Ethical addresses

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ETHICAL ADDRESSES

AND

ETHICAL RECORD

FIFTEENTH SERIES

Philadelphia

Ethical Addresses, 141 5 Locust Street

1908.

(Tontents

PAGE

Adler, Felix. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Address 64

Anesaki, M. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Address 61

Bacon, Fanny M. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Address. . 55
Brandenburger, W. a. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Ad-
dress 51

Dodson, George R. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Address.. 58
Elliott, John Lovejoy. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Ad-
dress 42

Martin, Alfred W. The Spiritual Greatness of the Real

Jesus 89

Meaning of Membership in the New York Ethical So-
ciety 168

Moore, Robert. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Addresses. ... 46

Moral Education Congress 227

MosKOWiTz, Henry. Ethics Teaching in the School 82

MuzzEY, David Saville. A Vision for the New Year 103

" " " The Challenge of Socialism 141

Sale, Samuel. Walter L, Sheldon Memorial Address 60

Salter, Wm. M. A Help to the Moral Life 162

" Moncure D. Conway 86

" Reflections of a Traveler in Italy 247

" The Need of a Religion of Morality y^

" The Good Fight — With a Closing Word. . 115

" Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Address Z7

Schmidt, Nathaniel. The Inspiration of the Ethical Move-
ment 79

Seligman, Edwin R. A. The Character of the Ethical

Movement 69

Sheldon, Walter L. Ethical Aspect of the Belief in Im-
mortality 211

" " " Funeral Service i

" " " Marriage Ceremony 28

" " " Men and Women : What They Ought

to be to Each Other 229

" Words Spoken at Funerals 11

Spencer, Anna Garlin. Social Ethics and Private Morality 193

Sprague, Leslie Willis. An Ethical Conception of God. . . 185

ii

CONTENTS. Ill

Taussig, William. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Address.. 49
Weston, S. Burns. Walter L. Sheldon Memorial Address 33

ZuEBLiN, Charles. Religion and the Church 169

" " The Value of Ethical Organization 135

Songs and Responses 265

America 272

Autumn Song 285

Be Lord of Self 276

Bird Song 283

Ceasing to Give, We Cease to Have 279

City of Light, The 265

Dawning of Liberty, The 275

Doing Right 267

Dreamer, Act 278

Fear Not the Truth 271

Fruits of Labor, The 278

Greeting to the Sun 281

Harvest Days , 284

Influence of Good Deeds, The 279

Land of Greatness 271

Let in Light 270

Love 270

Morning Breaketh on Thee 268

Morning Light is Breaking, The 266

New Order, The 277

New Year 282

Nobility 274

Onward, Brothers 265

Raise Your Standard 267

Singing Joyfully 274

Sing, Let Us Sing 269

Speak Out the Truth 279

Splendor of the Morning 281

Spring Song 283

Spring Time 282

Thanksgivmg Song 284

The Heart it Hath Its Own Estate 271

The Fountain — Spiritual Constancy 280

The Light 273

IV CONTENTS.

The Path : 276

These Things Shall Be 273

Think Truly 275

Truth is Dawning 280

When Work is Delight ^^

Work, for the Night is Coming 268

Responses 285

Autumn 286

Harvest Festival 287

Spring 285

General 287

SERVICE AT THE FUNERAL OF
WALTER L. SHELDON

Conducted by Dr. John Lovejoy Elliott, at Memorial Hall,
St. Louis, June 8th, 1907*

MUSIC BY THE STRING QUARTET.

Adagio, Moonlight Sonata Beethoven

Berceuse Reber

Music of the Spheres Rubenstein

Mr. Sheldon's Own Words at Funeral Services.

Once more we are called upon to assemble and bow the
head in the presence of the Mystery-of-all-Mysteries.
Death has garnered another of our number into the great
ocean of the Infinite. We surrender and submit to a
Higher Will than ours. Sorrow and pain may have
come to us from the blow. And yet it is our trust that
all is right and all is well. Life for each and all may be
rich and full of meaning. It is a glorious privilege to
live and love and work. A single day of this human exist-
ence is beyond all measure of value. Each moment of
time for us has in it something of the Eternal. The
living soul of man is not of earth and not of time. The
web that it is weaving is to form part of an Infinite Fab-
ric. The life of each and all is a part of the Infinite Life.
The mighty fabric we are weaving can have no end.
What the vast design may be the mind of man cannot
fathom. It is for us to do our work, to fulfill the trust
committed to our charge, and to have faith in the Infinite
Justice.

*Mr. Sheldon having expressed the wish that no address should
be made at his funeral, the service consisted entirely of his own
words on such occasions, together with favorite selections of his
from different authors.

2 FUNERAL SERVICE

If we care for the highest pleasures which Hfe has to
offer us, if we want all that love can bring, all that fel-
low-feeling may give us, all that good-will has to fur-
nish; then we must take the pain with the pleasure, the
sorrow with the joy, the heartache with the gladness.
Life gives us all that it is worth, only when it gives us all
the depth of heart-experience. And the man who knows
not sorrow, who has never felt a touch of pain, whose
soul has never been harrowed with anxiety, whose face
has never worn the lines of care, whose eye has never
been dimmed with tears, — that man has never known
what it is worth to be alive. He has never known the
value of life and has never really tasted the cup of joy.

No burden ever fell on any shoulders that were not
strong enough to carry it. No blow ever struck a human
creature who was not able to withstand it. No affliction
ever fell upon a living soul where there was not strength
enough to face it and endure. With the sorrows that one
is born to, comes the strength by which one is able to hold
oneself together and obey. The soul of man is equal to
any blow or any calamity. If we give in and succumb,
if we refuse and will not submit, it is by our own choice.
We have not availed ourselves of that spiritual force that
is our supreme endowment. No sorrow was ever too
great for the human soul to bear, no anguish ever too keen
for the human heart to withstand its blows. The love that
has been real will find its own true compensation for its
losses. The affection that has been genuine will sustain
itself against any catastrophe. The soul within us grows
by its own sorrows and gains strength from its disap-
pointments. Behind the losses, beneath the disappoint-
ments, at the root of the sorrows, we are conscious of
riches that do not fade away.

WALTER L. SHELDON 3

If it is our choice to be men, we must take the sorrows
of men. If it is our privilege to be Hving souls, we must
accept all that goes with that privilege. It is not true
that life is only a vapor, nor is it true that we are chasing
empty phantoms of joy. The love of the human heart is
the most real and the most beautiful of all realities. The
richest gift of our manhood and our womanhood is
this gift of human affection. It is the love that joins
us together as brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers,
children and comrades, husbands and wives, companions
alike in joys and sorrows. Whatever the length of time
may be, to have had something of this, is to have experi-
enced the supreme privilege of our divine manhood and
womanhood. The anguish of parting cannot destroy this
most real of all realities. The love has been there, the
affection existed. The ties have been woven which united
hearts and souls together. The love that once was born
— in a sense can never die, for it is a part of the texture
of our being. We may chafe under the burden of life;
we may cry out in disappointment ; we may feel as if the
weight for us was greater than we could carry ; we may
clamor for relief and ask for rest, — but our clamors may
be of no avail. It matters not how we may chafe, we can-
not interfere with inscrutable law.

It is true that life in a sense would seem to be only
one long giving up. What is sweetest to us is taken
away. What is nearest to us is removed. The choicest
of our treasures may be snatched from our grasp. But
the soul itself, in all its richness and fullness is still there.
It has loved, it has felt, and it has suffered. For every
experience of giving up, we get something in return. It
may not be what the heart, at the moment, yearns for ; it

FUNERAL SERVICE

may not satisfy all our cravings. And yet, in the fullest
sense, the soul knows itself, knows no losses, for in itself
is something that does not rust or decay.

While we live, if we live truly, we shall love; and
while we work, if we work faithfully, affection shall con-
tinue. The heart that knows its own strength may bend,
but it will not break. The soul that knows its own power
may tremble, but it will not give in. The divine privi-
lege is ours to face the ills as they come, to acquit our-
selves like men and to be worthy of all our richest her-
itage.

FAVORITE SELECTIONS OF MR. SHELDOn's.

"The world does not know that we must all come to
an end here; — but those who know it, their quarrels
cease at once." — Dhammapada.

'The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he is
happy in the next ; he is happy in both. He is happy when
he thinks of the good he has done ; he is still more happy
when going on the good path." — Dhmnmapada,

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for the first
heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there
was no more sea. And I heard a great voice out of
heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of the Eternal is
with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be
his people. And the Eternal shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain ;
for the former things are passed away." — Revelations.

"Now I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong
therefore and show thyself a man." — / Kings.

WALTER L. SHELDON 5

"Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which
is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affec-
tioned one to another with brotherly love ; in honor pre-
ferring one another. Rejoice with them that do rejoice,
and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one
toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend
to things that are lowly. Be not overcome of evil, but
overcome evil with good." — Romans.

"The Eternal shall endure forever: He hath prepared
his throne for judgment. And he shall judge the world
in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the peo-
ple in uprightness. The Eternal will be a refuge for the
oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble." — Psalms.

"Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell
in Thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and work-
eth righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart." —
Psalms.

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam.
When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell.

And after that the dark !
And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark ;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place,

The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face.

When I have crost the bar. —Tennyson.

FUNERAL SERVICE

Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong, —
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.

What matter, I or they?
Mine or another's day,
So the right word be said
And life the sweeter made?

Hail to the coming singers.
Hail to the brave light-bringers !
Forward I reach and share
All that they sing and dare.

The airs of heaven blow o'er me;
A glory shines before me
Of what mankind shall be, —
Pure, generous, brave and free.

Parcel and part of all,
I keep the festival.
Fore-reach the good to be.
And share the victory.

I feel the earth move sunward,
I join the great march onward,
And take, by faith, while living,
My freehold of thanksgiving.

-Whittier.

O may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence: live

In pulses stirred to generosity.

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

For miserable aims that end with self.

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

And with their mild persistence urge men's search

To vaster issues.

WALTER L. SHELDON

So to live is heaven :
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child.
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self.
That sobbed religiously in yearning song.
That watched to ease the burthen of the world
Laboriously tracing what must be.
And what may yet be better — saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love —
That better self shall live till human time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever.

This is life to come.
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony.
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty —
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused.
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

— George Eliot.

8 FUNERAL SERVICE

To him who in the love of Nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language ; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides

Into his darker musings, with a mild

And healing sympathy, that steals away

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. Whien thoughts

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house

Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart; —

Go forth, under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around —

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air, —

Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; ....

. . . . Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past.
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun — the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods — rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, —
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. . . .

.... All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train

WALTER L. SHELDON

Of ages glide away, the sons of men,

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes

In the full strength of years, matron and maid,

The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man —

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side.

By those, who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night.
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave.
Like one who draws the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

—W. C. Bryant.

By Dr. Elliott:

In the forty-ninth year of his life, after twenty-one
years of service in this city, at the close of a long illness,
and knowing that death was upon him, Mr. Sheldon
turned a smiling face to those about him, and said :

"Good-by : all is well ; my love to everybody, Auf wieder
sehen."

MUSIC BY THE STRING QUARTET.

The Death of Asa Grieg

Traumverloren Komzak

Andante Tschaikowsky

Traumerei Schumann

10 FUNERAL SERVICE

SERVICE AT THE CREMATORY

"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust" has been the saying
of old, and it is the same to-day. But more than the ashes
and more than the dust is the heart of him who has left
us now. In the hands and arms of the Great Keeper we
lay him away. Behind our sorrow or pain, our faith tri-
umphs that Justice reigns in the world, that truth shall
conquer, that love is master and that all is well. Ashes to
ashes and dust to dust, but the soul of him to the Infinite
Soul who gave it. With faith and trust in the mercy and
justice of the Infinite One we consign him to the Father-
over-All.

Each true deed is worship: it is prayer,

And carries its own answer unaware.

Yes, they whose feet upon good errands run

Are friends of God, with Michael of the sun;

Yes, each accomplished service of the day

Paves for the feet of God a lordlier way.

The souls that love and labor through all wrong,

They clasp His hand and make the circle strong;

They lay the deep foundation, stone by stone.

And build into Eternity — God's throne!

— Edwin Markham.

He is made one with Nature : there is heard

His voice in all her music, from the moan

Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird;

He is a presence to be felt and known

In darkness and in light, from herb and stone;

Spreading itself where'er that Power may move

Which has withdrawn his being to its own;

Which wields the world with never wearied love.

Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

— Shelley.

WORDS SPOKEN BY WALTER L.

SHELDON AT FUNERAL

SERVICES.

Death is the great and solemn fact that gives to our
human Hfe its halo of glory. If our existence here should
be without end or limit, we would not know how to value
its worth. Just because the time is brief and the days of
our years are few in number, for that reason we are led
to realize what a privilege it has been to live, what a gift
we have had in this interval for human effort. As we
stand by the graves of our dead we are conscious that it
is an hour for revival of strength and renewal of courage.
The thought of them restores to us our half-broken faith
in the worth of life. We think what they have been and
done ; and though sorrowing at our loss, we are inspired
to take up once more the tangled threads of human ex-
istence, and to work on in loyalty to the best and highest
motives that can actuate the human heart. What they
have done and been we also can do and be, — and more,
for we are the heirs of their high efforts and share in
what they have been and done.

It is Death that gives back to us at last those whom
we have loved but never wholly known. While they went
in and out among us, we thought of them as we saw
them yesterday or the day before, in some special garb or
on some special occasion. Now as we lay them away to
their rest we see them as they actually were in themselves.
They live on in our hearts no longer hidden from us by
the veil of form and circumstances. We loved the living ;
we venerate the dead.

II

12 WORDS SPOKEN AT FUNERALS

We have our work to do, each and every one of us.
The sphere of life is before us that we have to fill ; the
hearts are there to whom we are to be devoted. But in a
time like this we are led to feel that there is an universal
heart we are to love, including all men and women who
draw the breath of life. Not only of ourselves and our
own circle we think now, but of that great army of liv-
ing men and women all over the earth who are fighting
the battle of life and who are there as our brothers. It is
death in its solemn and beautiful form that makes us feel
that there is only one family, including all those who have
lived before, who are living to-day, or who are yet to live ;
one mighty Brotherhood of which we are members and to
whose welfare we are consecrated. And every effort
that we make to do our work faithfully, every effort we
put forward to be loyal and true to the duty at hand, every
effort on our part to widen this circle of fellowship and to
be of service to this brotherhood — every effort of this
kind is carried on beyond ourselves and beyond our lives.
It lives on when we have passed away.

When the sun is sinking out of sight and the day is
over, when night is coming on and the twilight is passing
on into darkness, it is then that the beauty of the sunlight
is made known to us as it is never made
known to us in the noonday brightness. It is
then that all earth and all sky takes on a new and greater
glory than it ever seemed to have had before. And so it
is with the fading light of those whom we have known, or
who have been dear to us. When their sun is setting or
has set on earth and the light may have gone out, some-
how it is then as if we saw their light and their lives in
a way we had never seen them before. It is as if at such

WALTER L. SHELDON I3

times we were taken to those distant peaks where one
looks down over the earth and over the seas and across
the skies and through the stars, — as if in the ones who
had been taken from us Death had revealed a beauty and
a glory of whose presence we had never before been truly
aware.

As we stand by the bier of them whom we have loved,
it is revealed to us as never before, what things are of
real worth in life. We pause now to pledge ourselves
anew in fidelity to the living and in loyalty to the supreme
purposes which alone give worth to our existence. For
us it still remains to strive and labor for the better things
to come on earth, stirred by our veneration for the dead
to an ever more determined effort in the cause of a love
universal. The calm, the rest, and the peace that now
reigns in their breast will come to us when our work is
over. We too, like them, shall live on in the hearts of
those we have served and in the work we have achieved.
Their peace shall be our peace. Over their graves the
sunlight will play and the rain will fall, but no sunlight
and no rainfall should change or alter the love and
gratitude we bear to them whom now we place among
the consecrated dead. They have worked faithfully and
well, and have earned their peace. We consign them to
their rest.

There are treasures which come from the lives of those
who never teach, garnered anew in every age as the story
of the soul of man repeats itself from generation tO' gen-
eration. Thoughts may come and go ; they surge through
the soul by what we see all around us, and it may come
easy to voice those thoughts to others. But iiiore and

14 WORDS SPOKEN AT FUNERALS

more it grows upon us that the greatest lives may have
been those who do their teaching in noble silence. As
we think of the precious soul which has slipped its moor-
ings from us just now, of one who has been loved and
loving, one whose life had been knitted closely, tenderly,
devotedly, into the lives of others, we are made con-
scious of those depths of experience which no man can
fathom. It is not an easy thing to live the life of truth.
The voice of the great teachers has gone out to the world,
and carried its message ; and the written page has handed
it on. But no written page hands on the story of the
silent lives who are the messengers of a wisdom more
profound, more far-reaching, more intense, than language
has ever recorded ; or than is to be found in the teachings
of any priest or prophet.

History, as we know, has been made far more by the
few rare noble lives who have had no history; lives, the
events of which, each taken by itself, would not stand out
before the eye, nor count for much on a written page.
Easy enough it may be to perform one heroic act, to let
one's life shine out for an instant by the flash of one bril-
liant deed. But to go on day after day, in the life of pa-
tient devotion to those simple duties which are close at
hand and always present, to the cares which weigh on the
soul, but count for little in the busy world — this is not
easy. It is of such lives we think to-day, of those who
have hidden themselves away in the work they have done,
with a lofty patience which has withstood every ill,
fighting against the odds of existence as if no odds were
there at all. This is a beauty of life that makes us pause
in solemn awe at its divine simplicity and majesty. In a
career like this, where there has been depth of soul, and

WALTER L. SHELDON 1 5

a richness of experience, life is always a battle. Few and
rare are they who through it all can wear a face of
cheer and never break down, — taking alike the good and
the ill, carrying the soul on in the even tenor of its way
and holding one's self always serene and sure.

Those who teach by their lives do more than those who
teach by their lips. The influence may not go into lan-
guage or pass into verse ; it may not speak anywhere on
the page, and no book may record it. But it finds its way
just the same, working itself out like those silent forces
of nature, the mystery of which we cannot solve. And
so it is in the lives of those humble workers, where a
force lies hidden that we cannot reach or touch or see.
We cannot describe it, nor explain it, nor set down what
it is. But the less it goes into language, the less we are
able to describe it, the more truly we are aware of its
presence. For the depths of the human soul no man has
read.

The stories of the lives of the world-conquerors are
told us as a spur to ourselves. They are to urge us on in
the course we are to pursue, to fire us with new energy,
and goad us to greater achievement. And it may be
that something of this kind does come from them if we
give them heed. It may be that we do catch an efflatus
from the heroes of old, and that the torch of force or
fire is handed on by this means from age to age. But
there is another kind of strength which the lives of those
conquerors may not inspire. In carrying on the work of
life, there is call for a strength on the inside, for a force
to withstand the ills which must face us, to support the
burdens we have to bear, to walk through the routine of

l6 WORDS SPOKEN AT FUNERALS

daily toil and never break down. The inspiration which
should help us and renew our courage for battles like
these, must corrie from conquerors of another kind. It is
from a life like this, one which remains unrecorded to
the world, that we draw spiritual courage. A new lease
of strength is given us as we pause and think over what
such a life has meant and what it has actually achieved.

Sometimes we feel as if all the noble lives which have
ever been lived, all the efforts of strength on the inside
which have ever been put forth; all the spiritual energy
unmentioned in history; all the self-sacrifice, all the di-
vine patience, all the heroic efiPort of the human soul, —
as if all this had been piling up down over the ages, and
was living still as one mighty force to help us on. It is
as if all that spiritual strength was there as a store-
house on which each one of us could draw, — ^as if we
might have all the more courage and all the more pa-
tience because of all the patience and all the courage
which had gone before. It is a spiritual storehouse, a
treasure which each soul may draw upon without fear of
depleting what is already there. In taking from that
storehouse for ourselves, we leave more treasure than we
carry away. We are all by this means helping to in-
crease that great pyramid of spiritual strength, for others
to draw upon in future ages. In spite of ourselves, and
in spite of our sorrows, we may grow stronger as the
ages go by ; the spirit-life may grow firmer and the soul
grow more serene as it reaches to ever loftier heights.

It is true that joy never can come to us all by itself.
It is true that we can never have the love without its sor-
rows and pains. There are the thorns pressing on the

WALTER L. SHELDON I7

side while the cup of happiness is at our lips. Joy and
pain are intertwined or interwoven and can never be sep-
arated. The web of life is made up of threads running
together, and no mortal finger could pull them out or dis-
entangle them and give us the pain without the joy or the
joy without the pain. No tie of fellow feeling between
man and man was ever formed or ever held together, that
did not give its pangs or sound its notes of woe, even
while it gave the thrills of the sweetest, deepest joy.

We could put so much more earnestness, so much
more heart, so much more character into our life if only
we made the effort. Each day could seem like a year,
crowded with feeling, crowded with sympathies, crowded
with love, if we choose to have it so. "Life is more than
meat and body than raiment." The beautiful skies with
their clear blue of the day and their shining stars at
night, tell us this; the fresh verdure of springtime, the
young leaves and the budding flowers, all speak of it. It
is whispered to us by the Autumn winds and falling leaves
of November. Every human eye looking out from the
soul within reminds us of this same truth.

It is not for us to say what is the mystery of life. But
it rests for us to live it out and to do this faithfully and
well. Those who live truly and faithfully, those who are
loyal to the trust committed to their charge, those who
have worked like men, and have fought valiantly and well,
— they get a faith which stands unshaken through any ca-
lamity. They are taught what no books can teach them,
for they have sounded the heights and depths of human
experience, and have entered the Holy of Holies behind
whose veil lies the mystery of this our mortal life.

1 8 WORDS SPOKEN AT FUNERALS

When we stand by the graves of our fathers, we stand,
too, in another sense, by the graves of the fathers of the
world. They do not simply belong to us, they are not
simply our own sacred dead ; we cannot lay claim to them
all to ourselves. In thinking of them we are conscious of
an invisible choir of memories rendering its solemn hymn
to all the world. As the years go on, the soul of man in-
tertwines itself with an ever larger and larger circle. The
friends who love him become more numerous ; the multi-
tude who have directly or indirectly felt the influence of
his effort becomes ever larger. When at last he has
joined the great army of the Departed, then we say that
he belongs to us all as our comrade and brother. As we
who have been his friends, as others who have been
strangers to him, as posterity in the coming ages, each
and all may stand by his grave, we as friends or as
strangers, they of the coming centuries, one and all may
say truly, he was ours. The world is not the same world
it would have been had he not lived and done his work.
Whether the change be great or small, something has
been done, a movement awakened in the great tide of
human affairs, and we know that it will live on forever.

It is of a mother and a mother's life we are thinking
now. The story of such a life can never be told. It has
been long, and it has been full of experience. It has been
woven into the lives of others, and gone into their life
history as a part of themselves. The light of truth and
of experience shines in its own way for each and all of
us, and we have done well if we have been loyal to that
beacon within, and obeyed its behests. Only in this way
can the world move onward, and only in this way can the
world move upward.

WALTER L. SHELDON IQ

What we do and what we get, may be one thing to-day
and another thing to-morrow. But in the turmoil and the
struggle, the nearest and the sweetest of all treasures, are
those ties of comradeship that grow of themselves as we
walk shoulder to shoulder in the daily round of toil. It is
these ties that cheer us in moments of despondency, and
seem to make life always worth having and worth living.
To have had such comrades, to have been such a com-
rade one's self, to have felt this knitting together of
hearts in fellowship; this it is to have lived and to have
tasted the good of life.

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers
And I linger on the shore
And the individual withers
And the world is more and more."

When the ties of comradeship are sundered and the
ranks are broken, we pause for a little while to think and
feel and look around. It is at a time like this that we
who are left behind begin to be aware what things in life
are great and what things are small. It is death that
gives us our real measure of values. Then it is we know
what it was that we cared for most in our comrades ; then
it is we are conscious what things are fleeting and what
things are abiding. Because of this one life which has
been woven into our lives, we shall never be the same
persons we should have been if he had not been here.
Our lives were the richer for his presence, our ranks the
stronger and the steadier because he marched with us in
the same line. It was the line of toil and daily duty,
from which no man escapes, and to which all men are
pledged. But the void is there and his place shall know
him no more.

20 WORDS SPOKEN AT FUNERALS

The torch once carried by those who have passed away
falls into the hands of those who are living. It is for us
to take up the burden of their work, to carry on their tasks
and hand the light on throughout the years and through
the generations. The torch we bear will gleam fitfully
and faintly, or it may shine out clearly and boldly, ac-
cording to the spirit in which we do our work. It is for
us to hold this light aloft with the eye looking upward;
as we strive for all that is best and all that is highest.
To work faithfully in one's sphere is the core or kernel of
all true religion. It is as if the Invisible Power we look
to as the source of all that we are and into whose arms we
finally return — it is as if we felt this Power v^rking with
us and conscious of what toil and labor meant.

It is good to have lived and loved and labored. It is
good to be missed from the ranks while the march is go-
ing on. It is good to have lived so that men shall sigh
and hearts shall ache when we are gone. The sigh and
the heartache shall bring their joy in after days, when
memory half gives back what we thought we had lost
forever. It is good to have worked with all the energy
at our command. And it is good to rest when that work
is done.

As year by year we grow older, from childhood into
youth, from youth into manhood, then on into middle
age, we find the other spiritual world growing ever larger.
The circle of human forms that live around us lessens
in number; but the memories that constitute this other
world fasten themselves upon us and cling with an undy-
ing hold. By every lasting separation, with every new
and final good-bye, we are just so much more enriched

WALTER L. SHELDON 21

within ourselves. Our life is no longer merely what we
see around us; it consists not simply of the friends we
meet, whose hands we shake, whose voices we hear, whose
homes we share ; for there is ever growing this other and
larger sphere within. Nature on the outside does not
change. The sunlight continues the same; the sky is as
blue overhead; the grass may be just as green; or the
snow be just as white and pure. And yet for us it is not
the same. When we were young we lived in this blue
sky, and sunlight, and snowfall and raindrop; it was all
the life we had. Now as we grow and ripen we have so
much more life within, so many other lives are added to
our own, that nature and its beauties fall into the back-
ground, and the world for us seems to be above every-
thing else a world of souls. It is like an invisible host of
feelings and memories, that are to us for a possession
everlasting.

All the sorrow which has been in the world, all the pain
and suffering which is there, all the blows which strike us,
and seem to lay us low — all this never takes away from
the fact that love is there, that hearts are linked to hearts
both in joy and sorrow, that in sorrow we sometimes are
drawn closer together than ever before, that in sorrow
we come to know what love really means. All the pang
and heartache which must come with this separation does
not make us wish that the love had never existed. Better
this much of life, these few years with the loved one, than
none at all. The sweetness of memories can never be
taken away. It lives on like a perfume in the soul of
man, as something that never dies; as something in-
deed which seems to grow sweeter and more tender with
every passing year.

22 WORDS SPOKEN AT FUNERALS

As we look over the life of him who has taken his last
departure from us and gone to his long and final rest, it
would be a mistake on our part to wear the attitude of
sorrow or gloom. We are all young, whatever may be
our years, if our hearts are in sympathy with the young
world and what the young world is dreaming of and hop-
ing for. It may strike us with despondency when a pre-
cious life is taken away from us in early years. It is hard
for us then to face the blow and think that all is well.
But there should be nothing really of gloom when death
comes tO' one who is ripe in experience and labors.
Enough that he fought the battle of life bravely and well ;
that he went through hardship and trial manfully; that
he had looked upon the future without fear and always
with courage. Enough that those around him loved him
and were dear to him. Surely at such a time to talk
mournfully of the vanity of life would be a mistake. In
the presence of death after a career like this, let us think
rather of what a privilege it has been to live. Let us feel
hopeful for ourselves and grateful for these memories.

It comes so hard, these partings, and all the harder
when the parting is from one who is so young. It miakes
the heart rebellious and one is inclined to cry out in de-
spair. It may seem right and natural when the aged die,
after they have had their turn. We all expect sometime
by and by to go to our long rest and be at peace. Life's
fitful fever here below must come to an end sometime for
you and me and all of us. But it takes all the courage
of soul we possess, all the faith, all our strength of will
to stand by when the blow falls on one so young and fair.
It makes all life seem like a trial, as if we were here just
to face the burdens and feel the weight of sorrow. And

WALTER L. SHELDON 23

yet, it is not for you or me to choose. In the great events
of life which are woven into the web of history, going
back to the beginnings of things, and running on down to
the end, — in the events which are woven into that web,
it is not always for us to have our will. All that remains
for us at times is to bend before the storm which seems
to strike us, — but not to give way.

When the ties break, as break they must sometime,
when we are young or when we are old, then we draw
nearer together in loving fellowship with those that re-
main. The heartache which must survive leaves the
heart still open to all the sweet influences of love. The
stern realities of duty go on just the same ; and in facing
these one's courage comes back again, with a resolution to
do one's work faithfully and well while the light lasts.
If there is cloud and darkness in some of our lives here
below, if the shadows are thick around us a great deal of
the time, yet it is not all shadow nor is it all darkness.
There is a sky overhead; the stars go on shining, the
sun sheds its light, and the sunlight and the starlight shine
through the mists and vapors, until they may turn sor-
row into peace.

When these farewells come, the truth enters our hearts,
in a way we have never before believed it, that the meas-
ure of success or measure of what life has been to each
and all, is according to what man is in himself, and not
according to what he has on the outside ; that a full, long
life means a life full of thought, full of sweetness, full of
earnestness, full of love, and full of brave effort ; that the
only true life is the life of the soul. There is so much
we could get out of the world, out of existence, out of
our daily routine of work, if only we made the effort, if
^nly we pause to think what it all means !

24 WORDS SPOKEN AT FUNERALS

Who shall tell of the richness and fullness and power
that goes with the privilege of our manhood and our
womanhood? Who shall snatch from us the heart's love
we have had? Who shall take from us the deep experi-
ences that have gone before? They are ours to-day as
they were ours yesterday, and as they shall be ours to-
morrow. Life and death continue the same old mystery.
These ties will go on being sundered. Those that we
love to-day may not be with us in future years. Over the
great fact of life and of death we have no control. The
end and the beginning must rest in other hands than
ours. But the joy of life is there just the same, and
heart's loves go on. We arc living in a great atmosphere
of human feeling and human fellowship.

Strange and solemn it seems to us when Death strikes
home, even to one who is distant from us, unknown by
face or name. Sad and mournful it seems to us when
Death comes nearer and takes one who has been our fel-
low in the daily routine of life, where we have met him on
the street or in the business hall, in the office or at the
door. Painful and heart-rending it seems when Death
lays its fingers on one who has been of our household and
home, who has been our companion in all the struggles
of life, bearing burdens with us, upholding us in our
troubles, sharing our sorrows, taking bread with us day
by day, and year by year, one whose face we have seen by
night and day, in storm and sunshine. Close and search-
ing it seems when Death takes from us him who has been
our guide in the early days of our childhood and youth ;
who has fed us ; who has worked for us ; who has given
us our daily bread; who has seen us in our smiles and
in our tears, at our best and at our worst, but who has

WALTER L. SHELDON 25

loved US through it all as if we had always been the same.
Strange and solemn, sad and mournful, painful and
heart-rending, close and searching to the inmost depths
of our being as it must be when the Messenger appears
who has to summon us all, yet this same messenger is the
one who teaches us how to value the life we have. It is
this messenger who teaches us how to live and how to
know our fellows. It is this same messenger who opens
up to us the hearts of those we have only half known in
all the years of life, disclosing qualities of beauty, or ten-
derness, of devotion, such as we had only half observed.

Consolation for one's loss there is none ; and yet there
is something better than consolation. Joy is the richer,
deeper and more lasting when mixed in the cup of sor-
row. By and by the anguish softens, though it never
changes; the void aches less, though it is never filled.
Love blends with sadness, but no longer with torture.
Round it, over it, all about it grow the tendrils of another
feeling. We join the Brotherhood of Sorrow. A troubled
and stricken world pleads with us and says: "Give us of
that love, share it with the living." If it clings only to
that aching void, it may then fade away and die. Only
as it reaches out in tenderness and yearning for all man-
kind, does it cling more devotedly to this one memory.
And as we hear that plea of suffering men, we say to
ourselves in thought of the one that is gone : "If we can-
not have you with us, for your sake and by the love you
gave, we will render back that feeling to the world you
have left. It shall spread itself abroad to those who may
be remote from us, who have never given us of their af-
fection, yet who are our brothers and sisters in the larger
brotherhood and sisterhood of all mankind."

26 WORDS SPOKEN AT FUNERALS

At this solemn occasion when it would seem as if all
our souls were touched with gloom, when darkness comes
close to us, when there is heartache to some, a pang of
broken friendship to others, and a shock of severed home,
— even at such a time, here and now, I venture to sound
the notes of the deep joy of life, asking you to take life for
all it is worth and to get all the true and the real joy of
existence. It may seem as if at such a solemn moment,
happiness itself could not come, as if the cup of pleasure
no longer had quite the same meaning or the same sweet
taste to the lips. But I can remind you that there is an-
other beautiful and solemn aspect in the presence of this
Messenger. It is as if somehow at this moment we felt,
down underneath all the jar and the strife, the pressure
and the strain, the push and the struggle, as if under-
neath it all just now there were sounding the notes of a
Hymn of Peace. In the center of all this jar, at the core
of the universe we live in there is a calm; the jarring
notes from the struggle of life no longer sound; while
the only music to be heard is that of Peace.

As our fathers and mothers, our friends and our com-
rades separate from us and go to their rest, each time it
seems to strengthen anew the better life within us, and we
grow richer with each last good-bye. When these dear
ones rest from their labors, we are strengthened to go
forward ; more life is given us, new light is thrown upon
our pathway, and an added staff is furnished us to lean up-
on, one more guidepost is placed there directing us which
way to go. An Invisible Army all seem pointing in the
same way and telling us that there is something better
than earthly success or material possessions; that it is
worth more to have known these loved ones, and to pos-

WALTER L. SHELDON 2J

sess them in memory in our hearts, than to have had
the ownership of all the outside world. Rest and peace
are softly whispered on the one hand to the weary souls
to whom we say good-bye; but there is sung to us who
must continue to live, at the same moment another kind of
message. It is ever and always the refrain of King
David : "Now I go the way of all the earth ; therefore be
ye strong and acquit yourselves like men."

The time of separation and farewell should be a time
on our part for making new vows. With every last fare-
well those who remained should once more determine
that they will make life more real and more true; that
they will take it ,on its spiritual side as well as on its
material side; that they will think of the good life, the
loving life, as well as the successful life, and so come to
feel that the only successful life is the life that is good
and true.

Our sorrow must be tempered with calm. Life must
go on, the work has to be done, and the duties of life must
be performed. The severance of these human ties does
not sever us from the work before us. This calm life,
whose visible presence is no longer with us, tells this same
story, because it was a life of faithfulness to duty.

Standing here at this moment, looking back over the
past, with the consciousness of the farewell we have taken
from one who has lived his long life on earth ; and for
ourselves looking now into the future, we make our vows
again : we will be loyal and true ; we will work faithfully
and well ; we will meet that great change when it comes,
bravely and calmly and fearlessly, — and approach our
graves "like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
about him and lies down to pleasant dreams."

FORM OF MARRIAGE CEREMONY
USED BY WALTER L. SHELDON.

(to the witnesses.)

We are here to witness the pledge of two persons who
are to be joined in the bonds of marriage. It is as though
at this moment the whole human family stood by in sol-
emn majesty to hear this promise. The history of past
ages rises up before us, and like an invisible presence it
consecrates and sanctifies the occasion. We are reminded
that this step is the most eventful act of human existence.
Whatever has been most sacred and inspiring, all that is
highest and most precious, gathers around us at this mo-
ment: You, the friends whom they have cared for and
who have cared for them, listen now in silence and bear
witness to their pledge.

(the charge.)

You who are to be joined at this time in the bonds of
marriage, are to remember that from this union there is
no step backward. What you do now, you do for life.
It is to determine for you the course of your existence
for all the rest of your days. The pledge you are to take
is an act of supreme self-surrender. It is a confession on
the part of man and woman that the only true existence
is that in which they share their life and interests with the
life and interests of their fellowmen. Under the bonds
of this union one ceases to belong to oneself as an indi-
vidual and may never think of oneself alone. All that
you have and all that you are is now to be shared to-

28

WALTER L. SHELDON 29

gether. We ask of you, therefore, that you take this
pledge with the consciousness of its full meaning. We
charge you that you accept it as a promise with which
your lives must in every detail be in accord, and which
you are always implicitly and without question to obey.

(the pledge.)

We ask you, [Name], do you take this man to be your
husband? Will you cherish him as the one nearest and
dearest to you of all persons on earth ? Will you be loyal
to him as the one only man of your choice ? Will you care
ever for his interests and welfare, as you would for your
own? Will you seek ever to share with him what good
may befall you, and help to bear what ills or burdens he
may have to endure? Will you endeavor to aid him in
the aims of his life in so far as they are worthy and just?
Will you assist to make his life helpful to others? Will
you be patient and loving and true in the hour of trial or
adversity? Will you be faithful in rendering that service
which should come from you for the needs of the life in
the home? Will you encourage him in what is right and
true and do what you can to hold him back from evil or
wrong? Will you strive as you move on together to de-
velop in each other the highest and purest life of the
spirit? Will you watch and take care as the years go by
that your life together becomes closer and deeper and
more precious ? Will you see that it rises to a firmer and
higher plane of mutual sympathy and trust with every
passing season ?

Will you be all this to him and to him above all others ;
will you do all this for him and for him above all others ;
— not only for to-day and to-morrow, but throughout the
years, until death doth you part?

30 MARRIAGE CEREMONY

We ask you, [Name], do you take this woman to be
your wife? Will you cherish her as the one nearest and
dearest to you of all persons on earth ? Will you be loyal
to her as the one only woman of your choice? Will you
care ever for her interests and welfare, as you would for
your own? Will you seek ever to share with her what
good may befall you, and help to bear what ills or bur-
dens she may have to endure? Will you endeavor to aid
her in the aims of her life in so far as they are worthy and
just? Will you assist to make her life helpful to others?
Will you be patient and loving and true in the hour of
trial or adversity? Will you be faithful in rendering that
service which should come from you for the needs of the
life in the home? Will you encourage her in what is
right" and true and do what you can to hold her back from
evil or wrong? Will you strive as you move on together
to develop in each other the highest and purest life of the
spirit? Will you watch and take care as the years go
by that your life together becomes closer and deeper and
more precious? Will you see that it rises to a firmer
and higher plane of mutual sympathy and trust with every
passing season?

Will you be all this to her and to her above all others ;
will you do all this for her and for her above all others ;
— not only for to-day and to-morrow, but throughout the
years, until death doth you part?

(vow.)

You have made the pledge for yourselves. But we call
others to witness. We ask of you a promise, binding and
enduring as life itself. By the religious faith which you
may cherish : by the memory of the dear ones whom you
may have loved and have laid to their rest : by the friends

WALTER L. SHELDON 31

you think of and care for : by the loved ones around you
at this moment : by those who gave you birth : by those
who have cherished you in childhood and youth : by what
you most care for on earth: by what you most esteem in
yourselves: by the highest sense of Duty which exacts
unswerving obedience: — By all these sacred ties and fel-
lowships, do you say that you make this promise and
take each other for husband and wife?

By this pledge and these vows made in the presence of
these, your friends and witnesses, you now become hus-
band and wife.

(the after-charge.)

To this union in the bonds of marriage the Fatherhood
of the Human Family to which you belong, gives forth
its benediction. It offers you a heritage of peace that can
never be taken away. The pledge which you have spoken
makes you the heirs of all the good which men in the
past have done or suffered. The world now changes for
you and life takes on a new meaning. From this time
forth you are not the same persons. You are another in
yourselves and another for the world. Your life should
become more beautiful while new and greater duties de-
volve upon you. For the rest of your days your lot is
now joined together and cannot be sundered. By the
vows you have taken, by the new relation in which you
stand, you should rise above the influence of fate or for-
tune. Joy and pain alike should link you the closer to-
gether. While you continue true to this pledge no sor-
row will be too' great for you to bear, for another heart
will help to share the burden; no trial will be too se-
vere for you to endure, because other shoulders will be

32 MARRIAGE CEREMONY

here to aid in carrying the load. Go forth in the new
I 'i that begins for you to-day. Walk in its pathway
re ^rently, hopefully, faithfully, and be worthy of your
her «.ge of joy.

(conclusion.)

On ( r part we give you the assurance that you do not
go forti alone. The hearts of your friends go with you
and they wish you joy. Those who have loved and cared
for you, iiow join hands with you in sympathy and fel-
lowship. '. hey trust in you and believe in your pledge.
They hope j jv you and have faith in you. Let the ties
which have 1 :)und you in the past still hold on firm and
strong, while he new affection deepens and widens and
makes your lil so much more rich and full. May the
joy that is high st and best illumine your life's journey,
and may the lig •• of trust never grow dim. May the
peace that is deei st and most enduring crown you with
its everlasting bk *ng. May the Father-Over-All guide
you and lead you . hose pathways where the light from
the Eternal ever siir es. Go forth in the trust of your
friends and in the ^e of your own hearts, faithful to
your tasks and loya. o each other. And so shall the
Truth, the Joy, and th^ Peace be and abide with you now
and forever more.

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL
ADDRESSES

By S. Burns Weston.*

Since we last met together the Ethical Movement has
sustained a great loss. For the first time since the Ethic-
al Culture movement was started, thirty-one years ago,
death took away, in the early part of last June one of its
foremost leaders, the lecturer of the St. Louis Ethical
Society, Walter L. Sheldon. And on reassembling this
morning to begin our new year's work, it is our first and
most sacred duty to pay a tribute to his memory.

It was my good fortune to have met Mr. Sheldon
twenty-six years ago, when we were both students in the
University of Berlin. Ever since then, our lives have
been brought into such intimate personal touch, I can
hardly trust myself to speak of him in any other than an
historical vein.

His boyhood and school days, like mine, were spent in
New England, surrounded by orthodox religious influ-
ences. In youth, he became a devout and earnest mem-
ber of a church of the Puritan type, but while studying
philosophy at Princeton his religious creed was shattered.

After graduating from Princeton he spent a year in
foreign travel, visiting Palestine and other lands, and had
come to Germany to pursue studies in one of her great
universities.

*Before the Philadelphia Ethical Society, Sunday, October
20th, 1907. Also previously in substance at the Memorial Meet-
ing of ethical leaders and workers at Glenmore, in the Adiron-
dacks, September 5th.

33

34 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

At one time he had thought that he would Hke to enter
the ministry, but all idea of that had been given up, since
he had lost his orthodox faith, and his life work was
wholly undetermined — though he thought that he might
perhaps some time teach in a college or university. He
had never heard of the Society for Ethical Culture, which
Felix Adler had founded in New York a little over five
years before, but the idea of such a Society at once ap-
pealed to him.

We came back from our two years in Germany in the
autumn of 1883, and studied and worked together for
two years with Professor Adler in New York. In 1885
my work began here, and in the following year Mr. Shel-
don organized the St. Louis Ethical Society and remained
its faithful, vigorous and inspiring leader until his death,

Summer and winter, year in and year out, he worked
incessantly, with all the marvelous energy and power of
will he possessed, to build up a strong Ethical Society,
and to do genuine and effective service in the cause to
which he had dedicated his life. Under his leadership
the St. Louis Ethical Society steadily grew in strength
and influence from the first, and has long been recognized
as one of the foremost institutions of that city engaged in
the work of bettering the moral and spiritual life of the
people.

Immediately after celebrating his Society's Twentieth
Anniversary, a year ago last May, Mr. Sheldon made a
three months' trip to Japan, and while returning home
was stricken down in "health. But during all the months
he was so seriously ill he did not abandon for a moment
the responsibilities he had assumed in his chosen life's
task. His interest in directing the work of the Society

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 35

he had built up from the beginning, was active and alert
to the very last.

Apart from the great grief Mr. Sheldon's death brought
to some of us, as an irreparable personal loss, it is sad be-
yond measure that he was cut off, in the very
prime of life, from the work with which his whole active
career was so vitally identified — that he could not con-
tinue for many more years to build upon the strong and
splendid foundation he had laid for an Ethical Society,
that should be a constantly uplifting moral force in the
community.

But though that noble worker in the Ethical cause has
gone, the seed he has sown will grow and ripen into the
rich moral and spiritual fruitage that it was his one aim
in life to produce. And what a great work he did accom-
plish in a single score of years of active moral leadership
— enough, indeed, to give lasting honor to anyone who
could do as much in twice as many years.

The fine self-culture institution he established for the
wage earners of St. Louis was an ach^iyement that will
long endear his name to the working people of that city.

His memory will be revered, too, by the large number
of men and women whom he has influenced for the bet-
ter, not only by his earnest spoken words on the Sunday
platform, but by the addresses he gave before college
students and other bodies, and through his ethical books
and pamphlets which have been widely read.

Then, again, how much he did for the moral instruction
of the young, not only in building up a successful Sunday
School in St. Louis, and in giving the material that made
it possible for us to build one up here, but in writing and
publishing books for non-sectarian ethical teaching in
the school and Sunday School and the home, adapted to

2,6 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

every age, from the youngest to adults — ^books that have
been sought and used by rabbis and ministers and teach-
ers and parents, in Sunday Schools and week-day schools
and homes, far outside of the Ethical Societies. This
indeed, was one of his most notable achievements, and
the one dearest to his own heart.

Looking at the rich and abundant fruits of Walter
Sheldon's life, and the great moral and spiritual heritage
he left behind in his writings, his example, his character,
we cannot but feel that, in his case, death was robbed
of its sting and the grave of its victory. Though his
days were far too few, yet in his own moral development
he had reached heights rarely attained, and death found
his life and work crowned with a moral and spiritual suc-
cess that few in so large a measure achieve.

Fearlessly he faced life as it was, and strenuously he
applied himself to its deepest and highest problems. And
though many ultimate questions could not be solved, yet
what an unfaltering trust he had in the worth of life, and
■•^^hat a steadfast faith in the ultimate triumph of the
good, if men would pursue it — would work for it !

When such a life goes from us, when the physical form
passes away, though the mystery of the beginning and the
end deepens, yet our moral and spiritual vision becomes
clearer ; for then the light of his life shines out before us
as a bright guiding star to lead us on to higher moral and
spiritual heights.

Inspiringly brave and beautiful was the way that mas-
terful personality, that strong moral and intellectual
leader of men, met his death! And we who knew and
loved him may say of him in our hearts, what he said to
those about him as he was passing away, "All is well !"

walter l. sheldon memorial addresses. 37

By William M. Salter.*

It is hard to speak objectively of one who has been so
near to me as Mr. Sheldon. We have been pioneers to-
gether in two Western communities, we have been friends
from the start, we have shared our discouragements and
been happy in each other's successes, we have been dif-
ferent in many ways and yet we have always loved. How
can I think of all this strenuous life of my brother as
belonging to the past, as a closed book wherein no more
a line shall be written, how can I think of that face with
the deep-set eyes, with the arching dome above them,
with the firm, tense mouth, yet so capable of sweetness,
as vanished, gone, irretrievably gone! It is as if some
strong mountain disappeared from our familiar horizon,
some tall spreading tree were laid low.

And yet reality does not change because we see it no
more. For our sake and the future, it is well to fix the
lineaments of this strong soul, to whose work itself and its
undying effects we can add nothing.

Mr. Sheldon was one of the most individual of men.
I have not known — has any of us? — one just like him.
He was so much so that we came near losing him from
our movement at an early day, and he always remained
a unique figure in it. He would not follow another's
lead. He had to map out his own course. He would
listen to you and weigh, no doubt, what you had to say,
and then go his own way.

Happily his views coincided in cardinal points with
those of the rest of us, and co-operation was possible ; but
we all felt an independent force in him, and he had his
own peculiar ways of formulating things, his own phrases,

*At Memorial Meeting held at Glenmore. Also before the
Philadelphia and Chicago Ethical Societies.

38 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

just as he developed a characteristic set of practical ac-
tivities in the St. Louis Society, I recall his insistence
on the religiousness of the Ethical Movement, not because
of transcendental views connected with ethics, but be-
cause ethics itself was to him a sacred subject, because
it excited sacred feelings — he saw perhaps more clearly
than any of the rest of us that the specific sense of the
sacred was what made religion — not a set of cosmical
views; he spoke in an early lecture of an "Ethical
Church," and later of "we the clergy" — an expression
that I remember grated on me at the time.

In another way he was strongly individual. He held
that one might belong to our movement and to one of the
recognized churches at the same time. Though a ra-
tionalist himself, he did not insist on rationalism as a part
of the movement. He did not think it proper for an Eth-
ical Sunday School to say whether Jesus turned water
into wine or not. He had such a sense of the supremacy
of the one thing — ethics, that the lesser matters of scien-
tific enlightenment he passed by. He did so theoretically
— ^this was his view; whether he did so practically and
whether he was altogether consistent even in holding such
a view, is another matter; happily not, to my mind — for
I must think that to know how things are done in the
world is almost of as much moment as to know that they
ought to be done.

