Note (return) — Chapter XV
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The history of the religions and philosophies of human origin thus becomes to us a striking confirmation of the truth of Christianity. It shows there is a wondrous harmony between the instinctive wants and yearnings of the human heart, as well as the necessary ideas and laws of the reason, and the fundamental principles of revealed religion. There is "a law written on the heart"--written by the finger of God, which corresponds to the laws written by the same finger on "tables of stone." There are certain necessary and immutable principles and ideas infolded in the reason of man, which harmonize with the revelations of the Eternal Logos in the written word. 971 There are instinctive longings, mysterious yearnings of the human heart, to which that unveiling of the heart of God which is made in the teaching and life of the incarnate God most satisfyingly answers. Within the depths of the human spirit there is an "oracle" which responds to the voice of "the living oracles of God."