not merely because it is made of iron and worked by the power of steam; it is also because valves and pistons, cranks and wheels, shaft and propeller, under management of the skilful engineer, all work in reciprocal adjustment and harmonious coöperation to one common end, namely, sending the mighty steamer across the Atlantic. But let some slight derangement of the machinery occur, — some valve refuse to work, some cog interfere, some pin give way, and the engine which was stouter than leviathan becomes as helpless as an extinct icthyosaurus. Or, to come nearer our fundamental analogon: How is it that the human body can achieve exploits so numerous, so various, so stupendous? It is not because it is so vast or so stout in itself; but it is because it is a magnificent sample of coöperative unity-heart coöperating with lungs, nerve answering to mind, muscle combining with will, joint articulating with bone, thumb concurring with fingers; in short, body coöperating with head. But let some accident or disease destroy the coöperative unity of the body, and the man who could laughingly shoulder the gates of Gaza cannot even shake himself from the knees of Delilah.

The Body the Truest Analogon of Ecclesia. — Thus the human body is a profound and telling symbol, or rather suggestive functional analogue, of that majestic ideal organism which we call the Church of the living God. We shall never rise to a higher or truer conception of the Christian Ecclesia than under this biologic analogue of the bodily organism. We outlive human creeds; we shall never outlive divine biology.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHURCH OF THE KING'S BRIDE

The Earthly Marriage a Type of the Heavenly. — The conception of Jehovah and his People under figure of Bridegroom and Bride underlies the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It is foreshadowed in the Parable of Eden. It is the theme of the Forty-fifth Psalm, wherein the sacred bard sets forth the personal beauty, the warlike prowess, the divine majesty, the just government, of a royal Bridegroom, and the gorgeous attire and retinue of a royal Bride. It furnishes the Prophets with their most frequent and powerful imagery in their denunciation of Israel's coquetry with idols, setting forth her sins in this respect under the various terms of marital infidelity.1 It is expressly and emphatically asserted in the New Testament. Let me cite a single example:

Husbands, love your wives, as also Christ loved the church, and delivered himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the bathing of water in the word, that he might himself present to himself the church, glorious, not having a spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it may be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ the church; because we are members of his body. For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.

1 See Jeremiah: 1-25; Ezekiel 16:1-63; 23: 1-49; Hosea I: I-11; 2: I-23; etc.

This mystery is great; but I am speaking of Christ and of the church. – Ephesians 5:25-32. See also Matthew 9:15; 22:1-10; 25: 1–13; John 3:29; 2 Corinthians 11:2, 3; Revelation 19:6-9; 21:2-9; 22:17; etc.

Not that the church has yet attained to all this. She is still but a child, talking as a child, thinking as a child, reasoning as a child. But the day is approaching when that which is perfect will come, and that which is in part will be done away. Then she will put away childish things. Then will she attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to the proportions of a full-grown personality, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, standing before him in very truth as his helpmeet and complemental, his peer in the second Eden as Eve was Adam's peer in the first. Then will he indeed joyously present her to himself as his own Ladyelect, even the church glorious and holy, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

Thus was the marriage in the Eden that has been the type and prophecy of the marriage in the Eden that is to be. That was the symbol, this is the substance; that was the passing shadow, this is the abiding reality; that was the parable, this is the interpretation. Thus the last Adam is older than the first; the church of the living God is older than the mother of all living. And so St. Paul, in declaring to us his great mystery concerning Christ and his church, to wit, that we are members of his body, and so virtually repeating Adam's own words in Eden, did, as was the wont of his Master, utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.

CHAPTER VII

THE CHURCH OF NEW JERUSALEM

GOD made the country, and man made the town.

So sang William Cowper. But Abraham Cowley had anticipated him by a hundred years:

God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.

And Cowley had been anticipated by Marcus Terentius Varro, who, born a century before Christ, had written :

Divine Nature gave the fields, human art built the cities.

-VARRO, De Re Rustica, III, 1.

And surely nothing is more charming than rural life— a life of fresh air, tinted sunsets, green fields, picturesque cottages, rippling rivers, swaying forests, stately mountains. Happy the children and invalids and toilers for whom our cities provide fresh-air excursions!

Eden's

Nevertheless, Man is greater than nature. charter gave him dominion over the trees of the soil, the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and everything that moves upon the earth. Hence the city, as being the

special abode of men, is greater than the country. Cities are the nation's bourses, clearing-houses, depots, marts. Cities are the nation's foci-alike convergent and effluent. Cities are the nation's centres-alike industrial,

political, social, ganglionic, nervous, sensory. Cities are the nation's laboratories, in which its own capacities are developed; the crucibles, in which its own character is tested. Hence the apostle Paul selected cities rather than hamlets as his strategic points; for instance, he planted his missions in Antioch, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, Rome. Accordingly, Christianity conquered municipalities before it conquered villages, as is shown in the very word "pagan" (which originally meant "countryman"); in the very word "heathen" (which originally meant "peasant"). In brief, the city is the highest type of civilization, the very culmination of human society. In fact, Heaven itself is represented as a city rather than a country. Heaven is a transfigured Jerusalem, Babylon, Nineveh, Athens, Rome, London, Paris, New York, Chicago.

To the ancient Jew Jerusalem was

Old Jerusalem. earth's ideal city. Babylon was the city of force; Athens was the city of genius; Rome was the city of law. But Jerusalem was the city of religion; it was the holy city, the city of God, the city of the great King, the city of solemnities. Here the great David had reigned. Here Solomon the wise had built the temple so exceeding magnifical. Here the glorious festivals had been kept. Here the tribes had gone up from all parts of the land to worship. Here had been the rendezvous of the returning exiles. Here, as the devout had hoped, would be the final, universal, everlasting Metropolis of the Kingdom of God. And Jerusalem was, if possible, even more dear to the Christian Jew. Here the Lord of the Kingdom, as his mother's first-born, had been duly presented to Jehovah