One could hardly find better words than these to answer our question, "What is the religion of the Spirit?" "Written not in ink, but with the Spirit of the living God." What is this but saying that the religion of the Spirit is not documentary but personal? "Not on tables of stone, but in the fleshy tablets of the heart." What is this but saying that the religion of the Spirit is not a matter of history only, but is a question of personal experience? For thus it is that the religion of the Spirit is not ceremonial but vital, not documentary but spontaneous. The religion of the Spirit is not a body of beliefs, but a spirit of believing. For it must be borne in mind that the religion of the Spirit has, as these words indicate, for its first peculiarity that its sanctions are personal and immediate.

There is a saying in one of the Gospels which we do not take with sufficient literalness: "There is a light that lighteth every man upon his coming into the world." No man is born without sufficient light to serve the purposes for which he was created. That light like other light has its spectrum, if you please,may break itself up into a rainbow of colors; it may cast, if you wish, the three primary colors of reason, emotion and will. But strong or faint, dim or clear, this light is born into the world with every man, regardless of time, place or position. God has so loved the world that he has not left the world without sufficient witness of himself. The religion of the Spirit is written in the hearts of men, not with the documentary ink of the scribe, but with the Spirit of the living God. The great commandments of life are engraved on the heart of man still "by the finger of God." I wish for a moment we could consider how true that is, and being true, how fundamentally important it is. For we do not sufficiently take it into our account in our religious thinking. We are so prone to think that our religious life, whatever it may be, is the last faint flicker of a candle long ago lighted and now about to go out. So far from being that, there is no man born into the world without this "light that lighteth every man" being born with him.

The sanctions of the religion of the Spirit are personal and they are immediate. God is; he is here-, he is here now. This will become clearer, perhaps, if one considers for a moment what a gulf, practically an impassable gulf, there is between the lowest man and the highest brute. We speak glibly about evolution, as if evolution did not open up to our minds a thousand problems where it solves one. A little more thinking would not hurt us in that direction. For there is a vast difference between man and his poorer relations of the lower scale of life, and that vast difference is this: in man there is born an insatiable passion for order. For the present we take that neutral name; later we shall see how Divine a thing this passion for order is. But, so far as we know, there is nothing below us in the scale of creation that cares for anything of this kind; but the moment man comes into the world he proceeds to put things in order. There is something born in him which he did not. create, which he cannot wholly efface, though he may unfortunately disfigure it, which makes him love throughout all of his life to set this fair world in order.

When it functions through his brain that passion for order i's called the love of truth. Now man is the only animal, so far as we know, that cares anything about truth; but man cares everything for it. He does not risk his life for the North Pole or the South Pole, for the notoriety of it primarily; he does not make these adventurous excursions for the money that may be gained; nothing of the kind. A profounder insight shows us that the reason man makes these hazardous trips is because of his passion for truth; he will not be satisfied until he has been to the apex of the earth; he will not be satisfied until he has explored Africa; he will not be satisfied until the disjointed and unconnected facts are related and brought into an order which we call science. Now, that is one of the sure things of our life. It is born with us. From whence it comes we do not know. We know this, that there is in us something which we cannot explain, and this passion for order when it moves primarily through our intellectual faculties is the desire for truth.

When this same passion for order functions not primarily through the reason, but through the emotions we call it the love of the beautiful. Here is the whole spectrum of color given to man. Is he satisfied with this? Not at all. The animals are perfectly satisfied to find these as they are; but man must relate these colors; he must paint the sunset; he must sketch the dawn; he must paint his ideal man; he must carve his ideal woman. Something within him, analogous to the rising sap in the tree, will not leave him free until he has given some expression to this love of the beautiful.

When it functions not primarily through the intellect, when it disturbs not first of all the emotions, but when it functions through our moral nature this same passion for order is called the love of holiness. The love of holiness, is just as primary, just as fundamental in our human make-up as the passion for truth or the' love of beauty. The history of the whole race proves it, and man has this insatiable passion for holiness, not because the church has commanded it, not because society exacts it or man praises it, but because it is a part of his instinct; he can not help it if he would. This is "the light that lighteth every man upon his coming into the world." When we pass it through the spectrum of our mind and analyze it, we find that this light yields these three primary colors the love of truth, the love of beauty, the passion for holiness.

