doeth, the Godhead doeth. 
 
 This which I cannot understand, God helping me I will 
 believe and hold fast. 
 
 With the ability to hear stands indissolubly connected the 
 obligation to hear. He that hath an ear cannot make himself 
 like him that hath none. He who has heard cannot make 
 himself like him who has never heard. By shrinking from 
 hearing more the sluggard or the coward bears witness against 
 himself to having already heard somewhat. 
 
 "Unto the Churches." Not only to that one Church primarily 
 addressed, but to all Churches throughout all generations. To 
 the Church of England now, as to the Church of Ephesus then. 
 
 A message to my neighbour ! True ; but equally a message 
 to myself. If I long to improve my neighbour, the first step 
 towards so doing is to improve myself : " And why beholdest 
 thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not 
 the beam that is in thine own eye ? Or how wilt thou say to 
 thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye ; and, 
 behold, a beam is in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, first 
 cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou 
 see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." 
 
 " To him that overcometh." We are not here told what he 
 overcometh in particular, but looking back it becomes clear 
 that in this instance the foe to be overcome is the defaulter's 
 own self; his accusation concerning neither word nor deed, 
 but motive, the deep-seated spring of conduct, the inner man 
 of the heart. " Ye did run well ; who did hinder you ? " 
 
 Ephesus appears like Ephraim of old : " Strangers have de- 
 voured his strength, and he knoweth it not ; yea, gray hairs are 
 here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not." St. Paul writes : 
 "As dying, and, behold, we live"; concerning Ephesus the 
 sentence might be reversed : As living, and, behold, they die. 
 If in full vitality they begin to die, how being half dead shall 
 they retrieve their life ? "With men it is impossible, but not 
 with God; for with God all things are possible." " He giveth
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 57 
 
 more grace. Wherefore He saith, God resisteth ihe proud, but 
 giveth grace unto the humble." 
 
 O Christ the Life, look on me where I lie 
 
 Ready to die : 
 O Good Samaritan, nay, pass not by. 
 
 O Christ my life, pour in Thine oil and wine 
 
 To keep me Thine ; 
 Me ever Thine, and Thee for ever mine. 
 
 Watch by Thy saints and sinners, watch by all 
 
 Thy {;reat and small : 
 Once Thou didst call us all, O Lord, recall. 
 
 Think how Thy saints love sinners, how they pray 
 
 And hope alway, 
 And thereby grow more like Thee day by day. 
 
 O Saint of saints, if those with prayer and vow 
 
 Succour us now . . . 
 It was not they died for us, it was Thou. 
 
 Even he " that overcometh " does not earn : it still is God 
 that " will give." 
 
 And what will He give ? " To eat of the tree of life which is 
 in the midst of the Paradise of God," thereby reversing Adam's 
 doom : "The Lord God said . . . Now, lest he put forth his 
 hand, and lake also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for 
 ever : therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden 
 of Eden . . . And He placed at the east of the garden of 
 Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, 
 to keep the way of the tree of life." 
 
 Thus the eastern gate, the gate of light, shut out man into 
 darkness ; immortal cherubim barred him from the precincts 
 of life; flame repelled him into the co'.d of death; until the 
 times of refreshing should come from the Lord, and to Christ's 
 brethren every loss should be made up, yea, and much more 
 also. 
 
 Christ is our Tree of Life, whereof even now we eat and drink 
 in the Sacrament of His most Blessed Body and Blood ; even 
 now whilst, please God, we are overcoming, though we have 
 not yet overcome. " Blessed are ye that hunger now : for ye 
 shall be filled." He " the Branch," foretold by prophets, He 
 " the True Vine," revealed by His own lips, He now is man- 
 kind's centre to which turn eyes and hearts. Long ago the 
 Tree of Life so stood in the midst of Eden, and so in vision St. 
 John beheld it stand in the midst of the street of Holy New 
 Jerusalem (see ch. xxii. 2).
 
 5$ THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 If we could forget the Vine's sweetness, can we forget how it 
 left its sweetness to become our King ? If we could forget the 
 Tree of Life, can we forget that tree of death whereon Christ 
 hung that so He might be indeed our life ? 
 
 O our Saviour, grant us grace to love Thee in and above all 
 Thy gifts, and to love Thy gifts because of Thee. 
 
 "The Paradise of God " : were it not "of God " it would 
 not be Paradise. " In My Father's house are many mansions : 
 if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a 
 place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will 
 come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, 
 there ye may be also." 
 
 Paradise is God's by right, man's by grace. In its midst 
 Christ, Very God and Very Man, stands symbolized by the Tree 
 of Life ; later on we read of the Lamb " in the midst" of the 
 Throne. In an awe-striking mystery we seem thus to behold 
 Christ not centre of humankind alone, or of all creation alone ; 
 but even Christ in the Bosom of the Father, the Beloved Son 
 in Whom the Father Himself is well pleased. 
 
 That Eden of earth's sunrise cannot vie 
 With Paradise beyond her sunset sky 
 Hidden on high. 
 
 Four rivers watered Eden in her bliss, 
 But Paradise hath One which perfect is 
 In sweetnesses. 
 
 Eden had gold, but Paradise hath gold 
 Like unto glass of splendours manifold 
 Tongue hath not told. 
 
 Eden had sun and moon to make her bright ; 
 But Paradise hath God and Lamb for light, 
 And hath no night. 
 
 Unspotted innocence was Eden's best ; 
 Great Paradise shows God's fulfilled behest, 
 Triumph and rest. 
 
 Hail, Eve and Adam, source of death and shame ! 
 New life has sprung from death, and Jesu's Name 
 Clothes you with fame. 
 
 Hail Adam and hail Eve ! your children rise 
 And call you blessed, in their glad surmise 
 Of Paradise. 
 
 8. And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; 
 These things saith the First and the last, which was 
 dead, and is alive.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 59 
 
 He Who was made like unto us knoweth whereof we are 
 made ; and that we are but dust well may He remember Who 
 died and was buried, although it was not possible that He 
 should see corruption or be holden of death.. He feels with us 
 as well as for us : He died, as we all must die ; He lives again, 
 as by His grace we all may rise to life everlasting. Thus He 
 maketh Himself all things to all men, willing by all means to 
 save us. His death and His life as it were salute us : O ye 
 dead, believe on Me and ye shall live ; O ye living, believe, 
 and ye shall never die. 
 
 9. I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but 
 thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them 
 which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the 
 synagogue of Satan. 
 
 The Searcher of hearts has no word of blame for Smyrna, 
 only encouragement, approval, benediction. Her oblation is 
 threefold : works, tribulation, poverty. Yet Ephesus exhibited 
 a longer list of offerings, Ephesus whose heart was not right 
 with God. " From all blindness and hardness of heart, good 
 Lord, deliver us." 
 
 Of those three acceptable offerings, one alone properly 
 appertained to Smyrna ; her works, that is ; and even these 
 were wrought only by aid of Divine grace. Tribulation, whether 
 we regard it as simply equivalent to affliction, or tracing it to its 
 root call it rather sifting, was her appointed discipline : poverty 
 (unless voluntary) was her assigned condition. 
 
 O Gracious and Bounteous Lord God, Who furnishing our 
 offering acceptest it, blessed be Thou for ever and ever, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
 Nothing on earth is a substitute for performance of duty, be 
 that duty what it may. Affliction cannot exempt us, nor great 
 searchings of heart, nor poverty : these are conditions under 
 which to work, not workers in our stead. " Is any among you 
 afflicted ? let him pray," prayer being practical and promotive 
 of practice. 
 
 Yet deeds wrought in God become eminently glorious when 
 wrought under stress of sorrow with patience and fear, with 
 faith, hope, and charity. Such affliction will turn to gladness, 
 such sifting and testing will certify, such poverty will enrich. 
 
 My God, openest Thou to us such possibilities, profferesl 
 Thou such vast grace and glory, and shall baptized Christians, 
 being harnessed, turn themselves back in the day of battle ? 
 Not so, Lord Jesus, for Thine own sake.
 
 60 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " If them faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is 
 small." 
 
 "But thou art rich." Neither is all wealth poor, nor all 
 poverty rich. That widow who cast two mites into the sacred 
 treasury, by so doing became rich, but had she kept them she 
 had remained simply "a poor widow." God then sat in the 
 congregation of princes visibly as Judge: still He sits invisibly: 
 yet a little while and again He will sit visibly. Now He sits 
 as a refiner and purifier of silver : then He will acknowledge 
 every gift He has purified and accepted. God will be no man's 
 debtor. 
 
 Then will come to light transfigured every offering in 
 righteousness. The gold, frankincense, myrrh of wise men ; 
 the boats and nets of fishermen ; the money of the exchanger ; 
 the loaves and small fishes of disciples ; the ointment and 
 alabaster box of loving women ; houses, lands ; a cup of cold 
 water. All riches which have spread wings and flown away as 
 eagles toward heaven, shall then reappear as treasures in 
 heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where 
 thieves do not break through nor steal. 
 
 Is it difficult to realize the transcendent riches of poverty ? 
 To me it should not be impossible. For once I knew a holy 
 woman, who having given up one possession which was very 
 dear to her, foresaw with delight the regaining it imperishable. 
 To have known her long and intimately was a course of 
 spiritual training : may it not turn to my condemnation. 
 
 My God, wilt Thou accept, and will not we 
 
 Give aught to Thee? 
 The kept we lose, the offered we retain 
 Or find again. 
 
 Yet if our gift were lost, we well might lose 
 
 All for Thy use : 
 Well lost for Thee, Whose Love is all for us 
 
 Gratuitous. 
 
 " The synagogue of Satan." Evil neighbourhood ranks 
 amongst the trials of the Church of Smyrna, all whose trials 
 however were privileges and potential blessings. Still, when- 
 ever evil is the appointed channel of grace, there is obviously 
 peril involved : as St. Paul warned his Corinthian flock, " evil 
 communications corrupt good manners." Whilst doubly lovely 
 by contrast appears that "lily among thorns," which surmount- 
 ing them blossoms in their despite, elsewhere we read of good 
 grain choked and ruined by thorns which sprung up in its 
 company.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 61 
 
 " Lead us not into temptation " is one enjoined prayer. Yet 
 when we fall into divers temptations we are to count it all joy, 
 because the trying of faith worketh patience. " Blessed is the 
 man that endureth temptation : for when he is tried, he shall 
 receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to 
 them that love Him." 
 
 "I know the blasphemy of them," saith the Judge; yet 
 knowing it, He permitted His outraged Church to sojourn 
 within hearing of that blasphemy. A comfort to all Christians 
 who involuntarily remain exposed to so keen a trial. "Hallowed 
 by Thy name. Deliver us from evil." 
 
 " The synagogue of Satan." As then certain non-Jews called 
 themselves Jews, and composed in fact Satan's Synagogue, so 
 now presumably there may be non-Christians, who calling 
 themselves Christians, are the Church of Satan. Touching 
 which ghastly possibility it is well to pray for others as for 
 ourselves, but to mistrust ourselves rather than others. My- 
 self in some degree I am bound to know and am bound to 
 judge. 
 
 My permitted wanderings in prayer dishonour God's Holy 
 Name. My indulged rebellious feelings deny His love. 
 
 O Merciful Lord Jesus, cast me not out, forget not me as I 
 have forgotten Thee. For us all, Amen. 
 
 10. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: 
 behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, 
 that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have tribulation 
 ten days : be thou faithful unto death, and I will give 
 thee a crown of life. 
 
 " Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer." 
 O God our Father, Who callest us to be Thy children, give 
 us filial fear and self-mistrustful fear ; and toward all beside 
 courage indomitable, for our great Champion's sake, Jesus 
 Christ. Amen. 
 
 Cast down but not destroyed, chastened not slain : 
 
 Thy Saints have lived that life, but how can I ? 
 
 I who thro' dread of death do daily die 
 By daily foretaste of an unfelt pain. 
 Lo, I depart who shall not come again ; 
 
 Lo, as a shadow I am flitting by ; 
 
 As a leaf trembling, as a wheel I fly, 
 While death flies faster and my flight is vain. 
 Chastened not slain, cast down but not destroyed : 
 
 If thus Thy Saints have straggled home to peac*,
 
 62 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Why should not I take heart to be as they ? 
 
 They too pent passions in a house of clay, 
 Fear and desire and pangs and ecstasies ; 
 Yea, then they joyed who now are overjoyed. 
 
 " Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that 
 ye may be tried." Though it be the devil's doing, yet are not 
 those saints to fear. They might be bound, but the Word of 
 God could not be bound. Moreover their bodies might be 
 bound, but not their souls ; these would still sit in heavenly 
 places with Christ Jesus. Even their bodies, because temples 
 of the Holy Ghost, would remain " Christ's freemen " while in 
 bonds ; for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 
 
 What then could Satan bind ? Flesh and blood which shall 
 not inherit the kingdom of God : the outer man of spiritual per- 
 sons who used to spend themselves in going about to do good, 
 and who would find and recover their strength in sitting still 
 
 Thus Satan wrought evil in will but good in effect. 
 Alleluia ! 
 
 " The trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience 
 have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, want- 
 ing nothing." 
 
 "And ye shall have tribulation ten days." It may be that 
 even the excellent souls addressed understood not what period 
 that cipher indicated. At any rate I assuredly understand it 
 not. But wisdom transcends understanding; and doubtless 
 this word is capable of instructing us, God helping an honest 
 endeavour. 
 
 There is comfort in the certainty that though the limit of any 
 trial be hidden from me, by God that limit is prefixed and is 
 all along well known ; the end is planned and adjusted from 
 the beginning. As the hairs of our head, so the throbs of our 
 agony are all numbered. Nor do "ten" seem so very many : 
 one over, but nine remain, and so on and on j till one by one 
 all arrive, pass by, are finished. 
 
 Let us recall some Bible Tens, and fortify hope by cheerful 
 meditation. 
 
 Ten commandments compose a complete scheme of righteous* 
 ness. Ten days even of tribulation will not be an excessive 
 period wherein to practise their observance. 
 
 David had his instrument of ten strings whereon to worship 
 God. Our ten days of weeping may emit as sweet a harmony 
 of prayer and praise, and as triumphant a note of victory. 
 
 Ten days are as ten talents for each good and faithful servant 
 to employ profitably.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 63 
 
 r_ 
 
 Ten days of darkness may shine to the glory of God, like ten 
 lighted lamps of wise virgins, who with oil in their vessels go 
 forth to meet the bridegroom. 
 
 Ten days of trial should be treasured more than ten pieces 
 of silver : holy souls take jealous heed lest one be wasted or 
 lost. 
 
 Our ten days (alas !) at their best will by taint of sinfulness 
 show more or less like ten lepers. At least let us secure that 
 on each of them God be thanked and worshipped. 
 
 Ten days are as ten servants entrusted with ten pounds 
 capable of multiplication. 
 
 Ten days of discipline may become as Hezekiah's ten 
 degrees on the sundial certifying recovery : only, blessed be 
 God ! they go forward and not backward. 
 
 O God, through Whose good Providence Daniel and his 
 fellows flourished by reason of ten days' cheerful austerity; 
 grant to us, I beseech Thee, like good will and a happy issue 
 out of all our afflictions. For our Saviour Jesus Christ's sake, 
 Amen. 
 
 Our Lord in His own Person was " faithful unto death," 
 thereby winning the " Crown of Life " He weareth. Shall we 
 bemoan ourselves because He bids us do as He once did, and 
 be made like Him as He now is? 
 
 Faithful unto death. We often think of it as if it must 
 demand a long as well as an unflinching effort ; and so indeed 
 it may demand, but we know not whether it will. One 
 moment may suffice, for aught we truly know to the contrary. 
 One moment's effort : the weakest might undertake so much. 
 
 Or if ever so long a strain be required, God's strength is 
 always stronger than strong enough. 
 
 Let us not despise others or ourselves for a mere instinctive 
 dread of death ; while we observe that Christ Who by ex- 
 perience knew the bitterness of death, here sets death as the 
 test of man's faithfulness and limit of his endurance. [If such 
 a meaning may be understood as included in the charge to be 
 faithful unto death.] 
 
 If we fear not, let us thank God and do valiantly. If we 
 fear, let us thank God and take courage, offering up our fear to 
 Him Who Himself was heard in that He feared. 
 
 Great is their grace who instead of choosing their offering 
 simply offer whatever they have ; as Jacob of old in extremity 
 of danger took of that which came to his hand a present. 
 
 The faithful alone appear thoroughly furnished to treat of 
 faithfulness. Yet since many truths admit of being vividly set
 
 64 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 forth by help of negatives, even unfaithfulness viewed as a sort 
 of negation need not altogether strike us dumb, so long as we 
 are hoping and aiming at obedience to Christ's injunction. If 
 we cannot acquire faithfulness at once, let us patiently, humbly, 
 anxiously, unlearn unfaithfulness. Till we can affirm truth, at 
 least let us deny error. 
 
 The resolute unlearning of unfaithfulness is in fact the 
 practice of faithfulness. " Cease to do evil ; learn to do well," 
 hang together. The Ten Commandments are mainly conveyed 
 by negatives. 
 
 Be faithful unto death. Christ profters thee 
 Crown of a life that draws immortal breath : 
 
 To thee He saith, yea, and He saith to me, 
 "Be faithful unto death." 
 
 To every living soul that same He saith, 
 " Be faithful : " whatsoever else we be, 
 Let us be faithful challenging His faith. 
 
 Tho' trouble storm around us like the sea, 
 Tho' hell surge up to scare us and to scathe, 
 
 Tho' heaven and earth betake themselves to flee, 
 " Be faithful unto death." 
 
 " I will give thee." " Thou wilt not have earned, but I will 
 give thee." 
 
 O Lord, Thy gift is better than any earnings, and Thou 
 Thyself art better than Thy gift. " Thy love is better than 
 wine." 
 
 "A crown of life." Life had appeared no small boon, and 
 must always have been beyond fallen man's utmost deserts. 
 But Christ's promise goes far beyond bare life, and mounts up 
 to dignity, beauty, a garment of praise. " For the Lord God 
 is a sun and shield : the Lord will give grace and glory : no 
 good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." 
 
 We live after a sort, but all the while we are dying. We 
 who dying live can form no conception of what the true, full, 
 unstricken, undying life will be. Life, though along with many 
 pleasures and alleviations, is now a matter of pains and aches, 
 hunger and thirst, faintness and weariness : this is the life we 
 experience. That other life will not be such ; we realize not 
 yet what it will be. 
 
 Once in his life " Israel said, It is enough ; Joseph my son 
 is yet alive : I will go and see him before I die." For the 
 moment love and joy because of another's life cast out the 
 sting though not the foresight of death.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 65 
 
 O Lord Jesus, Who being yet alive art alive for evermore, 
 and Who to every faithful soul art " better than ten sons," fill 
 us with such love of Thee, and such joy in Thy joy, that for 
 us also death in foresight may lose its sting. Amen for us 
 all, Amen. 
 
 "A crown of life." Of what fashion shall such a crown be? 
 
 St. Paul speaks of an amaranthine crown, contrasting it with 
 earth's fading crowns of victory. And later in this Book of 
 Revelations we read of crowns of gold. 
 
 We may hope to discern in celestial crowns every adornment 
 of all possible crowns. Gracefulness of leaves, loveliness of 
 flowers, endearment (if I may call it so) of tendrils, permanence 
 of gold, lustre and tints of jewels. Such crowns I hope to see 
 on heads I have venerated and loved here. 
 
 Meanwhile, because our dear Lord, flower of humankind 
 and comparable with fine gold (though fine gold sufficeth not 
 to compare with Him), was contented on earth to be crowned 
 with a crown of thorns ; let us be patient, contented, thankful, 
 to wait on in hopes of a crown of life and glory. 
 
 " Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon 
 with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day 
 of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart." 
 
 If we be daughters of the spiritual Zion, let us obey this 
 injunction though it send us along the way of sorrows. 
 
 Our King Whom we behold is not only the wisest of Men 
 but is Very Wisdom Incarnate. He summons us to behold 
 Him; He waits if so be we will turn and behold Him. His 
 Crown is a Crown of Thorns transcending any which Solomon 
 in all his glory put on. His mother crowned Him therewith, 
 Eve the mother of us all, Eve whose wilfulness brought in 
 death, Eve to whom the victorious Seed was promised. And 
 it was in the day of His espousals, when He betrothed to 
 Himself His bride the Church, that in Will and purpose He 
 assumed this crown, making ready to "leave His Father" and 
 cleave unto His wife. Moreover it was in gladness of His 
 heart that He put it on, in the eternal unbroken calm of Divine 
 goodwill and good pleasure. Afterwards, for the joy that was 
 set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame ; 
 and doubtless when beforehand He counted the cost, He 
 anticipated also the ensuing joy. His Love (as it were) forgets 
 the anguish, for joy of our new birth ; only never may our love 
 forget it ; forget that glorious shame for our sakes against which 
 He set His Face as a flint, that sorrow for our sakes like which 
 there is no second sorrow.
 
 66 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 11. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
 
 saith unto the churches ; He that overeometh shall 
 not be hurt of the second death. 
 
 " Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
 Death is swallowed up in victory." 
 
 Parallels cannot converge. If Christ the Life occupy and 
 pervade us, death cannot annex us. Death may run alongside 
 of us all our days, and hold out hands of invitation to seduce 
 us, or clench fists and raise an outcry as though it could do us 
 a mischief; but death and Christ's members tend towards 
 different points ; and there is nothing it can really effect to 
 harm us so long as we cleave to Christ by faith, lean on Him 
 by hope, hold Him fast and let Him not go by love. The 
 first death (which is but the shadow of death) is indeed ours 
 by birthright under a curse which God has long ago turned for 
 the elect into a blessing ; the second death, which alone is 
 absolute, unmitigated death, has no fellowship with him that 
 overeometh. 
 
 What then is he, are we, summoned to overcome ? With- 
 out, fightings ; within, fears. 
 
 Amen, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love 
 of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 
 
 12. And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; 
 
 These things saith He which hath the sharp sword 
 with two edges; 
 
 "The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper 
 than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing 
 asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is 
 a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." 
 
 If the powers which are His ordinance bear not the sword 
 in vain, much less He from Whom all power is derived. On 
 the other hand, if they are a terror not to good works but to 
 evil, so and much more He also. " Wilt thou then not be 
 afraid of the power ? Do that which is good, and thou shalt 
 have praise of the same." 
 
 "Sharp." The sharpness guarantees nicety of operation, 
 exactness to a hair's-breadth, no atom too much or too little 
 affected by the stroke. " Two-edged." None can evade that 
 sword which cuts both ways. 
 
 But who is He that hath this deadly sword ? He Who was 
 Himself wounded for our transgressions, Who died in our 
 stead that we should not also die. " 1 have no pleasure in
 
 THE FACE Of THE DEEP. 67 
 
 the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God : wherefore 
 turn yourselves, and live ye." 
 
 O Lord Jesus, we fear Thee ; but much more, Thou enabling 
 us, we will trust and love Thee. 
 
 David, the man after God's own heart, was afraid because of 
 the sword of the Angel of the Lord. Supreme dominion and 
 supreme fear are with Him with Whom we have to do. 
 
 We may perhaps lawfully think thus of the two edges as 
 under one of their aspects. One cuts asunder the evil servant 
 penally, irremediably, by decree of the Supreme and Just 
 Judge. The other, by tenderness of the Good Physician, 
 wounds us for our own benefit and that afterwards He may 
 heal us. " He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into 
 the hand of the physician." 
 
 " Into Thy hands I commend my spirit : for Thou hast 
 redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth." 
 
 13. I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where 
 Satan's seat is : and thou boldest fast My Name, and 
 hast not denied My faith, even in those days wherein 
 Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was slain 
 among you, where Satan dwelleth. 
 
 In the Authorized Version all the Seven Churches alike are 
 addressed in these same words: "I know thy works" : whilst 
 in the Revised Version this Church of Pergamos alone is not 
 so addressed. Because the clause is here in one text omitted, 
 whilst in both texts repeated throughout the corresponding 
 passages, I here venture to pass it over. The Revised Version 
 commences : " I know where thou dwellest ; even where 
 Satan's throne is " thus supplying a second variation, throne 
 for seat. 
 
 "Satan's seat," more especially when designated as his 
 throne, recalls that phase of our Master's temptation when 
 "the devil, taking Him up into an high mountain, showed 
 unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of 
 time. And the devil said unto Him, All this power will 
 I give Thee, and the glory of them : for that is delivered unto 
 me ; and to whomsoever I will I give it." Elsewhere we read 
 of " principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, 
 spiritual wickedness in high places " ; of " the prince of the 
 power of the air " ; of " the god of this world." 
 
 A common deadly inalienable peril thus appears to en- 
 compass the whole human race. Our enemy, further described 
 as " a strong man armed," is no less than in some sort a prince.
 
 68 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Of his resources we know not the extent, of his armies we 
 know not the number ; but his being prince of the power of 
 the air suggests that we are as closely beset by temptation as 
 though this formed our atmosphere, as though at each breath 
 we drew we inhaled it. " O wretched man that I am ! who 
 shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " 
 
 Nevertheless our fathers in the flesh have resisted unto 
 blood, striving against sin : why should not we ? He that is 
 on our side is greater than he that is against us : there is "a 
 Stronger than he." "The breath of our nostrils" is "the 
 Anointed of the Lord." 
 
 "I will hope continually, and will yet praise Thee more and 
 more. My mouth shall show forth Thy righteousness and 
 Thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers 
 thereof." 
 
 "Thou boldest fast My Name, and hast not denied My 
 faith " the hidden allegiance of the heart, the open profession 
 of loyalty. " With the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; 
 and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." 
 
 When men (and women and children too) are called to 
 martyrdom, not to deny amounts to plenary confession. But 
 so long as the world says, Peace, peace, then oftentimes not to 
 confess becomes virtually a denial. 
 
 O Jesus Christ, Who for love's sake desirest to confess and 
 not to deny us before Thy Father ; grant us such love of Thee 
 that we too for love's sake may confess and never deny Thee 
 before men. 
 
 " In those days." No momentary trial : saintly impulse not 
 enough, saintly endurance equally essential. Here then once 
 more patience is in requisition : patience a tedious, indomitable 
 grace. 
 
 " Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for 
 our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the 
 Scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and 
 consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another 
 according to Christ Jesus : that ye may with one mind and 
 one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 "Antipas was My faithful martyr." Men know him not 
 now, how he lived or how he died. God alone knows him. 
 Enough for blessed Antipas. 
 
 Hidden from the darkness of our mortal sight, 
 Hidden in the Paradise of lovely light,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 69 
 
 Hidden in God's Presence worshipped face to face, 
 Hidden in the sanctuary of Christ's embrace. 
 Up, O Wills ! to track him home among the bless'd ; 
 Up, O Hearts ! to know him in the joy of rest ; 
 Where no darkness more shall hide him from our sight, 
 Where we shall be love with love and light with light, 
 Worshipping our God together face to face, 
 Wishless in the sanctuary of Christ's embrace. 
 
 " Slain among you." The blood of Martyrs is the seed of 
 Saints : and " if it bear fruit, well." If it bear not fruit, the 
 dust of martyrs cannot but testify against those among whom 
 they were slain. Whoso has seen cannot revert to be as if 
 he had not seen : whoso has heard cannot revert to be as if he 
 had not heard. This latter point our Lord Himself attests in 
 His charge to the Seventy : " Into whatsoever city ye enter, 
 and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of 
 the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which 
 cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you : notwithstanding 
 be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto 
 you." 
 
 So " where Satan dwelleth " turns out to have been in a 
 city of saints from whose midst flashed forth a faithful martyr. 
 
 And to-day assuredly in our own midst he dwelleth ; making 
 his neighbourhood known by hideous temptations to foulness, 
 cruelty, self-ruin. 
 
 Here is the city and here is a cityful. But where are the 
 saints ? and where, in will if not in deed, is the martyr ? 
 
 I trust such seemly inmates abide in my neighbour's 
 habitation. Shall not one such abide likewise in my own? 
 Amen, God helping me. 
 
 14. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast 
 there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who 
 taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the 
 children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, 
 and to commit fornication. 
 
 " A few things." Thus tenderly does our Lord speak, not 
 breaking the bruised reed or quenching the smoking flax. 
 Submit yourselves therefore to God. " Resist the devil, and 
 he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw 
 nigh to you." 
 
 15. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the 
 
 Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate.
 
 70 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Our Lord rebukes not Pergamos because Satan dwelt there, 
 but because Balaamites and Nicolaitanes flourished there. The 
 one intruder they had no power to eject ; the others they could 
 and therefore they were bound to discountenance. 
 
 At which announcement should we be more scared : that 
 Satan kept his court amongst us, or that misbelievers and 
 misdoers infested our neighbourhood ? Very probably at the 
 former ; but the Mind of Christ seems otherwise. 
 
 " The doctrine of Balaam." Yet studying Balaam's history 
 (see Num. xxii. 23, 24; xxxi. i 8, 16; and in addition Micah 
 vi. 5 8, according to one view of the passage), his doctrine 
 might to some of us have seemed his one strong point. He 
 overflowed with knowledge, nor flinched from its eloquent 
 exposition. Nevertheless and alas ! he showed forth his faith 
 by his works, which works were devilish. " The devils also 
 believe." "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
 speaketh " ; and out of the abundance of his heart proceeded 
 that counsel which put a stumblingblock before Israel. 
 
 Knowledge then is not necessarily faith, neither is eloquence 
 unction, neither is resource wisdom. 
 
 my God, Who callest us to search Thy Scriptures of 
 truth, furnish us, I beseech Thee, with faith, unction, wisdom ; 
 with willingness to shine to Thy glory, or not to shine at all 
 so it be always to Thy glory. Grant us the life of the 
 righteous, and a last end like his. For His sake Who alone is 
 righteous and is our righteousness, Jesus Christ our Saviour. 
 Amen. 
 
 Balaam put an outrageous stumblingblock in men's way, 
 barefaced idolatry with gross impurity being the result. 
 
 Are there no Balaams nowadays ? We become Balaams 
 when our influence lowers the tone of any who are aboiit us. 
 
 What children are near me ? What servants ? What less 
 educated persons ? What individuals whose inclination it is 
 rather to follow than to lead ? I myself become a Balaam if 
 I misuse my influence. Good Lord, deliver me. 
 
 Balaam has still to face at the Day of Judgment the 
 wretched tools who adopted his policy, the wretched victims 
 of his accursed counsel. 
 
 1 myself must face on that Day and at that Bar all whom I 
 have ever affected on earth, all who directly or remotely have 
 responded to my influence for good or for evil. Good Lord, 
 deliver us. 
 
 Lord, make us all love all : tliat when we meet 
 Even myriads of earth's myriads at Thy Bar,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 71 
 
 We may be glad as all true lovers are 
 
 Who having parted count reunion sweet. 
 
 Safe gathered home around Thy blessed Feet, 
 Come home by different roads from near or far, 
 Whether by whirlwind or by flaming car, 
 
 From pangs or sleep, safe folded round Thy seat. 
 
 Oh, if our brother's blood cry out at us. 
 
 How shall we meet Thee Who hast loved us all, 
 Thee Whom we never loved, not loving him? 
 
 The unloving cannot chant with Seraphim, 
 
 Bear harp of gold or palm victorious, 
 Or face the vision Beatifical. 
 
 16. Repent ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will 
 
 fight against them with the sword of My mouth. 
 
 Lord, shall we repent, lest Thou come quickly unto us? 
 Thy saints are praying : Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 
 
 Lord, if better may not as yet be, grant us the repentance 
 which stayeth Thy coming ; and lead us up to that loving 
 penitence which longeth after Thee and inviteth Thee, and to 
 which Thou wilt not say nay. 
 
 "With the sword of My mouth." This Mouth which 
 threatens to fight against obstinate sinners is the very Mouth 
 which heretofore loved to say, Come unto Me, Follow Me. 
 To Christians thus it still speaketh. Under the elder Dis- 
 pensation it spake not thus : not thus to Balaam with the 
 living Voice of a Man our Brother, although by a miracle a 
 rebuke was vouchsafed him. Wherefore if we Christians 
 make ourselves like him, we make ourselves twofold more the 
 child of hell. Our grace is fuller than was his grace, our 
 knowledge clearer than his knowledge : he did despite to a 
 Love that had still to be revealed ; we do despite to a Love 
 that now and for eighteen centuries past can call heaven and 
 earth to witness, saying, What could I have done more that I 
 have not done ? 
 
 Lord, let not Thy life, Thy death, Thy resurrection for our 
 sakes, Thy proffered grace, Thy longsuffering to usward, rise 
 up in the Judgment with us to condemn us. 
 
 17. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
 
 unto the churches ; To him that overcometh will I 
 give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him 
 a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, 
 which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it 
 
 Already we eat of " the true bread from heaven " in the 
 Blessed Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood. Eating
 
 72 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 thereof we receive strength to overcome; and truly it is 
 " hidden Manna " of virtue indiscernible by fleshly eyes and 
 carnal hearts. Blessed are they who thus eat Bread in the 
 Militant Kingdom of God. Afterwards, having overcome, 
 God's faithful soldier and servant will once more eat of the 
 hidden Manna in the peace of God's Triumphant Kingdom ; 
 no longer to sustain a life that may die, but to satisfy a life 
 that will live for ever. 
 
 The subtlest and profoundest of men cannot explain 
 mysteries ; the simplest person can appropriate and exult in 
 them. On the very surface of this great promise it transpires 
 that as Christ is life to the faithful soul now, so He will be life 
 to the indefectible soul then. This for the present suffices ; 
 if I am fain to know more, by overcoming I shall one day 
 attain to full knowledge. 
 
 Lord, Thou Thyself art here our Heavenly Food and 
 sustenance, and it passeth all understanding what there Thou 
 wilt be. Already Thou art to us Strength and Sweetness, Life and 
 Joy, Safety and Sanctification. What wilt Thou be to us then ? 
 Yea, Thou Thyself wilt not be changed : we shall be changed. 
 We shall see and flow together and wonder. Amen ! Amen ! 
 
 " Hidden manna." We often hide what is deepest and 
 dearest in us, yet one friend has cognizance of it. Is it thus, 
 Lord, that Thou too hidest Thyself, and while thus hiding 
 revealest Thyself to Thy chosen ones ? 
 
 " A white stone, and in the stone a new name written." 
 Here (if it be lawful) I read a promise of the everlasting 
 renewed innocence of the redeemed. For their name shall 
 be inscribed on stone, which amongst earthly substances 
 excels in durability ; and that stone shall be white, as lambs, 
 doves, light, are white. And as whiteness is not a colour, but 
 rather an absence of tints ; so innocence is not a virtue, but 
 rather an absence of guilt. 
 
 Each soul that overcometh will have its new name written 
 on whiteness ; and new indeed will it be when our name (God 
 grant it !) endorses innocence and not guilt. For now " if we 
 say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth 
 is not in us." 
 
 The names of the twelve Apostles appear on foundation 
 stones ; the names of all faithful soldiers and servants on 
 white stones ; all alike imperishable in the Presence of God 
 Almighty. 
 
 Nevertheless as whiteness may again be defined not as 
 absence but rather as invisibility of colour, so these white stones
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 73 
 
 may be contemplated as white because of their proper stain- 
 lessness, yet equally as coloured in response to that Divine 
 Light which bathes them : even as the hueless diamond blazes 
 with rainbow tints in answer to the sun's glory. 
 
 "In the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth 
 saving he that receiveth it." The reverse of our present ex- 
 perience ; for now the saints are they who know not their own 
 names, however unhesitatingly they name each other. Thus 
 Patience will not discern herself, but will identify a neighbour 
 as Charity, who in turn will recognize not herself, but mild 
 Patience ; and they both shall know some fellow-Christian, as 
 Hope or Prudence or Faith ; and every one of these shall be 
 sure of the others, only not of herself. 
 
 But in the beatified life it shall be otherwise. When Christ 
 shall call each happy, heavenly soul by name, as once He 
 called " Mary " in an earthly garden, then each will perceive 
 herself to be that which He calls her; and will no more 
 question her own designation than did those primitive creatures 
 whom the first Adam named in the inferior Paradise. 
 
 " Which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." "Thou 
 shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord 
 shall name." Close, intimate, flawless as will be the com- 
 munion of beatified saints with each other ; still closer, more 
 intimate, perfect will be the communion between Christ and 
 each saved soul. This is the supreme Fellowship which 
 includes and entails the other, this is the supreme Union 
 which the other is like unto. And so far as it is lawful to 
 flesh and blood to meditate on matters not revealed (taking 
 with us words, and turning to the Lord, and saying unto Him, 
 Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously), may we not 
 even reverently ponder whether, after some transcendent, 
 supersensual fashion, Christ and His own beloved one by one 
 may not reciprocally have a love-name known to both and 
 endeared to each, as it were a name (I mean) expressive of 
 what He was and is to that one soul, and what that one soul 
 to Him. and which as regards all others will pass man's or 
 angel's understanding ? " He that hath the bride is the 
 Bridegroom," however the friend of the Bridegroom may stand 
 and hear Him and rejoice greatly because of the Bridegroom's 
 voice. 
 
 " That it may please Thee to give us true repentance ; to 
 forgive us all our ignorances ; and to endue us with the grace 
 of Thy Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to Thy holy 
 Word ; We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord."
 
 74 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Lord, shall there ever be a secret between Thee and me ? 
 
 Soul, is there not now already a secret between Me and 
 thee ? I know thy name now, whether thou be Impenitent 
 Sinner or Sinful Penitent. I know it now ; but none other 
 knoweth it fully, neither dost thou thyself fully know it. Now 
 in part thou knowest it : hereafter if thou be of those who 
 overcome, thou shalt know even as thou art known. 
 
 Lord, I pray Thee make me now what it will please Thee 
 to call me then. 
 
 Soul, canst thou drink of the cup that I drank of? 
 
 Yea, Lord, Thou enabling me. Amen. 
 
 18. And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write ; 
 These things saith the Son of God, Who hath His 
 eyes like unto a flame of fire, and His feet are like 
 fine brass. 
 
 "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judg- 
 ment unto the Son." " My defence is of God, which saveth 
 the upright in heart. God judgeth the righteous, and God is 
 angry with the wicked every day." " Remember not, Lord, 
 our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers ; neither take 
 Thou vengeance of our sins : spare us, good Lord, spare Thy 
 people, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy most precious 
 Blood, and be not angry with us for ever. Spare us, good 
 Lord." 
 
 " Eyes like unto a flame of fire." Omniscience from which 
 nothing is concealed ; unto which nothing is veiled, disguised, 
 obscure. " Feet like fine brass." Almighty Strength and 
 Stability, before which all other strength and steadfastness 
 become impotence. 
 
 This Who cannot err will be our Judge : This Whom none 
 can gainsay will decree our sentence : as of old by Amos the 
 Prophet He declared to revolted Israel : " Therefore thus will 
 I do unto thee, O Israel : and because I will do this unto thee, 
 prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. For, lo, He that formeth 
 the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man 
 what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and 
 treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, The 
 God of hosts, is His Name." 
 
 19. I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, 
 and thy patience, and thy works ; and the last to be 
 more than the first. 
 
 Good works to begin with, and abundant good works as
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 75 
 
 time progresses ; and meanwhile charity which covers the 
 multitude of sins, and service which cannot go unrewarded, 
 and faith whereby it becomes possible to please God (see Heb. 
 ii. 6), and patience by which saints put on the likeness of 
 holy Job and of Job's most holy Redeemer ; charity which 
 never faileth, service which beginning on earth ends not in 
 heaven, faith which can remove mountains, patience which is 
 of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and which fainteth not utterly 
 waiting for the Goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 
 Thus even on earth are the elect arrayed in loveliness and 
 adorned with graces. Not here are they crowned : persever- 
 ance entitles to a crown, final perseverance attains to one. It 
 needs profound patience, patience born of love and sustained 
 by love, to achieve final perseverance. 
 
 What is the beginning? Love. What the course? Love still. 
 What the goal? The goal is Love on the happy hill. 
 Is there nothing then but Love, search we sky orarth? 
 There is nothing out of Love hath perpetual worth : 
 All things flag but only Love, all things fail or flee ; 
 There is nothing left but Love worthy you and me. 
 
 " Thy works." As we read that the last were more than the " 
 first, they were surely works of charity towards men and service 
 towards God, wrought in faith and completed in patience. 
 Such is that path of the just which shineth more and more unto 
 the perfect day. 
 
 O God of all Goodness, Who on others hast bestowed such 
 grace that their last works excelled their first and their end was 
 exalted above their beginning ; grant us like grace, that by as 
 fair a path we may attain to as goodly a goal. For the sake of 
 our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 20. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee. 
 because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which 
 calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce My 
 servants to commit fornication, and to eat things 
 sacrificed unto idols. 
 
 Pergamos and Thyatira have this in common ; both have 
 praise of God, whilst against both He bringeth forward " a few 
 things." 
 
 Man's estimate might incline in both cases to reverse the 
 proportion of virtues and vices ; but God is greater than our 
 heart, and knoweth all things. 
 
 " 1 am in a great strait : let me fall now into the hand of
 
 76 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the Lord ; for very great are His mercies : but let me not fall 
 into the hand of man." 
 
 " Because thou sufferest." To put up willingly with 
 abominable sin in our midst, even while holding aloof from 
 any such malpractice, is so far to cast in our lot with sinners. 
 To endure it unwillingly is what Christ Himself chose as a 
 mortal Man to do, and is what He is pleased to exact from all 
 successive generations of His disciples. Evil knowledge need 
 not harm us whilst involuntary ; but to court it without justi- 
 fying cause is to court death, as Eve courted death by bye-path 
 of knowledge. " Unto the pure all things are pure : but unto 
 them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure ; but 
 even their mind and conscience is defiled." 
 
 It becomes a matter of conscience what poems and novels 
 to read, and how much of the current news of the day. 
 
 A second point also Pergamos and Thyatira have in common : 
 false teachers. Yet I observe some difference between the 
 quality of these ; Balaam representing the pest of Pergamos, 
 Jezebel that of Thyatira. 
 
 Jezebel (see her history in the First and Second Book of 
 Kings), if we may take Jehu's word for her character, was an 
 abandoned woman and a witch, besides being, as the Inspired 
 Record shows, a nursing mother of idolatry. But whatever 
 witch she may have been, there appears about her no trace of 
 the genuine prophetess ; any more than we infer that there was 
 about that Thyatiran Jezebel, of whom it is expressly mentioned 
 that she "calleth herself" a prophetess. Queen Jezebel there- 
 fore may have rivalled or surpassed Balaam in guilt, but seems 
 not to have been his equal in gifts. 
 
 Whence a double consideration arises, if from these particular 
 instances I am justified in generalizing. As Balaam in com- 
 parison with Jezebel, so men in comparison with women may 
 usually be expected to exhibit keener, tougher, more work- 
 worthy gifts. Therefore if Jezebel the woman, going about to 
 establish her equality with Balaam the man, poses as prophetess 
 to his prophet, nothing is more likely than that she will have to 
 eke out and puff up her pretensions by a whiff of imposture, 
 conscious or unconscious imposture. [History repeats itself.] 
 
 21. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication ; and 
 she repented not. 
 
 Empty space, neutral space, is impossible ; it must be occu- 
 pied by accumulating guilt or by repentance unto progressive 
 amendment.
 
 THE FACE Of THE DEEP. 
 
 Space is mine to-day by God's gift. Grant unto us all, I 
 beseech Thee, O Lord, space to repent, and repentance while 
 it is called to-day, repentance not to be repented of, repentance 
 unto salvation. For Jesu's sake. Amen. 
 
 22. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit 
 
 adultery with her into great tribulation, except they 
 repent of their deeds. 
 
 Any to whom space for repentance is still accorded, are still 
 they whom God desireth to bring less into than out of great 
 tribulation. 
 
 " Turn Thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned. 
 Thou sparest when we deserve punishment, and in Thy wrath 
 thinkest upon mercy." 
 
 O Lord, seek us, O Lord, find us 
 
 In Thy patient care ; 
 Be Thy Love before, behind us, 
 
 Round us, everywhere : 
 Lest the god of this world blind us, 
 
 Lest he speak us fair, 
 Lest he forge a chain to bind us, 
 
 Lest he bait a snare. 
 Turn not from us, call to mind us, 
 
 Find, embrace us, bear ; 
 Be Thy Love before, behind us, 
 
 Round us, everywhere. 
 
 23. And I will kill her children with death ; and all the 
 
 churches shall know that I am He which searcheth 
 the reins and hearts : and I will give unto every one 
 of you according to your works. 
 
 "And I will kill her children with death." Doubtless 
 "children that are corrupters," for by his prophet E^ekiel 
 Almighty God protested aforetime : " The soul that sinneth, 
 it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, 
 neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son : the 
 righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the 
 wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." 
 
 Yet as we read in Wisdom of " parents that killed with their 
 own hands, souls destitute of help," so did this Jezebel make her- 
 self a murderess whether the children here denounced were hers 
 according to the flesh, or hers only by an execrable discipleship. 
 
 " Let us also fear." All influence, my own influence, tends 
 and cannot but tend either to preserve or to destroy. 
 
 "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity 
 of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
 
 78 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 generation of them that hate Me." "The wages of sin is 
 death." 
 
 O my God, if for our own souls' sake we forbear not, yet 
 grant us grace for the sake of those we love to cease from sin, 
 lest we bring upon them a curse and not a blessing. At the 
 least and lowest for their sakes, until by the same grace we 
 attain to do all for the sake of Jesus Christ, Whose all-availing 
 sake I now plead with Thee. 
 
 " And all the Churches shall know that I am He which search- 
 eth the reins and hearts." "When Thy judgments are in the 
 earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." 
 Even the whole Church Militant herself is an inhabitant of the 
 world, as our Blessed Lord in His unfathomable love for souls 
 provided : " I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out 
 of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." 
 
 " I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts." An awful 
 promise even to the righteous ; an awful threat to the im- 
 penitent wicked. 
 
 First Christ searcheth all the earth to find and reclaim souls. 
 Next He searcheth each individual soul to prove and see what 
 manner of soul it is. He sifts, as it were, our dust to detect 
 the least germ of latent life. He examines the will, which is 
 our strength (reins) ; the affections, which engross our heart. 
 The will to love Him He accepts and quickens into love : the 
 faintest emotion of love towards Him He acknowledges and 
 is ready to confirm and develop. 
 
 He craves for our sake that we should love Him, but also 
 He craves it for His own. He is not too lofty to ask our love, 
 to seek for it, to desire it. He searches while there is hope : 
 like the husbandman " who hath long patience " He waits. 
 
 But what if He whose hands most of all are mighty find nothing? 
 
 Lord, what canst Thou find, except Thou first furnish it ? 
 All is of Thy bounty, and but for Thine own gifts we can have 
 no gift for Thee. I beseech Thee give us each some good gift, 
 and receive it back as our gift to Thee. 
 
 " And I will give unto every one of you according to your 
 works." 
 
 1 tremble at this word : but what word then would re- 
 assure me ? This is the Voice of the Just Judge ; would I 
 desire rather to hear the voice of an unjust judge? If justice 
 be my destruction, could injustice be my salvation? Nay. 
 
 How should injustice deliver me, if I be such as justice 
 cannot deliver? From what do I need deliverance : from 
 punishment? Yes, and from very much besides punishment.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEE I'. 79 
 
 If I were saved from the punishment outside me, how save me 
 from the punishment within ; from the fire, but how from the 
 worm ? Rescued from all else, how rescue me from myself ? 
 
 O Jesus, All Holy, All Just, All Merciful, deliver us from 
 our perverse selves, and no other enemy can ruin us. For 
 Thine own sake. Amen. 
 
 Again. What other standard would I crave than this of 
 work ? for work is voluntary, within my own option to do or 
 leave undone. 
 
 Otherwise St. Paul could not thus write to his beloved 
 Roman converts concerning the powers that be : " Rulers are 
 not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then 
 not be afraid of the power ? do that which is good, and thou 
 shall have praise of the same : for he is the minister of God to 
 thee for good." 
 
 What I do, I will to do : what I leave undone, I will to 
 leave undone. Who then is it that betrayeth me : Lord, is it 
 I ? It is I. 
 
 Lord, carry me. Nay, but I grant thee strength 
 To walk and work thy way to Heaven at length. 
 
 Lord, why then am I weak ? Because I give 
 Power to the weak, and bid the dying live. 
 
 Lord, I am tired. He hath not much desired 
 The goal, who at the starting-point is tired. 
 
 Lord, dost Thou know ? I know what is in man ; 
 What the flesh can, and what the spirit can. 
 
 Lord, dost Thou care ? Yea, for thy gain or loss 
 So much I cared, it brought Me to the Cross. 
 
 Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief. 
 Good is the word ; but rise, for life is brief. 
 The follower is not greater than the Chief: 
 Follow thou Me along My way of grief. 
 
 24. But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as 
 many as have not this doctrine, and which have not 
 known the depths of Satan, as they speak ; I will put 
 upon you none other burden. 
 
 A variation appears in the Revised Version : " But to you 
 I say, to the rest that are in Thyatira." The retrenchment of 
 the word "and" (if correct) seems to convey the sense more 
 clearly, by making the second clause of the sentence define the 
 first instead of adding to it. 
 
 Blessed simplicity, not to hold false doctrine. Blessed 
 inexperience, which knows not depths of Satan.
 
 8o THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 From corrupt doctrine, foul knowledge, abominable experi- 
 ence, good Lord, keep us; good Lord, deliver us. Keep 
 rather than deliver, for deliverance brings not back innocence. 
 Yet at the worst deliver us, that we may be Thy penitents, 
 miracles of Thy pity. Amen. 
 
 " Depths of Satan." Why dive into such depths, when 
 deeper depths open before us ? 
 
 " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and know- 
 ledge of God ! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His 
 ways past finding out! . . . For of Him, and through Him, 
 and to Him are all things : to Whom be glory for ever. 
 Amen." 
 
 We, no less than St. Paul's Ephesian converts, if " rooted 
 and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all 
 saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; 
 and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." 
 
 " As they speak." " Let the wicked be ashamed, and let 
 them be silent in the grave. Let the lying lips be put to silence." 
 
 " I will put upon you none other burden." None other than 
 the burden Christ Himself has laid upon us, and which He 
 elsewhere assures us is light. 
 
 A great writer has told us that Love carries a burden which 
 is no burden. 
 
 " Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul ? . . . Why 
 go I thus heavily, while the enemy oppresseth me? . . . 
 Why art thou so heavy, O my soul : and why art thou so 
 disquieted within me? O put thy trust in God." 
 
 Christ's burden weighs heavily, not because of the burden's 
 weight, but of the bearer's weakness. Blessed is he who 
 embracing bears it. Not upon such a one laden with blessing, 
 but upon another, his opposite, is woe pronounced : " Woe to 
 him that increaseth that which is not his ! how long ? and to 
 him that ladeth himself with thick clay ! " " For what shall it 
 profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own 
 soul?" 
 
 Lord Jesus, I pray Thee bestow upon us that grace of 
 strength whereby Thou didst uplift and comfort Daniel Thy 
 saint : 
 
 " O my Lord ... my sorrows are turned upon me, and I 
 have retained no strength. . . O man greatly beloved, fear 
 not : peace be unto thee : be strong, yea, be strong." 
 
 25. But that which ye have already hold fast till I come. 
 Truly here are the patience, obedience, faith, of the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 81 
 
 saints ! Latter works must go on being more than former 
 works, thus making last works most of all. Charity must 
 never fail, but must abide. Service must to the end fulfil what- 
 ever it is our duty to do. Faith, though feeling compamonlcss 
 in a faithless generation because unwitting of God's seven 
 thousand like-minded ones, must endure. 
 
 The Cross we have shouldered we must not lay down. The 
 burnt sacrifice we have become we must continue to be though 
 offered on a slow fire. Nor dare we say, It is finished, until 
 Christ Himself say concerning us, It is finished ; for He has 
 pronounced : " No man, having put his hand to the plough, and 
 looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." 
 
 Such is our lot. Without our own will we were born to 
 in'ierit it, without our own will we (most of us) were baptized 
 into it : no will of ours can undo what is done. 
 
 All this, first and last, has befallen us by the Will of God. 
 
 And because by His Will, therefore it becomes possible for 
 us to endure it, to profit by it, even by wonder-working grace to 
 rejoice and be glad in it. Once let our will be conformed unto 
 the Divine Will, and powers and pleasures shall be added unto us. 
 
 Even so, Lord God, conform our will to Thy Will, for our 
 blessed self-sacrificing Saviour's sake. Amen. 
 
 Moreover we must not so dwell on our sore need of patience 
 as to overlook faith, or worse still to overlook love. "Till I 
 come," saith the Word, the Truth, in whom all Divine promises 
 are Yea and Amen. 
 
 "Till I come." How long is that //// 7 We cannot compute 
 its days, weeks, months, years. But this we know : the re- 
 mainder of time is the extent of that ////: all eternity is the 
 fullness of the ensuing thereafter. 
 
 Is time long ? It may seem so, until it ends. Is eternity 
 long ? It is so, for it ends not. 
 
 Beloved, yield thy time to God, for He 
 
 Will make eternity tliy recompense ; 
 Give all thy substance for His Love, and be 
 
 Beatified past earth's experience. 
 Serve Him in bonds, until He set thee free ; 
 
 Serve Him in dust, until He lift thee thence ; 
 Till death he swallowed up in victory, 
 
 When the great trumpet sounds to bid thee hence. 
 Shall setting day win clay that will not set? 
 
 Poor price wert thou to spend thyself for Christ, 
 
 Had not His wealth thy poverty sufficed : 
 
 Yet since lie makes His garden of thy clod. 
 Water thy lily, rose, or viokt, 
 
 And offer up thy sweetness unto God. 
 
 r
 
 82 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Must we then call our burden no burden? Not so, for 
 Christ Himself by implication admits that a burden it is. 
 
 He, the Truth, requires of us the truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth. We are no more allowed to put sweet 
 for bitter than bitter for sweet. 
 
 " Hold fast." As one Greek whose grasping hands were 
 hewn off, held fast the Persian vessel with his teeth ; as the 
 pilot of one burning ship held fast the helm while the flames 
 consumed him ; so, if we be called to any such supreme act, 
 even so must each one of us hold fast our burden and birth- 
 right till Christ come. 
 
 And if we be of those who oftentimes in the Blessed 
 Sacrament of His Body and Blood show forth His Death till 
 He come, we amongst all Christians are bound and are fortified 
 thus to lose life and save it. 
 
 O Lord, Who assuredly wilt come ; in that tremendous Day 
 suffer not our own privileges and our own words to rise up with 
 us in the Judgment and condemn us. 
 
 We dwell upon terrors of Judgment : let us also dwell on its 
 hopes. It will have a great sound of a trumpet, and the 
 trumpet-blast is music. It will be with clouds, and God 
 Almighty of old set His bow in the cloud. It will bring to 
 sight angels. It will bring back saints ; the particular saints 
 we having loved and lost, long for. 
 
 Yet, after all, these are but its minor hopes. 
 
 It will bring back Christ ; our supreme Hope, or else our 
 supreme Fear. But the hope is in Him, the fear is in 
 ourselves. 
 
 From ourselves and from our fear, good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 26. And he that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto 
 
 the end, to him will I give power over the nations : 
 
 27. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron ; as the vessels 
 
 of a potter shall they be broken to shivers ; even as I 
 received of My Father. 
 
 The words to keep Christ's works unto the end suggest two 
 branches of duty. 
 
 We are constantly to imitate, and by His strength made 
 perfect in our weakness are as it were over and over again to 
 reproduce, His blessed works. Because He prayed, we must 
 pray. Because He went about doing good, we must do good. 
 Because His meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him, 
 so must ours be. Such are His works by us and through us.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 83 
 
 And thus must we persevere to the end, lest we be not 
 numbered amongst those who overcome. 
 
 We must also hold fast His works in us. The purifying 
 grace of Baptism, the maturing grace of Confirmation, the 
 sustaining grace of Holy Communion, we must hold fast. We 
 holding fast what He bestows, He will continually bestow more 
 and more. There is no limit to His bounties, nor can we 
 assign a limit to our own capacity. 
 
 King Joash smote thrice and stayed, whilst he might have 
 stricken five or six valid strokes. The miraculous flow of oil 
 stayed only when the widow's receptacles were exhausted. 
 
 O foolish Soul ! to make thy count 
 
 For languid falls and much forgiven, 
 "When like a flame thou mightest mount 
 
 To storm and carry heaven. 
 
 A life so faint, is this to live? 
 
 A goal so mean, is this a goal ? 
 Christ love thee, remedy, forgive, 
 
 Save thee, O foolish Soul. 
 
 He who in overcoming himself and all things has first 
 exercised power, he it is on whom will be conferred power 
 over the nations. 
 
 Unlike most of the rewards held out to our hope, this power 
 appears to be punitive, destructive. Thank God, it is not ours 
 at present ; nor at present could aught like it by any possibility 
 befit us common sort of Christians. He whom God may call 
 to such an office, God by His Almighty Spirit will adapt to 
 the call, and will keep safe in responding to it. Into His 
 hands Fatherly, merciful, perfect, let us meanwhile commend 
 and commit all men. 
 
 Nevertheless it cannot be without practical purpose that this 
 prospect, " terrible as an army with banners," is opened to us. 
 It brings home to our conviction that a day approaches, when, 
 cost what it may, all the elect will be of one mind with God. 
 Whatever He decrees they will uphold ; whatever He inflicts 
 they will approve. Even to the tenderest mother, the Divine 
 good pleasure will then be altogether better than seven sons or 
 than ten sons. Whom God pities not, neither will His saints 
 pity: whom He saves not, neither will His saints yearn to 
 save. They who are exalted to see Him as He is, will be like 
 Him. 
 
 The punishment is greater than we can bear. God keep us 
 from ever looking upon our beloved ones with changed eyes, 
 or from being looked upon with changed eyes by them.
 
 84 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 O my God, Who hast no pleasure in the death of him that 
 dieth, preserve Thou them that are appointed to die ; and when 
 this dying life is fulfilled, bring us of Thy mercy to the life 
 everlasting. Through Jesus Christ our Life. Amen. 
 
 " Even as I received of My Father." The extreme instance 
 vouching for all subordinate instances. Christ, Who so long 
 hath invited all men, saying, "Come unto Me," will at last 
 say to those on His left hand, " Depart from Me." 
 
 O Lamb of God, from the Wrath of the Lamb, deliver us. 
 
 28. And I will give him the morning star. 
 
 29. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
 
 unto the churches. 
 
 Elsewhere our Lord declares : " I am . . . the Bright and 
 Morning Star." Thus (if the inference be allowable) here at the 
 outset He promises to give Himself to him that overcometh. 
 
 To whom does a man give himself? To one whom he loves 
 as himself. Such is the standard of human self-gift ; and 
 Christ, Very Man no less than Very God, will not fall short of 
 it. To "the friend that is as His own soul" will He give 
 Himself; giving Himself, He will withhold nothing. 
 
 We know not a millionth part of what Christ is to us, but 
 perhaps we even less know what we are to Him. 
 
 Lord, I cannot plead my love of Thee : 
 
 1 plead Thy love of me ; 
 
 The shallow conduit hails the unfathomed sea.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1. And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write ; These 
 things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and 
 ths seven stars ; I know thy works, that thou hast a 
 name that thou livest, and art dead. 
 
 If it be lawful to regard these " Seven Spirits of God " as 
 that " One and the self-same Spirit," Who divideth to every 
 man severally as He will, our Lord's preamble to the Church 
 in Sardis corresponds with Isaiah's prophetic description of 
 the Messiah : " The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, 
 the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel 
 and Might, the Spirit of Knowledge and of the Fear of the Lord ; 
 and shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the 
 Lord : and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, 
 neither reprove after the hearing of His ears." 
 
 Thus He Who telleth the number of the stars and calleth 
 them all by their names, before He pronounces judgment on 
 even one star, deigns to proclaim and certify His own infallible 
 insight. 
 
 " I know thy works " the works of Sardis, of all Christen- 
 dom, of the whole world. Yea, and my works indeed, O Lord, 
 Thou knowest : it is I myself who know them not fully. 
 "Search me, O God, and know my heart : try me, and know 
 my thoughts : and see if there be any wicked way in me, and 
 lead me in the way everlasting." 
 
 " Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." Sardis 
 with her name to live worked after a fashion, although dea-J. 
 Centuries before the Psalmist had placed on reco.d: "Men 
 will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself." And in our 
 Lord's Sermon in the Plain we read : " Woe unto you, when 
 all men shall speak well of you ! " 
 
 Sardis doubtless in some sense did well unto herself, how- 
 ever cruel in truth were her tender self-mercies; and thus
 
 86 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 earned the condemnation of God with the praise of men, inas- 
 much as that which is highly esteemed among men is abomina- 
 tion in the sight of God. The particular works of Sardis are 
 not enumerated, but of this we may rest assured : so far as she 
 was a dead Church her works were infallibly dead works. 
 Yet works they were, and of such a semblance that men said 
 she lived : God and God only knew and testified that she was 
 dead. 
 
 And what avails man's word against God's word ? 
 
 Her fair name and fame, her self-complacency, her lustre, 
 have passed away : yea, like as a dream when one awaketh, so 
 hath He made her image to vanish out of the city. A temporal 
 doom has long ago overtaken her : may it not be that an 
 eternal doom overhangs her ! 
 
 Our Lord rebuked tardis in the day of grace, lest at last He 
 should condemn her in the day of justice. 
 
 As once to her, so now if need is He speaks to us, to me. 
 In love He forewarns us all : " Many will say to Me in that 
 day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name? and 
 in Thy Name have cast out devils? and in Thy Name done 
 many wonderful works ? And then will I profess unto them, 
 I never knew you : depart from Me, ye that work iniquity." 
 
 Shall the dead rise up again and praise God ? Yea, the 
 dead also, if they will respond to the call of His grace. As 
 avers the Father in the parable : " This my son was dead, and 
 is alive again. ; he was lost, and is found." 
 
 " Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God." 
 
 2. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, 
 that are ready to die : for I have not found thy works 
 perfect before God. 
 
 "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." The watch- 
 ful must watch on, the unwatchful must learn and practise 
 watchfulness. Every one of us is either watchful or unwatchful. 
 " Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes ; and I shall 
 keep it unto the end." 
 
 Watchfulness is no easy duty. When Elijah answered, 
 "Thou hast asked a hard thing," he made its coming to pass 
 depend on Elisha's own watchfulness : whence we may infer 
 that the boon being difficult of access, that on which it de- 
 pended was not lightly to be achieved. St. Peter, St. John, 
 St. James, for all their love, failed in watchfulness, while their 
 Saviour watched alone and agonized alone. 
 
 My God, if watchfulness taxes the strength of Thy saints
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 87 
 
 who live unto Thee, how shall the dead in trespasses and sins 
 renew their vigil to praise Thee with songs in the night ? Nay, 
 hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good ? " O put 
 thy trust in God : for I will yet thank Him, which is the help 
 of my countenance, and my God." 
 
 " Strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die." 
 God, Whose good pleasure hath chosen " things which are 
 not," equally of His grace calls upon the dead to strengthen 
 what remains and is ready to die. What He commands He 
 renders possible. " He giveth power to the faint ; and to 
 them that have no might He increaseth strength." When 
 Isaac asked, "Where is the lamb?" while as yet there appeared 
 no lamb ; not Abraham himself can have understood the 
 fullness of his own answer : " God will provide Himself a 
 lamb." 
 
 Praise be to Thee, O God, Who both didst provide a lamb 
 for Thyself, and Thyself becamest that Lamb which Thou 
 providedst. Praise be to Thee, forasmuch as the ram offered 
 in Isaac's stead was caught in a thicket by his horns; not 
 weakness, but the sign of his strength holding him fast. Even 
 so, not through weakness, but by Thine own Will, Strength, 
 Glory, didst Thou stoop to become fast bound in the thicket 
 of our troubles : nor wouldst Thou by any means pass out 
 thence except as a Lamb for a burnt offering ; even the 
 Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. 
 Alleluia ! 
 
 "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." This is one 
 sort of dead man who shall live ; together with Christ's once- 
 dead Body shall he arise. Perhaps for us the main point of 
 that text roots itself in the word will. None predicates of 
 him he can nor yet he ought : he alone says, and says only, / 
 will. He says not, I do ; for far from him be lying lips and 
 a deceitful tongue. He says, I will : and the man who has 
 the will to say, I will, has latent within him the power to bring 
 to pass by God's assisting grace the purpose of that good will. 
 His dew is as the dew of herbs, his earth shall cist out her 
 dead. 
 
 When God demanded : " Son of man, can these bones 
 live ? " even Ezekiel could answer no more than, " O Lord 
 God, Thou knowest." God alone, then as ever, knew what 
 He would do. 
 
 We, every one of us, must at this moment be either dead or 
 alive. Let us put it at the worst, and postulate that we are 
 dead : what shall we do that we may come again to our border,
 
 88 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 and return into the land of the living? Sardis was bidden 
 " strengthen those things which remain, that are ready to die " : 
 whence it follows : This do, and thou shalt live. And what if 
 gazing within we discern nothing remaining ; nothing even so 
 far alive as to be ready to die ? We still can lift up our eyes 
 and look without, in obedience to St. Paul's precept : " Look 
 not every man on his own things, but every man also on 
 the things of others." Our neighbour languishes, is weak, 
 wavers, is ready to perish : whoso strives by prayer, or by any 
 other conceivable agency to uphold him, shall himself be up- 
 held ; even as Job, praying for his friends, received in his own 
 person a blessing. " He that watereth shall be watered also 
 himself." 
 
 If the light that is in us be as darkness that may be felt, let 
 us work and walk by the light that is without us ; until the 
 day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts. 
 
 O Christ, the Resurrection and the Life ; O Christ, Light of 
 the world and of every man that cometh into the world, call 
 Thy dead out of darkness of death into light of life. Say once 
 again, yea, say again and again, Let there be light : and there 
 shall be light 
 
 As froth on the face of the deep, 
 
 As foam on the crest of the sea, 
 As dreams at the waking of sleep, 
 
 As gourd of a day and a night, 
 As harvest that no man shall reap, 
 
 As vintage that never shall te, 
 
 Is hope if it cling not aright, 
 O my God, unto Thee. 
 
 " I have i ot found thy works perfect before God " or 
 according to the Revised Version : " I have found no works 
 of thine fulfilled before My God." The former reading recalls 
 our Lord's words in His Sermon on the Mount : " Be ye there- 
 fore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect ; " 
 a precept so lofty that mortal man can appropriate it only in 
 aim and intention, except so far as his being Christ's member 
 clothes him with Christ's righteousness. The latter reading 
 suggests works left incomplete even according to the standard 
 of human completeness; beginnings broken off short, starts 
 without careers, wishes instead of resolves, repentances still to 
 be repented of. We are reminded of Lot's wife, the fig-tree 
 leafy but fruitless, the son in the Parable who answered, I go, 
 sir, and went not.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 89 
 
 We look out of ourselves at these and such as these. God 
 help us to look into ourselves, lest all the while we be such as 
 they and know it not 
 
 The way to htll is paved with good intentions. 
 
 3. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, 
 and hold fast, and repent If therefore thou shalt not 
 watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt 
 not know what hour I will come upon thee. 
 
 Well may He Who beyond all others loves us, for that very 
 love's sake bid us " Remember," lest all too late we should 
 remember. For it has been said of old that there is no bitterer 
 pang than in misery to remember past happiness. There shall 
 be weeping and gnashing of teeth when the children of the 
 kingdom being thrust out behold their birthright blessedness 
 given to others that are better than they. " Son, remember," 
 spake Abraham to Dives. 
 
 To-day it may be that if we choose we can forget ; another 
 day we shall not be able to choose, but must perforce remember 
 what we have received and heard. Not through time and 
 never through eternity can we make ourselves as though we 
 had not received and heard. 
 
 We have heard the Word of God, the witness of saints, the 
 voice of conscience whereby God the Holy Spirit speaks 
 within us ; these we must sooner or later remember. 
 
 We have received the Life of Baptism, the Strength of Con- 
 firmation, the Sustenance of Christ's most precious Body and 
 Blood ; these we must sooner or later remember. 
 
 Our starlings aside have been from all these, our falls from 
 all these. These we have held fast ; or have let go. 
 
 And if we have let them go, can we ever again hope to hold 
 them fast ? Yea, saith our Judge : " Hold fast, repent." 
 
 Let us go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and make 
 mention of His righteousness only. 
 
 O God Whose hand is not shortened that it cannot save, Who 
 to him that hath no might increaseth strength, Who didst up- 
 hold St. Peter on the waters, convert him in the high priest's 
 palace, restore him by the Sea of Tiberias, O our God, Who 
 hast done all for us, now do all in us. Hold us fast, that \ve 
 may hold Thee fast. Remember now our sins, that Thou 
 mayest move us to repentance ; and washing them away in 
 Thy blood mayest remember them no more. Amen for Thine 
 own sake, Lord Jesus, Amen.
 
 90 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Contempt and pangs and haunting fears 
 Too late for hope, too late for ease, 
 Too late for rising from the dead ; 
 Too late, too late to bend my knees, 
 
 Or bow my head, 
 Or weep, or ask for tears. 
 
 I lark ! . . . One I hear Who calls to me : 
 "Give Me thy thorn and grief and scorn, 
 
 Give Me thy ruin and regret. 
 Press on thro' darkness toward the morn : 
 
 One loves thee yet : 
 Have I forgotten thee ? " 
 
 Lord, Who art Thou ? Lord, is it Thou 
 My Lord and God, Lord Jesus Christ ? 
 
 How said I that I sat alone 
 And desolate and unsufficed ? 
 
 Surely a stone 
 Would raise Thy praises now ! 
 
 Once more the word is, Watch. In whatever mood, in de- 
 pression if need be, let us watch. As sings the Psalmist : 
 " I have watched, and am even as it were a sparrow, that sitteth 
 alone upon the house-top. Mine enemies revile me all the 
 day long ; and they that are mad upon me are sworn together 
 against me. For I have eaten ashes as it were bread ; and 
 mingled my drink with weeping; and that because of Thine 
 indignation and wrath : for Thou hast taken me up, and cast 
 rne down. My days are gone like a shadow ; and I am withered 
 like grass." For this woeful complaint is still a song : even 
 while he lies under the Divine indignation and wrath the 
 penitent sings and makes melody in his heart to the Lord. 
 By Whose gracious help we all may do likewise. Repentance 
 pleases God ; and that whereby we please God cannot be to 
 ourselves mere unmitigated grief. 
 
 Nor is it any trivial matter which depends upon our watch- 
 fulness. According as we watch, or watch not, Christ will 
 come to save or to punish. 
 
 "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord 
 doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house 
 had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have 
 watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken 
 up. Therefore be ye also ready : for in such an hour as ye 
 think not the Son of Man cometh." 
 
 Shall He come to us " as a thief," Who would fain come to 
 us as a Bridegroom ? 
 
 " Yea ; in the way of Thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 91 
 
 for Thee ; the desire of our soul is to Thy name, and to the 
 remembrance of Thee. With my soul have I desired Thee in 
 the night ; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early." 
 " I am my Beloved's, and His desire is toward me." 
 
 4. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not 
 defiled their garments ; and they shall walk with Me 
 in white : for they are worthy. 
 
 Primitive man arrayed in innocence needed no other robe. 
 Fallen man God Himself deigned to clothe ; and the garment 
 of fallen man may (I think) be regarded as representing such 
 sort and degree of holiness as being possible to a sinner is 
 therefore required of him. For God Almighty is never that 
 ruler who demands brick in a territory of no straw. 
 
 Absolute innocence on this side of the grave no soul can 
 win back, yet holiness transcends innocence. A law, " Thou 
 shalt not," hedged in innocence in the Garden of Eden ; but 
 St. Paul declares that " the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 
 longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
 ance : against such there is no law." 
 
 "A few names even in Sardis." Ten righteous would have 
 preserved Sodom ; one would have sufficed to save Jerusalem. 
 Thus we discern that Abraham's persistence of intercession 
 yet stopped short of the bounty of God's unsolicited Goodwill. 
 Human tenderness pleaded ten, Divine yearning craved for 
 one. Both however bore immediate reference to temporal 
 punishment, not apparently to eternal judgment. 
 
 The " few " in Sardis safe themselves could not deliver their 
 fellows. Their case corresponded with that set forth in 
 Ezekiel's prophecy : " When the land sinneth against Me by 
 trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out Mine hand upon 
 it ... Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, 
 were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their 
 righteousness, saith the Lord God." Psalm xlix. (Prayer-Book 
 version) throws light on the subject : " No man may deliver 
 his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him ; for it cost 
 more to redeem their souls : so that he must let that alone for 
 ever ; yea, though he live long, and see not the grave." Truly 
 did it cost more to redeem our souls, for it cost the life of that 
 Man Who is the Lord's Fellow ; had He lived long and not 
 seen the grave, even He (so far as the Divine counsels have 
 been revealed to us) must have let that alone for ever. Thus 
 by a sort of harmony of contraries the Psalmist provides a
 
 92 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 clue to the coming mystery of Redemption. We recognize a 
 revelation of Divine Might where at first seemed but a state- 
 ment of human impotence. A veiled mystery flashes through 
 this verse; which verse of the Holy Bible may not veil a 
 mystery ? 
 
 Lord, grant us eyes to see and ears to hear 
 And souls to love and minds to understand, 
 And steadfast faces toward the Holy Land, 
 
 And confidence of hope, and filial fear, 
 
 And citizenship where Thy saints appear 
 
 Before Thee heart in heart and hand in hand, 
 And Alleluias where their chanting band 
 
 As waters and as thunders fill the sphere. 
 
 Lord, grant us what Thou wilt, and what Thou wilt 
 Deny, and fold us in Thy peaceful fold : 
 Not as the world gives, give to us Thine own : 
 
 Inbuild us where Jerusalem is built 
 
 With walls of jasper and with streets of gold, 
 
 And Thou Thyself, Lord Christ, for Corner Stone. 
 
 " A few names even in Sardis." A few in a whole city, a 
 few out of an entire population. Shall London cast the ni st 
 stone at Sardis ? 
 
 O God, merciful and pitiful, Who hast created us all, and 
 knowest us all, if we be children teach us to honour Thee, and 
 if servants to fear Thee: yea, if we be ston,s teach us to 
 celebrate Thy praise. For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 "A few . . . which have not denied their garments." 
 Who are these? Baptized infants, and sweet souls of any age 
 unexperienced in mortal sin. 
 
 None beside these ? Thank God, the text says not so. By 
 His grace it may (surely) include along with all who have never 
 defiled their garments those likewise who have not permanently 
 defiled them. 
 
 He Who has been pleased to promise that the elect human 
 family shall be made equal to the elect angels, can if He pleases 
 make the choir of penitents equal to that kindred choir which 
 by comparison need no repentance. Once He vouchsafed to 
 say touching one sinful woman : " Her sins, which are many, 
 are forgiven ; for she loved much : but to whom little is forgiven, 
 the same loveth little." 
 
 "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, Who 
 both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will 
 make manifest the counsels of the hearts." Only whilst we 
 have time let us love much. 
 
 "And they shall walk with Me in white." The precarious
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 93 
 
 purity of mortal life shall become the indefectible purity of 
 life immortal. As the bud becomes the lily, as the dawn the 
 day, so white robes of earth shall reappear, transfigured as 
 robes of heaven, white as no fuller on earth can white them. 
 Such whiteness as we now are used to can scnrcely abide un- 
 sullied unless it also abide intact ; thus trodden snow turns to 
 mud ; whilst snow on mountain summits endures alone, in- 
 accessible, stainless. Even so chaste virgins choose solitude 
 fora bower; and recluses dwell apart and unknown, like un- 
 found pearls ; and great saints betaking themselves to heavenly 
 places in Christ Jesus, move aloft like white sunny clouds of 
 the sky. 
 
 Nevertheless, however good for the present distress, yet from 
 the beginning God Himself declared that it is not good for 
 man to be alone. No trace of solitude reappears in the next 
 life, the life that lives for ever. Whatever we know, or know 
 not, about Heaven, this beyond possibility of doubt is certified 
 to us ; it will contain a great multitude that no man can 
 number, and these congregated into one body, one community 
 of saints. Nothing will ever any more separate them ; not 
 n : ght, for there is no night there ; not the sea, for they stand 
 together upon that unearthly sea. 
 
 Yet all this accumul tion of beatitude taken by itself could 
 not satisfy us ; it would still be no more than a turning aside 
 by the flocks of the companions. Christ's promise exceeds 
 this. "They shall walk with Me." Herein is beatific love. 
 
 It is stated in our text (ver. 4) that those whose earthly 
 garments have been undefiled, are the same who will be 
 invested with a heavenly white garment. A second point, 
 though unstated, may (I think) be inferred : those who like 
 Enoch have "walked with God" on earth, are the same who 
 shall walk with Him in Heaven. 
 
 Little as we know of blessed Enoch's personal history, yet 
 the phrase "walked with God" tells us much. "Can two 
 walk together, except they be agreed?" asks the Lord by the 
 mouth of His Prophet Amos. Enoch's will must then have 
 been conformed to the Divine Will. Moreover, exalted as it 
 is to "sit toge'her in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," blessed 
 as it is to " sleep in Jesus " ; yet of Enoch we are told not 
 that he sat, still less if possible that he slept, but that he 
 walked. He exerted himself, he made progress, he persevered, 
 until "God took him." 
 
 Amen, for us all. 
 
 " For they are worthy." Flow "worthy"? when the same
 
 94 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Truth and Wisdom hath said : " None is good, save One, that 
 is, God." 
 
 As Isaac received Rebekah into the tent, and himself was 
 comforted ; as Boaz extended his protection to Ruth, and 
 while loving and ennobling her rejoiced in her affection ; so 
 our dear Lord enriches our poverty with His own wealth, 
 covers our unworthiness with His own worthiness, sees in us 
 of the travail of His Soul, and is satisfied. He, Bridegroom of 
 souls, saith to His beloved : " With all My goods I thee 
 endow " : His Blessedness is as of the sun which gives, and 
 ours is as of the moon which receives. " It is more blessed 
 to give than to receive." 
 
 " I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all 
 the truth, which Thou hast showed unto Thy servant." 
 
 5. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white 
 
 raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the 
 Book of Life, but I will confess his name before My 
 Father, and before His angels. 
 
 6. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
 
 unto the churches. 
 
 Once again " he that overcometh " is the only person to 
 win a prize. Not even Christ's work for us can be substituted 
 for the Holy Spirit's work in us. By aid of Whose indwelling 
 Might may every one of us watch, strengthen what languishes, 
 remember, hold fast, repent, flee defilement. 
 
 Not that these are ever easy duties, but by help of grace 
 they become possible : were they easy, we need not be incited 
 to overcome. And if possible to any, then are they possible 
 to all, eveji to the most backward : for it is the same Almighty 
 Spirit Who dwells and works in great and small, and Who 
 many times has vouchsafed the race to the not-swift, and the 
 battle to the not-strong. One by one let us consider these 
 particular points of duty. 
 
 Watch. As failure may betide swift and strong, so may- 
 it betide watchers also : " Except the Lord keep the city, the 
 watchman waketh but in vain." Still, if watchfulness may, 
 unwatchfulness must be rife with peril. " The earth is weak, 
 and all the inhabiters thereof: I bear up the pillars of it," 
 came evidently to pass on that searching night of the Passion 
 when our Lord watched alone, because the three whom He 
 had bidden watch with Him slept. On the other hand, under 
 the elder and less helpful dispensation, Nehemiah with his
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 95 
 
 faithful uuliercnts having prayed, set a watch day and night 
 against their foes and prospered ; and Habakkuk in the midst 
 of his prophecy protests: "I will stand upon my watch, and 
 set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what He will 
 say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved." 
 Psalm cxxiii. furnishes us with the very words we need : 
 " Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in 
 the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the 
 hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the 
 hand of her mistress ; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our 
 God, until that He have mercy upon us." 
 
 Strengthen what languishes. What desperate ruin it is by 
 letting slip the last opportunity and extinguishing the last 
 glimmer of light to do despite to Him Who breaks not the 
 bruised reed nor quenches the smoking flax, Christ's own 
 words and tears have revealed: "He beheld the city, and 
 wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least 
 in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! but 
 now they are hid from thine eyes." For examples of self- 
 retrieval we turn to Joseph of Arimathaea, who being a disciple 
 of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, at length went in 
 boldly unto Pilate, and craved the Body of Jesus, to Nico- 
 demus, who first resorted to Jesus by night, later on spoke 
 however feebly in His defence, and at last shared with several 
 saints (women as well as men) the devotion and anguish of 
 His sepulture, to St. Mark, who once hung back, but after- 
 wards repented and went. " Hear my prayer, O Lord, and 
 with Thine ears consider my calling : hold not Thy peace at 
 my tears. For I am a stranger with Thee : and a sojourner, 
 as all my fathers were. O spare me a little, that I may recover 
 my strength : before I go hence, and be no more seen." 
 
 Remember. God Who bids us remember, Himself re- 
 members : woe were it to mankind if He remembered not. 
 "Yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not 
 stir up ;ill His wrath. For He remembered that they were 
 but flesh ; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again." 
 Since He spake against His rebellious children, He doth 
 earnestly remember them still. To renegade Israel He even 
 saith : " I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love 
 of thine espousals ... I will yet plead with you." God 
 hath indeed not forgotten to be gracious, and graciously He 
 enjoins upon us the duty of ourselves remembering. Let us 
 call to mind a few points which we have received and heard : 
 "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy." "Behold,
 
 96 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 God exalteth by His power. . . . Remember that thou magnify 
 His work, which men behold. Every man may see it ; man 
 may behold it afar off." " If a man live many years, and 
 rejoice in them all ; yet let him remember the days of dark- 
 ness; for they shall be many." "Remember now thy Creator 
 in the days of thy youth." St. Paul charges us " to remember 
 the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed 
 to give than to receive." St. Jude exhorts us : " Remember 
 ye the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ ; how that they told you there should be 
 mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own 
 ungodly luss." And infinitely above even the Apostles, our 
 Master bade them and through them bids us : " Remember 
 the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than 
 his lord." O Lord, the Better David, remember all Thine 
 own trouble ; and for good remember us, remember me, when 
 Thou comest into Thy Kingdom. 
 
 Holdfast. Shall we fill our hands with possess : ons which 
 are not worth holding fast? "There is a sore evil which I 
 have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners 
 thereof to their hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail : 
 and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand." We 
 can carry nothing away when we die, neither the hurtful riches 
 denounced by the Preacher, nor the thick clay denounced by 
 the Prophet (see Hab. ii. 6). Hands preoccupied by such as 
 these cannot grasp veritable wealth : " How hardly shall they 
 that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ! " Hands 
 emptied by showing mercy to the poor, are set free to hold fast 
 what God will require of us ; hearts emptied of self are prepared 
 to receive and retain all He will demand ; such blessed store as 
 righteousness, with Job who would not let it go ; that which is 
 good, with the Thessalonian converts ; the apostolic form of 
 sound words, with Timothy ; our profession, and confidence, 
 and rejoicing of hope firm unto the end, with all faithful 
 Christians. Thus Jacob said : " I will not let Thee go, except 
 Thou bless me. . . . And He blessed him there." Yet because 
 God Himself is to us more than all His blessings, let us rather 
 protest with the Bride : " I found Him Whom my soul loveth : 
 I held Him, and would not let Him go." 
 
 Repent. There is no Divine promise which penitence may 
 not claim ; no height, no depth of Divine Love secluded from 
 penitence. All is promised to the penitent, but repentance 
 itself is not promised to the sinner. Yet, O my God, how 
 otherwise should sinners be half so hopeful of repentance, as
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 97 
 
 now that it depends solely on Thy Goodwill ? Thou Who 
 biddest us repent, fulfil in us Thine own bidding. Thou Who 
 hast declared concerning Israel : " I will heal their backsliding, 
 I will love them freely," make us such as Thou canst heal and 
 love. Thou Who art long-suffering to usward, not willing that 
 any should perish, but that all should come to repentance ; 
 bring us to repentance, for none else in heaven or in earth can 
 bring us. Thou Who holdest out to us hope, let us not be 
 disappointed of our hope. If we be lost, Christ thereby loseth 
 the price of His most precious Blood : suffer us to plead Christ 
 with Thee, and to say : Who shall countervail the King's 
 damage ? Repentance is not promised to the impenitent, but 
 to those who serve God all that they ask aright is promised ; 
 Christians know this, say this, build and rest on this : thus 
 prevailingly they implore for themselves fuller, deeper, ever 
 renewed repentance ; thus availingly they might implore it for 
 those who for themselves implore it not. O God of all Mercy 
 and all Comfort, God the Father Who lovest us, God the Son 
 Who lovest us, God the Holy Spirit Who lovest us, give us 
 for whom Christ died grace to love our neighbour as ourself, 
 and to pray for him as for ourself. Am I my brother's keeper ? 
 Yes. 
 
 Flee defilement. St. Mark records how when our Lord "had 
 called all the people unto Him, He said unto them, Hearken 
 unto Me every one of you, and understand : there is nothing 
 from without a man, that entering into him can defile him : 
 but the things which come out of him, those are they that 
 defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear." 
 So emphatically are all the people, every one of them, instructed 
 that the spiritual garment contracts defilement not from with- 
 out but from within. Purity follows a contrary rule to many 
 other virtues. Many are promoted by dwelling on the an- 
 tagonistic vices ; by coming, so to say, to close quarters with 
 these, by waging war with them face to face, war to the death. 
 Look hard at ill-temper, for instance ; and when you attain to 
 appreciate its contemptible aspect, you may advance to discern 
 and fall in love with the majesty of meekness. Not so with 
 impurity : cover and turn away the eye lest it should behold 
 it, stop the ear lest it should admit it ; for the blessed pure in 
 heart who shall see God, copy their Lord the Holy One Who 
 is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and Who cannot look on 
 iniquity. Nor does this imperative duty of shunning contami- 
 nation from without, at all clash with our Master's warning that 
 defilement has its sole root within : the knowledge of foulness 
 
 G
 
 98 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 welcomed, entertained, gloated over, breeds in us foulness 
 like itself; it acts like blood poison which infused from with- 
 out turns the man himfself, or the woman herself, to a death- 
 struck mass of corruption. Holy courage often befits us : in 
 this single instance holy cowardice becomes man's only available 
 courage ; as Joseph fled, abandoning and risking all rather 
 than do a great wickedness, and sin against God. Akin to 
 our duty towards ourselves in this matter, is our duty towards 
 others, especially towards the young : in their regard we may 
 pray to be made perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect ; 
 Who vouchsafed to shield the innocent ignorance of young 
 Samuel, even while denouncing by his mouth abominable and 
 crying sin. " Finally, brethren, whatsover things are true, what- 
 soever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
 things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things 
 are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
 praise, think on these things." 
 
 " The same shall be clothed in white raiment." " Not unto 
 us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the praise." 
 God will clothe us who cannot clothe ourselves. Wherefore 
 we need not inquire either for earth or for heaven, " where- 
 withal shall we be clothed ? " for our Heavenly Father knoweth 
 that we have need of mnny such things, and will without fail 
 add them unto us if meanwhile we seek first His kingdom and 
 righteousness. Whereof we enjoy already encouraging signs. 
 As when He covered Adam and Eve after their shameful fall. 
 Or as when under a similitude His love for Jerusalem is set 
 forth : " I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod 
 thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, 
 and I covered thee with silk. 1 decked thee also with orna- 
 ments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy 
 neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in 
 thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. Thus wast 
 thou decked with gold and silver ; and thy raiment was of fine 
 linen, and silk, and broidered work . . . and thou wast ex- 
 ceeding beautiful. . . . And thy renown went forth among 
 the heathen for thy beauty : for it was perfect through My 
 comeliness, which 1 had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." 
 Or as when the Father in the Parable arrays his prodigal son : 
 " Bring forth the best robe, and put it- on him; and put a ring 
 on his hand, and shoes on his feet." And how beautiful is 
 whiteness for a garment we see illustrated on all sides : the 
 dove "is covered with silver wings": lambs wear a white 
 fleece; lilies and snowdrops are white, and there is a white
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 99 
 
 rose ; the swan floats in whiteness on blue waters, and over- 
 head white clouds float across the blue sky. Snow is white, 
 and so is a pearl ; and diamonds and light are colourless. 
 
 Nevertheless whiteness is not an absence but rather a com- 
 pendium of colour. All tints when united in a perfectly 
 balanced harmony resolve themselves into whiteness, and 
 consequently all tints are capable of being re-developed from 
 whiteness. Thus colourless light paints the rainbow. And 
 thus celestial whiteness will not restrict but may rather gratify 
 the taste of all who wear it. 
 
 At the first moment whiteness does not suggest colour : yet 
 all colour being latent in it, we finally discern in its train every 
 lovely hue and gradation of hues. If thus it is with one word 
 characteristic of Heaven, how know we that it is not so with 
 every word ? 
 
 To-day we hear by the hearing of the ear. So it was in her 
 day with the Queen of Sheba, who allured by what she heard 
 betook herself to the Holy Land ; and when she saw King 
 Solomon in his royalty, and saw those who served him, 
 "Behold," said she, "the half was not told me." 
 
 O Christ, our King and our Wisdom, bring us, I beseech 
 Thee, to Thy Holy I,and which is very far off, that there pur 
 eyes may see Thee in Thy Beauty. 
 
 " King Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her 
 desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave 
 her of his royal bounty." 
 
 All that we see rejoices in the sunshine, 
 
 All that we hear makes merry in the Spring : 
 
 God grant us such a mind to be glad after our kind, 
 And to sing 
 His praises evermore for everything. 
 
 Much that we see must vanish with the sunshine, 
 Sweet Spring must fail and fail the choir of Spring: 
 
 But Wisdom shall burn on when the lesser lights are gone, 
 And shall sing 
 God's praises evermore for everything. 
 
 " I will not blot out his name out of the Book of Life." 
 Human life is in two sections, life terminable and life inter- 
 minable : and if I may so express it, the Book of Life appears 
 to be correspondingly in two volumes ; the Register of Baptism 
 for this world, and the Register of Final Perseverance for the 
 next. I say of Baptism because to us Christians the word of 
 this salvation is sent, and according to it we must judge our- 
 selves, and abide the final Judgment : whereas as St. Paul
 
 ico THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 instructs us, " What have I to do to judge them also that are 
 without ? do not ye judge them that are within ? But them 
 that are without God judgeth." To Whose mercy in that day 
 let us commend ourselves and every living soul. 
 
 That first volume is constituted our Book of Life to the 
 extent of promise, privilege, possibility : it depends on ourselves 
 to realize the possibility, perpetuate the privilege, claim fulfil- 
 ment of the promise. It is also our patent of nobility : the 
 Name that is above every name heads the " glorious, goodly, 
 noble " list of those who please God ; for He is not ashamed 
 to call us brethren, He of Whom it is recorded, "Then said I, 
 Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me), to 
 do Thy Will, O God." 
 % 
 
 Thy Name, O Christ, as ointment is poured forth 
 
 Sweetening our names before God's Holy Face ; 
 Luring us from the south and from the north 
 Unto the sacred place. 
 
 In Thee God's promise is Amen and Yea, 
 What art Thou to us ? Prize of every lot, 
 
 Shepherd and Door, our Life and Truth and Way : 
 Nay, Lord, what art Thou not ? 
 
 It is out of that first volume that names may be blotted : 
 once entered in the second they become (thank God !) in- 
 delible. Change and vicissitude are confined to this life and 
 this world : once safe in the next world the saved are safe for 
 ever and ever. So our Lord deigned in effect to teach us all, 
 when answering certain Sadducees, He said : " The children of 
 this world marry, and are given in marriage : but they which 
 shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the 
 resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in 
 marriage : neither can they die any more : for they are equal 
 unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the 
 children of the resurrection." And further we gather hence 
 by implication that not all shall " obtain . . . the resurrection 
 from the dead " : all must rise ; but some will rise alive unto 
 life, and some will rise dead unto damnation ; in accordance 
 with Christ's explicit statement elsewhere : " The hour is 
 coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His 
 voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto 
 the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the 
 resurrection of damnation." 
 
 Let us lay to heart each allusion to God's most awful Book. 
 David mentions it where he prophesies against our Saviour's
 
 THE FACE OF THE ])EEI>. 101 
 
 adversaries on Calvary ; whose children, crucifying the Son 
 of God afresh, and putting Him to an open shame, are the 
 apostate Christians of successive generations : " Let them be 
 blotted out of the Book of the living, and not be written with 
 the righteous." 
 
 We meet with such a Book in the prophetic record of Daniel : 
 " There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since 
 there was a nation even to that same time : and at that time 
 thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found 
 written in the Book. And many of them that sleep in the 
 dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and 
 some to shame and everlasting contempt." 
 
 Malachi speaking of such a Book encourages the faithful : 
 " Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another : 
 and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a Book of remem- 
 brance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, 
 and that thought upon His Name. And they shall be Mine, 
 saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels ; 
 and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that 
 serveth him." 
 
 St. Paul too alludes confidently to the Book in question 
 when he writes concerning certain saints : " Clement also, and 
 . . . other my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the Book 
 of Life." After which words no wonder that he goes on to 
 say : " Rejoice in the Lord alway : and again I say, Rejoice." 
 
 Nor are we left in any shadow of doubt as to the standard 
 according to which names will or will not abide in that Book. 
 Long before any of the texts hitherto cited, we read concern- 
 ing idolatrous Israel : "The Lord said unto Moses, Whosoe\er 
 hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My Book." 
 
 " I will confess his name." What is it that men confess ? 
 Something that they are, that they have done, that they admit ; 
 something personal, intimate : not things indifferent or alien. 
 
 Even so Christ in promising to confess the name of him that 
 overcometh, promises to confess the name of one who is His 
 member, bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh, one Body 
 and one Blood with Him ; in whom He Himself has wrought 
 the work of salvation, and by His Spirit has overcome. 
 
 Of which condescending Divine goodwill, St. Paul's declara- 
 tion is the aspiring human correlative : "I am crucified with 
 Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
 me : and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the 
 faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for 
 me " ; from which exalted grace no Christian is excluded :
 
 102 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the Name of the 
 Lord Jesus." 
 
 We baptized Christians who bear the Name of Christ, and 
 whom His Spirit indwells, are already one with Him. This 
 union awaits not the future : it took place so many days, 
 months, years ago ; it now is, except we be reprobate ; it will 
 ever abide, except we fall away. Immeasurable heights of 
 hope, unmeasured depths of fear, open to us at the word : 
 beyond either, the height and depth of Christ's Love. " He 
 that hath ears to hear " hears His Voice pleading with the most 
 lost, the most rebellious : " How shall I give thee up . . . ? 
 how shall I deliver thee . . . ? how shall I make thee as 
 Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is 
 turned within Me, My repentings are kindled together/'' 
 
 O Lord, wilt Thou be less to us than Adam was to his Eve ? 
 for he prophesied : " Therefore shall a man . . . cleave unto 
 his wife." 
 
 O Lord, cleave Thou to us, or we cannot cleave to Thee. 
 
 O Lord, wilt Thou require of us guilty more than Adam re- 
 quired of his innocent Eve ? when he bade not her weakness 
 cleave to his strength, but promised that his strength should 
 cleave to her weakness. 
 
 O Lord, cleave Thou to us, or we cannot cleave to Thee. 
 
 If our Lord had willed to keep secret the mutual love of 
 each elect soul and Himself; and so had ascended alone with 
 it into Heaven, or gone down alone with it into Hades, or dwelt 
 alone with it in the uttermost parts of the sea, great and 
 marvellous had been the condescension. How far greater, how 
 transcendently marvellous, when He promises to confess the 
 names of His faithful followers before His Father and before 
 His angels. Before His Father, Whose equal He is as touch- 
 ing His Godhead, and Whose inferior He willed to become as 
 touching His Manhood : before His own most noble creatures 
 the angels, than whom He willed once to be made a little 
 lower for us men and for our salvation. 
 
 In Him we hope, in ourselves we fear. Christ's words are 
 clear as to our personal power to decide our own doom : 
 " Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will 
 I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But 
 whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny 
 before My Father which is in heaven." "Whosoever shall 
 confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess 
 before the angels of God : but he that denieth Me before men, 
 shall be denied before the angels of God."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 103 
 
 Is it worse shame and ruin to be denied before God, or 
 before angels? Surely and beyond comparison, before God. 
 Yet Christ forewarns us of both contingent horrors : from both 
 then there is some help to be derived against that deadliest of 
 all our enemies, self. 
 
 Perhaps the utter inherent disproportion between the Infinite 
 Creator and the finite creature might seem to some perverse 
 minds to blunt the sting of rejection before God. But that our 
 elect fellow-creatures should behold us weighed and found 
 wanting, exhibits no colour of propriety : they stood, we might 
 have stood ; they overcame, we might have overcome. Their 
 steadfastness confronts our falling away, and condemns us. 
 
 7. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write ; 
 These things saith He that is holy, He that is true, 
 He that hath the key of David, He that openeth, and 
 no man shutteth ; and shutteth, and no man openeth. 
 
 The name of Philadelphia sets before us brotherly love and 
 the bliss of those who love as brethren. It invites us to pause 
 and refresh ourselves with an appropriate Psalm of David : 
 
 " Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to 
 dwell together in unity ! It is like the precious ointment upon 
 the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard : 
 that went down to the skirts of his garments ; as the dew of 
 Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains 
 of Zion : for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life 
 for evermore." 
 
 " The key of David " has doubtless mysteries and hidden 
 meanings to unlock. Here, meanwhile, it seems to fit the 
 words (or wards, to carry on the figure) both of this Apocalyptic 
 text and of this Psalm of Degrees ; opening to our contemplation 
 the grace and the corresponding blessing of unanimity, faith- 
 fulness, stability. 
 
 Graces, before they can become human graces, are primarily 
 and transcendently Divine Virtues or Attributes. Man's graces 
 are fruits of the Spirit : and in the human heart the Holy Spirit 
 bears His own proper fruits, not alien or arbitrary fruits. The 
 stability, faithfulness, unanimity, required of us, are first of all 
 exemplified in Christ ; Who being God became also Man, and 
 as Man received not the Spirit by measure. 
 
 " He that is Holy." To His Holiness Hannah bore exultant 
 witness : " There is none holy as the Lord : for there is none 
 beside Thee : neither is there any Rock like our God," thus
 
 104 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 extolling also His Immutability. Which likewise are combined 
 by the Psalmist : " He hath commanded His covenant for 
 ever : holy and reverend is His Name," and by Isaiah : " To 
 whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal ? saith the 
 Holy One . . . Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, 
 that the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of 
 the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" Habakkuk cele- 
 brates with His Holiness His Eternity : " Art Thou not from 
 everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One ? " And centuries 
 later, after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour to- 
 ward man appeared, the apostolic company (see Acts iv. 23, &c.) 
 praised God on this wise : " Of a truth against Thy Holy Child 
 Jesus, Whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius 
 Pilate witli the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered 
 together, for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel de- 
 termined before to be done" because heaven and earth may 
 pass away, but not God's Word. 
 
 And Chiefest among ten thousand, our Great High Priest 
 interceding for His own, whom having loved, He loved unto 
 the end, vouchsafed to pray for their perpetual safeguard and 
 indissoluble union even after the likeness of God's own Per- 
 fection : " Holy Father, keep through Thine own Name those 
 whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are." 
 
 Heaven and the elements, earth and her main features, may 
 seem to us enduring in perpetuity ; but they are not so. God's 
 Will alone is established for ever, and His promise it is which 
 can never fail. Whence St. Peter deduces a lesson of personal 
 holiness : " The Lord is not slack concerning His promise . . . 
 The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the 
 which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
 elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the 
 works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that 
 all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons 
 ought ye to be in all holy conversation and god'iness, looking 
 for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein 
 the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat ? Nevertheless we, according to 
 His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye 
 look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him 
 in peace, without spot, and blameless." 
 
 "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? who 
 is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing 
 wonders ? "
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 105 
 
 "He that is True." On earth, and during His mortal life, 
 the Only Begotten of the Father had been full of grace and 
 truth toward all men. Once, speaking to certain Jews, He 
 designated Himself as "a Man that hath told you the truth" : 
 while to Pontius Pilate He proclaimed : " To this end was I 
 born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should 
 bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth, 
 heareth My voice." All those were open sinners. To His 
 saints He said : " I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life . . . 
 I tell you the truth ; it is expedient for you that I go away : 
 for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you ; 
 but if I depart, I will send Him unto you . . . When He, 
 the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth." 
 And praying for the same beloved disciples, and for all who 
 should believe on Him through their word. He said : " Sanctify 
 them through Thy truth : Thy word is truth . . . And for 
 their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified 
 through the truth." 
 
 Thus " grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Glory be to 
 Thee, O God, in His most Holy Name. Amen. 
 
 Beholding our Master, we behold Man in incomparably 
 transcendent perfection : yet we ourselves, according to the 
 Will and purpose of God, are designed in some sort and in 
 miniature to become like Him. Beholding how in this life and 
 in the next He is equally and unchangeably " the Truth " and 
 a True," we become certified that this present life is the first 
 stage of that future, ever-during life : strength, beauty, dignity, 
 loveliness, delight, may be added ; but added only to what we 
 are, never to what we are not. What we essentially are in this 
 world, that we shall be in the other : what here we absolutely 
 are not, we shall not be there. 
 
 If there is no truth in us now, either through wilful lack of 
 faith or <Jf sincerity, neither will there be any then. 
 
 u Purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and 
 mourn, and weep : let your laughter be turned to mourning, 
 and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of 
 the Lord, and He shall lift you up." 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy, have mercy upon us. 
 Amen. 
 
 Ah me, that I should be 
 
 Exposed and open evermore to Thee ! 
 
 "Nay, shrink not from My light, 
 
 And I will make thee glorious in My sight 
 
 With the overcoming Shulamite." 
 
 Yea, Lord, Thou moulding me.
 
 to6 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Without a hiding-place 
 
 To hide me from the terrors of Thy Face. 
 
 "Thy hiding-place is here 
 
 In Mine own heart, wherefore the Roman spear 
 
 For thy sake I accounted dear." 
 
 My Jesus ! King of Grace. 
 
 Without a veil, to give 
 
 Whiteness before Thy Face that I might live. 
 
 " Am I too poor to dress 
 
 Thee in My royal robe of righteousness ? 
 
 Challenge and prove My love's excess." 
 
 Give, Lord, I will receive. 
 
 Without a pool wherein 
 
 To wash my piteous self and make me clean. 
 
 "My Blood hath washed away 
 
 Thy guilt, and still I wash thee day by day : 
 
 Only take heed to trust and pi ay." 
 
 Lord, help me to begin. 
 
 It was once pointed out to me by one whose was indeed a 
 loving heart, that David had "a passion" for God. Such a 
 dominant, absorbing passion, cries out in the familiar words : 
 " Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks : so longeth my 
 soul after Thee, O God. My soul is athirst for God, yea, even 
 for the Living God : when shall I come to appear before the 
 presence of God ? " Little as we " can understand his errors," 
 still less perhaps can most of us hope to understand his 
 sanctity : his errors we cannot but understand, so far as 
 kindred errors of our own may serve to enlighten us ; but 
 where in too many is the kindred sanctity to furnish a clue to 
 his sanctity? 
 
 Adam and Eve illustrate how impossible it is for man to 
 know that which is utterly alien : they knew not and could not 
 know evil until they had involved themselves in it. If we 
 would fathom how it \vas that despite his sins David ^as yet a 
 man after God's own heart, let us pray to love in some measure 
 as he loved ; for without love we shall never understand either 
 God or His saints. 
 
 And because David thus devotedly loved God, knowing 
 none upon earth to desire in comparison of Him ; therefore (be 
 other reasons what they may), doubtless does our Lord honour 
 his name and memory by repeated and permanent associaiion 
 with His own Person ; permitting Himself to be designated 
 and saluted as Son of David, in this world ; and in the other 
 world laying claim to " the key of David," and afterwards 
 announcing Himself as the Root and Offspring of David.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEE1\ 167 
 
 "The key of David" may haply give access to the treasure 
 of David. Prophecy, vision, noble natural endowments, a 
 very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play 
 well on an instrument, these were his and may never be ours ; 
 but pervading and excelling all these was that love without 
 which even David would have been but as sounding brass or 
 a tinkling cymbal. Which best gilt is attainable by us all. 
 
 Safer than in David's hand, the master-key is in our own 
 Saviour's hand. With it He can unlock what He pleases to 
 whomsoever He will. 
 
 What is there, is there anything, from which Christ would 
 exclude us? He so identifies His own with Himself that we 
 must stand or fill according to this word : " Inasmuch as ye 
 have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye 
 have done it unto Me. . . . Inasmuch as ye did it not to one 
 of the least of these, ye did it not to Me." He shares with us 
 His Name, He makes us partakers of the Divine Nature. 
 
 Even the key of David and its powers are promised by 
 prophecy to " Kliakim the son of Hilkiah," and in words 
 analogous to those of the Apocalyptic text : " The key of the 
 house of David will I lay upon his shoulder ; so he shall open, 
 and none shall shut ; and he shall shut, and none shall open." 
 
 But is not Eliakim a typical personage ? I suppose so : still, 
 to become typical, one must first be real. 
 
 O Gracious Lord, Who hast said : The disciple is not above 
 his master; but every one that is perfect shall be as his master; 
 Thee we adore, making answer : It is enough for the disciple 
 that he be as his Master. 
 
 " And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen stand- 
 ing in the court, that she obtained favour in his sight : and the 
 king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his 
 hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the 
 sceptre. Then said the king unto her : What wilt thou, 
 queen Esther ? and what is thy request ? it shall be even given 
 thee to the half of the kingdom." 
 
 O Tender Lord, Who unto two disciples, one unnamed and 
 both sad, didst once unlock in all the Scriptures things concern- 
 ing Thyself, unlock to us, I beseech Thee, treasures of Thy 
 word and wisdom. Thou, Who lovest and forgavest David, 
 love us, forgive us, who in Thee are made akin to him. O Thou 
 the more excellent David, Champion, Prophet, Shepherd, King, 
 whether or not we be of a fair countenance amongst men, 
 make us comely unto Thee. Whether or not \ve be sweet 
 singers in Thy houses made with hands, grant us grace to
 
 loS THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 make melody in our hearts to Thee ; and say Thou to each of 
 us, Sweet is thy voice. Show to us great mercy, bestow on us 
 sure mercies ; incorruption for this corruptible, immortality for 
 this mortal. Be each of us Thy Jonathan, beloved and loving. 
 O Lord the Righteous Branch, make us also to bud, taking root 
 downward and bearing fruit upward. O Lord the Rod of Jesse, 
 reject net our names from before Thy Mercy Seat, but make 
 the feeblest amongst us to be as David. Thou Son of David, 
 have mercy on us. Hosanna to the Son of David, Amen. 
 
 Nevertheless, community of flesh and blood, confidence of 
 prayer, union of will, fervour of love, while they make us near 
 and dear to Christ with an unutterable nearness and dearness, 
 cannot in relative proportion add one cubit to the stature of 
 the creature worshipping the Creator, of man adoring God. 
 The Son of Mary, Son of God, is God the Son, Very God of 
 Very God. " To everything there is a season, and a time to 
 every purpose under the heaven ... a time to keep silence, 
 and a time to speak. ... Be not rash with Thy mouth, and 
 let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God : for 
 God is in heaven, and thou upon earth : therefore let thy words 
 be few." Before we study the opening and shutting with which 
 we now have to do, let us reverently contemplate that Eastern 
 Gate which Ezekiel beheld in vision, and from which mankind 
 is excluded : " He brought me to the gate, even the gate that 
 looketh toward the east : and, behold, the Glory of the God of 
 Israel came from the way of the east: His voice was like a noise 
 of many waters : and the earth shined with His glory. . . . 
 Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward 
 sanctuary which looketh toward the east ; and it was shut. 
 Then said the Lord unto me ; This gate shall be shut, it shall 
 not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it ; because the 
 Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall 
 be shut. It is for the Prince." 
 
 Without adverting to the mystical interpretation of this 
 venerable Eastern Gate, it bids us bring awe, homage, adoration, 
 self-abasement, self-oblation, when we lift up hands and eyes 
 toward Him Whom our souls desire to love. 
 
 Trembling before Thee we fall down to adore Thee, 
 
 Shamefaced and trembling we lift our eyes to Thee : 
 O First and with the last ! annul our ruined past, 
 
 Rebuild us to Thy glory, set us free 
 
 From sin and from sorrow to fall down and worship Thee. 
 Full of pity view us, stretch Thy sceptre to us, 
 
 Bid us live that we may give ourselves to Thee :
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 109 
 
 O Faithful Lord and tnie ! stand up for us and do, 
 
 Make us lovely, make us new, set us free, 
 Heart and soul and spirit to bring all and worship Thee. 
 
 " He that openeth, and no man shutteth ; and shutteth, and 
 no man openeth." " When Thou hadst overcome the sharp- 
 ness of death : Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all 
 believers." 
 
 So mighty an opening has time already witnessed. A second 
 correspondingly mighty it lias still to behold, according to that 
 prophecy of Ezekiel, where the great type sets before our eyes 
 the yet greater anti-type : " Thus saith the Lord God ; Behold, 
 O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come 
 out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And 
 ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your 
 graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves." 
 
 Truly "no man shutteth." They who kill the body, and 
 after that have no more that they can do, cannot debar from 
 rising again those blessed bodies which once they slew, sawed 
 asunder, burned to ashes, scattered to the four winds of heaven. 
 Man proposeth, God disposeth. Man's extremity is God's 
 opportunity. 
 
 Bone to his bone, grain to his grain of dust : 
 
 A numberless reunion shall make whole 
 
 Each blessed body for its blessed soul, 
 Refashioning the aspects of the just. 
 Each saint who died must live afresh, and must 
 
 Ascend resplendent in the aureole 
 
 Of his own proper glory to his goal ; 
 As seeds their proper bodies all upthrust. 
 Each with his own not with another's grace, 
 
 Each with his own not with another s heart, 
 Each with his own not with another's face, 
 Each dovelike soul mounts to his proper place : 
 
 O faces unforgotten ! if to part 
 Wrung sore, what will it be to re-embrace ? 
 
 O God, the only Creator of all things, uplift our spirits, I 
 pray Thee, on the wings of Thy divine Dove ; that like birds 
 of Thy first Paradise, they may fly above the earth in the open 
 firmament of heaven. Cover us with silver wings of renewed 
 innocence, with feathers like gold in the sunshine of Thy grace : 
 that the waters of this troublesome world may bring forth 
 abundantly to Thee the moving creature that hath life, and 
 hath a tongue to sing Thy praises. For our Lord Jesu's sake. 
 Amen. 
 
 " Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow ? doth he open
 
 no THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 and break the clods of his ground?" O our God, Who so 
 teachest him, forget not thine own Acre, and the holy seed 
 sown therein. For Christ's sake, the Firstfruits. Amen. 
 
 Let us take courage, contemplating some of the doors set 
 open, or ready to be set wide open, before every one of us. 
 And if all we observe be not doors, let us be thankful that they 
 all are openings for our benefit : 
 
 " If thou shall hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord 
 thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments . . . 
 The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure." " The eyes 
 of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open 
 unto their cry." "Open tome the gates of righteousness : I 
 will go into them, and I will praise the Lord : this gate of the 
 Lord, into which the righteous shall enter." "Thou openest 
 Thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing." 
 " We have a strong city ; salvation will God appoint for walls 
 and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation 
 which keepeth the truth, may enter in." "In that day there 
 shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." " Bring 
 ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat 
 in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord 
 of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and 
 pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough 
 to receive it." " Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." 
 " Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God 
 ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." 
 
 Opening is suggestive of mercy ; of Christ's arms spread wide 
 to draw all men unto Him, of His Heart pierced to shelter us. 
 Shut/ing suggests (though not always does it imply) durance 
 or exclusion, in accordance with which Job bears witness, 
 " He shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening," David 
 implores, " Let not the pit shut her mouth upon me," Jeremiah 
 laments, "When I cry and shout, He shutteth out my prayer." 
 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of Him Who 
 shutteth and no man openeth. " When once the Master of 
 the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin 
 to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, 
 open unto i:s j ... He shall answer and say unto you, I 
 know you not whence ye are." "The Bridegroom came, and 
 they that were ready went in with Him to the marriage ; and 
 the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, 
 saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answered and said, 
 Verily I say unto you, I know you not."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. in 
 
 Vet so long as the period of probation extends, even durance 
 and exclusion may be blessed to man's safety ; as befell Noah 
 in the ark, when the Lord shut him in ; Miriam also, when she 
 was shut out of the camp as a step towards her restoration. 
 These become to us spiritual symbols. 
 
 Our inexhaustible hope : Jesus said, " I am the door of the 
 sheep ... I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he 
 shall be saved." 
 
 8. I know 4hy works : behold, I have set before thee an 
 open door, and no man can shut it : for thon hast a 
 little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not 
 denied My name. 
 
 The Revised Version reads : " I know thy works (behold, 
 I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut), 
 that thou hast a little power, and didst keep My word, and 
 didst not deny My Name." 
 
 According to the first rendering, the "open door" seems to 
 be a reward of the works summed up afterwards. The second 
 rendering, by making the "door opened" parenthetical and so 
 connecting the works directly with their ensuing summary, 
 appears to announce that opened door as a bounty and safe- 
 guard rather than as a reward. While as to the good works 
 themselves, the first version leads our thoughts to a habit of 
 faith and courage ; the second, to a distinct crisis of temptation 
 overcome by those virtues. 
 
 The two translations combined kindle hope, gratitude, con- 
 fidence, excite emulation. (A remark glib and impersonal, 
 valuable only when personal and practical. The slothful 
 servant has to be condemned out of his own mouth.) 
 
 The Church Triumphant dwells at large in the land that is 
 very far off, "that goodly mountain." The Church Militant 
 sojourns in " this world," whereof Christ declared : " The 
 prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me." Thus 
 abides she within the enemy's camp, finding there no rest for 
 the sole of her foot. Howbeit, in accordance with that great 
 prophetic promise which our Lord vouchsafed to St. Peter, she 
 is set upon a rock where the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against her. She stands as a city that is set on an hill, as a 
 besieged city, compassed together on every side, hostile hosts 
 swarming about her like bees. Their camp is "walled up to 
 heaven," but its gates stand open, and the concentrated strength 
 of hell cannot prevail to shut them upon her. For the true
 
 H2 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Samson has passed through them once for all, and wrecked 
 those gates ; and Greater is He that is with her, than he that 
 is against her. 
 
 " Let My people go, that they may serve Me." Each faith- 
 ful soul is as the Church, for the Church is the congregation 
 of all generations of faithful souls. " Ye are the children of 
 the prophets." 
 
 "Thou hast a little strength." Why not much strength? 
 God knoweth. Were it not better to have more ? No, while 
 God assigns no more. With much, much ccld be done. 
 With little, all can be done. Give much, and I will glorify 
 the Giver. Given much while disdaining little, and thou 
 wouldst glorify thyself or Satan. O wretched man that I am ! 
 Fray God to mend thee, and He will mend all else for thee. 
 If it be so, why am I thus? For the glory of God. Yet fain 
 would I like an angel excel in strength. Safer for thee like St. 
 Paul, in weakness to be strong. 
 
 Can I know it ? Nay 
 
 Shall I know it ? Yea, 
 
 When all mists have cleared away 
 
 For ever and aye. 
 
 Why not then to-day ? 
 Who hath said thee nay ? 
 Lift a hopeful heart and pray 
 In a humble way. 
 
 Other hearts are gay. 
 Ask not joy to-day : 
 Toil to-day along thy way 
 Keeping grudge at bay. 
 
 On a past May day 
 Flowers pranked all the way ; 
 Nightingales sang out their say 
 On a night of May. 
 
 Dost thou covet May 
 On an Autumn day ? 
 Foolish memory saith its say 
 Of sweets past away. 
 
 Gone the bloom of May, 
 
 Autumn beareth bay : 
 
 Flowerless wreath for head grown grey 
 
 Seemly were to-day. 
 
 Dost thou covet bay ? 
 
 Ask it not to-day : 
 
 Rather for a palm-branch pray ; 
 
 None will say thee nay.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 113 
 
 " Hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name." 
 They who keep Christ's Word, and deny not His Name, keep 
 their own life from going down to the pit. And this God 
 reckons to them for righteousness, and recompenses with an 
 inconceivable reward. 
 
 O Lord, Whose Word is a lantern unto our feet, and a light 
 unto our paths, I pray Thee make the law of Thy mouth 
 dearer unto us than thousands of gold and silver. O Lord, 
 Whose Name is a strong tower to the righteous, I pray Thee 
 give us wisdom to run into it and be safe. 
 
 To keep every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of 
 God, strains strength ; or the young ruler, who had kept many 
 Divine precepts, had not at the last word gone away grieved. 
 Not to deny His Name, strains strength ; or St. Peter had not 
 denied it. (Can I by possibility be called to wax stronger than 
 that young ruler whom Christ beholding loved ; stronger than 
 St. Peter, whose love dared challenge his Lord's own witness? 
 " The things which are impossible with men, are possible with 
 God." Thank God, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.) 
 
 9. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, 
 which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie ; be- 
 hold, I will make them to come and worship before 
 thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. 
 
 Thus translated, the promise reads as if the whole " synagogue 
 of Satan " should " come and worship." The Revised Version 
 seems rather to speak of some individuals so doing, not of all : 
 " Behold, I give of the synagogue of Satan, of them which say 
 they are Jews, and they are not, but do lie ; behold, I will 
 make them to come and worship . . . ." I can but quote 
 both texts. 
 
 " Known unto God are all His works, from the beginning 
 of the world." He knoweth them, and He alone exhaustively. 
 To bear this in mind everywhere and always would go far to 
 curb rash judgment, and to still strife of tongues. I deem not 
 that you know, and you feel certain that I know not ; He only 
 Who knoweth us both, knoweth all. 
 
 At the first flush we discern in this promise (ver. 9), glory to 
 Philadelphia, humiliation to that unseemly synagogue. And 
 humiliation indeed there may be, and in humiliations generally 
 we feel with instantaneous keenness the shame and sting. 
 
 Yet is there a gratuitous grace and unearned honour to that 
 offender, who being converted from the error of his ways, 
 
 H
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEE?. 
 
 retraces his steps even through the valley of humiliation. 
 " There is a shame which is glory and grace." 
 
 For Satan's synagogue to bow down before Christ's saints, 
 for those who lied even in calling themselves Jews, to know 
 anything of the love wherewith Christ loves His own, may, in 
 comparison with their former position, be at the least an 
 approach "not far from the kingdom of God." 
 
 There dwells in this wide world no man or woman or child 
 but either is, or is not, of the number of God's saints. We in 
 Christendom, if we belong not to that illustrious company, yet 
 abide within sight of it. God grant that the shining lights 
 may shine, glow, radiate, more and more, and that the lookers- 
 on glorifying the Father of all, may catch fire. 
 
 The self-assertion of Jews who were not genuine Jews, 
 illustrates how ^' the fashion of this world passeth away." I 
 know not whether at this day any one feels the pressure of that 
 particular temptation. 
 
 There is one advantage in ignorance writing for ignorance ; 
 the writer sets before the reader resources common to both. 
 Only we must all beware of becoming as blind who lead the 
 blind. 
 
 Yet, after all, neither knowledge nor ignorance is of first 
 importance to Bible students : grace is our paramount need ; 
 Divine grace, rather than any human gift. Acquirements and 
 deficiencies sink to one dead level when lacking grace : "Stay 
 yourselves, and wonder ; cry ye out, and cry : they are drunken, 
 but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. 
 For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep 
 sleep, and hath closed your eyes : the prophets and your rulers, 
 the seers hath He covered. And the vision of all is become 
 unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men 
 deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee : 
 and he saith, I cannot ; for it is sealed : and the book is de- 
 livered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray 
 thee : and he saith, I am not learned." 
 
 Such considerations befit my own ignorance concerning the 
 particular misbelievers branded as "the synagogue of Satan, 
 which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie." Still, 
 something I gather from those words : an evil and not a good 
 spirit swayed them ; they asserted what was in their own in- 
 tention a claim to superiority ; in so doing they lied. Thus 
 with threefold voice they warn all men to try the spirits whether 
 they be of God ; to sit down in the lowest room ; to speak 
 the truth without respect of persons.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 115 
 
 God, only Good, think upon Thy congregation whom 
 Thou hast purchased and redeemed of old. Rule all hearts 
 by Thy Most Holy Spirit ; that humbly we may worship Thee, 
 and truthfully confess Thee, owning ourselves unprofitable 
 servants, and in honour preferring one another. To the praise 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 " I will make them .... to know that I have loved thee." 
 Yea, gracious Lord, even while Thou waitest to call her also 
 beloved who was not beloved. Thy waiting to love, is love. 
 Thy forsaking for a small moment becomes, if we will, a step 
 towards gathering with great mercies. Thy hiding Thy face in 
 a little wrath for a moment, hinders not Thine everlasting 
 kindness and overflow of mercy if we repent. Thy beloved 
 ones, whom beholding we admire, are persons of like passions 
 as we are : Thou lovest them, Thou waitest to love us ; yea, 
 already Thou lovest us, except we be reprobate. 
 
 Even so, God loved the world before it was reconciled to 
 Him by the gift and sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son (see 
 St. John iii. 16, 17). Even so, the father in the Parable loved 
 his prodigal before ever he came in sight. 
 . Now Thou lovest us ; when, O Lord, didst Thou not love us ? 
 
 1 pray Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, make those whom Thou 
 lovest, and who return Thy love, mirrors of Thee unto their 
 unloving brethren ; that these too becoming enamoured of 
 Thine image may reproduce it, light reflecting light, and ardour 
 kindling ardour, until God be all and in all. Amen. 
 
 " I have loved thee." "Thy love is better than wine." We 
 know not all the features of lovableness which adorned these 
 Philadelphian saints ; but we are sure that lovable they were, 
 inasmuch as Christ loved them. (A safe standard by which 
 to estimate my neighbour. If I cannot love him, which is alien 
 to love ? he or I ?) 
 
 10. Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also 
 will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which 
 shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell 
 upon the earth. 
 
 So far as I am aware the word patience is exclusively a New 
 Testament word, although patient and patiently occur in both 
 Testaments. Not that the virtue so named waited for these last 
 days for illustration : on the contrary, St. James cites the 
 Prophets and Job as examples of patience. Yet because 
 patience in perfection was not found on earth until Christ trod 
 our weary ways, it wakes a harmonious chord in our hearts to
 
 Ii6 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 observe that till His blessed human lips, spake the word, that 
 word was not (unless I mistake) recorded in the Scriptures of 
 Truth. 
 
 Once in the days of His mortality He had said to His 
 disciples, " In your patience possess ye your souls ; " but now 
 in His glorious immortality He so far unites His suffering 
 Church with Himself as to say, " Because thcu hast kept the 
 word of My patience." 
 
 kind Lord, Who so identifies! Thy Church with Thyself 
 that what Thou art she is accounted, and what she is Thou 
 takest upon Thyself, grant that as Thy Desire is unto her, so 
 her whole desire and longing may be unto Thee purely and 
 without distraction, for ever and ever. 
 
 Patience goes with sorrow, not with joy. And by a natural 
 instinct sorrow ranges itself with darkness, joy with light. But 
 eyes that have been supernaturalized recognize, not literally only, 
 but likewise in a figure, how darkness reveals more luminaries 
 than does the day : to the day appertains a single sun ; to the 
 night innumerable, incalculable, by man's perception inex 
 haustible stars. 
 
 This is one of nature's revelations, attested by experience. 
 God grant us to receive the parallel revelation of grace : then 
 whatever tribulation befalls us will by His blessing work in us 
 patience, and our patience will work experience, and our ex- 
 perience hope; "and hope maketh not ashamed; because the 
 love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost 
 which is given unto us." 
 
 What those saints kept was not patience merely, but " the 
 word " of Christ's patience. At His word they kept patience ; 
 they kept it because of His will toward themselves, and subject 
 to each jot and tittle of His revered law. He was their pattern 
 and text-book of patience ; because He bore contradiction of 
 sinners, so did they ; because He, when He was reviled, reviled 
 not again, neither did they; because He prayed for His 
 enemies, they likewise prayed for theirs. 
 
 Of these unknown, unrecorded Philadelphians do we then 
 really and truly know such great things? Yea, such things as 
 these, inasmuch as we are certified that they kept the Word of 
 Christ's patience. 
 
 " As unknown, and yet well known." 
 
 Patience must dwell with Love, for Love and Sorr \v 
 
 Have pitched their tent together here : 
 Love all alone will build a house to-morrow, 
 
 And sorrow not be near.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 117 
 
 To-day for Love's sake hope, still hope, in sorrow, 
 
 Rest in her shade and hold her dear : 
 To-day she nurses thee ; and lo ! to-morrow 
 
 Love only will be near. 
 
 Patience is its own reward. It preoccupies the soul witli a 
 sort of satisfaction which suppresses insatiable craving, vain 
 endeavour, rebellious desire. It keeps the will steadfast, the 
 mind disengaged, the heart quiet. Patience having little or 
 having nothing yet possesses all things ; for through faith and 
 patience the elect inherit the promises. Here, in our text, 
 follows a momentous promise : 
 
 " Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will 
 keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come . . ." 
 
 Even so David's voice vibrates to us from a far-off century : 
 "Oh how plentiful is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up 
 for them that fear Thee : and that Thou hast prepared for 
 them that put their trust in Thee, even before the sons of 
 men ! Thou shalt hide them privily by Thine own Presence 
 from the provoking of all men : Thou shalt keep them secretly 
 in Thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues." And so of 
 old Isaiah bore witness : " A Man shall be as an hiding-place 
 from the wind, and a covert from the tempest ; as rivers of 
 water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
 land." 
 
 The Philadelphian saints by patience obtained the special 
 promise we are considering. We ourselves a thousand and a 
 thousand times by impatience have forfeited our claim to it. 
 They thus were guaranteed exemption from an awful impending 
 trial ; while we . . . ! Yet " hast Thou not reserved a bless- 
 ing for me? Hast Thou but one blessing, my Father? bless 
 me, even me also, O my Father." 
 
