A. W. LEONARD FIRST CHURCH, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON A. W. Leonard is the son of Dr. Adna B. Leonard who for twenty-four years so efficiently served the church as corresponding secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions. The subject of this sketch received his education in the following institutions: New York University (B.A.); Drew Theological Seminary (B.D.); and Ohio Northern University (D.D.). Within a few weeks after the signing of the Protocol in Porto Rico, he entered the mission work of our church under the direction of Dr. Frease, of South America, and organized the First Methodist Episcopal Church of San Juan (English). He also started a church among the English-speaking colored people in Puerta de Terra just outside San Juan. In 1901 he became the pastor of the English-speaking church in Rome, Italy, and taught in the Theological School of the same place. He has served the following appointments: Green Village, New Jersey; First Church, San Juan, Porto Rico; First Church, Rome, Italy; Grace. Church, Pique, Ohio; Central Church, Springfield, Ohio; Walnut Hills Church, Cincinnati, Ohio; and is now serving his fifth year as pastor of the First Church, Seattle, Washington. LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN A. W. LEONARD "Wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren."-Heb. 2. 17. IRENEUS once said that "as Jesus shows God to man, so he exhibits man to God." In Jesus Christ God is revealed to man and man is revealed in Christ. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says, "In all things. like unto his brethren." John states the same truth (only) in a different way when he says, "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us"; or, better still, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us." "Like unto his brethren-made flesh." Wondrous statement, more wondrous truth. "Like unto his brethren." He had a human mother. A mother's oldest son was killed in the Civil War. The younger children heard stories from her lips of his greatness and of his devotion to his country. She loved to tell her neighbors and her friends of this noble son. More than that, it was her custom frequently to gather the younger children about her and tell them of the noble life their soldier brother had lived. It was but natural, it was human. In the same way we may think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was the friend of our Lord's original apostles and disciples, and after his crucifixion made her home with the apostle John. It is only natural to think of her as telling her relatives and friends the things which for years she kept secret, "pondering them in her heart." From her they would learn with freshness of meaning how the angel came to her at Nazareth and told her that she was to have a Son who was to be "great" and that he would "be called the Son of the Most High," and that he would become the inheritor of the throne of his father, David. She would tell how upon her the Holy Ghost descended and the "power of the Most High overshadowed her," and that her Child would be "called Holy, the Son of God." And then, there was the story of the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks by night, when they saw the glory of God and heard a heavenly messenger tell them that there had been born that day "in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord." A little later they heard "a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.'" She would tell them of the wise men, a story already very familiar to them, but undoubtedly she repeated it again and again. She would tell how they came from the East guided by the light of a star, and that when they found her Child wor shiped him as the King of the Jews and offered him gifts, "gold, frankincense, and myrrh." Nor did she forget to tell them how he might have perished with other children under two years of age in Bethlehem and its neighborhood, but for the warning which Joseph had received from God-"Take the young child and his mother and flee to Egypt." She would tell how he grew from infancy to childhood, and from childhood to youth, and also how he grew in favor both with God and man. There were also his relatives and his two brothers, James and Jude, who became his disciples after his resurrection; and the people would remember that he was one of themselves, for when he began to teach in the synagogue in which he worshiped as a child, they said, "Is not this Jesus, and was not his father Joseph ?" "Like unto his brethren." That is, none of the characteristics of "his brethren" were lacking. In other words, in Christ Jesus there were present all the characteristics of humanity. The apostles were convinced that he had flesh and blood like their own. He was sensitive to life's pleasures and pains. When he was returning with his disciples from Bethany, the day after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the record states that "he was hungry." Wearied with his journey, he sat on the side of Jacob's Well. In crossing the sea of Galilee with his disciples, he slept so soundly that the waves of the storm-tossed sea did not wake him. At the grave of Lazarus he wept. A |