The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-07-14

between ourselves and our wants is
wonderful, that which does its part be-
tween mind and mind, and heart and
heart is even more wonderful.
Going up now step higher and look
ing at human life in another aspect,
we find ourselves still in this "system
of mediation" We are spiritual beings.
There is something in every race that
has ever lived that leads it to look up
to something higher than itself. There
is feeling of dependence in every
spirit that leads it involuntarily to feel
for the something outside itself to
which it can cling with unfailing grasp.
There is sense of obligation to some
unseen power which unconsciously lifts
one up to worship. There is thrill of
ecstatic feeling in this certainty of
being enveloped, as it were, in the
presence of a high spiritual power,
which leads us to feel after God, to put
out our weak hands here, there, every
where, eff haply we may find him."
And realizing this, we, Christians, who
have come to know something of the
One God, can no longer wonder that
those outside Christianity have wor-
SHIPPED what they have. We cannot
wonder that they, in their great desire
to get near this outside protecting
power, have striven to embody the
thought in images of wood and stone
and metal, rude or beautiful, according
to their ability. 1t is evidence of this
mediatorial system. The image, or
idol, reveals to them what otherwise
would be hidden. Nor can we wonder
that people have worshiped the sun,
the moon, the stars, any or all of the
grand and glorious things in nature.
These objects have been mediators
between them and their unknown God,
representatives of the power that Great.
ed and conserved. / do not, myself,
feel that scorn for the ancients who
worshiped plurality of gods, nor
for the pagans who do now, that some
Christians profess to feel; for can see
that in the dim light of nature they
could do no more, no better. And
really do not think many are worse
than some of the Christians of to-day,
for they certainly worship plurality of
gods,-gold, the word of four letters,
being as often their object of worship
as is the word of three letters, gold,
with the L left out
With the light that has come to the
later centuries in the wonderful unity
of the plan that pervades the physical
universe, the idea of plurality of gods
is impossible, for we find that the law
which holds good in the least holds
good in the largest. The attraction of
cohesion is not only the law of the dew
drop, but of the ocean. The attraction
of gravitation holds good not only for
the apple, but for the planet. Unity
of design, law, action, purpose, these
are seen all through the universe, and
the reasoning mind must come 10 a
belief in the unity of God. And now
comes in the system of mediation. Our
reason can and does accept the unity of
the creating and conserving power, but
when we strive with our limited capac-
tiles to grasp the idea that this one God
is infinite in all his projections, there is
danger of our losing the idea of his per-
sonality, and getting only a vague,
misty idea, one that seems to leave us
helpless and hopeless, cropping like the
Indian after an intangible something.
Our own limitations lead us then to
transfer to the Infinite these same linn
itations, and then there arises contra
diction in our ideas of God. We make
him like one of ourselves, only larger
every way.
We see evidence of this in the Old
Testament, in the terms in which the
ancient Hebrews speak of God, logic
ally inconsistent. They declare that
the heavens cannot hold him, and yet
lO w 40 DOuAo up tuO AAACl Cldn1UOl
of the Temple. They made his throne
in heaven his fOotstool on the earth,
and yet his dwelling place in the con-
trite heart. All these curious facts in
the olden faith of the Bible theists
showed reaching out after mediator
that should be satisfactory; reaching
out for something that the hand could
touch, the eye see, the ear hear, the
lips converse with, the head under
stand, and the heart feel. What under
that Gel Shaddai" once talked with
Abraham and shared the Inequalities
of the Patriarch's tent
Nature met this want of these old
Bible theists largely, but nature could
not satisfy, because her inorganic ex-
istences are lifeless and her organic
ones speechless, and to one who knows
any thing of himself and of the spirit
ual God, these things seem beneath
himself, and thus not prominently
fitted to represent the Deity.
Man cried out for mediation of diff
ferent kind, for something which, while
it could be apprehended by the human
mind, would also be in measureless