(Continued from p. 326.)

An entry in the diary of Frederic S. Arnot, devoted African pioneer missionary, reads:"It is refreshing to meet with a case of hearty gratitude from even one of those for whom one seeks to labor. A young man has been lame a long time from a broken toe which would not heal. I have been dressing and doctoring it for three weeks every day. He came to me to-day with his face beaming with joy, saying that at last he could walk. 'I have nothing but myself to pay you with,' he said, with tears in his eyes."

Paul is one of the grateful ones. "Wherever God's grace is discerned, there praise breaks forth as surely as earth answers the touch of spring with flowers." Sometimes he gives thanks, sometimes' be blesses, and as often as he catches sight of the Cross, God's great peroration of grace, "all the stops of his nature are pulled wide open, and his whole being vibrates" with laud to God.

Surely the heart of Him who once said, "Where are the nine?" and who had "meat to eat" that His disciples knew not of, listened oft in gladness to praising Paul.

And in our next verse it is our privilege to join our blessed Lord in His glad listening to, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ," a characteristic outburst of praise.

Now just as music is compounded of notes, so praise is compounded of words, and the study of Scriptural words is a highly remunerative investment. They are not merely used with wise discrimination but with lofty inspiration, and every nuance of meaning becomes a beacon light along the broad highway of truth. There are two words in the New Testament translated "blessed." "Makarlos" found over and over in the beatitudes of Matthew 5 was a term once used of the gods alone. It carried an implication of the divine with it. It laid stress on that which was intrinsic. The word in our text,"eulogetos," however, speaks rather of that which is extrinsic. It confers beatitude through speech. It is distilled like the dew in the warm intercourse of affection. We get our word "eulogy" from it, but eulogy here is too artificial and veneered to breathe its spirit. "Blessed" is unrivaled as a translation. It is solemn, joyous and inspiriting. "Hath blessed us" is not merely the equivalent of "hath given," as we might think when reading the text. There is an implication of speaking into blessedness. Something of this thought breathes through Faber's familiar words:

"Whate'er He blesses turns to good,
And unblessed good is 99:"

The word also has something of a religious atmosphere. It savors of the incense of the sanctuary. When John G. Paton, of the New Hebrides, was leaving the Mildmay Conference after delivering an address, the whole audience arose, and as he passed down the aisle, showered him with "God bless you's." Their effect upon Paton affords us something of that religious atmosphere. "Long ere I reached the door of the hall, my soul was already prostrated at the feet of my Lord that I had done so little for Him, and I bowed my head to cry, 'Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us.'"

The word "blessed," in this way, worshipfully introduces us to the Person whom Paul blesses and who blesses us, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

The great poet Goethe once flung aside the curtain of a window in his house, and pointing to the western sky uttered the simple word, "Klopstock!" Klopstock was the German Milton, and had painted magnificent poetic pictures of just such a scene as the bared window disclosed. For one who had read him, no word or paragraph or page could have so accurately sketched a scene otherwise beggaring description. The sky was unique in its heavenly glory. But for one who had not lived in Klopstock, the name would have meant practically nothing. So the precious words "of our Lord Jesus Christ" breathe out volumes, for those who know Him, as to the blessed Person from henceforth to be known as His God and Father. Personal, living, experimental, revelatory knowledge of Jesus Christ, imbibed from the Scriptures, from daily communion, from meditation on Christ's wonderful mission, these, and these alone, disclose in all its unrivaled splendor the magnificent import of a conception of God found in none of the religions, none of the philosophies, none of the poetic dreams of the poets of this world, nor yet in the visions of seers unilluminated from above. Even the Old Testament illuminate had but seen Him dimly, afar off, in the moments of their brightest revelations. When, however, "He who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light unapproachable," finally in "the-last of these days" spake "in Son," when "the effulgence of His glory and the express image of His Person" "tabernacled among men," when "the day-spring from on high" broke over the plains of Bethlehem, very soon the "people that sat in darkness saw a GREAT LIGHT, and to them that sat in the valley of the shadow of death light had sprung up." It was the "light of the glory of GOD in the face of Jesus Christ." In it God the Father "was declared." This is not poetry, it is glorious truth.

