The preacher performs the thinking and the
architect the acting of man's duty to God. So the world goes on;
religion is merely logical, mechanical, a kind of 'greatest amount of
happiness' affair, a lubricant to make the wheels of society move on
smoothly, instead of being from the soul, dynamical, giving love and
life to the world.
This mechanical tendency has also an element which makes it worse than
any corresponding state in former times, for these at least contained a
faith which was positive, while ours is utterly negative; theirs sprang
from want of mental power, ours from want of time. When in times past a
people felt the power of thought going from them, and became conscious
of their inability to solve the great riddle of life which was
perplexing them, they chose the best remedy for what was irremediable,
and turned to wiser men than they for direction and help. From thence
sprang faith, reverence, hero worship, which stands next in rank to
independent thought. But we, having no time to attend to these things,
have yet no faith in those to whom they are entrusted, and no hope of
their successful issue; we but shrug our shoulders at the thought, say,
'I cannot attend to it,' and let it go. So _laisser aller_ is the cry of
the age, a dead negation of thought and volition.
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