LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON. N. J. 
 
 Presented by 
 
 mr5,'S".ui.2)oW5, 
 
 BX 8721 .V76 1910 
 Vrooman, Hiram, b. 1871. 
 Religion rationalized 
 
THE NUNC LICET PRESS 
 
 42 WEST COULTER ST., PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 I9IO 
 
Copyrighted by 
 Rev. Hiram Vrooman 
 1910 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 LOVING MEMORY TO 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/reiigionrationalOOvroo_0 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Introduction i 
 
 II. Love and Truth not Abstractions but 
 
 Realities lo 
 
 III. The Criterion of Truth and the Standard of 
 
 all Values 35 
 
 IV. The Essential Difference between Theology 
 
 and Psychology 46 
 
 V. Some Important Discriminations 59 
 
 VI. Doing One's Greatest Possible Good 76 
 
 VII. The Analogy between Applied Science and 
 
 Applied Theology gg 
 
 VIII. The Spiritual Sciences of the Future 121 
 
 IX. Some Proposed Substitutes for the Church. 136 
 
 X. Phariseeism 146 
 
 XI. The Future of Missionary Work 157 
 
 XII. The Function and the Future of the Church . 164 
 
 V 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 HEGLGGY, or religion intellectually 
 
 1 considered, is thought of generally as 
 nothing more important, relatively, than 
 one of the score or more of the natural 
 sciences. This is a misconception, all but 
 fatal to theology, religion and the church. 
 Theology is ideally and really not one of 
 the many sciences but the actual counter- 
 part of all the sciences collectively — in the 
 sense of being co-extensive with them and 
 of representing as many facts as they do. 
 This can be shown to be true because Hu- 
 man-nature and Nature are two co-exten- 
 sive realms of reality; and between the 
 
 I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 phenomena of these great realms there 
 exists an analogy even to minutest particu- 
 lars. Theology deals primarily with the 
 facts of Human-nature and Science pri- 
 marily with those of Nature. This will be 
 abundantly shown in the following pages. 
 It means, among other things, that under 
 the term theology, as distinguished from 
 the term science, there is to be what 
 could be called a spiritual mathematics, a 
 spiritual chemistry, a spiritual geology and 
 the like, all dealing specifically with cer- 
 tain groups of realities potential in Hu- 
 man-nature as distinguished from material 
 Nature. 
 
 Perhaps the chief reason why the church 
 has, for the time being, lost its hold on the 
 respect and veneration of men is because 
 science, within the past century, has come 
 to represent a mass of definite and authentic 
 information so much vaster and more sub- 
 
 2 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 lime than the theories and assertions of 
 theology as to cause theology to shrivel into 
 comparative insignificance. Another impor- 
 tant reason is that the race has advanced 
 or improved in mentality and spirituality, 
 and therefore demands in religion some- 
 thing quite as rational as it demands in 
 science. 
 
 The prediction may be made with perfect 
 assurance that the theology of the church 
 in the not distant future, when compared 
 with the theology of the church of today, 
 will represent an increase of learning in 
 the realm of spiritual realities quite equal 
 to the present increase of scientific learning 
 in the realm of material realities over that 
 of a century ago. The theology of our fore- 
 fathers is as deficient for present needs in 
 religion as the science of our forefathers 
 would be deficient for present material 
 needs. Theological knowledge as well as 
 3 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 scientific must necessarily forever continue 
 to increase. 
 
 Theology has become deplorably mis- 
 judged, discredited and unappreciated be- 
 cause of its identity with many creeds and 
 dogmas which are known to be false and 
 which stand as towering barriers to progress. 
 It should be borne in mind, however, that 
 creeds and dogmas are words as applicable 
 to science as to theology. Ideally theology 
 is as free from irrational creeds and dogmas 
 as is science and, as a matter of fact, science 
 at one time was as much polluted by such 
 creeds and dogmas, and as much impeded 
 in its growth, as theology is to-day. 
 
 The scientific dogma, for instance, that 
 the earth was the centre of the universe and 
 was flat, and that the sun, moon and stars 
 revolved around it, did not originate, as 
 often believed, in the Bible or in the church. 
 It was supposed to be confirmed by the 
 4 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 Bible, and was sanctioned and maintained 
 for centuries by the church, but it had its 
 origin in the false appearances of Nature, 
 and was first asserted by Gentile philos- 
 ophers before the time of Christ. Indeed, 
 there have been nearly as many false scien- 
 tific dogmas as there are deceitful appear- 
 ances in Nature. Even now, in this boast- 
 ful epoch in the conquering march of science, 
 when honesty, honor and the power of 
 demonstration are claimed as the peculiar 
 attributes of science, we still have remaining 
 some most humiliating examples of dis- 
 honesty, dishonor and complete failure to 
 demonstrate the truth of the hypotheses 
 advanced in some of our sciences, notably 
 in the science of political economy as it is 
 expounded by the so-called orthodox school. 
 The unwarranted and absurd dogmas of 
 economic science are today sufficiently mani- 
 fest to give perfect illustration of the fact 
 5 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 that unproved dogmas are to be found in 
 science as well as in theology. False dogmas 
 in both science and theology almost in- 
 variably originate in misleading appear- 
 ances or in the sophistries bom of selfish 
 personal interests. Dogmas, once asserted, 
 have usually been maintained and perpet- 
 uated by authority — secular as well as re- 
 ligious! During all the ages up to about a 
 century ago our sciences, so resplendent and 
 luxuriant now, were but so many kernels 
 in their respective shells or coverings of 
 dogma. The favorable springtime of human 
 evolution having finally arrived, however, 
 the sciences put forth their roots and sprouts 
 and, by means of a freer and less restricted 
 growth, have caused material civilization 
 to advance, in about one hundred years, 
 further than during all the preceding cen- 
 turies of human history! Recent scientific 
 developments have made of our epoch a 
 6 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 new age in the sense of its being an incom- 
 parable one. 
 
 Theological kernels, apparently, were des- 
 tined to lay aside their coverings of dogma 
 a full century later than the scientific ones, 
 when the springtime should be farther ad- 
 vanced and warmer with love, for they are 
 only now sending up their first tender 
 sprouts. But in these theological shoots 
 may be seen, already, the promise of a 
 progress in spirituality, during the century 
 that is upon us, that will be the equal or the 
 counterpart of the material progress that 
 has caused our age to be so entirely without 
 precedent. 
 
 The chief purpose of this little volume 
 is to show, first of all, that religion is con- 
 cerned primarily with definite and concrete 
 facts and realities, just as science is, and 
 then that it is concerned with a realm of 
 reality no less extensive than the immeasur- 
 7 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 able heights and breadths and depths of 
 all the immortal potentialities or possibilities 
 of Human -nature, that this spiritual realm 
 is co-extensive with Nature itself and that 
 the two realms are related in a peculiar 
 and vital way by means of which an exact 
 and precise analogy or correspondence exists 
 between the two realms. Thus an attempt 
 is made to prepare and point out the way 
 for the actual proof of some of the basic 
 spiritual facts upon which any or all true 
 religion must rest. 
 
 The assertion that theology, which seems 
 to represent but a remote and questionable 
 comer on the area of human knowledge, has 
 within it the potentialities which prophesy 
 for it a growth and expansion equal to the 
 progress that is possible to all the sciences 
 collectively, will seem surprising and perhaps 
 even extravagant to some. But I believe 
 that a careful reading of the following chap- 
 8 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ters will cause them to see that the greatest 
 discoveries of the twentieth century will be 
 in the great and largely unexplored realms 
 of spiritual reality. 
 
 9 
 
II 
 
 LOVE AND TRUTH NOT ABSTRACTIONS BUT 
 
 HE prevailing conceptions of love and 
 
 1 truth in Christendom today remind us 
 of the conceptions of heat and light which 
 prevailed in the scholastic world a few cen- 
 turies ago. 
 
 Heat and light were as mysterious as 
 ghosts. They were vague abstractions. 
 They produced certain effects and made 
 men happy at some times and miserable 
 at other times. Yet they were so intangible 
 as to seem to be incomprehensible. Sound 
 and wind were two other similar spirit-like 
 appearances. 
 
 Did you ever stop to think what it has 
 meant to science and to the progress of 
 
 REALITIES 
 
 lO 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 civilization to learn the simple fact that 
 heat and light and sound and wind are 
 forms of activity in matter? Ten thousand 
 of our best mechanical inventions could 
 never have been invented without this 
 discovery. Man is now far on his way 
 towards dominating the powers and forces 
 of Nature, but without the simple discovery 
 of this fundamental fact civilization could 
 now be but little in advance of what it was 
 a century ago. Important, however, as 
 was this discovery to science and to the 
 progress of civilization it was of no greater 
 importance to these than is the discovery 
 to theology and spirituality of the nature 
 of love and truth as realities. One of the 
 chief reasons for the inadequate theology 
 of the churches and for the blind groping 
 of religious teachers, is, that they do not 
 know what love and truth are in terms of 
 reality. They hold them still to be ab- 
 II 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 stractions without any basis of known 
 reality and, for the most part, inexplicable. 
 
 This ignorance, as will be showTi, is no 
 longer justifiable because theology can now 
 deal with love and truth as definite realities, 
 to be studied, interpreted and practically 
 utilized. Bear in mind that the theme of 
 science is Nature, but that the theme of 
 theology is Human-nature. It will be shown 
 that God also is the theme of theology 
 because of what is divinely Human in Him. 
 
 WTien a man thinks of his own thoughts 
 and feelings he is as much aware of the exist- 
 ence of Human-nature as he is of Nature 
 when he thinks of rocks and trees. He 
 furthermore recognizes that the laws in 
 the realm of Human -nature are as numerous 
 and as active and as inexorable as are the 
 natural laws of Nature. 
 
 It is said that Nature abhors a vacuum. 
 Indeed science cannot acknowledge the exist- 
 
 12 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ence of a vacuum, but assumes that all 
 space is occupied by matter. In like manner 
 Human-nature abhors so-called spiritual ab- 
 stractions which arise out of nothing. It 
 is as important in theology to think of 
 Human-nature as substantial (although not 
 material) as it is in science to think of space 
 as being occupied by matter. Any theology 
 which is not built upon the premise that 
 spirit or Human-nature is real, in the sense 
 of being substantial, is itself vacuous. 
 
 Did you ever stop to think upon what 
 grounds the earth is said to be substantial? 
 What is substance? A scientist will hold 
 a stone between his fingers and declare that 
 it is composed of material substances. His 
 only reason for so declaring, however, is 
 that the stone displays certain character- 
 istics or phenomena. It manifests such 
 qualities as size, shape, weight, color and 
 temperature. Now, if we throw the stone 
 13 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 away and pick out some human experience, 
 such, for instance, as friendship, we find that 
 it presents as many characteristics as the 
 stone in proof of its reality and substan- 
 tiality. To digress a moment, it should be 
 noted here that there is, of course, a differ- 
 ence between a reality and a substance. 
 Shape, for instance, is a reality but not a 
 substance. Any true abstraction predi- 
 cated of a substance is a reality. But I 
 expect to show that spirit is a primary 
 reality and, therefore, substantial, so that 
 from it abstract realities are predicated. 
 Now, to return again to our illustration, we 
 may see that as a stone is a combination of 
 several materials, so friendship is a combina- 
 tion of several emotions. Friendship oc- 
 cupies a relative position in a man's conscious 
 state at a given time according to its dom- 
 inance, and hence manifests what is equiv- 
 alent to size as a characteristic. It is large 
 14 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 or small, relatively, according to its position 
 among the other emotions conscious at the 
 time, such, perhaps, as jealousy, anxiety, 
 pride, confidence, zealous purpose, humility. 
 It proves to outweigh selfishness sometimes 
 by leading to personal sacrifice, and hence 
 a quality analogous to weight may be predi- 
 cated of it. Its color is changed frequently 
 when it is betrayed or abused. Friendship 
 may act upon such a thing as avarice as 
 effectively as a chemical acts upon rock 
 when it transforms rock into gases, and this 
 proves a vital relationship between it and 
 surrounding psychic or mental objects or 
 realities. Thus as many relative things or 
 characteristics or phenomena might be predi- 
 cated of friendship as of a stone. And, 
 likewise, as many abstractions might be 
 predicated of any human love as of any 
 material substance, and therefore, from the 
 standpoint of the scientist's own method of 
 15 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 reasoning, we are as much justified in de- 
 claring the substantiaHty or reality of spirit 
 as of matter. Theology must insist upon 
 the substantiality of spirit as confidently as 
 science insists upon the substantiality of 
 matter, because it has equally sufficient 
 reasons for so doing, and because only by 
 so doing, do the concrete things of Human- 
 nature become tangible objects of thought 
 to be observed and interpreted and prac- 
 tically used. Of course, the substantiality 
 of anything, whether it be spirit or matter, 
 is an uncertain and a relative term. The 
 chief point of the contention here is that 
 spirit is not derived from matter, neither 
 can spirit be predicated of matter. As a 
 matter of fact. Revelation gives us proof 
 that matter has derived its existence from 
 spirit. If this is so, then, spirit takes prece- 
 dence of matter as a substance, and matter 
 is a reality and a substance in the sense of 
 i6 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 being an offspring or effect of spirit, created 
 to be an instrumentality of service to human 
 souls. Matter and spirit then represent 
 two distinct realms of being, realms of sub- 
 stance, which are as distinct as body and 
 soul. 
 
 It is an unusual thing for materialistic 
 philosophers to acknowledge the substan- 
 tiality of spirit because they have unwar- 
 rantably dogmatised, and, without reason 
 assumed, that the soul is an effect arising 
 from matter as its cause. But Prof. Wm. 
 James acknowledges at least the substan- 
 tiality of spirit by saying:* "Similarly our 
 thoughts and feelings are affections or prop- 
 erties of our several souls, which are sub- 
 stances, but again not wholly in their own 
 right, for they are modes of the still deeper 
 substance of 'spirit'." In the same para- 
 graph he speaks of the "modes, attributes, 
 ♦Pragmatism, page 86. 
 
 3 17 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 properties, accidents, or affections, — use 
 which term you will — " which are to be 
 predicated of substance — either material or 
 spiritual. 
 
 If a dogmatic statement may be allowed 
 at this point, with the understanding that 
 it is dogmatic till proved further on, the 
 first definition may now be given of love and 
 truth: what heat and light are to Nature, 
 love and truth are to Human-nature. 
 
 The centremost physical fact of Nature is 
 the sun of pure fire sending out its radiations 
 of heat and light. This is the one fact that 
 gives determination to all other facts. Now, 
 note a fundamentally important parallel: 
 the centremost spiritual fact of Human- 
 nature is the personal God of infinite and 
 divine Love and Wisdom, sending out His 
 radiations of love and truth. This is the 
 one fact in Human-nature which gives de- 
 termination to all other facts. The differ- 
 i8 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ent forms of heat in this world are forms of 
 molecular activity caused by the constant 
 action of the sun, or "influx" from the sun; 
 and, in a parallel way, all human emotions 
 or affections are forms of activity within 
 the spiritual substances of Human-nature 
 caused by the constant action of God, or 
 influx from God. 
 
 If we see now how it might be (as later it 
 will be shown to be) that love and truth are 
 forms of activity within the substances 
 which compose a human soul, just as heat 
 and light are forms of activity within the 
 substances which compose the earth, and 
 that the source of this activity in a human 
 soul is God, just as the source of the activ- 
 ity in matter is the sun, then we have 
 made partial preparation, as will later be 
 seen, for a clear and discriminating under- 
 standing of the existence of the criterion of 
 truth in theology and the true standard 
 19 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 of values to be described in the next 
 chapter. 
 
 Looking at things scientifically again, we 
 observe that heat produces innumerable 
 effects. It will turn wood to coals of fire. 
 Not only so, but it is the primary contrib- 
 uting force which transforms clay into 
 wood by causing trees to grow. Sometimes 
 heat produces radiations of light, as from red- 
 hot iron and the flame of a lamp, but under 
 different conditions it sends forth black and 
 suffocating smoke without any flame. Now, 
 if we look from the theological standpoint 
 for the parallel of these facts in Human- 
 nature, we find that love produces equally as 
 numerous effects in human life, and, what 
 is more, effects that are precisely analogous. 
 Love will sometimes turn ordinary good reso- 
 lutions into burning zeal. Not only so. but it 
 is the chief contributing force which first 
 caused a man to form good resolutions. Love, 
 20 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 according to some of its combinations in 
 human experience, illumines the mind as by 
 a most brilliant light of truth, but, according 
 to other combinations, it darkens the mind 
 as by the very black smoke of falsity. 
 
 Before carrying this analogy between Na- 
 ture and Human-nature further, let us pause 
 to fasten securely in the memory the fact 
 which is now manifest, namely, that every 
 emotion, feeling, affection, motive, purpose, 
 or intention, by whatsoever name it may be 
 known, is nothing other than some form of 
 love activity within the substances of the 
 spirit or soul. Fear, anger, and revenge 
 are representative of innumerable evil emo- 
 tions. These are of the kind which fill the 
 mind with the smoke of false interpretations 
 of life. Kindness, humility, trustfulness in 
 Providence are representative of innumerable 
 good emotions which fill the mind with the 
 light of truth as from a flame. 
 
 21 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 In Nature, heat, under certain circum- 
 stances, is the chief cause of the great deserts. 
 Under certain conditions hot winds bum up 
 growing crops. It is heat which causes 
 earthquakes and volcanoes. It is heat, 
 furthermore, which causes floods, by first 
 drawing water into the atmosphere and 
 then causing it to precipitate upon the land. 
 Indeed, but little exercise of the imagination 
 is required to conceive of conditions on some 
 planet which would cause the stm's heat to 
 produce a lifeless desolation, covered over 
 with ashes and cinders, instead of a world 
 bringing forth an immortal humanity. We 
 see, therefore, that heat in Nature is de- 
 structive and wasteful under some circum- 
 stances, and is the chief contributing force 
 to construction, growth, and life under 
 other circumstances. 
 
