or her to be unfaithful or to get drunk. One has to be firm sometimes, to decline an attraction, to refuse to lie or cheat, but one doesn't on that account groan and froth at the mouth. The "moral struggle" is an accompaniment or effect of belief rather than an element of religion.
On the other hand, social and recreational considerations are world-wide factors in the "psychology of religion." That is why, as I said in the first chapter, if the church and priest are not at hand, the religion soon disappears. In modern religion these considerations have a most important part. The church is a club. The minister caters to every interest, from dancing to matrimony, from vanity to sheer gregariousness and one's commercial interests. It pays a doctor to go to church, a lawyer to be a Catholic, a grocer to be religious, a professor to be on the side of the angels, a politician to rebuke infidelity. . . . The Almighty alone knows today how many of his worshipers believe in him. He could give us an entertaining volume on the psychology of religion.
