pen a valve through which
new spiritual powers enter, and add themselves to our being. If the word
_God_ be sometimes spoken simply and spontaneously, a youth who hears it
will be sure upon some day, when the sense of the infinite and divine
stirs vaguely within him, to ask himself what this word means, to
require his soul to tell him what is the verity corresponding thereto;
and precisely this requisition is what the soul desires, for only when
sought may its riches be found. The utilities of words in this kind are
deserving of very grave estimation. Words teach us much, but they teach
less by what is in them than by what is not in them,--less by what they
give to us than by what they demand from us.

It is, therefore, one of the grand services of communication to bring us
to the limits of communication, making us feel, that, ere it can go
farther, there must occur in us new stretches of thought, new energies
of hope, faith, and all noble imagining. It were well, therefore, that,
among other things, we should sometimes thank God for our ignorance and
weakness,--thank Him for what we do _not_ understand and are not equal
to; for with every fresh recognition of these, with every fresh approach
to the borders of our intelligence, we are prepared for new requisitions
upon the soul. As in a pump the air is exhausted in order that the water
may rise, so a void in our intelligence _caused by its own energy_
precedes every enrichment. Hence he who will not admit to his heart the
sense of ignorance will always be a fool; he who is perpetually filled
with self-sufficiency will never be filled with much else. And from this
point of view one may discern the significance of that doctrine of
humility which belongs equally to Socratic thinking and Christian
believing.

It follows, too, that we need not laboriously push and foist upon the
young our faith and experience. Aside from direct vital influence, which
is a powerful propagandist, our simple, natural, inevitable speech will
cause them to do much better than learn from us, it will cause them to
learn from their own souls. And however uncertain may be a harvest from
questions asked of others, a great question rightly put to one's self
not only must be fruitful, but carries in it a capacity for infinite
fruitfulness; while the longer and more patiently and persistently one
can wait for an answer, the richer his future is to be. I am sure of him
who can put to his heart the great