Personal Christianity, instruments and ends in the kingdom of God

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F^n -s 1915

BR 121 .M25 1914

McConnell, Francis John,

1871-1953.

Personal Christianity,

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Personal Christianity

THE COLE LECTURES

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A"^'

v^ ( FEB fi

The Cole Lectures for igi4 \ y,

deli'vered before Vanderbilt Uni'versity

Personal Christianity

Instruments and Ends in
the Kingdom of God

FRANCIS J. McCONNELL

One of the Bishops of the Methodist
Episcopal Church

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh

Copyright, igM, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

To

Dean Wilbur F. Ti/ktt
a Statesman of the Church

THE COLE LECTURES

THE late Colonel E. W. Cole of Nashville, Ten-
nessee, donated to Vanderbilt University the sum
of five thousand dollars, afterwards increased by
Mrs. E. W. Cole to ten thousand, the design and con-
ditions of which gift are stated as follows :

" The object of this fund is to establish a foundation
for a perpetual Lectureship in connection with the Bib-
lical Department of the University, to be restricted in its
scope to a defense and advocacy of the Christian re-
ligion. The lectures shall be delivered at such inter-
vals, from time to time, as shall be deemed best by the
Board of Trust ; and the particular theme and lecturer
shall be determined by nomination of the Theological
Faculty and confirmation of the College of Bishops of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Said lecture
shall always be reduced to writing in full, and the man-
uscript of the same shall be the property of the Univer-
sity, to be published or disposed of by the Board of
Trust at its discretion, the net proceeds arising there-
from to be added to the foundation fund, or otherwise
used for the benefit of the Biblical Department."

Prefatory Note

THE word " personal " as used in
these lectures does not mean '* in-
dividual." Two views of the hu-
man beings whom we actually know are
about equally mistaken. Extreme individ-
ualism spins theories about human life with
each life taken by itself in a separateness and
independence never realized or realizable on
earth. On the other hand the extreme doc-
trine of society as an organism is likewise
faulty. Society is not literally an organism.
The concrete fact is persons living in such
dependence upon one another that we can
call them members of one another more fit-
tingly than we can speak of them as mem-
bers of a social organism, — an organism, by
the way, which lacks so essential a feature
of organic life as a head. The social con-
sciousness is not a consciousness grasped by
one all-inclusive mind. The social conscious-
ness is personal consciousnesses knit together
in sympathetic community. It is the purpose
of these lectures to show that persons, existing
on earth in intimate interdependence, are
9

lO PREFATORY NOTE

ends-in-themselves in the kingdom of God on
earth, and that all things else, — books, creeds,
rituals, organizations, — are instrumental, with
only such sacredness as can attach to instru-
ments. Persons alone are sacred in their
own inherent right. It might have been bet-
ter to use the word ** human " instead of
" personal," except that " personal " seems
more fundamental ; and it may appear early
in the course of the discussion that the value
set on the personal in human life comes
largely from conceiving in personal terms
the God who is set before us as the Father
in Heaven by the personal revelation in
Jesus.

F. J. MCCONNELL.
Denver, Colo.

Contents

I. The Personal in Christianity . 1 3

II. The Instrumental in Christianity 55

III. The Christian Use of the Philo-

sophic Tools .... 97

IV. On Making Morality Human . 1 39

V. Ends and Means in Social En-

deavour 183

VI. Every Kindred and People and

Tongue 225

II

LECTURE I
THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY

LECTURE I
THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY

IN a familiar Gospel passage Jesus is
represented as stooping and writing
upon the ground. Thoughtful Bible
readers stop for the moment as they come
to the passage. The direct question as to
what Jesus wrote has interest of course only
for the curious : the real reason why the
mind of the reader hesitates and ponders is
that this is the only passage which mentions
Jesus as in the act of writing. The scene
is suggestive, not merely because it reveals
Jesus' tact in a very delicate situation, but
because by its very solitariness it prompts us
to reflect upon the absence of the artificial in
all His work as a teacher. The impression
made by the New Testament portraiture is
of a teacher who relied not at all upon the
conventional scholastic methods, — the use of
books, the citation of authorities, the dicta-
tion of instructions to be written down for
study and preservation. In this absence of
the artificial the school of Christ was different
15

l6 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

from schools with which we are familiar and
from schools with which Christ was familiar.
The method of Jesus seems to have been that
of direct contact of the teacher with his
pupils. We are not to miss the force of this
consideration by supposing that the method
of direct contact, with everything artificial
reduced to the very least possible, was the
inevitable procedure of a time which had
little opportunity for the use of books and
writings. As a matter of history the inves-
tigations of men like Sir William Ramsay
have shown that reliance upon writing in the
days of Jesus was much more common than
we have realized. The period during which
Christ lived was a period of very prolific
writing both in school and out. It will be re-
membered that Professor Ramsay finds letter
correspondence to have been then so easy
to all sorts of people that he is confident that
some parts of the Gospel must have been set
to parchment by the followers of Jesus within
a very few weeks after the crucifixion. The
existence of a rather elaborate mail system
seems to point to a very prevalent habit of
writing throughout the Roman Empire in
the time of Christ.

Jesus, we repeat, does not seem to have
relied upon the artificial helps of the schools

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 1 7

of His time. Passing to matters of larger
consequence than the suggestive incident of
the writing on the ground we know that His
mind was evidendy steeped in Scriptural ex-
pression, but He does not seem to have
appealed to authority as did the scribes. He
does not even seem to have been concerned
about casting His thought into systematic
form. System of some sort He no doubt had,
but there is nothing to suggest the system of
the schools of His time or of later time. The
thought of Jesus unfolded largely as does the
thought of other leaders, pushed along by an
inner logic and by the pressure of outer
events. The thought of Jesus moreover was
of that compelling kind which produced
crises in the minds of those who heard Him
speak ; it seems possible to trace the order of
some of these crises in the narratives which
have come down to us, — but there is little to
suggest formal arrangement. If it be urged
that in the Gospels we are dealing not with
the form in which Jesus actually uttered His
truth, but with the reports which have come
from those who were His disciples, the ready
reply is that we must think it strange that
One who could so impress His hearers that
they caught the depth and might and beauty
of His thought was powerless to stamp their

l8 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

minds with the system in which the thought
was cast, — if there had been a system. To
see what the rabbinic system could do with
Christian thought we have only to turn to
the words of Paul. Paul had seized the
essentials of Christianity, but at least at
times he ran these to forms which he had
inherited from the schools. And the en-
kindUng warmth and life of the Christian
spirit are not able to free the Pauline system
from the suggestion of artificiality which here
and there clings to it. When the modern
compiler of Biblical hand-books attempts to
arrange in schematic form the teaching of
Jesus, the oudines and the diagrams, help-
ful as they no doubt may be, contain but
meagerly the spirit and vividness of the
Gospel narrative itself. To put the case
rather extremely it would almost seem that
the teaching of Jesus was incidental to His
life with the disciples. Jesus lived with the
disciples, and as He lived with them spoke
to them of God and of men and of the duties
of life. The main fact in their thought, after
it was all over, seems not to have been the
teaching as teaching. They remembered, or
rather felt still the impact of a life which was
more than teaching.

Moreover Jesus does not seem to have

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY I9

Spoken voluminously. He does not seem
to have been in the customary sense of the
word a '' talker." A shrewd observer once
remarked that in a realm of perfect mutual
understanding, such as we may conceive
heaven to be, speech would be needless.
There might be silence in heaven for much
more than the space of half an hour, for each
mind would enter into such complete under-
standing of companion minds that an artifi-
cial instrument like speech would be superflu-
ous. There is enough in this fancy to remind
us that the less of living sympathy there is
between two minds the more there must be
of reliance upon a mechanism like language.
Some lives themselves mea7i truths which we
discern as soon as we come into touch with
the lives. Some faces mean and teach purity
the instant we look upon them. Words would
be superfluous and impertinent. The actual
utterances of Jesus as recorded do not of
themselves seem adequate in amount to the
impression which they produced upon the
minds of the early followers. Or rather there
is even to-day so much more in the words
than the words themselves, there is such
power of suggestiveness and such quickness
of life, that the words seem more than words.
They seem to carry with them a life which lifts

20 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

them at once out of the realm of the artificial
and instrumental. Just from this quality in
the words we are prepared to believe the
accounts which have come down to us of
manifestations of a sheer personal force
which at the opening of the career of Jesus
caused a hostile crowd to make way before
Him that He might pass, and at the close
of His career caused some of His captors to
stumble backward to the ground.

The method of Jesus seems to have been
to gather around Him a few lives whom He
felt to be receptive and responsive. With
these men He lived. Though He occasion-
ally stepped outside to minister to larger
groups, He seems for the most part to have
given Himself to the smaller group and to
have started the new stream of life by living
constantly with a few men who did not
master His teaching in a formal fashion, but
who breathed the very spirit of His life. His
plan was not that of the preacher or the
lecturer. He moved through the ordinary
rounds with His disciples, and by His attitude
towards the ordinary lifted their thought to
the higher. If He gave any hints at all as
to how the lessons of the kingdom were to be
learned the instruction was that men were to
** do " the words which they had heard, work-

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 21

ing them into their inmost lives. Or they
were to take up the cross daily and by sym-
pathy with cross-bearers come into under-
standing of the cross of the Son of God.
More significant still is a sentence in the
Fourth Gospel to the effect that if men would
bear much fruit they would indeed become
His disciples. We are not troubling our-
selves here with the critical question as to
how far the Fourth Gospel actually records
the words of Jesus. The conception set forth
in this passage is essentially in harmony with
the total picture of Jesus which has come
down to us, — it forms a consistent part of
that picture. The meaning appears to be
that Jesus looked upon the Christian lessons
that men learn as coming out of such a life
process as the fruit-bearing of a tree. Let a
man bring forth the fruit of righteousness
and service and this experience itself will be
full of interpreting wisdom for him. In our
day we say that only the ideas which grow
are worth while. The ideas which are in any
sense artificially imparted from the outside
are not as significant as those which are
ripened from within by a life process as fruit
is ripened. The ideas which mean most to
us are the ideas we grow.

In fine the emphasis of the Master upon

22 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

life terms which we find both in the Synoptics
and in the Fourth Gospel is an indication of
His complete freedom from the artificial. We
can make but little of His thought of religion
on the basis of the system of the scribes.
The outstanding facts in this present world
seemed to Jesus to be persons and their
needs. When He taught of the heavenly
world He spoke in personal terms. Or
rather He seemed to live with the fact of
personal contact with the Father in heaven
always before Him. It will not do to speak
of Jesus* use of the word " Father " as ap-
plied to God as if it were merely the best
word which He could find, and as if back of
and beyond this word He conceived of a form
of existence which cannot be expressed in hu-
man terms. The word ** Father " on the lips of
Jesus does not carry the suggestion that it is
merely a figure of speech. Criticism cannot
thwart this conclusion by maintaining that
we have only second hand reports of the
words of Jesus and not the words themselves.
We are not concerned with the critical
scruples, for we are not raising the question
as to ipsissimo verba of Jesus. We are con-
cerned with the impression which He left on
the minds of His followers. If He used the
word " Father " merely as the best word He

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 23

could find, or just as an accommodation to
the simple intelligence of His followers, or as
a figure of speech to symbolize a reality out
beyond. He succeeded chiefly in getting Him-
self misunderstood. For He sunk that word
" Father " as applied to God so deeply into
the consciousness of His followers that it is
one of the unescapable words of the Gospel.
The Gospel makes the word exhaustive. It
is impossible for us to believe that the depth
of the impression made upon the minds of
the disciples by the word can be accounted
for by any merely verbal teaching on the part
of Jesus, or that Jesus Himself reached the
conception of God's fatherhood by formal
process. Something lay back there in the
realm of the personal experience of Jesus
which accounts for the meaning of the word
to Him, and for the force with which He
sunk the word into the life of the disciples.
" God the Father " was a conception which
He not only thought and spoke but which
He acted forth and which awoke definite re-
sponses in His feeling. ** God the Father "
was life experience with Jesus, and this ex-
perience became a telling force with the dis-
ciples.

The facts lying at the base of Christianity
are personal facts. Suppose we consider for

24 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

a moment that problem of Christology which
has been the lure and the despair of Christian
thinking from the beginning. The moment
we use any term ending with " ology " w^e
are near the artificial. Now the purpose of
this series of lectures is to show that the arti-
ficial has its place and a great place, but at
present we insist that these formal terms
have very little in kind with the speech of
the Master or with the speech which He in-
spired men to utter. It is a clear gain all
around that we see so clearly to-day that all
discussion of the problem of the person of
Christ must take its start from \h^fact of the
person of Christ : and no fact seems to be
more stable in its foundation than that Jesus
thought of Himself as the Son of the Father.
Of course it is possible for the exegete to
empty everything distinctive from this word
" Son," and to make the title little more than
a conventional phrase, which Jesus used be-
cause He could not find a better. But here
again causes must be adequate to their ef-
fects. We can hardly see how a merely
conventional phrase could have meant so
much for the followers of Jesus both in earlier
and later times if it did not have back of it
something potently real. A suggestion more
in line with what we should expect among

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 25

groups of followers as we know them would
be not that Jesus used the word ** Son " as a
conventional term but that He used the word
because any man would know something of
what it meant from living human experience.
But judging again from the depth to which
Jesus drove the word in Christian conscious-
ness we have to hold that back of the use of
the word was a fact of experience, or rather
more likely a state of experience which gave
the word vitality. We listen with all patience
and respect to those who tell us that when
Jesus spoke of Himself as the " Son of Man "
He had in mind merely an apocalyptic scrip-
ture and that when He called Himself the
" Son of God " He meant just a close feeling
of connection and dependence possible to any
other man, — but the effects seem greater
than such speech would produce. The truth
seems to be that Jesus' strength lay in a con-
sciousness of personal oneness with the Father
in heaven which is unique with all the unique-
ness of distinct personal experience and with
the enormous historical effects that flowed
from it, and that Jesus found His life mission
in a consciousness of oneness with men which
is also unique. We are not to conceive of
the person of Christ as a thread on which to
string abstract " divinity " and abstract " hu-

26 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

manity." Many theories of the divinity of
Christ suffer grievously from impersonalism.
Jesus was a person with unique personal re-
lationship to God and man. About all that
we can say of that relationship in its inner
aspect is that the experience of Jesus was as
divine as possible without ceasing to be
human and as human as possible without
ceasing to be divine.

The point we insist upon is that all our
debates about the problem of Christ must
start from a living personal experience. A
touch of philosophy — noble philosophy too —
marks the opening of the Fourth Gospel but
the philosophic word ** logos " is not as near life
as the word "Son" of which that Gospel itself
makes so much. The consideration we would
repeatedly urge is that we must keep upper-
most in all the discussion of the Church re-
garding the two natures and the two wills
and the interpenetration of the divine and the
human a personal fact, not so much the per-
son of Christ as the person Christ. The ab-
stract terms have their value as instruments
to help us seize the meaning of the fact
but the fact is itself personal. All valuable
Christological discussion must be begun,
continued, and ended with Jesus the Person
in mind.

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 27

Similarly with the cross of Christ. We
have so long debated theories of atonement
that we have occasionally come dangerously
near missing sight of the truth that the New
Testament accounts are personal. We may
use terms like substitutional, and govern-
mental, and moral influence wisely if we
keep in mind their instrumental nature.
But Gethsemane and Calvary were personal.
The impression made upon the followers of
Jesus by Gethsemane and Calvary was that
Jesus was passing through a supreme mo-
ment in His experience and that at that mo-
ment His thought moved in definitely per-
sonal channels. The mind of the Redeemer
did not seem to be among abstractions.
There is no suggestion that impersonal ne-
cessities of any sort were driving the Master
on, or that He was meeting His death for
the sake of general considerations. There is
no blind fate at work, — if the impression we
get from the Gospels can be trusted. The
Master is submissive to a personal will, —
that of the Father. If it be possible He
would have the cup pass from Him, but
there is no sort of hint of blind necessity at
work. The realm is that of personal rela-
tions. And part of the marvel of the Cross
to this day is that so many feel that the suf-

28 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

fering of Jesus makes a personal appeal to
them as persons. Whatever the prime sig-
nificance of Calvary, it is not a struggle with
impersonal necessities or even with abstract
sin. It is, so far as Christ is concerned, an
inner personal experience so profound as to
reveal the heart of the Father Himself ; and
so far as men are concerned, it is a manifes-
tation of holy love so compelling as to touch
right-minded men with a sense of personal
appeal. And the love is not in the abstract.
It is not for humanity or for mankind but for
men. The personal aspect of the Cross is
the compelling aspect.

So with the other elements of the Christi-
anity of Christ, — if we can use such an ex-
pression, for even *' Christianity " is imper-
sonal enough to leave us a little detached
from the Christ. Take the resurrection ap-
pearances. It is no part of our present pur-
pose to attempt to explain the nature of these
appearances. All we wish to say is that they
are consistent with the rest of the Gospel nar-
rative in that they are definitely personal. If
their function were primarily evidential they
should have been more general, — and for
such purpose they ought co have been made
before some persons besides the disciples.
Perhaps they have more evidential value

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 29

looked at as manifestations of a love for the
disciples which not even passage through
death could vanquish, but that is not evi-
dence as we ordinarily think of it in discuss-
ing the appearances. In any case the narra-
tive tells of an appearance to Peter evidently
with a revelation intended primarily for
Peter, — to Mary and the disciples with per-
sonal greeting. Here again we wave off the
impatient critic who would have us stop to
examine the evidence to determine whether
there were any such appearances or not.
With the matter-of-factness of the narrative
we are not now concerned. We are asking
simply the question as to how those who
stood closest to Christ thought of Him and
His work. If the appearance-narratives are
only attempts on the part of the disciples to
explain the effect of the life of the Lord on
themselves they nevertheless have their value
for our immediate point, as suggesting that
the thought of those closest to Christ went
instinctively and spontaneously to intimately
personal terms.

This brings us at last to the thought of the
Spirit of Christ as at work in the heart of
His followers. From the time of the ex-
perience in the upper room at Jerusalem till
to-day it has been maintained by the followers

30 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

of Christ that the contact with God is a per-
sonal contact, that the chief effect of prayer is
its personal effect, that the result of accept-
ance of Christianity is to make persons in a
sense more personal than before, that the
chief duties of the Christian are to persons,
that the believers are a body not merely
figuratively but vitally, since they are bound
together by experiences which are pulsing
with an inner and personal energy. In
other words Christianity, while it depends, as
we shall see in subsequent lectures, upon the
instrumental for much of its power, is at its
centre a distinctly personal religion. It is
not even to be called Life unless the life is
the life of persons.

An experience like that of Pentecost is re-
markable among other reasons for the com-
pletely personal terms in which those present
conceived of the experience. The wor-
shippers in the upper room believed they
had come into actual touch with the living
Master. We are not now concerned with
the correctness of the interpretation of the
experience ; we simply point out the fact
that the early believers did believe in this
personal fashion. Their idea of the spiritual
presence of Christ was so definitely personal
as to make a beginning for that doctrine of

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 3 1

the Trinity which has been such a sore puzzle
to the theologians ever since. The early
Christians were not theologians, — they stood
at the very fountainhead of direct experience
out of which the subsequent theorizing rose.
They interpreted their experiences in the
readiest, simplest terms which came to them.
Their explanations no doubt needed the
corrections of later thought, but the chief
element in their life was the experience
itself, an experience so quick and vivid that
they could think of it only in personal forms.
They would not call the Spirit "it." The
Spirit must be spoken of in personal terms.
The Jesus who had been their earthly Master
was the Christ of God still living and touch-
ing their lives with direct power.

Now what was the result of all this?
Much every way, but for our present purpose
it is necessary to lay stress on the personal
effects on the believers. A characteristic to
be noted in the history of Christianity is that
nothing in the experience of the early Chris-
tians tended to overslaugh their personal life
or independence. In later days oriental in-
fluences did seem to overcome such of the
believers as resorted to trances and ecstasies
but the clear insight of the Fathers always
marked these experiences as heresies. We

32 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

sometimes speak of heresy as if it were
altogether an aberration of doctrine, but,
historically, many heresies have been ab-
normalities of experience. The Eastern con-
ceptions which would have the worshipper
reduce himself to such passivity that he
seemed swooning into nothingness have
never been Christian. In our day we hear
much about the power of the Hindu to give
himself up to days of absorbed meditation,
as if this were a power which the Christian
believer has not yet attained. Those who
have most acutely observed these Hindu
experiences, however, doubt whether they are
reflective or meditative at all. Conversation
with the Hindu devotee would indicate that
neither before nor after his experience does
the Hindu seem to have much intellectual
content on which to meditate. The experi-
ence is a sort of sinking into quiescence with
an approach just as near the obliteration of
the personality as may be. At times this
sort of dreaminess has tinged mysticism in
Christian circles, but it is not Christian. The
thought which precedes experience conditions
the experience just as the experience in turn
conditions the thought. The idea of the
Hindu concerning God is that of a vague
almost impersonal allness and the Hindu's

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 33

experience moves correspondingly towards
attempt to drop off the personal. After
years of such experiences the Hindu is, at
least in any ordinary understanding of terms,
less of a man than before. The experience
of the early Christian believer moved in a
different direction. It started with the
thought of a Personal Being and searched
for living contact with that Person.

A devout theologian, attempting to explain
the facts of Christian experience, once sug-
gested that something of a clue might be
found to the explanation of the mystery in
the study of hypnotism. In the hypnotic
state one life, without ceasing to be itself,
comes so thoroughly under the influence of
another life as practically for the time being
to parallel that other life. So the Divine
Life works through a human life. But the
flaw in this argument is that in a true sense
the personal life of a man in the hypnotic
state is not his own. The power of self-
direction is gone, and while the psychological
mechanism seems to be running in full force
the element of substantial self-direction is re-
duced to a minimum. The man is not him-
self. He is the mechanism for another. If
we were to attempt to hold him responsible
for any deed done in the hypnotic state we

34 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

would be at once met with the plea that a
man in the hypnotic state is not himself.

This brings us to the broad contrast be-
tween all such experiences and the experi-
ence of the early Christians, — and the later
ones too for that matter. The early Chris-
tians lived in a day when extraordinary ex-
periences were not extraordinary in the sense
of rare or uncommon. Enough of Eastern
influence was to be found in the lands in
which Christianity first wrought to make the
spectacle of persons in emotional abnormality
very frequent. The Christian experience was
one which made the most of the man, — not
the least of him. It left the man larger after
the crisis than before. It added to his power
of self-direction rather than subtracted from
it. The heart of the difference appears also
in the Christian practice of prayer. The
prayers of the followers of Jesus were
articulate expressions of need. Prayer was
not an aimless dreaming. The life was in-
deed to be filled with the spirit of prayer ;
and the disciples, according to Paul, were to
pray without ceasing, but the core of prayer
was articulate speech expressing a need.
The formulas of the scribes and the incanta-
tions of the Gentiles were alike odious, for
the reason that true prayer was supposed to

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 35

be addressed to a living person. Assuming
the person to whom prayer was addressed to
be a person at all, mechanical formularies
and magic passwords would mean nothing.
But the attempt on the part of the Christian
to pray implied something on the part of the
petitioner. It implied quickened thought and
sincere feeling and purposeful willingness to
work in the spirit of the uttered prayer. All
this meant the aroused expansion of the
soul.

There is nothing, we repeat, in Christian
experience as put before us in the New
Testament to indicate that the personal life
of the believer is in any way repressed. On
the contrary the personal distinctions remain
marked. It requires only the most casual
reading of the New Testament to discern
this. It is as patent to the ordinary reader
of the Scriptures as to the careful, critical
student. All questions of exact authorship
apart, — it will be admitted that the Synoptic
Gospels and the Fourth Gospel were written
by Christian believers. We do not recall
that any one has been hardy enough to at-
tempt to establish the contrary. Yet the dif-
ference in content and style between the
Fourth Gospel and the others furnishes food
for debate to this hour. Even in the Synop-

36 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

tics, while it is clear that all authors worked
on material more or less common, very im-
portant differences in point of view appear.
Then there is a broad difference between the
admittedly Pauline epistles and the other
parts of the New Testament. In the sphere
of more intimate personal views we have the
record of serious divergence of opinion be-
tween Paul and Peter. The astonishing
variety of the New Testament literature we
should not expect if Christianity were not in-
tensely personal in aim, working to preserve
what is separate and individual in the life of
each believer. Even in the day of that hard-
and-fast theory of Biblical inspiration which
made each writer virtually a mechanical
amanuensis of the Divine, all that the holders
of the theory meant was that each man wrote
down what came to him from the divine
spirit without attempt to add to or take from.
Few upholders of the most rigid type of that
doctrine would have been willing to declare
that the separate writers did not write each
after his own fashion. According to Paul
contact with the same Spirit through prayer
led to greatly diversified results. Each man
wrought according to his own nature and in
his own fashion. Some were evangelists and
some prophets and some organizers. But

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 37

there is very little to show that Paul meant
that the man whose nature fitted him to be an
evangelist became a prophet, or that the
prophet left off prophecy for church manage-
ment.

What then do the Scripture writers mean
when they speak of conversion, and a change
of heart, or a change of nature ? What is a
man's nature ? It is certainly not some
mysterious stuff in him. It can only be the
law or the laws according to which he acts.
Or if law suggests a regularity which is lack-
ing in much life we say that a man's nature
is the way he acts or lives. The only agent
is the man himself living and acting in a cer-
tain fashion. To convert the man, or to
change his heart or his nature, is so to act
upon him that he freely lives in a differ-
ent way or according to a different law.
This is what the Master seems to have
meant when He said that men must turn if
they are to come into the kingdom of God.
Men are off the track and must get back
upon the track. Some must turn squarely
around, and others must make, maybe a less
radical change in direction, but a change
nevertheless. This problem of direction is
all-important. The lost life is the life going
in the wrong direction, or acting according

38 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

to the wrong law, or in the wrong way.
That the change in becoming a Christian is
so great that the man acts and thinks and
feels differently from before is witnessed to
by innumerable experiences. In the face of
the testimony it would be impossible to deny
this, even if there were the slightest desire
to do so, but there is nothing in the New
Testament to indicate that even in the most
marked conversion we are not dealing with
the same man after the experience as before.
His very face may change, but it is the same
face. His mind thinks different thoughts but
it is the same mind, — thinking with the same
peculiarities of mental procedure. The heart
desires a new life, but the quality of feeling is
the same. The will does differently but
works after the same fashion. The clearest
exposition of conversion is from Jesus Him-
self and that is in distincdy vital terms. The
most spiritually minded of the Gospel writers
evidently caught the Master's thought that
the process of coming into the kingdom of
God is to be described as a birth, and a birth
is not a mechanical process. It is the intro-
duction of that which is already to a degree
alive to a larger world of life. So with the
soul. With the proper surrender of the will,
— and surrender here means the free assump-

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 39

tion by the will of a law of higher life, — the
soul comes into a new world. But just as the
organic peculiarities which make the body
distinctive are present before its coming into
the world so the peculiarities which make the
soul distinctive before its coming into the
kingdom of God are present after entrance
into that kingdom. The most remarkable
instance of conversion recorded in the New
Testament is that of Saul of Tarsus. Here
if anywhere a personal life would seem to
have been overwhelmed in such complete-
ness as to make the man utterly different
from what he was before. But great as was
this Damascus road experience it seems to
have been definitely sanctioned and accepted
by the will of Saul himself, and then to have
turned the activities of the convert into dif-
ferent channels. Saul was still Saul. Fur-
thermore he could not if he had tried
have cleared himself of thinking of Chris-
tianity in terms of the system in which
he had been brought up. He was the most
advanced of the early apostles and flung him-
self farthest from the Judaism in which he had
been trained, but he made even his anti-
Judaistic arguments in Judaistic terms.

The hearer however would have a right to
feel that in this discussion of the personal in

40 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

Christianity we had left something unsaid if
we were to stop at this point. For after all
Christianity does believe in profound inner
change. The only consideration we are urg-
ing is that this change does not wreck per-
sonal distinctiveness but that it makes the
personal more significant. Jesus said that
He came that men might have life and that
they might have it more abundantly. He
said also that the tree is to be known by its
fruits. The implication is that once a man
has become a Christian he yields more fruit
and better. It is matter for congratulation
that we live in a day when Christianity is
being judged by the standard by which it
asks to be judged, and the standard in ac-
cord with which it claims to produce its re-
sults. The question asked to-day of all sorts
of teaching is as to the kind of man produced
by the teachings. By this test Christianity
seeks to be judged, and that for the reason
that it aims at making men in the divine sense
more and more human. Is a man larger or
smaller after his practice of Christianity ?
What is the effect of prayer on the man who
prays ? These are the questions by which
Christianity is willing to stand or fall. The
effect on the man most intimately practicing
the belief is the effect by which we judge the

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 4I

belief. The Christian should be perfectly-
willing not only to meet the question as to
what there is in Christianity to harm any one,
but also the further question as to what there
is in the system to help any one. Christianity
must not harm men and it must help them.
The insistence first of all upon moral right-
ness and after that upon the development of
the life to the largest and finest possible, — this
is the essential mark of belief in Christ. The
presence of aberrations here and there does
not detract from the truth of this central
claim for Christianity. Some of the persons
who compose the Christian Church run off
into extremes but the claim of the Church is
that the contact with God in prayer makes
men stronger and better. The test of prayer
is the effect on the man who prays. The
summary logic of Christianity is that beliefs
which make men true and great must be
themselves essentially true and great.

And now it may be supposed that this
lecture is teaching that Jesus wrought for ex-
treme individualism. We do not intend to
leave any such impression. The teaching of
Jesus stands between that radical doctrine
of the individual which can see nothing but
separate individuals and that radical doctrine
of society which would overlook and ignore

42 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the individuals. The teaching of Jesus would
take account both of the separateness of the
individual and of the partly organic nature of
society. In this lecture we are trying to keep
close to the prime facts with which society
has to do. When we use the word personal
we do not mean personal as over against so-
cial, for we mean that the social is personal.
The actual situation in human life is not indi-
viduals existing separately but individuals
existing together. The idea that Christianity
would do anything to put individuals off in a
vacuum is utterly mistaken. No rational
being ever lived an altogether separate Hfe.
Individuals are made for one another, and
while the consciousness of the individual is
very distinct and separate, while there is in a
sense a wall built around the individual, the
further fact is that the individuals are so fitted
together that in the full measure they cannot
live apart. The social activities are merely
personal activities in which two or more, in-
stead of one, take part.

