Blogotional

Today as we continue our exploration of the Asgardian and New Gods characters, Jack Kirby's finest creation, we look at a New God character that once again presents us with the dilemma - Character or Plot Device? His name - Metron.

The rider of the fabled Moebius chair, Metron travels through time and space in constant search of knowledge, and quite selfish with it when he obtains it. He would never survive in the publish or perish world of academia today.

Frankly, from my perspective, the most interesting thing about Metron is why, when he comes form a parallel universe and devised his fabled chair all on his own, would he name it after a 19th century, earthbound German mathematician? I mean I understand the connection with time travel and all, but come on! I'd think he would call it "Metron's really bitchin travel chair."

Also - How does a guy that spends that much time sitting stay that skinny?

OK, enough silliness, as with most time travelers, Metron sort is above the fray. He usually shows up to shuttle people to places where they are really needed in time and he has been a big part of many of the DC/Marvel crossover titles because frankly, there just aren't that many character that can transport heroes between those two universes.

Because he gains knowledge, but rarely shares it, he is enigma. Personally, I think he ought to have some place outside of time somewhere where he goes to hang and relax. Maybe a wife, couple of kids and a really big dog. He takes that blue suit off, puts on an Hawaiian shirt and lounges by the pool.

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Writing at CGO, Esther Meeks notes that knowledge is transformative.

Knowing is transformation. It is a creative insight that changes us and changes things. We emerge, from the knowing event, different persons, seeing the world differently. Knowing is more like a conversion and less like catechism, we might say. And apart from the conversion, catechism is lifeless two-dimensionality. Catechism of course is important, but precisely because it invites conversion.

The dynamic of transformational knowing is, I believe, akin to the descent of God. The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple, says the Scriptures. God comes; I am changed. He breaks the bread and our eyes are opened to see Him and ourselves and our world differently. We’ve been summoned. There is no going back. That is knowing.

This suggests two very profound implications. In one direction, our relationship with the living Lord, far from being antithetical to “knowledge,” (as in “faith VERSUS reason”) is the best specimen and model of it. In the other, in whatever way we are involved in education—as teachers or students in classrooms, churches, homes, or on-the-job training, we must teach and learn and assess for transformation. We must learn, not so much to comprehend as to be apprehended. We must see ourselves as, in our determined efforts, putting ourselves in the way of the incoming of God.

Ms. Meeks rightly points out that often what passes for knowledge is simply information, and that such is not transformative.

There is a huge differentiation in Christian schools here. I think this lies at the heart of the charismatic/cessation debate. Good old epistimology.

You see, absent the agency of the Holy Spirit, I think all knowledge is mere information. I know many people more familiar and more capable with theology, and all other information associated with my faith that are not transformed by that information. What is the difference between me and them? I know many people incapable of accumulating much in the way of information at all that are deeply transformed by the Holy Spirit.

While it is true that knowledge can play a role in transformation, I think it a step too far to say that knowledge is always transformative, or that knowledge is necessary for transformation. Of course, I do not think that is necessarily what Meeks is saying, I think she is saying that knowledge apart from tranformation is just information. But I also think that is just semantics. The essential point is that we are to be transformed and knowledge can play a role in that.

Here what strikes me. Many charismatics think that Holy Spirit baptism, or some other ecstatic experience is the only means to transformation. Hardened cessasionists think knowledge is the only such means. Both, I think substitute the means for the end.

How can the Holy Spirit be limited in the methods He uses for transformation? He is after all God? Isn't it just possible he will use the means best suited to the individual. And when we latch on to the means instead of the end are we not committing a form of idolatry?

Work that knowledge a little bit and let's see where we end up...

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A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below says, "Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees North latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees West longitude."

"You must be an engineer," says the balloonist.

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."

The man below says, "You must be a manager

"I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."

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Jollyblogger went through a spate of reading C.S. Lewis a while back and began one of his posts on it this way:

When I read C. S. Lewis I am often surprised that evangelicals like him so much, because so much of what he says goes against evangelical conventional wisdom.

I was stunned. From my perspective, Lewis is the fount from which evangelicalism sprang - but then as I have learned in recent years, "evangelicalism" is a pretty plastic term, it means a lot of things to a lot of people.

Maybe it is because I am basically a para-church guy when it comes to evangelism that I felt that way. Lewis was my first exposure, and Stott one of my favorites, to efforts to "distill" Christianity to that which we all share - the essential message of the evangelist - the message of the para-church - which then once communicated to the world enables people to come to the buffet that is the modern church and from that basis choose the home that best suited them.

