the war and unity cambridge university press c. f. clay, manager london: fetter lane, e.c. new york: g. p. putnam's sons bombay } calcutta } macmillan and co., ltd. madras } toronto: j. m. dent and sons, ltd. tokyo: maruzen-kabushiki-kaisha all rights reserved the war and unity being lectures delivered at the local lectures summer meeting of the university of cambridge, edited by the rev. d. h. s. cranage, litt.d. king's college cambridge at the university press preface for some time past the local examinations and lectures syndicate have arranged a summer meeting in cambridge every other year in connexion with the local lectures. the scheme of study has always included a number of theological lectures, and at the last two meetings an attempt has been made to deal with some of the religious and moral problems suggested by the war. in a course of lectures was delivered, and afterwards published by the university press, on _the elements of pain and conflict in human life_. in the syndicate decided to arrange a course on unity. it was at first suggested that the lectures should be confined to the subject of christian reunion, but it was finally arranged to deal not only with unity between christian denominations, but with unity between classes, unity in the empire, and unity between nations. many of those who attended expressed a strong wish that the lectures should be published, and the lecturers and the syndicate have cordially agreed to their request. the central idea of the course is undeniably vital at the present time, and the book is now issued in the hope that it may be of some help in the period of "reconstruction." d. h. s. cranage, secretary of the cambridge university local lectures. _november ._ contents unity between christian denominations i. a general view page by the reverend v. h. stanton, d.d., fellow of trinity college, regius professor of divinity. ii. the church in the furnace by the reverend eric milner-white, m.a., d.s.o., fellow and dean of king's college, late chaplain to the forces. iii. the problem of the english free churches by the reverend w. b. selbie, m.a. (oxford and cambridge), hon. d.d. (glasgow), principal of mansfield college, oxford. iv. the scottish problem by the very reverend james cooper, d.d. (aberdeen), hon. litt.d. (dublin), hon. d.c.l. (durham), v.d., professor of ecclesiastical history in the university of glasgow, ex-moderator of the church of scotland. unity between classes i. by the right reverend f. t. woods, d.d., trinity college, lord bishop of peterborough ii. by the right honourable j. r. clynes, m.p., minister of food unity in the empire by f. j. chamberlain, c.b.e., assistant general secretary of the young men's christian association unity between nations by the reverend j. h. b. masterman, m.a., st john's college, rector of st mary-le-bow church, canon of coventry, late professor of history in the university of birmingham unity between christian denominations i. a general view by the rev. v. h. stanton, d.d. the governing idea of this early morning course, which at the present as at former summer meetings is devoted to a subject connected with religious belief, is this year the power that christianity has, or is fitted to have, to unite christian denominations with one another, and also to unite races and nations, and different portions of that commonwealth of nations which we call the british empire, and different classes within our own nation. a moment's reflection will shew that the question of unity between denominations of christians derives special significance from being placed in connexion with all those other cases in regard to which the promotion of unity is to be considered. if it belongs to the genius of christianity to be a uniting power, it is above all in the sphere of professed and organised christianity, where christians are grouped together _as_ christians, that its influence in producing union should be shewn. if it fails in this here, what hope, it may well be asked, can there be that it should be effective, when its principles and motives cannot be applied with the same directness and force? in the very assumption, then, which underlies this whole course of lectures, that christianity can unite men, we have a special reason for considering our relations to one another as members of christian bodies, with regard to this matter of unity. but we are also all of us aware that the divisions among christians are often severely commented on by those who refuse to make any definite profession of the christian religion, and are given by them sometimes as a ground of their own position of aloofness. it is true that strictures passed on the christian religion and its professors for failures in this, as well as in other respects, frequently shew little discernment, and are more or less unjust. so far as they are made to reflect on christianity itself, allowance is not made for the nature of the human material upon which and with which the christian faith and divine grace have to work. and when christians of the present day are treated as if they were to blame for them, sufficient account is not taken of the long and complex history, and the working of motives, partly good as well as bad, through which christendom has been brought to its present divided condition. still we cannot afford to disregard the hindrance to the progress of the christian faith and christian life among men created by the existing divisions among christians. harm is caused by them in another way of which we may be, perhaps, less conscious. they bring loss to ourselves individually within the denominations to which we severally belong. we should gain incalculably from the strengthening of our faith through a wider fellowship with those who share it, the greater volume of evidence for the reality of spiritual things which would thus be brought before us; and from the enrichment of our spiritual knowledge and life through closer acquaintance with a variety of types of christian character and experience; and not least from that moral training which is to be obtained through common action, in proportion to the effort that has to be made in order to understand the point of view of others, and the suppression of mere egoism that is involved. these are strong reasons for aiming at christian unity. but further there comes to all of us at this time a powerful incentive to reflection on the subject, and to such endeavours to further it as we can make, in the signs of a movement towards it, the greater prominence which the subject has assumed in the thought of christians, the evidence of more fervent aspirations after it, the clearer recognition of the injury caused by divisions. i remember that some or more years ago, one of the most eminent and justly esteemed preachers of the day defended the existence of many denominations among christians on the ground that through their competition a larger amount of work for the advance of the kingdom of god is accomplished. we are not so much in love with competition and its effects in any sphere now. and it should always have been perceived that, whatever its rightful place in the economic sphere might be, it had none in the promotion of purely moral and spiritual ends. the preacher to whom i have alluded did not stand alone in his view, though perhaps it was not often so frankly expressed. but at least acquiescence in the existence of separated bodies of christians, as a thing inevitable, was commoner than it is now. in the new attitude to this question of the duty of unity that has appeared amongst us there lies an opportunity which we must beware of neglecting. it is a movement of the spirit to which it behoves us to respond energetically, or it will subside. shakespeare had no doubt a different kind of human enterprises mainly in view when he wrote: there is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. but this observation is broadly true of all human progress. an advance of some kind in the relations of men to one another, or the remedying of some abuse, begins to be urged here and there, and for a time those who urge it are but little listened to. then almost suddenly (as it seems) the minds of many, one hardly knows why, become occupied with it. if in the generation when that happens desire leads to concentrated effort, the good of which men have been granted the vision in their minds and souls will be attained. otherwise interest in it will pass away, and the hope of securing it, at least for a long time, will be lost. before we attempt to consider any of the problems presented by the actual state of christendom in connexion with the subject now before us, let us go back in thought to the position of believers in jesus christ of the first generation, when his own brief earthly life had ended. they form a fellowship bound together by faith in their common lord, by the confident hopes with which that faith has inspired them, and the new view of life and its duties which they have acquired. soon indeed instances occur in which the bonds between different members of the body become strained, owing especially to differences of origin and character in the elements of which it was composed. we have an example at a very early point in the narrative of the book of _acts_ in the dissatisfaction felt by believers from among hellenistic jews, who were visiting, or had again taken up their abode at, jerusalem, because a fair share of the alms was not assigned to their poor by the palestinian believers, who had the advantage of being more permanently established in the city, and were probably the majority. but the chiefs among the brethren, the apostles, take wise measures to remove the grievance and prevent a breach. a few years later a far more serious difference arises. jewish believers in jesus had continued to observe the mosaic law. when converts from among the gentiles began to come in the question presented itself, "is observance of that law to be required of them?" only on condition that it was would many among the jewish believers associate with them. in their eyes still all men who did not conform to the chief precepts of this law were unclean. it is possible that there were jews of liberal tendencies, men who had long lived among gentiles, to whom this difficulty may have seemed capable of settlement by some compromise. but in the case of most jews, not merely in palestine, but probably also in the jewish settlements scattered through the græco-roman world, religious scruples, ingrained through the instruction they had received and the habits they had formed from child-hood, were deeply offended by the very notion of joining in common meals with gentiles, unless they had fulfilled the same conditions as full proselytes to judaism, the so-called "proselytes of righteousness." on behalf, however, of gentiles who had adopted the faith of christ, it was felt that the demand for the fulfilment of this condition of fellowship must be resisted at once and to the uttermost. so st paul held. to concede it would have caused intolerable interference with gentile liberty, and hindrance to the progress of the preaching of the gospel and its acceptance in the world. and further--upon this consideration st paul insisted above all--the requirement that gentiles should keep the jewish law might be taken to imply, and would certainly encourage, an entirely mistaken view of what was morally and spiritually of chief importance; it would put the emphasis wrongly in regard to that which was essential in order that man might be in a right relation to god and in the way of salvation. but the point in the history of this early controversy to which i desire in connexion with our present subject to draw attention is the fact that it is not suggested from any side that jewish christians and gentile christians should form two separate bodies that would exist side by side in the many cities where both classes were to be found, keeping to their respective spheres, endeavouring to behave amicably to one another, "agreeing to differ" as the saying is. this would have been the plan, we may (i think) suppose, which would have seemed the best to that worldly wisdom, which is so often seen to be folly when long and broad views of history are taken. and we can imagine that not a few of the ecclesiastical leaders of recent centuries might have proposed it, if they had been there to do so. for never, perhaps, have there been more natural reasons for separation than might have been found in those national and racial differences, and in those incompatibilities due to previous training and associations between christians of jewish and gentile origin. yet it is assumed all through that they _must_ combine. and st paul is not only sure himself that to this end jewish prejudices must be overcome, but he is able to persuade the elder apostles of this, as also james who presided over the believers at jerusalem, though they had been slower than he to perceive what vital principles were at stake. believers of both classes must join in the christian agapæ, or love-feasts, and must partake of the same eucharist, because the many are one loaf[ ], one body. they must grasp, and give practical effect to, the principle that "there is neither jew nor greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, for all are one in christ jesus[ ]." for that society, or organism, into which jewish and gentile believers were alike brought, a name was found; it was that of _ecclesia,_ translated _church_. it will be worth our while to spend a few moments on the use of this name and its significance. we find mention in the new testament of "the church" and of "churches." what is the relation between the singular term and the plural historically, and what did the distinction import? the sublime passages concerning the church as the body of christ and the bride of christ occur in the epp. to the colossians and ephesians[ ], which are not among the early pauline epistles. nevertheless in comparatively early epistles, the authorship of which by st paul himself is rarely disputed, there are expressions which seem plainly to shew that he thought of the church as a single body to which all who had been baptized in the name of jesus christ belonged. in the epp. to the galatians and corinthians[ ] he refers to the fact that he persecuted the "church of god," and his persecution was not confined to believers in jerusalem or even in judæa, but extended to adjacent regions. he might have spoken of "the churches of syria," as he does elsewhere (using the plural) of those of judæa, galatia, asia, macedonia[ ]. but he prefers to speak of the church, and he describes it as "the church of god." the impiety of his action thus appeared in its true light. he had not merely attacked certain local associations, but that sacred body--"the church of god." again, it is evident that he is thinking of a society embracing believers everywhere when he writes to the corinthians concerning different forms of ministry, "god placed some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets" and so forth[ ]. again, when he bids the corinthians, "give no occasion of stumbling, either to jews or to greeks, or to the church of god[ ]," or asks them whether they "despise the church of god[ ]," although it was their conduct to brethren among whom they lived that was especially in question, it is evident that, as in the case of his own action as a persecutor, the gravity of the fault can in his view only be truly measured when it is realised that each individual church is a representative of the church universal. this representative character of local churches also appears in the expression common in his epistles, the "church in" such and such a place. the usage of st paul's epistles does not, therefore, encourage the idea that the application of the term _ecclesia_ to particular associations preceded its application to the whole body, but the contrary, and plainly it expressed for him from the first a most sublime conception. i may add that there is no reason to suppose that the use of the term originated with him. we find it in the gospel according to st matthew, the epistle of st james and the apocalypse of st john, writings which shew no trace of his influence. there is no passage of the new testament from which it is possible to infer clearly the idea which underlay its application to believers in jesus christ. but when it is considered how full of the old testament the minds of the first generation of christians were, it must appear to be in every way most probable that the word _ecclesia_ suggested itself because it is the one most frequently employed in the greek translation of the old testament (the septuagint) to render the hebrew word k[macron a]h[macron a]l, the chief term used for the assembly of israel in the presence of god, gathered together in such a manner and for such purposes as forced them to realise their distinctive existence as a people, and their peculiar relation to god. the believers in jesus now formed the _ecclesia_ of god, the true israel, which in one sense was a continuation of the old and yet had taken its place. this was the view put forward by dr hort in his lectures on the christian ecclesia[ ], and it is at the present time widely, i believe i may say generally, held. i may mention that the eminent german church historians, a. harnack[ ] and sohm[ ], give it without hesitation as the true one. among the jews the thought of the people in its relation to god was associated with great assemblies in the courts and precincts of the temple at jerusalem, which altogether overshadowed any expression of their covenant relation to god as a people which they could find in their synagogue-worship, however greatly they valued the bonds with one another which were strengthened, and the spiritual help which they obtained, through their synagogues. but christians had no single, central meeting-place for their common worship at which their ideal unity was embodied. it was, therefore, all the more natural that the exalted name which described that unity should be transferred to the communities in different places which shared the life, the privileges, and the responsibilities of the whole, and in many ways stood to those who composed them severally for the whole. the divisions between these communities were local only. they arose from the limitations to intercourse and common action which distance imposed. or, in cases where the church in some christian's house is referred to, they were due to the necessity, or the great convenience, of meeting in small numbers, owing to the want of buildings for christian worship, or the hostility of the surrounding population. moreover these local bodies were not suffered to forget the ties which bound them all together. those in the greek-speaking world were required to send alms to the churches in judæa. again an individual church was not free to disregard the judgment of the rest. after st paul has reasoned with the corinthians on the subject of a practice which he deemed inexpedient, he clinches the matter by declaring, "we have no such custom neither the churches of god[ ]." lastly, the apostles, and preeminently st paul, through their mission which, if not world-wide, at least extended over large districts, and the care of the churches which they exercised, and the authority which they claimed in the name of christ, and which was conceded to them, were a unifying power. thus the plural "the churches" has in important respects a different connotation in the new testament from that which it has in modern times. in the apostolic age the distinction between the church and the churches is connected only with the different degrees to which a common life could be realised according to geographical proximity. by a division of this nature the idea of one universal church was not compromised. the local body of christians in point of fact rightly regarded itself as representative of the whole body. the christians in that place were the church so far as it extended there. the preservation of unity within the church of each place where it was imperilled by rivalries and jealousies and misunderstandings, such as are too apt to shew themselves when men are in close contact with one another, and of unity between the churches of regions remote from one another, in which case the sense of it is likely to be weak through want of knowledge and consequently of sympathy--these appear as twin-aims severally pursued in the manner that each required. not indeed that it is implied that everything is to be sacrificed to unity. but it is demanded that the most strenuous endeavours shall be made to maintain it, and it appears to be assumed that without any breach of it, loyalty to every other great principle, room for the rightful exercise of every individual gift, recognition of every aspect of divine truth the perception of which may be granted to one or other member of the body, can be secured, if christians cultivate right dispositions of mutual affection and respect. there is one more point in regard to the idea of the church in the new testament as to which we must not suffer ourselves to be misled, or confused, by later conceptions and our modern habits of thought. we have become accustomed to a distinction between the church visible and the church invisible which makes of them two different entities. according to this, one man who is a member of the church visible may at the same time, if he is a truly spiritual person, even while here on earth belong to the church invisible; but another who has a place in the church visible has none and it may be never will have one in the church invisible. this conception, though it had appeared here and there before the th century, first obtained wide vogue then under the influence of the protestant reformation. it arose through a very natural reaction from the mechanical view of membership in the church, its conditions and privileges, which had grown up in the middle ages. but it does not correspond to the ideas of the apostolic age. according to these there is but one church, the same as to its true being on earth as it is in heaven, one body of christ, composed of believers in him who had been taken to their rest and of those still in this world. in the earlier part of the apostolic age the great majority were in fact still in this world. the body was chiefly a visible body. it had many imperfections. some of its members might even have no true part in it at all and require removal. but christ himself "sanctifies and cleanses it that he may present it"--that very same church--"to himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish[ ]." now while one can understand the point of view from which in later times so deep a line of demarcation has been drawn between the visible and the invisible church as to make of them two entirely separate things, and although to many it may still seem hard to do without this distinction, or in the existing condition of the nominally christian world to employ that primitive conception of the church even as, so to speak, a working hypothesis, i would ask whether the primitive conception is not a nobler and sounder one. surely it places the ideal in its right relation to the actual. the full realisation of the ideal no doubt belongs only to another world; yet if we believe in it as an ideal we must seek to actualise it here. there is something unwholesome in acknowledging any ideal which we do not strive so far as we can to actualise. and plainly participation in the same grace, and the spiritual ties arising therefrom, ought to find expression in an outer life of fellowship, of intercourse and common action, and such common organisation as for human beings in this world these require. no doubt it is always too possible that the outward may hinder the perception of the inward. but if we can guard successfully against this danger, the inward and spiritual will become all the more potent by having the external form through which to work; while the outward, if it is too sharply dissevered in thought from the inward, loses its value and even becomes injurious. again, a view of the church is more wholesome which does not encourage us to classify its members in a manner only possible to the allseeing god; to draw a line between true believers and others, and to determine (it may be) on which side of the line different ones are by their having had spiritual experiences similar to our own, and having learned to use the same religious language that we do; but which on the contrary leads us to think of all as under the heavenly father's care, and subject to the influences of the holy spirit, and placed in that body of christ where, although the spiritual life in them is as yet of very various degrees of strength, and their knowledge of things divine in many cases small, all may and are intended to advance to maturity in christ. it is necessary that the relation of the idea of the church upon which i have been dwelling to her subsequent history for centuries should be clearly apprehended. its hold on the minds of christians preceded the very beginnings of organisation in the christian