Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/97

60 your experience or in mine, what will occur to-morrow for us, or for any other human being whatever, is just as really, vitally, vividly, distinctly present to God as the gentlemen now sitting on this platform are to you at the present moment. And in all eternity this is, for God, true of all facts, whether called by us past, present, or future. It is as if all of us were cylinders, with their ends removed, moving through the waters of some placid lake. To the cylinders the water seems to move, — what has passed is a memory, what is to come is doubtful. But the lake knows that all the water is equally real, and that, in fact, it is quiet, unruffled, immovable. Speaking technically, time is no reality; things seem past and future, and, in a sense, non-existent to us, but in fact they are just as genuinely real as the present is. Is Julius Cæsar dead and turned to clay? No doubt he is. But in reality he is also alive, he is conquering Spain, Gaul, Greece, and Egypt. He is leading the Roman legions into Britain, and dominating the envious Senate, just as truly as he is dead and turned to clay, — just as truly as you hear the words I am now speaking. Every reality is eternally real; pastness and futurity are merely illusions. You look into a stereoscope, and two flat cards variously shaded appear to be a large city spread out before your eyes. But that seeming city is not a fact. The two cards variously shaded are the reality. Babylon and Tyre, on the other hand, seem unreal to us; but those cities are real, and the throb of life pulses through the veins of their citizens, even now, just as truly and strongly as it does through yours. I do not know how many