But from another point of view there was an element of power in the older religion which seems at first blush to be utterly lacking in the type of new religion we are describing. A prominent world-evangelist of the Young Men’s Christian Association was recently lecturing to the college students of New York City on the ethical and religious life. It was significant to note that most of his talk to students concerned itself with temptations and that the invariable outcome of each talk was that the one infallible means of meeting temptation was to realize God’s presence in one’s life, to companion with God, to feel him near and watchful, ever sympathetic, ever ready with divine help. Students do indeed get power from that kind of belief. They feel themselves before an all-seeing eye, a hand is on their shoulder, a voice is in their ear; and when the difficult moment comes they are not alone. How utterly uncompanioned, how lonely, on the other hand, must be the student who knows no beneficent, all-seeing, and all-caring Father. When his difficult moment comes he stands in desolate isolation. Victory or defeat then must hang upon his own puny strength and wavering determination. It is a favorite argument with Roman Catholics that the belief in God is the one surest guard against the sexual irregularity of young men. Remove God, the one strong bulwark, from their lives, and the flood of their passions will sweep them to their destruction.
Such considerations as these must indeed give one pause; yet I feel assured that they need not hold us long. How does a man get strength for right living? He begins—in his childhood as in the childhood of the race—by getting it through fear. The child is told, upon pain of punishment, not to do certain things. There will come a time when it will know why it ought not to do these things; but in its first months and, in a degree, through its early years, it refrains from doing them simply by reason of the pressure of the superior power of its parents. Later it refrains through unconscious imitation and affection. It lives in the light and love of its parents; and it consciously and unconsciously shapes its life after the pattern of their lives. When difficulties press, the child flees to the mother or the father for comfort and advice. Those are delicious days, of warm trust and joy and loving security. The child nestles up against the stronger power of those it loves. But the child grows to manhood and womanhood. Whence then does it get its strength for right living? The fear of the infant days, the imitation and affection of childhood and youth are now transformed into a new attitude,—an understanding of the reason in the right and the unreason in the wrong. There are many factors and influences that now take the place of parent power and affection: the love and admiration of one’s group, the customs of one’s people, the stimulus of great persons. But the essential power now is the power of _insight_—of so understanding the forces and principles of life that one’s whole self is surrendered in deep reverence and service to the things that ought to be. Assuredly, no character is mature until it has reached this last stage. There is indeed something beautiful about the boy who in the midst of temptation goes to his father and talks it all out with him; who clings to the father’s hand to lead him safely through the dangerous ways. But the boy is only on the way to moral and spiritual maturity; he is not yet morally and spiritually mature.