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35 chapters
To F. W. FOSTER.
To F. W. FOSTER.
As my first book, "The Soul of a People," would probably never have been completed or published without your encouragement and assistance, so the latter part of this book would not have been written without your suggestion. This dedication is a slight acknowledgment of my indebtedness to you, but I hope that you will accept it, not as any equivalent for your unvarying kindness, but as a token that I have not forgotten....
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RELIGION.
RELIGION.
"The difficulty of framing a correct definition of religion is very great. Such a definition should apply to nothing but religion, and should differentiate religion from anything else—as, for example, from imaginative idealisation, art, morality, philosophy. It should apply to everything which is naturally and commonly called religion: to religion as a subjective spiritual state, and to all religions, high or low, true or false, which have obtained objective historical realisation."— Anon. "The
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
Some time ago I wrote "The Soul of a People." It was an attempt to understand a people, the Burmese; to understand a religion, that of Buddha. It was not an attempt to find abstract truth, to discuss what may be true or not in the tenets of that faith, to discover the secret of all religions. It was only intended to show what Buddhism in Burma is to the people who believe in it, and how it comes into their lives. Yet it was impossible always to confine the view to one point. It is natural—nay, i
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OF WHAT USE IS RELIGION?
OF WHAT USE IS RELIGION?
Of what use is religion? All nations, almost all men, have a religion. From the savage in the woods who has his traditions of how the world began, who has his ghosts and his devils to fear or to worship, to the Christian and the Buddhist with their religion full of beautiful conceptions and ideas—all people have a religion. And the religion of men is determined for them by their birth. They are born into it, as they are into their complexions, their habits, their language. The Continental and Ir
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EARLY BELIEFS.
EARLY BELIEFS.
The boy of whom I am about to write was brought up until he was twelve entirely by women. He had masters, it is true, who taught him the usual things that are taught to boys, and he had playfellows, other boys; but the masters were with him but an hour or two each day for lessons, and of the boys he was always the eldest. Those who have studied how it is that children form their ideas of the world, of what it is, of what has to be done in it, of how to do it, will recognise all that this means;
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IDEAL AND PRACTICE.
IDEAL AND PRACTICE.
Such was the boy who went to school, and such was the mental and moral equipment with which he started. He found himself in a new world. He had stepped out of a woman's world into a man's, out of the New Testament into the Old, out of dreams into reality. For the ideas and beliefs, the knowledge and understanding, the code of morality and conduct, in a big school, are those of the world. This filters down from the world of men to the world of little boys, and the latter is the echo of the former
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SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY—I.
SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY—I.
About this time he read the "Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man." This surprised him. It was not only that this was his first introduction to the science of biology, his first peep behind the curtain of modern forms into the coulisses of the world that interested him, but there was here contained a complete refutation, a disastrous overthrow, of all that system of the Creation which he had been taught. If Darwin was right, and he seemed to be right—nay, even his once adversaries now admi
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SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY—II.
SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY—II.
What thought the boy of these explanations? Do you think they helped him at all? Do you think he was able to accept them as real? Did they throw any light into the darkness of his doubts? The boy took them and considered them. He considered them fairly, I am sure; he would have accepted them if he could. For what he was looking for was simply guidance and light. He had no desire for aught but this. If he revolted now from the faith of his people it was because he found there neither teaching he
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WHENCE FAITHS COME.
WHENCE FAITHS COME.
From the East has come all our light. All world religions have begun there, have grown there, have mostly spread there. Brahminism and Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, Mahommedanism and Parseeism, the cult of the Taoists and Confucians, every belief that has been a great belief, that has led man captive, has come from the East. Even the Mythologies of Greece and Rome were from Asiatic sources, from Babylon and Chaldea. In the North we have originated only Thor and Odin, Balder and the Valkyri
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THE WISDOM OF BOOKS.
THE WISDOM OF BOOKS.
Therefore the man got books and read them. He read books on Hinduism, many of them; he read the Vedas and the sacred hymns. He learnt of Vishnu and Siva, of Krishna and the milkmaids. He found books on caste and read them, of how these were originally four castes which subdivided. He read of suttee and the car of Juggernauth. He then turned to Mahommedanism and the life of Mahommed. He read the Koran. He learned the early history of the faith, of its rise, of the glory of its result, of the fall
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GOD.
GOD.
Sitting on the hillside when the hot season was coming near its end he saw the thunderstorms come across the hills. From far away they came, black shadows in the distance, and the thunder like far off surf upon the shore. Nearer they would grow and nearer, passing from ridge to ridge, their long white skirts trailing upon the mountain sides, until they came right overhead and the lightning flashed blindingly, while the thunder roared in great trumpet tones that shuddered through the gorges. The
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GOD AND LAW.
GOD AND LAW.
Think what a difference, what an immense difference, it makes to a man which he believes, how utterly it alters all his attitude to the Unknown, to the Infinite, whether he believes in God or in Law. For among all religions, all faiths, all theories of the unknown there are only these two ideas, Personality or Law, free will or inevitableness. And how different they are. In the face of eternity there are two attitudes: that of the Theist, whether Christian or Jew, Hindu or spirit worshipper; and
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THE WAY OF LIFE.
