[Footnote 129: See Parkhurst's Lexicon, under _Δεισιδαιμονία_, which Suidas explains by εὐλάβεια περὶ τὸ θεῖον--_reverence for the Divine_, and Hesychius by Φυβυθέια--_fear of God_. Also, Josephus, Antiq., book x. ch. iii, § 2: "Manasseh, after his repentance and reformation, strove to behave himself (τῇ δεισιδαιμονία χρῆσθαί) in the _most religious manner_ towards God." Also see A. Clarke on Acts xvii.] Along with this sentiment of the Divine there is also associated, in all human minds, an _instinctive yearning_ after the Invisible; not a mere feeling of curiosity to pierce the mystery of being and of life, but what Paul designates "a feeling after God," which prompts man to seek after a deeper knowledge, and a more immediate consciousness. To attain this deeper knowledge--this more conscious realization of the being and the presence of God, has been the effort of all philosophy and all religion in all ages. The Hindoo Yogis proposes to withdraw into his inmost self, and by a complete suspension of all his active powers to become absorbed and swallowed up in the Infinite.[130] Plato and his followers sought by an immediate abstraction to apprehend "the unchangeable and permanent Being," and, by a loving contemplation, to become "assimilated to the Deity," and in this way to attain the immediate consciousness of God. The Neo-Platonic mystic sought by asceticism and self-mortification to prepare himself for divine communings. He would contemplate the divine perfections in himself; and in an _ecstatic_ state, wherein all individuality vanishes, he would realize a union, or identity, with the Divine Essence.[131] While the universal Church of God, indeed, has in her purest days always taught that man may, by inward purity and a believing love, be rendered capable of spiritually apprehending, and consciously feeling, the presence of God. Some may be disposed to pronounce this as all mere mysticism. We answer, The living internal energy of religion is always _mystical_, it is grounded in _feeling_--a "_sensus numinis_" common to humanity. It is the mysterious sentiment of the Divine; it is the prolepsis of the human spirit reaching out towards the Infinite; the living susceptibility of our spiritual nature stretching after the powers and influences of the higher world. It is upon this inner instinct of the supernatural that all religion rests. I do not say every religious idea, but whatever is positive, practical, powerful, durable, and popular. Everywhere, in all climates, in all epochs of history, and in all degrees of civilization, man is animated by the sentiment--I would rather say, the presentiment--that the world in which he lives, the order of things in the midst of which he moves, the facts which regularly and constantly succeed each other, are not _all_. In vain he daily makes discoveries and conquests in this vast universe; in vain he observes and learnedly verifies the general laws which govern it; _his thought is not inclosed