72 SEMITIC LANGUAGE 



connection with the world-order in which he finds himself, exists 

 independently of the churches, and would still exist if there were 

 no churches. Out of it, and for it, the churches have arisen, not 

 vice versa, religion out of the church and for the church. In some 

 ecclesiastical organizations this fact of the priority of religion to, 

 and independence of, the church has been utterly forgotten or un- 

 recognized. When, for example, an order of Christians is said to be 

 "a religious order" because of its peculiar connection with the 

 church and its peculiar mode of life, or when a member of such a 

 body is briefly said to be "a religious," the church with its rites and 

 ceremonies is tacitly declared to be the author and guardian of re- 

 ligion, whereas, in fact, it is neither. Religion created the church 

 and is ever re-creating it, because it abides not in temples made of 

 hands, nor, in its last analysis, in courts and ecclesiastics, but in the 

 unspoiled hearts of individual men. It is the individual pure in 

 heart who sees God. Religion belongs to us as individuals, not to the 

 churches. The church is merely an agency for the promotion and 

 cultivation of religion, helpful to the majority of men within its 

 pale, but utterly powerless to affect or make appeal to the higher 

 intellectual and spiritual side of many profoundly religious minds 

 without it, though they may be deeply sympathetic towards many 

 of its aims. 



If, then, religion is something that belongs to us all as individuals, 

 possessed by each, and possessing us in turn in absolute and unre- 

 stricted thought and service, except in so far as we by moral 

 choice subordinate our individual privilege to altruistic purposes, 

 let us go a step farther and ask whether we are mutually agreed as to 

 what religion is. One thing we have settled and I hope are agreed 

 upon, namely, that religion, being natural to man, belongs to the 

 individual, to me. As regards religion, I am, as an individual, to use 

 a legal phrase, "seized in fee and of right." It is neither a church 

 doctrine, nor a church service, nor both. It is neither of, nor from, 

 nor by the churches. The church did not create it, and it has not the 

 right to demand it of me, nor to command me with respect to it. 

 Its duty is simply to cultivate it among its free worshiping mem- 

 bers and promote among men generally, by the functions over which 

 it presides, its highest ideals. 



How shall we define religion? It is something that has been vari- 

 ously defined as well as variously conceived. Not long ago I heard 

 a prominent American divine define religion as " An attempt on the 

 part of man to get into right relations to God." The defect of this 

 definition is at once apparent. Religion is not necessarily an attempt of 

 any kind, and if it be nothing more than an attempt, it is not religion 

 at all. 



Frequently we find it of advantage in analyzing a concept to 



