IN the creation God gave man dominion over every creature, over every circumstance, over every condition, be it beasts of the field or sin, be it disease or death.
The first chapter of Genesis relates how man received this dominion. Moses realized it when he crossed the Red Sea; Elisha demonstrated it by healing the leprous king; Daniel taught it in the lion's den; the Hebrew captives proved it in the fiery furnace; Paul found it abundantly efficient with the poisonous viper; while the mighty Jesus stretched his hand along every string of mortal discord and found each attuned to harmony,—from seeming lack of wine at the peaceful wedding feast, to the tumultuous waves of the sea: from the fevered brow by the wayside to the putrid flesh of the sepulchre,—each and every one gave up the answer, "Dominion is man's eternal birthright."
"What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" is a cry that comes ringing down the centuries. But every century flings back the answer, "There are men and men." Did Elijah, Daniel, Paul, or Jesus differ from other men that God was mindful of them more than other men? If so, wherein was the difference? They had bodies like other men, they lived in houses, wore clothes, ate food like other men, and we may add that they thought, but not as other men. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts," and was it not God's thoughts that these men sought out and interpreted, and God's thoughts that they voiced and lived?
