he revolution of the times; for the old order is passed, and the new
arises; the night is spent, the day is come forth; and thou shalt crown
the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt send forth laborers into thy
harvest sown by other hands than theirs; when thou shalt send forth new
laborers to new seed-times, whereof the harvest shall be not yet."[429]

HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM[430]

This fundamental ground is our preference of doing to thinking. Now this
preference is a main element in our nature and as we study it we find
ourselves opening up a number of large questions on every side.

Let me go back for a moment to Bishop Wilson,[431] who says: "First,
never go against the best light you have; secondly, take care that your
light be not darkness." We show, as a nation, laudable energy and
persistence in walking according to the best light we have, but are not
quite careful enough, perhaps, to see that our light be not darkness.
This is only another version of the old story that energy is our strong
point and favorable characteristic, rather than intelligence. But we may
give to this idea a more general form still, in which it will have a yet
larger range of application. We may regard this energy driving at
practice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control,
and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we
have, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at those
ideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the ardent
sense for all the new and changing combinations of them which man's
development brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and adjust
them perfectly, as another force. And these two forces we may regard as
in some sense rivals,--rivals not by the necessity of their own nature,
but as exhibited in man and his history,--and rivals dividing the empire
of the world between them. And to give these forces names from the two
races of men who have supplied the most signal and splendid
manifestations of them, we may call them respectively the forces of
Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism and Hellenism,--between these two
points of influence moves our world. At one time it feels more
powerfully the attraction of one of them, at another time of the other;
and it ought to be, though it never is, evenly and happily balanced
between them.

The final aim of both Hellenism and Hebraism, as of all great spiritual
disciplines, is no doubt the same