"And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth."(John 1:14.)

But what attractiveness there would have been in Him for any eye or heart that had been opened by the Spirit! This is witnessed to us by the apostles. They knew but little about Him doctrinally, and they got nothing by remaining with Him-I mean, nothing in this world. Their condition in the world was any thing but improved by their walking with Him; and it cannot be said that they availed themselves of His miraculous power. Indeed, they questioned it rather than used it. And yet they clung to Him. They did not company with Him because they eyed Him as the full and ready storehouse of all provisions for them. On no one occasion, I believe we may say, did they use the power that was in Him for themselves. And yet there they were with Him,-troubled when He talked of leaving, and found weeping when they thought they had indeed lost Him.

Surely, we may again say, What attractiveness there must have been in Him for any eye or heart that had been opened by the Spirit or drawn by the Father! and with what authority one look or one word from Him would enter at times! We see this in Matthew. That one word on the Lord's lips, "Follow Me," was enough. And this authority and this attractiveness was felt by men of the most opposite temperaments. The slow-hearted, reasoning Thomas, and the ardent, uncalculating Peter, were alike kept near and around this wondrous center. Even Thomas would breathe, in that presence, the spirit of the earnest Peter, and say, under force of this attraction, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him."

Shall we not say, What will it be to see and feel all this by and by in its perfection! when all, gathered from every clime and color and character of the wide-spread human family,-all nations, kindreds, people, and tongues are with Him and around Him in a world worthy of Him! We may dwell, in memory, on these samples of His preciousness to hearts like our own, and welcome them as pledges of that which, in hope, is ours as well as theirs.

The light of God shines, at times, before us, leaving us, as we may have power, to discern it, to enjoy it, to use it, to follow it. It does not so much challenge us, or exact of us; but, as I said, it shines before us, that we may reflect it, if we have grace. We see it doing its work after this manner in the early church at Jerusalem. The light of God there exacted nothing. It shone brightly and powerfully, but that was all. Peter spoke the language of that light when he said to Ananias, "While it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power?" It had made no demands upon Ananias; it simply shone in its beauty beside him or before him, that he might walk in it according to his measure. And such, in a great sense, is the moral glory of the Lord Jesus. Our first duty to that light is to learn from it what He is. We are not to begin by anxiously and painfully measuring ourselves by it, but by calmly and happily and thankfully learning Him in all His perfect moral humanity. And surely this glory is departed! There is no living image of it here. We have its record in the evangelists, but not its reflection any where.

But having its record, we may say, as one of our own poets has said –

"There has one object been disclosed on earth
That might commend the place:but now 'tis gone:
Jesus is with the Father."

But though not here, beloved, He is just what He was. We are to know Him as it were by memory; and memory has no capacity to weave fictions; memory can only turn over living, truthful pages. And thus we know Him for His own eternity. In an eminent sense, the disciples knew Him personally. It was His person, His presence, Himself, that was their attraction. And if one may speak for others, it is more of this we need. We may be busy in acquainting ourselves with truths about Him, and we may make proficiency that way; but with all our knowledge, and with all the disciples' ignorance, they may leave us far behind in the power of a commanding affection toward Himself. And surely, beloved, we will not refuse to say that it is well when the heart is drawn by Him beyond what the knowledge we have of Him may account for. It tells us that He Himself has been rightly apprehended. And there are simple souls still that exhibit this; but generally, it is not so. Nowadays, our light, our acquaintance with truth, is beyond the measure of the answer of our heart to Himself. And it is painful to us, if we have any just sensibilities at all, to discover this.

"The prerogative of our Christian faith," says one," the secret of its strength is this, that all which it has, and all which it offers, is laid up in a Person. This is what has made it strong, while so much else has proved weak; that it has a Christ as its middle point, that it has not a circumference without a center; that it has not merely deliverance, but a Deliverer,-not redemption only, but a Redeemer as well. This is what makes it fit for wayfaring men. This is what makes it sunlight, and all else, when compared with it, but as moonlight; fair it may be, but cold and ineffectual, while here the light and the life are one." And again he says, "And oh, how great the difference between submitting ourselves to a complex of rules, and casting ourselves upon a beating heart,-between accepting a system, and cleaving to a Person! Our blessedness-and let us not miss it-is, that our treasures are treasured in a Person who is not for one generation a present Teacher and a living Lord, and then for all succeeding generations a past and a dead one; but who is present and living for all." Good words, and seasonable words, I judge indeed, I may say these are.

A great combination of like moral glories in the Lord's ministry may be traced, as well as in His character. And in ministry, we may look at Him in relation to God, to Satan, and to man. As to God, the Lord Jesus, in His own person and ways, was always representing man to God as God would have him. He was rendering back human nature as a sacrifice of rest, or of sweet savor, as incense pure and fragrant, as a sheaf of untainted first-fruits out of the human soil. He restored to God His complacency in man, which sin or Adam had taken from Him. God's repentance that He had made man (Gen. 6:6.) was exchanged for delight and glory in man again (Luke 2:14). And this offering was made to God in the midst of all contradictions, all opposing circumstances, sorrows, fatigues, necessities, and heart-breaking disappointments. Wondrous altar! wondrous offering! A richer sacrifice it infinitely was than an eternity of Adam's innocency would have been. And as lie was thus representing man to God, so was He representing God to man.-(From "The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ" by J.G.B.)