{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_32578/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_32578","id":"gutenberg_32578","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32578","summary":null,"tags":["Apologetics","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Psychology, Religious"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRELIGIOUS PERPLEXITIES\n\n\nBY\n\nPRINCIPAL L. P. JACKS\n\nD.D., LL.D., D.LITT.\n\n\nAUTHOR OF\n\n\"THE LEGENDS OF SMOKEOVER,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n\n\"Perplexed, yet not unto despair\"\n\n\n\n\nHODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED\n\nLONDON\n\n1922\n\n\n\n\n  PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY\n  RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED\n  BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.\n\n\n\n\n_A Foreword_\n\nThe substance of this little book was delivered in the form of two\nlectures given at the invitation of the Hibbert Trustees in Manchester,\nLiverpool, Leeds and Birmingham during March and April, 1922.  On\nrevising the spoken word for the press I have made certain\nrearrangements which seemed to be required in committing the lectures\nto the printed form.  The first section is wholly new and may be\nconsidered as a short introduction to the main theme.  Such an\nintroduction is, I think, needed, but the time at my disposal did not\nallow of its inclusion in the oral delivery of the lectures.\n\nL. P. J.\n\n\n\n\n_Contents_\n\n   I.  THE SOURCE OF PERPLEXITY\n  II.  RELIGIOUS PERPLEXITY IN GENERAL\n III.  PERPLEXITY IN THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION\n\n\n\n\n_I_\n\n_The Source of Perplexity_\n\n\nThe first and greatest of religious perplexities, the source of all the\nrest, arises in the mysterious fact of our existence as individual\nsouls.  Our perplexities spring from the very root of life.  Why are we\nhere at all?\n\nDid we but know the purpose for which we are present in the world,\nshould we not have in our hands the key to all the questions we raise\nabout God, freedom, duty and immortality?  But if we know not why we\nare here how can we hope to answer these other questions?\n\nOr again, if we were forced to acknowledge that our existence has no\npurpose at all, would it not be futile to embark on inquiries\nconcerning God, freedom, duty and immortality?  What meaning could\nthese terms have for beings who had learnt that their own existence was\npurposeless?\n\nThe Westminster Confession affirms that the true end of man is \"To\nglorify God and to enjoy him for ever.\"  A splendid saying!  But might\nnot God be better glorified, and more fully enjoyed, if the particular\nsoul inhabiting my own body, with all its errors and defects, had not\nbeen suffered to appear upon the scene?  Might not another soul, sent\ninto the universe instead of mine, have played that part infinitely\nbetter than I can ever hope to do?  Why, then, among the host of\npossibilities, did the lot fall upon _me_?  Why _me_?  Why _you_?\n\nWhy should God need to be glorified, or enjoyed, by you, by me, by\nanyone?  Why should he need anything?  If, as some affirm, the universe\nis the dwelling-place of the All Perfect, what reason can be given for\nthe existence, side by side with that All Perfect one, or within him,\nof a multitude of imperfect images of his Perfection--like you and me?\nIn the presence of One who has all purposes already fulfilled in\nhimself what purpose can be served by our introduction into the scheme\nof things?  If you and I, and all such, were to be blotted out\nforthwith and the All Perfect left in sole possession of the universe,\nwhere would be the loss?  You and I are apparently superfluous.\n\nPhilosophers, both ancient and modern, have addressed themselves to\nthis problem, not altogether, I think, without success, and yet not\nquite successfully.  Their arguments have not removed but greatly\ndeepened the mystery of our existence, bringing it to a critical point\nwhere we must either accept it or run away from life and its perils--to\nthe point, in fact, where we must choose between life and death.  If we\nchoose life we accept the risk that its burden may prove too heavy for\nus.  If death, we escape the perils of life but forfeit our share in\nits victories.\n\nThe former is the heroic choice; the latter the cowardly.  As Carlyle\nwas never tired of repeating, the ultimate question which every man has\nto face and answer for himself is this: \"Wilt thou be a hero or a\ncoward?\"  No philosophy can relieve us from the responsibility of\nhaving to make that choice.  All that philosophy can do, and it is a\ngreat thing to accomplish even this, is to bring us to the point where\nwe see that the choice has to be made.  This it does by forcing us to\nraise the question: \"Why am I here?  For what end have I been sent into\nthe world?\"\n\nBut let us inquire more closely what philosophers have done by way of\nbringing us to this point--the point where a final decision between\nheroism and cowardice becomes inevitable.\n\nTo the argument that _we_ are superfluous, that with a Perfect God in\npossession of the universe no reason can be given why imperfect beings\nshould be here at all, the philosophers make reply that the One must\nneeds \"differentiate itself into a Many,\" the Eternal Consciousness\n\"reproduce itself\" in a multitude of time-bound mortals like you and\nme, troublers of the Divine Perfection, which is all the more clearly\nperfect because it suffers and at last overcomes the trouble that our\npresence creates.\n\nBut while reasons have been offered why the One should thus \"reproduce\"\nor \"differentiate\" itself as a Many, no reason, so far as I am aware,\nhas ever been found, nor ever can be, why there should be just so many\nof these troublers as there are--no more and no less.  Nor why _you_\nand _I_ should be among them.  To explain why human units exist, does\nnot explain the existence of any single individual we choose to\nname--of Julius Caesar, of Napoleon, of Mr Lloyd George, whose\nsignificance in the universe, it will be admitted, consists not in\ntheir being mere human units required to make up a certain number, but\nin their being just the kind of men they happen to be.  So too the\nproof that a human unit must needs be there to fill the niche in time\nand space you now occupy is no proof that you, and no other, must needs\nbe the unit in question.  Another, substituted in your place, could\nplay the part of one in a multitude as well as you, and the theory of\nthe One and the Many would not even notice the change.  But it would\nmake a notable difference to the facts.  And as with the units, so with\nthe totality.  If the number of souls now drawing the breath of life\nwere halved or doubled, nay, if they were all suddenly blotted out and\ntheir places filled by an entirely new multitude, men, angels or devils\nas the case might be, philosophy might still maintain its theory of the\nOne and the Many as though nothing had happened.  Why these rather than\nthose?  Why _you_?  Why _me_?  Philosophy precipitates this question\nand leaves it, at the end of all theorizing, unanswered, poignant and\ntremendous.  \"Who can say positively,\" writes Sir Leslie Stephen, \"that\nit would not be better for the world at large if his neck were wrung\nfive minutes hence?\"[1]\n\nUnable, as every man is, to give a convincing reason why he should be\nhere at all, or why, being here, he should remain here any\nlonger,--unable to prove that it would not be better for the world at\nlarge, if all necks, his own included, were wrung five minutes\nhence--is there not something fundamentally irrational in our\ndetermination to continue in existence as long as we possibly can--that\nuniversal will-to-live, which forms the basis of all particular\nvolitions, and supplies the motive power to our plans, purposes,\npreparations and policies for our own or others' good?  Challenged to\nshow cause why we should linger here a moment longer, what answer could\nany of us give that would have the slightest claim to \"the universal\nvalidity of reason\"?  Reason cannot be bullied into acquiescence by the\nimportance of individuals in their own eyes.  Was there ever a great\nman whose sudden extinction would not have been hailed with joy by a\nconsiderable section of his contemporaries, or a little one who would\nnot have made things pleasanter for somebody by taking himself off?\n\nIf we limit the word \"rational\" to the processes of thought which issue\nin demonstrations after the manner of mathematical arguments, and if\nall behaviour is to be termed irrational which involves the taking of a\nrisk, I see no escape from the conclusion that human life is infected\nwith irrationality at its very core.  So far as any of us act upon the\nassumption that it is better for us to exist than not to exist we are\nassuming what can never be \"proved.\"\n\nBut, for my own part, I am not prepared to put these limitations on the\nword \"rational.\"  The traditional logic of the schools, on which this\nnotion of rationality is founded, turns out on examination to cover no\nmore than a departmental activity of the human mind.  The type of\nconclusion to which it leads us is determined in advance by the rules\nit lays down for its own procedure, in the one department where such\nprocedure is possible.  Free activity, which is the essence of\nself-consciousness, and the life of all creative work, lies entirely\noutside its province, and the attempt to deal with it by departmental\nrules yields nothing but the rank absurdity that freedom itself is\nabsurd.[2]  The logic in question may be compared to a locomotive\nengine which can move only on the rails that have been laid down for\nit; and the philosopher who would apprehend the things of the spirit by\nthe means which it affords him is like a man who rides an engine rather\nthan a horse when he goes to hunt a fox.  Logical machinery cannot\nfollow the movement of the live spirit, nor arrest it even for a\nmoment's inspection.  Within its own province the rule of the\ntraditional logic is, indeed, absolute.  But to make that province\nco-extensive with the realm of truth, to extend the laws which govern\nit into the universal laws of spirit is a fatal pedantry.  So extended,\nour logic leads not to truth but to falsehood and, ultimately, to the\nparalysis of the very thought it seeks to regulate, nay, to the\nextinction of thought itself.  This procedure has no claim whatever to\nusurp the name of \"reason,\" but rather stands condemned as the very\ntype of what is unreasonable.  Let those who deny this prove, if they\ncan, in terms acceptable to universal reason, that it would \"not be\nbetter for the world at large if their necks were wrung five minutes\nhence.\"\n\n\nThere is a coward and a hero in the breast of every man.  Each of the\npair has a \"logic\" of his own adapted to his particular purpose and\naim--which is safety for the coward and victory for the hero.  The two\nare perpetually at variance, the reason of the one being the unreason\nof the other, the truth of the one being the falsehood of the other.\nThe inner strife, the division in our nature, the law in our members\nwarring against the law of our mind, on which so many great doctrines\nof religion have hinged, has its origin at this point.  Anyone who\nwatches himself narrowly may observe the strife going on, and going on\nin just this form,--as an argument between the coward within him, who\nis out for safety, and the hero within him, who is out for victory.\nThey have little common ground and can barely understand each other's\nspeech.\n\nEverything the hero proposes is unreasonable to the coward.  