great tolerance toward the sins of others, though not necessarily toward their own; it disposes them to judge others more by their general intent than by their specific acts, and enables them to understand why moral conventions shift according to time, place, and circumstance, if not at the centre, at least at the circumference.

refusing to puzzle their minds as to how it could be so.

Quite apart from the desirability of survival, however, they all were agreed apparently as to its probability. I do not know why this should have surprised me, but the unanimity of the belief, I confess, did so.

They were not influenced, apparently, by any innate feeling of continu

They believe that on the whole the churches have by far the fairest and most reasonable way of dealing with this problem through the doctrine of repentance and the re-creation of the individual.

VI

that injustice in this world implied a compensatory life to come; nor could I see that with any of them the wish was father to the thought. Yet one of the most interesting of the group asscrted that the soul's extinction would deprive creation of all purpose.

They proceeded along their customary line of thought, first accepting what was proven and, with that as a base, weighing the probability of

First, as to 'life everlasting.' More than one of my friends questioned its desirability. As an emotional experience, this is not unique. At least three important present-day religions throw a doubt, I believe, on the desirability of an after life, although its existence is not questioned.

One of my friends quoted sadly the old German epitaph which runs something like this:

I SHALL ARISE, O CHRIST, WHEN THOU CALLEST, BUT I PRAY THEE, LET ME REST FOR A WHILE, FOR I AM SORE WEARY

Some seemed indifferent. A few were greatly moved by the prospect of meeting again some spirit they had 'loved long since and lost awhile.' None thought of a life hereafter as a life of ease, but as one of continuity of happy labor. Were I compelled to decide for them, I should say that, on the whole, they preferred a life hereafter, believing it to be good, but

All were of course familiar with the fundamental laws of the indestructibility of matter and the conservation of energy.

They did not regard the idea of a life hereafter as so miraculous in its conception that it must, for that reason, be rejected. They seemed to feel as Huxley felt when he said of survival

after death:

It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force, or the indestructibility of matter. Whoso clearly appreciates all that is implied in the falling of a stone can have no difficulty about any doctrine simply on account of its marvelousness.

It was from the physical law of the conservation of energy that nearly all of my friends took their reckoning. If Nature or God (whichever you wish), they said, is concerned to conserve the minutest form of energy and the tiniest atom, what will be done with the greatest original producer of energy we know

-the human ego? Is it more likely to be conserved or destroyed? Their answer was 'conserved.'

They all fully realized that energy changes its form and, in a sense, is dissipated. They appreciated that the same result might be anticipated as to personality, if analogy alone were relied upon. But my man was not dealing in this instance with analogies; he was basing his conclusions on a fundamental law - namely, the economy of Nature or of God. He was not thinking in terms of energy itself, but of something that, in a sense, creates energy. To illustrate: In some great city one finds that, from a common source, a thousand street cars are moved, a hundred thousand lights are lighted, and the wheels of many great industries turned. In a single day the power produced is enormous; over a period of years the results, in terms of energy, are quite beyond the mental grasp. If one attempts to trace the source of all this power, he will first find a great power plant; but this is not the original source of energy. Who built the plant? Thousands of workmen; but the origin is not with them. Great bankers financed it and great engineers drafted the plans; but the source still is not there. Finally, the way is traced back to the individual who first conceived the project and set it in motion. But we still must analyze the individual. What part of the individual started it? Not his flesh and muscles, nerves, or brain, for we at once realize that none of these is a source of energy. A dead man possesses them all.

The living man possesses something different within him. There was some indefinable ego within this man which at some time and place said to him, 'Go'; or, to use a different analogy, some 'X' within him which at some moment 'pulled the lever' in his mind.

This 'X' was the creative source,

then, of all that vast energy. One does not mean that it created something out of nothing; but it was creative at least in the sense that it changed latent energy into high-powered kinetic energy. It is the most amazingly powerful producer of energy we know.

If Nature permits death to destroy this producer, she reverses her fundamental law of economy, unless perchance, in this case, she has an inexhaustible supply to which she can always turn; but through infinite time, and with infinite use, there is no such thing as an inexhaustible supply of anything; there is only one way to make the supply inexhaustible, and that is to return it to the original source to be again used.

