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MAR 5 1903 *)

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BL 263 .F8 1902

Funk, Isaac K. 1839-1912.

The next step in evolution

THE NEXT STEP IN
EVOLUTION

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The Present Step

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Copyright, 1902

BY

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

[Printed in the United States of A merica ]
Published in November, 1Q02.

PREFACE

This brief study in evolution
appeared first about a year ago as
an introduction to a revival of the
story of George Croly's "Sala-
thiel," rechristened "Tarry Thou
Till I Come."

The study has been so favorably
received by some whose judgment
I esteem that I have ventured to
recast it somewhat, enlarging it
here and there, and to send it
abroad in its present form.,

THE NEXT STEP IN
EVOLUTION

In the legend of the Wander-
ing Jew, the words " Tarry Thou
Till I Come " smote the offender
like successive thunder-claps, tho
uttered without the noise of
speech. At once a doom and a
prophecy — this Jesus, now climb-
ing Calvary to His death, would
come again, and the Jew could
not perish from the earth until
His coming.

Dr. George Croly based his
story " Salathiel," or " Tarry Thou
Till I Come," on this old, pathetic
legend. He believed that "The
Wandering Jew " — typical of the
9

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Jewish race — is about to end his
wearisome journey in gs, as Christ
is soon to come.*

* It has been believed by many from
the early ages of the Christian era that
among the signs of Christ's coming
would be the recognition of Him by
the Jews as "one sent of the Father,"
and that they would then be restored
to the Father's favor; that this recog-
nition would be accompanied by a re-
colonization of the Jews in Palestine ;
that from this vantage-ground they, as
a nation among nations — the " inherent
genius of the Jews for things religious"
again reasserting itself— would lead the
nations of the earth in final triumph
into the kingdom of the spiritual man.

Prof. R. Gottheil, of Columbia Uni-
versity, and president of the Federa-
tion of American Zionists, said, before
the Zionist Congress, in the summer of
1900, in London : " It is time the na-
tions understood our motives. Our
purpose is to colonize Palestine. We
political Zionists desire a charter from
the Sultan authorizing us to settle in
our Holy Land, and we ask the Powers
to approve and protect this charter. "
10

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That the Christ is coining, and
that this coming is near at hand,
is believed to-day by millions.

He is coming — but how?

Hear Him:

The kingdom of heaven is like
unto leaven which a woman hid in
three measures of meal, till the
whole was leavened — the life and
nature of the leaven reappearing
in the quickened mass.

Again :

The kingdom of heaven is like
a grain of mustard-seed, the least
of all seeds, so little that it is
likely to be lost sight of in the
count of forces; but it has life
in it, and the power , to grow
and multiply, and it spreads its
branches in every direction, each
laden with seeds — the life and
nature of the first grain reappear-
ing in every one of the myriads of
grains.

11

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And again :

The kingdom of heaven is as
if a man should cast seed into
the ground ; and it should spring
up and grow, he knoweth not
how; first the blade, then the
ear, after that the full corn in
the ear. It is all natural: the
earth does its work; the sun,
the air, the water do their work,
and the life and nature of the
seed grow and multiply, reappear-
ing in each grain in exact accord-
ance with the nature of the seed.
It is natural, but marvelous : the
man " knoweth not how " it is
done ; but no one says, therefore,
that that growth is supernatural,
miraculous.

Whence the germ of life in the
seed? Whence the germ of life
in the kingdom of heaven? Who
can tell? The wind bloweth
where it listeth. Thou seest the
12

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

effect of it, but canst not tell
whence it coineth, nor whither it
goeth. So is life, wherever you
find it, whether at the birth of a
yeast-plant, of grains of mustard-
seed and of corn, or at the birth of
the natural and spiritual man.
But the leaven, and the grains of
mustard-seed and of corn, and the
kingdoms of the natural and the
spiritual man, grow and reach per-
fection by natural processes — that
is, in harmony with cause and
effect — each process subject to
critical and scientific analysis, if
that analysis goes deep enough,
and wide enough, and far
enough.

Life reappears in new life. The
leaven and the seed and the Christ
life all reincarnate themselves in
more leaven, more seed, more of
the Christ life. "In that day,"
said Jesus, " ye shall know that I
am in you." Those who study
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the New Testament can not bnt
be impressed with how often and
under how many forms is there
uttered the thought Christ formed
in you.

This is the coming of Christ.
Not that it is the only coming;
many millions of earnest men and
women believe that in the near
future He will come in a way pal-
pable to our physical senses as
He came nineteen hundred years
ago. " Ye men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing up into heaven?
This same Jesus, which is taken
up from you into heaven, shall so
come in like manner as ye have
seen him go into heaven " (Acts

l ii).

Yet experiences on the physical
plane are of little comparative
value — comparative. Jesus bade
the doubting Thomas to reach
forth his hand and touch Him,
14

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

that he might have tangible evi-
dence : Now, Thomas, yon believe
because yon have seen and felt;
but blessed is he who believes on
the higher plane of spiritual know-
ing. It is " an evil and adulter-
ous generation " that seeketh after
proofs of spiritual things on the
sensuous level. Men saw and
touched Jesus in Palestine who
were millions of miles from Him.
Were Christ to appear in visible
form, it might easily be of no
value whatever to come into phys-
ical contact with Him, to meet
Him on Broadway or on the
Strand ; but who can measure the
value of having Christ recreated
in himself, as the leaven is recre-
ated in the meal, and as a seed is
recreated in new seed, so that men,
when they see that man, and talk
to him, and deal with him, shall
feel that they have been with
Christ?

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One day I saw in a neighbor's
flower-bed a little plant, that,
as it pushed its way above the
ground, had brought with it the
mother seed from which it grew.
That was a literal reappearance
of the planted seed; but it was
not the reappearance, not the res-
urrection of the seed, for which a
seed grows.

Christ came the first time into
men's vision by coming on the
plaoe of their senses; He comes
the second time into men's vision
by lifting them up to His plane of
spiritual comprehension.

This coming of Christ involves
a new birth, a new creation, a
new kingdom. It means a new
step in the evolution of man. As
man has stepped from the mineral
kingdom to the vegetable king-
dom, and from the vegetable king-
dom to the animal kingdom, and
16

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

from the animal kingdom to the
kingdom of the natural man,* so
now he steps from the kingdom of
the natural man to the kingdom
of the spiritual man, every portion
of this step a natural process sub-
ject to critical scientific analysis,
if that analysis goes deep enough,
wide enough, far enough. It is
the continuance of evolution with-
out a break, without a leap (" Na-
ture never makes leaps," says
Leibnitz ; the leaps are only seem-
ing), lifting the race by a new
birth through Christ, the type-
life, up to the plane of spiritual
being and knowing.

Is the visible second coming of
Jesus fancy or truth? Increasing
multitudes to-day believe it true.

* This is simply a name ; both king-
doms, that of the natural man and that
of the spiritual man, are in harmony
with the laws of sequence.
2 17

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

Among these are many of the
foremost Christian teachers of this
generation, as that quartette of
great preachers recently dead,
Charles H. Spurgeon, Newman
Hall, A. J. Gordon, and Dwight
L. Moody; Theodore Monod,
Arthur T. Pierson, F. B. Meyer,
J. H. Brookes, C. Cuthbert Hall.
There is evidently near at hand
a notable revival of this belief.

18

THE ESSENTIAL COMING-
OF CHRIST

This coming is in harmony with
the laws of sequence and conti-
nuity.

Each of the successive steps or
kingdoms has had its type-life.
The plant — that is, the physical
basis of the plant life — came from
the inorganic matter ; the animal
— that is, the physical basis of the
animal life — came from the plant
and through the plant from the
mineral kingdom ; the natural man
— that is, the physical basis of
the life of the natural man — came
from the animal and the kingdoms
below it ; the spiritual man — that
is, the physical basis of the life
19

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

of the spiritual man — comes from
the natural man and the kingdoms
below him.

The development from kingdom
to kingdom was a natural unfold-
ing ; yet the new creature of the
next higher order always came
through a new birth — a double
birth: (1) the birth of the new
type -life of the next higher king-
dom into the evolutionary order
of nature, through the hereditary
chain ; and (2) the birth of each
individual into this type-life.

Let us attempt to climb quickly
as may be the spiral stairway of
the evolution of man, from plat-
form to platform —kingdom to
kingdom.

