"Such I imagine to be the feelings of God the Father when the sinfulness of humanity grows noisome and dishonours Him, and perhaps threatens to affect His own holiness. He will be wroth and lament--perhaps even feel Himself defiled--rather than cut off the cancerous limb of humanity. Christ is no more represented as beautiful, but with features distorted by the sins of others; these he has taken on himself or drawn to himself, for he who approaches pitch is defiled. In order to be free from the impure element he must die by the destruction of the body. Incarnation involved the greatest suffering of all. "But the death of Christ may also signify that the Father freed himself from the sins of humanity, and broke off connection with the evil race who dishonoured Him. He who will now seek Him must rise to His heights, and gain admission by a pure life. He Himself will descend no more into this valley of filth; the air is too thick, the company too mixed. And that is why things are as they are." =The Atonement.=--The teacher said: "The work of the Atonement has been very difficult for me to understand. Often I have tried to explain in a way satisfactory to myself, but without success. If God had offered up His Son as an atonement for mankind, there would necessarily have been peace and paradisal quietness on earth, but such is not the case. The period of the Roman emperors before Christ was indeed terrible, but the next thousand years were no better; they rather resembled a deluge in which the old nations were exterminated by barbarians. The second millennium was better, very much better. The third will perhaps close with a complete reconciliation between humanity and God. Everything points to that, though the heathen may reign for a while as instruments of chastisement, and executioners and possessors of wealth. The Egyptian has an important part to play, and slavery is not bad as a school of discipline. In the desert one learns the difficult art of loneliness, and in the strange land of Assyria one feels a wholesome home-sickness. Still, when the Egyptian raises his stick to strike, comfort yourself with Christ's words to Pilate, 'Thou wouldest have no power over Me, if it were not given thee from above.' And when you eat the bread of the heathen, think like the Maccabees, 'I eat thy bread, but I do not sacrifice upon thy altar.' Everything is tolerable so long as we do not let ourselves be beguiled into believing that those who are in power are God's friends and favourites. Our fine gentlemen who imagine that they are forwarding development and are the sole trustees of right, progress, and illumination, are only children of this world. Let that be granted them, and much good may it do them!"