ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



tion, as our fathers found it in the fervid and, I 

 freely say, inspired utterances of Saint Paul ! But it 

 saved them, it built character, it made life serious, 

 it was an heroic creed which has lost credence in our 

 more knowing and more frivolous age. We see how 

 impossible it is, but we do not see the great natural 

 truths upon which it rests. 



A man is not saved by the truth of the things he 

 believes, but by the truth of his belief — its sincer- 

 ity, its harmony with his character. The absurdities 

 of the popular religions do not matter; what matters 

 is the lukewarm belief, the empty forms, the shal- 

 low conceptions of life and duty. We are prone to 

 think that if the creed is false, the religion is false. 

 Religion is an emotion, an inspiration, a feeling of 

 the Infinite, and may have its root in any creed or in 

 no creed. What can be more unphilosophical than 

 the doctrines of the Christian Scientists? Yet 

 Christian Science is a good practical religion. It 

 makes people cheerful, happy, and helpful — yes, 

 and helps make them healthy too. Its keynote is 

 love, and love holds the universe together. Any 

 creed that ennobles character and opens a door or a 

 window upon the deeper meanings of this marvelous 

 universe is good enough to live by, and good enough 

 to die by. The Japanese-Chinese religion of ancestor 

 worship, sincerely and devoutly held, is better than 

 the veneer of much of our fashionable well-dressed 

 religion. 



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