Everything\nthe coward proposes is detestable to the hero.  The hero would pour\nspikenard on the head of his beloved--that would be victorious.  The\ncoward would sell it and give the money to the poor--that would be\n\"safer.\"  The coward sees a danger in having children and limits his\nfamily.  The hero would have many sons.  On all such points the coward,\njudged by the standard of what passes muster as logic, is a better\nreasoner than the hero.  But the hero, though he has less to say for\nhimself, when brought before the seat of judgment, is nearer to the\nfountain head of Reason.  Would not the offence of the Cross, submitted\nat the time to a sanhedrim of \"logical\" experts, have been condemned as\nunadulterated folly?  Such a sanhedrim is always in session within a\nman, and the hero has much ado to stand up to its decrees.\n\nReligion is a power which develops the hero in the man at the expense\nof the coward in the man.  As the change proceeds there comes a moment\nwhen the cowardly method of reasoning, with its eye on safety, ceases\nto dominate the soul.  At the same moment the heroic element awakes and\nlooks with longing towards the dangerous mountain-tops.  Thenceforward\nthe man's reason becomes the organ of the new spirit that is in him, no\nlonger fettered to the self-centre, but mounting up with wings as an\neagle.  His powers as a reasoner are enriched, his survey of the facts\nmore comprehensive, his insight into their significance more\npenetrating.\n\nReligion has sometimes been represented as introducing a new faculty\ncalled \"faith\" into the man's life, as adding this faith to the reason\nhe had before, or perhaps as driving reason out and putting faith in\nits place.  This is a misconception.  Faith is neither a substitute for\nreason nor an addition to it.  Faith is nothing else than reason grown\ncourageous--reason raised to its highest power, expanded to its widest\nvision.  Its advent marks the point where the hero within the man is\ngetting the better of the coward, where safety, as the prime object of\nlife, is losing its charm and another Object, hazardous but beautiful,\ndimly seen but deeply loved, has begun to tempt the awakened soul.\n\nAnother way of saying the same thing is to name religion the \"new\nbirth\" of the soul.  But a new birth which, while changing all the rest\nof the man, left his reason unchanged, which turned all the rest of him\ninto a hero, but kept him still reasoning with a coward's logic, would\nnot amount to very much.  Unless I am mistaken the new birth must begin\nin the seat of reason if it is to begin at all.  Is not the man's\nreason the very essence of the man?  How then, can he be converted at\nall unless he is converted there?\n\n\nMost of the \"defences of religion\" that I am acquainted with ignore all\nthis.  They claim to address themselves to reason.  And so indeed they\ndo, but to reason in a low stage of its development, to the half-born\nreason of the timid and unemancipated soul, to the unheroic side of\nhuman nature, treating us as beings whose ultimate interest is to save\nour own skins, and making use of the logic, admirable on its own field,\nwhich self-interest has worked out for that very purpose and which is\nincapable of reaching any other conclusion.  Instead of raising reason\nto the full-grown stature of religion, they bring religion down to the\nlevel of reason while still at the stage of learning the alphabet of\nits business.  To this class of argument belong Locke's \"proof\" of the\nexistence of God, and Paley's of a Beneficent Designer.  These argue as\nthough the search for God were like the search for a lost key or for an\ninvisible carpenter.  To the same class may be assigned a more modern\ntype of apologia, which accommodates religion to the supposed demands\nof physical science, or equates the Kingdom of Heaven with social\nreform, or domesticates the eternal values to the service of temporal\nutility, or harmonizes God with democracy, or with whatever else may be\nthe popular obsession of the moment--all of them based on the principle\nof making concessions to the unconverted reason of carnal men, thereby\nsacrificing the higher logic of the spirit to the lower logic of the\nsenses.\n\nThese constructions have no continuance.  A slight shifting in the\npoint of view, a new \"demand\" from science, a step forward (or\nbackward) in the higher criticism, a change in the prevalent political\nobsession, a fit of sickness in democratic aspiration, and down they\nall go under a breath of the logic that created them, the modernism of\nto-day becoming the obscurantism of to-morrow.  Then the work of\naccommodation must begin afresh; new concessions are offered to\n\"reason,\" with the result that rebellious criticism breaks out at\nanother point.  Or the cry is raised, by desperate men, that religion\nis not an affair of the \"head\" but of the \"heart\"--as though a religion\nin which the \"head\" and the \"heart\" were at variance could be anything\nelse than a fatal disease of the soul.  And may not these apostles of\nthe \"heart\" be reminded that their proposal to exclude the \"head\" from\nthe pale of religion has neither force nor meaning until the \"head\"\nitself has ratified the bargain and consented to its own exclusion?\nWhich the \"head\" is not likely to do.\n\nIf, then, we are to limit the word \"reason\" to that side of us to which\nthe aforesaid logic makes its approach, we should realize from the\noutset that none of us can adduce the faintest shadow of reason why he\nshould exist at all, or why, in Sir Leslie Stephen's words, it were not\nbetter for the world at large if his neck were wrung five minutes\nhence.  Indeed, if the half-born logic of the unconverted reason is to\nrule our actions, I am inclined to think that the advice to commit\nuniversal suicide would be at least as \"logical\" as any other that\nphilosophy could tender to the human race at the present moment.\n\nBut the advice would not be accepted.  Rightly or wrongly each one of\nus insists on regarding his own existence as a fact of some\nsignificance--insists on believing that, on the whole, it is better for\nhim to be here than not to be here.  However firmly we may be convinced\nthat the One has done its duty when it has differentiated itself into a\nMany, there is none of us who would take lightly to the proposal that\nhe, John Smith, as one of the Many, should forthwith be blotted out,\nand another, Wong Fu, placed in the gap left vacant by his\ndisappearance.  To most of us, I believe, nay to all, it does make an\nenormous difference whether the particular niche in question is filled\nby Wong Fu or by _me_, but a difference for which we should find it\nextremely difficult to give a \"logical\" account.\n\nIn my youth I was much in contact with a group of excellent Christians\nwho held that the number of the \"saved\" had been definitely fixed by\ndivine pre-ordination, the extremists placing it as low as 40,000.  But\nlooking back on those times I now see that the ardour with which we\nbelieved these things was strictly relevant to the hope each of us\nentertained that he himself might be included in the number aforesaid.\nI am very sure that our faith would have collapsed immediately had the\nrevelation been made that the elect were composed exclusively of\nconverted Chinamen.  Our conception of the One and the Many was not so\ndisinterested or abstract as to exclude ourselves from a fair chance of\nhaving a share in whatever good things happened to be going.\n\nAnd so it always is, even where more enlightened philosophies prevail.\nThe significance of the universe, whatever it may be, is, ultimately,\nits significance for _me_; which is another way of saying that I attach\nimportance to the fact that just I, and nobody else, am here to\nperceive the significance.\n\nThere are certain forms of mysticism, mostly Indian, which would wean\nus from all this.  They would delete the value which the soul perceives\nin being just this soul and no other.  But I am very sure they do not\nsucceed.  Whatever fascination the thought of being absorbed into the\nInfinite may have for me depends on my keeping it in mind that it is I,\nand not somebody else, who is being absorbed.  \"To be interested in\none's finite self to the point of wanting to get rid of it is to have a\nhigh sense of one's own importance.\"  A divine egoism is here indicated\nwhich the subject of religion shares with the Object.  \"_I_ am the Lord\nthy God.  Thou shalt have no other God but _me_.\"\n\nIn describing the value a man finds in his own existence as illogical,\nas a thing for which no reason can be given, I am referring to logic\nand reason as they are understood in the schools and made use of in the\nsuperficial war of minds, the lower logic and the lower reason of the\nunconverted or unheroic mind.  But, illogical though it be in that\nconstruction, I nevertheless regard it--this value which each man finds\nin his being the man he is--as the growing point of the higher logic\nwhich, when fully born, reveals the Kingdoms of the Real.  This is the\nroot of the intuition of value, the first point of contact between the\nhuman mind and the things that are eternal, Beauty, Goodness and Truth.\nMorally it takes the form of courage, which is the foundation of\nvirtue.  In a world where no reason can be given why _this_ soul should\nexist at all, _this_ soul nevertheless resolves to _create_ a reason by\nits own valour, in the sure and certain faith that the universe,\nindifferent to the coward, will be friendly to the hero, will respond\nto his effort, will lend him its own creative energy, and bring him at\nlast, in fellowship with the Divine Spirit which first prompted his\nattempt, to the haven where he would be.\n\nThe life of this heroic spirit is religion in being.  But can we go\nfurther and name it Christianity?  I think we can.  It is to the heroic\nspirit, waiting in all of us for the Divine summons which shall call it\nfrom death to life, that the figure of Christ, dominating the ages,\nmakes its great appeal.  But of this more hereafter.\n\n\n\n[1] _A Bad Five Minutes in the Alps_.\n\n[2] See an article in the _Hibbert Journal_ for April 1922 by Howard V.\nKnox, \"Is Determinism Rational?\"\n\n\n\n\n_II_\n\n_Religious Perplexity in General_\n\nThere is such a thing as the will-to-disbelieve.  It is impervious to\nall appeals.  No reason so cogent can be given for believing in the\nreality of anything but that human ingenuity, egged on by the\nwill-to-disbelieve, can find some means of casting doubt upon it.\n\nIn this respect, religious belief is no worse off than any other kind\nof belief whatsoever.  We can find grounds for doubting our own\nidentity, for doubting the multiplication table, for doubting the\nfundamental axioms of thought--_if we are determined to find them_.  On\nall these beliefs doubt has, in fact, been cast by resolute doubters.\nNothing is proof against the will-to-disbelieve, not even disbelief\nitself.  Every scepticism makes assumptions which a deeper scepticism\ncan question.  No reason can be given for doubting which a sufficiently\nobstinate doubter cannot doubt.  No reason for believing, but a more\nardent believer will find it inadequate.  Here doubt and belief\nresemble one another.\n\nThe will-to-disbelieve is as necessary a part of our equipment as the\nwill to believe: the two wills being indeed the same in principle, but\nthe opposite in application.  The former is a weapon of defence, a\nprotection against deceivers, never more useful than when engaged in\nexposing shams, fraud and cant practised under the name of religion.