Some explanation is necessary here. You believe, we hope, in the majesty, power, wisdom, and mercy of God, in the revelations He has vouchsafed to man, in the immortality of the soul. These are great problems, however; the greatest problems a mortal can venture to discuss. Already I see the bigot frowning; he professes to be shocked by the word "problem," he would fain substitute for it that of "certainty" or "truth." Well, through faith we accept them as truths; but, metaphysically speaking, they may be regarded as problems which the All-wise has submitted to man's earnest consideration. In fact, the God in whom you and we believe, in whom you and we put all our trust, has surrounded them with something of uncertainty, has invested them with so much of doubtfulness as may test our faith. Yes, in doing so, He has had a purpose to fulfil. Let us think of a geometrician--and an ancient writer said that God, by creating the world, created geometry--for the sake of exercising the minds of his pupils, his children, giving them a problem to be solved. If at the same time, he placed before them the solution, he would assuredly fail in his object. No means would remain of distinguishing the capable from the incapable, the studious from the indifferent, the idler from the worker, if they all found the question answered beforehand! True, if the problem is too difficult, if the solution lies beyond the faculties of those whom he wishes to test and put to the proof, the master will not fail to furnish them with all the elements necessary for their guidance, whether they consider it from without, or whether they consider it with the help of their own inner consciousness. But science and conscience stand in need of an equally difficult task; the first, that it may learn to observe clearly, the latter that it may learn to act purely. And it is here, above all, that the two-fold nature of man becomes a perplexity and a stumbling-block. On the one hand, man creates theories, in order to disembarrass himself of the science which calls for the exercise of powerful and laborious observation; on the other, he creates dogmas, which he hopes may lull to sleep that ever active, ever restless conscience, which demands fertile and beneficial actions, and rejects barren or deceitful phrases. It is true that to many minds the discussion of the questions at which we have hinted seems a sorry work, because the time given for their discussion is necessarily so limited. What is life? they say. What can be effected in so short an interval? What can man hope to accomplish in the few short years that intervene between manhood, when the mind is mature, and old age, when the intellect grows enfeebled? These are the men who echo the old poet's mournful cry:--[91]