The understanding heart

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THE
UNDERSTANDING HEART

The
Understanding Heart

BY

SAMUEL M. CROTHERS

BOSTON

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION

1903

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OCT 21 )mi

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CLASS Ol XXa No.

COPY a

Copyright 1903
American Unitarian Association

Published October ^ iqos

INTRODUCTION

Wordsworth describes the man with
" understanding heart." His thoughts

"From a clear fountain flowing, he looks
around
And seeks for good ; and finds the good he
seeks."

He is no mere sentimentalist; nor is
he a cold rationalist. He believes in the
instincts of his own heart; yet he is
anxious to preserve

" His sanity of reason not impaired."

He has reverence for inherited faiths, yet
he would subject them to that scepticism
through which alone the true may be dis-
tinguished from the false.

There are those whose ideal of truth-
seeking is that of a heartless understand-

Introduction

ing. They take for granted that they are
living in an unfriendly universe, in which
the affections of the soul meet nothing
but disappointment. They seek to pre-
pare themselves for clear seeing by dis-
crediting all that belongs to their emo-
tions.

There are others who do not believe
in any such line of cleavage between the
faculties of their own nature. They be-
lieve in themselves as profoundly as
they believe in the Universe. They be-
lieve in great spiritual ideals of love and
duty and worship. In these they trust
primarily on the testimony of their own
hearts ; but they find their faith stimulated
and sustained by their experience. To
them religion is not

" A history only of departed things,
Or a mere fiction of what never was.
For the discerning intellect of man,
When wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion, shall find these
A simple produce of the common day."
vi

Introduction

Those who have come to this point of
view find in the formal creeds only sug-
gestions, and not satisfactory answers to
their questions. What is called "syste-
matic theology" is altogether too ambi-
tious for them. They are anxious to
know not how one doctrine may be
brought into logical consistency with
another doctrine, but rather how it may
fit into this goodly universe, and how it
may interpret the happenings of the com-
mon day.

To minds of this temper the present
organization of religion in our churches
seems open to criticism. The criticism is
friendly and hopeful, but radical in its
character. The great impression is that
of vast resources that have not been
touched, mighty powers that are allowed
to run to waste. We talk of man as a
spiritual being ; but how little of his spirit-
ual energy is recognized, while still less of
it is utilized ! Religious teachers seem to
be afraid of religion when it manifests

Introduction

itself in unconventional forms. We have
not yet succeeded in organizing all the
forces of what we call the higher life.

The problems of the understanding
heart are educational. The religious
nature trres to understand itself and its
real place in the universe. Now the uni-
verse is not a fixed quantity. It is con-
tinually changing. No one form of
thought can express its reality. The man
thinking must be free to follow the new
developments as well as to chronicle the
old.

The real problems are those which
grow out of necessity of continual read-
justment. How may our ideals be ad-
justed to the actual conditions which we
meet? How may our religious inheri-
tance be harmonized with our fresh expe-
riences ? How may the institutions which
have purely spiritual ends be adjusted to
those which serve our material welfare?
How may we at the same time live ac-
cording to the rules of sound reason and

Introduction

according to the inspirations of religious
faith?

Such questions come to us all. In the
following chapters I have taken for granted
that there is need of readjustment, intel-
lectually and spiritually, if religion is to
hold its own. This readjustment, how-
ever, can be no merely formal one. It
must come through the multitudes of men
and women who are doing their work and
entering into all joyous activities with an
understanding heart. It is through them
that the religion of the world is being re-
organized.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. Methods of Teaching . . 3

11. The Sense of Values ... 23

III. Symbols 37

IV. Literature and Morals . . 53
V. Work and Worship ... 75

VI. The Higher Intelligence . 97

VII. Moral Discipline . . . . 115

VIII. On the Study of the Bible 131

IX. Our Historic Inheritance . 147

X. How Religion is Organizing

Itself 167

Ki

I

Methods of Teaching

METHODS OF TEACHING

The church and the school-house
have always stood near one another. At
one time the school-house stood under
the shadow of the church. The whole
process of education was controlled by ec-
clesiastical ideals. To-day the relative
positions have been reversed.

The theory of the school has been en-
larged, and its methods have been revo-
lutionized. The church has, however,
responded only slowly, and under com-
pulsion, to the influences of the times.
The result is that there is a strained re-
lation between the two institutions which
stand for the development of the com-
plete man.

The young men and women Vv^ho grad-
uate from our schools find many of the
doctrines of the church foreign to their

3

The Understanding Heart

thoughts. It is not that they actively deny
them : it is rather that they seem to be-
long to a different world. The conclu.
sions rest in the air, and have nothing
corresponding to them in actual experi-
ence.

The same difficulty is experienced in
attitude of the professed teachers of re-
ligion. The decrease in the number of
candidates for the ministry in all our col-
leges is no accident. It is a part of the
conflict between the present condition of
the church and the existing state of secular
education.

A young man with a spiritual nature
and with a genuine ambition for human
helpfulness goes to college with the inten-
tion of fitting himself for what he consid-
ers the most sacred calling in the world.
It is a great ideal that inspires him. He
wishes to give himself to the best possible
work, and he is in no mood to tolerate
the " second best.**

In the college he meets men who are

4

Methods of Teaching

devoted to the disinterested search for
truth. He becomes familiar with the
habits of grave and severe study. He
meets men whose callings require no apol-
ogy, so obviously are they ministering to
real needs. These men go from the col-
lege to the professional school with no
break in their line of activity. It is all
made of one piece. On the other hand,
the student of theology seems to belong
to a different order. His special studies
seem to be remote and unrelated to the
things he cares for. Above all, they do
not seem to be carried on with that free-
dom and candor that he has learned to
consider essential. The very term "free
thought" as used in theological circles,
sometimes as a term of reproach and
sometimes defiantly as a party cry, seems
strange to him. What other kind of
thought can there be but free thought ?

If he enters the ministerial profession,
the same kind of questions await him.
He is to teach religion ; but what does

5

The Understanding Heart

that mean ? Is there a body of definitely
ascertained facts to be promulgated ? If
so, what is it ? Or does spiritual culture,
like physical culture, mean the develop-
ment of certain powers in the individual ?

The main difficulty lies not in doctrinal
results, but in the methods by which any
results are achieved. The church has
not yet shaken itself free from the tram-
mels of the old scholasticism. It is at-
tempting to teach religion as nothing else
is now taught in a good school.

What was the characteristic of scholasti-
cism ? We may say that it was concerned
with the circumference of any subject
rather than with its centre. Its chief em-
phasis lay in definition. Shakespeare de-
scribed it in a sentence : " Define, define,
well-educated infant.''

To put a thought into words, and then
to subject the words to minute examina-
tion, to distinguish one form of words
from another, and to draw inferences
which themselves depended solely on

6

Methods of Teaching

verbal definitions, — this was an exercise for
nimble wits. The logical faculty grew
abnormally acute ; but there was little in-
quiry as to the correspondence between
these words and the actual experience of
mankind. It was as if the mind were in-
dependent of anything outside itself.

Sir Philip Sidney contrasts the method
of the philosopher with that of the poet.
The philosophers, he says, "go, casting
largess as they go of definitions and dis-
tinctions,'' while the poet " beginneth not
with obscure definitions, . . . but he com-
eth with a tale that holdeth children from
play and old men from the chimney
corner." These endless distinctions and
definitions formed a part of what Milton
called " the barbarous ignorance of the
schools."

The very word "scholastic" recalls
what the schools once were. But, when
we go to the best schools, to-day, we find
that the method is much nearer that of
Sir Philip Sidney's poet than that of

The Understanding Heart

his formal philosopher. The teacher be-
gins not with an abstract definition, but
with the thing itself. The pupil is
trained to observe, to compare, to appreci-
ate. The whole subject is not forced
upon him. He takes only so much as he
is prepared for, and goes on from one
partial view to another. The point is
that it is a view, and not merely a hear-
say report which is given him.

This change in the method of teaching
corresponds to an advance in psychology.
The old psychology treated the mind as
if it were an object capable of exact defini-
tion. There was just so much of it, and
it could be bounded as one might bound
a country. The old English ballad, " My
mind to me a kingdom is,'* expressed the
idea literally.

Here is the child, the heir to a king-
dom. That kingdom is his by divine
right, but it must be surveyed and its
boundaries fixed. The kingdom has its
separate provinces. The different flinc-

8

Methods of Teaching

tions of the mind were spoken of as if
they were absolutely definite things.
There was department of the understand-
ing, the province of the will, and so on :
these were set down and distinguished and
divided one from another.

The modern psychologist knows noth-
ing of this formal kingdom. He is not
even sure that any particular person is
heir to it all. He is not very careful
about the "spheres of influence" which
are supposed to belong to any particular
faculty. He is rather concerned with the
states of consciousness, and these states
of consciousness are always changing.
When he comes to consider these states of
consciousness, he sees that in every state
of consciousness there is one focal point
and there is an ill-defined margin. When
he speaks of " the field of consciousness,''
he no longer speaks as if it were a field
upon the earth that may be defined and
fenced oflF: it is rather like the magnetic
field. When he speaks of the coherence

9

The Understanding Heart

of ideas, he is no longer thinking of a
fixed and inevitable relation. It is a re-
lation which is dependent on the forces
active at the moment. It is more like
the coherer which belongs to Marconi's
system of wireless telegraphy. The little
bits of metal filings are separate. Then
from afar comes a mysterious influence,
and the minute particles come together
and form an electric circuit. Then they
are shaken apart again, until with the new
message they once more come together.
So under successive impulses the mind is
continually being rearranged. The centre
of interest is all the time changing.

Modern education rests upon this vital
conception of the dynamic character of
the mind. The teacher does not think
of a faculty called the understanding
being at work while the aflFections are not
enlisted and the imagination is dormant.
Thinking is something different from that.
The whole mind is centred upon one
point. The more complete the concen-

10

Methods of Teaching

tration, the greater will be the accomplish-
ment.

In the teaching of religion, a revolution
is effected when we come to this idea that
we are dealing primarily with states of
consciousness and centres of interest. Re-
ligion is not a subject to be formally de-
fined : it is a great experience into which
we may enter. The dogmatist has his
thought fixed upon the circumference, the
outer edge of religion. He is jealous of
all encroachments : he is always eager to
defend the frontiers. He is ready to tell
just what is the holy faith which it is
necessary for every man to believe.

Catechetical instruction is based on this
idea. It takes for granted that there is a
precise and sufficient answer for every
question. " What is God ? " it asks, and
the reply is couched in language that may
satisfy the metaphysicians. The metes
and bounds of the Divine Nature are
fixed, and the limits of human responsi-
bility are indicated. The last things are
II

The Understanding Heart

put first, and the abstract formula pre-
pared before there is anything to put
into it.

The child can be taught to repeat the
answers correctly. The forms of thought
may be accepted, and the tradition of the
church may be handed down. But is this
teaching religion? Does the child learn
how to think seriously and freely upon
the greatest subjects of human concern ?
Is not the effect rather to deaden the nat-
ural feeling of wonder and curiosity with
which he might otherwise look out on the
world ? Premature ideas have been forced
upon him, and his own ideas have not
been allowed to ripen.

A true method of religious education
begins with the things near at hand, and
which already are of vital interest. The
teacher takes advantage of the circum-
stances of the child's own life and of his
natural relations to awaken interest in all
higher things. It is taken for granted
that he is already a worshipper. There is

12

Methods of Teaching

something to which he looks up with ad-
miration. This " trick of looking up " is
itself a religious experience. It is look-
ing God-ward. One object after another
is presented to his view. Each is a sym-
bol only, but it is a symbol of the highest
reality. ,The symbols become more spir-
itual, more profoundly ethical, as he grows
toward maturity ; but there is no break
from the beginning of the process to the
end. At no time does he arrive at a
complete definition of God ; and yet " him-
self from God he cannot free," and he
is continually learning more and more in
regard to his relations to Him.

The fixing of attention upon the centre
rather than on the circumference relieves
the teacher, also, of his chief embarrass-
ment in dealing with mature minds. It is
noteworthy that in the last generation the
chief anxiety of the defenders of religious
faith was in regard to the limits of hu-
man knowledge. Take that word " agnos-
ticism '' which was accepted as a denial of
13

The Understanding Heart

the possibility of religion. Agnosticism
is simply the assertion of our ignorance
upon certain points. We are all agnos-
tics in regard to some questions. There
are many things which we are willing to
confess lie beyond our present knowledge,
even, perhaps, beyond our powers of
knowing. But what of it ?

The man of science frankly confesses
that he has no answer to many most im-
portant questions in regard to the physi-
cal world. But this does not paralyze his
effort. His mind is intently fixed upon
the things which he already knows, and
upon those which immediately invite him.
The unanswered or unanswerable ques-
tions are on the margin of his conscious-
ness. They can wait.

Such a wholesome attitude must be
that of the teacher of religion who adopts
the same method. He, too, has his un-
answered questions ; but he, too, has his
own work, and his work steadies him.
He is not troubled by the thing which
u

Methods of Teaching

he does not know : he is too much in-
terested in those discoveries in the spirit-
ual life which have been made or which
are immediately before him.

It is not necessary to " reconcile Science
and Religion." The attempt to do so im-
plies that one has a complete mastery of
both. But one question after another, as
it comes within the sphere of our real in-
terests, may be treated with a scientific de-
sire for truth, and with a desire to get
from it its religious values. As we go on
in this way, we find that they need no
reconciliation, but are seen to belong to
one great order.

In like manner the practical problems
of the church are simplified when we ap-
proach them from the standpoint of the
enlightened teacher. We hear complaints
of the indiflFerence of various classes in the
community to religion. We hear com-
plaints of the young people, of business
men, of workingmen, and the rest. It
is taken for granted that the need is for
15

The Understanding Heart .

some sensational methods by which they
may be startled into attention.

But is not the problem really an educa-
tional one? Here are great subjects in
which many persons, we say, are not in-
terested.

Why should they be interested in
them ? We are not surprised to learn
that the average workingman is not in-
terested in the latest discoveries in Baby-
lonia or in the higher mathematics. They
are remote from his affairs.

But he is interested in his own welfare,
the welfare of his family and of his neigh-
bors. He is capable of being profoundly
stirred by a struggle through which he
may be freed from unjust conditions. He
has his ideals and his hopes. Here is a
vital system of interests : the problem of
the teacher of religion is to connect these
with still larger and more vital interests.
The man already has a sense of justice.
Let the just thing he already recognizes be
the means of gaining larger and still larger

i6

Methods of Teaching

views. He already loves something and
admires something. Here is the begin-
ning of all true worship. Let it grow
from more to more.

The changes that are taking place in all
the relations of life demand a kind of re-
ligious education that shall fit men to
recognize the spiritual possibilities of the
new world. They must be able to deal
with the complex as well as with the
simple forms of goodness. The revo-
lutionary forces must be used as well as
those which are conservative, if any great
thing is to be accomplished.

Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in his book
on "Western Civilization/' has a phrase
which is illuminating. He says that the
permanency of any power in the Western
world is dependent on the degree of its
"projected efficiency." In a finished
civilization it might be enough to deal
wisely with what had already been accom-
plished ; but in a progressive civilization
the important factor is not the past, but
17

The Understanding Heart

the immediate future. The ability to see
what is impending, or even, when we can-
not see, to grapple with it instinctively,
is that which insures survival. The vital
question is not, How correctly have we
interpreted the past ? but. How far have
we projected ourselves into the future ?

This is the task of the trained intelli-
gence. It is prepared to make those suc-
cessive readjustments which are necessary.

