"Well, but how could the Good Book say that God created man in His own image?"
"Do you remember what Paul said, in his wonderful epistle to the Corinthians? He answered your question when he wrote, 'There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body ... and as we have borne the image of the earthly, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly.' What does the Bible say that God is, Rose?"
"'God is a spirit,'" whispered Smiles, reverently.
"Exactly. And Dr. MacDonald will tell you that 'spirit' comes from a Latin word which means 'breath.' When God perceived that some of the earth creatures had, according to His plan, developed sufficiently in mind so that they could rule the world, He breathed into them some of His own spirit, and thus created them in His own image—for of course a spirit hasn't form and shape like beings of flesh and blood."
"Hasn't He?" gasped the girl. "Why, there is a picture of Him, like a great big man with long beard, in my Bible."
"Merely symbolic, dear child, and I have always felt that it was a vain symbolism, in both senses of that word. You look them up in your new dictionary to-morrow. In trying hard to picture God, men have made Him in the likeness of the most wonderful things their eyes had ever seen—themselves—and just increased His size. As for the beard, that is supposed to be a sign of power and strength.
"Of course, in fact, God isn't a man or even a super-man, but a spirit, combining the spiritual elements of both male and female."
"I reckon I jest hev ter think of er somebody fer ter worship," broke in the hitherto silent Jerry. "Jest something like ther wind air er bit too onsartain fer me."
"And for millions of others," answered the minister quickly. "Of course there isn't the slightest bit of harm in people thinking of Our Heavenly Father as a Being with a form which our eyes might see if they were only given the power to behold heavenly, as well as earthly, things. The conception of the Omnipotent as a physical embodiment has in the past been of incalculable advantage in making an appeal to an aboriginal type of mind, since it really requires some sort of material personification, which it can at least visualize, the conception of which serves as an incentive for well-doing, and a deterrent from evil doing. It is therefore infinitely preferable as a working basis to an unembodied force."
Big Jerry brought a smile to the lips of the other two men by bursting out, "Durned ef I understand. Them words air too powerful ederkated fer me."