Its most illustrious province, must be found
In furnishing clear guidance, a support,
Not treacherous, to the mind's _excursive_ power."[20]

But the gift of Science to Theology shall be not less rich. With the
inspiration of Nature to illuminate what the inspiration of Revelation
has left obscure, heresy in certain whole departments shall become
impossible. With the demonstration of the naturalness of the
supernatural, scepticism even may come to be regarded as unscientific.
And those who have wrestled long for a few bare truths to ennoble life
and rest their souls in thinking of the future will not be left in
doubt.

It is impossible to believe that the amazing succession of revelations
in the domain of Nature during the last few centuries, at which the
world has all but grown tired wondering, are to yield nothing for the
higher life. If the development of doctrine is to have any meaning for
the future, Theology must draw upon the further revelation of the seen
for the further revelation of the unseen. It need, and can, add nothing
to fact; but as the vision of Newton rested on a clearer and richer
world than that of Plato, so, though seeing the same things in the
Spiritual World as our fathers, we may see them clearer and richer. With
the work of the centuries upon it, the mental eye is a finer instrument,
and demands a more ordered world. Had the revelation of Law been given
sooner, it had been unintelligible. Revelation never volunteers anything
that man could discover for himself--on the principle, probably, that it
is only when he is capable of discovering it that he is capable of
appreciating it. Besides, children do not need Laws, except Laws in the
sense of commandments. They repose with simplicity on authority, and ask
no questions. But there comes a time, as the world reaches its manhood,
when they will ask questions, and stake, moreover, everything on the
answers. That time is now. Hence we must exhibit our doctrines, not
lying athwart the lines of the world's thinking, in a place reserved,
and therefore shunned, for the Great Exception; but in their kinship to
all truth and in their Law-relation to the whole of Nature. This is,
indeed, simply following out the system of teaching begun by Christ
Himself. And what is the search for spiritual truth in the Laws of
Nature but an attempt to utter the parables which have been hid so long
in the world around without a preacher, and to tell men at on