communities, and it would probably be no exaggeration to say that it governed the whole evolution of that organisation for many centuries. particular offices were doubtless instituted and men appointed to them with specific reference to needs which were making themselves felt. but all the while that idea of the church's unity and of her holiness was present in their thoughts. and certainly as soon as it becomes necessary to insist upon the duty of loyalty to those who had been duly appointed to office, and directly or indirectly to defend the institutions themselves, appeal is made to the idea, as notably by the two chief christians in the sub-apostolic age, clement of rome and ignatius. it is in itself evidence of a common spirit and common tendencies that broadly speaking the same form of constitution in the local christian communities, though not introduced everywhere with quite equal rapidity, was so nearly everywhere almost on the confines of the apostolic age, and that soon it was everywhere. ere long, with this form of government as a basis, plans were adopted expressly for the purpose of uniting the local churches on terms of equality among themselves, especially in combating error. and at length in the name still of the church's unity there came, however much we may regret it, the centralisation of western christendom in the see of rome. all these measures of organisation, from the earliest to the latest of them, were means to an end; and we shall regard them differently. but we ought not any of us to regard means, however they may commend themselves to us, and however sacred and dear their associations may be, in the same way as we do the end. there must always be the question, which will present itself in a different light to different minds, whether particular means, even though men may have been led by the holy spirit to employ them, were intended for all time. moreover there are points in regard to the earliest history of church organisation which remain obscure, in spite of all the labour that has been expended in investigating them: for instance the exact relation of different ministries, of the functions of different officers, to one another, the exact moment when the orders of ministers which proved to be permanent appeared in this or that important church, the part which any of the immediate disciples of christ had in their establishment, the ideas which at first were held as to the dependence of the rites of the church for their validity upon being performed by a lawful ministry. upon these matters, or some of them, it is possible for honest and competent inquirers to hold different opinions. but no such doubt hangs over that end which was also the beginning, of the church's life, that conception of what she is, or ought to be, as the society of those who confess the name of jesus christ, and who are his body. i insist upon this because i think that amid discussions on the origin of the christian ministry, the significance of that more fundamental question, namely, the right conception of the christian church, is apt to be too much lost sight of. about this, though men still do not, they ought to be able to agree, and it should be our common inspiration, both impelling us and guiding us in seeking our goal. we need it to impel us. the obstacles to the reunion of christendom at the present day are such that a motive which can be found is required to induce and sustain action in seeking it, whenever and wherever the opportunity for doing so presents itself; such a motive is to be found in a deep conviction of the sacredness of this object, so that our eyes maybe kept fixed upon it even when there appears to be no opening through which an advance toward it can be made, and there is nothing to be done save to wait and watch and pray. but in order also that the result of any efforts that are made may be satisfactory, it is necessary that our minds should be under the guidance of a great and true idea, and that we should not simply be animated with the desire of meeting immediate needs. these are the reasons which i think justify me for having detained you so long over the consideration of the fundamental conception of the church which is rooted in the christian faith itself as it first appeared and spread in the world. i will now, however, before concluding make a few remarks on one part of the complicated problem of reunion facing us to-day. the part of it on which i desire to speak is the relations between the church of england, and the churches in communion with her in various parts of the british empire and in the united states, on the one hand, and on the other english nonconformists, the presbyterians of scotland, and all english-speaking christians allied to or resembling these. it will, i think, be generally felt that this is a part of the subject which for more than one reason specially invites our attention. there are, indeed, some, both clergy and laity, of the church of england, though they are but a very small number in comparison with its members as a whole, whose interest in the subject of the reunion of christendom is mainly shewn in the desire to obtain recognition for the church of england, as a portion of the church catholic, from the great church of the west. but in view of the attitude maintained by that church there appears to be no prospect of this and nothing to be gained by attempts at negotiation. endeavours to establish intercommunion with the churches of eastern christendom may be made with more hope of success. indeed there is reason to think that in the years to come the church of england may be in a specially favourable position for getting into touch with these churches and assisting them to recover from the effects of the war, and to make progress; and englishmen generally would, i am sure, rejoice that she should undertake such work. but the question of the duty to one another of all those bodies of english christians which i have specified comes nearer home and should press upon our minds and hearts more strongly. it is a practical one in every english town and every country parish, and almost everywhere throughout the world where the english language is spoken. moreover, even the most loyal members of the church of england, in spite of the points of principle on which they are divided from those other english christians, resemble them more closely in many respects in their modes of thought, even on religion, than they do the members of other portions of the ancient catholic church from which they have become separated. and in addition to the distinctly religious reasons for considering the possibility of drawing more closely together and even ultimately uniting in one communion these different denominations of british christians, there is a patriotic motive for doing so. fuller religious sympathy, more cooperation, between the members of these different denominations could not fail to strengthen greatly the bonds between different classes amongst us, and to increase the coherency of the whole nation and empire. it would be unwise, if in proposing steps towards reunion, difficulties and dangers connected with them were ignored; and i believe it to be my duty frankly to refer to some which suggest themselves to one looking from a churchman's point of view. there are two chief barriers to the union of members of the church of england and english nonconformists that must be mentioned. ( ) that which i will refer to first is the connexion of the church of england with the state. this connexion is not, i think, such a hindrance to religious sympathy as it was, but it would be untrue to say that it is none. and there is of course the danger that if disestablishment became a political question, and especially if it involved the deflection of endowments which have long been used, and on the whole well-used, for the maintenance and furtherance of religion to secular objects, feeling between the majority of churchmen and those who in consequence of their views in the matter became opposed to them might be seriously embittered. yet there is good ground for hoping that the question of the relations of church and state and all matters connected therewith will in the years that are coming be faced in a calmer spirit, and with truer insight into important principles, than too often they have been in the past. it should certainly be easier for those who approach them from different sides to understand one another. particular grievances connected with inequality of treatment by the state have been removed; while a broad principle for which nonconformists stand in common has come to be more clearly asserted, through their attaching increasingly less significance to the grounds on which different bodies amongst them were formed, as indicated in the names by which they have been severally known, and banding themselves together as the "free churches." but in the church of england also in recent years there has been a growing sense of the need of freedom. it is better realised than at one time that in no circumstances could the church rightly be regarded as a mere department of the state, or even as the most important aspect of the life of the state. however complete the harmony between church and state might be, the church ought to have a corporate life of her own. she requires such independence as may enable her to be herself, to do her own work, to act according to the laws of her own being. this is necessary even that she may discharge adequately her own function in the nation. it is not part of my duty now to inquire in what respects the church of england lacks this freedom, or whether such readjustments in her connexion with the state can be expected as would secure it to her, implying as the making of them would that, although she does not now include among her members more than half the nation, she is still for an indefinitely long time to continue to be the official representative of religion in the nation. but i would urge that when these points are discussed the question should also be considered whether, in a nation the great majority in which profess to be christian, the state ought not to make profession of the christian religion, which involves its establishment in some form, and whether there are not substantial benefits especially of an educative kind to be derived therefrom for the nation at large; and if so how this can in existing circumstances be suitably done. it should be remembered that in many cases the forefathers of those who are now separated from the national church did not hold that a connexion between church and state under any form was wrong; but on the contrary their idea of a true and complete national life included one. i think it is well to recall the view in this matter of men of another time. it is desirable that we should make our consideration of the whole subject of church and state as broad as we can, and that we should strive not to be carried away into accepting some solution which at the moment seems the easiest, when with a little patience some better and truer one might be found possible. ( ) the other barrier to which i have referred is the claim of the church of england to a continuity of faith and life with the faith and life of the church universal from the beginning, maintained in the first place through a ministry the members of which have in due succession received their commission by means of the historic episcopate, and, secondly, through the acknowledgment of certain early and widely accepted creeds. this continuity was reasserted when the church of england started on her new career at the reformation, though at the same time the necessity was then strongly insisted on of testing the purity and soundness of the church's faith and forms of worship by holy scripture. these guarantees and means of continuity are valued in very different degrees by different sections of opinion in the church of england, and some who attach comparatively little importance to matters of organisation would attach great importance to the formularies of belief. but there can be no doubt that any steps which appeared seriously to compromise the preservation of the great features of the church of england in either of these respects would cause deep disturbance among her members. on the other hand, it will be readily understood by all who can appreciate the changes that in our own and recent generations have come in men's view of nature and of mind, and in the interpretation of historical evidence, that definitions of belief framed in the past may not in every point express accurately the beliefs of all who nevertheless with full conviction own jesus christ as lord. it is obvious, i think, that, if the christian church is to endure, there must be on the part of her members essential loyalty to the faith out of which she sprang, and which has inspired her throughout the ages to this day. but it is an anxious problem for the church of england at the present time--and it is likely to become so likewise, if it is not yet, for all portions of the church in which ancient standards of belief, or those framed in the th century, or later, hold an authoritative place--to decide wherein essential loyalty to "the faith once delivered" consists. it may seem at first sight that when the church of england has serious questions to grapple with affecting her internal unity, and especially affecting that unity in variety which to some considerable degree she represents and which is the most valuable kind of unity, attempts to join with other christians outside her borders in considering a basis of union with them are unwise at least at the moment, as tending to increase the complexity and the difficulties of the position within, and as therefore to be deprecated in the interests of unity itself. i do not think so, but believe that assistance may thus be obtained in reaching a satisfactory settlement even of internal difficulties. for, in the first place, there has of late been among members of the church of england a change of temper which should be a preparation for considering her relations with those separated from her in a wiser and more liberal spirit than has before been possible. those churchmen who would insist most strongly on the necessity of preserving the church's ancient order do not usually maintain the attitude to dissent of the anglican high and dry school, which was still common in the middle of the th century. the work which nonconformist bodies have done for the spiritual and moral life of england, and the immense debt which we all owe to them on that account, are thankfully admitted. no one indeed can do otherwise than admit it thankfully who has eyes to see, and the sense of justice and generosity of mind to acknowledge what he sees. and the inference must be that, although the belief may be held as firmly as ever that the spirit of god inspired that order which so early took shape in the church, and that he worked through it and continues to do so, yet that also, when men have failed rightly to use the appointed means, he has found other ways of working. this view, when it has had its due influence upon thought, can hardly fail to affect profoundly the measures proposed for healing the divisions which have arisen. then, again, on the other side--the side of those separated from the church of england--there is more appreciation of the point of view of churchmen in respect to their links with the past and their idea of catholicity. this is due partly to a broader interest in the life of the church in former ages and the heroic and saintly characters which they produced than since the reformation has been common among those english christians, who are, in a special sense, children of the reformation; partly, perhaps, to a growing doubt, as views of christian truth have become larger, whether after all a single doctrine or opinion, or reverence for the teaching of one man, can make a satisfactory basis for the permanent grouping of christians. at the same time in regard to fundamental christian belief, the meaning which the revelation of god in christ has for them, they are and are conscious of being at one with the church. striking evidence of these new tendencies of thought on both sides is to be seen in the movement originated by the protestant episcopal church of the united states for a world-conference on faith and order, and in the manner in which the proposal for such a conference has been received in england, and the steps already taken in preparation for it. a body of representatives of the church of england and of the free churches has been appointed, and a committee of this body has already published suggestions for a basis of union. these have still, i understand, to come before the general body of english representatives, and it is intended (i believe) that the proposals of the committee, after being examined and possibly amended and supplemented by the larger body, should, with any proposals that may be made from similar joint-bodies in the united states and in the british dominions, be considered by a body of representatives from the whole of this vast area. any conclusions which are thus reached must then lie, so to speak, before all the denominations concerned. opportunity must be given for their being widely studied and explained and reflected upon, and if need be criticized. for the church of christ is, or ought to be, in a true sense a democratic society, a society in which, subject to its governing principles, the spiritual consciousness of all the faithful should make itself felt. for the end of such a process as this we must wait a considerable time. meanwhile there are obvious ways in which the cause of unity may be promoted; viz. through seeking for a larger amount of intercourse with the members of other denominations than our own; for more joint study of religious questions and frank interchange of views, and more cooperation in various forms of moral and social endeavour. the way would thus be, we may hope, prepared for fuller intercommunion, and it may be for corporate reunion. footnotes: [ ] cor. x. , r.v. mg. [ ] gal. iii. [ ] col. i. , ; eph. i. , v. ff. [ ] gal. i. ; cor. xv. . [ ] cor. xvi. , ; cor. viii. ; gal. i. , . [ ] cor. xii. . [ ] cor. x. . [ ] cor. xi. . [ ] _the christian ecclesia_, pp. ff. [ ] _die mission u. ausbreitung d. christentums_, p. . [ ] _kirchenrecht_, . pp. ff. [ ] cor. xi. . [ ] ephes. v. , . unity between christian denominations ii. the church in the furnace by the rev. e. milner-white, m.a., d.s.o. at last we have begun to see the absolute necessity of unity in christ, of religious reunion, for the sake of both christianity and the world. for several years devout christians in england have been growing more and more uneasy about their acquiescence in religious division. the reading of the gospels, and especially the eighteenth chapter of st john, where he prays on the threshold of his agony that his disciples may be one, even as he and the father are one, has become nothing less than a torment to those who have any real passion for the doing of god's will, or who are humbled by the tremendous love of our lord jesus christ, for each and for all. thus far have we gone from the clear mind of christ; thus far have we ruined his plans for the health and happiness of the world; thus far have we failed to imitate or display the love, the humility, the self-sacrifice, that walked to calvary: he bade us be _one_, and to _love_; we, the disciples, have chosen to hate and be many. english christianity alone is split into hundreds of denominations. the fact is its own grim condemnation. we had lost even the sense that division mattered. it is quite ridiculous to pretend that nothing is wrong with the religious ideas or state of a race, which produces hundreds of bodies, big and small, to worship him who only asked that his worshippers should be one. denomination itself has become a word of shame which we shall not be able to use much longer. it brings up at once the thought of something partial, little, far less than the body for which christ died; and a host of yet more horrid pictures of old squabbles and present rivalries, of contempt and bitterness and controversy. it does not suggest one _christian_ idea at all. these uneasy thoughts even before the war were brought home by the practical results of disunion as worked out inevitably in the colonies and mission field. the language is not too strong that labels them monstrous. here was the flower of our christian devotion going forth to heathen wilds, meeting by god's grace with wide success; and establishing our little local denominations firmly in the nations, tribes, and islands of asia, africa, and australasia; rendering it hard for a native christian who moves from his home to get elsewhere the accustomed ministries and means of grace vital to his young faith; planting seeds of future quarrel at the very birth of new tribes into the prince of peace. in the dominions, with their thin and widely scattered populations, other phenomena, equally deplorable, are manifest--five churches in places where one suffices, appalling waste of effort and money, and even ugly competition for adherents. in england we hardly saw these things. the population was large enough and indifferent enough to god to provide room for the activities of all. the indifference indeed seemed to be growing. we did not stop to think whether disgust at continuous controversy had not done much to cause that indifference--how far our divisions simply manufactured scepticism as to there being any religious truth--whether the obvious lovelessness of such conditions was likely to recommend the religion of love--whether this disparate chaos was likely to be a field in which the lord, who designed and founded one brotherhood of believers, could work or give his grace to the uttermost. no, the christianity of our christians has tended to be a thin individual thing, with interests scarcely extended beyond its own local congregation, which is bad enough; or still worse, in our towns, content to wander from congregation to congregation, owning no discipline or loyalty at all. and yet in the same breath as we say, "i believe in god," we also say, most of us, "i believe one catholick and apostolick church." it is a crowning mercy that we do say it; that we do bear witness so outright to the state of sin in which we dwell; the clause does keep the mind of christ and our own duty before us, of establishing as the first, perhaps the only hope of this sin-stained, war-stained earth, the brotherhood of believers which shall be one. then came the war, and in many ways the war, which has in every direction cleared vision, and both deepened and simplified thought, has brought home to every christian both the disaster of disunion, and the imperative need of attempting unity. you will expect me to give some account of the reaction of the chaplains and the church in france to this conviction. perhaps i should make clear my own position. folk probably term me an "advanced high churchman." i should call myself "a catholic"--an english catholic, if you like--, at any rate, one who cannot fairly be accused of ignorance of the details and depths of our divisions; nor of underestimating their real importance. the priests who went out as chaplains to the forces had an experience somewhat similar to that of colonial or missionary priests--they exercised their ministry under totally new conditions, and in a new atmosphere. so did the roman catholics, nonconformists, and presbyterians, but of course i do not speak for them in what follows. but all the church of england padres--high, low, broad--tell exactly the same tale of their experience; between them there has been no division; they have worked together in perfect harmony and keenness, largely appropriating each other's methods. in a word, they have discovered how false and artificial is the partisan atmosphere of home religion; and when they return, will find it hard to tolerate any continuance of it. the church of england is as a matter of fact divided roughly into three sections, by no means corresponding to the "high, low, and broad," of the church journals. most church of england men scarcely know what these terms mean. no, it consists of a devoted inmost section, regular churchgoers and communicants--and you will pardon me for thinking them the best instructed, the freest, and the sturdiest christians in the world. they are of course in a minority, but they are actually numerous enough to occupy the time and care of our whole ministry, which is far below reasonable strength. then comes a large fringe, who come to church occasionally, or even regularly, in the evening; who make little or no use of the sacraments, or of the more intimate devotions and instructions provided: they are well disposed; but are not consciously prepared to make _sacrifices_ for their faith; and indeed are somewhat ignorant of its contents and demands. then thirdly, there is a yet vaster multitude, baptised, married, and buried, perhaps by the church, and therefore counting themselves church of england, but who come but rarely within the orbit of church