Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/118



now falls to me, ladies and gentlemen, and fellow-members of the Union, which for its difficulty I would gladly decline, but which the Union will expect me at least to undertake. As younger students of philosophy, you my associates in the Union have called upon me to be your elder adviser; and on such an occasion as the present, which marks an epoch in your philosophical intercourse, you naturally look for me to put at your service any larger experience than your own that I may chance to possess in these fields, however insufficient it may prove when compared with the wide and deep reaches over which your speakers have carried you to-night.

The impressive close of the argument by the venerated man who has but just now ceased addressing you is such as must awaken a deep response in every human heart not touched with apathy. It is one of those rare outbreaks of accumulated expectation, hope, and longing, into which, at the contemplation of the reason that is apparently struggling to get a footing in the world, human nature pours forth all its commingled doubt and faith. Such is the impas-