Main questions in religion; a study of fundamentals. Crane theological school lectures and other essays

MAIN QUESTIONS
IN RELIGION

"WILLARD CHAMBERLAIN SELLECK.

LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

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Book

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Main Questions in Religion

A Study of Fundamentals

CRANE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL LECTURES
AND OTHER ESSAYS

BY
WILLARD CHAMBERLAIN SELLECK, D.D.

Author of "The Spiritual Outlook" and "The New
Appreciation of the Bible"

BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER

TORONTO! THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED

Copyright, 1916, by Willard Chamberlain Sellbck

All Rights Reserved

-S3!

Made in the United States of America.

The Gorham Press,JBUwton, U. S. A.

SEP 23 1916

©CI.A437803

TO THE MEMORY OP
A DEAR AND BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER

PREFACE

NO lengthy preface is required for this volume.
Its contents must speak for themselves.
The four lectures are printed exactly as they
were delivered, at Tufts College, Massachusetts, in
May, 1915. They aim to deal candidly, searchingly
and constructively with some of the ultimate problems
of human life.

The two "other essays" are added because the mat-
ters of which they treat are of pressing importance.
The purification of Christianity through the elimina-
tion of its historic accretions of error is not more than
half accomplished yet. The process must be carried
much nearer completion before this exalted religion
can achieve its rightful and powerful leadership of the
modern world. In proportion as this cleansing, recti-
fying work goes on, Christianity will become more and
more the effectual spiritual ally of the great demo-
cratic movement, which alone in these dark days ap-
pears to hold out the promise of preserving the price-
less principle of liberty in the momentous develop-
ments impending among the nations. Together a
purified Christianity and a spiritualized Democracy
will establish the reign of love and freedom, alike in
the individual heart and in all social relationships,
and thus bring in the era of permanent peace and uni-
versal prosperity for which the weary race has waited
too long.

Wiixard C. Sei/leck.
68 Mendon Road,

Cumberland Hill, R. I.,
June 7, 1916.

CONTENTS

Lectures

I. What is the Great Reality in Religion? . 11

II. What is the Validity op Faith? .... 88

III. What Can We Know op God? 52

IV. What Shall We Believe) AboutImmOrtality? 77

Other Essays

I. Traditional Christianity and Essential

Christianity 103

II. Christianity and Democracy . . . . . 125*

LECTURES

"Before all else, it behoves us to secure the founda-
tions of our spiritual life," — Rudolf Euchen.

MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

w

WHAT IS THE GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION?

HEN a distinct and severe shock comes to
the human soul, through some great calam-
ity or bereavement, fundamental questions
are likely to be raised anew. Secondary matters drop
at once into their due subordination, while thought and
feeling wrestle with the primary problems of being
and the meaning of existence and the order of the
universe. Words and phrases lightly uttered in happy
hours suddenly acquire a doubtful significance; one
is almost startled by a fresh, overpowering sense of
the mystery of life; and, without rebellion or positive
distrust, he simply bows himself in solemn wonder,
and waits for light "more than they that watch for
the morning."

At the present moment the world is in the midst of
a social cataclysm whose appalling destructiveness
staggers the stoutest heart. The frightful conflict
which is devastating Europe is like the inundation of a
continent. No man can measure the magnitude of the
disaster, or in imagination conceive its far-reaching
consequences. Inevitably, therefore, it impresses and
oppresses every thoughtful person; a mood of un-
wonted seriousness prevails among all classes; and
many are asking what is the relation of this gigantic

11

12 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

catastrophe to the spiritual faith which heretofore has
sustained men's hearts. What is essential and sub-
stantial in that faith, what is vital and enduring in
all our thinking and believing, in all our teaching and
preaching, so that we may still speak to one another
some honest word of hope and healing?

Such a sober and searching attitude comes at a
time when, from other causes, we have been led to look
into the heart of things rather than upon their sur-
face. For our age has been an expansive and critical
one ; the achievements of the nineteenth century im-
mensely broadened and deepened;' human inquiry in
every direction; and the twentieth century finds us
trying to ascertain and utilize the net values of all
this investigating, revolutionary thinking. As in par-
liamentary proceedings it often happens that, after
the consideration of many side issues, with the adop-
tion or rejection of amendments and counter-amend-
ments, a point is at length reached where the main
question is moved and put to vote, so it is in the
intellectual deliberations of our time : we have discussed
a thousand incidental or collateral interests, pursuing
argument and research into every possible ramifica-
tion; and we are now ready — at least some of us are
ready — to try to decide, for ourselves at any rate,
some of the main questions of belief and conduct, leav-
ing non-essentials where they belong, on one side. In
other words, after all the centuries of theological de-
bate and ecclesiastical strife, and especially after the
last hundred years of scientific and philosophical re-
search, it would seem as though it ought to be pos-
sible to sift the discussion down to a few principal
issues, and with reference to these to find some work-
ing theory of life that may approve itself at once to

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION 13

our clearest understanding, our deepest moral instincts,
our purest affections and our holiest aspirations. Such
an attainment were surely desirable; and undoubtedly
there are thousands of earnest people who, weary of
profitless controversy and likewise of skepticism, yet
perplexed and bewildered, and often sorrowing and
yearning, are really hungry for some vital and valid
message touching the most important things of life,
whereon they may stay their souls.

If the present writer may hope to offer any frag-
ments of so good and great a message, it will only be
because, after thirty years of service in the pastoral
ministry of the Christian Church, followed by four
years of leisure for reading and reflection, in the midst
of which he was called to drink a deep draught from
the cup of sorrow, he may claim to express his con-
victions with serious thoughtfulness, with absolute can-
dor and with a constructive purpose. He sincerely
desires to find some fixed stake in all this maddening
maze of things to which his own spirit may cling, and
to do what he can to help, his fellowmen to reach a
similar security.

Phillips Brooks defined preaching as the communi-
cation of truth through personality. The personality
of preacher or teacher is indeed an important factor,
but it is like the stained-glass window: the blended
hues of the light which it transmits are produced by
the vari-colored medium, but the light itself is from
without; and always we have to remember that the
sunshine is infinitely greater than the window or the
soft radiance which it diffuses within. If it is mainly
our own personal experience that enables us to "speak
that we do know, and testify that we have seen," we
must not forget that other men have had other experi-

14 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

ences, and that the power and beauty of truth and
goodness and love far, far exceed all that can be com-
prehended in any single human life.

These thoughts bring us naturally to a considera-
tion of the particular question which meets us at the
threshold of our study: What is the Great Reality
in Religion? For religion is, in the highest degree,
both subjective and objective. Our estimate of it is
formed by our personal experience (or lack of ex-
perience) of it and by our observation of its mani-
festations in the world around us and behind us. Al-
ways it presents these two aspects, and it is easy
to magnify either of them at the expense of the other.
Therefore, if we would understand it aright, we must
look both within and without, and must exercise all
our powers of intelligent perception, discrimination,
and appreciation; for it is so large and vital an in-
terest, and its influence is so manifold and pervasive,
that we can hardly hope to discern its essential na-
ture and its deepest import unless we try to contem-
plate it both sympathetically and critically.

1. Perhaps it is best to look first within. For it
is only as we search our own hearts that we can find
a key to other hearts, only as we read our own inner
experiences that we can learn the universal language
which tells the story of common human aspirations.
Just as reason, love, joy and sorrow in ourselves en-
able us, and alone can enable us, to understand the
same things in our fellowmen, so it is in religion: the
stirrings of the religious impulse in our own souls,
prompting or restraining us, filling us with awe or
fear or hope, and leading us to outward acts of de-
votion or abnegation or high endeavor, interpret to
us, and alone can interpret to us, the inspirations.

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION 15

sacrifices, prayers and penances which, along with
many other expressions, reveal the wonderful religious
passion that lives in the hearts of all sorts and condi-
tions of men.

And surely we have all had some experience of the
quickening power of the religious spirit in the soul,
at one time or another, in greater or less degree. We
may not have understood it, indeed, but we have
felt it; and feeling, we are learning more and more,
lies deeper than thought and cannot always be ana-
lyzed. Perhaps it was a vivid sense of mystery — the
mystery of the world, the mystery of life, the mystery
of pain and sorrow and death — that possessed us, even
overwhelming and appalling us, that made us cry out
after the Inscrutable Power above and around us, or
compelled us to bow ourselves in submission and sup-
plication, or bade us lift up our hearts in reverent
adoration and trust. Possibly it was a fresh apprehen-
sion of the sublimity of Nature — the diamond-studded
dome of heaven at night, the resplendent sky by day,
the rolling sea, the majestic mountains, the rushing
power of the cataract, the stillness of the deep woods,
or the quiet beauty of some pastoral scene — that
touched us with solemn wonder and longing and praise.
Or it may have been some mighty human interest — a
profound social agitation, a national crisis, a great
reform or a terrible war — that moved and thrilled us
and carried us out of ourselves, and thus made us
realize that there is something larger and better than
ourselves, and led us to invoke a blessing from on high
upon the cause which engaged our hearts. Or perhaps
it was some more private, personal, inner struggle —
some conflict with temptation and sin, some wrestling
in prayer, some poignant suffering in remorse and

16 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

grief — that awakened us to an altogether new and
cleansing and healing realization of the fact that our
lives are held in the disciplinary embrace of a Moral
Order to which we must submit, and are shot through
and through with spiritual forces which we did not
originate. And yet, very likely, it was just a sweet
and beautiful insight into the love and goodness and
gladness of the world, an intuitive perception of an
indwelling and all-pervading Benevolence, a profound
consciousness of a Holy Spirit within and without,
above and around, filling the universe with glory and
filling our hearts with ineffable peace, — very likely
it was just this simple, vital, mystical experience which
made us aware of the Divine Presence and bade us lift
up our souls in spontaneous gratitude and consecra-
tion.

If in any of these ways, to any extent, we have felt

"The motion of a hidden fire
That glows within the breast,"

we know at least a little bit of the meaning of religion,
and are thereby prepared to understand some of its
workings as we find it among other people.

%. If, now, we turn to look without, we immediately
discover that, objectively regarded, religion is a phe-
nomenon which fills a large place in the life of man-
kind.

First of all, we see its manifestations in our sur-
roundings and among our associates, — in churches,
synagogues, temples, shrines and altars ; in painting,
sculpture and music; in assembled congregations and
in ceremonies of worship, in which we join; in sermons,
prayers and addresses ; in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs ; in sacred writings, in holy days, in

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION 17

processions and pilgrimages, in various institutions
and in manifold forms of active benevolence: and as
we witness all these expressions of the religious spirit
and share their influence, we find our own religious
impulses quickened and strengthened, and we perceive
that religion is really an immense factor in human
affairs.

In the second place, as we extend our observation
or reading, we learn that the world is full of products
of the religious spirit more or less similar to these;
that all nations and tribes, in all stages of culture,
appear to have their religious rites, customs and be-
liefs ; that there is, indeed, the widest diversity among
these, so that we may properly speak of religion, not
as one, but as many, and may, therefore, compare
one religion with another; and yet that it is quite
plain that these different religions are, after all, only
different forms of expression of the one underlying
religious spirit or impulse that seems to be universal
and natural. Then when the scholars take us further
and make a scientific study of all these phenomena,
as they have been doing for nearly half a hundred
years now, — gathering an enormous amount of in-
formation bearing on the subject, testing, sifting and
interpreting this ; comparing all the principal religions
of the world, classifying them and tracing them
through history ; translating the sacred books and the
inscriptions of the most ancient nations, and collating
their teachings ; digging and delving among the monu-
ments of primitive peoples, or patiently studying their
customs, or even sojourning among savage tribes, —
enriching our knowledge by their researches and con-
clusions, we obtain a still larger view of this great
human interest which we call religion, and are com-

18 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

pelled to acknowledge that it has always been one of
the biggest, most vital and most potent forces dis-
played by our race. The more thoroughly we in-
vestigate the matter, the more firmly will this judg-
ment be established.

But now we wish to ascertain more precisely, if we
may, the real nature of religion. We want to know, if
possible, what is essential and what non-essential in
it, what is permanent and what transient. For cer-
tainly there is much connected with it that is incidental
and temporary, much, indeed, that is erroneous and
baneful. Can we separate the wheat from the chaff,
the true from the false?

We must remember that religion, broadly viewed,
is involved with all the other great interests of life. It
is not a disconnected, unrelated, insignificant affair,
although it may sometimes seem so; but is rather an
integral part of each man's whole mental, moral and
social status, — sharing in his general personal atti-
tude and outlook, in his ideas, sentiments, convictions
and misgivings regarding many things, and in his own
peculiar struggles, joys and sorrows; sharing, too,
in the customs and culture of the social group — the
family, tribe, nation or church — to which he belongs;
and, among advanced peoples, sharing somehow in that
indefinable spirit of the age which seems to brood over
each stage of civilization. Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, the
eminent American ethnologist, writing about the re-
ligions of primitive peoples, says:

"No opinion can be more erroneous than the one
sometimes advanced that savages are indifferent to
their faiths. On the contrary, the rule, with very few
exceptions, is that religion absorbs nearly the whole
life of a man under primitive conditions. From birth

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION 19

to death, but especially during adult years, his daily
actions are governed by ceremonial laws of the severest,
often the most irksome and painful character. He has
no independent action or code of conduct, and is a
very slave to the conditions which such laws create."

Dr. Brinton approvingly quotes a statement by Pro-
fessor Granger that "religion in the ancient world
comprised every social function," and adds:

"What was true in those ancient days is equally
so in this age among savage peoples. Let us take as
an example the Dyaks of Borneo. A recent observer
describes them as utter slaves to their 'superstitions,'
that is, to their religion. 'When they lay out their fields,
gather the harvest, go hunting or fishing, contract a
marriage, start on an expedition, propose a commercial
journey, or anything of importance, they always con-
sult the gods, offer sacrifices, celebrate feasts, study the
omens, obtain talismans, and so on, often thus losing
the best opportunity for the business itself.' " *

These remarks afford a hint of the fact, disclosed
by any wide study of religious beliefs and practices,
that jeligion is closely bound up with all the rest of
the thinking and doing of mankind, according to the
stage or development which any given individual or
group or age may have reached.2

1 "Religions of Primitive Peoples," by Daniel G. Brinton, A.M.,
LL.D., Sc.D., Putnam's, 1897, pp. 37-39.

2 If we examine ourselves carefully, we shall find that this is
true of ourselves; our religion relates itself directly to the total
culture of the present generation, insofar as we share it, — to our
degree of material advancement, our education, our science and
philosophy, our government, our philanthropy, and all our social
aspirations. Because these interests are so many and great, and
have been expanding so rapidly, our religious ideas and activities
are in both a foment and a ferment, a state of unrest and de-
velopment that is prophetic of something higher and better. If
life improves, religion will improve; if religion improves, life will
improve. They are mutually involved.

20 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

Moreover, we must remember that what may seem
crude or false or abominable to one person, generation,
tribe, communion or civilization may seem very sacred
to another. Until quite recently it was customary
for even enlightened Christians to call the peoples of
foreign lands, indiscriminately, "heathen," using the
word disdainfully or pityingly, and to speak of their
religious rites and ceremonies as "outlandish heathen-
isms" or "diabolical superstitions," — indeed, those "re-
ligions" were actually regarded as the work of the
Devil and his imps. But the experience of missionaries
among these various peoples during the past century,
coupled with the researches of the scholars who have
been patiently prosecuting the comparative study of
religions, both ancient and modern, both backward and
advanced, has taught us to take a larger and more
sympathetic view; so that we now see that even the
most childish, grotesque or cruel customs of barbarian
or savage tribes are to them the consistent expression
of their religious ideas and aspirations. We may smile
at the Pueblo Indians who will not plant their corn
without a religious ceremony,3 or at the Veddahs of
Ceylon who "dance their wild nocturnal dance around
a huge arrow stuck in the ground," worshipping it as
"the center of their existence" ;4 we may revolt at the
horrible mutilations, tortures and human sacrifices
which were inflicted by the ancient Germans, and were
more or less common to the early history of "even the
noblest religions" ; 5 and we of a quiet, thoughtful,
spiritual faith may turn away with relief from the
elaborate ritualism of a sacerdotal type of Christian-

3 Dr. Brinton, work quoted, p. 39.

4 Prof. George B. Foster, "The Function of Religion," p. 112.

5 Dr. Brinton, pp. 188, 189.

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION 21

ity: but we must recognize that all these various forms
of worship have sprung from some root of sincerity in
the human soul, and have subsisted by virtue of the
general state of culture (or lack of culture) in which
they have found their setting. Conscious deception,
fraud, chicanery, imposition may have occasionally
played some small part in the religious history of
mankind; but this is as nothing in comparison with
the great spirit of sincerity, whether ignorant or en-
lightened, which has pervaded all ranks of religious
society, from the lowest to the highest, either in an-
cient or in modern times.

These facts may serve to show that there is no
single idea, belief, doctrine, ceremony or custom which
is absolutely universal in religion, or which in itself
is essential to its nature. To quote again from Dr.
Brinton:

"There is no one belief or set of beliefs which con-
stitutes a religion. We are apt to suppose that every
creed must teach a belief in a god or gods, in an
immortal soul, and in a divine government of the world.
. . . No mistake could be greater. The religion which
to-day counts the largest number of adherents, Bud-
dhism, rejects every one of these items. . . . Some
(religions) believe in souls, but not in gods; while a
divine government is a thought rarely present in sav-
age minds. They do not, as a rule, recognize any
such principle as that of good and evil, or any doctrine
of rewards and punishment hereafter for conduct in
the present life. . . . There is, in f act, , not any one
item in any creed which is accepted by all religions." 6

In what, then, does the essence of religion consist?
Let us see whether a few leading definitions of religion
8 "Religions of Primitive Peoples," pp. 28, 29.

m MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

may throw any light upon this question.

Almost the only definition of religion given in the
Bible is that of St. James, who says: "Pure religion
and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
to keep himself unspotted from the world." 7

Other great thinkers have given the following defini-
tions, as they are collated and quoted by Mr. Benja-
min Kidd.8

"Seneca. — To know God and imitate Him.

"Kant. — Religion consists in recognizing all our du-
ties as Divine commands.

"Matthew Arnold. — Religion is morality touched by
emotion.

"Hegel. — The knowledge acquired by the Finite
Spirit of its essence as an Absolute Spirit.

"Huxley. — Reverence and love for the Ethical Ideal,
and the desire to realize that ideal in life.

"Froude. — A sense of responsibility to the Power
that made us.

"Mill. — The essence of Religion is the strong and
earnest direction of the emotions and desires towards
an ideal object, recognized as the highest excellence,
and as rightly paramount over all selfish objects of
desire.

"Carlyle. — The thing a man does practically be-
lieve; the thing a man does practically lay to heart,
and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to
this mysterious universe and his duty and destiny
therein.

"Dr. Martmeau. — Religion is a belief in an ever-
lasting God ; that is, a Divine mind and will, ruling the

TSt. James i.27.

•"Social Evolution," pp. 89, 90.

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION S3

Universe, and holding moral relations with mankind."

Farther on Mr. Kidd himself says : "A religion is
a form of belief, providing an ultra-rational sanction
for that large class of conduct in the individual where
his interests and the interests of the social organism
are antagonistic, and by which the former are rendered
subordinate to the latter in the general interests of
the evolution which the race is undergoing." 9

The Century Dictionary defines religion as "recogni-
tion of and allegiance in manner of life to a super-
human power or super-human powers, to whom al-
legiance and service are regarded as justly due."

Schleiermacher taught that "religion is neither meta-
physics nor morality, but arises at the moment that
we become conscious of a contact between ourselves and
the universe," this contact being a profound "feeling
of dependence."

Max Mueller in his "Hibbert Lectures" defined re-
ligion as "a mental faculty which independent of, nay,
in spite of sense and reason, enables man to appre-
hend the infinite under different names and under vary-
ing disguises" ; and he said, "We can hear in all re-
ligions a groaning of the spirit, a struggle to conceive
the inconceivable, to utter the unutterable, a longing
after the Infinite, a love of God." 10

Finally, Professor Jastrow himself concludes a valu-
able study of the subject by saying that "religion may
be defined as the natural belief in a Power or Powers
beyond our control, and upon whom we feel ourselves
dependent; which belief and feeling of dependence
prompt (1) to organization, (2) to specific acts, and

9 "Social Evolution," p. 103.

"Quoted bv Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jun., in "The Study of
Religion" (19*01), p. 163.

24 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

(3) to the regulation of conduct, with a view to estab-
lishing favorable relations between ourselves and the
Power or Powers in question." -11

Perhaps these various definitions do not greatly help
us — mere definitions of any matter seldom do ; but they
may serve to bring out a little more clearly the truth
which has been slowly emerging all along, namely : that
the nature of religion is to be sought, not in external
forms, but in the inner workings of the human mind;
and that its essence consists in an instinctive feeling
after the Divine, an instinctive apprehension of the Di-
vine, an instinctive hunger for the Divine, an instinc-
tive tendency to postulate a Deity. The religiousness
of man is universal; the investigations of the scholars
may be said to have established this fact beyond perad-
venture.12 But the fact of such universality is the
most conclusive proof imaginable that religion is per-
fectly natural to man. This means that all religions
spring from the same root in the human soul ; that this
root is an inalienable instinct implanted in man, not by
any second birth, but by his original birth as a spiritual
being; and that this instinct is one of the strongest im-
pulses or forces that have animated the race, control-
ling conduct in all ages as few other influences have
been able to do. Let a final quotation from Dr. Brin-
ton confirm this truth, — "The religiosity of man is a
part of his psychical being. In the nature and laws
of the human mind, in its intellect, sympathies, emo-
tions, and passions, lie the well-springs of all religions,
modern or ancient, Christian or heathen. To these we

11 Work cited, pp. 171, 172.

12 Dr. Brinton: "The fact is that there has not been a single
tribe, no matter how rude, known in history or visited by travelers,
which has been shown to be destitute of religion, under some
form." Work cited, p. 30; also p. 33.

