proclaimed by Christ. The spirit of all these was pantheistic, in the really unchristian sense of that word: they were all preoccupied with the sovereign majesty of the Almighty, the mystery of the Impenetrable Source, and knew nothing of the truly infinite Graciousness or everlasting Love. Their monotonous theme was the ineffable greatness of the Supreme Being and the utter littleness of man. Their tradition lay like a pall upon the human spirit, — nay, it lies upon it to this day, — and it smothers now, as it smothered then, the voice that answers there to the call of Jesus: Son of Man, thou art the son of God. Rouse, heart! put on the garments of thy majesty, and realise thy equal, thy free, thy immortal membership in the Eternal Order! Under the suffocating burden of the old things that should have passed away, the Christian consciousness forgets, at least in part, that all things are become new, and that man is risen from the dead.
It is not enough, then, for vindicating as Christian the conception of God offered us to-night, to show, for instance, that St. Thomas held it, if so be he did. In my own opinion, which you must take for what you will, he quite escapes its objectionable traits in some regards, and, were he here to explain himself, would disclaim that interpretation of the Divine immanence in the world, and the reciprocal immanence of the world in God, which is characteristic of both the philosophies expounded here this evening. At the same time, his resting his own conception of God on the foundations of Aristotle, in the form which the great Greek succeeded in giving them, — a form
