The Religion of the Future

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IN an article “Brave New World Planning” in the Quarterly Review of April, W. J. Blyton stresses the importance of such values as freedom with discipline, personal character, room for spontaneity and the spiritual as a basis for a new world order. Character and not mechanisms must come first, and only a better and stronger religion will overthrow the passionate and evil religions which at present menace the world. Without that, democracy will not be enough, and Mr. Blyton argues that the League of Nations failed because its foundations were legalist, secular and without spiritual appeal, moral authority, or imaginative hold on the stormy wills of men. No future order, he urges, will last unless it is viewed as sacred by a vast majority who have to live under it. It must be loved and valued as England (or other patria) now is; as one's religion is; or one's family, personality and liberty. A wave of moral conviction and spiritual vision must pass over many nations, and the comprehensive order will grow out of close, friendly but not firmly defined relations. The entire mundane political business hinges on virtue, which can be analysed into conscientiousness, sympathy, self-discipline and moral insight, and great and good achievements are not officially inspired by law, resolution, or orders. Education in the limited materialist, utilitarian sense of the word is nought. To roll back the tide of Belial and Moloch we must oppose a true religion, instinct with love, works of mercy, the new life, the inescapable mysteries of life and death.