4 THE WORKING FAITH OF 



landscape. It is a principle of proportion and sanity, 

 which gives its own place both to what is small and 

 transient and to that whose worth is great and permanent ; 

 and it is far less an affair of another world than men have 

 usually thought. In its light men walk more securely : 



"You groped your way across my room i' the dear dark dead 



of night, 



At each fresh step a stumble was : but, once your lamp alight, 

 Easy and plain you walked again : so soon all wrong grew right." 



Browning : Shah Abbas. 



But man's life in modern times has attained a vast 

 compass. Its interests are multifarious, and each of these 

 interests has not only a wider reach, but is more strongly 

 entrenched within itself than it was when human society 

 was more simple. Never was it more easy for menjto be 

 the servants^of one-sidecLca.uses, o 



ideas. The task of religion, which is to see life singly 

 and show it whole, is therefore much more difficult than 

 it was in the past ; and, in one respect at least, religion is 

 itself less fitted for its task. Its spirit has outgrown its 

 forms. Its views of the relation of man to man and to 

 God are more generous far, but their outlines are dim and 

 indefinite. The need is great for the master-spirit who 

 shall articulate our thoughts and direct our practical aims, 



setting to i3msic_thetune that is hamitingmillions_of 

 caps." 



But the disposition of the age is by no means unfavour- 

 able to religion. Its spirit is not secular nor negative 

 what it negates is only the supernatural. Its very 

 scepticism is half-religious. The dogmatic denial of the 

 middle of last century has given way to a confession of 

 ignorance, to an Agnosticism which leaves room for the 



