ion of religion to the type of
the believing state should thus provide us with an answer to that old
and fundamental question concerning the relative priority of faith and
works. The test of the faith is in the works, and the works are
religious in so far as they are the expression of the faith. Religion is
not the doing of anything nor the feeling of anything nor the thinking
of anything, but the reacting as a whole, in terms of all possible
activities of human life, to some accepted situation.

[Sidenote: Religion as Belief in a Disposition or Attitude.]

Sect. 19. We may now face the more interesting but difficult question of
the special character of religious belief. In spite of the fact that in
these days the personality of God is often regarded as a transient
feature of religion, that type of belief which throws most light upon
the religious experience is the _belief in persons_. Our belief in
persons consists in the practical recognition of a more or less
persistent disposition toward ourselves. The outward behavior of our
fellow-men is construed in terms of the practical bearing of the
attitude which it implies. The extraordinary feature of such belief is
the disproportion between its vividness and the direct evidence for it.
Of this we are most aware in connection with those personalities which
we regard as distinctly friendly or hostile to ourselves. We are always
more or less clearly in the presence of our friends and enemies. Their
well-wishing or their ill-wishing haunts the scene of our living. There
is no more important constituent of what the psychologists call our
"general feeling tone." There are times when we are entirely possessed
by a state that is either exuberance in the presence of those who love
us, or awkwardness and stupidity in the presence of those whom we
believe to suspect and dislike us. The latter state may easily become
chronic. Many men live permanently in the presence of an accusing
audience. The inner life which expresses itself in the words, "Everybody
hates me!" is perhaps the most common form of morbid self-consciousness.
On the other hand, buoyancy of spirits springs largely from a constant
faith in the good-will of one's fellows. In this case one is filled with
a sense of security, and is conscious of a sympathetic reinforcement
that adds to private joys and compensates for private sorrows. And this
sense of attitude is wonderfully discriminating. We can feel the
presence of a