

A MODERN' " SYMPOSIUM:' 



57 



built upon science and civilization, without reli- 

 gion, are attempting to build a pyramid of bricks 

 without straw. The solution, we believe, is a 

 non-theological religion. 



There are some who amuse themselves by re- 

 peating that this is a contradiction in terms, that 

 religion implies theology. Yet no one refuses 

 the name of religion to the systems of Confucius 

 and Buddha, though neither has a trace of the- 

 ology. But disputes about a name are idle. If 

 they could debar us from the name of religion, 

 no one could disinherit us of the thing. We 

 mean by religion a scheme which shall explain 

 to us the relations of the faculties of the human 

 soul within, of man to his fellow-men beside him, 

 to the world and its order around him ; next, that 

 which brings him face to face with a Power to 

 which he must bow, with a Providence which he 

 must love and serve, with a Being which he must 

 adore — that which, in fine, gives man a doctrine 

 to believe, a discipline to live by, and an object 

 to worship. This is the ancient meaning of re- 

 ligion, and the fact of religion all over the world 

 in every age. What is new in our scheme is 

 merely that we avoid such terms as infinite, ab- 

 solute, immaterial, and vague negatives alto- 

 gether, resolutely confining ourselves to the 

 sphere of what can be shown by experience, of 

 what is relative and not absolute, and wholly 

 and frankly human. 



The DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. — It seems to 

 mo difficult to discuss this question till it is set- 

 tled, at least generally, what morality is influ- 

 enced, and what religious belief is declining. 



The morality generally acknowledged in Eu- 

 rope differs in most important points from that 

 of the Hebrews in the days of Moses, of the 

 Greeks in the days of Socrates, of the Romans 

 under the empire, of the monks of Egypt, of the 

 Puritans of the seventeenth century. All of these 

 had among them high types of character, higher, 

 it may be, than any types among us ; but who 

 among us would accept their morality as a whole ? 

 Our morality has come to be recognized as it is 

 by a definite progress of which the steps may be 

 traced. It is plain that one form of religious 

 thought and religious faith might aid this prog- 

 ress of morality by its decline, and another 

 might, by its decline, impede or reverse it. On 

 such a morality as we acknowledge, whencesoever 

 derived, the decline of Buddhist belief or ancient 

 Roman religious belief might act as a stimulus 

 and a help. The decline of another kind of reli- 

 gious belief might, on the other hand, act most 

 injuriously. 



It seems to me, therefore, that till the ques- 

 tion is presented in a concrete and historical 

 form, nothing can be made of it. I do not un- 

 derstand the two terms of the comparison. Be- 

 fore I can attempt to answer it, I must know, at 

 least approximately, what morality and what re- 

 ligion. 



If by morality is meant the morality generally 

 recognized in Europe on the points of truthful- 

 ness, honesty, humanity, purity, self-devotion, 

 kindness, justice, fellow-feeling — and not only 

 recognized, but judged by a conscious superiority 

 of reason and experience to be the right stand- 

 ard, as compared with other moralities, such as 

 those of the Puritans, the monks, the Romans, 

 the Hebrews — then I observe that, as a matter 

 of fact and history, which to me seems incontro- 

 vertible, this morality has synchronized in its 

 growth and progress with an historical religion, 

 viz., Christianity. We are come to the end of 

 eighteen of the most eventful and fruitful cen- 

 turies of all, at least, that are known to us ; and 

 we are landed in what we accept as a purer mo- 

 rality than any which has been known in the 

 world before, and one which admits itself not to 

 be perfect, but contains in itself principles of im- 

 provement and self-purification. With this prog- 

 ress from the first — sometimes, I quite admit, with 

 gross and mischievous mistakes, but always with 

 deliberate aim and intention of good — Christianity 

 has been associated. And in proportion as Chris- 

 tian religious belief has thrown off additions not 

 properly belonging to it, and has aimed at its own 

 purification and at a greater grasp of truth, the 

 standard and ideas of morality have risen with it. 

 The difficulty at this moment is to determine how 

 much of our recognized morality, both directly 

 and much more indirectly, has come from Chris- 

 tianity, and could not conceivably have come at 

 all, supposing Christianity absent. 



I do not here, in these few lines, assume that 

 in Christianity and its long association with hu- 

 man morality we have a vera causa of its improved 

 and improving character. But with this immense 

 fact of human experience before me, unique, it 

 seems to me, in its kind, and in its broad outlines 

 undeniable, no abstract reasonings can reassure 

 me as to the probability that with the failing 

 powers of what has hitherto been, directly or in- 

 directly, the source of much, and the support and 

 sanction of still more, of our morality, our mo- 

 rality will fail too. It seems to me quite as easy 

 to be skeptical about morality as it is about reli- 

 gion. If the religion has been proved to be not 

 true, then, of course, it is no use talking about the 



