heology.
It left the mysteries of earth's sorrow and sin unexplained; but it
offered the assurance, under a most living figure, that the author and
final disposer of the whole was one whose nature was love itself.

When it ceases to be believed that Jesus was God, the corner-stone of
this whole structure of belief, as an intellectual conception, is gone.
The void is concealed for a while by intermediate theories,--that Jesus
was a kind of inferior deity, that he was at least a supernatural
messenger. Frankly say that he was a man only, and we have really
given up that intellectual ground of confidence in a God on which for
many centuries men have stood. And, in that involuntary and most
regretful surrender, and in the first impression following it, that the
only discernible order is a mechanical order, with no room for worship,
no hope of immortality, lies the tragedy of the thinking world to-day.
For a multitude of minds, God is eclipsed, and the earth lies in
shadow. In shadow, but not in despair. For still there is

"The prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming of things to come."

Slowly emerges a new conception. In the lowest depth of his spirit man
has found that, in Robertson's words, "it is better to be true than to
be false, better to be pure than to be sensual, better to be brave than
to be a coward." By that sure and simple creed man lives through his
darkest day. When the tree seems dead, that root lives. And presently
there grows from it a nobler tree.

The turning-point from the old thought to the new is this: We see that
the imperative task set to every man is not to understand the universe
plan, but to live his own life successfully. It will quite suffice for
most of us if we can each one do justice to the possibilities of his
own existence. Those possibilities are something more than breathing
and eating, sleeping and waking, toil and rest. Among his
possibilities each man hopes are included contentment, joy, peace. At
least there must be possible for him some right conformity to the
conditions in which he is placed, some noble and spiritual
satisfaction, some imparting of good to his fellow creatures. There is
for him some best way of life, which it is his business to find and to
follow.

And as he finds and follows it,--as he fills out the best possibilities
of his own being,--so he must come into the truest relation possible
for him with this whole mysterious frame