A Perfect Obedience To God

January 5.

That He might present it to Himself
a glorious church, not having spot,or wrinkle,
or any such thing; but that it should be holy
and without blemish.

EPHESIANS 5, verse 27.


Ye also, as lively stones, are built up
a spiritual house.

1 PETER 2, verse 5.


One holy Church of God appears
Through every age and race,
Unwasted by the lapse of years,
Unchanged by changing place.

S. LONGFELLOW.


A temple there has been upon earth,
a spiritual Temple, made up of living stones;
a Temple, as I may say, composed of souls;
a Temple with God for its light, and Christ
for the high priest; with wings of angels
for its arches, with saints and teachers for its
pillars, and with worshippers for its pavement.
Wherever there is faith and love, this Temple is.

J. H. NEWMAN.


To whatever worlds He carries our souls when
they shall pass out of these imprisoning bodies,
in those worlds these souls of ours shall find
themselves part of the same great Temple;
for it belongs not to this earth alone. There
can be no end of the universe where God is,
to which that growing Temple does not reach,
--the Temple of a creation to be wrought at last
into a perfect utterance of God by
a perfect obedience to God.

PHILLIPS BROOKS.