From an older day we hear there was a time when God walked
with men. That ancient belief is now a faded rose that has lost its glory, but
it keeps a precious fragrance which still stirs the heart with wonder and with
hope.
God
walked with men! The idea seems to change the world from a great, implacable machine into a place of adoration and fulfilled love. It makes us ask, do we live in a universe of mechanical atoms, of strange, perfect stars and suns
looking down without feeling or pity upon our griefs and lonely failures, or
can we be actually living in the compassionate heart of God?
How
could such an exalted idea ever become lost and forgotten? Was it merely a beautiful but empty dream? Or was it a sublime truth we have sold for the price
to pay for personal and selfish desires?
This
world, we know too well, without a God who walks with men, imprisons us in a
vast loneliness where we have to live with our own discontent, our failure,
lacking real purpose or aim. It is not enough to become at times part of some
officially heralded movement pronounced necessary and noble if the nobility
does not penetrate into our own hearts and redeem us from our unsatisfying selves. But the
discontent lingers and the hope occasionally returns.
What
has happened to human beings that they can be so skillful in doing great things
but so helpless when they turn their wonderful powers to the greater task of
ordering their own hearts?
