THE DEMOCRACY OF THE CARPENTER


   The plea for a cooperatively ordered society, was a logical part of
his "Be not anxious" commandment. For only in a world's work
reorganized into a united thing, can come that ample and opulent
productivity which would justify a liberal mood of soul. Where the
kindly fruits of the Earth are regarded as a thing to be scuffled for,
the soil yields not its increase as when fellowship holds the plow and
swings the scythe. The wastes of competition, and the ravages of
warfare, reduce the fertility of Nature.
   This personifying of Nature must not be pressed to the point of
exalting her into deity. Deity, as we now know, is moral. And
nature is unmoral. She kills the evil and the good with outrageous
impartiality; she, sends her lightnings, her water floods and her earth-
quakes upon the just and the unjust.  We must turn our steps in
another direction or we will never encounter God.
ET there is a God. Jesus believed in him, and cherished to-
      ward him a tender intimacy. This God he found, not in the
      realm of nature, but in the realm of the ethical-the heaven
which overroofs our human day, and speaks with the magisterial
tones of old eternity. When this Great Unseen was asked by Moses
by what name he should be known, the answer came: "The Lord God
of your fathers; this is my name forever." And it is a definition of
deity which can never be improved upon-"our fathers," that En-
semble whose grand and thundering chorus sheds glory and wisdom
from antique time upon our perishable day.
   The Great Unseen has animated the courage of all the heroic souls
that ever lived. Elisha's servitor, when confusion thickened and foes
multiplied, cried out, "Alas my master! how shall we do?" And
Elisha said: "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they
that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, open his eyes,
that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man;
and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots
of fire round about Elisha."
    Because the Carpenter was of unsealed eyes beholding this Pres-
ence in the world, he sanguinely trusted the future. He knew that
the Unseen is on the side of the people against their despoilers. The
growth of God is democracy ever widening its tide and sweep. Be-
cause God is, freedom shall be. Jesus knew that the social hope was
not a phantasy. In times when his soul was worn down, he would open
the causeway between himself and the Highest; and lo, it was as though
a legion of angels had been sent to succour him; but he quailed not.
Measuring with purest fortitude the pathway ahead, he fared intrep-
idly on, with an energy of purpose which no danger could divert.
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