ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



triangles and parallelograms of the terms of our ex- 

 perience. We cannot square the circle of Infinity. 

 The terms "love," "anger," "mercy," "father- 

 hood," do not apply to God any more than "over" 

 or "under," or "beginning" or "end," apply to the 

 sphere. In regard to God, the language of science 

 and mathematics is one with the language of wor- 

 ship and ecstasy. 



I find I have never been burdened by a sense of 

 my duty to God. My duty to my fellow-men and to 

 myself is plain enough, but the word is not adequate 

 to express any relation I may hold to the Eternal. 

 Do I owe any duty to gravity without which I could 

 not move or lift my hand, or any duty to the sun- 

 shine or to the rains and the winds? Instinctively, 

 unconsciously, for the most part we obey the law of 

 gravity, and instinctively we adjust ourselves to all 

 the natural forces, not from a sense of duty, but 

 from a sense of self-preservation. These things are 

 a part of our lives and not something to which we 

 hold only a casual and precarious or external rela- 

 tion. My relation to the Eternal is not that of an in- 

 ferior to a superior, or of a beneficiary to his bene- 

 factor, or of a subject to his king. It is that of the 

 leaf to the branch, of the fruit to the tree, of the 

 babe in the womb to its mother. It is a vital and an 

 inevitable relation. It cannot be broken. It is not a 

 matter of will or choice. We are embosomed in the 

 Eternal Beneficence, whether we desire it or not. 



50 



