Similarly with religion. For a religion to be true, it must, I felt absolutely assured, be ideally perfect after the most perfect ideal that we can frame. This is to say, that not only must it be in itself such as to satisfy both head and heart, mind and moral conscience, spirit and soul; it must also be perfectly simple, obviously reasonable, coherent, self-evident, founded in the nature of things, incapable--when once comprehended--of being conceived of as otherwise, absolutely equitable, eternally true, and recognisable as being all these, invariable in operation, independent of all accidents of time, place, persons and events, and comparable to the demonstration of a mathematical problem in that it needs no testimony or authority beyond those of the mind; and requiring for its efficacious observance, nothing that is extraneous or inaccessible to the subject-individual, but within his ability to recognise and fulfil, provided only that he so will. It must also be such as to enable him by the observance of it to turn his existence to the highest possible account imaginable by him, be his imagination as developed as it may: and all this as independently of any being other than himself, as if he were the sole personal entity in the universe, and were himself the universe. That is to say, the means of a man's perfectionment must inhere in his own system, and he must be competent of himself effectually to apply them. It is further necessary, because equitable, that he be allowed sufficient time and opportunity for the discovery, understanding and application of such means. Such are the terms and conditions of an ideally perfect religion, as I conceived of them. It is a definition which excludes well-nigh, if not quite, all the characteristics ordinarily regarded as appertaining to religion, and notably to that of Christendom. For in excluding everything extraneous to the actual subject-individual, and requiring religion to be self-evident and necessarily true, it excludes as superfluous and irrelevant, history, tradition, authority, revelation, as ordinarily conceived of, ecclesiastical ordinance, priestly ministration, mediatorial function, vicarious satisfaction, and even the operation of Deity as subsisting without and apart from the man, all of which are essential elements in the accepted conception of religion. Nevertheless, profound as was my distrust of the faithfulness of the orthodox presentation, I could not reconcile myself to a renunciation of the originals on which that presentation was founded, until I had satisfied myself that I had fathomed their intended and real meaning. I had, moreover, very early conceived a personal affection for Jesus as a man, so strong as to serve as a deterrent both from abandoning the faith founded on Him, and from accepting it as it is as worthy of Him.