The want of connection between the great words of religion and
every-day life has bewildered and discouraged all of us. Christianity
possesses the noblest words in the language; its literature overflows
with terms expressive of the greatest and happiest moods which can
fill the soul of man. Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith, Love, Light--these
words occur with such persistency in hymns and prayers that an
observer might think they formed the staple of Christian experience.
But on coming to close quarters with the actual life of most of us,
how surely would he be disenchanted. I do not think we ourselves are
aware how much our religious life is
MADE UP OF PHRASES;
how much of what we call Christian Experience is only a dialect of the
Churches, a mere religious phraseology with almost nothing behind it
in what we really feel and know.
To some of us, indeed, the Christian experiences seem further away
than when we took the first steps in the Christian life. That life has
not opened out as we had hoped.
Pages:
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69