Modular Infotech Pvt. Ltd. - DSpace

210 COMPARATIVE SILENCE [CHAP. XIV
What difference must it make in our efforts towards the
Ideal?
First, it reverses the order of all our efforts, or, according
to modern phraseology, it enjoins a change of Values .
. Instead of man's spiritual aspirations being first, and
religion a vague accessory, a self-taught, ancillary emotion,
the tremendous fact of God 9ur Creator now and eternally
giving Himself to man-to unclean, helpless, conceited man
-is the Rock-fact on which we must be stablished if we
are to see the Truth about anything whatsoever. Only
if we begin with God's Glory can we be sure- we are
intending the true welfare of man.
Next, if it is apprehended--and I am writing for those
who see no reason to deny the affirmation-we shall deal
with the young, not by appealing to them to rely on their
own strength, but· to make real to themselves and to
others the supernatural life on which we are called to live.
Not that there must be any folding of the hands ; but the
helpless has to be really assured of a Strength not his own.
Thirdly, we shall handle " secular" subjects, as channels
of the Divine Revelation. This, of course, is a vast
subject. I will only point out here that the conception
of knowledge as " secular " is an hallucination ; that is, if
it is thought of as truth in and for itself and, so to speak, a
department of life lying apart froni God's control, it can
only he an utterly useless delusion. God is everywhere
or nowhere ; and where He is, He is the paramount
and dominating fact. We should notice how the propensity
to think of events and facts as independent ef
His control accords with man's pride: just as it affronts
his pride to be told that he cannot save himself. This is
the point of contact between the two conventional metho!ls
of teaching in schools : the attempt to train character
ethically, and the attempt. to deal with knowledge inde·
pendently of God. They both assume that man's natural,
moral, and intellectual faculties are sufficient for the
demands which life makes upon them.
Similarly, in social work we combine in desperate.