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the hidden power of religion in the heart. He may have meant, and have been understood to mean, an invisible and spiritual rule, the ideal condition of the individual or of society in which God is reverenced and obeyed as the supreme Lord of life; and then in regard to the laws and constitution of this kingdom he may have announced views of his own which differed widely from those commonly entertained. He may, therefore, have referred to that which alone is eternal and true among men, and not, as is so often supposed, either to the evanescent dreams of a suffering and intolerant people, or to the visible organization of the Christian Church. Whether this is so we have now to inquire.

The classical saying of Christ's upon this subject is contained in his answer to the Pharisees, who asked him when the kingdom of God should come. He replied: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or there! For lo, the kingdom of God is within you," or, as perhaps we ought to translate the words, "in the midst of you." It is clear that the Pharisees outward and visible advent of the

expected some

1 Luke xvii. 20 sq.

Divine sovereignty, and they most probably connected that advent with the appearance of the Messiah, the chosen agent by whom the ideal rule was to be established. This kingdom was to be preceded by certain signs, a climax of misery and wickedness which would call for a Divine intervention; and the Pharisees by their question may have wished to ascertain how far Jesus agreed with the opinion of the schools respecting these "birth-pains" of the coming age. It was in answer to a very similar question on the part of his own disciples that he is said to have spoken that long apocalyptic discourse which is in such striking agreement with the popular view.1 We have here two representations which are not easily reconciled; but so far as they are inconsistent, we can have no hesitation in preferring the profound and original reply to the Pharisees, and especially when we observe that there are some interesting traces of the same view even in the longer answer to the disciples. That answer begins with a warning, as though Jesus felt that the disciples were on a false track: "Take heed that no man lead you astray; for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall lead many 1 Matt. xxiv.; Mark xiii.; Luke xxi. 5 sqq.

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astray." Farther on, the warning is repeated: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or, Here; believe it not. . . . . If, therefore, they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the wilderness; go not forth: Behold, he is in the inner chambers; believe it not." These words, taken by themselves, seem to point to a more silent and spiritual coming of the kingdom than the disciples anticipated; and sentences which bear a different character may be due to a natural misunderstanding of highly figurative expressions, such as Jesus frequently used. Be this as it may, the answer to the Pharisees is unmistakable. It declares that the kingdom of God is not to come like some earthly pageant, to be gazed at with the bodily eye; it is not to have its seat in any particular place; it is not some future institution of worldly grandeur, but is here now in the midst of you, discernible by every spiritual eye, commanding the homage of every consecrated heart. I suppose there is nothing which more excites the contempt of the mean religious mind than to be told that all this common world is interfused with Deity, and that common men and women, the hard-handed children of toil, are sons and daughters of God. We cynically ask for a sign from heaven,

and shake our conceited heads with scornful satisfaction when it cannot be given; and lo, the kingdom of God is in some humble cottage, and angels are ascending and descending upon some poor son of man, and God's anointed stands before us unknown in one whose father and mother we know to be very common people. We need not go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Mecca or Rome; we have only to open the eyes of the soul, and we shall see the kingdom of heaven all around us, as when some sweet landscape appears through the dissolving mist; we shall dwell already in the celestial city, and earth's sordid ways will be paved with sapphire and gold. Thus Jesus confronted the Pharisees with a present kingdom of God; but they could not see it, for their eyes were blinded.

We may briefly touch upon several other passages which point to a present kingdom of God. When the Pharisees charged Jesus with casting out demons by Beelzebub, he said in the course of his reply, "If I by the spirit of God1 cast out the demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you. 112 Of course, there

1 In Luke, "the finger of God."

2 Matt. xii. 28; Luke xi. 20. This saying is not given in the parallel passage in Mark iii. 22 sqq.

PRESENT IN THE POWER OF LOVE.

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was not yet any "divine society," any Christian Church, any renovated earth. All things were going on as they had done since the foundation of the world, except that frenzied minds were growing calm under the subduing word of a soul filled with God. Jesus used no incantations or magical rites, such as were common at the time, but stilled the wild and passionate heart or the overwrought nerves by the simple authority of the Divine love within him; and that was sufficient proof that the reign of God was present. But religious prejudice could see only the power of Satan in the work of the Holy Spirit. Was it not a perception of this ever-present kingdom, and of the blindness of heart which separated from it, that suggested the commandment, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness"? We cannot seek a distant institution, which is to come at some unknown period with portents which will shake the earth and heaven; but we can seek the inward love of God, the dominion of truth and purity, in the midst of which we walk, as in a paradise, though eyes dimmed with selfishness cannot see it, and hands paralyzed with sin cannot feel it. Accordingly, the kingdom of heaven

1 Matt. vi. 33; Luke xii. 31, simply "his kingdom."