Page:The Other Life.djvu/278

 abstract truths of geometry impart a positive pleasure to many minds. Every science has its special delight comparable to the odor of flowers or the charms of music. And a great System of Truth, embracing all things, spirit and matter. God and nature; a system vast, sublime, coherent, harmonious, fills the soul with delight in proportion to the conception it forms of its grandeur and symmetry. This delight creates faith.

"The harmony of a science," says Lord Bacon, "where each part supports the other, is the true and short confutation of all the smaller objections."

The rational faculty grasps truth; the æsthetic faculty enjoys it; but there is a higher faculty or power, seated in the heart or will, and that faculty uses it for the ends it was designed to accomplish; and that use of the truth is attended by a spiritual delight, the joy of angels which passes all understanding.

The love of goodness is, in the last analysis, the love of use—the delight felt in adapting the wisest means to the best ends. This celestial love is given us by the Lord in proportion to our living faith in Him and our charity to the neighbor, or according as we have religiously kept the divine commandments. This heavenly affection enables us to per-