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Page 7
CHAPTER I
RELIGION
Religion is experience. It is the response of man's nature to his
highest inspirations. It is his intercourse with Being above himself and
his world.
Religion is _normal_ experience. Its enemies call it "an indelible
superstition," and its friends assert that man is born believing. That a
few persons, here and there, appear to lack the sense for the Invisible
no more argues against its naturalness than that occasionally a man is
found to be colorblind or without an ear for music. Mr. Lecky has
written, "That religious instincts are as truly part of our natures as
are our appetites and our nerves is a fact which all history
establishes, and which forms one of the strongest proofs of the reality
of that unseen world to which the soul of man continually tends."
Some have sought to discredit religion as a surviving childishness. A
baby is dependent upon its parents; and babyish spirits, they say,
never outgrow this sense of dependence, but transfer that on which they
rely from the seen to the unseen. While, however, other childish things,
like ghosts and fairies, can be put away, man seems to be "incurably
religious," and the most completely devout natures, although childlike
in their attitude towards God, give no impression of immaturity. When
one compares Jesus of Nazareth with the leaders in State and Church in
the Jerusalem of His day, He seems the adult and they the children. And
further, those who attempt to destroy religion as an irrational survival
address themselves to the task of a Sisyphus. Although apparently
successful today, their work will have to be done over again tomorrow.
On no other battlefield is it necessary so many times to slay the slain.
Again and again religion has been pronounced obsolete, but passing
through the midst of its detractors it serenely goes its way. When men
laboriously erect its sepulchre, faith,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
Will arise and unbuild it again.
Its indestructible vitality is evidence that it is an inherent element
in human nature, that the unbeliever is a subnormal man.
Religion is an affair of the _whole_ personality. Some have emphasized
the part feeling plays in it. Pascal describes faith as "God felt by the
heart," and Schleiermacher finds the essence of religion in the sense of
utter dependence. Many of us recognize ourselves as most consciously
religious in
that serene and blessed mood
In which the affections gently lead us on.
Our highest inspirations commonly come to us in a wistful yearning to be
like the Most High, in a sense of reconciliation with Him, in a glowing
enthusiasm for His cause, in the calm assurance of His guidance and
protection, in the enlargement of our natures as they become aware of
His indwelling. "We _feel_ that we are greater than we _know_."
Others give prominence to the r�le of the intellect. God is the most
reasonable explanation of the facts of life. Religious truths and men's
minds harmonize as though they had been made for each other. The thought
of Deity gives them perfect mental satisfaction. Dante tells us: "The
life of my heart, that of my inward self, was wont to be a sweet thought
which went many times to the feet of God, that is to say in thought I
contemplated the kingdom of the Blessed." And a present-day English
thinker, Mr. F.H. Bradley, writes: "All of us, I presume, more or less
are led beyond the region of ordinary facts. Some in one way and some in
another, we seem to touch and have communion with what is beyond the
visible world. In various manners we find something higher which both
supports and humbles, both chastens and transports us. And, with various
persons, the intellectual effort to understand the universe is a
principal way of their experiencing the Deity."
Still others lay the chief stress upon the will. Man wills to live; but
in a universe like ours where he is pitted against overwhelming forces,
he is driven to seek allies, and in his quest for them he wills to
believe in a God as good as the best in himself and better. Faith is an
adventure; Clement of Alexandria called it "an enterprise of noble
daring to take our way to God." We trust that the Supreme Power in the
world is akin to the highest within us, to the highest we discover
anywhere, and will be our confederate in enabling us to achieve that
highest. Kant found religion through response to the imperative voice of
conscience, in "the recognition of our duties as divine commands."
Pasteur, in the address which he delivered on taking his seat in the
Acad�mie Fran�aise, declared: "Blessed is he who carries within himself
a God, an ideal, and who obeys it; ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal
of the gospel virtues, therein lie the springs of great thoughts and
great actions; they all reflect light from the Infinite."
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