spective of values is the perspective of the Infinite Father. The mother, with the infant in her arms, looking out upon the boundless starlit universe, awestruck by the sense of its wildness and vastness, yet feeling that her child is infinitely more precious than the countless cosmic splendors upon which she is gazing, is the human parable of God's heart. The Sistine Madonna pictures the soul of the Gospel. There is the Divine Child, divinely beautiful, but frail, inexpressibly frail. There is the mother, holding her child with a sense of her infinite treasure, with the sense, too, of the terrible forces that may tear that child from her arms. The mother's sense of the worth, the unutterable worth of her child is again the human parable of God's attitude toward man. As the Madonna feels toward the Divine Child, so Jesus felt toward mankind; as Jesus felt toward mankind, so God feels; he ranks next himself not the universe of things, but the little world of man. "Fear not, little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." The estimates of God, interpreted by the estimates of the human heart, interpreted by the estimates of the heart of our Lord Jesus; this, I repeat, is the inmost sanctuary of our faith.

"Above the heavens"; these are the great words of faith. The Eternal Mind is above all; the

beings made in the image of the Eternal are also above the heavens, above all things in space and time, as a value to God, above the whole material universe. When heart and flesh fail, it is not because we are crushed, the higher by the lower, the rational by the irrational, the spiritual by mere brute matter; when we fail and die it is by the order of the Eternal good will. Our bereavement is in the plan of God for us; our sorrow is his austere kindness; our death is the call of the Infinite Mind to the finite mind to enter into closer communion with him. Things, events, changes, experiences, dissolutions are but the agents of the Mind whose glory is above the heavens. Across the wild dance and mad whirl of this time-world we catch the flying song of faith and we send its sure triumphant notes back over the boundless domain of apparent hostility to man: "If God is for us who is against us?" We believe that the sovereign things in the universe are God's mind, God's heart, God's character; we believe that the sovereign values in time are not physical magnitudes and powers, but truth, love, and good will expressed in service. Above the heavens is the glory of God; above the heavens, in life and in death, is the value of man.

VII

THE MYSTIC AND HIS IDEAL

"And Enoch walked with God."

Gen. v, 24.

You recall that supremely beautiful incident in the Gospel according to Luke, the walk to Emmaus. Two disciples of the crucified Jesus left Jerusalem for the village of Emmaus. They were overcome with sorrow over the loss of their Master. Their lives, their people, their world seemed to them wrapt in hopeless gloom. Sad at heart and yet able to speak their sorrow to one another they journeyed onward. As they went, a mysterious stranger joined them; he drew from them a full confession of the cause of their grief; he showed them how foolish that grief was. He captivated them with the majesty and tenderness of his spirit, and at the journey's end while their hearts burned under his power he went in to abide with them. In the breaking of bread that followed he was revealed to them and after this revelation the cloud of mystery again concealed him.

This is the New Testament parallel to the story in the text. The New Testament story is

richer, more tender, more intense and human than that in the text; it is closer to our sympathies, with a more potent appeal to imagination. Still the best commentary on the meaning of the words, "Enoch walked with God," is found in the journey of those disciples from Jerusalem to Emmaus in the unconscious but enfolding presence of the Risen Lord.

It is, indeed, possible that we read Christian meanings into these primitive words, "Enoch walked with God." It may be that we should picture a child's idea of God and a child's idea of man's fellowship with God. It may be that for this primitive soul God was simply another and greater man; God's soul was in a body as Enoch's soul was in a body; each saw the other, each heard the other, each took the other by the hand, and on his way through the years Enoch took his daily walk with God.

Since we cannot settle the question of how much of our own best thought we can surely find in primitive words, it is safest to take them in the way of parable. We may read into old words more than they originally contained; we may find in them much less than was in them at the beginning. The danger of under-estimation is quite as great as that of over-estimation, and under-estimation is a mean mistake. If we take the words of the text in the way of parable, we

shall see in them a path of revelation over which have come many of the mightiest spirits and also a multitude of lowly souls.

The mystic is one who sees all things in God. Sensuous vision beholds all things in space, infinite space. The homes of men are there, the cities of men, the trade of men by land and sea; all living things are in space. Our pendant world is in space; the sun and the planets are there and the countless host of stars; everything that can be seen or heard or felt has its place in this mystery of all-containing space.

In the Eternal Spirit, all things, all events, all beings have their place. The material universe is one aspect of the Infinite Spirit; the world of intelligence is another aspect. The soul of man looks inward and beholds the subtle, elusive, mysterious, pervasive, all-containing God, as the eye looks outward and sees the universal wonder of space. For the mystic the universe, cosmic and human, is the perpetual apocalypse of God. The universe lives and moves and has its being in God. He is in immediate and continuous presentation to the mystical soul; He is the ideal truth, beauty, goodness, and blessedness of all worlds; He is the king immortal and invisible whom the eye of the soul may habitually behold. His presence in human existence is the source of all our standards of right, of all our measures of love,