ocial religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body
becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole Church of
God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a
higher life.

All the foregoing presupposes true repentance and a full committal of
the life to God. It is hardly necessary to mention this, for only
persons who have made such a committal will have read this far.

When the habit of inwardly gazing Godward becomes fixed within us we
shall be ushered onto a new level of spiritual life more in keeping with
the promises of God and the mood of the New Testament. The Triune God
will be our dwelling place even while our feet walk the low road of
simple duty here among men. We will have found life's _summum bonum_
indeed. "There is the source of all delights that can be desired; not
only can nought better be thought out by men and angels, but nought
better can exist in mode of being! For it is the absolute maximum of
every rational desire, than which a greater cannot be."[3]

_O Lord, I have heard a good word inviting me to look away to Thee and
be satisfied. My heart longs to respond, but sin has clouded my vision
till I see Thee but dimly. Be pleased to cleanse me in Thine own
precious blood, and make me inwardly pure, so that I may with unveiled
eyes gaze upon Thee all the days of my earthly pilgrimage. Then shall I
be prepared to behold Thee in full splendor in the day when Thou shalt
appear to be glorified in Thy saints and admired in all them that
believe. Amen._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nicholas of Cusa, _The Vision of God_, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New
York, 1928. This and the following quotations used by kind permission of
the publishers.

[2] _The Vision of God_

[3] _The Vision of God_

VIII

_Restoring the Creator-creature Relation_

Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above
all the earth.--Psa. 57:5

It is a truism to say that order in nature depends upon right
relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper
position relative to each other thing. In human life it is not
otherwise.

I have hinted before in these chapters that the cause of all our human
miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God
and to each other. For whatever else the Fall may have been, it was most
certainly a sharp change in man's relation to his Creator. He adopted
toward God an altered