Help cannot come to one made in the image of God, save in
the obedient effort of what life and power are in him, for God is
action. In such effort alone is it possible for need to encounter help.
It is the upstretched that meets the downstretched hand. He alone who
obeys can with confidence pray--to him alone does an answer seem a thing
that may come. And should anything spoken by the Son of Man seem to the
seeker unreasonable, he feels in the rest such a majesty of duty as
compels him to judge with regard to the other, that he has not yet
perceived its true nature, or its true relation to life.
And now comes the crisis: if here the man sets himself honestly to do
the thing the Son of Man tells him, he so, and so first, sets out
positively upon the path which, if there be truth in these things, will
conduct him to a knowledge of the whole matter; not until then is he a
disciple. If the message be a true one, the condition of the knowledge
of its truth is not only reasonable but an unavoidable necessity. If
there be help for him, how otherways should it draw nigh? He has to be
assured of the highest truth of his being: there can be no other
assurance than that to be gained thus, and thus alone; for not only by
obedience does a man come into such contact with truth as to know what
it is, and in regard to truth knowledge and belief are one.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103