When God has once been conceived without 'any manner of similitude,' He may be meditated on, revered, and adored, but that fervent passion of the human breast, that love with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our might, seems to become hushed before that solemn presence. We may love our father and mother with all our heart, we may cling to our children with all our soul, we may be devoted to wife, or husband, or friend with all our might, but to throw all these feelings in their concentrated force and truth on the Deity has been given to very few on earth. _Gifford Lectures, III._ If the history of religion has taught us anything, it has taught us to distinguish between the names and the thing named. The names may change, and become more and more perfect, and our concepts of the Deity may become more perfect also, but the Deity itself is not affected by our names. However much the names may differ and change, there remains, as the last result of the study of religion, the everlasting conviction that behind all the names there is something named, that there is an agent behind all acts, that there is an Infinite behind the finite, that there is a God in Nature. That God is the abiding goal of many names, all well meant and well aimed, and yet all far, far away from the goal which no man can see and--live. All names that human language has invented may be imperfect. But the name 'I am that I am' will remain for those who think Semitic thought, while to those who speak Aryan languages it will be difficult to invent a better name than the Vedanta Sa_k_-_k_id-ânanda, He who is, who knows, who is blessed. _Gifford Lectures, III._ However much we may cease to speak the language of the faith of our childhood, the faith in a superintending and ever-present Providence grows only stronger the more we see of life, the more we know of ourselves. When that Bass-note is right, we may indulge in many variations, we shall never go entirely wrong. _MS._ We do not see the hand that takes our dear ones from us, but we know whose hand it is, whose will it is. We have no name for Him, we do not know Him, but we know that whatever name we give, He will understand it. That is the foundation of all religion. Let us give the best name we can find in us, let us know that even that must be a very imperfect name, but let us trust that if we only believe in that name, if we use it, not because it is the fashion, but because we can find no better name, He will understand and forgive. Every name is true if we are true, every name is false if we are false. If we are true our religion is true, if we are false our religion is false. An honest fetish worshipper even is better than a scoffing Pope. _MS._