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If, then, it is only by a slow and gradual process that we can rise to anything like a true knowledge (even according to our human measure) of God, must it not be by a slow and gradual process alone that He can make His voice and His guiding touch distinguishable by us and intelligible to us? Is it any wonder if those who do not attribute to Him so much as the broad obvious laws by which we are all hedged in from gross wrong-doing and error, should fail to recognize the reality or the significance of those delicate restraining touches by which the spirits which yield themselves to His care are moulded into some faint likeness to the Son of His love? Must not the first step towards entering into the meaning of that which is personal and individual be the acceptance of what is equally applicable to all?[6]

That individual and immediate guidance, in which we recognize that “the finger of God is come unto us,” seems to come in, as it were, to complete and perfect the work rough-hewn by morality and conscience. We may liken the laws of our country to the cliffs of our island, over which we rarely feel ourselves in any danger of falling; the moral standard of our social circle to the beaten highway road which we can hardly miss. Our own conscience would then be represented by a fence, by which some parts of the country are enclosed for each one, the road itself at times barred or narrowed. And that Divine guidance of which I am speaking could be typified only by the pressure of a hand upon ours, leading us gently to step to the right or the left, to pause or to go forward, in a manner intended for and understood by ourselves alone.[7]