So far as the general method of approach is concerned, the Christian travels the same road to his idea of God. Only he cannot believe that the best he knows is too good or too great to be a symbol in terms of which to think of the Eternal. Therefore he will not take a byproduct of experience such as physical energy, nor a section of personality such as mind; he takes the full orb of personality, _self-conscious being that knows and purposes and loves_, and he affirms that God is most like this. Such in its simplest form is the Christian assertion of God's personality. In one of his noblest passages Martineau has put into classic form this necessity, which we have been discussing, of thinking about God in terms of human experience: "God, being infinite, can never be fully comprehended by our minds; whatever thought of him be there, his real nature must still transcend: there will yet be deep after deep beyond, within that light ineffable; and what we see, compared with what we do not see, will be as the raindrop to the firmament. Our conception of him can never _correspond with the reality_, so as to be without omission, disproportion, or aberration; but can only _represent the reality_, and _stand for God_ within our souls, till nobler thoughts arise and reveal themselves as his interpreters. And this is precisely what we mean by a symbolical idea. The devotee who prostrates himself before a black stone,--the Egyptian who in his prayers was haunted by the ideal form of the graceful ibis or the monstrous sphinx--the Theist who bends beneath the starry porch that midnight opens to the temple of the universe--the Christian who sees in heaven a spirit akin to that which divinely lived in Galilee, and with glorious pity died on Calvary--all alike assume a representation of him whose immeasurable nature they can neither compass nor escape. And the only question is, whether the conception they portray upon the wall of their ideal temple is an abominable idol, or a true and sanctifying mediatorial thought." IV