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION. 25

must refer, by these we must explain, whatever errors,
falsehoods, bigotry or cruelty have stained man's creeds
and cults ; to them we must credit whatever truth,
beauty, piety, and love have hallowed and glorified his
long search for the perfect and the eternal." 13

Here, then, we find the central, essential, substantial
fact or truth which we have been seeking. The great
reality in religion is the universality, naturalness and
permanence of the religious instinct or impulse in the
human soul. In one word we may call it aspiration;
or it may be called hunger, the hunger of the soul for
God, — as natural and, in its way, as potent as the hun-
ger of the body for food, or the hunger of the mind for
truth, or the hunger of the heart for love. Back of
all rites and ceremonies and institutions, beneath all
crudities and errors, within all refinements of culture
there exists and persists this native tendency of the
human spirit to conceive the Divine and to seek some
sort of relation thereto or communion therewith. All
outward forms of expression may change, but this in-
ner impulse abides, with whatever of indestructibility
and promise the personality of such a being as man is
may itself possess.

Whence came this religious instinct, this hungering
and groping after the Divine, we can no more tell than
we can tell the ultimate origin of human nature. Biol-
ogy, psychology and philosophy may throw light upon
the manner of its development, but these partial, tenta-
tive explanations serve quite as much to deepen as to
remove the mystery of our being, — the mystery, won-
der and glory of human life in what we may perhaps
call, more justifiably now than ever before, a living
universe. We know at least that we are here; we are
13 "Religions of Primitive Peoples," pp. 29, 30.

26 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

conscious of our spiritual aptitudes ; and, so far as we
can see, our religious instinct is as natural as our
power of thought, our moral sense or our affectionate
disposition. Thus religion becomes a great, spiritual
dynamic in our human world, — as real and, within its
own sphere, as effective as the force we call gravity in
the material realm ; indeed it might not be inapt to call
religion a kind of spiritual gravitation, binding the
finite soul of man to the Infinite Soul of the universe
as a planet is bound to its central sun.

Now from this point of view, looking out upon the
religious life of mankind, which is as variegated as the
flora and fauna of different climes, and trying to in-
terpret it all in the light of what is deepest, purest and
highest in ourselves, we may note a few profoundly en-
couraging facts.

1. We see the remarkable power and fruitfulness of
the religious instinct. It moves individuals, classes and
masses; it sways the most backward peoples and the
most advanced, savage tribes and civilized communities ;
it prompts to acts of devotion and sacrifice that spring
out of fear or credulity as well as out of reverence,
gratitude and love; it inspires deeds of fanaticism and
deeds of heroism ; it sends men on pilgrimages and into
wars; it enlists them in hateful persecutions and in
splendid philanthropies ; it even leads, as it led in New
England, to the founding of States and may be the
principal factor in shaping their development. What
shrines it has established, what altars it has raised,
what monuments it has reared, what temples it has
erected, what magnificent cathedrals it has builded
against the sky, to bear witness to man's haunting sense
of the unseen and the eternal ! What sacred literatures

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION W

it has produced, what beautiful painting and sculpture
and music, as its holy spirit has touched with creative
influence the genius of earth's most gifted sons ! Above
all, how many sweet, strong, saintly human lives it has
fashioned, sustaining and guiding them through the
trials of this world, making them conscious of the Di-
vine Presence and Power as neither learning nor art
could do, and sending them hence with their spirits
radiant with the light of immortal faith, hope and love !
What other force in our human sphere has been one-
half so potent and fruitful?

We must guard against limiting our estimate of the
power and scope of religion by our own personal ex-
perience. We ourselves may not have felt very greatly
its quickening influence; we ourselves may never have
drunk very deeply from the well-springs of spirituality :
but this is no adequate reason for denying that other
men, with different thoughts and struggles and rela-
tionships, have seen and felt and proved many things
which we have never learned. When one reads a vol-
ume like the late Professor William James's, "The Va-
rieties of Religious Experience," or books like Harold
Begbie's "Twice Born Men," etc., or studies the life-
work of such a man as the late General William Booth,
the founder of the Salvation Army, or peruses the
confessional literature of saints and mystics, one quickly
perceives that there have been hosts of people in whom
religion has been the one all-dominating force, the one
profound, vital and enriching experience, the one open
way to an absolute victory of the soul in a world of
tumult and conflict. The attainments of such people
bear witness to spiritual realities of which the rest of
us only obtain occasional glimpses, and may well remind
us that "there are more things in heaven and earth than

88 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

are dreamed of in" any man's "philosophy."

2. We see the inner or underlying unity, amid all
diversities, of the religious spirit of the race. Super-
ficially, indeed, nothing seems to divide men more
sharply than do their differences in matters of religion ;
and yet these relate chiefly to externalities, — to doc-
trines, creeds, rites, ceremonies, institutions, forms of
organization, methods of work, social customs, habits,
etc., etc. ; and beneath all such there is a common hu-
man heart-hunger, a yearning, an aspiration, a sense
of need, together with the hope of its divine satisfaction,
which makes the whole world kin. It was a word of
deep insight which St. Paul spoke to the men of Athens
when he declared unto them the invisible God whom
they had unwittingly worshiped, and said that He had
"made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the
face of the earth, having determined their appointed
seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they
should seek God, if haply they might feel after him
and find him." If there is "one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all," the spiritual
unity of the human race is its most vital and profound
unity; and the fact that we are understanding this
better to-day than ever before, more scientifically and
also more sympathetically, affords the highest ground
of hope — one might almost say the only ground of hope
— for a growing sense of universal human brotherhood.
If in the immediate future our own form of religion
can help mankind to realize a larger measure of this
"unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," and can thus
promote the further growth of this sense of universal
brotherhood, it will prove anew its power to mold life
and to serve effectually the highest interests of the race.

3, We see, moreover, the evolutionary progress of

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION 29

religion through the ages, and learn to judge of its
various forms or types or products in the light of the
stages of culture to which they belong. Since the idea
of development has entered into modern thought so
fully as to reconstruct the entire reading of human his-
tory, we have been learning that the principle applies
to spiritual things as well as to physical. Hence we
now conceive that religion itself is a phase of man's
development, although it is impossible to tell at what
point it first appears along the upward pathway on
which he has slowly climbed from the orders of life
below him. If we bear in mind that development in
this, as in other respects, is not all one way, — that there
are often lapses, declines, retrogressions ; in other words,
that there is such a thing as degeneration in the spir-
itual as well as the physical life of man, — if we take
due account of this fact, and so correct our easy gen-
eralizations, we may still properly say that, viewed
as a whole, religion has undergone a vast development
in passing from its lowest to its highest stages. In-
stantly, however, we must remind ourselves that there
are still in existence, among the different tribes and
races, all the various degrees of advancement, from the
crudest to the most refined, which we suppose to have
been covered in the case of any given highly-developed
type of religion. So there is no single universal re-
ligion yet; whether any extant religion is capable of
becoming universal is another question.14

"Dr. George Galloway in his recent volume in the International
Theological Library series, entitled "The Philosophy of Religion"
(Scribner's, 1914), points out that there have been three main
stages in the development of religion, so far as we know enough
about it historically to judge. "The first and earliest known to us
is Spiritism, the primitive form of belief out of which all higher
religion has grown. Then follows Polytheism, the religion of the
nation in contrast to the tribe: a stage of religion which was

30 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

Now while it is evident that any particular type of
religion can be fairly judged only in the light of the
conditions under which it appears, the state of back-
wardness or advancement in culture which forms its
matrix, so to speak, we must remember that the true
nature of essential religion is to be found upon its
highest levels rather than upon its lowest. It is a
mistake to suppose that we shall best understand the
real character of religion by observing it, or reading
about it as others have observed it, among savages or
semi-civilized peoples. Not so do we judge of art or
science or family life or human government. A tree
is known by its fruits rather than by its roots. If
we want to understand the full meaning of religion,
its most vital power and its greatest blessedness, let
us seek it among the noblest and wisest, the sanest and
purest men and women. Other things, indeed, will have
helped to make them noble and wise, sane and pure;
but when religion is developed and refined to such a
degree of spiritual perfection as to blend with all these
other influences and to find a fit abode in such worthy
souls, — yea, even to be, itself, the principal factor in
making them what they have become, — we may see

reached on the formation of the larger national States some time
before the clear light of history. Finally comes Monotheism, a
spiritual faith which goes beyond the limits of the nation, and, in
its Christian form, out of the dissolution of the national States
of the old world has become a Universal Religion. . . . These
three stages of religion mark an ascending scale of life, and
therefore of human needs and of the objects which satisfy these
needs. A gradual purification and refinement of religious values
are visible. The development is from the sensuous to the spiritual,
from the desire of outward things to the consciousness that the
highest goods are the goods of the soul. Hence, underlying the
evolution of religion and working through it, is the growth of
self-consciousness, the personal development of man." — Pp. 242,
243.

GREAT REALITY IN RELIGION 31

most clearly its true nature and worth.

In the light of this thought it is gratifying and in-
spiring to know that religion among ourselves is at
present rising to a higher level. It is steadily purify-
ing itself from superstitions and errors in thought;
it is becoming more enlightened, nor yet less reverent;
it is becoming infused with the ethical and philanthropic
spirit, so that a veritable passion for social betterment
is everywhere possessing it ; and it is reaching out to
the uttermost ends of the earth, and to the lowliest and
neediest of all lands, with its proffer of truth and
love ; yea, it even embraces in the scope of its faith and
hope and promise of redemption the whole family of
mankind "in heaven and on earth." In other words,
religion in our time is coming to be rationalized, moral-
ized, spiritualized and vitalized; and thereby it holds
out the promise and potency of a better life for our
world, to be slowly but surely won in the ages to come.

4. Finally, we may be perfectly confident that the
future will have its religion. It may not be exactly
like any type of religion which has prevailed in the
past; but the instinct will not die out of the human
heart which prompts man to aspire and yearn, which
makes him feel the solemn mystery and wonder of ex-
istence, which creates within him a hunger for truth
and goodness and love and holiness, and which impels
him to seek some sort of communion with the Unseen
Power that enfolds and interpenetrates his own life and
that he has learned to call the Living God. Ideas and
doctrines may change, as learning and experience may
modify them; so may rites and ceremonies, social cus-
toms and institutions : but the inner, underlying spirit
which makes us all at least dimly aware that we have
spiritual aptitudes and sustain spiritual relations, and

32 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

thus awakens within us a feeble or a vivid consciousness
of our kinship with the Eternal Spirit — "the Spirit
itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are chil-
dren of God," 15 — this is as imperishable as the human
personality of which it is a part.

"I think man's soul dwells nearer to the east,
Nearer to morning's fountains than the sun;
Herself the source whence all tradition sprang,
Herself at once both labyrinth and clew.
The miracle fades out of history,
But faith and wonder and the primal earth
Are born into the world with every child." 18

"Rom. viii:16.
"Lowell, The Cathedral.

II

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH f

OUR study thus far has shown that religion in
its vital, essence is instinctive, universal and
very potent in the life of mankind ; that there-
fore we may rightly hold it to be as natural as love or
reason or the moral apprehension; and that it thus
becomes a living dynamic, as real and significant in the
spiritual realm as is gravity or electricity in the ma-
terial.

If these conclusions are thoroughly tenable, they
carry a couple of corollaries which deserve a moment's
attention.

1. The basis of all religious inquiry must be human
nature. Formerly it was customary to begin a discus-
sion of religious matters by considering the teachings
of the Bible and the attributes of God. But of course
this method of reasoning assumes the existence of God
and the truthfulness, somehow, of the teachings of the
Bible; whereas we no longer think it warrantable to
take these important postulates for granted, but must
first find support for them in the depths of human na-
ture, the one field which yields us our most immediate
and sure knowledge. Indeed it is our thought that
man himself is the chief revelation of whatever spiritual
significance the universe affords ; humanity is the prin-
cipal interpreter of Deity ; out of the profound experi-
ences of human life all sacred scriptures are born, how-

33

34 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

ever inspired by the over-brooding and indwelling Spirit.
Hence the care and thoroughness with which we must
ever prosecute the study of human nature, and the
reverence with which we should listen to every mes-
sage that comes from the inmost recesses of man's
soul.

%. We must always distinguish between religion and
its manifold products. Religion itself is simply the
instinctive attitude of the soul which impels to wor-
ship, consists essentially of aspiration, apprehends or
suggests the Divine, and, in its higher stages, yearns
for communion with the living God; while its products
are the various forms in which it expresses itself, —
rites, ceremonies, postures, penances, prayers, pilgrim-
ages, altars, shrines, temples and creeds. These differ
in different countries, ages and degrees of culture; but
the underlying spirit common to them all is ever the
same.

This distinction will lead us to separate sharply be-
tween religion and theology, which is merely thoughts
about religion. Religion is the spiritual life of the
soul; while theology is the intellectual theory of that
life, its philosophical explanation, the orderly account
of its relation to God and of God's government of
the world. Of course there is a certain close connection
between the two, especially among intelligent people;
for it is inevitable that a rational being should reflect
somewhat upon his emotions, desires and struggles, and
thus come to intellectual theories or conclusions regard-
ing them. Yet it is possible for religion to subsist and
to be very pure, strong and fruitful without any formal
theology at all, — just as it is possible for a man to
be morally upright without having thought out any
particular theory of ethics; or to love his wife and

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 35

children deeply and tenderly without ever dreaming of
any such scientific account of the evolution of human
affection as Henry Drummond gives in his "Ascent of
Man." The fact is that throughout the most of Chris-
tian history, especially since the days of Medieval
Scholasticism, and still more especially — in Protestant
circles — since the rise of Calvinism and the reactions
against it, the theological note has been so strong as
to dominate the more vital, spiritual interests of re-
ligion ; whence it has come to pass that multitudes
have identified religion with theology, — a true, pure,
reverent, aspiring spirit in the heart with a supposedly
correct intellectual conception or philosophy of the
Divine nature and procedure; whence, unfortunately,
it has still further transpired that, when a given
theological system — like Calvinism — has broken down,
people have inferred that religion was ruined. All
such mistakes may be avoided by remembering that
religion in its primary essence is an instinctive hunger
for God, while theology is merely an intellectual theory
about God. Hence it follows that real, spiritual re-
ligion may be nourished in the souls of the people even
though all our established intellectual formularies go
to pieces.

Now we come to inquire as to the nature, function
and scope of faith, a term which has always occupied
a large place in Christian phraseology. Just what is
faith, and what has it to do with religion, and how
may the noblest faith be gained? A sound answer to
these questions will go a long way toward simplifying
some of our most perplexing religious problems.

The word faith is synonymous with the word belief,
the one coming to us from the Latin and the other

86 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

from the Anglo-Saxon. Each denotes primarily the
assent of the mind to a proposition, statement or
thought which it has not absolutely demonstrated.
Such assent may be the conclusion of definite processes
of reasoning, every step of which may be traced; or
it may be partly this and partly also the result of
feelings, tendencies and vague intimations that are not
entirely susceptible of being logically formulated.
In any case one's faith or belief must rest upon some
evidence and involve judgment; else it is mere credulity,
which is the foundation of superstition and fanaticism:
and the higher the order of mind that entertains it —
or perhaps it were better to say the more logical that
order — the more nearly perfect will be its action in
accordance with the evidence. A trained, experienced
and honorable jurist becomes almost a machine for
weighing evidence and turning out decisions in har-
mony therewith; but the vast majority of people are
so little disciplined in this respect that their beliefs
are largely a jumble of a few reasons and many
prejudices, involving all sorts of piques, crotchets and
guesses ; indeed it may be said that popular beliefs
generally — touching the weather, the war, politics, re-
ligion, what not — consist mainly of mere floating ideas
or sayings, current at the time, absorbed from sur-
roundings, or inherited from the past, near or re-
mote.

It is clear, then, that faith or belief may be of every
conceivable degree of strength or weakness. You
believe the sun will rise to-morrow morning — or will
appear to do so — and nothing could shake your con-
fidence ; you would risk your life upon it without hesi-
tation. But you may believe that we are going to have
a fruitful summer or a severe winter; yet how much

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 37

would you risk upon that proposition? You believe
that your partner in business, whom you have known
intimately for many years, is strictly reliable, and
nothing short of overwhelming proof would change your
mind; but the plausible stranger who comes to solicit
your investment in a gold mine cannot command any
such confidence. The fact is, we use the word faith
or the word belief to cover every shade of conviction
of which the mind may be conscious, from the feeblest
to the strongest; and each particular form or instance
of faith or belief must stand upon its own basis,
whether the reasons for it can be fully stated or not.
We may believe with the utmost assurance that Jesus
Christ lived in Palestine, nineteen hundred years ago,
and was an exalted Teacher of spiritual truth, because
the evidence is sufficient to produce such a conviction
in our minds. But we may seriously doubt whether he
actually walked upon the sea, or turned water into
wine, or raised the dead, simply because the evidence
for these alleged occurrences is not adequate, in the
face of the established order of Nature, to completely
convince us of them. Each case, each item or article
in a man's faith, must rest upon its own evidential
ground, must stand or fall by itself mainly.

But religious faith, in which we are especially in-
terested, is, when genuine and powerful, something
more than a surface opinion. It reaches into the
depths of a man's soul, or it springs out of his deepest
experiences, and it subsists not only by virtue of rea-
sons but also by virtue of emotions or insights or ap-
prehensions which cannot be set forth in logical array.
In other words, life is more than logic, more than in-
tellect; and faith, religious faith peculiarly, is an
expression of life, an attitude of one's whole being.

38 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

Just as the psychologists are teaching us that a large
part of our mentality lies below or beyond the com-
paratively narrow field of our immediate and clear
consciousness, and that a great deal of our real life
goes on in this so-called subliminal or subconscious or
extra-conscious realm — the realm which still holds our
half-forgotten knowledge, and keeps faithful record of
many of our wholly forgotten deeds ; — so it may be
said that the forces which contribute to a man's pro-
found spiritual faith lie out of sight, under ground,
like the roots of a flowering and fruitful plant; and
he may never be able to explain his faith entirely by
giving precise answers to categorical questions. If a
good man were asked why he believes in his good wife,
in her purity, honesty, unselfishness and love, he would
not be able to tell why with absolute exactness and
completeness : he believes in her because he knows her
and loves her, indeed, but also because of a subtle
union subsisting between them which is as indefinable
or inexplicable as it is indissoluble — it is a thing of
life and not of theory. So, too, a man's religious faith,
when vital and potent, is derived from sources other
and deeper than the processes of measuring and weigh-
ing evidence, however largely these must figure in its
formulation; it is a thing of life and not of theory
only. More will be said later regarding this truth.

Now the office of faith is to take the place of knowl-
edge where knowledge is not possible, especially in
the interest of action.

Strictly speaking, the term knowledge is of very
limited import : it applies only to those things of which
we are positively certain; and these are of two classes,
— the things outside of us which we apprehend by
sense-perception, and the things which transpire in

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 39

the mind itself, of which we are conscious, namely : our
thoughts, feelings, purposes, mental perceptions, con-
victions, aspirations, hopes. Of the former, the things
without of which our senses tell us, how little we posi-
tively know! We see the moon, for instance : but what
does the mere sight of that bright orb reveal to us that
we can call sure knowledge? Only its brightness and
roundness and changing phases. We walk through
the fields and see the flowers, or through the woods
and note a variety of trees, or through the mountains
and valleys and observe different kinds of rock: but
unless we are botanists or horticulturists or geolo-
gists, how slight is the certain knowledge of those ob-
jects which we thus obtain! Even when we examine
our states of consciousness, our thoughts, feelings,
convictions, desires and purposes, we find them con-
tinually changing; and our knowledge of ourselves
arising from within ourselves, and considered without
relation to others, is exceedingly small.

It is obvious, then, that the term knowledge must
be enlarged to include a vast amount of information
that comes to each of us second hand, and in fact we
constantly employ it in this way. When we speak of
modern knowledge in general, or of any particular
branch of it, like one of the sciences, we allude to an
enormous body of fact and truth which the learning
of the ages, especially of recent times, has built up.
Only the merest fragment of this is actually possessed
by any single mind; and with most people half the
things that are learned in youth are forgotten by
middle life. But what we mean is that this great
and precious body of knowledge has been wrought out,
shaped and tested ; that it exists in books and libraries
and museums ; that it is available to those who are

40 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

qualified to appropriate it; and that in this sense
it is common property, the most valuable property
of the world, some of whose main features are more
or less familiar to hosts of intelligent people. Yet no
one knows so well as the profound scholar that even
the most complete science of our time is to a con-
siderable extent hypothetical; that its conclusions are
subject to revision and re-revision; and that our age,
with all its accumulated riches of learning, has only
entered the vestibule of the wonderful temple of pos-
sible knowledge.

Now into all this enlarged conception of knowledge
the element of faith or belief enters to a great extent.
It comes to us mostly from others and we take it upon
trust. All our information concerning those parts
of the world which we have never seen, practically all
our historical knowledge, and nine-tenths of all our
science — astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology,
medicine, and what not — we receive upon the testimony
of our fellow men; and we believe it and rest in it
and act upon it because we have confidence that they
know what they are talking about. We have never
seen the city of Babylon — indeed ancient Babylon van-
ished long ago ; and we have never read the original
Code of Hammurabi — indeed we probably could not
read it if we had it before us ; yet we go on teaching
one another about the place of Babylon in history, and
about the significance of that remarkable Code of
Hammurabi. Why? Because we believe that the evi-
dence concerning the city and the Code has been suffi-
cient to produce convictions amounting to practical
certainty in minds competent to judge of it. In other
words, "we walk by faith, not by sight," in these his-
torical matters. We take the testimony of others upon

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 41

trust, and they of still others, and the whole process
reduces itself to one of confidence in the competence
of somebody to weigh evidence and establish either
absolute proof or the highest degree of probability.
The same thing is true of nearly all our science. The
scholar in physics tells us about the ether that fills
every nook and corner and cranny of the universe,
even permeating the most solid bodies of matter; and
we believe in its existence because we believe in him, or
in some other scholar who has demonstrated the theory
of its existence ; and yet this theory is only a working
hypothesis, which the scientist adopts because it most
completely solves the problems involved, and which
therefore has for him so high a degree of probability
as to amount to practical certainty. The history of
science is the record of continual discovery, hypo-
thetical explanation, verification or correction, re-
statement, and ever-enlarging horizons ; and at every
step one mystery merely gives place to a greater
mystery.

