Having thus seen what inspiration does not do, we must glance at what it really is. It is, perhaps, natural that we, rejecting, as we do, with somewhat of vehemence, the idea of supernatural revelation, should oftentimes be accused of denying all revelation and disbelieving all inspiration. But even as we are not atheists, although we deny the Godhead of Jesus, so are we not unbelievers in inspiration because we refuse to bend our necks beneath the yoke of an inspired Bible. For we believe in a God too mighty and too universal to be wrapped in swaddling clothes or buried in a cave, and we believe in an inspiration too mighty and too universal to belong only to one nation and to one age. As the air is as free and as refreshing to us as it was to Isaiah, to Jesus, or to Paul, so does the spiritual air of God's Spirit breathe so softly and as refreshingly on our brows as on theirs. We have eyes to see and ears to hear quite as much as they had in Judea long ago. "If God be omnipresent and omniactive, this inspiration is no miracle, but a regular mode of God's action on conscious Spirit, as gravitation on unconscious matter. It is not a rare condescension of God, but a universal uplifting of man. To obtain a knowledge of duty, a man is not sent away outside of himself to ancient documents for the only rule of faith and practice; the Word is very nigh him, even in his heart, and by this word he is to try all documents whatever.... Wisdom, Righteous-ness, and Love are the Spirit of God in the soul of man; wherever these are, and just in proportion to their power, there is inspiration from God.... Inspiration is the in-come of God to the soul, in the form of Truth through the Reason, of Right through the Conscience, of Love and Faith through the Affections and Religious Element.... A man would be looked on as mad who should claim miraculous inspiration for Newton, as they have been who denied it in the case of Moses. But no candid man will doubt that, humanly speaking, it was a more difficult thing to write the Principia than to write the Decalogue. Man must have a nature most sadly anomalous if, unassisted, he is able to accomplish all the triumphs of modern science, and yet cannot discover the plainest and most important principles of Religion and Morality without a miraculous inspiration; and still more so if, being able to discover by God's natural aid these chief and most important principles, he needs a miraculous inspiration to disclose minor details."* Thus we believe that inspiration from God is the birthright of humanity, and to be an heir of God it needs only to be a son of man. Earth's treasures are highly priced and hard to win, but God's blessings are, like the rain and the sunshine, showered on all-comers. "'Tis only heaven is given away; 'Tis only God may be had for the asking; No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer." * Theodore Parker.