\nThe latter is a weapon of attack, the principle of all that is creative\nin human life.  It is akin to love, the most valiant of all qualities,\nwhether it appears in a tigress defending her cubs or in a martyr dying\nfor mankind.\n\nIf we fall under the power of the will-to-disbelieve, we shall indeed\nbe well protected from fraud, but ill equipped for the creation of new\nvalues, either in our own life or in that of others, which is the prime\nbusiness of man.  For this we need the will to believe that the new\nvalues are possible, which the will-to-disbelieve can always doubt.\n\nI cannot agree with those philosophers who maintain that religion is\nbased on the will-to-believe.  The two are clearly connected; but it\nwould be truer to say that the will-to-believe is based on religion.\nReligion encourages a man to act on the assumption that the best things\nare possible, and checks the will-to-disbelieve precisely at the point\nwhere it questions this.  It is the God within the man which so acts,\nand the moment the man perceives its divine origin the will-to-believe\nacquires a new energy.  God is not a product, but the author and living\nprinciple of the will-to-believe.\n\nThe will-to-disbelieve, if given a free rein, would at last involve us\nin a depth of scepticism indistinguishable from complete cowardice.\nBut in actual life it never goes to this length, except in the world of\npure dialectics and in asylums for the insane.  However sceptically\ninclined a man may be, there comes a point where he suspends his\nwill-to-disbelieve in favour of the proposition that Truth (and perhaps\nBeauty and Goodness also) is better than the opposite, though it is\nquite easy for anyone so minded, and with a little skill in dialectics,\nto find a point of view from which even this can be doubted.  Unless\nthe sceptic believed that Truth is better than its opposite why should\nhe take the trouble to convict his opponent of error or to satisfy\nhimself of the soundness of his own opinions?  Clearly he has made his\nchoice at that point--a truly heroic choice if we consider\nit--committing himself to a position which needs courage to maintain,\nand thereby proving that he is no coward.  In his own way he has faced\nand bravely answered the question which, in one form or another, has to\nbe faced and answered by everyone.  He has chosen to be a hero.\n\nOver every _aspect_ of human life there hangs the _prospect_ of a\npossible better, inviting us to achieve it, but without proof that we\nshall succeed, or even that it is worth our while to make the attempt.\nThe coward within us asks for the proof; cries out that the venture is\nnot _safe_, and summoning the will-to-disbelieve has no difficulty in\nfinding reasons for rejecting the invitation.  The hero, on the\ncontrary, finds in the terms offered the exact conditions to which his\nnature is fitted to respond.  He would rather _create_ the proof by his\nown valour than have it for nothing from the outset.  He is not\ndismayed at finding himself in a universe which puts him under no\n_compulsion_ to believe in God, Freedom, Duty and Immortality.  As a\nfree soul he prefers not to be _compelled_ to believe in anything--for\nhow then could he be free?  The offer of a logic that cannot be\ngainsaid does not attract him, for he knows very well that his\nwill-to-disbelieve can gainsay any logic that may be produced--he can\nmeet it all, if so minded, with the Everlasting No.  He finds his own\nnature as hero exquisitely adapted to the nature of the universe as\ndangerous--on that side the ringing challenge, on this the joyous\nresponse; man and the universe engaged together as loyal confederates\nin the task of creating a better-than-what-is.\n\nSuch are the respective arguments of the coward and the hero.  Let it\nbe remembered that these are not the names of two different men.  They\nare names for the same man, as one or other element of his nature comes\nuppermost.  Both are clamant at this moment in you and me, clamant in\nyou as you read these words, clamant in me as I write them.\n\nThe will-to-disbelieve is always most active where the controversial\ninterest reigns supreme; least active where men, in a spirit of mutual\nloyalty, are engaged together in the positive attempt to achieve a\nbetter-than-what-is.  Into the relations of true lovers the\nwill-to-disbelieve never enters, though a Mephistopheles, standing by,\ncan always find reasons enough for prompting it, and sneer at them for\na brace of fools.  The will of the true lovers is to believe in each\nother and to reject all suggestions to the contrary.  They will trust\neach other to the uttermost, in spite of the fact that no conclusive\nreason can be given why they should do so--heroic lovers that they are!\nBut whenever a human interest, great or small, is detached from its\nroots in reality and turned into a subject for the war of minds, every\nassertion made by the one side is a challenge to the other to assert\nthe contrary.  The will-to-disbelieve is then in its glory, and finds\nthere are no lengths to which it cannot go.  The more it is hammered,\nthe greater its vigour, the greater its ingenuity, in hitting back.\nMeanwhile both sides are drifting further away from realities and the\nprimary interest in dispute succumbing to the secondary interests of\nmere controversy.  The dominant motive of the controversy has now\nceased to be the search for truth and become the resolution of the\ndisputants to overthrow their opponents and not be overthrown.  There\nis no issue.  From the nature of the forces engaged the controversy\nbecomes endless.\n\nAs the mere plaything of professional controversialists the fate of\nreligion can never be decided.  The professional controversialists\nthemselves do not desire that it should be; their interest is to keep\nthe game up for ever; for if a final issue were reached their\noccupation would be gone.  Happily for religion, its fate does not\ndepend on the fortunes of this ever-swaying battle.  It depends on the\nanswer given by individual men and women to the question which faces\nthem all over the gateway of life--\"Wilt thou be a hero or a coward?\"\n\n\nReligion is one of those high things, and there are many such in life,\nwhich lose their meaning when they are over-defended, or\nover-explained.  In explaining them we are apt to explain them away,\nand without being aware that we are doing so.  Whenever the truths of\nreligion are too much defended they are cheapened; and when cheapened\nthey become incredible.  Like the love of a man and a woman, or the\nbelief we have in the loyalty of our dearest friends, or the joy we\nfeel in the presence of beauty, or the grief of a broken heart, they\nresent being made into mere topics for discussion.  For this reason\nreligion has suffered as much from its would-be friends as from its\navowed enemies.  To official Defenders of the Faith, crowned, mitred or\nwigged, the Faith owes less than the Defenders in question have been\nwont to claim.  I have even heard it suggested, by extremists, that\nthere would be more believers in God if all the theologians would take\nthemselves off.\n\nIf religion is founded on Reality, as we are so fond of asserting, we\nhave no need to be over-anxious about its defence, since Reality can\nalways be trusted in the long run to look after itself and its\nchildren.  We compromise religion whenever our defence of it seems to\nimply that its fortunes depend on us or on our arguments, an impression\ntoo often created by apologetic literature--the impression of something\nnaturally weak which needs an immense amount of argumentative coddling\nto keep it alive.  I observe none of this in the presentation of\nreligion by the Founder of Christianity.  His freedom from anxiety for\nthe morrow covered the fundamentals of faith.\n\nThe weakest religions, and the weakest phases in the history of every\nreligion, are those which spend most energy in defending themselves;\nthe strongest are those which _attack_ the oppositions, difficulties,\ndisproportions, iniquities, perils and mysteries that beset the soul.\n\nSeen on the self-defensive, religion is apt to appear at its worst.  It\nrises to its best in the moment of attack.  It represents the\nexpeditionary force of the soul, in its native element where mysteries\nare encountered, where the seemingly impossible has to be attempted,\nwhere creative work has to be done and where the call to play the man\nis never silent.  Most of the quarrels and divisions among believers,\nwhich exhaust the energies meant for a Diviner Object, and deface the\nhistory of religion, turn on the question of its defence.  On the side\nof defence religion falls asunder into sects which spend themselves in\nachieving mutual paralysis.  On the side of attack its forces converge.\nReligion is rather that which defends us than that which we have to\ndefend.  It stands for the attack upon the powers of darkness and of\nspiritual wickedness, in high places and in low.\n\nThe defence of religion has been overdone.  We have cooped up the faith\nin theological fortresses, surrounding it with an immense array of\noutworks--creeds, dogmas, apologetics, institutions--and we have used\nup our resources in holding our \"positions\" against one another when we\nought to have been attacking the common enemy in the open field.  These\noutworks and defences, intended to save us from perplexity, have become\na greater source of perplexity than all the rest.  It takes a lifetime\nto understand them, and when understood most of them turn out futile.\n\nIt is the fashion nowadays to express alarm about the future of\nreligion.  Hardly a day passes but we hear some utterance, read some\ndocument, which sounds that note.  But look closely and you will often\ndiscover that what these people are really alarmed about is not\nreligion itself, but one or other of the entrenched camps in which\nreligion has been cooped up.  Where is the church, where is the sect,\nwhere is the creed-bolstered institution, unhampered by the cares of\nthese great fortresses?  And indeed they are not safe.  There is no\nplace on earth where a man's soul is less safe than when it immures\nitself in one of these masterpieces of military architecture, mostly\nmediaeval.  We live in an age of long-range artillery and of high\nexplosives.\n\nAre you then in search of a religion which will relieve you of\nperplexity, remove peril out of your path, and surround your soul with\nan unassailable rampart against doubt?  I have to confess that I know\nof none such.  But I know of at least one religion which does far\ngreater things than these.\n\nIn the first place, the religion I am thinking of brings all our\nperplexities to a focus; lifts them up on high; concentrates them on\ntwo or three burning points, and shows us with a clearness that admits\nof no mistaking what a tremendous mystery we are up against in life.\n\nThat is the first thing that a true religion does.  But if it did that\nonly, it would do us no good but harm, for it would overwhelm us.  So\nit does the second.  While on the one hand it reveals to us, as I have\nsaid, the deep and amazing mystery of our existence, on the other it\nreveals something yet deeper and more amazing in ourselves, something\ndivine in everyone of us, which is more than a match for what it has to\nface.  A true religion does both things, does them together, in the\nsame moment, in the same act.  It throws a searchlight on our\nperplexities and raises them to a high level.  But in the very act of\nso doing it raises the greatness of man to a higher level still.  It\nsharpens our consciousness of evil; thereby deepening our consciousness\nof that in ourselves which opposes evil.  Hear the Baron von Huegel.