never mentions the enemy timidly. He never seeks to underestimate his
strength. Nay, again and again he catalogs all possible antagonisms in
a spirit of buoyant and exuberant triumph. However numerous the enemy,
however subtle and aggressive his devices, however towering and
well-established the iniquity, however black the gathering clouds, so
sensitive is the apostle to the wealthy resources of God that amid it
all he remains a sunny optimist, "rejoicing in hope," laboring in the
spirit of a conqueror even when the world was exulting in his supposed
discomfiture and defeat.

And, finally, in searching for the springs of this man's optimism, I
place alongside his sense of the reality of redemption and his wealthy
consciousness of present resources his impressive sense of the reality
of future glory. Paul gave himself time to think of heaven, of the
home of God, of his own home when time should be no more. He loved to
contemplate "the glory that shall be revealed." He mused in wistful
expectancy of the day "when Christ who is our life shall be
manifested," and when we also "shall be manifested with him in glory."
He pondered the thought of death as "gain," as transferring him to
conditions in which he would be "at home with the Lord," "with Christ,
which is far better." He looked for "the blest hope and appearing
of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ," and he
contemplated "that great day" as the "henceforth," which would reveal
to him the crown of righteousness and glory. Is any one prepared to
dissociate this contemplation from the apostle's cheery optimism? Is
not rather the thought of coming glory one of its abiding springs? Can
we safely exile it from our moral and spiritual culture? I know that
this particular contemplation is largely absent from modern religious
life, and I know the nature of the recoil in which our present
impoverishment began. "Let us hear less about the mansions of the