 Fortunately for Nature, the various heat 
 activities in it are directed by Divine Provi- 
 
 22 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 dence in such a way as to insure an orderly 
 evolution, perfectly suited to fulfilling the 
 purpose for which it was created. This 
 purpose was, so far as we know, to assist as 
 an instrumentality in the hands of God, in 
 bringing forth an immortal humanity. Na- 
 ture in itself, however, thought of as some- 
 thing independent of the God who uses it 
 instrumentally and of the humanity which 
 is served by it, is dead and has no responsi- 
 bilities more than a machine. Human -nature, 
 on the contrary, carries certain responsi- 
 bilities in respect to its own evolution which 
 Nature does not have. Every man is in- 
 exorably responsible for helping to determine 
 whether the love activities within himself 
 are to be destructive or constructive, harm- 
 ful or helpful. A world wherein deserts 
 and floods and storms and earthquakes and 
 volcanoes prevail to such an extent as 
 utterly to destroy the vegetable and animal 
 23 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 kingdoms, is representative of or analogous 
 to the state of being of certain infernal 
 spirits. But a world, such as ours, wherein 
 the heat from the sun is so governed and 
 directed by Di\dne Providence as to bring 
 forth a regenerating humanity, vdth all of 
 the marvelous provisions that the world 
 contains for the present and future progress 
 of humanity, is representative of or analogous 
 to the state of being of a regenerating man 
 who is to be an angel. 
 
 Thomas Carh'le speaks of "The imspeak- 
 able divine significance," and states that 
 the true hero, of whom he is writing, is "The 
 great sotil open to the di\ane significance of 
 life." The German philosopher Fichte em- 
 ploys equally as high-sounding phraseology 
 when he speaks of the " Divine idea of the 
 world" as the "essence" underlying all 
 appearances, and further declares that the 
 true literary man, of whom he is writing, 
 24 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 "lives in" this "Divine idea." Maeter- 
 linck, in describing a similar vague and 
 abstract ideality, employs his favorite word 
 "Beauty." Even that truly great religious 
 teacher and pioneer, the late Henry Drum- 
 mond, when he entitles a book, "The Great- 
 est Thing in the World," by which is meant 
 "love," gives us little definite information 
 as to the real nature of love. 
 
 What do these expressions of Carlyle, 
 Fichte, Maeterlinck and Drummond mean 
 to us, and how do they help us, in the con- 
 crete experiences of life? When we are 
 immersed in the problems and anxieties of 
 life, what do they mean to us? When one's 
 employer has broken faith and dismissed 
 him from service, which has been the source 
 of his livelihood; when one's employee has 
 proved faithless and bungled his work ; when 
 one is distressed with delicate family com- 
 plications; at such times what guidance or 
 
 25 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 relief is to be had from the thought of Car- 
 lyle's "Unspeakable divine significance of 
 life, " or Fichte's " Divine idea of the world," 
 or Maeterlinck's "Beauty," or even Drum- 
 mond's "Greatest Thing in the World"? 
 In the vague and abstract realm in which 
 these are made to abide they are as the 
 northern lights seen in the skies, or as 
 golden stmsets, or beautiful clouds, to give 
 certain sensations of pleasure and exhilara- 
 tion at recess times, when all the serious 
 problems of life have been laid aside for a 
 while. But when we think of love as a 
 substantial and concrete emotional reality 
 which is present when talking business, 
 writing letters, making plans, holding social 
 intercourse, suffering bodily pain, then we 
 know that it is our responsibility to deal 
 with the particular love that may be present 
 at any given time with spiritual judgment 
 and according to the direction of truth. 
 26 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 There is never a wakeful moment when 
 some feeling or form of love is not present 
 or alive on the plane of consciousness. 
 And the particular thing of supreme im- 
 portance for any man at any particular 
 time is to deal with the particular love which 
 is dominant at the time as spiritual truth 
 would direct him. In traveling, the most 
 important step to be taken at any time is 
 the next step. The most important bridge 
 to be crossed at any time is the one imme- 
 diately confronting the person. And so, that 
 particular form of love which may be domi- 
 nant in an experience at any particular 
 time, whether that experience be chiefly 
 characterized by what we call anxiety or 
 trust, revenge or mercy, a bad one or a 
 good one. Is the particular love which 
 demands the attention right there and then. 
 The good or evil effect that it produces in 
 the life is entirely dependent upon one's 
 27 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 attitude toward it at the time of its appear- 
 ance in one's consciousness. 
 
 Scientists are frequently puzzled to know 
 what forms of heat are helpful to mankind 
 as a whole, and what ones harmful. The 
 heat which produces a desert causes great 
 waste. And yet there is to be considered 
 the climatic changes caused by the desert 
 which may add greatly to the value of the 
 regions adjacent to it. Severe winters cause 
 the death of many people. They also cause 
 the death of many germs, which, if allowed 
 to live, might cause the death of yet more 
 people. It is difficult for a scientist or 
 practical man to know when heat is good or 
 when heat is bad, but how much more 
 difficult is it for a man to know when his 
 loves are good and when they are bad! 
 Indeed, the supreme practical religious prob- 
 lem, with every man, is that of knowing 
 the difference between the good and evil 
 
 28 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 of his own loves — between selfishness and 
 unselfishness. If a man discovers a fire in 
 his house, he sends in the alarm and sets 
 himself to the task of putting out the fire. 
 There are some kinds of emotions which 
 come into our conscious lives, which, if not 
 immediately opposed and extinguished, will 
 cause certain spiritual losses in our character, 
 as great as the loss of one's home by fire. 
 How, then, are we to distinguish between 
 loves that are good and loves that are bad? 
 And how are we to know how to deal with 
 them as they come into our conscious ex- 
 perience? This, indeed, is a profound and 
 significant question. And, can you not see 
 that it is practically the same question that 
 Pilate asked of Jesus, "What is truth?" 
 The observations just made foreshadow the 
 answer to this profound question. Truth 
 in the theological sense might be defined as 
 that peculiar kind of enlightenment which 
 29 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 enables a man to distinguish between the good 
 and the evil of his own loves and to know how 
 to deal with them for his own best spiritual 
 growth and his consequent maximum of good 
 works. Theology is but the literary form 
 or statement of the partictdars of truth thus 
 defined. 
 
 Persons who make no distinction between 
 spiritual and material things say that truth 
 is simply that which stands for facts. Ac- 
 cording to the ordinary use of language, a 
 scientific fact could properly be called a 
 truth, but when our Lord declared that He 
 came to bear witness to the truth, we know 
 at once that "the truth" about which He 
 was speaking is something very different 
 from the ordinary facts of science. 
 
 There is the same distinction, as to kind, 
 between the Lord's truth and the ordinary 
 facts of science as between Nature and 
 Human-nature, as between a human emo- 
 30 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 tion and the heat of a stove, as between the 
 soul and the body — which distinction has 
 already been alluded to. 
 
 Let us look for a moment at what Jesus 
 Christ meant by Himself bearing witness 
 to the truth. He had experiences from the 
 time of His birth to His crucifixion, some- 
 what similar to the experiences of ordinary 
 men and women. He worked as a carpenter, 
 as a sailor, as a pedestrian, and did hundreds 
 of other things, as occasion required, which 
 caused Him to experience the sensations of 
 being tired and hungry and sleepy and many 
 others. When He was in the wilderness, 
 tempted of the devil, undoubtedly fears and 
 anxieties, with deep despondency and de- 
 jection, came into His experiences. Indeed, 
 we know that all of the evil loves that abide 
 inherently in degenerate Human-nature as 
 well as those in regenerate Human-nature, 
 came into His personal experiences, in the 
 31 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 sense of their being aroused by circumstances 
 and awakened to consciousness, according 
 to a certain orderly progression, during His 
 life in the world. Such emotions as hatred, 
 revenge, deceit, coveteousness, subtle am- 
 bition and all the rest that might be named, 
 without any exception, thrust themselves 
 into His experiences as they do, in less 
 numbers and milder forms, into ours. But 
 mark one of the most significant facts of 
 which mortal may take note: how did He 
 deal with these evil emotions that came 
 into His consciousness or into His personal 
 experiences? The manner in which He dealt 
 with these loves was the way that He "bore 
 witness to the truth." Does not a mathema- 
 tician bear witness to the facts of mathemat- 
 ics when he deals with his figures in such 
 wise as to work out a perfectly true result? 
 Does not the chemist bear witness to the 
 facts of chemistry when, in his laboratory, 
 32 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 he mixes certain chemicals so as to produce 
 a definite desired result? And so it was 
 with our Lord: in dealing with the Human- 
 nature with which he had clothed Himself 
 from the virgin Mary, He produced a cer- 
 tain result: that of an absolutely perfect 
 human growth. He dealt with all the in- 
 herent loves therein, as they came to the 
 plane of conscious experience, with abso- 
 lutely perfect wisdom — which was, indeed, 
 the wisdom of God who He Himself was. 
 Thereby He produced a growth or fruition 
 which was absolutely perfect, and thereby 
 presented to men a standard by which quali- 
 ties in human loves may be correctly com- 
 puted. 
 
 Sufficient it is, in this chapter, if we simply 
 sight remotely the existence of a distinc- 
 tively spiritual truth, by which men may 
 be enabled to deal wisely with their 
 loves. 
 
 3 33 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 The fundamental matter of discriminating 
 between good and bad qualities of human 
 loves is treated in several of the succeeding 
 chapters, particularly in Chapters III and 
 VII. 
 
 34 
 
Ill 
 
 THE CRITERION OF TRUTH AND THE STANDARD 
 OF ALL VALUES 
 
 IF there exists one single fact of sure 
 and positive knowledge, then there exists 
 a criterion of truth by which that fact 
 has been tested or verified. The method of 
 demonstrating facts by which they become 
 known for a certainty is the criterion of 
 truth for the facts so attested. And simi- 
 larly, any true knowledge of the value of 
 anything whatsoever is ascertained only by 
 means of a standard of values. The value 
 of a thing, the good or evil of it, is invariably 
 and necessarily determined by its relation 
 to something which we have correctly found 
 to be the standard of values. 
 I. The criterion of truth. 
 Men have always known that there were 
 
 35 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 some facts which they knew certainly. The 
 fact of consciousness, for instance, is one. 
 That two and two make four is another. 
 Hence, never has there been a time when some 
 small use has not been made of the criterion 
 of truth. It may fairly be said, however, 
 that not until modem times has the criterion 
 of truth been recognized as an objective real- 
 ity, itself to be studied and then employed 
 \^dth ever increasing effectiveness as a primal 
 instrumentality for new discoveries. It is 
 by the aid of the criterion of truth that 
 the modem world has suddenly developed 
 a marvelous ability to verify, demonstrate 
 and prove to a certainty an ever increasing 
 number of facts and conclusions. The chief 
 of the practical results of this ability is the 
 discrimination that is now made between 
 what men know arid what they do not know. 
 
 This criterion of tmth or method of be- 
 coming certain of one's facts has been em- 
 36 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ployed chiefly and almost exclusively by 
 scientists in their distinctive realm. And 
 even by them it was not employed in any 
 satisfactory way until modern times. By 
 theologians, it has scarcely as yet been em- 
 ployed at all in the realm of religion. But 
 before religion can be rationalized to any 
 satisfactory extent the criterion of truth 
 must be consciously recognized and purpose- 
 fully employed to separate spiritual facts 
 of sure and definite knowledge from beliefs 
 which are not matters of knowledge. There 
 is a faith which is knowledge and another 
 kind of faith which is belief in spite of the 
 absence of knowledge. These are two very 
 different things. 
 
 2. The standard of all values. 
 
 It is universally acknowledged that all truth 
 has value. Scientists seek after truth be- 
 cause they know as a self-evident fact that 
 intrinsic worth must necessarily be gained 
 
 37 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 with every new discovery and demonstration. 
 Some truths are more important than others, 
 hence, more valuable. Science has its stan- 
 dard of values. It may be defined with 
 approximate accuracy, as man's physical 
 and mental well-being during his temporal 
 stay in this world. The value of every scien- 
 tific fact is estimated, according to this 
 standard, by what it contributes to man's 
 material welfare. The use or abuse of 
 things, therefore, according to the scientific 
 estimate of values, is determined by their 
 effects upon man's physical and mental 
 welfare here and now. Even the pragmatic 
 philosophy, which declares a thing to be true 
 to the degree of its practical working or use, 
 recognizes no higher standard of values than 
 man's earthly welfare, and the practical 
 working or use of a thing is, hence, deter- 
 mined by the effect of that thing upon man's 
 worldly prosperity. 
 
 38 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 Religion, however, when it deals with the 
 phenomena of Human-nature, somewhat as 
 science deals with the- phenomena of ma- 
 terial Nature, discovers certain potentiali- 
 ties which indicate certain forms of well- 
 being and prosperity which men may experi- 
 ence after they leave this world. Whether 
 we speak of a standard of values or of 
 a man's "point of view," the same idea is 
 involved. Science looks at all facts and 
 phenomena from the point of view of man's 
 temporal and worldly prosperity, and hence 
 its standard of values is determined by what 
 it sees from that point of view. Religion, 
 however, looks at facts and phenomena from 
 the point of view of man's immortality, of 
 an ever advancing prosperity and develop- 
 ment which continues on forever. Hence, 
 the standard of value in religion may he 
 described with approximate accuracy as man's 
 eternal well-being or prosperity. It will 
 39 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 be seen that these two standards are very 
 different. It will furthermore be seen that 
 the spiritual standard, when adopted by 
 scientists, becomes a stimulus even to 
 purely scientific pursuits. 
 
 The awful mental confusion which pre- 
 vails in the religious or theological world 
 concerning its facts and beliefs, and which 
 does not seem to prevail in any alarming 
 degree in the scientific world, is largely be- 
 cause most religious thinkers ignore any 
 criterion of truth for theology and have no 
 clearly defined spiritual standard of values. 
 Scientists as individuals and colleges as 
 organizations form a great worldwide fed- 
 eration or union with no such differences as 
 divide the churches, and this is chiefly be- 
 cause their methods of determining the 
 difference between fact and belief, between 
 fact and probable truth, are definite and 
 universally recognized. Inasmuch as the 
 40 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 best possible progress of material civiliza- 
 tion (which is equivalent to "man's mental 
 and physical well-being here and now") 
 represents the standard for science, nearly- 
 all scientific men work in practical agree- 
 ment and as one great organized army of 
 investigators and demonstrators. But re- 
 ligious men have not as yet any such bind- 
 ing and co-ordinating standard as a bond 
 of union. This must yet be discovered. 
 
 It is impossible to over-estimate the im- 
 portance of the recognition of the criterion 
 of truth and the standard of values as the 
 chief of all the instrumentalities in enabling 
 the human reason to make true advance- 
 ment in either science or religion. In the 
 religious world particularly, fact and knowl- 
 edge cannot supersede the prevailing un- 
 reasonable creeds and dogmas until the 
 method, or the criterion of truth, is found 
 by which positively ascertained facts can 
 41 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 be distinguished from supposed facts; and 
 until the standard of values is found by 
 which all things can be seen in their relation 
 to man's chief interest. The standard of 
 all values must necessarily be the same thing 
 as man's "chief" interest, whatever, in the 
 nature of things, that may be. The question 
 then arises: What is man's chief interest? 
 Is there any special or particular interest 
 which, in the nature of things, and on ac- 
 count of what is potential in man, could be 
 truly said to be man's chief interest, in 
 relation to which the values of all other 
 interests are to be estimated? The ex- 
 ceedingly great importance of this question 
 is being brought home to us by much that 
 is being said in our so-called "most pro- 
 gressive ' ' and ' ' modem ' ' literature. In most 
 subtle and refined ways the questions are 
 being raised: How is right to be distin- 
 guished from wrong? what is morality? 
 42 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 what is honesty? what is righteousness? 
 are not our standards for such things mainly 
 the false notions which are the outcome of 
 hereditary prejudices and false sentiment? 
 may it not be that the standard for such 
 things is only what our less intelligent and 
 less thoughtful ancestors have supersti- 
 tiously believed? and will not the standard 
 change and be improved when people's 
 notions about these things change? 
 
 It is for religion to find this standard of 
 all values by the criterion of truth. If it 
 fails in this, theology is without purpose. 
 It will be evident to any thoughtful mind 
 that the only method of ascertaining what 
 this standard is, is that of studying the 
 potentialities of a human being. What do 
 regeneration and degeneration mean ? What 
 is meant by character and the lack of char- 
 acter? What is meant by growing into 
 the very best of what it is possible for one 
 
 43 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 to become, and by turning out to be the 
 very worst of what it is possible to become? 
 Evidently the standard of values is to be 
 determined by that which is discovered as 
 being the very best outcome to life that 
 is potentially possible. Those conceptions 
 of honesty and of justice and of morality 
 and of virtue and of purity and of righteous- 
 ness which, in the nature of things, contrib- 
 ute most effectively to a man's best possible 
 fruition, would be, according to the standard 
 of all values, right and good. The same 
 standard would declare that those other 
 conceptions of these things which divert 
 the direction of a man's development away 
 from his highest possible attainments are, 
 to the extent of their diverting influence, 
 bad. and evil, and wicked. Hence, it is not 
 a question of a theory or of any church dogma, 
 but, just as it is in science, so in religion, it 
 is a question of what is — and of finding it 
 44 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 out. Among the other things, therefore, 
 which this book endeavors to accompHsh, 
 is to show that it is one of the chief functions 
 of religion to point out or to reveal to man- 
 kind the standard of all values — in the light 
 of which the right and the wrong of things 
 will always stand revealed. 
 
 45 
 
IV 
 
 THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 
 THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 INASMUCH as psychology is the science 
 which treats of the phenomena of the 
 mind, it is supposed by many that if theology 
 were liberated from its irrational creeds 
 and dogmas its domain would be coex- 
 tensive with that of one of the subdivisions 
 of psychology, i. e., religious psychology. 
 It is of the utmost importance, at the very 
 beginning of any rational consideration of 
 religion, to understand the error of this 
 position. The simple fact, as will be shown, 
 is that psychology is deserving of no greater 
 dignity than to be classed as one of the 
 score and more of the natural sciences, 
 whereas theology, as was stated in the first 
 chapter, and as will be shown to be so in 
 46 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 succeeding chapters, has the preeminence of 
 being co-extensive with and analogous to all 
 the sciences collectively, including psychology. 
 