\n\"Christianity has not explained suffering and evil; no one has done so;\nno one can do so.  Yet it has done two things greater, more profound\nand more profitable for us.  From the first it has immensely widened\nand deepened the fact, the reality, the awful potency and baffling\nmystery of sorrow, pain, sin, things which abide with man across the\nages.  But Christianity has also, from the first, increased the\ncapacity, the wondrous secret and force, which issues in a practical,\nliving, loving transcendence, utilization, transformation of sorrow and\npain and even of sin.  Christianity gave to our souls the strength and\nthe faith to grasp life's nettle.\"\n\nObserve that Christianity has done this _from the first_.  And to the\nlast it will do the same.  So far as I can see the religious\nperplexities of to-day are not essentially different from those of\nother times.  They have indeed become more vocal, and there are more\npeople who can talk about them intelligently.  But their nature is\nunchanged.  The first point to be noted about the religious\nperplexities of to-day is their essential identity with those of\nyesterday.  They spring from the same root and they gather round the\nsame centres.  Too much is being made of the special difficulties\nbesetting religion at the passing moment, those, for example, connected\nwith the progress of science and with the higher criticism--as though\nthis were the age of religious difficulty _par excellence_.  Surely\nthat is a mistake.  The difficulties of faith have _always_ been up to\nthe limit of human endurance.  Religious belief has _always_ required\nthe full courage of the soul to sustain its high propositions.  It has\n_always_ been a \"near thing,\" and those who speak of past ages when it\nwas easy are grossly misreading the history of the human mind.  What\nscience and the higher criticism have done is to turn attention upon\nnew points, to divert perplexities into new channels, but not to alter\ntheir essential character, not to change the stuff of which they are\nmade.  The fact of evil is no discovery of the present age; it has been\nchallenging the faith of men for thousands of years; there is nothing\nmore poignant to be said about it to-day than was said ages ago by the\npatriarch Job.  The great troubles have not changed.  Suffering and\ndeath, the agony of bereavement, the tragedies of blighted hopes and\nshipwrecked lives--these are not things peculiar to the twentieth\ncentury.\n\nIn stressing the difficulties that come from science and criticism, are\nwe not in danger of losing sight of those greater and permanent\ndifficulties that enter into the very structure of human life, and\n\"abide with men across the ages\"?  A broken heart is the same in one\nage, in one place, as in another: and wherever it exists the soul of\nman has all that it can bear.  Those who have faced these major\nperplexities and conquered them, those who have passed through the\nValley of Humiliation and emerged victorious at the other end, will not\nbe greatly troubled by science and the higher criticism.  But those who\nbegin their approach to religion by reconciling science with faith, or\nadjusting the Creeds to the higher criticism, or solving conundrums\nabout the omnipotence of God, or making one set of abstractions fit in\nwith another, will find that all this argumentation avails them very\nlittle when the lightning falls on the roof tree, or the Angel of Death\nspreads his black wings over the house.\n\nWe are sometimes told that the Great War has enormously increased the\nreligious perplexities of mankind.  I cannot see that it has.  All the\nproblems it suggests, all the questions it raises, were equally\ncontained in the lesser wars that went before it, and even if the great\none had never occurred, there would still be enough suffering in the\nworld to challenge the strongest faith.  An age which has needed the\nGreat War to rouse it to a sense of tragedy must have been living in a\nfool's paradise up to date.  Every problem suggested by the Great War\nhas been there, plain for all ages to see, since suffering and death,\nsince folly and wickedness, first came into the world.  I do not doubt\nthat the war has administered a salutary shock to multitudes of\nlethargic souls who would otherwise have continued to sleep on in the\nsleep of spiritual death.  But with the Christian Churches it is\ndifferent.  It ill becomes them to treat the horrors of the war as a\nnovelty in human experience.  All that the war can mean for them was\nsummarized long ago by the man who saw the \"whole creation groaning and\ntravailing in pain together until now.\"\n\nWe can change the nature of our religious perplexities, change them\nfrom things that depress into things that exalt us.  But we cannot\nbanish them altogether.  At the end of our labours, as at the\nbeginning, we shall find ourselves perplexed, _but not unto despair_.\nThese last words make the difference, and it is immense.  They were\nuttered by one who was deeply versed in the spiritual life.\n\n\n\"The present crisis in religion\" is another phrase which recent\ndiscussion has made familiar.  That such a crisis exists no one in his\nsenses can doubt.  But the phrase is often used in a way which suggests\nthat the \"crisis\" has no right to exist, that it constitutes a\nmisfortune peculiar to our own time, that it is an unnatural thing, and\nthat religion will never come to its own until the \"crisis\" has passed\naway.\n\nWe find, however, that a \"crisis\" in religion is no new experience,\npeculiar to the present day.  The only ages of the past when a \"crisis\"\nin religion did not exist were the spiritually dead ages.  Whenever the\nspirit of God has breathed upon the souls of men the effect has been to\nawaken the sense of a great crisis.  The Epistles of St Paul are full\nof it.  In the Confessions of St Augustine, written in the fifth\ncentury, we see how critical he felt the then passing moment to be.\nThere was a crisis at the Reformation, and at the Renaissance.  There\nwas a crisis when printing was invented, and when the Bible was\ntranslated.  There was a crisis when Whitefield and Wesley were urging\nthe masses to flee from the wrath to come.  A more recent example can\nbe found in the writings of Carlyle.  Everything that has been said\nsince the Great War about the spiritual bankruptcy of Europe, about the\nneed of religious reconstruction, about a change of heart in nations,\nand governments and individuals, as the only alternative to a complete\ndisaster, was said by Carlyle three-quarters of a century ago, and said\nby him with a force and trenchancy not since surpassed.  Here, for\nexample, is what he wrote in the year 1850.\n\n\"In the days that are passing over us, even fools are arrested to ask\nthe meaning of them; few of the generations of men have seen more\nimpressive days.  Days of endless calamity, disruption, dislocation,\nconfusion worse confounded....  It is not a small hope that will\nsuffice us, the ruin being clearly ... universal.  There must be a new\nworld if there is to be a world at all.  That human beings in Europe\ncan ever return to the old sorry routine, and proceed with any\nsteadiness or continuance therein--this small hope is not now a tenable\none.  These days of universal death must be days of universal rebirth,\nif the ruin is not to be total and final.  It is a time to make the\ndullest man consider whence he came and whither he is bound.  A\nveritable New Era to the foolish as well as to the wise\" (_Latter-Day\nPamphlets_).\n\nThat was written seventy-two years ago, and when was it truer than\nto-day?  The \"religious crisis\" is perennial, now taking one form, now\nanother, but always demanding from those who have to face it the utmost\nof their courage, loyalty and love.\n\nThe religious crises which take place in the great world, in the\nconditions of the age and so forth, are only the enlarged reflections\nof personal crises constantly occurring to ourselves, which, even if\nthey were absent from the general conditions of the age, would still\npresent themselves, in our private experience, so long as suffering and\ndeath were elements in life.  The existence of a crisis is not\nunnatural to religion, but perfectly natural, the atmosphere in which\nit breathes most freely, the soil in which it strikes its deepest root.\nWe are wholly mistaking what religion is when we think of it as some\nsecret or power which is going to banish the great crises of our\nexperience and leave us with none to face.  The truth is the very\nopposite.\n\nThe penalty--no, not the penalty but the high reward--of having any\nreligion that is worth the name, is that it will conduct us into\ncritical situations, that it will reveal perplexities where without it\nnone would exist.  From some perplexities religion does indeed give\nrelease.  It gives release from those that are not worthy of us, that\nbelittle us when we indulge them, that make us selfish, timid and\nunloving--the care for self, the fear that something dreadful may\nhappen to us, either in this world or in the next, unless we take\nimmense precautions against its happening.  But in releasing from these\nperplexities, which are not worthy of us, it confronts us with others\non a higher level, where our finer essence finds the employment for\nwhich it was made.  Instead of hiding the great crises, instead of\nbanishing them, or giving us anaesthetics to make us unconscious of\ntheir presence, religion reveals them, makes us aware of them, sharpens\nour consciousness of their presence; but at the same time reveals us to\nourselves as beings who are capable of overcoming them.  If on the one\nhand it uncovers the pain of life and makes us feel it with a new\nintensity, on the other it liberates the love that conquers pain, a\npower mightier than death and sharper than agony.\n\nOne might almost define religion in these terms.  That in each of us,\nand in all of us which faces the crisis, which rises to meet it, which\nfeels, when confronted by it, that its hour is come and for this cause\nit came into the world.\n\nDo you say it is _hard_?  It would be if we were made of poorer stuff.\nBut made as we are anything less would be too small for us, would leave\nus dissatisfied, hungry and half employed.  Yes, half employed, and not\nthe best half either.  We are so made that until we \"grasp the nettle\nof life\" the best part of us has nothing to do, loitering, so to speak,\nat the street corners of life, like a starving labourer out of work.\nOn that upper level, where the best that is in us confronts the highest\nthat is demanded of us, we discover how finely the nature of man is\nadapted to the world in which he lives, how well the two accord, the\nnoblest element in the one corresponding to the most challenging\nelement in the other, so that deep answers unto deep and the two make\nmusic together.  On the lower levels there is no adaptation; our\nselfish desires are at odds with nature; we are out for a good time and\nget no response; and there all is disenchantment, disappointment and\nmisery.  But the keynote of the higher level is joy--the joy of the\nlabourer who has found his work, of the lover who has seen his object,\nof the hero who has received his commission and his sword.\n\nTowards the end of the war, or perhaps shortly afterwards, somebody\ncoined a more attractive phrase which was much on the lips of exuberant\nreformers.  They were going to make, so they said, \"A world fit for\nheroes to live in.\"\n\nWhat kind of a world is that?  Is comfort the keynote of it?  Does it\nprovide the hero with an assured income and an easy life?  Does it\nguarantee him a pension for any heroism he displays?  