between darkness and light, in connexion with sin and holiness,
with the eternal Son of God, so that anything short of the closest fellowship and brotherhood becomes impossible.
4. It is holy light.—The contrast given us by an apostle (1 John 1:7, 8), between darkness and light, in connexion with sin and holiness, shews us that light is used as God's symbol of holiness. What symbol could be meeter? Light is, in truth, the freshest and the purest of all created things. We cannot soil or stain a sun-beam. It takes on no defilement of earth. Nay more, it transforms other objects into its own purity. The dingy web whitens in the sun, growing pure by being purely shone upon. So is it with the light which awaits us in the kingdom. It is not only holy in itself, but purifying in its efficacy; so that, in dwelling amid its glories, we shall be more thoroughly assimilated to its divine purity. Our present time of darkness does, no doubt, in many ways tend to our purifying, so that the hour of deepest darkness is not seldom the season of truest progress in holiness; but still the light of the world to come will be found to be as needful to the perfecting and perpetuating of that holiness, as was the darkness of this present evil world to its development and ripeness here.
5. It is the light of gladness.—May we not say that light is the most joyous thing in nature? Not only is there the very soul of joy in its fresh, kindly flush, but it is God's agent for diffusing throughout the earth, each day, a larger and more unbroken flow of gladness, than all the other elements together. Oh, what does earth owe to sunshine! What gloom can it not scatter, whether of the deep forest-shade, or the deeper recesses of a wounded spirit! "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun" (Eccles. 11:7). Thus God, after telling Israel of the unsetting sun which he would make to rise upon her in the latter day, adds this as its result,—"The days of thy mourning shall be ended" (Is. 60:20); and when he makes mention of one of their past deliverances, he sums up with this,—"The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour" (Esth. 8:16). In the coming day of light, when all shadows shall take flight, what joy unspeakable shall there be among the inhabitants of that