ive is to live naturally. As closely
as possible we must follow the broad, clear lines of the natural life.
And there are three things especially which it is necessary for us to
keep continually in view. The first is that the organism contains within
itself only one-half of what is essential to life; the second is that
the other half is contained in the Environment; the third, that the
condition of receptivity is simple union between the organism and the
Environment.

Translated into the language of religion these propositions yield, and
place on a scientific basis, truths of immense practical interest. To
say, first, that the organism contains within itself only one-half of
what is essential to life, is to repeat the evangelical confession, so
worn and yet so true to universal experience, of the utter helplessness
of man. Who has not come to the conclusion that he is but a part, a
fraction of some larger whole? Who does not miss at every turn of his
life an absent God? That man is but a part, he knows, for there is room
in him for more. That God is the other part, he feels, because at times
He satisfies his need. Who does not tremble often under that sicklier
symptom of his incompleteness, his want of spiritual energy, his
helplessness with sin? But now he understands both--the void in his
life, the powerlessness of his will. He understands that, like all other
energy, spiritual power is contained in Environment. He finds here at
last the true root of all human frailty, emptiness, nothingness, sin.
This is why "without Me ye can do nothing." Powerlessness is the normal
state not only of this but of every organism--of every organism apart
from its Environment.

The entire dependence of the soul upon God is not an exceptional
mystery, nor is man's helplessness an arbitrary and unprecedented
phenomenon. It is the law of all Nature. The spiritual man is not taxed
beyond the natural. He is not purposely handicapped by singular
limitations or unusual incapacities. God has not designedly made the
religious life as hard as possible. The arrangements for the spiritual
life are the same as for the natural life. When in their hours of
unbelief men challenge their Creator for placing the obstacle of human
frailty in the way of their highest development, their protest is
against the order of nature. They object to the sun for being the source
of energy and not the engine, to the carbonic acid being in the air and
not in the plant