 St. James, who by inspiration sets forth the praise of patience, 
 equally by inspiration blesses those who instead of being 
 sheltered from temptation are sustained under it : " Blessed 
 is the man that endureth temptation : for when he is tried, he 
 shall receive the crown of liff, which the Lord hath promised 
 to them that love Him." 
 
 "Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." 
 
 " Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." 
 
 "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is 
 common to man." 
 
 Draw freely, generously, hopefully upon patience ; for the 
 more we draw upon it, so much is the strain upon it lessened. 
 On one memorable occasion had King Saul's patience held
 
 Ii8 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 out for perhaps a single hour longer, the Lord would have 
 established his kingdom upon Israel "for ever." 
 
 God reserves many ways within His limitless resources 
 whereby either from or under temptation to rescue as He 
 pleases any soul He pleases. Death is one of His blessed 
 ways : " The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to 
 heart : and merciful men are taken away, none considering 
 that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He 
 shall enter into peace : they shall rest in their beds, each one 
 walking in his uprightness." (Let us not then mourn inconsol- 
 ably for our own " not lost, but gone before.") Or He can with 
 a stroke fortify that weak point which would facilitate a given 
 temptation, as blindness or deafness seals up eye or ear against 
 pollution. Or He can deaden our faculty of enjoyment, and 
 therewith our inclination to parley. Or He can replace an 
 expelled vice by its antagonistic virtue, so that seven or seven 
 times seven wicked spirits moaning and gibbering around our 
 swept and garnished house should find no entrance there. 
 
 Nor can we while wheat and tares grow together foresee 
 which ears quickly ripened and spared the brunt of wind and 
 rain, will be garnered betimes as firstfruits of a multitudinous 
 harvest. Not even their mother presenting her petition for 
 the sons of Zebedee can have calculated that St. James would 
 head the noble army of martyred Apostles, whilst St. John, the 
 last survivor of their glorious company, would come to his 
 grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in, in his 
 season. 
 
 "The hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the 
 world, to try them that dwell upon the enrih." The surface 
 of the universe, or to bring my remark within a less unmanage- 
 able area, the surface of familiar nature and of society, presents 
 incalculable if not infinite variety. Light stands out against 
 darkness, growth against decay ; the contrast of wedding and 
 funeral stares us in the face. Divergences are the order of our 
 day ; insomuch that it even has been alleged that no two leaves 
 can be found alike ; and I for one am ready to believe it. 
 
 Yet the more we think over these diversities and such as 
 these, the more (I suppose) we may discern something common 
 underlying all that is individual. To take an instance : at one 
 moment a wedding appears all life, a funeral all death ; at 
 another, both are perceived to be equally and at once an end 
 and a beginning. 
 
 A step further, and I recognize that during this probational 
 period not some influences only, but all influences as they
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 119 
 
 touch us become our trials, tests, temptations ; assayed by which 
 we stand or fall, we are found wanting or not wanting, as 
 genuinely as will be the case with us in the last tremendous 
 Day of account. 
 
 Therefore wj^ile fear is quickened because of constant peril, 
 any sort of unreasoning horror is abated, inasmuch as even the 
 great last Judgment though supreme and final will not stand 
 unprecedented and alone : over and over again we have been 
 judged and condemned, or else acquitted ; over and over again 
 have fallen or stood to our own Master. 
 
 O my God, grant us the uprightness of saints, or at the least 
 only such falls as they arise from. For Jesus Christ's merits' 
 sake. Amen. 
 
 This " hour of temptation " was ordained to overtake all the 
 world. Is it already past, is it passing, or is it still to come ? 
 To ourselves it may be present, or it may be future : it were 
 rash to reckon any temptation assuredly past, whilst the liability 
 to all temptation remains. The " old man " dies slowly, tediously, 
 painfully : death-stricken by our Mighty Avenger of Blood, his 
 life is indeed but death and corruption, yet "while there is life 
 there is fear." 
 
 "To try them that dwell upon the earth." All alike must 
 be. tried: not all alike will meet and pass through the trial. 
 The qualification for trial is dwelling upon the earth : they who 
 are least of the earth earthy will presumably fare best ; inas- 
 much as this trial is not in order to confirm man upon the 
 earth that now is, but to fit him for translation to that new 
 heaven and new earth wherein shall dwell righteousness. 
 
 Foothold we must needs have, at least until we be made 
 equal unto the angels ; but let us pray against roothold. A 
 foot may spurn the ground it cannot choose but tread ; a root 
 grasps and holds fast the soil whence it sucks subsistence, and 
 whence it oftentimes cannot be wrenched except to die. 
 
 Sparrows and swallows are alike safe when once they have 
 become denizens of the amiable tabernacles. But on earth, 
 which is at best heaven's ante-chamber, it is wiser to construct 
 a one-season's nest than a house for prolonged residence : the 
 swallow of this generation is wiser than the sparrow. 
 
 Wisest of sparrows that sparrow which sitteth alone 
 
 Perched on the housetop, its own upper chamber, for nest ; 
 
 NYisest of swallows that swallow which timely has flown 
 Over the turbulent sea to the land of its rest : 
 
 Wisest of sparrows and swallows, if I were as wise !
 
 120 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Wisest of spirits that spirit which dwelleth apart 
 
 Hid in the Presence of God for a chapel and nest, 
 Sending a wish and a will and a passionate heart 
 Over the eddy of life to that Presence in rest : 
 Seated alone and in peace till God bids it arise. 
 
 
 
 Will the trial last for ever? No, for some period which an 
 hour represents. "Couldest not thou watch one hour?" 
 
 Will it overwhelm us ? No, for the promise is unto us and 
 to our children : " God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to 
 be tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the temptation 
 also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 
 
 When will it befall us ? " Of that day and hour knoweth 
 no man . . . Watch therefore." 
 
 We fear. " He that feareth God shall come forth of them 
 all." 
 
 We hope. " It is good that a man should both hope and 
 quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." 
 
 "And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of 
 that which is good ? But and if ye suffer for righteousness' 
 sake, happy are ye : and be not afraid of their terror, neither 
 be troubled ; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts : and 
 be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh 
 you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and 
 fear: having a good conscience." 
 
 11. Behold, I come quickly : hold that fast which thou 
 hast, that no man take thy crown. 
 
 "Behold, I come quickly." But some man would answer: 
 Lord, sayest Thou that Thou comest quickly Who all these 
 eighteen hundred years hast not come? Well may we pray 
 that we may interpret 
 
 Christ's blessed words are truth, sending forth wisdom by 
 unnumbered channels. For He uses many seasons and modes 
 of coming, besides and before that final coming when every 
 eye shall see Him. To some exalted souls He has come ere 
 now in vision and special revelation. To all His brethren 
 down to the poorest and hungriest He comes, or is ready to 
 come, in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood. To 
 every man who loves Him and keeps His words He comes 
 beyond the world's comprehension and makes His abode with 
 him (see St. John xiv. 22, 23). To His beloved He comes in 
 their death whereby they go to Him. In any or in all of these 
 ways we believe and are sure that He kept faith with His 
 faithful Philadelphians.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 121 
 
 On the other hand, not the creature of time but only the 
 Lord of time and eternity can pronounce on what is or is not 
 quickly brought to pass. At eighteen we think a year long, at 
 eighty we think it short : what terminable duration would seem 
 long to us, what such duration would not seem short, if we 
 had already passed out of time into eternity? Wherefore He 
 alone Who saith "quickly" can define quickly. 
 
 O Gracious Lord Christ, Who lovest Thine elect with an 
 everlasting love, keep us, I pray Thee, peaceful and trustful in 
 our due ignorance until the day break and the shadows flee 
 away. 
 
 Oh knell of a passing time, 
 Will it never cease to chime ? 
 Oh stir of the tedious sea, 
 Will it never cease to be? 
 Yea, when night and when day, 
 Moon and sun pass away. 
 
 Surely the sun burns low, 
 The moon makes ready to go, 
 Broad ocean ripples to waste, 
 Time is running in haste, 
 Night is numbered, and day 
 Numbered to pass away. 
 
 "Hold that fast which thou hast." Hold fast for one thing 
 the word of Christ's patience. To let go patience would entail 
 forfeit of both praise and promise. 
 
 With our little strength let us hold fast patience and what- 
 ever else has been entrusted to our keeping. Be we of no 
 reputation and ever so small, God's blessing on our little 
 strength will make it adequate, and will brace it to keep His 
 commandments. 
 
 I, Lord, Thy foolish sinner low and small, 
 
 Lack all. 
 
 His heart too high was set 
 
 Who asked, What lack I yet? 
 
 Woe's me at my most woeful pass ! 
 
 I, Lord, who scarcely dare adore, 
 
 Weep sore : 
 
 Steeped in this rotten world I fear to rot. 
 
 Alas ! what lack I not ? 
 
 Alas ! alas for me ! alas ! 
 
 More and yet more. 
 
 Nay, stand up on thy feet, betaking thee 
 
 To Me. 
 
 Bring fear ; but much more bring 
 
 Hope to thy patient King : 
 
 What, is My pleasure in thy death?
 
 122 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 I loved that youth who little knew 
 
 The true 
 
 Width of his want, yet worshipped with goodwill : 
 
 So love I thee, and still 
 
 Prolong thy day of grace and breath. 
 
 Rise up and do. 
 
 Lord, let me know mine end, and certify 
 
 When I 
 
 Shall die and have to stand 
 
 Helpless on Either Hand, 
 
 Cut off, cut off, my day of grace. 
 
 Not so : for what is that to thee? 
 
 I see 
 
 The measure and the number of thy day : 
 
 Keep patience, tho' I slay ; 
 
 Keep patience till thou see My Face. 
 
 Follow thou Me. 
 
 That which as yet "thou hast" is not thy crown, but on it 
 depends thy crown. As safety depended on the steadfastness of 
 the Alexandrian mariners (see Acts xxvii. 6, 30 32), so on our 
 steadfastness here depends our coronation hereafter. And as 
 then a delusive appearance of safety, or even perhaps a partial 
 safety, had to be sacrificed to the general security, so our Lord 
 has forewarned us, " He that findeth his life shall lose it : and 
 he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." 
 
 O Lord Whose symbol is the unchanging sun, enlighten us 
 to be Thy faithful sequent moons ; waxing to Thee, waning to 
 ourselves, walking in brightness, reflecting and spreading abroad 
 Thy glory. Lighten our darkness, I beseech Thee, O Lord. 
 Amen. 
 
 Can I hold fast my crown on purpose " that no man take " 
 it ; and yet love my neighbour as myself? Yes, verily, and by 
 God's help so I will. 
 
 For the Divine Treasury is never so scantily furnished that 
 one man's enrichment depends on the impoverishment of 
 another. Indeed the very contrary may be looked for, as is 
 illustrated by a parallel case : " Whether one member suffer, all 
 the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, all 
 the members rejoice with it." 
 
 All is as God wills, and what He pleaseth to do He doeth. 
 On the one hand the fall of Judas left an apostolic throne 
 vacant for St. Matthias : on the other hand St. Paul out of 
 due time became an Apostle in excess of the original Twelve. 
 The Bounty of God never ceases, as it were, to appeal to man : 
 " Prove Me now ... if I will not ." " And yet there is 
 room."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 123 
 
 If I ruin myself the loss is mine, but my squandered blessing 
 is not lost to the Church. .The forfeited bishopric another 
 takes. The forfeited mansion another will inhabit. God's 
 House must needs be filled, though the door be shut in the 
 face of ten thousand invited guests. The cast-out childrens' 
 places will be occupied by elect children from east and west, 
 and north and south. 
 
 Worst of all is it when self-ruin involves the ruin of others. 
 There is a giving and taking which is mere absolute loss to 
 both giver and receiver: "My son, if sinners entice thee, 
 consent thou not. Jf they say, Come with us, . . . cast in 
 thy lot among us ; let us all have one purse : my son, walk not 
 thou in the way with them ; refrain thy foot from their path : 
 for their feet run to evil . . . And they lay wait for their own 
 blood; they lurk privily for their own lives." "The strange 
 woman, . . . the stranger which flattereth with her words ; 
 which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the 
 covenant of her God. For her house inclineth unto death, 
 and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return 
 again, neither take they hold of the paths of life." 
 
 ' Thy crown." What am I, to foresee a crown for myself? 
 For my neighbour I will think out a crown. 
 
 Earthly maidens and brides wear garlands of blossoms which 
 must wither : the heavenly Virgins and Brides shall wear 
 amaranthine wreaths. So (please God) some whom I have 
 known will be crowned. Far from crowned have I heretofore 
 beheld them, meek, lowly, patient, obscure, perhaps unsightly, 
 perhaps uncouth ; but if I see them again " in all their glory," 
 I shall see such persons as in his mortal day Solomon the 
 magnificent could not vie with. 
 
 Crowns of righteousness await all the righteous ; but not, it 
 may be, crowns all alike, any more than stars beam all alike in 
 their glory. If by way of figure and illustration earthly 
 treasures correspond at all with heavenly treasures, pearls seem 
 fit for purity, and most fine gold for sanctity, changeable opals 
 with one abiding fire-spark for penitence, the perennial green- 
 ness of emeralds for hope that maketh not ashamed, diamonds 
 sun-reproducing for faith, and for love carbuncles like coals of 
 fire that hath a most vehement flame. Or rather, one and all 
 for love : love being guard of purity, root of sanctity, spring 
 of penitence, sustenance of hope, life of faith. 
 
 Is love then the only crowned virtue ? Yes, only love : in- 
 asmuch as the others, divorced from love, would not be virtues. 
 
 Lord, I desire my crown. Child, I also desired mine.
 
 124 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Lord, what like will my crown be ? Call it not thine before 
 thou hast striven for it. Lord, will it not be of glory ? Mine 
 once was of thorns. Can a crown of thorns be in truth my 
 desire ? With desire I desired Mine. Thorns, if so it must 
 be, to-day : but what to-morrow ? This day is called to-day : 
 to-morrow will take thought for the things of itself. 
 
 " My Beloved is mine, and I am His," saith the Bride of the 
 Canticles, and makes no mention of her own inferiority in the 
 gracious communion and so-far equality of love. Indeed, if 
 there be a difference, I think the Bridegroom may rejoice over 
 the Bride with a more absolute complacency of affection than 
 that wherewith she on her side worships Him : for He calls 
 her " My love," she Him " my Beloved" ; " My love," as if she 
 were very love itself, "my Beloved," as if her love graced 
 Him. 
 
 Than this we need seek no sweeter marvel. To be classed 
 with it are two prophecies of Isaiah when set side by side : 
 " In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, 
 and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of His people " : 
 "Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the 
 Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God." 
 
 12. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple 
 
 of My God, and he shall go no more out : and I will 
 write upon him the Name of My God, and the name 
 of the city of My God, which is new Jerusalem, which 
 cometh down out of Heaven from My God : and I 
 will write upon him My new Name. 
 
 13. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
 
 unto the churches. 
 
 " A pillar " great strength, the fruit and guerdon of a little 
 strength ; absolute immovable stability, the outcome of the 
 effort to hold fast. Behold the choice wcrk wrought out of 
 the costly material ; wrought out by dint of blows, of cutting, 
 of shattering in a measure ; but (thank God !) wrought out at 
 last White and ruddy as alabaster ; not all white Itst it seem 
 cold, nor all ruddy lest it seem blood-stained ; lilies, knops, 
 pomegranates ; nay, we know not what colours and devices 
 shall make it comely ; but this we know, that it will be the 
 finished work of Him all Whose works were good in the 
 beginning; how much more, in the end and consummation of 
 all things ! 
 
 Nor merely a pillar, but "a pillar in the Temple of My 
 God." A pillar adorns, dignifies, upholds the structure to
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 125 
 
 which it belongs. Even thus may it be with celestial pillars, 
 yet never otherwise than where a Psalm speaks with the Voice 
 of Christ : " I bear up the pillars of it." He Who was 
 Strength to the weak on earth, will be Strength to the strong 
 in Heaven : that which was founded on Rock here, will not 
 be founded on sand there. 
 
 Can man uphold the glory of God ? Yea, God so gracing 
 him. Similarly we read of mortal men helping, or rather, 
 alas! of their not helping the victorious Lord of all : "They 
 came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord 
 against the mighty." Not that He needs our help : but whoso 
 helps Him shares His Triumph ; whoso upholds His glory 
 becomes invested with His Glory. 
 
 Good Lord, make me, me also of Thy votaries. Neither 
 pray I for myself alone, but for all. 
 
 " And he shall go no more out." 
 
 Once within, within for evermore : 
 
 There the long beatitudes begin : 
 Overflows the still unwasting store, 
 
 Once within. 
 
 Left without are death and doubt and sin ; 
 
 All man wrestled with and all he bore, 
 Man who saved his life skin after skin. 
 
 Blow the trumpet-blast unheard before, 
 
 Shout the unheard-of shout for these who win, 
 
 These, who cast their crowns on Heaven's high floor 
 Once within. 
 
 " I will write upon him the Name of My God, and the name 
 of the city of My God, which is new Jerusalem, . . . and I 
 will write upon him My new Name." 
 
 Children bear their father's name, a wife her husband's. 
 Thus the Divine Father bestows His own Name on His 
 adopted children, and thus the Divine Bridegroom on His 
 purchased bride ; and this to all eternity, as we see in the 
 text. 
 
 But Christian Baptism is Baptism in the Name of the Most 
 Holy Trinity, of Father, of Son, and of Holy Ghost. All 
 through mortal life regenerate man bears that Sacred Name in 
 Its fulness : God forbid that he who finally perseveres unto 
 salvation, should then cease to bear It in unabated fulness of 
 Perfection. [I write under correction : I repudiate my own 
 thoughts if erroneous.] 
 
 Wherefore I humbly ponder whether " the name of the City 
 of God, which is new Jerusalem," may hide at once and reveal
 
 126 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the Supreme Name of that Divine Most Holy Spirit Who 
 deigns to inhabit her. " In His temple doth every one speak 
 of His glory " ; and she is that Temple built of livi'ng stones ; 
 which stones are men, of whom each one severally is con- 
 stituted a Temple of the Holy Ghost consecrated to worship 
 God in spirit and in truth. 
 
 If such a train of thought be lawful, it seems to illustrate 
 the Inscrutability of the Third Person of the Ever Blessed 
 Trinity : a sacred Inscrutability of Mystery in the revelation 
 to man of God the Holy Spirit, beyond what invests the 
 corresponding revelation of God the Father or of God the 
 Son. Even natural instinct attests as true the revelation of 
 One Divine, universal Father: the heart's desire of all nations 
 heretofore thirsted for, and now in some measure acknowledges, 
 the revelation of God the Son. But Christ Himself said in 
 reference to an operation of God the Holy Spirit, "The wind 
 bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, 
 but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth " ; 
 and we are ready to answer : " Lo, He goeth by me, and I see 
 Him not : He passeth on also, but I perceive Him not." 
 
 I think that a devout contemplation of our most approach- 
 able Master may help us to perceive and adore our " Other 
 Comforter." During His earthly life Jesus engaged few 
 followers ; and these in varying degrees of knowledge or of 
 ignorance apprehended or apprehended not His Divinity ; but 
 after His Resurrection, and again in greater splendour after 
 His Ascension, light sprang up. Thus so long as eyes could 
 see and ears hear and hands handle the Word of Life, Christ 
 abode for -the most part unseen, unheard, untouched; but 
 when a c)oud had received Him out of sight, then it became 
 possible for mankind at all times and in all places to behold 
 Him with the eye of faith, listen to Him with the ear of hope, 
 hold Him fast and not let Him go with the clasped hands 
 of adoring love. So long as His Tabernacle was mortal it 
 obscured the indwelling Deity : when His mortal put on immor- 
 tality it revealed what till then it had veiled. 
 
 For more than these eighteen hundred years past it has 
 pleased the Holy Spirit by choosing mortal men as His 
 temples to dwell in houses made of dust and which must 
 return to dust. The evidence He vouchsafes of His Presence 
 consists in the supernatural endowments of His saints. Holy 
 men, holy women, holy children, act like prisms to exhibit His 
 Light : they are not that Light, but bear witness of that Light. 
 Their love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 1 2 ? 
 
 faith, meekness, temperance, bear witness to Him : these are 
 His fruits, and the fruits declare the tree. 
 
 Now if Christ's mighty works, perfection of grace, un- 
 measured plenitude of the Spirit, did not to the universal 
 apprehension announce His Godhead so long as this was 
 enshrined in a mortal though ever-immaculate Body, no 
 wonder is it that the Presence of God the Holy Ghost, in 
 shrines so narrow, frail, flawed, polluted as are ordinary human 
 hearts which have still to die, is often overlooked or denied : 
 no wonder that His very Being should be denied by some who 
 look for judgment, but behold oppression ; for righteousness, 
 but behold a cry. 
 
 An awful responsibility devolves on each Christian soul. 
 You, I, are summoned and constituted to bear witness to the 
 Person and Work of Almighty God the Holy Spirit; to be in 
 some degree His evidence, His illustration, His proof. "O 
 God, Thou knowest my foolishness ; and my sins are not hid 
 from Thee . . . Let not those that seek Thee be con- 
 founded for my sake, O God of Israel." 
 
 The saints are God's epistle known and read of all men : 
 "tables of testimony . . . written with the finger of God." 
 
 " New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from 
 My God." Wherefore cometh she down ? and whither cometh 
 she down ? 
 
 It seems to be the reverse of what our Redeemer spake 
 concerning Himself: "No man hath ascended up to heaven, 
 but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man 
 which is in heaven." 
 
 He first descended, then ascended. His followers one by 
 one slowly, painfully, precariously toil up from earth to the 
 better country. And then after all we read that the New 
 Jerusalem will come down ! 
 
 Now if for the present this scarcely sounds to us like any 
 phase of beatitude, it may prove to us none the less profitable : 
 by setting us on our guard against fancying we know and 
 comprehend what we neither know nor comprehend ; by 
 inviting us to trust God implicitly, and not to lean to our own 
 understanding; by bringing home to us that God's perfect 
 Will and not our o\Vn' desire or imagination is the standard of 
 beatitude. 
 
 O our God, teach us so to trust Thee that knowledge and 
 ignorance may be alike welcome to us when of Thine ap- 
 pointing. What we know we know only in part ; what we 
 know not Thou knowest altogether. The darkness and light
 
 128 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 to Thee are both alike : therefore under the shadow of Thy 
 wings will we rejoice. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 Amen. 
 
 " My New Name." O Lord Whom we have loved as God, 
 as Man, as Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, Son of 
 Mary, as Christ, as Jesus, what is that New Name, under 
 which Thine own shall one day love Thee? I ask not to 
 know it while It is secret. I ask that with all my brethren 
 and all my sisters in Thee I may know, adore, love Thee 
 under that New Name and under every Name through all 
 eternity : for ever following on to know Thee ; ever learning, 
 and coming to the knowledge of the truth, and learning still 
 for ever. 
 
 O Lord, I am ashamed to seek Thy Face 
 
 As tho' I loved Thee as Thy saints love Thee * 
 Yet turn from those Thy lovers, look on, me, 
 
 Disgrace me not with uttermost disgrace ; 
 
 But pour on me ungracious, pour Thy grace 
 To purge my heart and bid my will go free, 
 Till I too taste Thy hidden Sweetness, see 
 
 Thy hidden Beauty in the holy place. 
 
 O Thou Who callest sinners to repent, 
 
 Call me Thy sinner unto penitence, 
 
 For many sins grant me the greater love : 
 Set me above the waterfloods, above 
 
 Devil and shifting world and fleshly sense, 
 
 Thy Mercy's all-amazing monument. 
 
 14. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans 
 write ; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and 
 true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God. 
 
 An " Angel " still though arraigned at the supreme bar. A 
 " Church " still, though being weighed and found wanting. 
 " Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God : on 
 them which fell, severity ; but toward thee, goodness, if thou 
 continue in His goodness : otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." 
 
 " The Amen." Elsewhere the Voice of Inspiration affirms : 
 " The Son of God, Jesus Christ . . was not yea and nay, 
 but in Him was yea. For all the promises of God in Him 
 are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glcry of God . . ." [Or 
 according to the Revised Version : " . . . but in Him is yea. 
 For how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the 
 yea : wherefore also through Him is the Amen, unto the glory 
 of God ... "] 
 
 To Balaam of old was revealed the immutability of God 
 and of His Word : "God is not a man that He should lie;
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 129 
 
 neither the son of man, that He should repent : hath He said 
 and shall He not do it ? or hath He spoken, and shall He not 
 make it good?" In which utterance, as in a glass darkly, we 
 haply trace an allusion to the Mystery of our Lord's Incar- 
 nation : Who verily became a Man and the Son of Man neither 
 that He should lie nor repent, but to make good His plighted 
 word by bruising the serpent's head. He Who is the Truth 
 from all eternity, remains the Truth to all eternity. His faith- 
 fulness and truth are our shield and buckler. 
 
 In Him the promises are yea, wherefore the threatenings 
 likewise cannot but be yea. Indeed the several accomplish- 
 ments of promises and of threatenings, even if not interde- 
 pendent, seem to be closely allied. As where we read : 
 " The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance : he 
 shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. So that a man 
 shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous " " The 
 day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the year of My 
 redeemed is come " " Behold, My servants shall eat, but ye 
 shall be hungry : behold, My servants shall drink, but ye shall 
 be thirsty : behold, My servants shall rejoice, b.it ye shall be 
 ashamed : behold, My servants shall sing for joy of heart, but 
 ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of 
 spirit. And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto My 
 chosen " "Judas . . . went immediately out : and it was night. 
 Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son 
 of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him " "Then shall 
 the King say un'o them on His Right Hand, Come, ye blessed 
 of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world. . . . Then shall He say also unto 
 them on the Left Hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into 
 everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . 
 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the 
 righteous into life eternal." 
 
 " The Faithful and True Witness." Our Lord instructed 
 Nicodemus, saying : " We speak that we do know, and testify 
 that we have seen." 
 
 Lord, what is it which Thou hast seen in me ? What now 
 seest Thou ? What wilt Thou see at the awful day of my 
 death? What in the most awful Day of Thy Judgment? 
 Thou Who beholdest sin, kindle and behold in me repentance; 
 that so at last even I may see the felicity of Thy chosen, may 
 see Thee in Thy beauty, may see Thee as Thou art. Amen. 
 
 There are some touching whom Christ forewarns us : " Then 
 will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from Me, 
 
 i
 
 30 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 ye that work iniquity." " Search me, O God, and know my 
 heart : try me, and know my thoughts : and see if there be any 
 wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 
 
 "The beginning of the creation of God." "Without Him 
 was not any thing made that was made." Thus is He the 
 Source, Spring, Origin of creation. 
 
 Elsewhere we read : " A Body hast Thou prepared Me." 
 This obviously and primarily refers to Christ's sacred Human 
 Body. But as the Church is His Mystical Body no less truly 
 than the other is His literal Body, we may (I thirlk) attach a 
 second signification to the same text, and adore Him as the 
 Beginning especially of our own creation, inasmuch as we are 
 made expressly and paramountiy to bear so glorious a relation 
 to Him : even before redeeming and quickening His members, 
 He became Head of the race in order to redeem and quicken 
 them. That human kind existed centuries before the Incar- 
 nation, alters not the order of beginning and sequence : 
 creation dates not from commencement but rather from 
 consummation. Thus we call not Adam as yet created whilst 
 he remained no more than a lifeless body of clay ; but only 
 after God had breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. 
 Christ the Source whence creation proceeds, stands as the 
 Centre whence it radiates. 
 
 " Is anything too hard for the Lord?" He who can commu- 
 nicate life to the lifeless can even renew life in the dead. 
 
 O Jesus Christ All Holy, Who beheldest in Thy beloved 
 Mary Magdalene first seven devils, then Thine own image ; in 
 Thy beloved James and John first the fiery natural man, next 
 the enkindled spiritual man ; in Thy beloved Peter first three 
 lapses, then three aspirations of love ; in Thy beloved Thomas 
 first doubt, then faith ; in Thy beloved Paul first Thy persecu- 
 tor, next Thy chosen vessel; in Thy beloved Mark, first one 
 who answered, I will not, afterwards one who repented and 
 went : us too behold, us too transform, us too accept ; for which 
 of us hast Thou not loved, O our All- Loving Lord ? 
 
 Not that we should restrict meditation to mankind exclu- 
 sively, when we worship Christ as the Beginning and Head of 
 creation ; God " having made known unto us the mystery of 
 His Will, according to His good pleasure which He hath 
 purposed in Himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness 
 of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, 
 both which are in heaven, and which are on earth ; even in 
 Him : in Whom also we have obtained an inheritance." To 
 widen thanksgiving is or ought to be to widen enjoyment.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 131 
 
 " O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord : praise Him, 
 and magnify Him for ever." 
 
 15. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot : I 
 
 would thou wert cold or hot. 
 
 16. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold 
 
 nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth. 
 
 I suppose the particular form of this tremendous anathema 
 may take its rise from the nauseating tendency of tepid water. 
 The cold or the hot may cause pleasure or exquisite pain : the 
 lukewarm simply invites expulsion. 
 
 Degradation it were and ruin to become an abhorring unto 
 all flesh : unspeakable degradation, ruin unutterable, to become 
 Christ's abhorrence. We must recollect what did not suffice to 
 make men so, before we can in the least estimate what con- 
 summate loathsomeness it is which will suffice. To be dead 
 sufficed not, for all whom He hath quickened were dead in 
 trespasses and sins. To lie in wickedness sufficed not, for the 
 whole world lieth in wickedness, and He came not to condemn 
 the world but to save the world. To be His enemies sufficed 
 not, for we were enemies when He reconciled us to God by His 
 death. To crucify Him sufficed not, for He interceded for 
 His crucifiers. To persecute Him sufficed not, for He brake 
 not in pieces like a potter's vessel Saul of Tarsus. To look 
 back from the plough sufficed not, for He reclaimed Mark 
 sister's son to Barnabas. 
 
 Christ in His mercy preserve us from ever sounding that 
 surpassing depth of Satan. Amen. 
 
 " I know thy works." Every variety of perversity is possible 
 to free will. Some sinners work, and their work is their sin : 
 others work not, and their sin consists in their not working. 
 Yet not to work is in some sort to work amiss. " He that 
 gathereth not with Me scattereth." 
 
 " I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot : I 
 would thou wert cold or hot." Instinct and reason agree in 
 classing cold with death, heat with life : lukewarmness stands 
 midway between the twain, akin to both while stopping short 
 of either. 
 
 Like Israel under Ahab and Jezebel, the lukewarm Christian 
 halts between two opinions, and appears after a fashion to act 
 out the startling letter of two inspired sentences : " Be not 
 righteous over much. ... Be not over much wicked." If he 
 be a guest, he wears a very decent cloak over his sins; but
 
 132 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 alas ! he has not on a wedding garment. He is as a fountain 
 which gives out water neither quite sweet nor quite bitter ; as a 
 sheep that is neither black nor white. 
 
 As lukewarmness stands between cold and heat, so indiffer- 
 ence stands between love and hatred. If under the surface as 
 well as upon the surface the two series correspond, at once 
 light breaks in upon our subject. For indifference, so far as 
 Holy Scripture instructs us, has no part whatsoever in the 
 Divine Being. God Almighty we know is Love ; and it is 
 revealed that He can hate : but love and hatred alike preclude 
 indifference. Thus indifference appears to involve absolute 
 alienation from His Image and Likeness. 
 
 Yet, Lord Jesus, Thou breakest not the bruised reed, nor 
 quenchest the smoking flax, and Thou praisest the little strength 
 of Philadelphia. Wilt Thou not compassionate the little heat 
 which is lukewarmness, and the languishing life which still is 
 not death ? 
 
 O Saviour, show compassion ! 
 Because if Thou reject us, who shall receive us? 
 
 O Saviour, show compassion. 
 Because \ve are half dead, yet not wholly dead, 
 
 O Saviour, show compassion. 
 
 Because Thou art the Good Samaritan, the Good Physician ; bind up 
 our wounds pouring in Thine oil and Thy wine, take care of us, provide 
 for us, set us forward on our way, bring us home. And because Thou 
 lovest us, even for Thine own sake, 
 
 O Saviour, show compassion. 
 
 Without fully understanding wherefore so heinous, we yet 
 cannot but understand from our text the precipitant-deathward 
 tendency of lukewarmness. To face and investigate may 
 help us to flee the danger. 
 
 And especially so because to face, investigate, and so far to 
 grapple with the demon of lukewarmness, does then and there 
 tend to rout him. Those are energetic acts; and energy 
 infallibly clashes with a fault which is fostered by sloth, and in 
 its turn fosters a low-born comfort. 
 
 A comfortable but insidious spiritual drowsiness seems one 
 ailment symptomatic of lukewarmness. We know how physi- 
 cal heat and cold, however opposite to each other, so far agree 
 that an excess of either disturbs rest : medium warmth, luke- 
 warmness, woos and wins sound sleep. 
 
 Is this the time, is this the world, are we the persons safely 
 to woo and win sound sleep ? " Awake, thou that sleepest, and 
 arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 133 
 
 " I would them wert cold or hot." We seem to hear again 
 the awful charge to Judas : " That thou doest, do quickly." 
 
 I ponder, Lord, the mysteiy of Thy words. For it never 
 can be that Thou desirest my reprobation ; Thou Who didst 
 undergo the chill of death, lest I should undergo the second 
 death. Though I cannot fully comprehend it, I pray Thee 
 prosper this word which Thou sendest me to the end where- 
 unto Thou sendest it. 
 
 I hear another word of rebuke, yet of hope : " Now put off 
 thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto 
 thee." Lord, grant me grace to strip myself of any subterfuges 
 which hide me from myself but never from Thee ; of any 
 whitening which overlays my foulness ; of any self-righteousness 
 whereby I say Peace, peace, while there is no peace. For 
 Thou hast declared that publicans and harlots go into the 
 Kingdom of Heaven before Pharisees. 
 
 One broad difference I remark betsveen lukewarmness and 
 coldness : the difference between dying and death. 
 
 The cold soul is a soul dead in trespasses and sins. A dead 
 soul cannot requicken itself; if it is to be quickened, it can 
 be so only by an act external to itself infusing new life. The 
 lukewarm soul is a dying soul : wherefore because a vestige of 
 life remains to it, and so a vestige of power, it must co-operate 
 with external aid in the task of arresting decay and reinforcing 
 vitality. 
 
 Is it for such a reason as this, most gracious Master, that 
 Thou wouldst some were cold rather than lukewarm ? For being 
 cold we fall into Thy hand (and very great are Thy mercies), 
 and not into the hand of man. But being lukewarm we partly 
 fall into our own hands ; whilst because we are lukewarm we 
 seem of all men least likely to stir up the gift that is in us, 
 redeem the time, rend hearts and not garments, or take the 
 Kingdom of Heaven by force. 
 
 Still I attain not to grasp Thy saying. Yet thus much I 
 know : out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, 
 and Thou art Love. 
 
 17. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with 
 
 goods, and have need of nothing : and knowest not 
 that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and 
 blind, and naked : 
 
 18. I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that 
 
 thou mayest be rich ; and white raiment, that thou 
 mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy naked-
 
 134 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 ness do not appear ; and anoint thine eyes with eye- 
 salve that thou mayest see. 
 
 The Revised Version of this passage brings out with startling 
 emphasis the self-complacency, arrogance, and destitution at 
 once absolute and culpable of the offender: "Because thou 
 sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of 
 nothing ; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one, and 
 miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked : I counsel thee to 
 buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich ; 
 and white garments, that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that 
 the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest ; and eye- 
 salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see." 
 
 " Because thou sayest . . . " Presumedly not aloud in so 
 many words, but rather like that fellow " fool " who saith in his 
 heart, There is no God. Akin to both speakers is the rich fool 
 of the Parable : " The ground of a certain rich man brought 
 forth plentifully : and he thought within himself, saying, What 
 shall 1 do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits ? 
 And he said, This will I do : I will pull down my barns, and 
 build greater ; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my 
 goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much 
 goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and 
 be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy 
 soul shall be required of thee : then whose shall those things be, 
 which thou hast provided ? So is he that layeth up treasure for 
 himself, and is not rich toward God." 
 
 Thus the covetous man and the lukewarm man have this in 
 common : in their own eyes they do good unto themselves. 
 Take we heed that we speak not well of them. 
 
 O All-seeing Lord, that which I know not and which Thou 
 wouldest have me to know, teach Thou me. Expel my 
 covetousness, even if by Thy good gift of poverty : enkindle 
 my lukewarmness, even if in the furnace of affliction. 
 
 " I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of 
 nothing." Of nothing ? Alas ! as it would seem, not even of 
 beatification. For the poor in spirit, and the hungry and 
 athirst after righteousness, say not, "I am rich"; neither the 
 mourners, "I have need of nothing." Nor are the meek or 
 the merciful engrossed by their own prosperity. Nor do the 
 pure in heart set great store by aught short of God. Nor the 
 peacemakers hug themselves because of that which may breed 
 envy : though if persecution arise for the word or for righteous- 
 ness' sake, such as they are not offended.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 135 
 
 If a merry heart is a continual feast, a lukewarm heart is a 
 continual lack. Worse still, it is a centre of spiritual creeping 
 paralysis : a 1 airbreadth less of live man to-day, a hairbreadth 
 less to-morrow ; until unless the strong hand of Divine Grace 
 should arrest decay, the dying man of so many days become* 
 the corpse of the ultimate morrow. 
 
 O Lord, Who extendedst mercy to him who believing craved 
 help in his unbelief, extend mercy to all who half alive crave 
 help in their half deadness. And for any who pray not for 
 themselves vouchsafe to hear this prayer. Amen. 
 
 As dying, and behold, we live ! 
 If Thou but give the word. 
 
 Give, Lord, the word : that we may give 
 Thanks for a word unheard 
 Till now, of pity not denied albeit deferred. 
 
 We lift to Thee our failing eyes, 
 
 Our failing wills to Thee : 
 O Great Lord God of Battles, rise, 
 
 Till foes and shadows flee, 
 
 And death being swallowed up of life shall cease to be. 
 
 " And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, 
 and poor, and blind, and naked." For the lukewarm person 
 is as one drunken but not with wine. " Yea, thou shall be as 
 he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth 
 upon the top of a mast." 
 
 What damps hope in such a case is not the wretchedness, 
 misery, poverty, blindness, nakedness; but the self ignorance. 
 This ties our own feet from resorting to Christ, although it ties 
 not His bounteous Hands ; as He saith : " How often would I 
 . . . and ye would not ! " or as we read elsewhere : " He did 
 not many mighty works there because of their unbelief ": "He 
 could there do no mighty work. . . And He marvelled because 
 of their unbelief." 
 
 Glory be to God Who concedes not one only channel of 
 grace, but. many channels ; not one only point of access, but 
 many points. Intercessory prayer is truly our Gate Beautiful : 
 outside it sits the halting multitude of our brethren and sisters : 
 we, by God's blessing on our weak walk and endeavour, can 
 enter the Temple through that gate ; and not we ourselves 
 alone, but so bringing others with us. Blessed are they who 
 frequenting that Gate enter by it into the Presence of God ; 
 they are making ready for a future day whereon to enter into 
 His Presence through a Gate of Pearl.
 
 136 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 If we loved all mankind we should pray for them. If we 
 prayed for all mankind we should love them. " Stir up, O 
 Lord, the wills of Thy faithful people." 
 
 " I counsel thee." " His Name shall be called . . . 
 Counsellor." Most gracious Counsellor, He Who after guiding 
 with counsel afterward receives to glory. Lord, suffer us not 
 to be of those who forget Thy works and wait not for Thy 
 counsel. * 
 
 " With Him is wisdom and strength, He hath counsel and 
 understanding. . . He discovereth deep things out of darkness, 
 and bringeth out to light the shadow of death." " When we 
 are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not 
 be condemned with the world." O Lord, Who searchest us 
 out and knowest us and understandest our thoughts long 
 before ; grant us grace in Thy sight. 
 
 "Doth not wisdom cry? . . . Counsel is mine, and sound 
 wisdom : I am understanding ; I have strength." O Thou Who 
 art a strength to the needy in his distress, strengthen us. 
 
 " Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart : so doth the 
 sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel." Lord Jesus, 
 Thine is the Name which is as ointment poured forth, and Thou 
 hast called us friends. Give us grace to be sure that salutary 
 is any bitterness of Thy sending, faithful are any wounds of 
 Thine inflicting ; and that while Thou art our loving Father to 
 correct us, Thou art still as our mother to comfort us. 
 
 "There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against 
 the Lord." 
 
 " I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thoti 
 mayest be rich." But wherewith shall I come before the Lord, 
 and bow myself before the High God ? Lo, there is nothing in 
 my hand. Except Thou give me treasure in my sack's mouth 
 I cannot traffick in Thy land. 
 
 " Ho, every one . . and he that hath no money ; come 
 ye, buy . . . without money and without price." 
 
 Lord, I have nothing, and this Tnou knowest. Turn not 
 Thy Face away. I would fain borrow of Thee ; so in the Great 
 Day Thou shall receive Thine own with usury. For I perceive 
 that whilst first and last all is Thy gratuity, there must still be 
 between us a sort of barter. As spake King David in the joy 
 of his heart: "All things come of Thee, and of Thine own 
 have we given Thee." 
 
 Wherefore, Thou helping me, I will break off my sins by 
 showing mercy to the pcor. Give Thou wings to my riches, 
 and bid them fly as eagles towards heaven. By Thy grace I
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 137 
 
 will lay up not corruptible treasures upon earth, but incorruptible 
 in heaven. For he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto 
 Thee, and I look that what I lay out it shall be paid me again. 
 For earthly gold, which though it be tried seven times in the 
 fire, perisheth, give me such imperishable gold as Thou usest 
 for New Jerusalem and crowns of Thy saints triumphant. 
 The gold of that land is good. The gold which I offer Thee 
 must be purified in the fire ; fire of self-denial, of self-sacrifice, 
 of love ; and if thus I that was lukewarm labour in the very 
 fire, yet shall I not weary myself for very vanity. 
 
 Fire must one day try every man's work, of what sort it is. 
 
 M If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous 
 mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches ? " 
 
 I long for joy, O Lord, I long for gold, 
 
 I long for all Thou profferest to me, 
 I long for the unimagined manifold 
 
 Abundance laid up in Thy treasury. 
 
 I long for pearls, but not from mundane sea ; 
 I long for palms, but not from earthly mould ; 
 
 Yet in all else I long for, long for Thee, 
 Thyself to hear and worship and behold. 
 For Thee, beyond the splendour of that day 
 
 Where all is day and is not any night ; 
 For Thee, beyond refreshment of that rest 
 
 To which tired snints press on for its delight : 
 Or if not thus for Thee, yet Thee I pray 
 
 To make me long so till Thou make me blest. 
 
 " And white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that 
 the shame of thy nakedness do not appear." All our righteous- 
 nesses are as filthy rags : clothe Thou us with Thine own perfect 
 righteousness, O Lamb of God without blemish and without 
 spot. In which single prayer I petition for two things : that 
 Thy lighteousness be imputed to us unworthy, and that by 
 operation of the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier, an image of Thy 
 righteousness be wrought in us. We will not ask little when 
 Thou offerest much, or keep lips half closed when Thou wilt 
 fill a wide open mouth. Clothe us with the garments of 
 salvation, cover us with the robe of righteousness, as a bride- 
 groom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth 
 herself with her jewels. 
 
 I ponder, gracious Saviour, this word : Clothe us, cover us : 
 as a bridegroom decketh himself, and as a bride adorneth 
 herself (see Isa. Ixi. 10). As because Thou lovest us Thou 
 accountest that what we do to each other we do to Thee ; can 
 it even be that because of that same love, what Thou Thyself
 
 138 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 doest unto us Thou accountest as doing it unto Thine own 
 Self, in some transcendent height and depth of love by human 
 tongue unutterable ? 
 
 I know not : Thou knowest. Yet this I know : if the love 
 I imagine be not in that text, then is a better love latent there ; 
 for the misconception of my heart attaineth not to the Truth 
 of Thine. 
 
 Whoso clothes the poor, weaves for himself (still more 
 obviously weaves for herself} a white garment. Whoso visits 
 the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and shuns the 
 world, keeps that garment unspotted. Of such was Dorcas; 
 of such also was St. Peter comforting the weeping widows who 
 displayed her handiwork. 
 
 " White raiment." The spirit if not the letter of these words 
 seems by a secondary suggestion to go counter many a fashion 
 in dress. White, the symbol of innocence and purity ; the aim, 
 simple, decorous, dignified decency. And this comely sober 
 array, the same for all ; no single wearer ambitious of an ex- 
 ceptional effect, but all alike virgins that be fellows. For who- 
 soever love God become as chaste virgins espoused to Christ, 
 be they married or single. 
 
 Of course in such a train of thought white need no more 
 be all literal white than fellow virgins need all be unmarried. 
 One may be a saint in a coat of many colours, whilst another 
 may be a sinner in silver tissue (for so the " royal apparel " of 
 King Herod, see Acts xii. 21, has been described). 
 
 From shame that is neither glory nor grace, 
 
 Lord, defend us. 
 From shame which it were a shame to face even in thought, 
 
 Lord, defend us. 
 From shame that worketh not repentance, 
 
 Lord, defend us. 
 From shame that accompanieth perdition, 
 
 Lord, defend us. 
 From shame irremediable, intolerable, everlasting, 
 
 Lord, defend us. 
 
 From shame before pitiless devils and sinners, 
 Before unpitying Saints and Angels, 
 Before Thy Face not pitiful, Lord, defend us. 
 
 Thou Who borest shame for our sake and in our stead, 
 
 Defend us. 
 Thou Who didst set Thy Face as a flint and unashamed bear our shame, 
 
 Defend us. 
 Thou Who enduredst the Cross despising the shame, 
 
 Defend us. 
 
 From shame of Thee before men, and from that shame of us whereby Thou 
 wilt requite it before Thy Father and before the holy Angels in the 
 Dreadful Day, Lord, defend us.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 139 
 
 "And anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that them mayest 
 see." " Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest 
 in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto 
 the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto 
 the hand of her mistress ; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our 
 God, until that He have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon 
 us, O Lord, have mercy upon us." 
 
 What is this eye-salve ? It imports us vitally to know, yet 
 is it not here defined. " That which I see not, teach Thou me." 
 
 O Lord God Almighty, the most Holy Spirit, Who earnest 
 down in the likeness of Fire ; bjstow upon us, I beseech Thee, 
 light and goodwill. Amen. 
 
 St. John in his First Epistle writes to his " little children . . . 
 Ye have an Unction from the Holy One, and ye know all 
 things." I think if we study that same Epistle, full as it is of 
 illumination, we shall find that in it life, light, love, are in- 
 dissolubly interconnected. If so, we shall surely not go far 
 astray by concluding that, for our own enlightenment, love un- 
 flinchingly brought into practice will prove a safe, efficient, and 
 most healing eye-salve. " He that saith he is in the light, and 
 hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that 
 loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occa- 
 sion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is 
 in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither 
 he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes : " here 
 love lets in light. Further on, it takes the place of sight in a 
 case where sight is impossible : " No man hath seen God at 
 any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His 
 love is perfected in us." Whilst yet again sight without love 
 seems to be a sort of blindness : "If a man say, I love God, 
 and hateth his brother, he is a liar : for he that loveth not his 
 brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath 
 not seen ? " Nor would the following promise prove attractive 
 to one who scanned his brother with a loveless eye : "If any 
 man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, h^ shall 
 ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death." 
 
 But here we must sift our love, lest under pretext of lynx- 
 eyed goodwill towards our brother we exhibit rather the 
 blindness of arrogant self-ignorance. For He Who alone is 
 Life, Light, Wisdom, Love, has left us this solemn warning : 
 " Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but 
 considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? Or how 
 wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of 
 thine eye ; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye ? Thou
 
 140 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and 
 then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy 
 brother's eye." 
 
 Generalities \ve may at the same moment assent to and elude, 
 as a duck's back receives, while remaining impervious to, drops 
 of water. Our defects, even if they swell to the enormous 
 sc.Ve of generalities, are yet all made up of particulars ; and if 
 we are to repent and reform it must be by particulars, since it 
 cannot be done by generalities. Whoso breaks the law in one 
 point is guilty of all ; but none the less, whoso breaks the 
 whole law still breaks it point by point in separate breaches. 
 
 Defective love is defective all over, yet very probably it is 
 particularly defective at some one point : if so, that is an 
 obvious point to take in hand first. For practical purposes (if 
 we mean to be practical) efforts should be concentrated rather 
 than diffused : and commence reformation somewhere we must, 
 on pain of otherwise achieving it nowhere. Every inch of a 
 waste ground may equally need weeding, yet not the fabled 
 Briareus himself could weed the whole simultaneously at one 
 swoop. 
 
 Whilst we pray for love, let us act as if already possessed of 
 love. " He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed ; for he 
 giveth of his bread to the poor." Let us give of our bread to 
 the poor ; and see whether God will net first bless us with the 
 lacking bountiful eye, and afterwards bless us for its s ke. 
 
 Lord, I believe Thy word that the eye is not satisfied with 
 seeing. Give us, I beseech Thee, grace to love Thee Whom 
 now we see not, and for Thy sake to love all whom wo see ; and 
 grant us one day to inherit the blessing of those who not 
 having seen yet have believed and loved. 
 
 Life that was born to-day 
 Must make no stay, 
 
 But tend to end 
 As blossom-bloom of May. 
 O Lord, confirm my root, 
 Train up my shoot, 
 
 To live and give 
 Harvest of wholesome fruit. 
 
 Life that was born to die 
 Sets heart on high, 
 
 And counts and mounts 
 Steep stages of the sky. 
 Two things, Lord, I desire 
 And I require ; 
 
 Love's name, and flame 
 To wrap my soul in fire.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 141 
 
 Life that was born to love 
 Sends heart above 
 
 Both cloud and shroud, 
 And broods a peaceful dove. 
 Two things I ask of Thee ; 
 Deny not me ; 
 
 Eyesight and light 
 Thy Blessed Face to see. 
 
 19. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten : be zealous 
 therefore, and repent. 
 
 O Christ, Who lovest all, we are not straitened in Thee, but 
 we are straitened in our own hearts. 
 
 We know that Thou lovest us all, we all being liable to 
 chastening. 
 
 Give us grace not to flee at Thy rebuke, although at the 
 voice of Thy thunder we be afraid. 
 
 Thou Who knowest all the fowls of the mountains, and 
 without Whom not one sparrow falls to the ground, have regard 
 unto all of us, unto each of us. 
 
 Rebuke us in mercy and pity, not unto cursing and vexation, 
 not that we should perish thereby. 
 
 Grant us wisdom to hear the rod and Who hath appointed 
 it, lest we sit in the seat of the scornful who hear not rebuke. 
 
 " Open rebuke is better than secret love." Amen. 
 
 "As many as I love." Ah, Lord, Who lovest all, 
 
 If thus it is with Thee why sit remote above, 
 Beholding from afar stumbling and marred and small 
 So many Thou dost love ? 
 
 Whom sin and sorrow make their worn reluctant thrall ; 
 Who fain would flee away but lack the wings of dove ; 
 Who long for love and rest ; who look to Thee, and call 
 To Thee for rest and love. 
 
 " Be zealous therefore, and repent." I suppose it may be 
 easier for many of us to repent, or at least to hope and trust 
 that we repent, than to be zealous, or even to suppose that 
 we are zealous. The Church of Corinth exhibits to all time a 
 pattern of zealous repentance : " For behold this self-same 
 thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it 
 wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what 
 indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, 
 what zeal, yea, what revenge ! In all things ye have approved 
 yourselves to be clear in this matter." 
 
 If nothing short of this be the imperative standard of 
 repentance, God indeed be merciful to us sinners.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 God Almighty declares that for us men and for our salvation 
 He Himself " was clad with zeal as a cloak " ; whilst too 
 many of us His nominal servants are devoted body and soul 
 to soft clothing and delicate living, even if we be not clothed 
 in actual purple and fine linen and fare not sumptuously every 
 day. 
 
 Yet gazing, if merely as an outsider, at zeal, I recognize that 
 it is as fire which descending from heaven kindles earth to 
 consume it. Zeal knows little, and goes on to know less and 
 less, of self-indulgence and personal luxuries. Zeal so covets 
 earnestly the best gifts as to sell all to purchase the field of 
 hidden treasure, as to barter all the pearls once esteemed 
 goodly for the one pearl of great price. Zeal in the aforetime 
 sluggard cries out, " Here am I ; send me " ; and advances the 
 backslider beyond his former attainment. Zeal shouts for the 
 battle, and turns it to the gate, and wins it be the warrior weak 
 or strong; and wins the race be the runner swift or slow. 
 Zeal, loving righteousness and hating iniquity, sets the penitent 
 high in the congregation of saints ; and makes his light so to 
 shine that men glorify their Father in Heaven. " Be zealous 
 therefore, and repent." 
 
 20. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : if any man 
 hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to 
 him, and will sup with him, and he with Me. 
 
 Lord, give us grace to behold. 
 
 This then is the reward of that wise obedience which 
 justifies God. " Behold," He saith : and with eyes healed and 
 enlightened the once lukewarm look and behold the King in 
 His beauty. They have silenced their own foolish boastings, 
 and so have ears to hear Him knock. They have " put on 
 their coats " and can rise instantly to open to Him. Neither 
 do they appear before their God empty : in clean hands they 
 bring gold tried in the fire as a tribute to Him Who gave it 
 
 If beautiful upon the mountains were the feet of them who 
 brought good tidings, how infinitely beautiful are His Feet Who 
 enters the door of His beloved", and is Himself that very Good 
 published of old, our Salvation and cur God ! If we love 
 Him, and because He loves us, He makes Himself our Door of 
 entrance into the Paradise of God : and because He loves us, 
 and if we love Him, He makes us His door into a little 
 Paradise of His own, " a garden inclosed." 
 
 "I ... will sup with him, and he with Me." Blessed it 
 were to break our fast with Christ, and strengthened by that
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 143 
 
 meat to pursue our journey of however many days and nights 
 to the Mount of God. Blessed it were to dine with Him, and 
 start refreshed to follow Him across the storm-beaten sands of 
 this troublesome world. But to sup with Him is to end our 
 day with Him in (please God) the beatitude of final perse- 
 verance. 
 
 Again and again our kind Master comes in and sups with 
 each faithful soul in the Sacrament of His most Blessed Body 
 and Blood, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 " Lord, evermore give us this Bread." " Is it nothing to 
 you, all ye that pass by ? " 
 
 St. Peter once : "Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?" 
 Much more I say : Lord, dost Thou stand and knock 
 At my closed heart more rugged than a rock, 
 
 Bolted and barred, for Thy soft touch unmeet, 
 
 Nor garnished nor in any wise made sweet ? 
 Owls roost within and dancing satyrs mock. 
 Lord, I have heard the crowing of the cock, 
 
 And have not wept : ah, Lord, Thou knowest it. 
 
 Yet still I hear Thee knocking. Still I hear : 
 " Open to Me, look on Me eye to eye 
 That I may wring thy heart and make it whole ; 
 
 And teach thee love because I hold thee dear, 
 
 And sup with thee in gladness soul with soul, 
 And sup with thee in glory by and by." 
 
 21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in 
 
 My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down 
 with My Father in His throne. 
 
 22. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
 
 unto the churches. 
 
 First and last there is no promise whatever except " to him 
 that overcometh." Each of the Seven Churches is confronted 
 by a particular foe, and encouraged to contend for a particular 
 prize ; but the only course for all alike is to overcome. No 
 Tree of Life, except for him who regains lost ground : no 
 immunity from the second death, except for him who endures 
 to the end : no hidden Manna, white stone, new name, except 
 for him who repents and amends : no dominion, no Morning 
 Star, except for him who by godly intolerance keeps himself 
 pure from the blood of all men : no white raiment or final 
 registration in the Book of Life, except for him who either 
 holds fast his integrity or rises from death of sin to life of 
 righteousness : no permanent incorporation into God's Temple,
 
 144 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 no Divine Name, except for him who holding fast what he 
 has keeps patience till all be accomplished. 
 
 As with the Six, so with the Seventh and last Church : Over- 
 come, and no good thing will God withhold. " Who among 
 us shall dwell with the devouring fire ? who among us shall 
 dwell with everlasting burnings?" Well may heaven and 
 earth regard and wonder marvellously when the enkindled 
 lukewarm man sits down with Christ in His throne : for the 
 Lord our God is a consuming fire, even a Jealous God. 
 
 The sevenfold prize is not of man's earning but of God's 
 largesse : yet I think congruityis traceable between each phase 
 of righteousness and its allotted reward : 
 
 1. He who regains lost ground, regains lost Paradise. 
 
 2. He who lives and believes till his mortal end, shall never 
 die. 
 
 3. Lo-ammi repenting, is renamed Ammi. 
 
 4. The witness on earth is the plenipotentiary in Heaven. 
 
 5. Life maintained or life regained, or else erasure from the 
 Book of Life. 
 
 6. Immutable amid mutability, permanent amid permanence. 
 
 7. " There are threescore queens." 
 
 " Even as I also overcame." It is Thou, Lord, sayest, 
 " Even as I " : for which of us had dared say it ? 
 
 Thou overcamest in our stead, and happy are we if we over- 
 come in Thy strength. Thou overcamest for us without our 
 help, and Thou wilt overcome in us and by us except we 
 hinder. Thanks be to Thee, O God. 
 
 Lord, we are rivers running to Thy sea, 
 Our waves and ripples all derived from Thee : 
 A nothing we should have, a nothing be, 
 Except for Thee. 
 
 Sweet are the waters of Thy shoreless sea, 
 Make sweet our waters that make haste to Thee ; 
 Pour in Thy sweetness, that ourselves may be 
 Sweetness to Thee. 
 
 "With Me in My throne, even as I ... with My Father 
 in His throne." This promise (if one may dare say so) ex- 
 hausts beatitude. This is indeed to call her beloved, which 
 was not beloved. Elsewhere our Lord says concerning His 
 own : " The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them . . . 
 Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be 
 with Me where I am ; that they may behold My glory, which 
 Thou hast given Me."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 145 
 
 " My Father." " My Father, and your Father . . . My 
 God, and your God." 
 
 Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. 
 Give us, I beseech Thee, daily grace to hallow It, for Thy Son 
 our Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 " David said, Seemeth it to you a light thing to be a king's 
 son in law, seeing that I am a poor man, and lightly 
 esteemed ? " 
 
 Who sits with the King in His Throne? Not a slave but a Bride, 
 With this King of all Greatness and Grace Who reigns not alone ; 
 
 His Glory her glory, where glorious she glows at His side 
 Who sits with the King in His Throne. 
 
 She came from dim uttermost depths which no Angel hath known. 
 Leviathan's whirlpool and Dragon's dominion worldwide, 
 From the frost or the fire to Paradisiacal zone. 
 
 Lo, she is fair as a dove, silvery, golden, dove-eyed : 
 Lo, Dragon laments and Death laments, for their prey is flown : 
 
 She dwells in the Vision of Peace and her peace shall abide 
 Who sits with the King in His Throne.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in 
 heaven : and the first voice which I heard was as it 
 were of a trumpet talking with me ; which said, Come 
 up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be 
 hereafter. 
 
 " After this I looked, and, behold . . ."Let us too look, 
 even if we should not behold. " Mine eyes fail with looking 
 upward : O Lord, I am oppressed ; undertake for me." 
 "Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light 
 excelleth darkness." 
 
 Far be it from me to think to unfold mysteries or interpret 
 prophecies. But I trust that to gaze in whatever ignorance on 
 what God reveals, is so far to do His will. If ignorance breed 
 humility, it will not debar from wisdom. If ignorance betake 
 itself to prayer, it will lay hold on grace. 
 
 As children may feel the awe of a storm, the beauty of 
 sunrise or sunset, so at least I too may deepen awe, and stir up 
 desire by a contemplation of things inevitable, momentous, 
 transcendent. " Consider the work of God : for who can make 
 that straight, which He hath made crooked ? In the day of 
 prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider." 
 
 The eagle strengthened with might gazes full at the sun. 
 Glory be to God for all His gifts to all His creatures. 
 
 But God has not bidden us be mighty as eagles, but be 
 harmless as doves. I suppose a dove may be no more fit than 
 myself to look steadily at the sun : we both might be blinded 
 by what would enlighten that stronger bird. The dove brings 
 not much of her own to the sun, yet the sun caresses and 
 beautifies her silver wings and her feathers like gold : it would 
 be a sore mistake on the dove's part were she to say, Because 
 I am not the eagle I am not a sun bird, and so were to cut 
 herself off from the sun's gracious aspect.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 147 
 
 And since five sparrows are sold for two farthings, and not 
 one of them is forgotten before God, even the least and last of 
 birds may take courage to court the light-giving, life-giving, 
 munificent sun. 
 
 "After this," after, that is, a revelation, an alarum, a Great 
 Voice of praise and rebuke, hope and fear. Rebuke and fear 
 should not paralyse us : they should rather rouse us to instant 
 exertion, instant obedience, instant prayer. 
 
 O Lord our God, deliver us, I beseech Thee, from idle 
 tremblings and abject fear. It is Thou : give us grace not to 
 be afraid, except with the fear of those who always fearing are 
 happy. For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 "I looked." If we will not look, we should not behold even 
 though a door were opened in heaven for our enlightenment. 
 
 This Apocalypse is a celestial door opened to us : let us not, 
 until we have looked, despair of seeing somewhat. Having 
 looked, we shall not despair. 
 
 What shall we see ? As it were the company of two armies ; 
 life and good, death and evil. Wherefore choose life. 
 
 " Look how high the heaven is in comparison of the earth." 
 
 O my God, Who accepted*! Daniel when taking his life in 
 his hand he set his face in prayer toward desolate Jerusalem, 
 grant us such grace that night and day our eyes may be directed 
 toward Thy heavenly Temple, and our faces set steadfastly 
 toward New Jerusalem the mother of us all. For our Lord 
 Jesu's sake. Amen. 
 
 " Those Seven ; they are the Eyes of the Lord, which run to 
 and fro through the whole earth." 
 
 Lord Jesus, by indwelling of Thy Most Holy Spirit, purge 
 our eyes to discern and contemplate Thee ; until we attain to 
 see as Thou seest, judge as Thou judgest, choose as Thou 
 choosest ; and having sought and found Thee, to behold Thee 
 for ever and ever. 
 
 " I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, 
 and will watch to see." 
 
 " A door was opened in heaven." Jesus, Who hast deigned 
 to call Thyself the Door of the sheep, lead us, I pray Thee, in 
 and out, and provide for us pasture. 
 
 "And the first Voice which I heard was as it were of a 
 trumpet talking with me." The Revised Version reads: 
 " And the first Voice which I heard, a Voice as of a trumpet 
 speaking with me, One saying . . . ." This rendering more 
 decidedly than the other, suggests that this may be the same 
 Voice as that former Voice which spake (ch. i. 10). St. John
 
 1 48 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 was then " in the Spirit " : but now (a verse later) he says : " And 
 immediately I was in the Spirit." Thus we see how to him 
 that hath shall be given ; how the elect go from strength to 
 strength until unto the God of gods appeareth every one of 
 them in Sion. And when with eyes and heart fixed on Gcd 
 they at length appear before Him, then shall they one by one 
 know how His Eyes and His Heart have been and are and 
 will be upon them continually. [This remark is made under 
 correction, lest " Spirit " and " spirit," occasionally so printed 
 in the two verses alluded to, should negative the thought. The 
 Revised Version prints " Spirit " in both verses alike.] 
 
 Lord, dost Thou look on me, and will not I 
 
 Launch out my heart to Heaven to look on Thee ? 
 
 Here if one loved me I should turn to see, 
 And often think on him and often sigh, 
 And by a tender friendship make reply 
 
 To love gratuitous poured forth on me, 
 
 And nurse a hope of happy days to be, 
 And mean "until we meet " in each good-bye. 
 Lord, Thou dost look and love is in Thine Eyes, 
 
 Thy Heart is set upon me day and night, 
 Thou stoopest low to set me far above : 
 O Lord, that I may love Thee make me wise ; 
 
 That I may see and love Thee grant me sight ; 
 And give me love that I may give Thee love. 
 
 " Come up hither." Thus was St. John brought into the 
 haven where he would be : but not to abide there. It was as 
 when he leaned on His Master's Bosom, and after a while had 
 to arise ; as when he set off to follow, and after a while had to 
 pause and tarry. Love laid him on his Master's Breast, love 
 sped him along that blessed Foot-track ; and equally it was love 
 which constrained him to arise and depart from that Rest which 
 was not at once to be his final rest, and to turn back from that 
 " Way " which vouchsafed not yet to lead him home. 
 
 We reckon that love mighty which avails to enter heaven. 
 How mighty must that love be which at God's behest turns 
 back contentedly from heaven to earth ! 
 
 "Come up hither." Hither is a joyful word, but come a. 
 more joyful. Hither summons us to Mount Sion, and unto 
 the City of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an 
 innumerable company of Angels, to the general assembly and 
 Church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to the 
 spirits of just men made perfect : Come calls us to God the 
 Judge of all, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 149 
 
 O Jesu, better than Thy jjifts 
 
 Art Thou Thine only Self to us ! 
 Palm-branch its triumph, harp uplifts 
 
 Its triumph-note melodious : 
 
 But what are such to such as we ? 
 O Jesu, better than Thy saints 
 
 Art Thou Thine only Self to us ! 
 The heart faints and the spirit faints 
 
 For only Thee all-Glorious, 
 For Thee, O only Lord, for Thee. 
 
 "And I will shew thee things which must be hereafter." 
 If it be the same Voice (see ante on " And the first Voice," &c.), 
 then is it "the Voice of my Beloved." It saith not now as in 
 the Song of songs, "Open to Me," but rather: I have opened 
 to thee. That first word appertains to earth and its duties, 
 this second word to Paradise and its privileges. 
 
 O Lord, Gracious without measure, beyond all measure, Who 
 hast said : " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, 
 do ye even so to them," if by love we now open to Thee, and 
 welcome Thee in time's sorrowful night; in eternity's rapturous 
 day open Thou to us, welcome Thou us, that we may enter 
 in and go out no more. Amen. 
 
 " I will shew thee things which must be hereafter." The 
 personal honour thus promised is for St. John ; the grace is for 
 us all : the vision is his ; the revelation not his exclusively but 
 ours also, if we are penitent and obedient. As we read else- 
 where : " Turn you at My reproof: behold, I will pour out My 
 Spirit unto you, I will make known My words unto you." 
 
 O Lord, Thou hast reproved the Churches, and we have 
 heard Thy reproof. Turn us, we beseech Thee, and teach us 
 by Thy most Holy Spirit the meaning of Thy sacred words. 
 
 " By terrible things in righteousness wilt Thou answer us, O 
 God of our salvation." 
 
 2. And immediately I was in the Spirit : and, behold, a 
 throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. 
 
 St. John records not "I was in the Spirit" for our discourage- 
 ment. On the contrary, in his First Epistle addressing all 
 obedient Christians he writes : " He that keepeth His com- 
 mandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we 
 know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath 
 given us." 
 
 " Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, 
 And lighten with celestial fire."
 
 i?o THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 "Behold, a Throne was set in heaven." We have beheld 
 earthly thrones. Righteous they may be or unrighteous, 
 gracious or tyrannical, from of old or of yesterday ; unlike each 
 other in many ways, all alike in one way : they are crumbling 
 with this crumbling world, are finishing with this finishing 
 time ; to-day they judge, to-morrow they will be judged. For 
 earthly thrones are probationary. 
 
 Not so the Heavenly Throne. In this He is set that 
 judgeth right; the King of kings, Lord of lords, Judge of 
 judges. 
 
 Yet we read : " A throne was set" suggesting (perhaps ?) 
 that whilst He Who sat on it was from eternity to eternity, yet 
 that Throne itself was not from eternity although to eternity. 
 For as we read on through tin's chapter of the Apocalypse, and 
 markedly when we reach its final ascription of glory (see ver. n), 
 it appears as if creation were here gathered in solemn adoration 
 around its Creator ; exceeding lofty creatures being constituted 
 the mouthpiece of all, when everything that hath or that hath not 
 breath praiseth the Lord. And if so, that word " was set " sends 
 thought back into that eternity uninhabited of creatures, which 
 (so far as human conception avails) preceded creation : not 
 the creation of our actual world merely, but the formation of 
 that chaos out of which it was evoked, and the beginning of 
 that pre-creation which appears to have lapsed into chaos. 
 For send our mind back as we may through the vast ante- 
 cedent unknown of remote and yet more remote possible 
 successive creations, yet beyond the utmost bound of the ever- 
 lasting hills lies the infinite eternity of God Almighty, before it 
 pleased Him to make all things out of nothing, and to be 
 worshipped by ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands 
 of thousands. 
 
 When we consider even Thy heavens the work of Thy 
 fingers, the moon and stars which Thou hast ordained, what is 
 man that Thou art mindful of him ? 
 
 Much more when we consider Thee, what then is man ? 
 
 "The publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much 
 as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying : 
 God be merciful to me a sinner." 
 
 " And One sat on the throne." 
 
 O God Eternal, Who causest the vapours to ascend from the ends of the 
 earth, let our prayer be set forth in Thy sight as the incense, 
 
 And be gracious unto us. 
 Thou Who art our Creator Blessed for ever, 
 
 Be gracious unto us.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 151 
 
 Thou Who art the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for His sake 
 Who is God over all Blessed for ever, 
 
 Be gracious unto us. 
 Thou Who hast vouchsafed to us the glorious Gospel, 
 
 Be gracious unto us. 
 
 Thou Who art the Blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord 
 of lords, 
 
 Be gracious unto us. 
 Thou Who hatest nothing that Thou hast made, 
 
 Be gracious unto us. 
 Thou Who art Three Persons in One God, 
 
 Be gracious unto us. 
 
 We plead Christ Jesus made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and 
 Sanctification and Redemption. Amen. 
 
 " Dominion and fear are with Him, He maketh peace in 
 His high places." 
 
 3. And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a 
 sardine stone : and there was a rainbow round about 
 the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. 
 
 If it be so, that in this transcendent vision we are permitted to 
 contemplate the Almighty Creator enthroned amid creation, then 
 I think that in particular some manifestation of the All Holy 
 Trinity in Unity may be revealed to the adoring eye of faith. 
 
 What is the Christian's manifestation of the Unapproachable 
 Trinity? Surely it is eminently Christ Himself, Who once 
 declared : " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father " ; 
 Christ Himself Very Gcd of Very God ; Christ Himself, Who 
 received not the Spirit by measure. 
 
 By " a jasper " need not (as I have read) be understood ex- 
 clusively that opaque stone which now bears the name ; for of 
 yore translucent gems were included under the same designa- 
 tion. While thus we may picture it of dazzling brilliancy, per- 
 meated by pure light, and as it were swallowed up in radiations 
 of that light ; yet, as Moses of old at the Burning Bush, let us 
 also whilst we draw near to behold, be afraid even in a symbol 
 " to look upon God." The " sardine stone " (or sardius, as I 
 have seen it explained) is a species of cornelian, which some write 
 cornelian, deriving the word not from horn but from flesh ; and 
 is a blood-red translucent gem, whence we may perhaps assume 
 an intimation of our Redeemer's Humanity. The " rainbow " 
 has been thought to indicate that same Sacred Humanity, be- 
 cause surrounding the Throne it appears no less to surround 
 Him Who sat thereon, like as the Blessed Body enshrined the 
 "Incomprehensible" Divinity. If so, the sardine stone may
 
 152 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 remind us how the Godhead was not converted into flesh, but 
 the Manhood was taken into God : whilst the rainbow may 
 more especially bring home to us that in our Lord Himself 
 Very Man dwells the Fulness of the Godhead bodily. Further 
 we are reminded that Christ as Man, over and beyond the 
 Indivisible Unity of the Divine Trinity, became a Temple of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 For a rainbow being indissolubly connected with a cloud, 
 seems at once to suggest an emblematic allusion to the Most 
 Holy Spirit of God. Its form shows that it proceeds from a 
 centre. It exhibits to us what light is, by evolving the lovely 
 tints hidden in its whiteness. It enables us to look on light 
 which viewed directly would blind us. It conveyed hope to 
 Noah and his family all alone in a ruined world. It gladdens 
 whoso beholds it : the eye that seeth it beareth witness to it. 
 What we look on is water, but transfigured by fire : fire and 
 water, two chief symbols of God the Holy Ghost. 
 
 "Round about the Throne." Not (please God) simply over- 
 arching the throne; but encircling it (as I have heard sug- 
 gested) by its own completely revealed circle. In this world 
 we observe no more than a larger or a smaller section of rain- 
 bow. Thus even at its widest it overarches no wider area than 
 the eye can compass, and where it seems to touch earth or sea 
 we know that it touches them not. We discern enough to feel 
 convinced that we see a portion only, not the whole ; yet is 
 that portion so far complete in itself that it certifies to us that 
 whole which we see not : the part declares the unbroken, 
 continuous, unvaried whole. 
 
 And thus for the present the faithful "know in part" God 
 Almighty, so far 'as it pleases Him by His Spirit to reveal 
 Himself to them one by one in divers measures. The least 
 recognize Him as on high protecting them ; the greatest realize 
 that He is in truth all around them embracing them. 
 
 Even a very little reading teaches that a number of different 
 tints belong to jewels of which we habitually think as exhibiting 
 some one fixed hue : thus though the ruby is red, the sapphire 
 blue, the emerald green, it does not follow that any one of 
 them is restricted to that characteristic colour. Perhaps such 
 variety of colour may be allowed for when this celestial rain- 
 bow is set before us as " in sight like unto an emerald." 
 
 Yet after all green remains as our standard colour for an 
 emerald. Green seems the colour both of hope and of rest : 
 of hope because of sweet ever-renewed spring verdure ; of rest 
 because of the refreshing repose green affords to strained
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 153 
 
 sight. Completed hope, completed rest, are celestial, not 
 terrestrial. 
 
 "... Look up and sing 
 In hope of promised spring." 
 
 4. And round about the Throne were four and twenty seats : 
 
 and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, 
 clothed in white raiment ; and they had on their 
 heads crowns of gold. 
 
 According to one theory, these twenty-four august Elders 
 make up in some sort a figure of time or of a portion of time 
 surrounding that Centre which rules it. Thus a fixed law 
 dominates the Signs of the Zodiac, and thus the sun regulates 
 days, weeks, months, years. 
 
 But if Time appears to meet us in the domain of Eternity, we 
 may surely look for it not, so to say, in its own person, but as 
 embodied in its permanent fruits. . Wherefore (in my avowed 
 ignorance) I will for my own part connect these blessed Elders 
 with the twofold Israel ; the Twelve Tribes of the Old Dispensa- 
 tion, and the corresponding perfect number of the New. 
 
 A nation of kings and priests ; they are clothed in priestly 
 white raiment, and wear kingly crowns. Their " seats," 
 according to the Revised Version, are "thrones." They are 
 the family of the King of kings, the Divine royal family once of 
 earth, now of heaven. Out of prison hath the sometime poor 
 and wise child come to reign. 
 
 5. And out of the Throne proceeded lightnings and thunder- 
 
 ings and voices : and there were Seven Lamps of Fire 
 burning before the Throne, which are the Seven Spirits 
 of God. 
 
 "Lightnings and thunderings and voices" a message to 
 every soul of man from "the Throne" : a message not necessarily 
 in articulate words, but greatly challenging our littleness. As 
 when "God thundereth marvellously with His voice; great 
 things doeth He, which we cannot comprehend." As when 
 the lightnings say " Here we are." " There is neither speech 
 nor language : but their voices are heard among them." 
 
 Lightnings, thunderings, voices : when our hearts misgive us 
 and our spirits fail because of those things that are coming 
 upon the earth, let us remember that they all proceed " out of 
 the Throne."
 
 154 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Tumult and turmoil, trouble and toil, 
 
 Yet peace withal in a painful heart ; 
 Never a grudge and never a broil, 
 And ever the better part. 
 
 O my King and my heart's own choice, 
 
 Stretch Thy Hand to Thy fluttering dove ; 
 Teach me, call to me with Thy Voice, 
 Wrap me up in Thy Love. 
 
 "Seven Lamps of Fire burning before the Throne, which are 
 the Seven Spirits of God." Long ago I was impressed by a 
 preacher's words. He explained this passage as revealing the 
 Presence not of any creatures but of God the Holy Spirit in 
 Person : for, he argued, had They been the highest of creatures 
 they would have joined with their fellows in the hymn of praise 
 to God Almighty ; whence he inferred that That which praised 
 not God, Was and Is and Is to come God. 
 
 That preacher's authority sanctions" (I hope) what I en- 
 deavoured to think out on a former text (ch. i. ver. 4). 
 
 Once more we behold and adore that unspeakable Diffused 
 Unity (if I may dare so express myself) which the All Holy 
 Spirit Who is pleased to dwell in the innumerable hearts of 
 faithful humankind reveals to our contemplation. 
 
 Sacrifices prefigured Christ. And since Christ " through the 
 Eternal Spirit offered Himself," the fire of the sacrifice pre- 
 figured the Holy Ghost. We read concerning Abram's first 
 great recorded sacrifice : " It came to pass, that, when the sun 
 went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a 
 burning lamp that passed between those pieces." And again 
 we read how Abraham having laid the wood of the burnt 
 offering upon Isaac his son " took the fire in his hand." 
 
 " Before the Throne " as the Rainbow was " round about " 
 the Throne : once more reminding us of that authoritative 
 definition, "Proceeding from." Thus in a figure we discern 
 how God the Holy Spirit is that Person of the All Holy Trinity 
 Who vouchsafes to come into special nearness and contact with 
 creation at large : creation itself being ranged round about 
 the Throne in the person of the Elders ; and before the 
 Throne, when worshipping Him that sat thereon they fall 
 down and cast down their crowns ; in the midst of the Throne 
 moreover, and round about the Throne, by reason of the four 
 Living Creatures (see ver. 6). 
 
 In the beginning the Spirit of God Himself moved (or 
 brooded) upon the face of the waters, recreating a world out 
 of chaos by His own almighty act. He it was spake in time
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 155 
 
 past unto the fathers by the Prophets. He it was came and 
 went among the sons of men as He pleased. Century after 
 century the human family lived and died before Christ was 
 manifest in the Flesh : meanwhile generation after generation 
 the Spirit strove with man, who oftentimes rebelled and vexed 
 Him. And since the Ascension He has made regenerate 
 man's heart His settled place wherein to abide for ever; 
 according to our Lord's gracious promise to His Apostles : 
 "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another 
 Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; even the 
 Spirit of Truth ; Whom the world cannot receive, because it 
 seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him : but ye know Him ; 
 for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." 
 
 O God the Holy Ghost Who art Light unto Thine elect, 
 
 Evermore enlighten us. 
 Thou W4io art Fire of Love 
 
 Evermore enkindle us. 
 Thou Who art Lord and Giver of Life, 
 
 Evermore live in us. 
 Thou Who art 'Holiness, 
 
 Evermore sanctify us. 
 Thou Who bestowest Sevenfold Grace, 
 
 Evermore replenish us. 
 As the Wind is Thy symbol, 
 
 So forward our goings. 
 As the Dove, 
 
 So launch us heavenwards. 
 As Water, 
 
 So purify our spirits. 
 As a Cloud, 
 
 So abate our temptations. 
 As Dew, 
 
 So revive our languor. 
 As Fire, 
 
 So purge out our dross. 
 
 Be Thou, O Lord, before to guide us, behind to guard us, 
 around to shelter us, within to perfect us. 
 
 As the Father loveth us for Jesu's sake, as Jesus for His 
 own sake, so love Thou us, O Lord the Loving Spirit : until 
 Thou Thyself bring home all Thy holy congregation to bless 
 for evermore the Lord God, bowing down and worshipping the 
 Lord and the King. Amen. 
 
 6. And before the Throne there was a sea of glass like unto 
 crystal : and in the midst of the Throne, and round 
 about the Throne, were four beasts full of eyes before 
 and behind.
 
 I}6 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 An untroubled -sea, or it could not be " of glass " : a pure_ 
 sea, or it could not be " like unto crystal." But wherefore 
 "before the Throne"? 
 
 However fathomless its depths, its surface (the thought is 
 not ray own) appears as a vast permanent mirror; reflecting 
 all which surrounds it. It thus recalls Habakkuk's prophetic 
 promise : " The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the 
 Glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." So here in 
 the better land we perceive a figure of that which (God willing) 
 will convey to the redeemed a perfect knowledge of God 
 Himself, and of each fellow saint who abode the day of His 
 coming and stood when He appeared. Everything which is 
 very good, all things lovely, the height of the heaven in 
 comparison of the earth, the wide distance of the east from 
 the west, all will be seen and known. For in that day and in 
 fulness the delights of the Uncreated Wisdom shall be with the 
 sons of men. 
 
 Knowledge seems, if I may so say, to be the key-note of 
 this verse. The Living Creatures which abide " in the midst 
 of the Throne, and round about the Throne " being likewise 
 " full of eyes " must, in their degree, look on all things from 
 the view- point of Almighty God Himself. Their eyes being 
 " before and behind " suggest an exercise of foresight no less 
 than of iT^ejrjaijLi. and in them appears to be inherent an exemp- 
 tion from variableness or shadow of turning, according to the 
 vision of Ezekiel : "They went every one straight forward: 
 whither the spirit was to go, they went ; and they turned not 
 when they went." 
 
 Thus knowledge appears to be in them an original endow- 
 ment, while to us it is held out as a prize at the goal. "So 
 run, that ye may obtain." 
 
 7. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast 
 like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, 
 and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. 
 
 Tradition assigns these four Living Creatures to the four 
 Evangelists. St. John that Son of Thunder illuminated and 
 unconsumed by " the Fire of God " inherits the sun-facing 
 Eagle. St. Luke with his revelation of reconciling Love, the 
 sacrificial Calf. The Lion and the Man remain for St. Matthew 
 and St. Mark ; of whom each sometimes takes one, sometimes 
 the other : reasons have been alleged for either arrangement. 
 If the Man is attributed to St. Matthew, we may connect it 
 with his table of our Lord's Human genealogy : while St. Mark's
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 157 
 
 Lion may remind us how he alone notices that it was " with 
 the wild beasts" that our Lord sojourned during Forty Days 
 in the wilderness. Reversing the position (and not to enumerate 
 other points), the Lion of the royal tribe of Judah befits St. 
 Matthew in virtue of his unique narrative of the Adoration of 
 the Magi when they worshipped Christ as King : the Man 
 harmonizes with that special prominence of the Very Manhood 
 which it has been thought characterizes St. Mark's Gospel. 
 
 Yet this venerable scheme need not (I hope) exclude the 
 view that in these august Living Creatures; the Cherubim 
 apparently of Ezekiel's visions ; the Chariot of the Almighty 
 Himself, whence the Psalmist sings, " He rode upon a Cherub, 
 and did fly," that in them is perpetuated a sort of summary 
 and memorial of those good gifts which God has lavished on 
 man indeed pre-eminently, but likewise in varying degrees and 
 after various fashions on beast, bird, and every inferior creature 
 that hath life ; all which creatures at the first were beheld to 
 be very good. St. Paul writes: "The earnest expectation of 
 the creature waiteth for the manifestation of trie sons of God. 
 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but 
 by reason of Him Who hath subjected the same in hope, 
 because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the 
 bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children 
 of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and 
 travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but 
 ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we 
 ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to 
 wit, the redemption of our body " : thus opening our eyes to a 
 mysterious element in those lower existences so familiar and 
 often so friendly to us. We think of them in relation to man : 
 yet surely the unnumbered multitudes of them which live, 
 propagate, die " on the earth, where no man is ; on the wilder- 
 ness, wherein there is no man," may have some purpose inde- 
 pendent of direct human profit, discipline, convenience. " O 
 Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom hast Thou 
 made them all." 
 
 Sacred association makes reverend to us lamb, lion, sheep 
 (see Isa. liii. 7), dove, eagle (see Deut. xxxii. u, 12), even leopard 
 and bear (see Hos. xiii. 7, 8) : and endears to us on inferior 
 grounds hart, stork and sparrow, owl and pelican. All sentient 
 creatures have a claim on us : and well may we admit and 
 honour their claim, when we recollect Who vouchsafed to have 
 respect to the much cattle of Nineveh. 
 
 O Good God, Who permitting to every man his temptation
 
 158 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 prepaiest for him a way of escape, and hast constituted the 
 present age a period of knowledge and of thirst after know- 
 ledge; give us grace never to pursue knowledge by avenues 
 of cruelty or impurity, but keeping innocency to take heed to 
 the thing that is right ; lest headstrong lust of good and evil 
 mislead us to choose the evil and refuse the good. Which God 
 forbid, for His All Holy Son's sake. Amen. 
 
 If Cherubim transcendent in knowledge and accounted 
 second in the ninefold celestial hierarchy exhibit any likeness 
 to man's inferiors, well may I be contented to learn of these 
 humble brethren. The serpent can teach me wisdom, the 
 dove harmlessness, the ant prudent industry, the coney adapta- 
 bility to circumstances, the locust self-government, the spider 
 resource ; lions and young ravens set me, in some sort, an 
 example of prayer ; dog and sow scare me from relapses into 
 sin. 
 
 A Psalm asserts : " O Lord, Thou preservest man and 
 beast " ; or according to the Prayer-book version : " Thou, 
 Lord, shalt save both man and beast." It were unwise to 
 reflect on no statement besides "the beasts that perish"; 
 or so to exalt man's spirit which goeth upward, over the beast's 
 which goeth downward, as practically to ignore that the beast 
 is endowed with any spirit at all. Land may cry out against 
 an unrighteous owner, and furrows complain : how much more 
 the moving creature that hath life. 
 
 8. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about 
 him ; and they were full of eyes within : and they rest 
 not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God 
 Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. 
 
 If these be the same living creatures as those Ezekiel beheld 
 by the river Chebar, their aspect seems to have been revealed 
 with a difference to St. John. To Ezekiel each appeared four- 
 faced as Man, Lion, Ox, Eagle : St. John describes each indi- 
 vidual as exhibiting one or other such face. Ezekiel assigns 
 four wings to each ; St. John six. Balancing together the two 
 descriptions it may perhaps be thought that Ezekiel saw more 
 of the physical aspect, exhibited in multiplied faces and in 
 those hands and feet which he alone registers; St. John more 
 of the spiritual significance, expressed by wings in greater 
 number : these two revelations of the Cherubim thus corre- 
 sponding respectively with the two dispensations ; of which the 
 elder dealt in carnal ordinances, the latter (thank God, our 
 own) deals in spiritual realities.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 159 
 
 " Full of eyes within " has, I believe, been understood as 
 applying either to the person of the living creature, or else 
 to his wings. One reading invites us to admire the depth of 
 his intuition ; the other by a figure the aspiring loftiness of his 
 contemplation. 
 
 Lord, if not for us are the eyes of a Cherub, yet grant us the 
 receptiveness and goodwill of a .Cherub ; that we may discern 
 what Thou revealest, and may follow after to apprehend that 
 for which also we are apprehended of Christ Jesus. For His 
 sake. Amen. 
 
 All things are fair, if we had eyes to see 
 
 How first God made them goodly everywhere: 
 
 And goodly still in Paradise they be, 
 All things are fair. 
 
 O Lord, the solemn heavens Thy praise declare : 
 The multi-fashioned saints bring praise to Thee, 
 As doves fly home and cast away their care. 
 
 As doves on divers branches of their tree 
 Perched high or low, sit all contented there 
 
 Not mourning any more ; in each degree 
 All things are fair. 
 
 " They rest not." I suppose by rest not we may understand 
 cease not, pause not, flag not ; their endless worship being an 
 endless contentment, their labour a labour of love, their explor- 
 ation of unfathomable mysteries as it were a skylark's ever- 
 ascending flight ; yet even at the same moment, as his sustained 
 exaltation at his zenith on poised wings. 
 
 Rapture and rest, desire and satisfaction, perfection and 
 progress, may seem to clash to-day : to-morrow the paradoxes 
 of earth may reappear as the demonstrations of heaven. 
 
 These Living Creatures compounded of multiplied gifts and 
 multiform beauties concentrate themselves in worship. Their 
 worship is due exercise of their gifts ; the exercise of their gifts 
 is worship. 
 
 God, who needeth not to be worshipped with men's hands, 
 deigns to accept man's worship. Shall He dispose Himself to 
 be worshipped, and shall not we worship ? 
 
 " Day and night." Yet we look for no night there. Mean- 
 while though the ebb and flow of time sway not the natives 
 of heaven, their perpetual adoration runs parallel with our night 
 and day ; they worship while we wake, and worship on while 
 we sleep. Alas for us, if while they rest not from worship, we 
 worship not either while we labour or while we rest. 
 
 " Saying." Isaiah of old beheld the six-winged Seraphim,
 
 160 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 and heard one cry to another, saying, " Holy, Holy, Holy, is 
 the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full of His glory." 
 
 The Seraphim, spirits of love absorbed in God, in their hymn 
 of Divine praise remember also the hosts their fellow-servants 
 and the earth their fellow-creature. 
 
 The Cherubim, spirits of knowledge concentrated upon God, 
 name and celebrate Him alone. 
 
 Yet Seraph ranks above Cherub, as love above knowledge. 
 
 " Saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which Was, 
 and Is, and Is to come." Worthy to be praised before praise 
 waited on Him, before any creature existed to worship Him. 
 Before the earth and the world, before the morning stars and 
 the sons of God, before any extreme before mind can conceive, 
 God was : three Persons, one God, always and evermore. 
 
 Three Persons : distinct, not separate ; alike, not the same. 
 As our first Article of Religion declares : " There is but One 
 Living and True God, Everlasting, without body, parts, or 
 passions ; of infinite Power, Wisdom, and Goodness ; the Maker 
 and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in 
 Unity of this Godhead there be Three Persons, of one Substance, 
 Power, and Eternity ; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 
 As we ourselves year after year aver : " O Lord, Almighty, 
 Everlasting God. Who art One God, One Lord ; not one only 
 Person, but three Persons in One Substance. For that which 
 we believe of the Glory of the Father, the same we believe 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or 
 inequality." 
 
 Awful it is for feeble man to contemplate the Omnipotence 
 of God, awful for finite man to contemplate His Eternity ; 
 most of all awful is it for sinful man to contemplate His 
 Sanctity. Yet may our awestruck weakness betake itself with- 
 out shame to His Strength, our awestruck littleness to His 
 Infinity : it is when we approach the presence of His Holiness 
 that the shame of our face covers us, our comeliness is turned 
 into corruption, and we retain no strength. 
 
 O God Almighty our Fear and -our only Hope, Thou art in 
 heaven and we upon earth, Thou art Holy and we unholy. . . 
 But we plead Jesus Christ our Redeemer. 
 
 9. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks 
 to Him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and 
 ever, 
 
 Their service is clearly worship in spirit and in truth. Their 
 recorded hymn by ascribing Holiness and Eternity, ascribes as
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 161 
 
 bound up with them "glory and honour," but conveys not in 
 set terms " thanks." Yet we are told that they give " thanks to 
 Him that sat on the Throne." To overflow with thankfulness is 
 virtually to render thanks. Thankless thanks, on the contrary, 
 are no thanks at all. 
 
 These celestial impersonations of knowledge appear to have 
 one only object of contemplation, God Almighty. Thus have 
 they attained to know all they do know. 
 
 That same School of Cherubim is open to men, is open 
 to me. 
 
 True knowledge adores, gives thanks, loves, and ever follows 
 on to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. 
 
 "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." The 
 Living Creatures ascribe glory to Him " Who liveth for ever and 
 ever." Derived life praises its Fountain, imparted life its 
 Bestower; life which began, the Unbeginning Life whence it 
 began ; life which began yet which ends not, the Endless Life 
 which sustains it endless. 
 
 Love loveth Thee, and wisdom loveth Thee. 
 
 The love that loveth Thee sits satisfied. 
 
 Wisdom that loveth Thee grows million-eyed, 
 Learning what was and is and is to be. 
 Wisdom and love are glad of all they see ; 
 
 Their heart is deep, their hope is not denied ; 
 
 They rock at rest on time's unresting tide, 
 And wait to rest thro' long eternity. 
 Wisdom and love and rest, each holy soul 
 
 Hath these to-day while day is only night : 
 
 What shall souls have when morning brings to light 
 Love, wisdom, rest, God's treasure stored above ? 
 
 Palm shall they have and harp and aureole, 
 Wisdom, rest, love and lo ! the whole is love. 
 
 10. The four and twenty elders fall down before Him that 
 sat on the Throne, and worship Him that liveth for 
 ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the Throne, 
 saying, 
 
 To sit on thrones is an exaltation, to wear crowns a dignity : 
 to fall prostrate in worship is a loftier exaltation, to cast down 
 tributary crowns an enhanced dignity. Blessed it is to receive, 
 still more blessed to give. 
 
 What we have experienced, felt, done, bears witness to what 
 we have not yet experienced, felt, done. The self-surrenders 
 of earth rehearse in their rapturous triumph the all-surrendering 
 self-surrender of heaven.
 
 1 62 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The best gifts are those which can be given back to the 
 Giver. Them it is generous to covet earnestly. 
 
 To press forward toward all the great things which may yet 
 be ours annuls the pang caused by lesser matters we have 
 missed. It is so even as concerns glories terrestrial when 
 compared amongst themselves : home mountains and lakes 
 may lightly be ignored by one who sets foot in Switzerland. 
 How beyond all comparison does any comparison appear when 
 terrestrial glories are set against celestial ! 
 
 11. Thou art worthy, Lord, to receive glory and honour 
 and power ; for Thou hast created all things, and for 
 Thy pleasure they are and were created. 
 
 If in the present context we are allowed to view this majestic 
 circle of crowned and enthroned Elders, with these multiform 
 Living Creatures in their midst, as a representative compendium 
 of creation, then we see and hear the universe justifying the 
 ways of God. For they proclaim not solely " Holy, Holy, 
 Holy," but also : " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory 
 and honour and power : for Thou hast created all things, and 
 for Thy pleasure they are and were created." 
 
 It is not at all times and in all places that we could as yet 
 thus praise our Maker, except on trust and by an effort of love- 
 illuminated faith. But courage ! our difficulty will end with 
 this present distress, if we nerve ourselves to quit us like men 
 and be strong. 
 
 Meanwhile it does indeed require a loving faith, trust, 
 courage, to praise God for every creature. For every criminal, 
 every ignorant soul, every child being trained to evil ; for some 
 whose life seems well-nigh intolerable, for some whose death 
 seems desperate. " Save me, O God : for the waters are come 
 in, even unto my soul. I stick fast in the deep mire, where no 
 ground is : I am come into deep waters, so that the floods run 
 over me. I am weary of crying ; my throat is dry : my sight 
 faileth me for waiting so long upon my God." 
 
 [Parenthetical, and to be skipped by all who please. Just 
 now I have been told an incident which is readily transformed 
 into a parable. 
 
 Three newts and three frogs were sent up from Scotland. 
 On being unpacked in London, two of the newts vanished 
 forthwith from sight and were lost. Of the three frogs, one on 
 being taken in hand croaked, moving to sympathy the heart 
 of its captor. Humanity dictated that the remnant newt and 
 all the frogs should be carried forth and manumitted at a
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 163 
 
 neighbouring ornamental water; which was done. The fate 
 of that newt and of one frog I do not know. Of the other two, 
 one ensconced itself in a pipe ; the second was then and there 
 devoured by a duck. Who would have guessed that a frog 
 born in Argyleshire would die in London ? 
 
 Even if I fail to express my point to others, to myself there 
 is something suggestive in the anecdote, reported (as I believe) 
 with tolerable accuracy. The two vanishing newts presumably 
 aimed at getting out of harm's way, while in reality by eluding 
 powerful hands they cut themselves off from rescue. Their 
 peers which (however perforce) faced apparent peril, may have 
 attained safety, except, indeed, for the final catastrophe of 
 the one frog : but even this was a natural, not a monstrous, 
 end for such as it. Nor shall the risk of being laughed at 
 prevent my remarking that the croak of the helpless frog, yet 
 not helpless because of that very faculty of helpless appeal 
 lodged in it, sets before me much higher images. 
 
 We know on the highest Authority that not one sparrow is 
 overlooked. " Are ye not much better than they ? "] 
 
 Ah Lord, Lord, if my heart were right with Thine 
 
 As Thine with mine, then should I rest resigned 
 
 Awaiting knowledge with a quiet mind 
 Because of heavenly wisdom's anodyne. 
 Then would Thy Love be more to me than wine, 
 
 Then should I seek being sure at length to find, 
 
 Then should I trust to Thee all humankind 
 Because Thy Love of them is more than mine. 
 Then should I stir up hope and comfort me 
 
 Remembering Thy Cradle and Thy Cross ; 
 
 How Heaven to Thee without us had been loss, 
 How Heaven with us is Thy one only Heaven, 
 
 Heaven shared with us through all eternity, 
 With us long sought, long loved, and much forgiven. 
 
 " Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are 
 and were created." If I would explain to my own compre- 
 hension how this can be : " all things, and for Thy pleasure 
 they are," I should not succeed. Everything may have a bright 
 side, everything may be a vehicle or a channel of good, or an 
 imperfect form of good, or defective good, or good-excessive ; 
 everything, except sin. Thus pain, suffering, privation, death 
 may be good-producers. Wickedness alone, even should it be 
 overruled to promote good, wickedness remains and must re- 
 main evil. The existence of evil silences me. I cannot under- 
 stand; I can only trust : God, for Christ's sake, help me to trust. 
 
 Nevertheless for practical purposes all is clear as day. All
 
 1 64 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 things are and were created for the Divine good pleasure. 
 Therefore I for one am capable of pleasing God, and it becomes 
 me strenuously and gladly so to do. Because He hath no 
 pleasure in the death of him that dieth, it becomes me to turn 
 myself and live ; nor in wickedness, therefore must I cease to 
 do evil and learn to do well ; nor in mere natural endowments 
 (see Ps. cxlvii. 10), therefore I must sue out graces ; nor 
 in " fools," therefore I must endeavour to get wisdom, and 
 with all my getting to get understanding; nor in sordid 
 service (see Mai. i. 10), therefore I ought in spirit, and if it 
 were possible even in the letter, to "fear God for nought." 
 
 I am bound myself to please God in the manner He appoints. 
 I am not bound to account for His Will and pleasure at large. 
 
 " O Lord, let it be Thy pleasure to deliver me : make haste, 
 O Lord, to help me. . . . Let all those that seek Thee be 
 joyful and glad in Thee : and let such as love Thy salvation 
 say alway, The Lord be praised."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the 
 Throne a book written within and on the backside, 
 sealed with seven seals. 
 
 " In the Right Hand," the Hand of blessing. Whatever the 
 import of the revelation, its being revealed is so far our blessing. 
 He who warns desires to spare : as said Manoah's wife : " If 
 the Lord were pleased to kill us, ... neither would He 
 have showed us all these things, nor would as at this time have 
 told us such things as these " ; or much more as the Lord Him- 
 self answered His prophet Habakkuk : " Write the vision, and 
 make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it." 
 
 O God most Merciful, Who warnedst even a generation of 
 vipers to flee from the wrath to come, quicken us to bring 
 forth fruits meet for repentance. We plead Jesus, only Jesus. 
 
 " Length of days is in her right hand ; and in her left hand 
 riches and honour." Thus Wisdom fills both her hands with 
 blessings : yet I think a difference may be discernible between 
 the twain. 
 
 By length of days may surely be understood life everlasting 
 in accordance with David's words : " The King shall joy in 
 Thy strength, O Lord ; and in Thy salvation how greatly shall 
 He rejoice ! Thou hast given Him His heart's desire, and hast 
 not withholden the request of His lips. . . . He asked life of 
 Thee, and Thou gavest it Him, even length of days for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 Solomon, whose gracious outset prefigured our Lord's fulness 
 of grace, asked for himself "an understanding heart," and was 
 answered : " Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not 
 asked for thyself long life ; neither hast asked riches for thyself, 
 nor hast asked the life of thine enemies ; but hast asked for 
 thyself understanding to discern judgment ; behold I have 
 done according to thy words : lo, I have given thee a wise and
 
 166 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 an understanding heart. . . . And I have also given thee that 
 which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour. . . . And 
 if thou wilt walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My 
 commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will 
 lengthen thy days." 
 
 Thus Solomon's dutiful choice of a regal understanding heart 
 won for him not simply the boon craved, but with it riches and 
 honour, gifts of the left hand ; which gifts correspond so far 
 with that sunlight and rain which we see lavished on just and 
 unjust, that they all alike come down from the Father of lights, 
 and are all alike capable of promoting God's glory and man's 
 salvation ; while yet no one of them is guaranteed against such 
 dire misuse as may pervert it into a means of destruction. 
 Length of days, the gift statedly of the right hand, is promised 
 to Solomon for nothing short of persevering obedience : where- 
 fore we may understand thereby much more than even the 
 most prolonged walk in this vain shadow. 
 
 Are we beset by shadows ? Let us resolutely walk in them : 
 for by sitting down we should fail ever to emerge from them. 
 
 Shadows to-day, while shadows show God's Will. 
 Light were not good except He sent us light. 
 Shadows to-day, because this day is night 
 Whose marvels and whose mysteries fulfil 
 Their course and deep in darkness serve Him still. 
 Thou dim aurora, on the extremest height 
 Of airy summits wax not over bright ; 
 Refrain thy rose, refrain thy daffodil. 
 Until God's Word go forth to kindle thee 
 And garland thee and bid thee stoop to us, 
 
 Blush in the heavenly choirs and glance not down : 
 To-day we race in darkness for a crown, 
 In darkness for beatitude to be, 
 In darkness for the city luminous. 
 
 " A book written within and on the backside, sealed with 
 seven seals." A book sealed, inscrutable : evidently containing 
 a message, but that message withheld. Yet does it deliver a 
 message by reason of that very withholding. St. John under- 
 stood readily a call to humility, and wept (ver. 4) for his own 
 and for the general unworthiness. Humility and penitence 
 befitted St. John, and befit all the saints his fellows : it is the 
 reckless sinners who act contrariwise, as at a former crisis was 
 made clear to the prophet Isaiah : " In that day did the Lord 
 God of Hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, 
 and to girding with sackcloth : and behold joy and gladness, 
 slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine : 
 let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we shall die. And it was
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 167 
 
 revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity 
 shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord God of 
 hosts." 
 
 To humble ourselves, to repent, to stand alert at the rumour 
 of a Divine message, such acts as these lie within our own 
 power ; acts whereby we all can please God. And if nothing 
 further become possible to us, then surely even at such a point 
 we shall not miss a blessing. " For My thoughts are not your 
 thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. 
 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways 
 higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. 
 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and 
 returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it 
 bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and 
 bread to the eater : so shall My word be that goeth forth out 
 of My mouth : it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall 
 accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the 
 thing whereto I sent it." 
 
 One whose memory I revere once suggested to me that if a 
 person, not through any voluntary fault, knew no more than 
 the Name of Jesus : that Name alone, beloved and cherished, 
 might by God's grace suffice to salvation. 
 
 O God Only Wise, bless to us, I beseech Thee, all we know 
 and all we know not. Grant us a ready mind ; and accept us 
 according to what we have and not according to what we 
 have not, in our Lord Jesus Christ our All in all. 
 
 "Sealed with seven seals." "There is nothing covered, 
 that shall not be revealed ; and hid, that shall not be known." 
 Lord, grant us sevenfold grace. 
 
 2. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 
 
 Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals 
 thereof? 
 
 3. And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the 
 
 earth, was able to open the book, neither to look 
 thereon. 
 
 4. And I wept much, becanse no man was found worthy to 
 
 open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. 
 
 A question in form, in result a proclamation. He who 
 proclaims is strong, but what he proclaims is a general 
 weakness whence he himself is not exempt. 
 
 Since we read in the Prophecy of Daniel of " the man 
 Gabriel," and in the Gospels and Book of Acts of men where 
 it seems we must recognize angels ; so I suppose that here we
 
 1 68 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 may perhaps understand all creatures from human beings 
 upwards to be intimated by " men " of heaven, earth, under 
 the earth; and notably mankind at large whether living or 
 dead. 
 
 Whereupon St. John wept. Wherefore ? because the Book 
 remained sealed and closed? He says not so, but because 
 " no man was found worthy " to open, read, look. For saints 
 bewail unworthiness rather than the penalty of unworthiness. 
 
 O Lord Jesus, Who on earth didst shed unselfish vicarious 
 tears, and Who hast bestowed on us a treasure of tears ; rant 
 that we may never squander these goodly pearls on vanities, 
 but may weep such blessed tears as Thou hast promised 
 Thyself to wipe away. 
 
 "Who is worthy . . .?" The solution was forthcoming, 
 only not at once. 
 
 This world nowadays resounds with questions not yet 
 answerable. 1 suppose an idiot might happen to propound a 
 query, which not Solomon himself could then and there in his 
 wisdom have answered. Among the first things which meet 
 us when, following St. John afar off, we look through the 
 " door opened in heaven," is a question left for the moment 
 without an answer. 
 
 Heaven endured such discipline, and well may earth : St. 
 John endured it, and well may I. " Trust in the Lord with 
 all thine heait ; and lean not unto thine own understanding." 
 
 Good Lord, Who requires! faith of us ; if our faith be too 
 weak to encounter doubtful disputations, I beseech Thee so 
 far strengthen it that by Thy grace we may humbly avoid them. 
 
 O Lord Jesus, my Lord Jesus, Thou art Light to our dark- 
 ness, Knowledge for our ignorance, Wisdom for - our folly, 
 Certainty for our doubts. Thou art our Way and our End ; the 
 Illumination of our way, the Glory of our end. Never shall 
 we see, know, have, enjoy, aught permanent out of Thee ; but 
 in Thee (please God !) all : for whoso is one with Thee cannot 
 but see with Thine Eyes, acquiesce in Thy Will, apprehend by 
 Thine Understanding, possess by Thy Lordship, enjoy in Thy 
 Good -pleasure. Yea, even while swaddled as babes in fleshly 
 bands, Thy faithful servants being already joined to Thee, do 
 already latently and potentially behold, know, choose, inherit, 
 keep festival. The vigil of Thy Feast excels the high days of 
 time ; the threshold of Thy House, the presence-chamber of 
 earth's palaces : " I had rather be a door-keeper in the house 
 of my God, than to dwell in the tents of ungodliness." Or 
 if as yet it be not thus with any, with me, Lord, make it thus
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 169 
 
 to be with us all before we go hence and be no more seen. 
 Amen. 
 
 5. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not : behold, 
 the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath 
 prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals 
 thereof. 
 
 " One of tha Elders." Conjectured (I believe) by some to 
 be St. James, own brother to St. John. What however we 
 know with certainty of this beatified Elder is not his name, but 
 his Christ-likeness. As once his Master on earth, so now he 
 in heaven saith, " Weep not." 
 
 Jesus spake the word to a sonless mother in whom (reverent 
 be the thought !) He may have contemplated a fore-image of 
 His own blessed Mother in her bereavement. 
 
 The sympathetic Elder spake the same word to the appointed 
 " son " of that blessed Mother, to a saint the days of whose 
 mourning were not yet ended. 
 
 Jesus the Consolation of Israel spake, and it was done. 
 
 Pointing to Him, the Elder became a son of consolation. 
 
 Christ-likeness is the salient characteristic revealed to us of 
 this celestial Elder. His name continues hidden, his previous 
 history hidden : we know not, however we may attempt to 
 guess, wherefore he rather than another was inspired to testify. 
 
 Would his name avail us aught, or his previous history, or 
 even light cast on the secret of his predestination to that 
 particular ministry ? We may safely conclude not, since they 
 are unrevealed. Hidden they serve to check curiosity ; whilst 
 in a manner they illustrate that the one and only aspect high 
 or low need desire to be known by is Christ-likeness. Thus 
 the saints are stamped, thereby they become recognizable ; 
 and this is that accessible glory which we can if we will in 
 common with them put on. 
 
 f I saw a Saint. How canst thou tell that he 
 
 Thou savvest was a Saint ? 
 I saw one like to Christ so luminously 
 
 By patient deeds of'love, his mortal taint 
 Seemed made his groundwork for humility. 
 
 And when he marked me downcast utterly 
 
 Where foul I rat and faint, 
 Then more than ever Christ-like kindled he ; 
 
 And welcomed me as I had been a saint, 
 Tenderly stooping low to comfort me.
 
 170 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Christ bade him, " Do thou likewise." Wherefore he 
 
 Waxed zealous to acquaint 
 His soul with sin and sorrow, if so be 
 
 He might retrieve some latent saint : 
 " Lo, I, with the child God hath given to me ! " 
 
 " Behold." Commanded to behold, let us behold. The 
 command is simple, the act of obedience simple. 
 
 Obedience will bring its own reward, for by obeying we shall 
 presently contemplate Christ. We shall discern Him at work 
 for us men and for our salvation, opening the book and loosing 
 the seven seals thereof. 
 
 But if after all we cannot decipher the unsealed revelation ? 
 
 We still shall have gazed on Him Who is the Author of the 
 revelation : and Greater is He Who reveals than aught else 
 which is revealed. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Who art Wisdom and the Word and ^'hose 
 Name is called Wonderful ; whatever word be too hard for us, 
 yet vouchsafe to us the wisdom hidden in that word. For 
 Thine own sake, O God, Thou that doest wonders and 
 declares! Thy strength. 
 
 " The Lion of the tribe of Juda." Some if not all of the 
 Jewish tribes derived, it would seem, their standard or coat-of- 
 arms from the form of their father Jacob's blessing differently 
 bestowed upon each. Jacob said : " Judah is a lion's whelp : 
 from the prey, my son, thou art gone up : he stooped down, 
 he couched as a lion, and as an old lion ; who shall rouse 
 him up?" 
 
 Therefore as the standard led the tribe, so this title " Lion 
 of the tribe of Juda " denotes our Lord as Leader and Com- 
 mander to the people. In the Song of Songs we read : " My 
 Beloved is ... the Chiefest among ten thousand," literally 
 " Standard-bearer among ten thousand" : our omen of victory ; 
 for never will it befall us " as when a standard-bearer fainteth." 
 
 "For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me, Like as the lion 
 and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of 
 shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of 
 their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them : so shall 
 the Lord of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion, and for 
 the hill thereof.'^ 
 
 And whereas in a prophecy of Redemption and Salvation we 
 read : " When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit 
 of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him," this same 
 title Lion of the tribe of Juda seems to connect itself pointedly 
 with the sacred Humanity of Jesus, according to those words
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 17 1 
 
 of the Angel Gabriel instructing blessed Mary : " The Holy 
 Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest 
 shall overshadow thee : therefore also that Holy Thing which 
 shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." 
 
 " And on the east side toward the rising of the sun shall 
 they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout 
 their armies." Thus Judah of old by encamping toward the 
 east prefigured the camp of Christ's faithful soldiers ; in 
 harmony with His declaration Who being the Light of the 
 world said : " He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his 
 deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." 
 
 The disciple is called to be as his Master, the servant as his 
 Lord. Because Christ is strong His Church likewise must wax 
 strong. " Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and 
 lift up himself as a young lion : he shall not lie down until 
 he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain . . . 
 He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion : who 
 shall stir him up ? " " The righteous are bold as a lion." 
 
 Yet let us not forget the terror also of this great Name of 
 God. Even holy Job complains : " Thou huntest me as a 
 fierce lion." Hosea in the Divine Name prophesies against 
 Israel : " I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young 
 lion to the house of Judah : I, even I, will tear and go away ; 
 I will take away, and none shall rescue him " ; " I will be 
 unto them as a lion : . . . there will I devour them like a lion." 
 
 " The lion hath roared, who will not fear?" 
 
 Lord, give me blessed fear 
 
 And much more blessed love, 
 That fearing I may love Thee here 
 
 And be Thy harmless dove : 
 
 Until Thou cast out fear, 
 
 Until Thou perfect love, 
 Until Thou end mine exile here 
 
 And fetch Thee home Thy dove. 
 
 " The Root of David." It pleased our Lord on one occasion 
 to propound a question touching the mystery of His relation- 
 ship to David, without at the same time vouchsafing the 
 answer : 
 
 " While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked 
 them, saying, What think ye of Christ ? Whose Son is He ? 
 They say unto Him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, 
 How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying, The 
 Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, till I
 
 172 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 make Thine enemies Thy footstool ? If David then call Him 
 Lord, how is He his Son ? " 
 
 Lord, grant us receptive minds : and teach us by Thy Most 
 Holy Spirit knowledge if Thou pleasest, and wisdom whereby 
 to please Thee. 
 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
 God, and the Word was God. ... All things were made by 
 Him ; and without Him was not anything made that was 
 made." If all things, then David. 
 
 The root is that which affords origin, stability, maintenance, 
 to the plant. Root may exist without shoot, not shoot without 
 root. The root supplies, the shoot receives, life and nourish- 
 ment. The unseen root is the source and basis of all the 
 luxuriant upgrowth. " What hast thou that thou didst not 
 receive ? " 
 
 " Hath prevailed." The Revised Version substitutes " over- 
 come " for " prevailed " ; by that word reminding us how our 
 own Lord has made Himself our Fellow. He Himself 
 overcame before He bade His Seven Churches overcome. 
 " Follow Me " is His word ; not, Precede Me. " When He 
 putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them." 
 
 Christ goes before us, leading us gently and encouraging us 
 along the same path He long ago trod. When He saith, Do 
 this, bear this, He has already done and borne much more for 
 our sakes and in our stead. We peer into the valley of 
 humiliation, and He goeth before us into Galilee. We gaze 
 up the arduous ascent of perfection, and how beautiful upon 
 the mountains are His feet ! 
 
 By analogy : to urge any one to suffer patiently, entails on 
 the speaker, unless suffering be already in some measure his 
 portion, the duty of assuming such fellowship of suffering as 
 may justify urgency and avert scandal. Thus in penitentiary 
 work, in reformatory work, self-denial must teach self-denial, 
 and self-restraint, self-restraint. Otherwise, how flatter myself 
 that my righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees ? " For 
 they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay 
 them on men's shoulders ; but they themselves will not move 
 them with one of their fingers." 
 
 An exemplary Sister speaking once of her Sister Superior in 
 their common Order of Mercy, described that Superior's 
 authority as exercised in postponing herself to her subordinates. 
 To engross disadvantages was that Wise Virgin's form of 
 coveting earnestly the best gifts. 
 
 "To open the Book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 173 
 
 Christ openeth, and no man shutteth. Our own eyes we can 
 indeed shut, and can stop our ears ; but we within rndius of 
 the Gospel cannot so cut ourselves off from revelation as to take 
 up the position of heathens. Israel of old could not do so : 
 " That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that 
 ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the 
 countries, to serve wood and stone. As I live, saith the Lord 
 God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, 
 and with fury poured out, will I rule over you." Neither after- 
 wards could Israel by denying and rejecting their Messiah face 
 to face revert to the position of their stiff-necked forefathers ; 
 for our Lord Himself declared : "If I had not come and 
 spoken unto them, they had not had sin : but now they have 
 no cloke for their sin." 
 
 Whether in great matters or small, whether for good or evil, 
 done is done and cannot become not-done. A word may be 
 retracted, but not recalled. A living soul once born must live 
 or die, for it can never be dis-born. Eve could not unknow 
 her foul knowledge, or Adam unchoose his ruinous choice. 
 
 And how many of their children in the anguish of inex- 
 tinguishable existence have been ready to cry out: "Woe is 
 me, my mother, that thou hast borne me ! " 
 
 " Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but 
 in vain." 
 
 O Lord Christ, Who hast said, Take heed what ye hear, 
 how ye hear : give us grace to cast all our care on Thee Who 
 carest for us. 
 
 Because Thou hast called us, give us grace to obey Thy call. 
 
 Because Thou showest us wonderful things in Thy Righteous- 
 ness, give us grace to worship Thee trembling. 
 
 Because they that fear Thee lack nothing, give us grace to 
 fear Thee. 
 
 Because they who seek Thee shall want no manner of thing 
 that is good, give us grace to seek Thee until we find Thee. 
 
 Because Thou lovest them that love Thee, give us grace to 
 love Thee. 
 
 Because Thou hast loved them that loved Thee not, give us 
 grace to love Thee. Amen. 
 
 Hope is the counterpoise of fear 
 "While night enthralls us here. 
 
 Fear hath a startled eye that holds a tear : 
 Hope hath an upward glance, for dawn draws near 
 With sunshine and with cheer. 
 Fear gazing earthwards spies a bier ;
 
 174 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 And sets herself to rear 
 
 A lamentable tomb, where leaves drop sere 
 
 Bleaching to congruous skeletons austere : 
 
 Hope chants a funeral hymn so sweet and clear 
 
 He seems true chanticleer 
 
 Of resurrection and of all things dear 
 
 In the oncoming endless year. 
 
 Fear ballasts hope, hope buoys up fear, 
 And both befit us here. 
 
 " And to loose the seven seals thereof." " He shall deliver 
 thee in six troubles : yea, in seven there shall no evil touch 
 thee. In famine He shall redeem thee from death : and in 
 war from the power of the sword. . . . Neither shalt thou be 
 afraid of destruction when it cometh." 
 
 6. And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the Throne and of 
 the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a 
 Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and 
 seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent 
 forth into all the earth. 
 
 If the preceding chapter (IV.) unfolds a vision of the Creator 
 surrounded and worshipped by His creation, this present 
 chapter appears more particularly to set before us in vision the 
 Redeemer, always well pleasing to God His Father, and to 
 Whom is given all power in Heaven and in earth. 
 
 Doubtless a thread of perfect sequence runs throughout 
 Divine Revelation, binding it into one sacred and flawless 
 whole. But not so do feeble eyes discern it. I can but study 
 piece by piece, word by word, unworthy even to behold the 
 little I seem to observe. 
 
 Much of this awful Apocalypse opens to my apprehension 
 rather a series of aspects than any one defined and certified 
 object It summons me to watch and pray and give thanks ; 
 it urges me to climb heavenward. Its thread doubtless consists 
 unbroken : but my clue is at the best woven of broken lights 
 and shadows, here a little and there a little. As when years 
 ago I abode some while within sight of a massive sea rock, I 
 used to see it put on different appearances : it seemed to float 
 baseless in air, its summit vanished in cloud, it displayed upon 
 its surface varied markings, it passed from view altogether in a 
 mist, it fronted me distinct and solid far into the luminous 
 northern summer night, still appearing many and various while 
 all the time I knew it to be one and the same, so now this 
 Apocalypse I know to be one congruous, harmonious whole, 
 yet can I read it only as it were in disjointed portions, some to
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 175 
 
 myself inexplicable, some not unmistakably defined ; all never- 
 theless, please God, profitable to me for doctrine, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 
 
 " Lo, in the midst of the Throne and of the four beasts, and 
 in the midst of the elders." As the centre whence all pro- 
 ceeds, whither all converges. So St. Paul writes to the 
 Ephesians: "The Father of Glory . . . according to the 
 working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, 
 when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own 
 Right Hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, 
 and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that 
 is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to 
 come : and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him 
 to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His 
 body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." 
 
 Lord Jesus, lovely and pleasant art Thou in Thy high places, 
 Thou Centre of bliss, whence all bliss flows. Lovely also and 
 pleasant wast Thou in Thy lowly tabernacles, Thou sometime 
 Centre wherein humiliations and sorrows met 
 
 Thou Who wast Centre of a stable, with two saints and harmless cattle and 
 some shepherds for Thy court, 
 
 Grant us lowliness. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of Bethlehem when Wise Men worshipped Thee, 
 
 Grant us wisdom. 
 
 Thou Who wast Centre of the Temple, with doves or young pigeons and 
 four saints about Thee, 
 
 Grant us purity. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of Egypt which harboured Thee and Thine in exile, 
 
 Be Thou our refuge. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of Nazareth where Thou wast brought up, 
 
 Sanctify our homes. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of all waters at Thy Baptism in the River Jordan, 
 
 Still sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of all desolate places during forty days and forty 
 nights, 
 
 Comfort the desolate. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of a marriage feast at Cana, 
 
 Bless our rejoicing. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of a funeral procession at Nain, 
 
 Bless our mourning. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of Samaria as Thou sattest on the well, 
 
 Bring back strayed souls. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of all heights on the Mount of Beatitudes, 
 
 Grant us to sit with Thee in heavenly places. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of sufferers by the Pool of Bethesda, 
 
 Heal us. 
 
 Thou Who was Centre of all harvest ground when Thou wentest through 
 the cornfields with Thy disciples, 
 
 Make us bring forth to Thee thirty, sixty, a hundredfold.
 
 1 76 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Thou Who wast Centre of mankind when Thou calledst unto Thee whom 
 Thou wouldest, 
 
 Grant us grace to obey Thy call. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of love in the Upper Chamber, 
 
 Evermore give us that Bread. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of sorrows in Gethsemane, 
 
 Console the sorrowful. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of the whole earth on Calvary, 
 
 Reign over north and south, east and xvest. 
 Thou Who wast Centre of Life in Thy Sepulchre, 
 
 Forget not our dust. 
 
 Remember us and ours, remember all, O our All in all. 
 Lord, remember us when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom. Amen. 
 
 "Stood a Lamb as it had been slain." " Behold the Lamb 
 of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. . . . Behold 
 the Lamb of God ! " 
 
 Not otherwise even in heaven than "as It had been slain." 
 Death will be abolished, pain over, tears wiped away, weakness 
 reinforced, loss made good, failure retrieved : these are remedi- 
 able, and will be remedied. No spot or blemish, wrinkle or 
 any such thing, will appear there. There all glories will con- 
 gregate : and glorious among glories will be the wounds made 
 by love. Now it is blessed to believe without seeing : then 
 blessed will it be to see what unseen we have believed. Then 
 wilt Thou show to Thine own with loving praise, what once 
 Thou showedst to St. Thomas with loving rebuke. Then shall 
 Thine own love Thee because, being all fair, Thou art also 
 " white and ruddy." And if they Thee, wilt Thou not like- 
 wise love them for their wounds made by love ? Yea, all from 
 Thy most glorious martyrs downwards, who have been partakers 
 of Thy sufferings " more ruddy in body than rubies," Thou 
 wilt love. 
 
 None other Lamb, none other Name, 
 
 None other Hope in heaven or earth or sea, 
 None other Hiding-place from guilt and shame, 
 None beside Thee. 
 
 My faith burns low, my hope burns low, 
 Only my heart's desire cries out in me 
 By the deep thunder of its want and woe, 
 Cries out to Thee. 
 
 Lord, Thou art Life tho' I be dead, 
 
 Love's Fire Thou art however cold I be : 
 Nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head, 
 Nor home, but Thee. 
 
 A lamb is a sort of personified innocence by reason of its
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 177 
 
 whiteness, its meek expression, its pathetic voice. Its curly 
 softness suggests that by rights innocence is allied to comfort 
 and cheerfulness. How beautiful is a lamb in green pastures 
 beside still waters ! In the natural course of events a lamb 
 would grow old, and not till then would it die : a lamb would 
 not naturally die as a lamb. Yet from ancient days lambs of 
 sacrifice, by God's behest, have so far as in them lay taken the 
 place of men, women, children, and been brought to the 
 slaughter. Truly a lamb is to us a picture and memento of 
 Divine Love. 
 
 ' O Lamb of God : that takest away the sins of the world ; 
 
 ' Grant us Thy peace. 
 
 ' O Lamb of God : that takest away the sins of the world ; 
 
 ' Have mercy upon us. 
 
 ' O Christ, hear us." 
 
 It was once pointed out to me, that in the Bible the first 
 mention of a lamb occurs in connection with Abraham's 
 virtual sacrifice of Isaac : " Isaac spake unto Abraham his 
 father, and said, My father : and he said, Here am I, my son. 
 And he said, Behold the fire and the wood : but where is the 
 lamb for a burnt offering ? And Abraham said, My son, God 
 will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." And I think 
 the observation is essentially correct, despite the "seven ewe 
 lambs " of the preceding chapter ; inasmuch as these do not 
 belong (so to say) to the same spiritual context Yet, had I 
 been aware of both texts, I should not (in Seek and Find) 
 without a modifying clause have referred to Isaac's words as 
 absolutely first. 
 
 [Which oversight invites me to two wholesome proceedings : 
 to beg my reader's pardon for my errors ; and ever to write 
 modestly under correction.] 
 
 " Having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the Seven 
 Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." Seven, a number 
 of completeness : the horn, a symbol of strength. Even during 
 His Ministry, Christ deigned to announce the might of His 
 inherent power : " I lay down My life, that I might take it 
 again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of 
 Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to 
 take it again." 
 
 If the "seven horns " may seem to indicate an attribute, the 
 " Seven Eyes, which are the Seven Spirits of God," appear to 
 show forth that Unutterable Sevenfold Spirit, Who being Very 
 God proceedeth from the Father and the Son ; and Who 
 having once vouchsafed amid audible and visible signs to be 
 
 M
 
 1 78 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " sent forth into all the earth " on the supreme Day of Pente- 
 cost, abides in and with the Church for ever. That in seven- 
 fold plenitude He should rest upon Christ "the Branch" 
 Isaiah prophesied, adding: "... and shall make Him of 
 quick understanding in the fear of the Lord : and He shall not 
 judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the 
 hearing of His ears " ; the human faculties being, according to 
 the Hebrew Prophet, subordinated to that Divine Spirit Who 
 in St. John's present vision appears (if I dare so think) under 
 the figure of Seven Eyes. Our Lord became " One Christ 
 ... by taking of the Manhood into God " : those two 
 Natures are His ; and only those two, so far as Revelation 
 teaches. Moreover we are expressly certified that " He took 
 not on Him the nature of angels " : whence (if lawfully I may) 
 I infer that, on the evidence of the Apocalyptic text in question, 
 the " Seven Spirits of God " here named cannot be created 
 spirits, cannot but be the Creator Spirit. 
 