But if such is the character of our historical and
scientific knowledge, much more is it the character of
our practical judgments in the conduct of every-day
affairs. We "know not what shall be on the morrow" :
yet we marry and give in marriage, we journey abroad,
we engage in business, we make investments, we plan
for the future, we take risks of every sort, in sheer
faith, i. e.y in our belief that we shall live and be in
health, that safety and prosperity will attend us, that
our fellow men can be depended upon, and that the
good order of the world will hold together; but every
one of these things is uncertain. We do not know and
we cannot know what the immediate future has in store
for us, and much less the remote future: yet we fare

42 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

on bravely and cheerfully, trying to know as much as
possible, forming judgments, weighing evidence, esti-
mating probabilities, and "believing where we cannot
prove"; and most of us achieve a reasonable degree
of success, and find our faith on the whole justified by
results. Not always, alas ! is it so justified. The pas-
sengers who embarked on the ill-fated Titanic un-
doubtedly did so in faith that they would have a safe
voyage; but unfortunately it proved otherwise. Yet
millions of travelers do cross the ocean safely, and
plan their journeys without much fear in spite of all
such terrible disasters ; indeed we all go about our daily
work, and shape our lives, and meet the inevitable un-
certainties, "in faith believing," notwithstanding acci-
dents, failures, miscalculations and miscarriages. Only
so can we live at all in such a world as this, in which
we cannot know the future, but in which we must "walk
by faith, not by sight." We dwell, each of us, as
regards both intellectual and practical matters, within
a small sphere of clear intelligence, lighted up by a
little bit of positive knowledge, like a house illuminated
at night; but outside is the darkness of a vast igno-
rance and uncertainty, a realm of mystery that seems
to deepen as life expands. Into this darkness we are
all striving to project the rays of our search-lights a
little farther, each day, each year, each generation;
but the things we believe must ever outnumber the
things we absolutely know a hundred to one, while
perhaps the things to be awaited must outnumber them
both still more largely.

"O world, thou choosest not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inward vision close the eyes,

But it is wisdom to believe the heart.

Columbus found a world, and had no chart,

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 43

Save one that faith deciphered in the skies;

To trust the soul's invincible surmise
Was all his science and his only art.
Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine

That lights the pathway but one step ahead,

Across a void of mystery and dread.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine,

By which alone the mortal heart is led
Unto the thinking of the thought divine."

George Santayana.

From all this it appears that faith, taking the place
of knowledge where knowledge is not possible, is a
rational attitude of mind. We are not unreasonable
beings because we believe some things which cannot be
proved, because we act upon convictions when exact
demonstrations are out of the question. We are built
for action, as an automobile is built for running; it is
in action mainly that we develop our powers, and
grow, and fill a place of usefulness in the world; and
it is certain that the greater part of our activity in
life, which naturally looks forward, is based upon
opinions, convictions and judgments which are not sus-
ceptible of positive proof. The whole business world
subsists in confidence between man and man, in faith
in the stability and productiveness of Nature ; and
governments are established, laws enacted, treaties
made, and even wars conducted in the belief that cer-
tain ends are attainable and justifiable, and that cer-
tain measures will prove effective. In all this men are
neither fools nor rascals nor bigots, but reasonable
beings ; for well-grounded faith is not only a rational
but a necessary principle in the management of the
entire domain of practical, every-day life.

If, then, we ask what faith has to do with religion,
the answer is plain: Faith is a working principle,
which has reference mainly to action, and which is as

44 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

valid in one realm as in another. If it is competent
to determine an attitude or a course of conduct in
matters of learning and business and all our ordinary
social relationships, it is not to be ruled out of court
when it comes to testify in behalf of spiritual interests.
It is all a question of the nature of the evidence, and
of sound reasoning, and of thorough thinking and test-
ing, and of intellectual and moral integrity, and of
candor and open-mindedness. The normal action of
the human mind simply renders it inevitable that it
should trust its own faculties, and trust the testimony
of other minds, and trust the continuity of Nature's
order; and whether it be in the sphere of moral and
religious concerns or in that of material or so called
"practical" affairs, it is perfectly reasonable in so
doing. This faith becomes effective for conduct, taking
the place of knowledge where positive knowledge is
not possible, and so fulfills its great function. In the
words of William James, "Faith means belief in some-
thing concerning which doubt is still theoretically
possible; and as the test of belief is willingness to
act, one may say that faith is the readiness to act in
a cause, the prosperous issue of which is not certified
to us in advance." 17

If these remarks are just, they fairly dispose of the
notion, somewhat prevalent and sometimes cynically
expressed, that religious faith consists of blind belief,
whereas science consists of absolute knowledge. Real be-
lief always rests upon reasons of some sort, and "blind
belief" is no belief at all, but mere credulity. The so-
called "ages of faith" were largely ages of credulity,
superstition, and unquestioning docility; but the ages
of true faith, supported by learning and reason, and
17 "Meaning of Truth," p. 256, quoted by Prof. R. B. Perry.

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 45

guided by intelligent, fearless investigation, are only
even now broadly opening. We are not to throw the
principle of faith overboard, but to understand its
proper scope, and use it legitimately, whether in reli-
gious inquiry, or in scientific research, or in practical
conduct.

We are now prepared to appreciate the power and
helpfulness of real faith. It sustains men's flagging
spirits, it nerves to effort, and how often it vindicates
itself as a dynamic factor in human enterprise! The
people who try to do things are the people who believe
that things can be done. Recall Columbus and his dis-
covery of America, — how he believed the earth to be
round, and set out to sail around it, when nearly all
Europe thought him a poor, deluded mortal: his
achievement was as much an act of faith as any in
history. Recall Cyrus W. Field and his success, after
repeated failures and the loss of large wealth, in laying
the Atlantic cable. Think of Lieutenant Peary and
his final triumph in reaching the North Pole. Think
of the founders of our Republic and of their belief in
the principles for which they toiled and suffered.
Think of Saint Paul and how his whole apostolic career
was inspired by faith. Think of our modern Christian
missionaries, from Adoniram Judson to the hosts that
to-day are rearing the standard of the Cross in a thou-
sand foreign places. Think of our technical engineers
— civil, mechanical, mining, sanitary — who build mar-
velous bridges, bore tunnels through mountains and
under rivers, dig canals like Suez and Panama, swing
railroads over chasms or around dizzy heights, con-
struct enormous reservoirs and redeem arid wastes,
conquer plague and disease by cleansing the earth, and

46 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

so help to make this old world into a new paradise.
All these and myriads of others have been people of
action because they have been people of both knowl-
edge and faith ; they have based their faith upon their
knowledge, and have thus believed that things could
be done, and therefore have attempted and achieved.
Always it has been action, action, action which knowl-
edge and faith have served; and both knowledge and
faith have found their sufficient recompense in endeavor
and accomplishment. Intelligent faith inspires to
effort, while doubt freezes the soul and paralyzes the
arm. Men who do not believe do not achieve.

But it must be said that religious faith has a quality
peculiarly its own and yields a blessing peculiarly rich.
This is because religion is so largely an affair of the
inner life. Its springs are within, even though its
activities be outward. It consists primarily and mainly
in an attitude of the soul, — in ideas, thoughts, desires,
convictions, aspirations, hopes, purposes and endeavors
that are considered profoundly vital and sacred. Thus
it subsists among interests which are less tangible,
perhaps, than those of science and business and engi-
neering; at any rate they cannot be weighed and
measured and appraised by the same standards; but
they are not, therefore, any the less real or important
— they are simply different. Being essentially spirit-
ual, religion has regard mainly to spiritual influences ;
it listens for the inner voice, it heeds the inner man-
date, it seeks ever the inner satisfactions — "the peace
of God which passeth all understanding." Its life is
a holy life, whose experiences are not always reducible
to rule and regulation and explanation ; and it has in-
sights, intimations, promptings, restraints, joys, sor-
rows, guidances which come we know not how, — which

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 47

come, we may believe, because the finite spirit, man,
sustains living relations to the Infinite Spirit, God.
"There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the
Almighty giveth him understanding," said young
Elihu in his answer to the three friends of Job. This
"inspiration" is often the secret and chief source of
the real faith that lives, quietly but potently, within a
man's soul and shapes his outward conduct. Probably
of no other kind of faith than religious faith can this
be said. It is peculiarly inward and vital and sacred
because such is the very nature of spiritual religion;
and therefore it has ranges of apprehension which the
intellectual processes of reasoning may not, alone, com-
pletely gauge. Saint Paul uttered a profound truth
when he said, "The physical man receiveth not the
things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness
unto him: neither can he know them; for they are
spiritually discerned." As one who has not an ear
for music may not know the delights of music, or as
one who has no eye for beauty may not have the judg-
ment and the joy of the artist; so one who has not
an awakened or a cultivated spiritual sense may not
know the meaning of the inner light, the inner voice,
the inner peace, — "the peace of God which passeth
all understanding."

But a man who has attained to some measure of
such spiritual discernment derives a great blessing from
his religious faith. He is "sustained and soothed by
an unfaltering trust" when there is no other power
to give him courage to try to go on, or to bear up,
or to accept what the day brings. He is prompted,
restrained and led by his inner faith-sense when there
is no other guidance for him. The writer of the Epistle
to the Hebrews says : "By faith Abraham, when he

48 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

was called to go out into a place which he should after
receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out,
not knowing whither he went." 18 How often do men
go and come, hither and thither, on this enterprise or
that, without being able to tell precisely why except
that they have a secret, inner, indefinable belief that
they ought, or ought not, to do so and so! It is the
faith-sense which belongs to the spiritually-sensitized
soul; and it is sometimes the most unerring guidance
which a mortal man can have through the mazes of
life's bewildering situations. And there is inspiration
in genuine faith, the inspiration of spiritual life and
power, which heals the infirmities of the soul and, as
we are learning anew in these days, may go far toward
the healing of the body. For life is always the great
builder, and real faith is a form or attitude of life,
even the highest life that we know; and who can limit
the extent to which its influence may filter down into
the lower life? Then what courage is imparted to the
minds and hearts of ordinary people when, in times of
trial or danger, a strong man stands up amongst them
and speaks words of confidence and wisdom! Was it
not James A. Garfield, who, on the evening following
the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, addressed from
a balcony in New York City an excited multitude in
the street, and began by saying: "Fellow-citizens, God
reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives" ;
when instantly a tide of comfort and hope and calm-
ness poured itself into the souls of those sorrowing,
anxious men and women? What is the orator without
faith, whether he be statesman or preacher? What,
indeed, is the essence of statesmanship or true preach-
ing but the establishment of a sound and righteous
18Heb. xi.8.

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 49

faith among the people, individually and corporately,
which shall make them stand and labor for everything
good and pure and just?" "Thy faith shall make thee
whole," — a faith that is vital, enlightened, profound,
sincere and sacred shall cure our personal and social
ills as nothing else can ever do. Faith that better
things are possible, faith that wise and honest human
effort is worth while, faith that the laws of the universe
are benevolent and will hold together, — this at least
is the downright and dominant conviction that lives
somehow in the heart of every man who is trying to
do something to help himself and his fellow-men. With-
out such a faith he is powerless and of course useless.
Now how may so noble a faith be acquired? Well,
first of all, by duly realizing that it is an acquisition,
an attainment, an achievement. It is not something
that can be given, but rather something to be won.
Lowell said:

"Freedom and truth and all that these contain
Drop not like ripened fruit about our feet:
We climb to them through years of sweat and pain."

So do we climb to any great, vital, worthy faith.
We come to it through experience. It grows out of
the life; so that the kind of faith we shall have will
depend on the kind of life we live. In other words, a
noble, spiritual faith is not so much the beginning of
a good life as it is the product thereof. What, then,
must be the leading marks of such a life in order that
it may yield such a faith?

1. There must be thoughtfulness, open-mindedness,
intellectual hospitality, growth in knowledge, under-
standing and wisdom. While intelligence is not the
whole of life, and its limitations must be duly appre-
ciated, yet it is always one of the principal means of

50 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

the soul's progressive development. All our powers
of perception, reason and judgment, with all the sound
learning they can win, must underlie a faith that shall
be ample, lofty, and adequate to the needs of the
ever-expanding life of the human spirit.

%. There must be sincerity, honesty, conscientious-
ness, uprightness, moral integrity, purity, virtue, —
in one word, that great quality which the Bible calls
righteousness. He who flouts the moral law in his
conduct will soon flout it in his thought. No man can
live a corrupt life and long retain a growing faith in
goodness. He must himself strive to be just and true
who would build up through the years a sublime faith
in the Everlasting Righteousness.

3. There must be benevolence, good will, loving-kind-
ness, mercy, compassion, sympathy. For it is in the
soil which these qualities continually fertilize that the
roots of a generous faith are best nourished. The
opposite qualities will starve and ultimately kill all
high, ardent, magnanimous confidence in either human
or divine things. Live unselfishly and helpfully among
your fellow men, and you can scarcely fail to believe
somehow in the Eternal Goodness.

4. No less must there be the spirit of reverence,
the spirit of holiness, a region of inner calm and deep
piety which is the very sanctuary of the soul. Here
must be generated the most vital forces that make for
a spiritual faith. Only when a man somehow finds God
within shall he be likely to discover traces of Him with-
out. It is by seeking Him within, by retiring to that
purely private communion with the Infinite Spirit
which it is the priceless privilege of the finite spirit to
hold, that the most profound and certain assurance
is experienced which enables a man, not only to believe,

WHAT IS THE VALIDITY OF FAITH? 51

but to know that the Divine Presence is the Supreme
Reality of life.

5. Finally, there must be a resolute attitude, the
resolute will, if faith is to be vigorous. Constituted
as we are, situated as we are, in such a world as this,
among our kind, we are called, not only to a contem-
plative life and a speculative life, but even more to
an active life, — a life of active goodness, of service,
of helpful and creative activity. "My Father worketh
hitherto, and I work," said Jesus. It is every man's
great prerogative to do likewise, to be a co-laborer
together with God; and only when he sets his will
resolutely to this purpose, consecrating all his powers
to usefulness, resolved to toil on and in his toil rejoice,
even when the day grows dark and terror overspreads
the land and sadness fills the heart with tears, — only
so can one build up within himself, year by year, an
invincible faith, that shall hold him steadfast through
all storms, and make him a tower of strength for the
shelter of other troubled souls.

"O living will that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure,

That we may lift from out of dust

A voice as unto him that hears,

A cry above the conquer'd years,
To one that with us works, and trust,

With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,

And all we flow from, soul in soul." 19

19 Tennyson, In Memoriam, CXXX.

Ill

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD

HAVING seen what is the intrinsic nature of
religion and what is the true validity of faith,
we are ready to ask what we can know of God.
It is the central and supreme question in our study.
Of course the subject is so vast and so enshrouded in
mystery that we inevitably experience the greatest diffi-
culty in bringing it within the range of our compre-
hension. Yet it is best to treat it in as clear and simple
a way as possible, avoiding all unnecessary technicality
of thought and language. If God is a Reality and not
merely a Name, and if all men are somehow related to
Him and need to know about Him, there ought to be
some means of apprehending Him, or of ascertaining a
large and vital measure of truth concerning Him,
which an open-minded and sincere soul can understand
without profound learning.

At the very outset our problem presents three as-
pects, which may be indicated by three subordinate
questions : What does the idea of God signify ? what
kind of knowledge is meant when we speak of knowing
Him? and how, by what method, by virtue of what
faculty or attainment or experience, are we enabled
to gain such knowledge? If we can find valid answers
to these questions, we shall at least open up a wide
field of inquiry and shall discover how exceedingly im-
portant are the issues which it contains.

I. For ourselves the idea of God lies at the very cen-

52

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 53

ter of religion; indeed, educated as we Occidentals of
the present age have been, it is difficult for us to think
of religion without reference to a belief in a deity or in
deities — although, as has been previously pointed out,
Doctor Brinton reminds us that Buddhism inculcates
no such belief. We, however, habitually assume the
existence of a Supreme Being, whom we call by a
variety of names, derived mostly from the Hebrew and
Christian Scriptures. Whether any two of us have
exactly the same idea when we speak of this Being, it
may be hard to tell, because ideas are seldom, if ever,
expressed with absolute precision and completeness ; so
that we can only judge one another with approximate
correctness at best. But so far as a general statement
may go in representing the common conception of
thoughtful people, it may be fairly said that our re-
ligious faith postulates a Supreme Spiritual Per-
sonality as the Ultimate Source of all phenomena,
whose power, wisdom, goodness and love fill the uni-
verse, who creates, sustains, animates and rules all
worlds, who is the Author of our being and "the Father
of the spirits of all flesh," whose providence is in all
human history because He is the Moral Governor of
mankind, and whose purposes concerning the children
of men have been specially revealed to them in different
ways, but preeminently in the life and teaching of
Jesus Christ. To be sure, some of these notions would
not be accepted by everybody; the last one, for in-
stance, a devout Jew would be obliged to reject: and
doubtless there are many, educated in modern science
and philosophy, who would admit that they recognize
an Inscrutable Power that they sincerely reverence,
but that they are unable to call personal in any such
anthropomorphic fashion as our language implies.

54 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

But these are qualifications which do not greatly affect
the essential truth, and the statement as a whole may
be allowed to stand as a rough but tolerably accurate
expression of the prevalent idea of God forming the
background of religious thinking among intelligent
people to-day.

No need to trace here the historical development of
the rich content of this great, complex conception,
though that were a highly profitable task; suffice it to
say that such development would be found to run from
animism to polytheism, from polytheism to monothe-
ism, from monotheism to Christian paternalism, and
from Christian paternalism to those scientific and philo-
sophical constructions which, in our own time, are
denoted by the terms Realism, Idealism, Absolutism,
etc. The fact is that man's idea of God has changed
and grown with his long, slow, painful progress in
other respects ; many and diverse influences have modi-
fied it; and now new and powerful influences are tend-
ing to modify it still further. Nevertheless it has per-
sisted, in one form or another, through all the muta-
tions and expansions of the past, increasing rather
than diminishing in its significance; and this striking
fact affords a fair warrant for expecting that it will
continue to hold its place somehow in the enlarging
thought of the world, and will still control

"With growing sway the growing life of man."

What difference does it make whether this idea be
retained? The world will continue, life will go on,
the generations will pass, each individual will play his
little part in the drama of existence and quickly dis-
appear; yea, measured on the scale which astronomers
employ to gauge magnitudes and durations, our earth

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 55

itself will soon enough share the fate of other planets
that have frozen up or have coalesced to make some
new flaming star: what boots it whether we think that
a Supreme Wisdom sits upon the throne of the uni-
verse, whether we are sure that an Eternal Love lives
in its heart?

Well, there are times when it does not seem to mat-
ter much, one way or the other: we are busy with the
affairs of life, we are full of energy and ambition,
happiness is our daily portion, and every prospect is
bright; or perhaps we are living all unworthily, being
steeped in sensuality, refined or coarse, stupefied by
sin, calloused by selfishness, full of wrath and doubting:
in either case, very likely, we do not care a fig for
the thought of God, even as we do not imagine that
He — if He be at all — can care a fig for us. But by
and by a change comes, some shock of doom occurs —
the loss of health or wealth, the sorrow of a great
bereavement, the ruin of our personal fortunes and
hopes by such a calamity as an earthquake or a war,
desolating a land or consuming nations — and lo! we
are suddenly brought face to face with the tremendous
fact that this world is full of tragedy. Then we begin
to think more deeply, and to wonder what it all means,
and to ask whether there is anything to come when
the tragedy ends. We search our own hearts, we
listen to our fellow men, we read books, we study sci-
ence and philosophy, we peer into the vast, deep
mystery of the surrounding universe for an answer to
our anxious questioning. Is the Infinite Power that
we behold everywhere, controlling all worlds, and here
on earth making or breaking our human lives, — is this
Power personal and paternal, or merely an all-pervad-
ing Energy without benevolence or purpose or intelli-

56 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

gence? It is not merely a speculative problem; it
involves our own destiny and the destiny of those who
were dearer to us than life itself, but who have passed
beyond our sight; nay, the hope of civilization, the
hope for the progress of mankind here upon the earth,
is bound up in the final analysis with the character of
the Ultimate Reality, however named, that abides for-
ever at the center of things. With the soul full of
grief and pain, with tens of thousands of human beings
perishing "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,"
as in the Italian earthquake only recently, with Euro-
pean society shaken to its foundations by the most
terrific struggle of all history, and with this planet
and every form of life upon it doomed to eventual
extinction, what ground have we for supposing that
our existence has any high and permanent worth, save
as it is embraced somehow in the sweep and care of
that Almighty Providence whose dominion is from ever-
lasting to everlasting? It is hard to see.

Such is a hint, albeit only a hint, of what the idea
of God signifies, and of the difference it makes whether
we hold it or not.

II. Now what kind of knowledge is meant when we
speak of knowing God?

We have seen that the word knowledge is a some-
what elastic term. In its more restricted sense it
denotes those things of which we are clearly conscious,
contained within the mind itself, — such as ideas,
thoughts, feelings, convictions ; such as mental, moral,
spiritual states, various and ever-changing; such as
memories, aspirations, hopes, fears, etc. ; or those
things which are objective, but of which we are indis-
putably aware through sense perception, — as when we

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 57

say that we know that the sun is shining, that the
grass is green, that iron is hard and heavy, that some
sounds are musical while others are harsh noises, that
a rose is fragrant, that sugar is sweet, etc. ; or those
things which are demonstrable by processes of reason-
ing which we cannot gainsay, like the propositions of
mathematics and the inferences which we are compelled
to draw from axiomatic truths. In its broader sense
it denotes a vast body of information which comes to
most of us "second hand," upon the authority of
scholars or experts, the testimony of observers and
writers, the common understanding of educated people ;
information, much of it, which has been slowly built up
during ages of study, like nearly all our sciences ; or
information that is widely diffused by the press, by
libraries, schools and learned societies; indeed, the
whole great mass of what we call general intelligence
or knowledge or learning, consisting of information
which rests back somewhere upon some one's "say so,"
usually with adequate reason, but not invariably.