The fact is that it was because he was so essentially and
thoroughly a modern and progressive man in his views,
that he had the rich, sane influence on his community and
time that he had. Intellectually speaking Sheldon was of
no common order. If he had not found a practical outlet
for his energies, I surmise that he might have done no
mean work in philosophy, or some of the social sciences.
His mind was keen, penetrating. I have been struck

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 39

with this as I have just reread a paper of his in the Jour-
nal of Speculative Philosophy for 1886. It is a thorough-
going piece of critical writing, and coincides in some
striking particulars with what I suspect to be one of the
most important constructive books in philosophy of this
year, Montgomery's 'Thilosophical Problems in the Light
of Vital Organization." His wonderful range of read-
ing, and his power of grasping the vital characteristic
marks of a system, are shown in an article entitled "A
Bird's Eye View of the Literature of Ethical Science
Since the Time of Charles Darwin," in the Transactions
of the St. Louis Academy of Science of so recent a date
as 1903. He was a laborious, indefatigable worker, and
while in the harness and amid the cares and distractions
of life in a metropolis, found or took time to mingle with
the great intellectual currents that move through the
modern world.

But he was not only a thinker. This shy man, with al-
most the manners of a recluse when I first knew him,
had a rare power of seeing men as they are and conditions
as they exist. He knew how to estimate a situation. He
knew what might be done and what he had better not
attempt. He was prodigious, lavish in his energies, but
along practical lines. He had a keen sense that, as he
once said, "human nature is something besides intellect."
He knew the power of habit, the inertia of the masses,
the natural conservatism of man. He learned to resign
himself to the prejudices which could not be conquered,
to the timidity on the part of others which could not be
overcome. He did not identify himself with causes that
would not go.

But the things he did undertake he pushed to the end.
There was something dauntless, untiring about him, as if

40 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

he would weary heaven and earth rather than not get
what he wanted. He did not allow himself to be dis-
couraged. What infinite good humor in his confession
about his efforts to start an Ethical Sunday School : "We
tried and we tried. The young people would come, but
they would not stay. The fathers and mothers could not
see much value in it. The teachers to whom I gave the
notes which they were tO' make use of in their classes
would tell me that their notes were of no avail, and that
Jvhat was given them would not work." And yet "as
one set of notes or lessons went into my wastebasket, we
would try another." And at last came the system and
methods that would work. It was so with the Working-
men's Self-Culture Clubs which Mr. Sheldon started.
They observed strict neutrality on religious, political and
social questions — they took an attitude with which success
was possible, and after no end of labor and pains, suc-
cess came, and so abundantly, that Mr. Sheldon no longer
needed to give the Clubs his personal superintendence.

And yet behind all and deeper than all was the soul of
the man with its far-reaching visions, its reverences, its
absolute trust. His philosophy taught him that the dis-
position to mutual helpfulness was a part of human na-
ture and prior to any specific religions — and love and
justice were an immediate reality tO' his mind. To them
he bowed, of them he expected the final victory, in them
life found its meaning — ^they were to him man's higher
self on which he can ever rely. They meant man's per-
sonal redemption, they meant social redemption — and if
he was sceptical about some of the reforms of the day it
was because these commanding sentiments did not inspire
them. "It is because these great efforts do not concen-
trate upon an ethical ideal that I am afraid of them," he
said in one of the first public addresses he ever gave.

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 4 1

Man must act from his highest self — this was his feehng.
It is a new version of the old commandment, "Seek ye
first the kingdom of God."

This was all personal vision, and, in the degree in which
it is possible to our frail humanity, personal experience.
He wished above all to have his own life right. I seem to
feel this personal note in a very early statement he made,
which I shall quote in full : "Many have thought that be-
cause they do not feel the need of a church, because they
are conscious of their own integrity, therefore it is not for
themselves but for the rest of the world, for the poor and
illiterate, for the 'half moral,' that an Ethical Society is
needed. But do they fully appreciate what is meant by
moral culture? Does a man come to a plane of moral
elevation when he can say, *I can go no further ; I am at
the summit'? We shall not reform the world unless we
are ever reforming ourselves. The most perfect man is
never more than half-perfect in comparison with what he
might become. From the dawn of earliest consciousness
down to the last hour, when we are passing out through
the portals into the realm of eternity, through that vista
of years along which we pass, there is not a day nor an
hour when we do not need to be in a process of inward
refining. The education of the inward man, of the in-
most man, never stops. This purification of the inward
feelings, this constant lifting up of the better self within
ourselves, this is the supreme purpose of an Ethical So-
ciety."

One other passage I will quote in closing as showing
the depths or rather the heights of power, to which he
believed human nature could rise. We all crave to be
happy, in the ordinary sense of having what we want;
"but," says Mr. Sheldon, "I doubt whether a completely

42 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

happy man would ever know what it was to live the life
of the spirit. When you get what you do not want, or do
not get what you do want, then it is that you are led to
ascend to new heights of your being or to strike into its
deeper recesses. We conquer nature only to find that it
may conquer us, unless somehow we can enter a sphere
where the 'tendencies of nature,' as we term them, do
not hold sway."

Somehow I feel that it was into such a sphere that this
strenuous soul was ever and anon arising amid the strug-
gles and disappointments of his earthly life — and that in
the last struggle, the last disappointment, he passed into
it to abide there forever. The end was not death, but
peace and victory.

By Dr. John Love joy Elliott.*

My words will be brief, and so far as possible in the
spirit of the man we are thinking about to-night. In
coming into his presence or in thinking of him, I got the
same impression one does in reading of those strong
cities built of old, with great walls about them that could
protect all who dwelt within from sudden attack from
without. They are not to be surprised, they are not to
be overcome quickly. And within these walls there flows
a living stream of water out of a deep well, an inex-
haustible spring, that refreshes and enriches those who
are living in the city, so that they never fear the siege.
And so I feel about Mr. Sheldon, that he was strong.
And he was chiefly strong because in his own nature, out
of his own inner life, he had the elements of strength and

'''At the Memorial Meeting at Glenmore.

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 43

power that made him able to live as he lived. What he
was, was no mere accident. One felt about him as was
said of Lincoln that he "was strong within himself, as in
a fate." You felt that no mere accident or chance could
change his course, or change his way. There was some-
thing fixed about the direction in which he was going.
He was not a man who reacted quickly on any mere thing
that came to him. It was an inner life that prompted
him. He was as far from being a faddist as a man could
be. The cry or the shout did not drive him in this or that
direction; he kept on his way, sanely, steadily, and in a
strong fashion. It was the element of strength in him that
gave him his power to create strength in other men.

His way was not easy. I remember his saying that
the first thing a man had to learn when he went into a
new community to do the kind of work he was doing in
St. Louis, was that he was not wanted there. And al-
though he had that experience, he lived there and he
worked mightily until he was wanted, until he was need-
ed in that city — wanted and needed by the people whose
lives he had touched. He had a peculiar power of in-
fluencing young men. I very gratefully acknowledge
that years ago, in Berlin, I received a letter from Mr.
Sheldon which influenced very much the things that I
was to do. This great energy and power in him was of
the kind that called forth like energy and power in
others.

He had a peculiar gift for setting other people to work,
and setting them to work along the lines on which he was
working. And what were these lines? They were the
lines that a man must follow who builds. Mr. Sheldon
was one of the builders. He was not so much a talker.
You did not hear him talking much about social reform ;

44 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

but he built his Self-culture Halls and they will stand.
He was not one who was driven simply to discussing
how we can help — he felt that he must do something.
Thoughtfully, resolutely, determinedly, he brought the
best gifts of thought and help and encouragement that
either he could get or find in any one else, to the work-
ing people, the poor people, those who would culture
themselves. He was a builder — a builder for the poor,
but before everything else a builder of the ethical life
through his Society.

His view of life was not mere optimism. There is a
picture of a scene by Millais that comes to my mind.
The landscape is dark; it is early morning, and the field
is rough. But the strong central figure strides forward
in its manly vigor, scattering the seeds of the harvest
that you feel will surely come; and in a way that figure
is typical of Mr. Sheldon. He began to gather some of
those fruits, the seeds of which he had planted, and for
which he had prepared, in the strong men and women of
his Society, in the young men and women in the work of
his Sunday School.

When I visited him in those last months he said : "Well,
when I get up, it is all to do over again; it is all to be
begun over again." I could not help rejoining that the
Society which he had cared for was going on better than
ever. "Oh," he said, "it is not that at all. As I read the
newspapers that come in here from day to day, I cannot
help but wonder, What are these people quarreling about
out there in the world? What are they competing for?
What is all this irritation and bad feeling, but so much
of useless, wasted life and time? What is all that for?"
And he added: "You know one cannot withdraw for
these months and months, and look at the world from the

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 45

sick bed, and not get a new point of view." A grander
and better world than ever he had seen before dawned
on him in those months of sickness. And he felt that his
work was to begin anew in accordance with this new
vision.

For the soul of the man there is no simile, it has not its
like in all the world, it is itself. And so, we can only say
of our comrade and our leader, he was a man who kept
faith with his own higher nature. He was one who strove
with all his energy and all his mind to bring justice and
kindliness and hope and holiness into this world. He
disdained the baser means of excitement as unworthy,
and used for his tools the things of reason, and of the
nobler sentiment. He did what he could for the poor and
lowly. He lives in the energy and in the holiness of the
men and women whose lives he touched, and, at the end
of his life, like Moses upon the high peak, he died with a
vision of a grander, better life clearly within his sight.
That vision of the holy life of man which he beheld shall
be and abide with us who yet live to guide us in our way
upon this earth.

46 walter l. sheldon memorial addresses.

By Mr. Robert Moore.*

Nothing can be more difficult than to speak of what is
so close to us as the subject of our thoughts this even-
ing. The strongest impression, perhaps, that Mr. Sheldon
has left with us is the absolute, complete devotion of the
whole man to his work. Never in my life have I seen a
man whose whole soul was so completely wrapped up in
the single aim of accomplishing the task he had set be-
fore him; no medieval saint ever manifested a more ab-
solute self-surrender to his life work.

And the marvelous activity and energy with which he
gave himself to it was a matter of constant and increas-
ing surprise to all who knew him. I never knew a man
who could approach him in the amount he could accom-
plish. What was apparently impossible he did, and where
failure looked certain for the rest of us he was certain to
succeed. So that we came to the feeling that what he
proposed would be successful, notwithstanding our own
doubts as to how it could possibly be. In organizing
his courses of lectures it seemed that he had only to go
to the man he wanted, — no matter how far off in his
sphere of thought and line of work, — to help him, and he
came. I have seen busy men, judges on the bench, pro-
fessional men in every line, whose assistance he needed in
some course of lectures, and whom the rest of us would
hardly have dared to speak to on such a subject, regard-
ing it as a hopeless and impossible thing, and yet without
fail they did what he asked of them.

And so in the Society his influence upon the young
men, the young women, the people everywhere, was
something that was simply marvelous. It was the begin-

*President of the Ethical Society of St. Louis. From the ad-
dress given at Memorial Meeting at Glenmore.

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 47

ning of their life, in its highest and best sense. His in-
fluence has indeed been incalculably great — one that can
never be effaced.

By Mr. Moore.*

To proclaim the sovereignty of ethics, the supreme
value of the good life, and to build up in St. Louis a So-
ciety dedicated to this ideal became the ruling purpose
of his life. And though the range of his activities was
exceptionally wide, this Society was the center about
which they all revolved. It was for this that he lived
and worked — worked with an intensity which, though it
enabled him to accomplish what would otherwise have
been impossible, beyond doubt shortened his life.

Meantime he became widely recognized throughout the
city as a power for good, and, what is of much greater
import, he kindled in the lives of many the fire of ear-
•nestness and noble purpose. Of all this, however, great
and valuable as it is, he could know almost nothing, and
no doubt his greatest reward was found in watching the
Society, of which he was the leader, grow from its feeble
beginnings to its present position of conscious unity and
assured strength.

And when, more than a year ago, at his summer home
in New England, near the place of his birth, he lay
stricken with his last illness, he could not rest until
brought back to St. Louis, here to work again if possible,
or if not, then here to die. And during the whole year,
though confined to his chair and his bed, he directed
practically all the work of the Society. He chose the

*From the address at the St. Louis Memorial Meeting, Saturday
evening, October 12th, 1907.

48 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

speakers who should occupy his place, made selections to
be read from the platform, and kept himself fully in-
formed of everything affecting the Society's welfare — all
the time looking forward with an intense longing to a time
when he might again occupy the platform himself. And,
for a brief hour, as you know, this longing was gratified
when at our last meeting here, the closing Sunday of our
twenty-first year, he occupied the platform with Prof.
Adler, and in a clear, strong voice read the closing words.
From this supreme effort, however, he never rallied, but
in a few weeks breathed his last.

As now we look back upon his brief career, which in
the breadth and depth of its accomplishment puts most
older men to shame, there is nothing in it more admirable
or more characteristic than his spirit and bearing during
his last illness. Those who visited him during these
weary months found him always cheerful, always inter-
ested in what others were doing, with almost nothing to
say about himself. So that such a visit, however sadden-
ing, was even more inspiring. For one could hardly fail
to catch something of the faith which animated and sus-
tained him — a deep and abiding faith in the ultimate tri-
umph of the true over the false, of the better over the
vvorse.

We can almost hear him now as he read those last

words ever uttered by him on this platform:

"Be patient, O be patient, go and watch the wheat ears grow
So imperceptibly that ye can mark nor change nor throe ;
Day after day, day after day till the ear is fully grown,
And then again day after day till the ripened field is brown."

And when his final summons came there was no fal-
tering; but with a kindly smile for those around him,
a message of love to his people, and the word "Auf
Wiedersehen" — he passed out of sight.

walter l. sheldon memorial addresses. 49

By Dr. William Taussig.*

I CONSIDER it a privilege to have the opportunity, at the
invitation of the president of the Ethical Society, to pre-
sent to you the merits which are due to the memory of
our departed friend in a line of activity diflferent from
that of the Ethical movement, but fully as rich in its
beneficial results.

This activity he put into practical shape, on entirely
original lines, for the uplifting, in moral and educational
ways, of the working classes, through the bringing into
life the Self-Culture Hall for wage-earners.

It was he who founded that Association in 1888, aided
by a few men who were in sympathy with his philan-
thropic ideas.

He felt that the mission of bringing home to the work-
ing men and women the fact that moral and intellectuas
culture could be made accessible to them just as well as
to those better situated, had never been thoughtfully con-
sidered by the people of St. Louis.

He believed that such culture would be apt to bring
some of the graces of life to the humble firesides of these
people, that the enjoyment of such opportunities would
cast a ray of light and cheerfulness into their lives, and
that the desire to be instructed and elevated, and to keep
pace with the progress of the world was as keen rela-
tively with the average working men as w ith other classes.

Thus he formed the Association, had it incorporated,
organized its working system, raised the necessary funds,
and entered upon this work with all the noble enthusiasm,
the restless energy and indomitable will which distin-

*President of the Self Culture Hall Association, at Memorial
meeting in St. Louis.

50 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

guished him in this as well as in all other efforts for social
betterment in which he was engaged.

This is not the place or time to enlarge upon a history
of the small beginnings and the gradual enlargement of
this institution, and I can only say that it stands to-day a
living monument that Sheldon, unconsciously and un-
selfishly, had erected to himself; and that, in the course
of many years, conducted and operated on lines origin-
ally laid down by him, this Self Culture Hall has cast the
light of knowledge, of purity and of social friendliness
upon thousands of men, women and children who other-
wise might have been shut out from it.

The path had not always been clear, many difficulties,
external and internal, had to be overcome, but there never
was a moment where he flinched in his course, and where
the love of the cause and the conviction of its great use-
fulness did not impel him, with dauntless courage and
devotion to insist upon the maintenance of the work and
the widening of its sphere of influence.

It has been my good fortune to have been associated
with him in this work for many years and I can bear
witness to the nobility and unselfishness with which he
performed what he conceived to be his duty.

When his precious life was ended he had for nineteen
years given the best forces of his life to this cause un-
selfishly and without the slightest compensation, with no
reward other than the esteem and admiration of his fel-
low workers, and the love and gratitude of the benefici-
aries.

Mr. Sheldon was a moral enthusiast, a lover of hu-
manity, a preacher and follower of high ideals, but, above
all, a character as pure, noble, unselfish and lovable as is
rarely met with, and as such we honor his memory.

walter l. sheldon memorial addresses. 5 1

By W. a. Brandenburger.*

Everyone of us can recollect a time when into our
young lives there came some man of noble mien and char-
acter, older than ourselves, who seemed to us to be the
very embodiment of honor and of stoic virtue, a man
whose mind was the throne of self-dependence, who,
if he had at times a troubled spirit, outwardly at least
seemed always at repose, and to this man our very souls
went out in silent reverence, respect and love. It was
perhaps just at that time of life when we were groping
out in search of an ideal, and our keen, untarnished, youth-
ful sense quickly recognized the ring of true sincerity in
his spoken word, and felt that deep-seated earnestness and
enthusiasm which endeared him to our hearts. We re-
member how almost unconsciously we strove to mold
our own forming character so that it might in some de-
gree conform to the cherished standard.

Such a man was Mr. Sheldon to us who knew him and
to many young men and women who in the course of the
twenty years of his manifold activity, came for a time
within the range of his influence, some to stay, some to
pass out into other spheres, but all carrying with them
strength and inspiration imparted by his words.

Many of you know how true this is ; how, reluctantly
though surely under his influence you parted with some
long-cherished prejudice; how some pet panacea for so-
cial amelioration, which you had embraced in a moment
of youthful enthusiasm, was through his calm fair argu-
ment relegated to occupy a position in your minds more
properly proportioned to its merit. Himself filled with

*Superintendent of the Ethical Sunday School, at the St. Louis
Memorial Meeting.

52 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

enthusiasm treasured from his youth, he would have been
the last to dampen the enthusiasm of others, and when he
laid on the hand of caution, did it in such a way as to pre-
serve, not crush, the ardent spirit; his word engendered
that calm introspection which brings forth the soul none
the less steady in its purpose for having mastered its im-
mature fervor.

He taught us the power of knowledge as we had not
known it before. His respect for the truth was bound-
less. If knowledge of a subject was to be obtained by
application and research, no time nor effort was too much
for him to spend in acquiring it. Never did he offer to
treat a subject without first having mastered what the
best minds of the world had said of it before, and when
he gave it forth to us, the thought had become trans-
formed into his own, vested with something of his own
personality and power, that gave it force and directness.

If the function of an Ethical leader is to give purpose
and direction to the lives of others, we young men know
how well he succeeded. Mere preaching never could
have done it — it was the power of his example that was
all compelling. The exalted standard which he fixed, he
followed, and while his charity excused the shortcom-
ings in others, none who in their conduct wilfully trod
on ethical standards dared face the austerity of his dis-
approving countenance.

We, seeing only the results of his labors, scarcely ap-
preciated the cost at which they were secured. Possessed
by nature of a fine mind, the easy acquisition of super-
ficial knowledge never sufficed him, but with searching
energy he went to the sources, securing his facts at the
fountain head and martialing them as his treatment of
the subject demanded. Such a mind is a rare possession,

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 53

and like the faithful servant in the parable who employed
his talents that they might increase, so his mind was ever
acquiring a maturer and more certain judgment from his
steadfast application.

Not what he said, but the way he worked, taught us
that the moments of life are precious. He crowded the
work of two lifetimes into one. It was as if he kept say-
ing to himself in the words of Carlyle : "Behold, the day
is passing swiftly over, our Hfe is passing swiftly over;
and the night cometh when no man can work." Every
moment not employed in action was employed in thought.
Every day was a working day spent in service to his fel-
low men.

Among the verses which he compiled for his own stim-
ulation and inspiration, I find this one:

"The energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun ;
And he who flagged not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing — only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly to eternal life."

Coming as a stranger to our city, into a community
which is perhaps more than ordinarily conservative, he
won recognition for himself, for the Society and for the
idea upon which it is founded, largely by reason of his
sweet earnestness that had something of winsome child-
hood in it, and which was quite as fascinating. The
outside world admired him for his powers, but we who
knew him loved him for his faults as well. We, who find
it easy to mingle with men upon the simple plane of good-
fellowship, cannot know the intensity of his struggle to
overcome a temperamental barrier in himself, which tend-
ed to remove him from close contact with other men, yet

54 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

we know it must have been tragic and we loved him for
the effort.

Yet in what I have said, there is not even a hint of his
achievements or any measure of his work. His contri-
butions to literature and the effect of his thought in ad-
vancing the cause of Ethical Religion I have not men-
tioned, feeling that this can be more adequately treated
by others. I have attempted to express, if I could, the
appreciation and regard of our younger people for his
memory. The results of his work are destined to live
and many who have not known him during his life will
be the beneficiaries of his work, but we who have known
him are especially privileged, having personally experi-
enced contact with such a rare personality.

It is written: "Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends." No man
ever more literally laid down his life for his fellow men,
than did our great friend and good counsellor, our leader
and master. Scornful of physical limitations, he sacri-
ficed his very life's blood at the altar of Duty. Let us
young men who owe to him so much, see to it that the
sacrifice was not in vain ; let us carry forward the work
which he inaugurated, and the burden of which he bore
so many years on his own strong shoulders. We can best
pay our debt to him by serving the cause for which he
labored. The harvest truly is great and the laborers as
yet are few, but we may say of his cause as we can of
him that "The path of the just is as the shining light, that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

walter l. sheldon memorial addresses. 55

By Miss Fanny M. Bacon.*

Two days before Mr. Sheldon left for Japan he came
to the Marquette School. More than 200 children were
gathered to accept a picture given by one of their school-
mates. The picture was of a noble knight in armor seated
upon a splendid horse. This knight overlooked the roofs
of the little town at his feet, in which was the home he
was going out to defend.

Mr. Sheldon stepped forward to .the picture and asked
the children five questions.

1. "Is this a good horse?"

2. "How do you know it is a good horse ?"

3. "Is this a good man?"

4. "How do you know it is a good man ?"

5. "Children, what is the difference between a good
horse and a good man?"

He shook his head at the answers, and told them to
"Think, think." At the end of a week they could go to
Miss Bacon for the right answer and when he returned
in the fall he would come and see what she said.

Such questions — this method of stimulation — Mr. Shel-
don used better than any other person I ever knew.

For sixteen years I have been a member of the Greek
Ethics Club, during which time Mr. Sheldon watched it
grow from a membership of less than twenty to two hun-
dred, and the influence of the Club has been strong
enough to hold many members year after year.

In the Club a large variety of religious inheritance and
training have been brought to the discussions of prob-
lems presented and all of these united eagerly on ethical

*Principal of the Marquette School, at the Memorial Meeting
in St. Louis.

56 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

questions. Each member of the Club has felt personally
responsible for answers to Mr. Sheldon's not-easy ques-
tions.

Often these questions pursued us for days — often they
were never absolutely answered. But our search for an-
swers helped clarify and define motives, ideals and prin-
ciples— helped us crystalize our ethical ideals.

Our books were read, not for intellectual enjoyment,
but for character study. Our leader believed that this
would arouse the conscience to greater energy and
strengthen it for a firmer stand.

The consideration of such questions as Mr. Sheldon
asked ought to make one live carefully from day to day.
Here are some of the questions:

"What was the motive of his life?"

"Should the guiltless hold themselves aloof from the
guilty as a duty?"

"What was it that Zenobia most cared for in life?"

"Which characters show any strength from worse tc
better?"

"What was false in the life philosophy of Irma?"

These are only a few out of over thirteen hundred that
Mr. Sheldon took the time and made the effort to write
for this Club during the last four years only.

A large class remember with great pleasure two win-
ters' work on "The Old and New Testament as Litera-
ture," when the leader did all the work and the class fol-
lowed with absorbed interest, and have ever since been
grateful for all the valuable notes Mr. Sheldon gave
them.

From his pulpit — from his written words — from his
life's work we know Mr. Sheldon. In his work we know
that he was willing and brave enough "to commence

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 57

with the commencement." Modest and unselfish enough
to be willing to take the "one step" needful to advance
others ; and who has accomplished more !

We know such a life as this meant a daily, an hourly
life "of patience, of self abnegation, of devotion to oth-
ers" and of devotion to the duties of life. His creed
was: "We shape ourselves." His religion was love of
men. He said. "Our great need in life is religion. Re-
ligion is a support against affliction, or suffering, or de-
feat. When the road is rough and long, religion lifts
us out of ourselves and holds us in the true pathway."
Love of men lifted Mr. Sheldon out of himself and kept
him steadily in the true pathway. He sought always
what he called ''Uplifts for the spirit," and these found,
he shared them all, shared them in the hope that they
might give to others the comfort and strength and in-
spiration they gave him.

To us how dear are all the messages Mr. Sheldon has
left. Who among us would be without his precious
booklet, "A Sentiment in Verse for Every Day in the
Year?" in which we read, and hear the very voice of
him these selections helped and inspired.

And how much we care for the addresses in which we
follow thought after thought until we find the ultimate,
universal and eternal law, and know that in each of us is
a self that may hold to this law.

All of us who knew him are richer and better for his
life, and we shall grow. Growth Mr. Sheldon loved. We
shall grow better so long as the influence of the choir in-
visible shall last.

"When a good man dies,

For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies

Upon the paths of men."

58 walter l. sheldon memorial addresses.
By Rev. George R. Dodson.*

Another noble man has gone from among us to join
that invisible choir whose music is the gladness of the
world. A man has been here, one who has entered into
our affections, who made part of our lives, whose earnest
words still ring in our ears, and whose memory is con-
nected with our aspiration to be better men and women,
to establish righteousness, and to make the world a
cleaner, safer, better and more beautiful place to live in.
Through twenty years he was building his life into this
city, and the influence he exerted will not cease.

His may be cited as a life that, measured by the high-
est standard, was truly successful and happy. And we
may say this without forgetting that it was all too short
and that it was not withiut suffering.

We call Mr. Sheldon's life happy because it was his
privilege to work effectively for the highest things in the
world in company with the best men and women, to have
their confidence and support, to warn them from the evil
and lure them toward the good, to encourage those who in
the face of difficulties needed his word, to reinforce the
passion for the true, the beautiful and the good, and to be
the friend and helper of the best in the inner life of all.

It was his mission and high privilege to aid you in the
clarification of your thoughts and in burnishing and keep-
ing bright your moral ideals. We are always in danger
of forgetting that the highest results of the highest activ-
ity are not material, and that the greatest work that can
be done and most needs to be done is in the minds and
hearts of men. The supreme questions are those of our

*Minister of the Church of the Unity, St. Louis, at Memorial
meeting.

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 59

proper attitude to the world and of our right relation to
each other. Whoever can help us here makes as solid a
contribution to human welfare as those who feed and
clothe the race.

As your moral teacher and guide, his relation was the
highest possible. For while conscience is in the individ-
ual and is therefore a private matter, its education is
possible only in the ethical action and reaction of men, in
the appeal of character without to character within.

Our teachers and inspirers serve us by uttering clearly
what our own hearts are trying to say. It is the high
office of the minister and ethical teacher to thus help to
make explicit what is implicit in all. The summons to
noble living comes with such force precisely because there
is that in us which is already struggling upward. And
when the path of duty is revealed, we feel as if we had
been made clear as to what was all along our own intent.
And to those who help us here we rightly feel sincere
gratitude. There is no service more real than that which
helps to clearer thinking and to the ennobling of those
ideals which give our lives direction. And it is because
your leader was so successful in helping you here, that I
call his life happy.

For me his departure means much. The company of
ethical and religious teachers whose sympathies are as
wide as the world, and who feel that their fellowship is
with all who look upward, is still so small that when a
man like W. L. Sheldon lays down his work, his fellows
feel bereft.

But though he has gone, St. Louis is richer that he has
lived.

60 walter l. sheldon memorial addresses.

By Samuel Sale.*

As I was going abroad for the summer, I went to bid
Mr. Sheldon good-bye. It was only a few days after he
had assisted in the closing exercises of the Ethical So-
ciety. I found him sitting on the porch of his home in
the sunlight and as he was looking forward so hopefully
to the time when he might resume the work that he loved,
I little thought that I had said the last farewell and
should never grasp him by the hand again. When I
heard of his departure, I was shocked as if one of my own
had been taken from me. It was once my pleasure and
privilege to address the graduating class of the Mar-
quette school, together with our lamented friend, and as
I think of him now, the quaint bit of rabbinic lore that
I made use of then, comes to me again, as if it applied to
him with peculiar force and fitness.

Thus runs the legend : "When God was about to create
man, he took counsel of his ministering angels, Loving-
Kindness and Truth, Righteousness and Peace; Loving-
Kindness pleaded for the creation of man, on the ground
that he would be a worker of deeds of love, while Truth
sought to dissuade, saying that man's life would be full
of falsehood. The angel of Righteousness counseled the
creation of man, pleading that he would be a worker of
righteousness, while 'Peace' again sought to forestall it,
on the ground that man's life would be full of strife and
contention. To end the dispute, God cast down 'Truth'
from heaven to earth." In its fall, it must have been
shattered into numberless fragments, so that we poor
mortals may well rest contented, if we find but one of
these divine splinters. Of our departed friend it may be

*Rabbi of Congregation "Shaare-Emuth," St. Louis, Mo., at the
St. Louis Memorial Meeting.

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 6l

said that he had gathered up into his soul one of the
luminous fragments of divinity and that looking upon
him and his beautiful and useful life, the angels would
have all been of one accord, for the ministers of grace,
loving-kindness and righteousness and peace had found a
permanent abode in him. His friends feel that they have
sustained a personal loss in the passing of this earnest
worker in the cause of the good, this gentle-natured and
modest man, while the larger community will sadly miss
the guidance and inspiration of one of its most zealous
toilers in behalf of its best and highest interests. Mr.
Sheldon not only co-operated with others in every-
thing that made for the lasting general well-being, but he
was himself the sponsor of movements tending to that
end. A strong and decided moral force has gone from
the scene of his earthly labors and as such we shall re-
member him and bless his memory.

By M. Anesakl*

I DEEM it a great privilege to speak on this grave oc-
*casion, yet I hardly know how to express my sorrow for
the great loss to your Society in the death of Mr. Sheldon ;
but please accept my words as the expression of the sin-
cere condolence of all the members of the fraternal Ethic-
al Society of Tokyo. It was in June last year that we re-
ceived, to our great joy, the eminent leader of your So-
ciety. He favored us by speaking at several of our meet-
ings and you can imagine how his personality and
words of keen insight impressed us. He stayed three
weeks in Tokyo and strove, during the time, to mix with

*Professor in the Imperial University of Japan and member
of the Tokyo Ethical Society, at the St. Louis Memorial meeting.

62 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

every layer of society. He saw our educational work
in various directions and gave many instructive words
to the teachers and pupils. He saw many authorities in
education, visited nobles in their mansions, and went
around in the slums and showed his interest in and sym-
pathy for the people dwelling in those nests of poverty.
One day, in a long private talk with me, he asked many
questions concerning the morality of the people; and
evinced a most keen interest in the matrimonial relations
in our country. Another time, in a meeting of our So-
ciety, he stimulated us to active practical works, especi-
ally for the benefits of the lower classes. His idea seems
to have been that we should not remain an "ethical talk
club," as he designated our association, but should be
actively ethical, i. e., we should concern ourselves with
the actual moral problems, instead of academical discus-
sions on ethics. Mr. Sheldon's eager interest in and
keen insight into everything concerning the moral life
were incessant.

I do not know exactly what was his object in paying a
visit to Japan — a visit which caused the lamentable de-
cline of his health, I am indeed sorry to say. Probably
his vigilant attention to moral problems attracted him to
our country, where rapid and radical changes in life and
ideas are going on, after having jumped into the stream
of the world's civilization and just after a war which
gave a significant stimulus to the awakening of our na-
tional self-consciousness. The school boys and girls in-
structed in the ethics of loyalty towards their sovereign
and of filial piety towards parents, the coolies with their
growing consciousness of being a component part of the
rising nation, a simple woman humbly bowing before a
Shinto shrine paying her homage to the names of those

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 63

who died in war — all these things seem to have appealed
to his heart and head.

And this man, a man of thought and deed, is now no
more amongst us. A young friend of his from Japan,
whose hope in coming to America was to see him, can do
nothing but speak warmly in his memory. How sad is
the fate of human life, but how sweet the tender and af-
fectionate memory of the friend and leader of us all!
His last words "Auf widersehen" must find their fulfil-
ment, not in physical eyes but in spiritual eyes. His "love
to all" should one day be reaHzed in our ideas and
deeds. A Japanese saint, whom I might call the St.
Francis of Japan, left a poem to his followers before
going to exile. It reads :

Wlhat though our bodies, fragile as the dew,
Melt here and there, resolved to nothingness?
Our souls shall meet again, some happier day,
In this same lotus-bed where now they grow.

May these lines be dedicated to the soul of our friend
and leader! We must seek for the lotus-bed, on which
the spiritual unity and ethical harmony of mankind may
rest by following the noble ideals and lofty aspirations
which inspired and enlivened the whole life of our la-
mented leader.

64 walter l. sheldon memorial addresses.

By Felix Adler.*

The sincere appreciation and praise of those whom we
love is deeply gratifying to us while they still live. It is
the sweetest consolation after they have passed away.
The tributes to which we have just listened, so earnest
and so heartfelt, bear evidence to this truth. It will be
my part as a colleague of Mr. Sheldon, as one of the little
company of leaders of which he was so active and cher-
ished a member, to speak a farewell word, to offer a part-
ing tribute in the name of the Fraternity of Lecturers
and of the Ethical Societies at large. I do so with the
emotion which under the circumstances is most natural,
for Mr. Sheldon's departure is the first break in the ranks
of our little company and is an unspeakable loss, not only
to your Society, but to our common cause.

It is as a leader that I wish to speak of him as a mod-
ern priest, if I may use that expression, as one who ex-
ercised under modern conditions and in new ways the sa-
cred function of the minister. Mr. Sheldon himself
pointedly ranked himself with the clergy, and it may be
well for us to consider the reasons that animated him in
so doing. The function of the priest in its highest and
broadest sense is not obsolete, it is not confined to any
system of Theology or any specific church. What is that
function ? And what are the qualifications and character-
istics that we are to look for in the person that exercises
it? In the first place, the function of the modern priest
is paramountly ethical. It is to minister to the moral
distress of mankind.

There are those whose profession it is to minister to
physical distress. The physicians endeavor to cure disease

*At the Memorial Meeting at St. Louis.

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 65

and to relieve the suffering which it entails. John How-
ard was profoundly stirred to pity by the terrible condi-
tions that prevailed in the prisons of his day and by the
misery of those confined in them. Florence Nightingale
devoted herself to the wounded. In the case of others,
philanthropists, social workers of every description, it is
poverty and its attendant privations that has appealed
to the heart and stirred up the effort to mitigate and to
uplift. The priest is pre-eminently one who is stirred by
the moral distress of his fellows. In one form or an-
other the moral evil that exists in the world around him,
the awful consequences which it involves for the individ-
ual himself and for society, the degradation to which it
inevitably leads, the pity and the horror of it come home
to him and are intensely realized by him. In a flash of
blinding light, as it were, he sees the waste places in the
moral world around him. Generally it is some one form
of evil that thus, at the outset, attracts his attention, and
the deep purpose is established in his soul to help, if he
can, to awaken those who slumber on the brink of preci-
pices— to arouse, to encourage, to redeem.

This is the beginning. No one is fitted to be a priest
in the modern sense, who has not had something like this
initial experience. Mr. Sheldon was assuredly a priest
in this sense. The more material forms of distress, the
pain and trouble to which humanity is heir assuredly did
not leave him untouched or cold. But he saw the connec-
tion between even these external modes of evil and the
underlying moral mal-adjustment and it was the latter
that challenged his supreme interest, his most consecrated
devotion.

I have used the word "devotion" and one cannot think
of the priestly office, of the modern ministry, and of Mr.

^ WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

Sheldon as one who fulfilled its obligations, without at
once recognizing how this quality of absolute devotion
enters into the very nature and texture of it. Single-
mindedness, singleness of purpose, concentration of the
whole life upon one lofty aim was his outstanding char-
acteristic. It is written "Thou shalt have no other Gods
before my face." Mr. Sheldon had no other Gods ex-
cept his work and the moral purpose to which that work'
was pledged. He had many and varied interests, he was
singularly versatile in his methods. He was open to sug-
gestion in regard to the means by which the end in view
might be attained. But the end itself in everything which
he undertook was ever identically the same, the one and
only goal toward which every effort pointed, on which
every part converged.

There is yet another important qualification which the
modern minister must possess, another condition which
he must fulfill. He must be a student, a learner. He
must bring the dry light of the intellect to bear upon the
problems of the moral life. He must seek the aid of
many sciences to solve the perplexities by which he is
confronted. It has been said, mistakenly by some, that
moral knowledge is easy, that the moral will alone is dif-
ficult to create. But in truth moral knowledge itself is
often lacking. The life we possess is wavering and dim.
That there is an ultimate right we know, but what the
right in particular instances is, is often doubtful. More
light we need as well as more power, and Mr. Sheldon
was an assiduous and painstaking searcher for light. He
was an omnivorous reader. He strove to master the va-
rious branches of knowledge that bear upon ethical ques-
tions and how various and complex they are, only he who
has honestly tried to master them can know. And what-

WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. ^

ever he said or wrote had the ring of truth about it. The
metal which he dug out of the mine of knowledge was
stamped with the impress of his own first hand experi-
ence. He said many things which others have likewise
said, but nothing that he said was commonplace, for he
said nothing which he had not realized.

But there is one other characteristic which I must not
forbear to mention because it is most honorable to him
and because it implies the inmost secret of the influence
he exerted and explains the genuine affection and rever-
ence with which he is mourned. I have said that at the
outset the priest is struck and roused by the moral evil
which exists in the world around him. He does not pro-
ceed far on his way before he becomes aware that this
evil, not in its crass forms perhaps, but in many subtle
ways, extends into his own nature. He finds himself in-
volved in the complicity of what in theological language
is called sin. Hence the inward struggle, hence the
heartache and the soulache, hence the persistent endeavor
to purify himself, to expurgate the dross, to be saved him-
self, saved in order that he may save ; or, to put it in other
language, he feels the imperative necessity of achieving
larger moral growth himself in order that he may help
others to grow, to conquer his faults of temperament and
disposition, to ripen morally in order that he may if pos-
sible assist his fellows, who are perhaps morally less
awake, less enlightened as to their own condition, to at-
tain maturity. And it was this ripening in Mr. Sheldon,
as he advanced in years, this unremitting, honorable, hon-
est effort to apply an exacting standard to his own con-
duct and inner self that makes him stand out in our eyes,
the true priest he was, a noble figure, worthy not only
of loving commemoration, but of reverential regard. And

68 WALTER L. SHELDON MEMORIAL ADDRESSES.

it was in that last year of prolonged agony that this
quality in him shone out most tenderly and radiantly.
And the fact that it was given him to attain such ripeness,
that out of suffering he won this precious prize, is our su-
preme consolation in looking back upon those days. How
uncomplaining he was, how unselfish, how intent on per-
forming punctually to the last poor shreds of strength
that were left him, the duties that remained to be done.
And oh, how patient! Who of us will forget the last
occasion when he appeared upon this platform and when
by a commanding effort of the will he subdued the pain
he was suffering and read to us the touching words which
he had selected for the close of the service. "Be patient,
oh be patient!"

Truly we have sustained a grievous loss — you, the
members of this Society in particular and also the Ethical
movement at large. But we have also secured a priceless
gain, a memory of a noble life well lived, of a great and
loyal struggle well ended, of a race all too brief indeed,
but one that touched the goal and won a lasting prize.
Let us find strength in the hour of bereavement by clos-
ing the ranks and earnestly resolving that the fruit of
his labors shall not be lost, that his example shall not
grow dim, and that the beneficent work which he has
done in this community shall be perpetuated for genera-
tions to come.

THE CHARACTER OF THE ETHICAL
MOVEMENT.*

By Prof. Edwin R. A. Seligman, President of the

New York Society for Ethical Culture and

OF THE American Ethical Union.

Our movement, it is said, is more or less ephemeral in
character, and were our leader to disappear, it would
go the way of so many supposedly similar movements in
the past. To this criticism the present meeting is the
best answer. Our movement from its humble beginnings
of almost a generation ago has now far transcended not
only the limits of any one community, but also the con-
fines of any one country. The ferment is working in
men's minds in places and nations far removed from each
other; and the recent creation of the International Union
is an eloquent proof of this fact. As each nation has to
some extent at least, its own peculiar ethical problems
to solve, it is fitting that we should discuss at our peri-
odical reunions the questions of deepest actual import-
ance to ourselves. We must regard these conventions
as one of the surest and most efficient methods of weld-
ing together our interest and of helping to perpetuate the
movement which we have so close at heart.

While therefore, we have every reason to be satisfied
with the progress that is being made, and that has been
made, both here and abroad, it may not be amiss to dwell
for a moment on three obstacles in the path of a still more
rapid development.

*Part of the address of welcome to the delegates at the As-
sembly of the American Ethical Union held in New York, May
9-12, 1907.

69

70 THE CHARACTER OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT.

In the first place, there still exists a widespread misap-
prehension of the character of a movement like ours.
We are indeed no longer exposed to the danger of such
misrepresentations as were common a decade or two ago,
charges namely of agnosticism, atheism, irreligion, and
what not? We have, I think, successfully lived down
such wholly undeserved suspicions. But there is still a
widespread sentiment that societies for ethical culture are
primarily destructive rather than constructive, that they
remove from the mass of men the support of moral ac-
tion which is supposed to come from theological and dog-
matic sources, and that they are therefore really weaken-
ing the up-building forces in the community. Such a
charge as this, however, betokens a woful incapacity to
grasp our fundamental position. For our movement is
nothing if not constructive ; our movement is nothing if it
does not plant itself on the rock foundation of moral im-
pulse and moral fact ; our movement is nothing if it does
not cause its votaries to recognize that the very basis of
our fellowship is a hope for, and belief in, the realization
of ethical ideals.

The second obstacle to our more rapid growth is the
attachment of individuals through custom or inertia to the
existing churches. We have, of course, no quarrel with
the churches. We are all striving to some extent at least
for the same goal, and if men find a satisfaction of their
spiritual needs within the folds of the existing church, —
well and good. What I refer to, however, is the great
and growing mass of men and women who are unable
intellectually to follow and to accept the teachings of the
particular creed or theology, but who, nevertheless,
through custom or inertia, remain members of the fold.
To us, this is an essentially illogical position. A man

THE CHARACTER OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT. 7 1

who is no longer able to lend intellectual credence to the
more or less rigid or dogmatic contents of a particular
creed has really no justification for remaining a member
of that sect. If the particular creed teaches what is to
him an untrue or an unacceptable doctrine, he cannot as
a fully self-respecting intellectual force subscribe to that
doctrine. There can be no mental reservations. And yet
because of the admirable ethical and social work that is
.''one by so many of our churches, not only the timid and
the indolent remain members, but even many of the more
forceful who are mentally estranged are nevertheless will-
ing to silence their intellectual misgivings because of the
spiritual benefits. Is it, however, too much to expect that
with the course of time, more and more of the latter class
at least will find their way to a movement which, if they
only knew it, would satisfy all their spiritual longings,
without causing them to haul down the flag of intellec-
tual sincerity?

The third obstacle in our path is the feeling on the part
of so many modern men that religion is primarily aii
individual matter, that every man must choose his own
religion for himself, and that he needs no other church
or society. I do not, of course, allude here to that grow-
ing number of individuals who assume the purely materi-
alistic attitude, and who deny the need of any kind of
religion. For these are the foes which all religious bodies,
whether in or out of church, must meet. I refer speci-
fically to the man who rates the spirit higher than the
body, and who nevertheless is unchurched. We find
examples of this primarily among the so-called scientific
classes. Such an attitude is a perfectly explicable result
of the unfortunate clash in former years between science
and religion. It rests at bottom upon a decided over-

y2 THE CHARACTER OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT.

estimate of the function of science in the economy of
human Hfe. The most difficult part of our problem is to
convince these people of the truth of what we ourselves
feel and know — that religious comradeship is necessary in
the highest sense of the term ; that the word religion itself
means the binding together of men in a spiritual fellow-
ship and that there can be no such thing, logically, or
ethically, as an individual religion. In this highest sense
of the term, we also lay claim to being a religious move-
ment and a religious fellowship, but it is a movement and
a fellowship which is based on what is common to all
religions, without accepting what is particular to each re-
ligion. Just as the old system of the narrow Roman law
was broadened into the noble jurisprudence of the imper-
ial period by adopting the essential elements which were
common to the instincts and strivings of all the different
systems of provincial law; just as the old narrow Eng-
lish common law was broadened and deepened by the sys-
tem of equity which abandoned the forms in order to de-
velop the essence, so the ethical movement is seeking to
find the sub-stratum of all religions and is sloughing off
the forms and dogmas which have only an historical sig-
nificance in order to secure the emergence of the real es-
sence in the very palpable shape of ethical fact and ethical
aspiration.

We hope and believe that with each succeeding year
these misapprehensions and these obstacles will diminish
in number and influence, and we feel that nothing can
better contribute to this end than the keeping before the
public mind through such meetings as these the con-
structive character of our movement and the need of such
a fellowship.

THE NEED OF A RELIGION OF
MORALITY.*

By William M. Salter.

The question whether morality can take a deep hold on
individuals is the question whether morality can become a
religion. Morals as custom touches only the surface of
human life ; morals as scientific ethics simply clarifies the
intellect ; but morals become religion would go to the bot-
tom of life and remake it.

For consider what the two things mean — morality and
religion. Morality is the rule or law which aims not
merely at my or your, but the common good. That type
of conduct is called moral which holds the family to-
gether, which holds the tribe or community together,
and, when the perception of humanity or the world arises,
which holds the world together. For man above the
animal, morality is a condition of existence, like chemical
attraction for a molecule of water, like gravity for the
earth.

Religion — what is it, on the other hand, but man's sense
of what is sacred and divine, reverence, awe and wor-
ship before it? It is a mistake to identify religion with
belief in the supernatural or with a sense of the mysteri-
ous and unknown — it is these things only in so far as
the supernatural or mysterious becomes sacred in men's
e3^es, so far as it awakens reverence and awe, so far as it
becomes an object of worship, and these emotions may
conceivably have other objects than the supernatural or

*Address at the closing meeting of the American Ethical Union,
Carnegie Hall, Sunday, May 12, 1907. 70

74 THE NEED OF A RELIGION OF MORALITY.

mysterious. The primitive nature-worship is an instance ;
the perhaps equally primitive ancestor-worship is an-
other instance — and, among the cultivated races, Bud-
dhism is still another. The sun, fire, light, rivers and wells
were revered and worshiped not because a creator was
placed behind them, but as they were and for the bless-
ing and help they gave to men. The head of a house-
hold was honored after death as he had been in life — the
offerings and sacrifice to him were the bread and wine he
had been accustomed to in life. In Buddhism it is the law
that is sacred ; sacrifice has passed into obedience, prayer
into holy meditation. The supernatural and mysterious
do not exist to Buddhism, or if so, only as a philo-
sophic speculation; yet it has its temples, shrines, ro-
saries, religious vows and sacred brotherhoods. Taken
broadly, in the light of universal history, religion is the
sense of what is sacred and divine, whatever the sp(?-
cific object may be.

If so, the question — our question — is whether religion
may not have morality for its object, whether morality
itself may not awaken those feelings of what is sacred
and divine, that reverence, awe and worship which are
the essence of religion.

How has any object excited the religious sentiments?
The primal fact of life is need, the craving for help. If
man were self-centered, self-sufiicient, he would never
become religious. But what he is is dependent on what
he is not. What were he without the sun, the light, the
air, water and the fruitful earth? When man first rose
above an instinctive life and began to think, he saw his de-
pendence on these things, — that his life hung on them, —
and they became divine to his wondering eyes. "Divine"
originally meant "shining," recalling to us through the

THE NEED OF A RELIGION OF MORALITY. 75

reaches of history the time when the shining objects of
the sky were objects of worship. Prometheus called:

"Ether of Heaven and Winds untired of wing,
Rivers whose fountains fail not, and thou, Sea,
Laughing in waves innumerable! O Earth,
All-mother ! — 'Yea, and on the Sun I call,
Whose orb scans all things."

In the. same way men were led to worship their an-
cestors. They wanted their help after death, as they had
had it in life. According to the crude science of the day,
they continued on in shadowy form — hence the honors
paid them and all the ritual of sacrifice. And when the
deeper problems of Hfe arose, when social needs were
felt, when men craved inner peace and happiness, when
food and raiment and earthly success and triumph were
seen to fall far short of bringing a happy society or of
satisfying the spirit's need, then came religion^ like
Buddhism (and, in a more mixed form, Hebrew prophet-
ism and Christianity), and the help and redemption they
gave were in a law and commandments, in deep-going
moral ideals — and these became the holy, reverend things
in men's minds. Pity, justice, detachment from self, love,
love ruling through life and conquering death — these
were what brought peace among men, peace in man, the
deep-down inner happiness men craved. Here was help,
the only help — in view of the wider, greater needs of
man.

