412 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: PERSONAL 



continuity which mark the normal condition of the growth of the 

 spiritual life. Religious influence is not, as a rule, capricious and 

 spasmodic, but a silent process of evolution and expansion. It may 

 have its crises, its sudden awakenings, as (if I may borrow a figure) 

 a river has its rapids and its sudden falls, its backward turns and 

 whirling eddies; but through the surge and foam the underlying 

 current makes its way, and the occasional agitations are but inci- 

 dents of its steady movement toward the sea. 



In the third place, I note that freedom is essential to genuine spir- 

 itual growth. No hand of outward constraint can wisely guide the 

 nurture of the human spirit. The individual soul must be free to 

 obey its own volitions, and have power to select, to discriminate, to 

 accept or deny. It must have freedom to choose not merely what 

 is right, but what is wrong, freedom to. sin as well as to follow 

 righteousness. By no coercion can a soul develop vitality, by no 

 dictation can it learn to govern justly the little republic of the inner 

 life. 



Accepting then these conditions of vital religious influence, 

 its diversity, its continuity, its liberty, I turn to consider how it 

 may operate on the minds and hearts of a generation waiting in 

 the attitude of neutrality and mental reserve, an attitude which 

 surely is not one to be rebuked or despised, but which is essentially 

 unsatisfactory and provisional. The first thing to note in that 

 spiritual vitality is something transmitted rather than created. 

 This transmission is something more than verbal communication. 

 Truth requires the medium of personality. Religious influence is 

 the contact of life with life, of spirit with spirit. It is well-nigh 

 impossible for an abstract truth to promote activity or form charac- 

 ter, or create fervor of heart. Ask yourself what nobility of char- 

 acter means to you, and you will find that you have learned it 

 not from books, but from example, not from definitions, but from 

 deeds. 



Said Phillips Brooks, whose characteristic message I am in this 

 paragraph repeating: " We often hear the cry, ' Principles, not men.' 

 But to send out principles without men is to send an army of ghosts 

 abroad who would make all virtue and manliness as shadowy as 

 themselves. It is principle brought to bear through the medium of 

 manhood that draws and inspires." Let us recognize that spiritual 

 life is not a matter of spontaneous generation. It is kindled by a 

 spark from the burning heart of another. Knowledge is transmitted 

 from teacher to scholar, love glows from mother to child, ideals are 

 caught from seer and poet. Feeling acts on feeling and mind on 

 mind. Courage passes from strong to weak, enthusiasm springs 

 from eye to eye. We cannot explain just how these influences work, 

 we cannot locate the wires of this invisible telegraphy, but of the 



