as I believe, greatly misunderstood. How much it is misunderstood may
be seen from the fact that, though the word itself, religion, stands
for one of the most beautiful and simple things in the world, there yet
hangs about it an aroma which is not wholly pleasing. What difficult
service that great and humble name has seen! With what strange and evil
meanings it has been charged! How dinted and battered it is with hard
usage! how dimmed its radiance, how stained its purity! It is the best
word, perhaps the only word, for the thing that I mean; and yet
something dusty and technical hangs about it, which makes it wearisome
instead of delightful, dreary rather than joyful. The same is the case
with many of the words which stand for great things. They have been
weapons in the hands of dry, bigoted, offensive persons, until their
brightness is clouded, their keen edge hacked and broken.

By religion I mean the power, whatever it be, which makes a man choose
what is hard rather than what is easy, what is lofty and noble rather
than what is mean and selfish; that puts courage into timorous hearts,
and gladness into clouded spirits; that consoles men in grief,
misfortune, and disappointment; that makes them joyfully accept a heavy
burden; that, in a word, uplifts men out of the dominion of material
things, and sets their feet in a purer and simpler region.

Yet this great thing, which lies so near us that we can take it into
our grasp by merely reaching out a hand; which is as close to us as the
air and the sunlight, has been by the sad, misguided efforts, very
often of the best and noblest-minded men, who knew how precious a thing
it was, so guarded, so wrapped up, made so remote from, so alien to,
life and thought, that many people who live by its light, and draw it
in as simply as the air they breathe, never even know that they have
come within hail of it. "Is he a good man?" said a simple Methodist
once, in reply to a question about a friend. "Yes, he is good, but not
religious-good." By which he meant that he lived kindly, purely, and
unselfishly as a Christian should, but did not attend any particular
place of worship, and therefore could not be held to have any religious
motive for his actions, but was guided by a mere worthless instinct, a
preference for unworldly living.

Now, if ever there was a Divine attempt made in the world to shake
religion free of its wrappings, it was the preaching of Christ. So far
as we can