From
“What Religion Means to Me”
To me
religion has nothing to do with any specific creed or dogma. It means that
belief and that faith in the heart of a man which makes him try to live his
life according to the highest standard which he is able to visualize. To those
of us who were brought up as Christians that standard is the life of Christ,
and it matters very little whether our creed is Catholic or Protestant.
To
those of us who happen to have been born and brought up under other skies or in
other creeds, the object to be attained goes by some other name, but in all
cases the thing which counts is the striving of the human soul to achieve
spiritually the best that it is capable of and to care unselfishly not only for
personal good but for the good of all those who toil with them upon the earth. …
Today I am an
Episcopalian, as I was as a child, but I feel that this makes me neither better
nor worse than those who belong to any other church. I believe in the habits of
regular churchgoing and regular work for the church because there is help for
us all in doing things in common and we care more for things that we give to,
of our time, of our material wealth, and of our thought. But these are the
outward symbols which should proclaim inner growth, and it is the inner growth
which is important. If people can attain it without the help of what might be
called religious routine, that is for them to decide. The fundamental, vital
thing which must be alive in each human consciousness is the religious teaching
that we cannot live for ourselves alone and that as long as we are here on this
earth we are all of us brothers, regardless of race, creed, or color.
— Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
The
Larger Conception of the Church Universal
I believe every Christian
should have church relations, and be faithful to them, and I have always studied
to render faithful service to the denomination where a good Providence placed
me; not by trying to conform to the average opinions which may be current among
them today, but by trying to grasp and bring forth anew the vital truths
essential alike to individual progress and denominational life. For when
brought face to face with the central truths of Christianity, the idea of sect
merges in the larger conception of the Church Universal, with Christ for its living Head and
daily inspiration. I believe the best service which any man can render his
denomination is to help on a consummation like this; and this I would do in
perfect loyalty to the branch of the Church to which it is ray privilege to
belong, and as some return for the large freedom of opinion
and utterance which they have vouchsafed and defended. The time I believe is
not far off when there is to be larger freedom in every branch of the Christian
Zion for the treatment and readjustment of the great truths of Religion, and
that this freedom is to consummate, not in new divisions, but in broader and warmer
fellowship, and a more perfect and comprehending unity. For it will be a unity
not imposed from without, but a growth within, from more intelligent
convictions and the deeper inspirations of the Spirit which comes through these
convictions themselves.
— Edmund Hamilton Sears (born April 6,
1810)
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| Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) |
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