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 the hearts of all who thought, leaving in its place blank atheism or mere nature worship, which favored the indulgence of the baser appetites and reprobated no crime. Even the noblest and the best either doubted whether there were gods or were persuaded that if they existed they had no concern with human affairs. Out of this mental incapacity, moral degradation and spiritual paralysis there breaks forth a fountain head of new life—a race of men and women who are certain that God is, and that He is their father. Not now, indeed, for the first time is He called father, but for the first time the name as applied to the Supreme Being implies a tender, personal and intimate relationship with man. The Divine Spirit is breathed into the soul, and awakens a consciousness of the infinite worth and preciousness of life. That the all-high and omnipotent God should enter into personal relationship with the lowliest of His children, should cherish, cheer, guide and uphold them, seems too fair and gracious and exalted a thing for mortals to believe of themselves; yet it is what this new race is persuaded of, and it is the most astounding and most quickening faith that has ever taken possession of human hearts. Is it incredible that He who makes and holds the universe in poise should love? And if He loves, is it incredible that He should love those whom He has made capable of love, in whose spiritual being He has awakened a quenchless thirst for truth, goodness and beauty?

Whatever man may think, woman cannot doubt that God is love, or that Christ is that love made manifest. She is the heart, he the mind; and great thoughts spring from the heart. She lies closer to the sources of life, to the faith and wonder of children, to the supreme reality that is veiled by what appears; and she is guided by a divine instinct to understand that the infinite need is the need of love. Love is her genius, her realm, her all the world. She feels what only the wisest know—that the radical fault is lack of love; that if men did but love enough all would be well. From the dawn of history she had been the great prisoner of faith, hope and love. With a divine capacity for the highest spiritual life and the highest spiritual influence she had been made a drudge, a slave, a means, an instrument. As it is easy to hate those whom we have wronged, 22