FIRST STEP IN LIFE, The

Vegetable Kingdom. — After ages

of preparation in the inorganic

world, the material which sup-

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NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

plies the physical basis of the
vegetable life — vegetable proto-
plasm— was ripened through the
marvelous chemistry of nature.
But when all was ready for the
plant, whence came the plant life?
Scientists are now practically
unanimous in saying that there is
not a scintilla of evidence that
the inorganic or mineral world
has ever evolved a plant life.*

* " There is not a shadow of trust-
worthy direct evidence that abiogene-
sis [spontaneous generation] does take
place or has taken place within the
period during which the existence of
life on the globe is recorded." — Hux-
ley, under "Biology," "Encyclopedia,
Bi'itannica," vol. hi., p. 689.

"I do not forget the alleged -facts of
spontaneous generation ; but even after
the very extended investigations of the
last ten years, it may still be stated as
a general result of the innumerable ex-
periments which have been made, that,
in no case has even the lowest type of
an organic cell been produced from
21

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

"To the scientist," says Darwin,
"it is a hopeless inquiry as to
how life originated." Life from
an egg is still the latest dictum
of science, that is, life only from
life. When all was ready for the
plant, the life came from above.*
This life was imparted to and in-
carnated in the prepared matter,
possessing the power to reorganize
after its nature, that is, after the
pattern that goes with each type-
life, and possessing the power of
multiplication, so that the earth

unorganized matter, unless through the
natural processes of growth from a
preexisting germ." — Cooke, "Religion
and Chemistry," ch. vii., p. 222 (1897).

"These are the generations ... of
every plant of the field before it was in
the earth " (Gen. ii. 4, 5).

* u Still more surely can we refer to it
[the spiritual world] those progressive
manifestations of life in the vegetable,
the animal, and man." — Wallace,
"Darwinism," p. 476.
22

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was covered with all the many
varieties of plant life, varieties
resulting from the law of selec-
tion through difference in climate,
through food distribution, and
through other causes, and from
the law of heredity.

SECOND STEP IN LIFE,
The Animal Kingdom. — No plant,
no animal. The plant was neces-
sary to prepare the inorganic world
for the animal ; the plant is the
essential go-between. The animal
can not digest and assimilate the
mineral, but the plant can, and
then the animal can digest and
assimilate the plant. But ages
elapsed in the preparation of the
animal protoplasm, that is, in fit-
ting material for the physical basis
of the animal life. Then again,
when all was ready, whence came
the animal life? Scientists now
substantially agree that there is
23

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

not a scintilla of proof that an
animal life has ever been de-
veloped from a plant. The phys-
ical basis of animal life was
ripened through the plant and
mineral world, and when the basis
was ready, animal life came.
, This life also came from above,
it did not come from below. It
came with the new birth of an
animal type-life into the heredi-
tary chain of evolution ; and the
animal type-life was imparted to
and incarnated in the prepared
physical basis, bridging in itself
the chasm between the two king-
doms. This type-life also had the
power to reorganize after its na-
ture, and from it all animal life
was developed. In some, as in
the lowest protozoa, it was arrested
at a single cell ; in others, it pro-
gressed to two, three, a score,
myriads of cells ; in some it pro-
gressed in lateral ways, ending
24

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

in birds, elephants, monkeys,
wolves, lions — in one preparing
the way for man.

THIED STEP IN LIFE, The
Kingdom of the Natural Man. —
Again, ages elapsed in the prepa-
ration of the human protoplasm,
that is, in fitting the material for
the physical basis of the natural
man ; and when all was ready, the
human type-life was imparted to
and incarnated in the prepared
matter, being born from above into
the evolutionary order through the
hereditary chain, and having pow-
er to reorganize after his nature.*

*"That it [human consciousness]
can not possibly be the product of any
cunning arrangement of material par-
ticles is demonstrated beyond perad-
venture by what we now know of the
correlation of physical forces." — Fiske,
" The Destiny of Man," p. 42.

" Cerebral psychology tells us that by
no possibility can thought and feeling
25

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

From this type-life sprang the
races of mankind. More and
more with each succeeding king-
dom evolution has changed its di-
rection upward from the physical

be in any sense the products of matter. "
—Idem, p. 109.

"It would be immeasurably inter-
esting to gaze within and follow the
processes of such a cerebral mechanism,
as we observe the operations of a cal-
culating-machine. It is all through
and forever inconceivable that a num-
ber of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, ni-
trogen, oxygen, and so on, shall be
other than indifferent as to how they
are disposed and how they will be
moved. It is utterly inconceivable
how consciousness shall arise from
their joint action." — Dubois-Reymond,
" JJeber die Grenzen des Naturerken-
nens," p. 42.

Huxley, November, 1871, Contempo-
rary Revieic, said: "In my belief con-
sciousness and molecular action are
capable of being expressed by one an-
other, just as heat and molecular action
are capable of being expressed in terms
26

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

to the psychical, protoplasm giv-
ing way to psychoplasni.

FOUKTH STEP IK LIFE,
The Kingdom of the Spiritual
Man. — Now other ages elapsed.
The natural man evolved a higher
and higher degree of perfection,
evolution finally ceasing along the
lines of the coarser physical man,
the direction becoming wholly
psychic, immensely developing
that portion of the brain which is
the organ of the psychic powers.*

of one another," but he accompanied
this statement with these words: "I
really know nothing, and never hope
to know anything, of the steps by which
the passage from molecular movement
to states of consciousness is effected."

* Reasoning upon "the dawning of
consciousness " in his " Destiny of Man "
John Fiske points out that the psychic
power depends upon the upper and
outer portions of the brain — " the cere-
brum and the cerebellum." These are
27

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In the fulness of time there was
developed in him what may be
called, for the sake of a name,
the spiritual protoplasm, or the
psychoplasm, * the exalted physi-
cal and psychic basis of the inner
man, the new creature of the king-
dom of the spiritual man. When
all was ready, again whence came

not visible in the lowest forms of ani-
mals, but grow large as the scale is
ascended. " The cerebral surface of a
human infant is like that of an ape. In
an adult savage, or a European peas-
ant, the furrowing is somewhat marked
and complicated. In the brain of a
great scholar the furrows are very deep
and crooked," and numerous, the cere-
bral surface, "the seat of conscious
mental life, has become enormously
enlarged in area. "

*"The psychoplasm or sentient
material forming the psychological me-
dium from which the soul derives its
structure and its powers." — Lewes,
"Problems of Life and Mind," vol. i.,
p. 111.

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this new life? As was true with
the other kingdoms, it could not
come from below. That which is
born of flesh is flesh — that which
is born of mineral is mineral;
that which is born of vegetable is
vegetable ; that which is born of
animal is animal; that which is
born of the natural man is natu-
ral man; and that which is born
of the spiritual man is spiritual.
Again, the life came from above.
It came with the new birth of a
spiritual type-life into the evolu-
tionary order through the heredi-
tary chain in strict accordance
with the law followed in the pre-
ceding kingdoms. The spiritual
type-life was imparted to and in-
carnated in the prepared psycho-
plasm, or the spiritual protoplasm.
In this combination in the inner,
the spiritual realm, this life has
the power to reorganize after His
nature, after the pattern that goes
29

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

with each type-life — has within
Himself the power of imparting
spiritual life, that is, of the mul-
tiplication of corresponding indi-
vidualities.

None of the previous transitions
from a lower to a higher kingdom
has taken place within historic
times. The cradle at Bethlehem
flashes a searchlight down the
spiral stairway up which man has
come from platform to platform,
kingdom to kingdom. Here we
see clearly that the type-life of
the kingdom of the spiritual man
is born from above into the hered-
itary chain of evolution. Many
times, and in many ways, He de-
clares I am " from above. " He is
born a natural man, and yet pos-
sesses the life of the kingdom next
higher, and proceeds to lift the
natural man by a new birth into
the kingdom of the spiritual man.
30

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He is born the sou of man and the
son of God, bridging the chasm
with His own being.

Again and again He says, "I
am the life *' ; "I have come that
ye may have life"; except ye
partake of Me "ye have no life
in you." He calls Himself the
"bread of life, " "the water of
life. " This would all be meaning-
less were Christ talking about the
life of the kingdom of the natural
man which all now have and have
had.

As the spiritual type-life lifts
the natural man into the spiritual
kingdom, so the type-life of the
natural man lifted the animal into
the kingdom of the natural man,
and the animal type-life lifted the
vegetable, and the vegetable type-
life lifted the mineral.

