Brother in joy and pain,
Bone of my bone was He,
Now—intimacy closer still,
He dwells Himself in me.
I need not journey far
This dearest friend to see,
Companionship is always mine,
He makes His home with me.
(1239)
God in Human Instinct—See Religious Instruction Denied.
GOD IN INDIAN BELIEF
Of all the different kinds of people among
whom I have lived the Indians of northern
California carry the memory of their dead
the longest, and, I had almost written, feel
their loss the most. I have seen old women,
bent with age, rocking their bodies to and
fro with grief in some dry, grass-covered
ditch, moaning as if their hearts were breaking,
and upon inquiry have been told that
they were mourning for a husband or children
dead perhaps for years. But from
amid the moans of Rachel sorrowing for
her dead children the whisper of hope beyond
the grave has always been present.
For underneath the driftwood of their dim
traditions and wild fables handed from
father to son from time immemorial, around
the camp-fires at night, with addition here,
subtraction there, and darkness all around,
I have always found among all the tribes
that grand conception of a divine being who
created all and who in the hereafter will
reward the good and punish the bad. Everywhere
my footsteps have wandered—on the
Klamath and on the Trinity, from the
Golden Gate to the Oregon line—I have encountered
the Man-maker, who lives among
the stars and loves his red children—A. G.
Tassin, Overland.
(1240)
GOD IN MAN'S WORK
Dr. Henry Van Dyke enforces the lesson that God is in all the common tasks of life, after this fashion:
There was a man who wanted to find
Christ, and he imagined he must leave his
work. He was a carpenter, builder, perhaps,
or a stone-mason. He imagined he could
only be a Christian by going to the desert
and living a hermit's life. He never found
Christ there. He then thought he must
never go outside the cloisters of the church,
or walls of the temple. He did not find
Christ there. There was something defective
about that man's life. He was heedless
of his children and his fellow men. He
was seeking Christ for himself and not for
others. The voice of the Savior came:
"You did not need to go to the desert to find me; lift the stone and thou shalt find me. Do your regular work as a stone-mason and as you do your work you shall find me in your daily labor. Cleave the wood and there am I. As you lift the timbers, sing out the song of praise." Christ is with you in your daily task.
(1241)
GOD IN MISSIONS
The captain of the Trident, the ship on
which Morrison, the missionary, sailed, and
who knew something of the impenetrable
conservatism of the Chinese, said: "And
so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect that you
will make an impression upon the idolatry
of the great Chinese Empire?" "No, sir,"
returned Mr. Morrison, severely, "I expect
God will."
(1242)
God, Instinctive Sense of—See Religious Instruction Denied.
GOD IN THE CHILD MIND
I have in mind a four-year-old girl, favored
in many things, but especially happy in
that she spends her summers on an island
in a beautiful lake, mountain-rimmed. She
has always been privileged to walk with her
father and mother in the fields and woods;
to "go a-trudging," as she called it, has been
her chief delight. "Where did the trees get
their red and yellow leaves?" she asked.
"Who made them red and yellow?" Her
question answered, she ran to her mother
with her chubby hands filled with her new
treasures, saying, "See, mama! I have
brought you some of God's beautiful leaves!"
"How came the island here?" she asked. "Who brought the rocks and the trees?" She was told how the island was lifted into its place; how the soil was formed, the trees planted, and the island made ready for the birds, for the trees, for the rabbits, for the squirrels, and for her—just as her father had built the house for her, in which she lived. As the time for her return to her home approached, she sat one evening watching the sunset and the early evening stars, and said, "Don't you hope that God will be at home when we get there, just as He has been here this summer?" So linked with her love of the beautiful in the world was
