ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



any man to see and feel the wonders and the mys- 

 teries and the heavenly character of this world. 



All religions look away from the earth to some 

 fairer and better abode, quite oblivious of the fact 

 that heaven, wherever we find it, will be of our own 

 making. If we do not find it here, we shall not find 

 it anywhere. But the great mass of struggling, toil- 

 ing, human kind must be comforted and encouraged 

 by the prospect of emancipation from the grossness 

 and suffering of this world. Goethe acutely said to 

 let those who could not have literature or art or 

 science, have religion. 



Think of the many sturdy, God-fearing, church- 

 going, simple folk one has known in his youth — 

 how impossible their creeds, but how worthy their 

 lives ! It requires the heroic fiber to accept the creed 

 of Calvinism; it is a proposition that tries a man's 

 mettle. The current generation is too frivolous and 

 empty to be impressed by it; not one in a thousand 

 is man enough to accept it. The movies suit them 

 better. But what granite stuff went to the making of 

 our Pilgrim fathers! 



Cease all Christian effort, all organized Christian 

 charities, all Christian enterprises in the fields of 

 education, social betterment, sanitation, ameliora- 

 tion of the masses, and our civilization would suffer. 

 Then why rail at the old creeds, I say again. The.y 

 prepared the way for science, and for the religion of 

 nature. Carlyle said to Emerson on that memorable 



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