accept that?" How can you not? My friends, the
human intellect is so framed that it acts habitually upon ideas that
are true yet indistinct. You act on space, you act on time, you have
infinity, you have in your mouth the word "cause." What do you know
exactly about infinity, or space, or time, or cause? The human
intellect, it is truly said, first by the greatest of the fathers,
then repeated by modern thinkers--the human intellect is so great,
first, that it can take exact ideas, and then, because it is infinite,
that it can act instantly upon ideas that are real but indistinct.
Christ--yes, first He is indistinct yet most real--real because He
entered into history, real because He exprest the idea that is in the
brain and heart of us all; indistinct because these little twenty
centuries have separated us from His actual historic life; but a fact
to those who seek Him, because His power is to make Himself an inward
gift to the human soul, because His activity is such that He meets us
on the altar of His sacred sacrament, that He meets us in the divine
Word to express His thoughts, that He meets us in consolation, that He
meets us in absolution, in moments of sorrow and of prayer. Oh, you
are not driven to a distant infinity! Oh, you are not asked to rest
upon a shadow I Oh, you are not besought to play the dreamer or
the sentimentalist, when you think about God! Oh, you are asked to
remember that fair, sweet vision--the vision of a Man so devoid of
vulgarity, that whilst He loved the people He did not despise the
great--the vision of a Man so strong that He could face a multitude,
so tender that He could raise the lost woman, so gentle that the
little children gathered their arms about His neck; the vision of
a Man at home with fishermen, and at home with the high-born, with
thoughts so deep that they permeate modern Christendom, with thoughts
so simple that they taught truth to ancient Galilee; the vision of a
Man who encouraged youth, the One on whom we rest, by whom we hang, in
whom we hope, who sympathizes with all our best desires, who does not
denounce us, but only intercedes and pities; the Man who never places
Himself upon a Pharisaic pedestal, but feels with the child, with the
boy, with the man, with the woman,--the Man of men, the crown of our
humanity, the God in Man, the Man in God, the power of the sacraments,
the force of prayer, the sweet, dear Friend who never misunderstands
us, never forsakes us, neve