What mind planned this process of a nation"s growth into a universal religion? What artist dreamed this ethical and spiritual ideal? Who begat this "holy thing" conceived in Israel and born of her at length in glorious beauty? If Moses was the human parent of this marvellous child, who fathered the "essential Christ" in Moses? Who is the real father of Jesus Christ?
Our only answer must be that given of old:
When the fulness of the time was come G.o.d sent forth His son.... The true Light, which lighteth every man, was coming on into the world....
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.
If this then be the true interpretation of the evolution of the Christ, we hold, in the doctrine of the Incarnation, the secret of all evolution. We must read the story of every development in the light of the highest life of man, himself the highest life of nature. Nature is in travail with an ideal which rose not in the molten suns, though perchance it did rise through them.
The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of G.o.d.
Man is in travail with an ideal which rose not in the anthropoid apes, though it may have risen through them. A finer, larger, n.o.bler man is growing within the man that is.
The Universal Man is now coming to be a real being in the individual mind.
Mankind, which is one physically and mentally, is one morally and spiritually. All varieties of man are built upon one ethical type. The virtues are cosmopolitan. One human ideal looms above and before all races, though refracted differently in the changing atmospheres of earth.
Within the saints one dream of goodness forms.
Over the seers and sages one vision of the source of human goodness rises. Through the clouds of earth one Infinite and Eternal Form shapes itself to the wise. As men rise they meet. The race-souls are strangely alike. Socrates and Buddha are brothers. Humanity is in travail with one Human Ideal and one Divine Image, and these twain are one. The great Mother sings to herself:
But he, the man-child glorious, Where tarries he the while?
The rainbow shines his harbinger, The sunset gleams his smile.
My boreal lights leap upward, Forth right my planets roll, And still the man-child is not born, The summit of the Whole.
I travail in pain for him, My creatures travail and wait; His couriers come by squadrons, He comes not to the gate.
Will Humanity come to the birth with her beloved son? Who that reads the story of the coming of the Hebrew Christ can doubt it? What miscarriage can befall her who is nursed by Nature and tended by Providence? What will the Coming Man be like? We have seen his face break through the flesh for a moment. On the shoulders of the race will rest the head of Christ. What shall be said when the morning stars sing together, and all the sons of G.o.d shout for joy that MAN is born upon the earth?
The Holy Ghost hath come upon thee, Humanity, and the power of the Highest hath overshadowed thee; therefore also, that holy thing which is born of thee, shall be called the SON OF G.o.d.
This, at least, is my reading of nature and of history in the light of the completed evolution of the Christ. The normal growth through history of the Ideal Man, is the incarnation of the Divine Man. The mischievous ant.i.thesis between the realms of the natural and the supernatural, that kept the world"s thought from crystallizing around the world"s soul, disappears in an Order which is at once natural in all its processes, and supernatural in its source and plan and energy.
We hold the key to all earth"s problems in the vision of G.o.d which, gleaming through nature and through man, dawns in the face of Jesus Christ. Over Him--in whom the Human Ideal becomes the Divine Image, and the most perfect dream of human goodness is the revelation of earth"s G.o.d--the Eternal One breaks silence, whispering to our souls:
This is my Beloved Son: Hear Him!
VII.
The Right Ethical and Spiritual Use of the Bible.
It is impossible to forget the n.o.ble enthusiasm with which this dangerous heretic, as he was regarded in England, grasped the small Greek Testament which he had in his hand as we entered and said: "In this little book is contained all the wisdom of the world."
Stanley: "History of the Jewish Church," III. x. [Reminiscence of a visit to Ewald.]
Truth, not eloquence, is to be sought for in Holy Scripture. We should rather search after our profit in the Scriptures, than subtilty of speech..... Search not who spoke this or that, but mark what is spoken.
a Kempis: "Imitation of Christ," Ch. V.
Do not hear for any other end but to become better in your life, and to be instructed in every good work, and to increase in the love and service of G.o.d.
Jeremy Taylor: "Holy Living," Ch. IV. Sect. iv.
We search the world for truth: we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful From graven stone and written scroll, From all old flower-fields of the soul; And, weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from our quest, To find that all the sages said, Is in the Book our mothers read.
Whittier: "Miriam."
VII.
The Right Ethical and Spiritual Use of the Bible.
"From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."--2 Timothy, iii. 15.
The right use of the Bible is admirably stated by St. Paul. These books do not make one learned in any knowledge--they make one wise in life. The Jewish tradition concerning Solomon"s choice expressed a deep truth.
Wisdom is the supreme benediction to be sought in life. Invaluable as is knowledge, it is as a means to an end. Knowledge provides for man the material out of which Wisdom, using "the best means to attain the best ends," builds a n.o.ble life. To have the mind clear, the judgment just, the conscience true, the will strong, so that we may sight the goal of life, may learn the laws by which it is to be won, and may firmly seek it, steadfast amid all seductions--this is wisdom.
Would that for one single day, we may have lived in this world as we ought.
Thus prays the author of the Imitation of Christ; and in so praying he is sighing after wisdom.
This culture of wisdom is the aim of the books which together form the Bible. They reveal to our vision the best ends in life, and point us to the best means of winning those high aims. They clear the atmosphere of mists, disclose to us our bearings, and fill our souls with the afflatus which wafts us toward "the haven where we would be." These books are rightly called by Paul, the "Holy Scriptures," the scriptures of holiness, the writings whose genius is goodness. Their charm is "the beauty of holiness," the graciousness of Goodness as she unveils herself therein.
And this genius of gracious Goodness which irradiates the inner court of this temple, lays such a spell upon the souls of men inasmuch as she is seen to be the very daughter of G.o.d; according to the soliloquy overheard by mortal ears, wherein Wisdom sings:
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, Before His work of old.
Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him, And I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him.
Religion becomes the worship of the G.o.d who is the source and standard of goodness, the love of the Eternal who loveth righteousness, the child"s crying out into the dark--O righteous Father.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.