hope and joy. They have no hatred in their hearts for their enemies, for their enemies have done them no real harm. This is living religion, which makes all things new. It is the life of God in the soul of man. The wheels of our existence drag heavily till we see something divine in nature, in history, in every good cause, in every good and right action, in honest work, in patient endurance, in brave conflict against wrong. How happy we are when glimpses of this heavenly vision come to us! Sometimes there dawns in the soul the sense of an infinite tenderness, the consciousness that God is not far off, but near; that all we think and do and say aright comes from his help. In the depths of our sorrow, in the loneliness of our bereavement, when disappointment and failure meet us, we wonder that we are somehow still upheld, and we know then that it is because we are indeed God's children. We feel in the midst of our follies, faults, and sins, that when we repent he will forgive us and help us to do better. We may, perhaps, hardly know whether we are Christians or not, but we have come to know and love God. He is our Father and our Friend, and that is enough. This life in the soul makes light. We may not have a large belief, but we have some solid knowledge born of our own experience. There is a fountain within, a well of water, welling up into everlasting life. And we do. not feel constrained or hampered by this faith, but more free than ever, for where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. These convictions give unity and purpose to life, and make it worth while to live. They give us sympathy with our fellow-men; for we see that, though men may differ in moral culture, they can yet have the same profound convictions. We know that we have passed from death to life when we love the brethren; when we have renounced cynicism, unlearned contempt, and call no man common or unclean. We know that there is a divine life in the universe, that no merely mechanical theory can explain creation. Chemistry in its finest analysis does not reach this life. No theory of evolution can do more than state its method, it does not account for the origin and continuance of the living world. It sees the universal law, but not that which supports this vast order. Above all things, below all things, around all things, within all things, is the divine spirit, and we have found him to be our Father and our Friend. This religion is both natural and supernatural, for it finds God in Nature, and yet sees in him a power above Nature. When we enter into communion with him, our soul passes into a higher life. Then we attain "that blessed mood In which the burden of the mystery Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened; that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on; When, with an eye made quiet with the power We look into the life of things." Then all things are ours, for all things, we know, are working together for good. Life is good; death is also good. All is discipline, education, the passage from sense to soul. |