There is no break in the golden
thread that runs through all this
31

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series of development from the
mineral world up to the new crea-
ture in Christ Jesus. There is
nothing in this last development
contrary to nature; it follows
along exactly the same laws of
natural unfoldment as did the
other kingdoms. The law of con-
tinuity holds.* Christ is born

* Alfred Russell Wallace, who was
joint discoverer with Darwin of evolu-
tion, and is its greatest living expo-
nent, in his book "Darwinism," p. 474,
shows the fallacy as to new causes in-
volving any breach of continuity — these
new causes embracing vegetable life,
animal life, and the higher powers of
man. He says, pp. 475 and 476:

" These faculties [the higher powers
of the natural man] could not possibly
have been developed by means of the
same laws which have determined the
progressive development of the organic
world in general, and also of man's
physical organism. . . . Still more
surely can we refer to it [the spiritual
world] those progressive manifestations
of life in the vegetable, the animal, and
32

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really into the kingdom of the nat-
ural man, and the natural man is
born into the spiritual kingdom,
through Christ, the type-life. In
this last stage of man's ascent, as
in the previous ones, nature makes
"no leap." "Think not," says
Christ, " that I have come to de-
stroy the law ; I have not come to
destroy, but to fulfil." He came
to carry on His work in harmony
with the processes of the universe.
What is law but the method that
the immanent God, everywhere
and forever, pursues in His work?

man." Also, in "Natural Selection,"
p. 185, he tells us that the advance of
man is due not to the survival of the
fittest, but to those " glorious qualities
which raise us so immeasurably above
our fellow animals and at the same
time afford us the surest proof that
there are other and higher existences
than ourselves, from whom these qual-
ities may have been derived, and toward
whom we may be ever tending."
3 33

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True, segments of the circle He
follows are easily out of the reach
of our vision. Huxley tells us
that he has no doubt that even on
the physical plane, most impor-
tant work is being done far beyond
the reach of the most powerful
microscope. He might have said,
and kept easily within bounds,
the important work.

The crystal is matter plus the
principle of crystallization; so
the plant, the animal, the natural
man — always the creature of the
kingdom below with the plus sign,
for a birth is an unfoldment and
something more. And so, the
Christ life takes the character,
the soul, the spirit of the natu-
ral man, which have developed
through the ages — takes them
through a new birth, this time
with man's consent. "Marvel
not that I say unto you, ye must
be born again." "Verily, verily,
34

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I say unto thee, except a man be
born from above, lie can not see
the kingdom of God " (John iii.
3). Ye are "babes in Christ,"
"Ye are new creatures." We
become heirs "of God through
Christ," crying "Abba, Father."
" In love's hour Eternal Love con-
ceives in us the child of God"
through the spiritual type-life of
Christ Jesus.

Christ could not have been more
explicit or more scientifically ex-
act in declaring Himself the type-
life of the spiritual man. "lam
the door," "the way," "the life";
" no man can come to the Father
but by me." "He that hath the
Son hath life ; and he that hath
not the Son of God hath not life " ;
he may be a Caesar leading armies
against Pompey, or a Cicero de-
claiming his matchless oration
against Cataline, and yet be dead.
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In the inspired picture-history
of creation, an Adam is the type-
life of the kingdom of the natural
man; in the New Testament,
Christ is presented in every way
as the type-life of the kingdom
of the spiritual man. " The first
man Adam was made a living soul ;
the last Adam was made a quick-
ening spirit. Howbeit that was
not first which is spiritual, but
that which is natural ; and after-
ward that which is spiritual" (1
Cor, xv. 45, 46).

Here, also, the law of conform-
ity to type is manifest. Each
type-life is perfect, but those who
are born through the type -life
begin at the bottom ; the " fall "
is great from the type -life to the
beginning of growth in the next
higher kingdom. But from that
onward the battle of evolution is
to secure likeness to the type.

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

" We all, with open face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord,
are changed into the same image
from glory to glory" (2 Cor. iii.
18). We shall be "conformed to
the image of his Son " (Rom. viii.
29) . " As we have borne the image
of the earthy, we shall also bear
the image of the heavenly " (1 Cor.
xv. 49). After the night is over
we shall awake in His likeness.

Newton said that he made a
splendid guess at the universal
law of gravitation when he saw
the apple fall. Why may it not
be permissible for us to guess,
from the law of conformity to
type, that in every kingdom the
new creature carries with it the
pattern of its type-life, and that
after this pattern, in the lower
kingdoms, the accompanying cells
strive to weave a nature corre-
sponding with its kingdom, and
in the kingdom of the spiritual
37

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man the Holy Spirit strives to
weave the nature of the spiritual
man? *"

In the lower kingdoms it is
a survival of the fightest, in the
highest a survival of the fittest,
the struggle for life for ourselves
merging into a struggle for life for
others. Even among men in the
earlier days, to discover the great-
est man, the measuring-string was
placed around the muscle. That
was the age of Hercules. Then
the time came when the measur-
ing-string was placed around the
head. That was the age of Bacon

* " After watching the process horn-
by hour [in the semi-fluid globule of
protoplasm of the embryo] one is almost
involuntarily possessed by the notion
that some more subtle aid to vision than
an achromatic would show the hidden
artist, with his plan before him, stri-
ving with skilful manipulation to per-
fect work."— Huxley, "Lay Sermons,"
p. 261.

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and Shakespeare. But the time
comes in the rapidly advancing
future when the measuring-string
will be placed around the heart,
and he who measures most there
will be most conformed to the Mas-
ter, for he is greatest who most
fully gives himself for others.

Evolution goes on, hereafter, in
the inner and upper world, out-
side and beyond our vision, ma-
king many and many variations
doubtless, as in the lower realms.
In the Father's spiritual house
also are many mansions. We are
stepping from the physiological
to the psychological, from body
and mind to spirit. As in all pre-
vious growth, the latest type-life
is reappearing in His generation
— in the " new creatures " of His
kingdom.

To-day, in the unfolding em-
bryo of every child, nature mar-
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velously and clearly retells the
history of the evolution of the
physical nature of the human race
from the one-celled moneron to
the billion-celled man. For the
embryo of the child is a historic
map, done in flesh and blood, of
the evolution of man, of the forms
he has assumed, broadly speaking,
as he climbed nature's stairway.*
But more than man's physical
nature was evolved.

* Romanes, in "Darwin and After
Darwin," chap, iv., says that the em-
bryo is a resume or recapitulation of
the successive phases through which
the being has been developed with cx-
planable omissions. On p. 102 he tells
of the young salamander that is so
complete in its gills shortly before birth
that if it is removed from the womb
and placed in water it will be able to
live, breathing like a fish through its
gills.

40

II

The physical nature of man has
perdured through heredity, com-
ing up through the vegetable
kingdom, the animal kingdom,
and the kingdom of the natural
man, no break in the chain from
the unicellular monera and ameba
— the protozoa. The oak grows
from the acorn that has in it a
cell which has in it the vitality
and pattern of the parent tree.
That cell divides and subdivides
into the millions of cells that
weave the new oak, but' there is
not one cell of the millions that
did not come from the single cell
given to the acorn by the parent
oak; so back through the chain,
along which that oak has come,
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through the myriads of centuries
from the plant type-life; not one
of these cells in all the ages out
of line, not a break in the chain, no
chasm, no leap. Every twig,
every leaf in the wide-spreading
oak, has its thread unbroken
through the ages back to the prim-
ordial cell — back to the original
that came from above.

But the outward evolution —
that of the physical — marvelous
beyond thought, is comparatively
insignificant. The chief evolution
has been and is within. The
scientist is unscientific who ignores
the greater evolution and builds his
explanatory system wholly on the
lesser — on the least. Psychology
is also a science. Has nature one
method for the development of the
physical part of man's being, and
another for the development of
the non-material and spiritual?
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Nature is not divided. What
means the hereditary likeness,
mental and spiritual — not less
marked than the physical ? These
marks often skip many generations
and then reappear again in full.
They can not, therefore, be the
result of education or imitation.
Nor is it easy to believe that they
were placed within us by a direct
act of creation, as the old-fash-
ioned theological professor taught
that God mixed the fossils with
the plastic stones at creation,
somewhat as a cook mixes raisins
and other fruits in the dough for
her plum-pudding.

What means the gradual devel-
opment in the brain of the cere-
brum and cereballum, the organs
of the soul powers, enlarging from
generation to generation? These
are scarcely visible in the lowest
animals. They become larger as
we advance up the animal scale
43

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of intelligence, or psychic power ;
large in the ape, who came far
along the same line that man
came ; four times as large in the
lowest Zulu as in the ape, but far
larger in the European and Amer-
ican civilized man — thus slow-
ly made perfect through awful
struggles and sufferings, painfully
growing a million years or more.
Is it not then reasonable to believe
that there is a corresponding
psychic or soul development from
generation to generation in the
unseen individuality, the ego,
which uses the cerebrum and cer-
ebellum as organs; that up the
spiral stairway of evolution the
whole man has come — his person-
ality, with its soul powers, and
the physical organs of these pow-
ers in the brain, and the entire
physical man?

