The belief in a Divine education, open to each man and to all men, takes up into itself all that is true in the end proposed by culture, supplements, and perfects it.
To rely on intellectual methods for the direct advance of devout thoughts is to mistake philosophy for religion.
Religion is the only metaphysics that the multitude can understand and adopt.
Man without religion is the creature of circumstances. Religion is above all circumstances, and will lift him up above them.
Educate men without religion, and you make them but clever devils.
It seems to me a great truth, that human things cannot stand on selfishness, mechanical utilities, economies, and law courts; that if there be not a religious element in the relations of men, such relations are miserable, and doomed to ruin.
Who ever heard of a devout deist? Who ever heard of one who was willing to spend his life in missionary labor for the good of others? It is not according to the constitution of the mind that such a system should awaken the affections. And what is true of this system is true of every false system. All such systems leave the heart cold, and, accordingly, exert very little genuine, transforming power over the life.
