privileged, for did not they have just as much
worth before their common Father? And they found not just a nation but a
world of brothers.

My second point is, I suppose, in a sense, but a development of the
first one; but it has such significance that it deserves separate
emphasis. It is that this is man's world, as well as God's, or we might
say, because it is God's. Because it is God's world, it is the scene of
great possibilities for the individual man and for the whole social
group. The best is possible at any moment and for every person, and God
sees us in the light of what we may be. The bargain idea of religion as
expressed by Jacob--if you will look after me and keep me then you can
be my God and I will give my worship--is forever swept aside in the
conception that God has made this a world where man can come to his
best, and that when man responds to that vision and tries to live in the
light of it, he is rendering the only service God cares about.

The additional thought which brings the first one to completion is that
this world of those great possibilities is put in man's keeping: it is
for him to create the realities which potentially exist. It is man's
world, for, as St. Paul says, we are God's fellow-workers.

It is unnecessary to detail the expressions Jesus used to bring home to
His hearers the understanding that it was for them to make real what was
only potential. The thought is expressed in the large in the conception
of the kingdom which was to be progressively realized. He announced it
as at hand, outlined its characteristics as a new brotherly set of
relationships and then told them how to bring it about.

He was not one to open before them a fool's paradise. He recognized the
evil, weakness and brutality in the world summed up in the fact that men
generally were living on quite a different basis from that which He set
forth. His was not the advice to shut their eyes to the actual situation
and pretend that it was what they would like to have it. Many have
thought that that was His message; but to give such a word is no more
like Him than the supposition that He meant to encourage them to attempt
what was impossible.

No, He admitted the evil that was present, that tended to obscure the
possibilities which were also there, and told them how they could
overcome and transform that evil and make real the good which had been
overlain. Forgiveness and love were the transforming powers which were