This was Augustine’s great contribution to the world both in the sphere of philosophy and religion. We shall see how important this principle is in our tracing of modern philosophy. Its importance upon the growth of religion was so very great that we cannot pass it by without remark. “Augustine was the reformer of Christian piety.” In the midst of religion he discovered religion. He looked into the human heart and found it to be the lower good; he looked to God and found Him to be the higher good. In love for God, man becomes exalted to another being. This is the “new birth.” By this personal religion nature and grace are separated, but morality and religion are united. Sin is the disposition to be independent by living in a state of unrest in the desires. Sin is a state of lust and fear. All is sin in the heart of the natural man――in the heart apart from God. The pre-Augustinian religion of morality and baptism, animated by hope and fear, was supplanted by him with the conception of the desire to be happy by sharing in the bliss of God. Augustine passed from Christian pessimism to Christian optimism, to a confidence in pardoning grace. By faith and love God calls us back to himself and the soul acquires what God requires. Religion is personal and a thing of the heart. “Love, unfeigned humility, and strength to overcome the world, these are the elements of religion and its blessedness; they spring from the actual possession of the loving God. This message Augustine preached to the Christianity of his time and of all times.”[53]