To Him nothing was without purpose. The sports of the child, the toils of the man, life’s pleasures and cares and pains, all were means to the one end,—the revelation of God for the uplifting of humanity.
“God with Us”
From His lips the word of God came home to men’s hearts with new power and new meaning. His teaching caused the things of creation to stand out in new light. Upon the face of nature once more rested gleamings of that brightness which sin had banished. In all the facts and experiences of life were revealed a divine lesson and the possibility of divine companionship. Again God dwelt on earth; human hearts became conscious of His presence; the world was encompassed with His love. Heaven came down to men. In Christ their hearts acknowledged Him who had opened to them the science of eternity,—
“Immanuel, God with us.”
In the Teacher sent from God, all true educational work finds its center. Of this work to-day as verily as of the work He established eighteen hundred years ago, the Saviour speaks in the words,—
“The First and the Last”
“I am the first and the last, and the Living One.”
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”[[98]]
In the presence of such a Teacher, of such opportunity for divine education, what worse than folly is it to seek an education apart from Him,—to seek to be wise apart from Wisdom; to be true while rejecting Truth; to seek illumination apart from the Light, and existence without the Life; to turn from the Fountain of living waters, and hew out broken cisterns, that can hold no water.