Does it ask of\nits heroes only a limited term of service, and then superannuate them\nat an early age, exposing them to peril for a short time and after that\nwithdrawing dangers from their path and surrounding them with the\nsafeguards of a protected respectability?\n\nNo; what these arrangements provide for is not the life of heroism, but\nits death.  Give the hero a world like that and what will he say?\n\"This world,\" he will say, \"is _not_ fit for me to live in.  It spells\nextinction to all that makes life worth living to me.  It is the flat\nopposite to what I desire.  It lacks everything that makes the world\ndivine.  No God can dwell within it.  No Christ will ever visit its\nmelancholy shores.\"\n\nAnd yet, is it not something like this that many of us have had in mind\nof late when we have been talking of \"A world fit for heroes to live\nin\"?  Have we not conceived it as a world where heroism is a mere\nincident, almost an accident, which comes in brief patches and spells,\nand when the rest of life is given over to the middling virtues and to\nprearranged satisfactions?  There are people who cry out for this;\nthere is something within us all that cries out for it; but the noblest\npart of us scorns it; the heroic spirit would not have it at any price.\n\nWhen the hero asks for a world fit for him to live in he is thinking of\nsomething wholly different.  He desires no satisfaction save that which\nis the direct fruit of his own loyalty and self-devotion.  He wants\ncontinuous employment on the level of his highest self, where love\nnever sleeps at her task, and where the voices of faith and hope,\nwhispering of new worlds to conquer, are never silent.  A divine\nuniverse is, for him, just that; it breeds ideals for great souls to\npursue; gives them incentives to the pursuit; shares with them in the\nperils of it; suffers with them in their failures and triumphs with\nthem in their victories.  Is the Soul of the World at one with us in\nthese great endeavours?  Does it meet us on that high level with the\ncompanionship of a Spirit akin to ours, not only asking for our\nloyalty, but giving it in return?  If so, God exists; the universe is\ndivine; and the world is fit for heroes to live in.  Hallelujah, for\nthe Lord reigneth!\n\nThis is the side of our nature which Christianity brought to light, in\nall its splendour and power, when it revealed us to ourselves in the\nperson of Christ--that, in all of us, which stands above the\nperplexities of life and is more than a match for them; which sees evil\nwith the clearest eye, and at the same time overcomes it with the\ndeepest love.  At home in the bright hours of life, which grow brighter\nunder the radiance it pours into them, the Christ within is always\nready when the dark ones arrive.  \"I am equal to that,\" it cries.\n\"Through the power that is given me, through the fellowship I have with\nthe heart of a Divine universe, I can turn that evil into good, and\ntransfigure that sorrow into joy, and draw the stream of a deeper life\nfrom the very thing that threatens to slay me.  Now is the time, here\nis the place, to show my Divine Creator that he has not made me for\nnothing!  For this cause was I born and for this hour came I into the\nworld.\"\n\nOn the surface of things there is discord, confusion and want of\nadaptation; but dig down, first to the centre of the world, and then to\nthe centre of your own nature, and you will find a most wonderful\ncorrespondence, a most beautiful harmony, between the two--the world\nmade for the hero and the hero made for the world.\n\n\nWhoever embarks on the task of religious inquiry, which is tantamount\nto inquiry into the meaning of his life--a question he would have no\ninterest in asking unless he were fundamentally a religious\nbeing,--whoever embarks on this task will find the ground encumbered\nwith a multitude of preconceptions which warp the mind at every point\nand render independent judgment extremely difficult.  Unless the\ninquirer keeps a watch upon himself his mind will run in a groove from\nthe outset.  And when he has followed his groove as far as it goes and\nfound _nothing_ at the end of it, he will conclude that religion has\nbroken down.  But in nine cases out of ten he will perceive, if he\nreflects on what has happened, that the groove which has led to this\nresult was cut by minds not primarily interested in religion but bent\non protecting some quite alien interest, possibly a vested interest,\ninstitutional or political, to which religion had proved itself\nserviceable.\n\nThe most obstinate of these misconceptions, and the deepest of the\ngrooves in which they run, are those connected with the term \"God.\"\n\nThere is no worldly interest which has not been anxious to secure God\nfor an ally.  In all ages the attempt has been made to domesticate the\nidea of God to the secular purposes of individuals and of groups.  If\nwe examine the current forms of the idea we may observe the marks of\nthis domesticating process at many points.  For example, the idea of\nGod as the sovereign potentate, governing the universe under a system\nof iron law, the legislator of nature and the taskmaster of the soul,\nthe rewarder of them that obey and the punisher of them that disobey,\nis plainly an idea borrowed from politics, the form of the idea most\nconvenient to those who need God as an ally in the maintenance of law\nand order as they conceive them.\n\nThis does not prove the idea untrue to reality; it may conceivably be\nused as a strong argument to the contrary.  At the same time it puts us\non our guard, warning us to look out for other forms of \"domestication\"\nwhich may be less in accord with essential truth than the one I have\njust mentioned.  Certainly it is extremely difficult to find any form\nof the idea of God which has retained a purely spiritual or religious\ncharacter throughout the entire course of its history.  Between the\nconception of Deity implied in the teachings of Jesus and the\nconception as it appears in \"God save the King\" the distance is\nimmense; and few theologians I imagine would be so hardy or so\npatriotic as to affirm that the latter conception is nearer to the\nDivine Reality.\n\nThe theologian who takes up the proof of the existence of God should\nmake it clear, both to himself and to his audience, at which end of\nthis long line, which has not been one of \"development,\" he lays the\nemphasis.  Any proof of the existence of \"the God and Father of our\nLord Jesus Christ\" would certainly prove the non-existence of the being\nadumbrated in \"God save the King\"; and vice versa.  Which may be\nexpanded into a more general proposition.  Reasons given in favour of a\nspiritual or religious conception of God become less and less valid\nexactly in proportion as we approach its secular modifications; while\nreasons given in favour of these latter are worthless as proofs of the\nspiritual reality.  Most of our difficulties in believing in God arise\nfrom the fact that God, in our meaning of the term, is no longer\n\"spirit\" (as Jesus said), but spirit shorn of its freedom and reduced\nto the dimensions of some human utility or purpose--that is, not\n\"spirit\" at all.\n\nFor these reasons I will venture to suggest to anyone who is perplexed\nby doubts about the reality of God, not to trust the fortunes of his\nfaith too unreservedly to the field of mere argumentation.  If he does\nso he runs a serious risk of falling, without being aware of it, into\none of the many grooves of thought, which alien interests have cut deep\ninto the ground of theological controversy, leading the mind in a\ndirection contrary to that in which spiritual reality is to be found.\nNeither let him deem himself an atheist because he cannot believe in\nthe Deity adumbrated by \"God save the King.\"  Rather let him conceive\nit possible that God is speaking to him in his refusal to believe in\n_that_ God.  Let him seek God in the very heart of his doubts about\nGod, saying to himself words such as these:\n\n\"God, if there be such an one, will reveal himself as a companion\nspirit in my endeavour to achieve a better-than-what-is; incidentally\ntherefore in my rejection of all debased, or even man-made, images of\nhimself.  He will not consent to be the servant of men's designs, or\nthe ally of their policies, not even when these things clothe\nthemselves in great words spelt with capital letters--like Democracy.\nHe will not even submit to the shackles of their forms of thought.\"\n\nI suggest further that the only final mode of ascertaining whether or\nno such a God exists is _by experiment_, standing or falling by the\nissue, and resorting to the methods of argumentation only to confirm or\nelucidate the results so obtained.  The experiment first, the\nargumentation second.\n\nBut of what nature is the experiment in question?  I conceive it being\nmade in the following manner:\n\n\"Of the many Gods, or conceptions of God, that are offered me, the only\none I am concerned to believe in, and should find it a calamity not to\nbelieve in, is the God who is sympathetic, and _actively_ sympathetic,\non the lines of my determination to achieve a better-than-what-is.\nOmnipotence and Omniscience I could dispense with if need be; the\ndisappearance of the Cosmic Potentate would not leave me orphaned; the\nAbsolute does not enthral me and I should suffer no nightmare were I to\nlearn that it did not exist.  But were I forced to admit that the\nuniverse, as a whole, is quite indifferent to this desire of mine to\nachieve a better-than-what-is, that there is nothing in its nature\nwhich shares my interest in that matter, nothing there that backs me\nup, nothing to which the failure or success of my attempt makes the\nslightest difference, then indeed a dark and cruel blight would fall\nupon my soul.\n\n\"To that blight I may have to submit.  But I will not submit until I\nhave tested the universe in the only way that is open to me.  I will\ntrust it as a friend.  There are those about me who say that my trust\nwill not be betrayed, having made the same experiment themselves.  They\nremind me that the world I am living in is not _any_ kind of world, but\njust the one particular kind needed by a soul whose business it is to\ncreate new values, in the way of Truth, Beauty and Goodness; that its\nlaws, forces and material readily lend themselves to the purpose of\nanyone who will use them for that high creative end, turning out, in\nfact, to be the very kind of laws, forces and material which such an\none needs.  Well then, I will see.  I will base my life on the\nassumption that somewhere, in the height above or in the depth below,\nPower is waiting to back me up.  That Power, if I find it, shall be my\nGod.  Is it not reasonable to suppose that, if it exists, it will find\nsome means of making me aware of its presence?  That then shall be my\nexperiment, and I will abide by the result.\"\n\nA person who reasons with himself in this manner is taking the most\npractical, and the wisest means I know of to determine the question\nwhether God exists.  For my own part I should view his experiment with\nhope proportioned to his sincerity.  Frankly, I should expect him to\nmake discovery of the Living God, as a reality, as a companion, as a\nfriend.  Whether to the reality, companion, friend, so discovered he\ngave the name \"God,\" or some other name, I should not regard as a\nmatter of supreme importance.  If he chose to call it Christ, or more\nsimply \"the Spirit,\" I should not quarrel with him.  The discovery is\nfar too momentous to be imperilled for a name.  Its value lies not in\nits name but in its _reality_.  \"Few things are easier,\" says John\nHenry Newman, \"than to use the name of God and mean nothing by it.\"\nCall it then by a name which means something, and not by a name which\nmeans nothing.\n\nAll religious testimony, so far as I can interpret its meaning,\nconverges towards a single point, namely this.  There is that in the\nworld, call it what you will, which responds to the confidence of those\nwho trust it, declaring itself, to them, as a fellow-worker in the\npursuit of the Eternal Values, meeting their loyalty to it with\nreciprocal loyalty to them, and coming in at critical moments when the\nneed of its sympathy is greatest; the conclusion being, that wherever\nthere is a soul in darkness, obstruction or misery, there also is a\nPower which can help, deliver, illuminate and gladden that soul.  This\nis the Helper of men, sharing their business as Creators of Value,\nnearest at hand when the worst has to be encountered; the companion of\nthe brave, the upholder of the loyal, the friend of the lover, the\nhealer of the broken, the joy of the victorious--the God who is spirit,\nthe God who is love.\n\nHad more been heard about this, the God of religion, and less about\nthat other--the lawyer's God, whose main concern is the policing of his\nuniverse--our religious perplexities would not be what they are.  I do\nnot say they would be easier.  They might be harder.  But they would\nlose their character as irritants and become, instead, incentives to\nhumane relationships, to noble living and to creative work.  For there\nare two kinds of religious perplexity.  In the one, perplexity\novercomes religion; in the other, religion overcomes perplexity.  \"We\nare perplexed, yet not unto despair.\"\n\n\n\n\n_III_\n\n_Perplexity in the Christian Religion_\n\nThose who are wondering in what form Christianity is destined to\nsurvive, or whether it will survive at all,[1] would be well advised to\nkeep in mind two significant facts, discernible enough even when the\nview is limited to our own country, but obvious on a wider survey of\nwhat is going forward in foreign lands: first, that the lay mind has\ndefinitely passed beyond clerical control; second, that the most active\nreligious minds, both among the clergy and the laity, but among the\nlaity most of all, are learning to use their own eyes in the search for\nGod, instead of looking for Him through the ill-matched lenses of\nJew-Greek binoculars, and are gradually ceasing to think about Christ\nand his religion in terms of the recognized \"isms\"--Catholicism,\nProtestantism, Anglicanism, Modernism, Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, or\nany other.  They have passed beyond all that and are probing deeper\nground.  They are judging spiritual things by spiritual.\n\nIf these things are so, and somewhat exceptional opportunities of\nobserving have convinced me that they are,[2] it would seem to follow\nthat the form in which Christianity is destined to survive (if it\nsurvives at all) will not be the form of any of the \"isms\" aforesaid.\nIn other words, even if the battle of the \"isms,\" as this is now\ncarried on by professional controversalists and mainly on clerical\nground, were to issue in the final victory of one of them over the\nothers--of which at present there is little prospect--this would decide\nnothing as to the fortunes of Christianity in the world at large.\nThus, though we have no indication of what the surviving form of\nChristianity will be, we have a pretty clear indication of what it will\nnot be.  Beyond this it seems impossible to cast the horoscope of\nChristianity at the present time.  Its fortunes have always been\nunpredictable; each new development a surprise to those who witnessed\nit.  \"As the lightning ... so shall be the coming of the Son of Man.\"\n\nThe application of this to what follows will be obvious as we proceed.\n\n\nTo Bishop Gore's denial that Christianity has failed, on the ground\nthat \"it has never been tried,\" Mr Graham Wallas makes the effective\nreply that a religion that has been adopted by the great States of the\nworld for fifteen centuries and never been \"tried\" is a religion that\nhas failed.  In this Mr Wallas follows the proper method of judging\nChristianity by its own high standards, which certainly require that it\nshould have been tried ere this.  \"What thou doest do _quickly_\" was\nspoken to Judas Iscariot.  Does it follow that \"What thou doest do\nslowly, putting it off, if it so pleases, for fifteen centuries\" was\nintended to be the motto of the Christian Church?\n\nThe command to \"sell all that thou hast and give to the poor\" was\ndoubtless spoken \"to a particular young man on a particular occasion.\"\nBut the parable of the Good Samaritan, with its pungent ending \"go and\ndo thou likewise,\" was also spoken to a particular lawyer on a\nparticular occasion.  And so with the teachings of Christ in general.\nAll his universals were seen in particulars.  If, then, we are to\ndischarge everything that was spoken \"to particular individuals on\nparticular occasions\" as inapplicable to modern conditions, or to the\nworld at large, we shall find that there is not much left that we can\napply to anything.  What, indeed, remains?  The \"spirit\" of it all?\nYes: but a very different spirit from that which makes these convenient\nexcisions.  Many of the alleged excuses for the failure of Christianity\nhave been pitched in this key.  They are unconvincing.\n\nOthers fall back on the magic words \"slow and gradual,\" words that have\ninduced many persons to believe that the slower and more gradual a\nprocess is the more surely it is divine--as against an earlier thought\nwhich armed the gods with thunderbolts.  The convenience of this excuse\nis that no depth of failure can be so extreme as not to be covered by\nit--just as, in the case cited above, no betrayal of Christ's\nprinciples can be so complete as not to be covered by the plea that the\nprinciples in question \"were spoken to particular individuals on\nparticular occasions.\"  But though the one argument is as convenient as\nthe other, it is no more satisfactory to an honest man.\n\nHow has it come to pass that respectable Christian apologists have\nfallen into such flagrant dishonesties?\n\nThe cause, I believe, lies in the habit mentioned in the first section\nof this book--the habit, namely, of applying carnal logic (admirable\nfor carnal purposes) to divine things, not judging spiritual things by\nspiritual.  Anyone who studies this class of apologetics will be struck\nby their resemblance to a well-known type of political speech, when the\nspokesman of some discredited Government which has broken all the\npromises given at the election, attempts to befool his constituents\ninto believing that the promises have been kept.  It is all a matter of\nartfully adjusting the emphasis--the art, as somebody has said \"of\nkeeping the public quiet about one thing by making them noisy about\nanother.\"  There is, I say, a significant resemblance between this\nmethod and that of the Christian apologist when, for example, he exalts\nthe benevolence promoted by Christianity and ignores the parallel fact\nthat no other religion has developed such ferocious internal\ndifferences nor been so cruel in its persecution of unbelievers.  There\nhave been moments in the history of Christianity--or of what was called\nso--when the slaughter of a million men, or the wiping out of an entire\ncivilization, meant no more to the leaders of the Church than it did,\nby his own confession, to Napoleon.  Witness the treatment meted out by\nCortes, in the name of Christ and of his Holy Mother, to the Aztecs of\nMexico.  But the searchlight is seldom switched on to these things, and\neven when it is \"slow and gradual\" will cover them.\n\nThis application of carnal logic to things divine, this judging the\nsuccess of Christianity by the standard of success which passes muster\nin the crime-stained record of human society--as though it were the\nbusiness of religion to keep pace with the dawdling, creeping, cowardly\nmovement of mankind to better things, and not to hasten it with urgent\ncalls to repent of its hesitancy--this is only one form, though perhaps\nthe crowning form, in which the Kingdom that is not of this world has\nbeen surrendered by its deluded guardians to the kingdoms which are.\nIn that surrender, so long an established fact that we have lost sight\nof its malign implications, so deeply engrained into our mental habits\nthat we have almost forgotten that it exists, lies the true cause of\nthe failure of Christianity, and incidentally of its once atrocious\ntendency to persecute.  For failure most unquestionably there has been:\ntragic but not irretrievable, if men have the courage to face the\nfacts.  Let it be acknowledged!  Let an end come swiftly to the\ninvention of sophistries to prove the contrary.  That way lies failure\ndeeper still.\n\n\nThe Christian Religion, in the course of its long history, has become\nentangled with a multitude of things which do not properly belong to\nit, with philosophies, with dogmatic systems, with political ideas,\nwith the vested interests of great institutions; and especially with\nthe habits of mind which have grown up with these things, this last,\nthe entanglement with deeply entrenched habits of mind, being the most\nformidable of them all.  These entanglements are another name for our\nperplexities.  They are so many and so deep that it becomes a matter of\ndifficulty to extract the original genius of Christianity, to recover\nits original impulse and power.\n\nIt has become the fashion to rejoice in these entanglements.  Men say\nthat Christianity, by becoming entangled with these foreign elements,\nhas permeated them with its spirit, acting upon them like leaven and so\ntransfiguring them with its own value.  That view I cannot share: at\nleast not without great reservations.  Were it not truer to say that\nthese foreign elements, these outside things, these worldly\nphilosophies and institutions, have rather permeated Christianity with\ntheir spirit than suffered Christianity to permeate them with its own?\nNo one in his senses will deny that Christianity has done something to\nmake these worldly things better.  They would all be much worse than\nthey are if Christianity had never touched them.  But, on the other\nhand, Christianity would be much better than it is if they had never\ntouched it.  They have distorted it; have maimed it; have devitalized\nit at essential points.  Dean Inge is speaking the truth when he says\nthat Christianity has become secularized.  It has become secularized\nnot only in its outward form, but in something far deeper, namely, in\nits habits of thought, in its standard of values, and especially in its\nstrivings for power, this last being the characteristic vice of the\nkingdoms that are of this world.  Is it not a fact that for a long time\npast the Churches of Christendom have been engaged in strife as to who\nshall be greatest?  There can be no surer sign of secularization than\nthat.\n\nChristianity, in the official, or authorized presentation of it, is a\n_smothered_ religion; smothered almost to the point of total\nasphyxiation and collapse, but not quite; smothered by the vested\ninterests of great institutions, and by the ambitions, fears and\nself-seekings that such interests breed; smothered by the elaborate\ntheological defences that Christians have built, not against\nAntichrist, but against each other; smothered by anxieties, not\nunnatural in these embroilments, for its own future.  If you take\nChristianity along with its entanglements, encumbrances and unnatural\nalliances: if you present it with all the secular baggage which the\nages have fastened upon it, you will then find it a hopelessly\nperplexing thing, a thing which neither Reason nor Faith, whether\nacting singly or in combination, can accept.