THE FAITH OF A NATURALIST 



We need not fear alienation from God. I feed Him 

 when I feed a beggar. I serve Him when I serve my 

 neighbor. I love Him when I love my friend. I praise 

 Him when I praise the wise and good of any race 

 or time. I shun Him when I shun the leper. I for- 

 give Him when I forgive my enemies. I wound Him 

 when I wound a human being. I forget Him when I 

 forget my duty to others. If I am cruel or unjust 

 or resentful or envious or inhospitable toward any 

 man, woman, or child, I am guilty of all these things 

 toward God: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 

 one of the least of these my brethren, ye have 

 done it unto me." \S 



ii 



I am persuaded that a man without religion falls 

 short of the proper human ideal. Religion, as I use 

 the term, is a spiritual flowering, and the man who 

 has it not is like a plant that never blooms. The 

 mind that does not open and unfold its religious 

 sensibilities in the sunshine of this infinite and 

 spiritual universe, is to be pitied. Men of science do 

 well enough with no other religion than the love of 

 truth, for this is indirectly a love of God. The as- 

 tronomer, the geologist, the biologist, tracing the 

 footsteps of the Creative Energy throughout the uni- 

 verse — what need has he of any formal, patent- 

 right religion? Were not Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, 

 and Lyell, and all other seekers and verifiers of 



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