ments of Christ.'"These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be made full "-rendered complete and perfect.

The relationship between God and man set forth in these verses may thus be partly summarized: (1) It is the relationship of human life, in and through Christ, to its source- -a source not separate nor apart, but immanent, continuously self-imparting. The life of man cannot continue when separated from the source, but only by abiding in the life of God in Christ. (2) The relationship of man's life to God in Christ is one of harmony with God's will, obedience to Christ's word of God. So long as man continues in this harmony, his own will-whatsoever he asks-accomplishes itself, and is brought to pass in and by the will of God. Prayer is an attitude of this obedient will, active in desire to accomplish itself according to God's will. (3) This relationship of obedience is not perfunctory, but a living, spontaneous, free relationship, responding to the beneficence and love of God manifested in Christ: it is love. (4) And as love perfects itself, in response to perfect love emanating from absolute power and self-imparting life, there is the divine joy of perfect love giving itself, accepted and responded to, and the joy of human love surrendering itself unto self-attainment in the love of God.

The sixteenth chapter is a chapter of love's consolation. It contains the fullest promise of the Paraclete, who shall bring comfort and enlightenment, and guide the disciples into all the truth. The disciples' hearts are filled with sorrow and perplexity at Christ's words, "A little while, and ye behold me no more; again a little while, and ye shall see me." He compares their sorrow to the sorrow of a woman in travail, which is turned into joy. "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." they shall themselves pray to the Father.

1 Cf. John xiv, 15.

In that day Then Christ

uses words which the disciples feel they understand: "For the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father. I came out from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father.. These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye may have peace. In the world ye have tribulation. But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Tribulation in the world of conflict and temptation, but Christ showed the way to victory; and in him his disciples shall have peace, the peace of life eternal, life made one in the heart of God.

"Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee, even as thou hast given him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast

of Conse

given him, to them he should give eternal life. The Prayer And this is life eternal, that they should know cration. thee the only true God and him whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ. I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which thou hast given me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."

If the glory of God is in any way to be thought in terms of the glory of men, it were well to note that true human glory is not vanity lauded by vanity, the unthinking applause at power which grasps the lives of other men. Human glory is human goodness, the high qualities of man developing themselves in service, and recognized by the good, but above all, by God; it is life recognized by life. Analogously, God's glory must lie along the energies of his nature, its manifestations in creation, its selfimpartings to and through those creatures which have most of it, men who are in the likeness of God. "Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit." Only thus may God's glory be conceived, as the joy of his nature fulfilling itself in creation, beneficence, and love.

It cannot be thought in the way of grasping, so must be thought rather in the way of giving and self-sacrifice.

Father, the hour is come.

Glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee." That this glorification of the Son unto the Father's glory related to Calvary is clear. That this glory lay also in the imparting of life by the Son to those given him by the Father, lay in God's giving of himself, is evident from the close union of all parts of the sentence: "Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee, even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life." The power of God made flesh for the imparting of life—which is here the element of giving in the glory of God--complements the element of self-sacrifice. God is glorified not only in self-sacrifice but in self-imparting and extension, selffulfilment, if such term may be used of God. The words accord: "I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which thou hast given me to do.

I manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world."

So far the thought is of Christ's mission on earth and its results, a finite portion, as it were, of the infinite glory of God, now spoken of: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." These words suggest the Son's union with the Father after the crucifixion, and the relationship between them of eternal life, each in the other. But this only opens the vista. We cannot see into it, yet must think that if we could, we should be looking at a vision absolute and eternal of the joy of God in his own beatitude, a vision of the love of God directed towards God's loving energy manifesting itself in the creation of new objects of this love, a vision of the joy and love of God forever flowing out, encompassing its objects, endowing them with life, being in and of them, and so drawing them towards the absolute selfhood of God to their own perfecting at one with him.

nal, that

"And this is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ." In life as set forth in the Gospel of "This is John, there is a place and call for knowledge; Life Eterlife's activity and means of growth is viewed as knowledge of the truth.' And here the means and end of life eternal are "that they should know" him who is the fulness of knowledge and the source of life. Life eternal is even here and now; on earth the disciple enters the eternal way, begins to know God, in knowledge of whom he shall progress eternally.

They

Should

Know

Thee."

"That they should know thee, the only true God,"God real, veritable, aλn ivóv, whose being holds all life, and every real and veritable quality in absolute perfection, power and intelligence, love, justice, mercy; God the source, God the creator, God the sustaining mind, and God the Father. "And him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ." This complements the knowing of God. For here Christ is not viewed from the side of his divinity, not as the Word, the creative and sustaining energy of God, but as the Word made flesh, become man. Hence this means knowledge of man, for Jesus was a man. But Jesus Christ, Jesus the man as Christ, the" sent" of God, whose life was man doing God's will, and so was life eternal; who was man in perfect relationship to God. Thus to know Jesus Christ means to know perfect man in full relationship to God, means to know human life. Moreover, to know man, the creature with his sonship revealed to him, means to know God's will for man, his commandment, which also is eternal life,-life in obedience and love of God, in oneness with the Father.

Here, then, is signified knowledge of God approached in many ways. God was revealed through Christ; and knowledge of God comes through the reasonings of man. The universe is God's creation, declares his glory, and in every least detail God may be learned. All natural sci1 Compare John viii, 31, 32, with John xviii, 37.

ence is a learning to know God; so also is knowledge of mankind, their ways and thoughts and loves, powers and attainments. And knowing God is to know power and life, faculty and accomplishment. In exercise of faculty, knowledge grows, and knowing how to fashion and create is faculty of doing, giving, creating, living. Accordingly, "to know thee, the only true God and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ," means knowledge all-inclusive, knowledge of all of life and faculty to live; it means all truth. But how can knowledge of truth be life?

There are three stages of truth. First, correspondence of thought or statement to a fact perceived or remembered. Secondly, truth is related correspondence to many connected facts: a thought or statement is true because it corresponds to a large amount of experience, correlates itself therewith, or will account for it. This stage of truth is an enlargement or generalizing of truth of the first kind, which is simple correspondence to fact.

The third stage is the highest and most perilous. If we consider as broadly and deeply as possible, so as to reach most comprehensive truths of the second stage, we may look around and back of us, and formulate conceptions of the courses of events, and note long ranges of antecedents and consequents, causes and effects. Through all, we note directions, as it were, whither things seem to tend, note what seems an advance somewhither, and our thoughts convince us that this advance is from a lower to a higher, a worse to a better-in a word, is progress and development. From observation of this progress, we may reach the thought of plan, and conceive this progress to correspond to the purpose of an infinite, all-ruling, and beneficent mind, the bent and purpose of which may partially be discerned in the progress hitherto. Even should it be unallowable to pass from observed progress to the thought of plan, there is still discernible a progress toward a better. This is the tending toward manifold betterment, toward life and life's perfecting, toward the