Christianity has more than once been
threatened with extinction, and it has sur-
vived through its power of adaptation. At
the time when the Roman civilization per-
ished, it seemed that the Christian faith
must fall with it. It was saved through
the projected efficiency of certain mission-
aries who, in the forests of the north, were
laboring with the future masters of the
world. The Roman legions could not
prevent the progress of the hosts of bar-
barians ; but the barbarians themselves
were converted.

We need an education that shall teach

i8

Methods of Teaching

us to deal "justly, skilfully, and magnan-
imously," not only with the powers that
be, but also with the powers that are to
be. We must meet them more than half-
way.

Who are to be the rulers of America in
the next generation ? Where are they
living ? What are they thinking ? What
are their dreams ? The new multitudes
pouring into our land, the struggle of
workingmen, the changed conditions of
social life, — all these are central to the
teacher of religion.

There is the call for more thoughtful-
ness ; but it is not to be an academic ex-
ercise, but a serious grappling with living
issues. The result will be not a sys-
tematic body of divinity, but a clearer and
more inspiring outlook upon the actual
world.

" Large elements in order brought,

And tracts of calm from tempests made,
And world-wide fluctuations swayed
In vassal tides that follow thought."
19

II

The Sense of Values

THE SENSE OF VALUES

One great difference between the mod-
ern school and the ordinary church lies
in the temper with which questions of fact
are approached. The teacher may be
insufficiently prepared, but at least he is
not afraid of his subject. He does not
suspect it of any sinister designs against
his peace of mind. There it is : his only
business is to try to understand it.

On the other hand, one is conscious on
entering the church of a certain attitude
of suspicion. The fact may be danger-
ous : it may lead to unwelcome conclu-
sions. Serious examination is discouraged
as being only " destructive criticism."

The cause of this attitude is not far

to seek. The teacher of religion finds

himself in an ambiguous position because

he has also allowed himself to be placed

23

The Understanding Heart

in the position of the advocate of a creed.
He is to preserve the faith which was
"once delivered to the saints." He feels
that the sanctities of the past are in his
keeping, and thinks, " beyond this sentry,
beat the crystal walls in danger." A cer-
tain intellectual timidity is the inevitable
result of this false attitude.

The first necessity in a sound religious
training is such a discipline as will release
the mind from all such timidity and teach
a noble freedom. One must overcome
the morbid fear of error if he would en-
gage in a manly search for truth.

To do this, we must free ourselves from
the superstition that in the great days of
the past there were forces at work which
are now exhausted. If that were so, then
the problem of religion would be simply
that of the preservation of a limited treas-
ure. We are freed when we realize that
there is more where these good things
came from.

A timid piety sees the things which
24

The Sense of Values

have already been accomplished, the re-
sults of the experiments of the past. It
fears to lose them in some new experi-
ment. It advises a parsimony of effort.
The lessons it draws from experience are
prudential. It is wise only in avoiding
mistakes. It says: "Here is a place
where God may be found. Here is a
well-trodden path along which the saints
have walked. As for the rest of the
world, it is full of pitfalls : we know not
whether it be God's world or not."
There is here the courage of established
convictions, but not the finer courage of
fresh conviction.

Now behind that advice there is a lack
of faith, and a false philosophy. A man
sees the good that is already, here and
there, produced through human effort.
He believes in the result ; but he has not
learned, as yet, that larger faith in the
ceaseless effort which has produced that
result, and he has not yet learned that
deep confidence that finds in this universe
25

The Understanding Heart

an inexhaustible supply of spiritual power.
It is true that there is not a single religion
that has not some truth in it, not one but
has said to soul-weary men, " Ye must be
born again," not one but has in some way
quickened the soul, in some way given
access to the infinite. That is true, if in-
deed there be an infinite world ; that is
true, if indeed there be a God behind all
we see. We cannot help but touch Him.
We cannot help finding Him in some
way when we earnestly seek. That justi-
fies the struggle of the past, but it also
justifies the new struggle of the present.
It justifies the man who is willing to make
his life a sublime adventure, the man who
is willing to take a step that to his knowl-
edge, at least, has never been taken before.
He also is in God's world. He also shall
find something, even though it be not al-
together that which he has dreamed of at
the beginning.

The world goes on not because there is
an exact correspondence between a certain
26

The Sense of Values

definite body of good and a definite num-
ber of those who seek for good, because
every aim is reached, because every life
puts forth its strength wisely and pru-
dently : the world goes on because the
seeds of life are everywhere sown broad-
cast, because out of multitudes of failures
here and there is a supreme achievement.
" Thou canst not know which will perish,
this or that." What each one of us can
know is, that the world goes on, our lives
go on, because in human hearts there is an
infinitude answering to the infinitude that
is without us, — the infinitude of courage,
of love, of desire. The one thing which
we ask for in each new generation is not
wisdom, but the courage and strength out
of which alone wisdom comes.

Among the gulches of our Western
mountains one may still see the placer
miner at his work in his wasteful, crude
way, extracting the gold from the gravel
of the streams ; and all day long he stands
by the sluice, shovelling in the gravel and
27

The Understanding Heart

seeing it washed away by the water. All
day he is engaged in that apparently use-
less work, not selecting, but laboring on
stolidly, continuously. Only after the
day's work, perhaps after several days'
work, does he see what he has done.
Then he examines the riffles over which
the water and the gravel have been flow-
ing, and then he finds a few grains of gold
which reward his labor, selected not by
his own personal care, but by that very
force to which he intrusts it.

That is the only way any man can
work, working with a certain carelessness
of effort, but working on because he in-
trusts what he does to some great con-
stant power which is all the time selecting
the thing that is good and finding in that
good something permanent, while the
rest goes for naught. A man has not yet
learned to live in the world who has not
learned to trust some such selective power,
to look on without regret while much
that for the moment seemed of worth
28

The Sense of Values

becomes a thing of naught and is for-
gotten. Then, when the day's work is
over, that which is worth preserving is
preserved. He trusts himself to the
eternal power with which he works. And
it is altogether false and misleading when
yesterday's sifted gold is compared with
the gravel of to-day, yesterday's achieve-
ment with the imperfectness of to-day's
effort.

The only thing, after all, that we learn
from experience, the only thing that we
can hand down at last to those who
come after, is the sense of value. We
can tell them that, after all, it is only the
gold that makes the labor worth while,
that it is only the excellent thing that is
permanent, and we can make them seek
that excellent thing and find their satisfac-
tion in it. This sense of values, intellect-
ual and spiritual, which we acquire, comes
from the working of laws that are beyond
our will. We speak of certain events
which are memorable, that stand out for-
29

The Understanding Heart

ever in human history and, indeed, make
all the history that we remember. They
were not necessarily the things most strik-
ing at the time, — these things that are
ynemorable. We forget the sordidness,
the futility, the absurdities of the time,
the little men who in their own genera-
tion passed for great. These men pass
into oblivion. They did nothing which
the next generation can remember. Here
and there names abide, becoming more
great, looming in more heroic proportions
as the ages pass. They are the men
whom the world cannot forget, — cannot
forget because they are linked eternally
with great ideals and aspirations. They
become a very part of the heritage of
mankind, not because some past day was
holier than this or some other age really
braver than this, but only because the
brave men and brave deeds are remem-
bered, and the time-servers are forgotten.
We say that it takes time for causes and
tendencies to become clear, so that we
30

The Sense of Values

can see the great moral principle behind
them, that we in our day are confused, we
have no clear compelling motive, no call for
manliness and for sacrifices. Was there
ever a time when it was not so? Was
there ever a time when common men were
not tempted to think that gain is godli-
ness, ever a time when the pettiness of
the day did not tend to hide the clear
shining of eternal truth ? But at all times
there were some who did thus stand true,
loyal to their own ideals. There were al-
ways some who chose the unpopular cause
because it seemed to them true. And
then the days pass, the transitory things
fade away, and these causes and these
souls that had been in " the way everlast-
ing " stand out clear and strong as wisdom
is justified of her children.

If we could but see this simple law of
nature, if we could but believe in that
eternal justice through which that which
is real abides and that which is the nature
of pretence vanishes, our lives would be
31

The Understanding Heart

simplified. Then should we look at the
new question not as something that dis-
turbs the old order, but as a part of that
order. Always the souls that have sought
God have found him according to the meas-
ure of their seeking. Always through the
earnest desire has come such achievement
as the world has known. The question of
old and new, of the tried and the untried,
does not enter in. Every loyal obedience
to the inner call of duty, every attempt
at speaking bravely the thing that is
within one's own heart, every attempt to
utter kindness and good will, brings us into
connection with the whole history of the
upward movement of the world. So have
good men and women been doing from
the beginning, and all our heritage is but
the result of their effort. If to us there
comes the need of meeting a new situa-
tion, speaking in the new accent, making
for the time a new emphasis, we are simply
following out that universal law through
which the world grows more and more,
32

The Sense of Values

though men die and fail. A new com-
mandment speaks to us. When we obey
it, we find that it is the old commandment
which we have heard from the beginning.
One who thus faces life has no fear of
putting forth to the full all the power that
is in him. The great mistake of the
world has never come through too much
effort, through too great ideals. The
world takes care of itself The world
cannot be moved by mere wilfulness ; and
that which belongs to our wilfulness, to
our mistakes, we may leave to that kindly
oblivion which covers all such things in
the end. These are the things which are
to come to naught and all the love of
truth, of the sincere desire, all the gener-
ous ardor mingled with them, — all these
things remain because they are of God.

33

Ill

Symbols

SYiMBOLS

In both the school and the church a
great part of the teaching is by use of
symbols. The real subjects are too vast
and complex to be directly presented, so
that representative forms are used instead.
The real earth cannot be brought into
the school-room, but its shape can be
shown by the little globe. The " object-
lesson " is indispensable.

In like manner the great truths of relig-
ion are so involved in the whole of human
life that they cannot, in their entirety, be
brought within the limits of the church.
Only certain aspects of them can be ex-
hibited, and that through some symbolical
representation. Symbolism is not an in-
vention of priests : it is rather an educa-
tional device. It has a psychological jus-
tification. Thought and feeling must be

37

The Understanding Heart

helped by concrete examples, and the
example must lend itself to the teacher's
purpose. The form and the spirit must
be united if a permanent impression is to
be made.

When one for the first time goes into
a Catholic church at high mass, he may
be readily excused if he looks upon the
whole ceremony as mere mummery.
The unknown language, the phrases re-
peated again and again and as though
they had some magic efficacy, the genu-
flections of the priest and the people,
seem meaningless to one who has been
accustomed to a simpler form of worship.
Yet, though these ceremonies may be
meaningless to the unprepared spectator,
it does not follow that they are mean-
ingless to those accustomed to them.
To the worshipper there these are not
dead, empty forms. They are full of
spiritual passion. The worshipper seems
to stand before the central scene in the
world's history.

38

Symbols

He stands again looking at the scene
on Calvary, he sees the " Lamb of God "
still " taking away the sins of the world/'
To call all this mummery is only a con-
fession of our own ignorance and lack of
imagination. It indicates the same state
of mind that would make one call a for-
eign language mere jargon. Before we
criticise the thing, we must try to under-
stand it. Because we find no meaning
in it, there is no reason that we should
say that there is no meaning there.

Now, when we see an elaborate ritual
like this, we perceive clearly that all these
actions and words are symbolic. The
words and scenes are nothing in them-
selves, they do not profess to be anything
in themselves ; but they stand for and
represent something which is believed to
be true. Here is a kind of language
which is supposed to be understood by
the people : the church is here speaking
to her children in parables. Through the
gate-ways of the senses and the imagina-
39

The Understanding Heart

tion, she is seeking to enter their inmost
souls. These outward things are not the
grace which is beyond price : they are only
the means of grace, — not the fountains of
religion, but the well worn channels of re-
ligious emotion. And so the church
makes use of every possible means for
bringing its thought and its holy passion
to bear upon the heart and upon the con-
science. Architecture, music, motion,
speech, color, are used in turn and are sub-
ordinated to one purpose, which is to
arouse and direct thought and feeling in
regard to religion.

Now a true criticism of any such elab-
orate religion is the same that may be used
in regard to language. The first essential
of language is not that it should be rich
or beautiful, though it may be both : the
first essential is that it should have a
meaning, and that it should actually con-
vey that meaning. And so one asks, Do
people actually understand these acts and
symbols? And the candid priest would
40

Symbols

be very willing to acknowledge that as a
matter of fact a great many people do not
understand them. He may admit that
there are in his congregation those who
look upon these signs, not as symbols at
all, but as the ultimate reality. They see
and hear, and after a fashion enjoy, the
sights and sounds, but they go no farther.
These forms are not transparent to their
thought. They stand to them with a
certain opaque virtue of their own. The
place is holy, the image is the object of
worship. All these things that the
church has provided with such profusion
are accepted as realities and enjoyed and
reverenced as such. They are not to
these persons the " shadow and copy of
heavenly things," full of holy suggestions
of something beyond : they are the holy
things themselves. And yet the priest
might say that this is not his fault or the
fault of the service, but that the fault is
with those who are so dull of understand-
ing that they cannot interpret the symbol
into reality.

41

The Understanding Heart

Many people do not understand para-
bles, or poetry, or any symbolic state-
ment of truth ; but the man of logic who
thinks he has a statement so crystal clear
that it contains the truth and nothing but
the truth cannot glory, because the priest
may very well ask him, " Do all the peo-
ple understand what you mean when you
speak through the colorless understand-
ing, do they as a matter of fact get the
holy passion for righteousness and for
truth which is yours ? "

Shakespeare makes his curate and
schoolmaster discourse together, and
Goodman Dull stands by and listens.
After a while they say to Goodman Dull,
" Thou hast spoken no word all this
while," and Goodman Dull answers after
his kind, " No, nor understood none
neither, sir."

Goodman Dull may not understand

poetry, forms, the sense of any priestly

ritual ; but Goodman Dull is not a ready

pupil in logic, either. He must in any

42

Symbols

event be taught "line upon line, precept
upon precept."

Now, when we have this elaborate
ritual, we see that there are two things, —
the symbol and the great reality which
is behind it. A symbol is nothing of
itself, but it is the means of communi-
cating something of true value. Every
religion, no matter how simple, no mat-
ter how natural, must be in its methods
largely ritualistic. Because it deals with
that which is infinite and eternal, it can-
not dispense with some outward forms by
which these things are made known. It
must be propagated not by means of exact
definitions, not by showing the things
themselves, but only by suggesting them.
Every religion must use these symbols,
whether elaborate or simple, to suggest
something behind ; and the most simple
and rational religion is most in danger of
degenerating into formalism, because it is
then so easy to mistake the form for the
reality.

43

The Understanding Heart

The Quaker is more apt to be a formal-
ist than the priest, because he does not
readily see that his simple actions or mere
silence are not in themselves worth any-
thing, but are only suggestions of some-
thing which the soul may reach through
them. Let us take the most spiritual and
inward views of religion, let us say once
for all that it is not a thing of formality,
but of life and of the interior apprehension,
it is the direct sense of the infinite and the
eternal in the individual soul, its joy and
peace and hope. When you have felt
any of these things in your own heart,
the desire comes to communicate them to
others. Something very wonderful has
happened to you, life has become alto-
gether different, a great hope has dawned,
a mighty emotion has come to you : you
stand in the presence of infinite reality
which demands the allegiance of your
heart and life. And it is then when
something has happened to you which
transcends your knowledge that you be-

44

Symbols

come conscious of the loneliness of every
individual soul, the great gulf that sepa-
rates you from others. Then you begin
to ask yourself, Has this holy secret been
revealed to me alone, has another felt just
this which thrills me? Has this hope
dawned upon another soul and this love
taken possession of it? How can you
know ?