Is it hard to believe that our
44

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individuality has been born and
reborn through the line of ances-
try back to the type-lives, and
through thern back to the " begin-
ning," when God took of His own
life to develop, through ages of
conflict, personalities other than
His own who would, of their own
free-will, choose goodness? Is it
hard to believe that at every suc-
cessive birth each parent has .'
placed his stamp upon the indi- »
viduality, but that the individual-
ity has perdured being reborn
again and again into successive
higher kingdoms? Does it seem'
hard to believe that we should be
born many times? Is it then
harder to believe that we should
be born after we have lived than
that we should be born when we
have not lived? The prof oundest
mystery is in the first birth, in
which we all believe. And why
should it be thought by us incred-
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ible that, with the mingling of the
parental cells, the individuality
exactly fitted should be reborn in
the line of heredity, receiving the
parental stamp, being attracted by
the law which answers to that law
which guides the atom unerringly
to its place in the crystal — that
same law wonderfully exalted?
Whatever and wherever character
is, it must be obedient to the law
that draws it, for the law of at-
traction is even more irresistible
in the inner world than is the law
of gravitation in the outer world.
Every man as he comes to his
birth comes to his own place ; in
a profound sense he chooses his
parents and his surroundings.
As he was, he is, plus his birth-
gain and his growth through con-
sent and volition; his past leads
him.

And in this last transition each
man is conscious that his individ-
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uality continues, altho he passes
from one kingdom into the next.
The dictum of science is "no
leap, no break" — continuity.
Then it is reasonable to believe
that the individuality will con-
tinue through succeeding future
changes, as it has continued these
millions of years through the suc-
cessive past changes. It would
require much credulity to believe
that nature has travailed in pain
these untold ages to develop a
personality that would of its own
free-will choose goodness, only to
destroy that personality as soon
as made. John Fiske has well
said : * " The materialistic as-
sumption that . . . the life of the
soul . . . ends with the life of
the body, is perhaps the most
colossal instance of assumption
that is known in the history of
philosophy."

*"Tlie Destiny of Man," p. 110.
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That was a provincial notion
about the universe which was held
before Copernicus' s time — the be-
lief that the sun, planets, stars,
all revolved around the earth.
Copernicus was called the de-
stroyer of faith and bitterly de-
nounced. His idea made the earth
but a speck, and the Milky Way
— billions of miles long — the mere
yard-stick of the universe. All
this has immensely enlarged faith
— did not destroy it. Darwin,
too, was called the destroyer of
faith; but now we begin to see
that evolution, in giving man
countless eons of growth, instead
of keeping him a creature of yes-
terday, bounded by the cradle and
grave, has immensely enlarged
faith, and beyond thought has
added to the dignity of man.

The new birth of the natural
man into the kingdom of the spiri-
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tual man, the reborn in g of his
personality, making him a child
of God after the type of Christ,
is the tap-root of Christianity, is
the chief artery. Cut that and
all is gone. Keep that and let
the " new creature " grow toward
his fulness, then Christ is recre-
ated, reincarnated in him, and
through hini He is manifest again
among men.

49

Ill

At each succeeding birth the
individuality, to thrive, must be
in harmony with its changed sur-
roundings, and the cells that
swarm in every living body strug-
gle to bring this to pass. It is the
business of the cell to obey the
pushings of the governing force
in the organization to which it be-
longs. The plant needs water,
minerals, air, sunshine. Its at-
tendant cells hear the cry of their
master and build roots into the
ground and branches into the air,
and weave leaves into lungs and
laboratories. Note a vine in some
cave — how it works its way
toward the hole through which
sunshine is streaming, and how it
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causes some roots to build out
toward a vein of water; others
toward a skeleton many feet away
and along the bones of that skele-
ton— hungering and thirsting for
minerals, water, light, heat.
Hungering and thirsting — asking,
knocking — the plant receives.
Seek and ye shall find ; strive and
it shall be yours. This is the
law in the plant life, the law in
the animal life, in the life of the
natural man, in the life of the
spiritual man.

After ages of need in the ani-
mal kingdom and tireless struggle,
guided by an intelligence im-
planted in the cells, at last the
eye was built, so the ear, and so
the other senses, that the animal
might have its desires and feed
on the surrounding waves of light,
waves of sound, and have the
advantage of odor, of taste, and
touch. Thus : the personality had
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the inner capacity to enjoy sound,
and to take advantage of this
in the struggle for existence.
There was an outer world of
sound, but there was no connect-
ing instrumentality. The inner
life blindly yearned for harmony
with its surroundings; the cells
hearkened and built the ear. It
took ages, but in an eternity and
a boundless universe to work in
what are a million years or ten
million years more or less?

Seek is the law of growth. Its
suggestion we see in the plant
working its way toward the sun-
shine. This law comes to perfec-
tion in the prayer of the spirit.
I desire, therefore I pray, there-
fore I have. In a deep sense, as
a man thinketh so he is. The
universe of cells within each
man calls him master. Ye are
gods; kings upon thrones; your
slightest wish is heard, your ear-

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nest persistent desire compels
obedience. Answer to prayer is
a growth, a building up or down
to what you wish. Wishing is
asking. Ask what you will and
from that instance receiving you
receive. Here is the Christian
doctrine of answer to prayer ; here
is Christian science ; here also are
psychological control, mind-heal-
ing, mesmerism.

Do I ask, longingly, Why was
God more near to Abraham and
Moses than to me? If Enoch
walked with God why not I? He
who so questions has already his
hand upon the latch of the door
of the new kingdom.

Translate John xiv. into the
language of evolution:' Let not
your spirit have unrest. In the
inner kingdom are many stages
and forms of growth. If it were
not so I would have told you. I
go within, away from your outer
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sense of sight, of hearing, that ye
may more truly yearn, seek after,
that which is spiritual, and thus
by exercise of your spiritual pow-
ers grow inward and upward to
God's plane and know God; then
my Father and I will be able to
abide in you, and I can more truly
manifest myself to you, and then
ye shall know that I am in my
Father, ye in Me, and I in you.
Now you see Me on your plane
of knowing; then you will see
Me on my plane of knowing ; now
you see through a glass darkly,
then you will see and know as you
are seen and known ; that is, you
will be a creature of the spiritual
kingdom, and will be equipped
with its powers of knowing.

Christ can never fully come into
a man until the man has grown
up to the level of spiritual things.
It is a sensuous generation that
seeks to be satisfied with con-
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solation through the physical
senses.

All of our faculties carry their
own demonstrations of truth up
to the level of their development.
To the pure and loving, purity
and love need no witnesses. Every
man has had placed in his hand a
latch-key to the beauty and wis-
dom— to all of the excellences of
the universe; but there is only
one way of using that latch-key
effectively. We must grow to a
level with the latch. I must have
an eye fitted for the landscape,
and must have a poetic soul be-
fore the landscape can read its
poetry to me. I may believe that
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is
music because a master of music
has told me so; that is belief
based on authority; or, I may
measure the waves of sound and
scientifically demonstrate that it

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is music : But such evidences are
beggarly, and praise based on
them would drive a composer
mad. But let me hunger and
thirst after music ; seek, pray for
musical sight and soul until I
develop up to the level of Bee-
thoven's Symphony; then as
quickly as I hear it I exclaim:
" That is mupic ! " Do you ask :
"Who told you?" I answer:
" No one ; I know it ! " My latch-
key enters, for I am on a level
with the latch. I asked, I sought,
I knocked, until I grew up into
the musical world. I must grow
up to God before I can know Him ;
I must grow up to Christ before I
can see Him. The pure in heart
shall see and hear spiritual things.
I must be on God's level before
even the lowly flower can tell me
the thought that was in His mind
when He created it.

If any man will do His will he
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shall grow the character that will
enable him to know of the doc-
trine whether it be of God or of
man; truth is self-demonstrable
up to its level.

Seek is the law of growth in all
kingdoms ; and it is the law of
development and of the adjust-
ment of the feeders through which
each kingdom asserts itself to its
creatures and gives them their
food and consolation. Who has
not smiled many times at the
serio-humorous reflection of Rob-
ert Louis Stevenson on hearing
of the death of Matthew Arnold:
" So, Arnold is dead ! I am sorry ;
he won't like God." There is a
profoundly solemn truth under
this witticism.

There is health for the plant in

sun-rays; the plant in the cave

had need of light, and its cells

heard the cry and built toward

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the light. That capacity for light
and that groping of the cells
proved the existence of the sun.
The conscious feeling after God
among people everywhere proves
the existence of God and of the
spiritual world.

