But there were in His days upon earth some sticklers for the old spelling forms. Not the oldest, mind you. Jesus alone stands for that. This Jesus didn't observe the idioms that had grown up outside of Eden. These people had decided that these old forms were the only ones acceptable. And so they disliked Him from the beginning, and quarrelled with Him. These idioms were dearer to them than life--that is, than _His_ life. So having quarrelled, they did _worse_, and then--softly--_worst_. But even in their worst, Jesus was God spelling Himself out in the old simple language of Eden. His best came out in their worst. Some of the great nouns of the Eden tongue--the _God_ tongue--He spelled out big. He spelled out _purity_, the natural life of Eden; and _obedience_, the rhythmic harmony of Eden; and _peace_, the sweet music of Eden; and _power_, the mastery and dominion of Eden; and _love_, the throbbing heart of Eden. It was in biggest, brightest letters that _love_ was spelled out. He used the biggest capitals ever known, and traced each in a deep dripping red, with a new spelling--s-a-c-r-i-f-i-c-e. <u>Jesus is God, following us up.</u> You see, the heart of God had been breaking--_is_ breaking over the ways things have been going down on this planet. Folk fail to understand Him. Worse yet, they misunderstand Him, and feel free to criticize Him. Nobody has been so much slandered as God. Many are utterly ignorant of Him. Many others who are not ignorant yet ignore Him. They turn their faces and backs. Some give Him the cut direct. The great crowd in every part of the world is yearning after Him: piteously, pathetically, most often speechlessly yearning, blindly groping along, with an intense inner tug after Him. They know the yearning. They feel the inner, upward tug. They don't understand what it is for which they yearn, nor what will satisfy. For man was made to live in closest touch with God. That is his native air. Out of that air his lungs are badly affected. This other air is too heavy. It's malarial, and full of gases and germy dust. In it he chokes and gasps. Yet he knows not why. He gropes about in the night made by his own shut eyes. He doesn't seem to know enough to open them. And sometimes he _will_ not open them. For the hinge of the eyelid is in the will. And having shut the light out, he gets tangled up in his ideas as to what _is_ light. He puts darkness for light, and light for darkness.