It is only when some one, by use of
some form, communicates with you that
you can know whether your deepest life is
something that separates you from others
or unites you in a common fellowship.
We are all upon the great deep : every life
is a ship sailing upon its own predestined
course, but across the great deep we can
signal to each other. The whole history
of religion in its outward manifestation is
this. It is the attempt of individual souls
to communicate with each other across the
gulf of life, telling of the discoveries they
have made, signalling across great centuries
and lands until they learn at last that the

45

The Understanding Heart

heart of the world is one in its needs and
its hopes.

Now, as the ship-master, when he sees
the signals from afar, must compare
those signals with his own code, so
every one of us who sees the signs
must interpret them as best we may,
through our own personal experience,
until we come to see that as we feel
to-day others have felt. And we find,
when these signals come, that we must
take the common things of life as the
basis, we must use them as sugges-
tions of the higher things. So nature
comes to be all symbolic to the religious
consciousness.

The mountain thus becomes to every
idealist something more than a heap of
earth and stone : it becomes " the great
affirmer of the present tense and type
of permanence."

And the sea with its restlessness is
something more than the water which is
in it, for there are tides of the spirit which
46

Symbols

respond in us to the movement of the
sea. It becomes truly to every one of us
looking upon it typical of those hopes
which make our life, and the mystery
of it.

When one across the centuries is tell-
ing us of the thought that came to him
as he looked out upon the universe, —
" Thy righteousness is like a great moun-
tain. Thy judgments like a great sea, — "
we need no scholar to interpret the words.
Wp also have felt the presence of the
same mystery. And the light that comes
to us is not merely a physical thing any
longer: it thrills us with messages of
hope. We know what the man meant
who said of God, " God is light ; " the
words interpret these signals that flash
round the world.

To the lover of light, darkness is some-
thing more than a physical fact. Why is
it to-day that the philanthropist looks
upon the dark cell of the prison as in
itself a torture too great to be inflicted ?

47

The Understanding Heart

Because only that soul which is illumined
from within, which finds some spiritual
light, dares face continually the darkness.
To the sinful soul the darkness stands as
the withdrawal of all hope. No man
thus facing his own life can have those
symbols always before him without de-
spair. The light and the darkness, day
and night, — these stand for experiences
of the inner life.

We must teach by symbols. This we
must all acknowledge. A form of
thought or a form of words is just as
truly symbolic as is a gesture or a statue.
But the educational question is : Do these
symbols actually lift the soul to the
contemplation of the truth symbolized?
Does the parable illuminate any other-
wise dark tract of experience ?

George Eliot tells of the clergyman
who, in an elaborate discourse on the
parable of the leaven, was successful in
getting the hearers' minds into the dough-
tub, but was unable to get them out.
48

Symbols

Such is the result of all unskilful efforts
at religious teaching.

Here the church may learn a lesson
from the school. The object-lesson is in
the school-room used as a means to an
end, it never allowed to become an end
in itself. It gives only one aspect of the
reality : the teacher aims to draw the mind
away from it to the thing for which it
stands. When this is once clearly under-
stood and practised in the church, there
will be no further quarrel with symbolism.
Let the teacher of religion have his mind
centred on a reality, then all his chosen
symbols will become transparent.

49

IV

Literature and Morals

LITERATURE AND MORALS

" What books shall we put into the
hands of our children ? " This question
is asked with a tremulous anxiety by those
who have moral and spiritual interests at
heart.

A list of the best books, from the stand-
point of the lover of literature, only adds
to the anxiety ; for it happens that these
books have not all been written with the
purpose of edification. Literary culture
is something different from " the nurture
and admonition of the Lord."

It has been characteristic of evangelical
piety that it has been distrustful of the
world's great literature, and has attempted
to create a literature of its own. The
drama, the novel, the poetry which ex-
pressed the feelings of the natural man ;
all these were classed among the temp-
53

The Understanding Heart

tations. The youth in a sheltered home
was given " safe " books to read. If fic-
tion was allowed, it was of a kind so
much less strange than truth that it did
not stimulate the imagination. In these
tales the heroes suffered for a time, but al-
ways according to an intelligible plan and
for the sake of an obvious moral . They had
their temptations, but they were not of a
kind to tempt the reader. If there was
the slightest danger of misapprehension,
the good author would intervene, like Snug,
the joiner, to give assurance that no harm
was meant. The path of duty was well
supplied with guide-boards and policemen.
The distinctions between virtue and vice
were never left unexplained. The sinner
was never allowed to deviate for an in-
stant into rectitude, nor to endear him-
self by any lapses into virtue inconsistent
with his main character. He was intro-
duced only to illustrate the "exceeding
sinfulness of sin." The hypocrite could
be detected at a glance : the wolves wore

54

^ Literature and Morals

their sheep's clothing so awkwardly that
not even the most inexperienced lamb could
be deceived. One did not think of the
characters as changing from day to day
under stress of circumstance, becoming
now weaker, now stronger. A great gulf
divided the good from the bad. The bad
were predestinated by the author from the
beginning unto wrath. This decree of
literary reprobation was as unyielding as
that described by the Westminster di-
vines : " Some men and angels are predes-
tinated and foreordained unto everlasting
death. These men and angels, thus pre-
destinated and foreordained, are particu-
larly and unchangeably designed, and
their number is so certain and definite
that it cannot be either increased or di-
minished."

Not only works of pious fiction have
been written in this way, but histories
have been written, not primarily to satisfy
the desire to trace the course of events,
but to illustrate a thesis. They show not

55

The Understanding Heart

so much what happened as what, in the
writer's opinion, ought to have happened.
We are shown how the wicked are caught
in their own devices, and how the right-
eous inherit the earth. The retribution
on evil deeds is pictured as so direct that
one wonders how evil has managed to
survive. An agreeable feature in such
histories, and one which saves the reader
from perplexity, is that the righteous al-
ways belong to the same sect and fight
under the same banner. There is none
of the difficulty presented in the parable,
where the wheat and the tares grow up to-
gether and are often indistinguishable ; for
they are shown to belong to different fields
and to be always divided by a sufficient
fence.

There have been systems of philosophy
in which only what is presumed to be
"safe" has been allowed place. It is an
expurgated edition of the universe that is
presented, adapted for the use of parish
schools. These neat systems seem de-
56

Literature and Morals

signed to disprove the saying that "a
little knowledge is a dangerous thing";
the amount of knowledge of the real
world contained in them being so very
little that it could scarcely be dangerous
to the weakest intelligence. No facts are
admitted that do not fit snugly into the
edifying system. Nature has no teeth or
claws. There are no ugly facts, no un-
tamed passions, no unanswered questions,
no tantalizing possibilities, no vast dim
regions yet unexplored. The universe
presented is just the kind of a universe
which a well-regulated but somewhat
commonplace intelligence would have
created. The most that can be said
against it is that it is a little dull. -

It is a critical moment when one dis-
covers that this is not the real universe,
which is something not nearly so safe, and
a great deal bigger. The real universe is
so big that it is easy to get lost in it ;
and all of us do get lost in it, and
the wisest only dimly see the way. And

57

The Understanding Heart

we learn that human nature is much
more complex than we had been taught,
and character and circumstance are not
adjusted with that mechanical exactitude
which the moral tale describes. Real
people are neither so good nor so bad
as the people in an allegory.

When we turn from the books that are
written for edification to the real literature
of life, we enter a new world. The great
poets, philosophers, historians, dramatists,
novelists, are not special pleaders for any
single type of character, nor do they set
up any one standard of respectability.
They try to understand the truth and to
sympathetically express it. Through the
exercise of reason and imagination, they
desire to give a representation of many-
sided realities.

The historian who conscientiously at-
tempts to trace the actual course of events
finds that the channel which the stream
has made for itself is less straight than
that which the moralist had traced for it.
58

Literature and Morals

There are many devious windings and
many surprises to the explorer. There
are many great events whose moral bear-
ings are not obvious. There is a seamy
side to the lives of the saints. There
are great men, to whom the world is in-
debted, whose characters do not match
their deeds. Many a good cause has
triumphed by questionable means. In
like manner the philosopher finds many
facts that sadly mar the symmetry of his
system. He must confess that they are
true, and yet he doesn't know just what
to do with them.

The great dramatists and novelists im-
itate the wide impartiality of nature. The
sun of genius shines alike on the just and
the unjust. All varieties of character, all
circumstances, all passions and struggles,
are sympathetically studied, with the desire
to find out the truth in regard to them.
There are no labels to the characters, no
predetermined plan by which rewards and
punishments are meted out. The people

59

The Understanding Heart

live their lives, working out each one
his own destiny. They act from mixed
motives and from imperfect knowledge.
They are subject to accidents which mar
the smooth administration of poetical jus-
tice. The author does not apologize be-
cause his picture does not always seem
edifying : it is sufficient if it enlarges our
conception of reality.

Men of intense moral earnestness have
always found it hard to appreciate this
point of view. It is a part of the old
conflict between the Puritan and the hu-
manist. The Puritan was intent on the
discipline of conscience and the purifica-
tion of the spiritual nature. The human-
ist sought the enlargement of experience
and the increase of sensibility. The Puri-
tan sought to reform the world, the hu-
manist to understand it and appreciate it.

But is there not a generous culture that
unites these two ideals and seeks to culti-
vate them in harmony ? Should not our
effort be to such an end ? This was the
60

Literature and Morals

ideal realized by Milton in the seventeenth
century and by Channing in the nine-
teenth.

Milton's conception of virtue was in-
clusive of wide sympathy and generous
human aspiration : —

" Mortals that would follow me,
Love Virtue : she alone is free,
She can teach you how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime,
Or, if Virtue feeble were.
Heaven itself would stoop to her."

Conceive of religion and morality not
as conventionalities to be preserved, but
as mighty forces exhibited in the living
world, and we come to see in all great
literature an inspiration.

There are clever persons who tell us
that the great writers are unmoral. Mo-
rality is treated by them as a provincial-
ism that may be ignored by the man of
cosmopolitan breadth. It is a prejudice

6i

The Understanding Heart

of commonplace minds. It is, in their
judgment, the highest praise of a work of
art that it has no moral quality.

Now, if this were so, if the greatest
works of human genius were unmoral,
and if it were the necessary effect of intel-
lectual culture to produce indifference to
right and wrong, I should, I confess, go
with the Puritan. We can get along,
he says, without great art or literature,
but we cannot get along without honest
and earnest men and women. We can
get along without taste or scholarship :
we cannot get along without character.
We can get along without very extensive
knowledge of the great world ; but so
much of the world as we live in and con-
trol we must make clean and habitable.
Some one has described the man of un-
moral culture, with his half-sceptical inter-
est in social problems, as "a Sadducee
asking his way to Utopia.*' Rather than
such a man, give me the Puritan ideal of
the pilgrim " clothed with rags, standing
62

Literature and Morals

with his face from his own house, a book
in his hand and a great burden on his
back, and crying, What shall I do to be
saved ? " Cardinal Newman was right
when he declared, —

" Dim is the philosophic flame,
By thoughts severe unfed ;
Book-lore ne'er served when trial came,
Nor gifts when faith is dead."

But in what sense are the great works
of human genius, those works which give
the largest and freest representations of
reality, unmoral ? If you mean that the
first intention of their authors is not to
point a moral, or if you mean that they
pay little attention to the conventional
standards of respectability, and that they
are not afraid to shock the prejudices of
many good people, all this may be readily
granted. But if you mean that a com-
plete and truthful representation of hu-
man life can be given which ignores
63

The Understanding Heart

moral powers and moral relations, I say,
no.

The great facts of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment, cannot be suppressed.
Those who eliminate them from their pict-
ure only indicate their own limitations,
and condemn their work to hopeless triv-
iality. He who without moral insight
attempts to tell the story of an individual
or a nation, is like a painter who is color-
blind. It is not as if the moral were
tacked on to the story ; it is involved in
the story itself, it is the centre of its inter-
est. How men sin, and suffer from their
sins, and at last, through sorrow and pain,
find the way of life, — what greater theme
is there than this ? One might say that
this is the only theme, and that literature
furnishes only variations upon it. Did
we live in a perfect world, in which no
mistakes were possible, and no struggles
were required, there would be nothing to
tell. This monotony of excellence would
furnish no material for history. And, on
64

Literature and Morals

the other hand, were there no ideal of
perfection, nothing to rebuke us in our
lowness and to lure us on to an excellence
yet unattained, there would be nothing
worth telling. It is because we are im-
perfect creatures, capable of worshipping
the perfect and striving for it, that life be-
comes thrilling in its significance. How,
under all varieties of circumstances, souls
are awakened to their true condition, how
they make mistakes, how they learn wis-
dom from their errors, how they sorrow
and love and aspire, how danger evokes
heroism, and disappointment hope, — of all
this we never tire. Shakespeare describes
this perennial theme of literary art, —

" O benefit of ill ! now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruined love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far
greater."

The " benefit of ill " is essentially a moral

theme ; it is a discovery of the moral in-

65

The Understanding Heart

sight ; it involves the triumph of the soul
over unfavorable circumstances.

The term " unmoral " may properly be
applied to clever rather than to great liter-
ature. A short story may be written from
which all ethical elements are left out.
In such a story we are shown an act with-
out its consequences. A person commits
a pleasant sin, and we see its pleasantness
and not its sinfulness. There is an im-
pression of delightful irresponsibility. But
this impression comes, not because we
have an artistic representation of the truth,
but because the whole truth has not been
told. Poets have written beautiftil songs
in praise of wine, and have described the
exhilaration and gladness that belong to
certain stages of intoxication. But no
poet could describe it all, so as to make
it seem attractive. Vice ceases to be at-
tractive when it is seen in all its results
and relations. Those who have attempted
great things, who have tried to portray
life in its wholeness, have found it impos-
66

Literature and Morals

sible to ignore the moral element. If it
does not appear directly, it manifests it-
self powerfully by suggestion. In the
real world every act has its consequence,
and it is the business of the student of
humanity to trace the consequences. The
judgment on the evil deed may not be
so obvious as in the moral tale ; but it is
a real judgment, coming through the
working of natural law. This is what
gives significance to the great tragedies.
We trace in them both physical and moral
causation, but the great interest is always
in the latter element. What matter if
the hero is borne down by overwhelming
physical force ? If he is faithful unto
death, and in death is heroic, we hail him
as conqueror.

Nor is great literature unmoral because
it introduces us to other than what we
call respectable people. If that were so,
the New Testament would be lacking in
morality, because of its sympathetic treat-
ment of harlots and publicans and sinners.
67

The Understanding Heart

This means only a more truly discrim-
inating moral judgment. The line be-
tween right and wrong does not run be-
tween different classes in the community.
"The word of God is living and active,
and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing even to the dividing asunder
of the soul and the spirit, of both joints
and marrow, and quick to discern the
thoughts and intents of the heart."

The judgment of those who are quick
to discern the thoughts and intents of the
heart will be different from that of those
who judge by some conventional standard.
They will point out the weaknesses and
selfishness in many whom the world praises,
and they will find much to love among
people who are despised and blamed.
This means that they have discovered
that the moral struggle is not all in one
place, and going on only under certain
circumstances. The battlefield is the
world, and the battle is along the whole
line. Wherever a man sees a better and
68

Literature and Morals

a worse, and chooses the worse, there is
sin and wretchedness. Wherever a man
chooses the better part, there is a triumph
for righteousness. To truly observe and
rightly record the varying phases of this
great human struggle requires, not the
spirit of a narrow partisan, but the broad-
est sympathy and the quickest apprehen-
sion.

