I include in this such questions as
whether Our Lord rose from the dead in any natural sense of the
words. It is quite a different question, whether we shall imitate
Him in His life.
I am glad you think about these questions, and shall be pleased to
talk to you about them. What I have to say about religion is
contained in two words: Truth and Goodness, but I would not have
one without the other, and if I had to choose between them, might
be disposed to give Truth the first place. I think, also, that you
might put religion in another way, as absolute resignation to the
Will of God and the order of nature. There might be other
definitions, equally true, but none suited better than another to
the characters of men, such as the imitation of Christ, or the
truth in all religions, which would be an adequate description of
it. The Christian religion seems to me to extend to all the parts
and modes of life, and then to come back to our hearts and
conscience. I think that the best way of considering it, and the
most interesting, is to view it as it may be seen in the lives of
good men everywhere, whether Christians or so-called heathens--
Socrates, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine, as well as in the
lives of Christ, or Bunyan, or Spinoza. The study of religious
biography seems to me one of the best modes of keeping up
Christian feeling.
As to the question of Disestablishment, I am not like Mr. Balfour,
I wobble rather, yet, on the whole, I agree with Mr.
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