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'>        il 

RULING  IDEAS  OF  THE 
PRESENT   AGE 


BY 


y 


WASHINGTON   GLADDEN 


MAN,"   "  WHO   WROTE   THE    BIBLE,"    ETC. 


BOSTON   AND    NEW    YORK 
HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN    AND   COMPANY 

(f  be  0itJer?ibe  J^re??,  CambriD^e 
1895 


-^ 


2,* 


Copyright,  1895, 
By  WASHINGTON  GLADDEN. 


All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press^  Cambridge^  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


PREFACE. 

By  the  will  of  the  Hon.  Richard  Fletcher, 
a  fund  was  committed  to  the  trustees  of 
Dartmouth  College,  the  income  of  which 
was  to  be  expended  in  obtaining  and  pub- 
lishing, once  in  two  years,  a  prize  essay 
whose  purpose  it  should  be  to  impress  on 
the  minds  of  all  Christians  ''  a  solemn  sense 
of  their  duty  to  exhibit  in  their  godly  lives 
and  conversation  the  heneficent  effects  of  the 
religion  they  profess^  and  thus  increase 
the  efficiency  of  Christianity  in  Christian 
countries^  and  recommend  its  acceptance  to 
the  heathen  nations  of  the  world.''^ 

In  accordance  with  this  provision  the 
trustees  asked  for  essays,  in  the  year  1894, 
upon  the  question :  "  In  what  ways  ought 
the  conception  of  personal  life  and  duty  to 
he  modified?  "  The  essay  which  follows  is 
the  one  to  which  the  prize  was  awarded. 


IV  PBEFACE. 

The  title  given  to  the  volume  was  sug- 
gested, as  most  readers  will  know,  by  Canon 
Mozley's  "  Kuling  Ideas  in  Early  Ages." 
Not  only  is  it  needful  to  interpret  the 
thought  of  past  ages  to  the  men  of  the 
present  day,  it  seems  also  necessary  to 
interpret  the  present  to  itself.  The  regu- 
lative truths  which  are  working  themselves 
out  in  the  experience  of  every  generation 
are  often  but  imperfectly  articulate,  and  it 
is  a  good  service  if  one  can  help  his  neigh- 
bors to  discern  the  meaning  of  the  intellec- 
tual and  ethical  movements  that  are  going 
on  around  them.  This  essay  is  a  humble 
attempt  at  such  an  interpretation.  It  is 
not  assumed  that  all  the  ruling  ideas  of 
the  present  age  are  here  defined ;  but  it  is 
hoped  that  some  of  the  more  important 
among  them  have  been  pointed  out. 

W.  G. 

First  Congregational  Church, 
Columbus,  O.,  October  4,  1895. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I.  Change  your  Minds 1 

n.  The  Doctrine  of  Fatherhood  ....    17 

III.  The  Doctrine  of  Brotherhood     ...    31 

IV.  The  One  and  the  Many '61 

Y.  The  Sacred  and  the  Secular  ....    97 

VI.    The  Law  of  Property 135 

VII.    Religion  and  Politics 163 

VIII.    Public  Opinion 189 

IX.    Pharisaism 217 


X.    One  but  Twain 24/ 


XI.    Ruling  Ideas 271 


CHANGE  YOUR  MINDS, 


Redemption  must  be  wrought  out,  and  is  being  wrought 
out,  by  living,  present  principles  finding  their  way  into 
the  thoughts,  hearts,  actions  of  men.  Redemption  is  an 
organic  process,  going  on  at  this  very  time,  and  is  to  be 
judged  in  its  own  nature  without  passing  beyond  the 
hour.  —  John  Bascom,  The  Words  of  Christy  Introduc- 
tion. 

Men  are  ruled  by  ideas  :  the  military  impulse  is  but 
an  idea ;  and  they  may  therefore  be  ruled  by  increas- 
ingly noble  and  just  ideas.  If  the  convictions  and  feel- 
ings incident  to  goodwill  can  be  made  forceful  in  their 
thoughts,  all  external  expressions  will  conform  to  them, 
and  conform  to  them  with  wonderful  rapidity.  Here, 
then,  in  ideas,  is  the  truly  constructive  centre  of  human 
society.  He  only  builds  for  the  future  who  establishes, 
intensifies,  and  purifies  the  appropriate  ideas.  —  Ibid., 
pages  38,  39. 

A  ray  of  heavenly  light  traversing  human  life,  the 
message  of  Christ  has  been  broken  into  a  thousand  rain- 
bow colors  and  carried  in  a  thousand  directions.  It  is 
the  historical  task  of  Christianity  to  assume  with  every 
age  a  fresh  metamorphosis,  and  to  be  forever  spiritualiz- 
ing more  and  more  her  understanding  of  the  Christ  and 
of  salvation.  —  Amiel's  Journal^  page  3. 


RULING    IDEAS    OP    THE 
PRESENT   AGE. 


I. 

CHANGE  YOUR  MINDS. 

The  first  words  of  that  Porerunner  who 
came  preaching  in  the  wilderness  of  Judea 
were  these :  "  Change  your  minds,  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  The  com- 
ing of  that  kingdom  is  always  a  call  to  men 
to  change  their  minds.  A  new  conception 
of  life  and  duty  is  the  condition  of  entrance 

into    the    kingdom.     We   must    be   trans- 
it 

formed  before  we  can  be  naturalized ;  but 
we  are  transformed  by  the  renewing  of  our 
minds,  by  getting  new  ideas  of  life  and 
duty.  The  feelings,  the  choices,  the  habits, 
are  also  changed,  but  the  foundation  of  it 
all  is  a  new  conception  of  the  meaning  of 
life. 


4  CHANGE   YOUR  MINDS. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  came,  in  the  days 
of  John  the  Baptist,  only  to  those  who 
changed  their  minds,  and  adopted  its  rul- 
ing principles  as  the  law  of  their  life.  Just 
as  fast  and  as  far  as  the  fundamental  ideas 
of  that  kingdom  were  appropriated  by  men 
were  its  boundaries  widened  and  its  empire 
confirmed.  The  seat  of  this  government  is 
in  candid  minds  and  consenting  wills.  "  The 
kingdom  of  God  is  within  you." 

This  kingdom  was  coming  while  John 
was  preaching  in  the  wilderness,  and  while 
Jesus  was  speaking  on  the  Mount  of  the 
Beatitudes,  And  ever  since  then  the  disci- 
ples of  Christ  have  been  offering  the  prayer, 
"  Thy  kingdom  come."  The  prayer  is  an- 
swered, century  by  century  and  day  by  day. 
The  kingdom  does  come.  It  continues  to 
come,  in  stronger  force,  with  wider  sway, 
as  the  years  go  on.  But  how?  Only  as 
men  change  their  minds,  and  give  it  freer 
entrance  to  their  lives  and  larger  authority 
over  them. 

The  men  who  heard  John  speak  changed 


CHANGE   YOUR  MINDS.  6 

their  minds  about  some  things,  and  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  came,  in  some  partial 
measure,  to  them.  They  changed  their 
minds  about  the  sufficiency  of  the  Jewish 
ritual.  They  saw  that  the  formalities  of  the 
ceremonial  worship  were  not  enough ;  that 
they  must  do  works  meet  for  repentance. 
Religion,  they  had  come  to  apprehend,  was 
not  a  matter  of  form,  but  a  matter  of  con- 
duct. When  this  change  in  their  habitual 
thinking  had  taken  place,  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  had  come  to  them  with  a  measure  of 
power ;  it  had  occupied  a  large  area  of  their 
thought. 

But  there  were  wide  spaces  yet  unsub- 
dued to  the  obedience  of  the  perfect  law  of 
liberty.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  comes  into 
every  man's  life  very  much  as  Israel  came  to 
Canaan  :  it  enters  in  and  intrenches  itself. 
But  there  is  still  much  land  to  be  occupied ; 
there  are  hostile  tribes  in  many  strong- 
holds ;  there  must  be  a  great  deal  of  active 
campaigning  before  the  whole  territory  is 
subdued.     The  kingdom  has  come,  but  its 


6  CHANGE  YOUB  MINDS, 

sway  must  be  confirmed  and  extended.  It 
has  not  yet  fully  come.  The  prayer  that 
our  Lord  taught  us  never  loses  its  meaning. 
And  therefore  those  disciples  of  John  needed 
every  day  to  hear  the  same  injunction,  — 
"  Change  your  minds,  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand."  "You  have  gained 
some  new  conceptions  of  life  and  duty,"  — 
we  can  imagine  the  Baptist  saying  to  them, 
—  "by  means  of  which  the  kingdom  has 
drawn  near  to  you,  and  taken  possession  of 
some  portion  of  your  life;  but  there  are 
many  other  changes  which  will  need  to  be 
made  from  time  to  time,  in  your  habitual 
thinking,  in  order  that  the  kingdom  may  be 
more  fully  established  in  your  life.  You 
will  need  to  change  your  minds  about  the 
King  himself,  to  whom  I  have  borne  wit- 
ness ;  for  your  first  thought  of  his  king- 
dom will  be  altogether  inadequate.  When 
you  get  rid  of  your  crude  ideas  about  him, 
and  perceive  that  the  Messiah  is  not  to  be 
a  temporal  king,  then  the  kingdom  of  God 
will  have  come  nearer  to  you.     Thus,  year 


CHANGE   YOUE  MINDS.  1 

by  year,  you  will  be  changing  your  minds  ; 
old  thoughts  about  God  and  his  Son  and 
his  Church  and  his  Word  will  be  passing 
away ;  new  views,  new  meanings,  new  inter- 
pretations, will  displace  the  old ;  you  will 
constantly  be  renewed  in  the  spirit  of  your 
minds.  And  thus,  with  these  larger  and 
more  perfect  conceptions  of  the  truth  as  it 
is  in  Jesus,  the  kingdom  of  God  will  come 
to  you  with  ever-increasing  power ;  you  will 
be  able  to  apprehend  wdth  all  saints  what 
is  the  breadth  and  length  and  height  and 
depth  of  the  love  of  Christ,  that  you  may 
be  filled  with  the  fullness  of  God." 

All  through  those  early  days,  the  disci- 
ples were  constantly  getting  new  ideas, — 
revising  their  theories  about  Christ  and  his 
kingdom,  throwing  overboard  their  old  no- 
tions and  taking  in  a  new  stock  of  work- 
ing theories.  On  that  night,  after  the  cru- 
cifixion, when  the  eleven,  and  those  that 
were  with  them,  heartsick  and  despairing,  saw 
Jesus  standing  in  the  midst  of  them,  and 
heard  him  saying,  "  Peace  be  unto  you ! " 


I 


8  CHANGE  YOUR  MINDS. 

a  new  conception  entered  into  their  minds, 
— -  a  conception  which  revolutionized  their 
lives.  Another  such  new  idea  came  with  a 
shock  on  the  day  of  Pentecost ;  another,  in 
a  different  way,  but  no  less  effective,  when 
the  first  council  gathered  in  Jerusalem,  and 
Paul  and  Barnabas  showed  the  church  how 
God  had  opened  the  door  of  faith  unto  the 
Gentiles.  It  was  in  a  very  imperfect  and 
partial  way  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
came,  at  first,  even  to  the  twelve  apostles. 
It  was  a  good  while  before  it  got  full  pos- 
session of  them ;  they  had  to  change  their 
minds  over  and  over  to  make  room  for  it. 
This  fact  appears  in  their  writings. 

"A  comparison  of  the  various  types  of 
New  Testament  doctrine  shows  us  further 
that  the  Christian  idea  is  there  presented  to 
us  in  various  stages  of  development.  The 
speeches  of  St.  Peter  recorded  in  the  earlier 
chapters  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  repre- 
sent a  more  primitive  type  than  we  see  in 
the  first  Epistle  ascribed  to  that  apostle. 
The  Epistle  of  St.  James  is  elementary  in  its 


CHANGE   YOUB  MINDS.  9 

treatment  of  the  Christian  life  and  truth, 
while  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles  we  have  a  rich 
elaboration  of  the  doctrine.  St.  Paul  him- 
self shows  an  advance  from  the  comparative 
simplicity  of  what  he  wrote  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians  to  the  profound  ideas  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  and  again  a  further  advance, 
especially  in  Christology,  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Colossians.  In  St.  John  we  not  only 
have  a  choice  and  characteristic  type  of 
Christian  doctrine :  it  is  evident  that  we 
have  also  a  later  development.  We  are 
quite  accustomed  to  this  representation  of 
progress  in  revelation ;  we  see  that  it  is 
in  harmony  with  the  divine  method  in  na- 
ture :  but  still  we  may  be  slow  to  perceive 
what  it  involves.  Different  stages  of  prog- 
ress, viewed  side  by  side,  necessarily  present 
divergent  aspects ;  sometimes  they  appear  to 
be  quite  contradictory.  Progress  is  not  a 
smooth  movement ;  it  involves  a  struggle  for 
existence  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  — 
repudiation  of  the  old,  and  painful  assimi- 


10  CHANGE   YOUB  MINDS. 

lation  of  the  new.  The  garment  is  rent; 
the  wine-skin  is  burst."  ^ 

We  are  not  concerned  to  deny  that  the 
progress  through  which  these  early  disci- 
ples were  passing  was  something  other  and 
deeper  than  a  mere  change  of  opinions.  The 
Spirit  of  truth  who  had  come  to  abide  with 
them  is  also  the  Spirit  of  purity,  of  gentle- 
ness, of  patience,  of  charity ;  they  were  all 
the  while  growing  in  grace,  as  well  as  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  But  the  fact 
cannot  be  concealed  that  the  intellectual 
changes  through  which  they  were  passing 
were  many  and  momentous :  there  never  has 
been  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  church 
when  the  followers  of  Christ  were  changing 
their  minds  so  rapidly  and  so  radically  as 
at  this  time.  This  is  only  saying  that  there 
never  was  another  time  when  the  mind  of 
the  church  was  so  thoroughly  alive. 

There  are  many  who  seem  to  suppose  that 
the  approach  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  in- 

^  Faith  and  Criticism :  Essays  by  Congregationalists, 
pp.  70,  71. 


CHANGE   YOUB  MINDS.  11 

duces  a  stationary  mental  condition  among 
men ;  or  that  if,  upon  this  advent,  any 
change  occurs  in  intellectual  conceptions,  it 
is  once  for  all ;  that  the  minds  of  those  who 
are  brought  under  this  sway  become  fixed  in 
a  certain  set  of  notions,  and  that  it  is  a  mark 
of  disloyalty  if  any  sign  of  an  inquiring  dis- 
position appears.  That  this  would  be  con- 
trary to  all  the  analogies  of  nature  is  evi- 
dent enough.  Life,  in  every  one  of  its 
forms,  produces  constant  changes  :  "  Behold, 
I  make  all  things  new,"  is  its  word  of  power. 
And  Paul  seems  to  say  that  this  law  of 
change  is  the  law  of  the  spiritual  life  :  "If 
any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature ; 
the  old  things  are  passed  away  ;  behold,  they 
are  become  new."  Though  the  outward  man 
may  be  decaying,  he  tells  us,  "  the  inward 
man  is  renewed  day  hy  day.^''  What  is  the 
inward  man  ?  Does  the  term  designate  only 
the  sentiments,  the  feelings?  I  suppose 
that  we  have  no  right  to  put  this  narrow 
construction  upon  it.  The  work  of  renewal 
is  intellectual  as  well   as  emotional.      The 


12  CHANGE   YOUR   MINDS, 

new  hopes  and  loves  spring  from  new 
thoughts,  new  aspects  of  life,  new  concep- 
tions of  duty.  The  attempt  to  keep  one 
part  of  the  inward  man  in  bandages  while 
the  other  parts  are  allowed  to  grow  must 
result  in  deformity  and  feebleness.  It  would 
be  easy  to  predict  the  result,  even  if  we  had 
not  before  our  eyes  so  many  illustrations  of 
its  fatal  character. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  new  conceptions 
of  Christian  life  and  duty  must  always  be 
in  order.  The  substance  of  the  Christian 
experience  is  permanent,  but  its  forms  are 
always  changing  ;  its  manifestations,  like  the 
grace  from  which  they  spring,  are  new  every 
morning  and  fresh  every  evening.  Loyalty 
to  Christ,  confidence  in  his  word,  readiness 
to  know  and  do  his  will,  —  these  are  change- 
less principles  of  the  Christian  character ; 
but  the  question  how  I  can  best  manifest 
this  loyalty,  by  what  message  spoken,  by 
what  obedience  rendered,  is  a  question  for 
every  day.  "  New  occasions  teach  new  du- 
ties," and  every  new  duty  is  the  expression 


CHANGE   YOUR  MINDS.  13 

in  concrete  form  of  a  new  truth,  —  the  em- 
bodiment in  act  of  a  new  conception  of  life. 
The  truth  must  not  be  overlooked  that, 
while  the  kingdom  of  heaven  can  only  come 
to  those  who  accept  the  new  conceptions  in 
which  its  meaning  and  power  are  conveyed, 
yet  it  is  the  presence  of  this  kingdom  which 
awakens  these  thoughts.  The  apparent  con- 
tradiction is  only  the  law  of  reciprocity 
which  we  encounter  whenever  we  deal  with 
the  phenomena  of  life.  It  is  the  moisture 
of  the  earth  that  attracts  the  showers,  and  it 
is  the  showers  that  water  the  earth.  Upon 
the  desert  no  rain  falls,  and  because  no  rain 
falls  there  it  is  a  desert.  Some  things  stand 
related  to  each  other  so  reciprocally  that 
each  is  both  the  cause  and  the  effect  of  the 
other.  The  summer  brings  life  to  the  tribes 
of  earth,  and  the  tribes  of  earth  lead  in  the 
summer.  The  seed  produces  the  plant  and 
the  plant  produces  the  seed.  What  we 
have  said,  therefore,  respecting  new  concep- 
tions of  truth  as  conditioning  the  progress 
of  the  kingdom  does  not  conflict  with  the  af- 


14  CHANGE   YOUR   MINDS. 

firmation  that  it  is  the  progress  of  the  king- 
dom which  gives  rise  to  these  new  conceptions 
of  truth.  It  was  the  growth  of  Christianity 
which  forced  upon  the  council  at  Jerusalem 
the  truth  that  the  Gentiles  were  fellow-heirs, 
and  the  wider  acceptance  of  that  truth  sped 
the  progress  of  Christianity.  It  is  the  in- 
crease of  Christian  love  —  what  Mr.  Kidd 
calls  the  accumulation  of  a  great  fund  of 
altruistic  feeling  —  that  has  compelled  the 
adoption  of  a  new  philosophy  of  society,  and 
the  adoption  of  that  philosophy  promotes 
the  growth  of  altruistic  feeling.  The  whole- 
some changes  that  have  taken  place  in  the 
dogmas  of  the  church  have  generally  been 
the  response  to  a  purified  and  heightened 
ethical  sentiment.  It  was  because  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  coming  with  increas- 
ing power  that  men  were  compelled  to 
change  their  minds  about  witchcraft,  and 
about  the  damnation  of  non-elect  infants, 
and  about  a  good  many  other  horrible  doc- 
trines. And,  conversely,  the  putting  away 
of  these  dreadful  notions  from  their  minds 


CHANGE   YOUR  MINDS.  15 

has  cleared  the  way  for  the  coming  of  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

The  presence  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
forces  by  which  the  kingdom  is  revealed 
must,  therefore,  be  signalized  by  many 
changes  in  men's  conceptions  of  truth  and 
duty.  The  larger  life  will  call  for  ampler 
theories ;  the  better  practice  will  demand  a 
better  philosophy.  It  is  the  belief  of  the 
writer  of  these  chapters  that  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  coming  among  men  at  this  time 
with  great  power,  and  that  therefore  there 
is  a  loud  call  to  men  to  change  their  minds. 
I  am  not  denying,  mark,  that  other  changes 
than  t*hose  of  an  intellectual  nature  are  de- 
manded ;  the  need  of  a  radical  change  in 
the  ruling  love  and  in  the  habitual  conduct 
is  not  even  questioned  ;  but  it  is  the  object 
of  this  book  to  point  out  some  of  the  changes 
in  men's  thinking  which  the  present  condi- 
tions of  Christian  society  most  clearly  in- 
dicate. All  of  these  changes  are  now  in 
progress.  Some  minds  have  already  passed 
through  them.     The   new  truth    has   been 


16  CHANGE  YOUB  MINDS. 

welcomed  by  these  disciples,  and  the  way  of 
the  kingdom  into  their  lives  has  been  pre- 
pared. No  novelty  will,  therefore,  be  pre- 
sented here.  I  shall  only  point  out  cer- 
tain existing  tendencies  of  thought  which, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  ought  more  and  more  to 
prevail,  —  certain  ideas,  already  influential 
over  many  minds,  which,  when  they  are  gen- 
erally accepted,  will  greatly  accelerate  the 
progress  of  the  kingdom. 


II. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD. 


Of  the  first  man  the  scriptural  idea  is  that  he  was  cre- 
ated in  the  image  of  God :  '*  So  God  created  man  in  his 
own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  He  him."  This,  if 
we  connect  with  it  the  immediately  following  endowment 
of  dominion  over  the  earth,  is  the  highest,  the  grandest, 
the  most  inspiring  and  ennobling  idea  and  description  of 
man  ever  given.  There  is  in  it  essentially  the  idea  of  son- 
ship,  and  so  of  the  fatherhood  of  God.  In  its  fullness 
this  was  first  reached  by  Christ,  but  it  was  the  scriptural 
idea  from  the  beginning.  Without  the  image  there  is 
no  sonship.  With  it  we  have  all  that  is  implied  in  that, 
though  the  depth  and  fullness  of  the  love  of  God  as  a  Fa- 
ther could  never  have  been  apprehended  except  through 
Christ.  —  Makk  Hopkins,  The  Scriptural  Idea  of  Man, 
page  1. 

Take  all  in  a  word  :  the  truth  in  God's  breast 
Sits  trace  for  trace  upon  ours  impressed ; 
Though  He  is  so  bright  and  we  so  dim, 
We  are  made  in  his  image  to  witness  Him. 

Robert  Browning,  Christmas  Eve, 

Upon  the  race  and  upon  the  individual  Jesus  is  always 
bringing  into  more  and  more  perfect  revelation  the  cer- 
tain truth  that  man,  and  every  man,  is  the  child  of  God. 
This  is  the  sum  of  the  work  of  the  Incarnation.  A  hun- 
dred other  statements  regarding  it,  regarding  Him  who 
was  incarnate,  are  true  ;  but  all  statements  concerning 
Him  hold  their  truth  within  this  truth,  —  that  Jesus 
came  to  restore  the  fact  of  God's  fatherhood  to  man's 
knowledge,  and  to  its  central  place  of  power  over  man's 
life.  —  Phillips  Brooks,  The  Influence  of  Jesus,  page 
12. 


II. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD. 

The  relation  of  man  to  God  is  a  subject 
concerning  whicli  there  is  need  of  clearer 
ideas.  The  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Father- 
hood has  long  been  regarded  as  fundamen- 
tal in  theology ;  it  lies  so  palpably  upon  the 
face  of  the  New  Testament  that  it  could 
hardly  be  avoided ;  but  the  qualifications 
and  limitations  with  which  it  has  been  held 
have  greatly  reduced  its  significance.  Theo- 
retically, God  has  been  confessed  to  be  the 
Father  of  men ;  but  it  has  been  assumed 
that,  after  all,  it  is  only  with  the  regenerate 
that  any  parental  relations  are  maintained. 
The  child,  it  seems  to  be  supposed,  has  the 
power  of  annulling  the  fact  of  the  father- 
hood. This  breach  having  been  made,  the 
real  relation  is  no  longer  that  of  Father  and 
child,  but  that  of  strangers  and  aliens  ;  and 


20  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD. 

none  of  the  benefits  of  the  fatherhood  are 
within  reach  of  the  child  until  a  change  in 
his  status  has  somehow  taken  place.  You 
must  tell  men  that  God  is  their  Father,  but 
you  must  be  very  careful  not  to  let  them 
get  the  idea  that  they  are  his  children. 
The  conception  is  difficult  to  entertain,  but 
there  is  force  enough  in  it  greatly  to  sophis- 
ticate the  ideas  of  men  respecting  the  deep- 
est fact  of  their  lives. 

Some  of  us  who  are  fathers  find  it  hard 
to  understand  how  a  child  can  annul  the 
fact  of  fatherhood.  It  does  not  appear  to 
be  a  matter  over  which  the  will  of  the  father 
or  the  will  of  the  child  can  have  any  control. 
The  relation  is  not  contractual,  and  so  termi- 
nable by  the  choice  of  either  party  or  of 
both  parties  ;  it  is  natural  and  unrepealable. 
He  who  is  bone  of  my  bone  and  flesh  of  my 
flesh  cannot  be  other  than  my  child,  no  mat- 
ter what  his  wish  or  mine  may  be  ;  no  mat- 
ter what  the  laws  may  say ;  no  matter  what 
crimes  he  may  commit,  or  by  what  enor- 
mities he  may  outrage  my  fatherly  feelingo 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD.      21 

While  he  lives,  and  while  I  live,  that  rela- 
tion will  subsist.  Nor  can  I  understand 
how  there  could  ever  be  any  willingness  on 
the  part  of  a  true  father  that  the  relation 
should  be  terminated.  The  obligations  of 
fatherhood  are  not  affected  by  the  child's 
misconduct.  The  more  disobedient  and  the 
more  ungrateful  he  is,  the  stronger  are  the 
reasons  why  I  should  seek  to  save  him. 
The  time  may  come  when  I  shall  feel  help- 
less to  do  anything  for  him  ;  when  my  very 
love  will  forbid  me  to  offer  him  relief  and 
succor  ;  when  I  shall  see  that  the  best  medi- 
cine for  him  will  be  the  fruit  of  his  own 
doings :  but  there  can  never  be  a  moment, 
in  any  world,  when  the  heart  of  the  father 
will  not  spring  to  help  and  save  a  child  who 
is  willing  to  be  helped  and  saved.  If  we, 
being  evil,  cannot  eradicate  from  our  hearts 
parental  instincts  and  obligations,  how  much 
less  can  the  Father  in  heaven  ignore  or  deny 
his  fatherhood  ! 

There  need  be  no   shrinking,  then,  from 
the  clear  affirmation  that  God  is  the  Father 


22  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD. 

of  US  all;  and,  having  said  this,  we  need 
not  stultify  ourselves  by  going  on  to  deny 
that  we  are  all  his  children.  The  distinc- 
tion which  theology  has  labored  to  make 
cannot  be  made  by  the  human  reason.  The 
fact  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood,  in  all  its  full- 
ness, with  all  its  natural  implications,  must 
be  distinctly  declared.  If  it  is  true,  it  is 
the  greatest  truth  of  which  any  man  can 
think,  and  we  must  not  suffer  it  to  be  con- 
fused or  belittled.  To  make  every  man  see 
that,  not  according  to  some  legal  fiction,  — 
not  as  the  result  of  some  possible  pact  or 
concession,  — but  according  to  the  immedi- 
ate and  the  everlasting  fact,  he  is  a  child  of 
God,  made  in  the  divine  image,  with  all 
the  possibilities  and  all  the  responsibilities 
of  the  sons  of  God  resting  now  upon  his 
conscience,  is  to  bring  the  strongest  possi- 
ble motive  to  bear  upon  his  life. 

If  he  is  living  unworthily,  if  he  is  exposed 
to  mortal  peril,  these  facts  need  not  be  con- 
cealed, they  may  be  all  the  more  cogently 
asserted.     The  very  misery  and    shame    of 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD.      23 

his  condition  is  this,  that,  being  a  child  of 
God,  he  is  where  he  is.  The  child  cannot 
annul  the  fact  of  his  paternity,  but  he  can 
dishonor  his  Father  and  destroy  himself. 
Fatherhood  is  not,  alas !  a  barrier  against 
ruin.  The  prodigal  can  spurn  his  Father's 
love  and  go  into  the  far  country,  and  can  stay 
there,  despite  his  Father's  love,  and  perish 
there.  But  all  the  while  he  is  his  Father's 
child  ;  it  is  the  one  truth  that  needs  to  be 
brought  home  to  him :  if  anything  can  rouse 
him  and  reclaim  him,  it  will  be  the  recogni- 
tion of  this  truth. 

Another  corollary  of  this  truth  is  of  vast 
moment.  It  means  that  goodness,  the  most 
glorious  and  perfect  goodness,  is,  in  the 
deepest  sense  of  the  word,  natural  to  man. 
Evil  may  have  become  a  second  nature  to 
him,  but  the  evil  impulses  and  tendencies 
are  not  his  real  self.  "  For  the  good  which 
I  would  I  do  not,  but  the  evil,  which  I  would 
not,  that  I  practice.  But  if  what  I  would 
not,  that  I  do,  it  is  no  more  I  that  do  it,  but 
sin  which  dwelleth  in  me."     The  evil  nature 


24      THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHEBHOOD. 

is  not  I ;  it  is  a  false,  an  artificial  self,  which 
has  usurped  a  power  over  me  to  which  I 
must  not  consent.  I  am  a  child  of  God, 
and  the  divine  impulses  and  motives  which 
I  find  in  my  heart  are  the  real  man.  He 
who  comes  to  be  the  Eevealer  of  God  and  the 
Redeemer  of  man  comes  to  help  me  to  real- 
ize myself  to  be  a  man.  In  the  words  of  a 
great  modern  teacher  :  "  There  is  no  human 
affection  of  fatherhood,  brotherhood,  child- 
hood, which  is  not  capable  of  expressing 
divine  relations.  Man  is  a  child  of  God, 
for  whom  his  Father's  house  is  waiting. 
The  whole  creation  is  groaning  and  travail- 
ing till  man  shall  be  complete.  Christ 
comes  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill.  What 
is  the  spirit  of  such  words  as  these  ?  Is  it 
not  all  a  claiming  of  man  through  all  his 
life  for  God  ?  Is  it  not  an  assertion  that 
just  so  far  as  he  is  not  God's  he  is  not 
truly  man?  Is  it  not  a  declaration  that 
whatever  he  does  in  his  true  human  nature, 
undistorted,  unperverted,  is  divinely  done, 
and  therefore  that  the  divine  perfection  of 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD.      25 

his  life  will  be  in  the  direction  which  these 
efforts  of  his  nature  indicate  and  pro- 
phesy?"! 

The  clear  apprehension  of  this  truth,  that 
the  work  of  redemption  is  just  bringing 
back  man  to  his  real  self,  would  impart  to 
our  gospel  in  many  quarters  a  new  signifi- 
cance. ''He  restoreth  my  soul."  Is  not 
this,  indeed,  the  very  thing  that  he  came  to 
do  ?  Salvation  came  to  the  prodigal  "  when 
he  came  to  himself."  Nothing  better  can 
be  done  for  the  most  degraded  outcast  than 
to  bring  him  to  himself.  Sin  is  temporary 
insanity.  The  mind  wanders.  The  man  is 
not  himself.  The  restoration  of  clear  think- 
ing, the  return  of  the  power  to  comprehend 
his  own  identity,  this  is  the  beginning  of 
the  better  life. 

The  notion  that  the  Christian  life  is  an 
unnatural  life;  that  in  conversion  we  take 
on  a  new  and  foreign  selfhood;  that  the 
sentiments  and  habits  of  the  renewed  man 
are   radically  different   from   those   of   the 

1  The  Light  of  the  World,  by  Phillips  Brooks,  p.  7. 


26      THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHEBHOOD, 

"natural"  man, — all  tliis  grievously  hin- 
ders the  acceptance  of  our  gospel,  or  perverts 
it,  when  it  is  accepted,  into  a  caricature  of 
itself.  Much  of  this  is  due  to  a  crass  and 
unspiritual  exegesis,  —  to  the  hardening  of 
Pauline  metaphors  into  philosophical  dis- 
tinctions. True,  that  Paul  contrasts  the 
natural  man  with  the  spiritual  man;  but 
what  does  he  mean  by  "  the  natural  man  "  ? 
True,  that  in  many  texts  the  hostility  of  the 
unregenerate  nature  to  God  is  emphasized : 
but  is  it  the  real  human  nature  that  is  thus 
characterized,  or  that  artificial,  second  na- 
ture which  has  overgrown  the  true  human- 
ity ;  is  it  Paul's  "  I  myself,"  or  Paul's  "  the 
law  in  my  members  "  ?  True,  that  "  adop- 
tion "  is  spoken  of  as  part  of  the  work  of 
salvation ;  but  is  this  adoption  a  necessary 
legal  process  through  which  men  must  pass 
before  they  can  become  the  children  of  God, 
or  is  it  a  rhetorical  figure  by  which  is  signi- 
fied the  welcome  of  unfilial  children  return- 
ing to  their  loyalty  ?  Can  we  really  assume 
it  to  be  a  fact  of  theological  science  that 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD.      27 

the  filial  relations  of  men  to  God  have  be- 
come so  disturbed  by  sin  that  a  legal  pro- 
cess of  restoration  is  necessary  ?  What  in- 
finite confusion  has  been  introduced  into 
our  thinking  about  God  by  such  attempts 
to  turn  the  language  of  feeling  into  the 
language  of  science  I 

No ;  the  real  gospel  truth-  is,  that  Christ 
comes  to  put  us  in  possession  of  ourselves,  — 
to  help  us  to  drive  out  the  usurping  powers 
of  darkness,  and  to  take  the  rights  and 
dignities  that  belong  to  us  as  men.  "  Now 
are  we  the  sons  of  God,"  and  He  wants  us 
to  know  it  and  live  up  to  it.  "All  of 
our  Christian  thinking  and  talking,"  says 
Bishop  Brooks,  "has  been  and  is  haunted 
by  a  certain  idea  of  failure  and  recommence- 
ment. Man  is  a  failure,  so  there  shall  be 
a  new  attempt ;  and  in  place  of  the  man  we 
will  make  the  Christian !  There  is  nothing 
of  that  tone  about  what  Jesus  says.  The 
Christian  to  Jesus  is  the  man.  The  Chris- 
tian, to  all  who  think  the  thought  of  Jesus 
after  Him,  is  the  perfected  and  completed 


28      THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD. 

man.  Just  see  what  this  Involves.  Hear 
with  what  naturalness  it  clothes  the  invita- 
tions of  the  gospel.  They  are  no  strange 
summons  to  some  distant  unseen  land ;  they 
are  God's  call  to  you  to  be  yourself.  They 
appeal  to  a  homesickness  in  your  own  heart, 
and  make  it  their  confederate.  That  you 
should  be  the  thing  you  have  been,  and  not 
be  that  better  thing,  that  new  man  which  is 
the  oldest  man,  the  first  type  and  image  of 
your  being,  is  unnatural  and  awful.  ...  If 
Christ  can  make  you  know  yourself ;  if,  as 
you  walk  with  Him  day  by  day.  He  can  re- 
veal to  you  your  sonship  to  the  Father ;  if, 
keeping  daily  company  with  Him,  you  can 
more  and  more  come  to  know  how  native  is 
goodness,  and  how  unnatural  sin  is  to  the 
soul  of  man ;  if,  dwelling  with  Him  who  is 
both  God  and  man,  you  can  come  to  believe 
both  in  God  and  in  man  through  Him, — 
then  you  are  saved,  —  saved  from,  contempt, 
saved  from  despair,  saved  into  courage  and 
hope  and  charity,  and  the  power  to  resist 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FATHERHOOD.      29 

temptation,  and  the  passionate  pursuit  of 
perfectness."  ^ 

That  this  is  a  conception  of  the  Christian 
life  quite  unlike  that  which  has  prevailed  in 
most  of  our  evangelical  communions  cannot, 
I  think,  be  denied.  That  it  is  a  distinctly 
higher  and  truer  conception  than  those 
which  have  been  current  is  scarcely  de- 
batable. The  appeal  which  it  makes  to 
the  human  heart  is  far  more  inspiring ;  the 
possibilities  which  it  sets  before  us  more 
alluring.  When  this  great  truth  gets  full 
possession  of  the  mind  of  the  church,  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  will  come  with  increas- 
ing power. 

1  The  Light  of  the  World,  pp.  10,  22. 


III. 

THE  DOCTRINE   OF  BROTHERHOOD. 


Now  there  is  another  part  of  charity,  which  is  the  ba- 
sis and  pillar  of  this,  and  that  is  the  love  of  God  for 
whom  we  love  our  neighbor  ;  for  this  I  think  charity,  to 
love  God  for  himself,  and  our  neighbor  for  God.  All 
that  is  truly  amiable  is  God,  or,  as  it  were,  a  divided  piece 
of  Him  that  retains  a  reflex  or  shadow  of  himself.  Nor 
is  it  strange  that  we  should  place  afEection  on  that  which 
is  invisible  ;  all  we  truly  love  is  thus.  What  we  adore 
under  affection  of  our  senses  deserves  not  the  honor  of 
so  pure  a  title.  Thus  we  adore  Virtue,  though  to  the 
eyes  of  sense  she  be  invisible.  Thus  that  part  of  our 
noble  friends  that  we  love  is  not  the  part  which  we  em- 
brace, but  that  invisible  part  which  our  arms  cannot  em- 
brace. —  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Beligio  Medici,  Part  II., 
sect.  xiv. 

Giving  is  not  a  condescension.  I  must  not  assume  that, 
because  another  man  is  poorer  than  I,  I  have  a  right 
to  give  him  something.  To  fling  him  an  alms  may  be  an 
insult.  A  gift  may  serve  to  only  degrade  him.  Let  me 
look  carefully  at  myself,  at  him,  and  at  the  gift  before  I 
dare  bestow.  Some  of  us  have  been  too  prone  to  think 
it  quite  proper  that  we  should  have  most  of  the  good 
things,  and  should  bestow  of  our  superfluity  upon  the 
rest  of  mankind,  while  they,  duly  feeling  their  depend- 
ence upon  our  bounty,  are  grateful.  Perhaps,  were  the 
situation  reversed,  we  should  not  be  so  ready  to  accept 
it.  —  Mary  Emily  Case,  The  Love  of  the  World,  page 
81. 


III. 

THE    DOCTRINE    OF    BROTHERHOOD. 

The  coming  of  the  kiDgdom  of  heaven 
will  be  signalized  and  hastened  by  the  prev- 
alence of  clearer  ideas  respecting  the  bro- 
therhood of  man.  When  the  doctrine  of 
the  Divine  Fatherhood  is  rightly  understood, 
the  conceptions  of  men  respecting  their 
relations  to  one  another  must  needs  be 
clarified. 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  implications  of 
this  doctrine  have  already  brought  about 
mighty  changes  in  the  earth.  The  belief 
in  the  Divine  Fatherhood  has  undermined 
feudalism  and  destroyed  slavery  and  led  in 
democracy.  The  power  of  this  great  idea  it 
is,  more  than  any  or  all  other  agencies,  which 
has  compelled  the  emancipation  of  the  la- 
boring classes,  and  the  establishment,  in  so 
many  nations,  of  political  equality.     If  all 


34     THE  BOCTBINE  OF  BBOTHERHOOD. 

men  are  the  sons  of  God,  then  it  is  plain 
that  one  man  may  not  enslave  another,  nor 
oppress  another,  nor  despise  another.  Some 
measure  of  social  fellowship  must  also  fol- 
low as  the  inference  from  this  doctrine.  If 
there  are  still  differences  among  men,  as 
among  the  stars,  and  if  some  liberty  of 
social  selection  is  allowed,  so  that  those  of 
kindred  tastes  and  aptitudes  consort  together, 
—  there  is  still  no  room  left  for  the  contempt 
of  the  weaker  and  the  more  ignorant ;  they 
are  all  God's  children,  and  respect  and  even 
reverence  must  be  due  to  every  one  of  them. 
"  Honor  all  men.  Love  the  brotherhood." 
The  haughtiness  and  exclusiveness  which  the 
more  fortunate  sometimes  exhibit  towards 
their  lowlier  brethren  can  never  live  in  any 
heart  which  has  really  comprehended  the 
truth  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood. 

This  doctrine  of  the  equality  of  rights, 
which  springs  from  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  which  is  the 
corner-stone  of  our  modern  democracy,  is 
well  established  in  the  thought  of  the  race. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     35 

The  laws  of  great  nations  express  it.  The 
literature  of  the  present  century  is  saturated 
with  it ;  it  may  be  regarded  as  the  ruling 
idea  of  modern  civilization.  The  truth  is 
not  yet  fully  realized  in  our  political  and 
social  life ;  vast  injustices  and  inequalities 
are  still  arrayed  against  it ;  but  it  has  taken 
possession  of  the  mind  of  Christendom,  and 
its  ultimate  victory  over  every  form  of  social 
wrong  is  our  reasonable  expectation. 

Not  only  with  respect  to  political  equality 
and  social  fraternity  has  the  doctrine  of  hu- 
man brotherhood  found  large  realization,  but 
also  with  respect  to  the  practice  of  charity. 
The  immense  development  of  philanthropy 
which  has  characterized  the  Christian  era  is 
due  to  the  partial  realization  of  this  truth. 
"  '  Any  impartial  observer,'  says  Mr.  Lecky, 
'would  describe  the  most  distinctive  virtue 
referred  to  in  the  New  Testament,  as  love, 
charity,  or  philanthropy.'  It  is  the  spirit  of 
charity,  pity,  and  infinite  compassion  which 
breathes  through  the  gospel.  The  new  re- 
ligion was,  at  the  outset,  actually  and  with- 


36     THE  DOCTRINE   OF  BROTHERHOOD, 

out  any  figurative  exaggeration,  what  the 
same  writer  has  called  it  elsewhere,  —  a 
proclamation  of  the  universal  brotherhood 
of  man.'  We  note  how  it  was  this  feature 
which  impressed  the  minds  of  men  at  first. 
The  noble  system  of  ethics;  the  affection 
which  the  members  bore  to  each  other ;  the 
devotion  of  all  to  the  corporate  welfare ;  the 
spirit  of  inJBnite  tolerance  for  every  weakness 
and  inequality ;  the  consequent  tendency  to 
the  dissolution  of  social  and  class  barriers 
of  every  kind,  beginning  with  those  between 
slave  and  master;  and  the  presence  every- 
where of  the  feeling  of  actual  brotherhood, 
—  were  the  outward  features  of  all  the 
early  Christian  societies."  ^ 

This  testimony  indicates  the  close  relation 
of  Christianity  not  only  to  the  development 
of  charity,  of  which  we  are  now  speaking, 
but  also  to  the  development  of  social  equal- 
ity, of  which  we  have  just  spoken.  But 
while  it  is  true  that  the  brotherhood  of 
man,  as  taught  by  Christ,  has  been  largely 

1  Social  Evolution  J  by  Benjamin  Kidd,  p.  148. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     37 

the  source  of  the  abounding  philanthropies 
of  the  Christian  era,  it  is  also  true  that  an 
imperfect  apprehension  of  this  doctrine  has 
resulted  in  perverting  charity,  and  in  mak- 
ing the  administration  of  it,  in  a  vast  num- 
ber of  cases,  a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing 
to  its  recipients.  Before  the  kingdom  of 
God  can  fully  come,  a  great  many  Christian 
people  will  have  to  change  their  minds  con- 
cerning the  true  nature  of  charity. 

Charity  has  been  mainly  almsgiving.  The 
assumption  upon  which  it  almost  univer- 
sally proceeds  is  the  superiority  of  the  giver 
and  the  inferiority  of  the  recipient.  It  is 
a  gracious  act,  originating  in  the  benignity 
of  the  bestower,  and  putting  the  beneficiary 
under  obligation.  If  the  giver  is  not  proud 
and  arrogant,  he  is  at  least  complacent ;  if 
the  receiver  is  not  humiliated,  he  is  certainly 
disposed  to  be  very  deferential.  The  act  of 
charity  itself,  as  ordinarily  conceived,  puts 
a  difference  between  him  who  gives  and  him 
who  takes ;  it  raises  the  one  to  a  plane 
somewhat  above  the  other.     It  is  probably 


38      THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BBOTHERHOOD. 

the  truth  to  say  that  a  great  many  of  those 
who  give  are  influenced  to  their  bounty,  in 
considerable  degree,  by  the  consciousness  of 
superiority  which  is  thus  awakened.  The 
tip,  which  is  a  kind  of  alms,  is  more  will- 
ingly bestowed  because  it  emphasizes  the 
social  contrast  between  the  giver  and  the 
receiver.  It  is  pleasant  to  have  the  power 
to  confer  favors,  and  to  be  able  to  make 
others  realize  this  power.  A  good  part  of 
the  blessedness  of  giving,  in  the  heart  of 
many  a  Lady  Bountiful,  may  be  traced  to 
this  source. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  kind  of  brother- 
hood which  is  connoted  by  this  subtle  as- 
sumption of  class  distinctions  is  far  removed 
from  that  true  fraternity  which  springs  from 
the  clear  recognition  of  every  man  as  a 
child  of  God.  When  we  have  once  compre- 
hended the  true  character  of  the  human 
beings  whom  we  are  trying  to  befriend,  we 
cannot  any  longer  indulge  ourselves  in  such 
an  undervaluation  of  them  as  is  often  signi- 
fied in  the  looks  and  the  words  by  which 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     39 

our  alms  are  accompanied.  If  they,  like 
ourselves,  are  God's  dear  children,  they 
must  be  treated  with  respect  and  reverence, 
no  matter  how  low  they  may  have  fallen.  Our 
reverence  and  respect  is  the  assertion  of  the 
truth  which  they  are  forgetting,  and  which 
they  must  by  no  means  be  permitted  to  for- 
get. To  treat  them  as  though  they  were 
God's  children  is  the  only  way  to  make 
some  of  them  understand  that  they  are  his 
children.  And  if  they  are  not  degraded,  if 
they  are  only  unfortunate,  then  surely  the 
air  of  superiority  which  the  giver  assumes 
is  a  palpable  breach  of  the  spirit  of  bro- 
therhood. 

The  law  of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  as 
applied  in  our  charities,  requires,  then,  a 
genuine  respect  for  the  manhood  and  wo- 
manhood of  all  whom  we  are  trying  to  help, 
—  such  a  respect  as  will  not  for  one  mo- 
ment consent  to  see  them  sink  at  our  feet 
as  menials,  and  kiss  the  hand  of  the  bene- 
factor; such  a  respect  as  will  not  permit 
them   to   cringe   and   fawn  and  flatter  us. 


40      THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BBOTHEBHOOD. 

or  willingly  to  assume  the  role  of  humble 
pensioners  upon  our  bounty.  Relations  of 
this  nature  do  not  subsist  between  the  chil- 
dren of  a  common  Father.  The  fact  that 
in  all  Christian  communities  a  pauper  class 
exists,  and  that  in  many  of  them  it  is  stead- 
ily growing,  is  prima  facie  evidence  that 
the  true  nature  of  the  human  brotherhood 
is  not  understood.  Beyond  all  controversy, 
this  pauper  class  owes  its  existence,  in  large 
measure,  to  the  subtle  selfishness  of  the 
almoners  of  charity,  who  are  more  willing 
to  bestow  a  dole  than  to  give  a  helping 
hand. 

The  fundamental  error  in  all  our  charita- 
ble work  is  found,  no  doubt,  in  the  concep- 
tion that  pain  or  suffering  is  the  greatest 
of  evils.  This  assumption  is  fundamen- 
tal to  much  of  our  popular  teaching,  in  the 
pulpit  and  out  of  it;  and  it  is  a  false  as- 
sumption. Suffering  is  not  the  greatest 
evil ;  moral  unworthiness  is  the  greatest  evil. 
Suffering  may  often  be  disciplinary  and 
remedial;    falsehood,  treachery,  malignity, 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     41 

are  evil  and  only  evil.  Between  a  willful 
choice  of  wrong  and  a  severe  infliction  of 
pain,  the  pain  is  always  to  be  chosen.  It 
was  not  primarily  from  suffering  or  dis- 
comfort that  Christ  came  to  save  men,  but 
from  sin  and  shame  ;  from  meanness  and 
littleness  ;  from  the  loss  of  the  soul,  which  is 
the  loss  of  character.  The  failure  to  compre- 
hend this  truth  has  resulted  in  the  perversion 
and  corruption  of  the  Christian  religion 
through  centuries  of  history.  Because  men 
conceived  that  Christ's  main  purpose  was  to 
save  men  from  suffering,  all  their  adminis- 
tration of  his  gospel  has  been  misdirected, 
and  they  have  often  aggravated  the  very 
evils  which  the  gospel  is  intended  to  cure. 
In  preaching  the  gospel  chiefly  as  the 
means  of  escape  from  the  sufferings  of  hell 
into  the  blessedness  of  heaven,  the  appeal 
was  steadily  made  to  the  selfishness  of  men. 
And  in  the  administration  of  charity,  not 
less  than  in  the  methods  of  homiletics,  the 
same  error  was  committed.  If  Christ  came 
to  relieve  men  from  suffering,  that  must  be 


42      THE  BOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD. 

the  duty  of  all  Christ's  followers  ;  and  any 
case  of  suffering  must  be  relieved,  no  matter 
at  what  cost  to  character.  The  question, 
how  the  man  is  to  be  affected  by  this  relief 
of  his  immediate  distress,  is  a  question  that 
whole  generations  of  Christians  have  forgot- 
ten to  ask.  Pain,  they  have  assumed,  is  the 
great  evil:  was  it  not  from  eternal  pain 
that  Christ  came  to  save  us  ?  and  therefore 
we  must  get  this  man  out  of  pain,  no  matter 
what  happens  to  Mm. 

Coupled  with  this  was  another  false  notion 
which  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  perver- 
sion of  charity.  It  has  been  supposed  that 
Christ's  purpose  to  relieve  suffering  was  so 
central  a  part  of  his  work  of  salvation  that 
he  was  willing  to  count  any  work  of  that 
kind  as  special  merit,  and  specially  to  reward 
any  one  who  gave  relief  to  any  sufferer;  so 
that  he  who  mitigated  any  human  woe  by 
that  act  laid  up  great  treasure  in  heaven. 
Thebestowment  of  alms,  therefore,  upon  any 
one  in  poverty  or  distress  was  the  crowning 
Christian  grace  ;  it  relieved  suffering,  which 


THE  DOCTBINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD,     43 

was  the  chief  purpose  of  Christ's  mission, 
and  it  gained  for  the  almsgiver  a  heavenly 
reward.  Under  the  operation  of  these  two 
motives,  over  large  portions  of  the  earth's 
surface,  and  for  long  periods,  sweet  charity 
has  been  turned  into  a  curse.  The  mendi- 
cancy which  has  overrun  Southern  Europe 
is  mainly  due  to  this  cause.  All  the  hun- 
gry must  be  fed,  all  the  naked  must  be 
clad,  all  beggars  must  receive  alms,  for  this 
is  the  very  substance  of  Christian  virtue. 
What  if  the  beggar  be  an  impostor?  You, 
at  any  rate,  get  the  reward  of  your  charity. 
If  one  is  winning  his  way  into  heaven  by  his 
bounties,  he  must  not  trouble  himself  too 
much  about  their  effect  upon  the  recipients. 
Has  not  the  Master  said,  "  Give  to  him  that 
asketh  thee,  and  from  him  that  would  bor- 
row of  thee  turn  not  thou  away "  ?  Why 
should  we  be  scrupulous  ?  Is  not  charity  a 
good  thing  in  itself  ?  Out  of  such  reasonings 
has  sprung  the  beggary  of  Italy,  of  France, 
of  Spain,  of  Ireland.  The  Spanish  beggars 
get  the  point,  and  put  it  sharply  in   their 


44     THE  BOCTRINE  OF  BBOTHERHOOD. 

habitual  supplication,  "  Be  good  to  your- 
self !  "  They  will  not  allow  you  to  forget 
that  your  almsgiving  is  in  large  measure  a 
scheme  to  benefit  yourself. 

Notions  similar  to  these  vitiate  a  great 
deal  of  our  own  thought  about  charity.  If 
there  is  not  so  much  reference  among  us  to 
the  gains  which  we  hope  to  get  from  our 
alms,  there  is  constant  assumption  that  the 
relief  of  suffering  and  want  is  always  meri- 
torious ;  that  the  Christian  must,  because  he 
is  a  Christian,  relieve  every  case  of  suffer- 
ing and  want  that  comes  within  his  notice, 
immediately  and  without  regard  to  any  ul- 
terior consequences  ;  that  the  refusal  to  do 
this  in  any  case  proves  the  man  to  be  a 
hypocrite ;  that  charity  is  such  a  good  thing 
that  there  cannot  possibly  be  too  much  of 
it ;  that  the  best  Christian  is  the  man  who 
gives  most  and  asks  no  questions ;  that 
what  happens  to  those  who  receive  what  is 
given  is  a  matter  of  small  consequence. 

Over  against  all  this  it  is  necessary  to 
keep  steadily  before  us  the  fact  that  Christ 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     45 

did  not  come  into  this  world  to  relieve  suf- 
fering. That  was  not  the  primary  purpose 
for  which  he  came.  He  came  to  save  men 
from  sin.  Suffering  is  no  doubt  the  conse- 
quence of  sin,  one  of  its  consequences,  —  by 
no  means  its  worst  consequence ;  but  Christ 
attacks  the  cause  rather  than  the  conse- 
quences. That  he  did  relieve  much  suffering 
is  true;  but  we  must  not  fail  to  see  how 
wholly  subordinate  was  this  work  of  physi- 
cal relief  to  the  work  of  restoring  character, 
of  redeeming  men  from  the  power  of  sin. 
Always  he  insisted  that  this  ministry  to  the 
bodies  of  men  was  but  the  sign  and  illustra- 
tion of  the  greater  work  which  he  had  come 
to  do  for  their  souls.  To  care  for  bodily 
needs,  and  ignore  the  effect  of  what  we  are 
doing  upon  the  manhood  of  the  recipient,  is 
a  curious  way  of  imitating  Christ. 

Now,  if  Christ  did  not  come  primarily  to 
relieve  suffering,  then  it  is  not  the  Chris- 
tian's first  business  to  relieve  suffering. 
Suffering  is  not  the  greatest  evil.  Suffer- 
ing is  a  consequence,  and  not  a  cause ;  and 


46      THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHEBHOOD. 

we  often  make  a  great  mistake  in  trying  to 
remove  the  consequence  without  touching 
the  cause,  —  leaving  the  cause,  indeed,  ac- 
tively at  work  to  produce  more  suffering. 
Much  of  our  work  of  relief  is  at  best  only 
the  lotion  that  soothes  the  eruption  on  the 
skin,  while  the  poison  in  the  blood  is  left 
to  do  its  deadly  work  ;  often,  alas !  it  is  a 
lotion  that  adds  to  the  virulence  of  the  poi- 
son. The  relief  is  momentary,  the  malady 
is  aggravated.  We  must  learn  that  suffer- 
ing is  not,  under  all  circumstances,  an  evil. 
It  may  be  natural,  remedial,  wholesome  in 
its  effects.  Its  connection  with  misdoing  or 
non-doing  may  be  close  and  salutary;  and 
it  may  be  of  the  very  first  importance  that 
the  sufferer  should  see  this  connection,  and 
should  be  convinced  that  it  is  natural  and 
inevitable.  I  see  a  great  deal  of  suffering 
which  I  would  not  lift  my  finger  to  remove. 
I  do  not  think  that  it  would  be  right  for  me 
to  do  so.  The  one  thing,  above  all  others, 
which  these  sufferers  must  learn,  is  the  con- 
nection between  their  suffering   and   their 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     47 

own  misdoing.  The  suffering  is  tlie  good 
ordinance  of  a  good  God,  and  this  is  the 
fact  which  they  need  to  know.  For  me  to 
step  in  and  prevent  them  from  learning  it 
would  not  be  a  good  service  to  them.  Peo- 
ple sometimes  say  to  me,  "  How  can  there 
be  a  good  God  ?  If  there  were  a  good  God 
I  should  not  suffer  so."  One  cannot  al- 
ways tell  such  people  the  truth.  One  must 
not,  indeed,  undertake  to  pronounce  God's 
judgments.  But  it  seems,  not  seldom,  to 
one  who  looks  on  with  human  discernment, 
that  there  would  be  very  little  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  a  good  God  if  some  of 
these  people  did  not  suffer ;  that  a  merciful 
Being  could  not  let  them  go  on  destroying 
themselves  without  some  sharp  reminders 
of  the  danger  into  which  they  are  so  will- 
fully plunging.  I  do  not  deny  that  there 
are  sufferings  in  this  world,  many  and  dire 
sufferings,  which  no  human  discernment  can 
explain ;  which  we  cannot,  by  our  sharpest 
insight,  connect  with  any  known  misdoing 
of  the  sufferers.     I  do  not  pretend  to  say 


48     THE  BOCTEINE  OF  BROTHEBHOOD. 

that  there  are  no  mysteries  connected  with 
suffering,  nor  that  the  faith  of  men  may 
not  be  sorely  tried  by  the  discipline  through 
which  they  are  called  to  pass.  I  only  say 
that  in  many  cases  the  relation  of  the  suf- 
fering to  the  misdoing  of  which  it  is  the 
consequence  is  clear  and  palpable ;  that  its 
beneficent  uses  may  be  clearly  seen;  that 
it  can  be  relieved  by  the  sufferer  himself  if 
he  will  cease  from  his  misdoing;  that  the 
removal  of  his  suffering  by  others,  who 
thus  permit  and  encourage  him  to  go  on 
with  his  misdoing,  is  a  clear  interference 
with  the  natural  order,  which  in  this  case 
is  working  remedially  and  beneficently. 

These  closely  related  misconceptions  — 
first,  that  the  relief  of  suffering  is  the  deep- 
est and  most  imperative  need  of  human  be- 
ings, and,  second,  that  we  find  in  the  allevia- 
tion of  the  sufferings  of  our  fellow-men  our 
greatest  opportunity  to  win  the  applause  of 
Heaven,  and  to  secure  for  ourselves  a  high 
place  among  the  saints  —  have  strongly 
tended  to  the  perversion  of   our  charities. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     49 

I  must  not  be  understood  as  denying  that 
mucli  wise  and  benign  work  lias  been  done 
in  the  name  of  charity ;  I  am  only  saying 
that  with  the  good  a  vast  amount  of  evil 
has  been  mingled,  and  I  am  trying  to  point 
out  the  sources  of  the  e\al.  And  you  will 
always  find  that  practical  failures  of  this 
kind  spring  from  false  or  defective  ideas. 
What  these  defective  ideas  are,  in  the  case 
before  us,  we  have  seen.  And  it  is  plain 
that  they  must  at  once  be  cleared  away  by 
a  distinct  recognition  of  the  great  fact  of 
human  brotherhood. 

If  the  mendicant  —  or  the  man  who  is 
sinking  toward  mendicancy  —  is  my  brother, 
child  of  the  same  Father,  partaker  of  the 
same  divine  nature,  heir  of  the  same  birth- 
right, character  in  him  is  just  as  precious  as 
it  is  in  me ;  and  I  must  choose  for  him,  as  I 
would  for  myself,  manhood  before  comfort, 
freedom  from  shame  and  dishonor  rather 
than  relief  from  pain.  If  he  is  sinking  be- 
low the  level  of  manhood,  that  degradation 
ought   to  be  attended  with  suffering;    the 


60      THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD, 

suffering  is  the  divine  admonition  to  arouse 
himself,  and  resist  the  downward  tenden- 
cies. I  must  not  silence  that  voice,  I  must 
call  his  attention  to  its  significance ;  and  my 
first  duty  is  to  take  him  by  the  hand  and 
help  him  to  reascend  to  the  safer  levels 
from  which  he  has  been  sinking.  If  I  find 
a  fellow-man  in  a  quagmire,  my  duty  is  not 
to  try  to  make  him  comfortable  there,  but 
to  get  him  out. 

The  man  who  asks  an  alms  is  a  free 
spirit,  inhabiting  a  body  of  flesh.  The  ma- 
terial part  is  deserving  of  care  and  honor, 
but  only  because  it  is,  for  a  few  years,  the 
tabernacle  inhabited  by  the  spiritual  part. 
The  body  is  the  handiwork  of  God,  the 
spirit  is  his  offspring.  Surely  it  is  the  spir- 
itual rather  than  the  physical  part  of  man 
which  is  made  in  the  divine  image.  When 
we  say  that  God  is  the  Father  of  us  all,  we 
mean  that  he  is  the  Father  of  our  spirits ; 
and  therefore  the  brotherhood  of  man  is 
chiefly  a  spiritual  fact,  and  the  law  of  that 
brotherhood  is  chiefly  concerned  with  spir- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD,     51 

itual  interests.  We  manifest  our  brother- 
hood most  clearly  by  keeping  uppermost 
the  great  facts  of  character.  When,  there- 
fore, my  neighbor  asks  an  alms,  my  ques- 
tion must  be,  not  merely  what  must  be  the 
effect  of  the  bestowal  of  the  alms  upon  his 
physical  comfort,  but  also  and  chiefly  how 
it  will  affect  his  spiritual  condition.  Will 
it  make  him  more  or  less  a  man  if  I  en- 
courage him  in  living  upon  alms  ?  I  have 
compassion  for  his  bodily  distresses,  but 
should  not  my  deepest  and  keenest  sympa- 
thy take  hold  upon  that  part  of  his  nature 
in  which  our  kinship  is  closest  ?  How  can 
I  bear  to  see  him  sinking  into  an  unmanly 
dependence  ? 

We  cannot  be  unmindful  of  bodily  suf- 
fering ;  we  shall  do  what  we  can  to  relieve 
it,  when  anything  can  be  done  without  en- 
tailing spiritual  losses ;  but  we  shall  be 
far  more  profoundly  affected  by  everything 
which  threatens  to  impair  the  spiritual  in- 
tegrity of  our  brother.  It  is  the  injuries 
and  losses  with  which  the  man  himself  is 


52     THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BBOTHEBHOOD. 

threatened  that  most  appeal  to  our  sym- 
pathy, —  not  the  damage  that  may  be  done 
to  the  house  he  lives  in. 

The  conception  of  our  relation  to  our 
brother  as  one  which  encourages  us  to  util- 
ize his  misfortunes  for  our  own  profit  is 
even  more  abhorrent.  The  indulgence  of 
humane  and  compassionate  feelings  is,  no 
doubt,  a  luxury  to  some  natures.  And 
there  are  those  who  suppose  that  the  indul- 
gence of  such  feelings  makes  up  the  greater 
part  of  human  virtue.  The  poor  and  the 
suffering  are  mainly  interesting  to  some 
persons  because  they  furnish  an  occasion 
for  the  indulgence  of  these  feelings.  We 
have  the  poor  and  the  suffering  always  with 
us,  and  we  are  therefore  always  supplied 
with  an  incentive  to  acts  by  which  we  may 
gratify  our  sensibilities,  and  at  the  same 
time  greatly  advance  our  own  interests. 
They  are  simply  objects  on  which  we  may 
practice  our  compassions.  It  is  in  such 
practice  that  we  develop  the  saintly  vir- 
tues, and  gain  high  seats  in  heaven.     What 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     53 

may  become  6i  them  is  not  the  first  concern 
with  us;  we  are  looking  out  for  our  own 
salvation. 

I  am  depicting  this  state  of  mind  with 
rather  a  blunt  pencil;  probably  very  few 
persons  have  ever  stated  the  case  to  them- 
selves in  terms  quite  so  bald  and  repulsive ; 
but  the  tendency  will  be  recognized.  And 
it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  such  a  tendency 
is  the  explicit  contradiction  of  the  fact  of 
brotherhood.  The  man  who  flings  a  dole 
to  a  beggar,  not  knowing  nor  caring  how 
much  it  debases  him,  only  hoping  to  be 
sped  thereby  in  his  own  path  to  heaven,  is 
one  who  has  never  thought  of  this  beggar 
as  his  brother. 

But  has  not  Christ  himself  said,  "It  is 
more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive "  ? 
Truly  he  has ;  and,  in  the  words  of  Dr. 
Bascom,  "the  failure  to  take  the  highest 
social  principle  from  the  lips  of  Christ  is 
seen  in  the  very  partial  way  in  which  it  is 
applied  when  men  first  turn  to  it.  They 
may   give,  but  give  with    so  little  wisdom 


54     THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD. 

and  love,  —  give  in  such  antagonism  to 
lower  principles,  —  as  quite  to  lose  sight 
of  the  idea  that  giving  is  for  the  develop- 
ment of  power.  A  love  that  seeks  virtuous 
life  will  be  saved  from  this  error.  Giving 
which  is  careless  giving  is  not  true  giving, 
as  it  lacks  the  giving  mind  and  heart,  and 
cannot  bear,  either  backward  or  forward, 
to  giver  or  receiver,  the  beneficence  of  a 
gift.  The  giving  which  is  more  blessed 
than  receiving  is  that  which  pours  life  into 
channels  of  life,  and  draws  life  freshly  there- 
from." 1 

This,  then,  is  the  test  of  our  charity,  — 
does  it  recognize  between  giver  and  receiver 
the  highest  bond,  the  bond  of  spiritual  bro- 
therhood ;  and  does  it  seek  to  make  the  gift 
a  vehicle  for  the  communication  of  the  di- 
vine life  from  the  one  to  the  other?  The 
charity  that  does  this  is  twice  blessed.  The 
charity  that  stuffs  the  cupboard  and  lets 
the  character  starve ;  the  charity  that  pros- 
trates  the   receiver  before   the   giver,    and 

1  Words  of  Christ,  p.  158. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     65 

makes  the  one  a  stepping-stone  on  whicli  the 
other  mounts  to  beatitude,  —  is  twice  cursed : 
it  curseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes. 

If  those  who  ask  for  charity  are  our 
brethren,  we  must  not  wantonly  or  care- 
lessly contribute  to  their  degradation.  We 
must  love  them  as  we  love  ourselves.  We 
must  hate  the  spirit  of  abjectness  and  ser- 
vility and  indolent  mendicancy  in  them  as 
we  hate  it  in  ourselves.  What  we  know  to 
be  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  sons  of  God 
in  us  is  not  to  be  tolerated  in  them.  For 
them  to  be  beggars  and  sponges  is  a  sorrow 
and  a  disgrace  to  us,  for  they  are  the  chil- 
dren of  our  Father.  By  some  means  they 
must  be  rescued  from  this  fate.  We  must 
save  them.  If  brotherhood  means  anything 
at  all,  it  can  mean  no  less  than  this. 

"  There  is,"  says  a  modern  preacher,  "  I 
am  thankful  to  believe,  much  kindness  in 
the  hearts  of  very  many  toward  their  poorer 
brethren ;  there  is  abundant  discussion  of 
the  methods  by  which  they  are  to  be  helped. 
But  there  is  not  nearly  as  much  kindness  as 


66      THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD. 

there  ought  to  be  in  the  hearts  of  profess- 
ing Christians :  how  can  there  be  until  each 
one  of  us  is  filled  with  the  mind  of  Him  who 
came  down  from  heaven  to  suffer  and  die 
for  his  brethren  ?  The  true  compassion  is 
that  which  longs  to  make  each  brother  bet- 
ter, happier,  safer,  as  a  child  of  God ;  no 
compassion  which  stops  short  at  the  tem- 
poral condition  of  the  poor  is  worthy  of 
them  or  of  us,  or  will  be  effectual  in  reaching 
even  its  own  ends.  The  pity,  the  goodwill, 
which  deserves  to  be  called  Christian  love, 
will  be  powerful  enough  to  engage  all  the 
energies  of  the  mind,  all  the  resources  of 
experience,  in  the  service  of  the  poor. 
Making  us  more  interested,  more  careful, 
more  anxious  in  that  service,  it  would  also 
restlessly  impel  us  to  give,  not  less  but 
more.  The  true  Christian  will  not  dare  to 
call  anything  that  he  has  his  own :  he  will 
go  beyond  Mr.  Henry  George  or  Mr.  Hynd- 
man  in  confessing  the  claims  of  the  great 
suffering  mass  of  humanity,  not  only  upon 
all  that  he  possesses,  but  upon  himself ;  he 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  BROTHERHOOD.     57 

will  count  himself  as  sent  into  the  world 
to  administer  whatever  is  intrusted  to  him 
to  the  glory  of  God,  and  therefore  to  the 
advantage  of  his  fellows."  ^ 

It  will  be  evident,  from  these  reflections, 
that  the  business  of  charity  is  a  high  and 
sacred  vocation.  No  man  can  rightly  ad- 
minister it  who  does  not  first  clearly  under- 
stand and  deeply  feel  the  dignity  and  di- 
vineness  of  human  nature.  No  man  can 
bestow  charity  worthily  who  does  not  know 
that  he  himself  is  a  child  of  God,  and  who 
does  not  feel  a  deep  sense  of  the  sacredness 
of  that  relation.  Unless  he  has,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  fellowship  with  the  Father  ; 
unless  God's  purposes  for  man  are  the  rul- 
ing of  his  life,  —  he  has  nothing  really  valu- 
able to  give  to  those  in  need. 

And  it  is  equally  needful  that  he  should 
comprehend  with  equal  clearness  the  truth 
that  every  beggar  at  his  door  is  as  truly 
God's  child  as  he  is,  and  that  God's  purposes 
concerning  this  beggar  brother  must  be  the 

1  Social  Questions :  by  J.  Llewellyn  Davies,  p.  286. 


68     THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BBOTHERHOOD. 

guide  of  all  his  conduct  toward  him.  The 
kind  of  ministry  that  the  beggar  has  a  right 
to  receive  from  him  is  that  which  will  en- 
able him  to  realize  his  manhood.  Christ 
has  come  to  help  every  man  to  recover  the 
manhood  he  has  lost,  to  realize  the  pur- 
pose for  which  he  was  created.  He  is  the 
Elder  Brother,  the  Captain  of  Salvation; 
and  we  follow  Him  in  the  work  of  forgiving 
and  saving  men.  We  know  how  He  saved 
them  :  He  lived  among  them  ;  He  lived  for 
them  ;  He  gave  his  life  in  an  untiring  min- 
istry to  them.  He  did  relieve  their  physi- 
cal sufferings,  but  never  without  seeking  to 
restore  their  lost  manhood.  To  bring  them 
all  back  to  the  Father,  to  make  them  see 
what  manner  of  love  He  has  bestowed  upon 
them,  and  what  manner  of  men  they  ought 
to  be  because  they  were  children  of  such  a 
Father,  —  this  was  the  whole  purpose  of  his 
ministry.  In  Him  was  life,  and  the  life 
was  the  light  of  men. 

"  Still,"  says  Dr.  Hodges  (and  he  is  talk- 
ing about  the  lad  whom  Jesus  healed  at  the 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD.     59 

foot  of  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration),  "  it  is 
significant  that  not  only  here  but  elsewhere 
Jesus  got  very  close  to  the  man  whom  he 
would  help.  It  means  something  that  He 
took  him  by  the  hand.  He  was  forever 
doing  that.  Throughout  his  ministry  He 
dealt  with  individuals,  not  with  crowds. 
He  went  among  the  people,  never  holding 
himself  aloof  from  them ;  coming  into  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  their  temptations, 
bearing  their  sicknesses,  and  carrying  their 
sorrows.  He  was  called  the  friend  of  pub- 
licans and  sinners.  And  the  name  was  a 
true  description  of  his  ministry  among 
them.  He  talked  with  them,  walked  with 
them,  ate  at  their  tables,  knew  the  names 
of  their  little  children  ;  He  helped  them,  not 
so  much  by  what  He  said  as  by  what  He  was. 
He  won  their  hearts  and  changed  their 
lives,  not  by  his  sermons,  but  by  his  blessed 
friendship.  He  took  them  by  the  hand ; 
thus  he  lifted  them  up  and  they  arose."  ^ 
He  was  the  Elder  Brother.     His  life  is 

1  The  Heresy  of  Cain,  p.  24. 


60     THE  DOCTRINE  OF  BROTHERHOOD. 

the  perfect  manifestation  of  the  divine  hu- 
man brotherhood.  His  way  of  doing  good 
is  the  true  method  of  charity. 

We  are  trying,  in  these  latter  days,  to 
learn  this  method.  We  call  it  sometimes 
the  new  charity.  To  minds  sophisticated 
by  the  old  notions  of  almsgiving  it  seems, 
indeed,  a  revelation ;  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether,  in  any  age,  the  church  of  Christ 
has  grasped  the  full  meaning  of  this  fact  of 
brotherhood  as  related  to  the  work  of  char- 
ity. To  the  multitude  it  is  a  new  concep- 
tion, —  one  of  those  which  is,  we  trust,  to 
revolutionize  our  philanthropic  enterprises. 
But  there  must  have  been,  in  a  day  long 
past,  in  Galilee  and  Decapolis  and  Jerusa- 
lem and  beyond  Jordan,  many  who  saw 
this  brotherhood  revealed  in  its  most  per- 
fect pattern. 


IV. 

THE   ONE  AND  THE  MANY. 


Our  theory  of  individualism  —  of  each  one  for  himself 
within  the  limits  of  the  law,  and  those  limits  not  too 
tightly  drawn  —  must  be  qualified.  The  knowledge  of  the 
solidarity  of  interests,  that  all  workers  live  by  and  through 
each  other's  labor,  whether  of  hand  or  head,  and  that 
we  all  live  by  and  through  the  accumulated  results  of 
science  and  civilization,  should  teach  us  that  the  benefits 
and  blessings  of  civilization  should  not  be  monopolized 
by  any  class,  that  morally  they  belong  to  all.  Our  theory 
of  private  property  will  require  revision  and  limitation. 
While  in  its  essence  the  principle  of  private  property 
must  continue,  —  being,  as  we  have  seen,  both  an  instinct 
of  our  nature,  generated  and  continually  intensified  by 
twenty  centuries  of  existence  under  it,  as  well  as  a  ne- 
cessity of  our  complicated  and  ever-expanding  modern 
life,  —  nevertheless  there  must  be  a  new  conception  of  it, 
of  the  rights  which  it  is  supposed  to  imply,  and  very  par- 
ticularly of  the  obligations  which  it  should  impose  on 
its  possessor.  The  latter  will  have  to  be  increased  and 
emphasized ;  the  former  will  have  to  be  curtailed.  — 
William  Graham,  The  Labor  Problem,  page  347. 

The  unity  that  comes  through  organization  is  not  so 
easy  to  define.  It  transcends  space,  almost  annihilates 
time,  defies  mathematics,  and  is  the  despair  of  formal 
logic.  The  whole  is  in  the  parts,  the  parts  are  in  the 
whole.  There  is  an  instantaneous  response  of  each  mem- 
ber to  the  condition  of  every  other.  The  whole  is  more 
than  the  sum  of  its  parts,  and  the  internal  relationships 
are  so  subtle  that  they  cannot  be  adequately  expressed  in 
terms  of  action  and  reaction  from  without.  The  secret  of 
this  organic  life  is  the  nervous  system,  which  binds  each 
part  to  every  other,  makes  the  whole  responsive  to  the 
needs  of  every  part,  and  every  part  an  instrument  for  the 
futherance  of  the  needs  of  the  whole.  The  whole  gives 
to  the  parts  whatever  meaning  and  significance  they  have, 
and  the  parts  in  turn  give  to  the  whole  whatever  expres- 
sion and  realization  it  attains.  —  William  De  Witt 
Hyde,  Outlines  of  Social  Theology,  page  247. 


IV. 

THE  ONE  AND  THE  MANY. 

In  the  New  Testament  teaching  about 
conduct  two  truths  are  emphasized,  —  the 
independence  of  the  individual,  the  solidar- 
ity of  society. 

In  many  passages  the  nature  of  moral 
responsibility  as  personal  and  individual  is 
clearly  affirmed.  The  fact  that  guilt  and 
blameworthiness  are  not  transferable  ;  that 
every  man  must  bear  his  own  burden ;  that 
every  man  must  give  account  of  himself  unto 
God ;  that  every  man  must  work  out  his 
own  salvation ;  that  the  converting  grace  al- 
ways awaits  the  choice  of  the  individual,  — 
all  this  is  made  very  plain.  The  evangelistic 
teaching  of  later  years  has  wrought  out  this 
truth  in  high  relief.  It  was  a  truth  that 
needed  emphasis,  because  it  had  been  some- 
what obscured  by  the  Augustinian  theology ; 


64  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY, 

but  the  emphasis  has  been  greatly  exagger- 
ated. The  solitariness  of  religious  experience 
must  not  be  denied,  but  neither  must  it  be 
unduly  magnified.  Out  of  it  may  easily 
grow  an  unholy  egoism  which  is  far  from 
the  spirit  of  Christ. 

When  the  penitent  is  exhorted  to  believe 
that  Christ  died  for  him ;  that  the  question 
of  salvation  is  a  purely  personal  matter  be- 
tween himself  and  his  Saviour ;  that  he  must 
put  all  other  suppliants  out  of  his  mind, 
and  think  of  himself  as  standing  solitary 
before  the  bar  of  judgment  or  the  throne 
of  grace,  —  we  know  what  the  exhortation 
means,  and  perceive  the  deep  truth  that 
underlies  it ;  but  it  is  quite  possible  that 
the  words  may  convey  a  wrong  impression 
of  the  isolation  of  man  in  the  act  of  salva- 
tion. 

The  autobiographies  of  saints  once  re- 
garded as  eminent,  with  their  minute  records 
of  all  the  varying  shades  of  individual  expe- 
rience, marking  them  now  as  the  subjects 
of   special  divine  displeasure,  and   now  as 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  65 

the  favorites  of  Heaven,  represent  a  kind  of 
pious  egotism  which  is  shocking  to  all  right 
feeling.  In  large  sections  of  the  Christian 
church,  the  crucial  question  respecting  the 
Christian  life  is,  "  How  do  you  feel  ?  "  Sal- 
vation, or  at  any  rate  the  evidence  of  it,  is, 
according  to  this  view,  a  satisfied  and  pleas- 
urable feeling.  Now,  feeling  is  a  purely 
personal  matter  ;  and  the  religious  experi- 
ence in  which  it  is  made  the  test  must  be 
of  a  very  individualistic  type.  The  reli- 
giousness which  rests  upon  this  foundation 
may  easily  coexist  with  a  high  degree  of 
selfishness.  When  one  learns  in  his  devo- 
tions that  his  own  personal  satisfaction  is 
the  main  concern,  it  will  not  be  strange  if 
he  acts  on  that  principle  in  other  affairs. 
And  those  who  make  the  most  of  their  own 
personal  moods  and  tenses  in  the  matter  of 
religion  are  the  kind  of  persons  who  can 
easily  convince  themselves  that  they  could 
be  happy  in  heaven  while  their  next  of  kin 
were  weltering  in  everlasting  torment. 

The   religious   experience  which   springs 


66  THE  ONE  AND  THE  MANY. 

from  such  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  in- 
dependence of  the  individual  is  likely  to 
bear  fruit  in  the  social  world.  It  easily 
falls  in  with  that  atomistic  theory  of  society 
in  which  individual  rights  count  for  every- 
thing, and  social  obligations  for  little  or 
nothing.  The  methods  which  it  finds  ready 
to  its  hand  are  those  of  unrestricted  compe- 
tition; its  motto  is,  "Every  man  for  him- 
self." That  there  is  to  be  a  certain  meas- 
ure of  unity  and  cooperation  in  society  is, 
of  course,  allowed ;  but  this  is  not  to  be  con- 
sciously sought:  it  is  to  be  brought  about 
by  an  overruling  Providence,  under  the 
sway  of  those  economic  harmonies  whose 
function  it  is  to  resolve  selfish  intentions 
into  benevolent  issues.  We  are  slowly 
finding  out  that  this  is  a  misplaced  confi- 
dence; that  when  the  individuals  of  which 
society  is  composed  are  all  as  selfish  as  they 
can  be,  the  millennium  rather  tardily  ar- 
rives. And  it  is  already  evident  that  a 
social  philosophy  whose  principle  is  pure 
individualism  can  never  give  us  the  formula 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  67 

of  a  peaceful  and  prosperous  society.  The 
exaggeration  of  this  doctrine  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  individual  bears  no  better 
fruit  in  sociology  than  in  morals  or  religion. 
The  other  doctrine  of  the  solidarity  of 
society  has  been  subject  also  to  much  dis- 
proportionate statement.  No  doctrine  is 
more  clearly  taught  in  the  New  Testament ; 
the  truth  that  "  we  are  members  one  of  an- 
other" lies  at  the  foundation  of  much  of 
Paul's  reasoning.  The  Adamic  headship, 
also,  whatever  theological  interpretation  be 
given  to  it,  involves  the  organic  character 
of  the  human  race  and  the  tremendous 
facts  of  heredity.  "  Through  one  man  sin 
entered  into  the  world,  and  death  through 
sin ;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for 
that  all  sinned."  "  For  as  through  the  one 
man's  disobedience  the  many  were  made 
sinners,  even  so  through  the  obedience  of 
the  one  shall  the  many  be  made  righteous." 
"  For  as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ 
shall  all  be  made  alive."  Doubtless  it  is  a 
great  abuse  to  harden  these  glowing  words 


68  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

into  logical  statements ;  none  the  less  they 
do  convey  to  every  reader  some  sense  of 
an  organic  unity  of  mankind  by  which  the 
stock  conceptions  of  theological  individual- 
ism must  be  greatly  modified.  How  much 
use  has  been  made  of  these  statements  of 
human  solidarity,  I  do  not  need  to  say. 
They  have  dominated  the  theology  of  large 
sections  of  the  church,  to  the  practical  sup- 
pression of  the  truth  of  responsibility.  And 
this  doctrine,  too,  or  something  closely  akin 
to  it,  has  found  its  way  into  sociology.  Theo- 
ries which  represent  the  individual  as  hav- 
ing very  little  distinct  character,  as  being 
the  product  of  the  social  conditions  under 
which  he  lives,  have  had  numerous  de- 
fenders, and  there  is  a  great  truth  here 
which  no  man  can  deny.  "  Each  nation 
and  tribe,"  says  one  writer,  "produces  in 
its  children  its  own  type  of  character,  which 
has  grown  up  in  it,  through  the  influence  of 
the  physical  surroundings  and  past  history 
of  the  people.  Each  individual  is  not  a 
new  phenomenon  in  the  world,  but  only  one 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  69 

particular  specimen  of  a  race,  whether  he  be 
'  a  yeoman  whose  limbs  were  made  in  Eng- 
land,' a  painter  whose  eyes  were  developed 
in  Italy,  or  a  philosopher  whose  brain  grew 
in  Germany.  And  after  the  individual  has 
been  produced,  with  his  particular  type  of 
potential  character,  the  direction  in  which 
that  character  develops  is  determined  by 
the  habits  and  customs  of  his  particular 
people  and  class.  .  .  .  From  this  point  of 
view  there  is  an  obvious  sense  in  which  the 
relation  of  the  individual  to  his  society  is 
an  intrinsic  one.  His  life  is  controlled 
both  by  the  dead  and  by  the  living,  among 
his  people.  He  is  what  his  fathers  have 
been  before  him,  except  in  so  far  as  he  has 
breathed  a  different  air.  Nor  is  this  influ- 
ence of  social  environment  something  purely 
external,  by  which  the  individual  is  affected. 
There  is  not  first  the  individual,  and  then 
the  influences  which  mould  his  life.  He  is 
nothing  except  what  he  has  become  through 
the  influence  of  that  spiritual  setting.  There 
is  nothing  deeper  in   our  nature  than   our 


70  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

inherited  traits ;  there  is  nothing  more  our 
own  than  our  natural  disposition  and  senti- 
ments; there  is  nothing  by  which  we  are 
more  possessed  than  the  spirit  of  our  time. 
We  cannot  go  behind  the  elements  of  our 
constitution  to  find  something  deeper  which 
we  can  regard  as  our  very  self,  and  which 
is  prior  to  such  impressions.  They  are  the 
elements  out  of  which  our  self  has  grown, 
and  we  can  find  nothing  beyond  them  that 
in  any  deeper  sense  belongs  to  us,  or  that  in 
any  deeper  sense  is  ^(?e."  ^ 

All  this  shows  how  closely  our  intellec- 
tual lives  are  linked  with  the  life  of  the 
generation  in  which  we  live,  of  the  race 
from  which  we  spring.  Yet  this  doctrine 
of  solidarity,  like  the  doctrine  of  individu- 
alism, is  often  overstated.  That  man  is 
identified  with  his  kind  is  profoundly  true  ; 
but  it  is  not  true  that  in  his  fraternity  he 
loses  his  identity.  He  cannot  realize  his 
own  life  apart  from  society,  yet  his  relation 

1  An  Introduction  to  Social  Thilosophy,  by  J.  S.  Mac- 
kenzie, p.  150. 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  71 

to  society  is  not  tliat  of  the  Brahman  to  his 
deity.  There  is  a  social  philosophy  which 
dissolves  the  individual ;  society  is  con- 
ceived as  the  menstruum  in  which  the  in- 
dividual disappears.  The  exaggeration  of 
solidarity,  which  underlies  some  theories  of 
socialism,  is  quite  as  common  as  the  exag- 
geration oi  individualism,  and  no  less  mis- 
leading. 

The  error  of  individualism  may  be  illus- 
trated by  comparing  society  to  a  heap  of 
sand.  The  individuals  of  which  society 
is  composed  are  like  the  separate  grains  of 
sand.  They  are  entirely  independent  of  each 
other  ;  none  of  them  is  affected  in  any  way 
by  any  of  the  rest ;  there  is  no  giving  or 
receiving  among  them  ;  there  is  not  even 
any  cohesion;  there  is  simply  aggregation. 
None  of  these  grains  of  sand  is  any  more 
or  less  a  grain  of  sand  because  it  happens 
to  lie  in  this  heap ;  it  would  have  precisely 
the  same  constitution  and  the  same  powers 
and  properties  if  it  were  all  alone  by  itself 
anywhere  in  the  universe. 


72  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

Now,  the  view  of  the  extreme  individual- 
ist tends  toward  a  representation  of  society 
as  somewhat  resembling  a  sand-heap.  No- 
body would  adopt  any  such  illustration,  but 
much  of  the  reasoning  of  many  individu- 
alists suggests  a  kind  of  isolation  and  inde- 
pendence which  is  something  like  this.  "  A 
monadistic  view  of  society,"  says  Professor 
Mackenzie,  "  would  be  one  which  regarded 
all  the  individuals  of  whom  the  society  is 
composed  as  by  nature  independent  of  each 
other,  and  as  connected  together  only  by  a 
kind  of  accidental  juxtaposition.  Such  a 
view  would  naturally  lead  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  connection  of  individuals  in  a  soci- 
ety tends  to  interfere  with  the  natural  de- 
velopment of  the  individual  life,  and  that  it 
would  be  better  for  the  individuals  if  they 
could  manage  to  live  apart."  ^ 

In  truth,  the  theory  of  the  social  con- 
tracts, upon  which  much  of  the  political  phi- 
losophy of  recent  times  has  been  based,  is 
often  interpreted  as  meaning  that  the  indi- 

^  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy^  p.  135. 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  73 

vidual,  in  entering  society,  actually  divests 
himself  of  a  portion  of  his  personal  rights, 
—  reduces,  to  a  considerable  extent,  the  sum 
of  his  powers.  The  noble  savage  in  the 
state  of  nature  is,  according  to  this  view,  a 
completer  man  than  the  member  of  a  civ- 
ilized community.  All  those  who  think, 
with  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  that  government 
is  a  necessary  evil,  rest  their  belief  upon 
this  assumption.  And  those  who  go  a  little 
further  than  Mr.  Spencer,  and  preach  that 
government  is  an  unnecessary  evil  —  that  it 
is  wholly  accursed  and  injurious  —  carry 
the  theory  of  individualism  to  its  logical 
issue.  A  thoroughly  consistent  individual- 
ist is,  of  course,  an  anarchist.  The  abso- 
lute independence  of  the  individual  is  the  ne- 
gation of  social  order  and  of  political  society. 
Mr.  Spencer,  in  the  earlier  editions  of  his 
"  Social  Statics,"  enumerates  among  the 
fundamental  rights  of  man  "  the  right  to 
ignore  the  state,"  "  the  right  of  the  citizen 
to  adopt  a  condition  of  voluntary  outlawry. 
If  every  man,"  he  says,  "has  freedom  to  do 


74  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY, 

all  that  he  wills,  provided  he  infringes  not 
the  equal  freedom  of  any  other  man,  then 
he  is  free  to  drop  connection  with  the  state, 
—  to  relinquish  its  protection  and  to  refuse 
paying  toward  its  support."  I  do  not  think 
that  Mr.  Spencer  would  wish  to  be  held 
responsible  to-day  for  this  language,  but  it 
is  a  fair  statement  of  the  logical  outcome  of 
a  doctrine  which  makes  the  individual  every- 
thing and  the  social  order  nothing. 