 All tolerably well informed persons are 
 familiar with the chief claims of psychology, 
 its leading achievements, and its general 
 scope as a science. It is needless and, 
 within the limits of our available space, 
 entirely impossible to enumerate the things 
 which psychology can do because such an 
 enumeration itself would require volumes. 
 Our object will be gained, and quickly, by 
 showing rather the one essential thing which 
 theology can, but which psychology cannot, 
 accomplish. A proper understanding of this 
 one essential thing which psychology cannot 
 do, but which theology can do, brings theol- 
 ogy at once before the mind in its real and 
 overshadowing importance. 
 
 The one supremely fundamental thing 
 which is lacking in psychology is the faculty 
 47 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 or power to ascertain the quality in human 
 loves or emotions. Psychology cannot dis- 
 cover or reveal any distinction whatever be- 
 tween selfishness and unselfishness in the 
 qualities of human affections, emotions or 
 loves. It cannot contribute the knowledge 
 necessary to the cultivation of unselfishness 
 in human character. It cannot illuminate 
 the question of personal rewards and pun- 
 ishments, as these may be the outcome of 
 selfish or unselfish developments of character. 
 This is, to be sure, a sweeping and far-reach- 
 ing statement. It is literally true, however, 
 and the truth of it, when seen, will cause the 
 dropping of the scales from the eyes which 
 have been one of the chief blinds to prevent 
 a true vision of Human-nature. 
 
 It is possible to have the kind of a religious 
 faith, which believes what is not known, with- 
 out having any understanding of the es- 
 sential distinctions which exist in the quali- 
 48 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ties of human loves. But all religious faith, 
 which is founded on what is definitely known, 
 must necessarily be based upon an actual 
 and true vision of real distinctions between 
 different qualities in human loves — qualities 
 determined by their relations to the spiritual 
 standard of values described in the preceding 
 chapter. The starting-point of any concrete 
 and definite theological knowledge is a true 
 vision of opposing qualities in human loves 
 where they stand revealed by contrast, as, 
 for instance, between pride and humility or 
 fear and confidence in God. Hence, nothing 
 but the vision which distinguishes truly 
 between the different qualities of human 
 loves leads one to the sure knowledge of a 
 divine revelation, immortality and other 
 like important religious facts. But, as 
 stated, psychology cannot, in the very 
 nature of things, deal with the spiritual 
 quality of a human life. 
 4 49 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 Some psychologists, to be sure, will refute 
 this statement and claim that psychology 
 does take note of the phenomena called 
 selfishness and unselfishness. Psychology 
 does have a certain method by which it 
 determines upon what it claims to be selfish 
 and unselfish qualities. We shall show, how- 
 ever, that the phenomenon which it names 
 selfishness and the other one which it names 
 unselfishness are not selfishness and unsel- 
 fishness, but are entirely different things. 
 Wherever it claims to make this distinction 
 it goes beyond its jurisdiction and fails. 
 It fails because it has no standard of perfect 
 quality in human life to judge from and no 
 method of finding one. In so far as it 
 claims to have such a standard or method 
 it puts forth a false claim. 
 
 The business of the truth seeker is to 
 find out what actually exists. It is known 
 that quality in human character must 
 50 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 necessarily exist. This means that there 
 must be differing or relative qualities rang- 
 ing from some lowest stratum to some 
 highest. Some psychologists, knowing from 
 theory or general principles that this must 
 necessarily be, have made efforts, by psych- 
 ological methods, to discover this hier- 
 archy of spiritual qualities and to make 
 discriminations between them. But when- 
 ever such attempts have been made they 
 have followed bHnd trails, for the simple 
 but sufficient reason that such investigation 
 is as impossible to the psychologist as the 
 scrutiny of the soul would be impossible 
 to the anatomist. 
 
 As an illustration of this contention, we 
 need only to consider the quality of that 
 human emotion known as "mother-love." 
 In so far as psychology claims to determine 
 upon the question of selfishness or unsel- 
 fishness it would affirm that mother-love is 
 51 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 unselfish. According to any standard which 
 psychology can select, mother-love would 
 be considered unselfish. But theology can 
 prove that mother-love is selfish with some 
 women and unselfish with others. The 
 mother-love of a woman who has the spirit 
 of a murderess is, according to theological 
 proofs, utterly selfish, whereas, according to 
 the deductions of psychology, her mother- 
 love would be as unselfish as that of a saint. 
 Such emotions or loves as those of friendship 
 and benevolence and their kind are like^vise 
 declared by psychology to be unselfish, 
 whereas theology proves that as they exist 
 in the lives of evil men they are utterly 
 selfish. 
 
 Theology shows that every man has his 
 ruling love. This ruling love is invariably 
 either essentially selfish or unselfish. What 
 the quality is of any man's ruling love has 
 been determined by the nature of his domi- 
 52 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 nating purpose or intention in respect to 
 the supreme things in life. If his ruling 
 love is essentially unselfish, then all of his 
 emotional experiences are in the direction 
 of improvement in the quality of all of his 
 loves, including those which are the basest. 
 But with the man whose ruling love is 
 essentially selfish all of his emotional ex- 
 periences are in the direction of further 
 degeneration. With him even his friend- 
 ship and benevolence and such supposedly 
 good loves are so misdirected by the ruling 
 love as to disregard the right, and to stand 
 for what is equivalent to intentional wrong. 
 Hence mother-love is itself selfish in a selfish 
 woman. 
 
 All have seen instances where the friend- 
 ships of evil men have led them to sacrifice 
 the common good for the temporary ad- 
 vantages of their friends, and here we 
 have another illustration of the selfish- 
 53 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ness of what psychology would claim was 
 unselfish. 
 
 Many other illustrations might be adduced 
 to show that whenever psychology attempts 
 to discriminate between selfish and unselfish 
 qualities of human loves it is mistaken as 
 often as any other mere guess work is mis- 
 taken. This is so because the work of mak- 
 ing such discrimination is entirely outside 
 the realm of its legitimate field. 
 
 Psychology can give its testimony as to 
 the existence of human emotions. This 
 fact, indeed, is the first one which is de- 
 monstrated and verified by personal con- 
 sciousness. Any rational man must ac- 
 knowledge that quality is to be predicated 
 of all human loves. When it comes to the 
 question of making ourselves acquainted 
 with quality in human life, then we arrive 
 at the point where cross-roads meet. All 
 must admit, however, that quality in any 
 54 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 human emotion, whatever it may be, is the 
 essential element of that emotion. One 
 cannot separate the idea of quality from any 
 human love or experience any more easily 
 than he can separate the idea of substance 
 from any material object. Hence, any ad- 
 equate or satisfactory knowledge of Human- 
 nature must necessarily include a knowl- 
 edge of the quality in the spiritual fabric 
 of a human life. 
 
 Those forms of mental development which 
 are conducive to success in this world are 
 identified with the natural plane or merely 
 surface phenomena of the mind, and these 
 are all subject to the scrutiny of psychology. 
 Even those developments of the will which 
 add to one's effectiveness as a material world 
 power may be dealt wuth by psychology. 
 All that is included in the commonly ac- 
 cepted meaning of the word "mentality" 
 is of the natural plane or of the surface 
 55 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 phenomena of the mind and can be dealt 
 with by psychology. But psychology can- 
 not make the slightest distinction between 
 those qualities of human character which 
 distinguish an angel from a devil. And 
 yet, the potentialities in every human life 
 are such as to reveal illimitable heights in 
 regeneration and unfathomable depths in 
 degeneration; and also, the continuation of 
 life to eternity, and indescribable rewards 
 and punishments. These potentialities in 
 human life represent a spiritual universe of 
 phenomenal fact with which psychology can 
 have nothing whatsoever to do. Theology, 
 on the contrary, can deal with these phenom- 
 ena within the potentialities of the human 
 mind and do it with an accuracy and a cer- 
 tainty equal to the accuracy and certainty 
 of science in its legitimate sphere, as will be 
 shown in this book. 
 
 It should be understood that, notwith- 
 56 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 standing the fact that neither psychology 
 nor any of the sciences is quahfied to dis- 
 cover or to demonstrate so much as one 
 distinctively spiritual truth arising from the 
 knowledge of quality in human loves, yet, 
 the majority of people have an accurate 
 knowledge of a sufificient number of verifi- 
 able spiritual truths to serve as the intel- 
 lectual basis of their respective religious 
 faiths so far as their faiths are true. The 
 question arises, By what mental processes 
 have religious people arrived at their knowl- 
 edge of spiritual truths? This point will 
 be dealt with in succeeding chapters, but 
 this much can be stated here: that any re- 
 ligious faith or belief which does not rest 
 securely on definite and concrete and de- 
 monstrated spiritual truths as its basis is 
 as insecure as a house without a foundation. 
 It is the part of unwarrantable presumption 
 to assert, however, that the only method of 
 57 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 obtaining that knowledge is by the use of 
 the scientific method. There is a spiritual 
 method which is analogous to the scientific 
 method which is equally productive of results. 
 
 58 
 
V 
 
 SOME IMPORTANT DISCRIMINATIONS 
 
 IT is fundamentally important in relig- 
 ious thinking to have a clear con- 
 ception of that reality for which the word 
 "truth" stands. And here I would re- 
 mark that, in all which this book contains, 
 the aim is simply to bring realities to view, 
 and not in the least to contest the meanings 
 of words. The object is to see realities and 
 to know them, and afterwards, or at the same 
 time, to use such words and phrases in 
 setting them forth as seem most appro- 
 priate. My plea is that the reader look with 
 me for the realities which are the objects 
 of our search, and if some words seem to 
 be given unusual or even unwarranted 
 meanings it should be overlooked. Inas- 
 much as theology is qualified to bring to 
 59 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 view many realities entirely new to the 
 world at present, it is evident that either 
 old words must be given larger meanings 
 or new words coined, because all things must 
 have words or signs to represent them. 
 
 In a preceding chapter it was stated that 
 "truth," meaning spiritual truth, might 
 be defined as that particular kind of en- 
 lightenment which enables a man to dis- 
 tinguish between the good and the evil of 
 his own loves, and to know how to deal with 
 them for his own best spiritual gro-wth, and 
 his consequent maximum of good works. 
 And in reference to Christ's statement that 
 He came to bear witness to "the truth" it 
 was stated that the manner in which He 
 dealt with the emotions or loves experienced 
 by Him during His thirty-three years of 
 life in this world, was the way that He 
 bore witness to the truth. 
 
 When we understand that there exists a 
 60 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 spiritual universe entirely different from 
 the material universe, and that the spiritual 
 universe is composed of the realities of 
 Human-nature, then we make one of the 
 first clear-cut distinctions which enables 
 us to think of "truth" as something differ- 
 ent from scientific facts. As stated before, 
 theology shows that a man has a supreme 
 interest, and that this supreme interest can- 
 not be discovered by any method which 
 science can offer. Granting the existence 
 of this supreme interest, there will be none 
 to dispute that all things in Nature and in 
 Human-nature are, first, related to every 
 man's supreme interest, and, secondly, so 
 related as to be either harmful or helpful. 
 "The truth" or spiritual truth could again 
 be defined as that enlightenment which 
 enables one to see the true relationship of 
 his present situation to his supreme in- 
 terest. 
 
 6i 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 It is important to discriminate between 
 truth as it stands independently of man's 
 attitude toward it and as it is influenced by 
 man's dealings with it. It is perfectly plain 
 that men do not create Nature. The truth 
 that Nature is we do not create. Neither 
 do men create gravity. Men do not create 
 the relationships between the stars. The 
 chemical relations between the different 
 substances of the material world represent 
 an infinite number of facts which may be 
 thought of as entirely distinct from our- 
 selves, and as eternal, and as things which 
 we neither created nor had any part in 
 creating. Therefore, it is simple enough for 
 us to think definitely of the existence of an 
 infinite number of facts in Nature as some- 
 thing entirely apart from any participation 
 that we can take in Nature or of anything 
 that we may do by way of manufacturing 
 truth. 
 
 62 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 There is, to be sure, another grouping of 
 facts, infinitesimal, almost, comparatively, 
 which men do help to create. For instance, 
 when the chemist makes use of his knowledge 
 of science so as to arrange the relative 
 positions of certain substances and cause 
 an explosion, then the fact of the explosion 
 is partly of his creation. But the fact of 
 the existence of the original chemicals 
 and of the peculiar relationships between 
 them are eternally and absolutely inde- 
 pendent of the chemist. Likewise, some 
 facts concerning such things as bread and 
 butter, and steam-engines, and dynamos, 
 and clothing, and the like, are facts, the 
 truth of which, we, as little finite creatures, 
 had some small part in creating. But it 
 should be understood that it is only in such 
 an extremely limited sense that man is 
 the creator of truth. 
 
 Science tells us that the two primal reaU- 
 63 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ties in Nature are matter and energy. In 
 the sense that the mathematician speaks 
 of his "theoretical point" in space, let us 
 think of a theoretical point in time. At 
 any theoretical point in time, all the reali- 
 ties of the universe are what they are. At 
 any later point in time, on account of change, 
 all things are different from what they were, 
 but are again what they are. At a given 
 point in time then, when all things are what 
 they are, certain relationships exist between 
 each thing and all things. Every relation- 
 ship at a particular time furthermore bears 
 its relation to the past and also stands re- 
 lated to the future. Matter means per- 
 manency, and energy means constant change. 
 Substance is eternal and change is perpetual. 
 Evolution is a word which stands in our 
 thoughts as a sign of this continual change 
 of the relative positions of the atoms and 
 combinations of atoms in the world. 
 64 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 Now, while our finite minds can never 
 learn and remember all of the infinite num- 
 ber of relationships which have existed be- 
 tween material particles and of all the 
 relationships which are yet to exist between 
 material particles, they can, nevertheless, 
 grasp and comprehend the conception of the 
 existence of this infinite number of rela- 
 tionships. 
 
 In like manner, it is simple enough for 
 us to conceive of the existence of an infinite 
 number of past and present and future 
 relationships between the realities of Hu- 
 man-nature. 
 
 In thinking of relationships which have 
 existed we furthermore think of relation- 
 ships which, in the nature of things, could 
 have existed, but never did exist. In other 
 words, many things which, in the nature of 
 things, may possibly come into existence, 
 as a matter of fact, never do come into 
 s 65 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 existence. On the other hand, there are 
 many things which, in the nature of things, 
 could not have existence. For instance, 
 that something should come from nothing, 
 is, in the nature of things an impossibility. 
 And again, that three miles can be two miles, 
 is an impossibility. \Mien we speak of 
 the potentialities of Nature we include all 
 those things which, in the nature of things, 
 would be possible, whether they ever actually 
 come into existence or not. The potentiali- 
 ties of Nature, however, do not include those 
 things which, in the nature of things, 
 could not come into existence. It would 
 be possible, for instance, for all life on this 
 planet to be destroyed, and for the surface 
 of the earth to be turned into a desert or a 
 wilderness. None of us, however, expect 
 that this possibility will ever become a 
 reality, although such a condition exists 
 potentially. But it would not even be 
 66 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 possible for two bodies to occupy the same 
 space at the same time. 
 
 In thinking of Human-nature in terms of 
 the realities which compose it, we think of 
 substances called spirit instead of matter, 
 and we think of activities called love instead 
 of energy. At any "theoretical" point in 
 the life of any man, there exist certain re- 
 lationships between all things composing 
 his life. These would be the facts of phe- 
 nomena as they exist in a human life at a 
 given point of time. But just as it is in 
 Nature, where energy is causing a perpetual 
 evolutionary change or movement, so the 
 emotional and thinking energy in a human 
 being is causing a continual evolutionary 
 change in a man. The phenomenal facts 
 in a human life, as they exist at a given 
 time, are the outcome of all the facts which 
 had theretofore existed throughout its past 
 history. Human-nature, the same as ma- 
 67 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 terial Nature, has within it certain poten- 
 tialities or possibiHties. But the alternatives 
 of possibility in human life, theology names 
 regeneration and degeneration. That which 
 is possible in the Nature of things for a 
 man, is that he may either sink down into 
 the very depths of depravity, or rise into 
 the most exalted heights of nobility and 
 power — but it is not in the nature of things 
 that he should both sink and rise at the 
 same time. 
 
 If we can conceive of material Nature and 
 of Human-nature as two great realms, 
 consisting of substances whose relation- 
 ships are constantly changing along orderly 
 lines, so as to produce an infinite number of 
 relationships, is it not equally as easy to 
 conceive of an Infinite Intelligence which 
 has a knowledge of all these infinite rela- 
 tionships? And there is no mental strain 
 in enlarging our conception so as to conceive 
 68 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 of this Infinite Intelligence as having a 
 knowledge of not only the infinite number 
 of relationships existing at a given point 
 of time, but of all of those relationships 
 which had existed previously to this given 
 point of time, and also of all the relation- 
 ships which, in the nature of things, might 
 possibly exist in the future. In other words, 
 an Intelligence of Infinite Wisdom would 
 have a knowledge of not only all existent 
 relationships, or realities, at a given time, 
 but a knowledge of all of the potentialities 
 residing in both matter and spirit. This 
 conception is as easily conceivable as any 
 ordinary astronomical conception. And no 
 intelligence could truthfully be called in- 
 fimte which did not have a knowledge of 
 all the facts or relationships which are 
 potential in the universe (of both mind and 
 matter). 
 
 If the finite realm was created by an In- 
 69 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 finite Being, there must necessarily have 
 been a purpose worthy of the undertaking. 
 Furthermore, that which has been created 
 must be worthy of the purpose which brought 
 it into existence. A ghmpse of the signifi- 
 cance of our own existence is here to be 
 seen. The existence of the universe is 
 evidence that God wanted something. He 
 is now gaining or securing the object of 
 His love from the things which transpire 
 in the finite realm. All things, including 
 men, are instrumentalities toward this great 
 end which is the object of God's love. If 
 God has a purpose in material evolution, 
 and in spiritual regeneration, then the most 
 important question that a man could ask 
 would be. What is that piirpose? In so 
 far as he could ascertain what that purpose 
 is, so far he would know what "the standard 
 of all values" is, which we treated in Chapter 
 III. But howsoever imperfect our knowl- 
 70 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 edge may be respecting God's purposes in 
 finite things, we can nevertheless easily 
 conceive of God's having a perfect knowledge 
 of His own purposes in these things. And 
 this is the very reality for which the phrase 
 the "Divine Truth" stands. The Divine 
 Truth, then, is God's own unique and distinc- 
 tive knowledge of all existent realities — and, 
 from His point of view, He sees all finite 
 things in their relation to His purposes in 
 creating them and preserving them. This 
 is a conception which falls easily within our 
 mental reach notwithstanding the fact that 
 no finite mind can ever comprehend the 
 Divine Truth, or think in terms of the 
 Divine Truth, and for the simple reason 
 that it is not infinite in its capacity and 
 hence cannot think from God's point of 
 view. Only those who deny the existence 
 of a personal God can claim the non-exist- 
 ence of that reality for which the term 
 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 "Divine Truth" stands. Those who deny 
 the existence of God will, for the same 
 reason, deny the existence of the Divine 
 Truth. 
 
