If only one could have begun at
the other end!"
"Yes," said Amroth, "but that is because religion has fallen so much
into the hands of the wrong people, and is grievously misrepresented.
It has too often come to be identified, as you say, with human law, as a
power which leaves one severely alone, if one behaves oneself, and which
punishes harshly and mechanically if one outsteps the limit. It comes
into the world as a great joyful motive; and then it becomes identified
with respectability, and it is sad to think that it is simply from the
fact that it has won the confidence of the world that it gains its awful
power of silencing and oppressing. It becomes hostile to frankness and
independence, and puts a premium on caution and submissiveness; but that
is the misuse of it and the degradation of it; and religion is still the
most pure and beautiful thing in the world for all that; the doctrine
itself is fine and true in a way, if one can view it without impatience;
it upholds the right things; it all makes for peace and order, and even
for humility and just kindliness; it insists, or tries to insist, on the
fact that property and position and material things do not matter, and
that quality and method do matter.
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