148 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



and of every detail of it which in its self sacrifice 

 and self-expenditure anticipated and prefigured the final 

 crowning act of oblation upon the Cross. Contrast the 

 first creative fiat, " Let there be light : and there was 

 light," with the last cry of our Lord as He was sinking 

 out of life, in the horror of a darkness unexampled in 

 the history of the universe : " My God ! My God ! why 

 hast Thou forsaken Me ? " and you will form some idea 

 of what the new creation cost the Son of God ! 



The same remarks that are applicable to the great 

 salvation of Jesus Christ, are applicable to every in- 

 dividual effort we make in the track and in the power 

 of that salvation to redress the evil of the world. 

 Among the many great lessons which the incarnation of 

 the Son of God is designed to teach us, this lesson is 

 assuredly not the least important that if it was neces- 

 sary for Christ to take human nature upon Himself in 

 order to redeem it, so it is necessary for us to become 

 incarnate as it were in the nature we wish to benefit. 

 The servant, in this respect, cannot be greater than his 

 Lord. We too must take upon us the nature of the 

 sufferer whom we try to heal and save. We must, like 

 Elisha, take the evil that we would remove to our own 

 room ; we must lay it upon our own bed ; we must bear 

 it upon our own heart ; we must identify ourselves with it 

 as far as we possibly can. We must stretch our own living 

 body upon the dead body that we would seek to raise 

 to life and blessedness ; we must put our whole nature 

 into contact and communion with its whole nature. 

 Each part of us must be brought by a thorough sym- 



