between man and man,
between man and God, not the setting up of another barrier high and
insurmountable. When Christ declares 'No man cometh unto the Father
but by Me,' He is not declaring that the way is difficult and
impassable, He is pointing out a way of deliverance which all may
tread. So far from laying down a hard and burdensome dogma to be
accepted on peril of pains and penalties, He is imparting a hope and a
consolation in which all may rejoice.

If we believe Him to be the Word of God made Flesh, if we see in Him
the Brightness of the Father's glory, it becomes a truism to say that
only through Him can life and healing be imparted to mankind. When He
Himself says, 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,' it is natural for
Him to add, 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.' It will {133}
be granted by all who believe in God that, apart from God, no soul of
man can have life eternal. The most strenuous advocate of the
salvation of the virtuous heathen will grant that their salvation does
not descend from the idol of wood and stone before which they grovel.
It is from the True God, the Living God, that the blessing proceeds.
It is His touch, His Spirit, His Presence which has consecrated the
earnest though erring worship of the poor idolater. No one who
believes in the Infinite and Eternal God could possibly say that the
monstrous image whose aid is invoked by the devout heathen is itself
the answerer of his prayer, the cause of his deliverance from sin, the
bestower of immortality upon him. The utmost that can be said is that
in the costly sacrifices, the painful penances, the passionate prayers
which he presents to the object of his adoration, the Almighty Love
discerns a longing after something nobler and better, {134} and accepts
the service as directed really, though unconsciously, to Him.

The feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened.[1]

But it is the hand of God that they touch. It is from the One
Omnipotent God that every blessing comes: it is the One Omnipotent God
Who turns to truth and life and reality every sincere and struggling
and imperfect attempt to serve Him on the part of those who know not
His Nature or His Name.

And what is true of God is equally true of Christ, the manifestation of
God. Only grant Him to be the Incarnate Word of God, and it becomes
plain that salvation can