To all appearances Jesus was as other men in his physical organism. He was born of woman; nourished in the same manner and with the same food; subject to heat and cold, hunger and thirst and weariness. He was pre-eminently the man of sorrows, and more than other men subject to pain. In short he possessed all the organs, dimensions, passions and attributes of man; but in him the passions were refined and so nicely checked and balanced, and the attributes so developed and made subject to the will divine that he was a perfect man--a God! So nearly did he resemble other men that his countrymen, and especially his neighbors, failed to recognize God in him. And when he began his mission among them they said: "Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief."[E] [Footnote E: Matt. xiii, 64-68.] We may now turn our attention to the more immediate object of this writing--the relationship between man and Deity. An important inference may be reasonably based upon this similarity between the Son of God and other men, viz: that if the spirit which inhabited the body of Jesus had an existence before it dwelt in the flesh, is it not possible, and, rather is it not probable, that the spirits of other men, or of all men, also existed before they were born into the world? Since Jesus was so much like his brethren in the many respects noted, it requires no great effort to believe that they resemble him in this particular matter of the pre-existence of their spirits. The question, however, rests upon stronger grounds than mere inference. The Lord said to Job: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? declare if thou hast understanding. * * * Who laid the cornerstone thereof, when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy?"[F] [Footnote F: Job xxxviii, 2-7.] From this scripture one thing is certainly evident, viz: that before the creation of this earth--before the foundation was laid or the measuring line stretched upon it, there were "Sons of God" in existence; and they shouted for joy; perhaps it was at the prospect of the creation of the earth we inhabit that they shouted. And since it was the spirit of Jesus Christ under the direction of God the Father which created the worlds, it is but reasonable to suppose that he was present on that occasion, and may not they have been where the spirit of Job was also?