110 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



his whole being is so full. " If I looked into a mir- 

 ror and did not see my face, I should have the sort 

 of feeling which actually comes upon me when I 

 look into this living, busy world and see no reflec- 

 tion of its Creator." What he calls this power, of 

 which all visible things are the fruit and outcome, 

 does not appear. Probably nature simply ; but is 

 nature something apart from God ? 



While this inward revelation of God to the spirit 

 may be the most convincing of all proofs to the 

 person experiencing it, yet it can have little force 

 with another, little force as an argument, because, 

 in the first place, it cannot be communicated or de- 

 monstrated. All independent objective truth is 

 capable of being communicated and of being verified ; 

 but this fact of which Ifewman is so certain, he 

 confesses himself, he cannot bring out with any 

 logical force. It is its own proof. And in the 

 second place, because the world knows how delu- 

 sive these personal impressions and inward voices 

 are. Men have heard an inward voice or felt an 

 inward prompting that has led them to commit the 

 most outrageous crimes against humanity, to burn 

 witches and heretics, to mortify their own bodies, or 

 to throw themselves from precipices. Good men 

 and wise men have been equally sure, upon subjec- 

 tive evidence, of the existence of the devil ; they 

 have heard his promptings, his suggestions, and 

 they have fought against him. Our fathers were 

 just as sure, upon personal grounds, of the existence 

 of the devil as Newman is of the existence of Grod. 



