God's face in loving submission and joy. He can
put such songs into the hearts of the weary and overwrought that the
crooked form shall grow straight, and brightness shall come again into
the tired face.

CHAPTER IX.

TRANSFIGURED LIVES.

"The lives which seem so poor, so low,
The hearts which are so cramped and dull,
The baffled hopes, the impulse slow,
Thou takest, touchest all, and lo!
They blossom to the beautiful."
--SUSAN COOLIDGE.

Every Christian's life should be transfigured. There is a sense in
which even a true believer's body becomes transfigured. We have all
seen faces that appeared to shine as if there were some hidden light
behind them. There are some old people who have learned well life's
lessons of patience, peace, contentment, love, trust, and hope, and
whose faces really glow as they near the sunset gates. Sometimes it is
a saintly sufferer, who, in long endurance of pain, learns to lie on
Christ's bosom in sweet unmurmuring quiet, and whose features take upon
themselves increasingly the brightness of holy peace.

But whatever grace may do for the body, it always transfigures the
character. The love of God finds us ruined sinners, and leaves us
glorified saints. We are predestinated "to be conformed to the image
of his Son." Nor are we to wait for death to transform us; the work
should begin at once. We have a responsibility, too, in this work.
The sculptor takes the blackened marble block and hews it into a form
of beauty. The marble is passive in his hands, and does nothing but
submit to be cut and hewn and polished as he will. But we are not
insensate marble; we have a part in the fashioning of our lives into
spiritual holiness. We will never become like Christ without our own
desire and effort.

We ought to know well what our part is, what we have to do with our own
sanctification. How, then, may we become transfigured Christians?

There is a transfiguring power in prayer. It was as our Lord was
praying that the fashion of his countenance was altered. What is
prayer? It is far more than the tame saying over of certain forms of
devotion. It is the pouring out of the heart's deepest cravings. It
is the highest act of which the soul is capable. When you pray truly,
all that is best, noblest, most exalted, purest, heavenliest in you,
presses up toward God. Hence earnest prayer always lights up the very
face, and lifts up the life into hi