THE PATH OF JOY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 999, 1 June 1911, Page 4

THE PATH OF JOY.

IV. THE WAY IS SPIRITUAL.

(Contributed.)

The man who has fixed his heart on material things finds that his treasure is of this world, and, of. course, where that treasure is there is his interest and desire. Consequently he knows very little ot the joy that is eternal and unchangeable, simply because it is spiritual. In a certain sense a worldly centred man is “ignorant of Him that moulded him and of Him that inspired into him an active soul, and breathed into him a vital spirit,”: he worships the image of the world and kneels at the shrine of a fading and decaying idol. On the other hand the spiritually minded man looks beyond the material—he Has here no abiding city, nothing that can directly tie him down to carnal things ; his gaze is fixed upon the fringe of eternity, and he says; “Teach me to do Thy will: for Thou art my God : Thy Spirit is good ; lead me iu the land of uprightness.” The disciple of Jesus Christ seeks the Holy Spirit on the path of joy for he has before him the promise of the Master; “He shall glorify Me ; for He shall take of Mine and declare it unto you. Without the aid of the Holy Spirit it is im possible to find Jesus Christ who is the Way, for, “No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit” every step therefore that is taken on the path ot joy must be the step that the Spirit prompts, for as long as we walk iu the Spirit the lusts of the flesh canuot conquer. Walk in the Spirit then you walk in love and the law is fulfilled, for love is the fulfilling of the law. The Spirit reveals Christ “As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”

Thus we see the way is Spiritual, and the disciple places before himself the precept of St. Paul : “Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are upon earth.” The things of the world which appear so concrete —which we touch and handle, and see with our bodily eyes—are not real after all. they are material, and so unreal because they will lade away. The things which wi cannot see and feel with our bodily senses appear to the world as unreal and shadowy, as mystic and ethereal, and yet they are the real things for they are Spiritual and thus eternal. St. Augustine says : “For that alone is truly real which abides unchanged.” There is great advance made on the path of I ,oy when once the disciple grasps the great truth ; That the things of the world are material and so unreal for they are subject to decay but the the things of Heaven are Spiritual and thus real, because in them is the eternal changelessuess they abide for ever. Surely there is no greater joy than this, worldly misfortunes, worldly misunderstandings, worldly cares, can never be for ever, can never destroy, for they are but temporal. Nothing really matters in this world except the Spiritual, for that is indestructable —riches, power, physical beauty, popularity, must all go, for they belong to the things that are material. The traveller on the living Way does not mourn over vanishing youth, he does not look upon old age as a calamity, a cessation of joy—for he knows each year that passes is an ever nearer and nearer approach to the Light. In the evening of our days there is a beautiful light, “the light at eventide,” and what is it ? but a glimpse of the rays of the Sun ot Righteousness rising in the Eternal morn of the Spiritual world. With a heart overflowing with Spiritual joy the disciple says: “Wherefore we faint not: but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction which is for the moment worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

It is the Spirit that leads when He dwells in us. He makes our bodies His living sanctuary, and it is the Spirit that will raise us up from physical death just as He raised up the Risen Master. “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” The disciple learns that his body which must go down into the grave is not to be really lost, but whatever is Christlike in it is to

be raised up, if the Spirit which dwells iu him is the very same Spirit which raised up Jesus from the dead. What a difference that makes to physical death ? It is no longer death but life, for there is no death where that Mighty Spirit leads. He is the Lord and the Life-givei. Thus it is when the Christian reaches the gate of physical death, there will be no. tear —but he will place his hand firmly on the latohet of that mystic portal and open it to pass beyond to his joyful Resurrection. Blinded lor a moment he may be, at the flood of glory that shall be revealed, but as he staggers he will feel the pierced Hand of One he has learnt to know placed iu his own, for the Master will be there to lead him on the extended path to the Throne of the Eternal.

As the disciple walks up the Spiritual Way led by the Spirit he forgets the material and is consumed with an almost overpowering passion—and that is to see the Face of God, With Moses he cries out “Show me I pray Thee Thy glory.” To see God’s face was the passion of Moses, but God told him “Thou cans’t not see My Face: for man shall not see Me and live,” Mortal eyes, however clean, cannot look upon Gti, for God is a Spirit—He is a consuming Fire ot Absolute Perfection and Purity, and no mere man can stand before Him and live —the very brightness of that Effulgent glory would destroy him. Yet God satisfied in a real way the craving of his servant, for it was a spiritual craving. “ Behold there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock ; and it shall come to pass, while My glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock and will cover thee with My hand until I have passed by ; and I will take away Mine hand and thou shalt see My back, but My face shall not be seen.” Here God taught Moses the invisibility and spirituality of Himself. God is not material, but spiritual. “ God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.” Not until the traveller has passed over the path of joy in this world, and the extended path in the world of the faithful departed, shall he be able to see the King in all His Beauty and His Supernal Splendour. Yet Moses was permitted to look upon the skirts of God’s vanishing glory as it passed by ; and so it is to-day with those who are spiritual, there are moments when they see the skirts of God’s glory —the skirts, that is all, and no more—but what a joy, what a revelation ! Only those who have knelt, awed and subdued, before that Passing Presence, and with the trembling hands of love touched the hem ot that Imperial Garment, know of the joy and the virtue that thrilled through them. The Holy Spirit is the Lifegiver, and leads the followers of Jesus up the living Way to the Risen Master, and thus to the Life, for "I am the Life.” By His Ascension the Saviour opened the extended path of joy, and down it He sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, that He may be our Guide and lead us into all Truth. To that deathless land He leads, and when on the path of joy we catch sight of the Saviour, it is the Spirit that reveals Him to us and opens our eyes to see the Light. Where the Light of Jesus is, there is no darkness. “I am the Light of the World ; he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the Light of Life.” Thus the spiritual man is not ot the world, he uses material things only as a means to walk more firmly on the Way of Life. He feels that the words of the Master include him in the path of perfection when he said, “ They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” and the ever-growing happiness is that the love ot the Trinity is working more and more in him. The Spirit leading step by step ; Christ entering more fully into the heart, and revealing clearer and clearer the Fatherhood of God, fulfilling His own gracious prayer, “ I in them, and Thou in Me . . . that they also may be one in Us.”

“ O ! may we follow undismay’d Where’er our God shall call! _ And may His Spirit’s present aid Uphold us lest we fall! Till in the end of days we stand As victors in a deathless land.”