seful to them in the task that lay before them. They
have rejected our ideals and our standards; but they have borrowed our
capital and our inventions. They have thus been able--a thing unknown
before in the history of the world--to start the battle against Nature
with weapons ready forged. On the material results they have thus been
able to achieve it is the less necessary for me to dilate, that they
keep us so fully informed of them themselves. But it may be
interesting to note an important consequence in their spiritual life,
which has commonly escaped the notice of observers. Thanks to Europe,
America has never been powerless in the face of Nature; therefore has
never felt Fear; therefore never known Reverence; and therefore never
experienced Religion. It may seem paradoxical to make such an
assertion about the descendants of the Puritan Fathers; nor do I forget
the notorious fact that America is the home of the sects, from the
followers of Joseph Smith to those of Mrs. Eddy. But these are the
phenomena that illustrate my point. A nation which knew what religion
was, in the European sense; whose roots were struck in the soil of
spiritual conflict, of temptations and visions in haunted forests or
desert sands by the Nile, of midnight risings, scourgings of the flesh,
dirges in vast cathedrals, and the miracle of the Host solemnly veiled
in a glory of painted light--such a nation would never have accepted
Christian Science as a religion. No! Religion in America is a
parasite without roots. The questions that have occupied Europe from
the dawn of her history, for which she has fought more fiercely than
for empire or liberty, for which she has fasted in deserts, agonized in
cells, suffered on the cross, and at the stake, for which she has
sacrificed wealth, health, ease, intelligence, life, these questions of
the meaning of the world, the origin and destiny of the soul, the life
after death, the existence of God, and His relation to the universe,
for the American people simply do not exist. They are as inaccessible,
as impossible to them, as the Sphere to the dwellers in Flatland. That
whole dimension is unknown to them. Their healthy and robust
intelligence confines itself to the things of this world. Their
religion, if they have one, is what I believe they call
'healthy-mindedness.' It consists in ignoring everything that might
suggest a doubt as to the worth of existence, and so conceivably
paralyse ac