Lewis certainly never intended his efforts to be the end of faith, but the beginning, and therein, I think, lies the rub. So much of evangelicalism today seems to think the beginning is the end, and the the church is the evangelist. If that was all there is, Christ's ministry would have ended at the cross.

But it didn't. The price paid for our sins, Christ came back to show us all of what was available to us, a new body, a new life - the true glory for which we were created.

I mourn that we so often stop at the cross. I wish to walk with the resurrected Christ, not merely be forgiven by the dead one.

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Kruse Kronicle recently looked at a trend in moder thinking:

Frequently we hear that society has a responsibility to the poor. Most Christians of all stripes would agree. But listen to the sentence that often follows such a declaration. It goes something like this, “Therefore, ‘society’ should raise the minimum wage, grant universal healthcare, and redistribute wealth through taxation.” Notice the common theme. They are all government imposed solutions. Why not respond, “Therefore, ‘society’ should find ways to create stable families, get churches and volunteer organizations involved in the lives of the poor, and lend money to the poor through microenterprise funds.” This isn’t an “either/or” proposition. Rather it highlights that the default solutions for too many Christians: Government. Non-governmental non-bureaucratic solutions are an afterthought, secondary in importance, if they come to mind at all. This is the functional equivalent of saying “government” is “society.”

In reality, government is only one institution of society. Society includes individuals. It includes other institutions like the family, churches, volunteer organizations, businesses, and a variety of local governments. It includes countless informal networks. Society is much broader than government.

At the core of the Old Testament notion of justice and care in society was the family. The family was encompassed by a clan, then by a tribe, and then by the nation. Each succeeding level of distance from the family played ever more limited roles in the daily operations of the family.

How do we as Christians change our society?

We always want the easy answers. It is easy to affect government, at least in comparison to the other alternatives so we also fall into the "government=society" trap, despite the fact that such is essentially antithetical to our won beliefs.

We have a much harder calling than just passing legislation or electing individuals - anybody with energy can do that. No, our calling is to change people. Not harness them for some greater purpose, but to genuinely change them so that they harness themselves to that greater purpose.

As Kruse points out, it is God's intention that the family be the primary agent of such change. This makes a lot of sense - forming people is best done when they are young, and the family is the best tool ever invented to form people.

But what do we do in a society where the family is not what it used to be? I would suggest the church needs to learn how, once again, to be family in a larger context. Not a political action committee, not a provider of services, but a genuine family. This means a few things. Congregations will have limits on size, families cannot be numbered in the 1000's. This means less program and more relationship.

I also know this, to make a family work, the individuals in the family need to be the best individuals they can be. If we want to reverse the trends we see in our society, and I for one do, we need to start with ourselves. we need to allow Christ to transform us. This will in turn reflect in our families, and the circle will widen.

It will require patience, and it will be hard, but it will be real change, genuine change, God's change.

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MMI posted recently on the "Gay and Lesbian Bible."

I realize to many in the Godblogosphere as a member of the PC(USA) I am near heretic. My denomination, after all, is not very far behind the Episcopalians when it comes to the ordination of homosexuals. We have a few that came out after ordination that have not been stripped of their ordination and every General Assembly is fraught with the question of ordaining gays, we have come mighty close several times.

In those internal Presbyterian wars I have argued consistently that we on the conservative side need to shift the battle ground. We are not fighting about gay people, we are fighting about the authority of scripture. Looks like the other side of the debate figured that little tactic out and has decided to beat me to the punch by simply changing scripture.

Of course, we have made minor alterations to scripture from time to time based on new manuscripts, intense scholarship, and much, much prayer But this kind of wholesale revision based on a political agenda (as opposed to some agenda creeping into the scholarship which has happened, obviously) is an entirely new thing to me.

We are no longer defying the authority of scripture, we are placing ourselves front and center. With this approach our faith exists to serve us, we do not exist to serve our Lord. That is simply entirely antithetical to the gospel.

This belies and entirely secular worldview. You see, the point of religion is to find that which is beyond - the supernature. If religion is merely a social institution to be shaped to suit the social conditions of the time, it ceases to be relgiion and becomes something else entirely. This denies that there is any higher authority other than ourselves.

To my brethren and sistren of GLBT community, I ask one thing of you. Join me on my knees. Ask Jesus to intercede on our behalf with groans deeper than understanding. Do not tell God who we are or what we need - allow God to tell us those things. Then listen.

I am convicted by scripture on a daily basis. I defy it daily as well. But I do not want to change it - I get up the next day and I try again. And each day, God moves me a little closer to Him. I do not always know where that journey is going, but I trust Him to make it worthy. Join me.

