In other words, there are certain essential conditions required upon which depends the acquisition of that excellent knowledge which the Scriptures contain for every sphere of life. They are conditions which affect us in our entirety as men--I should say as the images of God, in whose likeness we were created. Sin has tarnished this image, and we are to restore it to its original beauty by correcting it. Our model is God Himself. The Bible is the text-book containing the image of this Model, drawn by Himself, and He has provided the preceptor to explain the various meanings of lines, lights, and shadows, and the use of the instruments which must be employed in completing the process. It is a little tedious, as all art training is in its beginning. Sometimes we copy with tracing-paper, and of late the kodak has done much to help us by the aid of photography.
You know that through the art of photography a perfect picture of an object may be produced by the action of light upon a smooth and sensitive surface. The light reflected from the object which is to be photographed enters through a lens into the dark chamber of the camera, and makes an impression upon the plate which is rendered sensitive by a film of chloride (or nitrate) of silver. To produce a good picture, therefore, three things are principally required:
1. _A faultless sensitized plate_ on which the reflection of the object is to be made;
2. _A concentrated light_; that is, the rays must enter the camera through a lens, but be excluded from every other part;
3. _The right focus_; that is to say, you must get the proper distance of your object in order to preserve the just proportions between it and its surroundings.
The same requisites may be applied to ourselves when we wish to image in our souls the object of divine truth, which is identical with God.
1. The sensitive plate of our hearts and minds must be clean, without flaw, so as to admit the ray of heavenly light, and let it take hold upon its surface. A tarnished mirror gives but a blurred and imperfect reflection. Just so the mind occupied with the follies and vanities of worldliness, the heart filled with the changing idols of unworthy attachments, is no fit surface for the delicate impressions of those chaste delineations of truth which are nothing else but the image of God in the human soul. To His likeness we were created, and to His likeness we must again conform ourselves by a right study of truth.