POINTS OF VIEW 159 



Something of dust and darkness cast forever out ; 

 But Life, still Life, that leads to higher Life, — 

 Even though the highest be not free from the immortal 

 strife." 



" For in all worlds there is no Life without a pang, and can 

 be naught." 



From the point of view of art and science the un- 

 converted heathen is a more interesting creature than 

 the converted. Our knowledge of this world tells 

 us that the religion and civilization of a higher race 

 cannot be thrust upon a lower. Every people must 

 work out its own salvation, must come to its religion 

 by an original experience of its own. But the mis- 

 sionary, with his eye upon the other world, sees these 

 pagan races in imminent danger of some terrible^os^- 

 mortem calamity, and he fancies he has the means 

 to rescue them from it. 



Our religious teachers have always admitted the 

 intellectual difficulties in the way of their faith ; the 

 older ones have declared them unsurmountable. 

 The intellect knows nothing of a revealed religion, 

 of vicarious atonement and the like. All these 

 things, all the supernatural elements in our faith, 

 have their origin and authority in the religious sen- 

 timent, in the hopes, fears, intuitions, and aspira- 

 tions of mankind. Whatever proof these afford, it 

 is a kind of proof that cannot he addressed to our 

 rational faculties. 



The mere intellectual assent to a religious doctrine 

 or scheme is usually barren, because religion has re- 

 ference to action, conduct, life. The will, the heart, 

 the imagination, must he enlisted, the moral nature 



