RELIGIOUS VALUE OF EXPRESSION.--True religious experience demands
expression. The older conception of a religious life was to escape from
the world and live a life of communion and contemplation in some
secluded spot, ignoring the world thirsting without. Later religious
teaching, however, recognized the fact that religion cannot consist in
drinking in blessings alone, no matter how ecstatic the feeling which
may accompany the process; that it is not the receiving, but this along
with the giving that enriches the life. To give the cup of cold water,
to visit the widow and the fatherless, to comfort and help the needy and
forlorn--this is not only scriptural but it is psychological. Only as
religious feeling goes out into religious expression, can we have a
normal religious experience.
