not
come to terms with "Him," that eternal and changeless life will be the
cliff against which the tumultuous waves of the divided spirit shall
shatter and dissipate into soundless foam; if we will come to terms,
relinquish, accept, surrender, then that purity and that compassion
will be the cleansing tide, the healing and restoring flood in which
we sink in the ecstasy of self-loss to arise refreshed, radiant, and
made whole.

So we reckon from within out. The religious view of the world is based
upon the religious experience of the soul. We have no other means of
getting at reality. I know that there is Something-more than me and
Something-more than the nature outside of me, because we know that
there is Something which is not me and is not nature, inside of me. So
the man of religion, like any other poet, artist, seer, looks in his
own heart and writes. What he finds there is real, or else, as far
as he is concerned, there is no reality. He does not assert that
this reality is the final and utter truth. But he knows it is his
trustworthy mediator of that truth.

Here, then, is an immense separation between religionist and both
humanist and naturalist; a separation so complete as to come full
circle. We are convinced of the secondary value, both of natural
appearances and of the mortal, temporal consciousness. So we
substitute for impertinent familiarity with Nature, a reverent regard
for what she half reveals, half hides. We interpret her by ourselves.
We are the same compound of identity and difference. We acknowledge
our continuity with the natural world, our intimate and tragic
alliance with the dust, but we also know that we, within ourselves,
are Something-Else as well. And it is that Something-Else in us which
makes the significant part of us, which sets our value and place in
the scale of being.

In short, the dualism of nature is revealed in the dualism of the
soul. There is a gulf within, and if only man can span the inner
chasm, he will know how to bridge the outer. He must begin by finding
God within himself, or he will never find Him anywhere. Now, it is out
of this sense of a separation within himself, from himself and
from the Author of himself, that there arises that awful sense of
helplessness, of dependence, of bewilderment, which is the second
great element in the religious life. Man is alone in the world; man
is helpless in the world; man ought not to be alone in the world;
man is therefore u