government.

Little as they then knew of the relations of the wonderful story on which
their faith was built, to everything human, the same truth was at work
then which is now--poor as the recognition of these relations yet
is--slowly setting men free. In the hardest winter the roots are still
alive in the frozen ground.

In the silence of the monastery, unnatural as that life was, germinated
much of this deeper life. As we must not judge of the life of the nation
by its kings and mighty men, so we must not judge of the life in the
Church by those who are called Rabbi. The very notion of the kingdom of
heaven implies a secret growth, secret from no affectation of mystery,
but because its goings-on are in the depths of the human nature where it
holds communion with the Divine. In the Church, as in society, we often
find that that which shows itself uppermost is but the froth, a sign, it
may be, of life beneath, but in itself worthless. When the man arises
with a servant's heart and a ruler's brain, then is the summer of the
Church's content. But whether the men who wrote the following songs moved
in some shining orbit of rank, or only knelt in some dim chapel, and
walked in some pale cloister, we cannot tell, for they have left no name
behind them.

My reader will observe that there is little of theory and much of love in
these lyrics. The recognition of a living Master is far more than any
notions about him. In the worship of him a thousand truths are working,
unknown and yet active, which, embodied in theory, and dissociated from
the living mind that was in Christ, will as certainly breed worms as any
omer of hoarded manna. Holding the skirt of his garment in one hand, we
shall in the other hold the key to all the treasures of wisdom and