of philosophy. God who made the clouds His chariot and rode upon the wings of the wind was the creator of the ends of the earth, and He who was the source of righteousness and power dwelt with the contrite and humble heart. Monotheism stands midway between the extremes of Atheism-the denial that there is any God, and Pantheism-the affirmation that everything is God. Monotheism means one God over all, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and it is the basis of all sound thinking. As often as the spirituality of God is obscured, either when He is imagined as a blind force, or as an impersonation of sentiment, the religious consciousness must fall back on Jewish thought both for health and for strength.

Surely it was enough for one school of religious thinkers to bequeath this heritage to the world! But it was an even greater achievement when the prophets of Israel infused that pure spirituality with a most intimate sympathy and convinced many generations that the Holy One of Israel is the most gracious Deity who has ever entered into the heart of man. When the prophets had grasped the transcendence of God and imagined

Him raised above this world, which had been created by the word of His power, and reigning over mankind which is the instrument of His will, they might well have been so occupied with His majesty as to be unable to compass His pity. Yet there is no emotion of the human heart they did not assign to God, no tender relation of life they did not use to illustrate His love. He is a husband whose affection has been wasted upon a heartless woman, and whose honour has been. stained by her unfaithfulness, but who still follows her with entreaties to return, because he cannot bear the thought that she, who was once his wife, should perish in shame. He is a father who used to hold his little son by the arms and tempt him to walk, and now when the lad has grown to be a man, and played the fool exceedingly, still remembers how Ephraim looked in his youth and what he was to his father long ago. He is a herdsman who has treated his flock with the most tender care, and yet they have dealt with Him more stupidly than the unreasonable animals with their master; "for the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not

consider." From every page of Isaiah and Hosea the Holy One of Israel stretches out His hand to a rebellious and gainsaying people. Everywhere the words burn to your touch, and you feel throughout the Bible the throb of the divine heart.

As time went on the prophets began to hope that God Who had sent so many messages to suffering men, and had given them such help in their misery, would not be able to contain Himself in the security of His heaven, but that He would come after a visible fashion into the midst of this human Gehenna. Is not the Incarnation of Christ the convincing climax of the divine sympathy? Jesus born of the Virgin Mary and crucified upon the Cross of Calvary is God with us, baptized into the very depths of human suffering. When Jesus came and lived among us the heart of God was laid bare, and every one can see in the Gospel that patient wistful love which inhabits the secret place of the universe. As the father sits upon the housetop, and watches the crest of the hill, that he may catch the first glimpse of the returning prodigal; as the householder makes ready his feast and sends for his

ungrateful guests; as the vine master appeals to his disloyal tenants by his own son, we learn the expectation of God. As Jesus takes into His arms little children whom superior people have despised, and casts His charity over penitent women whom Pharisees cannot forgive, and mourns at the tomb of Lazarus over a friend whom He cannot afford to lose, one learns the graciousness of God. As Jesus turns sadly from Nazareth, the city of His youth, which had refused Him, and reproaches Capernaum, the city of His choice, which did not believe in Him, and weeps openly over Jerusalem which knew not the day of her visitation, one learns the regret of God. And as Jesus appeals to the disciples, "Will ye also go away?" and prophesies with a sad heart that every one of His friends will forsake Him, and is cast into a deep gloom by the betrayal of Judas, we learn what is almost incredible, but most comfortable, the dependence of God. The cross is not only in the heart of human life, it is also in the heart of God. He is the chief of all sufferers, because He is the chief of all lovers.

One does not forget, while insisting on the fellow suffering of God, that there is a certain

danger in analogies between the human and divine, and one lays to heart the warnings against Anthropomorphism. But we must not allow ourselves to be beaten by big words, and we can surely distinguish between what is real and unreal. Has it not been the religious expert-the saints, the mystics, and the prophets, who have most loved to dwell upon this likeness between God and man? Has it not been the non-religious expert, the philosophers, the scientists, the men of letters, who have been most inclined to ridicule this argument from the seen to the unseen, and this representation of the divine nature in terms of human experience. If ever the Spirit of God inhabited the human breast, He inspired the Hebrew prophets and Jesus confirmed their character of God in His Evangel. It sounds wise to say that we ought not to think of God as a magnified non-natural man," but when you drive this argument to its conclusion it comes to this, that we must give up thinking about God altogether. It is a plea, not against Anthropomorphism but for Agnosticism. What other life can we reason from except the highest we know? What other language can we use than

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