he religion of the future will increasingly be concerned with two
things, virtues and values. The Greek {223} virtues have been made
tenderer by the Christian virtues and more steadfast by that training
of the will and character which we associate with puritanism. The
experience of the ages has deepened and broadened man, made him less
hasty in judgment, more aware of his limitations, more realistic, more
efficient. At the same time, it has added that touch of pathos which
spiritualizes the beauty of life. We believe, also, that it has
nourished that sentiment of tenderness for the homely fate of the
average man that will some day find expression in a fuller democracy
than has as yet dawned upon the earth.

But, above all, religion must be catholic in its count of values.
Wherever there is loyal endeavor, it will acknowledge the presence of
the spiritual. It will reverence the philosopher who has found
salvation in the solution of complex intellectual problems, the
scientist who has given himself to the whole-hearted study of nature,
the missionary who has devoted himself to the spread of an elevating
conception of life, the kindly physician who has sought to alleviate
human suffering, the social reformer who has spent his life in
agitating for a saner social polity, the artist who has had a vision of
beauty and has labored to express it in such a way that all men could
share it, the man and woman who have met the tasks of every day with
courage and charity. And it will seek to bring these values to closer
acquaintance with each other than has hitherto been the case. The
guidance of a kindly and clear-eyed reason will not be regarded with
suspicion, for this human faith will have nothing to fear, because
having no tottering creed to sustain. What a relief it will be to have
the narrow sectarianism, the cruel bigotry, the obscurantism of {224}
supernaturalism purged from religion! These unlovely features of man's
spiritual life had their rootage in the distrust of human nature and of
human reason, in a certain slavishness of soul continuous with the
distant days of man's ignorance and fear. They will lessen and pass
away as knowledge increases, as liberty becomes concrete and
significant, as a more spiritual courage grows among the mass of men.
And, in my opinion, there is nothing more calculated to hasten the
growth of this buoyancy and moral courage than a larger measure of
social justice in the common affair