still his commanding eye. Whither can we go from his presence or spirit? At every step and in every condition we are God-inclosed, God-filled, Godbreathing men, while a spiritual presence lowers or smiles on us from the sky, sounds in the wild tempest, or creeps in panic stillness along the surface of the ground. Then, if we turn within, lo! He is there also, as an eye hung in the central darkness of our hearts." Then we have his completed Word, containing this sentence which all the ancients never had heard or learned: "God is a spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." We have also the tangible history of the life and teachings of the incarnate and historic Christ, and besides, we have a special and powerful method of communication with the heavenly world, which, if not absolutely new, is at least more general and practical than ever before in the world's history; and this is prayer. "Hitherto," said Christ when on earth, "ye have asked nothing in my name; ask and receive now, that your joy may be full." We are shut up to this, as to the Bible; and the soul that never uses this means of approach unto God, and never receives spiritual blessings from God in answer to prayer, has indeed good reason to complain of its fearful isolation and darkness. And finally, we have the promise that after walking by faith here on earth, and enduring its conflicts, and maintaining our hold steadfastly upon the things which are unseen, as did Moses, of whom it is written that he "endured as seeing him who is invisible, having respect unto the recompense of the reward," we shall go at length where there will be no veil, no shadow, no night, no darkness, no concealment. For if now we are compelled to see through a glass darkly, yet then, face to face; if now we know but in part, yet then we shall know, even as we are known! GROUNDS OF RELIGIOUS CERTAINTY "Tossed with rough winds, and faint with fear, Above the tempest, soft and clear, What still small accents greet my ear? 'Tis I; be not afraid. "'Tis I who led thy steps aright, 'Tis I who gave thy blind eyes sight, OT long since, in the course of some miscellaneous reading, we came upon the following sentence:." Within the dim twilight of revealed spirituality, troubled ones are constantly groping for the heart's-ease that is ever denied the traveler this side of immortality." This sentence, when analyzed, is found to be as full of meaning as it is of beauty. From the writer's standpoint he makes here three assertions: First, that revelation is a dim twilight; second, that all troubled or anxious ones are groping here for a foothold; third, that certainty in spiritual matters is ever denied the traveler this side of immortality, or the future state. The thought at once springs up in a believing mind: Is there no better posture or state in which the mind can rest, than the one indicated by this sentence? Or, in other words, are there no sufficient grounds of certainty in religious life? Are we condemned to grope evermore, on this side of eternity, in a dim twilight of doubt? Has not God done better than that for us with regard to Himself and His truth? In striking contrast with this state of uncertainty are the words which we find coming from the lips of holy men of old. Listen to some of them. Says Job: "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Says Jethro, the priest of Midian, to Moses: "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods." Says David: "Now I know that the Lord saveth His anointed." Says Peter: "Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod." Says Paul: “For I know whom I have believed." And again: "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." And finally, John says: "These things have I written unto you that ye may know that ye have eternal life." Was the confident faith expressed by these writers a reasonable one? Can it be justified on ordinary grounds of evidence? Is Christ a living God and Saviour? Is the Bible true? Is religion a reality? And how may one know all this, or what are the grounds of religious certainty? TESTIMONY OF THE senses. We answer, that one may know the certainty of religious things by the testimony of the senses, or that evidence which comes to the soul through the eye and ear. There exists in the universe an unvarying law, which is cailed the law of cause and effect, and this law is recognized on all hands as constituting not only an irrefragable species of evidence, but also as constituting one of the very sources of all knowledge and all certainty. This law, stated in plain terms, is this: Every Cause must have an Effect, and every Effect must have an equal or adequate Cause; and the two factors of the proposition must correspond one to the other; i. e., the effect must be like the cause, and the cause must be equal to the effect. This law forms the basis of all human thinking; it is one of the grooves of the human mind in which all thought-wheels run, when they run at all; it is a primary, a necessary, a universal truth; and by a necessary truth we mean a truth the contrary of which is unthinkable. But that no one may still stumble over these terms, cause and effect, we will explain them further. By Cause, we mean any power or force that is capable of producing a result; and by Effect, we mean simply the result produced. Thus, the sun is the cause of light and heat; and light and heat are the effect of this cause. And so indissolubly associated are these two ideas, that if you should say to a blind man, “There is a sun," he would reply at once, "Then there must be light and heat." But how does he know it? Because his mind is incapable of thinking in any other way. It is a necessary law of his thought, that he should at once predicate the existence of light and heat, when he is informed of the existence of the cause of these properties. If a locomotive runs at all, it must run upon the rails; so, i |