Well, J. Bourdeau is not wrong; modernism and pragmatism are indeed of like temper and children of the same age--an age of troubled outlook, but of brave if chastened hope. The contrast between the realistic theologian with his ancient texts, documents, monuments, and the idealistic theologian who turns to the past not for authority but for guidance, not for facts but for a sense of tendency and direction--this contrast is not unlike that other one pragmatism has brought about between “Natural Religion” and what I may call “Human Religion.” Natural religion sought in the order of nature evidence of its designer, of a thoughtful purpose back of or in it, the same spirit that a naturalist might hunt for the tracks of a mastodon or follow the wanderings of a glacier. For the humanist, the purpose of nature is a thing in the making, and we are here to help make it. It will turn out as our finite efforts form it--good or bad, as we are good or bad; wise or not, as we are. The practical message of “Human Religion” is pretty much that with which James closes his little essay, “Is Life Worth Living?” “Be not afraid of life. Believe that life _is_ worth living and your belief helps create the fact. The ‘scientific proof’ that you are right may not be clear before the day of judgment (or some stage of being which that expression may serve to symbolize) is reached. But the faithful fighters of this hour, or the beings that then and there will represent them, may then turn to the faint-hearted who here decline to go on with words like those with which Henry IV. greeted the tardy Crillon after a great victory had been gained: ‘Hang yourself, brave Crillon! we fought at Arques, and you were not there.’” * * * * *