THE WAY OF LIFE.
Perhaps it does not matter. It may be that all this speculation about the First Cause, about the Ruling Power of the world, is unnecessary. What matter if God be inscrutable, if He has given us commands for our lives that are clear, if He has laid down for us His will that we should follow. Even if Law be not a full explanation, even if a knowledge of all Law would not mean a knowledge of everything, what would this signify if we can see enough of the laws that govern our lives so to order ourse
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HEAVEN.
HEAVEN.
"I am not getting on very well," he thought. "I have looked for three things, and two I am sure I have not found. I have found nowhere any explanation of the Universe, of the First Cause; I have found nowhere any true rule of life. Yet these are two of the three 'truths' that the faiths offer to me as inducements to believe. 'We will give you,' they say, 'a theory of this world and of its origin which is true, which will help you in this life because it will show you what you are and the world i
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THEORIES AND FACTS.
THEORIES AND FACTS.
There is a festival to-day among the coolies. All night, from down in the valley where their huts are, has come the sound of tom-toms beating. And this morning there has been no roll-call, no telling off the men to making pits and the women to weeding. The fields have been empty, and the village which is usually so abandoned by day, is full of people. They have roamed lazily to and fro or sat before their doorways in the sun talking and waiting, for the ceremony is not till noon. It begins with
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CREED AND INSTINCT.
CREED AND INSTINCT.
I had six years of that life in India. I passed six years living in a solitary bungalow miles away from any other European, meeting them but occasionally, six years with practically no intercourse at all with the natives. For the jungle people who lived in the hills were few, and savage, and shy; and besides these, there were only a few Hindu or Mahommedan shop-keepers in the main bazaar, and the great crowd of coolie-folk who cultivate the estates. It was not a life in which it was possible to
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RELIGIOUS PEOPLE.
RELIGIOUS PEOPLE.
It will not be denied, I think, that even in England, where we pride ourselves so much upon our religiousness, where we have a hundred religions and only one sauce, the only country except Russia where the head of the State is also the head of the National Church, that even in England religion is unevenly divided. Men do not take to it so much as women, some men are attracted by it more than others, some women more than the rest of women. We find it in all qualities, in all depths, from the thin
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ENTHUSIASM.
ENTHUSIASM.
Such are the qualities and such the circumstances that increase and nourish religious feeling, of such are the more religious of all peoples. What is the result in their lives? Does their religion cause them to live more worthy lives? Are the more deeply religious those whom the world at large most deeply respects? What is the effect of their religion in their lives? I am not speaking here of professors of religion, of priests or monks, of fakirs or yogis, of any whose lives are directly devoted
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STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS.
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS.
Has, then, a force, or a teaching that is capable of excess, no use? If you look back at the histories of peoples, at the histories of their great wars, their movements, their enthusiasms, you will find that on one side or another, usually on both, religion has been invoked to their aid. For one side or for both the enthusiasm has been declared to be a religious enthusiasm, the war a religious war, the awakening of thought a religious awakening. The gods fought for the Greeks before Troy as the
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MIND AND BODY.
MIND AND BODY.
"I have been lent your book 'The Soul of a People,'" said a lady to me, "but I have only had time so far to read the dedication. Do you know what I exclaimed?" "I cannot even guess," I replied. "I said, 'How very scientific.' Do you know what I meant?" As my dedication is to the Burmese people, and only says I have tried always to see their virtues and forget their faults, as a friend should, I was quite unable to see where the science came in, and I said so. "It is Christian Science," she told
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PERSONALITY.
PERSONALITY.
There is one complaint that all Europeans make of the Burmese. It matters not what the European's duties may be, what his profession, or his trade, or his calling—it is always the same, "the Burmans will not stand discipline." It is, says the European, fatal to him in almost all walks of life. For instance, the British Government tried at one time in Burma to raise Burmese regiments officered by Europeans, after the pattern of the Indian troops. There seemed at first no reason why it should not
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GOD THE SACRIFICE.
GOD THE SACRIFICE.
It is Sunday to-day in the little Italian town, and they have been holding a procession. I do not know quite what was the reason of the procession; it is the feast day of the patron of the Church, and it is connected in some way with him, but quite how no one could tell me. It was the custom, and that sufficed. It was not a very grand procession, for the town is small, but there was the town band playing at the head, and there were girls in twos singing and priests, also in pairs, singing, and t
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GOD THE MOTHER.
GOD THE MOTHER.
The only other form in which the Christ is presented to popular adoration is as a baby in the Madonna's arms. Out of all the life of Christ, all the varied events of that career which has left such a great mark upon the Western world, only the beginning and the end are pictured. Christ the teacher, Christ the preacher, the restorer of the dead to life, the feeder of the hungry, the newly arisen from the grave, where is He? The great masters have painted Him, but popular thought remembers nothing
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CONDUCT.
CONDUCT.
Of all aspects of religion none is so difficult to understand as the relation of religion and conduct. It is ever varying. There seems to be nothing fixed about it. What does conduct arise from? It takes its origin in an instinct, and this instinct is so strong, so imperious, so almost personal, that of all the instincts it alone has a name. It is conscience. By conscience our acts are directed. There are scientific men who tell us that our consciences are the result of experience, partly our ow
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MEN'S FAITH AND WOMEN'S FAITH.
