will you make that storm a true thing for yourself? Go out into it. Let
the frost smite your cheek, let the rain beat into your face, let the
wind blow upon your back, and then you know by personal experience what
you had known by your observation before. And so I say that only when a
man puts himself where he can feel the power of the Christ, where it is
possible for him, if there be a Christ, if Christ be all that the
Christian religion claims that He is, only when a man puts himself where
he needs and must have and must certainly feel that Christ, if there be
a Christ, only then has he a right to disbelieve if the Christ be not
there, only then has he a right to believe if the Christ find him there.
And where is that? When a man takes up the highest duties, when he
accepts the noblest life, when he lays open his soul to the great
exactions and obligations which belong to him in his spiritual nature,
when he tries to be a pure man, a devoted man, a noble man, only then
has he a chance to know that force which only then comes into its
activity. Only when a man tries to live the divine life can the divine
Christ manifest Himself to him. Therefore the true way for you to find
Christ is not to go groping in a thousand books. It is not for you to
try evidences about a thousand things that people have believed of Him,
but it is for you to undertake so great a life, so devoted a life, so
pure a life, so serviceable a life, that you cannot do it except by
Christ, and then see whether Christ helps you. See whether there comes
to you the certainty that you are a child of God, and the manifestation
of the child of God becomes the most credible, the most certain thing to
you in all of history.

It may have been that such moments have been in some of your lives.
Think of the noblest moment that you ever passed, of the time when,
lifted up to the heights of glory, or bowed down into the very depths of
sorrow, every power that was in you was called forth to meet the