Christ the Mediator

Text: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." I Timothy 2:5

Here is the test of religions and of religious experience. False religions have many mediators; the true religion has one. A false and superficial religious experience, even among so called Christians, is false and superficial because by reason of too many mediators. The soul is still far from God and unconscious of the imminence of His loving presence. 

Heathenism has many mediators. Evolutionists tell us of humanity slowly struggling upwards from a multitudinous polytheism that deified all the forms and forces of nature, into a gradually increasing recognition of greater and of fewer gods, until at last, the sublime concept of the absolute unity of deity burst upon the wondering and reverent human mind. It is doubtless true that certain tribes and races of men have gone through an evolution similar to this even in historic time. But the question is, did humanity as a whole originally come up through such an evolution, into the recognition of the unity of deity, as a revelation, and apostatizing from this, go down into polytheism!

The Bible clearly states the latter to be true. According to the scriptures at least at two different times, all humanity has had a knowledge of the one and only God. These two times were at the Creation and just after the flood. Paul very clearly tells us how they came into polytheism. 

"Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened." "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things." "Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped the creature more than the Creator." Romans 1:21-25. 

We believe the external evidence of this controversy is plainly on the side of the scripture and against the claims of evolution as a whole. All savage tribes have racial memories or traditions of a golden age, and of a higher state of civilization and of power from which they have fallen. In many cases, some relics of this happier time, implements of the chase, or of husbandry, or of ornamental pottery, have been preserved. Wendell Philips' Famous lecture on "The Lost Arts" startled, and delighted the world, and compelled men to recognize that there had been as many civilizations lost as gained. 

Both Niebuhr and Humboldt showed that the language of all savage tribes is unanswerable evidence that they were once civilized. Such languages are not merely rude, unformed methods of speech, the result of the human mind first struggling up into consciousness and self-consciousness and into the recognition of the existence and the meaning of surrounding objects. Instead of this, in each case, they are the ruins of a once magnificent temple of human speech. Coiled up in the formation of the words are roots expressing abstract and philosophic ideas of which the people have long since become incapable. These ideas have, however, left their traces upon the language, proving it once to have been a means of expression for a cultured and a civilized people. 

The same thing that is shown by the language is also shown by the mythology of heathenism. The belief in the absolute unity of deity is one of the highest concepts of the human mind, infinitely above and beyond the crude ideas of polytheism. But instead of the mythology of heathenism showing the human mind as struggling upward toward this noble concept of the unity of deity it shows them as having fallen therefrom. 

In most cases there is a hazy tradition, lingering as an esoteric knowledge, of the great spiritual fact that God is one. In Egypt, where the polytheism was so multitudinous that it was said "it was easier to find a god than a man", still the initiated retained the knowledge of one God, "The Sacred, Self-Existent, Unnameable One," from whom all the other gods were believed to have descended. 

Why did not these people worship the one God instead of the multitude of lesser gods? Because they had misconceived and misunderstood Him and supposed Him either a God of infinite anger and wrath, one who must be appeased; or one so far above them that his "dwelling was not with flesh", a god indifferent to human joy, or sorrow, supinely satisfied in the contemplation of his own perfection. Therefore, it was through the multitudinous mediation of the lesser gods. The many gods of heathenism were simply the many mediators which the sinning, wandering soul of man had placed between them and the imagined wrath or indifference of the Father god of heathenism. 

People reason in just the same way today, even in Christian lands. Men who have studied God's works through the telescope until they are profoundly impressed with the limitlessness of space, and with the infinity of suns and worlds and systems of suns and worlds, until they begin to feel that God is far off, and too big to notice their little cares and joys, should lay aside the telescope and pick up the microscope. Then they would discover beneath them an infinite variety of living creatures too small to be visible to the naked eye, yet not too small for the Creator to have thought out beforehand, all their needs and their adaptations to their surroundings. We can learn, too, from the study of botany that the buds come on the trees in accordance with a mathematical law, and that God has numbered them all be1`fore they come. Faith sees but a little way from this to the truth that Jesus taught, "the very hairs of your head are all numbered, fear ye not, therefore, for ye are of more value than many sparrows." 

The prophet Isaiah calls our attention to the vastness of the creation above us, thus: "Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their hosts by number; He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might; for that He is strong in power not one of them faileth." Isaiah 40-26. "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and why speakest thou, 0. Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard that the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary, and there is no searching of His understanding?" 

From the very fact of the infinity of God's created universes all kept in harmonious action by His constant care, the prophet reasons, not that God is too far away and too busy to care for us, but that He is so infinite in understanding and so limitless in power and so imminently and lovingly present that no care, or joy or sorrow of ours can possibly escape His attention, or weary Him. To believe this is to believe in God, the God of the Bible. 

"Atheism" is from "Theos" - God, and "A" a negative, meaning "no-God", or "God- outness" in human life, and many people are atheists and do not know it when they believe in God controlling the universe and keeps them in their courses, but think he is too far away to care for us. In the time of their supremist need the Chaldean wise men and magicians and astrologers said, "It is a rare thing that the King requireth and there is none other that can show it before the King, except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh." But that same supreme God so dwelt and so communed with His servant Daniel and revealed His secrets to him as to save the lives, not only of Daniel and his friends, but also of these wise men, who like many modern wise men, did not believe in God's presence. 

The unbelieving, faithless, misunderstanding heart of man has ever put God far away, with many mediators between Him and the hungry human soul which only He can satisfy; but when Jesus came, He was "Emmanuel" which being interpreted is God with us. By every revelation and every symbol, God had been trying to show that He wanted to dwell with us and walk with us, but we could not understand and we put Him far away. So, He sent His only begotten and well-beloved Son to reveal anew the nearness of His Father heart. 

The one supreme effort of Jesus, the Christ, was so to reveal God as the Infinite loving All Father that each repentant, returning wanderer might not only come back to the Father's House, but also to the Father's open "everlasting arms." Every soul was to be brought into direct communion with God by the Spirit. 

When the disciples would not come, as Jesus did, to the invisible God, because of the visible presence of Christ Himself, Jesus said, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you."  It is so much easier for the human heart to seek its satisfaction in the visible love and visible, sympathy than to come to the invisible. Nevertheless, pointing His disciples forward to the time when His teachings should be fully realized in their lives, He said to them, "In that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you." 

Of the man who came into this desired relation with God, Jesus said, "My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." To His disciples He said: "Be not ye called Rabbi; for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." "And call no man your father upon earth, for one is your Father, which is in heaven. This is not speaking of physical things, and does not prohibit us calling our earthly parent, Father, but spiritually, we are not to call Abraham or Peter or Paul or Martin Luther or John Wesley, or any other man our father, for we are each to be "born of God." The great apostacy changed all this. 

ROMANISM HAS MANY MEDIATORS: The mystery of self-exaltation introduced into the church exalted the clergy above the laity, the bishops above the elders, the metropolitan bishops above the bishops, the patriarchs above the metropolitans, and finally gave us a prince of the patriarchs, the pope. The people must call the priests and all the clergy, "father". The priests must call the bishops and all above them, "father." Even the archbishops must call the cardinal’s "father". And the Pope (taken from papa) father is supposed to be the spiritual father to them all. 

Thus, all of these and also the institution of the Church itself, are placed in between God and the human soul as mediators. Even the meetinghouse, to exalt its importance, is considered sacred ground, so that individuals come there for their personal prayers, never thinking, as Jesus taught, that they can find God equally well in their own secret chamber, with the door closed. Always there must be some visible presence, or image as of Christ on the cross. These hung in the room will make it possible to pray there. 

Jesus sought to place each individual soul in naked spiritual touch with the invisible God, even seeking to take His own personality out from between man and His Maker. 

