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Inquiries into Human Faculty
and of the kneeling to pray, had been absolutely unintelligible, and a
standing puzzle to them. The ritual touched no chord in their untaught
natures that responded in unison. Very much of what we fondly look upon
as a natural religious sentiment is purely traditional.
The word religion may fairly be applied to any group of sentiments or
persuasions that are strong enough to bind us to do that which we
intellectually may acknowledge to be our duty, and the possession of
some form of religion in this larger sense of the word is of the utmost
importance to moral stability. The sentiments must be strong enough to
make us ashamed at the mere thought of committing, and distressed
during the act of committing any untruth, or any uncharitable act, or of
neglecting what we feel to be right, in order to indulge in laziness or
gratify some passing desire. So long as experience shows the religion to
be competent to produce this effect, it seems reasonable to believe that the
particular dogma is comparatively of little importance. But as the dogma
or sentiments, whatever they be, if they are not naturally instinctive, must
be ingrained in the character to produce their full effect, they should be
instilled early in life and allowed to grow unshaken until their roots are
firmly fixed. The consciousness of this fact makes the form of religious
teaching in every church and creed identical in one important particular
though its substance may vary in every respect. In subjects unconnected
with sentiment, the freest inquiry and the fullest deliberation are required
before it is thought decorous to form a final opinion; but wherever
sentiment is involved, and especially in questions of religious dogma,
about which there is more sentiment and more difference of opinion
among wise, virtuous, and truth-seeking men than about any other subject
whatever, free inquiry is peremptorily discouraged. The religious
instructor in every creed is one who makes it his profession to saturate his
pupils with prejudice. A vast and perpetual clamour arises from the
pulpits of endless proselytising sects throughout this great empire, the
priests of all of them crying with one consent, “This is the way, shut your
ears to the words of those who teach differently; don’t look at their books,
do not even mention their names except to scoff at them;
