h average longevity and
education, their freedom from war and crime, their relative immunity
from pain and zymotic disease, and all their other negative
superiorities. This is all too finite, we say; we see too well the
vacuum beyond. It lacks the note of infinitude and mystery, and may
all be dealt with in the don't-care mood. No need of agonizing
ourselves or making others agonize for these good creatures just at
present.

When, however, we believe that a God is there, and that he is one of
the claimants, the infinite perspective opens out. The scale of the
symphony is incalculably prolonged. The more imperative ideals now
begin to speak with an altogether new objectivity and significance, and
to utter the penetrating, shattering, {213} tragically challenging note
of appeal. They ring out like the call of Victor Hugo's alpine eagle,
"qui parle au precipice et que le gouffre entend," and the strenuous
mood awakens at the sound. It saith among the trumpets, ha, ha! it
smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the
shouting. Its blood is up; and cruelty to the lesser claims, so far
from being a deterrent element, does but add to the stern joy with
which it leaps to answer to the greater. All through history, in the
periodical conflicts of puritanism with the don't-care temper, we see
the antagonism of the strenuous and genial moods, and the contrast
between the ethics of infinite and mysterious obligation from on high,
and those of prudence and the satisfaction of merely finite need.

The capacity of the strenuous mood lies so deep down among our natural
human possibilities that even if there were no metaphysical or
traditional grounds for believing in a God, men would postulate one
simply as a pretext for living hard, and getting out of the game of
existence its keenest possibilities of zest. Our attitude towards
concrete evils is entirely different in a world where we believe there
are none but finite demanders, from what it is in one where we joyously
face tragedy for an infinite demander's sake. Every sort of energy and
endurance, of courage and capacity for handling life's evils, is set
free in those who have religious faith. For this reason the strenuous
type of character will on the battle-field of human history always
outwear the easy-going type, and religion will drive irreligion to the
wall.

It would seem, too,--and this is my final conclusion,--that the stable
and systemat