The Roman Church does just the opposite. It thrusts its Church institution, its Pope, its Cardinals, its Archbishops, its Bishops, and its Priests all of them between the human soul and God. The people must confess their inmost thoughts, and their secret sins to a priest as weak and sinful as themselves and find pardon and absolution from him. By all these means they are led away from the direct Spiritual contact with the invisible God. The poor soul never dreaming they can find God and comfort, pardon, salvation and peace. 

Every one of the seven sacraments of the Church are ordinances absolutely necessary to the salvation of each member, and each one of these can be administered by an ordained and consecrated priest only. Thus, by this seven-fold means the salvation of each individual is made dependent upon other individuals. The power of these individuals to save is made dependent upon still other individuals as human and fallible as themselves. Thus, the Church and all the hierarchy of the church from the priest up to the Pope, himself, both individually and collectively, so many mediators, without which the soul cannot approach God or find salvation. 

But this earthly mediation is not sufficient to satisfy him who would nullify all of Christ’s teachings of "God with us", but there must also be many heavenly mediators. Between God and us stands Christ, and we can approach the Father through His intercession; but between Christ and us, is the canonized and deified Virgin Mary, to whom a hundred prayers are sent up to one sent up to Christ. And beside these, there are still a whole hierarchy of canonised saints, all of them mediators and intercessors, to whom innumerable prayers are said. 

Thus, God is moved so far away, and men are intuitively led to feel that He is hard and cold and indifferent to our sorrows and our joys, that hardly anyone would think of coming to Him alone. Could anything be more utterly false from the teachings of Jesus? For He said, "in that day", when we knew and understood the loving Father He came to reveal to us, we should not even pray to Christ anymore, but all our prayers should ascend to the Father in Christ's name. 

PROTESTANTISM professes to have but one mediator, the man Christ Jesus. When Luther began preaching the Reformation he did not preach a negative gospel, - he did not attack the Roman system. He preached a positive gospel of justification by faith, - the gospel of the Bible as he saw it. He showed that a man in the middle of He preached a positive the great Sahara Desert, all alone, without pope or bishop or priest or sacrament can find God, through repentance and faith, and know the salvation of His forgiving love. The whole Roman system took fright at this, and attacked Luther with all the world-long, worldwide venom of ecclesiasticism and compelled him to defend himself by a counterattack. 

But sad to relate Protestantism has not always been true to its noble profession of having but one mediator. When Jesus said "It is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come to you," thus removing His visible physical presence from between the man and his soul's spiritual contact with the invisible God, it is evident that He did not intend His mystic body, the church to occupy the place that He had refused. The Church was to be the company of those who being individually in communion with the invisible God, would be in perfect harmony, and in loving fellowship with each other. They were thus by their companionship, and mutual love to encourage each other and to help each individual through every temptation and every trial to maintain this spiritual relation with the invisible infinite ever unbroken. 

But often the Church has thrust itself into the very place which Jesus refused and has said to the individual "you can come to God only through me." Thus, the Church has made itself a mediator and the individual who was "espoused, as a chaste virgin to Christ," has been "defiled by the woman." This wickedness began soon after the flood; Nimrod organized a state church and builded a temple and a tower, and called it Babel, from the "Bab", gate, and "el", God; Babel, the gate to God. In other words, Nimrod made his official church a mediator, and said "This is the gate to God, you can be saved only by coming in through our church." From that day to this every church that has thrust itself into the place that Jesus refused even for his human, visible self, making itself a mediator, and saying to its people, "you can be saved only through us," has defiled its worshippers, and proclaimed itself a part of Babylon. 

Sometimes it is a conference or a Synod or some other externalism, or a personified creed that is thrust in between the soul and God, and the individual is made to feel that he can only approach God in this officially ordained way. Under these circumstances, all these things become false mediators. The Infinite heart of the loving Father God, is ever, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit, tenderly feeling out after every lost and wandering soul, and wherever and whenever the repentant soul lifts its heart in recognition of the Divine Presence, it can find pardon and peace and the fulness of salvation. Protestantism needs to ever remember that he who preaches anything short of this does not preach the gospel of Christ in its fulness. 

