"Because the first chapter of Genesis, then, agrees in all essential particulars with the accounts of other nations and among other peoples we consider it universal truth.
"Because it is so beautiful, logical and spiritual, we revere it; because our own inner consciousness of truth agrees with its statements, we concede it to be as accurate and reasonable an account of Creation as we have, and we are therefore willing to use it as the basis of our argument.
"We read: 'In the beginning God created,' but a more literal and spiritual rendering would make the pivotal statement, 'God creates.' Now we know there can be no beginning or end to Omnipotence, hence there must be a continuous creating, and thus the term 'beginning' could only refer to the manifestation of what had already been created. How was the creation manifested? By the Word. 'God said, let there be light, and it was so,' and by every 'God said,' was manifested the thing which He said was to be.
"The word God is an abbreviation of the Anglo-Saxon of Good, the two words in that language being identical. To many this will be an aid to realizing the omnipresence God, and add to the reverential sense of that personal nearness which makes the Deity a Father and an ever-loving Friend.
"God is not person as to form or personal limitations, yet personal in the sense of Presence and intelligent communication with intelligent beings. Jesus said truly, 'No man hath seen God at any time, because the eye of the flesh cannot perceive spirit.' Through the quality or influence of Good, Intelligence, Love and all we may name as soulful, we perceive and feel God's presence.
"Thus in the spiritual sense, the 'pure in heart may see God.' We can, too, perceive the quality of God in Good, as we perceive the attributes of the sun in its light. As the light of the sun warms the dark earth, making it fruitful, so the divine Light (Intelligence), shining upon our earth nature, makes it fruitful because of the presence of its Creator.
"Some there are who call this ever-present Intelligence or Good the living Principle. As the Infinite, it wears all phases and adapts itself to every conception of the Finite, so in the sense of omnipresence and unchangeableness it might from this point of view be called Principle. This is the cold, mathematical conception of God as Law, which without Love would be incomplete. We must, therefore, know the duality of God if we are to understand either Law or Love. Some things can only be known by intuition, without the aid of the senses, and because of an inherent idea in our consciousness. For instance, every nation worships Deity in some way. Since we cannot know God through the senses, by which we gain knowledge of visible things, how can we know there is a God?
"As Paul says: 'Likewise the spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God;' and what better answer could we have?
"Spirit, according to Webster, is: 'Life or living substance considered independent of corporeal existence—vital essence, force, or energy as distinct from matter.' God is the vital essence, God is spirit, and God is substance—'the real or existing essence,' 'the divine essence or being.'
"God, therefore, is the Divine Power that creates and sustains all things—the All-Power, the All-Intelligence, the All-Mind, the All-Love, the All-Substance, the All-Harmony, the All-Life, the All-Good, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. This is the one Creator, 'one God who is Father of all, over all, and in all.'