Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/497

472 from one who truly knows him. Well, our doctrine says that he gets it. Just as deep, as full, as rich, as true approval as expresses the full worth of his act, — this he has for all eternity from the Infinite. To feed upon that truth is to eat something better than snow, but as pure as the driven snow. To love that truth is to love God.

We spoke in the former book of the boundless magnitude of human life as it impresses itself upon one who first gains the moral insight. To many this first devotion to human life seems itself enough for a religion. But then one goes beyond this point, and says that human life has, after all, very much that is base and petty in it. Here is not the ideal. “Would that there were a higher life! To that we would devote ourselves. We will serve humanity, but how can we worship it?” Such is the thought of many an ardent soul that seeks no personal rewards in serving the good, but that does seek some great Reality that shall surely be worthy of service. To such, our religious insight points out this higher reality. You that have been willing to devote yourselves to humanity, here is a Life greater in infinite degree than humanity. And now is it not a help to know that truly to serve humanity is just the same as to serve this Infinite? For whatever had seemed disheartening in the baseness and weakness of man loses its discouraging darkness now that all is transfigured in this Infinite light.

Let us then be encouraged in our work by this great Truth. But let us not spend too much time in merely contemplating this Truth. We, whose