precedented effectiveness to the development of the natural resources of a peculiarly endowed country; and, with it all, striven, as no people ever strove before, so to organize its experience and knowledge as to make them available for its children by a system of free public education. It was inevitable that this effort should often be as crude as it was honest and eager, but none the less it has succeeded in making a multitude of keen and facile minds amenable to the influences of literature. One would go too far in claiming that the public-school system of America has acquainted its pupils with literature; and of course it has not bred a literature. Its failure in these respects for several generations was probably unavoidable. The Day's Work has generally been too ready, near, and appealing to the young American to permit his mind to turn in upon itself. He quickly forms the busy habit, and literature is jealous of preoccupation by so-called practical matters.

A thoughtful observer is the more reconciled to this condition of affairs, however, as he remembers the shallow and silly cry which has arisen from time to time in America for a distinctively national literature. Attempts have been made - once or twice, I believe, by teachers in universities to indicate the characteristics which should differentiate the American from the English literary product, as though the spirit of Truth could become the creature of custom-house, tariff, and provincial prejudice. America can afford to wait and learn until

the brief day of such treason to her own past is over-a past which gives her part and lot in every century of English literature save one, and waits to give her an abundant share in that if she will claim it. Nineteenth-century literature was unique in its privilege of immediate appeal to a world-wide public, without necessity of suffering any sea-change or paying tribute of translation at any boundary. Britain has naturally been the great contributor to its volume, but she has neither claimed nor wished to claim any exclusive sovereignty over sound English speech. The worth of Emerson, Poe, and Whitman has been as generously appraised in England as in America; while Carlyle, Ruskin, and Browning have found as quick response here as at home. It is therefore scarcely necessary to say that in the chapters which follow I shall consider English literature as connoting the product of a great language and a great religious, social, and political experience, common in its essence to the whole Anglo-American race. "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark," saith the Deuteronomist. Thrice cursed let him be who would reënact Babel, and introduce schism into his mother-tongue.

An exercise in definition is no part of my present purpose, but it is necessary here to indicate the scope and range which will be permitted to some words of frequent occurrence in our inquiry. The etymology of 'religion' still eludes us. Cicero preferred the derivation from relegere, to read over

again, as children might con a lesson.' Modern scholars like better to connect the word with religare, to bind, in the effort to find a definition and a sanction. Religion is that bond which connects our lives with God, and lays the sense of obligation upon us. All great words of this sort are certain to increase and enrich their content as human experience pays tribute to them; and 'religion' is a notable example of such growth. Upon the one side it looks toward conduct; upon another toward observance or worship. Within, its office is to search the heart, that it may remain contrite and humble, and at the same time to uplift and cheer it by assurance of life's kinship with the divine. Thus, as the thought and life of last century developed, 'religion' in an increasing degree came to signify that faith or experience which should suffice to make life coherent and harmonious. Religion not only links man to God; it binds the incidents of his experience into a vital whole — a true "bundle of life," to use the quaint Scripture phrase. While taking account of all the phenomena of the inward realm of thought and the outward realm of conduct, it insists upon the possibility and the worth of a true consistency.

Religion is the enemy of all discord except such temporary unrest as the ploughshare causes in its preparation of the encrusted and fallow field for fruitfulness. It convicts of sin without troubling 1 Cf. New English Dictionary (Murray's).

itself overmuch about definitions of sin. With a singular persistence it holds a mirror up to man's nature, in which he cannot help but see the things that mar his individual and social peace. While engaged in such duty, Religion's ears know very well the old cry of man's demoniac seizures: "What have we to do with thee"; yet she is not disheartened. Quite as well she knows the obduracies and obstinacies behind which men hide themselves; the superstitions which creep in at the window when she is banished from the door; all the infelicity, pettiness, and hypocrisy which mar life's wholeness. She has reason for discouragement in view of the sad imperfection of her best human instruments; yet with divine humility she still works cheerfully with obdurate materials. Her worst enemies are too often those of her own household; yet she outlives their misrepresentations. She speaks many languages; visualizes herself in many forms; by a mysterious alchemy transmutes base metal into gold; feeds upon persecution; makes allies of those who threaten the sources of her very existence, and so endures with something of the power of an endless life. Like the Psalmist she is a wonder unto many; a reproach to some, an object of wistful but hopeless desire to others, a joy to such as heed her message; at least these so report, and with such persistence and conviction as to make it worth while to inquire a little more closely into the basis of their confidence.

When we ask for a succinct statement of this message of wholeness and peace, our ears may well be deafened by the multitude, volume, and seeming conflict of the replies. The chorus of believers is ill trained in concerted effort. Yet some things sound reasonably clear and intelligible.

Religion believes in and proclaims the Universe. All her life is based upon faith in cosmos rather than chaos. There is a scheme and plan in Man and Nature, so that the two belong to each other; and though this plan transcends a man's ability to grasp and subdue it to his purposes, because it is so great, it is still cognate to his mind; it is amenable to expression in terms of thought, so far as experience can compass it. Phenomena do not put us to permanent confusion. They mystify us often enough, but it is with a challenge to our curiosity and spirit of adventure rather than with a tyrannous and insane denial. All our experience leads us to live upon the hypothesis that there is a reason and a cause for every event a cause which may conceivably be made manifest, and, if manifested, will prove to be in harmony with the scheme of causation underlying other phenomena.

This is Religion's way of saying that the Universe has a Soul; and that at the source of things there dwells a Vital Force, of such nature that all its outflowings and ongoings belong together, even when men are unable to perceive their relation. Yet the fact that man can perceive so much coher