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The proportionateness of the Holy City as an illustration of what ought to be the proportionateness of another structure.

I. Some are disproportionate through ISOLATED HEIGHT. Such a one was, at first, the Apostle John. He saw a city in the air, and gazed into heaven. There are many such who dreamily meditate upon the glories of heaven. Such are often the very ones who would pass the beggar-child on the street. They do not notice the tear-dimmed- eyes and the anguish of the suffering face; for they are hurrying home to read, perchance to weep over thoughts that are beautiful. The height and the length and the breadth are not equal.

II. Others are disproportionate through ISOLATED LENGTH These are the exclusively practical people. They see the plain matter-of-fact way of duty before them, and they walk bravely along it, yet they have never caught a glimpse of the lights in the streets of the city of God. The length and the height and the breadth are not equal.

III. Others still are disproportionate through ISOLATED BREADTH. Some are broad for the sake of being broad, and there is no beauty in such. They delight in making a parade of their breadth; they enjoy the look of surprise and pain on the face of some saint of God. They imagine themselves to be liberal, but their knowledge is scant. In them is no height of contemplation; they have never dreamed a dream of the Holy City, nor have seen the Lamb in the midst of the throne. In them is no length of practical usefulness; they have not visited the widow and fatherless in their affliction. Even the breadth which they have is the laxity of ignorance and waywardness, and that is all they have. The breadth and the height and the length are not equal. Some naturally incline towards the heights of spiritual meditation, to gaze on the glories of the Holy City; others towards the plain pathway of the practical; others still towards the breadth by which they hear other voices expressing other thoughts of God's universe. Others, again, pass through the various stages in succession; while still others possess these three qualities in different degrees. It is the purpose of God, by His grace, to make these qualities in the youthful soul proportionate and harmonious — to make the height, the length, and the breadth equal. Some day a scholar will write a book in which he will tell how God sought to accomplish this in one and another of the disciples. The book will be one of rare suggestiveness. John, the beloved, had the height and the breadth — to him came the command to cast out devils. Paul scaled the heights of contemplation when he meditated upon "the exceeding riches of His grace," and he passed far along the way of duty when he answered the call, "Come over and help us." But he needed the breadth, and this he must gain by the sympathy of a common suffering. Therefore came the thorn in the flesh; and thus he saw in the breadth of sympathy at once the sorrows of others and the sorrow of the Son of Man. In the souls of young Christians, the height and length and breadth will meet together in the clear and harmonious colours of a rainbow of our God. The Christian religion, and it only, extirpates or represses no noble instinct; it welcomes height and length and breadth, and all that is included in them, and gives to each its proper place. But we need an ideal to be before us. We look on the noblest sons of men one by one, and find them marred by reason of irregularity. Where shall we find this ideal? Within the magic circle of the Person of the Man Christ Jesus all these three are presented in absolute fulness and exquisite harmony! We stand in awe of the heights of heavenly contemplation of which glimpses are given to us. When He departed into a solitary place, when He lifted up His eyes to heaven in communion with His Father, He drew aside the veil and showed to us the glories of heavenly contemplation. Then, to think of the practical aspect of His active life. How He toiled to realise the Messianic plan by training the twelve, by announcing the laws of the kingdom, by healing every sickness and every disease among the people! Then in Him was breadth bounded only by the universe, broad as the love of God. It was a breadth which led Him to hear voices of sheep not of this fold who would yet enter to find pasture, that there might be one fold and one Shepherd. It is the priceless privilege of every young Christian who has yielded himself to God through Christ, to seek to attain by His grace towards the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; for in Him and in Him alone the height and the length and the breadth are equal.

(G. Matheson, D. D.)

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KJV: And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.

WEB: He who spoke with me had for a measure, a golden reed, to measure the city, its gates, and its walls.