Nor is the philosophic attitude toward
the world unmoral, though it often seems
so to the impatient moralist. Broad tol-
erance and impartial acceptance of facts
gives the impression of ethical indiffer-
ence. But in reality this is but the con-
dition of true moral judgment. No more
impressive words are found in the Bible
than those which describe the impartial
eyes of God without anger, but with full
comprehension of the actual and the pos-
sible, viewing the evil and the good in
human character. " The eyes of the
Lord are in every place, beholding the
evil and the good." That seems to me
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The Understanding Heart

more impressive than any description of
a general judgment. We live our lives,
we do our deeds, we achieve our measure
of success. But all the time there is an
intelligence that sees us as we are. In
the light of this intelligence our good,
however imperfect in its expression, is
seen to be good, our evil, however dis-
guised, is seen to be evil. And is not
this what the human intelligence, when it
has grown large and clear and calm, be-
comes ? The ideal philosopher — not the
system-maker, but the man of serene wis-
dom— does not wilfully shut his eyes to
any reality. His eyes are in every place :
he seeks to comprehend, and is not quick
to blame. But, when he sees the evil
and the good, they are not alike to him.
The same clear-sightedness which discerns
a character must also discern its quality
and its value.

Between a narrow morality and a self-
ish culture there must be conflict. But
there is a morality that is not nar-
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Literature and Morals

row, and a culture that is not selfish. To
know the real world, to feel the sweep of
its great forces, to enjoy its amazing vari-
ety, is not to have escaped from the
realm of moral law. It is only to have
prepared one's self for its understanding.
The education which fits us to perceive
the actual world must also fit us to do
our proper part in it.

71

V

Work and Worship

WORK AND WORSHIP

In the discussions which we so often
hear in regard to the future of religion,
there is one thought which is continually
repeated and which brings to many minds
great apprehension. It is that religion is
in danger from the increasing preoccupa-
tion of the minds of the people. It may
be disputed whether the rich are growing
richer and the poor growing poorer, but
it is certainly true that the busy are grow-
ing busier and the idle are more preoccu-
pied by the pleasures of idleness. The
modern man finds so much to do. There
are so many directions in which his mind
may move, so much work, so much pos-
sibility of pleasure to be crowded into the
few years of his life, that there are those
who say it is possible that through this
very expansion of human activity religion

75

The Understanding Heart

may be crowded out. Even as it is to-
day, they say, it is too much to expect
that the men who are building our cities
and our railroads, who are discovering
the laws of the universe, who are troubled
with the problems of government, who
have charge #f vast business affairs,
should have time for the peculiar prob-
lems of religion. Men are becoming too
busy to be religious.

Now I think that the very fact that such
an idea ever enters into the minds of men
is an indication that our ordinary idea of
what religion is is an inadequate one.
What would you say of an officer in the
army who should declare : "I am too busy
to indulge in patriotic feeling or to re-
spond to that. I am too much occupied
with many affairs that demand my whole
attention. I have to see that my men
are well drilled and well fed ; I have to
go upon the march, I have to be pre-
pared for battle. I am too busy to in-
dulge in any transcendental sentiment."
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Work and Worship

What would you say to that man ? You
would say : " You mistake altogether the
meaning of patriotism. It is not another
kind of business that you are to perform
after you are through with this necessary
work of your profession. It is simply
that which gives your profession any value
whatever. Without this sentiment your
business is the vilest that can be con-
ceived. You are a mere mercenary en-
gaged in the trade of butchery. There is
a sentiment which justifies you, however,
which lifts your profession from the low-
est to the highest ; and that is the love of
the country, unselfish devotion to the flag
you serve. It isn't a question of time, it
isn't a question of preoccupation : it is a
question of right feeling."

Lovers of peace often make the mis-
take of underrating the idea of military
honor, and of speaking slightingly of the
soldier's profession. As a matter of fact,
we have to speak in a diff^erent tone if we
are to preserve our own liberty. No

77

The Understanding Heart

man is worthy to hold the sword save as
he is inspired by the very highest motives.
And all that inspires military honor, — the
religious sentiment, if you will, of the
military life, — all that is a necessary part
of that life, without which it has no value
whatever, or is worse than that, — is a
menace to the public weal.

What would you say to the man of
business who said to you : " I have to do a
great many things, I have to make plans
for this business of mine, I have to see
that my obligations are met, that the work
given me to do is done correctly. I have
a great many things to look after. I have
so much to do that I have no time to
consider my duty, no time to consider
questions of ethics. I am a practical man
of affairs *' ? What would you say to the
wife and mother who declared ; " My
household demands all my care. I
am occupied with the welfare of my
children and my husband. I have no
time to indulge in what you call love.
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Work and Worship

That is an affair altogether apart from the
necessary work of my life, I am too
much preoccupied for that " ?

Now in a thoroughly wholesome and
natural state, religion bears just that rela-
tion to life. It is not something which is
an affair by itself, something that can be
considered in any abstract way, but some-
thing which gives the very highest value
to every activity. A man should not
think of religion as if it were another
thing from that which he is all the time
doing.

Suppose you had gone to a grave citi-
zen of the Roman Republic and asked
him about his religion. I fancy that such
a man would hardly know what you
meant. He would not approach it as we
in these days are apt to approach a relig-
ious question. " Have you time for re-
ligion ? *' you would ask that man, the
man who bore the burdens of state, who
was the counsellor, the legislator, the sol-
dier of the Republic. He would say

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The Understanding Heart

that he had military offices to perform and
he had to summon a certain kind of
strength within himself that enabled him
to perform those duties. He needed for-
titude, and because of that he sacrificed at
the altar of Fortitude. He went to the
war, and he came back with his trophies to
the temple of Victory. Victory was not
to him a merely human achievement: it
was won through co-operation with the
heavenly powers. He had to live, to
fight, to legislate, to administer govern-
ment. Each act of this Roman citizen
was accompanied by a certain religious
sentiment which lifted it into dignity.
That was what gave glory and meaning
to his life. One of the highest officers of
his religion and of the state he called the
pontifex, the bridge-builder. The title
carried his mind back to the time when
to build a bridge across the Tiber was a
sacred act. The bridge-builder was a
sacred officer. Except the bridge were
built truly, except it were built in accord-
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Work and Worship

ance with the highest laws, they labored
in vain that built it. All these men were
religious men, with religious functions
and possibilities. Could a man be a loyal
citizen of the Republic without sharing
in the supreme ideals of the Republic?
How could a man expect the laws to be
observed save as in some way he felt the
law itself to be sacred ? To be a profane
man was to be a traitor. So the Roman
talked of piety not as something that was
apart from family life and from duty to
the state. A man of piety was the man
who loved father and mother and rever-
enced the laws that came through them as
well as one who had the same sentiments
towards the gods who were unseen.

In the modern world we have largely
lost this thought of the religious signifi-
cance of the whole life. We are accus-
tomed to the distinction between the sec-
ular and the ecclesiastical. Religion has
been made a profession, and treated as if
it might have an independent life of its

8i

The Understanding Heart

own. The confusion has become greater
because secular methods have been contin-
ually improving while ecclesiastical meth-
ods have been less subject to change.

One of the first men to see that what
is needed is not merely a theological re-
construction, but a new outlook upon
human life, was William Ellery Channing.
He saw clearly that religion must be in-
terpreted not by ecclesiastics, but by broad-
minded men of the world. It must claim
for its own the whole field of human
activity.

Speaking at the dedication of the Cam-
bridge Divinity School, he protested
against that " piety that, like the upas-tree,
makes a desert where it grows." He
lamented that ministers have so fallen be-
hind their age that they are often the
most determined foes to progress. " The
young man who cannot conceive of
higher effects of the ministry than he now
beholds, who thinks that Christianity has
spent all its energies in producing the

Work and Worship

mediocrity of virtue that at present char-
acterizes Christendom, has no call to the
ministry." " Why is the future ministry
to be a servile imitation of the past ? If
we live in a new era, must not religion be
exhibited in new aspects and in new re-
lations ? '' Channing touched upon the
real weakness of our modern religion
when he said : " Religion has been made
a separate business, and a dull, unsocial,
melancholy business, too, instead of being
manifested as a truth that touches every-
thing human, as a universal spirit which
ought to breathe through and modify all
our desires and activities, all our trains
of thought and emotion. • . . Instead of
regarding it as a heavenly institution, de-
signed to perfect our whole nature, to
offer awakening and purifying objects to
the intellect, imagination, and heart, to
develop every capacity of devout and
generous feeling, to form a rich, various,
generous virtue, divines have cramped
and tortured the gospel into various sys-
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The Understanding Heart

terns, composed in the main of theologi-
cal riddles and contradictions."

We have only begun to think of relig-
ion as the development, here in this world,
of a " rich, various, and generous virtue."
We have been accustomed to think of
it as only one kind of virtue to be ap-
proached only in one way, as if men of
one profession had the monopoly of God.
The real religion which is adequate for
modern life can never be developed by
churchmen alone : it cannot exist save
as we get large numbers of people to-
gether and make each person feel that he
himself is making a religion ; that he is
bringing to the church and to the world
that which the church and the world need,
— his individual insight into truth, his
ideal of perfection, his moral and spiritual
enthusiasm. We have to come back to
just that kind of feeling which made the
Roman bridge-builder a sacred person.

Now that is a great deal to do. We
have only begun to think that it is worth
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Work and Worship

doing or that it is possible. When we
come to feel the sacred significance of
life, we shall answer the question whether
it is possible that men may be too busy
and too much burdened to be religious.
Then we shall see that the more work a
man has to do, the more power he must
have behind him. And we shall see that
something more than physical strength is
needed. We must use spiritual powers to
enable us to do our simple duty. At the
very highest, the life of a true man of
business becomes the expression of religion.
At the very highest, the real poet cannot
be anything but religious. At the very
highest, the statesman feels himself to be
an instrument in the hands of God. The
philosopher sees that he is only thinking
God's thoughts after him. How rich,
how various, how wonderful are these ex-
periences ! And the time has come for
us to recognize that these form the very
essence of religion.

Suppose one were to preach on Sunday
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The Understanding Heart

with sufficient power to make every one
go forth for the next week and do some-
thing which the preacher conceives to be
the one service of God. I can imagine
that possible. " We will forsake our secu-
lar, every-day business," you say, "and
give ourselves for a whole week to what
this man says is God's business." How
much poorer the community would be,
how much poorer this nation would be
for that, because one man could tell so
much less of what his neighbors could do
than each one could discover for him-
self. Suppose, on the other hand, each
person were to go forth to his own busi-
ness, to his own appointed and chosen
work, and should say, " For this one
week I will take this business of mine as
if it were a sacred office, as if God himself
commanded me to do this, and to do it
the very highest way possible for me."
How much richer the world and the com-
munity would be for these various virtues^
these gladder activities everywhere mani-
fested !

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Work and Worship

There is a point where every man's
life seems dull, sordid, and selfish.
There is a way of doing his work which
leaves him cold toward the world and
toward the higher power. But just as the
temperature of the soul rises, a change
comes, and that which once seemed bare
and mean and selfish seems to be one of
the phases of the divine activity. That
is what religion is meant to do, — to lift
out of its selfishness, its sordidness, and
its commonplaceness any work which any
human being is called upon to do.

Suppose a young man were to give
himself to a life of letters ; were to say :
" I am going to make poetry. It is very
hard work. I must give my whole time
to it" ; and then he were to read the lines
of Shelley : —

" The breath whose might I have invoked in

song
Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling

throng

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The Understanding Heart

Whose sails were never to the tempest given.
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven !
I am borne darkly, fearfully afar ;
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of

heaven
The soul of Adonais like a star
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal

are.

The would-be man of letters says:
" That is something which I have never
felt, — a breath that comes upon me with
inspirations from above, some influence
bearing me afar from the things of sense.
That sounds very much like religion. I
have no time for that. I am making
poetry. I must be at work.*' Do you
not see that that man has shut himself oS
from the highest possibility of his own
chosen art ? Only when he receives some
kind of inspiration can the finest work
be done, and that inspiration cannot be
described save in terms of religion.

Suppose a man gives himself to some
science, or to some strenuous profession,

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Work and Worship

and then reads this description of the
mind in which intellectual integrity has
risen to the point of religious fervor: "In
the glorious company of the heroes a
high rank belongs to him who, superior
to frowns and sneers, and in opposition to
warping influence of private friendship or
personal ambition, keeps his mind chaste,
inviolate, a sacred temple for truth, ever
open to new light from heaven ; and who,
faithful to his deliberate convictions,
speaks simply and firmly what his uncor-
rupted mind believes." Every word here
is a word of religion, every symbol is a
religious symbol. The ambitious man
says : " I haven't time to indulge in that
sort of thing. I want to accumulate facts.
I want to write books. I want to make
theories. I want to pass judgment on
the affairs of state. I have a thousand
things to do and I haven't time for senti-
ment. "

Well, if you haven't time for that, you
cannot do what vou aspire to do. If
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The Understanding Heart

your mind is only a workshop and you
are only a workman, if there is no sacred
place kept inviolate from passion, from
prejudice, from self-interest, then all your
judgments are warped and biassed. We
cannot trust such a man as a Judge
upon the bench. We should not trust
such a man to give judgment in affairs
where great interests were concerned, which
involve the life of nations, because he has
not yet that inviolate mind sacred to truth.
There must be a sacred place somewhere.
There must be something corresponding
to worship. There must be ideal aspira-
tions somewhere, and, when you come to
such ideals, you come to the attitude of
religion.

We go about our daily work doing the
thing we have to do and doing it as well
as we can ; then we come together with
common faith, common aspiration, with
recognition of the underlying meaning of
it all, hoping that upon us the breath
divine may come, so that all the drudgery
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Work and Worship

may be transformed into worship, faith,
and joy. We are builders, building the
institutions of society, building our indi-
vidual homes and our individual business.
And, as we build, we realize that we may
not indulge in whims of our own ; that
there are certain great laws of the universe
that must be obeyed, and these are spirit-
ual laws. These laws involve righteous-
ness. When we build in defiance of them,
our structures fall of their own weight.
Except the Lord be with us, except we
are with Him, we labor in vain. We
cannot draw a line of division between our
work and our worship ; but we must real-
ize that our work is not done well unless
the spirit of worship has been in it all.

The need of religion to the man of af-
fairs is greater than it ever was before ;
for there are certain aspects of his work
that terrify him. Primitive tools, which
the man could use, have given place to
elaborate machinery. Shall the man use
the machinery for his own purpose, to
91

The Understanding Heart

nurture his real life, to aid in his own de-
velopment, or shall the machine gain the
mastery and crush him ? Everywhere the
machine is setting the pace.

When Coleridge and Wordsworth were
walking through Scotland, they came upon
a steam-engine. Wordsworth said that
it seemed to him like a living creature.
" Yes," said Coleridge, " it is a giant with
one idea."

That is the terrible thing about a ma-
chine-made civilization. The machine is
great and strong, it is marvellous in its
capacity for work ; but no machine, how-
ever intricate, can express more than one
idea. The idea may be a narrow one
and fatal to human happiness ; but what
of it ? The machine moves on, incapa-
ble of pity or remorse. The improved
cotton-mill will turn out more cotton
cloth, the railway with heavier rails and
larger locomotives will transport more
goods at a lower cost, the printing-press
will turn out more newspapers and books.
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Work and Worship

All this is progress. But what of hap-
piness and justice, what of love and peace ?
There is no machinery by which these
things are manufactured.

In an age when the giant with one idea
threatens to become the master, a spiritual
religion appears as a new chivalry. In
transforming work into worship, it elevates
the man above all the machinery he has
invented.

93

VI

The Higher Intelligence

THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCE

One great source of confusion in relig-
ious education arises out of our exaggera-
tion of the distinction between intellectual
and moral development. We delight in
emphasizing the contrast between good-
ness and wisdom. We treat them as
if they belonged to unrelated spheres.
When we praise a man for one set of
qualities, we often imply disparagement in
regard to the others. The good man,
we say, is loving, tender-hearted, sympa-
thetic, just. The wise man seeks reality.
He is keen, inquisitive, sceptical. He
seeks to know the thing as it is. In our
ordinary thought we place the two charac-
ters in opposition.

