And they shall see His face. REVELATION xxii. IT is related of the greatest of the bishops of Durham that, in his last solemn moments, when the veil of the flesh was even now parting asunder, and the everlasting sanctuary opening before his eyes, he expressed it as an awful thing to appear before the Moral Governor of the world'.' The same thought, which thus accompanied him in his passage to eternity, had dominated his life in time-this consciousness of an Eternal Presence, this sense of a Supreme Righteousness, this conviction of a Divine Order, shaping, guiding, disposing all the intricate vicissitudes of circumstance and all the little lives of men-enshrouded now in a dark atmosphere of mystery, revealing itself only in glimpses through the rolling clouds of material existence, dimly discerned by the dull and partial vision of finite man, Į I p. S. questioned, doubted, denied by many, yet visible enough even now to the eye of faith, working patiently but working surely, vindicating itself ever and again in the long results of time, but awaiting its complete and final vindication in the absolute issues of eternity; the truth of all truths, the reality of all realities, the one stubborn, steadfast fact, unchangeable while all else is changing; this Presence, this Order, this Righteousness, in the language of Holy Scripture this Word of the Lord which shall outlive the solid earth under foot, and the starry vault overhead. They shall perish, but Thou remainest, and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.' 'All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.' 6 It is no arbitrary conjecture that this was the dominating idea of Butler's life. Early and late it is alike prominent in his writings. In the preface to his first great work, his volume of Sermons, he speaks of the Author and Cause of all things, Who is more intimately present to us than anything else can be, and with Whom we have a nearer and inore constant intercourse than we can have with any creature.' In his latest work, his Charge to the Clergy of Durham, he urges the 'yielding ourselves up to the full influence of the Divine Presence;' he bids his hearers' endeavour to raise up in the hearts' of their people 'such a sense of God as shall be an habitual, ready principle of reverence, love, gratitude, hope, trust, resignation, and obedience;' he recommends the practice of such devotional exercises 'as would be a recollection that we are in the Divine Presence, and contribute to our being in the fear of the Lord all the day long.' Thus his death-bed utterance was the proper sequel to his lifelong thoughts. The same awe-inspiring, soul-subduing, purifying, sanctifying Presence rose before him as hitherto. But the awe, the solemnity was intensified now, when the vision of God by faith might at any moment give place to the vision of God by sight. Not unfitly did one, writing shortly after his decease, compare him to 'the bright lamps before the shrine,' the clear, steady light of the sanctuary, burning night and day before the Eternal Presence. In the strength of this belief he had lived, and in the awe of this thought he now died. This conviction it was this sense of a present Righteousness, confronting him always-which raised him high above the level of his age; keeping him pure amidst the surroundings of a dissolute Court; modest and humble |