Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/39

 modern error of craving the undigested whole of; experience. It was easy for him not to be drunken, dissolute, slothful, gluttonous. It was easy for himnot to be insolent, ribald, and profane. Why was it easy?

Because he felt himself religiously bound.

Because he felt himself gloriously not free to waste and destroy the gifts of the heavenly powers.

Because he felt himself proudly bound by the golden fetters of his religion, by his athletic asceticism, to offer to the Shining Ones the integrity of his strength, the unspoiled flower of his youth.

Because he stood tiptoe with exaltation, joyously conscious that the object of his own heart's desire was also in the eye and affectionate solicitude of the gods.

Two thousand years ago an educated Jew who had received fire in his heart from heaven crossed the Mediterranean Sea and laid the fire from his heart upon the altar to the Unknown God in the midst of Mars Hill in Athens. Its flame leaped up; and in its flame, Jewish Christianity united with Athenian philosophy to form the most powerful mold of character the world has ever seen. The success of Paul was due to the fact that he laid the fire where the altar was. We shall not get much beyond Paul as religious tacticians. If we wish some measure of his success, we must worry less about our old shrines and churches. We must carry our vessels of fire to the place where the thronged altar is. We must build our churches