And what is God’s glory? It is the ministration of love. We are not to wait for a union of opinions; we are to begin with a union of hearts. We are to be united, while yet we do not “see together.” You and I may look at the same stars and call them by different names. You are an astronomer, and I am a peasant; to you they are masses of worlds; to me they are candles in the sky set up to light me home.

What matter? Shall we not enjoy the glory though we do not agree about it? Let us join hands over the message ere we settle the dispute about the messenger.

Ye who stand upon the shore and wrangle about the number of the waves, there is meantime a work for you to do, and to do together. There are shipwrecked voyagers out yonder, crying and calling. They have folded their hands in prayer, and have heard no answer save the echo of their cry.

Shall they call in vain? Shall they wait till you have counted the billows that consume them? Shall they stand shivering in the storm while you are disputing the name of the lifeboat? What matter how we name the lifeboat if only we each believe in it?

Come out to the wreck, my brothers. Come to the souls who have lost their compass, to lives that have broken their helm, to hearts that have rent their sails. They will not ask the name of your lifeboat; even Jacob’s angel had no name. You may not see together, but you shall reveal together—reveal the glory of the Lord. You shall be the church of united sympathizers. You shall see together the face of the Master, but you shall touch together the print of the nails. Tomorrow, you shall see Him as He is. GEORGE MATHESON

When crew and captain understand each other to the core, It takes a gale and more than a gale to put their ship ashore; For the one will do what the other commands, although they are chilled to the bone; And both together can live through weather that neither could face alone. KIPLING

A battleship cannot go into action with a mutiny raging on board.

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.—No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.—He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.—The brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.—God was manifest in the flesh.

In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.—Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.