foundations of the earth to my view--yet would the discovery of a single
fresh human footprint in the sand fill my heart with more true hope of
happiness, than an endless eternity of solitary science. I can live, and
love, and be happy without science, _but not without companionship,
whose bond is faith_.

Faith is the condition of all the happiness you can know on earth. Law,
order, government, civilization, and family life, depend not upon
science, but upon confidence in moral character--upon faith. In its
sunshine alone can happiness grow. It is faith sends you out in the
morning to your work, nerves your arms through the toils of the day,
brings you home in the evening, gathers your wife and your children
around your table, inspires the oft-repeated efforts of the little
prattler to ascend your knee, clasps his chubby arms around your neck,
looks with most confiding innocence in your eye, and puts forth his
little hand to catch your bread, and share your cup. Undoubting faith is
happiness even here below. Need you marvel, then, that you must be
converted from your pride of empty, barren science, and casting yourself
with all your powers into the arms of faith, become as a little child
before you can enter into the kingdom of heaven?

4. But religion is not founded upon faith as distinct from observation
and experiment. _It is the most experimental of all the sciences._ There
is less of theory, and more of experience in it than in any other
science. Its faith is all practical. It is a great mistake to suppose
that faith is the opposite pole of experience. On the contrary,
experience is the fruit which ripens from the blossom of faith. We have
seen how an underlying conviction of the existence of an intelligent
planner and upholder of the laws of nature is the source of all
scientific experiment, and systematized knowledge. A similar underlying
conviction of the existence of a moral governor of the world is the
source of all religious experience. _He that cometh to God must believe
that he is, and that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek
him._ But this fundamental axiom believed, long trains of experience
follow; of every one of which you can be, and actually are, infinitely
more certain than of any fact of physical science. Your eyes, your ears,
your touch, your instruments, your reason, may be deceived; but your
consciousness can not. If your soul is filled with joy, that is a
_fact_. You know it, and