Anthropomorphism [pp. 120-144]

A,NTHYROPOMORPHISM..
clogged by the confusion of idealization with ideation, of the
picture with the thing.
The study of comparative religion is still in its infancy. Its
results, as yet, are purely tentative. Our generation can do little
more than collect materials for future generations to classify and
analyze.
But the little work already done has brought into startling
prominence the immense fact of a racial development in re.
ligious form and religious doctrine. Theology itself can no
longer lay claim to the privilege of eternal stagnation. History
proves a steady growth up to the present day. Dare we deny
to induction its right of prediction?
Primitive religions were but kindergartens. The old mythologies were nursery fables. Early forms of ceremonial were
children's play. They did their work as primary schools-the
best possible, perhaps, in the infancy of the race. But now the
child has grown older. He has put away his playthings. He
smiles at the mummeries which once were realities. He has
emerged from the chrysalid state, in which religious truth is
sensuous imagery. He is too old for idols and temples, and
paintings and processions; for sacred animals and sacred rivers;
for deified fire and thunder, and wind and sea; even for magnified ancestor or king or hero. It is no longer enough to give
him the image. The cold hand of Science has torn off the drapery from religious fantasy, and the keen analysis of modern
thought is searching to-day with invincible determination for
the naked certainties of ultimate religious truth.
It is questionable whether our theologians appreciate fully
the real dangers involved in the attack which is made to-day
upon our established Christianity from this stand-point of comparative criticism. There is, in the rising generation of scholars, a very wide-spread tendency to apply the principle of relativity to the Christianity taught from the modern pulpit, as well as
to the ancestor-worship of the Chinese or the physiolatry of
Brahmanism. And the tendency is scientific in its method. It
is not safe for us to be timid here. We must answer the questions asked, or our silence will be interpreted as weakness.
Here, as everywhere else, we must meet science with science, or
acknowledge our defeat.
I2I