the love, the will purpose which are necessary to win that which the Scriptures portray. No book--no amount of "ink, paper, and letters"--can make a man good, since religion is not knowledge, but a way of living, a {61} transformed life, and _that_ involves an inward life-process, a resident creative power. "In Pentecost all books are transcended."[36] As Franck pushes back through "the ink, paper, and letters of Scripture" to the Spirit and Truth which these great writings reveal, when they are read and apprehended in the light of an inward spiritual experience, so, too, he is always seeking, _through_ the historical Christ, to find the Eternal Christ--the ever-living, ever-present, personal Self-Revelation of God. He says, in his "Seven-Sealed Book," "I esteem Christ the Word of God above all else, for without Him there is no salvation, and without Him no one can enjoy God."[37] "Christ," he says in the _Paradoxa_, "has been called the Image, the Character, the Expression of God, yes, the Glory and Effulgence of His Splendour, the very Impression of His Substance, so that in Him God Himself is seen and heard and known. For it is God Himself whom we see and hear and perceive in Christ. In Him God becomes visible and His nature is revealed. Everything that God is, or knows, or wills, or possesses, or can do, is incarnated in Christ and put before our eyes. Everything that can be said of God can as truly be said of Christ."[38] But this Christ, who is the very Nature and Character of God made visible and vocal, is, as we have seen, not limited to the historical Person who lived in Galilee and Judea. He is an eternal Logos, a living Word, coming to expression, in some degree, in all times and lands, revealing His Light through the dim lantern of many human lives--a Christ reborn in many souls, raised again in many victorious lives, and endlessly spreading His Kingdom through the ever-widening membership of the invisible Church.[39] Without this eternal revelation of Himself in a spiritual Fellowship of many members, God would not be God, as a Vine would not be a Vine without branches; and contrariwise there could be no spiritual humanity without the inward immanent {62} presence of this Self-Revealing God in Christ.[40] As in Palestine, so everywhere, Christ--not only Christ after the flesh, but after the Spirit--is a crucified Christ. Only those can open the Sealed Book--can penetrate the divine Revelation--who bear the mark of the Cross on their forehead, who have eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of the suffering and crucified Christ, who have discovered that the Word of God is eternally a Word of the Cross.[41] God is nearest to us when He seems farthest away. He was nearest to Christ when He was crying: "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" So, too, now he who is nearest to the cross is nearest to God, and where the flesh is being crucified and the end of all outward things is reached, _there God is found_.[42]