104 INDOOR STUDIES 



tianity will not save it to the masses. They can do 

 nothing with the natural truth; the fairy tale, the 

 extra-belief, or the superstition, — whatever you 

 please to call it, — must be added. Arnold himself 

 says: "That the spirit of man should entertain 

 hopes and anticipations, beyond what it actually 

 knows and can verify, is quite natural." Yes, and 

 beyond what is actually true. "Human life could 

 not have the scope, and depth, and progress it has 

 were this otherwise." 



The reader's mind does not pass readily from Ar- 

 nold's disbelief in what is called revealed religion to 

 his advocacy of any church or form of worship ; from 

 his scientific passion, his effort to see things exactly 

 as they are, to his defense of empty and unmeaning 

 forms. There is a break here, a fault in his mind. 

 There is no logical connection between his attitude 

 in reference to the interpretation of the Bible and 

 his advocacy of a form of religious worship upheld 

 by the state. 



If we give up the dogma, we must give up the rite 

 founded upon the dogma. Our churches must be- 

 come halls of science or temples of art. Can we 

 worship an impersonal law or tendency ? If public 

 worship is to be continued, if church organization is 

 still to go on, as Mr. Arnold advocates, it is impos- 

 sible to see how the natural truth of Christianity 

 will alone suffice. The truths of the Bible differ 

 from the truths of science just as a picture or a par- 

 able differs from an exact statement; not that they 

 are any more true, but that they are true in a way 