The  error  of  socialism,  on  the  other  hand, 
may  be  illustrated  by  comparing  society  to 
a  chemical  compound,  into  which  the  vari- 
ous ingredients  enter  by  surrendering  their 
own  proper  constitution,  and  becoming  un- 
distinguishable  elements  in  the  new  sub- 
stance. "  In  a  chemical  combination,"  says 
Professor  Mackenzie,  "  the  parts  are  not  in- 
trinsically related  to  the  whole,  but  are  rather 
lost  in  the  whole.  So  long  as  they  continue 
to  exist  as  separate  parts  they  are  indepen- 
dent of  the  whole,  but  in  the  whole  they 
become  transfigured.  Nor  can  there  be 
any  development  in  such  a  system,  nor  any 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  75 

end  towards  which  a  development  could  be 
directed  :  the  parts  are  swallowed  up  in  the 
whole,  so  that  nothing  further  can  take 
place  in  the  system  except  by  its  dissolu- 
tion." ^  This  is  the  logical  basis  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  socialism  ;  and  its  outcome  would 
be  a  view  of  society  "which  regarded  the 
union  of  human  beings  as  the  primary  fact 
with  regard  to  them,  and  the  individual  life 
as  the  mere  outcome  of  social  conditions. 
The  natural  conclusion  of  this  view  would 
be  that  the  individual  has  no  right  to  any 
independent  life  of  his  own ;  that  he  owes 
all  that  he  is  and  has  to  the  society  in 
which  he  is  born;  and  that  society  may 
fairly  use  him  as  a  mere  means  to  its  devel- 
opment." ^ 

The  chemical  illustration  doubtless  over- 
states the  error  of  the  socialists  as  much  as 
the  illustration  of  the  sand-heap  overstates 
the  error  of  the  individualists ;  but,  like  that 
other  illustration,  it  shows  us  the  direction 

1  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy,  p.  147. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  135. 


76  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

in  which  the  theory  is  traveling.  And  it 
must  be  owned  that,  with  many  socialistic 
philosophers,  it  has  traveled  far  in  this  direc- 
tion. The  socialistic  contention  certainly 
does  lay  so  much  stress  on  the  improve- 
ment of  the  mass  that  it  ignores  or  greatly 
undervalues  the  integrity  of  the  individual. 
This  is  its  inherent  weakness.  The  most 
acute  of  modern  critics  has  solid  ground 
under  his  feet  when  he  declares  that  the 
socialist  polemic  against  private  property 
"  betrays  an  entire  blindness  to  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  the  social  organism,  which 
can  only  exist  as  a  structure  of  free  indi- 
vidual wills,  each  entertaining  the  social 
purpose  in  an  individual  form  appropriate 
to  its  structural  position  and  organic  func- 
tions." 1 

We  can  make  this  clear  by  considering 
that  property,  private  property,  is  the  condi- 
tion of  the  best  social  order.  The  best  social 
order  results  from  the  social  union  and  co- 

1  The  Civilization  of  Christianity^  by  Bernard  Bosan- 
qnet,  p.  329. 


THE  ONE  AN  ID   THE  MANY.  11 

operation  of  the  highest  type  of  men  and 
women  ;  and  the  highest  type  of  manhood 
and  womanhood  can  only  be  produced  when 
men  and  women  have  the  free  use  of  prop- 
erty. Property  is,  indeed,  the  raw  material 
for  the  development  of  character.  It  is  in 
property,  Hegel  says,  that  my  will  is  made 
real  for  me  as  a  personal  will.  Property 
is  the  concentrated  form  of  power,  and  it 
is  in  the  exercise  of  power  that  my  will  is 
trained  and  disciplined. 

It  is  in  the  realm  of  property  rights  and 
obligations  that  my  personality  is  largely 
shaped.  Until  I  have  learned  to  use  prop- 
erty conscientiously  and  beneficently,  I  have 
not  equipped  myself  for  the  highest  service 
of  my  fellow-men.  In  making  it  the  in- 
strument of  promoting  human  welfare,  more 
than  in  any  other  possible  way,  I  socialize 
my  own  will,  and  prepare  myself  to  enter 
into  helpful  relations  with  my  fellow-men. 
I  cannot  learn  this  lesson  in  the  use  of  prop- 
erty which  I  hold  in  common  with  my  fel- 
lows.    It  must  be  my  own  ;  I  must  be  free 


78  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

to  express  my  own  will  in  dealing  with  it ; 
I  cannot  be  unselfish  in  the  use  of  that 
which  is  not  mine ;  the  most  direct  and  ef- 
fective discipline  in  unselfishness  is  that 
which  is  gained  in  using  private  property 
beneficently. 

The  fundamental  assumption  of  social- 
ism seems  to  be  that  if  men  possess  pri- 
vate property  they  will  use  it  selfishly; 
therefore,  the  socialists  say,  we  will  have 
no  private  property.  The  remedy  would 
not  be  effectual.  It  is  rather  difficult  to 
abolish  all  vestiges  of  private  property. 
Hands  and  feet  and  eyes  and  tongues  are 
possessions  and  instruments  not  easily  alien- 
ated, and  those  who  would  use  money  or 
machinery  selfishly  would  be  quite  sure  to 
go  on  using  all  their  personal  powers  in 
the  same  way  after  they  were  divested  of 
money  and  machinery  ;  claws  and  fists  and 
elbows  and  teeth  would  still  be  private  prop- 
erty, and  a  very  unsocial  use  might  be  made 
of  them.  Unless  the  will  has  been  social- 
ized, unless  men  have  learned  how  to  use 


THE  ONE  AND    THE  MANY.  79 

all  their  powers  and  possessions  for  the  com- 
mon welfare,  the  society  in  which  they  live 
will  bear  very  little  resemblance  to  heaven, 
no  matter  how  small  their  personal  belong- 
ings may  be. 

We  are  told,  indeed,  by  modern  exposi- 
tors of  socialism,  that  their  scheme  does  not 
contemplate  the  abolition  of  private  prop- 
erty in  income,  but  only  of  private  property 
in  the  means  of  production.  All  incomes 
would  be  the  remuneration  of  labor,  and 
would  be  paid  by  the  state  in  labor  checks 
entitling  the  receiver  to  specified  amounts 
of  goods  in  the  public  stores.  The  receiver 
might  expend  them  as  he  pleased  ;  he  might 
also  give  them  away,  or  hoard  them :  he 
could  not  openly  lend  them  upon  interest, 
for  the  law  would  forbid  that;  nor  could 
he  employ  them  in  any  kind  of  profitable 
traffic.  In  a  certain  limited  sense,  there- 
fore, the  recent  socialists  provide  for  private 
property.  And  a  certain  narrow  discipline 
would  be  gained  by  frugality,  conscientious- 
ness, and  benevolence    in  the  use  of   this 


80  THE   ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

private  income.  But  all  that  larger  disci- 
pline to  which  I  have  referred,  which  comes 
through  the  socialization  of  the  will  by  the 
beneficent  use  of  property  in  productive 
enterprises,  —  in  making  it  the  servant  of 
a  broad-minded  philanthropy,  —  would  be 
impossible  under  socialism.  And  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  prohibition  of  private  en- 
terprise —  of  the  productive  use  of  prop- 
erty as  capital,  of  the  free  exercise  by 
individuals  of  the  power  which  property 
confers  —  would  greatly  limit  the  range 
of  human  development.  It  is  true  that  it 
would  remove  many  temptations,  and  that 
it  would  take  from  cruel  hands  a  great  in- 
strument of  oppression ;  but  is  it  not,  after 
all,  better  to  let  men  have  power  and  teach 
them  how  to  use  it?  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  socialistic  programme  rests 
upon  a  profound  disbelief  in  the  possibility 
of  socializing  the  individual  will,  and  in  this 
I  find  its  condemnation. 

A  society  composed  of  persons  who  were 
the  possessors  of  goods  which  they  called 


THE  ONE  AND    THE  MANY.  81 

their  own,  but  wliicli  they  had  learned  to 
use  freely  in  the  promotion  of  the  common 
welfare,  would  be  a  good  society ;  while  a 
society  based  upon  the  assumption  that  all 
that  a  man  has  will  be  used  selfishly,  and 
that  therefore  the  range  of  individual  pos- 
session must  be  sharply  limited,  is  perfectly 
certain  to  be  a  very  bad  society. 

The  chemical  solution  of  individual  rights 
which  the  socialists  propose  is  likely  to  form 
a  highly  explosive  mixture. 

Neither  the  sand-heap  nor  the  chemical 
compound  furnishes  us  a  good  analogy  of 
the  structure  of  human  society.  Is  it  pos- 
sible for  us  to  find  a  better  analogy  ?  I 
believe  that  it  is,  and  that  we  shall  find 
our  most  helpful  suggestion  in  that  figure 
of  the  living  organism  which  Paul,  in  one 
form  or  another,  so  frequently  uses.  Doubt- 
less the  biological  analogies  all  fail  at  cer- 
tain points  ;  our  parables  will  not  go  upon 
all-fours;  and  there  are  certain  important 
respects  in  which  the  social  organism  differs 
essentially  from  that  of  the  plant  or  the  ani- 


82  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY, 

mal.  But  this  illustration  takes  us  nearer 
to  the  truth  than  any  other  which  the  king- 
doms of  nature  furnish  us.  Paul  gives  us 
the  thought  in  that  passage  of  his  in  the 
Ephesians  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  work 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  world  as  the 
building  up  of  "  the  body  of  Christ."  By 
"  speaking  truth  in  love,"  he  says,  "  we  may 
grow  up  in  all  things  unto  Him  which  is  the 
head,  even  Christ ;  from  whom  the  whole 
body,  fitly  framed  and  knit  together  through 
that  which  every  joint  supplieth,  according 
to  the  working  in  due  measure  of  each  sev- 
eral part,  maketh  the  increase  of  the  body 
unto  the  building  up  of  itself  in  love." 
Here  is  the  true  account  of  the  relation  of 
the  one  to  the  many.  In  the  highest  sense 
the  many  are  one,  —  one  body  :  but  the 
union  is  not  chemical,  it  is  organic;  the 
parts  have  an  identity  of  their  own;  each 
one  of  the  many  is  one,  but  it  finds  its  life 
in  the  life  of  the  larger  unity.  It  is  through 
that  service  which  every  organ  supplieth 
that  the  organism  lives ;   it  is  by  the  work- 


THE   ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  83 

ing  in  due  measure  of  each  several  part  that 
the  body  grows  ;  and  yet  it  is  one  body,  and 
none  of  the  members  has  any  life  or  mean- 
ing or  value  in  itself  apart  from  the  body. 
The  relation  of  the  members  to  the  body 
is  very  different  from  the  relation  of  the 
grains  of  sand  to  the  sand-heap  on  the  one 
hand,  and  from  the  relation  of  the  several 
ingredients  of  the  chemical  compound  on  the 
other  :  there  is  a  real  unity,  as  there  is  not 
in  the  sand-heap  ;  and  there  is  the  harmony 
of  separate  parts  and  powers,  as  there  is 
not  in  the  chemical  solution  which  destroys 
the  identity  of  the  substances  composing  it. 
"  An  organism,"  says  Professor  Mackenzie, 
"is  a  real  whole  in  a  sense  in  which  no 
other  kind  of  unity  is  so.  It  is  in  seii^so 
totus^  teres^  atqice  rotundus,^^  All  its  parts 
belong  to  it ;  they  cannot  be  altered,  so  to 
speak,  without  its  own  consent ;  and  the  end 
which  it  seeks  is  also  its  own.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  a  universe  and  not  a  unit ;  it  has 
parts  ;  and  it  does  grow,  and  it  has  an  end. 
We   may   define   it,  therefore,   as   a  whole 


84  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

whose  parts  are  intrinsically  related  to  it, 
which  develops  from  within,  and  has  refer- 
ence to  an  end  that  is  involved  in  its  own 
nature."  ^ 

We  have  had  a  good  deal  of  discussion, 
some  of  it  not  over-clear,  upon  this  question 
of  the  organic  nature  of  human  society. 
But  Mr.  Mackenzie's  generalization  which  I 
have  just  quoted  does,  I  believe,  accurately 
describe  human  society.  It  is  "  a  whole 
whose  parts  are  intrinsically  related  to  it." 
The  individual  cannot  be  separated  from 
the  society  in  which  he  lives  and  retain 
his  individuality.  The  "  organic  filaments  " 
which  bind  him  to  his  fellow-men  are  vital 
elements  in  his  own  life,  and  they  are 
constantly  multiplying.  "  Thus,"  says  Mr. 
Bosanquet,  "  if  the  individual  in  ancient 
Greece  was  like  a  centre  to  which  a  thou- 
sand threads  of  relation  were  attached,  the 
individual  in  modern  Europe  might  be  com- 
pared to  a  centre  on  which  there  hang  many, 
many  millions."  So  far  is  it  from  being 
^  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy^  p.  148. 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  85 

true  that  society  is  constituted  by  the  voli- 
tional action  of  persons,  that  it  is  even  true 
that  the  "person,''  as  we  know  him  to-day, 
is  the  product  of  social  development.  "  The 
unit  of  an  ancient  society  was  the  family,  of 
a  modern  society  the  individual."  So  says 
Sir  Henry  Maine.  "  Persons,"  with  definite 
rights,  are  the  fruit  of  social  progre^. 
This  is  not  to  say  that  the  conscious  moral 
force  of  the  individual  himself  has  not 
helped  towards  this  emancipation,  but  he 
never  could  have  won  it  except  through  the 
medium  of  society.  "  The  individual  /)er- 
S07^,"  says  Mr.  Ritchie,  "the  citizen  with 
rights  and  duties,  is  a  complex  of  ideas,  emo- 
tions, and  aspirations  which  are  altogether 
unintelligible  except  as  the  product  of  cease- 
less action  and  reaction  in  the  spiritual 
(i.  e,  intellectual,  moral,  etc.)  environment, 
which  not  merely  surrounds,  but  actually 
constitutes,  the  individual,  —  i,  e,  makes  him 
what  he  is.  The  history  of  the  individual 
cannot  be  understood  apart  from  the  his- 
tory of  the  race,  though  of  course  in  prac- 


86  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

tice  we  have  to  limit  ourselves   to  a  small 
portion."  ^ 

This  vital  relation  of  the  individual  to  the 
society  of  which  he  is  a  member  is  the  one 
fruitful  thought  of  modern  times.  It  is 
easy  to  run  it  into  absurdity  by  trying  to 
find  in  society  parts  or  organs  analogous 
to  every  part  or  organ  of  the  human  body ; 
nevertheless  the  conception  is  extremely 
fruitful,  and,  as  a  help  in  escaping  from  the 
barren  immoralities  of  the  old  individual- 
ism, we  cannot  be  too  thankful  for  it.  It  is 
important  to  mark  the  differences  between 
the  social  organism  and  the  biological  struc- 
tures to  which  it  is  assimilated.  "  The  truth 
is,"  says  Mr.  Ritchie,  "  that  society  (or  the 
state)  is  not  an  organism  because  we  can 
compare  it  to  a  beast  or  a  man,  but  because 
it  cannot  be  understood  by  the  help  of  any 
lower  —  i,  e,  less  complex  —  conception 
than  that  of  organism.  In  it,  as  in  an 
organism,  every  part  is  conditioned  by  the 
whole.     In  a  mere  aggregate  or  heap,  the 

1  Principles  of  State  Interference,  p^  15. 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  87 

units  are  prior  to  the  whole ;  in  an  organ- 
ism, the  whole  is  prior  to  the  parts,  —  i,  e, 
they  can  only  be  understood  in  reference  to 
the  whole.  But  because  the  conception  of 
an  organism  is  more  adequate  to  society 
than  the  conception  of  an  artificial  com- 
pound, it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  fully 
adequate."  ^ 

Social  organisms,  as  the  same  writer  sug- 
gests, differ  from  other  organisms  in  having 
the  remarkable  property  of  making  them- 
selves. There  is  a  dynamic  of  the  spirit 
here,  for  which  no  analogy  can  be  found  in 
the  biological  structures.  And  in  truth  it 
appears,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  that  the 
very  progress  of  society  is  toward  the  de- 
velopment of  individuality,  and  society  be- 
comes more  and  more  thoroughly  organized 
through  the  consentaneous  action  of  indi- 
vidual wills.  "  If  it  is  true,"  says  Mr. 
Mackenzie,  "  that  the  individual  is  formed 
by  the  habits  and  customs  of  his  people,  it 
is  true  also  that  the  habits  and  customs  of 

1  Principles  of  State  Interference,  p.  49. 


88  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

the  people  grow  out  of  the  characters  of  the 
individual  citizen.  The  relation  of  the  in- 
dividual to  society  is  similar  in  kind  to  the 
relation  of  the  will  of  an  individual  to  his 
character.  As  will  is  the  expression  of 
character,  so  is  the  individual  the  expression 
of  his  society ;  but  as  change  of  character 
takes  place  only  through  acts  of  will,  so  a 
change  in  society  takes  place  only  through 
change  in  its  individual  members.  And 
just  as  our  wills  are  free,  although  they  are 
the  expression  of  our  characters,  so  the  in- 
dividual has  an  independent  life,  although 
he  is  the  expression  of  his  society."  ^ 

This  admirable  statement  will  enable  us 
to  hold  fast  to  the  two  contrasted  trutlis  in 
whose  coi5rdination  we  find  the  law  of  so- 
ciety. Such  an  organism  as  is  here  clearly 
indicated,  society  certainly  is  ;  and  the  power 
to  recognize  these  subtle  relations,  and  to 
adapt  our  voluntary  efforts  at  construction 
to  the  facts  of  the  case,  should  be  sought  by 
all  social  reformers. 

1  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy^  p.  157. 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  89 

It  may  be  supposed  that  a  discussion  like 
this  of  the  theory  of  society,  of  the  relation 
of  the  one  to  the  many,  is  of  no  practical 
value.  "It  is  interesting,"  it  may  be  said; 
"it  satisfies  our  intellectual  cravings,  but 
has  nothing  to  do  with  every-day  life."  On 
the  contrary,  I  believe  that  nothing  is  more 
practical.  A  sound  philosophy  of  society  is 
the  condition  of  all  right  conduct.  The  ori- 
gin and  value  of  philosophy,  says  a  recent 
writer,  is  "in  an  attempt  to  give  a  reason- 
able account  of  our  own  personal  attitude 
towards  the  more  serious  business  of  life. 
You  philosophize  when  you  reflect  critically 
upon  what  you  are  actually  doing  in  your 
world.  What  you  are  doing  is,  of  course, 
in  the  first  place  living,  and  life  involves 
passions,  faiths,  doubts,  and  courage.  The 
critical  inquiry  into  what  all  these  things 
mean  and  imply  is  philosophy.  We  have 
our  faith  in  life ;  we  want  reflectively  to 
estimate  this  faith.  .  .  .  Whether  we  will 
it  or  no,  we  all  of  us  do  philosophize.  .  .  . 
The  moral  order,  the  evils  of  life,  the  au- 


90  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

thority  of  conscience,  the  intentions  of  God, 
how  often  have  I  not  heard  them  discussed, 
and  with  a  wise  and  critical  skepticism,  too, 
by  men  who  seldom  looked  into  books  !  "  ^ 
We  all  have  our  philosophical  explanation 
of  life ;  and  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance 
that  it  be  a  sound  explanation,  for  all  our 
conduct  is  shaped  by  it.  Salvation  can 
mean  nothing  more  than  help  in  realizing 
our  own  idea  of  life,  unless  it  also  involves 
help  in  understanding  what  life  means. 
From  what  are  we  saved  ?  From  sin,  is 
the  orthodox  answer.  And  what  is  sin? 
It  is  the  transgression  of  the  law,  or  want 
of  conformity  to  the  law.  What  law  ?  The 
law  of  life.  And  the  law  of  life  is  simply 
the  expression  of  our  relation  to  our  en- 
vironment, which  is  precisely  what  we  have 
been  talking  about.  We  must  have  clear 
ideas  about  what  that  law  requires  of  us  be- 
fore we  can  be  saved  from  sin.  The  grace 
that  bringeth  salvation  comes  to  help  us  to 

^  The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy,  by  Josiah  Royce, 
pp.  1,  2. 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  91 

live  according  to  the  law  of  life.  If  any 
man  accepts  the  doctrine  of  individualism 
or  the  doctrine  of  socialism  as  the  correct 
statement  of  the  law  of  life,  he  will  be  pray- 
ing for  aid  to  conform  his  conduct  to  that 
doctrine.  If  that  doctrine  is  unsound  his 
conduct  will  be  bad.  There  are  millions  of 
people  all  over  the  world  who  are  devoutly 
praying  for  help  in  doing  wrong.  What 
they  need  is  not  more  religion,  but  a  better 
philosophy  of  life. 

Every  man  has  a  philosophy  of  life.  It 
may  be  implicit  rather  than  explicit ;  he 
may  not  be  able  to  formulate  it ;  but  there 
are  certain  underlying  principles  which  con- 
dition all  his  conduct,  and  it  is  of  the  last 
importance  that  these  principles  be  sound 
and  true. 

Let  me  try  to  indicate  with  some  particu- 
larity just  what  the  effect  of  a  sound  philos- 
ophy will  be  upon  some  phases  of  conduct. 

1.  In  the  experience  of  personal  religion, 
for  example,  how  will  the  organic  theory  of 
life  be  found  to  work  ? 


92  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

The  Christian  man  will  not,  under  the 
influence  of  this  theory,  forget  that  he  is 
a  person ;  that  his  relations  with  the  Father 
of  spirits  are  primarily  personal ;  that  the 
responsibilities  of  life  rest  upon  him,  and 
cannot  be  evaded;  that  nobody  can  repent 
or  believe  for  him ;  and  that  there  is  work 
in  the  kingdom  of  God  which  none  but  he 
can  do.  On  the  other  hand,  he  will  feel 
that  in  his  deepest  religious  experiences  he 
is  not  separated  from  his  fellow-men,  but 
identified  with  them.  His  chief  happiness 
,  as  a  Christian  will  consist,  not  in  inward 
raptures,  but  in  the  fellowship  of  the  spirit. 
He  will  think  very  little  about  enjoying  re- 
ligion, and  a  great  deal  about  the  privilege 
and  honor  of  service.  His  best  evidence 
that  he  is  a  Christian  disciple  will  not  be 
in  some  ecstasy  by  which  he  is  distinguished 
from  his  fellows,  but  in  the  knowledge  that 
his  deepest  purpose  is  to  seek  first  the  king- 
dom of  God. 

Under  the  theory  of  individualism,  which 
makes  the  supreme  religious  obligation  the 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY.  93 

saving  of  one's  own  soul,  great  intensity  of 
religious  enthusiasm  is  often  engendered, 
and  the  rapt  saint  finds  high  satisfaction 
in  the  indulgence  of  his  emotions ;  but  such 
experiences  are  no  bar  to  an  intolerant,  ex- 
acting, overbearing  temper;  those  who  are 
most  distinguished  for  their  emotional  exal- 
tations are  quite  apt  to  be  censorious  and 
quarrelsome.  This  is  precisely  what  we 
should  expect ;  a  theory  of  life  which  makes 
the  individual  the  centre  of  the  universe  is 
not  likely  to  bring  peace  and  goodwill  to 
his  neighbors. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  socialistic  theory 
so  disparages  the  individual  that  the  per- 
sonal relations  of  men  to  God  are  wholly 
obscured,  and  the  personal  services  of  man 
to  man  are  greatly  undervalued. 

2.  This  leads  us  to  consider  the  effect 
upon  our  social  conduct  of  the  realization  of 
the  truth  that  we  are  members  of  one  body. 
The  man  who  really  believes  this  will  not, 
on  the  one  hand,  forget  that  the  welfare  of 
society  depends  on  his  individual  action.    He 


94  THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY. 

will  remember  that  the  health  and  growth 
of  the  body  depend  upon  the  working  in 
due  measure  of  each  several  part.  And  yet 
he  knows  that  it  is  only  "  in  love"  that  the 
body  is  built  up ;  that  the  co(5peration  of 
part  with  part,  and  the  ministry  of  each  to 
the  good  of  all,  is  the  very  law  of  its  being. 
If  he  were  a  socialist,  he  would  expect  to 
secure  some  new  organization  of  society  by 
which  the  good  of  all  would  be  secured 
without  effort  or  sacrifice  on  the  part  of 
any.  If  he  were  an  individualist,  he  would 
say,  in  the  words  of  one  of  them,  that 
''  every  man  and  woman  in  society  has  one 
big  duty :  that  is,  to  take  care  of  his  or  her 
own  self."  But,  being  a  Christian,  he  does 
not  adopt  the  heresy  of  Cain,  nor  does  he 
expect  salvation  by  machinery.  He  knows 
that  the  welfare  of  the  many  is  the  fruit  of 
the  efforts  and  sacrifices  of  each  one,  and 
that  the  welfare  of  each  one  is  found  in  the 
health  and  happiness  of  the  many.  He 
knows,  in  short,  the  truth  of  that  saying 
which  I  have  alreadj^  quoted,  that  "  the  social 


THE  ONE  AND   THE  MANY,  95 

organism  can  only  exist  as  a  structure  of  free 
individual  wills,  each  entertaining  the  social 
purpose  in  an  individual  form."  He  must 
have  his  own  power  and  use  it,  his  own  pos- 
sessions and  employ  them,  but  all  must  be 
done  for  the  welfare  of  the  community  with 
which  his  life  is  inseparably  joined.  He 
can  never  say,  ''  This  money  is  mine,  and  I 
shall  do  what  I  will  with  it ;  "  that  is  not 
his  conception  of  the  function  of  money. 
Nor  can  he  say,  "  This  business  is  mine,  and 
I  shall  manage  it  to  suit  myself ;  "  business 
has  quite  another  meaning  to  him.  Money, 
as  he  has  learned  to  think  of  it,  is  the  chief 
instrument  of  beneficence  ;  business  is  the 
great  opportunity  of  social  ministry.  Office 
is  not  to  him  a  chance  for  self-aggrandize- 
ment or  plunder,  but  a  call  to  consecrated 
service ;  learning  is  not  a  staff  by  which 
he  climbs  to  heights  where  the  multitude 
cannot  follow,  but  a  torch  wherewith  he 
lights  the  lowly  paths  of  human  kind ;  art 
is  not  a  ministration  to  his  selfhood,  but  a 
witness  to  the  beauty  which  is  the  common 


96  THE   ONE    AND   THE  MANY. 

heritage  of  man.  In  short,  he  has  learned 
that  the  chief  end  of  man  is  not  the  upbuild- 
ing of  one  at  the  cost  of  the  many,  nor  the 
absorption  of  one  in  the  life  of  the  many, 
but  the  perfection  of  one  in  the  blessedness 
of  the  many. 


V. 

THE  SACRED  AND  THE  SECULAR. 


I  know  nothing"  which  has  exercised  a  more  pernicious 
influence  on  religion  than  that  unhappy  divorce  which 
has  been  effected  between  religious  duty  and  the  every- 
day duties  of  life.  When  a  mother  is  faithfully  tending 
her  children,  and  making  her  hearthstone  clean  and  her  fire 
burn  bright,  that  everything  may  smile  a  welcome  to 
her  weary  husband  when  he  returns  from  his  work,  it  is 
never  dreamt  that  she  is  religiously  employed.  When  a 
man  works  hard  during  the  day  and  returns  to  his  family 
in  the  evening  to  make  them  all  happy  by  his  placid 
temper  and  quiet  jokes  and  dandlings  on  the  knee,  the 
world  does  not  think  —  perhaps  he  does  not  think  him- 
self —  that  there  is  religion  in  anything  so  common  as  this. 
Religion  is  supposed  to  stand  aloof  from  such  familiar 
scenes.  But  to  attend  the  church,  to  take  the  sacrament, 
to  sing  a  psalm,  to  say  a  prayer,  is  religion.  Now  God 
help  this  poor  sinful  world  if  religion  consists  only  in 
these  things  and  not  also  in  the  other.  —  John  Cunning- 
ham, in  Scotch  Sermons,  page  46. 

We  cannot  expect  the  mass  of  men  to  take  an  interest 
in  the  technical  parts  of  religion,  in  the  details  of  the 
modes  of  worship,  or  the  peculiar  ways  of  expression, 
on  which  most  controversies  turn.  These  are  the  pro- 
fessional business  of  a  class,  —  the  ministers  of  public 
worship,  the  professed  theologians.  But  every  man,  nay 
every  human  being,  can  learn  to  do  his  duty  as  in  God's 
sight,  and  in  the  spirit  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  and 
the  more  each  one  is  earnestly  engaged  in  this  effort,  the 
more  he  will  feel  the  need  of  the  divine  help,  and  the  more 
he  will  lean  with  manly  trust  on  the  support  of  Christ  and 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  contact  of  Christian  faith  with 
the  secular  life  is  good  for  both.  The  one  is  prevented 
from  sinking  into  weak  refinement,  the  other  is  raised 
from  its  grossness  to  become  the  temple  of  God.  —  W. 
H.  Fremantle,  The  Gospel  of  the  Secular  Life,  page  71. 


THE  SACRED  AND  THE  SECULAR. 

"I  CA3IE  not,"  said  Jesus,  "to  judge  tlie 
world,  but  to  save  the  world."  It  may  be 
well  to  pause  in  the  middle  of  the  last  de- 
cade of  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  and  try  to  understand  the  meaning 
of  these  words  of  Jesus  Christ, —  "  I  came 
to  save  the  world."  It  was  a  tremendous 
saying  when  it  was  first  uttered  by  a  Gali- 
lean peasant  in  the  temple  court  at  Jerusa- 
lem. How  does  it  strike  our  minds  to-day  ? 
Is  its  meaning  any  clearer  now  than  it  was 
then,  or  its  promise  any  surer? 

There  are  those  who  assume  to  be  the 
special  representatives  of  this  Christ  upon 
the  earth,  and  who  declare,  if  I  rightly 
understand  them,  that  the  purpose  of  the 
Christ,  as  here  announced,  has  not  been 
fulfilled ;  that  his  lofty  enterprise  has  met 


100      THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR. 

with  ignominious  failure ;  that  he  has  not 
saved  the  world,  and  gives  no  indication  of 
being  able  to  save  it ;  that,  in  spite  of  his 
church  and  his  gospel  and  his  spirit,  the 
world  is  steadily  growing  worse;  that  no- 
thing is  now  left  for  Him  but  to  reverse  his 
original  purpose  and  come  and  judge  the 
world,  and  destroy  what  he  is  powerless,  by 
moral  and  spiritual  influences,  to  save.  I 
will  not  discuss  this  theory ;  I  will  only  say 
that  I  do  not  find  in  history,  nor  in  the  philos- 
ophy of  faith,  nor  in  the  words  of  Christ,  any- 
thing to  justify  it.  I  still  believe  that  when 
Christ  said,  "  I  came  to  save  the  world,"  He 
was  no  callow  enthusiast,  proposing  to  him- 
self a  scheme  far  too  vast  for  his  powers.  I 
believe  that  He  has  not  been  disappointed ; 
that  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him  was  no 
illusion ;  that  He  has  shown  himself  mighty 
to  save  the  world,  and  that  the  world  through 
Him  is  being  saved.  And  I  own  that  the 
denial  of  this  fact,  or  skepticism  about  it, 
seems  to  me  the  deadliest  heresy  now  alive 
in  the  Christian  church. 


THE  SACBED  AND   THE  SECULAR,      101 

Others  there  are  who  interpret  these 
words  of  Christ  in  a  somewhat  different 
sense.  They  do  not  dispute  his  power  to 
save  individuals  out  of  the  world,  —  many 
individuals  ;  perhaps  they  would  admit  that 
the  day  might  come  when  all  men  would  be 
converted.  But  this  salvation  of  individ- 
uals, as  they  seem  to  conceive  it,  has  no  per- 
ceptible effect  upon  the  physical  world  or 
the  social  world.  Men  are  converted  and 
brought  into  the  church,  which  is  the  so- 
ciety of  the  regenerate,  and  from  this  time 
they  cease  to  have  any  vital  relations  with 
the  world.  The  world  stands  over  against 
them  in  contrast,  sometimes  in  antagonism ; 
the  world  is  to  be  struggled  against  and 
overcome,  but  it  is  not  to  be  saved.  The 
whole  framework  of  society  —  its  industries, 
amusements,  customs,  governments,  arts  — 
is  regarded  as  an  alien  and  even  a  hostile 
kingdom.  That  Christ  came  to  save  this 
is  an  idea  that  a  great  many  Christians 
have  not  entertained.  Christ  comes,  as  they 
suppose,  to  save  men  out  of  the  world ;  but 


102      THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR. 

when  these  individuals  are  converted,  their 
trade,  their  politics,  their  institutions,  their 
fashions,  their  work,  their  play,  still  re- 
main unsubdued  by  the  influences  of  the 
Spirit,  —  a  realm  of  carnality  and  ungod- 
liness. 

It  is  rather  difficult  for  any  one  who  pos- 
sesses a  little  imagination  to  conceive  of 
such  a  condition  of  things  as  this.  The 
fact  being  that  all  these  social  features  are 
the  expression  of  the  lives  of  individuals  in 
social  relations,  one  finds  it  hard  to  under- 
stand how  the  people  could  all  be  saved 
and  the  social  order  left  untouched.  It 
seems  a  little  like  supposing  that  the  warp 
and  the  woof  might  both  be  changed  from 
hemp  to  silk  and  the  web  still  be  hempen, 
or  that  the  springs  which  feed  the  brook 
might  all  be  cleansed  without  purifying  the 
water  of  the  brook.  But  the  fact  that  a 
conception  is  difficult  is  no  stumbling-block 
to  some  kinds  of  heroic  faith.  And  it  must 
be  admitted  that  this  idea  of  a  world  left 
substantially  unaffected  by  the  progress  of 


THE  SACBED  AND   THE  SECULAR.      103 

the  church  —  a  world  out  of  which  the 
church  is  gathered,  and  with  which  it  can 
maintain  no  relations  but  those  of  hostil- 
ity —  is  the  notion  which  has  dominated 
the  thought  of  the  church  through  all  the 
generations. 

Doubtless  there  are  many  passages  of 
Scripture  which  seem  to  support  this  the- 
ory. The  free,  popular,  poetic  use  of  lan- 
guage which  we  find  in  the  Bible  leaves 
room  for  many  misconceptions.  I  have  no 
time  here  to  gather  and  analyze  these  pas- 
sages. "  The  world,"  in  some  of  them, 
does  signify  the  mass  of  unholy  and  anti- 
Christian  powers.  The  tenth  definition  of 
"  world  "  in  the  Century  Dictionary  is  this : 
"  The  part  of  mankind  that  is  devoted  to 
the  affairs  of  this  life,  or  interested  in  secu- 
lar affairs ;  those  concerned  especially  for 
the  interests  and  pleasures  of  the  present 
state  of  existence ;  the  unregenerate  or  un- 
godly part  of  humanity."  There  are  texts 
of  Scripture  not  a  few,  in  which  this  defi- 
nition would  give  the  exact  meaning.     But 


104      THE  SACBED  AND   THE  SECULAR, 

there  are  other  texts  in  which  this  cannot 
be  the  meaning :  "  Ye  are  the  light  of  the 
world."  "  The  field  is  the  world."  "  The 
gospel  shall  be  preached  in  the  whole 
world."  ''  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and 
preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature."  "  God 
sent  not  his  Son  into  the  world  to  condemn 
the  world,  but  that  the  world  through  Him 
might  be  saved."  "  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  who- 
soever believeth  in  Him  might  not  perish, 
but  have  everlasting  life."  "  For  the  bread 
of  God  is  that  which  cometh  down  from 
heaven  and  giveth  life  unto  the  world."  In 
many  such  texts  it  is  evident  that  the  word 
is  used  to  describe  the  human  race,  human- 
ity, man  and  his  environment;  that  it  is 
not  thought  of  as  a  hostile  realm  set  over 
against  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  but  as  the 
subject  of  Christ's  redeeming  and  saving 
grace.  And  this  is  clearly  the  significance 
of  the  text  before  us.  It  is  the  world 
—  the  whole  world,  lying  in  wickedness 
now,  but  waiting  with  earnest  expectation. 


THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR,      105 

groaning  and  travailing  together,  for  the 
promised  redemption ;  it  is  the  cosmos,  riven 
and  shattered  no  doubt  in  many  of  its  fair- 
est tracts  by  chaotic  forces,  but  still  the 
cosmos  which  sprang  into  being  at  first 
from  the  mind  and  the  heart  of  God  —  that 
Christ  came  to  save.  And  He  has  not  failed 
in  doing  what  He  came  to  do.  He  is  saving 
the  world,  the  whole  of  it ;  He  is  bringing 
back  lost  Paradise ;  his  saving  health  is 
known  not  only  to  individuals,  but  to  na- 
tions, societies,  institutions ;  nay,  it  is  even 
true  that  his  healing  and  transforming 
power  is  felt  in  the  physical  world,  and 
that  wherever  He  goes  the  wilderness  and 
the  solitary  place  are  glad  for  Him,  and  the 
desert  rejoices  and  blossoms  as  the  rose. 
When  a  man  is  saved  from  vice  and  ani- 
malism, the  signs  of  his  regeneration  are  apt 
to  appear  in  the  house  which  he  inhabits ; 
the  new  life  will  quickly  make  for  itself  a 
new  environment.  It  is  quite  as  true  of  the 
race  as  of  an  individual.  The  redemption 
of  man  involves  the  redemption  of  the  earth 


106      THE  SACBED  AND  THE  SECULAR, 

whereon  lie  dwells.  Is  not  the  physical 
world  the  subject  of  redemption?  When 
we  hear  Paul  explaining  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Colossians  how  the  world  came  into  ex- 
istence, it  seems  not  incredible  that  it  should 
be  redeemed.  For  he  tells  us  that  Christ, 
the  image  of  the  invisible  God,  is  "  the  first- 
born of  all  creation  ;  for  in  Him  were  all 
things  created,  in  the  heavens  and  upon  the 
earth;  ...  all  things  have  been  created 
through  Him  and  unto  Him,  and  He  is  be- 
fore all  things,  and  in  Him  all  things  con- 
sist." The  whole  creation  is  fashioned  in 
Christ;  his  life  permeates  and  animates  it 
all ;  it  lives  in  Him.  The  immanence  of  God 
is  a  thought  which  has  become  familiar  to 
devout  thinkers,  and  it  is  a  very  fruitful 
conception.  "Perhaps,"  says  Canon  Fre- 
mantle,  "we  may  gain  a  more  living  con- 
ception of  God  by  speaking  of  Him  as  the 
soul  of  the  world,  and  comparing  his  action 
to  that  of  the  vital  power  of  man  upon  his 
body ;  or,  in  animated  nature,  to  the  action 
of  the  inner  principle  of  life  upon  the  parti- 


THE  SACBED  AND   THE  SECULAR.      107 

cles  of  matter  which  make  up  the  organ- 
ism." This  doctrine  of  God  immanent  in 
nature  needs  to  be  supplemented,  of  course, 
by  the  doctrine  of  God  transcendent  over 
nature.  But  in  this  passage  of  Paul's  we 
have  the  explicit  statement  of  the  imma- 
nence of  the  Christ  in  creation:  the  Christ 
idea,  the  Christ  principle,  —  the  substance 
of  that  which  Christ  stands  for  and  reveals 
to  us,  —  is  part  of  the  very  framework  of  the 
physical  world,  has  been  so  from  the  dawn 
of  creation.  This  is  the  great  thought 
which  Professor  Drummond  has  so  pow- 
erfully presented  to  us  in  "  The  Ascent  of 
Man."  With  abundant  learning,  with  mar- 
velous eloquence,  he  shows  us  that  when 
man  thought  that 

"  Nature,  red  in  tootli  and  claw 
With  raven,  shrieked  against  his  creed," 

he  did  not  understand  Nature ;  that  love, 
more  than  hate,  is  the  song  of  her  choiring 
voices ;  that  the  struggle  for  life  has  for  its 
perpetual  counterpart  the  struggle  for  the 
life  of  others.     Here  is  the  Christ  idea,  the 


108      THE  SACBED  AND   THE  SECULAR, 

Christ  principle,  imbedded  in  the  very  order 
of  the  physical  world,  precisely  as  Paul  has 
told  us.  And  if  the  creation  has  shared  with 
man  the  losses  and  disorders  which  have 
resulted  from  his  disobedience,  it  may  also 
share  with  him  in  the  redemptive  and  re- 
generative work  which  Christ  has  come  to 
perform.  It  is  not  by  its  own  will,  for  it 
has  no  will  of  its  own,  but  by  reason  of  its 
identification  with  man,  that  it  has  been 
subjected  to  vanity  and  misery;  but  Paul, 
with  the  insight  of  a  spiritual  imagination, 
beholds  it  waiting,  with  earnest  expectation, 
for  the  day  when  it  shall  be  manifest  that 
men  are  the  sons  of  God,  because  then  the 
creation  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the 
bondage  of  corruption  into  the  glorious  lib- 
erty of  the  sons  of  God. 

It  is  thus  made  evident  that  even  the  phy- 
sical world  is  not  a  region  foreign  to  the 
Prince  of  life ;  that  the  very  love  of  which 
He  was  the  incarnation  is  the  element  in 
which  all  things  consist  or  hold  together ; 
and  that  the  work  of  saving  the  world  must 


THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR.      109 

include  the  renovation  and  the  restoration 
of  the  natural  as  well  as  the  spiritual  order. 

And  if  even  the  physical  world  is  the  sub- 
ject of  this  redemptive  work,  much  more 
must  the  framework  of  the  social  order  be 
included  in  the  redemptive  process.  The 
social  framework,  the  customs,  institutions, 
laws  of  society,  are  simply  the  organs  by 
which  the  human  race  lives  and  has  its 
being:  the  notion  that  men  can  be  saved 
apart  from  these  is  something  like  the  no- 
tion that  a  man  who  is  sick  can  be  made  well 
while  his  heart  and  his  brain  and  his  lungs 
and  his  stomach  and  all  the  rest  of  his  vital 
organs  are  fatally  diseased. 

The  truth  that  Christ  came  to  save  the 
world  must  be  accepted,  then,  in  its  largest 
sense.  Any  attempt  to  restrict  his  salvation 
to  those  interests  which  are  expressed  by 
the  church  as  an  ecclesiasticism  is  mischiev- 
ous in  the  extreme.  When  you  have  fenced 
religion  off  into  a  separate  realm,  you  have 
not  only  robbed  society  of  the  only  power 
that  can  keep  it  from  putrefaction,  you  have 


110      THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR. 

doomed  religion  itself  to  paralysis  and  death. 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  the  leaven  which 
pervades  the  whole  mass  of  society,  and 
which  is  destined  to  bring,  and  which  is 
bringing,  the  whole  of  life  into  harmony  with 
the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus. 
This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  that  sepa- 
ration of  life  into  the  sacred  and  the  secu- 
lar which  lies  at  the  basis  of  so  much  of 
our  current  thinking,  but  which  is,  in  its 
common  form,  one  of  the  most  essentially  ir- 
religious ideas  that  the  human  mind  can  en- 
tertain. It  goes  back  to  the  old  Gnosticism, 
to  the  old  Median  and  Persian  Dualism ;  it 
has  been  working  in  the  church  from  the 
earliest  ages ;  it  was  the  seed  out  of  which 
monasticism  sprung ;  it  has  seemed  well- 
nigh  impossible  to  rid  the  church  of  its 
baneful  influence.  This  false  distinction 
it  was  that  underlay  that  papal  hierarchy 
against  which  our  fathers,  in  the  early  days 
of  the  Reformation,  lifted  up  their  protest. 
It  was  shutting  religion  into  the  church  and 
out  of  the  world  that  made  the  Keformation 


THE  SACRED  AND    THE  SECULAR.      Ill 

necessary.  It  was  the  sacerdotal  ideas  of 
that  time  against  which  William  Tyndale, 
the  translator  of  the  Bible,  was  inveighing 
when  he  wrote  :  "  For,  since  these  false  mon- 
sters crope  up  into  our  consciences,  and 
robbed  us  of  the  knowledge  of  our  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ,  making  us  believe  in  such 
pope-holy  works,  and  to  think  that  there 
was  no  other  way  into  heaven,  we  have  not 
wearied  to  build  them  abbeys,  cloisters, 
colleges,  chauntries,  and  cathedral  churches 
with  high  steeples,  striving  and  envying  each 
other  which  should  do  most.  And  as  for 
the  deeds  which  pertain  to  our  neighbors 
and  to  the  commonwealth,  we  have  not  re- 
garded at  all,  as  things  which  seem  no  holy 
works,  or  such  as  God  would  not  once  look 
upon.  And  therefore  we  left  them  unseen 
to,  until  they  were  past  remedy,  or  past 
our  power  to  remedy  them."  ^  It  was 
this  church-cribbed,  priest-centred  religion 
against  which  the  pulpit  of  Savonarola  thun- 
dered, and  the  lecture-room  of  Colet  rang, 
1  Deman's  Life  of  Tyndale,  p.  277. 


