the bird, but art in the full sense of the word, as the
self-conscious expression of beautiful ideas, is no part of its life.
One can not decline to note method in the existence of the brute,
and one is compelled to withold from it philosophy. In these higher
activities the line of likeness between man and the animal is of the
faintest description; while the line of contrast becomes more and more
pronounced and significant. When we come to the summit of man the
likeness vanishes utterly. Among the lower life of the world there is
no _Magnificat_, there is no _Nunc Dimittis_; the beginning and the
end do not link themselves to the Eternal. The brute has no religion,
no temple, no priest, no Bible, no sacrament of love between itself
and the invisible. The tower of this church tells at once, and from
afar, that it is a church. Near at hand, much besides the tower tells
the same story. There is the cruciform foundation; there is the
structure of its walls. There is the outside with distinct note; there
is the inside with its joyous beauty. Look at the church closely and
you need no tower to proclaim what it is. And yet the tower is its
most conspicuous witness: at a distance it is the sole witness.
Religion is similarly the eminent token that man belongs to a divine
order. The basis of his being in sacrifice should repeat the same
tale. Civilization as a struggle after social righteousness should
announce the same fact. Man's thoughts and feelings, and their
manifold and marvelous expression in art, in institutions, and in
systems of opinion, utter the same testimony. And yet the tower of his
being, high soaring and far seen, is his feeling for the invisible.
You do not know man until you behold him worshiping.

III. The third fact in our human situation is that Christianity is the
interpretation of religion. You see the devout old Jew, Simeon, who
met Jesus as His mother brought Him for the first time into the
temple; and there you behold the old faith interpreted by the new. All
that was best in the Hebrew religion is conserved and carried higher
in the Christian religion. Everywhere the devoutest Jews were
conscious of wants which the national faith did not meet. They waited
for the consolation of Israel, and when Christ came he supplied
satisfactions which Hebraism could not supply. Christianity commended
itself to the disciples of Christ because it seemed to be their own
faith at its best. They were carried over into