The
Religion of the Future
Religion of the Future
The Religion of the Future. A lecture delivered at the close of the Eleventh Session of the Harvard Summer School of Theology, July 22, 1909. By Charles W. Eliot. Boston: John W. Luce and Company.
“The religion of the future will approach the whole subject of evil from another side, that of resistance and prevention. The Breton sailor, who had had his arm poisoned by a dirty fish hook which had entered his finger, made a votive offering at the shrine of the Virgin Mary, and prayed for a cure. The workman today, who gets cut or bruised by a rough or dirty instrument, goes to a surgeon, who applies an antiseptic dressing to the wound, and prevents the poisoning. That surgeon is one of the ministers of the new religion....”