uls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.'

It seems useless here to enter upon the vexed subject of 'innate ideas,'
or to attempt to convince the reader, metaphysically, that the very
negation contained in the word finite, necessarily suggests its
affirmation in the word infinite. Enough that the idea of the infinite
is certainly found in the mind of man, that he seeks it in the material
world, in himself, in God. High gifts may have been wrought into the dim
soul, which are destined to be gradually awakened through the growing
perceptions of the mind. Every spiritual being created by eternal love
may have had imparted to him a ray from the sun of eternal love, which,
in its due time and place, is to manifest itself in his consciousness.
Such participation in God as the primary source of all that is to abide
eternally with the redeemed, has, in the present state of our vague
consciousness, been described by men who felt its stirrings in their
soul as the memory of eternal love. It might more properly be called an
intuition of eternal love; such an instinct as leads the chrysalis to
prepare for the change which it certainly does not understand. Life,
such as the beat of the heart, the action of the lungs, is not
manifested to the consciousness--neither is the source of this
intuition, which, however, gives evidence of itself by an intuitive
feeling of incessant longing. It reveals its presence constantly;
sometimes in an undefinable feeling of profound desire, satisfied with
no earthly object, yet but vaguely directed to the eternal or divine;
sometimes in a profound and absorbing religiosity. This longing exists
in an inchoate state; it is a love yet to be developed. From this mystic
root springs much that is intellectually great, even the love of
scientific certainty. Philosophy may, indeed, almost be termed the
science of longing.

Developing in its normal growth, it gives us our true saints; those who
live but to love God, and to serve man. But like all human gifts, it may
be perverted. It is some such perverted apprehension or illusory longing
for the infinite, which causes a man to surrender himself, heart and
soul, to the despotic tyranny of some ruling habit, some favorite and
engrossing pursuit. Alas! it often leads the most gifted of our race to
devote all th