\n\nBut alongside the authorized version, and sometimes hidden within it as\nan inextinguishable spark of life, Christianity has an unauthorized\nversion, which the former has often repressed, persecuted and condemned\nto the hangman or to the eternal flames.  Of this unauthorized version\na fair copy exists in the hearts of men, a fairer copy in the hearts of\nwomen, and the fairest copy of all in the hearts of children--for\nChristianity is preeminently a religion of the young.  It is the\nunauthorized version which has kept Christianity alive through the ages\nand defied the smotherers even to this day.\n\nTurning to the sources of Christianity in the first three Gospels we\nare struck by an immense contrast.  There is no money in the purse, no\nvictuals in the wallet, no munitions in the magazine, no baggage-train,\nno commissariat, no provision for trench warfare, and no thought of it.\nWe are in the presence of elemental realities, more beautiful than\nSolomon in all his glory, more majestic than the successor of St Peter\nin all his pomp.  We are in another atmosphere.  All this apparatus of\ndefence and apology, of preaching and propaganda, of church policies\nand chapel oppositions,--things which have given a form so strangely\nartificial to our conceptions of Christianity--are here either\nsecondary or absent altogether.  Religion, instead of being\nconcentrated into strong Sunday doses, is here a pervasive, unobtrusive\npresence, that cometh not with observation, the luminous background of\nhuman conduct, the hiding-place of the light which irradiates the whole\npicture of man's life.  Even the name of God, which comes to our lips\nso easily--too easily--was used by Jesus with a reverential rarity.\nYou may read whole pages of the Gospels without finding it once.\n\nJesus, we say, preached the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of\nMan.  But he was not _always_ preaching them, and as a matter of fact\nhe never mentioned either of them in exactly those terms.  He enforced\nthem, illustrated them, revealed them, exemplified them, by living as\nthough they were true, which is a very different thing from \"preaching\"\nthem.  His days were spent going about doing good, his preaching being\nlittle more than a comment that arose naturally from the good that he\ndid.  The Gospel is neither a sermon nor a treatise on religion; but a\n_story_, which tells how Christianity began in something that happened,\nin a deed that was done, in a life that was lived.  It abounds in\nparables and is a parable itself, revealing things hidden from the\nfoundation of the world.\n\nThe order in which _we_ take these elements of religion--first, moral\nand religious propaganda, then performance to follow--is here reversed.\nThe performance comes first; the propaganda, which reduces itself to\nthe very simple form \"Go and do thou likewise,\" comes afterwards.  The\nproportions, too, are different.  Instead of an immense campaign of\npreaching which leaves little energy for doing the things preached\nabout, the work done, the life lived here overshadow everything else.\nThe accusation of Carlyle against modern civilization, that it has run\nto seed in mere talk, parliamentary eloquence, stump oratory, and such\nlike, has no application to the birth of the Christian religion.\nSomething to talk about, something worth talking about, was furnished\nbefore the talking began.\n\nThere we touch the dynamic principle of Christianity, cut free from its\nentanglements with a mass of things that do not belong to it; the power\nwhich still keeps it alive under a mountain of verbal accretions that\nwould smother anything less divine.  In the beginning was the deed: go\nthou and do likewise.  So presented, Christianity is not perplexing;\nbut quite the most convincing religion ever offered either to the\nintellect or the heart.  The perplexities have arisen from the reversal\nof the true order; from the attempt to subordinate the thing done to\nthe thing said; to lay the foundations in argument and propaganda which\ncan only be laid in actual performance; and from the loss of reality\nand the descent into hollowness and windiness which inevitably follows\nwhen the talkers get the upper hand of the doers, or when theology gets\nthe upper hand of religion, which is the same thing.  The deeds that I\ndo, these bear witness of me.  What other conceivable witness could\nthere be?\n\nNot only has Christianity evolved an institutional selfishness which\nshows plain signs of having been copied from the kingdoms that are of\nthis world--the strife among churches as to which shall be greatest\nproves that--but the very form of its thought has become infected with\nideas from the same source.  Even philosophers have a difficulty of\ngetting away from the notion that the universe is an immense political\nstate, which most assuredly it is not; while careless thinkers will\nconstantly refer to the laws of nature as though they were legal\nenactments, to which they bear no resemblance.  At no point has\nChristianity become more deeply secularized.  Instead of the Kingdom\nwhich is _not_ of this world transfiguring the kingdoms that are,\nlifting them up to its own level, where every term of law is translated\ninto a term of love, and the very notion of a Kingdom passes into that\nof a Father's house of many mansions, the reverse process has taken\nplace.  Love has forsaken its mission of converting law to its own\nessence, and become a timid and apologetic fugitive, harried by the\npolice.\n\nNo wonder that men declare themselves perplexed by Christianity.  No\nwonder they find this mixture unacceptable.  No wonder that official\nChristianity, tied up as it is with a political system which manages\nits own business none too well, is continually breaking down under the\nassaults of a critical age, which has grown almost as tired of the one\nthing as of the other.\n\nI am far from saying that Christianity excludes the idea of God as the\nmoral Governor of the universe or forbids us so to think of him.  But\nit does not _begin_ with that idea, as we are apt to do.  It allows us\nto arrive at it, perhaps, at the end of a long pilgrimage in\nexperience; but if we never get there at all it makes no lamentation,\npulls no long face, and does not treat us as lost souls.  It does not\nsay \"Begin with the idea of a Cosmic Potentate and make everything else\nfit in with that.\"  It does not require us to dismiss from our minds as\nblasphemous every thought of God which makes him other than the\nomnipotent legislator of the universe.  In the religion of Jesus I am\nstruck by the absence, by the total absence, of all these pompous\nconceptions of the Divine Nature, which show such speaking signs of\nhaving originated under lawyers' wigs.\n\nThe idea that I do find seems to have originated in a very intimate and\nloving comradeship with man and with nature.  Indeed, the religion of\nJesus is precisely this spirit of comradeship raised to its highest\npower, the spirit which perceives itself to be \"not alone,\" but\nlovingly befriended and supported, extending its intuitions to the\nheart of the world, to the core of reality, and finding there the\nfellowship, the loyalty, the powerful response, the _love_, of which\nthe finest fellowships and loyalties of earth are the shadows and the\nforetaste.  In its essence the Gospel is a call to make the same\nexperiment, the experiment of comradeship, the experiment of\nfellowship, the experiment of trusting the heart of things, throwing\nself-care to the winds, in the sure and certain faith that you will not\nbe deserted, forsaken nor betrayed, and that your ultimate interests\nare perfectly secure in the hands of the Great Companion.  This\ninsight, this sure and firm apprehension of a spirit at hand, swiftly\nresponsive to any trust we have in its answering fidelity, coming our\nway the moment we beckon it, motionless and irresponsive till we hoist\nthe flag of our faith and claim its fellowship, but then mighty to\nsave--this is the centre, the kernel, the growing point of the\nChristian religion, which, when we have it all else is secure, and when\nwe have it not all else is precarious.  God, said Jesus, is spirit: man\nis spirit no less; and when the two meet in fellowship there is\nreligion.\n\n\nI am approaching my conclusion and must gather up my threads.\n\nAll along my theme has been that we make a mistake when we look to\nreligion to relieve us of the perplexities and difficulties of life,\nwhether intellectual or moral.  In a sense we should look for the\nopposite.  Religion will bring our perplexities to a focus; will\nconcentrate them on a point; will show us in one clear and burning\nvision the depth of the mystery that confronts us in life.  But in\nraising our difficulties to that high level it will raise our nature to\na higher level still, by liberating faith, courage and love, qualities\nthat spring from a single root.  In revealing the world as a world fit\nfor heroes to live in, that is, a difficult world, it will arouse also\nthe heroic spirit in ourselves, which is fit to live under those\nconditions.  It will give us a part to play in life which puts our\nsouls on their mettle at many points, but it will also give the\nspiritual power which stands the strain and even rejoices in it.  It\nwill show the Cross we have to bear; but it will also show the Christ\nwho bears it, and will awaken the Christ, as a victorious principle,\nwithin us all.  Pain and suffering it will not remove; but it will\nquicken a divine substance within us, which is more than conqueror over\nthese things.  And, lastly, when courage, faith and love have won the\nvictory at the supreme point of their trial, and so established\nthemselves as the ruling powers, it will turn these qualities back upon\nlife as a whole, will interpenetrate everything with their energy, and\ntransfigure everything with their radiance, and raise everything to\ntheir level, and so fill the world with music and beauty and joy.\n\nSo, then, in expecting religion to reconcile the world with our notions\nof a \"good time\"; to smooth and simplify our path; to accommodate\nitself to what we, in our weaker moments, desire--in looking for this\nwe look for what is not forthcoming.  Religion will meet us, not on the\nlevel of our weakest moments, but on the level of our strongest.  It\nwill give us power rather than satisfaction; courage to face danger\nrather than safeguards against it; inspiration rather than explanation.\nWhatever satisfaction it brings will come through the power; whatever\nsafeguards, through the courage; whatever explanation, through the\ninspiration.  It will not teach us to see no evil in the world; but\nimmensely increase our resources for dealing with evil when seen.  A\npower in the world which is for ever on the side of those who are brave\nenough to trust it, causing all things to work together for their\nultimate good, and making them conquerors, and more than conquerors,\nover whatever confronts them, whether in life or in death,--this, and\nnothing less than this, is what we have to expect and to ask for.  Our\nmistake has been not that we have asked for too much, but that we have\nasked for too little.\n\nA true religion will be optimistic.  It will end in a radiant and\njoyous vision of the meaning of life.  But it will not begin with that,\nwill not give us that for nothing.  