HERALDS OF GOD
words of the twenty-third Psalm, "He restoreth my soul": God's secret ministry in days of spiritual reaction and fatigue. There comes to your mind a sentence from one of Baron von Hugel's letters: "Am doing what I can for her: pray for her. Have explained how she requires a second conversion—this time against the dust and drear when the physical enthusiasm dwindles." Does that not nail down the issue? Or you are speaking of our Lord's vivid use of the "how much more" argument: "If ye know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more your Father in heaven!" If parents will sacrifice themselves for their little ones, how much more God! If a man will lay down his life for his friends, how much more God! If you will suffer for one whom you love, how much more God! Do you remember how Lacordaire once dramatized this very truth? "If you would wish to know how the Almighty feels towards us, listen to the beating of your own heart and add to it infinity" (Incidentally, there you have the whole book of the prophet Hosea—the man's personal history and his religious message to the world—in one golden sentence.) Or, again, you are dealing with what theologians barbarously describe as "the Kenotic Theory of the Incarnation"—what you will prefer, in your sermon title, to call more simply "The Humility of the Divine": "He divested Himself of the glories of heaven," wrote Paul to the Philippians, "and became a servant and stooped to die upon the Cross." In one of her stories, Sheila Kaye-Smith depicts a character
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