 The term "the truth" as representing 
 the thing to which Christ came to bear 
 witness, stands for that particular knowledge 
 which is qualified to lead any man to his 
 very best possible development of being, 
 whatever that may be; and it is the very 
 thing, "the truth," which reveals to man 
 the standard of values in his own life by 
 which it is furthermore revealed what that 
 is which is his best possible development. 
 
 Pragmatic philosophy is correct in its 
 affirmation that truth of any kind is im- 
 portant to us only in so far as we make good 
 use of it. Science as it exists independently 
 of theology, endeavors to make "practical" 
 use of every newly discovered scientific 
 fact, but the use which science is qualified 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 to make of any fact is a temporal and worldly- 
 use. In so far as such a use increases man's 
 mastery over Nature and his security and 
 happiness in the world, it represents a 
 genuine progress and an intrinsic worth 
 of its kind. That is, the worth of all things 
 is measured by the standard of values such 
 as science is able to determine. If a man 
 were not undergoing a vital and important 
 change in the quality of his life's love, and 
 if he were not immortal, then this practical 
 use made by materialists of scientific facts 
 would secure the best blessings within 
 human reach and lead to the best possible 
 progress. But if every man, during this 
 life, is steadily becoming either more un- 
 selfish, or more selfish, and if he is immortal, 
 then the facts of science may have some 
 other practical use, over and above their 
 temporal and worldly uses, which regard 
 certain effects upon the spiritual life. Prag- 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 matism may be interpreted either spirit- 
 ually or materialistically. Materialistic prag- 
 matism ignores the practical spiritual uses 
 that are to be made of scientific facts. 
 And herein it is as deficient as all the ma- 
 terialistic systems of philosophy that have 
 preceded it. Spiritual pragmatism, how- 
 ever, would take account of the requirements 
 of the inner life as made manifest by "the 
 truth" to which Christ came to bear witness. 
 
 It should be clearly understood that real 
 theology would not prevent, but, on the 
 contrary, it would insist upon, man's making 
 the full practical material use which newly 
 discovered scientific facts are intended or 
 qualified to serve, and which pragmatism 
 rightly insists upon. It would furthermore, 
 however, point out the spiritual interests 
 which are either being helped or harmed by 
 the methods employed in making these 
 scientific applications. A fact apparently 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 unknown to the materialist is that he him- 
 self is being interiorly or spiritually made 
 or unmade by the intentions and purposes 
 which he selects at the very times he is 
 making "practical" use of his scientific 
 facts. 
 
 75 
 
VI 
 
 DOING one's greatest POSSIBLE GOOD 
 
 HE reader is requested to keep in 
 
 1 mind the chief purpose of this book 
 as stated in the introduction while reading 
 each chapter, and to note its connection 
 with the theme as a whole. This particular 
 chapter is intended primarily to furnish 
 illustration of and emphasis to the funda- 
 mental importance of the special kind cf 
 knowledge for which theology stands. There 
 are some statements in this chapter which 
 are given for what they are worth with no 
 attempt to prove them. Of course, I be- 
 lieve them all to be true, but whether per- 
 fectly true or not, they will be seen to serve 
 at least as illustrations of what are to be 
 expected of theology as distinguished from 
 science. Religion will make but little further 
 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 progress in this world until theology extends 
 far beyond its present limitations, and it 
 cannot make this advance until the dis- 
 tinction is made clear between it and science. 
 
 No man can be more fortunate than he 
 who has succeeded in acquiring that motive 
 which enables him to rise sufficiently above 
 his inherent selfish tendencies to become 
 thoroughly resolved in purpose and inten- 
 tion, to try to his utmost throughout life, 
 to do his very greatest possible amount of 
 good; or what is the same thing, his maxi- 
 mum of good. With the man who wants 
 to do good, and whose dominant intention 
 and purpose are to do his very maximum of 
 good, the first problem that towers ominously 
 in front of him is that of knowing how to 
 do it. To do good or to serve requires first 
 of all knowledge. 
 
 This is why a receptive attitude toward 
 truth is the first essential of religion. A 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 "receptive attitude" toward truth means 
 a genuine affection for truth and a loyalty 
 to it sufficient to enable a man to be sub- 
 missive to any sacrifice which truth might 
 impose. This affection, thus described, is 
 in essence love to God and to fellow-man. 
 As we proceed with this subject it will 
 become evident that the receptive attitude 
 toward truth means vastly more than many 
 self-deceived persons think it does who sup- 
 pose that they possess this attitude. There 
 are selfish affections, inherent in the human 
 heart, which, unless overcome, prevent men 
 from really attempting to do their greatest 
 good in the world. These selfish affections 
 are so numerous that, as fast as some are 
 overcome, new ones force themselves into 
 the arena. Hence, the work of overcoming 
 them is a lifelong task. Every conflict or 
 every step in this progress involves new 
 spiritual problems. This necessitates life- 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 long study, which means an ever increasing 
 knowledge in spiritual things. 
 
 What will be surprising to many is the 
 fact that the very first or primary knowledge 
 which is indispensable at the very beginning 
 of one's career of doing his greatest possible 
 good, and which continues to be indispensable 
 always, is that special knowledge by which 
 he may correctly distinguish between good 
 and evil. To do good a man must -first 
 know what is good. Here the standard of 
 values treated in Chapter III and frequently 
 alluded to comes to mind again. This 
 fact alone shows that it is absolutely im- 
 possible for any one to do his greatest pos- 
 sible good without theological knowledge 
 in addition to scientific knowledge. This 
 is because science does not give the slightest 
 intimation of what good is per se, whereas 
 the showing of what good is per se is the 
 distinctive function of theology. It has 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 been pointed out in previous chapters, 
 particularly in the fourth one, where the 
 difference is shown between psychology and 
 theology, that theology represents a field 
 of knowledge unique in this, that it alone 
 is qualified to reveal the difference between 
 selfishness and unselfishness as qualities of 
 human emotions or loves, which is the 
 same thing as revealing the difference be- 
 tween good and evil. The things which 
 are good for man's temporal welfare are 
 not the things which are good per se. The 
 only kind of good and the only kind of well 
 doing which science in general, or psychol- 
 ogy in particular, can point to is temporal 
 good, which, in itself, is as different from 
 spiritual good as a rock is different from an 
 ear of com. They are two entirely different 
 things. A man who endeavors to do his 
 greatest amount of good, with no other 
 standard of goodness than that which science 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 sets up, is as apt to work for evil as he is 
 for good, because, from a spiritual point of 
 view, in that case he works altogether in 
 the dark. 
 
 Every created thing has its function. 
 Everything does good when it fills its func- 
 tion. The function of gravitation is, among 
 other things, to hold the worlds in equili- 
 brium. The function of a chemical is, 
 among other things, to act upon other sub- 
 stances according to its nature. The func- 
 tion of a man is to do good to the full pos- 
 sibilities of all his united powers for good. 
 A man, however, differs from all other created 
 things in this, that he is not compelled to 
 fill his function, whereas everything else is 
 so compelled. This is because man is en- 
 dowed with some responsibility and with 
 spiritual freedom. 
 
 The faculty of rationality in man is 
 forced to reason, and that of memory is 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 forced to memorize, and that of imagination 
 is forced to imagine, in spite of any opposi- 
 tion a man might make. They are as cer- 
 tain thus to fulfil these requirements of 
 their nature as the sun is to shine and for 
 the same reason, but (and here is a most 
 significant observation) rationality will 
 reason in behalf of doing good in preference 
 to doing evil ; and the memory will memorize 
 in behalf of doing good in preference to 
 doing evil, and the imagination will imagine 
 in behalf of doing good in preference to doing 
 evil, only when a man intends that they 
 should and, in his spiritual freedom, decides 
 that they shall. Every man may, if such 
 be his dominant purpose, command the 
 entirety of his faculties and personal powers 
 and marshal them, as in battle array, for 
 the right, or he may decline to do so, which 
 is equivalent to working in behalf of evil. 
 The work of doing good is vast enough and 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 complex enough to absorb all the time and 
 all the mental faculties and growing powers 
 of a man to the end of this life and then on 
 forever. It should be clearly understood 
 that between the doing of all the good that 
 one can do at all times, under all circum- 
 stances, during all of life, and the doing of 
 only a little good at convenient times, 
 there is the same great gulf fixed that dis- 
 tinguishes heaven and hell. 
 
 It may be remarked, as one of the primer 
 truths of theology, that in carrying out one's 
 serious intentions of doing his maximum of 
 good, he is not called upon to experience any 
 undue soberness of mind or torturesome 
 anxiety. In fact, anxiety and fear are found 
 to be evils which hinder rather than help 
 in the doing of good. In leading on and 
 in launching out upon a career of greatest 
 possible service one soon learns the necessity 
 of working easily and joyously. But to 
 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 work easily and joyously necessitates in 
 itself certain fundamental theological knowl- 
 edge. It implies, first of all, some degree 
 of trustfulness in Divine Providence, which, 
 in turn, necessitates some knowledge of the 
 Divine Providence. 
 
 Again, the doing of one's maximum of 
 good does not imply necessarily that one 
 should engage in work that is spectacular 
 or that is, from worldly standards, seemingly 
 important. Most persons who are striving 
 to do their greatest possible good must 
 necessarily engage in what we call common- 
 place duties of life. They will not be con- 
 cerned particularly about the question of 
 how great the work is which they are privi- 
 leged to do. Their concern wdll be chiefly 
 wdth the question, are they doing the best 
 work that they are qualified to do? In 
 doing the best work that one is qualified to 
 do, whether it lead to obscurity or to prom- 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 inence, whether it be commonplace work 
 or uncommon work, such a man labors 
 under the continued necessity of striving 
 to acquire additional knowledge for the 
 sake of increasing his effectiveness. 
 
 Doing good begins in simple ways, but 
 its progress leads to the most remote and 
 intricate complexities of human activities 
 and experiences. When a child says its 
 prayers, obeys its parents, shares its play- 
 things with playmates, is kind to the do- 
 mestic animals, avoids saying bad words, 
 and a few other such things, it does nearly 
 all the good which it is capable of knowing 
 anything about. When any person is kind 
 to and considerate of the well-being of 
 another person he does good in a simple 
 way. When a person is tempted to break 
 one of the ten commandments, literally 
 interpreted, which is to say, as it appears 
 in its simplest and most limited aspect, 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 before it is expanded and amplified by the 
 rest of the contents of the Bible, I say, when 
 one is so tempted and overcomes, he does 
 good in a simple way. All of such good 
 deeds, however, of a simple kind, are rela- 
 tively only a few of the very many deeds 
 that a man does. What is one doing during 
 the intervals between his good deeds of a 
 simple kind? When he is not occupied in 
 expressing kindness to a friend, what is he 
 doing? Between the times when he has 
 occasion to refuse to break one of the ten 
 commandments according to its literal in- 
 terpretation, what is it that occupies his 
 thoughts and his time? These intervening 
 spaces occupy more than nine-tenths of 
 his time, capacities and energies. 
 
 By observing the spirit of the command- 
 ments a person may see that he actually 
 steals, for instance, whenever he leaves un- 
 done any good which he might have done, 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 because thereby he is responsible for de- 
 priving some other person or persons of 
 some blessing which it was within his power 
 and was his duty to bestow. Every man 
 has a right to all the good that he is capable 
 of receiving which is within the power of 
 any other man to give him. This may sound 
 strange, but it is entirely correct. However, 
 the good here spoken of is the real kind and 
 not the apparent kind. Hence, we steal 
 according to the spirit of the commandments 
 whenever we consent to withhold any real 
 good that we see it to be within our power 
 to give to others. This question of studying 
 the spirit of the commandments opens up a 
 vast field which we can but barely touch 
 upon here. When Christ said that "it 
 is the spirit that quickeneth," He alluded to 
 what we might call the theological reasons, 
 which are the sufficient reasons, for the 
 giving of the commandments in the first 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 place. The primary object of the command- 
 ments is to transform human character. 
 The object is not that they are to be obeyed 
 for the simple sake of obedience, but for 
 the sake of regenerating a man out of a 
 selfish state of being into an unselfish state 
 of being. The business of theology, as al- 
 ready intimated in this book, is to reveal 
 or to point out the psychic or spiritual 
 phenomena involved in this regeneration of 
 the human soul. In brief, then, any study 
 made of human loves, in their relation to 
 good and evil qualities, is a study of the 
 "spirit" of the commandments. 
 
 It is time that the fact be known that men 
 are not simpletons, to be limited to the 
 simple aspects of doing good, for man has 
 been so graciously endowed with mental 
 powers by his Creator as to be capable of 
 directing the entirety of his emotions, and 
 powers of intelligence, and activities of 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 body, in the doing of good, just as he is 
 capable of directing his hand on occasion 
 into his pocket for a dollar to help a starving 
 man. 
 
 Most careful note should now be made of 
 the essential difference between the good to 
 be done by a man and that to be done, for 
 instance, by a grain of sand. A grain of 
 sand, in filling its ordained function in 
 Nature, may be said to be doing good. 
 A man in his spiritual freedom, carrying as 
 he does certain limited though well defined 
 responsibilities, has the power of deter- 
 mining in large measure the amount of good 
 that he does to others; whereas the grain 
 of sand has no power to increase or decrease 
 the good it does to other objects by its powers 
 of relationship to them. Every man, how- 
 soever vile and wicked, is compelled by 
 Divine Providence, as literally as is a grain 
 of sand, to do a certain minimum of good, 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 otherwise he would never have been created ; 
 but the difference between this minimum of 
 good, which a degenerate man is compelled 
 to do against his will, and the maximum 
 of good which the same man might do if he 
 would, is one of the most significant of all 
 facts for contemplation. 
 
 The principle of relationship between all 
 existing objects shows that a man does good 
 not only to the members of his family, to his 
 next-door neighbors and to distant relatives 
 and friends, but to every man and woman 
 and child in the world. As to quantity, a 
 man does vastly more good to the untold 
 and vmknown millions than to his compara- 
 tively few acquaintances, and yet, as a 
 matter of fact, the good that most well 
 intentioned persons do the millions is both 
 unintentional and unobserved. It is pos- 
 sible to observe and to make intentional a 
 large part of the good that one does to the 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 world's unknown millions. This requires, 
 however, the use of a mental faculty which 
 most persons have allowed to atrophy. 
 By cultivating this mental faculty, and this 
 desire to serve in as large a way as possible, 
 one not only increases the amount of good 
 he does, but at the same time enlarges his 
 own spiritual and mental capacities. Theol- 
 ogy must be depended upon as the chief 
 help in enabling men thus to enlarge their 
 personal spheres of conscious effort and the 
 good to be done by them. 
 
 It was stated above that all people, in- 
 cluding the most degenerate, do good. It 
 would be far better, however, to deny this 
 important fact than to misunderstand it. 
 The pervert and the criminal who intend 
 nothing but evil, nevertheless do good, 
 although a very different kind of good from 
 that done by a man of correct intentions. 
 They do good the same as the grain of sand 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 alluded to does it, entirely by compulsion. 
 He knows as little of the good that he does 
 and enjoys it as little, as does the grain of 
 sand know of or enjoy the good it does. 
 God ordains that even the vilest wretch 
 shall be compelled to contribute something 
 of positive blessing to human kind. The 
 difference between the quality of the man 
 who does that minimum of good which he is 
 compelled to do against his will and without 
 his knowledge, and the quality of him who 
 does his maximum of good intentionally and 
 purposefully, is precisely that between heaven 
 and hell, angel and devil. 
 
