priest, I have tried to fulfil somewhat of that which seems to me
the true office of a priest--namely, to proclaim to man the Divine
element which exists in all, even the smallest thing, because each
thing is a thought of God himself; to make men understand that God
is indeed about their path and about their bed, spying out all
their ways; that they are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made,
and that God's hand lies for ever on them, in the form of physical
laws, sacred, irreversible, universal, reaching from one end of
the universe to the other; that whosoever persists in breaking
those laws, reaps his sure punishment of weakness and sickness,
sadness and self-reproach; that whosoever causes them to be broken
by others, reaps his sure punishment in finding that he has
transformed his fellow-men into burdens and curses, instead of
helpmates and blessings. To say this, is a priest's duty; and
then to preach the good news that the remedy is patent, easy,
close at hand; that many of the worst evils which afflict humanity
may be exterminated by simple common sense, and the justice and
mercy which does to others as it would be done by; to awaken men
to the importance of the visible world, that they may judge from
thence the higher importance of that invisible world whereof this
is but the garment and the type; and in all times and places,
instead of keeping the key of knowledge to pamper one's own power
or pride, to lay that key frankly and trustfully in the hand of
every human being who hungers after truth, and to say: Child of
God, this key is thine as well as mine. Enter boldly into thy
Father's house, and behold the wonder, the wisdom, the beauty of
its laws and its organisms, from the mightiest planet over thy
head, to the tiniest insect beneath thy feet. Look at it,
trustfully, joyfully, earnestly; for it is thy heritage. Behold
its perfect fitness for thy life here; and judge from thence its