evealed ends. The
preacher then went on to criticise the attitude of religion towards
science. "If there is still a feeling of hostility between them," he
said, "it is no longer the fault of religion. There have been times when
the church seemed afraid, but she is so no longer. Analyze, dissect, use
your microscope or your spectrum till the last atom of matter is
reached; reflect and refine till the last element of thought is made
clear; the church now knows with the certainty of science what she once
knew only by the certainty of faith, that you will find enthroned behind
all thought and matter only one central idea,--that idea which the
church has never ceased to embody,--I AM! Science like religion kneels
before this mystery; it can carry itself back only to this simple
consciousness of existence. I AM is the starting point and goal of
metaphysics and logic, but the church alone has pointed out from the
beginning that this starting-point is not human but divine. The
philosopher says--I am, and the church scouts his philosophy. She
answers:--No! you are NOT, you have no existence of your own. You were
and are and ever will be only a part of the supreme I AM, of which the
church is the emblem."

In this symbolic expression of his right of property in their souls and
bodies, perhaps the preacher rose a little above the heads of his
audience. Most of his flock were busied with a kind of speculation so
foreign to that of metaphysics that they would have been puzzled to
explain what was meant by Descartes' famous COGITO ERGO SUM, on which
the preacher laid so much stress. They would have preferred to put the
fact of their existence on almost any other experience in life, as that
"I have five millions," or, "I am the best-dressed woman in the
church,--therefore I am somebody." The fact of self-consciousness would
not have struck them as warranting a claim even to a good social
position, much less to a share in omnipotence; they knew the trait only
as a sign of bad manners. Yet there were at least two persons among the
glorified chrysanthemums of St. John's Garden this day, who as the
sermon closed and the organ burst out again, glanced at each other with
a smile as though they had enjoyed their lecture.

"Good!" said the man. "He takes hold."

"I hope he believes it all," said his companion.

"Yes, he has put his life into the idea," replied the man. "Even at
college he would have sent us all off to the stake with a swe