So we do not need the words of the rest of this precious verse to enlist our hearts in dear Paul's joyous doxology, "blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

But the text does not pause there. It singles out one of His transcendent glories. This God whom we know through Jesus Christ is a superlative giver. He first gave His Son, and then His Son gave Himself, and in rapture of delight the apostle exclaims, "How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" "All things" is even bigger than our text, is greater than "all spiritual blessings," yet "all spiritual blessings" are too big for us, with our feeble powers, to begin to properly appreciate.

Over the entrance to the palace at Versailles, there is an inscription, "A toutes les gloires de France" (To all the glories of France); and right over the portal to this wonderful epistle we seem to see inscribed, "All the blessings of Heaven," a striking synthesis to much of its content. And these blessings are ours. Yes, but how practically? Alas, how often we may burn into our hearts an Old Testament challenge, "Know ye that Ramoth Gilead is ours, and we take it not?"

The expression "spiritual blessings" has been variously interpreted by many preachers and commentators. These differences should not lead to our putting on theological war paint, showering our brethren with "shibboleths," with inevitable battle as a climax. There are many ambiguities in Scripture, words legitimately capable of variant interpretation. This does not require arguing. It is too patent for any candid reader to deny. It is not a defect in Scripture. Each interpretation has its blessing for us, and we should seek to reap a double harvest from them. Thus the expression now before us has been interpreted as "non-material good," "material good that blesses our spirits," while Alexander Maclaren, prince of excellent preachers, suggests; "He calls them spiritual because they are imparted to the waiting spirit by that Divine Spirit, who communicates to men all the most precious things of God." That is a rousing suggestion when we are numb from inability to grasp properly that which is ours. We must rely upon God's blessed Spirit. Oh, how near He comes to our need!

"Closer is He than breathing,
And nearer than hands or feet."

"All spiritual blessings" ours through Him? Let us then be filled with Him!

"In heavenly places in Christ." The close of the chapter clearly shows us the meaning of the expression "heavenly places." They are not on the earth, they are where Christ has gone; they are where Paul heard unutterable things, where he received abundant revelations, the bliss of which was to linger with him all his life; they are there where "neither moth nor rust corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal;" they are there, "far above all principality and power and might and dominion," there secured to us in Christ, who is God over all blessed forever. And we are going there.

An old ritual of the Mass opened with the words "Sursum corda" (Up with your hearts), and surely the call comes strong and clear to us from out of the depths of this truly expansive passage. It gathers strength from the glorious Cross on earth beneath and rises to the crown and throne in heaven. Sursum corda. "Cease, ye saints, your occupation with the sorrow scenes of earth;

Let the eye of faith be opened, use the sight of second birth."

"In Christ." We must not leave our subject without briefly considering this very important phrase. Linguists and theologians discuss at length its possibilities. In one place it may mean one thing, in another something else. To some it is merely "by." To others it is "atmosphere" and "identity," to others "representation." To others it is simply "in." They prefer an "aura of mystery" around the word. There are, perhaps, little difficulties inherent with each interpretation. For the purposes of this paper it is the golden cord on which, throughout the chapter, all the pearls of our blessings are strung. We pick it up in the very beginning, "faithful in Christ Jesus;" it gleams out in our present text "blessed.. .in Christ;" it shimmers through God's great election, "chosen us in Him;" it forms the solid substratum beneath the "favored in the Beloved;" it is a thread of Divine glory in the "redemption through His blood," and it flashes out in full splendor in God's magnificent purpose to head up all things "in Christ."

"In the dispensation of that glorious time,
When the bells of heaven, with melodious chime,
Ring in all the fulness of the plans of God,"

so that in view of it, we may well close with that grand Episcopalian doxology:

"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." F. C. Grant

(To be continued, D. V.)