The Progress of the Divine Life

u For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith” — Rom. i. 17.

From faith to faith! so runs the course of the Gospel life. Therein is revealed the earthly progress of a divinely-human soul. We see Him rising from peak to peak in the ascent of the mount of God, climbing the spheres of earth from faith to faith. First there is faith in the home life, content to be in subjection, and waiting; its time. Next there is faith on the banks of Jordan, dedicating itself to a Father’s will. Then comes faith in the wilderness — faith that can prove in temptation the strength of its own vow. By and by there comes a higher test still — faith proved in sorrow, faith under that Gethsemane shadow which hid the very face of God. Lastly, there is faith in death — faith strong in the utmost weakness, crying with a loud voice, “It is finished!”

0 Son of Man, Son of God, who hast been content to rise from the valley of my childhood, let me ascend on steps of Thee. Let me rise through the stages of Thy life from faith to faith. Give me the faith that can wait in obscurity amid the trivial duties of the home life. Give me the faith that can dedicate itself amid the vision of an opened heaven. Give me the faith that can stand on the mount of temptation and see the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and say, 1 ‘Thee only shall I serve.” Give me the faith that can enter within the shadows of Gethsemane, and believe in that Father’s smile which it can no longer see. Give me the faith that can enter that deeper darkness still — the portals of the grave, and in that hour when flesh and heart faint and fail can sing with a loud voice, “0 death! where is thy sting? 0 grave! where is thy victory?”