We have thus seen that Religion is a Help as to the fact of sin, when men are convinced of it as a great reality; and a help as to the fact of human suffering, because it is a working-power. But, over and above all this, there are problems that perplex us, and demand some answer; problems as to the How, and the Wherefore, and the End. There are times when our thoughts rise above all specific instances, and we take up humanity and existence as a whole, and ask—"What means it all?" Sometimes this question starts out of an individual experience. The shock of affliction has jarred our hearts; our expectations have come to naught; bereavement has broken up the routine of our life; or our own souls have surprised us with sudden revelations. At any rate, we find our being here involved with mystery. There is something that our understanding cannot entirely grasp; something that our unassisted eyes cannot see. And the only help for us in such a case is the Help of Religion, presenting us, through faith, with an interpretation of human life—an interpretation which tells us that what we now experience and behold is only transitional, preliminary, and that we see through a glass darkly, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.
And is it necessary for me to dwell upon the strength which has thus been imparted to sad and wounded spirits, when with perfect trust in Infinite Goodness they have thus realized that they stand only on one round of an upward course—only in a little segment of the immense plan? I will merely say now, that if, through faith, religion is a help to these by interpreting life in harmony with individual experience, so through this faith does it help the meditative man troubled by the general problem of existence and humanity. The meaning of these various conditions in the city—the meaning of these sins, and sorrows, and inequalities—the meaning of this tide of life itself that rolls in endless succession through these stony arteries—does it perplex you? Accept, then, the help which religion gives by interpreting it as only preliminary and transitional; only a portion of a wider scheme.
We commenced this series of discourses by standing, as it were, in the street, on a level with all these phases of humanity. Ascend now some lofty post of observation; some high watch-tower. The mottled tide flows and dashes far below you. The sounds of strife and endeavor rise faintly to your ears, and are drowned in the upper air. So in the altitude and comprehensiveness of faith, all this that seemed so huge and startling dwindles to a little stream in the great ocean of existence, and all these tumults are swallowed up in the currents of silent but beneficent design. But, in the meantime, the daylight has gone, the night-shadow has fallen, this stream of human life has ebbed away, and all these sounds are still. See, now, how much of your perplexity came from a deceit of eye-sight—see how the light of this world blinded you to the immensity and the meaning of existence! See! over your head spreads the great firmament. There are Sirius, and Orion, and the glittering Pleiades. How harmoniously they are related; how calmly they roll! And now, O man! fresh from the reeking dust, and the cry of pained hearts, and the shadows of the grave, do not the scales of unbelief drop from your eyes, when you see the width of God's universe, and feel that His purpose girdles this little planet and steers its freight of souls? You were deceived by your standards of greatness and duration. You thought that this material city, with what it contains, was everything. But they have cherished the true view, who in the spirit of the text have interpreted these Conditions of Humanity—the conditions of those who seek and sin and suffer in the busy crowd; of those who rest beneath yonder gleaming tomb-stones. And, as we read what all wise and good men have virtually said, our mortal term contracts, our immortal career opens, our years seem as ticks of a clock, and the entire sum of our life but a minute-mark on the dial of eternity; and this huge metropolis becomes a dim veil, a perishable symbol of real and enduring things.
THE END.
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
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But, say you, ['[">here is one who is returning to a home of destitution, of misery; where the
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between those great agents of human [achievment[achievement] and the living intelligence
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years. Remarkable for brilliant [achievments[achievements] in every department of physics, ours well deserves
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the old world without a telegraph, and Columbus found a new one without a [steam[-]ship].
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open air and the [sovreignty[sovereignty] of the soil. And if this immense intrusion of machinery has
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stream, and chained the fire; and now, [with] with the eye of science and the hand of skill,
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dignity is there in that man who [justs[just] accepts his station and makes the most of
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celestial City be these well-known doors--and thus may we also die at Home![">
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heaven, whose inhabitants would not make [harmlesness[harmlessness] their chief characteristic. Their
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and, perpetually descending from the threshold of the Infinite, keeps open an arch-way of [mysstery[mystery] and heaven.
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dangerous reasoning, my friends; [neverthless[nevertheless], it is reasoning, and shows that the mind of the
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of life and the conditions of humanity [arouud[around] us. The great city, now so gross and profane,