ealing with those things that
belong to this earth, with the different duties and opportunities and
pleasures that present themselves to him every day, and that higher and
loftier region into which he has entered seems to have no capacity to
call forth those powers which he has been using in this lower region.
And then I think again there is upon the souls of men who deal with
Christianity one great conviction which is very deep and strong. It is
that the Christian religion cannot be absolutely that which it presents
itself to human mankind as being, because it is so rich in the blessings
that it offers, because it comes with such a large enjoyment to our
human life, and opens such great opportunities for human living. Is it
not because it seems to us too good to be true that we sometimes turn
away from Christianity, and think that if we enter it at all we must
enter it in the dark, that it cannot possibly appeal to these human
natures and make them understand its truth, and let them take it into
their intelligence that thence it may issue into the soul and become the
guiding power of the life? Sometimes it seems as if Christianity were
so high that it was impossible that man should attain to it, as if it
were something altogether beyond our human powers. Do you want me, a
creature with this human body and this human relationship, with this
body and with these perpetual bindings and connections with my
fellow-men, do you want me to mount up and live among the stars and hold
communion with the God of all? And if you want me to, is there any
possibility of my doing it? Such a life is glorious, but not for me. It
goes beyond any capacity that I possess. Ask yourselves, my friends, if
something like this which I have tried to describe is not very often in
your minds as you hear the magnificent invitations which Christ gives to
the human soul to live its fullest life, to man to be his fullest being.
There are, no doubt, other reasons which present themselves to men, and
of those I do not speak. I will not think that the men who are listening
here to me now, in a base and low way shrink from the evidence of
Christianity and from the life of Christ because they do not want to
enter into that religion because it would make too great demands upon
them in the sacrifices that they would be called upon to make. It is
said sometimes, and I doubt not that it is sometimes true, that men will
not see the power and truth of Christianity b