MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSON'S. 681 



of religions. And as a matter of fact it is certain that morality has 

 suffered many times not a little from its connection with theological 

 creeds ; that its truths have been appropriated and used to support 

 demoralizing superstitions which were no part of it ; that doctrines 

 essentially immoral have been even taught in the name of religion ; 

 and that religious systems, in their struggles to establish their suprem- 

 acy, have oftentimes shown small respect to the claims of morality. 

 Had religion been true to its nature and function, as wide as morality 

 and humanity, it should have been the bond of unity to hold mankind 

 together in one brotherhood, linking them in good feeling, good will, 

 and good work toward one another ; but it has in reality been that 

 which has most divided men, and the cause of more hatreds, more dis- 

 orders, more persecutions, more bloodshed, more cruelties, than most 

 other causes put together. In order to maintain peace and order, 

 therefore, the state in modern times has been compelled to hold itself 

 practically aloof from religion, and to leave to each hostile sect liberty 

 to do as it likes so long as it meddles not by its tenets and ceremonials 

 with the interests of civil government. Is it not, then, fortunate for 

 the interests of morality that it is not bound up essentially with any 

 form of religious creed, but that it survives when creeds die, having 

 its more secure foundations in the hard-won experience of mankind ? 



The inquiry which, taking a sincere survey of the facts, finds the 

 basis and sanction of morality in experience, by no means arrives in 

 the end at easy lessons of self-indulgence for the individual and the 

 race, but, on the contrary, at the hardest lessons of self-renunciation. 

 Disclosing to man the stern and uniform reign of law in nature, even 

 in the evolution and degeneracy of his own nature, it takes from him 

 the comfortable but demoralizing doctrine that he or others can es- 

 cape the penalty of his ignorance, error, or wrong-doings either by 

 penitence or prayer, and holds him to the strictest account for them. 

 Discarding the notion that the observed uniformity of nature is but a 

 uniformity of sequence at will, which may be interrupted whenever its 

 interruption is earnestly enough asked for a notion which, were it 

 more than lip-doctrine, must necessarily deprive him of his most ur- 

 gent motive to study patiently the laws of nature in order to conform 

 to them it enforces a stern feeling of responsibility to search out 

 painfully the right path of obedience and to follow it, inexorably lay- 

 ing upon man the responsibility of the future of his race. If it be 

 most certain, as it is, that all disobedience of natural law, whether 

 physical or moral, is avenged inexorably in its consequences on earth, 

 either upon the individual himself, or more often, perhaps, upon oth- 



this life and to attain to a perfect moral repose. " Let all the sins that have been com- 

 mitted fall upon me, in order that the world may be delivered," Buddha says. And 

 of the son or disciple of Buddha it is said : " When reviled he revileth not again ; when 

 smitten he bears the blow without resentment; when treated with anger and passion he 

 returns love and good-will ; when threatened with death he bears no malice." 



