Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/37



The end in religion, as in all else for man in this world, Reed asserted, was righteousness and usefulness of life. The simple doctrinal language of Christ constantly alternated in this practical direction. Amongst the advantages, indispensable indeed to modern society, of a great staff or order of trained clergy, was this one disadvantage, that they were ever apt, by the instincts of their position, to make doctrine supreme, and thus turn the means into the end. And thus we had a permanent heritage of antagonistic religious sects, with the discouraging and almost hopeless feature that each was far more concerned for its hereditary differences, than for the substantial truth of religion.

Although reasonableness and common sense were already decidedly on the advance in religious views, Reed regarded certain extremes of popular orthodoxy as still answerable for much discredit and hindrance to religion. Take, for instance, the future of a literal eternal torment. Was our religion really weighted with so extreme a moral improbability? If we had not been used to such a doctrine in our own religion, what would we have thought of any other religion that possessed it? The most formidable opponent to this dogma, to begin with, is the Bible itself, in the equity, reasonableness, and mercy of its general spirit and tenour. The question here is, how far the exact literal is always to be assumed in the