The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-12-26

illness of thought. and. withaI, to ones , purity or impurity. than the words which he employs, the language in which he speaks or writes. Jesus Christ is, therefore, very fitly called the Word, because he is the neat, ex- act and perfect expression of the Fa- ther, for in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"
 But word is a combianton of let
 ters and syllables. To understand it
 necessitates a preliminary and clement
 ary training. To effect this God made
 use of various dispensations-the pa triarchal, Mosaic and prophetic. Un-
 der the patriarchal and Mosaic he
 taught men their letters, and according
 to their custom as the various letters of their alphabet were buethe names of
 objects, and to learn it they studied them, so he taught them their religious alphabet by objects. In order to teach them his purity he divided animals in- to pure and impure, the pure were to be without spot or blemish and fur
 thermOre spTinkled before offered. To teach them his sacrifice he required the
 
 mals. To teach them his priestly char acter he instituted the office of high priest and required of him a thorough cleansing before entering upon his pIdestly duties and so, without enum- erating further "the law" ceremonial was schoolmaster to bring men to Christi" to enable them to spell out his character, his mission, his work, his ultimate triumph and glory.
 In company with this preliminary in- struction as fast as the letters were learned there were prophets commits stoned to spell out the Word. The rev. citations to them were gradual. To our first parents he was revealed simply as the seed of the woman; His national ity was told to Abraham; the tribe out of which he should spring to Jacob; his sex to David; his mother, virgin, to Isaiah; the time of his coming to 1 Daniel. togtlther with many other and mmuter prophecies concerning him, as the time of his advent neared comple- | tiOn. And when the fulness of time i had come" the Word had been spelled | out. a sort of mental conception had 1 been for'ned, then to be of any profit 1 to Us he had to be deposited; in fact, | so given L. the world that all might know and understand him. He was, therefore,
 1. Made flesh. The idea of an incar- nate God is universal, Wherever we go it CcnfrCnts us. We find it in the Avatar of "fhe Hindoo: the Llama of Thibrt; the lrtamorphoses of Grecian and Roman mythology; the Egyptian Apis. in the sidereal and hero worship; in the c"uder idolatry of the aborigines of our own land. In every nation the iIea has found embodiment, if in noth- ing better, in wood and stone, con- by mans own hands into such shapes and forms as he conceived to be best suited to his Deity'a residence. An offended God has ever been thought to be q God remote from the offender. l As We avoid the presence and company )f those offending us and often avenge 1 with punishment severe the wrong done 1 IS, so we conceive the same of God. | To bring him back, that reparation for 1 hs wrong done him may be made, and that our sins may be forgiven is every thoughtful mans desire. TO gratify his longing of the human soul God, or The Word, became nysteriously in- , 'arnate. Some claim that this is the greatest of all mysteries. For the sun 0 fall from his sphere" says Flavel, and be degraded into a wandering ' atom; for an angel to be turned out If heaven and be converted into a fly 'r worm, had not been such dsbase- < nent, for they were but creatures be- ore and would so abide still, though [ n an inferior rank. But or the in- mite Creator of all things to be come , creature is a mystery exceeding all C