God. Thereafter one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has
found a lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution.
One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the
confusion and evil within us and without. There comes into the heart an
essential and enduring happiness and courage.

There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, but
under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has in this
manner come into countless lives. There is scarcely a faith, however
mean and preposterous, that has not been a way to holiness. God who is
himself finite, who himself struggles in his great effort from strength
to strength, has no spite against error. Far beyond halfway he hastens
to meet the purblind. But God is against the darkness in their eyes. The
faith which is returning to men girds at veils and shadows, and would
see God plainly. It has little respect for mysteries. It rends the veil
of the temple in rags and tatters. It has no superstitious fear of
this huge friendliness, of this great brother and leader of our little
beings. To find God is but the beginning of wisdom, because then for all
our days we have to learn his purpose with us and to live our lives with
him.



CHAPTER THE SECOND

HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT


1. HERESIES ARE MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOD