RELIGION AND PERSONALITY 423 



that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 

 should not perish, but have everlasting life." That is, self-giving in 

 a world of sin and suffering is divine. Man's response to divine love 

 is religion. 



So, too, the value of the prayer-life, which, in some form, is char- 

 acteristic of all religion, has made for unmeasured enrichment, for it 

 has been keeping man's soul sensitive to the voice of the Infinite in 

 myriad modulations about him, and man at length discovers with 

 the Mariner: 



" He prayeth best who loveth best 



All things, both great and small; 

 For the dear God who loveth us, 

 He made and loveth all." 



Religion, energizing the will, has made men stronger to dare and 

 to do. No cause has so long a list of real martyrs. It has made 

 men undertake and achieve the impossible, to hurl themselves 

 against adamant only to see it crumble before them. What gave 

 to the Crusaders, misguided though they were, their superhuman 

 endurance? The belief " God wills it!" Cromwell and his Iron- 

 sides made the armies of Charles melt before them. The one party 

 cried, " God with us! ' The other had only the tocsin, " Ho! for 

 the Cavaliers! " and the Royalists went down before the Round- 

 heads. England dominates India, and the West dictates the policies 

 of the East, because the more vital the religion, the more potent will 

 be the will of the worshiper. The God motive is the most potential 

 of all incentives. Let the human will be once thoroughly dedicated 

 to the Divine, and at once you have a force that must be reckoned 

 with. Every Hannibal who devotes himself at the altar will make 

 Rome tremble. Man's will, no less his own than before, becomes 

 God's; and this is the goal of religion, as the great laureate says: 



" Our wills are ours, we know not how; 

 Our wills are ours to make them Thine." 



This at once suggests the influence of religion upon the motives, 

 upon the emotional nature of man. Among primitive peoples a 

 religious motive seems to be present in almost all their doings. Some 

 have found the seat of religion in the emotions. Long ago the Latin 

 poet-philosopher held that " fear makes the gods." Schleiermacher 

 finds religion's origin in the feeling of dependence. Mill makes 

 religion " emotions and desires toward an ideal object." Huxley 

 calls it " reverence and love for an ethical ideal." That we find in 

 these statements, and in all others that find the rise of religion in 

 the emotional life, important truth, cannot be questioned. It is 

 because of this truth that religion has played so important a part in 

 the shaping of human sentiments. There is deep seated in man the 



