192 REV. H. J. CLAEKE. 



and by the exercise of the intellectual power which that knowledi^e 

 bestows. Therefore it is, that, in regard to our knowledge of existent 

 things, our intellect becomes the power by which we are able to connect 

 ourselves and our own existence in creation with our belief in a Supreme 

 Being. So it follows that it is not merely superstition, but intellectual 

 culture, that now brings us into a closer relation with the Supreme Being 

 than people were formerly when relying solely on a belief in the existence 

 of a Supreme Being. But sometimes it is asked, "How are we to 

 believe in revelation ? What proof is there of it ? Why should we 

 believe that anything exists contrary to the ordinary conditions of human 

 nature ? " This seems to present to some minds an insuperable difficulty. 

 The other day a man said to me, " Why should I believe it, and how am I 

 to do so ? " I ventured to ask him, " Do you believe in the instinct of the 

 bee, which leads it to live in association with its fellow ' bees, and to make 

 its social arrangements often much better than human beings are found to 

 do when they are brought together ? Pray, how did the bee get the specific 

 instinct which enables him to live in this way ? If you believe the bee has 

 the instinct given to it by some power or other, you can also believe that 

 man has had given to him a special revelation, when occasion required it, 

 by the Supreme Power over all ; consequently, man has as much right to 

 believe in a specific revelation of his relations to God as you have to believe 

 in the instinct of the bee." If we find that all the things in animated 

 nature have their peculiar instincts, it may be asked if, in addition to his 

 reason, a Supreme Being deems it necessary to give man a practical teacher 

 of bis relationship to God, or of the state of things in this world at 

 large, and why he should regard all this as impossible ? On the contrary, 

 not only is it not impossible, but it is a matter of the highest possibility ; 

 and we are entitled to say that, without presuming to measure His 

 power by our own finite and limited reason, we believe that God, in His 

 great goodness, has, in fitting communications, thought it right to give 

 a special knowledge of things to a particular individual as the messenger 

 of divine truth for the benefit of mankind in general. The whole process 

 of reasoning is perfectly complete, and a man is not to be charged with 

 superstition when that which he is asked to believe is consistent with 

 the whole action of Divine Power over animated nature, as far as we know 

 it, throughout the world. Therefore, when we get into the region of Spirit, 

 we entirely emancipate ourselves from all those little perplexities which 

 agnosticism sets up, and which really, as compared with a higher and 

 greater view, appear to me to be an exceedingly trivial mode of treating 

 the things we perceive and observe. As we all know, our powers of 

 observation are very finite, and diminutive, and deceptive, and we are 

 obliged to say that no man can safely assert that anything he sees and 

 handles really exists exactly as he may think it does, because it has to 

 go through a dozen processes of error — the errors of his own powers of 

 observation and perception. Two persons will, as we know, when looking 



