xiv. THE CEDARS AND CANDLESTICKS, 259 



who is the first-born of every creature. And it is a 

 solemn thought that through toil and struggle, loss and 

 death, this clearer and fuller revelation comes to us. 

 The flame that burns in the candlestick is maintained 

 at the expense of the wasting oil and the consuming 

 wick. Through similar waste and consuming of heart, 

 and brain, and life, comes the higher knowledge of the 

 things that belong to our peace. The true light streams 

 out to us through the rent veil of Christ's flesh. Only 

 by passing through the thick darkness of the Cross 

 can we enter into the light inaccessible in which God 

 dwells everlastingly. 



4. And now we come to the last point of contrast 

 between the revelation of Eden and the revelation of 

 Patmos, namely, the transitory nature of the one and 

 the permanence of the other. God appeared to our 

 first parents walking among the trees of the garden. 

 These trees were in their very nature evanescent. 

 They were mere passing forms, consolidated shadows 

 and vapours that appeared for a little and then vanished 

 away. What a tender and fragile growth is the grass ! 

 How short-lived is the goodliness of the flower of the 

 field ! How fleeting the life of the largest and oldest 

 patriarch of the forest, whose age has bridged across 

 almost the whole of human history ! The dirge of the 

 revelation of nature is, " All flesh is as grass, and all the 

 glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass 

 withereth and the flower thereof fadeth away." And 

 it is so evanescent because nature is the mere scaffold- 

 ing of grace ; and its decays and deaths, its toils and 