The new-born child must adjust
its lungs to the atmosphere into
which it comes or it must die.
It hereafter must eat and drink
with its mouth, breathe with its
lungs ; it must have new feeders.
The bird, as it chips its way out
of the egg, adjusts itself to its
new surroundings. It is a hard
trial often for a child to be weaned,
yet it is love that does it. It is
done to give it more abundant life,
not less.

The spiritual man has meat and

drink that the world knows not

of. He is willing to lose his life,

and thereby saves it. He is care-

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ful for nothing, and thereby has
all things. The meek inherit even
the earth. It becomes safe for
a man to have riches only when
he can easily do without them
When the feeders of our soul are
fastened upon God, it becomes a
small thing for us to be judged of
man — really fearing praise more
than blame. To such a one re-
venge, malice, passion, appetite,
grow empty. Christ spoke a sim-
ple truth, not a paradox, when He
said : " They shall lay their hands
upon you and persecute you, and
ye shall be betrayed both by
parents and brethren and kins-
folks and friends; and some of
you they will cause to be put to
death, and ye shall be hated of
all men for my name's sake, but
not a hair of your head shall per-
ish." He who has been born into
the kingdom of the spiritual man
knows that all these things can
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not harm one iota of that new na-
ture which is to be henceforth for-
ever the whole of himself. He
leaves all for all. He conquers
desire by the deepest possible
desire. He has learned the art
of communing with, correspond-
ing with, feeding upon, the inner
world. He walks and talks with
God. In all this is the truest
philosophy — we overcome the
lower by finding that we do not
need it. We conquer by repla-
cing ; we are weaned from depend-
ence upon the kingdom of the nat-
ural man by finding far more
satisfying meat and drink than
what we knew of before.

This is the meaning of self-
denial, fasting, repentance, suffer-
ing— the weaning of the feeders
from the old to the new environ-
ment— the feeders that give food
and consolation. We enter into
the kingdom of the spiritual man
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as the babe enters into the king-
dom of the natural man. Every
new creature grows up from the
grave of the old. Up the stairs
of holy patience we climb the
heights of the inner kingdom.
Our will henceforth is to yield
our will, but the sensuous man
contests every inch with the spiri-
tual. The perishing of the old
man day by day is painful, and so
is the renewal of the inner, for
birth also is painful. We learn
to love love, hate hate, and fear
only fear ; but every move upward
has in it birth-pangs. We are
in the soul's gymnasium — on its
battle-field. The creature was
made subject to vanity for a
cause. * Says Ruskin : " I do not

* " It is an inevitable deduction from
the hypothesis of evolution that races
of sentient creatures could have come
into existence under no other condi-
tions [than those of pains and pleas-
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wonder often at what men suffer,
but I wonder at what they lose."

I wonder rather that they hesi-
tate to suffer when I think of
what is to be gained. Corrective
experiences are repellant medi-
cines, not always in capsules of
honey, but they are medicines.

On the plane of this lower life
we can not explain suffering. On
the plane of the egg life we can
not explain the breaking of the
egg. For the explanation we
must look up to the singing-bird
in the branches. Paul speaks in
the language of evolution when
he tells of the law of the spiritual
man fighting against the law of
the members; the fighting and
the suffering are essential for
growth. I have made great gain
when I have learned what Christ
meant when He said, "Seek ye

ures]."— Herbert Spencer, "Princi-
ples of Psychology, " section 124.
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first the kingdom of God, and
his righteousness, and all these
things [temporal consolation] will
be added unto you," that is, when
you conquer the lower things by
the higher, then, and only then,
the lower yields the helpfulness
that is in Christ.

It is a marvelous way, marvel-
ous beyond imagination, in which
the new creature of the next
higher kingdom is developed, a
spiritual man is created, a being is
made after the type of Christ and
in whom Christ manifests Him-
self.

It doth not yet appear what we
shall be, but when He appears we
shall be like Him, and He can
never so appear to us until we are
like Him. This is the end toward
which all evolution on the earth
has tended. Nature has taken
millions of years and endless
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struggles to produce the new
spiritual man. All things have
moved together for the develop-
ment of his personality, his psy-
chic nature, and his body, the
body to be, as well as the body
that is. The end is the person-
ality reborn through the Holy
Spirit into the Christ type, and
with the Christ nature — on whom
the henceforth intimate God
presses on all sides, within and
without, as an atmosphere in
whom he consciously lives, moves,
and has his being. God hence-
forth becomes his conscious envi-
ronment from whom he receives
all nourishment and consolation.

To be a Christian is not to get
somewhere, but to be something,
to be recreated in the image of
the Father, the living God, after
the pattern Christ Jesus.

The value of this creation can
be measured only by the ages of
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conflict that it has taken to pro-
duce such a free individuality.

"We see all around us those
in whom is being wrought out
through the divine spirit of Christ
a spiritual nature; a true son
of God, of immortality. How
strange it is to look into a human
face, and to look into human eyes,
and to think that a son of the liv-
ing God is veiled there — to think
of the greatness of that creature,
for the accomplishment of which
all creation on earth has been in
travail for these untold ages !

Often not anything extraor-
dinary impresses us, as we look
upon a comrade in whom this
Christ nature has begun ; but wait :
we now see this kingdom of the
soul only in its germ. The bulb
of the tiger lily is not over pretty,
but to the eyes that see the possi-
bilities of the tiger lily, that bulb
is a poem. The step from the
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highest morality of the natural
man to the lowest round in the
kingdom of the spiritual man is a
stupendous one. John the Bap-
tist was the greatest of those born
of women — greatest of those in
the kingdom of the natural man —
but the least in the new kingdom
of the spiritual man is greater than
he.

God broods over every soul,
waiting, ever waiting, for desire,
for invitation. Seeking begins
and continues growth in the inner
kingdom. It is the first and last
round in the ladder that Jacob
saw, and all the intervening
rounds. As a man seeketh, so he
becometh. The one thing needful
is not the power of logic, or the
courage to step out on the conclu-
sions of syllogisms; it is right
dispositions, intention, choice.
The willingness to heed the inner
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voice opens the door to Christ the
type-life, to the new birth of the
personality, and to the beginning
of the accompanying new nature
by which each personality grows
into correspondence with its new
surroundings.

It is not necessary to have
heard with the outer ear the words
of God or the name of Christ.
All that is necessary is within
the reach of any man in any age
or clime, within the reach of an
Abraham or Buddha, or Confu-
cius, of a Paul, or Maimonides, or
Savanorola, or Luther, before or
after Christ was in the flesh.
Come whosoever will. God lis-
tens to prayer with His ear on the
man's inner heart, not at his lips,
and an answer to prayer is the
growth of the inner nature into
the fitness to receive the request.
The heat and light which the plant
absorbs measure its capacity, not

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the ability of the sun. Every
soul gets what it is fitted to re-
ceive. He that willeth to do the
will of God develops the nature
that is the touchstone and the
absorbent of spiritual truth. By
the law of our being we grow a
fitness for that which we desire —
an earnest desire is bound to re-
veal itself in action. "He that
keepeth my words, and doeth my
will, he it is that loveth me."
We grow by seeking ; we confess
by doing, for deeds are the inter-
preters of the inner growth.

What we love fastens itself to
our spirits ; we are in bondage to
that we love. We set our affec-
tions on God, but He is perfect
wisdom, and perfect right, and
perfect love, hence this bondage
is the perfection of liberty ; it is
the bondage of pure intellect, of
pure heart, love. This is a per-
fect servitude that leads to full

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freedom. Here is the turning-
point, the crux — willingness to
transfer the feeders of our nature
from the lower kingdom to the
higher. Hence Christ's constant
insistence, Except ye hate (cease
depending upon) the world, food,
clothing, the loves of the kingdom
of the natural man, ye can not
enter into the kingdom of the
spiritual man, can not live in this
kingdom. It is a change of cen-
ter from self to God, from the
world of sense to the world of
spirit.

Do not say that you can not be
born again. You can and must.
It is natural to step into this king-
dom, as natural as growth is.
The natural response of the heart
is Christian, says Tertullian. Our
experience supports and justifies
this necessity.

Choice persisted in means
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growth of the spiritual nature —
character — and this is that crys-
tallization of faith that removes
mountains. This inner life is
a growth, slow growth, but a
growth, and with the growth is
a corresponding development of
brain substances, and which in its
turn measures its growth.

As the hart, the pursued hart,
panteth for the water-brook, so
yearneth, hungereth, thirsteth
after God the soul that is born
and grows into the new kingdom.
Holy desire ever leads the way.
Seeking is exercise, and exercise
is always the law of growth in the
inner as in the outer world.

But man must be good because
it is good to be good, not because
he escapes from wrath, or receives
some benefit. The kingdom of
heaven is goodness, and all good-
ness leads that way. Christ is
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the way because He is good.
There must be another conception
of God than that against which
the Buddhists warn us, that He is
a "cow to be milked."

