Our Master | Page 8

of a joiner, and worked with Joseph at the carpenter's bench. His associates and friends were of the village community, and He "whose Name is above every name" passed to and fro and in and out among the cottage homes of the poor--as one of themselves. Probably none but His mother had, in these early years, any true idea of the mysterious promise which had been given concerning Him.
What a contrast it all presents to the years of stress and storm and of victory which were to follow, and to the supreme influence His teaching and example were to exert in the world!
Is there not something here for us? Do not the lowly origin and simple country habits and humble tastes of some of our comrades make them hesitate on the threshold of great efforts, when they ought to leap forward in the strength of their God? Let them remember their Master, and take courage. Let them call to mind the unfashionable, uneducated, uncultivated surroundings of Nazareth. Let them bear in mind the carpenter's shed, the rough country work, the bare equipment of the village home, the humble service of the family life. Let them, above all, remember the plain and gentle mother, and the meek and lowly One Himself, and in this remembrance let them go forward.
To be of lowly origin, or of a mean occupation; to come out of poverty and want; to be looked down upon by the rich or the powerful ones of earth; to be treated as of no consequence by governments and rulers, and yet to go on doing and daring, suffering and conquering for God and right; what is all this but the fulfilment of Paul's words, "And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence"? Nay, what is it all but to tread in the very steps that the Master trod?

III.
His High Nature.
But if, on the human side, our Redeemer's origin and circumstances were of the humblest, and we are thus enabled to see His humanity, as it were face to face, there was united with it the Divine nature; so that as our Doctrines say, "He is truly and properly God, and He is truly and properly man." Many mysteries meet by the side of that manger, some of them to remain mysteries, so far as human understanding can grapple with things, till God Himself reveals them to our stronger vision in the world to come. But, blessed be God, some, things that we cannot compass with our mental powers are very grateful to our hearts.
How Thou canst love me as I am, Yet be the God Thou art, Is darkness to my intellect, But sunshine to my heart.
And we to whom the Living Christ has spoken the word of life and liberty, although we may not now fully comprehend this great wonder of all wonders --God manifest in the flesh--and may not be able effectively to make it plain to others, we cannot for ourselves doubt its central truth-- that GOD dwelt with man.
Here was, indeed, a perfect union of two spirits. There was the suffering and obedient spirit of the true _man_; there was the unchanging and Holy Spirit of the true God. It was a union--it was a unity. It was God in man--it was man in God. A being of infinite might and perfect moral beauty, sent forth from the bosom of the Father; and yet a being of lowly and sensitive tenderness, having roots in our poor human nature, tempted in all points like as we are, and touched with the feeling of all our infirmities.
Is it not to something of the same kind we are called? Is not every true Salvation Army Officer designed by God to be also (not, of course, in the same degree, but still up to the measure of his own capacity and of his Master's will) a dual, or two-fold creature, with associations and roots and attachments in all that is human, and yet with the divine life, the divine spirit, divine love, divine zeal, divine power, divine fire united with him and dwelling in him?
The perfect man would have been a great marvel, a great teacher, a great prophet; but without the God he could never have been the perfect Saviour. The Divine, without the human, would have been an awe-inspiring fact, a spectacle of holiness too great for human eyes; but He could not have been a Saviour. If it were possible for us to conceive the one without the other we should certainly not find a JESUS in either.
And so, your merely human Officer, no matter how pure, how strong, how