ism into our conception of the Kingdom of Heaven. We do not know when the gradual invisible growth of the Kingdom, illustrated in the parables of the Leaven and the Seed, will find its consummation in the flash of lightning which heralds the Coming of the Son of Man. But when that end does come, we ought to be ready for it. The best way to watch is to prepare.

If there is really to be a better and holier society, following a great manifestation of the Judgment of God, human men and women will live in it. Therefore, the Church ought to be training her children now, today in millennial morals. For it is never the Lord's way to impose His laws on a passive people; His whole business with us is to train us to self-government. Paradise is sure to be democratic. All our civic intelligence, our power, still embryonic, to act harmoniously together, our practice of syndicalism, soviets, or guild socialism if you will, prepare us for citizenship in the Heavenly City. There will be no "social service," one hopes, in that happy time, but there will be the cooperative commonwealth. Blessed citizens will have to run it, and those who are furthering justice and welfare now will be the most useful people then. It is not a bad test of one's occupations to ask whether one could go on with them in the Kingdom of Heaven. There

will be plenty for Hoover to do in that heaven,not feeding the starving, but organizing the foodsupply of the race; it might prove harder to employ the barons of finance unless incentive alters.

And of Him Who said that He was coming back in His glory, with all His holy angels with Him, what can be said? Perhaps few Christian minds today dare take the words literally, and a frank confession of uncertainty is the most honest course. We are in the shadows where even the humblest orthodoxy must wait patiently for light.

But if Christian minds are uncertain, Christian hearts cling to that hope forever. It is permissible to be a little hazy about the Second Advent. No one can be as definite about the future as about the past, and Nazareth must be clearer to the Christian than the Day of Judgment. But we know that great Persons always stand at the focal points of history; and the greatest hour that history shall ever know will call for the appearance of One supremely great. Who can it be save One who loves to the uttermost, and who can reveal to men the eternal sacrifice of God? Only human nature can judge humanity; yet (experience shows the paradox to be essential) the

human nature must possess absolute holiness, infinite wisdom.

We abide then, watching with passionate sober expectation for the Coming of that Love which man has crucified, to judge the race of man. In the courage of that expectation, our temper grows heroic. We face the future, released from convention or timidity; we welcome with no surprise, even with awe-struck joy, those historic upheavals which are the normal Sign of His approach. The man who is disciplined in the Blessed Hope of Advent may not be fatalist, may not be despondent. His happy heart is set to the music of the last canonical prayer of the Church: "Even so come, Lord Jesus." And through whatever tragic anguish our piteous race may pass, he clings to the magnificent incontrovertible words of the Apostle: "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

"The world about us, with its lawlessness, its disunions, its jarrings, seems sometimes as if it could attain to no great end; like a restless sea of many waters, aimless, barren, unprogressive. But there is purpose in it. The tossing sea we shall behold one day with the fires of the Divine Judgment, as St. John beheld it, 'a sea of glass mingled with fire,' and beyond the judgment again,

as the sea of glass clear as crystal which mirrors in its calm surface the throne of God before which it is spread. 'For though the waves toss themselves they shall not prevail.' All things move on to the Divine Event. The nations of the earth shall bring their glory and their honour into it. All things in heaven and earth shall bow and adore Jesus, the heir of the whole world's movement and fruitfulness." 1

We proceed on our journey,-but we do not leave the Advent message behind. The method of the Church is as human as it is profound. Each new truth is remembered faithfully during all sequences to come, invigorates its successors, and blends with them harmoniously in the diapason which shall close only in the Kingdom of Heaven. The note of Change, the note of the Kingdom, the note of Judgment, they will be found persistent, recurrent, interpenetrating the Christian consciousness more and more as other truths develop to bear them company. Through the star-light of Christmas, through the dawn of Easter, through the noon-tide glory of Ascension, through the flame of Pentecost, flashes the same summons: "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee;" "Lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." 1 Bishop Gore: The Incarnation of the Son of God, p. 153.

CHAPTER II: CHRISTMAS-TIDE

Antiphon: That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

V. Glory to God in the Highest,

R. And on earth peace.

O God, Who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of Thine only Son Jesus Christ; Grant that as we joyfully receive Him for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold Him when He shall come to be our Judge, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

Amen.