that there is. There are some who on this point can reverently take up
the words of our Great Master, "We speak that we do know." We believe,
as firmly as we believe in our own existence, that this our
conscience--the highest power within us--has been itself acted upon by a
Higher Power still, a moral and spiritual Power, which has enlightened
it, purified it, strengthened it, in fact renewed it.

Now, this purifying or enlightening of our moral powers has one
remarkable effect. It makes those who have been acted upon by it to look
up out of this present state of things for a more direct revelation of
the character and designs of the Supreme Being. Minds who have
experienced this action of a Superior Power upon them cannot possibly
look upon the Supreme Being as revealing Himself merely by the laws of
gravitation, or electricity, or natural selection. We look for, we
desire a further and fuller Revelation of God, even though the
Revelation may condemn us. We cannot rest without it. It is intolerable
to those who have a sense of justice, for instance, to think that,
whilst led by their sense of what is good and right, men execute
imperfect justice, there is, after all, no Supreme Moral Governor Who
will render to each individual in another life that just retribution
which is assuredly not accorded to all in this life. [152:1]

Now this, I say, makes us desire a revelation of the Supreme Moral
Governor which is assuredly not to be found in the laws which control
mere physical forces. As Dr. Newman has somewhere said, men believe what
they wish to believe, and assuredly we desire to believe that there is a
supreme Moral Governor, and that He has not left us wholly in the dark
respecting such things as the laws and sanctions of His moral
government. But has He really revealed these? We look back through the
ages, and our eyes are arrested by the figure of One Who, according to
the author of "Supernatural Religion," taught a "sublime religion." His
teaching "carried morality to the sublimest point attained, or even
attainable, by humanity. The influence of His Spiritual Religion has
been rendered doubly great by the unparalleled purity and elevation of
His own character. He presented the rare spectacle of a life, so far as
we can estimate it, uniformly noble and consistent with His own lofty
principles, so that the 'imitation of Christ' has become almost the
final word in the preaching of His Religion, and must continue to