Elusive Things In Life

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 112, 4 February 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

Elusive Things In Life

“The two things in this world that, above all others, elude all human attempts to organize them, are men’s aspirations after freedom in personal expression and their spirit of adventude; and these are the essential qualities of the religious life. You can crystallize into a form the truths discerned yesterday, but that form will not embrace the inspirations of tomorrow. You can define in a creed or formula the faith men have expressed, but you cannot impart by teaching the divine discontent that led them to seek it. "Consequently, no matter how sincerely a religious institution endeavours to preserve unsullied the- teachings it designs to impart, it cannot prevent'tliem from undergoing critical -scrutiny at the hands of men of vision, except by claiming that virtue is in the letter of the teaching, rather than in its spirit. “Thus, organized religion is continually being confronted with this dilemma ; it can encourage the people to dream dreams and see visions only at the risk that the revelations vouchsafed to them will shake the foundations of the old authority, and thus of the organization it sustains; while, if it remains loyal to the letter of its own tradition by denying men the right to spiritual freedom, the organization quenches the flame of its own vitality.”—Mr. Peter Fletcher, in “In Search of Personality.”