From ‘Latent Creeds’, The Spectator, 5 June 1915:
Has it not sometimes occurred to habitual church-goers to think how intensely interesting it would be if, when the congregation turned to the east, each man, instead of repeating after the choir, proclaimed aloud the creed of his soul? It would not perhaps be a bad spiritual exercise if each man made an effort to do so inwardly. We think many men might draw therefrom some measure of consolation, for the creed of the soul is not always the creed of the intellect; it is usually simpler and more satisfactory. The intellect is fearfully liable to the miasmatic influences of pessimism. It is almost impossible to maintain a state of optimism by reliance upon the mind alone. Life by all calculations is a tragedy. Yet as the mind argues this in how many souls there echoes an obverse platitude, one of which the mind is utterly impatient, but by which the spirit lives—”It is all for the best.”
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