s.

In our social existence we come in touch with other souls, each with
its actual or potential wealth of being, and each inviting our
sympathetic response.

These--order, beauty, conscious existence--are the impact on us of the
universe. The right apprehension of these and the active response to
them constitute the true exercise of our own nature; and it is through
that exercise that we know Life,--the one Life,--and know it to be
divine.

These three aspects,--order, beauty, our fellow-lives,--let us dwell
for a moment on each in turn.

An amazing stimulus to man's powers has come in the discovery that he
may penetrate and follow to an indefinite extent the actual procedure
of the Universe. We are only on the threshold of our discoveries. We
are just beginning to see where they have their highest application.
We have been harnessing the steeds of power to the service of our
physical wants. We are just beginning to understand that they are to
be made the ministers of building up a complete manhood. The
theologian has sought to demonstrate that all natural processes work in
the service of a divine righteousness. In place of any such
demonstration, we are finding the true exercise of knowledge in
applying for ourselves the processes of nature to the fulfillment of
our noblest purposes.

We are just now at the transition point between the old and the new
conception of divine Power. The old conception was: "The Almighty is a
merciful father. If his children ask anything, he will give it: the
weapon of desire is prayer." The new perception is: "The Almighty
moves in lines which we can partly discern. By putting ourselves in
line with that Power, we make it helpful: the weapon of desire is
intelligent effort. Through our wills works the divine Will."

"With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth!"

It is moral fidelity which apprehends the true application and
significance for man of that regular procedure of nature which environs
and conditions him. And this Natural Order, in turn, requires the
moral sense to humbly and obediently go to school to it. "You want to
be good?" says Nature. "You dare to believe that even I in my
mightiness am set to help you to be good? Then study my processes, and
conform to them!" A new set of commandments is being written in the
sight of men,--commandments learned but slowly and often transgressed,
even by those whose wills are pure and whose hearts