rther height of the
religious nature, the crisis comes. There, without Environment, the
darkness is unutterable. So maddening now becomes the mystery that men
are compelled to construct an Environment for themselves. No Environment
here is unthinkable. An altar of some sort men must have--God, or
Nature, or Law. But the anguish of Atheism is only a negative proof of
man's incompleteness. A witness more overwhelming is the prayer of the
Christian. What a very strange thing, is it not, for man to pray? It is
the symbol at once of his littleness and of his greatness. Here the
sense of imperfection, controlled and silenced in the narrower reaches
of his being, becomes audible. Now he must utter himself. The sense of
need is so real, and the sense of Environment, that he calls out to it,
addressing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his need. Surely
there is nothing more touching in Nature than this? Man could never so
expose himself, so break through all constraint, except from a dire
necessity. It is the suddenness and unpremeditatedness of Prayer that
gives it a unique value as an apologetic.

Man has three questions to put to his Environment, three symbols of his
incompleteness. They come from three different centers of his being. The
first is the question of the intellect, What is Truth? The natural
Environment answers, "Increase of Knowledge increaseth Sorrow," and
"much study is a Weariness." Christ replies, "Learn of Me, and ye shall
find Rest." Contrast the world's word "Weariness" with Christ's word
"Rest." No other teacher since the world began has ever associated
"learn" with "Rest." Learn of me, says the philosopher, and you shall
find Restlessness. Learn of Me, says Christ, and ye shall find Rest.
Thought, which the godless man has cursed, that eternally starved yet
ever living specter, finds at last its imperishable glory; Thought is
complete in Him. The second question is sent up from the moral nature,
Who will show us any good? And again we have a contrast: the world's
verdict, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one;" and Christ's,
"There is none good but God only." And finally, there is the lonely cry
of the spirit, most pathetic and most deep of all, Where is he whom my
soul seeketh? And the yearning is met as before, "I looked on my right
hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me; refuge failed
me; no man cared for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord: I said, Thou
are my refu