God is love. And to make religion
akin to Friendship is simply to give it the highest expression
conceivable by man. But if by demurring to "a common friendship" is
meant a protest against the greatest and the holiest in religion
being spoken of in intelligible terms, then I am afraid the
objection is all to real. Men always look for a mystery when one
talks of sanctification, some mystery apart from that which must ever
be mysterious wherever Spirit works. It is thought some peculiar
secret lies behind it, some occult experience which only the
initiated know. Thousands of persons go to church every Sunday
hoping to solve this mystery. At meeting, at conferences, many
a time they have reached what they thought was the very brink of
it, but somehow no further revelation came. Poring over religious
books, how often were they not within a paragraph of it; the next
page, the next sentence, would discover all, and they would be
borne on a flowing tide forever. But nothing happened. The next
sentence and the next page were read, and still it eluded them;
and though the promise of its coming kept faithfully up to the end,
the last chapter found them still pursuing.
Why did nothing happen? Because there was nothing to happen--nothing
of the kind they were looking for.
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