TWO PATHS, ONE GOAL. 



Professor Jones's argument is too long and too profound to be 

 reproduced here. But I venture to state that before reading his 

 article I was dissatisfied with the Archbishop's doctrine. To me it 

 seems that Dr. Temple conceived of the Deity as outside of the 

 world, so that the two stand apart, as it were, God having once for 

 all, long ago, created the world, and thereafter left it to go on by 

 itself, goA'erned indeed by divinely ordained laws, but not needing 

 divine control and support from moment to moment. The world 

 being thus conceived as in nearly the whole of its extent and course 

 governed by the " uniformity of nature," the Deity is supposed to 

 have made two exceptions to this general rule. These exceptions 

 are human free-will, and divine intervention working miracles to 

 attest revelation. This conception of the relations between God 

 and the world is one which has long been held, and still widely 

 prevails ; but recent philosophy is strongly inclined towards another 

 conception, a conception which, pushed to an extreme, has led to 

 pantheism, viz., the immanence of God in the universe. To some 

 minds it has seemed that the cosmos is God. God is all and all is 

 God. But we are not obliged to go to the pantheistic extreme. 

 We may refuse to identify the world with God ; and at the same 

 time may refuse to believe that God is altogether outside the 

 world in some far-off region. We may believe that God is here and 

 now, in an eternity which includes all time, in a proximity which 

 fills all space. 



"Nearer is He than breathing, 

 Closer than hands and feet." 



And this belief in the immanence of God in all times and places, in 

 all things and events, in all lives of all beings, seems to be the way 

 in which Jesus thought of His Father; the God who sends the 

 sunshine and the rain, without Whom not a sparrow falleth. Who 

 clothes the lilies with their beauty, and of Whom He said, when He 

 Himself was accused of sabbath-breaking, " My Father worketh 

 even until now." 



The Chairman then called on Dr. Kidd to reply. 



Dr. Kidd, in response, said he was quite unable to deal with all 

 the points that had been raised, and it was rather late if it were 

 possible ; but he would refer to one matter that Canon Girdlestone 

 spoke of, viz., that the province of mystery does not shrink. I 

 think, he continued, that is hardly correct. Mystery after mystery 