Jesus saw individuals just as they are.
While an individual is from one angle an
entity and a unity, from another angle he is
only a fraction. Taken by himself he is only
the centre on which numberless hooks hang, —
hooks which reach out to hold fast other indi-

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 43

viduals. Theoretically speaking, the existence
of the individual self, — the personal centre, —
is about the most important fact we have.
Practically, the individual self amounts to
very little if we have not other selves with
whom the individual can come into touch.
The fact of the personal centre answers some
questions which the abstract thinkers have
been debating from the days of the Greeks.
Here we have the substance which both
changes and abides, and thus answers the
puzzle as to how in one being there can
be fixity and change. Practically, the per-
sonal centre is a centre of just nothing at all
if there is no possibility of reaching out to
others. It is in contact with those others
that the self comes to itself. So for example
Jesus took the family for granted as a spir-
itual fact. When He spoke of marriage as
an institution He was thinking only of the
man-made laws with which men express
certain ideas concerning the married state.
When He said that in heaven there is neither
marrying nor giving in marriage we would
have to make Him mean something contrary
to His whole system if we made Him mean
that the spiritual relationships which grow up
in the family are not essential and permanent.
It must not be forgotten that in the present

44 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

lecture we are trying to keep close to the
spiritual and personal bases of the Christian
life. The artificial and instrumental elements
we shall appraise later. We cannot call any-
thing instrumental in our present use of the
word which goes so deeply towards the very
centre of the personal life as does the rela-
tionship in the family. The child could not
come to full personal existence if the older
person did not stand to him in the place of a
parent. It is said that in India for the pur-
poses of experiment a number of newly-born
children were once put together and kept to-
gether under the charge of nurses through
years of childhood, — the nurses under pain of
death not being allowed to utter a spoken
word. The children came to nothing. It is
hardly to be supposed that they were natu-
rally idiots, but after a few years their condi-
tion was practically that of idiocy. Now this
does not point merely to the importance of
language as an instrumental institution. It
points to the dwarfing of the soul when it
cannot hook itself to some life other than
itself. The parents and the children need
the merging of souls for the sake of recipro-
cal personal development. So with the hus-
bands and wives and the brothers and sisters.
Jesus saw this so closely that He utilized these

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 45

inner spiritual relationships, not the artificial
and institutional phases of the family life, to
set forth man's relation to God. The man
does not come to full spiritual stature without
the communion with the Father above and
best reaches this communion in discharge of
duties to the persons in the world.

It is from this point of view that we must
approach the study of the Church. With
the instrumental aspect of the Church we
shall deal in the next lecture. Here we point
out that the life of Jesus and the experiences
which came to His followers in the early
days were calculated to deepen the founda-
tion on which the institutional side of the
Church was built up, — the dependence of
men upon one another in spiritual relation-
ships. Paul stood closest to the Master's
thought when he spoke of the Church as the
body of Christ. It is hard to think that he
intended by the phrase just to capture the
attention of his readers by a happy figure of
speech. Granting the validity of that con-
ception of the divine nearness which is so
much a part of our thinking to-day, Paul's
speech suggests the closeness of the spirit of
Christ to a body of believers in sympathy
with the divine purpose, — a closeness as
immediate as the closeness of a man to the

46 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

responsive nerves and muscles of his own
body. But there is another aspect, — that
which Paul so strongly emphasized, the
significance of the activity of each part of
the body for every other part. We cannot
indeed speak of a society as an organism
with the same exactness with which we speak
of a human body as an organism, but the
expression is at least on the path to the
truth. The simplest psychological experi-
ment shows that as minds work together in
a common purpose the powers of each are
increased in defiance of the ordinary laws of
arithmetic. One hundred plus one hundred
no longer make two hundred, but the addi-
tion makes five hundred or a thousand.
There is a social reenforcement which defies
the familiar methods of estimate. And there
is more, — there is often the loosing of a
force in the individual which the individual
himself did not suspect that he had. We
observe this on the bad side when we see a
mob spirit so strong that men who would not
as individuals have thought of evil deeds,
under the influence of the mob spirit run
headlong to courses which in quieter mo-
ments they condemn. They wonder after-
wards if they could have been themselves in
the mob. In a sense they were not them-

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 47

selves, — a different phase of the activity of
the self was started into action by the pres-
ence of the crowd. Now these laws which
work so clearly in crises of evil point to
possibilities for crises of good. We do not
surrender anything of what we said about
Christianity as not overwhelming the indi-
vidual when we do say that in righteous
community-action there are possibilities of
which the individual might not ever be
conscious if left to himself. The memory of
moments of exalted uplift which have oc-
curred as a righteous enthusiasm has taken
hold of men in masses remains in the indi-
vidual mind to help that mind towards
larger personal strength, just as truly as the
memory of deeds done under the influence
of evil social forces tends to degrade and
dwarf the mind as it looks back upon them.
The early Christians seem to have partaken
of this spirit of community. The fact that
they had all things in common does not have
as much economic significance for our times
as some radical reformers would have us
believe, but it certainly has profound spiritual
significance. It is the translation into
material terms of a feeling of community so
close that at least for a time material com-
munism was possible.

48 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

This then is what we mean by the personal
in Christianity, — not the individual alone but
persons set in relations to one another, which
relations are as much a fact as is the separate
existence of the individuals. We do not
subscribe to a doctrine of individualism
which would attempt to pull the individual
out of his living relations and look at him
apart. This is not possible, — any more than
it would be possible to cut off a living arm
and expect to study it as still living. Nor
do we subscribe to a doctrine of society as
a thing-in-itself which would blur over the
individuals. We look upon persons as
realizing themselves in a Christian com-
munity. This is the fundamental. In a
sense even these persons are instrumental to
one another, but that is a forcing of the word
out of the meaning which we now have in
mind. The persons could more properly be
called parts of one another, or organs of one
another. The great aim of Christianity is to
minister to the needs of these persons thus
set together. Through all the ages the be-
lievers have taught that those who live in
this substantial community of like spiritual
aims are the Church of Christ, — part of it
visible and part invisible. Through the
spiritual union the society life becomes richer

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 49

and through the enrichment of the commu-
nity fuller life comes to the individuals of the
community.

It is the aim of the Church to bring all
men into this substantial fellowship, not
merely into the instrumental organizations
which we call the separate churches. This
fellowship is the kingdom of God on earth
which all right-minded men are supposed to
try to advance. Now it is the purpose of
this series of lectures to try to show that this
personal community is entided to use what-
ever instruments can be employed to further
its fundamental human purpose. That pur-
pose of bringing life to persons being kept in
mind, the Christian community has a right to
deal with the merely instrumental in any such
fashion as will increase the life. The great
heresy then becomes the heresy of treating
lives as if they were in the mechanical sense
instruments and of treating instruments as if
they were ends in themselves. The human
outcome must be kept uppermost.

We know that human societies are allowed
to take considerable liberties if they do so in
the name of human welfare. If the aim is
simply to build up a state as a state some
actions are forthwith condemned which are
entirely legitimate when undertaken in the

50 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

name of the largest human Hfe. To take an
extreme example, a state may no longer
legitimately go to war if its aim is merely to
extend its own boundaries as a state. We
recognize that wars are no longer morally
justifiable if undertaken just for national ag-
grandizement without reference to human
rights. But he would be hardy extremist
who would deny the right of nations of the
earth, preferably acting together, to move in
upon a nation which in its internecine strug-
gles had lost all sense of the value of human
life. In a sense the kingdom of God on earth
has the right to hold to some beliefs and to cast
others aside and to make practical adjust-
ments and readjustments if it does so in the
name and for the sake of the largest and best
religious life.

Coming back to the expression of Paul, the
body of Christ, — we may say that the body
has a right to use some instruments which
are clearly mechanical. It has a right to
fashion for itself weapons of offense and
defense, to make building tools, or to make a
house, so to speak, in which it may live. It
has the right to change these instruments to
make them better ; or, if they have served
their purpose, to cast them aside for some-
thing better. Instruments are to be judged

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 5 1

only by what they can do, — but they must
not be taken as ends in themselves. In some
cases we can see this clearly. There is no
more sin in changing an item of church or-
ganization, for example, for something better
than in throwing aside a poorly tempered
knife for one better tempered. Thus stated
the principle seems obvious enough, but it
may lead us rather far. But it cannot lead us
away from the truth. Truth after all is life at
its fullest and best. We use whatever instru-
ments serve the purpose of such life.

But the word instrument is too mechanical
to express some elements which after all are
instrumental, though in a finer sense. Food
for example is instrumental, and men live
upon intellectual and spiritual foods as well
as upon bread. Man does not live by bread
alone. But the spiritual foods are to be
judged by the kind of spiritual vitality they
furnish. Any man must have a care in rec-
ommending that masses of men change
their food, but after all no suggestion is too
radical if it provides for larger and fuller
satisfaction of the life needs. When a phys-
iologist who advocated the change for the
oriental world from a rice to a wheat diet was
met by the rejoinder that it is wild to sug-
gest a change in a food on which a race has

52 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

lived for ages, his retort was that it is not
wild if that diet is the reason why the race
has amounted to so little. Apart from the
dietetic merits of the case the physiologist
had the correct principle. The needs of the
race have the right of way.

There are some other elements which are
like the atmosphere in which the body moves.
These elements seem to be fine in them-
selves and to stand in their own right. In
reality they have a right to existence only so
long as they minister to a need. Works of
art seem to stand in their own right. But
they have no right except as they satisfy
some artistic instinct. We have seen stand-
ards of art change. The art ministers to a
finer need than a merely utilitarian tool to be
sure, but it ministers nevertheless and stands
or falls by its ministry.

We repeat that it is the purpose of these
lectures to insist upon this distinction between
the persons, who are ends in themselves, and
the instruments which minister to the per-
sons. We object to treating the personal as
instrumental, or the instrumental as if it had
personal rights. We do not pretend to say
just what use in a particular case the Chris-
tian community is to make of a given instru-
ment but we do insist that the highest and

THE PERSONAL IN CHRISTIANITY 53

best life of persons is to be the aim of all
handling of instruments. The insistence
upon this fullness of personal life will help us
find our way about in some fields not tech-
nically religious but which can be utilized for
a religious purpose. Much of our confusion
comes from our taking ecclesiastical factors
and philosophic and moral and social doc-
trines as if they were ends in themselves.
The Christian persons are the ends in them-
selves. The sacredness inheres in them. The
Christians are so to use everything instru-
mental as to make the personal more sacred.

LECTURE II

THE INSTRUMENTAL
IN CHRISTIANITY

LECTURE II

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN
CHRISTIANITY

WE have laid stress on the personal
as the object in Christianity's en-
deavour. What our religion aims
at is the unfolding and enrichment of the life
of human beings. The needs of persons are
uppermost in value and have the right of
way. All else is instrumental. This does
not in the least minimize the importance of
the instrumental : indeed it makes the instru-
mental indispensable as furnishing the means
by which persons attain to larger life. But
discrimination between the personal and the
instrumental gives us a guide and a standard.
If our intent is to treat certain devices of the
Christian system as ends in themselves our
attitude and conduct will be different from
what it will be if these factors have instru-
mental place. Some instrumental elements
are indeed means of grace. But the means
of grace are not the ends of grace. An end
57

58 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

of grace cannot be an instrument but must
be a person.

Foremost among these means of grace we
place the Christian Scriptures. We all admit
theoretically to-day that our Scriptures belong
in the instrumental relationship, but very
often we treat the Book as an end in itself.
Now of course there has been sensibleness
and wisdom in some defense of the Scrip-
tures which has pronounced them ends in
themselves. In times past this position helped
in the preservation of the Scriptures. If some
believers had not looked upon the Book as
possessing a peculiar sacredness in itself it
might never have travelled down to us. But
even such valiant defenders if closely cross-
examined would have placed the sacredness
of the Book in what it can do for men.
Strictly speaking the Book is instrumental.
If a community's last available food supply
in time of famine could be preserved only by
some one's giving his life, many men would
offer to die. But this would not be because
the heroes would think of the food. They
would think of the lives that the food would
be instrumental in saving.

At the outset we protest again that we do
not mean by instrumental anything me-
chanical. The Book is indeed a sword of

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 59

offense and defense, but it is instrumental
also in those finer shades of meaning at
which we hinted in the last chapter. It is
the food upon which men sustain themselves
in the search for God. It is the clear atmos-
phere which men breathe as they strive after
the kingdom of righteousness. It abounds
with ideas which seem to stand in their own
right as good and true and beautiful but
which after all have their deepest claim in
that they minister to human wants. Take
for example that idea of God with which we
find ourselves as the result of Biblical study.
This, we say, is fine in itself. Apart from
any utilitarian query as to the effect on us
of accepting this idea the idea stands by
itself as a final conception, — one which we
contemplate for itself, as we would contem-
plate a masterpiece in painting or in
sculpture. But even such masterpieces are
instrumental as we use the term. They
minister to a human demand even if the
demand is satisfied not so much by practical
utilization as by adoring contemplation. We
must keep steadily before us that we are
viewing the life of man in its highest ranges
and are asking what will best suit the highest
needs. The purpose of the readers of the
Scriptures has been from the beginning

6o PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

loftily practical, — they have used the Book
as a means of grace. This being true it
seems a legitimate inquiry on the part of
Christians as to how to make the Scriptures
more completely and specifically means of
grace. We are not doing honour to a sacred
idol before which we must bow down, but
rather awarding proper place to a weapon, a
food, an atmosphere. On the plea for in-
crease of usefulness we may so deal with
weapons and foods and atmospheres as to
make the most out of them. It is not unfair
to affirm that down to the present not enough
has been made of the Scriptures. They
have not been used with the wisest economy.
If we regard them as a field we must admit
that they have not been intensively cultivated.
For proof of this we have only to inquire as
to how many devout Bible followers habitu-
ally read widely throughout the Book. Al-
most every mature Bible reader to-day has
been brought up on the doctrine of the
sacredness of the entire Book, but not all
readers carry that doctrine into practice.
The reading actually moves through some
of the loftier eloquence of the prophets,
tarries delightedly around the favourite
psalms, pores long over the Gospels, and
catches the glow of some of the epistles.

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 6l

But long stretches of Scripture territory have
been neglected. There are abandoned farms
in the Scripture. It ought to be worth while
to see if some use cannot be found for these
Scriptural acres. If we believe that the Book
as a whole contains a revelation from God
why confine ourselves to a few passages, im-
portant as these may be ? If the Scripture
is indeed the daily bread upon which the
believer lives why forget that the preparation
of bread so as to win from it the most nutri-
ment is one of the chief functions of the
housewife ? The Bible was made for man
and not man for the Bible. The Bible then
should be so used as to make it mean the
most for man.

It is a mistake to suppose that modern
Biblical study has on the whole or in the
main pared down the useful portions of the
Scriptures or thrown away parts of the
Scriptures. A few years ago it was a favour-
ite procedure with some opponents of the
more recent methods of approaching the
Bible to refer to modern students as the
mutilators of the Scriptures. But this misses
the point. Dismissing the extremists here
and there whose assumptions and conclu-
sions are clearly fanciful or forced, the intent
of present-day study is to get the most out of

62 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the Scriptures. We do not get the most
from the Scriptures by using them without
discrimination, any more than we get the
most from any other instrument by treating
it thus. Employing the old figure of the
kernel and the husk, — economy in the han-
dling of grain does not show itself in a willing-
ness to eat husk and all. There is a more
excellent way. To begin with we must re-
member in our radical impatience with husks
that there could not have been grain if there
had not been husks, and next that even after
the grain is threshed from the husk there is a
market value for husks in the economy of
the prudent farmer. We can use the Scrip-
tures wisely only by estimating the present
usefulness of their contents in the light of the
demands of the highest Christian life of our
time. To do this we must find what a par-
ticular Biblical passage meant for the people
to whom it was written, and then discover
what message it has for to-day. The pres-
ent-day Biblical schools are not throwing
away anything. They are distinguishing be-
tween orders of utility. Some parts of the
Scripture contain the very sum of practical
wisdom for our guidance to-day. They set
before us the principles which must be prac-
ticed into life if we would know that doctrine

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 63

of Jesus which is centrally Christian. There
are other parts, which so far as daily guid-
ance is concerned, may have little bearing on
the immediate duties before us. But these
parts are mightily instructive for the under-
standing of the ways of God with men.
More than all this there is a fresh air of life
itself blowing across even what we might
think of as the desert passages of the Bible.
The discerning student sees that various pas-
sages of the Scripture do not cease to have
all use when they lose an immediate matter-of-
fact use. The value for reflection and for
contemplation still abides.

Modern understanding, then, finds more
value in the Scriptures to-day than before, —
only the worth of some parts is of a different
order than formerly. Jesus Himself told us
that He would set aside some requirements
of the Mosaic law. But is the Mosaic law
then of no value ? It is of eternal value as
showing how God dealt with men. We often
declare that the Old Testament Scriptures
were written in a time so different from ours
that they have but little concern for us. We
holders of this view might get some light
from the fact that many Old Testament
specialists to-day are among the most devout
of men, and that these scholars urge the study

64 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

of the Old Testament for devotional purposes.
The divine method is apparent enough in the
Old Testament. As to the local and tempo-
rary and even heathen coverings which form
the husk in which much Scriptural truth is
clothed, is it important to know which is
kernel and which is husk so that we may
throw the husk away ? Not at all. Rather
so that we may use both kernel and husk
aright.

We emphasize and reemphasize the dif-
ference in orders of usefulness. There is the
usefulness for which the man seeks who
wishes immediate light or consolation. This
man may not get much from the Old Testa-
ment historical narratives or even from some
of the epistles. But another man is not thus
under the pressure of crisis. He has oppor-
tunity to brood over the Book. He is con-
cerned not merely with immediate guidance
but also with the larger and longer views of
God's dealings with men. He searches the
pages of all commentators. He asks as to
the times when such and such a conception
emerged, who was the prophet to whom it
was first revealed, what was the motive
which brought it forth, what in the concep-
tion is common to the conceptions of the
peoples round about the chosen people.

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 65

This student may reach conclusions which
to his ecclesiastical neighbours seem very
astounding but which nevertheless vitally
minister to his religious cravings. For this
man too is on the search for God, and one
road to God is by study of God's methods.
If a man's ways are significant as revealing
the nature of the man, why should God's
ways be any less significant as revealing the
nature of God ? A single passage may not
itself be illuminating as to the nature of God,
but the entire history of the passage, as the
modern student sees it, may be more illu-
minating than any direct statement of divine
purpose could be. And this is the more im-
portant because there comes with such study
not only intellectual enlightenment but that
development of the religious instinct which
marks the devout Christian student. Find-
ing God has one meaning to a man dis-
tressed by sin or burdened by sorrow, but a
different and possibly a higher significance
to the man who is seeking knowledge of
God for the sake of understanding Him in
the subtler, finer manifestations and for the
sake of bringing those revelations to men.
A sneer used to go the rounds to the effect
that the scholarly Biblical student is likely to
be a woodenly intellectual creature with no

66 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

conspicuous development of religious intui-
tion. The observation of the present speaker
does not profess to be extensive, but those
who know best the foremost Scripture stu-
dents of our time report that the impression
left from contact with such men has been not
more of intellectual than of spiritual acumen.
From acquaintance with such men there may
easily come a confidence in the efBcacy of
close study of even the supposedly driest
parts of the Old Testament as a means of
grace. If the Bible is the sword of the
Spirit we should know how to take hold
of it : much depends on handhng a sword
aright. If the Bible is food the more we
know about it the better. If it is atmos-
phere the more pressing the duty of learning
to breathe deeply.

The current investigations of the Scripture
result in giving the Scripture larger utility.
Even in the parts where we follow the motto
of knowledge for its own sake we are seeking
for that high utility which ministers to and
satisfies the mind in the search for God. So
that the Church has a right to look upon the
Bible from the point of view of each succeed-
ing day, for the sake of the welfare of the
persons of each succeeding day. It was not
a sin to translate the Scriptures into common

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 67

tongues. It was not a sin to allow the print-
ing press to aid in the spread of the Gospel.
It is not a sin to take the intellectual instru-
ments of our time and with them to make the
Bible count for more. There can be little
doubt that the scientifically forged tools for
Biblical study will prove in the end to be
among the most powerful propagating
agencies in the spread of Scriptural knowl-
edge. Some parts of the Book are read in-
telligently to-day that were hardly read at all
twenty-five years ago. Some classes of per-
sons to-day devotedly study the Scriptures
who could hardly have been brought to look
at them on the assumptions of twenty-five
years ago. The wider the use of the Scrip-
tures the more useful they are, of course.
Nothing will be thrown out of the Scriptures
by modern study. The emphasis will be
changed. If we have in the Bible the
best spiritual instrument the obligation is
upon us to learn how best to use the instru-
ment.

This was the plan of Jesus. He dared set
.side some of the teaching of the Scripture
iDecause it could not be brought into living
contact with the moral situation in which He
found Himself. But He set aside only in
that He changed the emphasis. He did not

68 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

cast anything out of the Book. All through
the Scriptures He saw the turning of
prophecy towards Himself. He recognized
the moral and spiritual purpose in the parts
which He placed in a different order of im-
portance. Just so a physician to-day might
look through the sanitary requirements of the
Mosaic law and pronounce them insufficient.
He might say that our modern knowledge of
disease has outdated these requirements.
But he might rejoice to claim the Hebrew
leaders as worthy of all imitation in their in-
tention to make it a religious duty to care
for the welfare of men by the prevention of
disease. The nations round about the He-
brews did not care so much for the welfare
of men. The trend of the Hebrew religion
in the direction of correct principles of phys-
ical living is immensely significant. So
also a social student might to-day read the
land laws of the ancient Hebrews. He
might find that we cannot carry out just such
land laws to-day, but he would be sure to
declare that these advance in the direction of
economic justice, and that they are in prin-
ciple of far loftier conception than are many
laws in so-called civilized nations to-day.
The attempts to guard against the waste of
the land, and the attempts also to prevent

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 69

extreme monopoly of land in private hands
were very noteworthy. In these as in so
many other instances the movement of the
Scripture is interesting because of its direc-
tion. Ideal humanity was the goal of the
lawmakers and the prophets. It should be
the goal in our modern reading of the su-
preme instrument of the Church. We are
entitled to use the Scriptures so as to make
them mean the most to us. If we distort
them they will not in the end mean most to
us. If we do not take account of the historic
truth about them they cannot mean the most
to us. If we allow ourselves to follow after
extreme radical or conservative views which
get away from actual basis in history they
cannot mean the most to us. We are to
seek to know all we can about them and to
apply their revelation in the wisest manner,
— seeking always for the best good of the
persons for whose benefit the Scriptures are
before us.

If we could all come to this position it
would hasten the passing of that conflict
which happily is dying out, — the conflict be-
tween radicals and conservatives over the
Scriptures. The difficulty here as with so
many wrangles of the sort is in the failure to
clear up the assumptions. One help in clear-

yo PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

ing up would be to ask what is the direction
of the Scriptural movement. What are the
ends in the kingdom of God? These are
the members of the kingdom. The further
question then becomes as to how we can
best serve the persons in the kingdom. We
take literally the doctrine that the Bible is a
means of grace. It will be best defended
and preserved by devoting it to the most and
the best use. With this simple understand-
ing we are better able to say how to make
the best use of it. Some of the greatest dis-
coveries in the world have come as men have
discovered that the things around us are in-
tended for use. There was a time when men
fancied that mighty streams of water were
such sacred parts of God's universe that any
attempt to harness them could only be
blasphemy. Then there came men who saw
that the highest reverence towards God's
streams was to utilize them, — mills and cities
were the result. So wath the Scriptures.
They are not sacred objects in themselves.
They prove their divineness only as they are
used to the utmost. The great betrayal of
trust would be, — in a day which is making
the most of every other manner of instru-
ment,— not to make the most of the Scrip-
tural instrument. We cannot bend this

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 7 1

sword enough to break it. Sharpening its
edge does not grind it away.

The recollection that these modern Biblical
methods are wholly instrumental may help
the preacher in the work of preaching. The
sermon is an utterance of results, not an ex-
planation of the details of the instruments by
which the results are obtained. There is
place for the discussion of the instruments,
but not in the pulpit. The spectacle of in-
struments is apt to be disquieting in any case
but results speak for themselves. The worst
sort of talking shop is talking of instruments.
The surgeon anaesthetizes his patient before
he lets him see the instrument with which the
operation is performed. After it is all over
the instrument can be exhibited and ex-
plained. The modern Biblical instruments
are enormously beneficial to the believer but
it is not the part of homiletic wisdom to make
too free an exhibition of them until the be-
liever is familiar with the results which they
produce.

When we come to creed and dogma we
find that these too are instruments of the
kingdom of God. But some one will say
that these are truth, and that they stand in
their own right. What is truth ? Truth in
^he Christian sense is not mere intellectual

72 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

formula. It is the truth of life. It is life.
When Jesus spoke of Himself as the Truth
we are not to think that He had in mind the
primarily intellectual. But of course the ob-
jector means that the statements of the creed
are true as statements. Even if they are
they have as their justification the feeding
and strengthening of the mind of the be-
liever and are to be judged by their suc-
cess in doing so. In religion we are not
always in the realm of objective proof. The
only way we can judge of the validity of be-
lief is by noting what happens to the man
who beHeves.

The instrumental character of the creeds is
very apparent as we look at the causes of
their origin. Even if they are final state-
ments incapable of improvement they were
framed for a purpose. The Church was in
danger of splitting into fragments because of
lack of authoritative pronouncement on this
or that, or there was required a compact
shaping of the truth for fighting purposes, or
for purposes of exposition. Or, we may be-
lieve, the Christian community had attained
through historic processes to a fresh insight
which must be set forth systematically to
mark an advance.

We can sometimes discern a tendency

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 73

most clearly when it is working on a min-
imum of material. Suppose we look at one
or two dogmas where the tendency is very
clear from the fact that there is little to work
upon. For example consider the Roman
Catholic doctrine of the immaculate concep-
tion. To provide for the sinlessness of Jesus
the Roman Church teaches a sinlessness of
Mary so complete that any ancestral tendency
towards evil was cut off from Mary. What
is the explanation of this doubtful dogma?
Just the necessity of providing for the sin-
lessness of Jesus. The doctrine is entitled to
larger respect for its recognition of a diffi-
culty and for its courage in facing it than for
any positive contribution towards the solu-
tion. Or take the doctrine of purgatory.
Very worthy motives are back of the doc-
trine. One motive is to deal with the prob-
lem of the spiritual condition of souls at the
best manifestly unfit without further prepara-
tion for a perfect environment. Another mo-
tive is to keep close the connection between
the ones who have passed on and those who
remain here. Of course in a field devoid of
data the bare tendencies back of the doctrine
are about all that is apparent, but the motives
are entitled to respect.

But other creed-making tendencies have

74 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

more to work upon. Take the historic data
as to Christ's manifestation of Himself to His
disciples in the resurrection appearances.
The items of the record are scanty, to be
sure, but they are flooded with the light
which comes out of our familiarity with the
Christ-character and out of nineteen centu-
ries of the history of the Church. If the
items were not recorded of Christ they might
possibly be dismissed as of no great conse-
quence, but when they are recorded as of the
career of Christ the aspect changes. For the
problem of Christian thinking is at least
measurably to express the fullness of life in
Christ. We are perfectly willing to admit
that it is from the point of view of those con-
vinced of the eternal life in Christ that we
read the story of the resurrection appear-
ances. The Church's appreciation of Christ,
dealing with the recorded data, results in the
dogma that Christ passed through death and
revealed Himself to His disciples in such fash-
ion as to convince them that He liveth for-
evermore. In a word the pressure of the life
of Christ is the driving force in creed-making.
In this or that detail the items of creed as to
Christ may need improvement, but the creeds
are not as likely to err from overstatement as
from understatement. We have not a Christ

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 75

who shrinks within the creedal phrases which
we make for Him, but one who outgrows the
phrases. The life of the Person is the end
which we are trying to set forth. All our
instruments are inadequate, — inadequate not
so much through maladjustment as through
lack of size. The great fact is Christ Him-
self. He has been the dynamic shaping the
creeds. The separate items of the creeds
have been so many attempts by successive
ages to put into formal terms a measure of
the impact of Christ. The creeds are both
results of the Personal Force which stands at
the centre of the Christian system, and also
instruments to help us to know Christ. The
Life does not shrink, we repeat, but grows in
size when set in the larger frame of the ad-
vancing statements of the ages. This or
that creed could be spoken of as an attempt
to construct a lens with which to read the
Christ-thought the better, if it were not
that the figure is so inadequate. The mean-
ing of Christ is so vast that it is always out-
standing,— needing no lens for its discern-
ment. The creeds have been attempts of the
Church to utter for herself in compendious
phrases the imprint which Christ has left on
a particular time. They were partly instru-
ments of self-expression, — the Church feeling

76 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

that she must burst forth into exclamation
and declaration. After that they possessed
expository and argumentative value.

What we said in discussing the Scriptures
we say again in speaking of creed. The
question as to the usefulness of a creed is
not always easily answered. The immediate
and original demand for this or that formula
may have passed away. But because I do
not believe a particular article, say of Cal-
vinism, I have no call to sneer at the lack of
usefulness of Calvinism. I may thus show
myself a spiritual kinsman of the tourist who
could see no usefulness in the Parthenon.
The practical utility is not all. Some sys-
tems of theology are of perennial intellectual
worth as religious creations, deserving look-
ing at for the stimulus and thrill which they
impart to the mind. The systems are at
least wonderfully made. They gratify in-
tense intellectual cravings on the part of
thinkers, — inadequate as they may be as
permanent formulations. And acquaintance
with them helps us bring ourselves into a
spiritual unity with the mighty men of faith,
gone on before, who have left not too numer-
ous a race of spiritual descendants. The
purpose of the more important creeds, no
matter when uttered, was that of Christian

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 77

thinking to-day, — to exalt Ciirist with the
very highest intellectual tribute. So far as
these greater creeds are concerned more than
one devout life which has not accepted this
or that formal statement has found brooding
over the creeds nevertheless a source of spir-
itual quickening. Such creedal utterances
are not dead to one capable of discerning
their aim. As ends in themselves to be cher-
ished above all else their value would be less
than as instruments and centres of inspira-
tion tending to quicken the life of the faith-
ful.