But from these last-named instances we see that in one
sense our question is already answered. There have al-
ready been (in more or less mixed form) religions of
morality in the world, — religions, I mean, which make the
law which holds the world together the object of their

76 THE NEED OP^ A RELIGION OF MORALITY.

reverence and awe, which bow before pity, justice, love.
True, Jews worshiped Yahweh and Christians worshiped
the Father-in-Heaven, and only Buddhism worshiped the
law alone, but the Jews (their later representatives, who
gave immortality to Judaism) worshiped Yahweh above
all as the source of the law, and for Christians the su-
preme reason for worshiping the Father-in-Heaven has
been that his name is synonymous with love. The early
animism and anthropomorphism of the race linger on in
Judaism and in Christianity, but the substance and eter-
nal content of these religions is ethical. They are the na-
tural progenitors of a religion of morality for our west-
ern world to-day. Adapt Judaism and modern Chris-
tianity to the modern scientific view of things — and you
have religions of morality, two in one. We are out in the
wilderness calling for such a consummation.

The possibility, then, of a fusion of ethics and relig-
ious sentiment is settled. Not that the old simple, na-
tural religion, the sense of help and grace from Nature's
forces, will ever pass away, but that ethical religion is its
necessary completion and crown.

But more than the possibility, the need of such a con-
summation is what weighs on us now — on all who feel
the insecurity, the unrest, the unhappiness of life, social
and personal, as it exists to-day. The Hfe of man at ali
times on the earth is an uncertain thing; it is so uncer-
tain and full of trouble, in part at least, because men do
not know the conditions of life, and because they trust
where they should not trust and do not trust where they
should trust. They have false gods, false reliances. It
might be shown, — a great sociologist * has shown — that
all the succession of powers and institutions man has de-

*Lester F. Ward.

THE NEED OF A RELIGION OF MORALITY. 7/

veloped are to the end of making his lot less pre-
carious. Religion is one of them. It stays the
wayward and lawless and binds them; it creates a con-
science in them. It is more than philosophy or science —
it is attention to what these teach on the central concerns
of life, reverently laying it to heart, in humility obeying
it. The true object of religion is that which is not fan-
cifully but really the commanding fact of life, the impera-
tive, unalterable, awful condition of life, and this is, as all
history teaches, that law, at once so simple and so rich,
which we call the law of right, the law which in its higher
ranges means infinite pity, infinite justice, infinite love.
As we rise to this law, humanity lives ; as we fall short of
it, humanity is ever perishing. If this is true, if there is
nothing that would make human life so stable, so
strong, so rich, so beautiful as the spread and rule of the
moral sentiments in it, if they would make a new atmos-
phere and put a new face on everything and make it al-
most seem as if heaven had descended on earth, how im-
mense, how vital would be the significance of a religion
that turned the tide of reverent emotion in that specific
way ! Suppose that men had reverence before a thought
of justice, so that they bowed before it, that when love
prompted them they felt they must leave all to follow it a?
the disciples forsook all to follow Christ, what a differ-
ence it would make, how some things would become easy
that are now so hard, what changes starting from an in-
ner center would follow in every shallow and corner of
our social, political and industrial life ! O, the need of a
religion of morality — it sometimes comes over me — to
make life life, and man man !

Whether we of the Ethical Movement are a religious
movement is a question, not of possibility or need, but

yS THE NEED OF A RELIGION OF MORALITY.

of personal fact. We aim to be ; our idea, I take it, is to
be. But the reality is another matter. An authority on
Buddhism ^ says : "Had the Buddha merely taught phil-
osophy, he might have had as small a following as
Comte." Is there perhaps too much of the air of philoso-
phy about our meetings? Is there speculating and ex-
plaining and making rational, but too little of the force
that makes men do? Are we possibly deceiving our-
selves and thinking that much talking and hearing about
duty and reverence and religion gives us an odor of good-
ness, while in our hearts and in our week-day lives we are
selfish and grasping and hard, as if great awe had never
made its seat within our souls? This Buddhist scholar
says that Gautama's power over the people arose in a
great measure from the glow of his practical philan-
thropy, which did not shrink in the struggle with the
abuses most peculiar to his time — that the equalizing ten-
dencies of his teaching attracted the masses, as its com-
mon sense did the man of the world. Perhaps we have
the common-sense, but have we the glow of philanthropy,
the equalizing tendencies, are we ready to lose all in
boldly struggling with the abuses of our time? I put
these searching questions, not to you merely, but to my-
self as well. I do not answer, — I only see, and say, that
after all it settles little that we think or call ourselves re-
ligious, but that it makes all the difference in the world
whether we are religious. Let us keep the faith and the
hope that we may be — let us not talk much, but be humble
and strive. And let us remember that the cause, the call,
stands, whatever we do or fail to do.

"I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip. Thou doest not fall."

^Rhys Davids, "Buddhism," p. 151.

»

THE INSPIRATION OF THE ETHICAL
MOVEMENT.*

By Prof. Nathaniel Schmidt, Cornell University.

What inspirations can the ethical movement offer to
men? What joy and consolation can it give to the weary
and heavy-laden, the sick and the suffering, the poor and
the oppressed, the minds that are perplexed by the prob-
lems of existence and the hearts that are lacerated by the
trials of life? What strength can it impart to the weak
and the discouraged, the tempted and the fallen, what en-
thusiasm to those who earnestly seek after truth and with
stout hearts struggle for justice?

The answer, to have any value, must come from ex-
perience. Whence have we ourselves drawn courage and
power, comfort and cheer? What inspires us to work,
if work we do, for the improvement of our own moral
life, and the elevation of private and public morality
about us? Nothing that is new and untried, certainly,
nothing that our fathers did not also possess, nothing
that is not available to all men. That which really has
lifted, purified and filled with glory human lives in the
past is also what expands, refreshes and invigorates our
souls.

We may give different names to the fountains of in-
spiration; we may approach them in a different manner.
But they are the same. They are the infinite and eternal
reality by which we are surrounded, the human life in
which ours is imbedded, our own personality with its un-
sounded depths, the work of overcoming evil with good

*Address at the closing meeting of the American Ethical Union,
Carnegie Hall, Sunday, May 12, 1907.

80 THE INSPIRATION OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT.

and its effects, the sense of a noble destiny for the indi-
vidual and the race.

The old words pass away, or lose their significance ; the
outlook upon life changes; but the inspiring realities re-
main, without and within, and the communication is un-
broken, deep calling unto deep. The vanished gods ap-
pear again as guardians of the faith of childhood and
adumbrations of the larger life, while the source itself
whence we have sprung floods us with light and energy
that were not in the shadows. The sacred oracles that
merged with all the great words of man's faith speak to
us with a mightier voice and a truer accent than they ever
did. The heaven that disappeared beyond the con-
fines of existence returns to cheer our hearts as one of the
tokens of man's wistful march toward the ideal.

It is inspiring to contemplate the boundless energy
and wealth of nature, to observe the unfailing operation
of its laws, to search for its mysterious essence, to mark
its marvelous adjustments and to trust in its inherent
rationality and rightness. It is inspiring to see the world
reflected in the human spirit, to behold its forms and
colors, to hear it§ sounds, to feel its rhythms and fra^
grances and tastes, as reproduced and varied by man's
art. It is inspiring to watch the growth of human fa-
culty, to note the upward trend in man's affairs, to feel
the thrill of countless aspirations, to enter into the ex-
periences of noble souls, to listen to the oracles of the
spirit of life, to discern the laws that govern man's ex-
istence, and to be bound with tender ties to home and
kindred, friends and fellowmen.

But whether joy and strength shall come to us from all
these sources depends upon our own part in the onward
movement to a better life. There is no inspiration like

THE INSPIRATION OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT. 8l

that which comes from the pursuit of goodness. The
very effort to reject the evil and to choose the good, to
resist temptation and to rise from failure, to remain at
the post of duty, to bear with patience, and to conquer
every form of selfishness, gives inspiration; and each
success gives added stimulus and zest.

The hope of larger things to come inspires us. We
have the consciousness of a high destiny. It is not yet
apparent what we shall be. But we divine what it is pos-
sible for us to be when we with gratitude and love drink
from the living waters that issue forth from some strong
soul that went before. We cannot now imagine what will
be the glory of the city that shall have the true founda-
tions, the social life that shall rest securely on equity and
freedom, love and truth. But we have a foretaste of its
supreme worth when we observe how each succeeding
type of man's collective life has marked an advance in
righteousness and liberty, enlightenment and happiness.

These spiritual forces are the mountains whence cometh
our help; they are the fountains that refresh our thirsty
souls. They are the great, abiding sources of inspira-
tion, in weakness and in strength, in sickness and in
health, in life and in death. Therefore we rejoice to see
the growing emphasis in all religions on the ethical con-
tent, the increasing interest in all questions that concern
the right relations between men, and the development of
new agencies for impressing men with the supremacy of
the moral law. Humanity has no higher concern than
the improvement of the moral quality of its life, and there
is in all the world no cause that is more inspiring.

ETHICS TEACHING IN THE SCHOOL*

By Dr. Henry Moskowitz, Leader of the Down
Town Ethical Society in New York.

The necessity of direct ethical instruction being as-
sumed, the question arises, What are the quaHfications of
an efficient Ethics teacher? And if the instruction is in-
tended to train as well as to teach. What sort of school
environment is necessary to confirm the truths explicated
and driven home in an Ethics lesson? Only after these
questions are satisfactorily answered can we properly con-
sider the practical problem of incorporating Ethics as an
essential subject in a school curriculum.

In answer to the first question, What are the qualifica-
tions of an efficient ethics teacher — this general propo-
sition holds true : there are two factors to be considered in
determining the merits of a teacher of any specific branch.
These I shall vaguely term the personal and the imper-
sonal. By the personal factor I mean those marks of
breeding, manner, habits of thought and character pe-
culiar to the individual which we denote as the teacher's
personality. This factor plays a more important part in
an ethics lesson than, for example, any mathematics or
physics lesson; for in ethics teaching, perfunctoriness
must be avoided. The eloquence that vivifies the moral
experience is a necessary condition of any efifective ethics
lesson.

By eloquence I do not mean the gift of fluent and at-
tractive speech necessarily. This, of course, will aid in

♦Address at the Public Conference on Direct Moral Instruc-
tion, held at the Ethical Culture School, New York, May ii, 1907.
82

ETHICS TEACHING IN THE SCHOOL. 83

giving the lesson effectiveness. I mean, hov^ever, the
power of imparting to the pupils a sense of the reality of
the experience and the moral judgment which the teacher
aims to impress upon the pupils. Children are very sensi-
tive and keen to detect any false note in the tone of the
teacher's handling of an ethical lesson. They despise
mere sentimentality and the "goody-goody" tone. It is
necessary that the teacher's moral judgment be precise,
ripe and deep, in order that the child unconsciously feel
the eloquence of that reserve of moral force which the
teacher has not articulated in the lesson and which often
escapes speech.

This qualification, it is evident, is less imperative in a
mathematics teacher if we are seeking mere instruction.
But not so even in mathematics, if we regard the teaching
of this branch from the standpoint of training. In ethics
teaching, however, instruction is only a minor aim.
Character-building is the goal. Therefore, subtle force
of the teacher's personality is a very potent influence.

In the usual branches of the school curriculum the im-
personal factor — that is, the method of presentation and
expounding a subject according to right educational and
psychological principles — is an important factor to be con-
sidered. So also, in measuring the qualification of an
ethics teacher, this test must also be made: Has the les-
son definite points ? Is the method of presentation syste-
matic? Are the points developed clearly, etc.? These
are questions involving the pedagogy of a specific branch
of study.

Now, if you agree with me concerning these two fac-
tors, let us take a glance over the educational field and ask
ourselves if as yet, there is a sufficient number of teachers,
whether professional or voluntary, who can satisfactorily

84 ETHICS TEACHING IN THE SCHOOL.

Stand this test, — first, as to personality; second, as to
knowledge of the methods of teaching ethics. You will
reply, from the highest standards. No; but if the good will
counts and if the effort as well as the consciousness of the
importance of the task is there, the personality will deep-
en with every sincere attempt to teach, for after all, the
spontaneous side in human nature cannot be measured or
formulated, it is so subtle, elusive and varied. Yet one
thing is certain — mere uncritical enthusiasm will not suf-
fice. Social workers have many a sad tale of disappoint-
ment and inefficiency to tell of people who have come to
them with plenty of good intentions but with nothing
else. Unfortunately, the best people are paralyzed into
inactivity by the appalling difficulties of the task and are
naturally too timid to come forward and try.

As to the pedagogy of the subject, what a pathetic
dearth of material does the earnest teacher find! After
thirty-one years of active pioneering in this field, even the
New York Ethical Society has as yet very scanty printed
material either in subject matter or in methods of teach-
ing, which a faithful teacher can use in his or her class
work. We have thus barely touched the periphery of the
problem. We are merely in the agitating stage of the
movement.

In this stage of the movement for moral instruction,
wisdom cautions us to go slow. When even the pioneers
in the field are as yet disagreed as to the best methods of
moral education, how can we venture to urge those re-
sponsible for our public schools to incorporate ethics
teaching in their curriculum ? They are looking to us for
guidance and assistance. We must first prove our ex-
periment successful before they can incorporate this new
feature of education into their system. It is their duty

k

ETHICS TEACHING IN THE SCHOOL. 85

to guard the school system from any new experiments
before they have been properly tested and proven success-
ful without question.

In effective ethics training, the school environment is^
in my opinion, the most essential factor. The child must
feel the spirit and atmosphere of the school in its effective
organization, in the esprit de corps among the teachers,
and in the many details of school life. The environment
must confirm the truths articulated in the ethics lesson.
The child can turn to its school environment for a verifi-
cation in life of what is presented in speech. The school
environment gives reality to the ethics lesson and tends to
deepen the moral influences of the teacher's personality
and exposition.

When children are crowded together in a class room o^
fifty, can we expect the school environment to reflect the
spirit of the teacher? And in a congested tenement dis-
trict, in the homeless homes of the poor, can we be so de-
void of imagination and the sense of humor as to enter-
tain the hope that a mere ethics lesson will strengthen the
moral will, when what is taught in the class is openly ta-
booed in public life, in the neighborhood and in the
home? There is danger of impressing the child with the
thought that ethics teaching is only a moral luxury, in-
tended for the school and the church, but not for life
itself. We can never hope to make moral education ef-
fective without providing our children of the public
schools with a decent school, home and neighborhood en-
vironment, to strengthen and deepen the influences of di-
rect ethical instruction.

MONCURE D. CONWAY.

A Prelude, by Wm. M. Salter, before the Society

FOR Ethical Culture, in Handel Hall,

Sunday Morning, Nov. 24.

A picturesque figure in modern religious life has pass-
ed away. Moncure D. Conway was a man of letters and
had close contact with most of the eminent literary men
of the last two generations in both England and America ;
he published largely, wrote essays, travels, "Lives;" yet
religion was his central interest and theme — and to the
end he kept something of the attitude and fervor of the
preacher.

The significant thing about him is that he traveled, was
a pilgrim, in the things of the spirit. A Virginian by
birth, the son of a slave-holder, a "fire-eater" himself, he
came to hate slavery. Emerson's Essays awoke his re-
ligious nature and made him a Methodist preacher (the
only kind that lay within his horizon as a possibility at the
time) ; but he moved on from Methodism to Unitarianism
— then from Unitarianism to Theism — and later from
Theism to a still broader outlook. He followed the
scientific developments of the last century, shifted his
point of view as Agassiz, Lyell, Darwin, came to the
fore, and remodeled his theology accordingly. The spirit
of truth was in him and led him — something greater than
any special "truths." Yes, the spirit of humanity and of
right was also in him — and this was more than any special
social or moral views.

One of his most interesting books is "The Earthward
Pilgrimage" (published in 1870, when he was minister of
86

MONCURE D. CONWAY. 87

South Place Chapel, London). It is a modern "Pilgrim's
Progress," not from the City of Destruction to the Celes-
tial City, but from the World to Come to the World
which Is. Some faithful Christian has written on the
fly-leaf of the public library copy I have been reading,
"Infidel work," — as a warning to the unwary. It pictures
the veritable and conscious spiritual pilgrimage of Mon-
cure Conway. One of its texts is a dialogue with Con-
fucius. "Ke Loo asked about serving the spirits of the
dead. The Master said, 'While you are not able to serve
men, how can you serve their spirits?' Ke Loo added, *I
venture to ask about death.' He was answered, 'While
you do not know life, how can you know about death ?' "
Conway felt the call to know life, and the needs of life
made a tremendous appeal to him. He had a sense of the
evil in the world. The schools of philosophy have elimi-
nated Satan, but the scientific counterpart of Satan — the
perils and passions of man's breast, the diseases, agonies
and desolations in society, — he knew and recognized:
and this actual Satan he fought without mercy. The
humanitarian, reforming note began with his espousing
Unitarianism. What he was really aiming at was a new
world, beginning with the abolition of slavery. A world
free from Slavery, War, Superstition, Ignorance — this
was his ideal ; and these were the great evils that weighed
down his soul. As he got deeper into the contest he broke
with Emersonian optimism and the Unitarian ideas of
God. He thought they lamed the soul, made it trust
where it ought to fight. Even the ordinary evolutionist
confidence he parted with — the forces of natural selection
must be controlled, or supplanted, by human selection, he
urged. At the last the Cosmos came almost to wear a
gloomy air to his mind — so strong did the forces of evil,

88 MONCURE D. CONWAY.

the blind forces of the universe, seem. And yet he
fought to the end. When I read of the anti-slavery times
in his pages, those who now dare to take up the labor or
social questions seem to tread a bed of roses. The di-
vision of families, the splitting of churches, violence and
threats, were common — and imminent was the shadow of
war. Conway played a man's part in the struggle — here
and in England. It was an altogether peculiar part — he
hated slavery, yet war was to him worse than slavery ; he
called our war a "damnable, double-tongued war" — in view
of the way the negro was treated in it and has been since.

Conway felt that the great issue now was the war
against War. He did not believe in civilized warfare
more than in any other kind — indeed, he said there was no
such thing as civilized warfare. He berated us for our
Cuban war, President Cleveland for his threatenings in
behalf of Venezuela, and rejoiced in the defeat of mili-
tarism and the French army in the Dreyfus case. In-
deed, he was in Paris, when death overtook him, in the in-
terests of the "Peace" propaganda.

Whatever we think of his judgments in detail, let us
give honor to this brave soldier, this militant pilgrim,
as now he lays his armor down and has reached the end
of his earthly pilgrimage. The closing words of his "Au-
tobiography" sum up the stress of his life and embody
his matured religious conceptions: "Implora pace, Oh
my reader, from whom I now part. Implore peace, not of
deified thunder-clouds, but of every man, woman, child
thou shalt meet. Do not merely offer the prayer, 'Give
peace to our time,' but do thy part to answer it! Then,
at least, though the world be at strife, there shall be peace
in thee."

THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF
THE REAL JESUS.*

By Alfred W. Martin.

The tendency to idealize is common to humanity every-
where. In all ages and in all countries people have en-
dowed the objects of their admiration, reverence and love
with attributes they did not possess, and with deeds they
did not perform. Especially has this been true in the case
of the great religious leaders of history, and hence the one
gigantic task of criticism has been to determine what
these idealized persons actually were, and what they ac-
tually did.

As an illustration of this tendency taken from our
own time, let me refer to the case of Keshub Chunder Sen,
an eminent leader of the Brahmo-Samaj in India. Hardly
had this great leader been laid on his funeral pyre, when
his disciples began to talk about him in terms that remind
us very forcibly of the manner in which the author of the
fourth gospel talks about Jesus. I happened, a short time
since, upon the resolution which the apostolic council of
Calcutta passed after the death of their famous leader.
I have brought a copy of that resolution with me this
morning, thinking it would interest you and serve to il-
lustrate the point I am trying to make. It reads :

"We believe our minister was living in the bosom of
God as minister to the Brahmo-Samaj before the begin-
ning of creation, and our relationship with him is not for

*Given before the Society for Ethical Culture, of Philadelphia,
Sunday, December 15, 1907, and stenographically reported by
Ernest Jacques.

89

90 THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS.

time but for eternity. None can accept this dispensation
except through him ; hence, when preaching the new dis-
pensation, we should proclaim his eternal relation to it."

Similarly, in the very susceptible soil of Palestinian
thought and imagination, the man Jesus became the God
Christ. Indeed the process of idealization began while
Jesus was still on earth, and it has continued down to our
own day.

Without pausing this morning to discuss in detail this
process of idealizing the real Jesus, let me, in order to
make the point as clear as I may, simply touch upon the
successive idealizations in the course of Christian history.
While Jesus was still on earth he was spoken of as "the
Messiah," the long expected deliverer, and it may be that
he so regarded himself and said of his own personality
that he was the Messiah. But be that as it may, the first
three gospels in the New Testament regard Jesus as the
Messiah, and that explains their constant use of the ex-
pression "In order that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by the prophet saying." Then we come in the next
century to the conception of Jesus as the Logos, the crea-
tive principle in the Godhead, or that element in deity
which created the universe. That is the standpoint of the
fourth gospel. Jesus is there represented as this creative
principle, the Logos, the Word. You can easily see that
it was only a single step from that idealization to the
"second person in the trinity." Then we come to the
fourth century in which the great church council of
Nicaea convened. You will remember that this church
council was concerned with settling among other prob-
lems, this one question — Did Jesus have the same nature
as God, or only a nature like that of man? Was it ''ho-
mooiision" or "homoioiision," the little letter "i" making
all the difference between the two sides in this great con-

THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS. 9I

troversy ? But the idealizing process went on, and to-day
we have it illustrated in the common custom among min-
isters of all denominations to first frame a picture — a
beautiful picture of "the perfect man," a picture of "hu-
manity's ideal," and then proceed to square Jesus with
that picture, regardless of what the New Testament may
have to say about him. Thus you see this process has
gone on from the apostolic age down to our own day, and
I need hardly say that not a single one of these idealiza-
tions has its exact counterpart in history. This tendency
to idealize is the chief reason why the real Jesus of Naz-
areth has been kept from view through all the centuries.
Just like a fossil that has lain embedded in some ancient
stratum of the earth, so the real Jesus has been buried
beneath the strata of Christian idealizations. Conse-
quently one of the great tasks of modern bibhcal criticism
has been what we might call the excavation of the real
Jesus.

And for the accomplishment of that task you and I who
speak the English language are particularly indebted to
that eminent English orthodox critic and commentator,
Edwin A. Abbott, who wrote the article on "Gospels" in
the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Just as an expert in art
criticism, when endeavoring to decide whether a certain
painting is a Rembrandt or not, goes down beneath the
external glazing and paint, varnish and sizing to the orig-
inal drawing — and the less of such drawing, the more
sure he is that the painting is a Rembrandt, — so the New
Testament critic goes down below the gospel-record to
earlier and still earlier sources of information about Jesus.
That is the great task Edwin A. Abbott has achieved.
And the original source of information to which he re-
verts, his ultimate reliable source he calls "the triple tra-
dition." It is that story of the life of Jesus in which Mat-

92 THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS.

thew, Mark and Luke agree. The story these first three
evangelists tell, setting aside all points on which they are
not agreed, this, Dr. Abbott thinks, is our earliest reliable
source of information. And that point of view has come
to be very generally accepted. Turning to this source we
find that, in spite of the meagre details concerning the
actual person of Jesus, in spite of the dense obscurity that
enshrouds eighteen of the thirty years of Jesus' life; in
spite of all the imperfections in the record ; in spite of the
absolute silence on many points concerning which we
would be thankful to have information, in spite of all
these defects and deficiencies, the real, essential man re-
mains, in clear and unmistakable outline.

Of the physical appearance of Jesus we know abso-
lutely nothing. No authentic portrait has come down to
us, and in the literature of the first two- centuries there is
not a single allusion to the physical appearance of Jesus.
Why should there be? When his contemporaries in Pal-
estine expected that he was coming back in a few years,
why should they be concerned about his appearance, oi
even, for that matter, about his words and teachings?
Had he not said he would return ? Consequently the peo-
ple waited for his second coming, and only when the sense
of disappointment over his non-appearance became in-
tensely keen did the queries arise. What was his physical
appearance? What were his parables, his teachings?

The earliest allusion in Christian literature to the phy-
sical appearance of Jesus is found in the works of Justin
the Martyr, written in the middle of the third century.
He said, simply, that Jesus looked as the Scriptures said
he looked, referring to the Messianic passage in the fifty-
third chapter of Isaiah, where the Messiah is described
as ''having neither form not comeliness," and so Justin
simply declared, "he had no beauty as the Scriptures

THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS. 93

said." Now in the absence of all reliable information on
the subject, you and I are at liberty to think as we please ;
and that in truth is what all the painters and sculptors of
Christian history have done. Of all such representations
in art, the one that is perhaps most satisfying, the one
that takes in more detail of Jesus' personality, is the head
in the center of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper at
Milan. No reproduction can tell you what the original
does. But there, if I mistake not, I see a representation of
Jesus in art which comes nearer to expressing the full re-
ality than any other with which I am familiar.

Socially, Jesus was no ascetic; he was no Essene;-he
was no precursor of sombre puritanism. The blood in his
veins ran warm and ruddy. His parables give abundant
evidence that his sympathies were warm and broad. We
have the story of the wedding-feast at Cana in Galilee,
the story of the little children that were taken up in his
arms and blessed, showing how vital his sympathies were,
showing how essentially democratic he was in nature and
in spirit.

Great as are the parables of Jesus from the standpoint
of art, his greatest work of art was not the parables, nor
even the sermon on the mount ; his greatest work of art
was his own life. He made his own life his greatest ser-
mon. He taught by example much more than by pre-
cept. Now a great personality cannot be adequately or
completely estimated. Its very greatness stands in the
way of anything like adequate estimation. It defies analy-
sis and exhaustive explanation. But of a great person-
ality we can say this: that it owes its greatness, not so
much to any possessions or attributes that differentiate
it from other personalities, as to its magnificent embodi-
ment of qualities that are universal. Sympathy, sincerity,
consecration, trust — these are universal. They are known

94 THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS.

of all men, among all nations. And the spiritual great-
ness of the real Jesus lay in his particular incarnation of
these universal qualities. Whatever may be the distinctive
attributes of other great religious leaders, Jesus, I think,
will always be remembered, reverenced and loved for his
unswerving loyalty to conviction, his unsurpassed sympa-
thy for man, his unalloyed consecration to a great life-pur-
pose and his unwavering trust in a power higher than
himself.

These, I take it, are the constituent elements of the
spiritual greatness of the real Jesus. And it is to a con-
sideration of these that I invite your consideration at the
beginning of this Christmas season. I ask you to note
with me these four elements, and their practical bearing
upon the life of to-day.

First, then, loyalty to truth, intellectual integrity, abso-
lute consonance of thought and word — meaning what he
said, and saying what he meant, white-mindedness in a
word. This, I believe, was the crowning attribute in the
character of Jesus. His soul was literally on fire with
great convictions, and he held to them with an adaman-
tine inflexibility. What were these convictions? Above
all else he had the conviction that in the near future the
existing order of society would pass away and a miracu-
lously-established new order of society would take its
place. He called that new order "the Kingdom of Heav-
en." He believed that in spite of all the oppression, in
spite of the terrible cruelty, in spite of the tyranny and
despotism of his day, nevertheless justice and love would
still reign as king and queen over all the world. Here was
a man who dared to entertain that magnificent dream in
the face of the untoward political and social conditions of
his time, daring, moreover, to believe that his dream would
be realized within twenty-five years.

THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS. 95

His second great conviction was that morality is pro-
gressive, that the ethical code of one age is not neces-
sarily sufficient for the needs of the next. Jesus was an
evolutionist in ethics. He held that because the laws of
Sinai were wonderfully well suited to the people of that
ancient civilization, it did not follow that they were suited
to his generation, and he did not hesitate to differ from
the ancient Jewish code. He said, for example, in sub-
stance : it is not enough that thou do no murder, excellent
as that sixth commandment is, you must do more; you
must go down below the murderous deed to its source,
to the passion of anger that is the root of murder. It is
not enough to obey the seventh commanndment, to avoid
the adulterous act ; you must go below the adultery to the
evil desire. After all, the fundamental sin is not the mur-
der, but the wrath ; not the adultery but the lust. Jesus
respected the authority of Moses, but he did not regard it
as either infallible or final. And that brings us face to
face with one of the most impressive of all paradoxes.
Remembering the attitude of Jesus to Moses you may ap-
preciate the significance of this paradox — he is most like
Jesus who sometimes differs from him. If you would be
like Jesus, then dare to differ from Jesus, as Jesus dared
to differ from Moses. If you would be like Jesus, then
like him be true to truth. If you would reverence the re-
ligion of your ancestors, then reverence the loyalty to
conviction which those ancestors displayed. If you
would be true to the memory of your mother, then rever-
ence the devotion to truth and duty that you saw in her.
Rather than betray his own soul, rather than be false to
his convictions, Jesus preferred persecution, ignominy and
finally death. The luxury of his convictions was more to
him than the luxury of mere existence. He measured
life by its breadth not by its length. To Jesus life con-

96 THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS.

sisted in an untrammeled mind, an unpolluted conscience,
an unsullied soul.

Come we now to the practical application of this crown-
ing grace in the character of Jesus. Has the world out-
grown the need of the inspiration that comes from con-
templating a loyalty like his ? In answer to that question,
I appeal to you simply to look at the widespread disloyalty
to truth. See how men and women to-day deliberately
barter their most precious religious convictions at any
price the social market may dictate. Look at the sorrow-
ful spectacle of intellectual insincerity — men and women
supporting churches with which they are not in sympathy,
lending their presence and ;^iving of their purse to sup-
port one kind of religion when their hearts are wedded to
an altogether different kind. Far be it from me to ignore
the fact that there are thousands of Christians who are
loyal, faithful followers of their Master, yet I cannot ig-
nore the equally obvious fact that there are other thou-
sands who cannot be classed with the faithful, the sin-
cere and conscientious. Look, I say, at this sorrowful
spectacle of intellectual dishonesty, and then you can say
whether the world is in need of looking back to the loy-
'alty that there was in Jesus. And to me the saddest aspect
of the whole sickening spectacle is this — that so many of
these guilty men and women call themselves Christians,
and sometimes engage in the worship of Jesus ! Would to
God that they worshiped him less and followed him more,
by exhibiting in their lives some little fraction of the
loyalty and integrity that were in him. Even while Jesus
was still on the earth, there were those to whom he said :
"Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that
I say?" and that class has never been left without a wit-
ness in any age — certainly not in our own.

The second element in the spiritual greatness of Jesus

THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS. 97

was his sympathy for man — a sympathy so full, so deep,
so broad, that I can only compare it to a clear, sparkling
stream that flows in a thirsty land where no water is. If
you want to understand the fulness and depth of that sym-
pathy, you have only to recall the age in which it ap-
peared. And if your history serves you right you will re-
member that it was an age of cruelty, oppression, despot-
ism; an age in which monarchs were playing chess with
nations for pawns ; an age in which provinces were being
sacked to supply splendid processions for pompous roy-
alty, an age in which the wealth of colonies was drained to
furnish sumptuous feasts for selfish statesmen ; an age
in which the word brotherhood was a synonym for cliques
and for caste. It was in such an age that Jesus revived
the ancient protest of humanity, denouncing caste, de-
nouncing cliques, denouncing oppression, everything that
would hinder personal development and social progress.

There was a mighty pressing problem confronting Jesus
in that day, the same problem, forsooth, that is confront-
ing us in our day — how to break down these barriers that
divide the classes of society; hov/ to get rid of these jeal-
ousies, these antipathies and hatreds that are current in
our time as in his. That was the problem confronting
Jesus — how to make society essentially and truly demo-
cratic. He summed up his solution of the problem in terms
of sympathy. Love was to be the solvent in which every
kind of ill-will, according to Jesus, would melt away.
And is it not significant that that solution is, in the twen-
tieth century, coming to recognition anew, and serving as
the underpinning of all our modern penology? What
is the supreme conviction underlying the best efforts to-day
in our prisons and reformatories? It is the redeeming
power of a great spiritual love. If we are fine enough,
if we have enough of the heart-culture that was in Jesus,

98 THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS.

then it does not matter how degraded any human soul
may be, that soul will be within reach of our redeeming.
If we fail, then it can only be because our love is either
not strong enough, or not deep enough, or not wise
enough, or perchance not patient enough. For when
these elements of love are present, then there can be no
such thing as failure. And perhaps your experience has
been like mine in discovering many satisfying proofs of
this truth. Do I exaggerate when I say that the gospel-
record is literally flooded with this sympathy that was in
Jesus? That sympathy floods the gospel-story as the
waters of the sea flood its basin and its shore. Very sig-
nificant it is that no single trace is anywhere to be found
in the New Testament of any personal hatred that Jesus
ever entertained towards anyone. The nearest approach
to anything of the kind were those terrible maledictions
he heaped upon a certain group of Pharisees who were
proud, autocratic, hypocritical, contemptuous. On them
he poured the stream of his indignation. From their foul
purposes he tore away the veil ; their sophistries and make-
shifts he exposed, and branded them with their own
proper black names. And you and I would think small
things of the spiritual greatness of any moral reformer
who would do otherwise. Some one came to Channing
one day and asked him, how could the meek, mild, gentle
Jesus ever have uttered those maledictions ? Opening his
Bible, William Ellery Channing, with sweet, tender,
ethereal tones, read the passage that begins — "Woe unto
you, Scribes and Pharisees." But do you think that Jesus
uttered those expressions in any soft, mild, ethereal tone ?
I certainly do not. For I take it that Jesus' nature had the
breadth that was equal to infinite tenderness on the one
hand, and also equal to infinite scorn and contempt for
hypocrisy and sham.

THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS. 99

When we recall the brazen haughtiness, the jealous ex-
clusiveness, the false pride, the artificial politenesses, the
hypocritical courtesies, the anti-democratic tendencies in
our modern society, we see the bearing of the sympathy,
the democracy, the love that was in Jesus upon the condi-
tions of our own time. Surely in the light of these de-
plorable characteristics that mark so much of American
society we are forced to the conclusion that "the one thing
needful" to-day is a revival of the sympathy that was in
Jesus.

Come we now, for a moment, to his consecration to a
great life-purpose, the third of the constituent elements of
his spiritual greatness. That life-purpose, you remember,
was to fit men and women for membership in the coming
"Kingdom of Heaven." There could be no grander aim
than that in the first century of our era, or even in our
own time, albeit we do not accept Jesus' belief in the
miraculous establishment of the kingdom. But consider-
ing the thought of his consecrated devotion to a great
purpose, from the standpoint of our modern sociology
and evolution, I, for one, take the ground that there is
more hope for the world in one Jesus with a transcendent
aim like that than in ten thousand men, trained to scien-
tific habits of thought yet without any such transcendent
aim to which their thoughts shall tend.

When we see how many people there are absorbed in
what Emerson called the "pepper-corn aims of life," when
we see the tendency (and especially here in these great
Eastern cities) towards Mammonic interests and ends, —
the worship of Mammon, — when we see how many people
there are perfectly satisfied and contented if only they
have enough to eat and drink; satisfied in providing for
themselves and their families and propagating their kind,
yet without any ulterior life-purpose, then we realize what

lOO THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS.

the consecration of Jesus to a great life-purpose must
mean as an inspiration for the twentieth century in
America. How many men and women there are to-day
that come under the category of those needing the in-
spiration that comes from contemplating the strong conse-
cration to a great life-purpose that was in Jesus! How
many women there are who have time for ''bridge" and
"teas" and no time at all for the great philanthropic and
educational interests that are crying out for recruits!
How many men have time for "poker" and business, but
none for those civic duties from which no man has the
right to excuse himself ! If I understand the teaching of
Jesus, he was in favor of people having a good time, but
also of their manifesting public spirit, civic patriotism,
and a sense of the obligations devolving upon citizens.

The fourth element in his spiritual greatness was trust in
a power higher than himself, trust in "the Heavenly
Father," seated on a throne somewhere behind the blue
sky. That conception of God which Jesus entertained has
been out of date since 1543, when the discovery of Co-
pernicus shattered the Ptolemaic theory of the universe
and the god-idea that was built on that theory. But Jesus,
like all the rest of his contemporaries, inherited and ac-
cepted the Ptolemaic idea of the world, and the Ptolemaic
conception of a localized man-like God. But what con-
cerns us now is not that peculiar, antiquated, outgrown
conception of God which Jesus and his contemporaries
entertained. What concerns us is the spirit of trust that
was attached to that outgrown idea, because that spirit
of trust is just as necessary, just as imperative to-day as
it was 1900 years ago. Without that spirit of trust, —
albeit we cannot any longer attach it to the god-idea that
Jesus held, — without that spirit of trust in some power,
somewhere, somehow, sometime making for justice, truth,

THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS. lOI

right, love; how could we live at all? In the face of all
the iniquities and inequities of our modern life, in the
face of everything that tends to make us gloomy, pessi-
mistic, sceptical, I say we need that spirit of trust in our
lives if we are to give them both balance and peace.

So, then, as I look back over these constituent ele-
ments that make up the real, spiritual greatness of the
historical Jesus, I feel that in each single instance they
have an application, a fitness for the conditions that ob-
tain in our own day, so much so indeed that we may say
to go back to Jesus is to go forward.

Many of the views that Jesus held I find myself unable
to accept. I cannot go with Jesus in his conception of a
miraculously-established Kingdom of Heaven on earth;
I cannot accept Jesus' theory of marriage, or of the fam-
ily, I cannot go with him in his doctrine of wealth, 1
cannot share his attitude towards aesthetic and intellec-
tual pursuits ; but I do find in him an inspiring exemplar
of sincerity, sympathy, consecration and trust, — four great
qualities that can make human life glorious and sublime.
Who of us can contemplate his loyalty to conviction and
at the same time be indifferent to that which is holiest and
highest in ourselves? Who of us can meditate upon his
sympathy for man and then turn a deaf ear to the calls for
sympathy and practical helpfulness that appeal to us from
every side ? Who of us can ponder that devotion to a life-
aim transcendently beautiful, such as was his, and then be
indifferent to the promptings of that inner voice that bids
us live the divine life? Who can recall that deep-seated
trust in the ultimate triumph of truth and right, the reign
of justice and love, and not feel moved to a like peace-
giving trust ?

We hear a great deal in our day about "living a spiritual
life." Considerable vagueness and piousness have gathered

102 THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS OF THE REAL JESUS.

about that phrase ; yet in its essence it is nothing but liv-
ing this very life that Jesus lived, manifesting in our
lesser lives that same spiritual greatness that was revealed
by him. To stand upon our own feet, to exercise a manly
self-reliance, to maintain our own convictions, let the op-
position be what it may, to cultivate the spirit of sympathy
and helpfulness for our fellow-men, and, above all, to be
steadfastly devoted to an ideal life-aim, — that is what we
understand by living a spiritual life. And perhaps no more
beautiful example of it has ever been furnished the world
than that which we see in Jesus.

A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR.

By David Saville Muzzey.

The message that I have to bring is suggested by a
verse in the Old Testament. At a time when Israel was
either luxuriating in short periods of immunity from
danger from the Assyrian, or wildly imploring help from
Egypt or Ashur, living, in either case, from hand to
mouth, on the favors or fears of the moment — one of her
prophets spoke these marvellous words: "Where there is
no vision the people perish."

The attention of the leaders of Israel was constantly
directed to the national, the corporate life of the people ;
but their words of wisdom touch the universal heart, and
are as applicable to the individual as to the group. And
it is a message to the individual that I see this morning in
those same words of the Hebrew prophet: "Where there
is no vision the soul perisheth." Life there may be, phy-
sical and persistent — the reappearance morning after
morning, the sitting down to meals and the rising up
therefrom, the going into one's office, the dictating of let-
ters, the giving and receiving of money, the going back
again to the home, the sleeping and the awaking — that
may go on, even as the sun rises and sets, even as Na-
ture lays off her foliage for the barren winter and re-dons
it in the verdant spring. But, nevertheless, where there
is no vision the man perisheth. For it is not life to exist,
to be entangled in the web of things, to have them "in the
saddle," as Emerson says, and riding us. He alone lives,
at least in spirit, who sees beyond and through that web of
things, and creates a new and growing world from day to
day in his own spirit.

103

I04 A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR.

Nature, so far as it has meaning at all, is spiritual ; and
hence that deep word of the German Fichte, that "nature
is but the objectified material of duty." Point to what
you will about us, the seemingly solid building, the seem-
ingly immortal institution; it all melts and vanishes into
vapor when we search it with the vision of philosophy and
history. What are these buildings, what this material life
about us that holds so many people in subjection, before
which so many are dumb in spirit and blind in soul? Is
it all anything more than the creation, the projection and
objectification of someone's vision? And take away that
vision, and all of our material world would collapse and
lie in the dust, sleeping as deeply as those old crumbled
mounds of Babylon of thousands of years ago. Even an
institution less palpable and apparently more stable— such
an institution as a great church or a great constitution,
the foundation of a free country, like our own democracy
— what is it? Is it something which exists by its own
power, is it something that stands independent of the cre-
ative spirit of man ? To many it is. They do not get be-
hind it all. To many, such things as the institution of the
church or the constitution seem to have no more demon-
strable beginnings than the solar system, or anything else
beyond their reach. They are lost in them, they are
buried in them. They do not see that these things are
created by man for man, by man's spirit, by man's vision.
And unless we have the vision that can penetrate all the
world about us, in its material aspects, in its ideal aspects,
in its institutional, its educational, its commercial, its in-
dustrial and its political aspects, we are to some extent en-
slaved and not yet free. Where there is no vision, where
none of these things is seen and appreciated from the
heights above, the soul within is dead, and the people per-
ish.

A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR. IO5

That has been the burden of philosophers and theolo-
gians, of all thinkers along spiritual lines, ever since we
have record of man's thought. You may go back to Plato
(to go no further) and you will find this thought permeat-
ing all of his wonderful work. He, to be sure, conceived
the problem a little differently than we do; but Plato's
real world of image forms is the real world of impalpable
spiritual forms of which these material forms of earth
are but the shadow, which corresponds exactly to what we
mean when we speak of the spiritual vision of these things.
And man's chief duty has been, since time began, and will
be till the last trump blows, the elevation of himself out
of the material, out of the institutional, out of all cre-
ated things which are his creation, to a place of elevation
above them all, whence he can know them in their becom-
ing and in their out-dying. Thence we may stwiy them
to create newer, better forms and institutions. "Do you
think," said the great French Pascal, "to intimidate me
by pointing to the universe and telling me I am but an
atom in it? I esteem myself the more for the power of
reaching through this universe, atom though I be." This
standing on things, and not lying down under them, is
the power of vision ; that alone is originality, life.

We ought to distinguish very carefully between real
vision, and two things which seem perhaps allied to vision,
but are in reality only caricatures of real vision or in-
sight. I mean, on the one hand, hallucinations, vague
dreamings, and, on the other hand, mere staring at the
actual. Both of these things are constantly confused with
real vision.

Hallucination, or dreaming, to which our adjective
visionary is usually applied, means cutting the lines which
bind us to real things, as one might cut the cords which
bind a balloon to earth, and let it go up. So we say such.

I06 A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR.

and such a philosopher "goes up like a balloon," when he
severs connection with reality. Vision does not mean
that. Of course, it does not mean scorning the surround-
ings, the environments in which we must work. It does
not mean rejecting all forms because they do not fulfil
our requirements. It does not mean despising them, and
setting them aside, as all theories of quietism and asceti-
cism do. All that tends dangerously towards getting us
away from work in the world ; it tends towards releasing
us from the duty which is the very essence of spiritual life.
So I would not despise or minimize environments in
which we have to work. I would not despise my tools;
neither would I let them crush or cut me. I would han-
dle them in fair and fine workmanship. So the power of
vision does not mean dreaming.

Neither, on the other hand, does it mean m"ere obser-
vation. How many men pride themselves on keenness of
observation ! They think they have the seeing eye. Yes,
they see very shrewdly just how things are going; they
see on which side their bread is buttered ; they know what
to do to increase their little pile of money ; they know
what to do to get themselves engineered into this office,
and then into the next. Keen observation, great judg-
ment of their fellowmen, but all on a low, low plane, that
has for its object the satisfaction of desires which will
never refresh man's soul, and never lead him one step
nearer the true heaven of the spirit. Penetration — yes, it
is a good thing. I would not decry it ; we all wish we had
more of it. We should all like to be able to judge our
neighbors rightly and shrewdly and carefully always.
But let us beware of putting that in the place of spiritual
vision; let us beware of thinking that the cultivation of
a keen eye for our advantage in the world can ever lead
us to know the origin or the power of the great forces

I

A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR. 10/

that have given us this magnificent civilization in which
we are Hving and making our fame or our money. There
is something better and higher than that for our aspira-
tion. Our vision is insight, it is not oversight or mere
foresight.

Now, of course, there are many ways in which this
power of insight must affect us, many interests of life
and various problems of life in which we need to have
the power of vision to clarify our judgment. I am go-
ing to speak of only two or three conditions of insight or
vision to-day, that we may, if possible, take with us at the
beginning of the New Year, a few suggestions which may
help us in the weeks to come to regulate, to clarify, to
purify our lives, to' make them more worthy of these in-
dependent, deathless spirits that we bear in us.

In the first place the power of vision is, of course, a
power of imagination. To enjoy true spiritual vision we
must be able to put ourselves in another's place. The
young must learn to feel the feelings of their elders, and
the elders must learn to feel the feelings of their younger
friends. The parent and child must try constantly to ap-
proach each other in feeling, in order that there may be
the deepest harmony of life. And that is an imaginative
power. In order to appreciate our friends, those who
are working on entirely different lines, those whose condi-
tions are entirely different, perhaps distasteful, to us, we
must exercise this power of imagination. We must see
ourselves poor if we are rich, and see our-
selves rich if we are poor; we must see
ourselves toiling with our hands if we are
brainworkers and working with our brains if we are hand-
workers. That power of putting ourselves in another's
place is one of the chief marks of the predominance of the
ideal in us over the material. What differentiates us

I08 A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR.

from the beast, why are we men and women, with these
wonderful spirits, instead of mere machines? Is it not
because the impulses to ideal life and social life in man
predominate; because they check, inhibit and form an
efficient barrier to those other impulses of the deeply
selfish animal life, which are so deep in us? Why is it we
can think, indulging in splendid dreams? Is it not just
because of this power of the ideational life in us that our
insight go.es on, grasping at truth until we reach truth
indeed ? That to me is one of the most inspiring thoughts
in connection with my hope for the millennium and the
brotherhood of man, that everything in us shows the
power and possibility of the evolutionary, ideational life
— the life of vision, of insight. And that, of course, means
that then we shall see our neighbor face to face, and know
as we are known. Our lives shall be open. How covert
they are now ! How little we share that is worth sharing !
How little we know that is worth knowing! Because
those great founts of spiritual insight which are in us all
are clogged.

We need no proof of the ideal power of vision. It is
more real for us at times than anything we call real.
At some moments we live with ourselves in our dying
hour ; at some moments we see ourselves led away to rest
forever. Or we look to a point two thousand or two mil-
lion years hence, and then it is as though we turned the
opera glasses of our spiritual nature on time and brought
it up from the end of eternity before our very eyes.
Then again, turning the glasses the other \^ay, the present
stretches into a million years, and this solstitial moment
in my life becomes pregnant with meaning which shall not
be exhausted throughout eternity. Wonderful, wonder-
ful power that can face time, which entangles the un-
thinking person, rules him, winds him around its finger,

A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR. ICQ

and say, I stand above you, I reach out, I seize you, I dis-
miss you, the future and the future's future, and am still
at the end and over all. Why, have not all the beginnings
of man's inspiration, of his deliverance from his environ-
ment, hinged exactly on his power of insight? How did
science begin? When did man cease to be one of the
things of the world, like the boulder and the brook, the
snake and the tiger, and become master of the things of
the world ? He began to do that when he began to culti-
vate vision, insight; when he began to ask: Who am I,
what am I, and how related ? And by the constant disen-
tanglement of relations, freeing himself, now from one,
now from another of the attributes of things, he became
a man and dominated things. But if this power of the
ideational life stopped merely with the appreciation of the
intellect, which has evoked creations, shaped institutions,
produced the material civilization which we see about us,
it would stop at a very low plane. That is but the pre-
paration of the ground for the sowing of the seed, and
the real import and the real uplift of the theory of vision
is moral. The real significance of insight is moral. The
real life of man is, of course, moral and not intellectual.
The intellect, the power of controlling time and space,
the domination over nature, is but power to be applied to
the cultivation of moral ideals. Insight, or vision for the
New Year, must then be chiefly directed toward moral
uplift and improvement.

