measure that they see the man in Him who taught us of God. For men
need not so much a God who has come down as a man who has attained to
God, not a descent, but an ascent, one who is the life and the truth
because He is the way which they may tread up to the glory that is
their heritage and the God who is their own.



THE LIFE THAT LIFTS

To any save the few in the group of His friends that statement of Jesus
that being lifted up He would draw all men to Him must have sounded
like the ravings of one deluded. It has taken the centuries to show
that He was right. He was right in His estimation of His life's end;
it was a lifting up. His enemies thought it a casting down, a defeat;
He knew it to be a triumph. Sorrow, injustice, oppression, hatred, the
things that seem to crush are the things that elevate. Only by
opposition has any life discovered power. The fiercer blow these winds
the firmer grows the tree. Out of the petty persecutions, the
countless meannesses, the littleness of those who oppose him the great
soul builds its greatness. It is, and ever has been by a cross that
men are lifted up. History abounds with prisons, gibbets, and crosses
which have become thrones of eternal glory.

Whether we shall be cast down or lifted up depends upon ourselves;
neither enemies nor adverse circumstances have the power to do this.
The soul that seeks the stars builds its staircase out of the stones
flung by the persecutor, out of the rocks of difficulties. If your
heart is great, my brother, nothing can keep you from greatness; if it
is mean, no amount of o'ervaulting ambition can make you other than a