MATTHEW ARNOLD'S CEITIOISM 103 



scientific truth of answer to prayer, that is, that an- 

 swer to prayer is a purely subjective phenomenon, 

 and his lips are sealed; teach him the natural truth 

 of salvation by Jesus Christ, namely, that self-re- 

 nunciation, that love, that meekness, that dying for 

 others, is saving, and the emotion evaporates from 

 his religion. 



It is, he says, the natural truth of Christianity 

 that he is after: but it is not the natural truth that 

 the world wants; it is not this that has saved men 

 and that still saves them, that is, holds them up 

 to the standard of their better selves and sustains 

 them in a life of solitude and virtue. It is the 

 legendary or artificial truth of Christianity which 

 does this, that which the human heart, in its fear, 

 its faith, its hope, its credulity, or in all combined, 

 supplies. It is what Arnold calls extra-belief, or 

 Alerglauhe, the part he is trying to get rid of, that 

 makes Christianity a power for good over the mass 

 of mankind. Aherglaiihe, Goethe said, is the po- 

 etry of life, and it is just this superadded element to 

 Christianity that to the mass of mankind give its 

 charm, its attraction, its truth to their hearts and im- 

 aginations. It is this that touches the natural truth 

 of Christianity with emotion and makes it fruitful. 

 It is true that this Aberglauhe or superstition is 

 not science, though it perpetually imagines itself to 

 be so, but it is nevertheless real to the hearts and 

 faiths of men. To show them that it is not real, that 

 it is not science, is to strip the tree of its leaves: 

 the tree will perish; the natural truth of Chris- 



