saint on the question of
faith in the unseen, than the evidence of the most subtle theologian or
metaphysician in the world. Many of us, if we are specialists in nothing
else, are specialists in life; we have arrived at a point of view; some
particular aspect of things has come home to us with a special force;
and what really enriches the hope and faith of the world is the
experience of candid and sincere persons. The specialist has often
had no time or opportunity to observe life; all he has observed is the
thought of other secluded persons, persons whose view has been both
narrow and conventional, because they have not had the opportunity of
correcting their traditional preconceptions by life itself.

I call, with all the earnestness that I can muster, upon all
intelligent, observant, speculative people, who have felt the problems
of life weigh heavily upon them, not to be dismayed by the disapproval
of technical students, but to come forward and tell us what conclusions
they have formed. The work of the trained specialist is essentially, in
religion and philosophy, a negative work. He can show us how erroneous
beliefs, which coloured the minds of men at certain ages and eras,
grew up. He can show us what can be disregarded, as being only the
conventional belief of the time; he can indicate, for instance, how a
false conception of supernatural interference with natural law grew up
in an age when, for want of trained knowledge, facts seemed fortuitous
occurrences which were really conditioned by natural laws. The poet
and the idealist make and cast abroad the great vital ideas, which the
specialist picks up and analyses. But we must not stop at analysis; we
want positive progress as well. We want people to tell us, candidly and
simply, how their own soul grew, how it cast off conventional beliefs,
how it justified itself in being hopeful or the reverse. There never was
a time when more freedom of thought and expression was conceded to the
individual. A man is no longer socially banned for being heretical,
schismatic, or liberal-minded. I want people to say frankly what real
part spiritual agencies or religious ideas have played in their lives,
whether such agencies and ideas have modified their conduct, or have
been modified by their inclinations and habits. I long to know a
thousand things about my fellow-men--how they bear pain, how they
confront the prospect of death, the hopes by which they live, the fears
that ov