be to Him? That the creatures He had made should be everlastingly grovelling before Him, proclaiming their own nothingness and His magnificence: it was to imagine God on a par with an Oriental despot. To obey Him? He had no need of our obedience. All things had been ordered. Our obedience or disobedience could make no difference to Him. It had been foreseen—fore-ordained from the beginning. Even forgetting this—persuading ourselves that some measure of freewill had been conferred upon us, it was only for our own benefit. Obey and be rewarded, disobey and be punished. We were but creatures of His breath, our souls the puppets of His will. What was left to man but to endure? Even his endurance bestowed upon him for that purpose. It was death not life that God—if such were God—had breathed into man's nostrils.
But God the champion, the saviour of man. God the tireless lover of man, seeking to woo him into ever nobler ways. God the great dreamer, who out of death and chaos in the beginning had seen love; who beyond life's hate and strife still saw the far-off hope, and called to men to follow Him. God the dear comrade, the everlasting friend, God the helper, the King. If one could find Him?
