in me, and lead me in the way that lasteth long." So we go a long way together, and that is why I think that for religion to-morrow will be a day of hope; I am waiting to see religion and Christ rehabilitated on the side both of science and philosophy; I am waiting to see Christian experience vindicated, and the day of the Lord is at hand.

But someone will cry out in expostulation, “Are you sure of all this? I am not prepared to go as far as you. If this is the experience of religious minds, it is not mine-I would that it were; but I can find no trace on the field of history or in the field of present-day experience of such a God as you name; the shame, the horror, and the woe of the world seem to contradict your belief in a God whose name and nature are Love." Wait a bit; you have forgotten something-the relativity of knowledge. All our thought about the things which come within the region of observation is relative; the actual you do not know, at any rate by your inductive methods. The relativity of knowledge means that you can know nothing within the wide universe except as your mind permits you to know it, and that mind operates within certain arbitrary limits which intellect, but not experience, can never pass. When I look up into the dome of heaven I know that I am looking into infinity; this morning the sun has come 95,000,000 of miles to smile upon us a watery smile. That immensity is a something we cannot grasp. But sweep it out of existence, let the 95,000,000 of miles be as if they had never been-how much is left? Blot out the visible universe-what have you retained? As much as there was before. Now, what becomes of the validity of your scientific laws,-gravitation, con

servation of energy, and what not? Are they untrue? No, I do not say that, but they are only relatively true. You know that the actuality is infinity. The moment you have touched that concept you have passed it; but experience cannot go where your mind has thrust itself. I do not say that your scientific judgments are wrong; I say they are relative, and you have to stop at your limits.

Here is a better illustration, perhaps. Look at these beautiful stained glass windows all the way round this church; as we sit worshipping we can enjoy them. But suppose that in the audience is a man who is colourblind; to that man the stained window below the gallery, and the frosted glass window above, are, save perhaps in outline, just the same. Now, what is wrong the window or his perception of it? There is something short in his brain, he cannot see things as we see them; but perhaps even we cannot see them as they really are; there is a reality outside which makes us see colour and form, but perhaps there is more to see than any of us knows. I do not deny the reality; what I assert is the limit of our perception. The organist leads our devotions very beautifully on the great organ, we feel the hand of a master on the instrument. As a matter of fact, the hand of the master is on us; he sets the air vibrating, and when the vibrations reach our brain, we cannot explain the mystery, but we hear the harmony. If there were present a man who is not deaf, but who has no ear for music, what would he think about it all? His experience would be widely different from ours; are we to argue, therefore, that there was no organ? No. No harmony, then? No; but that the man was a faculty short, and the reality

could not make itself known to him. It is related of Mr. Spurgeon, who, as is well known, had no ear for music, that on one occasion he was sitting with a friend listening to an orchestra playing a beautiful symphony, and his friend said to him, "Surely, Mr. Spurgeon, you enjoy it?" "No," said the great preacher, "I don't." "But," he said, "it is exquisite." "Well," was the reply, "if every player in that orchestra had his instrument tuned to a different key and went on playing the symphony, how would you feel?" His friend said, "Indescribable." "Well," said Mr. Spurgeon, "that is how I feel now." What shall we argue from that? That the limit on one side of Mr. Spurgeon's perception came sooner than in the case of his friend; it does not argue that there was no symphony to hear, it argues that his knowledge of what he did hear was only relative to the whole. That is so with all knowledge. We know the realities of infinity and eternity; in our practical acquaintance we stop short with the symbols of time.

Then, you may say, What are you doing now? Are you going to destroy everything we know? Is there anything of which we can be sure? any point where we touch the reality? Yes, personality is the ultimate reality. The only thing in the wide universe of which you can be sure is soul. Things may not be what they seem, but when you have spoken with your friend face to face you have spoken with a reality which is not other and cannot be other than it seems to you. Communion of soul is the only real communion. Stop!" you say, "that is an assumption." Is it? You have made it already; your man of science has made it. The validity of his judgments depends upon his assumption

66

of himself; unless he has made that assumption, he can get nowhither. Is it an assumption? Why, all your doings in life are based upon it; you would not have been here but for that relationship between reality and reality, soul and soul, which you know to be human society. Can we get farther? Is there a Soul of souls" the Oversoul," as Emerson would have called it? Yes, says the highest experience the world has ever known. An assumption? Of course; an assumption borne out by experience like yours. You have no right to assume me any more than I have a right to assume God, and if you are certain of the communion between my soul and yours, I am no less certain of the communion between my soul and His. God is all and in all, Soul of our soul, Father of our spirits. The highest experience the world has ever known says that, and that experience is constant. If in any century we could prove it gone, my theme would have been very differently phrased. But when humanity has been at its noblest, humanity has been holding on to the sense of intercourse with things unseen and eternal, with Soul, which is God.

Here some may ask me for evidence. What is my evidence? Yourself. You challenge me about Him whose ways are in the sea, you remind me of the dreadfulness of life, the tragedies of every day and hour; you come pouring in from the Stock Exchange, and Fleet Street, and the Strand, and you tell me you have seen sights which have stirred your heart, made it beat fast with pity, and caused you to say, "Poor Humanity! Where is the hope, after all? Is God blind and deaf and dumb?" You think about those thirty thousand people swept into eternity amidst dreadful

torture in the West Indies the other day, and you say,

Is this the work of a father?" I cannot stop to investigate that problem now, we will come to it in time; here is the answer for the moment. You are as much a product of the Universal Substance as is Mont Pelée; perhaps you are more explanatory of what the Universal Substance is. Do you pity? Then, if the Universal cannot, Nature in one of her moods has produced something nobler than herself, and that is you. Is the Universal Substance conscious, is it moral? does it know and feel and care? can I enter into relationship with it? As soon as experience has said Yes, then I have discovered God to be a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and highest of all. I do not wait upon your experience only; I look back upon the field of history, and I ask, Whence came that idea of God we are now holding before each other's mind? My gaze rests on one day and on one Being; that day 1900 years ago, when Jesus of Nazareth preached on the hillsides of Galilee, and had compassion upon the people that were scattered as sheep with no shepherd; and there I see whence came that idea of God which is the only one with which human nature will ever be satisfied again. I listen to the voice in the upper room, I hear the questioning of Philip, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied," and I hear the voice Divine, as He answers," Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." When we have seen Jesus we may have many things to learn concerning the fathomless purposes of God, but of His nature we need to learn nothing at all-we know it. At the heart of the universe reigns One with the heart of a little child.