the household, the God of family life, the God whose
manifestations attract in every phase of His Self-revelation; He is
human to the very core; born in humanity, as He has said, He acts as a
man. As a child, He is a real child, full of playfulness, of fun, of
winsome grace. Growing up into boyhood, into manhood, He exercises the
same human fascination over the hearts of men, of women, and of
children; the God in whose presence there is always joy, the God in
whose presence there is continual laughter and music. When we think of
Shri Krishna we seem to hear the ripple of the river, the
rustling of the leaves in the forest, the lowing of the kine in the
pasture, the laughter of happy children playing round their parents'
knees. He is so fundamentally the God who is human in everything; who
bends in human sympathy over the cradle of the babe, who sympathises
with the play of the youth, who is the friend of the lover, the blesser
of the bridegroom and the bride, who smiles on the young mother when her
first-born lies in her arms--everywhere the God of love and of human
happiness; what wonder that His winsome grace has fascinated the hearts
of men!

We are to study Him, then, this morning. Now an Avatara--I say this to
clear away some preliminary difficulties--an Avatara has two great
aspects to the world. First, He is a historical fact. Do not let that be
forgotten. When you are reading the story of the great Ones, you are
reading history and not fable. But it is more than history; the Avataras
acts out on the stage of the world a mighty drama. He is, as it were, a
player on the world's stage, and He plays a definite drama, and that
drama is an exposition of spiritual truth. And though the facts are
facts of history, they are also an allegory under which great spiritual
truths are conveyed to the minds and to the hearts of men. If you think
of it only as an allegory, you miss an aspect of the truth; if you think
of it only as a history you miss an aspect of the truth. The history of
an Avatara is an exposition of spiritual verities; but though the drama
be a real one, it is a drama with an object, a drama with distinct
outlines laid down, as it were, by the author, and the Avatara plays His
part on the stage at the same time as He is living out His life as man
in the history of the world. That must be remembered, otherwise some of
the great lessons of the Avatara will be misread.

Then He comes into the world surrounded b