It is possible, my friends said, that the little muddy stream of our life, by analogy, flows back into the great purifying sea of all life, where its identity is perhaps lost-though its parts be again used for some fruitful purpose- and survives only as a part of the great all.

Most of my friends, however, do not accept this last point of view. They believe that personality survives. I repeat that they are not discussing energy- they are dealing with a vital something which, in a practical sense, creates energy.

It is true, they say, that a Creator, in the ultimate meaning of the word, can create something out of nothing; but, having created that something, then by various combinations the Creator can again (in a common-sense use of the term) 'create' something new. Mankind seems to share this latter faculty with the Creator; shares it because mankind understands to some extent the laws of the Creator. This understanding presupposes at least a similar quality of understanding, and in this sense, perhaps, God has made man in His own image.

This particular and peculiar creative power, then, given in any degree to man alone, is the power which can command the great forces of nature. It seems probable, therefore, it is of a character that could be delegated only by a Creator. They think the doctrine of probability is that such a creative power represents a totality which will not be divided.

It is worth noting that my friends spoke of the creative power of man in terms of energy, but the creative faculty, they feel, often expresses itself in terms more convincing of personal survival than energy: in art, in music, in poetry in all the various fields to which we apply the term 'inspiration.' If it is inspiration, we must logically admit the existence of a source of inspiration; if it is merely a creative and constructive force common to all men, then, in the economy of nature, we should expect it to be conserved.

My friends do not claim that the argument above outlined is in any sense, a scientific argument, or that it attempts even to imitate the precision of scientific methods of thought. They feel, however, that, as between the destruction - the everlasting destruction or even dissipation of this kind of creative energy and its preservation, it seems more probable, from what we can see about us, that it will be preserved than that it will be destroyed.

Second, as to the resurrection of the body. Here the laws of nature seem to them likely to prevail. The body is matter; as such, in a sense it is indestructible, but we know it will be disintegrated into a million parts. Are they gathered together again at the last trump?

My men said they did not care as to their bodies; it seemed to them rather unimportant. Not a few said they would not wish to be cursed with the same defective body through infinite

time, and none seemed so pleased with his 'muddy vesture of decay' as not to prefer a better.

They thought that the resurrection of the body has no sound justification in reason or probability, if divine revelation is not accepted, but, granting at once that an all-powerful God may do as He pleases, they concede the possibility of the resurrection of the body.

VII

Here my men stand. They believe in an undescribed and, to them, indescribable God. They will go so far as to use the adjectives 'all-wise,' 'just,' and 'merciful.' They believe that Jesus taught a doctrine so wise, just, and merciful that He must have been spiritually inspired. This is as far as the doctrine of probability permits them to go. They then admit that, in the vast field of speculation beyond, any man has the right to believe as the other forces of his mind and emotions direct.

One who reads this report will readily see that the men selected have not been students of theology, or of the history of the Christian religion, or of the Church and its dogmas; nor are they familiar with the history or significance of much of the language used in the Apostles' Creed. Few, if any, of them have thought deeply on the subject of religion, and they have not concerned themselves greatly as to the supposed conflict between science and religion.

Their view, on the whole, was clear that science had little to add to or subtract from the fundamental base of religion. The area covered by and the approach to the study of science and religion, the methods of testing truth, and the weight to be attached to conclusions were quite different.

They would accept at once a proven scientific conclusion which negatived a

prevailing religious belief, but they believe that science so far has trimmed away only the nonessentials from religion and is silent and will always be silent on the essentials. They have reached such conclusions as they hold by the same mental processes used by them in dealing with their daily problems: that is, through a frequently untraceable method of thought influenced by their own experience and guided to a decision by a feeling of probability. For the most part - lacking imagination, as men of 'common sense' most frequently do they rejected mysticism, not scornfully, but as something alien to their experience. They regret that they do not go to church. If they wish help on their way to find out something more about God, they admit that their best bet, if conditions were different, would be to turn to the Christian churches. They think, however, that as things now stand the churches fail to aid them very much.