FALSE MEDIATION: There are not only multitudes of false mediators but there is also false mediation. Very many Protestants who believe that Christ is the only mediator still have a wrong view of what Christ's mediation is. The "falling away" that Paul speaks of, or the great apostacy that transformed early Christianity from itself into Romanism, with its many mediators, did so by bringing in a heathen concept of God, as a stern, hard, cold and arbitrary being. This heathen concept of Deity brought into the Church not only the many mediators between us and this angry God, but it brought also a false view of the atonement with its heathen idea of sacrifice in the place of the Christian idea. It brought also the false idea of mediation that Christ, as mediator, stood between the angry God and us to ward off His wrath and to induce Him to be merciful. 

The thought of mediation as of the merciful Christ standing between us and the stern, unmerciful God, interceding with Him to be merciful to sinning, repentant man, is perhaps still the prevailing thought of mediation in the so-called Christian world. But this is not the thought of the Bible. Two texts will clearly show this. These ideas of mediation is clearly based on the thought that God, of Himself, is unwilling to save man, and unwilling to hear his prayers. 

But the very verse before the one chosen as our text herein says of God, that "He willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." 

The reason that there is a mediator is because God wills that we should be saved, and has chosen this way, through Christ, to reveal to us His salvation. For the Bible here, as everywhere, always presents the idea that salvation is of God. That is, God is the source, and Christ is the means through whom God saves men. The other text which should end this false concept of mediation is the word of Jesus Himself: 

"I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father, Himself loveth you." The word "pray" in the margin is "make request of." Jesus says in effect, "It is not even necessary that I should make request of God for you for when I have showed you plainly of the Father, you will understand that He loves you and you can ask for yourself, in my name." (See John 16:25-27) 

And this is because the will of God does not have to be changed, or in any way modified by the mediation of Christ, "for this is the will of God, even your sanctification." I Thessalonians 4:3. Language could not be framed to more positively and completely contradict this false view of mediation than do these words of Jesus and of Paul. 

TRUE MEDIATION: But if Christ's work as mediator is not to change God's mind concerning us nor to stand between an angry God and offending man, what is the real scriptural thought of His mediation? Christ is a revealer of the Father. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only Begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." "Jesus said unto them, I am the way, no man cometh unto the Father but by me." John 14:6. And again "No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son, and he to whosoever the Son will reveal Him." 

We might give you an illustration of this. If you have no scientific knowledge of music a musical score would mean nothing to you, but your hearing ears have a fine sense of harmony. A Wagner or Mozart writes a symphony, and all creative art is an effort at self-revelation. The artist places himself into the picture or the sculptor into his statue. Each has sought to make a spiritual revelation of himself. All will agree that the heart of the master musician must first thrill at the beauty of the melody and vibrate to the grandeur of every harmony before he can combine all these harmoniously into his symphony. The artist or musician has done his utmost to reveal himself, and without a mediator, his work, so far as you are concerned is a failure. 

The mediator here is a musician, who, taking the score, and seating himself at the piano translates it into sound. Immediately the heart of the Master Musician stands revealed to your musical sense and your own heart swells and vibrates in unison with the heart of him who wrote the music. But it was impossible for you to come to this knowledge without a mediator. 

What is true of the Master Musician is true also of Him who caused "The morning stars to sing together, and all the sons or God to shout for joy," "God is a Spirit." We do not know fully what these words mean, but we know that the spiritual is a higher plane of existence than the mere physical. We know that man partakes in part of the nature of both and that it is only by being "born from above", begotten by the "Father of Spirits" that the spiritual in man is given controlling precedence over the physical. 

It seems to be in the nature of Spirit to require mediation in communing with us. Even evil spirits, in order to communicate, seek mediums. And when in other words, God had someone through whom He could reveal Himself. He said, Jesus was here, Emmanuel, God with us, God said, "A body hast thou prepared me." that is Jesus said, "He that seeth me, seeth the Father." This was not true physically. The Pharisees saw Jesus physically and thought they saw only a blasphemer and one possessed of a devil. 

