"Forget not for a moment, that God is All in all—therefore, that in reality there is but one Cause and effect" (Miscellaneous Writings, p.155).
There are few if any who do not believe in the existence of God, but many do not take Him seriously at least as regards the present. The cares of the world are so continuous for those who will care for them, that little time seems left for the contemplation of spiritual things, or to give especially to God. Even Christians are too well content with the hours covered by church services and their private devotions, and the balance of time being considered as rightfully belonging to their material affairs. As to the wisdom of this course the slow Christianization of the race must bear testimony.
Most of us have grown up from childhood with the vaguest conception as to what and where God really is, and the relation we bear to Him. The sun, the sea, the mountains, the flowers, and the stars, entered into our lives as children and men, for we felt that we knew them; but God had always seemed so much farther away than these things, so much less real than our brothers and sisters, that He has been as a stranger to us and found little response in our hearts but fear, because of the mystery about Him We did not feel His presence with us as we did the sunshine and the air, nor had we the same confidence in His love and goodness as in that of our friends. Many earnest Christians have felt that this should not be so; that they should have a sense of closer relationship between themselves and God, a less fearful faith in His protecting love and care than their experience afforded.
