God, we also, by being, in the words of St. Paul, "partakers of the divine nature," become a holy temple of the Lord, having for its walls salvation, and for its gates praise. This spiritual temple God is now building up, and it progresses just as fast as the living stones are prepared to take their places above. The first living stone ever built upon this precious corner stone was righteous Abel, and since then Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Daniel, and multitudes of others having been hewn and squared here, have been fitted into their places in this living temple. But since Christ came, how gloriously has it increased! Apostles, and martyrs, and confessors, and saints; bishops, and priests, and deacons, and laity; the aged, the middle aged, the young and the infant; the rich, the learned, the poor and the ignorant; kings, and captains, and statesman, and scholars, have been added layer upon layer; sometimes, when persecution has raged, a thousand stones a day; and sometimes long years have passed, and scarce a living stone has been transferred to heaven. And this building process is going on every day, in our midst, under our own eyes. The prattling infant, the loving child, the youth of promise, the doating mother, the cherished wife, the fond husband, the revered parent, the loved sister, the manly brother, all have been taken from our midst, and while household after household have put on mourning and uttered piercing cries of anguish as the beloved but stricken one has been taken away; angels have shouted for joy that another lively stone has been set up in the heavens, to abide for ever in glory. And who of those who hope that we are lively stones, who are now passing through the trials and afflictions of our needed preparation; who of us will next be taken-in what family will God select the next lively stone that shall be borne from this earthly to that heavenly temple? Or if God keep you longer on earth, and cause you to suffer trials and afflictions of mind and body, and home and friends, and business and fortune, can you, will you repine when you know why he keeps you here, and what these tribulations are designed to accomplish in you? Keep before your souls God's ultimate purpose, and it will make you always to rejoice in God's present dealings. Look frequently at the glorious end, and you will murmur less at the sorrows of the way, and remember that the moment that you are fitted in the eye of the Great Architect to take your place as a living stone above, he will place you there, whether with the preliminary call of sickness or the sudden summons, "Come up hither," and when up thither all the preparation and disciplines. of earth are over, and as the Saints look back to the quarry whence they were hewn, and compare their rough and unshapen appearance then with their present grace and beauty, will they not bless God who did not leave them in the stony ledge of impenitence, or lying as unseemly blocks at the quarry's mouth; but who caused to pass over them the axe and the hammer, and the tool of iron of his afflictive dispensation, and thus made them lively stones fitted to abide in eternal beauty in the New Jerusalem above? But this exceeding glory will be ours only as we become living stones, by being united to Jesus Christ the corner stone by a living faith. Have we this faith? do we cling to Christ alone? have we hid our lives in him by a self-consecration that will never recall its covenant vows? Do we walk by faith, and does this faith purify the heart, enabling us to resist the devil, overcome the world, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God? Have we evidences that we are now, as the apostle says, "temples of the Holy Ghost?" Are our souls under the constant, controlling, sanctifying, influences of this blessed spirit? For if we are not temples of the Holy Ghost on earth, we can never become " living stones" in the temple of heaven. Does Christ dwell in our hearts by faith, and do we feel the presence and the preciousness of such an indwelling Saviour? If we do, then have we daily evidence that we are of his chosen ones, and that ere long, after a few more strokes from the axe and the hammer, he will raise us to glory; but if not, oh wait not another day, but, while the Spirit of God even now strives with your soul, embrace the offers of his abounding grace, that you also may so look for, and long for his appearing, as to be constrained to say with the enraptured spirit of the banished apostle: "Amen. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!" STEVENS. SCRIPTURAL SELECTIONS. FOR whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.-Heb. xii. 6—11. 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.-2 Cor. iv. 8-10. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.-2 Cor. iv. 16-18. THE NEW JERUSALEM. "And I saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband." THE Holy Jerusalem From highest heaven descending, Bright with celestial jewelry! She comes, the Bride, from heaven gate, In nuptial new Adorning, To meet the Immaculate, Like coming of the morning. Her streets of purest gold are made, Her walls a diamond palisade. There with pearls the gates are dight Upon that Holy Mountain; And thither come both day and night, Who in the Living Fountain Have washed their robes from earthly stain, And borne below Christ's lowly chain. By the hand of the Unknown The Living Stones are moulded To a glorious Shrine, ALL ONE, Full soon to be unfolded; The building wherein God doth dwell, The Holy Church Invisible. |