Into which of these two classes does our possible
knowledge of God fall?

There are those who affirm that it falls distinctly
within the field of consciousness. They speak as if
they thought that we can be as conscious of God as
we are of ourselves, or as we are of our passing moods
and our permanent convictions. But if this were so,
it would seem as though all men would be agreed about
it; whereas a few positively deny the existence of God,
many more consider that it is impossible to know
whether He exists or not, and a multitude of others,
while earnestly believing in Him, doubt whether it is
strictly proper to say that we are actually conscious
of Him. At the same time it must be remarked that

58 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

the word consciousness has come lately to have a larger
signification than formerly. The physiological psy-
chologists are showing us that each man's conscious-
ness embraces, not only a central area of great
vividness of perception and realization, but a surround-
ing or an underlying area of diminishing vividness,
shading off into dimness and darkness ; and that from
this shadowy region — called the unconscious, or the
subconscious, or the subliminal — there come ideas, ap-
prehensions, insights, suggestions, promptings, inspira-
tions which, in moments of intense experience, flame up
into the central area of vivid understanding, like
flashes of light; or, without thus manifesting them-
selves, they may remain hidden in that deep reservoir,
and yet may be potent to shape our beliefs, judgments
and actions.20 If these things are so, it may very
well be that our apprehension of God is usually of this
vague, feeble or submerged character, but that in mo-
ments of illumination and exaltation, and in rare souls
perhaps continuously, it flames up as a blessed cer-
tainty and a living reality in the vivid center of
conscious experience. Thus we can understand how a
spiritually awakened man — one, for instance, who has
felt very deeply the influence of Jesus Christ and has
responded to it — may have a religious consciousness
which makes him as surely aware of the presence and

20 "Our studies up to this point have led us to the general con-
clusion that a large measure of the experiences of life are con-
served or deposited in what may be called a storehouse of neuro-
pathic dispositions or residua. This storehouse is the unconscious.
From this storehouse our conscious processes draw for the ma-
terial of thought. Further, a large amount and variety of evi-
dence . . . has shown that conserved experiences may function
without arising into consciousness, i.e., as a subconscious process."
—"The Unconscious," p. 229, by Morton Prince, M.D., LL.D., the
Macmillan Co., 1914.

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 59

power of God in his life as he is that he loves his
fellowmen; while one who has never had any such
quickening of the soul, who has never been in any sense
"born from above," may have no touch of a similar
awareness — and will be likely to have none until some-
thing arouses him, when he will exclaim as Jacob did
when he awaked out of sleep, "Surely the Lord is in
this place, and I knew it not." 21

But since it is plain that not all men are indubitably
conscious of God, but that even the best of witnesses,
while sure that He is, cannot tell exactly what He is,
and that they and we and all are forever seeking Him,
if haply we may feel after Him and find Him, it ap-
pears best to say that our possible knowledge of God
partakes rather of the character of belief than of
actual consciousness or of positive demonstration. In
other words, it is a composite conviction, to which many
factors contribute, and possesses so high a degree of
probability as to amount to practical certainty while
falling short of absolute certainty. Accordingly we
are thrown back upon the position taken in the pre-
ceding chapter. We there saw that only a small part
of what we call knowledge consists of things which
can be precisely and conclusively proved, while the
greater part consists of things which we believe upon
evidence sufficient in amount and quality to produce
conviction in minds competent to appreciate it. Upon
such conviction we act in all the practical relationships
of life, and are reasonable beings in so doing. We
are to think, learn, reason, test, prove, as far as possi-
ble, in all our study on any and every subject; but
then we are compelled to admit that we can know only
a very little at best, and are obliged to believe a
31 Gen. xxviii:16.

60 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

thousand things which we cannot demonstrate, and to
await many other things which we are not yet prepared
either to believe or to deny. So we are forced to "walk
by faith, not by sight," if we walk at all, — just as we
travel along a country road at night, seeing a little
way ahead, and that little sufficing. Because we can-
not see the end of the journey from the beginning,
shall we refuse to travel altogether?

This position is thoroughly tenable. A man may
properly say, "I believe in the existence of God, and
am prepared to give my reasons for so doing," when
he could not truthfully say, "I know that God exists,
and I can prove it, and indeed I am conscious of it."
One may be conscious of the thought of God, and the
idea may be very distinct in his mind; he may be con-
scious of deep reverence and earnest aspiration with
reference to what he feels to be the Divine Presence;
and he may be conscious of a firm conviction that there
is an infinite "Power not ourselves that makes for
righteousness," that he conceives as the Soul of the
universe and gladly calls the Father in heaven. But
all this is purely subjective; and the question is, How,
speaking strictly, can one claim to be conscious of
the objective reality? To be sure it may be answered
that, under our modern conception of the Divine
immanence, God is not only an objective reality, but
also a living, indwelling Spirit, manifesting Himself in
a subjective experience; and that therefore we may
rightly say that we are conscious of Him, even as we
are conscious that we live in Humanity and that Hu-
manity lives in us. But this is an extension of the
older meaning of the word consciousness which seems
somewhat unwarrantable — although it would be sanc-
tioned readily enough by Bergson and others who speak

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 61

freely of consciousness in animals and even in plants.22
Former usage limited the term to the representation
of those activities and states of mind which constituted
clear, positive intelligence, of which one could be en-
tirely certain: when one was said to be conscious of
anything one was perfectly sure of it; there was no
doubt, no misgiving, no uncertainty. In such strict
sense can it be said that any man is as conscious of
God as he is of his own mental processes ? Perhaps !
but the instances are unquestionably rare; and these
rare instances, together with those less vivid or even
unconscious experiences, just alluded to, which are
nowadays covered by the word consciousness, afford
rather one of the arguments for believing in the exist-
ence of God than an absolute proof of such existence.
In the language of President J. G. Schurman, "I ap-
prehend no little harm has been done by attempting
to make our belief in God more certain than it actually
is. We have such a belief, and I hold it is legitimate;
but it does not belong to that kind of absolutely cer-
tain knowledge we are able to have of objects so simple
and abstract as the space and numbers of mathe-
matics." 23 Again he says, "I am unable to assign to
our belief in God a higher certainty than that possessed
by the working hypotheses of science." 24

Such, then, is the fundamental quality of our knowl-
edge of God; it bears essentially the character of be-
lief; it is a great, composite conviction, produced by
many factors, and possesses (for most people at any
rate) so high a degree of probability as to amount to
practical certainty while falling short of absolute
certainty.

22 See Bergson, "Creative Evolution," pp. 130, 135-6, 143.

23 "Belief in God," p. 40.

24 Ibid., p. 43.

62 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

III. Now how may this "knowledge" be gained, how
may this great conviction be established? By virtue
of what faculty or attainment or experience in our-
selves can we apprehend God or ascertain important
truth concerning Him?

Well, the first thing to be said is that any knowledge
of God which we can acquire, any conviction regarding
Him which we can establish, must be, at best, extremely
meager. We may apprehend Him, but we cannot com-
prehend Him, — we finite beings cannot put the reach
of our thought around the Infinite Being; if we could
do so, He would soon cease to be of interest to the ever-
expanding soul of man, and would become as the myth-
ical deities of antiquity.

The next thing to be said is that the various names
which we apply to God, whether they be Pagan or
Hebrew or Christian, whether they smack of religion
or science or philosophy, are only so many signs by
which we, like little children, seek to designate a Reality
that we instinctively recognize as transcendent. We
may call him "Jehovah, Jove or Lord," the Eternal,
the Almighty or the Living God, — we may characterize
Him as the Heavenly Eather, the Supreme Ruler, the
"Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness,"
the Universal Energy, the Absolute, or the Great
Spirit : but all these and all kindred terms and descrip-
tions are only suggestive symbols, partial and in-
adequate, to represent our confessedly limited concep-
tions of the Illimitable and the Inscrutable Being.
"The Lloly One that inhabiteth eternity," however con-
cealed or revealed, must be so much higher and greater
than we can imagine that any name which we may em-
ploy to denote Him should be spoken with some degree
of reverent reserve.

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 63

In the next place it is obvious that, if God is and
if He corresponds at all to what we mean by these
high appellatives, He must be apprehended in different
ways by different minds. Even of the material uni-
verse the same thing is true: one person apprehends
mainly its law and order, another its beauty, another
its terror, and still another its benevolence. How much
more must such be the case with the Infinite Spirit
that is the Soul of the universe ! One person may see
or feel chiefly His power and glory, another His jus-
tice and severity, another His goodness and love, and
still another His forgiving and redeeming grace. All
religious literature, preeminently the Bible, is full of
this great variety of human thinking about the Divine
Nature. He is ever alluded to as "manifesting" Him-
self now in one way, now in another way, and as having
"spoken" to mankind "by divers portions and in divers
manners" 25 ; but this is only another form of expres-
sion to indicate the truth that the children of men,
with their various moods and experiences in a changing
world, see God through broken lights and shadows,
"through a glass, darkly," and not "face to face," and
find Him according to their insight and understanding.
"With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful,
with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright.
With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with
the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavory." 26

What is it in ourselves, then, that enables us to
apprehend God at all, however variously or imper-
fectly, and makes it possible to ascertain any measure
of truth about Him? The question is most pertinent;
and an analogy may help us to answer it.

aHeb.s i:l.

28 II Sam. xxii:26, 27.

64 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

We are endowed with five physical senses by means
of which we are able to learn something of the physical
world lying around us and substantiating itself in our
bodies; and it is conceivable that, if we had twice as
many senses, we might learn twice as much — so that
it is not unreasonable to suppose that infinite wonders
and glories are hidden from us, not because they do
not exist, but because our powers of apprehension are
so limited ! Be that as it may, these five physical senses
are media or channels or tracts through which the ex-
ternal world conveys its phenomena to us, sending its
messages by these various routes to the central Self
within. But we may turn the statement around and
say that these senses are so many avenues by which
the soul goes forth to reach and explore the outward
world; or that they are so many windows through
which the soul looks out upon the material realm
spreading around it. Even so it may be said that
there are spiritual avenues through which our minds
and hearts go out, as it were, to meet the King of
kings; or that there are spiritual windows through
which the soul of man looks out upon a psychical
world, lying partly within but mainly without. These
spiritual avenues or windows may be properly called
spiritual senses, and there are at least five or six of
them, namely: the will, the reason, the moral sense,
the aesthetic sense, the affections, and the religious
sense. These are not so many departments or com-
partments of our being, nor yet separate faculties or
capacities ; but are rather various ways in which the
whole Self, receptive and responsive and active, comes
into conscious contact with the facts and truths of
the psychical world, the spiritual universe, in which
it exists and of which it is a living part.

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 65

In most men some one of these powers is likely to
be dominant. In one man it is the will, in another it
is the reason, in another the moral sense, in still another
the aesthetic sense, in a fifth it is the affections, and in
the sixth the religious susceptibility. Of course in
the greatest men there is a happy balance or a har-
monious working of all these endowments, and when
developed by education or some other rich experience
they produce the world's true leaders.

Now it is evident that, if we can know anything at
all about God or can ascertain any truth concerning
Him, it must be by the exercise of one or more of these
powers in ourselves. By virtue of the will in us we
postulate a Supreme Will and come to know God as
Cause, as Dr. Martineau ably argues ;27 by the power
of thought in us we come to know Him as Intelligence,
finding the marks of intelligence throughout the uni-
verse; by the moral sense in us we apprehend Him as
Moral Ruler, and see all human history bearing witness
to His righteous government of the world; by the
aesthetic sense, the sense of beauty, in ourselves we
"behold the King in his beauty"; by the instinct of
love in our hearts we apprehend Him as Supreme Love ;
and by the religious instinct, the spirit of holiness, in
us we feel that He is indeed "the Holy One that in-
habiteth eternity," and we spontaneously worship
Him "in the beauty of holiness." Thus we look out of
these various windows, or go out through these vari-
ous avenues, or pursue these different paths in our
seeking God, "if haply" we may "feel after him and
find him"; and at the same time we understand that
He must be more and greater than we can hope to
find in any of these ways, — more and greater than the
"See his "Study of Religion," Vol. I.

66 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

sum total of our varied apprehensions of Him as Ulti-
mate Cause, Supreme Intelligence, Moral Governor,
Perfect Beauty, Eternal Love and the All-Holy One.
But we use these expressions and follow these ways be-
cause they are the best that are available to us, limited
as we are, in our attempt to know God and to tell how
we know Him.

We find the thought of God in ourselves. How it
comes to be with us, whether by tuition or by intuition,
we may not agree; that is to say, whether it has been
handed down to us by our ancestors and imparted to
us by our associates, or is innate and arises sponta-
neously within us, we may not be able by philosophy or
science to determine positively. While it is undoubt-
edly true that most men are taught the idea of God,
and never think to ask themselves how otherwise they
could derive it, yet it is equally true that many of
the most penetrating minds are sure beyond perad-
venture that this idea is given to them in the same way
that self-consciousness is given. One writer expresses
the latter truth as follows:

"The only answer we can make, when we ask for its
origin, is that our thoughts cannot rise higher than
their source; that our Thought of God can have no
less an origin than the Infinite, Absolute One ; that
our consciousness of God must come from God himself,
— the Perfect Reality. The very fact that Man thinks
God is, if we trust our mental laws for anything, evi-
dence of the Real worth of the Thought. Beyond this
fact reasoning fails. Intuition must enable the mind
to see, if it shall at all see, the offered truth. There
is no proof for it any more than there is proof for
Self-Consciousness." 28
28 Rev, Dr. Clay MacCauley, "Memories and Memorials," p. 416.

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 67

But however originating, we find ourselves possess-
ing the thought of God and asking ourselves upon
what grounds we may rest our belief in Him. If such
belief is a great, complex conviction, to which many
factors contribute, what are these factors, what are
the evidences which support our faith? If our faith
in God is reasonable, it will be worth while to state
the principal reasons which we think warrant it.

1. Foremost among these reasons is our own con-
scious personal existence. This is the center from
which we must work outward, the starting point for
all our thought-excursions, the bedrock upon which we
must lay the foundations of an}^ temple of faith, hope
and love that we may seek to build. And we are abso-
lutely sure of this. Whatever doubts may trouble us
concerning other things, we have no doubt about this ;
we know that we are, that we are here, that we are
thinking and loving beings, and that our selfhood
persists from day to day. We know, too, that we
learn and grow and improve; that we have wonderful
memories, insights, inspirations and visions ; that we
entertain transcendent ideas and cherish

"thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars."
We are aware also that there are unplumbed depths
in our nature, that undeveloped potentialities lie with-
in us, that heights of character to which we have not
yet attained are nevertheless within our reach, while
intimations of beauty and gladness still awaiting us
are ever luring our hearts onward and upward. We
know our own virtues and our own faults better than
any one else can know them; we know that a profound
sense of right and wrong possesses and commands us ;
we know that a spirit of holy goodness pleads with
our souls ; and we know that purity and impurity, sin

68 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

and guilt, remorse and penitence and pardon are not
empty words. Thus our intellectual, moral, spiritual
life, yielding its varied experiences and running on
from year to year, attests our abiding yet developing
personality, which is the one living reality of which
we are consciously certain in a world of change and
tumult and fathomless mystery.

2. Being thus absolutely sure of our personal exist-
ence and our spiritual nature, we turn next to inquire
how we have come to be. Here we immediately enter
a vast realm of new truth. For the scientific learning
of mankind has been so completely made over within
the last hundred years that our explanation of man's
place in nature is utterly different from that of former
times. Modern evolutionary science may be truly said
to constitute a great, new, wonderful revelation, as
significant in its way for the present age as the Chris-
tian revelation was for the Augustan age of the Roman
Empire; it has given us literally "new heavens and a
new earth"; it has reconstructed natural history and
human history; and it has enlarged and enriched by
many degrees our understanding of the marvelous
processes by which Humanity has been produced. As
the story is told, for instance, in the late Professor
Henry Drummond's "The Ascent of Man," or in one
of the very last of Mr. John Fiske's little books,
"Through Nature to God," it is dramatic, impressive
and most inspiring. In the light of such a review we
see a process of progressive development, reaching
through uncounted asons of time, by which the worlds
were formed, by which the earth was made ready for
the abode of life, by which lower and then higher and
still higher organisms were produced wherein life mani-
fested itself, by which at length a race of human beings

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 69

appeared, and by which the life of mankind has slowly
unfolded, expanded, deepened, and risen to spiritual
attainments which crown it all with glory and honor.

It is the function of science primarily to deal with
phenomena, to explain methods, to tell how the changes
of the universe have come to pass. But in pursuing
its inquiries touching these things, it finds that the
universe is under the reign of law and order, from
which caprice and chance are eliminated, and that it
is animated by one all-pervading and all-enduring
Energy, from which everything proceeds, to which at
last everything can be traced up. When the question
arises, as it inevitably does, What is the nature of
this Energy? the scientific scholars are divided in their
answers ; one group saying, We do not know, it is im-
possible to know; another group saying, The only
Energy we know anything about, or that is needed to
account for the universe, is material; and yet another
group saying, The ultimate ground or substance of
the universe is Spiritual Life or Divine Energy, — in
the words of Mr. Fiske, "The infinite and eternal Power
that is manifested in every pulsation of the universe is
none other than the living God." 29

3. The position to which science thus leads, yielding
the great conceptions of Unity, Energy, Life and (in
the judgment of many scholars) Spirituality as the
everlasting Source of phenomena, the Final Reality in
the universe, is substantiated by Philosophy. For it
is the function of Philosophy to deal with the facts of
mind, intelligence, spirituality, as these are disclosed
primarily in human life. It studies these in relation
to the whole problem of man's existence, and thus deals
also with facts lying outside of the human realm, so
» "The Idea of God," etc., p. 166.

70 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

that it takes the materials and conclusions of science,
and builds out of them its systems of truth. Now the
facts of mind, intelligence, spirituality, everywhere
found in human life, are as real as any other facts
in the world; they are as substantial as the facts of
the sun, moon and stars, or those of the solid earth ;
and they may point as clearly in their own way to
certain great ends and meanings as do the facts of
astronomy or geology or biology. It is simply a ques-
tion of rightly interpreting or construing them.

And in what direction do these great facts of human
life point? Here we have, in ourselves, a first-hand
knowledge of them, — mind, intelligence, spirituality;
thought, will, conscience; love, benevolence, reverence.
What do they signify? Surely they spring out of
some source not less than ourselves. Personality in us
must originate in something not less than Personality
in the universe to which we belong. If that "some-
thing" is vastly higher and greater than any per-
sonality that we have ever known, well and good! our
own personality shall be but a hint or symbol of such
a Transcendent Deity ; and our poor language will not
enable us to do better than to call Him, therefore, the
Supreme Spiritual Personality, the Living God.

4. We may take a further step by glancing at the
providence of human history. The Power which fills
the universe is a Living Power; it manifests itself in
our bodies in the physical life which we possess ; it
wells up in our souls in our conscious personality, in
the forms of mind, intelligence, conscience, volition,
affection, veneration, aspiration. But it is the very
same Power that has been a "Governor among the
nations." For a mighty moral energy has always
stirred the souls of men, and disturbed them and im-

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 71

pelled them, or restrained and corrected them, and has
thereby so overruled affairs and events and develop-
ments as to "make for righteousness" in the long run.
By virtue of this moral energy resident in Humanity,
evils are slowly outgrown, wrongs are at length recog-
nized and overthrown, rights are finally perceived and
established, and an ever-widening range is given to the
principles of justice, mercy and benevolence. Thus
there is such a thing as moral progress in the history
of mankind, tedious and painful though it be; and
great moral leaders are raised up, and stupendous
events culminate in moral victories — like the uprooting
of slavery by our Civil War — and the work of right-
eousness becomes peace, and the effect of righteousness
quietness and assurance forever. The very protest
which millions of people are making to-day against
the frightful wrongs of the world is itself the clearest
proof of the depth and strength of this moral energy
that lives and grows in the souls of men; and out of
protest will come ultimately correction and reconstruc-
tion.

Now this moral energy upspringing within each one
of us, to which none of us can be wholly oblivious, for-
ever prompting or checking us, now giving its august
sanctions to our behavior and now administering its
solemn rebuke even to our thought of wrong-doing, —
whence is it derived? Surely it is not of our own
creating; neither is it altogether begotten by the
human society that surrounds us — it is merely
"brought forth" thus: but rather we must say that
our own moral sentiments, and those of our fellow
men around us, expressed and crystallized in the just
laws of organized civil society, are a manifestation and
an index of the moral character of the Government of

72 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

the universe; and this is tantamount to saying that
that Government is a Divine Government. Thus the
moral law written in our hearts becomes perhaps the
very deepest and surest witness which is borne to us
concerning the immediate presence in our human world
and in each human life of the Supreme Power that
Doctor Martineau described as "a Divine Mind and
Will ruling the universe, and holding moral relations
with mankind."

