ources from which we draw our
energies. This aspiring side of religion may be called Spirituality.
Spirituality is nobler than piety, because what would fulfil our being
and make it worth having is what alone lends value to that being's
source. Nothing can be lower or more wholly instrumental than the
substance and cause of all things. The gift of existence would be
worthless unless existence was good and supported at least a possible
happiness. A man is spiritual when he lives in the presence of the
ideal, and whether he eat or drink does so for the sake of a true and
ultimate good. He is spiritual when he envisages his goal so frankly
that his whole material life becomes a transparent and transitive
vehicle, an instrument which scarcely arrests attention but allows the
spirit to use it economically and with perfect detachment and freedom.

There is no need that this ideal should be pompously or mystically
described. A simple life is its own reward, and continually realises its
function. Though a spiritual man may perfectly well go through intricate
processes of thought and attend to very complex affairs, his single eye,
fixed on a rational purpose, will simplify morally the natural chaos it
looks upon and will remain free. This spiritual mastery is, of course,
no slashing and forced synthesis of things into a system of philosophy
which, even if it were thinkable, would leave the conceived logical
machine without ideality and without responsiveness to actual interests;
it is rather an inward aim and fixity in affection that knows what to
take and what to leave in a world over which it diffuses something of
its own peace. It threads its way through the landscape with so little
temptation to distraction that it can salute every irrelevant thing, as
Saint Francis did the sun and moon, with courtesy and a certain
affectionate detachment.

[Sidenote: Spirituality natural.]

Spirituality likes to say, Behold the lilies of the field! For its
secret has the same simplicity as their vegetative art; only
spirituality has succeeded in adding consciousness without confusing
instinct. This success, unfortunately so rare in man's life as to seem
paradoxical, is its whole achievement. Spirituality ought to have been a
matter of course, since conscious existence has inherent value and there
is no intrinsic ground why it should smother that value in alien
ambitions and servitudes. But spirituality, though so natural and
obvious a th