The Rev. Frank W. Gun saulus the demands he shall make upon his leader and friend, as the future waits for his eager feet. It needs no discussion to satisfy the race that the flights which the mind of man has yet made are but as those winged voyages which birds take, always to come back to earth and perch upon some leafy branch, or rest upon some mountain crag, or stop over some loved nest. Every flight, however, helps the soul to appreciate the dawning fact that man's wings, and the mental air which surrounds this planet of his thoughts, indicate a flight to be begun soon, which shall never wheel backward to this dear world from which he practiced, but which shall extend beyond death and time. Is it strange that as man finds this out, he should feel anxious for a safe companion in this mighty trip? As he loks out upon the route, and into his own soul at its believed yearnings, he finds that his guiding and inspiring friend must answer to these desires for rest of heart in the Absolute; these aspiration for harmony of thought with the Infinite Soul of all; these fluttering waitings of the will for freedom in the Will of the universe. All great literature is the story of these and their heavy demand upon the leader and friend of immortal man. Hence, I do not call it irreverence, but piety unto the interests involved, that, in this age, man should look to Him who first told him of his destined trip God-ward, and wonder in secret, and in the public musings of science and philosophy, if, when the intellect has flown far beyond its present confines, in the future life of man here or elsewhere, it shall not have to stop where there is no resting place, where flight back to earth is impossible; where flight beyond is unknown; where this Christ, who inspired it to use its wings, becomes a stranger also to the undiscovered and unknown. Can this friend to the intellect of man continue until man is at one with God? I am convinced that this question, which shall be recurrent in every era, is answered in the unique and transcendant nature of Jesus as a friend. Everything that Jesus did-because of everything which Jesus was—has a reach of power and a date in eternity fixed only by the immortality of man, and the being of the everlasting God. While He lived in the midst of the finite His conversation showed that His soul was at home with the infinite. You have to suppose an infinity to understand His simplest statement, and because He was while here familiar with the infinities which man seeks, and on such terms of fellowship with the Absolute as to name it "Father," and say: "I and the Father are The Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus The Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus one," His friendship unto man, as an element of the at-one-ment, will, therefore, last forever, because sin-stained man requires a forever in which to be at-oned to the Holy God. Whatever Jesus is to man here below, it can only be the beginning of that at-onement which He will accomplish as the unnumbered ages roll away. Until man's nature, which now has an unconquerable tendency toward God-likeness, comes to be Godlike, he will stand in need of such a friend. His starward path has its beginning in what Jesus was as a friend on earth and its ending in what Jesus is in the Being of God. That is the span of the at-one-ing bridge. Unto the remotest moment, so long as the intellect of man has found itself less than able to grasp infinite problems, will it beat its tireless wings in the air of the balmy eternity. Shall it ever fail to find the familiar friend who lured it first to try flying in the infinity? I look into the intellect of Jesus and bring back the news: never! Unto the last, so long as the feelings of man discover their inability to thrill with the joy of God, they will rise unto new eyries and sweep in new circles in the everbrightening day. Shall they ever rise so high in the lapse of aeons that this dear friend who first tempted them to rise upon their wings shall no more invite them on? Until the last, last hour, so long as man's will is not traveling the same infinite paths in which God moves, so long as the human volition moves not to bear immortalities as naturally as the Diety bears a universe, it will pierce new skies and rise over new galaxies in that perpetual dawn. I look into the will of Jesus, and the human God says with a meaning that broke the grasp of death and put out the fires of hell: never! I will never forsake you. "If it were not so, I would have told you." When the Christ thus brings man home, and the child humanity finds his intellect and feelings and will thus unembarrassed with the infinities and unaffrighted with the eternity, the at-one-ment will be complete. Other beautiful dreams may be found lodged in the driftwood of the world. Him as a friend, shall we always call our own; yet we shall know that if we could have all of Him, He could not be so truly ours. Blessed dream! always will it be being realized, yet evermore shall it last, because we are finite and He is infinite. Franks Suncaulus The Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus |