the same attitude for the ultimate welfare of his child. Postponing the question of life everlasting for a moment, there is n't much difference in infinite time between hanging and spanking. I did not find any reasoned or pronounced opposition to considering the term 'Father,' by way of analogy, sound enough. All confessed that it has been most helpful to many suffering souls, and an aid even to the strong in times of trial and hopeless

ness.

I repeat, however, that most of them said that, while they were certain a close personal relationship with God was possible, the relationship of Father did not quite express their idea. On the whole, their feeling in this matter was that the differences of opinion which so many men become excited over were vastly unimportant; that it was mere speculation to say, and of very little value to know, who was right and who was wrong. They thought that the only people justified in becoming aroused on the subject were those who believed in a divine revelation which they could not get others to accept.

As to the term 'Almighty,' they accept it literally. The idea of a God in conflict with His own self-restraints is a bit too mystical for their thought.

The next phrase of the Apostles' Creed, 'Maker of heaven and earth,' is too small a picture of the sensible man's Creator; further, the term 'heaven' may involve a theological definition as to its character. 'Maker of the universe' better conveys the idea - or perhaps, to borrow from the Nicene Creed, 'And of all things visible and invisible.'

IV

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.

There seemed to be no doubt in my

friends' minds as to the admiration in which Christ is held by all believers, most doubters, and many, if not most, thinking unbelievers.

I have talked with several people, claiming to have been earnest readers of the Gospels, who reject the divinity of Christ and yet speak of Him with an admiration halfway between reverence and condescension. And I have heard this type of reader refer to Jesus as 'inspired' - whatever that may mean if one does not acknowledge a source of inspiration.

Let me put it in this way: If the records of all other religions and the books of all the philosophers were set on one side and the Gospels of Christ on the other, and either had to be destroyed, I think beyond doubt all my sensible men would toss the philosophers, together with the Vedas and Korans, into the fire and save the Gospels.

Their conviction rings clearly and convincingly concerning Christ: 'Never man spake like this man!' They feel that the uneducated son of a carpenter could not have seen so deep down into the well of fundamental truths unless he had been inspired, and that there could be but one source of inspiration, the 'rigorously just and substantially kind and beneficent governance' which they accept as God.

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary.

These two phrases of the Apostles' Creed, I found, were associated in their minds as one, involving what is generally discussed as the Virgin Birth. Most of my friends said they had no views that were worth while on the subject. They rather thought the idea represented a strained effect on the part of overnice or overreligious minds. If Jesus was the spiritual Son of God the nearest approach to divinity that man has ever seen that is quite

sufficient for them. They do not deny the high-powered force of the full acceptance of revealed beliefs; they have read of the martyrs; they have occasionally, though very seldom, seen a real Christian - yet in the absence of yet in the absence of a spiritual revelation, such as occurred to Saint Paul, they classify these doctrines as somewhat unfruitful speculation.

Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried.

As to the historical facts of the life, teachings, and death of Jesus, they apparently entertained no doubt. They know that in the rapidly disintegrating process which followed Darwinism, even the simplest, most probable records were attacked by ignorant plunderers, who, following behind the sincere searchers after truth, attempted to destroy everything within the temple. The motives of these gentry do not appeal to them. They accept all of the above as true without drawing any very significant deductions therefrom.

He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven.

As to the descent into Hell and the ascent into Heaven. They do not see that much importance is to be attached to such a picture. They are inclined to feel that it is a bit symbolical; otherwise that it is allied to a conception of Hell and Heaven such as they do not cherish. As to the character of Heaven and Hell, while they hold no definite views, they do not believe in eternal damnation any more than they desire a milk-and-honey Heaven.

The only reasonable approach, they believe, to the acceptance of a particular kind of Heaven and Hell would be through faith in a revelation, and they are under the impression that revealed religion has been, on the whole, wisely silent on the subject. The

description of these abodes of reward and punishment has been left to the imagination of preachers and hymn writers, whose theology, they believe, may be as bad as their verse. To them, for example, the Book of Revelation is imagery.

