The Power of Religion

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE POWER OF RELIGION.

In nothing, perhaps, is it given to man ever to arrive at the goal he has proposed to himself; his glory is in advancing towards it.

With what disgust the artist throws aside his brush and palette as his practiced eye detects the wide disparagement between the landscape spread out before him and its counterfeit presentment on his canvas! How angrily the sculptor casts away the chisel and mallet as he finds that he has failed to catch the graceful poise of his beautiful model, or carve from the yielding stone the more than classic feature or well-turned limbs! Both painters and sculptors there have been who have imitated nature closely enough to satisfy^ we might think, all human ambition; yet, converse with those who have succeeded best, and it will be found that they are as far from the attainment of their ideal— the goal they have proposed for — themselves as the bungling amateur is from his; and all are made to feel how imperfect is their imitation of nature. And as it is with the painter or the sculptor, 'so it is with the moralists and the religionists. As the former fail to reproduce a landscape or a statue altogether true to nature, so the latter fail to live morally

in such a way as to reproduce the ideal life they hold up before them. No man has yet become so perfect as to be altogether satisfied with his course of life, no more than the best artist is perfectly

satisfied with the productions of his brush; and it often happens

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546 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

that the best men deplore most their imperfections — their failures to arrive at the goal they have proposed to themselves. But because of this failure to attain to the ideal, discouraging as it may seem, shall that ideal be lowered? Shall it be debased? No, a thousand times no ! As he who aims at a star will most assuredly shoot higher than he who aims at a mole-hill, so will he who has an exalted ideal and seeks earnestly to attain to it arrive at a higher state of excellence, even if he fall short of it, than one who has but a debased ideal. Perfection may scarcely be hoped for in this world in any sphere of human experience, there is so much that makes against it. There are the appetites, passions and weaknesses inherited from a long line of imperfect ancestors; for no truer thing was ever expressed by figure of speech than that the imperfections of the fathers are reproduced in the children — "that the fathers eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are put on edge." Then, again, there is so much error in the world, so much that is false in history, so much that is incorrect in practice, so much false education, that the wonder is —not that there are so many who fail to arrive at the

goal which they themselves or society set for them, but that there are so many who advance towards it: which advancement, since perfection may not be attained, constitutes the glory of man. But such is the weakness of humanity that even strong men are conscious of the need of aid from without, "an external support to operate as a fulcrum for the human will, a power that may be added to its present power and sustain it at need." Hence we have a Moses, David, Solomon and all the prophets pleading for aid divine; nay, even the Son of God himself with all his strength, with the consciousness of his own virtues and native power —even he cried aloud for help in the hour of his trial ! No wonder then that we of viler clay should feel the need of some external support and exclaim

with Bums: Oh, thou Great Governor of all below. If I may dare a lifted eye to thee.

Thy nod can bid the tempest cease to blow, Or still the tumolt of the raging sea; With what controling power assist even me These headlong, furious passions to confine,