Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/390

 372 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING

When a child is born, today, it is the heir of a marvellously rich human culture. All the accumulated achievements of the past of the human race are round about the newborn man ideals, ethical codes, governments, laws, economies, religions, sciences, philosophies ; and all are organized into a vast aggregation of institutions behind which lies the long perspective of a rich and varied history. Into this great and manysided culture the newcomer must be initiated. That is the work of education, and the educational period is neces sarily lengthened as this culture becomes richer and more ex tensive. Indeed, it already requires more than a life-time for a man to gain a fair acquaintance with the accumulated results of human progress. The stream of culture dwindles to a tiny brooklet as we trace it back into the depths of an tiquity ; but, today, it has become a mighty Amazon, whose shores lie beyond the reach of the eye. The human domin ion over nature has become so extensive, the human organi zation of life has become so vast and rnultifarious, that from the cradle to the grave one s time is chiefly taken up in get ting acquainted with and adjusting oneself to it all. Not only so ; this social life which is now truly oceanic in its sweep has become less and less the merely fortuitous re sultant of a myriad of human wills, each striving for its own ends unconscious of its correlation with the others ; and is coming to be directed more and more by a conscious col lective intelligence and purpose. Each individual is coming to participate more and more consciously in social decisions and in helping to organize an environment in which the human factors are increasingly dominant. If a man s life were not affected down to its very roots by such conditions it would be a miracle ; and when we reflect that the human environment must become proportionately more and more dominant throughout indefinite future time, its significance for the mental and religious life of man becomes a matter of the first importance.

Are we to conclude, then, that religion is destined to dis appear? Far from it. It is useless to deny that profound

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