For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9.
We visited the buildings which were formerly the palaces of kings when France was under kingly rule.... My thoughts were first upon the kings who had once traversed these grand halls and figured in these galleries. Where is their human greatness now? ...
Then we remember Jesus, who came to our world with His blessed purpose of love, divesting Himself of His royal robe, His royal crown, stepping down from the royal throne, clothing His divinity with humanity, and coming to our world to be a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We see Him among the poor, blessing the afflicted, healing the sick, soothing the infirmities of age, reaching with His divine pity the very depths of human woe and misery. He even noticed the sorrows and needs of little children....
Angels have been sent as messengers of mercy to the distressed, to the suffering. These angels from the world of light, from the infinite glory of God before the throne, are on missions of love, of care, of mercy for the suffering ones of humanity. But there is a picture of greater condescension than this: the Lord, the Son of the Infinite Father, ... the Prince of the kings of the earth....
What is the work of angels in comparison with His condescension? His throne is from everlasting. He has reared every arch and pillar in nature's great temple. Behold Him, the beginning of the creation of God, who numbers the stars, who created the worlds—among which this earth is but a small speck, and would scarcely be missed from the many worlds more than a tiny leaf from the forest trees. The nations before Him are but “as a drop of a bucket,” and “as the small dust of the balance” ... (Isaiah 40:15).
Contemplate Him, the Lord, the all-glorious Redeemer, an inhabitant of the world He has created, and yet unacknowledged by the very ones He manifested so great interest to bless and save.... What condescension to the fallen men of earth! What wondrous love! 3Manuscript 75, 1886.
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