A HINT FEOM FRANKLIN 177 



because they are no longer available in front. The 

 world no longer asks what a man believes, but what 

 is he ? What is his intrinsic worth as a man ? Is 

 he capable of honesty, of sobriety, of manliness ? 

 Vital original qualities, and not speculative opinions, 

 are certainly what tell most in this world, however 

 it may be in the next. 



Religion as a sentiment is strong in these times, 

 but religion as a dogma is weak. The growing dis- 

 belief of which we hear so much is a disbelief in the 

 infallibility of dogma, not a disbelief in the need of 

 godliness, purity, spirituality, and noble disinter- 

 ested lives. These things move us as much or more 

 than ever, but in the creeds we hear only the rattling 

 of dry bones. How had the Puritan theology been 

 sloughed off by Emerson, and yet what a pure, stimu- 

 lating, ennobling, religious spirit shone in that man 

 and still shines in his works, — the "saving grace" of 

 heroic thought and aspiration, if they ever existed. 

 The same might be said of Carlyle, rejecter as he 

 was of the creed of his fathers. "Religion cannot 

 be incarnated and settled once for all in forms of 

 creed and worship. It is a continual growth in 

 every living heart — a new light to every seeing 

 eye. Past theologies did their best to interpret the 

 laws under which man was living, and to help him 

 regulate his life thereby. But the laws of God are 

 before us always, whether promulgated in Sinai 

 thunder or otherwise." 



The progress of religious thought that has been 

 made in the last half century is indicated in the 



