ys through the embroidery of the new creed he will find the
foundation of an older faith, of older faiths, perhaps, and below these,
again, other beliefs that seem to be part of no system, but to be the
outcome of the great fear that is in the world.

The more he searches, the more he will be sure that there is only one
guide to a man's faith, to his soul, and that is not any book or system
he may profess to believe, but the real system that he follows--that is
to say, that a man's beliefs can be known even to himself from his acts
only. For it is futile to say that a man believes in one thing and does
another. That is not a belief at all. A man may cheat himself, and say
it is, but in his heart he knows that it is not. A belief is not a
proposition to be assented to, and then put away and forgotten. It is
always in our minds, and for ever in our thoughts. It guides our every
action, it colours our whole life. It is not for a day, but for ever.
When we have learnt that a cobra's bite is death, we do not put the
belief away in a pigeon-hole of our minds, there to rust for ever
unused, nor do we go straightway and pick up the first deadly snake that
we see. We remember it always; we keep it as a guiding principle of our
daily lives.

A belief is a strand in the cord of our lives, that runs through every
fathom of it, from the time that it is first twisted among the others
till the time when that life shall end. And as it is thus impossible for
the onlooker to accept from adherents of a creed a definition of what
they really believe, so it is impossible for him to acknowledge the
forms and ceremonies of which they speak as the real manifestations of
their creed.

It seems to the onlooker indifferent that men should be dipped in water
or not, that they should have their heads shaved or wear long hair. Any
belief that is worth considering at all must have results more
important to its believers, more valuable to mankind, than such signs as
these. It is true that of the great sign of all, that the followers of a
creed attain heaven hereafter, he cannot judge. He can only tell of what
he sees. This may or may not be true; but surely, if it be true, there
must be some sign of it here on earth beyond forms. A religion that fits
a soul for the hereafter will surely begin by fitting it for the
present, he will think. And it will show that it does so otherwise than
by ceremonies.

For forms and ceremonies that have no fruit in