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Milt Stanley quotes Kingdom Living quoting Bonhoeffer. The take away quote, Milt's too:

Faith comes standing at the cross, discipleship comes on it.

I am reminded once again of how little the church generally offers, and why we do so. Christ called us to "take up our cross," and we call people to a comfortable pew. Christ called us to sell all our possessions, we call people make sure and send in their pledge.

Christianity is radical stuff, very radical stuff. Some may think this analogy out of place, but it seems most appropriate to me. Many nations sell beer with much higher alcohol content than out nation. Something I did not know until I actually went overseas.

My first ever trip was to the People's Republic of China. I stayed in a hotel full of people from the west and that first night there was a bar-b-que on the roof of the building, complete with Chinese beer. I grabbed a cold one and drank it as if I was at home here in America. Two bottles later, I needed a chair. I looked at one of my hosts and said, "I think the jet-lag is getting to me." They looked at the can in my hand and asked how many. I told them and they went and got me the chair.

Anyway, my point is this - why doesn't the church hit people that hard and that unexpectedly? How come people are not surprised by what hits them when they enter the church?

The answer, of course, is simple. We sell faith, not discipleship because, not unlike the Chinese beer, discipleship comes at a cost. But it is so cheap, and so valuable. Unlike the Chinese beer, the cost disappears in the splendor of that which was purchased.

But then, of course, we would have to have experienced that splendor ourselves.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

George C. Lorimer was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1838. He was brought up by his stepfather who was associated with the theater, and in this relation he received a dramatic education and had some experience on the stage. In 1855 he came to the United States, where he joined the Baptist Church and abandoned the theatrical profession. Later he studied for the Baptist ministry, being ordained in 1859. He died in 1904. His direct and dramatic pulpit style brought him into great popularity in Boston, Chicago, and New York. At Tremont Temple, Boston, he frequently spoke to overflowing congregations. He is the author of several well-known books, from one of which the sermon here given is taken as indicating his familiarity with and liking for dramatic literature. His pulpit manner always retained a flavor of dramatic style that contributed to his popularity.


I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven. - Luke 10:18.

Whether the “glorious darkness” de¬noted by the name Satan is an actual personage or a maleficent influence, is of secondary moment as far as the aim and moral of this discourse are concerned. If the ominous title applies to an abstraction, and if the event so vividly introduced is but a dramatical representation of some phase in the mystery of iniquity, the spiritual inferences are just what they would be were the words respectively descriptive of an angel of sin, and of his utter and terrible overthrow. I shall not, therefore, tax your patience with discussions on these points, but shall assume as true that literal reading of the text which has commended itself to the ripest among our evangelical scholars.

The Scriptures obscurely hint at a catas¬trophe in heaven among immortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down from their radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subject are not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape the suspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as much to veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude, where he says: “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day”; and Peter, in like manner, speaks of God sparing not the angels that sinned, “but cast them down to hell”; and yet these comparatively lucid passages suggest a world of mist and shadow, which becomes filled with strange images when we confront the picture, presented by John, of war in heaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, “that old serpent called the devil.” Back of them there doubtless lies a history whose tragic significance is not easily measured. The sad, imperishable annals of our race prove that sin is a contingency of freedom. Wherever creatures are endowed with moral liberty, transgression is impliedly possible. It is, consequently, inherently probable that celestial beings, as well as man, may have revolted from the law of their Maker; and a fall accomplished among the inhabitants of heaven should no more surprize us than the fall of mortals on earth. Perhaps, after all, there is as much truth as poetry in Milton’s conception of the rebellion, and of the fearful defeat that overtook its leader:


An apostle, admonishing a novice, bids him beware of pride, “lest he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” Here presumptuous arrogance and haughtiness of spirit are specified as the root and source of the great transgression. Shakespeare takes up this thought:


And Milton repeats it in the magnificent lines:


Our Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining His disciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elated and exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, that devils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them at their pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due to the influence of His name, they evidently thought more of themselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying and self-satisfaction, and were met by the Master‘s words - half warning, half rebuke – “I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven.” He thus identifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelic ruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: “Rejoice not that the demons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” Rejoice not on account of privilege and power, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promote humility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy.

