to the artistic eye in the presence of a canvas by a great master. Men
are no more argued into faith than into an appreciation of lovely sights
and sounds; they are immediately and overwhelmingly aware of the
Invisible.

The rest may reason, and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.

Faith does not require authority; it confers it. To those who face the
Sistine Madonna, in the room in the Dresden Gallery where it hangs in
solitary eminence, it is not the testimony of tradition, nor of the
thousands of its living admirers throughout the world, that renders it
beautiful; it makes its own irresistible impression. There are similar
moments for the soul when some word, or character, or event, or
suggestion within ourselves, bows us in admiration before the
incomparably Fair, in shame before the unapproachably Holy, in
acceptance before the indisputably True, in adoration before the
supremely Loving--moments when "belief overmasters doubt, and we know
that we know." At such times the sense of personal intercourse is so
vivid that the believer cannot question that he stands face to face with
the living God.

Such moments, however, are not abiding; and in the reaction that follows
them the mind will question whether it has not been the victim of
illusion. John Bunyan owns: "Though God has visited my soul with never
so blessed a discovery of Himself, yet afterwards I have been in my
spirit so filled with darkness, that I could not so much as once
conceive what that God and that comfort was with which I had been
refreshed." Many a Christian today knows the inspiration and calm and
reinforcement of religion, only to find himself wondering whether these
may not come from an idea in his own head, and not from a personal God.