efuse
and grime of our industrial civilization, the pure minted gold
effectually concealed by the obscurity and filth around. For such
lives, victims of environment, the Father will search, too, until they
are found, taken up, and somewhere, in this world or another, restored
to their native worth. But the chief of the parables, and the one that
has captured the imagination and subdued the heart of mankind, because
it so true to the greater part of life, is the story of the lost boy.
For he was the real sinner and he was such because, knowing what
he was about and able to choose, he desired to do wrong. It was not
ignorance, nor environment, nor inheritance, that led him into the far
country. It was its alien delights and their alien nature, for which
as such he craved. How subtle and certain is the word of Jesus here.
No shepherd seeks this wandering sheep; no householder searches for
this lost coin. The boy who willed to do wrong must stay with the
swine among the husks until he wills to do right. Then, when
he desires to return, return is made possible and easy, but the
responsibility is forever his. The source of his misery is his own
will.

So the disposition of mankind is at the bottom of the suffering and
the division. There is rebellion and perverseness mingled with the
helplessness and ignorance and sorrow. No man ever understands or can
speak to the religious life unless he has the consciousness of this
inner moral cleft. No man will ever be able to preach with power about
God unless he does it chiefly in terms of God's difference from man
and man's perilous estate and desperate need of Him. Indeed, God is
not like us, not like this inner life of ours; this is what we want
to hear. God is different; that is why we want to be able to love Him.
And being thus different, we are separated from Him, both by the inner
chasm of the divided soul and the outer chasm of remote and hostile
nature. Then comes the final question: How are we, being helpless, to
reach Him? How are we, being guilty, to find Him?

When men deal with these queries, with this range of experience, this
set of inward perceptions, then they are preaching religiously. And
then, I venture to say, they do not fail either of hearers or of
followers. Then there is what Catherine Booth used to call "liberty
of speech"; then there is power because then we talk of realities.
For what is it that looks out from the eyes of religious humanity?
Rebellion, p