No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and solemnity of what is at stake will be careless as to his progress.  To become

          LIKE CHRIST

is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing before which every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement vain.

Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of their lives can ever begin to hope to reach it.  If, therefore, it has seemed up to this point as if all depended on passivity, let me now assert, with conviction more intense, that all depends on activity.  A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion for an angel, but never for a man.  Not in the contemplative, but in the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, but in reality, lies true life; not in the realm of ideals, but among tangible things, is man’s sanctification wrought.  Resolution, effort, pain, self-crucifixion, agony—­all the things already dismissed as futile in themselves, must now be restored to office, and a tenfold responsibility laid upon them.  For what is their office?  Nothing less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, and place it, and keep it where the spiritual forces will act upon it.  It is to rally the forces of the will, and keep the surface of the mirror bright and ever in position.  It is to uncover the face which is to look at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights are near.

You have, perhaps, gone with an astronomer to watch him photograph the spectrum of a star.  As you enter the dark vault of the observatory you saw him begin by lighting a candle.  To see the star with?  No; but to adjust the instrument to see the star with.  It was the star that was going to take the photograph; it was, also, the astronomer.  For a long time he worked in the dimness, screwing tubes and polishing lenses and adjusting reflectors, and only after much labor the finely focused instrument was brought to bear.  Then he blew out the light, and left the star to do its work upon the plate alone.

The day’s task for the Christian is to bring his instrument to bear.  Having done that he may blow out his candle.  All the evidences of Christianity which have brought him there, all aids to Faith, all acts of worship, all the leverages of the Church, all Prayer and Meditation, all girding of the Will—­these lesser processes, these candle-light activities for that supreme hour, may be set aside.  But, remember, it is but for an hour.  The wise man will be he who quickest lights his candle, the wisest he who never lets it out.  Tomorrow, the next moment, he, a poor, darkened, blurred soul, may need it again to focus the Image better, to take a mote off the lens, to clear the mirror from a breath with which the world has dulled it.