202 With Feet to the Earth 



fact or figure : it is all one to us. The 

 man himself, not the faith he has, passes 

 under the world's judgment. 



Strange, then, in this practical time, that 

 piety commands the same respect it had 

 in the Crusades. Yet not strange when we 

 consider. We may applaud the daring of 

 the iconoclast, we may demand that record 

 and tradition pass and make way for fact, 

 we may avouch the hopelessness of jibing 

 geology with the Mosaic books. Why? 

 Because by so doing we deem that we 

 encourage truth. And in the wide and 

 generous survey of our kind that we begin 

 to take, we realize that piety is also a step 

 to truth ; that the church is not a super- 

 stition, but an inquiry and a hope. In 

 whatever way this aspiration moves, in 

 voice or act or wish, it commands re- 

 spect and reverence. Beware that man 

 who sneers at piety. Help to unmask de- 

 ceit, fleer at the jobber and self-seeker 

 who has learned nothing but a mouth 

 humility in his church, but before the 

 spectacle of a soul repentant, earnest, as- 

 piring, thankful, resolute, uncover. Let 