And this brings us to our attitude towards
the religious declarations of our own later
time. Here once more we ask that the di-
rection towards which a doctrine points be
kept in mind. A statement serves a two-
fold purpose : it utters as far as possible the
thought of the speaker, and it addresses it-
self to the intelligence of others. The life
needs of both speaker and of him spoken to
are the imperative facts. The person speak-
ing and the person addressed are the ends
in themselves. The self-expression of the
persons speaking and the enlightenment and
quickening of those addressed, — these are
the chief considerations. Not forgetting that
intellects have legitimate appetites and that

78 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

Statements of doctrine must give heed to
scientific and logical and rational grounds,
we must insist that all doctrines are instru-
ments and succeed or fail by the extent to
which they fulfill their purpose in use. What
manner of appeal do they utter to the whole
man? How thoroughly do they serve the
largest and best life ? Will a man by accept-
ing them become more or less ? Will he be-
come better or worse, — for a man cannot
sincerely marry his mind to a doctrine with-
out becoming better or worse. Dealing ad-
mittedly with a realm where strict objective
knowledge is out of the question the creed
can only be looked upon as an instrument
for the furtherance of right religious life, and
the only test is the quality and volume of
life which follows acceptance of the creed.
Of course the effects of some beliefs can be
foreseen by any man of common sense. The
straight flying in the face of fact or logic will
bring a fall sooner or later ; but in the inter-
pretation of scientific fact and logical con-
clusions the best creed is the one which as
an instrument furthers the best kind of life.
By the rights of humanity we are entided to
deal just as freely with the creedal statements
which we all have to make, — and each of us
has in one way or another to fashion some

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY J^

sort of creed for himself, — as the calls of the
largest life seem to make necessary.

An interesting study in practical creed
making can be pursued by observing a proc-
ess going on before our very eyes in the
unfolding of socialism. You will understand
that I am not taking sides one way or an-
other as to the worth of socialism. I use
this illustration simply because I can speak
of socialism without taking sides. Here is a
body of doctrines held by more persons in
Christendom to-day than any other set of
doctrines whatsoever. And the doctrines are
in amazingly large part held not by absorp-
tion or inheritance but as the result of at least
an attempt at deliberate reflection. Whether
they think rightly or not there are probably
more persons thinking in the ranks of the
socialists than in any other group on earth.
Now socialism in the main seeks to accom-
plish its results by persuasion. I am speak-
ing of the socialist who thoroughly under-
stands his own system. Such a socialist
realizes that the only path by which socialism
can draw near is the voluntary adoption of
the principles of socialism by a good deal
more than a majority of the voters of any
nation. Socialism cannot succeed, and its
leaders know it cannot succeed, with too

8o PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

large a minority of irreconcilables. While
the socialist would admit that the resort to
force here and there might apparently hasten
the day of the formal coming of socialism he
knows that the real arrival can only take
place as the people are persuaded of the doc-
trine and intentionally adopt that doctrine.

Now the socialistic doctrines have as their
goal the production of tangible results. This
does not mean that they are contrived solely
for campaign efBcacy : the works of Marx
strive at giving a historically just account of
industrial evolution from the beginnings of
industry which the few only can take time to
read. But the intent is primarily to persuade.
It is interesting then to note how the ortho-
dox tenets of socialism change as the years
go by. They change because they will not
continue to work in their first form. So we
have modifications of the doctrine of eco-
nomic determinism and of class struggle.
Many of the Marxian teachers insist in all
sincerity that they are not making doctrinal
changes but they are doing so nevertheless ; —
there is nothing commoner in the history of
thought than a man's making modifications
in a system to which he adheres while pro-
fessing that he is merely clarifying his mas-
ter's utterance. The socialist is — by consent

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 8l

which reaches even to his enemies — strug-
gUng for the betterment of human life ; and
he is employing his conceptions as tools with
which to do this. He is trying to help men.
He fashions and refashions his instruments
as he moves along. A very able and persua-
sive exponent of socialism is J. Ramsay
MacDonald, Chairman of the British Labour
Party. Ramsay has remarked significantly
that Marxism had to begin with sharp and
extreme phrasings but that in the wielding of
the instrument the sharpness of the edge was
inevitably worn off. If similarly the edge of
a Christian creed wears ofif we are at liberty
to believe that perhaps the instrument is
better for not being too sharp, or we may
sharpen the instrument if it will do better
work for men when sharpened. So far as
minor beliefs are concerned we may cease to
use them altogether. Even the most ortho-
dox learn how to put some details of creed
out of ordinary reach. They may still have
them in the locker, — but in the remote corner.
If this is true of creed it is also true of
ritual. Ritual meets some requirements of
the religious nature on the aesthetic side :
and here we seem to be in a realm where
things as well as persons have value on their
own account. The a3sthetic seems peculiarly

82 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

to Stand as an end-in-itself. But here again
the reference must be to Hving needs of living
men. The Church has a right to appro-
priate and baptize anything which appeals to
fine taste and true feeling. She will do this
whenever she feels that by so doing she can
minister to human need, just as she did when
she took over from what we would technically
pronounce heathenism a whole body of beau-
tiful Christmas symbols and consecrated them
to the delight of her children. When ritual is
inadequate it will be transformed or supple-
mented. Phillips Brooks has told a pathetic-
ally amusing story of the helplessness of a
body of high churchmen who met to find
consolation in prayer after the Chicago fire.
There were many beautiful prayers in the
regular collection but none seemed just
suited to the particular type of affliction then
upon the nation, and the worthy brethren
were sadly at a loss ! In such plight any
body of normal human beings will find room
for expression of religious yearning in what-
ever form seems best suited to the purpose
whether the Church sanctions extemporaneous
prayer or not.

Finally we look at the Church itself in its
instrumental aspect. It will be recalled that
in the previous lecture we drew a distinction

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 83

between the more personal and the more
artificial aspects of the Church. The Church
is the actual persons bound together to do
the will of God. This personal community
reaches under and through the separate arti-
ficial alignments and includes many who are
not technically united with any organization.
About the relations of the various systems to
one another we shall speak in a moment.
Here we call attention to the spiritual peril of
identifying the actual personal human fact
with any artificial fact like this or that partic-
ular type of organization.

The Church as a body of persons actually
knit together in sympathy is an end in itself.
No organizational constitution of laws and
rules, however, can have anything but an in-
strumental sacredness. We may do well to
encourage devotion to an organization as an
organization but in such case the emphasis
must be upon the evident fitness of the or-
ganization to accomplish results which can
be stated in human terms. The Church as
a creature of laws and rules is not an end in
itself.

Of course it is understood that distinctly
denominational considerations are out of
place in a lectureship like this, but those
who are Methodists may recall that the

84 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

strictly instrumental nature of church or-
ganization is Methodist doctrine. John
Wesley never formally broke from the
Church of England, but John Wesley so
modified the doctrines about the Church
itself in the view of the thinking world that
in spite of all its professions hardly any
church can ever again claim to be an end in
and unto itself with the old force. Wesley's
genius, as we all know, was preeminently
for management. He was not of the sort
to be over-impressed with the claims of a
church laying stress on some peculiar sanctity
in itself. Though naturally conservative he
allowed himself to be borne along by the
success of this venture and that until he was
willing to undertake almost any plan which
seemed likely to benefit men. In sentiment
he very probably at the outset revolted from
any step so radical as preaching in the open
air, but he put aside whatever scruples he
may have had as soon as he saw how im-
mense a hearing he obtained from worship
in the fields. Dr. T. C. Hall of Union The-
ological Seminary has shown how thorough
a modification the work begun by Wesley
wrought in the churchly conception as to
the bishopric. In Methodism the bishopric
is not a separate order. It is purely an

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 85

administrative office. Worthy souls here
and there have at times fancied that the
episcopacy could be made more holy and
commanding by being constituted a so-
called higher order, but the instinct and
good sense of Methodism have always been
sound at this point. Our only question as
to the episcopacy is as to its success as an
instrument. The only expedient by which
it can be made sacred is by success in sacred
work. The only authority to which it is en-
titled is that of a sincere purpose striving to
do the best possible under a given set of
circumstances. The bishopric is an instru-
ment and has no right to be looked upon as
an end in itself. It exists for the service of the
people of the kingdom and for no other pur-
pose whatsoever. The welfare of the per-
sons of the kingdom has the right of way
over all offices whatsoever. We instance
the episcopacy as an outstanding illustration
of the power of a democratic church to take
an office regarded in the past, — and even in
the present in some quarters — as something
holy on its own account, and to strip it of
every right to exist except in a purely instru-
mental capacity. The only problem before
General Conferences in discussion of church
offices, — episcopacy included, — is simply as

86 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

to how best to get the work administered.
The question as to whether this or that style
of instrument is most hke the instruments of
the fathers is out of place. We ask merely
as to what will most surely help on the king-
dom here and now.

What is the Church on earth for? We
mean of course in its institutional features.
First, for the enlistment and the training of
disciples. The immediate duty is to rouse
men to an awareness of the divine and to
get them started in the righteous course. It
is the business of the Church to test every
means which may open the eyes of men to
the necessity of their becoming disciples. It
is possible for the individual soul to get along
without the organizational church just as it
is possible for one to walk from San Fran-
cisco to New York, or to become educated
without going to school, but we nevertheless
preach the necessity of railroads and public
schools. If the evangelical methods of an-
other generation will not now succeed some-
thing else must be resorted to. There is
nothing sacred in mechanisms after they have
ceased to accomplish the desired result. To
go through the old motions without result is
not especially intelligent. Anything which
will win men must be sacred as an instrument

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 87

in the eyes of the Church. Only, in all this
we must remember that there are some
showy maneuvers, notably those of the
present-day sensationalist, which even as
maneuvers may in the ultimate outcome cost
more than they are worth. The look ahead
to the long run has to play a part in our
evangelism.

Once enlisted in the ranks, the disciples of
Jesus were taught that there are various steps
in training, — to some of which we have
already alluded. There is the learning by
the educated ear, or the skilled faculty. He
that hath ears to hear, let him hear. It is the
task of the Church to discipline the faculties
of the disciples. Then there is learning by
doing. He that doeth the words is like the
man that laid the foundations against the
day of storm. This method is somewhat like
that of the modern laboratory. The knowl-
edge of the divine doctrine comes from the
doing of the Divine Will. Again there is
learning through cross-bearing, the develop-
ment of sympathy with the world's cross-
bearers as we do the desperately hard un-
selfish tasks which involve for us undeserved
suffering. This is an advance beyond the
knowledge won through the normal life of
righteousness : as being more intimate and

88 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

human. Finally there is the knowledge
attained by bearing fruit. Here the Master
comes to His favourite theme of the life as a
growth. In bearing fruit, in growing con-
victions, in developing thoughts and feelings
and deeds which run their course through
the life as naturally as ripening fruit, — in this
fruit-bearing especially the disciple comes to
know his Lord. And all these various proc-
esses of learning the Church is to encourage.
She is systematically, and in our day scien-
tifically, to train the faculties of the disciples.
She is to insist upon the incessant practice of
righteousness. She is to lead in cross-bear-
ing. She is to create and keep potent the
vital conditions in which wisdom and senti-
ment and power can arrive at harvest fruitage
in the life of the believers.

There is another function besides disciple-
ship, — that of apostleship. The Church is to
send forth her adherents to capture this world
for the kingdom. She is to hold fast to
the doctrine of self-sacrifice especially as
applied to herself. How can an organization
fashioned to teach that the only salvation for
the individual believer is in a willingness to
lose his own life get very far if it develops a
narrow organizational pride which stands
stiffly on keeping the organization intact

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 89

when the task to be performed demands
institutional change ? Esprit de corps is well
and good but it ought to depend on the liv-
ing contact of the believer with his fellows
and not on the mechanism of an organization.
What will best accomplish the work of individ-
ual and social salvation ? This is the question
before the Church as an organization. What
will put the largest human meaning into
salvation and make salvation attractive ?

But what about all these various denomi-
nations which we see around us ? Can all
these be alike true ? All these are alike, we
trust, working to benefit human beings : —
that is their only right to existence. A good
rule for them all would be to master the doc-
trine that on their more technical side they
are purely instrumental. As instruments
they may have immense value. The doc-
trines of different churches are not so many
conflicting absolute truths. They are differ-
ent paths of approach to truth. They are
instruments which make towards the truth
which we mean when we speak of the Chris-
tian life. A good m.an is a good man
wherever we find him. He may have been
nourished on doctrine which is very distaste-
ful to the rest of us, but if the doctrine has
made him good we have no right to object

90 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

overmuch to his spiritual food, though we
may recommend our food to him. He may-
have wrought valiantly for the Lord with a
weapon which we think crude and bungling,
but he has wrought successfully. He has a
right to choose his own weapon. If we think
our weapon is better than his let us show its
superiority in action. We should dismiss as
not over-intelligent objections like that of the
Hindu who asked the Christian missionary
which of the scores of varieties of Christian
truth taught in India he should accept.
There are not scores of varieties of Christian
truth being taught in India or anywhere else.
The only final truth taught is the truth of the
worth of a good life. Varieties of instru-
ments may be used in the presentation of
that truth. The separate denominational ap-
proach is just an approach. A Christian
man is a Christian man and not primarily a
Methodist or a Presbyterian. He may have
attained to Christian manhood along the
highway of Methodism or of Presbyterianism.
Human nature being what it is we find little
profit in discussing the advantage of church
unity in the form of just one denomination.
All men should be animated by the one spirit
of Christ but the peculiarities of human be-
ings are such that it is hardly possible to

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY QI

persuade all sorts of men to wield one make
of spiritual instrument or to depend upon one
type of spiritual food. The desirability of
straight-out oneness of organizational form is
very doubtful. Variety and diversity urge
legitimate claims. Even in the union of
commercial bodies into one organization it
has often been found best to allow the sep-
arate constituents to keep by one plan or an-
other enough of their separateness to pre-
serve whatever has been most worth while
in that separateness. Speaking of army di-
visions Napoleon used to say : ** Separate for
the march." There was a clear economy in
having the troops march even to the common
objective point in different masses. They
were thus more easily maneuvered, more
easily fed, more easily sustained in the fight-
ing spirit. So with the church life. Realiz-
ing that organizational activities are alto-
gether instrumental we ask what the churches
can best do separately. They can best move
separately through the activities of church
support and religious instruction and training.
But Napoleon also told his marshals to
unite for the battle. There is need to-day
for a closer coming together for battle.
There must be some common plan of cam-
paign, especially in the social warfare in

92 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

which the Church ought to be a determining
factor! Federation seems to be the watch-
word of the hour, — all sorts of bodies federate
and that with signal practical success. If
there are some duties which the organiza-
tional instruments can best perform sepa-
rately, it is equally true that there are many
other tasks which they can best undertake
together. In campaigns for civic righteous-
ness, in some phases of the attack on hea-
thenism, the work can best be done by the
churches acting together. Both at home
and abroad much can be expected from wise
division of church territory and by mutual
respect of that division. Much can be ac-
complished by joint activity in educational
enterprises, — especially in mission fields.
Most of the objection to agreement of this
kind is purely verbal. Colleges under the
control of a particular church feel perfectly
free both to accept students from any and all
denominations and to select faculty members
wherever they can find the men best fitted to
do the work. And there is nothing more
effective in bringing men to a right under-
standing of the difference between the su-
preme object of Christian endeavour and the
instruments by which that object is achieved
than just the getting together which is so

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 93

much a feature of the reHgious life of our
time. If a man thinks that his particular
church has a monopoly on ultimate truth in
itself and some day discovers that it has not
such a monopoly he may experience a slack-
ening of loyalty to his denomination if he
does not discover at the same time the
instrumental function of the organization.
Once let him catch the force of that distinc-
tion, however, and he is likely to become
more of an institutionalist than before. He is
anxious to make his instrument the best in-
strument. Church rivalry can be a bitter
and deadly thing if we believe that churches
other than our own are not in possession of
truth and are misleading immortal souls. It
can be a very helpful thing if it leads to bet-
ter and better puttings of the truth, better
stimuli of religious sentiment, better forging
of religious tools.

But this word instrumental seems so
mechanical ! It seems to spill out so much
that is sacred I We repeat again and again
that we are not confining ourselves to the
mechanical in the use of the word instru-
mental. In our sense of the term even a
subtle sentiment may be an instrument.
Sentiment may nourish the spirit of proper
pride : it may be a very powerful stimulus

94 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

to righteous effort. We are all aware that
some classic passages of literature take on
increased effectiveness in our memories from
tender personal associations with which we
have connected them, or from an appropriate-
ness to our personal lot which lends the words
a force which the author himself never could
have foreseen. So with the doctrines and
the practices of a church. The memories
of childhood, the stir of old-time friendships,
the echo of spiritual victories won in partic-
ular denominational relationships, — all these
help in our grasp on a belief or on a practice.
We give place and honour to all this. But
after all this too is valuable just for the
human effect which it produces. Moreover
considerations of this kind should be urged
with good sense and complete sincerity.
The sentimental consideration should not
be allowed to outweigh all others unless it
really weighs more. A church member who
opposes the tearing down of an antiquated
and unsafe house of worship and the erection
of a better because of the spiritual blessings
he has received in the old building is hardly
to be commended. This principle can be
given quite a wide application.

If we look at some phases of the life of
Jesus we can best understand them as at-

THE INSTRUMENTAL IN CHRISTIANITY 95

tempts to keep the distinction between the
personal and the instrumental in His attitude
towards the Church. We have seen in the
first lecture that Jesus in His own work kept
the instrumental aspects at a minimum and
always in the secondary place. He had to
do this to get Himself understood at all.
Jesus treated the Church of His time with
profound respect, but He maintained His right
to criticize it in accordance with the demands
of personal life. The Sabbath was made for
man and not man for the Sabbath. The
scribes were entitled to the respect due those
who sat in the seat of Moses, but they needed
to know that they did not act according to
the spirit of Moses. The laws had their
place. Even tithing should not be omitted
but the emphasis should be put upon the
more profoundly human concerns of judg-
ment and mercy and truth. At an early
crisis in the life of Jesus it seems to have
been the chanting of the priests and the
flaming of the altar fires which awoke Him
to at least a deeper realization of His relation
to the Father, but He called the Temple just
the Father's house. Towards all these instru-
ments,— the Temple and the synagogues, the
readings of the law and the calls to prayer,
Jesus acted with the sole purpose to make

96 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

them mean most for men. If He could have
had His way He would not have brought
the Church to destruction, — He would have
shaped it anew and filled it with a new pas-
sion for men.

We have thus far confined ourselves to the
circle of the churchly problems. The spirit
of Jesus would prompt His followers to move
forth and make the most of the earth and all
that is therein for the good of men. The
meek are to inherit the earth and the saints
are to judge the world. We are to seek the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
in the spirit of righteousness we are to insist
upon the largest human use of all things
capable of good use. The fields of material
achievement, of scientific and philosophical
and moral investigation, of social and na-
tional and international endeavour, are to be
made the most of for humanity by the per-
sons who are filled with the spirit of Him
who came to bring Hfe to men and to bring
life more abundantly. But even such spirit-
filled workers can be most successful in do-
ing this by always keeping in sight the dis-
tinction between the things which are ends-
in-themselves and the things which are means
to those ends.

LECTURE III

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF
THE PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS

LECTURE III

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF THE
PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS

THE first problem before Christianity
as it marches out to world conquest
is to determine upon the proper at-
titude towards the world-views which at one
period and another have commanded the
assent of their times. These world-views are
in part results and outcomes of manifold
forces at work at a particular era but they
are also instruments of vision and investiga-
tion and adjustment of conduct with which
men seek to dominate the world. Whether
a maturely reasoned view prevails at any
one era or not there are at least half-views
and assumptions and presuppositions present
at all times which influence the attitude of
men towards the problems of life and destiny.
Since no age is without some such intellectual
construction by which the attitudes towards
the tasks of moral and social and racial life
are determined it is well to examine some of
99

lOO PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the greater of these intellectual lenses, and to
ask how best to master them.

There is nothing sacred about a world-
view except the use to which it may be put.
The more important conceptions which arise
from time to time all claim to be final, and
each may seem so when it first appears, but
after a while signs of change become mani-
fest. Take the theory of evolution which has
made so deep an impression on the last half
century. Probably no theory has ever laid
more insistent claim to be final truth than has
the doctrine of evolution, and this in spite of
the fact that the last word of evolution ap-
pears to be continuous movement and rest-
less change. But wisdom has come to the
evolutionists with the passage of years and
their view is now a zvorkiiig hypothesis, of
prodigious value because of the prolific re-
sults of evolutionary investigation. The in-
telligent evolutionist nowadays does not
pronounce evolutionary doctrine as in itself
sacred. There was for a season a tendency
towards a hard-and-fast orthodoxy among
the followers of Darwin, but the evolutionist
to-day feels free to make any modification
which he sees fit in this once so-sacred
theory. In the realm of theory nothing has
final sacredness. Even if we should hit upon

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS lOI

a putting of the truth which could not in any
detail be improved, even that would have
only instrumental sanctity. The thinkers
whose minds the formula might satisfy would
be the only ends in themselves.

Assured then of liberty to deal with the
theories of the universe as the demands of
our total life may prompt us, we point out
the path to mastery of world-views over
which the Church may one day move. First,
the Church cannot neglect the duty of search-
ing criticism of world-views in their more
technical phases. The opponents of Chris-
tian teaching have found some paths of at-
tack yielded too easily by Christian scholars.
These scholars have too often allowed them-
selves to be thrown on the defensive. An
anti-religious theory would arise making
vigorous assaults on the Church, and the
Church would give itself too much to the
campaign of defense. More justifiable tac-
tics would have been more aggressive. In
actual warfare a downright fighting spirit is
the effective defense. The Church has often
been scared into ridiculous panic by the raids
of theories which could not themselves, if
challenged, have given good foundation in
reason for their own existence. The war
should sometimes be carried into Africa.

I02 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

The Church is here, and the presumption is
that she has a right to be here. Before any-
opposing system is accepted in her place
that system should be challenged throughout.
When the gust of atheistic materialism which
broke over Christendom in the later seventies
had died down somewhat and the Christian
teachers had begun in turn to put questions
to the materialists, there arose an outcry
from the materialistic camp as if this were
presumptuous. But this turning of the ta-
bles is the correct strategy. Most systems
hostile to Christianity stand on shaky foun-
dations, and the Church needs to train men
who even on the technical side are able to
point out the shakiness and to do some shak-
ing. For example take the broad issue be-
tween theism and atheism. The atheist has
often shouted triumph because he has to his
own satisfaction established the proposition
that theism cannot account for the universe.
But if theism cannot account for the universe,
can atheism do any better ? This alternative
has too often escaped the attention of theists
and atheists alike. Atheism as a positive
and not a negative construction is somewhat
unstable. So with mind as over against
matter as an explanation of all things. It is
a favourite plan of attack on Christianity

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 103

boldly to declare the inadequacy of mind as
an explanation of the universe. But if mind
cannot explain, how about non-mind, or
matter ? All of this seems obvious but it is
sadly overlooked. We have many defenders
of the faith ; there is room also for assailants
of the unfaith.

Secondly, — the Church should not miss the
apologetic force of Christian character itselL
For, after all, the triumphs of the most highly
trained scientific and logical reasoners are
not of supreme moment. These victories
are seldom over the direct opponent. They
accomplish something in interesting and en-
couraging the bystanders, especially if the
bystanders are already inclined to believe.
But while most bystanders are fond of a log-
ical battle now and then, they soon weary of
such conflict. World-views are not alto-
gether established by the arguments put
forth for them, nor are they overthrown by
the assaults made upon them. Not many
persons reason much, even though they may
think they do. So that a second way of
meeting world-views which threaten the
Christian system is actually to produce situa-
tions which no sensible observer can over-
look,— to create a quality and volume of
Christian life which cannot be put to one

I04 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

side, but which will persistently come back
the instant it is pronounced banished, and to
which the world- view must ultimately adjust
itself.

A third method is more effective still, — the
utilization of whatever is good in the various
views. Regarding these systems as tools at
the best, or the worst, the Church seeks to
redeem the instruments by making the
worthiest use of '^em for the interests of
human life. The Church shows her largest
vitalities not when she breaks to pieces her
captured booty or casts it into the fire, but
when she makes it Christian, or when she
remoulds the" instruments once turned against
herself for the sake of exalting the truth which
these instruments were forged to overthrow.
We hurriedly pass in review these different
methods as applied to some world-views ; for
these methods, (i) of critical understanding
of world-views, (2) of life-protest by volume
and quality of character against what is
inadequate or unworthy in them, (3) of utiliza-
tion of what is good in them, are the gist of
what we mean by the Christian use of
intellectual constructions.

The Christian religion has relied much on
the world-view of common sense. Here are
persons and here are things, — with scant

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 105

question as to what is back either of the per-
sons or the things. Things are made of stuff
undoubtedly here. Now the sensible plan in
leading the common-sense individual as we
meet him in the Church is not to travel too
far into the domain of formal reasoning. It
seems that almost anybody ought to be strong
enough to listen to an argument which
strips " things " of their fancied all-sufficiency,
but the things seem so undeniably here that
they constitute a tough problem. The im-
mediate task is so to preach and so to foster
the living activities of the Church as to pre-
vent the things from getting the upper hand.
Why do many disciples make failure of life ?
They are not argued out of the Christian
belief, but things get into the saddle and then
of course ride mankind. The preaching of
Jesus was for the most part aimed just at
building the spirit into strength that would
refuse to be saddled.

Men who have wrought overmuch with
things may slip off into materialism, and they
may do so sincerely. The material world is
such a factor with us that the theory that
matter is all seems at moments overwhelm-
ing. We congratulate ourselves that the
battle with materialism is pretty well over,
but we would better not be too sure. Just at

Io6 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

present indeed there is less outspoken
materialism than for a long time. The
arguments for the omnipotence of matter
have become tiresome. The contemporary
materialist bores us. Our state of boredom
should not conceal from us, however, the
possibility that the materialistic argument
may almost any day receive a fresh state-
ment which will again make it attractive and
seductive. Such a statement seems about
due. Almost any one reading closely the
arguments of the materialists wonders why
they have not stated their case more strongly
than they have. Quite likely the future will
see more forceful phrasings of materialism
than any that have ever yet appeared. And
when they come what is the soundest attack
for the Church ?

One attack will be of course the insistence
upon the inadequacy of materialism. It is not
necessary to try to anticipate the reasonings
here. Quite likely they will be in substance
just an emphasis on the impotence of materi-
alism to explain the facts of life as we see
them, especially the facts of mind and knowl-
edge. But the decisive advance is from
another quarter. That is simply calling
attention to the inescapableness of spiritual
facts. If there is in existence a quality and

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 107

volume of Christian life, showing forth char-
acter in its highest growths, that quaUty and
that volume are the effective protest against
materialism. If there are multitudes of
persons obviously above yielding to the
earthward pull of matter that superiority
must be heeded. For a theory which pro-
fesses to be a world-view must at least
attempt systematic completeness. Just as
the sinner is a stubborn fact for the theist so
the saint is even a more stubborn fact for the
materialist. There is less hope of explaining
the saint in materialistic terms than there is of
explaining the sinner on a theistic basis. As
to the sinner in a theistic world we can say
that a man of his own free choice may refuse
to sanction the plans of the universe ; as to the
saint in a materialistic world we can only say
that matter has for the moment reached such
a steadiness of equilibrium that the effect
is a singularly well-ordered character. The
miracle of particles of matter balanced in this
equilibrium for ten, twenty or fifty years has
just to be taken as a miracle. But the miracle
is quite a miracle, especially when the
particles of matter may for the most part
report themselves in pain and uproar. The
greater the number of saints, the greater the
difficulty for the materialist.

Io8 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

A group of persons living superior to the
downward pull of matter is a protest against
materialism. We do not wish to speak
harshly of the materialist, but it is a com-
monplace that materialism of behaviour
makes for materialism of thought. This is
true even though many materialists are as
self-denying as ascetics and as self-sacrific-
ing as martyrs. We do not say that ma-
terialism in conduct is the only force which
makes for materialism in theory, but it is an
effective force. Anything then which offsets
subordination to the earthiness of matter
makes for the reign of the spirit. The
Church is to face the conditions out of which
materialism arises. Extremes of prosperity
and of adversity alike may conduce to ma-
terialism,— prosperity because the rich see so
much of matter that they come to believe in
the omnipotence of matter, and adversity be-
cause the poor see so little of matter that
they are constantly craving more. Espe-
cially in handling social questions is it in-
cumbent on the Church to keep before her
eyes the danger of these extremes which
breed doubt. To quote the familiar figure
the swamps out of which the doubts arise to
poison men must be drained.

The presence of good men in the world

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 109

living in protest against the lures of ma-
terialism is then a block in the path of ma-
terialistic theory. But it is not by protest
alone that victory is to be won. Protests
may thwart but they do not vanquish. More-
over the mental faculties which are in chronic
protest may not remain healthy or normal.
For example the spectacle of men withdraw-
ing from a community which has gone mad
in the pursuit of riches to shut themselves up
in monasteries would be a bracing protest
against the sordidness of that crazy world,
but it would not be altogether effective after
all. The world would go howling in derision
past the doors of the monasteries. There is
a more excellent way, even though a more
difficult way. It is often easier to be extreme
than to be moderate. It is easier to be a
materialist giving one's self up to earthly
pursuits, or to be an ascetic cutting one's self
off from physical pleasures than it is to walk
in the midst of the material world and use
that world for a righteous purpose. The
highest Christian answer to both theoretical
and practical materialism is the control of
matter in the name of spirit.

Matter is one of the apparently fixed ele-
ments of our present existence, even though
its function is instrumental. We must adjust

no PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

ourselves to matter, and the only legitimate
adjustment is that of high-minded control.
The sin of materialism is in erecting a purely
instrumental creation into an end in itself.
The Christian followers of that Lord who
while He had no earthly possessions of His
own nevertheless moved untainted by covet-
ousness among the possessions of others and
told how to use houses and lands, and of
that apostle who declared that the whole
creation, travailing in pain, awaits the reve-
lation at the hands of the sons of God, are to
seize the earth to make it bloom like the
garden of the Lord. Spiritual health is so
closely linked with earthly conditions in our
present sphere that it is hard to see how the
world could have so long undervalued the
significance of the material for the spiritual.
The materialist is using in a wrong spirit an
instrument that does not properly belong to
him. The instruments belong in the hands
of those who can do better with them. In a
word an objection to materialism is that it
does not get enough from matter. Matter
itself is degraded in the outworking of ma-
terialism ; — it is much more fortunate under
the sway of the spiritualists. In the attempt
at control of matter some indeed will come
to grief, for they will fall under the spell of

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS III

wealth or earthly power. Demas left the
Apostle, having loved this present world.
But a body of men controlling material goods
as tools for the sake of the spiritual welfare
of men constitute an argument which the
avowed materialist will find it hard to dis-
lodge.

