The Transforming Power of True Religion
WHAT is most characteristic in true religion—what is most wonderful—is the fact that it wells up, right against a man's desires, his inclinations, his preconceptions. It shatters his old moldy crust of habits, it changes the currents of his thought; it makes his dumb, stupefied conscience talk right out, and speak to the purpose; it transfigures, it regenerates him. If it cannot make a small power large, it makes it good. If it cannot give a big brain in the place of a contracted one, it transmutes a man's intellect all into a divine essence of purity and love, or freights it with the thunder and lightning of dauntless and effective energy.—Chapin.