RELIGION
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RELIGION
optimism, without which no nation can rise to great-
ness. Most noteworthy has been the influence of
Christianity in transforming and elevating society.
Its lofty ethical teachings, the peerless example of
its Divine Founder, the fundamental principle that
we are all children of the same heavenly Father and
hence bound to treat our fellow-men not only with
justice but with mercy and charity, the spirit of gen-
erous, self-sacrificing service, springing from personal
devotion to the Divine Saviour and prompting to
the practice of heroic virtues — all this, having for its
end the spiritual perfection of the individual and the
union of all men through a common bond of faith
and worship in a Divinely con.stituted Church, has
exercised a mighty influence in softening and re-
Kning the rude peoples of early Europe, in breaking
down the barriers of race prejudice, and in forming a
common society of many nations, in which the ideal
recognized, though not yet fully attained, is a uni-
versal reign of peace, justice, chastity, charity,
reverence for authority, sympathy for the afflicted,
a general diffusion of useful knowledge, and in short
a common participation in everything that makes
for true culture. Nowhere have the works of charity
flourished in such variety and vigour as in Christian
lands. The Christian religion has ever been the great
conservative force, favouring established order and
law, and opposed to hasty innovations calculated
to cause a profound disturbance in existing religious
or political institutions. The value of such a force
in human affairs is incalculable, even though it may
occasionally retard for a while the general recognition
of some principle of permanent value in science,
economics, or politics.
While, in modern ci\'ilization, state institutions are sharing with Christian hospitals, asylums, and schools the work of charitable ministration which in former times depended exclusively on the Church; while the sciences and arts no longer need the fos- tering influence of religion, it is nevertheless true that, in the social and moral order, the need of right religion is as urgent as ever. It has not ceased to be the mighty social power working for the highest good of the nation. Religion alone can keep alive in a people devotion to high ideals, respect for established authority, preference for peaceful measures to secure political and industrial reforms, and a cheerful spirit of perseverance despite powerful opposition. Re- ligion means generous optimism; irreligion means sordid pessimism. It is religion, too, that presents the highest and most efficacious motives for the upbuilding of character in the individual, for the conscientious fulfilment of his moral duties. Chris- tianity does not disdain the purely secular grounds of morality, such as the love of virtue and hatred of vice, self-respect, regard for public opinion, fear of legal sanctions; but it reinforces and completes these by the powerful motives that are the fruit of the teaching of Christ, the greatest ethical teacher the world has ever seen — love of God, personal devotion to Jesus, the sense of God's presence, and the thought of Divine retribution. These motives, supernaturalized by grace, exercise a powerful in- fluence in developing an interior conformity to the rule of right conduct, which distinguishes genuine moral worth from the mere outward show of re- spectability. Right religion both indicates and makes possible of fulfilment man's duties to himself, his family, his neighbour, and the State. In tlie measure that he conforms to the teaching of religion will he be found to be a zealous promoter and observer of civic \'irtue. In short, wherever we find the prac- tical observance of right religion, there we find social order to a high degree. The nation that designedly and systematically repudiates religion is depriving itself of the most powerful factor operative in the upbuilding and maintaining of true public welfare.
It is on the steep incline to social and political
ruin.
VII. The Modern Scientific Study op Re- ligion. — Modern scholarship has given much at- tention to the study of religion. Out of this many- sided study have grown the modern branches known as the history of religion, comparative rehgion, and the psychology of religion, all of which are sup- plemented and completed by the older disciphne, the philosophy of religion.
A. History of Religion. — This has for its scope the accurate and systematic ex-position of the posi- tive data that go to make up the different ex-ternal religions of the world — the rites, customs, restrictions, concepts of deity, sacred books, etc. Its point of view is purely historic. It studies each religion apart from the question of its spiritual worth and possible supernatural origin, simply as an external ex-jiression of religious belief. A sympathetic interest attaches to this study, for there are few religions, however crude, that do not represent the sincere effort of man to bring himself into communion with God. The work accomplished in this field has been immense. Religious data have been accumulated from hundreds of different sources, and the sacred books of the great Oriental religions have been carefully translated, so that to-day there is within easy reach of the scholar a very rehable survey of the chief religions of the world.
B. Comparative Religion. — Closely allied to the history of reUgions, out of which it has grown, is comparative religion. The scope of this discipline is the comparative study of the many elements com- mon to different religions with the view to ascertain their underlying thought and purpose, and thus to discover if possible the causes of their genesis and persistence. In some instances, where resemblances of a striking kind are found in two or more religions, it seeks to determine whether these resemblances imply dependence. It also admits a more extensive comparison of religion with religion in order to es- timate their relative value. But like the history of religions, the data of which it uses, it does not con- cern itself as a science with the question whether any given religion be true. Comparative religion has helped to a better understanding of many phases of external religion, It has shown how certain wide- spread rites and customs have been the natural product of human thought in lower grades of culture. It has enabled us to recognize in higher religions elements that are survivals of earlier stages of thought. But its principles of comparison have to be used with great care, for they can easily be made to do service for contradictory and visionary theories. The writings of authors such as Frazer and Reinach offer many examples of unwarranted conclusions supported by far-fetched comparisons.
C. Psychology of Religion. — This discipline studies the different psychical states implied in, and asso- ciated with, the religious consciousness. It concerns itself with the extraordinary and abnormal, as well as with the normal exercise of the intellectual, volitional, emotional, and imaginative activities set in motion by religion. It does not attempt to vindicate the supernatural character of these psychical experiences or to show their conformity to objective truth. View- ing them simply as mental states, it seeks to find out how far they may be explained by natural causes. In the short period of its existence it has given much consideration to the phenomena of sudden conver- sions, religious frenzy, the sense of God's presence ex- perienced by pious Christians, and the extraordinary experiences of my.stics. Catholic: and non-Catholic. In seeking the natural ('X])l:ination of some of these experiences it has Ijcen successful; but, as has al- ready been pointed out, it has its limitations.
D. Philosophy of Religion. — The philosophy of reli-
