One of the most striking passages in the New Testament is that which tells of the Apostle Paul standing in the midst of Mars' Hill and speaking to the assembled Athenians as follows: "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."
From the earliest period of human history mankind has striven to find God,—to find good. This greatest desideratum, the finding of God, good, has been the one chief pursuit of every individual of the human race. The lowest type of savage sees in his supply of food his immediate good, but does not feel impelled to look much farther. There are savage tribes somewhat higher in intelligence, who look beyond the immediate material food to the physical courage and strength which are deemed essential to the procuring of that food; and these physical qualities are by them accorded a sort of worship. From these low beginnings, in all races of mankind and up through all stages of civilization, men have searched for that which they deemed to be good. Some have sought what they considered their highest good in conquest and material influence and power; some, like the miser, in gold; some, more imaginative than the latter, have sought it in those things which they believed gold could procure. It goes without saying, however, that in none of these material, supposititious claims to spiritual good, nor in all of them combined, have men found that ultimate good which they call God. For "God is a Spirit," and those who truly worship Him must worship Him "in spirit and in truth."
To-day there are millions of individuals who are quite prepared to admit or assert that God is Spirit, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, but who at the same time, and with much firmer conviction, assert the substantial reality of all things material, regardless as to whether those material things appear to their senses as good or as evil. Their assertion that God is Spirit, coupled as it is with a belief in the reality of matter, is merely formal, and amounts only to a tacit admission that they have found no true or lasting joy in things material. It expresses a hope that true happiness is to be found somewhere in the unseen, and a belief that its enjoyment must be postponed until the so-called hereafter, when material things shall have passed away. These individuals also have failed to find God.