At this juncture some one will object that
all the above is obviously unfair. The ob-
jector will protest that some materialism
does admittedly result from giving the ma-
terial things the wrong stress, but that much
other materialism comes from pure specu-
lation and splendid search for truth, that
many materialists are such sincerely, that
they have made costly personal sacrifices
for the sake of their belief. All such put-
tings of the argument as ours are not fair to
those noble explorers, we are told. In re-
joinder we repeat our disavowal of any in-
tent to represent materialists as personally
evil-minded. All that we maintain is that
the system works down and not up. We
cannot always tell what a system is by not-
ing its effects on the lives of those who first
formulate it. The character of such persons
is very likely ''set" long before they come
to the formulation of their theories. They
may not be thrown far ofi[ the track by their

112 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

own formulations. But when the theory has
been taught to others whose minds are still
plastic, the inherent logic of a false system
may be expected to reveal itself. Here
again there may be restraints which make
the adherents of the creed better than the
creed, but the ultimate trend will be in a
false direction. And even if there is not
such an outcome, the spectacle of Christian
people employing for the further victories of
Christianity the very tools which the materi-
alist has wielded against the Christian system
is illuminating.

Take the honour given to law in material-
ism. How trenchantly ** the reign of law "
was urged against Christian belief in the old
days of some thirty years ago I How mighty
the " reign of law " seems to some opponents
of the Christian system to-day ! And yet
how completely this very conception has
been incorporated into more recent Chris-
tian thinking ! When once the Christian
reasoner saw that law never could have
more than an instrumental function all his
fear vanished. While there are still some
who imagine that there is an inherent incom-
patibility between the scientific idea of law
and the idea of the presence of God in the
world the general understanding is fast

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS II3

coming to be that God works through law.
The reign of law can mean nothing but the
reign of whoever is back of the law. Of
course the materialist will correct us by say-
ing " whatever is back of the law." But
when we see discovery of and subjection to
scientific law used mightily for the advance-
ment of the spiritual faith we may be justi-
fied in demanding more conclusive reasons
for belief in materialism than any which have
yet been offered us. One inescapable diffi-
culty in materialism is just this, — that while
law may be omnipotent it was mind that dis-
covered the omnipotence, and mind in the
act of discovery goes back to its old position
of supremacy over the law. But the materi-
alist says this is too fine and far fetched.
We insist then that the materialist must con-
sider the significance of the fact that the
laws of nature are used to-day as never be-
fore for setting the conceptions of Christi-
anity on high. We are willing that the
Scriptures be studied in accordance with
scientific principles, — every reputable theo-
logical school to-day insists upon such
study ; we insist upon the investigation of
the phenomena of Christian experience by
the experts in psychology ; we declare our
purpose that the teachings of the historians

114 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

shall be applied to the study of the career
of the Church. And all we ask in return is
that the scientific student be willing on his
part to face facts when he meets them. If
there is found an eEhcacy in prayer, if the
power which was lodged in the Hebrew re-
ligion cannot be explained by the external
historic causes at work, if there is manifestly
more in the inner vitality of the conceptions
of the Church than can be accounted for by
the economic or social spirit of a particular
period, if the beliefs of the Church are seen
to be not merely effects but also causes, if
above all there is in the life of the Christ a
fountain of spiritual efficiency which ex-
hausts the customary historical tabulations
and classifications, — if all or any of these
results appear all that we ask is that in the
spirit of scientific inquirers we be allowed to
take scientific account of the findings. It is
more scientific to admit that some things
cannot be explained on the basis of scientific
principles as we now have them than to
maintain that everything must be classifi-
able within our present scientific set of
pigeonholes. In any event we shall use
what science we have with a spiritual mo-
tive. It is very well to declare that the
scientist seeks knowledge as an end in

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS II5

itself without any reference to the purpose
to which his discoveries are to be put and
that scientific knowledge is an end in itself,
but all this can mean is that there are higher
and lower uses for science. When we speak
of knowledge as an end in itself what we are
likely to mean is that the contemplation of
this knowledge renders delight to a fine type
of highly cultivated mind, rather than sup-
plies hints to some mechanical inventor.
But if the knowledge is thus finely inspira-
tional it is still instrumental, — instrumental
for quickening a mind without regard to the
commoner use to which the mind may direct
the knowledge. All our previous discussion
has been vain if we have not made it clear
that we believe in knowledge of this high
degree, and in the contemplation of such
knowledge as likely to stimulate the Chris-
tian community as readily as it will stir the
intellects of any who deny Christianity.
There is no reason why a man should be a
materialist to get the thrill which comes with
the revelations of astronomy. There is no
reason either why he should be a calculator
for a nautical almanac. He may be a be-
liever in Christianity, finding in the latest
researches into the starry marches across the
skies commentary upon the psalmist's word

Il6 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

that night unto night showeth knowledge.
He may affirm with another behever that he
is thinking God's thoughts after Him. But
whether to matter-of-fact or to rare specu-
lative desires the knowledge ministers.
With this belief in the instrumental function
of knowledge the Christian is in position to
make the utmost of the idea of law. There
are diversities of instruments. There are
hammers and hand-saws, but there are also
organs and pictures. Nothing in our con-
ception of the Christian attitude towards the
instrumental warrants the contention that we
must use instruments for any purpose lower
than that for which they are intended. The
Christian life is the life of the whole man,
and the Christian seeks for instruments
which will minister to the whole man. The
attitude of the Christian community then
towards the doctrine of materialism will be
first to ask what in materialistic theory
should be cut away and then to proceed to
cut. After that the query will be as to what
can be offset by Christian character. Most
important of all will be the question as to
what can be used for human welfare. Some
parts can be used for the material relief of
men ; some for the intellectual satisfactions
without any reference to so-called utilitarian

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS II7

needs ; some for the gratification of aesthetic
and spiritual demands of highest rank. The
utiHzation of whatever is worth while in ma-
terialism is Christianity's answer to and con-
quest of materialism. The process of con-
quest has gone far enough in our own day
to constitute a very unusual triumph. Be-
cause the conquest has moved on under our
eyes we may have missed something of its
meaning. For one marvel that investigation
begun by materialism has forced Christian-
ity to surrender, Christianity has won back
from materialism a thousand marvels.

And so with idealism, which stands over
against materialism in protest against ma-
terialism. Idealism can be just as irreligious
as materialism ; and so far as concerns out-
come in the life the extreme materialist and
the extreme idealist may join hands. The
idealist may put on a loftier air than the
materialist because he claims a nobler line of
intellectual ancestry, but that may be about
the only difference. The critical objections
to the idealism which ranks thought above
thinkers are well enough known to the pro-
fessional teachers, but most others find both
the doctrines and the criticisms so dry that
they pay little attention to them. This is no
reflection on the patient metaphysicians.

Il8 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

They have to travel through the dry places.
But the effective protection against extreme
idealism is the protest of living consciousness
against the extremes of idealism and after
that the seizure of rational idealism for the
purposes of Christianity. One danger of
idealism is a logic-chopping which reduces
the whole realm of life to barrenness ; but if
there are persons who refuse to be made
barren they are in so far an answer to radical
idealistic theory. The proof that the ideal-
istic theory is inadequate in its extreme form
is the manifestation that there is more in life
than mere ideas, and that vital movement is
more than strictly logical movement. This
does not imply a resort to the illogical, but
it does imply emphasis on the indispensable
emotional and aesthetic and volitional na-
tures. Another danger in idealism is the
tendency to pantheism and monism. Men
are but phases of the All. The decisive
counteraction here is personal protest against
being anaesthetized into any idealistic All.
If life meant no more to us than to the Hindu
we might welcome some Buddha who could
administer spiritual chloroform, but we have
been insisting from the beginning that Chris-
tianity makes the most of the individual per-
sons. Christianity develops beings who re-

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS II9

fused to be absorbed. Surrender to the
"divine thought" does not mean soul-ob-
literation. The more deeply Christian a man
becomes, the more deeply individual he be-
comes. The development of a community
of individual Christians is an antidote to the
idealism which is tainted with pantheism.
Of course the strict idealist will respond that
his system soars above all such trifling argu-
ments,— which may be true, — but before
pantheistic idealism can be convincing it
must step down from absolutism and es-
tablish some connection with workaday
notions which may indeed be relative, but
which are nevertheless real enough to those
of us who are tangled in the present web of
relationships. Incidentally the high absolu-
tists might be aided by a sense of humour.

A further guard against that pantheism to
which extreme idealism tends is the cultiva-
tion of an intense moral sense. If there is
no separateness in the individual man and if
his will cannot be called into account in any
degree for the presence of moral evil in the
world, then this moral evil must be pro-
nounced a necessary constitutent of the mon-
istic All. We unload our sins upon the All
and make him, or it, responsible. Now
Christian reflection gets on very well with

I20 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the presence of physical evil in the universe,
— and that not by ignoring such physical
evil but by frankly recognizing it and by
struggling to reduce it and by waiting for
the light of a further explanation which we
may not now be quaUfied to receive. But
with moral evil the difficulty is more serious.
If we are to have a God at all we might just
as well have a God worth while, and a per-
sonal or impersonal God of whose character
our sins are an expression would hardly be
morally worth the intellectual labour to find
Him. We say " intellectual labour," for that
is about the only path to the deity possible
to the strictly intellectualistic explorer. A
furious opposition to moral evil in the heart
of vast masses of people would at once sug-
gest the impossibility of carrying this battle
up into the Godhead of the pantheistic
scheme. Chronic belHgerency and self-con-
tradiction in the inner phases of the deity
would not be much of a fulfillment of that
craving for unity which has given absolute
systems so much of their power.

In a word this whole absolutist construction
is the outcome and expression of a demand
for unity on the part of the human mind.
The absolutist has made his absolutism ap-
pear as if it stood ofl by itself in its own

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 121

right, but whatever value there may be in
absolutism results from its ministry to men's
needs. Absolutism is related to our needs
partly as their expression and partly as their
supposed fulfillment. The entire system is a
commentary on confounding ends and instru-
ments. Thought in the impersonal sense is
an instrument. In any other sense thought
is a thinker thinking. But this purely instru-
mental creation, thought, gets around in front
of the thinker and becomes the finality in
itself. Impersonal thought has to be brought
back to the instrumental place. It has to be
led to its place and must be commanded to
sit there. Hardly any arrogance in the his-
tory of intellect has approached that of the
absolutists, and hardly any arrogance has
been less justified. The arrogance has sought
to obliterate persons in the name of the prod-
uct and output of personal life. Yet these
persons have considerable powers of protest,
— enough at least to establish for them the
claim to belligerent rights.

But the idealistic program has merits and
can be mastered for the Christian community.
On the intellectualistic side it wins room for
about the only respectable theistic argument
we have, — the argument that things cannot
exist apart from the divine thought, though

122 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the realists — old and new — are right in in-
sisting that there is in things an element not
created by human thought. If we keep im-
personal thought in the strictly instrumental
place there is value in the teachings of
idealism. In the system there is indeed that
chronic tendency to confuse thought and
thinker but this is readily detected, and once
on our guard against it we need have no
fear. The best way to conquer idealism is
to use it. For example take the claim that
nothing can exist apart from thought.
Thought relations are woven through every-
thing. This truth is sometimes so empha-
sized as to leave the impression that there is
nothing in the universe except ideas, and all
the warmth of feeling and doing are left out.
But making allowance for this one-sidedness
it is part of the duty of the Christian com-
munity to weave thought-relationships per-
sistently into the fabric of daily life. We
teach that Christian love is central in the
realm of personal existence, but too often we
make no attempt to rationalize Christian
love, or even to make it sensible. Of course
we know that in many a crisis we get light
just by taking sides, and by forcing a con-
clusion by a decision of will. It is, however,
a duty to try to bring all activities into ac-

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 1 23

cord with reason. Accord with reason may
occasionally demand that we act without a
reason which we can articulate, but Christian
sentiment and Christian activity need more
and more to be lifted from the lower plane of
impulse and to be informed with idea. Chris-
tians are to vindicate their claim to divine
sonship in the realm of severe creative think-
ing, in which realm their duty must be to
make all their activities conform to reason.
Society is harassed to-day by the preaching
that men ought to act according to their in-
stincts even if these instincts be chiefly ani-
mal. Christianity should develop a vigorous
logic with which to insist that life is not hu-
man until the activities move in the direction
of intelligence. We would not harden the
Christian life down to rigid logic of a me-
chanical stiffness, but we hold that if the
Christian life is not in the stern sense rational
it is not entitled to be called human. This
power of intellectual system building is one
of the distinctively human abilities. And if
the system does not run off into such ab-
surdity as that of putting the creation ahead
of the creator the idealism which takes for its
motto that nothing should be attempted apart
from rational principle is wholesome. Is
Christian love to be just a smiling and

124 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

amiable well-wishing and good humour ? Or
is it to be the love which seeks light of fact
and reason everywhere as to what is best for
men, and acts in harmony with that light ?
Abounding in faults as is the teaching of the
idealists, impossible as it is to " deduce " to
the extent which they claim, the idealists
may well be imitated by the Christian com-
munity in their firm insistence upon the
rights of thought. The human mind in its
daily relationships is not likely to think too
much. The average believer is not prone to
become enough sickled o'er with the pale
cast of thought to be in peril when he listens
to idealistic speculators. And moreover the
tendency to materialism in one shape or an-
other is so inevitable at all times that most
of us are helped by an idealistic bath quite
frequently. The pressure of the world of
things is so unrelenting that the perusal of
the most extreme idealism sometimes serves
well as a counter pressure. And so long as
we keep our eyes open and do not bewilder
ourselves into fancying that we are face to
face with absolute finality we shall do well to
resort to the idealistic philosophers now and
then as veritable means of grace.

Some storm-battered intellects, having
made the rounds from common sense to

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 125

materialism and then by reaction to idealism,
find themselves at the end in agnosticism.
Others arrive at agnosticism by a different
route. Agnosticism is with some just intel-
lectual weakness or weariness. The mind is
tired out so that it cannot believe. In con-
fronting such agnosticism the Christian
leader will attempt to tone up the whole life.
A distinguished scientist used to say that he
always felt a tendency to agnosticism when
the currents of his life began to run low,
and that he would find his way out by read-
ing the greater poets, or by listening to the
hymns of the faith, or by reaching out for
closer fellowship with dear friends. Some
agnosticism is the outcome of spiritual starva-
tion, though we use the terms without re-
flection upon the character of the agnostics
themselves. They may not be to blame for
the dwarfing experiences through which they
have passed. But in helping such impover-
ished souls the soundness of life in the
Church itself should be an aid. The whole
life of the Church ought to be so quick and
stirring as to arouse life in others. The posi-
tive note should be ever ringing. The stu-
dents of Christian thought in recent years
have done much for us in demonstrating
that the experiences on which Christian opin-

126 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

ion depends rise and fall with the rise and
fall of the vitality of the inner man ; hence
the more reason why everything about a
Church should suggest vigour. This can only
mean in the last analysis, of course, the vigour
of the persons who compose the Church.

Much fluent criticism of the Church falls
to the ground as soon as we realize the effect-
iveness of the Church in thus creating the
conditions out of which belief arises. A
writer in a very reputable magazine devoted
quite a stretch of space recently to the con-
tention that the Church must stand or fall
with the answer to an inquiry put to this
particular correspondent by a newspaper re-
porter who pulled forth his note-book to take
down the answer, — the question being :
*' What is the Church doing that I can report
to my paper ? " Every few days somebody
raises the same sort of interrogation. In our
hesitation before the question we may yield
ourselves to a momentary feeling of distress
because we forget the different meanings of
** doing." The word may mean just those
actual achievements of aggressive campaign-
ing which a newspaper would be likely to
*' play up " with catchy head-lines in a daily
issue. The most important events cannot
thus be played up. That from one hundred

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 12/

to a thousand people assembled yesterday at
a service which in song and prayer and ser-
mon was forceful with unanalyzable power in
creating the conditions out of which belief
grows is not news in the technical sense.
The present speaker happens to be ac-
quainted with the work of a metropolitan
preacher whose sermons seldom abound with
direct demolitions of unbeliefs or even with
exhortations to detailed duties. The minister
is a man of abounding spiritual, intellectual,
and physical vitality. Those who hear him
for thirty minutes on Sunday are caught in
the momentum of that vitality, — or rather
they are for the moment drenched with the
life of a man who can fill other people with
his own vitality. This sort of service does
not make newspaper copy except occasion-
ally, but the good work goes on not occasion-
ally but continually. Ask a man why he
goes to such a church and he may reply
vaguely that the service makes him feel
better, — at which the scoffer may smile, but
out of that "feeling better" comes a firmer
belief and a completer freedom from doubt.

The best reply to the doubter is the pres-
ence not so much of beliefs as of believing
persons. Agnosticism should be met by
Christian daring. The venturesomeness of

128 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

faith, especially when it leads to expanding
and improving life, is the reply to the doubts
of the times. The theoretical objections to
the possibility of walking are solved by walk-
ing. The objections to belief are solved by
believing. The believers who attain to life
by their belief are the actual facts that make
doubts difficult. If Christianity ever loses
this quality of magnificent daring it will cease
to be the Christianity of Christ. The belief
in God, the belief in men, the belief in the
possibility of filling the whole world of men
with the spirit of Jesus, — these are the bold
ventures which show forth the daring of
Christianity. Hope grows by its own exer-
cise. The persons actually at work at the
relief of world-wide heathenism or at the
redemption of cities and nations from civic
evils, do not seem easily discouraged. If
now such persons were clearly becoming
more and more erratic, if they were all
cranks and visionaries, we might say that
their faith draws them out of touch with the
realities which centre around sanity. That
word '' sanity " is badly overworked, but we
probably mean by it a living union with the
forces which are normal and healthy and
human. The mass of missionaries and social
workers, those facing the most discouraging

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 1 29

tasks, seem to be highly sane. Common
sense might seem to impel them to quit their
tasks and go home, but the most sensible
seem to stay longest on the tasks, and the
ones who give up in despair are those likely
to develop aberrations and eccentricities.
The queer missionaries are those who have
abandoned the field. Most of them are back
at home. The aberrant social reformers are
not the heroes of the battle-line struggling
with vice and squalor.

But let us hasten to remind ourselves that
there is a place in the Christian community
for a spirit of agnosticism which is at bottom
faith, — the faith of willingness to leave some
problems unsolved, with confidence that the
results can be left in the hands of the Father
in heaven. If we get at the cause of agnos-
ticism in some persons we may find it to be
the reaction from too extensive claims to
knowledge either on their own part or on the
part of some believers with whom they have
been associated. Take one theme very im-
portant to us all, — the belief in immortality.
Many Christian believers in immortality do
not say much about their belief, and that for
the reason that they do not wish to seem to
assume more knowledge than they possess.
They feel convinced of their essential im-

I30 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

mortality as sons of the Father, but just how-
to construe the conditions of eternal life they
make no claim to know. They say frankly
that they do not know. There is no data
upon which to frame even an opinion. All
that we have is so clearly pictorial or else so
utterly drawn from a world-view which has
passed away, like that of Dante's or Milton's
splendid imaginings, that we say that we
have no knowledge whatever in the exact
sense. Now this is a sincere and reverent
and Christian agnosticism. It is the agnos-
ticism of faith and not of doubt, for the
believer is entirely willing to leave the out-
come in divine hands. He does not profess
knowledge which he does not have. And so
with scientific or formal proof of even the
fundamentals of the Christian religion. We
have no proof of the existence of God w^hich
will make any one believe whether or no,
without a venture of faith. Kant once said
that the wisdom of the Almighty had been
shown us quite as much in what had been
withheld from us as in what had been
revealed. We shall get on best by conceding
the limitations of our mental instruments.
Some who think of themselves as agnostic
are not really so. The Christian minister, in
dealing with doubters, should proceed very

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 131

carefully. It may be that the man who is
outside the organizational fellowship because
he doubts is a more intelligent, or more
reverent, or more believing disciple than
some who are within. Some within may not
question because they may not be over-
supplied with the instruments for questioning.
There is a sphere in Christian experience
for legitimate suspension of judgment. The
simple recognition of this will keep some
from leaving the Church because of supposed
agnosticism, and will certainly aid in correct-
ing the misapprehensions of those who resent
this or that claim of the believers to knowl-
edge to which no one may be able to show
tide.

There is an intellectual current to-day
towards a theory which may well seem at
first glance to be just what Christianity needs
for its final apologetics, — the theory of per-
sonalism. There is indeed in this doctrine
much which is in common with Christian
thinking. We can employ this present day
conception with much effect for expositional
and explanatory purposes. But current per-
sonalism stands sadly in want of correction
by Christian doctrine. It is not as yet a
system. Some of its most able expositors
teach that individuals exist from all eternity ;

132 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

some set individuals out in such independ-
ence from a Creative Person as virtually to
deprive God of power of creation and leave
Him just the Bigger Person among us smaller
folk ; some push the doors open for a riot of
individualism, — and all leave their exposition
at rather loose ends. The existence of the
Christian brotherhood should point to the
possibility of a community of interest and
endeavour which will curb the lawlessness of
the riot of individuals. Personalism is usually
professed by those who have wearily tramped
through materialism and idealism and have
come back to themselves and others like
themselves as the facts of the universe. So
far so good, — but the differences between
persons and the need of the improvement of
persons are often overlooked. Christianity
has an opportunity with this latest phase of
opinion in insisting that the people of the
world are the ends with whom we have to do
and in making the most of the world for the
persons in the world.

Somewhat similar criticism must be passed
upon pragmatism. Pragmatism is more a
protest than a system, and in the main it is a
healthy protest. But the moment a man sits
down to frame a system as a system he is
dangerously near having to admit that there

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 133

is something in the world beside immediately
practical interests or else he would not be
sitting down to study. Of course the prag-
matist will reply that he is trying to make
his thought so clear that any one can see that
the final test of truth is in its practical result.
But we could get along with much less expo-
sition of pragmatism to-day if its aim were as
matter-of-fact as it professes to be. The truth
is that the pragmatist to-day is busy at the
same ideal that has drawn on all the other
fashioners of systems, — he is trying to satisfy
the purely intellectual cravings by self-con-
sistent formulations as truly as is the believer
in absolutism. Tell a pragmatist that his
system is not logical and he gets excited.
But if the aim is merely pragmatic there is
no reason why the pragmatist should be
particularly logical. Daily life can get along
without much logic, if the strictly practical
result is all. Of course if the presence of
contradictions annoys us, that is a different
afiair, — and possibly a purely intellectual
afTair. We must then be strictly logical as
we prove that logic does not matter, or
logically industrious to prove that we have a
right to be logically lazy.

The difiFerence between pragmatism and
the Christian doctrine of knowing by doing is

134 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

in the order of results sought for. The Chris-
tian demand is for the very highest order of
results. The consequences by which truth
is indictated in the Christian view are the
consequences in the range of the highest
and best. The whole man in the loftiest
activities must be ministered to, but in
pragmatism which does not care much for
anything except pragmatism itself, the move-
ment is apt to slip towards the lower con-
sequences. Pragmatism must lock the brakes
to keep from sliding down hill. What is
agreeable to life depends upon whose life is
under consideration. Without some high
ideal pragmatism as a test of truth amounts
to little. Savages or barbarians or Chris-
tians might alike use the scheme with differ-
ing results depending upon the differing
driving ideals. Of course it will be under-
stood that we are not professing to criticize
pragmatism from the more technical point of
view. We take it simply as a means for the
discovery of truth. If now we make the
truth mean the highest life for the believer
we can use the pragmatic principle. The
truths of Christianity lie peculiarly in the field
of moral test ; with other sorts of tests we
have not now especially to do. But there is
no path to the discovery of specifically Chris-

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 135

tian truth but by moral venture. The result-
ing consequences, in the inner as well as the
outer life of the whole man are the charac-
teristically Christian witness.

We have passed in review these schemes
of speculation more for illustration than for
any other reason. There are other spectacles
for looking at the universe besides the ones
we have mentioned. But enough has been
said to show the function of Christianity in
dealing with world-views. We aim to create
a set of spiritual facts which any open-eyed
observer must take into account. If a world-
view itself is important it must not miss so
important a fact as the Christian system.
And the facts of the Christian system must be
kept dynamic and personal. The conflict is
not so much between conflicting world-views
in themselves as between different manners
of life. Again, the difference between the
life nourished by one sort of belief as over
against another may not be altogether due
to the difference in the quality of the contents
of the differing views. All that may be re-
quired to make a hitherto unchristian system
essentially Christian may be just a better
emphasis. The scientific instructor who
teaches the farmers how to work their fields
more profitably does not necessarily advise

136 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

them to throw away the tools which they have
always used and which their fathers used
before them. It may be that the slightest
change in adjusting the handles to the plow
will cause all the difference between a tool
that works beneficially and one that works
harmfully. Or, in another sphere, a lens
which now does nothing but distort may with
the least turn of a screw give an exact image.
Or a food that now almost poisons may lack
just a little of one ingredient or have too
much of another. Or the atmosphere may
be that of too low an ah'-jde, or it may
sweep across a disease-laden swamp. So in
the utilization of the world-views. The
Christian attitude is not critical until reason
for criticism appears. When such reason
appears it is fortunate if we are able to lay
the finger precisely upon the objectionable
spot. To do this is the function of the trained
thinker. But with the objectionable feature
away, and the whole righdy focused, and the
good rightly appropriated the kingdom
comes to its own. World-views may de-
termine the believer's atdtude towards even
the details of daily conduct. How important
then that these instruments should be seized
and redeemed. Swamps can be redeemed
by draining and wild lands by cutting of^' the

CHRISTIAN USE OF PHILOSOPHIC TOOLS 137

ranker growths. After this they may become
the most productive soils. So with some
ways of looking at the universe.

An old time writer once found reason to
marvel at the universe because it was estab-
lished upon the floods and founded upon the
seas. The world to him was a wonder of
balance, — the dry land resting steadily upon
a surface of water. The psalmist's concep-
tion of the world has passed away, but not
his reason for marvelling at the universe.
Only, our thought is not of a standstill stead-
iness but a steadiness of direction in the
midst of a sea of changes. The system of
Christian beliefs is like a ship which holds to
her course and gets ahead in spite of some
rolling. The balance of the ship is shown
not in never yielding to the waves, but in
never capsizing, in an inevitable swing back
when she has rolled far to one side. There
are discomforts in such travel, but we ad-
vance best by letting the ship roll. Better
rise and fall with some ocean swells than to
try to cut through them. Both the pitch
and the roll may help us forward. That ship
is the best instrument which best gets us
ahead.

LECTURE IV
ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN

LECTURE IV
ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN

A

FURTHER field to be occupied by
the Christian Church is that of moral-
ity. This seems like a wofully com-
monplace statement on its face but what we
mean is that the field of moral theory and
practice is not to be permitted to stand apart
from the Christian religion as an independ-
ent realm. Of course we expect the Chris-
tian believer to be moral as a matter of
course, but we feel also that the Christian
capture of the kingdoms of this world cannot
be complete until this world's morality is
made Christian in root and branch.

The kingdom of moral theory and practice,
operating entirely on its own principles and
without reference to religion, is a dreary ter-
ritory. It has from the beginning lacked
freshness and verdure. Reading a course in
formal ethics is like travelling across a desert
with the difference ,that we are not likely to
happen upon an oasis anywhere except per-
141

142 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

haps that of the charm of an occasional
author who is not quite dried up. Moreover
the man who starts out to be professedly and
outspokenly a " moral man," apart from any
bracing or reenforcement by religion, too
often tends towards woodenness without
much magnetism. The unreligious moral
man never can understand why he is often
dealt with slightingly by the professedly re-
ligious people. They sometimes speak of
him indeed too harshly, as if he were a sinner
above all others, whereas he may not be a
sinner at all. But he is dreary, especially
when he falls to discoursing on morality.
He insists that he has no underlying assump-
tions of a religious cast ; he believes in right
for right's own sake and hates a lie just be-
cause it is a lie. This sounds well enough
when we first hear it, but it speedily becomes
tiresome.

The reason for the weariness is not far to
seek. The academic moralists have esteemed
their systems as self-sufficient and their for-
mulas as ends in themselves. They have
put the cart before the horse, — a performance
which is sometimes interesting but which
usually prevents rapid travelling. The
phrases which the moral theorist manipulates
mean little apart from the vigour imparted to

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN I43

them from full-lived human beings. The
professional moralist does not immerse him-
self in the currents rushing through the ac-
tual world often enough to keep his theories
from evaporation. Impersonalism clings to
moral discussion like a pest. The progress
of moral reflection has threshed out some
good terms which have proved indispen-
sable, but the tendency is to allow these to
become sufficient in themselves and to stiffen
into the impersonal.

Consider the more important terms. Moral
theory necessarily has much to say about the
''chief good." Here the tendency is espe-
cially likely to set towards impersonalism.
One thinker declares that the chief good is
virtue for its own sake. But what is virtue
in the abstract? We would say more if we
said that the virtuous person is an end in
himself, or the chief good. Moreover a vir-
tue which might not result in making life
happier would not be worth while. A mor-
alist who realizes this declares that the chief
good is the sum of human happiness and
that it is the object of the moral man to in-
crease this sum. This looks promising till
we try to get to close quarters with it. Sir
Frederick Treves once estimated in terms of
hours the sum of pain banished in a given

144 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

time by the London hospitals. He calculated
from the amount of anaesthetics and sedatives
consumed, and announced the hours of relief
from pain that the specified quantities of
these drugs would render. This is possible
of course with an approximate accuracy, but
nothing so exact would be attainable if we
tried to get at a sum of happiness. For then
all the qualities of persons have to be taken
into measurement. Of course there are dif-
ferences in pain, but there is more nearly a
common element in pain than there is in hap-
piness. Neuralgia is very much itself where-
ever found, but a happiness varies. The ex-
hortation to add to the sum of human happi-
ness ordinarily forgets that there is not
pleasure or happiness in the world but
pleased and happy persons. As soon as this
is recognized of course the inclination is to
the idea that the chief good is the good man,
but here too we have to be on our guard lest
we manufacture an abstract man amazingly
unlike any one in the houses or on the
streets, — a much less agreeable creature than
was even the economic man who stalked
with such stiff steps through the pages of the
older writers on the political sciences. We
cannot make anything out of the conception
of the chief good until we come to the good

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 145

man but we must bring the good man close
enough to actual life to keep him human.

