higher religious consciousness in which doubt and uncertainty are swallowed up in an inward vision of his glory. Here, then, we have the rational foundation for moral government, and the ultimate ground of all religion. The possibility of knowing God, the obligation to reverence and obey God, the power to do the will of God, the susceptibility of the human heart for Divine inspiration and Divine communing, are all grounded upon the _correlations between God and man_. "God is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move and are; as certain of your own poets have said, '_For we are his offspring_."' 1. _The relation between God and man is a relation of contiguity._ God is perpetually near to man. "He is not far from any one of us." The sacred Scriptures not only teach the ubiquity of God, but they emphasize the immediateness of the Divine presence in relation to man. "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me." No man can escape from God. We may retire to the remotest parts of the earth, and take up our abode in the most solitary isle; we may press our way into the deepest recesses of the primeval forest, to spots where the foot of man has never trod, and on which the light of heaven has never shone, and where solitude has held its undisturbed reign ever since the morning of creation, and the conviction that "God is in this place" will relieve the loneliness, and hold us fast within the grasp of his government and laws. Let human thought take to itself the wings of imagination and pierce the heavens, let it travel on through the immensity of space until it has reached the confines of the universe, let it alight on one of the outermost stars which seem to stand as sentinels at the very outposts of creation, and looking out upon the depths of space, there shall be heard the voice of God toning on throughout the fathomless abyss, "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see?" "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." God is not far from any one of us. He is the "_Ever Near_." Nearer to us than the air we breathe, nearer than the light which reveals surrounding objects, nearer than our body, the living vesture of the soul, is God. In the words of the Persian oracle, "God is nearer to thee than thou art unto thyself." As the Infinite Mind is present to all rational beings, so are they all present to Him. God is omniscient. The thoughts, feelings, and actions of all men are immediately and directly known by Him. "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying