to be a powerful king, who would deliver his chosen people from their enemies, and restore their national glory and prestige. He would establish a magnificent temporal kingdom. Only a few who were upon the "watchtowers of Zion" caught any glimpses of the light of that broader spiritual kingdom of whose dominion there shall be no end. The true nature of the Christian economy could hardly be discerned, except by those lesser saviours whose eyes were open to the heavenly ideal. They alone were able to look from the mountain-tops of spiritual attainment and catch the sublime significance of God manifested in the flesh. But with all the popular misapprehension, the expected advent was the loftiest theme of law, poetry, and prophecy. The light of the Christian dispensation in the hearts and consciences of men shone backward as well as forward. Its anticipation kindled and quickened spiritual aspiration. The patient waiting at length blossomed into glorious realization, and this forms the great theme of Evangelistic and Apostolic inspiration.

The interchangeable use of the terms Jesus

and Christ, and their seeming identity in theological statements, has caused much misapprehension. Christ signifies the eternal outflow of God's love toward man, as we view it on the man-ward side. This Love is one with God, and is God; but to our vision it has the aspect of a separate personality. God being absolute and unknowable to material sense, it follows that men of undeveloped spirituality must have some material expression to enable them to get glimpses of the divine character. We speak of love and faith as abstract entities, and yet the human mind can hardly grasp them except through forms of personal manifestation. God's love flows out toward His children as naturally as light and heat are radiated from the sun. He fills the universe, and He is Love; and Love is therefore the one all-inclusive principle. Christ is the name, not of the material Jesus, but of the principle or spirit that expressed itself through His organism. Jesus is called "the Christ; " the latter term signifying his office or quality. Jesus was the name of a Judean peasant, whose conditions were material, local, and temporal,

while Christ is from everlasting to everlasting. Prevailing materialism, now as in the times of Jesus, is ever dwelling upon forms and expressions. The key to the mystery of the Incarnation is found in the comprehension of the fact, that perfect, ideal manhood signifies complete oneness with God. The intrinsic man (God's image) is spirit, and his physical organism forms no part of him. Its use is for expression

on the present plane. But man has built up a false personality out of his material consciousness, so that his absolute or divine selfhood is obscured and often unrecognized.

It is unprofitable to dogmatize about the Incarnation, but we may try to interpret it by its own light. The attempt of scholastics to technically analyze the nature of God and man united ends in an unfathomable sea of speculation. Intellectually the most earnest and honest observers see it on opposite sides. Some look upon Jesus as "very God," and others as very man, and still others as one distinct person of the three who comprise the Trinity. Some believe that, in consequence of a great emergency, "a plan" was formed in the deep coun

cils of the Godhead for the redemption of the world, and that Christ volunteered to undertake the mission. He came from a far-away heaven, and by substitution put his righteousness in the place of man's sinfulness, thus vindicating the divine justice and satisfying the claims of broken law. The threefold aspect of God thus becomes Christian polytheism. How dogmatic, hard, and mechanical!

What is more natural and reasonable than that the substance of the divine Father should be incarnated? Nearly all religions have held that in some way God, or the gods, have assumed material embodiment as a means of lifting up humanity. The imperfect incarnations of the ancient heathen nations were but the out-croppings of this universal soul-craving. We long for Fatherly sympathy and communion. The tendrils of our common nature reach out toward God to feel after and know Him, and such a demand is a natural prophecy of supply. The beauty and perfection of the divine economy are found in the harmonious adjustment of supply and demand. Infinite wisdom has fitted these elements for each other

in perfect proportion, whether in the spiritual, intellectual, or physical realm. May we not regard the embodiment of the Christ-mind in Jesus as the divine creative response to that very craving which He has implanted in the soul of man?

How can the limitless omnipresent Deity manifest Himself through such a puny channel as the human organism? Infinity cannot be diminished, but is not a drop of ocean spray one with its parent source? An unworthy similitude, for spirit is measureless and incomparable.

A quickened spiritual nature may know God directly through its own consciousness, but unregenerate and material selfhood must have a message in its own language. God's substance must be cast into human form, else sensuous understanding cannot encompass it; therefore the "Word was made flesh." Other sages and saviours have taught the loftiest morality, but none have perfectly embodied it. They gave intellectual expression to truth, but Christ was Truth itself. Jesus the Christ was "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," perfectly filling the