Article February 26, 1903 Issue

Religious Items

The Rev. J. D. Reid says in The Christian Register:—

"The kingdom of God is not in the crowd. It is in the individual, in you and me; and nothing that takes it out of you and me can restore it to the masses. To make one man like every other man is to efface the image of God in all men, and to destroy the kingdom of God on earth. It takes the endless variety of human nature to give back the complete reflection of the glory of the divine nature. . . .

"And what is the kingdom of God? It is just our own complete life. Any life is a failure that does not come up to the measure of its own capacity. So for a man to rest content with his share, either earned or received as a gift by him, of the material products of civilization, and not to put forth his inborn powers to the nobler tasks and enjoyments of life, is to miss the true satisfaction of living. He has lived but half his life and that the meaner half. The complete life of a child of God is not to live on what we can get of the satisfactions of the moment, which bring with them no hopes for the future, and leave behind them no memories to enrich the thoughts, and in no wise deepen life's meaning for us; but it is to live like God in that we share with Him the creative impulse which sets all our experience in an ordered sequence of growth, making the lower and lesser a stepping-stone to the larger and higher. To eat the bread and drink the wine of life, and say, "This is all there is of life, and we have tasted it to the full—in what, then, are we better than the gross elements that impart to us such short-lived pleasure? But to eat the bread and drink the wine, and know in them the body and blood of a greater and diviner life, a memory full of all tender meaning, and immortal hope, and a love that counts no sacrifice and that faileth not,—this is indeed to live; for it is not a consummation, a cup drained to the dregs. It is but a beginning, a foretaste of the joy that cannot be exhausted and of the life eternal."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

LITERATURE FOR DISTRIBUTION