is able to transform sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into food sugar, we could
transform civilisation.
Even the operation of the engine in your car is a profound mystery. General Motors
Research Laboratories have spent years of time and millions of dollars trying to find out
how and why a spark in the cylinder sets off an explosion that makes your car run; and
they don't know the answer.
The fact that we don't understand the mysteries of our bodies or electricity or a gas
engine doesn't keep us from using and enjoying them. The fact that I don't understand
the mysteries of prayer and religion no longer keeps me from enjoying the richer,
happier life that religion brings. At long last, I realise the wisdom of Santayana's words:
"Man is not made to understand life, but to live it."
I have gone back-well, I was about to say that I had gone back to religion; but that would
not be accurate. I have gone forward to a new concept of religion. I no longer have the
faintest interest in the differences in creeds that divide the Churches. But I am
tremendously interested in what religion does for me, just as I am interested in what
electricity and good food and water do for me. They help me to lead a richer, fuller,
happier life. But religion does far more than that. It brings me spiritual values. It gives
me, as William James puts it, "a new zest for life ... more life, a larger, richer, more
satisfying life." It gives me faith, hope, and courage. It banishes tensions, anxieties,
fears, and worries. It gives purpose to my life-and direction. It vastly improves my
happiness. It gives me abounding health. It helps me to create for myself "an oasis of
peace amidst the whirling sands of life".
Francis Bacon was right when he said, three hundred and fifty years ago: "A little
philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's
minds about to religion."
I can remember the days when people talked about the conflict between science and
religion. But no more. The newest of all sciences-psychiatry-is teaching what Jesus
taught. Why? Because psychiatrists realise that prayer and a strong religious faith will
banish the worries, the anxieties, the strains and fears that cause more than half of all
our ills. They know, as one of their leaders, Dr. A. A. Brill said: "Anyone who is truly
religious does not develop a neurosis."
If religion isn't true, then life is meaningless. It is a tragic farce.
I interviewed Henry Ford a few years prior to his death. Before I met him, I had expected
him to show the strains of the long years he had spent in building up and managing one
of the world's greatest businesses. So I was surprised to how calm and well and
peaceful he looked at seventy-eight. When I asked him if he ever worried, he replied:
"No. I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me.
With God in charge, I believe that every-thing will work out for the best in the end. So
what is there to worry about?"
Today, even psychiatrists are becoming modern evangelists. They are not urging us to
lead religious lives to avoid hell-fires in the next world, but they are urging us to lead
religious lives to avoid the hell-fires of this world-the hell-fires of stomach ulcer, angina
pectoris, nervous breakdowns, and insanity. As an example of what our psychologists
and psychiatrists are teaching, read The Return to Religion, by Dr. Henry C. Link. You
will probably find a copy in your public library.