MEN'S FAITH AND WOMEN'S FAITH.
There is a faith—Judaism—which originated so far back that we have only a legendary account of it. It was the cult of a warrior nation whose ideal was bravery and whose glory was war, who considered the rest of the world as Philistines and treated them ruthlessly, who kept themselves as a nation apart. Nineteen hundred years ago there arose among them a prophet, said to be of the ancient kingly house. He preached a doctrine which prescribed as the rule of life mildness and self-denial, renunciat
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PRAYER AND CONFESSION.
PRAYER AND CONFESSION.
What is the most general, the most conspicuous form in which religion expresses itself? Is it not in prayer? Where is the religion that is without prayer? There is none. And perhaps, too, it is the very first expression of religion, that when the savage fell and prayed the lightning to spare him, he was inaugurating the greatest religious form the world has known. What a wonderful thing it is, wonderful in every form, beautiful wherever you see it—from the glorious masses sung in the cathedrals
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SUNDAY AND SABBATH.
SUNDAY AND SABBATH.
I am not sure that in such an enquiry as this history is of much avail. I do not find that those who search into the past to write the history of it ever discover much that is of use to-day. It seems to me that in tracing an idea, or a law, or a custom, historians are satisfied with giving an account of its growth or decay as if it were the life of a tree. They do not enquire into the why of things. They will tell you that an idea came, say, from the East and was accepted generally. They do not
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MIRACLE.
MIRACLE.
It is some years ago now—about twenty, I think—that we first heard of the beginning of a new religion, the arrival of a new prophetess who was to unfold to us the mystery of the world and teach us the truths of life. And this religion began as other religions have been said to begin, this prophetess claimed belief as other teachers are said to have done, by her miraculous powers. She could do things that no one else could do: she could divide a cigarette paper in halves, and waft half through th
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RELIGION AND ART.
RELIGION AND ART.
"This is not the place, nor have I space left here, to explain all I mean when I say that art is a mode of religion, and can flourish only under the inspiration of living and practical religion."— Frederic Harrison. "No one indeed can successfully uphold the idea that the high development of art in any shape is of necessity coincident with a strong growth of religious or moral sentiment. Perugino made no secret of being an atheist; Leonardo da Vinci was a scientific sceptic; Raphael was an amiab
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WHAT IS EVIDENCE?
WHAT IS EVIDENCE?
If you go to any believer in any religion—in any of the greater religions, I mean—and ask him why he believes in his religion, he has always one answer: "Because it is true." And if you continue and say to him, "How do you know it is true?" he will reply, "Because there is full evidence to prove it." He imagines that he is guided by his reason, that it is his logical faculty that is satisfied, and his religion can be proved irrefragably. And yet it is strange that if any religion is based on asc
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THE AFTER DEATH.
THE AFTER DEATH.
It is two years and a half ago now that I passed through Westminster Hall, one of a great multitude. They went in double file, thickly packed between barriers of rails on either side the hall, and between where everyone looked there lay—what? A plain oak coffin on a table. Within this coffin there lay the body of Mr. Gladstone, he who in his day had filled the public eye in England more than any other man. His body lay there in state, and the people came to see. Emerging into the street beyond a
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OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM.
OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM.
Thus are the heavens of all religions explanations to materialise, as it were, the vague instincts of men's hearts. The Mahommedan's absolutely material garden of the houris, the Christian semi-material heaven, the Buddhist absolutely immaterial Nirvana, are all outcomes of the people's capability of separating soul from body. These heavens are just as the dogmas of Godhead, or Law, or Atonement, but the theory to explain the fact, which is in this case the desire for immortality. And in exactly
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WAS IT REASON?
WAS IT REASON?
Reason and religion have but little in common. They come from different sources, they pursue different ways. They are never related in this order as cause and effect. No one was ever reasoned into a religion, no one was ever reasoned out of his religion. Faith exists or does not exist in man without any reference to his reason. Reason may follow faith, does follow faith; never does faith follow reason. Is it indeed always so? Then how about the boy told of in the earlier chapters? He was born in
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WHAT RELIGION IS.
WHAT RELIGION IS.
What, then, is religion? Do any of the definitions given at the beginning explain what it really is? Is it a theory of the universe, is it morality, is it future rewards and punishments? It may be all or none of these things. Is it creeds, dogmas, speculations, or theories of any kind? It is none of these things. Religion is the recognition and cultivation of our highest emotions, of our more beautiful instincts, of all that we know is best in us. What these emotions may be varies in each people
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THE USE OF RELIGION.
THE USE OF RELIGION.
But granted, people may say, that religion is what you say, a cult of the emotions, of what use is it? Why should these emotions be cultivated at all? You say that they are beautiful because they are true, and that they are true because they are of use. Of what use are they? Some can be explained perhaps, but not most—not the instinct of God, for instance, nor of Law, nor the instinct of prayer. It seems to me that unless you can prove that they are true, essentially true conceptions, they canno
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