II

Hodder had known for many years that the writings of Josiah Royce and of William James had “been in the air,” so to speak, and he had heard them mentioned at dinner parties by his more intellectual parishioners, such as Mrs. Constable and Martha Preston.  Now he was able to smile at his former attitude toward these moderns, whose perusal he had deprecated as treason to the saints!  And he remembered his horror on having listened to a fellow-clergyman discuss with calmness the plan of the “Varieties of Religious Experiences.”  A sacrilegious dissection of the lives of these very saints!  The scientific process, the theories of modern psychology applied with sang-froid to the workings of God in the human soul!  Science he had regarded as the proclaimed enemy of religion, and in these days of the apotheosis of science not even sacred things were spared.

Now Hodder saw what the little librarian had meant by an authority restored.  The impartial method of modern science had become so firmly established in the mind of mankind by education and reading that the ancient unscientific science of the Roman Empire, in which orthodox Christianity was clothed, no longer carried authority.  In so far as modern science had discovered truth, religion had no quarrel with it.  And if theology pretended to be the science of religion, surely it must submit to the test of the new science!  The dogged clinging to the archaic speculations of apologists, saints, and schoolmen had brought religion to a low ebb indeed.

One of the most inspiring books he read was by an English clergyman of his own Church whom he had formerly looked upon as a heretic, with all that the word had once implied.  It was a frank yet reverent study of the self-consciousness of Christ, submitting the life and teachings of Jesus to modern criticism and the scientific method.  And the Saviour’s divinity, rather than being lessened, was augmented.  Hodder found it infinitely refreshing that the so-called articles of Christian belief, instead of being put first and their acceptance insisted upon, were made the climax of the investigation.

Religion, he began to perceive, was an undertaking, are attempt to find unity and harmony of the soul by adopting, after mature thought, a definite principle in life.  If harmony resulted,—­if the principle worked, it was true.  Hodder kept an open mind, but he became a pragmatist so far.  Science, on the other hand, was in a sphere by herself, and need have no conflict with religion; science was not an undertaking, but an impartial investigation by close observation of facts in nature.  Her object was to discover truths by these methods alone.  She had her theories, indeed, but they must be submitted to rigorous tests.  This from a book by Professor Perry, an advocate of the new realism.

On the other hand there were signs that modern science, by infinitesimal degrees, might be aiding in the solution of the Mystery . . . .