Page:What Religion Is (1920).djvu/62

Rh the complete service and worship which faith embodies, is sinful. Lists of sins and rules about sin may point out dangers, but are no real guide. They are no real guide, because the object of a sinful desire may not be a bad object. It may be only its opposition, in the special case, to what the perfect will demands, that makes it a sin. There is no sin readier at the religious man’s elbow than to feel that he has for a moment achieved, that he has been something of himself and apart from that in which he trusts, that he has in himself been worthy. Now this is not a sin which can easily come of a “bad” action. It is pretty certain to spring from something which we should set down at sight as “good.”

Obviously if we refine and reflect upon these consequences, we shall come to matters of great subtlety — heresies of all kinds. Is not, then, all our