But Jesus said to Philip, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?" "He that hath seen me, known me or seen me spiritually, "Hath seen the Father; how sayest thou then, show us the Father?" The whole work of Christ is so to reveal the Father as to place each soul who really sees the Son, into living spiritual communion with the Father. This not only was true, but it is true. It was true of the incarnate life of Christ, in the man, Christ Jesus, but it is also true of the work of Christ from eternity to eternity, that He is ever the Mediator. 

"God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." Darkness is what conceals; light is what reveals. In our trials we sometimes feel that God has hidden His face from us, but this is not true. God never seeks to hide Himself. He has always sought by every possible method so to reveal Himself, that we could see Him and know Him, for this "is life eternal, to know God," and "He is the fountain of life," life outflowing for us all. 

God sought to reveal Himself through Creation. "The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth His handiwork." Paul tells us that even the invisible things of God are clearly seen by the things that He has made, so that the heathen are without excuse. Romans 1:19-20. 

But this revelation of God in creation is through Christ, the Mediator. We are told that "God created all things by Jesus Christ," and that "God hath spoken unto us by His Son, by whom also He made the worlds." John tells us, "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." Paul says of Christ, "By Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things and by Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the Church, for it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell." Colossians 1:16-19 

There is no denying, therefore, that whatever revelation God has made of Himself in Creation, is through Christ, the Mediator. We can see, also, that in Creation the mediation of Christ means revelation of God and not standing between His wrath and us. 

Not only has God sought to reveal Himself unto us through His work but He has also sought to reveal Himself unto us through His Word. But here, too, Christ is Mediator. The "Water of the word," flows from the Smitten Rock, and "that Rock is Christ." "Holy men spake what the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify". But the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and the gift of the Spirit was in the gift of the Son. Before the water could flow from the throne the Rock had to be smitten, the Lamb had to be slain at the foundation of the world. 

Moreover, apostles and prophets had to be mitten also, had to be crucified with Christ before from them the living water of the Word could flow out. Through the indwelling Christ, the water must first be in them, a fountain of water, springing up into everlasting life. So, all the revelation God has made of Himself in His Word, is also through Christ, the Mediator. And here, too, mediation is revelation, an out-flowing of God, through Christ, that we may see and know and never a standing between God's wrath and us. The sense in which the Bible uses the word "mediator" is ever that of a revealer. Christ is mediator of the "New" the "everlasting covenant," and the Psalmist says, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear (love) Him and He will show them of His Covenant." 

In the revelation of the law on Sinai, Christ was the Mediator. He was the one who spoke to Moses on the mountain and out of the burning bush. The Lord was among them at Sinai the same as in the Sanctuary; He was there with gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell with them. Psalms 68:17 and 18 and margin.

The very last blessing wherewith Moses blessed Israel before he died was to tell them that this was the significance of the giving of the Law on Sinai, - that God was there with them, desiring to communicate with them because He loved His people, and that everyone who would sit at His feet should receive of His Word. 

See Deuteronomy 33: 1-3. 

It was only their misunderstanding of God, and their consciousness of guilt that made them afraid and caused them to say, "Let Moses speak to us, but let not God speak to us anymore lest we die." And God, here, as ever, took His people at their word, the same as when they wanted a king; and so, Moses became a prophet, and a secondary mediator. But this was the very beginning of Israel's apostacy. The whole meaning of both Sinai and the Sanctuary was that God wanted, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit, to reveal Himself to each individual soul, because He loved them. 

The work of Christ, as Mediator of the "New," the "Everlasting Covenant", has ever been so to reveal God and His Law in the heart of every man who would submit to Him, as to make it unnecessary ever after that that man should be taught by other men. See Jeremiah 31: 33 and 34. The reason this has not been more fully accomplished is because we, like Israel of old, have ever put other mediators be- tween God and us, and have refused to listen in the silence, for God's voice. The limitations are all on our part, and not at all on God's. 

