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Arthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay), 1809-1885

"Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing"

It had in it a heavenly
sanctity, a purity, a grace and mercy, a gentleness and forbearance,
that seems to me God-like and Divine. Yes--what if God descended and
walked on the earth? I could love Him, that He had lowered Himself
to my comprehension. But God! the Infinite and Eternal! in the
finite human form, undergoing death! I cannot comprehend this. But
what is infinity? When I look within myself and realize my
ever-changing and fleeting feelings, now glancing in expansive
ranges of thought from star to star, I realize an infinity in mind,
that is not of the body. What if it were thus with the Holy Man,
Christ? What if He were God as to the spirit, and man as to the
flesh? If this were so, well may I have wished "to live when Jesus
walked the earth," for He alone could have revealed all things to
me. How wonderful must have been His wisdom! And if His indwelling
spirit were God, then Christ yet lives--lives in some inner world of
love and beauty. Ah, beautiful hope! for, if immortality is my
portion, I may yet see Him, and learn of Him in another existence.
Methinks the night of my soul is passing away; upon the rayless
darkness a star has risen; a fixed star of love and hope; what if
like other fixed stars it prove a sun?
Oh, Christ! holy and beautiful Man! if Thou yet livest in far-away
realms of light and blessedness--grant that I may see Thee, and
learn of Thy wondrous wisdom.


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