United States or Niue ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


If we do so, we hear His grave sweet voice uttering in the upper-room the deep words, 'I am the Vine, ye are the branches'; and, surely, Paul is but repeating, without metaphor, what Christ, once for all, set forth in that lovely emblem, when he says that 'the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. The branches in their multitude make the Vine in its unity, and the sap which rises from the deep root through the brown stem, passes to every tremulous leaf, and brings bloom and savour into every cluster.

The small-paned windows of the great upper-room were filled with oiled vellum, but they did not keep out the weather, and currents of cold air passed through them to the doorway, making the smoke of the four charcoal braziers eddy and swirl. The place was warm, yet shot with bitter gusts, and the smell of burning herbs gave it the heaviness of a chapel at high mass.

Well, two and thirty years pass away and the same Seabury who joined in the worship offered there under such discouraging circumstances has crossed the Tweed and appears in an upper-room in Long-Acre, Aberdeen, to receive a spiritual gift which for reasons of state had been refused him by the bishops of the Church of England.

Later I saw the Blessed Virgin and her companions enter the upper-room; Abenadar next came and was admitted; and by degrees the greatest part of the Apostles and disciples assembled there. The holy women retired to that part of the building where the Blessed Virgin was living. They took some food, and spent a few minutes more in tears, and in relating to one another what each had seen.

Knowing that an old schoolmate of his was manager at Chestermarke's Bank in Scarnham, he called in to see me. He and I lunched together at the Scarnham Arms. I showed him round the town a bit, after bank hours. And as we were standing in the upper-room window of the Arms, Gabriel Chestermarke came out of the bank and stood talking to some person in the Market-Place for awhile.

On the ground-floor are the workshop, the workmen's room, a larger and a smaller sitting-room, the shop, and then the kitchen and pantry; the first story or, more properly, the attic-space, contains the "upper-room" which is also the "best room."

How much did that simple consecration service in the upper-room in Long-Acre, Aberdeen, open up for Churches of the one faith!

Think of the contrast between such historic invitations to "walk by sight" towards the bosom of Abraham, and the call to "come out and be separate" in some Christian upper-room, devoid of every semblance of decorative art and dignified proportion, only to listen to the Word, to pray and praise in the name of the Crucified, and to eat and drink at the simple Eucharist, the rite of Thanksgiving for the Master's awful death!

We are in a modern hotel in Cairo, and all the good English mammas will be dreadfully shocked if I am seen too much with you. I have danced with you five times, remember! And I will dance with you once more before I leave. When our waltz begins, come and find me in the upper-room." She moved away on Dr. Dean's arm, and Gervase moodily drew back and let her pass.