bernard bosanquet what religion is london 1920

8/3/2019 Bernard Bosanquet WHAT RELIGION IS London 1920

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WHAT RELIGION iSBERNARD BOSANQ,UET


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Jftliata, New lorb

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Cornell University LibraryBR 125 .B74

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WHAT RELIGION IS


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WHAT RELIGION ISBY

BERNARD BOSANQUETD.C.L., LL.D.

FELLOW or THE BRITISH ACADEMY

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITEDST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON1920


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^So35lSCOPYRIGHT

First Edition igzoReprinted 1920


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PBEFACEWhat I hope and desire to do in writingthis Httle book is to be helpful to personswho, while feeling the necessity ofreligion, are perplexed by the shape inwhich it comes before them. I am notthinking about historical criticism. Ihave in mind more fundamental things.We may be disappointedI will atonce make this suggestion, which isindeed the main substance of what Ihave to saywe may be disappointedin an experience which we have beentaught to regard as all-important, notbecause it offers us too little, but becauseit offers not just what we were prepared


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vi RELIGIONfor. Everything depends on the ex-pectation and the hope with which weapproach it. Religion is the knot, thecentre, of all human difficulties ; it is amany-sided thing, and if we ask it thewrong questions it will give us mislead-ing responses.To take the simplest of all examples :

Will religion guarantee me my privateand personal happiness ? To this, onthe whole, I think we must answer No ;and if we approach it with a view tosuch happiness, then most certainly andabsolutely No. And yet this answermight repel many persons who arequite sincerely inclined to religion.They might perhaps rejoin, " Well, butif not that, then what? We esteemthe thing as good and great, but if itsimply does nothing for us, how is it tobe anything to us ? " But the answer


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RELIGION viiwas the answer to the question ; and itmight be that to a question soundingbut shghtly difFerent a very differentanswer would be returned. We mightask, for instance, "Does it make mylife more worth living ?" And the answerto this might be, " It is the only thingthat makes life worth living at aU."Now I should think it a great thing

if I could help ever so humbly in guidingsome minds to the right type of ex-pectation, the true and open attitude inwhich they wiU have a fair chance tofeel their religion in its fulness and itssimplicity.

I insist on two expressions in thislast sentence. " Their religion " ; myhope is not to suggest or advocate a newreligion to them. It is to help themto reach the full value of their own.No man is so poor, I believe, as not to


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viii RELIGIONhave a religion, though he may not, inevery case, have found out where it Hes.And " simplicity " ; for it is a familiar

paradox, that in the highest and deepestthings, centres though they are of allcomplexity, yet we go wrong mostly bynot being simple enough. " As a littlechild . . ." ; that has been the motto, as ofthe saints, so of the wisest among man-kind. Your mind is a good instrumentonly keep it free and sincere ; keepaway from selfishness, self-conceit, fromthe vanity of learning, and from thevanity of resentment against learning.Open it to experience, and take that aslargely as you can. We know the typeof man who on the whole gets nearestto truth. It is not the cleverest. It is,I think, the sincerest.

I have nothing to say that has notbeen better said by thousands of better


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RELIGION ixmen. But every crisis has its owndemand for the right question and theright answer. And even if the wordis quite old, it makes perhaps a httledifference when it is repeated in yourear by a comrade at your side.

BERNARD BOSANQUET.


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CONTENTSCHAPTER I PAOBThe Peace of GodSalvationJustifica-

tion BY Faith

CHAPTER nFreedom and Power . . . . .15

CHAPTER HIUnity with God, Man, and Nature . . 23

CHAPTER IVHope and Progress for Humanity . . 35

CHAPTER VThe Nature of Sin ..... 43xi


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xii RELIGION

CHAPTER VI PAGESuffering ..... 51

CHAPTER VnPkayer and Worship . . . . .65

CHAPTER VmThe Religious Temper . . . .73


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CHAPTER ITHE PEACE OF GODSALVATION-

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH


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CHAPTER ITHE PEACE OF GODSALVATIONJUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

" What must I do to be saved ? "

I BEGIN, then, with what I take to bethe central knot and need of all religion," What must I do to be saved ? " Theold monosyllable, which has soundedso clearly since the coming of Christthe S.O.S. call of humanity, utters, itwould seem, an ultimate need. Andyet, what is it ? Saved from what ?The old word does not say ; and this,I think, is very significant. We are tounderstandwithouttelling, and I supposewe do. " Saved from pain and dangerand hazardous enterprise ? " No, that


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4 RELIGIONwill not do at all. Salvation is theentrance to the strait gate and thethorny path. Saved from sin ? That ismore like it, but if we dwell much onit, it soon becomes too narrow. Weseem to stumble as soon as we try toexplain. We begin to qualify, to. re-strict our meaning. The old absoluteword is the right one. We cry out tobe " saved."We gather our meaning best fromthe answer. When are we saved andhow? Commonly we feel safe whenwe have nothing to fear. But safe andsaved are not quite the same. Some-thing has happened. We were notsafe, but now we are. And how?Nothing outside will do it ; no strength,no prosperity. Something has changedwithin us. We are different, or atleast, awakened. And now we aresaved, absolutely, we need not say fromwhat. We are at home in the universe.


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RELIGION 5and, in principle and in the main, feebleand timid creatures as we are, there isnothing anywhere within the world orwithout it that can make us afraid.

