Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: textit{PART III SPIRITUAL RELIGION: ITS EVOLUTION AND ESSENCE " textit{But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." textit{ISO SPIRITUAL RELIGION1 Eveby now and then we hear the requiem of religion chanted alike by the spirits who mock and by the pious souls who have " no language but a cry." I suppose we shall always have professional mourners. But it is greatly to be desired that their services should not be prema- textit{J turely given. If there is anything in the world that is alive and active, it is just this religious spirit for whose demise certain mourners go about the streets. The body of religion changes, the spirit and the life abide forever. To the assertion that religion is defunct, I reply by pointing to the intense interest which men to-day everywhere feel in religion. It was recently stated by a Massachusetts judge — Burke observed truly that we Americans 1 This address was first given before the Liberal Club of Buffalo, and afterwards before a similar club in Boston. like to appeal to the law — that there is nothing in the world perennially interesting but religion. The ground of this textit{dictum is to be found in the constitution of humanity; for the human soul which the things of sense fail to satisfy can attain its true home and its complete self- realization only in conscious communion with the Spirit behind the veil. What better evidence of the vitality of religion is needed than the fact that millions of our people go every Sunday to church, notwithstanding the crudeness of so many ecclesiastical dogmas and the sonorous inanities of so many pulpits? Men are too strongly convinced of the reality and significance of religion to be driven out of the temple by a caricature of ...