have something of sadness and even hesitancy about it. Religion must
walk softly all her days if she is to walk hand in hand with experience.
Death is certain; is life as certain? The function of religion, then, is
certainly to help to lighten this darkness, yet not by too great a blaze
of light. She may hope and aspire and guess and hint; in fact, that is
her duty. But she must not proclaim and denounce and command. She must
be suggestive rather than exhaustive; tender rather than virile; hopeful
rather than positive; experimental rather than dogmatic.

"Now Catholicism is too noisy and confident altogether. See a Catholic
liturgical function on some high day! Was there ever anything more
arrogant? What has this blaze of colour, this shouting of voices, this
blowing of trumpets to do with the soft half-lights of the world and the
mystery of the darkness from which we came and to which we return? What
has this clearcut dogma to do with the gentle guesses of philosophy,
this optimism with the uncertainty of life and the future--above all,
what sympathy has this preposterous exultation with the misery of the
world?

"And how unlike, too, all this is to the spirit of the Man of Sorrows!
We read that _Jesus wept_, but never that He laughed. His was a sad
life, from the dark stable of Bethlehem to the darker hill of Calvary.
He was what He was because He knew what sorrow meant; it was in His
sorrows that He has touched the heart of humanity. '_Blessed_,' he says,
'_are those that mourn_.' Blessed are they that expect nothing, for they
shall not be disappointed."

In another mood, however, our critic will find fault with our sadness.

"Why is not the religion of you Catholics more in accord with the happy