In other words, we are at peace, atrest. Not that we have not to fightbut now the battle itself is the victory.We are certain in our own mind. Weare convinced of the supreme good, andthat it is one with the supreme power.We have this experience in innumer-able degrees, and it is a matter of wordswhere you begin to caU it reUgion.Obviously there must be grades of thereligious experience. I do not believethat a human being can be whollywithout it. Wherever a man is so carriedbeyond himself whether for any otherbeing, or for a cause or for a nation,that his personal fate seems to him asnothing in comparison of the happiness

' or triumph of the other, there you havethe universal basis and structure of


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6 RELIGIONreligion. Power and perfection united,or such perfection as must, we are con-vinced beyond contradiction, be in theend a clue to power, as in the beautifulweak,^ or in the lost cause with whoseflag we are content to go down, arethat to which in religion we have givenour heart away.And now we can see from what we

are saved, and how. We are saved, ifwemust have a word, from isolation ; weare saved by giving ourselves to some-thing which we cannot help holdingsupreme.You can trace this structure, I have

said, throughout human life, for no manis really isolated. Every man, we musthope and believe, has somewhere anallegiance that binds him, some dis-loyalty which he would rather die thancommit. And if you know what thisis, then you know where his rehgion

' Compare, e.g., Rossetti's "Staff and Scrip."


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RELIGION 7lies. " Where your treasure is "it isa true saying.But the special and intensest mean-ing of the words "salvation," "the peaceof God," "religion," indicates, as wesaw, something unqualified and com-plete, something which involves thatthe root of our certainty is very thor-oughly present, if not before our mindsas a doctrine, then at least in them asan attitude. What is the nature of thefact which we have been describing,when stated at its simplest and strong-est, and recognised, or felt, as the centreof our hfe and being ?

There is a traditional phrase intendedto sum up the whole point and meaningof religion ; and it utters all thosecharacteristics we have insisted on quitesimply and plainly. It is the oldexpression "Justification by Faith."And whatever practice or doctrineenables us to realise this in our life is


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8 RELIGIONso far a religion, for it does the essentialwork of a religion ; whereas whatevertheory or practice does not enable us torealise it may be a very fine or exaltedor ingenious thought or custom, but isnot, I think, in the strict sense, amatter of religion at all. Every man,in the end, must judge for himself, andI am not preaching any particular formof religion, nor intentionally criticisingany, I am only trying to help peopleto get the full good, the point andspirit, of the religion which they profess,or which I am sure they really have,whether they profess one or not.The situation which this expression

embodies is simple, though fundamental,the knot or centre, as we said, in whichthe open secret of all human nature isbound up. We cannot be " saved " aswe are ; we cannot cease to be what weare ; we can only be saved by givingourselves to something in which we


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RELIGION 9remain what we are, and yet enter intosomething new. The peculiar attitudein which this is effected is religious faith.And this is, as I see the matter, justwhat we mean by religionthis, and nomore, but nothing less. It is faithwhich is contrasted, not with knowledge,but with sight. All the resources ofknowledge may contribute to faith.But faith is contrasted with sight, be-cause it is essential to it that we riseinto another world while remaining here.Religious faith has two inseparablesides of wUl and of judgement. Theyare hardly indeed sides, for each has theother in it. Both mean absorption ina good such that nothing else mattersand nothing else is real. This is whyreligion "justifies" the religious man.It does not abolish his finitenesshisweakness and his sin. But what it doesis to make him deny that they are real'to make his whole being, as he accepts


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10 RELIGIONand affirms it, a denial that they arereal. This is the very crux and test ofreligion, and its combined simplicityand profundity are here most plain.Nothing is so simple, nothing is so im-possible. It is the cry from the heartof religion for all time, " Only believe."It is here that you must leave thedistinctive ground of morality, whilecarrying with you its demands, and thesocial atmosphere which make it a half-way house to religion. For in the socialwhole the good is partly real, and partly,therefore, we are saved from the con-demning " ought to be." But, inprinciple, mere rnorality says, "Youought to be equal to the situation."The good is imperative on you here andnow, and you are to make it real in andby your wiU. Fail in doing this, inshowing yourself perfectible in and byyourself, and to all conceivable ages youare a moral failure, even if you claim a


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RELIGION 11life continued for ever in which to com-plete the work. Out of every moralsuccess the further " ought " springs upinevitably to condemn you once more.ReUgionreligious faithis different.

For it, the good isindeed real, as moralityclaims that it should be ; but there issomething more ; for in the end nothingelse is real. And so you can be good,though you are not good, because as youare and as you stand,you yourself are notreal. By worship and self - surrenderyou repudiate and reject your badness,and will and feel yourself as one withthe supreme goodness. "Hear againthe vehement expression of mysticism.' When reason tells thee " thou art out-side God," then answer thou, " No, Iam in God, I am in heaven, in it, inhim, and for eternity will never leavehim. The devil may keep my sins,and the world my flesh ; 1 live inGod's will, his life shall be my life, his


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12 RELIGIONwill my will; I will be dead in myreason that he may live in me, and allmy deeds shall be his deeds. " '"Where does all this come from, and

how do^*I know it is true ? I answerwithout hesitation, it comes from thereligious experience, which in it speakswith a single voice. And if more iswanted, as an inchned plane for thecommon-sense intelhgence,I saythatanyone who considers human nature in thehght of the facts of love, loyalty, com-munity, will see that the character whichin religion comes to a climax, is its veryessence or centre or vital knot. Nobodyis anything except as he joins himselfto something. "Be a whole or joina whole." "You cannot be a wholeunless you join a whole."

