e evidence of things not seen--which
alone gives us a right to sing Felix Adler's noble hymn:--

And the work that we have builded,
Oft with bleeding hands and tears,
Oft in error, oft in anguish,
Will not perish with our years,
It will rise and shine transfigured
In the final reign of light;
It will pass into the splendours
Of the City of the Light.

For the assurance which breathes in these lines rests on a previous,
deeper assurance: it is that which the Christian expresses in the
words, "_If God be for us, who is against us?_"

[1] _Ethical Religion_, p. 48.

[2] _Ibid_, p. 39.

[3] See _A Few Points about Ethical Societies_, a tract issued by the
Union of Ethical Societies.

[4] _Ethical Religion_, pp. 81, 84, 86, 89; for a concise treatment of
this subject the reader may be referred to the present writer's _Jesus
or Christ_? chapter iv.

[5] _History of European Morals_, ii., p. 26.

[6] _Op. cit._, p. 38.

[7] _Ibid._ pp. 16-18.

[8] _Op. cit._, p. 17.

[9] _Ibid._, p. 57.

[10] "If for the word 'God' you read the 'universal life,'" writes the
Rev. R. J. Campbell, "you have at once gained the ear of every
high-minded thinking man to whom you appeal." (_The Christian
Commonwealth_, April 14th, 1909.) Are we, then, to understand that if
we want to appeal to high-minded thinking men, we must drop the term
"God" and substitute for it, as being less offensive to these higher
thinkers, some non-committal phrase like "universal life?" We say
quite frankly that we are not prepared to pay such a price for making
such a successful appeal; for the "universal life"--just because it is
universal and all-embracing--is no more "good" than "bad"--it has no
moral character, and hence can exercise no moral authority, nor
generate any moral enthusiasm.

[11] _What the Ethical Movement is_, by Harry Snell.

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CHAPTER XI

PROBLEMS OF PRAYER

In the opening chapters of this book we had occasion once or twice to ask
ourselves in passing how the new emphasis on the doctrine of Divine
immanence was likely to affect the question of prayer; in turning now to
a more direct treatment of the latter subject, this is again the first
and most important query we shall have to consider. Truth, as we all
know, is a "_mean_"--it represents a balance between opposing extremes;
what is, however, not always recognised is that the extremes are not
necessarily equidistant from the tru