why the Galatians
should in a given case do their duty, and he answers: "Because they
know God; they are aware of His purposes and laws, and having this
rational understanding of Him they know how to act as His servants."
"But no," he goes on to say, "that is not the real impulse of their
duty. What holds them to their best is rather the thought that God
knows them, that He gives them their duty, and that they obey." It is
like the position of a soldier under his commander. The soldier does
not expect to know {193} all about the plan of the campaign, but what
keeps him to his best is the knowledge that some one knows about it;
that the commander overlooks the field; that each little skirmish has
its place in the great design. That is what makes the soldier go down
again into the smoke and dust of his duty with his timidity converted
into faith.

Knowing God,--that is theology; being known of Him,--that is religion.
Both theology and religion have their influence on conduct. It is a
great thing to know that one knows God. There is power in a rational
creed. But, after all, the profoundest impulse for conduct is to know
that beneath all your ignorance of God is His knowledge of you; that
before you loved Him, He loved you, that antecedent to your response to
Him was His invitation to you. Thus it is that a man looks out into
each new day and asks: "What is to hold me to-day to my duty?" Well,
first of all, everything I may learn ought to help me. It is all God's
truth, and, as I get a grasp on truth and stand on its firm ground, my
conduct is steadier and assured. But, after all, the deeper safety
lies in this other confession, that I am known of God; that I {194} am
not merely an explorer, searching for truth, but guided and controlled
as ever under the great taskmaster's eye; known of Him, with my
ignorance of Him held within His knowledge of me, until the time comes
when at last I shall know even as also I am known.

{195}

LXXVIII

FREEDOM IN THE TRUTH

_John_ viii. 32.

"The truth shall make you free;"--that is one of the greatest
announcements of a universal principle which even Jesus Christ ever
made.

But the Jews began to ask of him: "How can one be a disciple of your
truth and yet be free? Is not that discipleship only another name for
bondage? We are free already. We are in bondage to no man. Why then
should we enter into the servitude of obedience to your truth?" And to
this Je