The Crown of Thorns | Page 8

all about the next world, and to see
beforehand everything that is going to be. I have no solicitude about the
mere scenery and modes of the future state. But this desire to be in the
midst of perpetual revelations argues that there is not enough to fill our
minds and excite our wonder here; when all things around us are
pregnant with suggestion, and invite us, and offer unfathomed depths
for our curious seeking. There is so much here, too, for our love and
our discipline; so much for us to do, that we hardly need more
revelations just now; -they might overwhelm and disturb us in the
pursuit of these appointed ends. Moreover, the gratification of this
desire would foreclose that glorious anticipation, that trembling
expectancy, which is so fraught with inspiration and delight, --the joy
of the unknown, the bliss of the thought that there is a great deal yet to
be revealed.
We do need some revelation; just such as has been given; --a glimpse
of the immortal splendors; an articulate Voice from heaven --a view of
the glorified Jesus; a revelation in a point of time, just as that on the
mount was in point of space. We need some; but not too much, --not all
revelation; not revelation as a customary fact. If so, I repeat, we should
neglect this ordained field of thought and action. We should live in a
sphere of supernaturalism, --in an atmosphere of wonder, --amid a
planetary roll of miracles; still unsatisfied; still needing the suggestion
of higher points to break the stupendous monotony.
And I insist that work, not vision, is to be the ordinary method of our

being here, against the position of those who shut themselves in to a
contemplative and extatic piety. They would escape from the age, and
its anxieties; they would recall past conditions; they would get into the
shadow of cloisters, and build cathedrals for an exclusive sanctity. And,
indeed, we would do well to consider those tendencies of our time
which lead us away from the inner life of faith and prayer. But this we
should cherish, not by withdrawing all sanctity from life, but by
pouring sanctity into life. We should not quit the world, to build
tabernacles in the Mount of Transfiguration, but come from out the
celestial brightness, to shed light into the world, --to make the whole
earth a cathedral; to overarch it with Christian ideals, to transfigure its
gross and guilty features, and fill it with redeeming truth and love.
Surely, the lesson of the incident connected with the text is clear, so far
as the apostles were concerned, who beheld that dazzling, brightness,
and that heavenly companionship, apart on the mount. They were not
permitted to remain apart; but were dismissed to their appointed work.
Peter went to denial and repentance, --to toil and martyrdom; James to
utter his practical truth; John to send the fervor of his spirit among the
splendors of the Apocalypse, and, in its calmer flow through his Gospel,
to give us the clearest mirror of the Saviour's face.
Nay, even for the Redeemer that was not to be an abiding vision; and
he illustrates the purport of life as he descends from his transfiguration
to toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly, brightness
for the crown of thorns.
What if Jesus had remained there, upon that Mount of Vision, and
himself stood before us as only a transfigured form of glory? Where
then would be the peculiarity of his work, and its effect upon the
world?
On the wall of the Vatican, untarnished by the passage of three hundred
years, hangs the masterpiece of Raphael, --his picture of the
Transfiguration. In the centre, with the glistening raiment and the
altered countenance, stands Jesus, the Redeemer. On the right hand and
on the left are his glorified visitants; while, underneath the bright cloud,
lie the forms of Peter, and James, and John, gazing at the transfigured
Jesus, shading their faces as they look. Something of the rapture and
the awe that attracted the apostles to that shining spot seems to have
seized the soul of the great artist, and filled him with his greatest

inspiration. But he saw what the apostles, at that moment, did not see,
and, in another portion of his picture, has represented the scene at the
foot of the hill, - the group that awaited the descent of Jesus. . The poor
possessed boy, writhing, and foaming, and gnashing his teeth, -- his
eyes, as some say, in their wild rolling agony, already catching a
glimpse of the glorified Christ above; the baffled disciples, the caviling
scribes, the impotent physicians, the grief-worn father, seeking in vain
for help. Suppose Jesus had stayed upon the mount, what