s what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible
religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within.
Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows
any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work.
That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately
to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun
or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship
cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not
the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order
to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards,
but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm
a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being
a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light,
but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as
the moon, terrible as an army with banners.

All the same, it will be as well if Jones does not worship the sun
and moon. If he does, there is a tendency for him to imitate them;
to say, that because the sun burns insects alive, he may burn
insects alive. He thinks that because the sun gives people sun-stroke,
he may give his neighbour measles. He thinks that because the moon
is said to drive men mad, he may drive his wife mad. This ugly side
of mere external optimism had also shown itself in the ancient world.
About the time when the Stoic idealism had begun to show the
weaknesses of pessimism, the old nature worship of the ancients had
begun to show the enormous weaknesses of optimism. Nature worship
is natural enough while the society is young, or, in other words,
Pantheism is all right as long as it is the worship of Pan.
But Nature has another side which experience and sin are not slow
in finding out, and it is no flippancy to say of the god Pan that he
soon showed the cloven hoof. The only objection to Natural Religion
is that somehow it always becomes unnatural. A man loves Nature
in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall,
if he is loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty.
He washes at dawn in clear water as did the Wise Man of the Stoics,
yet, somehow at the dark end of the day, he is bathing in hot
bull's blood, as did Julian the Apostate. The mere pursuit of
health always leads to something unhealthy. Physical nature must
not be made the direct object of obedience;