He spoke a Book and lives in His spoken words, constantly speaking His words and causing the power of them to persist across the years. A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. They were in a better condition, acknowledging only a terror above them flaming on that unknown mountain height, than stooping to worship the idol below them.
Fear is nobler than sensuality.
Fear is better than no God, better than a god made with hands. In that fear lay deep hidden the sense of the infinite. Therefore a thousand stages, each in itself all but valueless, are of inestimable worth as the necessary and connected gradations of an infinite progress. A condition which of declension would indicate a devil, may of growth indicate a saint. Indeed, it was a scandal to the religious men of Jesus' day when they saw what He did with sacred things.