 Two prophecies of Zechariah without anticipating St. John's 
 vision seem to harmonize with it : " Hear now, O Joshua the 
 high priest, thou, and thy fellows, that sit before thee : . . . 
 behold, I will bring forth My Servant the BRANCH. For 
 behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one 
 stone shall be seven eyes : behold, I will engrave the graving 
 thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity 
 of that land in one day" : "Not by might, nor by power, 
 but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O 
 great mountain ? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain : 
 and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, 
 crying, Grace, grace unto it. ... The hands of Zerubbabel 
 have laid the foundation of this house ; his hands shall also 
 finish it ; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath 
 sent me unto you. For who hath despised the day of small 
 things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in 
 the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven ; they are the eyes 
 of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth." 
 
 " Canst thou by searching find out God ? canst thou find 
 out the Almighty unto perfection ? " Nay, my Master, I think 
 not to do so. Yet hath it ere now pleased Thee to choose 
 and work by foolish things, weak things, base things, things 
 which are despised, yea, and things which are not. That 
 which I know not, and which Thou requires! me to know, 
 teach Thou me. And teaching me, make me so far like 
 Jacob when he awaked out of sleep, that I too may say, 
 " Surely the Lord is in this place ; and I knew it not " : and
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 179 
 
 may fear, saying, " How dreadful is this place ! this is none 
 other but the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven " : 
 and may confess the munificence of Thy bounty, humbling 
 myself and saying, " I am not worthy of the least of all the 
 mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed unto 
 Thy servant." 
 
 7. And He came and took the Book out of the Eight Hand 
 
 of Him that sat upon the Throne. 
 
 " For there is One God, and one Mediator between God 
 and men, the Man Christ Jesus ; Who gave Himself a ransom 
 for all." " For the Father judgeth no man, but hath com- 
 mitted all judgment unto the Son." "Jesus . . . spake . . . 
 saying, All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." 
 
 8. And when He had taken the Book, the four beasts and 
 
 four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, 
 having every one of them harps, and golden vials full 
 of odours, which are the prayers of saints. 
 
 As in the previous chapter, God the Creator, so now God 
 the Redeemer is Centre of worship to them that are round 
 about Him. God is very greatly to be feared and had in 
 reverence of all saints always ; yet now we seem to behold 
 these citizens and peers of Heaven carried away by a sudden 
 rapture of adoring love, a celestial ecstasy of satisfaction. If 
 the four Living Creatures be the Cherubim, the Song (vers. 9, 
 10) which speaks of Redemption becomes mysterious in their 
 mouths, unless we adopt the words of the Revised Version. 
 Or might we conceive the elders alone to have sung it ? 
 
 By considering them all, under whatever aspect, let us in 
 any case learn to aspire. Would we have it said of ourselves 
 to-day, or would we not far rather it were sr.id of us to-morrow, 
 " It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is 
 it the voice of them that cry for being overcome : but the 
 noise of them that sing do I hear " ? We cannot in this life sit 
 at ease and make merry, eat, drink, and to-morrow die ; and 
 then on the morrow after sing a triumph song. Wherefore 
 blessed are those who now shout for mastery. Blessed are 
 even those who now cry for being overcome, if only they cry 
 to day while it is called to-day to Him that heareth prayer. 
 
 My God, give us grace to weep and lament while the world 
 rejoiceth, and in the end turn Thou our sorrow into joy. Give 
 us such present comfort in conforming our will to Thine that 
 we may have our songs in the night, songs of desire, songs of
 
 i So THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 hope. Give us, when day breaks and shadows flee away, songs 
 of joy and love. Give us, and deny us what Thou wilt. For 
 our Lord Jesu's sake. Amen. 
 
 Heavenly worship is fulness of joy and pleasures for ever- 
 more. 
 
 Earthly worship is too often a constraint and weariness. 
 
 Amongst the causes of this depressing difference certain 
 appear to be removable, others not so. Some of the heavenly 
 conditions of worship abide beyond our attainment, some are 
 imitable. Presumably to assimilate the two systems of worship 
 so far as feasible, might be a step secured towards informing 
 the ritual of earth with the significance and sentiment of 
 Heaven. 
 
 1. The Living Creatures from the midst of the Throne, and 
 from round about the Throne, the Elders from their proper 
 thrones, fall down. We, not in the midst, but afar off; we not 
 on thrones, but more duly in dust and ashes, we are many 
 times hampered by sloth or by false shame. Yet he alone 
 " that overcometh " tempter, besetment, self, is he who can 
 claim the promise to be set down in Christ's Throne at last. 
 
 Sloth and false shame, good Lord, overcome in us. 
 
 2. They have harps, worshipping the Lord in the beauty of 
 holiness, the perfection of beauty. We, remote from such 
 glories too often, neither do our best, nor bring our best. Yet 
 of old such as we have been forewarned : " Cursed be the 
 deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and vovveth, and 
 sacrificed! unto the Lord a corrupt thing." 
 
 Hypocrisy, irreverence, a sacrilegious spirit, good Lord, cast 
 out of us. 
 
 3. They have golden vials full of odours which are the prayers 
 of saints. We in vessels of clay bring prayers of sinners, 
 prayers mixed with sin, prayers (please God) mixed with tears. 
 
 Our tears in Thy bottle, our prayers in Thine own censer, 
 good Lord, accept and make acceptable. Amen. 
 
 Whoso hath anguish is not dead in sin, 
 AVhoso hath pangs of utterless desire. 
 Like as in smouldering flax which harbours fire, 
 
 Red heat of conflagration may begin, 
 
 Melt that hard heart, burn out the dross within, 
 Permeate with glory the new man entire, 
 Crown him with fire, mould for his hands a lyre 
 
 Of fiery strings to sound with those who win. 
 
 Anguish is anguish, yet potential bliss, 
 
 Pangs of desire are birth-throes of delight : 
 Those citizens felt such who walk in white,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 181 
 
 And meet but no more sunder with a kiss ; 
 Who fathom still unfathomed mysteries, 
 
 And love, adore, rejoice, with all their might. 
 
 Lord, make alms to be the golden vials of our prayer, and 
 the blessing of him that was ready to perish its upbearing 
 odours ; and let melody to Thee in our hearts be our harp, 
 with bands of love for its strings ; and exalt our present lowli- 
 ness to become the step of our future throne ; and now grant 
 us grace to do what we can, that then Thou mayest empower 
 us to do what Thou wilt. Lord, for Thine own sake. Lord 
 Jesus, for the glory of Thy name. Amen. 
 
 The joy of Saints, like incense turned to fire 
 
 In golden censers, soars acceptable ; 
 
 And high their heavenly hallelujahs swell 
 Desirous still with still-fulfilled desire. 
 Sweet thrill the harpstrings of the heavenly choir, 
 
 Most sweet their voice while love is all they tell, 
 
 Where love is all in all, and all is well ; 
 Because their work is love and love their hire. 
 All clad in white and all with palm in hand, 
 
 Crowns too they have of gold and thrones of gold ; 
 
 The street is golden which their feet have trod, 
 Or on a sea of glass and fire they stand : 
 
 And none of them is young, and none is old, 
 Except as perfect by the will of God. 
 
 9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to 
 take the Book, and to open the seals thereof : for Thou 
 wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood 
 out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
 nation ; 
 
 10. And hast made us unto our God kings and priests : and 
 we shall reign on the earth. 
 
 The Revised Version renders this Song of Praise somewhat 
 differently : " Worthy art Thou to take the Book, and to open 
 the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase 
 unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, 
 and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our God 
 a kingdom and priests ; and they reign upon the earth." 
 
 According to the first reading the blessed choir praise God 
 for their own lot : according to the second, apparently for the 
 lot of others. Wide the difference ! 
 
 Nay, rather let us learn hence that it is only earthly narrow- 
 ness which insists on such difference as wide. Heavenly 
 large-heartedness seems scarcely to know me from tfue, but 
 in its measure reflects the Mind of Christ when He said : " AH
 
 1 82 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine ; and I am glorified in 
 them." By Whose Divine grace St. Paul antedates final 
 perfection for his Corinthian flock, when he writes : " That 
 there should be no schism in the body ; but that the members 
 should have the same care one for another. And whether 
 one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one 
 member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." 
 
 So that if, being " the body of Christ, and members in par- 
 ticular," we still rejoice not in the common joy, assuredly we 
 are straitened not in Him but in ourselves. 
 
 "And they sung a new song." The Church Militant is 
 ever looking for new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness. Under the sun there is nothing new : 
 of mortal man himself it is written, " That which hath been is 
 named already, and it is known that it is man " ; and even 
 concerning fierce searching individual temptation, St. Paul 
 seems to imply a general rule when he writes to his Corinthian 
 converts, " There hath no temptation taken you but such as 
 is common to man." 
 
 Yet human instinct craves after something new ; if not for 
 a new pleasure, at least for a new sensation. And sanctified 
 human instinct sets its hope above the sun : and while con- 
 tentedly walking in the old paths of daily duty and reiterated 
 discipline, knowing that for to-day the old is better ; yet waits 
 and hastens forward to be renewed, and strengthened to sustain 
 a new perfection, where the Church Triumphant sings " a new 
 song." 
 
 " It shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, 
 not day, nor night." 
 
 Lord Jesus, by Thy grace and gracious Will I will have my 
 pearls not here, but new there for entrance gates ; and my 
 gold not here, but new there for a footway ; and my jewels not 
 here, but new there for garnishing ; and my song not here, 
 but new there for Thy praise ; and my joy not here, but new 
 there for Thy visible Presence. Amen. 
 
 My heart is yearning : 
 
 Behold my yearning heart ; 
 
 And stoop low to satisfy 
 
 Its lonely beseeching cry, 
 For Thou its fulness art. 
 
 Turn, as once turning 
 Thou didst behold Thy Saint 
 In deadly extremity ; 
 Didst look, and win back to Thee 
 His will frighted and faint.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 183 
 
 Kindle my burning 
 
 From Thine unkindled Fire ; 
 
 Fill me with gifts and with grace 
 
 That I may behold Thy Face, 
 For Thee I desire. 
 
 My heart is yearning, 
 
 Yearning and thrilling thro' 
 For Thy Love mine own of old, 
 For Thy Love unknown untold, 
 
 Ever old, ever new. 
 
 " Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals 
 thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God 
 by Thy Blood." Our dear Lord is indeed everything to us. 
 Here He stands before us altogether lovely both as our 
 Redeemer and as our Example. 
 
 (Because Thy Love hath sought me, 
 All mine is Thine and Thine is mine : 
 
 Because Thy Blood hath bought me, 
 I will not be mine own but Thine. 
 
 I lift my heart to Thy Heart, 
 
 Thy Heart sole resting-place for mine : 
 
 Shall Thy Heart crave for my heart, 
 And shall not mine crave back for Thine?) 
 
 But wherein our Example ? Herein, I think. 
 
 He Who opens to mortal ken that Book of overwhelming 
 judgments, mighty marvels, joys inconceivable, is the Same 
 Who first tested by experience our wants and capacities, our 
 strength and weakness. Well may He know whereof we are 
 made Who assumed our flesh ; and remember that we are but 
 dust Who, though it was not possible for Him to see corruption, 
 lay down in a grave. He Who speaks to us is one of ourselves, 
 infinitely above us indeed, yet none the less on our level; 
 incomparably unlike, yet essentially like us. He is in sympathy 
 with us, He loves us, He has sacrificed Himself for us. 
 
 Any of us then who being older or better taught or placed 
 by Providence on any other vantage ground, are called upon to 
 educate or guide a neighbour ; as Aquila and Priscilla were 
 promoted to instruct the highly-gifted zealous Apollos, any 
 of us so empowered may here learn from our Master opening 
 the Sealed Book what graces ought to adorn us while exercising 
 our privilege : sympathy, love, on occasion self-sacrifice. 
 
 We learn this, inasmuch as Christ Himself is here acclaimed 
 " worthy " to unfold God's dealings, because ( u for ") He was 
 slain and redeemed us to God by His Blood.
 
 1 84 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Lord Jesus Merciful and Patient, grant us grace, I beseech 
 Thee, ever to teach in a teachable spirit ; learning along with 
 those we teach, and learning from them whenever Thou so 
 pleasest. Word of God, speak to us, speak by us, what Thcu 
 wilt Wisdom of God, instruct us, instruct by us if and whom 
 Thou wilt. Eternal Truth, reveal Thyself to us, reveal Thyself 
 by us in whatsoever measure Thou wilt. 
 
 " It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught 
 of God." 
 
 Lord Jesus, the price of my Redemption was Thy Blood, 
 Thy Life. Help me to love Thee. 
 
 O Lord God, hear the silence of each soul, 
 
 Its cry unutterable of ruth and shame, 
 
 Its voicelessness of self-contempt and blame : 
 Nor suffer harp and palm and aureole 
 Of multitudes who praise Thee at the goal, 
 
 To set aside Thy poor and blind and lame ; 
 
 Nor blazing Seraphs utterly to outflame 
 The spark that flies up from each earthly coal. 
 My price Thy priceless Blood ; and therefore I 
 
 Price of Thy priceless Blood am precious so 
 That good things love me in their love of Thee : 
 I comprehend not why Thou lovedst me 
 
 With Thy so mighty Love ; but this I know, 
 No man hath greater love than thus to die. 
 
 " Hast redeemed us to God." " What ? know ye not that 
 your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, 
 which ye have of God, and ye are not your own ? For ye are 
 bought with a price : therefore glorify God in your body, and 
 in your spirit, which are God's." 
 
 Let not the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why 
 hast Thou made me thus? It pleased Christ to redeem us 
 whole, whence we know that our whole being is capable of 
 serving God acceptably. Our body, our soul, our spirit, all 
 are His and endowed for His service. 
 
 The body is a burden. "The corruptible body presseth 
 down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the 
 mind that museth upon many things." But for it we should 
 escape aches, pains, death : this is its least and lowest burden- 
 someness. But for it we should abide impervious to sundry 
 temptations, and not merely impervious but absolutely irr- 
 spective of them : this is an incalculable augment of its burden. 
 Moreover we are certified that flesh and blood cannot inherit 
 the Kingdom of God : so that after lifelong toil and trouble in
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 185 
 
 cherishing and disciplining this burdensome body, it must be 
 "changed" before man can arrive at perfection. 
 
 But Thou, Lord Christ, didst bear a heavier burden for our 
 sake, even our guilt : a burden incapable of salutary discipline ; 
 intolerable to us who incurred it, and were it possible (as it 
 would seem) all but intolerable to Thee. Thus didst Thou for 
 us, for me. Love bore Thy burden which was mine : love, 
 Thou sustaining me, shall bear my burden which is my own. 
 
 And s : nce it is " to God " that we are redeemed, our very 
 dust may well be dear in our own sight as it is in His. 
 
 "Out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." 
 Kindred, tongue, people, nation, will not (it appears) be 
 obliterated from the Communion of Saints. Since in that 
 blessed company similarities and varieties will alike become 
 bonds of affection, motives of sympathy, we see as in a glass 
 what they should even now already be to us who are militant 
 here on earth. For earth holds heaven in the bud ; our per- 
 fection there has to be developed out of our imperfection 
 here; neither in heaven nor on earth, neither to-day nor to- 
 morrow, neither by God nor by man, will grapes be gathered 
 of thorns, or figs of thistles. 
 
 By grace love of kindred learns to embrace the whole human 
 family. Language discriminates into groups; whilst speech, 
 man's universal heritage, by grace brings home to our hearts the 
 world-width of brotherhood. By grace the concentrated, T 
 dwell among mine own people, expands until we also say with 
 delighted welcome, Thy people shall be my people. By grace 
 nations become bound and welded together in the unifying 
 Presence of God (see Zech. viii. 20 23). 
 
 By grace; but not by nature. Now even kindred often 
 lack warmth, tongues make discord, peoples encroach on one 
 another, nations learn and practise war. Lord, forgive and 
 help us. 
 
 A lesson against antipathies. Every kindred, every tongue, 
 every people, every nation, promises to be represented there 
 and associate there : French with Germans, Italians with 
 Austrians, English with Irish, whites with blacks, all ranks with 
 all ranks, all men with all men, an alarum against antipathies ! 
 
 Saints are ready to receive all sinners : all sinners are not 
 ready to receive saints. Abraham doubtless would have re- 
 ceived into his bosom Dives his " son " as well as Lazarus : it 
 was Dives who having held aloof from Lazarus in one world, 
 was set down still more aloof from him in the other. 
 
 Much of earth will find no entrance into heaven. Not
 
 1 86 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 sin alone : things which here have been allowable, inevitable, 
 even expedient, will yet have to perish in the using. 
 
 To cling tenaciously to such as these is disproportionate, to 
 cling passionately is idolatrous. God, Who alone can, help us 
 to refrain our soul and keep it low like as a child that is 
 weaned from his mother. 
 
 Meanwhile, if what I dwell upon, picture to myself, turn to, 
 crave after, am overjoyed at possessing or acquiring, cannot 
 be comforted in lacking or losing, be after all no more than 
 something which must perish in the using; my own words 
 condemn me. 
 
 From worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator ; from 
 striving to serve two masters ; 
 
 Deliver us, Lord Jesus. 
 
 From laying up treasure for ourselves without being rich toward God ; 
 from laying up treasures on earth and not in heaven ; 
 
 Deliver us, Lord Jesus. 
 
 From building on the sand and not on the rock ; from gaining though it 
 were the whole world and losing our own soul ; 
 Deliver us, Lord Jesus. 
 
 From cleaving to anything apart from Thee ; from loving anything in- 
 compatible with Thee ; 
 
 Deliver us, Lord Jesus. 
 
 Until the day break and the shadows flee away ; until we awake up after 
 Thy likeness and are satisfied therewith ; 
 
 Deliver us, Lord Jesus. Amen and Amen. 
 
 They throng from the east and the west, 
 The north and the south with a song ; 
 To golden abodes of their rest 
 They throng. 
 
 Eternity stretches out long : 
 Time, brief at its worst or its best, 
 Will quit them of ruin and wrong. 
 
 A rainbow aloft for their crest, 
 
 A palm for their weakness made strong I 
 As doves breast all winds to their nest, 
 They throng. 
 
 "And hast made us unto our God kings and priests." 
 Christ the King of kings hath kings for subjects ; Christ the 
 High Priest for ever hath priests for ministers ; kings and 
 priests unto His Father and our Father, unto His God and 
 our God. Peaceable kings, infallible priests. 
 
 Lord, give us grace to seek peace and ensue it, holding fast 
 Thy truth in a pure conscience; to serve Thee meekly on 
 earth, gloriously in heaven, well pleasingly now and for ever- 
 more. For our Redeemer's sake. Amen,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 187 
 
 "And we shall reign on the earth." Now, a trial ; then, a 
 reward. Now all earthly thrones are so far like King Herod's 
 that from them, as from the basest seat, one single step leads 
 to worms and corruption. Now earthly crowns are indeed of 
 gold and precious stones but, like one of yore, load as it were 
 a talent's weight on the head of the wearer. Not so the far 
 more exceeding and eternal weight of glory awaiting the better 
 life in Christ's triumphant kingdom. Thrones not precarious, 
 crowns not burdensome, in an universal peace : Ephraim no 
 more envying Judah, nor Judah vexing Ephraim. 
 
 11. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels 
 round about the Throne and the beasts and the elders : 
 and the number of them was ten thousand times ten 
 thousand, and thousands of thousands ; 
 
 Thought fails before " the number of them " : no simile, no 
 symbol, conveys it to me. I suppose if every single thing I 
 have ever looked upon had been an Angel, yet all together 
 they might not sum up " the number of the fourth part " of 
 that celestial holy nation. Around the Throne and the Living 
 Creatures and the Elders they form a ring more glorious than 
 of fiery opals, they form a garland more lovely than of roses. 
 
 How know I that they are lovely and glorious ? I a sinner 
 know it, because certified that they have never sinned. Created 
 loveliness and lustre can be defaced by sin only. Every faith- 
 fully good creature abides in its degree as a mirror of God. 
 
 I dwell hopefully and aspiringly on the assurance that man 
 having been made a little lower than the Angels will one day 
 be made equal to them. But who are mounting to such 
 promotion ? Not I, if I grudge them their present exceeding 
 highness, if I would lower superiority to my baseness, instead 
 of by help of grace ascending to its level, if wincing under 
 inferiority I rankle against excellence. David exhorts us not 
 to fret ourselves because of evil-doers : alas ! he writes not 
 down to the standard of those who fret themselves because of 
 the upright. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Who for love of us wast once made a little lower 
 than Thine own Angels ; make us, I pray Thee, for love of Thee 
 sacrificers of self, delighters in goodness, companions of all 
 who fear Thee : lest we should never see Thee as Thou art, 
 nor have part and lot with Thee. 
 
 "Round about." In heavenly assemblies to encircle is as it 
 were to embrace, to embrace is to love. Created love finite 
 although unnumbered embraces its Creator, while abiding
 
 1 88 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 within the Everlasting Arms which above, around, underneath, 
 hold it in the embrace of Infinite Uncreated Love. 
 
 Loid God Almighty, suffer us not to withdraw from the 
 embrace of Thy Love. Thy Love our consolation, Thy strong 
 Love our safeguard, we sorely need. For oftentimes our 
 contrarieties chill human love, leaving us lonely as sparrow 
 on housetop, owl in desert, pelican in wilderness. Lord of 
 Patience and Consolation, deign to fetch us back out of the 
 loneliness of our perversity into meek charity with all. Then 
 will our desolation not be wholly desolate, though we bear the 
 reproach of our youth alone with Thee and keeping silence. 
 For Jesus Christ's sake, ever Patient. Amen. 
 
 12. Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was 
 slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
 strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. 
 
 " Saying." The Elders sang, the Angels say. Throughout 
 this Book of Revelation it is invariably (if I mistake not) the 
 redeemed who sing. Nor elsewhere in Holy Scripture do I 
 recall any mention of angelic songs ; unless we except " The 
 morning stars sang together," or "Sing, O ye heavens . . . 
 Sing, O heavens." Yet who can think of Angels and not 
 associate them with heavenly harmonies ? Perhaps their speech 
 is song. 
 
 The Angels render glory to the Lamb inasmuch as He was 
 slain. Unlike the elders they say not wherefore, but are 
 content simply to ascribe to Him all worthiness. They form 
 the outer ring, others the inner. Thus standing without, they 
 worship Him for gifts which He receives haply for others 
 rather than for them. It is enough for them to fulfil His 
 commandments, hearken unto the voice of His word 5 ;, do His 
 pleasure. As friends of the Bridegroom they stand without, 
 rejoicing greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice : this their 
 joy therefore is fulfilled. 
 
 In unselfed ecstasy they exult in that which is another man's, 
 thereby glorifying God with that which is their own. Exalted 
 on so eminent a pinnacle of the Temple they stand firm and 
 cast not themselves down. 
 
 What grace sustains them ? Greater grace than is lavished 
 on us? 
 
 Grace does its natural work in upholding the upright : its 
 supernatural work (if I may so say) in upraising the fallen. 
 This it does for us, that for them. 
 
 O Lord their God and ours, while Thou wilt and to whatso-
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 189 
 
 ever point Thou wilt make Thy holy Angels excel and shame 
 us by gifts and glories : only let not Thy grace multiplied 
 towards ourselves bear in us less fruit of love. For Jesus 
 Christ's sake, slain for us. Amen. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Who wert pleased to live for us ; make us 
 righteous : to die for us ; make us holy : to rise again for us ; 
 make us glorious. 
 
 God the Son once of free will assumed the form of a servant, 
 therefore and for evermore is He worthy of power, once for 
 our sakes- He became poor, therefore of riches, once He 
 thought as a child, therefore of wisdom, once He was slain 
 through weakness, therefore of strength, once He endured the 
 Cross, therefore of glory, once, yea many times He was 
 contradicted, reviled, blasphemed, therefore of blessing. 
 
 As Son of God these were always His in plenitude of per- 
 fection. As Son of Man He earned and receives them : for 
 Himself, but not for Himself alone ; for Himself as Head of 
 mankind, for mankind as His members. 
 
 We must be congruous members of our Divine Head if we 
 desire to share His beatitude ; we must tread the same steps if 
 we aspire to the same goal. Wherefore to serve becomes a 
 privilege ; to lack, an endowment ; to think simply, a profitable 
 exercise ; to be sensible of weakness, a safeguard ; to undergo 
 shame, a medicine ; to endure provocations, a stimulus to 
 prayer. 
 
 This reverses the world's judgment; but the world and its 
 lust are to pass away. 
 
 The world, what a world, ah me ! 
 
 Mouldy, wormeaten, grey : 
 Vain as a leaf from a tree, 
 
 As a fading day, 
 As veriest vanity, 
 
 As the froth and the spray 
 Of the hollow-billowed sea, 
 As what was and shall not be, 
 
 As what is and passes away. 
 
 13. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, 
 and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and 
 all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing-, and 
 honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that 
 sitteth upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb for ever 
 and ever. 
 
 Absolute unanimity amongst all creatures. Though one 
 have more, another less, all swell the hymn of unalloyed,
 
 190 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 unabated triumph. If stones also are crying out, it is not 
 because any in heaven or on earth hold their peace : if those 
 who still draw mortal breath speak, they supersede not voices 
 from under the earth and from the sea. The present heaven and 
 present earth must pass away, but meanwhile they praise God : 
 the sea must be no more to morrow, yet to-day it magnifies its 
 Maker. 
 
 Since all Holy Scriptures are written for our learning, this 
 thirteenth verse cannot but be meet for us to ponder over. 
 And it strikes me that whoever conscientiously and unflinch- 
 ingly puts and keeps himself in harmony with this text, must 
 find that for practical purposes even predestination itself is 
 shorn of difficulties and terrors. For here we behold things 
 transitory in company with things permanent uplifting praises : 
 the former utilizing for praise the only time they have ; the 
 latter for identical praise anticipating the eternity which awaits 
 them. This is to take our Master at His word when He said : 
 "Take therefore no thought for the morrow : for the morrow 
 shall take thought for the things of itself." This is with Job to 
 hold fast integrity come what may. This is with Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abed-nego to silence the adversary : " O Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. 
 If it be so, our God Whom we serve is able to deliver us from 
 the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine 
 hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king,, that 
 we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image 
 which thou hast set up." 
 
 " Go thou thy way till the end be." 
 
 For "power" the Revised Version substitutes "dominion," 
 thereby recalling very pointedly our risen Lord's words to the 
 eleven ; in which passage the Authorized Version again uses 
 "power," which the Revised Version replaces by "authority ": 
 " All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye 
 therefore, and teach all nations . . . and, lo, I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world." 
 
 "Unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 
 Lamb." Lord Jesus, as Thou with the Eternal Father and the 
 Eternal Spirit art One in Thy Godhead, deign, I pray Thee, to 
 be One with Them in our humble apprehension and love ; that 
 we may believe and feel that there is One Lord, One God, One 
 Love, wherein to repose our hearts, souls, spirits. Amen. 
 
 " For ever and ever." The Greek words (see margin of 
 Revised Version) mean literally " unto the ages of the ages." 
 This seems to condescend to our rooted habit of computation,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP 191 
 
 measurement, estimate. An age we can realize : an age of 
 ages (where each year is represented by an age ?) we can in 
 some sort imagine : and the vague undefined plural number 
 conveys to us endlessness. Yet (if it be not irreverent to think 
 so) I fancy that to some " for ever and ever," or, as I suppose 
 one might equally express it, " for always and always," might 
 appear if not more like endlessness yet to be more like eternity, if 
 such a distinction may be assumed : because eternity having 
 neither beginning nor middle nor end, seems to exhibit dura- 
 tion without sequence. 
 
 But in this passage where " unto the ages of the ages " is the 
 phrase actually employed, I observe its adaptation to the matter 
 in hand. All creatures, having had a beginning, speak in 
 character if speaking with a birthright sense of time. And the 
 Eternal Son of God, to Whom as Lamb of God the praise is 
 addressed, had under that aspect even He Himself likewise a 
 beginning : " When the fulness of the time was come, God 
 sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to 
 redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the 
 adoption of sons." 
 
 Voices from above and from beneath, 
 
 Voices of creation near and far, 
 Voices out of life and out of death, 
 
 Out of measureless space, 
 Sun, moon, star, 
 
 In oneness of contentment offering praise. 
 
 Heaven and earth and sea jubilant, 
 
 Jubilant all things that dwell therein ; 
 Filled to fullest overflow they chant, 
 
 Still roll onward, swell, 
 Slill begin, 
 Never flagging praise interminable. 
 
 Thou who must fall silent in a while, 
 
 Chant thy sweetest, gladdest best at once ; 
 Sun thyself to-day, keep peace and smile ; 
 
 By love upward send 
 Orisons, 
 Accounting love thy lot and love thine end. 
 
 14. And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and 
 twenty elders fell down and worshipped Him that 
 liveth for ever and ever. 
 
 These Living Creatures which appear as if in some sort a 
 compendium of animated nature, answer " Amen " itself a 
 summing up of praise. The Throne whereon He sitteth Who
 
 192 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 jud^eth right, answers by their voice " Amen " to all His 
 decrees and to all which He permits. Strength in the " Lion," 
 acceptableness in the " Calf," intelligence in the " Man," lofti- 
 ness in the "Eagle," every good gift and every perfect gift 
 answers "Amen," to the praise and glory of the Father of 
 Lights whence they came down. 
 
 Amen, O Lord : " dust to dust " also ascribeth to Thee glory. 
 From the ends of the earth, from a heart in heaviness, from a 
 "mouth in the dust " by foretaste of death, glory be to God on 
 high, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
 We who have no door set open before us into visible Heaven, 
 may yet look in with St. John's eyes. And if with his heart as 
 well as with his eyes, then shall we too be rapt into celestial 
 regions and among harmonies superhuman. With Elders our 
 sp.rits may already fall prostrate in worship, with Living 
 Creatures our wills may at once and for ever answer Amen. 
 
 Amen, which signifies both So it is and So be it. God for 
 Jesus' sake grant us grace now and for evermore to answer 
 Amen to His perfect Will and Ways.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1. And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and 
 I heard as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four 
 beasts saying, Come and see. 
 
 He who had been redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, he 
 in whose stead Christ had died, he whom Jesus loved, " saw when 
 the Lamb opened one of the seals." What that Wise Master 
 and Gracious Lord did St. John could endure to behold, how- 
 ever awful, terrible, overwhelming in the result. He could 
 endure because he was beloved and because he loved. 
 
 Lord, me also Thou hast redeemed by Thy Blood, in my 
 stead also Thou hast died, me also Thou lovest (for which sinner 
 hast Thou not loved ?) ; yet I exceedingly fear and quake lest I 
 should fall away. Thou hast not ceased to be my Wise Master 
 and my Gracious Lord ; Thou lovest as Thou hast ever loved ; 
 alas, it is I who love not as St. John loved. 
 
 Son of God, have mercy upon us. O Lord, let Thy mercy 
 be showered upon us. O Lord, have mercy upon us ; have 
 mercy upon us. 
 
 Love still is Love, and doeth all things well, 
 Whether he show me heaven or hell, 
 
 Or earth in her decay 
 
 Passing away 
 
 On a day. 
 
 Love still is Love, tho' He should say, " Depart," 
 And break my incorrigible heart, 
 
 And set me out of sight 
 
 Widowed of light 
 
 In the night. 
 
 Love still is Love, is Love, if He should say, 
 " Come " on that uttermost dread day , 
 
 44 Come " unto very me, 
 
 41 Come \vhere I be, 
 
 Come and see." 
 
 N
 
 i94 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Love still is Love, whatever comes to pass : 
 O Only Love, make me Thy glass, 
 
 Thy pleasure to fulfil 
 
 By loving still 
 
 Come what will. 
 
 " Opened one of the seals." Not the whole seven at once ; 
 not forthwith to recompense all, or to make an end of all 
 consuming as in a moment. Rather as it were remonstrating 
 with mankind again and again : " The day of the Lord is great 
 and very terrible ; and who can abide it ? Therefore also now, 
 saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart," and 
 saying especially concerning the elect, as of old concerning 
 Israel : " In measure when it shooteth forth, Thou wilt debate 
 with it : He stayeth His rough wind in the day of the east 
 wind." 
 
 So the waters of the Deluge mounted stage by stage, affording 
 time not for the bitterness of death only, but also (please God !) 
 for the salutary bitterness of repentance in sight of death. 
 
 O Merciful Redeemer, grant us repentance early in the 
 morning, repentance at the third hour, at the sixth hour, at the 
 ninth hour. O Most Merciful Saviour, grant us repentance 
 at the eleventh hour ; grant us the eleventh hour for repentance. 
 According to Thy Mercy saving us, Thou Who hast died our 
 death and paid our penalty. 
 
 " As it were the noise of thunder." That is, as appears, the 
 voice of one of the Living Creatures. If we may assume that 
 these speak in the order in which they are first named, then 
 this thunderous voice appertains to him of the leonine aspect, 
 with whom such a sound seems congruous. I have read how 
 the natural lion setting his face toward the ground utters a tre- 
 mendous reverberant roar far reaching and appalling : this 
 celestial " Lion " now sets his face earthwards and summons all 
 within hearing to " Come and see." For surely his word is not 
 to St. John exclusively, but through him to us upon whom the 
 ends of the world are come. 
 
 But if those four " Living Creatures" rest not day and night, 
 saying, " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, Which Was, and 
 Is, and Is to come " : how is it that one after another they now 
 say " Come and see " ? Perhaps partly to show us that charitable 
 work interrupts not the flow of adoration. [Yet in such a case 
 I must not be rash to utter anything with my mouth : for these 
 are problems of heaven, while I am upon earth ; therefore 
 should my words be few.] 
 
 O Lord, Who hast proclaimed by Thy servant, " Come and
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 195 
 
 see," blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and receivest 
 unto Thee. Show us, I beseech Thee, wonderful things in 
 Thy righteousness, O God of our salvation : Thou that art the 
 hope of all the ends of the earth. For Jesus Christ's sake. 
 Amen. 
 
 St. Paul has written: " Let the woman learn in silence with 
 all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach." Yet else- 
 where he wrote : " I call to remembrance the unfeigned 
 faith . . . which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy 
 mother Eunice." 
 
 To expound prophecy lies of course beyond my power, and 
 not within my wish. But the symbolic forms of prophecy being 
 set before all eyes, must be so set for some purpose : to inves- 
 tigate them may not make us wise as serpents ; yet ought by 
 promoting faith, fear, hope, love, to aid in making us harmless 
 as doves. " Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, 
 that he may run that readeth it": God helping us, we all 
 great and small can and will run. 
 
 A commentator I have turned to explains the remainder of 
 this chapter as referring to the establishment on earth of 
 Christ's Kingdom, and to successive events in the history 
 of imperial 'Rome. But since in Holy Scripture personage 
 after personage, crisis after crisis, judgment after judgment, 
 becomes at various points typical of some greater personage, 
 crisis, judgment, thereafter to be looked for : I venture to 
 trust that throughout this Book of Revelations underlying or 
 parallel with the primary meaning, is often discernible a further 
 signification which may be unfolded to us even while the 
 other continues occult. 
 
 Nor surely need an ignorant man be accounted any great 
 loser (so long as ignorance be his misfortune, not his fault) if 
 Bible history becomes less his chronicle of individuals and 
 nations than his parable of Christ and mankind. Abel will 
 speak better things than ever when he is lost sight of in Christ. 
 Isaac will be glorified when by his submission to death Christ 
 is manifested and remembered. Moses will be sufficed when 
 the Prophet like unto him supersedes him, Melchizedek and 
 Aaron will vanish gloriously when by them Christ stands 
 revealed : so David before his Son and Lord : so Solomon 
 before the Sole Builder and Maker. The Paschal Lamb, the 
 Scapegoat, will have fulfilled their end when they lead a wor- 
 shipper to Christ : the Day of Atonement will avail him to 
 whom it shadows forth Good Friday. The Deluge engulfing 
 the old world, the eternal fire of the Cities of the plain, the
 
 196 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 fall of Jericho, of Assyria, of Babylon, the rejection of ancient 
 Israel, will make wise unto salvation him to whom they bring 
 home the final Day of account ; and who with condemned 
 Achan gives God the glory, and with ruined Manasseh betakes 
 himself to penitence and prayer. 
 
 Glory be to Thee O God, with Whom are the treasures of 
 wisdom and knowledge, and Who impartest to every man 
 severally as Thou wilt. Glory be to Thee in the Church by 
 Christ Jesus for ever and ever. 
 
 2. And I saw, and behold a white horse : and He that sat 
 on him had a bow ; and a crown was given unto Him : 
 and He went forth conquering, and to conquer. 
 
 This verse, having been interpreted of our Blessed Lord and 
 of the outset of His Gospel, harmonizes with the Psalmist's 
 apostrophe : " Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Most 
 Mighty, with Thy glory and Thy majesty. And in Thy 
 majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness 
 and righteousness ; and Thy right hand shall teach Thee 
 terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the 
 King's enemies ; whereby the people fall under Thee." Elisha 
 also prophesied victory to Israel, in the words : " The arrow of 
 the Lord's deliverance " ; thus suggesting a type of this vision. 
 
 The horse (agent or vehicle of the rider) is white, the sign of 
 innocence ; snowing how above His fellows our Lord is He 
 Who, never doing evil that good may come, works by pure un- 
 mixed good to a good end. Horses were allowed only under 
 restriction to ancient Israel ; but now we see one advanced to 
 signal honour ; and are thus reminded that all things whereby 
 they can serve God are lawful to Christians, who must nof call 
 any such creature common or unclean. The bow recalls to us 
 the paternal blessing of Joseph, himself a hero of purity and 
 -eminent type of Christ : " Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a 
 fruitful bough by a well : whose branches run over the wall : 
 the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated 
 him : but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands 
 were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob ; 
 (from thence is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel :) even by the 
 God of thy father, Who shall help thee ; and by the Almighty, 
 Who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings 
 of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the 
 womb : the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the 
 blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the ever-
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 197 
 
 lasting hills : they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on 
 the crown of the head of him that was separate from his 
 brethren." And again Job's protest of integrity which exhibits 
 him also as a type of Christ, by its mention of diadem 
 (though here the word is crown) and bow accords with the 
 present vision : " When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; 
 and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me : because I 
 delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that 
 had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to 
 perish came upon me : and I caused the widow's heart to sing 
 for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me : my judg- 
 ment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, 
 and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor : and 
 the cause which I knew not I searched out. And I brake the 
 jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth . . . 
 My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand." 
 
 " And a crown was given unto Him." Christ is the Priest 
 Whose Self-oblation has found acceptance, the Captain Whose 
 arm has brought salvation to His followers : " put the holy 
 crown upon the mitre." This Crown given appears to be not 
 the inalienable Crown of Supreme Divine Majesty, but rather 
 the Crown of reinstated Human Royalty awarded by God to 
 Man. It is the Crown of the only One born of woman Who in 
 absolute perfection has striven lawfully and run well. It is 
 the Mediatorial Crown honoured in heaven and on earth. 
 
 But receiveth He no Crown except from God ? Yes, verily. 
 " Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon 
 with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day 
 of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart." 
 Redeemed humanity crowns her beloved Son and Champion 
 as her King for ever. Christ being God and Man is constituted 
 between God and men the indissoluble link on whom descend 
 blessings of heaven above, to Whom ascend blessings of the 
 deep that lieth under, blessings unto the utmost bound of the 
 everlasting hills. 
 
 Moreover inspired wisdom teaches us that " a virtuous woman 
 is a crown to her husband." Which suggests that in the 
 Mystical Marriage between Christ and the Church (whereof 
 each earthly marriage is emblematic) the Bride is " crown " to 
 the Bridegroom, accounted by His love not disgrace or drawback, 
 but dignity and complement. " How great is His Goodness, 
 and how great is His Beauty ! " 
 
 " But she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones." 
 For not only do all the members in the One Body influence
 
 198 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 each other, but even the Divine head is honoured or dishonoured 
 by them. Christ keep us, keep me, from being " as rottenness." 
 
 Lord, of Whom a certain young man worshipping Thee once 
 asked, What lack I yet ? we now worshipping Thee are bold 
 rather to ask, What lackest Thou ? Inasmuch as Thou hast said, 
 Give Me thy heart : Lord, only grant us grace to give our hearts 
 to Thee ; and hold Thou them fast. Then in Thy good pleasure 
 shall we lack nothing. 
 
 "And He went forth conquering and to conquer." Experi- 
 ence attests conquering: faith protests and to conquer. Experi- 
 ence bears noble witness ; but faith yet more noble, meets God 
 as it were half-way and becomes His herald. 
 
 Experience follows and gives thanks ; faith precedes and 
 offers praise. Experience keeps pace with time ; faith out- 
 stripping time forestalls eternity. 
 
 Faith is the Elias of virtues, girt up and running before her 
 advancing King. Faith is the St. John Baptist of graces, her 
 joy fulfilled without sight. 
 
 Faith and Hope are wings to Love, 
 Silver wings to golden dove. 
 
 Wings bear the bird heavenward : the bird animates, impels, 
 directs the wings. 
 
 Bird without wings might do something : wings without bird 
 could do nothing. 
 
 " And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but the 
 greatest of these is charity." 
 
 Experience bows a sweet contented face, 
 Still setting to her seal that God is true : 
 Beneath the sun, she knows, is nothing new ; 
 
 AH things that go return with measured pace, 
 
 Winds, rivers, man's still recommencing race : 
 While Hope beyond earth's circle strains her view, 
 Past sun and moon and rain and rainbow too, 
 
 Enamoured of unseen eternal grace. 
 
 Experience saith, " My God doth all things well " ; 
 And for the morrow taketh little care, 
 
 Such peace and patience garrison her soul : 
 While Hope who never yet hath eyed the goal, 
 With arms flung forth and backward floating hair 
 
 Touches, embraces, hugs the invisible. 
 
 This Who goeth forth conquering and to conquer is He, 
 " Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." 
 Before there was any to resist His Will He went forth to bless 
 in the lovely work of creation. He went forth for His own 
 sake and for His creature's sake,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 199 
 
 But evil having marred all, He again went forth for His own 
 sake and for ours conquering and to conquer. He went forth 
 from heaven to Bethlehem, from Jerusalem to Calvary without 
 the gate, from the Sepulchre by way of Olivet back to 
 Heaven. As He went He conquered sin and death for us, and 
 then sat down on the Right Hand of the Majesty on High. 
 
 Now once more He goes forth, for us indeed but also with 
 us one by one, to conquer sin and death in each separate 
 human soul. He conquers with us ; He offers not to conquer 
 without us. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good." 
 
 Neither has it pleased Him to conquer the heathen for His 
 inheritance without the co-operation of their elder brethren in 
 Christ. Some Christians are called to become literal Evangel- 
 ists, and every Christian is at the least a minor missionary : 
 example preaches more powerfully than words, intercession 
 converts as mightily as sermons, alms supply the sinews of 
 that war whose weapons are not carnal. 
 
 If all our forefathers had preached adequately by word and 
 by example, wrestled in intercession, invested liberally in alms, 
 spent themselves in missionary enterprise or at least in 
 missionary zeal, doubtless Christ would have gone forth 
 mightily with them to annex nations and races. It might have 
 come to pass as Isaiah records : " The isles saw it, and feared ; 
 the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came. They 
 helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his 
 brother, Be of good courage." 
 
 If our forefathers had then lived worthy of their vocation, 
 thus it might have been. If we their children will now live 
 worthy of ours, thus it yet may be. 
 
 A cowardly Christian shrinking from martyrdom risks suicide. 
 
 A scandalous Christian is Satan's right hand to strengthen 
 evil. 
 
 An inconsistent Christian is his left hand to weaken good. 
 
 My God, Thou Who seest, knowest, siftest souls : how dare 
 I look elsewhere and not within for cowardice, scandal, in- 
 consistency, while Thou takest account of me and under- 
 standest me altogether? 
 
 Thou Who knowest me, be merciful unto me and correct 
 me. 
 
 Thou Who knowest all, be merciful unto all and perfect us. 
 
 Amen, Gracious Lord Jesus, Amen. 
 
 3. And when He had opened the second seal, I heard the 
 second beast say, Come and see.
 
 200 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The second living Creature resembled a Calf, one of the 
 animals devoted to sacrifice, and thus an emblem of mercy. 
 He summons St. John to contemplate an awful vision, as it 
 would seem a mighty scourge sent in judgment. Yet is it mercy 
 that gives the call, even while the sight is appalling to flesh 
 and blood. 
 
 God in wrath remembers mercy. 
 
 Lord Jesus, while we tremble at Thy wrath, uphold us to 
 confide in Thy mercy : for they that hope in Thee shall not 
 be ashamed. 
 
 4. And there went out another horse that was red : and 
 power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace 
 from the earth, and that they should kill one another : 
 and there was given unto him a great sword. 
 
 Red, the tint of blood ; the horse and his rider seem an 
 impersonation of bloodshed. Our comfort is that the power 
 was given and the great sword given ; recalling our Lord's own 
 word to Pilate : "Thou couldest have no power at all against 
 Me, except it were given thee from above." 
 
 Moreover, all follows : nothing now can precede, any more 
 than it ever could outrun, our Saviour. Whatever Red Sea 
 we are passing through or have still to pass, He has passed 
 through it before us : even He Who in vision was beheld as 
 red in His apparel when He made the depths of the sea a way 
 for the ransomed to pass over. 
 
 Is there any peace under that domination ordained " to take 
 peace from the earth " ? There remains that peace which the 
 world neither gives nor takes away. Nothing happens irre- 
 spective of God's Will ; no sword can be unsheathed, unless 
 He first have said : " Sword, go through the land." 
 
 Once too our Lord declared : " I came not to send peace, 
 but a sword." Yet a sword of Christ's sending brings peace 
 when welcomed for His sake and faced in His strength. Or 
 even though the sword be Satan's sword, yet to ourselves it 
 will become the sword of the Lord if whilst being slain we 
 trust in Him. 
 
 But alas ! for those who "kill one another" filling up the 
 measure of their fathers. Haman brought enlargement and 
 great joy to captive Israel, nevertheless he with his sons 
 miserably perished. 
 
 It is no part of duty to call that small which the Voice of 
 Inspiration calls great. " Great " is the sword predicted : 
 great must be the Church's searchings of heart if she would
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 201 
 
 be prepared with weapons not carnal to cope with and over- 
 come that sword. Of yore " for the divisions of Reuben there 
 were great searchings of heart " : we too have shameful 
 divisions to our incalculable loss and hindrance, and woe is us 
 if we undergo not proportionate self-searchings. "Let us 
 search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. Let us 
 lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens." 
 
 "If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom 
 cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that 
 house cannot stand." 
 
 Such is Love, it comforts in extremity ; 
 
 Tho' a tempest rage around and rage above, 
 Tempest beyond tempest far as eye can see : 
 
 Such is Love, 
 
 That it simply heeds its mourning inward Dove, 
 Dove which craves contented for a home to be 
 Set amid the myrtles or an olive grove. 
 
 Dove-eyed Love contemplates the Twelve-fruited Tree, 
 Marks the bowing palms which worship as they move ; 
 
 Simply sayeth, simply prayeth, " All for me ! " 
 Such is Love. 
 
 5. And when He had opened the third seal, I heard the 
 third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and 
 lo a black horse ; and he that sat on him had a pair of 
 balances in his hand. 
 
 The third Living Creature exhibiting " a face as a man " 
 summons his human brother (and with him humankind at 
 large) to view the black horse and his rider. If the Calf may 
 be interpreted as symbolizing Divine Compassion, the Man 
 suggests (in this context) an embodiment if not of human yet 
 still of fellow-creaturely sympathy. 
 
 If it becomes celestial creatures not of our blood to concern 
 themselves for us ; surely we ourselves of one common stock, 
 one common family, should plan and pray and yearn over each 
 other. The coming scourge has been interpreted as chastising 
 man not directly in his spiritual nature, but through the flesh. 
 For the black horse and his rider are viewed as a figure of 
 famine. 
 
 Behold a funeral traversing earth ! " And they shall pass 
 through it, hardly bestead and hungry : and it shall come to pass 
 that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, . . . 
 and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth ; and
 
 202 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish ; and they 
 shall be driven to darkness." 
 
 Famine : yet not absolute foodlessness ; else, why the pair 
 of balances ? 
 
 But first let us note these Balances, the established insignia 
 of Justice. Injustice never has a voice in the counsels of 
 Providence : Justice always, except when silenced by Mercy. 
 Which Mercy, whilst to us sinners gratuitous, is yet Justice and 
 not Mercy to Him Who has taken our place, paid our penalty, 
 made good our deficiency ; even to Christ. To Whom be all 
 gratitude, praise, love, for ever and ever. 
 
 To resume. The balances suggest scarcity short of literal 
 nullity : hunger, but not necessarily starvation. Scarcity 
 imposes frugality, exactness ; a gathering up of fragments, with 
 thanksgiving because there remain fragments to gather. No 
 waste, latitude, margin ; no self-pampering can be tolerated, 
 but only a sustained self-denial : self must be stinted, selfish- 
 ness starved, to give to him that needeth. 
 
 And as the poor never cease out of the land and are in 
 various degrees standing representatives of famine, this self- 
 stinting seems after all to be the rule and standard of right 
 living; not a desperate exceptional resource, but a regular, 
 continual, plain duty. 
 
 When the pinch of famine comes they will be prepared to 
 bear it who already for charity's sake have learned and 
 practised to suffer hunger. They who have kept the Fast of 
 God's choosing by dealing their bread to the hungry will even 
 in extremity know Whom they have trusted : " Although the 
 fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ; 
 the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no 
 meat ; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall 
 be no herd in the stalls : yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will 
 joy in the God of my salvation." 
 
 "BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US." 
 
 I was hungry, and Thou feddest me ; 
 
 Yea, Thou gavest drink to slake my thirst : 
 O Lord, what love gift can I offer Thee 
 Who hast loved me first ? 
 
 Feed My hungry brethren for My sake ; 
 
 Give them drink, for love of them and Me : 
 Love them as I loved thee, when Bread I brake 
 In pure love of thee.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 203 
 
 Yea, Lord, I will serve them by Thy grace ; 
 
 Love Thee, seek Thee, in them ; wait ami pray : 
 Yet would I love Thyself, Lord, face to face, 
 Heart to heart, one day. 
 
 Let to-day fulfil its daily task, 
 
 Fill thy heart and hand to them and Me : 
 To-morrow thou shall ask, and shall not ask 
 Half I keep for thee. 
 
 God accepts dues as gifts. Man receives gifts as dues. 
 
 An eminent physician once told me that there are people 
 who would benefit in health by fasting : a secondary motive, yet 
 surely not an unlawful one. To perform a duty from a motive 
 which is not wrong, may prove a step towards performing it 
 from the motive which is right. To leave it unperformed seems 
 the last contrivance adapted to result in its performance. 
 
 6. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, 
 A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures 
 of barley for a penny ; and see thou hurt not the oil 
 and the wine. 
 
 Whatever historical circumstances may here be indicated, 
 the " Voice " which from the midst of the four Living Creatures 
 speaks authoritatively, tempering judgment with mercy, may 
 safely be listened to by us as the Divine Voice : for the Living 
 Creatures are described as in the midst of the Throne and 
 round about the Throne, and He is set in the Throne that 
 judge th right. 
 
 Discipline therefore, not inevitable destruction, may be 
 confidently looked for, except we be reprobate : at the utmost 
 " the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in 
 the day of the Lord Jesus." 
 
 A parable and prophecy of such severe tenderness was ages 
 before vouchsafed through the Prophet Hosea : " Then said 
 the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, 
 yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the 
 children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of 
 wine. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and 
 for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley : and I 
 said unto her, Thou shall abide for me many days . . . For 
 the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, 
 and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an 
 image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim : afterward 
 shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their 
 God, and David their king ; and shall fear the Lord and His
 
 204 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 goodness in the latter days." And earlier still Moses had 
 declared to Israel assembled on the threshold of Canaan : 
 " He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee 
 with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers 
 know ; that He might make thee know that man doth not live 
 by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of the Lord doth man live " with a portion of which text 
 our Blessed Saviour deigned to confute Satan in the wilderness. 
 
 " A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of 
 barley for a penny." A literal scarcity of material food : 
 spiritual food cannot so be purchased : " Ho, every one that 
 thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money ; 
 come ye, buy, and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk without 
 money and without price." 
 
 The next following clause in the verse under consideration 
 we may hopefully appropriate as guarding our spiritual 
 interests : " See thou hurt not the oil and the wine." Oil is a 
 symbol of that " Unction from the Holy One " bestowed 
 upon us when by Baptism we begin to live : Wine suggests 
 that blessed life-sustaining Sacrament which verily and indeed 
 feeds the faithful with the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 Happy we, if come what will that Table is still prepared 
 before us against them that trouble us : if the Anointing Oil 
 is not withheld from our children, nor from us our Cup of 
 Blessing. " The Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want." 
 
 If pursuing further such thoughts it be lawful to consider 
 this " Oil " and " Wine " as symbolic not only of the gifts but 
 also of "the Divine Givers, Who indeed give Themselves : then 
 may we reinforce hope by tenderness of grateful love, if so be 
 the word "hurt" intimates how God the Son and God the 
 Holy Spirit vouchsafe to account Themselves as of one Heart 
 and one Mind with the Communion of Saints ; so that what 
 hurts the elect in some inscrutable sense hurts Them, after 
 the manner of Christ's own express words : " Saul, Saul, why 
 persecutes! thou Me ? " and in harmony with the Apostolick 
 injunction : " Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." 
 
 Nevertheless the Prophet Amos predicted one period of 
 surpassing famine : " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord 
 God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of 
 bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the 
 Lord : and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the 
 north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the 
 word of the Lord, and shall not find it. In that day shall the 
 fair virgins and young men faint for thirst."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 205 
 
 From such extremity God preserve us, or out of such 
 extremity God recover us, for the all-availing sake of His Son 
 Jesus. Amen. 
 
 7. And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the 
 voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. 
 
 This fourth amongst the Living Creatures appears to be 
 the one " like a flying Eagle " assigned of old to St. John as 
 his evangelical symbol. 
 
 Not merely like an eagle, but like a flying eagle ; one soaring 
 or prompt to soar sunwards relinquishing earth for heaven, 
 mounting with ever-renewed strength, " forgetting those things 
 which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which 
 are before." Well may this lofty and gracious creature be the 
 one to summon the Eagle of the Apostolick College to behold : 
 for dread is the vision about to pass by, intolerable to flesh 
 and blood, endurable only by men whose citizenship is already 
 in heaven. 
 
 Yet by them gazed upon, dwelt upon, desired, embraced; 
 because they know that man cannot fully live except first he 
 die. Therefore with a good courage they say " to corruption, 
 Thou art my father : to the worm, Thou art my mother, and 
 my sister." Therefore not bound with fetters and chains, but 
 as free among the dead they oftentimes keep holy-day among 
 the tombs, cleaving unto Christ the Resurrection and the Life, 
 if by any means they may attain unto the resurrection of the 
 dead. 
 
 O Lord God Omniscient, I thank Thee on behalf of all 
 those who have not felt or who no longer are called to endure 
 the pang of bereavement. I thank Thee for ourselves, who 
 humbly trust that some we love rest safely in Paradise. Whom 
 grant us grace to follow. In the Name of Jesus Christ. 
 Amen. 
 
 Safe where I cannot lie yet, 
 
 Safe where I hope to lie too, 
 Safe from the fume and the fret ; 
 
 You, and you, 
 Whom I never forget. 
 
 Safe from the frost and the snow, 
 Safe from the storm and the sun j 
 
 Safe where the seeds wait to grow 
 One by one 
 
 And to come back in blow.
 
 206 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 8. And I looked, and behold a pale horse : and his name 
 that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. 
 And power was given unto them over the fourth part 
 of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and 
 with death, and with the beasts of the earth. 
 
 Pallor of a visible death, as whiteness of leprosy is whiteness 
 of death : leprosy is a type of sin, and the wages of sin is 
 death. "Before their face the people shall be much pained : 
 all faces shall gather blackness." 
 
 But not necessarily blackness of darkness for ever. Death 
 appears mounted on a horse, not on a throne : he arrives, he 
 passes by. And albeit there is one event to the righteous and 
 to the wicked ; yet the righteous even while rendering to Death 
 the things that are Death's enter their protest : " Rejoice not 
 against me, O mine enemy : when I fall, I shall arise : when I 
 sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I will bear 
 the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against 
 Him, until He plead my cause, and execute judgment for me : 
 He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold His 
 righteousness." 
 
 "And Hell followed with him." Hell, otherwise Hades: 
 Hades the coffin of mortality, the cradle of immortality. " An 
 end is come, the end is come : it watcheth for thee ; behold, 
 it is come." 
 
 Hades follows Death. Death reaps, Hades garners : Death 
 reaps, to sow ; Hades garnei s, to reproduce. 
 
 Our tender Lord encourages the faithful : " I say unto you 
 My friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after 
 that have no more that they can do." Death then is one of 
 those whom saints need not fear. And Hades includes Paradise. 
 
 Hades the intermediate abode appears (at least by a fanciful 
 conjecture) to be fitly illuminated by intermediate light, twilight 
 (otherwise, 'tween light). Twilight is one of two things : 
 evening twilight is the dying of light into darkness : morning 
 twilight, the vanishing of darkness into light. 
 
 God grant that to us it may prove the vanishing of darkness 
 into light, for the True Light's sake, Jesus Christ. 
 
 "There is hope in thine end" and my own fault it will be 
 if there is not hope in mine. 
 
 How know I that it looms lovely that land I have never seen, 
 With morning-glories and heartease and unexampled green, 
 With neither heat nor cold in the balm-redolent air? 
 Some of this, not all, I know : but this is so z 
 Christ is there.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 207 
 
 How know I that blessedness befalls who dwell in Paradise, 
 The outwearied hearts refreshing, rekindling the worn-out eyes ; 
 All souls singing, seeing, rejoicing everywhere ? 
 Nay, much more than this I know : for this is so : 
 Christ is there. 
 
 O Lord Chiist Whom having not seen I love and desire to love, 
 O Lord Christ Who lookest on me uncomely yet still Thy dove, 
 Take me to Thee in Paradise, Thine own made fair : 
 For whatever else I know, this thing is so : 
 Thou art there. 
 
 " And power was given unto them over the fourth part of 
 the earth." Once again our comfort is that the power is given ; 
 the Giver regulates the gift. " What ? shall we receive good 
 at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ? " said holy 
 Job : and in this we are expressly certified that he sinned not 
 with his lips. But for such an assurance and for other passages 
 of Holy Scripture one might have hesitated to call anything of 
 God's sending evil. 
 
 The " power " extended " over the fourth part of the earth," 
 but no further. Not over the whole earth, nor at all into the 
 other world ; nor indeed under the earth, where is God's Acre. 
 It is a surface scourge : kiss the rod, and thou shalt abide as 
 the profound sea whose surface is lashed and ploughed by 
 winds, but whose depths repose in unbroken calm. 
 
 Alas for shallow persons who are all surface ! 
 
 11 Behold, a sower went forth to sow ; and when he sowed, 
 some seeds . . . fell upon stony places, where they had not 
 much earth : and forthwith they sprung up, because they had 
 no deepness of earth : and when the sun was up, they were 
 scorched ; and because they had no root, they withered away . . . 
 He that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that 
 heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it ; yet hath he 
 not root in himself, but dureth for a while' : for when tribulation 
 or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is 
 offended." 
 
 Sorrow of saints is sorrow of a day, 
 
 Gladness of saints is gladness evermore i 
 Send on thy hope, send on thy will before 
 
 To chant God's praise along the narrow way. 
 
 Stir up His praises if the flesh would sway, 
 Exalt His praises if the world press sore, 
 Peal out His praises if black Satan roar 
 
 A hundred thousand lies to say them nay. 
 
 Devil and Death and Hades, threefold COR! 
 Not quickly broken, front thee to thy face ;
 
 208 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Front thou them with a face of tenfold flint : 
 Shout for the battle, David ! never stint 
 Body or breath or blood, but proof in grace 
 Die for thy Lord, as once for thee thy Lord. 
 
 " To kill with sword, . . . hunger, . . . death (or as in the 
 margin pestilence), . . . beasts of the earth." Ezekiel delivers 
 a corresponding prophecy : " The word of the Lord came 
 again to me, saying, Son of man, when the land sinneth against 
 Me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out Mine 
 hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, 
 and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast 
 from it ... If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the 
 land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may 
 pass through because of the beasts : . . . Or if I bring a sword 
 upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land ; so that 
 I cut off man and beast from it : ... Or if I send a pestilence 
 into that land, and pour out My fury upon it in blood, to cut 
 off from it man and beast : though Noah, Daniel, and Job, 
 were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver 
 neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own 
 souls by their righteousness. For thus saith the Lord God. 
 How much more when I send My four sore judgments upon 
 Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, 
 and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast ? " 
 
 If we may argue from the fuller prophecy to the briefer, we 
 admit in both (because in one) what the Psalmist recognized 
 and declared of old : " No man may deliver his brother : nor 
 make agreement unto God for him ; for it cost more to redeem 
 their souls : so that he must let that alone for ever ; yea, 
 though he live long : and see not the grave." This familiar 
 Prayer Book translation differs from the Bible Version ; but if 
 I may here safely follow it, it darkly and in part by a negative 
 affirms a Divine Mystery. For what " no man " can do, 
 Christ did ; and therefore cannot but be God as well as man. 
 And He did it not by living long and not seeing the grave, to 
 which no covenanted redemptive virtue was attached ; but by 
 being cut off out of the land of the living and making his 
 grave with the wicked. 
 
 True, the scourge threatened by Ezekiel, revealed to St. 
 John, is temporal, not eternal ; but since Noah, Daniel, Job, 
 availed not for the lesser salvation, much more could they not 
 avail for the greater. 
 
 What, Lord, have we then nothing but Thee ? Nothing out 
 of Me, all in Me. Amen, Lord.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 209 
 
 " Evil shall hunt the wicked person to overthrow him " : 
 but all in vain would it hunt the righteous man ; who being 
 even as the Mount Sion which may not be removed but 
 standeth fast for ever, echoes St. Paul's witness : " Who shall 
 separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or 
 distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
 sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than 
 conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, 
 that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
 powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
 depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from 
 the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 The sword has had its will of many a martyr, and yet has 
 despatched him to glory. Fasting devotees practise themselves 
 aforetime in famine. Pestilence damages not him who is 
 content to fall into the hand of the Lord. Prayer makes itself 
 heard out of the lion's mouth or from among the horns of the 
 unicorns. No antagonist can disconcert him to whom to live is 
 Christ and to die gain. 
 
 From any sword that would devour for ever, 
 
 Lord, guard us. 
 From any hunger which Thou wilt not fill with good things, 
 
 Lord, guard us. 
 From any sickness unto death and not for Thy glory, 
 
 Lord, guard us. 
 From evil beasts, 
 
 Lord, guard us. 
 
 From the venomous crooked serpent, from the roaring lion, from the 
 dragon and his angels, 
 
 Lord, guard us. 
 
 9. And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the 
 altar the souls of them that were slain for the word 
 of God, and for the testimony which they held : 
 
 " Do ye not know that . . . they which wait at the altar are 
 partakers with the altar ? " 
 
 These blessed martyrs verily waited at the Altar when once 
 they were offered up as a whole burnt offering to God ; and 
 now St. John beholds them " partakers with the Altar " ; so 
 identified with the Altar, that all which thenceforward is offered 
 thereon may be said to be offered likewise upon the sacrifice 
 and service of their faith. 
 
 All who are united to Christ are thereby united to one 
 another. The Communion of Saints flows in one continuous 
 stream from the One Fountain Head; descends as one 
 
 o
 
 210 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 unbroken chain link by link from that irremovable anchor of 
 our only hope, the Cross of Christ. 
 
 The holy fear which to-day despises earthly terrors, mirrors 
 and memorializes the holy fear of our fathers and mothers in 
 the faith ; holy courage, their courage ; heavenly love, their 
 love. A martyr of this generation is spiritual descendant of 
 the martyrs of yore : even as (may I not say, evidently ?) St. 
 Paul under the Roman sword was true son to St. Stephen who 
 had interceded for him amid the Judaean stones. 
 
 " I saw . . . the souls of them that were slain for the word 
 of God, and for the testimony which they held." This most 
 noble qualification applies to St. James, own brother of St. 
 John, and to others amongst his familiar friends. But as 
 before so now again we find not on either side any trace of 
 human recognition, of human tenderness. 
 
 Perhaps this is for our sakes, lest we should presume so to 
 people heaven with our own cherished dead as to turn them 
 into idols in the very shrine and Presence of Christ. 
 
 Since he that keepeth his life shall lose it, it may be that 
 oftentimes to keep our beloved would be to lose them. 
 "Perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou 
 shouldest receive him for ever." "Lord, all my desire is 
 before Thee." 
 
 It is not death, O Christ, to die for Thee : 
 Nor is that silence of a silent land 
 Which speaks Thy praise so all may understand : 
 
 Darkness of death makes Thy dear lovers see 
 
 Thyself Who Wast and Art and Art to Be ; 
 Thyself, more lovely than the lovely band 
 Of saints who worship Thee on either hand 
 
 Loving and loved thro' all eternity. 
 
 Death is not death, and therefore do I hope : 
 Nor silence silence ; and I therefore sing 
 
 A very humble hopeful quiet psalm, 
 Searching my heart-field for an offering ; 
 
 A handful of sun-courting heliotrope, 
 
 Of myrrh a bundle, and a little balm. 
 
 Every tree after its kind : the One Cross has ramified into 
 unnumbered crosses. Every seed after its kind : the Corn 
 of Wheat which died is replenishing the world-wide harvest- 
 field. 
 
 Christ is Head of the Church : should a martyred Head 
 have a pampered body ? Lord Jesus, grant us grace to keep 
 Easter Eve to-day and Easter Day to-morrow. 
 
 " The testimony which they held." It is the same thing
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 211 
 
 over and over again : they only who have held, held fast, held 
 out, are they who shall come up with acceptance on God's 
 Altar. Courage, patience, woe is me ! Yet, Lord, Thou canst 
 make us, make me, courageous and patient. Amen. 
 
 If I have wisdom, and then even because I am a coward, I 
 shall choose the less risk rather than the greater, the less 
 torment rather than the greater. 
 
 If I have wisdom, and then even because I am impatient, 
 I shall put up with the whip lest I incur the scorpion. 
 
 If I have wisdom . . . nay, but even if I have common sense! 
 
 10. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, 
 lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge 
 our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? 
 
 " Vengeance is Mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord." Those 
 who are indefectibly of one mind and one will with God 
 Almighty thirst and cry out for His just judgment and 
 righteous vengeance. 
 
 Can these be they who in mortal life were ready to lay down 
 that life for their brethren ? Yea, these same are they once 
 the "all things to all men" if by any means they might save 
 some ; the echoes of Christ in intercession, the mirrors of 
 Christ in self-sacrifice. 
 
 Like Christ they became by grace, like Christ they cannot 
 but remain on the threshold of glory and throughout the 
 unending triumph of His Glory. What Christ is, that in their 
 several proportions they too must be : according to His 
 promise : " If any man serve Me, let him follow Me ; and 
 where I am, there shall also My servant be " : there not 
 merely in celestial locality, but doubtless in spiritualized will 
 and illumination of wisdom likewise. 
 
 Lord, now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? 
 Father, save us from that hour ; but for this cause hast Thou 
 revealed that hour. Father, glorify Thy Name. While there 
 is yet time, while there is yet hope, Lord, remember Jesus and 
 all His trouble for our sakes, for love of us. I plead Jesus 
 I plead only Jesus. Amen. 
 
 "Holy and True." "Yen, let God be true, but every man 
 a liar ; as it is written, That Thou mightest be justified in 
 Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when Thou art judged. . . . 
 Is God unrighteous Who taketh vengeance? . . . God forbid : 
 for then how shall God judge the world ? " 
 
 1 know not what besetment hinders my neighbour, but in 
 some degree I know what hinders myself.
 
 212 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 I quail before God's Holiness because I am not holy, before 
 His Truth because I am not true. " God is love " : and I am 
 of a different mind from God, not because of my excess of 
 love but because of my defect of love. 
 
 O God All-Holy our Father, pity us and renew us unto 
 holiness. 
 
 O God All-True our Redeemer, compassionate us and con- 
 form us unto Thy Truth in righteousness. 
 
 O God All-Loving our Sanctifier, convert and perfect us. 
 
 O God All-Holy, All-True, All-Loving, Three Persons in 
 One Godhead, we are they for whom Jesus was born and died 
 and rose again and ascended into heaven, for whom He 
 intercedes, whom He will judge. Behold us, consider us, 
 succour us. I take refuge in the supreme Name of Jesus. 
 Amen. 
 
 " On them that dwell on the earth." They say not, On them 
 that slew us ; but, On them that dwell on the earth. Whoever 
 then would clean escape from under their ban, can so do by 
 ceasing to be a dweller and becoming a stranger and pilgrim 
 upon earth. This road of safety lies open to all, to murderers 
 of martyrs as freely as to succourers of saints. For either by 
 innocence or by penitence any and every soul can quit earth 
 and betake itself to Heaven. 
 
 And with how warm a heart the Martyrs do forgive and 
 welcome their slayers is exemplified by St. James the Great : 
 who (at least according to a legend) having by his superhuman 
 sanctity of demeanour converted his accuser, received him 
 with a kiss of peace ; after which they suffered death together. 
 
 11. And white robes were given unto every one of them ; 
 and it was said nnto them, that they should rest yet 
 for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and 
 their brethren, that should be killed as they were, 
 should be fulfilled. 
 
 " He shall grow as the lily." Whiteness of purity, greenness 
 of hope, fragrance of aspiration, a comely aspect, a head 
 uplifted : once in their passion the martyrs became as lilies 
 among thorns, and now in their rest they are beautiful as lilies 
 in the garden of their Beloved. Is it not " to gather lilies " 
 when He takes home His own unto Himself? Is it not to 
 feed " among the lilies " when He sups with them and they 
 with Him ? 
 
 " Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 213 
 
 not, neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, That even 
 Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." 
 
 " White robes were given unto every one of them." Israel 
 in the wilderness gathering Manna " gathered, some more, 
 some less. And when they did mete it with an omer, he 
 that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered 
 little had no lack." Similarly these elect souls have pre- 
 sumably not laboured all alike : some have borne the burden 
 and heat of a long day, some have wrought but one hour ; yet 
 in the sphere of their acceptance these have no lack and those 
 nothing over. AH are absolutely accepted, absolutely sancti- 
 fied, absolutely perfected. 
 
 Does it follow that all the robes ate on a par ? This point 
 is not revealed. All are white : yet for aught we know one 
 and another may differ in glory like stars, in beauty like 
 flowers. However this may be, let not our eye be evil because 
 God is good : those robes are given, and it is lawful for Him 
 to do what He will with His own. Blessed be He Who freely 
 gave every grace which He invests with glory, and freely 
 bestows every glory wherewith He adorns grace. 
 
 " So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that 
 runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." 
 
 " And it was said unto them that they should rest yet for 
 a little season." In this world vehement desire is restless, in 
 that better world it can rest. "Their strength is to sit still." 
 
 " A little season." Already about eighteen centuries. But 
 eternity dwarfs all time : that which will end may be prolonged, 
 but cannot be long. . 
 
 " Fellow-servants . . . brethren ", designations of affec- 
 tion. And what their disembodied lovers look forward to 
 with approval is that they be " killed." For martyrs know by 
 experience that to die for Christ brings an accession of life ; 
 and saints of every degree in honour prefer one another. 
 " There is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear," 
 not for self alone but for others also. " In the sight of the 
 unwise they seemed to die : and their departure is taken for 
 misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction ; but 
 they are in peace." To be killed in Christ's cause is to be 
 "fulfilled." 
 
 " All the rivers run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full." 
 Man is a still wider sea, a still deeper ocean, a more insatiable 
 abyss : this life and the resources of this life can never fill him. 
 As one has proposed, expressing a thought too daring for me 
 of myself to have entertained or uttered : The vast bed of
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 ocean corresponds with the ocean whereof it is the bed : so 
 man's vast emptiness corresponds with the Immensity of God 
 Who fills him ; they correspond, God having fulness where 
 man hath emptiness. 
 
 " Fellow-servants," one in duty : " brethren," one in love. 
 Soul by soul each individual fulfilled, until the entire pre- 
 destined number be fulfilled. 
 
 The generations of mankind shall not pass away, nor heaven 
 and earth pass away, till all be fulfilled. Time must endure, 
 eternity must stand back, till all be fulfilled. 
 
 Fulfil God's Will, and thou shall be of the number of the 
 fulfilled. I also, He prospering me. Amen. 
 
 Once slain for Him Who first was slain for them, 
 Now made alive in Him for evermore, 
 All luminous and lovely in their gore 
 With no more buffeting winds or tides to stem, 
 The Martyrs look for New Jerusalem j 
 
 And cry "How long?" remembering all they bore', 
 " How long?" with heart and eyes sent on before 
 Toward consummated throne and diadem. 
 " How long?" White robes are given to their desire } 
 " How long?" deep rest that is and is to be ; 
 With a great promise of the oncoming host, 
 Loves to their love and fires to flank their fire : 
 So rest they, worshipping incessantly 
 One God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 
 
 12. And I beheld when He had opened the sixth seal, and, 
 lo, there was a great earthquake ; and the sun be- 
 came black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became 
 as blood; 
 
 Darkness and earthquake waited on our Lord's Passion and 
 Death : " the sun was darkened " and " the earth did quake.'* 
 If on a saving Passion and life-restoring Death, how much 
 more on a vain passion and destruction-preluding death ! 
 " Great " now is the earthquake ; the sun now becomes " black 
 as sackcloth of hair." The done done, and the undone left 
 undone, earth is preparing to pass away, and she quakes. We 
 know not whether the sun is passing away, or whether he will 
 be relit. 
 
 That we know, this we know not : that concerns ourselves, 
 this concerns us not. Practical utility, not idle amusement, 
 appears to be one widely applicable rule according to which 
 we are instructed or left ignorant. No good thing (but not, 
 nothing whatever) will God withhold from them that walk 
 uprightly.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 21$ 
 
 O God All-Wise, let us not be as our mother Eve who 
 thought to hanker after good knowledge denied, when in truth 
 she hankered after evil knowledge kept back. 
 
 O God All-Good, let us not be as our father Adam who was 
 not deceived, but rejected good and chose evil. 
 
 O God All-Merciful, we plead our only hope of mercy, 
 Jesus, the Second Adam, made of a woman. Amen. 
 
 The sun being a figure of Christ (a figure authorized by the 
 Bible) concerning whom Pilate said justly, " Behold the Man ! " 
 may presumably be in some sort a figure also of mankind. 
 As a figure of Christ, its face was darkened at the Crucifixion, 
 and is once more darkened towards the reprobate : as a figure 
 of man, when all the tribes of the earth go mourning to their 
 death it too puts on mourning. The luminous sun then is an 
 emblem of the Living Christ and of all who live in Him : the 
 lightless sun is an emblem of the Dying Christ, of Christ 
 hiding His face from the incorrigible, and of all who die cut 
 off from Him. 
 
 Now the moon is not mentioned in the Gospel narratives of 
 the Crucifixion. Because the sun sets forth Christ, the moon 
 which is that sun's mirror and follower cannot but set forth the 
 Church. And the Church was not (so to say) born so early 
 as the day of Calvary ; but by the end of the world she is 
 even mature. Then therefore, though not till then, she appears 
 unextinguished in heaven while the world is departing into 
 darkness ; and exhibits her proper glory " as blood," for all 
 her glory accrues to her through the Blood of the Lamb. [I 
 trust such a train of thought is permissible.] 
 
 13. And the stars of Heaven fell unto the earth, even as a 
 fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken 
 of a mighty wind. 
 
 The Son of Sirach observes : " All things are double one 
 against another." This suggests that everything cognizable by 
 the senses may be utilized as symbol or parable. 
 
 To such an exercise certain minds seem strongly drawn. 
 Their horizon thereby recedes, depth is deepened, height 
 heightened, width widened. Underlying any measurable 
 depth, overtopping such height, encompassing such width, they 
 apprehend That which nothing underlies, nothing overtops* 
 nothing encompasses. To them matter suggests the imma- 
 terial ; time eternity. " One day telleth another : and one 
 night certifieth another." Their world expands, and with their
 
 216 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 world their responsibilities, and with their responsibilities their 
 peril. 
 
 The Tender Master Who adjusts our load, help us, whatever 
 it amount to, to bear it : the Wise Master Who appoints our 
 lot, help us, whatever it involve, to conform to it. And this 
 with a cheerful hope : because it is " not that we are sufficient 
 of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves ; but our 
 sufficiency is of God." 
 
 "The stars of heaven fell unto the earth." He Who 
 knoweth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their 
 names, He alone can " loose the bands of Orion." Neither 
 sparrow nor star shall fall to the ground without our Father, 
 and we are of more value than many sparrows. 
 
 Meteors and shooting-stars rehearse to successive generations 
 that great and terrible day. Nor can so much as one single 
 unripe fig drop without sounding an alarm in our holy 
 mountain. The fig tree bears last year's fruit and this year's 
 fruit together, the ripe with the unripe : the unripe readily fall 
 away, the ripe abide. 
 
 "A mighty wind." But even the winds hear and obey God's 
 word. He maketh the weight for them, and out of His 
 treasuries He bringeth them : as after the Deluge to assuage 
 the waters ; as at the Red Sea to open a passage to Israel ; 
 as travelling from the wilderness to sift Job ; as across heaven 
 to bring rain when earth languished under Ahab ; as rending 
 the mountains to instruct Elijah ; as resuscitating the dead 
 before the eyes of Ezekiel ; as arresting Jonah to the intent 
 that he might return into the way of righteousness. " There- 
 fore will we not fear." Or if still we fear, let us lay hold on 
 that promise : " A Man shall be as an hiding-place from the 
 wind." Yea, Lord Jesus, hide us as Thou hast promised. 
 
 " THOU SHALT HEAR A VOICE BEHIND THEE." 
 It was not warning that our fathers lacked, 
 
 It is not warning that we lack to-day. 
 The Voice that cried, still cries : " Rise up and act : 
 Watch alway, watch and pray, watch alway, 
 
 All men." 
 Alas, if ought was lacked goodwill was lacked ; 
 
 Alas, goodwill is what we lack to-day. 
 O gracious Voice, grant grace that all may act, 
 Watch and act, watch and pray, watch alway. 
 
 Amen. 
 
 14. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled 
 together ; and every mountain and island were moved 
 out of their places.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 217 
 
 Once, years ago in Normandy after a day of flooding rain, I 
 beheld the clouds roll up and depart and the auspicious sky 
 reappear. Once in crossing the Spliigen I beheld that moving 
 of the mists which gives back to sight a vanished world. 
 Those veils of heaven and earth removed, beauty came to 
 light. What will it be to see this same visible heaven itself 
 removed and unimaginable beauty brought to light in glory 
 and terror ! auspicious to the elect, by aliens unendurable. 
 
 As a scroll rolled up the heavens shall depart. Meanwhile 
 they are spread out above all humankind as an open scroll 
 declaring the Glory of God. 
 
 David perused the open scroll to good purpose : " O Lord 
 our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth ! Who 
 hast set Thy glory above the heavens. . . . When I consider 
 Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, 
 which Thou hast ordained ; what is man, that Thou art mind- 
 ful of him ? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? . . . 
 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the 
 earth ! " 
 
 Alas, O Lord God, we are not thus with Thee. Yet hast 
 Thou made with us an everlasting covenant ordered in all 
 things and sure in Jesus Christ. He is all our salvation, and 
 even if we apprehend it not He is all our desire : for His sake 
 make Thou us to grow in grace and in the saving knowledge 
 of Thee. Amen. 
 
 " Every mountain and island were moved out of their 
 places." Faith, whose is the promise to remove mountains, 
 will not fear " though the earth be removed, and though the 
 mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the 
 waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains 
 shake with the swelling thereof." 
 
 Faith will not fear. Hope will look up and lift up the head. 
 If now they abide, then also may they abide : yet neither now 
 nor then except in company with love. Faith surmounts fear. 
 Hope overbalances fear. Love casts out fear. 
 
 "Behold, He taketh up the isles as a very little thing." 
 "According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, fury to 
 His adversaries, recompence to His enemies ; to the islands 
 He will repay recompence." Nevertheless " He shall deliver 
 the island of the innocent : and it is delivered by the pureness 
 of thine hands." 
 
 England, our beloved England, seems naturally included in 
 one or other of the foregoing texts. Innocence would avail 
 for her protection ; but who among her millions dare challenge
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 that safeguard? " Who can say, I have made my heart clean, 
 I am pure from my sin ? " 
 
 Penitence the restorer of purity is the substitute for irretriev- 
 ably forfeited innocence. What innocence might have secured 
 in some sense as a right, penitence secures as a grace. Inno- 
 cence is strong without weakness. Penitence waxes strong in 
 weakness. 
 
 15. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the 
 
 rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, 
 and every bondman, and every free man, hid them- 
 selves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains ; 
 
 16. And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and 
 
 hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the 
 Throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb : 
 
 17. For the great day of His wrath is come ; and who shall 
 
 be able to stand ? 
 
 This general levelling is accounted for by the final clause : 
 " Who shall be able to stand ? " All, each, must either stand 
 or fall : such as cannot stand, fall. 
 
 Herein consists a genuine distinction, here the man himself 
 is in question : whereas those other points of difference enu- 
 merated in the text are accidental, temporary. To be a king 
 or a captain ; to be great, rich, mighty ; even to be bond or 
 free; is no more than the individual's appointed form of 
 discipline in his proper vocation. Corruptible crowns perish 
 in the using ; sooner or later war will cease to be learned ; 
 greatness, riches, might of this world, cannot be expected 
 to outlast the world to which they appertain ; nor bonds or 
 freedom of this mortal life, the mortality to which they are 
 appended. These last two form the extreme instance : whoso 
 grasps that even these are respectively a passing vanity or 
 a passing vexation of spirit, abides in impregnable freedom 
 though Pharaoh were his taskmaster. 
 
 Not that a slur attaches to any lawful condition or pursuit : 
 what God hath made He is graciously willing to bear. A 
 terrestrial crown may become the nucleus of a crown celestial. 
 And so with the rest, or at most with one exception. Bonds 
 surely will be stripped off at once and for ever from Christ's 
 immortal freeman ; unless haply they may reappear as an 
 ornament of grace unto the head, and chains about the 
 neck of one whose feet were hurt in the stocks whilst the 
 iron entered into his soul, until the time came that his cause 
 was known, the word of the Lord trying him.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 219 
 
 Perhaps there is no convulsion of nature more rife with 
 terror than an earthquake. What must that extremity of terror 
 be which will call on earthquake for refuge and shelter ! and 
 will be denied. 
 
 Sinners will then clamour to be hidden from the Face of 
 God, not realizing how God's Face is about to be hidden from 
 them. 
 
 " The wrath of the Lamb." Words cannot utter it. " Is it 
 not a grief unto death, when a companion and friend is turned 
 to an enemy ? " 
 
 Lord, before the great day of Thy wrath overtake mankind, 
 teach us, I beseech Thee, to discern between its good and its 
 evil. 
 
 Thy wrath is the wrath of Holiness. It is the wrath of 
 Love, for Thou art Love. Love while it hates still is Love. 
 The day of Thy wrath, because it is Thy day, is also the day 
 of Love, of Holiness. 
 
 Incorrigible sinners become the mark of Thy wrath ; them 
 it tracks out, them it destroys. They appear to be (as it were) 
 so fused into one mass with evil that these are no longer twain 
 but one, inextricable, indistinguishable. They heaped up wrath 
 against the day of wrath and revelation of Thy righteous judg- 
 ment : their delight was in cursing, and it happens unto them ; 
 they loved not blessing, and therefore is it far from them. 
 
 Thy righteous wrath lays hold of them, overwhelms them : 
 these who shunned and abhorred righteousness are now forced 
 into contact with it in one tremendous form. Sin mastered 
 and prompted them hitherto, now righteousness dominates 
 and overbears them : better, it may be, to be ruled in prison 
 and darkness by "the rod of God," than at large to obey by 
 choice the serpent of the diabolical enchanter. 
 
 Thy righteous wrath coerces, crushes, shivers them into some 
 sort of conformity with Thy Will. It could not be better for 
 them while they were in no sense conformed to it. 
 
 Sin was their evil of old; and in the day of wrath not 
 punishment, but sin remains their extreme evil. Sin rampant 
 cannot be better than sin delivered to the tormentors. 
 
 Worse was it for Babel to be built than to be destroyed. 
 
 Grace withdrawn precludes grace resisted. Opportunity 
 denied precludes opportunity set at nought. Time finished 
 precludes time lost. 
 
 Such withdrawal, denial, finis, are amongst the last revealed 
 dealings of God towards self-ruined man : and who shall dare 
 pronounce them in no sense dealings of mercy? [These
 
 220 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 thoughts are less my own than derived from widely different 
 sources.] 
 
 O Lamb of God, the spirit fails from before Thee and the 
 souls which Thou hast made. I cannot understand, can only 
 bow down before, the mystery of Thy wrath : preserve me from 
 darkening counsel by words without knowledge. Behold, I 
 am vile ; what shall I answer Thee ? I will lay my hand upon 
 my mouth. Once have I spoken ; but I will not answer : yea, 
 twice ; but I will proceed no further. O Lamb of God, Who 
 earnest not to destroy men's lives, but to save them, take away 
 the sins of the world.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1. And after these things I saw four angels standing on the 
 four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the 
 earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor 
 on the sea, nor on any tree. 
 
 "After these things I saw." Happen what may, the saints 
 survive. The great saints? Yea, and the little saints along 
 with them. Saints are all, every one of them " great fishes " 
 drawn ashore at last in the unbroken net of salvation. 
 
 "Four angels . . . holding." A period of suspense, pre- 
 paration. Suspense is preparation, and should be utilized for 
 preparation. That it should be, attests that it can be. That 
 any one can so use it, certifies that all can. Suspense tempts 
 one to do nothing : it ought contrariwise to stir one up to do 
 everything. 
 
 For suspense though it may be prolonged indefinitely must 
 sooner or later terminate ; and must be succeeded by we know 
 not what. Had we known what would follow, suspense could 
 not have been suspense. 
 
 During suspense we can prepare ourselves for anything, only 
 by preparing ourselves for everything. The prepared man 
 secures " a happy issue " out of suspense whenever and what- 
 ever that issue may be. But the unprepared man . . . ? 
 
 And since " the preparations of the heart in man " are " from 
 the Lord," let us pray with David whose heart indited of good 
 matters : " Create in me a clean heart, O God ; and renew a 
 right spirit within me." For Jesu's sake. Amen. 
 
 St. John saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the 
 earth. They would equally have been standing there had he 
 not seen them; and it may be so even now at this present 
 moment. 
 
 Angels see us though we see them not, they hear us though
 
 222 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 we hear them not : let it not be that they love us though we 
 love them not. 
 
 Whether we love them or not, and even whether we love 
 God or not, they love us so long as God loves us : because 
 they are lovely, that is, love-like; and we know Who it is 
 Whose Name is Love. 
 
 Glory be to Thee, O Lord God, Glory be to Thee for all 
 created glories, for all ministries of mercy and judgment, for 
 what eye hath seen, and what eye hath not seen, for Angels 
 unfallen, for saints raised up to newness of life, for sinners with 
 the possibilities of saints, for equality with angels accessible to 
 man, for glory differing from glory, for glory that shall be 
 revealed. Glory be to Thee for the Excellent Glory, for our 
 knowledge of Thy Glory in the Face of Jesus Christ ; Whom 
 we plead, desiring to live and die unto Thy glory. Amen. 
 
 Dear Angels and dear disembodied Saints 
 
 Unseen around us, worshipping in rest, 
 May wonder that man's heart so often faints 
 
 And his steps lag along the heavenly quest, 
 What while his foolish fancy moulds and paints 
 
 A fonder hope than all they prove for best ; 
 A lying hope which undermines and taints 
 
 His soul, as sin and sloth make manifest. 
 Sloth, and a lie, and sin : shall these suffice 
 
 The unfathomable heart of craving man, 
 
 The heart that being a deep calls to the deep ? 
 
 Behold how many like us rose and ran 
 
 When Christ life-Giver roused them from their sleep 
 To rise and run and rest in Paradise \ 
 
 This period of suspense is under one aspect a period of 
 calm : the winds being withheld from blowing, earth, sea, and 
 every tree stand still. Wherefore ? 
 
 While we wait to know, let us practise ourselves in faith. 
 "Be still, and know that I am God." 
 
 Lord, grant us calm, if calm can set forth Thee j 
 Or tempest, if a tempest set Thee forth ; 
 Wind from the east or west or south or north ; 
 Or congelation of a silent sea 
 With stillness of each tremulous aspen tree. 
 
 Still let fruit fall, or hang upon the tree ; 
 
 Still let the east and west, the south and north, 
 Curb in their winds, or plough a thundering sea ; 
 
 Still let the earth abide to set Thee forth, 
 Or vanish like a smoke to set forth Thee. 
 
 Earth with four corners, amenable to four winds and four 
 angels, might seem but a small place.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 223 
 
 And earth is small compared with space. And space is 
 small compared with infinity. 
 
 Let us not lose our soul to gain the world, that smallest of 
 three areas. 
 
 How escape four avenging winds, and four avenging angels ? 
 By entrenching ourselves betimes amid the four cardinal 
 virtues : Prudence which seeks God while He may be found ; 
 Justice whereby (among other functions) man judges self, and 
 so is not judged; Fortitude which even counts it happy to 
 endure; Temperance which strives lawfully, and runs so as 
 to obtain. 
 
 2. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having 
 the seal of the living God : and he cried with a loud 
 voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt 
 the earth and the sea, 
 
 All alike angels, each with his particular office to fulfil, 
 talent to use. Four to chastise, one to protect. The angel 
 of protection exercises authority over those his brethren ; 
 salvation must be secured before destruction does its work; 
 mercy delays judgment. 
 
 O Christ my God, if I know it not concerning any soul 
 beside mine own, yet concerning mine own soul well know 
 I that mercy delay eth judgment. Well 1 know it, yet not 
 fully: Thou alone fully knowest the length, breadth, depth, 
 height, of Thy mercy towards me ; free mercy, renewed mercy, 
 pursuing mercy, beseeching mercy. O my God, let it be 
 prevailing, conquering, triumphant mercy over me, over all, 
 lest we heap up wrath against the day of wrath by means of 
 the longsuffering of Thy mercy : Thou Who earnest not to 
 condemn the world, but to save the world. Amen. 
 
 "Another angel ascending from the east" As a star risen 
 in the east manifested Christ, so now an angel rises in the east 
 to manifest them that are Christ's. Instinctively I should 
 picture an angel as descending, and not ascending on earthly 
 embassies ; but this angel visibly ascended : the east thereupon 
 emitting a double light; an angel in his brightness; and an 
 illuminating inference, that every Divine errand or calling 
 whithersoever and whatsoever it may be exalts a faithful 
 messenger, a dutiful servant. 
 
 To descend penitently into the valley of humiliation, to 
 descend obediently and with a good courage into the valley 
 of the shadow of death, is to ascend the hill of the Lord. To 
 excavate the foundation forwards the erection of the Temple.
 
 224 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 11 Who is there among you of all His people ? The Lord his 
 God be with him, and let him go up." 
 
 "The seal of the Living God." In Holy Baptism we 
 certainly receive such a seal. But Baptism initiates : this seal 
 seems to stamp the end rather than the beginning. Final 
 perseverance, if it be not itself the seal, appears congruous 
 with it. 
 
 To be sealed makes the members so far like their Head : 
 for Christ declared concerning Himself, " Him hath God the 
 Father sealed." Which ineffable sealing I have seen explained 
 as referring to a Jewish custom observed towards the Passover 
 Lambs, according to which they were before sacrifice authori- 
 tatively inspected and certified as without blemish. 
 
 Whence it would seem that our Lord's "sealing" both 
 attested His perfection and assigned Him to sacrifice. I know 
 not whether a parallel on a lower level may be permitted to 
 apply the same thought to His elect. 
 
 There is yet another sealing whereby the Bride prays to be 
 indissolubly united to her Heavenly Bridegroom : " Set me as 
 a seal upon Thine heart, as a seal upon Thine arm : for love is 
 strong as death." And to this prayer each devoted soul may 
 unblamed frame a parallel : Set Thyself as Seal upon my heart, 
 as Seal upon mine arm ; that my love may wax strong as death. 
 Amen. 
 
 A SORROWFUL SIGH OF A PRISONER. 
 
 Lord, comest Thou to me ? 
 
 My heart is cold and dead : 
 Alas that such a heart should be 
 
 The place to lay Thy head ! 
 
 " The Living God." "As the Father raiseth up the dead, and 
 quickeneth them ; even so the Son quickeneth whom He 
 will. ... As the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He 
 given to the Son to have life in Himself." " The law of the 
 Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law 
 of sin and death. . . . And if Christ be in you, the body is 
 dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is life because of righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 " To whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea." 
 Each duty, office, vocation, is God's gift whether to man or to 
 angel. Man indulges ardours and reluctances, choices, recoils 
 and preferences ; some gifts he styles trials, some burdens. 
 Angels seem to see and feel no difference between calling 
 and calling, opportunity and opportunity. Angels doubtless
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 225 
 
 estimate the gift by the Giver : men too often the Giver by the 
 gift ; not, that is, by the intrinsic value of the gift, but rather 
 by their own taste or distaste for it. 
 
 And indeed to flesh and blood it is in truth an appalling 
 thing to be constituted a rod of God's anger. We shrink from 
 reading of David : " He smote Moab, and measured them with 
 a line, casting them down to the ground ; even with two lines 
 measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep 
 alive." 
 
 Well may we thank God for our exemptions. 
 
 We should naturally expect sooner or later to behold the four 
 Angels execute their charge, perhaps by releasing the four 
 winds. But we read not of the event in any such form . Earth 
 and sea are smitten after a time, but not statedly by those. 
 "Be not wise in your own conceits." 
 
 3. Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the 
 trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in 
 their foreheads. 
 
 In like manner Scdom and Gomorrah could not be dealt 
 with until " righteous Lot " had been rescued : " Haste thee, 
 escape thither ; for I cannot do anything till thou be come 
 thither. . . . The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot 
 entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and 
 upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of 
 heaven ; and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and 
 all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the 
 ground." 
 
 Thus are saints the salt of the earth ; preserving it from 
 dissolution. Thus do the blessed meek inherit the earth. 
 
 Thus are they, thus do they. Gracious Lord Jesus, let it 
 not be Thy rare saints only who are and do thus, but all souls 
 with them. 
 
 "The servants of our God." It might have sufficed for 
 practical purposes to say simply, The servants of God : but 
 the other is a loving form, and consequently a tongue of 
 Angels. 
 
 " In their foreheads." " Known unto God are all His works 
 from the beginning of the world," is St. James's declaration. 
 And St. Paul writes more particularly : " The foundation of 
 God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them 
 that are His." 
 
 God knoweth His own before they are sealed. The holy 
 Angels who minister to such heirs of salvation must also previ- 
 
 p
 
 226 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 ously know them, or how should they affix the seal ? A seal 
 made prominent on the forehead announces to all others whom 
 it may concern the wearer's identity. And so on occasion of 
 the great first Passover, the destroying Angel was admonished 
 by a conspicuous sign, the blood of sacrifice, to pass over the 
 doors of the exempt. And long afterwards in vision Ezekiel 
 beheld a general slaughter, against which the safeguard was a 
 mark set on the forehead : " And He called to the man clothed 
 with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side ; and the 
 Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through 
 the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of 
 the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be 
 done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine 
 hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite : let not 
 your eyes spare, neither have ye pity : slay utterly old and 
 young, both maids, and little children, and women : but come 
 not near any man upon whom is the mark ; and begin at My 
 sanctuary." 
 
 Perhaps by the seal we may further understand some distinct 
 spiritual feature or gracious appearance whereby the Com- 
 munion of Saints are enabled to recognize each other in love ; 
 whereby also the aliens recognizing the household of God will 
 wax the more bitter to hate them without a cause, in accordance 
 with our Lord's word to His disciples : " Ye shall be hated of 
 all nations for My Name's sake." 
 
 We talk of the unrighteous hating the righteous : do they 
 hate because they are unrighteous, or are they unrighteous be- 
 cause they hate ? If at all the latter, I fear there are so-called 
 and self-called righteous people who will scarcely if at all be 
 saved. 
 
 "My God, I mean myself," said holy George Heibert. God 
 grant us a like self-knowledge and humility. 
 
 PURLIEUS AND APPROACHES WHICH TEND TOWARDS OR 
 BORDER UPON HATRED OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 
 
 1. Antipathies tolerated. 
 
 2. Incompatibilities taken for granted. 
 
 3. Fastidiousness nursed on indifferent points. 
 
 4. Favoritism indulged. 
 
 5. Affront taken where none is meant. 
 
 6. Reciprocal angles, yours always in the wrong. 
 
 7. Reciprocal soreness, I always in the right. 
 
 8. Offence at distasteful doer, let him do or leave undone 
 what he will.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 327 
 
 Taking one a day, you will require a week and a day for your 
 self-reform. I, alas ! foresee requiring much more than a week 
 and a day for mine. 
 
 Jesus Who didst touch the leper, 
 
 Deliver us from antipathies. 
 Who didst dwell among the Nazarenes, 
 
 Deliver us from incompatibility. 
 Who didst eat with some that washed not before meat, 
 
 Deliver us from fastidiousness. 
 Who didst not promise the right hand or the left, 
 
 Deliver us from favoritism. 
 Who didst condone Samaritan inhospitality, 
 
 Deliver us from affront taking. 
 Who didst provide the sacred Didrachma, 
 
 Deliver us from offence giving. 
 Who having called didst recall St. Peter, 
 
 Deliver us from soreness. 
 Who didst love active Martha and contemplative Mary, 
 
 Deliver us from respect of persons. 
 
 Deliver us to-day while it is called to-day, Thou Who givest us to-day and 
 promisest us not to-morrow. 
 
 Whatever the " seal " may signify, its being impressed on 
 the forehead suggests that it may be some sign definite, obvious, 
 prominent, emphatic, calculated to be "known and read of all 
 men," friends, unfriends, and foes ; to catch their eye, even to 
 force itself upon their notice. 
 
 Christians of some generation are (please God) to be sealed. 
 But all Christians have once already by His mercy been sealed 
 in Holy Baptism ; and we cannot suppose that a crowning 
 grace will contradict instead of harmonizing with an initiatory 
 grace from the self-same Source. 
 
 Whence it ensues that if none but fearless, self-evident 
 Christians can worthily undergo the final sealing, every Baptized 
 man, woman, child, each in due proportion, is already pledged 
 by the Baptismal seal to be a fearless, self-evident Christian. 
 
 Field-day harness, and parade carrying of bows, will profit a 
 soldier nothing if he turn back in the day of battle. 
 
 4. And I heard the number of them which were sealed : 
 and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four 
 thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. 
 
 Then exulted Abraham, who having gone out not knowing 
 whither he went, beheld as father of the faithful whither he and 
 his seed after him had journeyed. Then Sarah had pleasure. 
 Then Rebekah understood what good her life had done her. 
 Then Rachel was comforted. Then Israel said tenfold more, 
 " It is enough."
 
 228 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Dost thou thyself ask, What good shall my life do me? 
 Resolve that God speeding thee it shall do thee this good, to 
 be numbered among the nations of the saved ; and thou too 
 one day shalt say, It is enough. 
 
 "Of all the tribes." Yet is not Dan named in the ensuing 
 catalogue. Still, if we dwell on the literal twelve Patriarchs, 
 Dan may doubtless have been represented through inter- 
 marriages among kindred families. Moreover, Samson the 
 Judge sprang from that tribe, and reappears in the goodly 
 fellowship of heroes of faith (see Heb. xi. 32 34). 
 
 Whatever historical or prophetical meaning may be con- 
 veyed by this omission of Dan, it at least serves to remind us 
 how no perversity of man can ultimately thwart God's will or 
 mar His work. Twelve tribes there were at the outset, and 
 twelve tribes there are at the ingathering. In like manner the 
 College of Apostles numbered twelve first and last, despite the 
 apostasy of Judas. Sooner than the covenant with Abraham 
 should fail, children would be raised up to him of stones. 
 
 We must not forget, however, that in Ezekiel's vision of the 
 City whose name shall be " The Lord is there," Dan has his 
 portion and his gate. 
 
 Dan no less than his peers inherited a prophetic benediction 
 first from Jacob, afterwards from Moses: "Dan shall judge 
 his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a 
 serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the 
 horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. I have 
 waited for Thy salvation, O Lord " : " Dan is a lion's whelp : 
 he shall leap from Bashan." Yet the second clause of the 
 elder prophecy reads at the least equivocally : whatever the 
 temporal character and tactics thus metaphorically conveyed, 
 any obvious spiritual analogy seems to proclaim a curse rather 
 than a blessing : a curse upon work such as the serpent com- 
 passed in Eden when he likewise made the lord of this visible 
 world to "fall backward." Read under so ominous alight, 
 even the other clauses seem, if not to ring hollow, at least to 
 give an uncertain sound; and we think fearfully of Dan as 
 haply that wolf in sheep's clothing the Unjust Judge, sitting 
 indeed to judge Christ's people, but " contrary to the law " ; 
 sitting " as " one of the tribes of Israel, but in truth no longer 
 one of them, having gone out from them because not of them. 
 Even the kingly prediction : " Dan is a lion's whelp : he shall 
 leap from Bashan," reminds us that while God deigns to define 
 His own Hill " as the hill of Bashan, an high hill as the hill 
 of Bashan," yet for Bashan to vie with Zion would be as when
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 229 
 
 Eve set herself to become like God : and the lion which leaps 
 from Bashan comes from the country of those " fat bulls " which 
 closed the Messiah in on every side. 
 
 What immediately follows of the Sacred Text I once heard 
 read like the roll-call, when victorious hosts muster to their 
 colours. " And His banner over me was love." 
 
 5. Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of 
 
 the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of 
 the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. 
 
 6. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of 
 
 the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. 
 Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. 
 
 7. Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of 
 
 the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the 
 tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. 
 
 8. Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of 
 
 the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of 
 the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand. 
 
 Now is being made good every promise to the election. 
 Now is being brought to pass the saying that is written, 
 " Death is swallowed up in victory." Now is the beginning of 
 the end. 
 
 Faith and hope look beyond the "little moment, until the 
 indignation be overpast," and contemplate the final consumma- 
 tion. 
 
 Behold Juda praised of his brethren, supreme over his 
 enemies, honoured by his nearest and dearest ; replenished 
 and lacking nothing, imperturbable in rest, royally sceptred ; a 
 rallying point to gracious men ; his journey accomplished, 
 his travail over, his cravings satisfied ; gathered to his fathers 
 and his people ; coming short of nothing ; delivered from all 
 his adversaries. Behold Reuben renewed in strength, retrieved 
 from lapses, excellent in dignity and in power ; if once dead, 
 now alive again ; if once lost, now found ; heretofore a little 
 one, now twelve times a thousand ; and from a small one be- 
 come a strong nation. Behold Gad, having overcome all by 
 whom ever he was overcome ; enlarged, enriched, dominant ; 
 noble among the noble, because he executed the justice of the 
 Lord and His judgments. Behold Aser, once hungry and 
 athirst after righteousness, now satisfied ; fed as it were with 
 marrow and fatness, and all royal dainties; blessed with 
 children, beloved of his brethren, anointed with oil, freely 
 giving as freely he has received ; as were his days, so was his
 
 230 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 strength, and as the eternal day, so shall his strength be. 
 Behold Nepthalim loosed from all bonds ; having a tongue, and 
 therewith uttering praise ; satisfied with favour, and full with 
 the blessing of the Lord; possessing "the west and the south," 
 even the kingdom of heaven glowing and luminous. Be- 
 hold Manasses, as the branch of a fruitful bough abundantly 
 watered ; mighty and glorious ; gone up from blessings of the 
 deep that lieth under, to blessings of the heaven above. Behold 
 Simeon purged from blood-guiltiness ; his tongue singing of 
 God's Righteousness; once scattered, now gathered for ever- 
 more. Behold Levi, having altogether left off from wrath and 
 let go displeasure ; holy, steadfast, approved, unworldly, un- 
 earthly ; faithful to the word and the covenant, and now proving 
 Him faithful Who promised ; teacher of many, turner of many 
 to righteousness, now shining as the stars for ever and ever ; 
 blessed in what he had, for the Lord was his inheritance ; 
 blessed in his work, for he waited on Him continually ; exalted 
 now to be Son of Consolation, peace around, and peace within. 
 Behold Issachar, because sometime in faith he humbled and 
 limited himself to serve, to bear, to render to all their dues, 
 now at large and aloft in the rest that is good, and the land 
 that is pleasant ; because of old he dwelt in tents by faith, now 
 ascended into the Hill of the Lord, and bringing many with 
 him into that Temple which is the Presence of God ; now 
 where the sea is as of glass and fire, possessing for incorruptible 
 treasure that Wisdom which the earthly sea saith is not with 
 her. Behold Zabulon, brought safe unto the haven where he 
 would be ; having gone out from the world that is polluted, 
 and having entered into that pure world whence none go out 
 any more ; offering the ever-acceptable sacrifice of righteous- 
 ness. Behold Joseph, once strong in the earthly Israel, now 
 tenfold strong in the heavenly ; abiding in strength ; the arms 
 of his hands made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of 
 Jacob; exalted and mighty for ever and ever; for temporal 
 treasures having inherited eternal. Behold Benjamin, a vessel 
 chosen unto honour, a chosen vessel unto God ; having of yore 
 coveted earnestly the best gifts, now dividing the spoil ; beloved 
 of the Lord, dwelling in safety by Him, covered of Him all the 
 day long, placed at His Right Hand, gathered into His bosom. 
 " Happy is that people, that is in such a case : yea, happy is 
 that people, whose God is the Lord." 
 
 9. After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no 
 man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 231 
 
 people, and tongues, stood before the Throne, and 
 before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms 
 in their hands ; 
 
 As their praise was erst not of men but of God, so now their 
 number is known not to men but to God. " So many as the 
 stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the 
 seashore innumerable." 
 
 " I beheld," says St. John : and you with your eyes, I with 
 mine (please God !) shall yet behold. 
 
 Looking forward to this, what terrestrial sight is worth 
 hankering after because of beauty or majesty ? It will pass by 
 and be no more seen ; no, nor peered after. What terrestrial 
 sight is worth avoiding because of horror or loathliness ? It 
 will pass by and be no more shrunk from. I once grieved 
 and grudged because I could not betake myself to a vantage 
 ground whence to watch an eclipse : the grief might have 
 been simply blameless, but the grudge proved that 1 was in a 
 double sense loving darkness rather than light. 
 
 O Lord, grant us in Thy Light to see light ; and aught 
 besides, reveal or hide from us according to Thy Will in Jesus 
 Christ, Light of Light. Amen. 
 
 One asked, "Lord, are there few that be saved? And He 
 said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate : for many, 
 I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." 
 Yet now St. John beholds " a great multitude " of the saved. 
 Thank God. 
 
 "All nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues." 
 Never, since Babel, a unison : no longer, since the first 
 Christian Pentecost, an inevitable discord : for ever and ever, 
 a harmony. Babel dissolved the primitive unison into discord : 
 Pentecost reduced the prevalent discord to contingent harmony, 
 but reclaimed it not into unison. 
 
 Unison is faultless : harmony is perfect. On earth the 
 possibility of harmony entails the corresponding possibility of 
 discord. Even on earth, however, whoever chooses can him- 
 self or herself keep time and tune : which will be an apt 
 prelude for keeping eternity and tune in heaven. 
 
 "White robes." "White as the light": for stainless and 
 spotless they sustain the Presence of the Very Light. Blessed 
 those sons and daughters for whom the best robe has been 
 brought forth without money and without price. 
 
 Neither was it of their own power or holiness that they 
 plucked palms and bore them before the Throne and before
 
 232 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the Lamb. Christ of Whom it is mystically written : "I said, 
 I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs 
 thereof," won all palms for all saints when on Calvary with 
 His own right hand and with His holy arm He got Himself 
 the victory. Christ it is Who triumphs in His triumphant 
 redeemed : from Him they derive their victories, from Him 
 their rewards. His Cross branched out into their crosses : 
 His Cross, the one palm tree of victory, branches out into 
 their palms. 
 
 Thy Cross cruciferous doth flower in all 
 
 And every cross, dear Lord, assigned to us : 
 
 Ours lowly-statured crosses ; Thine, how tall, 
 Thy Cross cruciferous. 
 
 Thy Cross alone life-giving, glorious : 
 For Love of Thine, souls love their own when small 
 Easy and light, or great and ponderous. 
 
 Since deep calls deep, Lord, hearken when we call ; 
 
 When cross calls Cross racking and emulous : 
 Remember us, with him who shared Thy gall, 
 
 Thy Cross cruciferous. 
 
 10. And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our 
 
 God which sitteth upon the Throne, and unto the 
 Iamb. 
 
 " I will sing a new song unto Thee, O God : and sing 
 praises unto Thee upon a ten-stringed lute. Thou hast given 
 victory unto kings." 
 
 Here we encounter a new word, "Salvation," in the chorus 
 of perfected praise uplifted by new-comers into a new glory. 
 Since time began no unfallen creature from the lowest to the 
 highest could thus bless God. The dead alive again, the lost 
 found, ascribing their salvation to God and to the Lamb, add 
 to celestial language one more word, to celestial joys one 
 more joy. 
 
 11. And all the angels stood round about the Throne, and 
 
 about the elders and the four beasts, and fell befare 
 the Throne on their faces, and worshipped God, 
 
 Heretofore (ch. v. vers. n, 12) when the Angels praised 
 "the Lamb that was slain," we read not that they fell on their 
 faces ; but now beholding Him glorified in His saints and to 
 be admired in all them that believe, they fall down in worship. 
 
 And in one sense this for which they fall down is a greater 
 marvel than the other. For great and marvellous as are God's
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 233 
 
 works and ways, the marvel resides in the creature's appre- 
 hension of a truth newly revealed, and till then inscrutable and 
 unimaginable ; not in the fact of any outcome whatsoever of 
 Goodness from Him Who is All Good of Love from Him 
 Who is Love. " He Himself knew what He would do " sets 
 forth not only the good pleasure of Christ, but the eternal, 
 uninterrupted, calm Will and Purpose of God. 
 
 But that man, of heart deceitful above all things and 
 desperately wicked, deathstruck and sin-relishing, endued with 
 free will, and so able to resist his Maker, should at length by 
 Divine patience, longsuffering and love unfeigned live once 
 more, and move, and have his being in God, his own free 
 will co-operating with Divine grace so that finally he is raised 
 up in heavenly places as a miracle and glorious, everlasting 
 monument of mercy ; that man should do thus, and be thus, 
 transcends experience, baffles foresight, and is indeed a new 
 thing. 
 
 12. Saying, Amen : Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and 
 
 thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be 
 unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
 The rapturous Angels answer Amen to the triumph shout of 
 the enraptured redeemed. Amen they say first and last, 
 beginning and finishing in sympathy with a joy which primarily 
 befalls others. They exult when those who were beneath being 
 exalted to an equality, enter and stand within where they 
 themselves form the outer circle. 
 
 Alike in their former (ch. v. 12) and in their present chorus 
 of praise the Angels ascribe " Wisdom " to the Object of their 
 adoration. The first time it is to "the Lamb that was slain" 
 when He has prevailed to loose the Seven Seals ; thereby 
 recalling St. Peter's statement: "Which things the Angels 
 desire to look into." The second time it is to God, when 
 before the Throne stand the saved arrayed in the garments 
 of salvation ; thus reminding us of St. Paul's declaration afore- 
 time : " To the intent that now unto the principalities and 
 powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the 
 manifold wisdom of God." 
 
 13. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What 
 
 are these which are arrayed in white robes? and 
 whence came they ? 
 
 A celestial model of catechetical instruction ; the question 
 being propounded for the sake of the learner, not apparently 
 of the asker.
 
 234 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 If this be the same elder who before spoke comfortably to 
 St. John, I note his personal gift of love : if it be another, I 
 note the general infusion and effusion of Divine charity. As 
 I am now, I like to think him the same ; but as I hope to be 
 hereafter, I doubt not I shall then be well pleased whichever 
 way it turns out to have been. For in the perfected Communion 
 of Saints surely the general glory of all will satisfy, no less than 
 the special glory proper to each will recreate. I could more 
 imagine a perfected saint so immersed in universal love as to 
 be rapt out of the particular, than so absorbed in particular 
 love as to be estranged from the universal. 
 
 Thank God, I am not reduced to suppose either alternative. 
 
 In heaven all the redeemed are to be made like unto their 
 Redeemer; and I know, and am sure that Christ Who loves 
 us all, loves us each. 
 
 O Lord Jesus Who lovest each and all ; give us hearts wide 
 and deep to love all, exquisite and responsive to love each : 
 in proportion, or if it please Thee, out of proportion; even 
 as Thou beyond all proportion lovest us. 
 
 " What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? " The 
 white robes constitute one claim of these blessed ones on 
 celestial sympathy : not what they were originally, but what 
 has been wrought in them and for them establishes their 
 fellowship with the heavenly host. 
 
 How absolute and transcendent must be the spotless per- 
 fection of saints in glory, if not even St. John's experience in 
 mortal flesh availed to furnish him with an answer ! 
 
 "What are these . . . and whence came they?" In this 
 world and from the children of this world such questions might 
 mean : Are they common folk or gentry? learned or illiterate? 
 vulgar or refined ? in or out of society ? worth or not worth 
 knowing ? 
 
 The grave will set us at a different view-point. There our 
 shallow earthly question will receive its answer out of all 
 mysteries and all knowledge. 
 
 If this be seemly and inevitable to-morrow, why not rectify 
 and elevate our standard (my standard) to-day ? 
 
 14. And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said 
 to me, These are they which came out of great tribu- 
 lation, and have washed their robes, and made them 
 white in the blood of the Lamb. 
 
 St. John, to our apprehension the most illuminated of the 
 Evangelists, makes himself, in accordance with St. Paul's
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 23$ 
 
 practice, a pattern of not stretching beyond the assigned 
 measure. Here he humbly answers, " Sir, thou knowest " ; 
 and in his Gospel (see xxi. 23) he sets aside an inference 
 which seemed to exalt him above his fellows. 
 
 Lord Jesus, shall he who lay on Thy Breast be humble, and 
 will not we be humble ? For very shame's sake clothe us with 
 humility, that so we may become more like him and less unlike 
 Thee. Amen. 
 
 " These are they which came out of great tribulation, and 
 have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood 
 of the Lamb." Thus two points concur to produce the 
 beatitude under contemplation : great tribulation, and the 
 cleansing Blood of the Lamb. God hath joined them 
 together; it is not for man to put them asunder. Yet 
 this difference I observe : great tribulation could of its own 
 virtue avail nothing without the Blood of the Lamb ; whereas 
 that most Precious Blood Divinely vouchsafed and applied 
 could not but avail, though the redeemed were called out 
 of great joy, and from green pastures, and from beside waters 
 of comfort. 
 
 Indeed one striking instance occurs in the Old Testament, 
 suggesting that whoso hath faith and hope enough may haply 
 even in this world secure an approved felicity: "And Jabez 
 was more honourable than his brethren .... And Jabez 
 called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that Thou wouldest 
 bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thine hand 
 might be with me, and that Thou wouldest keep me from evil, 
 that it may not grieve me ! And God granted him that which 
 he requested." Whilst in the New Testament the history of 
 the Holy Innocents seems almost a case in point : for small 
 must have been their capacity for suffering who were spared 
 foresight, and whom one blow or one grip sufficed in a moment 
 to speed through the gate of death. 
 
 But presumably for most of us tribulation rather than ease 
 constructs the safe road and the firm stepping-stone. Better 
 to be taught with thorns of the wilderness and briars, than on 
 no wise to be taught. Better great tribulation now than un- 
 exampled tribulation hereafter. 
 
 Good Lord, to-day 
 
 I scarce find breath to say : 
 
 Scourge, but receive me. 
 For stripes are hard to bear, but worse 
 Thy intolerable curse ; 
 
 So do not leave me.
 
 236 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Good Lord, lean down 
 In pity tho' Thou frown ; 
 
 Smite, but retrieve me : 
 For so Thou hold me up to stand 
 And kiss Thy smiting hand, 
 
 It less will grieve me. 
 
 " Tribulation," that is, sifting : sifting reclaims and releases 
 good from bad, while aught of good remains. " Now no 
 chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous : 
 nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteous- 
 ness unto them which are exercised thereby." 
 
 15. Therefore are they before the Throne of God, and serve 
 Him day and night in His temple : and He that 
 sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them. 
 
 "Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine 
 Holy One ? we shall not die. . . . Thou art of purer eyes 
 than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." 
 
 From everlasting to everlasting God is God, the Same 
 yesterday and to-day and for ever. " Thou art the same, and 
 Thy years shall have no end." " The righteous also shall give 
 thanks unto Thy Name : and the just shall continue in Thy 
 sight": the just shall, the unjust shall not. It is on pain of 
 being cast out of the Divine Presence that we cling to sin. 
 
 The All-Holy desires to sanctify us, the All-Pure to purge 
 us, that in the end He may set us up on high, and satisfy us 
 with long life, and show us His salvation. Love desires the 
 beloved ; Christ desires us : shall Love desire us, Christ desire 
 us, in vain ? God forbid. 
 
 Lord Jesus, All-Pure, purify us that we may behold Thee. 
 All-Holy, sanctify us that we may stand before Thee. All- 
 Gracious, mould us that we may please Thee. Very Love, 
 suffer us not to set at nought Thy Love. Suffer not devil, 
 world, flesh, to destroy us. Suffer not ourselves to destroy 
 ourselves ; us with whom Thou strivest, whom Thou desirest, 
 whom Thou lovest. 
 
 "And serve Him day and night in His Temple." Alas, 
 Lord, that here on earth I have such tepid love for the 
 habitation of Thy House, and the place where Thine Honour 
 dwelleth ! Alas for any who are like me ! Grant us, I beseech 
 Thee, if not yet delight at least perseverance in resorting to 
 Thy most amiable tabernacles. Give us grace to do what we 
 can, and of Thy free Grace do Thou for us and in us what 
 we cannot. Give us grace to serve Thee in spite of ourselves
 
 THE FACE OF THE DKI'.r. 237 
 
 here, that so we may serve Thee transfigured from our former 
 selves hereafter. For our long-suffering Saviour's sake. Amen. 
 
 " Day and night." But day unwaning, unending, how then 
 night at all? Perhaps (for one thing) night suggests by 
 association that service in Heaven will comport with and not 
 disturb rest. No vigils there, all festivals : equally, no labour 
 there, all rest. 
 
 "And He that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among 
 them," or, as in the Revised Version, "... shall spread 
 His Tabernacle over them." The first rendering sets before 
 us Christ All-Gracious walking with His own in the House of 
 God as friends. The second recalls a Divine promise which 
 having had its temporal fulfilment amid drawbacks, awaits its 
 eternal accomplishment in simple unalloyed perfection : " Oh 
 how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them 
 that fear Thee ; which Thou hast wrought for them that trust 
 in Thee before the sons of men ! Thou shall hide them in 
 the secret of Thy Presence frqm the pride of man ; Thou shalt 
 keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. 
 Blessed be the Lord : for He hath shewed me His marvellous 
 kindness in a strong city." 
 
 I think too that the Revised rendering seems peculiarly 
 suggestive of the unspeakable unity of Christ the Head with 
 His body the Church : as when Ruth, her whole career a 
 prophetic parable, besought Boaz to spread his skirt over her ; 
 or, as when Job protested, "If the men of my tabernacle said 
 not, Oh that we had of his flesh ! we cannot be satisfied." 
 
 16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; 
 
 neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 
 
 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall 
 
 feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains 
 of waters : and God shall wipe away all tears from 
 their eyes. 
 
 " My soul refused to be comforted ... I complained, 
 and my spirit was overwhelmed," said once the inspired 
 Psalmist. 
 
 And now the blessed Elder certifies St. John that the 
 uncomforted faithful shall at last be comforted. They shall 
 be delivered from all they ever endured, relieved from all they 
 ever suffered. Their emptiness shall be fed and filled. " And 
 God shall wipe away all tears [Revised Version : ' every tear '] 
 from their eyes." 
 
 Vast is the consolatoriness, satisfaction, of this revelation.
 
 238 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Elsewhere we find rapture, here contentment; elsewhere an 
 overflow, here enough. 
 
 Perhaps without presumption we may conjecture that at the 
 moment in question St. John himself was peculiarly open to 
 so comfortable a promise. His work-day had to outlast that 
 of any other of the Twelve ; his absence from Christ had to 
 be prolonged beyond theirs. "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, 
 so is good news from a far country." 
 
 To the swift and the strong rapture may prove more alluring 
 than relief, triumph than rest. Bat to the slow and the feeble, 
 to such as trudge on however slowly and toil on however 
 feebly, relief and rest appear a mighty boon ; in hope of which 
 the hanging hands and feeble knees are again and again lifted 
 up with piteous indomitable perseverance. Literal hunger and 
 thirst are a keen craving, literal heat intensified and untempered 
 is a sore trial ; and the literal are no more than types of the 
 spiritual. If it was not good for man to be alone in Eden, 
 how dreary is loneliness in this outer world. Christ, Himself 
 the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, pronounced 
 mourners blessed, but inasmuch as they should be comforted ; 
 and when He bade one mourner " Weep not," vouchsafed 
 with the word a foretaste of reunion. 
 
 O Lord my God, perfect us in such patience that we may 
 be in no haste to escape from toil or loneliness or suffering ; 
 yet ever in haste to serve Thee, to please Thee, and when 
 Thou wilt to go home to Thy Blessed Presence. For our 
 Lord Jesu's sake. Amen. 
 
 This beatified multitude in Heaven will be led by " the 
 Lamb." Very meek must they be whom the Lamb shall lead : 
 very pure, not to shame Him Who is without blemish and 
 without spot : very innocent, to be made one flock with Him. 
 
 Lest any of us should so stray as to be finally separated 
 from Him Who alone is Love and our own Joy, I pray Him 
 I pray Thee, O Lord Jesus, to make us also meek, pure, 
 innocent 
 
 O Lamb of God, Who art in the midst of the Throne, show 
 Thy mercy on them that fear Thee ; exalt the humble and 
 meek, fill the hungry with good things, help Thy militant 
 Israel ; here sanctify us, hereafter glorify us ; for Thine own 
 sake, O God our Saviour. Amen. 
 
 " Living fountains of waters," or as in the Revised Version : 
 " Fountains of waters of life." These words seem capable of 
 connection with an utterance of our Lord's own lips recorded 
 by St. John in his Gospel: "Jesus stood and cried, saying,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 239 
 
 If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He 
 that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his 
 belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of 
 the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive : for 
 the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was 
 not yet glorified)." 
 
 If it is allowable to assume that the two passages may stand 
 thus connected, we trace here a further harmony with that 
 promise which concerns the " Other Comforter," and discern 
 Him abiding with the elect for ever. 
 
 The waters of Baptism, " waters under the firmament," con- 
 veyed Him to the called soul ; and " waters that be above the 
 firmament " may haply (at least in a figure) do no less for the 
 chosen and faithful. That would indeed be to drink of the 
 river of Divine pleasures. 
 
 It has, I believe, been alleged that a multitude of Christians 
 are but slow of heart and dull of sight and of hearing in what 
 regards an adoring perception of God the Holy Ghost 
 
 It may help myself against so perilous an obtuseness, to 
 search out from what quarter the temptation might advance to 
 encroach on and annul my own faith, thereby vitiating if not 
 totally subverting my practice. 
 
 The revelation of the Father implies the Son ; the revelation 
 of the Son implies the Father : but by signification of neither 
 Divine Name is the Holy Spirit implied to our finite appre- 
 hension. Even when Christ said : " No man knoweth the 
 Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, 
 save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him," 
 we still see not our tokens. 
 
 The very Name "the Holy Spirit" does not necessarily 
 announce Him : inasmuch as we are taught concerning the 
 Godhead that " God is a Spirit " ; Who moreover hath said to 
 man : " Be ye holy ; for I am holy." 
 
 The actual Graciousness and overflowing Goodness of God 
 the Holy Ghost may be so misused by us as to obscure His 
 Personality. His diffusion throughout the Communion of 
 Saints may be misconstrued as His non-existence independent 
 of that Communion : reducing our conception of Him to a 
 grace, a gift ; not a distinct, Divine, Almighty Person. 
 
 I think too that the devout formula " Jesus Christ our only 
 Mediator and Advocate," may beguile us into positive though 
 inadvertent misstatement, unless we consciously limit " only " 
 to " Mediator " ; jealously bearing in mind that God the Holy 
 Ghost vouchsafes to be our other Advocate.
 
 240 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 O God the Most Holy Trinity, Who seest that Truth itself 
 will not instruct us without Thy preventing, guarding, guiding 
 grace ; grant us to live by every word that proceedeth out of 
 Thy mouth, and to walk and rejoice in the light of Thy Truth ; 
 and give us grace so to bring forth fruits of the Spirit as to 
 attest that Divine Indwelling to all men, and if it please Thee 
 to our own humble consciousness likewise. I plead Jesus. 
 Amen.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1. And when He had opened the seventh seal, there was 
 silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. 
 
 There seems to be a sense in which heaven waits on earth ; 
 in which (if I dare say so) God waits on man. Thus heaven 
 now keeps silence as a prelude to earthly events, portents, 
 vicissitudes. 
 
 Yet need not this celestial silence convey to us (I conjecture) 
 any notion of interruption in the day and night harmony of 
 worship before the Throne, any more than time interrupts 
 eternity. For because we dare not think of God Who " in- 
 habiteth eternity " as changing to a habitation of time, we 
 thence perceive that time and eternity co-exist, are simul- 
 taneous : if, that is, they be not rather different aspects of one 
 and the same continuity. 
 
