it is still only Israel that the writer has in view, though we rightly
give to the words a wider application. But there is no need of argument.
Every reader of the Old Testament knows that its central, ruling idea of
God is not Fatherhood, but Kingship: "The Lord reigneth." Even in the
Psalms, in which the religious aspiration and worship of the ages before
Christ find their finest and noblest expression, never once is God
addressed as Father. But when we turn to the Gospels, how great is the
contrast! Though not even a single psalmist dare look up and say,
"Father," in St. Matthew's Gospel alone the name is used of God more
than forty times. Fatherhood now is no longer one attribute among many;
it is the central, determining idea in whose revealing light all other
names of God--Creator, Sovereign, Judge--must be read and interpreted.
And the God of Jesus Christ is the Father, not of one race only, but of
mankind; not of mankind only, but of men.


II


It was indeed a great and wonderful gospel which Christ proclaimed--so
great and wonderful that all our poor words tremble and sink down under
the weight of the truth they vainly seek to express. By what means has
Christ put us into possession of such a truth? How have we come to the
full assurance of faith concerning the Divine Fatherhood? In two ways:
by His teaching and by His life; by what He said and by what He did. And
once more a paragraph must perforce do, as best it can, the work of an
essay.

To the ear and heart of Christ all nature spoke of the love and care of