lly as broad and
comprehensive, and operate as automatically and unconditionally in its
remedial effects, as did Adam's sin in its consequences.

I have thus gone at some length into this doctrine of atonement and
redemption. Perhaps I have wearied the reader. But as it is the most
fundamental doctrine of the whole orthodox Christian system, and has
been such a bone of contention in all the ages of the Christian church,
and was such a stumbling block to me for so long a time, I felt that my
"Confession of Faith" would be incomplete if I did not go into it in
some detail.

My final conclusion is, that man never fell, but always has been and
still is imperfect and incomplete, but ever striving upward. As man
was never lost or stolen from God, he needed no redeemer to buy him
back. As he was never an enemy to God, but always his child, God was
never angry with him; hence he needed neither mediator, nor any one to
make any atonement for him.

CHAPTER VII

A NEW INTERPRETATION OF RELIGION

What is religion? This over which men have waged the fiercest
controversies known to human history; that has been the source of more
strife and bloodshed than any other single cause known to mankind; and
perhaps, in one way or another, more than all other causes combined,
previous to the recent World War. It will be remembered that I said
after finishing my special course of study on the origin, authorship,
history and character of the Bible and the processes of reasoning which
it inspired, "that I gave the whole thing up, inspiration, revelation,
church and religion, as a farce and a delusion, as 'sounding brass and
tinkling cymbals'; and cast it all into the scrap-heap of superstition,
legend, fable and mythology." But after several years of study and
observation I changed my mind again. I found that what I had always
been taught and understood to be religion was not religion at all, but
only a _form of religious expression_. Creeds and beliefs I found were
not religion, but the products of religion. That subtle emotional
experience which I had always been taught was religion, I found was
itself but a form of religious expression. I learned that religion was
not something one could "get," by repentance, faith, prayer, etc., as I
had been taught and taught myself for years; but something every normal
human being on earth had by nature, and could not get rid of.

Then what is religion? While it is the simplest thin