This, I beheve, is rehgion. Strictlyspeaking, we need go no further. Hereis peace, victory, salvation. Ifyour creed

1 Bradley, Ethical Studies, p. 293, note.


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RELIGION 13effectually gives you this, you have allyou want.But from this great centre, so extra-ordinarily simple, as from a knot orfulcrum, the whole of life depends.And so, as I said, religion becomes alsoextraordinarily many-sided ; and if wecould be helpful in keeping some of itssides in their true place and connection,it would be worth doing. When wegetaway from this simplebasis ofrehgion,we are very apt to go further and fareworse. We add and explain and defineto meet particular needs, pressures,troubles, doubts, and we insist on ourexplanations and perhaps lose contact,whoUy or partially, with the centre. Iam only too hkely to fall into this faultmyself. But I will make the hazard,and try to hint at the true proportionsin which certain needs may be seen.


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CHAPTER IIFREEDOM AND POWER

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CHAPTER IIFREEDOM AND POWER

" Out of weakness were made strong ..."When we speak in the tone we havebeen using, of a spiritual being absorbedin or surrendered to a greater or to onethat is supreme, we may be led to askquestions arising from certain aspectsof the experience. We are apt to becurious to know how any such thing ispossible.So in this case we raise a question

perhaps about the freedom of a beingso absorbed or devoted ; and this, Isuspect, is at the bottom of our heartsa question about power. How can a

17 C


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18 RELIGIONbeing be said to do anything of himselfif his whole Tightness and effectivenessdepends on a unity in which he seemsto be subordinate? It might be idlecuriosity to ask whether he could havedone otherwise than he did ; but wemay be assailed by doubts whetheras described he can be said to do any-thing. We should hardly be troubledabout freedom if we were sure ofpower.Now this is, for rehgion, merely aside issue, a question of description and

formulation, within the great centralexperience. And what religion asksyou to do is to keep your eye on thatexperience, and enter into it as fully asyou can. For it is not like anythingelse, except the degrees of itself. "Outof weakness are made strong "that isthe story of all love and loyalty, allworship, devotedness, aspiration. Lifeand mind can do nothing by themselves.


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RELIGION 19Their whole structure and way ofworking is to throw themselves intosomething greater, something inclusive." As a little child," this word will meetus on every side in religion. We areto remain in the great experience, andtake it simply, and not to allow subtlereasonings and clamours for explanationto distort our vision of it. And if onesays, " But how is it possible ? " we areto look at the facets of human nature,and reply, " Because, in the end, thereis nothing else that is possible." Weare human only in as far as we loveand trust. It is no use to compareourselves with other things, which weunderstand but imperfectly, and askwhether we can be isolated or unitedin modes which apply to them. Wepossess the mode which applies to us, andfor religion that is aU we want. If weare to argue and define, we must notstop short of philosophy, which just


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20 RELIGIONmeans keeping hold of the main cer-tainty, while going into all the diffi-culties. But that is not our businesshere ; we cannot all be trained philo-sophers, and it would be a queer worldif we were. Our business is to seewhere and how you can really get thegood which you trust in your religionto bring you.

In the unity of love and will withthe supreme good you are not only" saved," but you are " free " and"strong." Action, initiative, evencourage, flow from you like a springfrom its source. The source may befed from a deep reservoir in the hillsbut none the less its flow is its own.You will not be helped by trying todivide up the unity and tell how muchcomes from " you " and how much from" God." You have got to deepen your-self in it, or let it deepen itself in you,whatever phrase expresses the fact best


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RELIGION 21to, your mind. The fact, as we said,taken altogether simply is religion. Ifyou could break it up and arrange itin parts you would have destroyed it.


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CHAPTER IIIUNITY WITH GOD, MAN, AND NATURE

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CHAPTER IIIUNITy WITH GOD, MAN, AND NATURE" In Him we live, and move, and have our being.''

Plainly such a spirit as I have beentrying to describe is in unity with God,Man, and Nature. Nothing in all theconsequences of religion is simpler orclearer than this. Nothing, again,more easily tempts us to draw outparticular conclusions in which we maylose our way.We are spirits, and our life is onewith that of the Spirit which is thewhole and the good. Then, surely, weare eternal ; and, one way or another,your religion gives you this conviction.Now this is no matter for argument, orfor trying to take away from you what25


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26 RELIGIONyou love to believe and what gives youstrength. It is only a matter for hold-ing fast to the centre. I will cite afew words from a clever popular bookand I will not argue upon them, butwill ask the reader just to turn them inhis mind, and place them beside theessence of religion as we tried todescribe it at first. I do not for amoment say that the talented writerfrom whom it is cited meant it other-wise than as a dramatic utterance byone of his characters, which need notin the least represent his own convic-tions. Quite probably he may havefelt in it something like the difficultywhich it presents to me. " It's chieflylife after death that you are thinkingof, which, come to bedrock, is the onlyreligious question that has any interest,and is virtually the origin of all re-ligion."^ It has been said, too, "We

^ The Tender Conscience, by Bohun Lynch, p. 120.


