nsect, the stone, the lily; but God is not the
Father of the caterpillar, the lily, or the stone.

When therefore, God is said to be our Father, something more is
implied in this than that God created man. And so when the Son of Man
came proclaiming the fact that we are the children of God, it was in
the truest sense a revelation. He told us that the nature of God
resembles the nature of man, that love in God is not a mere figure of
speech, but means the same thing as love in us, and that divine anger
is the same thing as human anger divested of its emotions and
imperfections. When we are commanded to be like God, it implies that
God has that nature of which we have already the germs. And this has
been taught by the incarnation of the Redeemer. Things absolutely
dissimilar in their nature cannot mingle. Water cannot coalesce with
fire--water cannot mix with oil. If, then, Humanity and Divinity were
united in the person of the Redeemer, it follows that there must be
something kindred between the two, or else the incarnation had been
impossible. So that the incarnation is the realization of man's
perfection.

But let us examine more deeply this assertion, that _our_ nature is
kindred with that of God--for if man has not a nature kindred to
God's, then a demand such as that, "Be ye the children of"--that is,
like--"God," is but a mockery of man. We say then, in the first place,
that in the truest sense of the word man can be a creator. The beaver
_makes_ its hole, the bee _makes_ its cell; man alone has the power of
_creating_. The mason _makes_, the architect _creates_. In the same
sense that we say God created the universe, we say that man is also a
creator. The creation of the universe was the Eternal Thought taking
reality. And thought taking expression is also a creation. Whenever
therefore, there is a living thought shaping itself in word or in
stone, there is there a creation. And therefore it is, that the
simplest effort of what we call genius is prized infinitely more than
the most elaborate performances which are done by mere workmanship,
and for this reason: that the one is produced by an effort of power
which we share with the beaver and the bee, that of _making_, and the
other by a faculty and power which man alone shares with God.

Here however, you will observe another difficulty. It will be said at
once--there is something in this comparison of man with God which
look