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beauty of the whole, it were wiser on the part of men to recog- 
nize the intention of some mind. To say that is by “la w” is 
just to say that it is by intention. To say that it is by “physi- 
cal cause,” is to confound a link of the chain with the hand 
that holds it. If ethereal atoms come together and produce 
light, if ponderable atoms combine and form acids and salts 
and stones and plants and animals and fixed stars, and yet in 
any one case this may be without any “ intention,” then by 
whatever name you call the agent, there is a wisdom revealed 
in that end greater than the something that produced it. It 
is plain that reason cannot rest in that. If there is adaptation, 
it will seek an adapter. 
9. But this adaptation of means to ends with which science 
is so familiar, and which reason apprehends, is met with also 
in religion. In its religious nature, and in the means adapted 
to its healthy and happy unfoldings, reason reveals itself every- 
where. For the correction and expansion of thought, the 
divine means comes out in the words of Scripture : “ Come let 
us reason together And since life ultimately rests on thought, 
the man who reasons with God, and has his thoughts influenced 
by the thoughts of God, will certainly rise into such life as will 
harmonize his nature with the will and wish of God. It is a 
noble attitude which a man assumes when he reasons with the 
Almighty. In such an act, all that is base is subdued, all that 
is best, and truest, and noblest within him is brought into full 
and harmonious play. Beason reigns. 
10. Thus, as in science reason is seen regulating inquiry, so 
do we see it in religion guiding all the higher energies of mind. 
Power, viewed psychologically, is a blind thing, and cannot 
find its own way in science any more than in religion ; reason 
must guide it. But reason does not lose her sight when she 
passes from the phenomena of nature to the phenomena of 
consciousness and the facts of history. She does not slip from 
a rock into a quagmire when she passes from the law of gravi- 
tation to the law of love. But the law of love links all finite 
reasons to the supremely lovely. The supremely lovely has the 
highest claims on the love and admiration and worship of the 
rational creature. As in science reason is seen contributing to 
the pleasure of the heart by the beauties and harmonies which it 
discovers, so in religion reason is seen conferring the highest 
felicity by means of that boundless blessedness with which she 
brings the heart into felt contact. Philosophy never said a truer 
thing than when, through Plato, it said that “ God is beauty and 
love itself.” Now, it is impossible that the heart can be in contact 
with perceived beauty and love, and yet remain unaffected 
thereby. But religion ever keeps this love playing through 
