(3) It is here designed to be asserted that the forces of the invisible seek to be continually in full play on the intellectual and moral natures of man.  Our unique Christian Scriptures have this thought for their whole significance.  It begins with God’s walking with Adam in the garden, and goes on till it is said, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you,” in the invisible, and by the invisible, from before the foundation of the visible world.  It includes all time and opportunity between and after; we need specify only to intensify the conception of the fact.  Paul says, “Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day,” when otherwise oppressive circumstances and hate of men seeking to kill him would have prevented his continuing in life.  It is possible for all who believe to be given power, out of the invisible, to become sons of God.  It has been said that there is power and continuousness enough in the tides, winds, rotating and revolving worlds for man to make a machine for perpetual motion.  The only difficulty is to belt on.  The great object of life in the visible should be to belt on to the invisible.  Our great Example who did this made his ordinary doing better than common men’s best, his parentheses of thought richer than other men’s paragraphs and volumes.  And he left on record for us promises of greater works than these, at which we stagger through unbelief.  We should not; for men who have lived by the evidence of things not seen, and sought a city that received Jesus out of sight, have found that “God is not ashamed to be called their God.”  They have wrought marvels that men tell over like a rosary of what is possible to men.  It is beyond the belief of all who have not been touched by the power of an endless life.  But what they do is chiefly valuable as evidence of what they are.  It is little that men quench the violence of fire, and receive their dead raised to life again.  It is great that they are able to do it.  That they hold the hand that holds the world is something.  But that they have eyes to see, a wisdom to choose, and will to execute the best, is more.  Fire may kindle again and the resurrected die, but the great personality survives.

These forces are not discontinuous, connected with this temporary world, and liable to cease when it fails.  They belong to the permanent, invisible order of things.  Suppose one loses his body.  Then there is no force whereby earth can hold its child any longer to its breast.  It flies on at terrific speed, dwindling to a speck in unknown distances, and leaving the man amid infinitudes alone.  But there are other attractions.  There was One uplifted on a cross to draw all men unto him.  Love has finer attraction for souls than gravitation has for bodies.

  Then all his being thrills with Joy.  And past
  The comets’ sweep, the choral stars above,
  With multiplying raptures drawn more swift
  He flies into the very heart of love.