 If from the songs of heaven we learn to sing and make 
 melody to the Lord with boih voice and understanding, equally 
 from the silence of heaven we may learn somewhat 
 
 Whilst heaven kept silence it appears it may have been 
 looking or preparing to look earthwards. And of old David 
 declared : " I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the 
 wicked is before me. I was dumb with silence, I held my 
 peace, even from good." Thus from Angels above and from 
 a saint below, I may study that meekness of righteous indig- 
 nation, that discretion of holy zeal, which brings not railing 
 accusations nor risks doing harm even by good words. 
 
 Silence seems unnatural, incongruous, in heaven. On this 
 occasion and remotely we may surmise it to be a result of the 
 Fall, for when earth first saw the light in panoply of beauty the 
 morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted 
 for joy : sinless earth, for sinless it then seems to have been 
 whether or not inhabited, called forth instead of silencing an 
 outburst of celestial music.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 I think one may view this " silence " as a figure of suspense. 
 Reversing which proposition, I perceive that a Christian's 
 suspense ought to present a figure of that silence. 
 
 And if so, suspense should sustain my heart in heavenly 
 peace even whilst fluttering over some spot of earth ; and 
 should become my method of worship, when other modes fail 
 me ; and should be adopted by my free will, whenever by 
 God s Will it befalls me ; and should not hinder heaven from 
 appearing heaven to me, or divorce me from fellowship with 
 angels, or make me speak unadvisedly with my lips. Faithful, 
 hopeful, loving suspense would be rich in evidence of things 
 not seen and not heard ; and would neither lag nor hurry, but 
 would contentedly maintain silence during its imposed " half- 
 hour." A shorter time? no, on pain of rashness: a longer 
 time ? no, on pain of sullenness. 
 
 This silence followed and waited upon an act of our Lord : 
 "when He had opened the seventh seal." " Unto Thee lift I 
 up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, 
 as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, 
 and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress ; so 
 our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that He have 
 mercy upon us." 
 
 "About the space of half an hour." Not finally, not for 
 ;ong. " Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence. . . . 
 He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that 
 He may judge His people. . . . And the heavens shall declare 
 His righteousness." 
 
 The half moon shows a face of plaintive sweetness 
 
 Ready and poised to wax or wane ; 
 A fire of pale desire in incompleteness, 
 
 Tending to pleasure or to pain : 
 Lo, while we gaze she rolleth on in fleetness 
 
 To perfect loss or perfect gain. 
 
 Half bitterness we know, we know half sweetness ; 
 
 This world is all on wax, on wane : 
 When shall completeness round time's incompleteness 
 
 Fulfilling joy, fulfilling pain? 
 Lo, while we ask, life rolleth on in fleetness 
 
 To finished loss or finished gain. 
 
 2. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; 
 and to them were given seven trumpets. 
 
 Recalling the seven trumpets of rams' horns sounded by 
 the seven priests on seven successive days, whereby was 
 announced and achieved the overthrow of Jericho. 
 
 The seven priests blew their trumpets together, the seven
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 243 
 
 Angels one by one; the seven priests thus appearing as it vrere 
 equivalent to the single angel ; in accordance with St. Peter's 
 declaration : " Angels, which are greater in power and might." 
 And as the agency is greater, so apparently the series of events 
 is greater and the result greater ; harmonizing with Isaiah's 
 prophecy, when after foretelling " the day of the great slaughter, 
 when the towers fall," he adds : " Moreover the light of the 
 moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the 
 sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." 
 
 Jericho, the outpost of the Promised Land ; the earthly 
 Israel shouting and going up straight before them : a figure of 
 the spiritual Israel going out with joy and led forth with peace 
 into the heavenly Canaan. 
 
 The destruction of Jericho and entering in of the chosen 
 race, whether considered from the historical or from the 
 emblematical view-point, encourages us to face hopefully the 
 awful unprecedented blast of the seven angelic trumpets. 
 Then the Ark of the Lord encamped before Jericho among 
 the thousands of Israel : and Christ our true and sole Ark of 
 Safety has promised His Church : "Lo, I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the world." 
 
 His Presence ensures safety and every blessing. Yet it may 
 be and if such be His Will, Christ grant it may be even so to 
 you, to all, to me it may be that one day It will ensure these 
 by taking the place to us of any other safety and of every 
 other spiritual blessing. For instance : of old He pronounced, 
 "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the 
 Sabbath," upholding its pious though not its superstitious 
 observance ; and again He tenderly bade His disciples, " Pray 
 ye that your flight be not ... on the Sabbath-day." The 
 Sabbath ranks amongst venerable and immutable Divine 
 institutions, dating back to unfallen man in the Garden of 
 Eden ; yet may it be reft from us as regards its outward 
 national observance, though never from the faithful as regards 
 its inward hallowing. Already in England (not to glance at 
 other countries) the signs of the times are ominous : Sunday is 
 being diverted by some to business, by others to pleasure ; 
 Church congregations are often meagre, and so services are 
 chilled. Our solemn feasts languish, and our fasts where are 
 they ? Yet each for himself, and God for us all, we can if we 
 choose u remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy " ; jealous 
 of its essentials, not wedded to its accidents. 
 
 So Joshua and his host when summoned to storm Jericho 
 day after day for seven days, must amongst those days have
 
 244 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 kept one unexampled Sabbath, if not in the letter yet in the 
 spirit. 
 
 3. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having 
 
 a golden censer ; and there was given unto him much 
 incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all 
 saints upon the golden altar which was before the 
 Throne. 
 
 4. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the 
 
 prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of 
 the angel's hand. 
 
 The celestial altar may transcend but can never contradict 
 the terrestrial. One throws light upon the other. To meditate 
 on the altar which we know, seems one safe way of meditating 
 on the altar which we know not. 
 
 In heaven "an angel," here a priest ministers; and whether 
 priest or angel, he who stands acceptably before God on 
 behalf of man cannot but represent Christ ; "for there is One 
 God, and One Mediator between God and men, the Man 
 Christ Jesus ; Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified 
 in due time." 
 
 There the altar is of gold ; here well might it be of gold. 
 Virtually it becomes of gold when it is of our costliest, choicest, 
 best; but not so, if man's house is of cedar whilst the Lord's 
 is of curtains. 
 
 There out of a golden censer prayers ascend by fire. For 
 prayer offered in Christ's Name is such a human work as can 
 stand fire, a worthy superstructure raised on the One Founda- 
 tion (see i Cor. iii. n 15). And since "out of the abundance 
 of the heart the mouth speaketh," the censer may remind us of 
 that heart which God claims as His own portion (as if He 
 said, " My son, give Me thine heart,") from " the precious 
 sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold." Or rather let it remind 
 us of the Heart of that Only always-acceptable Beloved Son 
 Who, ever living to make intercession for us, presents before 
 the Throne all our needs out of His own heart. 
 
 There much incense goes up as smoke with the saints' 
 prayers. Isaiah in vision beheld the Temple of the Lord 
 "filled with smoke"; and perhaps we may compare such 
 smoke to a cloud ; figuratively, even to that Cloud which 
 u:ider the elder covenant indicated the Divine Presence. If 
 so, this sacred smoke may remind us of that Presence of 
 Christ which is plighted to two or three supplicants gathered 
 together in His Name ; and of that blessed Advocacy whereby
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 245 
 
 Christ and the Holy Spirit deign to effectuate our petitions, 
 rendering them in their degree acceptable like that odour of 
 spikenard wherewith one woman's love filled the house where 
 Jesus supped. 
 
 Whereupon the incense and smoke of the incense should 
 kindle us to utmost adoration and love, by thus setting before 
 us Christ Who for our sakes made Himself once for all a 
 whole Burnt Offering, an Offering and a sweet-smelling Savour 
 to the Glory of God the Father ; and Who in the Blessed 
 Sacrament of His Body and Blood having left to His Church 
 a perpetual Memorial of His sole sufficient Sacrifice, receives 
 us and our petitions into the " secret place " of that Presence 
 and sets us in heavenly places with His own Self. 
 
 "OUT OF THE ANGEL'S HAND." 
 
 No Cherub's heart or hand for us might ache, . 
 
 No Seraph's heart of fire had half sufficed : 
 Thine own were pierced and broken for our sake, 
 O Jesus Christ. 
 
 Therefore we love Thee with our faint good will, 
 
 We crave to love Thee not as heretofore, 
 To love Thee much, to love Thee more, nnd still 
 More and yet more. 
 
 5. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of 
 the altar, and cast it into the earth : and there were 
 voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earth- 
 quake. 
 
 If I may view this blessed Angel as in any sense representing 
 his and our Lord, then may his casting the fiery censer into 
 the earth recall to my mind a declaration from our Lord's own 
 lips : " I am come to send fire on the earth ; and what will I, 
 if it be already kindled ? But I have a baptism to be baptized 
 with ; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ! Sup- 
 pose ye that I am come to give peace on earth ? I tell you, 
 Nay ; but rather division." 
 
 Then also I may take shelter from terrors of fire, voices, 
 thunderings, lightnings, earthquake, in the sympathy of Jesus : 
 loved He us of old, and doth He not love us now? loveth He 
 us now, and will He not love us then ? 
 
 As the dove which found no rest 
 For sole of her foot, flew back 
 To the ark her only nest 
 
 And found safety there ;
 
 246 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Because Noah put forth his hand, 
 Drew her in from ruin and wrack, 
 And was more to her than the land 
 
 And the air : 
 So my spirit, like that dove, 
 
 Fleeth away to an ark 
 Where dwellelh a Heart of love, 
 
 A Hand pierced to save ; 
 Tho' the sun and the moon should fail, 
 
 Tho' the stars drop into the dark, 
 And my body lay itself pale 
 In a grave. 
 
 If I may imagine one petition rather than another to have 
 constituted those prayers of saints which mounted acceptably 
 from the golden censer, it may have been "Thy Kingdom 
 come." For it can never have been in denial of such prayers 
 that the censer, emptied of them, was refilled with fire of the 
 Altar, and cast into the earth. 
 
 Because' "fire," therefore either purifying as gold or else 
 consuming as dross ; because " of the Altar," therefore either 
 sanctifying as Jerusalem or else devoting as Jericho. 
 
 Fire of the Altar seems clearly a type of God the Holy 
 Ghost, in conformity with the text : " Christ, Who through the 
 Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God." And if 
 here in St. John's vision we may with reverence so regard it, 
 its descent to earth with the awful phenomena ensuing, sets 
 once more before us how every condescension of God to man 
 must either save or destroy, cannot leave man as he was before 
 the visitation, cannot suffer that the righteous should be finally 
 as the wicked, or the wicked as the righteous. So it befell when 
 " God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt," in 
 the days of Noah ; so, when " the Lord came down to see the 
 city and the tower, which the children of men builded," and 
 scattered abroad the future nations ; so, when He spake con- 
 cerning Sodom and Gomorrah, " I will go down now, and sec 
 whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, 
 which is come unto Me " ; yet remembered Lot : so, when 
 Christ ministered amongst men ; " Many of His disciples went 
 back, and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto 
 the twelve, Will ye also go away ? Then Simon Peter answered 
 Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of 
 eternal life " : and even so at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit 
 descended upon the Church with audible and visible signs, 
 Israel was split asunder into the camp of believers and the 
 hostile camp of unbelievers. 
 
 O Lord Almighty, to Whom continually Thy Church reiterates
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 247 
 
 those awful words " Thy kingdom come " ; grant her such 
 grace that holy love may overcome in her holy fear, and that 
 like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so her soul may long 
 after thee, O God. For Jesus Christ's sake, her Spouse. Amen. 
 Voices, though uninterpreted, yet exhorting me to prepare 
 to meet my God. Thunders, though inarticulate, yet summon- 
 ing me to make ready against the Great Day. Lightnings, 
 though evanescent, yet warning me as once the Writing, 
 Belshazzar. Earthquake, though not hitherto beneath my feet, 
 yet bidding me lay up betimes in heaven treasures indestructible. 
 
 6. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets 
 prepared themselves to sound. 
 
 Zephaniah the Prophet foretells a crisis of like sweeping 
 calamity : " The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and 
 hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord : the 
 mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of 
 wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and 
 desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds 
 and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the 
 fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring 
 distress upon men, and they shall walk like blind men, because 
 they have sinned against the Lord : and their blood shall be 
 poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their 
 silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of 
 the Lord's wrath ; but the whole land shall be devoured by the 
 fire of His jealousy : for He shall make even a speedy riddance 
 of all them that dwell in the land." 
 
 The same prophet propounds to us moreover our duty and 
 privilege on the brink of such destruction : " Gather yourselves 
 together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired ; before the 
 decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the 
 fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the 
 Lord's anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek 
 of the earth, which have wrought His judgment ; seek righteous- 
 ness, seek meekness : it may be ye shall be hid in the day of 
 the Lord's anger." 
 
 Let us not make ourselves like to the horse that hath no under- 
 standing, of whom we read, " neither believeth he that it is the 
 sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha." 
 
 Thy trumpet, Lord Jesus, giveth no uncertain sound : prepare 
 Thou us to the battle. O Lord God of hosts, blessed is the 
 man that putteth his trust in Thee. 
 
 Angels, whom the result seems to concern only secondarily
 
 248 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 sound not without self-preparation : shall man whose all is at 
 stake not prepare himself ? 
 
 O Lord Jesus, Who hast called the Church Thy sister, love, 
 dove, spouse : Abide close to us, our Brother, our Friend, and 
 prepare us ; 
 
 Love us tinto the end, and prepare us ; 
 
 By indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Dove, prepare us ; 
 
 For better, for worse, prepare us ; 
 
 That so death itself may not part us. Amen. 
 
 Thy fainting spouse, yet still Thy spouse ; 
 
 Thy trembling dove, yet still Thy dove ; 
 Thine own by mutual vows, 
 
 By mutual love. 
 
 Recall Thy vows, if not her vows ; 
 
 Recall Thy love, if not her love : 
 For weak she is, Thy spouse, 
 
 And tired, Thy dove. 
 
 A series of historical events has been compiled as corre- 
 sponding with the seven trumpet blasts. But as those blasts 
 cease not to peal in the Church's ears, I trust we may lawfully 
 in some degree and on occasion forget concerning them those 
 things that are behind, and rather reach forward to those 
 things which are still before: for oftentimes one fulfilment 
 illustrates, but seems by no means to exhaust prophecy. 
 
 7. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire 
 mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth : 
 and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green 
 grass was burnt up. 
 
 The Revised Version precedes the other similar clauses of 
 this verse by the words : " And the third part of the earth was 
 burnt up." 
 
 In the Answer out of the Whirlwind we read : " Hast thou 
 seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against 
 the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?" 
 which weapon was brought forth from the Divine armoury 
 when the Lord fought for Israel against the Egyptians : " The 
 Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the 
 ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. 
 So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very 
 grievous. . . . And the hail smote throughout all the land of 
 Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast ; and the 
 hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the 
 field." And again, when the five infatuated Kings of the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 249 
 
 Amorites and their hosts having joined battle with Joshua 
 were discomfited, " it came to pass, as they fled from before 
 Israel . . . that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven 
 upon them, . . . and they died : they were more which died 
 with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with 
 the sword." 
 
 But in this Apocalyptic vision of hail, fire, and blood, St 
 John beheld [earth,] trees, grass, "burnt up" : neither shattered 
 nor crushed that we read, but devoured. Height exempted 
 not the trees, nor lowness the grass. 
 
 This hail and fire being "mingled with blood" suggests at 
 once that no mere elemental storm destructive of inanimate 
 nature may here be depicted. " The Voice said, Cry. And 
 he said, What shall I cry ? All flesh is grass . . . surely the 
 people is grass." And that trees may stand for men is plain 
 from Jothnm's fable: "Then said all the trees unto the 
 bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble 
 said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, 
 then come and put your trust in my shadow : and if not, let 
 fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of 
 Lebanon. Now therefore, if ye have done truly and sincerely, 
 in that ye have made Abimelech king . . ." 
 
 Between the trees and the grass a distinction is made : only 
 the third fart of trees was burnt up, but all green grass. Had 
 all trees been burnt, then they all must have perished ; for a 
 charred stump can send up no second sapful trunk : therefore 
 some we see taken, some left With grass and with green 
 herbs in general the case may, I suppose, be different : the 
 bracken, for instance, renews itself in exquisite verdure after 
 the faded autumn overgrowth has been ignited and consumed. 
 
 Which train of thought seems not discordant with a Divine 
 promise : " Fear thou not, O Jacob My servant, saith the 
 Lord : for I am with thee. ... I will not make a full end of 
 thee, but correct thee in measure ; yet will I not leave thee 
 wholly unpunished." 
 
 8. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great 
 
 mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea : 
 and the third part of the sea became blood : 
 
 9. And the third part of the creatures which were in the 
 
 sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships 
 were destroyed. 
 
 Truth confronts us veiled, not in order to baffle us, but rather 
 that our zeal may be redoubled to discern her. 
 
 "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in
 
 250 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be 
 removed, though the mountains be carried into the midst of 
 the sea ; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, 
 though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." Thus, 
 by aid of God's grace, sang the Psalmist. And if so he, so at 
 the least ought we : for he looked forward to what would be 
 wrought for his salvation, while we look backward to what has 
 actually been achieved for ours. Jesus, the Name above every 
 name, is the "desired haven" of our souls : "The Name of 
 the Lord is a strong tower : the righteous runneth into It, and 
 is safe." 
 
 Lord Jesus, the Truth, the Wisdom, the Word of God ; of 
 Thine exceeding Goodness make us, I beseech Thee, so one 
 with Thyself, that cleaving unto Thee we may accept all truth 
 though we cannot express it, and be replenished with wisdom 
 however scant our knowledge, and speak gracious words or 
 keep gracious silence in our daily walk with Thee and with one 
 another. Amen. 
 
 At the first trumpet-blast, fire from heaven did its appointed 
 work of destruction ; now, at the second, this "great mountain 
 burning with fire" seems rather to be of the earth earthy. 
 Both are equally the rod of God's anger ; the latter agent 
 corresponding in some of its effects with that literal Rod of 
 God whereby Aaron, inflicting the first plague upon Egypt, 
 turned the Nile into blood, so that all the fish died and the 
 river stank. 
 
 Then //the fish perished : now one-third part of the living 
 creatures and of the ships. 
 
 Those, although mere fish, were set up as false gods ; the 
 Nile itself being for practical purposes also a false god. 
 
 We are not informed what offence or what multitude of 
 offences may call for this Apocalyptic destruction of a third 
 part ; but presumably the warning primarily concerns us men 
 and our salvation, rather than any lower creatures involved by 
 Adam's fall in man's punishment. To quote St. Paul's words 
 in a different context : " Saith he it altogether for our sakes ? 
 For our sakes, no doubt, this is written." 
 
 The Prophet Isaiah once for good and once for evil employs 
 the sea as a similitude of mankind. For good : " The abund- 
 ance of the sea shall be converted unto thee," but before 
 that for evil : " The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it 
 cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." 
 
 Considering the parallel with the first Egyptian plague, 
 idolatry suggests itself as a possible provocation here also ; and 
 Ihis the less hazardously, because though we might hesitate to
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 251 
 
 define idolatry as the only sin, yet has every sin at the least an 
 idolatrous side ; be the sin what it may, its commission 
 demonstrates that something is preferred before God. 
 
 Isaiah exposes the arrant folly of idolatry in its grossly literal 
 form of image worship : " They have not known nor under- 
 stood : for He hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see ; and 
 their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none con- 
 sidereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor under- 
 standing to say, I have burned part of it in the fire ; yea, also 
 I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted 
 flesh, and eaten it : and shall I make the residue thereof an 
 abomination ? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree ? He 
 feedeth on ashes : a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that 
 he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, ' Is there not a lie in my 
 right hand ? ' " 
 
 We are not likely to worship images. Perhaps not. But 
 our Lord commands all to take heed, and beware of covetous- 
 ness : and St. Paul warns his Colossian converts that covetous- 
 ness is idolatry. Stubbornness, too, is as idolatry ; as King 
 Saul found to his cost. 
 
 Whatever may be thought about the living sea-creatures, the 
 mention of ships directs our attention to men. And ships by 
 association suggest commerce ; and commerce, alas ! too often 
 covetousness. Or if we turn to war-ships, stubbornness seems 
 only too probable in connection with them. 
 
 10. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star 
 
 from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell 
 upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the 
 fountains of waters ; 
 
 11. And the name of the star is called Wormwood : and the 
 
 third part of the waters became wormwood; and 
 many men died of the waters, because they were 
 made bitter. 
 
 This third fire, for at each trumpet-peal hitherto fire has 
 appeared, differs from the former two at least as widely as they 
 from each other. 
 
 The first visitation resembles a storm, although in details 
 and in effect more terrific than storms of this world. To the 
 first angel summons clouds respond with abundance of water ; 
 lightnings answer and say, Here we are. 
 
 The second visitation appears as if a volcano were cast down 
 headlong. Once Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke ; and 
 if then Moses, now much more may we exceedingly fear and 
 quake towitness in a figure the Lawavenge itself on transgressors.
 
 252 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The third blast evokes neither an evanescent nor a terrene 
 fire, but " a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp " : 
 thus li.ible to recall to the mind even involuntarily by verbal 
 association the sacred verses : "For ever, O Lord, Thy word is 
 settled in heaven. . . Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, 
 and a light unto my path." 
 
 This star then is from heaven, and is a luminary, yet is its 
 name Wormwood, and its effect fatal bitterness. Still, although 
 it embitters both the third part of rivers and even of springs ; 
 yet we read not that all men died of those waters, but many ; 
 perhaps intimating that amongst those even who drank, some 
 survived. " Teach me good judgment and knowledge : for 
 I have believed Thy commandments. . . . My soul fainteth 
 for Thy salvation : but I hope in Thy word." 
 
 If such an inference is allowable, then I venture to view as 
 not incongruous with this passage the dangers which beset 
 secular knowledge ; a consideration exhibiting an urgently 
 practical side in this our day of widespread and wider-spreading 
 culture. 
 
 For in the text we behold light introducing men to the dark- 
 ness of death ; an emblem of unsanctified knowledge and its 
 tendency. The star is a genuine illuminator : so may the 
 knowledge be genuine knowledge ; yet not being mixed with 
 faith in them that hold it, it becomes to them perilous or even 
 deadly. 
 
 Whether any given knowledge will prove profitable or un- 
 profitable is a question by itself, independent of any debate as 
 to its authenticity. However beguiled, Eve learned the differ- 
 ence between good and evil: so in his turn did Adam, of whom 
 it is expressly stated that he was not deceived. What they 
 learned was so far genuine : all the same it proved fatal. 
 Knowledge and wisdom are quite distinct, though not neces- 
 sarily sundered. 
 
 Again : in the same sense that some see and yet see not, 
 hear and yet hear not, so some may be said to know without 
 knowing. As for instance the antediluvians, who were fore- 
 warned of the impending catastrophe, and who yet "knew not 
 until the flood came, and took them all away." Unassirnilated 
 truth avails nothing. 
 
 Some there are who, familiarized with both, set the evidence 
 of their senses above Divine promises : as when Dathan and 
 Abiram murmured against Moses, " Thou hast not brought us 
 into a land that floweth with milk and honey . . . wilt thou 
 put out the eyes of these men ? " or as when a certain courtier 
 weighed probability against an inspired utterance of Elisha,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 253 
 
 saying : " Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, 
 might this thing be ? " The blind who say they see are brought 
 in guilty. 
 
 St. Paul's charge to his " dearly beloved son " seems written 
 afresh for ourselves in this nineteenth century : " O Timothy, 
 keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane 
 and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called : 
 which some professing, have erred concerning the faith. Grace 
 be with thee. Amen." 
 
 If it be fatal to hold error, what must it be to propagate 
 error ? 
 
 Amongst all channels of instructon, speech is the readiest 
 and is universal. A noble gift entailing a vast responsibility. 
 St. James sets fonh its awful many sidedness : " If any man 
 o.Tend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and is able also 
 to bridle the whole body. . . . The tongue is a little member, 
 and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little 
 fire kindleth ! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity : 
 so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole 
 body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on 
 fire of hell. . . . The tongue can no man lame; it is an 
 unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, 
 even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made 
 after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth pro- 
 ceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things 
 ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same 
 place sweet water and bitter ? " 
 
 And what is true of the tongue is in ample proportion true 
 of the pen : this likewise may bless, edify, diffuse sweetness ; 
 or may become a fire, a world of iniquity, may propagate de- 
 filement, and kindle impious fire, being itself set on fire of hell. 
 
 O Longsu fieri ng Lord Jesus, curse not our blessings which 
 we have slighted, but renew them to us. Retrieve for us Thy 
 gifts which we have perverted, and make us blessed and a 
 blessing. Grant us grace by Thy Most Holy Spirit, to devote 
 ourselves and all our powers to Thee, even as Thou by the same 
 Spirit deignest to give Thyself to us. Amen. Is anything too 
 hard for God ? Nay. 
 
 12. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of 
 the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, 
 and the third part of the stars ; so as the third part 
 of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a 
 third part of it, and the night likewise. 
 
 It seems more marvellous that for earth's sake the stars
 
 V 
 
 2 $4 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 should be smitten, than that the sun and moon should be so : 
 for Genesis reveals how sun and moon were created with re- 
 ference to earth ; whilst in the same passage (as I have read in 
 explanation) the stars are mentioned parenthetically, not as 
 simultaneously, but as already created ; and are so mentioned 
 not in direct connection with earth's economy, but lest other- 
 wise they might come to be regarded not at all as creatures of 
 the One Universal Creator, their date of existence being as- 
 sumed as manifestly anterior to the fourth day of creation. 
 
 How great is little man ! 
 
 Sun, moon and stars respond to him, 
 
 Shine or grow dim 
 Harmonious with his span. 
 
 How little is great man ! 
 
 More changeable than changeful moon, 
 
 Nor half in tune 
 With Heaven's harmonious plan. 
 
 Ah rich man ! ah poor man ! 
 
 Make ready for the testing day, 
 
 When wastes away 
 "What bears not fire or fan. 
 
 Thou heir of all things man. 
 
 Pursue the saints by heavenward track : 
 They looked not back ; 
 
 Run thou, as erst they ran. 
 
 Little and great is man : 
 
 Great if he will, or if he will 
 
 A pigmy still ; 
 For what he will he can. 
 
 Again the " third part " smitten, and not the whole : bidding 
 us both "count it all longsuffering," and redeem the time 
 because the days are evil. For surely if this revelation of 
 judgment so bids the men and women of that generation 
 endure and do, whichever generation may be in question ; it 
 equally adjures us to-day while it is called to-day : for upon us 
 all alike must finally descend the total night when none can 
 work. 
 
 A curtailed day is still a day with daylight opportunities. 
 An ended day is a day done with for good or for evil. 
 
 At a first glance it might seem as if no specially appropriate 
 discipline was organized to train us for this diminution of light : 
 by help of grace ordinary bereavement may become that 
 discipline. Bereavement is often a taking away the desire of 
 our eyes with a stroke : if we practise bearing this patiently, 
 thankfully, lovingly, we may entertain a good hope of so bearing
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 25$ 
 
 the other should our appointed days include that day of dark- 
 ness and gloominess. " Nevertheless the dimness shall not be 
 such as was in her vexation." 
 
 Lord Jesus, how shall I attain to bear patiently the loss of 
 my beloved ? By loving Me more. 
 
 How shall I endure when sun, moon, and stars are smitten ? 
 By following Me as thy light Who am alone thy salvation. 
 
 0w-third taken, /zw-thirds left : I have long dwelt on the 
 threat ; I have too long overlooked the promise. Better to 
 lose a third and be thankful, than to retain the whole and be 
 thankless. It is sadly amiss never to perceive how much 
 sunshine gilds our mortal day until that brightness ^dimin- 
 ished. 
 
 A moon impoverished amid stars curtailed, 
 
 A sun of its exuberant lustre shorn, 
 
 A transient morning that is scarcely morn, 
 A lingering night in double dimness veiled, 
 Our hands are slackened and our strength has failed : 
 
 We born to darkness, wherefore were we born ? 
 
 No ripening more for olive, grape, or corn : 
 Faith faints, hope faints, even love himself has paled. 
 Nay ! love lifts up a face like any rose 
 
 Flushing and sweet above a thorny stem, 
 Softly protesting that the way he knows ; 
 
 And as for faith and hope, will carry them 
 
 Safe to the gate of New Jerusalem 
 Where light shines full and where the palm tree blows. 
 
 13. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the 
 midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, 
 woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the 
 other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which 
 are yet to sound ! 
 
 " An angel," or in the Revised Version " An eagle." 
 
 If every day eagles cannot convey to me any instruction, I 
 dare not flatter myself that actual angels would teach me to 
 much purpose. According to that weighty answer of Father 
 Abraham : " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither 
 will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead": 
 the fault in all such cases being chargeable to the listener. 
 
 So while waiting for Angels let us utilize eagles. By looking 
 steadfastly toward heaven we are certain to discern something 
 there : whereas by not looking at all in that direction we must 
 inevitably miss both heaven and its population. 
 
 The Apostolick Eagle " beheld " and recognized a celestial 
 fellow Eagle : not even he, I suppose, could have beheld 
 without looking.
 
 256 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 St. John whilst still a sojourner in this world heard the 
 message, "Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth." 
 
 On the point of ascending to heaven Christ had answered 
 His Apostles : " It is not for you to know the times or the 
 seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power." 
 
 It is therefore open to conjecture that whilst St. John was 
 satisfied of the advancing Woes he foresaw not the exact 
 moment of their arrival. He may thus have shared the 
 suspense which is our own habitual lot. 
 
 Perhaps it may comfort some to think that St. John had a 
 share in the common trial : much more would it comfort us 
 all to undergo it in his spirit. And wherefore not? The 
 disciple whom Jesus loved was not loved to our exclusion. 
 
 Our Lord declared : " The things concerning Me have an 
 end." And Christ-like souls can by grace even give thanks 
 because the things concerning themselves likewise have an 
 end, so keenly do they desire to depart and be with Him 
 Whom their soul loveth. 
 
 But I woful sinner fear the end which endeth not. In my 
 fear to whom shall I go, save to Him Who hath the words of 
 eternal life ? " Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? . . . And 
 I said, It is mine own infirmity." 
 
 Lord Jesus, Who waitest to be gracious, be gracious to us 
 who tremble, to us who mourn, to us all who many ways 
 offend, to us who are ready to perish. Thou canst not be 
 otherwise than gracious : render us susceptible of Thy grace. 
 Amen. 
 
 How weighty must be the three comirg woes, since the four 
 preceding seem by comparison not to be called woes. An 
 Angel, himself insusceptible of woe, celebrates those three. 
 Apparently the first four catastrophes are wrought by agencies 
 of inanimate nature. The three woes connect themselves with 
 active wickedness; therefore are they essentially and pre- 
 eminently Woes. " Oh let the wickedness of the wicked 
 come to an end." 
 
 Terror of punishment should not swallow up horror of sin. 
 God's act is good ; mine evil : shall I recoil from the good 
 rather than from the evil ? This were in its degree to choose 
 the evil and refuse the good. 
 
 O Lord God Who hast created all things in order and pro- 
 portion, and requires! us likewise to have a perfect and just 
 weight and measure; grant us grace to judge righteous 
 judgment, and evermore to place our whole trust in Thee. 
 Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1. And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from 
 heaven unto the earth : and to him was given the key 
 of the bottomless pit. 
 
 THE Revised Version has : " I saw a star from heaven 
 fallen unto the earth," not seeming necessarily to imply that 
 St. John witnessed its downfall ; but perhaps that he discerned 
 the star, that (so to say) it only then came to light, being 
 already fallen. 
 
 If such a suggestion may be entertained, then the office 
 assigned to this fallen star may possibly brand it as being one 
 of the rulers of the darkness of this world ; once superhuman, 
 but now of its own free choice a subhuman wandering star to 
 whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. " How 
 art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! " 
 
 Whatever the star be, one thing is evident : its function is 
 assigned to it ; it is not an independent agent, still less an 
 independent potentate. If it be a malevolent power rejoicing 
 in iniquity, yet has it no power at all except under constraint 
 or by sufferance ; any more than the sea can overpass its 
 decreed place, or behemoth evade the sword of Him that 
 made him. 
 
 A fallen star, not otherwise an outcast star ; a self-made 
 outcast. Whoso turns his back on heaven may propose to 
 stop short at earth : but next below yawns the pit. The 
 outcasts of the final day who depart into outer darkness \vil. 
 all be self-made outcasts. 
 
 Oh fallen star ! a darkened light, 
 
 A glory hurtled from its car, 
 Self-blasted from the holy height : 
 Oh fallen star ! 
 
 Fallen beyond earth's utmost bar, 
 Beyond return, beyond far sight 
 Of outmost glimmering nebular :
 
 25$ THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Now blackness, which once walked in white ; 
 
 Now death, whose life once glowed afar ; 
 Oh son of dawn that loved the night, 
 Oh fallen star ! 
 
 Self-conceit blinds, self-will destroys ; self-oblation con- 
 secrates, self-sacrifice saves : for once our Master taught His 
 disciples : " If ar.y man will come after Me, let him deny 
 himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For 
 whosoever will save his life shall lose it : but whosoever will 
 lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it." 
 
 The bottomless pit preaches a sermon. It has a lid : which 
 keep shut, and the pit's bottomlessness remains neutral. But 
 lift the lid, and none can calculate the volume of deathly out- 
 come from a fathomless abyss, or the depth of a fall into it. 
 
 If God permits the lid of evil to be lifted as a test or as a 
 punishment, the key remains in His hand to secure that lid 
 ngain when He will. But if I lift any lid of evil, I have no 
 power to shut off the dire escape from myself or from others : 
 death and defilement I may let loose, but I cannot recapture. 
 Solomon gives us a sample of such deeds and their conse- 
 quences : "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out 
 water " : followed by a precept : " therefore leave off con- 
 tention, before it be meddled with," the precept in spirit 
 though not in the letter being applicable to all " touching of 
 pitch." 
 
 2. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a 
 stroke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace ; 
 and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of 
 the smoke of the pit. 
 
 By the voice of His prophet Isaiah God Almighty declares 
 concerning one class of offenders: "These are a smoke in 
 My nose, a fire that burneth all the day " : thus constituting 
 smoke a figure of provocation. And touching two formidable 
 wicked persons He graciously enjoins : " Fear not, neither be 
 faint-hearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands." 
 
 Whence as regards the Woe summoned by the fifth trumpet- 
 blast and ushered in by smoke, I yet venture to surmise a 
 possibility of rescue for sinners of every grade, except, alas, 
 for the obstinately impenitent. 
 
 And this, seeing that the very elect are during their mortal 
 life sinners : " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
 ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, 
 He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 459 
 
 us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not 
 sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." 
 
 " My soul fainteth for Thy salvation : but I hope in Thy 
 word. Mine eyes fail for Thy word, saying, When wilt Tliou 
 comfort me ? For I am become like a bottle in the smoke ; yet 
 do I not forget Thy statutes. How many are the days of Thy 
 servant ? when wilt Thou execute judgment on them that 
 persecute me ? " Smoke even from the pit will not slay that 
 soul which because it is parched gasps as a thirsty land unto 
 God ; and which in the smoke endures as God's own bottle 
 storing penitential tears. Shrivelled and unsightly it may 
 become to man's eye, "but the Lord looketh on the heart." 
 That smoke offends God Himself, which offends him who is 
 as the apple of the eye. 
 
 Yet does the infernal smoke go up as a beacon ominous to 
 the impenitent. Such a smoke of sweeping destruction 
 Abraham descried when " he looked toward Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, 
 and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a 
 furnace." Such a smoke Isaiah employs figuratively : " For 
 wickedness burneth as the fire : it shall devour the briers and 
 thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they 
 shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. Through the 
 wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the 
 people shall be as the fuel of the fire." 
 
 Holy Writ saith : " Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks 
 fly upward." And by God's grace he can, while life lasts, in 
 whatever smoke fly upward. 
 
 When " the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the 
 smoke of the pit " earth seems once more subjected to a plague 
 of darkness which may be felt. Who shall say but that the 
 faithful once again had light in their dwellings ? 
 
 Who knows ? God knows : and what He knows 
 
 Is well and best. 
 
 The darkness hideth not from Him, but glows 
 Clear as the morning or the evening rose 
 
 Of east or west. 
 
 Wherefore man's strength is to sit still : 
 
 Not wasting care 
 
 To antedate to-morrow's good or ill ; 
 Yet watching meekly, watching with good will, 
 
 Watching to prayer. 
 
 Some rising or some setting ray 
 From east or west
 
 260 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 If not to-day, why then another day 
 Will light each dove upon the homeward way 
 Safe to her nest. 
 
 3. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth : 
 
 and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of 
 the earth have power. 
 
 A defined and limited scourge, a scourge under control and 
 as appears further on for a limited period. Once more, thanks 
 be to God through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen. 
 
 4. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt 
 
 the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither 
 any tree ; but only those men which have not the seal 
 of God in their foreheads. 
 
 5. And to them it was given that they should not kill 
 
 them, hut 4 that they should be tormented five months : 
 and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, 
 when he striketh a man. 
 
 Locusts venomous as scorpions, and devastating not vege- 
 tation but humankind ; and amongst men discriminating 
 between the holy and the unholy. Tormenting moreover 
 without slaying, and this no longer than during a prefixed 
 term. "For the creature that serveth Thee, Who art the 
 Maker, increaseth his strength against the unrighteous for their 
 punishment, and abateth his strength for the benefit of such 
 as put their trust in Thee." 
 
 Yet even this extremity of wrathful displeasure seems by 
 possibility to leave open a loophole of hope : it seems haply 
 to fall within the bounds of that Divine Longsuffering which 
 invites and urges to repentance. For the unsealed are, as it 
 appears, not yet expelled from among the sealed : the wheat 
 and the tares are still growing together until the harvest. 
 While there is life there is hope, according to the time- 
 honoured proverb. 
 
 God hath spoken : " Behold, all souls are mine. . . . The 
 soul that sinneth, it shall die . . . The wickedness of the 
 wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from 
 all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all My statutes, 
 and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he 
 shall not die. All his transgressions that he had committed, 
 they shall not be mentioned unto him ; in his righteousness that 
 he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that 
 the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that 
 he should return from his ways, and live ? "
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 261 
 
 6. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not 
 
 find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee 
 from them. 
 
 Shall one seek death and not find it, and not rather seek 
 Christ our life Who hath said: "Seek, and ye shall find"? 
 Shall one desire to die, death fleeing from him ; and not rather 
 desire life, and obtain a long life even for ever and ever ? 
 
 "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they 
 shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord." 
 
 To seek death is sinful : yet to desire it may be saintly. St. 
 Paul mentions his " desire to depart, and to be with Christ : 
 which is far better " than even the most spiritual life on earth ; 
 thus reminding us of his words on another subject : " For if 
 that which is done away was glorious, much more that which 
 remaineth is glorious." 
 
 Mortal life then, even at its utmost perfection, is as the 
 fading face of Moses ; and hath comparatively no glory, by 
 reason of the glory that excelleth. Amen. Alleluia. 
 
 There is another longing for death, far below St. Paul's, yet 
 on occasion natural to man and not incompatible with 
 eminent holiness. Such longing was Job's when he poured 
 forth the bitterness of his soul : " Wherefore is light given to 
 him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul ; which 
 long for death, but it cometh not ; and dig for it more than for 
 hid treasures ; which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when 
 they can find the grave ? . . . My soul chooseth strangling, 
 and death rather than my life. I loathe it ; I would not live 
 alway. . . . My soul is weary of my life. ... O that Thou 
 wouldest hide me in the grave ! " 
 
 St. Paul then desired death not as death but as the passage 
 to Christ. And Job desired death not as death but as release 
 from life well-nigh intolerable. To desire death as death is to 
 love darkness rather than light. 
 
 From rebellious death, sudden death, lifeless death, Good 
 Lord, deliver us. 
 
 7. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses pre- 
 
 pared unto battle ; and on their heads were as it were 
 crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of 
 men. 
 
 8. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth 
 
 were as the teeth of lions. 
 
 9. And they had breastplates, as it were hreastplates of
 
 262 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 iron ; and the sound of their wings was as the sound 
 of chariots of many horses running to battle. 
 
 10. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were 
 
 stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt 
 men five months. 
 
 11. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of 
 
 the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue 
 is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name 
 Apollyon. 
 
 The wording of this passage repeatedly suggests that we are 
 being instructed not plainly but by figure, similitude, shadow ; 
 feature after feature being described as " like unto " or "as it 
 were " or " as." Dark is the glass through which we are 
 summoned to see, yet is it a glass. 
 
 The mysterious horrible smoke whence the locusts issue 
 teaches us something by analogy. To pass unscathed through 
 literal suffocating smoke, our way is to crouch low to the 
 ground : and through that other more deadly smoke surely our 
 way of safety is not dissimilar ; to bow down, to " walk 
 humbly." Whoso learns humility learns wisdom if not know- 
 ledge : and wisdom being better than knowledge, "the word" even 
 in this occult instance will thus become by no means unfruitful. 
 
 That these locusts " had a king over them " illustrates their 
 allegorical character. For of the natural locusts we read : 
 " The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by 
 bands " : which " prophecy " of Agur may be blessed to us as 
 a helpful Queen Esther prepared " for such a time as this." 
 
 Very terrible are these preternatural locusts. Because one 
 day such a trial may have to be faced by ourselves, and as yet 
 we know not clearly what thus we may be called upon to face ; 
 point by point let us endeavour to confront them with that 
 " Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." 
 
 "Like unto horses prepared unto battle." But if " an horse 
 is a vain thing for safety," so equally is he in himself a vain 
 thing for destruction. " The horse is prepared against the day 
 of battle : but safety is of the Lord." " Thus saith the Lord, 
 . . . Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and 
 the power ; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise : 
 they are extinct, they are quenched as tow." " I said unto the 
 Lord, Thou art my God : hear the voice of my supplications, 
 O Lord. O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, Thou 
 hast covered my head in the day of battle." 
 
 "Crowns like gold." Concerning another evil power we
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 263 
 
 read: "Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as 
 the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold 
 day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place 
 is not known where they are." " Weeping may endure for a 
 night, but joy cometh in the morning." " Unto you that fear 
 my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in 
 His wings." 
 
 " As the faces of men." But it is written : " He hath said, 
 I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may 
 boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man 
 shall do unto me." 
 
 "As the hair of women." Surely if man is not to be feared, 
 still less aught that can be likened to woman ! Concerning a 
 dangerous wicked woman the wise Preacher proclaims : " I 
 applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out 
 wisdom. . . And I find more bitter than death the woman, 
 whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands : whoso 
 pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall 
 be taken by her." "In the way of righteousness is life ; and in 
 the pathway thereof there is no death." 
 
 " As the teeth of lions." Yet saith Eliphaz the Temanite : 
 " Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent ? 
 or where were the righteous cut oft"? . . . The roaring of the 
 lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young 
 lions, are broken. The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and 
 the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad." 
 
 "As it were breastplates of iron." The Prophet Daniel 
 interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's first dream, spake of the Stone 
 which was cut out without hands and brake in pieces iron and 
 every such substance ; till they became together like the chaff 
 of the summer threshing-floors and the wind carried them away : 
 which figure foreshadowed the destruction of earthly kingdoms 
 by a Heavenly Kingdom. And ages afterwards Christ Himself 
 being questioned declared : " The kingdom of God is within 
 you." Thus the elect have within them what suffices to bring 
 to nought the " iron " of their adversaries. The " breastplate 
 of righteousness" makes each saint in his degree like his 
 Divine Master Who " put on righteousness as a breastplate " : 
 behold ! an invulnerable breastplate set against a vulnerable : 
 even as Ezekiel's indomitable face was set against the faces of 
 his opponents. 
 
 " As the sound of chariots." " Like the noise of chariots on 
 the tops of mountains shall they leap. . . Before their face the 
 people shall be much pained : all faces shall gather blackness."
 
 264 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Yet still good Christians will be safe. It will be with them as 
 in the days of old when Elisha reassured his terrified servant : 
 " Fear not : for they that be with us are more than they that 
 be with them. . . And behold the mountain was full of horses 
 and chariots of fire round about Elisha." Or according to a 
 yet more excellent confidence: "Some trust in chariots, and 
 some in horses : but we will remember the Name of the Lord 
 our God." 
 
 " Be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify 
 the Lord God in your hearts." Up to this point their terror 
 only is fallen upon us ; but now we read of their actual ability 
 to hurt : " There were stings in their tails." A base sting, a 
 degrading punishment ; a punishment suited to the offence, for 
 sin is a base thing. What : has sin never a lofty, heroic side ? 
 Never the sin, though sometimes the sinner. The sinner may 
 awhile exhibit majestic traces of that lofty heroism which nature 
 richly bestows and grace can transfigure to sanctity : but such 
 birthright nobility when divorced from God can no more 
 endure, than can a severed vine-branch maintain its luxuriance. 
 
 I must learn this lesson : must learn to recognize the degrad- 
 ation as well as the sinfulness of Saul's final revolt against 
 humiliation, and of Jezebel's defiant pride. 
 
 "And they had a king over them. . . . Whose name . . . 
 is Abaddon, . . . Apollyon." Whether named King Abaddon 
 or King Apollyon, his English equivalent is King Destroyer. 
 Whatever we call him he remains the same : were we to call 
 him King Preserver it would modify neither his nature nor his 
 office. Being a destroyer, our safety lies in recogni/ing, 
 acknowledging, fleeing him as such. And further : so far as 
 we are constituted our brother's keeper, our brother's safety 
 similarly lies in our plainly calling him a destroyer; and never 
 toning him down as a negation of good, or even unloathingly as 
 an archangel ruined ; which last suggestion I cull from my 
 sister's Shadow of Dante, where she contrasts Milton's Satan 
 with Dante's Lucifer. 
 
 Sins for like reason should be spoken of simply as what they 
 are, never palliatingly or jocosely. Lies and drunkenness should 
 bear their own odious appellations, not any conventional substi- 
 tute. But some sins "it is a shame to speak of" : true : so let 
 us not speak of them except under necessity; and under 
 necessity even of them truthfully. " Woe unto them that call 
 evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light 
 for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! " 
 
 "The angel of the bottomless pit." Once an angel of
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 265 
 
 heaven, now an angel of hell : a self-destroyed destroyer. Such 
 destruction is not annihilation. Happily angel still means mes- 
 senger, come from where he may; and a messenger is restrained 
 within the bounds of his commission. Even the Destroyer may 
 thus be overruled to preserve instead of to destroy : as Satan 
 tested Job, sifted Apostles, and by his buffeting messenger pro- 
 moted St. Paul's well-being. Angels whether fallen or unfallen 
 still envoys, but not plenipotentiaries. 
 
 12. One woe is past; and, behold, there come two more 
 woes hereafter. 
 
 " One woe is past " shows that none need hesitate to call 
 woe woe, even when short of the final woe : for man is not 
 framed without nerves but with nerves, and many times an 
 horrible dread overwhelmed! him. Creatures of cast-iron or of 
 stone might have different duties from creatures of flesh and 
 blood whereof we are made. 
 
 One woe is past. Come what come will 
 
 Thus much is ended and made last : 
 Two woes may overhang us still ; 
 One woe is past. 
 
 As flowers when winter puffs its last 
 Wake in the vale, trail up the hill, 
 Nor wait for skies to overcast : 
 
 So meek souls rally from the chill 
 
 Of pain and fear and poisonous blast, 
 To lift their heads : Come good, come ill, 
 One woe is past. 
 
 The exceeding mystery of Divine judgments which 
 prophets alone can declare, turns ignorant thought for safety 
 into the channel of supplication. "Who is among you that 
 feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, 
 that walketh in darkness, and hath no light ? let him trust in 
 the Name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Behold, all 
 ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks : 
 walk in the light of- your fire, and in the sparks that ye have 
 kindled. This shall ye have of Mine hand : ye shall lie down 
 in sorrow." 
 
 Lord God Whom we fear, protect us. 
 Whom we crave grace to obey, accept us. 
 
 Towards Whom we press through darkness, guide and enlighten us. 
 Whom we trust, confirm us. 
 On Whom we stay our weakness, support us. 
 
 In the Name of Jesus Christ ; in Whom the elect are safe, acceptable, 
 wise, strong, indomitable. Amen.
 
 266 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Study of the Apocalypse should promote holy fear, unflinch- 
 ing obedience, patient progress and patient waiting, unhesitating 
 trust, conformity to the Perfect Will. Time devoted to the 
 cultivation of these cannot be wasted time. Moreover, so 
 long as these are aimed at, to sit down ignorant and even to 
 rise up equally ignorant may along with these virtues help 
 forward humility. 
 
 Ignorance with humilty can serve and please God : know- 
 ledge without humility cannot. Thus humble ignorance secures 
 the essentials of wisdom, whilst unhumble knowledge is folly. 
 
 Would humble knowledge not be better than humble 
 ignorance ? Yes, if granted : no, if denied. 
 
 St. Peter after mentioning how prophets of old searched for 
 knowledge and angels desired it, winds up with a practical 
 precept to ourselves unto whom the Gospel has been preached : 
 " Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and 
 hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at 
 the revelation of Jesus Christ ; as obedient children, not 
 fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your 
 ignorance : but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye 
 holy in all manner of conversation ; because it is written, Be ye 
 holy ; for I am holy." 
 
 Gracious Lord Jesus, grant us so to read, search, desire, pray, 
 that being sober and hoping to the end we may obey Thy Will 
 and be conformed to Thy Sanctity. 
 
 The merchantman who found the pearl of great price was 
 one who sought for goodly pearls : not one who never sought 
 at all. 
 
 Darkness and thick darkness cover you. I know it : but if 
 in addition I keep my eyes shut, light itself springing up would 
 fail to enlighten me. If the blind lead the blind both shall fall 
 into the ditch. I know it : but if the blind grope in prayer for 
 himself and for all his fellows, who knows but that some of the 
 afflicted company may be advanced to see ? 
 
 O Christ our Light Whom even in darkness we 
 
 (So we look up) discern and gaze upon, 
 
 O Christ, Thou loveliest Light that ever shone, 
 Thou Light of Light, Fount of all lights that be, 
 Grant us clear vision of Thy Light to see ; 
 
 Tho' other lights elude us, or begone 
 
 Into the secret of oblivion, 
 Or gleam in places higher than man's degree. 
 Who looks on Thee looks full on his desire, 
 
 Who looks on Thee looks full on Very Love : 
 Looking, he answers well, ' What lack I yet?'
 
 THE FACE OF THE />/:/;/'. 267 
 
 His heat and cold wait not on earthly fire, 
 
 His wealth is not of earth to lose or get ; 
 Earth reels, but he has stored his store above. 
 
 13. And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from 
 the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 
 
 Here and there a ray seems to be vouchsafed, a broken 
 light. " God is the Lord Who hath shewed us light : bind the 
 sacrifice with cords, yea, even unto the horns of the altar." 
 " Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, 
 be alway acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and 
 my Redeemer." 
 
 Whatever historical coincidences with St. John's prophetic 
 revelation may be cited as having already in part fulfilled it, 
 these and such as these I leave to the authoritative handling of 
 my teachers. " Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like 
 clouds and wind without rain." 
 
 Yet meditation is lawful to all of us. Some there must be 
 who shall be blessed according to the promise : " Thine eyes shall 
 see the King in His beauty : they shall behold the land that is 
 very far off. Thine heart shall meditate terror. . . Look upon 
 Zion, the city of our solemnities : thine eyes shall see Jerusalem 
 a quiet habitation, a taberndcle that shall not be taken down." 
 
 Whether natural or spiritual, eyes that look are the eyes 
 likely to see. Meditation fixes the spiritual eye on matters 
 worthy of insight : it sees something, it may gradually perceive 
 more and more. At first Pharaoh's daughter discerned only an 
 ark of bulrushes ; next one of the Hebrews' children ; at last 
 Moses. The Brazen Serpent was ordained a channel of healing 
 to those death-stricken Israelites who obediently gazed upon it, 
 although we are not told that even one of them could decipher 
 its Divine symbolism. 
 
 In the Jewish tabernacle the Altar of Incense was a golden 
 altar, an altar of acceptance, its horns bearing a distinct part in 
 acts of reconcilement for sins of ignorance. The brazen Altar 
 of Burnt Offering likewise had horns. 
 
 The Altar being, so to say, one stronghold of God's Mercy, 
 became so in a minor degree of man's mercy, the lower illus- 
 trating the higher : as appeared when Adonijah caught hold 
 on the horns of the Altar, "saying, Let King Solomon swear 
 unto me to-day that he will not slay his servant with the sword. 
 And Solomon said, If he will show himself a worthy man, there 
 shall not an hair of him fall to the earth." 
 
 Thus we apprehend this " Voice from the four horns " of the
 
 268 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 celestial Golden Altar as a voice of judgment proceeding from 
 a stronghold of mercy. "The yoke of my transgressions is 
 bound by His hand." 
 
 14. Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, 
 
 Loose the four angels which are bound in the great 
 river Euphrates. 
 
 Amongst the seven Angels of the trumpets the sixth alone is 
 described as executing a double function : he sounds the sixth 
 blast, and he also looses the bonds of four other angels. 
 
 That these four angels "were bound in the great river 
 Euphrates " recalls to our mind Jeremiah's prophecy of an 
 anterior judgment : "For this is the day of the Lord God of 
 hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Him of His 
 adversaries : and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate 
 and made drunk with their blood : for the Lord God of hosts 
 hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates." 
 
 Euphrates had its source in Eden. There it nourished, 
 refreshed, beautified, the fertile Garden ; being constituted 
 a minister of pleasure, an agent of preservation and fecundity. 
 Eden is not more unlike the outer world, than Euphrates at its 
 pure fountain head in Paradise appears unlike the same 
 Euphrates earth-bound, earth-spurning, earth-contaminated, 
 rushing downward to the harvestless sea. 
 
 Innocence hedged in Eden : sin breaking through that hedge 
 disparadised Paradise, so far as mortal man was concerned. 
 
 Guilt hedges in the world : penitence breaking through that 
 hedge recovers and re-enters Paradise, now made the anteroom 
 of Heaven. 
 
 Loss it seems is never simply recouped : the precise forfeit is 
 not restored. Loss may remain irretrievable, or it may be 
 more than compensated. 
 
 15. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared 
 
 for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for 
 to slay the third part of men. 
 
 Once again at the loosing of these four angels it is our comfort 
 that their period of devastation is limited, and that they are not 
 self-ordained but " prepared " for their work. " My times are 
 in Thy hand." 
 
 I know not whether so long as we read of the " third part " 
 being destroyed and so by implication the two-thirds remaining, 
 it may systematically be viewed as an indication that the general 
 day of grace is not yet ended, and that probation is prolonged.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 269 
 
 If I may so view it, the Judgment in Eden shows forth a 
 sample of such severe compassion : the serpent condemned, 
 Adam and Eve reprieved. " The one shall be taken, and the 
 other left," appears to be a formula of separation beyond 
 appeal. 
 
 We read but of one Angel destroying the Egyptian firstborn, 
 Israel numbered under David, Sennacherib's host. What will 
 four do ? 
 
 O Lord, they will do Thy bidding and no more, Thy will and 
 no more, Thy pleasure and no more. Alleluia. Amen. 
 
 16. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two 
 
 hundred thousand thousand : and I heard the number 
 of them. 
 
 Number oftentimes expresses a total by man innumerable. 
 
 What St. John heard, that he states : he neither accounts for 
 it, nor requires us to realise it. Simply he knew it by revela- 
 tion, and through him we in our turn know it. 
 
 Which instance exemplifies a general rule as regards revela- 
 tion. We are not bound to account for, or always even to 
 realize intellectually, its truths : we are bound to accept them, 
 and we are further bound when called upon unhesitatingly and 
 literally to restate them. 
 
 " The army of the horsemen " now first mentioned (at least 
 explicitly) comes upon us with startling abruptness. As when 
 Delilah said, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson," or 
 as when " the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a 
 noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a 
 great host." 
 
 17. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that 
 
 sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, 
 and brimstone : and the heads of the horses were as 
 the heads of lions ; and out of their mouths issued fire 
 and smoke and brimstone. 
 
 The wise Preacher warns us: "A dream cometh through 
 the multitude of business. . . In the multitude of dreams and 
 many words there are also divers vanities : but fear thou God." 
 
 Yet from some dreams otherwise apparently vain may 
 perhaps be derived one illustrative gleam on the passage in 
 hand. Often in such dreams images appear which we identify 
 with certainty as representing cognate objects, which yet they 
 by no means accurately reproduce : so (if the word horse is to 
 be understood literally) " the horses in the vision " were recog- 
 nized by St. John as horses despite their unparalleled features. 
 
 "Them that sat or. them, having breastplates of fire, and of
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 jacinth, and brimstone." As it were an embodiment of fire. 
 Jacinth displaying tints of fire and smoke might seem petrified 
 flame. 
 
 " The heads of the horses were as the heads of lions " : 
 behold his neck clothed " with thunder " ! u And out of their 
 mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone " : " the glory 
 of his nostrils is terrible." Yet betide what may all saints are 
 preserved who fear not, but stand still to see the salvation of 
 the Lord. Moses and the children of Israel had newly ex- 
 perienced this when they sang : " I will sing unto the Lord, for 
 He hath triumphed gloriously : the horse and his rider hath 
 He thrown into the sea . . . And Miriam answered them, 
 Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the 
 horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." 
 
 18. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the 
 
 fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which 
 issued out of their mouths. 
 
 19. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: 
 
 for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, 
 and with them they do hurt. 
 
 Thus we are not told definitely that the terrib'e riders, as 
 distinguished from their horses, slew any. 
 
 This visitation reads like a rehearsal, forestalment, foretaste, 
 of hell itself; fire, smoke, brimstone, and as it were "that old 
 serpent," working visibly. 
 
 I once read of a woman who in her room was converted 
 from irreligion by hearing a hubbub of drunken folk putside in 
 the street. She recoiled from an eternity spent with such, and 
 turned her feet unto the testimonies. 
 
 Lord Jesus, grant unto us the like grace and wisdom. 
 
 " Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be 
 able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." 
 
 The fire, smoke, brimstone, " killed " : the serpent-heads 
 "do hurt." If we may trace a difference between the two 
 effects, killed may remind us of the second death ; do hurt may 
 press home upon us that the second death will not be annihi- 
 lation but torture. 
 
 There is fear, and fear. Wise Abigail's fear sped her, foolish 
 Nabal's fear paralyzed him. 
 
 20. And the rest of the men which were not killed by these 
 
 plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, 
 that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, 
 and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood : which 
 neither can see, nor hear, nor walk :
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 27! 
 
 21. Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their 
 sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. 
 
 These two verses by giving a summary of the Ten Com- 
 mandments remind us that God's Will changes not ; that even 
 " if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful : He cannot deny 
 Himself." As St. John points out to the disciples of his day : 
 " Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old 
 commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old 
 commandment is the word which ye have heard from the 
 beginning." 
 
 Whoever worships devils transgresses glaringly the First 
 Commandment, and less obviously that Fourth Commandment 
 which appropriates or hallows the whole of time cither to 
 sanctioned labour or to enjoined rest. Certain heathens 
 formally and of set purpose do, as we are assured, worship 
 devils. This literal gross act is not perhaps likely to tempt 
 nineteenth century Christians; or even others who, without 
 being personally Christian, have been born and bred where in 
 a certain sense the world itself is Christian as well as civilized. 
 Wherefore, not so much looking at my remote neighbour, I 
 consider myself; lest I also be tempted, although by means 
 modified to assail my own particular weak points. 
 
 PLEASE GOD. I will have nothing to do with spiritualism, 
 whether it be imposture or a black art; or with mesmerism, 
 lest I clog my free will; or with hypnotism, lest wilful self- 
 surrender become my road to evil choice, imagination, conduct, 
 voluntary or involuntary. Neither will I subscribe to any 
 theory which would pursue knowledge by cruel or foul 
 methods ; or do evil that good may come. Neither will I 
 either in jest or in earnest tamper with fortune telling or 
 any other fashion of prying into the future. Moreover, I will 
 aim at avoiding both in speech and in correspondence such 
 expressions as by good luck, or, there seems a spell against us. 
 In performing my daily duties I must strive against the spirit 
 of a frightened slave (which so far as it goes is the spirit of a 
 devil worshipper), and must aim instead at the conformed will 
 of a loving child : I ought to shrink from sin more sensitively 
 than from punishment. In all my dealings temporal and 
 spiritual I must adhere to a just weight, a just measure, even 
 balances, a superhuman standard. I must set conscience 
 above convenience, and Divine law above worldly conventions. 
 I cannot have two masters. I cannot serve God and Mammon, 
 " I have set the Lord always before me," sings David. 
 
 The Second Commandment is obviously broken by worship-
 
 272 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 ping idols of any sort, and the mention of their inability to 
 "hear" suggests without stating that kindred breach of the 
 Third Commandment which is involved in misdirected prayer, 
 praise, deprecation, thanksgiving. Studying my own more 
 probable temptations, I pass over idols of brass, stone, wood, 
 to dwell rather upon those of gold and silver. A molten and 
 graven image of gold or of silver is strictly and literally re- 
 produced nowadays and for us moderns, although in altered 
 guise, in the current coin of the realm : it depends on myself 
 whether to make it my minister or my idol. Demas is a 
 warning beacon : set up against him for our encouragement 
 and emulation stands St. Peter, who silver and gold had none. 
 Since I cannot avoid continual contact with that which has the 
 material and make of an idol, I must take good heed that it 
 become not to me an idol. The "almighty dollar" seems to 
 me a phrase simply (however unintentionally) blasphemous : 
 in my mouth it would be blasphemy. May such an estimate 
 of money be far from Christian tongues, and farther from 
 Christian hearts. 
 
 Of the other sins enumerated (murders, sorceries, fornication, 
 thefts) three more or less flagrantly transgress the Fifth, Sixth, 
 Seventh, and Eighth Commandments, all belonging to the 
 Second Table (unless so far as the Fifth is concerned, of which 
 I have seen the position discussed). Sorceries alone, at least 
 at first sight, might appear to fall exclusively under the ban 
 of the First Table. But if sorceries, while insulting the Divine 
 Majesty, be regarded as likewise seducing, hoodwinking, mis- 
 leading, entrapping man; then we recognize in it a distinct 
 breach of the Ninth Commandment : it becomes a fatal false 
 witness borne against our neighbour. One Commandment, 
 the Tenth, remains : and this being spiritual, covetousness 
 may be viewed as underlying and prompting the infractions 
 of the preceding Five. For covetousness, preferring as it does 
 self-interest to alien interest, whether or not co-extensive with 
 selfishness, does at any rate so far as it goes cover the same 
 ground ; and is directly contrary to love, which, working no ill 
 to its neighbour, is therefore the fulfilling of the law. 
 
 Yet the desperate element as regards these sinners against 
 their own souls was not that they had sinned, but that they did 
 not repent. Repentance would have bleached their scarlet to 
 snow, their crimson to wool. It would have made them like 
 unto ancient Israel when " Samuel said unto the people, Fear 
 not : ye have done all this wickedness : yet turn not aside from 
 following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart; 
 and turn ye not aside : for then should ye go after vain things,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 273 
 
 which cannot profit nor deliver ; for they are vain. For the 
 Lord will not forsake His people for His great Name's sake ; 
 because it hath pleased the Lord to make you His people." 
 
 All is promised to the penitent, but repentance is not 
 promised to any individual sinner. 
 
 Tortures and terrors cannot do the work of love. Nay, 
 more : Love from without cannot accomplish its own work, 
 unless there be some response from love within. 
 
 The proportion of men is one taken, two left : and the two 
 repent not. I who write, any who read, are for the present 
 left : God vouchsafe to all, vouchsafe to me, repentance unto 
 amendment of life, for Jesus Christ's sake. 
 
 And this thought, that two are as it were "left" even though 
 in such extremity, brings home to all who are not reprobate 
 certain inspired words redolent of hope : " Two are better than 
 one ; because they have a good reward for their labour. For 
 if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow : but woe to him that 
 is alone when he falleth ; for he hath not another to help him 
 up ... And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him." 
 
 If then I be one of twain I must comport myself accordingly : 
 be it in labour and in hope of reward ; in falls, in arisings, in 
 helps ; in contest, in alliance, and in victory ; I must as much 
 as in me lies impart to him that hath not, and bear my 
 neighbour's burdens. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Thou becamest Man thereby to become One 
 of twain, Thyself and Thy Bride the Church. Thou hast 
 laboured for her ; and labourest with her, and sharest with her 
 Thy reward. If she fall Thou liftest her up : happy she who 
 is never -alone when she falleth. If the battle go sore against 
 her, yet with Thee she discomfiteth a host : happy she whom 
 Thou hast joined unto Thyself. 
 
 Because the Church is moulded after Thy likeness, her least 
 and last member is thus moulded. Lord, give me grace ever 
 thankfully to account myself one of twain ; humbly receiving 
 help from my superiors, and myself helping any Thou em- 
 powerest me to help. Thou Who createdst all things out of 
 nothing, lay help even on me, making my influence tend to 
 good. Turn, I beseech Thee, my sins to repentance, my 
 repentance to amendment, my amendment to a shining light. 
 Even so of Thy Goodness perfect all and perfect me. Amen. 
 
 Life that was born to-day O Lord, confirm my root, 
 
 Must make no stay, Train up my shoot, 
 
 But tend to end To live and fjive 
 
 Like bloom of May. A wholesome fruit.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1. And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, 
 
 clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his 
 head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet 
 as pillars of fire : 
 
 2. And he had in his hand a little book open : and he set 
 
 his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the 
 earth, 
 
 3. And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth : 
 
 and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their 
 voices. 
 
 We seem to behold " storm fulfilling His word." Arrayed 
 majestically in a cloud, crowned with beauty by a rainbow, his 
 face splendid as the sun, his feet no less splendid than fire : if 
 this mighty Angel appear in some sort as the lightning, his 
 own voice was as a lion's roar, and thunders respond to him. 
 
 Not thus at His first advent came the Son of Man down 
 from heaven. His might was not of this world. His first 
 garments were swaddling-bands ; and His last, except grave- 
 clothes, were taken away from Him. His crown was of thorns. 
 He hid not His Face from shame and spitting. His Feet after 
 going about to do good were nailed to the Cross. He came 
 to send fire upon the earth; but He strove not, nor cried, 
 neither was His voice heard in the street; and His servants 
 the thunders held their peace. 
 
 O Good Lord, Who art above Thy servant, O Good Master, 
 Who art above Thy disciple, grant us grace to ascend to 
 heaven by that way of humility whereby Thou descendedst. 
 Let communion with Thee be our strength. Clothe our 
 children in the Font with the garment of salvation ; and guide 
 them and us in robes of righteousness to a holy sepulchre. 
 Grant us patience for a crown, patience for a shield, patience 
 and perseverance in our vocation, patience in suffering. Be
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 275 
 
 Thy Most Holy Almighty Spirit Fire of Ix>ve in our hearts, 
 and His still small Voice more awful to us than thunders. 
 Amen. 
 
 One notices a storm : another discerns an AngeL One 
 hears thunder : another divines a message. Well it is, in 
 default of better, to skim the surface and learn a little : though 
 better it is, God willing, to walk in the search of the depth and 
 learn much. 
 
 A Christian hero whose ship was about to sink, encouraged 
 his crew by pointing out that heaven is as near the sea as the 
 land. Our assigned level is our nearest point to heaven. 
 
 Judge not thy neighbour's walk, except to follow or to lead 
 him. 
 
 Those feet "as pillars of fire" stood on earth and sea; the 
 left foot on the earth, the right foot on the sea. As the Left 
 Hand is the hand of rejection, the Right of acceptance, so now 
 this posture of the Angel suggests symbolically that sin is that 
 sole thing which God abominates, and that it is for sin's sake 
 alone that He overturns, overturns, overturns. The barren 
 uninhabited sea sustains the right foot, the populous earth the 
 left. 
 
 That Angel was celestial trustee of the "little book open," 
 holding it in trust for St. John ; who in his turn received it 
 indeed for his own edification, but also and once more as a 
 trust for others. 
 
 If Angels and Apostles, those princes and peers of earth and 
 heaven, are stewards, not owners ; we Christian commoners 
 need neither dream nor desire to be constituted more. Our 
 gifts, talents, opportunities, are a trust vested in us for the 
 definite purpose of glorifying God, benefiting man, working 
 out our own salvation. Ours are, then mine are. In the 
 awful day of account, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 4. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I 
 was about to write : and I heard a voice from heaven 
 saying unto me, Seal up those things which the sevca 
 thunders uttered, and write them not. 
 
 Both voices instructed St. John in wisdom and knowledge. 
 I too may learn from both if not knowledge still wisdom. 
 
 Privileges entail responsibilities : to be denied the privilege 
 is to be spared the responsibility. 
 
 More is entrusted to another than to me. Let not mine eye 
 be evil because God is Good, Who doeth what He will with 
 His own.
 
 276 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Seven voices speak, but not to me. One Voice speaks to 
 me: "Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth." Yet do the 
 seven thunders also speak to me without speech ; inasmuch as 
 they convince me of ignorance, and further prove that God 
 wills that 1 should be aware of my own ignorance, and should 
 regulate my conduct with reference to it. 
 
 We all might sit down contented and complacent in ignorance, 
 if only ignorant of our ignorance. But our Creator wills other- 
 wise. If the Tree of Knowledge had been planted anywhere 
 except in Eden, Eve might contentedly have obeyed through 
 ignorance ; but what was demanded of her was to obey of set 
 purpose. What was demanded of her is what still is demanded 
 of us. Now as to these Seven Thunders we must perforce 
 obey, because we cannot ascertain anything : true : but a 
 thorough obedience excludes even the indulgence of idle 
 curiosity, and as to this we have a choice. Long ago I took 
 into my head that these thunders may have uttered the names 
 of the saved : alas ! in so far as with the childish thought I 
 have not yet discarded the childish presumption. 
 
 "I was about to write . . . Write them not." An illustra- 
 tion against depending on "any child of man," on highest, 
 holiest, most Christ-like superiors, beyond their function as 
 channels and mouthpieces of Divine teaching. 
 
 O Lord Jesus, Who didst vouchsafe to grow in wisdom, 
 stature, favour ; grant us in loving memory of Thee to be in 
 love with our present lowliness. Let grace be our sunshine, 
 grace our dew ; that we too may patiently grow in loveliness 
 until we behold Thee face to Face. Amen. 
 
 5. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea, and upon 
 the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, 
 
 " His hand," or as in the Revised Version "his right hand " : 
 still a blessing may be hoped for, whatever else may ensue. 
 " God is the Judge : He putteth down one, and setteth up 
 another." 
 
 And surely (if from words which concern the servant we may 
 reverently ascend to contemplation of the Master) this present 
 day is still that day wherein Christ comes not to condemn the 
 world, but to save the world. " Blessed be the Glory of the 
 Lord from His place." Both sacred Hands are as yet Hands 
 of blessing, even as when " He lifted up His Hands, and 
 blessed" the Eleven. Or as the Psalm declares: "The Lord 
 is thy shade upon thy right hand " ; thus exhibiting the beloved 
 one as at that period of safeguard placed upon the Left. Or
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 277 
 
 as we behold in type when Jacob laid his right hand on 
 Ephraim's head, and his left hand on Manasseh's, blessing 
 both. And indeed (if I may dare say so) there seems a special 
 inherent tenderness in that very Left Hand which condemns 
 at last : it is on the same side as the heart, it belongs to the 
 arm in which mothers enfold and carry their " sucking child." 
 Joy overflowed for the one stray sheep brought back : did Love 
 not overflow for the sheep which refused to return ? 
 
 O mine enemy, Lord, for Thine own sake 
 
 Rejoice not over me ! Kindle my heart and break ; 
 
 Jesus waiteth to be gracious : Make mine anguish efficacious 
 
 I will yet arise, Wedded to Thine own : 
 
 Mounting free and far Be not Thy dear pain, 
 
 Past sun and star Thy love in vain, 
 To a house prepared and spacious Thou Who \\ aitest to be gracious 
 
 In the skies. On Thy Throne. 
 
 One hand uplifted to heaven, one foot on sea and one on 
 earth, the Angel thus places himself in contact with the 
 universe ; and delivers his message, not as an alien standing 
 aloof, but rather as a fellow-creature so far akin to all whom 
 his words concern. We know that Angels minister to the 
 heirs of salvation : who can doubt that they love them while 
 caring for them ? 
 
 If contact may be supposed to express sympathy between 
 natures so diverse, much more should it breed sympathy 
 between individuals of one race. In Angels towards men 
 sympathy seems an extra and gratuitous grace : in men towards 
 one another it is an essential grace. Let us not abandon 
 sympathy to the Angels. 
 
 An unsympathetic angel would be a deviL An unsym- 
 pathetic man or woman would be ? 
 
 6. And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, Who 
 created heaven, and the things that therein are, and 
 the earth, and the things that therein are, and the 
 sea, and the things which are therein, that there should 
 be time no longer : 
 
 "And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever . . . 
 that there should be time no longer." Delay has been pro- 
 posed instead of time. As this alternative word would have 
 to do with the interpretation of the sense, not with simple 
 meditation, I leave it to my betters. 
 
 Studying the Authorized Version as it actually stands, a 
 contrast is suggested between "for ever and ever" and "time."
 
 278 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 He that liveth for ever and ever inhabiteth eternity ; His works 
 (enumerated by the angel) are creatures of time. Eternity is 
 duration which neither begins nor ends; time is duration 
 which both begins and ends : the .mystery of eternity seems to 
 be its having no beginning ; the obscure point of time its 
 having an end. 
 
 What is time? It is not subtracted from eternity, which 
 if diminished would fall short of being eternal : neither is it 
 substituted awhile for eternity, which thus would assume both 
 end and beginning : neither is it simultaneous with eternity, 
 because it is in Him Who inhabiteth eternity (not time) that 
 we ourselves day by day live and move and have our being. 
 Perhaps I shall not mislead my own thoughts by defining to 
 myself time as that condition or aspect of eternity which 
 consists with the possibility of probation. 
 
 If such indeed be time, then in part I understand how at 
 length there shall be time no longer. The words, " Their 
 time should have endured for ever" (Ps. Ixxxi. 15), suggest 
 that no break will occur between time and eternity. 
 
 Time seems not short : 
 
 If so I call to mind 
 
 Its vast prerogative to loose or bind, 
 And bear and strike amort 
 
 All humankind. 
 
 Time seems not long : 
 If I peer out and see 
 Sphere within sphere, time in eternity, 
 
 And hear the alternate song 
 Cry endlessly. 
 
 Time greatly short, 
 
 O time so briefly long, 
 
 Yea, time sole battleground of right and wrong ; 
 Art thou a time for sport 
 
 And for a song ? 
 
 The Wise Preacher has bequeathed to us a sermon on time, 
 and I think other texts of Holy Scripture may furnish a running 
 commentary on part of it : 
 
 To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose 
 under the heaven : 
 
 A time to be born, "That which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 
 
 And a time to die ; " Set thine house in order ; for thou 
 shalt die, and not live." 
 
 A time to plant, "Neither is he that planteth anything, 
 neither he that watereth ; but God that giveth the increase."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 279 
 
 And a time to pluck up that which is planted ; " If ye had 
 faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine 
 tree, He thoti plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in 
 the sea ; and it should obey you." 
 
 A time to kill, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man 
 shall his blood be shed : for in the image of God made He 
 man." 
 
 And a time to heal; "Is any sick among you? let him 
 call for the elders of the Church ; and let them pray over him, 
 anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord : and the 
 prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him 
 up ; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." 
 
 A time to break down, " Take away her battlements ; for 
 they are not the Lord's." 
 
 And a time to build up ; " They shall build houses, and 
 inhabit them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the 
 fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit ; 
 they shall not plant, and another eat : for as the days of a 
 tree are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long 
 enjoy the work of their hands." 
 
 A time to weep, " Blessed are ye that weep now : for ye 
 shall laugh." 
 
 And a time to laugh; "Behold, God will not cast away a 
 perfect man, .... till He fill thy mouth with laughing, and 
 thy lips with rejoicing." 
 
 A time to mourn, " Blessed are they that mourn : for they 
 shall be comforted." 
 
 And a time to dance ; " Praise ye the Lord . . . Praise 
 Him with the timbrel and dance . . . Praise ye the Lord." 
 
 A time to cast away stones, "The priest shall command 
 that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and 
 they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city. . . . 
 And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of 
 those stones." 
 
 And a time to gather stones together; "They with whom 
 precious stones were found gave them to the treasure of the 
 house of the Lord." 
 
 A time to embrace, " Behold, Jesus met them, saying, All 
 hail. And they came and held Him by the Feet, and wor- 
 shipped Him." 
 
 And a time to refrain from embracing; "Jesus saith unto 
 her, Touch Me not ; for I am not yet ascended to My Father." 
 
 A time to get, " Wisdom is the principal thing ; therefore 
 get wisdom : and with all thy getting get understanding."
 
 280 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 And a time to lose; "There is utterly a fault among you, 
 because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather 
 take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be 
 defrauded?" 
 
 A time to keep, "The foolish said unto the wise, Give us 
 of your oil ; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, 
 saying, Not so ; lest there be not enough for us and you." 
 
 And a time to cast away ; " The kingdom of heaven is like 
 unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every 
 kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and sat 
 down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad 
 away." 
 
 A time to rend, " Rend your heart, and not your garments, 
 and turn unto the Lord your God." 
 
 And a time to sew ; " Coats and garments which Dorcas 
 made, while she was with them." 
 
 A time to keep silence, " I was dumb, I opened not my 
 mouth ; because Thou didst it." 
 
 And a time to speak ; " A word fitly spoken is like apples 
 of gold in pictures of silver." 
 
 A time to love, " A friend loveth at all times." 
 
 And a time to hate ; " If any man come to Me, and hate 
 not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, 
 and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My 
 disciple." 
 
 A time of war, " Think not that I am come to send peace 
 on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword." 
 
 And a time of peace. " Peace I leave with you, My peace 
 I give unto you." 
 
 Grant, O Lord, 
 
 To the natural man regeneration, 
 
 To regenerate man fulness of Thy Spirit, 
 
 To man who must die an ordered house, 
 
 To planters and waterers hundredfold increase, 
 
 To the faithless faith, 
 
 To the faithful confirmation of faith, 
 
 To judges righteous judgment, 
 
 To criminals repentance unto salvation, 
 
 To sufferers a happy issue out of all their afflictions, 
 
 To rebels submission, 
 
 To saints every good and perfect gift, 
 
 To those who weep consolation, 
 
 To the elect joy and gladness, 
 
 To mourners comfort, 
 
 To the light-hearted Thy fear and love, 
 
 To spiritual persons discernment, 
 
 To the rich munificence and devotion.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 281 
 
 To friends sanctification of intercourse, 
 To lonely persons Tliy most holy Presence, 
 To the upright wealth and wisdom, 
 To the wronged unworldliness and a forgiving spirit, 
 To the prudent heavenly-mindedness, 
 To the redeemed mercy in that day, 
 To sinners contrition and amendment, 
 To workers good works, 
 To the rebuked silence, 
 To the instructed speech, 
 To lovers Divine love, 
 To haters Godly hatred, 
 To Thy soldiers and servants victory, 
 And after victory peace, 
 Grant, O Lord. Amen. 
 
 7. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when 
 he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be 
 finished, as He hath declared to His servants the 
 prophets. 
 
 " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel ; for He hath visited 
 and redeemed His people ; and hath raised up an horn of 
 salvation for us in the house of His servant David ; as He 
 spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been 
 since the world began." 
 
 Since a former mystery revealed by prophets is the mystery 
 of man's redemption, let us all the more lovingly lean on God's 
 sustaining grace while He reveals further mysteries. 
 
 Faith, hope, love, His gift to us, become in turn our accept- 
 able offering to Him. Holy fear likewise ; but never such fear 
 as paralyzes those other graces. Manoah's wife knew far less 
 than Christians know when yet she protested : " If the Lord 
 were pleased to kill us, He would not have received a burnt 
 offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would He 
 have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time have 
 told us such things as these." 
 
 Faith discerns, embraces. Hope anticipates, aspires. Fear 
 curbs, spurs. Love curbs, spurs, anticipates, aspires, discerns, 
 embraces, cleaves unto, unites. Love is the panoply of graces. 
 
 " Without faith it is impossible to please God." " Hope 
 maketh not ashamed." " Let us have grace, whereby we may 
 serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." "God is 
 Love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and 
 God in him." 
 
 An impious species of faith (though unworthy of the name) 
 appertains to devils : so likewise does an impious fear. In 
 the nature of things devils seem absolutely cut off from hope,
 
 282 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 unless from a vile spurious hope of evil doing. Faith of one 
 sort or other underlies both hope and fear, obedience and 
 rebellion. Hope is a solace, obedience a privilege; both 
 are proper to the saints. Despairing faith and rebellious fear 
 remain for the reprobate. 
 
 Lord God, Who alone knowest my ignorance, have pity 
 upon me, and mine, and all men. Weak we are, strengthen 
 us ; afraid, encourage us ; rash, sober us ; slothful, arouse us ; 
 ignorant, instruct us ; destitute, enrich us ; dead, quicken us ; 
 lost, find us. Lost, yet Thy treasure : dead, yet Thine own. 
 I plead Jesus. 
 
 " For what man is he that can know the counsel of God ? 
 or who can think what the Will of the Lord is? For the 
 thoughts of mortal men are miserable, and our devices are but 
 uncertain. For the corruptible body presseth down the soul, 
 and the earthy tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth 
 upon many things. And hardly do we giiess aright at things 
 that are upon earth, and with labour do we find the things 
 that are before us : but the things that are in heaven who hath 
 searched out? And Thy counsel who hath known, except 
 Thou give wisdom, and send Thy Holy Spirit from above ? " 
 
 1 am afraid in foresight of those days when the Mystery of 
 God shall be finished. In my fearful and great strait to whom 
 shall I flee but to Thee, O Unchanging Lord Jesus, Who once 
 for us men and for our salvation saidst, " It is finished " ? 
 
 Thou Who wast straitened till Thy Baptism was accomplished, 
 
 Pity us, accomplish Thy Will upon us. 
 Thou Who finishedst the work Thy Father gave Thee to do, 
 
 Pity us, finish Thy work by us and in us. 
 Thou Who saidst "It is finished" in the ending of Thine Agony, 
 
 Pity us, bring us to a good end, 
 
 Yea, Lord most pitiful, pity us. Amen. 
 
 All that hath begun wnsteth, Plumbs the deep, Fear descending; 
 
 All beneath the sun hasteth ; Scales the steep, Hope ascending ; 
 
 Earth-notes change in tune Faith betwixt the twain 
 
 With the changeful moon, Plies both goad and rein, 
 
 Which waneth Half-fearing, 
 
 While earth's chant complaineth. All hopeful, day is nearing. 
 
 Those words, " The Mystery of God should be finished," 
 suggest two events : first, its completion so far as it is a dispensa- 
 tion : secondly, its disclosure so far as it is a hidden thing. 
 
 Its completion is final, universal, absolute. Every sanctified 
 will cannot but concur in it : yet is it independent of all 
 created wills, equally independent of their concurrence or 
 demur. The tiumpet-peal of the blessed Angel shall (so to
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 283 
 
 say) keep time and tune with it ; but the trumpet waits on the 
 mystery, not the mystery on the trumpet. The mystery is "of 
 God " and its " times " are in His hand. 
 
 Its disclosure likewise may be final, absolute ; but (assum- 
 ably) not universal. Almost in Abraham's words the faithful 
 are constrained to protest trembling : " That the wicked should 
 be as the righteous, that be far from Thee." Narrowing my 
 thoughts to humankind, I consider : Whereby do the elect 
 know all things? By "an Unction from the Holy One." 
 And if it needs This for knowledge now, how shall it not need 
 This for knowledge then ? 
 
 It were sad for such as I am to remain in darkness of 
 ignorance for ever and ever. If then for me, how sad and 
 piteous were it for the most aspiring, the most profound, the 
 keenest of insight, the most luminously intellectual ; for a 
 multitude whom I have not known or known of; for some 
 whom I have known and have loved ! 
 
 My God, Who hast known us all and loved us all ; deliver 
 us, keep us, from outer darkness. For Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 8. And the Voice which. I heard from heaven spake unto 
 
 me again, and said, Go and take the little hook which 
 is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon 
 the sea and upon the earth. 
 
 9. And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me 
 
 the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat 
 it up ; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall 
 be in thy mouth sweet as honey. 
 
 St. John as a glorious Apostle and as a goodly Prophet may 
 under either aspect appear too exalted for ordinary imitation. 
 Here, however, we behold him instructed step by step what 
 to do, whereupon step by step he obeys. Here then let me 
 not exclaim, Are all Apostles ? are all Prophets ? in order to 
 screen myself while doing nothing : let me rather promptly 
 imitate an imitable obedience by myself waiting on my ministry, 
 whatsoever that ministry may be. 
 
 And clearly I must not expect to be spared trouble : St. 
 John had to fetch the Book, it was not brought to him. 
 Neither must I shrink from what is formidable : the Angel was 
 superhuman of aspect. Neither must I choose my instructor : 
 not only was the Voice from heaven obeyed, but likewise the 
 angelic injunction. Neither must I bemoan myself as if duties 
 are sure to be irksome : the little book tasted sweet. Neither
 
 284 THE FACE OF THE DEEP, 
 
 must I cling to comfort, not even to spiritual comfort : the 
 after flavour thereof was bitter. 
 Lord, help us. 
 
 10. And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and 
 
 ate it up ; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey : 
 and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. 
 
 To sweet souls obedience itself is sweet, and every word of 
 God acceptable. The ensuing bitterness may have sprung, at 
 least in part, from righteous indignation and human sympathy. 
 Not St. John in his own person, but men of like passions with 
 him were to encounter the perils, trials, judgments, about to 
 be revealed. 
 
 " How sweet are Thy words unto my taste ! yea, sweeter 
 than honey to my mouth ! Through Thy precepts I get 
 understanding : therefore I hate every false way." 
 
 The Angel knew of that sweetness and bitterness, but tasted 
 neither : St. John tasted both. 
 
 To know without experience is God-like. To know by 
 experience is Christ-like. Christ being our Head, we His 
 members, it beseems us to have the mind of Christ. 
 
 Wherefore, Lord Jesus, grant that sweetness may acquaint 
 us with such bitterness as Thou approvest, and that bitterness 
 may be to us safeguard not destroyer of sweetness : until the 
 bitterness of death pass, and the sweetness of life eternal 
 ensue, according to Thy Will. Amen. 
 
 11. And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before 
 
 many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings. 
 
 " And he said unto me," or as in the Revised Version : 
 " And they say unto me." Herein lies a difference, not a 
 contradiction : let me not ignorantly and obstinately insist on 
 confounding differences with contradictions. 
 
 The earthly Communion of Saints tolerates differences but 
 cannot subscribe to contradictions. 
 
 The heavenly Communion of Saints knows neither differences 
 nor contradictions. 
 
 " I believe in the Communion of Saints." 
 
 " Thou must prophesy again."- A sorrowful saying, it may 
 be, even to St. John ; who already having entered heaven and 
 rejoined Christ, found that he had still to turn back from that 
 beloved Visible Presence and revert to earth. 
 
 Yet thus doing he became the more Christ-like, and if so 
 surely the more blessed. Christ had Himself left heaven, or 
 ever He bade His disciple leave heaven. He put him forth
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 285 
 
 indeed, but not until He had Himself gone before him. And 
 no\v the disciple of Love knowing the voice of Love made 
 ready to follow it whithersoever it might send him. " Hast 
 thou not known ? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting 
 God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth 
 not, neither is weary ? there is no searching of His under- 
 standing. He giveth power to the faint." 
 
 St. John's example of patient obedience speaks to us as with 
 the precept and promise of St. Paul : " Let us not be weary in 
 well-doing : for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." 
 
 "Brethren, be not weary in well-doing." 
 
 Patience wears no crown, but acts as a crown to her fellow- 
 virtues. Will Patience herself never be crowned ? Not until 
 she be transfigured ; and transfigured, Patience will no longer 
 appear as Patience. 
 
 I suppose this charge to prophesy again "before many 
 peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings," though partially 
 fulfilled by word of mouth during St. John's after life, was 
 further and in ampler measure fulfilled by promulgation of 
 those writings which throughout the remainder of time prophesy 
 to the Church and to the world, to high and low, to rich and 
 poor, to one with another. Thus he being dead yet speaketh : 
 thus he tarrieth till our Lord shall come. 
 
 And thus in every precept of duty a sequent glory is 
 bound up. 
 
 The great things we are forbidden to ask for ourselves bear 
 no proportion to the good things which God layeth up for them 
 that love Him. So lips say : but does conduct say so ? 
 
 Lord, if not hitherto, henceforward. Amen. 
 
 Lord, grant us eyes to see 
 Within the seed a tree, 
 Within the glowing egg a bird, 
 
 Within the shroud a butterfly : 
 Till taught by such, we see 
 Beyond all creatures Thee, 
 And hearken for Thy tender word 
 And hear it, " Fear not : it is I."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1. And there was given me a reed, like unto a rod : and 
 the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple 
 of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. 
 
 When Philip the Deacon inquired, " Understandest thou 
 what thou readest ? " the Ethiopian replied : " How can I, 
 except some man should guide me?" Yet were that Bible 
 student's meditations acceptable and profitable even before 
 light sprang up. Since I cannot sit at the feet of an inspired 
 interpreter, I may at least essay to mount the chariot of devout 
 meditative ignorance, which went forward in the direction of 
 undiscovered truth. And in virtue of that promise, " Man 
 shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
 out of the mouth of God," I will doubt not, but earnestly 
 believe that the mere words of Holy Writ can by God's grace 
 avail to teach the teachable. 
 
 "A reed," the emblem of weakness, becomes consecrated 
 as the measure of what is holy. 
 
 Christ accepts our weakness, not accounting it as weakness, 
 but associating it with His own Holiness and Strength. Once 
 He held a reed in His right Hand, making it the sceptre and 
 visible sign of His invincible patience : if we following Him 
 make of our own weakness the measure of our patience, it will 
 become transmuted into strength. Once in the Almighty 
 Strength of His dying weakness He accepted vinegar n a 
 reed : if in our weakness we give but a cup of cold water for 
 love of Him, He will accept this also, and strengthen and 
 sanctify us. 
 
 When we shrink appalled from the holiness of our calling, 
 privileges, vocation, there is comfort for us in the reed. For 
 not the strength of iron, or the indestructibility of gold, was 
 employed for measurement of the holy place and people, but 
 the frailty of a reed. Am I frailer than other reeds, verily a 
 bruised reed ? Yet a bruised reed will He not break.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 287 
 
 "We will not boast of things without our measure; but 
 according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed 
 to us." 
 
 A reed shaken with the wind dwells trembling in the wilder- 
 ness. Lord, I am such. But King Solomon has written: 
 " Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon 
 her Beloved?" Lord, is it I? Lord, is it not I ? Amen. 
 
 "A reed like unto a rod." "Hear ye the rod, and Who 
 hath appointed it." Centuries before St. John's day the 
 Prophet Ezekiel records how "in the visions of God . . . 
 behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the 
 appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a 
 measuring reed " who measured the holy house and holy 
 precincts ; until we read : " He measured it by the four sides : 
 it had a wall round about, five hundred reeds long, and five 
 hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary 
 and the profane place." 
 
 The Temple, not the Lord of the Temple, is measurable ; 
 the Altar, not the One Sacrifice upon the Altar. The measured 
 worshippers are themselves temples, and in their degree sacri- 
 fices ; worshipping in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh 
 such to worship Him. " In His Temple doth every one speak 
 of His glory." 
 
 The practice of the celestial Temple is the theory of each 
 terrestrial temple, whether of hewn stone and carved work, or 
 of flesh and blood. There is one temple whereof I am cus- 
 todian and votaress; of its services, devotions, worship, I alone 
 shall have to render an account : " Know ye not that ye are 
 the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in 
 you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God 
 destroy ; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 
 
 All creatures being God's servants, any at His behest become 
 His messengers. Yet perhaps we may think that God as God 
 hath eminently angels for His messengers, whilst as Man men ; 
 although under the Old Dispensation prophets were sent as 
 well as angels, and at the outset of the New Dispensation 
 angels as well as apostles. 
 
 Perhaps the Apostle rather than the Angel was commissioned 
 to measure the worshippers of St. John's present vision, in 
 order to encourage all worshippers, even weepers barely within 
 the sacred precincts, and tremblers in dread of final expulsion, 
 by a feeling of kinship. 
 
 Assumably St. John was greater than those worshippers 
 whom he was commanded to measure; and -yet to do so he
 
 288 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 was called upon to "rise." Each act of dutiful service, though 
 for its performance the elect soul abases itself, yet raises that 
 soul to a loftier level and augments its glory. So long as 
 Christ be all in all, to descend "upon the Son of Man" is as 
 elevating as to ascend. Indeed, neither ascent nor descent 
 comes any longer into question, when Christ is felt to be that 
 true and only and living Centre to which all living life 
 gravitates. 
 
 Alone Lord God, in Whom our trust and peace, 
 Our love and our desire, glow bright with hope j 
 Lift us above this transitory scope 
 
 Of earth, these pleasures that begin and cease, 
 
 This moon which wanes, these seasons which decrease : 
 We turn to Thee ; as on an eastern slope 
 Wheat feels the dawn beneath night's lingering cope, 
 
 Bending and stretching sunward ere it sees. 
 
 Alone Lord God, we see not yet we know ; 
 
 By love we dwell with patience and desire, 
 And loving so and so desiring pray : 
 Thy Will be done in earth as heaven to-day ; 
 
 As yesterday it was, to-morrow so ; 
 
 Love offering love on love's self- feeding fire. 
 
 2. But the court which, is without the temple leave out, 
 and measure it not ; for it is given unto the Gentiles : 
 and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty 
 and two months. 
 
 A spur to missionary zeal. For of these excluded Gentiles 
 may not some by dint of brotherly love be compelled to come 
 in, pending the " forty and two months " allowed them ? 
 
 The Gentiles here in question are apparently virulent rebels 
 within reach and sound of the truth. What they tread under- 
 foot is the holy city ; what they inhabit is an outskirt of the 
 temple. Their case appears more appalling than the case of 
 any who being without a preacher sit still afar off in the region 
 and shadow of death, and may in some sort plead : No man 
 hath hired us. The more appalling, the more urgent. 
 
 " Forty and two months " three years and a half. Whether 
 or not this is to be understood literally, it doubtless forms a 
 goodly period for such persons as by patient continuance in 
 well-doing have habituated themselves to redeem the time. 
 But it may prove a fearfully brief period into which to crowd 
 neglected duties, work behindhand, a worthy course and a 
 good end. 
 
 Besides : although the extent of the period be indicated, I
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 289 
 
 know not when it commences. It may be passing away whilst 
 I sit waiting for it to begin. 
 
 It is the period of a Woe, or perhaps a pause between two 
 Woes : not any leisure time for worldly gaiety or worldly care. 
 It is the period preceding a Woe. In prospect of which Woe, 
 as I am ignorant when it begins, I shall do wis2ly at once to 
 rend my heart if not my garments, and turn unto the Lord my 
 God ; for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of 
 great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil. 
 
 From our Lord's Ascension to the end of time is holy Church's 
 season of Advent. Each Christian's whole life then is one 
 continuous Advent season. 
 
 O Lord Almighty, Who by Thy Psalmist hast said that one 
 day in Thy courts is better than a thousand, grant that forty 
 and two months be not spent there altogether in vain ; but of 
 Thine inexhaustible Goodness save souls, though it be as brands 
 snatched from the burning. For our Mercy's sake, our Lord 
 Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 3. And I will give power unto My two witnesses, and they 
 shall prophesy a thousand, two hundred and threescore 
 days, clothed in sackcloth. 
 
 It has been conjectured that these twain are Enoch and 
 Elias; who not having hitherto died the common death of all 
 men, will then being sent back to earth taste of death. If so, in 
 accordance with those words of St. Paul : " By one man sin 
 entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed 
 upon all men, for that all have sinned." 
 
 If Christ had not died, it might have appeared almost the 
 chief of human exemptions not to die ; but since Christ elected 
 to die, which of us would dare choose not to die ? as though 
 to be less Clirist-like could be more excellent. 
 
 "And I will give power." The Speaker, as occurs more 
 than once in this Divine Apocalypse, seems without announce- 
 ment to have changed. Mighty as are the two Witnesses, yet 
 could even they have no power at all except it were given 
 them from above. So Joseph answered Pharaoh : " It is not 
 in me : God shall give . . ." 
 
 O God Almighty, Who to them that have no might increasest 
 strength, strengthen us to do and suffer Thy good Will and 
 pleasure. For the honour of Jesus Christ, Thy Blessed Son, 
 in Whom Thou art well pleased. Amen. 
 
 "One thousand two hundred and threescore days" amount 
 
 T
 
 290 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 to very nearly those "forty and two months" mentioned 
 above (ver. 2). 
 
 " Clothed in sackcloth." They are sent to bear witness for 
 God in a world which lieth in wickedness. Such, however, is 
 the daily vocation of each Christian in his or her degree. If 
 then we put not on actual sackcloth of hair outside and visibly 
 to all men, yet let us beware of falling short of that very faulty 
 King of Israel, who wore sackcloth within upon his flesh ; he 
 literally, we at the least in spirit. 
 
 " Therefore said I, Look away from me ; I will weep bitterly, 
 labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the 
 daughter of my people. For it is a day of trouble, and of 
 treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord God of hosts in 
 the valley of vision. . . . And in that day did the Lord God 
 of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, 
 and to girding with sackcloth : and behold joy and gladness, 
 slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine : 
 let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die." 
 
 From a seared conscience, good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 4. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks 
 standing before the God of the earth. 
 
 A marginal reference directs me to the fourth chapter of 
 Zechariah : " What are these two olive trees upon the right 
 side of the candlestick, and upon the left side thereof? . . . 
 What be these two olive branches which through the two golden 
 pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves ? . . . These 
 are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole 
 earth." 
 
 This fourth chapter of Zechariah refers to the building of 
 the Second Temple. If its mysterious revelation of " the two 
 anointed ones" does in truth (although haply in a subordinate 
 sense) correspond with the Apocalyptic " two witnesses," then 
 I fortify hope that besides those worshippers already harboured 
 within the sanctuary (ver. i), some living stones from without 
 may even during the forty-two months be built in with them. 
 For if the final Temple be still in building, " yet there is room." 
 
 " The God of the earth," or, as in Zechariah, " The Lord 
 of the whole earth." The two phrases correspond, claiming 
 all men by right for God. "Is He the God of the Jews only? 
 is He not also of the Gentiles ? Yes, of the Gentiles also : 
 seeing it is one God." 
 
 My God, Who hast revealed to us hope as a most opportune 
 grace ; endow us with it as our own anchor of the soul sure
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 291 
 
 and steadfast. Keep us by holy hope from presumption, as it 
 were a waterspout, and from despair as it were a quicksand, that 
 we shipwreck not ourselves by the one or in the other. For 
 Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 5. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of 
 
 their mouth, and devoureth their enemies : and if any 
 man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. 
 
 6. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the 
 
 days of their prophecy : and have power over waters 
 to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all 
 plagues, as often as they will. 
 
 Very similarly it is recorded concerning Elijah in his contest 
 with evil : " Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty 
 with his fifty. And he went up to him : and, behold, he sat 
 on the top of an hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man of 
 God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered 
 and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let 
 fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. 
 And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and 
 his fifty. Again also he sent unto him another captain of fifty 
 with his fifty. And he answered and said unto him, O man of 
 God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly, /ind Elijah 
 answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire 
 come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. 
 And the fire of God came down from heaven, and consumed 
 him and his fifty." But as now in prophecy, so then in history, 
 that devouring fire touched only aggressors. " And he sent 
 again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty. And the third 
 captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before 
 Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, 
 I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, 
 be precious in thy sight. Behold, there came fire down from 
 heaven, and burnt up the two captains of the former fifties 
 with their fifties : therefore let my life now be precious in thy 
 sight. And the angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, Go down 
 with him : be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went 
 down with him unto the king." And before his invocation of 
 fire, Elijah had by his word shut and reopened the floodgates 
 of heaven. 
 
 The turning waters to blood, and smiting with all plagues, 
 recall the joint mission of Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh. 
 
 Elijah stood alone : his, at least under one prominent aspect, 
 were deeds of vengeance in a day of vengeance. Moses and
 
 292 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Aaron wrought together : theirs was primarily a work of re- 
 demption, though accomplished at all costs ; " I gave Egypt 
 for thy ransom." 
 
 A few are charged to do judgment : every one without ex- 
 ception is charged to show mercy. I may doubt whether I 
 am one of a few : I cannot doubt whether I am one of every 
 one. A clue in obscure cases. 
 
 " Behold, the Lord will come with fire, ... to render . . . 
 His rebuke with flames of fire." Already by the word of His 
 Scriptures, of His priests, of my own conscience, of my fellow- 
 men, and especially of any good Christians, the Divine word 
 of rebuke comes to me. 
 
 O Merciful Lord Jesus, grant that now Thy rebuke may 
 enlighten and enkindle us, lest then it should consume us. 
 
 Thou Who once madest Thyself as a man in Whose mouth 
 nre no reproofs, rebuke us, but with judgment, not in Thine 
 anger, lest Thou bring us to nothing. 
 
 Thou Who becamest a reproof among Thine enemies and 
 Thy neighbours, save us from the reproof of him that would 
 eat us up. 
 
 Thou Who knowest our reproof, our shame and our dis- 
 honour, deliver us from our adversaries, who are all in Thy 
 sight. Blessed be Thou. Amen. 
 
 "The exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, 
 My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint 
 when thou art rebuked of Him : for whom the Lord loveth 
 He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." 
 The temper I should cultivate is love, which endureth all 
 things. " Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee." St. 
 Peter loved St. Paul, writing : " Our beloved brother Paul." 
 The influence entrusted to me I cannot choose but exert, by 
 it promoting and countenancing, directly or indirectly, good or 
 else evil. " He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous ; 
 him shall the people curse, nations shall abhor him ; but to 
 them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing 
 shall come upon them." No extremity stays the flow of 
 influence. 
 
 "As often as they will." Storm, pestilence, earthquake, the 
 sea, lightning, wild beasts, these all have oftentimes destroyed 
 men. It is yet to be seen, more terrific will it be to see, saints 
 wielding all weapons of destruction. Saints who resemble Christ. 
 
 O Christ, the Saint of saints, Who callest us to be saints ; 
 in the dire day of destruction save us. Christ our Refuge, ex- 
 clude us not ; our Redeemer, despise us not ; our Surety, deny
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 293 
 
 us not ; our Saviour, destroy us not ; our Brother, abhor us 
 not ; our Friend, forsake us not ; our All in all, fail us not. 
 Amen. 
 
 7. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the 
 beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall 
 make war against them, and shall overcome them, and 
 kill them. 
 
 "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the ex- 
 cellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are 
 troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, 
 but not in despair ; persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, 
 but not destroyed ; always bearing about in the body the dying 
 of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made 
 manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered 
 unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be 
 made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh 
 in us." 
 
 An overthrow which redounds to the glory of God is not 
 defeat, but victory. Nor indeed is such an overthrow any 
 genuine overthrow ; any more than prostration is a fall, or self- 
 sacrifice destruction. Bear witness, Gethsemane and Calvary ! 
 
 I being weak and timid would fain serve God without great 
 terrors or tortures ; but I comprehend that amongst His most 
 noble and ardent lovers some are so rapt out of themselves in 
 Jesus Christ that terrors appal them not, nor tortures abate 
 their spirit. God is good in their height, and in my lowness, 
 accepting the one and not having rejected the other. 
 
 As flames that consume the mountains, as winds that coerce the sea, 
 Thy men of renown show forth Thy might in the clutch of death : 
 
 Down they go into silence, yet the Trump of the Jubilee 
 Swells not Thy praise as swells it the breathless pause of their breath. 
 
 What is the flame of their fire, if so I may catch the flame ; 
 
 What the strength of their strength, if also I may wax strong? 
 The flaming fire of their strength is the love of Jesu's Name, 
 
 In Whom their death is life, their silence utters a song. 
 
 " When they shall have finished their testimony : " and not 
 till then. "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
 peace." 
 
 " The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit." As 
 said the Angel to Zechariah : " This is wickedness " knowing 
 which I know enough : " Wickedness shall be broken as a 
 tree." 
 
 Curiosity may remain as to aspect, features, mode of warfare ;
 
 594 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 but happy I am inasmuch as I cannot, like my mother Eve, 
 gratify my curiosity. For what once I know, I cannot at a 
 wish unknow ; and to hanker after knowledge of wickedness 
 seems too often akin to hankering after wickedness. 
 
 This my ignorance being Providential, and therefore beyond 
 cavil safe and right, teaches me that to gaze at sin for any 
 purpose except learning to avoid it, has a dangerous side. It 
 was the serpent fascinated Eve when they met face to face, not 
 Eve the serpent. If Elijah complained : " I am not better 
 than my fathers," well may I acknowledge as much, and fear 
 to disport myself in any place where they stumbled. 
 
 Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver and preserve us from sinful 
 and sympathetic study of evil. Evil communications corrupt 
 good manners ; awaken us to righteousness that we sin no more, 
 but be made of Thee blameless and acceptable in Jesus Christ 
 our Redeemer. Amen. 
 
 8. And their dead todies shall lie in the street of the great 
 city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, 
 where also our Lord was crucified. 
 
 Our Master had aforetime declared: "It cannot be that a 
 prophet perish out of Jerusalem." 
 
 Sodom, Egypt, Jerusalem : who but for the Inspired Word 
 had dared class them as, under any aspect, spiritual equiva- 
 lents ? 
 
 The Jerusalem of our day is holy Church, the outward and 
 visible Church Catholic. A net she is full of good and bad, 
 a field green with tares and wheat, a floor laden with grain 
 and chaff. In her the not-good are bad, the not-wheat are 
 tares, the not-grain is chaff: in her they all are, but some 
 not 0/her; all in her now, but some not always; all borne 
 with to-day, but some not to be borne with to-morrow. Each 
 one of us inevitably is good or else bad ; is wheat or else a 
 tare ; is grain or else chaff. 
 
 According to another similitude we all are either sheep or 
 goats. Now mixed together; but at last to be sorted and 
 severed, and to depart one from another. Yet those millions 
 of souls destitute of help, who have never so much as known 
 their right hand from their left : what of them ? God knoweth. 
 We read that even the hallowed Passover Lamb might be 
 taken out either from the sheep or from the goats ; the kid, 
 the infant goat, being thus classed with the lamb, the infant 
 sheep, and proved capable of Divine acceptance. 
 
 O Lord the Good Shepherd, Whose is the holy flock ; the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 295 
 
 cattle upon a thousand hills are also Thine. Thou art good 
 and gracious, and my trust is in Thy word. 
 
 " Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth : think 
 of the Lord with a good (heart), and in simplicity of heart seek 
 Him. For He will be found of them that tempt Him not; 
 and sheweth Himself unto such as do not distrust Him." 
 
 " Their dead bodies shall lie." " But though the righteous 
 be prevented with death, yet shall he be in rest. For honour- 
 able age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that 
 is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the gray hair 
 unto men, and an unspotted life is old age." 
 
 Where never tempest heaveth, Where never shame bewaileth, 
 
 Nor sorrow grieveth, Nor serpent trailed), 
 
 Nor death bereaveth, Nor death prevaileth, 
 
 Nor hope deceiveth, Nor harvest faileth, 
 Sleep. Reap. 
 
 "Where also our Lord was crucified." Following Whom 
 afar off, " Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteous- 
 ness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 It is " our Lord " Who was crucified : theirs, and equally 
 ours ; theirs, no more than ours, no more than mine. 
 
 O our Lord, because of Thy gracious word touching the 
 corn of wheat, make us all, make me, of its living abundant 
 fruit. O our Lord, because Thou hast been lifted up from the 
 earth, fulfil Thy gracious word and draw all men, draw me, 
 unto Thee. 
 
 9. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and 
 nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an 
 half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in 
 graves. 
 
 "Why do ... the people imagine a vain thing? . . . The 
 Lord shall have them in derision." 
 
 The chief priests and Pharise.-s, Christ's murderers, remem- 
 bered that He had said : " After three days I will rise again. 
 ... So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the 
 stone, and setting a watch." Now on the contrary these mis- 
 creants suffer not the holy bodies to be hidden out of sight, 
 but keep an eye upon them. 
 
 If this be the lesson they learned from that former experi- 
 ence, what a lesson from the ways and works of God ! 
 
 Under either precaution the result is the same. Thus of 
 old it was equally possible for Samson mured up in Gaza to 
 arise at midnight and break forth; or for the same Samson
 
 296 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 openly and under all men's eyes in Dagon's temple to over- 
 throw both idol and idolaters. 
 
 10. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over 
 them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to 
 another ; because these two prophets tormented them 
 that dwelt on the earth. 
 
 " The heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to 
 hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song 
 of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the 
 laughter of the fool : this also is vanity." 
 
 All such impious sending of gifts is in its degree as when 
 Pilate " sent " our Lord to Herod, and Herod again " sent " 
 Him back to Pilate, whereupon the two were made friends. 
 " Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be un- 
 punished." 
 
 They that dwelt upon the earth rejoiced over twain who 
 doubtless were well content no longer to dwell upon such an 
 earth. Short-sighted, those sinners rejoiced because of a 
 cessation of torment, a lull before a storm. 
 
 To slay the two prophets produced at the utmost a pause of 
 torment. Yet might those tormented sinners have clean 
 escaped if they would, as out of the snare of the fowler. 
 Whereby? By ceasing to "dwell upon the earth," and trans- 
 ferring conversation, treasure, heart, to heaven. 
 
 As then, so now, so always while the day of grace endures. 
 Would any not be afraid of the power? Whoso doeth that 
 which is good shall have praise of the same ; for he is the 
 minister of God to such for good. 
 
 Toll, bell, toll. For hope is flying 
 
 Sighing from the earthbound soul : 
 Life is sighing, life is dying : 
 Toll, bell, toll. 
 
 Gropes in its own grave the mole 
 Wedding darkness, undescrying, 
 Tending to no different goal. 
 
 Self-slain soul, in vain thy sighing : 
 
 Self-slain, who should make thee whole? 
 Vain the clamour of thy crying : 
 Toll, bell, toll, 
 
 Living branches are borne by the root, and through the root 
 only have commerce with the earth. What cannot be com- 
 passed or indulged in as by Christ's member, is unfit to be 
 compassed or indulged in at all.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 297 
 
 The saints are strangers and pilgrims, dwellers in tents, 
 sojourners as all our fathers were. They resemble air plants 
 rather than earth plants, yet are by no means tossed about 
 with every wind. They may be likened to birds of paradise, 
 having feet as well as pinions, yet pinions more conspicuous 
 and more characteristic than feet 
 
 Yet earth was very pood in days of old, 
 
 And earth is lovely still : 
 Still for the sacred flock she spreads the fold, 
 
 For Sion rears the hill. 
 
 Mother she is and cradle of our race, 
 
 A depth where treasures lie, 
 The broad foundation of a holy place, 
 
 Man's step to scale the sky. 
 
 She spreads the harvest-field which Angels reap, 
 
 And lo ! the crop is white ; 
 She spreads God's Acre where the happy sleep 
 
 All night that is not night. 
 
 Earth may not pass till heaven shall pass away, 
 
 Nor heaven may be renewed 
 Except with earth : and once more in that day 
 
 Earth shall be very good. 
 
 11. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from 
 God entered into them, and they stood upon their 
 feet ; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. 
 
 "Three days and an half" apparently of total failure. 
 " Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the 
 midst of the people." "We are made as the filth of the world, 
 and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." Unto, 
 but not beyond. "If a man die, shall he live again? all the 
 days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. 
 Thou shall call, and I will answer Thee." 
 
 I may or may not be numbered amongst those who with 
 eyes of flesh and blood shall behold when the Spirit of God 
 entering into the two Witnesses they shall stand upon their 
 feet. But the general resurrection all must see. 
 
 The rejoicers in iniquity must gaze horror-struck. The 
 rejoicers in the truth may indeed gaze with " great fear " ; yet, 
 please God, with greater hope ; with at least some trembling 
 joy amid the general lamentation and mourning and woe. 
 
 That so (God grant it !), that so it may assuredly be with us 
 in that day, it must in this day be so with us in spirit, will, 
 strenuous endeavour : by our siding with God against Satan, 
 with righteousness against sin, with truth against falsehood, 
 with law against revolt ; by our siding with those against these
 
 298 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 in our secret aim, heart ; in our open conduct ; in our circle 
 by example, influence ; in the Church by loyalty, consistency ; 
 in the world by courage, zeal, endurance. 
 
 A saint or a sinner : one or other each must come to light in 
 the resurrection. No neutrals then : therefore no neutrals now. 
 
 It is an alarming symptom when sympathy leans to the 
 wrong side, or when taste and curiosity lie beyond the pale. 
 " Remember Lot's wife." 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, Who being Infinite didst for our sake 
 deign to encompass Thyself with limitations ; curb our eyes, 
 hearts, wills, imaginations, desires : that law and instruction 
 may be our ornament of grace and chains of dignity, and that 
 Thy service may be our perfect freedom. 
 
 12. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto 
 them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to 
 heaven in a cloud ; and their enemies beheld them. 
 
 If these two witnesses be Enoch and Elias, then is their 
 career pre-eminently Christ-like. In a subordinate sense, they 
 like their Master first came down from heaven to earth in 
 order to die ; and having died and risen again, they afterwards 
 re ascended to heaven in a cloud, as we read that our Lord 
 Himself ascended. 
 
 " Come up hither." And they went up. 
 
 To us day by day the word is "Come." "Come unto Me, 
 all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 "Come; for all things are now ready." "Come unto the 
 marriage." Alas ! for any with whom the Truth is pleading : 
 " Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life >: ; to 
 whom He will never say : " Come up hither." 
 
 "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they 
 escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth, much more 
 shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh 
 from heaven." 
 
 Lord, this blessed day while Thou commandest, invitest, 
 beseechest us to come, grant us grace obediently to come : 
 lest another day Thou say to us, Go, depart ; and disobedient 
 even in our obedience we must then depart. From which 
 utter destruction preserve us, Good Lord Jesus. Amen. 
 
 Lord, grant ns grace to mount by steps of grace 
 From grace to grace nearer, my God, to Thee : 
 Not tarrying for to-morrow 
 Lest we lie down in sorrow, 
 And never see 
 Unveiled Thy Face.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 299 
 
 Life is a vapour vanishing in haste ; 
 
 Life is a day whose sun grows pale to set ; 
 Life is a stint and sorrow, 
 One day and not the morrow ; 
 Precious, while yet 
 It runs to waste. 
 
 Lord, strengthen us ; lest fainting by the way 
 We come not to Thee, we who come from far : 
 Lord, bring us to that morrow 
 Which makes an end of sorrow, 
 Where all saints are 
 On holyday. 
 
 Where all the saints rest who have heard Thy call, 
 Have risen and striven and now rejoice in rest : 
 Call us too home from sorrow 
 To rest in Thee to-morrow ; 
 In Thee our Best, 
 In Thee our AH. 
 
 " And their enemies beheld them." Not (please God) that 
 there were not also friends left on earth to see them ; for 
 besides those dead in Christ who will rise first, St. Paul 
 particularizes some who being alive at His coming will be 
 caught up to meet Him in the air. 
 
 Hidden saints : Mephibosheths of the Better David. Yet 
 as " Open rebuke is better than secret love," we must by a 
 sort of parallel be on our guard lest any " hidden " aspect of 
 our own depend on our not being saints at all, and therefore 
 and for that reason only not shining to the glory of our 
 Heavenly Father. Lest in lieu of dark lanterns lighted, we be 
 simply lightless lanterns. 
 
 "A people scattered and peeled ... a people terrible 
 from their beginning hitherto ; a nation meted out and trodden 
 under foot " : to less than this, even at her very least, the 
 Church Militant can never dwindle. 
 
 13. And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and 
 the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake 
 were slain of men seven thousand : and the remnant 
 were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven. 
 
 " Ye are the salt of the earth," said our Blessed Master to 
 His disciples : by which statement we recognize Christians as 
 the preservative element of this world. So Noah barricaded 
 the old world against the Deluge, until he was shut into the 
 Ark. So Lot screened the cities of the plain from fire, until 
 he entered into Zoar. So now the earthquake forbore, until 
 the two Witnesses had ascended. So to the very end earth 
 cannot perish, until the last saint has been caught up.
 
 300 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Salt pleases not every palate, nor preaching every ear, nor 
 warning every temper. If it be possible, as much as lieth in 
 him, each Christian is charged to live peaceably with all men. 
 Beyond what lieth in him he is not answerable : up to what 
 lieth in him he is. 
 
 One who aspires to tench must first become teachable. 
 And if no time should remain afterwards for teaching ? Then 
 like a Deacon such an one will have purchased to himself a 
 good degree ; good, although another may be better and 
 higher. 
 
 If we may connect the overthrown tenth of the city as bearing 
 a traceable arithmetical proportion to the seven thousand 
 slain ; then the full number of inhabitants was seventy thousand, 
 of whom sixty- three thousand being affrighted glorified God. 
 So far this dire destruction resembles the amputation of one 
 limb to relieve a whole body ; as one says, to afford one last 
 chance for life. 
 
 The sixty-three thousand presumably included, if they did 
 not altogether consist of, a remnant of those outrageous rebels 
 of whom we have just been reading as revelling and rejoicing 
 over the slain Witnesses. They were impressed, aroused, at 
 the least momentarily as it would seem brought to a better 
 mind, by the death of seven thousand in a great earthquake. 
 
 I myself have lived in a period though not in a region of 
 earthquakes. Inhabited places have fallen, an unknown 
 number of my fellow-creatures have perished. I have been 
 affrighted and I have been spared. 
 
 Now, Lord God of Heaven, grant me grace to give Thee 
 glory; lest it had been better for me to be cut off short, not 
 living out half my days. Multiply upon us Thy mercy; 
 pleading Jesus Christ I multiply my prayer for every soul within 
 the possibility of Thine infinite mercy. Amen. 
 
 14, The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe 
 cometh quickly. 
 
 That third woe, that most awful woe inasmuch as we read 
 not that it passes ! 
 
 It is in great measure with the contrary source of grief that 
 we are for the present familiar. Half earth's sadness takes its 
 rise from her transitory habit. Spring or summer might satisfy 
 a light heart, if only they could abide. Autumn is a very 
 parable of passing away and sorrowfulness. Only winter is 
 cheered by our foresight of its coming to an end ; winter the 
 death of each year.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 301 
 
 That winter which will be the death of Time has no 
 promise of termination. Winter that returns not to spring, 
 night that returns not to day, death that returns not to life, 
 woe that returns not to bliss, who can bear it ? 
 
 Thou Who didst endure for us the cold night of Thy 
 Passion; deliver us from the winter, the night, the woe, of 
 eternal death. Thou Who didst die and revive for us ; deliver 
 us from the fruitless woeful eternity of death. 
 
 15. And the seventh angel sounded ; and there were great 
 voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world 
 are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His 
 Christ ; and He shall reign for ever and ever. 
 
 At the opening of the seventh seal there was silence in 
 heaven : now at the sounding of the seventh trumpet there are 
 " great voices in heaven." In divers manners God speaketh 
 to us. 
 
 A Woe was predicted : and behold ! joy as the joy of 
 harvest, and as when men rejoice who divide the spoil. But 
 the Woe is bound up in the joy ; overthrow introduces the 
 triumph. 
 
 The Woe is mentioned fifst, reminding us to bear each 
 other's burdens while we may. As yet, God prospering our 
 poor endeavour, we may by influence, example, sympathy, a 
 helping hand, intercession, lighten our brethren's load : even 
 as the saints by holy influence, pious example, warm hands 
 stretched out to help, Christ-like sympathy and intercession, 
 spend themselves to lighten ours. 
 
 " The kingdoms of this world " are those which are to 
 become "the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ." 
 But the Revised Version in each clause gives the singular 
 instead of the plural, kingdom instead of kingdoms. 
 
 Since I know not which translation to prefer, it seems 
 lawful to learn from both. 
 
 Strength attaches to union, resource to multiplicity. The 
 kingdom of death (notwithstanding that death is dissolution) 
 retains strength while it coheres ; for our Lord Himself de- 
 clared that were Satan divided against himself his kingdom 
 could not stand. How much more would the kingdom of 
 life, which is the Church Catholic, wax invincibly strong if all 
 Christendom were to become as at the first of one heart and 
 one mind ! Alas ! for the offences of former days and of this 
 day, for our fathers' offences and our own, which have torn to 
 shreds Christ's seamless vesture.
 
 302 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Nevertheless inasmuch as multiplicity is allied to resource, 
 let us, until better may be, make capital even of our guilty 
 disadvantage. Let us be provoked to good works by those 
 with whom we cannot altogether agree, yet who many ways set 
 us a pattern. Why exclusively peer after defects while virtues 
 stare us in the face ? Cannot we I at least can learn much 
 from the devotion of Catholic Rome, the immutability of 
 Catholic Greece, the philanthropic piety of Quakerism, the 
 zeal of many a " protestnnt." And when the Anglican Church 
 has acquired and reduced to practice each virtue from every 
 such source, holding fast meanwhile her own goodly heritage 
 of gifts and graces, then may those others likewise learn much 
 from her : until to every Church, congregation, soul, God be 
 All in all. 
 
 This present dying life has to end in final death or final life. 
 Time must be superseded by eternity. 
 
 Then the kingdom will pass away utterly from whatsoever is 
 not " of our Lord, and of His Christ." 
 
 Death will abide in evil unity, the lost in evil multiplicity : 
 unity of impotence not of strength, multiplicity of antagonism 
 not of alliance. 
 
 Life, created but immortal, will be bound up as one in that 
 "bundle of life," the love of God ; and at the same time will 
 be what " no man could number " in its offering of love to 
 God. One in joy, innumerable in pleasures ; one in sancti- 
 fication, innumerable in graces. 
 
 " And He shall reign for ever and ever." Amen. 
 
 Marvel of marvels, if I myself shall behold 
 
 With mine own eyes my King in His city of gold ; 
 
 Where the least of lambs is spotless white in the fold, 
 
 Where the least and last of saints in spotless white is stoled, 
 
 Where the dimmest head beyond a moon is aureoled. 
 
 O saints my beloved, now mouldering to mould in the mould, 
 
 Shall I see you lift your heads, see your cerements unrolled, 
 
 See with these very eyes ? who now in darkness and cold 
 
 Tremble for the midnight cry, the rapture, the tale untold, 
 
 "The Bridegroom cometh, cometh, His Bride to enfold." 
 
 Cold it is, my beloved, since your funeral bell was tolled, 
 Cold it is, O my King, how cold alone on the wold. 
 
 16. And the four and twenty elders, which, sat before God 
 
 on their seats, fell upon their facss, and worshipped 
 God, 
 
 17. Saying, We give Thee thanks, Lord God Almighty, 
 
 which art, and wast, and art to come ; because Thou 
 hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 303 
 
 Judgment, mercy, salvation, destruction, all elicit worship 
 from the citizens of heaven ; amongst whom we here behold 
 the four and twenty elders prostrate themselves in adoration, 
 th-reby enhancing not abating their proper dignity. Through- 
 out this Apocalypse the chorus of rapturous praise occurs and 
 recurs ; like the burden of that i36th Psalm of which each 
 verse, whatever it recounts, culminates in the words : " For His 
 niL-rcy endureth for ever." God's Goodness, His supremacy, 
 His marvellous acts, His Wisdom in creation, His Providence, 
 His destruction of the Egyptian firstborn, His rescue of 
 enslaved Israel, His wonders at the Red Sea, His longsuffering 
 in the wilderness, His overthrow of hostile kings, His bestowal 
 of the promised land, His faithful remembrance, His ever- 
 ready help, His bounty, all called forth the Psalmist's 
 impartial prai r e. Which chant of praise from his day to our 
 own has echoed in the Church generation nfter generation, 
 and echoes still and still will echo while faith remains in the 
 earth. 
 
 "Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy Throne ; 
 mercy and truth shall go before Thy face. Blessed is the 
 people that know the joyful sound : they shall walk, O Lord, 
 in the light of Thy countenance." 
 
 Lord, make us, I beseech Thee, like-minded with all saints 
 whether on earth or in heaven ; that we may worship Thee as 
 they worship, trust Thee as they trust, rejoice in Thee as they 
 rejoice, love Thee as they love. Even for the sake of our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ the Saint of saints. Amen. 
 
 " O Lord God Almighty, Which Art, and Wast, and Art to 
 come." The Revised Version omits " and Art to come " : thus 
 setting before us (by suggestion) that perpetual now of eternity 
 which ensues from the unchanging Perfection of the Divine 
 Being. For since He Whose Name is Holy " inhabiteth 
 eternity," therefore eternity is so to say moulded upon Him ; 
 and to Him in his own Nature there exists neither past nor 
 future, nothing ended, nothing beginning. "Which Wast" 
 expresses the creature's experience throughout time, and the 
 creature's mode of apprehending that eternity which (in a 
 sense) preceded time ; while, as the passage under consider- 
 ation commemorates the transference of the creature out of 
 time into eternity, the text stopping short (if in truth it does 
 so stop short) at the words " and Wast," indicates how time 
 has at length passed away even for the creatures of time, who 
 thenceforward for good or for evil are conformed to the law of 
 eternity.
 
 304 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast 
 reigned " as it were responding to the prayer and prophecy : 
 " Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord ; awake, 
 as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou 
 not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon ? Art 
 thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great 
 deep ; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the 
 ransomed to pass over ? Therefore the redeemed of the Lord 
 shall return, and come with singing unto Zion ; and everlasting 
 joy shall be upon their head : they shall obtain gladness and 
 joy ; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away." 
 
 " Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever : the sceptre of 
 Thy kingdom is a right sceptre." 
 
 18. And the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, 
 and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, 
 and that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy 
 servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them 
 that fear Thy Name, small and great ; and shouldest 
 destroy them which destroy the earth. 
 
 St. Paul writes : " Be ye angry, and sin not : let not the sun 
 go down upon your wrath : neither give place to the devil." 
 
 Here at the sunset of time the nations are angry ; and God 
 suffering His whole displeasure at length to arise destroys 
 them which destroy the earth. " Thou sattest in the Throne 
 judging right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen, Thou hast de- 
 stroyed the wicked, Thou hast put out their name for ever and 
 ever. O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end." 
 
 *' It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the 
 judgment." After life, death : after death, judgment : after 
 judgment, life everlasting or death everlasting. " My come- 
 liness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no 
 strength." 
 
 So brief a life, and then an endless life 
 
 Or endless death : 
 So brief a life, then endless peace or strife. 
 
 Whoso considereth 
 How man but like a flower 
 
 Or shoot of grass 
 Blooms an hour, 
 
 Well may sigh " Alas ! " 
 
 So brief a life, and then an endless grief 
 
 Or endless joy : 
 So brief a life, then ruin or relief. 
 
 Wh.it solace, what annoy
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 305 
 
 Of Time needs dwelling on ? 
 
 It is, it was, 
 It is done, 
 
 While we sigh " Alas ! " 
 
 Yet saints are singing in a happy hope 
 
 Forecasting pleasure, 
 Bright eyes of faith enlarging all their scope. 
 
 Saints love beyond Time's measure : 
 Where love is, there is bliss 
 
 That will not pass ; 
 Where love is, 
 
 Dies away " Alas ! " 
 
 O Lord Jesus, Who knowest them that are Thine ; when 
 Thou rewardest Thy servants the prophets, remember, I 
 beseech Thee, for good those who have taught me, rebuked 
 me, counselled me, guided me ; and in that day show them 
 mercy. 
 
 When Thou rewardest the sa : nts, remember, I beseech 
 Thee, for good those who have surrounded me with holy 
 influences, borne with me, forgiven me, sacrificed themselves 
 for me, loved me ; and in that day show them mercy. 
 
 When Thou rewardest the great that fear Thy Name, re- 
 member, I beseech Thee, for good those who have been my 
 patterns of any virtue or grace, of repentance, acknowledgment 
 of offences, begging of pardon, obedience, patience, persever- 
 ance ; and in that day show them mercy. 
 
 When Thou rewardest the small that fear Thy Name, 
 remember, I beseech Thee, for good, ignorant disciples, halting 
 followers, weak cross-bearers, the kneelers on feeble knees, the 
 faint believers who faint not utterly ; and in that day show 
 them mercy. 
 
 Nor forget any, nor forget me ; but in that day show us 
 mercy. Amen. 
 
 I think of the saints I have known, and lift up mine eyes 
 
 To the far-away home of beautiful Paradise, 
 
 Where the song of saints gives voice to an undividing sea 
 
 On whose plain their feet stand firm while they keep their jubilee. 
 
 As the sound of waters their voice, as the sound of thunderings, 
 
 While they all at once rejoice, while all sing and while each one sings ; 
 
 Where more saints flock in, and more, and yet more, and again yet more, 
 
 And not one turns back to depart thro' the open entrance door. 
 
 O sights of our lovely earth, O sound of our earthly sea, 
 
 Speak to me of Paradise, of all blessed saints to me ; 
 
 Or keep silence touching them, and speak to my heart alone 
 
 Of the Saint of saints, the King of kings, the Lamb on the Throne. 
 
 "And that Thou . . . shouldest destroy them which destroy 
 
 ti
 
 306 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the earth " or according to a marginal reading : " which 
 corrupt the earth " : corrupting, that worst method of de- 
 stroying ; and which sooner or later draws down a righteous 
 retributive destruction penal and purgative, as was foreshown 
 in the days of Noah : " The earth also was corrupt before 
 God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked 
 upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt ; for all flesh had 
 corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, 
 The end of all flesh is come before Me ; for the earth is filled 
 with violence through them ; and, behold, I will destroy them 
 with the earth." 
 
 And even as Noah kept himself unsullied by the antedi- 
 luvian corruption ; so by Divine assistance must and can each 
 living soul now in these dangerous days by sanctity of 
 innocence or sanctity of penitence escape the corruption that 
 is in the world through lust, though it dwell all alone without 
 son or daughter, and as holy Job speaking of himself com- 
 plained : " My friends scorn me : but mine eye poureth out 
 tears unto God." 
 
 " Whosoever will be saved " must so do : I who would be 
 saved must so do. To which end certain Bible texts admonish 
 me. 
 
 The Incarnate Truth Himself has given this Counsel of 
 Prudence : " Sell that ye have, and give alms ; provide 
 yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens 
 that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth 
 corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart 
 be also" and this Instruction of Righteousness : "Either 
 make the tree good, and his fruit good ; or else make the tree 
 corrupt, and his fruit corrupt : for the tree is known by his 
 fruit." 
 
 And holy men of old moved by the Holy Ghost have taught 
 us : 
 
 Eye servants are men pleasers : " It came to pass, when the 
 judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves 
 more than their fathers." 
 
 Misbelief breeds misdoing: "The fool hath said in his 
 heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done 
 abominable works, there is none that doeth good." 
 
 Inward defilement exudes : " They are corrupt, and speak 
 wickedly concerning oppression : they speak loftily." 
 
 Hold fast integrity : " A righteous man falling down before 
 the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring." 
 
 Mercy rejoices against judgment : " Ye shall know that I
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 30? 
 
 am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for My Name's 
 sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to 
 your corrupt doings." 
 
 Make a covenant with the eyes : " Corrupt in her inordinate 
 love." 
 
 Boast not thyself as if thou hadst not received it : " Thine 
 heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted 
 thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." 
 
 There is an evil diligence : " They rose early, and cormpted 
 all their doings." 
 
 Take heed what ye hear : " Evil communications corrupt 
 good manners." 
 
 Beware of false teachers : " Many, which corrupt the word 
 of God." 
 
 Believe not every spirit : " Lest by any means, as the 
 serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should 
 be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." 
 
 What we sow we reap : " He that soweth to his flesh shall 
 of the flesh reap corruption." 
 
 The time past may suffice us : " Put off concerning the former 
 conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the 
 deceitful lusts." 
 
 Curb ihe tongue : " Let no corrupt communication proceed 
 out of your mouth." 
 
 Be not wise above that which is written : " Perverse dis- 
 putings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth." 
 
 Walk not in the counsel of the ungodly : " These also resist 
 the truth : men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the 
 faith." 
 
 Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness : " Your 
 riches are corrupted." 
 
 The folly of presumption : "These . . . speak evil of the 
 things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in 
 their own corruption." 
 
 The besottedness of folly : " What they know naturally, as 
 brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves." 
 
 " They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders : 
 they are brass and iron ; they are all corrupters." " O my 
 soul, come not thou into their secret ; unto their assembly, 
 mine honour, be not thou united." 
 
 19. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there 
 was seen in His temple the ark of His testament : and 
 there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, 
 and an earthquake, and great hail.
 
 308 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh 
 my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven 
 and earth." 
 
 From this opening of the celestial Temple (whatever of 
 higher and deeper it may signify) I venture to infer a promise 
 of future insight : so that what I know not now I may, by 
 following on, attain to know hereafter. And because the Ark 
 of the Testament symbolizes the Divine Son's sacred Humanity, 
 I trust that even as now Christ is the central Mystery revealed 
 to man on probation, so the crowning Mystery revealed to man 
 made perfect will still be Christ : Christ in Whom dwelleth all 
 the Fulness of the Godhead bodily ; the Son Who reveals to 
 whomsoever He will the Father ; the Son Whom to have seen 
 is to have seen the Father ; the Incarnate Son in Whom the 
 Spirit dwelleth not by measure. 
 
 O Lord God Almighty, Who out of Thy treasure bringest 
 things new and old for man's instruction, let nature become to 
 us a parable of grace. By Thy lightnings enlighten us and 
 consume us not, by Thy thunders awe us without terror, sit we 
 loose to that earth which may quake and must depart, shelter 
 Thou us in a peaceable habitation when it shall hail coming 
 down on the forest, and this world shall be low in a low place. 
 Let voices of the past persuade us to repentance and faith, of 
 the present to amendment and hope, of the revealed future to 
 holiness and charity ; yea, let all voices persuade us to charity. 
 Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Grant us grace to hear 
 though both our ears tingle ; and to obey, though taking our 
 life in our hand. For His sake, Whose merit exceeds our 
 demerit, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
 Tempest and terror below : but Christ the Almighty above. 
 
 Tho' the depth of the deep overflow, tho' fire run along on the ground, 
 Tho' all billows and flames make a noise, and where is an Ark for the 
 
 dove ? 
 
 Tho' sorrows rejoice against joys, and death and destruction abound : 
 Yet Jesus abolisheth death, and Jesus Who loves us we love ; 
 
 His dead are renewed with a breath, His lost are the sought and the 
 found. 
 
 Thy wanderers call and recall, Thy dead men lift out of the ground : 
 O Jesus, Who lovest us all, stoop low from Thy Glory above : 
 
 Where sin hath abounded make grace to abound and to superabound, 
 Till we gaze on Thee face unto Face, and respond to Thee love unto 
 Love.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman 
 clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and 
 upon her head a crown of twelve stars : 
 
 The Preacher, the son of David, King in Jerusalem, has left 
 on record : "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be 
 for ever : nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it ; 
 and God doeth it, that men should fear before Him. That 
 which hath been is now ; and that which is to be hath already 
 been ; and God requireth that which is past." Thus the past 
 which \ve know, presages the future which we know not. 
 
 And Greater than that King and Wiser than that Preacher, 
 our Lord Himself said to His disciples : " Have ye understood 
 all these things? They say unto Him, Yea, Lord. Then said 
 He unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto 
 the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an house- 
 holder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and 
 old." Now as every Christian " is instructed unto the kingdom 
 of heaven," he cannot be destitute of a treasure whence to 
 bring forth somewhat ; new it may be, old it cannot but be. 
 
 Of this Apocalypse the occult unfulfilled signification will be 
 new ; the letter is old. Old, not merely because these eighteen 
 hundred years it has warned us to flee from the wrath to 
 come; but also because each figure appeals to our experi- 
 ence, even when it stands for some object unprecedented or 
 surpassing. 
 
 A rose might preach beauty and a lily purity to a receptive 
 mind, although the ear had not yet heard tell of the Rose of 
 Sharon and Lily of the Valleys. 
 
 " A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her 
 feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Whatever 
 else may here be hidden, there stands revealed that "great 
 wonder," weakness made strong and shame swallowed up in 
 celestial glory. For thus the figure is set before our eyes.
 
 3 io THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Through Eve's lapse, weakness and shame devolved on woman 
 as her characteristics, in a manner special to herself and unlike 
 the corresponding heritage of man. 
 
 And as instinctively we personify the sun and moon as he 
 and she, I trust there is no harm in my considering that her 
 sun-clothing indicates how in that heaven where St. John in 
 vision beheld her, she will be made equal with men and angels ; 
 arrayed in all human virtues, and decked with all communi- 
 cable Divine graces : whilst the moon under her feet portends 
 that her sometime infirmity of purpose and changeableness of 
 mood have, by preventing, assisting, final grace, become immu- 
 table ; she has done all and stands ; from the lowest place she 
 has gone up higher. As love of his Lord enabled St. Peter to 
 tread the sea, so love of the same Lord sets weak woman im- 
 movable on the waves of this troublesome world, triumphantly 
 eiect, despite her own frailty, made not "like unto a wheel," 
 amid all the changes and chances of this mortal life. 
 
 Eve's temptation and fall suggest the suitableness and safety 
 of much (though by no means of all) ignorance, and the whole- 
 someness of studying what is open without prying into what is 
 secret. We have no reason to doubt that the forbidden fruit 
 was genuinely "pleasant to the eyes": as such she might 
 innocently have gazed upon it with delight, and for that delight 
 might profitably have returned thanks to the Author and Giver 
 of all good. Not till she became wise in her own conceit, dis- 
 regarding the plain obvious meaning of words, and theorizing 
 on her own responsibility as to physical and intellectual results, 
 did she bring sin and death into the world. The Tree of the 
 Knowledge of Good and Evil was as it were a standing 
 prophet ever reiterating the contingent sentence, Thou shalt 
 surely die. This sentence, plain and unmistakable, she con- 
 nived at explaining away, and being deceived, was undone. 
 
 Eve exhibits one extreme of feminine character, the Blessed 
 Virgin the opposite extreme. Eve parleyed with a devil : holy 
 Mary " was troubled " at the salutation of an Angel. Eve 
 sought knowledge : Mary instruction. Eve aimed at self-in- 
 dulgence : Mary at self-oblation. Eve, by disbelief and dis- 
 obedience, brought sin to the birth : Mary, by faith and 
 submission, Righteousness. 
 
 And yet, even as at the foot of the Cross, St. Mary 
 Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, stood beside the 
 " lily among thorns," the Mother of sorrows : so (I humbly 
 hope and trust) amongst all saints of all time will stand before 
 the Throne, Eve the beloved first Mother of us all. Who that
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 311 
 
 has loved and revered her own immediate dear mother, will 
 not echo the hope ? 
 
 Again and eminently, the heavenly figure under consider- 
 ation presents an image of the Church : " the King hath 
 brought me into His chambers." 
 
 "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the 
 moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners ? " 
 All glorious she is within by the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, 
 and effluent glory envelopes her as with the sun for a garment. 
 The moon, set below, may never again eclipse the sun ; yet 
 inasmuch as the perfect life had to be developed out of the 
 imperfect, the unchangeable out of the changeable, therefore 
 the moon abides underlying that consummated glory. Twelve 
 stars compose her crown, a twelvefold splendour. I have seen 
 the Twelve Apostles suggested as the interpretation of this 
 symbol ; and well may it direct our thoughts to their glorious 
 company, the illumination of their doctrine, the shining light 
 of their example. Perhaps there will be no harm in an 
 additional gloss. The eternal state of the Church Triumphant 
 is expressed by her sun-vesture; the moon beneath her feet 
 memorializes her temporal probation while militant in this 
 world ; the twelve stars may may they not ? for earth's day is 
 as night when compared with heaven's day may remind us of 
 those twelve hours in the day during which she was bound to 
 walk and work in accordance with our Lord's own words and 
 practice. Thus her probation issues in glory, a glory all the 
 more glorious because of that probation. "Give her of the 
 fruit of her hands ; and let her own works praise her in the 
 gates." Or if stars seem too incongruous an emblem of any 
 daylight hours ; I call to mind both that there shall be no night 
 there, and that certain benefactors have for their allotted 
 dignity to shine as the stars for ever and ever : whereby stars 
 take rank in the everlasting day. 
 
 Or rather, what real connection is there between stars and 
 night more than between stars and day ? Earth's shadows ap- 
 proach them not in their high places ; nor so far as we can trace, 
 affect them in any way, or do aught in their regard beyond reveal- 
 ing them to mortal ken. Our perception varies, not their lustre. 
 
 2. And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and 
 pained to be delivered. 
 
 Wending my way amid inscrutable mysteries, the words of 
 each verse suggest at least detached matter for thought. 
 
 The 87th Psalm (i 6 : Prayer-book version) narrates how
 
 312 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 "he" was born in divers places and apparently of different 
 parentages. Which conies to pass concerning Christ : Who 
 being formed in each elect soul of whatever kindred, nation, 
 people, tongue, locality, is thus " born " wheresoever such 
 happy souls are born ; holy Church being their mother. " Her 
 foundations are upon the holy hills : the Lord loveth the gates 
 of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Very excellent 
 things are spoken of thee : thou city of God. I will think 
 upon Rahab and Babylon : with them that know me. Behold 
 ye the Philistines also : and they of Tyre, with the Morians ; 
 lo, there was he born. And of Sion it shall be reported that 
 he was born in her: and the Most High shall stablish her." 
 Thus out of Egypt again and again God vouchsafes to call His 
 Son. Thus may Philistia a thousand times be glad of Him. 
 Is any spot excluded ? Nay : " The Lord shall rehearse it 
 when He writeth up the people : that He was born there." 
 
 Cries and travail pangs : no marvel then that not without 
 effort, suffering, fear, sometimes agony, missionaries do and must 
 do their work of travailing for souls. But they shall remember 
 no more the anguish for joy of the birth : " In that day shall 
 there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian 
 shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the 
 Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall 
 Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing 
 in the midst of the land : whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, 
 saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of 
 My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance." 
 
 Eve, the representative woman, received as part of her 
 sentence " desire " : the assigned object of her desire being 
 such that satisfaction must depend not on herself but on one 
 stronger than she, who might grant or might deny. Many 
 women attain their heart's desire : many attain it not. Yet are 
 these latter no losers if they exchange desire for aspiration, the 
 corruptible for the incorruptible : " Thou shall no more be 
 termed Forsaken j neither shall thy land any more be termed 
 Desolate : but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land 
 Beulah : for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be 
 married." " The desolate hath many more children than she 
 which hath an husband." " Give me children, or else I die," 
 was a foolish speech : the childless who make themselves nurs- 
 ing mothers of Christ's little ones are true mothers in Israel. 
 
 O Lord, when Thou didst call me, didst Thou know 
 My heart disheartened thro' and thro', 
 Still hankering after Egypt full in view,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 313 
 
 Where cucumbers and melons grow ? 
 " Yea, I knew/' 
 
 But, Lord, when Thou didst choose me, didst Thou know 
 
 How marred I was and withered too, 
 
 Nor rose for sweetness nor for virtue rue, 
 Timid and rash, hasty and slow ? 
 " Yea, I knew." 
 
 My Lord, when Thou didst love me, didst Thou know 
 
 How weak my efforts were, how few, 
 
 Tepid to love and impotent to do, 
 Envious to reap while slack to sow ? 
 " Yea, 1 knew." 
 
 Good Lord Who knowest what I cannot know 
 
 And dare not know, my false, my true, 
 
 My new, my old ; Good Lord, arise and do 
 If loving Thou hast known me so. 
 "Yea, I knew." 
 
 3. And there appeared another wonder in heaven : and 
 behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten 
 horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 
 
 A wonder : and not least a wonder because beheld " in 
 heaven." The monster has seven heads, which perhaps may 
 be viewed as indicating pseudo self-completeness and assump- 
 tion of independence ; ten horns, pseudo-strength ; seven crowns, 
 pseudo-supremacy. For these seven crowns appear (see Revised 
 Version) to be correctly translated " seven diadems " ; and to 
 be consequently not wreaths of victory but insignia of dominion. 
 Power therefore the dragon wields, yet only under sufferance 
 and until it be reclaimed from him : victory is not his, nor shall 
 be. He is that " swift " to whom the race is not, that " strong " 
 to whom is not the battle. 
 
 Even his "red" colour may possibly express a pseudo- 
 sanctity : for of the Stronger than he we read : " Wherefore 
 art Thou red in Thine apparel ? " Thus would Satan himself 
 be transformed into much more than an angel of light. 
 
 And at the present day when so open-mouthed an antagonism 
 has set in against Christ and Revelation ; and when so many 
 "devout and honourable" persons (if following the Inspired 
 text I dare call them so) are arrayed against the truth as it is 
 in Jesus ; and when signal virtues of philanthropy, with self- 
 spending and alacrity in being spent, take the field like Goliath 
 the Giant in defiance of the armies of the Living God ; I think 
 the pseudo-Christ-like aspect of error becomes prominently 
 urged upon our gravest consideration : especially as of necessity 
 we know not how close upon us may already be the actual
 
 314 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 personal Antichrist in whom human wickedness appears to 
 culminate; that Antichrist \\ho will, it seems, be a foul human 
 agent and copy of the old original Evil one. Let us pause a 
 moment to face this last great adversary, who not as our open 
 enemy but as one of ourselves, will do us this dishonour. 
 
 Some then presage in the Antichrist a pseudo- or mock- 
 Christ. And that his adherents will be rot rebels merely, but 
 eminently dupes, St. Paul by Inspiration intimates ; when touch- 
 ing the Second Advent and the awful period preceding it, he 
 writes : " Let no man beguile you in any wise : for it will not be, 
 except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, 
 the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself 
 against all that is called God or that is worshipped ; so that he 
 sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. . . . 
 And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord 
 Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to 
 nought by the manifestation of His coming ; even he, whose 
 coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and 
 signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness 
 for them that are perishing ; because they received not the 
 love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this 
 cause God sendeth them a working error, that they should 
 believe a lie : that they all might be judged who believed not 
 the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 
 
 I have here quoted the Revised Version in preference to the 
 Authorized because, whilst in my ignorance of Greek I can 
 only take either text upon trust, I note some difference between 
 the two renderings. The words " bring to nought by the mani- 
 festation of His coming," seem pointedly to express how the 
 simple revelation of truth must supersede and abolish error : 
 whereas "destroy with the brightness of His coming " (Author- 
 ized Version), may suggest a physical destruction as by fire from 
 heaven. Again : " all deceit of unrighteousness for them that 
 are perishing," is perhaps more easy to be understood, than 
 " all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish " 
 (Authorized Version) ; and by suggesting that the perishing 
 persons in question entertain no idea of their death-struck 
 condition, the phrase recalls those piteous words of Hosea 
 concerning Ephraim : "Strangers have devoured his strength, 
 and he knoweth it not : yea, gray hairs are here and there upon 
 him, yet he knoweth not." 
 
 4. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, 
 and did cast them to the earth : and the dragon stood
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 315 
 
 before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for 
 to devour her child as soon as it was born. 
 
 " Yea, the stars are not pure in His sight." " How is the 
 gold become dim ! how is the most fine gold changed ! the 
 stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every 
 street. . . . They that were brought up in scarlet embrace 
 dunghills."' 
 
 Temptation, whatever guise it assumes, remains essentially 
 and unalterably base : not even the head, but the tail of the 
 drngon drew and cast down those stars. Temptation, however 
 urgent, remains powerless to compel : the stars were " drawn," 
 not swept along, their free will being seduced, not overborne. 
 At least, they preach to ourselves by such a parable ; to ourselves 
 who are free to stand or to fall. 
 
 " He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High 
 shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of 
 the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress : my God ; in Him 
 will I trust. . . . Because thou hast made the Lord, which is 
 my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation ; there shall no 
 evil befall thee. . . . The dragon shall thou trample under 
 feet. Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I 
 deliver him." 
 
 As to this dragon, he appears to be that "murderer from 
 the beginning," whom our Lord thus characterized plainly to 
 His hearers. As he was, so he is ; and his lusts he will do so 
 far as in him lies. 
 
 Yet is God Almighty able to break the heads of the dragons 
 in the waters. Meanwhile, what is the mind of the saints? 
 "Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined 
 from Thy way ; though Thou hast sore broken us in the place 
 of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death." 
 
 A travailing woman and a new-born babe : truly these might 
 have seemecl souls destitute of help. But even concerning 
 doomed Edom, the word of prophecy saith : " Leave thy 
 fatherless children, I will preserve them alive ; and let thy 
 widows trust in Me." Not fathoming the profound significa- 
 tion, let me be thankful for the encouragement of a homely 
 mercy. If my song cannot be of " mercy and judgment," it 
 can at least be " of mercy . . . unto Thee, O Lord, will 1 
 sing. O let me have understanding : in the way of godliness." 
 
 Behold in heaven a floating, dazzling cloud, 
 
 So dazzling that I could but cry Alas ! 
 
 Alas, because I felt how low I was ; 
 Alas, within my spirit if not aloud,
 
 316 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Foreviewing my last breathless bed and shroud : 
 
 Thus pondering, I glanced downward on the grass ; 
 
 And the grass bowed when airs of heaven would pass, 
 Lifting itself again when it had bowed. 
 That grass spake comfort ; weak it was and low. 
 
 Yet strong enough and high enough to bend 
 In homage at a message from the sky : 
 As the grass did and prospered, so will I : 
 Tho' knowing little, doing what I know ; 
 
 And strong in patient weakness till the end. 
 
 Gracious Lord Jesus, regard Thy creation for good : men, to 
 befriend them ; women, to protect them ; babes, to nurture 
 them ; sufferers, to ease them ; tremblers, to reassure them ; 
 wanderers, to reclaim them ; the sick, to heal them ; sinners, to 
 convert them ; saints, to perfect them ; the dying, to receive 
 them ; the dead, to keep them. Yea, our compassionate 
 Saviour : Who of Thine own free Will and for our sakes 
 didst become an Infant of days, wast born of a woman, didst 
 grow up to perfect Manhood, wert pleased to share human 
 sufferings, to face fear, to seek the lost, to heal the sick, 
 to forgive sinners, to lead saints, to open Paradise to the 
 dying, and there Thyself to receive the dead. Amen. 
 Elijah said : " Thou hast asked a hard thing." 
 But the Lord hath said : " Is anything too hard for the 
 Lord ? " 
 
 5. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all 
 nations with a rod of iron : and her child was caught 
 up unto God, and to His Throne. 
 
 Recalling these words of the second Psalm : " I will declare 
 the decree : the Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Son ; 
 this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I shall give 
 Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost 
 parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt break them 
 with a rod of iron ; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a 
 potter's vessel " : an appalling prediction ; but behold as it 
 were a city of refuge ! " Be wise now therefore, O ye kings : 
 be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with 
 fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be 
 angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled 
 but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." 
 
 Behold, Lord Jesus : to love and trust Thee is our place of 
 
 shelter. Give us thankful hearts while we seek Thee by such 
 
 ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. Yea, Lord, that we 
 
 may please Thee and abide with Thee for ever. Amen. 
 
 6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 317 
 
 a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there 
 a thousand two hundred and threescore days. 
 
 This period of "a thousand two hundred and threescore 
 days," being coextensive with that already assigned for the 
 prophesying of the two Witnesses, suggests (by no means 
 proves) that the two periods are in fact identical, and the two 
 groups of events not successive but simultaneous. 
 
 If so, and regarding the Woman as a figure of the Church, 
 she and her champions compose an awful harmony. She flees 
 out of heaven to her refuge in a wilderness : they (comparing 
 as before Zechariah iv., especially ver. 14, with the relevant text) 
 appear to emerge from the Lord's immediate Presence to put 
 on sackcloth and bear witness. She is divinely provided for 
 during the days of seclusion ; they abide impregnable until their 
 testimony is completed. Meanwhile her Child, her Represent- 
 ative, the Man she has gotten from the Lord, hath heaven for 
 throne and earth for footstool. 
 
 So great a King and Child appears to be a figure of Christ, 
 if he be not Christ Himself. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Accessible, Gracious, Winning, Merciful ; purge 
 our eyes to discern Thee wheresoever as the morning spread 
 upon the mountains Thou showest Thyself unto us. And if 
 sometimes we think to recognize Thee where not so much as 
 Thy shadow passeth by, pardon our error, instruct our ignorance. 
 Nevertheless, because whoso goeth up into heaven, or down 
 into hell, or on wings of the morning betaketh himself to the 
 uttermost parts of the sea, leaveth Thee not but still encoun- 
 tereth Thee ; grant us ever to be as Jacob when he became 
 aware that God was close at hand, ever as St. Mary Magdalene 
 in the garden when lo ! the Unknown was Thyself. Amen. 
 
 I do not know whether it isallowable toconnect texts as follows : 
 
 We are expressly certified that during the thousand two 
 hundred and threescore days the Woman was to be fed. But 
 the " forty and two months " of Gentile supremacy slightly 
 exceed that period. So also does the time allotted to the two 
 Witnesses, if the " three days and an half" of their exposure be 
 added to the term of their mission. Thus supposing all three 
 periods to be simultaneous (and whether computed literally or 
 by some figurative scale, their relative proportion amongst 
 themselves continues apparently unaffected), a brief space 
 remains unaccounted for as concerns the Woman ; which brief 
 space is not apparently furnished with food ; reminding us of 
 the words of Gabriel the Archangel to Daniel the Prophet :
 
 31$ THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 "And in the midst of the week " a half week being equivalent 
 to three days and a half " He shall cause the sacrifice and the 
 oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations He 
 shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that 
 determined shall be poured upon the desolate." 
 
 In this cessation of the sacrifice and oblation devout insight 
 has, 1 believe, apprehended a cessation of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment of Christ's Body and Blood : if so, a withdrawal of that 
 very Bread of Life and Cup of Blessing which are the Church's 
 daily Food and Drink. 
 
 Whilst It abides in our midst God grant us grace to partake 
 of It to life eternal. For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 "That they should feed her there." We are not informed 
 who " they " are. Angels ministered to Our Lord in the wilder- 
 ness of His temptation, an Angel in the Garden of His Agony. 
 Wilderness and Garden appear as one lot in the same fair ground 
 in Isaiah's lovely words of promise : " The wilderness and the 
 solitary place shall be glad for them ; and the desert shall 
 rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly." 
 
 Or if this fallen world's wilderness never rejoice, nor its 
 desert ever blossom, yet wherever holy Church abides she her- 
 self is "a garden inclosed"; where even one holy soul sojourns 
 there blooms a " lily among thorns." 
 
 Any wilderness whither God sends His beloved is sure to 
 turn out a place of safety and of food convenient, if not of 
 flowers. And were it possible for the whole Church or for one 
 single soul to take up its abode in Heaven against the Divine 
 Will, Heaven itself would be found thenceforward a stronghold 
 not of peace, but of unrest. There is no peace outside " the 
 peace of God." 
 
 7. And there was war in heaven : Michael and his angels 
 
 fought against the dragon ; and the dragon fought and 
 his angels, 
 
 8. And prevailed not ; neither was their place found any 
 
 more in heaven. 
 
 9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent 
 
 called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole 
 world : he was cast out into the earth, and his angels 
 were cast out with him. 
 
 Whatever other and subsequent meaning may attach to this 
 revelation, thought reverts instinctively to that occult primitive 
 sin before which sin was not ; that primaeval rebellion which, 
 though long ago trodden down, has not yet been stamped out.
 
 FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 What of disorder cannot sin achieve, if it can turn heaven 
 itself into a battlefield ? 
 
 " Michael " which signifies, Who is like God ? a name of 
 self-oblation, of self-obliteration. Wherefore all holy intelli- 
 gences on earth, and haply all holy intelligences in heaven, 
 may discern latent in that old name the new name of one 
 " VVho is like God," inasmuch as he glorified not himself. 
 
 Lord All Holy Almighty, let our definition be that we are 
 members of Christ, and our praise be not of men but of Thee, 
 and our memorial be names written in heaven. For His sake 
 Whose Name is as ointment poured forth, Jesus. Amen. 
 
 1 speak only so far as my own present powers of apprehension 
 are concerned : the mystery inherent in evil is its existence ; 
 not, assuming that existence, its punishment. 
 
 Absolute darkness engulfs me when I attempt to realize 
 the origin of evil. Yet even in that darkness which may be 
 felt and which I feel, one point I dare not hesitate \o hold fast 
 and assert : evil had its origin in the free choice of a free will 
 Without free will there can be neither virtue nor vice ; without 
 free choice neither offence nor merit. 
 
 The authoritative voice of Holy Church expounding Holy 
 Scripture certifies evil to be positive, not merely negative. If 
 ever I tend to question this, let me look within and consider 
 envy, perhaps at first sight the most irretrievably dead of the 
 seven deadly sins : its sepulchre is incapable of being whited ; 
 it pretends not to be so much as the travestie of any virtue. 
 Envy, surely, is positive evil. 
 
 From gratuitous envy, as of the serpent who without gain to 
 himself robbed mankind of innocence : deliver u>, O Lord. 
 
 From reckless envy, as when to ruin man he aggravated his 
 own doom : deliver us, O Lord. 
 
 From far-reaching envy, as when he defaced a perfection 
 distinct from that he had forfeited : deliver us, O Lord. 
 
 Yet as the root is answerable for the shoot, not the shoot for 
 the root ; not envy but pride, the deadly root of the other six 
 must I suppose stand first in the hideous array. Pride is that 
 one of the seven which might subsist in a being absolutely 
 solitary, a being constituting (so to say) its own universe. The 
 other six with however evil an eye yet do look out of self, and 
 have regard or disregard to something that is not self : pride, 
 self-centred, fears not God neither regards man. 
 
 Pride worships self as self : envy hates good as not-self. 
 
 One can conceive some sort of affinity between anger 
 and zeal, lust and love, gluttony and appreciation of blessings,
 
 320 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 avarice and prudence, sloth and contentment ; even between 
 pride and self-respect ; but for envy there seems no possible 
 next of kin except a devil. 
 
 "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before 
 a fall." If this text may be construed as conveying a double 
 lesson : the obvious admonition which deters from particular 
 sin on pain of consequent disaster ; and the distinct statement 
 that pride it is which entails destruction, and an haughty spirit it 
 is which precedes a fall ; then is light thrown on the sin and 
 downfall of angels. 
 
 " Michael and his angels," who excel in strength, overcame 
 not the dragon and his angels but by dint of battle. 
 
 The strong against the strong, spirit against spirit, then : the 
 weak against the strong, flesh and blood against spirit, now. 
 Nevertheless weakness indomitable, flesh and blood invulner- 
 able, when they come " to the help of the Lord, to the help of 
 the Lord against the mighty." Alleluiah ! Amen ! 
 
 If not with hope of life, Bleed on beneath the rod ; 
 Begin with fear of death : Weep on until thou see ; 
 
 Strive the tremendous lifelong strife Turn fear and hope to love of God 
 Breath after breath. Who loveth thee. 
 
 Turn all to love, poor soul ; 
 
 Be love thy watch and ward ; 
 Be love thy starting-point, thy goal, 
 And thy reward. 
 
 As to the fall of the rebel angels, our very paucity of know- 
 ledge certifies us that there is no need for our knowing much. 
 Unless this passage of the Apocalypse throws light upon it, its 
 direct history is, I suppose, not on record. Yet one or two 
 passages of the elder prophecies fulminated against human 
 rebels, seem further to wake a mysterious chord out of incal- 
 culable remoteness. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O 
 Lucifer, son of the morning ! how art thou cut down to the 
 ground, which didst weaken the nations ! For thou hast said in 
 thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne 
 above the stars of God : I will sit also upon the mount of 
 the congregation, in the sides of the north : I will ascend 
 above the heights of the clouds ; I will be like the Most 
 High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of 
 the pit." "Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and 
 perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of 
 God ; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, 
 and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the 
 saoohire. the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold : the work-
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 321 
 
 manship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in 
 the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub 
 that covereth; and I have set thee so : thou wast upon the 
 holy mountain of God ; thou hast walked up and down in the 
 midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from 
 the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 
 ... I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God : 
 and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of 
 the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy 
 beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy bright- 
 ness : I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before 
 kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy 
 sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities . . . therefore 
 will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, and I will bring 
 thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold 
 thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be 
 astonished at thee : thou shall be a terror, and never shalt thou 
 be any more." 
 
 Whilst studying the devil I must take heed that my study 
 become not devilish by reason of sympathy. As to gaze down 
 a precipice seems to fascinate the gazer towards a shattering fall ; 
 so is it spiritually perilous to gaze on excessive wickedness, lest 
 its immeasurable scale should fascinate us as if it were colossal 
 without being monstrous. A quotation from my sister's Shadmv 
 of Dante speaks to the point : 
 
 " Some there are who, gazing upon Dante's Hell mainly with 
 their own eyes, are startled by the grotesque element traceable 
 throughout the Cantica as a whole, and shocked at the even 
 ludicrous tone of not a few of its parts. Others seek rather to 
 gaze on Dante's Hell with Dante's eyes ; these discern in 
 that grotesqueness a realized horror, in that ludicrousness a 
 sovereign contempt of evil. . . . They remember that the 
 Divine Eternal Wisdom Himself, the Very and Infallible Truth, 
 has, not once nor twice, characterized impiety and sin as Folly ; 
 and they feel in the depths of the nature wherewith He has 
 created them that whatever else Folly may be and is, it is none 
 the less essentially monstrous and ridiculous. ... A sense of 
 the utter degradation, loathsomeness, despicableness of the 
 soul which by deadly sin besots Reason and enslaves Free Will 
 passes from the Poet's mind into theirs ; while the ghastly 
 definiteness and adaptation of the punishments enables them to 
 touch with their finger the awful possibility and actuality of the 
 Second Death, and thus for themselves as for others to dread 
 it more really, to deprecate it more intensely. Dante's Lucifer 
 
 x
 
 322 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 does appear ' less than Archangel ruined,' immeasurably less ; 
 for he appears Seraph wilfully fallen. No illusive splendour is 
 here to dazzle eye and mind into sympathy with rebellious 
 pride ; no vagueness to shroud in mist things fearful or things 
 abominable. Dante's Devils are hateful and hated, Dante's 
 reprobates loathsome and loathed, despicable and despised, of 
 at best miserable and commiserated. . . . Dante is guiltless of 
 seducing any soul of man towards making or calling Evil his 
 Good." 
 
 " Which deceiveth the whole world " not, thank God, the 
 whole Church. And already it behoves us to walk warily if 
 we would not be of the deceived : " It is the last time : and 
 as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there 
 many antichrists ; whereby we know that it is the last time " ; 
 and to lay to heart our dear Lord's own words of prophetic 
 warning : " Except those days should be shortened, there 
 should no flesh be saved : but for the elect's sake those days 
 shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, 
 here is Christ, or there ; believe it not. For there shall arise 
 false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and 
 wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive 
 the very elect." 
 
 WORDS AS GOADS AND AS NAILS. 
 
 "When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and 
 
 understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth 
 
 away that which was sown in his heart." 
 
 " My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil." 
 "A man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil." 
 "Legion : because many devils were entered into him." 
 "Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat." 
 " The devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, 
 
 Simon's son, to betray Him .... After the sop Satan entered 
 
 into him." 
 
 " Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the 
 
 Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land ? " 
 " O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the 
 
 devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to 
 
 pervert the right ways of the Lord ? " 
 
 " Lest Satan should get an advantage of us : for we are not 
 
 ignorant of his devices." 
 "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 
 
 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed 
 
 as the ministers of righteousness."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 323 
 
 " Neither give place to the devil." 
 
 " Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to 
 stand against the wiles of the devil." 
 
 " Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times 
 some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing 
 spirits, and doctrines of devils ; speaking lies in hypocrisy ; 
 having their conscience seared with a hot iron." 
 " Some are already turned aside after Satan." 
 "Him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil." 
 " Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 
 " Be sober, be vigilant ; because your adversary the devil, 
 as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour : 
 whom resist stedfast in the faith." 
 
 " He that committeth sin is of the devil ; for the devil 
 sinneth from the beginning. ... In this . . . are manifest 
 . . . the children of the devil : whosoever doeth not righteous- 
 ness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." 
 
 " He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast 
 out with him." Yet is not humankind given over for a prey 
 unto their teeth. For He Who is not ashamed to call us 
 brethren, saith : " Behold I and the children which God hath 
 given Me." And "hath He said, and shall He not do it? or 
 hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" 
 
 O Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, save us. 
 O Lamb of God, slain for us men and for our salvation, save us. 
 Thou without blemish and without spot, save us. 
 Thou the only and all-sufficient Sacrifice, save us. 
 O Lamb of God, the Avenger of our blood, save us. 
 
 10. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now il 
 
 come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our 
 God, and the power of His Christ : for the accuser of 
 our brethren is cast down which accused them before 
 our God day and night. 
 
 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and 
 
 by the word of their testimony ; and they loved not 
 their lives unto the death. 
 
 12. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in 
 
 them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the 
 sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having 
 great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a 
 short time. 
 
 If I may still ponder the text as bearing any reference to 
 that fall of certain angels whereby they remade themselves ai 
 devils; by preference exchanging glory for shame, righteous*
 
 324 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 ness for guilt, life for spiritual death ; their experience as here 
 set forth teaches me (as heretofore I was taught) how absolute 
 is the repulsion between good as good and evil as evil. Ex- 
 clude all possibility of repentance, and sympathy between the 
 twain is annihilated. So long as in any depth of degradation 
 repentance can rear its ladder, that ladder reaching heaven 
 may become a very pleasure-ground of celestial spirits jubilant 
 over each penitent, ministering to each imperfect perfectible 
 soul. But if once " that which is crooked cannot be made 
 straight ; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered," the 
 recoil becomes mutual and final. No sweet apparent analogies 
 of this present temporal world must mislead me : in the eternal 
 world to come, the world of the Right Hand and the Left, we 
 read nothing of intermediate neutral ground, but only of a 
 great gulf; nothing of twilight, but only of outer darkness or 
 else of a city where is no night ; nothing of mixed characters. 
 Perhaps the pit is revealed to us as bottomless, that we may 
 flee from it as from a place of boundless, endless, unarrestable 
 downfall. 
 
 More awful than the triumph burst of Heaven over the 
 expulsion of evil, is that word of Incarnate Love when Judas 
 went out " and it was night. . . . Now is the Son of Man 
 glorified, and God is glorified in Him." 
 
 Whoso loveth God will also trust Him. 
 
 Whoso loveth God will not so dwell on the impending 
 retribution as to remain cold towards the accomplishment of 
 salvation, indifferent to the perfecting of strength, reluctant 
 that God's Kingdom should come, unwilling to behold the 
 day of Christ's power. " Thy people shall be willing in the 
 day of Thy power, in the beauties of holiness." 
 
 Nevertheless " O Lord, I am oppressed ; undertake for me. 
 What shall I say ? He hath both spoken unto me, and Him- 
 self hath done it." 
 
 "The accuser of our brethren . . . which accused them 
 before our God day and night." As when Satan accused Job : 
 perhaps also as when in the vision concerning Joshua the High 
 Priest, Satan " resisted " before the Angel of the Lord. On a 
 third occasion the Presence Chamber is as it were opened to 
 us ; but then we hear no accusing voice ; the life at stake is 
 the life of Ahab whose sins are his crying accusation. 
 
 A reprobate spirit accuses the brethren. Sometimes also a 
 saint accuses sinners ; for as to certain misbelievers our Blessed 
 Lord, declared : " There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, 
 in whom ye trust."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 325 
 
 Thus while Satan maliciously accuses the saints, those very 
 saints cannot but righteously arraign sinners. If not by word 
 or by writing, yet by their lives and deaths they testify against 
 the ungodly. The mere proverb, What man has done man 
 may do, condemns defaulters : let us not use it lightly lest it 
 condemn ourselves. And no more than an outer accuser can 
 we avoid that inner tribunal before which even the Gentiles 
 are set by St. Paul when he writes : " Their conscience also 
 bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or 
 else excusing one another." 
 
 Not the Last Day alone : every day is a Judgment Day. 
 
 "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there 
 rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee ; leave 
 there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first be recon- 
 ciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree 
 with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with 
 him ; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, 
 and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into 
 prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means 
 come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." 
 
 Day and night the Accuser makes no pause, 
 Day and night protest the Righteous Laws, 
 Good and Evil witness to man's flaws : 
 Man the culprit, man's the ruined cause, 
 Man midway to death's devouring jaws 
 And the worm that gnaws. 
 
 Day and night our Jesu makes no pause, 
 Pleads His own fulfilment of all laws, 
 Veils with His Perfections mortal flaws, 
 Clears the culprit, pleads the desperate cause, 
 Plucks the dead from death's devouring jaws 
 And the worm that gnaws. 
 
 If from this passage we may think of elect Angels as in any 
 sense overcoming " by the blood of the Lamb," it reminds us 
 that the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world. Not 
 that we should entertain carnal thoughts on so sacred a mystery ; 
 our thoughts should ever be moulded and spiritualized by the 
 Inspired Word : " Nor yet that He should offer Himself often 
 ... for then must He often have suffered since the foundation 
 of the world : but now once in the end of the world hath He 
 appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." 
 
 Of " their testimony " we know one word : " Michael," Who 
 is like God? 
 
 Their not having loved " their lives unto the death " must 
 convey a far different meaning from what the same phrase
 
 326 THE FACE OF THE DEEP, 
 
 would import if used of mortal men ; but the true death being 
 that spiritual death which to man is the second death, this 
 latter in the case of angels may be glanced at. Thus " Michael 
 and his angels " may, like Queen Esther, though after a loftier 
 fashion, have taken their life in their hand ; even whilst by any 
 apparent peril they braved, they entrenched themselves im* 
 pregnably within the Divine safeguard. For hazard of life or 
 of aught else in God's quarrel, can at the very utmost and for 
 any creature amount to no more than a surface risk : " He 
 that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." 
 
 Meanwhile, however skill may fail me to work out such a 
 problem in matters celestial, in matters terrestrial the lesson is 
 obvious. All must, I must, overcome Satan and his crew "by 
 the Blood of the Lamb " ; by faith in His Atonement, and by 
 fast hold of His Strength ever accessible to us in the Blessed 
 Sacrament of His Body and Blood : also, according to our 
 several vocations, by the word of our testimony ; by never 
 denying but constantly upholding His eternal Verity; and 
 finally by not loving life beyond His blessed Will for us either 
 to live or to die. 
 
 When speculation fails resort to practice. 
 
 Whatever period may be in question, " Woe " is denounced 
 to earth and sea. Yet the declared reason of this woe includes 
 an element of encouragement. For the devil's wrath is great 
 " because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." 
 
 Courage ! For aught we know courage may shorten the 
 short time : as when David " hasted, and ran " to meet the 
 Philistine. 
 
 " Launch out into the deep," Christ spake of old 
 To Peter : and he launched into the deep ; 
 Strengthened should tempest wake which lay asleep, 
 Strengthened to suffer heat or suffer cold. 
 Thus, in Christ's Prescience : patient to behold 
 A fall, a rise, a scaling Heaven's high steep ; 
 Prescience of Love which deigned to overleap 
 The mire of human errors manifold. 
 Lord, Lover of Thy Peter, and of him 
 Beloved with craving of a humbled heart 
 
 Which eighteen hundred years have satisfied ; 
 Hath he his throne among Thy Seraphim 
 Who love ? or sits he on a throne apart, 
 
 Unique, near Thee, to love Thee human-eyed ? 
 
 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the 
 earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth 
 the man child.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 327 
 
 Did I not fear to offend by bringing a railing accusation, I 
 would say thnt Satan is a fool : he adds sin to sin, heaps up 
 wrath against the day of wrath, a cowardly fool : he uses his 
 strength to persecute the weak, an incorrigible fool : punish- 
 ment exasperates him." "Though thou shouldest bray a fool 
 in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolish- 
 ness depart from him." 
 
 14. And to the woman were given two wings of a great 
 
 eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her 
 place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, 
 and half a time, from the face of the serpent. 
 
 Or as in the Revised Version "... the two wings of the 
 great eagle." Whatever further sense may attach to the words, 
 they pointedly convey to us a figure of the succour and safe- 
 guard of God ; inasmuch as they recall a passage of the Song 
 of Moses : " As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over 
 her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth 
 them on her wings : so the Lord alone did lead him." Thus 
 in her wilderness " the daughter of Jerusalem " may shake her 
 head at her persecutor and sing her song : " Bless the Lord, O 
 my soul, and forget not all His benefits. . . . Who redeemeth 
 thy life from destruction ; Who crowneth thee with loving- 
 kindness and tender mercies ; Who satisfieth thy mouth with 
 good things ; so that thy youth is renewed like the eacle's " : 
 for " They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; 
 they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and 
 not be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint." 
 
 Salvation is of grace: wings are given to the Woman. The 
 soul must co-operate with grace : the Woman herself has to 
 fly with the wings. 
 
 " From the face of the serpent " : he keeping his malicious 
 abominable eye still upon her. As when of old " the enemy 
 said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; my 
 lust shall be satisfied upon them," and perished by reason of 
 his boast. Or as when ages earlier the serpent himself eyed 
 Eve, and she, alas ! fled not. 
 
 15. And the serpent cast out of his month water as a flood 
 
 after the woman, that he might cause her to be 
 carried away of the flood. 
 
 16. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened 
 
 her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the 
 dragon cast out of his mouth. 
 For unless "the faithful city become an harlot" her end
 
 328 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 shall not be with a flood. " Thou stretchest out Thy right 
 hand, the earth swallowed them." 
 
 The serpent cast that flood " out of his mouth." From such 
 a source can scarcely issue less than rank poison : for consider 
 our Lord's words as to what may proceed out of even a man's 
 mouth : " Those things which proceed out of the mouth come 
 forth from the heart ; and they defile the man. For out of 
 the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, forni- 
 cations, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." 
 
 So that, at least, for an immediate practical purpose, this 
 pursuing " flood " may, I trust, be viewed as a flood of tempta- 
 tions ; and in particular of such temptations as are best coped 
 with by flight. Joseph found safety in flight, before the 
 searching and strengthening iron had entered into his soul. 
 
 Now because " righteousness is immortal " and the memorial 
 of virtue immortal, this august Woman, if we may regard her as 
 a figure of Mother Church, is immortal and blessed. Yet 
 even thus there remains a mortal side to the members who 
 make up her immortal personality ; and since " the earth 
 opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood," we are re- 
 minded that the flood of besetting temptation can be finally 
 arrested and annulled only in the grave. " There the wicked 
 cease from troubling ; and there the weary be at rest." " For 
 he that is dead is freed from sin." 
 
 A holy grave is the true bed of heartsease. And already the 
 flowers appear on the earth although the winter is not yet 
 past. 
 
 Lord, grant us grace to rest upon Thy word, 
 
 To rest in hope until we see Thy Face ; 
 To rest thro' toil unruffled and unstirred, 
 Lord, grant us grace. 
 
 This burden and this heat wear on apace : 
 Night conies, when sweeter than night's singing bird 
 Will swell the silence of our ended race. 
 
 Ah, songs which flesh and blood have never heard 
 
 And cannot hear, songs of the silent place 
 Where rest remains ! Lord, slake our hope deferred, 
 Lord, grant us grace. 
 
 17. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went 
 to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep 
 the commandments of God, and have the testimony of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 This word has a distinct bearing upon all future time until 
 the end. Whoever keeps the commandments and accepts and
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 329 
 
 champions the faith, must expect and will one way or other 
 experience not peace alone, but peace and a sword. 
 
 At this point, ignorance of prophecy need not deprive the 
 simplest student of a life and death lesson. 
 
 "The testimony of Jesus Christ." By this I hope I may 
 understand two things : 
 
 That testimony which each Christian bears to Christ by 
 conformity of life and death to his dear Master's Life and 
 Death, 
 
 That testimony which Jesus Christ bears to each Christian 
 by endowing him with gifts superhuman and Divine graces, so 
 that no Christian can be accounted for on a merely natural 
 theory. 
 
 Great saints by spiritual lustre outshine the visible lustre of 
 Moses. But every Christian is in his or her degree Veronica 
 (true Image) of Christ. A flower we name veronica springs up 
 here and there without will or culture of man, lowly and lovely ; 
 its small blossom is celestial blue, its leaf and seed-vessel show 
 something of a heart shape. 
 
 Christ-likeness in high or low is eloquent witness to Christ 
 
 " The remnant of her seed." Is there not a forlorn sound 
 of weakness in the words ? yet with an undertone of triumph. 
 If these beleaguered persons are only a remnant, a great 
 concourse of the same family may be looked for elsewhere : in 
 Paradise. 
 
 O my God, to Whom have gone home so many souls 
 beloved on earth and in heaven, and of my own beloved, I 
 humbly trust not a few : grant grace to us who are the present 
 remnant to live as they lived and die as they died. And so 
 grant grace to remnant after remnant through all generations 
 for ever, until it please Thee to make an end in righteousness. 
 So may we awake and sing out of our dust, or exult when in a 
 moment our change comes, and give Thee thanks world with- 
 out end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen, Amen.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast 
 rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten 
 horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his 
 heads the name of blasphemy. 
 
 In the Revised Version the opening clause of this chapter 
 forms on the contrary the final clause of Chapter xii., and reads 
 thus : " And he stood upon the sand of the sea " ; thus appar- 
 ently referring not to St. John but to the dragon. Whence it 
 ensues that at this point I remain dubious between a saint and 
 a reprobate ; and by a sort of illustration the warning of the 
 Parable of the Tares is brought home to me : " Lest while ye 
 gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them." 
 
 My God Who art Love, so purge our hearts by love that we 
 may hate implicitly any who hate Thee, and love explicitly all 
 to whom Thou givest or wilt give grace to love Thee ; yea, all 
 whom Thou lovest. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
 This "beast" seems in some sense a development of evil 
 beyond the original dragon. Both have seven heads and ten 
 horns ; but the diadems of the dragon were seven, encircling 
 his heads ; those of the beast ten, surmounting his doubly 
 salient horns. Moreover of this beast only do we read that he 
 had " upon his heads the name of blasphemy " ; or as in the 
 Revised Version : "and upon his heads names of blasphemy." 
 And as we shall find him (ver. 2) under the patronage of the 
 dragon, we are thus reminded of our Lord's denunciation of 
 the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees : " Ye compass sea and 
 land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make 
 him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." 
 
 The beast is base : he rises out of that sea whose troubled 
 waters cast up mire and dirt. " He maketh the deep to boil 
 like a pot : he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment." Whilst 
 we fear, it befits us also to loathe and despise him. Never let
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 331 
 
 us forget that the sea hath said concerning Wisdom : " It is 
 not with me." 
 
 2. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and 
 his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as 
 the month of a lion: and the dragon gave him his 
 power, and his seat, and great authority. 
 
 This Apocalyptic beast combines in its one aspect features 
 of three distinct and successive beasts of Daniel's vision : 
 "Behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great 
 sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse 
 ore from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's 
 wings : I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it 
 was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as 
 a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold an- 
 other beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on 
 one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the 
 teeth of it : and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much 
 flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, 
 which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl ; the beast 
 had a'so four heads ; and dominion was given to it. After 
 this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, 
 dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly ; and it had great 
 iron teeth : it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the 
 residue with the feet of it : and it was diverse from all the 
 beasts that were before it ; and it had ten horns. I considered 
 the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another 
 little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns 
 plucked up by the roots : and, behold, in this horn were eyes 
 like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things." 
 
 Daniel's vision has been expounded as concerning the 
 successive empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece ; personified 
 respectively as lion, bear, leopard. The fourth yet more 
 mysteriously appalling beast stands over to what was then and 
 may still be the future. St. John's vision may haply already 
 concern ourselves, or at any rate will concern others like us. 
 Its lessen is for all and is for me. 
 
 Whatever this Apocalyptic beast may prove in fulness of 
 time, it exhibits some likeness to that world, flesh, devil, which 
 are my daily antagonists ; of which I must daily, hourly, 
 momentarily beware. 
 
 The world is like a leopard. Beautiful but spotted ; soft, 
 graceful, spnrtive, yet a devourer, a destroyer. " A leopard 
 shall watch over their cities." Nor can the leopard change
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 his spots. " Love not the world, neither the things that are 
 in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the 
 Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of 
 the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not 
 of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth 
 away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the Will of God 
 abideth for ever." 
 
 The flesh is like a bear. Its hug is deadly. " How long 
 wilt thou sleep, O sluggard ? when wilt thou arise out of thy 
 sleep ? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of 
 the hands to sleep : so shall thy poverty come as one that 
 travelleth, and thy want as an armed man." The bear treads 
 with his whole foot upon the earth, and his gross aspect is 
 prominently of the earth earthy. 
 
 The devil is like a lion : as a roaring lion he walketh about 
 seeking whom he may devour. He is as a lion's whelp lurking 
 in secret places. " Rescue my soul from their destructions, 
 my darling from the lions." 
 
 World, flesh, devil, comprise all sources and varieties of my 
 temptations. Repelling these three wherever found, I shall 
 not fail to repel them even if in my own mortal day they ap- 
 pear concentrated into one ghastly head, one obscene monster. 
 
 On the other hand : if I succumb to them separately, how 
 shall I cope with them should they rise up against me as one? 
 
 But that word the world is frequently used to denote a great 
 portion of the human race. How little must I love the world ? 
 How much may I love it? Love it to the fulness of thy heart's 
 desire, so thou love it with self-sacrifice ; for thus to love it is 
 after the Mind of God, the Pattern of Christ : " God so loved 
 the world, that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whoso- 
 ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn 
 the world ; but that the world through Him might be saved." 
 
 Love is alone the worthy law of love : 
 All other laws have pre-supposed a taint : 
 Love is the law from kindled saint to saint, 
 
 From lamb to lamb, from tender dove to dove. 
 
 Love is the motive of all things that move 
 Harmonious by free will without constraint : 
 Love learns and teaches : love shall man acquaint 
 
 With all he lacks, which all his lack is love. 
 
 Because Love is the fountain, I discern 
 
 The stream as love : for what but love should flow 
 From fountain Love ? not bitter from the sweet ! 
 I ignorant, have I laid claim to know ? 
 
 Oh teach me, Love, such knowledge as is meet 
 
 For one to know who is fain to love and learn.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 333 
 
 This world is not my orchard for fruit or my garden for 
 flowers. It is however my only field whence to raise a harvest. 
 
 What is the world ? Wherein resides its harmfulness, snare, 
 pollution ? Left to itself it is neither harmful, ensnaring, nor 
 polluting. It becomes all this as the passive agent, passive 
 vehicle if I may so call it, of the devil, man's outside tempter, 
 and of the flesh, man's inside tempter. There is no inherent 
 evil in cedar and vermilion, horses and chariots, purple and 
 fine linen ; nay, nor in sumptuous fare, in down, silk, apes, 
 ivory, or peacocks. St. Peter himself objects not to hair, gold, 
 apparel, but to women's misuse of them. An alabaster box of 
 precious ointment becomes good or bad simply according to 
 the use it is put to. Through envy of the devil death came 
 into the world, and man hath sought out many inventions ; 
 but the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them when 
 made and finished were beheld to be " very good." 
 
 Lord Jesus, everywhere and always inspire us to refuse the 
 evil and to choose the good ; and I beseech Thee, give us 
 grace never to judge our neighbour rashly, whilst one by one 
 we ourselves endeavour to learn and perform Thy Will. 
 
 Christ exchanged heaven for earth to enable man to exchange 
 earth for heaven. Hast Thou done that for me, and will I not 
 do this for Thee ? 
 
 " The dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great 
 authority " constituting him, so to say, diabolical viceroy. 
 The flesh is even now such a viceroy, having the woild for a 
 throne, while the devil keeps out of sight ruling by deputy. 
 Or the world is a stage, the flesh an actor, the devil prompter 
 and scene-shifter. 
 
 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; 
 and his deadly wound was healed : and all the world 
 wondered after the beast. 
 
 Again we are reminded that any and not only the final Anti- 
 christ may appear as a pseudo-Christ. This death-wound so 
 healed that a sort of life survives, seems a hideous mockery of 
 the All-Holy Death and Resurrection. " Surely in vain the 
 net is spread in the sight of any bird." 
 
 "All the world wondered after the beast." What go they 
 out for to see? If a reed, a broken reed, "the staff of this 
 bruised reed ... on which if a man lean, it will go into his 
 hand, and pierce it." If a man clothed in soft raiment, a 
 Courtier of the prince of this world ; like prince, like courtier. 
 If a prophet, less than a prophet, a lying prophet.
 
 334 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land ; 
 the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by 
 their means ; and My people love to have it so : and what will 
 ye do in the end thereof? " 
 
 It is a time-long and world-wide curiosity, time-long at least so 
 far as we know the tendencies of fallen human nature, this 
 which wonders after the monstrous and the inexplicable. 
 
 I must beware lest my own curiosity be morbid, perverse, 
 unbridled. To-day the monstrous may be simply abnormal, 
 to-morrow it may be " the mystery of iniquity." To-day the 
 inexplicable may be a secret of nature, to-morrow a secret of 
 hell. O my soul, come not thou into such a secret ! " All 
 darkness shall be hid in his secret places : a fire not blown 
 shall consume him ; it shall go ill with him that is left in his 
 tabernacle. The heaven shall reveal his iniquity ; and the 
 earth shall rise up against him." . 
 
 Likewise I must beware lest my study of holy subjects 
 degenerate into curious investigation instead of pious exercise. 
 Lest I wonder after my risen Saviour instead of adoring Him. 
 Which God for His gracious sake forbid ! 
 
 4. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power 
 unto the beast : and they worshipped the heast, saying, 
 Who is like unto the heast ? who is able to make war 
 with him? 
 
 Once more a point of distorted, degraded resemblance. 
 " Who is like unto the beast ? " as it were the " Michael " of 
 besotted blasphemy. 
 
 " And they worshipped. . . ." This impious worship seems 
 to be worship without any reference to goodness. World and 
 devil worship paid by flesh : curiosity and comparative weak- 
 ness worshipping unexplained power. " Who is able to make 
 war with him ? " In a like spirit spoke Goliath when " he 
 stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, 
 Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a 
 Philistine, and ye servants to Saul ? choose you a man for you, 
 and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, 
 and to kill me, then will we be your servants : but if I prevail 
 against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and 
 serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel 
 this day ; give me a man, that we may fight together." 
 
 "Who is able . . . ?" "Yea, if God will, things which 
 are not are able to bring to nought things which are. Loving 
 fear befits the creature toward the Creator : craven fear befits
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 335 
 
 not the creature toward the creature. Ponder Isaiah's Divine 
 message : " I, even I, am He that comforteth you : who art 
 thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and 
 of the son of man which shall be made as grass ; and forgettest 
 the Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, 
 and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared con- 
 tinually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if 
 he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the 
 oppressor?" Ponder Daniel's prophecy interpreted touching 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, that Antichrist of the elder dispensation : 
 "And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the trans- 
 gressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and 
 understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power 
 shall be mighty, but not by his own power : and he shall 
 destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall 
 destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his 
 policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand ; and 
 he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy 
 many : he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes ; 
 but he shall be broken without hand." 
 
 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great 
 things and blasphemies; and power was given unto 
 him to continue forty and two months. 
 
 Turning for a moment from the ultra-human element in 
 these appalling revelations, I consider the parallel case of a 
 human "excessive sinner " : his primary gifts, like all gifts, are 
 from God. His mouth might speak truly great things, even 
 the Divine praises. With his power he might like Jacob 
 prevail to work wonders by prayer. His prefixed period he 
 might so use as to extend it into the long life for ever and 
 ever. To deny this would be to deny his free will, and so his 
 accountability. To admit it shows me that every degree of 
 sin is a step in that direction where this one of whom we now 
 are reading occupies an advanced station. 
 
 " Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should 
 do this great thing?" Nevertheless "on the morrow" he 
 took the first step. 
 
 O Lord Jesus, Who knowest the number of our sins that 
 they are more in number than the hairs of our head, give us 
 grace henceforward to walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as 
 wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. 
 
 "Forty and two months." The former period, the same 
 suggestion. If the periods be successive, how long-drawn is
 
 336 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the agony : if simultaneous, how do the " fat bulls of Basan " 
 close in on every side ! 
 
 6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to 
 blaspheme His Name, and His tabernacle, and them 
 that dwell in heaven. 
 
 St. Paul writes : " That man of sin ... the son of per- 
 dition ; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is 
 called God, or that is worshipped ; so that he as God sitteth 
 in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." 
 
 If a deep-seated difference may be traced between these 
 closely-parallel passages, St. John perhaps speaks of an intel- 
 lectual, spiritual antagonism, St. Paul of a self-worshipping 
 atheism. 
 
 He who blasphemes God does to his own destruction recog- 
 nize Him. He who assumes the position of God supersedes 
 Him, were that possible. 
 
 God Almighty has deigned to reveal Himself to man's 
 adoration as Three in One. So the blasphemy may be 
 regarded as both one and threefold ; against God in His own 
 Person and Nature ; against Him in that sacred Name which 
 Christ the Head shares with His members ; against Him in 
 that tabernacle which is the Church indwelt by the Holy Spirit ; 
 against Him in that Communion of Saints whereby already 
 elect souls, whether in the body or out of the body, sit with 
 Christ in heavenly places, and have their conversation in 
 heaven. 
 
 Devils are not atheists : we are emphatically certified that 
 they believe and tremble. During our Lord's earthly ministry, 
 devils even proclaimed Him in the audience of men. 
 
 Atheism appears to be a possibility confined to a lower 
 nature. A body seems to be that which is capable of blocking 
 up spirit into unmitigated materialism. " No man hath seen 
 God at any time " : that flesh and blood which cannot inherit 
 the kingdom of God may, if it will, deny His existence. 
 
 Satan, a master of his weapons, brings out of his counterfeit 
 treasure things new and old : his own blasphemy, along with 
 worldly deceits and carnal obstructions. 
 
 Alas ! for many wise after the flesh, many mighty, many noble ; 
 for many an one who is confident of being a guide of the blind, 
 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes ! " He feedeth 
 on ashes : a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he 
 cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right 
 hand?"
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 337 
 
 From knowledge that is foolishness, Good Lord deliver us. 
 
 From ignorance that is blindness, Good Lord deliver us. 
 
 Words are chaff: obedience is grain. I must beware of 
 " polished corners " which form no part of the sole Temple ; of 
 fair-seeming superstructures which are not founded upon the 
 one only Rock ; of spiritualism which is not spirituality ; of 
 philanthropy divorced from dogma ; of socialism in lieu of 
 Christian brotherhood ; of indifferentism to truth simulating 
 charity ; of charity degraded into an investment. I will mistrust 
 any newfangled name for an old-established Biblical virtue : if 
 such modern designations mean old familiar virtues, I love 
 these best under their old familiar hallowed names ; if the new 
 word means less or more, well may I say, " The old is better." 
 
 7. And it was given nnto him to make war with the saints, 
 and to overcome them: and power was given him 
 over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. 
 
 War is no one-sided matter. Because the beast makes war, 
 therefore the saints on their side are waging corresponding 
 war. The whole world is at war, the whole Church at war; 
 the battle is set in array army against army. 
 
 The foregone foretold conclusion " It was given unto him 
 ... to overcome them," makes no difference as to the duty 
 involved; indeed, it enforces the duty. If the saints strove 
 not they could not be overcome ; and the Divine decree, in- 
 scrutable and ever venerable, purports that they shall be over- 
 come. And inasmuch as they suffer for righteousness' sake, 
 happy are they : whilst they die, yet by that very sentence of 
 death, as by every other word proceeding out of the mouth of 
 God, they live. They have resisted unto blood striving against 
 sin, and dear shall their blood be in His sight. 
 
 Slain in their high places : fallen on rest 
 Where the eternal peace lights up their faces, 
 
 In God's sacred acre breast to breast : 
 Slain in their high places. 
 
 From all tribes, all families, all races, 
 Gathered home together ; east or west 
 Sending home its tale of gifts and graces. 
 
 Twine, oh twine, heaven's amaranth for their crest, 
 Raise their praise while home their triumph paces ; 
 
 Kings by their own King of kings confessed, 
 Slain in their high places. 
 
 By a heavenly paradox those whom the beast overcomes 
 are those over whom he has no power. They over whom he 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 has power are such as make an agreement with him by a 
 present, and come out to him ; and truly it shall be until one 
 come and take them away, but not to any desirable land, " even 
 to the land of darkness and the shadow of death ; a land of 
 darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, with- 
 out any order, and where the light is as darkness." For : 
 "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be un- 
 punished." 
 
 In tempest and storm blackness of darkness for ever, 
 
 A fire unextinguished, a worm's indestructible swarm ; 
 Where no hope shall ever be more, and love shall be never, 
 
 In tempest and storm ; 
 
 Where the form of all things is fashionless, void of all form ; 
 Where from death that severeth all, the soul cannot sever 
 
 In tempest and storm. 
 
 8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, 
 whose names are not written in the Book of Life of 
 the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. 
 
 In the Book of Life : or not in the Book of Life. Once 
 more, no neutral book, no neutral ground : no names " written 
 in water," as one death-stricken man predicted of himself, 
 presumably with reference to earthly fame. 
 
 " Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, 
 till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away : but 
 My words shall not pass away." Such are our Lord's own 
 words when He prophesied concerning His Second Advent, 
 and the end of the world. 
 
 Centuries earlier King David uses the word generation in a 
 broadly comprehensive sense where he says : " God is in the 
 generation of the righteous " " This is the generation of them 
 that seek Him." 
 
 If we may reverently understand our Lord also as speaking 
 not exclusively of any one generation, but of the entire human 
 race under its temporal conditions, even as the wise Preacher 
 in man's very transitoriness seems to feel a sort of continuity : 
 " One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh : 
 but the earth abideth for ever " then perhaps we may equally 
 read verses of another Psalm, with an additional and widened 
 signification: "Let Satan stand at his right hand. . . . Let his 
 posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their 
 name be blotted out." 
 
 Thus understood, "this generation" would indicate man 
 throughout time ; " the generation following " man throughout 
 eternity. (Let us note that the prayer or decree imports the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 339 
 
 extinction, not the condemnation, of the posterity.) The names 
 recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life are those of the Famous 
 Men who shall have praise of God; the names not there 
 recorded are blotted out into blackness of darkness. 
 
 " That which hath been is named already, and it is known 
 that it is man : neither may he contend with Him that is 
 mightier than he." 
 
 It is the Book of Life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation 
 of the world, of the Lamb slain for us, in which our names, 
 yours, mine, will or will not be found written. If we love 
 ourselves so little as to be ready to slight our chance, do we 
 love Him Who loved us unto death so little as to be ready to 
 glight Him? 
 
 Slain for man, slain for me, O Lamb of God, look down ; 
 
 Loving to the end, look down, behold and see : 
 Turn Thine Eyes of pity, turn not on us Thy frown, 
 
 O Lamb of God, slain for man, slain for me. 
 
 Mark the wrestling, mark the race for indeed a crown ; 
 
 Mark our chariots how we drive them heavily ; 
 Mark the foe upon our track blasting, thundering down, 
 
 O Lamb of God, slain for man, slain for me. 
 
 Set as a Cloudy Pillar against them Thy frown, 
 Thy Face of Light toward us gracious utterly ; 
 
 Help granting, hope granting, until Thou grant a crown, 
 O Lamb of God, slain for man, slain for me. 
 
 9. If any man have an ear, let him hear. 
 
 Have interest, attention, flagged ? " Awake, thou that 
 sleepest." If we be not less than men, let us hear. 
 
 O Lord God, Who knowest that every warning, opportunity, 
 gift, grace, magnifieth Thy Goodness and augmenteth our 
 responsibility; suffer us not to impoverish ourselves by the 
 overflow of Thy bounty. Nothing have we except of Thy 
 bestowal. Along with Thy call supply our response, with Thy 
 talent our increase, with Thy Love our love. So shall it be 
 well with us all the days of our life in the Presence of Jesus 
 Christ our Intercessor. Amen. 
 
 10. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity : 
 he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the 
 sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. 
 
 The Revised Version in its margin defines the Greek text of 
 this verse as "somewhat uncertain." The first clause in that 
 Version runs : " If any man is for captivity, into captivity he 
 goeth" but as an alternative marginal rendering restores it
 
 340 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 to (apparently) nearly the same sense as that adopted by the 
 Authorized Version, I betake myself simply to the latter, leaving 
 all complications to competent students. 
 
 Behold the Triumph of Evil sweeping by ! Wickedness 
 laurelled and in purple, righteousness despoiled and in fetters. 
 
 Nevertheless, "The Lord hath made all things for Himself: 
 yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." 
 
 That triumph is itself the omen of ruin. For who is he 
 that shall go into captivity? he that leadeth into captivity. 
 Who is he that must be killed with the sword ? he that killeth 
 with the sword. 
 
 Not, alas ! that all Satan's captives have promise of freedom : 
 the captive whose will consents to bondage is so far a lawful 
 captive, and incapable of enfranchisement. St. Paul reads an 
 awful lesson to both men and women whose lot is cast in the 
 perilous times of the last days : " For men shall be lovers of 
 their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, dis- 
 obedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affec- 
 tion, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers 
 of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of 
 pleasure more than lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, 
 but denying the power thereof. . . . For of this sort are they 
 which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden 
 with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never 
 able to come to the knowledge of the truth. . . . These also 
 resist the truth : men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning 
 the faith. But they shall proceed no further : for their folly 
 shall be manifest unto all men." 
 
 "He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the 
 sword." Whether we restrict our thoughts to the proposition 
 that sword-takers shall perish by stroke of sword, or reflect 
 further that they who have recourse to the sword shall perish 
 along with the weapon of their vain reliance, our Lord's own 
 precious words to St. Peter emphasize, if they do not forestall, 
 this revelation : "Put up again thy sword into his place: for 
 all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." 
 
 Christ at His Ascension led captivity captive. Thence- 
 forward voluntary captivity was constituted rebellion, so that 
 not even towards God is the Christian spirit to be a spirit of 
 bondage. 
 
 Man must indeed be enamoured of rebellion ! Proclaim 
 the law of liberty, and he hugs his chains : proclaim the blessed- 
 ness of freewill obedience, and he breaks this band asunder. 
 
 Chains for freemen : " My son, hear the instruction of thy
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 341 
 
 father, and forsake not the law of thy mother : for they shall 
 be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy 
 neck ;" St Paul said, "For the hope of Israel I am bound 
 with this chain ;" "The love of Christ constraineth us." 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, Who in our stead wast bound on the 
 night of Thy most holy Passion ; be love of Thee our yoke, 
 wisdom from Thee our rule, hope in Thee the limit of our 
 desire. 
 
 "Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." O 
 Gracious God, Whose longsuffering beareth with the unthank- 
 ful and the evil, make us like-minded with Thee : so shall we 
 wax intolerant of no sins except our own. Far be it from us 
 suddenly to curse our brother's habitation : in our prayers and 
 blessings let all our brethren have a share. So may we inter- 
 cede one for another, and do good one to another ; and edify- 
 ing one another upbuild ourselves in faith and patience. For 
 the sake of Jesus Christ our Intercessor with Thee. Amen. 
 
 " Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." Let 
 the " it " in question be my allotment, my field, my garden : 
 " I said, I will water my best garden, and will water abundantly 
 my garden bed." Thorns should stir up my faith to look on 
 Him Whom all men pierced, Whom I pierced, wearing the 
 Crown of Thorns and the Purple Robe. Thistles should 
 exercise me in patience ; it will tax patience to weed out what 
 can be extirpated, it will strain patience to put up with the 
 remainder. And lo ! the lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground : 
 faith is cheaply bought by many a thorn-wound, and patience 
 by many a thistle-prick. 
 
 Grant us, O Lord, that patience and that faith : 
 
 Faith's patience imperturbable in Thee, 
 
 Hope's patience till the long-drawn shadows flee, 
 Love's patience unresentful of all scathe. 
 Verily we need patience breath by breath ; 
 
 Patience while faith holds up her glass to see, 
 
 While hope toils yoked in fear's copartnery, 
 And love goes softly on the way to death. 
 How gracious and how perfecting a grace 
 
 Must patience be on which those others wait : 
 Faith with suspended rapture in her face, 
 
 Hope pale and careful hand in hand with fear, 
 Love ah, good love, who would not antedate 
 
 God's Will, but saith, Good is it to be here. 
 
 11. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth ; 
 and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a 
 dragon.
 
 342 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Once more a suggestion that Antichrist may wear the mask 
 of a pseudo-Christ : " he had two horns like a lamb." 
 
 Our Lord Himself, in His Sermon on the Mount, forewarned 
 His hearers of such a Satanic device : " Beware of false 
 prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly 
 they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. 
 Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? Even so 
 every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree 
 bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil 
 fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every 
 tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast 
 into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." 
 
 Having this clue we are inexcusable if we use it not. Even 
 at once we need it ; for this is already a day of " false prophets," 
 of evil veneered with good, of hollow heights. If by help of 
 grace we make due use of our clue to-day, to-morrow it will 
 not fail us, though the danger be intensified, the crisis final. 
 
 Alleged ignorance is not admitted as a justifying plea if thou 
 save not another's life ; how should it justify thee if thou save 
 not thine own soul ? " If thou forbear to deliver them that 
 are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain ; if 
 thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not ; doth not He that 
 pondereth the hearf consider it? and He that keepeth thy 
 soul, doth not He know it ? and shall not He render to every 
 man according to his works ? " 
 
 But my reader (if I have one) may object : By treating 
 figure after figure as Antichrist, you practically deny the one 
 revealed final individual personal Antichrist. 
 
 I earnestly trust I have not done so ; if any sentence of 
 mine implies such error, I retract and repudiate that sentence. 
 The whole subject is beyond me ; the prophecies leave me in 
 anxious ignorance. But St. John himself has declared that 
 already in his own day many Antichrists were in the world ; 
 if it was so then, presumably it has gone on so ever since, and 
 will so continue to the end. All serpents are serpents, however 
 there may be one great sea-serpent most of all to be feared 
 and fled. (This is merely for illustration ; not alleged as a fact 
 of natural history.) 
 
 The dragon fell from heaven, the first beast emerged from 
 the sea. This second beast, as " coming up out of the earth," 
 teams more akin to humankind ; perhaps we are thus certified 
 that here at last comes the literal "man of sin." Something 
 he exhibits of lamb, something of dragon : but the lamb is on 
 his outside, the dragon is deep-seated within.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 343 
 
 If these two beasts are to emerge from sea and earth and 
 to come out thence in any sense, they must needs first be 
 there : perhaps already they lurk there potentially and in em- 
 bryo let me not cling too fondly to the earth and sea I love. 
 " Arise ye, and depart ; for this is not your rest : because it is 
 polluted. ..." 
 
 Earth is a race-course, not a goal. Instead of mansions she 
 pitches tents. Her nearest approach to a permanent abode is 
 the grave. " And My people shall dwell in a peaceable habit- 
 ation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places; when 
 it shall hail, coming down on the forest ; and the city shall be 
 low in a low place." 
 
 Hail, garden of confident hope ! 
 
 Where sweet seeds are quickening in darkness and cold : 
 
 For how sweet and how young will they be 
 When they pierce thro* the mould. 
 Balm, woodbine, and heliotrope, 
 
 There watch and there wait out of sight for their Sun : 
 
 While the Sun which they see not, doth see 
 Each and all one by one. 
 
 12. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before 
 
 him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell 
 therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound 
 was healed. 
 
 " Before him " is varied in the Revised Version to " in his 
 sight " ; so that the two monsters appear thus to be acting and 
 reacting in presence of each other, and for a while if not to the 
 very end to be thenceforward simultaneous. 
 
 One appears to act as vicegerent of the other, being appar- 
 ently the same as " the false prophet " mentioned afterwards 
 (ch. xvi. 13). Thus he claims not worship for himself, but 
 for that other. 
 
 "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed 
 speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in 
 them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, 
 and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be 
 well with them that fear God, which fear before Him : but it 
 shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his 
 days, which are as a shadow j because he feareth not before 
 God." 
 
 13. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire 
 
 come down from heaven on the earth in the sight 
 of men, 
 The false prophet, as it were the Elias of falsehood.
 
 344 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 If reverently I may think so, the witness of fire from heaven, 
 true and venerable under the Jewish dispensation, seems to be 
 withdrawn or actually to be reversed as regards the Christian 
 Church. 
 
 Of old Elias invoked and was answered by fire from heaven. 
 This the convened prophets of Baal having clamoured for in 
 vain, they were cut off in their impotence. But when St. 
 James and St. John, sons of Zebedee, quoted and would have 
 copied the example of Elias, our Lord " turned, and rebuked 
 them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." 
 
 And now the same St. John beholds fire brought from 
 heaven by a liar to endorse a lie. 
 
 Venomous and deadly beyond all others as may be this last 
 false prophet, yet has he from time to time been foreshadowed 
 by evil predecessors more or less like him. Former generations 
 of the elect have had to contend with such, and by Divine 
 grace have won the victory. In proportion to man's peril is 
 God's succour. The law and the history of the elder Church 
 constitute a treasury of wisdom amassed for the Church of the 
 latter days : 
 
 "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, 
 and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder 
 come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go 
 after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve 
 them ; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, 
 or that dreamer of dreams : for the Lord your God proveth 
 you , to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your 
 heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord 
 your God, and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and 
 obey His voice, and ye shall serve Him, and cleave unto 
 Him." 
 
 " Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets. 
 . . . For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in My 
 house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord. Where- 
 fore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the dark- 
 ness : they shall be driven on, and fall therein : for I will bring 
 evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the 
 Lord." 
 
 " Hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor 
 to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, 
 which speak unto you . . . for they prophesy a lie unto you." 
 
 " There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, 
 like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured 
 souls."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 345 
 
 "The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense 
 are come ; Israel shall know it : the prophet is a fool, the 
 spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and 
 the great hatred. . . . The prophet is a snare of a fowler in 
 all his ways, and hatred in the house of his God." 
 
 " If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, 
 I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink ; he shall 
 even be the prophet of this people." 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make 
 my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace ; and 
 he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war 
 against him. Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall 
 not have a vision ; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall 
 not divine ; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and 
 the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be 
 ashamed, and the diviners confounded : yea, they shall all 
 cover their lips ; for there is no answer of God." 
 
 "It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, 
 that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and 
 they shall no more be remembered : and also I will cause the 
 prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land." 
 
 Our neighbours' gifts invite us to hope : our own to fear. 
 Graces are the safest gifts to rejoice in : yet even as to graces 
 joy has a dangerous side. It might seem safe for the humble 
 to rejoice over his humility; but then the humble soul, dis- 
 cerning defect where others observe excellence, is of all men 
 slow to exult over his own gifts. 
 
 It is safer to rejoice in the Giver than in the gift. 
 
 To value our neighbours' gifts in such a manner as to 
 sympathize with their misuse, is so far to share in the misuse 
 though not at all in the gifts. It is to go halves not even in a 
 bubble investment, but simply in an impending bankruptcy. 
 
 14. And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the 
 means of those miracles which he had power to do in 
 the sight of the beast ; saying to them that dwell on 
 the earth, that they should make an image to the 
 beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. 
 
 The beast evinces no relish for shame; his wound by a 
 sword and in the head appears in the sight of men honourable. 
 
 The Crucifix is the Image made to our dearest Lord. There 
 heaven and earth behold His Likeness Almighty in weakness, 
 All-glorious in shame ; red in His apparel but not because of 
 woven garments ; Very Life while tasting death for every man.
 
 346 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 As said a Saint of old : Shall I wear a crown of roses, while 
 Thou didst wear a Crown of Thorns ? 
 
 " 'Tis like frail man to love to walk on high, 
 But to- be lowly is to be like God." 
 
 "And deceiveth them. . . ," Wherein consists the deceit? 
 Not, apparently, in the actuality of the miracles, but in the 
 inference drawn from them. 
 
 A warning to sift both witness borne and witness bearer, 
 Truth may be wrested to endorse a lie. 
 
 I must mistrust the impulse which answers, "Charity begins 
 at home," to an appeal; "Prudence is the better part of 
 valour," to an alarum of conscience ; " Least said, soonest 
 mended," when duty urges to speech ; " A penny saved is a 
 penny got," when brotherly kindness demands my "two 
 pence " and marks me fumbling for a mite, when I might 
 cast in much. At the very least I must mistrust such impulses. 
 
 History repeats itself, is a familiar adage, and true doubtless 
 in a measure : yet it repeats itself with a difference. So in one 
 sense the leaves of an oak are similar ; in another, no two may 
 be alike : its twigs tally, yet the midsummer-shoot stands out 
 distinct. 
 
 Isaiah centuries ago exposed to his fellow-countrymen the 
 stupidity no less than the guilt of their idolatries : " They that 
 make a graven image are all of them vanity ; and their 
 delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own 
 witnesses ; they see not, nor know ; that they may be ashamed. 
 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is 
 profitable for nothing? Behold, all his fellows shall be 
 ashamed. . . . The smith with the tongs both worketh in 
 the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with 
 the strength of his arms. . . . The. carpenter stretcheth out 
 his rule ; he marketh it out with a line ; he fitteth it with planes, 
 and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after 
 the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man ; that it 
 may remain in the house. . . . He planteth an ash, and the 
 rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to burn : for 
 he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, 
 and baketh bread ; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it ; 
 he maketh it a graven image. . . . He falleth down unto it, 
 and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me ; 
 for thou art my god. . . . And none considereth in his heart, 
 neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have 
 burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 347 
 
 upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it; 
 and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination ? shall I 
 fall down to the stock of a tree? He feedeth on ashes: a 
 deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver 
 his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" 
 
 The image thus described seems by its unhelpfulness, inertia, 
 senselessness, lifelessness, an embodiment of St. Paul's phrase : 
 " We know that an idol is nothing in the world." 
 
 15. And lie had power to give life unto the image of the 
 beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, 
 and cause that as many as would not worship the 
 image of the beast should be killed. 
 
 This outcome of idolatry seems to go beyond all that pre- 
 ceded it. This image speaks, originates, to all appearance wills. 
 It invades that prerogative of Almighty God which even an un- 
 sanctified King of Israel ascribed to Him alone when " he rent 
 his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive ? " 
 
 The Prophet Habakkuk having proclaimed the futility of 
 ordinary idolatry, goes on to fulminate "Woe" against a 
 virulent form of it : " What profiteth the graven image that the 
 maker thereof hath graven it ; the molten image, and a teacher 
 of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make 
 dumb idols ? Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake ; 
 to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach ! Behold, it is laid 
 over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the 
 midst of it." 
 
 Setting this prophecy over against St. John's vision, the 
 thought arises that in neither case may there be genuine life 
 of any sort ; so that not even dead-life can become inherent in 
 the image of the beast: such life perhaps there will be as a 
 devil-possessed oracle might have exhibited, a life as execrable 
 as that ascribed by superstition to the doubly dead vampire. 
 
 is this then, is this hideous spectacle of obscene death the 
 legitimate end of will worship, beauty worship, intellect worship, 
 humanity worship, creature worship whatsoever? The slow 
 sifting process carried on age after age, revelation after revela- 
 tion, experience after experience, seems gradually to bring more 
 and more to light by separation two and only two possibilities : 
 God, and that which is united to God; not-God, even all 
 which is divorced from God. 
 
 Hitherto our Fatherly Creator has not made a full end or 
 suffered His whole displeasure to arise. If so He please, ever 
 such an " ass " may still wax mighty to forbid the madness of
 
 348 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the most acute towering headlong prophet. Therefore the 
 least or last to whom He has given a tongue must not dare 
 answer, I cannot, or, I will not, should He deign to put a 
 word in such a mouth. 
 
 16. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, 
 
 free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, 
 or in their foreheads : 
 
 17. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had 
 
 the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of 
 his name. 
 
 The Revised Version restricts the mark as twofold : " . . . 
 the mark, even the name of the beast or the number of his 
 name." 
 
 " He causeth all ... " all who by saving their lives have 
 lost them. Meanwhile the genuinely alive are those slain 
 whose silence utters a song emphasizing the words of holy Job : 
 "Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of 
 understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, 
 and kept close from the fowls of the air. Destruction and 
 death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears." 
 "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him." 
 
 As to the others, all distinctions are levelled to the dead 
 level of present evil and approaching ruin. The evil is present, 
 because to choose being present with them they choose evil : 
 the ruin approaches, because bound up in that evil they have 
 chosen death. 
 
 "Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, 
 therefore the misery of man is great upon him. For he 
 knoweth not that which shall be : for who can tell him when 
 it shall be ? There is no man that hath power over the spirit 
 to retain the spirit ; neither hath he power in the day of death : 
 and there is no discharge in that war ; neither shall wickedness 
 deliver those that are given to it. ... Because sentence 
 against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the 
 heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." 
 
 Since at the day of final reckoning insignificance will not 
 screen the small, or importance exempt the great, or gold 
 ransom the rich, or penury excuse the poor, or liberty furnish 
 an escape to the free, or chains exonerate the bond, all these 
 will clearly count as nothing then ; not as chaff on the wind, 
 not as dust in the balance. 
 
 From appraising molehills as mountains, Good Lord, de- 
 liver us.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 349 
 
 "To receive a mark" To receive is voluntary: "They 
 are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy." 
 
 "... In their right hand, or in their foreheads." The 
 right hand suggests active, practical life ; the forehead studious, 
 intellectual. Every career may be consecrated or desecrated, 
 every gift used or abused. 
 
 This mark seems to be in effect a diabolical trading licence, 
 the temptation and snare into which persons who at that critical 
 moment will be rich, fall. Indeed, not mere poverty, but 
 actual destitution appears to be the alternative for faithful 
 souls, who in the sight of the unwise become for a little moment 
 no better than children of fools, of base men, viler than the 
 earth : " For want and famine they were solitary ; fleeing into 
 the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut 
 up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. 
 They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after 
 them as after a thief;) to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in 
 caves of the earth, and in the rocks." Yet blessed are they 
 if cliffs of valleys be made to them humility, and caves self- 
 denial, and rocks a sure foundation. 
 
 But are not coming events already casting their shadows 
 before ? Glance at recent troubles in Ireland : mark boycot- 
 ting and its results. Look at home ; at strikes and unions, so 
 far as any terrorism resorted to is concerned. God in His 
 mercy restrain men from misusing tremendous edge-tools, 
 launching out on unfathomed waters, rehearsing and forestalling 
 on a minor scale the last awful days. Man is a microcosm : a 
 microcosm may be either a miniature heaven or a miniature hell. 
 
 18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath, understanding 
 count the number of the beast : for it is the number 
 of a man ; and his number is six hundred threescore 
 and six. 
 
 For the special purpose in question, he "that hath under- 
 standing" excludes, I should surmise, most men, and very 
 likely all women. For the masses Wisdom resides elsewhere, 
 is an immediately practical grace, and is far more readily 
 accessible. " Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and 
 the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of 
 it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof 
 than fine gold." 
 
 "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to 
 depart from evil is understanding." 
 
 " Multitude of years should teach wisdom."
 
 350 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 "The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his 
 tongue talketh of judgment. The law of his God is in his 
 heart; none of his steps shall slide." 
 
 " The Lord giveth wisdom : out of His mouth cometh know^ 
 ledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for 
 the righteous." 
 
 "Wisdom is better than rubies; and all things that may be 
 desired are not to be compared to it. I, Wisdom, dwell with 
 prudence." 
 
 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom : and the 
 knowledge of the Holy is understanding." 
 
 "With the lowly is wisdom." 
 
 "The rod and reproof give wisdom." 
 
 "God giveth to a man that is good in His sight wisdom, 
 and knowledge, and joy." 
 
 "Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us wisdom, 
 and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption : that, 
 according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in 
 the Lord." 
 
 " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth 
 to all men liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given 
 him." 
 
 I must beware of scrutinizing any text of Holy Scripture as 
 if it were a puzzle or a riddle. I must beware of making 
 guesses at what is withheld from me. " Blessed are the poor 
 in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 St. John himself, and touching his own future, was once 
 contented to repeat his Lord's precise words without attempt 
 at elucidation. 
 
 Whoever by loving submission turns intellectual poverty 
 into voluntary spiritual poverty, has discovered a super-excellent 
 philosopher's stone, apt to transmute ignorance into wisdom. 
 
 " Six hundred, threescore and six " is not universally set 
 down as the indicative number : some read " six hundred and 
 sixteen." 
 
 Lord, give me grace 
 
 To take the lowest place ; 
 
 Nor even desire, 
 
 Unless it be Thy Will, to go up higher. 
 
 Except by grace, 
 
 I fail of lowest place ; 
 
 Except desire 
 
 Sit low, it aims awry to go up higher.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1. And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, 
 and with Him an hundred, forty and four thousand, 
 having His Father's Name written in their foreheads. 
 
 " Yet have I set My King : upon My holy hill of Sion." 
 
 " For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." 
 This certainly blessed text, rich in comfort and promise (how- 
 ever to me obscure) seems here to receive an illustrative fulfil- 
 ment. The holy hill and'holy city of Palestine were rejected, 
 after the Jews' rejection of Messiah : yet now we behold the 
 Lamb standing on a spot which His own Blood alone could 
 purge from the crying blood-guilt of His crucifixion. How 
 beautiful upon that mountain are those Feet which bring good 
 tidings of good ! For although this be a celestial and not any 
 earthly Sion, surely after some super-sensual manner it still 
 may be that Sion, whose gates the Lord loved more than 
 all the dwellings of Jacob. 
 
 Whatever angels or men bent on self-destruction may do or 
 leave undone, yet God Almighty suffereth not, nor can suffer 
 loss. The lightnings ever answer Him " Here we are," though 
 Satan as lightning be fallen from heaven. 
 
 "An hundred, forty and four thousand " is the sum of those 
 twelve twelve-thousands sealed (chap, vii.) out of the tribes of 
 Israel. If in both chapters these be the same blessed persons, 
 a double light is thus thrown on their beatitude : if they be 
 different, then with Solomon we see the Church " the Shula- 
 mite, as it were the company of two armies." 
 
 With Solomon, sounds a bold proposition ; yet above Solo- 
 mon, need not be over-bold ; for he at his highest and holiest 
 could but belong to that company of prophets and kings who 
 desired to see the things which Christians see. 
 
 " Having His Father's Name written in their foreheads " 
 or according to the Revised Version, " Having His Name, 
 and the Name of His Father, written . . . ." This inscription,
 
 352 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 perhaps, discloses in what the sealing (chap, vii.) consisted ; 
 and so far may suggest that the two elect companies are in 
 fact the same. It corresponds also in great measure with that 
 promise to him that overcometh, in which the charge to the 
 Church of Philadelphia culminates (chap. iii. 12). 
 
 2. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many 
 
 waters, and as the voice of a great thunder : and I 
 heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps : 
 
 3. And they sung as it were a new song before the Throne, 
 
 and before the four beasts, and the elders : and no man 
 could learn that song but the hundred and forty and 
 four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. 
 
 The voice is (so to say) the saint's self, the harp is his pos- 
 session ; the voice is what he had to train, the harping what 
 he had to acquire : all that he has, and all that he is, make 
 up his perpetual offering " before the Throne." To present 
 this offering is his inexhaustible contentment, his rapture. 
 Even on earth, who that sings or plays well on an instrument 
 knows not the joy of waking music ? Merely to listen often- 
 times moves to tears, to light-heartedness, to longings, to feel- 
 ings one would not or could not utter. What will it be in 
 heaven to be singer, musician, listener ; to be one voice in a 
 harmony, yet as individually listened to, approved, commended, 
 as if summoned to sing all alone in heaven's half-hour of silence ? 
 
 Under one aspect hearing, although stirring and thrilling 
 the heart depths, seems the least sensual of the five senses. 
 Touch, taste, even smell, demand contact grosser or more 
 subtle, as the case may be : sight, though eschewing contact, 
 yet takes cognizance of what might be touched. Hearing is 
 addressed by the intangible and invisible. 
 
 Heaven is revealed to earth as the home-land of music: of 
 music, thus remote from what is gross or carnal ; exhibiting like- 
 wise an incalculable range of variety, which rebukes and 
 silences perverse suggestions of monotonous tedium in the 
 final beatitude. If we desired a reassuring figure of variety, 
 could we devise one more apt and more refined than music ? 
 
 " Sing, O heavens ; and be joyful, O earth." 
 
 As the voice of many waters all saints sing as one, 
 
 As the voice of an unclouded thundering ; 
 Unswayed by the changing moon and unswayed by the sun, 
 
 As the voice of many waters all saints sing. 
 
 Circling round the rainbow of their perfect ring 
 Twelve thousand times twelve thousand voices in unison 
 Swell the triumph, swell the praise of Christ the King.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 353 
 
 Where raiment is white of blood-steeped linen slowly spun, 
 Where crowns are golden of Love's own largessing, 
 
 Where eternally the ecstasy is but begun, 
 As the voice of many waters all saints sing. 
 
 Before, when the Living Creatures and the Elders sung a 
 new song, the words of their anthem were set down (chap. v. 
 8 10 : unless it be possible to understand that the Elders 
 alone sang) : while of this second, " as it were a new song," 
 the words are not revealed ; at least, if at all, not in this place. 
 And as we are certified that no man but the singers themselves 
 " which were redeemed from the earth " could learn this song, 
 if we aspire to know somewhat of its meaning it seems our 
 hopeful course to study reverently and copy affectionately the 
 characteristics of the choice ones of her that bare them. 
 
 4. These are they which were not defiled with women ; for 
 
 they are virgins. These are they which follow the 
 Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed 
 from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and 
 to the Lamb. 
 
 5. And in their mouth was found no guile : for they are 
 
 without fault before the Throne of God. 
 
 Mother Church has appropriated this beatitude to her 
 beloved Holy Innocents. On their Feast Day we behold the 
 unspotted little souls, guiltless of actual sin, drooping for a 
 moment with the drooping grace of a snowdrop, subdued for 
 a moment with the subdued lustre of pearls. " Their Lord 
 and Lover," Who gave His life in ransom of all lives, is exalt- 
 ing these babes to give their lives in ransom of His life. 
 Speech was scarcely in their mouths, much less guile. On 
 earth their feet could barely have trotted or tottered after a 
 literal lamb. Thus Rachel beheld them, and weeping for her 
 children refused to be comforted. " Refrain thy voice from 
 weeping, and thine eyes from tears." Who now beholds them 
 sees them "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." Hath He 
 gone up to glory ? so have they : to dominion and power ? so 
 have they. Their grace is eternized, their lustre eternized ; their 
 feet rank with wings, their speech has become song. Alleluia ! 
 
 Unspotted lambs to follow the one Lamb, 
 
 Unspotted doves to wait on the one Dove ; 
 To whom Love saith, "Be with Me where I am," 
 
 And lo ! their answer unto Love is love. 
 For tho* I know not any note they know, 
 
 Nor know one word of all their song above, 
 I know Love speaks to them, and even so 
 
 I know the answer unto Love is love. 
 
 Z
 
 354 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 I think not to infringe obedience by considering how much 
 of this blessedness, secured as it were by birthright (though 
 none the less by grace) to innocence, may also permanently 
 abide within the reach of penitence. To me, to most of us, 
 the heritage of penitence is of more practical importance than 
 the heritage of innocence. 
 
 Innocence we cannot recover, but purity and guilelessness 
 we, by God's help, may; and if these graces have led the 
 innocent to glory, us also they may yet lead to glory. Inno- 
 cence walks with God on earth, and follows Him in heaven : 
 purity and guilelessness tread on earth in the steps of Jesus 
 Christ ; and they who follow Him to the gate of heaven will 
 assuredly not be forbidden to follow Him through and within 
 that gate. 
 
 Let us encourage ourselves. We may say either that we 
 follow Him, or that He leads us ; for the two propositions are 
 practically the same. And if it is unimaginable that one who 
 has followed Him below will not care to follow Him above, 
 much more is it unimaginable it were blasphemous to imagine 
 that our Leader out of great tribulation will fail to lead us 
 hereafter beside the waters of comfort. 
 
 Whatever else is conjecturable, this is certain : these hundred 
 and forty and four thousand sanctified persons whom St. John 
 beheld, were "firstfruits" of the human family unto God and 
 to the Lamb. And since, as St. Paul avers, " If the firstfruit 
 be holy, the lump is also holy," it becomes clear that nothing 
 unholy can find place in the final harvest-home. 
 
 I dare not then say simply, Penitence may : I am driven 
 to say with self-mistrust and trembling, Penitence must, on 
 pain of ultimate rejection, recover purity and guilelessness. 
 
 Can peach renew lost bloom, 
 
 Or violet lost perfume ; 
 
 Or sullied snow turn white as overnight ? 
 
 Man cannot compass it, yet never fear : 
 
 The leper Naaman 
 
 Shows what God will and can ; 
 
 God Who worked there is working here ; 
 
 Wherefore let shame, not gloom, betinge thy brow, 
 
 God Who worked then is working now. 
 
 6. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, 
 
 having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them 
 that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and 
 kindred, and tongue, and people, 
 
 7. Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to 
 
 Him ; for the hour of His judgment is come : and
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 355 
 
 worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the 
 sea, and the fountains of waters. 
 
 An angel, as his title imports, is a messenger. If this be a 
 literal winged Angel visibly traversing the local heaven, the 
 prophecy appears hitherto unfulfilled. Meanwhile the Church 
 has her own consecrated Gospel messengers, the Bishops, 
 Priests, Deacons of the Apostolical Succession : and their 
 mission in great measure assimilates them to this Angel. 
 
 Though their person is human, their vocation is superhuman : 
 their home is heaven rather than earth. But no sluggish 
 heaven of dreams and premature repose ; heaven where they 
 " fly " on a definite urgent errand, as the Archangel Gabriel 
 flew swiftly (literally, " with weariness ") on his embassy to 
 Daniel. " In the midst of heaven " must their path be, in- 
 clining neither to the right hand nor to the left ; without par- 
 tiality, without respect of persons, preaching the self-same 
 Divine Will and Word to all alike. As in matters of this 
 world we say, " Bird's-eye view," because a bird poised aloft 
 looks down upon, and so can estimate the point it aims at ; so 
 with an enhanced elevated meaning, let us say "Angel's-eye 
 view" of those who watch for our souls, as they who must 
 give account, and from a habitual heaven appraise earth. In 
 heart and hand they carry the Everlasting Gospel, that word 
 which passeth not away, though heaven and earth pass away ; 
 which word they proclaim, commanding all men everywhere 
 to repent, and in Christ's stead beseeching them : " How long, 
 ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners 
 delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn 
 you at My reproof : behold, I will pour out My Spirit unto 
 you, I will make known My words unto you." For they know 
 that it is the last time, and that the Judge standeth before the 
 door, even while they know not the day or the hour of His 
 coming. They cry aloud to all people of all languages : He 
 Who made all demands and will accept from all fear, glory, 
 worship. He Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and the 
 fountains of waters, He it is Who gives all blessings, Who 
 gives, and Who can take away : " In Whose hand is the soul 
 of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind." They 
 cry aloud, they spare not, they lift up the voice like a trumpet, 
 and show the people their transgression and their sins. Yet 
 must they not glory in themselves, but cultivate the temper 
 of St. Paul when he wrote : " For though I preach the gospel, 
 I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me ; yea,
 
 356 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel ! For if I do this 
 thing willingly, I have a reward : but if against my will, a 
 dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me." 
 
 In functions spiritual the clergy occupy the heights, the laity 
 the levels. Yet as the Church at large is " a royal priesthood," 
 even the least and last of us may win something practical 
 by contemplating an angelic preacher traversing heaven. 
 
 "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 
 And there are differences of administrations, but the same 
 Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the 
 same God which worketh all in all." 
 
 " The everlasting Gospel " unaltered, unalterable. To its 
 immutability St. Paul bears witness : "Though we, or an angel 
 from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which 
 we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said 
 before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other 
 gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be 
 accursed." A text for my times and for myself. 
 
 "For the hour of His judgment is come." Yet notwith- 
 standing, and indeed therefore ("for"), men being summoned 
 to fear God are further called upon to give Him glory ; wor- 
 shipping Him as the Creator. The Lord's hand is not short- 
 ened that it cannot save : it is man's eleventh hour ; Achan 
 may yet appease Him in death Whom in life he provoked ; the 
 Thief extirpated from earth may yet sit down in Paradise. 
 
 O my God, regard man at his last chance ; regard man 
 setting himself to make his final choice ; regard man in the 
 poised balance which must dip. By Thy dear Son's last 
 agony, by His giving up the Ghost, regard, regard man for 
 whom He died, and suffer him not for ever to say Thee nay. 
 
 When the end of all things is at hand, it is a comfort to be 
 reminded that heaven, earth, sea, fountains of waters, over- 
 whelmed as they are about to be by awful judgments, are yet 
 all of them God's work, and therefore good. Let me not be 
 more perverse than the clay, which saith not to the potter, 
 Why hast thou made me thus? 
 
 8. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is 
 fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made 
 all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her 
 fornication. 
 
 Some have thought to identify the site and structure of a 
 local "Babylon." As to me, who can by no means identify
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 357 
 
 them, I think not I need therefore miss my practical lesson 
 from her greatness and her fall. 
 
 Wherefore fell she ? The Angel declares, because of what 
 she did ; not otherwise because of what she was. Let me (if 
 I may) consider her as that World, which in some sort seems 
 to form common ground, a point of contact, a link, a conductor, 
 between flesh and devil. 
 
 Long ago Satan boasted to Christ's very Face that " all the 
 kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them " were delivered 
 unto him ; nor did the Truth then and there give the lie to 
 the father of lies. If, then, we may assume an ingredient of 
 truth in the assertion, that element of truth supplies a clue to 
 the fascination and domination of the world; a fascination 
 which is deadly, a domination which is tyrannous. For Satan 
 is the showman of her goodly show : he who can himself 
 appear as an angel of light understands how to inflate her scale, 
 tint her mists and bubbles with prismatic colours, hide her 
 thorns under roses and her worms under silk. He can paint 
 her face, and tire her head, and set her on a wall and at a 
 window, as the goal of a vain race, and the prize of a vain victory. 
 David, superb in his kingliness, made to himself instruments 
 of music ; and so has she her men singers and women singers, 
 her brazen wind instruments and her hollow drums. She 
 spreads a feast : first her best, afterwards that which is worse ; 
 apples of Sodom to follow forbidden fruit. And as to her 
 cup, " all nations " have not unwarned drunk of it : " Look 
 not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his 
 colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last 
 it biteth like a serpent, and stiugeth like an adder. Thine 
 eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter 
 perverse things." If this be true of earth's vintage, how ten- 
 fold true of the world's ! 
 
 The City and Woman appear so indistinguishable in the 
 Apocalyptic vision as to justify (I trust) my confusion of per- 
 sonification. Temptation, by a common instinct, seems to be 
 personified as feminine : let us thence derive courage ; the 
 symbol itself insinuating that as woman is weaker than man, 
 so temptation is never so strong as the individual assailed. 
 " There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common 
 to man : but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be 
 tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the temptation 
 also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 
 
 We daughters of Eve may beyond her sons be kept humble 
 by that common voice which makes temptation feminine.
 
 358 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Woman is a mighty power for good or for evil. She con- 
 strains though she cannot compel. Potential for evil, it be- 
 comes her to beware and forbear ; potential for good, to spend 
 herself and be spent for her brethren. In the Bible the word 
 tempt (or its derivatives) is used in a good or in an evil sense, 
 according to the agent, or to the object aimed at. 
 
 The wisest of three wrote : " Women are strongest " ; and 
 said : " Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for 
 women." 
 
 " Babylon is fallen," saith the Angel : he saith not, Is cast 
 down. Though she be cast down, yet is the impulse of her 
 casting down in herself; she hath undermined herself. Sin 
 is the essential destroyer : the sinner is self-destroyed. Drunken- 
 ness especially sets this truth as in a picture before our eyes ; 
 drunkenness being the example of a general rule, not its 
 exception. 
 
 Taking physical corruption as the foul image of sin, we see 
 how it consists not with stability, permanence ; but dissolves, 
 disintegrates its prey. It turns bone to dust, muscle as it were 
 to pulp : we loathe to look upon it in a body ; who shall bear 
 to look upon it in a soul ? 
 
 9. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud 
 voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, 
 and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 
 
 10. The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, 
 
 which is poured out without mixture into the cup of 
 His indignation ; and he shall be tormented with fire 
 and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and 
 in the presence of the Lamb : 
 
 11. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever 
 
 and ever : and they have no rest day nor night, who 
 worship the beast and his image, and whosoever re- 
 ceiveth the mark of his name. 
 
 " I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading him- 
 self like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he 
 was not : yea, I sought him, but he could not be found." 
 
 Before when we read of these beast and image worshippers 
 they appeared, as David beheld their predecessors, flourishing 
 and exalted. But alas ! it is only as regards earth that such 
 pass away and cannot be found : " in the presence of the holy 
 angels, and in the Presence of the Lamb " they reappear ; but 
 tormented, smoking, without rest, without apparent help or 
 hope.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 359 
 
 Nor perhaps does it clearly transpire when it is that their 
 interminable unrest begins : whether before, or consequent 
 upon the decree of judgment. As later on we shall read of 
 darkness pervading the kingdom of the beast, while apparently 
 it continues as yet to be a kingdom ; so now haply the rest- 
 lessness begins even before it writhes impotently amid the fire, 
 brimstone, smoke. 
 
 This retribution is " in the Presence of the Lamb " ; by 
 which awful word I discern not whether there be implied the 
 finishing sting of all agony, or some lessening of horror. Yet 
 is not " Depart from Me " a more overwhelming sentence than 
 even this ? To be " clean forgotten " seems a desperateness 
 of forlornness. 
 
 " The wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without 
 mixture into the cup of His indignation." Indignation is 
 ominous of justice: is His mercy clean gone for ever? We 
 see not our tokens. 
 
 " They have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast 
 and his image." Another worship there is carried on elsewhere, 
 there is another company of worshippers of whom we read 
 (chap. iv. 8), that " they rest not day and night." But (if 
 having no power to study the original text, I may dwell on the 
 wording ot the translation) an absolute contrast is suggested 
 by the two statements. Not to rest, is voluntary : to have no 
 rest, is involuntary. The Beatified rest not from adoration, 
 because adoration is the joy of their hearts, the breath of their 
 nostrils : rest (could such a dispensation be conceived) would 
 inflict on them the restlessness as it were of a pent-up con- 
 flagration ; to keep silence from their good words would be 
 not rest, but pain and grief to them. The accursed have and 
 can have no rest, because they abide at enmity with Him by 
 Whose grace there remaineth rest for His people. 
 
 12. Here is the patience of the saints : here are they that 
 keep the commandments of God, and the faith of 
 Jesus. 
 
 " Here " where ? Wherever else, " in the Presence of the 
 Lamb." 
 
 That Presence indeed is everywhere; and all saints clad 
 in patience, keeping the commandments, and cleaving to the 
 faith, inhabit the all-embracing Presence. A shadowed life is 
 no hardship to loving souls consciously abiding under the 
 shadow of the Almighty ; weary indeed would this world's land 
 be without the shadow of that Great Rock 1
 
 360 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Patience is an advanced grace. In children we try to fore- 
 stall reason by faith, and by early habit to constitute obedience 
 their second nature ; but patience we wish not to characterize 
 them at the outset. Of course nothing contrary to patience 
 can we desire for them at any period ; but we remember that 
 "tribulation worketh patience," and if we can we shelter our 
 harmless little ones awhile from tribulation. 
 
 At this point of the Revelation, after so many Fatherly 
 Lovingkindnesses and terrors of the Lord have been laid bare 
 for amid unfathomable mystery the great Love wherewith 
 God loves us, and the tremendous woe from which He would 
 fence us, stand out as clear as day at this point, patience once 
 more meets the pilgrim soul. All I have read, then, is to lead 
 me up to patience : patience under ignorance, patience under 
 fear, patience under hope deferred, patience so long as free 
 will entails the terrific possibility of self-destruction ; patience 
 until (please God) my will freely, finally, indefectibly, becomes 
 one with the Divine Will. Pending which beatific moment, it 
 ought to be with each of us according to St. Paul's description : 
 " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ : by Whom also we have access by faith 
 into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the 
 glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations 
 also : knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; and patience, 
 experience ; and experience, hope : and hope maketh not 
 ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 
 by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." 
 
 " Who is there among you of all His people ? The Lord 
 his God be with him, and let him go up." 
 
 Obedience is the fruit of faith ; patience, the bloom upon 
 the fruit. 
 
 Sweetness of rest when Thou sheddest rest, 
 
 Sweetness of patience till then ; 
 Only the Will of our God is best 
 
 For all the millions of men : 
 
 For all the millions on earth to-day, 
 
 On earth and under the earth ; 
 Waiting for earth to vanish away, 
 
 Waiting to come to the birth. 
 
 13. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, 
 Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord 
 from henceforth- Yea, saith the ^Spirit, that they 
 may rest from their labours; and their works do 
 follow them.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 361 
 
 In an earlier age the prophet Isaiah, speaking as in the 
 Person of Christ, proclaimed comfort to the living faithful : 
 " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me ; because the Lord 
 hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek ; He 
 haih sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim 
 liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them 
 that are bound ; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, 
 and the day of vengeance of our God ; ... to appoint unto 
 them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, 
 the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit 
 of heaviness ; that they might be called trees of righteousness, 
 the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." And 
 now God Almighty Himself comforts the faithful dead. In- 
 deed I think both the former and the latter message may 
 reverently and affectionately be delighted in as conveying hope 
 and solace to living and dead together. 
 
 " The acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance 
 of our God," may ( may they not ?) be viewed as the period of 
 the final supreme restitution of all things, as well as of the 
 Gospel dispensation ; the one sense not excluding but pre- 
 ceding the other. Good will be those tidings to the meek, 
 which summon them to inherit and occupy the everlasting 
 earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The broken-hearted 
 will be bound up, when mourners are comforted never to 
 mourn again. Liberty will come to light, the iron prison-door 
 will stand ready to open of his own accord, while holy souls 
 rejoicing in their beds, reach forward to regain their resurrec- 
 tion bodies. Then will ashes resume beauty, and the face of 
 mourning shine, and praise obliterate reproach ; even self-re- 
 proach. Already God's Acre abounds in trees of righteousness 
 planted by Him, and waiting to spring up skywards to His 
 glory. " Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall 
 be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be 
 esteemed as a forest ? " 
 
 And now once more St. John hears, and we hear without any 
 ambiguity, a Voice from heaven : " Blessed are the dead which 
 die in the Lord from henceforth." Blessed year after year, 
 blessed century after century, blessed be the death what it 
 may, whereby one by one the long not half-recorded series of 
 the elect die in the Lord : martyrs on death-beds of torture, 
 or in winding-sheets of flame ; confessors upraised in loneliness 
 against the world ; virgins unflinching in self-oblation ; workers 
 wearing out inch by inch ; the sick wrung by agony or burdened 
 with long-drawn weariness; men suffering the more because
 
 362 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 strength holds out ; women the more because weakness shrinks; 
 children in their degree but spared foresight. 
 
 We understand at a glance that blessed it is for these, and 
 such as these, to die "in the Lord." 
 
 Yea, and blessed also is it for these, and such as these, to 
 live : life is their work-day, and their works will follow them. 
 The slothful servant desires to rest without labour ; the good 
 and faithful servant after labour. 
 
 " Labours . . . works." There is such a thing as unpro- 
 ductive labour, strenuously to be eschewed on pain of having 
 no " works " at the critical moment. " Wherefore do ye spend 
 . . . your labour for that which satisfieth not?" Thus did 
 the slothful servant in the Parable of the Talents : he hid his 
 talent in the earth, although nought else would he do with it. 
 
 Labour not for the world : " I made me great works ; I 
 builded me houses ; I planted me vineyards : I made me 
 gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind 
 of fruits : I made me pools of water, to water therewith the 
 wood that bringeth forth trees : I got me servants and maidens, 
 and had servants born in my house ; also I had great posses- 
 sions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem 
 before me : I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar 
 treasure of kings and of the provinces : I gat me men singers 
 and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as 
 musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, 
 and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem : 
 also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine 
 eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart 
 from any joy ; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour : and 
 this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all 
 the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that 
 I had laboured to do : and, behold, all was vanity and vexation 
 of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." 
 
 Labour not for the flesh : " All the labour of man is for his 
 mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled." 
 
 " But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and 
 things that accompany salvation. . . . For God is not un- 
 righteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye 
 have showed toward His Name, in that ye have ministered to 
 the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one of 
 you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope 
 unto the end : that ye be not slothful, but followers of them 
 who through faith and patience inherit the promises." 
 
 Labour with and in God : " Every man shall receive his
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 363 
 
 own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers 
 together with God." "Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always 
 abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know 
 that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." 
 
 So shall Christians render thanks for one another : " We 
 give thanks to God always for you all, .... remembering with- 
 out ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience 
 of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Lord, that afterwards we may rest, give us grace at once to 
 labour; that at last works may follow us, enable us now to 
 work Thy works Who sendest us, in the Strength of Jesus 
 Christ, Whose Name we plead. Amen. 
 
 Without hazarding conjecture beyond my depth, the verse 
 under consideration reminds me of the Manifestation of the 
 Divine Trinity at our Lord's Baptism, and again (?) at His 
 Transfiguration. Now " a Voice " speaks, as it were the 
 Paternal Fountain-head of Blessing; and refers that Blessing 
 to union with the Son, the Spouse of souls ; finally, " the 
 Spirit" ratifies and seals all. 
 
 " The Spirit Itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we 
 are the children of God : and if children, then heirs ; heirs of 
 God, the joint-heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with 
 Him, that we may be also glorified together." 
 
 14. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the 
 cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man, having on His 
 head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. 
 
 Both in chap. i. 13, ante, where the same words occur, and 
 here, R.V. has a, not the " Son of Man " : in each instance, 
 however, supplying the as an alternative marginal reading. 
 As " the Son of Man " I adore my Lord as Head indeed 
 of the race, but as so separate from sinners that Him alone 
 it befits to be constituted Judge of human-kind. As "a 
 Son of Man " I worship Him as the Representative Man in 
 Whose perfect Will all sanctified human wills concur, Whose 
 righteous Acts all holy souls approve. 
 
 If reverently I may assume this "White Cloud" to be that 
 awful Cloud which intimates the Presence of God the Holy 
 Spirit, the Cloud apparently of the Transfiguration, the Cloud 
 haply of the Ascension ; then I behold the Two Comforters, 
 the Two Advocates of mankind, now concurring in that 
 supreme judgment to which mercy and justice have led up. 
 Pauseless Intercession, groanings unutterable, dew of grace, 
 inspirations of sanctity, have fulfilled their day, done their
 
 364 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 work, accomplished their mission. And this, whether souls 
 have or have not responded to the saving call. 
 
 The done is done once and for ever. The undone remains 
 undone and past doing. The eleventh hour of man's long 
 working- day closes : that day was the preparation, and the 
 Sabbath draws on. Let us not lose heart even while contem- 
 plating the end of all things as at hand: "If thou . . . call 
 the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and 
 shall honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor rinding thine 
 own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou 
 delight thyself in the Lord." 
 
 " For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your 
 ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher 
 than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and 
 My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh 
 down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thiiher, 
 but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, 
 that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater : so 
 shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth : it shall 
 not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I 
 please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." 
 
 "On His Head a golden crown." "We see Jesus, Who 
 was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of 
 death, crowned with glory and honour." For love of us Christ 
 once abased Himself to wear " a corruptible crown," the 
 Crown of Thorns, that with Him we might eternally wear 
 incorruptible crowns of glory. It seems a very simple, natural 
 thing, yet does it foreshadow a mystery when we read of 
 Ahasuerus : " The king loved Esther . . . and she obtained 
 grace and favour in his sight ... so that he set the royal 
 crown upon her head." 
 
 Sharp though it be, our dear Lord holds a sickle, not a 
 scythe : He mows not, but reaps. With a mower it is far 
 otherwise ; but the reaper embraces and draws to his bosom 
 that good grain which he cuts down. 
 
 15. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with 
 
 a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in 
 Thy sickle, and reap : for the time is come for Thee 
 to reap ; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. 
 
 16. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on 
 
 the earth ; and the earth was reaped. 
 
 "Another angel" does not perhaps carry us back to the 
 preceding verse, but to one more remote : the last individual
 
 THE FACE OF THE DE1:1\ 365 
 
 angel clearly mentioned was at ver. 9. But I take this 
 opportunity of calling attention to my ignorance of, sometimes, 
 a very critical point in the text on which I venture to meditate ; 
 and if in consequence I misrepresent the person of the 
 speaker or the word spoken, I ask pardon for my involuntary 
 error. Only should I have readers, let me remind them that 
 what I write professes to be a surface study of an unfathom- 
 able depth : if it incites any to dive deeper than I attain to, 
 it will so far have accomplished a worthy work. My sug- 
 gestions do not necessarily amount to beliefs; they may be 
 no more than tentative thoughts compatible with acknow- 
 ledged ignorance. 
 
 Our Lord said : " Whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth 
 by it, and by Him that dwelleth therein." Whence it appears 
 that this Angel came forth from the immediate Presence of 
 God Almighty to utter his exhortation. Straight from that 
 Presence he doubtless spake the Divine words and Will. And 
 because concerning such a day and hour as this of the supreme 
 harvest our Lord had once declared that not the Angels in 
 heaven at that moment knew the prefixed period ; this Angel 
 by now announcing the time as come, suggests that accessions 
 of knowledge are possible in the case of Angels ; and thereby 
 further suggests that man in consummated perfection made 
 equal to the Angels, may like them remain open to the delight 
 of increasing knowledge. I think a study of the final beatitude 
 resembles so far a study of precious stones : the more we 
 ponder on the heavenly beatitude, the wider seems to expand 
 the field of ever-multiplying possibilities of bliss; similarly, 
 to read even a little about jewels discloses how many different 
 colours and shades of colour may vary and adorn gems which 
 we commonly assume to be of one fixed colour ; for the ruby 
 need not be red, nor the sapphire blue, nor need the diamond 
 be colourless. " O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in 
 wisdom hast Thou made them all." 
 
 "Thrust in Thy sickle " " He ... thrust in His sickle." 
 The Revised Version gives (and similarly at vers. 18, 19) : 
 "Send forth Thy sickle" " He . . . cast His sickle." If 
 this be the more accurate rendering, may it not convey a 
 modified meaning ? According to the Authorized Version we 
 seem to behold the Divine Lord of the harvest reap with His 
 own Hand ; whilst the Revised Version by treating the sickle 
 rather as an agent than as a mere implement brings the 
 passage into more obvious harmony both with one point in 
 our Master's Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, and with the
 
 366 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 corresponding portion of His subsequent key to its meaning : 
 " In the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye 
 together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them : 
 but gather the wheat into My barn. . . . The harvest is the 
 end of the world ; and the reapers are the angels. As there- 
 fore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire ; so shall it 
 be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth 
 His angels, and they shall gather. . . ." 
 
 " For the harvest of the earth is ripe " or " over-ripe " 
 according to the Revised Version, or " dried up " given there 
 marginally as the literal Greek. Thus long hath God waited ! 
 So of old He spake unto Abram : " In the fourth generation 
 they shall come hither again : for the iniquity of the Amorites 
 is not yet full." Meanwhile pious souls on both sides of the 
 veil (it may be) call out of the deep : " As the hart panteth 
 after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. 
 My soul thirsteth for God, for the Living God : when shall I 
 come and appear before God ? " 
 
 That is a very wonderful rule (if it may be deemed a rule) 
 which sweetly ordering both nature and grace, oftentimes for 
 the moment appears to postpone the righteous to the wicked : 
 so that the ninety-nine are left in the wilderness for the sake of 
 one, and that one no more after all than contingently recover- 
 able. " If so be that he find it. . . ." 
 
 Imperfectly good people may feel such postponement a 
 keen trial; whether it befall them immediately by direct 
 Providences, or mediately by (for instance) ruinous lifelong 
 family sacrifices to save a vicious child. St. James has left an 
 encouraging exhortation and a warning suited to such un- 
 finished Christians : " Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the 
 coining of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for 
 the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, 
 until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; 
 stablish your hearts : for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. 
 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be con- 
 demned : behold, the Judge standeth before the door." And 
 the spirit if not the letter of the Parable of the Prodigal 
 Son invites them with the elder son to triumph over self: 
 " And he was angry, and would not go in : therefore came his 
 father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his 
 father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed 
 I at any time thy commandment : and yet thou never gavest me 
 a kid, that I might make merry with my friends : but as soon 
 as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 367 
 
 with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he 
 said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is 
 thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad : 
 for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again ; and was 
 lost, and is found." 
 
 " And the earth was reaped " at last. Not as yet do we 
 discern the unearthly reapers, the flying sickle ; but we are 
 forewarned of their imminence. If then by watching as well 
 as by prayer we desire to make ready against the moment of 
 their actual inevitable arrival, let us strive to rise above our 
 natural and high above our present level ; for the farthest view 
 is from the loftiest standpoint. Doves at windows command 
 a much wider horizon than moles on hillocks : whilst a mole 
 who takes his ease or grubs inside a hillock, what chance has 
 he of seeing ? 
 
 17. And another angel came out of the temple which is in 
 
 heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 
 
 18. And another angel came out from the altar, which had 
 
 power over fire ; and cried with a lond cry to him 
 that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp 
 sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the 
 earth ; for her grapes are fully ripe. 
 
 At first sight there seems a striking likeness, on further 
 observation a marked distinction, between that reaping of the 
 earth and this vintage of the clusters of her vine. In both 
 cases the authoritative judicial sentence is pronounced as from 
 the Temple ; but the angel of the harvest invokes One Who 
 "sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof 
 are as grasshoppers ; that stretcheth out the heavens as a 
 curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in " : while 
 the Angel of the vintage, apparently a minister of the Altar, 
 calls upon a fellow Angel (for so the sequence of verses at 
 least suggests), who sickle in hand has issued from the Temple, 
 to execute his office. 
 
 Such a resemblance harmonizing with such a difference 
 suggests that though harvest and vintage are congruous figures, 
 they yet are not here employed simply and absolutely as 
 equivalents ; whence arises a further suggestion : that the 
 corn corresponds with the general human race, the vine with 
 the Church. A like distinction, but in reverse order, seems at 
 least conjecturable between the Servants in the Parable of the 
 Talents and the Sheep and Goats in the Prophecy of the Doom 
 (see St. Matt. xxv. 14 46).
 
 368 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Our Lord expressly claimed the Vine as a figure of the 
 Church made one with and in Himself: "I am the Vine, ye 
 are the branches." So in the Old Testament the Jewish 
 Church, so far as comported with that dispensation, appears 
 under the same symbol : " Thou hast brought a vine out of 
 Egypt. . . . Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit 
 this vine " : " Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a 
 right seed : how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant 
 of a strange vine unto Me ? " 
 
 When our Lord employs the figure of corn it is (at least 
 sometimes) without any restrictive stamp of unity : " The 
 harvest truly is plenteous " ; "Lift up your eyes, and look 
 on the fields ; for they are white already to harvest." Even 
 when He deigns to symbolize Himself by " a corn of wheat," 
 the characteristic stated is not simple expansion, but multiplica- 
 tion : "If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." And though 
 (blessed be His Holy Name) this much fruit is self-evidently His 
 death-bought Church, it yet remains true that one obvious 
 lesson from the corn is neither exclusion nor unity, but likeness. 
 The function of each branch is to abide in the vine : the 
 function of each grain in the ear is to do like the parent seed. 
 