In the first place, we must have patience. I think that
perhaps the very first condition of moral vision is pa-
tience. Now patience is one of those words which seem to
me to hang like a lantern above the path of life, shedding
rays in all directions. It is a word of radiating meaning ;
patience — power to endure, power to bear, power to hold
up, power to persevere. It sums up the whole of life. It

no A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR.

has its negative side, and that is the one which is gener-
ally emphasized — the power of endurance. But it also
has its positive side — ^the power of persistence.

Now visions do not come at bidding. We cannot sum-
mon them by a ring of the bell. Sometimes they wait, and
we must wait for them. But the man who is worthy of
insight will cultivate that patience, that power of endur-
ance, and when this vision comes, it will be to him a con-
stant source of inspiration. When I think of the power
of patience in the world, there occurs to me often that
wonderful picture in Dante's "Purgatorio" of the souls
who are making their way up slowly towards the mount
of heaven. Some are weighted down, their backs bend-
ing like giant corbels of some building, supporting the
architrave above. They seem to say, "I can bear no
more." And still they stand and stand, until their burden
is lifted, and they reach the winding way to the summit.
Our burdens are sometimes like that. "The weary weight
of all this unintelligible world" presses upon us, and we
stand like corbels seeming able to bear no more. At other
times they are less striking but no less trying burdens
that we have to bear. We must have patience for the
dreary routine of duty which presses upon us. We must
have patience for the little things of life which often
crowd us. Whether we stagger under a heavy load, or
resist the temptation to be petty and impatient in the
common sense of the word, the standard of perfection,
undemanded by our neighbors, but demanded by our own
soul, will hold us and draw us.

Again, this power of insight gives us great indepen-
dence. Is there anything that our society needs more than
moral independence, the moral conviction in the breast of
the individual that he knows and the determination that he
will do the right? How like a flock of sheep we are!

A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR. Ill

How conforming! Why, even in our pleasures we do
not seem to be able to be independent. Very many of
them we take like persons riding on the top of a tally-ho
coach, who enjoy the thought that others are looking at
them and thinking how much they are enjoying it. And
in our soberer affairs of life, how little true independence !
We must dwell with our own past, and yet we do not give
ourselves the great joy of creating our own future to
dwell with. How unfair to ourselves not to cultivate this
power of vision ! We are forced, no priest ordaining it,
•to sit amid deep ashes of our vanished years, and yet we
do not turn from them and make for ourselves a mighty
everlasting present of spiritual insight. Marcus Aurelius
said: "Thou shalt meet to-day with the busy-body and
the back-biter, with the trivial and the wicked, but thou
canst pursue thine own path."

The sentiment of goods and pleasures which are ours
is unfortunately very often rendered nugatory, by a fool-
ish, jealous sort of apprehension of the superior goods and
pleasures of other people. We think that ours are not so
good. We envy others. We are poor, miserable depen-
dents, when we do that. We ought to know, every man
and every woman of us, that no neighbor of ours can have
anything better than we can have in spiritual vision. For
not by the process of robbing each other, which is often
the way in which the secondary, meager goods of life are
gained, but by the glorious process of sharing with others,
do we cultivate gifts of vision, these great uplifting
gifts of spiritual insight, which by dividing increase, and
by scattering are multiplied.

Finally and most important, it seems to me, this power
of spiritual insight leads us more and more to realize the
community of life. It weaves thicker and better the web
of Hfe. Community of interest has developed justice in

112 A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR.

the world, community of suffering has develoj>ed all the
gentle qualities of our nature, community of joy has de-
veloped strong ties of fellowship. The will relations have
been our real educators. Without them there is no such
thing as progress. The beasts of the field do not progress
because they are not related to each other through will.
The savage progresses little because his will relations are
so crude, so confined to the secondary interests of life.
You may measure the progress of a nation's civilization,
as you may measure the progress of a man's spiritual
vision, by the intricacy and delicacy of will relations ex-
isting between man and man. All history, could we view
it with a purely spiritual eye, would resolve itself into a
network of will relations. And that is what Emerson
meant when he said that the last lesson in life, the lesson
for the graduating minds of life's university is worship,
the recognition of worth. Only as our will relations be-
come more and more complex, more and more identified
with the great scheme of civilized life, which every gener-
ation is making man's life more dependent on the life
of his neighbors, will our spiritual vision be realized in
its highest reaches.

Aristotle, "the master of those who know," said we
must practice immortality. Men do not expect that per-
fection, in any branch of art, or letters, or handiwork, is
to come of a sudden, that they are to wake up and find
themselves musicians, or wood-carvers, or engineers, or
story-writers. They know that long years of toil must go
into these things, they know that they must sweat and
agonize if they are to become artists, experts. And yet
thousands are foolish enough to believe that some turn of
the wheel of fortune is going to bring them happiness,
though they have never sought spiritual insight ; that they
are to wake sometime immortal, having been all their

A VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR. II3

lives mortals. Never! We must practice immortality,
we must work for it, we must be immortal this moment in
our lives, we must live the eternal life every single day,
or we shall never, never find it. No statement of this
universe can be worth a penny that does not give the first
place to spiritual effort. So, through the power of in-
sight (not hallucination, and not the keen, selfish, pene-
trating view of the man of the world), through spiritual
insight, realizing itself in patience, in independence of
soul, and above all in community of effort to realize the
travailling process of social brotherhood and justice, we
must work our way out toward the perfect mount of
vision.

Tomorrow we start on a New Year. The day will not
be much different, the weather report will publish as us-
ual its prognostications, and so far as we can see there
will be no change in this great mass of material things
about us, which so entangle most spirits. But it is our
privilege and inspiring practice, as these times come
around, in the revolving years, to pledge ourselves again
to the life of the spirit, again to mount the way of heaven,
The perfect life becomes clearer and clearer to our spirit-
ual eye.

. . . . "Lo, on the face
Of things there smiles the promise of the time.
But, brothers, we must stand together true.
Forgetting minor things for the great end,
Together we must gain the larger view.
And for the great essentials we must spend
Our daily blood and sweat. If this we do,
This hour is marked in time's eternal trend."

ETHICAL ADDRESSES

TBABLT, $1.00. SIMOXi: NUMBER, 10 CTS.

Vol. XII. No. 1. (September, 1904.)
Is Life Worth Living? William James. Origin and Growth
of the Ethical Movement. Percival Chubb. A Naming
Service. Percival Chubb.

Vol. XII. No. 2. (October, 1904.)
A Modem Scientist's Answer to the Questions: Whence and
Whither? Felix Adler. The Christian Church and the
Ethical Societies. Zona Vallance. A New Statement of
the Aim of the Ethical Culture Societies. Felix Adler.

Vol. XII. No. 3. (November, 1904.)
Ethics in the Schools. The Bible in* the Schools. William
M. Salter.

Vol. XII. No. 4. (December, 1904.)
What It Means to Work for a Cause. Walter L. Sheldon.
The Mission of the Ethical Movement to the Sceptic.
Percival Chubb. The Functions of an Ethical Sunday-
School. John Lovejoy Elliott.

Vol. XII. No. 5. (January, 1905.)
The Ethical and Religious Outlook. James H. Leuba, Dick-
inson S. Miller, Morris Jastrow, Jr. The Ethical Move-
ment in Various Countries. Gustav Spiller.

Vol. XII. No. 6. (February, 1905.)
Shall Ostracism be Used by Religious Societies in the Strug-
gle Against Public Iniquity. Felix Adler. Moral Bar-
barism. Percival Chubb.

Vol. XII. No. 7. (March, 1905.)
Heine: A Soldier in the Liberation War of Humanity.
William M. Salter. The Function of the Festival in
School Life. Percival Chubb. An Ethical Funeral
Service. Percival Chubb.

Vol. XII. Nos. 8, 9, 10. (April, May and June, 1905.)
Moral Aspiration and Song. Edited by William M. Salter.

THE GOOD FIGHT— WITH A CLOSING
WORD.*

By William M. Salter.

It perhaps affects to some extent the way in which we
pass the brief days of our Ufe, how we regard it — in what
vague, general Hght we view Hfe.

In a kind of groping, subconscious way one person
thinks that life is to give pleasure or happiness (in the
ordinary sense of the word), and he or she is accordingly
on the look-out for agreeable, delightful moments, a love
adventure, a happy hour at the theatre or concert, a sum-
mer holiday, a tramp in the mountains, a motoring excur-
sion or what not. These give zest to life, a kind of mean-
ing to an existence that would otherwise be a bit monot-
onous— not to say, dreary.

Another person does not care so much for pleasures as
to be something, somebody in the world. He or she wants
to stand out, to be noticed, spoken of — and the times when
they are recognized, admiringly mentioned, are the times
that count to them, that give a point to aimless days and
bring a blush of satisfaction to their hearts.

Still another does not care for notice, but wants
power — and when he wins a business or political victory,
when he sees his enemies beneath him — this makes him
feel what life is for.

Others still think life at its best and deepest is a search
for truth — and the moments when some obscurity van-
ishes from their field of vision or some puzzling question

*An address before the Society for Ethical Culture, of Chi-
cago, in Handel Hall, December 22, 1907.

115

il6 THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD.

is on the way to being solved are the shining moments in
their consciousness.

So do varying conceptions of Hfe affect us — determine
where we shall put the stress.

Now the conception I propose is that life is essenti-
ally a battle — a war, if you will, and a long one — between
good and evil, right and wrong, and hence that the great
thing is to take a part in it, to line up, and be in some
poor, blundering way a soldier, before our sun sets.

It is a commonplace conception, but our lives would
not be commonplace if we acted on it, if it were really our
dominant view.

Let me explain. I do not believe in any two contending
powers or principles in the universe. Good and Bad,
Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman, God and Satan. I am not a
dualist in religion, as the late Moncure Conway came near
being. All the same what serves in one set of circum-
stances may not serve in another, what was good once
may not be good now, and what at any time is good un-
der control may not be good without control. In other
words, there is nothing absolutely bad — and if every fact
and force in life were as it might be if properly ordered
and adjusted, all would be good. What comes nearest
being bad, what Kant called the only thing in the world
absolutely bad, is the bad will. But will in itself is a good ;
energy, I mean, determination, affirmation ; it is the fount
and spring of life. It is only a certain direction of the
will, something that does not cleave to its essence, that we
call bad. In its essential elements and forces the world
is good, I hold — all that is needed is to order them.

And yet the ordering is no small, but rather an im-
mense task. And here it is that the distinctions and the
battle arise. Evil is the disorderly, the rude, the chaotic

THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD. 11/

in comparison with the order, the adjustment that ought
to be. Consider our passions, our animal instincts, our
lusts — they are what our life is built on ; but the evolu-
tion of life consists in regulating, taming them, in making
reason, and large, impersonal and what we call moral
views conquer and rule them. The good fight is this evo-
lutionary effort — it does not consist in attacking our
nature as if it were mere evil, but in civilizing, refining —
in short, bring order and beauty and harmony into — it.
The real evil is contentment with our rude instincts as
they are — acquiescence, submission — in a word, inertia
and baseness. The battle between evil and good is the
battle between stagnation and progress.

For this is the pathetic thing, the tragic thing — that
sometimes our instincts (this rude creative basis of our
life) do not want to be regulated, they oppose the effort
to adjust and harmonize them — in short, are anarchical.
Hence, in this relative and subordinate sense, comes on a
real war. There has to be veritable conquering — a let-
ting of blood — on one side or the other. Either chaos
or order — there is no other alternative. At the same time
conquering does not mean exterminating ; wise conquerors
in the past have enslaved, used those they conquered —
so here.

In this light I look on progress. It consists in this con-
quering, this making the higher victorious over the lower.
God (or nature) does not make things good to start with
(save in an elementary sense), but good in its higher
meaning is our creation, the result of our effort.

Hence what I call the "good fight." We are by our na-
ture called to it. Man is distinct from the animal in this
respect. The animal has no idea of order, of making
himself over, of perfecting himself, of evolving higher

Il8 THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD.

types of family and social life. That is why he always
remains an animal. It is because man thinks, forms
ideals, strives after a higher, and is capable of progress
that he is a man. Man has advanced — and may advance — •
the species of animals are eternally the same, as perfect
thousands of years ago as they are to-day. We can set
no limits, a priori, to the progress man may make in the
future — we cannot say what he may not evolve, as Ber-
nard Shaw and Nietzsche think, a higher race.

The progressive, conquering, militant spirit is the true
spirit of man. We are not here for momentary pleasure,
not to get notice and applause, not to win selfish power,
not even to get truth as a private possession, but we are
here in this world to fight, to assist by daring and by
lowly faithfulness in making order and reason and beauty
and love triumphant over the chaotic, rampant and un-
regulated elements in life.

A man has a battle with himself — even as a child he
ought to begin it; as soon as reason dawns in him, he
ought to learn and be taught to make it rule — to over-
come brutality, cowardice, deception, stubbornness, slug-
gishness, and all the raw and chaotic in him. I need not
speak of the battles of the good citizen, of every man in
his profession or trade (both to discipline himself and to
elevate the common standards), of the reformer, of the
teacher and preacher. Somewhere or other, in some way
or other, we must fight — and those who do not, those who
loll in the easy chairs of life, those looking for delightful
sensations and all that, do not know what true Hfe is.
Yes, those who strive and are strenuous, but only for per-
sonal ends do not know. Such persons are rather, to this
extent, among the forces and elements that have to be
overcome in the war I speak of. All mere selfishness,

THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD. II9

all individualistic greed and ambition have to be over-
come— the force, energy and will involved in them, trans-
fonned, developed into free service for common ends.

From this general standpoint I view religion. To some
religion means rest and comfort ; to me it means inspira-
tion to battle. It is the sense that this battle is an inci-
dent in the evolution of things, a part of the world order,
that to which you and I are called; the great deep Spirit
of things calls us. Practically, religion is reverence to
that call, yes, heeding it, plunging into the fight, finding
joy in it — and having down in the depths of our being,
though we may not always be aware of them, a peace and
satisfaction that no words can describe. Of course there
are times when we cannot fight, and after a strenuous
fight we may be tired, worn, worn-out if you will; but
that we have fought, and that, if we had strength, we
would fight again — what comfort or what anodyne is
equal to that ! We see old age creeping on those we love,
in time we feel ourselves growing old, we know the end
is ahead for us too — but if we have been true to the high-
est as it came to us, if we have fought not thinking of our-
selves, but of the cause we worked for, we are consoled —
we have a peace within us, which is above all earthly dig-
nities,

''A still and quiet conscience."

That is my conception of religion — ethical religion.
It is the sanctification of the cause of progress in the
world — and the sanctification of ourselves in the service
of that cause. It is identical with truth, with science,
with morality, with reform — and will be more and more,
I hope, with beauty and with joy.

The Ethical Society, so far as I have had a hand in it,
has striven to be a concrete example of such a religion.

I20 THE GOOD FIGHT — WITH A CLOSING WORD.

Like all human things it falls short of its idea. It must
be judged by its intent, not by its performance. We may
be criticised and may deserve to be, we may criticise our-
selves and feel keenly our own shortcomings, but we have
no doubt of the cause of which we are followers and we
lift up our heads and are proud as we think of that.

For about twenty-five years now we have been in existence
and most of the time I have been one of you. As human
things go, and with all just abatements, we have had an
honorable existence. I believe we have made our mark
in the thought and religious life and even the practical
activity of this city. I believe the tone and character of
religious sentiment have been modified, that ideas are
broader, the emphasis more ethical than they might other-
wise have been. And from our District Nursing in the
early days ^ came, at least by way of succession, the pres-
ent Visiting Nurse Association with its larger scope and
resources ; from impulses among our members and par-
ticularly one 2 came the Bureau of Justice and the still
larger work into which that Bureau is now merged ; from
us came the Economic Conferences with their contribution
to larger and clearer thought on social questions; and
from us Henry Booth House. Within limits, fixed by
the moderate talent of your Lecturer and the moderate
abilities and resources of our members, we have been an
energizing force in the direction of better religious
thinking, of higher justice, of more practical love and
philanthropy.

Let me speak briefly of certain landmarks in our his-
tory, which have served to fix our character. In the first
place, and before I came among you, we adopted our

1. The Margaret Etter Creche bears the name of one of our
Nurses.

2. Mr. Joseph W. Errant.

THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD. 121

Statement of Principles and a plan of organization. In
substance these have not changed. Our Principles, how-
ever, have been modified by becoming more positive and
less negative in tone, and our By-Laws by the abolition
of fixed dues, leaving it to the interest and generosity of
each member to fix his own contribution and making it
possible for those who can give very little or even noth-
ing to belong to our number, — in other words, making us
more strictly a religious society and not a club. These
slight changes were made in the early days of
my lectureship. After my return from a few
years' absence other changes were made. One set
forth more clearly, what had always been our under-
standing but now was put in so many words, that we
were a religious society, and stating just what we did and
did not mean by saying so. This was a change in our
Statement of Principles ^ (which had a general, though
slight, revision at the same time 2). Another forward
step was taken in adopting the so-called Zurich pro-

1. For the discussion leading up to this, see The Cause, May,

1897, P- 41.

2. The following is the Statement of Principles of the Chi-
cago Society, as it stands at the present time.

"The general aim of the Society for Ethical Culture is to in-
terpret morality in the light of science, tc give it reverence and
devotion, and to make it a ruling influence in the lives of men._

"i. We recognize the truth that the well-being of the State in
which our interests are so vitally concerned is intimately bound
up with the well-doing of its individual members. We wish in
every possible way to strengthen and deepen the foundations of
virtue in the private heart.

"2. We consider just and rational views of our relation to the
Universe in which we are placed, to be obviously essential to the
proper comprehension of our duty. Where the mental vision is
clouded by mists of superstition no clear conceptions of duty are
attainable. We welcome the light which modern science and mod-
ern thought are bringing in this realm.

"3. The ancient forms of religious belief are undergoing an
inevitable process of change. We approve of and would co-oper-

122 THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD.

gramme or manifesto — a statement drawn up by the lead-
ers of the Ethical movement at large in an International
Conference at Zurich, Switzerland. This programme
was adopted after a discussion continued for three or four
meetings, and with some revision of the original docu-
ment. It serves to set forth our general attitude to some
of the great questions of the day ; it is not a programme
of specific reforms, but of the principles of reform. Any-

ate with all changes which increasing enlightenment and higher
moral standards may require.

"4. As there are general laws governing man's physical life
upon his obedience to which his physical health is dependent, so
there are lav/s, as yet but imperfectly understood, underlying the
life of society, upon obedience to which social security and well-
being depend. The study of these laws is of the highest import-
ance, both for the well-ordering of our own lives, and for en-
abling us to discover the true lines of social advance.

"5. Having constantly before us the spectacle of debasement and
misery resulting from the violation of these laws, often through
ignorance, and realizing how inadequate the methods heretofore
employed to cure these evils have been, as shown by the results,
we feel that a sacred duty rests upon us, while we seek to cor-
rect our own lives in whatever may be amiss, to do all in our
power to help the suffering about us, and to lift society to higher
levels,

"6. While not proposing to teach religion in the sense of a creed
about the supernatural (and as little denying it) we do wish to
teach and to practice religion in the sense of reverence and awe
before the naturally or Divinely appointed laws of life. Morality,
so understood, is the supremely sacred thing to us ; we recognize
it as the comprehensive rule of our lives; it makes our religion.
We accordingly wish to form a 'religious' society.

"7. With these convictions and in response to the solemn ob-
ligations which they impose, we do hereby unite in an association
to be known as The Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago.

"8. Our methods shall include lectures and discussions for
adults and schools for the young, in which our principles shall
be developed, propagated and advanced, and such other means as
experience from time to tim^e may suggest.

'And we do hereby invoke the co-operation of all who earnest-
ly think and feel with us, sincerely trusting that our union may
become an instrument of lasting good to the community in which
we live and may at all times faithfully serve the best interests of
mankind."

THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD. I23

one who reads our Statement of Principles and this so-
called "Ethical Manifesto" (printed in No. 2 of our
''Ethical Leaflets" 1 ) will see that the Ethical Society has
a distinct character in the religious and social world — has
its own die or cast.

And now after extended service among you and the re-
newal of several terms, my present term expires January
first, and it seems to me better that it should not be re-
newed. In a matter so vital, at least to me, I am ready
to speak with the utmost plainness and simplicity. The
change is better for me and for you — excuse my putting
myself first. I confess I have a deep desire for studies

I. The manifesto reads as follows :

"I. The aim of the Ethical Societies is to elevate the moral life
of their members and of the community. The better moral life
is not merely a gift that we wish to bring to others ; it is a good
that we must strive after with unremitting effort for ourselves. At
the same time we can never be content to think of ourselves
alone, but must strive to lift the whole community to higher
levels.

"W'c understand by 'the moral life* the aim and, effort to serve
the welfare of all.

"II. We recognize that morality obliges us to take an interest
in the great social questions of the day, and believe that Ethical
Societies should further the cause of social progress.

"(a) We hold that the efforts of the masses of the people to
obtain a more humane existence, imply a moral aim of the great-
est importance, and we consider it our duty to second these efforts
with all possible earnestness and to the full extent of our ability.
We believe, however, that the evil to be remedied is not only the
material need of the poor, but that an evil hardly less serious is
to be found in the moral need which exists among the wealthy,
who are often deeply imperiled in their moral integrity by the
discords in which the defects of the present industrial system in-
volve them.

"(b) We acknowledge that resistance to injustice and oppres-
sion is a sacred duty, and that under existing circumstances con-
flict is still an indispensable means in clearing up conceptions of
justice and in the attainment of better conditions; but we de-
mand that the struggle be kept within humane limits, and that it
be conducted in the interest of the community as a whole, and
with continual reference to ultimate social peace.

"(c) We maintain that in the solution of the so-calltd labor

124 THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD.

for which I have no leisure in this work. The multi-
farious cares of leadership of a society in a metropolis
like this — and perhaps all the more so because ours is a
small and struggling society — leave me no leisure. My
strength is drained by what I have to do — and my intel-
lectual cravings go unsatisfied. My summers are tanta^
lizing ; after I am rested, I see what I might do and know
I cannot do it. I undoubtedly have a double self; one
that loves preaching and one that loves the still severe air,
in which thoughts of preaching have no place — in which

problem the question is one not only of the material necessities
of the laborers, but of their social and legal status, and of their
full participation in the highest results of civilization, science and
art.

"(d) We expect of the organs of the Ethical Federation that
they will endeavor to provide, so far as they are able, intellectual
armor to serve in the social struggle — by this, we mean, the pub-
lication of careful, scientific treatises, which shall have for their
object to ascertain whether the positions of individualism and so-
cialism are not susceptible of being united in a deeper philosophy
of life; further, statistical investigation to show, with the impres-
siveness of facts, how profoundly our present conditions are in
need of reform, and furthermore, to see to it that the results thus
obtained shall be spread far and wide, so that the public conscience
may be developed in the direction of a higher social justice.

"(^) We leave it to the several Societies, according to the
particular circumstances of the countries to which they belong,
to carry out the above general purpose in particular ways ; but we
especially call upon all the members of the various Societies, in
their individual capacity, to promote the progressive social move-
ment of the times by simplicity in the conduct of life and by the
displiy of an active public spirit.

"III. We recognize the institution of the marriage of one
man and one woman as a priceless possession of mankind, and
we demand an equal standard of morality in this respect for men
and ^\omen.

"IV. (a) We demand for woman opportunity for the fullest
development of her mental and moral personality, and realizing
that her personality is of equal worth with that of man, we pledge
ourselves as far as we are able, to secure the recognition of this
equality in every department of life.

"(b) We recognize that the economic independence of woman
is a condition towards which society is tending, but we protest

THE GOOD FIGHT — WITH A CLOSING WORD. 1 25

one only wants to know, to know the essence and core of
things. Whether for weal or woe (and that of my fam-
ily), I am determined to cut loose and satisfy my mind.
Surely I love to preach — ^to guide, to help, to inspire)
when the numbers who come to our meetings are consid-
ered, you or anyone might say that I must love preaching
very much — sometimes I think if I am in touch with only
one soul, I am satisfied ; but I have the other love, too —
the other deep, ineradicable desire. Sometimes I put it
this way : I have been trying to save others — now I want

against the conditions which force into industrial life mothers
of young children and women physically unable to meet the re-
quirements of that life.

"V. We hold it to be a fundamental task of our age to give
to the educational system the unity which it has in no small
measure lost through the disintegration of old-time religious
creeds and the division of the community into sects, by making
the promotion of a common, ethical purpose the end of all edu-
cation,

"VI. (a) We heartily appreciate the efforts being made to
bring about universal peace among the nations, and we w^ould con-
tribute our share towards the success of these efforts by inward-
ly overcoming the military spirit, by endeavoring to counteract
the attraction that military glory exerts on the minds of the
young, and by seeking to provide that the ethically valuable ele-
ments which the military system contains may find expression in
nobler and worthier forms.

"(t>) Furthermore we would oppose that national egotism and
national passion which at the present day are just as dangerous
foes of peace as are the prejudices and interests of the governing
classes ; and in times of excitement and of political hatred we
will exert ourselves in conjunction with others who think as we
do, to compel attention to the voice of reason and conscience.

"VII. We ask our Ethical Societies not only to direct their
attention toward the outward extension of the movement,^ but
to devote their utmost energy to the building up of a new ideal
of life, which shall correspond to the demands of enlightened
thinking, feeling and living, confident that such an ideal for which
mankind is thirsting will in the end be of equal profit to all classes
and to all nations."

I have to confess that no other American Ethical Society has
adopted the Zurich manifesto (in substance identical with the
above, or even discussed it at length, so far as I am aware.

120 THE GOOD FIGHT — WITH A CLOSING WORD.

to save myself. And perhaps ultimately I may be able to
help others better by doing this. I hope so.

And yet I should go with a heavy heart did I not think
the change would be better for you, too. I feel keenly
my inadequacy. I should hardly have thought of
coming to a place like Chicago, had not now nearly twen-
ty-five years ago Dr. Adler (in a way) sent me. I am, I
trust, earnest, but perhaps more of a scholar or rather
student than a leader of men. Before now I should have
given way, had anyone been in sight to take my place — I
have kept on to hold the fort and keep the flag flying; I
would not and could not desert. But the situation is dif-
ferent now. Speakers have come forward, who speak
to greater effect than I can — I need only mention such
men as Prof. Schmidt and Prof. Zueblin. No one of
them may be able to give us all his time ; but together they
and others like them may fill the platform for the year,
giving a varied interest, as one lecturer cannot do, at-
tracting a wider, more varied, constituency, and building
up in time, I am confident, a larger society, making it
stronger in almost every way — even for its practical work.
There is possible, I mean, now a staff of lecturers, who
can actually do better than I or any one lecturer can do,
unless he is an extraordinary man. I am not talking in
the air. I am thinking of the experience of our Phila-
delphia Society. It does better now without me, than it
did with me. The Sunday meetings have doubled or
rather trebled in size, the membership has increased, there
are one hundred and fifty and more in the Sunday Chil-
dren's Classes and recently the Society has launched an en-
terprise like Henry Booth House. But it has no lecturer;
various speakers, and now a selected few, occupy the plat-
form. Mr. Weston as counselor and director has been in-

THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD. 1 27

valuable; but the results of his experience are available
for all, and we can profit by them even if we haven't a
Mr. Weston among ourselves.

In this, my parting word, I want above all to show you
the outlook I have. I should like, if I may be allowed to.
to suggest a sort of programme and policy that you may
follow. Whether you do follow or no is of course for
you to say — but I fully believe that if you do you will
gradually go to greater and greater success in all your
undertakings — and I want to persuade you ; it is my last
privilege as a leader.

The basis of the programme is this Staff of Lecturers
proj ect. It does not mean- that you may not some day
find one man whom you would like to have your sole lec-
turer again : it is a working arrangement for the pres-
ent and you may find it the best for always. I have spok-
en of Prof. Schmidt and Prof. Zueblin; Miss Jane Ad-
dams has also consented to go on such a staff; I believe
Mr. John Graham Brooks, of Cambridge, would; and
there are men in New York, new additions to our forces
there, of striking promise. I would suggest that these
lecturers give each from two to six lectures during the
year. An occasional single lecture might be given by
some other person ; but the staff would give solidity, char-
acter, continuity to the platform. It goes without saying
that they should stand for our ideas, our spirit, whether
technically members of any local Ethical Society or not.
One in aim, each should speak freely his own special
views. Unity, not uniformity should be the ideal ; variety
would make a part of the interest and charm of the new
programme.

Secondly, let our Ethical classes for children and young
people be continued. There are few more cheerful sights

128 THE GOOD FIGHT — WITH A CLOSING WORD.

than those we have. Those who feel blue should see Misa
Seifert's little group of thirty to forty children on the
North Side — or see Miss Stafford's class of young wo-
men. Many of you do not know what is going on in the
Society. There should be more neighborhood classes —
they are the only kind to try for in this big city. And
they only wait for leaders, organizers. May the leaders
arise ! — I believe under the new programme they will.

Thirdly, let the organization of the women of the So-
ciety go on — though I do not need to say "let," for it will
go on any way. It seems to be almost the livest single
thing in the Society. Its help, particularly in the prac-
tical work of the Society, has been invaluable.

And let the Monthly Conferences of the Society go on
-—there topics of the day should have the freest discussion
among the members. It only needs some energy and
forethought and planning to make them always the suc-
cess they have sometimes been.

And further, let the public, philanthropic work of the
Society, Henry Booth House go on! It is one of the
distinguishing marks of the Ethical movement from ordi-
nary liberal societies (or was when it started) that it is
not a platform or pulpit or school or place for discus-
sion merely. The first cry of Dr. Adler now over thirty
years ago in New York was "to work !" "Not the Creed,
but the Deed!" Thereby he marked off the Ethical So-
ciety from other liberal organizations that met for preach-
ing or contemplation merely. It was this note that at-
tracted young men like Dr. Coit, Mr. Westort, Mr. Shel-
don and myself to Dr. Adler — and made Unitarian
churches and Free Religious movements seem tame. We
wanted to put these fine ideals of human brotherhood into
some practical earthly shape — we wanted to preach louder

THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD. I29

by what we did than by any talk. The New York So-
ciety was then a kind of bee-hive of measures and re-
forms— free kindergartens, manual training, district nurs-
ing, co-operative experiments, tax reforni, model tenement
houses and so on. When I came to Chicago, we started
at once District Nursing for the sick poor — our members
and the outside public generously supporting me. And
soon after I returned from Philadelphia, we inaugurated
Henry Booth House, partly with the idea that in work
of this peculiar sort a large number of our members could
take part, and also that it was better to cover one dis-
trict thoroughly than to spread ourselves all over the
city. We might have undertaken something else, but we
undertook this and have carried it on with increasing
success for now some eight or nine years ; the only thing
is to go on with it. The work is now housed and equipped
and manned as never before ; in all manner of helpfulness
it is interweaving itself with the life of the neighborhood ;
it is a subtle elevating, civilizing, humanizing influence
among hundreds, I might say thousands, of people. It is
withal a happy, cheerful place ; I should have been alto-
gether happy could I have had my family while I have
been in residence there — ^and it seems to me that the peo-
ple of the Society whom I meet there (the residents and
the many more who come to work) are about the happiest
people in the Society. If one has the blues one should
go to live or to work there. Go on with Henry Booth
House — and be proud to help carry its burdens as those
of every part of the Society that normally belongs to it.

Such is my programme, not a great one — a very small
one compared to what is being carried out in the parent
Ethical Society in New York — but one suited to our re-
sources and abilities at present. The practical point is to

130 THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD.

find a few men and women, earnest, determined, with a
bit of courage and enthusiasm in them, to lead in carrying
it out. There is nothing impossible in it — nothing even
involving strain, unless some make strain for others. I
speak guardedly and with no disrespect to my old Phila-
delphia friends, when I say there is more strength here
than there was in the Philadelphia Society when I left it.
But you have got to believe in your resources, and the
thing is to find a few who will take the lead in believing,
and commit the Society's direction to their hands. A
dozen such people can surely be found, or if not twelve,
then nine, or six, and the board of directors or trustees
should be entirely made up of them. If one cannot take
the affinnative attitude in the present situation, he should
not be on the board. I look to the few natural leaders be-
coming known to you somehow and to your committing
the direction of things to their hands at the approaching
Annual Meeting. I hope they will be women as well as
men, for in this age of the world true progressive causes
give a place to woman and they need woman — for work,
and for counsel, too.

And yet I have spoken up to the full limit of my privi-
lege in saying all this. I can only tell you, friends, that
I have felt my responsibility while I have been your lec-
turer in the past, and I cannot now throw off my responsi-
bility— cannot till I leave you January first, and I feel it
almost my duty to the Society and its members whom I
love, to show this way out, this way on. I hear some of
you — a very few, I think, — are dubious. They say they
care for me, but not for the cause. I only beg them to re-
member that they hardly care for me at my deepest and
best, if they do not care for the cause. The Ethical So-
ciety is a poor human thing and full of faults, but is it the

THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD. I3I

only thing in this city that stands for the cause as I have
defined it, and as it is set forth, articulated, in our State-
ment of Principles and so-called Ethical Manifesto. If
you do not carry on this organization, you unwittingly
go so far in undoing what I have worked for all these
years. Surely I have not been speaking to divert myself
or to divert you, but to engage and to engage you in a
fight, which is far above our personal interests or satis-
factions for the time, and which calls for pennanent or-
ganization to carry it on. Stay by this little society, and
make it a bigger and stronger society — ^that is the best
parting gift or assurance any of you can make to me.

Others among you are perhaps tired. They have worked
hard and .long — sometimes without due appreciation; they
have borne the burden and heat of the day — and wish for
rest. I honor them — one in particular to whom it has
fallen to do a task that is generally thankless in societies
like ours — a prosaic and yet absolutely indispensable task
(those who have read Shaw's "Major Barbara" will know
what I mean), the task of raising money — money which
some aflfect to despise, yet is the prime necessity of hu-
man life and of all human organizations. To him and to
the other workers who have stood by me through thick
and thin during these last ten years, who have whether
encouraged or discouraged stuck fast and fought a good
fight, I wish to give this public meed of praise. If they
want rest, they have earned it. Fresh blood will be forth-
coming, let us not doubt it. As a German poet puts it in
a glorious little song which I will not attempt to trans-
late:

"Und wo immer miide Fechter
Sinken im muthigen Strauss,

Es kommen frische Geschlechter
Und kampfen es ehrlich aus."

132 THE GOOD FIGHT — WITH A CLOSING WORD.

A word to those who are near us but not of us. For
various reasons, old associations, memories, perhaps a Ht-
tle timidity, you hesitate to join us. And yet progress
always depends in this world upon those who leave a good
for a better, who go where their highest soul belongs.
If your intellect is' satisfied here as it is not in ordinary
religious organizations, if your best moral ideals are re-
flected, if you go away feeling your conscience touched,
why, do the brave, honest thing and join us. We need
you, and believe me, in a way, you need us — the dignity
and honor of common labor with us. Henry Fourth of
France said to one of his courtiers, "Hang yourself, brave
Crillon, we fought at Arques and you were not there."

And now as I give this last address as the lecturer of
the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago (for Dr. Ad-
ler speaks next Sunday) I think of past years, and wish,
dear friends and comrades, that you and I together might
have made them better years — better for us both. Yet so
far as my public teaching goes, I have no re-
grets. I have spoken straight what I thought
and I regret nothing. I believe I have been right in
the main contentions of my career, — in agitating for Eight
Hours, against the wholesale sentence on the "Anarch-
ists," for the right of Labor to organize, for what as far
back as 1885 I called "Rational Socialism," against An-
archy in every shape, whether of working man or busi-
ness man, for industrial Arbitration, for Profit-sharing,
for Co-operation, for the cause of Woman, for the Negro,
for the Children in our factories and shops, (for the In-
come Tax, against the Russian Treaty making America
an accomplice in Russia's barbarism, for President Cleve-
land in his attitude to England in the Venezuelan case ^ )

On these questions I took my stand in Philadelphia.

THE GOOD FIGHT WITH A CLOSING WORD. I33

for the essential principles of the Single Tax, for the war
to liberate Cuba, against the war to subjugate the Phil-
ippines. I retract nothing. I repent nothing. And you
have always left me free — free to speak and to act. (The
only time about which there could be a question was when
an issue was raised that was involved in misunderstand-
ing.^) And I, on these special questions have never
sought to commit you — the only apparent exception being
in relation to resolutions about the Philippines — the move-
ment for which originated not with me but with some
members who were stirred by my lecture on "Imperial-
ism." 2

These past years have indeed been strenuous, but they
have been sweet to me. I have formed ties that will con-
tinue while life continues. I have been glad to serve you,
I have made no sacrifices — sacrifice made willingly, out
of love, is no sacrifice. I would do everything I have done
again — except that I might perchance be wiser, at times,
and might wish that I could be stronger, plow deeper.

But courage, friends, that is my last word. Not fare-
well, but courage ! Let it not be said of any of you that
you shirked a call of duty, that you slunk from any field
in advance, that you damned a cause by declining to ven-
ture for it.

Go ahead and fight out the battle on which you have
entered. Continue the honorable traditions of the Ethical
Society in this community. Continue to keep a home

1. The issue was whether I and the Head-worker at Henry-
Booth should be free to help any set of struggling working peo-
ple in our neighborhood to organize. Some thought this com-
mitted the Society to Trade Unionism. To my mind the ques-
tion was simply one of freedom. News Letter (Chicago) Feb-
ruary, March and April, 1907.

2. See The Cause, March and October, 1899.

134 THE GOOD FIGHT — WITH A CLOSING WORD.

here for the free mind of man and for his higher soul.
Continue to hold up standards of conscience, to inspire the
individual and society alike with their duty. Continue
to breed shame for mean and unholy things. Fight for
the Ethical Society, as an instrument, an example of the
one great holy cause. The end will justify you and on
the way, now, in the midst of your efforts and struggling,
a strange joy will sometimes come over you.

THE VALUE OF ETHICAL
ORGANIZATION.*

By Charles Zueblin, University of Chicago.

The nineteenth century produced both philosophy and
movements of great significance in the furthering of the
higher Hfe of organized society. The revolt against eigh-
teenth century formalism and conventionality, which was
expressed in the ramifications of the romantic movement,
included the reaction against pietism in the Methodist
revival of the eighteenth century and the ritualistic move-
ment of the nineteenth; the Gothic revival with, on the
one hand, its protest against the formal, unenthusiastic,
pseudo-classic, and on the other, the constructive social
philosophy of Walter Scott, Pugin and Ruskin ; the "re-
turn to nature" of Rousseau and the destructive criticisms
of Voltaire; the "illumination" in Germany and the fer-
tilizing forces of the philosophies of Goethe, Kant and
Hegel ; and, not least, the political revolutions in America
and France and the industrial revolution in Great Britain.

After this creative ferment it was logical that the nine-
teenth century should witness constructive agencies lay-
ing new foundations on the ground cleared of ancient
formulas, dogmas and shibboleths. Among these per-
haps the most significant are non-theological ethics, evo-
lution and sociology.

Theology dies hard, but it is periodically robbed of its
authority. It then readjusts itself to the changed limi-
tations with renewed vitality. The greatest advances in

*An address at the closing meeting of the American Ethical
Union, Carnegie Hall, New York, Sunday, May 12, 1907.

136 THE VALUE OF ETHICAL ORGANIZATION.

modern times in theological speculation and biblical criti-
cism are due to theology's being shorn of its dominion
over morality. A greater social gain, however, is the
emancipation of ethics. The harmony of ethical systems
is incomplete but the service of ethics is vastly enriched
by the substitution of social utility for theological sanc-
tion. A new social dynamic is found in the conception
that man's chief activities are to be devoted to the im-
provement of this world rather than preparation for an-
other. A corollary, satisfactory even to the theologian,
is that life in any other world is determined only by ser-
vice in this. Thus far is non-theological ethics trium-
phant over the historic theologies.

The interpretative value of the doctrines of organic
evolution is equally important to the furtherance of the
interests of the higher life. The modern point of view
is not only illuminated by the study of human origins
and processes, but furnishes the key to social responsi-
bility by the application of the laws of development. As
Drummond says, "Man must now take charge of evolu-
tion, even as hitherto he has been the one charge of it."
Thrown by non-theological ethics on his own resources
he finds in the teachings of evolution a safer guide than in
the spasmodic creations and inspirations of the old cos-
mogony. He finds in natural, sexual and artificial selec-
tion the means of transforming not only social institu-
tions, but human nature itself, in defiance of the ancient
enervating doctrine that the frailty of human nature and
original sin are immutable. The inevitable consequence
of the revelations of organic evolution was the birth of
sociology.

This third product of the nineteenth century suffers,
not only from the spontaneous protest of those to whom

THE VALUE OF ETHICAL ORGANIZATION. 1 37

doctrines of social transformation are repugnant, because
inconvenient, but also from the deliberate apposition of
the pseudo-scientists, trained in the intellectual atmos-
phere of theological and pre-evolutionary philosophies.
To these muse be added the handicap of its exponents who
often utilize it for half-baked projects of social reform,
dictated by enthusiastic but untrained minds, or who ob-
scure its social value by labored scrupulousness to be more
exact than a science of human wants and motives ever
can be. There is too great justification for the definition,
paraphrased from a famous description of metaphysics,
which declares sociology to be "the science of telling peo-
ple the things they already know in ways which they
cannot understand." Nevertheless, non-theological ethics
and evolution make the science of the satisfaction of hu-
man wants inevitable. As its conclusions become estab-
lished in wide research it will cease to be speculative or
controversial and become constructive and dynamic.

These products of nineteenth century thought incorpor-
ated the moral ideal in sundry ethical organizations, of
which the most representative are positivism, ethical cul-
ture and socialism. Every extension of the intellectual
horizon is fertile in new religious movements. The emo-
tional temperaments are caught by soul satisfying sects
like Methodism, Swedenborgianism, the Salvation Army
or Christian Science, while the exaggeration of material-
ism produces secularism and new thought, of mysticism,
theosophy.and oriental cults. The sounder basis furnish-
ed by a knowledge of human needs has produced positiv-
ism, the worship of humanity ; ethical culture, the fellow-
ship of humanity ; socialism the organization of humanity.

Auguste Comte's religion of humanity has not been
a success, but his followers have been a noble band of

138 THE VALUE OF ETHICAL ORGANIZATION.

humanitarians, enriching sociology and social reform.
The worship of humanity has satisfied neither theist nor
atheist, but it is a lofty conception, not without value to
the race. More impersonal than ancestor worship, more
unselfish than the religions of reincarnation, it has served
to emphasize the worth and immortality of humanity. A
religion founded on science, emphasizing the process of
development from the theological, through the meta-
physical to the positive and devoted to the service of hu-
manity, it is the very embodiment of non-theological eth-
ics, evolution and sociology. The abstractions of Comte,
however, have not become popular, although the novels of
George Eliot and the essays and activities of Frederic
Harrison are invaluable.

The founder of the Ethical Culture movement would
probably not admit that fellowship is its goal, but he was
the first to demand union for moral action regardless of
profession of faith. It is not expected that Societies for
Ethical Culture should undertake the organization of hu-
manity, but they provide a meeting place for the lovers
of their kind, whose actions and aspirations are guided by
the moral ideal. The movement is numerically insigni-
ficant, but as a type of the indispensable religious fellow-
ship of the democratic future it is prophetic. If men and
women of varied traditions, differing gladly and profitably
in their intellectual conceptions, but united by a moral
purpose, can organize disinterestedly in the service of
humanity, it can only strengthen their fellowship as a
basis of the common life.

The organization of humanity can be effected only by
the state, which alone represents all human interests in
any area. Every human being, with his activities and
hopes, is the concern of the state. No human being has

THE VALUE OF ETHICAL ORGANIZATION. 1 39

a life which he can call his own apart from the state.
Hence, the force which undertakes the organization of
humanity must utilize the state. Socialism proposes to
extend indefinitely the bounds of the democratic state.
It is easy to think of state socialism as a merely political
movement. As such it is unsatisfying to orthodox social-
ists, who find in collectivism an economic system and a
materialistic philosophy. Whether viewed politically or
economically, it must not be overlooked that a fervor of
moral idealism pervades the movement ; that however vain
its dreams it is the only contemporary, organized effort
to secure absolute justice for all; that its parish being the
world, the state is simply a unit; and that the interna-
tional organization of the workers of the world, if it could
be accomplished, would become shortly the organization
of humanity.

These three movements, so widely divergent, are
among the joint products of non-theological ethics, evolu-
tion and sociology. They are all extra-ecclesiastical, if
not anti-theological. Their common source is the im-
perfect organization of society; their motive power the
service of humanity.

Positivism has had its day, ethical culture still illumi-
nates the way, but the future seems to belong to some
form of socialism. If the democratic state is at all to re-
alize the dreams of collectivism and to avoid the dangers
pointed out by the critics of socialism, it will be by the
organization of its ethical forces in harmony with its
other elements. The function of an ethical organization
is not to produce a sect of perfectionists or furnish the
consolations of revealed religion, but rather the Fabian
policy of helping to moralize church and politics, educa-
tion, the press and industry — in short, life. This it can

I40

THE VALUE OF ETHICAL ORGANIZATION.

accomplish only by the co-operation of those who unite
their diversities of personality and conviction in the fel-
lowship of the moral life. For such an organization there
will be need in any society.

L

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM*

By David Saville Muzzey.

Every civilization is a compromise. Association in
any enterprise whatever, political or social, religious or
secular, international or parochial, is possible only by the
abatement of some part of somebody's interests or choice.
The human will, unchastened by the salutary attrition of
fellow-wills, is a tyrannous titanic force, which moves
straight to its goal, and grows surer of its own infallibility
the longer its period of immunity. It ends in anarchy.
Society, which is the antithesis of anarchy, exists only by
the restraint and balance of the individual wills ; and the
more deHcate the civilizing influences of science, letters,,
and intercourse have made the balance, the more stable
tends to be the form of society conditioned thereby. We
need not at all assent to Rousseau's fanciful theory of the
origin of human society in the deliberate, contractual sac-
rifice of the untamed individual will to the general wel-
fare, if we still recognize that the amelioration, yes, even
the bare continuance of human society at the level at-
tained, does actually depend on just such a sacrifice.

Probably not a decade of the world's history nor a
corner of the world's surface has ever been free from
men or women who have been convinced that the sacrifice
was vain. Probably for tens who have registered their
protest, or devised a remedy, thousands have lived in
baffled rebellion, and died in baffled resignation. Eight

*A lecture given before the Women's Conference of the Society
for Ethical Culture of New York, and printed by the special re-
quest of the Conference.

141

142 THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

centuries ago Omar Khayyam launched his impotent
challenge :

"Ah, love! could thou and I with fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits — and then
Remould it nearer to the heart's desire !"

Twenty-three centuries ago Plato dreamed of a society
in which men should turn from the black shadow-pictures
on the walls of their prison house, and face sunlit reality.
And for aught we know, twice twenty-three centuries
before the ancient records of clay tablet and papyrus,
men were compounding panaceas for the ills of their
doomed society, or embracing the mild protest of monas-
tic retirement.

The thoughtful and historical-minded to-day will not
marvel at the unrest in our society, or seek to drown the
voices of discontent by raising in counter-clamor that
most inappropriate word of all the world to raise in
clamor, "Peace! Peace!" Each man and woman among
us, according to the light vouchsafed to each, should
purify his political and social vision, and do his part to
purge from the body social those hideous superstitions
and sanctioned malefactions whose combined power has
wrought the tragedy of history.

We are face to face, in our stiate of the opening twen-
tieth century, with conditions of the utmost gravity. A
combination of factors, all good in themselves — unsur-
passed wealth of natural resources, long years of peace,
miraculous multiplication of labor-saving inventions,
space-mocking engines of transportation, giant intellects
of organization, and giant hands of direction — has resulted
in a situation critical in the extreme. Why ? Because the

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. I43

economic and material vigor of our country has outrun
its political wisdom and its ethical warnings. Because the
unit of production has grown until it has not only burst
the geographical, mechanical, industrial bonds of a gen-
eration ago, but threatens to shatter the political and
moral framework of our democracy as well. We read
that Mr. Morgan, beside his chain of ten or a dozen banks,
controls industries capitalized at $4,700,000,000 — an
amount of wealth greater than the total valuation of the
thirteen American Colonies at the time of the Revolution,
greater than the combined wheat, corn, and live-stock
trade of our country to-day. And Mr. Morgan is only one
— primus inter pares — among the group of financial At-
lases on whose broadcloth shoulders this free government
seems to rest. These men have their emissaries in our
halls of congress ; their agents control our press ; they ap-
pear, in the majestic calm of the gods of old, theophanic,
ex-machina — and, pouring out a few tens of millions like
oil, they soothe the turbulent waves of the stock-pit ; they
fix the price of our meat and drink, our clothing and shel-
ter ; and to them our elected magistrates run to ask their
favor that this government may live !

