This is record of one man’s experience in his quest for religion. It is a record of his adventures in belief, his doubts and perplexities, his encounters with different philosophies and religions of the world, and his explorations of the best that has been said and thought and taught by the sages of the past. It is, of course, an exciting voyage, and I hope to make it clear and simple. I am sure that in this quest for the noblest truths, every person must travel by this individual road, and these roads are all different. It did not matter that Christopher Columbus never landed on the continent of North America; the essence of Christopher Columbus was that he did make the quest, and had all the excitement and the suspense and the happiness of a voyage of discovery. It did not matter that Magellan took a different and a much longer and more circuitous route around the Cape of Good Hope to reach India. Roads must be individual and different. I have to doubt that today a much simpler way to go to India is by jet plane. You get there faster. I doubt, however, that there is very much advantage in taking a jet plane to salvation, in getting to know God quicker and more safely. I am sure there are many Christians who never made this quest; they found the Christian God when they were in the cradle, and, like the wife of Abraham, they took this God with them wherever they went; and finally, when they reached the grave, the same God was with them still. Religion sometimes becomes too comfortable, and has even been associated with smugness. Religion of this kind is like a piece of furniture or a possession that you can tuck away and take along in your journey wherever you go; and among the atrocities of modern American English I must mention the phrases that one can “get religion” or “sell religion.” I believe that many churches prefer to sell religion in a “package.” It’s compact, and so much more convenient to carry around. That is a comfortable and easy way to come by religion.
      I doubt, however, the value of religion of this sort. I have come by religion the hard way, and I think this is the only way, and do not think there is any other way to give it the necessary validity. For religion is, first and last, an individual facing up to the astounding heavens, a matter between him and God. It is a matter of individual growth from within, and cannot be “given” by anybody. For religion is a flower which is best grown in a field, and the pot-grown or hothouse variety is apt to be pale-colored, as well as fragile and friable.
      This is therefore necessarily a story of personal experience, for all worthwhile accounts of this kind must necessarily be based on personal inquiry, on moments of doubt and moments of insight and intimation. Though this book is not an autobiography, there are places where I find it necessary to tough on certain personal circumstances and backgrounds in order to make the story of the evolution comprehensible. It is by no means a smooth voyage of discovery, but one full of spiritual shocks and encounters. There is always something of the story of Jacob’s wrestling with God in his dream; for the search for truth is seldom a pleasure cruise. There were storms and shipwrecks and puzzling deviations of the magnetic compass which frightened the sailors on Christopher Columbus’ boat. There were doubts, hesitancies, and threats of munity, and the desire to turn back. I had to sail past the Scylla of a damning hellfire and the Charybdis of Pharisaism, Scribism, and Caiaphatism of organized belief. I finally got through. But it has been worthwhile.
      I do not write for those who never join the search, who have “no time for religion,” for this book will not interest them. Nor do I write for the smug Christian who are perfectly satisfied with what they’ve got, who have, as it were, a guaranteed salvation, people who never had any doubts. I have no sympathy for those who believe that they have a reserved seat in heaven. I speak only to those who ask the question, “Where are we going on this voyage?” There are passengers on every ocean liner who find it necessary, for their peace of mind, to look at the log of the steamer on which they are traveling and find out the exact longitude and latitude of their boat. It is to these people that I speak.
      The modern world and the development of contemporary history have always seemed to me like the odyssey of men who do not know where they are going, and the first sign of salvation is the willingness and the desire to ask. “Where are we going now?” I can conceive of a ghost ship, a pilotless submarine driven by the power from nuclear reactors and run entirely by automation. And I can imagine that sometimes on this ghost ship there is a great argument among the passengers as to who is running the ship and where she is going, for apparently there is no pilot. Some will essay the opinion that the submarine runs itself, while other, more speculative minds will start to argue that perhaps the submarine even built itself, by a fortuitous conjunction of mechanical parts, without any designing engineer. And amidst the heat of argument, I can detect a sense of frustration and of puzzlement and discontent, and there will be those who say, “We did not ask to come abroad; we merely found ourselves here.” That, I believe, is a picture of the modern world. There will be no evidence of any pilot who is running the ship, and much evidence that the ship is running by itself without a pilot. The great speculative minds will essay the opinion that probably the nuclear-powered submarine built itself. Such speculation will give the sponsors of the theory much intellectual satisfaction and pride; for in their flights of speculation they have seen the awful beauty and grandeur of such a conception of the fortuitous conjunction of events, the lucky coincidences of screws fitting holes and congruence of the diameters of the main shaft and the hole of the main driving wheel, and so on, of which they believe the lesser minds have no conception. But the majority of the sailors and the passengers on board will be occupied with the more practical question of where they come from and where they will ultimately land.
