so that when we read how poor wild souls, crav ing after the Power which they feel about then are not able to rise above the worship of bunche of feathers or piles of stones, we shall know tha it is the living God for whom they are feeling and be sure that He will at last lead to Himsel these children crying for a light.'

It gave men larger and grander views of God when they learnt that the earth is one among many bodies circling round the sun, and that the sun himself is one of numberless suns that are strewn as star-dust in the heavens, and it will give each of us, whose nature is made to trust, a larger trust in, and more loving thought of, Him to learn that our religion is one among many religions, and that nowhere is there an altogether godless race.

To use a homely figure, we shall see that the religions of the world are like human faces, all of which have something in common; nose, eyes, mouth, and so on; while all differ, some being more beautiful than others. And we shall also see that wherever any religion exists which has struck its roots deep down into the life of a

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people, there must be some truth in it which
has nurtured them, and which is worth the
seeking. For the hunger of the soul of man
can no more be satisfied with a lie, than the
hunger of his body can be appeased with stones.
I am most wishful to impress this upon you,
because you will never read the meaning of this
world aright if you are content with that half-
knowledge of the beliefs of other races, both
savage and civilized, which most people have, and
which suffices to give only false ideas of those beliefs.

Remember that where ignorance is, there is darkness; but that where knowledge dwells, light abides; and as knowledge of God, which comes from the study of man and his dwellingplace, the world, grows from more to more,' sunnier views of Him make glad the heart, chasing away the false ideas about Him that frightened poor timid, tender souls; that made even strong men shake, and bring their noble powers, tied and bound, before the grim Being they were taught to fear; that caused beauty to disfigure itself, as if ugliness was acceptable to Him,

1

IN every land and age man has looked up to th great, silent heaven, with its unresting sun, moo and stars; and upon this earth, with its robe o many folds and colours, and asked, 'Did thes things make themselves? Had they a Maker If so, how did He make them, and how long ago What can He be like?' And the questions have had all kinds of answers framed to meet them and not a few strange stories woven to explain the hard matter.

It is well known to you that among many beliefs, now found to be wrong, which were held in bygone days, people thought that the earth was a flat and fixed thing, for whose sole benefit the sun shone by day and the moon and stars by night. Now, such a belief as this is no matter for wonderment, because it was the only belief then possible. People must speak of things as

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they appear, and we still talk of the sun rising and
setting, although we are sure he does nothing of the
kind. If you had not learnt anything from books
and other helps about the roundness of the earth
and its movements in space, and had been shut
up all your life in some wide plain where no hills
broke the long, low line around, and gave you a
sight, let us say, of the sea hiding in the distance
the hulls of ships, you would have believed the
earth to be flat and fixed, and lighted by the sun
travelling daily across the sky, because your
senses led you to such belief.
Neither could you

have learnt anything of the vastness and distance
of the sun and stars, and you might have made
the most simple guesses about these matters, as
did some of the wise Greeks. One of them said
that the moon was as large as that part of Greece
once known as the Peloponnesus, but now called
the Morea, and was laughed at for his boldness;
while another held that the pale belt of light
which is named, from a pretty myth, the Milky
Way, and which we know consists of millions of
of which our sun is one Wod the leas

stars

together. And it was a very long time befor people would believe that there were millions o mankind who were walking with their feet oppo site to ours on another part of the earth.

But as the mind of man searched deeper int things many of them were found to be other than they seemed, and thus all truer knowledge as to what they are has been gained by slow and sur correction of that which the senses first told abou them. It would fill a bigger book than this to tell through what paths of darkness and danger the master-spirits of old cut their way to light amidst what silence and fear they worked, and with what trembling they told their discoveries to a trusted few, but the story is one you will do well to study. And now let us look at a few of the old legends about the beginning of things. They are for the most part but little known, and although the forms in which some of them are cast are crude and foolish, they are worth more than a smile. They were very real to those who framed them, and the wise will gladly find in them this truth: that in the presence of the great fact of earth. sea and sky. man has seen a greater