and look through the histories of philosophy:  you will find one hypothesis, and one only, which answers the requirements of the problem.  It goes back, as I believe, to the origin of the world; it was glimpsed by Socrates, by Aristotle, and Plato; but, in its full light, it belongs only to men who have received the God of Moses, and who have studied in the school of Jesus Christ.  If this hypothesis explains the facts, it is sound, for the property of truth is to explain, as the property of light is to enlighten.

The doctrine of the Creator can alone account to us for the universe, by bringing us back to its first cause.  The first cause of unity cannot be matter which could never produce mind; the first cause of unity cannot be the human mind, which, from the moment that it desires to take itself for the absolute being, is dissolved and annihilated.  The unity which alone can have in itself the source of multiplicity, is neither matter nor idea, but power; power the essential characteristic of mind, and infinite, that is to say, creative power.  The Creator alone could produce divers beings, because He is Almighty, and maintain harmony between those beings, because He is One.  Thus is manifested an essential agreement between the requirements of philosophy and the religious sentiment; for religion, as we said at the beginning of these lectures, rests upon the idea of Divine power.  Reason and faith meet together upon the lofty heights of truth.  But let us not enter too far into the difficulties of philosophy.  Let us confine ourselves to considerations of a less abstruse order.

The Creator is the God of nature.  All the visible universe is but the work of His power, the manifestation of His wisdom.  The poet of the Hebrews invites to offer praise to the Most High, not only men of every age and of all nations, but the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the cedars of the forest, the rain and the wind, the hail and the tempest.[167] In the language of a modern poet: 

     Thee, Lord, the wide world glorifies;
     The bird upon its nest replies;
     And for one little drop of rain
     Beings Thine eye doth not disdain
     Ten thousand more repeat the strain.[168]

And such thoughts are not vain freaks of the imagination.  Man, the conscious representative of nature, the high-priest of the universe, feels himself urged by an impulse of his heart to translate the confused murmur of the creation into a hymn of praise to the Infinite Being, the absolute Source of life,—­to Him who is, One, Eternal,—­the first and absolute Cause of all existence.

The Creator is the God of spirits.  He is not only the God of humankind; “the immense city of God contains, no doubt, nobler citizens than man, in reasoning power so weak, and in affections so poor."[169] But let us speak of what is known to us:  He is the God of humankind.  All nations shall one day render glory to Him.  Mighty words have resounded through the world:  “Henceforth there is no longer either Greek or barbarian or Jew; but one and the same God for all.”  The idols have begun to fall; the gods of the nations have been hurled from their pedestals; they have fallen, they are falling, they will fall, until the knowledge of the only and sovereign Creator shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.