NOT AT THE ORDINARY ANGLE.

“Things which are not seen” are visible.  For a few short hours you live the Eternal Life.  The eternal life, the life of faith, is simply the life of a higher vision.  Faith is an attitude—­a mirror set at the right angle.

When tomorrow is over, and in the evening you review it, you will wonder how you did it.  You will not be conscious that you strove for anything, or imitated anything, or crucified anything.  You will be conscious of Christ; that He was with you, that without compulsion you were yet compelled; that without force, or noise, or proclamation, the revolution was accomplished.  You do not congratulate yourself as one who has done a mighty deed, or achieved a personal success, or stored up a fund of “Christian experience” to ensure the same result again.  What you are conscious of is “the glory of the Lord.”  And what the world is conscious of, if the result be a true one, is also “the glory of the Lord.”  In looking at a mirror one does not see the mirror, or think of it, but only of what it reflects.  For a mirror never calls the attention to itself—­except when there are flaws in it.

Let me say a word or two more about the effects which necessarily must follow from this contact, or fellowship, with Christ.  I need not quote the texts upon the subject—­the texts about abiding in Christ.  “He that abideth in Him sinneth not.”  You cannot sin when you are standing in front of Christ.  You simply cannot do it.  Again:  “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”  Think of that!  That is another inevitable consequence.  And there is yet another:  “He that abideth in Me, the same bringeth forth much fruit.”  Sinlessness—­answered prayer—­much fruit.

But in addition to these things, see how many of the highest Christian virtues and experiences necessarily flow from the assumption of that attitude toward Christ.  For instance, the moment you assume that relation to Christ you begin to know what the child-spirit is.  You stand before Christ, and He becomes your Teacher, and you instinctively become docile.  Then you learn also to become charitable and tolerant; because you are learning of Him, and He is “meek and lowly in heart,” and you catch that spirit.  That is a bit of His character being reflected into yours.  Instead of being critical and self-asserting, you become humble and have the mind of a little child.

I think, further, the only way of learning what faith is is to know Christ and be in His company.  You hear sermons about the nine different kinds of faith—­distinctions drawn between the right kind of faith and the wrong—­and sermons telling you how to get faith.  So far as I can see, there is

          ONLY ONE WAY

in which faith is got, and it is the same in the religious world as it is in the world of men and women.  I learn to trust you, my brother, just as I get to know you, and neither more nor less; and you get to trust me just as you get to know me.  I do not trust you as a stranger, but as I come into contact with you, and watch you, and live with you, I find out that you are trustworthy, and I come to trust myself to you, and to lean upon you.  But I do not do that to a stranger.