Uncle Gilbert came in, humming lightly a tune he had caught from the band in the cafe.  He stopped when he saw his brother apparently asleep.  He was about to retreat when his brother, opening his eyes, called: 

“Don’t go; come here.  I want to talk with you.  I want your opinion on a matter.”

Uncle Gilbert seated himself to listen.

“You might think it a strange thing for me to ask you about doctrines of religion,” began the brother, “but sometimes a layman has a clearer, more unbiased view than one who has studied one system, and—­and has made his living from preaching it.”

“I fear, brother, you are worrying too much about such things”—­

“Not at all—­not too much.  It’s necessary to worry sometimes.  I suppose that’s God’s way of arousing people.  I am worrying—­have been worrying for many years—­just now I want someone to talk to—­I want you to listen.”

“I’ll do that, if that will help you,” said the brother as he placed his hat and stick on a table and shifted himself into a comfortable position.  The maid peeped in, but seeing the two men, retired again.

“I have preached hundreds of sermons on the being and nature of God,” said the minister, now sitting erect and looking at his brother.  “I have spoken of Him as a Father, our Father, and all the time He has been out in time and space, formless, homeless, unthinkable.  He has never appealed to heart or brain.  Will God ever be more to me than a force in and through all nature?  Shall we ever see His face?  Shall we ever feel the cares of His hand and hear His voice, not in a figurative sense, but in reality.”

“Now brother”—­said Uncle Gilbert again.

“Don’t interrupt.  You do not need to answer my questions—­you couldn’t if you wanted to.  Listen.  What do you think of this:  God is our Father, in reality as we naturally understand it—­Father of our spirits.  We are, therefore, His children.  That is our relationship.  Consequently we are of a family of Gods.  Admit that our Father is God, and that we are His children, the conclusion is absolute.  We are not worms of the dust, only so far as we degrade our divine nature to that lowness.

“This Father of ours has in the past eternities trod through time and space, learning,—­yes, suffering, overcoming, conquering, becoming perfect, until now He sits in the midst of glory, power, and eternal lives.  In might and majesty perfect, He can and does hold us all as in the hollow of His hand.  This little earth of ours, and all the shining worlds on high are His workmanship.  He holds them also by His allwise power.  And yet, my brother, come back to this simple proposition, we are that great Being’s sons and daughters, and if we walk in the way in which He walked, we are heirs to all that He has!  I am one of a great family, so are you,—­all of us.  Our Father has but gone before and we follow.  The difference between us is only in degree of development and not in kind.