than we began with? For this, it may be said, whatever it may be, is not
what we mean by religion. This, after all, is merely a beautiful way of
expressing facts; a translation, not an interpretation, of life. What we
mean by religion is something very different to that, something which
concerns the relation of the soul to God; the sense of sin, for example,
and of repentance and grace. The religion of the Greeks, we may admit,
did something for them which our religion does not do for us. It gave
intelligible and beautiful form to those phenomena of nature which we
can only describe as manifestations of energy; it expressed in a ritual
of exquisite art those corporate relations which we can only enunciate
in abstract terms; but did it perform what after all, it may be said, is
the true function of religion? did it touch the conscience as well as
the imagination and intellect?

To this question we may answer at once, broadly speaking, No! It was, we
might say, a distinguishing characteristic of the Greek religion that it
did not concern itself with the conscience at all; the conscience, in
fact, did not yet exist, to enact that drama of the soul with God which
is the main interest of the Christian, or at least of the Protestant
faith. To bring this point home to us let us open the "Pilgrim's
Progress", and present to ourselves, in its most vivid colours, the
position of the English Puritan:

"Now, I saw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was
(as he was wont) reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his
mind; and, as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying,
'What shall I do to be saved?' I looked then, and saw a man named
Evangelist coming to him, and asked, 'Wherefore dost thou cry?'

"He answered, 'Sir, I perceive by the book in my hand, that I am