The World of Religion

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23281, 25 February 1939, Page 7 (Supplement)

The World of Religion

v By PHILEMON

PAUL was ,at Athens. He awaited there the arrival of his companions. He, least of all In en could be silent about his religion, and stirred by the vast idoltary of the city, ho spokg in the market-place about the living God. Interest in the man and his message deepened and they brought him to Areopagus, the place of public discussion. And there an address, remarkable in the history of religion, was delivered. The speaker's text —the altar to an unknown deity; his theme —the God who made the human heart to feel after Him; his teaching—that this seeking soul had its very being and sustenance in the Divine; his broad and liberal doctrine—that they who had built the altar and who now listened to Him were, as their own poets had said, "the offspring of God." We have thus apostolic authority for the belief that, in the make of man there is that which feels out after contact with an encompassing Presence. It is the most impressive fact about ourselves. We do not say that man has a religion, as though it were something he could assume or discard at will, but that man is religious, a very different thing. There is a spiritual element within and it is native to him. Saddest Beast of the Field Take that element away and he becomes but a higher animal, the saddest and most to bo pitied of all the beasts of the field. No man has to be made religious before he can be preached to. The missionary lands on far shores, but not to take religion there. It is already waiting for him on the beach. In the

unevangelised islands of the Pacific man is as truly religious as among ourselves, and the work of the missionary is to appeal to, to rescue from error, to develop and instruct a religiousness which is already there. He too may say, "Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." The great religions of the world, with their literatures and rituals, are modes in which this religiousness of man expresses itself. Were they all destroyed to-day, unless that in man from which they spring were also destroyed they would in some form begin to appear tomorrow. Wo have long ago ceased to call these religions "false." St. Paul used no such word at Athens. He spoke of them as born of the heart's instinct and seekings. And yet they are at the best but

broken lights of truth. One only Faith

brings fullness of light, the Faith that the apostle brought to those who were already seeking God "if haply they might feel after Him and find Him." No other than this is needed, no other will be given. In this final and sufficient Faith we see, not in the dim reflections of a mirror, but in the face of Jesus Christ Himself, the utter glory and truth of God. Growth in Darkness Here, many, find the surest evidence of; God and the spiritual world. Such a religiousness, inextricably and universally woven into .man's nature, cannot be false. We may borrow an illustration. In a darkened cellar a number of plants are growing. They are all leaning in one direction and stretching themselves to attenuation toward one and the same point. It would be an easy, explanation to call it, accidental and close the door. ;! »•: ■ But nothing could be more superficial. Were there but two or three plants their common direction might be thus explained, but if,, say, there were a hundred, 'still more- were there a thousand, the' theory of chance would break down. Then the mind would be compelled to the conclusion that at the point to which the plants were tending thero was some aperture through which light entered, and, more important still, that there was an outer world of light in which they were formed to live. The plants were reaching out toward their native air. So does the seeking soul of man reach out, and the plants are now not a meagre hundred or a thousand, but as many millions as there have been of such souls on earth. The seeking heart of man implies the Divine which is its home. Personal Experience But it is not of the seeking heart alone that St. Paul speaks. Ho speaks of "finding" God; of linding Him, that is, in personal experience. The spirit of man cries out unto the Living God who made it restless that it might seek rest in Him. But that is not all. The Living God is, waiting to respond. "He is not far from each one of us" are the apostolic; words, "for in Him we live and move and have our" being." The soul of man does not turn upon itself in disillusion and despair. There is a response to its search and hope, a Hand stretched out .to save. In our act of discovery God, who seemed to be without, is found to bo within. "Simple < people," said Meister Eckhart,_ "conceive that we are to see God as if He stood on that side and we on this, but it is not so; God and I are one in the act of perceiving Him." Every movement of the seeking soul, all longing and prayer in_ secret hours, all hope and faith and silent waiting,, are begotten of both the human and the divine. Around us and beneath aro spread the Everlasting Arms, and the Spirit of God moves within us while we pray. I

Nothing can ever bo more reliable than this awareness of God of which wo speak. "There is nothing more real than what comes to us in religion," says Dr. F. H. Bradley in his "Appearance and Reality," and, he adds, "The man who demands a reality more solid than that of the religious consciousness seeks he knows not what." Rare Hours There are rare hours in life when men are carried beyond the changing world of sense and know themselves to bo in "touch with tho transcendent reality of a realm that is abiding and timeless. The unutterable glories of the sunset when tho heavens aro mingled with fire, tho sobbing .music of tho masters "yearning like a god in pain," tho vision of the poet that makes "our noisy years seem moments in tho being of the eternal silence," the grace of the sanctuary when suddenly across tho dim horizon "the eternal glories gleam afar*'—these cast open the everlasting doors upon that other world and the presence of Him who dwells there.

And yet there is an assurance that exceeds the occasional. It is the slow accumulation of many years, the issue of many hours of communion with God, in joy and sorrow, tho reward of those who have long cherished the mind and spirit of Christ. They find a way past all intellectual difficulties and overcome the limitations of our finite thought. Their oye is single and their vision clear. For tho mystics knew a secret concealed from the wisdom of this world when they said: "By love Ho may bo gotten and holden, but by thought and understanding, never."