Page:Religion of a Sceptic (IA religionofscepti00powy).djvu/37

And this massive and organic background of our days to which Greeks, Romans, Germans, French and English have all contributed their own indigenous poetry is something quite different from just a sanctimonious appeal to "save one's soul," something quite different from just a pseudo-scientific philosophy.

Gathered about the figure of a youthful god, born of an immaculate maid, this background of accumulated poetry impinges upon the most materialistic among us in a thousand unexpected ways.

And the curious thing is that its most touching and stirring appeals are often indirect and sideways, coming upon us suddenly and unaccountably when we least anticipate them, like the fleeting illumination of a dingy street by a wistful autumnal sun.

And when they do reach us, these intimations, they surprise us by being something quite different from "explanations" of the universe. They surprise us by being just a quick lovely heightening of all that is most secretly delicious in human intercourse, of all that is most enchanting in the by-paths of nature.

To say, as one hears young people so often say, "As for me I find my religion under the open sky" is to be a little unfair to the heathen element in the faith of our fathers. It is not only