edge with a modicum of wisdom. Hunger and thirst after property, art, knowledge, or anything else, divorced from the wisdom which cometh down from above, is a form of foolishness fraught with untold injury and wickedness.

Now, just because man is a being of passionate hungers and burning thirsts, the good God has made abundant provision for their complete satisfaction. God nourishes His souls upon the bread and drink of righteousness. "And what is this righteousness?" you ask. Well, the word, like the reality for which it stands, has a history. It is so thoroughly ingrained in the ancient Hebrew religion that Matthew Arnold held that righteousness is the great generalization of the Old Testament. There it is, surely-in covenant, in law, in promise, in prophet, and in psalm. It signifies that which is normal, just, right, ethical ideals expressed in ethical action, and in ceremonialism. With the coming of God in Christ, however, righteousness becomes a larger, grander truth than ever. Our Lord makes love the essence of righteousness, grounded in the character of God, as that character is revealed through God's Christ. And what is the result? Why, righteousness is no longer conceivable apart from personality. Type, symbol, covenant, law, promise—all are gathered up into God in Christ, so that the truth in things is embodied, enfleshed in the truth, who is a Person. Righteousness, then, is the human personality taken into the personality of God in Christ, and thereby-and only

thereby comes to self-realization. Saint Paul has given classic expression to this conception of righteousness, his experience giving birth to the expression: "I myself might have confidence in the flesh if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. Howbeit,

what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith: so that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the

goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." What is this but the speech of a human, weighted down with ceremonialism and meatless abstraction, suddenly picked up by One who runs and is never weary, and is thrust headlong and souldeep into the brimming fountains of eternal joy!

III

"For they shall be filled." They-the Greek sets the emphasis upon that word-they who hunger and thirst after this personal righteousness in this One Righteous Person, shall be filled. Always pursuing, yet always attaining; always hungry, yet always fed; always thirsting, yet always drinking-that is God's immortal program for immortal souls. On the Christian tombs in the Catacombs, the first sign of Christian life, according to Dean Stanley, is pictured by a stag drinking eagerly at the silver stream. But better than any symbol is the soul that carries within that artesian well of which the Saviour says: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life."

Besides laying emphasis upon the persons in whom the beatitude finds fulfillment, there is the question: "When?" As already hinted, both here and yonder. It were foolish to think that, in such a vast enterprise, a few whirling years of earth would be sufficient either for the com

pletion of our work or the final enrichment of our powers. The rivers of God cannot be drunk dry in a day. The deeps of personality cannot be exhausted in a night. Life's unsung songs cannot be rendered to harps whose strings are momentarily breaking. When did the whole summer get fenced within a single garden? When did all the stars get reflected in one pool? When did the carols of all the birds come full-throated from one tree? Answer me these questions, and I will answer you the Christian's question as to the time of his nature's total fulfillment. It is enough to say that, when your body weds the dust, you will go journeying gloriously on, hungry nevermore, nor thirsty, nor tired, nor tearstained. A boy asked his father: "Why do good souls go away and leave us, father?" What a question! We could get on wondrously well without bad souls, but why do good souls go away and leave us? "I will tell you, my son," said the father. "In the first place, they outgrow the world. They need more room in which to unfold their powers. And then, in the second place, the genius of Heaven is this: While Heaven is perfect, yet Heaven can always stand a little more perfecting. So I think one of the beautiful things about Heaven is in the truth that, while it is ravishingly complete, Heaven is never entirely finished. Thus lovely souls go away and leave us, my child, because that Dear Other Place is so dear that it needs more loveliness."

XI

LIFE'S REHEARSAL*

"And they rehearsed the things that happened in the way." -ST. LUKE xxiv. 35.

T

HERE is a certain disadvantage, one

sometimes feels, in the way we commemo

rate our Christian Easter. Whether under the spell of mechanical routine or other causes, many persons seriously dwell upon the fact of the Risen Christ only one day during the whole year. On Easter alone does the glory, the wonder, the awe of it all seem to dawn upon them. It is better, of course, to feel the thrill of the Glorified once a year than never to feel Him at all. Yet, this attitude is so pathetically short of the meaning of Christ's victory over death and the grave, that it is quite unworthy of Christian people. The human mind is offered, for study and improvement, no object or fact of such majesty and exaltation as the glorified body of our Lord and Saviour. It is the very brightness of Heaven shining down upon the enshadowed paths of earth; it gathers up into itself all the beauties of the universe and concentrates them in this dazzling and surpassing Form, impossible to be

*Preached in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, May 14, 1919.