destiny here and hereafter." Perhaps on most of his hearers the words
fall coldly; but if they see that the speaker's life bears fruit of
goodness and heroism and service, they may be sure that, though in a
language strange to them, God has spoken to his soul.

There are a great many people, and some of the very best of people, who
never get any vivid or distinct apprehension of realities above the
sphere of their personal activity. Often they conform to the usages and
the language of a religious faith in which they have been educated, and,
very likely, feel some self-reproach that they know so little of the
spiritual experiences which others speak of. There are men, too, who
frankly say, "I don't know much about God; I can't get hold of what folks
call religion; but I try to do my work honestly, and I want to help other
people just as much as I can." Some of the most genuine religion in the
world exists in people who are almost unconscious that they have any
religion. The simple desire to do right, and the constant readiness to
"lend a hand,"--that is the revelation which such souls receive.

Another very large class--a class which once included most of the
distinctively religious world--crave and find the warmth of a personal
relation with Christ as the only satisfying thing. It is one of the
great and wonderful facts of human history, this personal devotion of
unnumbered souls throughout the ages to Jesus. In its intensest form it
is affection to a living personality. Any attempt to explain it as an
appreciation of beneficent influences of which Jesus was the historical
originator, or as the reproduction of a temper and purpose resembling
that which was in Jesus, fails to satisfy those in whom love to Christ is
the ruling sentiment. It is a person, and a living person, that they
love. One may decline to accept the theories which are wont to accompany
the sentiment; one may not believe that Jesus was God, nor that personal
love for him can be required as an essential part of religion; and, at
the same time, one may believe that when a noble soul passes from earth,
it rises into yet nobler existence, and may be truly apprehended and
profoundly loved by those who are here. Certainly we see this: that to
many men and women the strongest and holiest sentiment of life is
affection for a personal embodiment of goodness and love, who once walked
in Galilee and Jerusalem, existing now in the invisible realm,
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