ow its oscillations come from great
currents that leap out of the Antarctic, and swell around tropical
islands, and sweep the lines of continents, and roll in the Polar Sea.

These, therefore, are not perplexed by questions such as occur to him
who, looking beyond his own worldly interests and the area of daily
routine, takes into view the scope of being and the profounder phenomena
of human life. For such a view will inevitably engender speculation, nor
can he rest until he obtains some _theory_ of existence. These very
conditions of Humanity in the City, for instance--these conditions of
poverty, and responsibility, and relationship, and privilege, and
strife, and toil--yea, the lessons which come to us from the crowd as it
flows through these streets; constitute a great problem, of which every
thinking man will seek some solution.

Now, throughout this entire series of discourses--although I have not
deemed it necessary in every instance to make a specific application--I
have assumed that you and I were looking upon these various phases of
Humanity from the Christian stand-point, and therefore I could not fitly
conclude this work without indicating the Help which RELIGION affords
concerning these problems of existence.

I observe, then, that while it may seem very simple to affirm that a
_theory_ does not, in any case, alter _facts_; yet there is often an
advantage in laying down this proposition. For this leads us to
understand precisely what a theory _may_ do. It does not alter facts,
but it throws them into new relations, and presents them in an entirely
different light. Materialism, for instance, is a theory of Life; and
Christianity--in which term I include not only a system of Doctrines,
but of practical forces--is also a theory of Life. Now, neither of these
gets rid of the great facts of existence. Men sin and suffer and die,
whether we adopt the one system or the other. But, surely, when we
approach these facts from the side of Religion, they appear in very
different lights, and are taken up with very different results, from
their appearance and effect when interpreted by the creed of Unbelief.
It would be very absurd then, because Christianity does not instantly
abolish, or fully explain, all these strange and darker realities, to
fall back upon the opposite ground of skepticism. This is only receding
from the best solution to the worst--or, rather, to no solution at all.
For I maintain that Christianity