with new life the
ancient forms. The Catholic turned with fresh ardor to mass and miracle
and holy church. The Protestant fell back on a more personal and inward
experience; he conceived that in each heart and mind the whole drama from
Eden to Calvary and on to the Judgment Day must be realized and
appropriated as the working principle of life.

To the mystical, the sentimental, the self-confident, it was a welcome
and uplifting exercise. To the timid and self-distrustful it was a
terrible ordeal. To the intellectual it was a perpetual challenge to
skepticism. Even Bunyan puts as his first and worst temptation, "to
question the being of God and the truth of his gospel." To the prosaic
and practical minds it made the whole business of religion a dim and
far-away affair.

Experimental religion was the core of Protestantism for more than three
centuries. It was blended with other elements in a series of great
movements. In Puritanism it united with an ascetic and militant temper,
a metaphysical theology, a stern rule of life, and a conception of the
nation as under a divine law like that of ancient Israel.

Then came Quakerism, a religion of the quiet, illumined heart, and the
peaceful life. Next, Methodism, a wave of aggressive love, seeking to
save others where Puritanism had been self-saving, appealing less to the
head and more to the heart. Following this, in England, came
Evangelicalism, a revival of self-conscious experience, but flowing out
now not only as in Methodism into a crusade to save souls, but into
labors for criminals, for slaves, for the poor, under such leaders as
Howard and Wilberforce and Shaftesbury.

These phases are from English and American history. They might largely
be paralleled elsewhere. And along with them, it is to be remembered,
went always not only a party imbued with the Catholic or high church
idea, but also a moderate party, holding a more broadly and simply
religious view.

Perhaps the most effective type of Christianity has been the simple
acceptance of the familiar laws of goodness, having in the Bible their
express sanction, with a great promise and an awful warning for the
future, and the embodiment of holiness, love, and help, in Christ. This
has been the religion of a multitude of faithful souls, manly men and
womanly women, who did not concern themselves with any elaborate
theology, but went along their daily way, strong in obedience to duty,
trustful in