THE COMPOSITE OF RACES AND EELIGIONS IN AMERICA. 247 



or the theology produced the head. I have no intention of 

 discussing the problem of the origin and development of 

 religion, nor what psychology and environment have to do with 

 it. It is enough in this place to note the fact that the human 

 race, always dynamic, has during all the centuries instinctively, 

 or under the inspiration of a more or less intelligent faith, 

 moved forward toward a higher intelligence and a purer 

 religion ; that it has ever sought in the future something better 

 than it had known before, because always it has been endowed 

 with curiosity, energy, endurance, vision and courage. Satisfac- 

 tion follows achievement. When one task is completed there 

 is readiness for one more difficult still — and power also. 

 Whether the final goal is Heaven or the superman, the fact 

 stands. What effect upon the forms of religion, differences in 

 government, industry, education, language, customs, dress, social 

 conditions and physical environment may have is an interesting 

 inquiry. We do not stop to discuss it here. 



The important and basic fact for our purpose is that the 

 American people are profoundly religious. This means sub- 

 stantially the same thing as if we should say, as we well may, that 

 the English people are profoundly religious. Yet it is not 

 exactly the same. If they are equal to the same thing they are 

 not equal to each other. Whatever it be that makes the 

 difference, it still exists. 



The faith of the vast majority of American people is 

 Christian ; and of the largest part of these, evangelical. North- 

 western Europe and Canada have furnished the greater part of 

 the foreign-born and wi th them their religious faith ; and this 

 has also been the religious faith of most of the native-born 

 citizens. This fact has the same significance in the religious 

 development of the nation as the similar fact has in the racial 

 development. The more recent immigration from South- 

 eastern Europe with a variant religious faith must obviously 

 least affect the religious life of the nation. The strong and 

 ever-operating tendency is that the faith of the native people 

 will profoundly affect and modify the faith of these who come 

 — according to a law which cannot be set aside. Eoman and 

 Greek Catholicism cannot, for instance, be in America what 

 they are in Spain and in Kussia. 



The American nation is unique in that it achieved political 

 solidarity without a corresponding solidarity of religious 

 interests. This was inevitable for several reasons. Most of the 

 colonies brought with them from Europe traditions of religious 

 freedom, purchased at the price of bloodshed and persecution. 