 To return to our text, if I may thus consider it. He Who 
 reaps the corn reaps it not from the Temple, but seated at large in 
 the open firmament of heaven ; that heaven which canopies the 
 whole earth, the evil and the good, the just and the unjust. 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament 
 sheweth His handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and 
 night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor 
 language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out 
 through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." 
 Everyman, woman, child, must undergo the judgment : whence 
 it ensues that every one, whatever the issue, was created sus- 
 ceptible of salvation ; less than this St. Paul in the universal 
 brotherhood of his zealous heart does surely not imply : " The 
 righteous judgment of God ; Who will render to every man 
 according to his deeds : to them who by patient continuance 
 in welldoing seek for glory and honour and immortality, 
 eternal life : but unto them that are contentious, and do not 
 obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and 
 wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that 
 doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile ; but glory, 
 honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the 
 Jew first, and also to the Gentile : for there is no respect of 
 persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 369 
 
 shall also perish without law : and as many as have sinned 
 in the law shall be judged by the law; ... in the day when 
 God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." And 
 perhaps I may without rashness notice how in this Apocalyptic 
 vision the last word concerning earth's harvest is that it " was 
 reaped " ; nothing further do we here read of wheat or tares, 
 barn or fire ; reminding us of St. Paul's words to his Cor- 
 inthian converts : " What have I to do to judge them also 
 that are without? . . . Them that are without God judgeth." 
 
 As to the vine, wide is the difference. The armed messenger 
 of judgment comes forth from the Temple; and the exhorting 
 Angel from as it were the very heart of the temple, the Altar 
 if not the Fire of the Altar. From the days of Isaiah the elect 
 vine was forewarned of the inevitable future reckoning, each 
 intermediate judgment prefiguring that final judgment which 
 is to be without appeal : " My Well-Beloved hath a vineyard 
 in a very fruitful hill : and He fenced it, and gathered out the 
 stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built 
 a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein : 
 and He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought 
 forth wild grapes. . . . What could have been done more to 
 My vineyard, that I have not done in it ? wherefore, when I 
 looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild 
 grapes ? And now go to ; I will tell you what I will do to My 
 vineyard : I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be 
 eaten up ; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be 
 trodden down : and I will lay it waste." And in the passage of 
 the Apocalypse under consideration, now that the final judg- 
 ment is come (for so it seems to be), I suppose we may 
 parallel the clusters of fully ripe grapes with the " wild grapes " 
 of the former provocation ; observing that at the utmost they 
 apparently rank no higher than barren branches, both alike 
 being doomed to severance from the root of their only life. 
 Degenerate clusters, they have left their wine which cheereth 
 God and man, and have made themselves like the vine of 
 God's enemies whose " vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of 
 the fields of Gomorrah : their grapes are grapes of gall, their 
 clusters are bitter : their wine is the poison of dragons, and the 
 cruel venom of asps." 
 
 " Fully ripe." Not (so far as either the translated text or 
 the margin informs me) either dried up or over ripe: such 
 excess befell the corn, as if this had been made to wait on 
 the vine. Even so the world is tolerated until the number of 
 the elect be fulfilled. 
 
 A A
 
 3?o THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 19. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and 
 
 gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the 
 great winepress of the wrath of God. 
 
 20. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and 
 
 blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse 
 bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred 
 furlongs. 
 
 As to the harvest we are told nothing further than that it 
 was reaped ; but plainly are we told what befalls the con- 
 demned clusters of this awful vine. So are all Christians 
 warned of what awaits unworthy Christians : " If we sin 
 wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, 
 there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful 
 looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall 
 devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died 
 without mercy under two or three witnesses : of how much 
 sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who 
 hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted 
 the Blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an 
 unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace ? 
 For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto 
 Me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord 
 shall judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the 
 hands of the Living God." 
 
 These " clusters " are men, for they yield blood, and their 
 winepress is the wrath of God. Such are they who once trod 
 under foot the Son of God, that very Saviour Who for their 
 sakes trod the winepress alone: now are they ground as it 
 were to powder under His wrath Whom they outraged. They 
 despised and rejected His saving Blood : now must their own be 
 as dung on the face of the field. They went not forth unto Him 
 without the camp bearing His reproach : now are they them- 
 selves crushed without the city. They did despite to the 
 Spirit of grace ; and now there remaineth no more sacrifice for 
 sins. " Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe : come get 
 you down ; for the press is full, the fats overflow ; for their 
 wickedness is great." 
 
 God's righteous vengeance, even when He maketh a way to 
 His indignation and spareth not souls from death, is propor- 
 tioned, due, not in excess : the horses are bridled, the area is 
 circumscribed.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 1. And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, 
 seven angels having the seven last plagues ; for in them 
 is filled up the wrath of God. 
 
 Twice b. fore (ch. xii.) St. John saw a " wonder " ; or as the 
 Revised Version in each instance translates the word, a " sign " ; 
 in heaven. First, when he beheld there "the King's Daughter " 
 all glorious without as well as within, made indomitable in 
 weakness. Secondly, when he beheld there a great red dragon, 
 God's adversary and hers, at work yet baffled in his evil purpose. 
 Now thirdly (if 1 may assume the Greek word still to be the 
 same), when Seven Angels appear having the Seven last Plagues 
 wherein is filled up the wrath of God. 
 
 Many points as I may miss, I perceive the marvel of "a 
 woman " (for such is the figure, whatever may be the signification) 
 appearing as the centre of such concurrent glories : I readily 
 perceive the marvel of a rebel working wickedness and waging 
 war in heaven itself. But angels being (so to say) natives of 
 heaven, and St. John having already mentioned as present there 
 ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, 
 the third marvel seems not to consist in Seven Angels thence 
 confronting us, but rather in their being the bearers of Seven 
 Plagues. This is the third and last Seven of the Apocalypse, 
 "for in them is filled up the wrath of God." The previous 
 Sevens were the Seals and the Trumpets ; and however the three 
 series may have to be viewed in historical sequence, yet to any 
 uninstructed reader they convey with one voice one reiterated 
 warning to love righteousness and hate iniquity and flee from 
 the wrath to come. 
 
 " The wrath of God " admits of being filled up : nowhere do 
 
 we read of His mercy being filled up. Equally, " seven last 
 
 plagues " are here defined ; but nowhere seven last blessings. 
 
 2. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire : 
 
 and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and
 
 372 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 over his image, and over his mark, and over the 
 number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having 
 the harps of God. 
 
 If I may venture to assume this sea to be the same as that 
 which St. John originally beheld " before the Throne ... of 
 glass like unto crystal " (ch. iv. 6), a fresh point of glory has 
 now been added to its former glory ; or if not truly added, has 
 yet been added so far as our knowledge is concerned. 
 
 The former vision magnified God as Creator. Of that 
 vision the sea appeared pure, perfect, unbroken, unperturbed ; it 
 spread double against that overarching sky which is strong and 
 as a molten looking-glass. Itself flawless, there could occur no 
 flaw in its reflection of the firmament. 
 
 Now fire is added not to consume, but " mingled " with that 
 sea to illuminate, flash, augment beauty ; even as the fiery 
 milky opal would not be half itself without its spark. For 
 Redemption now excels Creation ; and the fiery trial through 
 which the elect have pressed after Christ, being past as a 
 trial endures as a perpetual splendour. None but victors stand 
 upon that sea " having the harps of God," for " he that is feeble 
 among them at that day shall be as David." "Awake, awake, 
 utter a song : arise . . . and lead thy captivity captive." 
 
 Jerusalem of fire 
 
 And gold and pearl and gem, 
 Saints flock to fill thy choir, 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Lo, thrones thou hast for them ; 
 Desirous they desire 
 Thy harp, thy diadem, 
 
 Thy bridal white attire, 
 
 A palm branch from thy stem : 
 Thy holiness their hire, 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Though the sea be "of glass mingled with fire," yet if we may 
 regard it as in any sense equivalent to a sea of water thus 
 mingled, we immediately recognize and revere two conspicu- 
 ous types of God the Holy Spirit ; and we discern as in a glass 
 darkly how it is His Presence, Gift, Grace, which sustains the 
 Church universal. The Altar has clearly reappeared in the 
 celestial Temple : now (if I may) I behold the Font also, that 
 "womb of the morning," whence as Christ's members we 
 derive the dew of immortal birth. 
 
 " O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom hast
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 373 
 
 Thou made them all : the earth is full of Thy riches. So is 
 the great and wide sea." 
 
 An alternative reading (Revised Version) makes these more 
 than conquerors stand not on but by the glassy sea ; thus supply- 
 ing us with an additional thought by contrasting the Church 
 Triumphant for evermore with sometime the Church Militant : 
 " By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, 
 when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the 
 willows in the midst thereof. . . . How shall we sing the 
 Lord's song in a strange land ? " 
 
 3. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and 
 the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous 
 are Thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are 
 Thy ways, Thou King of saints. 
 
 " Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, 
 Christ Jesus ; Who was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as 
 also Moses was faithful in all His house. . . And Moses 
 verily was faithful in all His house, as a servant. . . . But 
 Christ as a Son over His own house." Hence it appears how 
 wide and not to be bridged over is the gulf between Son and 
 servant ; yet Christ setting aside that inequality is pleased to 
 combine with Himself Moses His friend in a song of triumph, 
 ennobling with transcendent significance Solomon's proverb : 
 " A wise servant . . . shall have part of the inheritance among 
 the brethren." 
 
 Surely this also is a sign and a great wonder brought to light 
 in heaven. 
 
 The Passion Flower hath sprung up tall, 
 
 Hath east and west its arms outspread j 
 
 The heliotrope shoots up its head 
 To clear the shadow of the wall : 
 Down looks the Passion Flower, 
 
 The heliotrope looks upward still, 
 Hour by hour 
 
 On the heavenward hill. 
 
 The Passion Flower blooms red or white. 
 
 A shadowed white, a cloudless red ; 
 
 Caressingly it droops its head, 
 Its leaves, its tendrils, from the light : 
 Because that lowlier flower 
 
 Looks up, but mounts not half so high, 
 Hour by hour 
 
 Tending toward the sky. 
 
 On earth long ages before Moses had had his triumph and 
 his song of triumph when Israel stood safe on the further shore of
 
 374 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the Red Sea : so that in heaven it is no new thing for him to 
 sing unto the Lord because He hath triumphed gloriously. 
 Throughout the Gospel, on the contrary, no trace appears of any 
 triumph song " of the Lamb," unless it be that Hymn which 
 He sang with His disciples while He stood on the brink of 
 deep waters whose floods were presently to run over Him. 
 Moses had said, '* Fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation 
 of the Lord," when a type of supreme salvation was about to be 
 enacted ; and Christ said, " Be of good cheer ; I have over- 
 come the world," when He was about with His own right hand 
 and with His holy arm to get Himself the victory. 
 
 Lord Jesus, there is none like unto Thee, none beside Thee. 
 
 This " Song " is rendered somewhat differently in the Revised 
 Version 
 
 " Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord God, the 
 Almighty ; righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the 
 ages [margin, "nations"]. Who shall not fear, O Lord, and 
 glorify Thy Name ? for Thou only art Holy ; for all the nations 
 shall come and worship before Thee ; for Thy righteous acts 
 have been made manifest." 
 
 4. Who shalt not fear Thee, Lord, and glorify Thy Name ? 
 for Thou only art Holy : for all nations shall come and 
 worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made 
 manifest. 
 
 O Lord God Almighty, All Holy, Whom we fear, Whom we 
 trust, Whose Name we desire to glorify ; Thou Who hast 
 vouchsafed to constitute man not least amongst Thy marvellous 
 works ; on wings of grace enable us like Thine Angel of old to 
 do wondrously, ascending spiritually from the rock of faith and 
 altar of obedience in the flame of love. O King of saints, of 
 nations, of the ages, Thou Whose ways are just and true ; Thou 
 Unapproachable Who callest us unto Thee, Thou Inimitable 
 Who requirest us to become like unto Thee ; grant us grace 
 ever worshipping to follow Thee by justice and truth. In this 
 age of probation prepare Thou generation after generation for 
 the eternal ages of perfected sanctity ; until the knowledge of 
 Thy glory shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea, and 
 all saints shall be co-extensive with all nations. Father, Son, 
 Holy Spirit, Co-Eternal Trinity in Unity, we plead the Merits 
 of Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 5. And after that I looked, and behold, the temple of the 
 
 tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened : 
 
 6. And the seven angels came out of the temple, having
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 375 
 
 the seven plagues, clothed in pore and white linen, and 
 having their breasts girded with golden girdles. 
 
 Surely this also is a time appointed, a solemn feast day. 
 Because to the saints it is meat and drink to do the Will of 
 God and to finish His work : if to do it, likewise to suffer it ; if 
 to finish it, likewise to behold it finished. " He that is our God 
 is the God of salvation ; and unto God the Lord belong the 
 issues from death." 
 
 Yet of old far different was that procession which the sweet 
 Psalmist of Israel contemplated when he uplifted heart and 
 voice in the Divine praises : " They have seen Thy goings, O 
 God : even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary. 
 The singers went before, the players on instruments followed 
 after ; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels." 
 Then the thousands of the chosen nation flocked up to the 
 earthly Tabernacle of the Mercy Seat ; now from the heavenly 
 Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony emerge the minis- 
 ters of Judgment. Song, music, mirth, befitted that interlude 
 of time : awe, silence, this prelude of eternity. 
 
 Time lengthening, in the lengthening seemeth long : 
 
 But ended Time will seem a little space, 
 A little while from morn to evensong, 
 
 A little while that ran a rapid race ; 
 A little while, when once Eternity 
 
 Denies proportion to the other's pace. 
 Eternity to be and be and be, 
 
 Ever beginning, never ending still, 
 Still undiminished far as thought can see ; 
 
 Farther than thought can see, by dint of will 
 Strung up and strained and shooting like a star 
 
 Past utmost bound of everlasting hill : 
 Eternity unswaddled, without bar, 
 
 Finishing sequence in its awful sum ; 
 Eternity still rolling forth its car, 
 
 Eternity still here and still to come. 
 
 At the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet (ch. xi. 15, 19), 
 " the Temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was 
 seen in His Temple the Ark of His Testament." Now once 
 more "the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in 
 heaven was opened," but no word indicates that the Stronghold 
 of Mercy and Comfort was again revealed to sight. There, 
 doubtless, It abode ; but hidden, it may be, as when the Cloudy 
 Pillar of Fire turned unbroken darkness against Pharaoh and 
 his host. 
 
 So likewise Moses, that luminous type of Christ, answered
 
 576 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Pharaoh who in his hardheartedness made himself a type of all 
 obstinate rebels : " Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from 
 me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more. . . . And 
 Moses said, Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again 
 no more." 
 
 "Clothed in pure and white linen" in the Revised 
 Version: "Arrayed with precious stone, pure and bright." 
 This latter translation, strange to my unlearned ears, set me 
 to search whether I could find in the Authorized Version any 
 other instance of an angel being described in so many words, 
 and beyond question as clad in linen : I have failed to find 
 one, and though this may merely prove my ignorance it 
 suggests a thought. 
 
 In the Prophecy of Ezekiel (xxviii. 13, &c.) the King of 
 Tyrus is twice designated by the word chemb, and in the same 
 passage we read concerning him : " Every precious stone was 
 thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, 
 the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the 
 carbuncle, and gold." Robed in these or in such as these, 
 including gold ("girded with golden girdles"), it may haply 
 be that these seven angels came forth ; themselves and their 
 vestments alike in the flawless perfection of direct Divine 
 workmanship, upright, unimpaired, as at the beginning. Even 
 so was it with the first Tables of the Law: "The tables were 
 the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, 
 graven upon the tables." 
 
 If thus we may deem of elect Angels, it leaves linen for the 
 appropriate vestment of redeemed men. Christ wears it, for 
 He is not ashamed to call us brethren ; and after Him and 
 with Him all saints wear it. Linen differs essentially from 
 jewels inasmuch as it is a manufacture, needing human agency 
 whereby to be steeped and bleached and wrought finely, and 
 to have harshnesses and coarsenesses discarded from the web 
 as this grows into beauty. God indeed provides the flax, the 
 skill, the patience, and all else that comes into requisition ; but 
 still man it is who must sow and reap, steep and bleach, weave 
 and finish that fine linen which is the righteousness of saints. 
 
 If Angels who inherit no weak points need girding for their 
 work ; how much more man who is made up of weak points, 
 and who has for incitement to gird himself and run Christ's 
 All-Holy Example : " Righteousness shall be the girdle of His 
 loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins." Truth is man's 
 girdle, "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with 
 truth " ; gold the Angels' : by faith man apprehends and
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 377 
 
 cleaves to truth, and comparing faith with gold, St. Peter 
 awards the preference to faith : "The trial of your faith, being 
 much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be 
 tried with fire." 
 
 Now the gold of that land we know is good, while what it 
 may signify we know not ; and well we know that man in his 
 mortality ranks lower than angels. Yet weighing the precious- 
 ness of his allotted girdle here below, he may well lift up his 
 heart unto the Lord, and thanking God take courage : " For 
 thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle." 
 
 7. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels 
 
 seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, "Who liveth 
 for ever and ever. 
 
 " Wisdom is justified of all her children." 
 
 Every celestial creature subserves the Will of its Creator, 
 approves His decree, executes His behest, forwards His work. 
 So faithfully do the elect reproduce His Image, that to fall into 
 their hands becomes a fearful thing to any to whom it is fearful 
 to fall into His hands. Point after point in this awful Reve- 
 lation presses home the conviction that, cost what it may, and 
 to whom it may, God and His elect will in heaven be of one 
 heart, and one mind, and one will. Implicitly it has been so 
 in time, explicitly it will be so in eternity. 
 
 Man's perversity has made gold the occasion and instrument 
 of so much sin, that no wonder it one day reappears as vials 
 full of Divine wrath. Happy will he be at the last who with 
 St. Peter has had neither silver nor gold, with St. Paul has 
 coveted no man's gold ; he miserable who made gold his hope, 
 or against whom hire fraudulently kept back crieth. 
 
 From sordid self-ruin, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Seven vials hold Thy wrath : hut what can hold 
 
 Thy mercy save Thine own Infinitude 
 
 Boundlessly overflowing with all good, 
 All lovingkindness, all delights untold ? 
 Thy Love, of each created love the mould ; 
 
 Thyself, of all the empty plenitude ; 
 
 Heard of at Ephrata, found in the Wood, 
 For ever One, the Same, and Manifold. 
 Lord, give us grace to tremble with that dove 
 
 Which Ark-bound winged its solitary way 
 
 And overpast the Deluge in a day, 
 
 Whom Noah's hand pulled in and comforted : 
 For we who much more hang upon Thy Love 
 
 Behold its shadow in the deed he did. 
 
 8. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of
 
 378 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 God, and from His power; and no man was able to 
 enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the 
 seven angels were fulfilled. 
 
 When the Mosaic Tabernacle was finished and set up, 
 "Then a Cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and 
 the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. And Moses was 
 not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the 
 Cloud abode thereon, and the Glory of the Lord filled the 
 Tabernacle." So likewise at the Dedication of Solomon's 
 Temple : " It came to pass, when the priests were come out 
 of the Holy Place, that the Cloud filled the house of the Lord, 
 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the 
 Cloud : for the Glory of the Lord had filled the house of the 
 Lord." 
 
 If these two historical incidents may be viewed as prefiguring 
 this of which we read in St. John's vision : " The Temple was 
 filled with smoke from the Glory of God, and from His power ; 
 and no man was able to enter into the Temple. . . . " : then 
 perhaps without rashness I may here think to discern a token 
 of Christ being pleased in His own good time to fulfil and end 
 His Mediatorial Kingdom, His perpetual Intercession. For 
 not only (ver. 5) has "the Temple of the Tabernacle of the 
 Testimony " been opened, without the Ark of the Testament 
 (so far as is stated) becoming visible; but that "no man" 
 should be able to enter into the Temple suggests that Christ 
 Himself has ceased or is nigh ceasing to appear in the Presence 
 of God for incorrigible offenders; so that thenceforward, to 
 quote St. Paul's phrase, God (as God) wills to be All in All. 
 
 That such a termination impends seems certain. That the 
 point has been reached in St. John's Revelation appears con- 
 jecturable when, as now by looking forward, we mark one 
 unbroken course of punitive judgments untempered by any 
 answering sign of repentance. Of this we have an appalling 
 type in the history of Joshua's war against the accursed nations: 
 " It was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should 
 come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them 
 utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might 
 destroy them." Yet first doubtless they had hardened them- 
 selves, according to the inspired Proverb: "He, that being 
 often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, 
 and that without remedy." 
 
 "A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard ; and 
 he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 379 
 
 he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I 
 come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none : cut it down ; 
 why cumbereth it the ground ? And he answering said unto 
 him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, 
 and dung it : and if it bear fruit, well : and if not, then after 
 that thou shall cut it down." 
 
 " Every man in his own order : Christ the firstfruits ; after- 
 ward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the 
 end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, 
 even the Father ; when He shall have put down all rule and 
 all authority and power. For He must reign, till He hath put 
 all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be 
 destroyed is death. For He hath put all things under His 
 feet. But when He saith, all things are put under Him, it is 
 manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things under 
 Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then 
 shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all 
 things under Him, that God may be all in all." 
 
 "And the Temple was filled with smoke. . . ." If this 
 " Smoke " corresponds with the Ineffable Cloud of the Divine 
 Presence, then we surmise here an intimation of the Double 
 Procession of God the Holy Spirit, " Who proceedeth from the 
 Father and the Son " : inasmuch as the Smoke proceeded 
 from " the Glory of God " and from " His Power." 
 
 And one step further. If simultaneously with a plenary 
 Effusion of the Holy Spirit the day of grace will terminate, we 
 are thus reminded of that most awful declaration : " Verily I 
 say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, 
 and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme : but 
 he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never 
 forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." 
 
 Thank God, that when the Seven Plagues are over, the 
 Temple shall be reopened to man : where Christ is, there shall 
 also His servant be. " When Thou hadst overcome the sharp- 
 ness of death : Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all 
 believers."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1. And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to 
 
 the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials 
 of the wrath of God upon the earth. 
 
 "Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send Mine 
 anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, 
 and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. And 
 Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity : but I 
 will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations 
 shall be in the midst of thee : and ye shall know that I am the 
 Lord. Thus saith the Lord God ; An evil, an only evil, 
 behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come : it 
 watcheth for thee ; behold, it is come." 
 
 Seven offences had not sufficed to draw down this sevenfold 
 judgment, nay, nor seventy times seven, had man but turned 
 and said, I repent. For certainly God All-Holy proposeth 
 not to any a higher standard than His own (see St. Matt, xviii. 
 21, 22). 
 
 Nor may I so frame my thoughts as to represent God as 
 like the forgiving man : it is the forgiving man who faintly, 
 feebly, inadequately, amid flaws and shortcomings is in his 
 degree like God. The antitype determines the type, not this 
 that. If such a distinction might seem purposeless, I come to 
 perceive its purpose when (for instance) Divine Truths having 
 first been confounded with heathen myths are interpreted as on 
 a par with them ; as if all alike symbolized various processes, 
 phases, of nature. It is pious to contemplate autumn, winter, 
 spring, summer, as emblematical of our dear Lord's death, 
 burial, resurrection, ascended glory ; but to treat these as if 
 they were a parable of those, is to deny the faith. 
 
 2. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the 
 
 earth ; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon 
 the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon 
 them which worshipped his image.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 381 
 
 O Lord, correct us, but with judgment ; not in Thine anger, 
 lest Thou bring us to nothing. 
 
 If Thou smite us, let it be with the sores of holy Job unto 
 amendment and perfection : not with the sores of obstinate 
 Egypt, or of reprobation. By pain bring back our pleasure. 
 
 3. And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea ; 
 
 and it became as the blood of a dead man : and every 
 living soul died in the sea. 
 
 If thou curse our blessings, let it be that losing less we may 
 gain more; that in exchange for bitterness we may inherit 
 sweetness, and for sterility fruit. By death instruct us unto 
 life. 
 
 4. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers 
 
 and fountains of waters ; and they became blood. 
 
 If Thou assure us not water nor give us bread, grant us 
 grace by hungering and thirsting after righteousness to feast 
 in famine, in destitution to have enough. By want enrich us. 
 
 5. And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art 
 
 righteous, Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt 
 be, because Thou hast judged thus. 
 
 6. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, 
 
 and Thou hast given them blood to drink ; for they are 
 worthy. 
 
 Deliver us from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou that art the 
 God of our health : that with Angels and Archangels and all 
 the company of heaven our tongue may laud and magnify Thy 
 Glorious Name, evermore praising Thee and Thy Righteous- 
 ness. Be reproofs of instruction to us the way of life. 
 
 7. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord 
 
 God Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judgments. 
 
 Grant us to be of one mind with Thine Angel of the Altar, 
 and with Abraham Thy friend, who bear witness that the Judge 
 of all the earth doeth right. So may we trust Thee though 
 Thou slay us. By Thy loving correction make us great. 
 
 8. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun ; 
 
 and power was given unto him to scorch men with 
 fire. 
 
 9. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed 
 
 the Name of God, which hath power over these plagues : 
 and they repented not to give Him glory. 
 
 Though the sun smite us by day and the moon by night, yet
 
 382 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 to us let the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His 
 wings. Though Thou destroy our flesh, save our spirit. Be 
 the seven times heated furnace of affliction our upper chamber 
 wherein to adore the Son of God, and by repentance to glorify 
 His Name. Walk with us in the fire, Good Lord. 
 
 10. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat 
 
 of the beast ; and his kingdom was full of darkness ; 
 and they gnawed their tongues for pain, 
 
 11. And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their 
 
 pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. 
 
 Not unto us the outer darkness, not unto us the gnashing of 
 teeth. Deliver us from penal darkness, from darkness which 
 may be felt, from paralyzing darkness forbidding us to arise 
 and go, to our Father. Be our pangs schoolmasters to bring 
 us to Christ. 
 
 12. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great 
 
 river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried 
 up, that the way of the kings of the east might be 
 prepared. 
 
 If Thou change the elements by a kind of harmony making 
 dry land where was water ; bringing upon us evil, and not 
 good as once by the Red Sea or the beloved Jordan, but 
 gloom from the sun-rising and terror from afar, yet support us 
 though Thou rescue us not. As to Thee, so to us, be darkness 
 and light both alike. 
 
 13. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of 
 
 the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of 
 the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 
 
 14. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, 
 
 which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of 
 the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that 
 great day of God Almighty. 
 
 If all wickedness spread nets for our feet or set the battle 
 in array against us, strengthen us to shake our head at the 
 adversary and laugh him to scorn, although he work miracles 
 and stir up the earth and the whole world, O Lord God, against 
 Thee and Thine. Bring forth the spear, and stop the way 
 against them that persecute us : say unto our soul, I am thy 
 salvation. Out of weakness make us strong. 
 
 15. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, 
 
 and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and 
 they see his shame.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 383 
 
 Until Thou comest, kindle our desires to go forth to meet 
 Thee, our watchfulness to rehearse Thy welcome. Be purity 
 our veil, obedience our walk, Thyself our righteousness. Yea, 
 be Thyself our all in all. 
 
 16. And he gathered them together into a place called in 
 
 the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. 
 
 Lord, to Whom the gathering of the people shall be, Lord 
 Most Mighty, Most Holy, Most Merciful ; when summoned 
 without appeal multitudes stand before Thee in the Valley of 
 Decision, set us not on Thy Left Hand of rejection but on 
 Thy Right Hand of acceptance. Turn not Thy Face from us 
 poor men. 
 
 17. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; 
 
 and there came a great voice out of the temple of 
 heaven, from the Throne, saying, It is done. 
 
 When an end is come, the end is come, the endless end, 
 the end which is the final beginning ; when every eye sees, and 
 all kindreds of the earth wail, and the undone cannot be done, 
 neither the done undone j be Thy word to each of us, Come. 
 In us see of the travail of Thy Soul, and be satisfied. 
 
 18. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings ; 
 
 and there was a great earthquake, such as was not 
 since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earth- 
 quake, and so great. 
 
 When earth is passing away with a great noise, and there is 
 trembling in the field, in the host, and among all the people, 
 and the earth quakes, so that it is a very great trembling ; put 
 us in the clift of Thy Rock, in the place by Thee, O Lord 
 Thou Rock of Ages. Defer not for Thine own sake, O our 
 God : for behold, Thou hast it by Thee. 
 
 19. And the great city was divided into three parts, and 
 
 the cities of the nations fell : and great Babylon 
 came in remembrance before God, to give unto her 
 the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. 
 
 When woe is to them who have coveted an evil covetous- 
 ness to their house, and the stone is crying out of the wall, and 
 the beam out of the timber is answering it ; and the mourners 
 go about the streets because mankind is going to its long 
 home, for good or for evil to its long home, for life or for 
 death to its long home; then be our remembrance a sweet 
 savour unto Thee, O God. Find Thou a ransom.
 
 384 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 20. And every island fled away, and the mountains were 
 
 not found. 
 
 When all faileth save Thou, fail us not Thou ; Thou Who 
 never failest them that seek Thee. Lord, Lord, give us grace 
 to seek and find Thee. 
 
 21. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, 
 
 every stone about the weight of a talent : and men 
 blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail ; 
 for the plague thereof was exceeding great. 
 
 Suffer us not to fall into desperateness, suffer us not to curse 
 Thee and die. Suffer us not by despairing of mercy to forfeit 
 mercy. Are we stronger than Thou ? Nay, Good Lord. O 
 be Thou our help in trouble, for vain is the help of man. 
 
 We plead Jesus Christ, having a good hope because of Thy 
 word. Amen. 
 
 "A noisome and grievous sore." Recalling the "boil 
 breaking forth with blains upon man . . . throughout all the 
 land of Egypt," which plague came in answer to ashes of 
 the furnace sprinkled toward heaven by Moses, as though at 
 that moment the provocation of earth went up visibly toward 
 heaven. "A people that provoketh Me to anger continually 
 to My Face. . . . These are a smoke in My nose, a fire that 
 burneth all the day." But to St. John's vision no stated 
 challenge from earth then and there calls down heaven's 
 vengeance, which rather seems a pouring out of that wrath which 
 human wickedness has treasured up unto itself against the day 
 of wrath ; which overflows and cannot but overflow at length ; 
 which can no longer be shut up with doors, or obscured in 
 cloudy garment, or swaddled in thick darkness. "The 
 morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land : 
 the time is come,, the day of trouble is near, and not the 
 sounding again of the mountains. Now will I shortly pour 
 out my fury upon thee, and accomplish Mine anger upon 
 thee : and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will 
 recompense thee for all thine abominations. And Mine eye 
 shall not spare, neither will I have pity : I will recompense 
 thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in 
 the midst of thee ; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that 
 smiteth." 
 
 Tremble, thou earth, at the Presence of the Lord 
 
 Whose Will conceived thee and brought thee to the birth, 
 
 Always everywhere thy Lord to be adored : 
 Tremble, thou earth.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 385 
 
 Wilt thou laugh time away in music and mirth ? 
 Time hath days of pestilence, hath days of a sword, 
 Hath days of hunger and thirst in desolate dearth. 
 
 Till eternity wake up the multicord 
 
 Thrilled harp of heaven and Dreathe full its organ's girth 
 For joy of harvest and infinite reward, 
 
 Tremble, thou earth. 
 
 " The sea ; and it became as the blood of a dead man." 
 Fresh water too will be turned into blood ; but of the sea 
 alone is it said that it became " as the blood of a dead man," 
 or that in it " every living soul died." Perhaps this prominent 
 connection of the sea with death prepares us for its mysterious 
 exclusion from the new heaven and new earth (ch. xxi. i). 
 
 " The rivers and fountains of waters ; and they became 
 blood." This seems at first sight almost identical with the 
 corresponding Egyptian plague : " Take thy rod, and stretch 
 out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, 
 upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their 
 pools of water, that they may become blood ; and that there 
 may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels 
 of wood, and in vessels of stone. . . . And he lifted up the 
 rod, and smote the waters that were in the river . . . and all 
 the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And 
 the fish that was in the river died ; and the river stank, and 
 the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river ; and 
 there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. . . . And 
 all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to 
 drink ; for they could not drink of the water of the river." 
 
 Yet a difference may be observed. In the case of Egypt 
 the " fountains of waters " are not particularized ; so that if 
 the digging Egyptians succeeded in finding springs independent 
 of the Nile, such springs may (so far as is stated) have gushed 
 forth in intact purity, and have served instead of the transmuted 
 waters. 
 
 St John, on the contrary, beheld the springs and all the 
 waters contaminated ; so that the Angel of the waters extolling 
 the Divine Equity names "blood" as the drink of those 
 murderers. Whereupon another out of the Altar responds 
 with like lauds. The Revised Version however translates as 
 if not an Angel from the Altar but the Altar itself uttered 
 praises : reminding us of our Lord's emphatic saying, " The 
 stones would immediately cry out," thus the very Altar, the 
 stronghold of reconciliation, would at length condemn the 
 ungodly. 
 
 B B
 
 386 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " I will also water with thy blood the land wherein thou 
 swimmest, even to the mountains ; and the rivers shall be full 
 of thee." 
 
 " Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed 
 the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword 
 in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity 
 had an end : therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will 
 prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee : sith 
 thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee." 
 
 " Upon the sun." At the Fourth Trumpet the light of the 
 sun was abridged (ch. viii. 12). At the Fourth Vial its heat is 
 intensified so as to scorch yet not to consume. Combining 
 in thought the two phases, we see in emblem the outer dark- 
 ness of hell no way lit up by the unquenchable fire, and that 
 fire ever feeding upon without devouring its prey. 
 
 But the sun is earth's vivifier, benefactor, guardian, friend. 
 Even so. It will not be otherwise, alas ! with any lost soul 
 which at length makes of Mercy an enemy. 
 
 Without pressing every word, I think these two prophecies 
 may be harmonized as at least a dim allegory touching the 
 mystery of Redemption. 
 
 The Sun oftentimes symbolizes Christ. Here in a figure 
 we behold Christ by voluntary Self-abasement and Self-sacrifice 
 first taking upon Himself the plagues due to us, before He 
 suffers us to be touched by them. At the Fourth Trumpet 
 the Sun itself is smitten. On the Sun itself the Fourth Vial 
 of Wrath is poured out, or ever the wrath descends to mankind 
 at large : yet is it the Sun and none other which at length 
 smites. Of the elect we read elsewhere, but not here. Of 
 the incorrigible we are reading, and their personal rankling 
 raging hatred of God in Christ persists in venting blasphemy 
 and abhorring repentance. Could they, would they repent, 
 they might . . . yea, so surely as God Almighty is Faithful and 
 True, they must up to and beyond the eleventh hour go home 
 out of the horrible pit to Paradise. Thus did one Malefactor, 
 but not (so far as is recorded) the other. 
 
 " And blasphemed . . . and they repented not to give Him 
 glory." Far below Achan, who through the grave and gate of 
 temporal death was (please God !) delivered from death eternal : 
 " Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to 
 the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him; and 
 tell me now what thou hast done ; hide it not from me. And 
 Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned 
 against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 387 
 
 [But darest thou when reading of impenitence, once and 
 again urge penitence? 
 
 Yea ; because impenitence is set before us to that very end 
 that we should repent.] 
 
 O Loving Lord Jesus, Who revealest hell that we may fle* 
 to heaven, and lest we should loose hold on Thee warnest us 
 that souls may fall away ; Thou Who on the Cross didst love 
 saint and sinner, and on Thy Throne of Intercession lovest 
 saints and sinners still ; there is nothing but Thy Love or 
 some fruit of Thy Love which we can plead with Thee. Such 
 I plead. Amen. 
 
 Well spake that soldier who being asked what he would do 
 if he became too weak to cling to Christ, answered, "Then I 
 will pray Him to cling to me." 
 
 " The seat of the beast ; and his kingdom was full of dark- 
 ness." Prefigured but only faintly by the three days' darkness 
 in Egypt : for at that time Moses was within reach, within 
 hearing ; Moses, type of Christ, still accessible to Pharaoh. 
 Three days, and then presumably renewal of light. And as 
 we expressly read : " Neither rose any from his place for three 
 days " (in strong contrast with those blinded men of doomed 
 Sodom who wearied themselves to find the door), it suggests 
 that the door of repentance continued open : for considering 
 that three days' darkness by way of a spiritual parable, and 
 connecting it with our Lord's figurative declaration : " If the 
 blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch," we are 
 invited humbly to hope that the Egyptian darkness was by no 
 means necessarily outer darkness ; but rather in the case of 
 impressionable souls that it shut such up awhile in a corner of 
 safety, affording them leisure to consider their ways and 
 become wise ; to purge themselves from such blindness as by 
 misleading or misfollowing falls into the ditch ; and to watch 
 for the morning with eyes apt and anxious to see, should God 
 of His bounty rekindle light and sight. 
 
 "They gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed . . . 
 because of their pains and their sores." To harden heart and 
 stiffen neck under any chastisement predisposes towards final 
 virulence of misery and impotence of hatred. The consummated 
 horrible end appears as if a scorpion hedged in by fire stung it- 
 self and could not die. " Death and life are in the power of 
 the tongue : and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." 
 The power of choice is limited to time : the consequences who 
 shall limit ? 
 
 Bitter it is to long for life and die ; more bitter to long for
 
 388 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 death and it cometh not. Christ in His boundless mercy 
 preserve us through bitterness of life and from bitterness of 
 death. 
 
 Bitterness that may turn to sweetness is better than sweetness 
 that must turn to bitterness. 
 
 Nothing which can end is unbearable. 
 
 The lost must not shift their perdition off their own shoulders 
 on to Satan's : their own load they must bear. Though the 
 wretched persons of our text were subjects and confederates of 
 the beast, yet they themselves gnawed their own tongues and 
 plied their own tongues in blasphemy : themselves, not he. 
 
 Satan is guilty, and none the less each soul is guilty, of that 
 same soul's death ; guilt being like flame, capable of communi- 
 cation not of transference. 
 
 " And repented not of their deeds." At the Fourth Vial, 
 and now again at the Fifth, but not previously, impenitence is 
 clearly alleged as one sin of those sinners. At the Fourth it 
 seems characteristically a revolt of will against faith : " Men . . . 
 blasphemed the Name of God, which hath power over these 
 plagues : and they repented not to give Him glory." At the 
 Fifth it seems characteristically a rebellion of flesh (the lower 
 nature) against spirit : " They . . . blasphemed the God of 
 heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not 
 of their deeds." The result of such obduracy is differently 
 stated in each case : first it refuses glory to God, thereby shut- 
 ting the door of heaven against man ; afterwards it bereaves 
 man of his last vestige of hope, even of the bare wibh to 
 amend. 
 
 " And even as they did not like to retain God in their know- 
 ledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those 
 things which are not convenient. . . . Who knowing the 
 judgment of God, that they which commit such things are 
 worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in 
 them that do them." 
 
 Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief: 
 
 Lord, I repent, help mine impenitence : 
 
 Hide not Thy Face from me, nor spurn me hence, 
 Nor utterly despise me in my grief ; 
 Nor say me nay, who worship with the thief 
 
 Bemoaning my so long lost innocence J 
 
 Ah me ! my penitence a fresh offence, 
 Too tardy and too tepid and too brief. 
 Lord, must I perish, I who look to Thee ? 
 
 Look Thou upon me, bid me live, not die ; 
 
 Say " Come, say not " Depart," tho' Thou art just 1 
 
 Yea, Lord, be mindful how out of the dust
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 389 
 
 I look to Thee while Thou dost look on me, 
 Thou Face to face with me and Eye to eye. 
 
 Euphrates flowed out of Eden, and (at least in its fountain 
 head, if not after being parted into one of four) its first recorded 
 use was to water Paradise. Its last recorded use is negative : 
 to be dried up and afford a free passage. 
 
 Euphrates in Eden was congruous with sinless Adam : one 
 watered, the other tilled, both obeyed. 
 
 Euphrates in the end of the world is congruous with many 
 sons of Adam : both parched, both done away with. 
 
 Dost thou deplore the fate of high-born Euphrates ? Deplore 
 rather the fate of multitudes of higher born men. Deplore 
 what thou hast made thyself: deprecate what thou mayest yet 
 make thyself. 
 
 I can alone destroy myself : from myself, Good Lord, deliver 
 me. 
 
 If the way to destruction lie open before me ; from that way, 
 Good Lord, deliver me. 
 
 Though they that be better than I destroy themselves ; from 
 self-destruction, Good Lord, deliver me. 
 
 From following a multitude to do evil, from apostasy, from 
 depravity ; Good Lord, deliver me. 
 
 From angels executing wrath ; Good Lord, deliver me. 
 
 From Thyself my Judge, to Thyself my Saviour, I appeal. 
 Good Lord, deliver me. Amen. 
 
 " The kings of the east " Revised Version : " The kings that 
 come from the sun rising." With whom, whatever their pur- 
 pose, the Wise Men from the east will rise up in the Judgment 
 together. 
 
 "I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness 
 was there ; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was 
 there. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and 
 the wicked : for there is a time there for every purpose and 
 for every work." 
 
 " We must prevent the sun to give Thee thanks, and at the 
 dayspring pray unto Thee." 
 
 "Three unclean spirits like frogs . . . are the spirits of 
 devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the 
 earth." Contemptible as well as formidable : " frogs ; yea 
 even in their kings' chambers." Long before, "the magicians 
 . . . with their enchantments . . . brought up frogs upon the 
 land of Egypt" brought them up, but presumably lacked 
 power to suppress them, for Moses it was who by intercession 
 delivered Pharaoh from that plague.
 
 390 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The likeness of these unclean spirits to frogs recalls our 
 Lord's mysterious declaration : " The unclean spirit . . . walketh 
 through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none." Now 
 however, they seek not rest in a dry place, but go forth to stir 
 up war. 
 
 Vile emissaries befit vile potentates. Are all the kingdoms 
 of the world and the glory of them to be mustered against God 
 Almighty at the summons of three frogs ? " The harvest of the 
 river is her revenue ; and she is a mart of nations. Be thou 
 ashamed, O Zidon." 
 
 " Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God : for the 
 day of the Lord is at hand : for the Lord hath prepared a 
 sacrifice, He hath bid His guests. And it shall come to pass 
 in the day of the Lord's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, 
 and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange 
 apparel. In the same day also will I punish all those that leap 
 on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence 
 and deceit." 
 
 Because these unclean spirits come "out of the mouth" of 
 dragon, beast, false prophet, it should set me on my guard 
 against all words whereby a pernicious tongue may offend. 
 " Why boastest thou thyself, thou tyrant, that thou canst do 
 mischief; whereas the goodness of God endureth yet daily? 
 Thy tongue imagineth wickedness, and with lies thou cuttest 
 like a sharp razor. Thou hast loved unrighteousness more than 
 goodness, and to talk of lies more than righteousness. Thou 
 hast loved to speak all words that may do hurt, O thou false 
 tongue. Therefore shall God destroy thee for ever : He shall 
 take thee, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling, and root thee 
 out of the land of the living." 
 
 Lord, grant us grace to make Thy Goodness our trust : 
 shutting our hearts against pride, our mouths against evil words, 
 our ears against foul knowledge ; and using Thy gifts to the 
 promotion of Thy Glory and of man's salvation. For His Blessed 
 sake in Whom we have all and are full and abound, Jesus 
 Christ. Amen. 
 
 " Behold, I come as a thief." This or a kindred expression 
 our Blessed Master and after Him His Apostles and Evangelists 
 have employed repeatedly in reference to the Second Advent 
 and ensuing Judgment Day. SS. Matthew and Luke record in 
 great measure the same Divine words, although spoken (it seems) 
 on two separate occasions : " Watch therefore : for ye know 
 not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this ; that if 
 the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 391 
 
 would come, he would have watched, and would not have 
 suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also 
 ready : for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man 
 cometh." St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians : " Yourselves 
 know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in 
 the night. . . . But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that 
 day should overtake you as a thief." St. Peter forewarns the 
 Church Catholic : " But the day of the Lord will come as a 
 thief in the night." 
 
 Still more striking is the likeness of our present text to pirt 
 of our Lord's message to the Church in Sardis (ch. iii. 3, 4) : 
 " If therefore thou shall not watch, I will come on thee as a 
 thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon 
 thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not 
 defiled their garments ; and they shall walk with Me in white." 
 Blessed indeed then is he that watcheth ! he shall escape 
 overwhelming shame : yea, much more, he shall abide in eternal 
 fellowship with Christ. 
 
 Solomon most glorious in array 
 
 Put not on his glories without care : 
 Clothe us as Thy lilies of a day, 
 As the lilies thou accountest fair, 
 Lilies of Thy making, 
 Of Thy love partaking, 
 Filling with free fragrance earth and air : 
 Thou Who gatherest lilies, gather us and wear. 
 
 "Armageddon" is, I see, interpreted "The destruction of 
 the troops," and (on the same authority) is supposed to allude 
 to the overthrow of Sisera and his hosts before Barak and his 
 ten thousand (see Judges iv. 14, 15 ; v. 19 21). 
 
 " And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air." 
 I trust that since modern accuracy has not yet forbidden our 
 speaking of sunrise and sunset, we may also venture on occasion 
 to revive the Four Elements of my youth. 
 
 Three elements have in turn been smitten ; earth by the 
 first vial, water by the second and third, fire (the sun) by the 
 fourth. Then recommencing the series ; earth (perhaps, the 
 world) by the fifth ; water (Euphrates) by the sixth : but fire (if 
 the dragon and the spirits of devils may be assumed to represent 
 it) musters on the contrary its rebellious force apparently for a 
 final effort ; not recking that the kingdom and the battle and 
 the great day are all alike " of God Almighty." 
 
 The seventh vial is poured out " into the air," that element 
 which may be termed the vital breath both of man and of fire : 
 and we are reminded of St. Paul's phrase : " The prince of the
 
 392 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of 
 disobedience." 
 
 " And there came a great Voice out of the Temple of heaven." 
 I do not know whether I perceive or merely fancy a distinction. 
 In previous passages (ch. xi. 19; xiv. 17; xv. 5) the Temple 
 is spoken of as in heaven, the context having reference to God 
 the Son, man's Redeemer and Judge. In this passage, "the 
 Temple of heaven " (harmonizing with the words, " The heaven 
 is My Throne ") might seem to speak of heaven at large as 
 being itself that Temple ; and to do so at this point of the 
 Revelation because the imminent Judgment and consummation 
 will affect much more than humankind only. The Revised 
 Version, however, by omitting the words " of heaven " precludes 
 any such notion. 
 
 "It is done." "God requireth that which is past." 
 Holy fear incites faith to humility, hope to prudence, love to 
 obedience. Faith without humility presumes, hope without 
 prudence misleads, love without obedience there is no genuine 
 love without obedience. " He that hath My commandments, 
 and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me," saith the Sole 
 Fountain of Truth and Love. 
 
 Fear, Faith, and Hope have sent their hearts above : 
 
 Prudence, Obedience, and Humility 
 
 Climb at their call, all scaling heaven toward Love. 
 Fear hath least grace but great expediency ; 
 
 Faith and Humility show grave and strong ; 
 
 Prudence and Hope mount balanced equally. 
 Obedience marches marshalling their throng, 
 
 Goes first, goes last, to left hand or to right ; 
 
 And all the six uplift a pilgrim's song. 
 By day they rest not, nor they rest by night : 
 
 While Love within them, with them, over them, 
 
 Weans them and woos them from the dark to light. 
 Each plies for staff not reed with broken stem, 
 
 But olive branch in pledge of patient peace ; 
 
 Till Love being theirs in New Jerusalem, 
 Transfigure them to Love, and so they cease. 
 
 Love is the sole beatitude above : 
 
 All other graces, to their vast increase 
 Of glory, look on Love and mirror Love. 
 
 " A great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon 
 the earth." The latter clause is perhaps a saving clause, 
 reserving pre-Adamite convulsions of which geology (if I am not 
 mistaken) appears to detect tremendous indications. 
 
 O Lord God Only Wise, keep us or deliver us, I beseech 
 Thee, from ignorant assertions and ignorant denials, from con- 
 fusing probabilities with certainties and opinions with beliefs.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 393 
 
 So be it to Thy Glory and our salvation, for the honour of 
 Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 " And the great city was divided into three parts." If we 
 may understand by this division not simply one material result 
 of the earthquake, but also internal dissension and a splitting 
 asunder into parties, then the " three parts " may perhaps 
 correspond with the dragon (devil), beast (world ?), false prophet 
 (man) : and we behold as in a picture that mutual hatred, 
 inextinguishable ire, reviling, loathing, in which must end the 
 cajoleries, befoolments, besottedness, of any congregation and 
 assembly whose bond of union is evil deliberately chosen and 
 finally adhered to. 
 
 "Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with 
 death, and with hell are we at agreement. . . . Your cove- 
 nant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with 
 hell shall not stand." 
 
 Whatever the secondary cause, a bitter foretaste of such 
 mutual damage befell the Philistines when of old the Lord 
 saved Israel by the harid of Jonathan and his armour-bearer : 
 " And there was trembling in the host, in the field, and among 
 all the people : the garrison, and the spoilers, they also 
 trembled, and the earth quaked : so it was a very great tremb- 
 ling. . . . And, behold, the multitude melted away, and they 
 went on beating down one another. . . . And, behold, every 
 man's sword was against his fellow, and there was a very great 
 discomfiture." 
 
 If our Lord's " parable " spoken to certain impious Scribes 
 and Pharisees conveyed a prophecy as well as a lesson, may 
 not this passage of the Apocalypse be reverently studied in 
 connection with it? "If a kingdom be divided against itself, 
 that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against 
 itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against 
 himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end." 
 
 "And great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to 
 give unto her the cup of the \\ine of the fierceness of His 
 wrath." Great Babylon incurs but the greater destruction : 
 better was it for " little " Zoar than for its neighbour cities in 
 the day of retribution. Ill fares it with him that layeth up 
 treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. 
 
 " And every island fled away, and the mountains were not 
 found." " I beheld the earth, and,lo, it was without form, and 
 void ; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the 
 mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved 
 lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds
 
 394 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place 
 was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down 
 at the presence of the Lord, and by His fierce anger." 
 
 " And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven . . . 
 and men blasphemed God." Jeremiah dwelling on the pro- 
 longed agony which in his day wrung Jerusalem, declared : 
 " The punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people 
 is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was 
 overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her." In- 
 comparably great is the woe beheld by St. John, when extension 
 of time is abused to enhance provocation : for in Jeremiah's 
 experience some men even in extremity may so have numbered 
 their days as to apply their hearts unto saving wisdom. 
 
 This crushing hail recalls the corresponding Egyptian plague : 
 but then a shelter was provided ; not so now. 
 
 Man's extremity is God's opportunity : so long as this 
 proverb holds good true extremity has not been reached. But 
 Wisdom has forewarned man of such extremity : '' Because I 
 have called, and ye refused ; I have stretched out My hand, 
 and no man regarded ; but ye have set at nought all My 
 counsel, and would none of My reproof : I also will laugh at 
 your calamity ; I will mock when your fear cometh ; when 
 your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction corceth 
 as a whirlwind ; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 
 Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer ; they 
 shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me : for that they 
 hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord : 
 they would none of My counsel : they despised all My reproof. 
 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be 
 filled with their own devices." 
 
 Divine gifts are called by our Master " talents." Every gift 
 must turn to the recipient's impoverishment, unless it be so 
 used as to secure the true riches : of goodly talents misused 
 noth : ng will at last remain but as it were the avenging weight. 
 First, gift ; afterwards, reward or penalty : they all equally 
 come " out of heaven." 
 
 " Every stone about the weight of a talent " : of a talent I 
 have done amiss with, or done nothing with. God forbid. 
 
 "Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Ye 
 have sown much, and bring in little ; ye eat, but ye have not 
 enough ; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink ; ye clothe 
 you, but there is none warm ; and he that earneth wages, 
 earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the 
 Lord of hosts ; Consider your ways."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 1. And there came one of the seven angels which had the 
 
 seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, 
 Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of 
 the great whore that sitteth upon many waters : 
 
 2. With whom the kings of the earth have committed for- 
 
 nication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been 
 made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 
 
 As to its subject, the vision of this chapter does not in order 
 of time appear to follow passages which more or less remotely 
 precede it; but rather to be at least partially simultaneous, 
 elucidatory, and so to say parenthetical. The very words 
 " Babylon is fallen " (ch. xiv. 8), " Great Babylon came in 
 remembrance" (ch. xvl 19), show that her existence antedates 
 either mention of her. So far then it becomes conjecturable 
 that this present chapter will exhibit a traceable connection 
 with previous portions of the Apocalypse ; will, as it were, fit 
 into what we have already studied. 
 
 Lord, Who by Thy Most Holy Spirit hast inspired Thy 
 Prophets to speak and to write Thy word, grant us by help of 
 the Same Spirit to study that blessed word which for each of 
 us contains an individual lesson. Give us one by one grace 
 to learn our own lesson, neither vexing nor envying one an- 
 other : but so imbued with wisdom that we may become pure, 
 peaceable, gentle, easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good 
 fruits, void of partiality and hypocrisy, sowing righteousness in 
 peace while we make peace. For our Peacemaker's sake, 
 Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 Isaiah instructs us how profitably to contemplate God's 
 judgments, while putting our whole trust in Him and honour- 
 ing His Holy Name and His word : " Thou wilt keep him in 
 perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee : because he 
 trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever : for in the 
 Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. For He bringeth down
 
 396 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 them that dwell on high ; the lofty city, He layeth it low ; He 
 layeth it low, even to the ground ; He bringeth it even to the 
 dust. . . . Yea, in the way of Thy judgments, O Lord, have 
 we waited for Thee ; the desire of our soul is to Thy Name, 
 and to the remembrance of Thee. With my soul have I 
 desired Thee in the night ; yea, with my spirit within me will 
 I seek Thee early : for when Thy judgments are in the earth, 
 the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." 
 
 Far from being necessarily an insurmountable disadvantage, 
 I think that ignorance of the historical drift of prophecy may 
 on occasion turn to a humble but genuine profit. Such ignor- 
 ance entails (or wisely utilized might entail) that a general 
 lesson, a fundamental principle, essence not accident, will be 
 elicited from the abstruse text. Further : instead of attention 
 b^ing directed to the ends of the earth, our eye must be turned 
 within ; elsewhere at a future moment additional light will 
 doubtless be vouchsafed, but for the present the message is 
 delivered pointedly to ourselves ; as when " there fell a voice 
 from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is 
 spoken"; and could no more be evaded than could that 
 other message ; " I have an errand to thee, O captain. . . . 
 Unto which of all us ? ... To thee." 
 
 Wherefore " one of the Seven Angels " talks with me, say- 
 ing : " Come hither ; I will shew unto thee. . . ." Atid what 
 he shows me (at any rate) amounts to the vileness and ruinous- 
 ness of idolatrous defection in every form subtle or gross. 
 Assume what shape it may, its nature remains the same : kings 
 may idolize all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of 
 them ; whilst subjects bow down to wealth, influence, fame, 
 genius, beauty, or even to success. But under one aspect or 
 other the sin infects " kings of the earth " and " inhabitants of 
 the earth " ; and whilst mighty men shall be mightily tormented, 
 the meaner sort cannot go unpunished. 
 
 The First and Second Commandments concur to forbid 
 idolatry : misplaced preference breaks the First, misdirected 
 worship the Second. The first holds out neither threat nor 
 promise, neither reward nor punishment : it is one, simple, 
 featureless, absolute ; and being equally incumbent upon all 
 rational beings, addresses man on his spiritual side, not taking 
 account of the earthy. The Second commands, but it also 
 reasons : it sets before man his own interest, adjures him for 
 his children's sake, deters him by a threat, allures him by a 
 promise ; remembers whereof he is made, and appeals to him 
 both as flesh and as spirit. Perhaps even the Fifth Command-
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 397 
 
 ment is less persuasively formulated than the Second : the 
 Fifth guarantees a contingent blessing to ourself, the Second 
 to our cherished "thousands." And even in the appalling 
 entail of contingent judgment "upon the children, unto the 
 third and fourth generation," a door of hope, howbeit of a 
 trembling hope, remains open, when we turn to a Divine 
 exposition of mercy and judgment ; for by the mouth of 
 Ezekiel the Lord God deigned to refute the Jewish proverb, 
 " The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth 
 are set on edge," and to declare concerning a hypothetical 
 heinous offender : " Now, lo, if he beget a son, that seeth all 
 his father's sins which he hath done, and considereth, and 
 doeth not such like, that . . . hath executed My judgments, 
 hath walked in My statutes ; he shall not die for the iniquity of 
 his father, he shall surely live." Thus the second generation 
 can by righteous obedience in some measure retrieve the error 
 of the first, thereby recovering mercy as an inheritance to his 
 posterity ; so that (may we not hope ?) even the visiting upon 
 them of their more remote forefathers' sins will be so far 
 reversed as to help them, if they choose, to walk humbly. To 
 the next of kin appertained a twofold office : as avenger of 
 blood he executed judgment, as nearest in blood he filled the 
 vacant place. Moreover though the fathers may not, yet may 
 the children take courage and rejoice in their grievous liability 
 because of Christ-likeness : for Christ was born for this very 
 end, that on Him might be visited the iniquity of father Adam 
 and of all mankind. 
 
 I suppose it is no exaggeration to say that every sin, fleshly 
 or spiritual, is a sin of idolatry, inasmuch as it is the preference 
 of some object tangible or intangible to God All Good : indeed 
 further reflection recognizes sin as simply the preference of 
 self to God ; self-pleasing, self-will, self-indulgence, self in a 
 word, being the universal lure. St. Paul brands covetousness 
 as idolatry : thus the First, Second and Tenth Commandments 
 concur in forbidding idolatry ; whilst to break any of the 
 remaining seven involves a breach of the spirit common to all. 
 
 If three Commandments out of Ten be explicit, and if the 
 other seven implicit against one and the same wickedness, let 
 us pray to be delivered and evermore kept safe from the wide- 
 spread snare without and from the foolhardy traitor within : 
 
 From love that cleaveth not to Thee, 
 From worship that waiteth not on Thee, 
 From a tongue that extolleth not Thee, 
 From labour and rest that serve not Thee,
 
 398 
 
 From defrauding Thy representatives of honour, 
 
 From defacing Thine image, 
 
 From defiling Thy temple, 
 
 From misappropriating Thy gifts, 
 
 From perverting Thy truth, 
 
 From lust of that which shall pass away, 
 
 Good Lord, deliver us. 
 ' Wanderings of heart, 
 Crookedness of intention, 
 Unsanctified speech, 
 Vain labour, slothful rest, 
 Disrespect and stubbornness, 
 Hasty spirit and hasty hand, 
 Corrupt eye, 
 Grasping fingers, 
 False tongue, 
 Evil covetousness, 
 
 Forgive to us, O Lord. Good Lord, amend us. Amen. 
 
 What would move me to love one who loved me ? If he 
 sacrificed himself for me, changed places with me that I might 
 be safe, impoverished himself to discharge my ruinous debts, 
 preferred me at every turn to himself, bore and shared my 
 griefs, planned and wrought for my happiness, earned and 
 laid up treasure for me, remembered me when I forgot him 
 and myself, put me on the best robe when I had shamed him, 
 and a ring after I had deserted him, won back for me alienated 
 friends, released me from bonds on his own suretyship, sought 
 me where I was straying among quicksands, found me, carried 
 me, rejoiced over me. 
 
 What can withhold me from loving such an One Who 
 loveth me ? 
 
 Lord, give me love that I may love Thee much, 
 Yea, give me love that I may love Thee more, 
 And all for love may worship and adore 
 
 And touch Thee with love's consecrated touch. 
 
 I halt to-day ; be love my cheerful crutch, 
 My feet to plod, some day my wings to soar : 
 Some day ; but, Lord, not any day before 
 
 Thou call me perfect having made me such. 
 
 This is a day of love, a day of sorrow, 
 Love tempering sorrow to a sort of bliss ; 
 A day that shortens while we call it long : 
 
 A longer day of love will dawn to-morrow, 
 A longer, brighter, lovelier day than this, 
 Endless, all love, no sorrow, but a song. 
 
 3. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness : 
 and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, 
 full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and 
 ten horns.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 399 
 
 He who exhibits is an angel, and he who inspects is a saint : 
 yet does this exalted pair betake themselves into " the wilder- 
 ness," there and not elsewhere to set themselves face to face 
 with an impersonation of abominable wickedness. So likewise 
 did their and our Divine Master do when He deigned to con- 
 front Satan. And if the Standard Bearer among ten thousand, 
 and if the flower of His armies did thus, it leaves us an example 
 that we should tread in their steps. 
 
 Some innocent souls there are who from cradle to grave 
 remain as it were veiled and cloistered from knowledge of evil. 
 As pearls in their native deep, as flower-buds under Alpine snow, 
 they abide unsullied : the lot has fallen unto them in a fair 
 ground. But for most persons contact with evil and conse- 
 quent knowledge of evil being unavoidable, is clearly so far 
 ordained : they must achieve a more difficult sanctity, touching 
 pitch yet continuing clean, enduring evil communications yet 
 without corruption of good manners. 
 
 To each such imperilled soul, Angel and Apostle here set a 
 pattern. If we too would gaze unscathed and undefiled on 
 wickedness, let us not seek for enchantments, but ^"t our face 
 toward the wilderness. Strip sin bare from voluptuousness 
 of music, fascination of gesture, entrancement of the stage, 
 rapture of poetry, glamour of eloquence, seduction of imagina- 
 tive emotion ; strip it of every adornment, let it stand out bald 
 as in the Ten stern Commandments. Study sin, when study it 
 we must, not as a relishing pastime, but as an embittering 
 deterrent. Lavish sympathy on the sinner, never on the sin. 
 Say, if we will and if we mean it, Would God I had died for 
 thee : nevertheless let us flee at the cry of such, lest the earth 
 swallow us up also. 
 
 Wherever the serpent is tolerated there is sure to be dust for 
 his pasture : he finds or he makes a desolate wilderness of 
 what was as the Garden of Eden. Only an illusion, a mirage, 
 can cause a barren desert to appear in our eyes as a city of 
 palaces, an orchard of fruits. 
 
 This woman Babylon sits upon a scarlet beast, it appears 
 not whether as upon a throne or as upon a chariot : if a throne, 
 steadfast in evil ; if a chariot, swift unto perdition. Moreover, 
 in a former verse we read of her as sitting "upon many 
 waters " : a point to be noted further on. 
 
 The woman and the beast by a foul congruity seem to make 
 up a sort of oneness, after the fashion of a snail and its shell. 
 If she removes he is the motor; she is lifted aloft to the 
 extent of his height ; her stability depends on his. In semblance 
 he is her slave, in reality her master.
 
 400 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 4. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet 
 
 colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and 
 pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abomin- 
 ations and filthiness of her fornication : 
 
 5. And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, 
 
 Babylon the Great, The Mother of Harlots and Abomin- 
 ations of the Earth. 
 
 The beast is scarlet, and the woman wears scarlet. He is 
 full of names of blasphemy, and her names are of the same 
 sort. 
 
 He is scarlet as sin. She is both scarlet and particoloured, 
 decked with such gauds as St. Paul warns us women against. 
 As it seemed possible to study the sun-clothed exalted Woman 
 (ch. xii.) as a figure of the all-glorious destiny awaiting the 
 Virtuous Woman, so now I think this obscene woman may (on 
 the surface) be studied as illustrating the particular foulness, 
 degradation, loathsomeness, to which a perverse rebellious 
 woman because feminine not masculine is liable. 
 
 Execrable, for aught we know, as any devil, beast, man, of 
 them all, the resources and so to say the tactics of Babylon 
 differ from theirs : she and they proceed to a common goal by 
 distinct paths. They have (such as it is) counsel and strength 
 for war : she less astute in counsel, less hardy in war, makes of 
 her own self a trap, a bait, a ruinous prize. She seduces, not 
 coerces. She tyrannizes by influence, not by might. Filthy 
 she is, but she proffers filthiness in a golden cup. No heart 
 of husband safely trusts in her, no children arise up and call 
 her blessed : vile mother is she of vile daughters, all alike be- 
 dizened, perfumed, debased to hell ; all alike blood-suckers, 
 as we read : " The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, 
 Give, give." 
 
 Some have opined that a woman's wickedness even exceeds 
 that of a man ; as Jezebel stirred up Ahab, and Herodias out- 
 stripped Herod on feet swift to shed blood. But this point 
 must stand over for decision to the Judgment of that Only 
 Judge to whom each and all of us will one day stand or fall. 
 Solomon meanwhile by warning man against woman has vir- 
 tually warned woman against herself: " YVhen wisdom entereth 
 into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul ; dis- 
 cretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee. . . . 
 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the 
 stranger which flattereth with her words ; which forsaketh the 
 guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. 
 For her house inclmeth unto death, and her paths unto the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 401 
 
 dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they 
 hold of the paths of life " : " The lips of a strange woman 
 drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil : 
 but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged 
 sword. Her feet go down to death ; her steps take hold on 
 hell. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways 
 are moveable, that thou canst not know them ": "A foolish 
 woman is clamourous : she is simple, and knoweth nothing. 
 For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high 
 places of the city, to call passengers who go right on their 
 ways : Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. . . . But he 
 knoweth not that the dead are there ; and that her guests are 
 in the depths of hell." 
 
 Our Mothers, lovely women pitiful ; 
 
 Our Sisters, gracious in their life and death ; 
 
 To us each un forgotten memory saith : 
 " Learn as we learned in life's sufficient school, 
 Work as we worked in patience of our rule, 
 
 Walk as we walked much less by sight than faith, 
 
 Hope as we hoped despite our slips and scathe, 
 Fearful in joy and confident in dule." 
 I know not if they see us or can see : 
 
 But if they see us in our painful day, 
 
 How looking back to earth from Paradise 
 Do tears not gather in those loving eyes ? 
 
 Ah, happy eyes ! whose tears are wiped away 
 Whether or not you bear to look on me. 
 
 " Upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery ..." 
 The mystery is announced to all ; but is not explained to all, 
 if to any. 
 
 Intelligence may be required of some : faith is required of 
 all. 
 
 Is it disappointing to be restricted to faith? Faith, the 
 grace, is a higher endowment than intelligence, the gift. 
 
 A revealed unexplained mystery is (as it were) my Tree of 
 Knowledge accessible whilst forbidden ; a theme for prayer, not 
 a bait for curiosity. Ignorance by virtue of good will takes 
 rank as a part of obedience. 
 
 To be of one mind with God is universal knowledge in 
 embryo. 
 
 6. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the 
 
 saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus : and 
 
 when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. 
 
 Whatever evil power confronts us under this figure of 
 
 Babylon, she, in some degree, corresponds in temper with such 
 
 c c
 
 402 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 rich men as St. James addresses ; which correspondence as 
 with a redoubled alarum urges whosoever will be saved to 
 choose if not actual poverty at least not riches : " Go to now, 
 ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come 
 upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are 
 motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered ; and the rust 
 of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your 
 flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the 
 last days. ... Ye have lived in pleasure on earth, and been 
 wanton ; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. 
 Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not 
 resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of 
 the Lord." 
 
 Crimson as the rubies, crimson as the roses, 
 
 Crimson as the sinking sun, 
 Singing on his crimsoned bed each saint reposes, 
 
 Fought his fight, his battle won ; 
 Till the rosy east the day of days discloses 
 
 All his work save waiting done. 
 
 Far above the stars while underneath the daisies, 
 
 Resting for his race is run, 
 Unto Thee his heart each quiet saint upraises, 
 
 God the Father, Spirit, Son ; 
 Unto Thee his heart, unto Thee his praises, 
 
 O Lord God the Three in One. 
 
 St. John "wondered with great admiration" at what he 
 beheld. 
 
 Deliver us, I beseech Thee, Good Lord Jesus, from indif- 
 ferentism, superciliousness, shallow judgments, crooked judg- 
 ments ; from curiosity without faith, superstition instead of 
 faith, opinions subversive of faith. For whatsoever is -not of 
 faith is sin, and without faith it is impossible to please God. 
 To Whom, O Lord, in Thine all-gracious, well-beloved Self, 
 bring us near and make us well pleasing. Amen. 
 
 7. And the Angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou 
 marvel ? I will tell th.ee the mystery of the -woman, 
 and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the 
 seven heads and ten horns. 
 
 The voice of conscience echoing the angelic question, asks 
 reader after reader, Wherefore didst thou marvel ? Athenian 
 curiosity of old was eager to hear some new thing, and readily 
 inquired concerning " certain strange things," promulgated by 
 inspired lips ; but in the end some mocked, some postponed 
 investigation, few it seems were converted and clave to rhp
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 405 
 
 truth. Of these timely wise few we know one man by name, 
 Dionysius, the Areopagite, and one woman, Damaris : and to 
 this very day the Word of God, quick, and powerful, and 
 sharper than any two-edged sword, divides the new man from 
 the old man, Dionysius and Damaris from their fellows. 
 
 Thou art or art not as Dionysius : I am or am not as 
 Damaris. God Most Merciful, imbue us with such love of the 
 truth, that being likeminded we may have the same love, and 
 desiring the sincere milk of the word may grow thereby. For 
 Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 God reveals what He pleases, as much as He pleases, no 
 more than He pleases. The faithful soul is as Issachar : he 
 sees that the land is pleasant, and bowing down rests between 
 his burdens. 
 
 8. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not ; and shall 
 ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition : 
 and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose 
 names were not written in the book of life from the 
 foundation of the world, when they behold the beast 
 that was, and is not, and yet is. 
 
 (If I may venture so far out of my depth ) This seems by 
 various indications to be the very beast which St. John saw 
 rise up out of the sea (ch. xiii.). If it be the same, in the 
 present chapter (ver. 3) for the first time is its colour defined 
 as scarlet : yet since at its former appearing the red dragon 
 gave it " his power, and his seat, and great authority," it seems 
 not incongruous to surmise that such foul dominion may have 
 been expressed by the imperial scarlet colour. 
 
 If it be the same beast, then we discern how the woman can 
 sit at once on the sea beast and on "many waters" (ver. i). 
 Though all be symbolic, the symbols may presumably har- 
 monize. (It follows not, however, that I can harmonize them.) 
 
 Moreover the " woman " whom now of a sudden we en- 
 counter: have we under a different aspect already met her? 
 Chapter xiii. exhibits various points of apparent correspondence 
 with the present chapter. Besides the sea beast, it clearly 
 mentions the dragon, and an earth beast : which three monsters 
 (assuming the earth beast to be identical with the false prophet 
 of ^ch. xix. 20) are destroyed further on (ch. xix. 20; xx. 10), 
 and thus are accounted for and done with. With them, like 
 them, yet not the same as any of them, appears " an image " 
 (ch. xiii. 14, 15) of the sea beast, itself instinct with at least a 
 semblance of hideous life, endowed with the faculty of speech,
 
 404 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 moved apparently by an impious and perhaps an independent 
 volition. Can this image be a diverse presentment of the 
 woman ? So much in the kingdom of darkness seems an 
 awful mockery of the Divine Kingdom, that I think the image 
 and woman assume a possible interchangeableness when we 
 recall St. Paul's sentence : " A man ... is the image and 
 glory of God : but the woman is the glory of the man." 
 
 That this woman does in an appreciable degree resemble 
 the beast which carries her has, I think, transpired. And 
 whilst the end of the image, as such, is not revealed, that of 
 the woman is made abundantly clear. 
 
 Each symbol suggests thought, however the veiled reality 
 may elude discovery. Interpretation is the gift of some, 
 thought of all. Lack of interpretation dispenses not from 
 the duty of thought. 
 
 "And shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into 
 perdition." The Revised Version expresses with vividness 
 imminence and movement : "And is about to come up out of 
 the abyss, and to go into perdition." St. John witnessed such 
 a rising out of the sea as before narrated, whether or not both 
 passages refer to the same incident. If the same, the sub- 
 stance of this present vision seems authoritatively displaced 
 from its apparent order of time. 
 
 "And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder." Re- 
 calling the words of Habakkuk as quoted by St. Paul : 
 " Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish." 
 
 " Whose names were not written in the Book of Life from 
 the foundation of the world " : or as in the Revised Version : 
 " They whose name hath not been written in the Book of Life 
 from the foundation of the world." Although the two 
 translations can (I think) be understood in precisely the same 
 sense, I yet feel or fancy a possible difference betwixt them : 
 the Authorized Version conveying the idea of election and 
 predestination once for all and irreversible ; the Revised, of a 
 period of probation and contingent election from the foun- 
 dation of the world onwards. 
 
 " The beast that was, and is not, and yet is." 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, Who changes! not, but art the Same 
 yesterday and to-day and for ever, support us in all dangers 
 and carry us through all temptations. From open and secret 
 foes, from snares and pitfalls, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 9. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven 
 heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 405 
 
 So teach us to number our days that we may apply our 
 hearts unto wisdom ; that we may receive the instruction of 
 wisdom, justice and judgment and equity. O Lord, Who 
 givest wisdom, Who layest up sound wisdom for the righteous ; 
 teach us in the way of wisdom, lead us in right paths. Furnish 
 our lips with wisdom : let us not die for want of wisdom. 
 Grant us wisdom with the just, the lowly, the well advised ; 
 that with the prudent we may understand our way, and ceasing 
 from our own wisdom may learn of Thee, Lord Jesus Christ 
 our Wisdom. Amen. 
 
 The Virtuous Woman whose price is far above rubies 
 "openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and in her tongue is the 
 law of kindness." Wisdom, then, associates with kindness : 
 to cultivate kindness is to frequent the society of wisdom. A 
 clue especially vouchsafed to us women. 
 
 I observe that while to Moses celestial patterns were 
 displayed and on him was poured the radiance of direct 
 revelation ; and that whereas " Bezaleel and Aholiab, and 
 every wise-hearted man, in whom the Lord put wisdom and 
 understanding to know how to work all manner of work for 
 the service of the sanctuary," so wrought : " all the women 
 that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought 
 that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of 
 scarlet, and of fine linen. And all the women whose heart 
 stirred them up in wisdom spun goats' hair." Thus coverings, 
 curtains, veils, were assigned to the women : to the men those 
 sacred things enshrined beneath and within. 
 
 So long as he or she who " standeth without " can hear the 
 Bridegroom's Voice, surely it is joy fulfilled. 
 
 "The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the 
 woman sitteth." The interpretation lies above and beyond 
 my range : the symbol conveys a lesson. 
 
 Mortal life is, so to say, a tissue of sevens ; and each seven 
 must be guarded against the fascination of that World whereof 
 "the woman" (be she ultimately what she may) exhibits 
 characteristics. 
 
 Guard, so far as in thee lieth, innocence in infancy, reverence 
 in childhood, holiness in youth, aspiration in maturity, patience 
 on the decline, perseverance in age, hope in death. Is it too 
 late for thyself? Then guard them in others : and as to 
 thyself, at least redeem the remaining time from waste and 
 snatch thy grave from desecration. Guard others and thyself 
 against that world which defiles innocence by contact, substi- 
 tutes foolhardiness and false shame for reverence, violates
 
 4o6 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 holiness, paralyzes aspiration ; which breeds selfishness instead 
 of patience, frivolity instead of perseverance ; which is too 
 corrupt, too dead, too twice dead for hope in death. And 
 whilst the seven stages of life compose thus a sort of week, 
 each stage is itself composed of weeks of days, seven within 
 seven, seven after seven, each and all needing the Gift of 
 Sevenfold Grace to consecrate labours and hallow rest. 
 
 Yet as St. Paul exhorts not his converts to go out of the 
 world, but to act rightly in it ; and much more as our Divine 
 Master offering up His High Priestly Prayer spake, saying : 
 " 1 pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, 
 but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil," let us 
 not be afraid of her terror, but sanctify the Lord God in our 
 hearts. We cannot prevent the World's besetting, haunting, 
 overshadowing us : only let us not suffer her to sit down. 
 
 Dante in the Divina Commedia (see my sister's A Shadow 
 of Dante) tells us how he " dreamed of a woman stammering, 
 squinting, lame of foot, maimed of hands, and ashy pale. He 
 gazed on her, and lo ! under his gaze her form straightened, 
 her face flushed, her tongue loosed to the Siren's song." 
 
 Foul is she and ill-favoured, set askew : 
 Gaze not upon her till thou dream her fair, 
 Lest she should mesh thee in her wanton hair, 
 
 Adept in arts grown old yet ever new. 
 
 Her heart lusts not for love, but thro' and thro' 
 For blood, as spotted panther lusts in lair ; 
 No wine is in her cup, but filth is there 
 
 Unutterable, with plagues hid out of view. 
 
 Gaze not upon her ; for her dancing whirl 
 Turns giddy the fixed gazer presently : 
 Gaze not upon her, lest thou be as she 
 When at the far end of her long desire 
 
 Her scarlet vest and gold and gem and pearl 
 And she amid her pomp are set on fire. 
 
 " Seven heads . . . seven mountains " seven deadly sins : 
 these sustain the World, and the World fosters these. High 
 crested Pride, volcanic Anger, smooth sloped Lust, overhanging 
 Envy, undermined Avarice, swine pasturing Gluttony, landslip 
 Sloth. A dark continent of spiritual geography. 
 
 10. And there are seven kings : five are fallen, and one is 
 and the other is not yet come ; and when he cometh, 
 he must continue a short space. 
 
 From evil rulers and pernicious laws, from obeying man by 
 disobeying God, from misusing our short space, for short is our 
 space, Good Lord, save us :
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 407 
 
 Lest we become as a plant that buds not, as a bud that 
 blows not, as a flower that fruits not, in our short space until 
 the harvest, our only space. 
 
 11. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the 
 
 eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. 
 
 From comradeship with devils and disciples of devils, from 
 persisting in sin and passing away into perdition, 
 Good Lord, save us : 
 
 Lest it had been better for us never to have been born, 
 never to have known the way of life, never to have heard of 
 Thee by the hearing of the ear, never to have beheld the 
 Kingdom of Heaven set open to all believers. 
 
 12. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, 
 
 which have received no kingdom as yet ; but receive 
 power as kings one hour with the beast. 
 
 From selling our birthright for a mess of pottage, from 
 bartering eternity for one hour, 
 
 Good Lord, save us : 
 
 Lest we receive our good things in this life, and after that be 
 tormented. 
 
 13. These have one mind, and shall give their power and 
 
 strength unto the beast. 
 
 From the counsel and deed of them, 
 
 Good Lord, save us : 
 
 Lest we spend money for that which is not bread, and our 
 labour for that which satisfieth not. 
 
 14. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb 
 
 shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and 
 King of kings : and they that are with Him are 
 called, and chosen, and faithful. 
 
 From choosing the evil and refusing the good, from setting 
 ourselves in no good way, from the tactics of Balak and the 
 end of Balaam, Good Lord, save us : 
 
 Lest we who are dust set ourselves in the balance against 
 Thee : and lo 1 we are dust in the balance. 
 
 15. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, 
 
 where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, 
 and nations, and tongues. 
 
 From following a multitude to do evil, from sinful com- 
 pliances, from saving our life but not with Thy salvation, 
 Good Lord, save us :
 
 408 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 t * 
 
 Lest amid multitudinous glory and pomp and rejoicing we 
 be put to open shame and perish together. 
 
 16. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, 
 
 these shall hate the whore, and shall make her 
 desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn 
 her with fire. 
 
 From such hatred of sin as is not love of righteousness, 
 from hating not sin but sinners, from casting the stone of 
 condemnation whereby we condemn ourselves, 
 Good Lord, save us : 
 
 Lest out of our own mouth we be condemned where there is 
 no respect of persons. 
 
 17. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil His will, 
 
 and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, 
 until the words of God shall be fulfilled. 
 
 From fulfilling a Divine behest in the spirit of rebellious 
 Absalom, apostate Jeroboam, bloodthirsty Edom, Caiaphas 
 harder than flint, 
 
 Good Lord, save us : 
 
 Lest in us be fulfilled that other word also : " Depart from 
 Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and 
 his angels." 
 
 18. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, 
 
 which reigneth over the kings of the earth. 
 
 From the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the 
 pride of life, from foreheads of brass and hearts of stone, 
 Good Lord, save us : 
 
 Lest in the end we be past renewing unto salvation, and 
 there be none to save us. 
 
 Yea, Good Lord, save us. Amen. 
 
 "And there are seven kings." The Revised Version pre- 
 serves this reading marginally, whilst the text gives : " And 
 they [/". e. the ' mountains ' mentioned in the previous verse] 
 are seven kings." Suggesting a many-sided significance in at 
 least one of the images employed : if in one, perhaps in 
 others. For here the original figure is " seven heads " : 
 mountains and kings alike belong to the angelic interpretation. 
 
 "And the beast . . . even he is the eighth, and is of the 
 seven " : in the Revised Version : "... is himself also an 
 eighth, . . . " As moral goodness or depravity finds expression 
 in the face, whilst the seat of life is the heart ; so a seven-
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 409 
 
 headed monster may infuse into every head his own hideous 
 vitality, whilst each head acts independently of its fellows as 
 mouthpiece and intelligent agent to the abominable animating 
 principle. Perhaps the beast's being " also an eighth " may 
 inspire a dread that in the final death-struggle of Satan against 
 Christ, wickedness superhuman or subhuman (whichever it 
 should be termed) will take the field openly and visibly ; and 
 will act in person, as well as through the instrumentality of its 
 miserable mortal allies. 
 
 The seven heads have not only the beast for a basis, but 
 have moreover the seated woman for a superincumbent load : 
 the one detaches them from earth, the goodness of nature; the 
 other blocks them out from the sky, the goodness of grace. 
 
 I think not as interpretation but as meditation such thoughts 
 may spring from the text. 
 
 Have we sought great things for ourselves ? Seek them not. 
 Ten kings receive authority, but it is with the beast, and for one 
 hour. " Yea, even like as a dream when one awaketh." 
 
 "The Lamb shall overcome them : for He is Lord of lords, 
 and King of kings." Although both the Lion and the Lamb 
 are titles belonging to our Lord, here in the day of battle we 
 read of Him as the Lamb, not as the Lion. Whatever inscrut- 
 able reasons there may be for this choice of a designation, one 
 or two obvious ones suggest themselves. Thus is accomplished 
 one of the Beatitudes : " Blessed are the meek : for they shall 
 inherit the earth." Thus Christ in His own adorable Person 
 heads the army of those who " out of weakness were made 
 strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of 
 the aliens." Thus "the weakness of God" stands forth as 
 "stronger than men." "Not by might, nor by power, but by 
 My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." And thus also by a con- 
 descension of grace, Jael, a certain woman (see Judges ix. 53), 
 Esther, Judith, become figures illustrative of like truth. 
 
 Weakness, however, is not as weakness this more than 
 conqueror. Our Redeemer's weakness was rather the triumph 
 of His strength, because to become weak and work mightily 
 through weakness He laid aside His strength and kept it in 
 abeyance. Our weakness, if it is to win a victory, must include 
 a voluntary element ; at the least so far as to will in concert 
 with the Divine Will, and never to have recourse to illicit 
 weapons. 
 
 And I think that in these days of women's self-assertion and 
 avowed rivalry with men, I do well to bear in mind that in a 
 contest no stronger proof of superiority can be given on either
 
 4to THE FACE OF THE DEEP, 
 
 side than the not bringing Into action all available force. As 
 yet, I suppose, we women claim no more than equality with 
 our brethren in head and heart : whilst as to physical force, we 
 scout it as unworthy to arbitrate between the opposed camps. 
 Men on their side do not scout physical force, but let it be. 
 
 Does either man or woman doubt where superiority resides, 
 when at chess one player discards a pawn in favour of the 
 other? 
 
 Society may be personified as a human figure whose right 
 hand is man, whose left woman ; in one sense equal, in 
 another sense unequal. The right hand is labourer, acquirer, 
 achiever : the left hand helps, but has little independence, and 
 is more apt at carrying than at executing. The right hand 
 runs the risks, fights the battles : the left hand abides in 
 comparative quiet and safety ; except (a material exception) 
 that in the mutual relations of the twain it is in some ways far 
 more liable to undergo than to inflict hurt, to be cut (for 
 instance) than to cut. 
 
 Rules admit of and are proved by exceptions. There are 
 left-handed people, and there may arise a left-handed society ! 
 
 Content to come, content to go, 
 Content to wrestle or to race, 
 Content to know or not to know, 
 Each in his place ; 
 
 Lord, grant us grace to love Thee so 
 That glad of heart and glad of face 
 At last we may sit high or low 
 Each in his place : 
 
 Where pleasures flow as rivers flow, 
 And loss has left no barren trace, 
 And all that are, are perfect so 
 Each in his place. 
 
 " And they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and 
 faithful" : or according to the Revised Version : "And they 
 also shall overcome that are with Him, called and chosen and 
 faithful": thus, towards the end, .sending thought back to 
 the beginning, to the ever-recurring "overcometh" of the 
 Messages to the Seven Churches, that "overcometh" on which 
 depends each consummating benediction. 
 
 God of His free Love calls and chooses : man's faithfulness 
 certifies the call, until by overcoming he crowns all by final 
 perseverance. 
 
 Lord Jesus, give us hearing ears, responsive wills, some fear, 
 much faith, much hope, most love.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 411 
 
 "The waters . . . where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and 
 multitudes, and nations, and tongues." " Raging waves of the 
 sea, foaming out their own shame." 
 
 "The ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these 
 shall hate the whore." The Revised Version supplies a notice- 
 able variation : "The ten horns . . . and the beast, these shall 
 hate . . . ," thus uniting all in one close confederacy, as in 
 ver. 13 ante: "These have one mind, and shall give their 
 power and strength unto the beast." 
 
 Whatever further the wise may elicit from this passage and 
 its sequel, even the foolish may deduce somewhat. The 
 kingdom of the beast is essentially unalterably a kingdom of 
 hatred, hatred underlying any and every appearance of its 
 spurious love : sift such love, and the residuum will be hatred. 
 In the day of her foul attractiveness the lost woman was idol, 
 mistress, plaything: in the day of her decay she becomes a 
 prey, and there is none to help her. The drunken with blood 
 must herself be devoured. 
 
 Evil may subserve evil, yet be overruled for good. Thus 
 the horns spring from the beast, and in their turn give their 
 kingdom unto the beast: wherefore? because "God hath put 
 in their hearts to fulfil His Will." 
 
 "The woman ... is that great city, which reigneth over 
 the kings of the earth." "Without controversy" who then, 
 what then, is she? 
 
 She seems to include or invite all which tempts man at his 
 earthly proudest and mightiest : ambition shedding blood as 
 water, with garments rolled in blood scarlet as her array ; 
 enervating luxury, as she herself sits inert on her scarlet beast ; 
 sensual excess foul as her cup ; licence that is not liberty, but 
 is chains and fetters like her bravery of gold and pearls and 
 precious stones. Woe to her dupes ! " Lo, this is the man 
 that made not God his strength ; but trusted in the abundance 
 of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness." 
 
 Such as this, then, is she. From all this and from whatso- 
 ever besides she may be, may we every one of us great or small 
 be delivered Amen.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 1. And after these things I saw another angel come down 
 
 from heaven, having great power ; and the earth was 
 lightened with his glory. 
 
 If chapter xvii. may be treated as parenthetical, the present 
 chapter appears to supply a sequel to chapter xvi., and 
 particularly to ver. 19 of that chapter. 
 
 St John beheld and recognized a frequent recurrence of 
 Angels : here one, there seven, there again ten thousand times 
 ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. What he records 
 affords a presumption of what may encompass or cross my own 
 path any day, any hour. I ought not to imagine omens or 
 supernatural indications with rashness ; yet neither ought I 
 to feel positive that the rainbow I discern has no connection 
 with an Angel. I discern not, or that the blaze which appears 
 to be lightning may not dart from a descending Angel. 
 
 Great St. John knew ; and unfolds his knowledge in order 
 that others should reverently surmise things they know not. 
 " That which had not been told them shall they see ; and that 
 which they had not heard shall they consider." 
 
 2. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, 
 
 Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become 
 the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul 
 spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 
 
 Compare "The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of 
 Amoz did see. . . . Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty 
 of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew 
 Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither 
 shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation : neither 
 shall the Arabian pitch tent there ; neither shall the shepherds 
 make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie 
 there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; and 
 owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 413 
 
 wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and 
 dragons in their pleasant palaces : and her time is near to 
 come, and her days shall not be prolonged." 
 
 Is not this great Babylon ? is it not also a hell ? For what 
 but a hell can be " the habitation of devils ? " If they find not 
 a hell they make one. 
 
 The Revised Version writes " hold " (a second time) instead 
 of " cage " ; and as a marginal alternative proposes in each 
 instance " prison " : according to which it might appear that 
 even foul spirits and unclean and hateful birds consort with 
 the fallen mother of luxury not of free will but by constraint. 
 Devils (Revised Version: "demons") her inhabitants are 
 perhaps at home in her. 
 
 Shall I choose my good things here ? or hereafter ? 
 
 Shall I choose sweet that turns to bitterness? or bitter that 
 turns to sweetness ? 
 
 Shall I choose life that leads to death ? or death that leads 
 to life ? 
 
 Shall I choose . . . nay: what am I choosing? 
 
 I peered within, and saw a world of sin : 
 
 Upward, and saw a world of righteousness : 
 Downward, and saw darkness and flame begin 
 Which no man can express. 
 
 I girt me up, I gat me up to flee 
 
 From face of darkness and devouring flame : 
 And fled I had, but guilt is loading me 
 With dust of death and shame. 
 
 Yet still the light of righteousness 1 earns pure, 
 
 Beams to me from the world of far-off day : 
 Lord, Who hast called them happy that endure, 
 Lord, make me such as they. 
 
 3. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of 
 her fornication, and the kings of the earth have com- 
 mitted fornication with her, and the merchants of the 
 earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her 
 delicacies. 
 
 "All nations . . . kings . . . merchants." Her spell has 
 been cast upon them all. 
 
 So far, then, all are alike : yet it may be that in guilt they 
 are not altogether alike. The first class, nations (which indeed 
 includes both kings and merchants), have more or less "as 
 natural brute beasts" succumbed to her seductions. Kings, 
 in the position to exercise a royally untrammelled choice, have 
 of free will and voluntary preference wallowed in her company.
 
 414 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Merchants substituting gain for godliness have trafficked in her 
 gauds, dealt in her poisons, filled their purses by help of her 
 abominations ; and thus ruining others, have ruined themselves 
 both at first and at second hand. 
 
 The national sin illustrates what nature may lapse to 
 divorced from grace. The regal sin, how far more perilous 
 it is to sit high than to sit low. The sordid sin, how easily 
 those who will be rich fall into temptation and a snare. 
 " Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity : there 
 is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon 
 the children of men, to see if there were any that did under- 
 stand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back : 
 they are altogether become filthy ; there is none that doeth 
 good, no, not one." 
 
 4. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come 
 
 out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her 
 sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 
 
 5. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath 
 
 remembered her iniquities. 
 
 "Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing 
 city! She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction." 
 
 A "Voice from heaven." Alas! that oftentimes I have not 
 heard, have not heeded, have not obeyed, have not returned 
 thanks. Lord, forgive me. 
 
 " Come out of her." Alas ! that oftentimes I have sat still, 
 have looked back, have not escaped for my life, have not fled 
 to the mountain, have not praised the Lord for His Goodness. 
 Lord, forgive me. 
 
 " My people." Alas ! that when Thou hast chosen me, many 
 times I have not chosen Thee. Lord, forgive me. 
 
 " That ye be not partakers of her sins." Alas ! that I have 
 ere now if not now walked in the counsel of the ungodly, have 
 stood in the way of sinners, have sat in the seat of the scornful. 
 Lord, forgive me. 
 
 "That ye receive not of her plagues." Alas! that I have 
 been afraid where no fear was, that I have fled when no man 
 pursued, but have not put my whole trust in God, nor honoured 
 Thee my Father, nor feared Thee my Master. Lord, forgive 
 me. 
 
 " Her sins have reached unto heaven." Alas ! that when 
 Thou hast looked for judgment, behold oppression ; for right- 
 eousness, behold a cry. Lord, forgive us. 
 
 "God hath remembered her iniquities." Alas, Lord ! Ac-
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 415 
 
 cording to Thy lovingkindnesses, according unto the multitude 
 of Thy tender mercies, blot out our transgressions, blot out all 
 our iniquities. Lord, forgive us. 
 
 God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, forgive 
 us. I plead the Blood of Jesus Christ Who took away the 
 handwriting that was against us, nailing it to His Cross. 
 Amen. 
 
 6. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto 
 her double according to her works : in the cup which she 
 hath filled fill to her double. 
 
 The Revised Version furnishes a variation of the first clause : 
 " Render unto her even as she rendered." By thus omitting 
 the pronoun you, the precept seems no longer so pointedly 
 addressed to the once persecuted faithful, but simply to form 
 part of a sentence of condemnation which the Strong Lord God 
 Alone pronounces upon her directly from Himself without 
 specification of secondary agency. 
 
 I write under correction, but whilst I recollect that Angels 
 are mentioned as executing final Divine Judgment on human 
 kind, I recollect not that men are thus unequivocally mentioned 
 in regard to their fellow-men; although the saints are to judge 
 the world and to judge angels, as St. Paul intimates to the 
 Corinthian Church. All saints are to sympathize indeed with 
 the triumph of good over evil, but not with their own hands (?) 
 to set fire to the great pile. " He shall take them away as with 
 a whirlwind, both living, and in His wrath. The righteous 
 shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance : he shall wash his 
 feet in the blood of the wicked. So that a man shall say, 
 Verily there is a reward for the righteous : verily He is a God 
 that judgeth in the earth." 
 
 A secondary human agent indeed there is, a human second 
 cause in every man's penalty : the selfsame man himself. 
 
 For similarly : what reward is the foul woman to receive ? 
 such as she gave. Her own works are to be doubled unto her, 
 her own cup is to be filled double to her. 
 
 Obstinate disobedience sifted, meted, weighed, is the un- 
 erring measure of that vengeance which God measures to it. 
 
 Utmost obedience is no measure of that blessing wherewith 
 God overfills and overflows any measure. 
 
 " Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the 
 punishment of his sins ? Let us search and try our ways, and 
 turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our 
 hands unto God in the heavens."
 
 416 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 7. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived delici- 
 
 ously, so much torment and sorrow give her : for she 
 saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and 
 shall see no sorrow. 
 
 8. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and 
 
 mourning, and famine ; and she shall be utterly burned 
 with fire : for strong is the Lord God Who judgeth 
 her. 
 
 Because this type of transcendent wickedness is presented 
 under the feminine aspect, doubtless we women may elicit 
 thence our own appropriate lesson. When we behold gauds 
 and frivolities go up toward heaven in smoke of hell, they 
 become a beacon fire to warn us from making shipwreck be it 
 on a mudbank of vileness or on a curious reef of luxury. 
 Scant comfort would it be to perish, though on a very miracle 
 of beauty. 
 
 " Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion 
 are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton 
 eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling 
 with their feet. . . . The Lord will take away the bravery of 
 their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and 
 their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, 
 and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, 
 and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings, 
 and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the 
 mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, 
 and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails. And it shall 
 come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink ; 
 and instead of a girdle a rent ; and instead of well set hair 
 baldness ; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth ; 
 and burning instead of beauty." 
 
 " How much she hath glorified herself. . . ." On the other 
 hand, who would choose to live and die inglorious ? and who 
 shall glorify us, if we ourselves achieve not glory. No mere 
 surface glory though it stream down from heaven can abide : 
 were Coniah the signet upon God's right hand, yet would 
 wickedness pluck him thence. Moses in his sanctity illustrates 
 the difference between outward albeit genuine glory, and glory 
 everlasting, assimilated, inalienable : he comes forth from the 
 earthly Tabernacle of the Divine Presence, and the glory of his 
 countenance fades away; he reappears from the unseen world 
 " in glory " on the Mount of the Transfiguration, changed from 
 glory to glory, clothed upon with glory. The all glorious
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 417 
 
 within can afford to wait patiently for clothing of wrought 
 gold. 
 
 O Soul insatiable of glory, covet earnestly the best gifts, 
 pursue them along the more excellent way. Barter not for 
 Cleopatra's dissolving pearl the pearls which are entrance-gates 
 to New Jerusalem ; for Dives's sumptuous daily fare the 
 marriage-supper of eternity ; for black tents of Kedar the 
 curtains of Solomon ; for Nabal to-day, David to-morrow ; for 
 what hath been told us, that whereof the half hath not been 
 told us ; for sight of eye, and hearing of ear, and heart's 
 present desire, that which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, 
 neither hath entered into the heart of man. 
 
 Crouch lowest to spring highest. Disperse abroad and give 
 to the poor, so shall thy riches make themselves wings and fly 
 away as eagles toward heaven. Strip off thine ornaments now, 
 that they may become chains about thy neck hereafter. To- 
 night turn from the west in its fading purple, and set thy face 
 steadfastly toward the east, where out of darkness golden glory 
 and roses of a dawn that sets not will be revealed. 
 
 Dear Brother, dear Sister, God grant thee such grace, and 
 deny it not to me. For Jesus' sake. Amen. 
 
 " In one day, death, and mourning, and famine." At once 
 corpse and mourner : a famishing corpse. It recalls Zechariah's 
 awful prediction : "And this shall be the plague wherewith the 
 Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusa- 
 lem ; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon 
 their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and 
 their tongue shall consume away in their mouth." 
 
 " I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow " 
 Yea, scarlet woman, to-day : but not yea at all to-morrow. 
 Scarlet queen on a scarlet throne all to-day without sorrow, 
 Bethink thee : to-day must end ; there is no end of to-morrow. 
 
 O Strong Lord God, Who judgest her and wilt judge all 
 mankind, grant to the exalted humility, to the desolate thank- 
 fulness, to the happy sympathy with sorrow ; that so earthly 
 eminence may become a stepping-stone to heavenly heights, 
 and loneliness may introduce to the full communion of saints, 
 and joy blossoming in time may bear eternal fruit. Be we high 
 or low, prosperous or depressed, wheresoever, whatsoever we 
 be, make us and evermore keep us well pleasing in Thy sight. 
 Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
 9. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornica- 
 tion and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, 
 
 D D
 
 418 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of 
 her burning, 
 10. Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, 
 
 Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city ! 
 
 for in one hour is thy judgment come. 
 
 " It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in 
 man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence 
 in princes." 
 
 " Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in 
 whom there is no help." Least of all in wicked men can there 
 be any help. 
 
 Adam seems not to have found one word to plead for Eve in 
 the terrible hour of judgment. 
 
 To-day is the day of helpfulness : the Day of Doom will be 
 a day of helplessness. Moreover, the relative attitude of the 
 righteous and the wicked as now it exists will then be 
 reversed. 
 
 Now they are the wicked who stand callous amidst the fears, 
 torments, miseries of others ; not investigating human claims, 
 not mourning with them that mourn, not moving burdens with 
 one of their fingers, not heeding the burning questions of their 
 day, neighbourhood, nay sometimes of their own hearths. 
 Now they are the righteous who quake in horrible fear for the 
 ungodly, and all but enter within the vortex of evil in rescue 
 work, and cry out, Alas the pity of it ! over perishing souls, 
 and with Christ-like tears bewail the impenitent ; saying, How 
 often would I, and ye would not. 
 
 Then it will be the obdurate wicked who weep and lament, 
 having reached the end of softness and sweetness, beholding 
 the lap of their luxury set on fire, foretasting in that perdition 
 their own perdition. Then it will be the righteous who of one 
 mind, will, desire, with God All-Holy, at the execution of His 
 sentence become as it were " Yea and Amen " to His Glory : 
 of old all His promises have been unto His glory and unto 
 them " Yea and Amen " in Christ ; and now they themselves 
 shine forth and glow as reflections of the Just Judge, renewed 
 in His image, perfected in His likeness. 
 
 STANDING AFAR OFF FOR THE FEAR OF HER TORMENT. 
 
 Is this the end ? is there no end but this ? 
 Yea, none beside : 
 No other end for pride 
 And foulness and besottedness.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 419 
 
 Hath she no friend ? hath she no clinging friend ? 
 
 N;iy, none at all : 
 
 Who stare upon her fall, 
 Quake for themselves with hair on end. 
 Will she be done away ? vanish away ? 
 
 Yea, like a dream ; 
 
 Yea, like the shades that seem 
 Somewhat, and lo ! are nought by day. 
 Alas for her amid man's helpless moan, 
 
 Alas for her ! 
 
 She hath no comforter : 
 In solitude of Are she sits alone. 
 
 "In one hour is thy judgment come." "Sit thou silent, and 
 get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans : for thou 
 shall no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. . . . And 
 thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever : so that thou didst not 
 lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter 
 end of it. Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to 
 pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, \ 
 am, and none else beside me ; I shall not sit as a widow, 
 neither shall I know the loss of children : but these two things 
 shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, 
 and widowhood : they shall come upon thee in their perfection 
 for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance 
 of thine enchantments." " Flee out of the midst of Babylon, 
 and deliver every man his soul : be not cut off in her iniquity ; 
 for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance ; He will render 
 unto her a recompence. Babylon hath been a golden cup in 
 the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken : the nations 
 have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. 
 Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed : howl for her ; take 
 balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. We would 
 have healed Babylon, but she is not healed : forsake her, and 
 let us go every one into his own country : for her judgment 
 reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies." 
 
 11. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn 
 over her ; for no man buyeth their merchandise any 
 more. 
 
 Those kings did at least bewail Babylon for herself : these 
 merchants bewail her because of their own impoverishment. 
 They all alike are " of the earth," yet is there a finer and a 
 coarser clay. 
 
 Only I must beware of reckoning that sympathy with evil 
 in itself 'is nobler than sympathy with evil in its effects. Neither 
 is nobler : one may be baser. From both, O Lord, deliver us.
 
 420 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 12. The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, 
 
 and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and 
 scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels 
 of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, 
 and of brass, and iron, and marble, 
 
 13. And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankin- 
 
 cense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, 
 and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and 
 slaves, and souls of men. 
 
 " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
 which he possesseth." We know that it is so now : we shall 
 see that it is so then. If either, his death rather than his life 
 consisteth in such. 
 
 " Brethren, the time is short: it remaineth," that they that 
 buy be " as though they possessed not ; and they that use this 
 world, as not abusing it : for the fashion of this world passeth 
 away." 
 
 Yet on the same principle that we are bidden redeem the 
 time because the days are evil, Christians find ways to redeem 
 these other creatures despite their evil tendency. Gold and 
 silver they lend unto the Lord : He will pay them again. 
 Precious stones and pearls they dedicate to the service of His 
 Altar. With fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, they invest His 
 Sanctuary; and fragrant "thyine "wood they carve delicately 
 for its further adornment. Vessels of ivory, of most precious 
 wood, of brass, iron, marble, are refined to serve as lavers, 
 ennobled to become alms coffers or alms dishes. They burn 
 cinnamon, odours (the Revised Version for " odours " gives 
 " spice and incense "), frankincense, for a sweet savour in the 
 Divine Presence. Wine, fine flour, wheat, constitute their most 
 pure Oblation. With ointments and oil they comfort Christ in 
 His beloved sick members. With beasts and sheep they 
 spread a feast for His poor. On horses and in chariots they 
 carry His Gospel afar. And ministering rather than being 
 ministered unto, they tend bodies and travail for souls. (For 
 " slaves " the margin gives as literal " bodies.") 
 
 " The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever : the Lord 
 shall rejoice in His works." 
 
 Whoso has the spirit of Elijah, though his horse and chariot 
 have come up out of Egypt, yet shall they receive virtue as " of 
 fire " to forward him on his heavenward course. And this 
 despite a horse being but a vain thing to save a man. 
 
 14. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 421 
 
 from thee, and all tilings which were dainty and 
 goodly are departed from thee, and thou sha.lt find 
 them no more at all. 
 
 Or according to the Revised Version : " And the fruits 
 which thy soul lusted after are gone from thee, and all things 
 that were dainty and sumptuous are perished from thee, and 
 men shall find them no more at all " : reminding us of St. 
 Paul's words to the Colossians : " . . . The rudiments of the 
 world . . . (Touch not ; taste not ; handle not ; which all are 
 to perish with the using)." 
 
 As regards the second clause of the doom (in this verse), the 
 two Versions suggest each its own sense. The Authorized, as 
 if those objects of desire may have been not destroyed but 
 withdrawn whilst the craving remains insatiable. According 
 to both texts the loss appears absolute, final, irreparable ; but 
 (collating the two) that which departs instead of perishing 
 leaves behind it in addition to the agony of loss the hankering, 
 corroding misery of absence. 
 
 15. The merchants of these things, which were made rich 
 
 by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her 
 torment, weeping and wailing, 
 
 16. And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed 
 
 in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked 
 with gold, and precious stones, and pearls ! 
 
 17. For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. 
 
 And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, 
 and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, 
 
 This desolation which we have not yet seen must one day 
 be seen. Meanwhile we have known preludes, rehearsals, 
 foretastes of such as this : so that looking back through the 
 centuries we may take up our lamentation and say : 
 
 Alas Sodom once full of bread ! From empty fulness, Good 
 Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Alas Tyre whose merchants were princes ! From riches but 
 not toward God, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Alas the man whose barns sufficed not ! From heart and 
 hands shut close, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Alas Dives clothed in purple and fine linen ! From reme- 
 diless destitution, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 And looking forward we may say : 
 
 Alas any whom the unknown day and hour find unprepared ! 
 From the folly of the foolish virgins, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 And looking around us trembling we needs must say :
 
 422 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Alas England full of luxuries and thronged by stinted poor, 
 whose merchants are princes and whose dealings crooked, 
 whose packed storehouses stand amid bare homes, whose 
 gorgeous array has rags for neighbours ! From a canker in our 
 gold and silver, from a moth in our garments, from blasted 
 crops, from dwindling substance, from righteous retribution 
 abasing us among the nations, Good Lord, deliver us. Amen. 
 
 18. And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, 
 
 saying, What city is like unto this great city ! 
 
 If any shipmasters and crews, sailors and sea-traders, have 
 yet to lament and quake, well may arrogant England amid her 
 seas quake and lament betimes. 
 
 " What city is like unto this great city ! " Like what she 
 was, like what she is : her present tallying with her past. 
 
 For purposes of probation height and depth are at once 
 distinguishable and continuous : man, the probationer set 
 midway between their extremities, has it within his option 
 to. reclaim either from the other. Probation over, height and 
 depth, whilst still of two aspects, will yet form one evidently 
 undivided sequence ; to the summit or to the base of which 
 consummated man has worked his way. And why not all 
 the baptized to the summit ? " Ye did run well ; who did 
 hinder you that ye should not obey the truth ? " 
 
 19. And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping 
 
 and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, 
 wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea 
 by reason of her costliness ! for in one hour is she 
 made desolate. 
 
 To cast dust on the head with penitence attests death unto 
 sin. To cast dust on the head with impenitence prefigures 
 the second death. 
 
 Sin conducts all to one goal. The land sinner finds dust 
 in plenty; the seafaring sinner shall inherit dust enough. 
 
 Thank God, ample provision is stored for every penitent 
 wheresoever and whatsoever : dust, ashes, are ready to hand 
 for all. 
 
 Lord, array us in spiritual sackcloth, that by penitence we 
 may bear witness to Thy Goodness. 
 
 20. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles 
 
 and prophets ; for God hath avenged you on her. 
 
 In the Revised Version : " Rejoice over her, thou heaven,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 423 
 
 and ye saints, and ye apostles, and ye prophets ; for God hath 
 judged your judgment on her." 
 
 This second rendering endears itself to us all the more 
 because in it we meet with simple "saints," saints of any 
 shade or degree. All are not " apostles " or " prophets," neither 
 can be : " heaven " suggests (for the time being) the exceeding 
 nobility of the ninefold angelic host, too exalted for the 
 Church's fellowship during her prolonged exile. But high and 
 low, rich and poor, young and old, great and small meet 
 together as " saints " in a general beatitude ; not one is absent, 
 overlooked, forgotten. 
 
 Behold them at last ! All His saints are in His hand, He 
 has kept their feet, they are rejoicing in goodness, singing unto 
 the Lord, loving the Lord, fearing the Lord but without 
 torment, gathered together unto Him, a congregation, an 
 assembly, their souls preserved, their death precious in His 
 sight, shouting aloud for joy, blessing God Who is their praise, 
 joyful in glory, every one honourable, having attained unto the 
 kingdom. Behold saints from Lydda, beloved ones of God 
 called to be saints from Rome, poor saints from Jerusalem, 
 saints known to us by name and other saints with them, saints 
 from Achaia, from Ephesus, all in Christ Jesus from Philippi ; 
 now fellow-citizens of no mean city, partakers of the inherit- 
 ance in light. " My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. 
 Amen." 
 
 The hills are tipped with sunshine, while I walk 
 
 In shadows dim and cold : 
 The unawakened rose sleeps on her stalk 
 
 In a bud's fold, 
 
 Until the sun flood all the world with gold. 
 
 The hills are crowned with glory, and the glow 
 
 Flows widening down apace : 
 Unto the sunny hill-tops I, set low, 
 
 Lift a tired face, 
 
 Ah, happy rose, content to wait for grace ! 
 
 How tired a face, how tired a brain, how tired 
 
 A heart I lift, who long 
 For something never felt but still desired ; 
 
 Sunshine and song 
 Song where the choirs of sunny heaven stand choired. 
 
 21. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great 
 millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with 
 violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown 
 down, and shall be found no more at all. 
 
 So of old Noah beheld the whole wicked world "like a
 
 424 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 great millstone " vanish beneath the flood. So after Lot fled, 
 the cities of the plain " salted with fire " were superseded by 
 the Dead Sea. So the Red Sea swallowed up the strength of 
 Egypt [I am aware that a different site has been proposed 
 for the cities of the plain, and that I only follow one opinion.] 
 
 " We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have 
 told us, what work Thou didst in their days, in the times 
 of old." 
 
 The deed of this "mighty Angel" seems at first sight 
 inimitable by man. Yet ponder our Lord's injunction to the 
 Twelve : " Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, 
 That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, 
 and be thou cast into the sea ; and shall not doubt in his heart, 
 but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come 
 to pass ; he shall have whatsoever he saith " : sacred words 
 which besides any literal promise doubtless convey a profound 
 spiritual lesson. 
 
 Feeling our way amongst these Apocalyptic symbols, these 
 mysteries of life and death, we observe the mother of abomin- 
 ations and mistress of kings and peoples seated upon seven 
 mountains; dark mountains whereon our feet stumble. The 
 darkness conceals much, but not all. For so long as there are 
 seven stumbling-blocks (well known, alas ! to most of us) 
 upholding and upheld by the world, overtopping Pride, 
 Anger flaming and fuming in the face of heaven, Gluttony 
 bloated as a toad in a stone, Lust a slippery precipice, Avarice 
 hard as a flint, Envy barren as peaks above the snow-line, 
 Sloth deadly as sleep amid that snow, by labouring to 
 remove these stumbling-blocks from our own heavenward path, 
 and so far as in us lies from our neighbour's, we can and shall 
 do somewhat towards undermining the throne of the world. 
 " Who art thou, O great mountain ? " Before faith working by 
 prayer thou shalt be swept away. " He that is slow to anger 
 is better than the mighty ; and he that ruleth his spirit than he 
 that taketh a city " : thus may any earnest person help to 
 take, and taking to overthrow, Babylon. Moreover, by aspiring 
 to become that which " is better," we shall also one by one 
 take another city, a city which hath foundations, and wherein 
 we may abide for ever. 
 
 O Lord God, Whose Strength is sufficient for all who lay 
 hold on it, grant us in Thee to comfort our hearts and be 
 strong. Humility, meekness, temperance, purity, large-hearted- 
 ness, sympathy, zeal, grant us these evidences of faith, 
 handmaids of hope, fruits of love. For the sake of Jesus
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 425 
 
 Christ our Strength, our Righteousness, our Hope of gloiy. 
 Amen. 
 
 This great lewd Babylon which " shall be found no more 
 at all," becomes (whatever else she may be) a figure to us of 
 strong temptation : harassing, persistent, insistent, all but 
 irresistible to-day ; to-morrow nothing. 
 
 It is not merely that the world will be abolished ; my own 
 temptation from the world must end in one of two ways: 
 either I shall have sunk below any pleasures, or I shall have 
 risen above polluting pleasures. If only I could realize to 
 practical purpose that even long-drawn incessant temptation is 
 yet not interminable. 
 
 What is this above thy head, What is she while time is time, 
 
 O Man ? O Man ? 
 
 The World, all overspread In a perpetual prime 
 
 With pearls and golden rays Beauty and youth she hath ; 
 
 And gems ablaze ; And her footpath 
 
 A sight which day and night Breeds flowers thro* dancing hours 
 
 Fills an eye's span. Since time began. 
 
 What is this beneath thy feet, While time lengthens what is she, 
 
 O Saint ? O Saint ? 
 
 The World, a nauseous sweet Nought : yea, all men shall see 
 
 Puffed up and perishing ; How she is nought at all, 
 
 A hollow thing, When her death pall 
 
 A lie, a vanity, Of fire ends their desire 
 
 Tinsel and paint. And brands her taint. 
 
 Ah, poor Man, befooled and slow 
 
 And faint ! 
 
 Ah, poorest Man, if so 
 Thou turn thy back on bliss 
 And choose amiss ! 
 For thou art choosing now : 
 
 Sinner, or Saint. 
 
 22. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, 
 
 and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee ; 
 and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall 
 be found any more in thee ; and the sound of a mill- 
 stone shall be heard no more at all in thee ; 
 
 23. And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in 
 
 thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the 
 bride shall be heard no more at all in thee : for thy 
 merchants were the great men of the earth ; for by 
 thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 
 
 No more in Babylon. But in New Jerusalem we shall hear 
 once more (God grant it !) the voice of harpers harping with 
 their harps.
 
 426 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 No more in Babylon. But in New Jerusalem we shall 
 behold once more (God grant it !) every craftsman of whatso- 
 ever craft who hath wrought a good work toward Christ or 
 toward His disciples. 
 
 No more in Babylon. But in New Jerusalem we shall 
 rejoice (God grant it !) with some taken from grinding at the 
 mill while others were left. 
 
 No more in Babylon. But in New Jerusalem (God grant 
 it !) we shall walk in the light that has no need of a candle. 
 
 No more in Babylon. But in New Jerusalem we shall keep 
 high festival (God grant it !) with bridegrooms and brides re- 
 united in the communion of saints and fellowship of angels. 
 
 No more in Babylon. But in New Jerusalem (God grant 
 it !) we shall exult amongst the company of merchantmen who 
 once sold all for the treasure field or for the pearl of great 
 price. 
 
 God grant it to every one of us, for Jesus Christ's sake. 
 Amen. 
 
 "... No more at all in thee." Whether the enumerated 
 multitude has been involved and for ever silenced in the ruin 
 of Babylon, or whether it has clean escaped among those 
 legions of -whom the world was not worthy, in either contin- 
 gency one faculty common to all has saved or lost each : free 
 will. 
 
 Not Nemesis, Destiny, Predestination, hast cast the lot : 
 man's own free will has been the factor of good or of evil. 
 
 Lord God Almighty, Who hast promised to Thy servants 
 deliverance from their enemies, much more deliver us, I 
 implore Thee, from ourselves. We, only we, can destroy our- 
 selves : Thou, Thou alone canst rescue and save us. I plead 
 our Saviour Jesus. Amen. 
 
 From all kinds of music which worship an idol in Thy stead, 
 
 From craft which fashioning a golden image dishonoured Thee, 
 
 From labour for the meat which perisheth and not for that which emlureth 
 
 unto life eternal, 
 From lamps going out, gone out ; from any light that shineth not to the 
 
 glory of our Heavenly Father, 
 
 From such temporal love and joy as forfeit eternal love and joy, 
 From earthly gain which is heavenly loss, 
 From the whole world in exchange for our souls, 
 
 Deliver us, deliver all men, O Lord. Amen. 
 
 24. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of 
 saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth. 
 
 " O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no
 
 THE FACE Of THE DEEP. 427 
 
 place. Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my 
 record is on high." " O daughter of Babylon, who art to be 
 destroyed." 
 
 Well may the virgin, the daughter of Zion, despise and laugh 
 to scorn her adversary ; well may the daughter of Jerusalem 
 shake her head at her. 
 
 Yet so long as time lasts, probation lasts ; and so long as 
 probation lasts, the end of individuals is not assured. It were 
 folly to boast in girding on the harness, or at any moment 
 short of putting it off. 
 
 Because he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he 
 only which is one inwardly, the Church militant here in earth 
 must still give diligence to make her calling and election sure. 
 All her members must : each must. 
 
 It is awe-striking to observe the similarity between our Lord's 
 accusation against the Jerusalem of His mortal day, and this 
 final allegation against lost Babylon. In both cases a surface 
 life overlaid a deep-seated death. 
 
 "Then spake Jesus. . . . Wherefore, behold, I send unto 
 you prophets, and wise men, and scribes : and some of them 
 ye shall kill and crucify ; and some of them shall ye scourge 
 in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city : that 
 upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the 
 earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of 
 Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the 
 temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things 
 shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 
 thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are 
 sent unto thee. ..." 
 
 " Of all that were slain upon the earth." Since no exception 
 is made, may we understand not the immortal righteous only, 
 but the twice dead unrighteous also, all? Her smooth words 
 have been very swords, and her tender mercies cruel. Her 
 hatred slays bodies, her love souls : better her hatred than her 
 love. 
 
 From both, Good Lord, deliver us.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 1. And after these things I heard a great voice of much 
 
 people in heaven, saying, Alleluia ; Salvation, and glory, 
 and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God : 
 
 2. For true and righteous are His judgments : for He hath 
 
 judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth 
 with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of 
 His servants at her hand. 
 
 While a great voice of earth uplifts Alas 1 (ch. xviii. 10, &c.) 
 the "great voice" of heaven will uplift Alleluia. Even now 
 already it is so, whether or not we have ears to hear. One 
 laments, the other exults, over the selfsame doom. 
 
 The prefixed day will come upon all the earth. With one 
 or other company, I in the flesh or in the spirit shall then be 
 saying Alas ! or Alleluia ! 
 
 What shall I say then ? Presumably the same substantially 
 as I am saying now. 
 
 At present, if I utter not Alas ! I as it were am feeling 
 Alas for disappointment, pain, trouble, anxiety, weariness, 
 failure. For these and for such as these I may feel it perchance 
 unblamed : yet only perchance : each grievance and each pang 
 must be tested and brought to the light ere safely I can acquit 
 myself. Disappointment should not dishearten, nor pain 
 exasperate, nor trouble overwhelm, nor anxiety sour, nor 
 weariness exhaust, nor failure hinder me. Verily I dare not 
 acquit myself. 
 
 Moreover my Alleluias, when and wherefore come they ? 
 Few, cold, tearful, far between ; more like the high octave of 
 Alas than is seemly ; too unlike the peaceful song of saints. 
 
 Alleluia ! or Alas ! my heart is crying : 
 So yours is sighing : 
 Or replying with content undying, 
 Alleluia !
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 429 
 
 Alas ! grieves overmuch for pain that is ending, 
 Hurt that is mending, 
 Life descending soon to be ascending, 
 Alleluia ! 
 
 "I will consider Thy testimonies. I see that all things 
 come to an end : but Thy commandment is exceeding broad." 
 
 When amid the luminous obscurity of prophecy insight fails, 
 obedience remains. " I see that all things come to an end " : 
 yet see it not in such wise as to forecast times and seasons, 
 modes and details. None the less things better than these 
 lie within my scope : already I can ascribe to my God all 
 "glory and honour" of every dispensation or event; I can 
 long after His salvation, rely upon His power and goodness, 
 justify His judgments, divorce my heart from perverse sym- 
 pathies, cast in my lot come what may with His servants. 
 
 I can, or I cannot, already do all this. If I can, the term of 
 my mortal life will not exhaust such gracious employments : 
 if I cannot, the same term will be wholesomely spent in 
 acquiring so blessed a temper. 
 
 In hope and fear, glory and abasement, honour and dis- 
 honour, power and weakness ; by purifying and ruling our 
 sympathies, recognizing and magnifying Thy judgments, loving 
 and emulating Thy faithful servants ; while evermore we wait 
 patiently for Thee, O Lord, and for Thy salvation ; give us 
 grace to cry Alleluia, through Jesus Christ to the Glory of God 
 the Father. Amen. 
 
 I lift mine eyes to see : earth vanisheth. 
 
 I lift up wistful eyes and bow my knee : 
 Trembling, bowed down, and face to face with Death, 
 
 I lift mine eyes to see. 
 
 Lo, what I see is Death that shadows me : 
 Yet whilst I, seeing, draw a shuddering breath, 
 Death like a mist grows rare perceptibly. 
 
 Beyond the darkness light, beyond the scathe 
 Healing, beyond the Cross a palm-branch tree, 
 
 Beyond Death Life, on evidence of faith : 
 I lift mine eyes to see. 
 
 3. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up 
 for ever and ever. 
 
 If Amen did not appear and reappear in the celestial 
 vocabulary, one might have supposed that Alleluia had taken 
 its place. As it is, both words being at once terrestrial and 
 celestial, link earth to heaven: here Amen prevails, there 
 Alleluia.
 
 430 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 It emphasizes to our apprehension the momentous difference 
 between eternity and time, to read that "her smoke rose up 
 for ever and ever." Throughout time smoke is an emblem of 
 transitoriness, evanescence, as both the Canonical Scriptures 
 and the ' Apocryphal "Books teach us : " As smoke is driven 
 away, so drive them away " " My days are consumed like 
 smoke" "They shall be ... as the smoke out of the 
 chimney " " The breath in our nostrils is as smoke " " The 
 hope of the ungodly is like ... as the smoke which is dis- 
 persed here and there with a tempest." 
 
 Time with all its possibilities is yet a day when that which 
 is wanting cannot be numbered. Eternity with all its impossi- 
 bilities is yet the day when God will require that which is past. 
 
 4. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell 
 
 down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, 
 saying, Amen ; Alleluia. 
 
 Whatever else varies, one condition abides invariable : the 
 heavenly host is absolutely at one with God Omnipotent in 
 will, choice, approval, pleasure. The Free Will of the Creator 
 and the free will of the creature, in heaven coalesce in one 
 eternal concord, one indissoluble harmony. Nevertheless from 
 first to last (so far as last can be predicated of aught which 
 ends not) both wills were and are and will be free. 
 
 Free will is the foundation of heaven. Free will at the 
 opposite pole is the basis of hell. Free will may not elect hell 
 per se t but by rejecting God it leaves itself no other alternative. 
 Perhaps hell may even be the least degree of ruin compatible 
 with man's dogged, unwavering freedom of choice. Not of 
 course that he chooses it purposely ; only virtually, by repudi- 
 ating whatever is not hell or hellish. 
 
 If man has a right to his free will, so also has God to His. 
 " He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good." 
 
 5. And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our 
 
 God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him, both 
 small and great. 
 
 The little one has become a thousand, and the small one a 
 strong nation : the zeal of the Lord of hosts hath done this. 
 
 A very dear and saintly person years ago called home, once 
 in my hearing exulted at this appearance of the small that fear 
 God : viewing it as a vast encouragement. Even they will be 
 there, not on sufferance, but taken account of, brought forward, 
 called upon to enhance the acceptable rapture. 
 
 O Loving Lamb of God, Who for love of us didst sacrifice
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 431 
 
 all which Thou couldest sacrifice, cast out envy from our 
 hearts and fill them with love like Thine. 
 
 That in the day of rejoicing we one and all may rejoice with 
 Thee in the Communion of Saints, by virtue of love like Thine. 
 
 That Apostles, Prophets, Patriarchs, Martyrs, all Saints, 
 even ourselves also, may love one another for pure love of 
 Thee : yea, with love like Thine. 
 
 That the great rich in tenderness, and the small rich in 
 veneration, may praise Thee each for other, overflowing with 
 love like Thine. 
 
 That as heaven is heaven to Thee because of love, so it may 
 be heaven to every one of us because of love, of love like Thine. 
 
 That we who can carry away nothing when we die, may yet 
 carry love from earth to heaven, love in its measure like Thine. 
 
 That thither works may follow us, works of love, even of 
 love like Thine. 
 
 And to the end that there we may superabound in love, grant 
 us here to abound in love, in love like Thine. Amen. Alleluia. 
 
 The least, if so I am ; 
 
 If so, less than the least, 
 May I reach heaven to glorify the Lamb, 
 
 And sit down at the Feast. 
 I fear and I am small, 
 
 Whence am I of good cheer : 
 For I who hear Thy call, have heard Thee call 
 
 To Thee the small who fear. 
 
 6. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, 
 and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of 
 mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord 
 God Omnipotent reigneth. 
 
 Hearken to music of the deaf whose spirit was not deaf, and 
 a song of the dumb whose heart was not dumb ; for in this 
 chorus all the redeemed, whatever their sometime gift or 
 blemish, sing together. Deafness, dumbness, every imperfec- 
 tion has been left behind with the dust of death ; and God 
 hath put a new song into all mouths, even a thanksgiving unto 
 our God. " Many shall see it, and fear ; and shall put their 
 trust in the Lord." (Lord, so be it for Jesu's sake.) 
 
 May I be one of those wise master singers ! If then I 
 would be so, now I must become so. The talents vouchsafed 
 me I must use and improve thankfully; the gifts withheld I 
 must forego ungrudgingly and thankfully. 
 
 O Lord my God the Omnipotent, Who searchest all hearts ; 
 Who knowest my heart through and through ; Who in many
 
 432 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 hearts discernest lifelong disappointment, mortification, aching 
 rankling soreness ; O Lord our God, grant us such grace that 
 Thy Will may be to us glory and Thine award satisfaction ; 
 so in our solitary place shall we be glad, awaiting that day of 
 days when patient mourners shall come forth in the dances of 
 them that make merry. Amen, for the honour of Jesus Christ, 
 Who for our sake exhausted human bitterness. 
 