To some robustly optimistic minds this triumph of in-
dustrial concentration is altogether a good and wholesome
thing. Perhaps the most remarkable expression of eco-
nomic "stand-pattism" is the recent book of Chancellor
James R. Day, of Syracuse, The Raid on Prosperity.
Chancellor Day deprecates the raid. He warns a sensa-
tion-loving and meddlesome government not to endanger
the progress of the greatest age in all history. He scorns
the regulator and the trust-buster. Hear some of his
sentiments :

"Millions have taken the place of hundreds of thousands as a

144 THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

measure of wealth. Billions will displace millions before the cen-
tury closes .... The man who is shouting himself hoarse
over trusts and corporations and swollen fortunes will take his
place in history with the men who smashed Arkwright's loom and
Whitney's cotton-gin, and the pamphleteers who ridiculed Steph-
enson's locomotive .... The poor man owes more to cor-
porations than to any other commercial force for his opportunity
to work at good wages, or to work at all, for that matter. Let
those who hate the corporations go back to the canal-boat, the
little railway, the stage-coach, and a dollar a day wage."

So admiration for the strong men who have thrown
bands of steel across our continent, and gathered the har-
vests of half a world in their arms, takes hold of many a
mind that sees in the protest of the soberest constitution-
ality or sincerest conviction at best only the short-sighted
policy of obstruction to our swelling columns of exports,
and at worst the hateful, envious shriek of confiscation
and class war.

No less proud of the splendid achievements of our in-
dustrial age, but far less confident in the wisdom of the
present management of our great industries is a large
class of men, our President in the lead, who look to gov-
ernment regulation as the panacea for fevered economics.
They would bring the trusts to book — the statute-book.
By commissions, investigating committees, federal prose-
cutions, enormous penalties, they would curb the spirit
of lawless gain, and persuade the lion of the Montana
forest to lie down in peace beside the lamb of Wall
Street. To the robust optimism of the stand-patters these
apostles of government regulation seem like mischievous
meddlers ; they destroy confidence, reduce our prestige
in the eyes of Europe, side-track thousands of freight
cars within stone's throw of the grain and cotton they
should be moving, and drive the already meagre supply
of currency into barren vaults, strong-boxes, and stock-
ing-toes. To another class of critics the regulators seem

I

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. I45

rather stupid than deliberately unwise, in their hope to
stamp out the disease of economic dropsy by strengthen-
ing and protecting all the evils on which it feeds — high
tariffs, monopolistic franchises, corporation banking, pri-
vate ownership of the sources and tools of production,
artificial markets, and all the manifold ills of the capital-
istic regime. As well, say these critics, put a wooden
dam across the Mississippi and open a thousand fresh
springs at its sources.

So we have a third class of men who look with the ut-
most anxiety on the capitalistic usurpation, and with utter
misgiving on the power, or even the ultimate will, of our
government as at present constituted to dethrone the
usurpers. Their remedy is nothing less than a complete
reorganization of society — a new earth. Their dirge of
warning is at the same time a pean of thanksgiving; for
the cruel regime which allows a few to revel in wanton
luxury while the millions are being pushed closer and
closer to the starvation line, is to be swept away. The
ballot is in the hands of the oppressed. Economic pen-
nilessness will wake to its political omnipotence. It will
rise and assert its strength ; and, although in its first clash
with entrenched capitalism it will set in motion a battle
beside which all other revolutions of history will look
like a storm in a glass of water, and although for a while
"the extreme medicine of state will," in Burke's vivid
phrase, "become its daily bread" — yet the end will be
peace. A new society, disposing of its own boundless
resources for the good of all, producing for use and not
for profit, enjoying life instead of fighting on the one
side to sustain it and on the other side to accumulate the
millions that turn its enjoyment into the gall of bitter-
ness. The men who look for this radical transformation

146 THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

of society are called Socialists, and the various programs
by which they hope to bring it to pass, or according t5
which they see it inevitably developing, are called So-
cialismr

No word in the English language, not even religion
itself, is harder to define than socialism. It is a perfectly
colorless word. According to its etymology every man
who believes in a society of human beings — every man,
that is, above the lowest savage — is a socialist. Yet per-
haps no other word has no rapidly acquired a sinister
meaning. The socialist is commonly believed to be a
violent, envious, ignorant, lazy man, who prefers to di-
vide up the wealth others have accumulated rather than
to earn his own living. In the jingle of Ebenezer Elliott,
"the Corn-law Rhymer:"

"What is a Socialist? One who is willing
To give up his penny and pocket your shilling."

But this epigram we shall agree, with a little reflection,
is quite as apt to characterize the capitalist. The unfor-
tunate qualities of envy, indolence, and greed are too
widespread to be the distinct property of any school or
party. And it is to be feared that a majority of those who
so confidently and finally announce the dismaying cata-
logue of socialist sins have never read or thought it
worth while to read a single reputable socialist on the
principles of his party. Huxley once said that the un-
pardonable sin of science was pronouncing opinions, dic-
tated by prejudice, on matters never faithfully studied;
and indeed most of the pulpit tirades against that great
man himself were from clergymen who considered it a sin
to read and understand the man whom they vilified. The
prophets are generally stoned before they get through
their first few sentences !

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. I47

I am not here maintaining that the socialists are the
true prophets or that socialism is the inevitable form of
society. I am simply maintaining that it behooves us to
study very carefully a movement which has grown faster
in the last generation than any other movement in the
history of the world, with the exception of the Moham-
medan religion in the years immediately following the
death of the prophet. The socialist vote increased in the
United States from 96,000 in the presidential election of
1900 to 409,000 in that of 1904. In France it increased
from 47,000 in 1887 to 1,120,000 in 1906; in Germany
from 30,000 in 1887 to 3,008,000 (far the largest party
vote in the Empire) in 1903 ; and in the countries of
western Europe and the United States from 30,000 in
1870 to 7,000,000 in 1905. As yet we do scarcely more
than rub our eyes and stare at these figures. But they in-
vite us to read and ponder.

In the brief hour at my disposal I have planned to deal
with three aspects of sociaHsm: the first historical, to
give a summary view of the course of socialistic thought
in the last half century ; the second expository, to set forth
some of the tenets agreed on by the socialists quite gen-
erally; and the third critical, to indicate what should be
the attitude toward the socialist claims and principles of
those who, like us, are pledged to the doctrine of the su-
preme value of the ethical life.

The rise of modern socialism lies within the memory
of living men. The events of the year 1848 gave it its
impetus. For in that year political reaction triumphed
over dawning liberal ideas in central Europe, and the
hopes of economic reform in the regular course of middle-
class government were rudely cast down. By a singular
coincidence, there was cast into the revolutionary turmoil

148 ' THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

of 1848 one of the most remarkable of the world's writ-
ings, the Communist Manifesto. The chief author of the
Manifesto, Karl Marx, was a powerful genius, trained
in the study of history and philosophy, a cogent writer^
and a dauntless fighter. He stands as the founder of
modern Socialism. Before Marx there had been plenty
of men, from Plato downward, who had dreamed of a
better society; plenty who, like Sir Thomas More, Cam-
panella, Harrington, Cabet, Mably, and Morelli, had im-
agined Utopian societies on earth, sun, or moon — antici-
pating the modern Utopias of Bellamy, H. G. Wells, and
Anatole France. But till Marx socialism meant Utopi-
anism. The Utopians either retired from society to form
a little community of their own, or else made over so-
ciety by some artificial, mechanical devices, like those of
Bellamy's Looking Backward, Their ideal state was not
only actually opposed to the present world, but it was also
fundamentally antagonistic to it. Utopianism could not
be derived from the present world by any natural devel-
opment. It was cataclysmic. Marx, on the other hand,
laid at the foundation of his socialism (which he called
communism to avoid the Utopian implications in the
word socialism) a philosophy of history. He said not,
this is what we should like to make society, but, this is
what is actually happening in society. Marxian socialism
was natural not artificial, a growth from within not a
force from without, an evolution not a cataclysm, scien-
tific not visionary.

Marx declared that "in every historic epoch the pre-
vailing mode of economic production and exchange, and
the social org-anization necessarily following from it, form
the basis on which is built up and from which alone can
be explained the political and intellectual history of that

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. I49

epoch." The present bourgeoisie or middle-class had ef-
fected, he declared, a great world revolution in the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, by overthrowing feudalism,
but they had now created a proletariat, a wage-oppressed,
expropriated fourth estate, which would soon swamp the
bourgeoisie themselves. They had collected the masses
in great towns by their centralization of industry; they
had kept the course of industry in perpetual flux by rapid
successive transformations of the instruments and pro-
cesses of production, and by continual recurrences of
commercial crises; they had reduced the yeomanry and
small tradesmen and artisans to a proletariat, and were
making the life of the proletariat one of privation, un-
certainty, discontent, and incipient revolution. "They
treated the laborer like a ware, buying him in the cheap-
est market for the cost of his production (the bare cost
of his living), and taking from him the whole surplus
value of his work, after deducting the value of his sub-
sistence." We do not seek to destroy the state, cried
Marx, but only the capitalistic government of the state.
We do not wish to abolish property, but rather that sys-
tem under which property is now abolished for nine-
tenths of society. We do not advocate the destruction of
the family, but rather the restitution of the family now
destroyed by a regime which makes a slave of the father,
and takes the mother for the factory and the child for the
mill, to make up good measure for the capitalist's profits.
We demand that all who are able shall labor, that landed
property be expropriated, that inheritances be abolished,
that the state control means of transportation, that na-
tional factories be established, that child-labor cease, and
that education be public, compulsory, and gratuitous.
Marx concludes with a ringing appeal to the workers of

150 THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

all lands : "The proletariat have nothing to lose but their
chains ! They have a world to win ! Proletarians of all
nations, unite !"

Cicero said that Socrates "brought philosophy from
heaven to earth," that is, from its vain speculations on the
nature of science (without experimentation), and clever
dialectics on the nature of justice (without principles),
to a reasoned study of the human mind and its powers.
So, we might say, Marx brought socialism from heaven
to earth — out of the clouds of imaginary Utopias into the
everyday atmosphere of politics and economics. Although
earlier socialists, notably St. Sim.on, had in the first half
of the nineteenth century, anticipated some of the Marx-
ian positions, such as the essential antagonism of the ap-
propriating and the expropriated classes, nevertheless it
was Marx who first clearly and forcibly divorced social-
ism from its Utopian implications and complications. I
would call your attention to four features of the Marxian
doctrine which have characterized most of the socialistic
thought to our own day, and which consequently entitle
Marx to be called the founder of modern socialism.

First, Marx gave socialism a philosophical basis in
history. He showed his doctrine to be an inevitable stage
in a great evolutionary process. As a student and de-
voted follower of Hegel, Marx adopted the theory of the
unfolding of the consciousness of freedom (Hegel's
Freiheitshewusstsein) through the successive harmonies
of opposites. Critics of Marx soon pointed out that he
allowed his Hegelianism to sharpen the actual conflict be-
tween the classes to too fine a point, but his general thesis
of the evolutionary significance of socialism, as against
the cataclysmic Utopian view, they adopted.

A second feature of Marxian socialism is its interna-

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. I5I

tional character. The Utopias were all exclusive groups
of the elect. Marx appealed to the workers of all na-
tions. The Communistic League, which he and Engels
founded, became a few years later the International
Workingmen's Association. The International was dis-
credited and disrupted by its revolutionary exercises at
the time of the Paris Commune (1871), and socialism
drew for a while into a nationalistic phase. But the hol-
lowness of Bismarck's imitation of state socialism in
Prussia, the combined hostility of state, church, and army
in France, the progressive dampening of political aspira-
tions among the radicals of almost all the European coun-
tries, have led the socialists back to the international plat-
form advocated by Marx, until at the recent congress held
at Stuttgart it was even demanded by some of the dele-
gates (notably the French) that socialists should refuse
to bear arms for the fatherland against their comrades
of foreign nations.

A third feature of Marx's socialism is its close connec-
tion with the working people. Marx made socialism a
program for the proletariat, whereas it had been a pastime
for the dreamer. Any man with a reforming or protest-
ing interest; any radical dissatisfied with church or state
or society in general was a "socialist." He might be
laboring to establish Apostolic Christianity or to abolish
God, to house all the workers in model tenements holding
two thousand each, or to have a religious test introduced
into the Constitution of the United States. Marx called
on the proletariat to wake to their cause and fight their
own battle. He bade them be the chief actors in the drama
of social regeneration, instead of the passive recipients of
the blessings planned for them in the Utopias. He inter-
preted the worn phrase, "dignity of labor" as a prophetic

152 THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

motto, pointing to a time when the laborer should enjoy
the only dignity possible — the dignity of freedom.

And finally, Marx made socialism a political affair.
To be sure, in his day the ballot was as generally denied
to the proletarian as it is granted to him to-day. By
the circumstances of the time, then, Marx was unable to
make his appeal, as present-day socialists do, to the
working class at the polls. Agitation had to take the
place of the ballot in his scheme, and therefore his social-
ism has a more revolutionary aspect than it would prob-
ably have, had Marx lived in these days when the ballot
is in the hands of the workingmen. But while the ballot
does not figure in Marx's Manifesto, still he is the father
of political socialism by virtue of his clear development
of that class-consciousness which makes the socialist cast
his ballot as a party man to-day.

This four-fold nature, then, of the Marxian type of so-
cialism— an inevitable, historic, evolutionary, class-con-
scious movement of the proletariat of all nations to gain
for themselves through political agitation their emanci-
pation from economic oppression — characterizes it as the
fountain-head of all socialistic theory and the germ-cell
of all socialistic growth during the last half century.

Into the details of that growth in America and the va-
rious countries of Europe (some statistics of which I no-
ticed a few moments ago) we cannot obviously go in this
hour. In general it may be remarked that while the pro-
gress of democracy may have tended to relieve that ex-
treme tension between the ruling and the governed
classes, which Marx experienced in the midst of the reac-
tionary wave of the year 1848, still the industrial concen-
tration, the monopolization of the means of production in.
the hands of a few, the power of the capitalist to reduce

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. 1 53

the wage-earner to virtual slavery, has become accentu-
ated in our day, rather than diminished.

Pari passu with the growth of socialism has gone the
development of the trade unions. Trade unionists and
socialists have quite often been identified, or at least
greatly confused with each other. The trade union is
very much older than Marxian socialism. And, until in
very recent times the distinction between skilled and un-
skilled labor has been almost obliterated by the develop-
ment of machinery, the trade union was rather a conser-
vative than a radical force. It faced the masses rather
than the employers. Its object was to keep out the swarm
of unskilled laborers who were pressing for admission
into the trades, and whose entrance would cause wages to
drop. The long apprenticeship is a thing of the past. In-
dustrial schools teach thousands rapidly to handle the
tools of modern machinery, which are fed by the workers
of the lower grades of intelligence. The trade union
has no longer much to fear from socialism, and all mod-
ern signs point to a rapprochement between the two»
Large numbers of socialists are anxious for the consoli-
dation of interests. Vaudervelde, the veteran Belgian
socialist, said at the Stuttgart Congress : "The increase in
the efficiency of the trade unions is of infinitely higher
significance for the working class than the capture of a
few seats in ParHament." To be sure, at the meeting of
November 15th, at Jamestown, of the American Federa-
tion of Labor, the delegates voted three to one against
government ownership of railroads and mines. But that
was rather from a divergence in view as to the best
method of securing the due recognition of the rights of
labor than from any hostility to the socialists. The
trade unionists still doubt the efficacy of public owner-

154 THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

ship, as against the general strike; but they are begin-
ning to realize that the strike becomes ineffective in pro-
portion as the trade is democratized, and that scabs and
strike-breakers are likely to be more willing to thwart
the strike in proportion as they are more numerous and
more able to do so. Perhaps the alternative will be pre-
sented to the unions of quietly joining the socialists in
political action for economic reform, or of openly pro-
claiming themselves the armed guardians of the portals
of their trade.

Of the movements more or less allied with Marxian
socialism — of Fabianism, with its forensic interest and its
municipal activities, of the socialism of the chair, the
economic speculations of college professors, of christian
socialism and the brotherhoods and societies of semi-
religious, semi-economic aim — there is not time to speak
now. We must pass to the second aspect of our subject,
namely, a brief exposition of some of the leading tenets
of socialism.

With its fundamental Marxian doctrine that all forms
of political and social life are determined by economic
factors, socialism naturally makes a revolution in eco-
nomic conditions its first demand. The natural sources of
wealth and the machinery of production must be "re-
turned" to the people, in order that those who labor may
fully enjoy the fruits of their labor. Ownership and use
must be joined. Production for the sake of profit-mak-
ing, with all its unnatural stimulation of markets, even to
waging unholy wars in distant lands, must give place to
production for need in consumption. The whole capital-
istic system of rent, interest, and profit is an incubus on
society. By it the past weighs on the present like a
mountain. In our bourgeois society the labor of the liv-

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. 155

ing goes to augment the vast masses of capital already ac-
cumulated by the labor of the dead, instead of the labor
of past generations being as it should a means of enlarg-
ing, enriching, stimulating the life of the present gener-
ation. The earth and its fulness belongs to the living.
But our labor is sold before we are born, our lives are
mortgaged, enfoeflfed to the lords of capitalism, before
we came into the world ; our strength is a tribute paid to
the cunning masters of past ages ; our seven youths and
seven maidens are devoured yearly by the Minotaur of
mammon in the labyrinth of mine and mill Nay, the la-
borer is doubly a serf ; he not only works at another's bid-
ding and pleasure, but he works blindly too — ^to ends that
he has not conceived, through means that he does not
control. Insensibly he has been deprived of the interest
in his work, and left only with its drudgery and monot-
ony. Gradually the manipulation of his products has been
taken from him, while the penalty for their miscarriage
has remained. The meat industry has been divorced from
the ranch and put into the hands of the packers ; the cream
and butter industry has been separated from the dairy
and concentrated in the hands of middlemen; the grain
crop has been taken from the farmer and delivered over
to the great elevators and railroad corporations!

Such is the impassioned cry of the socialist. His pro-
gram is more than a theory ; it is a religion. Redemption
is his creed — the redemption of the earth, which lieth
under the bondage of accumulated capital.

By just what means political, educational, legal, indus-
trial, this redemption is to be accomplished the socialists
are, of course, not agreed. When were the apostles of
the world's redemption ever agreed on means? When
did creeds, christian or pagan, ever show unity? For

156 THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

some socialists entrance into the councils of state has
been the way of promise; for others parliaments have
been "the marsh in which socialist energies are hopelessly
engulfed/' Many welcome any measures of government
which look to the reform of capitalistic tyranny, while
more ''fear the Greeks even bearing gifts," and repudiate
any concurrence with bourgeois politics as a surrender of
principle. Some find the agrarian problem at the bot-
tom of the whole question, others see it primarily as a
problem of production and distribution, others still as a
question of consistent democracy, a desideratum of ethics,
or religion pure and undefiled. But in all the declara-
tions of the socialist party, in America or Europe, that
have come within my reading, although there is ample
profession of a revolutionary aim (that is, the changing
of the government into other hands), I have never seen
advocated the doctrines which many respectable oppo-
nents charge to the account of socialism — anarchy, athe-
ism, confiscation, free-love. That these things are direct
corollaries of the socialist program many of their oppo-
nents believe. It is for them to labor to substantiate such
belief by convincing argument and example.

The anarchists say. No government, for governments
oppress us by taxes — ^but the socialists ot Germany ex-
pelled the anarchists from their ranks in the Erfurt Con-
gress of 1 891. Their example was followed by the Aus-
trians and the Italians in 1892, and by the International
Socialist Congress of London in 1896. Said Liebknecht,
one of the acknowledged leaders of German socialism:
"The anarchists of Europe could be put into a couple of
police wagons. With their ridiculous revolutionary
phrases, their senseless assassinations, and their stupidi-
ties generally, they have done nothing for the laboring

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. 1 57

classes, but have worked into the hands of their adver-
saries." Undoubtedly many socialists are atheists, as
are many capitalists. Atheism is not a plank in the so-
cialist programs, however. They have constantly de-
clared religion to be a private matter with which they did
not meddle. Any student of the movement has a perfect
right to say, if such be his conclusions after fair study,
that socialism must inevitably lead to the destruction of
state, family, business, and character ; but he has no right
to say that the socialists propose to destroy any of these
things. Indeed, the Socialists propose and claim to save
all these things, and to be the only force that can save
them all, from sure destruction. We may flout the sanity
of their claim ; we cannot deny its sincerity. And we may
well ponder which is the wiser and safer attitude, that of
the socialists who say, Behold this instant danger of de-
struction at the hands of capitalism; let us up and meet
it now ! or that of their opponent. Prof. Theodore D.
Woolsey, of Yale, who says : "If unfettered freedom can
bring about a state of things in which a few great mer-
chants, manufacturers, ship-owners, transporters, money-
lenders can absorb the capital of the country, it will then
be time to rectify the evil, if it can be done, by appropri-
ate legislation."

I have tried to state the main thesis of socialism, in this
brief time at my disposal, and I wish your indulgence for
a few minutes longer, in which I may suggest something
of the attitude of mind which it is fitting for us to take
toward this movement. That there is room for the wid-
est difference of honest opinion on the subject, I would
be the last to deny. Herbert Spencer, a life-long student
of social conditions, wrote only a few days before his
death (October, 1905) : "Socialism will triumph . . .,

158 THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

and it will be the greatest disaster the world has ever
witnessed." William Morris, on the contrary, as con-
fident of the triumph of socialism, hailed "the wonderful
day a-coming, when all shall be better than well." But
whether we judge socialism favorably or unfavorably,
it is of the first importance that we treat it fairly, "on its
merits and not in its spelling;" that we judge it by the
writings of its acknowledged leaders — Marx, Lassalle,
Bernstein, Liebknecht, Bebel, Vollmar, Kautsky, in Ger-
many; Vaillant, Guesde, Jaures, Herve, in France; Van-
dervelde, in Belgium ; Loria and Ferri, in Italy ; Aveling,
Morris, Blatchford, Webb, Hardie, in England; Simonsj
Kirkup, Hillquit, Spargo, in America. Thousands have
a ready and final condemnation of socialism on their lips
who have not read a single one of these authors, and
whose only information on the subject is the repetition
of a neighbor's repetition of some venomous editorial on
socialism in the columns of a newspaper whose every ut-
terance, except the weather prediction, is governed by a
party in Wall Street. The ethical judgment is first of
all a judgment from sufficient information.

Again, as we insist on fair-mindedness in judging the
validity of the socialist theories, we must insist on fair
play in the agitation for the socialist program. Violence,
in a country of law, where the will of the people has
chance to express itself in due forms of legislation, we
unhesitatingly condemn. Demagoguism, the appeal to
the base passions of envy, hate, and greed, we reject as a
wicked and stultifying practice. We are jealous, too, of
the rights of quality. Merit must not be confused with
demerit, industry with indolence, thrift with shiftlessness,
mental endowment with mediocrity or dullness. The
largest freedom compatible with the health and service-

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. 1 59

ableness of society must be preserved, our varied tastes,
gifts, callings must be encouraged and enriched, not sup-
pressed or levelled. We shall examine the program and
the practices of socialism, then, if we are lovers of fair
play, to see whether they support us in these demands and
condemnations, and if they do not, we shall reject, and
know why we reject, the doctrines of socialism.

Further, it is our duty to discover and rebuke, all clap-
trap methods of reform, all rosily advertised panaceas,
all undigested schemes of ushering in the millennium
Prof. Simon Patten, of Pennsylvania, has given us a re-
markable little book in the last year entitled, A New
Basis of Civilization. He reminds us of the long way by
which we have come to our present eminence — and mis-
ery. He tells us that we are still in thought and instinct
the children of the men whose life depended on their
neighbor's death, whose wealth depended on their neigh-
bor's poverty, whose pleasure depended on their neigh-
bor's pain. The cruel competitive habits of that pain
economy in which there was not enough fruit of man's in-
dustry to supply all, have been carried over as deleterious
survivals into our age of a surplus economy, in which
there is more than enough for all, were it rightly produced
and rightly apportioned. He warns us to beware of
believing too readily that the "weight of centuries" would
drop from the back of "the man with the hoe," if only the
implement in his hands were his own or if he had not
rent to pay for his stony quarter acre. "He comes to us
from yesterday's wrongs, and generates beings who are
carrying into to-morrow the birth-marks of to-day's
evils." In the light of such words we shall ask, then,
very seriously whether competition is the life and health
of society, as Benjamin Kidd maintains, or only a most

l6o THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM.

pernicious survival and dismal delusion; whether we are
not to be ready in this twentieth century to welcome
"mutual aid as a factor in evolution" (to adopt Prince
Kropatkin's phrase) and agree that co-operation works in
higher spheres of human development than competition;
whether we shall not confess that mankind is ready now
to trust the appeal of service to the various causes of art,
letters, industry, medicine, education, to stimulate in him
his best endeavor, in place of the eternally reiterated call
of the dollar; whether men and women will not now at
least miake a beginning of transferring their satisfaction
from the enjoyment of things which they have in excess
of or to the exclusion of their fellows, to things which
they may share in common with their fellows. To all
these vital questions the challenge of socialism should
rouse us.

But most significant of all the features of the ethical
attitude toward socialism should be a readiness to believe
that a new society is a possible consummation ; that forms
of political and economic structure are not fixed but fluid ;
that we are still in process of achieving intellectual free-
dom, moral responsibility, and social brotherhood. The
men of a century ago, the men of '76 in America and the
men of '89 in France, had a lively faith in their power to
transform a society oppressed in law and old in abuse.
It often seems to me that we have lost some of that vigor
of political protest, and transferred all our faith to the
increase of material wonders. We are not much sur-
prised at any number of figures in our statistics of crops
and commerce. We accept the Mauretania as a prophesy
of what will come shortly in ship-building. But we ar>
hopelessly astounded before the proposal of a new form of
society. The draft of a new state is a marvelous thing

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM. l6l

in the eye of our modern Solons. Yet when did mammon
ever set his rainbow in the sky in token that the capi-
talistic regime should not go the way of the feudalism
which it outflooded !

In these last days, for the first time in the history of
civilization, mankind has reached a point of efficiency
where the means of satisfying his needs are far in excess
of the needs themselves — yet millions of human beings
pass their lives in toil, misery, and want. We have dis-
covered the secrets of earth and air; we have made the
rocks, the waves, the winds, and the lightnings the min-
isters of our wants and pleasures. We have explored
the past ages of man and sounded the starry abysses of
the universe. Yet we have not taken one step toward se-
curing that seemingly most elementary right of man, the
right to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Socialism claims to secure that right. Have we weigh-
ed its claim? Have we cared to examine the system?
Has it ever crossed our minds that our children's chil-
dren may wonder that the universal sadness of a world
in which men and women spent lives of miserable want
in the midst of abounding wealth and died of starvation
in sight of mansions fit for kings, should have "appealed
to our transient sympathies, but could not absorb our
deepest interest?"

A HELP TO THE MORAL LIFE

By William M. Salter.

The moral life, to which in our better moments we
aspire, is the life dominated by the good purpose. It is
not merely one right in the eyes of the world, but one in
which the animating thought is to do right and to do all
that is right. It is a life the centre of which is within,
and in which hidden things — thoughts, feelings, imagina-
tions— count as much as anything that others can take no-
tice of, and more. May I be wholly pure, wholly true,
wholly patient, wholly brave, wholly free from vanity and
pride ! — that is the instinct of the moral life.

There may be various helps to such a life, but one that
I have now particularly in mind would be a book that
should put us into the frame of mind we desire, that
should serve in the midst of our busy lives to remind us
of higher things ; that should freshen our aspiration and
nerve our will. Almost every one, who has tried the ex-
periment of setting aside a little time each day for serious
thought, knows how difficult it is to concentrate one's
attention without some external help. At times good
thoughts visit us; at other times the soul is barren and
dry, — our efforts seem like pumping an empty cistern.
It is, of course, possible that our moral insensibility may
be so great at a given moment that nothing can break it
up; but often by reading some chapter or passage in an
appropriate book we may ifind ourselves passing into a
serious mood without effort or struggle. I should con-
vey a poor idea of what I have in mind, if it were thought
162

i

A HELP TO THE MORAL LIFE. 163

that I proposed reading in some set and consecutive fash-
ion books or writers like the Bible, Plato, Marcus Au-
relius, or Emerson. Though there are passages, the books
are rare — I confess I do not know of any — that could
serve just the purpose I have in mind. We should surely
never think of treating the Bible in this way, but for the
[Protestant reaction and extravagance. The Bible is really
great literature, or rather a number of literatures;
[there are pages in it that are simply statements of fact
(or what purport to be), there is folk-lore in it, there are
>hilosophical arguments in it, there are love-poems, there
fare songs of vengeance, and there are pages and, I might
LSay, books almost unintelligible without scholarly com-
fmentary. What is most needed at present is not
so much revised translations of the Bible or critical com-
mentaries upon it (though both are valuable), but the
[selection from it of what is available for the moral life of
man to-day, — a selection that could be put into the hands
;of the common people and might be every man's friend.^
; For there are pages in the Bible that belong to the immor-
[tal literature of the world, that can be, and forever will
[be (if they can be found without too much searching)
[sources of moral inspiration to men,— trumpet-calls to
Ithe higher life. The Catholic Church itself — which we
are accustomed to think the most superstitious, but is per-
haps the most reasonable of all churches in
)ractical matters, as its worship is the most
^picturesque and affecting — never dreams of ask-
ing its members to read the Bible, chapter by chap-

*As a praiseworthy effort in this direction, "The Ethics of the
Hebrew Scriptures, arranged and edited by the Rabbis Isaac S.
and Adolph Moses (Chicago, E. Rubovitz & Bro.), may be men-
tioned. Matthew Arnold's little books on Isaiah are chiefly valu-
able as literary studies.

164 A HELP TO THE MORAL LIFE.

ter, from beginning to end; it has never made such a
fetich of the Bible as we of Protestant Hneage often have.
Yet, of course, the principle of selection I now suggest is
different from that which the Catholic Church has fol-
lowed. I would select only that which would help to
build up the moral life. There are Psalms, there are pas-
sages from Isaiah and other prophets, there are passages i
in the New Testament that have and always will have;
their power, their charm, their high value for this pur-
pose.

In a similar way we may treat Plato. I know of noth-j
ing so profoundly moving in Plato as a passage or two in
Isaiah; he was a poet and philosopher, — a philosophical
poet, we may say, rather than anything else. Yet there
are at least in the "Apology of Socrates" (whether the
language be original with Plato or not) sentences that
lift us to the very heights of moral heroism, that give us
a courage, a serenity, a sublime confidence in the sov-
ereign nature of the good in the universe itself, that no
other writings could better inspire. Perhaps no one book,
easily accessible to all, comes so near being wholly good,
none might be made so unhesitatingly a companion and
friend, as the "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius. There
is less that is strange in it, less that offends either the
common sense or the cultivated thought of to-day, than
there is in the Bible or any other book of the ancient
world that could be brought into comparison with it.
It is a solace, a reminder, and an inspiration. I can well
remember the heights to which it seemed to lift me when
I first read it. The sky of those June mornings was not
more blue, more serene, more clear, than was the atmos-
phere of thought and emotion into which its pages trans-
ported me. Yet Aurelius has his limitations; he is not

A HELP TO THE MORAL LIFE. 165

uniformly inspiring; he sometimes depresses us; and
sometimes he does not move us at all. It is what really
touches and helps us that needs to be culled out and
preserved for habitual use.

It was surely no detraction, nor meant as such, but the
loftiest praise, when Matthew Arnold said that Emerson
was not so much either philosopher or poet as the friend
and helper of those who live in the spirit. To no one per-
son, perhaps, could so many young men and young wo-
men (and older ones, too, — for the days are passing)
bear testimony to-day, as one who had quickened what
was best in them, who had led them out into ample ranges
of thought and emotion, who had released them from
tyrannous bands, and put manliness and true womanli-
ness, strength and sturdy truth, into them, as to Emerson.
Yet there is not a volume of Emerson that will bear to
be used as a close companion in just the sense I have in
mind. While the moral sentiment is a ground-tone in all
his writings, it is not and is not to be expected to be a
distinct note everywhere. Emerson was a Yankee, and
there are passages where Yankee wit and keenness alone
shine. We should not wish to miss these passages, but
they are not moral inspiration. He discusses men and
events, he is the critic of literature and art, and his ulti-
mate standpoint is always the ethical one; but there are
whole pages that do not bear on the personal life or com-
municate moral impulses. Moreover, I must confess that
there is something lacking in Emerson. He always writes
like one in perfect health. He hardly seems to know
our human weaknesses. If there were faults in that se-
rene and elevated soul, they never prompt to confession.
For example, in all his writings I do not know of any-
thing of such power and pathos, of such purifying sad-

l66 A HELP TO THE MORAL LIFE.

ness as a passage in one of George Eliot's letters on evil-
speaking,2 which, should some new book of scriptures
ever be compiled, would surely make a sacred chapter on
the sins of the tongue.

These are but a few writers or books. I should not
even venture to say that they are the chief sources from
which moral help may be drawn. There are passages from
Lowell and other American writers that would serve,
passages from Matthew Arnold, from Browning, from
John Henry Newman, from Frederic W. Robertson, from
Channing, from Wordsworth, from Carlyle, from Schil-
ler, perchance from Goethe, to go no further back; but
none who did not love the good in their own souls,
no matter how learned or profound they were, or however
perfect the literary form they used, can ever communicate
that love to others.

I am aware that in speaking of a help to the moral life,
I am speaking of something that, so far as I know, does
not yet exist; for no collection of passages from just
the point of view I have in mind (i. e., with the sense of
our intimate personal needs) has as yet fallen under my
observation. No one would think of treating Conway's
"Sacred Anthology" as such a companion, or Mrs. Child's
"Aspirations of the World," though the latter comes
nearer the mark and the former is a monument of indus-
try and (considering the time at which it appeared) of
learning.3 The book that can be once more to us a sacred

^I have quoted the passage 'in The Ethical Record, October,
1889, p. 126 (article, "George Eliot's Views of Religion")-

'Still nearer the mark comes Dr. Stanton Coit's "The Message
of Man," published since the above was written. It might almost
be called a book of Holy Scriptures for modern men and women
(and for others who, though holding to ancient theological con-
ceptions, do not rest their moral life on them). The very titles of
the chapters are of rare suggestive power and sometimes equal in

A HELP TO THE MORAL LIFE. 1 67

book, that shall endear itself to us in the sacred moments
(or what we may make such) of each day and may be
helpful whenever we take it up, has yet to be made. And
as every one's individual experience is apt to be more
or less narrow, and yet as every thoughtful person must
now and then in his reading meet with passages that pe-
culiarly affect him and touch the springs of his better life,
the ideal way to make such a book would be to have it
the outcome of the experiences, the suggestions of many
minds. If ten, or, better, a hundred, persons would agree
to send from time to time such passages as I have de-
scribed to some one who might serve as editor of the col-
lection,— do so for a period of five or ten years, — some-
thing valuable might be the result."*

effect anything that stands below. But the full impression of the
passages is impaired by their being broken up into verses and
numbered (as in the Bible) ; there are not enough long extracts
— and, if it is not foolish to say so, some passages that have deep-
ly moved the present writer are not in the volume. Mr. W'. L.
Sheldon's "A Sentiment in Verse for Every Day in the Year" and
"Morning and ^/ening Wisdom Gems" are excellent, if one can
collect himself in a minute, and perhaps serve better for "grace" at
table than for the purpose I have in mind.

*If any persons after reading this article should feel prompted
to send me selections which have moved them, I should be grate-
ful; and if no one better fitted is found, I might myself undertake
in time to edit such selections as commend themselves to me. I
may be addressed at 107 Irving St., Cambridge, Mass.

W. M. S.

MEANING OF MEMBERSHIP IN THE NEW YORK
ETHICAL SOCIETY

The Society invites to its membership all persons interested
in its aims and desirous of participating in its work.

As an explanation of the meaning of membership in the Eth-
ical Culture Society of New York City, the following was adopted
in 1894, and published as

The Basis of Union.

I.

We aim to increase among men the knowledge, the love and
the practice of the right.

II.

As a means to this end, our Society devotes itself to the fol-
lowing specific objects:

1. Meetings in public at stated intervals, and the maintenance
of a public platform for the enforcement of recognized standards
of right, the development of new and higher conceptions of duty
and the quickening of the moral life.

2. Systematic moral instruction of the young, founded on true
pedagogic principles.

3. Promotion of continued moral self-education among adults,
by forming classes and groups for study and mutual inspiration.

4. General educational reform, with main stress on the form-
ation of character as the purpose of all education.

5. Earnest encouragement of all practical efforts which tend
to elevate social conditions.

6. Such other specific objects as the Society may from time
to time agree upon.

III.

Interpreting the word "religion" to mean fervent devotion to
the highest moral ends, our Society is distinctly a religious body.
But toward religion as a confession of faith in things super-
human, the attitude of our Society is neutral. Neither acceptance
nor denial of any theological doctrine disqualifies for member-
ship.

IV.

The supremacy of the moral end is implied as a cardinal truth
in the demand for ethical culture.

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH*

By Charles Zueblin.

The measure of both religion and morality is social ef-
ficiency. A distinguished clergyman said recently in the
course of a sermon that attracted some attention, — "While
this is not the most wicked age, — while, in fact, it is the
most moral age, — it is without doubt the most godless
age." Is not directly the opposite true, that this is a godly
but immoral age? There is little decline in the belief in
God, but this belief, like many others, has lost its dynamic
power. It is surely a matter of greater concern that a
belief in God can be associated with immorality, than that
morality is possible to the godless.

The unhappy reconciliation of theological belief and
immorality is illustrated by the beautiful sculptured
frieze over the door of the Royal Exchange in London,
bearing this legend: "The earth is the Lord's, and the
fulness thereof." One can understand the sensation which
we should have at seeing that declaration above the door
of our Stock Exchange or Board of Trade ; but they have
become so accustomed to it in London that they are not
shocked at the incongruity between the practice and the
faith. Perhaps an even more flagrant example of this
contradiction is found in the new capitol at Harrisburg,
where, in the House of Representatives, as one looks be-
yond the great candelabra (purchased by the pound at

*The fourth in a course of six Sunday evening lectures on
"Democratic Religion" given before the Philadelphia Ethical
Society. This course will soon be published in a volume, entitled
'The Religion of a Democrat," by B. W. Huebsch, New York.

169

I/O RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.

extravagant figures), to the sumptuously embossed
lery (contracted for by the yard and equally extrava-
gant), one sees in raised letetrs, — "Ye shall knov^ the
truth, and the truth shall make you free." A great out-
cry has been raised against the removal of the familiar
motto "In God we trust" from some American corns.
Clergymen who have never felt responsibility for unholy
traffic carried on by these tokens, demand the restoration
of the hypocritical legend. Trifling with the symbols and
words of religion and toying with sacred things is certain-
ly a sadder commentary on our times than any evidence of
godless morality.

With regard to its being a godly or godless, a moral
or immoral, age, we cannot believe that God is concern-
ed ; we cannot speak of God as vain any longer, nor can
we longer believe that He is jealous, as the Old Testament
does. He is less moral than we try to be if He can be
moved by such impulses. It is not possible to conceive
of a Supreme Being in terms of twentieth century moral-
ity, who could ask more than that his creatures be moral.
There is both historic and contemporary evidence that
performance without profession is preferable to profession
without performance, as in the case of the son who said, —
'T go not," but went.

Politics is not the only order that "makes strange bed-
fellows." Statistics indicate that criminals are generally
orthodox; this has a quantitative explanation in the fact
that criminals naturally belong to the class of men which
constitutes the greatest number, the class which takes its
religious creed and its moral code most easily. But it is
also involved in the fragmentary character of our lives.
Religious faith is detached from secular life, as is relig-
ious organization. In this respect it is no more peculiar

1

gal-V

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. I/I

than politics or industry; so that the lack of harmony
need not be laid exclusively at the door of either theology
or ethics, although it is more reprehensible in the religious
world to fail to grasp the fulness of life. Morality and
religion may be harmonized and, at the same time, recon-
ciled with the other human wants, only by considering
life as a whole. The social process consists — as Profes-
sor Small * has most lucidly expounded — in the progres-
sive satisfaction of the six comprehensive wants : Wealth,
health, sociability, taste, knowledge, righteousness. To
put the satisfaction of these wants within the reach of all
is the goal of society, the function of the state; and by
this standard we must also measure religion. These six
wants have been analyzed: they must also be moralized,
synthesized and democratized. Desirable as would be the
moralizing of the various wants, nothing less than synthe-
sis is demanded, but the more conspicuous tendency of the
church to-day is to fall into the prevalent error of our
nineteenth century heritage, — that of overspecialization,
As an illustration of the way in which human interests
are specialized, consider the emphasis on the economic
want. Because of the exaggeration of its purely material
aspects, we cannot speak of wealth in the broad, human
language of John Ruskin or John Hobson or Simon Pat-
ten, which claims "there is no wealth but life." The
church has seldom interfered with economic processes,
but it preaches the stewardship of wealth and demands for
itself the administration of a portion, on the ground that
wealth will be thus moralized. This is pitifully partial,
and indicates, as the examination of every other want
would, the superior potentialities of the State. The higher
moral standards of to-day will no longer tolerate the con-

*Albion W. Small, "General Sociology."

172 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.

ception of the classical economist, that some economic ac-
tions are non-moral. Twentieth century ethics knows no
non-moral act. The popular philosophy of Mr. Benjamin
Kidd, which condoned the cut-throat struggle for exis-
tence, on account of the beneficent influence of a subse-
quent application of altruism, yields to the common sense
ethics of a democratic philosophy. The two opposing
philosophies concerned with the material satisfactions are
individualism and socialism: each has its resultant re-
ligious expression, the one in Protestantism, the other in
materialism. Protestantism came into Europe at the time
of the development of the world-market, and has ex-
panded with the growth of industry. It has been identi-
fied with the nations of western Europe and America,
which have stood in the front of the movements of com-
merce and which have earliest witnessed the industrial
revolution.

Protestantism has easily been reconciled to the doctines
of the struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest and
competition. It has been itself an individualizing, disin-
tegrating influence. In the process of disintegration it
has done what in Nature is well done. We do not al-
ways want cohesion, we must have occasionally a disin-
tegrating force, and in securing the right of private judg-
ment and protesting against the undue compulsion and
conformity of the church, it has performed valuable ser-
vices. Nevertheless, it has thereby given sanction to some
of the most destructive forces of industry. So harmoni-
ous has Protestantism found its beliefs with those of con-
temporary industry that it has been entirely ineflFectual in
combating industrial evils. On the contrary, by its de-
pendence on voluntary financial support, it has come
largely under the control of those who are directing the

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. I73

affairs of business and whose philosophy of life is de-
termined chiefly by pecuniary motives. It has also under-
mined the broad, mediaeval catholicity of the historic
church, the special haven of the poor and oppressed.

At the other end of the scale, socialism, with its pro-
test against individualism, has found much of its support
in the philosophy of materialism. A scheme of social re-
^construction, primarily designed to secure economic jus-
tice, from which the satisfaction of all other wants is ex-
pected to result, it has necessarily concerned itself almost
exclusively with the economic want. The justification of
placing socialism under the religious movements, corres-
ponding to the church, is found in the tremendous moral
zeal which accompanies the possession of this faith, and
which opposes the fundamental principles of protestant
individualism. The materialistic interpretation of history
furnishes a philosophy of life, and the socialistic ideal de-
duced from it is both a prophetic and an evangelizing
force. Its function is as obvious as that of the Protestant
Reformation, but its obsession with economic functions is
as great a limitation as the dependence of Protestantism on
industrial competition.

Physiological satisfactions have also found their ex-
pression in the organization of religion. Sensualism has
characterized not only such a great religion as Moham-
medanism, but such a Christian off -shoot as Mormonism.
Mormons may be as free from the sensual element of their
religion as many Mohammedans are; polygamy may be
abhorrent to them, but the original differentiation came
from the exaggeration of the sensual. A more refined,
ibut equally specialized emphasis of the physiological is
found in that modern form of Epicureanism, Christian
Science. Christian Scientists are normally no more sen-

174 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.

sual than worthy Epicureans, of whom it could not have
been said that "their god is their belly;" but the inevit-
able result of focussing the attention on the body, even
when it involves the denial of bodily ailments, is to give
to physical welfare an inordinate amount of attention.
There are broad-minded people in the Christian Science
churches; there are very kindly people, and socially dis-
posed people. Their positive contribution is found in the
denial of the time-honored conception that virtue is in-
evitably associated with pain; but their complacent, per-
sonal satisfaction with health, physical or spiritual, inter-
feres with social service and social organization. Chris-
tian Science opposes by its cheerful inertia the aggres-
sive movements towards the unity of society.

The satisfaction of the social want has its most impor-
tant exposition in the state, but second only to this are
the emphasis and exaggeration which come from the great
Catholic churches, — Roman, English, and Greek. The
danger of making the form of organization more impor-
tant than the content is familiar to Americans through the
obstructive force of their written constitutions and char-
ters. It is a common American fallacy to expect automatic
government through the perfection of political mechan-
ism, until the citizen exists for government, and not gov-
ernment for the citizen. The same exaggeration of social
organization, in this case, the hierarchy, oppresses the
Roman Catholic church. The infallibility of the Pope is
an anachronism, like the infallibility of the Czar, in an
age of increasing democracy ; but the parochial organiza-
tion of Catholicism is a beneficent result of the evolution-
ary process, which testifies to the value of systematic or-
ganization. It is not impossible to anticipate the recon-
struction of the Catholic churches on the basis of democ-

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. 1/5

racy, after the manner of the origin of representative
government on the ruins of the feudal system.

However, two of the obvious flaws of this over-system-
atized system are the inevitable repression of freedom of
thought and the unhappy device of celibacy. The limita-
tions put upon the freedom of thought in any given time
are perpetuated by the prevention of the physical inherit-
ance of much of the best talent of the Catholic population,
because it remains ceHbate. In the face of these handi-
caps, the insidious influence of progressive ideas is a most
hopeful sign. When a peasant Pope can condemn such
pregnant truths as fall under the ban of the recent En-
cyclical, the thoughtful onlooker has raised for his con-
sideration two queries. If such criticism is at work within
the church, in spite of all the repressive influence of its
huge organization, how long can that powerful structure
withstand the assaults on its foundation? And, secondly,
if the mandate of a Pope can establish the authority of
current ideas, what may not a progressive Pope accom-
pHsh by lending the power of his infallibility to the dis-
semination of such doctrines as are contained in the fol-
lowing statements of Catholics, condelmned by Pope
PiusX?—

Christ had not the intention of constituting the church as a
society to endure on earth through successive centuries ; on the
contrary, He believed that the kingdom of heaven would come
at the end of the world which was then imminent.

The organic constitution of the church is not immutable. Oti
the contrary, Christian society, like human society, is subject
to perpetual evolution.

The dogmas, the sacraments, the hierarchy, in their concep-
tion, as well as in their existence, are only the interpretation of
the Christian thought and of the evolution which by external
additions have developed and perfected the germ that lay hidden
in the gospel.

176 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.

Simon Peter never suspected that the primacy in the church
had been conferred upon him by Christ.

The Roman Church became the head of all churches, not by
divine ordinance, but by purely political circumstances.

The church has shown herself to be an enemy of natural and
theological sciences.

Truth is no more immutable than man himself, with whom,
and in whom, and through whom, it changes perpetually.

Christ did not teach a fixed determined body of doctrine, ap-
plicable to all times and to all men. But rather, He started a
religious movement, adapted or capable of being adapted to dif-
ferent times and places.

The church has shown herself incapable of effectively defend-
ing ethical gospel, because she obstinately is attached to im-
mutable doctrines which are incompatible with modern progress.

The specialization of the aesthetic want is found in such
diverse expressions as the Salvation Army and the Ritual-
istic movement. While there is an appeal to a different
quality of taste in these two religious movements, there is
in each case an emphasis of the sensuous. The jarring
note of the tamborine, like the delicate aroma of in-
cense, makes no appeal to the intellect, but stirs the senses.
The appeal may be entirely legitimate when co-ordinated
with the satisfaction of the other wants, but it is likely to
lead to such extremes as we have seen in the excessive
crudities of the Salvation Army and the ultra refinements
of Ritualism.

The same defect characterizes those movements which
have exaggerated the intellectual want. Knowledge is
power, and with the popularization of science in the nine-
teenth century people have tried to save their souls by it,
and so we have secularism and rationalism. During the
middle decades of the nineteenth century, and to a less
degree subsequently, especially in England, organizations
multiplied, based upon the expectation that exact science

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. I//

would afford a sufficient philosophy of life. There is still
a great international, free thought movement whose de-
structive services are invaluable. Its weakness is not the
one commonly attributed to it, of undermining the foun-
dations of faith, but rather of building upon a new basis
of insufficient breadth through the exaggeration of knowl-
edge.

