MAKE MANIFEST GOD'S IDEAL
By L. A. R.
THE Panama-Pacific International Exposition to be held in San Francisco in 1915 is now rapidly going forward in construction. Before there could be any wonderful buildings, splendid gardens, adequate walks and driveways, it was necessary for the whole plan to be grasped or conceived mentally. To this end painters, artists, architects, and others put their thought upon the problem. The mental pictures gave way to drawings, diagrams, paintings. These made plain the mental vision. Later the whole world will be invited to come and see the concrete results of that which once existed only in the mind as an idea. It is but a sample of all great things to be accomplished. But for spiritual things the mind of man alone is not left to plan, or conceive; for "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man," until the great ideal of God by means of the Holy Spirit is taught to man. Then the ideas of God, the plans of God, His ideal for His creatures, the mental conception,43if you please, through the operation of the Holy Spirit upon human instrumentality, are brought into actuality. This is the import of the admonition, "See that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." The tabernacle was not man's idea. It was God's. It was revealed by vision to the servant of the Lord, and through him instruction was given to faithful workers, until at last that which was God's idea became the reality. O that every one of us might realize that God has a plan for the life! He has an ideal for every human being. He pledges Himself to reveal it if any man is willing to know it. And then the ideal carried out and realized in human life becomes in fact the divine revealed by the human. Marvelous privilege, glorious opportunity, to make visible the unseen ideals of God!
L. A. R.