The horizons of mystery are not at the confines of telescopic vision, or at the far boundaries of the material universe, but are in the objects which are most familiar, in the meanest flower that blows, in the minutest seed and in the smallest atom. As the poet finds in the flower thoughts too deep for tears, so the scientist sees in it problems too vast and far-reaching for human comprehension. He can see in the very atom minute solar systems, and in electricity a mystery lying at the very heart of material things.
It is the paradox of science that the more the world is understood, the deeper does the mystery of its existence become. With the enlarging boundaries of knowledge there is a growing appreciation of mysteries perhaps insoluble which lie beyond. Science, in fact, only deals with the connections of things, and the processes by which they came to be what they are, but not with the ultimate origins and the final ends. The deeper study of nature will lead men, we may believe, in the future as it has done in the past, to the reverent attitude of a Kepler, a Newton, a Clerk-Maxwell, and a Lord Kelvin. They will see in the bird's feather and the butterfly's wing, in the constitution of the cell and the atom, in the stellar universe and the mind of man, evidences of creative Power and Purpose; and, turning from the study of nature, will exclaim, "How wonderful are Thy works; in wisdom hast Thou made them all!"
III
The Christian Faith and Psychology
The Psychology of Religion as a branch of scientific study was "made in America," and is not yet twenty years old. Its virtual founder and popularizer was William James, who furnished the introduction to Starbuck's "Psychology of Religion" (1900) and published his "Varieties of Religious Experience," the quarry in which all subsequent writers have mined, in 1903. An earlier American philosopher, Jonathan Edwards, gained the right to be called the precursor of the science by his treatise on the Religious Emotions. Of Edwards, named with Emerson and James as one of three representative American philosophers, Royce has said that "he actually rediscovered some of the world's profoundest ideas regarding God and humanity simply by reading for himself the meaning of his own religious experiences."[90]
The way for a scientific study of religious experience had been prepared by the development of modern psychology and by the growing popular interest in religious phenomena. We recall the wide-spread interest in Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," dealing with personal religion, and in Kidd's "Social Evolution," which dealt with the place of religion on the broader field of human progress. The popularity of monographs on mysticism, such as those by W. R. Inge and Miss A. Underhill, and of lives of the saints, such as Paul Sabatier's "Life of Francis of Assisi" and McCabe's "Life of Augustine," showed by the personality of their authors and the wide circle of their readers that religious experiences, especially if they be profound and unusual, are matters of deep human interest even to those not closely connected with the churches. The saints have been taken from the church historians, and made to live before us as men of like passions with ourselves. For many months recently a religious novel, "The Inside of the Cup," held its place as the "best seller."
Since the pioneer work of Starbuck, Coe[91] and James, the literature of the subject, largely by American writers, has grown apace. Established in the college course, the psychology of religion has threatened to disturb vested rights even in the theological schools. Conversion and sanctification, once regarded as themes for the theological cloister, the revival service or the closet of devotion, have become familiar topics of the text-books and commonplaces of the lecture room.
Will this study of religion from the psychological standpoint prove to be an ally to the Christian Faith, or will it put new weapons into the hands of its enemies? It may be too early for a positive answer, but the advertising value of the new movement cannot be denied, and several specific entries at least may be made on the credit side of the ledger. The materials for religious psychology have been drawn mainly from Christian biography and Christian experience. Impressive stories of conversion, gathered from the ages of Christendom and from the work of city and foreign missions, have strengthened the argument from Christian experience. Taken from religious biographies and devotional books and missionary annals and modern questionnaires, the testimony of the saints of all ages has been marshalled as they have told what the Lord has done for their souls. The very fact that it has been worth while to write psychologies of religion is in itself significant. "Christianity," says Eucken, "has been the first to give the soul a history; in comparison with the interest of the soul, it has reduced all events in the outer world to mere incidentals, according to the words of Jesus: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.'"[92]