world in which we live? Surely the supreme function of religion is to
hearten and encourage and lay stress on the bright side of life! It
should be brief, bright, and brotherly. For, after all, this is a lovely
world and full of gaiety. It is true that it has its shadows, yet there
can be no shadows without a sun; there is death, but see how life
continually springs again from the grave. Since all things, therefore,
work together for good; since God has taken pains to make the world so
sweet, it is but a poor compliment to the Creator to treat it as a vale
of misery. Let us, then, make the best of things and forget the worst.
Let us leave the things that are behind and press forward to the things
that are before. Let us insist that the world is white with a few black
spots upon it, be optimistic, happy, and confident.

"You Catholics, however, are but a poor-spirited, miserable race. While
other denominations are, little by little, eliminating melancholy, you
are insisting upon it. While the rest of us are agreeing that Hell is
but a bogy, and sin a mistake, and suffering no more than remedial, you
Catholics are still insisting upon their reality--that Hell is eternal,
that sin is the deliberate opposition of the human will to the Divine,
and that suffering therefore is judicial. Sin, Penance, Sacrifice,
Purgatory, and Hell--these are the old nightmares of dogma; and their
fruits are tears, pain, and terror. What is wrong with Catholicism,
then, is its gloom and its sorrow; for this is surely not the
Christianity of Christ as we are now learning to understand it. Christ,
rightly understood, is the Man of joy, not of Grief. He is more
characteristic of Himself, so to speak, as the smiling shepherd of
Galilee, surrounded by His sheep; as the lover of children and flowers
and birds; as the Preacher of Life and Resurrection--He is more
characteristic of Himself as crowned, ascended, and glorified, than as
the blood-stained martyr of the Cross whom you set above your altars.