mind. "What did he think of our sanctuary, its gothic arches, its stained windows, its costly and powerful organ? How was he impressed with the music and the order of the worship?" It did not seem at that moment as though I could ever again care or have the smallest curiosity as to what men might say of preaching, worship, or church, if I could only know that he had not been displeased, that he would not withhold his feet from coming again because he had been grieved at what he might have seen or heard.

We speak of "a momentous occasion." This, though in sleep, was recognized as such by the dreamer-a lifetime, almost an eternity of interest crowded into a single solemn moment. One present for an hour who could tell me all I have so longed to know; who could point out to me the imperfections of my service; who could reveal to me my real self, to whom, perhaps, I am most a stranger ; who could correct the errors in our worship to which long usage and accepted tradition may have rendered us insensible. While I had been preaching for a half-hour He had been here and listening who could have told me all this and infinitely more and my eyes had been holden that I knew him not; and now he had gone. "Yet a little while I am with you and then I go unto him that

sent me.'

One thought, however, lingered in my mind with something of comfort and more of awe. "He

་་

has been here to-day, and no doubt he will come again"; and mentally repeating these words as one regretfully meditating on a vanished vision, 'I awoke, and it was a dream." No, it was not a dream. It was a vision of the deepest reality, a miniature of an actual ministry, verifying the statement often repeated that sometimes we are most awake toward God when we are asleep toward the world.

II

HERE TO-DAY

ERE to-day, and to come again." In this single sentence the two critical turning-points of an extended ministry

are marked. It is not what we have but what we know that we have which determines our material or spiritual wealth. A poor farmer owned a piece of hard, rocky land from which, at the price of only the severest toil, he was able to support his family. He died and bequeathed his farm to his eldest son. By an accident the son discovered traces of gold on the land which, being explored, was found to contain mineral wealth of immense value. The father had had precisely the same property which the son now possessed, but while the one lived and died a poor man the other became independently rich. And yet the difference between the two depended entirely upon the fact that the son knew what he had, and the father did not know. "Where two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them," says Christ.

Then the dream was literally true, was it?

Yes. If this promise of the Son of God means what it says, Jesus of Nazareth was present not only on that Sunday morning, but on every Sunday morning when his disciples assemble for worship. "Why, then, oh preacher, did you not fix your attention on him from the first day you stood up in the congregation as his witness, asking how you might please him before once raising the question how you might please the people, and how in your ministry you might have his help above the help of every other? Was the dream which came to you in the transient visions of the night more real to you than his own promise, 'Lo, I am with you alway,' which is given in that word which endureth forever?" Alas, that it was ever so! It is not what we know but what we know that we know which constitutes our spiritual wealth. I must have read and expounded these words of Jesus again and again during my ministry, but somehow for years they had no really practical meaning to me. Then came a blessed and everto-be-remembered crisis in my spiritual life when from a deeper insight into Scripture the doctrine of the Holy Spirit began to open to me. Now I apprehended how and in what sense Jesus is present: not in some figurative or even potential sense, but literally and really present in the Holy Spirit, his invisible self. "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever" (John 14:16).

The coming of this other Paraclete was conditioned on the departure of Jesus: "If I go I will send him unto you." And this promise was perfectly fulfilled on Pentecost. As truly as Christ went up, the Holy Ghost came down the one took his place at the Father's right hand in heaven, the other took his seat in the church on earth which is “builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit." And yet, lest by this discourse about his going and the Comforter's coming we should be led to think that it is not Christ who is with us, he says, clearly referring to the Spirit: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." Thus it is made plain that the Lord himself is truly though invisibly here in the midst of every company of disciples gathered in any place in his name.

If Christ came to church and sat in one of the pews, what then? Would not the minister constrain him to preach to the people and allow himself to be a listener? If he were to decline and say: "I am among you as one that heareth,'' would he not beg him at least to give the congregation some message of his own through the lips of the preacher? If an offering for the spread of the gospel among the heathen were to be asked on that morning, would not the Master be besought to make the plea and to tell the people how he himself "though rich, for our sakes became poor that we through his poverty might be rich"? If