December 18
The Lord knoweth them that are His
Companions of the Way (Morning)HIGHER and more ideal than any outward or visible Church is the invisible, of which our conception is more abstract and distant, and therefore more vacant and shadowy. . . . There are nominal Christians who are in no sense real Christians; and, on the other hand, in distant lands there are those to whom Christ in His individual person was never known, who, nevertheless, have had the temper of Christ, and in a way of their own have followed Him; all these are included in the invisible Church. It is a great fellowship of those who have lived for others and not for themselves, for the truth and not for the opinion of men only, above the world and not merely in it. It is a communion of souls and of good men everywhere and in all ages, who, if they could have known one another and the Lord, would have acknowledged that they were animated with a common spirit, and would have loved and delighted in one another.
BENJAMIN JOWETT
THE UNSEEN CHURCH