Benham's translation: Book III., chaps. xv., lix . Compare Mary Moody Emerson: "Let mebe a blot on this fair world, the obscurest the loneliest sufferer, with
one proviso--that I know it isHis agency. I will love Him though He shed frost and darkness on every way of mine." R. W.
Emerson: Lectures and Biographical Sketches, p. 188.
It is a good rule in physiology, when we are studying the meaning of an organ, to ask after itsmost peculiar and characteristic sort of performance, and to seek its
office in that one of itsfunctions which no other organ can possibly exert. Surely the same maxim holds good in ourpresent quest. The essence of religious
experiences, the thing by which we finally must judgethem, must be that element or quality in them which we can meet nowhere else. And such a qualitywill be of
course most prominent and easy to notice in those religious experiences which are mostone-sided, exaggerated, and intense.
Now when we compare these of tamer minds, so cooland reasonable that we are tempted to call them philosophical rather than
religious, we find acharacter that is perfectly distinct. That character, it seems to me, should be regarded as thepractically important differentia of religion for
our purpose; and just what it is can easily bebrought out by comparing the mind of an abstractly conceived Christian with that of a moralistsimilarly conceived.
A life is manly, stoical, moral, or philosophical, we say, in proportion as it is less swayed bypaltry personal considerations and more by objective ends that call
for energy, even though thatenergy bring personal loss and pain. This is the good side of war, in so far as it calls for "volunteers." And for morality life is a
war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmicpatriotism which also calls for volunteers. Even a sick man, unable to be militant outwardly, cancarry on the
moral warfare. He can willfully turn his attention away from his own future, whetherin this world or the next. He can train himself to indifference to his present
drawbacks andimmerse himself in whatever objective interests still remain accessible. He can follow public news,and sympathize with other people's affairs. He can
cultivate cheerful manners, and be macau prepaid sim cardsilent abouthis miseries.