driving machinery, lighting with electricity remote cities, and accomplishing manifold purposes of utility. Throughout the physical world we witness the marvellous efficacy of energy of position: elevation is efficiency.

Society supplies fresh proof of the realty and effectiveness of energy of position. Speaking of "the upper ten," we use a suggestive metaphor-one that indicates a ruling class whose immense influence is the energy of elevated position. This class comprises men of wealth, culture, and rank; slowly they acquired gold, scholarship, or title; slowly they accumulated power, and now from elevated place they exercise a political and social influence of the first consequence. The "upper ten" in many palpable ways demonstrate the fact and competence of energy of position.

But the text reminds us of the supreme import of elevation in the moral life. Stupendous power resides in a soul that lives high above the world, one familiar with eternity, ever steeping in the light. Christian believers may not always impress us with the sense of force; their power is often power in a state of rest, they are restrained, passive, patient; but no sooner are they brought into circumstances of difficulty, of arduous duty, of severe temptation, of bitter deprivation and suffering, than they discover tremendous energy and prove complete masters of the situation: the potential becomes the actual, energy of position is converted into energy of victorious action, the erstwhile passive saints acquit themselves as heroes and martyrs. Not for nothing have they lived on high, mused on holy things, talked with God, drunk from

eternal fountains; when the occasion arises they are equal to it, they have strength to subordinate the lower nature, to fulfil obligation, to make the costliest sacrifices: they develop power for watching, working, fighting for life and death. Irresistible and invincible forces accumulate in a soul that habitually dwells with God; it knows perfectly how real is the energy of position. A while ago a literary authority, in addressing an audience interested in the drama, asked, Could a very good man be a hero? He answered "No"; the exceptionally good man could not be a hero of drama. In the first place, the drama dwelt with action, and the saint was passive. Then again, the drama dealt with emotions, and the saint was a man who had subdued emotion. In the third place, what an audience looked for in a hero was an exhibition of mastery, of force, of something significant. This gentleman's conception of a saint was partial; he left out the complimentary aspect of saintly character. Sometimes the saint does appear passive, passionless, unassertive; his energy is in a state of rest: but change his circumstances, and his glorious potentiality flashes forth; he reveals action, emotion, mastery of the sublimest character.

Is not the main deficiency with many of us the lack of instinctive, adequate, triumphant moral power? Too often we sadly fail in the trying hour; and when we do not absolutely fail, we are conscious of miserable insufficiency. In one of his letters Stevenson refers regretfully to the paralyzing influence of ill-health upon his literary work. "I have never at command that press of spirits necessary to strike out a thing red

hot. A certain languor marks the whole. It is not, in short, art." How many of us are conscious of a similar moral feebleness marring our character and action! We do at length arrive, we muddle through, our calling and work are finished after a fashion, but faintness and failure are everywhere in evidence. We have not at command the spiritual vigour necessary to strike out things of duty and service red-hot-immediate, complete, triumphant. "That ye may know the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ," leave the lower levels, aspire to a life of entire dedication, seek the closer walk. The tonic is in the mountain air. He who lives in the heavenly places shares in the majestic strength of the glorified Lord, under whose feet all things are put in subjection.

XXV

ELEVATION AND SAFETY

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.-Ps. xci. 1.

I

N the highest moods of thought and feeling we enjoy an immunity impossible to those who do

not live a whole-hearted spiritual life. If we would be safe, we must live near God, dwell in His secret place, high above the levels of the unspiritual. The higher life, or rather the highest life, is the condition of absolute security.

The devil uses the stratagem of elevation, just as the hawk does. Thus he approached our Lord. "Then the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple." "Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." So still from enchanted heights does the enemy of souls beguile men, and, alas! too often captures them. Here he brings the ambitious, luring them with a seat in the cabinet; here also he dazzles the covetous, showing them twenty per cent.; and here he intoxicates the sensualist, showing him the land below decked with the lotus and the rose. All temptation implies dangerous elevation-an excitement of the

senses, a kindled imagination, an exaltation of the moods and emotions of the soul. The tempted are always poised on a pinnacle: from the dizzy mountain brow they survey the glittering scene to which distance lends enchantment.

How shall we resist this sorcery, and be secure against the glamour of dangerous heights of fancy and feeling? Wherein was the salvation of our Lord when He was tempted as we are? He went higher still. "The prince of the power of the air" essays his arts of deception and fascination high up in the realm of cloudland and mirage; but our Lord went outside the atmosphere altogether, and judged the earth from the depths of the heavens. The "wicked one" exercised over our Lord no fascination, played Him no trick, touched Him not, because He ever judged the earthly in the light of the heavenly, the human in the light of the divine, the temporal in the light of the eternal. "Come up, and I will show thee," cries a master of illusions, thrusting into our hand the cup of sorcery. "Come up, and I will show thee," cries a voice out of heaven; and if we regard that invitation from on high, the cup of intoxication is shattered, and the wine of its fornication is as water spilled on the ground. The way to master temptation is to transcend it. The peril of selfishness is best vanquished by a grander selfishness, which is ready to lose its life for the sake of the life eternal; the peril of insobriety is most effectually mastered by the rarer intoxication of being filled with the Spirit; and the peril of worldliness is past to those who look upon the heavenly vision of the immortal treasures and delights of the spiritual universe.