But there are other and more joyous ways of learning the truth of
Christ's teaching, ways that are accessible to all of us. The best and
most joyous way of all is to make experiment of it. Here is a law of
life which to the sophisticated mind seems impossible, impracticable,
and even absurd. No amount of argument will convince us that we can
find in love a sufficient rule of life, or that "to renounce joy for
our fellow's sake is joy beyond joy." How are we to be convinced?
Only by making the experiment, for we really believe only that which we
practice. "I wish I had your creed, then I would live your life," said
a seeker after truth to Pascal, the great French thinker. "Live my
life, and you will soon have my creed," was the swift reply. The
solution of all difficulties of faith lies in Pascal's answer, which is
after all but a variant of Christ's greater saying, "He that willeth to
do the will of God, shall know the doctrine." Is not the whole reason
why, for so many of us, the religion of Christ which we profess has so
little in it to content us, simply this, that we have never heartily
and honestly tried to practice it? We have accepted Christ's religion
indeed, as one which upon the whole should be accepted by virtuous men,
or as one which has sufficient superiorities to certain other forms of
religion to turn the scale of our intellectual hesitation, and win from
us reluctant acquiescence.
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