by which it lives. On the other hand the simply objective theory which forgets the place of the Cross within Christian life, which says, "Go your way: be content: the atonement was once a transaction, with such and such meaning between God and Christ: but you have nothing in it, except to believe that it is a fact, finished and done:"_ this goes far to deprive the root of that fruit-bearing capacity which is its own inherent and proper meaning.

The ultimate realization is indeed to be within usthe very transfiguration of ourselves. The sacrifice of Christ, as merely external to us, does indeed include all possibility, but as yet it only is as possibility; it is potential, it is preliminary,—and it is provisional. The sacrifice is to be, in its final consummation, the real transformation of us all. But it is to be so in us because it was first the historical sacrifice, consecrated on Calvary, unique, all-sufficing; real between God and man in the Person of Jesus Christ,—and to each of us, as individuals, seen and believed in external objective history. It is, so far as each one of us is concerned, objective first, that it may become subjective. It was real to Godward in Christ, that it might become the reality, in Christ, of men. It is real in others that it may be real It is first a historical, that it may come to be a personal, fact. Calvary, and the Ascension, precede any thought or apprehension of ours. But Calvary, and the Ascension, are none the less to become an integral part of the experience and reality of our personal consciousness. If Calvary and the Ascension were anything less than the most real of historical realities, there would be in fact no possibility of their translation into our personal characters. But if even Calvary and the Ascension were past history merely, they would not after all have saved, or have touched, us.

in us.

An atonement, then, moral or spiritual, ought never to

have been suggested as an alternative to the historical sacrifice of the Creed, or as a correction of it; for it is itself an element necessary and integral, in the meaning of the historical sacrifice. Nor ought any question to have been raised between an objective and a subjective atonement: nor ought either to have been maintained in the way of antagonism against the other. The real question should have been not whether the Christian atonement is a fact, wrought without us, or a moral and spiritual alteration within: but rather, seeing that it must be both, and that either of these two is to mean the other, we should ask, How does it happen, by what power and by what means, that what is primarily an external fact consummated in history, can and does become the essential reality in the characterization of the personalities of men? How can the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, consecrated on Calvary for eternal presentation, become in me-not a personal reality only, but the main constitutive reality of my own individual personal being?

If we have been content to be long in working back to this question, it is the result of a belief that upon this question-upon its answer no doubt in the fullest sense, but even upon the framing of the question aright,-depends in large measure the insight of our generation into that supreme reality of the atonement, which just because it is deeper at once and simpler and wider than human experience, has been seen by different generations of Christians so differently, and yet has been vital, and has been true, to them all.

This then is the form of our question-how can, in this matter, the objective be the subjective? The deed enacted, once for all, without, be the quality of the consciousness, within, of ten thousand times ten thousand of the children of men? it is so, but How?

The question is not whether

Now, no attempt will be made to reach the full answer to this question in the present chapter. For the present we must be content with an answer which is preparatory rather than adequate: suggestive, perhaps, of more than it attempts to explore: and possibly even, as it stands, superficially at least and verbally, (though not really, to those who discern what lies beneath simple experiences,) capable of being made use of to confuse, as well as to establish, the faith of the Church.

Speaking practically then, rather than abstractly, we may say that the first preliminary to the real translation of all that is signified by Calvary into a constitutive fact of my own inner being is that, looking externally upon it as a fact of history, I should apprehend it, believe it, contemplate it, and love it.

It is worth while to observe that I cannot begin, unless, to me at least, the history is truth. Even upon the extreme hypothesis that the sort of unqualified moral allegiance, of which we are speaking now, would be possible towards what was, in fact, a beautiful allegory: it would certainly not be possible save to one who mistook the allegory for fact. I do not analyze now the paradox of the position which could suggest that the highest education of human character ever dreamed of might be based upon a lie, or a phantasy; but I note that the thought of possible untruth must be absolutely shut out from the consciousness which is to be really educated by it. From the beginning, the reality of Calvary as objective history is a postulate, without which nothing really can follow at all.

The first point, then, is to apprehend and believe it as true. This is faith in the lower and barer sense of the word:-to recognize that the fact indeed is so; and to have some insight into the meaning of the fact. All our teaching, as teaching, historical or doctrinal, goes to make this foundation sure.

K

But secondly, it is something far beyond this primary apprehension or belief, when we say that our moral advancement further depends upon our contemplation of what we believe. Those do not grow into the likeness of the Cross who merely believe in their hearts, however sincerely, that the Cross was, in fact, once borne for them by their Lord. We speak now of a concentration of faculties by intellectual and moral effort. We speak of study, careful and minute,-a tracing of meanings and purposes, of connections and corollaries, an insight into the relations and significance of details,-a vivid recalling, as into present life, through the powers of imagination taught carefully and disciplined, of all the wonder of those unique scenes, and all the mystery of that central Personality, in whose uniqueness only they have their meaning, or were, or are, what they are! In a word we speak of that sort of framework of intimacy of knowledge, which is the direct correlative of love.

Our third point, then, is love. The most diligent study would be nugatory: nay the most genuine intimacy would tend rather to severance and contrast than moral union: unless the intimacy were but an aspect of love. "Lovest thou Me?" Real, personal love, uplifted and uplifting, love for the Crucified because of the Cross, love even for the Cross because of the Crucified: this is perhaps the most obvious, and the most indispensable, of practical conditions for the real translation of the scene without into the material of the character within. I do not stay to analyze the possibility in us, of such love. We know of what sort it is as a practical duty, and we know something of its transforming power, long before we can realize whence, or how, it is possible. But this phrase "to love," after all, is a phrase which has been used for so many purposes, that it is shorn, for us, of a large part of its proper power. Quite apart from positively degraded uses, we use it for the

feeblest kinds of affection, not touching the real truth of love. Partly it is for this reason that we have reserved another special form of phrase for cases in which we can recognize the real informing and constraining force of love. If you say of a man not only that he loves, but that he is in love with, either a person or a cause, you intend to emphasize, by that phrase, a distinction between on the one hand an emotion quiescent if not passive,—one of the many shifting judgments of approval to which in turn man's mind and feeling give assent; and on the other hand a passion, dominant and sweeping, which carries all else before it with torrent force, filling all the mind and shaping all the actions, giving new zest, new power, possibly even new capacity and new character to the whole life of the spirit which has felt at last what is to be "in love."

"Lovest thou Me?" It is difficult for our imagination to emphasize too strongly what the meaning would be of "being in love with" Christ, crucified and risen; or to how much it would be the practical key in the way of the translation of the spirit of Calvary into the animating spirit of individual Christian life. What engrossing of faculties, what absorption of desire, what depth of thought, what wistfulness of kindness, what strength of will, what inspiration of power,-to endeavour or to endure,—would forthwith follow, with spontaneous, silent, irresistible sequence, if once we were "in love"!

So all-inclusive indeed is the meaning of love, that it is needless to distinguish from love, as though it were a separable point, the effort of personal imitation and approach. Consciously or unconsciously, love is imitative. What I am really in love with I must in part be endeavouring to grow like: and shall be growing like, if the love is really on fire, even more than I consciously endeavour. What I am really in love with characterizes