We call it Spirit, because it is the only suitable word in which we may enshrine this mysterious Power whose we are and whom we serve. We call it a Holy Spirit, because it is satisfied with nothing else than the highest attainable personal holiness. So, when we speak of the Holy Spirit we are speaking the profoundest science and we are speaking the last word in religion. There is a Truth Spirit which moves men to spend their lives solving one problem; there is a Beauty Spirit which makes men and women restless until they have transferred to canvas or emancipated from marble the best that has moved across their minds. There is also a Holy Spirit which will riot let us rest until we find rest in God. This is what is meant by the words of one of our own poets:

"Like tides on a crescent sea beach

When the moon is new and thin,

Into our hearts high yearnings

Come welling and surging in,

Come from the mystic ocean

Whose rim no foot has trod.

Some of us call it Longing,

And others call it God."

is "Written in our hearts," personal and immediate; "not with ink,"' which is effaceable, but "with the Spirit of the living God," which is ineradicable; "not on tables of stone," which are subject to controversy and are disputed about, but "on the fleshly tablets of the heart," which have been since man became man, and which will be as long as we are human. The religion of the Spirit, then, finds its sanction and its justification in immediate, personal experience.

If we undertake to analyze the religion of the Spirit further, we shall find that it has five characteristics, five sign manuals, if you please, so that we can always be able to recognize the religion of the Spirit. First of all the religion of the Spirit is affirmative. We do well to remember that. We forget that science is not organized primarily to controvert error and superstition. Science is no protest against untruth or error. Men who are trying to solve problems do not draw their motive power from their hatred of lies. They hate lies, because "they that love the Lord hate evil;" but they are moved not by the spirit of protest but by the spirit of appreciation and aspiration. The man who is seized and drawn along by the spirit of beauty is not moved by the protest against ugliness; he hates ugliness; he can not help it; he is offended at grotesqueness; but he is not spending his life working in and for the beautiful, because he hates the ugly. He whose life is centered on the religion of the Spirit finds his center there, not because it is a protest against dogmatic religion, or because he has reacted from the superstitions of an older faith, so- called. Nothing of the kind. The religion of the Spirit is first and foremost an affirmative apprehension of the essential validity of the moral sentiment. Its highest worst is still found in the words of one who said: "I came not to destroy, but to fulfil." It is, indeed, true that whoever loves truth finds himself repelled by partial statements of truth. It is forever true that he who loves beauty finds his face averted from ugliness. It is also true that he that is seized with the passion for personal holiness finds himself unattracted to the evils of the world. Nevertheless his attitude toward life is not that of the mere protestant, but of the lover and the seeker and aspirer toward holiness. It is, of course, true that in the earlier stages when the mind is young there is a certain belligerent tendency, but that is a phase of experience soon outgrown in our larger and richer manhood. We find that life is too short and the days too precious to spend in revolts and protests, when so much is to be laid hold of. This is worth remembering when we are likely to think that truth is a man's protest against error. Error is a partial statement of truth. We are likely to think that the man's energy on behalf of beauty is in protest against caricature and ugliness; but ugliness and caricature are the mere corruption of art. Art was before they were. The religion of the Spirit is no protest whatever against any form of dogmatic faith. The various forms of dogmatic faith are a partial apprehension of the truth more largely revealed in the religion of the Spirit. For all the promises of the Lord are Yea, Yea.

The second characteristic of the religion of the Spirit is that it is free. The religion of the Spirit is reverently rational and rationally reverent. It is an awkward expression, but the two go together. Rationalism is such a hard-sounding word. It suggests the unpopulated desert where there are no green trees and foliage. It suggests the mind that has little imagination and still less fancy. Reverence on the other hand suggests to us, to many of us, the great tropical undergrowth of the torrid zone, in whose beauty lurk all pestiferous insects and venomous reptiles. Man needs and must have both, and the religion of the Spirit is reverently rational and is rationally reverent. Consider that for a moment and see how important it is. We do not sufficiently remind ourselves that reason was given to us for use; I use it; it is not mine; it is loaned to me for a few years. I am under obligation to return it to its Maker, wear and tear excepted, in as good condition as I found it. I have absolutely no moral right to believe anything which is contrary to my reason. I may rob myself of great pleasure; I may withhold myself from larger visions of truth; but day by day my only salvation is to let reason stand as a sentinel before the door of my mind, and "to let none pass or re-pass save such as can give the password" that reason requires. So says the Psalmist, "Set a watch before the door of my lips, that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart may be acceptable in thy sight." To be a reasoning creature is a tremendous responsibility. Simply because a thing is agreeable to me or because it is to my interest to wish it to be true is no consideration whatever. There is a prostitution of the mind as well as a prostitution of the body; and who knows but the sin against the Holy Ghost is a greater reality and a more present per than you and I have considered? If our reason is, as the Old Testament writer says, "The candle of the Lord," what right have I. to snuff it out? Yet after we have said all that, and said it deliberately and truly, we need also to add that the mind is at its best when it is on its knees. There is so much in the world that we can not explain: when we came we found it here; when we go we leave it. And as you go home tonight, if you see a star over your head, it suggests a thousand questions, not one of which you can answer. In the world of growing and supernal mystery, what becomes us so well with our rationality as an equal part of humility and reverence?

