reinforce, and carry forward, the light that already shines. It 're-publishes', in the language of the Analogy, the verities already held. It endows them with stability; it confirms; it reassures.
This is its office: and then, secondly, to the light already found, it adds more light; according to the crucial law, that to them who have shall more be given. It opens out new spheres of spiritual experience. It carries man's knowledge forward on to fresh developments. It introduces him to further and fuller activities of God, set in motion on his behalf, for his deliverance.
And, for the apprehension of these new experiences, it asks for just the same moral temper and intellectual insight which have already proved their validity within the narrower frontiers. If these have been hitherto wanting; if Nature has offered to us only a scene of apparent disorder; if the perplexities inevitable in a scheme imperfectly comprehended have staggered our confidence; if we have not had the courage and the patience and the perseverance to detect and to follow the light given us in spite of all the obstacles that hindered its completeness; then, we shall be unequal to the strain of apprehending the Revelation. We shall be baffled by the same objections; we shall be tangled in the like bewilderment. For Revelation must approach us under the same guise and by the same methods. It cannot but make its offer on the same terms. For it, too, cannot but be 'imperfectly comprehended'. It, too, must be obviously incomplete. It will leave, therefore, a thousand issues unresolved. It will be content to prompt, suggest, invite, where certainty is impossible. It will offer partial evidence of just the same type and quality as that which is familiar to us on the plane of Nature. And, if we find it insufficient in the one case, it will seem equally insufficient in the other. In both, its effect will be disciplinary, probational. In both, it will test our moral nerve, and make demands on our spiritual resources. In both, we shall, if we are true to
