The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-03-03

H.. Ii l.
sha, Isaiah and jeremiah; they had
seen in their faces a look not of earth
while the God in their hearts whis-
pered THAT is my shadow
| Splendid though this truth is and full
of promise tor the coming physical
| loneliness of our race when sin with its
defling touch shall be known on earth
no more, when every child shall be
born radiant with a heredity of right
eousness, this is but a surface sugoes-
tion of man s essential nature. ''In our
| likeness, ''God breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life here is the
vital truth about you and me. Man
is of God s kind. This certainly is a
declaration, the most impossible of
proof of any in the whole domain of
knowledge. Yet it is the one absolutely
fundamental axiom of religion. God
alone can know what He Himself is.
Man has no means of finding Him out.
Even Jesus affirmed this Neither
doth any know the Father, save the
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will
eth to reveal Him. If man is ever
to be able to say with confidence "My
nature resembles God s. God Himself
must tell it to him. God did tell him.
but to thoughtful men in all ages and
races. Totem poles and japanese chron-
icles, Hindu myths and Chinese legends.
religious rites of savages and civilized
all unite to sing with the Greek phil
osopher quoted by Paul, "We are also
His offspring Very confused are the
ideas as to Who this "HisD NAV be.
The prominence of the Hebrew Law in
I . -.
dren men are, and in the degree of like
ness between them. The Old Testament
brims over with the truth that in his
very essence man takes after God No
mere superficial resemblance. God is
spirit, so is man. According to the
body we are Genus Homo, in our ORR
gin.we are Ordo Creations, the Order
of Created Things, but in essential ma
ture we belong to the Family of God.
Mark now how these early chapters in
Genesis bring out this likeness between
man and his God.
First, "Be fruitful. - Many cen
turtles later Jesus said "Herein is my
Father glorified that we bear much
fruit; and so shall We be my disciples. -
One noble truth about God is reproduc-
tion. Jesus favorite name for Deity is
/" Father" Father implies child. The
story of the universe is absolutely
meaningless except for the glorious out
come of all the pain necessary to the
birth of Sons of God. Paul paints this
masterpiece of truth with one stroke
of his word brush
''fThe whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together until now;
for the earnest expectation of the ere
alton waiteth for the revealing of the
sons of God
God is the great self-reproducer. He
cannot exist alone. From all eternity
to all eternity He is busy generating
children to be like Him and to asso-
ciate with Him. In that first command
'tBe fruitful" He is merely pointing
out one kind of resemblance in man to
Himself. The writer of Genesis J. saw
in these words only physical meaning
but Jesus interpreted in them the spir-
itual truth linking the human to the
Divine
The necessity to be a father is writ
ten in the very constitution of every
human soul, bad as well as good. Fa-
gin s den is rendezvous for boys who
will soon be Fagins just as surely as
Florence Nightingale begets myriads of
trained nurses Physical fatherhood or
motherhood, blessed though it be, is
merely the pale shadow of this truth
Many a child bearer finds the children
of his real self in other than the off
spring of his body. Aaron Burr, presi-
dent of Princeton College, generated the
politician Aaron Burr, but the second
Aaron was no true child of the person.
atty of the first. Many college boy
passed under the influence of the devo-
ted president and carried away the i'm
press OF his personality These were his
real children. Alas for the impossible
gulf that yawns between many parents
and those who call them father, mother!
BY just such chasms in sympathy God
seeks to teach men that the command
- Be fruitful finds obedience in rails
ing spiritual seed. Jesus leaves no
physical offspring that he may fire
humanity with his ideal of real fruit
fitness. So physical childlessness spurs
millions of men and women resistlessly
to the creation of spiritual children. If
true in this life, what must be in store
for US in the future where every re-
deemed soul shall go on to eternity
out of the raw material God
shall entrust to it kindred spirits bound |
by ties of sacredest filial love.
The writer of Genesis put a second |
command upon Gods lips-"Have do |
minion." Human history had taught |
him that one aim of creation was to |
place man at the summit of every |
thing God had made in this planet |
Yet this truth of supremacy is stated |
so broadly and with such conscious |
exultation by the Hebrew who had so I
consistently played the part of van
quished rather than victor that I view |
it not as a deduction from observed |
facts of history, but rather as the |
of God to his soul-a true |
revelation. 1t is still a revelation |
even in our day, for though this tiny
creature, man, strides the globe every |
inch a king, exterminates hostile in
sect, reptile, beast and even micro
scopic germ, his most insidious and |
inveterate foe, robs earth of its stores
of heat and light, snatches the light
ming from the sky, bids it serve as
and bear his body where
he will, invades every realm of effort |
and fears no force however subtle, |
yet how often he yields to enemies
that live within him. But for the di-
vine assurance Have dominion man