A kindred force has been that of rationalism, not nec-
essarily denying the divine or supernatural, but escaping
from the authority of revelation and inspiration. The
latest form of this is in the growing contemporary New
Thought movement, the adherents of which believe in the
conquering power of mind. Without any authoritative
sanction such as the Christian Scientists find in the mira-
cles of Jesus, the New Thought advocates nevertheless
believe in what agnostic psychologists would call miracu-
lous transformations, to be effected by the power of the
trained mind. It is idle to deny the abundant evidence
of the increasing value of these principles, but they suffer
from the same flaw, — the over-emphasis of one of the
essentials of human satisfaction.

It may seem hypercritical to quarrel with those who
make righteousness the end of their religious organiza-
tions ; but unhappily we find that such single-mindedness
of purpose, however lofty, may divert from the whole-
ness of human life. Among the most earnest and valued
exponents of spontaneous morality are the Quakers, yet
the fine spiritual quality of their interpretation of religion
cannot conceal the fact that it has proved itself ineffec-
tive. The Society of Friends does not arrive ; it does not
affect society as it should. It has been quite frequently
associated with a devotion to business, inconsistent with

178 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.

good politics and good society, notably in the Quaker
City.

The same tendency to exaggerate individual righteous-
ness receives an extreme expression to-day in that sort
of Christian faith expressed by the word ''Tolstoyan",-
the belief in non-resistance and asceticism. It is among
the most wholesome of all the protests against the com-
plexity of modern civilization and the timidity of organ-
ized Christianity, and yet it is ineffective because its fol-
lowers do not comprehend life as a whole. It is unequal
to the expression of a universal religion. The truly relig-
ious must at least be in the world, if not of it, and while
there is no taint of self-righteousness about the follow-
ers of Tolstoy, such as that associated with those whom
the Scot calls the "unco' guid," there is an abstraction and
an aloofness, which are intrinsically admirable but socially
unsatisfying.

The church has failed as the organizer and defender of
religion. It is dominated too often by some single human
interest. It is too worldly to let religion expand, and too
unworldly to give humanity a chance. It is sensitive to
the limitations of every age, while lacking the freedom to
rise to the new possibilities. When it moralizes human
wants, it is with conventional morality ; when it specializes
them it is to curtail its susceptibility to the universal forces
of the time. It is serviceable in conserving or reviving
various wants while inadequate to their synthesis. Re-
ligion must reach into the recesses of the remotest human
interests, but the church has not been big enough to com-
prehend them all.

We are confronted by the difficulty of a national church
and the need of a national organization of religion. It is
no more incongruous to have a national organization of

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. I79

universal religion than to have a national organization of
humanitarianism. Patriotism is in inverse ratio to sect
and to party. Patriotism is the expression of our loyalty
to the largest group of human beings we can comprehend,
as Mazzini has taught us. There can no longer be a na-
tional religion, but there may be a national faith as a con-
dition of a universal faith, which shall at least be larger
than any of the integral elements in the country itself ; in
the church; in industry; in politics; or any other frag-
ment of social life.

There is a common faith of the whole people; it may
not be tangible, it may not have been capable of expres-
sion in creeds without producing seism and sect; but it
can be conceived, and it is in need of organization. The
state must be supreme ; the church must be subordinate ;
and religion can only be free in the state. Our minds have
been so befogged by the conflict between church and state
that we have grown unable to see the harmony of religion
and society. When it is recognized that every individual
must have his own religion, regardless of the ecclesiastical
authority to which he may hold allegiance, then it will be
seen that only the state can facilitate this.

The conflict between state and church in France seems
to throw light upon our problem. The state is trying to
assert its supremacy over the church; the church, so far
as it is conscientious in its activities, is trying to argue
that it is universal and therefore superior to the state. If
it were, if they had such a national church, if it could
make its claims to universalism good, would it not be
loyal to the interests of society as a whole, and how can
society as a whole be served except through the state?
The present organization of the state may be as imperfect
as the present organization of the church, but the state is

l80 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.

the only organization which represents society. The
church is the very imperfect, highly specialized organi-
zation of one of society's functions, and if it actually mor-
alized all human wants, it could still serve society fully
only as an instrumentality of the state.

That the church has sometimes seemed superior to the
state only means that sometimes churchmen have been su-
perior to statesmen in their capacity for understand-
ing the interests of society as a whole. The transition
through which France is passing gives promise of a great
spiritualizing force, in consequence, on the one hand, of
the state's having won its supremacy as the best organiza-
tion that human beings have as yet been able to find to
protect their common interests, and, on the other hand,
by the endeavor of the church to prove its worth as the
exponent of the religion of the people, rather than the
politics of the ecclesiastics.

We have the same problem here in relation to church
and state. We declare by our Constitution that citizens
shall be free from any special religious influence. We
began when it was more easy to distinguish, but if religion
becomes universal, and the antithesis with the secular dis-
appears, we do not need to make these limitations. At
present we are in the unhappy state where those who
would like to see a better knowledge of the Bible on the
part of our American citizens generally, are nevertheless
unable to assent to the idea that it should be taught in the
public schools. One must deprecate the lack of interest in
the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. It is a grievous gap
in our intellectual and moral equipment ; but so long as the
belief in the inspiration of the scriptures gives people di-
vine sanction for their differences of interpretation, it

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. l8l

becomes an infringement of democratic liberties to give
the state's support to the common study of the Bible.

In spite of this dilemma, which has been so uncom-
promisingly met by the Constitution, in many of the
states religious exercises are conducted daily in the
schools. A person of religious sensibilities cannot, with-
out offence, attend a school and hear the Bible read per-
functorily, by the teacher who has this onerous duty for
the day, to an uninterested and irreverent group of chil-
dren, especially when this is followed by a labored extem-
pore prayer, — the least objectionable response to which is
boredom. In violation of the principle that everyone shall
have free expression of his own religious convictions, we
also open our legislative assemblies and political conven-
tions with prayer, — a peculiarly disheartening practice,
when one appreciates that the only persons distressed are
probably those with conscientious scruples and those who
are impatient to proceed with their unrighteous plans^
which are momentarily delayed by this hypocritical pro-
cedure.

There is no objection to any devout persons praying
for the legislators and administrators of the state. There
is no objection to the use of the property of the state for
such purposes, provided it does not infringe upon the equal
rights of other citizens. When, however, a prayer in the
Oklahoma legislature that a certain candidate may be the
next President of the United States is greeted with ap-
plause by the Democratic members, it implies that those
whose sentiments are not expressed have either their po-
litical or their religious rights violated.

There ought to be no opposition to the use of the public
school for the teaching of the Bible, provided it is not a
part of the school curriculum and is permitted to every

l82 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.

group of people who wish to give such instruction outside
of school hours. It is deplorable that the instruction
might be given by dogmatists and sectarians instead of by
a trained teacher in literature; but that must be the solu-
tion until the belief in the inspiration of the scriptures
shall cease to divide people into sects. Meanwhile, it
would be much better to have this public form of instruc-
tion subject to review at the bar of public opinion, than to
leave Biblical and other ethical instruction to the incompe-
tents who constitute the majority of the staff of the aver-
age Sunday School.

In America, where the state church is scorned, and re-
ligion and politics are supposed to be divorced, there is,
however, the exemption of ecclesiastical property from
taxation. This again violates the equal rights of citizens
in that it involves the greater taxation of others who do
not believe in the ministrations of these churches. It is
more practicable for the state to provide edifices for com-
mon worship, or for the consecutive service of different
bodies of religionists, so that all may have use of public
property without discrimination, than to exempt sectarian
church property. If people will have private churches,
they should be permitted to do so and to pay for them;
but if they will worship in common, or in a common build-
ing, as often occurs in Switzerland, it may promote uni-
versal religious fellowship. The field houses of the Chi-
cago small parks may be used, so the authorities declare,
for all worthy public purposes which are not political or
religious. A more advanced stage is represented by the
frequent use of the English town halls for all public pur-
poses without distinction, so long as there is no discrimi-
nation. The promoting of universal religion by the na-
tion may be furthered at least by the public provision of

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. 183

places of worship and religious instruction for all who
are willing thus to recognize the supremacy of the state,
without insisting on special privileges from the state for
the private worship of their private God in their private
meeting house.

The inevitable difficulty which will be perennially en-
countered with those who cannot make a universal inter-
pretation of religion may be illustrated by the protest
made in New York City and elsewhere against the ob-
servance of Christmas in the public schools. The argu-
ments which have been used against the reading of even
selected passages from the Bible, in the schools attended
by Protestants, Catholics, Jews and others, do not seem
to hold with equal force against the observance of Christ-
mas. If songs expressive of the miraculous and super-
natural are eliminated, as should of course be done out of
deference to the varying faiths, the most orthodox Jew
cannot find fault with the celebration of the anniversary
of the birth of the most important individual in western
civilization. The fact that the festival coincides with a
Jewish celebration, and is only the historic successor of a
great pagan institution, need not detract from its widely
accepted significance as a day of "peace and good will
among men."

This protest in New York against Christmas exercises
in the public schools and the almost contemporaneous dis-
cussion in Chicago on the literary use of selected passages
of the Bible point to the most significant weakness of the
church as the custodian of religion. In the city with the
largest Jewish population in the world, a very imposing
protest was made against the Christmas celebration, only
to be overruled by the spontaneous expression from or-
ganized Christianity and elsewhere, which resulted in the

184 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.

prompt decision to retain the Christmas exercises. In
Chicago, on the contrary, where a very sober and har-
monious demand had come for the use of passages of the
Bible, approved by Catholics, Protestants and Jews, pub-
lic opinion again made the decision for the school board,
this time adversely. In each case the extent of popular
disapproval was quite unexpected. It would seem that
greater reliance can be placed upon the good common
sense of the people than upon the demands of theologians,
or even the judgment of pedagogues. In neither case is
the decision necessarily final; but in both, one must see
the tremendous significance of drawing, from the great
heart and common sense of the multitude, the dynamic
of faith. A national organization of religion, like the na-
tional faith, will pass beyond the scope of the church or
churches.

AN ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD*

By Leslie Willis S Prague.

I TRUST that the suggestion that there is an Ethical
God does not sound irreverent to anyone. If I had said a
loving God, or a just God, or a forgiving God, or a
righteous God no one would have failed to recognize the
familiar conceptions of one or another aspect of relig-
ious thought. But Ethics einbodies all of these qualities
— love, justice, compassion, righteousness — and many
more. I am to speak, then, of the moral attributes of
God. To the sceptically minded it may raise a question,
to speak concerning God at all. I wish to make it clear
that I speak to-day, as ever from this platform, to give
my best personal thought. I do not speak for the Ethical
movement, nor for the fraternity of lecturers, nor do I
commit anyone to my views. S^ome of the members of
this society believe very differently perhaps, some much
more and others much less than I am able to believe about
such matters. We are not united in belief, nor upon a
basis of belief; but we are united in the purpose to de-
velop moral ideals, principles and qualities in ourselves
and to promote the moral welfare of others and of the
world. What we may think about the great problems of
faith, about the ultimate sanctions of conduct, is interest-
ing, perhaps, and is surely important; but that which is
imperative is the eflPort to- live and help others to live a
moral life.

I want to speak, then, of the place of ethics in religion,

^Substance of an address given before the Brooklyn Society for
Ethical Culture.

185

1 86 AN ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD.

to try and discover the religious mission of ethics, the
part which the development of the moral life has to play
in the unfoldment of religious conceptions, and especi-
ally in the development of the idea of God.

Concerning the relation of ethics and religion there
are various conceptions abroad in the land. A very gen-
eral idea is that the good life is itself, necessarily, relig-
ious. Many feel that if they are no worse than their
neighbors they are being religious, whatever their be-
liefs or devout practices. An outworn idea still lingers
in some quarters, and there are those who sometimes
liken righteousness to "filthy rags;" and there are those
even who regret a good life which is lived outside the
church and without religious dogmas, because such a life
helps to separate morality from the ecclesiastical agencies
with which it has so long been associated.

There is doubtless a legitimate place for religion in
ethics. But I am now concerned with the place of ethics
in religion. Religion and ethics have throughout the
course of human culture gone hand in hand. If it seems
that there was no such relation in primitive times, as
some scholars declare, it is because we seek such morality
as we now know in those older ages. Side by side with
the primitive religions, acting upon them and effected by
them, there was a primitive morality. In earliest times
laws derived their sanctions from their supposed divine
origin, and moral practices were enforced by religious
sanctions.

Religion has always been the conservative factor, cher-
ishing tradition, looking to the past, representing the cen-
tre of life. Ethics has always been the progressive force,
looking towards the future and broadening the scope of

AN ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. 187

life; and this because ethics has developed with the un-
folding of human relations into ever wider areas.

Ethics has therefore been one element, an important
element, in the development of religion, and even in the
development of the idea of God. There have been other
elements, such as mental dfevelopment itself — ^the in-
creasing power of mind — a growing consciousness of self
on the part of all men ; the progress of thought from the
rational limitation to the spiritual and universal, from the
natural to the subjective conception of life. Each change
in knowledge and attitude has necessitated a change in
the conceptions and ideals of religion.

In the earlier religions, unconscious of ethical needs,
men associated no ethical demands with the deity whom
they worshipped, they imputed to the gods no distinctive
moral command. Even when mankind came to think of
the gods as imposing moral obligations upon men, it was
not yet thought the gods were under obligation to keep
these commands themselves. The higher nature-relig-
ions, as the Greek, Egyptian and Norse, imposed a moral
code which was not binding upon the deities. The gods
demanded chastity; but mythology is full of descriptions
of the unchastity of the gods ; they required truthfulness,
but themselves were described as given to deception.
Even the Jewish scriptures portray this anomaly. Moses
is a far more moral being than the Jehovah which he wor-
shipped.

It was a long way from the idea of a divine sanction of
right, to the idea of a divine right. Here Judaism led the
way of progress for all men. A writer in Genesis asks,
"Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" The
Psalmist chanted, "The commandments of the Lord are
true, and righteous altogether," and again we read, "The

l88 AN ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD.

righteous Lord loveth righteousness." The author of
the book of Job had so mastered the idea that God is him-
self righteous that he could declare, "Even though He
slay me, yet will I trust in Him." But these high con-
ceptions were for the prophetic few. The world is still
struggling to grasp their import. The God of the popu-
lar theology of Christendom to-day, is less good than
many a Christian man and woman. Jesus commanded,
"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is per-
fect," the highest commandment ever given. But the
Father-in-Heaven is still in thought far from perfect.
Those who are themselves compassionate often worship a
God of wrath and hate. Those who would not harm a
little creature of the fields, pray to a God who condemns
infants to everlasting flames. If such anomalies of be-
lief are less familiar to-day than they were a generation
ago, it is because an age of humanitarianism has affected
the teachings of Christianity. With Whittier many have
come to feel,

"I dare not call that good in Him —
Which evil is in me."

Browning gives voice to the same moral awakening
when, in his "Paracelsus," he makes Festus, the devout
and loving, side with the friend for whose salvation he
fears.

"I am for noble Aureole, God.
I am upon his side, come weal or woe.
His portion shall be mine. He has done well.
I would have sinned, had I been strong enough,
As he has sinned. Reward him or I waive
Reward. If thou canst find no place for him,
He shall be King elsewhere, and I will be
His slave forever. There are two of us."

The Rev. Dr. Campbell, of England, is to-day, in the

AN ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. 1 89

name of Christianity, making this attack upon the popu-
lar creed. He is illustrating anew how Ethics leads the
way in the moralization of God. The Ethical Theism of
Jesus is only slowly getting itself understood by his fol-
lowers, and in these late days Christianity has followed
in the lead of Zoroastrianism, and opposed Satan to God.
Eternal torment, fortunately not so popular a doctrine
now as heretofore, is a survival of this antithesis. One of
the leading Congregationalists of this country now de-
clares that there is no alternative between Atheism and
Universalism ; either God must be the Father of all or he
is no God.

Science has battled with theology for the conception of
the reign of law. Law is the way the forces of the uni-
verse act, just as institutions express the habitual action
of human beings. No place is left for miracle, once the
sole way in which God was supposed to act. God, once
beyond the law, as beyond the moral demand, is seen by
us to-day, if at all, in and through the law of nature and
life. Ethics, proclaiming a moral law, and doing away
with the thought of other action than that within the lim-
its of moral law, is helping to bring the idea of God to an
ethical fulfillment.

The task of Ethics to-day, its service to the spiritual
life, is not simply to elucidate the moral law for the guid-
ance of the conduct of man ; but also for the guidance of
the faith of men, — to a certain conviction of the sanctity
of life.

In the traditional conceptions of God — and they are
various — historic conditions are necessarily reflected, and
the limitations of different ages are imputed to the deity.

The God of scientific thought takes on the coloring and
hampering imperfections of material nature, — the pro-

igO AN ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD.

vince of the natural sciences. The God in which poetry
and the arts delight is the god of sentiment, and is lack-
ing in authority and moral commandingness. It becomes
the task of Ethics, in this day as in the past, to lead the
way into a truer Theism, at least to a more ethical inter-
pretation of the ultimate and absolute Being.

This is partly the task of ethical thought, of considera-
tion of the moral law, and is to be accomplished by the
mental effort to relate mankind to the ''Eternal not our-
selves that makes for righteousness." It is more largely
the task of the will, of the human soul striving vitally to
relate itself to the Infinite, to the law and power and pur-
pose which informs, sustains and fulfils. It was said of old :
"He that doeth the will of my Father shall know of the
doctrine if it be pure." Now, as ever, life is the certain
way of knowledge. To live deeply, richly, obedient to the
way of all, is to be in accord with the Hfe of all, and is to
discover the faith which shall redeem.

Ethics should rise, eventually at least, to its religious
task. It should follow out to ultimate issues its inspira-
tions and hopes. It shall discover that human love has in-
finite corrolaries and human duty is one with an Eternal
rule.

Thus will Ethics again contribute, as in all past ages,
to the ennobling and glorifying of the idea of God, and
thus shall religious sanctions be brought to the support of
the moral life.

I have been asked what Ethics has to offer in the way
of an idea of God, what help from the ethical view of life
has come to me in my own religious thinking. Modesty,
I would answer. The God of revelation has for me
grown indistinct because of the inconsistency of the vari-
ous ideas of God which the claims of revelation put forth.

AN ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. I9I

The God of science fails to satisfy, and becomes at last
vague and partial. The traditional teaching is so colored
by antiquated processes of thought that I cannot make it
my own. The God of philosophy is somehow too ab-
stract, too remote from daily experience to be made real
in my imagination and feeling. And yet I cannot think
of life without an ultimate and absolute Being, whose
spirit, power, purpose — or whatever may be conceived
[as the infinite corrolary of these human definitions — in-
fuses, informs and sanctifies the whole. There must be
somewhat towards which our strivings tend, somewhat
infinite informing our human potencies, somewhat per-
fect which lures oiir imaginations and wills. To find what
this infinite and absolute may be, I turn not to some old
book, not to some once sacred creed, not to some labora-
tory or to the labyrinths of philosophical speculation ; but
I turn to love, duty, longing; to conscience with its pain
and satisfaction, to the moral purpose and the moral po-
tency of the human soul — more sacred than bibles, more
authentic than creeds, more real than science, more pro-
found than philosophy. If I may once grasp more fully
the meaning and nature of love, the significance of duty,
the augustness of conscience, the sanctity of aspiration,
if I may so richly feel and in action realize these poten-
cies of my own nature as to taste their sweetness and
glory in their power, I shall begin to know and under-
stand the divine.

The God that ethics leads me to is the Being whose
nature is infinitely what the moral qualities of human life
are finitely and potentially. If I cannot grasp this infi-
nite, I am satisfied to believe that I do take hold at the
human end of that which is infinite and eternal. And I
hope that with a richer moral life I shall have a larger

W'

AN ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD.

and truer religion. I may not be able to say, now or ever,
what God is. I will be modest in my thought ; but I am
able to feel that love and duty, aspiration and hope, the
stings of conscience and the satisfaction of acts well per-
formed relate me to that in the life of all which I can
trust, in which I may hope, and from which I draw life
and breath and all things.

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL ETHICS: DOES

THE CODE OF SOCIAL ETHICS

ANNUL THE LAW OF

PRIVATE MORALITY?*

By Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer.

I „,..,„„..,.,..

^B}iad its own specific ideal of excellence. The classic il-
^^bustrations of that fact are the ideals of Greece and Rome.
The ideal of Greece was that of a perfect physical de-
velopment, and of an acute and masterful intellectual
power ; to which ideal all sentiment of regard for the im-
perfect, of pity for the weak, of care for the incompetent
and loathsome, was sacrificed. The ideal of Rome was
that of power, supremacy, organized force, social control
in its political sense ; to which again all regard for the au-
tonomy of weaker peoples, all sentiment of pity for the
unfortunate, was sacrificed to the imperial reign of one
great city.

The element that entered into the world's history in the
early period of what we call Christian civilization, intro-
duced quite another point of view, — the idea of the sa-
credness of human life, no matter in what low or weak or
pitiful forms it may be exhibited. This point of view
started a tendency quite opposed to the classic or pagan
idea, that is, the tendency to preserve alive all human be-
ings, whether they promise to be useful or not, to care for
all human beings, whether they are effective in social life

*An address before the Philadelphia Ethical Society, Sunday,
Feb. 29, 1908.

194 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

or not, to encourage every form of sympathy and every
form of consideration, and to discourage, in the long run,
every form of cruelty and oppression.

These varied social ideals have produced differing so-
cial conditions, while under all social conditions similar
examples of individual morality have been known and
recognized as "good" and "just."

Social and personal, ideals of ethics in certain great
periods of history have coalesced. Those were the peri-
ods of great achievement. But when personal ideals and
social ideals of excellence differ, then come periods of
confusion, of failure to find the way of life. We have
had many such periods of confusion in history, when the
old was breaking up, and the new had not yet formed
itself into conscious leadership.

The Stoics felt such confusion when the Roman civili-
zation had become corrupt, and the whole life of the peo-
ple was far from the standards of ideal excellence which
these Stoics, a little group of philosophers and moralists,
held and exhibited for themselves. "The times" were
indeed "out of joint" for them.

In all great periods of social change there comes a time
when there is a discrepancy in substance or a dissonance
in emphasis between the common ideal of what is excel-
lent for the individual life and the newly perceived social
codes which aim to achieve general progress.

In the law of private morality, one element remains
always the same. The claim is always made that the
normal human being has the power of choice. That is the
assumption upon which all idealism in ethics rests. There
may be great differences of opinion as to how extensive
that power of choice may be, how far one is able to be
master of his fate ; but no system of idealism, no system

SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY. I95

of religion (for religion is always idealistic) and no sys-
tem of ideal ethics, can exist that does not base itself
upon that master assumption that man has the power of
choice in conduct.

Another assumption goes with this : that a normal hu-
man being may show his power of choice most signally
in the most untoward circumstances ; that in the midst of
difficulty and moral danger the moral hero most clearly
shows his heroism. Still another assumption goes with
these : that although much in our natures is surely the re-
mit of heredity and the influence of environment, yet
luch — how much no one dare outline — 'is our own re-
[sponsibility ; that is to say, that a human being can make
lis character. The word "character" comes from the en-
[graver's power to make an imprint, and man, it is be-
^lieved, thus makes his own mark, his character, upon the
^ inheritance he receives, and the circumstances that sur-
round him.

Those are the most important assumptions of religion,
and they are likewise the assumptions of the idealistic
code of private morality. Idealistic ethics declares, no
matter whether everyone around you does that which you
know to be wrong, you are not therefore to be excused
for being one of those who do wrong ; no matter if all the
world around you seems to be going in the direction of
degeneracy, it is for you to show the power of regenera-
tion in your own life. The stupendous call of religion in
all the ages, under all religious forms, is the same call of
the ideal that we hear to-day : "Be ye therefore perfect."
No circumstances, however difficult, no inheritance, how-
ever bad, is to be used as an excuse : — but all experience
is to be used as an opportunity in which to develop to the
utmost the power of the personal life.

ICl6 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

Have we outgrown that theory ? Have we come to the
point when it is no longer true that we can honestly and
sincerely make these tremendous assumptions that man
has the power of choice ; — that his power is shown most
nobly, and most in the line of his higher development,
under the greatest difficulties; — and that the essential
element of every human personality is its own character,
that which comes by way of conscious purpose, so far as
that purpose is realized in life ? Have we indeed come to
a time when we ought to put sin in quotation marks, and
when we may excuse all manner of departure from the
higher law on the part of those to whom observance of
the higher law is difficult?

Let us consider. There are certain fallacies that we
often hear stated as commonplaces, and find in the daily
press, in magazines and in books. One of these fallacies
is that this is the first time in the moral history of the
race that we have come to a point of divergence between
this law of private morality and the code of social ethics.
This is not true. Whenever in the moral history of the
race some ancient social evil had to be outgrown, there
has been apparently a necessary concentration of attention
upon that particular ethical undertaking, which has for
the time being left in blurred half-consciousness the call
of religion to the perfect individual life.

To illustrate: During so recent a period as the anti-
slavery conflict in this country, there was, among many
of the anti-slavery reformers, an impatience of the ordi-
nary forms of religious association, a marked inattention
to the claims of moral responsibility upon the individual
life in respect to ordinary conduct. These reformers
were so consumed with the fire of their one purpose, so de-
voted to redeeming our national life from this one evil

SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY. I97

&i slavery, that they seemed to think that was the only
moral question in the universe at that particular time.
It zms the main business of that particular time. One
well might sacrifice temporarily something of the rounded
and harmonious development of individual human beings
for the sake of getting rid of this one hoary social evil
that was such a stumbling block to the moral development
of so many weak and unfortunate ones.

We may say, speaking broadly, that the eighteenth cen-
tury had a social ethics which was political — political in
iits interpretation of history, political in its demand for so-
[cial progress, political in its ideal of what social progress
should achieve. In the same way, the nineteenth century
had a social ethics which was educational in its interpre-
tation of history, in its claim for social progress, in its
ideal of what social progress might achieve. Each of
these codes of social ethics had its period of dwarfing the
claims of private morality.

What is the social ethics of the twentieth century, as
distinguished from the code of private morality? Briefly,
it includes a conception of the approach to the realization
of an ethical ideal through society, rather than through
the individual. The ideal of religion is to kindle the
spark of holiness in this life and that life and the other
life, and by spreading the contagion of aspiration and of
righteous living to make a new world, a "City of God,"
out of individual human beings, each set on fire with the
passion for personal holiness.

The ideal of social ethics of this twentieth century calls
us to approach the individual through the social organ-
ism ; not appealing to him directly but indirectly. It bids
us raise the conditions which surround all human beings,
not only in order that it may be easier for the mass of

198 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

men to respond to whatever call to the higher life they
may hear, but as the supreme end of social effort. Social
ethics means, then, the approach to the individual life
through the social organization ; while on the other hand,
the appeal of religion is always to the individual, the "I"
and "thou" in the universe.

In the eighteenth century it was thought and believed,
and truly so, that the time had come to have a democratic
form of government to curb the power of kings, to modify
the exactions of nobility, to give the common life a chance
to express itself in government. This democracy in gov-
ernment had to be attained by a concentration of effort
which made political heroes, and made them all out of
stuff that could be expressed in political systems. "Make
way for liberty !" cried the hero of that epoch. And oh,
the countless heroes who endured in this struggle all "the
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" in order to make
freer governments !

We hardly think in these days — unless we have just
come from some country where oppression still lives and
rears its head in power — what it has cost to gain even
that approach to free government which we enjoy to-day.
Seeing the terrible need for an immediate change in the
social order in this particular, what were the teachings of
the greatest leaders in the eighteenth century? Not the
teachings that appeal to individual, to be resigned to
evil conditions, to be patient under misfortune, to bear
oppression without injury to their own moral nature ; but
those that are full of appeals to resist, to rebel, to make all
jx)ssible effort to overcome the evil conditions of an
oppressive form oi government.

In the same way, in the nineteenth century, after a cer-
tain progress had been made toward political freedom,

SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY. I99

it was perceived that if account were to be taken politic-
ally of the opinions of all the people, then all the people
must have education. Even the great leaders did not
see at first what kind of education was needed by the en-
tire people; so they took the kind of education that had
been developed for the few master nobles at the top of
society and tried to apply it to everybody. Bad mistakes
were made by that process, but it was the best that could
be done, because education, culture, then represented the
)rivileg-e only of the few. In the quaint writings of the
mcient wisdom books, written when the ignorance of the
lasses was accepted as a permanent condition, the work-
lan could only attain his "power through his handicraft,"
lis work; and the few philosophers only, those living
lives of leisure, could deal justly with ideals and be in-
|vited "to rule in the assembly." When Emerson wrote,
'God said, 'I am tired of kings, I suffer them nO' more,' "
that was a poetic way of expressing the feeling of the
eighteenth century that not the nobles only, not the phil-
)Sophers only, but all the people were to be counted in as
m active part of the body politic.

The reformers of the nineteenth century raised the cry
— and that is the keynote of nineteenth century social
ethics — that these newly recognized people should have a
chance at education ; a chance not only to use their hands
at their "craft" but also to study in the school, in order
that they, too, might become fitted "to rule in the as-
sembly."

Thus education for all became the great demand of
human progress. It was forgotten, as well it might be,
in such a mighty task, that in and through the service of
the race, whether that service be intellectual or manual,
had come the moral discipline of the race. It was thought

200 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

therefore, that the schooling of the people would be suf-
ficient if they were taught a few things out of books,
instead of learning through doing.

We have come to the time in our new and more con-
scious social life when another social ethics is clamoring
for admission to the first place in social direction, and it
will receive the first place ; a social ethics, economic in its
interpretation of history, economic in its form of demand
for social progress and economic in its ideal of what so-
cial progress should achieve. This new social ethics of
the twentieth century is already born. It is to be the
test of the intelligence, the radical thought, the power of
response in the individual to the spirit of the age. This
new social ethics will guide the concentrated social ac-
tivity of our modern complex life for an untold period of
moral struggle. This new social ethics is that which aims
to democratise industry and to equalize economic condi-
tions. To-day, instead of political social ethics, or edu-
cational social ethics, we have economic social ethics.
Some deny to this economic theory the name or quality
of ethics altogether. Many are saying, because economic
ethics seem out of harmony with the call of religion, out
of touch with the idealistic appeal of ethics, that it is not
ethics at all. It is ethics — let no one doubt it. It is social
ethics and made out of the same stuff that political and
educational reforms were made, the vital conception of
human brotherhood. It is open to exactly the same criti-
cism from one who wishes to take a balanced philosophic
view, as -was the eighteenth century political ethics or the
nineteenth century ethics of free schools. The ethical
philosopher of the eighteenth century could well have
said, "you will not make people better in wholesale fash-
ion by making them freer in government. You will have

\

SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY. 201

the same old task of personal character development for
all human beingSj even if they do live under a democratic
form 'of government." We have found that to be true.
In the early part of the nineteenth century, when the
claim was made that every child should be educated, en-
lightened, and every State wrote compulsory education
laws, the philosophic thinker might then have said, "you
will not save the multitude by merely teaching them how
to read and write and cipher. They will learn to be more
efficient by this process, but somehow you must put into
those persons as individuals an ideal, a high purpose of
consecration to the highest they can see, or you will not
make superior persons." We have found this also to be
true.

Now we have this new economic social ethics. I won-
der how many are conscious of the tremendous influence
that the new ideals of social progress are having over our
young students at the college centres, over the numerous
and wonderfully increasing socialistic societies, over the
great number of intelligent young people who are study-
ing social conditions to-day. It is an over-mastering in-
fluence. Listen to some statements of economic social
ethics as an interpretation of this new form of social ap-
proach to human progress.

A recent book,* which perhaps presents in most complete
outline this modern social ethics, contains the following
words: "Many thinkers affirm that progress is possible
only through the evolution of character." "But the im-
provement of nations is measured by that margin of
riches and power left from the cost of living." "Regener-
ation is prevented, not by defects in personality but by
defects in environment." "The sole test of dynamic civili-

*Prof. Simon N. Patten's "New Basis of Civilization.

202 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

zation is that of physical efficiency in the children." "That
course is normal and therefore moral, which enables indi-
viduals to add to the superabundance of the general
goods." In this book the old code of private morality,
that which traced the progress of the race through the de-
velopment of individual character, is set over against the
economic advance in the nation ; and the latter is used as
the explanation and goal of social effort. The author
advocates "social control" as the great ethical require-
ment by which to improve industrial conditions and to
"enlarge the income of the masses of men." This, he
thinks, will lead to new forms of social control that will
draw men later toward higher forms of civilization. The
material progress must however, in his opinion, come be-
fore any other form of social advance can effectively im-
prove the race.

Again, "The aim of social work is democracy rather
than culture, energy rather than virtue, efficiency rather
than goodness, social standards for all rather than genius
and opportunity for the few." A disciple of this author
out-does his master, as disciples are apt to do, and puts
into his own book a whole chapter on the "Goodness
Fallacy;" as if goodness and efficiency were inconsistent
one with the other. Finally, "social work," says the author,
"has to do with the means of progress and not with its
ends."

A social ethics that is frankly and specifically economic,
therefore, is the social ethics that is to-day testing our re-
ceptivity and our response to the spirit of the time. It
plants itself firmly in an almost antagonistic attitude to
the inherited code of personal morality. It says: "Stop
talking about personal virtue, seek to develop energy in a
man; stop talking about the culture of people on the

f

SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY. 203

higher side of Hfe, and work with all your might to pro-
mote the interests of the weak, to raise the social stan-
dards for all. The people at the top can take care of
themselves." "What we want to do now," declares the
social ethics economist, "is to make every human being
more healthy, give him a better work-efficiency, pay him
better for his labor, give him a better chance to live a
happy, healthy and comfortable life." Many people, tak-
ing up a book of this kind, are injured in their moral
sense. They say : "This is not ethics, even social ethics : —
this is the doctrine of the epicurean, the doctrine of
the man who thinks only of material interests." This is
only a superficial criticism. As well might a person have
said in the eighteenth century, when the struggle for po-
litical freedom was dwarfing all other interests and send-
ing people out by thousands from the church to the battle-
field : "this is not ethics ; this is only a struggle on the low-
er side of life, for the sake of each class grasping more
power for itself." Again, when the effort was being made
to share more widely the heritage of education, a person
might as well have said the same thing — "one need not
go to school to learn and do his duty. "This new economic
claim of democracy, like the older claims of politics and
education, is social ethics; but social ethics is not all of
ethics. It is true that the time is coming when those who
are not counted as belonging to the intellectual nobility
must be counted as entitled to leisure to learn. It is true
that the time has come when the workers are to be reck-
oned as entitled to the franchise of the ideal by means of
a better compensated industry ; not alone to be counted at
the ballot box, not alone to have a chance to go to school
for a short time ; but to be reckoned in as full sharers in
the benefits of an improved economic system, which is to

204 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

give all easier access to the comforts of life, and thus
also easier access to the refinements of life.

The difficulty is that our masters in this new economic
social ethics undertake to do too much. Were they to
say, "our work is to supply the means for human pro-
gress, to make it easier for people to answer this call of
religion and the ideal side of Hfe, and it is the task of
religious and moral teachers to apply these means of hu-
man progress to the ends of social progress, viz. : a higher
sort of human being," then they would be giving us an
unmixed truth. But the tendency of all masters in one
line is to try to cover all other lines, and hence many
teachers of the new social ethics attempt to make the
interpretation of history itself wholly economic, and to
give a prophesy of the future which is wholly economic.
They speak truth and have facts innumerable, dark and
awful facts in human life, on their side, when they say
that the mass of mankind have been acted on by their en-
vironment like a plant. But let them listen when the other
side — the spiritual side — is brought to their attention.
Man is and has been acted upon by his environment like a
plant; but it is an august fact, proved in individual per-
sonalities, that a man may also re-act on his environment
like a god ! Let us all understand the limits of any form
of social ethics. It is but one side of the ideal. The
other side is the personal. The social side is one so long
neglected that we may well be caught and swept on in the
rush of enthusiasm for this new movement to count every-
body in, to count all as "fit for the assembly," all "able
to learn judgment," because no longer "poverty-men."

We may well hesitate to cast one shadow of suspicion
upon a leadership which is marching so bravely toward
the conquering of poverty, of distress, of disease, and all

I

SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY. 205

the evils which in the past man has accepted as inevitable.
We may well hesitate to check an enthusiasm which in-
sists on the radical cure of monstrous inequalities in hu-
man condition. Moreover, it is true, as these leaders say,
that everyone of us is today tested in respect to our in-
dividual moral perception, by our attitude toward
economic social ethics. If we are unprepared to de-
clare ourselves, it is our primal duty tO' study and learn.
If we are, by tradition or inheritance, averse to consider-
ing the democratizing of industry as a part of social pro-
gress, it is our duty tO' take counsel with ourselves and go
to school to history and learn the actual conditions of
the past and present. Let us clearly understand that if
we fail in this test, we are ranked with those who were
on the side of the kings and the nobles in the eighteenth
century, and not on the side of the people ; we are ranked
with those in the nineteenth century who held culture to
belong only to the few and not with those who covered
themselves with glory and gave the human race its dear-
est possessions, by framing and establishing the people's
common schools. Social ethics demands of us to-day a
clear answer to this one great question : — ^Do you believe
in the sharing of the common-wealth of the human race?
Do you believe in the democratizing of industry ?

The free spirit declines to pronounce a shibboleth of
method in answering this question; it will not be forced
into use of any set phrases. The free spirit will not ac-
cept a label, a name, as a sufficient substitute for a ra-
tional judgment. It will not say that it is socialistic or
anti-socialistic in advance. It will not accept the chal-
lenge of method, but only the challenge of principle. But
in the fullness of time, this challenge of principle has
come, and no man or woman of mature life to-day can

206 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

escape that challenge, any more than any man or woman
of mature life could escape the challenge in America in
the anti-slavery conflict. You are for the universal shar-
ing of the common-wealth of human kind, you are for the
universal expression of democracy in every form, or
you are against it. From now on, the call to stand where
you belong on this dividing line has gone forth. No hu-
man being can escape it. Only the ignorant, the imma-
ture and thoughtless can put aside this demand of the eco-
nomic social ethics of the twentieth century.

Accepting that fact as I do, and believing that sympa-
thy and good will go in the right direction, even though
the wisdom of leadership has not yet developed, and
standing myself clearly on the side of the greater democ-
racy, I have this to say: whenever a new social ethics
has been outlined, whenever a new form of approach to
individual life through the social organism has been pre-
sented, there is the danger point for the individual moral
life. If we go up and down the land, proclaiming that
people who live in bad tenements and have too little
wages and are not sufficiently fed — what the author of
the book I have cited calls "poverty men"^are what
they are wholly and solely because of their bad condi-
tions, then we lessen, and for some fatally, the power of
self-control and self-help. Unless somebody else goes
up and down the land appealing to these individuals to
live up to the utmost of their possibilities as human be-
ings— no matter how hard their lot — we shall inspire
class-feelings that are degenerating, and we shall encour-
age a moral inertness on the part of those who should be
struggling hardest for their moral birthright which will
prove to the last degree dangerous. Not only that ; if we
let our enthusiasm run exclusively in a channel of social

SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY. 20/

ethics, and that enthusiasm is not modified and spiritual-
ized by the old appeal to the human being to be the best
person he can, we have marred our own thinking by
dwelling on half-truths only, and our leadership is there-
by lessened in its permanent value.

For example, I was present not long ago at a meeting
where there was a serious discussion as to the best meth-
ods of protecting young girls — immigrants from foreign
lands, and those going from one State to another — from
the terrible moral dangers which beset them. The last
word of the meeting was given by a Christian minister
and it was a surprising one : — **This is a purely economic
question," he said ; *'the girls do not earn enough. Their
whole life is too poverty-bound, and we have the social
evil because of this condition. It is a purely economic
question." This from the Christian minister, and there
was no chance for another word ; but another word ought
to have been said. With full acknowledgment of the eco-
nomic elements in the social evil, it should have been said
that greed and lust clasp hands together for the exploita-
tion of innocence and ignorance and poverty. And
greed and lust are the bad elements in man that must be
attacked as sins for which the individual is responsible.
Until we have put these two things, the moral accounta-
bility of the individual who uses his power for the op-
pression and exploitation of the weak, along side of the
conditions that make it possible and easy for weakness
to be so exploited, we have not said the whole truth in
the matter of the social evil.

The same thing is true of that larger question of labor
reform. If every man in America were well-fed, well-
clothed, well-housed, well-paid, we would not thereby
necessarily be sure that every man in America would be a

208 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

desirable human being. Something else must come into
the account — something that has to do with the spirit of
the man. It is true that bad housing tends to make it dif-
ficult for people to live a right life ; it is true that we must
curb disease in order to raise the potency of human life ;
that we must share in a much larger way than is done to-
day, all of material comfort that has come to us from the
united efforts of the human race. But, when all is said
and done, man is improved as a human being by the use
to which he puts his opportunity, and man is spiritually
developed by the choices he makes. He may make a
choice in poverty, in economic defeat, in pain and suffer-
ing and death, which lifts him and lifts the race ; and he
may make a choice under the most favorable material
conditions which starts his life on the swift sliding plane
of degeneracy, and thwarts the hope of the race by his
moral failure.

Religion is not outgrown; ethical appeal is not obso-
lete ; social ethics does not annul the code of private mor-
ality. The present demand of social ethics is to give us
all more guidance than ever before in the attainment of
general progress ; but it alone cannot hold aloft the ideal
of the possibility of individual achievement by which
personal character is developed. In the words of Marcus
Aurelius, the call is still to everyone to "no longer delay
being among the number of the best, using the divinity
that is within." Unless in some way our religious life
retains its own distinctive vitality, unless our ministers of
religion cease to join in with the economists in saying
that everything evil is simply and only an economic ques-
tion, we shall, for the time being, lose our command of the
spiritual world. So surely as we do that, our economic
progress will be attained by revolutionary and not by evo-

SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY. 209

lutionary methods, and we shall have to go back and be-
gin over again in order to gain the saner and surer way
of growth. The jewel of ideal endeavor must be recovered
from the mire in which it has been thrown or we shall lose
the pearl of greatest price. For this office of religion the
Christian Church exists, although sometimes it forgets
and subordinates its life to lower ends, not daring to live
by its own gospel. For this the Synagogue exists, that
its ancient call to holiness may be heeded in the dark as
well as in the light places of earth. For this, supremely,
Ethical Societies exist.

Every human being may be better than he is. We know
it, because we — the human beings we know best — ^could
be better than we are. Every human being should take
advantage of his opportunity, however poor. We know
this because we feel that we have failed to make the best
of our opportunities. Every human being can, if he will,
become a larger, finer, and fairer specimen of the human
race. This is the gospel of religion and this is the gospel
of personal ethics.

"To put forth all one's strength," as the Psalmist says,
to become that better creature one sees in vision, — this is
to "verify one's credentials" as a spiritual being. For
this end of spiritual appeal and stimulation, for this end
of daring uplift even from the dregs of circumstance,
the church has existed and societies like this been formed.
This high function of religion has been justified as valid
by human experience. It was never more needed for
conscious leadership than now, when the rush of thought
and activity is so overwhelmingly on the side of mass ap-
peal and mass direction.

It is for us who believe in the essence of religion to
stand by the roadside and cry aloud to those who are

210 SOCIAL ETHICS AND PRIVATE MORALITY.

mending the highways of material advance: Yes, brave
leaders, this is the task of our time, — ye do well to un-
dertake it! But we have to declare that there is an-
other task, in all times the same, and to this, also, we de-
vote ourselves. This is the ancient task of inspiring men
and women to be better worthy of the "means of pro-
gress" they now have; to see clearly and reach after
with prevailing passion of endeavor, here and now, the
"ends" for which all means of human progress exist. So-
cial ethics in changing forms brings about higher and
higher conditions of human development through wider
and wider areas of human life. The law of private moral-
ity changes not from age to age; albeit its expression,
in deed, has form as varied as each type of age and race.
This law demands to-day, as when the first spiritual im-
pulse dawned in the heart of man, — Be and do the best
you see and can gain strength to realize, wherever life
has placed you and at whatever cost of struggle !

THE ETHICAL ASPECT OF THE
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY

By Walter L. Sheldon.*

People want evidence with regard to the Hfe after
death. They would Hke to know whether modern thought
fully justifies the belief in the immortality of the soul.
Men can never be quite satisfied on the question. They
always want more evidence. Whatever that life beyond
may actually be, we know that it must be something dif-
ferent from this life here on earth. On this account very
few persons grasp the belief with the same kind of abso-
lute assurance or intensity of conviction that they would
feel with reference to facts connected with this natural
world. If the belief in it were so complete, probably the
majority of persons would much rather at once slip this
mortal coil and pass over into eternity. But, as we know
perfectly well, there are very few who do not shrink from
going to that "bourne whence no traveler returns."

For this reason there is an unusual interest attaching
to the discussion of this question. We like to have one
another's views upon it, we are eager to read in regard
to it. The human mind searches for every crumb of evi-
dence in favor of the belief. It not only cares for the
hope, it wants positive knowledge. Rational people are
actually making the most desperate efforts to have some
kind of communication with the world beyond the grave.
They make every possible effort to have some kind of

*The founder and lecturer of the St. Louis Society who died
June 5th, 1907.

. 211

212 ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

communication with persons who have passed away from
earth. It would seem as though people would rather give
up the belief in God than in the immortality of the soul.
It is a striking fact that a large number of persons who
have developed a special and most intense faith in an-
other world are unbelievers in a personal Deity. They
believe in Nature and the supernatural, but not in a su-
pernatural, personal God.

It is a striking circumstance that the great scholars of
antiquity who thought the most deeply on the purposes of
life took just the other standpoint. They had a most in-
tense faith in a guiding Providence, in a personal Deity,
in a Father of the world, but they did not believe in the
immortality of the soul. Undoubtedly a certain class of
minds also at the present time are opposed to that belief.
They are the enthusiastic materialists who appear satisfied
with this one life here on earth. Their number however is
comparatively few.

The Ethical aspect of the question is not concerned with
the fact at all. What a man thinks as to the facts of the
beyond he is entitled to reserve in his own soul, just
as he should be entitled to the same kind of privacy in
reference to his views about a belief in a God. We each
one of us have our own belief. It may be interesting to
think upon it, it may be gratifying to us to listen to lec-
tures on the subject. We may be desirous of reading the
books which discuss the trustworthiness of the belief.
But that particular desire or interest in the question is to
a certain extent independent of our relation to it as moral
beings.

There was a time in the middle of the century when it
looked for a little while, as though, from a purely scien-
tific standpoint, the best evidence was going to be offered

I

ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 213

that the soul of man could not be immortal because, in
fact, it was said there was no' soul of man at all. There
was only a brain, and the soul was a function of the
brain, living while it lived, and dying when it passed into
dissolution. It was said therefore that this soul of ours
either did not exist as a soul, or else was so definitely
connected with the material organism as to live and die
with the life and death of the body.

We understand perfectly well at the present time how
it was that such an attitude of mind was taken. It came
along with the prevalence of a negative atheism. It was
simply a reaction from the former idea that the soul of
man was quite separate and distinct from the bodily or-
ganism, just as it was assumed that there was a soul ot
the world quite separate and distinct from the material
universe. It appears now to be pretty satisfactorily
determined that there is no such absolute disconnection.
If there be a God, he and nature somewhere must touch
and belong together. If there be a soul, it and the nerve
force of the body somewhere must connect and mutually
be influenced.

But the philosophic and scientific world has passed be-
yond that negative materialism. I believe it is now pretty
generally agreed that no evidence has yet been of-
fered to disprove the possibility of the life of the soul
after death. Consciousness, as such, has not been ex-
plained or resolved into atomic forces or into nerve sub-
stance. Probably all, or nearly all, of the leading scien-
tists of the present day would admit the scientific possi-
bility of the soul of man continuing in life after the disso-
lution of the body. The human race has passed through
the age of negative atheism or materialism. It is doubt-
ful whether that stage will ever return again in the his-

214 ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

tory of western Christendom. They may have to go
through it some time in the Orient in their reaction from
their condition of absolute faith. As I said a few Sun-
days ago with regard to Nature and Nature's God, it is
quite generally admitted that there is something beyond
the mere universe that we see. What there is we do not
know ; we may not be able to describe definitely, but there
is something else not open to bodily vision. We have not
probed the last great mystery and found the ultimate
source of the Universe. Just in the same way it is with
regard to this body and soul of ours. The connection
between the two has not been determined ; probably it is
beyond human understanding. The eye of the mind can
not grasp it any more than the physical eye. Scientific
research leaves a gap unfilled. There is something more
in consciousness than this mere bodily organism. That
much also now appears to be agreed upon. We may not
be able to determine just what it is; but there is some-
thing more in ourselves than the material
organism, just as there is something more
in Nature than the material atom. If you
care for an authority on the question, I would refer you
to a little volume entitled : "The Unseen Universe," writ-
ten by two English scientists, Stewart and Tait. They
have given the standpoint of modern science in the con-
fession it makes in regard to its own limitations ; that is to
say, they will tell us what science dare not say about the
soul. I will quote two or three paragraphs. I fancy the
same standpoint would be taken, though in other words,
by the leading writers on the subject.

