Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/126

 await the nations that cast Him off; to the blessing that attends those who follow His Spirit; to the mischief that dogs those who substitute for His Spirit a lifeless code of rules or a fabric of superstitions."

And now one last word as to the special illusion from which (in my belief) we must in the short remnant of this century strive to deliver ourselves. I think we have worshipped Christ too much as God, and too little as Man. We have erroneously supposed that He exempted Himself during His manhood from the laws of humanity. Like the Roman soldiers, we have stripped from Him the carpenter's clothes, and put upon Him the purple rags of wonder-working imperialism, and placed in His hand the sceptre of worldly ostentation, and in that guise we have bowed the knee to the purple and the sceptre, and, doing homage to these things, we have cried, "Behold our God." But now the time has come when we must take from off Him these tawdry trappings, and give Him back His Workman's garments. Then we may find ourselves constrained to bow the knee again in a purer homage offered no longer to the clothes but to the Man.

Call this homage by what name we will, it is already of the nature of worship. And as we grow older and more able to distinguish the realities from the mirage of life, more capable of trust, love, and reverence, and better able to discriminate what must be, and what must not be, loved, trusted, and revered—looking from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth, we shall ask in vain where we can find anything, above or below, nobler, and better, and more powerful for good, than this Man to whom our hearts go forth in spontaneous love and trust and reverence. Then we shall turn once more to the Cross finding that we have been betrayed into worship while we knew it not, and while we cry, "Behold the Man," we shall feel "Behold our God."