earth, or mysteries fathomed by science. In the bosom of truth
undeniable, truth all absorbing, man shall doubtless soar upwards;
but still, as he rises, still shall his soul unerringly guide him;
and the grander the truth of the universe, the more solace and peace
it may bring, the more shall the problems of justice, morality,
happiness, love, present to the eyes of all men the semblance they
ever have worn in the eyes of the thinker. We should live as though
we were always on the eve of the great revelation; and we should be
ready with welcome, with warmest and keenest and fullest, most
heartfelt and intimate welcome. And whatever the form it shall take
on the day that it comes to us, the best way of all to prepare for
its fitting reception is to crave for it now, to desire it as lofty,
as perfect, as vast, as ennobling as the soul can conceive. It must
needs be more beautiful, glorious, and ample than the best of our
hopes; for, where it differ therefrom or even frustrate them, it
must of necessity bring something nobler, loftier, nearer to the
nature of man, for it will bring us the truth. To man, though all
that he value go under, the intimate truth of the universe must be
wholly, preeminently admirable. And though, on the day it unveils,
our meekest desires turn to ashes and float on the wind, still shall
there linger within us all we have prepared; and the admirable will
enter our soul, the volume of its waters being as the depth of the
channel that our expectation has fashioned.

4. Is it necessary that we should conceive ourselves to be superior
to the universe? Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is
only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature; a tiny atom of that
whole which Nature alone shall judge. Is it fitting that the ray of
light should desire to alter the lamp whence it springs?