ABSTRACT
Religion is, not the immediate gift of God, but the mode of the mind's striving to become conscious to itself of the divine force, which in every other part of creation except the human mind is carried on without consciousness on the part of the subject-instrument. Continuing to employ theological terms, the matter might indeed be still more simply represented thus: Although it is now discovered that of direct agency on the part of God in the workmanship of human religion there is none, yet people may see that indirectly it still proceeds from Him in the same way as every other work in nature. It is proper to the being of man to know things through symbols:—very well; and people have now found that religion, in seeking to know God, does know him through symbols. It has not failed in that which it sought.
