"If I understand the drift of what you have said, it is that the world has no truth but what stands in some relation to God, who is the source of all truth." "Just my meaning," replied Mr.Allison.
A pause of some moments followed.
"Then it comes to this," said Mr.Markland, "that only through a religious life can a man hope to arrive at truth." "Only through a life in just order," was the reply.
"What is a life in just order ?" "A life in harmony with the end of our creation." "Ah! what a volume of meaning, hidden as well as apparent, does your answer involve! How sadly out of order is the world! how little in harmony with itself! To this every man's history is a living attestation." "If in the individual man we find perverted order, it cannot, of course, be different with the aggregated man." "No." "The out of order means, simply, an action or force in the moral and mental machinery of the world, in a direction opposite to the right movement." "Yes; that is clear." "The right movement God gave to the mind of man at the beginning, when he made him in the likeness and image of himself." "Undoubtedly." "To be in the image and likeness of God, is, of course, to have qualities like him." "Yes." "Love is the essential principle of God--and love seeks the good of another, not its own good.

It is, therefore, the nature of God to bless others out of himself; and that he might do this, he created man.

Of course, only while man continued in true order could he be happy.

The moment he obliterated the likeness and image of his Creator--that is, learned to love himself more than his neighbour--that moment true order was perverted: then he became unhappy.

To learn truth is to learn the way of return to true order.
And we are not left in any doubt in regard to this truth.