The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1891-07-09
CHURCH LOCALS
AND RELIGIOUS NOTES. OF GENER.
AL, INTEREST.

good could be easily named. "And
men shall be blessed in Him." would
have no meaning. There would be
no place in the world of thought and
of words, for such an utterance.
With shelter, and covering, and
food, and drink, and health, and
strength, in perpetuity, would set
tie his wants. and God and His
words and Christ and His life, and
the Holy Ghost and His comfort,
would find no move place in mans
economy, than in that of an OK or of
a horse.
But man is more than an animal.
In an important sense he is not an
animal at all. The animal body,
appetites, enjoyments, are the strong
est witnesses, that the King is in
him in such way, as to override and
dominate the animal, that the ami
NAL that is in him is the lowest
thought and part of man. He in
his body, in his flesh and blood. in
his physical wants and necessities
is an animal only as God is an ami
NAL. He is made in "God's image
and likeness" Christ, in His bodily
life, in His animal life, in His physi-
cal wants, was the express image of
the Father, 1.-THE brightness of His
glory and the express image of His
person"
There are no harsher, more pain.
full words than such as these: "He
is brute; 1e is an animal, con-
trolled by instinct, governed by pas
sion and by appetite" When such
is the state of man, what does it in
dlcate? That the King has been
dethroned and the animal has been
enthroned. That men do become
brutes none can deny. And such as
comes to the intellectual and what
the world calls cultured, as often as
to the ignorant and uncultured. II
may not show itself always in the
same way and may not always be
seen or know in the one as in the
other. "The king is brought from
his throne, and goes to the field and
eats grass like an OK and his body
was wet with the dew of heaven,
till his hairs were grown like eagles
feathers, and his nails like bird
claws" Daniel, oh. 1. Here is the
literal picture Of the spiritual truth.
"The man is brute"
And yet to repeat, in an import
ant sense man is not an animal at
all, GAS Christ is the brightness
of the Fathers glory and the ex-
press image of His person. so is
man. Christ is the first born and
eldest son, man IS the second born
and the younger. When man be-
comes brute with his own act-he
has destroyed the one image and set
up the other. And the man who
has become an ''eater of grass as OK
en'-a pure animal, in his appetites,
passions, acts and ways, he is driven
as the king was, from the compan-
ionship and walks of men, into the
fields and dwelling places of oxen.
We can see more readily the force
of the words: "And men shall be
blessed in Him." 1t not only means
the open statement in all it's full
force, but it means that only in Him
can men be blessed--that in nothing
else and in no one else can the cure
for his wound be found. The man,
not thus "blessed in Him, not made
like him, in spirit and lite is en-
route to the animal world. lie may
? be king as Nebuchadnezzar was,
or beggar on dung hill, it is all
the same. A man with money and
with cultureCO d man of position
and of power, is only as man, the
equal of the ragged, ignorant, help>
less beggar covered with the run
ming sores Of leprosy. He is no
more and no better. God knows no
distinction, so far as the man is con-.
4 cerned. He is en- route to the COM
partnership of oxen. He may not