The metaphor of a mirror does not wholly serve us here.  When the sunbeams fall upon it, it flashes in the light, just because they do not enter its cold surface.  It is a mirror, because it does not drink them up, but flings them back.  The contrary is the case with these sentient mirrors of our spirits.  In them the light must first sink in before it can ray out.  They must first be filled with the glory, before the glory can stream forth.  They are not so much like a reflecting surface as like a bar of iron, which needs to be heated right down to its obstinate black core, before its outer skin glows with the whiteness of a heat that is too hot to sparkle.  The sunshine must fall on us, not as it does on some lonely hill-side, lighting up the grey stones with a passing gleam that changes nothing, and fades away, leaving the solitude to its sadness; but as it does on some cloud cradled near its setting, which it drenches and saturates with fire till its cold heart burns, and all its wreaths of vapour are brightness palpable, glorified by the light which lives amidst its mists.  So must we have the glory sink into us before it can be reflected from us.  In deep inward beholding we must have Christ in our hearts, that He may shine forth from our lives.

And this contemplation will be gradual transformation.  There is the great principle of Christian morals.  ’We all beholding ... are changed.’  The power to which is committed the perfecting of our characters lies in looking upon Jesus.  It is not the mere beholding, but the gaze of love and trust that moulds us by silent sympathy into the likeness of His wondrous beauty, who is fairer than the children of men.  It was a deep, true thought which the old painters had, when they drew John as likest to his Lord.  Love makes us like.  We learn that even in our earthly relationships, where habitual familiarity with parents and dear ones stamps some tone of voice or look, or little peculiarity of gesture, on a whole house.  And when the infinite reverence and aspiration which the Christian soul cherishes to its Lord are superadded, the transforming power of loving contemplation of Him becomes mighty beyond all analogies in human friendship, though one in principle with these.  What a marvellous thing that a block of rude sandstone, laid down before a perfect marble, should become a copy of its serene loveliness just by lying there!  Lay your hearts down before Christ.  Contemplate Him.  Love Him.  Think about Him.  Let that pure face shine upon heart and spirit, and as the sun photographs itself on the sensitive plate exposed to its light, and you get a likeness of the sun by simply laying the thing in the sun, so He will ‘be formed in, you.’  Iron near a magnet becomes magnetic.  Spirits that dwell with Christ become Christ-like.  The Roman Catholic legends put this truth in a coarse way, when they tell of saints who have gazed on some ghastly crucifix till they have received, in their tortured flesh, the copy of the wounds of Jesus, and have thus borne in their body the marks of the Lord.  The story is hideous and gross, the idea beneath is ever true.  Set your faces towards the Cross with loving, reverent gaze, and you will ’be conformed unto His death,’ that in due time you may ’be also in the likeness of His Resurrection.’