Another term of the moralist is our old
college-days' friend, — the categorical impera-
tive. It would be difficult to push anything
along in ethics or anywhere else without
some kind of imperative, but impersonal im-
peratives soon lose their *' drive." The term
has to be reenforced by personal life. As
soon as the categorical imperative becomes
not some supreme command outside of us
standing in its own authority but just a de-
mand of whole life growing in the direction
of what seems to be highest and best we be-
gin to obey gladly, but not before. The real
imperative is that of an appetite or a crav-
ing. We have heard of the saint who be-
came perplexed over the idea of God and
finally gave up the idea, being convinced that
there is nothing higher in the universe than
the abstract principle of right. Of a wor-
shipful and reverent temperament he con-
tinued his prayers but directed them not
towards God but towards the abstract prin-
ciple of right Soon this saint found his way
back to reliance on a personal God. Inci-
dents like this here and there recorded in
biographies of worthy spiritual leaders are
often misunderstood. It is easy to conceive

146 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

of such an incident as a tribute to a moral
conception in itself. As a matter of fact the
story proves nothing so clearly as the mo-
mentum of a good life which, though dis-
tressed by momentary doubt, swung on
through a prayer addressed to an empty and
dead abstraction back to a normal religious
health.

Then there is the term ** intuitionalism."
But whose intuitions are meant ? The in-
tuitions of the man long practiced in moral
uprightness may be reasonably sure, but
what about the intuitions of a less mature
man or of a weak man, or of one whose life
has been marred by immorality ? Of course
we can say that even these persons should
live up to their moral intuitions, but suppose
they are in the majority and try to impose
their faulty intuitions on the rest of us ?
Even in their own case how far can we con-
tinue to allow them to do themselves moral
harm by following the intuitions of their un-
tutored or unhealthy consciences ? Utilita-
rianism comes in to help us out with a behest
that we regard the consequences, but whose
utilities after all are most to be regarded ?
If we take account of inner consequences, —
the consequences which accrue inwardly as
well as outwardly to the man striving to live

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 147

aright, intuitionalism and utilitarianism would
be about equivalent to each other. But
neither of them is of surpassing value until
we ask as to whose intuition and whose
utility. So with common-sense morals.
What does this give us until we know whose
common sense we are to follow ? We run
through these terms of moral discussion
which, we repeat, are indispensable, — to
show that they are not worth much until liv-
ing persons give them living content. In
plodding through the discussions of the mor-
alists we are in a plight somewhat similar to
that in which we find ourselves in reading
the debates of the scholastics. The sub-
stance of the debates of the scholastics is not
precious. There is too much beating of old
straw. But the scholastics did build fairly
some good threshing machines. That is to
say, they developed some very serviceable
instrumental terms ; their terminology has
value to-day. So with moral theory. The
terms are good, — but they must not be taken
as important in themselves. They are in-
struments to be handled by moral beings
who are the ends in themselves.

It is not the purpose of this lecture, how-
ever, to discuss moral theory. The intent is
simpler. We wish to show how the moral

148 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

life can be made much more attractive and
moral theory much more vital by keeping to
the front the human interests and meanings.
And we begin by remarking that it is the
duty of the Christian community to force
uppermost the demands of the usual and ordi-
nary rounds of life as of chief importance for
the development of moral character. Moral-
ity must be kept near the earth. We know
what harm has been wrought in religious ex-
perience by allowing persons, especially
young persons, to acquire the notion that
religious experience consists in unusual
states of feeling. We err when we pick
out the instant of rapt insight and the mo-
ment of exalted uplift and make these the
heart of religion. These may indeed be the
heart of religious experience, but only if they
have come out of experience of another order,
— the experience of daily practice of right-
eousness. So with the moral duties. These
are not to be found largely in the realm of
the unusual. The duties in time of ship-
wreck or of war or of martyrdom have little
to do with the problems which we meet day
after day. About as speedy a route as any
out of the living contact with the world in
which we live is to make such imagined situ-
ations the topic of much moral discourse.

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN I49

The reply that in such unusual settings the
jewel of the moral principle is displayed most
advantageously is of slight worth. Much
more light on the extraordinary situation is
likely to come at the proper time to him w^ho
has been faithful in the daily moral practice.
The Christian community must not get away
from the insight of its Founder. The daily
tasks are the important tasks ; these have
the right of way as lying closer to actual
human life. The moral duty is to freshen
these daily relationships by stimulating them
with noble purpose. What is the profit of
wrangles over that threadbare inanity as to
whether a He is ever justifiable as compared
with incessant practice of integrity in the
customary duties ? The only extraordinary
we need trouble ourselves with is not some-
thing standing apart from the ordinary, but
something lifted above the ordinary by the
operation of the same laws as those which
control the ordinary. If the extraordinary is
not this it is just a freak set of happenings
without bearing on the moral career. Chris-
tianity is to make morality more personal,
closer to human existence, nearer the earth
on which most of us walk. We might well
take for our motto in this field the sanctifica-
tion of the ordinary. We may learn some-

I50 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

thing here from that method of modern in-
struction of children in the schools which be-
gins with the facts nearest home. In geog-
raphy, for example, the child is taught why
the street in front of the door is located where
it is. What principles are set forth by the
slope of the land towards the stream just out
of the village ? The principles which deter-
mine the value of real estate even on the
small scale are substantially those which
guide nations in their scrambles for new
territories. The law of good will comes as
near standing in its own right as any law in
the moral kingdom ; but the training of
youth is not best secured by teaching the
law of good will towards abstract or sup-
positious beings. Sound instruction begins
with the obligations towards the neighbours
or the playfellows. We must deliver our-
selves from bondage to the abstract and
unusual. The concrete and the usual com-
prise the sphere for moral training, and this
emphasis on the usual is peculiar to Chris-
tianity.

A further way to prevent morality from be-
coming unhuman is to keep one's eyes ofi
one's self. A man does not realize ideal
character by seeking directly after character.
We have said so much about the need of de-

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 151

veloping ideal life that some may think that
we advise a man to set himself before himself
as the true aim. We intend nothing of the
kind. There is an indirectness about suc-
cessful moral conquest, — that is to say, about
that of the man who here and now attracts
us as the kind of person we should like to be.
Woodrow Wilson once remarked profoundly
that character is a by-product. He meant
that men do not attain character by march-
ing out deliberately to attain character. The
successful method is to lose one's self in a
task ; and the character grows as an inevita-
ble accompaniment. If we should ask a
man why he gives himself to this or that
activity and should get the answer : " To
develop my character," we would put the
man down as a prig. The outright cultiva-
tion of character may be more desirable from
the point of view of systematic moral theory,
but it is not the path by which virtue arrives.
He who would save his life must lose it.
Here we reach one of those odd moral para-
doxes which so abound in actual experience.
We have been preaching that the good man
is an end in himself, but the moment a man
begins to set himself up as the end he begins
to dwarf himself. We shall have more to
say about the social sphere of righteous en-

152 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

deavour later, but here we point out the
futility of moral theory which preaches to a
man to develop his character ! Even in the
preaching of the Gospel it is possible to
make a hearer think too much about his own
spiritual state. The unfailing sign of the
presence of the Spirit of God in human life
is absorption in the worthy task. When the
mind begins to turn inward upon itself the
symptoms of aberration may appear. Intro-
spective morality is not quite human. It
would seem part of the plan of the universe
that a person is to contemplate himself just
as little as possible. Even a mirror helps but
slightly, for a man seldom catches himself as
he is, and the clearest reflective surface does
not give back all the truth. Moreover there
seems something providential in the fact that
a man after gazing into the mirror goeth
away and straightway forgetteth what manner
of man he is. Soiled faces and tumbled hair
call for mirrors but there is small place in a
healthy moral life for introspection. The
less of it the better. The simplest observa-
tion reveals that a man is seldom himself
while thinking of himself. The singer can-
not sing, the player cannot play, wdth the
hateful question as to whether he is doing
well or ill ever before him. Nor can a man

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 153

do well towards developing the life which is
the goal of Christian morals with the ques-
tion as to how he is doing always uppermost.
" Forget it " is often sound advice to a man
of good intentions worried about his search
for character.

The Christian teacher can render further
service by showing that in actual experience
many questions can be argued forever and
that if we would keep the moral field fresh
we must not debate everything to dust.
There is an inherent indeterminateness about
many moral problems. We get on only by
moving the previous question and by taking
a vote. We have to assume the responsi-
bility for action and then act. We may not
be able to tell what lies before us but we
go ahead nevertheless. The frontiersman's
motto that when in doubt we are to go ahead
is bad advice if we have not sought out the
course as far as we can. If we go ahead be-
fore we have done any scouting the advice
is bad, but there is in some cases no better
advice for the moral life, if the preliminary
exploration has not brought back any definite
report. In living moral experiences we have
to break many paths. This is to be done
with a consciousness of responsibility but it
is to be done. There is no more unhealthy

154 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

moral state than that of constant debate. It
will not do to argue some questions. Even
to raise them is to open the door of the pit.
And just to raise some other questions is to
lose a sacred opportunity for beneficial ac-
tion. We cannot have everything explained
to us beforehand. Thus it happens that
some great leaders, when after their success
they are complimented on their reach of
vision as if they had seen the end from the
beginning, avow that they did not at all see
the end from the beginning. They took the
next step with the light they had and they
came out aright. Or if they failed they had
the satisfaction of knowing they were doing
their best and then tried as quickly as pos-
sible to get back to the right path. The
statesmen would be a hypocrite if he should
pretend always or often to have foreseen just
what the unfolding years actually have re-
vealed,— for it is a peculiarity of human ex-
perience that we can see just a short distance
before us. In some situations the past sheds
but feeble light. We cannot tell what to do,
but we do nevertheless. This enables a
species of moral reasoner to rail at the mass
of human conduct as immoral, or unmoral.
It may be so, but this is the only way we
advance. We feel it incumbent on us to get

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 1 55

ahead, — to get ahead, that is, towards the
ideal human state which should mark those
who are developing into the likeness of the
divine. The explanation of the success of
men who have gone ahead without formal
reason for their advance is this, — that out of
the doing of the right the whole life itself has
begotten an intuitive sense of moral direc-
tion. Just as the woodsman develops a feel-
ing of direction in the dense forest when he
cannot see the sun, and just as many men
have a sense of time which enables them to
tell within a few minutes the hour of day
without looking at a timepiece, so the doers
of righteousness acquire a discernment that
the true course is to one hand or the other
without being able to tell just why they think
so. They might debate forever without be-
ing able to say more than this. Now if this
is intuitionalism it is the intuitionalism of the
persons who have had the most practice in
the development of the right sort of intuition.
If we are to keep the realm of morality hu-
man we must see that realm as it is. There
is no justification for laying claim to fore-
sight here which we do not have elsewhere.
We do not shut our eyes and go ahead, — we
open them and go ahead, — but that does not
mean that we always see very far. To any

156 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

one fully alive, however, this is part of the
charm of the moral career, — this appeal to
moral venturesomeness, not indeed the ap-
peal to see how close to evil we can steer but
the appeal to discover how far we can get
towards the result which seems to us most
worth while. The sphere of moral advance
has the same charm and lure that other
spheres of advance have when they are en-
tered by those who carry not a set of formal
principles good for all time but who carry a
consciousness of the needs of persons to be
satisfied by moral progress. In some courses
we have attained to certainty. In other
realms we are just beginning to be moral.
The average man would be astounded and
perhaps scared if he could now behold the
morality of the future. We are beginning
to catch foregleams of the future, especially
in the realm of social activities, which are
disquieting to some persons, but which sum-
mon others with a thrill as of the discovery
of new continents. Genuinely human mo-
rality is always in the making. Conduct
which was once regarded as innocent enough
may be seen after a while as evil. The in-
sight of the seer becomes through the expan-
sion of intelligence the common property of
the masses, — and wide-spread moral advance

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 1 57

results. It would be better if we would all
keep this developmental, evolutionary aspect
of morality in mind, — especially if we discern
in ourselves the tendencies to loftiness of
spirit as we give ourselves to abstract moral
contemplations. Men whom we sometimes
pronounce immoral may not be consciously
so at all. They may be excellent as far as
they go, but they may not go far. We are
under obligations to help all such see the
light, but not as if we had completely at-
tained or were already perfect. From the
point of view of the conduct which may
mark the life of the years just ahead of us,
we may to-day be sorry spectacles. And
this same reflection ought to give us a his-
toric moral sense in contemplating genera-
tions earlier than ours. A brilliant social
student recently wrote a book showing that
the framers of the constitution of the United
States were interested in the capitalist class
and that the constitution is in the light of its
origin a capitalistic document. The main
point is of economic and political value and
the author himself would have been the first
to admit the social wisdom of the founders
of the constitution in their time. But some
of the reviewers of the book speak as if we
now had clear proof that the fathers of the

158 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

nation were the chief plunderers of their day
and generation. As a matter of fact what is
high social righteousness in one generation
may be of doubtful propriety two generations
later and clearly wrong two generations later
still.

A still further freshening of the moral field
is through taking the whole man into our
plans. We have to live with men as they
are and they are much more than appears in
any single putting-forth of their activity.
For example we hear to-day that if we can
only get people to know the consequences of
evil we shall turn them from evil. Nothing
could be more mistaken. The assumption
that the increase of knowledge will of itself
increase moral power is far from the track.
It is just a fractional truth, — or a truth based
on a fraction. A man is appetite as well as
knowledge and his knowledge has to be
very compelling indeed to keep him on the
right path, if his knowledge alone is to be
depended upon. Perhaps this overempha-
sis on knowledge comes just out of the peda-
gogical necessities of the situation, — it being
necessary to make some minds think of a
truth as the only truth if they are to think of
it as true at all. But if we conceive of a man
as a creature to be reached solely by inform-

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 1 59

ing his intellect we make grievous mistake.
The knowledge of the dire consequences of
an evil does not necessarily make the evil
itself any less seductive. We have an in-
stance of this inadequacy in the present-day
emphasis on instruction in sex hygiene as a
preventive of sexual immorality. No doubt
much sexual sin does come out of ignorance,
but there is wide-spread temptation in this
quarter which cannot be met by increase of
knowledge. The men who know most of the
consequences of sex transgressions are not
always those who avoid the transgressions
most determinedly. Such men, caught for
example in the clutches of disease, are often
the very first to find their way back to vice
as soon as the disease is alleviated. The
training of the whole life, including the will,
is more significant than the training of the
fraction of a man. Fractional moral training
is not over successful in any event and soon
leads to weariness and disgust.

Of equal inadequacy is the assumption
that this or that man can be trained apart
from his fellows. We are reserving the
larger social questions for a later lecture, but
we must here comment on the futility and
barrenness of trying to upbuild lives in an
unreal and strained isolation from other lives.

l6o PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

We have said that when we attempt this we
bend the mind inward upon itself — compel-
Hng the will ultimately to spring back in re-
bellion. The law of good will is empty for
us except in fellowship with companions and
fellows. The path of the cross is still the
path of life. Better for me to suffer with
comrades than to enjoy myself alone. We
advance not by minding each the affairs of
himself but by minding the afTairs of one an-
other. And we help one another by making
a social climate in which some temptations
die out. Take the basic virtue of truth-tell-
ing, which seems to be a peculiarly individ-
ual virtue. There must be some one to
whom the truth is to be told, and truth-tell-
ing rests on the assumption that the mem-
bers of society are in the main in an attitude
of good will towards one another and that
men are entitled to the truth from one an-
other. Suppose, however, that this funda-
mental assumption is mistaken, that the
social condition is war on every man's part
against his fellow, that every man is trying
to cheat every other man. In such social
atmosphere the moral notions become dread-
fully perverted. The highest praise for the
youth of fifteen is that he lies like a man of
fifty. No one feels that he can afford to tell

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN l6l

the truth. So with chastity. If the social
atmosphere breeds impurity the most vir-
tuous in intention have to fight the down-
ward pull. Society must furnish the condi-
tions of morality. At least the general moral
sentiment must be such that men can afford
to be honest and virtuous.

And yet in this emphasis on the social we
have always to remember that each man is
a problem in himself. Each bears within
himself at all times the mark of his own sep-
arateness, and that separateness must not be
smothered under a blanket of too general
moral law. Making men moral comes after
while to be an intensely personal affair best
left in the hands of those who know their
acquaintances best. It is for parents and
teachers and pastors and friends rather than
for professed and professional moralists.

The intention of all that we have thus far
said has been to show that morality must be
freshened by being made personal. We can-
not take any system as an end in itself and
expect to become righteous by exalting that
system. What we must exalt is the persons
who desire to become better persons. From
what we have said it is easy to see that the
trouble with much morality is that it lacks
not ideas but power ; there is too often a

l62 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

failure in dynamic. The function of the
Christian religion is to supply the moral ma-
chinery with energy. The power can come
only from the Christian persons, and the
Christian persons can help mightily by
preaching to the world the secret of Chris-
tian forcefulness.

We have said that energy does not spring
primarily from knowledge. But when knowl-
edge becomes operative and incarnate in
men the knowledge takes on at least a degree
of force. Take the force of some of the
Christian ideas as an inspiration for the moral
advance. We have seen that the end of
moral endeavour is human life in all its
higher possibilities. But what is a man?
How can a moral thinker say that it makes
no difference for morality how we answer ?
It may make no difference for morality con-
sidered as a set of abstractions, but it ought
to make vast difference for morality con-
sidered as an affair of lives. We speak of
moral development, but has moral develop-
ment to do with the limited space of the
earthly years, or has it an eternal race to
run ? A lie is a lie, and all good men should
hate a lie, but not all men are good. The
core of the difficulty is to help men to be
good enough to hate a lie. We have not

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 163

much of an inducement to tell the truth if we
are to believe that the universe is itself a lie.
If we exist in a world which arouses our
fondest hopes only forever to blight them, if
it ties us to dear friends only to mock us at
the last with the revelation that we shall see
them no more, if it ultimately reduces every-
thing" which we regard as ideal to the dust,
the universe itself is rather a huge liar. The
idea of putting myself out to avoid telling a
lie in such a universe may approach the
ludicrous. Of course we know that this
manner of remark stirs a certain type of
moralist to fury, for according to him we
ought to love morality for its own sake.
We can admit this duty and yet maintain
that the progress of persuading a majority of
the people of the world to protest against a
lying universe by themselves telling the truth
and by standing for the truth is not hopeful
on the basis of disregard of what the relation
of the universe may be towards upright con-
duct. For when all is said the potent ques-
tion with the average man concerning the
moral struggle is : '* What's the use ? "

The Christian meets the question : *' What's
the use ? " by the doctrine that a moral God
controls a universe which is but the expres-
sion of the divine purpose. The believer

l64 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

does not offer this as a proposition which can
be proved. He does not affirm that we can
go out and gather scientific data which will
demonstrate the morality of the universe, but
he does spread this belief over his head as a
part of his intellectual sky. He avows that
he finds light in that sky. Now the shining
of light is not always capable of proof. It is
not capable of proof to one who is blind or to
one who will not throw open his windows or
step out into the sunshine, or to one who will
not open his eyes. But light is the prerequi-
site of almost everything else. When the
Master told His disciples that they were to be
the light of the world He seems to have had
in mind their relation to the moral conduct
of those who were to follow their leadership.
They were to put a light in men's sky.
When the blind lead the blind both fall into
the ditch, — and that in spite of the earnest
intentions of the blind leaders to keep out of
the ditch, and in spite of the most intense
desire of the blind followers to be kept out
of the ditch. The light makes possible the
moral life. The precepts of the moral law
are fine instruments, but they have only a
limited application if there is not light enough
in the sky for us to use them. The Christian
doctrine of God brings light. The universe

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 165

may not be all that men have claimed for it
in relation to human needs. We may pos-
sibly some day find, for example, that the
world has other purposes than merely those
which have to do with human inteUigences,
but anyhow the world is usable by us and we
can feel at home here. The revelation of the
Christian religion shows us that the world
belongs to our Father and that the earthly
part of the world is one of the many man-
sions of the Father's house. God is a moral
being, and our moral insights are but gleams
of the light and hfe which are in Him.

President Eliot of Harvard once said that
the first step in the moral development of
children in a well-ordered home is to get the
children to respect the father of the family.
Respect should always underlie love. The
Christian doctrine of God creates respect for
God. This world is not altogether a nursery.
It is a place where many of the children of
God are beyond the nursery stage, and de-
mand justice and righteousness in God's
nature, as well as love. The revelation in
Jesus is a pledge that the moral obligations
which are binding on us are binding also on
God. God is under the heaviest of bonds,
— which He has had no desire to escape.
There is suggestiveness in the remark of an

l66 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

old saint who once declared that the revela-
tion of the divine purpose in Christ is neces-
sary to satisfy God's own self-respect. The
remark may be a trifle overbold, but few
reverent remarks of this sort are likely to be
overbold. As soon as there are prophets or
seers who can glimpse anything of the moral
purpose of God it would seem that God is
under obligation to let them know His pur-
pose. If there were no other persons beside
God Himself that would create one sort of
moral problem. God would then be under
obligation only to those moral laws which
express His own inner nature, in other words,
only to Himself. But the moment other be-
ings of moral intelligence are brought into
existence the Creator is under obligation to
come into moral communion with them. He
cannot stand aloof and refuse to do this and
maintain His own self-respect. Why did the
saint say this ? Because he knew that a man
could not give himself to such a refusal and
maintain his self-respect, and self-respect
must mean more to God than to man. The
Christian revelation is of a God whom we
can respect and trust. There is no hard-and-
fast proof of the existence of this God, and
this is what the moralist may have in mind
when he says that strict morality cannot go

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 167

outside the realm of the actually known. He
declares that strict uprightness cannot delude
itself or bolster itself up with beliefs just be-
cause their consequences happen to be bene-
ficial.

Abstract righteousness is never more dis-
tressingly unhuman than when it climbs into
this lofty attitude ; and from an unhuman
position it often leaps over to an inhuman
one. *' We must be absolutely honest," de-
clares the abstract moralist. And indeed we
must. But we must not fancy ourselves
honest when we spill all the human values
out of life. There was once a very small boy
who when asked the time of day never felt
that he could reply that it was ten minutes
past twelve, or any other exact minute, be-
cause the hands were moving, and that
therefore he could not honestly say that they
were at any one place. The boy would reply
that the hands were passing from such figures
to such other figures. Though this boy ac-
tually lived on earth he was hardly human.
A normal human being is satisfied if he is
understood in his intended meaning, for
language is an instrument and as such has
communication of thought for its purpose.
The abstract moralist who believes in mo-
rality on its own account and declares against

l68 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the dishonesty of holding fast to beliefs in
God which we cannot prove will never do
much for the cause of any type of morality.
If we made claims for Christian belief differ-
ent from those we do make the case might
be different. The present lecturer cannot be
persuaded that the Christian is not honest
when he makes the frankest distinction be-
tween what is known as objective fact and
what is assumed on faith. In the Christian
doctrine of God we are admittedly in the
realm of belief. We avow as heartily as did
Kant that there is no formal reasoning which
will give the God of Christianity as the con-
clusion, to be known as we know that the
square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled
triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of
the other two sides. We would remind the
abstract and highly honest moralist that all
the truths which can be known in this strictly
logical procedure are about as momentous as
this mathematical proposition. We refuse to
be put at a disadvantage by this objection
that our religious knowledge is not strict
knowledge in a w^orld where we cannot get
anywhere without assumptions. After having
made our assumptions we affirm that the idea
of God thus assumed does satisfy our total
life better than anything else we have ever

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 169

found, — it satisfies intellectual and emotional
and volitional demands. We ought to be
competent witnesses as to whether our de-
mands are satisfied or not. So where does
the dishonesty come in, except that we use
the word '' knowledge " when the moralist
thinks we ought not ? We use ** knowledge "
in the sense of faith experience ; and in ordi-
nary human speech such use is permissible
if anything is. We are pointing out the only
normal dynamic. We say that the light on
morality comes from belief in God, — not
scientifically demonstrable or logically de-
ducible knowledge of God ; and we point to
the Christian community of persons as them-
selves proof of the justice of our belief. If
we find that believing men become better
men, better fathers and brothers and sons
and husbands, better citizens, better members
of the commonwealth, we declare that this is
precisely the result at which we are aiming,
and we hold fast the beliefs as aids to this
Tightness of conduct. We would not go so
far as to attempt to explain the results of be-
lief in detail on this or that individual, but we
do maintain that on the whole and in the
main this is the result which follows sincere
entrance into the body of Christian believers.
As instruments Christian beliefs are superior

lyo PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

to the formal precepts of abstract morality.
If there is any risk in accepting the funda-
mental beliefs of Christianity we are willing
to run the risk.

Much follows as implication from the Chris-
tian doctrine of God. The universe must be
under a law substantially moral. Moreover
if men are sons of God the confidence in
immortality becomes at once potent in Chris-
tian circles. And now again the formal
moralist breaks out upon us because we
bring in immortality to bedim the pure moral
motives of men. The moralist will have it
that men cannot be moral when they are
looking for pay for their virtue. In quoting
thus from abstract moralists we are not quot-
ing from straw men to whom we are attribut-
ing ready-made objections which we proceed
to knock over. Men, — and famous men too,
— have actually urged and are urging this
type of objection. It is an interesting com-
mentary on the moral state of some of these
moralists that they can refer to life in terms
of pay or reward when they find the desire
for immortality so especially selfish. If the
main current of life here is selfish there could
be legitimate objection against continuing
the opportunity for selfishness, but even the
most detached of closet reasoners must surely

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 171

have seen the unselfishness of much life ;
they must have seen men delighting to serve
and asking for a chance to serve forever. In
what sense it is selfish to long for a chance to
work for the highest and best forever does
not appear. By the way, if the honest ab-
stract moralist wants to be absolutely honest
let him cease claiming impersonal immortality
as immortality. The abstract moralist avows
that he believes in immortality, but not
personal immortality. The influence or the
value of our lives is immortal. But im-
personal immortality is not what ordinary
speech means by immortality.

The desire for immortality is the desire to
claim the whole universe as the moral sphere,
to insist that God has righteous purposes for
men which stretch beyond this present life, to
offset the ironies and mockeries of earthly
existence not so much by punishing some
people and rewarding others in a spectacular
readjustment as by vindicating and satisfying
the instinct of the normal conscience for
justice. The hard lot of this or that man
may not count much with the sufferer him-
self. He may have made a stoic adjustment
to it so that the hardship has ceased to
trouble him, but the moral bystanders are
not satisfied that any life should be unjustly

172 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

treated forever. And these bystanders have
some rights. We desire to live in a world
where righteous law rules throughout. We
are like the spectators of a play or the readers
of a novel. We wish the plot to " end right."
We are not happy with a poor ending. The
characters portrayed are not the only ones
concerned. We onlookers are concerned.
Our sense of fitness demands some con-
sideration ; and so we wish the universe to
end right. We can work better with the
expectation of the right ending. If some one
convinces us that there is no immortality for
men we shall give up the belief, but until
thus convinced we shall hold fast to the
belief. The belief morally agrees with us.

A foremost abstract moralist once burst out
with contemptuous impatience on John Henry
Newman on account of Newman's ability to
persuade himself of the truth of religious
beliefs because of their beneficial results.
Newman's capacity for belief seemed to out-
rage this strict moralist, but the comment of
the critic would seem to show scant insight
into the process by which men attain to
spiritual certainty. Moralists of a type seem
to cling fast to their creeds because of the
very disagreeableness of the beliefs, or un-
beliefs. We find a saint now and then who

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 1 73

seems to imagine that the more disagreeable
a call to duty the more surely it must be
from God. So with some teachers of
morality. The less of human value there
seems to be in their systems the more the
adherents seem to prize them. It is at least
as rational to accept beliefs because they
make us contented as to accept them because
they make us miserable. The abstract
moralist is of all men most impotent when
asked to suggest a dynamic for the enforce-
ment of actual morality. When the dis-
tinguished moralist to whom we have referred
as criticizing Newman himself became
alarmed at the spread of lawlessness in this
country he made the suggestion that singing
be more widely taught in the public schools,
since singing has obviously a soothing and
tranquillizing effect !

We come back to our avowal that in mak-
ing morality vigorous we must put a sky
over human life in the form of teaching
about God and man. If men are sons of
God the whole problem of duty towards our
fellows pushes into new force at once. Since
we are under obligations to be kind even to
the beasts of the field no doubt we ought to
be kind to men even if their career is to be
as short as that of the beasts ; but human

174 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

kindness is one duty if it is just an attempt
to meet the commoner needs of men, and
quite another if it is an effort to call forth
the transcendent dignity attaching to men as
at least possible sons of God. The con-
demnations of Jesus were for the inhuman
who were inhuman just in overlooking op-
portunities to be human. Dives may have
been a pretty good sort of fellow. He may
have been an agreeable companion and a
hospitable entertainer, but he overlooked
responsibility to Lazarus. Dives in the sec-
ond part of the Master's picture is about the
same man as in the first. Very anxious
that his brothers should not come into the
place of torment, and very willing that Laz-
arus should be treated just as a convenience
to carry water to him and to go and warn
the brothers of their danger ! The persons
condemned in the Master's picture of judg-
ment were not those we usually pronounce
bad. No violent offenders are in the list,
but those who have not treated men as men
come under condemnation. What is God ?
The answer carries with it the answer to,
what is man ? — and what is human life ?
With some light on these questions we take
a long stride towards a dynamic for mo-
rality.

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 1 75

But we remind ourselves that we ourselves
have been teaching that light is not enough.
Light is the indispensable prerequisite, but
men can stand in the full light and not move
towards the moral life. We must have an
appeal which stirs the heart. Emotion which
is sheer effervescence is nothing ; but emo-
tion which bursts out of ideas and impels to
action is everything. Feeling which comes
with the full light and which acts in the light
is full of might.

