us that the possession and use of knowledge endows
the man who knows with a force and efficiency which he would lack
without it. Few words are more elastic and adaptable than the verb
substantive. "_Is_" can denote a wide variety of ideas, from that of
personal identity, as when I see that yonder distant figure _is_ my
brother; to that of equivalence, as when a stamped and signed piece of
thin paper called a bank-note _is_ five pounds of gold; or to that of
mere representation, as when another piece of paper, or a sheet of
canvas, duly lined and coloured by the artist to show the semblance of a
human face, _is_ the King, or _is_ my father; or to that of result and
effect, as when we say that knowledge _is_ power, or that seeing _is_
believing.[M]

[M] It is obvious that these elementary reflections have everything to
do with the need of caution in explaining those most sacred words, "This
_is_ my body which is given for you."

Here we have precisely that last application of the verb substantive,
only in an exact and most noble antithesis. "Seeing is believing," says
the familiar proverb. "Believing is seeing," says the Divine word here.
That is to say, when the human soul so relies upon God that His word is
absolute and sufficient for its certainties, this reliance, this faith,
has in it the potency of sight. It is as sure of the promised blessing
as if it were a present possession. It is as ready to act upon "the
things not seen as yet," the laws, powers, hopes beyond the veil, as if
all was in open view to the eyes of the body.

The whole course of the chapter, when it comes down to particulars and
persons, bears this out. From first to last the message carried to us by
the lives and actions of the faithful is this, that they took their Lord
at His word, simply as His word, and in the power of that reliance found
themselves able to act as if the unseen were seen and the hoped-for were
present. "The elders" (ver. 2) are in view from the first--that is to
say, the pre-Christian saints, who were in _that_ sense distinctively
men who proved the power of faith, that they all lived and died before
the visible fulfilment of the great promise of salvation. To them, to be
sure, or rather to many of them, not to all, merciful helps were
granted. The unseen and the hoped-for was sometimes, not always, made
more tangible to them by the grant of some sign and token, some portent
or miracle, by the way. But the careful Bible-rea