(2) The idea of a personal God implies not merely the existence of an unknown absolute power, as Herbert Spencer seems to hold, or of "an Eternal, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness," as Matthew Arnold puts it, but of a Being of whom we can affirm will, intelligence, feeling, self-consciousness, not certainly precisely as they occur in us, but in a higher and more perfect form, of which our own consciousness furnishes the type, or "image and shadow," as Moses long ago phrased it. On the one hand, it is true that we can not fully comprehend such a personal God, because not limited by the conditions which limit us. On the other hand, it is clear that our intellect, as constituted, can furnish us with no ultimate explanation of the universe except in the action of such a primary personal will. In the Bible the absolute personality of God is expressed by the title "I am." His intimate relation to us is indicated by the expression, "In him we live, and move, and have our being." His all-pervading essence is stated as "the fullness of him that filleth all in all." His relative personality is shadowed forth by the attribution to him of love, anger, and other human feelings and sentiments, and by presenting him in the endearing relation of the universal Father. (3) With reference to the possibility of communication between God and man, it may truly be said that such communication is not only possible, but infinitely probable. God is not only near to us, but we are in him, and, independently of the testimony of revelation, it has been felt by all classes of men, from the rudest and most primitive savages up to our great English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, that if there is a God, he can not be excluded from communion with his intelligent creatures, either directly or through the medium of ministering spirits.[2] Farther, placed as man is in the midst of complex and to him inexplicable phenomena, involved in a conflict of good and evil, happiness and misery, to which the wisest and the greatest minds have found no issue, subject to be degraded by low passions and tempted to great extremes of evil, and himself weak, impulsive, and vacillating, there seems the most urgent need for divine communication. It may be said that these are conflicts and problems which God has left man to decide and solve for himself by his own reason. But when we consider how slow this process is, and how imperfect even now, after the experience of ages, we seem to need some intervention that shall stimulate the human mind, and impel it forward with greater rapidity. Farther, it would appear only right that an intelligent and accountable being, placed in a world like this, should have some explanation of his origin and destiny given him at first, and that, if he should perchance go astray, a helping hand should be extended to him.