The Transforming Power of True Religion
WHAT is most characteristic in true religion—what is most wonderful—is the fact that it wells right up against a man's desires, his inclinations, his preconceptions. It shatters his old moldy crust of habits, it changes the current of his thoughts, it makes his dumb, stupefied conscience talk right out, 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.