It may be asked for how many people is this Supreme Being anything more than a name encountered in a book? To a small number of individuals He was an intense reality at intervals during the course of ages, to saints of the Christian Church and some of the heathen philosophers. He may still be a reality for certain individualities which modern philosophies have not classified, as amongst pantheists or atheists, or minds full of inconsequent enthusiasm. This Being is also a reality for the erudite mind, or the contemplative who make Him an object of study. But the greater number of men, even the civilised, the baptised, are content to pass by; they are satisfied with the reflection only. Some might say that it is by means of our reason rather than of our heart that we are enabled to trace in God “the Being apart” or “self-existent Being,” but Seneca says: “Reason is not only composed of evidence; its best part is obscure and hidden.” In our days this remark of Seneca’s has been paraphrased and rendered more in detail, it has been said: “There are certain minds which are illumined, and there are others full of warmth; the warmth and the clarity at times separate, but never the warmth and the nobility; in the more noble minds there is more warmth.” If, as Spinoza thought, reason becomes less apt at raising itself to the knowledge of God, in proportion as imagination and enthusiasm--to which it gives rise--gain in strength, yet, on the other hand, the world in general would no doubt have benefited by the work of prophets which characterised the history of the Hebrew people; the greater number of intellectual men amongst the ancient philosophers would not have sought after the knowledge of God, when it was presented in a form too pure and too abstract to impress the multitude. The divine conception therefore descended and captivated them by a union of the divine and human; and it is because the Bible contains this universal element that the idea of a supernatural revelation has become deeply engraved in the human conscience, and has caused some to consider the Bible as the unique source of all revelation. For this reason the people of Israel, though less prone to action than many of whom history speaks, are, to those who think, the most important amongst the nations of antiquity, since they have proved, as none others have done, the power of the spiritual element in humanity. It is displeasing to many persons to hear the term “Science of Religion” used. “How can a science be made,” they say, “of what is a natural sentiment? We can believe without study.” Why do they not add, “and without reflection?”