"Now, it is well known that since the days of Bishop Butler,
a school has arisen, the members of which assert that they have
at length learned what Death is, and that in virtue of their

ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 215

knowledge they are in a position to tell us that life is impossible
after death. It is one of the main objects of this volume to
demonstrate the fallacy which underlies the argument brought
forward by this school. We attempt to show that we are abso-
lutely driven by scientific principles to acknowledge the existence
of an Unseen Universe, and by scientific analogy to conclude that
it is full of life and intelligence — that it is in fact a spiritual uni-
verse and not a dead one.

**But while we are fully justified by scientific considerations in
asserting the existence of such an unseen universe, we are not
justified in assuming that we have yet attained, or can easily or
perhaps ever attain, to more than a very slight knowledge of its
nature. Thus we do not believe that we can really ascertain
what death is.

'To those, therefore, who assert that there is no spiritual un-
seen world, and that death is the end of the existence of the in-
dividual, we reply by simply denying their first statement, and in
consequence of this denial, insisting that none of us know any-
thing whatever about death. Indeed, it is at once apparent that
a scientific denial of the possibility of life after death must be
linked with at least something like a scientific proof of the non-
existence of a spiritual unseen world. For if scientific analogy
be against a spiritual Unseen, then evidently it is equally against
the likelihood of life after death.

"Bu': if, on the other hand, we feel constrained to believe in a
spiritual universe, then though it does not follow that life is cer-
tain after death, inasmuch as we do not know whether any pro-
vision has been made in this unseen world for our reception, yet
it does follow that we cannot deny the possibility of a future
life. For to do so would imply on our part such an exhaustive
knowledge of the Unseen as would justify us in believing that
no arrangement had been made in it for our transference thither.
Now, our almost absolute ignorance with regard to the Unseen
must prevent us from coming to any such conclusion."

All that the volume undertakes to do in scientific form
is to show that the belief in the life after death is not in
contradiction with the best work in modern scientific re-
search. They have shown almost conclusively that even
as rationalists, as students of nature, we are compelled
to go further than the elementary atom of physics; we
must even go further than the delicate ether that is sup-
posed to fill all space. It is shown that there must be
something finer and more spiritual than ether itself. They
have shown it probable that the atom itself had an origin

2l6 ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

in time and will also have an end. They also make it plain
that the visible universe itself must have begun in time
and will come to an end. It must have been born of some
other universe and will pass into some other universe. It
reminds one of Shelley's wonderful lines :

Worlds on worlds are rolling ever
From creation to decay."

This may sound abstract and rather metaphysical, but
after all it is not so deep or mysterious when one investi-
gates the elements of physical science. There is nothing
of the mystical about it. The most clear-headed mathe-
matician will be the one quickest to grasp the truth. It is
not a fact which has to be accepted by intuition or imme-
diate faith. It is simply one of the inevitable conclu-
sions of natural science. What Stewart and Tait there-
fore have done is simply to show the possibility of another
world or perhaps of a multitude of other worlds.

What is of vastly more consequence to us is the his-
tory of the belief through past ages. This is significant,
not because it furnishes any evidence one way or the
other with regard to its trustworthiness, but because it is
an indication of the evolving process of the human soul.
There is little doubt that a large share of our religious
beliefs do not come to us by careful intellectual reflection.
The soul of man adopts them, or has usually adopted
them, as an expression of his highest aspirations. What
man has thought about the other world and the life be-
yond the grave in past times is, therefore, a suggestion
as to his stage of spiritual advancement. It tells us of the
moral plane of feeling or character which he has reached.

Now, there is no doubt whatever that the process of
history has been more and more, in the course of the ages,

ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 2\J

to render men's Ideas of the life beyond indefinite. Un-
derstand me, this does not refer to the fact whether there
is such a Hfe after death. The actual number of persons
who doubt that is very few. Most persons have a pretty
positive conviction that they will live again after they
die. Those who doubt the fact make themselves

I heard of because of the striking character of their unbe-
lief. We are led therefore to over-estimate their num-
ber. No, what I have in mind is rather the indefinite-
ness of mind as to just what tJmt life is. You remember
Shelley's remark with regard to the belief in the Deity.
"Where indefiniteness ends there superstition begins."
This has reference to the character of the Deity, not to
the question as to whether there is a Supreme Being.
Probably it is equally true in reference to the belief in a
life after death.
As we go back to early history, we observe that the
human mnd had as clear an idea of the life beyond the
grave as of the life here on earth. Men could venture to
describe just what took place there, how it appeared, how
the human soul conducted itself, what it did and what it
suffered. In the very earliest stages, of course, it is noth-
ing more than a direct continuation of the life here on
earth. We are familiar with the fact that the Aborigines
P^ of our own country buried the hatchet and favorite dog of
the warrior chief assuming that he would want them in
the happy hunting grounds.

It has sometimes been assumed that the belief was
general that the life after death would necessarily be a
happy one to the good, if not to the wicked. This, how-
ever, was only partially true. We know, for example,
that the Greeks in the time of Homer had, after all, only
a mournful view of the beyond. The joys of earth were

2l8 ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

far preferable in their thought to the joys of the soul in
the Unseen. They had very clear ideas of the invisible
world, but the ideas tended to be somber and gloomy.
You remember we have descriptions of visits paid by
mortals to the other world.

Even now definiteness of belief exists among primi-
tive races. I remember an incident told by a writer on
the origin of civilization. I believe it was of two women
who were enemies to one another among the peasant pop-
ulation of India. They believed so clearly that it would
be possible for them after death to visit the earth, that
one of them took her own life and went to the grave just
so that she might be able to come back and torment the
other person whom she hated.

The students of sociology have given a great deal of
attention to studying the origin of the belief in another
world. It is questionable whether this is of very much
consequence. Mr. Herbert Spencer has done a great
deal in reference to the matter. His theory is, I believe,
that the dream life makes a man have faith in a kind of
double self, because he appears to travel over the world
without his body in the land of dreams. At the present
day the faith would rest on altogether different founda-
tions. The point, however, to be considered is simply the
fact, as I have intimated, that, as the world grows older,
as the human soul has grown deeper and more profound,
as the spiritual character of man has grown more and
more refined, — human thought has come to have less and
less a definite notion of that other life. This I believe
is true quite independent of whether men do or do not be-
lieve in spiritual revelation. There was no doubt a time
when the majority of persons looked upon the Apocalypse
of St. John as a true picture of Heaven. They probably

ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 21i)

had definite faith in the gates of pearl, the streets of gold,
the walks of jasper and amethyst. They expected to
wear actual crowns and stand before a throne not at all
unlike the throne of a human king. But at the present
time, probably the deeper minds would all confess that
that is only a picture or allegory, a mere suggestion to
the mind of the joy of that other life. It is doubtful
whether a refined nature would take much satisfaction
out of that picture at the present time, save as it reduces
it all to a metaphor. I fancy indeed that many of us would
be only too sorry if we had to see any more gold in
Heaven, after all the bitter associations of sorrow and
selfishness that have come to us in the scramble for the
possession of gold on earth. We should be only too glad
over there to be rid of those associations, and to think
rather of the spiritual idea of fellowship and brother-
hood.

Probably for this reason the world will never again
produce such a poem as the divine comedy of Dante. The
interest in such a poem would not exist. We could say the
same thing of the pictures given us in Paradise Lost by
John Milton. We read them now with interest, but
they are works of art and not much of a spiritual help,
whatever a person's belief may actually be. The finer
nature would shrink from that definite material kind of
life beyond the grave. It is said that Dante himself meant
it only as an allegory. Whether that be true or not, we
shall have to think of it as an allegory in order to receive
any spiritual help from it. We can enjoy the realism
of its poetry as we would enjoy the realism of Homer.

Children want material things. So, too, the human
mind in the childhood of history wants material things;
but the whole process of evolution in individual life, as

220 ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

well as in all history, is rather to refine the soul so that
it cares less and less for the actual material. It wants
rather the ideal, or the spiritual. It is for this reason,
probably, that even in our modern hymns we can sing
the words given us by the writers of former times, but the
inspiration for composing them seems to have passed
away. The world, even now, begins to like better those
which are less definite. Such a hymn, after all, as "Near-
er my God to Thee" is only a vague aspiration. It sug-
gests another life of supreme spiritual joy to be found,
but it leaves a definite idea of that that life to be felt in
music, rather than expressed in words. The same is true,
probably, of the well known song "In the Sweet Bye and
Bye." There is an expression of joy in meeting one's
friends over there, but the how and in what way is left
unsaid. The most beautiful hymn ever written, by Cardi-
nal Newman, is of the same kind, "Lead Kindly Light
Amid the Encircling Gloom." It is to be noticed that the
finer nature, if it wants religious music, prefers those
vague aspirations rather than the definite pictures of
former ages. I should not be surprised if, by and by,
the more religious and refined persons would prefer as-
pirations expressed exclusively by music without words
at all. They would rather have it in orchestral sym-
phonies, or rendered by the human voice in some unknown
language, so that the expression should be nothing more
than the aspiration of the higher spiritual life, without
any definite thought as to what that special life would be,
save that it would be spiritual rather than material, in the
direction of what we feel to be the highest, the purest,
and the best.

There is another fact that comes home to me of great
consequence in the evolution of this faith in the life be-

ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 221

yond the grave. I have spoken of the way the idea itself
has revived in the process of human evolution. But it is
of still greater interest and consequence to observe how
the motive out of which the desire for immortality had its
origin has been refined. The ethical significance of this
change is very great. We know perfectly well what the
desire in the first case actually was. Man wanted a life
beyond the grave just because he liked the joys and pleas-
ures of the real life on earth. He wanted the continuation
of the physical satisfaction of existence. He shrank
from giving up the actual pleasures of life ; he hungered
in his very soul for the assurance that those pleasures
would go on through eternity. The Aborigines of this
country wanted more of the everlasting happy hunting
ground. The warriors of Scandinavia and of Iceland
dreamed of another world of battles and conflicts, the
endless joys of war, the pleasures of heroism, the delight
in courage, the emotions that come from being con-
querors.

We know how this too has changed. The desire, un-
doubtedly, started out of a purely selfish impulse. A man
wanted a heaven just for himself. He shrank from death
because it was the end of his own pleasures. But now
leap over the centuries to the present day, or pass from
the rude savages of uncivilized countries to the finer na-
tures where we live and dwell. Think of the difference.
What is it that makes most of you really desire to have
a belief in another life? Is it for yourselves? I doubt
it. Most of you care for it because you have lost some
one from earth. It is not your own immortality you are
thinking about, that is second in your consciousness to
the intense longing in your heart to feel that that other
friend is living in the beyond.

222 ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

There is a wonderful significance in this extraordinary
change which has taken place. It shows how the soul of
man has expanded and glorified so that it is possible for
him to care less about his own everlasting future than
the everlasting future of those he loves. The thoughts
turn to another world when a friend has passed away
from this one. We watch the literature on the subject
and try to get some new assurances that there is such a
life in the beyond. We go to other thinkers and ask their
opinions ; we look up the works of science on the subject;
we venture even to probe the investigations of the less
educated minds of the present day. We go searching any
where and everywhere just with the vague hope of find-
ing some encouragement for the belief. This would ap-
pear to be almost the climax of unselfishness. It may not
be universal, but the tendency is becoming more and
more apparent. It is for our friends that we dread anni-
hilation even more than for ourselves. We cannot endure
the thought of absolute and eternal separation.

Some have thought that the significance of this change
was not merely an indication of higher unselfishness ap-
pearing in human nature. It has been suggested as a
possibility that the same tendency could go farther, that
is to say, that in the process of human feeling and aspira-
tion the time may come when we might be indifferent as
to whether those we love, as well as ourselves, had a life
after death, provided we could only be conscious or as-
sured of the perpetual life of the human race. It would
imply that what we cared for was that the universal life
we are identified with should go on, and if that continued
to be contented to pass into an endless sleep.

Whether human nature is capable of reaching that
height, or that depth, remains an open question. One

ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 223

of the greatest minds suggested it, John Stuart Mill, but
broke down completely when he was put to the test. The
man who said that the time might come when the human
race would not care for immortal life was the very per-
son who, in later years, when the great separation came
between him and his loved companion, fixed his home
for the last few years where at least he could have the
satisfaction, as he was at work, of looking out upon her
grave from his open window. Undoubtedly this would
indicate a triumph of human self-sacrifice and a spiritual
communion with the whole brotherhood of the human
race. But whether it is possible or not, as yet it is quite
certain that we have not realized it.

You will perceive now the main point I want to bring
out with regard to the ethical aspect of this belief. As I
have said, I am not concerned with the fact at all. Each
man can have his own opinion on that subject. It is a
question what kind of stress we shall lay upon
the belief; what kind of views with regard to it
are the most strengthening to the personal human char-
acter. Now I have no hesitation in saying that the in-
definite idea in regard to the life beyond the grave is
much more refining and strengthening to the deeper feel-
ings and character. I have no doubt whatsoever, from
personal observation, that the former definite conception
of heaven and hell would tend, if existing at the present
day, to increase or intensify average selfishness. It would
make the world even more material in its ideas of relig-
ion; it would keep our thoughts on the joy that was com-
ing to us ; it would tend to make us care for the same kind
of pleasures that we have on earth. The whole moral as-
pect of the question lies not with our faith in the fact, but
on the stress we lay on it. Shall we be constantly think-

224 ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

ing about it ; shall we be turning it over in our minds and
asking, is there a heaven? What is hell? How do our
friends look over there ? Do they know of us and what we
are doing? The effect is to limit human sympathies. It
will either, as I have said, keep a man's attention on the
good that is coming to himself, and make him care just
for himself, or concentrate the energies of his emotions
on the few friends that have left this life and gone into
the beyond.

Now, if there is one fact more clear than another, it is
that Nature, or God, does not want us to spend our en-
ergy in mere feeling. The emotion that cannot do some-
thing is perilous, wears itself out, is liable to make the
character deteriorate. Nature exacts that we should con-
centrate our emotions on those we can help and do some-
thing for. For this reason I believe it is perfectly clear
that, if there is an actual purpose in nature, if there is
an actual Providence overlooking human affairs, it is
plain to see that that purpose is actually in this direction,
(if, as is apparent, the whole course of human history has
been to render the beyond indefinite) to make us care less
for ourselves than for our friends. It means, if it means
anything at all, that that indefiniteness is there just so that
we cannot constantly be turning our attention to the ques-
tion. If that clearness of vision, that positive heaven,
was revealed to us by scientific research, we should be
constantly thinking about it and become weak rather than
strong, do less rather than more, in our life here on
earth. That strikes me as perfectly plain as the law of
moral evolution. The subject is better left indefinite so
that we might not think too much upon it. We are not
rendered spiritual just by thinking of the beyond; we are
not rendered religious or refined by pouring forth our

ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 225

emotions upon something. That result only comes when
we can actually, definitely, positively help or serve the
person on whom we throw those emotions. It is that kind
of an act which makes us spiritual. God, by the very pro-
cess of history, would seem to be saying: Stop thinking
of Me and think of your fellows ; serve them, and you will
find Me in spite of yourself. In the same way He would
appear, by the process of history, to be saying: Stop
thinking of heaven and the life beyond the grave, and in
that way only will you fit yourselves for heaven when it
comes.

Matthew Arnold's sonnet tells the whole story when he
says :

"Why not rather say:
'Hath man no second life ? Pitch this one high !
Was Christ a man like us ? Ah ! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he !' "

He expressed it better and still more profoundly when
he said:

"No, no ! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,

"From strength to strength advancing — only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life."

I have not been endeavoring to give a personal opinion
on the question, but simply to read the law of history,
which must after all be the law of God. I do not say
that this process would be the greatest for human joy; I
do not say that it would give the greatest satisfaction, but
I do say that this is just what Nature intended that we
should do. The Great Power cared more to make us
strong and brave and good and refined and spiritual.

226 ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

than he did to make us happy. The constant thinking of
the life beyond the grave, casting our emotions in that
one direction, might give us greater pleasure, but this
higher law stands over us, — "thou canst not by searching
find out." If you come to it at all, if you ever get to
heaven, it will be by the way you devote your life to the
work of earth, and not in the way you keep thinking
about heaven. It is equally true that, if we care to be
loyal to those we have lost, we are far truer to them by
devoting ourselves to those who have remained behind,
than by constantly dwelling on them in our thoughts and
emotions. Again, it is true that this might be what we
would most like to do, but we are not speaking of what
we would like to do, but of the law of Nature and of Na-
ture's God. The whole lesson of history, and the whole
lesson of Providence, is in learning how to be strong, and
those who are truly strong find out, by and by, without
having thought of it, that that was the way, after all, of
getting the purest and deepest kind of joy. Nature in-
tends that we should grow refined, that we should care
less for earthly or material things, that we should have
interest in that which is supreme and high. We serve not
the other world by thinking about it. We serve it best and
grow refined by working here, by pitching this life high.
You perhaps thought that I was going to suggest some
other kind of immortality. That is the usual thing at the
present day. George Eliot tells us of "another life to
come which martyred men have made more glorious for
those who strive to follow." We are told, in various
ways, to look for substitutes, — an immortal something
else, if we cannot be immortal ourselves. Others point
us to the lines of Browning: "Each deed thou hast done
dies, revives, goes to work in the world." That is all

ETHICAL ASPECT OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 227

very well, but it is not personal immortality. I see no use
in trying to find a substitute for the thing itself. The
ethical consideration is, not to find something else to
take its place, but to lay just that degree of stress upon
it, or lack of stress, which nature exacts of us, rather
than to put our whole and supreme thought on the thing
itself. We make a mistake in perpetually turning our
thoughts to the life beyond the grave. Let us work here,
rather, and be strong. The finest utterance I remember on
the whole subject came from King David, in his dying
hour to his son. Did he say to him. Think of where I am
going ? Did he remind him of the futility of life, and urge
him to dwell on death and eternity? Did he wish him to
remember his father and think of him in Heaven ? No, he
as it were turned the son's face away from himself, point-
ed him in another direction, and said to him: "Now I go
the way of all earth : therefore be thou strong and show
thyself a man."

MORAL EDUCATION CONGRESS

INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS TO BE HELD IN LONDON NEXT
SEPTEMBER FAMOUS EDUCATORS MUCH INTERESTED.

Educators will look with hope toward the Interna-
tional Moral Education Congress, to be held in London,
September 23-26, 1908. The congress will deal with the
problems of moral training in school and home. Papers
will be read on the topics of school organization, coeduca-
tion, the moral values in the curriculum, discipline, juve-
nile literature, civics, the education of the morally back-
ward, and many other subjects of importance in educa-
tional theory. The public meetings, sectional meetings,
and special conferences will be supplemented by a care-

fully chosen exhibit of books, pictures, and various illus-
trative material bearing on the work of moral education.

Throughout the congress the speculative aspects of
ethical training, tending to philosophical and religious
discussion, will be subordinated to the practical end of im-
proving education in its relation to character and conduct.
But while limiting itself to matters of ethical education
which concern men of all shades of religious opinion, the
congress will not be in any sense anti-religious, nor will it
seek to exclude reference to the religious aspects of edu-
cational problems.

A number of distinguished educators, editors, publi-
cists, statesmen, and professors of Europe have shown
their interest in the congress by consenting to act on a
general committee of the same. Among these are Gabriel
Compayr6, author of works on education and inspector-
general of public instruction in Paris; Charles Wagner,
author of "The Simple Life"; Baron d'E'stournelles de
Constant, the distinguished member of the French Senate,
whose work in behalf of international peace is well known
to Americans, and from whose hands Andrew Carnegie
received the decoration of the Legion of Honor at the
peace banquet at the Astor Hotel two years ago; the
Italian Socialist, Achille Loria; Prof. Michael Sadler of
Manchester, one of the strongest personalities in the field
of British pedagogy; Prof. Friedrich Paulsen of Berlin,
known to hundreds of American students abroad, and
others of international reputation. The presidents of sev-
eral American colleges have already signified their inter-
est in this congress, and many of our best-known educa-
tors have joined the movement with enthusiasm. Litera-
ture descriptive of the aims of the congress may be had
on application to Dr. David Saville Muzzey, No. 33 Cen-
tral Park West, secretary of the congress for the United
States.

MEN AND WOME'N: WHAT THEY
OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER*

By Walter L. Sheldon.

It is always interesting and oftentimes fascinating to
trace up the evolution of certain words, to see how they
have been changed or transformed, and then to observe
the connections, as far as one can do so, which have
brought about these transformations.

In connection with my topic I have been led to think
of a word which even in its present form goes back to the
languages used in Athens and Rome. We might per-
haps, if we chose, trace it back further and find its
source in the tongue of those pre-historic forefathers who
had their home in the highlands of Asia and who sep-
arated, some of them to make their home in India, and
others to scatter over all the sections of Europe.

To the citizen of Athens it was kahalles, and to the
tongue of the Roman it was caballus; and it meant in
those days the horse which carried the burdens for man.
When the Roman Empire went to pieces and languages
fused, the Celtic and the Teutonic mixed with the old
Latin and there came the Italian and the Spanish and the
French and the English with their many dialects. This
same word re-appeared but in a new form. It is now the
riding horse, the steed who bears the soldier in his armor,
the brave and loyal creature which might fall wounded
and dying on the battle field in the service of its master.

With the changes that went on in forms of warfare, in
the eighth century or thereabouts, this element of the

*A lecture given before the St. Louis Ethical Society.

229

230 MEN AND WOMEN :

army assumed new and commanding- importance — far
more, perhaps, than in the days when the Greek fought
round the walls of Troy, or when Caesar led his legions
into Gaul and the armies of Rome crossed the Rhine.
The horseman in his armor was the man of power. He
sat above the world, he was an aristocrat, and claimed
for himself the title of gentleman. He it was who came
to decide what should be the code of civility, of gentility,
the code of honor for the aristocrat.

It was in the Middle Ages that out of the cavalry of
earlier days evolved the soldier-knight, the man of ar-
mor who took vows, just as the loyal churchman took
his vows on entering the monastery. But the vows of
this new order of men — the new centaurs, as it were, of
the later world — were the vows, not of the monk, but of
chivalry.

And so it is that we have this new word at last, beau-
tiful in its meaning, evolving in the Middle Ages out of
that old term which stood for the beast which carried the
burdens. Out of cahalliis, the packhorse for the Roman,
evolved the word "chivalry" and its code of honor.

To-day it is a much worn coin, and one must look at it
with a keen eye and study it, as it were, with a glass in
order to see its original markings, or even the markings
it had when it got its full stamp in the time of the Cru-
sades.

As the centuries wore on, the old coin was stamped
over again a number of times, almost entirely effacing its
original marking, and so our word chivalry to-day but
dimly suggests what it meant to the Crusader. But the
feature of all features which it has retained as the final
remnant from its old meaning in the Middle Ages, is
connected with the code of honor that was tauofht in those

WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER. 23 1

days for man toward woman. This was but one of its
many features. Yet in some respects it was the most
striking and unique of them all; and the one most per-
plexing to account for.

How came it about that the human being who, in his
primitive days, when he wandered as a savage in the for-
ests, and was accustomed to secure his wife, perhaps, by
hitting her on the head with a club — who made her his
beast of burden and his slave — should have been led to set
woman on a pedestal as a. goddess, to treat her as a be-
ing superior to himself, to assume that one of the high-
est duties, nay more, one of the highest privileges open
to him, was to shield her from harm, to protect her, to
wait upon her, to guard her and be hpv champion ?

All the reasons or occasions for this transformation we
shall never know. The causes are subtly interwoven
with the whole history of the human race. But it marks
the transformation in the world's history between cul-
ture and savagery. The cultured man is the re-built man,
the made-over man, as contrasted with the natural man.
It was the made-over man, the re-built man, who evolved
this phase of chivalry. It was a new being, as it were,
who saw in a fellow creature weaker than himself, some-
thing to shield and protect, to guard and watch over,
and to be regarded as in a sense superior to himself. It
was the spiritual man and not the natural man that insti-
tuted the ideal of chivalry.

Of course it was only an ideal. Only here and there
out of the thousands and thousands of those armored
horsemen who rode up and down Europe, was there one
who lived up to all the rules of the new code of honor.
The old natural man was there just the same, hidden
away under that coat of armor, the beast man, the ani-

232 MEN AND WOMEN !

mal man. He had not yet become divine, he was not al-
together made over.

I touch upon the development of the word chivalry,
not because it is to be the main theme of what I wish to
talk about on this occasion, but because it takes us into a
consideration of a distinction which is much older than
the human race. As soon as the living creature which
had been called into existence in the primeval waters be-
gan to be differentiated, the principle on which life evolv-
ed was that of sex distinction; the principle of depen-
dence, the principle that one living creature was only
the half of a whole.

It is not my intention to discuss the marriage problem
and its history, but to touch on the broader relation — on
this distinction in its widest aspects. The foundation of it
lies in the fact that man and woman are structurally dif-
ferent, in their souls as well as in their bodies. In the
very soul or spirit man is incomplete, an incomplete unit
by himself; and so too of woman. Perhaps, therefore,
the greatest of all problems in human relations, the one
that towers above every other, is just this problem of the
relation between man and woman because of the dis-
tinctions which exist between them.

This is a problem altogether separate from the other
great ethical problem of the relations between human be-
ings as such, between one human being and another, be-
tween man and man over against the distinction between
man and the beast. The problem of the relations between
two creatures structurally the same is vastly different
from that of the relation between two creatures made on
separate planes, with separate endowments, with separ-
ate feelings, temperaments, gifts.

There is first of all the relation of dependence — that

I

WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER. 233

great law which runs through all forms of life save those
of the most primitive kind. On this fundamental dis-
tinction the Middle Ages developed its peculiar code of
chivalry. Something was due to woman from man in his
way of dealing toward her, just because, while of the
same kingdom of life as himself, she was different. The
law of the animal kingdom had been that might made
right. Power was given that it might be asserted and
attain the sway due to itself. But here, on the other hand,
there was a change; and the theory grew up that power
must bend and sue rather than command. This meant
the re-built man, the culture-man over against the sav-
age.

Codes of conduct must all depend on the specific rela-
tions in which people are thrown together, the circum-
stances under which they meet, or the class of deahngs
which they have with each other.

Now one of the first steps after man began to pass
from the most primitive savagery, was to separate wo-
man from the outside world, to put her in a condition of
seclusion. Of course this was only a tendency and only
partially prevailed. But in the middle period of the
world's history, we might say, when codes grew up, there
was practically for the more civilized people but four
relations in which man came in contact with woman. It
was that of wife, sister, daughter and the mother. Men
themselves met each other in many other relations. They
jostled together in the fight of war or in the war of com-
merce. They met socially at the banquet, politically in
the state and religiously in the church. But for the most
part, man met woman only as the wife, sister, daughter
or the mother.

It is doubtful whether any more important change has

234 MEN AND WOMEN *.

come about in the world's history, more sweeping in its
influence and in the new conditions it has brought about,
than the new relations in which man has been led to meet
woman during the last one hundred and fifty years. To
those other four forms of comradeship — the sister, the
daughter, the wife and the mother — there now come
three others, and man meets woman as the school com-
rade, the office comrade, and the social comrade.

In the old days, to a large extent, the man knew lit-
tle of his wife until their marriage. It was a choice by
family and not a choice of persons seeking each other.
To-day man and woman meet in a big social world.
They are thrown together in a great number of ways
whereby they come to know one another, to have a
knowledge of one another's personal characteristics, to
have some insight into one another's character. And us-
ually it is not until after such an acquaintanceship or
comradeship by which they know each other's natures
that choice takes place.

Our vast educational system which insists that every
man and woman shall know how to read and write and
have the elements of knowledge by w^hich to live and be
active in the world, has brought the two types of life to-
gether in a way they had never been brought together be-
fore. We perhaps dimly realize how much our whole so-
cial life has been changed by the way children are thrown
together in our common school system, where boys and
girls sit side by side, play together and study together
from the age of five or six years to fourteen.

But a greater change perhaps, has come about through
the change in the market world — if we may use that fig-
ure of speech^ — by which what I call office comradeship
has grown up. By this I mean the contact brought about

WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER. 235

in the factory, on the street car, in the office, from the cir-
cumstance that woman so largely is now a wage earner,
self-supporting or helping in the financial support of the
family.

The effects of these stupendous changes have scarcely
appeared even in their incipiency; and what they are
going to be we can only dream. Shall we let things drift
and take their own course? If we do, then we are back
on the plane of the savage. But if men all over the
world will take up this problem seriously, they can have
something to say as to what shall be the outcome. And
they can determine it in part by an ideal of what the out-
come ought to be.

I do not presume for a moment that any one of us can
say just what the codes or rules should be under these
new relationships, by which high ideals between man
and woman can be worked out in the future. Neverthe-
less it is possible to have gleams. There are features of
the ideal latent in our consciousness, and we can bring
them in part to the light.

The thought I wish to bring out centers around just
one point. To me the whole problem is simply a prob-
lem of distance. What distance shall be kept between
man and woman in order that their relations shall be the
most ideal.

Of one fact we must be certain ; we cannot under the
new conditions re-establis'h the old theories of distance.
The theories which required that man and woman should
only see each other as two beings across a chasm, with-
out knowledge of each other's character, were bound in
the long run to play havoc because they were bound to
foster illusions. It meant disillusion, a crashing of ideals ;

236 MEN AND WOMEN I

and the crash often would be so great that the re-adjust-
ment to facts and truth would not take place at all.

In the old days of chivalry we can fancy that to the
armored horseman who chose his fair lady, the person of
his choice was regarded as the incarnation of a being
that he was to worship. And, on the other hand, to a
large extent the horseman in his armor was the same kind
of idealized vision to the woman. To her he was a hero
because he had made her his choice.

All this had its useful features. It helped to build up
ideals. Visions of the perfect are glorious things even
if they are never incarnate in man or woman. To be
looked upon by another as perfect must always be a
stimulus, goading on an individual to live up to that code
of perfection. Yet the whole theory was founded on what
is not true of human nature. There are no perfect men
or perfect women ; there are no incarnations of the ideal
for us to see with our naked eye.

Chivalry could not have permanently survived; it had
in itself, by the conditions under which it arose, the seeds
of its own collapse. The chasm of distance had been
made too wide and fostered illusions. It was based on a
false theory of human nature, it was founded on the no-
tion chiefly that woman as woman was born immaculate,
innocent of evil, with stainless soul, each one, as it were
appearing like a re-incarnation of Mary of Bethlehem.

But to-day under the new conditions, we are in danger
of the opposite extreme. The new forms of comrade-
ship are threatening to work in the other direction and to
abolish the element of distance altogether. This is the
menace and this is the point we have to consider. Men
and women cannot jostle each other in the street cars,
and preserve that kind of spiritual distance that was pos-

WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER. 237

sible in the days of the Crusades when the daughter was
hidden away in a castle and saw the world, as it were,
only across the moats and the drawbridge outside.

The new forms of comradeship, for the most part, have
come to stay. We may modify them to a de-
gree, but they will continue in the world. There
will be the meeting together as man and woman
alike helps in earning the subsistence for the
race. With the increase of the world's population, it is
doubtful whether the race could go on if the work in
earning the means of subsistence were left to only one-
half. And there will be the meeting in the social world.
We can never go back to the old conditions of the castle ;
f' they belong to the Middle Ages and the period of the
Crusades.

Our one problem is how shall we preserve a certain
element of distance in spite of these new conditions from
which we cannot escape? The point I am anxious to
bring out is that unless we are on our guard, unless we
are aware of the danger and take measures against it we
shall inevitably experience a decline, and the conscious-
ness of worth will be tarnished.

The life of mind and soul cannot go on — that is to say
the better life, the real life worth having and living — un-
less there survives a mutual respect on the part of man
for woman and woman for man by which each pre-
serves his and her own self-respect. I am speaking now
of all the relations of life in which man and woman meet
each other, not simply of the conditions under which tlie
young man and the young woman may meet each other
in society. It applies to the home life, as well as to life
in the office or on the street car. It applies to the rela-
tion between brother and sister, or husband and wife,

238 MEN AND WOMEN :

and in the relations between school comrades and office
comrades. In all these relations there is a degree of fa-
miliarity which may make the relationship common, so
that each shall feel less respect for the other, and in that
way both lose their consciousness of worth. There
are lines, for example, which husband and wife may not
cross over without losing something in themselves which
they can never regain. There is a reserve which should
never be sacrificed by any human soul. There are de-
grees of familiarity in the home which may be ruinous to
the self-respect of brother and sister. There is language
possible which should never be used between them, con-
versation which should never prevail, if they would pre-
serve their own self-respect, their manhood or their wo-
manhood. It is possible in the home with brothers and
sisters crowded together for each one to keep his dignity
or her dignity if he or she chooses, and the respect a man
may have for womankind as a whole, and vice versa, may
be determined by it.

Our battle now is to keep these distinctions and pre-
serve them in spite of the freedom of relations into which
we are forced by the conditions of the modern world.
Everything that we do which tends to break down these
barriers is a menace.

One cannot help but feel distressed when one listens to
the kind of talk that sometimes goes on between young
men and young women and sometimes even between
brother and sister. They are utterly thoughtless of what
they are doing, they do not realize the sacrifice of stan-
dards they are guilty of or what they are sacrificing in
themselves.

There is a freedom of familiarity which a man should
never tolerate on the part even of his own men comrades,

I

WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER. 239

there are lines which he should draw and across which he
should never allow men to go, close and dear as those
men may be to him. His self-respect depends on draw-
ing those lines. The consciousness of worth in himself
which gives him dignity as a man will depend on whether
he can sustain a certain reserve in the way he lets other
men treat him. But the foundation of it all is in the kind
of reserve he displays in the way he treats other men. By
his conduct toward another, he invites others to treat him-
self in the same way. There is a distance that every hu-
man being is bound to preserve if he cares to be a man.

But if this is true in the relations between man and
man, how overwhelmingly more true it is in the relation
between man and woman. All our refinements, all the
nicest and most beautiful features of our civilization hang
on that one point of the distance which men and women
shall preserve between each other, no matter what their
relations may be.

I am pleading for all the relations in which men and
women meet together. I am pleading for the rescue of
ideals within ourselves, which are seriously menaced.
And I plead for them with the sense that there is a re-
sponsibility on our part, and something that we ourselves
can do to keep alive our ideals of man and woman and the
relationships those ideals call for.

I have touched on certain phases of chivalry. We are
fond of the word, still, as if it covered about all the pre-
cepts which should regulate conduct between man and
woman. There is a sentiment clinging to the word
which makes people reluctant to give it up; and rightly
so. But there were certain very crude features in the
old conception of chivalry. On the part of man, we think
of the chivalry especially in the times of the Crusades, as a

240 MEN AND WOMEN :

protection toward woman when she was in great danger.
The soldier on horseback in his armor who had taken his
vows was to rescue women hidden away by wicked men in
castles, rescue them from big dangers, shed blood freely
on their behalf. And this was done frequently. The man
who had taken his vow did shed his blood for injured
woman, did risk his life to protect her, did go into battle
and do soldierly duty on her behalf. And he won a big
name for himself with his tournaments and his fighting
and his picturesque garb.

But there are also sad stories coming down from that
age of chivalry. There are anecdotes in plenty of un-
knightly conduct on the part of those warriors. The
same hero who might fight and shed his blood for woman
to rescue her from a dungeon, might be guilty of very
unknightly conduct in other respects and be even rough
and brutal in the way he dealt with her.

If the new conditions of life are to hold and we are to
meet. freely as men and women in the new forms of com-
radeship, then a new type of chivalry is called for. It
may be inconvenient at times in the office or factory or on
the street car to put one's self out, or be on one's guard
as to how one behaves just because one is in the presence
of a woman. Conduct which is legitimate when we are
with men alone may be utterly unworthy of us in the
presence of a woman. We may sometimes chafe under the
conventional restrictions, but some of them are just what
preserves the consciousness of worth in woman.

I have not touched on the most striking feature in this
special phase of chivalry. Chivalry as a scheme or code
of conduct was a masculine creation. It was man who
laid down the rules, it was he who worked out the pre-
cepts, it was he, in a sense, who put woman on a pedestal.

WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER. 24I

Woman did not write out that code and summon man to
obey it, but man, as it were, drafted it for himself. And
the peculiarity of it is, that it left so little for woman her-
self to do. It was for the masculine world only.

It collapsed because it was too one-sided. Woman did
not have enough share in building up a chivalrous world.
And I do not think that the woman-world has yet appre-
ciated what her share ought to be. All the chivalry in
the world on the part of man is not going to protect her,
if she does not assert her own dignity. There are no
castles with moats and drawbridges around them where
woman can hide and from which she can look from the
parapets and be seen from a distance by the outside
world. She is seen with the naked eye; she meets the
world and the world talks with her. If she does not carry
in herself that consciousness of worth and this does not
show itself in her face and bearing and the tones of her
voice, then she will not receive that respect that should
be shown to her.

Much might be said as to the share woman has in a
truly chivalrous world. It is sometimes said that it takes
two people to make a quarrel. In the same way it takes
two individuals, man and woman, to make chivalry. The
woman must command it by what she is and not by
man's theory of her, if chivalry is to survive. All the
preaching and the teaching in the world will not save it.

The decline of what is called chivalry is not due en-
tirely to masculine selfishness. It is at least in part,
though of course not altogether, due to the fact that wo-
man has forgotten the share due from her. If there is a
cry going up in the world that man should be more care-
ful in the courtesies to woman, the cry also should go up
that woman should be more careful in the preservation

242 MEN AND WOMEN I

of her dignity in the presence of man, so that man would
feel more willing to extend to her those little courtesies.

What I say applies not merely to the big relations of
life in the outside world. It is true of the relations in
the home just the same. There are wives to-day who are
looked up to with a kind of awe by their husbands though
a quarter of a century of home life may have passed over
their heads. They have made their husbands respect
them, respect their dignity and their worth through all
the routine of everyday life. To be sure there are men
unworthy of such women. But the experience holds as
a general rule: we get the kind of respect we uncon-
sciously command from our fellows. We get the distance
preserved by others which we preserve in our dealings
with others. If man is to protect and shield woman, and
to guard her for the sake of his own ideal of her, just as
truly woman has to shield herself and be on her owti
guard lest she loses the fine consciousness of worth and
her own self-respect.

First or last, man and woman must sometime find each
other out. The woman must come down from her pedes-
tal as a goddess and be discovered to be human. And
for the man, his armor and helmet must be laid off, he
must step from the steed he has been riding and look like
an ordinary mortal.

As man and woman come to know each other better in
real life, they must see the human side. They must see
the defects as well as the beautiful elements of character
in each other. We are often one person to the stranger
and another to the acquaintance, and a third person to a
friend and a fourth person to those in our homes. And
sometimes it is for the better and sometimes it is for the
worse. In the more intimate relationships we cannot al-

WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER. 243

ways be walking on stilts, we cannot keep up all the con-
ventional forms and, alas, what is more, we shall not al-
ways be saints in each other's presence. It is easy enough
to hold the tongue and perhaps obey the conscience in
the presence of strangers; for we only see those strang-
ers now and then.

But among those we see often, we shall find it harder
always to be obedient to the conscience, always to be un-
selfish, always to have our guard on that unruly member,
the tongue. We find each other out in the closer walks
of life. This is true in the office, true in the factory and
true in the home. The woman at the office desk in a
downtown business establishment may not always keep
her serenity under the burdens upon her. The husband
and wife may not each be hero and heroine at every min-
ute.

And if this be true, there is one rule of lasting signifi-
cance that should be kept in mind. Sad it is if we care-
lessly allow ourselves to lose our ideals, to lose our af-
fection for those whom we have cared for at a distance,
to lose our regard or esteem for others because they are
not quite heroes or saints. Where we are compelled to be
more or less in close contact in these many forms of com-
radeship, we shall forget ourselves at times and show
ourselves human. We shall say words we may afterwards
regret, we shall be selfish or neglectful in a manner that
perhaps we had not supposed ourselves capable of.

But here, as everywhere, the rule must be to bear and
to forbear. Though your comrade show himself selfish or
neglectful for an instant, that is not the whole man. It
were better had he not been so; but bear and forbear is
the only rule by which life can go on as long as we are
human. Because these things happen, we must not let

244 MEN AND WOMEN :

the ideal slip away altogether, we must not let the old hero
or heroine worship entirely perish.

When one thinks of the sorrows which are brought
about the relations between men and women by words
which slip carelessly from the tongue, and when one
thinks of the joy which would have been there if the
words had not been said, we cannot but wish that men
and women, whether as friends in the office, as sisters and
brothers, or as husbands and wives, would ever take as
their watchword that old maxim, bear and forbear.

Those who will carry this maxim in their hearts, those
who will try to live up to it, will not lose the ideals they
have of each other. The years will roll by and brother
will still respect the sister, and sister respect the brother.
The wife will still feel an awe of the husband, and the
husband bow to the character of the wife. And in the
world at large man shall respect the woman in woman,
and the woman respect the man in the man — if only they
will learn the full meaning of that precept, bear and for-
bear.

I like to think of people who have known each other
for forty years, and yet who feel that they really still
only half know each other. That is my ideal of the re-
lationship in all its many forms for man and woman.

In regard to this whole subject of the relation between
man and woman, I am reminded of a peculiar circum-
stance which takes us back almost to the dim twilight of
the pre-historic world. Far back in those days there arose
a disposition to associate with this relationship the ele-
ment of religion. Down through the ages that sentiment
has developed as if there were an element of sacredness
in the relation between man and woman. We know how
true this is in reference to the marriage tie, how almost

WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE TO EACH OTHER. 245

universal it has been to connect a religious ceremony with
the union in marriage. But the element of sacredness
has a wider range; it ought to apply in the relation be-
tween father and daughter, brother and sister, in office
comradeship, school comradeship and social comradeship.
With the very notion of religion goes the feeling of awe
and this factor of distance. We may not come too close
to that which we look up to. And it seems to have been
implanted in the very nature of things that man and wo-
man should look up to each other as complements, one to
the other. Whatever drags down this barrier, whatever
obliterates this sense of sacredness, means that much up-
rooting of the basis of our civilization. Who ever de-
fies this ideal or acts contrary to it, strikes a blow at him-
self and a blow at the human race.

An exquisite little dialogue from one of George Eliot's
novels often comes to my mind as I study life and see it
in its many phases. The picture I have in mind you will
recall at once, where a young woman is leaning over the
shoulders of her father and saying something to him.
She is letting out the secret of her heart in the dawning of
an attachment which is to bind her for life. She knows
what that will mean, that it may call her to a life of toil
and drudgery. There will not be the charm of the home
life she has had, and its comforts will no longer be with
her. But with the fact of the sacredness of this re-
lationship between man and woman on her mind, she
has been thinking. And out of that new thinking she
stammers brokenly over her father's shoulders as he lis-
tens, these beautiful words :

"But that must be the best life father. That must be the best
life." "What life, my child," asks the father. _ "Why," she an-
swers, "that where one bears and does everything because of some

246 MEN AND WOMEN

great and strong feeling — so that this and that in one's circum-
stances don't signify."

I know that one must feel very deeply to say that and
mean it, one must have gone far in life's deep feelings to
be able to say truly that this and that in my circumstances
does not signify. But the sacredness of that relationship
between man and woman is what did it. This was the
compensation. Father and daughter might say it in their
feehngs for each other, mother and son likewise. So
too, brother and sister, and husband and wife. So too,
any man and woman who have true and right feelings for
each other.

I would emphasize then the religiousness — ^in the
broadest sense of this term — of the relationship between
man and woman. And I urge that each and all of us do
what we can to preserve this religiousness, to keep that
relationship forever sacred. Then shall come back in
higher form the true Age of Chivalry. It will not be one-
sided, with something for the one element to do, leaving
the other element passive only. It will mean that man
and woman alike shall each contribute his and her share
in the upbuilding of the new kingdom of chivalry—a
kingdom where each shall respect and revere the other,
because this respect and reverence have been planted in
their very nature. Yes ; that must be the best life "where
one bears and does everything because of some great and
strong feeling, so that this and that in one's circum-
stances don't signify."

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER
IN ITALY*

By William M. Salter.

I doubt if any of the Lecturers of our movement have
been more generously treated than I by you. When,
nearly two years ago, you renewed your invitation to
me for three years, you proposed that one of them
should be to me a vacation. And I have had a holiday
such as I have never had in my life before — a long year
without a care, full of novel and interesting experience,
to which I have so thoroughly given myself up that I
have thought of little beside, not even of the lessons I
might gather from it, or of any profit either for myself
or for you. As one a little wearied may lie down and
rest, as one may escape from the smoke and dust of the
city into green country fields and rejoice only in the lib-
eration— so I have gone from my work and care and
bustle here into new and strange and far-away scenes,
and the novelty of it all, the different landscapes and
skies, the altered faces and ways, the memories coming
down from a long distant past, were fascination enough,
and I quite gave myself up to the enjoyment of the pass-
ing moment.

You must not expect from me anything instructive —
save by accident. I am not aware that I have any more
or any better ideas than when I went away. Perhaps
you will find me even a little less strenuous — for after
being so long idle, one cannot at once jump into the
traces and pull with all his might.

*An address before the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago,
in Steinway Hall, November i8, 1906.
247

248 REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

And yet without any effort on my part I have received
some impressions that may not be without interest to
you. After all, every man is his own self wherever he
goes and one whose main interests are in religion and in
social and political conditions and problems cannot fail
to be aft'ected by what he observes along these particular
lines.

For one who feels the spell of the past as well as the
power of the present, what a country is Italy! There I
first touched land, and there, but for a short venture into
Africa hard by, and but for a few weeks across the
border into Austria during the summer, I stayed all my
time, even giving up a projected visit to England, for the
sake of deepening my impressions, so full of interest and
wonder, there. The charm (at least, one charm) of this
country is that it connects you with the antique world, the
world of culture and civilization and art ibefore Christ —
this you cannot feel, or feel appreciably, in England or
Germany, and only a very little in France or Austria.
But in Italy you not only stand at the seat of Imperial
Rome, you not only tread the soil of Virgil and Horace
and Cicero, and of Marcus Aurelius as well, since though
born after Christ he belongs quite to the pre-Christian
world — ^but you are in touch with what is older and in
many ways more beautiful and grander yet. I refer to
the remains of ancient Greece that one finds in bodily
form in Italy. Two things stand out in my memory as
my great surprises there — the first was that on a low-
lying almost uninhabited plain, near the sea not far from
Naples to the south, were Greek temples that in simple
majesty were second only to those in Athens; the sec-
ond, that still nearer Naples, though in the opposite di-
rection, was the immemorial site of the entrance to the

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY. 249

Underworld, into which Aeneas, conducted by the Sibyl
from neighboring Cumae, made the memorable descent
described by Virgil, where Homer brings Ulysses to see
the ghosts of Achilles and Agamemnon and other mighty
dead. I need not say that I went to both places, and had
strange emotions. It is so different to read, or even
talk and teach, about the Greek religion, and then to
stand in a Greek temple, where the spirit of the old wor-
ship still seems to touch your soul with awe. Some Ital-
ian automobilists (I am glad to say they were not Ameri-
can) wheeled up in their noisy odorous vehicle to the very
portals of one of these temples at Paestum and took their
lunch on the steps; for the moment I felt almost as if
it were a profanation. The sea to which the Greek col-
onists entrusted themselves was still there and to the God
of the Sea they had erected this temple — and had indeed
named their town after him, Poseidonia (Paestum was a
later Roman name). These men felt their dependence
on the great forces of the world without them — and in
their own way sought to show gratitude, honor and wor-
ship. They raised noble columns, three series of them,
with a ponderous roof and far-reaching projection of
cornice, and within the innermost series, they placed an
image of the god; in front of the whole they built a
massive altar on which to offer sacrifice — and so they
sought to make friends with the Destinies that surround-
ed them and that now as always enwrap man's uncertain
life. The columns, once covered with stucco, smoothed
so as to look like marble, and colored, are now bare, but
they have a mellow tone, almost an orange hue, which
gives them the dignity and grace of ancient things. The
statue of the god is gone, and the roof; and only the
foundations of the great altar still stand — ^but somehow

250 REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

the whole was eloquent to me — it was my first visible
contact with the sacred things of the old Greek world.
There are besides two other temples in Paestum. And
how singular ! The town was later overwhelmed by bar-
barians from the inland mountains, the Lucanians ; then
the Roman rule fell upon it; afterwards it was subject
to the Saracens, and then Robert Guiscard with his Nor-
mans took possession of it and despoiled it — yet of all
these peoples practically no traces remain, and all that
still stands, all that has a semblance of immortality, goes
back 2500 or 2600 years to those children of the morning,
those progenitors of the higher intellectual life of man,
the ancient Greeks — even the walls that still in great
measure encircle the city were built by those earliest
hands; over one of the principal gates are dim worn re-
liefs of a Siren and a Dolphin, reminiscent of the sea.

