246 RELIGION 



And religion, in like manner, asks that men should become suffi- 

 ciently cultured to be able to appreciate Christianity religion at its 

 best. For all values finally go back to the riches of some personal 

 life. We cannot be too often reminded that the best the world has 

 ever shown us in literature, or music, or art, is but a partial revelation 

 of the inner riches of some personal life. So Kaftan is in the habit 

 of saying in his lectures at the University of Berlin, that the greatest 

 problem of life is the problem of appreciative understanding of 

 the great personalities of history. The highest conceivable culture, 

 therefore, would be the culture that should enable a man to enter 

 with appreciation and conviction into the deepest and most signifi- 

 cant personal life of history; and the world is coming to see with 

 greater clearness every day that that life is the life of Jesus Christ. 

 The world of the beautiful and of art, therefore, one may properly 

 hold with Browning, is but the ante-chamber of the temple of the 

 full sharing of the life of God. 



The wise who waited there could tell 

 By these, what royalties in store 

 Lay one step past the entrance door. 



All partial beauty was a pledge 

 Of beauty in its plentitude. 



And all thou dost enumerate 



Of power and beauty in the world, 



The mightiness of love was curled 



Inextricably about. 



Love lay within it and without, 



To clasp thee. 



All the world of the beautiful and of art is but a single rose thrown 

 over the garden wall, as but a little hint of the infinite riches of the 

 life of God. 



It is no accident that, for the most part, the best in sculpture, in 

 architecture, in painting, in literature, and in music has been most 

 closely connected with religion, and has found its highest inspiration 

 there. And, where this is not the case, it must still often force itself 

 upon the feeling of the thoughtful man that in any one of the arts, 

 indeed, but especially in music at its greatest, the medium is too 

 great for small passions. I suspect that I only voice the inner feeling 

 and conviction of many another when I say that the music of the 

 best love songs, for example, manifestly goes far beyond themselves; 

 the music tells far more than the sentiment itself will bear. 



Nor can this seem strange to the man who can think as well as feel. 

 For, after all, in the first place, in much we all live alone, a solitary 

 life, shut up to ourselves and God. There is much, both of good and 

 evil, in us that no other has ever known, that we could hardly con- 



