The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-07-23
RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY
RESULT OF EDUCATION
An Address By Rev. Dr.
 Samuel A. Eliot.

1He polHt want 10 make m tnlS ad- dress Is that religious truth requires the medium of personality. can learn of the facts of history or economics or biology from books, from verbal or written communications; but, religious influence Is the contact of life with life, of spirit with spirit. Like the potential fierce of the sunlight that is in all the air around us and which waits for the burning lens to gather the rays and kipdle a flame. so religious truth lies hereless until some personal enthusi- asins comes to concentrate it and trans init 1t as power upon life.
 Said Phillips Brooks, whose inspiring personality made me determine to be minister of religion, and whose char acteristic message I am repeating: We often hear the cry, Principles, not men But to send our principles with out men is to send an army of ghosts abroad, who would make all virtue and manliness as shadowy as themselves. It is principle brought to bear through the medium of manhood that draws and inspires" Let us realize that spir- itual vitality is not matter of spon-
  spark from the burning heart of anoth- CT. Feeling acts on feeling and mind on mind. Courage passes from strong fo weak. Enthusiasm spings from eye to eye. We cannot explain just how these influences work. We cannot To- cate the wires of this invisible tele- graphy, but of the fact of such com munication and transmission there is not the slightest doubt. All the victor- ous religious faiths have had a person. al origin Christianity is not matter of ecclesiastical politics or stately rit- uals of dogmatic creeds, It Is just the self-perpetuating power of an example, Christianity is not a system of doc trines, it Is the testimony of a life.
 Let us not mistake religious machln- cry for religious power. The mere ex- istence of sacred institutions, rites and observances does not constitute re- ligion. Behold the appearance of Mheels!" cried the prophet. But let us never forget that the source of power is "the spirit of the living creature that is in the wheels. Organization waits on inspiration. Gods way to men is through men. Let us lay down our tracks of progress, let us wisely de- wise the mechanism through which our thought and hope may speed; but let us remember that the usefulness of our institutions finally depend upon the amount of personal intelligence and de- votion, pluck and patience, that goes into their operations.
 observe that the efficiency of re- iigious teacher cannot be safely pre- Acted because of his scholarship or academic training or piety alone. These things are good; but, after all the charm of body or mind or spirit that counts, the self-gotting ardor that touches the heart; the ideals that in- ygpffe, are matters of individual tenn perament. The e:ective teacher, wheth- CT secular or religious, is not only a man who has that in him which will do people good if they take 1t from him; he is such man that they can take and will take it from him. The true prophet is he who, standing be- meath the truth and the needs of men, transmits each to each, through the refining fire of his own personality.
 Needless to say that the education of this mysterious quality of personality proceeds along very subtle lines. To analyze it is like trying to trace the edge of a wreath of mist, or like try ing to separate tint from tint in the sunset sky. I can but hint at certain general mtthods of development which can be tested only in individual ex- perence.
 Religious personality demands first of all a conviction of reality The effective religious teacher must deal with the things that are unseeen and eternal, as with matters of real experience. He must establish close communication with the permanent sources of power TIe cannot be simply looker-on at divine manifestations, watching them pass in parade before him. He must be himself in the marching line obedient to the divine command. He needs the psalmists' confidence ini the immediate { AAd onnipresent God. If ascend into heaven, thou art there If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the , Httermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me"
 The peril of the religious teacher is that he shall. get entanged in the ma- chinery of religions; that he shall turn aside from the way of the personal and direct approach of the individual soul to its creator and get lost in the mazes of theological controversies, ec- clesiastical forms, or conventional ob- servances. It happens that live in university town and in constant con- tact with alert, openminded, young men, What demand do such earnest young Americans make upon minis ter of religion? It makes no difference to them what badge or title a minis ter wears or what communion he rep resents what they want is that he shall ring true They demand clear sln- cerity of thought and speech an unob- scured vision of truth, virile leader ship in the ways Of duty ard public serviceableness. What they want 1t to be set face to face with the truth that can be verified in experience, a truth that works in everyday life. The first dynS ulic of religious personality is the sense of divine reality.
 Second, religious personality requires the historic sense. It must be one law which the effective religious teacher discerns, binding the past with the