      I write to please no one, and may displease some, for what I say will be strictly from an individual viewpoint. Tolerance is a rare virtue among followers of religions. There is so much about the religions of the world, and Christianity in particular, which has been hardened and encased and embalmed and which admits of no discussion. For, curiously, in this matter of religion, every individual likes to think that he has the monopoly of truth. In his speech asking the Great Convention to pass the Constitution of the United States, Benjamin Franklin wrote “It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication, tells the Pope that the only difference between our two churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrine, is, the Romish church is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who, in a little dispute with her sister, said, ‘But I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.’ Jen e trouve que moi qui aie toujours raison.”
      Perhaps there are too many people who want to give us a “packaged” salvation, too many people who want to overprotect us from heresy. The anxiety for our personal salvation is entirely laudable. On the other hand, in such a “packaged” salvation, people are apt to put too heavy a load on our beliefs. That is what is called dogmas and the dogmatism of spirit; and it is not so much the dogmas individually and specifically as the spirit of dogmatism which I object to. The overprotection and the burden of belief may crush many a young mind.
      In this connection, I remember a story my father told me of himself. We lived in Changchow, on the South China coast. There was a preacher who lived some five or six miles from Changchow, and who came back to the city regularly twice a month. My father was twelve or thirteen at the time. And my grandmother, being a Christian, offered the services of her son to carry the luggage for the Christian preacher without charge. My father was at the time the only son living with his widowed mother, and they were very much devoted to each other. He used to sell sweetmeats and, on rainy days, fries beans. The residents of Changchow loved to eat fried beans on a rainy day, for the beans were crisp and tasted somewhat like American popcorn. He was a good carrier, and obeyed my grandmother’s injunction to carry the luggage. The preacher’s wife traveled with him, and my father told me that this woman would put everything into the baskets which were suspended from both ends of the pole on his shoulder. There were not only clothing and bedding and laundry, which made the load heavy enough for a boy of thirteen, but the woman would also put in some pots and pans, and finally even a clay stove which must have weighed three or four pounds. And she would say to my father: “You are a good boy, a strong boy. This is nothing. I am sure you can carry it.” There was no strict necessity for carrying the clay portable stove back and forth between Changchow and his station. I can still remember seeing the scars on my father’s shoulders, which of course were not entirely due to these trips alone. But I have always thought of those baskets of luggage and pots and pans and the unnecessary portable clay stove. They remind me of the burden of beliefs which the priesthoods of different religions like to place on the shoulders of young minds, saying to them: “You are a good boy, a strong boy, you can take it. If you will only believe, you will find that it is true.” Sometimes the shoulders of these young minds develop blisters.

      This is record of one man’s experience in his quest for religion. It is a record of his adventures in belief, his doubts and perplexities, his encounters with different philosophies and religions of the world, and his explorations of the best that has been said and thought and taught by the sages of the past. It is, of course, an exciting voyage, and I hope to make it clear and simple. I am sure that in this quest for the noblest truths, every person must travel by this individual road, and these roads are all different. It did not matter that Christopher Columbus never landed on the continent of North America; the essence of Christopher Columbus was that he did make the quest, and had all the excitement and the suspense and the happiness of a voyage of discovery. It did not matter that Magellan took a different and a much longer and more circuitous route around the Cape of Good Hope to reach India. Roads must be individual and different. I have to doubt that today a much simpler way to go to India is by jet plane. You get there faster. I doubt, however, that there is very much advantage in taking a jet plane to salvation, in getting to know God quicker and more safely. I am sure there are many Christians who never made this quest; they found the Christian God when they were in the cradle, and, like the wife of Abraham, they took this God with them wherever they went; and finally, when they reached the grave, the same God was with them still. Religion sometimes becomes too comfortable, and has even been associated with smugness. Religion of this kind is like a piece of furniture or a possession that you can tuck away and take along in your journey wherever you go; and among the atrocities of modern American English I must mention the phrases that one can “get religion” or “sell religion.” I believe that many churches prefer to sell religion in a “package.” It’s compact, and so much more convenient to carry around. That is a comfortable and easy way to come by religion.
      I doubt, however, the value of religion of this sort. I have come by religion the hard way, and I think this is the only way, and do not think there is any other way to give it the necessary validity. For religion is, first and last, an individual facing up to the astounding heavens, a matter between him and God. It is a matter of individual growth from within, and cannot be “given” by anybody. For religion is a flower which is best grown in a field, and the pot-grown or hothouse variety is apt to be pale-colored, as well as fragile and friable.
      This is therefore necessarily a story of personal experience, for all worthwhile accounts of this kind must necessarily be based on personal inquiry, on moments of doubt and moments of insight and intimation. Though this book is not an autobiography, there are places where I find it necessary to tough on certain personal circumstances and backgrounds in order to make the story of the evolution comprehensible. It is by no means a smooth voyage of discovery, but one full of spiritual shocks and encounters. There is always something of the story of Jacob’s wrestling with God in his dream; for the search for truth is seldom a pleasure cruise. There were storms and shipwrecks and puzzling deviations of the magnetic compass which frightened the sailors on Christopher Columbus’ boat. There were doubts, hesitancies, and threats of munity, and the desire to turn back. I had to sail past the Scylla of a damning hellfire and the Charybdis of Pharisaism, Scribism, and Caiaphatism of organized belief. I finally got through. But it has been worthwhile.
