On a hill, in a thunder-storm in the East, he realized how Thor was born. Man fears thunder; it seems the voice of a greater man. Deny eyes, legs, and body of the Deity, and nothing is left. God as an abstract spirit is unthinkable, but Buddhism offers us no God, only law. Necessity, blind force, law, or a free personal will--that is the alternative. Freedom limits omnipotence; the two can never mix. "The German Emperor's God, clanking round the heavenly mansions wearing a German _Pickelhaube_ and swearing German oaths," is not satisfactory. Man's God is what he admires most in himself; he can be propitiated, hence atonement; you can not break a law, but you can study it. Inquiry, not submission, is the attitude. Perhaps both destiny and freedom are true, but truth is for the sake of light.
Thor had no moral code; the Greeks were unmoral. Jehovah at first asked only fear, reverence, and worship. This gives no guide to life. Most codes are directed against a foe and against pain. Truth, mercy, courtesy--these were slowly added to reverence; then sanitary rules, hence castes. Two codes, those of Christ and Buddha, tower above all others. They are the same in praising not wealth, greatness, or power, but purity, renunciation of the world, as if one fitted one's self for one by being unfitted for the other world.
Is heaven a bribe? Its ideals are those of children, of girl angels, white wings, floating dresses, no sheep, but lambs. "Surely there is nothing in all the world so babyish." One can hardly imagine a man with a deep voice, with the storm of life beating his soul, amid those baby faces. If happiness in any act or attitude is perfect, it will last forever. Where is due the weariness or satiety? But if happiness be perfect, this is impossible; so life would be monotony akin to annihilation. But life is change, and change is misery. There is effort here; but there will be none in the great peace that passes understanding; no defeat, therefore no victory; no friends, because no enemies; no joyous meetings, because no farewells. It is the shadows and the dark mysteries that sound the depths of our hearts. No man that ever lived, if told that he could be young again or go to any heaven, would choose the latter. Men die for many things, but all fear the beyond. Thus no religion gives us an intelligible First Cause, a code or a heaven that we want. The most religious man is the peasant listening to the angelus, putting out a little _ghi_ for his God; the woman crying in the pagoda. Thus we can only turn to the hearts of men for the truth of religion.