those religious experiences
which are most one-sided, exaggerated, and intense.

Now when we compare these intenser experiences with the experiences of
tamer minds, so cool and reasonable that we are tempted to call them
philosophical rather than religious, we find a character that is
perfectly distinct. That character, it seems to me, should be regarded
as the practically important differentia of religion for our purpose;
and just what it is can easily be brought out by comparing the mind of
an abstractly conceived Christian with that of a moralist similarly
conceived.

A life is manly, stoical, moral, or philosophical, we say, in
proportion as it is less swayed by paltry personal considerations and
more by objective ends that call for energy, even though that energy
bring personal loss and pain. This is the good side of war, in so far
as it calls for "volunteers." And for morality life is a war, and the
service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls
for volunteers. Even a sick man, unable to be militant outwardly, can
carry on the moral warfare. He can willfully turn his attention away
from his own future, whether in this world or the next. He can train
himself to indifference to his present drawbacks and immerse himself in
whatever objective interests still remain accessible. He can follow
public news, and sympathize with other people's affairs. He can
cultivate cheerful manners, and be silent about his miseries. He can
contemplate whatever ideal aspects of existence his philosophy is able
to present to him, and practice whatever duties, such as patience,
resignation, trust, his ethical system requires. Such a man lives on
his loftiest, largest plane. He is a high-hearted freeman and no
pining slave. And yet he lacks something which the Christian par
excellence, the mystic and ascetic saint, for example, has in abundant
measure, and which makes of him a human being of an altogether
different denomination.

The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude,
and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased
conditions of body which probably no other human records show. But
whereas the merely moralistic spurning takes an effort of volition, the
Christian spurning is the result of the excitement of a higher kind of
emotion, in the presence of which no exertion of volition is required.
The moralist must hold his breath and keep his muscles tense