AN OUTLOOK UPON LIFE 



if what is one man's truth in so vital a matter as 

 religion ought to be all men's truth. But it is not. 

 Religion is such an intensely personal and subjec- 

 tive matter that no two men stand at just the same 

 angle with reference to any one proposition, at 

 least to the evidence of the truth of that proposition. 

 The question of the soul's immortality seems such 

 a vital question to some, while others are quite 

 indifferent to it. One man says, I must have proof. 

 I cannot rest in the idea that death ends all. 

 Another says. What matters it? I am not sure 

 I want endless existence. 'Ingersoll felt this way. 

 Then if death does end all, we shall not lie in our 

 graves lamenting our fate. If it does not, so much 

 the better. 



But is any fonn of religious belief such a vital 

 matter after all ? What noble and beautiful lives have 

 been lived by people of just opposite religious 

 creeds. A man's creed, in our day at least, seems 

 to affect his life little more than the clothes he wears. 

 The church has lost its power, its promises have 

 lost their lure, its threats have lost their terror. It 

 is a question why church attendance has so fallen 

 off. In earlier times people attended church from a 

 sense of duty; now the masses go only when there is 

 a promise of pleasure, and that is less and less often. 



Errors of religious belief are not serious. If they 

 were, chaos would have come long ago. Each age 

 repudiates or modifies the creed of the preceding, 

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