Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-03

som of the Father, hath brought Him forth
to view" God is revealed in Jesus Christ.
and Jesus Christ was born as a man on
earth to be God with US and to do the
works of God in redeeming the human race
from the bondage of hell. But, having as
sumed our nature In which He made him
self known to us. 1t was necessary that He
should glorify 1t by uniting it with the d.
vinity of which it was begotten and SO
that He should ascend to the Father and
pass away from the outward limitations of
a material body. The same is true of the
word of God spiritually; 1t must come down
from God through the successive heavenly
spheres and be written in plain simple hui
man language, as rough and homely as was
the manager at Bethlehem, where the In
FAINT Savior laid, and so 1t must, in
precept and story and holy ritual, repeat
over and over again, to generation and gen.
alton, the revelation of God to man. But
the letter is not all; the quaint stories, the
ancient allegories of creation, the great
drama of redemption. told first In prophecy
in the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt
and then in fulfillment in the rising OF
Jesus Christ from the grave and His lead
ing captivity captive in giving spiritual
freedom to the human race All this can
only partially be seen by a man as. he reads
his Bible in the literal sense; more deeply
known, indeed, by the good spirits and the
angels of heaven. who are in the spiritual
sense which lies beneath the letter, but
fully known to no mind but the One inf
mite and Perfect Mind. the Divine Giver of
the Word itself
I have said that the evangelist answers
the objection of the agnostic satisfactorily
by showing that in the abstract while he
admits the impossiblity OF complete rev.
elaton of the Infinite to the finite man
that is, of writing OUT all that Jesus did
even In a world full of books. vet. at the
same time, he does show that partial or
finite revelation of God to man is possible
and that It is sufficient for mans needs.
But these things are written that We may
believer! And this is possible, we know,
not in the abstract or from theory, but
perience of all minds testifes the same
thing, namely, that they can see partial
revelation of the Divine, and thus know
or apprehend the Divine. without compre-
herding the Infinite itself We all can see
the trees budding and poisoning in the
fair spring days of Gods Eastertide We
know there is a life at work there and that
that life is no human, limited, measured
life; that however limited our view of it. or
the field of our watching It, that life is
vastly more; 1t goes out beyond the trees
of Washington. in all the vast forests of
the world, IN all living things on earth and
in the heavens and seas, in all worlds and
ornaments of worlds! Who shall limit it?
Who shall call 1t finite? Who shall say it
is not God? And yet who cannot see 1t and
adore it in every least opening CHEEKY bios
som that gladdens our vision? God dwell
eth not In tabernaces, indeed, and yet all
the earth is full of His glory! God is in all
srace and yet Is not a being of space! Ma
ture cannot contain Him, and yet in all and
every least thing of nature we can read
Him. And these things of nature, too, ARE
written that we may believer
And so in another plane of human expert
ence. What precept of the Bible, what
psalm. what miracle. what parable but that
from it the Christian may derive plain
word, so practical and homely to take
directly into his everyday human expert
ence. as If it were all mans and not Gods
at all; and yet it will bring with 1T divine
light which will burn brighter and brighter
and reveal depth after depth of the inf
mite love and wisdom of the Giver of the
Word himself So every revelation is like
an inverted pyramid or spiral; upward it
reaches and opens out into intinity, down
ward IT strikes In limited tangible point,
the things written sufficient to prove to
us the existence and the goodness of God.
And so the evangelist is content to apollo
gize for the limitations of the Gospel in
declaring the Divine goodness of the pur-
pose of the revelation itself: For These
things are written" he says. that ye may
believe that Jesus Christ Is the Son Of
| God and that. believing, we may have life
| in His name" What would all the unwrlt-
! ten books amount to for mans good If
| there were not this little book of the literal
word, given by Divine authority. to tell us
, they were there? OF what moral or spir-
| ituaI help to man is a God who can by no
| means make himself known movable
| to man even in the remotest or most i'm
| perfect way? Much as remains unwritten,
| and will forever remain unwritten. what a
| difference is there for man in that those
| definite. plain and tangible records of the
| GoG-with-man Jesus Christ. the incarnate
| word, are written and are written that we
| may believe, Think of the vast significance
| of that word believe" how 1t of itself
| reaches out from the world of the known
to the unknown, of the little and imperfect
| finite to the whole and perfect infinite! Let
| us be thankful indeed that as finite human
minds and spirits we are not left to the
| vague abyss of infinite unrevealed unap-
| proachable. because unknowable, being; but