condition of things that we dream of and pray for and talk
about, when men shall perfectly love God, and when they shall love each
other as themselves.

What is it that keeps man from God? First, it seems to me, it is
ignorance. What man needs in order to bring him into oneness with God
is first to have some clear conceptions of the divine, some high,
sweet, noble thoughts of God, some knowledge of the laws of God as
embodied in himself and in the universe around him. Man needs
intelligence, then, to help him, needs education.

In the next place, he needs such a picture of God as shall: make him
seem lovable. You cannot make the human heart: love that which seems
hateful. The picture of God, as he has been outlined to the world in
the past, has repelled the human heart; and I do not wonder. I do not
think it strange that humanity should be at enmity with that conception
of the divine. Make God the ideal of all that is noble and sweet and
lovely, and the heart will be as naturally attracted and drawn to him
as a flower is toward the sun.

Then man needs to have his spiritual side developed, that in him which
is akin to God, so that he shall naturally live out the divine love.
Education, then, is all on man's side, you will see. God does not need
to be changed: we need to know him, to love him, to come into conscious
relationship with him. This is what we need, so far as our relation to
God is concerned.

Now for the more important side; for it is infinitely the more
important practically. Let me speak a little while of the work of
atonement between man and man. If we trace the history of humanity, we
find that men were scattered in groups all over the world, isolated,
separated from each other, ignorant of each other, misunderstanding
each other, hating each other, fighting each other; and the work of
civilization means to bring men together, to work out an atonement
between nation and nation, religion and religion, family and family,
man and man.

Here, again, as in the case of God, the first thing that needs to be
overcome is ignorance. Look back no further than our late war. I think
every careful student of that tremendous conflict is ready to say
to-day that, if the North and South had been acquainted with each other,
known each other as they know each other now, the war would have been
impossible. We need to know other men. As you go back, you find curious
traditions illustrating this ignorance of different n