The minister finds the land of the world, like some vast
tract of uncivilized territory, seized by wild squatters, owned and
settled by other parties, and, as a famous political-economist said
in another connection, there is no cover at Nature's table for him.
As with the soldier in the play, whose wars were over, _his_
"occupation's gone."
What is the minister, then? A ghost, or a figure like some in the
shop-window, all made up of dead cloth and color into an appearance of
life? Verily, he comes almost to that. But no such shape, no spectre
from extinct animation of thousands of years ago, like the geologist's
skeletons reconstructed from lifeless strata of the earth, can answer
the vital purposes of the revelation from God. Of no pompous or
abstract ritual administration did the Son of God set an example. He
had a parable for the steward living when _He_ did; He called
King Herod, then reigning, _a fox_, and the Scribes and Pharisees
hypocrites; He declared the prerogatives of His Father beyond Caesar's;
He maintained a responsibility of human beings coextensive with the
stage and inseparable from the smallest trifle of their existence. He
did not limit His marvellous tongue to antiquities and traditions.
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