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RELIGION 27feel and experience that we are eternal."We should fairly set these two attitudesof mind side by side with each otherand with the full religious temperwhich simply rests on its oneness withwhat is deeper than anything temporal.When we begin to restrict and define,do we not begin to omit and to diminish?But again, our purpose here is not

to make any man doubt his religionit is only to offer the suggestion thatwhatever his belief, he should take it sodeeply, so in proportion, as not to losecontact with the complete attitudewhich makes it religion. What isunited with the eternal is eternal. Buthow, how far, how transformed, or withwhat kind of consciousness, if conscious-ness is the right name at all, can weexpect to know in particular, and, forreligion, can it very much matter ?We must be on our guard againstfining down and explaining away our


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28 RELIGIONunity with the eternal in the very act,as we think too hastily, of insisting onit. We must not let go our main graspof the values which, wherever broughtinto being in a world, so far makeheaven of that place and time, andwhich all religion teaches us to cherishhere and now as everywhere and alwayslove, beauty, truth. In these ourunity is solid and plainour unity withGod and with the whole of being. Wemust not do anything to throw theseinto the background, and place ourunity in remote events.Unity with God, as a character of

human spirit, involves, it is plain, unitywith man. And here again manyquestions offer themselves. Whatforms does this unity imply, historical,terrestrial, beyond the grave ? Is thereto be a millennium, a reign of peace andhappiness on earth ? What, in truthand reaUty, is the communion of saints ?


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RELIGION 29That spirits in unity with God must inthe end be in unity with one anotherseems guaranteed by the very essenceof religion. But what does "in theend " mean ? Are we to ask more ?and if we ask more, is it really asked ina religious spirit and interest ? Peoplewho pray too muchit is an old folk-sayingpray themselvesthroughheavenand out on the other side, and are setto herd the geese there. People whoask too many questions, claiming to bereligious in asking themit seems muchthe same. The shrewd old wives feltand saw perhaps that particularity andcuriosity may harm the religious spirit.Science and Logic have their rights ;but we must not confuse them withrehgion. What a man's religion bringshim, and what he cannot help receivingwhen he places himself humbly andsincerely in the attitude of reUgiousfaith, I should venture to suggest, let


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30 RELIGIONhim hold to without scruple. It willbe the nearest thing to truth that hecan make his own. Against fancies andprivate interpretations, I am convincedthat any great saint, any noble mystic,will warn him. The question is in thelast instance for himself. Is it reallyreligionunity of will and belief withthe supreme goodthat he is thinkingabout in any particular doctrine, or is itsomething else ? That is the questionfor him to answer with all pureness ofheart and humility.The unity of man and nature must

be thought of in the same way. Forthe religious mind nature is the revela-tion and instrument, or one revelationand one instrument, of God's will. Wewill look at other questions afterwards,such as the question of suffering. HereI am only thinking of the feeling towhich we are liable that not nature, butsomething else, is where we are to look


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RELIGION 31for the will of God. The supernaturalthis is what we are apt to feel that ourspiritual life depend s upon. Not merely,for instance, on the values we spoke of,truth, love, beauty. We do not thinkof these as supernatural ; they are,happily, too familiar ; though we mightquite fairly do so if anything is to besupernatural. But they come home tous at once as our belongings, and as ofone web and tissue with our world. Nowif we go into ourselves, and keep fasthold of religion, we shall surely feel thatall these things are just sides, aspects,consequences of it, ways in which therevelation of supreme will and goodnesscomes in our mind and heart. Thenthe seeking for a signfor somethingmarked as an exception to naturaloccurrences, or what looks like an ex-ceptionall this falls into its true place.If you cannot think of God without it,well and good ; think of Him, I believe


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32 RELIGIONone must say, as you best can. Only,let nothing, no love of striking proofs,no yearning for a short cut to a specialpath of unity, oust you from the centralcitadel in which Mansoul possessesreligiononeness with the supremegood in every facet and issue of heartand will. This is what matters ; in-numerable outgoings arise from it, andeach must certainly be pursued andgrasped for a certain distance. But inany one of them, if you are allured byit, it is easy to lose yourself, and forgetthe one thing needful. If you areoffered a doctrinal certainty, ask your-self of what it is a certainty. Is it reallyof a truth pertaining to religion, or isit of something quite different, whichperhaps tradition or controversy hasassociated with it ? Every one, I repeat,must judge for himself The absoluteneed in judging is sincerity, pureness ofheart. Does this really belong to my


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RELIGION 83oneness, in love and will, with thesupreme good ? Does it flow from this,and confirm me in it ? If not, it maybe an interesting and valuable specula-tion ; but it is not a part of religion.

D


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CHAPTER IVHOPE AND PROGRESS FOR HUMANITY

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CHAPTER IVHOPE AND PROGRESS FOR HUMANITY" He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him

shall never thirst." Chkist." That which is filled with the more real is more reallyfilled." Plato.

Man is a creature active in the world,and an all-absorbing faith in thesupremacy of good must affect hisaction and expectation. But here againin particularising we are very apt torun up into blind alleys. Nowhere isit more important to keep our starting-point full in sight. In religion, man ac-knowledges his finiteness ; it is essentialto the basis of the experience, thoughit is not the whole basis. Religion says.You are victorious in the victory of37


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38 RELIGIONgood. It does not say that you can,in the world of time, cease to be a finiteand defective being.

