Multitudes of men must be
struggling with new ideas. It is reasonable to argue that there must
be reconsideration, there must be time, before these millions of mental
efforts can develop into a new collective purpose and really _show_--in
consequences.
But that they will do so is my hope always and, on the whole, except in
moods of depression and impatience, my belief. When one has travelled
to a conviction so great as mine it is difficult to doubt that other men
faced by the same universal facts will not come to the same conclusion.
I believe that only through a complete simplification o religion to its
fundamental idea, to a world-wide realisation of God as the king of the
heart and of all mankind, setting aside monarchy and national egotism
altogether, can mankind come to any certain happiness and security. The
precedent of Islam helps my faith in the creative inspiration of such
a renascence of religion. The Sikh, the Moslem, the Puritan have shown
that men can fight better for a Divine Idea than for any flag or monarch
in the world. It seems to me that illusions fade and effigies lose
credit everywhere. It is a very wonderful thing to me that China is now
a republic.... I take myself to be very nearly an average man, abnormal
only by reason of a certain mental rapidity. I conceive myself to be
thinking as the world thinks, and if I find no great facts, I find a
hundred little indications to reassure me that God comes.
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