repudiate the creeds and doctrines, but we are likely to become
more tolerant of those who find them true and good. We shall be likely
in time to find the religion of Christ understandable and
acceptable--warm and quick with life. The man who ungrudgingly opens his
heart to the God of nature will be religious in the simplest possible
sense. He may worry because of the things he cannot altogether
understand, and because he falls so far short of the implied ideal. But
he will have enlarged his life so much that the common worries will find
little room--he will be too full of the joy of living to spend much
conscious thought in worry. Such a man will realize that he cannot
afford to spend his time and strength in regretting his past mistakes.
There is too much in the future. What he does in the future, not what he
has failed to do in the past, will determine the quality of his life. He
knows this, and the knowledge sends him into that future with courage
and with strength. Finally, in some indefinable way, character will
become more important to him than physical health even. Illness is half
compensated when a man realizes that it is not what he accomplishes in
the world, but what he _is_ that really counts, which puts him in touch
with the creative forces of God and raises him out of the aimless and
ordinary into a life of inspiration and joy.

II

RELIGIO MEDICI

At all events, it is certain that if any medical man had come to
Middlemarch with the reputation of having definite religious
views, of being given to prayer and of otherwise showing an
active piety, there would have been a general presumption
against his medical skill.
GEORGE ELIOT.

When a medically educated man talks and writes of religion and of God,
he is rightly enough questioned by his brothers--who are too busy with
the hard work of practice to be concerned with anything but material
problems. To me the word "God" is symbolic of the power which created
and which maintains the universe. The sunrise and the stars of heaven
give me some idea of his majesty, the warmth and tenderness of human
love give me some idea of his divine love. That is all I know, but it is
enough to make life glow; it is enough to inspire the most intense
devotion to any good cause; it is enough to make me bear suffering with
some degree of patience; and it is enough, finally, to give me some
confidence and courage even in the face of