What should reason say in the face of this? "I do not believe in your theories of God and the future state, and the resurrection of the body, and so on, and therefore I won't have anything to do with any religion." Would that be reason? Yes, if you believe the creeds are religion; no, if you believe that religion lies far deeper than creeds. Or to use another simile: the creeds are the grammar of religion, they are to religion what grammar is to speech. Words are the expression of our wants; grammar is the theory formed afterwards. Speech never proceeded from grammar, but the reverse. As speech progresses and changes from unknown causes, grammar must follow. But if not? If grammarians are hide-bound, are we to refuse to talk? In this latter case, if the reason were mine, I think reason would say, "Bother these theologians, their dogmas and creeds, their theories and grammars, what do they matter? The instinct of prayer remains, of confession, of sacrifice. They appeal to me still. They fill my heart with beauty. Shall I refuse to accept the glories of life, shall I refuse to cultivate my soul because some people who claim authority have theories about these things with which I don't agree? Not all the creeds nor theologians in the world shall prevent my making the best of myself. The garden of the soul is no close preserve of theirs. "Religion is the satisfaction of some of the wants of the souls of men. It is a cult of some of the emotions, never of all. For the emotions are so varied, so contradictory, that all cannot live together. I do not quite know why one people includes one emotion in religion and another rejects it out of religion, while still maintaining its beauty and truth. But no religion includes more than one side of life. There are others. I, too, will cultivate these emotions which I need. But this I will not forget, that life has many sides. Life has many emotions, and all are good, though all may not come into religion. There is ambition, there is love of gaiety, of humour, of laughter, there is courage and pride, the glory of success. To live life whole none must be neglected. They are planted in our hearts for some good purpose. I will not weed them out. My garden shall grow all the flowers it can, and reason shall be the gardener to see that none grow rank and choke the others. "Whatever things are beautiful, that make the heart to beat and the eye grow dim, whatever I know to be good, that shall I have. 'For that which toucheth the heart is beautiful to the eye.'" CHAPTER XXXII. THE USE OF RELIGION.