life. No mere earnest repeating of a creed in Church service will avail here. The repeating must be, syllable by syllable, with feet and will, with hands and life, in the daily tread where each step is stubbornly contested.

This is the bit of truth for the waiting time. This is the song to be singing in this present "not-yet" interval. And the song will help cut down the length of that "not-yet," until the friction of our lived faith shall wear off the "not" and wipe out the "yet," and we shall find the crowned Christ a reigning Christ.

For some day this patient waiting crowned Man will rise up from His seat at the Father's right hand. He will step directly into the action of earth once again. Man will have had his fullest opportunity lengthened out to the last notch of his possible use of it. Then we shall see the crowned Christ quietly stepping in, taking matters wholly into His own hands, and acting in all the affairs of earth as the Crowned One. Then He shall reign from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates out to where the ends of the earth become a common line on the other side. The Kingdom will have come, for the King will be reigning.

The night will be gone. The day has come. The shadows flee. He has come, whose presence puts the new day at dawn, with the East all aflame, and the fragrant dew glistening gladly on every tender green blade. This time of expectancy is over;[30] the time of making real has come. Then comes the restoration of the old original love plan to earth and beast and man.[31]

Working by the Light of the Throne.

But we are still in the "not-yet" interval. We see not yet all things subject to Him. This is still the waiting time. It is the pleading time for Him. He pleads for the personal crowning of Himself in our lives, that He may reign there and He alone. This is our great opportunity. We shall never see its like again, nor anywhere else than on this earth.

In the reigning time that's coming this peculiar opportunity of crowning Christ while He still is absent and despised, this will be gone. In the upper world they have no such opportunity. There is no opposition there. Now and here is the rarest opportunity to put this great waiting patient Man on the throne of heart and life, with possessions and ambitions and plans all in subjection under His feet.

Every woman knows the name of Brussels lace. The old capital of the low countries of Europe has long been famous for its lace. It is of great interest to note the conditions under which it is sometimes made. They are conditions studiously prepared after long experience. In one of the famous lace factories in Brussels there are a number of small rooms devoted to the making of some of the most delicate patterns.

Each room is just large enough for a single worker, and is quite dark except for one narrow window. The worker sits so that the stream of light falls from above directly upon the threads, while he himself sits in the darkness. The darkness aids the workman's eyes to see better, and to work more skilfully in the narrow line of clear light centred on the delicate task. He weaves in the upper light intensified by the surrounding gloom, and does exquisite work.

There is a clear line of light from a throne shining down into the darkness in which we sit and move. It shines from the face of a crowned Man. In the light of that light we can see clearly to do a difficult bit of crowning work,—to crown the Christ in our lives and to keep Him crowned.

As our eyes follow that line of upper light we may catch glimpses of His wondrous Face up there in the glory. So we shall be steadied and cheered in the darkness as we stick to our glad crowning work. And so we shall move forward on the calendar the day when that thin line of light seen now only by watching eyes shall become a burst of glory light seen by all eyes.

And this is the thing the crowned Christ is asking of us during this waiting time, this "not-yet" interval. He is counting on each of us being faithful to Him, our absent Lord, in this.