 Evilly disposed men commit sins and 
 crimes and they do wrong, but they are 
 never permitted to make spiritual victims 
 of any but themselves. This fact may again 
 illustrate the narrow limitations of the field 
 of psychology. Psychology would declare 
 that the crimes which men do result in more 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 injury to the supposed victims than to the 
 perpetrators. This is because psychology 
 must judge of effects as they are manifest 
 in the physical body and the natural plane 
 of the mind. When the realities of the 
 spiritual planes of Human-nature, already 
 alluded to, begin to come to view, the fact 
 becomes most manifest that certain forms 
 of bodily suffering, and of distress in the 
 natural plane of the mind, when permitted 
 by Providence, serve important uses in 
 these interior planes. This is due to the 
 protection of Providence. It is said in the 
 Scriptures, of Christ, "He knew all men, 
 and needed not that any should testify of 
 man: for He knew what was in man." 
 (John 2 : 25.) Man's being what he is, with 
 the most marvelous potentialities residing 
 within the interior planes of his nature, 
 which qualify him to become transformed 
 into an unselfish being and to continue his 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 growth forever, is a leading reason why there 
 are a great many things in this world which 
 are not what they seem to be. Every 
 wicked man tries to do a hundred bad things 
 where he is permitted to do one ; to make a 
 hundred apparent victims of his cruelties 
 where he is permitted to make one. The 
 fact is, notwithstanding all the glaring ap- 
 pearances to the contrary, that the partic- 
 ular evil things which Providence permits 
 the bad man actually to do are those and 
 only those which, under the circumstances, 
 result in some measure of spiritual good to 
 the supposed victims. In other words any 
 person who is permitted to be afflicted, 
 either in body or mind or circumstance, 
 whether the affliction comes from a stroke 
 of lightning out of the skies, or from the 
 hand of an assailant, or from the ingenious 
 device of some designing and scheming devil- 
 incarnate, is, under the circumstances, be- 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ing acted upon beneficently, because the 
 affliction so allowed by Providence, under 
 the circumstances, so acts upon the interior 
 realities of the mind as to set them as nearly 
 right as the man himself, in his spiritual 
 freedom, will allow, in their relation to the 
 man's immortal career of useful achievement 
 and personal happiness. Thus it is that the 
 Divine Providence utilizes the deeds of evil 
 men just as He utilizes the destructive ele- 
 ments and forces in Nature, in serving the 
 best and permanent interests of every man 
 who seems to be, from a natural point of 
 view, a pitiable victim. Owing, however, 
 to the significance of man's spiritual freedom, 
 and to the unalterable responsibility upon 
 the shoulders of every man, without which 
 he would not be a man, it must inevitably 
 be that he who is willing to do evil and to 
 victimize his neighbor in material and natural 
 ways, makes a spiritual victim of himself. 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 This is what is inferred by Christ's words, 
 "It must needs be that offences come, but 
 woe to that man by whom the offence Com- 
 eth." God would no more allow one man to 
 do positive spiritual injury to another man 
 than He would do harm Himself. This is 
 equivalent to saying that God never permits 
 any bodily or mental affliction which does 
 not serve some transcendently important 
 interest in the interior life of the individual 
 who is permitted to suffer. Hence it is 
 that every man is securely and absolutely 
 protected by the love and wisdom and 
 power of God from any spiritual injuries in 
 times of catastrophe caused by nature, or 
 by the seeming thoughtlessness of men, or 
 even by intentional harm of evil men. In 
 other words, no combination of circum- 
 stances of any kind has, in all the history 
 of the world, ever been allowed to do spiritual 
 harm to any man. If it be asked. Wherein 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 does spiritual harm ever come to a man, the 
 answer is simple but complete: every man 
 brings upon himself any spiritual harm that 
 he sustains, by his own wilful and voluntary 
 antagonism to what he sees to be right in 
 contrast with wrong. Christ declared, " This 
 is the condemnation that light is come into 
 the world and men loved darkness rather 
 than light because their deeds were evil." 
 And again he said, "And ye will not come 
 to me, that ye might have life." It should 
 be known and thoroughly comprehended 
 that no man determines the particulars of 
 his own environment, but he does deter- 
 mine his attitude toward the particulars of 
 his environment. If his attitude toward 
 his environment is that of a man whose 
 dominant intention and purpose is to do 
 his maximum of good as best he can under 
 his circumstances of environment, then that 
 man's eternal triumph is assured. It is 
 7 97 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 important to note, in this connection, that 
 the statement that wicked men are com- 
 pelled by Providence to do a minimum of 
 good does not imply that there is no such 
 thing as evil. Indeed, the fact of evil is one 
 of the most fundamental facts of theology, 
 and the spectacle of evil men who have vic- 
 timized themselves makes this fact as mani- 
 fest as it is important. 
 
 98 
 
VII 
 
 THE ANALOGY BETWEEN APPLIED SCIENCE 
 AND APPLIED THEOLOGY 
 
 JUST as there is an analogy between 
 Nature and Human-nature, science 
 and theology, material phenomena and their 
 corresponding spiritual facts, so likewise 
 there is an analogy between the application 
 of scientific knowledge and the application 
 of theological knowledge. All knowledge is 
 for application in the achievement of useful 
 results. What is thought to be useful, 
 however, is determined by what one holds 
 as his standard of values, mentioned in 
 Chapter III. The knowledge of any con- 
 ceivable fact contains intrinsic worth simply 
 because it is by nature an instrumentality 
 of useful human achievement. Wherever 
 men make misuse of knowledge the blame is 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 not with the truth but with the man who 
 fails to accept that which it places within 
 his reach. This is as true of theological 
 knowledge as of scientific. 
 
 All men, from the most ignorant to the 
 wisest, live and succeed only in proportion 
 to the applications they make of such 
 knowledge as they have. From the simplest 
 movements of the body, such as walking 
 and wielding the arm, up to the most skil- 
 ful and delicate handling of implements, 
 such as the surgeon's knife, the artist's 
 brush, or the author's pen, intelligence or 
 knowledge is the directing power. Food, 
 clothing and shelter are all the product of 
 applied scientific knowledge. So are books 
 and paintings. It is even true that the 
 very conditions of life are such as to compel 
 every man, even though it be against his 
 will, to make application of at least some of 
 his knowledge during every wakeful hour. 
 
 lOO 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 At any time of consciousness a man is aware 
 of something and this recognition of "some- 
 thing" is knowledge. That every man nec- 
 essarily carries the responsibility for making 
 almost constant application of scientific 
 knowledge is no less manifest than it is 
 significant. It means that the sum total 
 of a man's earthly blessings is the sum total 
 of what his applications of knowledge, or 
 those of others, have brought to him. 
 
 Many times, however, information is mis- 
 applied. Sometimes misinformation results 
 as disastrously as information misapplied. 
 With most men, even as respects their scien- 
 tific knowledge, they make successful ap- 
 plication of some of it and misapplication of 
 the rest of it, and the latter, to such an ex- 
 tent that their losses so nearly approach 
 their profits on the whole that they are on 
 the verge of disaster most of their lives. 
 There are indeed some unfortunates whose 
 
 lOI 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 misapplications of knowledge exceed their 
 applications of it and death automatically 
 puts a stop to such a process. 
 
 There are spiritual facts perfectly analo- 
 gous to these, which are also as practically 
 important to every man, and which, if not 
 recognized, are as fatal. Every man, by 
 the very nature of his being and conditions 
 of life, is either applying or misapplying 
 spiritual truth almost constantly — just as 
 constantly indeed as he applies or misapplies 
 scientific knowledge. And he does this 
 whether he knows it or not. It is due to 
 the nature of things. There is never one 
 rational act on the part of any man which 
 has not within it, as its very soul, some mo- 
 tive or intention or purpose which regards 
 a selfish or unselfish end. This is true even 
 with the man who knows nothing whatever 
 of the difTerence between selfishness and 
 unselfishness. It is, therefore, of the very 
 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 conditions of life itself that every man either 
 applies or misapplies some theological truth 
 whenever he makes the effort to apply any 
 scientific knowledge, and this without ex- 
 ception. Hence, living religiously or ir- 
 religiously is involved in every secular ac- 
 tivity without exception. And it should be 
 noted that the correct application of a sci- 
 entific fact may involve a misapplication of a 
 theological truth. The proprietor of a gamb- 
 ling den, for instance, applies electrical 
 knowledge to the lighting of his death-trap 
 of an establishment as correctly as church 
 deacons do in lighting a church. The 
 successful business genius often applies eco- 
 nomic knowledge more accurately and scien- 
 tifically when he subverts the law and makes 
 other men victims of injustice than many 
 an honest and less successful business man 
 does when conforming to the right. Reli- 
 gion then is not a Sunday affair any more 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 than it is a Monday affair, and theology is 
 not for some one phase of life alone, such as 
 worship, or only for special occasions in life, 
 such as weddings and funerals. 
 
 Never in the history of the church has 
 greater emphasis been given to the necessity 
 of applying religion to life than during the 
 past decade. And this emphasis is, for- 
 tunately, increasing with portentous aspect 
 to many an entrenched iniquity. On the 
 whole, however, and comparatively speaking, 
 the religious world is in most distressing 
 and perilous darkness as to the concrete 
 and specific applications to be made. The 
 world is indeed languishing for the applica- 
 tion of religion to life — but! — the cry is 
 going up, "What is religion that it may be 
 known what is to be applied to life?" Mani- 
 festly religion cannot be applied to life until 
 it is first interpreted in terms of the concrete 
 and the real. The religious world today is 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 practically without a theology. The pro- 
 phet's bewailing exclamation was never 
 more applicable to the church universal 
 than it is today, "Therefore, my people are 
 gone into captivity because they have no 
 knowledge!" (Isaiah 5 : 13.) 
 
 The men of this century have been so 
 overawed by the extraordinary and rapidly 
 succeeding achievements of science that 
 they look upon material achievements as 
 representing their greatest interests. The 
 astounding scientific achievements of the 
 past century are certainly most significant 
 and important, but their value consists in 
 something different from what most men 
 suppose it to be. If these wonderful things 
 that our eyes look upon, coming to pass 
 outside of us, were not related in some vital 
 way to things developing in the heart or 
 character within, they would be utterly 
 without value and without significance. 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 In other words, if the dazzling triumphs 
 of civilization, in these recent days, did not 
 represent equally significant contributions 
 to the spiritual culture of men individually, 
 and to the human race collectively, all would 
 be a veritable sham. Does not the capacity 
 or ability of a man to enjoy and see what is 
 valuable determine the value of the thing 
 for him? Wherein would the value of any 
 earthly thing be found if men had no ability 
 to see it correctly or to enjoy it legitimately? 
 Spiritual culture is a term which is to most 
 people representative of a vague abstraction, 
 although, to be sure, one to which they 
 attach great value. This, however, does 
 not make less real the fact that spiritual 
 culture has itself made splendid progress. 
 The need of the hour is to know what spirit- 
 ual culture is. Real theology enables men 
 to know the concrete side of this wonder- 
 ful abstraction. 
 
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RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 It is the nature of men to conceive of 
 certain objects of desire before striving to 
 possess them. It is Hke seeing objects in 
 the road ahead of one. And before reaching 
 any destination one must travel over all 
 of the intervening space. A young man, 
 for instance, looks forward to the ownership 
 and occupancy of a comfortable home. To 
 own a home is a goal. He works hard and 
 is saving of his means, and by and by, 
 if not prevented by unexpected circum- 
 stances, he gains the object of his desire, 
 which has been in his mind but not in his 
 possession for a long while. 
 
 Note a parallel: When, by the aid of 
 theological knowledge, we acquire the habit 
 of thinking as definitely about the sub- 
 stances of the soul as we do now about 
 material realities, we will conceive of pos- 
 sible spiritual attainments which will be 
 to us objects of thought as definite in 
 107 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 their outline as a future home or a large 
 bank account. 
 
 Consequently, we will do the specific 
 things which truth requires of us (which are 
 required of us by the nature of things) for 
 making ourselves the possessors of what we 
 foresee in advance, by the aid of spiritual 
 enlightenment, to be good and desirable. 
 For illustration, a man who finds himself 
 influenced more or less by the spirit of re- 
 venge may, if he tries, foresee, as a definite 
 object, an improvement in his own character 
 which, when attained, will enable him to 
 retain all necessary motives for self-protec- 
 tion and defence without experiencing the 
 murderous emotion of revenge. This change 
 of character becomes to him a spiritual goal. 
 Whether such achievement is close at hand 
 or a long distance away will be dependent 
 upon circumstances, but by the aid of 
 theological knowledge he will be able to 
 io8 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 make definite progress toward it, by definite 
 means and methods, just as he would make 
 progress toward any material object of 
 desire. 
 
 In making spiritual progress then, just 
 as in making material progress, it should 
 be borne in mind that there are goals to 
 be reached, values to be gained, great 
 achievements to be realized, which are as 
 yet in the future. By spiritual perception we 
 foresee some of them as desirable. It may 
 be, however, and is generally the case, as 
 it is likewise the case in the pursuit of 
 worldly gains, that some work and trials 
 stand between us and their attainment. 
 Thus it is, that knowledge of desirable 
 spiritual acquirements usually comes in 
 advance of possessing them — and so also 
 must the application of spiritual knowl- 
 edge precede the attainment. 
 
 This fact, namely, that both knowledge 
 109 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 and its application must precede the ac- 
 quirement of the best of the spiritual things 
 to be had, can best be understood perhaps 
 when interpreted in relation to or in terms 
 of our personal happiness. This is because 
 we naturally identify all of our experiences 
 according to their relation to happiness or 
 suffering. This necessity, then, of first see- 
 ing the goal, and of then applying the neces- 
 sary knowledge for reaching it, means that, 
 in spiritual experience, as well as in worldly 
 experience, a permanent joy must sometimes 
 be purchased with a temporary pain. 
 
 This observation opens to view some highly 
 important and practical spiritual verities. 
 Happiness is the experience of a love grati- 
 fied. The things which bring happiness 
 to one are altogether determined by the 
 nature of one's loves. Whatever it is that 
 a man loves is qualified to bring him hap- 
 piness — if he can get it. Hence, it may be 
 
 I lO 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 seen — and this is fundamental — that it is 
 not the purpose of religion to give a man the 
 things that he wants or loves but rather to 
 give him the wants or loves, which he ought 
 to have. Wanting what one cannot have is 
 a form of suffering. 
 
 All loves which are evil or selfish (accord- 
 ing to the spiritual standard) are centered 
 upon objects which, in the nature of things, 
 cannot be granted, except temporarily or 
 most scantily, because they involve either 
 the eventual destruction of others, or event- 
 ual suicide. The love of rule, for instance, 
 is an infernal love, which, if not restrained 
 voluntarily, must be arbitrarily opposed, 
 in time, by those laws of the spiritual uni- 
 verse which prevent the madness of some 
 individuals from destroying the race. Na- 
 poleon's sitting with gnashing teeth and 
 kicking the stones of St. Helena is a vivid 
 symbol of the final destiny of all such loves 
 III 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 as selfish ambition, revenge, and hate. 
 It is in the nature of things that all selfish 
 loves which are not voluntarily opposed 
 and restrained by a religious life lead, in 
 the end, to the suffering of wanting what 
 cannot be had. The depth or intensity of 
 this hell is equal to the burning and persis- 
 tency of such loves — either here or here- 
 after. Character then is primarily a matter 
 of one's love capacity — one has capacity 
 for loving and enjoying what ? This " what " 
 is written across that great gulf spoken of 
 by Christ as being fixed between heaven 
 and hell. 
 
 All loves, on the other hand, which are un- 
 selfish (according to the spiritual standard) 
 are centered upon objects which can be 
 granted freely and fully because they regard 
 primarily and conduce to the universal good. 
 Happiness, therefore, with one whose loves 
 are altogether unselfish, is limited only by 
 
 112 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 the finiteness of his capacity — whatever 
 that may be. 
 
 The universal good is manifestly an object 
 as stupendous as the universe. And the 
 knowledge of it is necessarily gained grad- 
 ually. This knowledge so gained is the 
 particular kind of knowledge already re- 
 ferred to which it is the function of theology 
 and not of science to deal with. The loves 
 which conduce to the universal good may 
 be innumerable, because innumerable loves 
 are potential in Human-nature — and the 
 opposing loves which mitigate against the 
 universal good may likewise be without 
 number. Hence, he who takes for granted 
 that he can render his best service to the 
 universal good with anything less than the 
 very best intelligence that he can cultivate, 
 is not only a shallow minded, but at heart 
 an evilly disposed, person. This observa- 
 tion only emphasizes how indispensable an 
 8 113 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 adequate theology is, and then how indis- 
 pensable is the application of the truth which 
 this theology supplies. 
 
 If the loves of men were unselfish to begin 
 with, if men wanted only the right things, 
 then there would be no more suffering in 
 the earth than there is in heaven. But such 
 is not the reality, as universal experience 
 testifies. The loves which conduce to the 
 universal good, and which are unselfish 
 according to the real standard, and which 
 are freely granted all the objects to which 
 they attach themselves, and which induce a 
 happiness limited only by the finiteness of 
 one's capacity for happiness, these loves, 
 to repeat, are to be acquired. To acquire 
 them becomes the chief pursuit in life with 
 the truly religious man. The business of 
 acquiring these loves was shown in Chapter 
 VI to involve the doing of one's greatest 
 possible good. From the standpoint of 
 114 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 the spiritual standard of goodness it is seen 
 that these two things are equivalents : work- 
 ing to acquire unselfishness for one's self 
 as the chief pursuit in life (when the mean- 
 ing of unselfishness is understood) is the 
 equivalent of striving to do one's greatest 
 possible good as the chief pursuit in life. 
 This spiritual mathematics, however, to be 
 seen clearly, requires first some comprehen- 
 sion of the standard of values already al- 
 luded to. 
 
 If, by spiritual knowledge, we see some 
 definite quality of unselfishness yet to be 
 acquired, a greater spiritual bravery than 
 as yet possessed, for instance, and which 
 can be secured by methods which have 
 been made plain, is it not manifest that our 
 condition then becomes that of being 
 obliged (by duty to ourselves) to strive to 
 acquire an object which we do not as yet 
 love? To the extent that we are spiritual 
 115 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 cowards we hate spiritual bravery. This 
 then is the predicament of having to work 
 to acquire a love for what one does not as 
 yet love. Spiritual truth shows in this situ- 
 ation that one should work to acquire 
 bravery in place of cowardice. In any work 
 of this kind for what one does not want 
 there is involved, necessarily, more or less 
 of hardship and trial. ]\Iost of the unselfish 
 loves, which we foresee by spiritual light 
 as objects indispensable to our welfare, 
 are actually antagonistic to the loves which 
 are at present dominant; and it is for this 
 reason that there is a price to be paid in 
 the coin of unpleasant experience for nearly 
 every gain we make in unselfish acquire- 
 ment. Whenever spiritual truth brings to 
 view any new unselfish love, as, for instance, 
 a purer and truer spiritual bravery than 
 the one at present established in the life, 
 one which springs from a rational trust in 
 ii6 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 Divine Providence, it furthermore shows 
 that the purer bravery would be more con- 
 ducive to the universal good if it could be 
 acquired so as to rule spontaneously and 
 joyously with no handicaps of fear and anx- 
 iety. At present, however, inasmuch as it 
 has not yet been acquired, the idea of taking 
 the seeming risks which such bravery would 
 involve and necessitate stirs up all the 
 anxieties and fears which are at present 
 dominant and which have to be eradicated 
 in the process of acquiring the indispensable 
 bravery. To force one's self to act as though 
 spiritually brave when one is a spiritual 
 coward is more or less torturesome. But to 
 permit one's self the indulgence or the exhila- 
 ration of exercising spiritual bravery when 
 one is truly brave is blissful. The process 
 of suppressing the psychic opposition and 
 of doing what is necessary to become spirit- 
 ually brave, while one is yet a spiritual cow- 
 117 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ard, requires the right applications of theo- 
 logical knowledge, and these always involve 
 more or less of suffering. This is the 
 "psychology" of temptations. It also 
 points out the spiritual reality, in actual 
 experience, which is involved in obeying 
 the Lord's command to take up the cross 
 and follow Him. 
 
