Finally, it must be remarked that, as Luther puts it, “Faith always goes against appearances.” The religious conception of the world not only never grows directly out of a scientific and general study of things, but it can never be brought into absolute congruence with it. There are endless tracts and domains of the world, in nature and history, which we cannot bring under the religious consideration at all, because they admit of no interpretation from the higher or more general points of view; they lie before us as everlasting unrelated mysteries, uncomprehended as to their import and purpose. Moreover, the religious theory of the world can never tell us, or wish to tell us, what the world is as a whole, or what is the meaning of its being. It is enough for us that it throws light on our own being, and reveals to us our place and destiny, and the meaning of our existence. It is enough if, in this respect, reality adapts itself to the interpretations of religion, admits of their truth and allows them scope, and corroborates them in important ways and instances. It actually does this, and it can be demonstrated that it does. And in demonstrating this the task of an apologetic that knows its own limitations alone consists. It must be aware that it will succeed even in this, only if it is supported by a courageous will to believe and joy in believing, that many gaps and a thousand riddles will remain, that the ultimate and highest condition of the search after a world-interpretation is personal decision and personal choice, which finally depends upon “what manner of man one is.” Faith has always meant going against appearances. It has gone against them not from obstinacy or incorrigible lack of understanding, but because it has had strong reasons, impossible to set aside, for regarding appearances literally as appearances. It has suffered from the apparent, often even to the point of extinction, and has again drawn from it and from its opposition its highest strength. That they overmastered appearances made of the heroes of faith the greatest of all heroes. And thus religion lives by the very riddles which have frequently caused its death, and they are a part of its inheritance and constitution. To work continually towards their solution is a task which it will never give up. Until success has been achieved, it is of importance to show, that what comes into conflict with faith in these riddles at the present day is not something new and previously unheard of. In cases where faith has died because of them we almost invariably find the opinion that religion might have been possible in earlier and more naïve times, but that it is no longer possible to us, with our deeper insight into the dark mystery of nature and destiny. This is foolishness. When faith dies thus, it dies of one of its infantile diseases. For from the tragedies of Job and of Jeremiah to the Tower of Siloam and the horror of the Mont-Pelée eruption