5. Still another element of our faith in God, another
method of learning the truth about Him, another means
of apprehending Him, is afforded by the experiences
of those spiritually sensitized souls that have been
awakened and illumined in an unusual way or to an
unusual degree. It were as vain to deny that there
are such souls as to deny that there are poets and
musicians, and it were as foolish to ignore the facts
of which they testify as to say that the visions of the
poet or the musician are not worth noticing. "The
exceptional experiences of exceptional men," as Dean
Hodges speaks of them, may be as valid and significant
as the ordinary experiences of ordinary men. It is
simply a question of verifying and interpreting them.
It is no more strange that "the pure in heart" should
"see God" than that a mathematical genius should in-
stantly read the sum total of an extensive column of
figures. Men and women who are gifted by nature
with intuitive perception, having clear and deep in-
sight and delicate feelings, and who perhaps have been
chastened by sorrow and tempered by suffering, learn-
ing lessons of submission, obedience, trust and love,
and living in the spirit of prayer and adoration, may
be surely expected to find evidences of the presence

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 73

and power of God in the world and in their own lives
which coarser people cannot possibly understand. In-
deed it is always upon life's higher levels that we
naturally look for those experiences which shall make
us aware of God. To be sure, we may not entirely
escape Him upon life's lower levels, because His provi-
dence of law and order still enfolds us and holds us
in its grasp and disciplines us ; but it is mainly in
the upper regions, above the mists and miasmas of
evil, where the air is pure and the sunlight is clear,
where truth and love and goodness and freedom have
opportunity to bear their legitimate sway, — it is
mainly there, where the holiest men and women seek
constantly to dwell, that the human soul may most
confidently hope to hold communion with God. Thus
the saints do certainly have something to teach us
which we may not otherwise learn, namely : that a deep,
vital, inner piety, a simple but sincere love in the heart,
an open mind, an obedient will, a reverent and yearn-
ing but submissive spirit, "meek and lowly, pure and
holy," may bring us into a blessed consciousness of
the Divine Presence, so that we shall feel the tides of
the Divine Life flowing into us and through us, when
nothing else can yield us so great a joy. This is the
message of the Christian mystic; yea, it is the most
central and essential truth lying at the heart of all
spiritual religion; and all our external searchings,
whether by science or philosophy or ceremonial ob-
servances, will find their culmination and their satis-
faction when they lead to this profound yet childlike
spiritual attitude. God is not so surely found at the
end of a logical syllogism as in a life of faithful de-
votion to duty in the spirit of reverent gratitude, trust
and love.

"74 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

"O Power, more near my life than life itself
(Or what seems life to us in sense immured),
Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth,
Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive
Of sunshine and wide air and winged things
By sympathy of nature, so do I
Have evidence of Thee so far above,
Yet in and of me! Rather Thou the root
Invisibly sustaining, hid in light,
Not darkness, or in darkness made by us.
If sometimes I must hear good men debate
Of other witness of Thyself than Thou,
As if there needed any help of ours
To nurse Thy flickering life, that else must cease,
Blown out, as 'twere a candle, by men's breath,
My soul shall not be taken in their snare,
To change her inward surety for their doubt
Muffled from sight in formal robes of proof:
While she can only feel herself through Thee,
I fear not Thy withdrawal; more I fear,
Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked with dreams
Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed, Thou,
Walking Thy garden still, commun'st with men,
Missed in the commonplace of miracle." 30

6. "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst
thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" asks
one of the characters in the Book of Job.31

Jeremiah represents the Lord as saying, "Then
shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto
me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek
me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all
your heart." 32

"No man hath seen God at any time," says the
author of the First Epistle of John. "If we love one
another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected
in us. . . . God is love; and he that dwelleth in love
dwelleth in God, and God in him. He that loveth not,

80 Lowell, The Cathedral.
31 Job xi.7, Jer. xxix.12, 13.
32Jer. xxix.12, 13.

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF GOD? 75

knoweth not God; for God is love. . . . Hereby know
we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath
given us of his Spirit.'3 33

To kindred purport are the remarks of St. Paul, —
"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that
we are children of God." 34 "And because ye are sons,
God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 35

Finally, Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart;
for they shall see God." 36 "If any man will do his
will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of
God, or I speak of myself." 37

These expressions register the high-water mark of
spiritual truth in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.
They not only represent man's deep yearning for God,
but point out the one sure way of finding Him, namely :
the way of a spiritual life, the way of a devout, loving,
obedient attitude of mind and heart. Thus they con-
firm the supreme lesson which we have been slowly
learning, that God is to be found and known mainly
within the human soul rather than without, — a lesson
which is finely set forth in Frederick L. Hosmer's
beautiful poem:

"Go not, my soul, in search of Him:
Thou wilt not find Him there, —
Or in the depths of shadow dim,
Or heights of upper air.

For not in far-off realms of space

The Spirit hath its throne;
In every heart it findeth place

And waiteth to be known.

33 1 Johniv:12, 16, 8, 13.

34 Rom. viii:16.

35 Gal. iv:6.

36 Matt. v:8.

37 St. John vii:17.

76 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

Thought answereth alone to thought,
And soul with soul hath kin;

The outward God he findeth not,
Who finds not God within.

And if the vision come to thee

Revealed by inward sign,
Earth will be full of Deity

And with His glory shine.

Thou shalt not want for company,

Nor pitch thy tent alone;
The indwelling God will go with thee,

And show thee of His own.

Oh gift of gifts, oh grace of grace,
That God should condescend

To make thy heart His dwelling place,
And be thy daily Friend!

Then go not thou in search of Him,

But to thyself repair;
Wait thou within the silence dim,

And thou shalt find Him there."

IV

WHAT SHALIi WE BELIEVE ABOUT IMMORTALITY f

EVERY thoughtful person must be interested in
the subject of immortality. It is a matter of
such direct, personal concern to each human
being that it easily commands the earnest attention of
the enlightened and sincere, while it cannot be utterly
and permanently ignored by any. Even if no other
influence draws one to it, the silent processes of nature,
— the lapse of time, the progress of life, the waning
of physical energy, — must soon bring one face to face
with the old question, "If a man die, shall he live
again?" Although we may naturally and properly
be absorbed mainly in the things which are now and
here, yet we quickly discover that the order of life
makes the present relate to the future; so that, while
we should, indeed, "be not anxious for the morrow,"
we should be prudent enough to take the morrow into
some account, — at least to consider whether there shall
be any morrow at all. In other words, we cannot dis-
guise the fact that human life and the world containing
it are not stationary, but in process, belonging to a
vast, continuous system of progressive change ; so that
the ultimate questions, Whence, whither and where-
fore? must ever be the transcendently important ques-
tions for the mind and heart of man.

Therefore no serious consideration of modern re-
ligious problems can omit a study of the evidences for
a future life. To be sure, the subject does not concern

77

78 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

religion alone; it is more or less germane to philos-
ophy also, and does not lie entirely beyond the pur-
view of science. Yet the intellectual atmosphere of
our time is so full of Christian influences, and Chris-
tian teaching has always so definitely implied a belief
in immortality, that we can hardly separate the subject
from the other great themes of spiritual religion. The
truth disclosed by a candid inquiry into the nature of
religion, the validity of faith, the being of God, the
character of Christ, and the value of the Bible nat-
urally leads us to ask what can be thought about
human destiny. The interest awakened by these other
lines of research logically culminates in this question
as to the final outcome of our existence ; and we feel
that the encouragement afforded by a fair review of
the spiritual development of the race ought to issue
in a firmer confidence in personal immortality, or else
the whole process must prove disappointing, and the
mystery of life will be not only deeper but darker than
ever.

At the same time we are disposed to scrutinize more
closely than formerly the reasons advanced for the
support of such a faith. We are not satisfied to ac-
cept a doctrine merely because it is a sacred tradition
hoary with age, or because it is sanctioned by a vener-
able and mighty institution, or because it is taught in
the Holy Scriptures, or even because it is intertwined
with the dearest affections and hopes of the human
heart. All these considerations may create a pre-
sumption in its favor, and we shall respect it accord-
ingly; but they do not necessarily establish its truth.
Indeed, there is a vague suspicion in many minds that
the discoveries of modern science and the critical think-
ing of recent years have invalidated most of the

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 79

arguments heretofore made in behalf of the great belief
in a future life. Therefore we want to go over the
whole ground again, feeling our way at every step,
and examining more thoroughly every position; and
especially we want to hear how the case stands in the
light of present knowledge.

Such at least is the attitude of earnest minds. Of
course those who are not earnest may dismiss it with
the flippant assumption that nobody can know any-
thing respecting this matter, and there is no use in
thinking much about it anyway; and perhaps many
others, like Gallio, "care for none of these things."
Absorbed in the life that now is, comfortable and
happy, and content, as they think, to take "one world
at a time," they are not conscious of any strong desire
to live in another state of being. But for those who
lift up their eyes to look out upon the universe in
solemn wonder, and who reflect upon the nature of
man and the deeper meanings of experience; and espe-
cially for those whose pathways have been over-
shadowed by the sorrow of bereavement, and whose
love has followed into the darkness the fading vision
of a dear life, longing constantly

". . . for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still,"

the subject must have an interest unspeakably sacred
and profound. They may be sad, perplexed and doubt-
ful, but they are neither shallow nor insincere ; and
they wait for the light of indisputable truth as only
they can wait and watch who feel that all the true
glory of life is involved in this one paramount issue.

It is pertinent to remark here that the belief in
immortality, when worthily held, is linked with the
very noblest aspirations of the human soul. It may be

80 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

held unworthily, indeed, being merely a form of selfish-
ness, the selfish desire for continuance, without refer-
ence to purification; and perhaps it is all too fre-
quently held so. But when it is cherished thoughtfully,
devoutly, sublimely, with a humble and contrite heart,
and yet with a valiant conviction of the eternal
supremacy of righteousness, it is bound up, not only
with our deepest love, but also with our holiest prayers :
we crave immortality not so much for ourselves as for
those who are far better than we, and for the sake of
the triumph of good over evil in ourselves, in others,
in the wide universe. Even if the prospect of our own
final extinction did not trouble us, the thought that
our dear ones who have left us have entirely perished
were almost unbearable. As Dr. George A. Gordon
puts it, "A true man does not fear death for himself,
but for his friends ; it is not his own grave that is
dreadful, but the grave of those whom he loves. . . .
Not what becomes of us when we die, but what becomes
of them when they die is the great question of human
love. . . . We so value, not ourselves, but our beloved
dead, that we cannot think of them as lost to us, lost
to the universe, lost to God." And so Tennyson urges
the question, —

"The faith that of the living whole

No life shall fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?" 38

It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the prevalence
of the belief in a future life, or to inquire much further
as to its origin. The broad fact may be granted at
once that it has been entertained by the vast majority
of mankind, although many notable exceptions have

38 In Memoriam. LI V.

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 81

occurred, and a very high type of religion has sub-
sisted without it, as among the Hebrews ; and we may
concede that it springs spontaneously out of the in-
stinctive feelings, aspirations and convictions of the
soul. In the words of James Freeman Clarke, "not
only all primitive religions, but all the great ethnic
religions, have awakened in man's soul the same belief
in a future life. It is the instinct of consciousness
which creates this faith. Man, as a conscious personal
being, a center of life, feeling himself to be a thinking,
feeling, and choosing person, sees no reason why he
should cease to exist when his body is dissolved. . . .
And the more full of life he is, the less fear of death
he has. This is the evidence of those who trust to
their instincts. They have faith in immortality because
it is natural to believe in it. They are made so." 39

Of course the significance of a statement like this
depends altogether upon the value of human instincts.
The question immediately arises whether these are as
reliable as the processes of reasoning. Perhaps we
cannot determine this point exactly, but we are learn-
ing to-day to attach more importance to instinct than
was formerly done. We see that the instincts of any
given creature are the surest indication of its nature
that we can have. The instinct which carries a duck
into the water, or an eagle into the air, or a new-born
babe to its mother's breast, or a youth and maiden into
the marriage relation, or a race into acts of worship
is a clearer proof of natural forces and laws, in each
instance, than any a priori reasoning could afford. In-
stinct, in fact, is the voice of universal nature speaking
in and through the particular case. When a little
baby girl fondles and caresses her doll, loving it almost

89 "Ten Great Religions," Vol. II, p. 336.

82 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

as really and strongly as her parents love her, she is
simply acting out her natural maternal instinct; and
the motherhood of the whole human race may be said
to be speaking in and through her in that act. She
herself cannot understand it, intellectually, reflectively,
scientifically; but older people do because they have
learned more fully the meaning of all such things.
So it is, doubtless, with us in our instinctive belief in
God and immortality: we may not be mature enough
yet, we may not have risen high enough in the scale
of experience, to comprehend the whole significance of
this deep voice of nature speaking in and through us;
but by and by, when we shall have advanced further
in our development, here or elsewhere, we may per-
ceive that such an instinctive belief or aspiration was
as sure an indication of the reality toward which it
pointed as the web-foot of the duck is an index of its
watery home, or as the motherly affection of the little
girl for her doll is a sign of her own latent or poten-
tial maternity. Certainly, in the light of evolution,
such a consideration is not to be despised; for evolu-
tion shows us that back of every man stands the whole
human race, and back of the human race lies the un-
folding order of the infinite universe.

But granting the prevalence and the prophecy of
this instinctive belief in immortality, can we verify it,
i. e., can we prove it to the intellect? This is the
crucial question. And frankly the answer must be No,
if by the term proof we mean mathematical demonstra-
tion. The utmost that we can do is to establish a very
high degree of probability, or to produce the strongest
possible conviction, so that one man may believe with
all his mind and heart, but still cannot make another
believe. Hence he who dogmatizes on the subject,

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 83

whether he take his cue from the Scriptures or the
doctrinal systems of the theologians or the misgivings
of the agnostics, is inexcusable. The only proper
attitude is one of candor, open-mindedness and fear-
lessness, seeking "the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth."

But if the affirmative of the question cannot be in-
controvertibly established, neither can the negative.
To deny human immortality because we do not know
that the soul survives the dissolution of the body, would
be like saying that there are no more comets in the
universe than have been discovered and recorded be-
cause we do not know of the existence of such; or it
would be Hke saying that there certainly are no in-
telligent inhabitants of other worlds than ours because
we have no knowledge of them. The difficulty of prov-
ing a universal negative is understood by all logicians.
Plainly we need to remember our limitations in dealing
with this subject. We have only five physical senses
through which to apprehend the material world: sup-
pose we had ten: we might then learn twice as much
about it as we are now able to do.40 We have had only
a brief personal experience by which to apprehend the
realities of the spiritual world: suppose the range of
our intellectual, ethical and religious life were doubled
in length, depth and intensity: we surely might under-
stand twice as much as we do now of the forces and

40 Mr. Edison is quoted as having said : "There are lots of things
besides radium we do not understand. These five senses of ours
are pretty poor detectives. We perceive only a little that comes
within the range of our senses. A thing drops below their level and
we do not perceive it. Here and there, now and then, some one
finds a new thing of which we did not dream the existence. In this
room at this minute there are fifty wireless messages going
through. Without instruments we cannot detect them." — Dr.
Johonnot in The Universalist Leader, Mar. 12, 1910.

84 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

laws and possibilities of the spiritual universe. So
perhaps the relation of the soul to the body, and of
both to the cosmical order, may be more fully revealed
to us sometime, in the light of increased learning or
when we shall have risen out of this present realm, than
it is now. These are mere conjectures, to be sure; but
they are entirely reasonable, and they prepare us to
meet the chief difficulty which the problem of immor-
tality appears to involve, viz., the question whether
life is not simply a form or manifestation of material
energy, and whether therefore the soul is not wholly
dependent upon the body.

It is at this point that scientific doubts come in.
The biologist sees life always in connection with some
physical organism; he knows nothing of it elsewhere;
he dissects every tissue, microscopically examines every
cell, analyzes every chemical compound, and never dis-
covers any soul or spirit, in plant, animal or man, that
he can gauge by any of his instruments or that re-
mains after the organism is dissolved: therefore it is
easy for him to believe that life is merely a form of
material energy, a mode of motion, like a flame at the
gas-jet, and that what we call the human soul is only
a blossom on the tree of our purely physical nature.
Moreover, he studies the workings of man's brain, and
discovers a series of molecular changes occurring simul-
taneously with the passing of ideas, thoughts or
emotions through the mind; and then he wonders
whether the molecular changes may not be the cause,
and the only knowable cause, of such ideas, thoughts
and emotions. This aspect of the case is well stated
by Harry Emerson Fosdick as follows :

"The modern laboratory study of the physical basis
of personality most urges this query on us. There is

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 85

no longer any doubt about the facts to be interpreted.
A continuous layer of gray matter, varying in thick-
ness from one-twelfth to one-eighth of an inch, and
folded upon itself 'as one would crumple up a handker-
chief,' forms the outer surface of our brains. No
thinking is ever done by men without the cooperation
of this delicate and highly organized nervous tissue.
Each psychical function has some special lobe or con-
volution in the gray matter, without which the corre-
sponding mental activity is utterly impossible. In
many cases the exact location of the sensitive surface,
where the special forces of intellectual activity are
carried on, is known to the psychologists. They know
the area of the brain with which we hear, the area
with which we see; they know the lobes by which we
move our arms and legs, our lips and tongues and
eyes ; they know the convolution where the function of
speech is carried on and without which abstract think-
ing is impossible. They can even distinguish the sur-
face with which we hear words from the surface with
which we read them. Nothing is clearer than that for
every functioning of the minds of men there is a corre-
sponding molecular activity in the gray matter of the
brain. The conclusion at first seems inevitable that
the mind is absolutely dependent on the physical struc-
ture and is inseparable from it." 41

Now with reference to these facts it is not for one
to speak as a scientist who knows little of science; but
it is certainly proper to observe that they have been
duly considered by many eminent scholars, both scien-
tists and philosophers, thoroughly competent to pass
judgment upon them, who have not found in them an
insuperable barrier to an earnest faith in immortality.
41 "The Assurance of Immortality," pp. 77-79 (1914).

86 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

Perhaps the words of Professor Tyndall are as weighty
as any that have been uttered regarding this problem:

"Granted that a definite thought and a definite molec-
ular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we do
not possess the organ, nor, apparently, any rudiment
of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a
process of reasoning from one phenomenon to the
other. They appear together, but we do not know
why." "The passage from the physics of the brain
to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthink-
able." "The problem of the connection of the body
and the soul is as insoluble as it was in the pre-scien-
tific ages." 42 While this language does not commit
Professor Tyndall to a belief in immortality, it clearly
does not forbid such a belief ; and it goes far to warrant
the emphatic remark of Mr. John Fiske to the effect
that "the materialistic assumption that the life of the
soul ends with the life of the body, is perhaps the most
colossal instance of baseless assumption that is known
to the history of philosophy."

It appears, then, that the essential truth is simply
this: As far as our experience goes in this world, the
action of the mind and the action of the brain occur
together; but no man knows enough of the ultimate
nature of either mind or matter to tell why it must be
so — we only know that it is so. To say that the action
of the mind is produced by the action of the brain
seems like "putting the cart before the horse," or like
saying that the instrument which a telegraph operator
uses in transmitting a message produces the thought
which lies in his mind, instead of the thought and the
action of his will producing the clicking of the machine.
Indeed, here is precisely the vital difference between

42 Quoted by Washington Gladden in "Burning Questions," p. 142.

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 87

the materialistic and the spiritualistic construction of
the problem : the former avers that the physical organ-
ism produces what we call mind, soul, spirit, as a rose-
bush produces the beauty and fragrance of its flowers ;
while the latter contends that the physical organism
is merely the temporary tenement, vehicle and instru-
ment of the living spiritual personality, which may
sometime surmount and transcend its earthly embodi-
ment. It is the old question which Socrates debated
long ago. Some one "compared man to a harp, and
thought his intellectual and moral life the harmony
that comes from the vibrating strings. Since, there-
fore, he is essentially the instrument, which gives being
to the music, the music cannot outlast the destruction
of the harp. But Socrates insisted that man is neither
harp nor harmony ; that he is a harper who plays upon
the physical strings, dependent upon them for the
quality of music he produces, but independent of them
for his existence, since the player may leave one in-
strument and find another." 43

Seeing thus that we are not necessarily shut out
from -a view of human nature which makes an intelli-
gent belief in immortality possible, we are entitled to
proceed to a consideration of some of the positive rea-
sons which conspire to warrant it. These are numer-
ous, as we should expect them to be if the faith were
thoroughly tenable; we should look to see many indi-
cations of its validity, rather than a few, as in all the
sound generalizations of human thought, — like, for
example, the stupendous theory of evolution. The
spiritual temple of our hopes does not stand upon a
single cornerstone, however precious, but upon a broad,
firm, symmetrical foundation, composed of many stones
43 "The Assurance of Immortality," p. 38.

88 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

brought from diverse quarries, — from science, phi-
losophy, religion, history, the teachings of prophets,
saints and sages, and the inmost depths of the com-
mon human heart. Some of the evidences adduced for
the doctrine of our continued existence are direct and
cogent, while others are collateral and corroborative;
and it is in their correspondence and combination that
we feel their full force.

1. Let us begin with the familiar fact that the soul
is not always so completely dependent upon the body
as we sometimes assume. For we know that, frequently,
a powerful intellect may dwell in a very frail physical
organism, — like that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
for instance. We know, too, that a body may gradu-
ally fail and be feeble for a long time, while yet the
soul retains apparently all its vigor. Why then should
its activity and potency cease utterly upon the further
deterioration of its already crumbling house of clay?
Furthermore we know that the body is continually
changing, while the mind never loses its identity; I am
the same person, and know myself to be such, that I
was twenty years ago, notwithstanding every particle
of matter in my body is probably different: why then
may I not persist in my personality, preserving my in-
dividuality intact, in and through that change which
consists in merely dropping a worn-out, useless mass
of matter? 44

44 Bergson points out that it is entirely conceivable that life
might have subsisted on earth, and may subsist elsewhere in the
universe, under very different chemical conditions from those
which our bodies exhibit. He says: "It was not necessary that
life should fix its choice mainly upon the carbon of carbonic acid.
What was essential for it was to store solar energy; but, instead
of asking the sun to separate, for instance, atoms of oxygen and
carbon, it might (theoretically at least, and, apart from practical
dimculties possibly insurmountable) have put forth other chemical

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 89

%. When we turn from the body to contemplate the
mind alone, studying its workings and measuring its
wonderful powers and capacities, we see that it is pro-
jected on a vast scale and is evidently -fitted, intrins-
ically, for a higher realm than this material world. Its
thoughts run out far beyond the body and all its con-
cerns ; they sweep the boundless regions of space and
trace the stars in their courses ; they penetrate into
the depths of the earth and learn the secrets of its
history; they disentomb the buried nations and read
anew the forgotten story of their greatness; they
analyze the operations of the mind itself, divine its
possibilities, and prove its kinship with the very Spirit
of the universe. There is apparently no limit to its
potential grasp and growth; knowledge may increase
indefinitely; it is capable of eternal progress, so far
as we can see. The same is true of the moral and spir-
itual life: it is susceptible of unlimited development,

elements, which would then have had to be associated or dissociated
by entirely different physical means. And if the element charac-
teristic of the substances that supply energy to the organism had
been other than carbon, the element characteristic of the plastic
substances would probably have been other than nitrogen, and the
chemistry of living bodies would then have been radically different
from what it is. The result would have been living forms without
any analogy to those we know, whose anatomy would have been
different, whose physiology also would have been different. ... It
is therefore probable that life goes on in other planets, in other
solar systems also, under forms of which we have no idea, in
physical conditions to which it seems to us, from the point of view
of our physiology, to be absolutely opposed. If its essential aim is
to catch up usable energy in order to expend it in explosive ac-
tions, it probably chooses, in each solar system and on each planet,
as it does on the earth, the fittest means to get this result in the
circumstances with which it is confronted. This is at least what
reasoning by analogy leads to, and we use analogy the wrong way
when we declare life to be impossible wherever the circumstances
with which it is confronted are other than those on earth." —
"Creative Evolution," pp. 255-256.

90 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

provided opportunity be granted it for struggle and
achievement.

Now such fitness argues proper scope for the reali-
zation of inherent possibilities. If you should find in
a zoological garden a noble bird, with mighty wings
and powerful talons and vicious beak and piercing eye,
with a majestic stride and look, and having strength
enough to kill and carry off a young wolf, you would
say, This is not the only home for such a splendid
creature ; its true habitat is the craggy mountains and
the clouds of heaven; it is none other than the proud
eagle — give him his freedom and let him soar to his
native heights ! You feel that it would be almost a
crime to keep him confined in a cage when he is so
clearly fitted for a grander career. So it is with the
human soul. If there is no upper air into which it
may be sometime released, we can scarcely solve the
puzzle of its marvelous aspirations, affinities and po-
tencies. Surely it seems reasonable to believe that it is
made for the spiritual heavens, and that the spiritual
heavens await it!

3. Again, this great faith is confirmed, in a two-fold
way, by the teachings of evolution. To be sure, this
is an over-worked term, but in the present instance its
employment is justifiable. Evolution, certainly, has
thrown more light upon the problem of man's existence
and destiny than aught else save the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.

And the first word of evolution touching the present
subject reminds us that the universe has already pro-
duced man. Here he is, such as he is, with all his pow-
ers, capacities and tendencies, and we know him to be
spiritual in his essential character. His existence here
is the one great miracle. That in the midst of this ma-

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 91

terial scene there should appear such a phenomenon
as the human mind, with its powers of thought, emo-
tion and volition, its capacities for knowledge, good-
ness and happiness, and its possibilities for growth in
all these respects, impresses one as the supreme marvel
of the world. The persistence of this mentality, this
human individuality, through and despite the dissolu-
tion of its physical organism, does not seem half so
strange as that it should ever have manifested itself
in such an organism. Evolution warrants us in holding
to the continuity of Nature's creative principle, and
to the onward and upward trend of development.

"A soul shall draw from out the vast,
And strike his being into bounds,

And, moved through life of lower phase,
Result in man, be born and think,
And act and love, a closer link

Betwixt us and the crowning race

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge."

The second word of evolution respecting this prob-
lem reminds us of the appalling waste of spiritual
energy that must occur if the individual be not some-
how immortal. What is so precious as the mind of man
and its products, knowledge, love, goodness, beauty,
joy? What but these makes the world worth anything
to us? And if all the spiritual energy throbbing for
ages through human lives, and building the fabric of
civilization, and transmuting the dust of the earth into
learning and affection and holiness and happiness, is as
ephemeral as the fragrance of a rose, and, though in
the individual soul is

". . . strong as the archangel's call"
up to the very moment of death, is yet to perish abr

92 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

solutely in the next moment, dissipating and extin-
guishing itself like a skyrocket, — then surely it seems
the most wanton, prodigal waste of priceless power in
all the economy of Nature. It is not enough to say
that the energy of the individual is transmitted to
posterity; for much of the highest and richest form
of such energy is often acquired after the individual
has begotten his offspring, or may be possessed by one
who never begets any children — like Bishop Phillips
Brooks, for example. Can it be that Nature thus
^ throws away her highest gains, and renders man him-
self inferior in perdurance to the works of his own
hand and mind?

Richard Watson Gilder listened, one night in mid-
summer, to a phonographic reproduction of the music
of "Otello" sung by "a wonderful tenor" who had been
"long dead." In describing it he says :

"His soul it was that seized my soul, through his
voice, which was as the very voice of sorrow ;

"And then I thought : If man, by science and search-
ing, can build a cunning instrument that takes over
and keeps, beyond the term of human existence, the es-
sence and flower of a man's art;

"If he can re-create that most individual attribute,
his articulate and musical voice, and thus the very art
and passion which that voice conveys,

"Why may not the Supreme Artificer, when the
human body is utterly dissolved and dispersed, recover
and keep forever, in some new and delicate structure,
the living soul itself?" 45

If all the talent, culture and personal worth em-
bodied in the fifteen hundred lives that were lost with

46 Gilder's "Complete Poems," p. 390; see also his noble poem,
"Identity," p. 373.

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 93

the Titanic, or the other fifteen hundred that have just
gone down with the Lusitania, or the tens of thousands
recently slain on European battlefields have ceased ut-
terly and absolutely to exist, then it is impossible to
see how there is anything in the spiritual realm corre-
sponding to what the scientists call the conservation
of energy in the physical domain.

4. Another reason for believing in immortality is in
the fact that it affords a satisfactory explanation of
death. Death is the counterpart of birth; and if it is
a good thing to be born, it is a good thing to die, when
the right time comes — undoubtedly it is not good to
die before the right time comes, any more than it is
good to be prematurely born; so that suicide is a crim-
inal spiritual abortion. But both birth and death ac-
cording to nature are good, or else the order of the
universe mocks us. Of what use, to what purpose, that
so many myriads of millions of human beings should
swarm into this world, and through strife and pain
achieve some excellence that seems worthy of it all,
only to go out in a night of impenetrable gloom? The
only adequate explanation and justification of the
whole stupendous process are to be found in the pre-
sumption of a continued existence, somehow, for each
individual soul, wherein what has been gained at such
frightful cost shall be conserved and carried forward.
Death thus becomes, not extinction, but transition;
not the destruction of life, but its transplantation.
Death then is really only another birth, — a great, new,
wonderful birth, but as natural as our first birth, and
perhaps no more mysterious. As Henry Ward Beecher
remarked, "we go to the grave of a friend saying, 'A
man has died' ; angels gather about him above saying,
'A man is born !' " Surely such a faith solves the prob-

94 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

lem of death so as not to belie the great principle of
beneficence which makes the order of Nature both rea-
sonable and just.

5. A kindred thought is that immortality provides
opportunity for completing the spiritual development
begun in the earthly life. We are all painfully aware
of incompleteness, in ourselves and in others. Even
the best of men are sure that they have not accom-
plished one-half of the work and growth of which they
feel themselves capable ; and the worst of men, however
perverted and distorted, undoubtedly have some germs
of goodness within them which conceivably might be
developed under favorable circumstances and with
time enough. The view that this world is only a
nursery for the fields of paradise, a primary school in
the great university of life, a single stage in the vast
process of development for each human soul, — this
view meets the demand of our innate sense of justice
for time and scope for the educative, disciplinary proc-
esses of Divine Providence to work out their legitimate
results for each and all. Our present life is not ade-
quate to this end; indeed for uncounted multitudes the
great, blessed task is scarcely begun here. But the
story of each human life is a continued story, and is
not finished when the end of the first chapter is reached.
The theater isn't out when the curtain falls on the first
act: the play is to go on; and ere it is completed we
shall perhaps see that it is not a tragedy, but a grand
drama issuing in the triumph of truth, virtue, love
and joy!

Nothing less than such a conception can stay our
weary hearts, can make us patient to bear up and toil
on amid the sin and sorrow of the world, can give us
hope that the disappointed and hindered lives that have

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 95

gone forth from us with their noble desires and capaci-
ties unfulfilled shall in other scenes attain to the fru-
ition of their ardent longings. And when we consider
those that have been cramped, distorted, weakened and
almost ruined by the destructive influences of wrong-
doing, what can relieve the dark picture except the
belief that they are still in the care and keeping of
a Spiritual Providence that forever loves and chastens
and purifies and redeems? An exalted faith in God as
"the Father of the spirits of all flesh" is the eternal
ground of our hope for each and every human soul, —
the faith and hope

"That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete."

5. There are many other considerations which favor
a belief in immortality, but limitations of space forbid
more than the briefest mention of two or three of them.

(1) The teaching of Jesus Christ concerning the
subject, though extremely simple, is so weighty because
of what he was that it is entitled to the very highest
esteem; and for those who really understand and ap-
preciate him it may be said that, even if all other evi-
dences for their faith were to fail, they would still be-
lieve in a future life because he believed in it. As a
little child who cannot read a word may know that its
parent or teacher sees a meaning in the printed page,
so we who cannot understand all our own experiences
may be sure that Jesus Christ had insight to perceive
a higher, diviner significance in human life, and a
more glorious issue of suffering and death, than we
have ever dreamed of. Therefore we can echo the wise
words of Dr. Theodore T. Munger:

96 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

"When the clearest eyes that ever looked on this
world and into the heavens, and the keenest judgment
that ever weighed human life, and the purest heart
that ever throbbed with human sympathy, tells me,
especially if he tells it by assumption, that man is im-
mortal, I repose on his teaching in perfect trust."

(£) The well-attested phenomena of true spiritual-
ism and the facts patiently developed by the Society
for Psychical Research afford some confirmatory evi-
dence for immortality which is not lightly to be re-
garded. After making due allowance for the self-de-
ception, fraud and chicanery that have infested this
border-land, and for the inevitable cloud of uncer-
tainty that must hover over it, there remains a large
amount of evidence which it seems impossible to con-
strue aright except by postulating the immortality of
the soul and some contact or communication between
disembodied and embodied spirits. While such evi-
dence may not be sufficient to establish independently
the great faith, it possesses a supplementary and cor-
roborative character which gives it considerable value,
and which may indeed become determinative as inves-
tigation proceeds further.

(3) Finally, the arguments for immortality may
be summed up in the supreme fact that it accords with
.the spiritualistic, as opposed to the materialistic, con-
ception of construction of the universe. To illustrate :
I hold in my hand a book, which consists of covers
made of cloth and pasteboard, of leaves of paper, of
paragraphs, sentences, clauses and words, with punc-
tuation marks, all printed in ink; all these constitute
the body of the book, which is visible, palpable, sub-
stantial. Yet the real book is the thought which it
contains, which is purely spiritual; and this soul of

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 97

the book cannot be seen with the eye of flesh, or weighed
or measured by any material standards. Even so the
real universe, after all, is the spiritual universe; and
God and man are living, spiritual, personal beings
dwelling within and behind the material forms which
constitute what we call the phenomenal universe. Un-
der this conception it is easy to believe in the death-
lessness of the spiritual part of man, which is the
real man. Such a belief brings order out of chaos in
our human world, and makes the Spiritual Providence
of time and eternity intelligible, beneficent and hopeful.

What is the value of this great faith? Clearly its
value is at least three-fold.

1. It adds dignity and worth to the human soul as
nothing else could do. If man is not merely a creature
of time and sense, but is truly a spiritual being "made
in the image of God" and made for an eternal career,
he is at once "crowned with glory and honor." Life
instantly takes on a higher significance than any
earthly scope can possibly give it; and earthly scenes
and experiences derive their chief importance from the
fact that they minister to the beginnings of a develop-
ment of character, through education and discipline,
through struggle and sorrow and suffering, through
love and joy and holy aspiration, which is to be car-
ried forward in the heavenly world. Surely a being
whose life is projected on such a scale, for whose
growth, tuition and perfection his earthly years are
utterly inadequate, may be truly said to rank "but lit-
tle lower than the angels." When this exalted con-
ception is once thoroughly grasped, the slave may lift
up his head, the criminal may lift up his heart, and the

98 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

most wanton prodigal may say in penitence, "I will
arise and go to my Father."

2. The thought of immortality, especially as held
by those who earnestly believe in the universal Father-
hood of God, affords a comfort in bereavement which it
is impossible to obtain from any other source. Hearts
that bleed in their grief and pain when death snatches
away their dear ones, perhaps in the very beauty of
their youth, must suffer indeed even though their faith
be strong: what, then, must be their anguish if they
"sorrow as those who have no hope"? The darkness of
the future makes the present desolate, and there is no
relief for the lonely, yearning soul save in the con-
viction

"That life is ever lord of death,
And love can never lose its own."

When this conviction becomes intelligent, profound and
vitally religious, it has power to sustain the drooping
spirits of the saddest mourner, to give him strength
and courage to go on, to make him patient, brave and
uncomplaining, and to fill him alike with sympathy to-
ward his afflicted fellows and with reverent trust in the
Eternal Goodness. The hope of some possible reunion
and a conscious companionship in love and joy, some-
where, "behind the veil," — this hope is indeed "an an-
chor to the soul, both sure and steadfast." Perhaps
no other part of the Christian gospel has been more
full of blessing in the past, or is more greatly needed
at present.

3. Likewise the faith of immortality has power to
inspire to every good word and work in behalf of so-
cial improvement. What can adequately inspire
thereto except such an estimate of the dignity and
worth of human nature as immortality implies, together

WHAT ABOUT IMMORTALITY? 99

with a firm belief that the spiritual gains of the indi-
vidual and the spiritual increment of the succeeding
generations shall be conserved and perpetuated beyond
death? To lead cultivated men and women to bind
themselves out to the service of the ignorant, the weak,
the vile, the criminal members of society, some other
motive than pity or self-protection or the interests of
future generations is necessary; nothing less than a
passionate appreciation of the inherent value of the
human soul, begetting a love for the individual as a
child of the living God, capable of being redeemed out
of all imperfection, has ever been equal to this holy
consecration in the past, or seems likely to be equal
to it in the future. But the Christian view of human
life, carrying the doctrine of immortality, engenders
and in every way strengthens such appreciation and
love. This in turn gives us the due sense of social re-
sponsibility, and prompts us to throw ourselves utterly
into the task of helping to work out the full salvation
of humanity, here and hereafter. In this worthy task
the individual achieves most surely his own best de-
velopment; and if, having thus lived and served and
grown noble, he is lifted at last into the light and joy,
the opportunity and activity of a higher and eternal
world, what grander outcome, whether personal or so-
cial, could be conceived? Thus the thought of im-
mortality, especially as held by those who believe ear-
nestly in the universal Fatherhood of God, becomes the
greatest spiritual dynamic of a progressive civilization.
This is indeed "the power of an endless life."

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY AND ESSEN-
TIAL CHRISTIANITY

"The appealing personality of Christ has been,
through all distortions, the regulative power and the
source of unity in Christendom; and the more it stands
out clear against the sky, with every cloud from be-
hind and from before it swept away, the more single
will be our apprehension of the genius of our religion.

"It was the Providence of history that gave us Him:
it was the men of history that dressed up the theory
of Him: and till we compel the latter to stand aside,
and let us through to look upon his living face, we can
never seize the permanent essence of the gift.*' — James
Martineau.

Another parable set he before them, saying, The
kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed
good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy
came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went
away. But when the blade sprang up and brought
forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. And the
servants of the householder came and said unto him,
Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence
then hath it tares? And he said unto them, An enemy
hath done this. And the servants say unto him, Wilt
thou then that we go and gather them up? But he
saith, Nay; lest haply while ye gather up the tares, ye
root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together
until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will
say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind
them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat
into my barn. — Matt. xiii. 24-30.

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY AND ESSEN-
TIAL CHRISTIANITY

THE present age is emphatically a harvest time in
spiritual things. The ripening growths of
the long past are being gathered and sepa-
rated. Truth is being sifted from error, right from
wrong, good from evil in more directions and on a
larger scale than ever before. It is an era of culmina-
tion, in which influences that have been at work for
thousands of years are maturing their legitimate re-
sults ; and since a tree is known by its fruits, the analyt-
ical and critical processes of the modern mind are bent
upon testing these fruits as thoroughly as possible.
This attitude may seem to be skeptical and hostile, but
it is really animated by the serious and noble purpose
of discovering and liberating the truth, in order that
whatever is false may be rejected and no longer darken
the minds of men.

There is no realm of our life to-day in which the
working of this principle finds, or needs to find, more
earnest exemplification than in that of religion. We
often complain that there is a great deal of religious
indifference abroad, but we need also to remember that
there is a great deal of religious inquiry, research and
reflection. Never did so many cults and faiths engage
attention ; never were so many systems of worship and
teaching brought forward and held up to the light;
and never was the spirit of candor in studying these
more widespread, profound and catholic than at the
present moment. Men want to ascertain the truth

103

104 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

about divine things; they are looking far and near
for it; they are hungry for conviction, assurance, cer-
titude : but they are persuaded that no one form of re-
ligion has ever contained "the whole truth and nothing
but the truth" ; and because of the very preciousness
of the high spiritual interests involved in the subject,
they cannot afford to be uncritical in their testing and
sifting of the world's religious products, however sym-
pathetic they may desire to be.

Christianity in particular is undergoing fresh and
searching reconsideration to-day. For the Christian
religion is deeply implicated in our whole Western civi-
lization, and now that this civilization is on trial for
its life, by reason of the gigantic cataclysm which is
convulsing Europe, many are impelled to challenge the
claims of this religion, to ask what is valid in them,
and to scrutinize every argument adduced in their sup-
port. Has Christianity been a colossal failure? are
the defects of our civilization due to its inefficiency?
or has it never been really tried on a sufficient scale to
enable us justly to determine its value?

Before we can answer these questions, we must first
ascertain what is essential Christianity, and then see
to what extent it has been rightly understood and fairly
promulgated. The broaching of this two-fold query
intimates, and it may be unhesitatingly asserted, that
much that has come down to us under the sacred name
of Christianity is not Christian at all, either in the
sense of having been taught by Jesus Christ, or in the
sense of being necessarily implied by his actual teach-
ing, or in the sense of being reasonable and true. Jesus
himself said, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord,
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 105

Even so we may declare, Not every one who cries
"Christ!" "Christianity!" "the Church!" is truly Chris-
tian; but he who grasps the central and fundamental
truth and spirit of the Gospel, and then tries to live it
out sincerely, consistently, and faithfully. If there
have been many "false Christs," there have been more
false followers of the true Christ. If there has been
a sound core of genuine, valid, and holy teaching at the
heart of Christianity, there has been built up around
it an immense body of spurious doctrine, consisting of
myth and legend, fancy and fable, pretension and im-
posture, as well as a continuous admixture of foreign
speculation from the beginning until now. Hence the
task which has devolved upon our age, and which has
increased in magnitude and thoroughness and value
ever since the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, is
that of severing truth from error, the kernel from the
husk, in historical Christianity. This task, exceedingly
important, is still far from accomplishment; but it is
in process of being accomplished, in many ways, at
many hands, in all branches of the Christian Church,
— by patient scholars and thinkers, by humble teachers
and preachers, and by a vast multitude of those whose
only means of proving what is true and what false is
in the great school of experience.

But here we come to definitions and the question of
standards. How shall we determine what is essential
Christianity? what shall be our standard of measure-
ment?, and who shall decide where doctors disagree?
The answer is that it is simply a problem for the
human mind to grapple with, and on which to employ
all its resources ; that specifically it is primarily a
problem of historical and literary criticism; and that
whosoever has any contribution of true knowledge or

106 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

valid reasoning or illuminating insight, which may
throw the least bit of light upon the problem, is en-
titled to be heard in seeking its solution. No scholar
so humble and none so great, no disciple so inconspicu-
ous and none so prominent, but that he may have part
in this great sifting process of our age; and by just
this sifting process, widespread, thorough, patient, pro-
longed, we shall come to know the truth, and the truth
shall make us free. There is absolutely no other way.
No Ecumenical Councils, at the Vatican or elsewhere,
no Papal Decrees, and no "Authority" in heaven or on
earth can settle such a matter. It is simply a ques-
tion for learning and thought and the cultivated con-
sciousness of good men and the growing spiritual ex-
perience of mankind.

If this statement seems too strong, it at least is not
made without due consideration of the opposite con-
tention that the human mind is incompetent to de-
termine divine truth for itself, and therefore needs
some superhuman, authoritative teaching and guid-
ance. But if the human mind is not able to determine
what is true, how can it determine what is superhuman
and authoritative? In the last analysis everything
must rest back upon the soul of man, to which truth
and right and love and beauty must make their appeal
upon their own merit. An authority imposed may
compel a certain acquiescence of the will, resulting in
submission, obedience, outward compliance; but it can-
not gain the inward assent of the reason, the sincere
approval of the conscience, the profound sanction of
the spirit, and the glad surrender of the affections
unless these be freely won by the intrinsic excellence of
what it offers. The alternative is clear: either there
must be freedom, the freedom of the soul to judge for

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 107

itself what is true and right, or there must be coercion
in one form or another. If a coercive authority be
claimed by any individual, official, or institution, who
shall validate the claim? Mankind may need some
authoritative teaching, but it must be of the sort which
is not a substitute for thought, but an aid to thought.
There is ultimately no escape from the peril and the
glory of bringing every subject to the bar of the human
mind and heart for the ascertainment, as far as finite
powers of apprehension and comprehension can ascer-
tain, what is true and right and beautiful and good.
If we cannot exercise such powers and pass such judg-
ment, we can do nothing but follow as we are led and
do in all things as we are told. Is it only for this that
the peerless soul of man was made?

As to standards in the solution of our immediate
problem, everything is to be brought first of all to
the judgment-seat of Christ. That is to say, Jesus
Christ, the Founder of Christianity, and universally
conceded to be its true Representative, must be our
primary and principal Criterion for determining what
is essential Christianity. Not what Paul taught, or
Peter or James or John, not what the Greek Fathers
or the Latin Fathers inculcated, not what the historic
Creeds have said or the Church has decided ; but rather
what Jesus Christ was and said and did, when clearly
known and correctly understood, — this is to be re-
garded as the heart and soul of Christianity, as our
true standard of measurement. The two phrases,
"Back to Christ" and "the Christianity of Christ,"
have thus a definite and legitimate meaning; and so
our next step is to find out as nearly as possible what
the Christianity of Christ was.