If, then, we construe the victory ofthe good to mean either the total sanctifi-cation of the finite spirit (you and me)by the perfecting of its morality in fact,or the coming about in time of a stateof things which we conceive as involvingthe ideal rule of righteousness andhappiness, these are interesting specula-tions, but they gain no special supportfrom rehgious faith. Faith, so far, israther at one with common sense. Ittells you that though your conflict is initself a victory, yet it is a conflict still.For the religious man trusts in nostrength of his own, and to be perfectapart from that in which he trusts wouldfor him be sin and self-contradiction.At the same time, his main experience

is the clue to reality. For the totaldetailed course of the world or the


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RELIGION 39universe he lives by faith and not by-sight. But for his private life and actionI mean, in all that he has contact with,I do not mean merely in self-regardingmatters, if such could be distinguishedhe has sight continuous with his faith.His vision and experience are notempty, but overflowingly full. He has" the water that I shall give him " ; heis filled vidth "what is real." He isnever out of reach of the world ofvalues, revealed to him and in him.Religion does not say, I think, thathe is to believe in an order of valuessome day to be attained without inter-mixture of what seems hostile to value.Following our simple purpose, we willnot speculate about this. But what wedo know is that a simple faith finds onall sides confirmation and reahsation,strangely intermingled and interde-pendent with difiiculty and obstruction,in the world in which our feet are set.


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40 RELIGIONA cup holds enough for it if it is fulland for the religious spirit the witnessof the good is irrefragable.Of Hope and Progress, as elements

in life, the religious man has a solidgrasp. He has them in himself, andthey are rooted in the good with whichhe is united. He can seefor here hehas sight continuous with his faithhecan see the supreme values at work,cleansing, organising, ordering theworld. Their bringers suffer or perish,but in their own operation the valuesnever fail. We are not just now tophilosophise on this paradoxhow neartogether are the strongest and weakestof all things. Evidently, there aredifferent kinds of strength, and, to thecommon eye, no one of them has whoUyits own way in the course of things. Itis as ifthe strength of the spirit could notbe revealed, indeed, could not he, exceptby measuring itself against another type


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RELIGION 41of strength. And then, even in itsvictory, it seems infected by its opposite,and the progress breaks itself. Thiscertainly suggests that there is alwaysmore to be learned, a further power ofthe values, a spiritual progress at least.But we are running into speculation.All we ought to say is this, that the

needful thing is to keep to our religiousfaith and what it really demands andreally gives. It says nothing, I believe,of time. A word like "victory," or" in the end," becomes deceptive if wepress it as meaning an event, anoccurrence. What it means to say is,I take it, that through all appearancesgood is supreme. And, saying so, itdoes not leave us with empty words orempty hands. It gives as much ofgood as our spirits can contain. Itmay be that all good demands for itsrealisation a world apparently mixed.Religion has nothing to say against


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42 RELIGIONthis. It only requires us to rise abovethe appearance, and keep our unhesi-tating grasp on the reahty which iswholly good.

Perhaps we may add, without stray-ing too far from simpUcity, that inkeeping up this grasp on the complexfact of religion we are led to see that" good " is a hard thing both to appreci-ate and to realise. It is not some plaindecalogue, some clear white againstblack. It is a life, a spirit, a meaning,to be wrought out and to be foughtout. To each of us, religion seems tosay, it is and must be offered in ourown individual form. My battle is con-tinuous with yours, but it is not quiteyours ; yours helps me in mine, but itis not quite the same. We are senton diverse missions, and all of themare necessary to the good.


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CHAPTER VTHE NATURE OF SIN

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CHAPTER VTHE NATUEE OF SIN

" Whatsoever is not of faith is sin."

The diversity or individuality of thegood helps us to see clearly the natureof sin. Sin, it is said, only exists forthe religious soul. For this soul hasgiven itself wholly to the good and theperfect, but yet stUl lives in and as itsown particular limited self, and its ownparticular defective world and will. Itholds nothing to be real but the good,but yet its own wicked wiU and wickedworld exist. And both worlds andwills belong to it ; both the perfect,which it holds to by faith, and the falseand perverse, which it disowns but can-4S


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46 RELIGIONnot abolish. Thus the very workingout of the good is a battle, in whichour wiU actually fights against itself.The false will, which is disowned andcondemned, which faith rejects andrepels, none the less is there in fact,and opposes the will of faith in whichthe soul is saved and at home throughreligion. And this is sin ; for it is thepersistence in the religious man of thevery will which as religious he disowns.Again we must avoid dissecting theplain and sure experience. In the

religious unity, we find, a contradictionappears which would be impossible butfor that unity, and which actually de-pends upon it. The same will, the sameimpulse to self-completion and satisfac-tion, which in religious faith is madeone with perfection, has a detailedexistence in fact which contradicts thisperfection. Any experience, enter-tained or pursued in a way hostile to


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RELIGION 47the complete service and worship whichfaith embodies, is sinful. Lists of sinsand rules about sin may point outdangers, but are no real guide. Theyare no real guide, because the object ofa sinful desire may not be a bad object.It may be only its opposition, in thespecial case, to what the perfect willdemands, that makes it a sin. Thereis no sin readier at the religious man'selbow than to feel that he has for amoment achieved, that he has beensomething of himself and apart fromthat in which he trusts, that he has inhimself been worthy. Now this is nota sin which can easily come of a " bad "action. It is pretty certain to springfrom something which we should setdown at sight as "good."

