the Hindu wanted something
else, he wanted some outward show and ceremony for the people, and at
the same time some silent communion with God. Who can tell what
different people understand by religion? and who can prescribe the
spiritual food that is best for them? "Only," I said, "do not call it
practical to encourage millions of people to waste hours and hours in
mere repetition, and to spend millions and millions in supplying this
cold comfort, when next door to the magnificent cathedral there are
squalid streets, and squalid houses, and squalid beds to lie and die
on."

The religious and devotional element is very strong in Germany, but
the churches are mostly empty. A German keeps his religion for
weekdays rather than for Sunday. When the German regiments marched,
and when they made ready for battle, they did not sing ribald songs,
they sang the songs of Luther and Paul Gerhard, which they knew by
heart and which strengthened them to face death as it ought to be
faced.

Fortunately, while enforced attendance at church was apt to produce
the strongest aversion in the young heart against anything that was
called religion, religious instruction both at home and at school too
was excellent, and undid much of the mischief that had been done
during cold winter days. True religious sentiments can be planted in
the soul at home only, by a mother better even than by a father. The
sense of a divine presence everywhere, [Greek: panta plere theon],
once planted in the heart of a child remains for life. Of course the
child soon begins to argue, and says to his mother that God cannot be
at the same time in two rooms. But only let a mother show to the child
the rays of the sun in the sky, in the streets, and in every corner of
the house, and it will begin to understand that nothing can be hid
from the eyes of Him who is greater than the sun. And when a child
doubts whether the voice of conscience can be the voice of God, and
asks how he could hear that voice without seeing the speaker, ask him
only whose voice it can be that tells him not to do what he himself
wishes to do, and not to say what he could say without any fear of
men; and his idea of God will be raised from that of a visible being
like the sun, to the concept of a presence that never vanishes, that
is not only without, in the sky, in the mountains, and in the storm,
but nearer also within, in the sense of fear, in the sense of shame,
and in the hope of pardon and