We have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society - a lesson continually en¬forced by Scripture, and illustrated by history. It deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness of egotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations to self-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. “Ye shall be as gods,” was the smiling, sarcastic allurement which beguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that before them rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had never trodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rival Deity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elated and dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to its attainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purer paradise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in the gratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountain into a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and of sorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughty king walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calm splendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling which dulled his sense of dependence upon God - as the perfumes of the East lull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran his self-glorifying soliloquy: “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?” Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist! In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chastening judgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he was compelled to learn that “those who walk in pride the King of heaven is able to abase.” Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrow of Beishazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of his throne, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vessels which his father had plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. I say taught us, for the foolhardy braggart was past learning anything himself. Like the yet more silly Herod, who drank in the adulation of the mob as he sat shimmering in his silver robe and slimed his speech from his serpent-tongue, he was too inflated and bloated with vanity to be corrected by wholesome discipline. Both of these rulers were too self-satisfied to be reproved, and God ‘s exterminating indignation overtook them. Like empty bubbles, nothing could be done with them, and hence the breath of the Almighty burst and dispersed their glittering worthlessness. Pope John XXI., according to Dean Milman, is another conspicuous monument of this folly. “Contemplating,” writes the historian, “with too much pride the work of his own hands” - the splendid palace of Viterbo – “at that instant the avenging roof came down on his head.” And Shakespeare has immortalized the pathetic doom which awaits the proud man, who, confident in his own importance and in the magnitude of his destiny, is swallowed up in schemes and plans for his personal aggrandizement and power. Wolsey goes too far in his self-seeking, is betrayed by his excess of statecraft, and, being publicly disgraced, laments, when too late, his selfish folly:


It is not difficult to discern the fatal effects of this spirit in the lives of the great and mighty; but we are frequently blind to its pernicious influence on the lowly and weak. We do not realize, as we ought, that the differences between men lie mainly in their position, not in their experiences and dangers. The leaders of society are merely actors, exhibiting on the public stage of history what is common to mankind at large. However insignificant we may be, and however obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed from that of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention of the world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and his reverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, and the second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and the last as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudes of a Riehelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant ‘s daughter, in her narrow circle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns as intensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of her day-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine of England or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely as we do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace and the hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and what passes beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roof of the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities. And so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to the state of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister or ruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic.

Indeed, it will generally be found that the failures of life, and the worse than failures, are mainly due to the same cause which emptied heavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask, that comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy [ed note: The assassination of President Garfield] is being investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbed this country of its ruler, committed “most sacrilegious murder,” and “broke ope “

“The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence The life o’ the building.”

Like bloody Macbeth, who greedily drank in the prognostications of the weird sisters, tho he feared that the “supernatural soliciting” could not be good, because they pandered to his monstrous self-infatuation, Guiteau, having wrought himself up through many years of self-complacency, claims to have believed that the divine Being had chosen him to do a deed which has filled the earth with horror. Thus the growth of self-conceit into mammoth proportions tends to obscure the rights of others, and to darken with its gigantic shadow the light of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner‘s story, as the expression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we look on one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that he would “spurn the sea, if it could roar at him,” and hesitate not to perform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous. Others, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have, from similar weakness, wrought indescribable mischief to themselves. The man, for instance, who frets against providence because his standing is not higher and his influence greater, has evidently a better opinion of his deservings than is wholesome for him. He imagines he is being wronged by the Creator - that his merits are not recognized as they should be - never, for a moment, remembering that, as a sinner, he has no claims on the extraordinary bounty of his heavenly Father. From murmuring he easily glides into open rebellion, and from whispered reproaches to loud denunciations. There are people in every community whose pride leads them into shameful transactions. They would not condescend to mingle with their social inferiors, but they will subsist on the earnings of their friends, and consider it no disgrace to borrow money which they have no intention of returning. Their vanity, at times, commits them to extravagances which they have no means of supporting. They ought to have carriages and horses, mansions and pictures, with all the luxuries of affluence - at least so they think - and, being destitute of the resources requisite to maintain such state, they become adepts in those arts which qualify for the penitentiary. Others have such confidence in the strength of their virtue, such commanding arrogance of integrity, that, like a captain who underestimates the force of an enemy and overrates his own, they neglect to place a picket-guard on the outskirts of their moral camp, and in such an hour as they think not they are surprized and lost. Even possessors of religion are not always clear of this folly, or safe from its perils. They “think more highly of themselves than they ought to think”; they come to regard themselves as specially favored of heaven; they talk of the Almighty in a free and easy manner, and of Jesus Christ as the He were not the Judge at all. When they pray, it is with a familiarity bordering on irreverence, and when they deal with sacred themes it is with a lightness that breeds contempt. ~When they recount the marvels which they have wrought in the name of Christ, it is hardly possible for them to hide their self-complacency; for, while they profess to give Him the glory, the manner of their speech shows that they are taking it to themselves. They are like the disciples, who were as proud of their prowess in casting out devils as children are with their beautiful toys, and they are as much in need of the Savior’s warning: “I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven.” And because they have failed to give heed unto it, they have oftentimes followed the Evil One in his downward course, and in a moment have made shipwreck of their faith.