Obviously if we refine and reflectupon these consequences, we shall cometo matters of great subtletyheresiesof all kinds. Is not, then, all our


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48 RELIGIONrighteousness as filthy rags? On theother hand, if a perfection which is notours is the cure, does it matter whatwe do ? That we are in fact sunk insin, but are somehow real beyond andoutside it, might even be a comfort-able doctrine.

It is the old story. We are refining,and losing touch. Here is perhaps aplain though prosaic way of bringinghome the simple fact. Bonafides is theultimate need in all matters of conduct,and religion is the supreme bona fides.Your heart is really given to the bestyou can conceive. But your actual lifeis narrow and confused, and while will-ing the object of faith, you will, also,things that as you will them (for theyneed not be "bad") are its enemy. Thenwe see the religious significance of faith,and what it means to be saved. This,which I am, is not reaUy I. I am bonafide other, and this self, though I am it.


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RELIGION 49I reject and disown. Sin is thus thevery detail of the conflict in whichreligious faith asserts the supremacy ofthe good. It is a deep self-contradic-tion, which, but for the supreme faith,would dissolve and destroy my actualbeing. It is the embodiment of theflat contradiction, the rise in which westay here. The good, I take it, isactually worked out, and has thesubstance of its victory, in this struggle,where the will is fairly and clearlyoccupied in re-creating itself.Compare once more the position of

morality. In pure morality, not allow-ing for the social ethical observancewhich is half a religion, the individualmust always count as bad. In rehgionalso he is always bad, but yet he isreally and truly good. This dependson the nature of faith, and a religionwhich gives you this gives you all youneed to see what is meant by sin. E


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CHAPTER VISUFFERING

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CHAPTER VISUFFEUING

"The whole creation groaneth and travaileth . . .together."

Suffering seems a very much widerfact than sin. What bewilders us mostin it, I suppose, is its extension over thewhole conscious world independently ofgoodness or badness. It seems as if itfollowed from any independence, anyseparateness or self-assertion in things.If things apparently indifferent to oneanother's interests assert themselves inthe same world, there must be conflict,and, with consciousness, suffering.

Religious faith does not seem topromise exemption from suffering. Onthe contrary, it almost seems to suggest

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54 RELIGIONthat it is inevitable. We saw what atremendous working contradiction faithinvolves between the true reality andthe actual appearance. This seems toimply the possibility at least of a veryfiery trial, though different no doubtfor different natures and circumstances.

It is important, here as ever, to keepour attention on the central fact. Weare very apt to generalise, to makea conception of human nature, forexample, by leaving out special featureswhich we think exceptional, and thento infer " This, and a world to suit, iswhat ' ought ' to exist ; and so religiousfaith, which takes the perfect good to bereal, must be presupposed to promisethis at least." But all this seemsgroundless, and to be losing touch withwhat the facts suggest. We saw thatwhat we find is individual spirits, aUmarked by different qualities and con-ditions, each apparently set to fight his


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RELIGION 55battle and work out his line or grow hisfibre of the good, in his particular andpeculiar case of the whole striving world.There is nothing to suggest that anyspecial mark or privation or deprivationin him is a sort of mistake in theuniverse, superfluous to the life of thegood, and due to be set right as some-thing without spiritual significance. Thefact is that the attempt to recommendfor adoption as it were a sort of typicalcomplete man and typical complete lifehas alwaysbroken down, as Plato showedit must. You cannot train a perfecthealthy animal man, and then completehim by adding a perfectly sane mind tohis sound body. You must work outand let him work out his unique kind ofhealth and his unique spiritual develop-ment in view of each other and of whathe has to do and be. And you cannotput your finger on this or that condition,privation, deprivation, and say, This


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56 RELIGIONis dead spiritual loss and ought not tobe. You may rightly try to hinderwhat you think hardship or defect.But it is far beyond the facts to say :This or that privation or deprivationis abnormal, an injustice, a necessaryspiritual loss. The man, say, is blind.Is he so far less than a man should be ?Would Mr. Fawcett have been less ormore if he had had his sight ? Whocan tell ? And Mr. Kavanagh, if hehad had his limbs ? One has a bad wife,a bad son. How can we say what hewill make of the burden ? We are notentitled to judge that the unique beingand equipment which the universe laysupon each individual is such as toimpair and defeat the possibihties ofgood. We must not assume that thingswould be better if we could make himand his conditions over to suit oursmoothed conception of what a manand his Ufe should be.


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RELIGION 57Here is a simple case of the principle

in question. If we take as our standarda complete eiSciency of our animalsystem, we are tempted to condemn itsevolution as awkwardly managed. Itsarrangements appear to have beenprimarily adapted to other ends thanthose they serve to-day, and to havebeen modified, not too successfully, inthe interest of man's spiritual functions.Now if we grant that this is so, does itfollow that in this characteristic theuniverse is on the wrong track ? Thereis a reticence in English treatment ofintimate experience which it wouldprobably be ill service to the higher lifeto violate or impair. Else I believe thatit might not be difficult to show in morethan one actual particular example howthe whole connected set of physicaldistresses which sprang from one ofthese evolutionary maladaptations wasa definite originating cause of the only


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58 RELIGIONseriously valuable production to whichcertain lives gave rise. In matters socomplex, a particular case goes for little,and it might always be pronounced"exceptional." Nevertheless I believethat it would be feasible by analyses ofthis kind to produce a good deal ofconviction as to the positive valuescontributed to life by what commonlypass for negations, privations, depriva-tions.^ Thus we might get rid of thattendency to standardise all finite spiritsand their good at a somewhat common-place or average level, which impliesand is implied in the pretension to setdown so much and such as what theyought to have, and again so much andsuch as what is abnormal and theyought to be spared. Of course, healthis a good thing, and we have a right tomake good things general if we can.But health, as we saw, itself is relative,' The line of thought of course is affected by Spinoza.


