Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/493

468 good will. A world in which this strife, this victory, this absolute rest above the real strife and in the midst of the real strife, is the supreme fact, is the perfect world that religion needs. It is a world of the true Life of God.

And our insight appeals not only to our general religious needs. It comes with its truth home to the individual man. It demands that we consider what our individual life is really worth when it is lived in the presence of this Infinite Judge. O man, what is this thy daily life! Thou livest for the applause or in fear of the blame of thy neighbors. An unkind word cuts thee to the quick. A little public favor, or the approving word of a friend, is worth half thy soul to thee. And all the while thou knowest not that One infinitely greater than multitudes of neighbors is here, not above thee only, nor afar in the heavens, but pervading thy every thought. And that all-pervading Thought judges thee as these neighbors never can. Myriads of their blunders about thee are as nothing to an atom of this infinite Truth. That rain-drop yonder in the sunshine is not more filled with the light, than are all the most hidden recesses of thy heart filled with that Infinite Presence. No one of us is more famous than his neighbor; for no one is known save by God, and to him all alike are known. To be sure, to know this is the same as understanding rightly, that thou art in truth what thou art. All truth is truth because it is known by