184 THE LIGHT OF DAY 



centre of the body ; but we know now that the earth 

 is a sphere, and that any point upon its surface may 

 serve as its centre. In like manner every religion 

 thinks itself the one final and supreme religion, — 

 thinks itself the centre of the world ; and for that 

 race and that people it is the centre of the world ; 

 their life, their history, their development, hinges 

 upon it. Our navel stone, Christianity, is the centre 

 of the world for us, and the Buddhist's, the Moham- 

 medan's, is the centre of the world for him. The 

 religion of Apollo was the central fact in the history 

 of Greece. There may be any number of true 

 though opposing and contradictory religions. There 

 may be any number of centres to the infinite. Math- 

 ematics, the exact sciences, are always and every- 

 where the same, but religion is a sentiment, and the 

 forms in which it clothes itself are as various, as 

 changeable, as fleeting, as the forms of summer 

 clouds. 



The whole order of the universe favors virtue and 

 is against vice. Things have come to what they are, 

 man has arrived at what he is, the grass and flowers 

 clothe the fields, the trees thrive and bear wholesome 

 fruit, the air is sweet, and water quenches thirst 

 through the action of the same principles by which 

 we see that virtue is good and vice bad. Things 

 have clashed and warred and devoured each other 

 through past eternities, and out of the final adjust- 

 ment, the balance at which they have at last arrived, 



