I then told my friend of an experience with my mother at church in the little frontier schoolhouse. I was lying on the seat with my head in her lap, tickling my nose with her boa. When the time came for prayers, my mother bowed her head to the desk in front of her. While her lips moved in prayer, I observed that her dear face was troubled. As she was unconscious of my gaze, I continued to look into her sorrowful face. Though but a little child, I fully understood what she was doing, and was able to mark the stages of her progress. My invisible mother was talking with our invisible Father, and the face gradually changed until finally I could tell that her will had merged completely with His will; and then her face, which was primarily His face, became radiant with spiritual beauty. I had seen the dear human face of God, and at the same time it was the face of my mother.
I called my friend's attention to the fact that once upon a time the invisible God said to the invisible Clara Barton:
"Clara, let us go out onto the battle-field where the poor soldier boys languish and die;" and Clara responded to His thought and love. Then the invisible God and the invisible Clara Barton went to the battle-field in God's body, because Clara had no body exclusively her own. So, when that form bending over the soldier boy wiped away the dust and blood and pain, while whispering of home, of mother, and of God, it was the Father, as much as it was Clara Barton, who was performing the deed; and He, not less than she, was visibly and humanly present. The ministering hand was as truly His instrument as it was hers; while the stronger will and deeper love were the Father's. Before Clara Barton thought of it, the Father, knowing all and feeling all, suggested to her the kindly deed; nor did He stop loving the soldier boy when she began.
"It is impossible for me to understand you. You have always believed God to be immanent in all nature; you have seen Him in sticks and stones and stars; but you now fail to recognize Him in His highest, His only instrument through which He is capable of coming to articulate speech and deed. How I pity your poor helpless God who is buried fathoms and fathoms out of sight. He can neither see, nor hear, nor breathe; nor can He walk or talk. But you see, _my_ God can get clear to the surface in audible word, and visible deed. When my God finds a good, clean Frenchman, He begins talking and writing French. If you doubt this, either you are not familiar with French literature, or else you do not know God. Under similar conditions God speaks all the languages. How beautifully and abundantly He has spoken through the German and English tongues! While in Greek and Hebrew, God has uttered mighty words of wisdom, and has filled the earth with His glorious pæans. Human wisdom alone could never have spoken thus. If we but have eyes to see and hearts to feel we shall realize that all about us God is getting to the surface through devoted Christians. When the true preacher lifts the souls before him into the will of God, he sees a divine expression upon their faces; and if he is spiritually wise, he will realize that for the time being these are the dear human instruments of God, as truly as they are the faces of human spirits; and when he has poured out his soul in behalf of some great cause of God for which he would be willing to die, he will find someone with outstretched hand ready to meet him and willing to coöperate, if need be, even unto death, and then it is his privilege to know that, while shaking hands with a brother spirit, he was at the same time shaking hands with the infinite God. In these rare experiences of ours, the invisible God no less than the invisible man has come to outward expression, and this He would always do, if our wills were not contrary to His will. Our feeble and infrequent inspiration is but intermittent incarnation, while full incarnation is permanent inspiration.