God. Angels and men influence one another from without by objective presentations; God influences all from within by subjective impulses. Hence we realize the complementary truth that we live and move in him and have all our being in him. In some distant sense, as the birds draw their life and have their being in the air, God is the one essential, fundamental environment and life-condition of all creatures.

The consequences of this great fact of the divine im

manence are:

(1.) The whole universe exists in God. As the stars in the ether, as the clouds in the air, the whole universe floats on the pulsing bosom of God.

(2.) All the intelligence manifested in the physical universe, all that larger and timeless intelligence which embraces and directs the limited and transient intelligence of the human actors in the drama of history, is of God. In the physical world we see an infinitude of blind, unconscious forces, apparently independent in their nature and source, working together harmoniously to build upon a continuous and universal plan the most intricate and harmonious results, as the great cathedral dedicated to St. Peter in Rome rose out of the marble quarries of Italy through the agency of multitudes of thoughtless men and beasts of labor working without concert for many years, yet conspiring to balance harmoniously in the air a miracle of mechanical construction and of artistic beauty. It was because all the agents in that work, of all kinds and during the entire period of its development, were subject to the suggestive, elevative and directive inspiration of the great Michael Angelo.

(3.) Hence, also, in the third place, it follows that all the effect-producing energy seen in the physical universe is ultimately the efficiency of God. The First Cause must be the efficient cause of all second causes and the source of all the dependent energy they ever exercise. As the sun's rays, shining on the tropic seas, raise by evaporation the vast oceans of aerial vapors which, condensed by our northern cold, precipitate in rain and generate the immense forces of our rivers and waterfalls; as ultimately all the energies of nature distributed from our central suns hold the worlds together in the form of gravity, and are differentiated into the thousand forms of vegetable and animal life, and into the mechanical movement of the currents of winds and tides and of electric currents and of radiant light,-so all these issue ceaselessly from their ultimate seat in God. What the sun is to the solar system, what the furnace is to the steamship, what the great centre of nerve-force is to our bodies, that God is to his universe, and infinitely more.

(4.) Hence, lastly, it follows that everywhere the universe reveals God. The power of the indwelling spirit to express its changing modes through the changes of the body is a great mystery, and nevertheless is one of the most obvious and constant of all facts. Pallid fear, raging passion, calm contemplation, assured confidence, radiant joy, determined purpose, have each their universally recognized signs of expression current among all nations of men and animal tribes. So the constructive dream of the architect, the ideal of the sculptor and painter, the high theme of the musician, are all expressed in the several forms of their respective arts. The great artists are immortal, since they ever live, speaking and

singing in their works. As our souls animate and manifest their presence and their changing modes in every part of our bodies, and as God is immanent and active in all his works, so all nature and the course of universal history reflect his thoughts. All men always recognize events of extraordinary character as expressions of the will of God. Whatever is recognized by us as providential expresses to us the divine thought. Even Shakespeare says that Providence "shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may." The Christian recognizes every event as providential. Every hair of our head is numbered, and not one sparrow falls to the ground except as our Father wills it. He works in us all to will and to do his good pleasure in all things. Hence every flower is a thought of God. The firmament reflects his immensity, and the order of the stars his limitless intelligence, and the myriad-fold beauty of the world unveils the secret chambers of his imagery. The tempest is the letting loose of his strength, and the thunder utters his voice. To the Christian the universe is not merely a temple in which God is worshiped, but it is also the ever-venerated countenance on which the affections of our Lord toward his children are visibly expressed. Everywhere we see God, and everywhere his ever-active and fecund benevolence toward us is articulated in smile and word and deed.

This view of God, which we signalize by the word "immanence," is not a new one, nor is it confined to philosophers or to theologians. The plainest and most practical Christians of all churches live in the exercise of this faith every day. To the babes in Christ every event is providential and marks the constant thought

and care of God. Especially have evangelical Christians of the school of Augustine and Calvin always recognized the constant dependence of the creature and the constant inworking of the divine energy as the controlling source of all our spontaneous affections and actions. It is a first principle in their theology that the creature can act only as it is first acted upon by the First Cause. The doctrine of prevenient grace, which is the grand evangelical distinction, implies this. God must first move the sinner to good before the sinner can begin to co-operate with that grace which ever continues to prompt and assist him. Thus they argue for a previous, simultaneous and determining concursus―i. e. continuous co-working-of the ceaseless activities of God with the activities of his creatures. They hold that even the sinful actions of men originate in God as to their matter, while as to their form or moral quality they originate in the creature alone; as when a great artist handles an instrument out of tune the sound that issues is due to the artist, but the discord which deforms it issues only from the unbalanced organism of the instrument, the unstrung cords or the unadjusted pipes.

The claim made by the advocates of the "New Departure" in theology, that this view of God as immanent and constantly active in all his works is new in the thoughts of Christians, is absolutely without shadow of evidence. It has never been denied or seriously ignored, nor is it in the least inconsistent with the complementary view of his personal transcendence and objective presentation and working from without. The Church has always held both sides together of this double truth, as both equally essential and precious.

Neither is this view of the divine immanence to be confounded with Pantheism. They both alike emphasize the common truth that God is within us; that he is to be sought in the sphere of the subjective as well as of the objective; that he is the immediate basis of all created existence and the ultimate source of all the intelli gence and energy manifested in the external world.

But Pantheism holds that the whole universe of extension and thought is one substance, and that substance God -that God exists only in the successive forms or events which constitute the universe. These forms are various, but God is one. They are successive, but God endures the same. He is not a person, but all persons are transient forms of his being. He has no existence other than that of the sum of all finite existence, and no consciousness nor intelligence other than the aggregate of the consciousness and intelligence of the transient

creatures.

Hence Pantheism denies the freedom of man and the personality of God. It makes all events proceed by a law of absolute necessity. All evil, precisely as all good, comes immediately from God, and evil men are related to him precisely as are saints and angels. It confounds. the doctrine of immanence with ontological identity, and it turns it into a heresy by denying the complementary truth of the divine transcendence. It allows no place for a heavenly Father beholding us complacently and providing for us benevolently. It makes no place for a moral Governor and Judge ruling over us, distributing rewards and punishments, teaching, disciplining and acting upon us from without. It makes no place for a supernatural world, for revelations or supernatural