The radiant and joyous vision will\nnot come to us through listening to arguments, through proving that\nthere is more happiness than misery in the world, through shutting our\neyes to the dark side of things and looking only at the bright, through\ncrying \"Peace, peace\" when there is no peace, nor by any of the cheap\nand shallow devices on which mere verbal optimism is made to rest.  We\nmust win our optimism at the sword's point.  We must pay the price.  We\nmust go through \"the Dark Valley\" and not listen to the man who thinks\nhe knows of a way round.  At certain stages of the journey we shall see\nthe whole creation, as St Paul did, groaning and travailing together in\npain until now; and only at the last stage, when loyalty has stood the\ntest, shall we see this world of suffering and death delivered, by\nredeeming love, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.\n\nSuch a religion as I have been trying to describe will be found in\nChristianity--yes, and in other religions also.  Far be it from me to\nset up an exclusive claim for Christianity at this point.  Anyone who\ndoes that goes a long way towards forfeiting his title to be called a\nChristian.  Let each of us look for truth where it is most accessible\nand where it speaks the language he best understands.  For most of us\nhere Christianity has this advantage.  It gives the sharpest point to\nthe challenge of life as we know life.\n\nChristianity is the simplest and most difficult religion in the world,\nbest adapted therefore for strong races, endowed with deep but silent\naffections, and with the plain-dealing mind whose conversation is \"Yea,\nyea and nay, nay.\"  But here let me utter a word of warning.\n\nThere is an outcry in these days for a Christianity shorn of its\ncomplications, and reduced to its simplest and most intelligible form.\nIt is a thing greatly to be desired.  I have been pleading for it in\nwhat has gone before.  But let nobody suppose that, when Christianity\nhas been reduced to its simplest and most intelligible form, it will be\nfound an easy religion to put into practice.  It will be found\nimmensely more difficult than before.  Only there will be this further\ndifference.  Whereas the old difficulties, those that came from\npresenting Christianity in complicated forms, merely irritated and\nconfused us and caused us to waste ourselves upon irrelevance, the new\nones, the difficulties of simple Christianity, meet us on a far higher\nlevel, introduce us to essentials, and give us a battle to fight that\nis really worth fighting.  That is an enormous difference, but not in\nthe direction of making simple Christianity easier than the other kind.\n\nIt has been said that Christianity reduced to its simplest and most\nintelligible form needs only two words to express it--\"Follow me.\"  It\nhas been said, also, that if all Christian men for the next twenty\nyears would give up the attempt to _explain_ Christ and devote their\nattention to _following_ him, at the end of that time they would know\nmore about the person of Christ than they had ever known before, and\nthey would have put Christianity in a posture to conquer the world.  I\naccept all that.  But before we claim that our problem is solved, let\nus think for a moment what \"following Christ\" really means, and to what\nit commits us, when we make it the keyword of simple Christianity.\n\nWhoever sets out to follow Christ will have to follow him a long way\nand to follow him into some dark places.  The path we have to follow is\na narrow one.  It runs all the time on the edge of a precipitous\nmystery, sometimes taking you up to the sunlit heights and the Mount of\nTransfiguration, and sometimes taking you down into the fires of\nsuffering and into the shadows of death.  Following Christ means that\nwhen you find these dizzy things before you, these dark things in your\npath, you go through them and not round them.  Have you a good head?\nHave you a stout heart?  Are you loyal to the leader in front?  Easy\nenough while the road runs by the shining shores of the Lake of\nGalilee, but not so easy when it turns into the Garden of Gethsemane\nand becomes the Via Dolorosa.\n\nThere are those who think they have followed Christ when they have\nobeyed the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, loved their neighbour\nas themselves and done unto others as they would that others should do\nto them.  To follow as far as that is to go a long way, much longer\nindeed than most of us can claim to have gone.  But to stop _there_ is\nto stop in the middle, to miss the end of the journey, to come short of\nthe point of arrival, where the key lies to the meaning and value of\nall that has gone before.  We are too apt to rest in the thought that\nto follow Christ is merely to follow a teacher or a reformer, so that\nenough has been done when we have repeated his doctrine of Fatherhood\nand brotherhood, voted for his precepts, and practised as much of them\nas we can, or perhaps only as much as we find convenient.  Let there be\nno mistake as to the inadequacy of all that, whether presented in a\nsimple form or any other.  To follow Christ is to follow a victor in\nlife's battle, a conqueror over suffering and death, through the\ncompleteness of his loyalty to the Great Companion.  Hence the power\nwhich makes his teaching live; hence the driving force which makes his\nGospel effective for the regeneration of society.\n\nYou see, then, what is involved.  Unless we can follow him through the\npoint where his victory was won, all the rest will not amount to very\nmuch.  We must follow him to the _end_ if we are to be his disciples.\nIt is said of his first followers that when they came to this last lap\nof the journey, when the road before them took that critical turn which\nled through the Garden of Gethsemane, and became a Via Dolorosa, they\nall forsook him and fled.  Do not some of our modernized versions of\nChristianity show a similar weakness, a similar reluctance to grasp the\nnettle, a similar tendency to stop short in their following of Christ\nprecisely at the critical point?  They forsake him and flee--flee for\ntheir lives!--This it is that makes simple Christianity so difficult;\nso difficult but so splendid, so infinitely worth achievement.\n\nThere was a phase in the ministry of Jesus, a comparatively untroubled\none, when he went about among men in a temper of radiant optimism,\ndeclaring his confidence in the Divine Companion, a confidence so\ncomplete that all anxiety for the morrow was banished and the soul\nfreed for a life of the utmost generosity and beneficence.  \"Be ye\ntherefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.\"  Nothing\ntoo bad to be incurable; nothing too good to be hoped for; nothing too\nhigh to be attempted; nothing so precious that we cannot afford to give\nit away.  Yes, even that!  For there is that within the hero which is\nso rich that he can afford to give his very life away, and be none the\npoorer, but the richer; a strange discovery, made by many a brave lad\nduring the recent war, as he prepared himself to \"go over the top,\" and\nthought of his mother or of his beloved.\n\nThen came another phase, such as we too must meet sooner or later, when\nhis mission had to be fulfilled not by saying these things, not by\nsaying anything, but by doing and bearing up to the limit of courage\nand endurance.  The silence of Jesus in the presence of Pilate is the\nsilence of one for whom the day of speech is over and the day of battle\nbegun, the ultimatum delivered, and the trumpet sounding the attack.\nWhere are his followers now?  They have all run away, as verbal\nChristianity always runs away when it comes to the critical point.\nFugitives from the crisis, every man of them!  And what of that radiant\noptimism that broke out by the shores of the Galilean Lake?  Well, it\ncame near to breaking-point, as near as it could without actually\ngiving way.  But it held!  It carried him through!  The infinite\nFriendliness did not forsake him in his extremity, as his followers had\ndone.  At one point he thought it had forsaken him, but it had not.\nFor its nature is to be as true to the loyal soul as any loyal soul can\nbe to it; waiting to attest its presence wherever the courage exists to\nmake the experiment of trusting it.  All prayers to it sum themselves\nup into one, which when it comes from the heart makes other prayers\nalmost unnecessary--\"Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.\"  _In\ntuas manus, Domine, meam animam commisi_.\n\nSo far, then, as I am able to understand these high matters, there is\nno such thing for any of us as getting rid of religious perplexity.\nBut there is such a thing as exchanging the perplexities which depress\nand weaken our nature for those which exalt and strengthen it.  This\nworld is ill adapted to the fearful and the unbelieving; but most\nexquisitely adapted to the loyal, the loving and the brave.  To\npoltroonery of one kind or another the Spirit makes no concessions; it\nwears the face of a hard master to all pusillanimous demands.  To its\nown children it is not only gracious but faithful.  It gives them\ncommissions bearing the sign manual of God; shares their perplexities;\ngoes with them into their battles; stands by them in their time of\nneed; interprets their bright hours to a tenfold brightness; and\nchanges the mystery of their pain from an unfathomable darkness to an\nunfathomable light.\n\n\nBehind the battle of the Creeds lies the battle of life--a much more\nserious affair.  Wherever the seriousness of the greater battle is\ndeeply felt the acrimony of the lesser is mitigated.  The two battles\nare not unconnected, but let us take them in their right order.\nChurches and sects which begin by fighting for their creeds are apt to\nend by fighting for their own importance--which is contrary to the\nspirit of the Christian religion and to the express command of Christ.\nAre there not some among us who think that the way to establish their\nown creed is to destroy the creeds of their neighbours?  But is that\nso?  Does the flourishing of my form of Christianity depend on the\nlanguishing of yours?  I say it does not!  The more your form prospers\nthe better for mine.  Christianity is big enough to find room for both\nof us.  The more devout you are in holding and practising what you\nbelieve the more you help me in being faithful to what I profess.\nThere is only one way in which the truth or falsity of any creed can be\ndemonstrated--that is, by trying whether we can live up to it and\nobserving what happens.  What is needed, therefore, first of all, is\nnot that we should destroy our neighbour's creed, but that we should\nhelp him to live up to it by living up to our own.  I know of no other\nway in which the union of Christendom can be brought about.\n\n\n\n[1] For doubts on this point see the last chapter of _Our Social\nHeritage_, by Professor Graham Wallas.\n\n[2] I refer to the fact that for the last twenty years I have been\nEditor of the _Hibbert Journal_.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS BY\n\nPRINCIPAL L. P. JACKS\n\n\nTHE LEGENDS OF SMOKEOVER\n\n\"A brilliant book.... 'The Legends of Smokeover' contains the most\ndaring of all Dr. Jacks' inventions....  The book is a masterpiece of\nessentially English good humour, magnanimity, and keen\nthinking.\"--HORACE THOROGOOD in the _Star_.\n\n\"An unusually striking book....  Those who enjoy clever and allusive\nwriting will find every page of the volume an intellectual\ndelight.\"--_Scotsman_.\n\n\"This remarkable and original book.\"--_Pall Mall Gazette_.\n\n\nHODDER & STOUGHTON LTD., LONDON\n\n\nTHE LOST RADIANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION\n\n1/- net\n\nTHE LINDSEY PRESS","title":"Religious Perplexities","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":16159}