The revelation in the cross of Christ has
always appealed to the heart of man. An
experience most apt to arouse us to repent-
ant gratitude is to become aware of some
one's patience towards us in spite of our own
waywardness and wickedness. In one de-
gree or another the cross makes us realize
our cost to God and our debt to Him. The
love of God for us is laid bare. The Son of
God will meet the death of the cross to
show us how far He will go in holy love for
us. We must never cease to remember that
all theories of the atonement are so many
attempts on the part of successive genera-
tions to say that God has done whatever
must be done to win us. God has done all
that He can do. Whatever our theory, or
whether we have any theory or not, this is

176 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the aspect of the cross on which we agree, —
that we have here the revelation of God's
willingness to do all He can for us. Then
our moral desire is aroused to do all we can
for the sake of Christ. " For the sake of
Christ " is on some lips a cant phrase but it
has in it the secret of Christian effectiveness.
We take upon ourselves His cross because
it is His cross. The dynamic is especially
powerful when we are face to face with the
obligation to help some men as they actually
are, for men are not always attractive in
themselves, even though we are labouring for
them because of what they are and may be-
come. Suppose we take unqualifiedly the
dictum that we are to sacrifice ourselves for
men just because of what men are in them-
selves. Looked at apart from the Christian
revelation men are not always winsome in
themselves. We say of them that they have
their future in the life which Christ can im-
part to them. For the sake of Christ, and
of the vision of men which He gives us, we
move forward undismayed by men as we
here and now find them. The practice of
self-sacrificing morality becomes rather cheer-
less if it does not base itself on the view
which Christ took of men and on the cross
which He was willing to carry for their sake.

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 1 77

But there is more still in the Christian
dynamic, considered merely as centre and
source of power. There is that belief in the
Spirit of God as the Helper that sustains the
members of the Christian community as they
in their turn strive to help men. The Spirit
is indeed the Helper. Men need to be reas-
sured that their blunders are not fatal ; that
if they fall, they- can get up and stumble on ;
that in time of stress they can feel their
powers reenforced from within. Here we
are in the realm of a fact as scientific as any
which the laboratory affords. The members
of the kingdom of God may be mistaken as
to the assumptions on which they pray, but
they can hardly be mistaken as to whether
they get help from prayer or not. The most
saintly among them say that they would soon
be lost in the moral struggle if it were not
for the reenforcement in prayer.

The fact that many well-meaning persons
think they get on smoothly enough without
prayer is not a suf^cient rejoinder to the
Christian's claim that he is helped in prayer.
Many persons get on after a fashion without
living up to hygienic or sanitary laws, be-
cause they do not know what life would be
if they lived more in accordance with those
laws. Many ignorant persons say that they

1 78 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

get on well enough without books, — simply
because they do not know what is inside of
books. The higher the life rises the greater
the need of prayer to maintain that balance
and poise which mark lofty saintliness.
Some Bible readers cannot understand the
temptations of Jesus, for example, simply be-
cause those temptations move in so rare an
altitude. The temptation to surrender to a
gross bodily appetite is intelligible enough
to all, but not so the temptation to seek a
short cut to win the mind of the nation. To
steady Himself in the heights where He lived
Jesus avowed His dependence upon prayer.
Moreover the worker for the relief of men
needs reenforcement against the moral wear
and tear that come in the process of the
moral work itself. It is possible for a man
to be morally worn out in the very perform-
ance of Christian duty. There is a tendency
to fall away from the ideal, to yield to the
spirit of compromise, to become lost in the
details and to forget the personal and spir-
itual aim of the work. And there are subtle
considerations entering into the achievement
of the highest morality which escape the eye-
sight of the coarser-grained. There is an
element of timeliness in Christian effort which
requires a keen moral discernment. Some

ON. MAKING MORALITY HUMAN 1 79

duties are duties just for a fleeting instant.
The word is to be spoken or the deed done
just now, if it is to have moral value. Or
the problem of the wise placing of the life
activity is before one who wishes to make
the life count for the most. Or there is the
problem of the true Christian manner. Some
deeds must be done in just the right manner
to have value. Jesus said : " Take heed how
ye hear." '* After this manner^ pray ye."
These are the fine considerations on which
light breaks only for him whose intuitions
are continually subject to the inflow of the
life from belief in a personal Father in
heaven.

And how much greater the need in the
lives of those who have been bound with
sin ? What can abstract moral principles do
with the man who has been literally reared
in sin, — in that he has been surrounded by
evil conditions from birth ? For such a man
especially, *' ethical culture " without refer-
ence to change in the inner purpose by spir-
itual purification and reenforcement is lam-
entably inadequate. With those whose
moral experience is conventional routine
there may be no deep feeling of contrite
need. Some persons are held to a measure
of moral life by the conventional morality

l8o PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

around them. They act about as their
neighbours do, — and that satisfies all their
demands. But ** ethical culture " goes to
pieces in any heartrending spiritual crisis.
Suppose the Salvation Army should throw
aside the Gospel for the abstract precepts of
moral culture. It is the aim of the Salvation
Army to make men better morally, — espe-
cially in the commoner moralities. The Sal-
vation Army could well afford to let its ap-
peal for approval of the community rest on
what it has done for the actual improvement
of particular persons, but imagine the Salva-
tion Army soldier talking to the dazed wretch
in the gutter about moral precepts alone.
There is needed the inrush of a new life.

Once more the moralist breaks out that
such doctrine interferes with a man's moral
freedom, that such sentimental religion creates
a fierce psychological and emotional storm
which sweeps everything before it but which
cannot be fundamentally moral. We may
be permitted to dismiss this objection in
view of the fact that the reformed man him-
self interprets the experience in personal
terms. The new life which has rushed in
upon him he believes to be the love of a
Person who cares for him ; and his obliga-
tion towards that Person is a personal debt.

ON MAKING MORALITY HUMAN l8l

The Christian Church must freshen the
moral field. That field, at least in its theory,
is Hke a tract of earth which has the proper
soil constituents but which lacks just one
requisite, — water. The rains must fall, or the
rivers must be carried to the dry acres.
Christianity does not add greatly to the list
of moral precepts. The ethics of Christian-
ity are not so very different from the ethics
of some other systems, but Christianity can
irrigate the ethical soil. She does so in the
personal methods which we have been at-
tempting to describe. And Christianity
must succeed at this. Failure here is fatal.
We know how deadly becomes the criticism
directed towards a church organization when
it appears that the organization itself is get-
ting away from the path of rectitude through
concessions to the spirit of the world. The
invisible body of true believers may always
be moral but the organization of this or that
sect may be tainted. Having care for her
own life it is the duty of the Church to bring
moral life to the world, to teach that all
phases of experience must be made subordi-
nate to the law of good will, to proclaim a
moral love which is for the last man. More
and more acts are to be brought within the
scope of moral duty. More and more per-

l82 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

sons are to be reached with good will. More
and more even the instincts and desires are
to be trained towards the highest expressions
as second nature, and so far as possible as
first nature. But always, always, always the
Church is to remember that morality is to be
stated in human terms. Out of human lives
are to flow the streams of living waters
which are to irrigate the precepts and the
laws and the systems in which men record
their moral insights. And the systems are
never to be made ends in themselves. If
they are outgrown by the uprush of the life
of righteous persons they are to be amended
or supplanted. In every case and at all
times they are to be looked upon just as the
instruments by which the growing life of the
persons of the Christian community is helped
towards completer humanity. The persons
are to move freely among the systems and
quicken them into fruitfulness and fragrance
by the freshness of life itself.

LECTURE V

ENDS AND MEANS IN
SOCIAL ENDEAVOUR

LECTURE V

ENDS AND MEANS IN SOCIAL
ENDEAVOUR

WE have been careful not to speak
of society as if it were literally an
organism, but we must reckon
with the truth in the figurative characteri-
zation of society as an organism. The
actual fact is persons existing together, —
and we doubt as to whether persons could
be persons and exist apart from one another.
We are not instruments of one another : we
have studiously avoided speaking of persons
as if they were instruments. We are more
nearly parts of one another, though without
merging into one greater self with conscious-
ness of its own. This mutual interdepend-
ence is as much a fact as is the separateness
of the individual. We say that around each
self stretches the " unplumbed, salt, estrang-
ing sea," and we all know how justly the poet
sings. We think of ourselves as islands cut
ofE from one another by deep abysses, or as
185

1 86 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

spheres thrown together touching one an-
other only at points. But we must not so
exaggerate this isolation as to forget that
the sea however deep and salt is navigable,
and that at the points where the spheres do
touch there can be much interchange. The
hermit withdraws from society to live alone,
but he carries on his meditations in language
taught him by society, — language which is
a purely social creation and instrument.
The cynic rails at society, — with society,
through its faults, more before his gaze than
anything else. Men never have lived apart
as solitary individuals ; and it is increasingly
certain that they never will. We are mem-
bers one of another. It has always been so,
and it will always be so.

Now out of these social cohesions come
diversified instrumental creations. We have
seen that the basal fact in the family is the
cohering group itself, — father, — mother, —
child. Dealing wath this group we have
agreements governing marriage and child-life
which express formally the ideals as to the
family. These are instruments for the control
of the family relation. There are other
social facts, such as coalitions into religious
and political and industrial and state and
national units. The fundamental in every

ENDS AND MEANS 187

coalition is the individuals with their mutual
affinities. We are not just now to discuss
the foundations of political science but we find
around us commonwealths and nations whose
laws govern these widest provinces of social
activity themselves and in greater or less
degree control all other groups within their
borders. Just what is the constructive factor
in nationality we do not pretend even to
guess. Of course the bottom truth is the
united group of individuals but how much is
natural and normal in a given nationality
and how much artificial and accidental ?
Enough now to recognize the fact of com-
monwealths and to proceed to discuss the
relation of Christianity to the wider social
activities. We are thinking of nations some-
what like our own, where there has been at
least measurable progress towards democracy,
where the ultimate authority is through one
organ of expression or another the authority
of the people themselves. Democracy can
work even through monarchical framework,
— as in England. Taking national groups,
or groups which we call the states of a
federation, we try to hint what Christianity
should attempt in the shaping of the forces
which make for general social advance in
such groups. Especially are we inquiring as

l88 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

to the possibilities of suggestion along the
path most explored to-day, the path of society
towards larger industrial control. We need
not remark that our discussions are simply
for purposes of illustration by one who can-
not lay claim to special and technical infor-
mation, but who draws upon knowledge
common to all to set forth general principles.
Industry seems especially apt for illustration
because industrial problems are just now so
much before the states and nations and
because the earning of livelihood is so
inherently important as demanding the
largest division of the time and effort of the
average man.

In spite of all this, however, we may en-
counter the impatient glances of many who
declare that the religious teachers should
keep out of this province, that the pure gospel
is a gospel for the individual, and that the
only plan for social regeneration is to labour
for the regeneration of individuals. To all of
which we subscribe, — but we see no prohibi-
tion here for those who declare the duties of
Christianity in the social activities. The laws
of society are the instruments through which
society works. Though all depends on the
man behind the instrument, that man cannot
do much with the instrument unless he knows

ENDS AND MEANS I89

something about it and the purpose of its
creation. Good intentions are not enough ;
study of the social tools is indispensable.
Instruments aside, however, for the present, —
our modern understanding is that an agent
is wherever he ac^s. The theologian tells us
that the omnipresence of God means that God
is acting upon all parts of the universe, and
is where He acts. However it may be with
God we can see that a man is where he acts,
and that he is responsible for his activities at
their farther ends. I shoot an arrow in the
air and it falls to earth I know not where, but
if it strikes any one in its fall the consequences
may be prosaically unromantic for me, for I
am responsible. I, so far as concerns moral
merit and demerit, am where my activity
reaches. I may sit in the pew and pray for
the conquest of all parts of my nature by the
spirit of the Lord, and I do well ; but I must
not forget that the large part of the answer
can only be the Christianization of my acts
towards those whom I meet in my daily
occupation. If the earning of my living
consumes the major part of my time six days
in the week the chances are that the chief
opportunity for my personal sanctification
will lie in those six days. We seek of course
the transformation of the world by a trans-

I90 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

formation of the individuals in the world but
we are not so foolish as to imagine that these
transformations can be wrought by spiritual
exercises which touch only a fraction and that
a small fraction of the doings of the individual.
There is something worth thinking about in
the homely axiom that when you get a man's
money you come near getting the man, and
the observation may not be at all cynical.
The most of the ordinary man's mental effort
is in the making of the money ; the most
significant stress of his moral endeavour is
there. If we are to neglect this sphere of the
individual's activities it would hardly seem
serious to pay attention to anything else.
We repeat our bit of metaphysics that a man
is where he acts and we avow our belief that
Christianity must touch all his acts.

And now another objector reminds us that
we cannot reform men from the outside. He
would have us treat this problem thoroughly
by digging deep down within men's souls.
We protest that we are doing our utmost to
press this entire debate into the inner realm.
But when our friend tells us that we cannot
change men by changes outside of them, we
beg leave to amend. All depends on what is
outside of them. The material environment
may be the chief outside factor, in which the

ENDS AND MEANS I9I

chances for inner change of the man living
under the domination of the environment
may be good or may not be. We remark in
passing that some men do not have very
great chance to be good in the material cir-
cumstances in which they are placed and that
if they could have change of circumstances
their moral prospects would mightily im-
prove. This aside, however. What is most
potent outside of the man whom we wish to
transform may be another man or other men.
It may be that his employer is the irresistible
feature of his environment and that his em-
ployer is unjust. It may be that those with
whom he daily associates are the forces out-
side of him that keep him down. It may be
too that some of these outside persons are
within hearing of the gospel of industrial
Christianity and by change of inner spirit
these environmental persons may take the
first step towards inwardly transforming the
man whose activities they so influence. So
we shall try to hold fast to the personal and
inner aim.

Now as to the laws of a social group.
Men living together in groups have to make
instruments which we call laws. These laws
are unmistakably the artificial creations
through which the group works. The laws

192 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

have tool sacredness, — that is to say, they
are valuable for what they can do and are to
be regarded by men as sacred. But they are
never to be hoisted to a pedestal to be wor-
shipped as if they were ends in themselves.
And their importance, vast as it is, is not to
be overestimated. All this seems so obvious
as to require apology for uttering it, until we
begin to cast about to discover what is the
actual situation. Then we find two ex-
tremes,— an extreme of lawlessness on the
one hand and of idolatry of law on the
other. At one extreme are men in rebellion
against all law. At the other are those who
speak of law as if it were above all things
else holy.

The Christian view lies between these ex-
tremes. Laws are instruments and not ends
in themselves. The only ends in themselves
in a society of persons are the persons.
Christianity stands against that lawlessness
which is riot, and does so on the broad
ground that the persons of society never can
prosper until order reigns. For the same
reason Christianity stands against mistakenly
sanctifying the law ; — for persons are sure to
suffer as soon as the laws are lifted up as
more sacred than men. There is altogether
too much reason to suppose that in democra-

ENDS AND MEANS 193

cies like ours the law is exalted harmfully by
some who may profit by such exaltation. It
is possible for financial or political interests
to get control of laws for their own purposes,
and to fortify themselves behind the ramparts
of the sacredness of the law. In such event
it is to be remembered that the law is a tool
and that much depends upon who wields it.
It is to be judged by what it does, not by
what its framers thought it would do, not by
what it once did, not by what it might con-
ceivably do under some other circumstances.
The entire system of laws, or the entire box
of tools, is far from perfect and has no right
to honour as more sacred than other instru-
ments of social expression. There is no
place in the Christian program for disorder-
liness but there is every place for the control
of the law itself. Society has to protect it-
self many times by throwing a veil of sacred-
ness over laws, by claiming for them a holy
sanction and surrounding them with awe-in-
spiring sentiment. But their sacredness is
the sacredness of what they do. No differ-
ence how extensive the claims for sacredness,
— it is hard to treat as sacred an instrument
which accomplishes a wrong result where we
looked for a right one, or for an instrument
which is hopelessly awkward and bungling.

194 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

However, injury by such a law is not to in-
cite us to riot. It is simply to incite us to
better laws. The cure for a poor law is a
better law.

What now shall be the position of the
Christian community towards the laws of the
community ? The ideal of the Church is to
transform society not by instructing society
in detail as to what laws to enact but by fill-
ing society with a just appreciation of the
goal of all social endeavour. Law is but a
social agreement to act in a specified fashion.
We have found out how to get together in
social activities, and either through repre-
sentatives or through more direct agencies
we agree to act according to particular rules,
with the understanding that the recalcitrants
who will not thus act must be compelled to
act with us, at least to the extent of not vio-
lating the rule. Towards every law there
are probably three different grades of re-
lation in a community. There are those who
are morally ahead of the law. They do not
need the law, any more than multitudes of
persons to-day need the enactments against
murder and theft. If such persons were to
fashion laws at all they would legislate in a
lofty realm which might not even be in-
telhgible to their neighbours. Next there

ENDS AND MEANS 195

are the main masses for whom the law is a
serviceable guide, and a wholesome agree-
ment. After that are those who find the law
above them, but who from compulsion or
choice nevertheless obey the law. It is well
for the Christian reformer to remember all
this. Doing so he will consider laws as the
expression of how far we can go or what sort
of tool we can manufacture at a given date,
and not as a final utterance sacred in itself.
The trouble with too many reformers in their
speeches about imperfect laws is that they
cannot modulate their tones. They must
either keep still or scream, and nothing ex-
cept an alarm is ever intelligendy uttered in
a scream. So the reformers scream out
against inadequate laws as if we who ob-
serve such laws look upon them as ultimate
ends in themselves. We simply regard
them as the instruments which we must use
until we can create something better. Only,
—we are trying to proceed in decency and
in order. While the Church cannot regulate
the details of legislation it is her duty to
preach more and more the instrumentality of
these social contrivances and the sacredness
of the human life to which they minister, and
to live out into life a spirit which will sooner
or later find its way into the code. Some

196 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

ideas are actual instruments which society
uses for offense and defense. Some ideas
are the wholesome food upon which the
social body thrives. Some others are the
impalpable air which society breathes. It is
the business of the Church to work at the
social problems from the top down, or from
the bottom up, helping shape the tools aright,
preaching the worthiest ideas, and above all
living into the social atmosphere the spirit of
good will.

Here it may be well to speak of a charge
sometimes brought unjustly against the
members of the Christian communion in
their relation to admittedly imperfect social
systems. The critic declares that the Church
denounces evils in the present political or in-
dustrial or social system and then accepts
the advantage of these evil conditions her-
self,— that if the Church is sincere she should
stand unsmirched from all such profit. There
is occasionally some validity in this criticism.
To take the most extreme case imaginable, —
suppose a Church should profit by the rents
of disorderly houses at the very moment she
was preaching the gospel of social purity.
The contradiction would be too glaring even
for invective. But some evils are affairs of
the whole of society and nothing can be

ENDS AND MEANS I97

done until practically all act together. It is
scarcely fair in such case to rail at the mem-
ber of the Christian communion for not do-
ing as an individual alone what can only be
done by a large majority of the people act-
ing in concert. For illustration let us take a
political doctrine which at present is not live
enough to divide us into hostile camps, — a
suggestion from the free silver agitation of
some twenty years ago. Here is a member
of the Christian community sincerely believ-
ing that the gold standard is wrong, — mis-
taken not merely as to expediency but
morally wrong. He sees in it a device for
robbing the debtors to enrich the creditors.
Now what shall this Christian do ? Shall he
individually refuse to respect the ratio be-
tween gold and silver established by the
market at a particular date ? Shall he de-
clare that as long as his money holds out he
will receive silver in exchange for gold at
the ratio of sixteen to one instead of, say,
fifty to one? This might be high morality
from this point of view but it would be folly.
He might better recognize that a ratio in
currency is something about which a whole
people have to act together. He would bet-
ter put up with the system for the time being
and spend what money he has publishing

198 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

his theory to others whom he may influence
towards the desired reform. So with even
larger issues. Each of us discerns faults in
the social order, but we cannot directly
remedy them alone. All we can do is to
proclaim our gospel and wait for the ripen-
ing of the understanding of the people.

But we must come to the illustrations of
the working out of the difference between
persons and instruments in the industrial
sphere. It will be understood of course that
we are simply laying down general prin-
ciples, with no attempt whatever to take
sides on current debates. We begin with
that social instrument which we know as
private property. The ideas of private prop-
erty have been hammered out through count-
less centuries. The result has been that many
have come to regard private property as more
sacred than life itself. We often hear it said
that property rights are more widely re-
garded than human rights. Now we have
no cure-all for social ills ; but we must, if we
are to control the social movement, keep
human rights inscribed on our banners. In
spite of all misunderstandings to the con-
trary there are no widely-accepted social
programs to-day which would do away al-
together with private ownership of property,

ENDS AND MEANS I99

though some would most radically limit the
extent of such ownership. There is small
danger that the institution of private prop-
erty will be overthrown. But there is ever-
lasting need of emphasis on the instrumental
nature of private ownership. Wealth is a
tool, and nothing more. As an instrument
it is of value. It often is a determining
factor in deciding whether a man shall have
a chance to make himself moral and spiritual.
The crushing materialism of masses of men
is the materialism of no materials. They
have not enough matter to give themselves
anything more than material existence. They
have so little of the things of this world that
the struggle for things and the craving for
things consume altogether too much of their
strength, — consume all of their strength. If
it is materialism for the rich man to be pon-
dering so much on his houses and lands that
he has not time for the intellectual or moral,
it is materialism for the poor man to be com-
pelled to think so much of his lack of houses
and lands and even of food or clothing that
he has no energy for the intellectual and
moral. The cure for this materialism of
poverty is more matter. Wealth as an in-
strument is prodigiously efftcacious. The
Christian community must keep this doctrine

200 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

constantly before the people. Beratings of
wealth will not avail. The value as instru-
ment must be recognized, but the value must
stop with the instrumental. The community
has just as much right to undertake modifica-
tion in the institution of private property as
it has to undertake modifications in any other
social instrument whatsoever. The only sa-
credness of property rights is the measure of
sacredness which may attach to the use of the
rights. There is small danger of confisca-
tion, but there is likelihood of change, in the
rule governing private property whenever
the institution works towards social harm.

Take the private ownership of land. What
is the basis of this ownership ? Simply the
good of the most men, — good of course in
the highest sense. If the community should
arise and forcibly dispossess the holders of
the land the confiscation would not be good
for anybody concerned. Centuries would be
required to allay the bitterness thus engen-
dered. But some changes for the better might
be adopted without confiscation. The com-
munity might be expected to adjust relations
so that society as a whole would have more
enjoyment from the land. Land is an instru-
ment, and social welfare depends on the right
use of the instrument. It is to the interest of

ENDS AND MEANS 201

society as a whole to say how land shall be
used or perhaps, rather, not be used. The
secret of the strength of the modern move-
ment towards conservation of natural re-
sources lies in this, — that the treatment of
land is the affair of all of society. Of course
the owner of the land may say that the land
is his, — but that is not the final pronounce-
ment. It may not remain his if he does not
use it aright. Riding some time ago through
a section of the country far distant from here,
the present speaker came upon a district
where mining enterprises were being carried
on by turning over the top of the earth to a
great depth. What had once been a fair
valley was fast being transformed into heaps
of gravel. The gold was washed from the
gravel and the gravel thrown over the land.
Now it is obvious that when land is once
treated after this fashion there is no further
service to which it can be put. It has not
even landscape attractions. In this particular
corner of the earth's surface the harm done
may not be considerable as compared with
the value of the gold secured. It may be of
more consequence to society to have in cir-
culation the gold washed from that under-
surface gravel than to have the top preserved.
But we could not consent to such mining

202 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

over large ranges of the earth's surface, no
matter what the supposed rights of private
owners might be. We must think of the
good of the community. So with the use of
rents. When an owner owns land and then
moves from the land, subsisting entirely upon
the rents from the land without any labour of
his own, we can justify the conduct only by
showing that this rent instrument is never-
theless a good instrument. If the persons
benefited by the rents are in some way render-
ing service to the community, if they take
their unusual opportunities seriously and
utilize their income to make themselves
socially worth while, the rent instrument will
be tolerated. But such a system is always
on trial, and unearned incomes have been
back of just about as many revolutions as
any other single cause in history. The
seizure of vast estates in the French revolution
was not confiscation in the ordinary sense.
The receivers of the rents were not showing
themselves socially productive, and they
were dispossessed. Society has at crises
fallen back upon its right to dispossess land-
lords, just as landlords have fallen back upon
a right to dispossess tenants. This is not
an alarmist cry. There is no danger in this
country of a wholesale casting out of land-

ENDS AND MEANS 203

owners, but there is need of the landowner's
recognizing his enormous obligation to be
serviceable to society.

When we come to the ownership of the
huge tools of capital the same standard must
be kept uppermost. What is the best for
men as a whole ? Society has made possible
these tools, notably the transportation
systems, which could not exist if it were not
for the masses of persons living in com-
munities. The community is largely the
creator of capitalistic values. Now the
question as to who shall own these tools
depends altogether upon who can use them
best. We can discuss this with all calmness
just now because nobody is in immediate
danger of robbery. If the community ever
takes over the tools of capitalism it will
probably take them over on fair terms.
Communities in our day have not shown
much disposition to be unfair in these respects.
When we say " own " we ought perhaps to
say control, but the control of some of these
instruments is in such few hands that the con-
trol amounts to ownership. Will the con-
cern be more productive under one type of
ownership than under another? Will the
rights of all parties be subserved as carefully
under one system as another ? Will the

204 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

realization of *' the long run " have as much
scope under one system as another? Will
the human interests be as safe under one
system as another ? Under what plans do
the instruments stand the best chance of get-
ting into the worthiest hands ? Society in-
sists upon its right to lay down the rules
under which instruments which may be
dangerously handled shall be placed in
human hands. For example, we will not al-
low men to carry dangerous weapons in
crowded centres. We will not allow igno-
rant men to transport dynamite. We insist
that only trained operators shall drive loco-
motives and automobiles and trolley cars.
And we always declare that we have a right
to disarm a desperado. Now some of the
capitalistic tools, by which we mean what we
call capital itself, are capable of being as
dangerously used as any material instru-
ments. It is society's concern as to who
fingers the triggers of these instruments.
Society has a right to withdraw the control
of these tools from those who will not use the
tools aright. If an industry is making im-
possible the conditions of normal human life
society does not have to halt because of the
outcry from stockholders whose profits may
be cut by change in the direction of that in-

ENDS AND MEANS 205

dustry. If an industry itself, like the liquor
or the opium traffic, is debauching a com-
munity the community has a right to do
with the industry as it sees fit, and that in the
name of the human interests involved. The
objects of social endeavour are the people of
the community. If we say that we must
tread very softly towards capital lest we re-
move the incentive to production on a large
scale we reply that we must be very careful
lest we give incentive to waste on a large
scale. If it be urged that we cannot procure
the genius which can control the capitalistic
tools without holding out prospect of sur-
passing rewards we reply that this is one of
those cant sophisms which appear reason-
able till we look at them closely. One type
of genius which makes modern large scale
industry possible is the inventive genius. In
actual history has the inventor usually or often
received the major part of the reward for his
invention ? Does not the inventor work as
much from scientific motives as from finan-
cial ? The other effective factor on the
capitalistic side is the organizing intelligence.
We freely admit the supreme industrial value
of this intelligence and we concede that the
organizer's ability is always in peril of being
underestimated by the critics of the existing

206 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

system, but is organizational ability always
at the call of money alone ? We would not
glorify war, but we all agree that the success-
ful general in modern warfare must be an or-
ganizing genius. The conduct of any one of
the larger campaigns in our Civil War, or in
the Russo-Japanese war, or even on the
British side in the Boer war called for
enormous organizing ability. But the pros-
pect of the old-time money prizes for the vic-
tory was nil. If society could arrive at such
spirit that the successful manager of an in-
dustrial enterprise for the welfare of the com-
munity would be honoured as military heroes
have been honoured we would have solved
the problem of securing men for large or-
ganizational campaigns without paying them
extravagant prizes.

But how about the side of labour and its
instruments ? Since capital possesses the
material tools of large scale industry the only
tools left to labour are organizational. The
labour organizations in any Christian teach-
ing as to modern society have to come under
the same moral laws as all other organiza-
tions. We may well thank God that, barring
exceptions which only prove the rule, labour
leaders take the ground that labour organi-
zational tools must be manipulated with a

ENDS AND MEANS 207

human purpose. The intellig-ent labour or-
ganization member will no more treat his
organization as an end in itself than the
church member will treat his organization as
an end in itself. The organization is an in-
strument for the welfare of persons and as
long as it advances in that direction we may
well rejoice in its spread of power. Only, the
power under intelligent and conscientious
leaders will not be brute power. It would be
a sad plight if after we had found our way
along thus far in the path of peace, and if
after labour organizations have themselves
done so much to rid the world of the curse of
international w^ar, we should have these na-
tion-wide organizations tolerating even a
secret reliance upon physical force. Of
course capitalism has had its brutalities and
the general public, in its difference to the
wrongs of labourers, has had its brutalities
also, but that is all the more reason why we
should all work together for the elimination
of reliance upon force. The most enlight-
ened teaching to-day is as to the futility of
force for the achievement of social objects.
The labour organization that takes the sword
will likely perish by the sword, and that not
by the sword in the hands of outside enemies,
but by the weapon in the hands of those in-

208 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

side who will resort to force to impose their
will quickly on their fellows.

But all this has been for the sake of illus-
tration. We pass to suggest some implica-
tions of our principles which ought to mark
the Christian preaching as society marches
towards increasing control. It may be well
for the Church often to recall to herself the
wide extent of that advance. The movement
is the most notable trend in the world to-day.
Whether the growing scarcity of free lands
has thrown the peoples back upon themselves
in denser and denser congestion, or whether
the increase of means of intercommunication
makes knowledge so common that men
everywhere catch inspirations which arise
anywhere, the truth is that all over the world
social groups are grasping more and more
control for themselves. With men thrown
thus closer together the teachings of Chris-
tianity must meet severer and severer strains.
We have been looking chiefly at our own
country, but we must say that in view of this
world-wide hastening towards increasing
power for society it is the responsibility of
the Christian to stand for that gospel which
here and everywhere will righteously guide
the advance in all its phases. With this
portentous centring on closer unity there is

ENDS AND MEANS 209

likelihood that the social mechanism will be-
come jammed unless there is wisdom and
unselfishness in relieving some of the pres-
sures created by the newer forces. In a sit-
uation so complex it would be folly to ven-
ture far into detail, but some suggestions
seem altogether Christian. How to apply
them must be left to the economic and legis-
lative expert. But they must be applied.

