September 22

I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee.

SO long as a man receives his Christianity on the authority of a church or a book—so long as it has not commended itself to his higher reason and moral sense, or reached his inner consciousness—he has no real hold of Christianity, he is believing only in his church or his book. There may be the most absolute belief in the infallibility of a Church or in the inspiration of the Bible, along with the most absolute unbelief in the doctrine taught by them, because the truth of the doctrine may be altogether undiscerned. . . . The Bible presents to our spiritual capacities their proper objects—the character of God, His relation to men, and His purposes towards them—and we then only receive the blessing which God intends for us in giving it to us when we apprehend those great things of which it speaks, and discern their eternal necessary truth; in other words, when our spirit actually meets God and we find that He is indeed a Father.

THOMAS ERSKINE OF LIN- LATHEN

LETTER AND SPIRIT