RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE 411 



people do not attempt to set a mere mechanism on the vacant throne 

 of mind. They know that no superstition is more degrading than 

 that which idolizes negations, and that to accustom the mind to 

 denials is to rob it of constructive power. They readily assent to the 

 truth that " the laws of the universe cannot account for their own 

 origin." They recognize with Carlyle that " it is flatly inconceiv- 

 able that intellect and moral emotion should have been put into 

 us by an entity having none of its own." They seem to hold with 

 Martineau that while " all our belief and speech about God is untrue, 

 it is truer than non-belief or silence." Sometimes such souls yield 

 themselves, in the want of something better, to extravagant substi- 

 tutes for rational religious faith; but, for the most part, without 

 earnest conviction on the one hand or any open hostility on the 

 other, they go about their daily work and play as best they can 

 without the impulse of profound conviction or of confident hope. 

 An impatient neutrality or a somewhat contemptuous indifference 

 characterizes the religious condition of Christendom to-day. 



What then, I ask, are the conditions of a rebirth of spiritual 

 vitality, what new visions may bring to this apathy a new dynamic 

 of progress? How is the average man to realize and achieve the 

 peace and joy of religious faith? In the first place, we must recog- 

 nize certain primary conditions of religious influence. It does not 

 flow in any single channel. The joys and sorrows of domestic life, 

 healthy amusements, the exercise of business industry and integrity, 

 all upbuild character and faith. The beauty of the outward uni- 

 verse is often a silent teacher which prepares the human spirit for 

 the indwelling of the infinite spirit. Music has strange power to calm 

 or to invigorate, to open the mind and heart to gentle pleadings 

 and sweet memories; it is often a better medium of sympathy than 

 speech. Art and architecture are equal handmaids of spiritual 

 influence. Save only prayer, poetry is the highest expression of 

 emotion. When feeling reaches a certain point, it drops the slow 

 processes of argument and takes the wings of song. This great 

 variety of teachers, the endless production of different forms and 

 expressions of thought and feeling, enriches life and speaks of the 

 infinite inventiveness of creative love. 



In the second place, w r e must note that the normal influence of 

 religion on the human soul is gradual and evolutionary. According 

 to certain still surviving traditions, religion is primarily a process of 

 revolution; not a growth, but a surprise. It delays its approach; 

 it is inaccessible to the natural man; it comes upon one abruptly to 

 transform a character and change the purpose and direction of a life. 

 It is unquestionably true that the experience of religion is often 

 thus sudden and decisive. I cannot, however, but believe that the 

 accidental incidents only make more impressive the orderliness and 



