the agencies of discipline, education, and persuasion, as to lead men finally to will to be virtuous." For the will of man does not act independently of motives, of influences, of reason, of persuasions. Whatever happens to a man's soul has its influence upon his will. If his mind is enlightened, there is a difference in the things which he wills. If his emotions are stirred, his will is invariably affected too. The sum of what a man is and what he feels at any moment, is felt in every act of his will. His will is himself let loose, set in action, energizing things, external to himself or within himself. The will is not absolute and uncontrollable. It is governed by knowledge and by emotions. It is free, but within relations. It is not lawless, but amenable to discipline, training, education. And every one of us who has been saved, has been brought into harmony with God's will because his will has responded to the pressure of God's will. When strife exhausted is, and license spent, Henry Nehemiah Dodge. XXIV. Can a sinner ever cease to be a child of God? Every sinner bears in his nature the image of his Heavenly Father, and can never cease to be God's child. - LUKE 15: 24. HE likeness of human nature to the Divine nature is the great spiritual fact which accounts for the outward signs of kinship which mark our race. Men are not akin to one another because they have like structure or customs or experiences or sufferings. They have these likenesses because they are akin, because they have the mark of their common parentage stamped upon them. Children are not related because they look alike; they look alike because they are related. And human beings have common traits because they are brethren, children of one Father. The touch of nature' which "makes the whole world kin," is the likeness of man to his Maker. It is It is an unspeakable privilege to us all, who are so often classified according to our weaknesses and our sins, and reminded of our likeness to one another on the ground of our universal sinfulness and sorrow, to feel that the final reason why we are alike, is not because we are so easily tempted, not because we love evil, not because we are ignorant, weak, or wicked, but because we are children of the Most High. Now this image of God in our souls is something which nothing can obliterate. Sin cannot annihilate a soul. Once human it is always human. Degraded it may become, but never destroyed. It may be inhuman, it cannot become unhuman. A man may be brutish; he cannot reduce himself to the nature of a brute. There is no escape for any species in the creation backward and downward. No man would ever treat his idiot child as anything but a human being. So we may dismiss the idea that God will ever consider his image as so utterly lost from a soul that he need be under no further obligation to it. One band ye cannot break the force that clips Yet strives with you no less that inward might; The God in you, the creed-dimmed eye eludes. James Russell Lowell. XXV. What is the mission of Jesus? To save mankind from sin. 1 JOHN 4: 14. HE work of Jesus Christ in thisworld has reference to a peculiar and unique characteristic of man. One of the specialties of our race is its sinfulness. There are no sinners any earlier in the line of life than man's day. The human race is not only undeveloped, it is developed in the wrong direction. It has not only come short, it has gone wrong. So it has need of something more than progress; it must be saved. It takes more than progress to set a man right who has been traveling in the wrong way. The further he advances, as long as he is moving in a wrong direction, the further he gets out of the way. He must be put into the right path before he can benefit by progress. And so of human life. Before it can gain by its advances it must be set moving in the right direction. It must be set right; it must be cleared of its evils; it must be healed of its diseases. It takes more than mere growth of the tissues of the body to get rid of a scrofulous taint or to straighten a crooked limb. So no theory of progress can be a complete one which does not take into account the full significance of man's sinfulness and his need to be redeemed from its curse. Man not only needs to be led; he needs to be saved. Or, we may say that part of his leading must be in the direction of a return to the righteousness he has missed and rejected. It is to effect man's recall to righteousness and love that God sent Jesus the Christ into this world. In him, God has shown us the right way. In him he has furnished us with the true Guide. By him he will at last quicken the heart of humanity into the Divine life. This is the providential purpose of God in Jesus Christ. Feeble, helpless, how shall I Heavenly Father, Gracious One, William Henry Furness. |