"THE SWEET GALILEAN VISION."
[TO TER EDITOR 01? THE "SPECTATOR.1
the interesting article on "The Sweet Galilean Vision," in your last issue, you say, "If Christianity be true, it has increased our burdens for our own good, in order that, in the immortal life, our burdens may be far less heavy and our hearts lighter ;" and in saying this, you forcibly express an important truth. But does not this sentence conceal another truth, of less importance, indeed, but essential, nevertheless, to a right apprehension of the spirit of Christianity
Does not the man whose "life is hid with Christ in God find in that wonderful union, in that divine friendship, some- thing which more than compensates him for the burdens which his religion calls upon him to bear ? Even the tie of human friendship enables us to rejoice in self-sacrifice from which we should naturally recoil with horror ; and although we most cer- tainly ought to live in that expectation of future blessing which befits the citizens of a heavenly kingdom, I cannot but feel that it is dangerous to place the friendship of Christ with his followers on a lower level than the friendship of man with man ; ,and that Christians needlessly impair the force of their testi- mony to the value of their religion, when they forget that godli- ness has "the promise of the life that now is," as well as "of that which is to come."—I am, Sir, &c., Elm Ridge, Darlington, April 12th. J. B. HODGKIN.
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