life and teaching; and who, not to mince words, are semi-pagan. only _semi_-pagan because the ethics, morals and traditions of england are christian; and these people, knowing little of jesus christ, and understanding less, and not consciously moved by him, yet not infrequently rise to heights of love and sacrifice which would adorn the life of a saint. the mass of our parishioners in france, then, was not made up of the inner circle--we were lucky if we found three or four in a unit--but of the ill-instructed fringe, and the totally ignorant multitudes. the horror and boredom of war, the personal insecurity, the difficulty of understanding the ways of god, made all friendly to the parson with whom hitherto they had never come into contact; and caused large numbers to think things out, and to hunger for an understanding of god. religion became a common topic of discussion. the padres found themselves in a larger world, where old labels and divisions simply had no meaning; and where the first necessity and work was to preach christ and teach the meaning of the faith. they felt also, very quickly, that this interest in ultimate things did not mean that men became friendly to organised religion in any form. on the contrary, their hostility and distrust toward all religious bodies were marked. the chaplains had that common and dreadful experience of foreign missionaries, of feeling themselves alone, closed round by thick dark walls of unsympathy and worse. they longed for the help and support of any genuine friend of christ, whatever body he belonged to. i was called upon to preach the national mission in a peculiarly hostile and irresponsive camp of motor lorry drivers, who much resented the use of "their" y.m.c.a. hut for such religious purposes. a wesleyan minister had charge of it, and got far more of their blunt language than i the visitor did; but he worked undismayed and unreservedly for all he was worth, for the national mission and for me. the alliance was natural, real, inevitable. he and i, and some five or six men of that camp, were clearly on one side, and the rest of it on the other, of an exceeding broad gulf. with this as a daily experience, a man's values changed rapidly; and it became quite obvious that, even to begin to fight the battle of christianity in the modern world, christians must be united. this assurance was reinforced by the quite extraordinary scandal that the mere fact of religious disunion caused both to officers and men. it was the big, obvious "damper" on the very threshold of christianity--"see how these christians hate one another." officers would throw the taunt up again and again in the mess, and the men lying down to talk themselves to sleep in their comfortless barns would begin to talk about religion with at heart a wistful longing to understand it and know its help and power. at once, someone would bring up the picture of squabbling denominations, and the wistfulness and hope would be slain by scorn. next day and every day, the glaring scandal would be laid before the chaplain; who had little enough to answer. of course, it is quite false to suppose that the existence and continuance of division are due to the clergy. our english schisms have been caused at least as much by over-eager laymen as by over-eager clergy; and i think if it were left to the clergy alone the process of reuniting would be very rapid. in our division, for instance, the three nonconformist chaplains to the forces and i used to talk over the whole question; one was an orthodox wesleyan, another a primitive, and the other a united methodist; and they did not hesitate to say that methodist reunion had taken place more than ten years ago if it had been left to the ministers alone. but the average englishman naturally blames the official representatives of religion, their ministries, for the obvious and open disgrace of division in the religion of love; he is ignorant of the excuses that history, and the real importance of the matters in dispute, afford; he only sees the evil fact; and it is quite enough by itself to excuse his closer association with so harsh a contradiction of the first principle of christ and christianity. then again in france, one came up violently against the sheer nuisance and waste of division. imagine upon a friday every c.o. and adjutant (and adjutants are always over-worked) of every unit approached by three chaplains--church of england, roman catholic, and nonconformist; and requested to make different arrangements at different times for different fractions of his command to attend divine service on the sunday. this in the midst of modern war, where organisation for war purposes is complex and laborious enough. the mere typing and circulating of these arrangements at brigade and divisional h.q. mean in sum total a vast expenditure of paper and labour. the chaplains, who, i hope, are at least gentlemen, feel considerable shame at being the guiltless authors of these confusions. and the effect is so deplorable. just when the nation is one, just when each military unit seeks to promote, for mere military efficiency, the _esprit de corps_ of its oneness, the religion of the one christ enters as a thing which almost flaunts fissure. or again, think of the mere waste of pastoral efficiency involved in this fact. each infantry brigade consists roughly of four battalions, and three or four somewhat smaller units (r.a.m.c, m.g.c., etc.). for these there are four chaplains, normally two church of england (who have per cent. of the men under their care), one roman catholic and one presbyterian or nonconformist. the two latter have to do the best they can each to get round all these scattered units to provide for small handfuls of men in each. each of the church of england chaplains has to arrange for a whole half brigade. how much more efficiently and thoroughly, with how much less needless labour, had the work been done, if an one church could have set one chaplain to live each with one battalion, and be responsible as well for one smaller unit. that had made it easy for a chaplain to know his flock intimately; now it is next to impossible. but above and beyond these misfortunes, which after all are details, must be ranked the big thoughts and truths which have swum into the sight and experience of everybody. the first is this. granted that the church like the world was surprised by the sudden outbreak of war, and therefore could not stop it; yet that she should have no voice at all even to denounce the unrighteousness and barbarities into which the world plunges deeper every day does strike men as wrong. the church cannot speak because she is not one; even suppose all england be actually one national church, if it is only national, it will go the way of the nation, and certainly cannot speak to other nations. for the church ever to acquire a world-voice in the cause of love and right means that reunion and our desires for it must not stop short at home reunion. here the witness of roman catholicism to the necessity of international christianity is vital to the ideal of a reunited christendom. men, far removed from his obedience, did look wistfully to the pope, conceding that he alone could speak such a word to the world in the name of christ; wide and deep has been the disappointment that it was not spoken. here again it is not the pope, nor roman catholicism, that is to blame, but the whole divided state of christendom which paralyses the action of each communion, even the strongest and most widespread. i will mention only one other of these big truths--there are many of them--that have come home to every man; where again christian division is the first and fatal obstacle in the way. this time it affects all the looking forward to the end of the war, and the new world of peace. it is unthinkable but that the new world must be one of brotherhood, not of enmity; of love, not of hatred. otherwise every drop of blood that has been shed, every tear that has fallen, every death that has been died, will be so much utter waste. that is the one most intolerably dark thought in the days of darkness. there is a new policy open to the world which it has never yet tried, to work toward _the dominance of love_. every conceivable form of selfishness has in turn dominated the affairs of nations and men; never yet has love been seriously tried. but there will be no chance of international friendship, brotherhood, love, if the church, the fellowship of christians, who are after all set in the world by their own confession, to live by love, to be the exemplars and hot centre of love, cannot conspicuously shew forth love. how can the nations be friends before christians be brothers? we have only to act according to our creed; and our creed does not only believe in brotherhood, but in the continual help of god himself in our efforts to realise it. the influence upon the world even of a persevering _attempt_ to achieve a united christendom would surely be decisive. therefore the reunion of christendom becomes now the imperious vocation of every christian, the one preventive of our agony and loss going to waste, the one hope of a loveless world, the clear next objective of the church of the living god. before returning to the idea of the dominance of love, and a consideration of first steps towards it, let us go back to france, and watch the relations of the various communions there one to another after four years of war. it is new and rather hard to describe. the first few months, when the chaplains to the forces of the various denominations arrived with their inherited home suspicions one of another, presented many difficulties that might have increased ill-feeling. an army regulation which allows the church of england chaplain only to minister to church of england men, and the roman catholic to roman catholic men, etc., reduced the chances of such conflict; and at the same time, the vastness and urgency of the work the chaplains had to do swallowed up all other thoughts. as a writer in _the church in the furnace_ said, "we have heard with mingled irritation and amusement that good folk at home have been exercised because an undue proportion of men of this party or that have been sent out; the question out here is not 'to what party does he belong?' but 'is he capable by character and life of influencing men for good, and winning them for god and his church?'" again, the extremely free use of the prayer book and of any and every sort of devotion, at any and every hour of day and night, has broken up all prejudiced rigidity of use. methods that did not help were dropped; methods that helped men were welcome, from whatever source they came. so arose a great harmony, a harmony of energy and experiment; and although in religious matters the roman catholics retained their aloofness, the drawing together of other denominations, as represented by their clergy, has been constant and perfectly natural and unsuspicious. united services have not been common; each denomination has confined itself loyally to its own men; what the statements in the lower house of convocation meant to the effect that the amount of intercommunion going on at the front would shock members of that house, no chaplain has any idea. but the new, fresh, and delightful thing is, the absolute lack of feeling between, say, the catholic anglican and the congregationalist. there are numerous occasions on which they must or can work together; on which they must or can do jobs for one another; and it has been decisively proved that the existing demarcation and rivalry in england is a false and needless thing; and that working together can be a real, unselfconscious and wholly profitable matter. our english airs are poisoned by past history and old social cleavage: in france, the past is forgotten, and social barriers do not exist. it is a matter of atmosphere, and there it is clear and bracing. nobody sacrifices conviction or principle, but they love one another. i do not say there may not be individual misunderstandings and frictions now and then, but they are miraculously few. the normal temper is shewn by the numerous meetings for conference and devotion by the various chaplains. these are more easy to effect at the bases than in the line; but they take place everywhere. typical is the conduct of a small base on the sea, where the eight chaplains or so meet regularly for devotion, and each is entrusted with a section of the proceedings each time. for instance, the american episcopalian takes the thanksgiving, the presbyterian the confession, the wesleyan the intercession, each of the others has found from the same chapter of, say, st mark's gospel, some "seed-thought" upon which he is allowed to dilate for four minutes. there is no constraint or self-consciousness in this gathering. each is perfectly happy, and so is the whole. it is not surprising that out of such an atmosphere and among such practices a powerful passion for unity has arisen, based on something far stronger than sentiment, and having in it some of the fire of revelation. it has not been sought; it has come; it has grown: nobody expected it. it came, naturally and delightfully. the fifth year of war will assuredly see some definite policy or action towards greater unity proceeding from france. the quiet, unhasty, resolved manner in which the chaplains to the forces in france are moving is in striking contrast to the hasty proposals and hasty actions threatening on the less prepared soil at home. indeed in this last sentence i have touched upon the two actual terrors which the church in france feels. first, that hasty and purely _sectional_ action on unimaginative and traditional lines by the home-clergy will give the old party-feeling a new bitter lease of life, and by ruining unnecessarily the unity of the church of england will destroy the hopes that are so fair of yet wider reunion. and second, that the local outlook of the lay-folk--in our villages especially perhaps--and local lines of cleavage, not having been subjected to the experience and discipline of france, will have the opposite effect, prevent things moving as fast as they ought, and throw away the fairest chance of buying up opportunity that ever was given to the church of christ. to these opposite dangers, i shall recur. the dominance of love in the world! let us see and absorb that big vision first, and its pathetic urgency: its summons to each body of christians, and to every individual member of christ. acknowledge its necessity for the world, and therefore its _immediate_ necessity for the church of the god of love. and next, before considering practical steps, let us recall certain postulates and axioms, which in any attempt to realise so magnificent a vision must always be borne in mind, lest, in our human frailty and selfwill, we head straight for new misunderstandings and disasters[ ]. . the importance of unity is so great, and division has been found so calamitous, and the words of christ are so definite on the subject, that i think all would admit now that _division is only to be prolonged for causes that are backed by divine command_. the larger christian bodies are separated by convictions of great importance; but a severe and honest self-examination will probably lessen the number of differences which can justify the responsibility of so disastrous a thing as separation, and then we can set afoot conferences to deal with what remain. human temperament, upbringing, tradition, human haste and pride have much to do with the birth, stabilising and continuance of division. a rare self-abnegation in our ecclesiastical history was the partial suicide of the non-juring schism, and it has never been repeated; there were many great saints among the nonjurors. if they could not take the oath of allegiance to william iii, and therefore could not remain in the church of england, the best of them recognised that their individual difficulty would not excuse them if they perpetuated themselves as a church. in any junction of existing divisions, differing customs and methods of worship and organisation can be and should be safeguarded. that would only make the more for the health of the one body. but, division itself is only to be prolonged for causes that are, or seem to be by conscience, backed by divine command, and the first step in all work for reunion will be the isolating of these causes from lesser things, and their careful and prayerful reconsideration. a grand example of such process, of course, has been the conference of the leaders of our english denominations, at the inspiration of the american committee of faith and order, which during faced the question of episcopacy. the findings of its "second interim report" are nothing less than a landmark in church history. you remember that roughly it was this: that any corporate reunion can only come in the acceptance of the historical episcopate; but that the conception and use of episcopacy in the church has been a limited one: there are many ways of regarding and using bishops besides the monarchical or "prelatical" way exemplified by the church of england. this is a first proof that when truths, keenly felt and seemingly rival, are discussed in conference spirit, the angularities that offend disappear; and wider, bigger truth comes into the possession of all. it will be so more and more. by faith we can already see that the labour of understanding unto reunion is bound to be an immense _creative_ period in the church of god. . our second axiom sounds discouraging. just this--that unity is, humanly speaking, impossible. reunion means great changes of heart in great communions of men, and we all know how hard it is to effect change of heart even in the individual. we must not think that no price will have to be paid for so good a result, both by whole communions, and by the members composing them; and that the whole force of inherited prejudice, past history, and present wilfulness, ignorance, and sincere conviction will not arise in opposition. the difficulty even of approaching rome illustrates vividly our task. the unity of christendom is a meaningless expression without that vast international church, without her rich stores of devotion and experience, without her unbending witness to the first things of faith, worship and self-sacrifice. here the "impossibility" is open and honest, but i do not know that the difficulties will be greater than those, less obvious as yet, between other denominations. yet with god all things are possible. this is only the miracle which he has set the faith of modern christians to perform. . thirdly then, our rule must be, to hasten slowly. we are not dealing with matters susceptible of mere arrangement, but with _convictions_, which have deep roots in history, and cling passionately round the individual. convictions can only be modified or changed gradually, by love and deeper spiritual learning. bully or outrage a conviction, and you double its strength. that is why argument seldom does aught but harm. argument is an attack upon another man's convictions, or semi-convictions, and inevitably fails to do anything but stiffen them. inevitably therefore will hasty action by individuals or sections, for instance in the church of england, for which other sections are not ready, throw these into suspicion and opposition. i speak of my own communion and say deliberately, that if at the moment, either an individual, or a section--any section--of it goes galloping off, be its zeal and hope never so pure and splendid, on private roads, the whole desire for unity, and therefore the cause of unity, will be gravely damaged. for the whole church of england--i think that can be truly said--has now an unutterable desire for the joy of unity; it is, further, convinced that action must be taken; but it is by no means convinced that certain actions--to take a concrete example, free interchange of pulpits with nonconformists--are as yet either helpful or right. if one part adopt such a policy, hostilely and sectionally, it will simply throw others into convinced opposition and retard the whole desire for decades. questions of deepest implication cannot be settled in haste. before approaching at all, we must find the right methods of approach. quite rightly, the american "world conference for the consideration of questions touching faith and order," paid, from the start, the utmost, an uniquely scientific, attention to right method; their patience has been lightning-swift in result. it did not even go so far as to say, "we will confer, that is the right method"; it said, "we will learn how to confer." it was a new and by no means easy exercise, but it has been learned, and the english conference mentioned above, "the landmark," arose by its inspiration and worked by its methods. a wrong method of approach is equally well illustrated by the gathering of evangelical clergy at cheltenham[ ] early in the spring. they discussed to some purpose, and at the end of a few days had drawn out a series of some dozen articles of principle and action. some were unexceptionable, others went beyond what either the bishops or other sections of the church are yet ready to do. such sectional action simply heads for disaster and vexation. and it is so foolish, so great and difficult an end being in view. why should any _sections_ of the church meet or deal at all on this matter, except to put their views humbly at the disposal of their brethren in the church? this matter concerns the _whole_ church; any action is futile which does not carry the whole church with it, and the whole church is keen and anxious enough over the problem to be able to agree upon methods and policies which combine depth, wisdom, patience, and order. we have seen how titanic the labour is; impatience will help nothing; here if anywhere is needed the love that is patient, and ready for the travail of waiting and praying. the cry of generous souls of course is "something must be _done_." of course it must; but let anybody consider what sheer miracles of changed convictions on unity have been "done" within ten, and even five years. better than any such immediate action which would certainly cause division, is the enlarging of the scope and sphere of this miracle, so that the friendly conditions of france are naturally reproduced in england. with these precautions, then, let us see what can be done with universal consent. (_a_) the first thing is to turn the intellectual opinion that christian division is wrong, and unity necessary, into a general passion. that is to say, we want to develop among us the _motive of love_. we all talk about love glibly, and about brotherhood and a new world, with very little sense of what these terms involve in the individual life. i am sure that we hardly know yet what love means nor what it exacts, nor guess into how many provinces of ordinary life it can and ought to operate; how many heritages of past history it must be allowed to wipe out, how many preconceived notions it must dissipate; into how many social, commercial, municipal, political relations it must begin to permeate. it was for this reason that an article which i wrote when in billets near arras for the _church quarterly review_ suggested a new national mission of love in the church of england. for the space of a month or more the one subject dealt with by preachers and teachers throughout the communion would be love, in all its bearings, and with special reference to religious differences and their healing. i believe that this would be a splendid way of making the passion for new love and wider brotherhood general, an act of pure religion of highest importance both to our christianity and national life, and sure of blessing by god. it would assure our nonconformist brothers that we mean business, and mean it deeply. perhaps they would follow suit in their own congregations. it is the more important, because there is a danger of the leaders and clergy of communions rushing ahead of the rank and file. naturally they see the vast issues most clearly; the congregation sees more easily its own needs and habits of worship, and inclines to shut out of mind the needs and interests of the church as a whole. a national mission of love, dealing with all history, the larger duties of the present, and future hopes, would help to correct this, and give a single mind to the whole body. (_b_) then, in order that the church of england may go forward as one whole, without the risk of sectional exasperation, it does seem to me an urgent necessity that--i do hope it is not a presumptuous suggestion--the archbishops appoint a council of unity; to thrash out the whole subject, and decide on definite steps of action, both within and without the church. my vision sees it thus. a small council of, say, five bishops, and a dozen other members. these dozen to be nominated, not elected, and to consist of the leading and trusted men of each "party" with at least two of our greatest scholars. it must be small, so that it may truly "confer"--not drop into controversy--and meet regularly. it should issue definite advice and suggestion, all of which would be unanimous, upon which the whole church