and standing alive, ready to co-operate with the living
God who spoke to him; so the man now is to receive
the word of God. I hope that we shall be able to
comprehend this idea largely and truly enough to see
that it is not contradictory to the other, but certainly it
is different from it. When God raised Ezekiel and set
him on his feet before He spoke to him, was it not a
declaration of the truth that man might lose the words
of God because of a low and grovelling estimate of
himself, as well as because of a conceited one? The
best understanding of God could come to man only
when man was upright and self-reverent in his privilege
as the child of God.

If this be true, is it not a great truth? Is it not a
truth well worthy of being set out in one of these
graphic Bible-pictures, and one that needs continually
to be preached? The other truth is often urged upon
us; that if we are proud we shall be ignorant; if we do
not listen humbly we shall listen in vain to hear the
Divine voice of which the world is full. We are
pointed continually to men on every side who have
evidently no wisdom but their own, because they have
never deeply felt that they needed any other, and who,
therefore, are filling the land with their foolishness.
But this other truth is not so often preached, nor, I
think, so generally felt; unless you honor your life
you cannot get God's best and fullest wisdom; unless
you stand upon your feet you will not hear God speak
to you.

There is much to-day of thoughtless and foolish depre-
ciation of man and his condition. I want upon Thanks-
giving Day, in the light of the Thanksgiving truth,

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