Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/295

Rh after nineteen centuries of proud unquestioned dominion, comes to the tribunal of a keenly critical, ratiocinative, utilitarian generation. In an age of universal disillusion, its venerable antiquity gives no immunity from criticism; tradition has blundered almost in every portion of its theory of human life, its religious belief must be carefully tested. The vague and shadowy forms of religion which are now so widely accepted, and which do but embody the fundamental religious instinct and tradition in one meagre and purely speculative formula, will be confident enough of acquiescence. But the Church of Rome bears the luxuriant overgrowth in dogma, and ethics, and ritual, and polity, and discipline of 2,000 years of freedom; it practically denies the activity of a purely human element in its growth, and attributes its whole intricate scheme to a divinely-guided unfolding of a divine revelation, in the face of Buddhism and other analogous growths. It appeals, too, with logic and history, not with fire and sword, or sentiment, or practical utility. And the great human consciousness that lives on and treasures up the scattered leaves of experience under the ebb and flow of endless generations, and that has at length awakened to the fact that many beliefs have been lightly imposed upon and accepted by it, will continue the struggle of its systematised thoughts through ages yet to come. But one result is even now detaching itself from the solemn struggle; a feeling