112      THE  SACREB  AND   THE  SECULAR, 

and  the  pen  of  Erasmus  flashed,  in  the  open- 
ing campaigns  of  that  great  controversy. 
That  Protestants  should  fall  into  this  snare 
is  an  instructive  but  not  a  very  curious  fact. 
It  is  the  law  of  the  machine.  When  Pro- 
testantism succeeded  in  building  up  ecclesias- 
ticisms  of  its  own,  it  at  once  began  to  exalt 
them  above  all  the  rest  of  life  ;  to  separate 
between  them  and  all  the  rest  of  life  ;  to 
regard  them  as  holy  and  the  rest  of  life  as 
profane.  That,  to  this  day,  is  the  prevail- 
ing idea.  It  is  not  the  universal  idea,  for 
there  are  many  in  this  generation  to  whom 
the  larger  truth  that  Christ  came  to  save 
the  world  is  becoming  increasingly  plain ; 
but  there  still  lingers,  in  the  minds  of  the 
majority  of  professing  Christians,  the  notion 
that  religion  is  an  interest  wholy  separate 
from  the  rest  of  life  ;  that  religion  is  sacred, 
while  business  and  politics  and  amusement 
and  education  and  art  are  essentially  and 
necessarily  secular  ;  and  that  religion  cannot 
be  brought  into  contact  with  these  other  in- 
terests without  suffering  some  serious  loss  of 


THE  SACBEB  AND   THE  SECULAR.      113 

its  own  purity  and  dignity.  The  popu- 
lar notions  on  this  subject  are  not  nearly 
so  gross  as  once  they  were.  We  have 
got  pretty  well  past  that  time  which  Dr. 
George  Hodges  describes  in  this  stinging 
paragraph  :  — 

"  No  man's  sense  of  religion  was  affronted 
by  the  account  given  of  the  French  cardinal, 
who  was  declared  to  be  mean,  cruel,  avari- 
cious, and  dishonorable,  but  very  religious. 
Benvenuto  Cellini  broke  all  the  command- 
ments, but  attended  the  services  of  the 
church  with  regularity  and  devotion,  and 
believed  that  his  steps  were  guarded  by  the 
blessed  angels.  An  honest,  pure-hearted, 
God-fearing  heretic,  no  matter  how  upright 
his  life,  would  go  to  hell.  But  a  loyal  son 
of  the  true  church,  who  recited  the  creed  and 
knelt  at  the  sacrament,  might  live  most 
basely  and  yet  have  place  hereafter  with 
patriarchs  and  saints  among  the  saved."  ^ 
No  such  statement  as  that  would  hold  good 
to-day  in  any  branch  of  the  church  in  this 

^  The  Heresy  of  Cain,  p.  11. 


114      THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR, 

country.  We  are  certainly  making  prog- 
ress in  our  realization  of  the  idea  that  per- 
sonal religion  cannot  be  separated  from 
personal  morality.  But  we  still  hold  fast 
—  many  of  us — to  the  notion  that  religion 
has  a  sphere  to  itself,  and  that  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  church  and  the  world  must 
be  maintained  and  emphasized ;  that  a  cer- 
tain part  of  life  is  under  religious  motive, 
and  that  another  and  far  larger  part  of  life 
is  tinder  motives  of  another  sort,  and  that 
the  two  realms  cannot  be  brought  together. 
The  truth  is,  that  this  distinction  between 
the  sacred  and  the  secular  is  utterly  mis- 
leading. What  do  we  mean  by  the  secu- 
lar ?  If  the  essence  of  secularity  is  selfish- 
ness, greed,  pride,  cruelty,  hardness  of  heart, 
there  is  plenty  of  all  these  in  the  church 
itself.  Are  not  the  competitive  methods  by 
which  place  and  distinction  in  the  house  of 
God  are  sold  for  money  essentially  secular  ? 
Is  not  the  pushing  of  the  schemes  of  secta- 
rian aggrandizement  in  our  cities,  in  utter 
defiance  of  the  comity  of  churches,  a  secular 


THE  SACRED   AND   THE  SECULAR.      115 

proceeding  ?  Are  not  the  politics  of  a  good 
many  of  our  ecclesiastical  assemblies  about 
as  secular  as  any  other  kind  of  politics? 
When  the  mob  spirit  takes  possession  of  a 
synod  or  a  convention,  and  the  rights  of  the 
minority  are  trampled  under  foot,  and  harsh 
judgments  are  rushed  through,  not  by  the 
force  of  reason  but  by  the  terrorism  of  the 
multitude,  what  name  do  we  give  to  such  an 
operation  ?  It  is  not,  surely,  a  sacred  per- 
formance, even  though  it  may  take  place  in 
the  very  presence  of  the  altar. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  an  employer  of 
men  writes  me,  as  one  did  a  few  weeks  ago, 
"  I  have  not  reduced  the  wages  of  my  men 
during  the  depression.  There  was  a  time 
when  I  was  profiting  largely  by  their  work ; 
now  that  it  is  otherwise  I  do  not  mean 
to  forget  what  I  owe  them,"  —  is  that  what 
you  call  a  secular  proceeding?  And  when 
a  public-school  teacher  tells  me  of  a  boy  in 
one  of  her  classes  whose  habits  and  tenden- 
cies were  thoroughly  bad,  but  over  whom 
she  has  succeeded  in  establishing  an  influ- 


116      THE  SACRED  AND    THE  SECULAR. 

ence  by  kind  treatment,  by  appeals  to  his 
manliness,  until  now  he  seems  to  be  well 
started  in  the  better  way,  shall  I  tell  this 
young  woman  that  work  of  this  kind  is 
merely  secular  ?  And  when  a  prophet  of 
God,  in  this  dispensation,  rises  up  and  in 
the  name  of  Jehovah  smites  the  most  gigan- 
tic aggregation  of  political  injustice  and  cor- 
ruption ever  heaped  together  in  one  place 
upon  this  planet,  and  scatters  it  to  the  four 
winds  of  heaven,  making  a  free  space  on 
which  to  build  a  government  that  shall  be  a 
shelter  and  not  a  terror  to  the  people,  —  a 
shrine  and  not  a  slaughter-house,  —  shall 
we  call  him  a  secular  preacher,  and  cry  out 
that  the  function  of  the  pulpit  is  not  the 
preaching  of  politics,  but  the  saving  of 
souls  ? 

In  truth,  there  is  no  kind  of  work  in 
which  any  man  has  a  right  to  engage  that  is 
not  in  its  deepest  meaning  sacred  work. 
What  is  the  farmer's  work  ?  He  is  devel- 
oping the  powers  of  the  earth ;  he  is  caus- 
ing it  to  bring  forth  and  bud,  that  it  may 


THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR.      117 

give  seed  to  the  sower  and  bread  to  the 
eater ;  he  is  working  together  with  God. 
What  is  the  work  of  the  miner?  He  is 
bringing  forth  from  the  treasures  of  the 
earth  the  stores  of  wealth  that  God  has 
been  keeping  there  for  his  children  ;  he  is  a 
co-worker  with  God.  What  is  the  work  of 
the  artisan  or  the  manufacturer  ?  He  is 
shaping  the  products  of  mine  or  field  or  for- 
est for  human  uses ;  he  is  a  co-worker  with 
God.  What  is  the  merchant's  work?  He 
is  bringing  the  goods  that  supply  human 
needs  to  the  places  where  they  are  needed ; 
he  is  the  helper  of  the  farmer  and  the  man- 
ufacturer ;  with  them,  he  is  a  co-worker  with 
God.  What  is  the  work  of  the  teacher  ? 
In  a  more  direct  and  conscious  way  he  is 
working  with  God  ;  for,  if  he  have  any  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  meaning  of  his  calling,  he 
knows  that  it  is  not  merely  or  mainly  for 
bread-winning  that  he  is  training  these 
pupils,  but  that  he  is  seeking  to  develop 
their  essential  manhood  and  womanhood,  — 
to  enable  each  one  of  them  to  become  what 


118      THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR, 

God  meant  him  to  be.  What  is  the  work 
of  the  physician  ?  It  is  to  make  man,  in 
the  words  of  the  Great  Physician,  "  every 
whit  whole."  Is  not  he,  too,  working  to- 
gether with  God?  And  what  is  the  law- 
yer's function  ?  Is  it  not,  primarily,  the  right 
administration  of  the  laws  ?  And  what  are 
these  laws  of  the  state  ?  Are  they  not  in 
their  final  intention,  in  their  deepest  pur- 
pose, the  effort  to  secure  justice  and  right- 
eousness among  men  ?  And  is  not  this  the 
purpose  of  the  divine  government?  Must 
not  the  lawyer,  therefore,  feel  that,  when  he 
gets  into  the  heart  of  his  calling,  his  work 
must  be  essentially  religious,  —  that  he  must 
be  a  co-worker  with  God  ? 

"  Each  of  the  various  functions  that  we 
fill,"  says  Canon  Fremantle,  "  is  a  priest- 
hood ;  the  service  which  we  render  in  them 
is  a  holy  sacrifice ;  the  materials  which  we 
employ  are  sacraments  and  signs  of  the  spir- 
itual act  within.  The  student  who  devotes 
himself  to  the  acquisition  of  truth,  whose 
prayer  is  that  his  mind  may  be  sustained 


THE  SACBED  AND   THE  SECULAR.      119 

till  lie  has  acquired  the  knowledge  which 
it  is  his  duty  to  seek,  is  ministering  in  a 
sacred  office,  and  his  writings,  up  from  the 
simplest  college  essay  or  analysis  to  the 
highest  product  of  genius,  the  outward 
working  of  his  spirit  within,  are  the  em- 
blems and  signs  of  his  ministry.  The 
trader  who  is  determined  to  act  honestly, 
and  who  is  conscious  that  his  trade  is  a 
means  of  benefit  to  others,  and  follows  it 
with  that  object,  is  a  minister  of  God  for 
their  good,  and  the  commodities  with  which 
he  deals  are  the  outward  sign  of  his  honesty 
and  his  beneficence.  The  artist,  whose  ob- 
ject is  beauty,  is,  by  purifying  and  enno- 
bling our  sense  of  beauty,  doing  service  to 
God  and  man,  and  the  works  of  his  art  are 
the  media  by  which  his  service  is  rendered. 
...  I  need  not  point  out  that  the  same  is 
true  in  the  family,  where  every  father  is  a 
priest  by  a  kind  of  natural  consecration ; 
nor  in  the  state,  where  every  ruler  is  a  min- 
ister of  God  for  our  good.  The  great  want 
of  our  age  is  that  we  should  look  at  all  these 


120      THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR, 

functions,  not  as  profane  and  secular,  accord- 
ing to  the  heathen  and  Jewish  idea  which 
Christ  came  to  banish,  but  as  those  in 
which  the  service  of  Christ  preeminently 
lies.  There  is  the  true  sacrifice,  there  the 
living  priesthood ;  there  is  the  sacrament  of 
our  union,  the  real  presence  and  the  body  of 
Christ  our  Lord."  ^ 

That  all  these  common  functions  and 
callings  are,  when  rightly  understood  and 
rightly  performed,  in  the  deepest  sense 
sacred,  is  a  fundamental  truth  of  Christian- 
ity, yet  it  is  a  truth  which  has  waited  long 
for  general  recognition.  Like  the  truth  of 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  truth  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  it  has  been  understood 
by  a  few  in  all .  the  ages,  and  uncertainly 
and  feebly  held  by  the  church  at  large,  but 
its  real  meaning  and  significance  have  been 
practically  hidden.  Every  one  would  say 
that  the  farmer  ought  to  be  a  religious 
man ;  that  is  to  say,  he  ought  to  keep  the 
Sabbath,  and  go  to  church,  and  have  family 

1  The  Gospel  of  the  Secular  Life,  pp.  190,  191. 


THE  SACRJED  AND   THE  SECULAR.      121 

prayers,  and  ask  a  blessing  at  the  table,  and 
be  a  devout  and  prayerful  person  every  day; 
but  that  his  work  itself,  —  his  plowing  and 
sowing  and  reaping  is  in  itself  cooperation 
with  God,  and  ought  to  be  a  conscious  and 
a  joyful  cooperation ;  that  his  work  ought 
to  be  full  of  the  spirit  of  worship,  —  how 
often  has  he  heard  any  such  truth  as  this  ? 
So  with  all  the  other  lawful  callings  which 
men  follow.  The  common  conception  is  that 
they  furnish  simply  a  means  of  livelihood  ; 
they  are  just  secular^  that  word  tells  it  all ; 
in  the  words  of  the  dictionary,  they  are  "  dis- 
sociated from,  or  have  no  concern  with  re- 
ligious, spiritual,  or  sacred  matters  or  uses." 
That  they  can  be  thought  of  and  used  as 
sacramental,  —  as  the  expression  of  love  and 
loyalty  to  God,  —  this,  I  say,  is  not  a  famil- 
iar conception.  It  ought  to  become  familiar. 
What  an  infinite  pity  it  is  that  men  cannot 
gain  some  sense  of  the  dignity  and  divine- 
ness  of  common  life !  What  a  meaning  is 
imparted  to  existence  when  we  are  able  to 
see  that  in  all  the  lowliest  paths  of  human 


122     THE  SACBED  AND   THE  SECULAB. 

service  we  are  literally  walking  and  work- 
ing with  God !  Was  not  the  poet's  aim  a 
noble  one  when  he  cried,  — 

"  By  words 
Which  speak  of  nothing  more  than  what  we  are 
Would  I  arouse  the  sensual  from  their  sleep 
Of  death,  and  win  the  vacant  and  the  vain 
To  noble  raptures  "? 

It  is  not  needful  to  speak  of  more  than 
what  we  are,  —  of  more  than  what  the  hum- 
blest honest  worker  in  the  world  is,  and 
should  know  himself  to  be ;  that  simple 
statement  has  enough  inspiration  in  it  to 
make  the  most  prosaic  life  heroic  and  sub- 
lime. 

And  this,  if  I  understand  the  matter,  is 
what  Christ  meant  when  he  said,  "  I  came 
to  save  the  world."  He  came  to  make  all 
life  divine.  He  came  to  bring  us  into  such 
conscious  nearness  to  God,  into  such  living 
fellowship  with  Him,  that  we  should  be  able 
to  discern  God's  purpose  in  all  our  work, 
and  to  link  our  wills  with  his  in  a  perpetual 
consecration,  believing  that  whether  we  eat 


THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR,     123 

or  drink,  or  whatever  we  do,  we  are  doing 
all  to  his  glory. 

This  new  conception  of  Christianity  is 
beginning  to  find  expression  in  churches  of 
a  new  type,  with  a  greatly  broadened  min- 
istry. There  lies  before  me,  as  1  write,  the 
picture  of  a  new  and  noble  edifice  recently 
erected  in  a  Western  city,  and  with  it  a  full 
account  of  the  kind  of  work  which  this 
church  proposes  to  carry  on,  in  the  forty-two 
rooms  that  are  covered  by  its  roof.  The 
contrast  between  the  sacred  and  the  secular 
finds  no  sanction  here.  For  here,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  ordinary  provisions  for  public 
worship,  are  large  facilities  for  interests  that 
are  usually  regarded  as  secular.  Here  is  a 
gymnasium,  for  physical  culture  and  athletic 
training ;  here  is  the  offer  of  a  bicycle  club, 
an  athletic  club,  and  a  camera  club,  for  out- 
door pleasures ;  here  are  educational  and  in- 
dustrial classes  of  various  sorts  :  instruction 
in  music,  instrumental  and  vocal ;  in  lan- 
guages ;  in  applied  science,  electricity,  and 
microscopy ;  in  commercial  arithmetic  and 


124  THE  SACEED  AND   THE  SECULAR. 

bookkeeping  and  penmanship  ;  in  mechan- 
ical and  architectural  drawing ;  in  milli- 
nery ;  in  white  sewing ;  in  dressmaking  and 
in  cooking ;  and  a  fine  arts  club,  and  a  tour- 
ist club,  and  a  reading-room,  and  recreation- 
rooms,  with  literary  and  debating  societies ; 
while  lectures,  concerts,  and  other  entertain- 
ments complete  for  the  present  a  pro- 
gramme which  will  undoubtedly  be  ex- 
tended from  year  to  year.  For  all  these 
forms  of  work  and  enjoyment,  this  building, 
whose  plan  is  before  me,  makes  ample  pro- 
vision. There  are  rooms  here,  numerous, 
commodious,  beautiful,  in  which  this  work 
may  be  carried  forward.  The  church  opens 
these  hospitable  doors,  and  expects  and  de- 
sires that  the  people  of  its  neighborhood, 
rich  and  poor,  will  freely  avail  themselves 
not  only  of  its  privileges  of  worship,  but  of 
all  these  facilities  of  instruction  and  recre- 
ation. And  it  is  a  church  that  is  doing  all 
this,  —  a  Christian  church.  And  it  is  doing 
this  because  it  is  Christian,  through  and 
through  ;   because  it  has   entered   into  the 


THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR.     125 

mind  of  Christ  more  intimately  than  most 
churches  do  ;  because  it  understands  what 
He  meant  when  He  said,  "  I  came  to  save 
the  world." 

It  may  be  surmised  that  these  various  ad- 
ditions to  the  equipment  of  this  church  are 
intended  merely,  or  at  any  rate  chiefly,  as 
attractions,  —  as  baits  ;  that  their  purpose  is 
to  draw  the  people  into  the  building,  and 
thus  give  the  ministers  and  the  evangelistic 
workers  a  chance  to  convert  them.  It  is  to 
be  hoped,  indeed,  that  a  great  many  of  those 
who  come  will  find  something  a  little  better 
than  they  came  for ;  some  new  view  of  the 
meaning  of  life,  which  will  lead  them  out 
into  a  completer  manhood  and  womanhood, 
—  into  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  sons  of 
God.  But  after  all,  the  idea  that  these  fea- 
tures of  the  life  of  this  church  are  simply 
introduced  as  lures  does  not,  I  think,  at  all 
represent  the  facts  of  the  case. 

The  gymnasium  has  its  place  in  this  plan 
because  physical  health  and  strength  are 
sacred  possessions,  gifts  which  God  wishes 


126     THE  SACBED  AND   THE  SECULAR. 

and  works  to  bestow  on  all  his  children.  It 
is  because  this  church  aims  to  be  a  co-worker 
with  God  that  it  furnishes  the  gymnasium. 
The  recreation-rooms  and  the  clubs  for  out- 
door sports  are  furnished  for  the  same  rea- 
son, because  in  God's  plan  rest  must  alter- 
nate with  work,  and  recreation  follow  mental 
strain.  This  is  not  a  secular  provision ;  it 
is  part  of  the  divine  order ;  and  the  church 
recognizes  it  and  treats  it  as  such.  The 
classes  for  industrial  education  are  offered 
because  work  before  play  is  the  divine  or- 
dinance ;  and  the  training  which  enables  a 
man  to  work  intelligently  and  skillfully  is 
preparing  him  to  fulfill  the  high  calling  of 
God.  The  laws  of  physics  and  mechanics, 
which  underlie  this  industrial  education,  are 
only  the  ways  in  which  God  works  ;  and  the 
better  a  man  understands  God's  ways  and 
the  more  perfectly  he  conforms  to  them,  the 
happier  and  the  more  successful  he  will  be 
in  every  industrial  calling.  Of  the  sciences, 
which  are  to  be  taught  in  this  place,  exactly 
the  same  thing  must  be  said,  —  the  student 


THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR.     127 

of  every  science  is  only  thinking  God's 
thoughts  after  Him.  Shall  we  call  the  study 
of  science  a  secular  avocation  ?  And  the 
music  which  is  taught  here,  —  are  the  voices 
with  which  it  speaks  to  the  spirit  secular 
voices?  Doubtless  music,  and  all  the  arts, 
may  be  perverted  to  a  degree  which  shall  re- 
quire a  much  stronger  word  than  secular  to 
describe  their  baseness ;  the  best  things  can 
be  most  desecrated ;  but  rightly  ministered, 
music  becomes  the  vehicle  of  the  purest  and 
loftiest  emotions,  —  the  only  language  that 
can  express  the  aspiration  of  the  soul  that 
thirsts  for  God,  or  the  rapture  of  the  bea- 
tific vision. 

And  what  shall  we  say  of  the  large  provi- 
sion made  for  social  intercourse,  —  for  the 
bringing  of  the  people  of  the  neighborhood 
together  in  kindly  and  fraternal  relations,  — 
that  they  may  look  each  other  in  the  face, 
take  each  other  by  the  hand,  and  manifest  to 
each  other  the  goodwill  which  springs  in  the 
hearts  of  all  who  have  learned  of  Christ? 
Is  this  a  secular  enterprise  ?  Is  the  strength- 


128     THE  SACEED  AND   THE  SECULAR, 

ening  of  the  ties  of  friendship  among  neigh- 
bors a  secular  business  ?  What  will  be  the 
signs  of  the  presence  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  when  it  has  fully  come?  Will  they 
be  anything  other  or  better  than  peace  on 
earth  and  goodwill  among  men  ?  And  is  the 
work  of  the  church  in  promoting  on  earth 
these  heavenly  relations  anything  less  than 
sacred  ? 

No  ;  these  instrumentalities,  somewhat  un- 
usual in  the  equipment  of  a  Christian  church, 
are  not  furnished  in  any  furtive  fashion  —  as 
a  kind  of  Christian  cajolery  to  entrap  and 
convert  souls ;  they  are  provided  for  what 
they  are  worth  in  themselves ;  they  are  in- 
cluded as  representing  essential  elements  in 
the  development  and  manifestation  of  the 
Christian  life ;  they  are  offered  because  this 
church  has  gained  a  new  conception  of  what 
Christ  meant  when  he  said,  "  I  came  to  save 
the  world."  They  are  in  this  plan  because 
this  church  has  felt  the  meaning  of  such  stir- 
ring words  as  these  of  Professor  Drummond : 

"  The  nearer   one    draws   to   reality,  the 


THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR.     129 

nearer  one  draws  to  the  working  sphere  of 
religion.  Wherever  real  life  is,  there  Christ 
goes.  And  He  goes  there,  not  only  because 
the  great  need  lies  there,  but  because  there 
is  found,  so  to  speak,  the  raw  material  with 
which  Christianity  works,  —  the  life  of  man. 
To  do  something  with  this,  to  infuse  some- 
thing into  this,  to  save  and  inspire  and  sanc- 
tify this,  the  active  working  life  of  the  world, 
is  what  He  came  for.  Without  human  life 
to  act  upon,  without  the  relations  of  men 
with  one  another,  of  master  with  servant, 
husband  with  wife,  buyer  with  seller,  creditor 
with  debtor,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  Chris- 
tianity. With  actual  things,  with  humanity 
in  its  every-day  dress,  with  the  traffic  of  the 
streets,  with  gates  and  houses,  with  work  and 
wages,  with  sin  and  poverty,  with  these 
things^  and  all  the  things  and  all  the  rela- 
tions and  all  the  people  of  the  city,  Chris- 
tianity has  to  do,  and  has  more  to  do  than 
with  anything  else.  To  conceive  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  itself  a  thing,  —  a  some- 
thing which  can  exist   apart  from   life ;  to 


130     THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR. 

think  of  it  as  sometliing  added  on  to  being, 
something  kept  in  a  separate  compartment 
called  the  soul,  as  an  extra  accomplishment 
like  music,  or  a  special  talent  like  art,  is  to- 
tally to  misapprehend  its  nature.  It  is  that 
which  fills  all  compartments.  It  is  that 
which  makes  the  whole  life  music  and  every 
separate  action  a  work  of  art.  Take  away 
action,  and  it  is  not.  Take  away  people, 
houses,  streets,  character,  and  it  ceases  to  be. 
Without  these  there  may  be  sentiment,  or 
rapture,  or  adoration,  or  superstition ;  there 
may  even  be  religion  —  but  there  can  never 
the  religion  of  the  Son  of  Man."  ^ 
'Ajid  yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the 
other  parts  of  this  church  are  of  no  special 
value.  I  have  dwelt  upon  its  exceptional 
ap)pointments,  because  I  desired  to  enforce 
tiJeir  significance  and  their  sacredness ;  but 
the  ordinary  provision  for  worship,  for  the 
study  of  God's  truth,  for  those  acts  and  ex- 
ercises which  are  the  largest  part  of  the  life 
of  all  Christian  churches,  is  not,  in  any 
1  The  City  without  a  Church,  pp.  12,  14. 


V 


THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR.     131 

thought  of  mine,  disparaged.  The  worship 
of  such  a  church  will  be,  indeed,  less  than 
nothing  and  vanity  unless  its  life  permeates 
and  sanctifies  all  these  common  things  ;  but 
when  its  life  does  permeate  and  sanctify  all 
these  common  things,  then  its  sanctuary 
will  be  crowded  and  its  prayer-rooms  full  to 
overflowing.  When  men  begin  to  under- 
stand that  they  are  walking  and  working 
with  God  six  days  in  the  week,  when  they 
comprehend  that  they  have  actual  fellow- 
ship with  the  Father  and  with  his  son  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  humblest  tasks  to  which  they 
devote  their  powers,  then  they  will  find  in 
the  Sabbath  worship  a  meaning  which  they 
have  never  known  before.  When  the  ath- 
lete, in  the  sanctified  gymnasium,  stands  face 
to  face  with  the  fact  that  his  body  is  the 
temple  of  the  living  God,  he  will  feel  it  to 
be  an  unseemly  thing  if  from  that  temple 
the  incense  of  prayer  never  ascends  to  God. 
When  the  student,  under  the  roof  that  shel- 
ters the  altar,  realizes  that  all  his  studies  are 
but  efforts  to  interpret  the  eternal  Reason, 


132     THE  SACRED  AND   THE  SECULAR. 

his  reverence  must  awaken  a  desire  to  know 
more  fully  the  Being  whose  ways  are  thus 
in  part  revealed  to  him. 

No,  it  cannot  be  that  the  realization  of 
the  sacredness  of  all  life  will  rob  our  hearts 
of  reverence  or  silence  the  voices  of  our 
praise.  We  must  all  come,  led  by  a  com- 
mon impulse,  to  the  altar  of  God,  to  God 
our  exceeding  joy,  to  pour  out  our  hearts 
before  Him,  to  confess  our  unworthiness  of 
so  great  love,  and  to  pray  for  the  light  and 
truth  that  shall  lead  us  in  his  ways.  When 
every  calling  is  a  priesthood,  when  every 
task  is  a  prayer,  the  church  bell  will  have  a 
music  in  its  peal  that  our  ears  have  never 
heard.  "  Those,"  says  Canon  Fremantle, 
"  who  acknowledge  that  the  sanction  which 
makes  their  work  a  noble  service  is  the  be- 
lief in  God,  will  want  to  hear  more  about 
God,  and  will  return  to  theology  and  its 
teachings  with  a  new  zest."  Thus  there  is 
reason  to  hope  that  the  weekly  assemblies  of 
such  a  church  will  be  thronged  with  earnest 
seekers   after   God,  with   men  and   women 


THE  SACREB  AND   THE  SECULAR,     133 

whose  deepest  wish  is  to  know  his  will  more 
perfectly,  and  to  come  into  closer  fellowship 
with  Him. 

Such  a  concrete  example  as  this  church 
furnishes  —  and  there  are  not  a  few  like  it 
in  the  land  —  brings  before  us  more  clearly 
than  much  theorizing  could  do  the  nature  of 
the  changes  which  are  taking  place  in  the 
minds  of  men  respecting  the  false  distinction 
so  long  maintained  between  things  sacred 
and  things  secular.  I  am  persuaded  that 
the  new  conception  gives  to  religion  a  dig- 
nity and  power  which  it  has  not  known, 
and  that  it  will  greatly  hasten  the  progress 
of  the  kingdom  of  God. 


VI. 

THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 


Within  the  spheres  of  private  industry  and  personal 
endeavor  much  service  may  be  rendered  in  binding  some 
men  happily  together  :  and  in  these  relations  there  is 
no  social  obligation  more  constant  or  more  imperative. 
Every  manufacturer,  every  business  man,  has  opportu- 
nity and  divine  calling  within  his  own  private  business  to 
serve  the  highest  interests  of  society.  The  social  obliga- 
tions of  men  to  men  in  their  industries  are  not  to  be  left 
out  of  the  account,  as  though  they  belonged  only  to  some 
conscienceless  and  loveless  domain  of  economics,  and  not 
to  the  world  of  God's  love.  Whatever  in  the  conduct  of 
private  business  experience  commends  as  profitable  to 
prevent  the  proletarizing  of  a  laboring  class  becomes  an 
ethical  responsibility  and  a  Christian  duty  of  the  admin- 
istrator and  the  capitalist.  —  Newman  Smyth,  Christian 
Ethics^  page  463. 

Now  all  her  standards  were  spiritualized.  She  had  come 
to  know  what  happiness  and  affection  are  possible  in  three 
rooms,  or  two,  on  twenty-eight  shillings  a  week  ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  her  knowledge  of  Aldous  —  a  man  of 
stoical  and  simple  habit,  thrust,  with  a  student's  tastes, 
into  the  position  of  a  great  landowner  —  had  shown  her, 
in  the  case  at  least  of  one  member  of  the  rich  class,  how 
wealth  may  be  a  true  moral  burden  and  test,  the  source 
of  half  the  difficulties  and  pains  —  of  half  the  nobleness 
also  —  of  a  man's  life.  .  .  .  She  had  ceased  to  think  of 
whole  classes  of  civilized  society  with  abhorrence  and  con- 
tempt ;  and  there  had  dawned  in  her  that  temper  which 
is  in  truth  implied  in  all  ^he  more  majestic  conceptions 
of  the  state  —  the  temper  that  regards  the  main  institu- 
tions of  every  great  civilization,  whether  it  be  property, 
or  law,  or  religious  custom,  as  necessarily,  in  some  degree, 
divine  and  sacred.  For  man  has  not  been  their  sole  arti- 
ficer !  Throughout  there  has  been  working  within  him 
"  the  spark  that  fires  our  clay."  —  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward,  Marcella,  ii.  487-489. 


VI. 

THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 

The  moral  education  of  the  race  has  not 
been  a  gradual  process,  nor  has  it  gone  on 
by  logical  or  ideal  methods  ;  there  has  been 
a  great  want  of  symmetry  and  apparent  co- 
herency in  the  movement ;  its  course  does 
not  resemble  the  skillfully  chosen  line  of  the 
canal,  but  the  devious  channel  of  the  river. 
If  any  social  philosopher  had  planned  the 
moral  progress  of  humanity,  it  would  have 
gone  forward  in  a  very  different  way.  The 
anomalies  and  inconsistencies  which  appear 
at  every  stage  of  this  progress  would,  of 
course,  have  been  avoided.  The  logical  ab- 
surdity of  permitting  this,  while  condemning 
that,  would  have  been  pointed  out,  and  the 
race  would  have  been  taught  that  it  was 
better  to  be  symmetrically  bad  than  unsym- 
metrically  good. 


138  THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 

There  is  reason,  however,  to  doubt  whether 
the  pedagogy  of  the  moral  philosophers 
would  have  been  more  effective  than  that 
which  has  been  conducted ;  perhaps  the 
indirect  and  tentative  methods  of  Provi- 
dence are  better  calculated  to  reach  sure 
results  than  the  clever  contrivances  of  men. 

We  are  struck,  in  studying  the  moral 
education  of  the  people  who  are,  by  com- 
mon consent,  the  ethical  leaders  of  the  race, 
with  the  way  in  which  moral  conceptions 
were  slowly  naturalized  among  them.  The 
great  truth  toward  which  they  were  to  be 
led  was  the  sacredness  of  all  life  ;  but  the 
first  step  in  that  direction  was  the  consecra- 
tion of  some  small  portion  of  life.  To  have 
told  these  people  the  whole  truth  would  have 
been  inexpedient ;  they  could  not  receive  it ; 
a  partial  revelation  was  the  only  possible 
revelation.  Some  little  part  of  life  was 
separated  from  the  rest  and  brought  under 
the  law  of  consecration.  When  they  had 
learned  something  of  the  principle  of  conse- 
cration in  this  limited  field,  the  time  would 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  139 

come  when  it  could  be  extended  to  wider 
realms. 

The  method,  after  all,  commends  itself  to 
our  judgment.  When  a  small  colony  takes 
possession  of  a  continent  yet  uncultivated, 
it  is  necessary  that  its  first  attempts  to  sub- 
due the  land  be  concentrated  within  narrow 
inclosures.  The  fact  that  the  labor  of  the 
colonists  is  bestowed  on  a  very  few  acres  is 
no  indication  that  their  purposes  may  not 
include  the  land  outside  their  fences.  From 
these  few  acres  as  a  base  of  operations  they 
can  extend  their  cultivation.  The  attempt 
to  cover  the  whole  continent  the  first  year 
would  not  be  practicable.  And  if  the  moral 
education  of  the  Hebrew  race  began  with 
the  reclamation  of  some  small  tracts  of  con- 
duct, the  method  was  probably  adapted  to 
the  intellectual  condition  of  the  people. 

Thus,  in  the  olden  time,  men  were  re- 
quired to  fast  on  certain  days.  Beyond  a 
doubt,  the  ulterior  purpose  of  this  fasting 
was  the  control  of  the  appetite,  —  the  cultiva- 
tion of  temperance  in  the  Scripture  sense  of 


140  THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 

the  word.  It  would  not  have  been  possible 
to  teach  these  people  to  rule  their  appetites 
every  day,  and  at  every  meal ;  to  make  rea- 
son the  arbiter  of  their  dietary.  But  if 
occasional  days  were  set  apart,  upon  which, 
under  severe  penalties,  they  were  forbidden 
to  eat  at  all,  they  would  learn,  under  this 
discipline,  the  lesson  that  the  will  could  con- 
trol the  appetite,  and  this  lesson  could  by 
and  by  be  expanded  into  a  broader  prin- 
ciple. 

In  the  old  times  certain  localities  were 
made  sacred.  The  presence  of  God  was  to 
be  looked  for  in  those  sacred  places ;  it  was 
only  there  that  He  could  be  approached. 
This  localization  of  worship  seems  to  us  a 
crude  method ;  but  perhaps  the  mind  could 
not  have  been  concentrated  upon  the 
thought  of  God  without  the  aid  of  these 
associations  of  locality.  Do  we  not  all  feel 
the  influence  of  such  associations  upon  our 
own  spirits  in  quieting  and  elevating  our 
thoughts  ?  It  was  only  by  that  communion 
with    God  which  was  thus   promoted   that 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY,  141 

men  were  enabled  to  entertain  the  larger 
conception  of  his  presence  as  filling  all 
space.  The  time  at  length  arrived  when 
Jesus  could  say  to  the  woman  of  Sychar : 
"  Believe  me,  the  hour  cometh  when  neither 
in  this  mountain  nor  in  Jerusalem  shall 
ye  worship  the  Father.  The  hour  cometh, 
and  now  is,  when  the  true  worshipers  shall 
worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth, 
for  such  doth  the  Father  seek  to  be  his  wor- 
shipers." 

A  still  more  striking  illustration  of  the 
partialness  of  the  rudiments  of  morality 
among  the  Hebrews  is  the  legislation  in- 
tended to  restrict  the  old  custom  of  blood 
vengeance.  By  that  custom  the  accidental 
as  well  as  the  intentional  homicide  was 
doomed  to  death  by  the  slain  man's  next 
of  kin.  It  was  the  religious  duty  of  the 
avenger  of  blood  to  take  the  life  of  one 
who,  by  the  merest  accident,  had  slain  his 
kinsman.  Now  the  Levitical  law  does  not 
forbid  such  vengeance,  albeit  it  is  nothing 
less  than  murder.     It  merely  regulates  this 


142  THE  LAW  OF  PROPEBTY. 

passion.  It  provides  cities  of  refuge,  to 
which  the  accidental  slayer  may  flee.  If 
the  avenger  of  blood  can  overtake  him  be- 
fore he  reaches  the  city  of  refuge,  he  is 
authorized  by  the  law  to  kill  him.  If  the 
slayer  comes  forth  from  his  asylum  at  any 
time  before  the  death  of  the  high  priest  who 
was  in  office  when  the  accident  took  place, 
the  avenger  of  blood  may  kill  him.  Not  till 
this  high  priest  dies  is  he  free  to  go  forth 
and  be  protected  by  the  law  from  the 
avenger  of  blood.  So  feeble  in  those  old 
times  was  the  sense  of  the  sacredness  of 
human  life,  so  strong  was  the  impulse  of  an 
irrational  vengeance.  To  our  moral  sense 
the  wrath  of  the  avenger  of  blood  seems 
only  the  impulse  of  a  brute.  Yet  it  is  not 
prohibited;  it  is  only  moderated.  Certain 
conditional  safeguards  are  provided  for  the 
accidental  slayer.  These  are  designed  to 
suggest  to  the  seeker  of  vengeance  that  his 
passion  needs  restraint.  The  idea  is  insinu- 
ated into  his  mind  that  human  life  is  too 
sacred  to  be  the  prey  of  mere  insensate  fury. 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  143 

To  the  wild  beast  in  him  the  law  sets  metes 
and  bounds,  saying,  Thus  far,  and  no  far- 
ther. And  doubtless  this  very  legislation 
did  tend  to  check  blood  vengeance,  and  to 
cultivate  in  the  Hebrew  mind  the  true  ethi- 
cal idea  respecting  human  life. 

It  was  precisely  in  this  way  that  the  doc- 
trine of  property  was  taught  in  those  early 
times.  The  consecration  of  their  posses- 
sions to  God  was,  as  the  Hebrews  under- 
stood it,  a  very  partial  consecration.  One 
tenth  of  what  they  had  rightfully  belonged 
to  God,  the  other  nine  tenths  belonged  to 
themselves.  That  was  the  provision  of 
their  law.  Doubtless  it  was  a  wise  provi- 
sion. The  thin  end  of  the  wedge  must  be 
used  in  riving  i^he  covetousness  of  the  hu- 
man heart.  If  men  could  be  trained  to 
regard  one  tenth  of  their  gains  as  belonging 
to  their  Maker  and  set  apart  for  holy  uses, 
that  was  as  much,  probably^  as  they  would 
willingly  yield.  The  principle  was  estab- 
lished that  their  property  was  not  all  their 
own ;  that  other  motives  than  those  of  self- 


144  THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 

interest  must  control  the  disposition  of  a 
portion  of  it.  As  they  learned  the  doctrine 
of  the  divine  omnipresence  by  the  consecra- 
tion of  sacred  places  ;  as  their  first  lessons 
in  keeping  fast  days  led  them  on  toward  the 
virtue  of  self-control ;  as  the  restrictive  reg- 
ulations about  homicide  taught  them  the 
sacredness  of  human  life ;  so  these  very  rudi- 
mentary lessons  in  the  consecration  of  prop- 
perty  prepared  the  way  for  that  larger 
conception  which  Christianity  was  to  intro- 
duce, under  which  the  man  who  gives  him- 
self to  God  no  longer  considers  that  any 
portion  of  his  estate,  be  it  nine  tenths  or 
one  tenth,  is  left  out  of  the  transaction. 

I  am  not  denying  that  there  may  be  many 
persons  in  these  days  to  whom  the  Jewish 
rule  would  be  a  helpful  rule.  So  little 
conception  have  they  of  the  real  relation 
between  themselves  and  the  Father  of  their 
spirits,  so  utterly  far  away  and  foreign  does 
He  seem  to  the  affairs  of  their  e very-day 
lives,  that  they  cannot  bring  themselves  to 
recognize  any  real  partnership  with  Him  in 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  145 

things  which  they  designate  as  secular. 
Religion,  as  they  understand  it,  is  in  inter- 
est wholly  separate  from  business.  The 
motives  which  hold  sway  in  the  one  realm 
are  spiritual  motives,  and  those  which  hold 
sway  in  the  other  realm  are  secular  motives. 
Their  relations  with  God  are  wholly  on  the 
religious  side  of  their  lives  ;  the  world  is 
a  region  with  which  He  has  nothing  to  do. 
When  they  desire  to  commune  with  God, 
they  leave  the  world  behind  them ;  "  what 
part  has  He,"  they  ask,  "in  those  purely 
secular  affairs  ?  We  shall  offend  Him  if 
we  bring  any  thought  of  them  into  the  sanc- 
tuary." Much  less  is  there  any  place  for 
Him  and  the  high  and  holy  affections  which 
He  inspires  in  that  workday  world,  with 
whose  business  for  six  sevenths  of  our  time 
we  must  be  engrossed. 

To  one  who  habitually  regards  all  the 
great  and  absorbing  interests  of  life,  and 
especially  those  interests  which  have  to  do 
with  property,  as  secular  and  not  sacred,  the 
proposition  to  take  one  tenth  part  of  these 


146  THE  LAW  OF  PROPEBTY, 

interests  over  into  the  other  realm  and  con- 
secrate them  to  God,  is  in  the  line  of 
progress.  The  man  who  acknowledges  the 
divine  control  of  one  tenth  of  his  property- 
is  nearer  right  than  the  man  who  thinks 
that  his  property  is  all  exclusively  his  own, 
and  that  the  divine  purpose  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  disposition  of  it.  The  idea 
of  stewardship  has  found  a  lodgment  in  his 
mind.  The  leaven  is  there ;  perhaps  it  will 
gradually  affect  the  whole  lump. 

The  Jewish  rule  of  consecration  may 
therefore  be  a  very  good  practical  rule  for 
many  persons  in  these  days  who  profess  and 
call  themselves  Christians,  just  as  there  may 
be  many  who  would  be  profited  by  abstain- 
ing from  food  periodically,  as  a  reminder  to 
their  unruly  appetites  that  reason  ought  to 
control  them.  But  the  rudimentary  Jewish 
rule  ought  not  to  be  considered  as  the  suffi- 
cient rule  of  Christians  in  this  day  of  grace. 
For  even  as  the  law  of  fasting  was  the  first 
step  in  the  path  to  a  control  of  all  the  bodily 
appetites,  and  as  the  recognition  of  sacred 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  147 

places  led  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  that 
the  whole  earth  is  the  temple  of  the  living 
God,  and  as  the  checking  of  the  avenger's 
fury  at  the  gates  of  the  city  of  refuge  opened 
to  him  the  truth  that  the  life  of  man  is  pre- 
cious in  the  sight  of  God,  so  this  institution 
of  the  tithe  was  the  initial  stage  in  that  dis- 
cipline by  which  men  were  to  be  taught 
that  all  their  property  is  rightly  held  only 
as  a  trust  from  the  Infinite  Goodness. 

