and does give, is the satisfying and real life, because it meets these testings. It gives us this wealth of correspondence of relationship.
"Oh, the pure delight of a single hour,
That before Thy Cross I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God,
I commune as friend with friend."
We know that the life Christ brings is complete and full, because it reëstablishes the tie and union between ourselves and God, and He becomes to us again our Father and our Friend. We know it, because it is the root of all deep and true and satisfying human relationships. How can there be a real and full union of one man and one woman that is not a union in Christ? And for the highest friendship and its ideals we find sanction and nourishment best in Him and the groundwork of His life.
And Christ's is the real and satisfying life, because it is creative and energizing. It is not like the influence of that thief—selfishness, low desire, sin and small ambition—who kills and steals and destroys. But the life that Christ is teems with vitalizing power; it is strength and energy and new service in men. I have never seen it more beautifully put than in a letter of Stanley to David Livingstone. It was found by Lady Stanley in a little pocketbook which her husband had carried on the expedition for the relief of Livingstone. It was written in lead
