were nothing but running sand; a whole galaxy
of truths turned out to be lies. Now we must prepare that which is solid
and indestructible. Perhaps some great and wise spirit brooding over our
world, learned with the experience of aeons, of human attempts and
mistakes, smiles at the deadly earnestness of the intention to
reconstruct. I do not care. We have reached a pass when all life and all
hope are centred in this faith: the faith that we can make anew and good
and beautiful the distorted web of human existence.

The war has not taught us what civilization is. But it has taught us
what it is not. We know now that it is not mechanical ingenuity or
clever inventions or commercialism carried to its utmost perfection.
Civilization is not railways or telephones or vast cities or material
prosperity. A satisfactory definition of civilization is well-nigh
impossible. The past has born a bewildering number of different types,
and it is a matter of personal taste where we place the line of
demarcation between barbarism and culture. Our Christian civilization is
passing through catastrophic changes, and it is again a matter of
opinion whether it is in its death-throes or in the pangs of a new
birth. But we feel vaguely, yet insistently, that civilization is a
state of the soul; it is the gentle life towards which we aspire. It is
based on the gradual substitution of moral and spiritual forces for
simple brute force. What is the exact relation of religion to
civilization? The answer has been as variable as the purpose of the
questioners. To some religion is civilization, to others it is merely a
temporary weakness of the human mind, to which it will always be prone
from fear of the unknown and the wish to live for ever. Comparative
studies of the great religions of the world, their past and present
forms, do not support the view that civilization is identical with
religion. Religions have on many occasions ranged themselves on the side
of brute force to the suppression of gentleness and sympathetic
tolerance. It is really all a question of the meaning which we attach to
the word "religion." Do we mean the Church, set forms of worship and
ceremonial, or do we mean the human craving for spiritual truth with the
consequent strife to reach certainty, and, in certainty, peace of soul?
There is a gulf between the two conceptions of religion.

Religion is questioned as never heretofore. The great destructiveness is
passing over the o