Common enough in our day is a profession of belief in God as the source
of every good desire and right effort, as inspiring the charity of the
generous, the affection of the loving, the fidelity of the true. But if
our faith is deep and real it brings us much nearer than we usually feel
ourselves to be to Him Who is the Life indeed. The existence and energy
of God are assured to those who have this insight. Every kindness done
by man to man is a testimony against which denial of the Divine life has
no power. Though the intellect searching far afield makes out only as
it were some few dim and indistinct footprints of a Mighty Being Who has
passed by, seen at intervals on the plains of history, then lost in the
morasses or on the rocky ground, there ought to be found in every human
life daily evidence of Divine grace and wisdom. The good, the true, the
noble constantly appeal to men, find men; and through these God finds
them. When a magnanimous word is spoken, God is heard. When a deed is
done in love, in purity, in courage or pity, God is seen. When out of
languor and corruption and self-indulgence men arise and set their faces
to the steep of duty, God is revealed. He in Whom we trust for the
redemption of the world never leaves Himself without a witness, whether
faith perceives or unbelief denies. The human story unfolds a Divine
urgency by which the progress, the evolution of all that is good proceed
from age to age. Man has never been left to nature alone nor to himself
alone. The supernatural has always mingled with his life. He has
resisted often, he has rebelled; yet conscience has not ceased, God has
not withdrawn. This living energy of Jehovah, not only as belonging to
the past but discovered in the new zeal of Israel, Deborah saw, and in
virtue of the revelation she was far before her time. For the fresh life
of the people, for the willing self-devotion of so many to the great
cause, she lifted her voice in praise to Israel's Eternal Friend.
2. The next passage may be called a prologue in the heavens. Partly
historical, it is chiefly a vision of Jehovah's age-long work for His
people. In words that flash and roll the song describes the glorious
advent of the Most High, nature astir with His presence, the mountains
shaking under His tread.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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