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RELIGION 59besides that spiritual creativeness is notconfined to health. The fact seems tobe that the ways and conditions ofspiritual productiveness are infinitelyvarious and in each case unique. Thegood is obviously a highly vitalised andvarious world. And in all this there isuniversally present the general form orstructure of suffering ; beings primafacie indifferent to each other and tothemselves, with an underlying unitywhich forces them into transformations.

Rejoice that man is hurledFrom change to change unceasingly,

His soul's wings never furled.It is in and through such a conflict thatthe good is triumphant for faith, realis-ing the vitality which is its nature incontinual origination within and againstthe dazzle of plausible satisfactions.Thus it seems to follow from the

simple fact of religion that sufferingbelongs on the one hand to the religious


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60 RELIGIONspirit, and on the other to the finiteworld. I do not mean, or believe, thatpain can be the sole feature of life, oris often the predominant one. But itdoes seem to me that we are losingsight of religious experience if we assignto it an ideal in which there shall be noplace for pain even as a condition whichmay be suppressed, but is always im-minent. A finite world of appearances,prima fade at issue with itself and withreality, may be, it would seem, thenatural and normal arena for rehgiousfaith to dominate.Now if so, what we call the reciprocalindifference of beings in time, and themaladaptations of evolution, may be nohindrance to the spiritual life, but itsessential counterpart. Try to say whatyou think ought to be removed fromany given private life in order tofurnish its possessor with the conditionswhich you consider religious faith to


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RELIGION 61presuppose, and, though you may feelcertain at first about extremes fromwhich you start, you will very shortlyfind yourself in a region of extremeunreality, almost all definite circum-stances being condemned. War, or atleast modern war, you would removeand grinding poverty. And irre-sponsible wealth ? That too. Andcommonplace mediocrity of circum-stances ? The worst starting-point ofall. A cruel mother ? Certainly to beexcluded. A devoted self-sacrificingmother ? The subtlest of moral dangers.You very soon find that you leavenothing standing. There is no normal.All is individual ; and every pushingfibre and tendril of the good is unique,and has its own root to start from andits own issue to find. It is crude andpagan, perhaps, to say that all goodcomesby suffering, and I do not say it. Butreligious faith seems to mean a going out


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62 RELIGIONof oneself, which may be exultant, butcan hardly fail at times to put the finitebeing on the rack.We have approached too near toargument. But let the reader considerfor himself how a supreme love andtrustDante's lovemust be felt by afinite creature. It cannot be all simplereceiving. It must make a severedemand. And if we might choose ourown conditions, should we not rule outmost things worth doing ?

In a word, religion is just the weldof finite and infinite. Such an experi-ence may be triumphant, but can it becostless ?

" The whole creation . . ." ; and yetwe do not see how it can aU share inreligion. Yet it has been written :The spirit of the worm beneath the sod 'In love and worship blends itself with God.Religion says nothing against this

that I know of. At any rate the


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RELIGION 63apparently finite world seems to be anecessary arena and instrument ofvalues ; and as better insight comes, itdoes not approximate to a fabric ofpure blank preciousness, as the NewJerusalem does to a fabric of meregems, but rather to more intimate andpoignant realisations, united with adeeper perfection and a profoundervictory. It is something of this kindthat the religious experience offers asthe simple and inward fact about suffer-ing. And I believe we must take it so,and not try to reason or explain itaway.


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CHAPTER VIIPRAYER AND WORSHIP

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CHAPTER VIIPRAYER AND WORSHIP

" After this manner therefore pray ye . . . Thy willbe done."

Prayer and worship seem to be of themost intimate essence of religion. Andjust for this reason, when separatelyargued about and insisted on, above allits other features they tend to becomedistorted. Prayer, I suppose, is thevery meditation which is, or at the veryleast which enables us to reaUse andenter into, the unity which is religiousfaith. Worship, inward or outward, isin principle the same. It is some direc-tion of feeling, thought, or ritual which

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68 RELIGIONrenews and fortifies, perhaps with theaid of sympathetic communion, thefaith and will which is religion.Every religion, I take it, intends to

help its votaries in this way. It wishesto maintain and to reinforce in themthe strictly religious spirit.But here as elsewhere rationalism,

curiosity, metaphor, and deduction frommetaphor, operate by way of distortion.When faith weakens, the unity of thespirit tends to sever itself into ideas ofpersons in relation with each other,and the common conceptions of personsbegin to react ; the sides of the centralexperience, which prayer was to holdtogether, begin to faU apart, and themeditation and inspiration of unitycannot but be transformed accordingly."Father," "King," "Lord," "Creator,"all these words may help our sluggishimaginations in certain ways. But allof them offer by-paths for practical


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RELIGION 69ceremony and for reflective inquisitive-ness, in which the religious mind maylose itself.

If prayer, we argue, can keep usassured of the supreme triumph and ofunity with the ultimate power, whatcan it not do ? What can faith notdo ? From securing our daily bread toany miracle we chance to set our heartson, aU seems possible to it. Here isan example of what we must come toif we stray along roads like these tillwe run up against sanity and commonsense. " Mr. John Scrimgeour, ministerof Kinghorn, who, having a belovedchild sick to death of the crewels, wasfree to expostulate with his Maker withsuch impatience of displeasure, andcomplaining so bitterly, that at lengthit was said unto him, that he was heardfor this time, but that he was requestedto use no such boldness in time comingso that when he returned he found the


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70 RELIGIONchild sitting up in the bed hale andfair. . . :"The religious unity of spirit and its

maintenance is thus coming to bebroken up under the influence ofvarious demands construed accordingto analogies imported into the matterby natural efforts to explain and in-terpret. With the growing distinctionand remoteness of the human and divinefactors the whole nature of prayer andworship transforms itself. It comes tobe modelled on the normal relationsbetween an inferior and a superior inthe asking of favours and the renderingof honour.Now here as throughout it is for thesincere mind to judge what incidents of

hope and beliefwhat shapes of theanswer to prayerare really involvedin his religion. We are only concernedto note the warning that prayer and

Heart of Midlothian.


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RELIGION 71worship certainly change their natureas we pursue curiosity and metaphoralong paths which lead us away fromwhat religious faith most strictly implies.What we essentially want, I suppose,is to be helped to realise and hold fastour religious faith, including, as wehave seen throughout, our religious will.To this end "religions," systems ofcreed and ritual, or, more generally, offeeling and practice, have their ways ofbeing instrumental. And what is re-ligious in them, I take it, is all thatwhich contributes to keep true religionalive in the heart. Praise and supplica-tion, so far as they do not help in this,seem not to be religious at all.


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CHAPTER VIIITHE RELIGIOUS TEMPER

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CHAPTER VIIITHE RELIGIOUS TEMPER

" As a Uttle child . . ."

Here is a sentence worth considering"It is customarj- ... to contrast thehumihty required by the Gospel withthe supposed arrogance and self-suflfici-ency of the philosophical spirit. Yetif we take men so different and sorepresentative in their differences asPlato, Bacon, and Spinoza, we findthem all agreeing, not in a glorificationof the human mind, but in the impera-tive demand that it should shake offits ' chains ' and turn to receive thelight, that it should surrender its

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76 RELIGION'idols' and 'become as a little child,'that it should look at things ' under theform of eternity,' not through the vagueconfusion of its own imagination." ^

This substantive agreement betweenthe language of religion and that ofwisdom is a remarkable thing. I sup-pose it points to what we have dweltupon throughout, the total simplicityof supreme experiences, and the im-possibility of entering into them exceptby a total sincerity and candour.Humility no doubt is demanded ; buthumility taken by itself may be an ob-session and distraction, just like vanity,amour propre, curiosity, the charm ofcontrivance and ingenuity. What isaimed at is rather not to be preoccupiedwith yourself at all; not to be pre-occupied with your own weakness orlittleness, any more than with yourown goodness or cleverness. The feel-

' Nettleship in Sellenica, ed. 1, 152.


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RELIGION 77ing and admission of defect is, I imagine,presupposed ; but it should not, surely,be reflectively predominant so as todivert attention to itself and impair thesimple spirit of trust and surrender.Now this is at the same time the spiritof complete appreciation, which alonecan seize the whole fact in its due shapeand proportion. This is what in anymatter of common life we get, as wesay, only from those "who really care."" Love speaks with better knowledgeand knowledge with dearer love."The artist, too, we are told, covets

"the innocence of the eye"; the gazefor which the whole impression is single,unbroken, and unrationalised.To illustrate a little further. It is

one of the less noted advantages in thesuccession of fresh lives which deathand birth maintain, that the worn andpatched and piece-meal experience ofthe aged scholar or statesman, perhaps


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78 RELIGIONeven of the saint, is not perpetuatedfor ever with the full traces of the modein which it was painfully acquired. Inbeing swept away along with its pos-sessor, it makes room for the fresh andtotal contemplative activity of newminds, no longer seamed and wrinkledby the hardships and accidents whichattended acquisition.While he smites, how can he but remember,So he smote before, in such a peril.When they stood and mocked, " Shall smiting

help us?"

O'erimportuned brows becloud the mandate.Carelessness or consciousness the gesture.For he bears an ancient wrong about him. . . .

In the gaze of the rising generationall this is wiped away. It comes, orshould come, dehghted and unwearied,to seize directly and vigorously on itsactual merits and in its total contoursthe treasure that is offered to it, and so


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80 RELIGIONchild means to keep hold, so to speak, ofthe direct handclasp ; to remain in touchwith the centre ; not to go wanderingafter this clever notion and that.

If one could maintain this simplicity,supreme bona fides, sincerity of moodand temper, and care about one's religionmainly and especially with reference tothose features in it which are truly andstrictly religious, I believe the gainwould be great. And gradually andnaturally, I suppose, there would comeabout a certain discrimination betweenwhat is necessary in religion, and whatis more or less superfluous, and, if em-phatically insisted on, tends even tobecome harmful. But I most firmlybelieve that to a sound and sincerereligious temper much that may in it-self be superfluous can fall into its placeand be in no way dangerous. I do notthink controversy is useful, but mis-chievous. Yet a sense of sanity and


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RELIGION 81proportion, if it could be promoted byconcentrating attention on the simpleessence of religion, would, I believe, beof very great religious value.

THE END

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