I wish to discuss a feeling, or a family of similar feelings, which people have thought to be of religious significance or even to be the essence of religion. I have titled my essay with the name given to this experience by Schleiermacher, though the experience is by no means his idiosyncrasy. It has been described in various terms by a number of people, mostly of a philosophical bent; but it seems to ring true to less dialectical sorts too, if the description is put in terms they understand. Doubts may be raised about the relation between whatever experience it is that makes that ordinary man nod approval to the philosopher and the philosopher's more precise description of the feeling, but our doubts may also be given some pause by a remarkable similarity among the various sophisticated descriptions of the experience. So I shall first set the discussion in a rather broad context; and then, since it is Schleiermacher who more than anyone else has tried to use this experience to make theological hay, I shall expound his analysis of it, trying to answer some critical questions about it: What kind of feeling is the feeling of absolute dependence? Do we have the feeling? If so, when and under what coriditions? Does it imply God? And if so, what God?