 If reverently I may say so : In the Bible God condescends 
 to employ multiform overtures of endearing graciousness, 
 wooing, beseeching, alluring, encouraging. We love beauty ; 
 He lavishes beauty on the sacred text. We desire knowledge ; 
 He tells us much, and promises that one day He will tell us 
 all. We are conscious of feelings inexpressible and as yet 
 insatiable ; He stirs up such feelings, at once directing them 
 and guaranteeing their ultimate satisfaction. He works upon 
 us by what we can and by what we cannot utter ; He appeals 
 in us to what we can and to what we cannot define. 
 
 Whence it seems to ensue that not only words and thoughts 
 compose such a commentary on Revelation as may lawfully 
 be brought by man for his offering of firstfruits ; but that 
 painting, sculpture, music, all are sources capable of swelling 
 that store. 
 
 Without cavilling or doubt then let us worship God in 
 wordless aspiration aroused by any form of beauty, let us 
 praise Him in musical yearnings and ecstasies. Or if not thou, 
 at least I ; who remember how one highly endowed by nature 
 and by grace and by me ever to be venerated, was affected by 
 one movement in the overwhelming harmony of the Hallelujah 
 Chorus. 
 
 When wickedness is broken as a tree 
 
 Paradise comes to light, ah holy land ! 
 
 Whence death has vanished like a shifting sand 
 And barrenness is banished with the sea. 
 Its bulwarks are salvation fully manned, 
 
 All gems it hath for glad variety, 
 
 And pearls for pureness radiant glimmeringly, 
 And gold for grandeur where all good is grand. 
 An inner ring of saints meets linked above, 
 
 And linked of angels is an outer ring : 
 For voice of waters or for thunders' voice 
 Lo ! harps and songs wherewith all saints rejoice, 
 
 And all the trembling there of any string 
 Is but a trembling of enraptured love. 
 
 7. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him ; for 
 the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath 
 made herself ready.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 433 
 
 Let us meanwhile " be glad and rejoice, and give honour to 
 Him," because this which shall come will come, and will not 
 tarry. 
 
 As God brought Eve to Adam, so now is He bringing each 
 pure and lovely soul to Christ. As He conducted fair Rebekah 
 to Isaac unseen yet the chosen of her heart, so is He now 
 calling and guiding the elect to Christ. As Jacob loved and 
 served for Rachel, so and much more Christ loves His own, 
 and will accept no different guerdon. As Joseph amid home 
 joys forgot his toil, so Christ makes no account of His toil in 
 comparison with the love of His beloved. As Moses was first 
 champion, then husband ; even such Christ is and will be to 
 every sanctified soul. As Moses sang and Miriam answered, 
 so will there be "the song of the Lamb," and the responsive 
 adoring song of the Church. As Moses prayed for leprous 
 Miriam, so is Christ now interceding for the heirs of salvation. 
 As the daughters of Zelophehad were espoused by their near 
 kinsmen, so to blessed souls Christ deigns to say, " My sister, 
 My spouse." As at Achsah's request Caleb bestowed on her 
 water-springs, so does our Heavenly Father reserve " a pure 
 River of Water of Life " for them who ask in His Son's Name. 
 As Jephthah's daughter became the glory of her father's house, 
 so will the King's daughter arise, shine, to His glory, never 
 more lamenting on her mountain-tops, but exulting on the 
 height of heavenly Zion. As Ruth by untried paths journeyed 
 home to Boaz, so are sweet souls by untried paths journeying 
 home to Christ. As Elkanah was better to downcast Hannah 
 than ten sons, so is Christ now to His faithful mourners ; what 
 will He be then ? As Rizpah's self-devotion to the slain for sin 
 won for her everlasting renown, so even now all who devote 
 themselves to Christ, the Sole Sacrifice for sin, are winning a far 
 more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; winning, not 
 earning. As the Queen of Sheba exchanged gifts with King 
 Solomon, so gracious souls to-day exchange love with Christ, 
 and will carry on the exchange for ever ; unlike that Queen 
 who returned to her own country, they, born in the region and 
 shadow of death, will return no more, nor see their native 
 country, but will stand continually before Christ and hear His 
 Wisdom : " Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore 
 made He thee king." As the Widow of Zarephath enter- 
 taining Elijah received a prophet's reward, so all ministries to 
 Christ in His poor and afflicted shall one day by no means 
 lose their reward. As Elisha at the Widow's word turned her 
 penury into wealth, so God is giving good gifts to them that 
 
 E
 
 434 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 ask Him, and withholds no good thing from them that live a 
 godly life. As the great Shunammite according to Elisha's 
 promise embraced a son, so Christ bestows a name better than 
 of sons or of daughters on such as choose the things that 
 please Him. As the daughters of Shallum helped their father 
 to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so now feeble souls are 
 strengthened to edify others, while they themselves are being 
 built as lively stones into Christ's living temple. As Esther 
 excelled Vashti and assumed her forfeited crown, so the 
 Christian vocation at once human and superhuman hath the 
 promise of that which now is, and of that which is to come ; 
 and as after a brief fast, mourning, trembling terror, Queen 
 Esther attained to the half of her husband's kingdom, so the 
 Church looks onward, upward, to the moment of sitting down 
 with her Divine King and Spouse in His Throne. 
 
 All- this and much more I profess when I say : I 
 believe in the Communion of Saints, and the life everlasting. 
 Amen. 
 
 As everything human that is masculine is or should be 
 typical of Christ, so all that is feminine of the Church. Why 
 then break off our parallel with the galaxy of holy maids and 
 matrons memorialized in the Old Testament, and not carry it 
 further by help of their sister saints in the Gospel ? 
 
 Because it is so lovely a privilege to have stood really and 
 truly in some direct relation to Christ that it may well take 
 precedence of aught figurative. There is no title by which to 
 indicate the Blessed Virgin Mary half so august as that of His 
 Mother. The glory of righteous Elizabeth was her worship of 
 His unseen Presence. It was enough for ascetic Anna to 
 behold Him and to speak of Him. And so each named or 
 unnamed personage appears invested with her proper halo. 
 To the Woman of Samaria He announced Himself as the 
 Messiah. The Widow of Nain He consoled. He accepted 
 love and tears from a woman a sinner, and faith from her who 
 had suffered many things from many "physicians. Jairus's 
 Daughter He took by the hand. On the Canaanitish Mother 
 He bestowed an unique commendation. Martha and her 
 sister Mary He loved. The woman bowed with infirmity He 
 acknowledged as a daughter of Abraham. He set store by the 
 Widow's two mites. And His last recorded words before the 
 Seven Sentences from the Cross were addressed to the wailing 
 and lamenting Daughters of Jerusalem. 
 
 O Christ our God, remember Thy strong and weak ones, 
 great and small, men and women, for good. Remember the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 435 
 
 nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers of Holy Church for good. 
 Remember the righteous who worship Thee by faith, and 
 bestow on them the blessing of thosje who not having seen 
 have believed. Remember and advance nil who worship Thee 
 with fasting and prayer, and reveal Thy gracious Presence unto 
 them. Remember any overthrown through frailty, raise them 
 up and perfect Thy strength in their weakness. Remember 
 the bereaved in their anguish, and make their latter end better 
 than their beginning. Furnish the fallen with love, and accept 
 their love. Grant to sufferers faith, and reward their faith. 
 Raise sinners now from sin to righteousness, that Thou mayest 
 hereafter raise them as saints to perfection. Remember the 
 love of Parents ; remember not except to forgive them the 
 offences of children. Love us all, that we all may love Thee. 
 Remember the despised, the overlooked, the misunderstood, 
 reserving mercy for them in the day of Thy justice. Remember 
 munificent hands to refill them, and generous hearts to 
 spiritualize them. Remember all who mourn in Zion. My 
 God, forget not any mourner. Remember us all, O Lord our 
 God, for good. Amen. 
 
 Who shall decide whether to be constituted in the first 
 instance strong or weak holds out the greater promise of 
 ultimate strength ? And it is the end crowns the beginning, 
 never the beginning the end. 
 
 St. James erects a standard as it were of equality in in- 
 equality : " Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he 
 is exalted ; bu the rich, in that he is made low." 
 
 " The marriage of the Lamb is come." 
 
 O Gracious Master, Who of old forgavest Thy disciples 
 when they believed not for joy and wondered, so now, so 
 always forgive us. We believe ; help Thou our unbelief. If 
 we believe not, let it be for joy and not for unwillingness ; 
 through mistrust of self, not of Thy word ; for a moment, not 
 for ever. Open Thou our understanding that we may 
 understand the Scriptures; -understand somewhat, believe all. 
 So, Good Lord, make us ready. Amen. 
 
 "And His wife hath made herself ready." To Jacob by 
 reason of his great love seven years seemed but a few days ; 
 we read not that they seemed so to Rachel. He Ly de- 
 sire shortened delay ; she by responsive desire may have 
 lengthened it. 
 
 Christ saith : " Surely I come quickly " while the Church 
 ceases not to cry : " How long, O Lord, Holy and 
 True ? "
 
 436 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 At length in St. John's vision her mystical week is fulfilled. 
 The Bridegroom cometh forth out of His chamber ; let the 
 Bride come forth out of her closet. 
 
 Many times heretofore has she come forth fasting, praying, 
 weeping between the porch and the altar, imploring mercy. Now 
 is she called forth to rejoice in the dances of them that make 
 merry. " Then were we like unto them that dream." 
 
 She hath made herself ready ; but in what royal closet, what 
 dainty bower? She who comes out of great tribulation hath 
 made herself ready in great tribulation, which yet was to her 
 the secret of His Tabernacle. 
 
 As swelled by a thousand confluents from a thousand 
 sources some unmeasured river at last attains the measureless 
 ocean, so she comes forth from the thousand battle-fields of 
 the fierce fight of her afflictions. Beds of weariness, haunts of 
 starvation, hospital wards, rescue homes, orphanages, leper 
 colonies, fires of martyrdom, in these and such as these did 
 she set up mirrors whereby to fashion herself after Christ's 
 likeness ; workhouses, prisons (thank God !), the sea, the land, 
 the rocks for a shelter, each and all send up their contingent 
 of saints ; palaces, hovels, houselessness, homelessness, again 
 saints ; east, west, north, south, still saints. Every gift, every 
 grace, arrays and adorns her; innocence, penitence, purity, 
 purification, largeness of heart as the sand of the sea ; weighty 
 judgment, mercy, faith ; carefulness in well doing, as mint and 
 anise and cummin ; no longer patience, yet fruits of patience ; 
 no longer chastening, yet its peaceable fruit of righteousness ; 
 hope that maketh not ashamed, love superseding all that is not 
 love or love's. She has forgotten her own people and her 
 father's house, has forgotten all who are not of her or with her, 
 in the supreme moment of going home to Him Whom her soul 
 loveth. She has come up from the wilderness leaning upon 
 her Beloved, and leaning upon Him she will sit down in the 
 Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. 
 
 " The Voice of my Beloved ! . . . Arise, My love, My fair 
 one, and come away." 
 
 8. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in 
 fine linen, clean and white ; for the fine linen is the 
 righteousness of saints. 
 
 Or in the Revised Version : " And it was given unto her 
 that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure; 
 for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." 
 
 Collated, the two texts suggest that revealed paradox which
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 437 
 
 teaches both that we cannot, and that we must, array ourselves 
 in righteousness. Whence one conclusion appears both safe 
 and reasonable : what we can, do ; what we cannot, trust God 
 to do. 
 
 Till one tries, it is easy to fancy oneself doing everything : 
 when one tries, it is not difficult to despair of doing anything. 
 Neither delution will work us ultimate harm if we so let these 
 extremes meet as to curb, balance, counteract each other. 
 Presumption should at least fight lustily ; despondency should 
 at least pray urgently. Genuine \ rayer in conjunction with 
 genuine fighting must sooner or later overthrow presumption 
 and dissipate despondency. 
 
 ]f I may venture to say so, I think the Revised Version of 
 this passage appears eminently consonant with those Provi- 
 dential circumstances which day by day dictate our duties. 
 It exhibits the Bride as arraying herself " in fine linen, bright 
 and pure " ; but not for her is such vesture provided, as were 
 the cloud garment and swaddling-band of thick darkness for 
 the primeval sea : hers is a nobler law, " Give her of the fruit 
 of her hands." " Righteous acts " have woven that lustrous 
 linen, acts of all saints from the beginning to the end. Spot- 
 less and radiant now, it has been steeped in tears and bleached 
 in the heat of the day : woven and at length without flaw from 
 the top throughout it forms one fair unbroken web ; but held 
 up to that light which manifests all works, behold ! its warp 
 and woof have not been wrought into a perfect whole except 
 by an interweaving of cross threads, of crosses. The acts and 
 crosses of each day and of every day, your acts and crosses 
 and my own, are capable of reappearing in that achieved 
 glory. 
 
 If the Revised Version incites us to abound in labour to-day 
 while it is called to-day, the Authorized promotes no different 
 result by enamouring us of that final perfection when all having 
 been done both for and by the Church (for the things con- 
 cerning her also have an end), she shall be presented as a 
 chaste virgin to Christ : and so shall the king have pleasure in 
 her beauty. 
 
 9. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which 
 are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
 And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of 
 God. 
 
 Speech ends, writing endures. Wherefore this "Write" has 
 respect even to children that are yet unborn : for the promise
 
 438 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 is unto us and to our children and to all that are afar off, even 
 as many as the Lord our God shall call. 
 
 My neighbour's call I may not apprehend : my own I recog- 
 nize. All things, all events, knowledge, even ignorance, speak 
 to me. Thou knowest ? " thou oughtest therefore " : thou 
 knowest not ? none the less " how dreadful is this place." 
 "There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, 
 and none of them is without signification " : or according to 
 a marginal rendering of the concluding phrase, " and nothing 
 is without voice." 
 
 This Revelation of St. John the Divine excepts from its 
 summons none who have ears to hear. By trumpets and harps, 
 by thunders and voices, it calls on all men everywhere to 
 repent. What or how we may learn hereafter stands over until 
 that hereafter. What we cannot yet know will not yet be 
 demanded of us. 
 
 At present and at once all earthly things teach some lesson 
 to the teachable. " For the invisible things of Him from the 
 creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by 
 the things that are made, even His eternal power and God- 
 head." And whereas (if I may reverently use the word) 
 accessories in this Inspired Book seem in great measure 
 emblematical rather than actual ; I can at least infer thence 
 that every such figure must have an original, every type an 
 antitype. Only a substance can cast a shadow. 
 
 To-day while daylight lasts let us study the shadows vouch- 
 safed us : when our night falls they for us will vanish. Heze- 
 kiah had his faith confirmed by a shadow. "The shadow of 
 Peter passing by " was not lightly to be regarded. 
 
 Let us sit down amid Divinely cast shadows with great 
 delight : it is good for us to be here. 
 
 Fulness of beauty and reality of perfection belong to sub- 
 stance, not to shadow. Meanwhile shadows, although they 
 reproduce neither details nor colours, familiarize us with broad 
 outlines. 
 
 However weary the land of our sojourn, the "great rock" 
 extends for us a refreshing shadow ; itself, and not its shadow, 
 being our ultimate benefactor. 
 
 Shadows befit probation, but befit not the promised beatitude. 
 Whilst set in their midst I must thankfully utilize them, yet 
 must not make myself so comfortable in their region as to 
 settle down or to drop asleep. Symbolism affords a fascinating 
 study : wholesome so long as it amounts to aspiration and 
 research ; unwholesome when it degenerates into a pastime.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 439 
 
 As literal shadows tend to soothe, lull, abate keenness of 
 vision ; so perhaps symbols may have a tendency to engross, 
 satisfy, arrest incautious souls unwatchful and unprayerful lest 
 they enter into temptation. 
 
 Lord, to Thine own grant watchful hearts and eyes ; 
 
 Hearts strung to prayer, awake while eyelids sleep ; 
 
 Eyes patient till the end to watch and weep. 
 So will sleep nourish power to wake and rise 
 With Virgins who keep vigil and are wise, 
 
 To sow among all sowers who shall reap, 
 
 From out man's deep to call Thy vaster deep, 
 And tread the uphill track to Paradise. 
 Sweet souls ! so patient that they make no moan, 
 
 So calm on journey that they seem at rest, 
 
 So rapt in prayer that half they dwell in heaven 
 Thankful for all withheld and all things given ; 
 
 So lit by love that Christ shines manifest 
 Transfiguring their aspects to His own. 
 
 " Blessed are they which are called unto the Marriage 
 Supper of the Lamb." This beatitude is specially vouched for 
 as a true saying of God, and baptized Christians have received 
 the call ; yet so long as mortal life endures each soul must use 
 all diligence to secure the blessing, probation rendering every 
 promise contingent. 
 
 Two Divine Parables warn us that the call of grace condemns 
 whom it does not save : 
 
 " One . . . said unto Him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread 
 in the kingdom of God. Then said He unto him, A certain 
 man made a great supper, and bade many : and sent his servant 
 at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come ; for 
 all things are now ready. And they all with one consent 
 began to make excuse. ... So that servant came, and 
 shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house 
 being angry said to his servant . . . Go out into the highways 
 and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may 
 be filled. For I say unto you, That none of those men which 
 were bidden shall taste of my supper." 
 
 " The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which 
 made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call 
 them that were bidden to the wedding : and they would not 
 come. . . . Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is 
 ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye 
 therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid 
 to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, 
 and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and 
 good : and the wedding was furnished with guests. And when
 
 440 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which 
 had not on a wedding garment : and he saith unto him, Friend, 
 how earnest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? 
 And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, 
 Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into 
 outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 
 For many are called, but few are chosen." 
 
 Lord, with a call give responsive grace, with grace diligence, 
 with diligence perseverance, with final perseverance an entrance 
 into Thy glory, with glory a seat at Thy Feast full of pleasure. 
 For the sake and worthiness of Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 10. And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said 
 unto me, See thou do it not : I am thy fellow-servant, 
 and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus : 
 worship God : for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit 
 of prophecy. 
 
 Looking back (ch. xvii. i) it seems as if this personage who 
 converses with St. John may still be one of the seven Angels 
 of the vials. Marvellous indeed is it to behold that beloved 
 disciple who had lain on the Master's Bosom fall down at the 
 servant's feet to worship him. What motive led St. John to 
 such exuberance of humility concerns me not. But for myself 
 I learn from the celestial disallowance of his act how safe it is 
 for me to be set low on a lowly level and one bounded by a 
 misty horizon, so that thence I can neither explore height nor 
 depth nor distance to any great extent : for to say the least of 
 it, " I am not better than my fathers." Even St. Paul felt how 
 it would have been possible for himself to be exalted above 
 measure. 
 
 "Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary 
 humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things 
 which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 
 and not holding the Head." 
 
 Self-willed humility is pride in masquerade. 
 
 As violets so be I recluse and sweet, 
 
 Cheerful as daisies unaccounted rare, 
 Still sunward-gazing from a lowly seat, 
 
 Still sweetening wintry air. 
 
 While half-awakened Spring lags incomplete, 
 While lofty forest-trees tower bleak and bare, 
 
 Daisies and violets own remotest heat 
 And bloom and make them fair. 
 
 "See thou do it not." " He that rebuketh a man afterwards 
 shall find more favour than he that flattereth with the tongue."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 441 
 
 Lord Jesus, give us grace in charity to rebuke and in humility 
 to bear rebuke ; until that day when Thou shall swallow up 
 death in victory, and wipe away tears from off all faces, and 
 take away from off all the earth the rebuke of Thy people. 
 
 " I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the 
 testimony of Jesus." This definition exalted the Creator and 
 abased the creature, it edified and did not puff up, it satisfied 
 loyal hearts, not itching ears. 
 
 Such a specimen of "conversation in heaven" (if I may 
 treat the word when thus used as including conversation in its 
 colloquial sense : and this notwithstanding that the Revised 
 Version substitutes citizenship, or marginally commonwealth) 
 such a specimen suggests various practical points for everyday 
 guidance. 
 
 " Fellow-servants " are more or less on a par : " brethren " 
 are equals : if Jesus Christ is the Object of my own faith, hope, 
 love ; then all to whom He is the same are my fellow-servants 
 to be courteously entreated, my brethren to be beloved. A 
 system which spiritually exalts valleys and makes low moun- 
 tains and hills takes no more account of inequalities of birth, 
 breeding, education, than of those roughnesses on an orange to 
 which in proportion to her magnitude the excrescences of our 
 globe have been likened. " If there be therefore any con- 
 solation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of 
 the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye 
 be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of 
 one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory ; 
 but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than 
 themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every 
 man also on the things of others." 
 
 Curiosity is starved ; piety fed and feasted. Gossip is 
 indirectly discouraged by a contrary model. 
 
 " The testimony of Jesus " is an essential characteristic of 
 true servants and brethren. Whatever more it may import, it 
 cannot consist with less than neither through fear nor favour 
 our being ashamed of Christ and of His words. 
 
 From a fleshly mind vainly puffed up, from lack of natural 
 affection, from respect of persons ; Thou, Lord, Who lovest 
 us all, deliver us. 
 
 From fastidiousness, exclusiveness, pride, conceit; Thou, 
 Lord, Who condescendest to us all, deliver us. 
 
 From undue curiosity, vain hankerings, idle words, wasted 
 irrecoverable time; Thou, Lord, Who understandest our 
 thoughts long before, deliver us.
 
 442 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 From false fear and false shame ; Thou, Lord, Who art not 
 ashamed to call us brethren, deliver us. 
 
 Into Thy hands I commend us, for Thou hast redeemed us. 
 Thou, Lord, Who hast redeemed us all, for Thine own sake 
 sanctify and save us. Amen. 
 
 "WORSHIP GOD." 
 
 Lord, if Thy word had been " Worship Me not, 
 For I than thou am holier : draw not near " 
 We had besieged Thy Face with prayer and tear 
 
 And manifold abasement in our lot, 
 
 Our crooked ground, our thorned and thistled plot ; 
 Envious of flawless Angels in their sphere, 
 Envious of brutes, and envious of the mere 
 
 Unliving and undying unbegot. 
 
 But now Thou hast said ; "Worship Me : and give 
 Thy heart to Me, My child " ; now therefore we 
 Think twice before we stoop to worship Thee ; 
 
 We proffer half a heart while life is strong 
 And strung with hope ; so sweet it is to live ! 
 
 Wilt Thou not wait ? Yea, Thou hast waited long. 
 
 "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." By 
 this " testimony of Jesus " I will (if I may) understand, as in- 
 cluded in the angelic definition, such witness as all Christians 
 are bound to bear, and all good Christians do bear to their 
 Master. 
 
 And this, although St. Paul emphatically intimates that 
 disciples are not all prophets. For whilst a spirit of prediction 
 is obviously confined to a few, a virtue of revelation (if I may 
 term it so) is diffused throughout the area of Christendom. 
 As certain believers were St. Paul's epistle known and read of 
 all men, but beyond this were manifestly " the epistle of 
 Christ " ; so all believers should be and may be epistles of 
 Christ, instinct with His Spirit, stamped with His image, 
 exemplifying His Will. As St. Peter and St. John could only 
 be accounted for as having " been with Jesus," so should it come 
 to pass with any and every Christian in the face of the world. 
 One who cannot be so much as a teacher of babes, may yet by 
 Divine Grace become a lesson, a revelation, bearing on eternity 
 as well as on time : such were even the least gifted of our elect 
 fathers and mothers before us, who being in multitude as the 
 stars of the sky and as the sand by the sea shore innumerable, 
 "all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having 
 seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced 
 them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on 
 the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 443 
 
 they seek a country." The grace of our probation is itself a 
 present glory ; and this faithfully lived and died in announces, 
 prefigures, guarantees the glory of future final acceptance and 
 perfection : even as the face of St. Stephen, while the Council 
 beheld it as it had been the face of an angel, may have set 
 forth before them the latent aspect of those who shall be made 
 equal to the angels. 
 
 " Prophesy, son of man." And Ezekiel prophesied by 
 promulgating Divine decrees ; and thereupon the answering 
 dry bones prophesied by foreshowing the far-off resurrection. 
 Two sorts of prophecy independent of any miraculous con- 
 comitant are open to us all : to declare the Will of God, and to 
 do it. 
 
 Is it a mistake to think that prophecy (in the sense of 
 prediction) may often address us when we fail to recognize its 
 voice ? Surely the " Thou shall not " of the Decalogue, being 
 an expression of the Almighty Will, may be not merely an 
 injunction but also a prophecy : man can set it at nought in 
 this life, but not in the next. For as the first death which kills 
 the body cuts short all physical possibility of image worship, 
 verbal profanity, Sabbath breaking, murder, sensuality, theft, 
 lying speech ; so the second death, which destroys both body 
 and soul, will (as a probable inference) annul any power to 
 transgress any commandment as a pleasurable self-indulgence, 
 whilst not alas! alas! abating one jot or one tittle of re- 
 bellious will ; so that lost souls hating goodness with impotent 
 undying hatred appear like tortured bodies under the influence 
 of curari, all the more excruciated whilst outwardly paralyzed. 
 Thus sinners sell their souls for that which as a gratification 
 cannot last, but turns to loathing and rancour. Truly a vanity 
 and a vexation of spirit. 
 
 In the Egyptian darkness men saw not one another, neither 
 did any arise from his place. So in the outer darkness thereby 
 typified, how should there not be an end of the lust of the eyes 
 and the pride of life ! 
 
 Lord, pardon and amend us whenever we doubt, misunder- 
 stand, misstate. Suffer us not to go astray. Suffer us not to 
 mislead each other. Whatsoever we be enlighten our minds 
 and enkindle our affections, for the honour of Jesus Christ our 
 Redeemer. Amen. 
 
 Grant us such grace that we may work Thy Will, 
 
 And speak Thy words and walk before Thy Face, 
 Profound and calm like waters deep and still : 
 Grant us such grace.
 
 444 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Not hastening and not loitering in our pace 
 For gloomiest valley or for sultriest hill, 
 Content and fearless on our downward race. 
 
 As rivers seek a sea they cannot fill 
 
 But are themselves filled full in its embrace, 
 Absorbed, at rest, each river and each rill : 
 Grant us such grace. 
 
 11. And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse ; 
 and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and 
 True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make 
 war. 
 
 This vision by recalling the former vision of the white horse 
 and his rider (ch. vi. 2), reminds us that we are contemplating 
 Him Who is the Same yesterday and to-day and for ever, 
 " greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be 
 had in reverence of all them that are about Him. O Lord 
 God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee ? or to Thy 
 faithfulness round about Thee ? " 
 
 [What then am I that I should dare speak ? or how shall I 
 dare be silent? O Lord Jesus, forgive me my speech, my 
 silence. " Death and life are in the power of the tongue."] 
 
 It is wise to obey in fear, foolish to fear to obey : wise to 
 worship trembling, foolish to tremble instead of worshipping. 
 A talent must neither be misused nor laid away unused. 
 
 "He ... was called Faithful and True."" O Lord, Thou 
 art my God ; I will exalt Thee, I will praise Thy Name ; for 
 Thou hast done wonderful things ; Thy counsels of old are 
 faithfulness and truth." " I will say of the Lord, He is my 
 refuge and my fortress : my God ; in Him will I trust. . . . 
 His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." "It is a good 
 thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto 
 Thy Name, O Most High : to show forth Thy lovingkindness 
 in the morning, and Thy faithfulness every night." 
 
 In the former vision the Rider on the white horse "went 
 forth conquering, and to conquer," His reward with Him, His_ 
 work before Him. Now because He "doth judge" as well as 
 " make war," this latter war seems to be rather of extirpation 
 than of conquest ; the carrying out of a righteous sentence 
 rather than a subdual and receiving to amity of sometime 
 enemies. The beginning has been seen, and the end must be 
 seen. 
 
 O Lord God, Holy and True, grant that in the Mount of the 
 Lord it may be seen by us Thy servants and trembling children. 
 And to the end that thither at last we may attain, now give us
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 445 
 
 grace to use this embittered world as our mountain of myrrh 
 by self denial, our hill of frankincense by self-oblation. For His 
 only sake, the Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 12. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were 
 many crowns ; and He had a Name written, that no 
 man knew, but He Himself. 
 
 " His eyes were as a flame of fire." Word for word as our 
 Lord revealed Himself in the first vision (ch. i. 14): then 
 standing (it might seem) on earth, heaven not being opened 
 till afterwards (ch. iv. i). Awful in His Unchangeableness. 
 
 His eyes did see our substance yet being imperfect. Now 
 they see it worse than imperfect, marred, contorted. At the 
 last day they will see it such as then it will be. Yea, before 
 the beginning they have foreseen the end. Awful in His 
 Unchangeableness. 
 
 Lord, suffer not awe to turn in us to slavish fear, nor godly 
 fear to degenerate into mistrust : but give us grace fearing Thee 
 to put our whole trust in Thee ; fearing Thee much, to love 
 Thee much more. For Thine own sake, Lord Jesus, Who 
 lovest us. Amen. 
 
 "And on His head were many crowns." "And a crown 
 was given unto Him " (ch. vi. 2). The Authorized Version in 
 both passages gives crown or crmvns : the Revised crown in 
 the earlier chapter, diadems in the present text. This distinction 
 (which my ignorance of Greek leads me to adopt on trust) 
 suggests the Victor's Wreath as that first crown : when Christ 
 having already with His own right hand and with His holy arm 
 gotten Himself the victory, sets forth anew conquering and to 
 conquer as Captain of man's salvation ; that at last where He 
 is there all His faithful ones may be also. 
 
 This second time He wears many "diadems" indicative of 
 dominion. He is no longer enrolling recruits, raising an army : 
 His veteran invincible troops are mounted ready to follow Him 
 (see ver. 14). 
 
 But wherefore " many" diadems ? Lord, when I cannot adore 
 Thee in knowledge, in ignorance I will adore Thee. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Thou art God, Alone Supreme in absolute 
 Supremacy. As God I worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art Man, Whose is the Human Name supreme above 
 every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow. 
 As Man I worship Thee. 
 
 Thou hast created all things, and without Thee was not any- 
 thing made that was made. As Creator I worship Thee.
 
 446 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Thou hast become Man, and hast taken the Manhood into 
 God indissolubly for ever and ever. As the Firstborn of every 
 creature I worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the Wisdom of God Whom He possessed in the 
 beginning of His way. As the Divine Wisdom I worship 
 Thee. 
 
 Thou hast made Thyself man's wisdom. As my only Hope 
 of wisdom I worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the Word, God and with God. As the Divine Word 
 I worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the Word speaking to us as never man spake. As 
 my Teacher of absolute authority I worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the Lord Who hath declared : My ways are 
 not your ways. Having a good hope because of Thy word I 
 worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the Way whereby alone man cometh unto the 
 Father. A wayfarer liable to error, beseeching safeguard, I 
 worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the King of Heaven, all Whose works are truth. I, 
 a little one among Thy works, worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the Truth : in Thee mercy and truth are met to- 
 gether, kindness and truth are shown forth. In the paths of 
 Thy mercy and of Thy truth I worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the Living God into Whose hands it is a fearful 
 thing to fall. Yet calling to remembrance the former days, 
 to-day while it is called to-day I worship Thee. 
 
 Thou art the Life. Thou Who hadst power to lay Thy Life 
 down and power to take it again, Who art Life manifested, and 
 Who givest Thy flesh for the life of the world, I worship 
 Thee. 
 
 O Thou Who hearest prayer, and unto Whom all flesh shall 
 come, draw all my brethren and all my sisters and myself 
 not outcast from their gracious company, to worship Thee. 
 Amen. 
 
 " And He had a Name written, that no man knew, but He 
 Himself." This gracious revelation corresponds apparently 
 not with any previous Apocalyptic description of Christ in 
 Person, but rather with His promise to " him that over- 
 cometh. ... I ... will give him ... a new name written, 
 which no man knovveth saving he that receiveth it " (ch. ii. 17). 
 
 By many Names, by many Titles, we recognize Him now. 
 Jesus, Saviour : Christ, Anointed : Emmanuel, God with us : 
 the Good Shepherd seeking, fetching back, dying for His 
 sheep : the Good Samaritan healing, nourishing : the Master
 
 TH FACE OF THE DEEP. 447 
 
 teaching : the Lord ruling, providing, instituting : the Captain, 
 but of salvation : the Chiefest, but girt by His ten thousand : 
 the First-born among many brethren : the Bridegroom Who 
 tarrieth, Who cometh : the Lamb of Atonement : the Bread 
 of Life : the Salvation of the Cup : the Vine sap-diffusing : the 
 Corn of Wheat multiplied after its own likeness : the Way from 
 earth to heaven : the Door of access to the Father : the Life 
 to all who living and believing shall never die: the Resurrection 
 and the Life. " Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
 peace ... for mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation." 
 
 Moreover, we recognize all saints as the complement, so to 
 say, of these Names as ointment " poured forth." In divers 
 lovely degrees of grace and glory they are saved, have the 
 Unction from the Holy One, walk with God, are sheep who 
 know their Shepherd's Voice, are wounded wayfarers whom the 
 Good Physician heals and tends, are disciples of the One 
 Master, servants and ministers of the One Lord, crusading 
 soldiers, like-minded courtiers, brethren beloved, Virgins who 
 wait, Brides who watch ; they are accepted through the Only 
 Atonement, are made partakers of the Body and Blood of 
 Christ, flourish as fruitful branches of the only Vine, ripen as 
 wheat for the eternal garner, follow Jesus from earth to heaven, 
 enter through His merits, and being indissolubly His members, 
 have part in the first blessed resurrection and live for evermore. 
 " By the Name of Jesus Christ ... for there is none other 
 name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be 
 saved." 
 
 "That no man knew, but He Himself." St. John writes 
 not, That no man shall know: but "that no man knew." 
 God alone knoweth the limit of man's future knowledge. 
 
 Meanwhile it is a Divine and comfortable promise that when 
 He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him 
 as He is. Recognition, then, is one revealed point of Christ- 
 likeness : He recognizing us, we all must recognize Him. 
 And because "every one that is perfect shall be as his 
 Master," surely that supreme beatific recognition involves all 
 congruous blessed recognitions : Christ recognizing us all, we 
 should so far be un-Christlike if we recognized not each other. 
 
 As Israel of old spake unto Joseph, " I had not thought to 
 see thy face : and, lo, God hath shewed me also thy seed " ; 
 so shall all saints, monuments and miracles of Divine Mercy, 
 attest no less in the supreme day of union and of reunion. 
 
 Moreover in the surpassing rapture of that day recognition 
 will not be all : discovery likewise (please God !) awaits us.
 
 448 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 As one has strikingly suggested : some that glanced at afar off 
 appear stones, when viewed close at hand may turn out to be 
 sheep. God all along has beheld them as sheep, and sheep 
 they were : the misapprehension (thank God) was ours. 
 
 To-day I read " Samaria " ; to-morrow I may redecipher the 
 selfsame letters as "S a . Maria." 
 
 Passing away the bliss, Clean past away the sorrow, 
 
 The anguish passing away : The pleasure brought back to stay : 
 
 Thus it is Thus and this 
 
 To-day. To-morrow. 
 
 13. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood : 
 and His Name is called The Word of God. 
 
 "Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy 
 garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have 
 trodden the winepress alone ; and of the people there was 
 none with Me : for I will tread them in Mine anger, and 
 trample them in My fury ; and their blood shall be sprinkled 
 upon My garments, and I will stain all My raiment. For the 
 day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the year of My 
 redeemed is come." Thus does Isaiah's prophecy provide as 
 it were an answer to St. John's revelation : between the twain 
 the Cross of Calvary standing forth as an intermediate fulfil- 
 ment of the elder prophecy and a rehearsal of the later 
 revelation. 
 
 Prophecy couples the day of vengeance with the year of the 
 redeemed. Visions link together salvation and destruction. 
 The blessed Cross, with on either hand the cross of a male- 
 factor hardened or penitent, shows forth the same verity in a 
 figure. For Divine Mercy is not contrary to Divine Justice, 
 neither is that Justice at feud with that Mercy. 
 
 " I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from 
 good ; and my sorrow was stirred." 
 
 " Without shedding of blood is no remission." None the 
 less, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth," and man's 
 blood shall be required " at the hand of man." The Red Sea 
 saved whom it did not destroy, and destroyed whom it did not 
 save. 
 
 His "vesture dipped in blood" seems to challenge heaven 
 and earth : " What could have been done more to My vine- 
 yard, that I have not done in it ? " 
 
 " His Name is called The Word of God." Whatever that 
 Other Name may be which abides hidden, this Name reveals 
 to us our nearness and dearness to our Heavenly Father. It
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 449 
 
 is His good Will, His gracious pleasure to speak to us, con- 
 verse with us, maintain intercourse with us. Jesus Christ is 
 the Divine Word to us : and if out of the abundance of man's 
 heart his mouth speaketh, much more fully and infallibly God 
 Omniscient. Jesus is Truth, Wisdom, the Word : " O God 
 . . . the Lord ... I am not worthy of the least of all the 
 mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou ha^t shewed unto 
 Thy servant." " Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto 
 Thee." 
 
 We need everything in Christ, nothing out of Christ : that 
 is, we simply need Christ. To need is a blessed thing, to 
 lack is quite a different thing. " O fear the Lord, ye that are 
 His saints : for they that fear Him lack nothing." But I will 
 not be content to fear Christ : I will love Him. Amen. 
 
 Because Christ being Wisdom is the Word, and being the 
 Truth is the Word, therefore Christians must speak words of 
 wisdom and truth, or else must keep silence. Yet remember 
 truth-telling Balaam and his end, oracular Ahithophel and his 
 end : accuracy without charity, or astuteness without charity, 
 profits nothing. 
 
 Gifts become a curse and no blessing when divorced from 
 graces. Imagine a gift of tongues without either wisdom or 
 truth! 
 
 O God the Son, Who being the Brightness of the Father's 
 Glory and the Express Image of His Person, art to mankind 
 His gracious Word, His revealed Truth, His imparted Wisdom ; 
 grant us grace to speak the truth in love, to show forth meek- 
 ness of wisdom ; not to speak except truthfully, not to be wise 
 except unto salvation. From idle words deliver us, O Lord, 
 from wisdom of the children of this world : from words that 
 may do hurt deliver us, O Lord, from wisdom that is foolish- 
 ness. From all which Thou acceptest not, to which Thou 
 bearest not witness, which beareth not witness unto Thee, 
 which hath not praise of God, deliver us. Amen. 
 
 14. And the armies which were in heaven followed Him 
 upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and 
 clean. 
 
 In the former vision (ch. vi. 2) the Rider on the White 
 Horse went forth (so far as we read) alone : now the armies of 
 heaven follow Him. Thus we behold and adore Christ alone 
 in His work : in felloiL<ship in His triumph. He reappears 
 clad in the unique glory of man's redemption, the "vesture 
 dipped in blood " : whilst His elect follow Him all alike 
 
 F F
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 decked in the joyful glory of the redeemed, " clothed in fine 
 linen, white and clean." 
 
 As one red rose in a garden where all other roses are white 
 
 Blossoms alone in its glory, crowned all alone 
 In a solitude of own sweetness and fragrance of own delight, 
 
 With loveliness not another's and thorns its own ; 
 As one ruddy sun amid million orbs comely and colourless, 
 
 Among all others, above all others is known ; 
 As it were alone in the garden, alone in the heavenly place, 
 
 Chief and centre of all, in fellowship yet alone. 
 
 "Followed Him." Cross-bearers, crown-wearers. "If any 
 man serve Me, let him follow Me ; and where I am, there shall 
 also My servant be : if any man serve Me, him will My Father 
 honour." 
 
 15. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with 
 it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule 
 them with a rod of iron : and He treadeth the wine- 
 press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 
 
 So at the first St. John beheld Him (ch. i. 16) with a sword. 
 In that vision we are certified that it was two-edged as well as 
 sharp : now we read of it only as sharp. During man's pro- 
 bation, the Divine Sword has (so to say) two edges, whereof 
 one wounds, but not incurably ; yea, wounds with the very 
 intent to heal : as St. Paul teaches : " When we are judged, 
 we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be con- 
 demned with the world." The other edge, the edge of extir- 
 pation, hangs all along suspended over our heads ; yet need 
 never fall upon us, God helping our own earnest endeavour. 
 
 The final sentence upon incorrigible sinners is as the fall of 
 that fatal edge. Christ All-Merciful has forewarned us what 
 sort of life leads down to such a death : 
 
 " God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the 
 world ; but that the world through Him might be saved. He 
 that believeth on Him is not condemned : but he that be- 
 lieveth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed 
 in the Name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is 
 the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men 
 loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were 
 evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither 
 cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." 
 
 "Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to 
 destruction, and many there be which go in thereat." 
 
 " Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, 
 and cast into the fire."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 451 
 
 " Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not 
 prophesied in Thy Name ? and in Thy Name have cast out 
 devils ? and in Thy Name done many wonderful works ? 
 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart 
 from Me, ye that work iniquity." 
 
 "The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves 
 shall hear His Voice, and shall come forth . . . they that have 
 done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." 
 
 "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give 
 account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou 
 shall be justified, and by thy words thou shall be condemned." 
 
 "... Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 
 
 " Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also 
 deny before My Father which is in heaven." 
 
 " Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of 
 him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come 
 in His own Glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy 
 angels." 
 
 " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye 
 shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 " He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath 
 one that judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, the same 
 shall judge him in the last day." 
 
 "... Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence 
 make long prayers : these shall receive greater damnation." 
 
 " Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be 
 overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this 
 life, and so that day come upon you unawares." 
 
 "... With the hypocrites : there shall be weeping and 
 gnashing of teeth." 
 
 "Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, 
 Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for 
 the devil and his angels : for I was an hungred, and ye gave 
 Me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink : I was 
 a stranger, and ye took Me not in : naked, and ye clothed Me 
 not : sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not. Then shall 
 they also answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an 
 hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in 
 prison, and did not minister unto Thee ? Then shall He 
 answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye 
 did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me. 
 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment." 
 
 " He shall rule them with a rod of iron." " It is the Lord : 
 let Him do what seemeth Him good."
 
 452 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 "HE TREADETH THE WINEPRESS OF THE FIERCENESS 
 AND WRATH OF ALMIGHTY GOD." 
 
 I lift mine eyes, and see 
 
 Thee, tender Lord, in pain upon the Tree, 
 
 Athirst for my sake and athirst for me. 
 
 "Yea, look upon Me there 
 
 Compassed with thorns and bleeding everywhere, 
 For thy sake bearing all and glad to bear." 
 
 I lift my heart to pray : 
 
 Thou Who didst love me all that darkened day, 
 
 Wilt Thou not love me to the end alway ? 
 
 "Yea, thee My wandering sheep, 
 Yea, thee My scarlet sinner slow to weep, 
 Come to Me, I will love thee and will keep." 
 
 Yet am I racked with fear : 
 
 Behold the unending outer darkness drear, 
 
 Behold the gulf unbridgeable and near ! 
 
 "Nay, fix thy heart, thine eyes, 
 Thy hope upon My boundless Sacrifice : 
 Will I lose lightly one so dear-bought prize ? " 
 
 Ah, Lord ; it is not Thou, 
 
 Thou that wilt fail ; yet woe is me, for how 
 
 Shall I endure who half am failing now ? 
 
 " Nay, weld thy resolute will 
 To Mine : glance not aside for good or ill : 
 I love thee ; trust Me still and love Me still." 
 
 Yet Thou Thyself hast said, 
 
 When Thou shall sift the living from the dead 
 
 Some must depart shamed and uncomforted. 
 
 "Judge not before that day, 
 Trust me with all thy heart even tho' I slay : 
 Trust Me in love, trust on, love on, and pray. " 
 
 16. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a Name 
 written, King of kings, and Lord of lords. 
 
 " On His vesture and on His thigh." Herein (if I may) I 
 discern an intimation of Christ's Twofold Nature. As He is 
 from eternity to eternity in Himself " Equal to the Father, as 
 touching His Godhead," so is He throughout that same eternity 
 inalienably and supremely, potentially if not actually " King 
 of kings, and Lord of lords." Before any kings or any lords 
 were, beyond human faculty of expression or grasp of under- 
 standing, the All-Holy Trinity Was. " I opened my mouth, 
 and panted." Kings bowing down as bulrushes before Him, 
 lords at the beck of His sceptre, though they be kings in 
 heavenly places and lords beyond the bounds of the everlasting 
 hills, of these we can form a conception, we can attest the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 453 
 
 seemliness of their adoration, prostrate with them we can 
 adore ; but the antecedent of these, of such as these, of all 
 creatures, of any creature, silences us. God the Son is King 
 of kings and Lord of lords, and on His thigh the Name is 
 written. 
 
 Equally " on His vesture " is that Same Name written ; on 
 the Nature He has assumed, on the Manhood He has taken 
 into God. For although He was made a little lower than the 
 angels for the suffering of death, yet hath He " by inheritance 
 obtained a more excellent Name than they." 
 
 In Eve, the mother of all living, man desired in vain. to make 
 himself like God. But when God deigned to desire with 
 desire to make Himself like Man, He spake and it was done : 
 and all desire human and Divine was appeased. 
 
 " We have walked to and fro through the earth, and, behold, 
 all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest." 
 
 O God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
 Lights, grant unto us all the Spirit of Wisdom and revelation 
 in the knowledge of Him. Enlighten the eyes of our under- 
 standing that we may know the hope of His calling, and the 
 riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and the 
 greatness of His power to usward. Reveal to us ever more 
 and more Christ risen from the dead, and set at Thine own 
 Right Hand in the heavenly places : Whose dominion is 
 above all dominion, and Whose Name above every name. In 
 which supreme Name, the Name of Jesus, we shelter our- 
 selves and plead with Thee. Amen. 
 
 O everliving God, let this mind be in us which was also in 
 Christ Jesus : that as He from His loftiness stooped to the 
 death of the Cross ; so we in our lowliness may humble 
 ourselves and become obedient unto death, though of con- 
 straint yet likewise willingly, believing and obeying, living and 
 dying, to the glory of God the Father. For the Same Jesus 
 Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
 KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. 
 
 Is this that Name as ointment poured forth 
 
 For which the virgins love Thee : King of kings 
 And Lord of lords ? All Seraphs clad in wings ; 
 
 All Cherubs and all wheels which south and north, 
 
 Which east and west turn not in going forth ; 
 All many-semblanced ordered Spirits, as rings 
 Of rainbow in unwonted fashionings ; 
 
 Might answer, Yes. But we from south and north, 
 
 From east and west, a feeble folk who came 
 By desert ways in quest of land unseen,
 
 454 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 A promised land of pasture ever green 
 
 And ever-springing ever-singing wave, 
 Know best Thy Name of Jesus : Blessed Name, 
 Man's life and resurrection from the grave. 
 
 17. And I saw an angel standing in the sun ; and he cried 
 
 with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in 
 the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves 
 together unto the supper of the great God ; 
 
 18. That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of 
 
 captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh 
 of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh 
 of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. 
 
 This elect Angel " standing in the sun " seems, as it were, 
 elder brother to such elect souls as shall prevail to " dwell with 
 the devouring fire . . . with everlasting burnings." And so 
 the description of such souls throws lovely light (may it not ?) 
 on the character of this and of all angels. 
 
 An angel, then, walks righteously in his own order of 
 perfection : he is holy because God is Holy, and merciful in 
 homage to the Divine Mercy. Loving the truth, hating a lie, 
 he speaks uprightly whatever word is put in his mouth, neither 
 calling bitter sweet nor sweet bitter. Self weighs nought with 
 him, the equity of God's perfect Will absorbing his will and 
 fulfilling his pleasure. He delights not in destruction for 
 destruction's sake, yet as a step in the equal ways of God he 
 delights in it : nor does he investigate evil for evil's sake, but 
 rather as an agent towards the bringing in of Everlasting 
 Righteousness. Thus he dwelleth on high. 
 
 And thus by grace we may dwell below while we await the 
 call to go up higher. 
 
 Nerve us with patience, Lord, to toil or rest, 
 
 Toiling at rest on our allotted level ; 
 
 Unsnared, unscared by world or flesh or devil, 
 Fulfilling the good Will of Thy behest : 
 
 Not careful here to hoard, not here to revel ; 
 But waiting for our treasure and our zest 
 Beyond the fading splendour of the west, 
 
 Beyond this deathstruck life and deathlier evil. 
 Not with the sparrow building here a house : 
 
 But with the swallow tabernacling so 
 
 As still to poise alert to rise and go 
 
 On eager wings with wing-outspeeding wills 
 Beyond earth's gourds and past her almond boughs, 
 Past utmost bound of the everlasting hills. 
 
 " To all the fowls." All, apparently the clean and doubtless 
 (he unclean, must obey that summons, concur in (hat act.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 455 
 
 No man can count on an eagle as his devourer : it may be 
 a vulture. Is it a degradation to be torn piecemeal by a carrion 
 bird? Worse degradation it is to have made oneself the 
 carrion it gorges upon. 
 
 Alas for kings, captains, champions, cavaliers, freemen, great 
 men, who are no longer those excellences at all, but carrion ! 
 Alas for slaves and mean men, carrion no less and no more ! 
 All carrion, like that " flesh of horses " which in this catalogue 
 appears mixed up undistinguishedly with the human refuse. 
 
 Before the beginning Thou hast foreknown the end, 
 Before the birthday the deathbed was seen of Thee : 
 
 Cleanse what I cannot cleanse, mend what I cannot mend, 
 O Lord All-Merciful, be merciful to me. 
 
 While the end is drawing near I know not mine end ; 
 
 Birth I recall not, my death I cannot foresee : 
 O God, arise to defend, arise to befriend, 
 
 O Lord All-Merciful, be merciful to me. 
 
 19. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and 
 their armies, gathered together to make war against 
 Him that sat on the horse, and against His army. 
 
 If this which St. John now sees be consequent upon that 
 which he saw in a former vision (ch. xvi. 13 16) where we 
 read :".... The spirits of devils, working miracles, which 
 go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, 
 to gather them to the battle of that great day of God 
 Almighty " the overthrow of so huge a power there only 
 to be anticipated is here accounted for : God the Almighty 
 Son heads and leads His army to destroy the destroyer. Every 
 day and all day the Church Militant discerns such a muster of 
 evil ; not as yet does she discern the advance of that heavenly 
 host : yet because the things which are seen are temporal, 
 whilst the things which are not seen are eternal, she thanks 
 God and takes courage. 
 
 She always did, always does, always will thank God and 
 take courage. Shall I be the one traitor in her councils, the 
 one craven in her camp ? God forbid ! 
 
 And what after all can Satan and his legions effect against 
 the elect? They can give an immortalizing stroke to that 
 flesh and blood which cannot as they stand inherit the kingdom 
 of God. They can minister incorruption to corruption. They 
 can kindle a fire which will turn to a glory. They can kill 
 the body, but cannot cause one hair to perish. They can dig 
 a grave, but cannot bar resurrection. "Shall not all these
 
 456 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against 
 him ? " 
 
 20. And the beast was taken, and with him the false 
 prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which 
 he deceived them that had received the mark of the 
 beast, and them that worshipped his image. These 
 both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with 
 brimstone. 
 
 Brimstone is solid sulphur, sulphur which has neither been 
 fused nor sublimated, which has not undergone elevation by 
 fire, which abides as originally it was of the earth earthy. Of 
 sulphur (see Latham's Dictionary) I read that it is an " ele- 
 mentary substance so called ; tbe name, unlike the majority of 
 similar ones, being destitute of any technical termination 
 indicative of its character. . . . This suggests the likelihood 
 of the characters of sulphur being negative rather than 
 positive." Sulphur thus becomes a parable of mankind in 
 general : brimstone of any in particular who may be con- 
 demned to the lake of fire. Sulphur is not evil by original 
 constitution, but to become actually good it needs the elevating 
 action of fire : not consigned to the purifying crucible it 
 remains gross though capable of refinement : capable of 
 refinement yet unrefined it is at last condemned as fuel to the 
 flame. [I mean not my little parable for scientific experts, but 
 for verbal dabblers like myself.] 
 
 " The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet " : 
 bound up as it were in a bundle to be burnt. " Fear not, neither 
 be faint-hearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands.'* 
 
 O Christ Who once wast condemned that we might never be condemned, 
 pity us. 
 
 Who once enduredst shame that we might never fall into everlasting con- 
 tempt, pity us. 
 
 Who once wast forsaken of all that we might never be forsaken of God, 
 pity us. 
 
 Who once wast slain that we might never die, pity us. 
 
 Who once madest Thy bed in a grave that we might not come short of a 
 blessed resurrection, pity us. 
 
 O Christ Who showest us hell that we may flee from it, pity us. 
 
 Who showest us heaven that we may thither ascend, pity us. 
 
 Because, O Christ, we deserve condemnation, pity us. 
 
 Because shame hath covered our face, pity us. 
 
 Because many times we have forsaken God, pity us. 
 
 Because we have destroyed ourselves, pity us. 
 
 Because we have said to corruption father, to the worm mother and sister, 
 pity us. 
 
 O Christ Who knowest and we know not the depth of hell, pity us.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 457 
 
 Who knowest and we know not the height of heaven, pity us. 
 Joseph yearned over Benjamin. O Christ, Lord God Almighty, Who 
 hast deigned to become our Brother, pity us. Amen. 
 
 21. And the remnant were slain with the sword of Him 
 that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded ont 
 of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with 
 their flesh. 
 
 " With the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked." 
 
 The deceivers are cast alive into a lake of fire, the deceived 
 are slain with the sword : " With Him is strength and Wisdom : 
 the deceived and the deceiver are His." Thus the seducer 
 being incomparably more guilty than the seduced, incurs a 
 proportionate doom ; the scale of condemnation being poised 
 as accurately, equitably, subtly, as even the scale of salvation. 
 
 According to which Divine model of Justice and Mercy, 
 Holy Mother Church now disciplines or would fain discipline 
 her children : " Of some have compassior, making a differ- 
 ence : and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire ; 
 hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." 
 
 "And all the fowls were filled with their flesh." "The eye 
 that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, 
 the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles 
 shall eat it " : a proverb with a natural meaning and a super- 
 natural suggestion. 
 
 The end of all things is at hand. We all 
 Stand in the balance trembling as we stand ; 
 
 Or if not trembling, tottering to a fall. 
 The end of all things is at hand. 
 
 O hearts of men, covet the unending land I 
 O hearts of men, covet the musical, 
 
 Sweet, never-ending waters of that strand ! 
 
 While Earth shows poor, a slippery rolling ball, 
 
 And Hell looms vast, a gulf unplumbed, unspanned, 
 
 And Heaven flings wide its gates to great and small, 
 The end of all things is at hand. 
 
 Earth is pre-eminently that rolling stone which gathers no 
 moss. She has treasure, but it can be laid up in heaven only : 
 she has a harvest, but her harvest-home is in heaven.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 1. And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the 
 key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his 
 hand. 
 
 " An evil man seeketh only rebellion : therefore a cruel 
 messenger shall be sent against him." Not that I dare mis- 
 deem of this avenging Angel as tinged with any taint of cruelty, 
 but only as merciless when God All-Merciful shuts up His 
 loving-kindness in displeasure. If " the tender mercies of the 
 wicked are cruel," no less are the " cruelties " of the righteous 
 merciful \ for the casting away of all evil is the restitution of 
 all things. 
 
 Who forged that chain? Surely the dragon himself. So 
 Goliath furnished the sword which smote off his own head, 
 and Haman reared the gallows on which he himself came to 
 be hanged. Thus we are self-bound in the chain of sin before 
 God tightens it upon us as a chain of penalty. 
 
 " O God, Whose nature and property is ever to have mercy 
 and to forgive, receive our humble petitions ; and though we 
 be tied and bound with the chain of our sins, yet let the piti- 
 fulness of Thy great mercy loose us ; for the honour of Jesus 
 Christ, our Mediator and Advocate. Amen." 
 
 In the same sense that " God made not death," made He 
 not punishment. 
 
 O God our God, Who hast no pleasure in the death of him 
 that dieth, from death deliver fleshly sinners, spotted, stained, 
 leprous, hideous, one and all and me a sinner. 
 
 From destruction deliver worldly sinners, clogged, weighed 
 down, glued fast to perishing earth, one and all and me a 
 sinner. 
 
 From the bottomless pit, from the lake of fire, deliver 
 spiritual sinners, wilful, rebellious, defiant, braving vengeance, 
 one and all and me a sinner.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 459 
 
 For the love of Jesus, Who laid aside His Glory, Who 
 learned obedience, Who was crucified, Who made His grave 
 with the wicked and with the rich in His death, for love of one 
 and all and of me a sinner. Amen. 
 
 2. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which 
 
 is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand 
 years, 
 
 3. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him np, 
 
 and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the 
 nations no more, till the thousand years should he 
 fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little 
 season. 
 
 Truly a joyful day when these " former things " shall come to 
 pass. Meanwhile if it was not for Apostles to know the times 
 and the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power, 
 how much less for me ! 
 
 The date is hidden, the event revealed : the date therefore 
 concerns me not at present, the event concerns me at once. 
 
 But what ? must we fall a helpless prey to the strong raging 
 dragon, the insinuating serpent, until an angel secure him with 
 chain and seal and the lid of hell? Not so. Even now 
 already thou hast thy chain at hand, my brother, my sister : I, 
 if I will, have mine. 
 
 " Satan trembles when he sees 
 The weakest saint upon his knees." 
 
 Prayer is a chain apt presently to bind him, and which he 
 cannot snap; prayer which links earth to heaven, human 
 weakness to Divine Strength, me (if I will), even me to my 
 Redeemer. Though the great and wide sea be Leviathan's 
 playground, yet to him and to his habitation alike God hath 
 assigned a bound by a perpetual decree so that neither can 
 pass over it. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Who Alone makest our prayers acceptable to 
 the Father, shelter us under prayer, hide us in prayer, give us 
 breathings of prayer wherewith to quench the fiery breath of 
 the dragon, wisdom of prayer whereby to silence the lying 
 subtilty of the serpent. Amen. 
 
 Not dragon simply, or serpent simply; but serpent-dragon 
 to be fled from when met raging, and still more to be feared 
 when gliding unobtrusively. Not a novice, but an "old 
 serpent," surpassingly subtil when Eve encountered him, and 
 having now the accumulated experience of thousands of years 
 and millions of victories. Good Ix>rd, deliver us.
 
 460 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 "A seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no 
 more, till. . . ." If upon himself, Cain's mark as it were. If 
 upon his prison, then we are reminded of the irreversible act 
 of Darius : " A stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth 
 of the den ; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and 
 with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be 
 changed." 
 
 Hell has no bottom, but has a lid : I need not fall in. Hell 
 has indeed no bottom, yet has it one only exit and that 
 upwards. A figure to me of the folly of piling sin on sin in 
 hopes of self-extrication. To cover one lie by a second lie 
 thickens the lid over me. 
 
 Lord, grant us wills to trust Thee with such aim 
 Of hope and passionate craving of desire, 
 That we may mount aspiring, and aspire 
 
 Still while we mount ; rejoicing in Thy Name 
 
 Yesterday, this day, day by day the Same : 
 So sparks fly upward scaling heaven by fire, 
 Still mount and still attain not, yet draw nigher 
 
 While they have being to their fountain flame. 
 
 To saints who mount, the bottomless abyss 
 Is as mere nothing : they have set their face 
 Onward and upward toward that blessed place 
 Where man rejoices with his God, and soul 
 
 With soul, in the unutterable kiss 
 
 Of peace for every victor at the goal. 
 
 "The thousand years ... a little season." I can com- 
 pute a thousand, but not a little. The thousand years I might 
 call long : the little season I incline to figure to myself as 
 much shorter. Either would appear brief if compared with 
 the whole of time ; and time from beginning to end would 
 itself dwindle to mere brevity if set against eternity. Never- 
 theless eternity hangs on time. " Behold, how great a matter 
 a little fire kindleth ! " 
 
 The thousand years of exemption are to be "fulfilled." We 
 read not that the little season of final horror is to be fulfilled. 
 Perhaps Divine Compassion may cut it short ; if so, it appears 
 in harmony with Christ's promise : " For the elect's sake those 
 days shall be shortened." 
 
 " He must . . . " What is to be understood by this must ? 
 an irresponsible, inflexible fate overbearing the Will of the 
 Almighty ? Not so : it expresses to us the fiat of that Al- 
 mighty Will. Shall would have conveyed the same without 
 ambiguity. Possibly so : and if so, a surface ambiguity is here 
 superadded for my profit. How should it profit one? By
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 461 
 
 pressing home upon me to acquiesce in any case and to trust 
 in every case. By practising me in discerning truth and 
 eschewing error. But suppose the other should be the true 
 sense ? I cannot suppose what contradicts everything I know. 
 But suppose it for argument's sake. I will not even for 
 argument's sake suppose that to be true which I know to be 
 a lie. 
 
 4. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judg- 
 ment was given unto them : and I saw the souls of 
 them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and 
 for the word of God, and which had not worshipped 
 the beast, neither his image, neither had received his 
 mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; and they 
 lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 
 
 Lord Jesus, grant us grace to live not by bread alone, but 
 by every word which proceedeth out of Thy mouth. 
 
 Grant us in Thy Revelation to see as it were thrones where- 
 on sitteth that word which Thou hast spoken, and which is to 
 judge us at the last day. 
 
 Grant us to understand somewhat and to obey all. Here 
 am I, send me. 
 
 Grant us to understand somewhat and to believe all. Speak, 
 Lord, for Thy servant heareth. 
 
 Remember Thy sigh, Gracious Saviour, remember Thy word 
 Ephphatha, and evermore open deaf ears. Amen. 
 
 Glorious as is the lot of these princes and peers of the 
 Millennium, I yet perceive one thing : the causes secondary 
 causes, of course ; the primary cause being Divine gratuitous 
 Love the secondary causes of their lofty beatitude are, with a 
 single exception, within the reach of every Christian ; of whom 
 not one need pollute himself by devil worship or idolatry, or 
 need befoul his mind by evil thoughts, or his will by evil 
 choice, or his hands by evil deeds. The qualification not 
 open to all is the being " beheaded " for witnessing their good 
 confession ; and this qualification was not bestowed even on 
 St. John himself, bosom friend, beloved disciple, true witness 
 (see St. John xxi. 24) though he was. 
 
 To be excluded with St. John surely excludes not from the 
 innermost blessedness, from the deepest heart of Divine Love. 
 And who shall realize St. John's joy, his peace, his overflowing 
 gratitude and unspoken " It is enough," when he realized St. 
 James his brother as fulfilling every condition of this great 
 exaltation ?
 
 462 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 They who love as brethren, they who love neighbours as 
 self, can best surmise such a rapture. 
 
 Souls who aspire to the millennial glory, yet who involun- 
 tarily fall more or less short of the revealed qualification, may 
 all together be likened to the spiral tendril of a passion-flower 
 climbing skyward, each curve advanced one grade in approxi- 
 mation, none touching the goal. Thus some confessors have 
 borne prolonged witness in instant hazard of life, and some 
 have endured bitterness of persecution bitter as bitterness of 
 death, and some have taken their life in their hands to reap 
 the mission field, and some have sacrificed earthly prospects to 
 spiritual fidelity, and some have offered up earthly love on the 
 altar of heavenly love. And beside or below this galaxy 
 coruscate resplendent souls who laden with a daily Cross have 
 followed Christ in weariness and painfulness, in watchings and 
 fastings often, in poverty submitted to with Christ or assumed 
 for Christ, in that contented lack of all things which is their 
 true possession, in perfecting work of patience, in self-abase- 
 ment, self-forsaking, self-oblation ; and amongst them behold 
 unobtrusive saints who rejoice in beds of loathsomeness or of 
 agony. 
 
 What reward shall these and such as these inherit ? What 
 reward shall they not inherit ? O Jesus Christ, King of Joy 
 and of Glory, bring us also to see the felicity of Thy chosen, 
 and rejoice in the gladness of Thy people, and give thanks 
 with Thine inheritance. Amen. 
 
 Unless, which let me not for a moment suppose, the dese- 
 cration of the Jewish Seventh Day preceded the consecration 
 of the Christian First Day, it follows that two " Sabbaths " 
 must once at least in the course of time have Occurred in 
 undivided succession. Thus (if lawfully I may) I endeavour 
 to realize to myself one aspect of the Millennium : it is the 
 closing Sabbath of time, scarcely disjoined from the permanent 
 Sabbath of eternity; it is one marked fulfilment of that 
 promise to the Meek, "they shall inherit the earth." Time 
 receives a blessing as it gives place to more blessed eternity : 
 for "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of 
 the life that now is, and of that which is to come." 
 
 "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one 
 day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day." 
 
 " Fulfil her week." Leah and Rachel, recognized figures of 
 the Active and Contemplative Lives, seem consequently to 
 become figures of Time and Eternity. Each claims her rights,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 463 
 
 the week of each must be fulfilled : Leah takes precedence of 
 Rachel, Rachel supersedes Leah. 
 
 Whether we speak of Leah or of Time, either is characterized 
 by craving, aspiring, unsatisfied love : whether of Rachel or of 
 Eternity, either is characterized by satisfaction of love. 
 
 Leah herself declares her fruitfulness to be that which gives 
 her a hold upon her husband : similarly, works wrought in time 
 secure to the creatures of time their hold upon the Divine 
 Spouse. Leah said : " Now this time will my husband be 
 joined unto me, because I have born him three sons. . . . 
 God hath endued me with a good dowry ; now will my husband 
 dwell with me, because I have born him six sons." How in- 
 dissoluble was the tie thus woven between them Jacob himself 
 suggests when he makes his last bed where he "buried 
 Leah." Time passes away, but the result of Time passes not 
 away. 
 
 " Her children arise up, and call her blessed j her husband 
 also, and he praiseth her. . . . Give her of the fruit of her 
 hands ; and let her own works praise her in the gates " please 
 God, the gates of pearl 
 
 Time passeth away with its pleasure and pain, 
 
 Its garlands of cypress and bay, 
 Wiih wealth and with want, with a balm and a bane, 
 Time passeth away. 
 
 Eternity cometh to stay, 
 Eternity stayeth to go not again : 
 Eternity barring the way, 
 
 Arresting all courses of planet or main, 
 
 Arresting who plan or who pray, 
 Arresting creation, while grand in its wane 
 Time passeth away. 
 
 "With Christ a thousand years." Whilst in Thy sight a 
 thousand years are but as yesterday, seeing that it is past ; in our 
 sight they would be less than yesterday, than a moment, than 
 the twinkling of an eye, if a millennium could end in parting. 
 If after knowledge of Thee our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
 if after having known Thee our Way of Righteousness, saints 
 could at last be severed from Thee, they would indeed be of 
 all men most miserable. As now foresight of death straitens 
 and disenchants life, so then would foresight of divorce balk 
 and embitter union. If in order to hasten and have done with 
 the last pang even downcast Elijah requested for himself that 
 he might die, how much more might those ! 
 
 Lord, Good Lord, suffer not one who hath had knowledge
 
 464 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 that Thou art Jesus, ever for any pains of life or death to fall 
 from Thee. 
 
 To know and love God in this mortal life argues immortality. 
 
 O Lord, fulfil Thy Will 
 
 Be the days few or many, good or ill : 
 
 Prolong them, to suffice 
 
 For offering up ourselves Thy sacrifice ; 
 
 Shorten them if Thou wilt, 
 
 To make in righteousness an end of guilt. 
 
 Yea, they will not be long 
 
 To souls who learn to sing a patient song : 
 
 Yea, short they will not be 
 
 To souls on tiptoe to flee home to Thee. 
 
 O Lord, fulfil Thy Will : 
 
 Make Thy Will ours, and keep us patient still 
 
 Be the days few or many, good or ill. 
 
 5. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the 
 
 thousand years were finished. This is the first resur- 
 rection. 
 
 "The rest of the dead" prisoners of hope, prisoners of 
 fear, waiting a thousand years, waiting thirteen thousand 
 moons : years which will terminate, yet which in some sort 
 are already the beginning of the endless end; moons (if I 
 may call them moons) without phases, unchangeable, irre- 
 vocably fixed ; without terror for the prisoners of hope, without 
 hope for the prisoners of fear. 
 
 The popular saying " While there is life there is hope " 
 implies also that while there is life there is fear. Hope and 
 fear in this life are interdependent. Indeed hope without 
 fear might perhaps be viewed no longer as hope but rather 
 as longing expectation, fear without hope as desperate antici- 
 pation. But during probation such distinctions are beside the 
 question. Fear is the ballast of Hope, Hope the buoy of Fear. 
 
 O my God, Who demandest of us patient hope and trustful 
 fear, give us, I beseech Thee, that which pleaseth Thee : 
 contented fear, resigned hope, unexhausted patience, all based 
 on faith, and faith itself based on love. For Jesas Christ's 
 sake. Amen. 
 
 6. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first 
 
 resurrection : on such the second death hath no power, 
 but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and 
 shall reign with Him a thousand years. 
 
 " Whosoever will save his life shall lose it ; but whosoever
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 465 
 
 shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's, the same shall 
 save it," said once our Lord. 
 
 These "blessed and holy" of the First Resurrection ex- 
 perience this privilege in its plenitude. Literally they fulfilled 
 the annexed condition, literally does God fulfil to them His 
 promise. " On such the second death hath no power," it has 
 no hold upon them, it does not apply to them : thus indeed 
 are the children free ! 
 
 Behold the host of men, the host of women, yea, even the 
 host of young children also, who on such wise lost life and 
 saved it. Once over them devout persons made great lament- 
 ation, a grief they were to their fathers, a pang to the mothers 
 that bare them, for love of them brethren and sisters sat alone 
 and kept silence, for love of them kindred faces gathered 
 blackness. Now and for evermore these are they whom their 
 brethren praise, whom virgins love, with whom all saints claim 
 kinship, whom fathers bless, and because of whom mothers 
 forget sorrow for joy that such are born into the world, the 
 deathless world. 
 
 A priest must of necessity have somewhat to offer. Where- 
 fore well may they be priests of God and of Christ, who have 
 offered themselves and have kept back nothing. Now they 
 who kept nothing lack nothing, they who gave all receive all. 
 They counted the cost, and having counted gave their all : this 
 better all which they receive they count not and cannot count. 
 
 These are champions of hosts, alphas of constellations. 
 Their consummate glory lies not within reach of every man. 
 
 Nevertheless it is their gift which is exclusive, not their 
 grace. One who cannot be martyr in deed may yet be martyr 
 in will. Man recognizes the first dazzling company : our God 
 recognizes (thank God) both the first and the last. " Praise ye 
 the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul." " Let every thing 
 that hath breath praise the Lord." 
 
 " They shall be priests . . . and shall reign." "Melchizedek 
 king of Salem . . . was the priest of the Most High God." 
 On earth kings exercise a Royal Priesthood when they inter- 
 cede for and bless their people: Priests a Spiritual Royalty 
 when they rule their flocks with wisdom and self postponement 
 Such functions, virtues, dignities, appertain in various degrees 
 to all superiors; and every intercessor (and what Christian 
 is there debarred from intercession ?) becomes so far a superior. 
 " Covet earnestly the best gifts," and secure them by the " more 
 excellent way." 
 
 O Jesus Christ, the Great High Priest, Who knowest all and 
 
 C G
 
 466 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Jovest all, give unto each one of us grace to shine as Thy spark, 
 Thy flame, Thy conflagration, as best may please Thee, and 
 best may glorify Thee. We are called by Thy Name and lack 
 nothing, we are dear unto Thee and it is enough. 
 
 Yea, blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First Resurrection ! 
 
 We mark well his bulwarks, we set up his tokens, we gaze even we 
 On this lustre of God and of Christ, this creature of flawless perfection : 
 Yea, blessed and holy is he. 
 
 But what? an offscouring of earth, a wreck from the turbulent sea, 
 A bloodstone unflinchingly hewn for the Temple's eternal erection, 
 
 One scattered and peeled, one sifted and chastened and scourged and set 
 
 free? 
 
 Yea, this is that worshipful stone of the Wise Master Builder's election, 
 Yea, this is that King and that Priest where all Hallows bow down the 
 
 knee, 
 
 Yea, this man set nigh to the Throne is Jonathan of David's delection, 
 Yea, blessed and holy is he. 
 
 7. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall 
 
 be loosed out of his prison, 
 
 8. And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the 
 
 four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather 
 them together to battle : the number of whom is as the 
 sand of the sea. 
 
 As Satan went in, so conies he out : a liar and the father of 
 lies ; a murderer from the beginning and to the end. 
 
 He is loosed but not freed. He appears lord of sin : but 
 like the whole wretched rabble of his fellow-sinners he too is 
 merely servant of that sin to which he obeys. 
 
 The wages of sin is death : to penitence the first death, to 
 impenitence the second death. " The sting of death is sin ; 
 and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, 
 which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.'"' 
 
 God's chastisement is always good : my response may be 
 either good or evil. On what does my response depend ? on 
 my own will. 
 
 Lord Jesus, Who didst so bind Thyself with cords of love, 
 that having saved others Thyself Thou couldst not save : con- 
 straining us by love save us. 
 
 Thou Who wast bound and led captive by wicked men, 
 agents of the devil : by Thy captivity free us. 
 
 Bind us if Thou wilt ; but tenderly as in Thine own swaddling 
 bands, guards of weakness, screens from peril. Amen. 
 
 That thousand years' imprisonment wrought no reformation : 
 therefore hell ensued. 
 
 The thousand years of paralyzed wickedness seem on com-
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEI-.r. 467 
 
 parison better rather than worse than the little season of 
 rampant wickedness; I mean, even as regards the wicked 
 one. By inference : hell itself in all its horror may so far be 
 better than ante-hell. 
 
 [Nevertheless: From fancied wisdom, presumptuous guesses, 
 vnm speculations, unauthorized conclusions, Good Lord, deliver 
 all, deliver me.] 
 
 A spiritual- minded and very dear person once suggested to 
 me (and to me the suggestion was new and unheard of) that 
 this final insurrection of Gog and Magog seduced and stirred 
 up by diabolical deceit, may not be as heretofore a rebellion 
 of the living ; but rather a closing death-struggle of the already 
 dead, occurring in the interval between the first and the second 
 death. My friend dropped no more than a very few words, but 
 thus I attempt to state her idea. Years ago she went home 
 from shadows to substances, and happy should I be were I a 
 mirror to others of some of her wisdom. Only let not errors 
 of mine be imputed to her. 
 
 Contemplating the text under such a borrowed light, the 
 deceit may apparently consist not in sophistries such as erst 
 entrapped the living fool to say in his heart, There is no God ; 
 but in equally futile sophistries now encouraging the creature 
 to a trial of strength with its Creator : a much more desperate 
 undertaking than if earth should so challenge the sun. 
 
 As such a scheme, however, trenches upon interpretation, J 
 pursue it no further, except to note how vividly it sets before 
 me that he who dies a rebel rises a rebel ; and that lost souls 
 are punished not for sins left behind, but for sin clung to, 
 persisted in, chosen with unrelaxed, inflexible choice. 
 
 Ezekiel in three successive chapters (xxxvii., xxxviii., xxxix.) 
 sets before us in vision or in prophecy a resurrection to life of 
 perished Israel, and an upsurging and destruction of Gog with 
 his hosts of Magog. However these three chapters may admit 
 of a previous temporal interpretation, they exhibit no less a 
 vivid symbol of events which will close time and open eternity. 
 
 That there is difference as well as likeness between these two 
 revelations touching Gog and Magog, is suggested by Ezekiel's 
 Gog and Magog being derived expressly "out of the north 
 parts," whilst St. John's muster from " the four quarters of the 
 earth." The first host is a multitude, the second a multitude 
 of multitudes: and even of the former it is predicted : "Thou 
 shall ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud 
 to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people 
 with thee."
 
 468 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " The number of whom is as the sand of the sea." Nearly 
 the same simile is used of faithful Abraham's descendants : 
 " As the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable." So that 
 sand which is neither good nor evil, by being compared to 
 something good and to something evil indifferently, reminds us 
 once more how a simile is not a proof, neither is an illustration 
 evidence. 
 
 I in my degree must bear this in mind. Sand may curb 
 excursiveness, but cannot serve for a foundation. 
 
 " Fear ye not Me ? saith the Lord : will ye not tremble at 
 My presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the 
 sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it ? " " Every 
 one that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, 
 shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house 
 upon the sand : and the rain descended, and the floods came, 
 and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell : 
 and great was the fall of it." "The sand [is] weighty," says the 
 Proverb. 
 
 9. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and 
 compassed the camp of the saints about, and the 
 beloved city: and fire came down from God out of 
 heaven, and devoured them. 
 
 " If it had not been the Lord Who was on our side, now may 
 Israel say ; if it had not been the Lord Who was on our side, 
 when men rose up against us : then they had swallowed us up 
 quick, when their wrath was kindled against us : then the 
 waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our 
 soul : then the proud waters had gone over our soul. Blessed 
 be the Lord, Who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth." 
 
 " On the breadth of the earth." Hast thou perceived the 
 breadth of the earth ? declare if thou knowest it all." Broad 
 yet finite : narrower than a hairbreadth by comparison with 
 infinity. " I see that all things come to an end : but Thy 
 commandment is exceeding broad." 
 
 "The camp of the saints." For the last time we thus 
 behold the Church Militant ; shortly she will reappear as the 
 Church Triumphant : for the last time terrible as an army with 
 banners ; then and for evermore fair as the moon, clear as the 
 sun. 
 
 The saints form a camp, but we perceive not that at 
 this juncture they fight. It may be that like their Divine 
 Captain they neither strive nor cry ; but now are called to 
 stand still and see the salvation of God, as Israel once on the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 469 
 
 Red Sea coast awaited deliverance. "Vengeance is Mine; 1 
 will repay, saith the Lord." Having done all, they stand. 
 
 All along their weapons had been superhuman, their warfare 
 spiritual, not carnal. They fought the battles of the Lord not 
 only to save their own souls alive, but likewise so far as in 
 them lay to subdue the adversaries to His obedience ; in 
 themselves and in all mankind aiming to promote the Divine 
 glory and supremacy. Theirs was a long-drawn fight in hope 
 and charity, in faith, zeal, and obedience. It may be that as 
 to any active agency they are mercifully exempted from the 
 war of extermination. 
 
 "The beloved city." "The Lord loveth the gates of Zion 
 more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are 
 spoken of thee, O city of God." " The Lord hath chosen 
 Zion ; He hath desired it for His habitation. This is My rest 
 for ever : here will I dwell ; for I have desired it." 
 
 " Fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured 
 them." Nevertheless, why will we die ? Fire from heaven 
 once reclaimed an apostate nation ; once carried up a saint by 
 a whirlwind into heaven. This day is still the day of salvation ; 
 there is yet time, there is yet room. Why will we die ? If we 
 die it is by our own obstinacy. 
 
 O Merciful Lord God, O Lord most Merciful, so replenish 
 us with grace that whatever else may be hidden from us we 
 may always everywhere and in all things discern Thy mercy. 
 For if being Truth Thou canst not deny Thyself, neither being 
 Love canst Thou be other than Thyself. In which Thine 
 Unchangeableness grant us quiet hearts, assurance of holy 
 hope, peace, patient confidence of love. For Jesus Christ's 
 sake, Who is our All in all. Amen. 
 
 For folly give us wisdom, Good Lord, for heart of stone 
 heart of flesh, for rebellion loyalty, for sin righteousness, for 
 death resurrection, for mortal life, life immortal. Good Lord, 
 for Thine own sake. Amen. 
 
 Sodom perished by fire for pride, fulness, idleness, neglect 
 of the poor, haughtiness, depravity : from crying sin and signal 
 punishment, Good Lord, deliver us, as Thou didst deliver 
 righteous Lot vexed of soul. 
 
 Nadab and Abihu perished by fire for offering strange fire : 
 from presumption and sacrilege, from fellowship in evil and not 
 in good, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Certain Israelites perished by fire for murmuring in the 
 wilderness : from thankless discontent, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Two hundred and fifty Levites perished by fire for invading
 
 470 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the Priest's Office : from exceeding our rights and outstepping 
 our order, Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Two Captains of Fifty for slighting a Prophet perished by 
 fire with their Fifties : from like sin and like destruction, Good 
 Lord, deliver us, as Thou didst deliver with his Fifty the third 
 Captain humbling himself and deprecating wrath. 
 
 10. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the 
 lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the 
 false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and 
 night for ever and ever. 
 
 " The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed 
 lo and fro of them that seek death." 
 
 Did Satan then seek death ? Yes, even if he named not 
 death that which he sought. He sought not life : and there- 
 upon seeking somewhat he sought death. A fearful parallel 
 holds good : as he, so we, if we seek not .life seek death. 
 
 O Christ our only Life, our Life immortal, Who of old hast 
 declared, " I am found of them that sought Me not " ; say to us 
 also "Behold Me, behold Me," and with the word give the 
 grace. So shall we not die but live and declare Thy works, O 
 Lord : so with all living shall we praise Thee as I do this day. 
 Amen. 
 
 Satan is " that old serpent " ; and in the serpent tribe we 
 observe ghastly, loathly, emblematic likenesses of Satan. Con- 
 strictors some of them, some vessels of venom ; flat heads, 
 unemotional eyes, forked darting tongues are amongst them : 
 silent, insinuating, gliding, they are upon us before we know 
 that they are near. Yet of all living creatures which my 
 memory records no one in Satanic suggestion approaches, to 
 my own thinking, the octopus. 
 
 One single small octopus in an aquarium is all I have seen. 
 It had a fascination for me. Inert as it often appeared, it bred 
 and tickled a perpetual suspense : will it do something ? will it 
 emerge from the background of its water den ? I have seen it 
 swallow its live prey in an eyewink, change from a stony colour 
 to an appalling lividness, elongate unequal feelers and set them 
 flickering like a flame, sit still with an air of immemorial old 
 age amongst the lifeless refuse of its once living meals. I had 
 to remind myself that this vivid figure of wickedness was not in 
 truth itself wickedness. 
 
 " Where the beast and the false prophet are." " Art thou 
 also become weak as we : art thou become like unto us ? " 
 
 Recognition appears no less essential to the rancorous horror
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 471 
 
 of hell than to the felicity of heaven. Recognition points and 
 clenches hatred as well as love. If so be they are immured 
 eternally together, what other soul could be to Caiaphas as 
 Judas, or to Judas as Caiaphas ? or to the Pharisee as his own 
 twofold more child of hell, or to that child as that Pharisee ? 
 
 Alas for seducer and seduced who once called their bond 
 love, and behold it is loathing ! " Day and night for ever and 
 ever." 
 
 11. And I saw a great white Throne, and Him that sat on 
 it, from Whose Face the earth and the heaven fled 
 away ; and there was found no place for them. 
 
 " Great," and all other thrones are as footstools before it : 
 " white," for it is the tribunal of absolute equity. " Fear before 
 Him, all the earth." " And 1 will wait on Thy Name; for it 
 is good before Thy saints." 
 
 This fleeing away of earth and heaven, of irresponsible 
 nature, may serve as a symbol how neutrality (if in truth 
 neutrality can be said ever to have existed) will be abolished 
 at the last day. Either the Right Hand or the Left, no middle 
 region : either saint or reprobate, no mixed character. 
 
 Where two bodies touch the dividing line is imaginary. 
 
 Earth, heaven, neutrals : " there was found no place for 
 them." 
 
 O Christ our God, inasmuch as Thy sacred footsteps con- 
 ferred not perpetuity on this present earth, let us not harbour 
 a grudge because endeared familiar places must one day know 
 us no more. 
 
 O Christ our God, inasmuch as Thy triumphant Ascension 
 conferred not perpetuity on the heaven that now is, let us not 
 lose patience while we await the unseen heaven Thou prepares! 
 for them that love Thee. 
 
 Lift up thine eyes to seek the invisible : 
 Stir up thy heart to choose the still unseen t 
 Strain up thy hope in glad perpetual green 
 
 To scale the exceeding height where all saints dwell. 
 
 Saints, is it well with you? Yea, it is well. 
 
 Where they have reaped, by faith kneel thou to glean ; 
 Because they stooped so low to reap, they lean 
 
 Now over golden harps unspeakable. 
 
 But thou purblind and deafened, knowest thou 
 Those glorious beauties unexperienced 
 By ear or eye or by heart hitherto ? 
 
 I know Whom I have trusted : wherefore now- 
 All amiable, accessible tho' fenced, 
 Golden Jerusalem floats full in view.
 
 472 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 That which one faces, modifies, and is reflected from the 
 face. 
 
 Alas ! what fire is it which flushes the world's face to an 
 " angry and brave " rose ? 
 
 The Church Militant exhibits a pale, ascetic face, because 
 the pale forecast of the " Great White Throne " abides upon it. 
 A light heart is not for her, but rather the weight of an ever- 
 conscious responsibility. Idle words are not for her, for of 
 such an account must be given in the Day of Judgment. 
 Revellings and such like are not for her, for though one eat and 
 drink to-morrow he must die. Her courage is curbed by fear, 
 her fear spurred by courage. She lifts not up her face to a 
 window, neither cries she to an arm of flesh, Who is on my 
 side ? who ? But she lifts up her eyes to the unearthly hills 
 from whence cometh her help, even from the Lord Who hath 
 made heaven and earth. 
 
 " It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to 
 the house of feasting : for that is the end of all men ; and the 
 living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter : 
 for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. 
 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning : but the 
 heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear 
 the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of 
 fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the 
 laughter of the fool : this also is vanity." 
 
 12. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before 
 God ; and the books were opened : and another book 
 was opened, which is the book of life : and the dead 
 were judged out of those things which were written 
 in the books, according to their works. 
 
 On the dead for whom once Thou diedst, Lord Jesus, have mercy. 
 
 On the living for whom Thou ever livest, have mercy. 
 
 Thou Who wast arraigned before a corrupt judge, O Incorruptible Judge, 
 
 have mercy. 
 
 Thou Who knowest what is in man, O Son of Man, have mercy. 
 Thou Whose works were all good, have mercy. 
 Thou Whose life, in the sight of the unwise, once hung in suspense before 
 
 Pilate, have mercy. 
 
 Thou Who Thyself ever knowest what Thou wilt do, have mercy. 
 On the small, mercy. 
 On the great, mercy. 
 
 Thou Who art unlike us in Thy sinlessness, on us sinners have mercy. 
 Thou Who art like us in Thy Humanity, on us Thy brethren and Thy 
 
 sisters, have mercy. 
 
 Blot out our evil works from Thy Book of Works, and have mercy. 
 Write our names in Thy Book of Life, and have mercy.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 473 
 
 Blot not out our names, but have mercy. 
 
 Give us tears from the Fountain of Thy Mercy. 
 
 Store our tears in Thy bottle, with Thine own tears shed for us in pure 
 
 mercy. 
 And whatever we lack let us not lack Thy mercy. Amen. 
 
 " Stand before God " past kneeling, past praying ; not to 
 be converted, but sentenced. Now, not then, is the day of 
 salvation : not then except for the already saved. 
 
 My page in the Book of Works is to me awful : the contents 
 are my own, the record is not my own. It is my life's record 
 without oversights, without fjlse entries or suppressions : any 
 good set down accurately as good ; all evil, unless erased by 
 Divine Compassion, set down accurately as evil. Nothing 
 whatever is there except what I have genuinely endeavoured, 
 compassed, done, been : I meant it all, though I meant not to 
 meet it again face to face. It is as if all along one had walked 
 in a world of invisible photographic cameras charged with 
 instantaneous plates. 
 
 The Book of Life may seem yet more awful, kept secret as 
 it has been from the foundation of the world in the knowledge 
 of God Omniscient. 
 
 Yet is it really so ? It is in fact no independent statement, 
 but appears to be essentially an index or summary of the other. 
 I who composed although I compiled not my Book of Works, 
 I myself virtually entered or entered not my name in the 
 corresponding Book of Life : to dread this beyond the other, 
 is to dread a sum total rather than those very items which 
 produce the total. 
 
 For whilst we read that "the dead were judged out of those 
 things which were written in the Books," it was none the less 
 " according to their works." 
 
 13. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and 
 death and hell delivered up the dead which were in 
 them : and they were judged every man according to 
 their works. 
 
 If I make my bed in hell, if I dwell in the uttermost parts of 
 the sea, the darkness will not cover me, but Thy right hand will 
 find me and fetch me back. To saints a promise, to sinners a 
 threat : a blessing, an anathema, "according to their works," 
 and not otherwise. 
 
 " The sea gave up the dead which were in it." The dead, 
 but nought else was as it would seem reclaimed : the diver, but 
 not the pearl which cost him his life ; the crews, but not the
 
 474 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 bullion of foundered ships of Tarshish. Thus complicated 
 civilization produces or amasses riches : and the riches come to 
 nothing except as accusers, and the lives cannot be silenced in 
 the day of account. In that day many luxuries may turn out 
 to have been unlawful, and the price of blood. Ahab was 
 requited in Naboth's vineyard. " So teach us to number our 
 days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." 
 
 Death (if I may so express myself) has an enormous swallow, 
 but no digestion : Hades may be viewed as rather a pound 
 than a prison. Like the feaster with him who hath an evil 
 eye, they twain shall "vomit up " the eaten morsel : they have 
 feasted with Satan, and like that evil-eyed host they must be 
 excluded from the land of blessed life everlasting. 
 
 Yet Death presents two aspects, Hades two regions : a 
 kindly aspect for Christ-lovers, a twilight bright with afterglow 
 for any who have worked the work of Christ. So that we 
 may pray : 
 
 Lord Jesus Who livest, from the sting of death deliver us. 
 
 Lord Jesus Who hast died, to the peace of death bring us. 
 
 Lord Jesus Who art risen, let not our grave have the victory. 
 
 Lord Jesus Who wast buried, prepare for us a quiet resting- 
 place. 
 
 Cl other of the lily, Feeder of the sparrow, 
 
 Father of the fatherless, dear Lord, 
 Tho' Thou set me as a mark against Thine arrow, 
 
 As a prey unto Thy sword, 
 As a ploughed-up field beneath Thy harrow, 
 
 As a captive in Thy cord, 
 Let that cord be love ; and some day make my narrow 
 
 Hallowed bed according to Thy word. Amen. 
 
 14. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. 
 This is the second death. 
 
 " God hath not given us the spirit of fear ; but of power, 
 and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore 
 ashamed of the testimony of our Lord . . . but be thou 
 partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power 
 of God; Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy 
 calling, not according to our works, but according to His own 
 purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before 
 the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing 
 of our Saviour Jesus Christ, Who hath abolished death, and 
 hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." 
 
 Thus St. Paul points out that our being called " with an 
 holy calling, "precedes our duty of working and guarantees our
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 475 
 
 ability to achieve those works according to which we shall be 
 judged. This premised, I think we may infer that each man's 
 lot must inevitably be either to partake of the sanctifying afflic- 
 tions of the gospel along with its life and immortality ; or else 
 so to cling to death (for this mortal life is a slow death, and sin 
 a superadded death) that at last death and he must be abolished 
 together. 
 
 I suppose that amongst so many things which I understand 
 not, thus much I may understand. Because death and Hades 
 are " cast into the lake of fire," impenitent man may expect 
 to find every plague which he has ever known, rankled against, 
 kicked against, there amongst unknown plagues ready to receive 
 him, and to become unto him as the cloak that he hath upon 
 him, and as the girdle that he is alway girded withal. Superb 
 strength must writhe bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, 
 dainty beauty corroded by obscene corruption. Hades the 
 intermediate prison reappears intensified as Hell the final 
 prison, the first death as the second death. 
 
 "By Thine Agony, by Thy precious Death and Burial, 
 Good Lord, deliver us." 
 
 15. And whosoever was not found written in the book of 
 life was cast into the lake of fire. 
 
 Or according to the Revised Version : " And if any was not 
 found written in the Book of Life, he was cast into the lake 
 of fire." 
 
 This latter translation may suggest (if I dare so think) a 
 Divine tenderness, yearning, regret. No summary sentence 
 was pronounced, but the Book was searched : " who knoweth 
 jf_?_ an d if so be that he find it." Not that God 
 Omniscient before the beginning foresaw not the end, or that 
 in the ultimate issue of all courses any (except to their own 
 cost) will have resisted His Will; but Holy Scripture being 
 written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort 
 of the Scriptures might have hope, condescends to the limit- 
 ation of oar intelligence and the faintings of our heart, and 
 deals tenderly with us, showing us at a first glance the Fatherly 
 Divine Love ; then at a second anxious look, more vivid and 
 deeper becomes the revelation of that same Love ; so that the 
 more we look the more Love we perceive ; until other aspects 
 fall into the background, and sometime afraid though we are 
 and cannot but be, yet (by God's grace) we put our trust in 
 Him. 
 
 " God is Love." Yet I must not so pervert that most com-
 
 476 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 foi table word as to make it mean that He will exercise a mercy 
 contrary to justice. Beyond a doubt "God is Love" : it is 
 my own conception of love which may not in truth be love. 
 
 What in the height and depth of my soul, transcending far 
 my level of attainment, "as high as heaven . . . deeper 
 than hell " ; what is in truth my own ideal of love ? 
 
 Such love, at once an affection and a mystery, would sacrifice 
 not myself alone but the beloved object also to his (or her) 
 highest good. Which faithful " for better for worse " chooses 
 the utmost good attainable ; or if perfection or even genuine 
 good has become unattainable, then chooses the least evil 
 within possibility. 
 
 I fall back on "God is Love." 
 
 " Into the lake of fire." ' . . . Into hell, into the fire that 
 never shall be quenched : where their worm dieth not, and 
 the fire is not quenched. . . . For every one shall be salted 
 with fire." Not consumed, but conserved; not devoured by 
 fire, but salted with fire. 
 
 Whether for good or for evil, to be consumed appertains to 
 time, to be unconsumed appertains to eternity.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 1. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for tne first 
 heaven and the first earth were passed away; and 
 there was no more sea. 
 
 Behold, one heaven and one earth have passed away, but 
 Christ's word has not passed away. Blessed are now the poor 
 in spirit and the persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs 
 is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are now the meek, for they 
 inherit the earth. Well might St. John who " saw," look up 
 and lift up his head ; for however remote, his redemption, the 
 general redemption, was drawing nigh. 
 
 Meanwhile the first heaven and the first earth make up our 
 own present lot. Of those others God giveth us not as yet so 
 much as to set our foot on, although He promises them to us 
 for a possession. 
 
 The temporary heaven and earth above, around, beneath us, 
 import us now, supply now things convenient for us. These 
 we are bound to use, and by no means to misuse or neglect. 
 " He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in 
 much : and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. 
 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous 
 mammon, .who will commit to your trust the true riches ? And 
 if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, 
 who shall give you that which is your own ? " And though 
 the ihings which are seen be but temporal, yet a work of the 
 Great Creator is and cannot but be GO great, that I suppose 
 neither the profoundest and most illuminated saint, nor all 
 saints summed up together will have exhausted the teaching of 
 things visible, even when the hour comes for them to give 
 place to things invisible. " Ye shall not have gone over the 
 cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come." 
 
 Heaven and earth are to be renewed. Not so the sea : 
 "There was no more sea." And wherefore not the sea? 
 
 Regarding the first creation as symbolical, one answer (how-
 
 478 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 ever inadequate : please God, not contradictory of truth) 
 suggests itself. The harvest of earth ripened, was reaped, was 
 garnered : the sea nourished and brought up no harvest. It 
 bore no fruits which remain, it wrought no works which follow 
 it. It was moreover originally constituted as a passage, hot as 
 an abode : across it man toiled in rowing to the haven where 
 he would be, but itself never was and never could become that 
 haven. Thus it presents to us a picture of all which must be 
 left behind. In Ezekiel's vision of the healing river, we yet 
 read concerning a portion of the sea-space : " But the miry 
 places thereof and the marishes thereof shall not be healed ; 
 they shall be given to salt," given over, it would seem, to 
 reprobation. 
 
 " Ye are the salt of the earth," said our Divine Teacher : 
 salt in reference to earth and its prevalent corruption, not 
 apparently in any immediate reference to the kingdom of 
 immortality and perfection. " Have salt in yourselves," He 
 said again ; but still apparently in reference to man's conduct 
 during probation. 
 
 That is an accursed region whereof we read : " That the 
 whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it 
 is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein." 
 Again, the accursed man " that trusteth in man, and maketh 
 flesh his arm, and whose heart denarteth from the Lord , . . 
 shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt 
 land and not inhabited." And the Prophet Zephaniah asso- 
 ciates " the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual 
 desolation." Also we " Remember Lot's wife." 
 
 Yet how shall we be consoled for our lost sea with its 
 familiar fascination, its delights, its lifelong endearedness? 
 Lo ! heaven enshrines its own proper sea of glass as it were 
 mingled with fire, and the uplifted voice of the redeemed is 
 as the sound of many waters. There at last is fulness of that 
 joy, whereas the sea never yet was full ; there plenteousness 
 of pleasures as a river. There music unheard hitherto, un- 
 imaginable, in lieu of the long-drawn wail of our bitter sea. 
 
 Or if after all we cannot during our actual weakness be 
 thoroughly and consciously consoled on this point, let it at 
 least bring home to us that better it is to enter into life, halt, 
 or maimed, or one-eyed, than having two feet, hands, eyes, to 
 be shut out. To suffer loss and be saved is better than to 
 forego nothing and be lost. 
 
 " There was no more sea." As in a far different matter, 
 " For our sakes, no doubt, this is written."
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 479 
 
 my God, bestow upon us sucli confidence, such peace, 
 such happiness in Thee, that Thy Will may always be dearer 
 to us than our own will, and Thy Pleasure than our own 
 pleasure. All that Thou givest is Thy free gift to us, all that 
 Thou takest away Thy grace to us. Be Thou thanked for all, 
 praised for all, loved for all. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 Amen. 
 
 The sea laments with unappeasable 
 Hankering wail of loss, 
 
 Lifting its hands on high and passing by 
 
 Out of the lovely light : 
 No foambow any more may crest that swell 
 Of clamorous waves which toss ; 
 Lifting its hands on high it passes by 
 
 From light into the night. 
 
 Peace, peace, thou sea ! God's Wisdom workcth well, 
 Assigns It crown or cross : 
 
 Lift we all hands on high, and passing by 
 Attest : God doeth right. 
 
 2. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming 
 down from God ont of heaven, prepared as a bride 
 adorned for her husband. 
 
 " For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth : and 
 the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. 
 But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create : for, 
 behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. 
 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people : and 
 the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the 
 voice of crying." 
 
 (If I am not mistaken) a double point of likeness here 
 connects St. John with his Adorable Master. Throughout the 
 Gospel record of Christ's sayings whilst on earth He never once 
 calls Himself by His Blessed Name of Jesus ; but speaking 
 from heaven first to Saul of Tarsus, afterwards in this Apoca- 
 lypse (ch. xxii. 1 6) in reference to the Churches, He nameth 
 Himself by that Name which is above every name, whereat 
 every knee shall bow and which every tongue shall confess. 
 Even so the beloved disciple who in his Gospel enters not his 
 own name so much as once, now speaking as from within the 
 door opened into heaven names himself thrice, and of these 
 times twice in the emphatic form " I John." 
 
 To ourselves an alluring lesson of present abasement, future 
 exaltation. Thus pearls submerged awhile in deep waters 
 come to light hereafter in the City of God. 
 
 1 think too that our eager hope of recognition, the craved
 
 480 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 for "I am I and you are you " of eternal reunion, is hereby 
 solaced and strengthened ; whilst we perceive one such identity 
 as might even have eluded observation on earth proclaimed 
 triumphantly in heaven. 
 
 My Lord, my Lord Jesus, Thou art enough, Thou by Thy- 
 self art enough. Yet withholdest Thou no good thing from 
 them that live a godly life. And 1 hou discernest the heart's 
 desire of every man, and Thou hearest the request of all lips. 
 Every heart's desire and request I commend to Thee, most 
 loving Lord. Amen. 
 
 What will it be at last to see a " holy " city ! for Londoners, 
 for Parisians, for citizens of all cities upon earth to see a holy 
 city. Truly as yet this also "eye hath not seen." Not such is 
 or ever was Jerusalem that now is, or Rome though styled 
 eternal or sacred, or Moscow albeit called holy : neither does 
 any continent or island rear such, nor is any ruin extant of 
 such, nor is so much as one material foundation-stone laid of 
 such. 
 
 Nevertheless whoever seeks citizenship at last in that all 
 holy City must now day by day watch, pray, labour, agonize 
 it may be, to sanctify his allotted dwelling in his present mean 
 city ; though this be as Babylon awaiting destruction, as an 
 actual city of the plain clamouring for the vengeance of eternal 
 fire. 
 
 Art thou as Lazarus ? Hold fast godliness and contentment, 
 earnests and precursors of great gain. Art thou as Dives ? 
 Heed betimes the voice of Lazarus : 
 
 I, laid beside thy gate, am Lazarus ; 
 See me or see me not I still am there, 
 Hungry and thirsty, sore and sick and bare, 
 
 Dog-comforted and crumbs-solicitous : 
 
 While thou in all thy ways art sumptuous, 
 Daintily clothed, with dainties for thy fare : 
 Thus a world's wonder thou art quit of care, 
 
 And be I seen or not seen I am thus. 
 
 One day a worm for thee, a worm for me : 
 With my worm angel songs and trumpet burst 
 And plenitude an end of all desire : 
 
 But what for thee, alas ! but what for thee ? 
 Fire and an unextinguishable thirst, 
 Thirst in an unextinguishable fire. 
 
 New Jerusalem has been gathered from the uttermost part 
 of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven : stone by stone, 
 soul by soul, here a little and there a little. Laps of luxury, 
 fire of temptation, ease of riches, squalor of destitution,
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 481 
 
 pinnacles of giddy exaltation, mountains of difficulty, valleys 
 of humiliation, each has sent up its prefixed weight, number, 
 measure, nothing lacking, nothing over. Redeemed, called 
 by name, claimed, precious, honourable, beloved, brought from 
 the east and gathered from the west, given up by the north 
 and by the south kept not back, God's sons have been brought 
 from far and His daughters from the ends of the earth ; even 
 every one that is called by the Divine Name, formed of God, 
 created for His glory. Alleluia! 
 
 New Jerusalem comes down " from God out of heaven," 
 not as leaving God, but inasmuch as His Presence goeth with 
 her. As when of old that Adorable Presence led the elder 
 Israel in the stages of their Exodus, so now that Same Adorable 
 Inalienable Presence leads her out and brings her in, is 
 beneath her for stability, over her for benediction, around her 
 for acceptance. As a chaste virgin espoused she comes down, 
 longed for, toiled for, Self-sacrificed for, bought with a great 
 price by Him Who gave His whole Substance for love. 
 
 She has received all and now she gives back all. She is 
 " adorned for her Husband," for her Beloved Who is indeed 
 more than another beloved. He loved her first, and now she 
 returns His love. He is the Sun, and now as His moon- 
 mirror she appears clear as the sun. He is the Life, and now 
 she has received life from Him and lives to Him. She is His 
 lily, no longer among thorns because He once wore those 
 thorns that so He might take them out of her way. He is 
 All-Holy : and now, her heart purified by His Blood and 
 sanctified by His Spirit, she sees Him Whom to see beatifies. 
 His graces shed on her form the ornament to her head and the 
 chains about her neck. Beautiful are her feet shod with the 
 preparation of the Gospel of His peace. Behold her in 
 tenderness His dove, in likeness His sister, in union His 
 spouse. 
 
 Behold her ! yea, also, and behold thyself, O thou called to 
 be a saint. Her perfections are thy birthright ; thou art what 
 she was, what she is thou maycst become. That Goodness 
 which is her fountain of good overflows to thee likewise. 
 Covet earnestly gifts such as hers, practise self-adornment for 
 love of Him who loveth thee. Reserve gems and pearls for 
 immortality when thou shalt be flawless as they. Adorn 
 thyself meanwhile with flower-like graces : humility the violet, 
 innocence the snowdrop, purity the lily ; with sweetness for a 
 honeysuckle, with penitence for a fruitful thorn. To-day put 
 on the garments of salvation prepaie'd for thee, that to-morrow 
 
 H H
 
 482 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 thou mayest be promoted to wear the garments of praise. 
 "Then shall every man have praise of God." 
 
 A lovely city in a lovely land, 
 
 Whose citizens are lovely, and whose King 
 Is Very Love ; to Whom all angels sing ; 
 
 To Whom all saints sing crowned, their sacred band 
 
 Saluting Love with palm-branch in their hand : 
 Thither all doves on gold or silver wing 
 Flock home thro* agate windows glistering 
 
 Set wide, and where pearl gates wide open stand. 
 
 A bower of roses is not half so sweet, 
 A cave of diamonds doth not glitter so, 
 Nor Lebanon is fruitful set thereby : 
 And thither thou, beloved, and thither I 
 May set our heart and set our face, and go 
 
 Faint yet pursuing home on tireless feet. 
 
 3. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, 
 the tahernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell 
 with them, and they shall he His people, and God 
 Himself shall he with them, and he their God. 
 
 I know not whether the following train of thought is 
 allowable : if not, I repudiate it. 
 
 " Out of heaven " or according to the Revised Version : 
 " Out of the Throne." By this double reading two immutable 
 things, the consensus of heaven and the Supreme Decree from 
 the Throne, may be suggested. Not that in either case it is 
 other than a Divine behest; but thus I seem to see once again 
 and vividly the final absolute unity of all sanctified wills with 
 the Supreme Will. Will, pleasure, approval, choice, in these, 
 in all, the perfected elect are at one with their Father, 
 Redeemer, Sanctifier. "God . . . with men" pervades, so 
 to say, the verse : three times it is expressed ; three times, the 
 number of completeness. 
 
 " The Tabernacle " itself appears as threefold. It is Christ 
 in Whom dwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead Bodily. 
 It is the one Church built up in Him and constituted a dwelling 
 of the Holy Spirit. It is each individual saved soul instinct 
 with the Divine Life and Presence. For ever and ever, one 
 by one, each soul a separate, self-conscious, loving, adoring, 
 rejoicing entity : not a drop swallowed up in an ocean, a flame 
 merged in a conflagration, but what it was that it is and that 
 it will be for ever and ever. 
 
 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
 Ghost;
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 483 
 
 As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be world 
 without end. Amen. 
 
 "The Tabernacle." Here where all is perfected, final, 
 irreversible, one might perhaps have expected the word to be 
 Temple rather than Tabernacle. Yet Tabernacle it is, and so 
 has special associations proper to itself. 
 
 It carries thought back to that outset (if I may call it so) of 
 Divine Love to the chosen nation when the Angel of His 
 Presence saved them, and He led them and carried them. 
 And to the tenderness of that wonderful word to David : 
 " Shalt thou build Me an house for Me to dwell in ? Whereas 
 I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up 
 the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have 
 walked in a tent and in a tabernacle. In all the places wherein 
 I have walked with all the children of Israel spake I a word 
 with any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed 
 My people Israel, saying, Why build ye not Me an house of 
 cedar ? " And indirectly to that mystery of grace : " The 
 gifts and calling of God are without repentance." " Go and 
 cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord ; I 
 remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine 
 espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a 
 land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the Lord, 
 and the firstfruits of His increase." " God is faithful." 
 
 Moreover the word Tabernacle, by recalling to our mind the 
 older progressive journey day after day, may perhaps encourage 
 us to look for progress throughout the days of the years of 
 eternity. Further on indeed we shall encounter the word 
 Temple with all its associations of accomplishment, perpetuity, 
 rest. But here the word written for our learning is Tabernacle, 
 which thus becomes our " word of exhortation." 
 
 " God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." 
 Yet in some measure it has been so all along as to the righteous. 
 The Goodness of God awaits not a new earth, then and not 
 till then to begin being with His beloved and being their 
 God. Of old He declared, " I change not " : it is men that 
 shall be changed. Sin forgiven, guilt abolished, infirmity 
 healed, the possibility of lapse ended, we ourselves (please 
 God) shall be renewed when all things are made new. 
 
 In the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 
 shall be brought forth out of. its treasure things new and old. 
 
 " With them " and "their " is a promise made unto us and 
 to our children, and to as many as the Lord our God shall call. 
 Yet is it not a promise, or of the nature of a promise, except to
 
 484 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 such as are willingly His people : to obstinate sinners it would 
 be no promise at all, " but a certain fearful looking for of 
 judgment and fiery indignation." 
 
 God made man, Satan unmade man, Christ remaketh man. 
 Yet is it also true that man makes or unmakes himself by 
 virtue of his free will. 
 
 From our foes protect us, from ourselves rescue us, let not 
 freewill turn to selfwill and curse our blessings. Good Lord, 
 Kind Lord, Longsuffering Almighty Lord Jesus. Amen. 
 
 Whiteness most white. Ah, to be clean again 
 
 In mine own sight and God's most holy sight ! 
 To reach thro' any flood or fire of pain 
 Whiteness most white : 
 
 To learn to hate the wrong and love the right, 
 Even while I walk thro' shadows that are vain, 
 Descending thro' vain shadows into night. 
 
 Lord, not to-day : yet some day bliss for bane 
 
 Give me, for mortal frailty give me might, 
 Give innocence for guilt, and for my stain 
 Whiteness most white. 
 
 4. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and 
 there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor 
 crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the 
 former things are passed away. 
 
 It needeth God and it will be God to " wipe away all tears." 
 " As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you ; 
 and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see 
 this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like 
 an herb." 
 
 to 
 Together with my dead body shall they arise. 
 
 Shall my dead body arise ? then amen and yea 
 In quest of a home beyond the uttermost skies 
 
 Together with my dead body shall they. 
 
 We know the way : thank God Who hath showed us the way ! 
 Jesus Christ our Way to beautiful Paradise, 
 
 Jesus Christ the Same for ever, the Same to-day. 
 
 Five Virgins replenish with oil their lamps being wise, 
 Five Virgins awaiting the Bridegroom watch and pray : 
 
 And if I one day spring from my grave to the prize, 
 Together with my dead body shall they. 
 
 My brother, my sister, thus shall it be with thee, and thus 
 can I well believe that it will be with thee. Blessed are they 
 that weep now, then to laugh ; that mourn now, then to be 
 comforted. And right dear in the sight of the Lord is the
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 485 
 
 death of His saints. And on the birthday of life immortal 
 anguish of pain shall be forgotten for joy of being born into 
 the eternal world. Therefore are they wise who as yet scarce 
 smile a little, and frequent the house of mourning rather than 
 the house of feasting, and die daily, and groan and travail in 
 patient pain waiting for the redemption of the body. My 
 brother, my sister, happy in knowing these things, and happier 
 still in doing them. 
 
 I recollect in a fine sermon meeting with a thought which 
 substantially remains with me. Devout souls, steeped as it 
 were in the anguish of Holy Week, may by stress of that very 
 love and sorrow be unable at a moment's notice to unfurl 
 bright Easter wings and soar triumphant heavenward : so that 
 Easter may overtake them less like giants rejoicing at the goal 
 than like strengthless convalescents still with no more than 
 one step between them and death, carried in kind arms out 
 into the reviving sunshine, laid down in a pleasant spot to 
 inhale the sweet free air, learning gradually to assimilate ?. 
 renewed hope, joy, peace. 
 
 To some such phases a student of the Apocalypse appears 
 liable : " I am afflicted, and ready to die from my youth up : 
 while I suffer Thy terrors I am distracted." Pardonable, 
 laudable up to a certain point ; but beyond that point not to 
 be indulged. Let us not persist in remaining as Zion, who 
 said, " The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten 
 me," even when the message came : " Sing, O heavens ; and 
 be joyful, O earth ; and break forth into singing, O mountains : 
 for the Lord hath comforted His people, and will have mercy 
 upon His afflicted." 
 
 It is possible to substitute an actual meditation on tears, 
 death, sorrow, crying, pain, for a professed meditation on 
 their abolition. (Whereof I should beware. The homely old 
 proverb bears witness : It is a poor heart that never rejoices.) 
 
 If I can scarcely forecast a wiping away of my own tears, I 
 can trustfully contemplate that blessed consummation for all 
 tears of some whom I have loved and revered, who in earlier 
 days set before me examples of things lovely and of good report. 
 
 With one such holy cherished memory I connect the text : 
 " O how plentiful is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up 
 for them that fear Thee : and that Thou hast prepared for 
 them that put their trust in Thee, even before the sons of men ! 
 Thou shalt hide them privily by Thine own presence from the 
 provoking of all men : Thou shalt keep them secretly in Thy 
 tabernacle from the strife of tongues."
 
 486 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 With a second : " Hearken, O daughter, and consider, incline 
 thine ear : forget also thine own people, and thy father's house. 
 So shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty : for He is thy 
 Lord God, and worship thou Him." 
 
 With a third : " For to their power, I bear record, yea, and 
 beyond their power they were willing. . . ." 
 
 Two of these I watched to the last breath, and the third 
 nearly to the end. I have witnessed tears, death, sorrow, 
 crying, pain. God grant that I may witness the general and 
 particular abolition of all these when death shall at length be 
 swallowed up in victory : that I, that we all, may witness and 
 share in that rapture. 
 
 A CHURCHYARD SONG OF PATIENT HOPE. 
 
 All tears done away with the bitter unquiet sea, 
 
 Death done away from among the living at last, 
 Man shall say of sorrow Love grant it to thee and me ! 
 At last, " It is past." 
 
 Shall I say of pain, "It is past," nor say it with thee, 
 
 Thou heart of my heart, thou soul of my soul, my Friend ? 
 Shalt thou say of pain, " It is past," nor say it with me 
 Beloved to the end ? 
 
 " For the former things are passed away." The word is far, 
 not by any means although. The flesh and blood endeared to 
 us by a lifetime, the marrying and giving in marriage which 
 formed the vocation and felicity of our fathers and mothers 
 from Adam and Eve downwards, have passed away. Had 
 they not, neither would death and its associates have passed 
 away. 
 
 What is good must often be given up in favour of something 
 better. Who would perpetuate blossom and forego fruit? 
 
 To over-cultivate, develop, double a flower, destroys its 
 fruitfulness. Such double flowers have no future. 
 
 5. And He that sat upon the Throne said, Behold, I make 
 all things new. And He said unto me, Write : for 
 these words are true and faithful. 
 
 O Blessed Jesus, Bridegroom of souls, remember how once 
 Thou saidst : " Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, 
 as long as the Bridegroom is with them? but the day will 
 come, when the Bridegroom shall be taken from them, and 
 then shall they fast." Now, Lord, we fast and mourn : till 
 Thou return, to mourn is better. But when Thou returnest, 
 how will it be with Thine own faithful ones ? No more sorrow, 
 because no more sin; no more death, because nothing more
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 487 
 
 worthy of death. Again Thou sayest : " Behold, I make all 
 things new " : Good Lord, renew us to fresh powers of loving 
 Thee in the joy of Thine unveiled Presence. Yet to each of 
 us be Thou the Same, and be each soul to Thee the same : 
 say Thou, " It is I," and give each of us grace to answer, It is 
 I. Amen. 
 
 New creatures; the Creator still the Same 
 
 For ever and for ever : therefore we 
 
 Win hope from God's unsearchable decree 
 And glorify His still unchanging Name. 
 We too are still the same : and still our claim, 
 
 Our trust, our stay, is Jesus, none but lie : 
 
 He still the Same regards us, and still we 
 Mount toward Him in old love's accustomed flame. 
 We know Thy wounded Hands : and Thou dost know 
 
 Our praying hands, our hands that clasp and cling 
 To hold Thee fast and not to let Thee go. 
 
 All else be new then, Lord, as Thou hast said : 
 
 Since it is Thou, we dare not be afraid, 
 Our King of old and still our Self-same King. 
 
 " He said unto me, Write : for these words are true and 
 faithful." True is isolated, absolute, self-sufficient : faithful 'is 
 relative, tenderly considerate. True is an announcement : 
 faithful a promise. Were every man a liar, God and His Word 
 would abide unalterably true ; but (blessed be God !) as the 
 case stands, to all who loving and doing the truth are joyful 
 in Him, God and His Word abide no less unalterably faithful. 
 
 O Lord, Whose mercy reacheth unto the heavens and Whose 
 faithfulness unto the clouds, seal to us Thy mercy. 
 
 Thou Who of very faithfulness causest us to be troubled, 
 bring Thou our soul out of trouble that we may praise Thee 
 among much people. 
 
 Thou Whose loving mercy and faithfulness preserved our 
 Lord Christ, while by life and death He fulfilled Thy pleasure, 
 in Him behold us ; that having pleased Thee on earth we may 
 glorify Thee out of our graves, trusting Thy faithfulness even 
 in destruction. 
 
 Thou Whose faithfulness and truth are man's shield and 
 buckler, by Thy light and Thy truth lead us evermore ; that so 
 all saints together may praise Thee and Thy faithfulness, O 
 God, playing upon instruments of music celestial, and may 
 sing to Thee upon golden harps, O Thou Holy One of 
 Israel. 
 
 Through Him in Whom all Thy promises are Yea and 
 Amen, Jesus Christ our only hope.
 
 48$ THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 O Lord Jesus, Whose words are true and faithful, I am full 
 of frailties, faults, falls. Set a watch before my mouth : keep 
 the door of my lips. Except Thy grace curb me I shall 
 offend : yea, except Thy grace inspire me I cannot so much 
 as utterly purpose that my mouth shall not offend. Lord, Who 
 knowest my foolishness, give me wisdom and truth in my 
 heart, that out of the abundance of my heart my mouth may 
 speak worthily. And I pray for all others with me, give us 
 honest and good hearts and acceptable words. Amen. 
 
 A fall is a signal not to lie wallowing but to rise. 
 
 It is not the signal I should choose, yet it is the signal I 
 have chosen. 
 
 Having chosen it wrongly, let me at least obey it rightly. 
 
 6. And He said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, 
 the Beginning and the End. I will give unto him that 
 is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. 
 
 If one of our difficulties in striving to rejoice with celestial 
 joy arises from our having hitherto no experience of any un- 
 alloyed delight for what we know, that we can contemplate, 
 meditate upon, and by kindling of grace anticipate ; but what 
 we know not, how are we to lay hold upon ? an efficacious 
 aid towards joy is, I think, vouchsafed us by the wording of 
 this blessed Apocalypse whereby we are sent back again and 
 again to earlier utterances of the same Revelation. Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, Who many times has called us to worship Him 
 in fear, serve Him by sustained and ever-renewed effort, flee 
 from His wrath, take refuge in His mercy, die daily while we 
 live to Him, and when we die by dying to Him live eternally, 
 now by proclaiming Himself under His former title certifies us 
 that He abideth faithful and cannot deny Himself. "There is 
 therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ 
 Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 
 
 This, then, Who changes not is He Who now says, " It is 
 done." W 7 hen hanging on the Cross He said, " It is finished," 
 the work of man's Redemption was finished. Now that He 
 says, "It is done," Salvation, "the fountain of the water of life," 
 is freely proffered to all who thirst. Alas ! for any who thirsting 
 refuse to drink : their blood is on their own heads. 
 
 Lord, Thy saints know their beginning, for Thou art their 
 Beginning of life ; and their end, for Thou art their endless 
 End ; and the number of their days, for Thou givest them a 
 long life even for ever and ever, the length of the years of 
 Thine own immortality. Thy saints know this and know all
 
 THE FACE 01- THE DEEP. 489 
 
 things : Thou Who lovest all, grant unto us all, I pray Thee, 
 to know all things; and in all, by all, beyond all to know Thee, 
 love Thee, cleave unto Thee, trust Thee, attain unto Thee. 
 Amen, Amen. 
 
 It is our own heart that needs to be tuned aright as His 
 Heart is with our heart. 
 
 Tune me, O Lord, into one harmony 
 
 With Thee, one full responsive vibrant chord ; 
 Unto Thy praise all love and melody, 
 Tune me, O Lord. 
 
 Thus need I flee nor death, nor fire, nor sword : 
 A littie while these be, then cease to be, 
 
 And sent by Thee not these should be abhorred. 
 
 Devil and world, gird me with strengtli to flee ; 
 
 To flee the flesh, and arm me with Thy word : 
 As Thy Heart is to my heart, unto Thee 
 Tune me, O Lord. 
 
 "Unto him that is athirst." The thirsty soul stands between 
 a Divine promise and its fulfilment. " I will give," saith our 
 Gracious Lord : as when to one suppliant leper He spake, " I 
 will," and it was done, " I will give ... of the Fountain of 
 the Water of Life freely." Christ's word is pledged ; the Well 
 of Water is springing up into everlasting life : what doth 
 hinder ? Nothing doth hinder, unless it be that I thirst not, 
 neither go thither to draw. Free is the gifr, but I also am free 
 to accept or to decline it. 
 
 There is a mystery of evil which I suppose no man during 
 his tenure of mortal life will ever fathom. But there is a 
 second mystery of evil (unless I ought rather to call it a branch 
 of the original mystery under a special aspect) which every in- 
 fected soul must track, must run to earth if I may use the 
 phrase, each for itself; following upon and overtaking it, 
 neither turning again till it be destroyed. I pursuing my own 
 evil from point to point find that it leads me not outward amid 
 a host of foes laid against me, but inward within myself : it is 
 not mine enemy that doeth me this dishonour, neither is it 
 mine adversary that magnifieth himself against me : it is I, it 
 is not another, not primarily any other; it is I who undo, 
 defile, deface myself. True, I am summoned to wrestle on my 
 own scale against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness 
 of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places ; but none of 
 these can crush me unless I simultaneously undermine my own 
 citadel. That tremendous endowment of Free Will which can 
 even say nay to God Almighty, is able tenfold to say nay to
 
 490 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 the strong man armed. Nothing outside myself can destroy 
 me by main force and in my own despite : so that as regards 
 my salvation the abstract mystery of evil concerns me not 
 practically ; my own inherent evil is what I have to cope with. 
 Thus the universe seems to stand aside, leaving me already all 
 alone face to face with my Judge ; at once and for ever as 
 utterly alone with Him as I can be at the last day when set 
 before His tribunal. 
 
 So long as I live I must, I cannot but, resist, wrestle with 
 somewhat. . . . Evil or good. Satan or Christ, I am resisting, 
 I am setting myself against. To fight against Satan is to 
 engage on my side the Stronger than he. To fight against 
 Christ .... 
 
 Dear Lord, by Thy mercies, Thy compassions, boundless 
 compassions, mercies innumerable, keep me, keep all from 
 ever knowing what it is to fight against Thee. 
 
 He "that is athirst" is alone he .to whom this free gift 
 is promised. 
 
 The . gift, being free, cannot be claimed : yet being by 
 promise, the promise can be claimed. 
 
 To desire the gift is to desire the terms of the gift. If I 
 thirst not, at least let me thirst to thirst. " Open thy mouth 
 wide." 
 
 Although I cannot at a wish command thirst, at least let me 
 at once practise free giving : for as this is the duty of those 
 who have freely received, though I be not as yet conscious of 
 having received the free gift, perhaps by behaving myself as 
 having it in possession, it may the more copiously be vouch- 
 safed me. 
 
 For there is no limit to the Fatherly Bounty of my God. 
 
 Refreshing texts for people " hungry, and weary, 'and thirsty, 
 in the wilderness " : 
 
 "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, 
 and threescore and ten palm trees : and they encamped there 
 by the waters." "And from thence they went to Beer; that 
 is the well whereof the Lord spake unto Moses, Gather the 
 people together, and I will give them water. Then Israel 
 sang this song, Spring up, O well ; sing ye unto it. ... " 
 " Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain ; yet that 
 valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink." " Thou 
 gavest also Thy Good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest 
 not Thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for 
 their thirst." " Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee. 
 . . . Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well ;
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 49! 
 
 the rain also filleth the pools." " He turneth the wilderness 
 into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings. 
 And there He maketh the hungry to dwell." " When the poor 
 and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue 
 faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of 
 Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, 
 and fountains in the midst of the valleys : I will make the 
 wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." 
 - " I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon 
 the dry ground : I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My 
 blessing upon thine offspring : and they shall spring up as 
 among the grass, as willows by the watercourses." 
 
 " Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath 
 it : but the instruction of fools is folly." " The words of a 
 man's mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom 
 as a flowing brook." 
 
 7. He that overcometh shall inherit all things ; and I will 
 be his God, and he shall be My son. 
 
 In the Revised Version : "... shall inherit these things " : 
 ~-by which perhaps we may understand either the whole 
 uninterrupted train of glories and blessings enumerated thus 
 far from the opening of this chapter ; or more particularly the 
 " all things new " of ver. 5. Not, it may be, that there is any- 
 real difference between the two ideas ; but even the smallest 
 verbal distinction in a document so all-important invites 
 notice ; as when with accurate humility St. John recorded : 
 " Jesus said not unto him . . . but . . . . " If it became St. 
 John, how much more does it become us not to be wise above 
 that which is revealed. " For vain man would be wise, though 
 man be born like a wild ass's colt." 
 
 Returning to the Authorized Version, we once more observe 
 how the end reproduces the beginning : as at the starting- 
 point " he that overcometh " was the only hero, so he alone 
 reappears at the goal. At the outset, however, temptation 
 after temptation, snare after snare, each having special features, 
 was enumerated : and one soldier and servant was summoned 
 to face, despise, triumph over one form of evil ; whilst another 
 was summoned to oppose and conquer a diverse foe. The 
 temptation being special to each man, man by man ; so each 
 victory would have its special point of vantage, ray of glory, 
 guerdon. Now on the contrary at the beatific consummation 
 when the King deigns to be glorified in His saints and admired 
 in all them that believe, "he that overcometh" is rewarded
 
 492 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 without measure : he inherits not one thing, not many things, 
 but even " all things." As indeed was long ago sung by the 
 Psalmist : " The Lord God is a sun and shield : the Lord will 
 give grace and glory : no good thing will He withhold from 
 them that walk uprightly." 
 
 Surely then these who finally inherit all things guaranteed 
 to any soul, must while probation endured have had within 
 themselves at least the germ of every grace anywhere developed. 
 A surmise full of joy when the thralls of lifelong involuntary 
 disadvantages are in question : "... A poor and a wise 
 child. . . . Out of prison he cometh to reign." Tending also, 
 I think, to allay party feeling and party cries ; St. Paul and 
 Faith ! St. James and Works ! if so be we arrive at last within 
 sight of those blessed Saints we shall behold both of them 
 invested with glory because of faith, and with glory because of 
 works ; alike in unlikeness, as one star differeth from another 
 star yet both in glory. 
 
