And then when those first Christian men came to look not only at this present purging of life which should leave it rich and fragrant and glorious but out upon the wide ranges of the untried and the unforeseeable, they still construed salvation in terms of hope. “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” It is so because there is in front of us the dear voice calling, the voice that says to every one of us: “Man, let that old past go now. It is done and gone beyond recall. Come out with Me. There is a new road for your feet and Mine, a new tale that is to be unfolded now, a new story, the contradiction of the old. Let the past go now, and come and walk with Me in the limitless hope of the new ways.” And it is not only by hope, as a simple downright matter of fact, that men are saved and held fast to the Saviour; it is by hope also that men are nerved and empowered. In the hour of darkness, it is what lights all the darkness and makes it possible for men to bear. “Yes,” we say to ourselves in the hour of pain, “I know; but I can stand it, for after this comes something that is different from this.” That is what the honest doctor says to us when he deals with us. “Now hold steady for a moment. I am going to cut and it will hurt dreadfully. But just wait. Beyond the pain lies freedom from pain.” And we say, “Yes, doctor, cut. I can stand it.” In a moment the anguish is over. We endure in that hope. Has it not always been so? For a little while the mother bears her anguish and her pain for the joy and hope that a child is born into the world. For a little while Jesus bore the loneliness and the anguish of His grief and the shadow and the pain and the disgrace of His Cross, because, looking over it, He saw the glory that awaited Him and the world, and He endured all this, this anguish of the Cross, for the joy that was set beyond. “Therefore,” says Paul, “we rejoice in tribulation, in being flailed, in being pressed down as grapes in the wine-press, in being put through discipline and strain, we rejoice in all that, because we know that tribulation worketh steadfastness, steadfastness experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed.”