THE HIDDEN MANNA AND THE WHITE STONE. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."-REV., ii., 17. THIS text is a solemn call to victorious perseverance in Christian life. As a motive, two promises are made-one of hidden manna, and the other of an unknown name upon a white stone. One refers to the past, the other to the future. The one is founded upon fact, the other is mystical. Let us elucidate a little each of the figures, and derive from them such spiritual profit as is appropriate to them respectively. The Israelites, who were God's typical people-not his only people, but the people by which pre-eminently he developed and made known the moral side of truth-had been cruelly oppressed and held in bondage in Egypt. We are not left to our own fancy when we say that this is, spiritually, the experience of all men, for the New Testament appropriates that historic condition. We, too, are represented as being in bondage, or as having been in bondage. Whom a man serves, to him he is in bondage; and we have been under the dominion of the world, under the power of our appetites, under the control of our own propensities, and so we have been in Egypt. God appeared in a special and glorious manner, and set his people free, and brought them forth with a high hand and an outstretched arm from Egypt; and so, with a continuous parallel, it is represented in the New Testament that the Christian is brought from the house of bondage into light and lib erty; for in the New Testament, though religion is sometimes represented as a service, at other times, and more comprehensively, it is represented as an enfranchisement, as an act of emancipation, as freedom conferred, as liberty achieved. When the Israelites had been delivered from their pursuers and had crossed the sea, instead of making straight for the promised land, they took counsel of their fear and their love of ease, and were obliged, in consequence, for forty years to wander up and down through the great desert land. But at length, after a generation had perished, after those that first set out had, as a punishment of their cowardice, died in the wilderness, the people came into the promised land, where long ago they might have been settled. And so those that have been brought out from under the dominion of their sins into newness of life, through Christ Jesus, instead of aiming at once at the highest Christian states, attempt to avoid, as much as they may, labors and self-denial, and, in consequence, impose upon themselves the very things which they seek to avoid, and make their life a life of wanderings in the desert. They may well be compared to the children of Israel who wandered in the wilderness of Arabia. In old age, often, God's people only at last, as the sum of all the conflicts of their life, reach that which they should have stepped into almost at the very beginning of their Christian course. If men had Christian enterprise, Christian courage, Christian fidelity, they might begin, at the very beginning of their Christian experience, where, in the ordinary course of things, they end after scores of years. During this long pilgrimage of the Israelites it was impossible for them to sow and to gather harvests. They were dwellers in tents. They had been shepherds and husbandmen; but they could not pursue for a livelihood their old avocations. It was needful, therefore, that there should be a supply granted to them miraculously; and by divine command manna fell daily from heaven. They gathered it each day for the day's use, and on the day preceding the Sabbath for two days, that the Sabbath might be unbroken. And the revelator says, "I will feed conquering Christians with manna." As we are like the Israelites in bondage, in deliverance, and in wandering in the wilderness, "so," saith the revelator," the parallel shall continue; and as God fed his people, not through their own skill and industry, but by a direct power, so God promises that those who are victoriously faithful in the Christian life in all their wanderings and vicissitudes shall have divinely-bestowed manna." But, lest it should seem as though it was to be a repetition of the old miracle, it is declared that it is not to be substantial and visible manna, such as the Israelites plucked from the ground, but "hidden," or secret manna; that is, invisible, spiritual manna, in distinction from that which is visible and material. Heavenly cheer, spiritual comfort, the soul's bread -that is the manna which is here promised. Let us then see, for one single moment, what is the scope of this promise. To them that overcome I will give hidden manna. The implication is that Christians are in great conflict and peril, and that, in consequence of the strifes and dangers of Christian life, they need something more than they can minister to themselves. They need food that is better than the daily bread for which we are taught to pray. And the promise is that, if they are faithful in their Christian life, God will give them this other food that they need. It is only a mystic and poetic expression of the same thought that our Savior indulged in when he declared, "Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed ?"" but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Here the same truth is set forth in another mode of expression, namely, Fight the battle of temptation, wage the conflict of Christian life, be bold, be faithful, and God will feed your souls. As in the one case God will take care of the body according to the |