We believe that selfishness can be cured only by religion —by a social religion, the aim of which is not to land the believer in heaven but to reform human nature upon earth. Religion has never fairly set itself to that direct object, though incidentally it has done much to promote it, often without intending it, and sometimes in spite of its own dogmatic precepts. Once make religion the dominant force in human life, make the sole business of religion to moralize men. to control self-interest, and to purify society, and we shall have a power equal to cope with all extant forms of human selfishness. Those who mock at our hopes that this, after all, is the only remedy against social oppression have but little true sense of the enormous power of a really social religion. Even in its forms of fictitious abstraction and celestial dreams religion has been strong enough to conquer some of the deepest vices of our imperfect nature and to stimulate the development of the sublimest virtues.—
"Too good to be true!"
Can anything be too good to be true?
Rather, can anything be true which is not good?
Is God true? And is God good? Then, assuredly, only
that which is good ought to be true, only that which is
good can be true.
