We must not stop there just
now.

When the home was ready God set Himself to bringing the new life He was
planning. And He did it, even as father and mother of our human kind and
of every other kind do:--He gave some of Himself. He breathed into man His
own life-breath. He came Himself, and with the warmth and vitality of His
life brought a new life. The new life was a bit of Himself.

That phrase, "breathed into his nostrils," brings to us the conception of
the closest personal, physical contact; two together in most intimate
contact, and life passing from one to the other. The picture of Elijah
stretching his warm body upon that of the widow's son until the
life-breath came again comes instinctively to mind. And its companion
scene comes with it, of Elisha lying prone upon the child, mouth to
mouth, eye to eye, hand to hand, until the breath again softly reentered
that little, precious body.

And if all this seems too plain and homely a way to talk about the great
God, let us remember it is the way of this blessed old Book. It is the
only way we shall come to know the marvellous intimacy and tenderness of
God's love, and of God's touch upon ourselves.

How shall we talk best about God so as to get clear, sensible ideas about
Him? Why not follow the rule of the old Bible? Can we do better? It
constantly speaks of Him in the language that we use of men. The scholars,
with their fondness for big words, say the Bible is anthropomorphic. That
simply means that it uses man's words, and man's ideas of things in
telling about God. It makes use of the common words and ideas, that man
understands fully, to tell about the God, whom he doesn't know. Could
there be a more sensible way? Indeed, how else could man understand?

Some dear, godly people have sometimes been afraid of the use of simple,
homely language in talking about God. To speak of Him in the common
language of every-day life, the common talk of home and kitchen, and shop
and street and trade, seems to them lacking in due reverence. Do they
forget that this is the language of the common people? And of our good old
Anglo-Saxon Bible? Has anybody ever yet used as blunt homely, talk as this
old Book uses? And has any other book stuck into people's memories and
hearts with such burr-like hold as it has?

That breathing by God into man's nostrils of the breath of life suggests
the intensest concentration of strength and thought and heart. The whole
heart of God wen