284 GENERAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 



brace not merely the infinite reach but the finite application. In 

 seeking to realize the essential unity of morality and religion it is 

 indispensable that we look for the religious aspect, not merely of 

 some, but of all objects, relations, and activities. It is cramping 

 both to religion and morality to seek God chiefly or wholly in the 

 " house of God," on the " Lord's Day," under the ministrations of 

 the " man of God." It is a good thing for religion and morality to 

 meet God in a bush and in a mountain, as did Moses ; under the stars 

 and by still waters, as did the Psalmist; in rocks and rills, woods and 

 prairies, as every one of us may do. Every law of nature is a law 

 of God. Every truth is an accent of the Holy Ghost. It was not 

 without reason that men once worshiped the divinity they found in 

 animals. I doubt if there be a single object ever used in worship 

 by man, however degraded, that may not for us bear a true mes- 

 sage to the spiritual life. And if dumb animals, still more fellow 

 men. The person who is an adept in discovering and in evoking the 

 divine principle that lurks in every man is he who, other things being 

 equal, is the man of righteousness. 



Thus far we have the general thesis that religion and morality 

 must be conceived of as in harmony if they are to work together. 

 Three special requirements may now be considered. There must, in 

 the first place, be an adjustment between one's general view of the 

 world and one's ideas of religion. For if one's ideas about life in 

 general belong to the Copernican system, while one's religious no- 

 tions suffer arrest at the Ptolemaic stage, it is difficult to see how 

 either set can influence the other. The following conversation gives 

 a hint of the problem which is much more easily stated than solved: 



" Why don't you like to go to church? " was asked of a bright 

 young fellow, studying to be a mining engineer, who had been called 

 " worthless " by the minister of the church he stayed away from, 

 for no other apparent reason than that he stayed away. 



" Do you want the reason, or just a reason ? ' 



" The reason, if you don't mind." 



" Because what I hear in church, and what I study all during the 

 rest of the week don't gee. The Sunday talk has to be put into a 

 hermetically-sealed compartment; it won't mix with the week-day 

 work." 



Yet the week-day work, we are bound to believe, was good engin- 

 eering; and if it was, it was so because it was in harmony with the 

 laws of the universe. If it was in harmony with the laws of the 

 universe, why was n't it in harmony with " religion "? 



Another aspect of the same problem is presented by those whose 

 ideas are still, broadly speaking, at the Ptolemaic stage, and who 

 are no more able to apperceive the higher criticism and kindred 

 views than their great grandmothers would have been. To such, 



