Religion ought to be the most natural, desirable, and attractive thing
to man, for it simply stands for the development of the best in us, the
coming into the full and rich heritage that is ours as spiritual
beings, and the realization of our highest possibilities of character
and service. He who ignores religion is cutting himself off from the
best and most beautiful possibilities in his life.
Some have talked of the necessity of making religion attractive. It
does not have to be made attractive; there is nothing more desirable
than the peace, the power, and prosperity of the real life which it
confers. It is the imitation, the false and prejudiced presentation of
religion that men endeavour to dress up attractively. In that they
never succeed, for cramping the soul and twisting the intellect ever
are opposed by the best in us.
From the caricature of religion we turn with loathing. Mummeries and
mockeries, fads and forms leave us empty and impatient. The heart of
man goes out to things fair, lovely, joyous, and uplifting, and they
who find no God in the elaborate sermon or the service in the church
somehow are thrilled with the feeling of the divine and inspiring in
the woods and field and mountains.
All things good, all things attractive and lovely, uplifting and
sublime have but one source. They touch our hearts because they come
from the heart of all being; they reach our spirits because they are
spiritual. Deep calls unto deep when the divine in man answers to the
divine in the world without, in human affections, in noble aspirations,
and in glorious deeds.
Too long have we believed that only the unpleasant, the gloomy, and
repellent could be right or religious. There is a type of conscience
that determines action by the rule that if a thing is pleasant or
beautiful it must be sinful and wrong. To such souls it is a sin to be
sunny in disposition, to delight in the Father's fair world, with its
glowing riches and bounty dropping daily from His hand.
It would be safer to say that sin must be somewhere lurking wherever
there is deformity, pain, or discord--that, as a common phrase has it,
the bleak and barren is the evidence of that which is forsaken of God.
Things desolate are not divine. Religion is not repression but
development into a fullness and beauty far beyond our dreams.
It is a good thing to see the divine in all things fair and lovely; to
take them as evidences that the love that once pronounced this world
good in its primeval glory still is working, still is seeking to enrich
our lives and lead them out in fullness of joy. Why should not we,
like the poets and preachers of ancient Israel, taste again of the
gladness of living.
Character may need for its full development the storms and wintry
blasts of life, but it needs just as truly and just as much the
sunshine, the days when the heart goes out and joins in the song of
nature, when something leaps within us at the gladness of being alive,
and we drink in of the infinite love that is over all.
Just as the sun seems to call the flowers out of the dark earth and
draw out their beauty, calls forth the buds and brings the blossom into
perfect fruit, so there is a spirit of divine life in our world calling
us out to the best, seeking to woo us to the things beautiful. Man
needs not to repress his life, but to learn to respond to every worthy
impulse, every high hope, to find the life beautiful.
The beauty of holiness is the beauty of character. It is the
adjustment of life to nature and neighbour and heaven so that strength
and harmony ensue, so that duty becomes a delight, labour a song of
praise, and out of life's burden and battle the beauties of godliness,
of love, and tenderness, joy and gratitude begin to bloom.
Lay hold on everything good and true, on all things glad and elevating;
cherish every fair thought and aspiration; learn to see the essentially
religious in whatever lifts up life, in whatever helps humanity, and so
make life rich in heavenly treasure and glowing with the glory of other
worlds.