SOUNDINGS 



which our creeds are founded are of the same char- 

 acter. The Trinity is a constellation. The miracu- 

 lous birth of Christ is a constellation. The fixed stars 

 of man's moral nature and religious aspirations are 

 alone real. All the mythologies built upon them are 

 as fanciful as Orion and the Big Dipper. All the 

 various religions of the world, with all their super- 

 natural features, are a part of the natural history of 

 man's religious instincts. Man's craving for the su- 

 pernatural is as natural as our discounting of the 

 present moment, and no more significant. The 

 natural becomes trite and commonplace to us and 

 we take refuge in an imaginary world above and be- 

 yond it. The understanding becomes sated, and we 

 long for something we cannot understand. 



III. LOGIC AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 



Of late years I am often moved to say to myself: 

 "Why kick the old theology after it is dead? " — as 

 I have often been tempted to do. It is almost like 

 spurning the bodies of one's father and mother. The 

 old creeds may be outworn, but they have fathered 

 and mothered us all. They have served and saved 

 untold generations of men. Christianity, mythical 

 and irrational as much of it is, has yet been the sal- 

 vation of the world for nineteen centuries. Of course 

 it has been a source of evil as well as of good, as all 

 religions are, but the good has greatly predomi- 

 nated. In fact, it is the bed-rock upon which our 



261 