A  clear-minded  and  conscientious  man, 
who  had  been  reading  a  certain  book,  said 
to  me  not  long  ago,  "  That  chapter  on  prop- 
erty I  cannot  understand.  The  definition 
by  Dr.  Brownson,  of  which  a  good  deal  is 
made,  conveys  no  idea  to  my  mind.  '  Prop- 
erty is  communion  with  God  through  the 
material  world.'  I  do  not  know  what  that 
means."  I  had  no  time  to  finish  the  conver- 
sation, but  the  remark  has  often  recurred  to 
me.  There  must  be  something  inadequate 
about  the  phrase,  or  else  my  friend  would 
have  got  some  meaning  out  of  it.  Per- 
haps the  word  "  communion,"  with  its  litur- 


148  THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 

gical  association,  was  the  stumbling-block. 
But  the  very  first  definition  of  communion, 
in  the  latest  dictionary,  is  "  participation 
in  something  held  in  common ;  fellowship." 
Partnership  would  come  nearer  to  conveying 
the  legal  meaning ;  but  I  dare  say  that  the 
theologian  who  framed  the  definition  wished 
to  keep  as  far  away  as  possible  from  concep- 
tions purely  legal,  and  to  emphasize  the  spir- 
itual facts  in  the  case,  and  therefore  wrote 
''  communion  "  rather  than  "  partnership." 
But  it  seems  to  me  that  there  ought  to  be  no 
difficulty  in  entertaining  the  idea  that  we  do, 
in  very  deed,  through  all  our  use  of  material 
things,  enter  into  fellowship  with  God.  To 
one  who  believes  that  God  is  immanent  in 
nature ;  that  all  the  natural  forces  are  only 
modes  of  his  activity  ;  that  all  living  things 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being  in  Him, 
the  idea  cannot  be  very  remote  that  we 
never  touch  the  material  world  without 
coming  into  vital  relations  with  Him.  What- 
ever we  may  have  honestly  accumulated,  be 
the  same  little  or  much,  we  have  gained  by 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  149 

cooperating  with  Him.  If  our  wealth  has 
been  won  by  developing  the  natural  resources 
of  the  earth,  we  have  been  using  his  power 
every  day.  If  it  is  the  fruit  of  honest  trade, 
our  success  has  depended  wholly  on  the  ob- 
servance and  use  of  those  social  laws  which 
He  has  impressed  upon  the  human  race.  He 
has  made  men  for  society ;  He  has  made 
them  to  be  members  one  of  another  and  to 
help  one  another ;  and  honest  trade  is  no- 
thing but  a  mutual  exchange  of  services,  by 
which  the  welfare  of  all  is  increased.  The 
social  laws  which  underlie  all  exchanges  are 
the  expression  of  the  divine  purpose  con- 
cerning man ;  and  he  who  makes  good  use 
of  them,  if  he  understands  what  he  is  about, 
knows  that  he  is  in  fellowship  with  God. 

Not  otherwise  is  it  with  any  productive  or 
useful  occupation.  I  do  not  say  with  every 
occupation,  for  there  is  much  that  men  call 
work  which  is  not  worthy  to  bear  that  sa- 
cred name.  A  man  may  be,  many  a  man  is, 
in  his  daily  employment  fighting  against 
God.     He  who  seeks  to  aggrandize  himself 


150  THE  LAW  OF  PROPEBTY. 

by  perverting  the  powers  of  nature,  by  turn- 
ing her  wholesome  fruits  to  poisons,  by 
contriving  ministries  to  depraved  appetites, 
by  pandering  to  destructive  vices,  by  em- 
ploying the  forces  of  the  earth  to  promote 
the  degradation  of  men,  is,  in  his  habitual  ac- 
tivity, in  deadly  enmity  against  God.  The 
gains  which  he  thus  accumulates  are  not  in 
any  true  sense  property.  The  laws  may 
recognize  his  title  to  them,  for  laws  are  not 
always  able  to  express  the  essential  right- 
eousness ;  they  are  only  approximations  to 
the  standard  which,  in  our  hearts,  we  accept. 
We  are  compelled  to  administer  our  juris- 
prudence in  a  manner  which  corresponds 
but  roughly  to  the  ideal  of  justice.  But 
the  possessions  which  a  man  has  won  by  such 
practices  as  I  have  described  are  much  more 
properly  regarded  as  spoils  or  booty.  They 
are  the  fruit  of  an  insidious  and  destructive 
warfare  against  humanity. 

Equally  hostile  to  all  divine  fellowship  is 
the  work  which  sets  at  nought  the  truth  of 
human  brotherhood,  and  uses  men  as  count- 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY,  151 

ers  in  the  game  of  life,  or  as  tools  in  the 
building  of  fortune.  There  are  many  to 
whom  the  problem  of  life  is  the  exploitation 
of  their  neighbors.  There  are  many  to 
whom  business  and  politics  are  simply  a 
struggle  for  mastery,  with  woe  to  the  van- 
quished. The  brother  man  by  their  side  is  a 
stepping-stone  for  the  ambitious  to  mount 
by ;  if  they  would  rather  not  prostrate  him 
in  the  process,  it  is  mainly  because  while  he 
is  erect  they  can  mount  higher  by  standing 
on  his  shoulders.  But  the  warfare  of  inter- 
est is  relentless ;  the  contestant  counts  all 
whom  he  employs  or  with  whom  he  deals 
as  lawful  prey  :  his  problem  is  to  get  from 
his  fellow-men  as  much  as  he  can,  and  to 
give  them  as  little  as  he  can  ;  what  becomes 
of  them  is  a  question  that  he  does  not  per- 
mit himself  to  consider.  Do  not  understand 
that  I  am  ascribing  purposes  like  these  to 
all  the  men  in  the  active  contests  of  life  : 
that  would  be  a  gross  slander.  I  am  not 
willing  to  admit  that  the  majority  of  the 
men  with  whom  we  come  in  contact  are  of 


152  THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 

this  character :  my  impression  is  that  the 
humane  and  the  honorable  and  the  fair  are 
in  the  ascendant,  both  in  numbers  and  in 
power.  But  it  would  be  idle  to  try  to  con- 
ceal from  ourselves  the  terrible  truth  that 
there  are  thousands  among  us  who  are  ready 
to  enrich  or  aggrandize  themselves  by  poi- 
soning the  very  sources  of  the  national  life. 
For  the  love  of  money,  how  many  there  are 
who  will  offer  bribes,  and  thus  help  to  break 
down  the  honor  and  integrity  of  voters  and 
officials ;  and  how  many,  on  the  other  side, 
who  will  accept  bribes,  and  use  places 
of  public  trust  for  their  own  emolument. 
What  fearful  inroads  are  thus  made  upon 
the  national  virtue  by  imscrupulous  wealth 
and  wolfish  ambition. 

And  there  are  many  others,  who  push 
their  industrial  and  commercial  combina- 
tions in  a  manner  so  selfish,  so  oppressive, 
so  tyrannical,  that  their  whole  work  tends 
to  destroy  the  sympathy  and  goodwill  which 
makes  society  possible.  So  reckless  are 
they  of  the  rights  of  competitors  and  em- 


TUE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  153 

ployees,  so  bent  on  crushing  rivalry  and 
elevating  themselves  upon  the  ruins  of  other 
fortunes,  that  their  whole  path  through  life 
is  strewn  with  blasted  hopes  and  marked  by 
desolated  homes  ;  and  the  only  flowers  that 
bloom  by  the  wayside  over  which  they  have 
passed  are  the  nettles  and  the  brambles  of 
resentment  and  ill-will.  Dire  and  deadly  is 
the  work  of  these  destroyers.  The  social 
conditions  which  they  engender  must  be 
such  as  will  tend  to  the  disintegration  of 
the  social  tissue  and  to  the  downfall  of  the 
social  order. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  those 
whose  work,  however  useful  it  might  be  in 
itself,  is  prosecuted  in  this  spirit,  are  not 
working  with  God ;  that  they  are  simply 
laboring  to  pull  down  and  destroy  the  work 
of  God  upon  the  earth.  For  even  as  there 
is  no  more  real  fellowship  with  God  than 
that  which  the  man  rightfully  enjoys  who  Is 
doing  good  work  with  a  good  will,  so  there 
is  no  kind  of  opposition  to  God  which  is 
more  positive  or  malignant  than  that  of  the 


154  THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY, 

man  who  is  using  natural  forces  or  social 
opportunities  in  such  a  way  as  to  degrade 
his  fellow-men,  or  to  weaken  the  bond  of 
confidence  and  mutual  regard  by  which  they 
are  held  together  in  society.  The  man  who 
blasphemes  and  denies  God  is  not  so  dan- 
gerous a  foe  as  the  man  who,  it  may  be  with 
pious  words  upon  his  lips,  is  building  up  his 
fortunes  by  methods  which  naturally  involve 
the  hardening  of  his  neighbors'  hearts,  the 
ruin  of  their  souls,  and  the  increase  of  ill- 
will  among  men.  To  speak  of  property 
thus  gained  as  in  any  sense  sacramental  — 
as  the  medium  through  which  the  man  holds 
communion  with  God  —  would  be  little  bet- 
ter than  blasphemy. 

But  the  great  majority  of  our  neighbors, 
as  I  have  said,  are  animated  by  no  such 
unsocial  purposes.  They  are  often  more 
thoughtless  than  they  ought  to  be  of  the 
welfare  of  those  with  whom  they  deal,  but 
their  honest  intention  is  on  the  whole  be- 
nevolent ;  they  desire  to  live  and  let  live  ; 
they  would  cry  out  with  the  poet :  — 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  155 

"  Rich  through  my  brethren's  poverty  ? 
Such  wealth  were  hideous  :  I  am  blest 
Only  in  what  they  share  with  me, 
In  what  I  share  with  all  the  rest." 

And  those  who  are  carrying  on  an  honest 
work  in  a  spirit  truly  social  are  surely,  in  a 
most  real  sense,  working  together  with  God. 
Their  gains  have  been  made  by  entering 
into  his  designs,  by  thinking  his  thoughts 
after  Him,  by  using  the  instruments  and 
powers  which  He  has  furnished  to  their 
hands.  The  "  Silent  Partner  "  in  all  their 
labor  has  been  the  great  Creator.  Every 
day  of  their  lives  his  presence  has  been  with 
them,  and  his  omnipotence  has  been  the 
fund  of  power  on  which  they  have  steadily 
drawn.  The  genial  warmth  of  the  sun- 
beams, the  nourishing  moisture  of  the  earth, 
the  unfailing  pull  of  gravitation  that  moves 
the  river  currents  downward,  the  rush  of  the 
compelling  vapor,  the  heat  of  the  coal,  the 
energy  of  the  electric  spark,  are  all  parts 
of  his  ways,  witnesses  to  the  ever  present 
might   of   Him   without   whom   we  can  do 


156  THE  LAW  OF  PEOPEBTY, 

nothing.  And  wlien  one  has,  in  some  good 
measure,  accepted  His  wisdom  as  the  guide 
of  his  endeavors,  and  has  said,  in  humble 
recognition  of  His  right  to  rule  our  lives, — 

"  Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how, 
Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  thine," 

must  not  the  truth  that  property  is  com- 
munion with  God  through  the  material 
world  become  a  very  real  thought  to  him  ? 
Will  he  have  any  difficulty  in  understand- 
ing that  the  gains  which  he  has  made,  be 
they  more  or  less,  have  been  made  in  a  life- 
long partnership  with  the  Author  of  his  be- 
ing ?  To  dispute  it  would  be  like  the  June 
garden  proclaiming  that  with  all  its  wealth 
of  color  the  light  had  had  nothing  to  do, 
or  like  the  rainbow  denying  that  the  sun 
and  the  shower  had  any  part  in  building  its 
glowing  arch. 

So  deeply  seated  in  the  very  foundations 
of  our  ethical  and  spiritual  being  are  the 
rights  of  property.  Of  all  these  profound 
conceptions  jurisprudence  can  take  no  no- 
tice ;  that  part  of  our  being  by  which  we 


THE  LAW  OF  PEOPEETY.  157 

are  allied  to  God  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
jurisprudence.  Yet  it  is  in  these  deep  con- 
ceptions that  we  must  always  find  the  guid- 
ing lights  of  conduct.  It  is  only  when  we 
realize  our  relations  to  the  Power  which  is 
behind  all  phenomena  that  we  know  what 
duty  means,  and  what  are  the  true  defini- 
tions of  our  rights. 

If,  then,  I  have  anything  that  is  right- 
fully mine,  it  is  because  He  who  gave  me 
personality  has  been  aiding  me  to  realize 
my  personality  in  the  possession  and  use  of 
material  things.  Nothing  is  mine  apart 
from  Him ;  everything  that  I  rightly  call 
my  own  I  am  holding  and  using  with  a 
reverent  regard  for  his  holy  will. 

When  this  conception  gets  naturalized  in 
one's  mind,  and  his  habitual  thinking  ad- 
justs itself  to  it,  the  old  discussions  about 
tithes  will  have  been  left  very  far  behind. 
There  is  no  need  of  taking  a  fraction, 
greater  or  less,  and  consecrating  it  to  the 
service  of  the  kingdom;  the  fundamental 
assumption   is   that   it   all   is    consecrated. 


158  THE  LAW  OF  PROPEBTY. 

When  the  man  reflects  on  how  he  came 
by  it,  he  cannot  set  up  any  exclusive  claim 
to  it.  The  rights  of  the  Silent  Partner  can 
never  be  ignored.  And  the  question  how 
this  property  can  be  dispensed  is  a  question 
which  can  never  be  discussed  without  con- 
stant reference  to  the  heavenly  Father's 
will. 

It  may  be  supposed  that  such  a  concep- 
tion would  call  for  the  bestowment  of  all 
we  have  in  almsgiving  and  charitable  work. 
But  this  by  no  means  follows.  I  can  con- 
ceive that  a  man  might  not  give  one  dollar 
in  what  is  known  as  charity,  and  yet  might 
use  his  whole  wealth  in  consecrated  minis- 
tries. If  a  man  employs  his  capital  in  busi- 
ness, and  makes  the  law  of  that  business  the 
law  of  service,  —  seeking  to  make  it  useful 
in  every  way  to  those  whom  he  supplies  and 
to  those  whom  he  employs,  seeking  to  fill 
all  his  relations  to  his  associates  and  his 
neighbors  with  the  spirit  of  Christ,  —  that 
dispensation  of  his  property  may  be  the 
most  perfect  form  of  communion  with  God 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  169 

which  he  could  possibly  devise.  I  do  not 
believe  that  any  more  charitable,  any  more 
divine  use  of  money  can  be  thought  of  than 
that  which  is  involved  in  the  furnishing  of 
honest  and  healthful  work,  and  in  the  mani- 
festation, through  the  friendships  which  as- 
sociation in  work  makes  possible,  of  the  true 
spirit  of  brotherly  love.  The  man  who  can 
gather  men  about  him  in  some  productive 
industry,  and  can  thus  enable  them  by  their 
own  labor  to  earn  a  decent  livelihood,  and 
can  fill  all  his  relations  with  them  with  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  making  it  plain  to  them 
that  he  is  studying  to  befriend  and  help 
them  in  every  possible  way,  is  doing  quite 
as  much,  I  think,  to  realize  God's  purpose 
with  respect  to  property,  and  to  bring  heaven 
to  earth,  as  if  he  were  founding  an  asylum 
or  endowing  a  tract  society. 

There  are  those  who  conceive  that  any 
man  of  wealth  whose  will  is  in  harmony 
with  God's  will  must  needs  give  a  great 
deal  right  and  left  to  all  who  ask  for  it. 
But  this  is  not  clear.     It  should  be  remem- 


160  THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 

bered  that  He  to  whom  the  wealth  of  the 
world  belongs  does  not  dispense  it  in  this 
way.  It  must  be  that  He  has  the  power  to 
take  the  wealth  of  the  rich  from  them  and 
distribute  it  among  the  poor.  Yet  this  is 
not  done.  There  must  be  some  good  reason 
why  it  is  not  done.  I  think  that  any  man 
who  tries  to  give  away  much  money,  and 
who  watches  its  effect  upon  the  recipients, 
will  find  out  the  reason.  It  is  the  hardest 
thing  in  the  world  to  do  good  with  money. 
The  lavish,  unconsidered  bestowal  of  it 
upon  all  who  seem  to  be  in  need  is  a  very 
injurious  business.  The  harm  that  is  done 
by  such  a  dispensation  far  outweighs  the 
good.  And  the  man  whose  property  brings 
him  into  communion  with  God,  and  who 
seeks  to  conform  all  his  expenditure  to  the 
will  of  God,  will  often  be  constrained  to 
check  his  lavish  impulses,  and  to  give  only 
so  much  as  shall  serve  to  stimulate  the 
manhood  and  arouse  the  self-respect  of  the 
recipient. 

It  may  be  said  that   the   conception   of 


THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY.  161 

this  discourse,  that  property  is  only  rightly 
held  and  used  when  man's  partnership  with 
God  is  acknowledged,  is  too  high  and  fine 
for  ordinary  human  beings ;  and  that  some 
less  radical  maxim  would  be  more  influen- 
tial. I  do  not  think  so.  It  seems  to  me 
that  we  cannot  afford  to  place  before  our 
minds  any  rule  except  the  perfect  rule. 
When  we  are  legislating  for  states,  we  must 
consult  expediency;  when  we  are  settling 
the  principles  of  our  own  conduct,  we  must 
confront  the  ideal.  And  I  do  not  believe 
that  this  principle  is  too  bright  and  good 
for  human  nature's  daily  food.  Indeed, 
there  are  signs  on  every  hand  that  many 
men,  who  make  but  little  parade  of  religion, 
are  waking  up  to  a  solemn  sense  of  their 
responsibility  for  the  use  of  their  property 
and  their  social  opportunities.  The  idea 
that  God  is  in  his  world,  that  he  is  really 
here  with  us,  every  day,  that  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being  in  Him,  that  He  is 
not,  so  to  speak,  a  merely  Sunday  God  or  a 
God  of  the  sanctuary  and  the  altar  and  the 


162  THE  LAW  OF  PROPERTY. 

closet,  but  an  every-day  Friend,  Companion, 
Counselor,  Partner,  Helper,  one  with  whom 
our  relations  are  more  constant  and  more 
intimate  than  they  can  be  with  any  other 
being,  —  this  idea  is  beginning  to  get  hold 
of  the  minds  of  men ;  and  when  they  are 
once  possessed  by  it,  this  will  be  a  very 
beautiful  world :  its  meanings  will  wonder- 
fully expand ;  its  horizons  will  widen  ;  and 
the  azure  overhead  will  bend  down  to  us 
like  a  benediction. 


VII. 

RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 


The  elements  which  are  manifest  in  the  government  of 
the  nation,  in  its  moral  being,  can  have  only  a  divine 
ground.  The  power  which  is  in  the  people  forming  the 
nation  is  over  the  people ;  and  while  the  individual  acts 
in  the  government  of  the  nation,  it  is  over  the  individual 
and  he  is  subject  to  it ;  and  this  is  a  power  which  is  and 
can  be  in  the  nation  only  as  it  is  a  moral  person  and  is 
derivative  from  God.  This  alone  in  government  is  the 
condition  also  of  the  reconciliation  of  law  and  freedom. 
The  character  of  the  authority  of  the  nation  also  indi- 
cates its  origin.  It  has  authority,  and  is  invested  with 
power  in  the  maintenance  of  a  moral  order  on  the  earth. 
But  the  right  thus  to  maintain  authority  over  men  be- 
longs in  itself  to  no  man  and  no  collection  of  men,  and 
is  existent  in  the  nation  only  as  it  has  a  divine  gen- 
esis. .  .  .  The  ruler  who  recognizes  and  follows  only  the 
popular  voice  and  the  popular  opinion  becomes  himself  a 
slave.  And  he  only  is  truly  a  ruler  and  truly  free  who 
recognizes  in  the  sovereignty  of  the  nation  this  divine 
source  of  its  unity  and  power,  and  whose  action  in  it  is 
therefore  in  immediate  responsibility  to  God.  —  Elisha 
MuLFORD,  The  Nation,  chapter  iv. 

Government,  like  man  himself,  participates  of  the  di- 
vine being,  and,  derived  from  God  through  the  people,  it 
at  the  same  time  participates  of  human  reason  and  will, 
thus  reconciling  authority  with  freedom,  stability  with 
progress.  —  Orestes  A.  Brownson,  The  American  Re- 
public,  page  126. 


VII. 

RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

When  the  line  of  division  is  run  through 
life  between  things  sacred  and  things  secu- 
lar, politics  is  always  found  on  the  secular 
side.  In  the  common  conception,  that  realm 
of  human  conduct  is  essentially  and  hope- 
lessly profane.  It  may  be  admitted  that 
there  are  good  men  in  politics,  but  it  is  al- 
most an  axiom  that  politics  themselves  are 
irretrievably  bad.  I  think  that  the  average 
citizen  feels  that  public  life  is  in  its  very 
nature  unholy;  that  any  one  who  permits 
himself  to  be  entangled  with  the  affairs  of 
state  is  by  that  contact  almost  sure  to  be 
defiled.  If  men  do  keep  themselves  pure 
in  that  service,  it  is  by  heroic  resistance 
against  evil  tendencies,  which  are  not  only 
inseparable  from  it,  but  which  are  elements 
of  the  work  itself.     Of  course  it  is  not  any 


166  BELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

deep  or  serious  thinking  that  comes  to  such 
conclusions,  but  the  popular  estimate  is 
something  like  this.  And  it  is  certain  that 
the  conception  of  the  service  of  the  state  as 
in  any  respect  sacred  is  utterly  foreign  to 
the  mind  of  the  average  American  citizen. 
That  seems,  now  that  I  have  written  it 
down,  a  hard  saying,  but  I  cannot  modify  it. 
Politics  is,  in  the  common  conception,  as 
near  to  being  completely  "  dissociated  from 
religious,  spiritual,  or  sacred  matters  or 
uses  "  as  anything  not  criminal  in  this  wide 
world  could  be. 

I  wish  to  show  that  this  common  concep- 
tion is  totally  and  even  horribly  erroneous. 
I  would  like  to  make  it  appear  that  there 
is  no  particular  in  which  the  common  con- 
ception of  life  or  duty  is  in  more  urgent 
need  of  modification  than  in  this.  If  there 
is  any  function  fulfilled  by  man  which  is 
essentially  sacred,  it  is  citizenship  in  a 
republic ;  it  is  that  which  is  involved  in 
the  services  of  the  state. 

When  we  look  in  the  Gospels  for  light 


BELIGION  AND  POLITICS.  167 

upon  this  question,  we  seem  to  find  very  lit- 
tle. The  references  of  our  Lord  to  political 
affairs  are  few;  chief  among  them  is  his 
saying,  "  Render  therefore  to  Caesar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's,  but  to  God  the 
things  that  are  God's."  The  fact  that  these 
references  are  so  few  is  often  cited  as  a  rea- 
son why  ministers  of  our  day  should  let  po- 
litical subjects  alone.  But  the  condition  of 
the  people  among  whom  Jesus  was  living 
differed  radically  from  those  of  our  own 
country.  The  Jews,  in  the  time  of  Christ, 
were  a  subject  people ;  they  were  not,  in  any 
important  sense,  a  self-governing  people. 
They  had  no  share  in  the  administration  of 
their  own  national  affairs.  They  had  really 
but  two  political  duties,  —  to  submit  to  the 
Roman  government  and  to  pay  their  taxes. 
It  is  said,  in  the  narrative  to  which  allusion 
has  been  made,  that  two  parties,  the  Phari- 
sees and  the  Herodians,  were  trying  to  en- 
tangle Jesus  by  their  questions ;  but  these, 
so  far  as  the  government  was  concerned, 
were  simply  cliques  or  coteries;  they  were 


168  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS, 

not  political  parties,  that  divided  the  power 
between  them  ;  neither  of  them  had  any 
hope  of  getting  possession  of  the  govern- 
ment except  by  revolution.  All  that  was 
left  to  a  Jew  in  the  time  of  Christ  was  to 
endure  the  Roman  rule,  and  to  pay  the  tax- 
gatherer.     These  duties  Jesus  enjoined. 

There  had  been  a  time  when  the  Jewish 
nation  was  independent ;  when  it  was  respon- 
sible for  its  own  government ;  and  then  the 
air  was  always  ringing  with  the  political 
preaching  of  the  prophets. 

"  The  Jewish  church,"  says  Dr.  Hodges, 
"  was  the  Jewish  nation.  The  prophets  were 
patriot  orators,  who  preached  politics  with 
vehemence,  and  entered  might  and  main 
into  public  life.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of 
Isaiah  as  a  quiet  parish  priest,  living  at  the 
centre  of  a  narrow  circle,  letting  the  great 
world  outside  go  uninterrupted  on  its  own 
mistaken  way.  In  New  York,  in  Boston, 
Isaiah  would  have  been  the  heart  and  soul 
of  a  great,  outspoken,  radical,  independ- 
ent, righteous  newspaper.    Amos  and  Hosea 


BELIGION  AND   POLITICS.  169 

would  have  put  themselves  in  peril  of  the 
police  by  inflammatory  speeches  on  the 
street  corners  and  in  the  parks.  All  these 
men  were  interested  in  public  questions  pro- 
foundly and  supremely.  The  saints  of  that 
time  were  the  national  heroes.  They  were 
the  men  who  had  done  heroic  service  for  the 
country.  .  .  .  These  were  the  sacred  names 
upon  their  church  calendar.  The  leaders  of 
the  synagogue  had  been  the  guides  of  the 
national  councils ;  and  their  sons,  who  sat 
upon  the  front  seats  in  their  fathers'  places, 
were  eager  to  emulate  their  patriotism  and 
their  valor.  There  was  no  difference  be- 
tween a  parliament  and  a  prayer-meeting. 
Any  political  question  was  also  a  religious 
question ;  into  which  excellent  condition, 
though  in  a  more  Christian  spirit,  may  we 
come  ourselves."  ^ 

It  was  after  this  manner  that  religion  and 
politics  were  blended  in  Israel,  when  the  na- 
tion had  a  life  of  its  own,  and  the  prophets 
were  the  leaders  of  the  people.     Doubtless 

1  The  Heresy  of  Cain,  pp.  171,  172. 


170  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS, 

it  would  have  been  so  now,  if  there  had  been 
any  laws  to  make  or  any  offices  to  fill,  or 
any  political  duties  to  perform.  Jesus  did 
not  preach  politics  to  the  Jews  of  his  day 
for  a  very  obvious  reason.  He  would  not, 
I  dare  say,  have  preached  against  slander  to 
a  congregation  of  mutes,  nor  against  dancing 
to  a  congregation  of  cripples.  If  the  Jews 
had  had  the  government  of  their  country  in 
their  own  hands,  is  it  probable  that  He  would 
have  had  nothing  to  say  about  the  way  they 
administered  it  ?  Read  his  arraignment  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  judge. 

"Render  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Csesar's."  Pay  your  taxes  and  obey  the  laws. 
This  was  all  they  could  do,  and  this  He  bade 
them  do.  The  government  was  far  from 
perfect ;  it  was  in  many  ways  unjust  and 
oppressive  :  but  a  bad  government  is  better 
than  anarchy ;  in  a  rough  way  it  preserves 
order  and  prevents  crime.  Even  Caesar  — 
even  the  unspeakable  Tiberius  then  upon 
the  throne  —  stood  for  something  sacred 
and  venerable,  and  respect  and  obedience 


RELIGION  AND  POLITICS.  171 

must  be  paid  to  him  as  the  representative 
of  rightful  power  in  the  world.  "  Render 
therefore  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's." 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  this  admonition 
of  our  Master  may  apply  to  Americans.  In 
a  certain  way  we,  the  people  of  this  country, 
are  persons  under  authority.  The  laws  of 
the  land  are,  in  their  totality,  expressions  of 
the  national  spirit ;  and  they  are  entitled  to 
be  regarded  by  all  citizens  with  veneration. 
The  laws  are  supreme.  To  them  we  yield 
submission  and  loyal  obedience.  The  offi- 
cers of  the  law,  the  magistrates,  the  judges, 
the  governors,  the  persons  who  are  called  to 
represent  and  administer  the  law,  stand, 
while  they  are  in  office,  in  a  position  of  dig- 
nity and  responsibility  ;  and  so  long  as  they 
are  not  evidently  attempting  to  annul  or  de- 
feat the  law,  so  long  as  they  are  really  iden- 
tified with  it,  and  are  seeking  to  maintain 
it,  we  owe  them  respect  and  cooperation. 
There  is,  then,  an  important  sense  in  which 
this   command   of    Christ's,    which    enjoins 


172  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS, 

submission  and  respect  to  lawful  authority, 
is  applicable  to  American  citizens.  The 
fact  is  not  to  be  lost  sight  of  that  the  citi- 
zens of  a  republic  occupy  a  double  position, 
—  that  they  are  subjects  as  well  as  sover- 
eigns. A  self-governing  people  is  governed. 
It  must  know  how  to  obey  as  well  as  how  to 
command.  The  subordination  must  be  as 
spontaneous  as  the  franchise  is  free. 

But  there  are  many  occasions  in  a  re- 
public when  the  maxim  of  Christ  now  be- 
fore us  does  not  express  the  deepest  fact  in 
the  life  of  the  American  citizen.  "  Render 
to  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's  "  is  a 
commandment  which  considers  us  as  sub- 
jects of  government ;  it  bids  us  render  to 
all  their  dues,  —  "  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is 
due,  custom  to  whom  custom,  fear  to  whom 
fear,  honor  to  whom  honor."  But  on  elec- 
tion day,  and  on  every  occasion  when  the 
citizen  contemplates  the  duties  and  respon- 
sibilities which  culminate  on  election  day, 
the  citizen  is  not  merely  a  subject,  he  is  a 
sovereign. 


BELIGION  AND  POLITICS.  173 

"  The  proudest  now  is  but  ray  peer, 
The  highest  not  more  high; 
To-day,  of  all  the  weary  year, 
A  king  of  men  am  I. 

"To-day  alike  are  great  and  small, 
The  nameless  and  the  known ; 
My  palace  is  the  people's  hall, 
The  ballot  box  my  throne." 

This  is  no  sentimental  exaggeration ;  it  is 
the  statement  of  an  exact,  scientific,  legal 
fact.  The  sovereignty  resides  in  the  body 
of  the  citizens,  and  nowhere  else  :  they  are 
the  sovereign  people.  It  is  not  my  duty  to 
Caesar  that  I  am  thinking  about  on  election 
day,  —  or  any  day  in  the  year  when  I  con- 
sider the  nomination  of  candidates  or  the 
election  of  officers  ;  for  I  stand  in  Caesar's 
place  ;  I  sit  on  Caesar's  throne ;  it  is  Caesar's 
duty  that  rests  upon  my  conscience  ;  and  I 
am  taking  part  in  that  august  transaction 
on  which  the  prophet  was  looking  when  he 
wrote :  "  Behold,  a  king  shall  reign  in  right- 
eousness and  princes  shall  rule  in  judgment." 
Not  our  duty  to  Caesar,  but  the  duty  of 


174  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Caesar  himself,  the  duty  of  ruling  the  land 
righteously,  —  this  is  the  obligation  that 
rests  on  every  voter  in  a  republican  govern- 
ment. "  The  powers  that  be,  are  ordained 
of  God."  And  who  in  a  republic  are  "the 
powers  that  be  "  ?  Not,  clearly,  the  officials  ; 
they  are  simply  the  employees,  the  servants 
of  the  sovereign.  Their  power  is  delegated. 
They  receive  it  at  the  hands  of  the  voters. 
The  voters  are  the  sovereigns.  It  is  with 
them  that  the  final  responsibility  rests.  It 
is  they  who  are  ordained  of  God  to  establish 
justice,  to  defend  liberty,  to  promote  the 
common  welfare.  There  is  no  power  but  of 
God  ;  and  those  with  whom  the  sovereignty 
rests  in  any  nation,  those  who  are  actually 
clothed  with  it,  must  know  that  they  are 
ordained  of  God  to  rule  in  his  stead,  to 
know  his  will,  and  to  do  it  here  upon  the 
earth.  Citizenship  in  a  republic  can  mean 
nothing  less  than  this.  Not  more  surely 
was  David,  in  the  olden  time,  chosen  and 
anointed  by  Jehovah  to  rule  Israel  than 
every   American   voter,    in    these    days,   is 


RELIGION  AND  POLITICS.  175 

chosen  and  anointed  by  the  Lord  of  Hosts 
to  rule  this  land. 

There  are  people  in  this  country  who 
count  it  a  religious  thing  to  refrain  from 
taking  any  part  in  the  government  of  the 
country.  They  say  that  the  Christian  has 
no  right  to  meddle  with  politics;  that 
Christ's  kingdom  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  kingdoms  of  this  world.  This  is  no- 
thing but  flat  rebellion  against  the  express 
command  of  God,  who  bids  every  ruler  to 
rule  with  diligence. 

Surely  there  must  be  government  upon 
the  earth.  There  are  theoretical  anarchists, 
but  their  numbers  are  few,  and  their  theo- 
ries are  provisional  merely ;  they  hope  that 
the  world  may  be  governed  in  such  a  way 
that  by  and  by  it  shall  not  need  to  be  gov- 
erned at  all.  But  meanwhile  it  must  be 
governed.  And  for  this  government  some- 
body must  be  responsible.  In  an  absolute 
monarchy  only  one  man  is  supposed  to  be 
responsible  ;  if  he  accepts  the  responsibility, 
and  his  subjects  assent,  well  and  good ;  it 


176  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

rests  with  him,  and  he  becomes  the  repre- 
sentative of  God  in  the  world,  ordained  and 
commissioned  for  the  establishment  of  jus- 
tice, the  preservation  of  liberty,  the  promo- 
tion of  welfare  among  his  people.  But  in  a 
republic  the  case  is  different.  Here  is  no 
hereditary  ruler ;  here  are  no  permanent 
office-bearers.  Yet  in  this  government  the 
responsibility  must  rest  somewhere.  On 
whom  does  it  rest  ?  Not  surely  upon  the 
persons  who  are  temporarily  holding  office. 
Their  tenure  of  power  is  too  limited  and 
too  slight  to  be  charged  with  such  a  wide- 
reaching  and  permanent  obligation.  Ob- 
viously, it  must  rest  upon  the  whole  body  of 
voting  citizens.  To  them  all  the  power  is 
committed.  They  are  the  sole  depositaries 
of  the  sovereignty.  They  are  responsi- 
ble, jointly  and  severally,  for  good  govern- 
ment. If  God  has  ordained  any  '^  powers 
that  be  "  in  this  land,  the  voters  must  be 
these  "  powers."  The  ultimate  and  respon- 
sible sovereignty  can  be  located  nowhere 
else   but   in   them.     It  is  not  a  matter  of 


RELIGION  AND   POLITICS.  Ill 

choice  with  them  whether  they  will  exercise 
it  or  not ;  they  are  born  into  it ;  it  belongs 
to  them,  and  they  cannot  divest  themselves 
of  it.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  choice  with  me 
whether  I  will  be  the  brother  of  my  brother 
or  the  son  of  my  father.  Those  relations 
were  settled  for  me.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
choice  whether  a  man  who  is  born  in  this 
free  country  will  share  the  responsibility 
for  the  government  of  this  country.  When 
the  time  of  his  majority  comes5  that  burden 
rests  uj)on  him.  If  Paul's  doctrine  about 
rulers  is  true,  it  is  God  who  has  laid  it  upon 
him.  For  him  to  say  that  he  will  not  ac- 
cept it  is  simply  rebellion  against  God. 

To  every  citizen,  then,  these  political  du- 
ties are  imperative  and  sacred.  Up  to  the 
high  places  of  the  kings,  up  to  the  level  oi 
the  thrones,  these  solemn  obligations  sum- 
mon us  all.  In  the  choice  of  magistrates, 
in  the  selection  of  representatives,  we  must 
hear  the  voice  of  the  King  of  kings,  bidding 
us  arise  and  gird  ourselves  with  power  for 
the  great  act  of  sovereignty.     Such  anoint- 


178  BELIGION  AND  POLITICS, 

ing  as  is  implied  in  the  investiture  of  cit- 
izenship should  make  every  man  sober, 
thoughtful,  and  humble.  How  can  any 
man  stand  in  the  presence  of  a  responsi- 
bility so  great  without  deep  searchings  of 
heart ! 

"  Look  from  the  sky, 

Like  God's  great  eye, 
Thou  solemn  moon,  with  searching  beam, 

Till  in  the  sight 

Of  thy  pure  light 
Our  mean  self-seekings  meaner  seem. 

"  Shame  from  our  hearts 

Unworthy  arts, 
The  fraud  designed,  the  purpose  dark ; 

And  smite  away 

The  hands  we  lay 
Profanely  on  the  sacred  ark." 

We  have  a  service,  in  some  of  our 
churches,  preparatory  to  the  sacrament  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  and  we  are  wont  to 
spend  some  hours  of  reflection  and  prayer 
in  making  ourselves  ready  worthily  to 
enter  into  that  solemn  service.  It  will  be 
regarded  by  many  as  an  extravagant  say- 


RELIGION  AND  POLITICS.  179 

ing,  but  I  am  speaking  out  of  my  deepest 
conviction,  when  I  say  that  there  is  quite  as 
much  need  of  a  deep  and  genuine  religious 
preparation  for  the  discharge  of  all  the 
more  important  duties  of  citizenship.  No 
man  has  any  right  to  go  to  the  political 
convention  or  to  the  polls ;  no  man  has  any 
right  to  take  in  his  hand  the  ballot,  on  which 
he  will  record  his  judgment  respecting  the 
government  of  the  city  or  the  state  or  the 
nation,  until  he  has  purged  his  heart  of 
every  particle  of  self-seeking,  of  every  ves- 
tige of  partisanship ;  until  he  is  sure  that  he 
has  put  away  from  him  all  small  piques  and 
passions  and  all  suggestions  of  personal 
interest  in  making  his  decision;  until  he 
knows  that  his  supreme  wish  is  to  promote 
the  glory  of  God,  by  promoting  the  highest 
good  of  the  whole  people.  "  Search  me,  O 
God,  and  know  my  heart :  try  me,  and 
know  my  thoughts :  and  see  if  there  be 
any  wicked  way  in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the 
way  of  the  eternal  righteousness."  If  there 
is  any  time  in  his  life  when  a  good  man 


180 


BELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 


needs  to  offer  this  prayer,  it  is  when  he 
confronts  the  high  responsibilities  of  cit- 
izenship. 

It  is  true,  then,  that  Jesus  had  very  little 
to  say  about  politics,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  the  people  to  whom  He  was  always 
speaking  had  nothing  to  do  with  politics. 
But  suppose  that  He  had  been  standing 
every  day  in  the  presence  of  Caesar  himself ; 
suppose  that  his  daily  walk  had  led  Him 
over  to  the  Palatine  Hill  in  the  Eternal 
City,  when  the  brutal  Tiberius  was  dwell- 
ing in  the  splendid  palace  of  Augustus; 
and  that  this  proud  emperor,  fountain  of 
political  authority,  sovereign  over  the  greater 
part  of  the  then  known  world,  had  been 
confronted  from  time  to  time  by  Him  who 
claimed  to  be  the  Messiah  of  God :  —  can 
it  be  imagined  that  Jesus  would  have  had 
nothing  to  say  to  this  powerful  monarch 
concerning  his  duty  as  a  ruler  ?  Can  it 
be  believed  that  the  cruelty  and  extortion 
of  the  Roman  rule  would  have  gone  un- 
rebuked,    that    its   corruption    would    have 


RELIGION  AND  POLITICS.  181 

received  no  censure,  that  its  prostitution  of 
liberty  and  justice  for  gain  would  have 
called  forth  no  protest  ?  Would  not  this 
despot  have  been  bidden  with  the  voice  be- 
fore which  Pilate  quailed  and  trembled,  to 
do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  before  God  ?  What  else  would  the 
Lord  himself  have  said  than  that  which 
the  prophets,  speaking  in  his  name,  had 
many  a  time  spoken  to  kings  and  princes? 
Might  we  not  have  heard  Him  quoting,  as 
so  often  He  quoted,  from  Isaiah  the  pro- 
phet :  "  How  is  the  faithful  city  become  an 
harlot !  she  that  was  full  of  judgment ! 
righteousness  lodged  in  her,  but  now  mur- 
derers. Thy  silver  is  become  dross,  thy 
wine  mixed  with  water.  Thy  princes  are 
rebellious,  and  companions  of  thieves ;  every 
one  loveth  gifts  and  f oUoweth  after  rewards : 
they  judge  not  the  fatherless,  neither  doth 
the  cause  of  the  widow  come  unto  them. 
O  my  people,  they  which  lead  thee  cause 
thee  to  err,  and  destroy  the  way  of  thy 
path." 


182  BELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

With  some  such  words  of  reproof  and 
admonition  we  may  be  sure  that  He  to 
whom  all  the  prophets  bore  witness  would 
have  preached  righteousness  to  the  rulers, 
if  rulers  then  had  been  in  the  audiences  to 
which  He  preached.  And  if  He  were  speak- 
ing, in  these  days,  to  the  audiences  in  our 
churches,  which  are  so  largely  made  up  of 
rulers,  I  cannot  have  any  doubt  as  to  what 
would  be  the  tenor  of  his  message.  That 
He  would  preach  politics,  in  the  narrow  ac- 
ceptation of  that  term ;  that  He  would  ad- 
vocate the  platform  of  any  political  party, 
or  signify  his  preference  among  candidates, 
who  represent  nothing  but  party  cries  and 
catch- words,  —  no  one  for  a  moment  supposes. 
But  that  He  would  impress  upon  all  those 
listening  to  Him  the  sacredness  and  solem- 
nity of  the  responsibilities  resting  upon 
them  to  rule  righteously  and  in  the  fear 
of  God ;  to  put  far  away  from  them  all 
thoughts  of  personal  gains ;  to  seek,  in  the 
supreme  exercise  of  the  sovereignty  in- 
trusted to  them,  the  kingdom  of  God  and 


RELIGION  AND  POLITICS.  183 

his  righteousness,  is  not,  I  think,  an  open 
question.  And  no  man  who  speaks  in  his 
name  has  any  right  to  suppress  the  message. 
The  pulpit  is  not  the  place  for  partisan  poli- 
tics. But  the  pulpit  is  the  place  for  enforc- 
ing upon  the  consciences  of  citizens  the 
solemnity  and  the  sacredness  of  the  obliga- 
tions which  rest  upon  them,  and  their  duty 
to  discharge  these  obligations,  as  the  Prayer 
Book  says  of  another  great  engagement,  — 
"reverently,  discreetly,  advisedly,  soberly, 
and  in  the  fear  of  God." 

No  one  who  has  any  adequate  sense  of 
existing  political  conditions  will  be  inclined, 
I  think,  to  censure  the  intensity  of  the  plea 
here  made  for  a  view  of  political  life  and 
action  which  lifts  it  completely  above  the 
clamor  and  strife  of  the  partisan  assemblies 
into  the  serener  air  of  the  mountain-tops, 
where  men  stand  face  to  face  with  God.  For 
I  am  as  sure  as  I  can  be  of  anything,  that 
there  is  no  salvation  for  this  land  of  ours 
from  the  rising  flood  of  factional  strife  and 
corporate  greed,   which  threatens  to  engulf 


184  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

our  liberties,  save  in  the  heightened  sense 
of  the  sacredness  of  the  vocation  with  which 
every  citizen  is  called.  Many  expedients 
for  improving  political  morality  are  pro- 
posed, some  of  which  are  undoubtedly  wise : 
Australian  ballots,  corrupt  practices  acts, 
proportional  representation,  the  referendum, 
civil  service  reform,  —  all  of  them  worthy 
of  thought,  but,  after  all,  the  fundamental 
need  is  a  deeper  conviction,  in  the  heart  of 
the  citizen,  of  the  truth  that  citizenship  de- 
mands a  consecrated  spirit,  a  heroic  self- 
denial,  which  shall  make  all  the  interests  of 
business  and  all  the  motives  of  self-aggran- 
dizement subordinate  to  the  welfare  of  the 
nation. 

It  seems,  indeed,  almost  quixotic  to  speak 
or  think  of  cleansing  the  filthy  pool  of 
party  politics  :  of  infusing  into  the  reservoir 
of  low  aims  and  selfish  schemes  and  mean 
motives  the  clarifying  power  of  a  holy  pur- 
pose. And,  indeed,  there  are  hours  when  it 
appears  that  the  whole  temper  of  the  time  is 
sordid  and  superficial  and  profane. 


BELIGION  AND   POLITICS.  185 

"  Our  slender  life  runs  rippling  by,  and  glides 
Into  the  silent  hollow  of  the  past ; 

What  is  there  that  abides 
To  make  the  next  age  better  for  the  last  ? 

Is  earth  too  poor  to  give  us 
Something  to  live  for  here  that  shall  outlive  us  ? 

Some  more  substantial  boon 
Than  such  as  flows  and  ebbs  with  Fortune's  fickle  moon  ? 

