Not less repulsive to me than the negative Christian is the one who is always using his religion as a means of escape from something, from hell fire or brimstone or some less remote punishment. This class of Christians use religion as people use the conjurer’s bag or a disinfectant to ward off evil. They are not drawn to any vital thing in religion; they simply use it as a cloak to shield them from harm. To live the real religious life is in some measure to share the character of God. The word “atonement,” which occurs in the Bible again and again, means literally at-one-ment. To be at one with God is to be like God. Our real religious striving, then, should be to become one with God, sharing with Him in our poor human way His qualities and attributes. To do this, we must get the inner life, the heart right, and we shall then become strong where we have been weak, wise where we have been foolish. We are often criticised as a race because people say that our religion is not real. They say that our religion is superficial, that in spite of our attendance at religious services and protestations of faith we are guilty of petty pilfering, stealing, lying and of walking crookedly in many directions. Whenever this criticism is true it means that we have not learned what the religious life really means. We must learn to incorporate God’s laws into our thoughts and words and acts. Frequent reference is made in the Bible to the freedom that comes from being a Christian. A man is free just in proportion as he learns to live within God’s laws, and he makes grievous mistakes and serious blunders the minute he departs from these laws. As a race we are inclined, I fear, to make too much of the day of judgment. We have the idea that in some far-off period there is going to be a great and final day of judgment, when every individual will be called up, and all his bad deeds will be read out before him and all his good deeds made known. I believe that every day is a day of judgment, that we reap our rewards daily, and that whenever we sin we are punished by mental and physical anxiety and by a weakened character that separates us from God. Every day is, I take it, a day of judgment, and as we learn God’s laws and grow into His likeness we shall find our reward in this world in a life of usefulness and honor. To do this is to have found the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of character and righteousness and peace. vi On Making Our Race Life Count in the Life of the Nation