prehend. But, from the manner in which
you spoke just now, I should have inferred that you have been reading
modern philosophy--that of the last twenty years. Ah, you have
something before you, Mr. Hodder. You will thank God, with me, for that
philosophy. It has turned the tide, set the current running the other
way. Philosophy is no longer against religion, it is with it. And if
you were to ask me to name one of the greatest religious teachers of
our age, I should answer, William James. And there is Royce, of whom I
spoke,--one of our biggest men. The dominant philosophies of our times
have grown up since Arnold wrote his 'Literature and Dogma,' and they are
in harmony with the quickening social spirit of the age, which is a
religious spirit--a Christian spirit, I call it. Christianity is coming
to its own. These philosophies, which are not so far apart, are the
flower of the thought of the centuries, of modern science, of that most
extraordinary of discoveries, modern psychology. And they are far from
excluding religion, from denying the essential of Christ's teachings.
On the other hand, they grant that the motive-power of the world is
spiritual.

"And this," continued Mr. Engel, "brings me to another aspect of
authority. I wonder if it has struck you? In mediaeval times, when a
bishop spoke ex cathedra, his authority, so far as it carried weight,
came from two sources. First, the supposed divine charter of the Church
to save and damn. That authority is being rapidly swept away. Second,
he spoke with all the weight of the then accepted science and philosophy.
But as soon as the new science began to lay hold on people's minds, as
--for instance--when Galileo discovered that the earth moved instead of the
sun (and the pope made him take it back), that second authority began to
crumble too. In the nineteenth century science had grown so strong that
the situation looked hopeless. Religion had apparently irrevocably lost
that warrant also, and thinking men not spiritually inclined, since they
had to make a choice between science and religion, took science as being
the more honest, the more certain.

"And now what has happened? The new philosophies have restored your
second Authority, and your first, as you properly say, is replaced by the
conception of Personality. Personality is nothing but the rehabilitation
of the prophet, the seer. Get him, as Hatch says, back into your Church.
The priests with their sacrifices and a