The great original sculptors of
Greece whom all the world now
studies, as Emerson would say,
stayed at home to study, and did
not bother much with going to
Egypt or Mesopotamia. God is
a re warder of those that diligently
seek Him, not by imitation, not
outwardly, not with the noise of
words that men may hear, but in
the closet, in the silence of the
inner chamber of the soul. Every
man must find himself, and be
himself.

There is no kingdom of heaven
where there is no kingly soul. In
a sense color comes with the eye-
sight. Until the ear is created,
where is the world of sound?
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Who by searching could find it?
It exists only to those who have
the corresponding faculty. If
there is a God, why does He not
show Himself, and why does He
not make the spiritual world man-
ifest as He does this world? This
He does do exactly, but each after
its own order. Where there is a
corresponding sense there is vis-
ion, hearing, or touch ; the other
senses are each but the shadow
of the corresponding inner sense.
The law of the one suggests the
law of the other.

God hid Himself behind the
world of our physical senses that
we, free of all compulsion, might
develop the spiritual man ; when
that is developed He can safely
reveal His infinite power and wis-
dom and goodness. Who could
make free choice in the conscious
presence of an infinite one?
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Nor is this nature transferable,
or to be extemporized. If no oil
is in my lamp when the moment
of the trial judgment comes, I am
helpless. Will or wish at the mo-
ment is not sufficient. If there
is no development of the inner
nature I am not a child of the
inner kingdom, and can not be
recognized by the Master. He
can never manifest Himself to
me. Many will say in that day:
" Lord, Lord, have we not proph-
esied in thy name? And in thy
name have cast out devils, and in
thy name have done many won-
derful works? " but who will not
have the spiritual nature which
alone is the recognizable visible
substance in the inner world.

It is choice that exalts in the
spiritual ki ngdom, not birth . Out
of stones God can make children
of Abraham — on the physical
side; but even omnipotence and
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omniscience are not able against
free choice to make one in deed and
truth an Israelite. Consent of
the soul is the essential element,
otherwise we have an automaton,
and in the inner kingdom there
are no automatons ; that is a world
of free spirit.

Except your righteousness shall
exceed that of the priests and of
sacraments and of the memorizing
of creeds, ye can not enter.

The only thing that profits is
the new birth into the new king-
dom— the birth and growth of the
Christ life. A man may say
scores of Ave Marias and pater-
nosters daily, visit regularly the
communion-table, erect the family
altar, and read daily his Bible,
yet not have the inner life. He
may give his property to feed the
poor, and his body to be burned
that he may have a tablet in the
Hall of Fame, or that he may win
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a far-off heaven, and yet Christ
or the inner kingdom may never
have been known to him.

The most pathetic and pitiful
thing in all the world is to see
the multitudes striving to get out
of the kingdom of the natural
man what is not in it.

The man is father to himself;
long before the child is the man
was. Long before Abraham was
he is. By the acts of his own free-
will he determines his place in the
universe. The law of attraction
in the inner world is as irresisti-
ble as the law of gravitation in
the outer world. The ego as it
comes to its birth in the kingdom
of the natural man goes to its
own. I can not gravitate by an
arbitrary will in the non-material
and spiritual world, but I can de-
termine my character, and what-
ever and wherever that is it must
75

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be obedient to the law that draws
it. It goes more certainly and
swiftly to its place than the atom
in the forming crystal.

Evolution is a sword that cuts
both ways. It chooses, it con-
demns. The fittest survive.
There are many called but few
chosen.

Punishment comes, but it is
largely within; degeneracy is,
through persistent wrongdoing,
the law of nature, fixed, inevita-
ble. If a man will not choose
to ascend he loses his power to
ascend, and must be reborn. God
never abandons a soul. Tho I
make my bed in hell thou art
there. The soul may lose sight
of God, but God never of the
soul.

He lights the sun and sweeps

the universe that He may find the

missing coin. He goes after the

lost sheep, leaving the ninety and

76

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nine ; He yearns for the returning
prodigal. His is untiring, infinite
love. More valuable to Him is
the most worthless of men than
many sheep to the human shep-
herd. There is pain in the Fa-
ther's heart until the wanderer
returns ; nor will that pain cease
until somewhere and somehow in
the universe the last wanderer has
returned.

77

IV

The scientist is short-sighted
and narrow-sighted who walls
science in at the boundary of his
senses — a mole accounting for
phenomena, and leaving out the
eye ; a Laura Briclgeman account-
ing for whatever came into her
life by her two or three physical
senses.

Foolish wise men, not to know
that the surest of all proofs is to
be looked for in inner experience ;
that the most real things in the
world are made clear not by phys-
ical proof, but by life! Darwin
reached the point where poetry
and music were little to him ; yet
the world of music and of beauty
are more certain than is Mont
78

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Blanc or Mount Washington ; but
there is only one way to know
thern, and that is to grow the fac-
ulties of music and beauty.

To the Eoman soldiers who may
have heard it, how unsubstantial
was the Sermon on the Mount;
yet its truths of the brotherhood
of man, of the fatherhood of God,
of meekness, of loving, of justice,
of faith in the inner things, out-
lasted the Eoman armies, saw the
empire ground to dust, and their
speaker, nineteen hundred years
afterward, by far the most potent
personality that ever lived. The
mother's love will outpull gravity,
and yet what scientist has chemic-
ally analyzed it, or what dissect-
ing-knife has revealed its where-
abouts? There are brute women
to whom this love is " unthink-
able, " "unknowable," but let
them grow the mother-heart, and
then they can think it, know it.
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Foolish wise men, ye can dis-
cern the shadow of things ; look
up and behold the substance!
Eochefort said to Gainbetta:
" Deafness is not politics. " When
will scientists learn that true
science must have eyes and ears
open to all experience within as
well as without ?

Once scientists among moles
held a congress, and learnedly re-
solved that they would believe in
nothing that could not be sub-
mitted for proof to their four
senses. One learned mole with
bated breath said : " There must
be something above our four
senses. I one day broke through
the crust of the earth and felt
strange sensations, and had a
glimmering in the rudiments
called eyes by our older philos-
ophers." " Nonsense ! " said a
grayhead among them. "Let us
80

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have no transcendentalism ; every-
thing that is must be explained
by sound, or by touch, or by
smell, or by the taste. All this
talk of a great central sun with
light, making landscapes and from
which all things come, we have
no way of proving ; and hence to
believe it, or to admit it as an
element in accounting for things,
is unscientific. The scientific
method, let us never forget, is to
account for all things by the
elements which come within the
range of our four senses and the
reasoning based upon these per-
ceptions."

So it happens that to this day
in the cosmic science accepted
among moles the sun has nothing
to do with the growth of plants,
the formation of coal-beds, and
the rotation of the seasons.

How imperfect that history
6 81

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that would content itself with
writing a biography of the acorn,
and never take into account the
oak that comes from the acorn
and for which the acorn exists!
The oak reveals the acorn ; with-
out the oak the acorn is not ex-
plicable. How can any one un-
derstand the evolution of man
and not consider the vastly greater
segment of his nature, which is
the non-material and spiritual?
The scientist believes in the inde-
structibility of matter. The step
is a short one to the belief in the
indestructibility of spirit. He be-
lieves in substance infinitely ex-
tended ; the step is not a long one
to belief in the personality that is
infinitely extended. He believes
that in all matter is a " thinking
substance." Is it harder to be-
lieve that over and in all things is
a thinking spirit? * The scientist
* "We adhere firmly to the pure, un-

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

endows matter with the powers it
needs to do all these things, and
then says it does all these things.
Yet science, when it comes to
know, when it comes to take in
all the facts, to go deep enough,
and wide enough, and far enough,
will be the arbiter. Creed, dog-
ma, authority, must give way
to it. Magellan said: "The
Church declares the world is flat,
but I have seen its shadow on the
moon, and I had rather believe a
shadow than the Church." That
is true only when the Church
makes provision for but a part of
the truth, and when science is

equivocal monism of Spinoza : Matter,
or infinitely extended substance, and
spirit (or energy), or sensitive and think-
ing substance, are the two fundamen-
tal attributes or principal properties
of the all-embracing divine essence of
the world, the universal substance." —
Ernst Haeckel, " Tlie Riddle qf the
Universe," p. 21.

83

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

true to itself. The assumptions
of science and the assumptions
of the Church will have to be cor-
rected by experience, the experi-
ence of the ivhole man.

Science has yet so to enlarge
its borders that it will grasp a
supreme truth like this one : The
Christ idea supports our experi-
ence more fully, answers more
questions, meets more necessities,
fills out more completely the
deepest aspirations, and awakens
higher motives than all other
ideas combined. Science is not
so far from grasping this great
truth as it seems to be.

