MEDITATIONS AND CRITICISMS 209 



XV 



I apprehend that the success of Christianity has 

 not been owing to the fact that it is true as a sys- 

 tem of doctrines, but that it is true as a system of 

 ethics. It is a good working hypothesis. It re- 

 strains vice, it stimulates virtue. The doctrines are 

 false, but they gave force, and, as it were, dramatic 

 representation to the ethics ; they embodied it in 

 living concrete form, as in a parable or allegory, so 

 that they have a new power over men's hearts and 

 minds. But always have the doctrines been held as 

 primary, and the ethics as secondary, though the two 

 were inseparable. The orthodox churches to-day set 

 more store by the doctrines, when the pinch comes, 

 than by the ethics. It is more necessary to believe 

 certain things than to be a certain type of man, to 

 lead a certain kind of life. The American Board of 

 Foreign Missions refuse certain candidates for labor 

 in the foreign field who hold an extra belief in the 

 extent of God's mercy to the heathen. If you be- 

 lieve in probation after death, says the board, you 

 are none of ours, no matter what your daily walk 

 and conversation may be. 



By making the object of religion some other world, 

 some other state of existence than this, a great lever- 

 age seems to have been gained. It gave room for 

 the imagination to work, for the ideal to play a part. 

 The enchantment of distance, the fascination of the 

 unknown, the lure of the absolutely pure and per- 

 fect (which of course would not satisfy us when 