These men see their God and their spiritual Christ at the top of a distant hill. They think they know the point at the foot of the hill at which their own pathways begin. They see the churches surrounding the foot of the hill with their walls guarding their own special pathways; they may even wish to enter, but they picture to themselves a priest, rector, or parson guarding the doorway through which they would like to pass. They believe that they may be asked to subscribe in the most solemn form, not merely to their fundamental beliefs, but to additional beliefs concerning which they are at least uncertain and covering a number of subjects which they regard as unessential or irrelevant.

If one is scrupulous, he cannot do so. He may earnestly desire to indulge himself in the luxury of public worship, or obtain the rare comfort and strength

ened resolution that follow the silent confession of sin within a holy place. Regular habits in these matters might make him a better man. If for this reason, or with a desire for instruction, or to comfort his wife or aid his children, he joins or continues in a church to whose beliefs he has solemnly subscribed with his tongue in his cheek, what kind of Christian have you?

One cannot avoid the idea that an organization which maintains a common place of worship, founded on the fewest and simplest possible principles (or no principles at all except a yearning after God), with fewer required beliefs, with the preacher free to confess his own doubts, might attract the active interest of this type of man and prepare a rich harvest from which the established churches might later draw. Huxley suggested, I think, that a church founded on somewhat similar principles might well become an established church and no one would ever seek its disestablishment.

One may say that the above doctrine points to the Congregational or the Unitarian Church, but my men thinkperhaps wrongly- that these churches have a tendency to deny where the others assert, and that at least one of them is headed toward a confession of faith-probably 'Three persons and no God.'

But it is not my intention to commend or criticize the churches; my sole purpose has been to discover and interpret the point of view of a body of men who at least seem to be very well worth while. If any church is going to help them, the parson must know where to go to find them. Men of such sincerity, tolerance, and open-mindedness would listen with patience and interest to the empirical reasoner and even to the sound mystic.

Saturday, October 18, 1924.- Saw TarSaw Tardieu in the early morning. He is a private gentleman now, out of politics and the press. He sees the uselessness of belonging to a party of which Clemenceau is the head, for one must recognize facts. Tardieu has lost his health and his money by his work and is disgusted with it. He considers French politicians of the Right and Left as a tas d'imbeciles, and he has washed his hands of them. He has been shooting in Scotland and catching salmon; has shot chamois in Switzerland, and was just off to shoot pheasants. That was his life and he knew what he wanted. But he made many shrewd remarks on French politics and politicians, and was very agreeable. He thinks that we are heading straight for another war and that we shall lose it.

Went on to see M. Loucheur at 9, Rue Hamelin. He was in good form and full of ideas. He thought that the post of ambassador had lost all importance and he had refused the post offered to him. But when the British elections were over he would go over to discuss affairs and would be supporting Herriot, though not of his party. He would be forward and back constantly. After we had discussed our elections we came to the question of the next British foreign minister. Loucheur thought that the Labor people had been a good influence on the whole, but had put the fat in the fire over the Disarmament Conference, a subject on which they knew nothing.

It was necessary to have a FrancoBelgian-British accord and not to hurry the Conference. He even thought that our Dominions might not ratify the Protocol, in which case the whole thing would fall down. He is not only for an accord, but for the Pacific Treaties, and would have a third group of nations in the east of Europe who had special interests, and all three accords should agree to the general principles of the Protocol. This would be the link between the three accords and might bring America in. This is also Briand's idea. Bourgeois, Briand, Loucheur, and Paul-Boncour were the French team at Geneva. He hoped to meet Burnham and would be charmed to lunch with him so long as he did not invite Gerothwohl, who had done him great harm in France by publishing an interview with him.

Loucheur says that he told Austen Chamberlain, in December 1919, how to avoid the unemployment which now worried us. The way was to seek for the cleansing - l'assainissement — of European finance by lending money to France, Germany, etc. This had proved possible with Austria, etc., and should be extended. America would follow us, as he had said in 1919, and the loan to Germany was typical. When the currencies were restored to the old standards our trade would revive, because we should no longer be undercut by lowly paid workmen. It was the debased currencies of Europe that were killing British trade. I have frequently written the same