"Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; "Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high. "God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. "The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved; he uttered his voice, the earth melted. "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge."[A] [Footnote A: Psalms xlvi:1-7.] All which loving trust comes from that blessed sense of nearness of God born of the great doctrine of Immanence--God resident in the world, here and now--a dynamic power in the world--that makes for righteousness, and of which the Christ was and is the manifestation, the Revealer; and the Immanent Spirit is "the Light of Christ." LESSON IV. (Scripture Reading Exercise.) THE PHILOSOPHICAL VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE OF IMMANENCE. ANALYSIS. I. The Immanence Conception a Result of Modern Thinking. II. Philosophical Values in Immanence. III. Immanence Conversely--"The World Immanent in God." IV. Immanence Equal--Manifestation Unequal. REFERENCES. The Scripture passages and works cited in the lesson text. _SPECIAL TEXT: "Thou, God, seest me." (Gen. xvi:13.)_ DISCUSSION. _1. Modern Revival of the Doctrine of Immanence:_ On the philosophical side of this conception of the Immanence of God, we are assured that it is the result of the modern world's (i.e. _post Kantian_) thinking.[A] Of its value to human thinking and to religion itself, John Fiske--after pointing out the fact that both Clement and Athanasius among the early Christian fathers had held somewhat to the doctrine of immanence as conceived in more modern philosophy, viz--"God Immanent in the universe, and eternally creative"--says: [Footnote A: "One can securely say that nothing of crucial import has come forward in the interest of human freedom [i.e. freedom of the human will--man as a free moral agent] since Kant started the inspiring but hitherto little fruitful conception of moral autonomy. Instead, as we have seen, the world's thinking has been absorbed in questions that thus far have ended in a persuasion of the immanence of the eternal in all things--at best the all-pervasive presence of an immanent spirit." Howison, "Conceptions of God," Introductions p. 32.]