mprehension, who could only be
apprehended by the most painful effort of abstract thought; a God so
infinitely removed from man by the purity and rectitude of his
character; a God who was all pure reason, seemed alien to all the
yearnings and sympathies of the human heart; and such a God, dwelling in
pure light, seemed inapproachable and inacessible to man.[928] The
purifying of the religious idea had evoked a new ideal, and this ideal
was painfully remote. By the energy of abstract thought man had striven
to pierce the veil, and press into "the Holy of Holies," to come into
the presence of God, and he had failed. And he had sought by moral
discipline, by self-mortification, by inward purification, to raise
himself to that lofty plane of purity, where he might catch some
glimpses of the vision of a holy God, and still he failed. Nay, more, he
had tried the power of prayer. Socrates, and Plato, and Cleanthes had
bowed the knee and moved the lips in prayer. The emperor Aurelius, and
the slave Epictetus had prayed, and prayer, no doubt, intensified their
longing, and sharpened and agonized their desire, but it did not raise
them to a satisfying and holy _koinonia_ in the divine life. "It seems
to me"--said Plato--as Homer says of Minerva, that she removed the mist
from before the eyes of Diomede,

'That he might clearly see 'twixt Gods and men.'

so must he, in the first place, remove from your soul the mist that now
dwells there, and then apply those things through which you will be able
to know[929] and rightly pray to God.

[Footnote 927: Herodotus, vol. ii. bk. ii. ch. xiii. p. 14 (Rawlinson's
edition).]

[Footnote 928: "To discover the Maker and Father of the universe is a
hard task;.... to make him known to all is impossible."--"Timaeus," ch.
ix.]

[Footnote 929: "Second Alcibiades," Sec. 23.]

To develop this innate desire and "feeling after God" was the grand
design of providence in "fixing the times" of the Greek nation, and "the
boundaries of their habitation."[930] Man was brought, through a period
of discipline, to feel his need of a personal relation to God. He was
made to long for a realizing sense of his presence--to desire above all
things a Father, a Counsellor, and a Friend--a living ear into which he
might groan his anguish, or hymn his joy; and a living heart that could
beat towards him in compassion, and prompt immediate succor and aid. The
idea of a pure Spiritual Essence without form, an