Religion has as its third characteristic, that it is progressive. We have spoken of this passion for order as being the life of God in the soul of man. It is, indeed, the Holy Spirit; but the light that it emits through us depends upon the number of windows in us. In the savage mind, which is largely opaque, it shines only here and there. In the child, if you please, there is a mere glimmering, and not so much light as warmth, the evidence of life. As culture overtakes us our faculties are trained, the light "shines more. and more even to the perfect day." So the religion of the Spirit is not fixed, but fluid; and while man grows, the religious spirit and the passion for holiness will grow with him. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: when I became a man, I put away childish things." "In malice be ye babes, but in mind be men," so entreats the Apostle.

As the fourth characteristic, observe that the religion of the Spirit is practical. It is no pleasant ecstasy, no alluring form of unthinking and befogged mysticism. It is the most practical thing in the world. Of all things that I know in the world, I may have doubts except this one thing, that there is in me a Power which I did not create, which functions through me, which uses me as I use hands and feet, of which I am the obedient and the willing organ. Of that I have no doubt; it sends me on my way to do, not what I wish, but what I ought; and, as is often the case, what I ought is directly contrary to what I wish. It bids me find my joy, not in personal happiness, but in making others less unhappy. The religion of the Spirit is the most practical kind of religion. If dogmatic faith says to us: "Show me your faith without your works,"' the religion of the Spirit answers: "I cannot do that, but I will show you my faith in my works." It is the religion of the Spirit which says: "If ye love not man whom ye have seen, how can ye love God whom ye have not seen?" That is simply a question in proportion. If, you can not understand the lesser, how can you understand the greater? If, having lived with your own kind these years, you cannot love them and do them good, why talk about loving God and being of service to him? It is the supreme test of the religion of the Spirit.

Lastly, the religion of the Spirit is inclusive. Men who love the religion of the Spirit are suspicious of all names. They are always fearful that some danger lurks in them. They will not consciously lend themselves to sectarian zeal or partisan controversy; they feel themselves responsible to a larger Master; they hesitate to call any one on the earth Father, knowing that one is their Father, in heaven. They believe with all their hearts in the holy catholic church, in the primary and literal sense of those words; and they believe not less in the communion of saints here and everywhere. But they are suspicious of any affiliation or fellowship which seems to link them with unreality. Accordingly, for the first generation of the Christian church the members had no name save that of "learners;" the disciples of Jesus Christ had no name; they just lived the religion of the Spirit; they were not even called Christians. It was not until thought had begun to cast its sediment, until controversies began to arise, until the free, fluid religion of the Spirit began to become stratified, that at Antioch they were first called Christians. None of us are ashamed of that name. We all wish we were worthy of it. But we know that the religion of the Spirit is no respecter of persons, and when, like Peter, we go up to the housetop and the sheet with its four corners is let down upon us, and we are bid to kill and to eat, we know that after we have registered our protest and after conventionality has said its last word, there still comes the celestial voice "What God hath cleansed make not thou unclean." And we learn to regard as our fellows and our kindred those in mosque, church, temple and synagogue, who, born of the same Father, have the same yearnings for their old Home, They who have been born of the Spirit know what their elder Brother meant, when he said: "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

Of this inner impulse, which is released in and through us, Bibles are the product. Books are the leaves which grow on the tree of life. And it is a very happy survival that folio, volume, parchment, page, and the score of words that are associated with books, are all words which are taken from the living forest of man's mind. Bibles are the partial and imperfect record of the religion of the Spirit. Strong men and true, faithful women and loving, are the best prophets through whom the religion of the Spirit flows. Churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, are the institutions which the religion of the Spirit from time to time inhabits, but which it never makes its home. It was before them; it will be after them. Rites and ceremonies are the material in which is enshrined and preserved for us the religion of the Spirit. It was before them; it will be after them. Men, institutions, rites, may come and may go; but as long as man is man, so long there will be moving in his heart that Spirit which makes his religion not a body of beliefs but a spirit of believing.