First and foremost, industrial and political
and social contrivances must stop short of the
point where workers are in danger of becom-
ing tools or of being treated as tools. A
labourer who is living a merely tool existence
is just as much unhuman as a man who is
living a merely animal existence. One criti-
cism upon capitalism is that under the system
which cuts the ownership of the tool from the
man who actually handles the tool,— the me-
chanical tool to-day is the whole factory, —
the labourer himself comes dangerously near
being reduced to the rank of a tool. The
labourer cannot go out and build himself a
factory. The economic freedom of the
labourer about which we hear so much often
comes just to that— the Hberty to go out and
build another factory ! Even if he could
build the factory he would find difficulty in
getting a business start. We may say that

2IO PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the labourer is free to move from one factory
to another, but not after the factories have
become Hnked closely together in manage-
ment. We may say that he is at liberty to
seek another line of employment, but that is
cruel nonsense if the man is past the age
when he can learn another trade, or if he has
already spent much time in becoming expert
in a chosen occupation. Any system which
makes it possible for one man virtually to
own another man is wicked. Any system
which makes men just cogs in a wheel is
wrong. We have come far towards victory
in the battle against animalism in men, —
at least we have so far won that we all unite
in the condemnation of the forces which make
for animalism. But it is not so with the bat-
tle against making men tools. Faithfulness
to a daily task is admirable, but when that
faithfulness ends in making the worker just a
part of the machinery it is time for a break
somewhere. If the task itself is not one
which lends itself to that diversified play of
faculties which keeps the mind interested,
there must be provision for the leisure in
which the more human powers can get their
exercise. That was really a righteous pro-
test which the newspapers reported as occur-
ring on the ships of a certain navy some

ENDS AND MEANS 211

months ago. The protest may be just news-
paper gossip but it illustrates our point. The
story is that a number of men had enlisted in
a navy on the promise that they would have
opportunity to see something of the world.
That may have been a poor expedient for
enlisting sailors, but such seems to have been
the method. After the sailors had enlisted
the vessels were stationed at a dreary port on
a sub-tropical island. The recruits protested
that this was not in accordance with the
terms of the enlistment. The coast of the
sub-tropical island is something of the world,
— but not enough of the world. The story
continues that the protest was heeded.
Whether all this happened or not, the story
suggests one fault with much more of the
modern system than the navies. Battle-ship
existence apart, — men in general are not
given enough outlook on the world. They
sink into a machine routine which is less re-
volting but not much more ideal than an
animal existence. The social activities of all
groups from the national down to the indus-
trial should stop short of anything which
would harden men into machines or tools.

Furthermore, the social agencies should be
prevented from any levelling process which
would leave men so much alike as to destroy

212 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

what is distinctively individual in them. For
one type of individualism it will be readily
seen that we have little patience. Men can-
not come to any individuality alone. And
they cannot come to any high distinction
without some social adjustment which puts
them where they can best work. The con-
demnation of both extremes of the modern
industrial organization is that they both alike
level men to sameness. Poverty may be so
crushing that the poor man cannot rise to
what would be distinction in character, or he
is submerged, — and when men are submerged
they all look alike. We sometimes say that
at time of shipwreck it is a tribute to the per-
ception of human values that all men look
alike to the rescuers. Women and children
first, to be sure, but after that the men with-
out any thought of difference in rank or birth
or endowment. This is noble in the applica-
tion for which it is intended, but how horrible
that we can say of society that it too is so
filled with disaster that the sinking people all
look alike to us ! We sing the advantages
of poverty but we have in mind something
like the Cotter's Saturday Night or those sur-
roundings in which Americans like Abraham
Lincoln were reared. The hardship of such
early circumstances as those of Lincoln was

ENDS AND MEANS 213

indeed appalling, but hardship is not desti-
tution. Lincoln was not poor after the pov-
erty of the man who has no hope for the
future and whose plight is absolutely dehu-
manizing. The levelling rollers should be
lifted of^ the poor man. The question of
getting just enough to eat is not before us ;
we are speaking of the freedom to live out
the life which is distinctive. The charge that
the Christianization of the social system
would have a flattening effect is ridiculous in
view of the deadliness of the poverty of the
present world as a leveller. And then at the
other extreme of the scale is a similar danger
to which the over-rich man is exposed. It
may provoke a smile to say that society
should do something for the protection of the
rich man against the levelling influences of
too much wealth, but such is the duty never-
theless. We are speaking more particularly
of those of inherited wealth. The man who
has heaped up the money ordinarily knows
how to avoid the roller processes. But when
we have before us the class reared in extrav-
agance, the responsibility of society for the
levelling crush of wealth appears. In the
parable of the rich man and Lazarus Jesus
used the expression " A certain rich man."
The expression may be entirely accidental,

214 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

but the suggestion seems to be that it was
Lazarus who, in spite of his condition, had
distinction enough to be called by a name
and the rich man was just an undistinguish-
able rich man like the other rich men. Deaf
to all call to stimulating endeavour such a
Dives-soul sinks below the truly individual
and exists on the plane of commonness.
This rich man may be a fairly good citizen,
but he does not always manifest the talent or
even the genius he might have shown if he
had not been smothered or rolled flat by
wealth. This is not invective ; it surely is
not a proposal for a raid ; it is a bare state-
ment of what seems to be a fault in society
as it exists under present distributions.

Continuing in this same direction the Chris-
tian spirit would sanction all those arrange-
ments by which men are brought to do some
things together so that they can be left to
do other things separately. By constituting
some duties everybody's business we provide
more leisure for the individual to attend to
his own business. Some obligations can best
be discharged by the whole community to-
gether, or by those who act as agents for the
community taken as a unit. As illustration
think how much time is saved for the indi-
vidual in a city by the common water supply.

ENDS AND MEANS 215

Suppose each inhabitant of a community had
to look after his own water supply. The well
or the private pipe would be a perpetual
annoyance. To say nothing of its getting
out of order there would be continually the
imminent threat of disease. That old oaken
bucket was dangerous enough even when no
other family lived within a mile, for it may
have been too near the contamination from
the house of the owner himself. But the old
oaken bucket was safe enough for all pur-
poses if the water looked reasonably clear.
Such a test would not hold to-day. Only
the expert can detect the typhoid germ.
Now so simple a contrivance as the common
water supply does away with an immense
amount of worry and leaves the mind free to
follow its bent. We say ''follow its bent"
advisedly, for that is how minds find them-
selves. They must have leisure for wander-
ing around the favourite subjects if they are
ever to reach any considerable intellectual or
artistic or even ethical attainment. Without
regard to the exact theoretical formulation of
our hopes we may well trust that by some
scheme or other the tasks which can best be
performed for communities as units w^ill one
by one be given over to those who will look
after them for communities as units, so that

2l6 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

more and more the individual will be left
free to become distinctive if not distinguished.
If we could look forward a distance of one
hundred years from now we would probably
behold an astonishing number of tasks given
over to community control which we now
think never could be so delegated. The
criticism which is to be passed upon the
individualistic system in its extreme develop-
ment is that it is not individualistic enough :
the individuals do not get the best chance.
The most forceful individuals may get to the
fore, but we have long since given up that
doctrine of the survival of the fittest which
makes the fittest to survive necessarily the
most deserving of survival.

Putting this in still another phrase we
may say that we should seek for the uni-
formities in experience which will make for
varieties. To escape the odium of too fre-
quent reference to industrial situations we
employ an illustration drawn from church
enterprise. In many sections of this coun-
try churches are needlessly duplicating one
another's activities. In frontier districts
there may be two or three churches where
there should be but one. It would be a gain
all around if the denominations could come
to enough agreement as to tests of member-

ENDS AND MEANS 21 7

ship and order of worship and formulation of
belief and local administration to make a
church of any denomination welcome to vir-
tually all the religious people of a community.
The need of duplication would then pass.
The energy saved could be better economized,
with the result that each denomination would
have more likelihood of fulfilling whatever
might be its distinctive mission, and once
the organizations were seen to be instru-
ments rivalry would be more friendly. It
would lack the deadly seriousness which
comes when a tool is regarded as an end-
in-itself. So as to social cooperation. We
might find more of common ground which,
while it would make conduct and duties
more uniform, would leave individuals free
for the development of the true human dis-
tinctiveness. We might limit individual ini-
tiative at some outlets for the sake of giving
the individual greater initiative through other
channels.

The individual needs more privacy than
he gets to-day. It is a grim and tragic joke
to hear men dismiss modern plans for larger
social cooperation on the ground that we
must not intrude upon the privacy of individ-
uals. As if the modern scramble for profits
in tenement houses, for example, made for

2l8 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the privacy of the occupants ! We do need
privacy for individuals. All modern social
reformers see the futility of the communistic
programs which involve living together.
Such schemes go to pieces because people
see too much of one another. Even foreign
missionaries living in compounds have to ex-
ercise care lest they become " too thick " with
one another. Present-day social plans aim
at providing more privacy for the individual
by taking off his single mind burdens which
can better be borne collectively, thus leaving
him free to live the strictly private part of
his life in his own way. Larger mutual re-
spect would result. Competition would be-
come more and more friendly rivalry instead
of a war to the death.

To say it all over again, — we might lay
down a doctrine of equality for the sake of
the resulting inequality. If we could more
nearly equalize some burdens we would have
more leisure for the free play of individuality.
We plead for diversity. We must have
diversity if we are to have any degree of
richness and fullness of individual life. In-
equality is just as characteristic of life as is
equality, — only the inequality must not be
such as to suggest a lurking injustice some-
where. We need a world of incommensur-

ENDS AND MEANS 219

able personal inequalities. If we can have
men so distinct that we cannot well compare
them with one another much bitterness of
envy will disappear. A man ought to have
scope to develop the good traits of which he
may have a personal monopoly. For sake
of illustration again we make a harmless
reference which all can accept. Suppose we
had under any social system approximate
equality of taxation. This does not mean a
system by which all should pay a like sum
into a treasury as a man pays a poll tax, but
a system by which each man would pay
what he ought to pay, — no more and no less.
What an advance upon present situations
that would be, — for nobody could well claim
that any present system is equitable, — even
if no men were tax-dodgers. Even under so
commonplace a burden as the payment of
taxes, if men were more nearly equal as
serving under a more equitable system, the
economy of human energy which now goes
to nervous friction and irritation would be
immeasurable.

And to say it once more, — men might well
subject themselves in an improved order of
society to greater subordination among the
lower goods for the sake of greater freedom
among the higher goods. We might agree

220 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

to a surrender of some lower liberties in a
common bond of search for some higher
liberties. We might enter into some ar-
rangements which would take the load of
financial stress off over-weighted shoulders
and more equitably distribute the strain.
The race took a long step forward when the
progress of invention lifted the physical
weights off the shoulders of men and placed
them on muscles of iron and steel. Another
improvement may be to lighten the stress for
daily bread so as to secure more freedom in
the search for spiritual bread. It all comes
down to this, — the Christian is in society for
the purpose of giving the members of society
a better chance. His work is not merely
remedial. The work of Jesus was not merely
to open the blind eyes but to give the eyes
something worth seeing after they were
opened. He unlocked prison doors not
merely to let out the men inside, but to
show them what to do after they got out.
He healed the lame not merely to help them
walk erect but to help them to travel in the
right direction. We will not believe that
this world cannot be made a better instru-
ment for the development of righteousness.
We hear it said that the world as we have it
is a good world for the purpose for which it

ENDS AND MEANS 221

is intended. Far be it from us to venture
any criticism on the universe, but there are
some details in our latitude which need
correction. Men need to give heed to the
significance of the material for the spiritual.
Society should seek to make the earth more
of an aid to the life of righteousness. We
should at least try to make the world such
that men can afford to be honest here. We
cannot believe that we are always to look
upon this present world as a vale of tears.
Tragedy there will no doubt always be, but
all the more reason for seeking to mitigate
the tragedy. It is conceivable that under a
thoroughly Christian society even the tragedy
of death would be reduced to less painful
woe than at present. The fear of death
might be done away in a community which
had practiced righteousness into the warp
and woof of all conduct. The horror of
sudden death by accident or even by disease
might be made less frequent through proper
regard for human life. The fear of poverty
through the loss of the bread-winner might
be greatly reduced. There would remain of
course the dire agony of separation from
loved ones, but that might be lessened in a
fully human community quick and warm
with genuine sympathy. If over all of this

222 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

there could stretch a sky radiant with the
hopefuhiess which comes from reahzing God
in experience there would hardly be an in-
strument comparable to this earth for the
development of righteousness. The very
possibility of dreaming of such outcome is a
signal and summons for the attempt to realize
the dream.

But we come back to our main thesis.
Before the earth is much improved the peo-
ple in it must learn what is supremely worth
while. If they can learn the uses of instru-
ments and can give themselves to the right
use of instruments the future is bright. It is
not safe to have stupendous instruments de-
livered into the keeping of men before the
men know how to use them. We have only
to look to a condition like that in semi-bar-
barous countries to see the trouble which re-
sults when high-powered instruments are put
in the hands of people who rush readily to
internecine wars with no conviction of respon-
sibility. The only saving fact in such a crisis
is that the people cannot shoot straight
enough to hit the objects at which they aim,
— though the destruction is terrific when non-
combatants are exposed. The peoples of the
earth seem to be sweeping determinedly on
towards larger and larger social powers. It

ENDS AND MEANS 223

is the function of the Christian portion of the
community to seek to dike and levee this
movement into the right channels. It will
be observed that we have made little of
definite suggestion as to any particular prob-
lems now before the peoples. All we have
tried to show is that some simplification re-
sults when we discern the true aim of our ef-
fort,— the highest life of man, — normal life in
the enjoyment of all legitimate functions.
The enjoyment of this life as part of the
divine plan, — this is the goal. The social
instruments, the laws, the institutions, can
help mightily in assisting us towards this
fundamental goal. Dynamite is deadly. If
men use dynamite to destroy one another it
is a curse, but dynamite turned against a
nature which must be transformed is a bless-
ing. It can blow to pieces rocks which
would turn the point of the strongest pick-
axe. It lifts the loads in an instant that
hundreds of men could not budge in weeks.
All depends on who uses the instrument
and what he uses it for. Law. is mighty, if it
is the expression of the good life, but suppose
law, instead of aiming at good will for men,
aims at vengeance and hate. Then the
dynamic force tears down and does not build
again. We end as we began. Society can

224 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

modify, or set aside, or create outright social
instruments for the accompHshment of its
purposes. But instruments are instruments
and must be used by persons for the sake of
persons.

LECTURE VI

EVERY KINDRED AND
PEOPLE AND TONGUE

LECTURE VI

EVERY KINDRED AND PEOPLE AND
TONGUE

WE have reserved to the last the
study of the program of the Chris-
tian community in world-wide mis-
sionary conquest. Before looking up at the
ideal which the missionary has to keep al-
ways in sight we glance at some underlying
conditions which limit the Christian in his
direct appeals to the peoples whom he seeks
to win. The intercourse of the missionary
with what we call heathenism is but one of
the contacts of Christendom with heathenism.
The most fundamental barrier to missionary
enterprise is the difficulty of bringing these
different contacts into some agreement with
one another. In our own land the contradic-
tion between the Christian ideal and the un-
christianized aspects of society is wide enough,
but we have some appreciation of the diffi-
culty and struggle on towards harmony. In
other lands such mental adjustment is often
nearly impossible. The native sees the gap-
227

228 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

ing abyss between the missionary's preach-
ing and the wickedness of the missionary's
own countrymen and may have no particular
interest in seeking an adjustment. George
Francis Train used to say that he objected to
sending to China missionaries with whom to
convert the Chinaman and ammunition with
which to kill the Chinaman on one and the
same vessel because such mixed cargo was
apt to be confusing to the Chinese mind. At
the centre of the foreign missionary problem
is a home missionary problem. We hear
much about the cultivation of the home base
in missionary campaigning, and the reference
is to the cultivation of a home basis of sup-
plies of money and men. We need also the
fuller Christianization of the home base. If
we cannot bring our industrial and political
and social organizations to Christian stand-
ards and redeem them from paganism the
direct appeal of the missionary is made more
than doubly difficult because these difTerent
institutions send out their representatives into
other lands to make a deadly competition
with missionary forces.

The contacts of the Christian nations and
of the non-Christian nations are chiefly those
of the tourist, of the trader, of the diplomatist,
and of the missionary. Each of the first

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 229

three named is himself a missionary of one
sort or another. The conduct of each is
preaching in one direction or another even
though the preaching is unconscious. Take
the tourist. We do not often give weight to
the influence of the tourist in international in-
tercourse, but such influence is quite potent.
When the tourist returns home from a non-
Christian land and begins to berate the mis-
sionary to that land we discount the tourist
very heavily. We know well enough that
the tourist has not taken pains to learn what
he is talking about. But the tourist himself
while abroad makes impressions on the for-
eigner which the foreigner does not know
how to discount. Very frequently the tourist
is travelling solely for holiday sightseeing. It
is to be doubted if any man who visits foreign
peoples chiefly for recreation can make much
of those peoples. Of course the observa-
tions of the serious student are not just
now under review. But the "globe-trotter"
tourist sees all inhabitants in an alien coun-
try as about alike, and towards them all he
is apt to assume an air of aloofness. This is
almost inevitable unless the traveller be a
man of marked attainment of character. Even
when travelling in European countries the
American may plume himself on the fancied

230 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

superiority of American customs and Ameri-
can institutions, and is now slow to express
his gratification. Patriotism may account
for some of this pride. Add to this that the
" globe-trotters " of the holiday tourist class
are apt to be persons of wealth, often newly-
acquired, and that they are reenforced in their
assumption of national and racial superiority
by the possession of money, and we have the
explosives at hand for some unhappy dis-
charges. If this is true in European lands
how much more is it true in what we call
heathendom? Years ago, reputable writers
have told us, the foreign sojourner in Japan
occasionally thought it fine sport to strike
with his stick the coolie pulling a jinrickisha.
This may not have happened often, but it
happened often enough, though it is only fair
to say that such insults have not occurred
since Japan's last war. While the stick-using
may now have ceased the spirit thus revealed
has not altogether passed. We would not
have it understood that this is the customary
state of mind among tourists, for it is not ;
but there is enough of such feeling to attract
notice among the natives of the non-Christian
countries. Moreover the tourists who sim-
ply travel through a country attending to
their own business and treating the natives

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 231

with civility do not command the attention
that the other tourists attract. All peoples
resent the assumption of aloofness by visitors
from outside. Quite likely Charles Dickens
in his ** Notes on America " did not overstate
the crudeness of our country when he visited
it, but what he said rankles in the breasts of
some Americans to this day. Likewise lofti-
ness of manner in the unofficial and uninten-
tional and unconscious representatives of
Christendom who visit non-Christian peoples
is unspeakably galling to those peoples.

Now what is the trouble ? Just this, — that
the tourist is not of a class who take the doc-
trine of human brotherhood with any serious-
ness. It is an enigma as to how many
Christian populations do take that doctrine
seriously, however, so we may say that the
trouble with the tourist is that he is not will-
ing to think of the peoples whom he visits as
belonging to the order of human beings to
which he himself belongs. He often looks
upon them as a spectacle or show in which
he is to find entertainment. The tourist is
the outcome and the expression of widely
prevalent social notions of our time. He is a
social product, just as the others of us are
social products, and he represents a type
of thought, or of lack of thought, and a

232 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

type of attitude. Until Christianity has so
thoroughly permeated the social ideals of
our own lands that much larger masses
of men have become, not necessarily avow-
edly Christian, but substantially Christian
in their bearing towards human beings
wherever found, the teaching of the mission-
ary will have to encounter grave obstacles.
But is it not possible for the Christian ideal
to make so complete a conquest among us ?
We think it is. We have so attained to ideas
of elementary decency in Christian lands that
there are some misdeeds which any man,
whether a professing Christian or not, will
condemn. There are acts and attitudes w^e
will not tolerate because we have learned, or
at least absorbed, a regard for essential hu-
manity in ourselves, if not in other people.
For example the dweller in Christendom wdll
not peaceably tolerate physical filth. He
will keep his body and his house measurably
clean whether any one is to see him or not.
Likewise there are moral abominations with
which the normal man reared in civilized
lands will not compromise, no matter what
may be his moral shortcomings in other
respects. We do not ahvays stop to think of
the conquests of Christianity registered in
these facts. Virtually every man in every

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 233

Christian land has been forced to the adop-
tion of some ideals, limited though they may
be, by the progress of Christian sentiment.
There were once vices whose very names
have long since faded out, and this because
of the progressive realization of the human
ideal. Now we expect Christian conceptions
of man so to gain ground that whether this
or that single person becomes a disciple of
Christ or not, no person will take some atti-
tudes towards heathen peoples that are as-
sumed to-day. To allude again to the inci-
dent of the stick-using on the Japanese.
Apart from the fear of consequences, such
outrageous behaviour would hardly be possi-
ble anywhere among tourists to-day. We
expect cruelty and boorishness to die out.
But the task of assisting their death is a home
task ; the home base needs to be so pervaded
with human sympathy that wherever we go
we shall look upon men as men, no matter
what may be the accidents of race or poverty
or ignorance or moral inadequacy.

The second class of obstacles in the path
of the Christian conquest of the world is that
represented by the trader. It has always
been true that the trader has bothered him-
self very little about what he has sold to
foreign natives. To the trader the natives

234 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

are not so much human beings as buyers of
wares. The trader has been guided mainly
by what he has found the natives likely to
buy. The "five hundred barrels of rum"
which the New England sea-captains used to
carry as cargo to the West Coast of Africa
were shipped because there was a demand
for them. The effect of the rum on the native
did not disturb the captain any more than it
has disturbed his successors at the business
since. Moreover cheating a native was
partly a pleasure and partly a duty. In trad-
ing with the American Indians a Dutchman's
hand in the scale of which the other pan was
loaded with furs never weighed more than
one pound and his foot never weighed more
than two pounds. Whatever the means the
aim was the same, — to exploit the native for
the utmost possible.

All this was bad enough when the repre-
sentatives of the so-called Christian nations
were Yankee sea-captains, or their like, each
doing business somewhat on his own account.
Then an occasional stirring of conscience in
the Yankee might arise and relieve the native.
But the outcome has been, at least until quite
recently, made worse by the growth and
aggressiveness of corporate finance. It will
be understood that the present speaker has

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 235

no intention of indulging in wholesale con-
demnation of wealth, but we all know that
even here at home corporations thrive best
morally when they enjoy the full light of
publicity. Unrestricted competition and
unregulated monopoly are paganism as
rank as the rawest heathenism. There
are inherent and inevitable tendencies to
evil in the very situation which make ex-
ceedingly difficult the control of the large-
scale instruments of wealth working in a
foreign land away from the home ofBce.
First of all the distant representative is not
judged by his treatment of employees as is
the official at home. At home the feelings of
the people with whom the corporation does
business have to be reckoned with. The
customers must be pleased and the labourers
also, and general public sentiment must not
be disregarded. The directors of the corpora-
tion look more exclusively at profit or loss
when scrutinizing the returns from foreign,
non-Christian lands. The excuse that profits
have fallen because regard had to be taken
of the sentiment in the foreign community
as to how the labourers there were treated
does not weigh as it would at home. More-
over all businesses are under the pressure for
expansion. If they cannot expand at home

236 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

because of the exactions of public sentiment
and the requirements of legislatures and the
severity of public officials they nevertheless
seek to show a gain in the total volume of
business done by pushing foreign expansion.
Added to this is the temptation of business
agents living in lands far from home and
often far from high-minded society to sink to
the level of vicious surroundings. The total
tendency is down-hill.

Now the picture must not be painted darker
than it is. The corporation is in the foreign
country for business purposes, — to get as
much out of the natural resources as possible
and to profit as much from the native labour
as possible. But even so the natives are
often better treated by foreign employers
than by employers of their own race. In
Mexico for example the poor peons who can
do nothing but the commonest labour would
often sooner hire out to Americans than to
persons of their own race, — and this not only
because the American pays better wages but
because he is apt to treat his labourers more
humanely. Apart from exceptional atrocities
like those of the rubber and ivory trades the
native labourers employed by foreign business
leaders in non-Christian lands are not likely
to be abused. The speaker knows of at least

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 237

one instance where the English manager of a
cotton mill in Bombay was followed to his
steamer as he left for home by a group of
native employees in genuine grief at the
departure of one who had in all his relations
to them treated them kindly. But conceding
all this and much more the situation makes
for the obliteration of the distinction which
have so emphasized in these lectures, the
distinction between men and tools. No
matter how indispensable an instrument
wealth may be it is not important enough to
justify the disregard of human interests.

It does not help us much to say that all
this exploitation of the resources of heathen
lands is accomplished by the consent of the
rulers of the lands themselves. We are think-
ing of the welfare of the vast numbers whom
the rulers may not represent at all. Take
the granting of concessions to foreign capital
by governments in financial distress. A na-
tion gets into trouble and borrows money.
Then in return for money aid huge conces-
sions of resources are granted by those who
have the legal authority to do so. The in-
terests of the people of the land itself are
often the last to be heeded. In a state which
has passed through such concessions to sub-
jection to foreigners so complete that there

238 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

may be scant standing room left for the na-
tives the people may rise in revolution ; then
there is cry for military intervention in be-
half of the endangered foreign interests. Or
foreign collectors are placed in charge of the
custom houses until finances can be adjusted.
The effect on the temper of the native peoples
in such crises is not hard to imagine.

What is the remedy ? There is but one
answer and one solution, — the completer
humanization and moralization and spiri-
tualization of all our so-called civilized busi-
ness procedure. We are not urging this or
that or the other industrial platform. We
are pleading for the approach to the problems
which wealth creates from the point of view
of the human interests involved. We beg for
a public sentiment which shall so widen the
meaning of the term '* human beings " as to
include the peoples of whom we are ac-
customed to speak as heathen. We protest
against the oversight of the truth that wealth
is a mere instrument. Now instruments may
cost too much in the fashioning, or they may
not be rightly used after they are fashioned.
An old legend tells us that an oriental ruler
once conceived the fancy that his sword
blades could be brought to just the right
temper by being thrust hot through the

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 239

thigh of a slave. Suppose such a proposal
should be advanced by some despot and we
should protest to him that such tempering
makes the sword blade too costly. Suppose
he should reply that we were mistaken, that
the slave cost so much and the blade was
worth so much more. If we had the power
to proceed to extremities with such a despot
we would not longer debate, for we would
say that the despot's reply argued an utter
density of ignorance as to human values.
Business enterprises may develop into keen
instruments but they may cost too much in
terms of humanity. The public sentiment
which will see this and will hold the instru-
ments to the instrumental position will help
tremendously in the Christianization of the
world.

Then there is the diplomat representing as
he does the sentiment of his people on the
national and governmental side. The Chris-
tian nations in recent years have much to
their credit in their diplomacy with the so-
called less favoured nations. England, bar-
ring some terrible blunders in other days,
has been on the whole humane in her policies
towards the people whom she rules, — so that
so sharp and cynical a critic as William
Graham Sumner once declared that it would

240 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

be well if England could be put in possession
of all the remaining unappropriated territories
of the globe. It would be unjust to say that
England does not chiefly consider the welfare
of her subject peoples both in India and
Egypt. This is all the more noteworthy from
the pressure of the world-wide financial in-
terests to make themselves the uppermost
considerations in international policy.

In spite of the noble aim of much inter-
national bearing, however, and in spite of the
success of many ministers and ambassadors
in resisting the tendency towards an aristo-
cratic caste system which infests so many
diplomatic circles, it is hard for diplomacy
to rise much higher than its source, and that
source is the people of the Christian nations
themselves. Public opinion is the determin-
ing power. And that public opinion will not
always be content to allow its wiser leaders
to be the mouthpieces. So that whenever a
California land law is up harm is wrought
not so much by the terms of the law itself as
by the inability of many debaters to see that
the Japanese are human beings. If such
problems could always be discussed as the
careful diplomatist would discuss them, —
with due regard to the human decencies, to
say nothing of the human courtesies, — they

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 24I

could be more often adjusted without arous-
ing ill-feeling. But these international epi-
sodes unravel overnight what the representa-
tive of the Church has been weaving through
the day. Granted that any country has the
right to exclude from its borders those who
will become a public charge, those who may
lower the standard of living in the country,
and those who may prove to be an alien
body in a democracy, still there are choices of
methods and manners in the exercise of these
undoubted rights.

The position of the diplomat is a delicate
one. He is of all men most likely to be mis-
understood. But he is just a spokesman,
and skillfully as he may conduct himself, all
depends on the public sentiment back of him.
The sentiment needs being made Christian
— which can only be accomplished by mak-
ing the public Christian. We must work
towards the time when the strong nations
will honestly protect the weaker nations.
The strong peoples cannot rule the weaker
even for the good of the weaker by mere
strength alone ; neither can they leave them
entirely to themselves. If the public senti-
ment of the civilized lands could arrive at
such a stage of evident unselfishness that
the weaker nations would be willing to listen

242 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

to the counsel of the stronger, something
very much worth while could be accom-
plished, especially if the advice took the form
of helping the weaker peoples on towards
self-government.

And just here it may be in order to say a
word about making a fetich of words in our
struggle to help nations. The charmed word
in our day is " democracy." In so far as
democracy is a people governing themselves
and aiming to reach human ideals it is an
end-in-itself. Democracy in that meaning is
the people themselves in the process of
governing themselves for themselves in the
highest sense. The cry for democracy for a
weaker people may be for the ideal of a self-
governing community or it may be for per-
mission to allow the people to follow out
their own devices. The devices have only
such sacredness as attaches to them from their
success in helping on the people. Now the
interests of democracy may be aided by a
nation which steps in, say to a country in
which inhuman institutions prevail, and puts
an end to those institutions, the proviso al-
ways being that such action is backed up by
a public sentiment of the interfering nation
which never loses sight of the main issue.
For example England stamped out of India

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 243

the most complete institution of thuggery
which the imagination could have conceived.
In doing so she interfered with a native in-
stitution,— breaking up a monstrous invention
of the peoples of India, but her interference
was in accord with the dictates of humanity,
and of course was a necessary step towards
whatever measure of genuine self-govern-
ment India is ever to have. When a nation
in its weakness reaches the beginnings of
degeneracy so that even order is impossible,
the coming in of an outside nation is necessary
for the humanity of the people themselves,
— and for their progress towards democracy.
It is not interference with the progress of
a people towards democracy to prevent them
from doing what may make democracy im-
possible.