84

Christ is not an idealism, but a
living, throbbing, visible, audible
Being — the real Christ ; the body
in Galilee was the shadow, the
outward shell that could be
crushed. The One now coming
is the Mighty One who is out of
the reach of stones and spears, the
type-life and potent King of the
kingdom of the spiritual man.
And he who hath Him also hath
power. " Ye shall receive power "
(Acts i. 8). "Stephen, full of
faith and power" (Acts vi. 8).
" The kingdom of God is not in
word, but in power" (1 Cor. iv.
20). Says Paul of those at Cor-
inth who found fault with him : " I
will know not their speech, but
85

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

their power" (1 Cor. iv. 19). He
who has not power is not of the
kingdom of the spiritual man, for
" whatsoever is born of God over-
cometh the world." This Christ
is a present force in the world,
producing changes, quickening
and directing energies, and must
be reckoned with. Christian civ-
ilization also proves itself by its
power.

But to see Him this time we
must have eyes and ears fitted to
recognize the manifestations of
the inner kingdom — the kingdom
of all first causes and real forces.
He is not coming with the noise
of trumpets, nor with whirlwinds,
nor with earthquakes; but with
the silence of the growth of the
mustard-seed, of the leaven, of
the grain of corn reaching up to
the blade and full corn in the ear.

There can be nothing more
86

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

manifest to-day to the optic nerve
of the spiritual man than is this
coming. The lightning flashing
from the east to the west is not
nearly so manifest.

Every event is alive with His
appearing. His presence is the
most evident thing in the world,
the very splendor of the light
hides Him. " Lo, I am with you
alway ! " is now known by millions
to be a vital, stupendous fact. He
is nearer to such a heart than the
mother to the babe.

This coming is in harmony with
recognizable law; belief in it is
logic, is common sense. It would
be extraordinary, miraculous, if
He did not now come. The intel-
lect is not ignored. We see how
God has been able to care for and
develop man from the protozoon
on up through these numberless
ages. Judging His profound
wisdom and power and unity of
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purpose and love by the result,
we reason toward trust that casts
out fear and gives prophetic vis-
ion. We reason easily and natu-
rally that yearning after the more
perfect fits the spiritual proto-
plasm for the new birth and the
new senses, enabling us to know
things spiritual as we now know
material things.

When it is our will to do His
will, we become the reincarnation
of Christ, for "Christ is formed
in us." When the dominating
ones in a community, in a church,
in a nation, in the world, are of
this sort, you see Christ reincar-
nated in all these. Moses, David,
John, Plato, Augustine, Savona-
rola, Bunyan, Emerson were great
ideal dreamers, but they were also
geniuses of common sense. These
men were primarily men of faith
and great good sense, not of cre-
dulity. They had the power and

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

common sense to know that there
were voices within, and to with-
draw their attention from the
voices without and give the real
world a chance to be heard. They
knew that the universe would fall
into chaos and that stars would
be ground to dust if these worlds
were disobedient to law. They
knew that there was an inner uni-
verse, and that there were inner
laws infinitely more important.
They knew it to be the A B C of
common sense to conform to these
inner laws. Christ was and is the
embodiment of common sense, of
sanity ; and so His followers be-
come as they grow into the new
creatures of the kingdom of the
spiritual man.

There are voices within distinct

and clear to those who have ears

to hear ; clearer than silver bells

ringing up in air at midnight.

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NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

One who has grown this spiritual
nature ceases to talk about the in-
ward world being silent or hid —
yet there are clouds and doubts.
These things must needs be — these
assailed Christ to the last. And
if angels do not also follow, min-
istering to us, it is because we
have not reached the plane of
spiritual seeing. Help is always
near, and it should not be neces-
sary for a prophet's hand to touch
our eyes to enable us to see the
mountains covered with heavenly
allies, or to enable us to know the
signs of the times. There is no
room for fear. Bismarck spoke
with the accents of a prophet
when he said: "Germany fears
nothing but God." The cry is
gone out to the ends of the earth :
" Great is the soul of man ; make
way, make way ! "

These signs of a mighty change
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NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

are deepening and multiplying as
we swing into the new century.
The Jewish people were to be
trodden underfoot until the inner
kingdom of love should be estab-
lished ; that barbarism of hate is
now rapidly dying.

Were we wise enough, events
all around us would be to us
prophecies of the coming of the
triumphant God, of the kingdom
of the spiritual man.

Watch! By watching we de-
velop the ability to discern things
beyond the senses.

Above every cloud the light is
now breaking ; the earth is rolling
into the dawn of a marvelous
day.

The yoke of ecclesiasticism is
giving way to the yoke of Christ.
Creed is the memory of the
Church. The real yoke of Christ
is not a burden ; it has wings.
He is sweetness and light. Let
91

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

criticism have its way. The test-
ing-time has come, give it wel-
come. A man nmst now stand a
vital Christian, or a hypocrite,
or an open enemy — that will be a
great gain. Creeds to-day are
trying to understand one another.
Christianity is being reduced to
its least common denominator, a
living Christ. The Church is
rinding it harder and harder to
think of itself as a great-great-
grandchild. It is coming to be-
lieve in its present experiences,
and to write its own creeds for
to-day, and not for to-morrow.
Since God is, the Church and the
world will not necessarily fall to
pieces if they let go their props
and scaffoldings. If there be no
God, creeds and forms and cere-
monies are necessities. A living
God is efficient and sufficient.

In the churches we are — many
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of us — so busy working for God
that we do not take time to look
around and see God; and are
making so great din preaching and
praying that we are not able to
hear Him talk ; are so busy look-
ing far away for signs of Christ's
coming that we do not see that
He is already here, is the most
manifest Being on earth to those
who have eyes to see and ears to
hear, hidden only by the abun-
dance of light.

Now we begin to see the absurd-
ity— all of us who believe in the
Fatherhood of God and the broth-
erhood of man — of casting out
one another, and are beginning
in earnest to join hands to bring
about on earth the perfected king-
dom of love. "Master, we saw
one casting out devils in thy
name, and we forbade him because
he folio weth not us" and the re-
proof of long ago we begin to u»-
93

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

derstand: "Forbid him not, for
he that is not against us is on our
part." We are rapidly learning
that while it may not be possible
to be of one mind, it is possible
and necessary to be of one heart.
We begin to grasp the meaning
of Christ when He said that the
world would not believe that He
was sent of the Father until they
saw the vital unity in the inner
kingdom — that the disciples are
one as the Father and Son are one.
In the inner kingdom we ask only
for right disposition ; this is infi-
nitely better even than right think-
ing. For those who are rightly
disposed go forward and upward
even while they sleep.

Christ is coming to the great
business centers, to the real heart
of the world. Thus often talks
editorially that typical newspaper
of the masses, the New York
94

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

Evening Journal, to its hundreds
of thousands of readers :

" Think every day of Christ.

" Every man, apart from all re-
ligious belief, can be made a bet-
ter man by earnest study and daily
contemplation of the character of
Jesus.

" Seen only as a man, His char-
acter better than any other is cal-
culated to inspire other men.

" COUBAGE, that all men ad-
mire. Christ possessed it to the
uttermost limit. Modest courage
that could not boast, and that
death could not move.

" Kindness, that makes the
world habitable. Christ was its
personification on earth.

" Compassion, eloquence, pur-
pose unchangeable, charity, for-
giveness of others' weakness all
may be studied in Christ as in no
other man that has ever lived on
earth."

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There is no more unfailing sign
of the nearness of Christ than the
growth of loving beyond the pro-
vincialism of the family, the clan,
the class, the nation. "Ye are
brethren." All things in common
was not an impracticable dream,
but a fundamental law of the king-
dom of the spiritual Man. We
must organize sooner or later on
that basis. We are speeding on-
ward toward that sun. We feel
its growing heat. If we do not
love our brethren whom we have
seen, how can we love God whom
we have not seen? What do ye
mean by the communion of saints,
ye who pray it Sunday by Sunday?
Spell it out. Brotherhood is not
a fiction of the imagination. Com-
munion is not a Pentecostal fan-
tasy. A living Christ is to-day
more than ever on earth an aggres-
sively unifying force.

" Inasmuch as ye did it to one
96

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of the least of these," ye did it
unto all and to the Father and to
Me. The spiritual universe is of
one substance, is a unit. "At
that day ye shall know that I am
in the Father, and ye in me, and
I in you."

Immensely human and natural
was Christ's message to man —
Brotherhood and Fatherhood, and
by those tokens we recognize His
present footsteps.

