Picton: 'We
of all schools, whether orthodox or heterodox so-called, whether
believers or unbelievers in supernatural revelation, all who seek the
revival of religion, the exaltation of morality, the redemption of man,
draw, most of us, our direct impulse, and all of us, directly or
indirectly, our ideals from the speaking vision of the Christ. Such a
claim is justified, not merely by the spiritual power still remaining
in the Church, {88} but almost as much by the tributes paid, and the
uses of the Gospel teaching made in the writings of the most
distinguished among rationalists.... Such writers have felt that
somehow Jesus still holds, and ought to hold, the heart of humanity
under His beneficial sway. Excluding the partial, imperfect and
temporary ideas of Nature, spirits, hell, and heaven, which the
Galilean held with singular lightness for a man of His time, they have
acquiesced in and even echoed His invitation to the weary and heavy
laden, to take His yoke upon them and learn of Him. And that means to
live up to His Gospel of the nothingness of self, and of unreserved
sacrifice to the Eternal All in All.'[14] If such is the conclusion of
Rationalism and of Pantheism, how much more ought it to be the
conclusion of Christianity. The imagination of a God confined to times
and places, visiting the world only occasionally, {89} manifesting
Himself in the past and not in the present, ought to be as foreign to
the Christian Church as to any Rationalist or Pantheist. Be it ours to
show that we believe in God Who filleth all things with His presence,
Who is from Everlasting to Everlasting, that to us there is but one God
the Father, by Whom are all things and we in Him, and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, by Whom are all things and we by Him, that God has identified
Himself with us in Jesus Christ, His Son. Be it ours to lose ourselves
in Him. For, after all our questionings as to the government of the
world, as to abounding misery and degradation, as to what lies beyond
the veil for ourselves and for others, this is our hope and our
confidence: 'God hath concluded all in unbelief that He might have
mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past
finding out. For who hath {90} known the mind of the Lord? or who hath
been His counsellor? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be
recompensed unto Him again? For of Him and throug