Here arises, to be sure, the further question of the

108 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

credibility of our sources of information about Christ
and his times and his teachings, together with the
still further question of correct readings and interpre-
tations. But these collateral issues, though very vital,
cannot be properly discussed in the present chapter.
Modern historical and biblical scholarship is dealing
with them exhaustively, and the reader who desires may
find abundant material bearing upon the points thus
raised. Suffice it just now to assume the broad fact
that the New Testament is our chief source of knowl-
edge regarding Jesus Christ, and to maintain that the
substance of the truth which it sets forth regarding
him can be fairly grasped by the ordinary enlight-
ened and candid person who is unwarped by prejudicial
influences. If this were not so, the task of preaching
"the gospel to every creature," the task of making
"disciples of all nations," were surely a vain one.

Now the picture which the unbiased reader of the
Gospel Narratives obtains of Jesus is that of a noble
Teacher, humble, reverent, heavenly-minded, claiming
for himself no miraculous birth, no perfection, no in-
fallibility even; going about doing good, inculcating
high and holy lessons, instilling the most beautiful and
blessed principles of life and conduct ever known among
men, and himself exemplifying them with wondrous
fidelity and sweetness ; calling about him twelve lowly
men to be his disciples, companying with them, talking
to them, educating them, and exerting his uplifting
and sanctifying influence upon them; then, after con-
vincing them that he was the true Messiah, the Christ,
and leading them to an earnest acknowledgment of
their faith in him as such, dying a cruel death and
leaving his sublime cause in their hands, absolutely
without any other organization than was naturally im-

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 109

plied in their common spiritual experiences and their
bond of union with him, their dear Lord and Master.
In his brief public career Jesus performed numerous
works of healing — precisely how many, or in what man-
ner, or by what power it is impossible to tell. He
showed a compassionate sympathy toward the poor,
the unfortunate, and the oppressed, while severely cen-
suring the hard-hearted, the cruel, the unjust, the hypo-
critical; and he bore himself as a brave Reformer,
through his high and searching teaching, with refer-
ence to the official abuses connected with religion. He
taught the doctrine of God's immanence and Father-
hood, His nearness and dearness, His absolute holiness
and love; he set no limits to the doctrine of man's
sonship to God, thus logically implying its universality,
and further implying the id^ea of universal human
brotherhood; he set forth righteousness as the su-
preme law of life, and love as its supreme motive; he
taught men how to pray, how to trust and obey God,
how to imitate and love Him, and how to love and
serve one another ; he called them to repentance and
forgiveness, to simplicity and sincerity, to worship in
spirit and truth, and to the innocent joys of a pure
and benevolent life ; and he pointed the human soul,
tenderly and confidently, to the beautiful home in the
immortal realms, but without giving particular infor-
mation, without much argument, without philosoph-
ical speculation. He simply affirmed the great car-
dinal truths of his Message, and left them to make
their own impression ; but he himself, in his own
spirit, conduct and character, was their best exempli-
fication— "he lived the precepts which he taught."

Here, then, we have the gist of the Christianity of
Christ, — a religion without priest, ritual, church, or

110 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

formal creed; a religion of reverent gratitude, trust
and love toward God, and of fraternal respect, sym-
pathy, love and helpfulness toward man; a spiritual
religion rather than a ceremonial or institutional or
dogmatic religion; a religion of vital, quickening, in-
spiring and sanctifying power over every soul that
ever did really receive it, or that may receive it to-day.
But now this essential Christianity, this Christian-
ity of Christ, soon began to spread abroad,
and as soon began to be elaborated and corrupted.
It was taken up by the brilliant mind of St. Paul,
who modified it in a peculiar and marked way;
by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who gave
it a somewhat different shape; by the author of the
Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle of John, who al-
tered it still further. It came into close and pro-
longed contact with Greek Philosophy, in its various
forms, and with Greek social usages, and was pro-
foundly influenced thereby.46 From all these and
other associations it emerged in the statements of the
great historic creeds — the Apostles Creed, the Nicene
Creed, and the Athanasian Creed — with a metaphysical
character deeply impressed upon ii>. It was thrown
into the turbulent stream of world-politics in the Roman
Empire, from which it suffered a pronounced seculari-
zation. It was embraced by St. Augustine, who put
the stamp of his mighty individuality upon it, with
his ideas of a fallen race, a ruined world, and ever-
lasting punishment, and of the Church as a City of
Refuge. Then the Roman Catholic Church, rising in
splendor, adopted the resulting compound, and carried
its elaboration still further in the direction of estab-

46 See the highly valuable work of the late Prof. Edwin Hatch
on this subject, published as "The Hibbert Lectures for 1888."

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 111

lishing her ecclesiastical absolutism, and for a thousand
years imposed it upon the nations of Europe. Thus
the Christianity which has come down to us is not the
simple Christianity of Christ, but a complex system of
doctrines, partly Judaic, partly Oriental, partly Hel-
lenic, partly Latin, and only partly Christian in any
strict sense.

This complex system, which the present chapter calls
Traditional Christianity, has contained such features
as these : — The doctrine of the immaculate conception ;
the doctrine of the virgin birth; the doctrine of the
deity of Christ; the doctrine of the Trinity; the doc-
trine of the fall of man in Adam; the doctrine of a
time-probation; the doctrine of everlasting punish-
ment ; the doctrine of the Devil ; the doctrine of purga-
tory; the doctrine of the sacraments as an indispens-
able means of Divine grace; the doctrine that the
Church is the kingdom of God on earth, and is entitled
to rule among men; the doctrine that the Pope is the
Vicegerent of Christ, and as such is supernaturally and
infallibly guided when acting in an official capacity;
prayers to Mary the Mother of Christ, and prayers
to the saints ; the adoration of relics ; and the imposi-
tion of fasts, the confessional, and a celibate priest-
hood. All this, however naturally it may have arisen
and however useful it may have been, is not Christian
at all, either in the sense of having been taught by
Jesus Christ or in the sense of being legitimately im-
plied by what he did actually teach. There is scarcely
one of all the ideas here stated that can be found, with
its customary import at any rate, in the Christianity
of Christ as it is expressed in the Sermon on the
Mount, the Parables, and the casual and characteristic
utterances of the Master. Yet the doctrines or con-

112 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

ceptions comprised in this strange compound have
really constituted the bulk of the teaching that has
passed under the name of Christianity, especially as
far as the Roman Catholic Church has been concerned
— and it is this great Church mainly that has given
shape to our Western religion.

To be sure, this doctrinal system was considerably
modified by Protestantism, which rejected in particular
about one-half (the second half) of the ideas above
enunciated. But the rest of the system remained, and
indeed was accentuated by Calvinism, and has furnished
until recently the staple upon which the souls of the
vast majority of Christians have been fed during
nearly all the centuries. While the Roman Catholic
Church has been the main channel and the chief pur-
veyor of this whole stream of pseudo-Christianity, it
has, nevertheless, flowed far and wide through other
channels, and has overspread the world in the great
movement of modern foreign missions.

Now it may be a fair question whether this Tradi-
tional Christianity has been, on the whole, salutary
for the peoples among whom it has been promulgated;
it is perhaps sufficient to know that it was probably
inevitable under the circumstances ; but there can
hardly be any question that it has been something very
different from the simple, vital, pure, exalted teaching
of the holy Founder of our religion. In this connec-
tion the words of Professor Hatch, from the work
above referred to, are not only pertinent but ex-
tremely weighty because of his recognized scholarship
and judicial insight. In his Introduction he says:

"It is impossible for any one, whether he be a stu-
dent of history or no, to fail to notice a difference of
both form and content between the Sermon on the

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 113

Mount and the Nicene Creed. The Sermon on the
Mount is the promulgation of a new law of conduct;
it assumes beliefs rather than formulates them; the
theological conceptions which underlie it belong to the
ethical rather than the speculative side of theology;
metaphysics are wholly absent. The Nicene Creed is
a statement partly of historical facts and partly of
dogmatic inferences ; the metaphysical terms which it
contains would probably have been unintelligible to
the first disciples ; ethics have no place in it. The one
belongs to a world of Syrian peasants, the other to a
world of Greek philosophers.

"The contrast is patent. If any one thinks that it
is sufficiently explained by saying that the one is a
sermon and the other a creed, it must be pointed out in
reply that the question why an ethical sermon stood in
the forefront of the teaching of Jesus Christ, and a
metaphysical creed in the forefront of the Christian-
ity of the fourth century, is a problem which claims
investigation.

*jl>. jl». *j£ «fe «4t *& jl* 23/>

yf» ^T 7J* *S* «T* * " n?

"In investigating this problem, the first point that
is obvious to an inquirer is, that the change in the
center of gravity from conduct to belief is coincident
with the transference of Christianity from a Semitic
to a Greek soil. The presumption is that it was the
result of Greek influence. It will appear from the Lec-
tures which follow that this presumption is true." 47

Toward the end of the twelfth chapter, after al-
luding to another important factor, "the interposition
of the State," he says: "The Church became, not an
assembly of devout men, grimly earnest about living a

47 "The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian
Church," pp. 1 and 2.

114 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

holy life — its bishops were statesmen; its officers were
men of the world; its members were of the world, bas-
ing their conduct on the current maxims of society,
held together by the loose bond of a common name,
and of a creed which they did not understand. In
such a society, an intellectual basis is the only pos-
sible basis. In such a society also, in which officialism
must necessarily have an important place, the insist-
ence on that intellectual basis comes from the instinct
of self-preservation. But it checked the progress of
Christianity. Christianity has won no great victories
since its basis was changed. The victories that it has
won, it has won by preaching, not Greek metaphysics,
but the love of God and the love of man." 48

In conclusion he says: "I have now brought these
Lectures to a close. The net result is the introduction
into Christianity of the three chief products of the
Greek mind — Rhetoric, Logic, and Metaphysics. I
venture to claim to have shown that a large part of
what are sometimes called Christian doctrines, and
many usages which have prevailed and continue to pre-
vail in the Christian Church, are in reality Greek theo-
ries and Greek usages changed in form and color by the
influence of primitive Christianity, but in their essence
Greek still. . . .

"It is an argument for the divine life of Christianity
that it has been able to assimilate so much that was
at first alien to it. It is an argument for the truth of
much of that which has been assimilated, that it has
been strong enough to oust many of the earlier ele-
ments. But the question which forces itself upon our
attention as the phenomena pass before us in review, is
the question of the relation of these Greek elements in
48 Ibid., p. 349.

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 115

Christianity to the nature of Christianity itself. The
question is vital. Its importance can hardly be over-
estimated. It claims a foremost place in the consider-
ation of earnest men." 49

Thus we clearly see that the distinction between Tra-
ditional Christianity and essential Christianity is a per-
fectly valid one. The beautiful teaching of Jesus
Christ, which is our standard of measurement in spirit-
ual things, is a far more simple, vital, moral, penetrat-
ing, religious Message than the elaborate system of
Greek and Roman theological, ritualistic and eccle-
siastical doctrines prevailing during the long centuries
could ever dream of being. The one was indeed a Gos-
pel, a "good tidings of great joy," to comfort and
guide and redeem heart-hungry men; the other was a
scheme of ideas for intellectual disputants and a
philosophical program for the builders of a mighty
institutionalism.

But now another aspect of the subject appears. The
question obtrudes itself, whether there is any relation
between this traditional Christianity, this pseudo-
Christianity compounded mostly of Greek speculation
and Roman statecraft, and the present frightful up-
heaval in European society. Before dismissing the sug-
gestion as wholly irrelevant, let us reflect a little.

Jesus Christ was "meek and lowly in heart." He
inculcated the great principle of mutual service, co-
operation, brotherly love. He said to his disciples,
when they were striving about positions of prefer-
ment, "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exer-
cise dominion over them, and they that are great exer-
cise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among
you; but whosoever will be great among you, let him

49 Ibid., pp. 349-351.

116 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among
you, let him be your servant." 50 But when we look at
Christian history as a whole, instead of seeing this
spirit realized and embodied in all the practical af-
fairs of social intercourse, in any particular nation
or among the nations generally, we behold for the most
part a civilization that has been built up on the basis
of power, a civilization whose dream has been dominion,
whose spirit has been ambition, and whose method has
been competition; and traditional Christianity — insti-
tutionalized, ecclesiastical, denominational, dogmatic
Christianity — has been shot through and through with
the self-same false conception and motive. Hence we
have had an age-long cultivation of national patriot-
ism narrowly conceived, racial antipathies, religious
bigotries and strifes, and the whole mistaken ideal of
the glory of supremacy in Church and State. Because
the Christian Church itself has failed so largely to
learn and practise the Master's great, simple principle
of cooperative good-will, it has not been able to teach
it to the nations ; and the nations have gone on build-
ing up the fabric of power and dominion, each seeking
to outstrip the other instead of helping the other,
and ever and anon fighting one another instead of serv-
ing one another. And now, all of a sudden, the stu-
pendous pile collapses ; for what else than a collapse
can we call it when a civilization fails to maintain it-
self in justice, concord and prosperity, and exhausts
itself in a universal orgy of destructiveness ?

There was the greatest need at the beginning, and
it has increased rather than diminished during the cen-
turies, that the European peoples should be deeply
imbued with the spirit of the social teaching of Jesus

50 See Matt. xx:20-28; Mark x:35-45; Luke xxii:24-27.

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 117

Christ, — the spirit and principle of mutuality, good-
will, kindliness, friendliness, cooperation. For be-
cause of their geographical limitations they were
thrown into close contact with one another, and because
of their racial differences it was inevitable that misun-
derstandings and strained relations might easily arise.
All these conditions have been aggravated by the in-
crease of population, the multiplication of the means
of intercourse, and the stirring of new creative energies
in every modern nation. Under such circumstances
the only possible way for people to live together is to
live in amity and mutual helpfulness ; and if the Chris-
tian Church could have seen this and taught it and
exemplified it, sincerely and faithfully, from first to
last, who can doubt that Europe might have been
spared a hundred wars and saved from this most re-
cent and most terrible "abomination of desolation"?
Jesus wept over Jerusalem, saying, "If thou hadst
known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things
which belong unto thy peace ! but now are they hid
from thine eyes." 51 Even so a thoughtful believer in
him to-day, contemplating the tragic history of these
nineteen centuries, may well mourn over the blindness
and fatuousness of so many of his professed followers,
over their failure to understand the plain, practical
implications of his social Gospel, and over their con-
sequent inability to represent him truly before a needy
world.

It is a striking fact that in the present dire extrem-
ity of Europe the Christian Church is apparently pow-
erless. She lifts no effectual voice to stay the strife;
she scarcely even ventures to repeat the Master's word
— "Put up again thy sword into its place : for all they
51 Luke xix:41, 42.

118 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

that take the sword shall perish with the sword" ; she
simply does not count as a factor in the case. Why?
Is it partly because her own skirts are not clean, be-
cause her own soul has been, all too often, full of the
spirit of ambition and strife, because she has loved
power and sought dominion, because she has coveted
"all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" ?
Oh, if the Christian Church could only have taught and
practised a purer Christianity, the Christianity of
Christ, instead of that divisive traditional Christian-
ity which has so largely usurped its place, how differ-
ent might have been the history of the last nineteen
hundred years!

But of course it is vain to dwell upon what might
have been, except for the sake of learning what ought
to be now. And it is plain now that if, upon the ruins
which the great war leaves in Europe, a new civiliza-
tion is to be builded, it must be erected upon a new
basis, which is yet the old, simple basis of the Gos-
pel of Jesus Christ, — the principle of mutuality, good-
will, brotherly-kindness, cooperation. Else it will not
be a new civilization, but a repetition of the age-long
story of distrust, dislike, jealousy, bigotry, injustice,
cruelty, revenge, — the evil spirit in the heart whence
come all fightings in the last analysis. Not ambition,
power and dominion, but meekness, love and mutual ser-
vice,— this is the social genius of the Christianity of
Christ; and it will lead as surely to the increased pro-
duction of wealth, prosperity, peace and happiness as
the opposite principle leads to strife. If we are to pros-
per at all, really and permanently, we must prosper to-
gether; and the world has grown at length to be so
essentially one, so truly a single great family of na-
tions, feeling its unity, its solidarity, as it never did

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 119

before, that this word "together" must henceforth com-
prise all mankind. Each nation will thrive best, in the
long run, where other nations thrive with it — just as
a business man whose customers are making money will
himself make money by reason of his relations with
them. If the people of the United States are to have
increasing trade with the people of South America, it
is to the interest of the former that the latter should
be prosperous. So it is everywhere, when looked at
in a large way: the welfare of each is bound up with
the welfare of all; cooperation should supersede com-
petition, men should help one another instead of re-
stricting one another. Yet this is only an economic
statement of the spiritual truth of brotherly love which
Jesus Christ put into the very foundation of his so-
cial teaching.

If, then, a new civilization is to be builded and
must be builded upon this truly Christian basis, the
task of the Christian Church for the new age is per-
fectly clear: It must teach men, individually and so-
cially, this great, simple lesson of cooperative good-
will, and must practise that teachvng in spirit and in
truth. It must give over all its old dreams of power
and dominion and glory ; it must no longer seek to rule
men or nations, but must seek simply to serve them;
and it must instil everywhere, and exemplify always,
the love which alone makes mutual helpfulness a holy
joy. Upon no other basis can a better human society
be established than that which is passing through the
agonizing conflicts of the present hour.

It is undoubtedly true that, in the readjustments
and reconstructions of the immediate future, the State
in every land must bear the brunt of the labor. No
longer may it fall to the Church to shape political poli-

120 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

cies and practical programmes. But it is the high
function of the Church to inculcate ideas and formulate
ideals out of which practical measures may grow in
due time. The Church can be the Teacher and Helper
of the State, the one great, spiritual Ally that can
speak and work with the holiest of sanctions. In such
a service the Church can be the powerful co-laborer of
every other educational agency, — the school, the col-
lege, the university, the press ; and all working to-
gether, they can lead the nations out of darkness into
light, out of hatred and strife into love and peace.

But before the Christian Church can well perform
her part of this important ministry, she must purify
her own message and renew a right spirit within her
soul. She must discard some of the hoary errors of
traditional Christianity, accumulated by a varied proc-
ess of accretion during the long centuries, and return
to essential Christianity, the Christianity of Jesus
Christ; she must begin to heal her own divisions by
seeking the deeper unities, "the unity of the spirit in
the bond of peace" ; and she must pray continually for
a humble and a contrite heart, because her own follies
and sins are partly responsible for the frightful
troubles which are now shaking the earth. With such
a purified message and such a chastened spirit, the
Christian Church may hope once more to speak truly
to a needy world in the name of the crucified Redeemer,
and the long-suffering world — weary, bleeding, yearn-
ing— will hear and heed and be saved.

Finally, regardless of the European war, the need
for such a sifting and cleansing of our inherited re-
ligion as is here indicated is rendered more urgent by
a certain broad missionary consideration. Christian-
ity is offering itself to the entire world to-day, and

TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY 121

practically the entire world lies open to it. But un-
less the form of teaching that shall go forth among the
nations be purer and truer than that which has pre-
vailed since the second and third centuries, Christian-
ity will not be an unmixed blessing to the various races
of the earth. And it might be such a blessing. The
Christianity of Christ, disentangled from the pseudo-
Christianity of the creeds and the principal churches,
would prove indeed a holy inspiration, a baptism of
spiritual power, to the burdened souls of men every-
where. The human race in all lands unwittingly waits
for its message of light, hungers for its bread of life,
longs for the quickening which its simple story is able
to impart. But in place of all this the Father's chil-
dren have been given, mainly, the adulterated mixture
which has been herein summarized and characterized
under the term "Traditional Christianity." It is im-
possible to believe that, in this guise, Christianity can
continue permanently to win its way. The growing in-
telligence of mankind will either purify it or reject it.
Therefore no service which the true friends of Chris-
tianity and humanity can perform at the present time
can be more fraught with spiritual blessing, in the long
run, than that of thoroughly purging traditional Chris-
tianity, eliminating historic corruptions, and thus re-
leasing essential Christianity, the Christianity of Christ,
for its beautiful mission among the nations. Let the
tares be separated from the wheat before the harvest
shall be reaped and threshed out, to be again sown
broadcast in the fair fields of the whole wide world!
Then shall Jesus Christ, with his simple and heavenly
Gospel, really come in power and great glory; and be-
fore him shall be gathered all nations, and from him
they shall receive, in deed and in truth, "the words of
eternal life"!

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good-will toward men." — Luke ii. 14.

"Whosoever would become great among you, shall
be your minister; and whosoever would be first among
you shall be your servant.** — Matt. xx. 27.

"For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use
not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but
through love be servants one to another." — Gal. v. 13.

"She {the Church) should frankly recognize that de-
mocracy paves the way to what is precisely the highest
expression of her Catholicism. When she does so, then
democracy will begin to yearn after the Church which
continues that Gospel-message wherein democracy finds
its own remote but authentic origm." — "The Pro-
gramme of Modernism," p. 129.

"The Church will not shape political platforms nor
formulate economic programmes. But she will brmg
her thought and her catechism to bear upon the work
of so tempering the wills of men that they shall be
heroic and great-hearted citizens of the free common-
wealth."— Professor Henry S. Nash.

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY

THESE brief quotations epitomize some of the
principal truths which lie at the heart of Chris-
tianity and democracy. The joyful recogni-
tion of God over all; peace and good-will among men;
the greatness of mutual service rather than of power
and dominion; the privileges and responsibilities of
freedom ; love as the chief motive in social conduct ; and
the building of strong characters that shall invest their
virtues in the efficient maintenance of a free and just
State, — these are cardinal conceptions of the Chris-
tian religion as it is working out amid the ideals of
modern democratic institutions ; and they imply the
profound truth that Christianity and democracy are
but two phases of one vast movement in human life
which means welfare alike for the individual and for
society, on both the spiritual side and the material
side. This essential unity is not always understood,
either by churchmen or by statesmen; but its due ap-
preciation will reconcile many conflicting aims, will give
sacred meanings to a multitude of ordinary labors, and
will enlarge our hopeful outlook for the continued prog-
ress of mankind.

