Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/275

 We were turned away for a long time from all religion, because we saw so much uncharitableness under its mantle. We learned, at first slowly; that it is not religion that is uncharitable, but man who has made what was originally Godlike and beautiful, bad and ugly. We think that love is the highest religion, and must one be a Christian in order to love according to that Heavenly command? For the Buddhist, the Brahmin, the Jew, the Mohammedan and even the Heathen can lead lives of pure love.

A little while ago I received a letter from Dr. Adriani in which you would be interested. I told him what you had done for us, and he is so glad for our sakes. "What Mevrouw Van Kol has made you see," he wrote, "is the substance of all religion, the recognition of God as a person, not as goodness, but the Good."

There are many earnest things in his letter, I wish that I could read it to you and talk about it with you; I must answer it. Somewhere he says, "But I can see no other way, Christianity alone does not bring one happiness, only the personal love of God does that, of which Christianity is the symbol." —253—