undamental fact of the religious life is this,--that the power
and love of God are seeking man; that before we love Him, He loves us;
that before we know Him, He knows us; that antecedent to our
recognition of Him must be our receptivity of Him. Coleridge said that
he believed in the Bible because it found him. It is for the same
reason that man believes in God. God finds him. It is not the sheep
which go looking for the shepherd, it is the shepherd who finds the
sheep, and when they hear his voice, they follow him.

This is not contrary to nature. The same principle is to be noticed in
regard to all truth. Take, for instance, any scientific discovery of a
physical force, like that which we call the force of electricity.
There is nothing new about this wonderful power. It has always been
about us, playing through the sky, and inviting the mind of man. Then,
some day, a few men open their minds to the significance of this force,
and appreciate how it may be applied to the common uses of life. That
is what we call a discovery; it is the opening of the door of the mind;
and one of the most impressive things about science to-day is to {109}
consider how many other secrets of the universe are at this moment
knocking at our doors, and waiting to be let in; and to perceive how
senseless and unreceptive we must seem to an omniscient mind, when so
much truth, standing near us, is beaten back from our closed minds and
wills. It is the same with religious truth. Here are our lives, shut
in, limited, self-absorbed; and here are the messages of God, knocking
at our door; and between the two only one barrier, the barrier of our
own wills. Religious education is simply the opening of the door of
the heart. A Christian discipleship is simply that alertness and
receptivity which hears the knocking and welcomes the Spirit which
says: "If any man will but open the door, I will come in to him, and
sup with him, and he with me."

{110}

XLIV

HE THAT OVERCOMETH

_Revelation_ xxi. 7.

In each one of these letters to the churches there is repeated like a
refrain, a sort of _motif_ which announces the character of all,--this
final phrase: "He that overcometh." He is to receive the promise, he
is to inherit these things, he is to be the stone in the temple of God.
The reward and blessing are to be not for the shirks or runaways or
easy-going of the world, but for those who, taking life just as it is
with all its hard