There is much in Mrs. Eddy's book and in the contemporary teaching of the sect that does not commend itself to the enlightened. As in the case of most religions, what is untrue and what is barren is reverenced and retained through its association with a great and needed truth. But if we are to reject a faith because its founders mingled with it much that is irrational, which religion can retain our allegiance! There are, indeed, practical dangers connected with Christian Science -the danger of neglecting the resources of modern medicine and surgery, together with the proved advantages of disinfection, quarantine, and hygiene in general; the danger, potential in every highly centralized organization, of dominating the minds of multitudes and using its power and money for harmful ends; the danger of opposing scientific education and keeping the minds of its followers on an irrational level. That Christian Science is not scientific needs no argument; and in what material or mental ways that Church may harm the life of the community is yet to be seen. But surely the physical and spiritual good that it has done far outweighs any present evil.

We must recognize that when Mrs. Eddy's disciples say that pain and evil are "unreal," they are using the word in the Platonic sense; "real" is to them a eulogistic word

as

it has been, and is, for so many philosophers - meaning what belongs to the spiritual or ideal order. Whatever does not belong to this order has a less worthy kind of existence, and is to be counted out. Plato called it Mǹ öv "nonexistent"-or, perhaps we should translate it, "not to exist"; Mrs. Eddy calls it "error." The words matter little; the practical point is, these evils must not exist for us, must not find a place in our world. Just as when we adopt any ideal we cease to compute and calculate, but throw ourselves whole-heartedly upon that side, so in our emotional reaction upon life we are to have eyes only for the good and refuse to

see anything else. It is treating the world that is our home as we ought to treat our wives and mothers and dearest friends; it is our world, we love it and are loyal to it, for us it shall have no faults.

No doubt for the Christian Scientist himself our appreciation of his faith would seem inadequate; for him it is not an attitude, it is a recognition of what is objectively so. But, leaving this point for the present,1 we may at least agree that Stoic and Christian Scientist and the other thoroughgoing eulogists of the world attain to an inward peace that marks out their faith as having in it something of great human worth. It is possible in far greater degree than most of us realize to banish fear and grief from our lives and attain to an invulnerable peace. The early Christians attained to it — cf. Justin Martyr's, "You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us!" 2 The early Buddhists attained to it "Enter on this path and make an end of sorrow; verily the path has been preached by me, who have found out how to quench the darts of grief.. He who overcomes this contemptible thirst [the desire for the good things of life and rebelliousness at ill fortune], . . . sufferings fall off from him like water-drops from a lotus leaf."3 In recent years it has been attained in marked degree by Bahaists, by some of the followers of the "New Thought," 5 as well as by many humble Christians of all sects, and by one here and there who has

...

4

1 For further discussion of Christian Science, see pp. 182-83 and 325-26. And cf. S. L. Clemens, Christian Science; L. P. Powell, Christian Science; J. H. Leuba, Psychological Study of Religion, pp. 301-07; J. V. Morgan, ed., Theology at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, pp. 369–401; G. B. Cutten, Psychological Phenomena of Christianity, chap. xvi; W. Riley, American Thought, pp. 43-53.

2 For illustrations of the inward peace of the early Christians, see Edgehill, The Spirit of Power, chap. VI.

3 Dhammapada, vss. 275, 336.

See, e.g., Harvard Theological Review, vol. 7, p. 339.

5 See, e.g.,

Horace Fletcher's Forethought minus Fearthought, or R. W. Trine's What all the World's A-Seeking; In Tune with the Infinite.

found the way for himself.1 But Christian Science deserves praise for doing more than any other contemporary force to turn human lives to the sunlight and banish the shadows from their hearts. The therapeutic value of this sunnier attitude is great. But Christian Science is more than a method of bodily healing, it is a way of bringing inward unity and peace into distracted and restless human nature. Its insight must be incorporated into the catholic and inclusive Christianity of the future.

Charity, Piety, Service: A. Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity, bk. п, chap. I. F. J. Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, chaps. IV-VI; Jesus Christ and the Social Question. H. Drummond, Greatest Thing in the World (in Essays). Harnack and Herrmann, The Social Gospel. J. H. Newman, Love, The One Thing Needful (in Parochial and Plain Sermons). J. Royce, Problem of Christianity, vol. 1, pp. 74-105. E. A. Edghill, The Spirit of Power, chap. VII.

Religious Joy and Peace: J. H. Newman, Religious Joy, Religion Pleasant to the Religious (in Parochial and Plain Sermons). G. M. Stratton, Psychology of the Religious Life, pt. 1. G. B. Cutten, Psychological Phenomena of Christianity, chaps III-IV. G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, chap. XVI; Orthodoxy, chap. v. W. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, chaps. XVI-XVII. E. Underhill, The Mystic Way; Mysticism. W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism. W. M. Scott, Aspects of Christian Mysticism. O. Kuhns, Sense of the Infinite.

1 Cf. Emerson, History, in Essays, vol. 1, "To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine."

CHAPTER XIV

THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION

How shall we determine the essence of religion?

WITH this hasty outline of the salient phenomena of religion, historical and psychological, before us, we may approach the question, What is the essence of religion, and how shall we define it?

We must at the outset realize the impossibility of framing a definition of religion that shall cover all of its historic aspects. There lie here before our eyes a confused and everchanging mass of emotions, beliefs, rites, and acts; there is no common factor that runs through them all, no one thing that all phases of religion have had in common that is not also to be found in other spheres of human activity. The religions are bound together by a historic development; but our contemporary civilized religion is as different from the religion of some barbarous tribe as it is from our own æsthetic life or our patriotism. For the matter of that, religion is apt to be so bound up with morality, with superstition, art, politics, all the other phases of man's life, that it is exceedingly difficult to sift out the elements to which its name should be given. This is particularly true, of course, of primitive life, where the differentiation of activities has not progressed far; 1 but even in our modern life other emotions and activities so interpenetrate and blend here and there with religion that it is a perplexing problem to draw boundaries and mark out its distinctive field. To attempt, then, to make our defi

1 Cf. F. de Coulanges, The Ancient City: "Law, government, and religion in Rome were three confused aspects of one thing." See, for an elaboration of this thought, Shotwell, chap. I.

nition inclusive would be, not only to make it so long and cumbersome as to be practically useless, but to include elements which are not present in all religions, and elements which religion shares with other human interests.

It is easy enough to point out, in the case of any of the familiar definitions of religion, that the formula, on the one hand, omits much that is conspicuous in historic faiths, or, on the other hand, covers acts or attitudes not usually thought of as religious. If, for example, we define religion, with Mr. Fielding Hall, as "the recognition and cultivation of all our highest emotions,"1 we seem to include in it love, patriotism, appreciation of beauty, and the rest. If we define it, with Reinach, as "a sum of scruples,' 992 we seem to include all of our morality, customary and individual. If we define it, with Menzies, as "the worship of higher powers," we seem to include a mass of barbarous superstitions and empty observances which had no value that we should usually call religious. And no one of these, or of the thousands of other definitions that have been proposed, connotes all of the aspects that have in this religion or that been most strikingly prominent.

3

The search for a common factor tends, moreover, to emphasize what is trivial rather than what is vital. Not by its early and crude forms, not by its sodden and uninspired devotees, is religion to be judged, but by what it becomes in the lives of the prophets and saints. No one who has known the loyalty and peace of a deeply religious life can be content to think of religion as an emotional debauch, or as a set of scruples, or, with Herbert Spencer, as a sense of the ultimate inscrutableness of the universe. Mystery and emotion may be, as Professor Shotwell says, "constant elements"; they may be the connecting links between the primitive welter of 2 Orpheus, p. 2.

1 The Hearts of Men, p. 298.

3 History of Religions, p. 7.