Page:What Religion Is (1920).djvu/42

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RELIGION
27

feel and experience that we are eternal.” We should fairly set these two attitudes of mind side by side with each other and with the full religious temper which simply rests on its oneness with what is deeper than anything temporal. When we begin to restrict and define, do we not begin to omit and to diminish?

But again, our purpose here is not to make any man doubt his religion; it is only to offer the suggestion that whatever his belief, he should take it so deeply, so in proportion, as not to lose contact with the complete attitude which makes it religion. What is united with the eternal is eternal. But how, how far, how transformed, or with what kind of consciousness, if consciousness is the right name at all, can we expect to know in particular, and, for religion, can it very much matter?

We must be on our guard against fining down and explaining away our