mmit the creature he has made, that he may live
in it, and work out its life--develop it according to the idea of it in
his own creating mind. I fall in with his ways for me. I believe in him.
I trust him. I try to obey him. I look to be rendered capable of and
receive a pure vision of his will, freedom from the prison-house of my
limitation, from the bondage of a finite existence. For the finite that
dwells in the infinite and in which the infinite dwells, is finite no
longer. Those who are thus children indeed, are little Gods, the divine
brood of the infinite Father. No mere promise of deliverance from the
consequences of sin, would be any gospel to me. Less than the liberty of
a holy heart, less than the freedom of the Lord himself, will never
satisfy one human soul. Father, set me free in the glory of thy will, so
that I will only as thou willest. Thy will be at once thy perfection and
mine. Thou alone art deliverance--absolute safety from every cause and
kind of trouble that ever existed, anywhere now exists, or ever can
exist in thy universe.'

But the people of the Lord's town, to whom he read, appropriating them,
the gracious words of the prophet, were of the wise and prudent of their
day. With one and the same breath, they seem to cry, 'These things are
good, it is true, but they must come after our way. We must have the
promise to our fathers fulfilled--that we shall rule the world, the
chosen of God, the children of Abraham and Israel. We want to be a free
people, manage our own affairs, live in plenty, and do as we please.
Liberty alone can ever cure the woes of which you speak. We do not need
to be better; we are well enough. Give us riches and honour, and keep us
content with ourselves, that we may be satisfied with our own likeness,
and thou shalt be the Messiah.' Never, perhaps, would such be men's
spoken words, but the prevailing condition of their minds might often
well take form in such speech. Whereon will they ground their complaint
should God give them their hearts' desire? When that desire given closes
in upon them with a torturing sense of slavery; when they find that what
they have imagined their own will, was but a suggestion they knew not
whence; when they discover that life is not good, yet they cannot die;
will they not then turn and entreat their maker to save them after his
own fashion?

Let us try to understand the brief, elliptical narrative of what took
place in the synagogue of Nazar