As the psychological condition of the human love which is man's social happiness, is that sense of individual want and imperfection which stimulates the will to seek the mother and brother; so the psychological condition of the piety which makes man's beatitude, is the sense of social imperfection, in respect both to moral purity and happiness, stimulating the will to seek a Father of all spirits. The more we love, the more we feel the need of God. But is God nothing but "an infinite sigh at the bottom of the heart," as Feuerbach, the holiest of infidels, sadly says? or, as in thinking, we discover the entity we name I; so in loving, do we not discover God, or rather does not God reveal Himself to us, as Essential Substance? Wordsworth declares that
"Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security;
And blest are they, who in the main,
This faith even now do entertain,
Live in the spirit of this creed,
Yet find another strength according to their need."
"That other strength" is to be found, as he had already sung in that same great song, in Duty—"daughter of the voice of God,"
"Victory and Law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations doth set free,
And calms the weary strife of frail humanity!"
Conscience, then, is the soul's witness, first of the relation of the individual to the human race; and ultimately, of the relation of the human race to God; and it must be inspired with knowledge of the sonship of the human race to the Universal Father, or human life is bottomless despair. But with that knowledge which God must give (since man cannot reach it with his own understanding) he shall be able, even on the cross, to love the most ignorant brother infinitely; and infinitely to trust that the Father of all will justify his spirit in acting accordingly.
APPENDIX.
Note A, to [Lecture I].
In 1872 the first training school for kindergartners was founded in England by the Manchester Kindergarten Assoc.
To the prospectus is subjoined the following statement:—