Now why should not all these various avenues be filled with the knowledge of God, thus effecting the displacement of a vast throng of mean and loathsome influences which would otherwise run riot there? Surely that must be a singular process of reasoning by which the Most High is altogether banished from these avenues into which it is alleged He cannot possibly condescend to enter. We are confident there is some misapprehension here; let us therefore try to point out its probable nature. We have assumed that a study of creation leads us up to some conception of God—that we are driven by the faculties which He has given us to acknowledge the existence of a Paramount Power, and inasmuch as scientific thought leads us to regard THE UNIVERSE as both infinite and eternal, so are we driven to regard this Power which underlies all phenomena as infinite and eternal also. This at least appears to us to be the conclusion to which we are driven if we endeavour to reduce mental confusion to a minimum. It is, however, manifestly absurd to imagine that by means of this process we can ever comprehend the essential nature of God. We can no more comprehend His essential nature by this means than we can the essential nature of matter or of life. But surely we can judge of His character by the various modes in which He influences us, and indeed all scientific generalisations—even the simple conclusion that the sun will rise to-morrow—are in a sense expressions of our faith in the unchanging character of God. Now if we examine the process by which we have obtained this conception of God it will be seen that we start with a single intellectual being who is applying himself to a scientific study of the works of nature. The idea of our neighbour does not enter into it, and we agree to regard ourselves as intellectual rather than as moral or social beings. The result is that having voluntarily confined our argument to one channel, we obtain a knowledge of God’s character—that is to say, of His manifested relations towards us—which is necessarily incomplete. But are we therefore entitled to say:—Because we obtain a very imperfect conception of God by this method, we will not believe there is any other method by which this conception may be rendered more complete? Sound argument, it appears to us, leads the other way altogether. For if we assume that the knowledge of God derived from one source is incomplete, ought we not to try whether it can be supplemented by knowledge derived from other sources? Undoubtedly if other sources furnish, or seem to furnish, conceptions of God which are fundamentally inconsistent with that which we have derived through the scientific channel, we are entitled to sit in intellectual judgment upon them until the source of confusion is in some way removed.