"Allen gehört was du denkst:

Dein eigen ist nur was du fühlest."-SCHILLER.

"Haec non pro me loquor, ego enim in alto omnium vitiorum sum, sed pro illo cui aliquid acti est."-SENECA.

"Noli quaerere quis haec scripserit, ne te auctoritas scribentis offendat sed amor purae veritatis te ad legendum trahat."

:

-IMITATIO.

"Io feci per far bene tutto quanto potevo. Se invece feci male, pensi il lettore che anche a far male costa fatica, e s'incontra difficolta."

THE GREAT AND GOOD

CHAPTER I

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY

"Cast aside your mud idols [superstitions] and fix your eyes upon the Truth."-EPICTETUS.

"Beware lest in the general wreck of superstition, of false systems of government, and false theology, we lose sight of morality, of humanity [religion], and of the theology [philosophy] that is true."-THOMAS PAINE, "Age of Reason."

"None are worthy of the name of men but those who walk by the dictates of eternal Reason, and who love and follow the guiding ray [the Inner Light] that is vouchsafed from above to every man." -ARCHBISHOP FÉNELON.

THE Word Religion has no fixed meaning: each sect and denomination will give you a different answer if you ask in what Religion consists. In Romanist countries a man is called religious who shuts himself up in a monastery and leads a life of idleness. Protestants associate Religion with a series of complicated and irrational dogmas. Many persons who have not thought much about

A

Religion go through life with a vague idea that it has something to do with churches and services and prayers. But there exists a large and increasing number of sober, thoughtful, and educated men in this country and elsewhere who think quite otherwise about the nature of Religion, and who disconnect it absolutely from churches and services and prayers. How, then, are we to come at the truth?

Suppose that you had to explain the nature of bread to a native of northern Siberia, you would be compelled to clear the ground first by explaining to him that bread does not consist of birchbark. Similarly, if you wish to find out what Religion really is, you must examine each of those ingredients which are supposed to constitute Religion, and you must make certain whether it is essential or an adulteration.

Let us first examine Theology and enquire whether it is or is not an essential element in Religion. Now, however we may define Religion, whatever may be our conception of it, we shall probably all agree that it must be something simple, practical, vital, having a direct bearing upon conduct. Matthew Arnold said that conduct is three-fourths of life: he might have gone farther and stated that conduct is the whole of life.

First, theology cannot be identified with Religion because it is not simple, but extremely complicated: so much so that no agreement

whatever exists upon theological questions. "The Religion of theology is still a mystery, even to the most learned, but the religion of duty is plain, even to a child" (Sir John Lubbock). Truth is ever plain, and subtlety is near akin to falsehood.

Next, theology is excluded because it is not practical, and has no direct bearing on life and conduct. We see men of the highest character holding the most grotesque and ludicrous theological opinions. And conversely we very frequently see men of the vilest character who are bigoted adherents of those theological ideas which happen at the moment to be in vogue. Clodd in his "Story of Creation" has something to this effect. When it shall be seen that theology has nothing whatever to do with man's duty to his fellows, then theology and Religion will no longer be united.

In the third place, theology is a source of discord, dividing good men into hostile camps. Religion, on the other hand, unites: religat religio. This, in fact, is probably the original meaning of the word. We read that in Greece the earliest unions were religious. So must all unions be at all times and in all places. For whatever our definition of Religion, we must see in it, as did the Hellenes of old, the only power which can mitigate the merciless severity of human competition.

Again, Religion must be something which