We know the past and its great events, the present in its multitudinous complications, chiefly through faith in the testimony of others.

His throne is the pulpit. He stands in Christ's stead. His message is the Word of God. Around him are immortal souls. The Savior, unseen, is beside him. The Holy Spirit broods over the congregation. Angels gaze upon the scene, and heaven and hell await the issue. What associations and what vast responsibility!

The realm of immediate or personal knowledge is a narrow circle in which these bodies move; the realm of knowledge derived through faith is as wide as the universe, and old as eternity.

There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.

Angels are spirits, flames of fire; they are higher than man, they have wider connections.

If, then, faith widens the connections, it elevates the man.

Man wants to be reconciled to God; wants to know that the past is forgiven.