read the riddle of existence, whether in external phenomena, or in man, or in God.

Beyond all question this is the claim, as it is the experience, of St Paul. Whatever difficulty there may be in stating accurately, in words, the nature of the change which natural reason undergoes before it can see the deeper reality, and right proportion, of truth; it is clear that there is a transformation, of a moral and spiritual order, without which intellect must still remain disordered and incompetent as intellect. It is expressly of philosophy apart from Christian truth, apart from a Christian's knowledge of the personality of God, and the personality of man-its utter incompleteness and the conditions of its self-realization, that he says, "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching" [the R.V. margin points out that it is, in the Greek, "the thing preached" TOû Kηрúyμaтos,]"to save them that believe. . . . Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumbling - block, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." The passage should be considered continuously to the end of the 3rd chapter, e.g. "Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth: . . . the natural man receiveth not the things 1 I Cor. i. 20, sqq.

...

of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things . . . we have the mind of Christ. . . . If any man thinketh that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God... Wherefore let no one glory in men. For all things are yours; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." Only as the property of Christ,-wholly dependent on Christ, as Christ is dependent on God,-can man, as a "reasonable" personality, realize the significance, or attain the consummation, of what "reason" in a personality really

means.

...

We have spoken hitherto, first of man's claim to the possession of free will, and then of his claim to the possession of reason. These differ from each other, not so much as diverse parts or faculties of man, but rather as different aspects of his total self, for his total self is, in fact, implied and included in each. In either case, we found that though man's original claim was by no means without foundation, yet the germs which he actually possessed were something extremely remote from what the full idea, whether of free will or of reasonable wisdom, would be found, on analysis, necessarily to involve. In either case moreover we observed that man approximated towards the realization of his own inherently necessary idea, whether of reason or of free will, in proportion as he ceased to be, or even to seem to be, "merely" himself; in proportion as he was made one with the Spirit of the Christ, and, in fact, attained at last to the full realization of himself in the act of what had once looked like the inanition of self,-his frank and full surrender of all faculties to a life of self-identification with Another. In either case, finally, we saw indications that the consummation of one aspect of man's being

was the breaking down of its distinction from other aspects However far from each other, in their rudimentary stages, inchoate freedom of will and inchoate reason may appear to us to be the higher they rise in the scale of their own completeness, the less, it seemed, could either free will be conceived apart from insight of wisdom, or insight of wisdom apart from its necessary aspect as determination of character. We had reason more than to suspect that the final consummation of either would necessarily be the consummation of both or rather that, in final consummation, they are not, and cannot be, distinguished any longer as two; they are but inseparable aspects of one identity.

In respect of the third instinctive claim which man makes to personality,-his capacity of love,-it will not be necessary to speak at great length. This is not, for a moment, because love is of less significance for the purpose than either reason, or free will. On the contrary it is, if possible, more significant still. But it is because the different considerations which were comparatively obscure in respect of free will and of reason, are so clear in the case of love, that at some points they almost approach to being self-evident. Following the analogy of the former cases, we should be prepared for such propositions as these. First, that man had, from the beginning of his consciousness, something which witnessed to the idea of love, which, through whatever perversions, had affinity with it, which constituted an instinctive claim to it, and was known by its name. Secondly, that, on examination, this love which he certainly had, was not only not the real completeness of that idea of love, of which it bore witness, and which was knowable through it; but was even, in many points, in extreme antithesis against what was, all the time, its own true ideal. Thirdly, that it was not by mere addition, but by very considerable subtraction; not by building on,

but by cutting away; by discipline, and refusal, and sacrifice, of a very great part of what had seemed to be the necessary conditions, if not the very capacity itself, of love; that the natural love, with which man starts, is emancipated from the slavery of its own imperfectness, and begins to acquire the capacity of corresponding to what love ideally means. Fourthly, that the nearer it approaches to its ideal consummation as love, the less is it capable of being practically separated, or at last even distinguished, from such other aspects of man's total being, as his reason, or his will; which are, in fact, implied and absorbed within love. And fifthly, that the process towards this consummation can be seen to coincide with the gradual realization of the self,-not by progressive distinction from all that seemed to be not self, but by progressive self-surrender to what at first offered itself for acceptance as "other";-by progressive self-identity with that Spirit of the Incarnate, which being the very Spirit of God in, and as, human character, is found to be the consummation of the perfectness of the self of every man.

After what has been said it hardly seems necessary to dwell upon these statements one by one. There is perhaps no word in human language which has had a wider range of significance, or, it must be added, a history of profounder degradation, than love. It has ranged from the depths of hell to the highest height of heaven. It has described the darkest perversions of which the godlike nature of man is capable. Yet in its true self it is more than Godlike: it is God.

Not only are there a thousand different forms of what can be openly convicted as perverse love of self, devotion to what is known, at bottom, to be evil, love really of the world, and the flesh, and the devil. There are also a thousand, and again a thousand, most intricate and deceptive combinations of the evil and the good, the hideous

and the beautiful. There is tainted love of country, ambitious love of office or industry or wisdom, selfish love of home, and of all the beautiful things that home might represent: nay, there is self-aggrandising philanthropy, selfish love of unselfishness, self-centred selfsacrifice;1 until we sometimes fairly reel with the sense of the hopelessness of ever being free from the web of insidious perversions with which every apparent approach to real love is enmeshed. But does any one, in his moments of serious thought, really mistake all, or any one, of these, for that reality of Spirit, of which St John speaks; "God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him." ... "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren." "Hereby know we that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit"? 2

On the other hand has any one once seen a face out of which all mocking unrealities of aggressive, or even of deceptive, selfishness had faded wholly at last; a face which was animated by the very purity of the flame of the Spirit which at last was love? Or, at the least, have we not all seen some moments, some glimpses, of this? Just so far we know that we too have seen real glimpses of the face of the love of God.

There is nothing, in fact, in the five statements which were made just now which is not covered by the glowing words of St John. Only on one aspect more a few words may be added. It is a commonplace in the doctrine of love, that the root of opposition to love is self. There is of course an apparent love which is merely ministering to self. But the conquest of self is the true emancipation of love. Love versus self, then, and self versus love is the familiar antithesis: so that self-love is the contradiction

11 Cor. xiii. 3.

2 I John iv. 16; iii. 14; iv. 13.