St. Paul, no doubt, was still in eager expectation of the immediate second coming of Christ; and that expectation has proved mistaken. Now our Lord plainly did not mean His disciples to know when His judgement was to be made manifest, and St. Paul apparently recognized this[1], so that his immediate anticipation of the end can never have been part of his faith--never more than the reflection of the eager desire which filled the heart of the Church. On the other hand, our Lord did mean His disciples to go on expecting Him. Thus {135} St. Paul's admonition is as applicable now as ever. The future of the world and of each nation and institution is precarious: things which seem solid and strong may crumble and melt; how soon God is to make plain His judgements, in part or on the whole, we do not know; when each one of us is to pass by death to the great account we do not know. There is no reasonable attitude towards the unknown coming of judgement except to be ready, and, though the darkness of the alienated and godless world is all around us, to live as children of the light eagerly expecting the dawning of the day[2]. And to meet Christ we must be like Christ. And to be like Christ we must be in Christ, clothed with His righteousness, invested with His new nature, fighting with the weapons of His victorious manhood. The 'evil' which is in ourselves, the unregulated flesh, we can only 'overcome with good'--the good which is Jesus Himself: for it is no longer we that live in our bare selves, but Christ that liveth in us. We are baptized into Him, we possess His spirit, we eat His flesh and drink His blood. What remains is practically to clothe ourselves in {136} Him[3], appropriating and drawing out into ourselves by acts of our will His very present help in trouble. So can we become like Him, and be fitted to see Him as He is[4]. This passage played a memorable part in St. Augustine's life; for when the child's voice had bidden him 'open and read,' these were the words upon which he opened, and which sealed his conversion to the faith he served so nobly--'not in rioting and drunkenness, ... but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.' 'I had no wish,' he tells us, 'to read any further, nor was there any need. For immediately at the end of this sentence, as if a light of certainty had been poured into my heart, all the shadows of doubt were scattered[5].' [1] 1 Thess. v. 1: 'The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.' To know this is to have answer enough to questions about the times and seasons of the coming (v. 1). [2] It is interesting to compare this passage with the closely similar one of Thess. v. 1-4. Cf. Eph. v. 14 ff.; vi. 11. [3] Christ is 'put on' in baptism by all, Gal. iii. 27; but we all still need to appropriate what we have received, and so 'put Him on' for ourselves; cf. Eph. iv. 24; Col. iii. 12. [4] See app. note G, p. 238, for an admirable prayer by Jeremy Taylor based on this thought.