 Nearly all men will say that they want 
 to know the truth, and that they would be 
 loyal to the truth, and that they want to 
 attain to the highest of what is potentially 
 possible in them by way of true human 
 growth or development. And they will 
 believe themselves to be honest in this 
 assertion. Undoubtedly it is true that all 
 men want the best of what they are capable 
 of potentially. But! — unfortunately, there 
 are other things which most of them want 
 more. If it were not that men love things 
 which prevent regeneration better than they 
 ii8 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 love regeneration itself, then all men would 
 live lives as nearly perfect as is possible 
 for men to live. There is a spiritual law, 
 as powerful and as certain in its operation 
 as the laws which sustain the universe, 
 which determines that any man shall ac- 
 tually be led in the normal and orderly 
 development of his highest self, and so as 
 to come into the actual realization of the 
 very best states of being that are in him 
 potentially — IF — he wants this best possible 
 growth more than he wants any and all 
 things else besides. Spiritual degenerates 
 are those and only those who allow them- 
 selves to want more than the growth itself, 
 things which prevent their growth. It is 
 astounding how many things there are 
 which, in the nature of things, are incom- 
 patible with real and genuine human growth 
 to which a man's selfish tentacles attach 
 themselves, and which men allow to take 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 first place in the realm of their affec- 
 tions. 
 
 The chief importance of these observa- 
 tions is to press home the necessity, first, of 
 gaining an ever increasing knowledge of 
 distinctively spiritual things; and, secondly, 
 of making a faithful and persistent applica- 
 tion of all such knowledge to life. 
 
 I20 
 
VIII 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES OF THE FUTURE 
 
 IF the foregoing observations concerning 
 the analogy between material and 
 spiritual things are correct, then there is 
 no material substance, no mode of activity 
 in matter, no scientific fact potential in 
 Nature, which does not imply the exist- 
 ence of what might be termed its counter- 
 part spiritual reality. Hence, the facts of 
 mathematics, for instance, are analogous to 
 another set of facts which function in the 
 realm of spirit just as perfectly as mathe- 
 matics do in the realm of matter. And 
 again, the facts of geology are analogous to 
 another set of facts which function as per- 
 fectly in the realm of spirit as those of 
 geology do in the realm of matter. And 
 again, the facts of psychology or the facts 
 
 121 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 of economics or the facts of astronomy or 
 the facts of any other of the natural sciences 
 are analogous to another corresponding set 
 of facts which function as perfectly in the 
 realm of spirit as the facts of any of these 
 natural sciences do in the realm of matter. 
 
 To illustrate this important fact we will 
 consider some analogies between facts of 
 chemistry and physics, on the one hand, 
 and facts of the spiritual sciences correspond- 
 ing to these, on the other. 
 
 Some very surprising and peculiar rela- 
 tionships between material substances are 
 brought to light by chemistry and physics. 
 The scientist, by the simple knowledge of a 
 few of the eternally existent relationships 
 between certain substances, is enabled to 
 produce certain marvelous effects that would 
 have looked like miracles a few years ago. 
 He needs only, for instance, to cause water 
 to touch certain chemical combinations to 
 
 122 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 produce fire, to bring two solid bodies into 
 contact to produce terrific explosion, to 
 place one chemical near another to turn a 
 solid to liquid or to gas, or, in the reverse 
 order, to turn the gas or the liquid into a 
 solid. 
 
 In man's struggles and conflicts with 
 Nature perhaps no greater obstruction has 
 lain athwart his path than what is called 
 friction, which necessitates nearly all muscu- 
 lar activity. This obstacle is now, many 
 times, all but vanquished by power which 
 has been generated by the application of 
 knowledge to inanimate matter instead of 
 to the muscles of the body. This obstacle 
 has been so well mastered by the aid of 
 power derived from steam and electricity 
 and chemical action that, on the whole, 
 men can accomplish, with a given amount 
 of muscular power, perhaps a thousand 
 times more than they formerly could. 
 123 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 Chemistry alone is enabling human in- 
 telligence to command a vast and perfectly 
 organized and ever increasing army of in- 
 animate soldiers known as chemicals, which, 
 in absolutely fearless and implicit obedience, 
 are waging war and levying heavy tribute 
 upon the rigorous climates and the storms 
 and the deserts and the mountain barri- 
 cades and the other host of giant forces 
 which have always arrayed themselves in 
 opposition to man's sustaining and per- 
 fecting himself in the world. In their 
 aggression, they even explore and invade 
 hitherto unknown provinces of wealth which 
 are made to yield thereafter a perpetual 
 tribute. For example, certain chemicals 
 have been the efficient agents to penetrate, 
 cut and divide, by so-called chemical action, 
 certain worthless complex substances so 
 as to produce many exceedingly valuable 
 parts. A striking illustration of this is 
 124 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 seen in what the chemist does with coal 
 tar. Coal tar, which was thrown away as 
 useless only a few years ago, is now broken 
 up and separated by chemical power into 
 hundreds of commercially valuable products. 
 Thus, the chemist, by his command of chemi- 
 cals as his inanimate army of soldiers, has 
 invaded and vanquished this province of 
 material substance known as coal tar, and 
 has not only brought home rich spoils from 
 the field of battle, but has established a 
 permanent kingdom from which to draw 
 perpetual tribute. This is an achievement 
 which neither the lever, hydraulic pressure, 
 steam-engines, electric motor, cannon, ships 
 of war, nor indeed any form of multiplied 
 effectiveness of human muscle, could ever 
 accomplish. 
 
 The question now arises, what things 
 existing in Human-nature can be described 
 as being analogous to these scientific phe- 
 125 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 nomena enumerated, and thereby be made 
 to serve as illustrations of the possibility of 
 a spiritual chemistry and other spiritual 
 sciences? If any one spiritual science can 
 be shown to have potential existence, then 
 by implication the other spiritual sciences 
 would be proved to have potential existence. 
 If they have potential existence, they are 
 only waiting to be discovered. 
 
 Attention has been called to the ceaseless 
 struggle for existence which Nature itself 
 has imposed upon man. The rigorous cli- 
 mates, the deserts, the storms and the 
 mountain barricades have been alluded to 
 as representative of an army of giant 
 forces that have been arrayed in opposition 
 to man's sustaining and perfecting himself 
 in the world. These hostile forces and 
 conditions of Nature have claimed more 
 human lives than all the wars of history. 
 What things are there, then, in Human- 
 126 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 nature which seem to correspond to the 
 wild, portentous and life-destroying ele- 
 ments of Nature? They may be brought 
 to light in dim outline by some other ques- 
 tions. In what human heart has the ther- 
 mometer, so to speak, not gone down many 
 times to zero in the realm of its altruistic 
 or unselfish affections? Have not our ten- 
 derest sentiments and emotions seemed to 
 freeze sometimes on account of the un- 
 expected necessities of life and harsh con- 
 ditions? Is there not something here to 
 suggest spiritual climates? Have we never 
 experienced the storms of passion? Have 
 not states of pessimism and stoicism and 
 gloom spread out like vast areas of deserts 
 in our experiences? Have not false ideals 
 and unreal and impossible ambitions con- 
 fronted our spiritual progress as though 
 they were impassable mountain barricades? 
 By inheritance and inherent nature there 
 127 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 exist, potentially, in every man, those evil 
 emotions or affections or loves which cor- 
 respond exactly to the destructive forces 
 of Nature, and they await only the fullness 
 of time and the favorable circumstances 
 to express themselves on the plane of con- 
 sciousness in the form of veritable experi- 
 ences. If the man is not prepared to deal 
 with these destructive spiritual or emotional 
 forces within him, which correspond to the 
 portentous things of Nature, because of a 
 lack of spiritual knowledge and right spiritual 
 intentions, then he is as certain to be either 
 spiritually destroyed, handicapped or wounded 
 as the man who, from one cause or an- 
 other, becomes the victim of some ruthless 
 force of Nature. 
 
 There are some spiritual facts analogous 
 to chemical and physical facts, the knowledge 
 of which gives one the power to resist certain 
 of his selfish tendencies, just as the knowledge 
 128 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 of particular chemical and physical relations 
 gives one the power to resist chemical at- 
 traction, friction, adhesion, cohesion. 
 
 A man's will power may very truly be 
 compared to his muscle power. An evil 
 man often has as strong a will as a good man. 
 The will is a thing which can be aided and 
 its effectiveness multiplied in behalf of the 
 regeneration of one's character by spiritual 
 knowledge, quite as much as muscle power 
 can be aided and its effectiveness multi- 
 plied in behalf of physical achievements 
 by scientific knowledge. The power which 
 knowledge has in a man's life is something 
 tremendous, and few persons have ever 
 given it the consideration it deserves. The 
 knowledge of the certainty of imprisonment 
 or of the electric chair, for instance, exerts 
 a power in the conduct of criminally dis- 
 posed persons as much greater than their 
 will power as blasting powder is greater in 
 9 129 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 power than a man's right arm. The knowl- 
 edge of reasonable certainty of material 
 success sometimes multiplies the effective- 
 ness of a man's will power several fold in 
 remaining steadfast and faithful at a hard 
 post of duty. The power of religious or 
 theological knowledge is equally as great 
 with the will in enabling a man to keep in 
 the path of virtue and righteousness. Think 
 of the difference between the actual knowl- 
 edge of immortality and the uncertain 
 hope of immortality, as powers which aid 
 men in righteous conduct. Does not the 
 former better equip a man to meet some 
 forms of temptation than the other? When 
 a man knows for a certainty that certain 
 evil indulgences will lead to spiritual de- 
 generation, with its everlasting consequences, 
 then something in him far more powerful 
 than will power prevents him from even 
 thinking of the possibility of committing 
 130 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 the evil. Spiritual power may thus be 
 created by rightly arranging mental realities. 
 
 It is a common expression that, "Every 
 man has his price." A great many persons 
 believe this to be true. It is a kind of 
 brutal way of expressing acknowledgment 
 of possible temptations or tests so deep 
 and overpowering as utterly to baffle the 
 righteous intention or good-will of any weak 
 mortal of a man. It is not my purpose to 
 discuss at any length this statement, which 
 is not true. Whatever might be said about 
 it, this simple reference to it lends tremen- 
 dous emphasis to the need of a man for 
 some power to help him win in times of 
 his greatest temptations. Thus it may be 
 seen that spiritual chemistry and spiritual 
 physics, so to speak, are destined to give 
 to regenerating men new powers for over- 
 coming temptations, as great, relatively, 
 as the new powers which chemistry and 
 131 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 physics have given to scientists for mul- 
 tiplying the effectiveness of human muscle. 
 The very practical importance of spiritual 
 knowledge is thus seen. 
 
 At the present stage of spiritual chemis- 
 try, I do not suppose that any one could 
 state what that spiritual thing is which 
 corresponds to coal tar. I cannot. It is 
 a substance too complex to be easily in- 
 terpreted. One need go but a little way, 
 however, in introspection, to observe a 
 number of spiritual states or moods whose 
 general characteristics are such as to be 
 suggestive of spiritual things corresponding 
 to coal tar. For instance, discouragement 
 is a human experience, a state of mind, a 
 spiritual reality, a substance, or at least a 
 form of love activity, which displays some 
 characteristics in the realm of spirit as 
 striking as those of coal tar in the realm of 
 matter, and, apparently, in many respects, 
 132 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 analogous to them. Coal tar, for instance, 
 is a residuum from coal which remains after 
 the illuminating gas has been extracted. 
 Discouragement, on the other hand, is at 
 least a residuum from zeal or ambition which 
 remains after hope has been taken from 
 it by some defeat. Coal tar is a complex 
 substance divisible by chemical action into 
 many singulars and into hundreds of com- 
 binations of singulars. Discouragement like- 
 wise is a complex substance divisible by 
 a corresponding spiritual-chemical action 
 into priceless singulars. For instance, by 
 the proper treatment of a mood of dis- 
 couragement, by the application of appro- 
 priate spiritual truths at the time of its 
 experience, a man may actually convert 
 or separate his mood of discouragement 
 into feelings of true humility, trust in Provi- 
 dence, new and truer purposes for right- 
 eousness, and some others, all of which are 
 133 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 of great intrinsic worth in the character. 
 Thus it is seen that discouragement, the 
 same as coal tar, is a complex reality which, 
 taken by itself, is practically worthless, but 
 if treated intelligently is made to yield 
 great values. This illustration may serve 
 incidentally in revealing, what the world 
 has been sluggardly slow in seeing, that 
 theological verities are as practically im- 
 portant in enabling men to work great 
 achievements by way of gaining for them- 
 selves and others the most transcendent 
 objects of life. 
 
 Who is there who never loved things 
 which he now despises. "WTiat caused the 
 disintegration or the corrosion of that former 
 love? Whatever it was, it was some form 
 of spiritual chemical action. Regeneration 
 means the acquirement of the ability to 
 love unselfishly instead of selfishly, but, 
 inasmuch as human loves are so numerous 
 134 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 and complex that new ones appear on the 
 plane of consciousness every day, as long 
 as life continues, the process by which hu- 
 man loves are changed and transformed, to 
 become unselfish where they were selfish, 
 is suggestive of activities and relationships 
 quite as numerous as all of those of which 
 the sciences treat. Indeed, there is nothing 
 in all the complex and infinite variety of 
 things in material Nature but what is anal- 
 ogous to something else which corresponds 
 to it in Human-nature, and hence, a spiritual 
 science for every material or natural science, 
 the one to be analogous to the other, is not 
 so much a prophecy on my part as a vision 
 of a present actuality which implies its 
 certainty. 
 
 135 
 
IX 
 
 SOME PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR THE 
 CHURCH 
 
 MANY of our ablest clergymen and 
 theologians have written upon the 
 subject of the apparent decline of the church, 
 and have attempted to contribute prac- 
 tical suggestions with the aim of directing 
 the church into a state of rejuvenation. A 
 notable instance of this which serv-es well 
 our purpose for illustrating a fundamental 
 church problem, is the case of the evan- 
 gelist. Dr. W. J. Dawson, who, in his vigor- 
 ous and highly useful novel, "A Prophet 
 in Babylon," has outlined "The League 
 for Universal Service" as a possible sub- 
 stitute for the church. 
 
 This "League for Universal Service" is 
 an imagined new religious movement, at 
 136 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 once capable of federating most of the 
 churches and of uniting all truly religious 
 men and women, whether inside or outside 
 of the church, for altruistic and humani- 
 tarian services. This new movement would 
 attach less importance than the church has 
 ever attached to creeds and dogmas. It 
 would, furthermore, attach slight importance 
 to doctrines, which is a fatal mistake. It 
 would emphasize more than the church has 
 ever done, the necessity of performing good 
 works. In underestimating the importance 
 of doctrine, however, which is nothing but 
 the detailed statement of knowledge, it 
 would deprive itself of the chief instru- 
 mentality necessary in the performance of 
 good works. As a movement, however, it 
 would claim to create new opportunities 
 for doing good by organizing, as special 
 branches of its work, certain efforts for 
 helping the poor, relieving the sick, puri- 
 137 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 fying politics, compelling honesty in busi- 
 ness. 
 
 The general purposes of this league are 
 wholesome and admirable in helping to 
 destroy the power of irrational creeds and 
 dogmas. The league would serve a splendid 
 purpose in giving new emphasis to the ap- 
 plication of religion to life. It would on the 
 whole accomplish a great mission. In or- 
 ganizing the tens of thousands of noble 
 hearted and altruistic men and women who 
 stand ready to make sacrifices for the common 
 good, but who are now without church affili- 
 ation, and getting them to co-operate with 
 church people in fighting various kinds of evil, 
 it would work out a sublime achievement. 
 
 There is one sufficient reason, however, 
 why this league, in the very nature of things, 
 could not become the substitute for and the 
 successor of the Christian church. The 
 reason is, that it would be itself nothing more 
 138 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 significant than one of numerous good move- 
 ments. The real church is not a "move- 
 ment." A movement such as this league 
 would represent always implies that the 
 opportunities for the practice of religion are 
 not already and always sufficient. This is a 
 most fundamental error. The opportunities 
 for the practice of religion, for the application 
 of theological truths to secular or scientific 
 affairs, are always sufficient. We may create 
 conditions by which our good work can be 
 made more effective, but the very lack of fa- 
 vorable conditions for the most effective work 
 is itself the greatest possible opporttinity for 
 religious work. 
 
 A movement of this kind furthermore 
 implies that the special work which it maps 
 out to be done is the special work which 
 counts most of all, and thereby infers that 
 the ordinary vocations and avocations, which 
 we pursue outside of the movement, are 
 139 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 fields wherein the appHcation of rehgion is 
 incidental, if indeed not unimportant. It 
 implies that all who would get aboard of this 
 ship would be led to the performance of 
 religious duties, and thus be saved, but that 
 all who remain on the shore of their own 
 independent duties and occupations as mem- 
 bers of society, would be led astray and lost. 
 It would have a tendency to lead to the 
 Pharisaical and sectarian implication that 
 anyone who joined the league and worked 
 in some of its departments would thereby 
 be paying for the privilege of going about 
 the ordinary business and social affairs of 
 life as selfishly as might be desired. 
 
 It is assumed by Dr. Dawson in his book 
 that enthusiasm for a movement such as the 
 " League for Universal Service " would repre- 
 sent a Christ-like spirit. Some wonderfully 
 descriptive pages are devoted to the red-hot 
 enthusiasm and devotion which the new 
 140 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 movement created. The fact is, however, 
 which cannot be emphasized in this con- 
 nection too strongly, that enthusiasm for 
 movements seldom, if ever, springs from a 
 Christ-like spirit. All history shows, as well 
 as experience, that, usually, enthusiasm for 
 a movement, whether it be a religious or 
 secular one, is the enthusiasm of fanaticism. 
 There is, of course, a controlled enthusiasm 
 which is perfectly legitimate and necessary. 
 Mental elation, however, when it goes beyond 
 reasonable bounds, is a grave evil. 
 
