All  special  religions  have,  in  like  manner,  presented
obstacles  of  their  own  to  that  free  recognition  of  the
infinite  which  they  sought.  Especially  is  this  true
of  their  pretensions  to  supernatural  revelation,  which
science  is  so  thoroughly  setting  aside  in  the  name  of
law.  In  the  lower  stages  of  culture,  supernaturalism
is  indeed  a  reaching  forth  to  find  God :  it  means  that
there  is  at  least  a  divineness  in  things  exceptional  or
wonderful,  for  those  who  have  not  yet  learned  what
sacredness  there  is  in  things  familiar  and  near.  It  is,
primarily  then,  a  form  of  spiritual  progress,  and  satis-
fies real  needs.  But,  when  prolonged  into  scientific  ages
and  enlightened  races,  claims  of  this  kind  practically
teach  that  God  is  not  in  man,  in  nature,  in  history  ;
but  out  of  man,  against  nature,  behind  history;  en-
tering the  world  once  on  a  time,  with  what  men
are  expected  to  receive  as  truer  than  truth,  more
legislative  than  law,  more  loving  than  love.  They
teach  that  spirit  is  to  be  held  the  more  divine
for  secluding  itself  in  the  prescriptive  claim  of  one
or  of  a  few.  They  teach  that  the  infinite  is  the
better  recognized  for  confining  its  manifestation  to  a
class,  an  epoch,  an  individual  life.  All  this  limita-
tion of  universal  forces,  this  prescription  of  divine
paths,  this  foreclosure  of  inspiration,  the  liberty  of
our  day  holds  to  be  no  better  than  sarcophagus  or
shroud.  It  will  choose  rather  that  pantheism  of
the  Spirit  that  finds  God  instant  and  informing  in  all
history,  experience,  law,  and  work.      What  Eastern


PIETY    OF   PANTHEISM.  479

contemplation  could  foreshadow,  Western  vigor  and
grasp  of  things  will  have  to  deliver  out  of  its  limita-
tions, old  and  new,  by  bringing  the  unities  of  races
and  sciences  and  faiths,  to  serve,  now  that  their  day
too  has  come,  this  eternal  desire  of  the  soul.
