The most important thing in life is to know God. It is no less necessary than food, clothing and shelter. It is no less necessary, and even more important. “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven . . Absolutely necessary.

Necessary for us here and necessary for us hereafter. Hereafter, because “This is eternal life to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Here, if only because unless we know Him we cannot know ourselves, and if we do not know ourselves we cannot be what we were intended to be, even as men. It may be true that the proper study of man is man, but it is also true that he knows little of man who knows only man. The very nature of man, the purpose of his strange life, his conflicting desires and interests and yearnings, the meaning of his joys and his pain, the whole bewildering complexity of mystery which we call life, is unintelligible unless we know something of whence he came, whence we came, and whither we are destined. And we know that God made us, and that for some purpose of His own. We cannot know ourselves with anything resembling completeness, we cannot know what we are, let alone what we should be, unless we know Him and His ways. Without that knowledge our whole life becomes meaningless. On the other hand, the more we know of Him, the more our life, the meaning of our existence, grows in completeness, in direction, in unity.