It is still more difficult to say who are the children of light. It is true that the Gospels sometimes mention them, but what is the meaning of the light of which the Gospels speak? Whence comes it, and how does it shine into the life of men? Here we touch at once the greatest of human problems. Whence come we? Whither do we go? What is our destiny? All that can be said in plain words of the children of light is this: that they are seeking that which is beyond reality, and are receptive to the suggestions of the ideal world. The children of light are those who supremely desire something better than to eat and drink and to-morrow die. This is the motive which most stirs their hearts and wills, and out of this desire comes to them by degrees, first, faith, and then conviction. This way to the light is in a certain degree indicated in the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”; and it is more precisely described in the Gospel of Luke: “If thy whole body be full of light, the whole shall be full of light”--a passage whose exact meaning no one has clearly determined. Beyond such evidence as this one can hardly go; for, if we do, the children of this world, who know nothing of such experiences and regard them as extravagances or worse, will at the best turn away like Felix and the Athenians, saying: “We will hear thee again of this matter”; having no more inclination than Felix to be further drawn into such disturbing and unprofitable discussions. The dreams of the children of light, they will say, lead to nothing and had better be forgotten. It must be sadly confessed that a great part of religious instruction has been singularly unfruitful. Indeed, religion cannot be imparted by instruction. It assumes not only a faith in that which is beyond the world of knowledge, but also a faith in the teachers of religion. The teachers of religion, therefore, can, at the best, only produce in one a kind of mental disposition. They can free the mind from disinclination to their view or from positive incapacity to share it, and they can fortify conviction by their teaching. This limitation in religious instruction has more than one cause. It sometimes happens because the hearer’s way of life is inconsistent with idealism. It is also, and quite as often, caused by a false definition of religion--the notion that religion is a matter of doctrine, a kind of science which can be taught and learned.