It follows that religion may be
essentially free from any admixture of the past in its communication to
the soul. It cannot depend on events of a long-past time now disputable,
or on books of a far-off and now alien age. These things are the
tradition and history of the spiritual life, but not the life. To the
mass of men religion derived from such sources would be a belief in
other men's experience, and for most of them would rest on proofs they
cannot scrutinize. It would be a religion of authority, not of personal
and intimate conviction. Just as creation may be felt, not as some
far-off event, but a continuing act, revelation itself is a present
reality. Do not the heavens still declare the glory of God as when they
spoke to the Psalmist? and has the light that lighteth every man who is
born into the world ceased to burn in the spirit since the first candle
was lit on a Christian altar? If the revelation of glory and mercy be an
everlasting thing, and inextinguishable save in the life itself, then
only is that direct relation of man with God, this vital certainty in
living truth,--living in us,--this personal religion, possible.
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