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as an assertion, go very far, it may point to more than it unfolds. But as far as it goes it expresses something about God which is unquestionably true.' Is not that what we want to begin with?

16. Mr. Matthew Arnold, to whom we are all so much indebted, both for the entertainment which he has given us, and for the intellectual enlightenment which he is constantly dispensing, expressed not long ago in the pages of a popular periodical, the results of much accurate thought upon this great question, and that, amongst other things, proves to me how essentially right I am in sometimes trying to deal in this place with what are called abstruse subjects, for this enables me to discuss religion from reasonable points of view, and to put before you considerations which may not only appeal to the feelings, but may also serve to conciliate the intellect; and we should be thankful to anyone who comes forward, even in the character of a magazine writer, and attempts to give any consolatory and sound answer to the anxious inquiry, 'What is God?'

Well then, as I have elsewhere remarked, to know about God, we must not only look to the religious opinions of persons about us, although we must look to them; we must not only look to the experiences of the human heart, though we must acknowledge them; but we must look to the outward and visible world, where the gigantic footsteps of the Creator are made permanent as it were, so that he who runs may read; we must scan the long succession of past ages, and ask, 'What has history,

what has literature, and what has science to tell us about God?'

The testimony of history and literature I have dwelt upon in other discourses, but Mr. Arnold has pointed out a sure basis for a definition of God, derived from the study of science. When I examine the world without me, I am led to ask, 'Is there really an intelligent God, is there a loving God presiding over this vast order of nature?' What do I find?

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I find this-Whether I look at myself or the smallest insect, whether I look at an animal, or a leaf, or a flower, the same thing strikes me! What is that? It is, as Mr. Arnold acutely observes, the stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their being.' Speaking accurately and scientifically this stream of tendency is God-God may be, and doubtless is more-but He is that. I can say to you, I do not know what the whole of God is, but I will tell you what He is thus much accurately. God is the stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their being. What do I mean by the law of their being'? Just this: that everything develops in a certain way, and not in another way. A cabbage develops after the fashion of a cabbage, and nothing else, and if, as ages roll on, there come variations of the plant, yet these very variations take place according to a certain fixed law, the law of being in the vegetable kingdom.

Man in the same way develops after a certain fashion, and not after another fashion, and so in every living thing the law of individual being is developed. There

is a stream of tendency, a co-ordinating principle of life, a permeating and transfusing influence of some sort, whereby each living thing fulfils the fixed law of its being. Man does not grow by chance, man does not make his own law; vegetables don't grow by chance, do not make the law they obey, or tend to obey. There is a law in man—a law of his health, a law of his physical being; when disobeyed, that law asserts itself in disease, in mental misery, in confusion. Something not himself has impressed upon him a physical law. Science may call it a stream of tendency-we will call it God.

17. Is that all? Cannot I through the outward world draw a step nearer to this mysterious God-cannot I add another element to my dry and limited definition of Him? I can. When I look upon the world, I see a moral law as well as a physical law. If I go back to the remotest antiquity of which we have any historical record, I find nations differing in civilisation, in manners, in culture, from modern nations, but nowhere can I find any people who are completely insensible to what is called right and wrong. Their views of right and wrong may not be like ours. They have had their own ideas of right and wrong, but these were always tending in one definite direction; so I find in the most ancient Egyptian proverbs of Ptah-Hetp, about 2,100 B.C., the same kind of moral precepts about virtue, duty, God, which the Christian religion has made us so familiar with. I see then that for thousands of years at least, the world has been impressed by a certain moral law of right and

Man has

wrong, which makes for the happiness of man. not made this law-he is in constant and notorious rebellion against it in every age, only a few follow it with any consistency, yet is it as inexorable, as sharpedged and self-avenging as any physical law,-this moral Not-self impressed upon man. And this other stream of tendency which makes for righteousness, this moral Not-self is also God-it is another element in my definition of Him. I grasp it firmly, so that no one shall take it from me, for it is seen to rest on the basis of the experience of the world. Now let us put the two elements which we have arrived at together-let us see how they read.

Ist. God is the stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their being.

2nd. God is the enduring power which makes for righteousness. Have we not thus fairly reached an External Intelligence and Morality, impressing itself upon the world of Nature and Man?

18. And now we have to ask whether this conception of God will beget what we call religion, in the human soul. For that is what we are all seeking. When we come to church we are not pursuing science or simply morality, we are not after knowledge, we are not merely after happiness, but when we come here to worship and to speak of God, and man in relation to God, we are after what we call religion. Now, can you get any religion out of two such ideas as a stream of tendency and a law which makes for righteousness? Does the moral

Does knowing the These questions are

law kindle you up and warm you? law give you ability to obey it? pertinent, for what do you mean by religion? You mean that feeling of trust and adoration which leads you to lean upon some unseen power, upon some One, in short, who not only indicates a moral law, but who enters into communion with your spirit, affects your action, moulds your consciousness, cleanses your heart, and subdues your will. To believe and feel this is to have religion. Do you get that by contemplating streams of tendency, or by any conviction about a law which makes for righteousness?

First, let me contemplate a stream of tendency in nature; it is wonderful, it is beautiful, it is also very hard. I admire it and I tremble before it. When I think of this stream of tendency, this physical law, my thought is, no doubt, touched with emotion; but I think it is not religious emotion, it is an emotion similar to that I feel when I contemplate the working of a vast and complicated engine-no emotion of love or gratitude or adoration-there is nothing human, nothing personal about it. I may also experience another kind of emotion-of joy when the stream of inexorable tendency is with me, of grief when it is against me; but neither does that joy or that grief lead me to anything beyond. Why should it, since I am contemplating nothing but a stream of tendency? Suppose I am thrown into the sea and there is a very strong current or tide sweeping to the shore; I feel joy, for I know that I shall reach the shore because the stream is bearing me

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