Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1909-03-26
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
By Henry F. Cope.


The path of the just is as shining
light shining more and more with the
perfect day.-Prov., w., IS.
Either religion is everything to one
or it is nothing" so a good many say,
but the saying means more than they
ligion Of forms or of narrowing phil
osophy became the whole of mans
world. 1t would be a fine thing if the
high motives of religion permeated all
things~in all worlds.
We have become so accustomed to
calling certain things and acts sacred
while others we call secular, to draw
ing clean lines of separation between
religion and life that it is exceedingly
difficult for any Of us to constantly
make all life mean religion and to
make religion mean the whole of life.
Here are our creedS and our
churches, with their customs and ac-
tiyities these, we say, are religion.
Here are our homes and our Occupa-
tons; they make life Thus do we sep
arate the essentially inseparable and
confound the tools and products of
things with the things themselves.
The churches are the agencies Of re-
ligion, the communal expressions Of the
spiritual life of peoples; the creeds are
their attempts to state their under
standing Of religious experience and to
formulate theories of the mysteries of
the higher life. Church and creed are
but tools and expressions of religion ;
they neither constitute it nor do they
make it.
Religion is not department or sec
ton of the life. 1t Is a motive and
method of living. 1t Is our life in the
consciousness Of it's highest values.
You can be just as truly religious In
making money as in saying a mass ;
you can be just as truly p1ous in max
ing a pudding as in going to a prayer
meeting.
It often happens that ones piety is
better expressed in daily commonplace
living and duties than in special eccle-
astical exercises. A church service
or a prayer meeting may be the OPP
posite Of a holy place, while some
home, where a mother is too absorbed
in the care of the children to think of
church, may glow with divine glory.
Either God is everywhere or there Is
no God anywhere for us; either our re-
ligion operates through, molds, and de-
termines every act and all of life or is
an empty, formal, and useless burden
to us. The religion you can confne
to a corner of your life finds its grave
there.
You may measure any faith and you
may test your own by it's power to vi
talize all your life, to permeate and
direct every motive, to make itself felt
as the constant determinative force OF
your life. Whatever does this for you
that is your creed and your religion.
No matter what dreams of living
bliss, what mystic pleasures or eXalta
ton may become yours through your
religious devotion. 1T is all a mockery
and delusion unless it's power is such
that it goes with you on the street,
guides your actions and your bearing
toward your fellows, and translates its
dreams into deeds.
When the religion, or creed, or or
ganization, sect, or opinion fills all q
mans mental horizon his heart is
chilled, an eclipse of the soul takes
place But the religion that is like
q 11,o1l Of w atar within TnPreShaS anC
cheers him continually.
He only is religious who is always
religious, always facing toward things
true, seeking the higher and full life
for himself and for all, making all his
life tell for the best in all life, an6
somehow with his wholesome cheer anC
high faith and idealism, making us be
lieve in goodness, and truth, and love
after all.