insignificant fragment;
the enormous period of his existence for which man has had no religious
history, and has been, so far as we can tell, not a religious being at
all; and the vast majority of the race that are still stagnant and
semi-barbarous. Is it possible, we ask, that a God, with so many stars
to attend to, should busy himself with this paltry earth, and make it
the scene of events more stupendous than the courses of countless
systems? Is it possible that of the swarms, vicious and aimless, that
breed upon it, each individual--Bushman, Chinaman, or Negro--is a
precious immortal being, with a birthright in infinity and eternity? The
effect of these considerations is sometimes overwhelming. Astronomy
oppresses us with the gulfs of space; geology with the gulfs of time;
history and travel with a babel of vain existence. And here as in the
former case, our perplexities cannot be explained away. We can only meet
them by seeing that if they have any power at all, they are
all-powerful, and that they will not destroy religion only, but the
entire moral conception of man also. Religious belief, and moral belief
likewise, involve both of them some vast mystery; and reason can do
nothing but focalise, not solve it.

All, then, that I am trying to make evident is this--and this must be
sufficient for us--not that theism, with its attendant doctrines,
presents us with no difficulties, necessitates no baffling
contradictions in terms, and confronts us with no terrible and piteous
spectacles, but that all this is not peculiar to theism. It is not the
price we pay for rising from morality to religion. It is the price we
pay for rising from the natural to the supernatural. Once double the sum
of things by adding this second world to it, and it swells to such a
size that our reason can no longer encircle it. We are torn this way and
that by convictions, each of which is equally necessary, but each of
which excludes the others. When we try to grasp them all at once, our
mind is like a man tied to wild horses; or like Phaeton in the Sun's
chariot, bewildered and powerless over the intractable and the terrible
team. We can only recover our strength by a full confession of our
weakness. We can only lay hold on the beliefs that we see to be needful,
by asking faith to join hands with reason. If we refuse to do this,
there is but one alternative. Without faith we can perhaps explain
things if we will; but we must first make them no