      I do not write for those who never join the search, who have “no time for religion,” for this book will not interest them. Nor do I write for the smug Christian who are perfectly satisfied with what they’ve got, who have, as it were, a guaranteed salvation, people who never had any doubts. I have no sympathy for those who believe that they have a reserved seat in heaven. I speak only to those who ask the question, “Where are we going on this voyage?” There are passengers on every ocean liner who find it necessary, for their peace of mind, to look at the log of the steamer on which they are traveling and find out the exact longitude and latitude of their boat. It is to these people that I speak.
      The modern world and the development of contemporary history have always seemed to me like the odyssey of men who do not know where they are going, and the first sign of salvation is the willingness and the desire to ask. “Where are we going now?” I can conceive of a ghost ship, a pilotless submarine driven by the power from nuclear reactors and run entirely by automation. And I can imagine that sometimes on this ghost ship there is a great argument among the passengers as to who is running the ship and where she is going, for apparently there is no pilot. Some will essay the opinion that the submarine runs itself, while other, more speculative minds will start to argue that perhaps the submarine even built itself, by a fortuitous conjunction of mechanical parts, without any designing engineer. And amidst the heat of argument, I can detect a sense of frustration and of puzzlement and discontent, and there will be those who say, “We did not ask to come abroad; we merely found ourselves here.” That, I believe, is a picture of the modern world. There will be no evidence of any pilot who is running the ship, and much evidence that the ship is running by itself without a pilot. The great speculative minds will essay the opinion that probably the nuclear-powered submarine built itself. Such speculation will give the sponsors of the theory much intellectual satisfaction and pride; for in their flights of speculation they have seen the awful beauty and grandeur of such a conception of the fortuitous conjunction of events, the lucky coincidences of screws fitting holes and congruence of the diameters of the main shaft and the hole of the main driving wheel, and so on, of which they believe the lesser minds have no conception. But the majority of the sailors and the passengers on board will be occupied with the more practical question of where they come from and where they will ultimately land.
      I write to please no one, and may displease some, for what I say will be strictly from an individual viewpoint. Tolerance is a rare virtue among followers of religions. There is so much about the religions of the world, and Christianity in particular, which has been hardened and encased and embalmed and which admits of no discussion. For, curiously, in this matter of religion, every individual likes to think that he has the monopoly of truth. In his speech asking the Great Convention to pass the Constitution of the United States, Benjamin Franklin wrote “It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication, tells the Pope that the only difference between our two churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrine, is, the Romish church is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who, in a little dispute with her sister, said, ‘But I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.’ Jen e trouve que moi qui aie toujours raison.”
      Perhaps there are too many people who want to give us a “packaged” salvation, too many people who want to overprotect us from heresy. The anxiety for our personal salvation is entirely laudable. On the other hand, in such a “packaged” salvation, people are apt to put too heavy a load on our beliefs. That is what is called dogmas and the dogmatism of spirit; and it is not so much the dogmas individually and specifically as the spirit of dogmatism which I object to. The overprotection and the burden of belief may crush many a young mind.
      In this connection, I remember a story my father told me of himself. We lived in Changchow, on the South China coast. There was a preacher who lived some five or six miles from Changchow, and who came back to the city regularly twice a month. My father was twelve or thirteen at the time. And my grandmother, being a Christian, offered the services of her son to carry the luggage for the Christian preacher without charge. My father was at the time the only son living with his widowed mother, and they were very much devoted to each other. He used to sell sweetmeats and, on rainy days, fries beans. The residents of Changchow loved to eat fried beans on a rainy day, for the beans were crisp and tasted somewhat like American popcorn. He was a good carrier, and obeyed my grandmother’s injunction to carry the luggage. The preacher’s wife traveled with him, and my father told me that this woman would put everything into the baskets which were suspended from both ends of the pole on his shoulder. There were not only clothing and bedding and laundry, which made the load heavy enough for a boy of thirteen, but the woman would also put in some pots and pans, and finally even a clay stove which must have weighed three or four pounds. And she would say to my father: “You are a good boy, a strong boy. This is nothing. I am sure you can carry it.” There was no strict necessity for carrying the clay portable stove back and forth between Changchow and his station. I can still remember seeing the scars on my father’s shoulders, which of course were not entirely due to these trips alone. But I have always thought of those baskets of luggage and pots and pans and the unnecessary portable clay stove. They remind me of the burden of beliefs which the priesthoods of different religions like to place on the shoulders of young minds, saying to them: “You are a good boy, a strong boy, you can take it. If you will only believe, you will find that it is true.” Sometimes the shoulders of these young minds develop blisters.