could act, and act immediately. i am sure that the amount of unanimity would be surprising, and the advice bold. perhaps the archbishops and bishops in accepting and issuing such reports would require them to be read in every pulpit in the land, so that the whole communion understand what is going on, and each congregation be spurred to do its part in its own locality. the mere appointment of such a council would be a notable step towards unity and place the whole matter on, so to speak, a scientific footing. the church of england would then be wisely and consistently ordered to the one end, and be thinking and acting as itself an unity; the danger of sectional action would be reduced to a minimum, and the mutual confidence of the sections be assured. indeed it would be a hard blow to the bad party licence too common hitherto amongst us. further, the nonconformist communions would have a definite organ to approach on all subjects making for friendliness, cooperation, and conference, and sufficient certainty that the church of england desired the peace of jerusalem very earnestly indeed. (_c_) there are a number of issues on which all communions could begin at once to work together. there is a real chance of abolishing war, and establishing a more or less universal peace. the idea of the league of nations gains ground. bishop gore is already summoning the support and labour of the church to it. here serious united effort of all christian bodies, of europe and america, is obviously fitting and might be decisive. there are the hundred social problems confronting us. the very working together upon these would be as valuable as the large amount of work that so easily might be done. education! word of lamentable memories. the present bill, which all christian bodies have urged on, left in despair the vital question of religious teaching until the churches can agree upon it among themselves. with all the lessons of the war, both to the appalling need of such teaching, and of the necessity of bigger thinking, can they not do it now? here is a critical field for cooperation and self-suppression. only let the younger men be put to the task. the elder will be the first to admit that long controversy and deepening opposition have unfitted them for sincere agreement. the younger men are fresh, and start with an eagerness to find the way out. (_d_) cooperation in these great matters will not only promote unity, but display already the men of christ as one before the world. but it is not enough. how about cooperation in directly religious work and worship? "the visible unity of the body of christ is not adequately expressed in the cooperation for moral influence and social service, though such cooperation might with advantage be carried much further than it is at present; it could only be fully realised through community of worship, faith and order, including common participation in the lord's supper[ ]." here let us once more and finally insist that the all-important thing is the development of the desire for unity even in the most local, or uneducated, or out-of-the-way congregations. most of the clergy now are revolutionaries for better, bigger things; but, frankly, we fear the lay people who hate change, and desire things to remain as they are--in church and out of it. that is why i should so like my imagined council to set going my imagined national mission of love. but much can be done besides. those who seek unity will be labouring fruitfully for it, if they simply devote themselves to developing social and christian friendship between churchmen and nonconformists in town and village. there might well be an enormous growth of meetings, both of clergy and laity of different denominations, for conference, devotion, even retreat. we want more than one "swanwick." can we not go further, and draw together by experimenting with each other's devotions or organisations of proved value? for instance, i wonder if it is suggesting too much, to suggest that if nonconformists appropriated with vigour our christian year, they would be sharers with us of a devotional joy and help, which would certainly promote spiritual sympathy. in the same way, the church of england has been crying out for some method of using the spiritual gifts of her laymen in church. why not borrow notions from those who know how to do it? these are but scrappy examples of ways by which right spirit can be developed within the single communion, or between separated bodies. the _right spirit_ won, the whole battle is won. naturally there are many who desire already to go much further and faster. intercommunion, our goal, is of course impossible at this stage owing to seriously differing convictions on faith and order; and the plain fact that it would cause more cleavage than it healed. but how about interchange of pulpits? the evangelicals at cheltenham demanded this as a regular practice. the rest of the church feels strongly that the time for this has not arrived yet; that haphazard invitations by individual vicars to ministers of convictions widely different are undesirable. the time has come for conference, but not yet for any facile overpassing of the facts and reasons for historical separations. nor do we want to run the risks of indiscipline and disorderliness resulting from such individual action. the church of england can only be of help to the cause of unity where she acts as a whole. matters such as interchange of pulpits should be tackled by our suggested council of unity. a suggestion in the _challenge_ of july might well be favourably considered by it. there are nonconformists of acknowledged eminence, learning, and inspiration, from whose books the church of england already has received much. we should all be glad to receive likewise from their lips. if a selected number were officially invited by the church to prophesy in our midst, an immense and religiously fruitful step would have been taken, in perfect order. the plan might well be reciprocal. the same leading article proposed that ministers of other denominations should be asked by such congregations as wished, to come and explain to them frankly their standpoints of doctrine and order. i am sure that all communions might be, and now should be, more brave in explaining themselves to each other. the gain in preventing misunderstanding and destroying suspicion and unfriendliness would be great, and i can see no loss anywhere about such a proceeding. have you read the story of the woolwich crusade, published by the s.p.c.k. ( _s._ _d._)? the crusade movement and method is a new thing. its idea is not that of a mission--to increase or improve the membership of a particular denomination, but to bring god and the meaning of christ into the life and problems of to-day. it is doing the same sort of work which chaplains in france do, among the munitioners, artisans, and labour world at home. perhaps our nonconformist brethren could join us here. the difficulties would, i think, merely be those of organisation. thanks to the college system, and to the student christian movement, churchmen and nonconformists are as friendly in this university as they are in france; and joint devotion is usual. we have a great responsibility here amid the young and the enthusiastic, and good feeling is both easier to achieve, and more widespread in result, at a university than anywhere else. well, we are awake to our chances, and will do our best. (_e_) this leaves but one more subject to touch on: the old, hard, question of church order, and the orders of ministry. but all looks in the best sense hopeful here, very hopeful, since the striking report signed by the thirteen members of the sub-committee appointed by the archbishops' committee, and by representatives of the english free churches' commissions. let me quote it. looking as frankly and as widely as possible at the whole situation, we desire with a due sense of responsibility to submit for the serious consideration of all the parts of a divided christendom what seem to us the necessary conditions of any possibility of reunion: that continuity with the historic episcopate should be effectively preserved. that, in order that the rights and responsibilities of the whole christian community in the government of the church may be adequately recognised, the episcopate should reassume a constitutional form both as regards the method of the election of the bishop as by clergy and people, and the method of government after election.... the acceptance of the fact of episcopacy and not any theory as to its character should be all that is asked for.... it would no doubt be necessary before any arrangement for corporate reunion could be made to discuss the exact functions which it may be agreed to recognise as belonging to the episcopate, but we think this can be left to the future. the acceptance of episcopacy on these terms should not involve any christian community in the necessity of disowning its past, but should enable all to maintain the continuity of their witness and influence as heirs and trustees of types of christian thought, life, and order, not only of value to themselves, but of value to the church as a whole.... it would be difficult to imagine a wiser, braver, or happier statement than this in the whole history of the church. a landmark indeed! the chaplains to the forces in france almost shouted for joy. at one stroke, the first and greatest incompatibility of conviction has been cleared out of the way. perhaps that is too strong--or prophetic--a way of putting it. let us say rather, that at least the question of episcopacy and church order has been raised to a new plane, where all can discuss it, and think it out, not only peaceably, but with good hope of new wealth of conception and polity pouring into the old, rigid, bitter, rival views of church government. in france i corresponded with a wesleyan chaplain on the subject of orders and ordination. he wrote a careful letter affirming the historic nonconformist position about ministry. but, he ended, it would all be changed, if re-ordination could be presented and accepted as a great outward "sacrament of love" which reunited us. that is more than the church of england has ever asked, for she regards ordination as a sacrament of order merely, not of spiritual love. but let us gladly put the higher value upon it. and the day will surely come, unless goodhearted christians settle down to accept the intolerable burden of permanent separation in communion and worship, when this sacrament of love be celebrated, and the church of england ordains the free church ministry, and the free churches commission us, to work each and all in the flocks that have been made one fold. footnotes: [ ] in the paragraphs which follow, i owe much to the bishop of zanzibar's _the fulness of christ_, perhaps the deepest and ablest of all the numerous anglican books on reunion. [ ] it is fair to state that after this lecture was delivered, i received a note from one who had been at cheltenham, saying that my references to it gave an inaccurate impression; and that the findings were only "an expression of opinion." to those, however, who read the published account of the meeting, whether in the _record_ or _guardian_, much more seemed to be intended. [ ] quoted from the second interim report of the archbishops' committee and the representatives of the free church commissions. unity between christian denominations iii. the problem of the english free churches by the rev. w. b. selbie, m.a., d.d. while i think that what i say may be fairly taken to represent the general mind of these churches it must be understood that i do not in any way commit them but speak only for myself. i propose first to recall the circumstances which gave rise to these churches and the conditions which still operate in maintaining them as separate christian bodies, and then to give some account of the various movements towards reunion in which they have taken part. the baptists and congregationalists you will remember arose at a time when membership in the anglican church was a formal and perfunctory thing. it was open to every parishioner and meant very little in the way of christian life or witness. the first nonconformists stood for the principle that membership in christian churches should be confined to genuinely christian people, and in order to secure this they formed separated churches, on the new testament model, of those who were able to give effective witness of their christian calling. that such churches should be self-governed followed almost as a matter of course. their meeting in the name of christ secured his presence among them and the guidance of his spirit in their doings. but it is always important to remember that their essential characteristic is not either democracy in church government or dissent from the establishment, but the positive witness to purity of membership and to the sole headship of jesus christ just described. the wesleyan church, the parent of the whole great methodist movement, arose at the end of the th century from somewhat similar reasons. there was never anything schismatic in the spirit of john wesley, but when he found that the rigour and stiffness of anglicanism made a free spiritual witness almost impossible, he was driven, like the nonconformists of the elizabethan times, to set up separate churches. while it is quite true that the great principle for which english nonconformity has stood is now almost universally accepted, and that what may be called the negative witness of the free churches is much less necessary than it used to be, there is still room for their positive contribution to the religious life of the country, for their witness to freedom, spirituality, and the rights of the people in the church. for a long time, no doubt, they did rejoice in the dissidence of their dissent, and they suffered, and still suffer, to some degree, from a pharisaic feeling of superiority to those whom they regard as bound by tradition and state rule. the great majority among them, however, have long since come to feel that they have more in common with one another and with many in the anglican church than they have been hitherto prepared to admit, and that existence in isolation from the rest of christendom is neither good for them nor helpful to the cause of christ and his kingdom. this feeling first took definite shape about the year in connexion with what are now known as the grindelwald conferences. for three successive years informal parties of clergy and ministers were arranged by sir henry lunn, at grindelwald and lucerne, with the object of getting representatives of the different churches together in order to exchange views on the subject of union, and to create an atmosphere of mutual knowledge, sympathy, and friendliness. although no practical steps directly followed them, these conferences undoubtedly did good by removing misunderstandings and paving a way for further intercourse. to many of the free churchmen who attended them they seem to have suggested for the first time the evils of our unhappy divisions, and they certainly created a desire for better relations. it became obvious that one of the necessary first steps in this direction would be the setting up of a closer cooperation among the free churches themselves, and of breaking down the denominational isolation in which they too often lived. further conferences were held in england at manchester, bradford, london and other centres, the ultimate issue of which was the foundation of the national federation of the evangelical free churches under the guidance of the rev. hugh price hughes, dr berry of wolverhampton, dr mackennal of bowdon, and dr munro gibson of london, along with laymen like sir percy bunting and mr george cadbury. the aim of the federation was to bring all the evangelical nonconformist churches into closer association in order that they might in various localities take concerted action on questions affecting their common faith and interests and the social, moral, and religious welfare of the community. since that time the work of the federation has gradually covered the whole country through local councils working on a free church parish system, and engaging in various forms of social and evangelistic effort. the representative central council has become a powerful instrument for furthering the cause of the free churches and for bringing their influence to bear on social and political matters. it must be freely admitted that this council has sometimes gone further in political action than some of the churches have been altogether prepared for. from the first, so representative a nonconformist as the late dr dale of birmingham stood aloof from it, on the ground that it tended to divert the energy of the churches from the proper channels and to involve them too deeply in political controversy. in this action he was supported by many of the more conservative elements in the churches themselves, particularly as the circumstances of the time compelled the council to engage in a good deal of political agitation. in spite of this, however, there is no doubt that the free church council movement as a whole has had the effect its first promoters intended and desired, and has brought all the free churches into much closer relations with one another, and has established them in a position of mutual understanding and sympathy. its chief weakness has been that it has depended for support on individual churches rather than on the denominations they represented. it is the consciousness of this which has led the way to a later movement in the direction of still closer federation. the lead has been taken by the rev. j. h. shakespeare, who, as president of the free church council in , propounded an elaborate scheme for the federation of the free church denominations. in his first presidential address under the title "the free churches at the cross-roads" he put forward an unanswerable case for the union of the whole of the free churches of england. he pointed to the fact that for many years past these churches have suffered a serious decline in the number of their members and of their sunday school scholars and teachers; and he found one of the chief causes of this in their excessive denominationalism, which led to over-lapping and rivalry. he pleaded that the old sectarian distinctions had now ceased to represent vital issues, and to appeal to the best elements both in the churches and in the nation outside; and he urged that the maintenance of these distinctions now tended to destroy the collective witness of the free churches and involved an immense waste of men, money and energy. for the sake of efficiency, as well as in order to maintain a proper christian comity, he argued that it was absolutely necessary to put an end to this condition of things. as long as the free churches were thus divided, they could not expect either to do their own work well or to exercise their proper influence in the life of the nation. there is no doubt that this estimate of the situation represented a growing feeling among those who were best acquainted with the facts. but it is probable that mr shakespeare under-estimated the strength of the conservative spirit in many of the free churches. and there is no doubt that a considerable educational process will have to be gone through before his proposals take practical shape. this process, however, has already begun and has made considerable way. mr shakespeare's challenge led almost immediately to the formation of a large conference of representatives appointed by the free church council along with the baptist, congregational, presbyterian, primitive methodist, independent methodist, wesleyan methodist, wesleyan reform, united methodist, moravian, countess of huntingdon, and disciples of christ churches. this conference first met at mansfield college, oxford, in september, , and later at the leys school, cambridge, in , and again in london in the early part of this year. it appointed committees on faith, constitution, evangelization and the ministry, all of which have held many meetings in addition to those of the whole conference. the committee on faith was able to frame a declaratory statement on doctrine which was afterwards unanimously adopted as follows: i there is one living and true god, who is revealed to us as father, son and holy spirit; him alone we worship and adore. ii we believe that god so loved the world as to give his son to be the revealer of the father and the redeemer of mankind; that the son of god, for us men and for our salvation, became man in jesus christ, who, having lived on earth the perfect human life, died for our sins, rose again from the dead, and now is exalted lord over all; and that the holy spirit, who witnesses to us of christ, makes the salvation which is in him to be effective in our hearts and lives. iii we acknowledge that all men are sinful, and unable to deliver themselves from either the guilt or power of their sin; but we have received and rejoice in the gospel of the grace of the holy god, wherein all who truly turn from sin are freely forgiven through faith in our lord jesus christ, and are called and enabled, through the spirit dwelling and working within them, to live in fellowship with god and for his service; and in this new life, which is to be nurtured by the right use of the means of grace, we are to grow, daily dying unto sin and living unto him who in his mercy has redeemed us. iv we believe that the catholic or universal church is the whole company of the redeemed in heaven and on earth, and we recognise as belonging to this holy fellowship all who are united to god through faith in christ. the church on earth--which is one through the apostolic gospel and through the living union of all its true members with its one head, even christ, and which is holy through the indwelling holy spirit who sanctifies the body and its members--is ordained to be the visible body of christ, to worship god through him, to promote the fellowship of his people and the ends of his kingdom, and to go into all the world and proclaim his gospel for the salvation of men and the brotherhood of all mankind. of this visible church, and every branch thereof, the only head is the lord jesus christ; and in its faith, order, discipline and duty, it must be free to obey him alone as it interprets his holy will. v we receive, as given by the lord to his church on earth, the holy scriptures, the sacraments of the gospel, and the christian ministry. the scriptures, delivered through men moved by the holy ghost, record and interpret the revelation of redemption, and contain the sure word of god concerning our salvation and all things necessary thereto. of this we are convinced by the witness of the holy spirit in the hearts of men to and with the word; and this spirit, thus speaking from the scriptures to believers and to the church, is the supreme authority by which all opinions in religion are finally to be judged. the sacraments--baptism and the lord's supper--are instituted by christ, who is himself certainly and really present in his own ordinances (though not bodily in the elements thereof), and are signs and seals of his gospel not to be separated therefrom. they confirm the promises and gifts of salvation, and, when rightly used by believers with faith and prayer, are, through the operation of the holy spirit, true means of grace. the ministry is an office within the church--not a sacerdotal order--instituted for the preaching of the word, the ministration of the sacraments and the care of souls. it is a vocation from god, upon which therefore no one is qualified to enter save through the call of the holy spirit in the heart; and this inward call is to be authenticated by the call of the church, which is followed by ordination to the work of the ministry in the name of the church. while thus maintaining the ministry as an office, we do not limit the ministries of the new testament to those who are thus ordained, but affirm the priesthood of all believers and the obligation resting upon them to fulfil their vocation according to the gift bestowed upon them by the holy spirit. vi we affirm the sovereign authority of our lord jesus christ over every department of human life, and we hold that individuals and peoples are responsible to him in their several spheres and are bound to render him obedience and to seek always the furtherance of his kingdom upon earth, not, however, in any way constraining belief, imposing religious disabilities, or denying the rights of conscience. vii in the assurance, given us in the gospel, of the love of god our father to each of us and to all men, and in the faith that jesus christ, who died, overcame death and has passed into the heavens, the first-fruits of them that sleep, we are made confident of the hope of immortality, and trust to god our souls and the souls of the departed. we believe that the whole world must stand before the final judgment of the lord jesus christ. and, with glad and solemn hearts, we look for the consummation and bliss of the life everlasting, wherein the people of god, freed for ever from sorrow and