er phrases, called
the Salvation Army "corybantic Christianity." Huxley was the last and
noblest of those Stoics who have never understood the Cross. If he had
understood Christianity he would have known that there never has been,
and never can be, any Christianity that is not corybantic.

And there is this difference between the matter of aims and the matter
of methods, that to judge of the aims of a thing like the Salvation
Army is very difficult, to judge of their ritual and atmosphere very
easy. No one, perhaps, but a sociologist can see whether General
Booth's housing scheme is right. But any healthy person can see that
banging brass cymbals together must be right. A page of statistics, a
plan of model dwellings, anything which is rational, is always
difficult for the lay mind. But the thing which is irrational any one
can understand. That is why religion came so early into the world and
spread so far, while science came so late into the world and has not
spread at all. History unanimously attests the fact that it is only
mysticism which stands the smallest chance of being understanded of the
people. Common sense has to be kept as an esoteric secret in the dark
temple of culture. And so while the philanthropy of the Salvationists
and its genuineness may be a reasonable matter for the discussion of
the doctors, there can be no doubt about the genuineness of their brass
bands, for a brass band is purely spiritual, and seeks only to quicken
the internal life. The object of philanthropy is to do good; the
object of religion is to be good, if only for a moment, amid a crash of
brass.

And the same antithesis exists about another modern religion--I mean
the religion of Comte, generally known as Positivism, or the worship of
humanity. Such men as Mr. Frederic Harrison, that brilliant and
chivalrous philosopher, who still, by his mere personality, speaks for
the creed, would tell us that he offers us the philosophy of Comte, but
not all Comte's fantastic proposals for pontiffs and ceremonials, the
new calendar, the new holidays and saints' days. He does not mean that
we should dress ourselves up as priests of humanity or let off
fireworks because it is Milton's birthday. To the solid English Comtist
all this appears, he confesses, to be a little absurd. To me it
appears the only sensible part of Comtism. As a philosophy it is
unsatisfactory. It is evidently impossible to worship humanity, just
as it is impossibl