 Phariseeism is the enthusiasm of fanati- 
 cism for a movement, with the church as 
 the movement. When the movement it- 
 self becomes the object of enthusiasm and 
 devotion, even though the church be that 
 movement, then the means are mistaken for 
 the end. Men who are the victims of an 
 all-absorbing enthusiasm for any movement 
 are worshippers of idols, — the movement 
 141 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 itself has become the God of the devotee. 
 Enthusiasts for a movement usually be- 
 come one-sided advocates, who misdirect 
 their own reasoning as sophists do, and al- 
 ways fight for their side, right or wrong. 
 
 Men should be exceedingly cautious about 
 lending enthusiasm to any movement, even 
 though that movement should be called a 
 church. They should think of a movement 
 as they would think of machinery, as an 
 instrument for some achievement other than 
 itself. Any movement we join, whether an 
 anti-slavery movement, a temperance move- 
 ment, an anti-trust and reform movement, 
 a league-for-universal-service movement, or 
 a church movement, should be recognized 
 only as special machinery designed for ac- 
 complishing limited results. Most move- 
 ments are supposed, by their fanatical 
 followers, to be designed to accomplish un- 
 limited results. In the sense that certain 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 machinery is indispensable to some definite 
 limited results, so certain movements may- 
 be indispensable ; but, if we should think of 
 a man becoming so infatuated with an elec- 
 tric motor, for example, as to think that the 
 electric motor was the only machinery needed 
 in the world, and that the energies of the 
 whole human race should be devoted to the 
 building of electric motors, he would be 
 displaying a fanaticism or Phariseeism no 
 less absurd than that of some reformers 
 and churchmen in their attitude towards 
 the particular movement or church to which 
 they devote themselves. The church, when 
 it is well started in the work of filling its 
 real function, will direct men in making ap- 
 plication of religion to life by means of all 
 the various movements with which they 
 may be identified. In other words, all of 
 the numerous movements with which any 
 man finds himself identified will be utilized 
 143 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 as SO many pieces of machinery for helping 
 the establishment of the kingdom of heaven 
 in the world. It should be understood that 
 man's home life is one of the movements 
 with which he is identified; his business is 
 another ; his politics is another ; his charities 
 and philanthropies are still others; his 
 club or fraternal order is one; likewise his 
 private studies in some favorite science or 
 special theme is a movement. There may 
 be a hundred other movements with which 
 one man may be identified. These are to 
 be considered as nothing more than so many 
 different kinds of machinery, with which 
 the Christian works in doing the will of 
 God by applying his religion to life. The 
 League for Universal Ser\-ice could not be 
 considered as anything more than one of 
 these numerous movements. Nearly all of 
 our so-called religious movements, includ- 
 ing the churches themselves, promote the 
 144 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 positive evil of deceiving men about the 
 religious obligations they owe to those affairs 
 and problems of life that are not included 
 in their particular interests. Sometimes the 
 church, in demanding service and tithes 
 from its members, underestimates the rela- 
 tive importance of the interests of the Lord 
 that abide in the man's home and business 
 and social life. God is not only in the church, 
 but He is in organized education, statesman- 
 ship, politics, business, industry, commer- 
 cialism and in all other secular pursuits. 
 In all of these different places. He has in- 
 terests to be guarded and fostered. The 
 church has too frequently presumed upon 
 its own monopoly of the interests of the 
 infinite Being in the world, and been totally 
 blind to the relative importance and value 
 of these different organized branches of 
 human activity. 
 
 lO 
 
 145 
 
X 
 
 PHARISEEISM 
 
 THE bacteria of phariseeism has been the 
 chief of the infectious and mahgnant 
 poisons in the very blood of the church since 
 Christ's time, as well as at His time, in- 
 validating much of the church's achieve- 
 ments, causing a misinterpretation of the 
 Scriptures, a per\-ersion of truth and a cor- 
 ruption of life. The spirituality of Christen- 
 dom, in consequence, has been in a state of 
 chronic invalidism. This age seems to be 
 one of judgment for both nations and 
 churches. The conversion of Christendom to 
 Christianity will undoubtedly be the crown- 
 ing achievement of this new century. 
 
 When Jesus Christ confronted the re- 
 presentatives of the organized church of 
 His day. He uttered the most cutting and 
 146 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 penetrating and damnatory accusations 
 against it to be found. A part of these 
 accusations are recorded in the twenty-third 
 chapter of Matthew's Gospel. 
 
 The same pharisaical spirit that caused a 
 total perversion of religion in the Jewish 
 church at the time of Christ, and led the 
 organized church to represent, not so much 
 the interests of heaven as those of hell, is 
 always more or less prevalent in the hearts 
 of men and in the church. Phariseeism is 
 inclusive of fanaticism, sectarian bigotry, 
 intolerance, literalism, formalism, know-it- 
 all-ism, hypocrisy. When men speak of 
 the ancient power and prestige of the church, 
 they speak, for the most part, of the power 
 and prestige of organized phariseeism. The 
 organized church has never yet been an ideal 
 institution. In looking upon the church 
 historically, as perhaps the greatest and most 
 venerable of institutions until the rise of 
 147 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 the modem university, we should discrim- 
 inate between the great power that it has 
 exerted and the good that it has done. Its 
 good has never yet been equal to its power. 
 Much of the power of the church has like- 
 wise been exercised for evil instead of good. 
 This is particularly true of the church of 
 the middle or dark ages. It is in a measure, 
 and only too largely, true of the church of 
 today. The escape of the church from the 
 dominance of the pharisaical spirit will 
 be made with nothing short of adequate 
 theological or doctrinal or spiritual knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 The church of Christ's time had its 
 temples of worship, its priests, its mission- 
 aries and its rituals. It had also the Old 
 Testament. It professed belief in God and 
 in the sacredness of Scripture. What more 
 could be expected of the church? Yet to 
 its representatives Christ exclaimed, "Ye 
 148 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can 
 ye escape the damnation of hell!" No 
 greater folly is ever committed than by the 
 church, when it assumes that Christ's ac- 
 cusations against the Pharisees are not 
 directed in some measure against it. 
 
 The Pharisees of the established church 
 of Christ's time worked as zealously for their 
 church institution as churchmen of any 
 other century, including our own. They 
 would walk as many miles to attend a church 
 service. They would give as much of their 
 time to the church. They would as un- 
 grudgingly give money for sustaining the 
 church. Their missionaries seemed to be 
 so unselfish and altruistic as even to traverse 
 land and sea, enduring all kinds of hard- 
 ships and privations. The Divine Man, 
 however, who stood in their midst, exclaimed, 
 even in reference to this supposedly and 
 seemingly unselfish missionary work: "Woe 
 149 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! 
 for ye compass sea and land to make one 
 proselyte, and when he is become so, ye 
 make him two-fold more a son of hell than 
 yourselves." Where can more expressive 
 language than this be found? 
 
 Does not the history of the church suggest 
 at least the possibility of the fact that many 
 of the so-called conversions made by re- 
 vivalists and preachers and missionaries 
 result in making the proselytes more the 
 sons of hell than their teachers? Christ's 
 words certainly give us sufficient reason 
 for caution and investigation in this matter. 
 When a preacher makes a convert, he makes 
 a convert to what? Everything depends 
 upon this "what." It is unquestionably 
 true that sometimes the Christian convert 
 is led to think of Christianity as something 
 entirely different from what it is. To 
 mistake for Christianity something that is 
 150 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 not Christianity, is one of the colossal blunders 
 that the church and ministers and mission- 
 aries have been making for centuries. 
 
 When the unconverted are appealed to 
 "to come to Jesus" and "to believe in 
 Christ," without first having been informed 
 as to who Christ was and who He is, and 
 what coming to Him and believing in Him 
 mean, in terms of actual life, then many 
 times the converts have been converts to 
 a perversion of Christianity, which may 
 be all, or worse than, paganism. 
 
 The mob that crucified Christ believed in 
 Him in the sense that many professing 
 Christians now believe. They had no doubt 
 about His having been bom. Some of 
 them had even eaten of the loaves and fishes 
 which He had miraculously supplied. When 
 their eyes caught the flash from His eyes, 
 and they saw the very flesh and figure of 
 the incarnate God, certainly they had a more 
 151 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 detailed knowledge of Him than many 
 modem converts have, whose knowledge 
 consists of the materialistic and realistic 
 descriptions given by the clergy. What 
 vital element of knowledge was lacking in 
 those who, in spite of their belief in Him 
 and knowledge of Him, were yet crucifying 
 Him? They had no knowledge of the quality 
 of His love. They had no understanding 
 of the relation between His love and their 
 own practical problems of life. There are 
 tens of thousands of professing Christians 
 today who, because of their supposed belief 
 in the historical Christ and in what is to 
 them His indefinable divinity, are taking 
 for granted that they have been "bom again " 
 and are "saved," but who, in very fact, are 
 as densely ignorant of the essential charac- 
 teristics of Christ as was the mob that 
 cmcified Him. And indeed such persons 
 are to-day actually cmcifying Christ over 
 152 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 again by their pharisaical attitude toward 
 the business and secular affairs of their 
 personal lives. All professing Christians who 
 fail to catch true glimpses of the quality of 
 Christ's love, and to see it in terms of the 
 things which make up their daily conduct, 
 are, as to the spiritual quality of their own 
 lives, and in spite of their spiritual conceit 
 and religious professions, the same as those 
 to whom the Lord addressed the follow- 
 ing words: "Woe unto you, Scribes and 
 Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the 
 tombs of the prophets and garnish the 
 sepulchres of the righteous, and say, if we 
 had been in the days of our fathers, we 
 would not have been partakers with them in 
 the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye 
 be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the 
 children of them which killed the prophets." 
 (Matt. 23 : 29-31.) 
 Many a pharisaical fanatic has gone to 
 
 153 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 some far comer of the earth as a represen- 
 tative of some church to proclaim damna- 
 tion to those who should not recognize his 
 authority for dogmatic and unreasonable 
 statements, with the idea that he was ful- 
 filling Christ's command: "Go ye into all 
 the world and preach the Gospel to the whole 
 creation." 
 
 The interpretation of this command to 
 go into all the world and preach the Gospel 
 to the whole creation, as made by many 
 preachers and missionaries, affords a good 
 illustration of the literal and fanatical per- 
 version of the Gospel that is made by 
 representatives of the church today. This 
 command does imply, of course, the general 
 truth that those who represent the interests 
 of the Gospel should extend the truths of 
 religion as widely as may be practicable, 
 even to the pagan world. But he who 
 thinks alone of geographical boundaries 
 154 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 when extending the truths of rehgion be- 
 comes so much of a hterahst as to be a 
 Pharisee, and to misinterpret the Gospel. 
 The primary and most manifest meaning of 
 this command is that the Gospel must be 
 preached by every Christian in every realm 
 and plane of his own individual life — in 
 the entire world of his own mind. It means, 
 first of all, that the Christian must preach 
 the Gospel to himself, in respect to his own 
 lowest and least and most sensuous interests, 
 and then to all the secular as well as to the 
 sacred interests of his life. Any preacher 
 or missionary who is so spiritually stupid 
 that he cannot see that this command refers 
 primarily to the application of the Gospel 
 to the affairs of one's own sensuous and 
 secular life, as well as to preaching to the 
 heathen, is a person too deficient spiritually 
 to understand the Gospel, and who, if he 
 goes to foreign lands as a missionary, is not 
 155 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 likely to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 
 but, instead, some misrepresentation of the 
 Gospel that is worse than the paganism of 
 the heathen whom he tries to convert. 
 
 156 
 
XI 
 
 THE FUTURE OF MISSIONARY WORK 
 
 HE spirit and purpose of mission work 
 
 1 is destined to undergo marked changes. 
 Today heathendom is thought of geograph- 
 ically only, and is synonymous with Asia 
 and Africa and the different parts of the 
 world outside of Christendom. By pagans 
 is generally meant the Chinese, the Hindu, 
 the Arab and all followers of religions other 
 than the Christian religion. These dis- 
 tinctions and conceptions are for the most 
 part correct, so far as they go. Heathen- 
 dom certainly includes these various coun- 
 tries, and the worshippers at the shrines of 
 false religions are to be called pagans. 
 There are, however, other and larger worlds 
 of heathendom, that have no geographical 
 boundary lines, but which are, nevertheless, 
 
 157 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 inhabited by their respective pagan popula- 
 tions. 
 
 The materialistic schools, colleges and 
 universities within the borders of Christen- 
 dom represent the largest single realm of 
 heathendom in the world to-day. Partisan 
 politics is a heathendom larger than China. 
 Commercialism is one requiring vastly more 
 at the hands of the church than all of India. 
 The church has been sending missionaries 
 to foreign lands, while neglecting to send 
 missionaries into these vastly more important 
 centers of heathendom, and by so doing it 
 has in this respect also been doing practically 
 what the Pharisees did when Christ said to 
 them: " Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and 
 cummin and have omitted the weightier 
 matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith : 
 these ought ye to have done, and not to 
 leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, 
 which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!" 
 158 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 Just in the sense that these smaller matters, 
 the mint and the anise and the cummin, 
 were not to be neglected, the missionary- 
 work in foreign fields is not to be neglected. 
 But in laying the supreme emphasis upon 
 these lesser matters, and neglecting the 
 weightier matters, the church is continuing 
 today to repeat its old pharisaical folly. 
 The methods of preaching the Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ within the scientific areas of 
 our colleges and universities, and within the 
 realm of commercialism, and within that of 
 politics, as likewise within the other heathen- 
 doms of secular life in Christendom, must 
 be, as is quite evident, very different from 
 the ordinary method of standing up with 
 Bible in hand proclaiming creed and dogma. 
 
 Every member of the church in the future, 
 with no exception, if he be not a Pharisee or 
 hypocrite, is to be also a missionary. He is to 
 be a missionary in the heathendom wherein 
 159 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 he follows his secular vocation. In other 
 words, every Christian or churchman must 
 necessarily become a missionary in busi- 
 ness — with business defined broadly. Pro- 
 fessors and instructors in our colleges and 
 universities, who are at the same time 
 Christians, will counteract the materialistic 
 and agnostic currents of influence which are 
 now undermining and destroying much of 
 the spiritual life of the best intelligence of 
 the world. In speaking of the modern 
 universities as perhaps the chief agency in 
 the world for the destruction of spirituality 
 and for the spread of materialism and agnos- 
 ticism, acknowledgment should be made of 
 the signs already manifest which prophesy 
 a change for the better in this respect. There 
 have been in recent years splendid evidences 
 which show that missionaries are already at 
 work in this field. Henry Drummond, John 
 Fiske, Sir Oliver Lodge, and President W. 
 i6o 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 H. P. Faunce are examples of this kind of 
 missionary. 
 
 The churchman who is at the same time 
 either a repubHcan, democrat, socialist, 
 prohibitionist or member of some other 
 party, will find his method of preaching 
 Christ's Gospel within the heathendom of 
 party organization, by doing the most that 
 is within his power, under his circum- 
 stances, to make his political party stand for 
 the interests of the kingdom of heaven in the 
 world. The missionary in the business arena 
 will work for dollars only incidentally or 
 as an instrumental means to create and 
 establish Christ-like methods and condi- 
 tions in business and to increase his own 
 power in behalf of the world's spirituality. 
 The Christian legislator will preach the 
 Gospel by endeavoring to make laws such 
 as he thinks Christ Himself would advocate 
 if He were in his place. 
 II i6i 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 When we consider the materiahsm and 
 agnosticism that are traceable to the false 
 implications of science as taught in our 
 colleges and universities, and when we look 
 upon the warfare that is prevailing in com- 
 mercialism, and when we are aware of the 
 unscrupulous methods of infernal ambi- 
 tion in the field of politics, we know at once 
 that Christ's words to His disciples will 
 be applicable to the missionaries in these 
 fields, when he said: "Ye are as lambs 
 among wolves." Right within the borders 
 of Christendom, our professing Christians 
 might be numbered by the thousands who, 
 if they should cease to be Pharisees and 
 hypocrites, and begin to be missionaries 
 of Christ's Gospel in the heathendom of 
 their secular lives, would find that their 
 lot had suddenly become as perilous as is 
 that of missionaries on a cannibal island. 
 But in spite of any hazard that may con- 
 162 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 front the churchman, the true theology of 
 the church is to demand of him that he do 
 nothing short of preaching the Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ in the realms of both his vo- 
 cation and avocation. 
 
 There is one fact, furthermore, which the 
 missionaries of this true type will properly 
 heed, and which I mention here as a kind 
 of repetition of what has been repeated 
 several times before, because of its indis- 
 pensable importance, and because of the 
 present almost universal lack of apprecia- 
 tion of it. It is that no man can be a use- 
 ful missionary of this true type without an 
 adequate equipment of theological knowledge. 
 Just as it is with many self-styled reformers 
 who because of ignorance destroy the cause 
 for which they pretend to work, so it is 
 with many religious pretenders who pervert 
 the Gospel, misrepresent religion and injure 
 the church because of ignorance in theology. 
 163 
 
XII 
 
 THE FUNCTION AND THE FUTURE OF THE 
 
 HEN the church once possesses it- 
 
 V V self of an adequate theology, such as 
 the one the potential existence of which 
 this book is endeavoring to point out in 
 dim outline, then its function will be very 
 different from that of the church at the 
 present time. If, as stated in Chapter VII, 
 living religiously or irreligiously is involved 
 in every secular activity of man's life with- 
 out exception, and if it is in the very nature 
 of things that every man either applies 
 or misapplies some theological truth with 
 weighty consequences whenever he makes 
 the effort to apply any scientific knowledge, 
 then the church, which stands for theology, 
 must inevitably become as intimately and 
 
 CHURCH 
 
 164 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 vitally identified with the secular vocations 
 and avocations of men as are the schools 
 and colleges. 
 
 In this connection we may again make 
 use of analogy to keep us in the way of truth, 
 and to enable us to be clear in our concep- 
 tions of a far-reaching and most important 
 matter for consideration. If theological 
 knowledge is, as has been pointed out, analo- 
 gous to and co-extensive with scientific 
 knowledge, then it logically follows that 
 the church must become the counterpart of all 
 scientific institutions of learning collectively, 
 and, in the sense that the function of the one 
 is analogous to the function of the other, 
 the church is certainly destined to rise 
 into the importance of what this analogy 
 implies. 
 