The wise man, we say, is not necessa-
rily or often good, the good man not
often wise. When we have any very

97

The Understanding Heart

important business which requires intel-
lectual acuteness, we are not satisfied to
go to one who is commended to us as " a
good, faithful souL" We take it for
granted that his moral qualities are
praised because nothing can be said of
his intellectual qualifications.

This antithesis with certain minds be-
comes more pronounced. The essence
of what we call pessimism lies in this, —
that goodness and wisdom are conceived
not only as different things, but as in
their nature irreconcilable. They belong
to two different compartments, and so
long as they are kept apart all is well.
When they are brought together, and the
wise man seeks to be good and the good
man seeks to be wise, then there is disas-
ter. The pessimist is a pessimist because
on the one side he has a sensitive con-
science, and on the other an acute intelli-
gence. It is in the attempt to bring these
two things together that he comes to re-
bellion against the actual world.
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The Higher Intelligence

This was the sting in the words of the
Fury in Shelley's "Prometheus Un-
bound " : —

" The good want power, but to weep barren

tears,
The powerful goodness want ; worse need for

them.
The wise want love, and those who love want

wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill."

If to be wise is to come to the under-
standing of an altogether unmoral uni-
verse, then for the wise to attempt also
to be good must result only in hopeless
misery. According to this view the
young man beginning his career may
choose between the two ideals. He may
say, I choose goodness. Very well, shut
your eyes to facts. Be not too inquisi-
tive to explore the dark places of this
world. Close your ears to many of the
voices that come to you. Walk in one
narrow path with bowed head, as did the

LofC. '^

The Understanding Heart

saints of old. Mortify not only body,
but mind as well. Go on, and you shall
go, step by step, up your Calvary, that
Mount of Sorrow that belongs to all who
would be over-much righteous in an in-
different world. Dream your dream, see
your vision ; may the time never come
when you shall awake ! The wise man
looks upon you as he looks upon some
one under the influence of an opiate ; who
does not know the truth and whose senses
are lulled to the hard reality, and who
"amid the charnels of the dead hears the
murmur of the fountain-head." A good
man who dreams his dream of righteous-
ness, who thinks he was not made to die,
does not hear the fiend voices that rage
about him. That is the utmost that a
man from this standpoint can say to
those who are trying to live a life of ideal
rectitude in a world where they say ideal
rectitude brings only hopeless misery and
disappointment.

On the other hand, one may choose

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The Higher Intelligence

the path of knowledge. To him the ad-
vice is : Beware of all emotion. The in-
tell4|t must be kept cool, indifferent to
the moral struggle. Do not allow any-
thought of hero-worship to intrude in
your mind, else you cannot see human
life as it is. Do not allow yourself to
be carried away by thought of any final
causes, of any dramatic movement of the
world, of any great cloud of witnesses
looking down upon this little planet of
ours as upon a wondrous spectacle. See
the thing as it is, and only as it is. Let
your intellect expand at the expense of
your emotions, which are only misleading.
To know the truth is to stand as one
indifferent to love and hope and pity.
So at last do you become wise. When
you become wise, you become miserable.
Your life is behind you. Your mind is
full of sad experiences. At last you are
so wise that you are ready to accept the
fact that there is no reasonable outcome
whatever, no adequate explanation for all

lOI

The Understanding Heart

this struggle of humanity. The good
man, simple-hearted, dull of perception,
strong of faith, let him go his way and
dream his dream. The wise man, brave
but hopeless, let him gather for himself
the experience which only brings to him
the greater despair.

Now that is the result whenever we
carry out, logically, the idea that good-
ness and wisdom are antagonistic princi-
ples ; that they have nothing to do, the
one with the other. The only escape that I
can see is by leaving this antithesis behind
us as a false and unreal one, and coming
rather to that which we find in the New
Testament, between "the wisdom that
is from above " and that which is from
below. The contrast here is not be-
tween a weak goodness and a clear intel-
ligence ; not even between the moral cult-
ure and the intellectual culture. It is
between two kinds of intelligence, — what
this writer describes as the lower intelli-
gence, the lower wisdom, and what, on

The Higher Intelligence

the other hand, he calls the higher wis-
dom. The lower wisdom, he says, is
earthly, sensual ; or, literally, animal. It
is something that is our earthly inheri-
tance ; that which links us to the creatures
below. The other kind of intelligence is
that which links us to God.

It is " first pure, then peaceable, easy
to be entreated, without partiality, with-
out hypocrisy."

You will note that he has not here
treated of what he calls morality, but
what he calls intellect. This is the kind
of wisdom that is characteristic of the
truly developed man. Let us see how
this is. We do have our line of inheri-
tance that links us with what is earthly
and what is animal. The animal intel-
ligence has one object. It is to sustain
the anim.al life in its struggle for existence.
The brain is developed just as the claw
is developed, that the animal may secure
its prey. The animal that survives and
that triumphs is the one that has this
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The Understanding Heart

intelligence in the largest degree. And
it is possible to treat a man in this same
fashion; possible to view the history of
human civilization from this standpoint,
— the standpoint of the beast of prey.
The brain of one man is more finely or-
ganized than another. The man is crafty,
subtle, cunning, far-seeing, and all for the
sake of himself, that he may gain the
mastery over others. He is developed
for the same purpose that the tiger is de-
veloped in all his fearful strength. It is
possible to trace this line of animal de-
velopment, step by step, to the stronger
race. It is possible to show how a certain
spurious morality can grow out of this im-
pulse. The wolf must conform to the law
of the pack. The man must conform to
the customs of his tribe, not because they
are just, but only because he thus is made
stronger to gain his own ends, which are
substantially the same ends which the tiger
or the lion had before him, — to get food,
to destroy, to gratify appetite.
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The Higher Intelligence

It is possible to carry this a step
further until it bjecomes a very mockery
of our highest hopes. There have been
those who say that religion is but the con-
summation of this process. The strong
nations are religious because they find that
religion helps them in their struggle.
For one thing, it furnishes them with
more prey. It makes the weak more
ready to acquiesce in the tyranny of the
strong, and so the strong always stand for
religion, — religion for the other people
more than themselves. It is the lure
which draws the weak to their own de-
struction, and through their destruction to
the greater power and glory of the few.

Now, however you refine upon this,
however you try to throw a veil of sanc-
tity over it, the stubborn fact remains
that this process, through and through,
has had an object which is animal, and not
human. It is an object which would ap-
peal to the intelligent tiger, not to the
spiritual mind of man. When you ad-

The Understanding Heart

mire this development into strength that
is cruel, into power that is pitiless, you
can only feel your admiration going out
easily when some one of the animal king-
dom is the object of it.

The finest example for us is the eagle,
the sublime bird of prey, rising to the
lofty heights, with eyes that pierce to the
remotest distance, and which are never
blurred by mist of pity or of wonder ;
cold, keen eyes that from those heights
are looking down to a single point, and
that for a single object. The eagle from
the height is looking down only for its
prey, and, when it finds it, then all his
mighty powers are put forth.

" He clasps the crag with hooked hands ;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls ;
He watches from the mountain walls.
And like a thunderbolt he falls."

That, we say, is sublime. Yes, for the

1 06

The Higher Intelligence

bird of prey, that power exerted uner-
ringly for a single object; keen, cruel
eyes, strong, rushing wings, claw and
beak, all united in one great power, — for
what ? — that that eagle may devour his
prey.

But now turn to human life. Think
of a man in that way. He is the result of
ages and ages of growth. Every power
has been developed in him slowly through
the generations. At last one man rises
above his fellows into the clearer air. His
is the wider view. His eyes are keen.
He sees afar. His strength is well knit.
Then he looks down and sees some help-
less creature; and with all his force
brought together, with one quick swoop
upon his victim, he descends, like a thun-
derbolt, to destroy. Is that sublime to
you? Oh, that is pitiful ! — beyond all
imagination, pitiful ! We ask, can it be
that all this development has been only
for that? That this man may grow
strong, and because he is strong, obeying
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The Understanding Heart

the impulse of a narrow will, use his
strength for himself alone ? Is the eye
of man but the eagle eye, piercing and
pitiless, searching out its prey, or was it
meant for the open window through which
the majesty and sublimity of the universe
might enter? Was the brain of man in-
tended only to make cunning plans for
selfish ends ?

" Not for this
Was common clay ta'en from the common

earth.
Moulded by God, and tempered with the tears

of angels
To the perfect shape of man."

Not only when we look upon such a
man do we feel such a revulsion, but the
man himself, when he has grown in self-
ish strength and has put forth all his
power, shrinks appalled from his own
success. Never has there been such des-
pair as among men who have gained all
that they selfishly desired. Mr. Howells
io8

The Higher Intelligence

has pictured such despair, — the utter dis-
comfiture of the selfishly successful man :

" If He could doubt on His triumphant cross,
How much may I, in the defeat and loss
Of seeing all my selfish dreams fulfilled.
Of having lived the life I willed,
Of being all that I desired to be,
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me ? "

A man forsaken when he has reached
the very summit of his desire, — is he the
wise man ? Nay, does he not stand as a
fool, self-convicted before the face of God
and man ? This line of selfish and sensual
development leads to the time when the
man stands refined, cultivated, strong, but
with only the selfish, brutal impulse back
of it all. This wisdom is earthly, animal,
devilish, because as the fruition of it all
we have before us at last only " a glorious
devil, large of heart and brain/'

It is when the man stands shuddering
at the sight of his own success that he
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The Understanding Heart

asks, Is there not another kind of wis-
dom, another development of all our facul-
ties ; an end worthy of our power? And
the answer is that there is such a wisdom.
It is not the wisdom of the strong brute,
cunning and insistent ; it is not the wis-
dom of the narrow-minded savage, sly
and crafty : it is the wisdom of the son of
God, who recognizes God's will, and
stands ready to do it. That is what his
mind is for. To be freely and fully de-
veloped, not to be childishly secluded,
but to do the proper work of a man.

I think we must come back again to
something of the old Greek love of wis-
dom, as Socrates understood it ; the old
Hebrew love of wisdom, as we have it in
the books of their sages ; something of
this New Testament idea of wisdom, with
its development of all human faculties in
grace as well as in strength. It is not a
mere instrument to be used, it is a revela-
tion of the higher purposes of existence.
The man stands where he sees the end of

The Higher Intelligence

his life. His intelligence enables him to
discover the beauty and wonder of the
world ; to understand something of its
laws which lie below, and which control
all human action ; to learn the principles
by which to govern himself and to de-
velop himself. He knows that his mind
was given him in order that he may learn
to sympathize with other minds ; to enter
into their temptations and to share in
their triumphs. He knows that he is
here, not merely that he himself may eat
and drink and get gain, but that the gen-
erations that are to come may live saner
and happier lives. He sees the need of
the development of will, but not the will
that is obstinate, but the will that is gentle
and easy to be entreated, — the good-will
which brings peace on earth. It is not all
to him a sombre world. There is room
in it for laughter, for humor, for wit, but
no place for scorn. There is need in
this world for humility. When he has
learned all he can learn, when he has
III

The Understanding Heart

developed himself to his highest, he rec-
ognizes most clearly his own Hmitations.
He stands reverently, wisely, before the
mystery of being, not despairing, but be-
lieving, facing courageously that which is
before him.

To understand this world, with its sor-
rows, with its life, with its struggles, with
its temptation, with its ultimate triumph,
— this, and not to satisfy the animal pas-
sions, is wisdom ; and out of this wis-
dom, which comes when heart and brain
are united in search for the divine ele-
ment, comes the justification of our lives.

To such a man conscience does not
stand on one side and reason on the
other. It has been the glory of his life
that from the beginning they have been
united in one sweet reasonableness. Out
of the lower intelligence comes perpetual
strife. As men rise into the higher intel-
ligence, co-operation in all good works
is possible ; " and the fruit of righteous-
ness is sown in peace, of them that make
peace."

112

VII
Moral Discipline

MORAL DISCIPLINE

How far is it really possible for any one
to prepare for the great crises of life?
We go on day after day in an uneventful
way, with commonplace duties and sim-
ple enjoyments, and then suddenly there
comes a time when the whole order of our
life is overthrown. Some emergency
arises demanding unusual power. The
daily routine is broken up, and we are
called upon to make some great choice,
something which is to determine all our
future life. We are called upon to bear
some heavy responsibility, to answer some
hard question, to endure a great loss.

Now is it possible for one, by taking
thought, by any kind of discipline or
foreknowledge, to prepare himself for
such a time ? In one sense I think it is
not possible. If you mean to ask whether
"5

The Understanding Heart

we are able, by looking forward, to really
answer the questions of to-morrow, to
know exactly what ought to be done in
some unfamiliar crisis, or to give some
distinct response to a question which has
not yet become urgent to us, I think we
must answer that it is not possible. That
which makes the crisis is the element of
surprise. So it is in every hour of great
temptation. When a person is called
upon suddenly, he discovers a weakness
which had been unsuspected. Jesus
stated the experience of mankind when he
said, "If the man of the house knew at
what watch in the night the thief was
coming, then he would have watched, and
not suffered his house to be broken
through.'* But we do not know, we
cannot know. In the great emergencies
we find ourselves taken by surprise.

And in a different way this is true of
those things which we know are inevitable.
We know that they are coming some time,
but the time and the occasion are in

ii6

Moral Discipline

doubt. We are astonished that that
should happen to-day which we had put
off to a vague to-morrow. It is not easy
for one generation to transmit its dearly
bought wisdom to another. The father
tries to teach his son the lessons which he
himself has learned through sad experi-
ence ; but he is speaking in an unknown
tongue. The son hears, but he does not
understand. How can he ? Each genera-
tion has to face the same old questions as
if they were altogether new.

Now because all this is true, because at
unexpected times the great crises come
to us and find us not ready for them (in
many respects surprised at their appear-
ance), there are those who draw the con-
clusion that there is no real preparation
of soul possible. " All things come alike
to all,'' the author of Ecclesiastes said
sorrowfully. There are some things
which we have to meet and to bear, some
lessons which we have to learn. We get
through the hard lessons some way. We
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The Understanding Heart

endure because we have to endure. There
is no escape for us. Why not, then, take
each day as it comes, not asking ourselves
very much about the future, not seeking
very earnestly any preparation ?

The answer lies, I think, in this : that,
while there can be no preparation for the
future, in the sense of clear foreknowledge
and accurate adjustment to a specific
situation, there is another kind of prepara-
tion which is possible, — a preparation not
for the single event, but for every event
that comes, — a preparation that goes far
deeper into our nature than any single
experience.

That which happens to us in the moral
and spiritual life is just that which hap-
pens to every educated young man. The
young man leaves college, having spent
years in discipline, and he expects to find
some immediate use for that discipline.
He imagines that he is prepared for
the distinct work that he has to do.
Scarcely a month has passed before he is

ii8

Moral Discipline

thrown almost into despair. Theory is
so different from practice. Questions
which he had been asked and had an-
swered in the school are put in such unex-
pected forms in real life. All the circum-
stances are so strange to him that he says
to himself, " Here is a problem that has
not been solved by my preparation in
college, and all that work is therefore a
failure."

Is it a failure ? The very way in which
that young man faces his life shows that
it has not failed. His education indeed
may not have answered the specific ques-
tions of practical business life ; it may not
have solved any problem that is now
presented. But he has been taught to
face everything that comes to him as a
problem^ not as something to be left as
vague as he finds it, but as something to
be analyzed, to be studied, to be under-
stood. All these years he has been doing
just that thing. One problem after
another has come to him that has at first
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The Understanding Heart

puzzled him ; and there has come the
habit of concentrating his thought upon
the problem of the day.