INTERCESSION: 

It is the same with the biblical idea of intercession as with the biblical idea of mediation. Christ is never presented as interceding for us with an unwilling God. 

Sometimes when the Bible speaks of Christ interceding for the transgressor, the word "for" should have been translated "with". It is the very work of Christ to constantly knock at the door of each heart, interceding with us all, beseeching us to be reconciled to God. Revelation 3:20 and II Corinthians 5: 18-20. 

"Likewise, the Spirit helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." 

How beautiful and precious this is. The little child, in its ignorance, asks for something that would be a danger and injury to it. The father or mother does not disregard this prayer of the child, but they give him something else that will give even more pleasure and yet be safe. So we, often, as ignorant children of God, would ask for those things, and do as for those things that God, in His wise love could not give, but Christ, by His Spirit, intercedes for us and in us, controlling our inmost desires and making the unspeakable longings of our souls reach out after that which is best and which God, in His love, can give. 

That his intercession is not, as so many think, with an unwilling God, we know, for the very next verse tells us that this intercession of the Spirit for the saints, or with the saints, is made "according to the will of God. "Romans 8:26-27 Jesus, Himself, forever repudiated the other idea of His intercession, when He told the disciples, "I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father, Himself, loveth you." 

So, the thought of mediation and of intercession in the Bible is the same. It is never that Christ stands between God's wrath or His unwillingness or indifference and us; but it is ever that He would so reveal God to us, and in us as to put us into loving, sympathetic living contact with the Infinite. 

And as to the personal mediation of the incarnate Christ, the man Christ Jesus, nothing could be clearer. As has already been stated, Jesus said, "I am the way." "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." "No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." 

The world had gods enough before Jesus came to reveal the Father. In Egypt it was said it was easier to find a god than a man, so numerous were they. But they were always gods far off in the distance, indifferent to man's sorrow and need, or else they were more the enemies than the friends of man. There was a god in the sea to toss the waves on high, wrecking the ships and destroying human life. There was a god in the mountains to make them tremble and to pour forth the lava, desolating the cities at their base. There was a god in the storm clouds to utter his voice in terrifying thunder and to shoot forth the angry lightenings. Everywhere there were gods for wrath and for destruction but never a Father God to understand and satisfy the hungry human heart. 

As for the supreme God, above these lesser gods, in so far as men recognized his existence at all, they said "His dwelling was not with flesh." But Jesus came as mediator to reveal the true God, Emmanuel, God with us. With us in sorrow for He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. With us in joy, too, for He rejoiced at the wedding feast. With us in childhood for He was a child; and in manhood for He was a Man. With us in the every-day, hum-drum toil, for He was a carpenter and the son of a carpenter. With us in temptation for He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. 

With us in poverty, for He said, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head." With us in loneliness and in hunger for human companionship, for He said "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" With us, when in the extremity of temptation and trial the heavens seem brass above our heads, and we feel that He has forsaken us, for Christ's mighty faith was so matched with mighty temptations that He, too, was brought to the dizzy edge of doubt, and cried in anguish, "My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me?" 

And yet, by faith, even then, He knew that God had not forsaken Him, and He teaches us to know the same, for, in the very next words, in childlike trust, He said, "Father, into Thy hands I commit my Spirit." 

Nor must we understand this to mean that God was with us then simply because Jesus was here. Jesus was revealing how God always is with us. He said, "Lo, I am with you always." And of both the Father and Himself, Jesus said, "We will come and make our abode with you." 

As Whittier, in his poem "Our Master”, has so beautifully said, 

"No fable old, nor mythic lore, Nor dream of bards and seers, No dead fact stranded on the shore, of the oblivious years; 

But warm, sweet tender even yet, A present help is he, And faith has still its Olivet, And love its Galilee. 

The healing of His seamless dress, Is by our beds of pain; We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again." 

George E. Fifield