nder those
conditions. It will give us a part to play in life which puts our
souls on their mettle at many points, but it will also give the
spiritual power which stands the strain and even rejoices in it. It
will show the Cross we have to bear; but it will also show the Christ
who bears it, and will awaken the Christ, as a victorious principle,
within us all. Pain and suffering it will not remove; but it will
quicken a divine substance within us, which is more than conqueror over
these things. And, lastly, when courage, faith and love have won the
victory at the supreme point of their trial, and so established
themselves as the ruling powers, it will turn these qualities back upon
life as a whole, will interpenetrate everything with their energy, and
transfigure everything with their radiance, and raise everything to
their level, and so fill the world with music and beauty and joy.

So, then, in expecting religion to reconcile the world with our notions
of a "good time"; to smooth and simplify our path; to accommodate
itself to what we, in our weaker moments, desire--in looking for this
we look for what is not forthcoming. Religion will meet us, not on the
level of our weakest moments, but on the level of our strongest. It
will give us power rather than satisfaction; courage to face danger
rather than safeguards against it; inspiration rather than explanation.
Whatever satisfaction it brings will come through the power; whatever
safeguards, through the courage; whatever explanation, through the
inspiration. It will not teach us to see no evil in the world; but
immensely increase our resources for dealing with evil when seen. A
power in the world which is for ever on the side of those who are brave
enough to trust it, causing all things to work together for their
ultimate good, and making them conquerors, and more than conquerors,
over whatever confronts them, whether in life or in death,--this, and
nothing less than this, is what we have to expect and to ask for. Our
mistake has been not that we have asked for too much, but that we have
asked for too little.

A true religion will be optimistic. It will end in a radiant and
joyous vision of the meaning of life. But it will not begin with that,
will not give us that for nothing. The radiant and joyous vision will
not come to us through listening to arguments, through proving that
there is more happiness than misery in the world, through shutting our
eyes to