 Every large interest among men must be 
 represented by and, as it were, be incar- 
 nated in some human organization. Science 
 165 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 itself would be like a soul without a body if 
 it were not for so-called organized educa- 
 tion. The church is the organization which 
 stands related to theology as the schools 
 and colleges or organized education stand 
 related to science. (It is not to be over- 
 looked, of course, that, in so far as true the- 
 ology abides in the understanding and life 
 of any man, it is incarnated there, and the 
 man, as an individual, is himself a church 
 in least form.) 
 
 Organized education is related to busi- 
 ness, to statesmanship, to scientific ad- 
 vancement and to material progress more 
 vitally than most persons have ever taken 
 pains to make note of. In our complex 
 civilization there is scarcely anything of 
 value which could be accomplished if it 
 were not for the mental preparation which 
 organized education facilitates. No great 
 buildings could be constructed, no good 
 i66 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 laws framed, no commerce extended, no 
 machinery built, if it were not for what 
 organized education contributes to these 
 fields of human endeavor. Without or- 
 ganized education of some kind the race 
 itself could scarcely survive, and if it did at 
 all, it would be in a state of low barbarism. 
 The more highly organized and the more 
 efficient our educational systems become, 
 the greater becomes the general progress 
 of material civilization. It is evident that, 
 given the natural resources of the earth, 
 material achievements are primarily de- 
 pendent upon mental preparation or knowl- 
 edge. This does not mean that knowledge 
 is the only thing upon which they are de- 
 pendent. There are many men who know 
 how to do things, who do nothing. There 
 must also be will, determination, aspiration, 
 legitimate enthusiasm, in addition to knowl- 
 edge, or else there would be no worthy 
 167 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 achievements. But, no matter how much 
 zeal there should be, without knowledge as 
 its directing instrumentality, useful achieve- 
 ments could never occur. 
 
 In a previous chapter I have already 
 alluded to and described certain definite and 
 concrete spiritual achievements. It is just as 
 foolish to suppose that spiritual achievements 
 can be consummated without adequate 
 knowledge as that material achievements can 
 be consummated without adequate knowl- 
 edge. It has been indicated that there is as 
 much room for spiritual achievement for 
 every individual and for the race as for mate- 
 rial achievement. The spiritual accomplish- 
 ments of the church at the present time are 
 comparatively small. And the prominence of 
 the church at the present time is due more 
 largely to its material achievements than 
 to its spiritual ones. Being largely without 
 spiritual knowledge, without a rational the- 
 i68 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ology, it has trespassed upon illegitimate 
 fields by endeavoring to do the work which 
 belongs to the secular or scientific institu- 
 tions or organizations. From the point of 
 view of that for which I am contending, the 
 present tendency within the church to con- 
 vert itself into a social reform organization, 
 for instance, is one of the most pathetic 
 spectacles in human history. And this I 
 say, as a self-styled veteran in the ranks of 
 those who have made and are making sacri- 
 fices for fundamental social reform. So- 
 ciology or political economy is a natural 
 science just as psychology is. Owing to its 
 nature it falls within the realm of organized 
 education. The church is related to it 
 very much in the same way that it is related 
 to chemistry or mathematics or psychology. 
 It should be understood, however, that the 
 church's relation to chemistry and to mathe- 
 matics is a most vital one, so vital indeed 
 169 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 that, whenever a Christian is called upon, 
 by circumstances, to apply himself either 
 to chemistry or to mathematics, he is obliged 
 to do so with an ultimate spiritual end in 
 mind. The church does not hold itself 
 aloof from mathematics or chemistry, and 
 hence neither does it hold itself aloof from 
 social reform. Inasmuch as the very cir- 
 cumstances of life oblige every man to take 
 an active part in sociological matters, 
 whereas only a few men comparatively are 
 required to be chemists, astronomers or 
 psychologists, therefore the church must 
 require of every one of its members that he 
 be a social reformer. This, however, is a 
 decidedly different thing from the church's 
 attempting to teach the science of economics. 
 The church will affect vitally the activities 
 of its members in every workshop, business 
 establishment and legislative hall, by teach- 
 ing them how best to serve the universal 
 170 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 good in such places. But the church it- 
 self is not a social reform organization or a 
 hospital or an institution for the advance- 
 ment of science. 
 
 The essential difference between theology 
 and science, between the church and scien- 
 tific institutions of learning, is that one 
 stands for spiritual achievement, whereas 
 the other stands for material achievement. 
 What spiritual achievements are, was out- 
 lined in Chapter VII as well as in some 
 other chapters, particularly Chapter IV. 
 Economics as a science, for instance, recog- 
 nizes social improvement as an end in itself. 
 In so doing science acts legitimately, for such 
 is the scientific end. Theology, on the other 
 hand, recognizes every social improvement, 
 not as an end in itself, but as an instrumen- 
 tality to spiritual achievements as the ulti- 
 mate end. Inasmuch as spiritual achieve- 
 ments, however, always lead on to still 
 171 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 other higher ones, it is seen that there is no 
 spiritual achievement to be found which 
 is an end in itself in the sense of its ever 
 marking the end of progress. 
 
 The fact should never be lost sight of that 
 there is no secular or scientific achievement, 
 howsoever small or great, wJiich cannot, by 
 the aid of theology, be made instrumental 
 to a spiritual achievement. When the church 
 shall come to represent theology approxi- 
 mately as well as the schools and colleges 
 now represent science, then the world's 
 progress in spirituality will keep pace with 
 its material progress. 
 
 When the college graduate enters upon 
 some pursuit immediately following the 
 preparation which his college course has 
 given him, his object is to accomplish some 
 worthy task. In accomplishing this task he 
 utilizes the knowledge acquired at college. 
 Each achievement, however, should be the 
 172 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 stepping-stone to another. These new 
 achievements, which keep looming up upon 
 his horizon at occasional intervals as he pro- 
 ceeds in life, require the application of what 
 he already knows, plus additional knowledge 
 that he must yet acquire. Hence it is that 
 men who continue to grow mentally and 
 thereby keep from becoming human auto- 
 matons, continue also to be students. Thus 
 only may they become more efficient every 
 year of their lives. 
 
 This mental progress of men who grow in 
 worldly efficiency is analogous to the spir- 
 itual progress of men who grow in spiritual 
 or unselfish efficiency. To believe that the 
 acceptance of a few religious formulas is 
 sufficient for salvation is as absurd as to 
 believe that the instruction received at the 
 primary school is sufficient for directing men 
 in all their greatest possible achievements. 
 Men will declare frequently that they need 
 
 173 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 no other spiritual enlightenment than what 
 they find in the one precept: "Do unto 
 others as you would that they should do 
 unto you." If a sufficient light radiates 
 from this one precept to direct one aright 
 through all the complicated and tangled 
 paths of one's spiritual journey, why did 
 Christ have anything more to say, and why 
 does the Bible contain so many other things 
 besides? Think how this precept would 
 be carried out by persons in different walks 
 of life and with different ideals. How would 
 it be carried out, for instance, by the man 
 whose ideal state of happiness is the mood 
 of partial intoxication? He would obey it 
 by inviting his friends to share with him 
 the cordial jollities of the hospitable saloon. 
 And thus, ridiculous as it may seem at first 
 thought, he would actually be taking a step 
 in the direction of a religious life. But if 
 he should never go further than this step, 
 174 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 what would be his final destination? Men 
 who take religion seriously, who look at 
 their immortal interests calmly, and with 
 normal judgment, become as eager or as 
 zealous to increase their spiritual learning 
 as our so-called level-headed men of affairs 
 become set upon gaining the information 
 upon which alone their increasing success 
 depends. 
 
 All of us have seen preachers, lawyers, 
 doctors, scientists, business men, and work- 
 ing men, with shriveled up mentalities, whose 
 opinions on general subjects of importance 
 were worthless and childish, simply because 
 they had long since settled down into a 
 machine -like routine of existence, neglecting 
 to take the initiative in learning new things. 
 This degeneration was the penalty which they 
 paid for ceasing to be students. It was not 
 necessarily the evidence of any lack of ability. 
 Such sights are always pathetic, but pathetic 
 175 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 as these are, they are not nearly so distress- 
 ing as the spectacle of those, thinking them- 
 selves Christians, who have long since left 
 off making any new study of spiritual things. 
 To be sure, love is the primal reality in a 
 religious life, and, indeed, the acquiring of 
 improved qualities of love is the essential 
 achievement of a religious life ; but spiritual 
 information, learning and knowledge are 
 absolutely indispensable to these achieve- 
 ments. 
 
 The analogy which we have frequently 
 referred to between the objects of Nature 
 and those of Human-nature is due to a 
 vital relationship between spirit and matter. 
 Owing to this organic relationship science 
 is as much a basis for theology as a man's 
 body is a basis for his soul. Hence it is 
 that any large growth in spirituality is 
 dependent upon an ample basis of scientific 
 or worldly knowledge. This statement, how- 
 176 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 ever, should not be misjudged in a manner 
 to discredit the spiritual development of 
 persons of little learning. The very necessi- 
 ties of life cause even those whom we call 
 ignorant to make multitudinous and wonder- 
 ful observations of scientific facts. All sense 
 impressions from earliest childhood are sci- 
 entific facts or appearances of fact. Hence, 
 all observing persons today are educated 
 as compared with men of previous centuries. 
 Any man, by the proper use of the scientific 
 knowledge which it is his privilege to know, 
 provided he keeps himself in an inquiring 
 or studious attitude, will be led by Providence 
 to a wonderful spiritual fruition. The chief 
 thing to be known in this connection is that 
 theology is qualified to enable a man to make 
 use of his scientific learning for the perfection 
 of his character. Observe that theology 
 does not draw any man away from scientific 
 pursuits, but on the contrary, urges him 
 12 177 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 into scientific pursuits, and then enables him 
 to use his scientific experiences as a means 
 of bringing to fruition the best capacities 
 and powers that are in him potentially. It 
 will therefore be the function of the church 
 to direct the world, by theological enlighten- 
 ment, to the proper use to be made of all 
 scientific or secular activities and achieve- 
 ments. 
 
 When we look upon our scientific institu- 
 tions of learning, as they are being conducted 
 at the present time and as at present organized, 
 their function is not strictly or accurately 
 analogous to the function of the ideal church. 
 The present time is a transitional period in 
 business, education and religion. The pur- 
 poses of the schools and colleges and the 
 methods of education are changing. If I 
 may be pardoned for anticipating some de- 
 velopments in the educational world, I will 
 be able to make much clearer the real 
 178 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 function of the church. The fact that 
 knowledge is indispensable to useful achieve- 
 ment has already been alluded to. Knowl- 
 edge, however, is strictly instrumental in 
 its nature or character. At the present 
 time the commonly accepted purpose of 
 organized education is to advance the cause 
 of learning as though learning were the end 
 in itself. Gradually but ever more swiftly, 
 however, it is coming to be recognized that 
 the chief object or purpose of organized 
 education should be to advance civilization 
 — itself to produce the best possible achieve- 
 ments. Teaching, then, is to be primarily 
 for the sake of useful achievement. Knowl- 
 edge gained for any other purpose than for 
 application in useful work is apt to be an 
 utter waste. Where there is no goal the 
 instrumentality has little opportunity to 
 be used effectively. 
 
 Economic science is leading on to almost 
 179 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 revolutionary changes in our social order. 
 I can conceive of economic changes, ac- 
 companied by improvements in educational 
 methods, which would make it the logical 
 outcome for the universities to become 
 owners or proprietors of the world's greatest 
 business enterprises. Before the federated 
 universities could make practical business 
 their chief object, however, and cause in- 
 struction to become secondary and instru- 
 mental to the business in hand, some form 
 of industrial co-operation or pure business 
 democracy would need to prevail. It seems 
 altogether possible, however, that under 
 favorable economic conditions, a federation 
 of colleges and universities might act as the 
 right arm of governments in conducting 
 most of the leading business enterprises of 
 the world. Under such conditions all co- 
 workers would be students, and students 
 would be co-workers, and all would be both 
 i8o 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 doers and students for life. The chief object 
 of business then would be to lead on to the 
 best possible progress of civilization, with 
 organized education to direct it toward 
 this goal. Real success for a worker then 
 would mean his ever increasing efficiency 
 as a worker for the common good. This 
 would require study, and study requires 
 instruction. Work, study and instruction 
 should accompany each other, not only 
 during a four years' term at college, but 
 through one's threescore years and ten of 
 earthly life. 
 
 Many steps have already been taken in 
 the direction of establishing this relation 
 between organized education and business, 
 and of changing the methods of education 
 so as to make this object its goal. Of the 
 numerous steps being taken in this direction, 
 mention may be made, for illustration, of 
 the work of the University of Cincinnati, 
 i8i 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 many of whose students are employed in 
 the great manufacturing estabHshments in 
 the vicinity of Cincinnati and study at the 
 University with the aim of becoming more 
 efficient in the work of their employment. 
 The whole trend of the educational work at 
 the University of Wisconsin also is in this 
 general direction. It has rendered this 
 kind of assistance particularly to the workers 
 of the agricultural class throughout the 
 entire state. Thousands of farmers are re- 
 ceiving direct educational benefit from this 
 institution by which they are becoming 
 both better farmers and better citizens. 
 And the increased annual output of the 
 farms, owing to this educational aid rendered 
 by the University, runs into the hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars. The national govern- 
 ment itself is taking many steps in aug- 
 menting this swiftly swelling stream of ten- 
 dency, as instanced by what it is doing in 
 182 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 forestry, in irrigation, in agriculture, in 
 sanitation and in many more enterprises 
 which combine education with work-in- 
 hand. These various government under- 
 takings, by means of the knowledge they 
 disseminate, add many millions to the na- 
 tional wealth annually. 
 
 If we can conceive of such co-operation 
 between the universities and the industrial 
 order as to bring most of the world's busi- 
 ness under the control and direction of the 
 scientific institutions of learning, to the end 
 that the progress of civilization might be 
 increased to its maximum, and under which 
 regime students would study for life, be- 
 cause they would work all of life, and aim to 
 grow more efficient throughout life, then 
 we have, in general outline, the conception of 
 an organization of the world's scientific 
 institutions of learning, whose manifest 
 function would be almost perfectly analogous 
 183 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 to the real function of the ideal church which 
 is yet to be established in the world. 
 Organized education would then promote 
 material civilization as its acknowledged 
 chief purpose, and employ not only the 
 class-room and the laboratory, but also the 
 business houses, the manufacturing plants 
 and the industrial enterprises of the world 
 as instrumentalities to this end. In a man- 
 ner analogous to this the church will pro- 
 mote as its primal purpose man's "chief 
 interest,"'^ which is shown by "the standard 
 of all values" to be "the spiritual regenera- 
 tion of the soul" (as pointed out in pre- 
 ceding chapters). It will employ not only 
 the pulpit and the printing press, but, also, 
 the federation of colleges and universities, 
 and all of the industrial enterprises con- 
 ducted by it, and all other secular ac- 
 tivities of men, as instrumentalities to this 
 *See Chapter IIL 
 184 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 end. This is the function of the church 
 for the reason that theology represents that 
 particular kind of enlightenment which re- 
 veals the relations between man's chief 
 interest and all scientific or worldly or 
 sensuous interests, and thus shows how 
 these latter must be dealt with in daily 
 conduct to promote the spiritual end in 
 view. 
 
 From the foregoing it would seem likely 
 that the power of the church is yet to be multi- 
 plied many times, for, according to the logic of 
 things, its power must necessarily be equal to 
 the willingness of men to regard their ''chief 
 interest'' as having first claim upon them. 
 At the same time, it becomes manifest that 
 all the superimposed and arbitrary authority 
 exercised by the church, such as it has al- 
 ways tried to wield, of the nature of a king's 
 authority over his subjects, or of a parent's 
 authority over his children, or of a shepherd's 
 i8s 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 authority over his flock, must certainly and 
 inevitably come to an end. 
 
 There is a certain kind of authority which 
 inheres in any kind of an organization by 
 which law and order are established and 
 maintained. The church, being an eccle- 
 siastical organization, must have its own 
 government as regards the working of its 
 ecclesiastical machinery. This will be the 
 same kind of authority, however, as prevails 
 in the purest democracy. Spiritual freedom 
 is a personal matter, and is of such a profound 
 character that no man can possibly be forced 
 against his will, not even by God Almighty 
 Himself, to choose right instead of \\Tong. 
 And it is also in the nature of things that a 
 man cannot be forced to believe what does 
 not appear to him as believable. Unless 
 the truth is first seen by a man to be true, 
 he cannot by any arbitrary act of his will 
 compel himself to believe it. Hence, the 
 i86 
 
RELIGION RATIONALIZED 
 
 church will cease from all of its hitherto 
 misdirected efforts in the direction of com- 
 pelling men by external authority either to 
 choose right or to believe its dogmas. 
 By organized effort, as an organization, the 
 church will simply put forth its rays of il- 
 lumination by legitimate and orderly methods 
 and in such a way that saving aspects of 
 spiritual truth will be as a light surrounding 
 every man in the world, whether he is 
 willing to open his eyes to it or not. As 
 for those who, on account of evil lives, are un- 
 willing to do right and to see the truth (the 
 true relationship of things toward the universal 
 good), the church will have nothing more to do 
 with them than to make a ceaseless and affec- 
 tionate appeal and to cause certain indirect in- 
 fluences to act upon their lives. But as to the 
 commonly understood meaning of the term 
 authority in religion or in the church, the days 
 of such authority are swiftly coming to an end. 
 187 
 
Announcement 
 
 Those upon whom the foregoing pages 
 have made any impression, and to whom 
 they have revealed new possibihties of 
 investigation and exploration in the realm 
 of spiritual realities, will be interested in 
 knowing that the author has nearly com- 
 pleted the writing of a second volume 
 which is to be a logical continuation of the 
 contents of this book. The second vol- 
 ume is expected to be published by about 
 January, 191 1, or possibly a little earlier. 
 It will go more deeply than this book 
 has done into the important matter of 
 determining the mental processes by 
 which man may come into the definite 
 and positive knowledge of fundamental 
 spiritual verities. It will attempt to 
 treat in a rational and logical manner the 
 general question of a divine revelation, 
 and thereby show the places to be occu- 
 pied in the world's new and advancing 
 theology by the Bible and by Jesus Christ. 
 
Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
J *