While some have much stronger religious intuitions than others, yet I think there is no normal person who may not, if he goes about it in the right way, achieve religious insight. It takes a great deal of maneuvering to get some people to see mathematics. And the average sceptic has not put forth the effort to see religious truth that the average pupil has to see mathematical truth. But I know sceptics who have put forth such effort, and they have succeeded. When a sceptic wins a faith, in the nature of the case it is vital. Saving faith in religion, as in everything else, is the feeling of certainty that follows clear insight. And clear insight into any subject depends upon intelligent study and faithful practice. While there are many things that we positively know, and many more that we may come to know, yet it is through rational experience, and not so-called proof, that we come to know them.
As hungry cannibals feed upon the body of a civilized man with never a thought that his trained mind would be worth more to them than his body, so multitudes feed upon the body of the universe with no thought of what its animating Will might be to them. To all who sustain such an attitude toward the universe, its body looms large while its Soul fades. As the cannibal missed the wealth and civilization which the larger mind of his victim could have brought, so the mere world-consumers miss that which the Soul of the universe could abundantly give. If it were divinely conceived of and divinely used, the physical universe and the social relations therein would be infinitely enriched. But when the Soul of the universe is lost, and the body of the universe is narrowed down to the temporal uses of the materialistic mind, we have lost the best part of reality.
But if we know what God and the world are to-day, we have a solid basis for knowing what they will be to-morrow. The future is not a new life and a new universe and a new God, but the present life and the present universe and the present God to-morrow. The remedy for a hazy future is a luminous present. Since God carries all men, good and bad, in His bosom, what a pity it is that we allow sloth and selfishness to deprive us of His acquaintance and fellowship. A little play-fellow once refused to speak to me in the presence of his newly arrived cousin. Finally he said to his cousin with a sneer, "Dick spoke to me three times, and I never let on that I heard him." This cut me deeply. But I now confess with sorrow and shame that the God who carries me in His own life has spoken a thousand times to me when I never let on that I heard Him. I have often tried to forget Him that I might enjoy pleasures of which He could not approve. All souls are in touch with God, and in that sense know Him, even when they do not recognize who or what it is that touches them; they are like the fishes that know the water but can not find the sea.
At last it has come to this: I have simply learned to see the universe that enfolds me, as the present energy of an intelligent Will. I see that Will coming to human expression in me, in my Christian friends, and in a social kingdom of infinite possibilities. That which I see works, and coördinates with all that I know, making me more glad and more strong as the years go by. God seems to live in me and about me and through me. That in which I live and from which I cannot escape for a single moment of my existence, I do not try to prove. My task is to see it more intelligently and to adjust myself to it more perfectly. I can testify that the more I learn and the better I live the more clearly do I see that that in which I live has sense as well as chemical energies; and that its deeper meaning and purpose may get to the surface through my life. I no longer live in a dirt world, but in a mind world. I believe neither in a muck world, nor in a ghost-God who is somewhere in hiding. My universe has come to be a Will in action, a Will that enfolds me with its energies and does not let me go. When the universe is otherwise conceived I do not like it. My intellect and instincts rebel against a universe materially conceived and materially explained. It is too twisted and dwarfed for all the facts. I am rationally convinced that I see a larger and better world.
To me, worship is the deeper penetration into that Will in whose enfolding energies I live and move and have my being. My world has become an oratorio with both peaceful and dramatic passages. I get nerve thrills from its music; and more, since its text is written in plain English, and not in an unknown tongue, I see the majestic pageant of a well-ordered creation. I understand what the music is about, and experience a joy infinitely beyond what I should if the music were without words. And though I meet some severe hardships, yet I am convinced that this is the best conceivable world in which to begin a life that is to live forever. History helps me, science helps me; and I feel myself borne along by a union of forces toward a glorious goal. God becomes more and more articulate in me and in all men and in all nature as we learn to will His will and to use nature's forces as the instruments of our enlightened and purified spirits. I also find that this vision will not leave me unless I live beneath my best. If, therefore, my best life and best vision go together, it would be folly to do anything that would break the harmony.
