Page:The Other Life.djvu/163

 "I am Alpha and Omega: the beginning and the ending: which is, and which was, and which is to come: the Almighty."

It will be profitable for us to inquire into the great spiritual laws which govern these manifestations of the Divine Presence to both men and angels; for there is nothing in them accidental or arbitrary or miraculous in the common acceptation of that word. A true conception of this subject will give us a clear insight into some of the most remarkable things related in the letter of Scripture.

It is a great law that God can never appear to man or angel as He really is; but the appearance is determined and modified by the state of the person into whom He flows, and to whom he appears outwardly,—the external appearance being always a correspondence of the internal experience.

This explains the curious fact of the Lord's varying appearances to his disciples after his death. Mary, who was so intimate with Him, mistakes Him for the gardener and inquires after the Lord. Peter and John, speaking to Him in the broad daylight, do not know Him, until a miracle suggests his true character to them. Other disciples walk with Him and converse with Him on his own death and resurrection: but "their eyes are