earnestness and the solemnity of existence--all those, I say, who use
such language as this, imply of the moral end three necessary things:
first, that its essence is inward, in the heart of man; secondly, that
its value is incalculable, and its attainment the only true happiness
for us; thirdly, that its standard is something absolute, and not in
the competence of any man or of all men to alter or abolish. That this
is true may be very easily seen. Deny any one of these propositions; say
that the moral end consists in something outward and alienable, not in
something inward and inalienable; that its importance is small, and
second to many other things; that its standard is not absolute, but
varies according to individual taste; and morality becomes at once
impossible to preach, and not worth preaching.

Now for all these characteristics of the end of life, the theism that
modern thought is rejecting could offer a strictly logical basis. And
first, as to its importance. Here it may be said, certainly, that theism
cuts the knot, and does not untie it. But at all events it gets rid of
it; and in the following way. The theist confesses freely that the
importance of the moral end is a thing that the facts of life, as we now
know them, will never properly explain to us. It can at present be
divined and augured only; its value is one of promise rather than of
performance; and the possession itself is a thing that passes
understanding. It belongs to a region of mystery into which neither
logic nor experiment will ever suffice to carry us; and whose secrets
are beyond the reach of any intellectual aeronaut. But it is a part of
the theistic creed that such a region is; and that the things that pass
understanding are the most important things of life. Nothing would be
gained, however, by postulating merely a mystery--an unknowable. This
must be so far known by the theist, that he knows its connection with
himself. He must know, too, that if this connection is to have any