titutions ask for their statesmen to have the patience of years;
working, they must also wait.

With long patience also man has worked and waited as he has toiled upon
his idea of religion. Rude, indeed, man's hasty thoughts of the
infinite. In early days the sun was God's eye, the thunder his voice,
the stroke of the earthquake the stroke of his arm, the harvest
indicated his pleasure, the pestilence his anger. In such an age the
priest and philosopher taxed their genius to invent methods of
preserving the friendship and avoiding the anger of the Infinite.
Daily the king and general calculated how many sheep and oxen they must
slay to avoid defeat in battle. Daily the husbandman and farmer
calculated how many doves and lambs must be killed to avert blight from
the vineyard and hailstorms from the harvests. Observing that when the
king ascended to the throne the slaves put their necks under his heel
and covered their bodies with dust, in their haste the priests
concluded that by degrading man God would be exalted. Prostrating
themselves in dirt and rags, men went down in order that by contrast
the throne of God might rise up. The mud was made thick upon man's
brow that the crown upon the brow of God might be made brilliant. Out
of this degrading thought grew the idea that God lived and ruled for
his own gratification and self-glory. The infinite throne was unveiled
as a throne of infinite self-aggrandizement. Slowly it was perceived
that the parent who makes all things move about himself as a center,
ever monopolizing the best food, the best place, the best things, at
last becomes a monster of selfishness and suffers an awful degradation,
while he who sacrifices himself for others is the true hero.

At last, Christ entered the earthly scene with his golden rule and his
new commandment of love. He unveiled God, not as desiring to be
ministered to, but as ministering; as being rich, yet for man's sake
becoming poor; as asking little, but giving much; as caring for the
sparrow and lily; as waiting upon each beetle, bird and beast, and
caring for each detail of man's life. Slowly the word God increased in
richness. Having found through his telescope worlds so distant as to
involve infinite power, man emptied the idea of omnipotence into the
word GOD; finding an infinite wisdom in the wealth of the summers and
winters, man added the idea of omniscience; noting a certain upward
tendency in society, man added the