‘Whatsoever is made manifest is light.’  We should have expected this, if we are really Christians.  If we have faith in God; if we believe that God is worthy of our faith—­a God whom we can trust; in whom is neither caprice, deceit, nor darkness, but pure and perfect light;—­if we believe that we are His children, and that He wishes us to be, like Himself, full of light, knowing what we are and what the world is, because we know who God is;—­if we believe that He sent His Son into the world to reveal Him, to unveil Him, to draw aside the veil which dark superstition and ignorance had spread between man and God, and to show us the glory of God;—­if we believe this, then we shall be ready to expect that whatsoever is made manifest would be light; for if God be light, all that He has made must be light also.  Like must beget like, and therefore light must beget light, good beget good, love beget love; and therefore we ought to expect that as true and sound knowledge increases, our views of God will be more full of light.

Yes, my friends; under the influence of true science God will be no longer looked upon, as He was in those superstitions which we well call dark, as a proud, angry, capricious being, as a stern taskmaster, as one far removed from the sympathy of men:  but as one of whom we may cheerfully say, Thy name be hallowed, for Thy name is Father; Thy kingdom come, for it is a Father’s kingdom; Thy will be done, for it is a Father’s will; and in doing Thy will alone men claim their true dignity of being the sons of God.

Our views of our fellow-men will be more cheerful also; more full of sympathy, comprehension, charity, hope; in one word, more full of light.  If it be true (and it is true) that God loves all, then we should expect to find in all something worthy of our love.  If it be true that God willeth that none should perish, we should expect to find in each man something which ought not to perish.  If it be true that God stooped from heaven, yea stoops from heaven eternally, to seek and to save that which is lost, then we should have good hope that our efforts to seek to save that which is lost will not be in vain.  We shall have hope in every good work we undertake, for we shall know that in it we are fellow-workers with God.

Our notions of the world—­of God’s whole universe, will become full of light likewise.  Do we believe that this earth was made by Jesus Christ?—­by Him who was full of grace and truth?  Do we believe our Bibles, when they tell us, that He hath given all created things a law which cannot be broken; that they continue as at the beginning, for all things serve Him?  Do we believe this?  Then we must look on this earth, yea on the whole universe of God, as, like its Master, full of grace and truth; not as old monks and hermits fancied it, a dark, deceiving, evil earth, filled with snares and temptations; a world from which a man ought to hide himself in the wilderness, and find his own safety in ignorance.  Not thus, but as the old Hebrews thought of it, as a glorious and a divine universe, in which the Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of life, creates eternal melody, bringing for ever life out of death, light out of darkness, letting his breath go forth that new generations may be made, and herein renew the face of the earth.