So also, concerning the resurrection of the body of Jesus, they refuse to puzzle their minds. They quite admit the possibility of an all-powerful God so saving the body of the greatest of His spiritual sons, and they confess that the evidence of the many honest men who were supposed to have seen Christ in the body after His death and burial is impressive. They would not accept such a belief, however, without a further study of the sources of evidence. This they have no inclination to make, since they regard the ascension of a spirit as quite as remarkable a miracle as a physical resurrection and they need no evidence of the latter to strengthen their belief in the former.

And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty: From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

These things, I repeat, most of my friends neither affirm nor deny. They look upon it as imagery. One thing all, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, agree upon is that the various incidents in the life of Jesus, His love of humanity, His understanding, His compassion and tolerance toward human weaknesses, His kindly words to the sinner, 'Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more,' - would lead all sensible men, if and when there is a judgment day, to select Him above all others as their judge.

V

I believe in the Holy Ghost.

Few of my friends were even superficially familiar with the library of discussions concerning the Holy Ghost or the Trinity. Here again, they said, a

Supreme God may take what form He wishes-numbers may be mere symbols invented by man. The sensible man feels no capacity to understand the question, and no desire to study it. They believe in the Spirit of God; subdivision of His powers they regard as metaphysical. That Christ 'sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty' seems to them immaterial as a matter of belief.

The holy Catholic Church.

I found that most of them believed these words had been inserted by the Roman Catholic Church with the purpose of binding together its followers, and readily taken over by the Church of England, as the word 'Roman' was not found in it.

They are quite unfamiliar with the numerous interpretations of the word 'Church' as used in the Creed and the various adaptations of the word 'Catholic.' They believe that the Creed, as formulated, was intended to cover the Church as constituted at the time of the adoption of the Creed.

As to the Roman Catholic Church, I find most of my men have considerable admiration for its learning and its facility for adapting psychological laws to the benefit of both the higher and the lower forms of intellect. Their criticism is of its priestcraft and its natural but abortive effort to determine a truth by ecclesiastical authority.

They extend the same criticism to other church organizations. They believe that the churches have departed from the tolerant spirit of their Great Leader, and while they believe in organization for coöperative effort, and acknowledge the inspiration that comes from association with men of high purpose, they regard the internal affairs of church organization as leading to self-exaltation, inflexibility, and intolerance, and they think that nearly all churches attempt to speak with a

self-appointed authority that is not justified.

The Communion of Saints.

They know nothing of the controversy that has waged around this phrase. They take it literally and they regard it as a possible and very pleasant experience for the chosen few, but as one of them said, 'Having no hope of being included in this group, I see no reason why I should concern myself about a meeting to which I shall not be invited.'

The Forgiveness of sins.

We now come to that very difficult phrase, 'the forgiveness of sins.' Here most of my friends find themselves much at sea when they attempt to apply either the test of reason or the measure of probability.

One of the qualities of these men is tolerance, and an absence of a vengeful or unforgiving spirit. They cannot believe that a beneficent God would punish the slightest peccadillo as severely as some preachers have believed and wished. Nor do they believe that even the greatest of sins would doom a man to everlasting punishment. Their feeling is well expressed by the Persian: 'Pish! He's a Good Fellow and 't will all be well.'

They cannot picture God as a petty bookkeeper with a ledger containing debit and credit accounts of sins and virtuous acts. To pursue the analogy, they believe only in a well-estimated balance. My man knows that sin hurts and virtue aids him; that sin and virtue mark his soul as they mark his face, and that a trained observer may tell at a glance what manner of man he is. If all of a man's sins should be remitted, he feels that he might well become the kind of man he would like to be, and that he might become worthy to occupy some place, however lowly, in the continuity of things.

This point of view gives sensible men

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.

They can therefore understand what Christ meant when He said, "Thy sins are forgiven thee,' whereas the forgive ness of a single sin seems to them somewhat trifling.

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

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 continuity of personality, or by the sentiment 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 asserted 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.

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.