But this moral wealth is intangible. The rewards and penalties of
moral law easily escape notice in our hasty and superficial study of
life. The God immanent in our environment often seems to hide
himself. The altar of Jehovah is fallen down, and Baal's temples are
crowded with loud-mouthed worshippers. The bribes of present
enjoyment and of immediate success loom up before us, and we doubt
if any other success is possible.
But the law of progress, even now so dimly discernible in
environment, is written in our minds in letters of fire. For we have
already seen that environment can be understood only by tracing its
effects in the development of life. What is best and highest in us
is the record of the working of what is best and highest in
environment. And the personal God so dimly seen in environment is
revealed in man's soul. Man must study himself, if he is to know
what environment requires of him. And if the knowledge of himself
and of the laws of his being is the highest knowledge, is not the
vision of, and struggle toward, higher attainments, not yet realized
and hence necessarily foreseen, the only mode of farther progress?
And what is this pursuit of, and devotion to, ideals not yet
realized and but dimly foreseen, if it is not Faith, "the substance
of things hoped for, and evidence of things not seen?" By it alone
can man "obtain a good report.
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