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'Not the same,' 'and yet the same.' Not—let us mark it well—that there is a place for love, but that love is the power which pervades and controls the whole, bending all things to His will. The clouds and darkness are not gone: the mystery is still about Him, and His ways past finding out. We have indeed seen the Father, if we know our Lord: with open face those that are His reflect as a mirror the glory of the Lord; and yet, the Apostle who wrote those words himself acknowledges, 'we see in a mirror, darkly,' in a riddle. Doubtless this is right, as it is natural and inevitable. For we are men as they were. One discipline suits us all. It could not be that they should walk by faith, and we by sight.
It is right and it is necessary. Human faculties are as unable as ever they were to understand all the ways of God, to see as He sees. For us faith has been given clearer light and surer ground, to make it, doubtless, capable of more, to strengthen it perhaps for even harder trial. But faith is still the occasion of man's great opportunity; it still calls for splendid ventures: it is still tried and sifted to see of what metal and sort it is.
The heroes of faith in the Old Testament are brought up in the New as our examples, and by faith we walk, as Abraham and Moses and the prophets walked, expecting, desiring, trusting. We