The  little  that  we  see 

From  doubt  is  never  free  ; 

The  little  that  we  do 

Is  but  half -nobly  true  ; 

With  our  laborious  hiving 
What  men  call  treasure,  and  the  gods  call  dross, 

Life  seems  a  jest  of  Fate's  contriving, 

Only  secure  in  every  one's  conniving, 
Along  account  of  nothings  paid  with  loss." 

But  this  is  only  the  plaint  of  weariness, 
the  outcry  of  a  spirit  that  is  distressed  by 
the  things  that  are  seen,  and  that  lacks  the 
vision  of  things  unseen  and  eternal.  And 
the  reassuring  word  can  be  no  other  than 
that  of  the  poet  himself :  — 

"  But  stay !  no  age  was  e'er  degenerate, 
Unless  men  held  it  at  too  cheap  a  rate  ; 
For  in  our  likeness  still  we  shape  our  fate. 


186  BELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Ah,  there  is  something  here 
Unfathomed  by  the  cynic's  sneer, 
Something  that  gives  our  feeble  light 
A  high  immunity  from  Night, 
Something  that  leaps  life's  narrow  bars 
To  claim  its  birthright  with  the  hosts  of  heaven  ; 

A  seed  of  sunshine  that  can  leaven 
Our  earthly  dulness  with  the  beams  of  stars, 

And  glorify  our  clay 
With  light  from  fountains  elder  than  the  Day  ; 
A  conscience  more  divine  than  we, 
A  gladness  fed  with  secret  tears, 
A  vexing,  forward-reaching  sense 
Of  some  more  noble  permanence  ; 
A  light  across  the  sea. 
Which  haunts  the  soul  and  will  not  let  it  be, 
Still  beaconing  from  the  heights  of  undegenerate  years.'* 

It  is  only  as  this  inspiration  of  a  sacred 
purpose,  this  sense  of  a  holy  obligation, 
comes  to  those  who  lead  in  the  great  affairs 
of  state ;  only  as  the  people  themselves  be- 
come aware  of  the  truth  that  this  nation,  as 
truly  as  that  other  nation  in  the  wilderness, 
needs  the  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  of  fire 
by  night,  that  light  will  break  upon  our 
future,  and  we  shall   behold  with  assured 


RELIGION  AND  POLITICS.  187 

vision  the  calm  peace  for  which  we  wait 
and  pray. 

It  is  not,  then,  solely  or  chiefly  of  our 
duty  to  Csesar  that  we  as  American  citizens 
are  called  to  think,  but  of  our  duty  as 
Caesars,  —  kaisers,  rulers  of  this  free  land. 
Who  is  Csesar  ?  Who  is  the  king  ?  He  is 
the  anointed  of  God.  He  is  the  one  whom 
God  has  chosen  and  set  apart  to  rule. 
Such  anointing  and  consecration  has  every 
one  of  us  received,  into  whose  hand  is  put 
the  ballot.  It  is  not  our  power  that  we 
wield :  w^e  have  no  power  ;  there  is  but  one 
absolute  Ruler,  the  Lord  our  righteousness. 
To  us  the  power  is  intrusted  by  Him,  that 
we  may  use  it  in  his  name.  Let  Caesar 
render  to  God  what  belongs  to  Him. 


VIII. 

PUBLIC   OPINION. 


What  I  want  to  impress  you  with  is  the  great  weight 
that  is  attached  to  the  opinion  of  everything  that  can 
call  itself  a  man.  Give  me  anything  that  walks  erect 
and  can  read,  and  he  shall  count  one  in  the  millions  of  the 
Lord's  sacramental  host,  which  is  yet  to  come  up  and 
trample  all  oppression  in  the  dust.  —  Wendell  Phillips, 
Speeches^  First  Series,  page  50. 

All  free  governments,  whatever  their  name,  are  in 
reality  governments  by  public  opinion,  and  it  is  on  the 
quality  of  this  public  opinion  that  their  prosperity 
depends.  It  is,  therefore,  their  first  duty  to  purify  the 
element  from  which  they  draw  the  breath  of  life.  With 
the  growth  of  democracy  grows  also  the  fear,  if  not  the 
danger,  that  this  atmosphere  may  be  corrupted  with 
poisonous  exhalations  from  lower  and  more  malarious 
levels,  and  the  question  of  sanitation  becomes  more  in- 
stant and  pressing.  Democracy,  in  its  best  sense,  is 
merely  the  letting  in  of  light  and  air.  —  James  Russell 
Lowell,  Democracy  and  Other  Addresses,  page  38. 


VIII. 

PUBLIC  OPINION. 

One  of  the  subjects  concerning  which  a 
new  conception  of  duty  is  greatly  needed  is 
the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  public 
opinion  of  the  community.  The  creation 
and  diffusion  of  a  sound  public  opinion  may 
be  said  to  be  the  primary  social  duty.  Pub- 
lic opinion  is  the  motive  power  of  demo- 
cratic institutions.  It  bears  the  same  re- 
lation to  Christian  society  that  protoplasm 
bears  to  life. 

In  that  great  treatise  of  Mr.  James  Bryce 
upon  the  American  Commonwealth,  one 
whole  Part,  twelve  chapters,  covering  122 
closely-printed  pages,  is  devoted  to  this  sub- 
ject of  Public  Oj)inion.  It  might  be  in- 
structive to  read  the  headings  of  these 
chapters  :  "  The  Nature  of  Public  Opinion  ; 
Government  by  Public  Opinion  ;    How  Pub- 


192  PUBLIC   OPINION, 

lie  Opinion  Eules  in  America ;  Organs  of 
Public  Opinion ;  National  Characteristics 
as  Moulding  Public  Opinion ;  Classes  as  In- 
fluencing Opinion  ;  Local  Types  of  Opinion 
East,  West,  and  South ;  The  Action  of 
Public  Opinion  ;  The  Fatalism  of  the  Mul- 
titude ;  The  Tyranny  of  the  Majority ; 
Wherein  Public  Opinion  Fails ;  Wherein 
Public  Opinion  Succeeds."  This  will  serve 
to  show  what  estimate  is  placed  by  a  great 
publicist  upon  this  force  as  it  affects  our 
social  and  national  welfare. 

Nearly  all  modern  governments  are  gov- 
ernments by  public  opinion.  The  case  has 
greatly  altered  since  the  Oriental  despot, 
whose  will  was  the  only  law,  was  the  type 
of  the  civil  ruler.  Louis  XIV.,  a  century 
and  a  half  ago,  could  say  in  France : 
"What  is  the  State?  I  am  the  State." 
But  it  is  long  since  anybody  would  dare  to 
say  that  in  France.  The  Czar  of  Russia 
comes  pretty  near  being  an  absolute  ruler, 
but  nothing  is  so  clear  as  that  his  absolu- 
tism is  his  weakness.     The  fiery  young  Ger- 


PUBLIC  OPINION,  193 

man  emperor  talks  large  about  "  my  gov- 
ermnent "  and  "  my  people,"  and  assumes 
that  he  alone  is  responsible  for  the  conduct 
of  affairs  in  that  great  empire ;  nevertheless, 
he  is  beginning  to  listen  well  to  the  under- 
tone of  public  opinion. 

"  Opinion,"  says  Mr.  Bryce,  "  has  really 
been  the  chief  and  ultimate  power  in  nearly 
all  nations  at  nearly  all  times.  I  do  not 
mean  merely  the  opinion  of  the  class  to 
which  the  rulers  belong.  Obviously,  the 
small  oligarchy  of  Venice  was  influenced 
by  the  opinion  of  the  Venetian  nobility,  as 
the  absolute  Czar  is  influenced  now  by  the 
opinion  of  his  court  and  his  army.  I  mean 
the  opinion,  unspoken,  unconscious,  but  not 
the  less  real  and  potent,  of  the  masses  of  the 
people.  Governments  have  always  rested, 
and,  special  cases  apart,  must  rest,  if  not 
on  the  affection,  then  on  the  reverence  or 
awe;  if  not  on  the  active  approval,  then 
on  the  silent  acquiescence,  of  the  numerical 
majority.  It  is  only  by  rare  exception  that 
the  monarch  or  an  oligarchy  has  maintained 


194  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

authority  against  the  will  of  the  people.  .  .  . 
The  difference  between  despotically  gov- 
erned and  free  countries  does  not  consist  in 
the  fact  that  the  latter  are  ruled  by  opinion 
and  the  former  by  force,  for  both  are  gen- 
erally ruled  by  opinion.  It  consists  rather 
in  this,  that  in  the  former  the  people  in- 
stinctively obey  a  power  which  they  do  not 
know  to  be  really  of  their  own  creation  and 
to  stand  by  their  own  permission  ;  whereas 
in  the  latter  the  people  feel  their  supremacy, 
and  consciously  treat  their  rulers  as  their 
agents,  while  the  rulers  obey  a  power  which 
they  admit  to  have  made  and  to  be  able  to 
unmake  them,  — the  popular  will."  ^ 

When  our  Declaration  of  Independence 
says  that  rulers  derive  all  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  we  may 
question  the  form  of  the  apothegm.  If  it 
means  that  the  consent  of  the  governed 
makes  the  rule  just,  we  must  dissent.  Rul- 
ers may  obtain  the  consent  of  the  governed 
to  do  an  unjust  thing  ;  their  consent  does 

^  The  American  Commonwealth,  ii.  216-219. 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  195 

not  make  it  just.  A  majority  vote  for  a 
wrong  does  not  make  it  right.  The  quality 
of  justice  is  not  given  to  the  act  of  a  magis- 
trate by  the  approval  of  the  people ;  that 
quality  is  tested  by  other  standards.  The 
magistrate's  act  may  be  just,  though  all  the 
people  disapprove ;  it  may  be  unjust,  though 
they  unanimously  approve.  This  is  not 
likely,  but  it  is  possible. 

But  though  justice  is  not  due  to  popular 
consent,  power  is ;  we  may  truly  say  that 
governments  derive  their  effective  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  people  ;  to  be  eff- 
cient^  the  government  must  follow  the  gen- 
eral direction  of  public  opinion. 

Legislation  is,  in  a  general  way,  the  crys- 
tallization into  statutes  of  public  opinion. 
It  is  not  always  so,  indeed;  sometimes  a 
few  men  get  notions  into  their  heads  which 
they  conceive  to  be  expedient  or  beneficial, 
and  succeed,  by  adroitly  manipulating  legis- 
lative bodies,  in  getting  them  framed  into 
law,  although  they  do  not  represent  the 
wishes  or  the  judgment  of  any  considerable 


196  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

number  of  the  people.  Such  legislation  is 
generally  nugatory ;  and  a  great  mass  of 
dead  laws,  which  have  had  some  such  origin, 
incumber  our  statute-books.  Living  and 
effective  laws  are,  however,  the  expression 
of  public  opinion ;  they  put  into  legal  form 
what  the  majority  of  the  people  have  been 
thinking  and  wishing. 

It  is  public  opinion,  also,  that  makes 
the  executive  strong,  and  that  gives  vigor 
and  force  to  the  administration  of  the  laws. 
If  the  mayor  or  the  sheriff  or  the  state  ex- 
ecutive knows  that  the  people  demand  the 
enforcement  of  any  given  law,  he  is  likely 
to  enforce  it  diligently.  He  may,  from  in- 
terested motives,  be  remiss  or  negligent,  but 
he  is  not  likely  to  be ;  he  does  not  think  it 
safe ;  he  feels  the  pressure  of  public  opinion, 
and  yields  to  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  be  any  law  whose  execution  depends 
on  the  will  of  the  magistrate,  and  concern- 
ing which  the  people  have  ceased  to  have  a 
positive  opinion  and  an  active  interest,  its 
enforcement  is  apt  to  be  lax.     There   are 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  197 

exceptional  cases  in  which  this  is  not  true. 
There  are  magistrates  who,  when  intrusted 
with  the  enforcement  of  law,  regard  them- 
selves as  bound  to  do  the  thing  that  they 
have  sworn  to  do,  whether  the  pressure  of 
public  opinion  is  felt  or  not.  They  assume 
that  public  opinion  has  already  expressed  it- 
self in  the  enactment  of  the  law ;  that  the 
people  in  electing  them  must  be  understood 
as  commanding  them  to  execute  the  law ; 
and  that  they  have  no  right  to  sit  down  and 
wait  until  public  opinion  prompts  and  im- 
pels and  scourges  them  to  action.  This,  I 
think,  is  the  only  right  and  sound  theory  of 
the  function  of  an  executive  ;  but,  unfortu- 
nately, there  are  a  good  many  executives 
who  do  not  think  so  ;  who  will  do  about 
what  they  are  driven  to  do  by  the  immedi- 
ate pressure  of  public  opinion,  and  not 
much  more. 

In  view  of  this  fact,  it  behooves  the  peo- 
ple, who  are  the  rulers,  to  do  one  of  two 
things, — either  to  elect  men  who  will  ob- 
serve their  oaths  and  execute  the  laws,  with- 


198  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

out  being  prompted  and  prodded  by  public 
opinion  ;  or  else  to  create  and  maintain  an 
active  public  opinion,  by  which  derelict  of- 
ficials shall  be  prompted  and  prodded  to  do 
their  duty.  And  perhaps  the  safest  course 
would  be  to  do  both  these  things  at  once. 

If,  then,  public  opinion  not  only  makes 
but  executes  our  laws,  its  vast  importance 
in  our  social  and  national  life  must  be  evi- 
dent. It  is,  indeed,  the  power  that  rules 
the  republic.  It  is  the  force  which  drives 
all  our  governmental  machinery.  It  is  a 
little  more  than  power,  it  is  direction,  also. 
It  not  only  makes  the  machinery  go,  it  de- 
termines the  course  that  it  shall  take,  the 
product  that  it  shall  evolve.  The  steam 
that  drives  the  engine  of  the  ship  does  not 
guide  the  vessel,  it  simply  produces  mo- 
tion ;  the  hand  of  the  helmsman  determines 
the  direction  of  the  vessel.  The  steam  that 
sets  the  spindles  and  the  looms  and  the 
lathes  in  motion  does  not  determine  what 
the  machinery  shall  produce.  But  public 
opinion,  by  its  very  nature,  is   directive  as 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  199 

well  as  impulsive ;  it  sets  the  machinery  of 
government  in  motion,  and  tells  it  what  to 
do ;  it  moves  the  propeller,  and  it  also  holds 
the  helm. 

It  is,  then,  of  the  very  deepest  importance 
that  it  should  be  sound  and  strong,  with 
plenty  of  push  and  propulsion  in  it,  and 
that  it  should  also  be  sane  and  wise,  so  that 
the  movements  which  it  causes  shall  be 
guided  to  right  ends. 

I  have  already  intimated  that  it  is  by  no 
means  infallible.  It  is  the  power  that  rules 
the  republic ;  and  the  governmental  defects 
and  failures  of  the  republic  are  due,  in  the 
final  analysis,  to  the  infirmity  or  the  per- 
version or  the  misdirection  of  this  power. 

Public  opinion  may  be  weak.  There  may 
be  a  lack  of  general  and  active  interest  in 
public  questions.  Everybody  may  be  so 
busy  with  his  own  personal  and  private  af- 
fairs that  he  shall  have  no  time  or  thought 
left  for  public  affairs,  or,  if  he  thinks  of 
them  at  all,  thinks  of  them  only  as  they  af- 
fect his  private  interests.     In  such  a  case, 


200  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

we  have  nothing  that  can  properly  be  termed 
public  opinion  ;  we  have  a  great  mass  of 
conflicting  and  quarreling  private  wishes 
and  aims,  but  no  real  concern  for  the  com- 
mon weal.  I  fear  that  this  is  a  condition  to 
which,  in  our  eager,  money-making  age,  we 
sometimes  approximate.  We  are  so  en- 
grossed with  our  own  enterprises  and  am- 
bitions that  we  do  not  devote  much  serious 
time  and  thought  to  the  concerns  of  the 
public.  It  is  true  that  our  private  interests 
are  often  greatly  affected  by  public  action. 
When  the  city  government  becomes  reckless 
and  corrupt,  and  taxes  grow  to  be  enormous, 
we  feel  the  burden  keenly,  and  are  ready 
to  contribute  to  the  formation  of  public 
opinion  a  good  deal  of  energetic  grumbling. 
When  the  tariff  affects  our  business,  we  feel 
constrained  to  take  a  hand  in  discussing  it, 
albeit  we  may  not  be  able  to  tell  very  defi- 
nitely what  is  wrong  and  how  to  right  it. 
But  this  kind  of  opinion,  which  springs 
solely  from  a  regard  for  our  own  selfish  in- 
terests, is  not  the    kind  of   public  opinion 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  201 

which  ought  to  rule  the  republic.  Doubtless 
there  does  often  come  out  of  this  struggle 
of  conflicting  interests  a  resultant  force,  by 
which  the  action  of  the  legislatures  and  the 
magistrates  is  swayed ;  but  this  is  not  what 
we  mean  by  a  sound  and  strong  public 
opinion. 

It  is  generally  true  of  our  people,  how- 
ever, that  there  is,  apart  from  this  desire  to 
secure  such  public  action  as  shall  advance 
our  private  interests,  a  good  deal  of  thought 
and  care  among  us,  directed  to  the  public 
welfare.  We  are  not,  as  a  people,  destitute 
of  the  instincts  and  impulses  of  patriotism. 
The  national  or  the  municipal  weal  is  often 
in  our  mind,  and  we  desire  to  do  what  we 
can  to  promote  it.  I  would  not  say  that 
public  opinion  is  a  weak  or  ineffective  force 
in  this  country;  I  often  wish  that  it  were 
stronger ;  but  it  is  sometimes  very  powerful. 

But  public  opinion  needs  to  be  sane  and 
wise  as  well  as  strong.  It  ought  to  guide 
as  well  as  propel.  It  needs  not  only  mus- 
cles to  push,  but  eyes  to  see.    It  is  here  that 


202  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

its  worst  failures  appear.  What  we  call 
public  opinion  —  that  is,  the  popular  im- 
pulse and  demand  —  is  often  horribly  blind, 
fickle,  cruel.  One  day  Public  Opinion  met 
the  Man  of  Nazareth,  entering  the  city  of 
Jerusalem,  and  strewed  his  path  with  gar- 
ments and  palm  -  branches,  shouting  "  Ho- 
sanna  to  the  Son  of  David  !  Blessed  is  He 
that  Cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord !  " 
Five  days  later,  this  same  Public  Opinion 
found  utterance  through  a  raging  mob,  that 
stormed  at  the  door  of  Pilate's  judgment 
hall,  and  shouted,  "  Not  this  man,  but  Ba- 
rabbas  !  Away  with  this  man  !  Crucify 
him  I  crucify  him  !  "  Public  opinion 
crowded  the  Duomo  in  Florence  with  ap- 
plauding audiences  when  Savonarola  spoke 
from  its  pulpit  in  March,  and  in  April  it 
sacked  his  convent  and  clamored  for  his 
blood.  Public  opinion  swept  this  country 
with  one  political  verdict  in  the  autumn  of 
1892,  and  with  what  was  understood  to  be  a 
directly  contradictory  verdict  in  the  autumn 
of  1893.     I  do  not  think  that  either  action 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  203 

was  guided  by  reason.  It  was  a  matter  of 
impulse  and  prejudice  more  than  of  judg- 
ment. 

Indeed,  so  long  as  tlie  majority  of  indi- 
viduals are  controlled  in  their  conduct  more 
by  prejudice  and  impulse  than  by  reason 
and  judgment,  we  must  expect  that  what 
we  call  public  opinion  will  be  largely 
swayed  by  gusts  of  passion,  by  tidal  waves 
of  reasonless  infatuation  and  blind  antip- 
athy. And  the  truth  is,  that  an  aggregation 
of  prejudiced  and  passionate  men  is  far 
more  irrational  than  any  one  of  them.  A 
mob  is  more  brainless  and  more  cruel  than 
any  single  man  of  the  mob  would  be  likely 
to  be  if  he  were  acting  independently.  I 
have  seen  the  mob  spirit  take  possession  of 
an  ecclesiastical  assembly,  prejudice  and 
passion  usurping  the  place  of  reason  and 
conscience ;  and  I  have  seen  very  unjust 
and  cruel  deeds  done  under  that  inspira- 
tion. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  force  which 
we  describe  as  public  opinion  is  not  always 


204  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

wise  when  it  is  strong.  It  is  liable  to  make 
fatal  mistakes  and  to  do  terrible  mischiefs. 
And  the  real  trouble  with  it,  generally, 
is  that  it  is  not  truly  public  opinion^  but 
public  prejudice  and  public  passion.  If  it 
were  the  aggregate  thought  of  the  whole 
multitude,  it  would  be  less  likely  to  go 
astray  ;  but  the  concentrated  passion  of  the 
multitude  is  not  so  safe  a  guide.  In  a  mul- 
titude of  counselors  there  is  sometimes  wis- 
dom ;  but  in  a  multitude  of  shouters  there 
is  only  noise.  To  infuse  into  this  incoher- 
ent and  tumultuous  mass  of  sentiment  and 
impulse  a  little  more  informing  and  guid- 
ing thought  is,  then,  the  first  thing  to  be 
desired. 

Such,  then,  is  this  force  that  shapes  con- 
stitutions and  statutes,  that  lifts  up  and  casts 
down  governors  and  magistrates.  It  seems 
a  very  weak  thing ;  but  when  the  breath  of 
God  is  in  it,  it  is  mighty  to  the  pulling  down 
of  strongholds  ;  and  when  the  fumes  of  the 
pit  pervade  it,  the  commonwealth  becomes 
pandemonium.      When    public    opinion    is 


PUBLIC  OPINION,  205 

sound  and  wholesome,  social  evils  go  down 
before  it,  as  the  snow  disappears  under  the 
May-day  sun  ;  when  public  opinion  is  fee- 
ble and  ineffectual,  all  manner  of  abuses 
come  forth  and  intrench  themselves  in  soci- 
ety and  in  government.  And  I  say  that  the 
importance  of  creating  and  diffusing  a  sound 
public  opinion  is  very  little  understood  by 
most  of  us.  Surely,  this  is  the  central  and 
vital  element  in  our  national  life.  Pub- 
lic opinion  means  to  the  republic  all  that 
power  means  to  machinery.  Any  man  who 
is  building  a  steamship  or  a  factory  thinks 
first  about  his  power.  It  is  useless  and  ab- 
surd to  build  engines  or  machines,  no  mat- 
ter how  perfect,  unless  there  is  power  to  run 
them.  But  we  Americans  give  ten  times  as 
much  thought,  in  our  politics,  to  the  con- 
struction of  political  machinery,  as  we  do  to 
the  provision  of  adequate  and  well-directed 
power  to  move  it.  But  public  opinion  is 
far  more  to  the  republic  than  power  is  to 
machinery.  It  is  all  that  the  life-blood  in 
the  veins  is  to  the  human  body.     It  is  the 


206  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

vital  element  of  the  national  life.  To  keep 
it  pure  and  healthy,  and  thoroughly  vital- 
ized with  the  living  breath  of  God,  is  the 
most  important  task  that  any  Christian 
patriot  can  place  before  his  mind. 

And  how  is  it  that  right  public  opinion 
is  created  ?  The  newspaper  is  supposed  to 
have  something  to  do  with  it ;  but  there  are 
two  theories  about  the  function  of  the  news- 
paper. By  some  persons  the  newspaper 
is  suppose  to  generate  public  opinion  ;  by 
others  merely  to  reflect  it.  The  most  con- 
spicuous journal  in  the  world,  the  "  London 
Times,"  has  been  conducted  on  the  theory 
that  it  is  the  business  of  the  newspaper  to 
understand  and  express  public  opinion.  The 
other  theory  is  the  one  most  commonly  held, 
—  that  a  newspaper  ought  to  instruct  and 
guide  public  opinion.  Practically,  however, 
the  tendencies  just  now  are  all  in  the  other 
direction  ;  for  what  is  called  journalism  is 
more  and  more  regarded  as  a  business  ;  and 
the  commercial  success  of  the  venture  is  the 
first  thing  considered.     When   this   is  the 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  207 

case,  the  counting-room,  of  course,  dictates 
the  policy  of  the  paper  ;  and  this  can  mean 
nothing  else  than  that  the  chief  effort  will 
be  to  conform  to  the  prevailing  public  senti- 
ment, and  not  to  antagonize  it.  Doubtless 
much  is  done  by  the  best  newspapers  to 
instruct  and  invigorate  public  opinion,  and 
much  is  done  by  the  worst  to  mislead  and 
debauch  it.  I  am  by  no  means  sure  on 
which  side  is  the  preponderance.  But  I  am 
very  sure  that  it  will  never  do  to  depend  on 
that  agency  for  the  creation  and  mainte- 
nance of  the  kind  of  public  opinion  which 
will  rule  the  state  beneficently. 

Really  this  task  is  a  very  simple  one,  so 
simple  that  we  altogether  overlook  its  im- 
portance. Public  opinion  is  merely  the 
aggregate  opinion  of  all  the  people,  the  re- 
sultant movement  of  the  various  thought  of 
many  men  with  many  minds.  All  that  is 
needed  for  the  formation  of  a  sound  public 
opinion  is  that  the  great  majority  of  the 
people  should  have  clear  ideas  on  subjects 
of   public  concernment,   and  should  freely 


208  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

express  them.  Nothing  can  be  simpler  than 
this  solution ;  but  simple  things  are  not  al- 
ways easy.  The  solution  of  the  temperance 
problem  is  simple,  —  get  everybody  to  stop 
drinking  ;  but  it  is  not  easy.  Still  it  is  well 
to  keep  before  us  the  fact  that  as  the  ocean 
is  made  up  of  water-drops,  so  the  power 
which  sways  governments  and  works  right- 
eousness in  the  earth  is  only  the  combina- 
tion of  the  thoughts  and  judgments  of  the 
various  individuals  who  compose  the  masses 
of  the  people.  And  the  sense  of  individual 
responsibility  for  the  invigoration  and  direc- 
tion of  the  power  needs  to  be  cultivated  by 
every  one  of  us.  This  is  manifestly  one  of 
the  cases  in  which  what  is  everybody's  busi- 
ness may  be  nobody's.  That  maxim  needs 
to  be  supplanted  by  the  sounder  saying: 
"  What  is  everybody's  business  must  be  my 
business." 

The  duty  of  the  individual  must  involve 
first,  some  careful  effort  to  form  opinions 
upon  questions  of  public  welfare.  What  is 
wanted    is    opinion,    individual    judgment. 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  209 

upon  all  these  questions.  Mere  impressions 
or  prepossessions  are  not  sufficient ;  every 
man  ought  to  know  what  can  be  said  against 
the  position  he  takes,  as  well  as  what  can 
be  said  for  it ;  and  his  conclusion  should 
represent  an  honest  attempt  to  bring  the 
question  of  the  hour  under  the  light  of  rea- 
son, and  to  find  out  all  the  facts  upon  which 
a  sound  judgment  should  be  based.  It  must 
be  admitted  that,  in  spite  of  the  free  schools 
of  which  we  boast  so  much,  the  popular 
ignorance  upon  vital  questions  of  political 
and  social  morality  is  still  vast  and  pro- 
found, even  here  in  republican  America. 
Witness  the  financial  schemes  of  the  most 
transparent  immorality  and  absurdity  which 
constantly  flourish  among  us  ;  witness,  also, 
the  epidemics  of  brutal  intolerance  that  oc- 
casionally sweep  over  the  land ;  and  notice 
how  easy  it  is  for  political  advocates  to  con- 
vince the  masses  that  any  lack  of  prosperity 
must  be  the  fault  of  the  party  in  power. 
Upon  these  larger  questions  of  the  state 
there  is,  however,  far  more  intelligence  than 


210  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

upon  matters  of  local  government.  Very- 
few  citizens  take  any  pains  to  inform  them- 
selves respecting  the  administration  of  the 
town  or  the  city  in  which  they  live.  They 
take  a  great  deal  more  interest  in  the  tariff 
debate  or  the  Hawaiian  imbroglio  than  in 
the  organized  raids  made  upon  the  treasury 
of  their  own  town  by  the  gang  that  always 
beleaguers  it,  and  in  the  offensive  and  de- 
fensive alliances  existing  between  their  local 
officials  and  the  lawless  classes.  There  is 
often  a  great  deal  of  vague  suspicion  and 
accusation  respecting  all  this ;  but  of  clear 
and  positive  knowledge  there  is  not  much. 
The  citizens  do  not,  as  a  rule,  take  pains  to 
inform  themselves.  Therefore  there  cannot 
be  any  adequate  force  of  public  opinion  to 
deal  with  them.  There  is  sometimes  a  good 
deal  of  impatient  and  irritated  feeling,  but 
it  is  apt  to  strike  out  wildly  and  attack  the 
wrong  person,  or  make  charges  that  cannot 
be  sustained.  In  order  that  no  injustice 
may  be  done,  that  the  Demos  may  not  de- 
generate into  a  mob  and  destroy  the  right- 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  211 

eous  with  the  wicked,  there  is  need  that  the 
citizens  should  possess  the  intelligence  from 
which  may  spring  a  rational  public  opinion. 

Some  sense  of  the  importance  of  clear 
knowledge  upon  these  great  matters  is  evi- 
dently taking  possession  of  the  public  mind. 
Within  the  past  few  years  there  has  been  a 
great  revival  of  interest  in  social  and  civic 
problems ;  groups  of  men  and  women  in 
almost  every  community  are  studying  them 
with  the  most  enthusiastic  interest.  In  all 
the  colleges  and  universities,  questions  of 
this  class  have  suddenly  been  advanced  to 
the  forefront  of  the  curriculum ;  the  amount 
of  work  done  upon  subjects  which  relate  to 
the  public  welfare  is,  I  suppose,  fourfold 
greater  than  it  was  twenty  years  ago.  All 
this  gives  promise  of  a  day  when  the  first 
prerequisite  of  a  sound  public  opinion  — 
clear  aiid  accurate  knowledge  of  public  ques- 
tions —  shall  be  more  fully  supplied  than  it 
is  at  the  present  time. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  have  clear  ideas 
about  public  affairs  ;  we  must  also  be  brave 


212  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

enough  to  utter  them.  The  ignorance  of 
the  American  citizen  about  the  business  af- 
fairs and  the  social  conditions  of  his  own 
municipality  is  often  reprehensible,  but  his 
cowardice  is  far  worse.  That  which  he  does 
know  full  well,  he  often  will  not  declare.  It 
will  make  him  disagreeably  prominent,  per- 
haps ;  it  will  lead  to  discussions  and  contro- 
versies which  it  is  pleasanter  to  avoid  ;  it 
will  bring  down  upon  him  the  wrath  of  the 
classes  who  live  by  plunder  ;  it  will  disturb 
some  of  his  social  relations  ;  it  may  injure 
his  business  ;  therefore,  he  seals  his  lips  and 
refuses  to  testify.  How  few  men  we  find  in 
any  community,  who  have  the  courage  of 
their  convictions  upon  questions  that  con- 
cern the  public  welfare,  —  who  are  willing 
to  speak  right  out  in  criticism  of  that  which 
is  palpably  wrong.  How  many  there  are 
who  are  ready  to  say,  when  you  appeal  to 
them  for  support  in  any  enterprise  which 
involves  conflict  with  evil  powers  :  "  I  shall 
be  glad  to  aid  you  financially,  but  it  must 
be  confidential ;  my  name  must  not  appear  ; 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  213 

I  cannot  afford  to  have  it  known  that  I  am 
identified  with  the  scheme."  Assistance  of 
this  sort  is  really  worth  very  little.  Many 
of  our  reforms  have  split  upon  this  rock. 
What  is  most  wanted  is  something  that 
money  cannot  buy  ;  it  is  precisely  that  which 
these  crafty  citizens  withhold,  —  the  per- 
sonal influence  and  support  of  the  reputable 
classes.  If  all  the  men  who  sit  in  their 
counting-rooms  and  write  their  checks  in  aid 
of  good  causes  would  come  out  into  the 
public  square  and  declare  themselves  the 
friends  of  these  causes,  there  would  be  very 
little  need  of  money ;  an  invigorated  public 
opinion  would  push  the  enterprise  to  its 
goal. 

The  utterance  of  the  truth  that  is  in  him, 
bravely,  clearly,  constantly,  upon  all  ques- 
tions of  public  duty,  —  this  is  one  of  the 
primary  obligations  of  every  citizen  of  a  re- 
publican state.  The  obligation  of  the  Chris- 
tian citizen  is  precisely  the  same  as  that  of 
the  Christian  believer.  Conviction  is  not 
enough  ;    there   must    also    be    confession. 


214  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

What  the  man  believes  in  the  heart  he  must 
declare  with  the  lips.  To  be  ashamed  or 
afraid  to  utter  the  truth  that  he  believes  is 
the  gravest  of  delinquencies.  And  there  is 
just  as  much  reason  that  the  citizen  should 
witness  a  good  confession  as  there  is  that 
the  disciple  should  do  so.  Indeed,  the  rea- 
sons are  the  same  in  both  cases.  The  prev- 
alence of  the  spiritual  kingdom  of  our  Lord 
is  secured  by  faithful  witnessing.  It  is  by 
the  testimony  of  believers  that  converts  are 
made  and  the  kingdom  is  extended  and  es- 
tablished. If  every  man  who  knows  that 
Christ  is  king  would  speak  out  and  tell 
what  he  knows,  his  kingdom  would  come 
with  power.  We  may  say  that  it  is  the 
divine  plan  that  a  sound  and  vigorous  pub- 
lic opinion  should  be  created  in  favor  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  and  that  it  is  to 
be  created  by  the  outspoken  confession  of 
loyalty  on  the  part  of  individual  believers. 
The  same  law  holds  in  regard  to  the  promo- 
tion of  all  social  and  civic  reforms.  These, 
too,  depend  upon  the  public  opinion  of  the 


PUBLIC  OPINION.  215 

community,  and  the  public  opinion  of  the 
community  is  simply  the  consentaneous  voice 
of  individual  men  and  women  openly  declar- 
ing the  truth  that  is  in  their  minds.  Such 
utterance  sometimes  costs  discomfort  and 
suffering ;  but  let  no  man  suppose  that  civic 
righteousness  and  social  peace  can  be  won 
without  sacrifice.  It  cost  something  to  es- 
tablish our  liberties;  it  costs  something  to 
preserve  them,  —  more,  I  fear,  than  some  of 
us  are  willing  to  pay.  But  the  beginning 
of  all  good  fidelity  to  the  trust  committed  to 
us  is  here,  —  in  the  willingness  to  know  the 
truth  respecting  the  interests  committed  to 
our  charge,  and  in  the  readiness  to  speak 
the  truth  we  know  without  fear  or  favor,  on 
every  proper  occasion,  whether  men  will 
hear  or  whether  they  will  forbear.  It  is  the 
most  elementary  of  all  our  public  obliga- 
tions ;  it  is  also,  I  think,  the  most  stringent. 
Infidelity  to  this  obligation  produces  a  social 
malady  for  which  there  is  no  cure ;  fidelity 
to  this  obligation  creates  a  social  force  in 
whose  presence  no  evil  can  long  endure. 


IX. 

PHARISAISM. 


Look  at  the  character  in  its  essence,  only  changing  its 
dress,  its  class  of  particular  virtues,  according-  to  circum- 
stances, and  taking  off  one  and  putting  on  another  as  the 
public  standard  shifts  ;  thus  cleared  of  its  accidents,  look 
at  it ;  is  there  anything  old  about  it  ?  It  is  new  ;  it  is 
fresh  ;  it  is  modern ;  it  is  living  ;  it  is  old  in  the  sense  of 
human  nature  being  old,  but  in  no  other.  It  is  a  type  of 
evil  much  more  likely  to  increase  than  decay,  —  to  in- 
crease as  the  standard  of  advancing-  society  throws  the 
corrupt  principle  in  man  more  upon  policy  rather  than 
open  heathen  resistance.  Formality  and  routine  are  not 
essential  to  the  Pharisee  ;  he  feeds  his  character  upon 
ancient  disciplinarian  virtues,  if  he  has  nothing  else  to 
feed  it  upon ;  but  he  flourishes  quite  as  much  upon  utili- 
tarian and  active  virtues  if  they  are  uppermost.  —  J.  B. 
MozLEY,  University  and  Other  Sermons,  page  39. 

He  condemned  equally  the  conduct  of  the  Pharisees 
and  their  perversions  of  the  law,  and  found  in  their 
unveracious  dealing  with  the  Scriptures  the  secret  and 
explanation  of  all  their  other  unveracities.  Their  tradi- 
tions transgressed  the  commandments  of  God.  .  .  .  The 
most  absolute  slave  of  the  letter  is  always  the  man  who 
does  it  most  violence.  While  he  professes  to  be  devoted 
to  the  law,  he  devises  interpretations  that  annul  its  most 
distinctive  precepts.  —  A.  M.  Fairbairn,  Studies  in  the 
Life  of  Christ,  page  171. 

Some  great  pervasive  and  consolidated  wrong  may 
rest  in  the  presence  of  the  church,  with  hardly  a  percep- 
tible power  of  rebuke  on  the  part  of  the  pulpit.  .  .  .  The 
church  has  no  purchase,  no  leverage  against  it.  It  nour- 
ishes pietism,  but  loses  humanity.  —  John  Bascom,  The 
New  Theology,  page  180. 


IX. 

PHARISAISM. 

Is  any  new  conception  needed  respecting 
Pharisaism?  Nineteen  hundred  years  ago 
it  was  a  burning  question :  no  issue  was 
more  vital  or  more  deadly  than  that  which 
it  presented  ;  the  kingdom  of  heaven  had 
no  force  to  reckon  with  that  was  of  greater 
importance.  Is  it  a  living  issue  ?  Is  there 
anything  in  the  world  to-day  resembling  that 
dead  wall  of  formalism  and  hypocrisy,  which 
stood  across  the  path  of  Him  who  came 
bringing  life  and  immortality  to  light  ?  Is 
Pharisaism  an  archaeological  curiosity  or 
an  ever-present  fact?  A  little  study  may 
throw  light  upon  these  questions. 

The  Pharisees  arose,  as  a  party  in  the 
Jewish  nation,  a  little  more  than  a  century 
and  a  half  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  under 
the  reign  of  the  Syrian  dynasty. 


220  PHARISAISM. 

After  the  exile,  Judea  was  for  some  time 
a  dependency  of  the  Persian  kingdom ; 
sometimes  there  was  a  political  representa- 
tive of  the  Persian  throne  at  Jerusalem, 
but  a  considerable  degree  of  home  rule  was 
allowed,  and  the  high  priest  was  the  real 
head  of  the  nation.  Thus  the  religious  in- 
dependence of  the  people  was  recognized, 
while  they  were  politically  subject  to  Persia. 
When  Alexander  the  Great  conquered  Per- 
sia, Judea  passed  under  the  control  of  the 
Macedonian  kings  of  Egypt ;  and  then, 
still  later,  into  the  hands  of  the  Greek 
rulers  of  Syria,  the  Seleucidse.  Under  both 
these  dynasties  the  religious  liberty  of  the 
Jews  was  recognized,  except  during  the 
reign  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  when  a  most 
determined  attempt  was  made  to  stamp  out 
the  national  faith  and  substitute  for  it  the 
Greek  Paganism.  This  attempt  led  to  that 
patriotic  rebellion  of  the  Hasmoneans,  or 
Maccabees,  the  last  effort  of  the  Jews  to 
establish  their  independence.  During  this 
struggle  the  Pharisees  arose.      They  were 


PHARISAISM.  221 

not,  strictly,  a  patriotic  party;  with  the 
aims  of  the  Maccabean  leaders  to  estab- 
lish a  Jewish  dynasty  they  had  not  much 
sympathy.  If  Judea  became  politically  in- 
dependent, the  state  would  exercise  consid- 
erable control  over  the  church  ;  politics  and 
religion  would,  in  their  judgment,  be  too 
much  mixed.  Indeed,  some  of  these  Mac- 
cabean rulers  had  assumed  the  office  of  high 
priest,  and  had  exercised  its  functions.  This 
was  wholly  contrary  to  the  ideas  of  the 
Pharisees.  They  wished  to  keep  religion 
and  politics  entirely  separate.  They  cared 
very  little  for  political  independence  ;  they 
preferred  that  the  nation  should  have  a  for- 
eign master,  who  would  leave  them  free  to 
develop  their  religious  life  in  their  own  way. 
The  Sadducees  were  the  party  that  sup- 
ported the  efforts  of  the  Hasmoneans  for  po- 
litical independence  ;  but  the  Pharisees,  like 
a  good  many  people  in  these  days,  thought 
that  the  sacred  and  the  secular  should  be 
kept  entirely  distinct.  "  The  Hasmoneans," 
says  Wellhausen,  "  had  no  hereditary  right 


222  PHARISAISM. 

to  the  high-priesthood,  and  their  politics, 
which  aimed  at  the  establishment  of  a  na- 
tional monarchy,  were  contrary  to  the  whole 
spirit  and  essence  of  the  second  theocracy. 
The  presupposition  of  that  theocracy  was 
foreign  domination  ;  in  no  other  way  could 
its  sacred,  i.  e.  clerical,  character  be  main- 
tained. God  and  the  law  could  not  but  be 
forced  into  the  background,  if  a  warlike 
kingdom,  retaining  indeed  the  forms  of  a 
hierocracy,  but  really  violating  its  spirit  at 
every  point,  should  ever  grow  out  of  a  mere 
pious  community.  Above  all,  how  could 
the  scribes  hope  to  retain  their  importance, 
if  temple  and  synagogue  were  cast  into  the 
shade  by  politics  and  clash  of  arms."  ^  In 
the  early  years  of  the  Maccabean  insurrec- 
tion the  patriotic  spirit  of  the  Jews  tri- 
umphed over  the  Pharisaic  spirit,  and  the 
influence  of  this  party  was  very  slight. 
But  gradually  their  numbers  increased,  and 
their  power  strengthened,  until,  in  the  time 
of  Christ,  they  were  the  predominant  party ; 
1  Encyclopoedia  Britanmca,  article  "  Israel.'' 


PHARISAISM.  223 

the  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees,  as  the  gospel 
records  make  plain,  were  the  ruling  faction 
when  our  Lord  was  on  the  earth. 

The  very  fact  that  the  religious  ideas  of 
the  Pharisees  constrained  them  to  take  an 
unpatriotic  attitude,  and  to  look  with  dis- 
favor upon  attempts  to  restore  the  national 
independence,  would  raise  in  some  minds  a 
question  as  to  the  genuineness  of  their 
religion.  A  faith  that  is  at  war  with  patri- 
otism needs,  at  any  rate,  to  be  scrutinized. 
Such  w^as  not  the  faith  of  the  early  prophets  ; 
and  in  all  the  later  centuries,  love  of  God 
and  love  of  country  have  finely  blended  in 
the  characters  of  the  noblest  of  earth. 

No  complete  statement  of  the  peculiar 
tenets  of  the  Pharisees  can  here  be  given  : 
a  few  illustrative  particulars  must  suffice. 

The  Pharisees  were  the  people  of  the 
Law.  To  them  the  Torah,  the  Mosaic  leg- 
islation, embodied  the  sum  of  all  wisdom. 
Every  dot  and  every  curve  of  every  letter 
of  that  law  was  significant.  And  besides 
this,  they  held   that   the  written    law  had 


224  PHARISAISM. 

been  accompanied  by  an  oral  law,  explain- 
ing and  expanding  it ;  which  oral  law  had 
been  handed  down  by  tradition,  and  was 
every  whit  as  sacred  and  binding  as  the 
text  of  the  Mosaic  books.  The  worship  of 
the  letter,  to  which  the  Pharisees  thus  be- 
came devoted,  was  the  most  elaborate  sys- 
tem of  externalism  ever  invented.  Every 
religious  observance  was  hedged  about  with 
the  most  minute  and  fantastic  directions  and 
explanations ;  so  that  if  the  rite  had  origi- 
nally possessed  some  spiritual  significance, 
its  meaning  would  be  completely  buried  out 
of  sight  beneath  the  superincumbent  mass 
of  rubric.  Thus,  to  give  only  a  single  ex- 
ample, it  was  supposed  to  be  the  duty  of 
every  Jew  to  light  candles  in  his  house  on 
the  eve  of  the  Sabbath.  It  is  not  clear 
whence  this  observance  arose,  for  there  is 
no  Levitical  rule  requiring  it.  But  it  had 
been  accepted  as  part  of  the  regular  pro- 
gramme, and  then  the  doctors  began  to 
speculate  as  to  how  these  candles  should  be 
lighted.    One  would  have  said  that  the  mere 


PHARISAISM.  225 

method  of  lighting  them  could  not  be  of 
any  great  consequence,  if  only  their  cheerful 
light  appeared  in  the  home ;  but  the  one 
who  said  that  could  not  have  been  a  Phari- 
see. To  him  this  was  a  very  profound  and 
important  question,  far  more  serious  than 
any  inquiry  that  could  possibly  arise  con- 
cerning your  duty  to  your  neighbor.  And 
this  was  part  of  his  reasoning  about  it, 
as  extracted  from  a  Jewish  prayer  book: 
''With  what  sort  of  wick  and  oil  are  the 
candles  of  the  Sabbath  to  be  lighted,  and 
with  what  are  they  not  to  be  lighted  ?  They 
are  not  to  be  lighted  with  the  woolly  sub- 
stance that  grows  upon  cedars,  nor  with  un- 
dressed flax,  nor  with  silk,  nor  with  rushes, 
nor  with  leaves  out  of  the  wilderness,  nor 
with  moss  that  grows  on  the  surface  of 
water,  nor  with  pitch,  nor  with  wax,  nor  with 
oil  made  of  cotton-seed,  nor  with  the  fat  of 
the  tail  or  the  entrails  of  beasts.  Nathan 
Hamody  saith  it  may  be  lighted  with  boiled 
suet ;  but  the  wise  men  say,  be  it  boiled  or 
not  boiled,  it  may  not  be  lighted  with  it. 


226  PHARISAISM. 

It  may  not  be  lighted  with  burnt  oil  on  festi- 
val days.  Eabbi  Ishmael  says  it  may  not  be 
lighted  with  train-oil,  because  of  honor  to 
the  Sabbath ;  but  the  wise  men  allow  all 
sorts  of  oil ;  with  mixed  oil,  oil  of  nuts,  oil 
of  radish  seed,  oil  of  fish,  of  gourd  seed,  of 
resin  and  gum.  Rabbi  Tarphun  saith 
they  are  not  to  be  lighted  but  with  oil  of  ol- 
ives. Nothing  that  grows  out  of  the  woods  is 
used  for  lighting  but  flax,  and  nothing  that 
grows  out  of  woods  doth  pollute  by  the  pol- 
lution of  a  tent  but  flax ;  the  wick  of  cloth 
that  is  doubled,  and  hath  not  been  singed, 
Eabbi  Eleazar  saith  it  is  unclean  and  may 
not  be  lighted  withal ;  Rabbi  Akibah  says 
it  is  clean  and  may  be  lighted  withal.  A 
man  may  not  split  a  shell  of  an  egg  and  fill 
it  with  oil  and  put  it  in  the  socket  of  a  can- 
dlestick, because  it  shall  blaze,  though  the 
candlestick  be  of  earthenware  ;  but  Rabbi 
Jehudah  permits  it ;  if  the  potter  made  it 
with  a  hole  through  at  first,  it  is  allowed 
because  it  is  the  same  vessel.  No  man  shall 
fill  a  platter  with  oil  and  give  it  place  next 


PHARISAISM.  227 

to  the  lamp  and  put  the  head  of  a  wick  on 
a  platter  to  make  it  drop  the  oil ;  but  Rabbi 
Jehudah  permits  it."  ^ 

Does  this  convey  a  precise  idea  to  any 
mind  respecting  what  may  and  may  not  be 
done  in  this  extremely  critical  matter  of 
lighting  the  candles  at  home  on  the  Sabbath 
eve?  Would  a  conscientious  Jew,  anxious 
to  fulfill  the  law  to  the  very  letter,  be  per- 
fectly clear  as  to  his  duty,  after  he  had 
waded  through  these  voluminous  directions  ? 
I  should  think  that  early  candle-lighting  on 
the  eve  of  the  Sabbath,  in  a  Jewish  house- 
hold, must  have  been  a  time  of  great  soli- 
citude. What  our  Lord  says  about  the 
manner  in  which  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
made  the  law  void  by  their  traditions,  and 
about  their  binding  heavy  burdens  and 
grievous  to  be  borne  and  laying  them  on 
men's  shoulders,  finds  some  explanation  in 
these  extracts  from  their  own  literature. 

Pharisaism  was  the  deification  of  detail, 
the   apotheosis    of    the   trivial.      It   put  so 

1  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary,  article  **  Pharisees." 


228  PHABISAISM. 

mucli  stress  upon  minutiae  that  no  weight 
was  left  for  things  momentous.  In  leveling 
up  petty  technicalities  it  leveled  down  great 
principles.  If  you  undertake,  in  reading 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to 
ascribe  deep  and  profound  significance  to 
the  dot  over  every  i  and  the  tail  of  every 
comma,  dwelling,  for  hours  at  a  time,  on 
such  trivialities,  it  is  clear  that  you  will 
never  comprehend  the  real  meaning  of  that 
instrument.  And  the  mind  that  is  trained 
to  weigh  and  measure  and  discuss  these  ri- 
diculous trifles  utterly  loses  its  grasp  upon 
the  serious  things  of  life. 

The  inevitable  effect  of  this  exaltation  of 
insignificant  things  is  thus  a  woeful  lack  of 
moral  perspective.  Eeligious  routine  is  the 
main  thing  ;  the  great  values  of  character, 
the  great  claims  of  humanity,  take  a  subor- 
dinate place.  Mint  and  anise  and  cummin 
are  to  be  tithed  with  religious  scrupulosity, 
but  judgment,  mercy,  and  faith  go  by  de- 
fault. "  In  the  hearing  of  all  the  people," 
we  are  told,  Jesus  "  said  unto  his  disciples, 


PHARISAISM.  229 

Beware  of  the  Scribes,  which  desire  to  walk 
in  long  robes,  and  love  salutations  in  the 
market-places,  and  chief  seats  in  the  syna- 
gogues, and  chief  places  at  feasts  ;  which 
devour  widows'  houses,  and  for  a  pretense 
make  long  prayers  :  these  shall  receive 
greater  condemnation."  The  denunciations 
which  Jesus  visited  upon  these  people  are 
terrible  ;  the  words  flash  and  crackle  to  this 
day  with  the  intensity  of  indignation  :  "•  Woe 
unto  you,  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites ! 
for  ye  build  the  sepulchres  of  the  prophets 
and  garnish  the  tombs  of  the  righteous, 
and  say.  If  we  had  been  in  the  days  of  our 
fathers,  we  should  not  have  been  partakers 
with  them  in  the  blood  of  the  prophets. 
Wherefore  ye  witness  to  yourselves  that  ye 
are  sons  of  them  that  slew  the  prophets. 
Fill  ye  up  then  the  measure  of  your  fathers. 
Ye  serpents,  ye  offspring  of  vipers,  how 
shall  ye  escape  the  judgment  of  hell  ?  "  "It 
is  difficult,"  says  one,  "  to  avoid  the  conclu- 
sion that  his  repeated  denunciations  of  the 
Pharisees  mainly  exasperated  them  into  tak- 


230  PHARISAISM. 

ing  measures  for  causing  his  death  ;  so  that 
in  one  sense  He  may  be  said  to  have  shed 
his  blood  and  to  have  laid  down  his  life  in 
protesting  against  their  practice  and  spirit. 
.  .  .  Hence,  to  understand  the  Pharisees  is, 
by  contrast,  an  aid  towards  understanding 
the  spirit  of  uncorrupted  Christianity." 

The  absolute  contrast  between  the  spirit 
of  Christianity  and  the  spirit  of  Pharisaism 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out.  Phar- 
isaism puts  its  emphasis  upon  externals, 
Christianity  upon  the  spirit  and  the  life ; 
Pharisaism  is  a  system  of  minute  rules, 
Christianity  rests  upon  great  principles  ; 
Pharisaism  cares  most  for  the  perfection  of 
ritual  and  least  for  the  perfection  of  char- 
acter ;  Christianity  regards  as  hateful  and 
accursed  any  mere  formality  which  is  put 
forward  as  a  screen  for  evil  conduct.  The 
men  who  devour  widows'  houses  and  for  a 
pretense  make  long  prayers  are  the  men  on 
whom  falls  the  withering  malediction  of  the 
meek  and  lowly  Jesus. 

It  would  seem  that  the  evil  thing  against 


PHARISAISM.  231 

which  our  Lord  waged  such  relentless  war- 
fare, and  which,  at  the  last,  was  his  mur- 
derer, could  never  find  entrance  into  his 
church ;  and  yet  it  must  be  owned  that 
much  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  is  mixed 
with  our  modern  Christianity.  We  cannot 
conceive  that  Jesus  could  maintain  any  other 
attitude  before  it  than  that  which.  He  held 
nineteen  centuries  ago  ;  and  we  must  won- 
der what  He  would  say  if  He  entered  some 
modern  churches  and  found  the  essential 
spirit  of  Pharisaism  comfortably  installed 
behind  their  altars. 

The  manifestations  of  this  spirit  are 
many.  The  exaltation  of  details  and  tech- 
nicalities to  the  great  neglect  of  the  ever- 
lasting verities  is  a  type  of  Pharisaism 
which  is  common  enough :  how  often  do  we 
find  the  servants  of  Christ  chaffering  and 
quarreling  about  some  petty  question  of 
dogma  or  ritual,  which  has  not  the  slightest 
bearing  upon  character,  while  the  great  con- 
cerns of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  are  utterly 
neglected.     The  questions  about  which  the 


232  PHABISAISM. 

sects  differ  are  mostly  questions  of  this  char- 
acter. They  themselves  are  swift  witnesses 
to  the  truth  of  this  statement,  for  each  of 
them  is  always  making  haste  to  declare  that 
Christians  of  other  names  are  all  traveling  in 
the  same  road  and  going  to  the  same  place. 
But  what  an  infinite  amount  of  fussing  and 
puttering  there  is  about  these  petty  distinc- 
tions, which  are  not  differences.  Cannot 
these  stalwart  sectarians  see  that  it  is  the 
leaven  of  the  Pharisees  that  is  working  in 
all  these  foolish  fermentations  ? 

But  the  type  of  modern  Pharisaism  to 
which  I  wish  chiefly  to  draw  attention  is  of 
a  much  more  dangerous  description.  It  is 
that  which  grows  out  of  the  tendency  to 
identify  the  religious  life  with  certain  set 
practices  and  observances,  and  to  feel  that 
one  who  is  punctual  in  these  is  to  be  esteemed 
a  saint,  no  matter  what  his  real  character 
may  be.  There  are  many  good  people 
among  us  who  put  so  much  emphasis  upon 
the  mere  going  through  the  motions  of  the 
worshiper   and  devotee,  that   they  are   un- 


PHARISAISM.  233 

able  to  take  mucli  interest  in  matters  of 
every-day  behavior. 

Another  element  sometimes  complicates 
problems  of  this  nature.  If  the  man  who  is 
punctual  in  all  the  customary  observances  is 
also  a  liberal  giver  to  churches  and  benev- 
olent causes,  the  case  is  practically  closed 
in  many  minds.  Such  a  man  must  be  a 
good  man.  To  question  it  is  next  door  to 
blasphemy. 

I  heard  a  good  clergyman  talking,  not 
long  ago,  about  a  public  character,  whose 
conduct,  as  I  happened  to  have  abundant 
evidence,  has  been  most  perfidious,  —  a  man 
whose  greed  has  made  him  unscrupulous  in 
pushing  his  fortunes ;  who  has  trampled 
upon  equity  and  justice  and  honor  and  all 
the  rights  of  his  neighbors.  Of  him  the 
good  clergyman  warmly  said :  "  Why,  here 
is  this  man,  against  whom  such  horrible 
charges  are  made,  and  what  do  you  think  ? 
I  found  out  the  other  day  that  this  man  is  a 
devoted  Christian  ;  he  always  goes  to  church, 
and    to    prayer-meeting;     he    has     family 


234  PHABISAISM, 

prayers,  and  he  asks  a  blessing  at  the  table 
at  every  meal."  That,  in  the  clergyman's 
judgment,  seemed  to  be  conclusive  evidence 
that  the  accused  person  was  a  good  man,  — 
anybody  who  did  all  those  pious  things  must 
be  a  good  man.  He  did  not  say  that  the  ex- 
tortions and  crimes  of  which  the  other  was 
charged  were  all  balanced  and  offset  by  this 
fidelity  to  the  minor  religious  obligations  ; 
of  course,  he  would  not  say  just  that :  but  it 
was  evident  that,  in  view  of  this  man's  ex- 
emplary observances,  the  clergyman's  mind 
was  practically  sealed  against  any  evidence 
that  could  incriminate  him.  And  this  was 
because,  all  unconsciously,  no  doubt,  he  had 
come  to  put  so  much  weight  on  mere  observ- 
ances that  the  great  tests  of  character  were 
obscured. 

^"  There  is  another  man,"  the  clergyman 
went  on,  "  about  whom  stories  of  the  same 
kind  have  been  told.  But  this  man,  as  I 
have  been  told,  has  built  an  elegant  church 
and  parsonage,  and  has  presented  it  to  the 
Presbyterian    society    with  which    he    wor- 


X. 


ONE   BUT  TWAIN. 


Polarity,  or  action  and  reaction,  we  meet  in  every  part 
of  nature  :  in  darkness  and  light ;  in  heat  and  cold  ;  in 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  waters  ;  in  male  and  female  ;  in  the 
inspiration  and  expiration  of  plants  and  animals  ;  in  the 
equation  of  quantity  and  quality  in  the  fluids  of  the  hu- 
man body  ;  in  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart ;  in 
the  undulations  of  fluids  and  of  sound  ;  in  the  centrifugal 
and  centripetal  gravity  ;  in  electricity,  galvanism,  and 
chemical  affinity.  Superinduce  magnetism  at  one  end  of 
a  needle :  the  opposite  magnetism  takes  place  at  the 
other  end.  —  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  Essay  on  Com- 
pensation. 

The  system  of  nature  is  a  balance  of  antagonistic  forces. 
This  relation  of  the  forces  is  not  a  restful  equilibrium,  but 
a  fluctuating  and  compensating  one,  like  that  of  the  wave- 
rocked  sea.  It  is  an  equilibrium  of  action  and  reaction 
which,  in  their  more  complicated  forms,  become  great 
cycles  of  movement,  coextensive  with  the  entire  field  of 
nature  and  history.  .  .  .  At  the  bottom  of  the  mental 
scale  there  is  reflex  action,  and  at  the  top  mental  action 
is  counteraction.  There  is  no  mental  conception  of 
properties  except  by  contrast ;  one  feeling  antagonizes 
another  ;  the  mind  is  itself  a  system  of  balances,  often 
fluctuating  from  one  extreme  to  another,  and  the  will  is 
forever  the  theatre  of  emotional  conflict.  And  all  this 
antagonism  is  not  incidental  and  transitory  as  usually 
supposed,  but  fundamental  and  ineradicable.  —  Reforms : 
Their  Difficulties  and  Possibilities ^  page  1. 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN.  255 

his  earthly  affairs,  and  his  humanity  must 
vitalize  his  faith. 

*'  For  pleasant  is  this  flesh ; 

Our  soul,  in  its  rose-mesh 
Pulled  ever  to  the  earth,  still  yearns  for  rest ; 

Would  we  some  prize  might  hold 

To  match  those  manifold 
Possessions  of  the  brute,  —  gain  most,  as  we  did  best ! 

"  Let  us  not  always  say, 
'  Spite  of  this  flesh  to-day 
I  strove,  made  head,  gained  ground  upon  the  whole  !  ' 
As  the  bird  wings  and  sings. 
Let  us  cry,  '  All  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now,  than  flesh  helps 
soul!'" 

We  find  these  balancings  of  diverse  or 
opposing  tendencies  in  every  department  of 
thought  and  life.  Not  only  in  the  elements 
and  factors  of  existence,  but  in  the  social 
forces,  this  law  is  discovered.  It  is  a  very 
old  remark  that  harmonious  and  healthful 
social  conditions  are  the  result  of  the  com- 
bination of  two  opposing  tendencies,  —  the 
disposition  to  make  changes,  and  the  disposi- 
tion to  resist  changes.     A  society  in  which 


256  ONE  BUT  TWAIN. 

there  are  no  conservatives  has  no  stability, 
and  a  society  in  which  there  are  no  liberals 
has  no  movement.  The  determination  to 
preserve  the  status  quo^  and  the  determina- 
tion to  revolutionize  the  status  quo^  are 
always  present  in  the  most  vigorous  commu- 
nities ;  and  the  welfare  of  the  state  depends 
on  their  being  pretty  fairly  balanced.  The 
conservatives  always  contemn  the  radicals, 
and  count  them  the  enemies  of  the  common- 
wealth ;  and  the  radicals  always  hate  the 
conservatives,  and  deem  them  the  foes  of 
progress ;  but  each  is  the  proper  foil  of  the 
the  other,  and  the  country  would  go  to  ruin 
speedily  if  either  of  these  tendencies  should 
be  greatly  weakened. 

In  our  own  political  history  we  have  gen- 
erally found  two  contrasted  policies  arrayed 
against  each  other,  in  whose  equilibrium  the 
strength  of  our  government  is  found.  These 
are  the  policy  of  the  centralization  of 
power  and  the  policy  of  the  diffusion  of 
power.  There  must  be  strength  in  the  gen- 
eral government ;   much  authority  must  be 


JO  suoT!^oiinj  oq:^  ejnSgsii'ej:^  pu-B  8];nj  [^snui 

9A0^    8ip    pit^    00I19I0SIIO0    9l[:^    '  '^]^d^    9^^     JO 

sp99Li  eq:^  o^  jo^^siuiiii  '4siiin  spu^i[  oq;  i  pasids 
-9p  JO  pajonSi  9q  o^  si  if!^q^nosj9d  q^i^p  siqq. 
JO  9pTS  J9q!^t9^  -98098  nomiuoo  JO  9jdo9d 
:^soin  o:^  qSnon9  j^9p  si  ^o^j  9q:}  ^nq  i  9Aps 
-sip  soi:^09pip  ou  '9!}'BJ^9n9d  UBO  [^qSisni  ou 
qoiqAV  9J9q  S9iJ9:^sXra  9j^  9J9q:^  '  pu'B:^8a9pnn 
ifjpj  j9A9n  U130  9q  OAi^  9S9q^  JO  uop^pj  9qjQ 
•mjoj  |BiJ9:^^Tn  is  ui  9009:^81x9  |^n:^iJids  v  jo 
uoT^^^ujBont  9q:^  si  n-Bin  if  J9Ag^  'jfpoq  9q!^  S'B 
p9J  s^  SI  {^TJids  9q:^  pu^  '^^iJids  9q:^  s^  ^91 
s^  81  Xpoq  9q:^  i  Xpoq  'B  s^q  u^m  piiB  'i^iJids 
'B  ST  n^j\[  M9q:^o  9q^  ni  ifpj'ed  pn^  Tn{^9a: 
9no  9q:^  ni  Jii^i^d  91];  9jq  snoiosuoo  pu^  %uoS 
-Tjp^^uT  JO  'BU9raou9qd  9q:^  pu-^  'S90joj  ];^tj9:^ 
-■Bin  JO  ui]^^9J  '6  SI  9J9q^  pn^  'sj9Aiod  piK^uids 

JO  1111139^  V,  81  9J9qj^  '^^I  90'BJ(^  u^o  9on9iosin 
-oio  pn^  '9J9q:^  81  ifj-epunoq  9q:^  '8S9pq:^J9A9n 
i  ss9SSod  9AV  i^-Bq:^  sj[9Mod  Au^s  Xq  9{qpd99 
-J9dini  iCpi^npsq'B  9J'B  (^-eq:^  S99J§9p  Ac[  J9q:|o 
qo'B9  o^^ni  9pBqs  Aoij[^  \  sin|'B9J  oai(^  9q:^  ii99M^ 
-eq  9nij  9q:^  M'Bjp  o:^  qno^ip  u9:^jo  si  :^i  \.  Ej\\x 

'KlYAil  ins  3[K0  fqz 


234  PHARISAISM. 

prayers,  and  he  asks  a  blessing  at  the  table 
at  every  meal."  That,  in  the  clergyman's 
judgment,  seemed  to  be  conclusive  evidence 
that  the  accused  person  was  a  good  man,  — 
anybody  who  did  all  those  pious  things  must 
be  a  good  man.  He  did  not  say  that  the  ex- 
tortions and  crimes  of  which  the  other  was 
charged  were  all  balanced  and  offset  by  this 
fidelity  to  the  minor  religious  obligations  ; 
of  course,  he  would  not  say  just  that :  but  it 
was  evident  that,  in  view  of  this  man's  ex- 
emplary observances,  the  clergyman's  mind 
was  practically  sealed  against  any  evidence 
that  could  incriminate  him.  And  this  was 
because,  all  unconsciously,  no  doubt,  he  had 
come  to  put  so  much  weight  on  mere  observ- 
ances that  the  great  tests  of  character  were 
obscured. 

*-"  There  is  another  man,"  the  clergyman 
went  on,  "  about  whom  stories  of  the  same 
kind  have  been  told.  But  this  man,  as  I 
have  been  told,  has  built  an  elegant  church 
and  parsonage,  and  has  presented  it  to  the 
Presbyterian    society    with  which    he    wor- 


PHARISAISM.  235 

ships."  "  But  suppose,"  said  a  listener, 
*'  that  those  train  robbers  who,  after  murder- 
ing the  express  messenger  not  far  from  here 
the  other  night,  secured  one  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars,  had  come  to  you,  red-handed 
from  their  raid,  and  had  offered  you  ten 
thousand  dollars  for  your  church,  would  you 
have  given  them  a  certificate  of  Christian 
character  ?  "  The  question  would  have  been 
impertinent  if  it  had  not  been  pertinent. 
But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  state  of  mind 
which  can  parry  grave  and  well-founded 
charges  of  moral  delinquency  with  assertions 
of  pietistic  virtue  and  with  testimonies  con- 
cerning gifts  to  churches  ?  Is  there  not 
great  danger,  in  many  quarters,  of  putting 
much  more  stress  upon  these  practices  than 
upon  doing  justly,  loving  mercy,  and  walk- 
ing humbly  before  God  ? 

There  is  reason  to  fear  that  a  good  many 
of  us  clergymen  are  quite  too  much  disposed 
to  make  men  very  comfortable  who  punctu- 
ally go  through  with  the  motions  of  religion, 
especially  if   they  are    liberal   contributors. 


236  PHARISAISM, 

The  state  of  mind  is  illustrated  by  the  reply 
of  that  good  pastor  who  was  asked  by  a  no- 
toriously wicked  but  wealthy  man,  v/hether 
a  liberal  gift  of  money  to  the  church  would 
improve  his  chances  of  heaven.  The  good 
clergyman  scratched  his  head  for  a  moment, 
when  a  bright  thought  struck  him  :  ''  It 's 
worth  trying,"  he  said.  The  shrewd  humor 
of  the  parson  must  not  obscure  the  fact  that 
his  policy  is  rather  too  common.  The  man 
who  will  give  to  churches  or  colleges  or  theo- 
logical seminaries  large  sums  of  money  is 
likely  to  get  a  great  deal  of  notice  and  of 
praise,  even  if  his  wealth  has  been  gained 
by  methods  utterly  nefarious. 

A  few  years  ago,  a  religious  newspaper, 
with  great  boldness,  attacked  certain  repre- 
sentatives of  a  strong  commercial  insti- 
tution, accusing  them  of  having  not  only 
overpowered  their  rivals  by  utter  unscrupu- 
lousness,  but  also  of  having  tampered  with 
legislatures  and  courts.  Another  newspaper 
of  the  same  denomination  replied  to  this  with 
much  warmth.    Did  it  undertake  to  disprove 


FHAEISAISM.  237 

the  accusation  ?  No ;  that  could  not  be 
done.  But  it  pronounced  these  men  "  Chris- 
tian men  of  the  highest  excellence  of  char- 
acter," declared  that  they  were  "eminent" 
members  of  its  denomination,  and  that  they 
"  honored  their  religious  obligations  and  con- 
tributed without  stint  to  the  noblest  Chris- 
tian and  philanthropic  objects."  In  view  of 
this  fact,  any  mere  unscrupulousness  in  busi- 
ness, or  any  trifling  attempts  to  corrupt 
courts  or  legislatures,  or  to  aggrandize  them- 
selves by  perjury  or  violence,  were  not,  of 
course,  to  be  spoken  of.  The  other  journal 
refused  to  be  extinguished  by  this  retort, 
and  went  on  to  quote  Milton's  answer  to  the 
similar  plea  made  for  King  Charles  :  "  For 
his  private  virtues  they  are  beside  the  ques- 
tion. If  he  oppress  and  extort  all  day,  shall 
he  be  held  blameless  because  he  prayeth  at 
night  and  morning?  " 

This  is  a  question  upon  which,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  there  is  need  of  much  searching  of 
heart  on  the  part  of  ministers  of  churches 
and  presidents  of  colleges  and  theological 


238  PHARISAISM. 

seminaries,  and  indeed  on  the  part  of  the 
community  at  large.  The  disposition  is 
strong  in  many  quarters  to  condone  the  most 
monstrous  iniquities,  —  iniquities  that  strike 
at  the  vitals  of  the  nation,  —  if  the  men  who 
commit  them  will  put  on  a  cloak  of  religious 
observance,  especially  if  the  cloak  has  good 
capacious  pockets,  out  of  which  liberal  dona- 
tions of  hush-money  are  handed  over  now 
and  then.  Men  who  would  certainly  be  in 
the  penitentiary  if  they  had  their  deserts  are 
flattered  and  petted  by  the  heads  of  great 
educational  and  religious  institutions,  and 
made  to  feel  that  they  are  regarded  as  the 
salt  of  the  earth. 

Is  a  church  really  benefited  with  money 
that  it  gets  in  this  way,  by  confounding 
moral  distinctions,  and  giving  to  great  mal- 
efactors the  honor  that  is  due  only  to  the 
upright?  Is  a  college  better  equipped  for 
its  proper  work  with  endowments  which  it 
secures  by  paying  honor  to  pirates  ?  I  must 
be  permitted  to  doubt  it.  And  it  seems  to 
me   that  a   college   president  who  had   the 


PHARISAISM.  239 

courage  to  say  to  any  man  who  offered  him 
large  money  which  had  been  notoriously 
gotten  by  fraud  and  rapine  :  "  Certainly,  we 
will  take  your  money,  if  you  choose  to  give 
it  to  us ;  but  you  must  give  it  with  the  dis- 
tinct understanding  that  we  shall  teach  our 
young  men  that  it  is  a  shameful  thing  to 
get  wealth  in  the  way  that  you  have  gotten 
yours,  and  that  giving  a  part  of  it  away  in 
charity  does  not  take  off  the  curse,"  —  any 
college  president,  I  say,  who  was  brave 
enough  to  say  this,  and  stand  by  it,  would 
earn  for  his  college  an  endowment  in  Chris- 
tian manliness  worth  far  more  to  it  than 
the  tainted  millions  which  it  failed  to  gain. 

What  must  be  the  effect  upon  young  men 
in  college  of  a  policy  displayed  before  them 
in  the  administration  of  the  college,  which 
exalts  and  honors  rich  plunderers  for  the 
sake  of  getting  some  of  their  booty?  Are 
not  young  men  educated  by  such  spectacles 
in  a  more  subtle  and  effective  manner  than 
by  any  sermons  that  are  preached  to  them, 
or  any  instruction  in  theoretical  ethics  that 


240  PHARISAISM. 

they  receive  ?  Is  it  not  these  things  that 
fix  their  standards  and  form  their  ideals? 
And  are  they  well  educated  under  such  in- 
fluences ?  Would  they  not  be  better  educated 
in  an  institution  with  fewer  laboratories, 
smaller  libraries,  homelier  halls,  wherein 
the  modern  Pharisee,  who  devours  widows' 
houses,  and  for  a  pretense  makes  long 
prayers,  is  treated  as  Christ  treated  his  tribe, 
no  matter  how  princely  his  donations  to 
learning  and  to  charity  ? 

For  it  is  not  difficult  to  discern  that  this 
type,  which  is  all  too  common  amongst  us, 
is  essentially  Pharisaic.  If  the  Lord,  whom 
in  our  prayers  we  seek,  should  suddenly 
come  to  his  temple,  these  are  the  men  upon 
whom  would  fall  his  withering  curse,  —  the 
men  who  by  greed  and  extortion  and  injus- 
tice have  heaped  to  themselves  great  riches, 
and  are  using  some  small  portions  of  them 
to  purchase  for  themselves  the  flattery  of 
those  who  instruct  our  youth,  and  the  adu- 
lation of  those  who  minister  at  our  altars. 

And  if  those  to  whom  this  insincere  hom- 


PHARISAISM,  241 

age  is  paid  are  Pharisees,  what  shall  we  say 
of  those  who  bestow  it  ?  It  is  natural  that 
the  malefactor  should  be  willing  to  bribe  the 
witnesses  for  God  to  be  silent  concerning 
his  crimes,  and  to  give  him  honor  and  dis- 
tinction instead  of  the  shame  and  ignominy 
which  are  his  due ;  but  how  about  the  men 
who  take  the  bribe  ?  Must  there  not  be  a 
terrible  lack  of  moral  perspective  in  the  mind 
that  can  condone  great  crimes  because  the 
criminal  goes  through  with  the  motions  of 
piety,  and  is  ready  to  bestow  in  charity  a 
portion  of  his  plunder?  What  has  caused 
this  lack  of  moral  perspective?  It  is  the 
fruit  of  a  kind  of  religionism  which  puts 
emphasis  on  trifles  and  slurs  over  the  eter- 
nal verities :  which  tithes  mint,  anise,  and 
cummin,  and  neglects  judgment,  mercy,  and 
faith.  Clearly,  there  is  need,  even  yet,  of 
the  great  Master's  warning :  ''  Beware  of  the 
leaven  of  the  Pharisees." 


X. 


ONE   BUT  TWAIN. 


Polarity,  or  action  and  reaction,  we  meet  in  every  part 
of  nature  :  in  darkness  and  light ;  in  heat  and  cold ;  in 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  waters  ;  in  male  and  female  ;  in  the 
inspiration  and  expiration  of  plants  and  animals  ;  in  the 
equation  of  quantity  and  quality  in  the  fluids  of  the  hu- 
man body  ;  in  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart ;  in 
the  undulations  of  fluids  and  of  sound  ;  in  the  centrifugal 
and  centripetal  gravity  ;  in  electricity,  galvanism,  and 
chemical  affinity.  Superinduce  magnetism  at  one  end  of 
a  needle :  the  opposite  magnetism  takes  place  at  the 
other  end.  —  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  Essay  on  Com- 
pensation. 

The  system  of  nature  is  a  balance  of  antagonistic  forces. 
This  relation  of  the  forces  is  not  a  restful  equilibrium,  but 
a  fluctuating  and  compensating  one,  like  that  of  the  wave- 
rocked  sea.  It  is  an  equilibrium  of  action  and  reaction 
which,  in  their  more  complicated  forms,  become  great 
cycles  of  movement,  coextensive  with  the  entire  field  of 
nature  and  history.  .  .  .  At  the  bottom  of  the  mental 
scale  there  is  reflex  action,  and  at  the  top  mental  action 
is  counteraction.  There  is  no  mental  conception  of 
properties  except  by  contrast ;  one  feeling  antagonizes 
another  ;  the  mind  is  itself  a  system  of  balances,  often 
fluctuating  from  one  extreme  to  another,  and  the  will  is 
forever  the  theatre  of  emotional  conflict.  And  all  this 
antagonism  is  not  incidental  and  transitory  as  usually 
supposed,  but  fundamental  and  ineradicable.  —  Beforms  : 
Their  Difficulties  and  Possibilities ,  page  1. 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN.  253 

plifies  a  complicated  story  to  leave  about 
half  of  tlie  truth  untold.  It  often  simplifies 
a  difficult  problem  to  ignore  a  moiety  of  the 
facts.  But  those  truths  untold,  those  facts 
ignored,  are  sure  to  come  back  and  plague 
you.  The  idealist  thinks  that  his  theory  of 
the  universe  is  much  more  intelligible  if  he 
resolves  all  the  phenomena  of  sensation  into 
mental  processes  ;  and  the  materialist  thinks 
that  he  gets  rid  of  many  mental  and  moral 
difficulties  by  denying  the  separate  existence 
of  the  soul.  But  each  must  practically  as- 
sume the  existence  of  the  facts  that  he  logi- 
cally denies,  or  he  will  behave  in  the  one 
case  like  a  lunatic,  and  in  the  other  like  a 
knave. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  experience  vin- 
dicates an  interpretation  of  the  universe 
which  recognizes  the  existence  of  both  mind 
and  matter,  of  th3  spiritual  as  well  as  of  the 
material  realm,  and  seeks  to  define  their  re- 
lation. That  is  often  a  very  difficult  task ; 
the  border-lands  in  which  mind  and  matter 
come  together  are  regions  of   great  obscu- 


254  ONE  BUT  TWAIN. 

rity ;  it  is  often  difficult  to  draw  the  line  be- 
tween the  two  realms ;  they  shade  into  each 
other  by  degrees  that  are  absolutely  imper- 
ceptible by  any  powers  that  we  possess  ; 
nevertheless,  the  boundary  is  there,  and  om- 
niscience can  trace  it.  There  is  a  realm  of 
spiritual  powers,  and  there  is  a  realm  of  ma- 
terial forces,  and  the  phenomena  of  intelli- 
gent and  conscious  life  lie  partly  in  the  one 
realm  and  partly  in  the  other.  Man  is  a 
spirit,  and  man  has  a  body  ;  the  body  is  as 
real  as  the  spirit,  and  the  spirit  is  as  real 
as  the  body.  Every  man  is  the  incarnation 
of  a  spiritual  existence  in  a  material  form. 
The  relation  of  these  two  he  can  never  fully 
understand  ;  there  are  mysteries  here  which 
no  insight  can  penetrate,  no  dialectics  dis- 
solve ;  but  the  fact  is  clear  enough  to  most 
people  of  common  sense.  Neither  side  of 
this  dual  personality  is  to  be  ignored  or  de- 
spised ;  the  hands  must  minister  to  the  needs 
of  the  spirit ;  the  conscience  and  the  love 
must  rule  and  transfigure  the  functions  of 
the  body.     A  man's  religion  must  permeate 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN,  255 

his  earthly  affairs,  and  his  humanity  must 
vitalize  his  faith. 

*'  For  pleasant  is  this  flesh ; 

Our  soul,  in  its  rose-mesh 
Pulled  ever  to  the  earth,  still  yearns  for  rest ; 

Would  we  some  prize  might  hold 

To  match  those  manifold 
Possessions  of  the  brute,  —  gain  most,  as  we  did  best ! 

"  Let  us  not  always  say, 
'  Spite  of  this  flesh  to-day 
I  strove,  made  head,  gained  ground  upon  the  whole  !  ' 
As  the  bird  wings  and  sings. 
Let  us  cry,  '  All  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now,  than  flesh  helps 
soul ! '  " 

We  find  these  balancings  of  diverse  or 
opposing  tendencies  in  every  department  of 
thought  and  life.  Not  only  in  the  elements 
and  factors  of  existence,  but  in  the  social 
forces,  this  law  is  discovered.  It  is  a  very 
old  remark  that  harmonious  and  healthful 
social  conditions  are  the  result  of  the  com- 
bination of  two  opposing  tendencies,  —  the 
disposition  to  make  changes,  and  the  disposi- 
tion to  resist  changes.     A  society  in  which 


256  ONE  BUT  TWAIN. 

there  are  no  conservatives  has  no  stability, 
and  a  society  in  which  there  are  no  liberals 
has  no  movement.  The  determination  to 
preserve  the  status  quo^  and  the  determina- 
tion to  revolutionize  the  status  quo^  are 
always  present  in  the  most  vigorous  commu- 
nities ;  and  the  welfare  of  the  state  depends 
on  their  being  pretty  fairly  balanced.  The 
conservatives  always  contemn  the  radicals, 
and  count  them  the  enemies  of  the  common- 
wealth ;  and  the  radicals  always  hate  the 
conservatives,  and  deem  them  the  foes  of 
progress ;  but  each  is  the  proper  foil  of  the 
the  other,  and  tlie  country  would  go  to  ruin 
speedily  if  either  of  these  tendencies  should 
be  greatly  weakened. 

In  our  own  political  history  we  have  gen- 
erally found  two  contrasted  policies  arrayed 
against  each  other,  in  whose  equilibrium  the 
strength  of  our  government  is  found.  These 
are  the  policy  of  the  centralization  of 
power  and  the  policy  of  the  diffusion  of 
power.  There  must  be  strength  in  the  gen- 
eral government ;   much  authority  must  be 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN,  257 

given  to  Congress  and  to  the  national  execu- 
tive ;  the  lack  of  that  was  what  made  the 
old  confederation  a  rope  of  sand,  and  led  to 
the  adoption  of  the  present  Constitution :  at 
the  same  time,  it  is  absolutely  essential  that 
as  many  as  possible  of  the  interests  of  life 
be  committed  directly  to  the  people  ;  that 
the  principle  of  local  self-government  be 
carefully  cherished ;  that  the  people  of  each 
state  and  of  each  local  community  be  per- 
mitted to  manage  their  own  local  affairs  in 
their  own  way.  Thus  we  have  the  two  poli- 
cies of  centralization  and  diffusion  always 
confronting  each  other.  Some  statesmen, 
like  Hamilton  and  Washington,  see  the  de- 
fects of  a  weak  central  power  very  clearly, 
and  urge  the  strengthening  of  the  national 
government ;  others,  like  Jefferson  and  Pat- 
rick Henry,  are  impressed  by  the  evils  of 
centralized  authority,  and  urge  a  wide  dif- 
fusion of  power.  Both  are  right.  The  path 
of  wisdom  for  the  nation  is  the  middle 
course.  The  safety  and  peace  of  the  com- 
monwealth is  not  found  in  canceling  either 


258  ONE  BUT  TWAIN. 

of  these  forces,  but  in  strengthening  both 
of  them,  and  in  holding  the  balance  evenly 
between  them. 

In  morals  we  find  the  same  phenomenon. 
The  foundation  of  Christian  morality,  as  set 
forth  in  the  command  of  Christ,  '^  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  coordinates 
two  principles,  —  self-love  and  benevolence, 
—  what  the  philosophers  call  egoism  and  al- 
truism. Thou  shalt  love  thyself  and  thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor,  and  these  two  loves 
shall  be  equal ;  this  is  the  substance  of  the 
Christian  law.  It  is  often  supposed  that 
Christianity  forbids  the  love  of  self  and 
requires  an  absolute  self-abnegation,  which 
may  even  involve  the  loss  of  one's  own  soul. 
The  old  Hopkinsian  theology  taught  that 
one  must  be  willing  to  be  damned,  in  order 
that  he  might  be  saved.  But  this  is  not 
Christianity.  That  recognizes  as  of  absolute 
worth  every  human  soul,  and  enjoins  upon 
every  man  to  estimate  his  own  manhood  at 
the  price  which  was  paid  for  its  redemption. 
T^^^'^use  I  am  a  child  of  God,  made  in  his 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN.  259 

image,  I  must  highly  value  myself ;  I  must 
hold  my  own  manhood  in  honor  ;  I  must  seek, 
in  every  lawful  way,  to  develop  its  powers, 
to  enlarge  its  capacities  of  knowledge  and  of 
happiness ;  to  make  it  what  God  meant  it  to 
be.  The  love  of  self  is  therefore  a  funda- 
mental obligation.  But  every  other  man  is 
also  a  child  of  God,  made  in  the  same  image, 
fitted  for  the  same  great  services,  the  same 
ennobling  joys ;  and  I  must  value  the  man- 
hood of  every  other  man  as  I  value  my  own ;  I 
must  not  seek  my  own  welfare  or  happiness 
at  the  expense  of  any  other  man  ;  I  must 
cherish  the  welfare  and  the  happiness  of 
every  other  man  as  I  cherish  my  own  ;  I 
must  love  my  neighbor  as  I  love  myself. 
Now  the  true  morality  does  coordinate  these 
two  principles  of  self-love  and  benevolence. 
Neither  of  them  has,  or  can  have,  in  the  heart 
of  the  perfectly  moral  man,  any  precedence 
over  the  other.  The  negation  of  either  of 
them  is  the  denial  of  morality. 

Of  course,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  theoriz- 
ing about  morals,  which  does  deny  one  or  the 


260  ONE  BUT  TWAIN. 

other  of  them.  The  prevailing  utilitarian- 
ism assumes  that  all  virtue  reduces  to  self- 
love  ;  that  right  action  is  that  which  gives 
us  greatest  pleasure.  Many  modern  philos- 
ophers unhesitatingly  declare  that  egoism  is 
the  superior  motive ;  that  my  personal  wel- 
fare or  happiness  is  the  supreme  consider- 
ation ;  and  that  though  I  may,  in  various  re- 
finements of  egoism,  come  to  act  sometimes 
very  much  as  if  my  motives  were  disinter- 
ested, yet  that  the  deepest  spring  of  all  my 
conduct  must  always  be  self-love.  For  myself, 
I  do  not  believe  that  this  is  morality  at  all ; 
nor  that  any  man  with  whom  agreeable  feel- 
ing or  individual  welfare  is  the  dominant 
motive  is  a  moral  man,  or  knows  what  mo- 
rality means.  And  it  is  not  difficult  to  see 
that  in  proportion  as  this  philosophy  pre- 
vails, the  very  foundations  of  morality  are 
undermined,  and  the  flood-gates  of  vice  and 
dissoluteness  are  flung  open. 

Nor  is  there,  on  the  other  hand,  any  sure 
basis  for  morality  in  the  doctrine  that  makes 
altruism  the  sole  and  supreme  principle  of 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN,  261 

action,  that  enjoins  a  self-denial  which  ig- 
nores personal  integrity  and  personal  welfare. 
The  outcome  of  that  theory  can  be  nothing 
but  fanaticism.  Sound  morality  rests  exactly 
where  Christ  placed  it,  on  the  equivalence 
of  self-love  and  benevolence.  These  two 
principles  must  be  coordinated  ;  you  cannot 
ignore  either  of  them ;  you  cannot  subordi- 
nate either  of  them ;  you  must  hold  them 
firmly  together  as  the  twin  foundations  of 
morality. 

There  is  still  another  aspect  of  moral 
science  in  which  we  see  the  same  duality  of 
motive.  When  the  question  is  raised  re- 
specting the  factors  of  character,  we  hear 
two  replies.  There  are  those  who  say  that 
circumstances  make  the  man  ;  there  are  those 
who  contend  that  the  man's  character  is  due 
to  his  personal  force  or  weakness,  and  that 
circumstances  have  no  control  over  character. 
Materialistic  evolutionism  regards  the  en- 
vironment as  responsible  for  nearly  every- 
thing; some  schools  of  theological  ethics 
practically  ignore  the  environment,  and  lay 


262  ONE  BUT  TWAIN. 

the  whole  responsibility  upon  individual 
choice.  The  truth  is,  that  the  two  agencies 
are  all  the  while  at  work;  that  due  account 
must  be  taken  of  both  ;  that  it  is  very  shal- 
low and  one-sided  philosophy  which  neglects 
or  depreciates  either  of  them.  Yet  a  good 
share  of  the  disputes  about  social  reform  that 
are  always  filling  the  air  arise  from  the  fact 
that  some  persons  see  one  side  of  this  ques- 
tion very  clearly  and  refuse  to  see  the  other ; 
and  about  an  equal  number  are  equally 
perverse  in  their  determination  to  stand  and 
look  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  shield. 