and earthward have the unsaintly saints of God as swiftly sped, when they have fostered the pride which changed angels into demons.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, 0 Luci¬fer, son of the morning!” What more pitiable spectacle than the ruin of an angel! We have seen the forsaken halls of time-worn and dilapidated castles, have stood in the unroofed palaces of ancient princes, and have gazed on the moss-covered and ivy-decked towers of perishing churches, and the sight of them has filled our hearts with melancholy, as we thought of what had been, and of the changes that had swept over the fair, valiant and pious throngs whose laughter, bravery and prayers once made these scenes so gay and vocal. All is hushed now, and the silence is broken only by the hoot and screech of the owl, or by the rustle of the nightbat‘s leathern wing. But how much sadder is the form of the mighty spirit, who once sat regnant among the Sons of light, emptied of his innocence, filled with foul, creeping, venomous thoughts and feel¬ings, uncrowned, dethroned only with malig¬nity and throned in evil! The Bible calls him the prince and the god of this world; and everywhere we are surrounded with evidences of his despotic sway. Unlike earthly rulers, whose exhausted natures exact repose, he is ever sleepless, and his plotting never ends. Enter his somber presence-chamber, and commotion, bustle, activity will confront and amaze you. He is continually sending his emissaries forth in every direction. The perpetual wranglings, ceaseless distractions, irreconcilable contradictions, disquieting doubts, discouraging outlooks, inharmonious and jangling opinions, unaccountable delusions, clashing and crashing dissonances, cruel hatreds, bitter enmities and stormful convulsions, which so largely enter and deface the course of human history, proceed mainly from his influence. We know that “the heart of a lost angel is in the earth,” and as we know its throbbings carry misery and despair to mil¬lions of our fellow-beings, we can surmise the intensity of woe wherewith it afflicts himself. Mrs. Browning‘s Adam thus addresses Lucifer:


But now the vast brow must wear a heavier gloom, and the eyes betray a deeper sorrow, as in his ruin he has sought to bury the hopes and joys of a weaker race. How different his dealings with the race from those which mark the ministry of Christ! Immortal hate on the one side of humanity; immortal love on the other; both struggling for supremacy. One sweeping across the soul with pinions of dark doubts and fears; the other, with the strong wing of hope and fair anticipations. One seeking to plunge the earth-spirit into the abysmal depths of eternal darkness; the other seeking to hear it to the apex of light, where reigns eternal day. And of the two, Christ alone is called “the blest.” In the agony and anguish of His sufferings He yet can exclaim, “My joy I leave with thee”; and in the lowest vale of His shame can calmly discourse on peace. The reason? Do you ask the question? It is found in His goodness. He is good, and seeks the good of all; and goodness crowns His lacerated brow with joy. This Satan sacrificed in his fall; this he antagonizes with, in his dreary career, and so remains in the eyes of all ages the monument of melancholy gloom. Thus, also, is it with man, whose haughtiness thrusts him into evil. He is morose and wretched, crusht beneath a burden of woe, which weighs the eyelids down with weariness and the heart with care, and which constrains him to curse the hour of his birth. Next to the grief-crowned angel, there is no more pitiable object in all God’s fair creation than a human soul tumbled by its own besotted pride into sin and shame. “How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed!” aye, changed to dross, which the foot spurns, and which the whirlwind scatters to the midnight region of eternity.

In view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by the inspired writers on the grace of humility. We are exhorted to be like Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteem others better than ourselves. These admonitions are not designed to cultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesome sense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence. They would foster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will lean on the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all. Just as the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of its calyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes its perfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its own ignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in. true greatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness. Crossing the prairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that the trees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast. As our strongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire why they were not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, that the south winds prevail int eh time of sap, when the trees are supple with life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yield before them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigid and stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not. Thus is it with humans souls. When humility fills the heart, when its gentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feeling, the softest breath of God's Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, and downward to supplicate and welcome heaven's grace. But when it is frozen through and through with pride, it coldly resists the overtures of mercy, and in its deadness is apathetic even to the storm of wrath. Nothing remains but for the hurricanes to uproot it and level it to the ground. Such is the moral of my brief discourse. God grant we may have the wisdom of humility to receive it.

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