 "And I will be his God, and he shall be My son." 
 " Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
 us, that we should be called the sons of God. . . . Beloved, 
 now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what 
 we shall be : but we know that, when He shall appear, we 
 shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is. And 
 every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even 
 as He is pure. . . . Little children, let no man deceive you. 
 ... In this the children of God are manifest, and the children 
 of the devil : whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of 
 God, neither he that loveth not his brother." 
 
 Thus must he do, such must he become, thus must he 
 persevere unto the end, whosoever desires at the end to have 
 God for his God and to be to Him a son. It will take a life- 
 long overcoming if we, if such as I, are to purify ourselves 
 thoroughly, do righteousness consistently, love all our brethren 
 without exception. 
 
 A lifelong overcoming, but worth the long anxious agoniz- 
 ing strain to be like Him and see Him as He is at last. 
 
 " 1 will . . . and he shall . . . " " Blessed be the God 
 and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us 
 with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ : 
 according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation 
 of the world, that we should be holy and without blame 
 before Him in love : having predestinated us unto the adoption 
 of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good 
 pleasure of His Will, to the praise of the glory of His grace,
 
 THE FACE OF THE 1)1: 1: 1'. 493 
 
 wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved." " For it 
 is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His 
 good pleasure." 
 
 8. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, 
 and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and 
 idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the 
 lake which burneth with fire and brimstone : which is 
 the second death. 
 
 O Lord, by might of Whose grace trembling Esther took 
 her life in her hand to the saving of her people and of her own 
 soul ; grant us such salutary fear of Thee as may tread under- 
 foot all other fear : even so from the second death defend us. 
 
 O Lord, Whose word by Elisha convicted a certain lord of 
 unbelief, wherefore he partook not of the abundance which his 
 eyes beheld ; grant us so implicitly to believe Thy promises 
 and threatenings that we may evermore refuse the evil and 
 choose the good : even so from the second death defend us. 
 
 O Lord, Who by Thine Angel smotest Herod highly- 
 esteemed among men but making himself an abomination in 
 Thy sight ; grant us wisdom to choose the praise of God rather 
 than the praise of men, that our praise may indeed be not of 
 men but of Thee, until that day when every man shall have 
 his praise of God : even so from the second death defend us. 
 
 O Lord, the Avenger of Blood, Who for the devil, that 
 murderer from the beginning, hast prepared everlasting fire ; 
 deliver us from blood-guiltiness that we fall not into the same 
 condemnation ; that slain bodies or slain souls should rise up 
 against us at Thy Judgment Seat, avert, O Lord : even so from 
 the second death defend us. 
 
 O Lord, Who by Thine Apostle St. Paul hast instructed us 
 that to the defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, even their 
 mind and conscience being defiled ; purify us that unto us all 
 things may become pure, yea, purify our hearts that we may 
 see Thee, our God : even so from the second death defend us. 
 
 O Lord, Who by the same blessed Paul didst smite Elymas 
 the sorcerer with blindness, that so others seeing and fearing 
 might be converted and live and flee from the wrath to come ; 
 deliver us from unhallowed curiosity, from superstition, from 
 tampering with unlawful arts : even so from the second death 
 defend us. 
 
 O Lord, Who by the arm of Samson destroyedst the wor- 
 shippers of Dagon, and afterwards without might of man 
 abasedsf'that impotent idol ; take away all idols out of our
 
 494 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 hearts and any stumbling-block of iniquity from before our 
 face : even so from the second death defend us. 
 
 O Lord the Word, Wisdom, Truth, Who having warned us 
 that he that telleth lies shall not tarry in Thy sight, afterwards 
 by Elisha the Prophet didst condemn Gehazi, and by St. Peter 
 the Apostle Ananias and Sapphira ; from the heinous besetting 
 sin of falsehood purge every soul of man, woman, child : even 
 so, Good Lord, from the second death defend us. Amen. 
 
 Texts by way of antidote : 
 
 " The fear of man bringeth a snare : but whoso putteth his 
 trust in the Lord shall be safe." " Lord, I believe ; help 
 Thou mine unbelief." " Every one that is proud in heart is 
 an abomination to the Lord : though hand join in hand, he 
 shall not be unpunished." " Whosoever hateth his brother is 
 a murderer : and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life 
 abiding in him." " God shall bring every work into judgment, 
 with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be 
 evil." " There shall not be found among you any one . . . 
 that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, 
 or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or 
 a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an 
 abomination unto the Lord." "What say I then? that the 
 idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is 
 anything? But I say, that the things which the Gentiles 
 sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God : and I would 
 not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot 
 drink the Cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils : ye cannot 
 be partakers of the Lord's Table, and of the table of devils." 
 "Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceit- 
 ful tongue. What shall be given unto thee ? or what shall be 
 done unto thee, thou false tongue? Sharp arrows of the 
 mighty, with coals of juniper." 
 
 9. And there came unto me one of the seven angels which 
 had the seven vials fall of the seven last plagues, and 
 talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew 
 thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. 
 
 Flesh and blood shrink from " the seven angels which had 
 the seven vials full of the seven last plagues " ; but behold ! 
 the vials are emptied, the plagues accomplished, the righteous 
 abide unscathed, one of the angels draws nigh with a joyful 
 message. 
 
 All souls have been searched, sifted, tested ; have been 
 weighed, and have been found wanting or not wanting. Those
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 495 
 
 who have endured to the end, the same are saved. And to 
 them the messenger of vengeance turns out to be their own 
 commissioned messenger of peace. 
 
 What Christ-like condescension may we not look for from St. 
 John the beloved ! Surely here he stands as representative of 
 all his brethren, yea, of one the least of those his brethren. 
 His gifts, graces, illumination, privileges, vouch for ours, if so 
 be we watch and pray to believe as he believed, hope as he 
 hoped, love as he loved. 
 
 If I desire the consummation, it is in my power to practise 
 its antecedents and to rehearse it day by day. Hourly, 
 momentarily, there come to me mercies or chastisements. 
 The chastisements themselves are veiled mercies, as it were 
 veiled angels. The mercies I name chastisements are no less 
 merciful than those which at once I recognize as mercies : no 
 less so, if filially I bow my will to the Divine Will Open- 
 faced angels are no more celestial than are angels unawares. 
 
 Lord, whomsoever Thou shall send to me, 
 Let that same be 
 
 Mine Angel predilect : 
 Veiled or unveiled, benignant or austere, 
 Aloof or near ; 
 
 Thine, therefore mine, elect. 
 So may my soul nurse patience day by day, 
 Watch on and pray 
 
 Obedient and at peace ; 
 Living a lonely life in hope, in faith ; 
 Loving till death ; 
 
 When life, not love, shall cease. 
 .... Lo, thou mine Angel with transfigured face 
 Brimful of grace, 
 
 Brimful of love for me ! 
 Did I misdoubt thee all that weary while, 
 Thee with a smile 
 
 For me as I for thee ? 
 
 St. John, who has already beheld "the Lamb," is now 
 permitted and invited to see " the Bride, the Lamb's Wife." 
 Christ First, Nearest, Dearest : the Communion of Saints 
 second, near, dear. Christ our All in all : and with Him not 
 nothing, but all things. 
 
 Lord, bring with Thee my beloved, according to Thy Will : 
 and to them and much more to Thee bring me at last un- 
 worthy. Amen for us all. Amen. 
 
 Lord, by what inconceivable dim road 
 Thou leadest man on footsore pilgrimage ! 
 Weariness is his rest from stage to stage, 
 
 Brief halting-places are his sole abode.
 
 496 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Onward he fares thro' rivers overflowed, 
 
 Thro" deserts where all doleful creatures rage ; 
 Onward from year to year, from age to age, 
 
 He groans and totters onward with his load. 
 Ueliold how inconceivable his way ; 
 
 How tenfold inconceivable the goal, 
 
 His goal of hope deferred, his promised peace : 
 Yea but behold him sitting down at ease, 
 
 Refreshed in body and refreshed in soul, 
 At rest from labour on the Sabbath-day. 
 
 10. And lie carried me away in the spirit to a great and 
 
 high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the 
 holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, 
 
 11. Having the glory of God : and her light was like unto 
 
 a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear 
 as crystal ; 
 
 " A great and high mountain." A mystical Pisgah. As 
 from Pisgah Moses beheld the Holy Land, so now from this 
 mountain St. John the Holy City. Thus far similarity : after- 
 wards contrast. That earthly mountain becomes as a beacon- 
 height of disappointment and death, the holy land having no 
 power to ascend and meet the longing saint. The unearthly 
 mountain of vision becomes as a watch-tower of hope, a 
 threshold of possession, because the holy city descends to 
 appease desire. 
 
 Not that aught created, however " great," can of itself appease 
 desire. But He Who made her and Who sends her forth 
 invests her with His own Glory, so that her resplendence is 
 an image and outcome of His own according to a former 
 revelation : " He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and 
 a sardine stone." She comes down from Him, nevertheless 
 He comes down with her ; she goes not forth except He goes 
 with her ; she is no void shrine, but a tabernacle of God ; a 
 sacred vessel, not empty but full of the Divine Presence. 
 God within her is her Holiness, without her, her Glory : He 
 is above her for her Crown and exceeding great Reward, 
 beneath her for a sure Foundation, around her for Satisfaction 
 without satiety in the indissoluble union of mutual Love 
 inexhaustible. St. John who gazes upon her is of her. She is 
 the Body of Christ, and he a Member in particular. Now 
 beholdeth he what he shall be when seeing Christ as He is he 
 shall be like Him. 
 
 The King's Daughter is all glorious within, 
 
 Her clothing of wrought gold sets forth her bliss ; 
 Where the endless choruses of heaven begin 
 The King's Daughter is ;
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 497 
 
 Perfect her notes in the perfect harmonies ; 
 With tears wiped away, no conscience of sin, 
 Loss forgotten and sorrowful memories ; 
 
 Alight with Cherubin, afire with Seraphin, 
 
 Lily for pureness, rose for charities, 
 With joy won and with joy evermore to win, 
 The King's Daughter is. 
 
 Souls full of grace, highly favoured, may deduce a higher 
 and more inward lesson : even very weak poor souls may learn 
 their own lowly lesson. "The Bride" appears not under the 
 semblance of a woman, but as a "great city" beautiful for 
 situation, the joy of the whole earth, the city of the Great 
 King : thus repelling mortal frailty from any sensual, equivocal, 
 unworthy image of transcendent spiritual truths which demand 
 purged hearts for their contemplation, purged lips for their 
 utterance. 
 
 Not Holy Jerusalem but obscene Babylon flaunts forth 
 under the figure of a woman. 
 
 Lord Jesus, show us what Thou wilt, that above all else we 
 may prefer Thee. Hide from us what Thou wilt, that we may 
 fall back on Thee. Show us not what would hide Thee : 
 hide not what would reveal Thee. Say unto us, " It is I " ; 
 and if it please Thee say unto us, "Be not afraid." 
 
 12. And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, 
 and at the gates twelve angels, and names written 
 thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of 
 the children of Israel : 
 
 Wherefore "a wall,'' and wherefore "gates "? "Thou shall 
 call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise." Isaiah writes 
 walls, St. John a wall. New Jerusalem standing foursquare 
 possesses under one aspect four walls; yet these being con- 
 tinuous and all four corner-stoned into unity seem to be one 
 at least as indisputably as to be four. And (if so I may take 
 the sense) Isaiah's walls reappearing as St. John's wall, sets 
 forth the universal salvation as being one free gift from the 
 alone Will, Might, Love, of God : whilst the gales are twelve, 
 because multitudinous mankind offering praise for so great a 
 gift uplifts an innumerable voice. 
 
 Or I may connect the wall with the One all-pervading, all- 
 containing Indwelling Presence : the gates with the inflow of 
 every confluent stream of humankind. That wall is inclusive, 
 not exclusive, for its gates stand open (see ver. 25) : those 
 gates are of ingress not of egress, for none who enter thereby 
 shall go out any more (see ch. iii. 12). 
 
 i i
 
 498 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 That New Jerusalem has a wall expresses to me a local, 
 distinct, defined heaven (at least, as by a condescension to our 
 present faculties) ; not indiscriminate as were the waters before 
 the formation of a firmament, nor without form like void 
 chaos; but a genuine home, with recognizable features and 
 amiabilities of a home meet for those who have weaned them- 
 selves from earth on the promise and faith of heaven. For 
 now we too " desire .a better country, that is, an heavenly," 
 which is far different from not desiring any country at all ; 
 the home feeling being congruous with that other human 
 craving not to be unclothed but clothed upon. 
 
 Truly that Great Householder Whose house is the universe 
 will be no man's debtor, but will bring forth from His treasure 
 things new and old. All holy desires shall be fulfilled, nor 
 shall even mere blameless desires be nothing accounted of, 
 please God. 
 
 Noah's Ark, that primitive type of the Church, was built 
 with a window as is expressly stated. As a type it prefigured 
 the Church not perfected but on probation, corresponding 
 with that Gospel net which enclosed both bad and good : 
 thus its raven went in and out at the window, and its dove 
 needing shelter and comfort found both there. Again: Isaiah 
 foresaw the Church as built of fair colours and sapphires, of 
 carbuncles and pleasant stones, and as having windows of 
 agates ; but this is still the Church Militant, whose children 
 must yet be taught, and against whom there would yet be a 
 gathering together foredoomed to overthrow. 
 
 What is the one most obvious purpose of a window ? To 
 admit light. The Holy of Holies fashioned after an unearthly 
 pattern had no windows, neither can it apparently have had 
 any light save what (man knoweth not) may have been vouch- 
 safed by the Presence within. No light of day was worthy to 
 enter into that Presence compared with which it became as 
 outer darkness. So likewise we read not of windows as apper- 
 taining to the Holy Jerusalem, the Church perfected and 
 triumphant : she herself is consecrated as a veritable Holy of 
 Holies, a shrine of the Uncreated Light, illuminated from 
 within ; arising for ever, shining for ever, because the Glory of 
 the Lord is risen upon her. 
 
 Almighty God, I beseech Thee, deliver and keep us from 
 over care, vain trouble, profitless anxiety. Give us wisdom to 
 learn somewhat by all Thy wonderful works and ways ; and to 
 feel sure that heaven will be better than earth ; and that if any 
 earthly good reappear not there, it will be superseded not lost.
 
 FACE OF THE DEEP. 499 
 
 For the sake of Jesus Christ in Whom we have all and abound. 
 Amen. 
 
 " Twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and . . . 
 written thereon . . . the names of the twelve tribes of the 
 children of Israel." O Lord, Who hast said, " Friend, I do thee 
 no wrong," enlarge, I pray Thee, our wills and hearts to em- 
 brace the whole Communion of Saints with welcoming jubilee. 
 Give us such wealth of charity that we may rejoice with all 
 who rejoice, even with the thousand times ten thousand and 
 thousands of thousands of Thine elect : until their crowns and 
 joys become to us as our own crowns and joys, and their 
 exaltation be as it were our own. So may we mirror One 
 Love and all love, the Saint of saints and all saints ; so may 
 every loveliness which pleaseth Thee become reflected in each 
 lovely soul, and as it were multiplied to Thy Glory, O Lord 
 God our Father : Whom we approacli through Jesus Christ 
 Thy Well Beloved Son, in Whom Thou art always well pleased. 
 Amen. 
 
 By every human instinct, taste, desire, God is ready to help 
 man onward and upward : this the Twelve Gates, opening to 
 us what we know not with what partially we know, serve to 
 illustrate. They who pant for knowledge shall at last under- 
 stand what as yet they cannot fathom : they shall see whether 
 the Twelve Angels be angels (as we commonly interpret the 
 word) by nature, or only by office ; whether they belong to 
 the flying nation of heaven, or whether from citizenship on 
 earth they have mounted to equality with those elder angels. 
 For angel, that is messenger, may of course indicate either a 
 celestial or a human delegate : in an earlier portion of this 
 Book of Revelation the Angels of the Seven Churches are 
 acknowledged to be Bishops, not superhuman guardians. What 
 manner of faces shall be then revealed to all who enter those 
 gates with thanksgiving and those courts with praise ? coun- 
 tenances like lightning, or aspects of just men made perfect ? 
 If we long to know let us follow on to know. 
 
 Or if we cling to early lessons and experiences, behold set 
 before us the patriarchal names familiar to us from childhood, 
 taught us by dear maternal lips, each name having its proper 
 context of hope or fear, praise or blame. Thus on earth ; but 
 in heaven all by God's grace purged from fear and blame 
 inherit His benediction. And so too a great door and effectual 
 is opened to our aspiration. 
 
 All melodious choirs whose vocal melody sprang from a 
 tnelody-making heart unto the Lord, may enter heaven by the
 
 500 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Gate of Praise, the Gate of Juda. Such as out of weakness 
 have waxed strong, an innumerable multitude, through the 
 Gate of Reuben. The fallen but risen again, the sanctified of 
 the eleventh hour whose wickedness shall be mentioned no 
 more, through the Gate of Gad. They who lived not by 
 bread alone but by every word of God, through the Gate of 
 Aser. The great company of preachers whose portion and 
 inheritance was the Lord, through the Gate of Nepthalim. 
 The stewards of five talents who have made other five, through 
 the Gate of Manasses. The wrathful become meek for love of 
 our Meek Lord, through the Gate of Simeon. The heroic 
 Priesthood, the pure Diaconate, and joined to them by self- 
 oblation the poor and lowly for Christ's sake, through the 
 Gate of Levi. They who sat down in the lowest place 
 esteeming earth no mansion but a tent, through the Gate of 
 Issachar. They who made not shipwreck of faith as they 
 voyaged across the waves of this troublesome world, through 
 the Gate of Zabulon. The stewards of ten talents who have 
 made other ten, through the Gate of Joseph. The called and 
 chosen who repented and went, through the Gate of Benjamin. 
 
 What are these lovely ones, yea, what are these ? 
 
 Lo, these are they who for pure love of Christ 
 Cast off the trammels of soft silken ease 
 
 Beggaring themselves bytimes, to be sufficed 
 Throughout heaven's one eternal day of peace : 
 
 By golden streets, thro' gates of pearl unpriced, 
 They entered on the joys that will not cease, 
 
 And found again all firstfruits sacrificed. 
 And wherefore have you harps, and wherefore palms, 
 
 And wherefore crowns, O ye who walk in white? 
 Because our happy hearts are chanting psalms, 
 
 Endless Te Deum for the ended fight ; 
 While thro' the everlasting lapse of calms 
 
 We cast our crowns before the Lamb our Might. 
 
 13. On the east three gates ; on the north three gates ; on 
 the south three gates ; and on the west three gates. 
 
 East, north, south, west, the four points of the compass at 
 present so divided not to say opposed that the Psalmist 
 employs east and west as a standard of remoteness, finally 
 exhibit absolute equality ; each having its three gates and its 
 triple influx of confluent saints. The Holy City erects no 
 walls of partition : all its citizens as Children of God, Members 
 of Christ, Inheritors put into actual possession of the Kingdom 
 of Heaven, are so far equal. " Sirs, ye are brethren." 
 
 Equality, which noble hearts have vainly craved after on
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 501 
 
 earth, meets and greets mankind in heaven. Not a level : 
 gradation, precedence, a Right Hand and a Left, we look for: 
 but underlying all is essential equality, inasmuch as all are 
 Christ's. 
 
 There the sunny south will have nothing over, the auroral 
 north no lack : there the region of sunrise will not prevent the 
 region of sunset. Then supremely shall come to pass that 
 which Isaiah foretold : " I will bring thy seed from the east, 
 and gather thee from the west ; I will say to the north, Give 
 up ; and to the south, Keep not back : bring My sons from 
 far, and My daughters fiom the ends of the earth ; even every 
 one that is called by My Name : for I have created him for 
 My glory, I have formed him ; yea, I have made him." 
 . We dwell on the reversal in heaven of earth's relative 
 positions : " Many that are first shall be last ; and the last 
 shall be first." We anticipate that there many monarchs will 
 range below subjects, many teachers below learners, many 
 masters and mistresses below servants. Perhaps in our own 
 person we look forward to taking without shame the lowest 
 place, if by God's grace we find entrance : without shame, 
 for shame is sharp pain, and pain may not invade the final 
 beatitude ; and indeed with satisfaction and good will, for 
 the justified cannot but love judgment and justice. Such 
 reversals seem natural and easy to be conceived. Not so, 
 at least not necessarily so, the celestial equality : this, it may 
 be, taxes our faith and acquiescence, in a sense even our 
 imagination more severely. Perhaps one source of such diffi- 
 culty is that while lifelong experience displays before all eyes 
 reverses and inequalities, never has this world beheld universal 
 or even prevalent equality. We exercise by nature the instinct 
 of inequality : by grace only can we acquire the intuition of 
 equality. 
 
 Which then will it be wise to practise, to rehearse, at once : 
 equality or inequality? Equality, surely ; as the more abstruse, 
 the far more difficult to assimilate. Equality tends to anni- 
 hilate pride : proud humility may plant itself in the lowest 
 place ; only humble humility can revel and rejoice in sitting 
 altogether undistinguished amid peers. Besides, as most of 
 us do not suppose ourselves on a par with the "very chiefest," 
 we are prepared to see St. Peter placed higher, St. John nigher : 
 comparison is simply impossible, and we repeat contentedly 
 " First, Apostles," not needing argument to prove such in- 
 equality. 
 
 For the present, meanwhile, every one occupies his own
 
 502 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 level, and on that particular level occurs his personal tempt- 
 ation. It is easier, often, to stoop low than to stoop slightly : 
 in the former case all see and acknowledge the condescension ; 
 in the latter many may not admit that there is any condescension 
 at all. 
 
 O Gracious Lord Jesus, by Thine inconceivable Self-abase- 
 ment in Thy most holy Incarnation : by Thy daily Self-abase- 
 ment in Thy Life as a Man amongst fellow-men : by Thine 
 utter Self abasement through Thy Cross and Passion : by Thy 
 crowning Self abasement in Crucifixion between two male- 
 factors : grant us humility. 
 
 Lest we put Thee to an open shame : lest we fall from Thee : 
 lest we never see Thee as Thou art, Thou Who art the Same 
 yesterday, and to - day, and for ever : grant us humility. 
 Amen. 
 
 14. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and 
 in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 
 
 " Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of 
 the world." And now in and beyond the end of the world the 
 strong foundations of New Jerusalem bear witness to His 
 Faithfulness by Whose grace the Twelve Apostles became 
 "called, and chosen, and faithful": they fell not, being them- 
 selves founded upon a rock, and that Rock was Christ. Truly 
 are the " twelve foundations " of costly stones ; according to 
 the prophetic word : " I will make a man more precious than 
 fine gold ; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir " : for 
 any handwriting of old that was contrary to man, Christ took it 
 clean away ; so that it shall no more be said in reproach of him : 
 " Behold He put no trust in His servants ; and His angels He 
 charged with folly : how much less in them that dwell in 
 houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are 
 crushed before the moth ! " " Her foundations are upon the 
 holy hills," the Twelve being as those gracious mountains 
 which bring peace to the people. By faith they stood fast 
 like the immovable Mount Zion : for " the righteous is an 
 everlasting foundation." That Lord Almighty Who spake by 
 Cyrus to the second Temple, saying, "Thy foundation shall 
 be laid," hath built up His House not made with hands on the 
 glorious foundation of the Apostles, 
 
 O Lord, by grace sustain us, so that in will and affection we 
 may now by faith dwell in tabernacles with Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob ; and being heirs with them of the same promise 
 may look for that city which hath foundations, whose Builder
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 503 
 
 and Maker Thou art. Through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. 
 Amen, so be it. 
 
 Wherefore are those twelve names inscribed on those twelve 
 foundation-stones ? Mighty princes amongst us were the Saints 
 that bore them. St. Peter loved much, St. John was greatly 
 beloved, St. James the Great drank of Christ's cup, St. Andrew 
 was a succourer of many, St. Philip led his friend in the way cf 
 salvation, St. Thomas confessed the Faith, St. Matthew left ail, 
 St. James the Less instructed the Church, St. Jude sought out 
 heavenly knowledge, the glory of St. Bartholomew is certified 
 though not set forth, the mighty deeds of St. Simon are vouched 
 for though not chronicled, St. Matthias repaired the breach 
 and restored paths to dwell in. Yet not unto them, O Lord, 
 not unto them but unto Thy Name give the praise, for Thy 
 loving mercy and for Thy truth's sake. 
 
 Not because they were what otherwise they were, but because 
 they were " Apostles of the Lamb " are their names graven in 
 the everlasting rock. For that which is not of the Lamb 
 passes away ; that which is of the Lamb abides for ever. 
 
 O Lamb of God, Very God, Who hast shown us the love of 
 St. Peter, make us like-hearted : the nearness of St. John, draw 
 us unto Thee : the loftiness of St. James the Great, grant us 
 spiritual growth : the brotherly kindness of St. Andrew, re- 
 plenish us with charity : the friendship of St. Philip, let us 
 never forget our friend or our father's friend : the adoration 
 of St. Thomas, strengthen our faith : the self-oblation of St. 
 Matthew, wean us from the world : the wisdom of St. James 
 the Less, instruct our teachers : the wisdom of St. Jude, 
 instruct us learners. Thou Who certifiest to us the hidden 
 glory of St. Bartholomew, give us our best things last: the 
 acceptableness of St. Simon, accept us unworthy. Thou Who 
 calledst St. Matthias at the eleventh hour of the apostolic call, 
 call us to any office at any hour, giving us ears to hear and wills 
 to obey. 
 
 O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, take 
 away my sins and all sins. Amen. 
 
 15. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to 
 measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall 
 thereof. 
 
 A reed the image of frailty and fragility : " A reed shaken 
 with the wind," " A bruised reed." Thanks be to the Lord of 
 all, Who broke not the bruised reed of earth. 
 
 Behold earth's reed transplanted to heaven : its feeble poverty
 
 504 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 has been transmuted into golden indestructible strength, its 
 crookedness is restored to rectitude. It has become the 
 standard measure whereby the perfect City of God is measured : 
 that city where unto the God of gods appeareth every one of 
 the elect, through whose gates the redeemed pour, within whose 
 walls they abide all glorious. 
 
 As the Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the 
 Sabbath, in such a sense is New Jerusalem made for man, and 
 not man for New Jerusalem : he is accepted according to that 
 he hath, and not according to that he hath not. Whatsoever 
 God condescends to reap He has first sown, whatsoever He 
 condescends to gather He has first st rawed. 
 
 But the golden reed recalls another and infinitely tran- 
 scendent glory. Christ in His saving Passion held a reed in 
 His Right Hand, and endured to be smitten therewith upon 
 the Sacred Divine Head. Thus deigned He for man's sake 
 Himself to be measured as it were with a reed ; the he ght of 
 His Love, the extent of His Patience, His long-suffering, to be 
 meted with a span. All for love of us ; that so at last the 
 perfect man might attain to " the measure of the stature of the 
 fulness of Christ." 
 
 Lord, hast Thou so loved us : and will not we 
 
 Love Thee with heart and mind and strength and soul, 
 
 Desiring Thee beyond our glorious goal, 
 Beyond the heaven of heavens desiring Thee ? 
 Each saint, all saints, cry out : Yea me, yea me, 
 
 Thou hast desired beyond an aureole, 
 
 Beyond Thy many crowns, beyond the whole 
 Ninety and nine unwandering family. 
 Souls in green pastures of the watered land, 
 Faint pilgrim souls wayfaring thro' the sand, 
 
 Abide with Thee and in Thee are at rest : 
 
 Yet evermore, kind Lord, renew Thy quest 
 After new wanderers ; such as once Thy Hand 
 
 Gathered, Thy Shoulders bore, Thy Heart caressed. 
 
 16. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as 
 large as the breadth : and he measured the city with 
 the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and 
 the breadth and the height of it are equal. 
 
 " " Foursquare " : that city's angles therefore are right angles. 
 Turn such angles inward from circumference to centre, and 
 they form a perfect cross. 
 
 The Cross is the nucleus of heaven. Already faith beholds 
 it thus, and loves it for that which it is, and for that which shall 
 unfold from it.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 505 
 
 Angles inward, the cross of probation : angles outward, the 
 square of perfection. 
 
 Lord, enable us to love the cross because it was Thy Cross, 
 and to love New Jerusalem because it is Thy Shrine. 
 
 A chill blank world. Yet over the utmost sea 
 The light of a coming dawn is rising to me, 
 
 No more than a paler shade of darkness as yet ; 
 While I lift my heart, O Lord, my heart unto Thee 
 
 Who hast not forgotten me, yea, Who wilt not forget. 
 
 Forget not Thy sorrowful servant, O Lord my God, 
 Weak as I cry, faint as I cry underneath Thy rod, 
 
 Soon to lie dumb before Thee a body devoid of breath, 
 Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, a sod to tne sod : 
 
 P'orget not my life, O my Lord, forget not my death. 
 
 "Length . . . breadth . . . height . . . are equal," there. 
 Here human ways and works are deplorably out of scale, out 
 of relative proportion. Pride towers, Envy is straitened in its 
 own bowels, Anger spurns barriers, Avarice burrows, Lust saps 
 limits, Gluttony overheaps the measure, Sloth drones out of 
 time. 
 
 Yet length, breadth, height, are settled quantities not amen- 
 able to mortal whims and ways. O Man, O Woman, whether 
 thou be acute-angled or obtuse-angled, accommodate thyself 
 betimes to the rigid squareness of thine optional habitat : for 
 if thou fit not thyself to it by rectification of every line and 
 angle, never will it fit itself to thee by so much as a hair- 
 breadth. 
 
 Meanwhile be of good cheer. " Twelve thousand furlongs " 
 may suffice thee for space, and an Angel as surveyor enhances 
 thy dignity. If here thou must be squeezed or stretched to 
 bring thee into shape, look outward and upward to the ensuing 
 amplitude. 
 
 Time is short : long is eternity. 
 
 Short is time, and only time is bleak ; 
 
 Gauge the exceeding height thou hast to climb : 
 Long eternity is nigh to seek : 
 Short is time. 
 
 Time is shortening with the wintry rime : 
 Pray and watch and pray, girt up and meek ; 
 Praying, watching, praying, chime by chime. 
 
 Pray by silence if thou canst not speak : 
 
 Time is shortening ; pray on till the prime : 
 Time is shortening ; soul, fulfil thy week : 
 Short is time.
 
 506 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 17. And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and 
 
 forty and four cubits, according to the measure of 
 a man, that is, of the angel. 
 
 This is that wall whose battlements shall never be taken 
 away, for they are the Lord's. This is that just measure which 
 applies to unfallen angels, and equally to fallen man when at 
 length he is raised to equality with angels. 
 
 Both the city furlongs and the wall cubits being multiples of 
 twelve appear traceable back to twelve as to their secondary 
 origin. So in Isaiah's Prophecy are the thousand to the little 
 one, and the strong nation to the small one. 
 
 The Jewish Church had its Twelve Patriarchs, the Christian 
 Church its Twelve Apostles ; those Patriarchs natural fathers 
 of their nation, those Apostles spiritual fathers of their com- 
 munity. Nevertheless when the hundred and forty and four 
 thousand (ch. vii. 4 8) are numbered for salvation, Dan is 
 not numbered amongst them ; and the name of Judas Iscariot, 
 erased from the Apostolick College on earth and replaced by 
 the name of St. Matthias, cannot be looked for on any found- 
 ation-stone of New Jerusalem. 
 
 Yet in neither case doth God Almighty suffer loss : twelve 
 He hath summoned, and twelve make answer, " Here we are." 
 Abraham shall not lack children, nor praise keep silence, so 
 long as there be " stones " (see St. Matt. iii. 9 : St. Luke 
 xix. 40). 
 
 Gracious Lord Jesus, let not Thine own brethren and 
 sisters be stonier than stones, having hearts of stone incapable 
 of loving Thee, and more dumb and graceless than stones of 
 the highway. 
 
 O Loving Lord Jesus, in Whose Heart there yet is room, I 
 thank Thee that the good of any is the good of all. Dan and 
 Manasses might have entered into rest together : Judas and St. 
 Matthias might have been fellow Saints if not fellow Apostles. 
 Grant us grace to rejoice with Thee and with Thy holy angels 
 over every sinner that repenteth ; and to be ourselves, to be 
 myself, numbered with those over whom Thou rejoicest. 
 
 18. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper : and 
 
 the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. 
 
 Well may the wall be built of jasper, be great and high. For 
 whatever be here beyond my scrutiny, let me seek to connect 
 what I perceive with the Love of God in Christ. 
 
 He Who sat upon the Throne (ch. iv. 3) " was to look upon 
 like a jasper. . . ." Holy Jerusalem is the Shrine of Him
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 507 
 
 Whom no words can express : and whatever else its jasper wall 
 may indicate, surely it may lawfully represent to some who fear 
 His Name the effusion, embrace, all-inclusion of His Love 
 He Who within is the life of His own, without is their habit- 
 ation. The Centre in which all meet, unifies : the Circumference 
 which contains all, unites. The gracious City is pervaded 
 through and through by grace : the Builder radiates throughout 
 the building : the beauty of the Bride is the 'Beauty of the 
 everywhere-present Bridegroom : He Who rejoiceth over her 
 is her joy : He Who is glorified in her is her glory. 
 
 The "pure gold" of the city, inasmuch as it is "like unto 
 clear glass," lets not nor hinders the universal permeation of 
 light. Earthly gold is opaque, heavenly gold translucent : yet 
 a blessed alchemy resorted to betimes transmutes 'the baser 
 into the more precious : " Sell that ye have, and give alms ; 
 provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the 
 heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither 
 moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your 
 heart be also." Thus far the Greater than Solomon. King 
 Solomon in his wisdom instructs us as to the transitoriness of 
 terrestrial riches, at the same time suggesting that they may 
 find their way to heaven, although he explains not on what 
 terms : " Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not ? for 
 riches certainly make themselves wings ; they fly away as an 
 eagle toward heaven." 
 
 I think that from this glass-like gold of the flawless heavenly 
 city we may devise a test for our own earthly possessions, 
 whether they be lawful, safe, expedient, or otherwise. Such as 
 in our contemplation eclipse not God belong to the former 
 class, such as eclipse Him to the latter. Which test secures 
 the further advantage of setting us to judge ourselves without 
 at all judging our neighbour, whose view-point we stand not at 
 and whose powers of vision we cannot estimate. 
 
 Moreover, that the ultimate imperishable gold should re- 
 appear "like glass," suggests how little genuine inequality 
 there need be between the many and various earthly lots. 
 The rich must refine their gold as glass, or woe is them. The 
 poor can make their paltry perishable belongings like gold, 
 durable, precious, and laid up in the eternal storehouse. 
 
 " Pure gold " and " clear glass " alike have stood the fire. 
 Any residuum which man neither brings nor takes away with 
 him is but a minor matter. 
 
 19. And the foundations of the walls of the city were
 
 5o3 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 garnished with all manner of precious stones. The 
 first foundation was jasper ; the second, sapphire ; the 
 third, chalcedony ; the fourth, an emerald ; 
 20. The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, 
 chrysolyte ; the eighth, beryl ; the ninth, a topaz ; 
 the tenth, a chrysoprasus ; the eleventh, a jacinth ; the 
 twelfth, an amethyst. 
 
 Twelve foundation-stones, and in them the names of the 
 Twelve Apostles. Our not being informed which stone bears 
 which name, seems to leave us free to meditate at large on the 
 subject ; tracing out if we can a variety of analogies or of 
 symbols, widening our perception of graces bestowed and 
 rewards vouchsafed. 
 
 Jasper (see ante on ver. 18) reminded us of the Love of God 
 in Christ. Our Lord Christ being by right the Rock, jasper 
 seems by grace congruous with the Apostolic rock St. Peter ; 
 once Simon, but at his call renamed by the Master as "Cephas, 
 which is by interpretation, a stone," and afterwards confirmed 
 in that name by the same Divine lips : " I say also unto thee, 
 That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My 
 Church." St. Peter, Primate of the Apostles. 
 
 Sapphire exhibits a heavenly blue. Sky-colour suits St. 
 John the Divine, that Sun-gazing, heaven-exploring, Apostolic 
 eagle, whose Evangelical Symbol is the Eagle. Such an eagle 
 becomes to us our bird of Paradise. 
 
 Chalcedony is characterized by a variety of subdued tints ; 
 gems of a bright striking colour would throw it into the back- 
 ground. Its shape is likewise so to say subdued : for it is 
 formed within rock cavities, and in subordination to their 
 contour and capacity moulds itself. St. Andrew brought to 
 Christ a brother who at least in human estimation eclipsed 
 him ; yet none the less did he himself live, move, and have his 
 being in the God Whom he glorified and loved ; exhibiting 
 very tender and endearing gifts such as may be shadowed forth 
 by chalcedony. 
 
 Emerald, by its intense fadeless green constituted an emblem 
 of hope, at once recalls St. James the Great ; that first among 
 the Twelve to attain the goal of hope and the crown in- 
 corruptible. 
 
 Sardonyx being compounded of two substances, sard and 
 onyx, may (so far and fancifully) suggest St. Thomas " called 
 Didymus," or Twin. Moreover, as that tender-spirited saint 
 needed the most tender handling of his Divine Lord and
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 509 
 
 Friend to bring out, invigorate, establish his graces, so the 
 many-layered sardonyx discloses not half its beauties until a 
 master-hand by probing, as it were, its substance brings to light 
 its full scale of harmonious loveliness. 
 
 Sardius, a choice sort of carnelian, is found in rocks. Red 
 it is, the more vividly red the more costly : thus may it 
 symbolize the awful ensanguined glory wherewith tradition 
 invests the memory of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 Chrysolyte (whether or not this Apocalyptic Chrysolyte be 
 that self-same yellowish-green stone which now bears the 
 name) clearly from its name should be some stone of more 
 or less golden hue. Which gold reminds us of treasure hid ; 
 and thus by association of St. Philip's announcement, " We 
 have found" the Messiah. Discovery indeed, the craving to 
 see and know, becomes inseparably linked with our idea of 
 St. Philip, for he it is who said : " Lord, show us the Father, 
 and it sufficeth us." 
 
 Beryl, amongst various Biblical allusions, has for ourselves 
 one that is pre-eminent, inasmuch as Solomon in his mystical 
 Song of Songs says of the Beloved : "His hands are as gold 
 rings set with the beryl." Whence I venture to associate this 
 gem with that Apostle whom tradition dignifies by physical as 
 well as spiritual likeness to our Adorable Lord, St. James the 
 Less, " the Lord's brother." 
 
 Topaz because yellow and brilliant so far resembles gold ; 
 and the two are brought together in the saying : " But where 
 shall wisdom be found ? . . . The topaz of Ethiopia shall not 
 equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold" Thus of 
 old are topaz and gold weighed in the balance and found 
 wanting by Job, a man "perfect and upright, and one that 
 feared God, and eschewed evil " : and thus centuries later did 
 St. Matthew estimate all such wealth when the Uncreated 
 Wisdom vouchsafed to summon him : " Follow Me. And he 
 left all, rose up, and followed Him." 
 
 Chrysoprase derives its name from gold and a leek. Gold 
 passes unharmed through fire : the leek can stand no such 
 test. This combination of dissimilars seems not incongruous 
 with the memory of St. Jude, whose one recorded speech 
 contrasts the Church and the world : " Lord, how is it that 
 Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? " 
 and whose Epistle dwells on the general mixture of good and 
 evil, which having been many times already partially divided, 
 yet ever remingle until the final supreme sifting of the Judgment 
 Day.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Jacinth is often flame- or fire-coloured : some specimens of 
 this mimic fire exhibit also a mimic smokiness of tint The 
 virtue of heavenly zeal is as it were pure flame ; but human 
 zeal even in a righteous cause too often kindles not without 
 contamination of smoke. We are not told whether St. Simon 
 received his title of Zelotes from our Lord's own lips : in any 
 case, presumably it fitted him. By conjecture and before his 
 call he has been assigned to the Jewish sect of Zealots : if 
 correctly so, the smoky jacinth may remind us of his beginning, 
 the smokeless jacinth of his end. 
 
 Amethyst is of two qualities : in the west, the region of 
 sunset where light dies away into darkness, it is a soft stone of 
 little worth ; in the east, the region of sunrise where darkness 
 turns to light, it is a gem hard and precious. Impressions 
 made on a comparatively soft substance can be worn away, 
 obliterated, lost : on a hard substance they endure. Both 
 qualities of amethyst display violet tints, the tints of Church 
 mournfng. The noble amethyst in its beauty seems naturally, 
 as forming the Twelfth and last Foundation, to fall to St. 
 Matthias : and since the action of fire purging this jewel of 
 colour can impart to it the appearance of a lustrous diamond, 
 we may if we please even think of it in its final glory as divested 
 of any tinge of sometime mourning. None the less while the 
 earth remaineth thoughts of St. Matthias involve thoughts of 
 Judas Iscariot the expunged Apostle, and as it were the un- 
 retentive base amethyst : whose fall may well make us not 
 fearful only but also sorrowful, remembering how in the 
 moment of victory David mourned for lost Absalom and 
 triumphant Judah mourned with him. " The King was much 
 moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept : 
 and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my 
 son Absalom ! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, 
 my son, my son ! . . . And the victory that day was turned 
 into mourning unto all the people : for the people heard say 
 that day how the King was grieved for his son. And the 
 people gat them by stealth that day into the city, as people 
 being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. But 
 the King covered his face, and the King cried with a loud 
 voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son !" 
 
 Lord Jesus, Who lovest great and small, first and last, build 
 us up, I beseech Thee, on the foundation of the Apostles. 
 Grant us impregnable faith with St. Peter, unearthly wisdom 
 with St. John, brotherly love with St. Andrew, heavenly hope 
 with St. James the Great, confirmation with St. Thomas, self-
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 51! 
 
 oblation with St. Bartholomew, thirst for Divine knowledge with 
 St. Philip, spiritual Christ-likeness with St. James the Less, 
 unworldlmess with St. Matthew, just judgment with St. Jude, 
 righteous zeal with St. Simon, final perseverance with St. 
 Matthias. Provoke us to good works by all holy examples, 
 O Lord our only Perfect Example, Who hast deigned to say 
 to each one of us, Follow Me. Amen. 
 
 21. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls ; every several 
 gate was of one pearl : and the street of the city was 
 pure gold, as it were transparent glass. 
 
 After all, the vanished sea has a representative in the eternal 
 holy city : " the twelve gates were twelve pearls." Though no 
 mention shall be made of coral or of pearls in comparison with 
 Wisdom whose price is above rubies, yet are pearls also 
 admitted there white and lustrous : " every several gate was of 
 one pearl." 
 
 Still, since in this world (according to St. Paul's rule for 
 women) pearls are not to be clung to and delighted in, so by a 
 figure even those celestial pearls set forth how God prepares 
 better things for His dutiful children : a gate is to be passed 
 through, not resided in. They who on earth contending for 
 truth and righteousness spake unashamed with their enemies 
 in the gate, may now through the everlasting doors pass onward 
 and inward. " Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation 
 which keepeth the truth may enter in." 
 
 Before (ver. 18) we read of the city in general that it "was 
 pure gold, like unto clear glass." Now we read of the street 
 in particular that it was " pure gold, as it were transparent 
 glass." Here on earth a saint walking with God needeth " to 
 wash his feet," because being flesh and not altogether spirit he 
 is beset by infirmity, and is liable to contract defilement even 
 in the path of duty : he must wash over and over again in 
 penitential tears, he must wash and never cease to wash in the 
 Only and all-cleansing Blood of Christ. Not so there : for 
 there is neither anything that causeth sweat, nor mire of the 
 streets, nor dust of death. 
 
 We who go softly, can we if we will press forward towards 
 the perfection of that better cquntry ? Yea, by God's grace ! 
 Whoso barters earthly gold for meat for the hungry, drink for 
 the thirsty, clothing for the destitute, any good gift for any 
 forlorn soul or body, shall find it after many days refined into 
 the glass-like gold of the eternal city. A profitable exchange 
 and a goodly : for this supersensual gold is as precious metal
 
 512 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 with the virtue of glass superadded ; not like poverty-stricken 
 glass gilded over to simulate gold. Mere surface gilding belongs 
 to earth not to heaven, and with earth it vanishes. " Make to 
 yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, 
 when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." 
 
 22. And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God 
 
 Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 
 
 Truly in that Temple will every man speak of God's 
 honour. They who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that 
 world and the resurrection from the dead shall understand and 
 experience in its fulness the ineffable mutual indwelling 
 whereof Christ spake : "That they all may be one : as Thou, 
 Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one 
 in Us. . . . And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have 
 given them ; that they may be one, even as We are One : I in 
 them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in 
 one." In that Divine Temple the worshippers themselves are 
 temples of God the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Childlike souls know much which they understand not ; 
 and what is required of them is not to understand but to know. 
 
 " I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep : for Thou, 
 Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." 
 
 O Lord, before Whom I say, " I will lay me down in peace " : 
 Thou beholdest me harassed by cares, fears, perils without, 
 evil within. What I should choose I know not, if the choice 
 lay with me : I thank Thee that the choice lieth with Thee, 
 not with me. Yet this I choose, even whilst I cannot choose : 
 I choose Thy choice, my Lord, I will Thy Will, I by help of 
 Thy grace will be pleased with Thy good pleasure. Even so, 
 Lord Jesus, for me and for all. Amen. 
 
 23. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the 
 
 moon, to shine in it : for the glory of God did lighten 
 it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. 
 
 Be its plenary fulfilment far off or imminent, already man 
 can bask in some furthest ray of this promised glory. Wean 
 thyself from sensible objects, and thou shalt relish the unseen, 
 untouched, unhandled. Look beyond sun and moon, and 
 thou shalt see greater things than they. Stint bodily in- 
 dulgence, and thou shalt enlarge spiritual capacity. Make a 
 covenant with thine eyes, and thou shalt be full of light. 
 Lean not to thine own understanding, and the Lord shall even 
 now be thy Light, and the Lamb thy Light and thy salvation. 
 
 Not in the future only, but now are the elect constituted
 
 TL'E FACE OF THE DEEP. 513 
 
 living stones of the deathless city. And already they are 
 themselves deathless, though in the teeth of death and cor- 
 ruption : for he that liveth and believeth in Christ shall never 
 die. 
 
 The longest and keenest trials of time become comparatively 
 petty, trivial, inconsiderable when strong faith weighs and 
 measures them. Though his eyes be sealed against sun and 
 moon, he is not blind who sees Christ. The hungry man will 
 not starve outright whose spiritual mouth is opened wide and 
 being filled. The veiled and downcast eye discerns fairer 
 objects than it foregoes. The simplest illiterate keeper of 
 commandments is wise and hath understanding beyond many 
 aged and many teachers. Rule thyself : and already thou art 
 king, freeman, citizen of no mean city. 
 
 Love builds a nest on earth and waits for rest, 
 Love sends to heaven the warm heart from its breast, 
 Looks to be blest and is already blest, 
 And testifies : " God's Will is alway best." 
 
 Whilst man needs sun and moon he has them : so long as 
 he needs them he will have them. This is a sample of the 
 Providential Bounty lavished upon him without stint or failure ; 
 an antidote for his cares and fears, a reassurance of his hope. 
 Which reassurance (so to say) acts both backwards and for- 
 wards : for by guaranteeing to him all necessaries it likewise 
 proves that aught he lacks cannot be a genuine necessary. 
 
 " What lack I yet ? " asked the beloved Young Ruler eager 
 for salvation in the lap of prosperity. The answer returned 
 by the Very Truth broke up his earthly comfort and con- 
 venience : " One thing thou lackest : go thy way, sell whatso- 
 ever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven : and come, take up the cross, and follow 
 Me." Whereat the rich young man turned away sorrowful. 
 Yet if he had stayed to sift those unexpected words of grace 
 he might rather have thanked God and taken courage. " Sell 
 . . . and give " : it is not " give " merely, but " sell " also : the 
 spiritual price would have remained to the obedient seller, and 
 have been invested in the secure treasury. The material gift 
 he might retain at the longest for a lifetime : its intangible, 
 substantial price for ever and ever. 
 
 I see the pity of it, that the Young Ruler appreciated not, 
 so far as is recorded, his unique chance. I see it as regards 
 him : what see I as regards myself? If I see it as regards 
 myself, what then do I ? If I do nought in accordance with 
 
 K K
 
 5 14 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 what I see, who shall deliver me not from snares or foes but 
 from myself? 
 
 24. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk 
 in the light of it : and the kings of the earth do 
 bring their glory and honour into it 
 
 Experience worketh hope. As yet my own experience 
 attests nothing whatever as to " nations " of the saved. To 
 have known here one and there another individual self-evidently 
 rich in grace and goodness has, however, been my happy lot : 
 so that experience has actually already familiarized me with 
 samples of elect communities, units of the sum-total which no 
 man can number. 
 
 Patience it is which works experience : no wonder that a 
 vast amount of human experience is limited. To stint patience 
 stints hope at one remove. 
 
 Patience is irksome, experience tedious ; but then without 
 hope which is their result life were a living death. Every 
 course of life at any level affords scope for patience. Let us 
 not despond as if destined to stick fast in patience and there 
 come to an end ; the fault is mine if my patience shoot not 
 up into experience, or if my experience bud and blossom not 
 into hope. 
 
 When past history strikes us as a tissue of crimes, and 
 present history as a tangle of unrighteousness ; when a back- 
 ward glance scares, and a forward glance scares yet more ; then 
 the word of this sure prophecy revives a comfortable hope : 
 " The kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into 
 it." Not kings of a new creation, of a superior dynasty, but 
 literal kings of this literal earth. From their palaces of pomp, 
 from their giddy pinnacles of dominion, they too have gone 
 up on high and have led their captivity captive ; as Barak son 
 of Abinoam from his high places, or as Deborah wife of 
 Lapidoth from palm tree of earth to palm trees of heaven. 
 
 If hard it is for any rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven, how hard must it be for those royal rich men to whom 
 tribute, custom, fear, honour, are due it may be from subject 
 millions. Wise indeed was Agur when he prayed, " Remove 
 far from me vanity and lies : give me neither poverty nor 
 riches " wiser, so far, than wisest Solomon who lost himself 
 in luxuries and pleasures for a while, if not (as God forbid !) 
 for ever. 
 
 Every man's vocation exhibits a twofold aspect. Primarily, 
 it is allotted to him for himself, that therein he may glorify
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 51$ 
 
 God and save his own soul ; secondarily, it is allotted to him 
 for his brethren, that therein he may serve them and promote 
 their salvation. 
 
 Children, servants, subjects, exist in right of parents, 
 masters, monarchs ; and vice versd ; each equally in right of 
 the other, each complementarity to the other. I see this at 
 once as to parents and children : I accept it readily as to 
 monarchs and subjects : I must take heed to admit it practically 
 as to superiors and inferiors, employers and employed. 
 
 O Perfect Lord Jesus, Who being the Creator wert pleased 
 to abase Thyself to become a Creature, and amongst creatures 
 a dutiful Son, a submissive Subject, and though not a servant 
 of men yet toward Thine own as he that serveth ; grant us a 
 faint shadow of Thy humility whereby we too may become 
 dutiful, submissive, serviceable. Make us in our several 
 stations affectionate, loyal, helpful, to one another ; and in 
 and above all earthly ties, absorb us in self-devotion to Thyself, 
 the Source of our life, the King of our race, the Master to 
 Whom we must stand or fall. For none of which things are 
 we sufficient, but our sufficiency is of Thee. Make us as Mary 
 when she turned and said Kabboni. 
 
 Bring me to see, Lord, bring me yet to see 
 Those nations of Thy glory and Thy grace 
 Who splendid in Thy splendour worship Thee. 
 
 Light in all eyes, content in every face, 
 Raptures and voices one while manifold, 
 Love and are well-beloved the ransomed race : 
 
 Great mitred priests, great kings in crowns of gold, 
 Patriarchs who head the army of their sons, 
 Matrons and mothers by their own extolled, 
 
 Wise and most harmless holy little ones, 
 Virgins who making merry lead the dance, 
 Full-breathed victorious racers from all runs, 
 
 Home-comers out of every change and chance, 
 Hermits restored to social neighbourhood, 
 Aspects which reproduce One countenance, 
 
 Life-losers with their losses all made good, 
 All blessed hungry and athirst sufficed, 
 All who bore crosses round the Holy Rood, 
 
 Friends, brethren, sisters, of Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 25. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day : for 
 there shall be no night there. 
 
 " The evening and the morning " made up the former day : 
 the latter day shall consist of morning without evening. The 
 sun of that former day went down even while it was yet day, 
 because rebellious Adam set his face toward death and
 
 Si6 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 darkness. Then was the gate shut, Eden gate ; and no man 
 remained within, neither could any return thither whence once 
 for all man had gone out. Inside stood the Tree of Life 
 inaccessible ; outside stood the live man death-stricken. A 
 gate that is shut fulfils an obvious purpose. 
 
 But wherefore gates at all if never to be shut ? The full 
 wherefore may abide hidden, yet in this as in many another 
 instance one may elicit a lesson without fathoming any mystery. 
 
 The gates bear perpetual witness that man inhabits heaven 
 not of right but of grace. The morning stars which sang 
 together, the sons of God who shout for joy, are (so to say) 
 aborigines of the celestial country : not so man, whose life is 
 a resurrection from death, whose sonship is by adoption, whose 
 freedom commenced in enfranchisement, whose citizenship is 
 conferred, not natal. " We are strangers before Thee, and 
 sojourners, as were all our fathers : our days on the earth are 
 as a shadow, and there is none abiding." 
 
 The open gates bear permanent witness to human free will, 
 still free even when made indefectible. " A brother or a sister 
 is not under bondage " : Love alone constrains such. But 
 whilst God's eternal Love endures, and their own everlasting 
 love endures, and the immortal mutual love of the whole 
 Communion of Saints endures, so long will a threefold cord 
 not quickly broken, "cords of a man . . . bands of love," 
 hold them fast. 
 
 The gate of Eden Ironours Law : the gates of New Jerusalem 
 honour Love. Art thou weary of Law and enamoured of 
 love ? St Paul teaches us a short cut out of law into love : 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuflering, 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance : against 
 such there is no law." 
 
 Lord, by Thy Most Holy Life-giving Spirit plant, I besaech 
 Thee, love in every heart. Living, growing, flourishing love : 
 with joy as a fair flower, peace as a refreshing fruit, longsuffering 
 for a steadfast prop ; by gentleness kept ever pliant to the 
 Husbandman, by goodness meet to stand every test, by virtue 
 of faith fadeless, by meekness bending not breaking, by 
 temperance concentrated as under the pruning-knife. Grant us 
 these graces which please Thee, and deign to be pleased with 
 us sheltered in the grace of Jesus Christ. All for His sake. 
 Amen. 
 
 I suppose some ears are liable to be involuntarily caught as 
 by an illogical sequence on hearing : " And the gates of it 
 shall not be shut at all by day : for there shall be no night
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 517 
 
 there," which latter clause the Revised Version segregates 
 in a parenthesis. Yet as it stands in the Authorized Version 
 much maybe made of that very for : it will teach the teachable. 
 
 Days which alternate with nights make up Time, Time 
 fraught with danger at its best. This temporal mortal life 
 needs restrictions as it were both by day and night : its virtues 
 may run into excess, while its vices call for bit and bridle at 
 every turn if we are not to be destroyed by them. " Keep the 
 door of my lips," is the Psalmist's prayer ; although within 
 the lips dwells the praise-giving member, that "best member" 
 that man has. The door of Noah's Ark continued shut both 
 day and night, after "the Lord shut him in," and until he 
 received the command to go forth : at least, so we may infer 
 the more readily because the raven was sent out at the opened 
 window. The closet of prayer has a shut door (see St. Matt, 
 vi. 6). The sheepfold of salvation has a door, evidently 
 sometimes shut, inasmuch as on occasion it is opened (see St. 
 John x. i 4). 
 
 Seclusion, exclusion, befit Time. 
 
 But Eternity ! The Eternity of the beatified knows nought 
 of seclusion when all are brethren beloved, or of exclusion 
 when all are saints. Time shut its gates even by day, because 
 of night being there : Eternity opens them and leaves them 
 wide open "by day : for there shall be no night there." 
 
 O Gracious Lord God, enlarge our hearts, wills, intellects, 
 that more and more we may love, choose, worship Thee. 
 Through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen. 
 
 Day that hath no tinge of night, 
 
 Night that hath no tinge of day, 
 These at last will come to sight 
 
 Not to fade away. 
 
 This is twilight that we know, 
 
 Scarcely night and scarcely day; 
 This hath been from long ago 
 
 Shed around man's way : 
 
 Step by step to utter night, 
 
 Step by step to perfect day, 
 To the Left Hand or the Right 
 
 Leading all away. 
 
 This is twilight : be it so ; 
 
 Suited to our strength our day : 
 Let us follow on to know, 
 
 Patient by the way. 
 
 26. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the 
 nations into it.
 
 Si8 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Nearly the same as we read of the kings of the earth 
 (ver. 24 ante), yet not quite the same. For those kings appear 
 themselves to " bring their glory and honour into it." Glorious 
 and honourable was their vocation : they reigned in righteous- 
 ness and ruled in judgment; until invested with the untarnished 
 glory and honour of their proper calling they at length ascend 
 the Hill of the Lord and rise up in His Holy Place. 
 
 Not so the nations at large. They have not like King 
 Solomon worn glory as a robe, or amid popular acclamations 
 received honour of men. Their majesty has been inward, 
 their dignity without insignia. Like the Holy Innocents they 
 have put on unsuspected splendours, not seeking praise of 
 men. Neither have they honoured themselves, nor borne 
 witness to themselves ; but copying their Blessed Master they 
 have committed themselves to Him that judgeth righteously, 
 saying with St. Paul, " Yea, I judge not mine own self." And 
 since we read not that they shall with their own hands present 
 their offering, we cannot tell whether themselves or others on 
 their behalf shall do so : " they shall bring it," whoever they 
 may be on whom so felicitous a charge devolves. Perhaps 
 those elect kings commending to God their people's offerings, 
 as did David : or those elect angels who have ministered to 
 these heirs of salvation : or it may be these same heirs of 
 salvation one for another, in honour preferring one another 
 in perfection, as heretofore in imperfection ; still looking every 
 man not on his own things, but also on the things of others. 
 
 It were to be a stone, a clod, dust in our native dust, not to 
 kindle and glow, flame and mount heavenward amid the great 
 cloud of witnesses our brethren and sisters in Christ. Shall 
 others go up from the extreme outposts of peril, the heights or 
 depths of difficulty ; they the forlorn hope of the Christian 
 army, they the violent whose violence the kingdom of heaven 
 suffers : and will not we go up from our peaceable habitation, 
 sure dwellings, quiet resting-places ? Forbid it, honour forbid 
 it, shame ! 
 
 " Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your 
 God ; arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord 
 God." 
 
 O Lord my God, by honour or dishonour, through evil 
 report or good report, give us grace to seek Thee, greater 
 grace to find Thee, greatest grace to abide with Thee, for 
 ever and ever, world without end. By the Indwelling of Thy 
 Most Holy Spirit, and for the only Merits and sake of Thy Son 
 Jesus Christ. Amen.
 
 THE FACE OF THE 1)KEI\ 519 
 
 Lord Jesu, Thou art sweetness to my soul : 
 
 I to myself am bitterness : 
 Regard my fainting struggle toward the goal, 
 
 Regard my manifold distress, 
 O Sweet Jesu. 
 
 Thou art Thyself my goal, O Lord my King : 
 Stretch forth Thy hand to save my soul : 
 
 What matters more or less of journeying ? 
 While I touch Thee I touch my goal, 
 O Sweet Jesu. 
 
 27. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that 
 defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or 
 maketli a lie : but they which are written in the 
 Lamb's book of life. 
 
 SL Paul writes: "We must all appear before the judgment 
 seat of Christ ; that every one may receive the things done in 
 his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good 
 or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade 
 men." And St. John in the verse we have now to study shows 
 whom that Judgment will exclude from final blessedness, and 
 whom it will admit. 
 
 Everything foul and everything false will be excluded. 
 Perhaps we can still trace the inveterate hostility of free 
 will in the persons excluded : not merely are they in their 
 own persons tainted and hollow ; but afford them scope, and 
 they still are such as defile, as work abomination, as make a 
 lie. Never must I picture to myself lost souls as ready to 
 repent were penitence attainable, ready to be reconciled were 
 a door opened to reconciliation ; as more ready to pray than 
 God to hear. While there was life there was hope ; and once 
 Christ's tender Hand touched and healed the leper : " But put 
 forth Thine Hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and 
 he will curse Thee to Thy face." 
 
 We are taught here what manner of folk will be shut out, not 
 what manner will find entrance. But almost at the outset of 
 this Revelation (ch. iii. 5) we learned the " he that over- 
 cometh " is he whose name will not be blotted out of the Book 
 of Life. 
 
 Temptations are what I have to overcome, and at the root 
 of every possible temptation I have to overcome myself. The 
 rest God will do for me, unless I frustrate His gracious 
 purpose. So that works and faith here combine : self-conquest 
 and trust in God. 
 
 The Bible is open to all, not so the Book of Life. The
 
 520 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Bible then is what man needs at present, however curiosity 
 may hanker after the other. 
 
 Profit now by the open Bible, and hereafter the Book of Life 
 will not be closed to thee. 
 
 It is characteristic of Divine Revelation to kindle and sustain 
 instead of satisfying curiosity. Is thy curiosity evil ? Desire 
 not its gratification. Is it good ? Wait patiently and it will 
 be gratified. 
 
 The Bible is well worth prolonged study, and the Book of 
 Life prolonged expectation. And already in the Bible man 
 holds the key to the Book of Life. 
 
 Curiosity though it be not a sin forms a highway for sin. 
 The curiosity of Eve brought sin into the world and death by 
 sin. Curiosity may have seduced Lot's wife into looking back, 
 whereupon she became a pillar of salt. 
 
 These two instances suggest Curiosity as a feminine weak 
 point inviting temptation, and doubly likely to facilitate a fall 
 when to indulge it woman affects independence. Thus we see 
 Eve assume the initiative with Adnm, and Lot's wife take her 
 own way behind her husband's back.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 1. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as 
 crystal, proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the 
 Lamb. 
 
 Or as the Revised Version arranges the text : " . . . the 
 Throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street 
 thereof" thus adding to the end of ver. i a clause which the 
 Authorized Version places at the beginning of ver. 2. This latter 
 reading favours a collation of the verse we have now to consider 
 with a Divine utterance recorded by St. John : 
 
 "Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him 
 come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the 
 Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living 
 water. (But this He spake of the Spirit, which they that 
 believe on Him should receive . . .) " The two passages 
 taken together suggest how ineffably real and close is regenerate 
 man's union with his dearest Lord and Head : so that every 
 thing communicable which is Christ's He shares verily and 
 indeed with His brethren ; yea, even with each of the least of 
 those His brethren. 
 
 That the " Pure River of Water of Life " proceeded "out of 
 the Throne of God and of the Lamb " confirms that clause of 
 the Nicene Creed : " The Holy Ghost, The Lord and Giver 
 of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who 
 with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and 
 glorified." 
 
 That It flows forth through the golden street of New 
 Jerusalem (see Revised Version as quoted above) certifies us 
 that the Divine All Gracious Spirit will abide for ever in the 
 human temple He has deigned to edify and hallow. No more 
 than will our Lord Himself, will God the Holy Spirit, the 
 " Other Comforter," ever leave His own comfortless. 
 
 Pure It is and purifying, Living and quickening. The
 
 522 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Waters of Baptism in a mystery have already conveyed it to 
 us by grace of the Most Holy Trinity. " He that believeth and 
 is baptized shall be saved." 
 
 " Clear as crystal " not concealing, but revealing. Accord- 
 ing to Christ's promise to St. Peter : " What I do thou knowest 
 not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." For in the day of 
 eternity all faithful children shall be as that Father of the 
 Faithful of whom the Lord once said : " Shall I hide from 
 Abraham that thing which I do ? " 
 
 If I may without presumption, I connect symbolically the 
 reflecting power of " a pure river " with another saying of 
 Christ's when on the eve of His most sacred Passion He 
 poured Himself forth in love to His disciples : "Howbeit 
 when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into 
 all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever 
 He shall hear, that shall He speak : and He will show you 
 things to come. He shall glorify Me : for He shall receive of 
 Mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father 
 hath are Mine : therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, 
 and shall show it unto you." This promise, relating to time, 
 seems not necessarily limited to time. 
 
 I suppose that the river of Eden, which from being one became 
 parted into four heads, may correspond figuratively with the 
 Apocalyptic " Pare River of Water of Life." From the Paradise 
 which could be lost and which it watered, the single fountain- 
 head poured forth in fourfold stream Pison and Gihon, Hiddekel 
 and Euphrates, to fertilize the world and sprinkle many 
 nations : in the regained Paradise That which it typified 
 appears as One, having accomplished the Divine Pleasure. 
 
 O Most Holy, Almighty, Eternal, Divine Spirit, Who art of 
 one Authority and Dominion with the Father and the Son ; set 
 up Thy throne in our hearts, indwell us, gather us into Thine 
 obedience, reign over us. 
 
 Thou Who art Lord and Giver of Life, grant us life, a long 
 life, even for ever and ever. 
 
 Thou Who art a Loving Spirit, ever willing to give Thyself 
 to whoso will receive Thee, give Thyself to us, give Thyself to 
 us more and more, and never withdraw Thyself from us. 
 
 Thou Who art Purity, purify us : Who art Light, enlighten 
 us : Who art Fulness and Refreshment, make us Thine, keep 
 us Thine, fill us, refresh us. 
 
 Thou Who lovest us, grant us grace to love Thee. 
 
 O Lord God Almighty, Most Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ is 
 our sole plea for any gift, for any grace. Amen.
 
 THE FACE OF TUI-. />AYi/'. 523 
 
 We know not a voice of that River, 
 
 If vocal or silent it be, 
 Where for ever and ever and ever 
 It flows to no sea. 
 
 More deep than the seas is that River, 
 More full than their manifold tides, 
 Where for ever and ever and ever 
 It flows and abides. 
 
 Pure gold is the bed of that River 
 
 (The gold of that land is the best), 
 Where for ever and ever and ever 
 It flows on at rest. 
 
 Oh goodly the banks of that River. 
 
 Oh goodly the fruits that they bear, 
 Where for ever and ever and ever 
 It flows and is fair. 
 
 For lo ! on each bank of that River 
 
 The Tree of Life, life-giving grows, 
 Where for ever and ever and ever 
 The Pure River flows. 
 
 & In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the 
 river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve 
 manner of fruits, and yielded her frnit every month : 
 and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the 
 nations. 
 
 According to one or other Version " In the midst of the 
 street of it " either closes the first verse or opens the second. 
 
 If now I may treat it as opening ver. 2, it appears to belong to 
 the revelation of where and how stood the Tree of Life ; that 
 figure of Christ Crucified for our salvation, and constituting 
 Himself our Meat indeed and Drink indeed in the Sacrament 
 of His most Blessed Body and Blood : which how should we 
 name without words of love, yet how shall words of our love 
 worthily name it ? 
 
 It is the greatness of Thy Love, dear Lord, that we would celebrate 
 
 With sevenfold powers. 
 Our love at best is cold and poor, at best unseemly for Thy state, 
 
 This best of ours. 
 Creatures that die, we yet are such as Thine own hands deigned to create : 
 
 We frail as flowers, 
 We bitter bondslaves ransomed at a price incomparably great 
 
 To deck heaven's bowers. 
 
 Thou callest : " Come at once " and still Thou callest us : " Come late, 
 tho 1 late " 
 
 (The moments fly) 
 
 "Come, every one that thirsteth, come" "Come prove Me, knocking at 
 My gate" 
 
 (Some souls draw nigh !)
 
 5-4 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " Come thou who waiting seekest Me " " Come thou for whom I seek 
 and wait " 
 
 (Why will we die?) 
 " Come and repent : come and amend : come joy the joys unsatiate " 
 
 Christ passeth by ... 
 Lord, pass not by I come and I and I. Amen. 
 
 Perhaps the banyan tree (of which I have read) was created 
 with its exceptional habit of self-multiplication in unbroken 
 unity, to show us one natural tree capable of standing "in the 
 midst . . . and on either side," for the more confirmation of 
 our faith. 
 
 If, on the other hand, ver. 2 should be considered as not 
 commencing until the words, "And on either side of the river," 
 then the double (and no more than double) presence of the 
 Tree of Life recalls to adoring love those Two Natures of our 
 Redeemer, distinct whilst inseparable, which the Two Candle- 
 sticks upon Christian Altars are designed to express. 
 
 In the Revised Version a marginal reading substitutes 
 " twelve crops " for " twelve manner of fruits." This alternative 
 word bears witness to the inadequacy of eternity itself to empty 
 into the creature's apprehension a full knowledge of the Creator : 
 because the crops are yielded and the nations fed (see ch. ii. 7 : 
 and ver. 14 of the present ch.), satisfied, fed again, for ever and 
 ever. For the twelve crops corresponding with the twelve months 
 appear to provide for them, that is, for the entire year ; but 
 twelve months when heaven is in question seem perforce a 
 figure not of the years of time but of some aspect of eternity. 
 In accordance with which surmise I remark, that these mystical 
 months being twelve are not paralleled by the thirteen moons 
 of a temporal year, moons which wax and wane in an ever 
 renewed incompleteness. That moon which was ordained to 
 rule over the night, rules not the perpetual day. 
 
 The other reading, " twelve manner of fruits," reminds us 
 that the flavour of the wilderness Manra is said to have been 
 mysteriously adapted to the palate of each eater. And if the 
 type, much more will the True Bread from Heaven satisfy and 
 still excite and still appease every taste and craving of the 
 many thousands of the perfected Israel ; those tribes and 
 families whose thousands of thousands dwell at last in the 
 Lord's Tabernacle and rest upon His holy hill. 
 
 " And the leaves of the Tree were for the healing of the 
 nations." To this revelation, so mysterious by reason of its 
 context, I attempt not to assign conjectual time or place. I 
 rest in Christ's declaration even to His assembled Apostles :
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 525 
 
 " It is not for you to know the times or the seasons. . . ." 
 Still, something it does teach me if I learn from it that what- 
 ever the multitudes of the redeemed need, that our tender 
 Saviour Himself becomes to them. 
 
 Lord Jesus, so long as seemeth Thee good, give us faith 
 rather than knowledge, and hope than assurance. Feed us 
 when we need feeding, heal us when we need healing. Grant 
 us to find peace by conforming ourselves lovingly to Thy good 
 Will and pleasure, peace here and p^ace hereafter. Amen. 
 
 3. And there shall be no more curse : but the Throne of God 
 
 and of the Lamb shall be in it ; and His servants shall 
 serve Him : 
 
 4. And they shall see His face ; and His Name shall be in 
 
 their foreheads. 
 
 Where the Throne of God and of the Lamb is established 
 in uncontested dominion ; where His servants serve Him with 
 no more fightings without or fears within ; where in Beatific 
 Vision they see His Face ; where His Name is in their fore- 
 heads : there is and can be " no more curse." 
 
 What may I understand by " His Name shall be in their 
 foreheads? " (If I may) I will not think of it as a Name then 
 newly impressed there ; but rather as the consummated, in- 
 effaceable, fully-developed glory of that Name into which the 
 elect were once baptized in weakness who finally must bear it 
 in power. To participate in the Name is (by adoption) to 
 participate in the Nature (consider i St. Peter i. 2 4) : to 
 bear the Name in full view, " in their foreheads," is to show 
 forth the restored Divine Image and Likeness before the face 
 of all people. The forehead expresses thought, reason, 
 intellect ; and these supernaturalized by grace become wisdom 
 in union with the Uncreated Wisdom. One Name, one 
 Wisdom, one Love, with God : this is what we hope for we 
 dare not hope for less than this when unto the God of gods 
 we appear every one of us. 
 
 If the Name in the forehead do indeed (amongst whatever 
 else) express the consummation of a gift conferred in Baptism, 
 then surely day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, the 
 Divine Likeness should be developing, augmenting, deepening 
 in each of us. The progressive work may be hidden, 
 
 " Who ever saw the earliest rose first open her sweet breast? " 
 
 and well is it that from our too self-conscious eyes it is 
 hidden ! but none the less line upon line, here a little nnd
 
 526 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 there a little, the transfiguring process must be going on : or 
 else, woe is us ! the latent likeness is inevitably weakening, 
 diminishing, even if not yet ready to vanish away. 
 
 God, for Christ's sake, nerve us to stake all on the incon- 
 ceivable hope set before us. 
 
 Alas, alas ! for the self-destroyed 
 
 Vanish as images from a glass, 
 Sink down and die down by hope unbuoyed : 
 
 Alas, alas ! 
 
 Who shall stay their ruinous mass ? 
 Besotted, reckless, possessed, decoyed, 
 They hurry to the dolorous pass. 
 
 Saints fall a-weeping who would have joyed, 
 
 Sore they weep for a glory that was, 
 For a fulness emptied into the void, 
 
 Alas, alas ! 
 
 O Lord Jesus, Who biddest us here serve Thee, and 
 promisest that hereafter Thy servants shall serve Thee ; make 
 Thy command dear to us as Thy promise. Now give us grace 
 to fulfil Thy command, and afterwards of exceeding grace fulfil 
 to us Thy promise ; that we may serve Thee now in love and 
 then in love, and may see Thy Face of Love for ever and ever. 
 Amen. 
 
 5. And there shall be no night there; and they need no 
 candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God 
 giveth them light : and they shall reign for ever and 
 ever. 
 
 " By night on my bed I sought Him Whom my soul loveth : 
 I sought Him, but I found Him not." Night represents to 
 us separation, privation, baffled endeavour, unsuccessful search : 
 none of which will baulk heavenly bliss. " There shall be no 
 night there." 
 
 Candle or light of sun is not for them whose whole body 
 shall be full of light : such illumination from without applies 
 not to children of light conformed to their Original. That 
 which is outward is lent, and may be withdrawn : God's 
 crowning gifts to His elect become so to say their attributes, 
 inseparable from their persons to all eternity, "for the Lord 
 God giveth them light." 
 
 " And they shall reign for ever and ever." Joseph's dungeon 
 was antechamber to the second throne-room of a kingdom : 
 our own case, unless by our own fault. Bonds and bars seem 
 a strange preparation. for a throne, yet such they become when
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 God wills it. May it please Him by the weakness, endurance, 
 inferiority, obedience, patience, of our present lot, to train us 
 for future grandeur ! A little here : all there. " Sing unto the 
 Lord, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance 
 of His Holiness. For His anger endureth but a moment; 
 in His favour is life : weeping may endure for a night, but joy 
 cometh in the morning." 
 
 It is possible to be so disheartened by earth as to be 
 deadened towards heaven. Israel groaning under the Egyptian 
 bondage fell into such a temper : " Say unto the children of 
 Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the 
 burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their 
 bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm. and 
 with great judgments : and I will take you to Me for a people, 
 and I will be to you a God : and ye shall know that I am the 
 Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the 
 burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the 
 land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, 
 to Isaac, and to Jacob ; and I will give it you for an heritage : 
 I am the Lord. And Moses spake so unto the children of 
 Israel : but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of 
 spirit, and for cruel bondage." 
 
 O my God, by Whose loving Providence sorrows, difficulties, 
 trials, dangers, become means of grace, lessons of patience, 
 channels of hope, grant us good will to use and not abuse 
 those our privileges ; and of Thy great goodness keep us alive 
 through this dying life, that out of death Thou mayest raise us 
 up to immortality. For His sake Who is the Life, Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
 6. And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and 
 true : and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His 
 angel to shew unto His servants the things which must 
 shortly be done. 
 
 M These sayings are faithful and true " : " Write : for these 
 words are true and faithful " (ch. xxi. 5). The two texts are 
 nearly similar, but whilst that from the earlier chapter calls 
 upon St. John to execute his prophetic office, the other goes 
 on to mention God's " servants " in general. St. John's gift 
 and glory are personal and unique ; yet are the gift and glory 
 of all saints like unto them. Apostles and Prophets take pre- 
 cedence among the brethren ; yet are constituted such not 
 for their own exclusive weal, but pointedly for the edifying of 
 the body of Christ.
 
 528 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 " Freely ye have received, freely give." " Go, and do tliou 
 likewise." 
 
 "The things which must shortly be done." Shortly: never- 
 theless our Master Himself in condescension to His hearers 
 once said : " After a long time the lord of those servants 
 cometh, and reckoneth with them." On earth the word appears 
 to be spoken from the viewpoint of time, in heaven from the 
 viewpoint of eternity. 
 
 Creatures of time, such as were those whom Christ instructed, 
 are as children, speaking as children, understanding as children, 
 thinking as children. The full grown man of eternity puts 
 away childish things. 
 
 O Lord our Wisdom, so teach us to number our days that 
 we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Amen. 
 
 In so far as time is long, I comprehend that it suffices for 
 the work of salvation. In so far as it is short, I comprehend 
 that it contains not one superfluous moment. 
 
 7. Behold, I come quickly : blessed is he that keepeth the 
 sayings of the prophecy of this book. 
 
 Here at first sight and according to what precedes and 
 follows, the angel (ch.. xxi. 9) might seem still to be the 
 speaker. But rather with the Bride let us recognize the Voice 
 of the Beloved, saying, " Open to Me." For what were it 
 to us that another should come quickly? Or who but 
 He Whom our soul loveth should pronounce upon us a 
 benediction? 
 
 Even if in this and in much beside I be mistaken, I hope to 
 be held at least in some degree excused. For not (please 
 God) as courting error do I err, but rather as seeing very 
 darkly through my glass. 
 
 O Gracious Master, Thou seekest us and we seek Thee : 
 find us and be found of us. If not the illumination of Jacob, 
 yet give us his good will and holy fear when he awaked out of 
 sleep and said : " Surely the Lord is in this place ; and I 
 knew it not. How dreadful is this place ! " Everywhere Thou 
 art present : teach us everywhere to discern Thee, rejoicing 
 unto Thee with reverence. Amen. 
 
 Once before (ch. iii. n), our Lord being then undoubtedly 
 the Speaker, He used the same words to the Church of Phila- 
 delphia, but followed by an injunction : " Behold, I come 
 quickly : hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy 
 crown." And twice hereafter shall we meet with the same 
 promise of His coming vouchsafed by His own lips.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 529 
 
 On this occasion we receive it coupled with a blessing on 
 the very act which now by His grace we are endeavouring to 
 perform, and which at the outset of this Book of Revelation 
 (ch. i. 3) was commended to us under sanction of a similar 
 blessing. For with the Father of Lights is no variableness, 
 neither shadow of turning : He is the Same yesterday and to- 
 day and for ever. Thus Christ referred the lawyer simply to 
 the old established Law for the terms of salvation : " A certain 
 lawyer stood up, and tempted Him, saying, Master, what 
 shall I do to inherit eternal life ? He said unto him, What is 
 written in the law ? how readest thou ? And he answering 
 said, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all 
 thy mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself. And He said unto 
 him, Thou hast answered right : this do, and thou shall live." 
 And in St. John's Firsl Epislle we read : " Brethren, I write 
 no new commandmenl unto you, but an old commandment 
 which ye had from ihe beginning. The old commandmenl is 
 the word which ye have heard from the beginning." 
 
 So also in the Parable of the Two Sons, the injunction 
 remained in force however long obedience was delayed : 
 " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and 
 said, I will not : but afterwards he repented, and went." 
 
 Once by night the Apostles supposed thai ihey saw a spiril ; 
 and Jesus said unlo ihem, u II is I, be nol afraid." Once in 
 the morning St. Mary Magdalene supposed that she talked 
 with the gardener; and Jesus said unto her, "Mary." 
 
 If we had love like Iheirs ihe more we looked for Him ihe 
 more we should behold Him. [Yel as I read nol anywhere 
 that any pious soul ever mistook for Jesus one who was not 
 Jesus, so I beseech Him to forgive me the thoughl of my heart 
 whereinsoever I err.] 
 
 " In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy 
 paths." 
 
 A SONG FOR THE LEAST OF ALL SAINTS. 
 
 Love is the key of life and death, 
 
 Of hidden heavenly mystery : 
 Of all Christ is, of all He saith, 
 Love is the key. 
 
 As three times to His Saint He saith, 
 
 He saith to me, He saith to thce, 
 Breathing His Grace-conferring Breath: 
 " Lovest thou Me ? " 
 
 LL
 
 $30 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Ah, Lord, I have such feeble faith, 
 Such feeble hope to comfort me : 
 But love it is, is strong as death, 
 And I love Thee. 
 
 8. And I John saw these things, and heard them. And 
 
 when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship 
 "before the feet of the angel which shewed me these 
 things. 
 
 I think this passage (on which I cannot attempt any sort of 
 full comment) may safely suggest that no height of holiness 
 attainable on this side of the grave can afford positive proof 
 that the saint is already fully ripe for beatitude ; with not one 
 weak point still to be fortified, not one defect to be made 
 good. 
 
 For behold St. John the beloved, at the very moment when 
 he calls our attention to his having seen and heard things such 
 as might well make man go softly all his years, if not in the 
 bitterness at least in the solemn aspiration of his soul, behold 
 St. John for the second time offering to do that which was not 
 lawful. 
 
 Sometimes the harvest is white and garnered before the 
 harvest months are fulfilled. Sometimes it stands unreaped 
 long after we would fain have chanted harvest home. Thank 
 God that " the reapers are the angels " and not our short-sighted 
 selves : and that not even angels may reap unsent. 
 
 But St. John is habitually our example. Here he sets us 
 a pattern of affectionate gratitude and veneration towards one 
 who ministers in things spiritual; which we in just measure 
 may thankfully imitate towards our own spiritual pastors, 
 accounting them worthy of double honour and esteeming them 
 very highly in love. 
 
 9. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not : for I am thy 
 
 fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of 
 them which keep the sayings of this book: worship 
 God. 
 
 " For I am . . ." All is in the present : by no means 
 ended and consigned to the past. The speaker (apparently 
 a deathless Angel) not merely was but is St. John's fellow- 
 servant, of his brethren the prophets, of them who keep the 
 sayings of this Book. Thus are the lives of any such twain 
 lovely and pleasant, being such as neither immortality nor 
 mortality shall divide. 
 
 We too, I too, the first of us and the last, may aspire to
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 531 
 
 the same blessed fellowship. By service, spending and self- 
 spending for God : by prophecy, illustrating in our daily life 
 the pleasantness of His ways and peace of His paths: by 
 keeping the sayings, watching, praying, obeying, in preparation 
 for the day of the consummation of all things. This we can 
 do : this will we not do ? 
 
 For our all is at stake : and that which momentarily draws 
 nearer and nearer to us is inevitable, be it gain or loss, salvation 
 or ruin. Let us worship God by consecrated life and offered 
 substance ; by will, desire, affection ; not grudgingly or of 
 necessity, for He loveth a cheerful giver. Martyrs have 
 worshipped Him exultant in torture, Confessors unashamed 
 in shame, lofty Saints in self-sacrifice, lowly Saints in self- 
 discipline. All Saints have worshipped, are worshipping, will 
 worship Him for ever and ever. This we also can do : and 
 this will we not do ? 
 
 "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God, 
 and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. 
 Amen." 
 
 I suppose that no insight or profundity of mortal man ever 
 has been adequate to the full exploration of this Apocalypse. 
 I feel certain that no natural shallowness need render it a dead 
 letter to man, woman, or child. We may wonder in vain over 
 the personality of the Angel and over his vocation, but his 
 practical precept is as clear as day : " Worship God." 
 
 Indeed all through the Book of Revelation lessons enforcing 
 what we must or must not do or be, are as clear and as definite 
 as in the rest of Holy Writ. What can be easily understood 
 furnishes occupation for a lifetime : " The wayfaring men, 
 though fools, shall not err therein." But this promise can 
 be claimed only by wayfarers along " the Way of Holiness " : 
 neither by standers-still in that way, nor by vagrants along any 
 other way, can it be claimed. 
 
 To study the Apocalypse out of idle curiosity would turn it, 
 so far as the student's self were concerned, into a branch of the 
 Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And what came 
 of Eve's curious investigation of the original Tree we all 
 know. 
 
 Obey to the limit of knowledge, and in all probability 
 obedience may extend knowledge. 
 
 10. And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the 
 prophecy of this book : for the time is at hand. 
 
 Once more it appears as if the Personality of the Speaker
 
 532 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 may have changed, inasmuch as this verse seems to form one 
 unbroken sequence with those which immediately follow. 
 
 If eighteen hundred years ago the time was " at hand," how 
 urgently at hand must it now be ! If then it behoved disciples 
 to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the prophecy, how 
 urgently now ! If then it was of the Divine Grace and Mercy 
 that the Book was left unsealed, still is it of the Divine Grace 
 and Mercy that it continues unsealed to our own day. If then 
 it was high time to awake out of sleep, truly is it so now. 
 
 The night is far spent, the day is at hand : 
 
 Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, 
 
 And let us put on the armour of light. 
 Night for the dead in their stiffness and starkness ! 
 
 Day for the living who mount in their might 
 Out of their graves to the beautiful land. 
 
 Far far away lies the beautiful land : 
 
 Mount on wide wings of exceeding desire, 
 
 Mount, look not back, mount to life and to light, 
 Mount by the glow of your lamps all on fire, 
 
 Up from the dead men and up from the night. 
 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. 
 
 A disobedient and gainsaying people withstood the stretched 
 forth Divine hands. A blinded people rejected the sheltering 
 wing of Divine Love. 
 
 Alas for the disobedient, gainsaying, blinded multitude before 
 whom the Book now stands open ! Alas for them : and what 
 for ourselves ? 
 
 Our eyes we can open or shut ; but the opened Book never 
 can we shut. Whom it cannot instruct it must judge. 
 
 O Lord our only Saviour, we cannot bear alone our load of 
 responsibility : upbear us under it. We look without seeing 
 unless Thou purge our sight : grant us sight. We read without 
 comprehending unless Thou open our understanding : give us 
 intelligence. Nothing can we do unless Thou prosper the 
 work of our hands upon us : oh prosper Thou our handiwork. 
 We are weak : out of weakness make us strong. We are in 
 peril of death : come and heal us. We believe : help Thou 
 our unbelief. We hope : let us not be disappointed of our 
 hope. We love : grant us to love much, to love ever more and 
 more, to love all, and most of all to love Thee. 
 
 11. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : and he which 
 is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is 
 righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that 
 is holy, let him be holy still.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 533 
 
 Or as in the Revised Version : " He that is unrighteou?, let 
 him do unrighteousness still : and he that is filthy, let him be 
 made filthy still : and he that is righteous, let him do righteous- 
 ness still : and he that is holy, let him be made holy still." 
 Despite the correspondence of the two translations, the 
 Authorized may perhaps be understood to convey a doom 
 of fixedness whether in good or evil ; the Revised, a sentence 
 of freedom to persist in the same good or evil : such determined 
 persistence amounting to actual progress in either quality, if we 
 are to adopt a marginal alternative reading which at each clause 
 of the verse substitutes "yet more" for "still." 
 
 Thus once more pressing home on us that man is his own 
 destroyer : especially if stress may be laid upon the word let as 
 permissive rather than imperative. More horrible than what 
 he incurs is what he n^akes himself: it has become his habit 
 to be wicked, foul ; and not only his habit, it has become his 
 taste. "Let him." 
 
 On the other hand, how safe and glorious thus transpires the 
 lot of the righteous man and the holy. On him too a doom 
 passes, on him a sentence of freedom, on him a permissive fiat. 
 He too by God's grace has made himself what he is : it has 
 become his habit to be just and pure ; and not merely his 
 habit, it has become his taste. " Let him." 
 
 God saves the saved : the destroyed destroy themselves. 
 
 Then let us not merely flee from the wrath to come. Let us 
 court righteousness, make love to holiness. 
 
 Yet how court righteousness ? " For the Righteous God 
 trieth the hearts and reins." How dare make love to holiness 
 when " Great and terrible " is God's most Holy Name ? 
 
 O God, Whose Presence fills space, take away our ungodli- 
 ness and Thou shall find none. 
 
 Thou Whose Presence we cannot flee, do away our offences 
 and cleanse us from all defilements of flesh and spirit. 
 
 Thou Whose Righteousness is from everlasting, impute to us 
 righteousness. 
 
 Thou with Whom is mercy, grant us fear, grant us hope. 
 
 Thou with Whom is mercy, show mercy upon us. 
 
 In the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 12. And, behold, I come quickly ; and My reward is with 
 Me, to give every man according as his work shall be. 
 
 A dear and saintly person, one of my own nearest and 
 dearest, who had been aforetime a great reader and lover of 
 pious literature, when near her end expressed as at that period
 
 534 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 her almost exclusive love of Holy Scripture : the inspired Text 
 itself, no longer the comment; although still she prized such 
 human work as elucidated the blessed Text. She fed on the 
 Word of Life, being evidently fed with food convenient for her. 
 Thus she prepared for dealh : thus went out to meet the 
 Bridegroom, having oil in her lamp. 
 
 If this closing chapter of the Apocalypse finds some with 
 few words of their own, God's grace may yet be teaching them 
 by it, and by all that went before, a solemn preparation for 
 death or for the Second Advent. Either may be very near : 
 one at least cannot be very far distant : " Behold, I come 
 quickly." 
 
 Every ending includes a solemn element : the ending of 
 God's Revelation to humankind is solemn indeed. Every 
 ending, winding up, cutting short, foreshadows the ending, 
 winding up, cutting short of life and of probation. 
 
 The reiterations of the Apocalypse emphasize this finality, 
 this note of preparation. There is nothing new under the sun. 
 " That which hath been is named already, and it is known that 
 it is man : neither may he contend with Him that is mightier 
 than he." "Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have 
 heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from 
 the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the 
 Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that He hath 
 promised us, even eternal life." 
 
 He Who once had His reward with Him and His work 
 before Him, has fed His flock like a shepherd, gathering and 
 carrying and gently leading the tender ones. Now has He 
 His reward in readiness to give to every man according as his 
 work shall be. Christ worked for man the work of Redemption : 
 the Holy Spirit worked in man the work of sanctification : all 
 men one by one have or have not worked out their own 
 individual salvation with fear and trembling. 
 
 The reward is for all work in general, but is assigned to each 
 work in proportion. "He which soweth sparingly shall reap 
 also sparingly ; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also 
 bountifully." The far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
 glory though incommensurate with any desert will yet be 
 harmonized with each desert. Sun, moon, stars, differ in 
 glory : star from star in glory. 
 
 "Behold, I come quickly." Quickly He cometh, whether 
 we behold or whether we forbear. " Behold, He cometh with 
 clouds " : blessed are they to whom the brightness of His 
 Presence dissipates every cloud.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 535 
 
 And His reward is with Him. What know we of that 
 reward? It is Himself, as He declared to Abram : "I am 
 thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." It is Himself 
 above all and beyond all : this, and beside this "such and such 
 things," as of yore He spake concerning David His beloved. 
 
 Faith spurning the world claims kindred with Moses : " By 
 faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called 
 the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; choosing rather to suffer afflic- 
 tion with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin 
 for a season ; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches 
 than the treasures in Egypt : for he had respect unto the 
 recompence of the reward." 
 
 Whoso trusts in Him shall be as Ruth : "The Lord recom- 
 pense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord 
 God of Israel, under Whose wings thou art come to trust." 
 
 Whoso waxes strong in the Lord's quarrel, his " work shall 
 be rewarded." 
 
 Whoso desires and is warned by His judgments, " In keeping 
 of them there is great reward." 
 
 " Verily there is a reward for the righteous." 
 
 " He that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded." 
 
 The knowledge of wisdom is sweet and good : " When thou 
 hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation 
 shall not be cut off." 
 
 " If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat ; and if he 
 be thirsty, give him water to drink : for thou shalt heap coals 
 of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee." 
 
 " When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy 
 right hand doeth : that thine alms may be in secret : and thy 
 Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee 
 openly." 
 
 "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou 
 hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret ; and 
 thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." 
 
 " When thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face ; 
 that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father 
 which is in secret ; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall 
 reward thee openly." 
 
 "Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in My 
 Name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he 
 shall not lose his reward." 
 
 " Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they 
 shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, 
 and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake.
 
 536 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy : for, behold, your 
 reward is great in heaven." 
 
 " Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not 
 unto men ; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the 
 reward of the inheritance : for ye serve the Lord Christ." 
 Confidence under trials " hath great recompence of reward." 
 For God " is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." 
 " For the Son of Man shall come in the Glory of His Father 
 with His angels ; and then He shall reward every man accord- 
 ing to his works." Amen. 
 
 13. I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, 
 
 the First and the last. 
 
 " I am Alpha and Omega " is here declared for the fourth 
 time. Thus is it at the beginning (ch. i. 8), and still thus at 
 the end ; thus at the first, and still thus at the last. We 
 change, He changes not. Yet even in ourselves constitutional 
 changeableness cannot annul a certain inherent unchangeable- 
 ness, which so far corresponds with His in Whom we live and 
 move and have our being : for we are His offspring. His 
 Immutability is reflected in our identity : as He cannot deny 
 Himself, so neither can we deny ourselves. Rocks may fall 
 on us, mountains cover us; but under mountain and rock 
 remains the inextinguishable I. 
 
 Not but the Omnipotent Creator could if He willed anni- 
 hilate His creature : " With God all things are possible." But 
 no such decree is revealed. 
 
 14. Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they 
 
 may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter 
 in through the gates into the city. 
 
 Or as in the Revised Version : " Bhessed are they that wash 
 their robes. . . ." 
 
 The two readings taken together suggest the sanctity of 
 obedience, the sanctity of repentance, and the exceeding great 
 reward of both. Nor indeed were either excluded could the 
 other possibly find admission ; for human obedience being at 
 best imperfect so far needs repentance ; and repentance is the 
 particular form of obedience practicable by even the most 
 imperfect. 
 
 Our last opportunity is not lost so long as repentance 
 remains accessible. This snatches the brand from the burning, 
 this wrenches the prey from between the teeth of the mighty. 
 
 Lord, I repent : help Thou mine impenitence.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 537 
 
 Almost beyond belief it seems blessed in the eternal kingdom 
 to " have right to the Tree of Life." 
 
 All is of God's grace, nothing of man's desert. Of His 
 grace it pleases Him to constitute such a privilege our " right " ; 
 and our right thenceforward it becomes, whilst first and last all 
 is of grace. " For He spake, and it was done ; He com- 
 manded, and it stood fast." 
 
 As the hart desireth the water-brooks, doth our soul so long 
 after that Tree of Life ? Surely yes, if we be not lower than 
 the beasts that perish. 
 
 . . . Alas ! not '' surely " at all, unless our present longings 
 can stand one test which too often shames them. For already 
 we have a right to our own precious Tree of Life, Christ in 
 the Sacrament of His most Blessed Body and Blood. 
 
 Whoso longs not for Christ here, wherefore should he long 
 for Him there? 
 
 Because our Saviour longed for us on earth we are con- 
 vinced that He longs for us in heaven. 
 
 If \ve long not for Him on earth, who shall kindle our longing 
 for Him in heaven ? 
 
 To "do His commandments" is the condition on which 
 depends our "right to the Tree of Life." One of His com- 
 mandments is : " Do this in remembrance of Me." St. James 
 warns us : " Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet 
 offend in one point, he is guilty of all." 
 
 Good Lord Jesus, our only Hope ; because we cannot help 
 ourselves, help Thou us. Because we cannot quicken our- 
 selves, quicken Thou us. Because we cannot kindle ourselves, 
 kindle Thou us. Because we cannot cleanse ourselves, cleanse 
 Thou us. Because we cannot heal ourselves, heal Thou us. 
 For Thou hast no pleasure in our impotence, lifelessness, 
 coldness, pollutions, infirmity. If Thou desire our love, who 
 shall give us love wherewith to love Thee except Thou Who 
 art Love give it us ? Helpless we are, and our helplessness 
 appeals to Thee. 
 
 'Through the gates into the city." Such gates as Isaiah 
 celebrates, and whereunto he indicates the approach : " Open 
 ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth 
 may enter in. ... The way of the just is uprightness : Thou, 
 most upright, dost weigh the path of the just. Yea, in the 
 way of Thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for Thee; 
 the desire of our soul is to Thy Name, and to the remem- 
 brance of Thee. With my soul have I desired Thee in the 
 night ; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early :
 
 538 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 for when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of 
 the world will learn righteousness." 
 
 Hark ! the Alleluias of the great salvation 
 
 Still beginning, never ending, still begin, 
 The thunder of an endless adoration : 
 Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation 
 
 Which have kept the truth may enter in. 
 
 Roll ye back, ye pearls, on your twelvefold station : 
 
 No more deaths to die, no more fights to win ! 
 Lift your heads, ye gates, that the righteous nation 
 Led by the Great Captain of their sole salvation 
 Having kept the truth may enter in. 
 
 15. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, 
 and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth 
 and maketh a lie. 
 
 Here the entire evil company must be understood literally, 
 with the exception of " dogs," which seems figurative. Various 
 texts of Holy Writ under this same figure exhibit wickedness, 
 or alienation from goodness, or brand certain tempers or 
 habits as abominable ; whilst an enactment of the Mosaic Law 
 suggests typically this final exclusion of dogs : " Thou shalt not 
 bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house 
 of the Lord thy God for any vow : for even both these are 
 abomination unto the Lord thy God." " Against any of the 
 children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue." " Dogs 
 have compassed Me : the assembly of the wicked have enclosed 
 Me. . . . Deliver My soul from the sword ; My darling from 
 the power of the dog." " Deliver me from the workers of 
 iniquity, and save me from bloody men. . . . And at evening 
 let them return ; and let them make a noise like a dog, and 
 go round about the city. Let them wander up and down for 
 meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied." " His watchmen 
 . . . are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying 
 down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which 
 can never have enough." " Give not that which is holy unto 
 the dogs." " Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers." " It 
 had been better for them not to have known the way of 
 righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the 
 holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened 
 unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned 
 to his own vomit again ; and the sow that was washed to her 
 wallowing in the mire." 
 
 " Dogs " may perhaps be viewed as representing brutal, 
 bestial, gross, rampant, low-type opposition. " Whoremongers
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 539 
 
 and murderers" degrade man's lower nature, "sorcerers . . . 
 and idolaters " his higher nature. " Whosoever loveth and 
 maketh a lie," whilst it seems to start with heart idolatry and 
 go on to material idolatry, may also surely include liars in 
 general, who, misusing the best member that they have, and 
 loving darkness rather than light, put darkness for light and 
 light for darkness. 
 
 If all lying great or small is here branded with infamy, we 
 may fairly assume that any and every taint of the other sins 
 indicated is likewise here condemned by that Gracious God and 
 Saviour, Who threatens that He may not smite, and often smites 
 that He may not cast off for ever ; and Who condescends to 
 entertain a plea for the very dogs, even for some whom large- 
 hearted Job himself had haply disdained to set with the dogs 
 of his flock : " Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be 
 filled : for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to 
 cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto Him, 
 Yes, Lord : yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's 
 crumbs. And He said unto her, For this saying go thy way ; 
 the devil is gone out of thy daughter." It behoves us to 
 barricade the approaches of our souls against the creeping tide 
 of evil : though the tide may scarce have turned, the danger 
 has begun. 
 
 " Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath 
 committed adultery with her already in his heart." " Whoso- 
 ever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in 
 danger of the judgment." "Rebellion is as the sin of witch- 
 craft." " If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the 
 fine gold, Thou art my confidence ; if I rejoiced because my 
 wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much ; 
 if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in 
 brightness ; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my 
 mouth hath kissed my hand : this also were an iniquity to be 
 punished by the judge : for I should have denied the God that 
 is above." 
 
 16. I Jesus have sent Mine Angel to testify unto you these 
 things in the churches. I am the root and the off- 
 spring of David, and the bright and morning star. 
 
 " It is I, be not afraid." Yea, Lord, so bring us unto the 
 haven where we would be. 
 
 The countenance of Thy messenger may be like the coun- 
 tenance of an Angel of God very terrible : we ask him not 
 whence he is, neither telleth he us his name.
 
 540 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 Thee, Lord, we know : Thee we trust. Thy Name we know : 
 in Thy Name we take refuge. Grant us grace to do so of a 
 truth : grant steadfastness, patience, faith, hope, love, to Thy 
 Church expectant. 
 
 O Root of David, mould us after Thine own Heart. O 
 Offspring of David, be formed in us by the operation of Thy 
 Most Holy Spirit. 
 
 O Bright and Morning Star, kindle us to shine as stars for 
 ever and ever ; all differing in glory, yet one and all resplendent 
 to Thy glory. Amen and Amen. 
 
 It is " in the Churches " that these things are testified. To 
 myself it is in the beloved Anglican Church of my Baptism : a 
 living branch of that one Holy Catholic Apostolic Church 
 which is authoritatively commended and endeared to every 
 Christian by the Word of God. "The Lord added to the 
 Church daily such as should be saved." " And so were the 
 Churches established in the faith, and increased in number 
 daily." "The Church of God, which He hath- purchased with 
 His own Blood." " God is not the author of confusion, but 
 of peace, as in all Churches of the saints." " Christ . . . the 
 Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the 
 fulness of Him that filleth all in all." " Now unto Him that 
 is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
 think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be 
 glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world 
 without end. Amen." " Christ is the Head of the Church. 
 . . . The Church is subject unto Christ. . . . Christ also 
 loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might 
 sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 
 that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not 
 having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should 
 be holy and without blemish." " The house of God, which is 
 the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the 
 truth." " Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without 
 wavering ; (for He is faithful that promised ;) and let us 
 consider one another to provoke unto love and to good 
 works : not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as 
 the manner of some is ; but exhorting one another : and so 
 much the more, as ye see the day approaching." 
 
 Our Lord is designated as the " Sun of Righteousness " by a 
 Prophet : the sun without peer rules over the planetary system. 
 But Christ with lips full of grace deigns to call Himself " the 
 Bright and Morning Star " : which star solitary in office and 
 in dignity lights up hope for the darkened world and promises
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 541 
 
 and ushers in day after night. Yet is it a veritable star amid 
 fellow stars ; incomparably the Chiefest, but among ten 
 thousand. 
 
 The shout of a King is among them. One day may I be 
 
 Of that perfect communion of lovers contented and free 
 
 In the land that is very far off, and far off from the sea. 
 
 The shout of the King is among them. One King and one song, 
 
 One thunder of manifold voices harmonious and strong, 
 
 One King and one love and one shout of one worshipping throng. 
 
 If in itself we care not for our own glorification, still let us 
 care, long, pray for it, that so our glory may by a condescension 
 of grace enhance Christ's excelling glory, and that even in the 
 great day of final award He may not be ashamed to call us 
 brethren. 
 
 Turning to a parable of nature, we perceive the bright and 
 morning star which renews our gladness, to be none other than 
 the sweet calm evening star of our twilight solace. So and 
 much more art Thou, Good Lord Jesus, the consolatory Star 
 of this vigil of our mortality ; and so dost Thou reveal Thyself 
 as the all-surpassing Star of the festival of our immortality. 
 
 17. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him 
 that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst 
 come. And whosoever will, let him take the water 
 of life freely. 
 
 The Church has no independent existence. Christ, Whose 
 mystical body she is, is her Head : the Holy Ghost, Whose 
 temple she is, is her overruling Will and Power. Severed from 
 the Head she would die : emptied of the Indwelling Presence 
 she would return to corruption. 
 
 Yet is not all this even on her side by constraint, but 
 willingly. The Bridegroom chooses the Bride by free will of 
 Divine Love : the Bride by free will of love human and super- 
 human chooses the Bridegroom. The Most Holy Spirit freely 
 chooses His Temple : the living and breathing Temple in the 
 fortress of her will and the secret place of her affections freely 
 enshrines her God. 
 
 In the peaceful verse under contemplation, " the Spirit and 
 the Bride " speaking with one voice say " Come " with one 
 will. The Indweller is Love : and therefore the Temple is 
 full of love. God the Holy Spirit is that Person of the All 
 Holy Trinity Who " Proceedeth " : He has imparted Himself 
 to Christ's mystical Bride, and by His Divine impulse she 
 pants to share every good and every perfect gift which is hers
 
 542 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 with the worldwide family of man. Because a Flowing River 
 is His emblem, therefore a stagnant pool never can be hers. 
 
 Fire also is His symbol. His Flame has kindled hers : and 
 therefore from her spreading flame the hearer who hath ears 
 to hear likewise catches fire, and echoes and cries and cannot 
 but cry " Come." 
 
 " And let him that is athirst come." We thirst : with the call 
 to come give us the will to come, most Bountiful Lord Jesus. 
 Thou Who turnedst water into wine ; Who saidst, " Give Me 
 to drink " ; Who criest, " If any man thirst let him come 
 unto Me and drink " ; Who saidst, " With desire I have 
 desired " ; Who declarest, " My Blood is drink indeed " ; Who 
 saidst in extremity, " I thirst " ; suffer us not to make ourselves 
 as Dives, but join us to Thyself and quench our thirst. 
 
 When the Spirit saith, " Come," He fulfils in our ears that 
 all-gracious promised ministry whereby He brings to our 
 remembrance the blessed sayings of Christ ; Who in the course 
 of His earthly ministry said likewise, "Come," sometimes to 
 one, sometimes to another, sometimes to a multitude ; and 
 Who while addressing each however individually conveyed also 
 a message, charge, lesson, to many others, and even by analogy 
 or inference to all. Let us arise and go to Him Who came to 
 us before He bade us come to Him. 
 
 " The Voice of my Beloved ! behold, He cometh . . ." 
 
 " Come ye after Me." Lord Jesus, Whose call the blessed 
 brothers Peter and Andrew obeyed with warm hearts, grant to 
 each of us like warmth and like obedience ; a good start, a 
 good course, a good goal. Call us all, I beseech Thee, grant 
 saving grace to us all. 
 
 " First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer 
 thy gift." Lord Jesus, since I can never deliver my brother, 
 grant me at least never to wrong him. Enable us by love to 
 serve one another and to offer ourselves unto Thee. 
 
 Me and my gift ; kind Lord, behold, 
 
 Be not extreme to test or sift : 
 Thy Love can turn to fire and gold 
 Me and my gift. 
 
 Myself and mine to Thee I lift : 
 Gather us to Thee from the cold 
 
 Dead outer world where dead things drift. 
 
 If much were mine, then manifold 
 
 Should be the offering of my thrift : 
 I am but poor, yet love makes bold 
 Me and my gift.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 543 
 
 " All that are in the graves shall hear His Voice, and shall 
 come forth." Lord Jesus, Who in pure Love madest Thy 
 grave with the wicked and with the rich in Thy death, for that 
 same Love's sake turn the wicked from their evil ways, and 
 enrich all souls with heavenly treasure : that so when a great 
 company hearing Thy Voice shall come forth from their graves, 
 they may have their portion in the resurrection of life. 
 
 "Whosoever cometh to Me, and heareth My sayings, and 
 doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like : he is like a 
 man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the 
 foundation on a rock." Lord Jesus, grant us grace to come to 
 Thee in obedience, and by constant obedience to abide with 
 Thee ; that our foundation may be upon the Rock of Ages, 
 and that underneath us may be the Everlasting Arms. Hold 
 us fast that we may cleave unto Thee ; embrace us that we 
 may cling unto Thee. 
 
 " I will come and heal him." Lord Jesus, Who knowing 
 whereof we are made, and remembering that we are but dust, 
 beholdest all our palsies and grievous torments of body and 
 soul, have compassion on us and heal us. We are not worthy : 
 yet speak the word. 
 
 "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest." Lord Jesus, help us to take Thy 
 yoke upon us, and learn of Thee : that being meek and lowly 
 our souls may rest in Thee all the while we labour and bear 
 our due appointed burden patiently. 
 
 " I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to re- 
 pentance." Lord Jesus, Who earnest from heaven to earth to 
 call us, wean us from earth that we may ascend to Thee in 
 heaven. Thou leftest heaven for love of us : forbid it, that we 
 should not leave anything or everything for love of Thee ! 
 Thou sinless earnest in contact with sin for love of us : enable 
 us for love of Thee to repent and sin no more. 
 
 " Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the 
 Son of Man be come." Lord Jesus, Who art Thyself our 
 Way and our End, suffer not persecution or pleasure or any 
 circumstance to hinder our pressing forward to meet Thee at 
 Thy coming. Be Thou here our city of refuge, and hereafter 
 our home. 
 
 "Come." Lord Jesus, Whom holy Peter loved and Who 
 didst much more love Peter, grant us faith all-venturesome for 
 Thy sake, hope for an anchor sure and steadfast, love responsive 
 to Thy loving call. 
 
 " I am the Bread of Life : he that cometh to Me shall never
 
 544 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 hunger." Lord Jesus, evermore give us this Bread, give us 
 Thyself. Thou Who in love givest Thyself to us in the 
 Blessed Sacrament of Thy Body and Blood, grant us grace in 
 \r love to receive Thee, in love to retain Thee, in love to be 
 joined to Thee eternally. 
 
 "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me ; and him 
 that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." Lord Jesus, 
 draw us, we will run after Thee. Bring us into the many 
 mansions of Thy Father's house that we may be glad, and 
 rejoice in Thee remembering Thy Love. Make us upright 
 that we may love Thee. 
 
 " I came down from heaven, not to do mine own Will, but 
 the Will of Him that sent Me." Lord Jesus, Who for us men 
 and for our salvntion earnest down from heaven, I beseech 
 Thee assist us by Thy grace so to do Thy Will and the Will of 
 Him that sent Thee, that in heart and soul we may mount up 
 and abide with Thee in heaven. 
 
 " No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath 
 sent Me draw him : and I will raise him up at the last day." 
 Lord Jesus, our Great High Priest, vouchsafe to intercede for 
 us with the Father that He may draw us. Receive Thou us, 
 and raise us up at the last day. Whom have we in heaven 
 but Thee ? and sinners as we are, whom hast Thou on earth 
 but us? 
 
 " No man can come unto Me, except it were given unto 
 him of My Father." Lord Jesus, we plead Thy Strength, we 
 plead with Thee our own weakness. Can a woman forget her 
 sucking child ? Yea, Lord : yet wilt not Thou forget us. 
 
 " If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and 
 take up his cross daily, and follow Me." Lord Jesus, grant us 
 daily grace for daily need. Daily patience for a daily cross. 
 Daily, hourly, incessant love of Thee, to take up our cross 
 daily and bear it after Thee. 
 
 -"If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink." 
 
 i/ Lord Jesus, if we thirst not, give us thirst ; if we thirst, give 
 
 us to drink. Withhold not from us Thyself and Thy Most 
 
 Holy Spirit, that we thirst no more, neither go elsewhere to draw. 
 
 , " I am come that they might have life, and that they might 
 
 y have it more abundantly." Lord Jesus, in Whose hand is the 
 
 soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind, to 
 
 the lifeless impart life, to the living increase life : for Thou 
 
 Thyself art the Life, and apart from Thee we have no life. 
 
 " Lazarus, come forth." Lord Jesus, Who in love to Martha 
 and her sister and Lazarus gavest them back to one another
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 545 
 
 for yet a brief space of mortal life ; give back to us, I beseech 
 Thee, our beloved whom Thou hast taken to Thyself: reunite 
 us not in mortal life but immortal, not for a little while but for 
 ever. This I pray for generation after generation of mankind 
 until all be fulfilled ; and the last acceptable souls going home 
 to Thee, find with Thee those also who shall not return to them. 
 
 " They shall come from the east, and from the west, and 
 from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the 
 kingdom of God." Lord Jesus, grant us wisdom with the 
 Wise Men and with all who tread in their steps, not to grudge 
 any long journey that leadeth to Thee, but in patience to 
 possess our souls. 
 
 "If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and 
 mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, 
 and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." Lord Jesus, 
 what Thou requires! enable us to do and be, for verily flesh 
 and blood enter not into the kingdom of God. Grant us self- 
 restraint, self-denial, self-oblation, the lesser love enhancing 
 the greater ; the pure sacrifice which is acceptable to Thee. 
 
 "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them 
 not : for of such is the kingdom of God." Lord Jesus, give 
 us Thine own grace of love and care for little children, that we 
 may bring them to Thee in Holy Baptism, and watch over them 
 body and soul. And I beseech Thee make us like them, that 
 so Thou mayest love and care for us with them. 
 
 " If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and 
 give to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven : and 
 come and follow Me." Lord Jesus, with Thy call pour forth 
 grace responsive to that call ; that so high saints may walk on 
 high with Thee, perfect as Thou art perfect. Yet call to mind, 
 I beseech Thee, that compassion whereby Thou saidst, " He 
 that is able to receive it, let him receive it," call to mind Thy 
 condescension when by the mouth of St. Peter Thou pro- 
 testedst, "Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and 
 after it was sold, was it not in thine own power ? " and 
 pardon even every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, 
 the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed 
 according to the purification of the sanctuary. Be merciful to 
 first and last. 
 
 " Zacchseus, make haste, and come down ; for to-day I 
 must abide at thy house." Lord Jesus, when Thou biddest 
 us come down, give us grace to humble ourselves. Thou art 
 our salvation : come Thou to our hearts and abide there this 
 day, every day, for ever. 
 
 M M
 
 546 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which 
 was lost." Lord Jesus, Only Sacrifice, Only Saviour, Thou 
 Who seekest us to save us, give us gracious yearnings that 
 seeking Thee we may be saved. We are lost if Thou seek us 
 not : self-lost if we seek not Thee. From utter irretrievable 
 loss, O Saviour of the lost, deliver us. 
 
 " I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth 
 on Me should not abide in darkness." Lord Jesus, suffer us 
 not to love darkness rather than light ; but help us so to do 
 good works and come into the light, that our deeds may be 
 made manifest that they are wrought in God. 
 
 " Watch therefore : for ye know not what hour your Lord 
 doth come." Lord Jesus, we know not, but Thou knowest. 
 Thou Who in loving pity watchest over us, grant us in longing 
 love to watch for Thee. Alas for me ! grant me, even me, 
 such great love. 
 
 " When the Son of Man shall corne in His glory . . . then 
 shall He sit upon the Throne of His glory : and before Him 
 shall be gathered all nations." Lord Jesus, when rocks cannot 
 hide us or mountains cover us, be Thou our shield and hiding- 
 place from the wrath to come. 
 
 " Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom pre- 
 pared for you from the foundation of the world." Lord Jesus, 
 Thou waitest to be gracious. We wait for Thy loving-kindness 
 in the midst of Thy temple. The eyes of all wait upon Thee : 
 give us, I pray Thee, our meat in due season, now that meat 
 which endureth unto everlasting life, hereafter the marriage 
 supper of Thy kingdom. 
 
 " If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and 
 receive you unto Myself." Lord Jesus, let us not faint, but 
 have patience, awaiting the fulfilment of this Thine all-consol- 
 atory promise. For Thou the Truth art True, though every 
 man were a liar. 
 
 " I will not leave you comfortless : I will come to you." 
 Lord Jesus, never suffer us to despond, saying, the Lord 
 hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Heaven 
 and earth shall pass away, but Thy word shall not pass 
 away. 
 
 " If a man love Me, he will keep My words : and My 
 Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make 
 Our abode with him." Lord Jesus, Blessed be Thou Who for 
 love of us becamest lonely in life, while men hid as it were 
 their faces from Thee, and unutterably lonely in Thy last 
 Agony, when the Father Himself hid His Face from Thee.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 547 
 
 It was our loneliness Thou enduredst in our stead : Blessed 
 be Thou. 
 
 " Come and dine." Lord Jesus, mortal life is our night of 
 abstinence : grant us eternal life for our day of feasting. 
 Blessed is he that eateth Bread in the kingdom of God : in 
 the Church Militant here, in the Church Triumphant hereafter. 
 With Thee here in a Mystery : with Thee hereafter face to Face. 
 
 " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? 
 follow thou Me." Lord Jesus, Who sweetly orderest all things, 
 give to each one of us, I beseech Thee, the special grace 
 proper to his vocation : that the contemplative may sit ever at 
 Thy Feet in spirit, and the active may follow in Thy blessed 
 footsteps which went about doing good. Amen and Amen. 
 
 " Come. . . . And whosoever will, let him take the water 
 of life freely." Once more our will is made the turning-point. 
 God's Will is revealed in that word of mercy " Come " : man's 
 will is still in question. 
 
 Do I then ignore or deny the doctrines of Prevenient Grace 
 and Predestination ? God forbid ; but neither when He saith 
 Come, can I deny or ignore that so He saith. He Who is the 
 Truth cannot but mean Come when He saith Come. 
 
 Yet Christ declares plainly : " No man can come unto Me, 
 except it were given unto him of My Father " establishing 
 the necessity of Prevenient Grace. 
 
 I know it : yet saith He to me, Come. 
 
 And St. Paul writing under Inspiration states : " Whom He 
 did predestinate, them He also called." 
 
 This also I know : yet surely He Who saith to me Come, 
 calleth me. 
 
 What then do I think ? God helping me, I will think this. 
 The Divine Call has been addressed to me, has reached me, 
 has urged my will, convinced my understanding, moved my 
 heart. At the Judgment Bar never can I plead, No man hath 
 hired me ; never can I claim the few stripes of one who knew 
 nothing of his Lord's Will. I observe moreover that my call 
 being a practical one, demanding not intellect on my side but 
 obedience, enjoins practice rather than subtil theory, and is re- 
 sponded to by simplest obedience. My understanding breaks 
 down : so be it. Please God, my will shall not break down, 
 nor my faith make shipwreck. 
 
 O Love of Christ, constrain me, constrain all. 
 
 " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of 
 Jerusalem : behold, thy King cometh unto thee : He is just, 
 and having salvation."
 
 548 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 This Call which cries " Come," and addresses " whosoever 
 will," is a call to refreshment, solace, overflowing plenty, 
 boundless endless supply, sustenance of immortality. A call 
 without stint, without bar : " Whosoever will, let him take the 
 water of life freely." 
 
 Yet some Christians traverse the world like walking funerals 
 rather than like wedding-guests ! (Know thyself.) " But be 
 ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own 
 selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he 
 is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass : for 
 he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway 
 forgetteth what manner of man he was." 
 
 18. For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of 
 
 the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto 
 these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that 
 are written in this book. 
 
 19. And if any man shall take away from the words of 
 
 the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his 
 part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, 
 and from the things which are written in this book. 
 
 Our Lord deigns to testify "unto every man that heareth . . ." : 
 thus acting in accordance with a revelation vouchsafed of His 
 own Nature : " That was the true Light, which lighteth every 
 man . . . ," and in harmony with His declaration before 
 Pontius Pilate : " To this end was I born, and for this cause 
 came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the 
 truth." 
 
 O Lord, if I myself have fallen into either deadly error 
 against which Thou here testifiest : " I acknowledge my 
 transgressions. . . . Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, 
 and done this evil in Thy sight : that Thou mightest be 
 justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou 
 judgest. . . . Hide Thy Face from my sins, and blot out all 
 mine iniquities." 
 
 Were it not for the blessing (ch. i, 3) pronounced on him that 
 readeth and on them that hear the words of this Prophecy, and 
 keep those things which are written therein, well might we 
 weep much, confessing our utter unworthiness to open and to 
 read the Book, 01 so much as to look thereon. 
 
 It is well to fear and obey. It is ill to fear instead of 
 obeying. 
 
 Some can meditate and interpret. All can meditate and pray. 
 
 To interpret should do good. To pray will do good.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 549 
 
 Interpretation may err and darken knowledge. Prayer 
 fetches down wisdom from the Father of lights. 
 
 I'rayer is the safeguard of interpretation, and without 
 interpretation is still profitable. 
 
 We seem to bring something of our own to interpretation, 
 and if puffed up may destroy ourselves. Prayer avows desti- 
 tution, and lays hold on the riches of Him Who made us. 
 
 Interpretation is safe and seemly for some. Prayer is 
 safe and seemly for all. 
 
 " If any man shall add. . . . And if any man shall take 
 away. . . ." The ruinous sin here denounced of adding to 
 this Revelation to be punished by added plagues, or of taking 
 away from it to be punished by expulsion from blessings, is 
 foreshadowed in two Prophecies of Jeremiah : " Thus saith 
 the Lord concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite ; Because that 
 Shemaiah hath prophesied unto you, and I sent him not, and 
 he caused you to trust in a lie ; therefore thus saith the Lord ; 
 Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite, and his seed r 
 he shall not have a man to dwell among this people ; neither 
 shall he behold the good that I will do for My people, saith 
 the Lord ; because he hath taught rebellion against the Lord " 
 " Thou shalt say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus saith the 
 Lord ; Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou 
 written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly 
 come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from 
 thence man and beast ? Therefore thus saith the Lord of 
 Jehoiakim king of Judah ; He shall have none to sit upon the 
 throne of David : and his dead body shall be cast out in the 
 day to the heat, and in the night to the frost." 
 
 " God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and 
 out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in 
 this book." The Revised Version gives a noteworthy variation : 
 " God shall take away his part from the Tree of Life, and out 
 of the holy city, which are written in this book." Sad it were 
 to forfeit the Book of Life and the holy city : sadder still to 
 forfeit the Tree of Life, which represents to us Jesus. 
 
 Jesus alone : if thus it were to me ; 
 
 Yet thus it cannot be ; 
 
 Lord, I have all things if I have but Thee. 
 
 Jesus and all : precious His bounties are, 
 
 Yet He more precious far ; 
 
 Day's-eyes are many, one the Mom ing Star. 
 
 Jesus my all : so let me rest in love, 
 
 Thy peaceable poor dove, 
 
 Some time below till timeless time nbove.
 
 550 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The wilfully dead sever themselves from the Tree of Life, 
 the wilfully foul from the holy city. Dreadful were it simply 
 to be shut up with self in the darkness of a grave-like solitude. 
 What will it be to be shut up as in a grave where the worm 
 dieth not, and where the whole congregation of the defiled 
 dead being dead yet cannot die ? Yet if I can face the being 
 divorced from that Tree of Life which is Christ, well may I 
 face any and every other loss. Yea, let Ziba take all ! nor will 
 I cry unto the King of any lesser matter. 
 
 20. He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come 
 quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 
 
 If up to this point we have, however feebly, feared, hoped, 
 believed, loved with St. John, now on once again hearing the 
 Voice, " Surely I come quickly," we should be prompt with 
 him to answer : " Even so, come, Lord Jesus." 
 
 No hope or fear, faith or love of ours, is worthy to welcome 
 Christ : yet woe is us if they welcome Him not. Woe is us if 
 amid and above terror and clouds of His approach we hail not 
 His Presence as the very bow in the cloud. And as sometimes 
 a second bow fainter, less perfect, further off, appears in the 
 train of the chief rainbow, so in His train will reappear our lost 
 beloved ones who loved us much and Him much more ; a hem 
 as it were to His garment, an outer edge to His glory, an over- 
 flow to our full cup of bliss. "And now men see not the 
 bright light which is in the clouds." " He shall pray unto 
 God, and He will be favourable unto him : and he shall see 
 His Face with joy." 
 
 O Thou Who art as the light of the morning when the sun 
 riseth, even a morning without clouds, revive our drooping 
 souls as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear 
 shining after rain, springing out of the earth toward Thee. 
 Although Thy Church be not so with God, in Whose sight no 
 man living shall be justified, yet have respect unto Thine 
 everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure ; and bring 
 to pass her full salvation, and fulfil all her desire, and make us 
 all to grow. Amen. 
 
 Can man rejoice who lives in hourly fear? 
 
 Can man make haste who toils beneath a load ? 
 
 Can man feel rest who has no fixed abode ? 
 All he lays hold of or can see or hear 
 Is passing by, is prompt to disappear, 
 . Is doomed, foredoomed, continueth in no slay : 
 
 This day he breathes in is his latter day, 
 This year of time is this world's latter year.
 
 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 551 
 
 Thus in himself is he most miserable : 
 Out of himself, Lord, lift him up to Thee, 
 Out of himself and all these worlds that flee ; 
 Hold him in patience underneath the rod, 
 Anchor his hope beyond life's ebb and swell, 
 Perfect his patience in the love of God. 
 
 21. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. 
 Amen. 
 
 Or according to the Revised Version : " . . . be with the 
 saints." 
 
 If a doubt exists as to which is the more accurate translation, 
 by becoming saints we shall in any case secure St. John's 
 benediction. 
 
 At the very commencement (ch. i. i) "The Revelation of 
 Jesus Christ " addressed us : here at the very end " The grace 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ" waits for us. All that lies between 
 has not effected towards ourselves its purpose unless we 
 conclude the whole matter in a culminating grace by fearing 
 God and keeping His commandments. 
 
 We have heard enough when God ceases to speak, and have 
 learned enough when we have learned His Will. 
 
 Jesus Christ, our Starting Point, our Way, our Goal, look 
 upon us with Thy most gracious eyes, with the eyes of Thy 
 most overcoming pity, with the eyes that recalled St. Peter to 
 himself, to the Communion of Saints, to Thee. Amen. 
 
 If 1 have been overbold in attempting such a work as this, I 
 beg pardon. 
 
 FOR EACH. 
 
 My harvest is clone, its promise is ended, 
 
 Weak and watery sets the sun, 
 Day and night in one mist are blended, 
 My harvest is done. 
 
 Long while running, how short when run, 
 Time to eternity has descended, 
 Timeless eternity has begun. 
 
 Was it the narrow way that I wended ? 
 Snares and pits was it mine to shun? 
 The scythe has fallen so long suspended, 
 My harvest is done.
 
 552 THE FACE OF THE DEEP. 
 
 FOR ALL. . 
 
 Man's harvest is past, his summer is ended, 
 
 Hope and fear are finished at last, 
 Day hath descended, night hath ascended, 
 Man's harvest is past. 
 
 Time is fled that fleeted so fast : 
 All the unmended remains unmended, 
 The perfect, perfect : all lots are cast. 
 
 Waiting till earth and ocean be rended, 
 Waiting for call of the trumpet-blast, 
 Each soul at goal of each way it wended, 
 Man's harvest is past. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 l\ic!;ard Clay & So>:s, LiniUcd, London
 
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