But the present point is, that we should realise the far-reaching significance of the disclosure of God made on and from the Cross. Human history is like a long-drawn-out drama, in which we are actors. How long is that drama, stretching back beyond the long years of recorded history to our dim forefathers, who have left their rude stone implements on the floors of caves or bedded in the river drift, the silent witnesses of a vanished race. And how short is that little scene in which we ourselves appear, while, insignificant as it is, it is yet our all. And we ask, we are impelled to ask, what is the meaning of the whole vast drama? What is the meaning of our own little scene in it? No questions can be compared in interest and importance to these two. And the answer to them both, so we shall try to see, was given once in time from the Cross. That is one of the chief aspects under which we shall regard the Cross of Christ, as the key which unlocks the mystery of human existence, and of my existence. There is no more majestic or pathetic conception than that of the veiled Isis. But the Cross is the removal of the veil, the discovery of the Divine Secret. * * * * * Before, however, we proceed to our main subject, it will be well to set first before our minds a few elementary considerations. The existence of God appears to be necessitated in order to account for two things: (i) the appearance of control in the universe; (ii) the facts of moral consciousness. (i) It seems impossible to get rid of the ideas of direction and control. If we regard the world as it exists at the present moment, as one stage in an age-long process, then at least [Greek text] the facts which now appear were contained in the earliest stage of all. Man appears with his moral and spiritual nature. Then already the moral and the spiritual were somehow present when the first living cell began its wonderful course. [Greek text]. All movements have converged towards this end, and the co-ordination of movements implies control. This then is our first reason for our belief in God. We live in a universe which seems throughout to manifest evidence of direction and control.