The sermon that followed was largely a sermon about unknowable things. It was full of beautiful, helpful, thoughts about things that it was impossible for anyone to really know anything about. Very familiar were the things that the minister said that morning. Since his childhood, the man had heard them over and over many times; but he had never before thought of them in just that way. The sermon was finished and the beautifully mysterious and impressive words of the benediction were spoken as the people stood with bowed heads, hushed and still. Again the deep tones of the organ trembled in the air as the crowd poured forth from the building into the street. The man was thoughtful and troubled. He felt as one, who, meeting an old friend after many years, finds him changed beyond recognition. He was as one visiting, after years of absence, his old home to find the familiar landmarks all gone with the years. He was sadly conscious that something had gone out of his life--that something exceedingly precious had been taken away from him and that it could never be replaced. Seriously, sadly, the man asked himself: must his belief in Religion go as his faith in fairies had gone? Was Religion, after all, but a beautiful game played by the grown up world, even as children play? And if, indeed, his faith must go because songs and prayers and sermons have to do so largely with unknowable things, what of the spirit of the world expressed in the day that is so set apart from all other days? Sunday is a fact knowable enough. And the atmosphere of the church is another fact as knowable as the atmosphere of a race track, a foundry, or a political convention. And the fruits of Religion in the lives of men--these are as clearly knowable as the fruits of drunkenness, or gambling, or licentiousness. The man was as sure of the fruits of Religion as he was sure that the sun was shining--that the day, so warm and bright, was unlike the cold, hard, stormy, days of winter. And still--and still--the songs and prayers and sermons about unknowable things--must his belief in Religion go as his faith in fairies had gone? Unknowable things? Yes--as unknowable as that mysterious something that colors the trees and plants and flowers with tints of infinite shadings--as unknowable as that which puts the flavor in the peach, the strength in the corn, the perfume in the rose--as unknowable as the awful force that reveals itself in the lightning flash or speaks in the rolling thunder--as unknowable as the mysterious hand that holds the compass needle to the north and swings the star worlds far beyond the farthest reach of the boasting eye of Science. Unknowable? Yes--as unknowable as that which lies safe hidden behind the most commonplace facts of life--as unknowable indeed, as Life itself.