The  social  troubles  that  are  constantly 
burdening  our  hearts,  —  the  want  and  des- 
titution among  the  working  people,  —  what 
is  the  cause  of  them?  It  is  the  fault  of 
the  political  or  the  industrial  system,  say 
some  reformers.  It  is  unjust  and  burden- 
some taxation ;  it  is  a  bad  organization 
of  labor ;  we  must  revolutionize  the  whole 
social  and  political  order ;  we  must  abolish 
the  tariff ;  we  must  levy  all  our  taxes  on  the 
land ;  we  must  nationalize  all  capital ;  it  is 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN,  263 

the  environment  that  is  at  fault,  we  must 
change  that ;  that  is  the  only  remedy.  No, 
say  another  class,  the  government  is  all 
right ;  taxation  is  fair  enough  ;  the  industrial 
organization  is  the  best  possible  ;  the  trouble 
is  with  the  working  people  themselves ; 
they  are  lazy,  shiftless,  wasteful,  unreason- 
able ;  if  they  would  work  for  such  wages  as 
they  can  get  and  save  what  they  earn,  there 
would  be  little  poverty.  Which  is  right? 
Both  are  right,  and  both  are  wrong.  Gov- 
ernment is  at  fault ;  taxation  is  inequita- 
ble ;  the  industrial  system,  as  based  wholly 
on  competition,  is  fundamentally  defective. 
On  the  other  side,  many  working  people  are 
lazy  and  inefficient  and  wasteful  and  im- 
practical ;  a  large  share  of  their  miseries  do 
come  from  this  source.  Yet  capitalists,  as 
a  class,  will  see  nothing  but  the  faults  of  the 
laborers  ;  and  labor  reformers  and  socialists, 
as  a  class,  will  see  nothing  but  the  faults  of 
the  present  regime.  The  well-to-do  classes 
are  inclined  to  insist  that  nothing  shall  be 
done  until  the  laborers  mend   their  ways  ; 


264  ONE  BUT  TWAIN. 

and  the  labor  reformers  and  the  socialists 
sometimes  tell  the  workingman  that  he  is  a 
fool  if  he  tries  to  improve  his  condition  by 
being  more  industrious  and  more  econom- 
ical ;  that  there  is  no  cure  except  a  radical 
reconstruction  of  society.  And  because  of 
this  stupid  and  half -idiotic,  one-sided  view  of 
both  parties,  progress  toward  the  ameliora- 
tion of  the  social  order  is  very  slow.  The 
environment  does  need  mending,  and  so  do 
the  men ;  those  of  us  who  have  something 
to  do  with  the  making  of  laws  and  the  or- 
ganization of  industries  are  bound  to  do 
what  we  can  to  improve  the  environment ; 
until  we  do  that  we  have  no  right  to  scold 
the  laboring  man  for  his  improvidence  and 
inefficiency.  The  laboring  man,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  bound  to  correct  his  own  faults  ; 
until  he  does,  his  outcries  against  the  un- 
toward circumstances  will  make  but  little 
impression. 

In  the  temperance  reform  the  same  phe- 
nomenon confronts  us.  The  prevailing  tem- 
perance sentiment  of  the  period  puts  the  em- 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN,  265 

phasis  upon  the  environment ;  it  is  the  envi- 
ronment that  needs  reforming,  and  not  the 
men  ;  we  must  remove  temptation  ;  we  must 
shut  up  the  saloons  ;  that  is  the  only  cure 
for  intemperance.  This  is  the  cry  of  the 
typical  temperance  man  of  the  period.  Over 
against  him  stand  an  army  of  men  who 
declare  that  the  environment  has  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  the  case  ;  that  the  only 
temperance  reform  that  is  of  any  value  is  the 
reformation  of  the  habits  of  individuals ; 
that  when  men  stop  drinking  the  saloon  will 
be  closed  for  want  of  patronage,  and  that 
that  is  the  only  way  in  which  they  ever  will 
be  closed.  Now  the  truth  is,  that  both  these 
methods  are  necessary,  and  that  they  are 
equally  necessary.  We  are  bound  to  do 
what  we  can  to  improve  the  environment,  to 
remove  temptation  ;  just  as  fast  as  it  can  be 
done,  we  are  to  shut  up  the  saloons,  and  re- 
duce the  area  of  temptation ;  for  the  sake  of 
the  weaker  members  of  society,  who  lack  the 
moral  stamina  to  resist  temptation,  these  pre- 
ventive measures  must  be»  resorted  to.     So- 


266  ONE  BUT  TWAIN, 

ciety  has  a  perfect  right  thus  to  protect  itself 
against  an  acknowledged  evil.  No  man's 
personal  liberty  to  buy  liquor  on  every  street 
corner  can  be  defended,  when  it  is  proved 
that  the  maintenance  of  this  liberty  involves 
the  deterioration  of  public  morality,  and  the 
imposing  of  a  heavy  burden  of  taxation  upon 
honest  industries.  But  this  right  and  duty 
to  deal  sharply  with  the  saloon  power  should 
never  be  urged  (as  it  generally  is  urged)  in 
such  a  way  as  to  imply  that  the  men  who 
yield  to  existing  temptations  are  practically 
guiltless;  that  so  long  as  the  saloons  are 
open  no  man  can  be  greatly  blamed  for  mak- 
ing a  beast  of  himself  by  the  use  of  strong 
drink.  I  think  that  the  general  tone  of 
temperance  discussion  at  the  present  day  is 
utterly  mischievous,  because  it  does  make 
just  this  impression,  that  the  saloon  is  wholly 
responsible  for  the  drunkenness  of  the  period, 
and  that  the  men  who  patronize  the  saloons 
are  not  responsible  at  all. 

Passing  to  another  phase  of  the  temper- 
ance question,  thore  are  those  who  insist  that 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN,  267 

drunkenness  is  a  disease,  and  that  it  is  not  a 
sin ;  there  are  those  who  insist  that  it  is  a 
sin,  and  that  it  is  not  a  disease.  Both  are 
wrong  in  what  they  deny,  and  right  in  what 
they  affirm.  It  is  a  sin,  and  it  is  also,  in 
many  cases,  a  disease.  Medical  treatment 
is  often  necessary,  and  moral  stimulus  and 
restraint  are  equally  necessary.  The  drunk- 
ard's disordered  stomach  and  nerves  must  be 
treated  therapeutically,  and  his  enfeebled 
will  and  dulled  conscience  and  damaged  self- 
respect  must  be  treated  ethically.  Any  treat- 
ment which  despises  either  of  these  methods 
is  quackery. 

Even  insanity  is  now  by  the  wisest  alien- 
ists subjected  to  vigorous  moral  treatment, 
especially  in  its  earlier  stages.  The  doctors 
have  found  out  that  there  are  two  sides  to  a 
man,  and  that  when  he  is  diseased  it  is  folly 
and  nonsense  to  expend  all  the  effort  upon 
one  side  of  him  and  neglect  the  other.  They 
put  much  emphasis  upon  the  rousing  of  the 
patient's  will,  the  strengthening  of  his  self- 
control,  the  exercise  of  the  rational  and  men- 
tal power  which  he  still  possesses. 


268  ONE  BUT  TWAIN. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  tendency 
has  been  very  strong  in  modern  medicine  to 
neglect  the  spiritual  and  moral  nature,  to 
make  no  account  whatever  of  this  hemisphere 
of  human  life  ;  and  this  has  led  to  the  oppo- 
site extravagances  of  mind-cure  and  Chris- 
tian science,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  which, 
under  one  name  or  another,  is  all  the  while 
prevailing.  But  the  mind-curers,  on  their 
part,  are  just  as  one-sided  as  the  people  over 
against  them,  who  forget  that  man  has  a 
mind ;  both  sides  of  the  man  must  be  studied 
and  wisely  ministered  unto ;  it  is  ridiculous 
to  suppose  that  you  can  cure  all  mental  dis- 
orders with  drugs  and  dietings,  and  equally 
ridiculous  to  suppose  that  you  can  cure  all 
bodily  disorders  by  thinking  that  they  are 
cured,  or  praying  that  they  may  be. 

These  illustrations  sufficiently  set  forth 
the  principle  under  consideration.  Those 
who  consider  them  will  be  constrained  to  ad- 
mit that  many  questions  have  two  sides,  and 
that  those  who  wish  to  understand  such 
questions  must  be  willing  to  take  a  fair  look 
at  both  sides. 


ONE  BUT  TWAIN.  269 

The  kind  of  dualism  here  suggested  does 
not  set  one  portion  of  the  universe  over 
against  another  in  an  irreconcilable  conflict ; 
it  is  only  a  diversity  that  is  revealed  in  the 
progress  toward  unity.  The  "  self  "  and  the 
"  not-self  "  are  elementary  and  contrasted 
terms  of  thought ;  but  the  unity  of  the  two 
is  the  presupposition  of  all  thinking.  So 
these  contrasted  phases  of  life  are  no  irredu- 
cible antagonisms ;  each  is  essential  to  the 
integrity  of  the  other  ;  both  are  included  in 
a  higher  unity.  But  every  truly  sane  man 
must  be  able  to  comprehend  this  fact,  that 
human  progress  is  largely  due  to  forces  that 
limit  and  check  each  other,  and  thus,  by 
their  reactions,  strengthen  and  support  each 
other. 


XI. 

RULING  IDEAS. 


The  Divine  End,  or  final  cause  of  all  things,  is  the 
consummate  and  perfect  life,  of  which  Christ  is  the  type. 
But  this  Divine  Life  is  not  an  end  outside  the  process  of 
its  development.  It  is  immanent  in  the  whole  process, 
as  the  quickening  and  organizing  principle  of  the  whole. 
It  is  at  once  the  end  or  consummation  and  the  instru- 
mental cause  of  the  whole  movement.  .  .  .  What  we  see 
in  Christ  is  the  Divine  Life  that  has  ever  been  immanent 
in  the  world,  ever  unfolding  itself  toward  its  perfect 
glory,  as  both  the  instrumental  and  the  final  cause  of  all 
things.  —  I.  M.  Whiton,  Gloria  Patri,  page  59. 

[The  New  Theology]  holds  that  every  man  must  live 
a  life  of  his  own,  build  himself  up  into  a  full  personal- 
ity, and  give  an  account  of  himself  to  God :  but  it  also 
recognizes  the  blessed  truth  that  man's  life  lies  in  its  re- 
lations ;  that  it  is  a  derived  and  shared  life  ;  that  it  is  car- 
ried on  and  perfected  under  laws  of  heredity  and  of  the 
family  and  the  nation  ;  that  while  he  is  "  himself  alone," 
he  is  also  a  son,  a  parent,  a  citizen,  and  an  inseparable 
part  of  the  human  race.  ...  It  turns  our  attention  to 
the  corporate  life  of  man  here  in  the  world,  —  an  indi- 
vidual life,  indeed,  but  springing  from  common  roots,  fed 
by  a  common  life,  watched  over  by  one  Father,  inspired  by 
one  Spirit,  and  growing  to  one  end ;  no  man,  no  genera- 
tion, being  "  made  perfect  "  by  itself.  Hence  its  ethical 
emphasis;  hence  its  recognition  of  the  nation  and  of 
the  family,  and  of  social  and  commercial  life,  as  fields 
of  the  manifestation  of  God  and  of  the  operation  of  the 
Spirit ;  hence  its  readiness  to  ally  itself  with  all  move- 
ments for  bettering  the  condition  of  mankind,  —  holding 
that  human  society  itself  is  to  be  redeemed,  and  that  the 
world  itself,  in  its  corporate  capacity,  is  being  reconciled 
to  God ;  hence,  also,  an  apparently  secular  tone,  which 
is,  however,  but  a  widening  of  the  field  of  the  divine  and 
spiritual.  —  Theodore  T.  Hunger,  The  Freedom  of 
Faith,  page  25. 


XI. 

RULING  IDEAS. 

The  arguments  and  illustrations  of  the 
preceding  chapters  rest  upon  certain  funda- 
mental ideas  which  have  been  more  or  less 
clearly  indicated  from  time  to  time,  but 
which  it  may  be  well  to  bring  together  in 
the  closing  chapter. 

The  first  is  that  doctrine  of  the  imma- 
nence of  the  Christ,  which  was  specially  re- 
ferred to  in  the  fourth  chapter.  This  great 
doctrine  is  clearly  brought  out  in  Paul's 
later  epistles  :  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephe- 
sians,  so  called,  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Co- 
lossians.  It  is  significant,  as  concerning 
the  method  of  revelation,  that  this  profound 
view  of  the  Incarnation  was  not  reached 
by  the  great  Apostle  until  near  the  end  of 
his  ministry.  To  a  vision  purified  by  long 
fellowship  with  the  Spirit  and  by  the  good 
discipline  of  trial  this  truth  was  vouchsafed. 


274  RULING  IDEAS. 

Paul  might  not  have  been  fitted,  when  he 
wrote  his  first  letter  to  the  Thessalonians, 
for  the  dispensation  of  this  mystery.  And 
even  as  the  truth  was  one  of  the  latest  com- 
municated to  Paul,  so  it  has  been  one  of  the 
latest  to  be  received  by  the  church.  Indeed, 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  church  could, 
before  this  generation,  have  made  much  use 
of  this  doctrine.  The  law  of  continuity  is 
involved  in  it,  and  the  application  of  this 
law  to  the  physical  order  has  but  recently 
been  naturalized  in  the  popular  conception. 
Men  had  to  be  made  familiar  with  the  idea 
of  an  orderly  progress  in  creation,  before 
they  could  get  much  benefit  from  the  con- 
ception of  Christianity  as  a  normative  germ 
or  force  planted  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
creation,  and  working  itself  out  in  the  slow 
processes  of  history.  The  idea  is  not  yet 
by  any  means  familiar,  yet  flashes  of  its 
illuminating  light  are  seen  here  and  there  in 
the  dusk  of  time,  pointing  out  the  direction 
in  which  progress  lies.^ 

1  It  is  a  striking"  fact  that  to  a  few  of  the  Greek 
Fathers,  to  Clement  of  Alexandria  especially,  this  truth 
was  clearly  made  known. 


RULING  IDEAS,  275 

I  have  spoken  of  the  idea  as  Pauline  ;  but 
the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  tells  us 
that  the  Word  was  in  the  beginning  with 
God,  and  that  all  things  were  made  through 
Him ;  that  apart  from  Him  nothing  was 
made.  This  means  that  those  attributes  of 
God  which  are  revealed  to  the  world  in 
Christ  were  the  molds  in  which  the  whole 
creation  was  shaped  ;  that  Christliness  is  the 
channel  through  which  the  creative  energy 
of  God  has  poured  itseK  out  from  the  begin- 
ning. This  is  the  ''  mystery,"  the  "  stew- 
ardship "  of  which  so  pressed  upon  the  spirit 
of  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  which  he  so  ear- 
nestly strove,  in  the  epistles  to  the  Ephe- 
sians  and  the  Colossians,  to  "  bring  to 
light ;  "  —  "  the  mystery  which  from  all  ages 
hath  been  hid  in  God  who  created  all 
things ;  "  and  the  gospel,  as  he  conceived  of 
it,  was  proclaimed  "  to  the  intent  that  now 
unto  the  principalities  and  the  powers  in  the 
heavenly  places  might  be  made  known 
through  the  church  the  manifold  wisdom  of 
God  according  to  the  eternal  purpose  which 


276  RULING  IDEAS. 

he  purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 
The  eternal  purpose,  which  was  realized  in 
Christ,  is  thus  immediately  connected  with 
the  act  of  creation ;  and  even  ''  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world,"  as  the  Apostle 
says  in  another  place,  this  purpose  looked 
forward  "  unto  a  dispensation  of  the  fullness 
of  the  times,  to  sum  up  all  things  in  Christ, 
the  things  in  the  heavens  and  the  things 
upon  the  earth."  All  this  is  made  even 
more  explicit  in  that  passage  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Colossians,  where  Paul  declares  that 
Christ  is  "  the  first-born  of  all  creation  ;  for 
in  Him  were  all  things  created^  in  the  heav- 
ens and  upon  the  earth,  things  visible  and 
things  invisible,  whether  thrones  or  domin- 
ions or  principalities  or  powers ;  all  things 
have  been  created  through  Him,  and  unto 
Him ;  and  He  is  before  all  things,  and  in 
Him  all  things  consist."  Not  only  the  phy- 
sical creation,  but  the  social  order  also,  finds 
its  raison  d^etre  in  the  Christ.  Thrones  and 
dominions,  as  well  as  genera  and  species,  are 
explained  by  Him.    The  law  of  the  spirit  of 


RULING  IDEAS.  277 

life  in  Christ  Jesus  is  the  law  of  the  uni- 
verse. It  is  the  unity  which  springs  from 
love,  not  less  than  the  unity  which  is  the 
postulate  of  reason,  that  makes  it  a  universe. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  frame  statements 
in  which  this  great  truth  of  the  immanence 
of  Christ  in  the  very  structure  of  the  nat- 
ural world  and  of  the  social  world  could 
be  more  definitely  set  forth  than  it  is  here 
set  forth  by  the  Apostle  Paul  ;  and  it 
would  be  quite  as  difficult  to  conceive  of 
any  truth  of  revelation  more  momentous. 
Surely,  it  puts  a  new  face  upon  nature,  and 
gives  us  a  wholly  new  conception  of  life  and 
duty.  The  whole  world  is  transfigured  by 
the  conception.  To  find  the  very  attributes 
of  God  which  are  manifested  in  Christ  incor- 
porated into  the  order  of  creation,  and  slowly 
unveiling  themselves  to  the  sight  of  men  ; 
to  learn,  by  the  study  of  life  upon  this 
planet,  that  love,  in  the  forms  of  sympathy 
and  self-sacrifice,  are  parts  of  His  ways  by 
whom  the  worlds  were  made,  —  is  to  get  a 
new  view  of  the  meaning  of  life. 


278  RULING  IDEAS. 

It  is  true  that  tlie  doctrine  of  the  imma- 
nence of  God  has  become  quite  famihar  in 
recent  years.  Since  the  day  of  Benedict 
Spinoza,  the  carpenter  theory  of  creation 
has  been  greatly  discredited,  and  the  pres- 
ence of  God  in  his  world  has  been  generally 
admitted.  The  fear  of  pantheism  has  not 
been  permitted  to  dig  an  impassable  chasm 
between  the  Creator  and  the  creation.  That 
"series  of  antitheses  between  the  universe 
and  God,  in  time,  in  space,  in  causation,  in 
excellence,"  of  which  Dr.  Martineau  speaks, 
the  tendency  of  which,  as  he  says,  "  is  to 
overshadow  the  world  by  the  contrast  of  a 
transcendent  glory,  and  to  depress  it  with 
a  conscious  insignificance,"  is  no  longer  the 
habit  of  Christian  thought.  That  ancient 
deism  is  a  waning  philosophy.  And  all 
that  the  same  writer  has  to  say  about  this 
old  conception  is  worth  heeding  :  "  The 
sense  of  ephemeral  life,  of  overwhelming 
law,  of  hurrying  death,  of  twilight  know- 
ledge, and  only  fancied  power,  settles  upon 
the  heart  of  such  a  faith,  and  drives  it  upon 


RULING  IDEAS.  279 

artifices  of  self-relief.  The  provinces  of  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural  are  sharply 
marked  off  from  one  another,  in  date,  in 
seat,  in  agency :  the  former  belonging  to 
second  causes,  to  the  cosmic  interlude,  and 
the  scene  of  physical  existence  ;  the  latter  to 
the  action  of  the  First  Cause,  before,  after, 
and  outside  the  regular  ordering  of  the 
world  ;  so  that  the  supernatural  can  never 
be  human,  and  the  natural,  except  in  its 
first  institution,  can  never  be  divine.  In 
short,  the  legislating  mind  of  the  universe 
and  its  executive  media  are  kept  separate 
from  each  other ;  the  one  an  imperative 
prefix  that  '  spake  and  it  was  done  ; '  the 
others,  constant  servitors,  engaged  with 
purely  ministerial  functions  unconsciously 
performed.  What  is  present  with  us  and 
around  us  is  only  mechanism,  running  down 
through  its  appointed  term;  and  for  any 
such  freshly  moving  will  as  is  needed  for 
personal  relations,  we  must  look,  in  one  di- 
rection, further  than  the  dawn  of  geologic 
time,  and,  in  the  other,  to  the  '  unseen  uni- 


280  RULING  IDEAS. 

verse,'  beyond  the  equalization  of  heat  and 
the  death  of  all  things  in  this."  ^  This  con- 
ception answers  none  of  the  purposes  of  re- 
ligion ;  we  must  have  a  God  to  worship  and 
to  trust  in  who  is  nearer  at  hand  than  this  ; 
and  therefore,  without  going  over  into  the 
other  extreme  of  pantheism,  the  faith  of  the 
Christian  church  has  been  hopefully  feel- 
ing after  that  God  whom  Paul  preached  to 
the  Athenians,  in  whom  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being.  The  tendency  of 
thought  of  which  Wordsworth  was  the  great 
exponent  has  taken  possession  of  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  ;  and  the  truth  that  na- 
ture is  to  us  the  constant  revelation  of  the 
presence  and  power  of  God  is  beginning  to 
be  a  reality. 

Nevertheless,  the  revelation  of  God  in 
nature  has  been  accepted  as  only  partial. 
Nature,  it  has  been  supposed,  makes  known 
to  us  God  as  law.  His  power,  his  wisdom, 
perhaps,  also,  to  some  extent,  his  benevo- 
lence may  be  inferred  from  the  things  that 
1  A  Study  of  Religion^  ii.  144. 


RULING  IDEAS.  281 

are  made  ;  but  the  deeper  truths  of  the  In- 
carnation and  the  Redemption  are  not,  as  we 
have  been  taught,  even  suggested  to  us  in 
nature.  Indeed,  Christianity,  as  a  system, 
has  been  assumed  to  be  whoUy  separate  from 
the  natural  order,  and  even  set  over  against 
it  in  contrast ;  nature  and  grace  are  anti- 
thetical terms. 

To  one  who  holds  this  view  of  the  Chris- 
tian system,  the  doctrine  of  the  immanence 
of  the  Christ  must  come  with  something  of 
a  shock.  No  doubt,  it  will  require  the  re- 
consideration and  the  reversal  of  some  of  his 
stock  notions ;  and  those  to  whom  the  sum- 
mons "  Change  your  minds  "  is  unwelcome, 
will  not  entertain  it.  But  it  is  an  important 
question,  after  all,  whether  this  doctrine,  so 
clearly  taught  by  Paul  and  John,  is  not  the 
very  deepest  truth  of  the  Bible  ;  whether  it 
is  not  the  fundamental  fact  of  creation  and 
of  revelation ;  and  if  it  is,  the  effort  to  ad- 
just to  it  our  conceptions  of  life  and  duty 
cannot  be  regarded  as  too  onerous.  We 
have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  this  world  in 


282  RULING  IDEAS. 

which  we  live  ;  it  is  the  school  in  which  our 
characters  are  trained,  and  everything  de- 
pends upon  our  learning  its  primary  lessons. 
If  the  truth  of  which  Jesus  the  Christ  is  the 
manifestation  did  not  first  appear  in  the 
world  about  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  ;  or 
if  it  was  not  first  adumbrated  in  certain  rit- 
ual observances  prescribed  a  few  centuries 
earlier ;  if,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  the  very 
theme  of  the  song  of  the  morning  stars  when 
they  sang  together ;  if  it  begins  to  find  its 
expression  in  the  lowest  orders  of  living 
creatures  ;  if  the  rudiments  of  love  and  self- 
sacrifice,  —  the  elements  of  Christliness,  — 
are  among  the  primordial  tendencies  of 
nature  ;  and  if  these  principles  have  been 
steadily  developing  since  the  beginning  of 
creation,  so  that  what  was  first  a  mere  un- 
conscious tendency  has  emerged  into  an 
ethical  law,  —  then  our  religion  has  a  footing 
and  a  sanction  in  this  world  which  the  world 
has  not  hitherto  confessed.  If  all  this  is  so, 
then  what  new  and  large  meaning  is  given 
to  the  thought  of  Christ  as  one  who  comes, 


RULIJSfG  IDEAS.  283 

not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill  the  law,  and  to 
bring  life  as  well  as  immortality  to  light. 
It  is  the  law  of  life  that  he  fulfills  and  illu- 
minates. If  this  is  so,  all  life  is  sacramen- 
tal and  revelatory  ;  "  the  struggle  for  the 
life  of  others,"  which  appears  in  the  lowest 
tribes,  is  the  proof  that  in  the  Christ  of  Cal- 
vary all  things  consist  and  become  intelligi- 
ble. If  this  is  so,  then  He  through  whom 
all  things  were  made  "  came  to  his  own  "  in 
a  deeper  sense  than  we  have  given  to  the 
words,  when  He  stood  among  us,  pointing 
to  the  fowls  of  the  air  and  considering  the 
lilies. 

"  To  look  reverently  at  the  face  of  nature 
is  to  look  into  the  face  of  Christ.  We  see 
his  lineaments  as  through  a  veil,  but  He  is 
there.  By  the  mystery  of  his  human  birth 
and  ours  we  know  that  He  has  been,  nay, 
that  He  ^s,  in  this  vast,  visible,  unfolding  of 
invisible  being,  with  us,  —  spirit  revealed 
through  form. 

"  There  is  a  conscious  being  somewhere 
behind  every  unconscious   manifestation  of 


284  RULING  IDEAS. 

life,  or  it  could  never  have  existed  at  all.  We 
call  it  the  working  of  a  spirit.  What  spirit  ? 
Is  there  any  other  source  of  life  than  the  one 
spirit,  —  God  ?  Is  there  more  than  one 
God,  —  He  who  is  known  to  us  as  Father, 
Son,  and  Spirit,  — the  One  Life  ?  And  can 
we  divide  his  nature,  and  say  that  by  this 
part  of  himself  He  gives  this  kind  of  life, 
and  by  that,  another  ?  Has  He  no  human 
interest  in  the  place  He  has  prepared  for 
his  human  family,  even  though  it  be  only 
their  temporary  residence  ?  " 

"  No ;  we  shall  never  understand  nature, 
except  in  a  manner  entirely  superficial,  until 
we  look  into  her  spirit  with  spiritual  eyes, 
like  Christ's,  — the  only  true  human  vision. 
For  the  habitation  of  man,  as  well  as  his 
form,  is  shaped  by  the  Spirit  and  planned 
by  the  Father  and  the  Son  from  the  begin- 
ning. '  By  whom  He  made  all  worlds.'  '  All 
things  were  made  through  Him,  and  apart 
from  Him  was  not  anything  made  that  was 
made."'i 

1  The  Unseen  Friend,  by  Lucy  Larcom,   pp.  159,  160. 


RULING  IDEAS.  285 

Another  of  the  truths  assumed  in  the 
foregoing  chapters  is  the  truth  that  the  re- 
lations of  men  to  one  another  in  society  are 
not  contractual,  but  vital  and  organic  ;  that 
we  are  members  one  of  another;  that  no 
man  reaches  perfection  or  happiness  apart 
from  his  fellow-men  ;  that  no  man  liveth  to 
himself,  and  none  dieth  to  himself.  This  con- 
ception of  the  organic  unity  of  society  has 
been  more  or  less  familiar ;  indeed,  it  could 
hardly  be  ignored  by  those  who  had  Paul's 
epistles  in  their  hands :  but  the  assumption 
of  interpreters  has  been  that  these  figures 
of  Paul  represented  the  society  of  the  regen- 
erate, —  the  organized  church  ;  and  that  no 
such  relations  were  to  be  looked  for  outside 
the  ecclesiastical  pale.  By  this  limitation 
the  whole  force  of  the  idea  has  been  dissi- 
pated. If  these  vital  relations  subsist  only 
between  those  who  have  passed  through  some 
transcendental  experience,  and  are  no  part 
of  the  common  heritage  of  humanity,  man- 
kind in  general  will  not  be  able  to  take  any 
deep  interest  in  them. 


286  EVLING  IDEAS. 

It  ought  to  be  remembered,  however,  by 
interpreters  who  insist  on  giving  these  anal- 
ogies of  Paul  a  purely  ecclesiastical  refer- 
ence, that  Paul  was  describing  the  Chris- 
tian society  rather  than  any  mere  ecclesias- 
ticism  ;  and  that,  in  Paul's  conception,  the 
Christian  society  was  destined  to  become 
universal ;  the  day  was  coming  when  every 
knee  should  bow  and  every  tongue  confess 
that  Christ  was  Lord.  And  the  relations 
thus  established  would  be  the  normal  rela- 
tions among  men.  If  men  as  Christians  were 
to  become  members  one  of  another,  it  was 
only  because  as  men  they  were  made  to  be 
members  one  of  another.  This  manner  of 
living  together  was  not  something  imported 
into  humanity  by  Christ ;  it  was  only  the 
realization,  by  his  grace,  of  the  ideal  of  hu- 
manity. For  even  as  the  Christian  is  not 
something  other  than  the  perfect  type  of 
humanity,  but  the  restoration  of  that  type, 
so  the  Christian  society  is  nothing  other 
than  the  perfect  human  society,  the  society 
which  unf alien  and  sinless  human  beings 
would  spontaneously  form. 


RULING  IDEAS.  287 

To  limit  Paul's  figure  of  the  body  with 
many  members  to  the  church  is,  therefore, 
grievously  to  belittle  a  great  truth.  Christ 
is  the  head  of  the  church,  but  lie  is  also 
the  head  of  humanity  ;  and  the  true  rela- 
tion of  every  human  being  to  the  race  is  that 
of  the  member  to  the  body.  To  every  man, 
whether  within  or  without  the  church,  this 
truth  needs  to  be  brought  home.  No  man 
comprehends  life  until  he  is  made  to  see  by 
how  many  organic  filaments  he  is  bound  to 
his  fellows  ;  how  utterly  impossible  it  is  for 
him  to  separate  his  interests  and  his  fortunes 
from  theirs ;  in  how  many  ways  the  welfare 
of  those  who  are  round  about  him  depends 
upon  the  working,  in  due  measure,  of  that 
part  of  the  organism  which  he  is. 

"  Wondrous,  truly,"  cries  Herr  Teufels- 
droeckh,  "  are  the  bonds  that  unite  us  one 
and  all ;  whether  by  the  soft  binding  of 
Love  or  the  iron  chain  of  Necessity,  as  we 
like  to  choose  it.  More  than  once  have  I 
said  to  myself  of  some  perhaps  whimsically 
strutting  Figure,  such  as  provokes  whimsical 


288  RULING  IDEAS. 

thoughts,  '  Wert  thou,  my  little  Brotherkin, 
suddenly  covered  up  within  the  largest  im- 
aginable Glass  bell,  —  what  a  thing  it  were, 
not  for  thyself  only,  but  for  the  world ! 
Post  Letters,  more  or  fewer,  from  all  the 
four  winds,  impinge  upon  thy  Glass  walls, 
but  must  drop  unread ;  neither  from  within 
comes  there  question  or  response  into  any 
post-bag ;  thy  Thoughts  fall  into  no  friendly 
ear  or  heart,  thy  Manufacture  into  no  pur- 
chasing hand ;  thou  art  no  longer  a  circu- 
lating venous-arterial  Heart,  that,  taking 
and  giving,  circulatest  through  all  Space 
and  all  Time ;  there  has  a  Hole  fallen  out 
in  the  immeasurable  universal  World- tissue, 
which  must  be  darned  up  again.'  Such  ve- 
nous-arterial circulation  of  Letters,  verbal 
Messages,  paper  and  other  Packages,  going 
out  from  him  and  coming  in,  a  blood  circu- 
lation, visible  to  the  eye  ;  but  the  finer  ner- 
vous circulation,  by  which  all  things,  the 
minutest  that  he  does,  minutely  influence  all 
men,  and  the  very  look  of  his  face  blesses  or 
curses  whomso  it  lights  on,  and  so  generates 


RULING   IDEAS,  289 

ever  new  blessing  or  new  cursing,  —  all  this 
you  cannot  see  but  only  imagine."  ^ 

One  more  ruling  idea,  wbich  the  preced- 
ing chapters  imply,  is  the  presence  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  That  this  kingdom  is  to 
come  in  larger  measure,  with  wider  dominion 
and  more  pervasive  control,  is  the  faith  and 
the  prayer  of  every  true  disciple  ;  but  it  is 
also  his  assurance  that  the  kingdom  is  here  ; 
that  all  its  essential  forces  are  now  in  active 
operation ;  that  righteousness  and  peace 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost  are  not  to  be 
awaited,  because  they  have  come,  with  all 
their  blessed  influences,  to  dwell  among  us  ; 
that  the  love  which  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
law  is  just  as  truly  regnant  in  the  world 
to-day  as  it  ever  will  be  in  heaven  ;  not  so 
widely  regnant,  indeed,  but  not  less  truly. 
The  reality  is  here ;  its  completion  is  yet  to 
come.  Few  lives  are  yet  wholly  under  its  in- 
fluence ;  few  homes  are  completely  ruled  by 
its  pure  precept ;  few  institutions  perfectly 
1  Sartor  Resartus,  Book  III.  ch.  vii. 


290  EULING  IDEAS. 

obey  its  royal  law :  yet  its  benign  sway  is 
felt,  in  some  degree,  in  innumerable  places  ; 
its  pervasive  force,  like  the  leaven,  is  at 
work  everywhere  ;  it  is  as  silent  as  light, 
as  subtle  as  life,  and  mightier  than  either. 
The  thought  of  the  world  is  gradually  being 
freed  from  superstition  and  prejudice ;  the 
social  sentiments  are  being  purified ;  the 
customs  are  slowly  changing  for  the  better  ; 
the  laws  are  gradually  shaped  by  finer  con- 
ceptions of  justice.  There  are  reactions  and 
disasters,  but  taking  the  ages  together  the 
progress  is  sure.  God  is  in  his  world ;  He 
has  never  yet  departed  from  it,  nor  can  we 
conceive  of  Him  as  withdrawing,  for  one 
moment,  his  presence  or  his  control.  He  is 
not  in  haste.  A  thousand  years  in  his  sight 
are  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  past,  and 
as  a  watch  in  the  night.  As  the  husband- 
man waiteth  for  the  precious  fruit  of  the 
earth,  being  patient  over  it,  so  the  Eternal 
waiteth  for  the  reaping  of  his  great  pur- 
poses. But  his  days  go  on,  and  his  designs 
fail  not. 


BULING  IDEAS,  291 

"  The  slow,  sweet  hours  that  bring  us  all  things  good, 
The  slow,  sad  hours  that  bring  us  all  things  ill, 
And  all  good  things  from  evil ' ' 

are  the  servitors  of  his  throne.  And  his  vic- 
torious love  is  steadily  leading  on  the  gen- 
erations to  that  far-off  divine  event  which 
our  strongest  faith  but  imperfectly  discerns. 
The  presence  in  the  world  of  mighty  forces 
of  evil,  of  principalities  and  powers  of  dark- 
ness, is  not  to  be  gainsaid  :  but  the  kingdom 
does  not  belong  to  them ;  it  never  did,  and 
it  never  will.  The  kingdom  of  the  world  is 
become  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  his 
Christ,  and  He  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever. 
The  conception  of  this  kingdom  of  God 
as  something  future  —  as  a  reign  yet  to  be 
set  up  on  the  earth  —  has  been  derived 
from  an  extremely  literalistic  reading  of 
those  glowing  texts  that  describe  the  great 
accessions  of  power  which  are  yet  to  come, 
from  time  to  time,  to  the  empire  of  our 
King.  One  can  easily  believe  that  there 
are  to  be,  perhaps  in  days  not  distant,  mar- 
velous forward  movements  of  the  forces  of  the 


292  RULING  IDEAS. 

kinpfdom.  The  social  conditions  seem  even 
now  to  be  preparing  for  a  revelation  to  the 
world  of  the  glory  of  Christ,  which  shall  be 
overpowering  in  its  splendor,  —  like  the 
lightning  which  cometh  forth  from  the  east 
and  is  seen  even  unto  the  west.  But  these 
great  manifestations  of  his  royalty  will  be 
only  the  fuller  unfolding  of  truths  which  are 
here  in  the  world  to-day.  A  few  men  in  the 
world  believe  that  the  law  of  love  is  the  law 
of  all  life,  and  that  nothing  else  will  give  us 
peace  and  prosperity.  Suppose  that,  as  the 
result  of  social  struggles  and  overturnings, 
this  truth  should  be  so  enforced  upon  the 
minds  of  the  great  multitude  of  employers 
and  employed  that  they  could  not  doubt  it ; 
and  suppose  that  there  should  be  a  world- 
wide movement  to  substitute  goodwill  for 
greed  as  the  organizing  principle  of  indus- 
trial society  :  such  an  event  as  that  might  be 
described  as  the  coming  of  Christ  to  the 
world  with  power  and  great  glory ;  none  of 
the  apoealyptic  emblems  would  overstate  its 
dramatic  significance.     And  yet  it  would  be 


RULING  IDEAS,  293 

simply  the  wider  acceptance,  by  the  world, 
of  a  law  which  is  now  recognized  and  estab- 
lished among  men. 

The  point  to  be  noted  is  that  the  king- 
dom is  here,  a  kingdom  still  increasing ; 
and  that  the  coming  which  we  pray  for  can 
be  nothing  more  than  the  fuller  develop- 
ment and  manifestation  of  the  blessed  life 
which  now,  in  so  many  places,  and  by  so 
many  heavenly  ministries,  is  making  the 
earth  beautiful  and  glad. 

How,  now,  must  our  personal  conceptions 
of  life  and  duty  be  affected  by.  the  appre- 
hension of  these  great  truths  ?  It  must  be 
evident,  in  a  moment,  that  the  Christian  dis- 
ciple, to  whom  the  relation  of  Christ  to  the 
world  is  only  that  of  an  architect ;  to  whom 
the  relations  of  men  to  one  another  in  soci- 
ety are  those  of  voluntary  contract ;  and  to 
whom  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  a  wholly  future  event,  to  follow  the  de- 
struction of  the  present  social  order,  —  must 
have  a  very  different  conception  of  personal 


294  RULING  IDEAS. 

life  and  duty  from  that  wliich  is  entertained 
by  one  who  finds  in  the  life  of  the  world 
about  him  the  revelation  of  the  love  of 
Christ ;  who  feels  that,  without  any  choice 
of  his  own,  every  human  being  is  vitally  re- 
lated to  him,  and  who  knows  that  the  king- 
dom of  heaven,  a  silently  growing  but  irre- 
sistible dominion,  is  here  in  the  world  to-day. 
The  immanence  of  Christ,  the  vital  unity  of 
the  race,  the  presence  of  the  kingdom, — 
these  truths  give  to  life  a  new  sacredness, 
and  to  duty  new  cogency.  The  artificiality 
and  formalism  with  which  the  old  concep- 
tions were  invested  give  place  to  natural- 
ness and  reality.  Christianity  is  no  longer 
anti-natural ;  it  is  in  the  deepest  sense  nat- 
ural. We  may  claim  that  its  profoundest 
laws,  including  its  law  of  sacrifice,  may 
be  inductively  verified.  We  are  not  fol- 
lowing cunningly  devised  fables  when  we 
proclaim  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  ;  we  are 
laying  hold  upon  the  everlasting  verities. 
Humanity  is  the  crown  of  the  creation, 
and  Christ  is  the  head  of  humanity.     The 


RULING  IDEAS.  295 

man  Christ  Jesus  completes  and  explains 
the  revelation  that  began  with  the  begin- 
ning of  the  creation.  We  stand  on  solid 
ground  to  proclaim  the  gospel  of  his  grace. 
"Nature,"  says  one,  "is  ever  the  counter- 
part of  our  Lord.  The  temporal  hath  no 
strife  with  the  eternal.  Like  the  union  of 
soul  and  body  is  the  union  of  the  heavenly 
with  the  earthly,  of  the  endless  life  of  the 
kingdom  with  our  mortal  life.  It  is  only 
as  our  Lord  reviveth  in  our  hearts  the 
spiritual  meanings  of  nature  and  of  the 
kingdom  that  we  have  the  full  revelation 
of  the  Father ;  and,  abiding  in  Him  as 
He  abideth  in  the  Father,  we  have,  even 
in  this  earthly  existence,  everlasting  life, 
being  associated  with  Him  in  cooperation 
with  the  eternal  purposes  of  an  infinite 
love."  1 

The  doctrine   of    the   immanence  of   the 
Christ  makes  the  old  distinction  between  the 
sacred  and  the  secular  meaningless  and  al- 
most blasphemous.    All  life  is  sacred.    What 
1  God  in  His  World,  p.  177. 


296  RULING  IDEAS. 

God  hath  cleansed  by  the  indwelling  Word, 
that  call  not  thou  common  or  unclean. 

Nor  can  we  allow  Mr.  Kidd's  contention 
that  the  Christian  morality  is  ultra-rational. 
It  is  only  to  a  philosophy  which  is  semi-ra- 
tional that  it  bears  any  such  look.  Take  in 
all  the  facts,  and  the  Christian  altruism  is 
scientifically  verified.  The  morality  of  strife 
is  based  upon  an  incomplete  induction.  If 
the  race  is  one  body  with  many  members, 
if  there  is  but  one  life  and  one  law,  that 
law  must  be  love.  To  one  who  admits 
the  organic  unity  of  the  human  race,  the 
notion  that  Christ's  law  is  ultra-rational  is 
absurd.  It  is  and  must  be  the  law  of  the 
organism.  It  is  the  simple  scientific  expres- 
sion of  the  relation  of  the  members  to  the 
body.  The  bond  that  unites  us  to  our  fel- 
lows is,  therefore,  one  that  we  cannot  sun- 
der. To  sever  ourselves  from  our  kind  is 
self-mutilation.  This  is  not  some  counsel  of 
perfection  for  saints  ;  it  is  the  fundamental 
fact  of  life.  All  our  industry,  all  our  social 
organization,  must  conform  to  it.     No  man 


RULING  IDEAS.  297 

livetli  unto  himself.  Our  daily  work  is  a 
social  function.  Wealth  is  valueless  and 
impossible  apart  from  human  fellowship. 
Not  to  keep  this  steadily  before  us  in  our 
administration  of  all  our  affairs  is  to  be 
false  to  the  primary  human  obligation.  To 
set  up  natural  law  in  the  social  world  or 
the  business  world,  as  distinct  from  and 
contrary  to  the  Christian  law,  is  not  only 
unmoral,  it  is  unscientific.  Love  is  the 
fulfilling  of  all  law.  And  not  only  do  these 
ideas  make  our  life  sacred  and  love  our 
daily  regimen,  they  ought  to  fill  us  also 
with  confidence  and  courage.  The  kingdom 
that  we  pray  for  and  fight  for  is  not  a  mere 
hope,  it  is  a  solid  reality.  When  we  say 
that  we  are  working  together  with  God,  we 
know  what  we  mean.  We  can  discern  his 
working,  and  can  be  confident  that  we  are 
helping  in  the  fulfillment  of  his  great  de- 
signs. The  signs  of  his  presence  and  power 
are  everywhere.  The  victories  that  He  has 
won  over  the  powers  of  darkness  and  cruelty 
and  greed  are  more  than  we  can  number. 


298  RULING  IDEAS, 

The  social  philosopher,  scanning  the  tenden- 
cies which  he  finds  in  history,  declares  that 
"  it  is  possible  to  follow  through  the  centu- 
ries the  progress  of  a  revolution  unequaled 
in  magnitude  and  absolutely  unique  in  char- 
a<}ter,  a  revolution  the  significance  of  which 
is  perceived  to  lie  not,  as  is  so  often  sup- 
posed, in  its  tendency  to  bring  about  a  con- 
dition of  society  in  which  the  laws  of  previ- 
ous development  are  to  be  suspended,  but 
in  the  fact  that  it  constitutes  the  last  orderly 
stage  in  the  same  cosmic  process  which  has 
been  in  the  world  from  the  beginning  of 
life."  ^  This  mighty  movement,  the  same 
philosopher  tells  us,  is  identified  with  the 
Christian  religion.  It  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  which  Christ  proclaimed,  into  which 
is  gathered  the  harvest  of  the  centuries,  and 
by  which  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  be- 
ing subdued  to  righteousness.  To  those 
who  have  intelligently  allied  themselves  with 
this  kingdom,  and  are  seeking  its  righteous- 
ness, doubt  is  an  absurdity  and  fear  a  sole- 
1  Social  Evolution,  p.  148. 


RULING  IDEAS.  299 

cism.  Repulses  and  disasters  can  seem  to 
them  but  temporary  reverses  ;  the  future  is 
secure.  They  strive  not  nor  cry  ;  they  haste 
not  nor  rest ;  for  the  eternal  God  is  their 
dwelling-place,  and  imderneath  them  are  the 
everlasting  arms. 


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