Can the finite the infinite seek?
Did the blind discover the stars?
Is the thought that I think a thought,
Or a throb of the brain in its bars?”
“‘But at last help came, I have told you through whom, and now as I look back upon it, I thank God for all that bitter experience. I know better how to understand and sympathize with many a one whom I have found struggling in the meshes of sophistry; earnest souls, who long for the truth more than they long for life itself, and finding no one who can do more for them than to simply say “Repent and believe.”
“‘Not that I have learned much yet. I have only begun to get glimpses of the truth. I feel sure of far less now than I did five years ago. But I know this: I do know and see beyond peradventure that it is right to probe to the uttermost the problems which confront me. I should have been false to myself, unfaithful to my highest, truest instinct, if I had listened to the tearful advice of my timid friends and turned my back and shut my eyes to what God would reveal to me. I did not know where I should be led; my knees knocked together with fear as I felt my way through the gloom. But gradually, and chiefly from the writings of that man whose teachings we heard this morning, have I learned not only to believe, but to know the truths which he taught us to-day. Some men call him skeptic, rationalist; at best they say, such talk must be unpractical. Fools! not to know that to save a soul from hopeless despair, to give life and health to an immortal spirit, is quite as practical a thing as to pave streets and cut coats.
“‘I look upon a true philosophy as the most completely useful thing in the world.’ He stopped, and I looked up bewildered.
“‘Useful?’ I asked.
“‘Certainly; useful. Is not that useful which gives man a clear insight into what must otherwise be forever obscure? Is it not useful to lift him out of the domain of prejudice and mere opinion on vital matters, and give him the key to the universe by making him to know the grounds of his knowledge, of his being, and of his destiny?’
“‘But do you not believe in relying on faith at all? Do you accept nothing that you do not understand?’ I asked.