Perhaps, however, our distress arises from the adoption of a mistaken standpoint. For, first, let the question be considered not from the point of view of God’s patience but of His greatness, and the infinitely long development will seem less dreadful. The immensity of time may then be regarded, not as a token of God’s indifference to man, but as a measure of His eternal majesty, and as evidence of an intention sublime beyond our present power to apprehend, yet not antagonistic to the value of the individual being--as indeed the author of _Isaiah_ 40 perceived: _Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from my God and my glory is forgotten by my God? Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His understanding._ And, secondly, there is something to be said regarding the brevity of our bodily existence, to which an analogy will furnish the best introduction. Suppose that men were able to perceive the world of Nature only in its immensities, seeing the oceans but not the tumbling waves, seeing the plains but not each green or golden field, would they not fail to perceive an incalculably great portion of earth’s beauty? How unutterably more wonderful are all natural objects when the microscope reveals the marvel of every particle. The tree is loveliest to him who has an eye to see the perfection of each leaf or knows the miracle of its growth from a single seed or shoot. Is it not possible that something similar is true of the human spirit in its apprehension of reality? Suppose that our personality was unable to taste life except on the grand scale, so that for man a thousand years were only a passing moment, experienced only “as a watch in the night,” would not the half of life’s glory then be hidden from those who were ignorant of what _one_ year can be? May not participation in reality on a small scale--time felt as a day, an hour, a minute--be indispensable if the human spirit is to grasp the amazing fulness of conscious life? Apparently circumscribed by the limit of our three score years and ten, are we here to learn that consciousness, even when measured in days and minutes, is of eternal worth and pure delight? For we do learn that lesson. We do discover that an instant of perfect and unselfish tenderness may be of immeasurable value. Perchance Man can never love God till he has loved his brother, never know with the Divine knowledge, until in faith, hope, and charity he has desired to win the knowledge which is in part. The cup of cold water must first be given lovingly unto the least of His brethren, or we shall never comprehend to give it into the hand of Christ Himself. “He that is faithful over a few things,” said Jesus, “shall be set over many.” Perhaps only to those who have sought to find Heaven in life _sub specie temporis_ can life _sub