weariness for the
absent--if they would fly away, it is only to be at rest. Men who have
no soul can only wonder at this. Men who have a soul, but with little
faith, can only envy it. How joyous a thing it was to the Hebrews to
seek their God! How artlessly they call upon Him to entertain them in
His pavilion, to cover them with His feathers, to hide them in His
secret place, to hold them in the hollow of His hand or stretch around
them the everlasting arms! These men were true children of Nature. As
the humming-bird among its own palm-trees, as the ephemera in the
sunshine of a summer evening, so they lived their joyous lives. And even
the full share of the sadder experience of life which came to all of
them but drove them the further into the Secret Place, and led them with
more consecration to make, as they expressed it, "the Lord their
portion." All that has been said since from Marcus Aurelius to
Swedenborg, from Augustine to Schleiermacher of a besetting God as the
final complement of humanity is but a repetition of the Hebrew poets'
faith. And even the New Testament has nothing higher to offer man than
this. The psalmist's "God is our refuge and strength" is only the
earlier form, less defined, less practicable, but not less noble, of
Christ's "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest."

There is a brief phrase of Paul's which defines the relation with almost
scientific accuracy--"Ye are complete in Him." In this is summed up the
whole of the Bible anthropology--the completeness of man in God, his
incompleteness apart from God.

If it be asked, In what is man incomplete, or, In what does God complete
him? the question is a wide one. But it may serve to show at least the
direction in which the Divine Environment forms the complement of human
life if we ask ourselves once more what it is in life that needs
complementing. And to this question we receive the significant answer
that it is in the higher departments alone, or mainly, that the
incompleteness of our life appears. The lower departments of Nature are
already complete enough. The world itself is about as good a world as
might be. It has been long in the making, its furniture is all in, its
laws are in perfect working order; and although wise men at various
times have suggested improvements, there is on the whole a tolerably
unanimous vote of confidence in things as they exist. The Divine
Environment has little more to do for this planet so far as we can see,