XI 



POINTS OF VIEW 



\\/ HAT a wide difference it makes whether we 

 ' ' look upon the world from the point of view 

 of art, the point of view of science or the intellect, 

 or from the point of view of evangelical religion. 

 Only from the latter point of view do we see what 

 is called sin. The theologian looks upon the world, 

 and he sees wickedness, corruption, sin. The man 

 of intellect looks upon it, and he sees a thousand in- 

 teresting prohlems and objects, issues, tendencies, 

 struggles, failures, and fulfillments. The artist looks 

 upon it, and he sees pictures everywhere, form pro- 

 portion, light and shade, colors and values. How 

 unartistic is the heaven of the theologian to the 

 artist ; how uninteresting and impossible to the man 

 of science. You cannot make a picture all white ; 

 you cannot have power and motion, growth and de- 

 velopment, in a world where there is no clashing or 

 opposition or imperfection, where there is no evil, 

 but only the good of the pious enthusiast. 



To the scientist and to the artist or poet, the world 

 as we know it is a much more desirable place to live 

 than the world as imagined and longed for by the 

 devout of Christendom. Without sin in the world 

 where would be the merit of the saint ? Without 