from sin, shall serve him and see his face in the perfected communion of all saints in the church triumphant. the committee on constitution recommended a definite union of the free church denominations on the basis of a federation which should express their essential unity, promote evangelization, maintain their liberties and take action where authorised in all matters affecting the interests, duties, rights, and privileges of the federating churches, and to enter into communion and united action where possible with other branches of the church of christ throughout the world. it is proposed that the federation shall work through a council consisting of about representatives of the denominations in order to carry out their will. the committee on evangelization and the ministry also suggested certain practical measures necessary for cooperation in these important branches of service. the scheme has been carefully thought out and elaborated, but at the same time is not too cumbrous for action, and if it can be carried out there is no doubt that it would secure the ends aimed at. in many ways the doctrinal declaration is the most important part of it, and shews a sufficient general agreement on essentials to ensure harmonious working. the fate of it lies of course with the different denominations concerned. by this time most of them have had an opportunity of considering it and, generally speaking, it has met with a favourable reception. the baptists, congregationalists, and united methodists have declared their willingness to proceed to closer union on this basis. but the presbyterians and wesleyan methodists have referred it back for further consideration. rightly and naturally both of these denominations are more concerned for the moment with measures for union within their own borders. the presbyterians are looking to a reunion of the established and free churches in scotland, while a great scheme for the reunion of all the methodist bodies is before the wesleyan conference. if this can be carried out it should not prejudice but rather be in favour of any scheme for wider free church union. nothing that has been done so far among the free churches is likely in any way to hinder the fulfilment of the desire which is now widely felt on all sides for better relations with the anglican church. it can easily be understood from the difficulties that have already emerged in the way of closer union among the free churches how much more difficult is the prospect of union with anglicanism. there is no doubt that denominational feeling is still very strong among the rank and file of the churches. in spite of the changes which have taken place in emphasis and conditions in modern church thought, each denomination realises that it stands for something positive and is anxious to give its positive witness in the best possible way. it has therefore been an essential of reunion that any scheme proposed shall not interfere with the autonomy of any individual denomination and shall allow full scope for its genius. it is equally necessary that this should be preserved in any scheme contemplated for reunion with anglicanism. the free churches are not disposed to bate anything of their freedom or to sink their identity in any national church. if, however, any scheme can be devised which will preserve their individuality and give them scope for their special witness and at the same time avoid the dissensions and divisions which have so marred their relations with anglicanism in the past it is likely to meet with a very warm welcome. the war has brought home to all thinking men in the churches the imperative need that there is for closer union and for a more united testimony. and they are conscious that if they are to face the increasing difficulties of the future all the churches must be able to stand together, to cooperate in christian service, and to speak with one voice. it is therefore regarded by them as a welcome sign of the times that there should be a world-wide desire for christian reunion, and that this should have begun to take practical shape just before the outbreak of the war. the movement was initiated by the protestant episcopal church of america supported by practically all the churches in that country. it first took shape in proposals for a world-wide conference on faith and order with a view of promoting the visible unity of the body of christ. but for the war this conference would have been held already, but under existing circumstances the work has had to be confined to preparations for it on both sides of the atlantic. in this country the work has been mainly done by a joint conference, consisting of representatives of the committee appointed by the archbishops of canterbury and york, and of commissions appointed by the various free churches, in order to promote the faith and order movement. this conference has held repeated meetings in the historic jerusalem chamber at westminster and elsewhere, and has published two interim reports "towards christian unity" which are of the utmost importance. these reports represent the work of a sub-committee but have received the general sanction of the whole conference. the first report contains the following statement of agreement on matters of faith, which is "offered not as a creed for subscription, or as committing in any way the churches thus represented, but as indicating a large measure of substantial agreement and also as affording material for further investigation and consideration": a statement of agreement on matters of faith we, who belong to different christian communions and are engaged in the discussion of questions of faith and order, desire to affirm our agreement upon certain foundation truths as the basis of a spiritual and rational creed and life for all mankind. we express them as follows: ( ) as christians we believe that, while there is some knowledge of god to be found among all races of men and some measure of divine grace and help is present to all, a unique, progressive and redemptive revelation of himself was given by god to the hebrew people through the agency of inspired prophets, "in many parts and in many manners," and that this revelation reaches its culmination and completeness in one who is more than a prophet, who is the incarnate son of god, our saviour and our lord, jesus christ. ( ) this distinctive revelation, accepted as the word of god, is the basis of the life of the christian church and is intended to be the formative influence upon the mind and character of the individual believer. ( ) this word of god is contained in the old and new testaments and constitutes the permanent spiritual value of the bible. ( ) the root and centre of this revelation, as intellectually interpreted, consists in a positive and highly distinctive doctrine of god--his nature, character and will. from this doctrine of god follows a certain sequence of doctrines concerning creation, human nature and destiny, sin, individual and racial, redemption through the incarnation of the son of god and his atoning death and resurrection, the mission and operation of the holy spirit, the holy trinity, the church, the last things, and christian life and duty, individual and social: all these cohere with and follow from this doctrine of god. ( ) since christianity offers an historical revelation of god, the coherence and sequence of christian doctrine involve a necessary synthesis of idea and fact such as is presented to us in the new testament and in the apostles' and nicene creeds: and these creeds both in their statements of historical fact and in their statements of doctrine affirm essential elements of the christian faith as contained in scripture, which the church could never abandon without abandoning its basis in the word of god. ( ) we hold that there is no contradiction between the acceptance of the miracles recited in the creeds and the acceptance of the principle of order in nature as assumed in scientific enquiry, and we hold equally that the acceptance of miracles is not forbidden by the historical evidence candidly and impartially investigated by critical methods. this was followed by a statement of agreement on matters relating to order as follows: with thankfulness to the head of the church for the spirit of unity he has shed abroad in our hearts we go on to express our common conviction on the following matters: ( ) that it is the purpose of our lord that believers in him should be, as in the beginning they were, one visible society--his body with many members--which in every age and place should maintain the communion of saints in the unity of the spirit and should be capable of a common witness and a common activity. ( ) that our lord ordained, in addition to the preaching of his gospel, the sacraments of baptism and of the lord's supper, as not only declaratory symbols, but also effective channels of his grace and gifts for the salvation and sanctification of men, and that these sacraments being essentially social ordinances were intended to affirm the obligation of corporate fellowship as well as individual confession of him. ( ) that our lord, in addition to the bestowal of the holy spirit in a variety of gifts and graces upon the whole church, also conferred upon it by the self-same spirit a ministry of manifold gifts and functions, to maintain the unity and continuity of its witness and work. in subsequent discussions a very considerable advance was made on the positions here laid down. it was felt that if ever reunion was to become a reality the question of order must be frankly faced, and the following statements were put forth for the consideration of the churches concerned, not as a final solution, but as the necessary basis for discussion in framing a practical scheme: . that continuity with the historic episcopate should be effectively preserved. . that in order that the rights and responsibilities of the whole christian community in the government of the church may be adequately recognised, the episcopate should re-assume a constitutional form, both as regards the method of the election of the bishop as by clergy and people, and the method of government after election. it is perhaps necessary that we should call to mind that such was the primitive ideal and practice of episcopacy and it so remains in many episcopal communions to-day. . that acceptance of the fact of episcopacy and not any theory as to its character should be all that is asked for. we think that this may be the more easily taken for granted as the acceptance of any such theory is not now required of ministers of the church of england. it would no doubt be necessary before any arrangement for corporate reunion could be made to discuss the exact functions which it may be agreed to recognise as belonging to the episcopate, but we think this can be left to the future. the first point to note in regard to the work of this conference is the remarkable unanimity achieved in regard to christian doctrine. while there is no intention of binding any of the parties to the _ipsissima verba_ of any doctrinal declaration, but rather every desire to allow for varieties of expression, it is now perfectly clear that there is among all the churches concerned a substantial agreement on the main and essential matters of the christian faith. this supplies the most real and hopeful basis for the vital union of churches thus minded, and makes their continued separation and antagonism intolerable. the more closely this aspect of the situation is explored the more clearly does it lead to the conclusion that those who are so largely one in aim, intention, and desire should find some genuine and practical expression of their unity. the question of church order is more difficult; but here again much has happened of late to justify a reconsideration of the position on both sides. on the one hand recent investigations into early church history have shewn that no one form of church government can claim exclusive scriptural or apostolic authority. under the guidance of the spirit of god the church has in the past adapted herself and her organization to the needs of the times in order the better to do the work of the kingdom. men are coming now to see that the test of a true church is not conformity to type but effectiveness in fulfilling the will of her lord, and that therefore organization need not be of a single uniform type. so we find denominations like the baptists and congregationalists setting up superintendents (overseers, bishops) over their churches because the needs of the time demand such supervision. and on the other hand we find anglicans inclining to exchange prelacy for a more modest and elective form of episcopacy. in this respect the two extremes are drawing together to an extent which would have been incredible twenty years ago, and, given good will, it should be possible to find even here a real _modus vivendi_. the same may be said with regard to other movements which have been recently set on foot in the direction of a better common understanding between anglicans and free churchmen. it is recognised that one of the greatest obstacles is still the so-called religious education controversy. both sides are becoming a little ashamed of their attitude to this question in the past. they realise that the true interests of education have been gravely imperilled by making it a bone of contention among the churches, and they are beginning to look at the whole matter afresh from the point of view of the good of the child rather than from that of their denominational interests. some important conferences have been held at lambeth in the course of which the bishop of oxford has put forth a scheme for relegating the conduct of religious teaching in the elementary schools to interdenominational committees elected _ad hoc_. this scheme is still under discussion and at the moment is not regarded very favourably by extremists on either side, but it is all to the good that the matter should have been raised in so friendly and conciliatory a spirit and, whenever the time is ripe, it may be hoped that the way to agreement will be more open than it has ever been yet. further the rise and rapid growth of the life and liberty movement within the established church is something like a portent and one that nonconformists cannot but regard with the deepest interest and sympathy. they may perhaps be forgiven if they see in it an attempt to win from within the church just those privileges and liberties for the sake of which their ancestors came out many years ago. with a great price they bought this freedom and they rejoice in this new movement as a real vindication of the cause for which they have so long contended and as representing a body of opinion within the establishment the existence of which, whatever may be its immediate result, is sure to make a common understanding in the future more attainable. they may have serious doubts whether the aims of the movement are ever to be obtained without the disestablishment of the church, but for all that they wish it well and rejoice in the spirit to which it points. one more sign of the times may be mentioned. during the last months yet another conference has been set on foot, this time between nonconformists and evangelical anglicans, and has come very near to a common understanding on such vital matters as intercommunion and interchange of pulpits. it is recognised that there can be no real christian unity without such interchange, and the fact that a growing number of anglican clergy are prepared to discuss the question and that there is no real difficulty on the nonconformist side is again a ground of hope. it should be understood however that on the nonconformist side there is no desire for universal and indiscriminate facilities in the directions indicated. they do not want a kind of general post among the pulpits of the land, nor do they ask that their people should desert their own ordinances for those of the established church. their people indeed have no such desire. they love the simplicity and homeliness of their own communion services and would not exchange them if they could. but they do feel that to be debarred from communicating when there is no church of their own order available is a real hardship, and they know that nothing would make for comity among the churches so surely as an occasional interchange of pulpits. they recognise that it would all have to be carried out in due order and under conditions, and as long as the conditions cast no reflexion on their orders, or on the christian standing of their members, they would loyally accept them. under exceptional circumstances and given due authorization on both sides, it might be possible to do openly what is often now done in a more or less clandestine way. there is a growing body of opinion on both sides which would be favourable to such a course and it is certain that more will be heard of it after the war. this leads up to another consideration which our ecclesiastical authorities would do well to bear in mind. for a long time past younger men and women in all the churches have been accustomed to meet together in the various fellowships and the student movement. they have learnt to work and pray together, to know one another's mind and to realise their fundamental oneness of spirit and aim. it must be remembered that these are the men and women in whose hands the future of the churches, humanly speaking, lies, and they will not tolerate an indefinite prospect of sectarian division and strife. while loyal to their own denominations they have seen a wider and more glorious vision, and they are already prepared for very definite steps in the direction of closer relations. the new and better spirit which they represent is spreading rapidly among the rank and file in the churches, and has been strongly reinforced by experiences at the front. there, under the rude stress of war, denominational exclusiveness has frankly broken down and attempts to maintain it have excited universal resentment and disgust. there is no doubt that after the war there will be a strong public opinion in favour of better relations among the churches, and no church or section of a church that clings to the old exclusiveness will be able to retain any hold upon the people. in this case at least it may be assumed that for once _vox populi_ is _vox dei_. there is indeed every reason to believe that opinion outside the churches is more ripe for action than within them. on both sides there is need for something like an educational campaign on the subject of reunion and of the duty of christians in regard to it. difficulties have to be faced of a very serious kind. on the nonconformist side there are still many who feel very keenly the burden of the disabilities from which they have suffered, and to some extent still suffer. they know that in some country districts nonconformists are subjected to petty social persecutions, and that their boys or girls who wish to become elementary school teachers are handicapped from the outset. many of them have been brought up on bitter memories, and their inherited hostility to the state establishment of religion does not incline them to any _rapprochement_ with its representatives. it is well that these facts should be faced, for they shew the need there is for the free churches to educate their own people. to all this we have to add the _vis inertiae_ which operates in all the churches alike. many of them are entirely satisfied with things as they are, and are only anxious that we should let well alone. there is too among certain of the denominations a self-satisfaction amounting almost to pharisaism. they are very busy with their own work and devoted to their denominational interests, and, so long as these can be maintained, they do not see the use of agitations for reunion. they do not believe that they have anything to gain from it and therefore they let it alone. the same spirit shews itself too on the anglican side and there becomes a serious obstacle to any advance. there are those who regard the church of england, as by law established, as the only possible church for england, and they cannot imagine why any people should want to change its present position. dissenters they say are outsiders and schismatics, and must be left to go their own way. they should be thankful for the toleration which has been extended to them and not abuse it by asking for more. for all this kind of thing there is only one remedy, and that is a wider vision, and for this all christians of good will should strenuously work and pray. it should surely be obvious that we can no longer treat any church or denomination as an end in itself. all alike exist for the great end of the kingdom of god and are to be judged by their efficiency in promoting that end among men. so no system of church order can be regarded as of divine right in itself but only so far as it becomes a channel of the spirit of god and mediates his gifts to men. all the churches as we know them to-day have grown up in controversy and represent a long process of development and adaptation. if we are to test them it should not be by the more or less artificial standards of any one age in their history, but rather by the spirit, and temper, and intentions of their lord and master jesus christ. when this is done, the differences between them fall into their proper proportions in view of the failure which is common to them all. on these terms too will the old antagonisms become a generous rivalry in good works and each church be ready to seek the welfare of others in the common interests of the kingdom which they all serve. so far we have dealt largely with the past and with the various movements in the direction of unity which have been set on foot. it now remains to say something of the motives which inspire and the principles which underlie them. first and foremost is the fact that it is the will of our lord that his people should be one. this does not mean surely any mere uniformity of organization but unity of spirit, heart, and will. we seek this chiefly because it is a right thing. anything short of it is evil. the christian faith rests ultimately on the fatherhood of god and the brotherhood of man, and these can only be made real when all christians accept them and make them the ground and basis of their relations with one another. here we need to appeal to the conscience of the churches and challenge them to put the first things first and learn in the love of the brethren the love and service of god and his church. then we are bound to recognise in the next place that this unity is the prime condition of successful work and witness. the tasks awaiting the churches in the immediate future are gigantic and only as they stand together and learn to speak and act as one have they any chance of accomplishing them. they have to evangelize the world, and for this they will need above all things a common faith, a common witness, and a common sacrifice. they have to leaven society with the aims and principles of jesus christ, to bring his spirit to bear on all social, political, commercial, and industrial undertakings, and for this too they will need the united weight of all their influence and the passion of a great common crusade. the devil is a great master of strategy and knows that if he can keep our forces divided there is nothing in them that need be feared. we must therefore close up our ranks and present a united front, not merely as a measure of self-preservation but in order to do well the work that has been committed to us. this will involve some real self-sacrifice on the part of us all, but it is the way the master went and his followers must not shrink from it. if we but keep our eyes fixed on the great vision of the kingdom which he opened before us, we shall not faint but go forward steadfastly and together until the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of god and of his christ. unity between christian denominations iv. the scottish problem by the very rev. james cooper, d.d., litt.d., d.c.l., v.d. the very appearance of this subject on the programme of the cambridge summer meeting, and still more the fact that it has been entrusted to ministers of different christian denominations--one of them, too, from across the border--are signs of a remarkable change that has come over--we may say--the _whole christian people_ of great britain. our island was, till not so long ago, emphatically a land of different, and diverging "churches" and "denominations," unashamed of their separation; nay, boasting their exclusiveness, or their dissidence, commemorating with pride their secessions and disruptions. and even when they began to see something of the evils such tempers and such acts had brought in their train--the wastefulness of them, in regard alike to money, to men's toil, and gifts given by god for the use of the whole church but confined in their exercise to some small section;--the injury to character, the multiform self-righteousness engendered by our schisms, the breaches of christian justice and charity;--the treatment of that whole mediaeval period to which we owe so much, as if