| On Religion | |
| And an old priest said, "Speak to us of Religion." | |
| And he said: | |
| Have I spoken this day of aught else? | |
| Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, | |
| And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom? | |
| Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? | |
| Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?" | |
| All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self. | |
| He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked. | |
| The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin. | |
| And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage. | |
| The freest song comes not through bars and wires. | |
| And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn. | |
| Your daily life is your temple and your religion. | |
| Whenever you enter into it take with you your all. | |
| Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, | |
| The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. | |
| For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures. | |
| And take with you all men: | |
| For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair. | |
| And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. | |
| Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. | |
| And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. | |
| You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees. |