When he recovers himself, he faces his
new life in that way. Here are practical
problems, just as before there had been
theoretical problems, and he faces these
things with intelligent courage. And after
a little he finds that he has been prepared
for the successful life, with the preparation
of the whole mind, and most of all
through the habit of bringing to bear his
intelligence upon the matter in hand.
The trained soldier may find himself in
an unusual position with foes strongly
entrenched, with scarcely an idea as to
how the battle is to be won. But, just
because he is a trained soldier, he has
learned some things, — that he must go
forward, that he must face the difficulty
instead of fleeing from it, that his business
is to obey orders, and, " having done all,
to stand." An army, however unsuccess-
ful it is, is just because of its discipline
superior to any mob.

Moral Discipline

In every free government we have
crises which come from time to time,
questions for which there can be no
immediate solution ; parties are ranged
against each other, issues are joined; there
is no willingness on either side to com-
promise. And yet in a nation that has a
past, that has been disciplined in the
fundamental ideas of freedom and of law,
people meet these crises without dismay
because they know that there are some
fundamental principles common to all
parties, that there is a limit to party strife.
When this limit is reached, the minority
in some way must yield. The majority
must rule according to the ideas and the
principles of the nation's constitution.
That in itself is a triumph : it is a tribute
to the work of preparation for freedom
which has gone on.

Is it not in this way that we see the
real purpose of moral and spiritual disci-
pline? It is not that the disciplined soul
can answer at once the difficult questions

121

The Understanding Heart

that come ; that the man whose whole
life has been given to the service of God
does not sometimes stand at a point where
all is dark, where for the moment he does
not see God, or truth, or the way of
righteousness. Again and again he ex-
claims, " Out of the depths do I cry unto
thee." You read the lives of the greatest
believers, and from time to time you hear
outcries of a soul in pain. This is the
burden of the old Psalms : they were
written by men who were lonely and
heart-sick, bereaved and despondent.
And yet that despondency is not utter
despair. We know that there is abiding
confidence and peace. We know that,
when the man says, " I cannot see, I do
not know, I look now upon one side
and now upon the other, and I do not
see God,'' he yet believes in God. He
has learned to believe in the God who is
not seen, and in the peace which passeth
all knowledge.

We sometimes misinterpret that beauti-

122

Moral Discipline

ful text which tells us that " as our hour,
so shall our strength be/' as if when the
crisis comes, calling for a great faith or a
great virtue, the crisis itself creates the
power by which it is to be met. I think
we do not find that ever to be the case.
When the crisis comes, it calls out what-
ever heroism may have already existed,
just as when a great danger to a nation
comes it calls out the great man if the
great man be actually there. The great
man may have been unknown before, liv-
ing in some quiet way, unrecognized by
his neighbors, but then the call comes,
and the man is ready. That doesn't mean
that he has suddenly become great. The
real savior of the nation is usually the
man who was unknown till the nation
called, but he had always had just the
qualities which he showed in the time of
danger. And we find that these qualities
are common qualities. He is "rich in
saving common sense, and, as the greatest
only are, in his simplicity sublime." He
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The Understanding Heart

is a man who always has been " to true
occasion true." There have been little
occasions that have called him heretofore :
now the great occasion calls, and he is
true to that, — that is all. To face death,
to overcome a temptation that tries the
temper of the soul, to do in some hour
of trial the thing that ought to be done,
all this requires a training in every-day
faithfulness.

Wordsworth described poetry as " emo-
tion remembered in tranquillity." Moral
strength may be defined conversely. It
is a principle discovered in tranquillity,
and remembered in time of emotion.
The great emotion does not of itself
give insight. There are times when things
come to us against which we rebel. We
are ready to " curse God and die " : they
seem so contradictory to a divine order
of things. And the questions which we
ask at such times are many of them ques-
tions which cannot be answered, for the
very mood in which we ask prevents the
124

Moral Discipline

true answer. Then it is that we fall back
upon memory and habit. In the hour
of trial we resolve simply to be loyal to
our own best insight, to what we have
felt and thought in hours of tranquillity.

Alas for that soul which has had no
hours of tranquillity, and that in those
hours has never pondered the solemn
miracle of life, has never asked : " What
am I ? What is my place in this uni-
verse ? How am I to face my own igno-
rance, my own limitation ? How am I to
strengthen an immortal hope that shall
be to me a help in the hour of trouble ? "
Because, when worst comes to worst, we
have no help save in our own best. We
" rally the good in the depths of our-
selves.'' Every great hope springs from a
great memory ; every great decision grows
out of the habits of the soul. Read the
Twenty-third Psalm. How tranquilly it
begins : " The Lord is my shepherd, I
shall not want. He leadeth me in the
green pastures and beside the still waters."
125

The Understanding Heart

That is the lesson of experience, that is
the argument for whatever of lofty hope
and cheer there may be in the darkest
hour. He has led me by the still waters.
Then the earnestness of struggle comes.
The man is no longer by the still waters.
There is a choice to make, and it is a dif-
ficult one. Still the same power is there.
Remembering the still waters, there comes
the faith that the same power is to help
in the more difficult way. "He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for his
name's sake." The man with all that
experience of the quiet life with God be-
hind him, and the experience of the dif-
ficult path of moral choice (God with
him in the quietness and God with him
in the struggle), faces at last the greatest
struggle of all, with its mysterious ques-
tioning. It is exactly the same power
that must be here, and the same spirit
in himself abiding that shall give the com-
fort. "Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
126

Moral Discipline

no evil : thou art with me." That is
the way God prepares us for the future,
that is the way by which strength comes
when most we need it.

Nothing is more painful than to try
to speak to an unprepared soul in a time
of personal trial. What can one say to
one who has lived selfishly, measured all
things by a worldly standard, clung self-
ishly to friends, to life itself, never learned
what disinterestedness means, nor the calm
which comes through the habitual con-
sciousness of an eternal power? Then,
when that which the soul clung to is taken
away, there comes the sudden bitter cry :
" Why has all this evil come upon me ?
Why am I singled out for sorrow and
for loss ? Who shall justify the ways of
God to me ? " There is no answer, and
there can be no answer to that mood.
It is the mood of the spoiled child that
makes impossible demands. True wis-
dom is of slow growth. It comes to one
who from the beginning has faced steadily
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The Understanding Heart

the actual, and has interpreted it in the
light of the ideal. He has taken account
of sorrow and change. He has behind
him the experience of trial and of victory.
He began with the religion of the child,
in quietness and in joy, with uncontra-
dicted faith, walking with the Eternal,
then growing steadily in faith and strength
through the battles won, and at last fac-
ing the supreme emergency. One who
has thus lived is prepared for all that
comes. He says : " Ever as I struggled,
I found behind me divine power, and to
that power I trust myself now." Not
as a surprise, but simply as the fulfilment
of the whole life, comes that great change
through which he enters into the more
intimate presence of God.

128

VIII
On the Study of the Bible

ON THE STUDY OF THE
BIBLE

No revolution in thought is more start-
ling than that which has taken place in
regard to the Bible. What is the Bible ?
The traditional answer, which the founders
of our great Protestant churches accepted,
had the advantage of being simple and
direct. The Westminster Confession, in
carefully chosen language, declared : " It
pleased the Lord at sundry times and in
divers manners, to reveal Himself, and
to declare His will unto His people, and
afterward for the better preserving and
propagating of the truth to commit the
same wholly unto writing. The whole
counsel of God concerning all things nec-
essary for His own glory, man's salva-
tion, faith and life, is either expressly set
down in Scripture, or may by good and
131

The Understanding Heart

necessary inference be deduced from Script-
ure, unto which nothing is at any time
to be added, either by new revelations of
the Spirit or by traditions of men/'

According to this theory the Bible is
a book altogether free from error, written
by God himself, through the agency of
certain favored saints. It is no wonder
that, so long as this opinion was received
without question, the Bible was the most
interesting book in the world. Those
textual discussions which to us seem so
dry were once full of most intense life.
The study of the universe could not com-
pare with the study of the Scriptures.
God indeed had made the universe, but
it was vast and perplexing, full of con-
tradictions. The universe was a puzzle ;
but in the Bible God had given us the
key to it. Would we get at the essential
truth concerning our own origin and des-
tiny, here we might find it written down
in infallible words. There was no need
to urge people to search the Scriptures.
132

On the Study of the Bible

Such a mine of rich ore, or rather such
a treasure-house full of the unalloyed
gold of truth, it would be the most trans-
parent folly to neglect.

But all this has been changed. The
Bible stood against the attack of its ene-
mies ; but the theory of its infallibility
has been undermined through the patient
investigations of its friends. No pious
sophistry can conceal the plain fact that
a book in which unmistakable errors
have been discovered cannot be infallible.
Marks of human limitation appear every-
where. The theory of a book miracu-
lously perfect in all its parts breaks down.
The present tendency of the defenders
of the old doctrine is to assert infallibility
only in regard to what cannot be tested.
The Scriptures, as we now have them,
we are told, may contain errors, but we
are bidden to believe that the original
manuscripts were inerrant. A more ab-
surd refuge for a discredited dogma could
scarcely be imagined.
133

The Understanding Heart

But what remains of the Bible when
the doctrine of its miraculous origin and
authority is given up ? Many people
throw it aside altogether. This is natural
enough. In the church of the Latter
Day Saints the Book of Mormon is ac-
cepted as a direct revelation from God,
and is studied reverently ; but, when one
comes to disbelieve the story of its origin,
the book is thrown aside. The reason
is that it has in itself no value. But is
this true in regard to the Bible ?

The verdict of the most competent
critics is that it is not true. They find
an intrinsic value, which makes it al-
together independent of the stamp which
the Church has put upon it. After all
deductions have been made, we must admit
that there is that in these writings which
still challenges the attention of the world.

Let us frankly admit the human limita-
tions. The Bible is a human book and
had a natural growth. But, unless we
have a very poor idea of humanity, this
134

On the Study of the Bible

will not make us turn away with con-
tempt. We may here see the diviner
side of humanity. We may see it strug-
gling upward through its ignorance and
its sin into a purer air. We may hear
its song of triumph as it catches sight of
its far-off goal.

The Bible is the literature of a little
nation ; but it was a nation with a peculiar
genius for religion. Within the narrower
limits of the ancient world the life of a
nation sometimes turned in one direction,
and produced masterpieces which later
ages have not equalled. Many have been
the advances in knowledge since the
days of Plato, but our busy, many-sided
modern life has found no substitute for
the great works and great thoughts of
Greece. The fire still burns on the old
altars, and thither pilgrims go to light
their torches. Such fire remains also on
the ancient altars of Israel.

What may one expect to find in the
Bible? If he expects a final answer to
' 135

The Understanding Heart

every question, he will be disappointed.
What he may find is a vivid record of the
growth of religion, — a record written "at
sundry times and in divers manners,"
but always with power. It is the story
of religious development given by eye-
witnesses of the progress.

He may find traditions of remote
antiquity, glimpses of holy men, seen
through mists, walking with God along
the far mountain summits of time. Per-
haps he may hear words of lofty cheer
from those who had not yet lost " the
large utterance of the early gods." Trac-
ing the history, he may learn, not simply
how individuals, but how nations grow
into spiritual life and faith ; how from
crudest nature-worship they grow into the
thought of God as the " high and lofty
one who inhabiteth eternity, whose name
is holy " ; how through ages of patient
endurance the thought grows tenderer,
until at last the Eternal, who loves righte-
ousness, becomes also the Father, who
136

On the Study of the Bible

loves even his most sinful children. Here
one may watch the growth of ideals of
human greatness as the procession passes
down the ages. Nomadic chieftains, wan-
dering over the deserts and building
altars by the way ; border warriors lifting
hands yet red with blood in prayer to
their tribal God; Oriental despots, pas-
sionate, vindictive, yet with a not unreal
halo of sainthood around their heads ;
wild-eyed hermits, issuing from the fast-
nesses of the rock and pronouncing the
doom of princes with a stern " Thus saith
the Lord " ; preachers of righteousness,
denouncing alike the evils of temple and
court and market-place, and declaring a
God who despised burnt-offerings and
sought only the contrite heart ; exiles in
a far country, dreaming of the new king
and the better country. At last, in the
fulness of time, through numberless dis-
appointments, the old ideals of earthly
glory fade away and the nation comes to
recognize a new order of excellence, — the

The Understanding Heart

excellency of a manhood clothed with
humility and crowned with suffering, as
Israel finds its highest ideal in "a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief."

Here one may meet with almost every
phase of individual experience. Israel had
no genius for abstract philosophy. There
was no Academy in Jerusalem, no Plato,
no Aristotle. But for life-philosophy,
the results wrought out by the personal
struggles of men left alone with their own
sorrows and seeking a way out of them,
I know not where we can find a parallel
to these Scriptures. " No man without
trials and temptations," said Luther, *^ can
attain to a true understanding of the
Holy Scriptures." It needs not so much
critical scholarship as personal experience,
to interpret these tragedies of the soul.

We talk of the simplicity of the Greek
drama, with its few actors and its relentless
unfolding of destiny. But simpler still
is the Hebrew drama. In Job we see the
stricken sufferer and his would-be com-
138

On the Study of the Bible

forters facing the unsolved problem of
sorrow, with only the passionless calm of
the desert for a background, until from
the whirlwind comes the voice of the
Eternal rebuking alike the wild repining
of the sufferer and the cold consolations
of his friends.

In the book of Ecclesiastes we may
study the workings of the mind of an
Oriental sceptic. He doubts whether life
is good ; he has no faith in immortality,
nor in human wisdom, nor in any lasting
success. But in the storm of doubt his
soul is held by one anchor, his conviction
that there is a God. He is a deist, and
his conviction, though too colorless to
greatly cheer him, at least keeps him from
absolute despair. " Let us not be over-
much wise,'' he says, " nor over-much
righteous " ; but, after all, there is a God,
and it is better to keep his command-
ments.

How like a step into the sunlight it is
to come out of the dark, close room,
139

The Understanding Heart

where the world-weary philosopher sits
brooding, into the temple courts where
we hear the sweet assurance of the Psalms,
or into the market-places where the lis-
teners are thrilled by the generous ardor
of the prophets ! Here, indeed, are words
brimming over with eternal life. Nations
come and go, but the songs sung on the
Judean hills, centuries before the Caesars,
have not lost their power to make melody
in the heart. They never grow obsolete,
these

" Swallow flights of song that dip
Their wings in tears, and skim away."

Nor, while there are rulers who refuse to
do justice, and there are rich men who
grind the faces of the poor, and the
multitude prefers private gain to the pub-
lic good, will the prophets become obso-
lete. Still we hear them crying as of old
against false princes and false priests and
false people : " Thou art a land that is
not cleansed ; her priests have violated
140

On the Study of the Bible

my law and profaned my holy things;
her princes in the midst of her are like
wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood,
and to destroy souls, and to get dishonest
gain. The people of the land have used
oppression, and exercised robbery, and
vexed the poor and needy ; yea, they
have oppressed the stranger wrongfully."
When all goes well, and we are at ease
in our little Zions, these writings seem
enigmatical, but in times of moral awak-
ening men instinctively turn to them and
understand them. So Jesus at the begin-
ning of his ministry turned to the prophet
who wrote of the glad tidings to the poor.
So in the midst of Roman persecution a
half-frenzied Christian heard over the new
Babylon of the West the prophetic doom
upon an unrighteous civilization, and cried
exultingly : ^^ Babylon is fallen ! is fallen ! "
So to the prophets Chrysostom turned
when he would rebuke the corruption of
the Eastern Empire ; and Savonarola when
he would bring fickle Florence to repent-
141

The Understanding Heart

ance ; and the old words came unsought
to Theodore Parker as he saw the lava
torrent of wrath, uncooled by the ages,
rolling down upon all oppressors.