it had been one dark age of heathen blindness;--and, again, the hindrances to christian work at home and especially abroad,--when uneasiness over these results began to shew itself, the recognition of the evil expressed itself at first in ways hardly indicative of any depth of penitence, or conducive to any practical measures for the healing of the wrong. we had in one quarter "evangelical alliances," which put a new stigma on huge portions of the church of god, yet left those who took part in their meetings contented in their own divisions. in other quarters--probably in both the established churches of our island--there was a tendency (and more) to look down on dissenters as such, to ignore even their reasonable grievances, to ask more from them than either holy scripture or early tradition could warrant, and to disparage unions that were possible and urgent as likely to put new difficulties in the way of that further and perfect union of all who believe in christ which alone he has promised, and for which alone he tells us that he prays. i should be the very last to deprecate either prayer or effort to advance this perfect end. it ought to be the ultimate aim of all of us, since it is christ's. we must do nothing to hinder it: we must do all that may be lawful for us to promote it. but it should be pointed out to such as look exclusively towards the east and rome, first, that a juster view of those great churches--great gain as it is--affords little excuse for ignoring the churches of the reformation, and for leaving the large numbers of devout christians in the lesser sects without either the hope or the means of supplying defects which are now, for the most part, rather inherited than chosen; second, that the divisions and "variations" among all who in east or west, in england or in scotland, in the th or the th century, felt themselves bound to repudiate the papal supremacy, have supplied, and still supply, the papacy with a chief weapon against all of us alike, and in favour of those extreme pretensions which have been a chief cause of, and remain a chief obstacle to reunion; and third, that nothing is more likely to bring about that kinder attitude toward the east and us which we desiderate on the part of rome than a large and generous measure here and in america of "home reunion"--effected, of course (as it can only be effected), on the basis of the catholic creeds, a worship in the beauty of holiness, and the apostolic ministry. anyhow, this is what we are finding in scotland. scotland, i know, is but a little bit of the world: its largest churches small in comparison with those of england and the united states, not to speak of the vast communions of rome and of the east. but the experience even of a small part may intimate what may be looked for in much larger sections of what after all is essentially the same body. for the church, the body of christ, in all lands and in all ages is one in spite of its divisions. christ is not divided. it is "subjective unity" not "objective" which in the church on earth is at present, through our sins, "suspended." well, in scotland; where, let me remind you, the confession of christ alike as "king of the nations" and "king in zion," and of the visible church as his kingdom on earth, was never laid aside, either in the national church or in the churches which separated from it (we laid aside much that we should have done well to keep, but we stuck manfully to this); we have had within recent times quite a number of incorporating unions; including two of considerable note--the union in which brought together in the "united presbyterian church" the two main sections of our th century "seceders," and the union of of the united presbyterians with the great mass of the "free church" of --the union that has given us the "united free church." i doubt if to either of these unions the hope of a future catholic reunion contributed, at the time, much or anything. i know there were some in the church of scotland who fancied, and alleged, that the union of was "engineered" with no friendly purpose towards us. but what has been the outcome? both of these unions:--partial in themselves--have tended, in the result, very materially to de-calvinize (if i may coin the word) the general presbyterianism of scotland, and break down narrow prejudices, to widen the outlook and enlarge the sympathies of those who took part in them. the second, and greater of these unions, that of (suspected then, as i have said), proved, within eight short years, to be the very thing to pave the way for the opening, between the church of scotland and the united free church, of those official negotiations for an incorporating union which promise now to give us ere long a church of scotland, not complete, indeed--not embracing even all the presbyterians of scotland, and greatly needing the scottish episcopalians--but still a church which will include an immense preponderance of the scottish people; which will be able to cover the whole country with not inadequate organizations; which will be freer also than it is at present to enter into further unions; which will remain--what it has ever been--both national and orthodox; and will continue, i believe, to go on rapidly resuming many of those touching, reverent, and churchly usages which in the heats of the th and th centuries it unwisely threw away or, less excusably, gave up in the coldness of the th. we have still some beautiful old usages, as well as enviable liberties and powers. and even in the th century we kept the faith against arian and socinian heresy: even then, our sacramental teaching could be high: even then, the doctrine and the practice alike of the established church and the seceders were clear and strong on the derivation of the ministry from christ, and the apostolical succession of our ministers, and yours, through presbyters. for myself, i suggested in , when it was proposed in our general assembly to open these negotiations, that we should attempt a larger duty, and approach all the reformed churches in scotland. i was over-ruled. it was held wiser "in the meantime" (they gave me this much) to "confine our invitation" to the united free church. the scottish episcopal church appeared to be of this mind also; and those in her and among us who have long looked wistfully towards our union with her and with the church of england are already finding that our present effort (limited as it is) is proving not an obstacle, as some of us feared, but a powerful impetus towards the larger effort. the union seems likely to clear away hindrances to an extent we never dreamed of. it is opening up the wider prospect among an increasing number not in the church of scotland only, but emphatically also in the united free church. on all hands it is "recognised" in scotland that the official "limitation of the union horizon is only temporary":--i quote from the _annual report_ for this year of the scottish church society: no one is content to accept the contemplated union, should it be accomplished, as exhaustive. we all wait for a fuller manifestation of the grace of god. at this season of pentecost we dream our dreams and see our visions of that great and notable day when all who name the one name shall be one. the witness of the scottish church society may seem to some one-sided: here is a witness from the other side, of a date more recent than last may; from a pamphlet just issued by the venerable dr william mair, the first and most persevering of the advocates of our present enterprise. his words impress me as very touching in their transparent honesty: it is thirteen years (he writes) since i first spoke out in the form of a pamphlet. no man stood with me. hard things were said of me. i believed it to be the will of the head of the church, the lord jesus christ, that there should be union of his church in scotland, and primarily that its two great churches should be one. i have never for a single moment doubted that his will would be fulfilled, or that it was the duty of these churches to set themselves, under his guidance, with resolute purpose to work out its fulfilment. observe his "primarily": he quite recognises (i have his authority for saying so) the further obligation. and no wonder: he is clear as to the one great and supreme motive that should inspire all efforts for church reunion--faith in the lord jesus christ, and the obedience of faith which the true confession of his deity involves. the will of the lord in regard to the visible unity of his whole church is plain: "other sheep i have which are not of this fold: them also i must lead; and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one flock, one shepherd." no doubt there is a difference between a fold ([greek: anlê]) and a flock ([greek: poimnê]), between the racial unity of the jewish dispensation and the catholic and international character impressed from the beginning on the christian church. but a flock is as visible as a fold is. we can see the one moving along the road under the shepherd's guidance just as distinctly as we see the other gleaming white on the hillside, or raising its turf-capped walls above the level of the moor. we can see, of course, if the walls of a fold are broken down; but we can see also whether a flock is united, whether it is moving forward as one mass, or is broken up and scattered. such separations might be well enough if the different little companies were all going quietly on in one way; though even then their breaking up would argue on the one hand a portentous failure in that recognition of the shepherd's voice and the obedience to him which is due to his loving care, and on the other hand a strange lack of that gregariousness which is an instinct in the healthy sheep. but what if the sheep are seen running hither and thither in different directions: if they are found labouring to explain the inadvisability--nay, the impossibility--of their ever coming into line; if we see them instead crossing each other's path, starting from each other, jostling and butting one another, continually getting into situations provocative of fights and injuries? is this the kind of picture which the lord jesus has drawn of his flock, his church as he wishes, and intends, that it should be: is this what he promises that it shall be? christ made his church one at the beginning: the rulers he set over it "were all with one accord in one place"; "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul." and when the gentiles had been brought in, what care did the apostles take lest the new departure should cause a separation along a line made obsolete by the cross of christ; and with what adoring admiration does st paul gaze at the delightful spectacle of jew and gentile made one new man in christ jesus--"where," he cries, "there cannot be greek and jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, scythian, bondman, freeman, but christ is all, and in all." in matters of rank and race and colour all our denominations retain this apostolic catholicity. how inconsistent to maintain it there, and repudiate it when we come to such differences as mostly separate us! these are differences far more of temper than of creed, or even of worship or government. we say, sometimes, that we are "one in spirit": not so; it is just in spirit that we have been divided. in creed and organisation both, and in temper as well, the church of apostolic times was visibly one. "see how these christians love one another" was the comment of the heathen onlooker. this state of things continued for a long time. gibbon enumerates the church's "unity and discipline," which go together, as among the "secondary causes" of that wonderful spread of the gospel in the first three centuries. the revived, broadened, and more candid study, alike of the new testament and of church history throughout its entire course, is one of the ways in which the good shepherd has been leading us to see alike the disobedience of our divisions, and the small foundation there is for many of the points over which we have been fighting. happily too, we do not now need to argue in favour of visible and organic unity. "the once popular apologies for separation which asserted the sufficiency of 'spiritual' union, and the stimulating virtues of rivalry and competition, have become obsolete." more happily still, we have learned practically to appreciate the difference between our saviour's gentle i must lead ([greek: dei me agagein]) and our forefathers' various attempts to produce "uniformity" by driving. the reproach of that sinful blunder is one that none of our greater churches--roman, anglican, presbyterian, or puritan--can cast in another's teeth. each of us committed it in our day of triumph. "what fruit had we then in those things whereof we are now ashamed?" the memory--one-sided, and carefully cultivated--of what each suffered in its turn of adversity has hitherto been a potent agency for keeping us apart. to-day those memories are fading. i was much struck by a remark i heard last spring from the bishop of southwark, that one reason why we are more ready nowadays to contemplate reunion is just that we belong to a generation to whom those miserable doings are far-off things outside alike our experience and our expectation. in other ways also we discern leadings of our saviour to the same end. through whitefield and the wesleys, and the evangelical revival, he re-awakened the peoples of england and america to a keen sense of the need for personal religion. where these powerful agencies had the defects of their qualities, in their failure to appreciate aright his gracious ordinances of church and ministry and sacrament, he rectified the balance by giving us in due course the oxford movement, whose force is not "spent," but diffused through all our "denominations." let us be just to the oxford movement: without it, humanly speaking, we should not have been here to-day. if it had its own narrownesses, it revived the very studies which, while they have revealed the inadequacy of certain of its postulates, have also brought clear into the view of all of us the divine goal which now gleams glorious in front of us--the goal of the great apostle--"the building up of the body of christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of god, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of christ." a scotsman may be excused for referring to the debt which the leaders of the oxford movement--dr pusey in particular was always ready to admit it--owed to sir walter scott, particularly in re-awakening a more sympathetic interest in the mediaeval church. if sir walter's countrymen were slower to follow him in this matter, they are doing so now in unexpected quarters. we are full to-day of the american alliance: may i remind you that sir walter scott was the first british man of letters to hail the early promise of american literature by his cordial welcome to its representative, washington irving? scott was a devoted subject of the british monarchy; but he saw, and he insisted on, the duty of great britain to cultivate a warm friendship with the united states. in the same direction we have been led in days more recent by the large development, in all our denominations, of two main branches of christian work. i refer to missionary enterprise abroad and social service at home. our ecclesiastical divisions are a serious handicap to both. in a matter more vital still, that of the religious--the christian--education in our schools and colleges, our divisions have sometimes proved well-nigh fatal. the one remedy is that we make up our differences and come together. and now this war, so dreadful in itself, is helping powerfully, and in many ways, to the same end. it is bringing us together at home, and making us acquainted with, and appreciative of, each other in a thousand forms of united service. it has spread before our eyes the magnificent and inspiring spectacles of colonial loyalty, of one military command over the allied forces, of the cordial and enthusiastic support of a fully-reconciled america. shall "the children of this world be wiser than the children of light"? shall the church neglect the lesson read to her by the statesmen and the warriors? then, again, the cause for which we are in arms is--most happily--not denominational. the present war is not in the least like those hateful, if necessary, struggles which historians have entitled "the wars of religion": but it is, on the part of the entente, essentially and fundamentally christian--more profoundly so than the crusades themselves. that is why it is bringing us so markedly together. and, if this is its effect at home and in america, much more is it producing the same result among our chaplains and our christian workers at the front. they are finding, on the one hand, the limitations, or faults, of every one of our stereotyped methods of work and forms of worship; they are seeing on the other hand among each other excellencies where they only saw defects. they are brought together in admiring comradeship, which resents the shackles restrictive of its play. let me read to you a passage from a letter i received a fortnight since from an eminent anglican chaplain now serving with our troops in france: i see (he says) in this great war all the excrescences--the non-essentials which up till now have masqueraded and misled so many religious and non-religious men--drop off in the light of great realities; and i have seen in the eyes of all true lovers of our lord, chaplains and laity, a wistful longing to unite, and mobilize our spiritual forces now dissipated and ineffective through disunion. what we look for more and more is a man, so filled with the spirit of god--so free from ambition, covetousness, denominationalism, with a big heart and deep love, to make a plunge and start. we may be able to start out here, if we have the good-will of our leaders at home. i think i may safely assure my correspondent that he has the good-will of all the living leaders of all our denominations? may i write and tell him so from this present meeting? [yes....] i think i shall remind him further of those words of the angel of the lord to gideon when he threshed his wheat in the wine-press with a vigour suggestive of his wish to have the midianites beneath his flail--"go in this thy might, and thou shalt save israel" from their marauding hands. at home, then, as well as at the front, the will is present with us; and where there is "the will" there is pretty sure to be "the way." "the way" (i believe for my part) is substantially that laid down by the pan-anglican conference of , in the "lambeth quadrilateral." its four points were: i. the holy scriptures. ii. the nicene creed. iii. the sacraments of baptism and the lord's supper ministered with the unfailing use of the words of institution. iv. the historic episcopate. it is fifty-two years since these terms were put forth. have they ever been formally brought before the "denominations" for whom presumably they were intended? were they even once commended to the nearest of these churches by a deputation urging their consideration? i doubt it. yet the first three of these four conditions are already accepted by nearly all the english nonconformists; and certainly by all the presbyterian churches, as fully as they are in the church of england. the presbyterian church of england has set the nicene creed on the fore-front of its new confession. every word of the nicene creed (as the late principal denney pointed out) is in the confession of faith of all the scottish presbyterians. the church of scotland repeats it at its solemn "assembly communion" in st giles'. its crucial term, the homoousion, is in the articles now sent down to presbyteries with the view of their transmission next may to the united free church. in regard to the sacramental services our _directory_ is quite express in ordering the use in baptism and the eucharist of the words of institution. i never heard of a case in scotland where they were not used: we should condemn their omission should it anywhere occur. undoubtedly the fourth article would have, till lately, presented difficulties; but, then, those difficulties were in great measure cleared away by the admission of the lambeth conference of that in the case of proposals for union, say of the church of scotland with the anglican church, reaching the stage of official action, an approach might be made along the line of the "precedents of ." i had a recent opportunity of stating, in an address[ ] i gave at king's college, london, what these precedents of were; how they included the unanimous vote of the general assembly of the church of scotland in favour of the restoration of diocesan bishops acting in conjunction with her graduated series of church courts; how we thereupon received from the church of england an episcopate which then, and ever since, she has accounted valid, though neither the scots bishops she then consecrated, nor the clergy of scotland as a body, were required to be re-ordained; and how the combined system thus introduced among us gave us by far the most brilliant and fruitful period in our ecclesiastical annals; and how learning, piety, art and church extension flourished among us, as they have never done since. the system would in all probability have endured to the present day but for the arbitrary interferences--often with very good intentions, and for ends in themselves desirable--of our stuart kings. a later restoration of episcopal church government under charles ii lacked the ecclesiastical authority which that of possessed, and was still more hopelessly discredited by its association with the persecution of the covenanting remnant; but even under these disadvantages it was yielding not inconsiderable benefits to the religious life of scotland. under it our gaelic-speaking highlanders first received the entire bible in their native tongue; the episcopate was adorned by the piety of leighton and the wisdom of patrick scougal; while henry scougal in his _life of god in the soul of man_ produced a religious classic of enduring value. the reference by the lambeth conference of was meant as the opening of a door, and i understand there was some soreness among its supporters that more notice of it was not taken in scotland. but it was never sent to scotland: it was never communicated to the general assembly. our scottish newspapers tell us very little of what goes on in england; and it must be admitted that too often, on both sides of the tweed, things have appeared in the press not calculated to heal differences or make for peace. sarcasm may be very clever: it is sometimes useful: it is rarely helpful to good feeling, or to the amendment either of him who utters it or of him against whom it is directed. the putting forth of the finger and speaking vanity are among the things which isaiah declares they must put away who desire to be called the restorers of the breach, the repairers of paths to dwell in. now you have taken in england a further step. the _second interim report_ of the archbishops' sub-committee in "connexion with the proposed world conference on faith and order" is not, i presume, a document of the "official" character of a resolution of a lambeth conference. it is nevertheless a paper of enormous significance and hopefulness, not alone as attested by the signatures it bears, but also on account of the exposition which it gives of the fourth point in the lambeth quadrilateral--its own condition "that continuity with the historic episcopate should be effectively preserved." this _report_ is, however, exclusively for england; while my concern to-day is with the kindred question of union between the anglican church and the scottish presbyterian churches. the day i trust is not far distant when we shall see a similar document issued over signatures from both sides of the tweed. need i say that when this comes to be drawn up, we of the north (like bailie nicol jarvie with his business correspondents in london) "will hold no communications with you but on a footing of absolute equality." in none of the branches into which it is now divided--presbyterian or episcopalian--does the church of scotland forget that it is an ancient national church which never admitted subjection to its greater sister of the south. we may have too good "a conceit of ourselves," but we shall at least, like the worthy bailie, be true and friendly. and indeed we--or some of us--were already moving towards something of the kind. the _second interim report_--it bears the title "towards christian unity"--is dated, i observe, march . in scotland, so early as the th of january, there was held at aberdeen (historically the most natural place for such a purpose, for it was the city of the "aberdeen doctors" and their eirenic efforts) a conference--modest, unofficial, tentative--yet truly representative of the church of scotland, of the united free church, and of the scottish episcopal church, which drew up, and has issued, a _memorandum_[ ] suggesting a basis for reunion in scotland, very much on the lines of the precedents of , but suggesting such arrangements during a period of