But though we may enlarge our conception of God to any extent—forsaking that early notion of Him as a kind of jealous patriarch and judge, extraordinarily _quick-tempered where His own rules are con cerned, and assuming Him as the essential spirit of the whole universe—we, the inhabitants of this one small planet, are corns pelled by the accident of our resent condition to consider "reigion" from the point of view of its influence on our day to day existence.
Now, whatever may be our conception of life after death—whether, indeed, we believe i not—the whole exp kind seems to show that the true Practice of religion enforces before has been true of all large cities in the world, such as London, New. York, Paris, Berlin, ete., is also true. of Shanghai and' those who are interested in the prosperity of Shanghaj must not allow themselves to confuse causes. Tam sure that my plan for Greater Shanghai, as briefly outlined above, will welcome xeither Chinese diplomats, officials now connected various municipalities, forests should not deter those rth vested interests from forming a commission from among the ratepayers of all nationalities and races for the purpose of studying our needs of reform for the prosperity and, progress of Shangha: as If we could, indeed, accept that single faith as the basis of a great world religion, all our conte verses would be blown away, and the whole life of man would ha to be re-organized, what ered I wi believe in this Divine myself and act always us if T 50 believed, T should be compelled to Tend a "religious" lite. To do anything less would be to deny my. faith and relinquish the hope of eternal life.
But at the prosont stage of our evolution this one simple ered with the enormous responsibilities and need for self-discipline that it necessitates is a world too hard for the average man and woman, If we could truly believe in God, not as a distant superhuman judge whom we must presently confront but as inhabiting instantly and for ever our own mind, we should be incapable of acting unworthily, Every' mean, selfish, ern cowardly, intolerant act would then be a denial of our great faith, and would indeed re-crucify thie rit of Christ which is. still sccking to incarnate itself in all humanity This, then, in conclusion, is what religion means to me—the belief that God secks to express Himself in us, not by a slavish adherence ta some' trifling form of worship, but by the practice of a principle whids was incorporated by Christ in the words: "Than shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
But who, as yet, is capable of obeying that tremendous corns mandment—the essence of all trug religious practice? 7 ited without permission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.