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Page 53
The solution of the mystery is now before us. The man that is to be has
walked this earth, and wrought with human hands, and lived and labored
and loved, and passed into the silent land. Is Jesus the unique
revelation of the divine? There may be many to question that, but there
are few, indeed, who doubt that He embodied all of the perfect humanity
which could be expressed within the limitations of the body. He
represented Himself as essential truth and very life. He condensed duty
into such love as He manifested toward men. He embodied the heroism of
meekness, the courage of self-sacrifice, the vision of goodness. He was
an example of all that is strong, serene, sacrificial, in the midst of
the lowest and most unresponsive conditions. So much we see, and the
rest we dimly, but surely, feel.
It was reserved for Paul, in a moment of inspiration, to put into a
single phrase a description of the goal of the human spirit, as
something which may be forever approached but never reached, in these
words, "Till we all attain unto the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ." The fullness of Christ! That is the soul's final
destiny. It was the far call of that goal which it faintly heard at its
first awakening and which has never entirely ceased to sound in his
ears. Who shall explore the contents of that great phrase? It is a
subject for meditation, for prayer, but never for discussion. He who
approaches it in a controversial spirit never understands it. What are
the qualities of the character of Christ? Some of them lie on the
surface of the story. He never doubted God, or, if so, but for a single
moment; He was unselfish; He lived to love and to express love; He had
some mysterious preternatural power over nature--such, perhaps, as
science is approaching in later times; kindness, sympathy, helpfulness,
purity, shone from His words and actions. He declared that the privilege
of dying to save those who despised Him was a joy. He lived in the
limitations of the human condition and, therefore, on the earth only
hints of "His fullness" are discernible. The full revelation is to be
the endless study of those who are able to see and to appreciate things
as they are. But we may ask ourselves whither these lines tend. When the
intelligence, the love, the compassion, the mercy, the purity, the moral
power and spiritual grandeur which only in dim outline are revealed in
the Christ, have perfect manifestations, what will the vision be? The
very thought transcends the farthest flights of the poet's imagination
and the most daring speculations of philosophers. In "the fullness of
Christ" is the soul's true goal. For that all men, and not the elect
few, were created. That is the revelation of the divine plan for
humanity. Toward that evolution has been slowly, and often painfully,
pressing from those dim �ons when the earth was without form and void.
When man appeared as the flower of all the cosmic process he started at
once toward this goal. And with great modesty, and simply because I
believe in God and that His love cannot be defeated, I dare to hope
that, sometime and somehow, after all the pains of retribution and moral
discipline have done their inevitable work, after all the fires of
Gehenna have consumed the desire to sin, after Hades and Purgatory have
been passed, the souls which, for a time, have dwelt in these mortal
bodies, purified and without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, will be
given the beatific vision and permitted to realize the height and
depth, the length and breadth of "the fullness of Christ."
"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,
Become my universe that feels and knows."
INDEX
Achilles, 74.
Act�on, 82.
Adam's fall, 142.
Adjustment to environment, 50, 52.
Adjustment to knowledge of freedom, 58.
�schylus, 129.
Ambrose, 140.
Ancient Mariner, 295.
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