transition as shall secure that respect is paid to the conscientious convictions to be found on both sides. we shall not repeat the blunders of which ruined the happy settlement of . we have in view a method which shall neither deprive scottish episcopal congregations of the services they love, nor attempt to force a prayer-book on presbyterian congregations till they wish it for themselves. we shall do nothing either to discredit or disparage our existing presbyterian orders; we shall be no less careful not to obtrude on the episcopal minority the services of a ministry they deem defective; which shall arrange that in the course of a generation the ministry of both communions shall be acceptable to all, while in the meanwhile it will be possible for both to work together. alike in england and in ireland this memorandum, where it has been seen, has been favourably received. in scotland it--and doubtless other plans--will probably be discussed in the coming winter by many a gathering similar to that which drew it up; and thus we shall be ready, by the time our union with the united free church is completed, to go on together to this further task. by that time you in england will have made some progress towards the healing of your divisions. the wider settlement of ours would be greatly facilitated by an overt encouragement from you. england is "the predominant partner" in our happily united empire: it is the church of england that should take the initiative in a scheme for a united church for the united empire. she should take that initiative in scotland. could there be a more appropriate occasion for proposing conference with a view to it at edinburgh, than the day which sees the happy accomplishment of our present scottish effort? might not the church of england, the church of ireland, and the scottish episcopal church (all of which have given tokens of a sympathetic interest in our union negotiations) unite to send deputations for the purpose to our first reunited general assembly? such deputations would not go away empty. and they would carry with them what would help not only the cause of christ throughout the ever-widening empire he has given to our hands, but the fulfilment of his blessed will that all his people should be one. auspice spiritu sancto. amen. footnotes: [ ] this address, along with another delivered in st paul's, has been published by mr robert scott, of paternoster row, under the title _reunion, a voice from scotland_. [ ] printed in _reunion, a voice from scotland_, pp. - . unity between classes i by the right rev. f. t. woods, d.d. introduction he would be a dull man who did not respond to such a theme as the one with which i have been entrusted. before the war, in spite of much enlightenment of the social conscience, unity between classes was still far to seek. indeed, the contemplation of the state of english society in those early months of was perhaps more calculated to drive the social reformer into pessimism than anything which has happened since. the rich were hunting for fresh pleasures, the poor were hunting for better conditions. the tendencies which were dragging these classes apart seemed stronger than those which were bringing them together. then came the war, and it has done much to convert a forlorn hope into a bright prospect. this has happened not merely, or even mainly, owing to the fact that men of all classes are fighting side by side in the trenches, but rather owing to the fact that the war has cleared our minds, has exposed the real dangers of civilisation, and has placarded before the world, in terms which cannot be mistaken, the things which are most worth living for. i propose to ask your attention to my subject under three heads. first i shall say something of the basis of class distinction, then i shall put before you some attempts which have been made at social unity, and in closing i shall try to estimate the hope of the present situation. i the basis of class distinction birth and property have been during most of human history the chief points on which class distinction has turned. behind them both, i fear it must be confessed, there is that which lies at the root of all civilisation, namely force. i presume that the first class distinction was between the group of people who could command and the group who had to obey. the second group no doubt consisted in most cases of conquered enemies who were turned into slaves. they were outsiders, the men of a lower level. but the master group, if i may so call it, would have its descendants, who by virtue of family relationships would seek to keep their position. this, i conclude, is the fountain head of that stream of blue blood which has played so large a part in class distinction. it is not difficult to make out a strong case for it from the point of view of human evolution. the processes of primitive warfare may have led to the survival of the fittest or the selection of the best. at a time when the sense of social responsibility was limited in the extreme, it may have been a good thing that the management of men should have rested mainly in the hands of those who by natural endowments and force of character came to the top. it is unnecessary to dwell at length on the immense influence both in our own country and elsewhere which this blood distinction of class has exercised. it is writ large in the history of the word "gentleman," both in the english word and its latin ancestor. the latin word "generosus," always the equivalent of "gentleman" in english-latin documents, signifies a person of good family. it was used no doubt in this sense by the rev. john ball, the strike leader, as we should call him in modern terms, of the th century, in the lines which formed a kind of battlecry of the rebels: when adam delved and eve span, who was then the gentleman? a writer of a century later, william harrison, says: "gentlemen be those whom their race and blood or at least their virtues do make noble and known." but the distinction is older than this. according to professor freeman it goes back well nigh to the conquest. not indeed the distinction of blood, for that is much older, but the formation of a separate class of gentlemen. it has been maintained however by some writers that this is rather antedating the process, and that the real distinction in english life up to the th century was between the nobiles, the tenants in chivalry, a very large class which included all between earls and franklins; and the ignobiles, i.e. the villeins, the ordinary citizens and burgesses. the widely prevalent notion that a gentleman was a person who had a right to wear coat armour is apparently of recent growth, and is possibly not unconnected with the not unnatural desire of the herald's office to magnify its work. it is evident that noble blood in those days was no more a guarantee of good character than it is in this, for, according to one of the writers on the subject, the premier gentleman of england in the early days of the th century was one who had served at agincourt, but whose subsequent exploits were not perhaps the best advertisement for gentle birth. according to the public records he was charged at the staffordshire assizes with house-breaking, wounding with intent to kill, and procuring the murder of one thomas page, who was cut to pieces while on his knees begging for his life[ ]. the first gentleman, commemorated by that name on an existing monument, is john daundelion who died in . in the th and th centuries the chief occupation of gentlemen was fighting; but later on, when law and order were more firmly established, the younger sons of good families began to enter industrial life as apprentices in the towns, and there began to grow up a new aristocracy of trade. to william harrison, the writer to whom i have already referred, merchants are still citizens, but he adds: "they often change estate with gentlemen as gentlemen do with them by mutual conversion of the one into the other." since those days the name has very properly come to be connected less with blue blood than--if i may coin the phrase--with blue behaviour. in , steele lays it down in the _tatler_ that the appellation of gentleman is never to be fixed to a man's circumstances but to his behaviour in them. and in this connexion we may recall the old story of the monarch, said by some to be james ii, who replied to a lady petitioning him to make her son a gentleman: "i could make him a noble, but god almighty could not make him a gentleman." before we leave the class distinctions based mainly on birth and blood, it is well to remark that in england they have never counted for so much as elsewhere. it is true of course that the nobility and gentry have been a separate class, but they have been constantly recruited from below. distinction in war or capability in peace was the qualification of scores of men upon whom the highest social rank was bestowed in reign after reign in our english history. moreover, birth distinction has never been recognised in law, in spite of the fact that the manipulation of laws has not always been free from bias. the well known words of macaulay are worth quoting in this connexion: there was a strong hereditary aristocracy: but it was of all hereditary aristocracies the least insolent and exclusive. it had none of the invidious character of a caste. it was constantly receiving members from the people, and constantly sending down members to mingle with the people. any gentleman might become a peer, the younger son of a peer was but a gentleman. grandsons of peers yielded precedence to newly made knights. the dignity of knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by diligence and thrift realise a good estate, or who could attract notice by his valour in battle. ... good blood was indeed held in high respect: but between good blood and the privileges of peerage there was, most fortunately for our country, no necessary connection.... there was therefore here no line like that which in some other countries divides the patrician from the plebeian. the yeoman was not inclined to murmur at dignities to which his own children might rise. the grandee was not inclined to insult a class into which his own children must descend.... thus our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world; a peculiarity which has lasted down to the present day, and which has produced many important moral and political effects[ ]. if blood counted for much in distinctions of class, property counted for more. the original distinction between the "haves" and the "have nots" has persisted throughout history and is with us to-day. in the ancient village, no doubt, the distinction was of the simplest. on the one hand was the man who by force or by his own energy became possessed of more cattle and more sheep than his fellows; on the other hand was the man who, in default of such property, was ready and willing to give his services to the bigger man, whether for wages, or as a condition of living in the village and sharing in the rights of the village fields and pastures. here presumably we have the origin of that institution of landlordism which still looms so large in our social life. in the early days it was probably more a matter of cattle than of land. the possessor of cattle in the village would hire out a certain number of them to a poorer neighbour, who would have the right to feed them on the common land. thus, even in primitive times, a class distinction based on property began to grow up. early in history there was found in most villages a chief man who had the largest share of the land. below him there would be three or four landowners of moderate importance and property. at the end of the scale were the ordinary labourers and villagers, among whom the rest of the village lands were divided as a rule on fairly equal terms. closely allied to this of course was the organisation of the village from the point of view of military service. parallel to this more peaceful organisation of society was the elaborate feudal system, by which, from the king downwards, lands were held in virtue of an obligation on the part of each class to the one above it to produce men for the wars in due proportion of numbers and equipment. from this point of view property in land meant also property in men, labourers in peace and soldiers in war. as time went on the class distinctions of birth and property began more and more to coincide. it was dr johnson who made the remark that "the english merchant is a new species of gentleman." the form of property which was always held to be in closest connexion with gentle blood was land. this has been so in a pre-eminent degree since our english revolution at the end of the th century. from that time onwards the smaller landowners, yeomen and squires with small holdings, begin to disappear and the landed gentry become practically supreme. political power in a large measure rested with them, and the result was that numbers of men who had made money in trade were eager to use it in the purchase of land, for this meant the purchase of social and political influence. it was no doubt this craze for the possession of land which led to the process of enclosing the common lands of the village, a process on which no true englishman can look back in these days without shame and sorrow. it is no doubt arguable that from an economic point of view the productive power of the land was increased, that agriculture was more efficiently and scientifically managed by the comparatively few big men than it would have been by the many small men who were displaced. none the less the price was too high, for it meant a still further accentuation of class distinction. it meant the further enrichment of the big man, and the further impoverishment of the small man. and between the two there grew up a class of farmers, separate from the labourers, whose outlook on the whole did not make for those relations of neighbourliness and even kinship which had been among the fine characteristics of the ancient village. nor is this the end of the story, for the distinction between the "haves" and the "have nots" was still further accentuated, and the two classes driven still further apart, by the far-reaching industrial revolution of the late th and early th century. the alienation between the farmer and the labourer was exactly paralleled by the alienation which gradually crept in between the manufacturer and the workers. the growth of the factory system was indeed so rapid that only the keenest foresight could have provided against these evils. the same may be said of the amazing development of the towns, particularly in lancashire and the west riding of yorkshire, which quickly gathered round the new hives of industry. unfortunately that foresight was lacking. on the one hand the science of town-planning had hardly been born, on the other hand a lightning accumulation of large fortunes turned the heads of the commercial magnates, dehumanised industry, and broke up the fellowship which in older and simpler days had obtained between the employer and his men. it is a charge which we frequently bring against the enemy in these days, a charge only too well founded, that they are expert in everything except understanding human nature. the same may be said of those who were concerned in the industrial revolution of the th century. the growing wealth of the country which should have united masters and men in a truer comradeship, and a richer life, achieved results which were precisely the opposite. it developed a greed of cash which we have not yet shaken off, and money was accumulated in the pockets of men who had had neither aptitude nor training in the art of spending it. the workers were reduced to a state not far removed from a salaried slavery, and the difference between the "haves" and the "have nots" was perhaps more acute than at any other time in our history. the causes of this were many and complex. not the least of them was the fact that the masters of industry were captured by a false theory of economics according to which the fund which was available for the remuneration of labour could not at any given time be greater or less than it was. human agency could not increase its volume, it could only vary its distribution. and further, as every man has the right to sell his labour for what he can obtain for it, any interference between the recipients was held to be unjust. "that theory," as mr hammond has told us, "became supreme in economics, and the whole movement for trade-union organisation had to fight its way against this solid superstition[ ]." the doctrine of free labour achieved a wonderful popularity; but then, as the writer i have just quoted reminds us: "free labour had not adam smith's meaning: it meant the freedom of the employer to take what labour he wanted, at the price he chose and under the conditions he thought proper[ ]." more and more therefore the employers and the workers drifted apart, and the supreme misfortune was that the one power which might have drawn them together was itself in a state of semi-paralysis in regard to the corporate responsibility of the community. that power was religion. there were times, as i shall endeavour to point out later, when christianity was able to produce an atmosphere of comradeship stronger than the differences of class. but to the very great loss of both country and church this was not one of them. at the moment when the corporate message of the church was needed, it was looking the other way, and concentrating its thought on the individual. the reformation was in large measure a revolt from the imperial to the personal conception of religion. i do not deny that this revolt was necessary and beneficial. but the reaction from the corporate aspect of christianity went too far. when this reaction was further reinforced by the puritan movement, which with all its strength and its fine austerity fastened its attention on the minutiae of personal conduct, and left the community as such almost out of sight, it is not surprising to find that religion at the end of the th, and through a large part of the th century, failed to produce just that sense of brotherhood which would have mitigated the whole situation and prevented much of the practical paganism which i have described. even the great revival connected with the name of john wesley brought all its fire to bear on the conversion of the _man_, when the social unit which was most in need of that conversion was the community. the result of all this was that, partly owing to ignorance, partly owing to prejudice, partly owing to the misreading of the new testament, the messengers of religion had no message of corporate responsibility for nation or class. there was no one to lift aloft the torch of human brotherhood over the dark and gloomy landscape of english life. so far from that, the people who figured large in religion were convinced quite honestly that the division of classes was a heaven sent order, with which it would be impious to interfere, and further that the main message of religion to the people at large was an authoritative injunction to good behaviour, and patient resignation to the circumstances in which providence had placed them. the notion that the organisation of society, particularly on its industrial side, was wholly inconsistent with the ideals of the new testament never so much as entered their heads, and any suggestion to this effect would have been regarded not merely as revolutionary but sacrilegious. i have ventured on this very rough description of class distinctions, before our modern days, because it is through the study of our forefathers' mistakes and a truer understanding of our forefathers' inspirations that we may hope to create a better world in the days that are coming. ii attempts at social unity let me ask your attention now to a few of the attempts which have been made to create a deeper social unity. some of these were naturally and inevitably developed in primitive days by the simple fact that "birds of a feather flock together." men engaged in pastoral pursuits gathered themselves into the tribe with its strong blood bond. the tillage of the fields led to the existence of the clan, with its family system and its elaborate organisation of the land. in the same way industrial activity produced the guild, that is the grouping of men by crafts, a grouping which might well be revived and encouraged on a larger scale in the rearrangements of the future. i need not remind you how large a place was occupied by the guilds in english life. they were not trade unions in the modern sense, for they included both masters and men in one organisation. nor must we attribute a modern meaning to those two phrases, masters and men, when we speak of the ancient guild. for in a large measure every man was his own employer. he was a member of the league; he kept the rules; but he was his own master. the master did not mean the manager of the workmen, but the expert in the work. he was the master of the art in question, and though his fellows might be journeymen or apprentices, they all belonged to the same social class, and throughout the guild there was a spirit of comradeship which was consecrated by the sanctions of religion. for it was the guilds which were the prime movers in organising those miracle plays which were the delight of the middle ages, and which formed the main outlet for that dramatic instinct which used to be so strong in england, and which paved the way for shakespeare and the modern stage. the guild was not concerned mainly with money but with work, and still more with the skill and happiness of the worker, and its aim was to resist inequality. it was, in the pointed words of mr chesterton, to ensure, not only that bricklaying should survive and succeed, but that every bricklayer should survive and succeed. it sought to rebuild the ruins of any bricklayer, and to give any faded whitewasher a new white coat. it was the whole aim of the guilds to cobble their cobblers like their shoes and clout their clothiers with their clothes; to strengthen the weakest link, or go after the hundredth sheep; in short to keep the row of little shops unbroken like a line of battle[ ]. the guild in fact aimed at keeping each man free and happy in the possession of his little property, whereas the trade union aims at assembling into one company a large number of men who have little or no property at all, and who seek to redress the balance by collective action. the mediaeval guild therefore will certainly go down to history as one of the most gallant attempts, and for the time being one of the most successful, to create a true comradeship among all who work, and to keep at a distance those mere class distinctions which, though their foundations are often so flimsy, tend to grip men as in an iron vice. but i must not pass by another social organisation which looms very large in the old days, and which approached social unity from a side wholly different from those i have mentioned, namely from the military side: i mean the feudal system. here there has been much misunderstanding. its very name seems to breathe class distinction. we have come casually and rather carelessly to identify it with the tyranny and oppression which exalted the few at the expense of the many. this point of view is however a good deal less than just. it is quite true that as worked by william the norman and several of his successors the system became only too often an instrument of gross injustice and crass despotism; but at its best, and in its origin, it was based on the twin foundations of protection on the one hand and duty on the other. i will venture to quote a high authority in this connexion, namely bishop stubbs. the feudal system, with all its tyranny and all its faults and shortcomings, was based on the requirements of mutual help and service, and was maintained by the obligations of honour and fealty. regular subordination, mutual obligation, social unity, were the pillars of the fabric. the whole state was one: the king represented the unity of the nation. the great barons held their estates from him, the minor nobles of the great barons, the gentry of these vassals, the poorer freemen of the gentry, the serfs themselves were not without rights and protectors as well as duties and service. each gradation, and every man in each, owed service, fixed definite service, to the next above him, and expected and received protection and security in return. each was bound by fealty to his immediate superior, and the oath of the one implies the pledged honour and troth of the other[ ]. this system indeed was very far from perfect, but it certainly was an attempt to bind the nation together in one social unit, to provide a measure of protection for all, and to demand duties from all. it sought to lay equal stress on rights and duties. in this respect--and i am still thinking of the system at its best--it was far ahead of modern th century industrialism, a system which might be described with but little exaggeration as laying sole emphasis on rights for one class and duties for the other. but the supreme attempt