Freedom is another word which may trip
our feet as we fight to liberate men. We say
that the weaker peoples are to be left alone
to fight out and achieve their own salvation.
It will always ward off confusion when we are
confronted by such unreal simplifications if
we ask as to actual, concrete social facts.
The present speaker has no theory as to the
proper method of detailed procedure, — say
for the United States in relation to the
weaker states of Latin-America. But what

244 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

do theorists mean when they declare that
these peoples should be left absolutely alone
to work out their own salvation as free
beings? Does this mean that the public
sentiment of nations like ours is not to count
even in an advisory capacity ? One Latin-
American dictator succeeds another dictator.
The success of the dictator, for the moment
on top, may be due to no moral or intellec-
tual or even human strength. His success
may represent just the physical efficacy of
brute might. The people are not free under
him, or under the successor who is bloody
enough to put him out of the way. The
people have no chance under such dictators
to attain freedom. The facilities for educa-
tion are not sufficient, and the opportunities
for experiment in self-government are noth-
ing at all. Under such sway the people really
sink farther and farther below real freedom.
In the name of theoretical freedom they are
allowed to fall away from actual freedom and
to miss all chance for actual freedom.

It behooves us always to guard ourselves
against what the old philosopher called '' the
fatal imposture and deceit of words." Words
are instruments and nothing more. It is pos-
sible to erect an instrument into an end-in-it-
self and forthwith to forget the vital content

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 245

in the mere repetition of the word. In a sub-
stantive sense there is no such thing as free-
dom. The only reaUty is men living freely.
In pondering over all such questions the
public mind must not be deceived. It must
keep in view the interests of the men and the
methods of helping them to act more and
more freely. Even this word " humanity " of
which we have been making so much, and of
which nations sometimes insincerely make so
much when they are seeking for reasons for
entering aggressively the territories of weaker
peoples, is an instrument like the others.
The facts are people, — men, women and
children, and the methods of helping them
most effectively. Words erected into holy
idols will not prove much more effective than
idols usually prove.

And now some man will wail forth that if
missionary progress cannot come to the full
tide until the Christian nations develop this
unselfish interest in men we might just as
well give up the battle. But why despair,
even if the ideal is high ? In spite of all that
the cynics say about the selfishness of nations
there are citizens who vote on international
issues unselfishly and if some vote thus others
may. Many of us have voted on platforms
having to do with the Philippines, for ex-

246 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

ample. Now political and financial leaders
may have taken advantage of us in using
selfishly our unselfish feeling, but we have
voted unselfishly. We know that much, —
and we have enough humility not to imagine
that we monopolize political righteousness.
If we think and vote thus others can, — and
do. The main sentiment of the United
States to-day towards the Philippines and
towards Cuba is unselfish. Many who have
projects of an industrial or political character
to promote might conceivably thwart this
unselfish feeling, especially since we do not
claim that the sentiment is effectively organ-
ized. But we can increase and enforce this
unselfishness. We ask just for the extension
of the regard for the truest human interests
of all human beings into political theory and
action. Our governmental policies play far
more part in shaping the opinion of the
peoples to whom we go with the Gospel than
we can estimate. If we can work the national
unselfishness out into expression our problem
is well on towards solution. Or rather if we
could cultivate a positive interest in the wel-
fare of peoples beyond our lands we could
move much more swiftly to success. Of
course we are not to forget the enormous
material and labour resources to be developed

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 247

in China, for example, and we ought to
further the Christianization of such lands for
the sake of the utilization of this material
and personal power, but the primary motive
is not the material or the labour reservoir of
power. The first motive is the people.

But it is high time we arrived at the mission-
ary himself. It would not have been alto-
gether worth while, however, to discuss the
missionary and his duties without heeding
the backlying conditions which have to be
taken into the reckoning in the impact of
Christian nations upon the less favoured
nations. As we said at the outset, the hand
of the missionary is but one of many laid by
the Christian nation upon the heathen nation.
The note sounded by the missionary in the
ears of the heathen people is but one note, —
and it may be drowned out by the other
notes, or it and they may be most wofully
out of accord.

So far as the all-essential is concerned the
missionary must come to his task interested
primarily in his people because they are
human beings. He is there for the sake of
the men, women and children themselves.
They are folks like himself, in spite of all the
differences. Even what seem to him their
gross immoralities are in them more nearly

248 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

unmoralities. The missionary may reply to
us that he supposed he was going to the
field primarily for the sake of Christ, but
what does he mean by this phrase if not that
he is going to help those for whom Christ
died? Jesus wrought upon men to help
them, and He poured fierce condemnation
upon all professedly religious folk who had
not the willingness thus to serve. If Jesus
were to reappear on earth to-day and set
Himself to labour among non-Christians it
would be for the sake of the people. The
whole earthly aim of Christianity is to serve
those now on earth.

To be sure there is force in the missionary's
question. He may infer that we advise that
he should forget the more spiritual aspects of
missionary effort in the passion for the im-
mediate relief of lives in terrible distress.
We hasten then to say that the duty is at all
times spiritual. The missionary is to strike
at once to the spiritual centres, arousing the
conviction for sin, pointing the path to for-
giveness, preaching the good news of the
good God. Only, this evangel is to be
thoroughgoing. From the moment when
the missionary gets enough people converted
to create anything like a social spirit he is
under obligation to teach the converts to

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 249

carry the newly-found God into their social
relationships. Just as in the home land we
are to urge progressive salvation which will
include all a man's relationships to his neigh-
bours so in the mission field must we preach
the same salvation. The fundamental motive
is to get the individual into prayer and com-
munion with the God of Jesus. After that
we must push the divine conquest into those
realms of the believer's life which touch other
lives for the sake of making him and his
fellows more human here and now. As has
been so often said, it is not so much the duty
of keeping the non-Christian nations out of
hell hereafter which confronts us, as the duty
of getting them out of hell here and now.

Everything comes back to the idea of God
as revealed in Jesus. That idea carries with
it positive and specific ideas of what man is
and of the possibility of man's becoming
more like God. Allowing all we please for
the play of economic forces in the life of alien
peoples, we have to admit that our very
ability to detect the evil tendency of eco-
nomic forces lays upon us the responsibility
for the correction of those tendencies. The
strategic attack is that of the missionary. If
the missionary went into a non-Christian field
and began to work entirely from without, on

250 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the assumption, let us say, that healthier
physical bodies would be enough of an ob-
ject for him to achieve, we could at once
concede the justice of the charge of super-
ficiality. But when the missionary plants
the idea of God in the inner life of his fol-
lowers and works outward from thence, we
have to praise him for proceeding upon work-
manlike principles. Jesus did not indeed at-
tack by name the outstanding economic and
political wrongs of His day, but He did begin
within men and set ideas to seething which
had an inevitable expansive and even ex-
plosive tendency. It is impossible to accom-
plish everything in a few months, but Jesus
so placed His truth in the hearts of men
that He knew the development must surely
encircle the outward institutions. The proc-
ess of growth involves expansions. As well
might a vineyard dresser protest that the
vine is doing a merely superficial work when
it is reaching out for more room to accom-
modate its increasing length and diameter
as for a critic of Christian methods to say
that the methods are artificial and superficial
when they reach outward from the inner
germ. What the vine is doing is building
larger channels for the sap ; and more sap
means more fruit.

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 25 1

The present speaker heard at widely dif-
ferent periods two great men make two great
utterances which by right belong together.
I once heard Dr. William F. Warren, the
greatest student of the faiths outside of Chris-
tianity that I have ever known, say that the
majority of the inhabitants of the earth, when
they attempt to conceive of God conceive of
Him as best symbolized by some unhuman
form, — multitudes of persons finding no bet-
ter symbol for Him than a serpent or dragon.
I once heard Bishop James M. Thoburn, the
greatest missionary I have ever known, say
that the majority of the inhabitants of the
earth lie down to rest every night without
having known through the day the satisfac-
tion of enough to eat. The two statements,
though uttered by different men, fitly belong
together, for each has significance for the
other. If we could get men to a nobler idea
of God a nobler idea of humanity would
follow ; and if a nobler idea of humanity
followed, a better state of human existence
would appear, — while conversely a better
state of human existence would lead to a
healthier conception of God. The mission-
ary has to utilize both spiritual and physical
influences, but his primary function is to
point men straight to God. Doing that will

252 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

ultimately transform even the outward envi-
ronment and this in turn will react for good
on the religious view of those won for
Christianity.

Professor Borden P. Bowne used to say
that Asia past and present is the sufficient
condemnation of the Asiatic religions. A
genuine philosopher saw the intimate bond
between the view of God which the Asiatic
peoples have held and the outcome in Asiatic
life. There may have been a stage in the
history of religions when the worship of even
the fructifying and reproductive principles of
nature led only to innocent results, but the
final outcome of such worship is sure to be
abomination like the rankness of some cults
in India to-day. Religions are to be judged
not only by their intellectual formulation but
by their total appeal to the impulses of men
as men actually are. It is a peculiarity of
any religion that it cannot remain static. It
moves up or down, and the Asiatic heathen-
isms have not moved up. " Raw " heathen-
ism grows rawer. Nothing demonstrates
more conclusively the power of the religion
of the ancient Hebrews than the vigour with
which it clung to its upward course in spite
of the contaminating influences from the
nations round about. When the ancient

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 253

prophets denounced the worship of heathen
gods in terms which suggested abominable
and unnatural immoralities they were not
indulging in figures of rhetoric. Idolatry-
slides downward into baseness. Nothing can
be swifter than the rush down-hill when im-
morality is labelled with the name of religion.
Or think of a creed which is loftier and
purer than any species of nature worship, —
the creed of ancestor worship. Here would
appear to be a religion laying stress on the
recognition of value in human life. The an-
cestors are worthy of supreme honour. But
the essential deification of actual men has led
away from the ennoblement of humanity. It
may seem odd to hear Mormonism spoken of
as heathenism, but there was once in Mor-
monism, though there may not be now, a
trace of heathenism in the form of ancestor
worship. A man was to be honoured in pro-
portion to the number of his descendants.
Polygamy would be the natural outcome of
such belief. Professor Ross has calculated
that through the demand for sons to honour
the ancestors China brings forth five genera-
tions in a period which normally ought to
produce only four. Through the intense
stimulus of any belief which thus forces too
many beings into existence the value of the

254 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

single life falls. Life literally becomes cheap.
Then we have the wretched adjustment of
the human vitality to a standard of living
hardly human at all. There are degrees of
adversity which furnish the stimulus to char-
acter-building, but such wretchedness as re-
sults from overcrowding like that of China
and India is so far below what we in Western
lands think of as adversity and poverty as to
make the terms inapplicable. We have in-
deed in China and India a manifestation of
what the human race can achieve against
desperate odds, but that is not the revelation
of which we are desirous. We desire the un-
folding of men's possibilities under favoura-
ble circumstances. We are looking not for
the environment in which the physically
toughest alone can survive, but for the en-
vironment which gives impulse to the human
energies towards something beyond hardiness.
It is sometimes said to the credit of the China-
man that he is able to live on next to noth-
ing, and that he is immune to typhoid fever !
But better not be immune to typhoid fever if
the immunity carries with it an immunity of
mind and feeling towards the filth which pro-
duces typhoid fever. There are much more
glorious victories possible for the Chinaman
than to become immune to typhoid. The

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 255

human victory for the milHons of China is not
Hkely to come until the birth-rate in China
falls. The birth-rate will fall when polygamy
and concubinage and general laxity of sexual
relationships cease. These will decline when
ancestor worship passes. Ancestor worship
will pass as the worship of the true God
comes. With the worship of the true God
will arrive a new estimate of the value of a
man, — and the new estimate of the worth of
a man will work back in turn through more
and more beneficial channels to enlarge the
idea of God.

Even the more abstract notion of fatalism
which haunts many theologies has direct hu-
man consequences. The drowsy passivity of
the Indian ryot in the presence of plague, the
crazy rush of the Mohammedan warrior upon
the machine guns of his enemy, the utter
callousness of the Mexican peon to the threat
of death by bandits and revolutionists, — all
these reveal the dehumanizing deadliness of
a belief which makes men merely the play-
things of fate. The fatalistic creeds all end
in attaching less and less value to human life.
The idea of God revealed by Jesus cannot be
taken seriously without enhancing the value
of men, and that increased worth of men and
the happy consequences which flow forth from

256 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

thence are potent signs of the presence of
God in the world. While we have condemned
the plan of going forth into non-Christian
lands with schemes merely for the physical
development of the lands, it nevertheless must
be said, after we have focused our view into
correct perspective, that the very lands of the
world, — the soil, the mines, the water-powers,
— will never have their chance until the Chris-
tian idea seizes the peoples. To turn West-
ern science in full blast upon the material
resources of the Orient now, with the Western
lands themselves not fully Christianized, and
with Christianity barely started in the Eastern
lands, might lead to industrial calamity. But
with the whole world Christianized into some
notion of stewardship as applied to material
goods there is no reason why through the
long future lands now burdened to exhaustion
may not revive into garden beauty. And
there is every reason why these resources
should ultimately work for the deepening and
enrichment of human experience.

We have said that we go forth into
heathen lands because the less fortunate peo-
ples need us. We also need them. Life is
such that it does not in human beings run an
even stream. It calls for seasonal refresh-
ment and revival. We crave the inspiration

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 257

of the tingle of world-wide victory. Just as in
the career of our own country the entire na-
tion was quickened by the consciousness of
an ever-expanding frontier where pioneer
spirits were pushing on ahead of the nation,
so we are stirred by the stories of the con-
quests of the Cross out upon the frontier.
But more important than the need of the
heathen for us and the need of ourselves for
the conquests of heathenism is the demand
of the whole Christian community, present
and future, for whatever any portion of the
community can contribute to the joy of the
whole. The Church of Christ yearns for the
heathen peoples because of the fine possibil-
ities of the heathen as human beings. With
the growth of a genuine Christian conscious-
ness the reflective students discern more and
more worth in men everywhere, taken just as
human beings. Christianity would be poor
without the diversity of view and manner
which abound as persons of widely separated
place of abode and habit of life merge into
more intimate understanding of one another
as members of one Christian body. The
speaker once heard two professors from a
distinguished university discussing the policy
of having preachers of different denomina-
tions appear before college students. When

258 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

one expressed the opinion that the sounding
of diverse notes as to religious conviction be-
fore college students would tend to confuse
them, the other replied that one need of stu-
dents everywhere is to realize the luxuriant
variety and diversity of religious approach to
central themes. The religious convictions
are as diversified as the peoples themselves.
When we glance at masses of heathen persons
they all look alike to us, and different from
persons of our own race. There is room in
Christianity for whatever is racial in the habits
of mind of the different peoples. There seem
to be in particular races distinctive qualities,
— as the artistic tendencies in the Japanese.
We are not attempting any pronouncements
in racial psychology, — for all that we mean
is, for example, that whether innately or by
acquired habit the Japanese have Japanese
artistic abilities. When we broaden our idea
of Christianity enough to make it include as
essential everything which makes life rich
and sweet we shall rejoice in the conversion
of alien peoples because of their racial qual-
ities. What can these be but gifts of God ?
Is not any taste for beauty an echo or a gleam
from the Source of all Beauty ? Is not any
trait of intellectual acuteness a revelation
from the Divine intellect ? Is not any grace

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 259

of personal excellence a revelation of some
glory of the Supreme Person? After our
glance at the Oriental crowds steadies to a
gaze the sameness dissolves and the differ-
ences in individual character begin to stand
out. And the Christian community needs all
these separate persons with all their peculiar-
ities of character. Needs them why and
how ? Needs them because they are persons.
Needs them just as persons need one another.
Needs them in the finest and purest spiritual
communion.

Does Christianity lack anything which can
be supplied from the outside systems as such ?
Here we fall back upon our conception of in-
struments. The systems are nothing in them-
selves and have no rights of their own. The
only question then is as to how much of these
systems can be utilized for Christianity in an
instrumental capacity. We profess ourselves
unable to see much that is precious for pres-
ent-day use in the heathen doctrines or codes.
They do not furnish healthy inspiration, or
supply wholesome spiritual food, or put into
the hands of men effective spiritual weapons
of offense or defense, or tools for construction
in the religious life of our time. A fair judg-
ment would probably be that the systems
have had their chance. They have done all

26o PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

the good of which they are capable. Some
are indeed better than others, but all are in-
adequate in to-day's crisis. What we really
desire of the so-called heathen are the persons
themselves and their aptitudes. Their relig-
ious views are not suited to the days just
ahead of us. Many heathen religions are in-
deed wonderful inventions. They are like
the American Indian's birch-bark canoe — one
of the most marvellous contrivances ever de-
vised by the wit of man, but valuable chiefly
for museum purposes to-day. So of the re-
ligion of the American Indian, and of other
non-Christian races.

We must not be understood in this as in-
dicating a willingness to throw away any-
thing of the slightest value. The concep-
tions of the outside religions when looked at
on the whole and in the main are apt to be
disquieting. We can pick out gems of moral
precept and of spiritual insight here and
there, but to do so we have to rummage
through heaps of rubbish, — to use no stronger
term. If there are items of these systems
worth the expense of hunting them out by all
means let them be appropriated. Gold is
gold, but after we have paid for the mine and
the digging and the cyanide process there
may not be any gold left. It is more likely

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 261

that the appropriation will be that of the
spiritual capabilities of the people themselves
which are powerful engines but which have
never been steered to the true course. If the
Hindu has developed great faculty for medi-
tative brooding the faculty can be used
wonderfully for Christian thinking, — and the
Hindu will have something worth brooding
over. It may be that the progress of the
years will show that there are segments of
Christian truth which are more adapted to
some races than are others, and it may be
that the final interpretation of these segments
cannot come until the outside peoples take
hold of the aspects of Christian truth for
which they are racially fitted. This is more
likely than that Christianity will discover
much in heathen theologies of which to
make outright seizure. There are indeed
among the outside peoples customs which
are quaint and beautiful, manners which are
graceful and inimitable, courtesies which are
charming and fascinating. It would be sad
indeed if the world-wide spread of Chris-
tianity should mar any of this. But the
virtue of these peoples is not chiefly in the
content of their religious beliefs.

It ought to be apparent that we do not
imply that the missionary should attempt to

262 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

introduce Western methods and habits of life,
— say to Eastern peoples. He is to introduce
the life of God into the Eastern hearts and
then allow that divine life to assume whatever
form seems most appropriate. If the mis-
sionary relies on the method of himself liv-
ing an approximately ideal human life he will
accomplish much more than by merely formal
preaching. The objection that missionaries
bring discredit on their cause by living in
better circumstances than do the people to
whom they minister misses an essential point
most wofully. To begin with, the mission-
ary cannot live as do the people around him,
and in the next place he ought not to if he
could. It is part of his business to give his
people an object lesson in what the normal
human life means. The very thoroughness
with which he cleans his premises is a lesson.
And out beyond that are the obvious examples
in the love of husband and wife for each
other, the conscientious training of children,
the kindliness towards the neighbour, the
honesty of daily marketing, which ought to
be invaluable. But it is not the duty of the
missionary to try to divert Chinese or Indian
Christianity into any other than Chinese or
Indian channels. It may not be desirable for
the Chinaman to wear European clothes, or

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 263

to eat European dishes, or to speak European
language, or to be anything but a Chinaman
or to act like any one except a Chinaman no
matter how sincere a Christian he may be.

And now, as we draw towards the close,
we avow our belief that the progress of Chris-
tianity in foreign fields is a benefit for the
instruments of the Church, considered as
instruments. The missionary has to hold
his emphasis to the right place, — the change
of the life of the convert. He is not apt
to be led into over-stress upon this or that
minor detail when the acceptance of faith
can mean only the transformation of life.
In our land a man may be performing sub-
stantially Christian duties without the Chris-
tian consciousness. He ought to dedicate
his powers openly to the Christian God, but
the outward conduct may then go forward
as before. It may not be necessary for him
to abandon any habit whatsoever. But in a
foreign land the transformation has often to
be complete. Habits and even associations
have to be broken. A batde is to be fought.
The wise missionary, to get at the heart of a
situation like this with the great essentials,
must keep the stress on the features of the
faith that really count. He will not make
much of denominational definitions. He will

264 PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY

not rely overmuch upon church machinery.
In the severer trials that come upon him he
will lean most upon the Master's example of
immediate contact of life with life. He wins
by being first a Christian man and after that
and incidentally a minister and a teacher.

We have all heard the story of the found-
ing of a very important Christian school
in Korea. The workers preached for years
without success in winning converts. They
could not get close enough to the people.
One year the cholera struck Seoul, carrying
off the people by hundreds. The dead were
so numerous that burial of all seemed out of
the question, — some were cast on the gar-
bage heaps outside the city. A missionary
walking beyond the walls came upon the
body of a child, — a little girl — on a heap of
refuse. The girl had been cast out for dead
but proved to be alive. There was no place
to take her but to the missionary's home,
and there she recovered. With that girl as
a pupil the missionary made a start towards
a school, for he saw here a way into the life
of the people. From such a beginning in
closer daily contact came the after success.
The impulse was Christian, the method was
Christian, the outcome has been Christian.
Here was evidently a providential opening

EVERY KINDRED, PEOPLE AND TONGUE 265

of the door to more intimate life centres of
the people. The Church has in most places
come upon happier times than those in older
Korea, but in the abundance of the new
opportunity she ought not to forget the em-
phasis on personal values and personal meth-
ods which is the centre of any evangelism
worthy the name of Christian.

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IREDERIC J. HASKIN .. Author of

■ The American Government*^

The Immigrant : An Asset and a Liability

i2mo, cloth, net $1.25.

"Persons are asking how they may best do their duty and
their whole duty to those coming to our shores. Ibis book
is a valuable light on the subject. It is full of facts and it
is a capable and conscientious study as to the meaning of
the facts. Any thoughtful person will find here much valu-
able material for study and the book is calculated to do
much good." — Herald and Presbyter.

CHARLES STELZLE

The Gospel of Labor

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"Sometimes it is a short sermonette, sometimes it is a
story, but every one of the thirty-three chapters is a pre-
sentation in terse, graphic English of some phase of the
gospel of labor by a man who knows the life of labor from
the inside. A stimulating message for the laboring man, and
many valuable suggestions for th^se who desire to enter into
his life in the most helpful way." — Presbyterian Advance.

PROFESSOR JAMES R. HOJVERTON

The Church and Social Reform

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serving to clear the atmosphere and show the way out." —
Christian World.

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What Must the Church Do to Be Saved ?

The Necessity and Possibility of the Unity of
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From a first-hand observation the author brings together a
body of facts which emphasize strongly the necessity for a
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straigbtforwardness which invite the respect of all readers.

SOCIOLOGY AND PRACTICAL RELIGION
/. H, JOWETT,D.D.

The Transfigured Church

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"On erery side we hear the lament that the chnrch ii

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powers were put in motion, are here most wonderfully por-
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hope and increased zeal." — United Presbyterian.

SAMUEL ZANE BATTEN', P.P.

The Social Task of Christianity

A Summons to the New Crusade. Net $1.25.

A frank and clear statement of the meaning and method
of Social Service. Ihis is the first definite and frank state-
ment of the new task facing modern Christianity with a scien-
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recognized writer on Sociology; his experience as a pastor
entitles him to speak with authority upon this vital theme.

W. FORBES GRAY (Editor)

Non-Church-Going : Its Reasons and

Remedies i2mo, cloth, net $1.00.

Never before have the opinions of such a^ galaxy of
prominent men on this question been presented in one vol-
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Sir Oliver Lodge William Ward Hector Macpherson

Prebendary Carlile Frank Ballard, D. D. Thomas Martin, D. D.

P. Herbert Stead, M.A- J. R. MacDonald, D.D. P. Whitwell Wilson
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Right Hon. Sit J. Comptoa Riclcett, M. D.

JOHN F. DOBBS

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A timely work. Problems ar.- very clearly stated. The
author shows deep insight into present day conditions both
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as they really are. with ability to express himself in abso-
lutely unhackneyed and fresh style.

miLIAM B. PATTERSON

Modern Church Brotherhoodf

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A survey of practical activities by and through the men
of the Church. It is a presentation of the Brotherhoods, not
in theory, but in action.

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY

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Twice-Born Men

A Clinic in Regeneration,

lamo, cloth, net .50

A footnote in narrative to Prof. Wm. James* "Tlie
Varieties of Religious Experience."

Studies in the phenomena of conversion from the stand-
point of the student of human nature.

Prof. William James, of Harvard: "Mr. Begbie's book is
a wonderful set of stories splendidly worked up. It certainly
needs no preface from me. I might as well call my book a
foot-note to his. I am proud of the dedication and of the
references and I wish the book a great success."

Prof. George A. Coe, of Union Theological Seminary: "I
like the book greatly. It gives concrete data and that is
what both the psychologist and religionist needs. As I read,
I found myself marking the margins and singling out pass-
ages for my own scientific use."

^AMES I. VANCE

Tendency : The Effect of 1 rend and Drift
in the Development of Life.

Net $1.25.

A series of discussions of formative influences in char-
acter construction, from a practical and sympathetic stand-
point. Dr. Vance's work among young men enables him
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pathy.

SIR JOSEPH COMPTON-RICKETT

Origins and Faith

8vo, cloth, net $1.50.

A series of essays, philosophical and theological, written
by this eminent statesman and layman on the fundamentals
of belief. It is a frank examination and apologetic for
Christianity, by one who is well known now as the author of
the erstwhile anonymous books "The Christ Ihat is to Be"
and "Pro Christo et Ecclesia."

EDWIN F. H ALLEN BECK

The Passion for Men

l6mo, cloth, net 40c.
A series of straightforward talks on the imperative duty
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Vvenue Presbyterian Church, New York.

STUDIES IN CKRISTIAN EXPERIENCE

JAMES A. ANDERSON

Religious Unrest and Its Remedy

l2mo, cloth, net 75c.

"In this remarkable book — for such it is — the author gives
all critics full credit for honest deductions and honest
doubters will admit the fairness of his treatment of diffi-
culties found in Biblical interpretation. 1 he writer has con-
densed volumes into his comparison of Christianity with other
religions. Must be satisfactory to any honest inquirer after
the truth of Christianity." — Pittsburgh Christian Advocate,

REV. W. K. FLEMING, M.A., B.D. Library oj
_ _ . . . >^t • • • Historical

Mysticism m Christianity Theology

8vo, cloth, net $1.50.

"Successive schools of thought and the teachings of indi-
vidual mystics, together with the most recent light thrown
upon the subject by writers of recognized authority, are
combined in a scholarly yet simple narration of the deeper
spiritual life." — Christian Advocate.

T. T. MARTIN

Redemption and the New Birth

l2n]o, cloth, net $1.00.

"A rare contribution. Ihe author occupies a peculiar
place in the evangelistic world. There is none other like
him. No other man is bringing such messages to this age.
That this is true, his book will give ample evidence. It de-
serves wide reading and will must certainly be read with
profit and delight both by the preachers and laymen." —
Baptist and Reflector.

PATTERSON DUBOIS

The Practice of Salvation

Trailing a Word to a World Ideal. i2mo, net $1.00.

Mr. Uu Bois, who is so well known to Bible teachers and
students as the author of "The Point of Contact in Teach-
ing," and "The Natural Way in Moral Training," in this,
his latest volume, interprets salvation in the terms of the
new psychology. The very unconventional and untraditional
character of the work will commend it to Christian workers
who will find rare spiritual stimulus and inspiration in its
pages.

ELWIN L HOUSE, P.P.

The Psychology of Orthodoxy

8vo, cloth, net $1.50.

The author points out clearly and helpfully the relation
between or the comparative value of what may be called the
Psychological Cults and the Orthodox Christian position.
Some of the themes interpreted are "The Principles of Men-
tal Healing," "The Principles of Spiritual Healing," "The
Available God," "The God of Possession," "The Conscious
Mind," "Ihe Sub-Conscious Mind," "The Power of Sugges-
tion," "The Psychology of Prayer." "The Builders of Health."
"Spiritual Healing," "The Relation of the Oiurch to New
Thought and Christian Science."

STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE

MORA CE EMO R Y WA R NER, P.P. /'^''f/'ff ''/? ^
a J. R. Mott, D. D.

The Psychology of the Chri^ian Life

Cvo, cloth, net $1.50. -

"Dr. Warner has written something new and thought-
provoking. The method is, in general, that of the empirical
school so valiantly championed by the late Prof. William
James. Yet cur author explores a narrower field, confining
himself rigidly to Christian experience." — Book Neivs.

i). A. MURRAY, P.P.

Christian Faith and the New Psychology

8vo, cloth, net $1.50.

"Dr. Murray may be classed among the mediators be-
tween modern thought and evangelical theology. Evolution
and the New Psychology are to hira not sources of difficulty
as a Christian thinker, but aids to faith. It is one of the
most original and stimulating books in the field of Christian
apologetics." — Tlie Continent.

THEOLOGICAL

WILLIAM ALEXANPER GRIST

The Hi^oric Chri^inthe Faith of To-day

8vo, cloth, net $2.50.

"It would be difficult to exaggerate the value and sig-
nificance of this new study of the historic _ Christ ; or the
singular lucidity, beauty and simplicity of its style. That
it should be the work of a writer hitherto comparatively
unknown makes it the more surprising. It is not a life of
Christ, in the ordinary sense of the term; but it is a rever-
ent study and vivid presentation of the commanding figure
in human history, in the light of all that modern scholarship
has disclosed." — Living Age.

GEORGE COULSON WORKMAN, Ph.D. {Leipsic)

At-Onement ; or Reconciliation with God

i2mo, cloth, net $1.25.
Dr. Workman, Late Professor of Old Testament Exegesis
ana Literature in Weslyan 'iheological College, Montreal,
and author of "The Old Testament Vindicated," lucidly
presents this vital subject under the following heads: Atone-
ment in Itself, in God, in Christ, in Man. in Sncrifice, in
Death, in Suff^cring, in Service, and in Theory. Chancellor
Burwash, of Victoria University, says: "This work of
great importance,^ should do excellent service at the present
time. It gives Scriptural emphasis to the love of God as
the source of man's redemption."

Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries

1 1012 01236 3067

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