Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/165



wrote of religion disparagingly as an intoxicant, and yet by his own religion he was intoxicated. No one ever acted more strangely or became more excited under the influence of personal religion than Nietzsche. It is no reproach to religion that it changes reasonable beings to emotional beings. And yet there is associated with religion a false emotionalism and sentimentalism that we call morbidity, a desire to be miserable and to make other people miserable, a wearing of weeds on festival days, pessimism and "God grant we may all be as well two months hence," a living with death and a loving of the gruesome.

Gloominess is a danger for the Slav soul as with us it is for the Celtic. The bright energy of the Teuton is lacking. It is not worth while making things or working for position. The mind is free and questioning. There is no sense of—

Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws

Makes that and the action fine,