wisdom_" (Isa. xxviii. 26-29).

When man required in the old time direct teaching of great religious
truths and realities, God inspired prophets and seers, but the world
required also to be educated, regulated, civilised. Therefore poets,
painters, _litterateurs_, artists, and artificers were called for, by
deep needs of humanity. God answered the need by giving the marvellous
gift in various forms and degrees to men who had understanding of their
times, and who by special insight were able to give impulses to progress
in every direction. This truth is powerfully stated by a German
metaphysician:--"Nothing calls us more powerfully to adore the living God
than the appearance and embodiment of genius upon the earth. Whatever in
the ordinary course of things we may choose to attribute to the
mechanical process of cause and effect, the highest manifestations of
intellect can be called forth only by the express will of the original
Mind, independent of second causes. Genius descends upon us from the
clouds precisely where we least look for it. Events may be calculated,
predicted--spirits never; no earthly oracle announces the appearance of
genius: the unfathomable will of the Creator suddenly calls to it--Be!"[1]

The Apostle Paul says concerning the Christ, "_IN HIM were all things
created_" (Col. i. 16). Everything in the universe became objective,
because they were first subjective in Christ, the second Person in the
adorable Trinity. All things were made from forms and types which were
in Himself before they were impressed on Creation. The infinite glories
of sky, and air, and sea, the beauties of the tree, the flower, the bird,
and all forms of life, the fleeting and recurring grandeurs that paint
the seasons and the years, are all but revelations of the boundless
resources and the ineffable beauties and qualities of the mind of Christ,
our Master and Teacher. Our craving of genius, and its never-dying