Were the prophecies fulfilled? Yes>
a thousand times. As often as the justice
of the universe is vindicated and the
refuges of lies swept away, as often as
a new word of cheer comes to the poor,
so often it can be said, " This day is this
scripture fulfilled in your ears." In the
new experience the old words live again,
and we realize

'' From what agonies of heart and brain,
What exultations trampling on despair,
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of
wrong,"

they came.

Such are the Scriptures, the records of
a gifted race in its search after God, a
literature whose central thoughts are right-
eousness and worship. We cannot neglect
them without loss to ourselves. The
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On the Study of the Bible

Bible must take its place as a part of the
world's literature, but we may be sure
that it will be a high place. No serious
criticism has affected the estimate of its
intrinsic value. The flippant jests of
those who treat it with scorn have influ-
ence only with those who are ignorant of
its real history.

Was the Bible inspired ? Our answer
must depend on what is meant by inspira-
tion. One who believes that every good
gift is from above, and that the unfolding
of intelligence is itself a revelation, is not
averse to the idea of inspiration which the
author of the Wisdom of Solomon gives :
"I myself am a mortal man like to all.
... I called upon God and the spirit of
Wisdom came to me. I loved her above
strength and beauty. . . . For Wisdom
is more moving than any motion. She
is the breath of the power of God, a
pure influence from the glory of the
Almighty. She is the brightness of the
everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of
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The Understanding Heart

the power of God and the image of his
goodness. She maketh all things new,
and in all ages, entering into holy souls,
she maketh them friends of God and
prophets."

We cannot, in our thought, confine
this influence to the Bible, but we can
hardly fail to recognize it there.

As you read, do you come in contact
with men who loved wisdom more than
health or beauty ? In the words of the
prophets do you feel breaths of power
sweeping down upon you from sublime
heights ? In the eyes of heroes of the
antique world do you see the brightness
of the everlasting light? In some sweet
Psalm do you find new and nobler mean-
ings till you are sure that you are looking
into the depths of a serene soul that has
become a " mirror of the power of God
and the image of his goodness " ? Then
theories of inspiration will not trouble
you, for you already have the fact of
which the theories have been attempted

explanations.

144

IX

Our Historic Inheritance

OUR HISTORIC INHERITANCE

Those who have been reared in a
newly settled country are likely to be
peculiarly impressed by any thing which
savors of antiquity. The children of
pioneers make the most reverent pilgrims
to historic shrines. They find something
for which their souls have been starving.
To walk along paths which have been
trodden for generations, and to look upon
scenes which are associated with the lives
of great men, is a keen joy. The land-
scape becomes more beautiful because
poets have praised it. Turning from
things which still are in the making, they
feel delight in all that has been softened
by the touch of time.

It is with this feeling that many per-
sons to whom religion has been associated
with independent thought comes to the
147

The Understanding Heart

idea of an historic church. It brings some-
thing new into their lives, and it appeals
powerfully to their imaginations. They
had been accustomed to consider religion
only in its individualistic aspects. It was
concerned only with the salvation of single
souls. Now they catch a glimpse of a
public service and an enduring corporate
life. The emphasis is changed from inde-
pendence, with its jealous insistence on
personal rights, to a gracious acknowledg-
ment of dependence upon that which is
larger than one's self.

The independent thinker is pioneer:
he has all the virtues of the pioneer, but
he has also his limitations. It is a great
thing for him to go, in his sturdy strength,
into the wilderness and make a clearing for
himself, and build a home after his own
plan; but those who have been born in
the clearing dream of something more
beautiful. They dream of the beauty of
fields which have been tilled for ages, and
of homes which have been sanctified by
148

Our Historic Inheritance

long association. When they are in this
mood, they are ready to listen to the claims
of an historic church* One comes and
says to the child of religious indepen-
dency : " After all, is there not something
very crude and very narrow in your posi-
tion ? You are anxious in your self-
consciousness to tell what you think
and what you feel, — to test everything
for yourself. You are very much afraid
lest you may be led to accept something
which is not absolutely true : you have a
great confidence that you are able, by the
exercise of your individual reason, to dis-
tinguish the true from the false. Is there
not a good deal of self-conceit in this, and
of the self-assertion which belongs to those
who have not measured themselves against
the great things of the world ? Is it not
as if one were to come to the university,
not in a teachable frame of mind, not de-
sirous of getting the benefit of the tradi-
tion of scholarship for which the univer-
sity stands, but thinking only of himself
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The Understanding Heart

and of his own personal opinions, jealous
of his intellectual liberty, and anxious to
tell what he has already thought about
science or philosophy? The answer of a
riper reason would be. It matters very
little what you think : the great thing is
that you should be ready to learn. These
questions which you imagine that you can
settle for yourself are greater and more
difficult than you think. The profound-
est intellects have been at work upon
them. The first lesson for you to learn
is that of humility. You must sit at the
feet of those who are competent to teach
you.

Is there not something like this to be
said about religion ? It is not a new thing.
Why should any one person think him-
self competent to pass judgment upon it ?
The historic church stands not for what
one man thinks nor for the opinions of a
single generation. It stands for the ex-
perience of ages. What can inexperience
do but listen reverently to its words of

wisdom ?

T«;o

Our Historic Inheritance

There are many things in the claims of
the Catholic Church, and in a lesser degree
in those of the Anglican communion, that
appeal to deep sentiments of the soul.
The claim of an apostolic succession in the
Christian ministry attracts the imagination.
It suggests the identity of the life of the
spirit. It is a tradition of piety by which
the individual is re-enforced.

The thought of an historic church
brings the idea of a real communion, —
the communion not merely with a little
band immediately around us, but with a
great multitude scattered over the earth.
There is something very persuasive in the
words of Saint Augustine, speaking of the
apostle John and of the grace which
comes to those who look up to truly
great and venerable men. " This John,"
he says, " was one of those mountains con-
cerning which it was written, ^ Let the
mountains receive peace for thy people,
and the hills righteousness.' The moun-
tains are the lofty souls : the hills are the
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The Understanding Heart

little souls. The smaller souls would not
receive faith unless the greater souls were
illuminated by wisdom. The hills live
by faith because the mountains receive
peace." Only a very self-conceited per-
son will fail to feel the charm of such
words. We do not live merely by our
own thoughts ; we cannot live on mere
abstractions ; we long to see persons who
are filled with the qualities we revere.
Something in our hearts responds to the
call of loyalty and to the idea of disciple-
ship.

An historic church, moreover, offers us
not merely communion with the greatest
souls and those whose opinions we can
accept, but it brings us into a real fellow-
ship with the great multitudes of the
lowly, of the weak, of the ignorant. The
advanced thinker, as he calls himself, trust-
ing in his own thought, becoming a pioneer,
and going out into the wilderness, is likely
to cut himself off from association with
others, whose thought may lag behind.
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Our Historic Inheritance

But the acceptance of an historic relig-
ion means sympathy not only with the
thoughtful and the progressive, but it
reaches back through all the stages of
superstition and ignorance to the very
childhood of the soul, and it makes us
feel that we belong to a great family. In
this great family are the children with
their fairy tales, as well as the wise men
with their philosophy : the Holy Church
includes them all. That is to many minds
the fascination in the claims of the Roman
Catholic Church. In this sense it is truly
catholic : it has breadth of fellowship and
a warm human sympathy from which our
sectarianism often cuts us off. Cardinal
Newman says : " What the Catholic
Church once has had she never has
lost; never has she wept over, or been
angry with, the times past and gone. In-
stead of passing from one stage of life to
another, she has carried her youth and
middle age along with her, even to the
latest time. She has not changed posses-
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The Understanding Heart

sions : she has accumulated them, and
brought out of her house things new and
old." He tells us how the Church has
not lost the early hermits, monks, and
saints, while she has passed beyond their
thought. They belong to the Church
once : they belong to the Church still.
Even though she has been the mother of
a new race of men, she still clings lov-
ingly to those who went before. All
these saints belong to her, and she loves
them all.

The Protestant accuses the Catholic of
spiritual tyranny in setting up an author-
ity over the individual conscience. The
Catholic answers that what the masses of
men most need is not more freedom, but
rather wise and firm guidance along the
upward way. They are discouraged and
bewildered, and they need those whose
word is definite and whose faith is clear.
Here is an extract from a sermon of a
Dominican friar at the dedication of a
church for working people. Speaking of
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Our Historic Inheritance

the work of the order of Saint Dominic,
the preacher says : —

"They have come to dwell in your
midst to be your teachers and your
friends. Life is for most of us a path
rough enough and dangerous enough at
best, and we often stand in need of a
guide and a friend. How hard it would
be to stand alone and plod along alone !
How gladly do we welcome the kind,
helping hand that is ready to sustain us
when we stumble, and to help us when
we fall ! How eagerly do we listen to a
voice that comes to encourage us when
our heart is sinking and our courage fails
at the difficulty of our work ! What a
help it is to find some friend, kindly and
sympathetic, who can feel for us in our
weakness and even in our sin, and help us
to return to the path from which we have
strayed ! All this you will find that the
sons of Saint Dominic have come to do
for you. They have come with a full
measure of the great founder's love of
souls."

The Understanding Heart

The idea of an historic church reaching
back into the ages when our civilization
began, and because it has such a history-
reaching out to all conditions of men, and
embracing them all, is one which is very
appealing. It is no wonder that many
who have been wearied with sectarianism
should turn their backs on modern liber-
alism, in order to gain what their hearts
crave.

But is it necessary to yield to the
claims of ecclesiasticism in order to come
to the sense of religion as something that
is historic and that has a wide fellowship ?

The modern student of history dis-
covers that religion as a spirit and a life
antedates all the churches that are at pres-
ent in existence. The Roman Catholic
Church is, after all, modern. In Italy
the temples of an older faith, venerable
when it was young, have been awkwardly
adapted to its uses. It appears as a new-
comer in the religious world. When
seriously studied, all institutions are seen
156

Our Historic Inheritance

to be made up of material older than
themselves. What, then, is ancient?
What is venerable ?

The inquiring mind, the primal awe,
the love, the courage, the hopefulness of
the devout spirit, — these are the elements
out of which all religious institutions
came. Here we have something ancient,
and at the same time something ever
new.

History gives us the record of the de-
velopment of the higher life. It is con-
tinuous : there is a succession of men of
the spirit. Religious ideas are broadened
and purified as the ages pass. The
makers of this history were men who
were compelled to choose between a
formal and conventional line of succession
and one that was vital and spiritual. In
making the brave choice, they seemed to be
cutting themselves off from the past. For
the moment it seemed as if they were
going into the desert places. Listen to
the Hebrew prophet as he cries, with a

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The Understanding Heart

pathetic sense of isolation from the human,
while he clings all the more closely to the
divine, "Thou art our Father, though
Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth
not acknowledge us : thou, O Lord, art
our Father." That expresses the feeling
of independency in religion. It has a
strong grasp upon essential truth, but it
has lost for a moment the inspiration
which comes from a venerable tradition.
The brave spirit, even in its worship, has
a certain sense of loneliness.

Then comes the other thought, which
we find in the New Testament when Chris-
tianity was just beginning. To some the
new faith seemed to destroy the old sym-
pathies, and to be the renunciation of the
old loyalties. Then Paul says, in effect :
" After all, are we not doing in our day and
generation just what our fathers in their
greatest moments did? We talk about
being cut off from the religion of our
fathers, as if we no longer had a share in
the glorious memories, as if we no longer
158

Our Historic Inheritance

belonged to Abraham. Go back and see
what Abraham did in his day. What is
it that made him venerable, that makes
his name reverenced still ? The great
moment in his life was that in which he
left his father's house, and in obedience to
conscience went out, he knew not whither.
That was the supreme act of faith in the
old patriarch. Abraham believed God,
went directly to God, obeyed the word of
truth that came to him ; and that has been
counted to him as righteousness. Now
another crisis in the world's history has
come. We must judge between a dead
tradition and a living faith, between fol-
lowing scribes and Pharisees and believ-
ing God. ^Thou art our Father,' we
say, ^though Abraham be ignorant of
us.' Yes, but Abraham is not ignorant
of us : Abraham did just what we are try-
ing to do." So Paul argues triumphantly
for simple faith in God. Those who be-
lieve God are the true sons of Abraham.
Do we not here find the real line of
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The Understanding Heart

historic continuity ? The same ideals that
wrought mightily in the past reappear.
The same kind of character makes itself
felt again. The idea of apostolic succes-
sion is but a faint and imperfect symbol
of what has always been taking place.

" From heart to heart, from creed to creed,
The hidden river runs :
It quickens all the ages down.
It binds the sires to sons."

To follow the main current is not
always easy, for the river is continually
changing its channel. We must seek the
real enthusiasms and the living interests
of men, and not rest content with conven-
tionalities. There are certain great causes
which have power to enlist the loyal ser-
vice of men, generation after generation.
They never become "dead issues." In
all the variety of circumstance they are
essentially the same.

The struggle for personal liberty is one
whose history reaches back into the re-

i6o

Our Historic Inheritance

motest antiquity. The battlefields change
continually, but the battle goes on. Al-
ways there are the two sides. On the
one side are men imbued with the prin-
ciples of absolutism. They are believers
in uniformity. They would use all pos-
sible force to reduce all things to their
own will. On the other side are men
who revere the soul, and who believe in
its free and direct access to the sources
of truth. They are tolerant of the va-
riations of thought. They are hopeful,
enthusiastic, energetic. They think of
themselves as " soldiers in the great battle
for the liberation of humanity."

It is easy to recognize the men who
have been inspired by this ideal. What
a noble succession of liberators ! The
despotism which they oppose changes its
form from age to age. Now it is the
usurpation of kings, now the arrogance
of priests, now the insolence of wealth.
But always the tyrant has been con-
fronted by the free spirit, which cannot

i6i

The Understanding Heart

be bribed or intimidated. It is the spirit
which flashed forth in the reply of Nehe-
miah to those who urged him to give up
his work, and seek safety in the temple.
" Should such a man as I am go into the
temple to save his life? I will not go
in."

Men of that temper have conquered for
us a place of freedom, and by men of that
temper our liberties are preserved. The
history of liberty takes us far beyond the
confines of any one church, and intro-
duces us to a great company which no
man can number. Each by his effort and
willing self-surrender has added some-
thing to our heritage.

Or take the conception of religion not
as a dogma or a ritual, but as an interior
joy and peace, a spiritual communion.
This also has had its line of development.
There is a history of simple piety. To
this line belong poets like Whittier, and
preachers like Channing, and mystics like
Tauler and Thomas a Kempis, and saints
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Our Historic Inheritance

like Francis of Assisi who needed not to
be canonized. We follow the line of suc-
cession till we come to the hill of the
beatitudes, and listen to the blessing upon
the pure in heart who see God. And the
line did not begin there. Jesus recog-
nized the type when, looking upon Na-
thanael, he said, " Behold an Israelite,
indeed, in whom is no guile."

Or it may be that your chief interest
is in the practical application of the prin-
ciples of religion to social life. In phil-
anthropy and in the eager desire for jus-
tice, you see something that evokes your
enthusiasm. Here, again, you are on
historic ground. You are standing where
two streams meet, — the stream of ethics
and the stream of religion. From the
beginning we may see men who seek
justice, and we may see men who walk
humbly before their God. At last the
two impulses blend, and you find those
who see in righteousness the truest wor-
ship. Out of the attempt to unite these
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The Understanding Heart

two elements have come the revolutions
and reformations which make so large a
part of the story of religion. The work
is still unfinished, it is the uncompleted
task which each generation leaves to that
which follows it.

