Ill 
prehends as its legitimate province tlie cry which comes up from 
amid that want. It comprehends also the facts of history, amid 
which facts is the divine method of bringing relief to the weak 
and weary heart. It were an act of unreason to shut out these 
facts from our view. If the scientists collect facts, and deduce 
laws, and demand that we recognize them, we instantly obey. 
But we too have some facts to look at, and as firmly demand 
that reason be not outraged by their denial. 
12. Nor must we, by anything that is said about the “ im- 
potence of reason,” be turned aside from the facts and what is 
involved in them. Why should not reason be as trustworthy 
in morals and religion as in mathematics, in perception, in 
philosophy ? There are certain subjective wants that are as 
philosophically met by certain objective verities, — as that fire is 
adapted to burn wood and ignite powder, or air to inflate the 
lungs, or sound to strike upon the tympanum of the ear. Thus 
reason, as we find it in religion, is the same whose radiations 
are met in science, in art, in philosophy, and in morals. 
Religious men have not always been wise in the way they have 
talked of reason in relation to religion, any more than scientific 
men have been wise in excluding faith from science. Without 
faith it is as impossible to give science the victory over igno- 
rance and social inertia, as it is impossible to realize the 
enjoyment of religion without reason. Within the sphere of 
science, reason is regarded as competent to apprehend and lay 
bare nature^s secrets, and men have faith in nature because 
reason can accomplish this task. But why should not reason 
within the sphere of religion apprehend the condition of obliga- 
tion, the rightness of worship, and the power of divine love to 
rebind the human heart to God ? If the reason has to do with 
the microscope and the retort, has it not also to do with the 
sensitiveness of conscience and the discipline of suffering ? If 
it has some sphere of action in the science of evolution, or corre- 
lation of forces, has it no sphere of action amid the yearnings 
of heart or the intuitions of the moral nature? If it can say, 
“I have found a new fact in zoology,” must it not be allowed 
to say, “I recognize an old fact in psychology”? If it moves 
with steps of light over the plains of matter, must it be hindered 
from showing itself in any way amid the affairs of conscience 
and immortality? If not, can it, we ask, rightly interpret 
questions of ethics and psychology, and yet stop short of 
religion? Impossible. To deny religion is to deny reason, 
and to deny reason is to deny God. Thus it is that what so 
often goes by the name of doubt leads to dogmatism. 
13. The attempt which is made to bar thought in the direc- 
tion of religion, does not, as we think, do honour to the 
