APPENDIX. 243 



whole man and no God, only an extra-inspired prophet, or what? 

 There s no use talking with you till I know where you stand.&quot; 



&quot; What do you want to bother with such nonsense for ? Christians 

 themselves don t agree about those matters. I won t answer you. You 

 admitted that you had seen enough in the ordinary works of God to 

 impress you with the belief of a designing wisdom above us, and you 

 asked me how any one could know any more than that. Now I tell you : 

 Look to Christ, his most perfect work. Believe, if you like, that in 

 him his life God is manifest only in the same way that he is in all 

 the works of his hand, as you would be in yours, as Powers is in the 

 Greek Slave, and Bell and Brown are in this ship, only he must be 

 peculiarly manifest in. man (created in his image), and most distinctly 

 and obviously manifest in the man most perfect and altogether lovely, 

 the express image of his person. Mustn t he ? Take him as a sheer 

 man, if you will, not even a prophet, simply a wise man the wisest 

 and best man. Must not his pure heart, his self-forgetful spirit, his 

 wisdom who spake as never man else spake, have attained to the best 

 and truest idea of God ? Must not that be, in the first place, the most 

 reasonable relation for us to assume towards God that in which 

 he placed himself a son to a loving, personally-interested father 

 a Father whose almighty power moves only in love ? If that s the 

 utmost you can make out of the life of Christ, why, take that ; don t 

 lose so much good of it because others can take more. But if you can 

 take more than that, and it s better for you to call him what is it you 

 say ? very God of very God ? not merely seen as manifested in the 

 man Christ, but peculiarly, indescribably, incomprehensibly, and con- 

 tradictorilv both God and man and neither man or God have it so, 

 and welcome. Describe him in Latin, or Hebrew-Greek, if you like it 

 better than plain English. It may seem one thing in the dim, religious 

 light of worship, and another in the flickering lamplight of study, but 

 you will find both the same in the clear daylight of life. After all, it 

 is the WORD that is wanted, and not the image through which it is 

 spoken. Look at Christ in whatever way you can read that Word with 

 the most faith. I care not in what language you receive it, so you can 

 translate it into love, joy, faith, long-suffering, goodness, peace, meek 

 ness, and temperance (the fruits of the Spirit).&quot; He was laughing again 

 and I asked, &quot; What is there ridiculous about this, Mr. C. ?&quot; 



&quot; Why, I don t know as there s any thing don t know as I can ob 

 ject to it, only eh, ha! ha !&quot; 



