Knowing Christ is like climbing one of those Welsh mountains. When you stand at the base, you see but little—the mountain itself appears to be only half as high as it really is. Confined in that little valley, you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks as they descend into the stream at your feet.

But climb that first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath you! Go higher, and you see the country for miles around, and you are delighted with the widening prospect. Mount still higher, and the scene enlarges, until at last, when you stand on the summit and look east, west, north, and south, you see almost all England lying before you. Yonder is a forest in some distant county, perhaps two hundred miles away, and here the sea, and there a shining river and the smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town, or the masts of ships in a busy port. All these things please and delight you, and you say, "I could not have imagined that so much could be seen at this elevation!"

Now, the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in Christ, we see but little of him. The higher we climb, the more we discover of his beauties. But who has ever gained the summit? Who has known all the heights and depths of the love of Christ which passes knowledge?

Paul, when grown old, sitting gray-haired, shivering in a dungeon in Rome, could say with greater emphasis than we can, "I know whom I have believed," for each experience had been like the climbing of a hill, each trial had been like ascending another summit, and his death seemed like gaining the top of the mountain, from which he could see the whole of the faithfulness and the love of him to whom he had committed his soul.

Get thee up, dear friend, into the high mountain!