passage,1 is given a manifestation of the Spirit of God. He gives to each his own peculiar gifts, and inspires each to his own peculiar work. No other can do that work, but by the harmonious union of all gifts, great and small, the great work of God will make progress in the world. More than this, the Spirit visits every man, strives with him, teaches him to "deny irreverence and lust" and to live a life of righteousness and peace. Not the possession of a privileged few is the Spirit of God. The heart of every man, black or white, high or low, rich or poor, at times is conscious of the presence of this heavenly Visitor. Those who heed His promptings experience a lasting peace and an eternal joy. "Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, patience, meekness, kindness," and all other "fruits of the Spirit" adorn and make glorious their lives, 3 3 11 Cor. xii, 7. "Titus ii, 12. Gal. v, 22. CHAPTER X MAN. "Thou hast made him but little lower than God." Ps. viii, 5. "For we are also His offspring. Acts xvii, 28. "All that hath been majestical In life or death, since time began, -Lowell. THERE are two sides to human nature, an animal or savage side, and a noble godlike side. The consciousness of every man bears witness to this. Under some circumstances man seems to be a demon incarnate; in others, an angel of God. The dual nature of man is recognized in the oldest Biblical narrative of his origin, the second chapter of Genesis. God, we are told, moulded the form of man from the dust of the ground, and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Kindred on his bodily side to the lowly and material earth, man is here conceived to be in spirit akin to God Himself. His inner nature is declared to be an afflatus from the Eternal Spirit. Some centuries later another writer put on record his conception of the creation of man. We now have his version of it in the first chapter of Genesis. His conception of God was far more exalted than that of the earlier writer; God is no longer represented as moulding the form of man from the dust of the ground as a potter might do, but in sovereign majesty speaks the creative word and man becomes man. This writer had, however, the same conception of the higher nature of man as that set forth by his predecessor, although he expressed it in a dif ferent way. God, he declared, made man in His own image. Perhaps he was thinking in some degree of the bodily form of man, but probably also of his inner nature, in which man yearns for God, thinks in some measure God's thoughts, and aspires to be like Him. Man is a child of God. He was given at his creation a spark of the Father's own nature. This truth is in various ways expressed in both the Old Testament and in the New. The psalmist sang: "Thou hast made him but little lower than God, And crownest him with glory and honor." Christ taught in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, that man was still God's child no matter how degraded he might become or how far he might wander from the Father's house. God is his Father in spite of all, and, prompted by a Father's love, God longingly waits for the prodigal's return. Paul echoed the same truth at Athens in language borrowed from a Greek poet. We, he said in substance, are of divine descent; children resemble their parents; we ought not, therefore, to entertain unworthy thoughts of God, to think of Him as a silver. or golden image, but to learn from our own higher natures something of what our Eternal Father must be. These, then, are the two inspiring aspects of the Biblical view of the nature of man, the lofty conception of man's origin and destiny which it affords, and the worthy conception of God. "The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, From God, who is our home." With such a nature there is no satisfaction for man except in God and a godlike life. "Thou hast created us for thyself," said Augustine, "and the heart is restless till it rests in thee;" "" or as Whittier puts it: "To turn aside from thee is hell, To walk with thee is heaven." Man, too, from his own higher nature may learn something of the real nature of God. In endeavoring to do this he may easily go astray, and may merit the divine rebuke which a psalmist conveyed to Israel: "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself." Nevertheless, it is this pathway which leads man up to the heart of the Infinite. To this goal he is guided, not alone by the conviction, that "Nothing can be good in Him Which evil is in me," but by the took man at teaching of Jesus Christ, who his best, as in the sacred relations of father and husband, and made him a parable or type of God, the Heavenly Father. |