storehouse and read laws as old as creation. But the body is not the
man. You ask me how do I know I have a soul? I know it as I know I
have a body--by self-consciousness. There is no place in this world
where men are not compelled by absolute necessity to recognize the act
and the will of a soul within, which directs the act. I ask again, does
God care for me? I say it reverently, brother, you cannot conceive of a
God who could create a world like this, if He can feel one throb of pity
for His children, unless you believe He has provided a remedy for sin,
sorrow, and death. The coming of God into the family of man is an
absolute necessity of the very being of God. The incarnation is the
outcome of the possibility that God can love. I turn then to this
record and I ask, is this Jesus the friend that the world has waited for
and looked for? No one that has walked this earth could use the words
which every day rested upon His lips: "I and the God you worship are
one." "I am the bread that is come down from heaven, and the bread I
shall give you is My flesh, and I give it for the life of the world."
"I am the resurrection and the life; if any man shall believe in Me, if
he were dead he shall live"--unless he were God incarnate. The miracles
of Jesus were not violations of the laws of nature; they were the divine
proofs that that God whose hand is behind every law of nature had come
into the world to help those who needed help. When He multiplied bread
in His hands, He did of His own will that which God does when He
multiplies the wheat in the harvest. When He created the wine of Cana,
He did that of His own will which He does when He distills the dewdrop
in the clusters of the vine. But that which unseals my heart, is the
divine compassion, is the tender pity, is the love that never turns from
the weary. If man had invented this Gospel, the story of Mary Magdalene
would never have been in the record. It is not in the wrecks strewn
along the path of life that men would find those they would lift to the
bosom of God. It is the Divine eye that pities, it is the Divine hand