There is honest inquiry rather than querulous criticism in the
question, often asked, Why does not religion produce a higher and
stronger type of moral character? Enthusiasm for the teachings of
Christ often is cooled by contact with some flabby-willed,
narrow-minded professed follower of those teachings.
It is a common saying with business men that it is hard to find a man
of absolute integrity, one who even measures up to the standards of
commercial honour among those who are religious, either by vocation or
avocation. At any rate, it is true that a certificate of religious
affiliations by no means is equivalent to a guarantee of high moral
worth.
Yet it is easy to arrive at wrong conclusions when judging the effect
of religion on personal character as tested by daily business and
living. One is in danger of judging from exceptions. We may remember
as a religious person the man who makes the loudest protestations of
his piety and fail to recognize the religious sources of strength in
the quieter one of whose sterling qualities we need no persuasion.
When religion has little root it often springs up with a rapid
self-assertive growth; but it withers even more quickly under the
scorching sun of the market and business affairs. It also would be the
height of folly to conclude that religion contributed nothing to a
man's moral worth, because the morally worthless seek to hide their
nakedness by wearing it as a cloak.
If we stop to think of the strong men and women we know, of those whose
integrity is undoubted, whose character wealth constitutes the real
reserve and bulwark of our business stability, we shall find that they
are controlled by religious ideals and principles, that the strength
and beauty which we admire in them in itself is religion.
They may have or may not have ecclesiastical affiliations; these are
but incidental. They do have religion. Somehow we feel that their
actions rise not from superficial wells of policy or custom but from
deep springs that go back into the roots and rock of things. They look
out on life with eyes that see beyond questions of immediate and
passing advantage; they see visions and ideals; they are drawn on by
lofty aspirations.
The recognition which we accord to real worth, to high, and noble, and
strong manhood and womanhood, with the scorn we have for the canting
weakling, is but part of our discrimination between a living, deep
religion expressed in conduct and a mask or pretense adopted for profit
or convenience.
Still there are many good people, sincere in their religious
professions, who practically are no good at all when they come to some
strain on conscience, or some real test in life. Is it not because in
their minds religion never has been related to conduct? They are
grounded on the eschatology of Christianity but not on its ethics.
It is possible to go through a full course of religious instruction in
the regularly appointed agencies of many churches and to come out with
clear-cut conceptions of heaven and angels, but with the most misty and
even misleading conceptions of right relations among men, of honesty,
and justice, and truth.
The schools teach us about the stars and the earth, about men dead and
beasts living; the church teaches us of saints and seraphs, and about
an ancient literature; but who shall teach us and our children the art
of living, the laws of human duties? Of what value is all our
knowledge unless we get the wisdom of right living?
No man is saved until he is made strong, sane, useful, and reliable.
The most irreligious thing in this world is a religion that makes
people think that an imputed or technical salvation absolves them from
the necessity of practical salvation, the working out of the best and
noblest in their lives. Religion without morality is a mockery.
Real religion is the secret and source of the highest, strongest,
cleanest character. It furnishes the life with motives mightier than
any considerations of advantage or profit; it ties the soul up to
eternal and spiritual verities; it refreshes the heart as with living
waters when life seems all desert; it sets the heart in step with the
Infinite One who marches on through the ages.