Judge these things as you would
the motions of the hands of the
clock. Look back a half-dozen
centuries and make comparisons.
War is recognized more and more
as a barbarism, and its end- is over
yonder hill. The court of nations
to settle wrongs is looming above
the horizon — is already holding
its sessions. The nation that
loves its fellow nations is also
born of God. The Golden Bule
7 97

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

is finding its place in international
diplomacy.

The humanities are in order.
Over one hundred and seven mil-
lion dollars were contributed in
the United States for educational
and other charities within the last
year.* Nearly two million dol-

* Gifts and bequests, each amount-
ing to $5,000 or over, bestowed or be-
coming operative in the United States
in the following years:

1893 $29,000,000

1894 32,000,000

1895 r... 32,800,000

189G 27,000,000

1897 45,000,000

1898 38,000,000

1899 62,750,000

1900 47,500,000

1901 107,360,000

Total §421,410,000

This list excludes the ordinary denom-
inational contributions for educational,
benevolent, and religious purposes, or
State and municipal appropriations to
public and sectarian institutions, and
the grants of Congress for various rueas-
98

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lars were given to suffering Gal-
veston; and Carnegie's immense
benefactions are but one of the
many indications of the full dawn-
ing of the day of living for others.
A single individual the other
day, a member of an unpopular
race, is wronged in France, and
all the world is aroused, and
flashes thunderbolts of wrath un-
der oceans and across continents
until there is a beginning to right
the wrong. Mankind is rapidly
becoming

"... one in spirit, and in instinct

bears along
Around the earth's electric circle the

swift flash of right and wrong. "

The marvelous sowing about
the Sea of Galilee is reaching its
ripening. The leaven is leaven-
ing the whole lump. The mus-
tard-seed reappears in hundreds

ures of relief.— From Appleton's Cyclo-
pedia Annual for 1901.
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and hundreds of millions of seed.
Cuba is helped to freedom for its
own sake; the Russian Czar — he
at least in Russia — in sincerity
says: "War should end." In
business it is ceasing to be a
maxim that the benefit of the one
is ever opposed to the benefit of
the many. We are learning that
the Golden Rule and the law of
self - preservation run parallel.
Applied to commercialism, the
Golden Rule is so to make money
as to give a benefit also to him
from whom you make it ; and that,
too, is common sense. The chil-
dren of the inner kingdom never
crowd : the more, the more room.
In all these things we see just
the beginnings of the results of
His coming : all men of one fam-
ily, God the Father, and Christ
the eldest Brother; the sacredness
of truth, of the soul, of all life ;
the reality of the inner world.
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NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

Man has climbed up in count-
less ages by the slow processes of
evolution to where he can use the
powers of nature through his brain
— becoming a coworker with God
in guiding the processes of evolu-
tion. Now, being reborn into the
inner kingdom, he starts on a
new and infinitely higher destiny.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
the things that are laid up for
those thus born.

With a boundless universe with-
in and without, and an infinite
God, and with an eternity to live
and work in, many, many things
can take place, and it is God's
good pleasure that they shall nev-
er take place to our hurt. The
creature of the kingdom of the
spiritual man is injury-proof.

And the command is : " Be ye

perfect as your Father is perfect " ;

ever approaching Him in countless

ages and reaching Him at the end

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of eternity, had eternity an endj
but since it lias no end, in what-
ever distant period and however
great the distance between us, God
is still the Infinite one and we the
finite ones.

Ah, how men err ! The Eonian
Emperor, after his awful massacre
of Christians, set up a column in
memory of the extinction of the
last Christian. But the Eonian
empire is in dust, and now the
world is rapidly becoming wholly
Christian ; and were that emperor
alive, he, quite likely, would ap-
plaud the result. God's step-
pings are from star to star. Who
knoweth His counsel?

From the pen of Garrison shot
the thunderbolts of heaven. For
a time, at no spot on earth did
the wrath of God so blaze and
flash as in the eye of Wendell
Phillips. But we must study to
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judge God aright in unfolding his-
tory. We ever misread his works.
We see in the storm-cloud a
messenger of His fury, and in the
lightning flash His consuming an-
ger; but, instead, that cloud is
big with mercy and breaks in
blessings, and its lightning proves
to be but one of God's ways for
burning poison out of the air and
creating life-giving forces. Time
is God's interpreter. The chil-
dren of the Southern slaveholders
now see that Phillips and Garri-
son and Beecher were God's mes-
sengers of love.

We look back all along the con-
flict of the ages of evolution ; we
now see, in the changing of the
dunghill into shrubs and' roses and
into food, the prophecy of all, and
we marvel at our blindness in not
knowing that the most manifest
thing in all the world, and at all
times, was God the Father work-
103

NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

ing for good, whom again and
again we have compelled to cry
out in pain (for God can surfer
pain) : " The reproaches of men
have broken My heart. " Looking
backward, we begin to see the
good in everything, that there has
not been a fall of a sparrow with-
out accompanying provision for
the sparrow, and we grow enthu-
siastic and shout with the martyr
of old : " Glory be to God for ev-
erything that happens ! " Hand-
in-hand we walk with the great
Father over the ages of history,
riding victorious over mountain-
tops.

We see, modifying the words of
John Fiske, that in the roaring
loom of time, out of the endless
web of events, strand by strand,
was woven more and more clearly
the living garment of God.

When Christ had passed beyond
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the grave He said "Mary," and
Mary said " Master " ; they spake,
they understood, tho death and
the grave intervened. The world
of the physical senses has no
barrier that hinders knowing
in the kingdom of the spiritual
man.

The kingdom of the psychic
nature of man — the kingdom of
light, love, conscience, true spiri-
tuality, of the clear recognition of
Christ and of the Fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man
— the next step in evolution, the
present step is at hand. Now we
see through a glass darkly, then
we shall see face to face ; now we
know in part, but then -we shall
know even as we are known.
Christ's hand is on the latch of
the world's door. Gladstone
spoke but sober truth when he
said: "At this moment Christ is
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NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION

undeniably the prime and central
power of the world."

" The Wandering Jew " is near
the end of his wanderings.

As reasoned the Apostle : * If
the Gentiles were cut out of the
olive-tree which is wild by nature,
and were grafted contrary to na-
ture into a good olive-tree, how
much more shall the Jews, which
be the natural branches, be grafted
into their own olive-tree? For
God is able to graft them in again.
For I would not, brethren, that
you should be ignorant of this mys-
tery, lest ye should be wise in
your own conceits : that blindness
in part has happened to Israel,
until the fulness of the Gentiles be
come in. AND SO ALL IS-
RAEL SHALL BE SAVED.

*Rom. xi.

106

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is not to belittle difficulties on the one
hand, nor deal in unfair evasions on the
other, but to ask and answer such ques-
tions as these : Is there a God ? Is the
universe the work of a personal Creator ?
Whence came the order and perfection
of the universe, instinct in animals, in-
telligence and conscience in man ? How
can we account for the Bible and Jesus
Christ, and is there a life beyond ?

Lutheran Observer, Philadelphia:
'• The merit of the volume is in the fact
that it presents in clear, simple,compact
form the great arguments for a' theistic
and distinctively Christian view of na-
ture and man. It is fitted to do fine ser-
vice."

i6mo, Cloth. Price, 60 Cents, Net
By Mail, 65 Cents

FUNK & WAGNALLS
COMPANY, Publishers
30 Lafayette Place, New York

COMMENDED BY LEADERS IN
EVERY SECT

Jesus the Jew

BY HARRIS WEINSTOCK

Introduction by
Prof. David Starr Jordan

Ten frank talks pointing out the need
and the way for mutual understanding
and tolerance betw'n Christian and Jew

GENUINE PRAISE

Non-Jewish

R . Heber Newton, D . D. , New York :
"Its catholicity of thought and spirits,
its wisdom and charity, go straight to my
heart. A sign of the times truly is your
noble book ; a prophecy of the time to
come."

Prof. Francis Peabody, Harvard
University : "It is marked by rare candor,
justice and sympathy. It is likely to con-
quer many prejudices and encourage mu-
tual understanding.'

Rev. James M. Ludlow, Author of
" Deborah11 : " Your views are broad and
noble, and commend themselves to every
generous man, Jew or Christian."
Jewish

Rabbi C. A. Rubenstein, Baltimore :
'Tt cannot but relieve the strain wherever
it exists in the religious and social rela-
tions between the Jew and the Christian."

Rabbi Isaac L. Rypins, St. Paul : "I
am now circulating the book among my
Christian friends."
i2tno, Cloth, $1.00 net. Bymail$i.io

FUNK & WA GNALLS
COMPANY, Publishers
30 Lafayette Place, New York

DATE DUE