But there were Greeks in Italy before those colonists
in Poseidonia. Just north and west of Naples is a tract
where Hellenic civilization first established itself on these
western shores — perhaps a thousand years before Christ.
You may still see ancient Cumae — i. e., the height or
Acropolis where fragments of the huge external walls
of the old fortifications are visible, with openings and
subterranean passages on the sides — no doubt, the tra-
ditional home of the Sibyl — which Virgil has in mind,
when he says,

"A spacious cave, within its foremost part,

Was hewed and fashioned by laborious art,

Through the hill's hollow sides; before the place,

A hundred doors, a hundred entries grace;

As many voices issue, and the sound

Of Sibyl's words as many times rebound."

And besides you may wander over the wide plains be-
low the hill, where the ancient town spread itself out, now

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY. 25 1,

all under-wood and vineyards, in the midst of which I
came on the perfect outlines of a theatre, its retreating
rows of seats now terraces for grapes. From this
Greek town of Cuma'e came the alphabets of all the dif-
ferent Italian tribes, this was the center whence spread
the Hellenic forms of worship, and hence, too, it is said
that Rome received the mysterious Sibylline books.

But hard by this seat of blooming Greek Ufe, between
it and Naples, was a region of mystery and often of ter-
ror. It has from time immemorial been a scene of vol-
canic activity. When you stamp the ground with your
feet, it sounds hollow under you. Hot steam and water
sometimes rise to the surface. In a certain grotto gas
oozes up from below, the fumes of which will render
a dog insensible in a few seconds — or if you put a light
to the vapor, it is at once extinguished. There is a lake
about which the tradition goes that no bird could fly
across it and live, owing to the poisonous exhalations;
and about it in ancient times were deep, dark, densely-
wooded ravines. This weird uncanny region is the Phle-
graen Plain. It deeply affected the imagination of the
Greeks, as doubtless it had that of the native tribes be-
fore them. If the earth is ordinarily quiet, here it was
evident that mighty forces lay beneath it ; this was their
outlet, this the means of communication with them; in
other words, here was the entrance to that deep, dark
underworld, into which, it vv^as believed, the shadows of
spirits of the dead were gathered — ^but which ordinarily
seemed so inaccessible and far away. Homer knew the
region, at least from hearsay — ^here in the dark ravines
about the poisonous lake were the dismal, sunless Cim-
merians mentioned by him; here coming up through a
cleft or fissure in the ground, thronged the spirits of the

252 REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

dead with whom Ulysses had converse. Virgil describes
it more particularly. He speaks of the "deep forests and
impenetrable night," of the gates to the imderworld as
being always open, the descent thither easy and the re-
turn hard, of the innavigable lake,

"O'er whose unhappy waters, void of light,
No bird presumes to steer his airy flight;
Such deadly stenches from the depth arise,
And steaming sulphur, that infects the skies;
From hence, the Grecian bards their legends make.
And give the name, Avernus, to the lake."

It gave me an extraordinary sensation to touch the
very borders of the imaginary underworld of the an-
cient time. I had not realized that the Greeks definitely
located it, any more than Christians do heaven (or the
way to heaven) now. Indeed a guide will pretend to
lead you to the exact traditional spot and will take you a
ways down the dark passage if you wish; you can even
get on the back of a man afterwards who will substitute
for Charon and carry you across the river Acheron — and
whether you do this or whether oppressed by the dark-
ness and the mystery, the number of turns you have
made, and the depths to which you have descended, you
prefer to betake yourself as quickly as possible back to
the upper air and the light of day, and whether the pas-
sage and the waters are a real reminiscence of the old
traditional way to the abode of the dead or are simply
what remains of an underground tunnel which the Em-
peror Augustus made to connect Lake Avernus with a
naval harbor near by, whatever the facts, there is no
doubt at all that this region of which Lake Avernus is
the center was regarded with an altogether peculiar awe
in the ancient time as a point of contact between this world
and that other shadowy realm into which men were be-

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY. 253

lieved to descend when they died. Even to Dante, Hell
at least was under the surface of the earth and the im-
agery with which he describes his descent thitherward is
all vaguely reminiscent of the descent of Aeneas which
Virgil portrays — Virgil indeed is his guide as the
Sibyl had been Aeneas's; and when one reads in the
first lines of Dante's great poem of the dark wood in
which he found himself, one cannot help recalling the
old-time sunless shores of Avernus.

There are other traces in Italy of the ancient world,
so long vanished — Sicily particularly is rich with them;
there are temples at Girgenti that rival those of Paes-
tum; there is one at Segesta, high up on a lovely green
hill, that seemed a dream of beauty as I looked up at it
from afar, and was no less wonderful and majestic as
I approached it: there were no human habitations near
save that of the custodian, and great gray mountains
made its background — one wondered how the beautiful
creation ever rose there, till one saw on a neighboring
hill the semi-circular rows of a large theatre and learned
that once upon a time the region was covered by an im-
portant Greek or rather Hellenised town. And, though
not for its religious connections, how can I fail to men-
tion Syracuse — "the greatest of Greek cities and the fair-
est of all cities" as Cicero called it, the leader of the west-
ern Greeks against their enemies near Cumae and else-
where, the city in which Aeschylus flourished and where
Pindar sang, which at last defeated Athens itself and put
an end to her brief-lived, brilliant empire, and where the
most impressive thing to me about its Christian Cathe-
dral was the grand columns built into its walls (or
rather between which and against which its walls were
built) which belonged to the ancient Greek temple of

254 REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

Athene. Southern Italy and Sicily were, indeed "Magna
Graecia" (Greater Greece) — and after seeing what I did I
realized the significance of that title, as I never had before.

I pass over the remains of old Rome — one must limit
himself somewhere, and the striking things like the
Forum, the Colosseum, the great Aqueducts are better
known to most Americans anyway, at least through pic-
tures and descriptions; I pass over even the remains, so
interesting to the student of religious history, of early
Christianity — particularly those which speak eloquently
of the terribly adverse fates against which the follow-
ers of a new gospel had to contend, who witnessed to
their faith by martyrdom and died when it was better not
to live — ^those silent catacombs, crowded with bones and
dust which though dead yet seem to speak to us, and now
and then rudely yet sweetly adorned with portraits of the
new Lord and Saviour of men, and with inscriptions ex-
pressive not only of peace but of joy and triumph — I
pass over all this and come down to the modern world,
Italy as we see it to-day.

Italy is still three-quarters mediaeval and feudal, said
recently one of Italy's well known public men. At least,
the Middle Ages do not seem far back. How strange the
contrast to one coming from America, where we, of
course, have forts on our coast lines or in frontier towns
for defense against the Indians, but hardly, with few ex-
ceptions, elsewhere ! SupfMDse Chicago were encircled
with a high wall, suppose St. Louis were, suppose Mil-
waukee were — suppose the lesser towns about had such
battlements around them, which hid all from sight except
the church steeples and the roofs of houses; that high
towers rose at intervals along the walls, and that here and
there was an opening or gate through which all passing

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY. ±S5

in and out had to be done; — what would it mean? Evi-
dently that the populations inside them were more or less
in a state of fear of chance foes outside them or of one
another. It would mean that there was no common gov-
ernment over all the towns, which protected them and
each against the others and forbade war between them;
it would mean that each really was a government by it-
self and perhaps forced to use these means of defence.
Well, that was very much the condition of Italian cities
in the Middle Ages and later, the evidences of which are
before your eyes. After the dissolution of the Roman
Empire and its feeble successors, Italy relapsed into a
state that it would be very near the truth to call anarchy
— not meaning by that violence and disorder necessarily,
but simply the absence of central and all embracing gov-
ernment. Each group of people defended itself as well as
it could, did what was right in its own eyes — and when
it was ambitious and strong enough, it was apt to covet
the possessions or trade of other groups and to resort to
war to get what it coveted. The group might be more or
less of a democracy, or it might have a despot for a
ruler; this would make little difference so far as its pro-
tection was concerned or in its ambitions and in the vio-
lent measures to which it might resort. Fortifications
such as we have on the borders of our country, each group
had about the few square miles that its territory covered.
In the city which I only left to take my steamer home,
Siena, the great massive walls with here and there a
ruinous tower still rise as they did hundreds of years
ago — and to-day you cannot (coming from Florence or
elsewhere) go into those tortuous narrow streets, lined
with old gray houses and palaces, or out (from the city)
into the soft, undulating country round about, covered

256 REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

with vineyards and silver-green olive trees, without pass
ing through great gates that yet bear their mediaeval
names, and where as the peasants enter them, they have
still to pay taxes on whatever wine and oil and eatables
they bring in. Not sixty miles away is Florence, and I
shall not -soon forget the impression made on me by see-
ing in the Great Hall of its chief public building frescoes
of the assault on Siena by the Florentine forces — an as-
sault which had for its result the subjugation of one old-
time sister republic to another. So Pisa, still nearer to
Florence, at one time one of the first commercial towns
of the Mediterranean, Pisa which had repelled the Sara-
cens and won victories over them in Sardinia, Sicily and
Africa, was subjugated by Florence — and in the
Great Hall are frescoes of that triumph too. And as Pisa
and Siena by Florence, so Amalfi at a still earlier time,
when it was the foremost naval and commercial port of
Italy, was reduced by Pisa, and later Venice fought a
duel almost to the death with Genoa, and what Venice
failed to accomplish was completed by Milan. Why,
I have seen two remnants of towns high up on the beau-
tiful hills behind Amalfi, on opposite sides of what is
little more than a great ravine, around which I often
passed in a few minutes, Ravello and Scala, that were
once possessed with a feud that led them to almost anni-
hilate each other, the public hostilities running into all
manner of petty private harrying, so that the peasants
from one side of the ravine could not venture into their
fields to till them without danger of being beset by ene-
mies of the neighboring town. I think I never before so
vividly realized the moral significance of strong, central
government, as on reading the tale of that awful persis-
tent feud which simply would have been impossible had

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY. 257

both cities belonged, been parts of, one state. Italian
cities were (in the main) then what nations still are —
each the judge of its own right, each ready at a provoca-
tion to go to war and each having to defend itself in time
of war; really a state of anarchy, just as internationally
there is a state of anarchy in the world now — with the

i deplorable result that the stronger were ever destroying
or crippling the weaker instead of all working together
according to their differing gifts in the harmony of a
commonwealth.
But the anarchy went further. In Florence, in Siena
you may see grim towers not only on the city wall's but
in the city streets — even in modernized Rome you may
see one or two huge remnants of them, and in the little
town of San Gemignano, half way between Florence and
Siena, you see them shooting up into the blue (the town
itself is on a high hill) like sky-scrapers, only a little
more picturesque. Let no one think that they were put
up for ornament or a picturesque effect — the truth is they
served for private individual defense and war as the city
walls and towers did for public. Here the nobles forti-
fied themselves against the people and against one an-
other. At times they and their retainers would descend
for street fights. Family feuds were numerous. Mur-
der was common and there was often no thought of pun-
ishing it. We talk of footpads — ^but then it was all in the
day and sometimes as a man was coming out of church
or even under the altar in the church. What was the
meaning of this? There was no public protection, or
next to none — hence private protection; there was no
public punishment, or very little, hence private vengeance.
This is simply anarchy carried a degree further down;
each individual doing what is right in his own eyes as

258 REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

well as each city. We have all heard of those horrible
secret organizations among the lower classes of Italians,
called the Mafia and Camorra ; and we have a vague idea
of Italian criminality as something peculiar and ab-
normal— I know too little about the subject, but I ven-
ture to suspect that the Mafia at least was in its origin
a kind of poor man's vigilance committee or lynching asso-
ciation and reflects as much on general political condi-
tions as it does on the half-civilized men who formed it,
and that if the individual Italian, too, more easily uses his
knife or his gun than other people, it is because from long
hereditary experience he has no confidence in anything
else — and not that he is essentially lawless. It is an in-
teresting fact (though here I am anticipating) that since
Italy has been unified under one government, and the be-
ginnings of a civilized order have been felt all over that
distracted land, crime has diminished — the homicides that
were something over eleven in a hundred thousand in
1880 were only something over six in 1899; carrying
concealed weapons, even knives with spring-blades, ,i§
now prohibited; and brigandage too is disappearing, the
isolated cases of highway robbery, says Baedecker,
being scarcely distinguishable from similar crimes in
other countries.

But if such, roughly speaking, was the civil order (or
lack of order), what was the religious? In the absence
of an organized state, the nobles and the priests were the
natural leaders of the people. But did they lead ? While
the nobles defended and guided the people outwardly, did
the priests elevate and renovate the sentiments? It is
hard to make out that the church exercised any appre-
ciable moral influence on the people. What a paradox it
is that strikes our eyes in Italy! Everywhere in the

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY. 259

churches (and for that matter out of them) figures of
gentleness, of compassion, of wilHngly endured suffering,
look down upon you; apparently it is a religion of mild-
ness and love such as the world (at least, our Western
world) has never seen before. Christ on the cross, the
soft, tender Virgin face with her sweet child, — these are
no heroes, victors in any worldly sense: the chants, the
prayers, the Misereres are all to mercy and for mercy.
And yet the people actually, once outside the church or
away from the shrine, and sometimes in the sacred pres-
ence itself, were practically uninfluenced, if not untouched,
by all this — they followed their natural animal instincts,
grabbed, fought, gloated in victory like any barbarian
who had never heard of Christ. And the priests were often
little better — if they performed their stated functions,
they did their duty, and religion became chiefly a thing of
routine, very practical indeed in undertaking any haz-
ardous enterprse or at the approach of death, since there-
by Unseen Favor was won — but this rather a regenera-
tion of the heart, and a renovation of the life. Indeed,
the church, as an ecclesiastical organism, became ani-
mated with the same spirit as the nobility, annexing house
to house and land to land; bishops often were secular
princes — ^there came to be a whole series of petty Papal
states, and the head of the church himself was sometimes
as avaricious, as intriguing, as domineering and as un-
scrupulous as any old-time Roman emperor — so that one
might have been tempted to invert the Emperor Julian's
cry, and instead of "O Christ, thou hast conquered!" say
"O Rome, thou hast conquered." The Catholic Church
became a part of that unmoral and immoral world it was
meant to redeem. Instead of leading the people, it sat
on the people and oppressed them and drained them; it

26o REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

made them believe it had a right to because it held the
keys of heaven and hell; it left them ignorant and kejyt
them ignorant, because knowledge might have dissipated
this superstition. I have been speaking in the past tense,
but here, unlike the mediaeval political conditions to
which I was alluding a moment ago, the past insensibly
merges into the present. Though bishops are no longer
secular lords, though the Pope is no longer a political
sovereign, the general aspect of Catholicism is not much
changed. I confess that with Emerson,

"I like a church, I like a cowl,

And on my heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles."

— ^but I like them no better after having been to Italy.
Abstractly they have the same attraction, but the actu-
ality is somewhat chilling — and I can now understand
those Catholic friends of Cardinal Newman who did not
wish him to go to Rome. Allowing for the good and
holy men and women who are in the church, allowing
for such saints as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine
of Siena, who now and then arise and show that the true
seed of the gospel of love and self-renunciation still
slumbers there, though almost buried, my general im-
pression is that the Catholic Church of Italy belongs
frankly to the things and the order of this world, that is
destined to pass the way. It does not lead the world
or lift the world, in any direction — it is a part of old hab-
its, prejudices, ignorances, lusts and fears, on the ashes
of which a new world must arise. It even opposes pro-
gress and keeps the world back. Now, in those parts of
Italy where its sway is most complete — in the southern
part of the peninsula, in Sardinia and in Sicily — illiteracy
is greatest and crime most abounds. It opposed the great-

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY. 261

est blessing which Italy has had in hundreds, if not thou-
sands of years — that unification under the democratic
monarchy of the House of Savoy which took place
scarcely more than a generation ago. It opposes the
forces that make for social progress, the schools of the^
new state, the rising aspirations of the working classes
— and to priests who are touched with the ardor of the
new day, it says, particularly through the mouth of the
present Pope, Be silent or get out. It is evident that this
religion is a survival, a remnant — and reduced sometimes
to the expedients of dying things, as when it advertised
a while ago, on an official announcement of a Pilgrimage
to Lourdes, that among the first hundred purchasers of
tickets there would be distributed by lot two prizes of a
hundred lire each.* And actually, as I gather, the people
are less and less frequenting the churches — and I found
myself wondering at times, in case the churches were ab-
solutely thrown upon themselves for their support, in-
stead of being a public charge, how far the people of their
own volition would support them.

The churches are more and more becoming interesting
art museums, the old walls and gates and towers are pic-
turesque relics of a political era happily gone by; the
living things that are of promise in Italy are different.
No art, no poetry, no romance attaches to them — thev
have a shadowy side to them in some cases ; but they ap-
peal to those who take an interest in life as it is lived
now, in the struggles of what is practically a new people
to maintain itself and to advance toward a higher type of
human existence. I have already referred to the better
public order — so that life and traveling have now become
as safe as in most European countries. The people are

*So E. Nathan, "Vent' Anni de Vita Italiana," p. 399.

262 REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

poor, pitiably poor — (their past leaders have not led nor
taught them, but have plucked them, both noble and
priest) ; hence the enormous emigration to America — the
greatest from the poorest parts; and yet the Italians are
a laborious people — we know it here, and I have been
struck with it. abroad; they often become relatively rich
in America — and now the tendency is slowly upward at
home. Tax statistics show that they eat more, and
drink more, and smoke more — and better tobacco, than a
quarter of a century ago. Begging is less, — in some
places, the public authorities make set effort to break it
up. Moreover, the collective nation is showing capacity
— as much as could be expected in a fledgling — in large
economic enterprises, like the post and telegraph office,
like the railroads, most of which are now in public hands,
in the manufacture of tobacco — on which there is a profit
yearly of over 50 million lire, or 10 millions of dollars.
The taxes indeed are enormous — ^they fall on all man-
ner of consumption; the Italians have not learned any
more than other peoples that taxes ought to fall heaviest
on incomes that are least earned — and indeed land assess-
ments seem to be now lower than they were a while ago.
Private interests know how to protect themselves and to
push themselves in various ways — and there appears to
be more or less jobbery and corruption in the governing
circles in their dealings with private contractors. There
are, too, gigantic war expenses — in part, no doubt nec-
essary for defense against Italy's northern neighbor, from
which she bought her partial freedom at so great a price.
But though laboring and stumbling, this young people
moves on — and in one direction is making heroic efforts :
I refer to education. Incredible as it may seem, the illiter-
ates in 1872 were over 72 per cent, of the population ; in

REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY. 263

1882 the percentage was reduced to 67, and in 1901 to 56.
You see school houses frequently — often the newest and
smartest looking public building in the place. Up in the
little mountain towns of the Tyrol I saw them: and
where the town is still too poor to put up a special struc-
ture— you will see the sign over the door of some old
convent, now turned to a better use. To show you how
earnest the spirit may be, let me quote an incident. It is
a Sunday morning in the Pistoian mountain region
(north of Florence), and up toward the summit of a hill
on which stands the parish church, a long procession is
moving. They are old men and women, youths, boys and
girls, even little children. They carry no religious em-
blems— this strange procession — no torches or images or
relics or even a Madonna. Silently they mount step by
step, each one carrying a big stone — or as big as his or
her strength will allow. When they reach the little pi-
azza in front of the church, they deposit their heavy bur-
dens, and turn again down the hill to fetch more. The
priest is there, a young man of refined face, with a sweet
smile, in a worn cassock, to receive them. And on in-
quiry one learns that these peasants have become keenly
conscious that they must educate their children, that the
communal school is far away, that they have appealed in
vain for one more convenient to them, that they have
thenee determined to build one for themselves, that on
Sundays and other festival days they — all of them, old
and young — are bringing up the needed materials, and
each head of a family gives two lire a month in addition
— and that the curate, the soul of the project, whose sti-
pend is 400 lire a year (not a hundred dollars) has given
300 lire to buy the necessary land. And Sundays and
Festas the work goes on ; occasionally a passer-by assists ;

264 REFLECTIONS OF A TRAVELER IN ITALY.

word in time reaches the ear of the government and it
aids ; and at last, the building is up, the roof on, the tri-
color is unfurled over it, and the church bells ring.*

My friends, something is to be expected of a people
who (if only occasionally) make sacrifices like that. Yes,
priests have human hearts and can respond to great senti-
ments— and gradually, little by little, the whole Italian
people may move on to a sublimer destiny. Another en-
couraging thing is how in this old feudal country, with
habits of lordliness on one side and of uncomplaining
submission on the other, the laboring classes are begin-
ning to assert themselves, and in their unions and in the
Socialist party are putting forth their demands. No mat-
ter if the demands are excessive, no matter if the work-
ing-people are ill-considered in much that they do, in
movement, in aggression there is life, while in the old-
time contentment and submission there were only impov-
erishment and death.

To my mind, Italy rich in her historic memories, rich
in her art treasures, rich in her possession of a Dante,
of a Savonarola, of a St. Francis, is not rich in these
alone — she has Mazzini and Garibaldi as nearer voices,
she has come to self-consciousness, she is not and will
not any longer be the vassal of Spain or France or Aus-
tria or the Pope, she will be herself, a sister among the
great nations of the world, an independent worker along
the paths of civilization and human progress.

*See E. Nathan, op. cit., pp. 406-8.

SONGS AND RESPONSES FOR AN
ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL

THE CITY OF THE LIGHT.

Have you heard the golden city

Mentioned in the legends old?
Everlasting light shines o'er it,

■Wondrous tales of it are told.
Only righteous men and women

Dwell within its gleaming wall;
Wrong is banished from its borders,

Justice reigns supreme o'er all.

We are builders of that city,

All our joys and all our groans
Help to rear its shining ramparts.

All our lives are building-stones.
But the work that we have builded.

Oft with bleeding hands, and tears.
And in error and in anguish.

Will not perish with the years.

It will be at last made perfect,

In the universal plan ;
It will help to crown the labors

Of the toiling hosts of man.
It will last and shine transfigured

In the final reign of right;
It will merge into the splendors

Of the City of the Light.

— Dr. Felix Adler.

Music— Ethical Songs, 131.

ONWARD, BROTHERS.

Onward, brothers, march still onward.

Side by side and hand in hand ;
Ye are bound for man's true kingdom.

Ye are an increasing band.
Tho' the way seem often doubtful.

Hard the toil ye may endure,
Tho' at times your courage falter.

Yet the promised land is sure.

265

2(^ SONGS AND RESPONSES

Olden sages saw it dimly,

And their joy to rapture wrought;
Living men have gazed upon it,

Standing on the hills of thought.
All the past has done and suffered,

All the daring and the strife,
All has helped to mould the future,

Make us masters of our life.

Still brave deeds and kind are needed,

Noble thoughts and feelings fair;
Ye, too, must be strong and suffer.

Ye, too, have to do and dare.
Onward, brothers, march still onward,

March still onward, hand in hand;
Till ye see at last man's kingdom.

Till ye reach the promised land.

—H. H. Ellis.

Music— Ethical Songs, C9.

THE MORNING LIGHT IS BREAKING.

The morning light is breaking

Tlie darkness disappears.
The light of truth in coming

Will bless all future years;
For, lo, the days are hastening,

By prophet bards foretold.
When, with the reign of kindness,

Shall come the age of gold.

The morning light is breaking

The darkness disappears.
Humanity is waking,

And peace on earth appears ;
The winds shall tell the story,

The waves shall waft it o'er.
And now the age of glory

Shall come to ev'ry shore.

The morning light is breaking.

The darkness disappears.
Good tidings to all nations.

To set at rest all fears ;
And over ev'ry ocean

The story shall be borne.
Of kindness and protection

To beast, and bird and man.

Tune— "Webb."

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 267

DOING RIGHT.

Courage, ever; do not stumble;

Tho' thy path be dark as night,
There's a star to guide the humble;

Trust within, and do the right:
Do the right; do the right;
Trust within, and do the right.

Let the road be long and dreary,

And its ending out of sight.
Foot it bravely, strong or weary.

Trust within, and do the right:
Do the right; do the right;
Trust within, and do the right.

Some will hate thee, some will love thee.

Some will flatter, some will slight;
Heed not man, but look above thee;

Trust within, and do the right:
Do the right; do the right;
Trust within, and do the right.

Music— Church Hymnal. 342, 2d tune.

RAISE YOUR STANDARD.

Raise your standard, brothers.
Higher still and higher!

Let the thought of justice
All your deeds inspire!

Let your eyes be kindling
With a love-lit fire!

Virtue for our armor,

Justice for our sword.
Human love our master

Human love our lord;
So shall we be marching.

Fighting in accord.

Rest not till within you
Strength of virtue grow.

Till with streams of kindness
Heart and mind o'erflow,

Till a sense of kindred
Bind both high and low.

Virtue for our armor, etc.

268 SONGS AND RESPONSES

Fight till you have silenced
All the rebel throng,

Silenced lawless passions,
Luring men to wrong —

Fight till all things human
To the Right belong.

Virtue for our armor, etc.

Music— Ethical Songs, 59.

-Gustav Spiller.

WORK FOR THE NIGHT IS COMING.

Work, for the night is coming.

Work through the morning hours
Work, while the dew is sparkling,

Work 'mid springing flowers;
Work when the day grows brighter,

Work in the glowing sun;
Work, for the night is coming

When man's work is done.

Work, for the night is coming,

Work through the sunny noon;
Fill brightest hours with labor,

Rest comes sure and soon;
Give every flying minute

Something to keep in store;
Work, for the night is coming

When man works no more.

Work, for the night is coming,

Under the sunset skies.
See, rosy tints are glowing,

Work, for daylight flies;
Work, till the last beam fadeth —

Fadeth to shine no more;
Work, for the night is coming

When man's work is o'er.
Old Tune. —Sidney Dyer.

MORNING BREAKETH ON THEE.

Morning breaketh on thee
Fresh life's pulses beat,

Earth and sky new-kindled
Once again to greet.

I

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 269

With a thousand voices

Woods and valleys sound,
Leaf and flower with dewdrops.

Sparkle all around.

Day is all before thee,

Vanished is the night,
Wouldst thou all accomplish,

Look towards the light;
Let a mighty purpose

In thee stir and live
After all that's highest

Evermore to strive.

As through mist and vapor

Breaks the morning sun.
Shine and work, thou spirit,

Till thy task is done.
When from farthest hill-top

Fades the fire of day.
Blest in blessing others

Shalt thou toil alway.

—Rev. T. W. Chignell.

Music— Ethical Songs. 32.

SING, LET US SING.

Sing, let us sing, with a right good will!

Cheerily, cheerily singing!
Helping the world with joy to fill,

With pleasant voices ringing.

Work, let us work, with a steadfast mind!

Earnestly, earnestly working!
Trying our best to help mankind,

Out duty never shirking.

Love, let us love with a fervent heart!

Tenderly, tenderly loving!
So we'll take our humble part

In needless ills removing.

Live, let us live, with the noblest aim !

Patiently, patiently learning!
With lofty thought to keep the flame

Of high endeavor burning.

Music— Church Hymnal. 98. 2d tune.

270 SONGS AND RESPONSES

LOVE.

Love is kind and suffers long,
Love is meek and thinks no wrong,
Love than Death itself more strong,
Therefore, give us love.

Prophecy will fade away.
Melting in the light of day;
Love will ever with us stay.
Therefore, give us love.

Faith will vanish into sight,
Hope be emptied in delight;
Love in heaven will shine more bright,
Therefore, give us love.

Music— Church Hymnal, 527, 1st tune.

— C. Wordsworth.

LET IN LIGHT.

Let in light — 'the holy light

Brothers, fear it never;
Darkness smiles, and wrong grows right;

Let in light forever.
Let in light! When this shall be,

Joy at once and duty.
Men in common things shall see

Goodness, truth and beauty.

Let in light — the holy light.

Brothers, fear it never;
Darkness smiles, and wrong grows right;

Let in light for ever.

I will hope and work and love.

Singing to the hours,
While the stars are bright above.

And below the flowers.
Who, in such a world as this.

Could not heal his sorrow?
Welcome this sweet hour of bliss!

Sunrise comes to-morrow.

Let in light, etc.

—W. M. W, Call

Music— Ethical Songs, 108.

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 27I

THE HEART IT HATH ITS OWN ESTATE.

The heart it hath its own estate.

The mind it hath its wealth untold;
It needs not fortune to be great,

While there is wealth surpassing gold.

No matter which way fortune leans,

Wealth makes not happiness secure;
A little mind hath little means,

A narrow heart is always poor.

'Tis not the house that honor makes,

True honor is a thing divine;
It is the mind precedence takes.

It is the spirit makes the shrine.

— Charles Swain.

Music— Ethical Songs, 10.

FEAR NOT THE TRUTH.

Be true to ev'ry inmost thought;

Be as thy thought, thy speech;
What thou hast not by suffering bought,

Presume thou not to teach.

Woe, woe to him, on safety bent,

Who creeps to age from youth,
Failing to grasp life's intent,

Because he fears the truth.

Show forth thy light! If conscience gleam,

Cherish the rising glow ;
The smallest spark may shed its beam

O'er thousand hearts below.

Face thou the wind! Though safer seiem

In shelter to abide;
We were not made to sit and dream;

The true must first be tried.

— Henry Alford.

Music — Ethical Songs, 1.

LAND OF GREATNESS.

Land of greatness ! Home of glory !

Mighty birthplace of the free !
Famed alike in song and story!

All thy sons shall honor thee.

2/2 SONGS AND RESPONSES

North and South are firmly bonded,
East and West as one unite;

All by honor well compounded
Strong in striving for the right.

Noble deeds of old inspiring

Every heart with lofty aim;
Now our emulation firing,

Lead us on to greater fame.
So shall love and truth unshaken

Sturdy courage, honest worth,
Mighty echoes still awaken

To the farthest bounds of earth.

Homes by safe defense surrounded

Rights which make our freedom sure,
Laws on equal justice founded.

These shall loyalty secure.
While with love and zeal unceasing

We are joining heart and hand,
Shine with brightness yet increasing,

Shine, O dearest Fatherland.

Music — Haydn, Church Hymnal, 190.

AMERICA.

My country, 'tis of thee.
Sweet land of liberty.

Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain side

Let freedom ring.

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love ;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills.
My heart with rapture thrills.

Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze.
And ring from all the trees

Sweet Freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues awake,
Let all that breathe partake.

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 2/3

Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Our Father's God, to Thee,
Author of Liberty,

To Thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us with Thy might.

Great God, our King.

— Samuel Francis Smith.

Music— Church Hymnal, 309.

THE LIGHT.

The light pours down from heaven,

And enters where it may;
The eyes of all earth's children

Are cheered by one bright day.
The soul can shed a glory

On every work well done;
As even things most lowly

Are radiant in the sun.

Then let each human spirit

Enjoy the vision bright.
The peace of inward purity

Shall spread like heaven's own light;
'Till earth becomes love's temple,

And every human heart
Shall join in one great service.

Each happy in his part.

— From the German.

Music— Church Hymnal. 283.

THESE THINGS SHALL BE.

These things shall be ! A loftier race

Than e'er the world hath known, shall rise.

With flower of freedom in their souls.
And light of science in their eyes.

Nation with nation, land with land,
Unarm'd shall live as comrades free;

In ev'ry heart and brain shall throb
The pulse of one fraternity.

274 SONGS AND RESPONSES

New hearts shall bloom of loftier mold
And mightier music thrill the skies;

And ev'ry life shall be a song,
When all the earth is paradise.

These things — they are no dreams — shall be
For happier men when we are gone;

Those golden days for them shall dawn,
Transcending aught we gaze upon.

— /. A. Symonds.

Music— Ethical Songs, 10.

SINGING JOYFULLY.

For the sky so bright and blue,
For the fields so fresh with dew.
For the hearts so fond and true.

We will go, to and fro,

Singing, singing joyfully.

For the land so rich and wide,
Land for which the bravest died.
All its pure and lofty pride.

We will go, to and fro,

Singing, singing joyfully.

For the ways by wisdom trod.
For the feet with kindness shod.
For the perfect peace of love.

We will go, to and fro.

Singing, singing joyfully.

— /. W. Chadwick.

Music— Selected.

NOBILITY.

True worth is in being, not seeming —

In doing each day that goes by
Some little good — ^not in the dreaming

Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness

And spite of the fancies of youth.
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,

And nothing so royal as truth.

We get back our mete as we measure,
We cannot do wrong and feel right,

Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure.
For justice avenges each slight.

r

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 275

The air for the wing of the sparrow,

The bush for the robin and wren,
But alway the path that is narrow

And straight, for the children of men.

We cannot make bargains for blisses,

Nor catch them like fishes in nets;
And sometimes the thing our life misses.

Helps more than the thing which it gets.
For good lieth not in pursuing,

Nor gaining of great nor of small,
But just in the doing, and doing

As we would be done by, is all.

Music — Selected.

— Alice Cary.

THINK TRULY.

Thou must be true thyself.

If thou the true wouldst teach;
Thy soul must overflow, if thou

Another's soul wouldst reach.
The overflow of heart it needs
To give the lips full speech.

Think truly, and thy thoughts

Shall the world's famine feed ;
Speak truly, and each word of thine

Shall be a fruitful seed;
Live truly, and thy life shall be

A great and noble creed.

— Horatius Bonar, D. D.

Music — ^Ethical Hymn Book, 16.

THE DAWNING OF LIBERTY.

Out of the dark the circling sphere
Is rounding onward to the light;

We see not yet the full day here.
But we do see the paling night.

And hope, that lights her fadeless fires.
And faith, that shines as spotless will.

And love, that courage re-inspires —
These stars have betn above us still.

O sentinels, whose tread we heard
Through long hours when we could not see,

2y6 SONGS AND RESPONSES

Pause now, exchange with cheer the word —
Th' unchanging watchword, Liberty!

Look backward, how much has been won,
Look round, how much is yet to win !

The watches of the night are done,
The watches of the day begin.

— Samuel Longfellow.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book. 19.

BE LORD OF SELF.

How happy is he born and taught

Who serveth not another's will —
Whose armor is his honest thought,

And simple truth his only skill !

Whose passions not his. masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,

Untied to this vain world by care
For public fame or private breath!

This man is freed from servile bands

Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands.

And having nothing, yet hath all.

— Sir Henry Wotton.

:Mu8ic— Ethical Hymn Book. 21.

THE PATH.

He who walks in virtue's way.
Firm and fearless, walketh surely;

Diligent while yet 'tis day.
On he speeds, and speeds securely.

Flowers of peace beneath him grow,
Suns of pleasure brighten o'er him;

Memory's joys behind him go,
Hope's sweet angels fly before him.

Thus he moves from stage to stage.
Smiles of earth and sky attending;

Softly sinking down to age.
And at last the heights ascending.

— Sir John Bowring.

Music — Ethical Hymn Book, 40.

i

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 2'J'l

WHEN WORK IS DELIGHT.

The morning light flingeth

Its wakening ray,
And as the day bringeth

The work of the day,
The happy heart singeth;

Awake and away.

No life can be dreary

When work is delight;
Though evening be weary,

Rest Cometh at night;
And all will be cheery if

Faithful and right.

When duty is treasure,

And labor is joy,
How sweet is the leisure

Of ended employ !
Then only can pleasure

Be free from alloy.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book, 94.

-F. R. Havergat

THE NEW ORDER.

A nobler order yet shall be
Than any that the world hath known,

When men obey, and yet are free.
Are loved, and yet can stand alone.

Oh, boldly speak thy secret thought,

And tell thy want, and by the wise
Be unto nobler action brought.

And breathe the air of purer skies.

Strive less to bring the lofty down

Than raise the low to be thy peers;
Love is the only golden crown

That will not tarnish with the years.

Soon the wild days of war shall end.

And days of happier work begin,
When love and toil shall man befriend.

And help to free the world from sin.

—W. M. W. Call.

Music — Ethical Hymn Book, 115.

2/8 SONGS AND RESPONSES

THE FRUITS OF LABOR.

Work! It is thy highest mission,
Work! All blessing centres there;

Work for culture, for the vision
Of the true, and good, and fair.

Work! By labor comes th' unsealing
Of the thoughts that in thee burn;

Comes in action the revealing
Of the truths thou hast to learn.

Work! In helping loving union
With thy brethren of mankind;

With the foremost hold communion.
Succor those who toil behind.

For true work can never perish;

And thy followers in the way
For thy works thy name shall cherish; —

f

—F. M. White.

Work! While it is called to-day

Music— Ethical Hymn Book, 121

DREAMER, ACT !

It is not dreaming and delay.

But doing something every day
That wins the laurel and the bay.

And crowns the work of duty.

Be satisfied that thou art right,
And that thy deed will bear the light.

Then execute it with thy might
For that will be thy duty.

The planets as they roll on high,

The river as it rushes by.
For ever and for ever cry,

"On, man, and do thy duty!"

All, all is working everywhere.
In earth, in heaven, in sea, and air.

And nothing indolent is there
To mar the perfect duty.

— Edward Capern.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book. 130.

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 279

THE INFLUENCE OF GOOD DEEDS.

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,

Whene'er is spok'n a noble thought
Our hearts, in glad surprise,

To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls

Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words and deeds

Thus help us in our daily needs.
And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low.

— H. W. Longfellow.

Music— Ethical Hymn Booli, 161.

CEASING TO GIVE, WE CEASE TO HAVE.

Make channels for the streams of love.

Where they may broadly run;
And love has over-flowing streams

To fill them every one.

But if at any time we cease

Such channels to provide,
The very founts of love for us —

Will soon be parched and dried.

For we must share, if we would keep,

That blessing from above;
Ceasing to give, we cease to have;

Such is the law of love.

— R. C. French.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book. 170.

SPEAK OUT THE TRUTH.

He who has the truth, and keeps it.
Keeps what not to him belongs.

But performs a selfish action
That his fellow mortal wrongs.

He who seeks the truth and trembles
At the dangers he must brave.

Is not fit to be a freeman,
He at best is but a slave.

28o SONGS AND RESPONSES

He who hears the truth, and places

Its high promptings under ban,
Loud may boast of all that's manly.

But can never be a man.

Be thou like the noble ancient —
Scorn the threat that bids thee fear;

Speak! no matter what betide thee;
Let them strike, but make them hear.

Be thou like the first apostles —

Be thou like heroic Paul ;
If a free thought seek expression,

Speak it boldly — speak it all !

— /. G. Whittier.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book. 190.

TRUTH IS DAWNING.

Softly breaks the morning light
O'er the peaceful slumb'ring earth.

Banishing the gloom of night
Waking all things into mirth.

Rosy beams illume the hills

Then, descending, valleys glow;
Now no cloud of darkness fills

Any spot of earth below.

Thus the truth in silent pow'r

Dawns upon the human brain,
Touching first the heights that tow'r

Then, expanding, floods the plain.

— E. Toser.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book, 199.

THE FOUNTAIN— SPIRITUAL CONSTANCY.

Into the sunshine, full of the light.

Leaping and flashing, from morn 'til night !
Into the moonlight whiter than snow,
Waving so flow'r like, when the winds blow !

Into the starlight rushing in spray,
Happy by midnight, happy by day!
Ever in motion, blithesome and cheery.
Still climbing heavenward, never aweary.

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 281

Glad of all weathers, still seeming best,
Upward or downward, motion thy rest;
Full of a nature nothing can tame,
Changed every moment, ever the same.

Ceaseless aspiring, ceaseless content,
Darkness or sunshine thy element;
Glorious fountain, let my heart be
Fresh, changeful, constant, upward like thee!

— /. R. Lowell.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book. 53.

SPLENDOR OF THE MORNING.

Splendor of the morning sunlight

Shines into my heart to-day.
Floods each cranny of my being

With new strength and spirit gay.

Let me use the golden hours

As they glide so swiftly by;
Fill them with a precious freight of

Truth and Love and Knowledge high.

And when evening comes and kindling

Stars my conduct seem to ask.
May I look aloft and tell them

I have finished well my task.

—Dr. Felix Adler.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book. 309.

GREETING TO THE SUN.

Good morning to you, glorious sun.

You bring the morning light;
You pale the moon and stars from view

And drive away the night,

And drive away the night.

You waken every little bird

That sleeps upon a tree;
You open all the flower buds.

Their golden hearts to see.

Their golden hearts to see.

You waken all the children, too.
And seem to each to say.

282 SONGS AND RESPONSES

"Rise, dearest child, I bring to you
Another happy day,
Another happy day."

Music—Songs of the Child World, Gaynor.

NEW YEAR.

Another year of setting suns.

Of stars by night reveal'd,
Of springing grass, of tender buds,

By winter's snows conceal'd.

Another year of summer's glow —

Of autumn's golden brown,
Of waving fields, and ruddy fruit

The branches weighing down.

Another year of happy work

That better is than play.
Of simple cares and love that grows

More sweet from day to day.

Another year to follow hard

Where better souls have stood.
Another year of life's delight,

Another year for good.

— J. W. Chadwick.

Music— Ethical Hymn Book, 308.

SPRING TIME.

There's life abroad! From each green tree

A busy murmur swells ;
The bee is up at early dawn.

Stirring the cowslip bells.
There's motion in the lightest leaf

That trembles on the stream;
The insect scarce an instant rests,

Light dancing in the beam.

There's life abroad! The silvery threads

That float about in air,
Where'er their wanton flight they take,

Proclaim that life is there.
And bubbles on the quiet lake.

And yonder music sweet.
And stirrings in the rustling leaves,

The self -same tale repeat.

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 283

All Speak of life! And louder still

The spirit speaks within,
O'erpowering with its strong deep voice

The world's incessant din;
There's life without; and better far,

Within there's life and power.
And energy of heart and will

To glorify each hour.

Music — Ethical Hymn Book, 257.

-Emily Taylor.

BIRD SONG.

All the birds have come again,
Come again to greet us;
And a joyous song they raise.
Chirping, singing merry lays;
Pleasant Springtime's happy days.
Now return to meet us!

See how gaily one and all
To and fro are springing!
As their chanting meets my ear.
Voices sweet I seem to hear.
Wishing us a happy year,
Blessings with it bringing.

What they teach us in their song

We must e'er be learning;

Let us ever cheerful be,

As the birds upon the tree,

Welcoming so joyously

Every spring returning.

— From the German.

SPRING SONG.

Tlirice welcome glance of smiling spring,

That lightens earth and sky!
New rapture to the hills you bring,

Fresh life to heart and eye,

Fresh life to heart and eye.

Thrice welcome band of shining days,

That kiss the vernal mould!
You fill the tree with starry sprays.

284 SONGS AND RESPONSES

The bush with sunset gold,
The bush with sunset gold.

All hail thee, spirit-fire of May,
That glows in every mead!

Ah, give me love to light my way.
And hope, a winged seed.
And hope, a winged seed.

Music — Songs of the Child World, Gaynor.

— Isabel R. Hunter.

THANKSGIVING SONG.

Summer ended, harvest o'er.
From our heart our thanks we pour.
For the valley's golden yield.
For the fruit of tree and field.

For the care that while we slept.
Watch o'er field and furrow kept.
Watch o'er all the buried grain.
Soon to spring to life again.

For the promise ever sure.
That while heaven and earth endure.
Seed-time, harvest, cold and heat
Shall their yearly round complete.

Music — Selected.

HARVEST DAYS.

The harvest days are come again.
The vales are surging with the grain.
The happy work goes on amain.

Pale streaks of cloud scarce veil the blue,

Against the golden harvest hue

The autumn trees look fresh and new.

And wrinkled brows relax with glee.
And aged eyes they laugh to see
The sickles follow o'er the lea.

The wains the sunny slopes roll down,
Afar the happy shout is blown
Of children, and of reapers brown.

»

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 285

May we into time's furrow cast

Our deeds, as seed-corn, thick and fast,

Whose fruit eternally shall last.

— Frederick Tennyson.

Music — Ethical Hymn Book, 255.

AUTUMN SONG.

For autumn's golden days
In loud thanksgiving raise.

Hand, heart and voice.
The valleys smile and sing.
Forest and mountains ring,
The plains their tribute bring,

The streams rejoice.

For autumn's golden days
Hearts, hands and voices raise,

AVith sweet accord.
From field to garner throng.
Bearing your sheaves along,
Labor the harvest crowns

With full reward.

Music— Songs for Ethical Serrices.

RESPONSES.

SPRING

LEADER.— The storms of winter are over and gone and Spring
in radiant beauty once more rules the earth.

SCHOOL. — All Nature rejoices, and we rejoice with her.

LEADER.-^Not a blade of grass, nor the tiniest flower, but
speaks to us of unseen Power.

SCHOOL. — Rejoice and be glad! Let all the earth give forth
praise.

LEADER. — We are glad for the renewal of life; for the prom-
ise of harvest.

SCHOOL. — Our hearts and our voices unite in joyful praise.

LEADER, — The abundance of life which Nature bestows
awakens strength within us.

SCHOOL. — ^May we use this strength aright and help each
other.

286 SONGS AND RESPONSES

LEADER. — Let not selfishness steal from us the music and joy
in our hearts.

SCHOOL. — But let us join in one chorus of helpfulness and

union.

LEADER. — Earth received her increase from Nature only after
weary toil and patient waiting. So shall man by
earnest effort and constant toil reach his goal.

AUTUMN RESPONSES. •.
LEADER. — What things declare the year is ripe?
SCHOOL. — The song of reapers by the wayside.
LEADER. — ^The cornfields piled with tasseled grain.
SCHOOL— ^The vineyards filled with purple clusters.
LEADER. — Treasure of orchards fills our land.
SCHOOL— -Fruits are their riches, gold and crimson.
LEADER.— Where go the splendors of the leaves?
SCHOOL.— They lie within the vales and hollows.
LEADER.— They cloak the seed against the wind;
SCHOOL.— They fill the mold with strength and virtue.
LEADER.— The woods are strewn with falling nuts;
SCHOOL.— The squirrel stores them in his hollow.
LEADER.— The full-grown lamb is in the fold;
SCHOOL.— The cricket chirps beside the furrow.
LEADER.— All these are children of the Earth,
SCHOOL.— And of the Earth we, too, are children.
LEADER.— How may I add to Nature's store?
SCHOOL— By strength of heart and joy of spirit.
LEADER.— How shall my seedlings come to fruit?
SCHOOL— With root of love, and branch of courage.
LEADER.— What is the test my life must bear?
SCHOOL— My life is tested in the harvest.

FOR AN ETHICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL. 287

HARVEST FESTIVAL.

SCHOOL (Singing) — Come, ye thankful people, come.
Raise the song of Harvest Home;
All is safely gathered in.
Ere the winter storms begin;
Every field doth food provide
For our wants to be supplied;
Come, together let us come.
Raise the song of Harvest Home.

LEADER.— For what are we thankful?

SCHOOL. — We are thankful that once more our land has been
blessed with an abundant harvest.

LEADER. — Rejoice and be glad that to us has been given the
power of appreciation.

SCHOOL. — We do rejoice, and from our abundance bring an
offering.

LEADER. — For what are we thankful?

iSCHOOL— Not only for the lavish gifts of Nature, but for life
and for the opportunity to help one another.

LEADER.— For what are we thankful ?

SCHOOL. — For country, home and friends.

LEADER. — We show our gratitude in the spirit of good fellow-
ship and in the effort to do unto others as we would
they should do unto us.

SCHOOL (Singing)— All the world is Nature's field.
Fruit unto her praise we yield;
Wheat and tares together sown.
Unto joy or sorrow grown:
First the blade, and then the ear,
Then the full corn shall appear.
Blessed Harvest, grant that we
Wholesome grain and pure may be.

GENERAL RESPONSES.

LEADER.— There is a light that lightens every man that comes
into the world.

SCHOOL. — The kingdom of heaven is within.

288 SONGS AND RESPONSES

LEADER.— Honor thy father and thy mother.

SCHOOL.— Every one shall reverence his mother and his father.

LEADER. — 'Keep the commandments of thy father.

SCHOOL— And forsake not the teachings of thy mother.

LEADER. — Children are the crown of the old.

SCHOOL— Parents are the glory of the children.

LEADER, — My children, love ye one another.

SCHOOL— iAnd if thy brother does thee a wrong remember
that he is thy brother.

LEADER. — Do unto others as ye would by them be done to.

SCHOOL. — Love thou thy neighbor as thyself.

LEADER.— Ye shall not lie.

SCHOOL.— Nor deceive.

LEADER.— As filth is upon the hands:

SCHOOL — So is an impure thought in the mind.

LEADER. — Remember the poor. Thou shalt not h^den thy
heart nor close thy hand against thy poor brother,
but thou shalt surely give him sufficient for his needs
and that which he wanteth.

SCHOOL— And let not thy right hand know what thy left hand
doeth.

LEADER. — Youth is the spring time, manhood is the summer,
sow then thy seed in the spring time of youth.

SCHOOL. — That the fruit may appear in due season.

LEADER. — ^Hereafter shall come a new heaven and a new earth ;
on that day all men shall speak a pure language, and
no one shall hurt another any more, and no one shall
wrong another any more, but the earth shall be full
of goodness and truth as the waters upon the sea.

SCHOOL (Singing) — -A nobler order yet shall be.

Than any that the world hath known,
When men obey and yet are free,
Are loved, and yet can stand alone.

BJ
1

V.15

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