allow it in like measure; rather than to deny, to urge men to follow
their beliefs: only thus can they find salvation. To constrain a man to
profess what we profess is worse than delusion: should he give lip
service to what he does not hold at heart, 'twere for him deceitful and
for us dangerous. Where his star calls, let him walk sincerely. If his
creed is insufficient or inconsistent, in his struggle he shall test it,
and in his sincerity he must make up the insufficiency or remove the
inconsistency. This is the only course for honourable men and no man
should object. To repeat, it puts an equal burden on all--the onus of
justifying the faith that is in them. Life is a divine adventure and he
whose faith is finest, firmest and clearest will go farthest. God does
not hold his honours for the timid: the man who buried his talent,
fearing to lose it, was cast into exterior darkness. He who will step
forward fearlessly will be justified. "All things are possible to him
who believeth." Many on both sides may be surprised to find suddenly
proposed as a test to both sides the readiness to adventure bravely on
the Sea of Life. The free-thinker may be astonished to hear, not that he
goes too far, but does not go far enough. He may gasp at the test, but
it is in effect the test and the only true one. The man who does not
believe he is to be blotted out when his body ceases to breathe, who
holds all history for his heritage and the wide present for his
battle-ground, believes also the future is no repellent void but a
widening and alluring world. If in his travel he is scrupulous in
detail, it is in the spirit of the mariner who will neither court a
ship-wreck nor be denied his adventure. He cannot deny to others the
right to hesitate and halt by the way, but his spirit asks no less than
the eternal and the infinite. Yes, but many good religious people are
not used to seeing the issue in this light, and those who make a trade
of fanning old bitterness will still ply their bitter trade, crying that
anarchists, atheists, heretics, infidels, all outcasts and wicked men,