for me depends on my keeping it in mind that it is I,
and not somebody else, who is being absorbed. "To be interested in
one's finite self to the point of wanting to get rid of it is to have a
high sense of one's own importance." A divine egoism is here indicated
which the subject of religion shares with the Object. "_I_ am the Lord
thy God. Thou shalt have no other God but _me_."

In describing the value a man finds in his own existence as illogical,
as a thing for which no reason can be given, I am referring to logic
and reason as they are understood in the schools and made use of in the
superficial war of minds, the lower logic and the lower reason of the
unconverted or unheroic mind. But, illogical though it be in that
construction, I nevertheless regard it--this value which each man finds
in his being the man he is--as the growing point of the higher logic
which, when fully born, reveals the Kingdoms of the Real. This is the
root of the intuition of value, the first point of contact between the
human mind and the things that are eternal, Beauty, Goodness and Truth.
Morally it takes the form of courage, which is the foundation of
virtue. In a world where no reason can be given why _this_ soul should
exist at all, _this_ soul nevertheless resolves to _create_ a reason by
its own valour, in the sure and certain faith that the universe,
indifferent to the coward, will be friendly to the hero, will respond
to his effort, will lend him its own creative energy, and bring him at
last, in fellowship with the Divine Spirit which first prompted his
attempt, to the haven where he would be.

The life of this heroic spirit is religion in being. But can we go
further and name it Christianity? I think we can. It is to the heroic
spirit, waiting in all of us for the Divine summons which shall call it
from death to life, that the figure of Christ, dominating the ages,
makes its great appeal. But of this more hereafter.

[1] _A Bad Five Minutes in the Alps_.

[2] See an article in the _Hibbert Journal_ for April 1922 by Howard V.
Knox, "Is Determinism Rational?"

_II_

_Religious Perplexity in General_

There is such a thing as the will-to-disbelieve. It is impervious to
all appeals. No reason so cogent can be given for believing in the
reality of anything but that human ingenuity, egged on by the
will-to-disbelieve, can find some means of casting doubt upon it.

In this respect, religious belief is n