Over against the idea of one historic
church, monopolizing all that is sacred,
stands the immeasurably greater idea of
historic religion. It is the difference be-
tween the perennial stream and its tem-
porary channel. When once we conceive
of the universality of the religious senti-
ment, its naturalness and its inevitable-
ness, we no longer think it possible to
limit its manifestation to any one institu-
tion. All exclusive claims savor of sec-
tarianism. Our real allegiance must be
to the church invisible which is ever or-
ganizing itself anew to meet the demands
of the new day.

164

X

How Religion is Organizing Itself

HOW RELIGION IS ORGANIZ-
ING ITSELF

When we turn from the history of the
triumphs of religion in the past to its
manifestation in contemporary life, we are
likely to be discouraged. The first im-
pression is that of a decadent influence.
Once all human activities were under the
immediate direction of a spiritual authority.
For the greater glory of God and under
the rule of the church all that concerned
the higher life was done. Pictures were
painted, schools were established, books
were written, works of charity were under-
taken, all from one motive. There was
close connection between prayer and
labor. A great spiritual empire was ac-
knowledged.

The movement of the last three centu-
ries has been away from this organization
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The Understanding Heart

which had the church for its centre. The
several arts and sciences have one after
another declared their independence of
ecclesiastical control. This process of
secularization has gone on till it has in-
cluded the two forms of activity which
seemed peculiarly to belong to the
church, — education and charity. A gen-
eration ago the president of a college was
almost necessarily a clergyman. To-day
the profession of teacher has no connec-
tion with the ecclesiastical order. The
public schools and the undenominational
colleges have flourished. The institutions
under churchly control are likely to as-
sume an apologetic attitude, as if they
were more or less under suspicion. Mod-
ern philanthropy boldly criticises the
methods of alms-giving which were prac-
tised by the saints, and it has established
new standards of its own.

What does all this mean from the stand-
point of the believer in religion? If we
identify religious organization with some
1 68

How Religion is Organizing Itself

form of ecclesiasticism with which we
happen to be familiar, then it means that
our civilization is rapidly drifting away
from all that is spiritual, and is becoming
materialized. It would seem as if the
old ideal of the kingdom of God were
fading away.

But is this the view of the understand-
ing heart, the heart that clings to the
things that are sacred ?

We must free ourselves from a mechan-
ical view of organization, and learn to ap-
preciate one that is vital.

" For of the soul the body form doth take ;
For soul is form, and doth the body make/'

We are not concerned with the fortunes
of the ecclesiastical body, but with the
manifestation of the soul. In what form
does the soul organize itself? This is
the question which must be asked anew
of each age. We must not expect the
forms to be repeated, for each age has its

own body.

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The Understanding Heart

Christianity in the apostolic age organ-
ized itself in a simple and effective fashion
for its missionary work. It was not a
contrivance : it was a growth. Later on,
when dreams of world-wide dominion
came, the ambitious thoughts took form in
an elaborate system of priestcraft. When
the desire came for a clear understanding
of its faith, there was the organization of
dogma in bodies of divinity. When as-
cetic ideals were dominant, there was
the organization of monasteries and of
all kinds of brotherhoods. With the
awakened thought of the Reformation
era came the impulse to free investigation,
and the organization of new sects was
inevitable.

What are the dominant ideals and the
passionate desires of the most earnestly
religious men to-day ? You will find that
they are not those of the old theologians,
nor of the ascetic saints, nor of the evan-
gelical missionaries. There is no great
ambition to build up a hierarchy or to
170

How Religion is Organizing Itself

establish a final theology or to found a
sect.

The finest spirits have other aims.
They are more desirous of learning the
simple truth than of completing a system.
They have a distrust of any external au-
thority, however lofty may be its claims.
They feel that intellectual humility is
fitting. The missionary zeal, which was
inflamed by the thought that there was
one form of faith to be imposed on all
men, has given way to a disinterested ser-
vice. It seeks not so much to convert
men to a certain belief as to develop their
own possibilities for good.

How shall this new impulse organize
itself? We perhaps are thinking of some
religious organization of the past, and we
look for it to be repeated. Where is the
" New Orthodoxy " or the " New Cathol-
icism " ? We have in mind a religious
body standing over against the secular
world.

But how do we know that such an
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The Understanding Heart

organization would express the most
deeply religious spirit of our time ? How
do we know that the ecclesiastical model
is the one which the free spirit would
choose ?

When we look sympathetically upon
what is going on about us, we see that the
higher life is organizing itself according to
inevitable laws. It is because ideals have
been purified and enlarged that the old
ecclesiastical forms have been found in-
sufficient. They do not express all that
is really desired. They do not contain
the answer to the prayers of earnest wor-
shippers.

I think it is evident that just in propor-
tion as a man's ideals are clearly con-
ceived he will find in some of the so-
called secular activities of the modern
world the most natural and direct way
of reaching his aim.

Take that prayer for righteousness.
How shall the passionate desire for justice
manifest itself? Not certainly in the
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How Religion is Organizing Itself

attempt to found a theocracy. That has
been tried. It is a primitive form of
organization. Not in a rule of priests,
such as was seen in the Inquisition. That
was a travesty on the idea of justice.

The work of organizing righteousness
Is a vaster and higher one than that. It
has required more than a special order set
apart from the rest of society. It has
been the task of mankind. Kings, states-
men, jurists, plain citizens, all have united
in it. The organic result is seen in laws,
constitutions, social customs and restraints.
All have as their object the protection of
the weak against the despotism of the
strong. The work is yet incomplete :
our social order has not yet been thor-
oughly humanized and spiritualized.
There are reforms which can only be
accomplished by men who are willing to
sacrifice themselves for the good of
others. There must still be the spirit
of the martyr, the willing witness to ideal
righteousness. The field for this kind

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The Understanding Heart

of activity is in what we call secular
life. The spirit which leads any man to
devote himself to that kind of activity is
one that is in its very nature religious.

Or consider the import of the prayer
for truth. " Lead me into Thy truth,"
the devout soul cries. But how is the
answer to come ? Is it enough that one
accepts without inquiry a formula which
purports to be " the truth '' ? That is too
easy an answer, and satisfies only a super-
ficial nature. No, the real truth is to be
discovered only through preparation of
the mind for it, and through patient
search. It is too great a task for one
unaided intellect. There must be an or-
ganization of those who seek and find.

The man of understanding heart recog-
nizes that there must here be no divided
allegiance. He wishes to know the truth,
and he is only confused by being told
what is orthodox or what is respectable.

Who shall say that the organization of
the truth-loving spirit is not more effective,
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How Religion is Organizing Itself

as it is more simple, in our day than in the
days when the school and the college were
bound by creeds and made mere feeders
of the church ? The secularization of ed-
ucation has meant the casting aside of an
intolerable burden.

Or consider that supreme motive of the
religious spirit, — love. Charity, we say,
is the fulfilling of the law. To love our
neighbor and to seek his welfare is to
come to the very centre of such a religion
as that which Jesus taught.

When the desire for service takes pos-
session of any soul, all else seems to be of
little worth. But how can one do the
most for those who most need him ?

Once the church furnished the means
for all such service. When Francis of
Assisi felt pity for the outcasts stirring
within him, he found the old ecclesiastical
machinery inadequate, but he doubted not
that through the instrumentality of Holy
Church his work could be accomplished.

In these days, philanthropy organizes
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The Understanding Heart

itself independently. We have associated
charities, college settlements, and a host
of organizations for special relief. The
tendency of all of them is to declare them-
selves " non - sectarian." They do not
desire to be the exclusive agents of any
church.

When we inquire into the reason of this
independence, we find that it arises from
the fact that philanthropy has become
more disinterested in its ideals. There
must be no ulterior design on the benefi-
ciary. He is not to be looked upon as a
possible convert or adherent to church or
chapel. Young men and women are
taught to go among the unfortunate with
absolute singleness of heart. They must
refrain even from the luxury of alms-giv-
ing, if there is reason to suspect that the
alms may be a curse rather than a bless-
ing.

When John's disciples came to Jesus
asking for his credentials as a prophet of
God, the answer was, " Go and show John
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How Religion is Organizing Itself

the things that ye do hear and see : the
blind receive their sight, the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised
up, and the poor have the gospel preached
to them." When one inquires as to the
manifestation of the religious spirit in
these days, the same kind of answer may
be given. Here are the things which are
being done by organized effort. Lawless-
ness is repressed, the weak are protected,
the poor are not only fed but helped to
self-support, the sick are tenderly cared
for and restored to health, the sanctity of
the family is preserved by wise laws,
thought is made free and education uni-
versal, the loneliness of the individual
gives way to generous fellowship, the
beauty and joy of the world are shed
abroad, so that what yesterday belonged
to the few is now given to the many.
Is it too much to speak of these things
as if they were accomplished facts ?
They, at least, are within the range of
practical effort. Men and women do not
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The Understanding Heart

merely desire these things, but they are
banded together in compact organizations
for these objects. They are learning ef-
fective means of accomplishment.

To understand what is actually being
done, you must not look in any church
year-book. You must learn what is going
on in courts of justice, in the best prisons
and reformatories, in charity organizations
and social settlements and asylums and
children's aid societies, in reform clubs, in
temperance societies, in public schools, in
colleges, in trades-unions, in fraternal so-
cieties, in voluntary associations for per-
sonal improvement and social enjoyment.
You must go further, and look sympathet-
ically into political and business organiza-
tion. You will find there, indeed, much
to discourage. You will find the organ-
ization of greed. But you will also find
the organization of righteousness. You
will find clear-sighted and determined men
in every community planning for the
public welfare. You will find that the
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How Religion is Organizing Itself

Golden Rule is something more than a
phrase : some of the best business talent
in the world is committed to it. The idea
of mutual benefit is not merely a theory :
an increasing number of men are putting
it into practice. It is a rich and varied
institutional life that is being evolved.
Could we but see it all, and recognize its
spiritual basis, we should ask for nothing
more than to have a share in it. No
*^ age of faith " of which we read can show
greater fruit.

But, when we have recognized the
religious significance and the organic
character of modern life, the question
comes. What of the church ? We cannot
recognize it any longer as the sole organ
of the spirit.- It no longer can control all
the forces of righteousness. Must it
therefore pass away as something which
no longer has a necessary function ? Or
must it be confined to some narrow and
remote sphere apart from human inter-
ests ? '
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The Understanding Heart

I think that it is evident that the church
is passing through a crisis. It can no
longer be just what it has been. When
the theories of its miraculous origin and
authority are given up, it can no longer
over-awe the imagination. It cannot any-
longer claim a monopoly of the spirit-
ual force of the community. We still
read the chapters wherein Paul writes of
the mystic body with its many members,
to which we belong. We realize more
than did our fathers how vital are our
relations to it, so that, if one member suf-
fers, all suffer with it. We know that no
man liveth to himself. But, when we
read, we are not thinking of any voluntary
and limited society. The body to which
we thus belong is not a particular church :
it is the great social organism. That
which hurts it is sin : to be cut off from
healthful connection with it is the one
schism to be feared.

The church is but a part of this body,
just as the school or the political institu-
i8o

How Religion is Organizing Itself

tion is a part. Its value depends upon
what it contributes to the welfare of the
whole.

And, when in disinterested fashion we
seek the welfare of the whole, do we not
come upon the necessary function of the
church? We have seen how the forces
of a free humanity are naturally organizing
themselves. Men long for truth, and
they build institutions of learning. They
love mercy, and the result is the manifold
work of charity. They love justice, and
justice is organized in law. They seek to
overthrow evils which have been long in-
trenched in custom, and they plan cam-
paigns in behalf of specific reforms.

But it is possible that in all these
special activities the larger aspects may be
forgotten. In the very intensity of zeal
for a temporary good the lasting good
may be neglected. The conservative, who
would preserve the tested virtue of the
past, may treat the reformer, who sees a
still higher virtue to be won, as a foe. Is

i8i

The Understanding Heart

there not a fellowship of the spirit which
should be preserved ? Is there not one
common impulse which may manifest
itself in a thousand forms ? In a true
organization must there not be a correla-
tion of forces ?

The great defect of our present civiliza-
tion lies just here, in the lack of the con-
sciousness of unity. There is a vast
amount of specialized effort, but an im-
perfect sense of aggregate power. Indi-
viduals devoted to good causes are igno-
rant of one another, and of any common
purpose.

It is possible that in a community in
which there are multitudes of right-minded
persons the public life may be corrupt.
The forces of corruption are united and
conscious of their strength, the forces of
righteousness are divided.

How can the sense of spiritual and

moral union be brought about? Here is

need of an organization not for special

ends, but for those which in their nature

182

How Religion is Organizing Itself

are universal. There must be a thought
large enough to take in all men in all their
relations, there must be a fellowship based
on permanent affinities, there must be a
harmony deeper than any mere agreement
in opinion. Let each man do his own
proper work in his own way, but let all
have a glad consciousness that they are
members one of another.

There is one institution which, when
freed from its accidental limitations, may
form a basis for a fellowship which is
broadly human. The church at present
divides : the ideal church will unite. I have
said that, to do the work needed by the
modern world, the church must be freed
from its accidental limitations. These
limitations are indeed the very things
upon which our churches often most pride
themselves. They put forth exclusive
claims, — claims to an exclusive revelation,
to exclusive sanctity, to a constituency of
elect souls. In all this they are shut-
ting the door against more religion than
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The Understanding Heart

they admit. They abdicate the great
place of power in order to gratify a petty
pride.

Let the church give up every exclusive
claim. Its real glory is in its inclusive-
ness. It belongs to God's good world.
It is vitally related to the whole of hu-
manity. It belongs to all men, and stands
ready to serve them in their need. It is
a brotherhood based on what is broadly
human, on an inner faith, and not on a
formulated opinion, on a hunger and thirst
for righteousness, and not on a conven-
tional standard, on the heart's sincere de-
sire, and not on a particular attainment.
It issues its broad invitation to "who-
soever will," because it is the allegiance of
the will that it desires. Amid all the
diversity of gifts and varieties of useful
activity, the men whose wills turn to
truth and righteousness should form one
firm fellowship.

To many religious persons, secularism
is a bugbear. It seems to be the antith-
184

How Religion is Organizing Itself

esis of the spiritual. When one consults
the dictionary, he finds this idea em-
bodied in one definition : " Secular : of or
pertaining to the things of time and this
world, and disassociated from or having
no concern with religious, spiritual, or
sacred matters or uses."

This usage expresses a common opin-
ion, but the free church of the twentieth
century denies its validity. It asserts the
necessity for a nobler secularism. It re-
turns to the primary signification of the
word : "Secular : going on from age to
age ; accomplished or taking place in the
course of ages ; continued through an in-
definite but long period ; not recurrent or
periodical, but permanent."

In this sense the church is an organiza-
tion which is pre-eminently secular. It
has to do with permanent interests and
principles. It interprets the life of to-day
in the light of the experience of past ages,
and it prepares for the ages that are to
come. It has to do with time and the
185

The Understanding Heart

things of this world, and its assertion is
that these things cannot be disassociated
from the spiritual and the sacred.

The nobler secularism which sees in
this world the field of divine activities,
and in the necessary work of man the
opportunity for spiritual development,
and in new moral issues the call for self-
sacrifice, is needed, if civilization is to be
preserved.

The so-called secularism which is in
reality blind to what is permanent has
shown itself incompetent to deal with the
complicated conditions of modern life.
We cannot live without ideals and hopes,
and without the worship of that which is
beyond our present attainment.

When the men who in their own
hearts cherish high ideals recognize their
social responsibility, they will see the ne-
cessity of an inclusive organization of
those who are conscious of common
needs, common purposes, common as-
pirations. It is not for the purpose of

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How Religion is Organizing Itself

gratifying the desire for good fellowship.
It is in order to accomplish a work that
can only be done when great multi-
tudes with understanding hearts work
together.

187

OCT 27 1903

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