THE RECONCILIATION. 123 



ceives the functions of these various conflicting creeds, 

 should above all other men display. Doubt- 



less whoever feels the greatness of the error to which 

 his fellows cling and the greatness of tlie truth which 

 they reject, will find it hard to show a due patience. 

 It is hard for him to listen calmly to the futile argu- 

 ments used in support of irrational doctrines, and to 

 the misrepresentation of antagonistic doctrines. It is hard 

 for him to bear the manifestation of that pride of ignorance 

 which so far exceeds the pride of science. Naturally enough 

 such a one will be indignant when charged with irreligion 

 because he declines to accept the carpenter-theory of crea- 

 tion as the most worthy one. He may think it needless as it 

 is difficult, to conceal his repugnance to a creed which tacit- 

 ly ascribes to The Unknowable a love of adulation such as 

 would be despised in a human being. Convinced as he is 

 that all punishment, as we see it wrought out in the order of 

 nature, is but a disguised beneficence, there will perhaps 

 escape from him an angry condemnation of the belief that 

 punishment is a divine vengeance, and that divine ven- 

 geance is eternal. He may be tempted to show his con- 

 tempt when he is told that actions instigated by an unselfish 

 sympathy or by a pure love of rectitude, are intrinsically 

 sinful; and that conduct is truly good only when it is due 

 to a faith whose openly-professed motive is other-worldli- 

 ness. But he must restrain such feelings. Though he may 

 be unable to do this during the excitement of controversy, 

 or when otherwise brought face to face with current super- 

 stitions, he must yet qualify his antagonism in calmer mo- 

 ments; so that his mature judgment and resulting conduct 

 may be without bias. 



To this end let him ever bear in mind three cardinal 

 facts two of them already dwelt upon, and one still to be 

 pointed out. The first is that with which we set out; 



namely the existence of a fundamental verity under all 

 forms of religion, however degraded. In each of them 



