each to trust the other's faithful heart without a word of witnessing. If we could all of us cultivate something more than we now have of that spirit, building in the silent places of the mind and heart beautiful altars to the unknown, but not untrusted faithfulness of others, life would be much more rarely sweet and fine than it is now, and much more noble and serene. As we do not make enough allowance for the unknown fidelity and truth of some, so we do not make enough allowance for the unknown resistance of others to those temptations by which they are overborne. To put yourself in his place is not enough. The tempted man is not you, he is himself; and where you might easily resist the temptation that solicits him (as he might easily resist your besetting sin), he goes down before it into ignominious dust. If we could think of these things rightly, I am sure our pity would be increased an hundred-fold, and that our blame of overtempted men would be proportionately less. Thank Heaven that, in our apprehension of the material universe, our wonder and our adoration are not commensurate with our scientific knowledge! "Those earthly godfathers of heaven's lights That give a name to every fixéd star Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are." Sometimes, great Shakspere, they have less, and sometimes they have vastly more. But, if we could individually appropriate the whole result of science, we should still be obliged to say, "Lo! these are a part of His ways, but how little is yet known of Him!" and from the yet unknown, the infinitely transcendent God, would come to us an invitation that would with irresistible compulsion force us to our knees in speechless adoration. To say this is to take nothing from the glory of Science. It is she herself who builds in every heart that knows her mysteries an altar to the unknown God, beyond the moving and receding confines of her "We take some things for granted," said Dr. Bartol, when it was suggested that a meeting of the Radical Club should be opened with prayer. We do, indeed; but do we always take for granted what we should? In social ways, it seems to me, we build our altars to the unknown ill much oftener than to the unknown good. It was a rule with old geographers to place chimeras in the regions of which they were entirely ignorant. We often follow their example. Where we are ignorant of motives, we impute bad motives; we infer that we are slighted, when the neglect that we have felt has been perhaps more painful to our friend than to ourselves. It has been unavoidable. We are too apt to forget that there are other people in the world besides ourselves, and that they have their claims; that they may be sick or sorrowful, and that our friend who seems to have forgotten us may have remembered them. Our minister, perhaps, has failed to satisfy us with the exercise of his parochial function he has not been to see us for so long. And we imagine him as wrapped in Sybaritish ease, living a dolce far niente life, wandering hither and thither at his own sweet will among the books and pictures that he loves, when, if we could see the record of his morning, afternoon, and evening work from day to day, the countless axes and the little hatchets that he has to grind, it may be for those who have no claim on him but that of human brotherhood or sorrow or anxiety, not his parishioners at all in any narrow sense,—if we could see all this, we should judge him much more leniently. We take too little unknown good, too much of unknown ill and blame, for granted in all the relations of our social and our friendly life. Happy are those who are themselves so frequently remiss from absolute necessity that they can make allowance for the remissness of their acquaintances and friends! Friendship is hardly worth the name, much less the cherishing, that cannot go on trusting steadily in despite of silent weeks and months and years. Ever beautiful to me is that story of Emerson's regret when Dr. Furness broke the silence of many years,—it had been so sweet for each to trust the other's faithful heart without a word of witnessing. If we could all of us cultivate something more than we now have of that spirit, building in the silent places of the mind and heart beautiful altars to the unknown, but not untrusted faithfulness of others, life would be much more rarely sweet and fine than it is now, and much more noble and serene. As we do not make enough allowance for the unknown fidelity and truth of some, so we do not make enough allowance for the unknown resistance of others to those temptations by which they are overborne. To put yourself in his place is not enough. The tempted man is not you, he is himself; and where you might easily resist the temptation. that solicits him (as he might easily resist your besetting sin), he goes down before it into ignominious dust. If we could think of these things rightly, I am sure our pity would be increased an hundred-fold, and that our blame of overtempted men would be proportionately less. Thank Heaven that, in our apprehension of the material universe, our wonder and our adoration are not commensurate with our scientific knowledge! "Those earthly godfathers of heaven's lights That give a name to every fixéd star Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are." Sometimes, great Shakspere, they have less, and sometimes they have vastly more. But, if we could individually appropriate the whole result of science, we should still be obliged to say, "Lo! these are a part of His ways, but how little is yet known of Him!" and from the yet unknown, the infinitely transcendent God, would come to us an invitation that would with irresistible compulsion force us to our knees in speechless adoration. To say this is to take nothing from the glory of Science. It is she herself who builds in every heart that knows her mysteries an altar to the unknown God, beyond the moving and receding confines of her clear intelligence there stretch such huge immensities of unfathomed order, harmony, and law. Let us build altars to the unknown divinity that hides within our throbbing human hearts. Nosce te ipsum,-" Know thyself." It is not an easy matter. The higher up or deeper down we go, the vaster seem the regions which we have not explored. And all that we do know convinces us that they are regions that abound in wonderful and glorious possibilities of beauty, truth, and good. There comes from them an air, a breath, fresh with an intimation that here upon this bank and shoal of time we but begin a spiritual progress of immeasurable scope. "Still glides the stream, and shall not cease to glide: We men who in the morn of youth defied The elements must vanish; be it so! Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, to act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, CREED REVISION: WHITHER? IN making "Creed Revision" the subject of my discourse this morning, and in repeating Dr. Briggs's question "Whither? I make no apology, as if I were asking your attention for a matter in which you have little interest. If you have little interest in it, the fact is not to your credit but to your shame. You may not care for archæology, and this matter of Presbyterian creed revision may seem as archæological to you as the microscopic examination of the integuments of an Egyptian mummy. But that there was in the mummy once a human heart that beat with love and fear gives to his poor belongings a certain human interest. Moreover, if the examination of his integuments, or any scroll held in his crumbling hand, were to any body of men. a matter of eager, painful interest, on their account you ought to feel the interest of the Roman Terence,— “I am a man, and nothing human is foreign to me." Now, the Presbyterian creed revision is a matter of eager, painful interest to hundreds and thousands of human beings who are earnestly desirous to know what is the truth and to do what is right. Their creed may be a mummy now, and undecipherable the scroll it clutches in its crumbling hand; but it was once as much alive as any living thing, and walked the earth as royally as any Pharaoh of old,—ay, broke the necks of proud and foolish kings. When I resolved, some days ago, to preach a sermon on the Presbyterian commotion, I said to myself, "Go to now, get and read all that you can grub together bearing on the matter." My newspaper clippings went but a little way. They were too brief and fragmentary, and preserved the humors |