of existence as well as the small arc of that circle
which we spend on earth. No greater theme, therefore, can engage our
attention. If I discuss questions of government I must secure the
cooeperation of a majority before I can put my ideas into practise, but
if, in speaking on religion, I can touch one human heart for good, I
have not spoken in vain no matter how large the majority may be against
me.

Man is a religious being; the heart instinctively seeks for a God.
Whether he worships on the banks of the Ganges, prays with his face
upturned to the sun, kneels toward Mecca or, regarding all space as a
temple, communes with the Heavenly Father according to the Christian
creed, man is essentially devout.

There are honest doubters whose sincerity we recognize and respect, but
occasionally I find young men who think it smart to be skeptical; they
talk as if it were an evidence of larger intelligence to scoff at creeds
and to refuse to connect themselves with churches. They call themselves
"Liberal," as if a Christian were narrow minded. Some go so far as to
assert that the "advanced thought of the world" has discarded the idea
that there is a God. To these young men I desire to address myself.

Even some older people profess to regard religion as a superstition,
pardonable in the ignorant but unworthy of the educated. Those who hold
this view look down with mild contempt upon such as give to religion a
definite place in their thoughts and lives. They assume an intellectual
superiority and often take little pains to conceal the assumption.
Tolstoy administers to the "cultured crowd" (the words quoted are his) a
severe rebuke when he declares that the religious sentiment rests not
upon a superstitious fear of the invisible forces of nature, but upon
man's consciousness of his finiteness amid an infinite universe and of
his sinfulness; and this consciousness, the great philosopher adds, man
can never outgrow. Tolstoy is right; man recognizes how limited are his
own powers and how vast is the universe, and he leans upon the arm that
_is_ stronger than his. Man feels the weight of his sins and looks for
One who is sinless.

Religion has been defined by Tolstoy as the relation which man fixes
between himself and his God, and morality as the outward manifestation
of this inward relation. Every one, by the time he reaches maturity, has
fixt some relation between himself and God and no material change in
this relation can ta