word of God. There was Christ, beautiful, tender, adorable, and he said:
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment;
and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Add to these the old Mosaic "Ten," and you have my religious creed
complete. And though it is simple enough for a child to comprehend, it
is difficult for the wisest to give perfect obedience, because it is not
always easy to love that tormenting neighbour, even a little bit, let
alone as well as oneself. How I wish there was some other word to take
the place of "religion." It has been so abused, so misconstrued.
Thousands of people shrink from the very sound of it, believing that to
be religious means the solemn, sour-faced setting of one foot before the
other in a hard and narrow way--the shutting out of all beauty, the
cutting off of all enjoyment. Oh, the pity! the pity! Can't they read?

"Let all those that seek thee be joyful and glad in thee, and let such
as love thee and thy salvation say always, The Lord be praised." Again,
"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver." But it is not always in giving alone
that He loves cheerfulness. Real love and trust in God--which is
religion, mind you--makes the heart feather light, opens the eye to
beauty, the heart to sympathy, the ear to harmony, and all the merriment
and joy of life is but the sweeter for the reverent gratitude one
returns to the Divine Giver.

One evening, in a greenroom chatter, the word "religious" had in some
way been applied to me, and a certain actress of "small parts," whose
life had been of the bitterness of gall, suddenly broke out with:
"What--what's that? religious--you? Well, I guess not! Why, you've more