Section 29 — The Great Texts of the Bible

(3) In his own training and saving, in the work of developing personal faculty and character, man is a worker with God. Man's own will and effort constitute one of the factors in his progress. You remember the little child's quaint answer to the question, " Who made you ? " Said she, " God made me so long, and I growed the rest myself." "Out of the mouth of babes and

1 J. H. Jowett. 2 H. W. Beeclier.

78 GOD'S FELLOW-WORKERS

sucklings hast thou ordained strength ! " The little girl's answer touched the very heart of the matter. We are made, intel- lectually and morally, just about so long ; that is not our doing— " it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves " — but, after all, there is a good deal that we have to " grow ourselves " and that we can grow ourselves.

If Theodore Parker used to say that man's life was only about three parts out of the hundred freedom, the rest, necessity. That is not much to claim for free-will — the veriest necessarian might concede that much ! But then, even three per cent, of moral freedom, if made the most of, and constantly turned over, may mount up gradually to a considerable increase of that stock-in- trade with which man started. That little three per cent, of free effort has brought man from skins to broadcloth ; from the wig- wam to the modern house ; from the rough tradition chanted by the camp fire to the printed book ; from the rude torch to the electric light. In religion, it has brought man from the instinct of fetish-worship to the communion of spiritual prayer ; and in morality, from the measureless revenge of the savage to the measured law "for a tooth only a tooth," and on to the unmeasured law of forgiveness " unto seventy times seven " ! In a word it is that little free part of man's own, even if it be only three per cent., which, not buried in the napkin of indolence or fatalism, but put out to interest in busy striving life, has brought man from savagism up to civilization, and m which lie the possibilities of further progress still— the potenti- alities of the hero, sage and saint in this world, to say nothing of the angel in the life to come.1

(4) It is through men that God helps and saves men and creates His new heavens and His new earth. Out of humanity come the Divine helpers of humanity. God in the world reconcil- ing it to Himself means in human life God in Christ and God in men whom Christ inspires, God choosing and using men to be the instruments of His purpose, the messengers of His mercy and grace, the doers of His word. There was no want of faith, or reverence, or humility in Martin Luther, and yet he could say in his own bold, earnest way, " God needs strong men ; He cannot get along without them."

lj The highest of all privileges is to share with God the work of re-creation. There are no flowers so winsome as those you

1 B. Herford.

i CORINTHIANS in. 9 79

have grown in your own garden, and there is no life that gives you such joy and such delicacy of spiritual food as the life you have helped to make beautiful by your own heart's blood. When you have worked with the Lord in the creation of another man's joy, a most delicately flavoured joy visits your own heart. Let us regard every man as a possible sphere of service, and set to work to turn the untilled field into a garden.1

Wherefore hast Thou withdrawn Thee from my sight,

0 Shepherd ? Yesterday in glad delight

1 walked serene, rejoicing in the light.

0 Shepherd, Shepherd, Shepherd, seek Thy sheep !

But yesterday my soul was all aflame If but the faintest whisper of Thy name Ineffable to my rapt spirit came.