To be near unto God - pagina 251

difiference is, that among women, even with children, the personal, baptismal name is used, and almost never the family name, while among men as a rule the family name is in vogue, and the use of the personal name indicates a far higher degree of intimacy. While at length in family life every more dignified title falls away, and the use of the family- name has no meaning, but everything hinges on the baptismal name, or passes over into an entirely other sort of names, which express the relation which one sustains to the other. Until finally we come to the motherand father-name, and we speak of husband and wife, and parents say: my child. These names of common use in the family are more than sounds. They express something essential in the mutual relationships. They are somewhat on a par with the names we give to a physician, clergyman, or sexton, which indicate that we do not mean their person but their office. But while with the latter these persons, and the relation in wliich they stand to us, separate themselves, the father-name, the mother-name and the name of ''my child" contain this excellent trait, that they express simultaneously^ both the persons and the relationships, and that in this way they indicate the highest that a name can express. If then after these observations we address God as Our Father or as Abba, dear Father, we appreciate more fully than before, the supreme privilege

Another as

which God.

this

Father-name confers upon a child of

The names by which we seek Eternal, are not

name

of

God

to indicate the equally intimate. The vague brings no approach. The mere all

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