It is a fact that Christianity deals mainly with
spiritual concerns. It regards man primarily as a
spiritual being, a child of the Eternal Father, and there-
fore an heir of immortality. It contemplates all his
interests from this high vantage-ground, and guages
the accidents and incidents of time and circumstance
by the scale of infinity, seeing them in the broad sweep

125

126 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

of a process of development that is not wholly con-
fined to this world. Accordingly it lays chief em-
phasis upon the things that endure, the things of abid-
ing worth, and attaches less value to those things
which perish with the using. It exalts true principles,
pure motives, holy ideals, and that inner knowledge and
love of divine truth, that harmony of soul with the
Spirit of the living God, which Jesus called "eternal
life," — beginning here, but lasting forever.

But true Christianity approaches man as a being
on earth, amid earthly conditions and sustaining
earthly relationships. He is born here, he dwells here
at least for a time, and here must be the first sphere of
his activities and attainments. In the concrete af-
fairs of every-day life in this world — in the relation-
ships of the family, the community, the nation; in
marrying and begetting, in buying and selling, in com-
manding and serving; and amid toil, poverty, suffering
and sin, disease and vice and crime; in the face of ca-
lamities and social tumults and the mystery of death —
in the midst of all these we live, and must learn, and
must remember that we are children of God and broth-
ers one of another. Such was the point of view and
the constant teaching of Jesus Christ. If his professed
followers have sometimes forgotten this fact, and have
made his religion excessively other-worldly, and have
imposed upon its devotees requirements which he never
dreamed of, "teaching for doctrines the command-
ments of men," it has not been his fault. He himself
was always perfectly sane, perfectly human, perfectly
practical. His Gospel was a message of glad tidings
with reference not only to the future life, but pri-
marily and profoundly to the present life.

On the other hand, democracy has to do mostly with

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY 12*7

temporal affairs. It occupies itself mainly with earthly
interests. It is primarily secular in its aims and
methods. It seeks the well-being of the individual and
of society here in this world, without much thought of
anything lying beyond ; and while it is reverent toward
the idea of a Supreme Ruler of the universe, it does
not necessarily imply this — it is conceivable that de-
mocracy might exist and be highly efficient without
such a conception. Conversely it is entirely possible
for men to believe in God with sincerity and with a ven-
geance, and yet maintain an aristocracy or an oligarchy
of a cruel tyranny — alas ! how often in history has such
been the case !

Still it is true that democracy is naturally favorable
to all spiritual interests, — to education, art, culture,
philanthropy , religion, and universal good- will. Whether
we regard it as a frame of government or a state of
mind, a mechanism of social order or a disposition of
the thoughts of many hearts, it is instinctively the
friend of every generous impulse, every liberal policy,
every high aim, the development of every noble capac-
ity or power in human nature. Therefore democracy
is not repressive, but stimulative; it does not discour-
age effort, but encourages it, — encourages thought, re-
search, experiment, the bold initiative of the individ-
ual, the new cooperation of the social group. Conse-
quently under its ample aegis there is an upspringing of
a great variety of voluntary activities which result in
strengthening or refining the human mind, and in fer-
tilizing civilization with increasing learning, skill,
beauty, benevolence, and virtue. Simply by affording
the natural man scope to work out the latent good
that is in him, democracy becomes the promoter of his
welfare and progress by as much as it lies within him

128 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

to advance himself; and to one who believes in the
dignity and high potentiality of human nature, rather
than in its total depravity, democracy becomes a syn-
onym of hope for the slow but sure elevation of the
race.

This agreement between Christianity and democracy
will appear more clearly if we analyze a little further
the real objects of each. What is it that Christianity,
the Christianity of Christ, seeks for man? and what
does democracy seek for him? A brief but plain answer
will be helpful.

It is commonly taught that the grand object of
Christianity is "the salvation of souls" ; and it is com-
monly thought that such salvation means, not merely
deliverance from the power of sin, but rescue from the
control of the Devil and the terrors of a future hell,
and the securing of an abundant entrance into heaven.
Although there is some truth in this form of state-
ment, there is a much better way of putting the case.
True Christianity, the Christianity of Christ, seeks
the welfare of man as a spiritual being, the child of the
Eternal God. Therefore it seeks his growth or devel-
opment or cultivation or education or discipline in the
following principal qualities:

Reverence, gratitude, trust and love toward God;
consideration, honesty, sympathy, love and helpfulness
toward man; purity of heart, integrity of character,
freedom of spirit ; and that social harmony, prosperity
and happiness which grow out of peace and good-will.
To realize these qualities is to be "saved," i. e., to be
"made whole," and is the truest preparation for heaven,
while establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Likewise the grand object of democracy is the indi-
vidual and social welfare, but somewhat more narrowly

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY 129

conceived, as relating mainly to earthly interests. True
democracy seeks principally the maintenance of these
great elements of such welfare :

Order, justice, liberty; and it believes that, with
these, men will exercise intelligence and virtue and some
benevolence, and will achieve prosperity and happiness.
It trusts generously in the native capacity and ability
of the individual to do for himself, to take care of
himself and those dependent upon him, to direct and
govern himself with increasing wisdom, honor toward
others, and regard for the common weal; and it leaves
him entirely free to pursue such forms of culture and
pleasure and religion as he may see fit, only insuring
that he do not abridge the corresponding rights of his
fellow men.

We may sum up these two statements by saying that
Christianity seeks to establish among men Reverence,
Love, Righteousness, Freedom, Peace; while democ-
racy seeks to establish Order, Justice, Freedom, leav-
ing other things to spring up as they may.

Thus it appears that the two qualities or principles
here belonging m common to Christianity and democ-
racy are Righteousness and Freedom, or Justice and
Freedom, meaning the same. Christianity seeks to es-
tablish among men righteousness and freedom; democ-
racy seeks to establish among men justice and freedom.
Christianity adds reverence, love and peace ; democracy
adds social order. Hence it is clear that, as far as it
goes, democracy is in profound harmony with Chris-
tianity; only that Christianity goes farther, includes
more, seeks more, means more. But both grow out of
our common human nature, both recognize the inher-
ent worth and ability of man, and both aim to help
man climb up to the noblest heights of attainment that

130 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

may be possible to him.

But here we must be reminded that Christianity
works chiefly within, while democracy works chiefly
without. The one quickens, inspires, invigorates,
cheers, comforts, reproves, corrects, cleanses, and sanc-
tifies the inner life of the human soul, and so sets it free
from imperfection and wrong desire and evil purpose,
and makes it resolute to do right, to seek good, to obey
the will of God. The other affords protection, op-
portunity, scope and encouragement for the outward
exercise of man's powers, and so opens the way for his
tendencies to work themselves out, for his talents to
increase themselves, for his nature to flourish and grow
and bear fruit. Both give freedom: but the freedom
of the one is inner, vital, spiritual; while that of the
other is external, social, legal: and yet both kinds of
freedom are necessary. Likewise both Christianity and
democracy establish righteousness : but the righteous-
ness of the former is that of a soul inwardly set to
love and do the right of its own free will and accord;
while that of the latter is often obliged to be con-
tent with external constraints, restraints, and conform-
ity to the decrees of organized society: and yet both
kinds of righteousness are necessary.

From all this it is evident that Christianity and de-
mocracy belong together, and are needed to work to-
gether in this world. True Christianity is democratic
in the most thorough sense of the term; and true de-
mocracy, as far as it goes, is in fundamental accord
with Christianity's estimate of man, its service of him,
and its hope for him. Therefore the sincere believer
in democracy is imbued with a religious spirit, and sym-
pathizes with the words of Whittier in which he per-
sonifies and addresses this Angel of liberty and love :

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY 131

"Bearer of Freedom's holy light,

Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod,
The foe of all which pains the sight,
Or wounds the generous ear of God!

"Beautiful yet thy temples rise,

Though there profaning gifts are thrown;
And fires unkindled of the skies
Are glaring round thy altar-stone.

"The generous feeling, pure and warm,

Which owns the rights of all divine, —
The pitying heart — the helping arm, —
The prompt self-sacrifice, — are thine.

"Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,

How fade the lines of caste and birth!
How equal in their suffering lie
The groaning multitudes of earth!

"By misery unrepelled, unawed

By pomp or power, thou seest a man
In prince or peasant, — slave or lord, —
Pale priest, or swarthy artisan.

"Through all disguise, form, place, or name,

Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within;

"On man, as man, retaining yet,

Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim,
The crown upon his forehead set, —
The immortal gift of God to him."

"Therefore, too, Christianity, true Christianity, is
the friend and ally of democracy. It believes in de-
mocracy because it believes in man; it believes in lib-
erty because it believes that, given a fair chance, the
good in man will mount to supremacy over evil and
will lift him to a worthy life. It trusts man to think
for himself because it believes that he can find the truth
for himself, can know the truth, will love the truth, and

l£& MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

in time will be won to obey the truth. It gives man a
large opportunity for independent action because it
believes that only so can he develop the latent good
that lies within him; and its restraints would be re-
served for the wanton and powerful wrongdoer. It
bids every man remember that he is a child of God, and
therefore to lift up his heart, to stand upon his feet,
and to walk uprightly.

Now if the foregoing considerations and reasonings
are valid, a few important deductions follow:

1. Those types of Christianity, those forms of Chris-
tian administration, which are not in sympathy with
democracy, which distrust man and discourage liberty,
are not truly Christian. Such preeminently (one is
compelled regretfully to say it) is Roman Catholicism,
whose authoritative deliverances against freedom have
been prominently before the world since the condemna-
tion of "Americanism" by Pope Leo XIII and the more
severe condemnation of "Modernism" by Pope Pius X.
Without lengthy argument, the following paragraph
from Professor Walter Rauschenbusch's "Christianity
and the Social Crisis" bears upon the point very
forcibly :

"The Catholic Church by its organization tends to
keep alive and active the despotic spirit of decadent
Roman civilization in which it originated. Even to-
day, when the current of democracy is flowing so pow-
erfully through the modern world, the Roman Church
has a persistent affinity for the monarchical principle
and an instinctive distrust of democracy. The chronic
difficulty encountered by the Latin nations of Southern
Europe and Southern America in making free institu-
tions work, is probably not due to any inefficiency of
blood or race, but partly to clerical interference with

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY 133

government, and partly to the anti-democratic spirit
constantly flowing out from the Roman Church into
the national life of the peoples under her control. If
we ask why the Church failed to reorganize society
on a basis of liberty and equality, we have here one of
the most important answers." 52

To be out of sympathy with democracy is to be out
of sympathy with the deepest and strongest social
aspiration of the present age. This aspiration is
manifesting itself, indeed, in various and often-seem-
ingly contradictory outward forms, called by differ-
ent names, such as Socialism, Collectivism, Commun-
ism, Nationalism, Trade Unionism, Cooperation, So-
cial Democracy, Republicanism, Feminism, Nihilism,
Anarchism, and what not; but, back of them all, the
inner, vital spirit of humanity to-day, in every pro-
gressive section of the world, is a mighty longing for
social betterment. It may seem selfish, gross, mate-
rialistic, and doubtless frequently is so ; but it is sin-
cere and earnest, and contains the promise and po-
tency of a higher civilization for uncounted millions of
mankind. It is the one great hopeful fact among a
thousand dismal facts in our struggling, suffering
world. The hearts of men everywhere are yearning
for a freer, richer, happier life : this is the secret force
underneath our social unrest, our agitations, our de-
nunciations of the existing regime, even our violence.
With increasing intelligence it becomes plain that a
better life for the multitudes is possible; then the con-
science feels that it ought to be realized; and then the
resources and forces of humanity begin to be mobilized
to fight for such a realization. We are in the midst
of this manifold and tremendous process, the essential
62 Work cited, p. 192.

134 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

nature of which is the uplook and uplift of the whole
race.

To be out of touch with such a vast movement, to
antagonize it, to misunderstand it even is to be un-
christian; for Christianity is profoundly humanita-
rian, seeking the welfare of mankind, the salvation of
the individual and of society, which certainly means
fulness of life — health, freedom, comfort, intelligence,
virtue, happiness — for all God's children. To be so
blinded by the interests of an established order, either
of thought or of administration, — in other words, to
be so absorbed in maintaining an existing traditional-
ism,— as to miss or misread the workings of the Di-
vine Spirit in the souls of men, even when they are
numbered by tens of thousands, — what is all this but to
be like those rulers in Jerusalem who rejected Jesus
and caused him to lament against the Holy City in
the sad words of his terrible indictment, "thou knewest
not the time of thy visitation"? Yet such, unfortu-
nately, is the attitude of official Roman Catholicism,
as indicated by its almost savage hostility to Modern-
ism. It professes to be the only true Representative
of the Divine Government on earth, the only true
Guardian and Guide of the human soul: yet it fails to
recognize the voice of God in the voice of the people,
or to feel the prompting of the Divine Spirit in the
world-wide aspiration of the human spirit. It de-
nounces Socialism and Democracy equally, and Mod-
ernism seems especially hateful to it because it shares
the same secret motive, the same informing, liberaliz-
ing purpose, and is the latest expression of a fearless,
progressive mind within the Roman Church itself. But
in fact Socialism, Democracy and Modernism are
nearer to the Christianity of Jesus Christ than this

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY 135

kind of official Roman Catholicism can possibly be;
and the truth which lies at the heart of these three
manifestations of human aspiration will as surely pre-
vail over this type of Catholicism as the light of knowl-
edge must ultimately prevail over the darkness of igno-
rance. The power of an enlightened and free religious
faith, coupled with that of a just and liberal social
order, will overcome the obstruction offered by the
enormous framework of inherited Medievalism; and
thus the way will be prepared for the spiritual teach-
ing of Jesus, in conjunction with popular government,
to accomplish the social development for which the
world waits.

2. Christianity and democracy, by working to-
gether, can build up a true kingdom of heaven on
earth; but neither can do it alone. There is slight
ground for believing in the power of democracy sin-
gle-handed to redeem society; nor is it easy to see how
Christianity can make full proof of its ministry with-
out producing eventually a democratic society as a
means of realizing some of its noblest ends. But it is
entirely probable that Christianity, working (so to
speak) on the inside of man, and true democracy,
working on the outside, can and will help men to live
like true sons of God, and can and will transform this
world into a veritable paradise.

Christianity, whatever else or more it may be, is
essentially a spirit of life, — reverent, believing, hope-
ful, loving. When the human soul is quickened by this
spirit, for which it has a natural affinity, it awakes to
new activities and experiences a new expansion.
Thought increases, aspiration ensues, knowledge grows,
endeavor is heightened and enlarged, and the whole
inner world of the spiritual interests and affections is

136 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

enriched. The truth which is presented in the life and
teaching of Jesus Christ is thus germinal, and when
it is planted in the mind and heart of man, it springs
up and bears fruit, if not unhappily destroyed by
overpowering adverse influences. This is the per-
petual miracle of Christian history, — the spiritual
quickening into newness of life of dull and perverse
human souls. It is like the vitalizing and fructifying
of a soggy soil by sowing into it the seeds of those
grains or grasses which possess the power of lightening
and fertilizing the ground even while they grow.
When once "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus"
really impregnates the soul of a man, it not only
makes him that he shall be neither barren nor unfruit-
ful, but it continually increases his productive capacity
in all good things. So Christianity makes its appeal
primarily to the inner life rather than to the outward;
it addresses its truth to the mind and heart of the in-
dividual, to the inmost soul; and it trusts implicitly
that its holy seed, implanted thus, will sometime germi-
nate and come to fruitage because the spiritual forces
of God's world are its natural allies.

But then the quickened, expanding soul begins im-
mediately to make over its external organism, to build
more stately mansions for itself. The changing, im-
proving inner life incarnates itself in a better and still
better outward order. A purified soul wants a purified
abode; a refined soul demands refined surroundings; an
honest man will have an honest social order in so far
as he can bring it about. Inevitably, therefore, the
good life within works outward; and a man who has
caught the divine vision and the divine purpose will
not fail nor be discouraged till he has set justice in
the earth. Hence it comes to pass that mankind is

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY 137

forever reconstructing its external institutions — its
creeds, philosophies, philanthropies and governments,
whether secular or sacred — in accordance with its pro-
gressive inner conceptions and convictions. A man
with a Christian mind and heart cannot sit down and
sit still in an un-Christian world, a world full of in-
justice, impurity, ignorance, disease and needless mis-
ery : he simply must rise up and help make things over,
until the outward order shall reasonably harmonize
with the inner ideal.

Now if Christianity may be said to represent the
inner, spiritual half of this great process of human
development, surely democracy may be fairly claimed
to represent — as well at least as any word or move-
ment which our age affords — the external, social half
of it. We may confidently believe that together, while
neither can do it alone, they can and will establish the
reign of a true, universal human brotherhood. De-
mocracy is the free soul in action, seeking its own wel-
fare, and leading to cooperation with other free souls
because the true welfare of one man is essentially the
true welfare of all men. Such voluntary cooperation
becomes the means by which the external order of
society is made over, trusting implicitly to the inher-
ent potency of truth and right to persuade people.
Critics of the democratic movement allege that the
freedom which it involves is prone to end in license,
wantonness, rampage, destructiveness ; and this is al-
ways a possibility, even a liability; but it is not neces-
sarily or generally a probability. Such critics forget
that freedom is a two-edged sword, cutting both ways:
if sometimes it takes the form of crass individualism,
undue self-assertion, and the disregard of the rights of
others; on the other hand it just as naturally and

138 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

surely takes the form of enlightened association, mu-
tual endeavor, and the combining of the forces and
resources of many for the common good. It is a pure
assumption that men will not, ordinarily, seek their
common weal by common effort. Precisely such a unit-
ing of brains and hearts and hands is what society is
continually exhibiting in a thousand forms of asso-
ciation,— in business, in philanthropy, in religion, in
politics; and everywhere such associated action tends
to move from the lower plane to the higher, and from
the lesser interest to the greater ; in other words, social
life broadens and heightens with the progress of en-
lightenment and freedom. Democracy is thus the great
open field for social achievement, offering scope for all
intelligent and virtuous endeavor, alike for the individ-
ual and the group. It is not, therefore, destructive,
as many suppose, but rather constructive; and espe-
cially does it subserve the welfare of mankind when
vast numbers of individual men and women have been
quickened by the spirit and inspired by the principles
and ideals of true Christianity to "seek first the king-
dom of God and his righteousness," and are then led
into various forms of cooperation to establish a better
social order. Such a blending of Christianity and
democracy seems to be the one great, bright hope of
the world. Only the beginnings of this fine blending
have as yet been made, on a large scale, but they af-
ford the promise of glorious advances in the near
future.

3. The goal which Christianity and democracy thus
contemplate is the reign of truth, righteousness, lib-
erty and love among men; which will bring reverence,
peace, good-will, brotherhood; which will bring also,
and just as surely, health, intelligence, wealth, leisure,

CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY 139

beauty and happiness for all. Nothing short of so
comprehensive a good can satisfy the demands of hu-
manity. This earth ought to be a paradise; it is full
of riches and untold possibilities ; and if we believe
in the God and Father whom Jesus proclaimed, we
must believe that He intended it to be a blessed though
temporary home for His children in the flesh — only
He appears to have left to them the task, the honor,
and the joy of making it into a paradise, thereby be-
coming colaborers with Him in finishing this part of
His creation. When men shall clearly perceive that
this is their task, their great mission, to be fellow-
workers with one another and with God in carrying
the creative processes up and onward to the produc-
tion of all needed wealth, health, knowledge, beauty,
love, and happiness ; and when they shall begin to de-
vote themselves to this great object as ardently as in
former times they have sought to build up a mighty
ecclesiasticism here, or to secure "an abundant en-
trance" into the celestial city beyond, we shall then
begin to realize the passionate dream of the ages and
to fulfil the purpose for which the Savior of the world
was born. Slowly we must learn how to do this ;
slowly and patiently we must stumble on, through
blundering and suffering, into the light of knowledge,
into an understanding of justice, into wisdom and
order and liberty, and into all spiritual blessedness
and peace; and we must know from first to last that
God calls us, His children, of every nation and kin-
dred and tongue, to share with one another and with
Him the ineffable joy of establishing here on earth a
divine order of life for the entire race. Every Church
that has a word of sympathy and encouragement for
struggling humanity should lend its generous aid to

140 MAIN QUESTIONS IN RELIGION

all such holy aspiration and endeavor. Never did a
worthier ideal dawn upon the mind of man, or a worth-
ier cause engage his heart. Let the inspiration of the
purest religion he has ever known give him hope and
strength and all kindly counsel as he seeks to incarnate
in the concrete affairs of the social order the heavenly
vision that glorifies his soul.

We have had in the past, mainly, a Christianity that
has been molded upon the ideals of monarchy. The
world has been full of monarchical forms of govern-
ment, full of the names and deeds of lords and kings,
princes and potentates, mighty conquerors and august
emperors. Inevitably the spirit of all this has influ-
enced the Christian religion and its institutions quite
as much as these have influenced the course of civiliza-
tion. Only recently has democracy been sufficiently de-
veloped to be able to react with any considerable power
upon Christianity; and at the present moment it is in
greater peril than ever before, in peril for its very exist-
ence. If, happily, it shall survive — Heaven grant that
it may! — the ordeal of the all-but-universal European
war, it will arise somehow, sometime, with new vitality
for its unfinished, stupendous task of making the so-
cial order of the world one of equity and freedom; and
an important part of this task will be to instil its true
spirit into Christianity and the Christian Church.
When this great work shall be carried much farther
than it has yet been, when Christianity and its insti-
tutions shall be thoroughly democratized, and democ-
racy itself shall be thoroughly Christianized, there will
come the era of blessedness for which the weary world
has waited and prayed so long. A purified Christianity
and a spiritualized democracy will point the way to
peace through liberty and love.

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