Chapter 16 chapter 16

We have now found the inspiration, the living emotion that is in religion. But this inspiration or living emotion in religion is found not only in religion_I mean Church religion. This inspiration or living e-motion is known to everyone who has ever felt an impulse which makes him obey the rules of moral conduct above all considerations of self-interest or fear. In fact, this inspiration or living emotion that is in religion is found in every action of men which is not prompted by the base motive of self-interest or fear, but by the sense of duty and honour. This inspiration or living emotion in religion, I say, is found not only in religion. But the value of religion is that the words of the rules of moral conduct which the founders of all great religions have left behind them have, what the rules of morality of philosophers and moralists have not, this inspiration or living emotion which, as Matthew Arnold says, lights up those rules and makes it easy for men to obey them. nspiration or living emotion in the words of the rules of conduct of religion again is found not only in religion. All the words of really great men in literature, especially poets, have also this inspiration or living emotion that is in religion. The words of Goethe, for instance, which I have just quoted, have also this inspiration or living emotion. But the words of great men in literature, unfortunately, cannot reach the mass of mankind because all great men in literature speak the language of educated men, which the mass of mankind cannot understand. The founders of all the great religions in the world have this advantage, that they were mostly uneducated men, and, speaking the simple language of uneducated men, can make the mass of mankind understand them. , therefore, of religion, the real value of all the great religions in the world, is that it can convey the inspiration or living emotion which it contains even to the mass of mankind. In order to understand how t his inspiration or living emotion came into religion, into all the great religions of the world, let us find out how these religions came into the world.

Now, the founders of all the great religions in the world, as we know, were all of them men of exceptionally or even abnormally strong emotional nature. This abnormally strong emotional nature made them feel intensely the emotion of love or human affection, which, as I have said, is the source of the inspiration in religion, the soul of religion. This intense feeling or emotion of love or human affection enabled them to see what I have called the indefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the soul of justice which they called righteousness, and this vivid perception of the absolute essence of justice enabled them to see the unity of the laws of right and wrong or moral laws. As they were men of exceptionally strong e-motional nature, they had a powerful imagination, which unconsciously personified this unity of moral laws as an almighty supernatural Being. To this supernatural almighty Being, the personified unity of moral laws of their imagination, they gave the nameof God, from whom they also believed that the intense feeling or emotion of love or human affection, which they felt, came. In this way, then, the inspiration or living emotion that is in religion came into religion; the rules of moral conduct of religion and supplies the emotion or motive power needful for carrying the mass of mankind, along the straight and narrow way of moral conduct. But now the value of religion is not only that it has an inspiration or living emotion in its rules of moral conduct which lights up these rules and makes it easy for men to obey them. The value of religion, of all the great religions in the world, is that they have an organization for awakening, exciting, and kindling the inspiration or living emotion in men necessary to make them obey the rules of moral conduct. This organization in all the great religions of the world is called the Church.

The Church, many people believe, is founded to teach men the belief in God. But that is a great mistake. It is this great mistake of the Christian Churches in modern times which has made honest men like the late Mr. JA Froude feel disgusted with the modern Christian Churches. Mr. Froude says: "Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England on the mysteries of the faith, on the divine mission of the clergy, on apostolic succession, etc., but never one that I can recollect on common honesty, on those primitive commands, Thou shalt not lie and Thou shalt not steal. " But then, with all deference to Mr. Froude, I think he is also wrong when he says here that the Church, the Christian Church, ought to teach morality. The aim of the establishment of the Church no doubt is to make men moral, to make men obey the rules of moral conduct such as "Thou shalt not lie" and "Thou shalt not steal." But the function, the true function of the Church in all the great religions of the world, is not t o teach morality, but to teach religion, which, as I have shown you, is not a dead square rule such as "Thou shalt not lie" and" Thou shalt not steal," but an inspiration, a living emotion to make men obey those rules. The true function of the Church, therefore, is not to teach morality, but to inspire morality, to inspire men to be moral; in fact, to inspire and fire men with a living emotion which makes them moral. , the Church in all the great religions of the world is an organization, as I said, for awakening and kindling an inspiration or living emotion in men necessary to make them obey the rules of moral conduct. But how does the Church awake and kindle this inspiration in men?

Now, as we all know, the founders of all the great religions of the world not only gave an inspiration or living emotion to the rules of moral conduct which they taught, but they also inspired their immediate disciplines with a feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration , love, and enthusiasm for their person and character. When the great teachers died, their immediate disciples, in order to keep up the feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm which they felt for their teacher, founded a Church. , as we know, was the origin of the Church in all the great religions of the world. The Church thus awakens and kindles the inspiration or living emotion in men necessary to make them obey the rules of moral conduct, by keeping up, exciting and arousing, the feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm for the person and character of the first Teacher and Founder of religion which the immediate disciplines originally felt. Men rightly call not only the belief in God, but the belief in religion a faith, a trust; but a trust in whom? In the first teacher and founder of their religion who, in Mo-hammedanism is called the Prophet and in Christianity the Mediator. a conscientious Mohammedan why he believes in God and obeys the rules of moral conduct, he will rightly answer you that he does it because he believes in Mohammed the Prophet. If you ask a conscientious Christian why he believes in God and obeys the rules of moral conduct conduct, he will rightly answer you that he does it because he loves Christ. Thus you see the belief in Mohammed, the love of Christ, in fact the feeling and emotion, as I said of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm for the first Teacher and Founder of religion which it is the function of the Church to keep up, excite and arouse in men_is the source of inspiration, the real power in all the great religions of the world by which they are able to make men, to make the mass of humanity obey the rules of moral conduct.