"Lawd, how oft I long to know—
Oft it gives me anxious thought—
Do I love Thee, Lawd, or no;
Am I Thine, or am I nawt!
"There," said he, "is the difference between a religion which believes in a righteous sovereign Ruler of the universe, and a maudlin sentiment incapable of any real, continued, determined effort."
I must confess that this view of my orthodox friend strikes me as just. It seems to me that one of the first needs of large branches of the Christian Church is to weed out a great mass of sickly, sentimental worship of no one knows what, and to replace it with psalms and hymns which show a firm reliance upon the Lord God Almighty.
It is with this view that I promoted in the university chapel the simple antiphonal reading of the psalms by the whole congregation. Best of all would it be to chant the Psalter; the clergyman, with a portion of the choir, leading on one side, and the other section of the choir and the congregation at large chanting the responses. But this is, as regards most Protestant churches, a counsel of perfection.
Staying in London after the close of my university presidency, I was subject to another influence which has wrought with power upon some strong men. It was my wont to attend service in some one of the churches interesting from a historical point of view or holding out the prospect of a good sermon; but, probably, a combination which I occasionally made would not be approved by my more orthodox fellow-churchmen. For at times I found pleasure and profit in attending the service before sermon on Sunday afternoon at St. Paul's, and then going to the neighboring Positivist Conventicle in Fetter Lane to hear Frederic Harrison and others. Harrison's discourses were admirable, and one upon Roman civilization was most suggestive of fruitful thought. My tendency has always been strongly toward hero-worship, and this feature of the Positivist creed and practice especially attracted me; while the superb and ennobling music of St. Paul's kept me in a religious atmosphere during any discourse which succeeded it.
My favorite reading at this period was the "Bible for Learners," a book most thoughtfully edited by three of the foremost scholars of modern Europe—Hooykaas, Oort, and Kuenen. Simple as the book is, it made a deep impression upon me, rehabilitating the Bible in my mind, showing it to be a collection of literature and moral truths unspeakably precious to all Christian nations and to every Christian man. At a later period, readings in the works of Renan, Pfleiderer, Cheyne, Harnack, Sayce, and others strengthened me in my liberal tendencies, without diminishing in the slightest my reverence for all that is noble in Christianity, past or present.
Another experience, while it did not perhaps set me in any new trains of thought, strengthened me in some of my earlier views. This was the revelation to me of Mohammedanism during my journey in the East. While Mohammedan fanaticism seems to me one of the great misfortunes of the world, Mohammedan worship, as I first saw it, made a deep impression on me. Our train was slowly moving into Cairo, and stopped for a time just outside the city; the Pyramids were visible in the distance, but my thoughts were turned from them by a picture in the foreground. Under a spreading palm-tree, a tall Egyptian suddenly arose to his full height, took off an outer covering from his shoulders, laid it upon the ground, and then solemnly prostrated himself and went through his prayers, addressing them in the direction of Mecca. He was utterly oblivious of the crowd about him, and the simplicity, directness, and reverence in his whole movement appealed to me strongly. At various other times, on the desert, in the bazaars, in the mosques, and on the Nile boats, I witnessed similar scenes, and my broad-churchmanship was thereby made broader. Nor was this general effect diminished by my visit to the howling and whirling dervishes. The manifestations of their zeal ranged themselves clearly in the same category with those evident in American camp-meetings, and I now understood better than ever what the Rev. Dr. Bacon of New Haven meant when, after returning from the East, he alluded to certain Christian "revivalists" as "howling dervishes."
I must say, too, that while I loved and admired many Christian missionaries whom I saw in the East, and rejoiced in the work of their schools, the utter narrowness of some of them was discouraging. Anything more cold, forbidding, and certain of extinction than the worship of the "United Presbyterians" at the mission church at Cairo I have never seen, save possibly that of sundry Calvinists at Paris. Nor have I ever heard anything more defiant of sane thought and right reason than the utterances of some of these excellent men.
But the general effect of all these experiences, as I now think, was to aid in a healthful evolution of my religious ideas.
It may now be asked what is the summing up of my relation to religion, as looked upon in the last years of a long life, during which I have had many suggestions to thought upon it, many opportunities to hear eminent religionists of almost every creed discuss it, and many chances to observe its workings in the multitude of systems prevalent in various countries.