Some may say, "this is nothing but the way you see things, why not give us something more?" No one has anything to give beyond what he sees, unless he gives what some one else has seen; and that is entirely uncalled for if he can not tell it better than the other man has done. The only justification for the appearance of another book is that the author thinks his vision is sufficiently like what others see, and at the same time enough different to make it useful. "But I can't see it your way," some reader may retort. Well, I am sorry. Obviously, if we are sincere, it is for us to go on living and preaching the gospel with the hope that some day he may come to see. The Master Himself was shut up within the same circumscribed method. However, my contention is that if we have "pure hearts," and are not unnecessarily confused in thought, or possessed of erroneous thoughts, we know God here and now. This is the luminous present that clarifies the hazy future. Not all men know God, but in my opinion all may know Him if they go about it in the right way. Every human being, consciously or unconsciously, must submit to having his life moulded by a world with a God or by a world without a God, and the finished life will be as different as the two worlds.
3. The final step in the effort to know God
To know God and to win the hope of immortality one must do more than formulate a set of correct ideas. Correct ideas will greatly aid, yet alone they are utterly inadequate. When the scientist gets his idea, he proceeds to experiment with it. If he does not at first get the hoped-for results, when the idea is clear and impelling, he performs his experiments over and over again in the most painstaking manner. In religion, however, many will never go beyond the idea. They wish to have the idea fully established without experiment or application. The reason for this difference is that, in religion, the experiment can not be made on carbon and zinc, but it must be made on the man's own soul. The experiment cuts right into his moral, emotional, and sentimental nature. How often a man will admit, "I can see no flaw in your idea, but I am not convinced that you are right." When the scientist gets his idea, whether it is true or not, he acts as if it were true until he has tried his experiments, and does not always abandon the idea when his tests fail; he realizes that the fault may have been in the experiment. Many of the greatest facts in science have long been baffled by faulty experiments. Like consequences occur in religion. If instead of going on to the experiment and application one keeps repeating forever the question, "I wonder if the idea is true," he will never get anywhere except into a deeper state of doubt. A wise person while putting his best idea to the test will say, "I am hopeful that it will turn out favorably because it is such an attractive, promising idea." Religious ideas must be planted in the soul as seeds are put into the ground, and allowed to remain undisturbed long enough to germinate. It is most fortunate when children, through experimental knowledge, have been taught to love good types of religion and music; and this while they are receptive, and before they are ensnared by a thousand other influences. Yet no one, at any age, dare neglect his religious duties and privileges if he wishes religion to be an impelling power in his soul. In my youth, mathematics was a great inspiration to me, but through neglect my mathematical lamp burns low. To keep mathematics interesting and alive one must work problems applied to constructive business.
For an example of a man who attained unto great religious certainty, take Paul. He experienced a radical revision of his religious ideas, but his improved ideas were not enough. To test their validity he hurled himself upon the Christian verities with all the force of his being; and in consequence, found a life of intimate friendship with God. Thenceforward Paul had great things to tell and magnificent things to achieve. "I can do all things in Him that strengthened me." He felt that nothing could break this new bond. "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." His friendship with God gave him a new conception of, as well as a new interest in, society. "So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another." God the Father "Is over all, and through all, and in all." Paul's insight broke all former bounds; it elevated him to a boundless and timeless world; his insight gave him a deep sense of God and became the evidence of many things not yet achieved. Here was personal assurance of God and immortality deep, strong, and jubilant. Whence came it? Such assurance is inherent in a life spiritually nourished and divinely employed. Hope simply comes to such a soul, like color to the ripening apple.
This generation, though engaged in many noble charities, shows marked signs of under-nourishment; its mind is active in the acquisition of material knowledge, and its body is overworked in the effort to accumulate wealth, yet its soul languishes. And there is a near likeness between a starved soul and a starved body.