which so far has been made to promote unity between classes has approached the problem from a far loftier standpoint; not industrial, nor military, but religious. and this attempt has been on a larger scale and on firmer foundations than any of the others, for it has sought to unite men in spite of their differences. it has tried, that is, to get below the varieties of race or family or occupation, and create a unity which, because it transcends them all, may hope to last. as a fact this attempt has so far surpassed all others, and has met with the greatest measure of success. and lest i should be suspected of prejudice i will quote an outside witness: a very pregnant saying of t. h. green was that during the whole development of man the command, "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" has never varied, what has varied is the answer to the question--who is my neighbour?... the influence upon the development of civilisation of the wider conception of duty and responsibility to one's fellow-men which was introduced into the world with the spread of christianity can hardly be overestimated. the extended conception of the answer to the question who is my neighbour? which has resulted from the characteristic doctrines of the christian religion--a conception transcending all the claims of family, group, state, nation, people or race and even all the interests comprised in any existing order of society--has been the most powerful evolutionary force which has ever acted on society. it has tended gradually to break up the absolutisms inherited from an older civilization and to bring into being an entirely new type of social efficiency[ ]. or to take another witness equally unprejudiced, who puts the same truth more tersely still, the late professor lecky. "the brief record of those three short years," referring to christ's life, "has done more to soften and regenerate mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and exhortations of moralists." for a third witness we will call mazzini. "we owe to the church," he declared, "the idea of the unity of the human family and of the equality and emancipation of souls." that this is amply borne out by the history of the church in early days is not difficult to prove. the unexceptionable evidence of a pagan writer is here very much to the point. says lucian of the christians: "their original lawgiver had taught them that they were all brethren, one of another.... they become incredibly alert when anything ... affects their common interests[ ]." in the same way the ancient christian writer tertullian observes with characteristic irony: "it is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. only look, they say, 'look how they love one another[ ]!'" it is not surprising that this was so when you look into the writings which form the new testament. apart from the words and example of the founder of christianity, few men have ever lived who were more alive to existing social distinctions, and also to the splendour of that scheme which transcends them all, than st paul. in proof of this it is sufficient to point to that immortal treatise on social unity which is commonly called the epistle to the ephesians. in this the fundamental secret is seen to consist, not in a rigid system but in a transforming spirit working through a divine society in which all worldly distinctions are of no account. slavery, for instance, was, in his view, and was actually in process of time, to be abolished not by a stroke of the pen but by a change of ideal. nor is the witness lacking in writings subsequent to the new testament. to instance one of the earliest. in an official letter sent by the roman church to the christians in corinth towards the end of the first century, in a passage eulogising the latter community this suggestive sentence occurs: "you did everything without respect of persons." needless to say however, this point of view, this new spirit, only gradually permeated the christian church itself, let alone the great world outside. we are not surprised to learn that it was a point of criticism among the opponents of the religion that among its adherents were still found masters and slaves. an ancient writer in reply to critics who cry out "you too have masters and slaves. where then is your so-called equality?" thus makes answer: our sole reason for giving one another the name of brother is because we believe we are equals. for since all human objects are measured by us after the spirit and not after the body, although there is a diversity of condition among human bodies, yet slaves are not slaves to us; we deem and term them brothers after the spirit, and fellow-servants in religion[ ]. pointing in the same direction is the fact that the title "slave" never occurs on a christian tombstone. it is plain from this, and from similar quotations which might be multiplied, that the policy of christianity in face of the first social problem of the day, namely slavery, was not violently to undo the existing bonds by which society was held together, in the hope that some new machinery would at once be forthcoming--a plan which has since been adopted with dire consequences in russia--but to evacuate the old system of the spirit which sustained it; and to replace it with a new spirit, a new outlook on life, which would slowly but inevitably lead to an entire reconstruction of the social framework. already too, within the church this sense of brotherhood was making itself felt on the industrial side as well as where more directly spiritual duties were concerned. it seems to have been recognised in the christian society that every brother could claim the right of being maintained if he were unable to work. equally it was emphasised that the duty of work was paramount on all who were capable of it. "for those able to work, provide work; to those incapable of work be charitable." this aspect of the matter finds a singular emphasis in a second century document known as "the teaching of the twelve apostles," in which this sense of industrial brotherhood finds very significant expression. speaking of visitors from other churches it is directed that "if any brother has a trade let him follow that trade and earn the bread he eats. if he has no trade, exercise your discretion in arranging for him to live among you as a christian, but not in idleness. if he will not do this, that is to say, to undertake the work which you provide for him, he is trafficking with christ. beware of men like that." on this side of its life therefore, the church came very near to being a vast guild where with the highest sanction rights and duties were intermingled in due proportion, and that true social unity established, which while it refuses privileges bestows protection. on these foundations the organisation was reared, which like some great cathedral dominated that stretch of centuries usually known as the middle ages. we could all of us hold forth on its drawbacks and evils, yet its benefits were tremendous. for one thing it created an aristocracy wholly independent of any distinction of blood or property. anyone might become an archbishop if only he had the necessary gifts. still more anyone might become a saint. the charmed circle of the church's nobility was constantly recruited from every class, and was therefore a standing and effectual protest against the flimsier measurements of society and the more ephemeral gradations of rank. obviously this process found as great a scope in england as elsewhere. it was the church which was the most potent instrument in bringing together norman and saxon as well as master and slave. for, as macaulay has said with perfect truth, it creates an aristocracy altogether independent of race, inverts the relation between the oppressor and the oppressed, and compels the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual tribunal of the hereditary bondman.... so successfully had the church used her formidable machinery that, before the reformation came, she had enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom except her own, who, to do her justice, seem to have been very tenderly treated[ ]. this makes it particularly deplorable that in consequence of the great reaction in religion from the corporate to the personal, to which i have alluded, the church's power, as far as britain was concerned, though so splendidly exercised in the preceding centuries, should have been almost non-existent just at the moment when it was most required, in the agricultural and industrial revolution of comparatively modern times. iii the hope of the present situation i fear that a large portion of this lecture has been taken up with the past. but even so rough and brief a review as i have attempted is a necessary prelude to a just estimate, both of our present position and of our future prospects. it is often supposed, indeed, that the study of history predisposes a man's mind to a conservative view. he studies the slow development of institutions, or the gradual influence of movements, and the trend of his thought works round to the very antipodes of anything that is revolutionary or catastrophic. but there is another side to the matter. the study of history may so expose the injustices of the past and their intrenchments that the student reaches the conclusion that nothing but an earthquake--an earthquake in men's ideas at the very least--can avail to set things right; that the best thing that could happen would be an explosion so terrible as to make it possible to break completely with the past, and start anew on firmer principles and better ways. after all, as a great cambridge scholar once said, "history is the best cordial for drooping spirits." for if on the one hand it exposes the selfishnesses of men, on the other it displays an exhibition of those divine-human forces of justice and sacrifice and good will which in the long run cannot be denied, and which encourage the brightest hopes for the age which is upon us. the fact is, we are in the midst of precisely such an explosion as i have indicated. the immeasurable privilege has been given to us of being alive at a time when, most literally, an epoch is being made. contemporary observers of events are not always the best judges of their significance, yet we shall hardly be mistaken if we assert that without doubt we stand at one of the turning points of the world's long story, that the phrase used of another epoch-making moment is true of this one, "old things are passing away, all things are becoming new." for history is presenting us in these days with a clean slate, and to the men of this generation is given the opportunity for making a fresh start such as in the centuries gone by has often been sought, but seldom found. we are called to the serious and strenuous task of freeing our minds from old preconceptions--and the hold they have over us, even at a moment like this when the world is being shaken, is amazing--the task of reaching a new point of view from which to see our social problems, and of not being disobedient to the heavenly vision wheresoever it may lead us. that vision is fellowship, and it is not new. though the war is, in the sense which i have suggested, a terrific explosion which in the midst of ruin and chaos brings with it supreme opportunities, it is equally true to say that it forms no more than a ghastly parenthesis in the process of fellowship both between nations and classes which had already begun to make great strides. "the sense of social responsibility has been so deepened in our civilisation that it is almost impossible that one nation should attempt to conquer and subdue another after the manner of the ancient world." these words sound rather ironical. they come from the last edition of the _encyclopaedia britannica_. they were written about seven years ago in perfect good faith, as a sober estimate of the forces of fellowship which could be then discerned. save for the ideals and ambitions of the central empires of europe they were perfectly true. what the war has done in regard to this fellowship is to expose in their hideous nakedness the dangers which threaten it, and to which in pre-war days we were far too blind, but also to unveil that strong passion for neighbourliness which lies deep in the hearts of men, and an almost fierce determination to give it truer expression in the age which is ahead. you will naturally ask what effect the war is likely to have on this problem of class distinction. how far will it hinder or enhance the social unity for which we seek? we must of course beware of being unduly optimistic. the fact that millions of our men are seeing with their own eyes the results which can be achieved by naked force will not be without its effect on their attitude when they return to their homes. if force is so necessary and so successful on the field of battle why not equally so in the industrial field? if nations find it necessary to face each other with daggers drawn, it may be that classes will have to do the same. personally i doubt whether this argument is likely to carry much weight. it is much more likely in my view that our men will be filled with so deep a hatred of everything that even remotely savours of battle, that a great tide of reaction against mere force will set in, and a great impetus be given to those higher and more spiritual motor-powers which during the war we have put out of court. on the other hand it is easy to cherish a rather shallow hope as to the continuation in the future of that unity of classes which obtains in the trenches. surely, it is argued, men who have stood together at the danger point and gone over the top together at the moment of assault will never be other than brothers in the more peaceful pursuits which will follow. yet it is not easy to foretell what will happen when the tremendous restraint of military service is withdrawn, when britain no longer has her back to the wall, and when the overwhelming loyalty which leaps forth at the hour of crisis falls back into its normal quiescence, like the new zealand geyser when its momentary eruption is over. any hopefulness which we may cherish for the future must rest on firmer foundations than these. such a foundation, i believe, has come to light, and i must say a few words about it as i close. broadly speaking it is this. the war has taught us that it is possible to live a national family life, in which private interests are subordinated in the main to the service of the state; and further that this new social organisation of the nation has called forth an unprecedented capacity in tens of thousands both of men and women, not merely for self-denying service, but for the utmost heights of heroism even unto death. men have vaguely cherished this ideal of national life before the war, but now it has been translated into concrete fact, and the nation can never forget the deep sense of corporate efficiency, even of corporate joy, which has ensued from this obliteration of the old class distinctions, this amalgamation of all and sundry in a common service. the fact is that a new class distinction has in a measure taken the place of the old, a distinction which has nothing to do with blood or with money, but solely with service. the nation is graded, not in degrees of social importance but in degrees of capacity for service. the only superiority is one of sacrifice. and each grade takes its hat off to the other on the equal standing ground of an all pervading patriotism. the only social competition is not in getting but in giving. national advantage takes the place of personal profit, and there is a sense of neighbourliness such as britain has not experienced for many a long day, possibly for many a long century. the supreme problem before us, i take it, is how to conserve this relationship and carry it over from the day of war to the day of peace. to do it will call for just that same spirit of sacrifice and service which is its own most predominant characteristic. for one thing we must be quite definitely prepared in every section of society for a new way of life. from the economic point of view this will mean that the rich will be less rich, and the poor will be enabled to lead a larger life. already the wealthy classes have been learning to live a simple life, and to substitute the service of the country for their own personal enjoyment. a serious call will come to them to continue in that state of life when the war is over. in some degree at least the pressure of the financial burden which the nation will have to bear will compel them to do so. to the workers too in the same way the call will come to a new and more worthy way of life. i am thinking now of the workers at home who have been earning unprecedented wages, and thereby in many cases are already assaying a larger life. they will be reluctant to give this up, but only a gradual redistribution of wealth can make it permanent. it is not of course merely or mainly a matter of wages. the only real enlargement of life is spiritual. it is an affair of the mind and the soul. the more we bring a true education within reach of the workers the more will there arise that sense of real kinship which only equality of education can adequately guarantee. and speaking at cambridge one cannot refrain from remarking that the university itself will have to submit to a considerable re-adjustment of its life if it is to be a pioneer in this intellectual comradeship of which i speak. a university may be a nursery of class distinction. in some measure it certainly has been so in the past. the opportunity is now before it to lead the way in establishing the only kind of equality which is really worth having. then too there are obvious steps which can be taken without delay in a new organisation of industry. i am not one of those who think that the industrial problem can be solved in five minutes or even in five years. none the less it should not be impossible in wise ways to give the workers a true share of responsibility, particularly in matters which concern the conditions of their work and the remuneration of their labour. if the sense of being driven by a taskmaster, whether it be the foreman of the shop, or the manager of the works, could give place to a truer co-operation in the management, and a larger measure of responsibility for the worker, we should be well on the road to eliminating one of the most persistent causes of just that kind of class distinction which we want to abolish. the more men work together in a real comradeship, the more mere social distinctions fade into the background. is this not written on every page of the chronicles of this war? but the supreme factor in the situation, without which no mere adjustment of organisation will prevail, is that new outlook on life which can only be described as a subordination of private advantage to the service of the country. it is this alone which can really abolish the almost eternal class distinctions which we have traced throughout our survey, the distinction between the "haves" and the "have nots." for, as this spirit grows, the "have nots" tend to disappear, and the "haves" look upon what they have not as a selfish possession for their own enjoyment, but as a means of service for the common weal. property, that which is most proper to a man, is seen to be precisely that contribution which he is capable of making to the welfare of his fellows. the crux, the very core of the whole problem, is to find some means by which this new outlook can be produced, and a new motive by which men can be constrained to turn the vision into fact. here will come in that power which, as i pointed out, has sometimes been so potent and sometimes so impotent, but which, if it is allowed its proper scope, can never fail. i mean of course religion. if men can be brought to see that this new outlook with its corresponding re-adjustment of social life is not merely a project of reformers but the plan of the most high god, the deliberate intention of the supreme spirit-force of the universe, the scheme that was taught by the prince of men, then indeed we may hope that the class distinction of which he spoke will at last be adopted: "whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. for even the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many[ ]." footnotes: [ ] _encycl. brit._ xi. . [ ] macaulay's _history of england_ (longman's, ), pp. , , . [ ] _the town labourer_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] g. k. chesterton, _short history of england_, p. . [ ] stubbs' _lectures on early english history_, pp. , . [ ] benjamin kidd, _encycl. brit._ vol. xxv. p. . [ ] lucian quoted by harnack, _mission and expansion of christianity_, vol. i. p. . [ ] _ibid._ [ ] lactantius quoted by harnack, _ibid._ p. . [ ] _history of england_ (longman's, ), vol. i. p. . [ ] st mark x. - . unity between classes ii by the right hon. j. r. clynes, m.p. i have not the advantage of knowing anything of the treatment of any part of this subject by any preceding speaker. i myself intend to deal with it from the industrial and social standpoint, for i think if we are to seek unity amongst classes it is most important in the national interest that unity should first be sought and secured in the industries of the country. that there is disunity is suggested and admitted in the terms of the subject. this disunity has grown out of conditions which range over a few generations. i believe that these conditions grew largely out of our ignoring the human side of industry and the general life conditions of the masses of our workers. our economic doctrine ignored the human factor, and measured what was termed national progress in terms merely of material wealth without due regard to who owned the wealth, made mainly by the energy of the industrial population. religious doctrines and religious institutions were not the cause of that unhappy situation, but they had suffered from it, until now we find a very considerable number of the population engaged in a struggle for life, in a struggle for the material means of existence, handicapped by belief that their own unaided effort alone can assist them, that they must not look for help to any other class, or to any other quarter. moral precepts have not the influence which they ought to have upon our industrial relations. workers are thrown back upon their own resources; and in the use of those resources, during the past fifteen years particularly, much has been revealed to us of what is now in the working class mind. i am not suggesting that to seek a settlement of conditions of disunity, or the trouble arising from those conditions, you must coddle the working classes, praise them and pay them highly, and try to keep them contented with conditions which in themselves cannot be defended. i do not mean that at all. what i mean is that if unity between classes in industrial and economic life is to be sought and secured, it can be got only at a price, paid in a two-fold form; that of giving a larger yield of the wealth of the nation to those who mainly by their energies make that wealth, and of placing the producing classes upon a level where they will receive a higher measure of respect, of thanks, and regard than they previously have received from the nation as a whole. i was asked among others some twelve months ago to share in the investigations then made by representatives of the government to discover the immediate cause of the very serious unrest then displayed in the country, and we went for a period of many weeks into the main centres of the kingdom and brought a varied collection of witnesses before us in order that the most reliable evidence should be obtained, and one who favoured us with his views was the rev. canon green, whom i am going to quote because of his great experience among the working class populations in various circumstances and over many years in manchester and elsewhere. this is what canon green writes: they (the working classes) do not see why their hours should be so long, and their wages so small, their lives so dull and colourless, and their opportunities of reasonable rest and recreation so few. can we wonder that with growing education and intelligence the workers of england are beginning to contrast their lot with that of the rich and to ask whether so great inequalities are necessary? there i believe you have put in the plainest and gentlest terms the working of the working class mind as it is to-day. the country has given them more opportunities of education. when they were less educated, or, if i may say so, more ignorant than they are now, they were naturally more submissive and content with conditions the cause of which they so little understood. you cannot send the children of the poor to school, and improve your state agencies for education, and increase the millions annually which the country is ready to spend in teaching the masses of the people more than they knew before, and expect those masses to remain content with the economic and social conditions which even disturbed their more ignorant fathers. in short, the more you educate and train the working classes, the more naturally you bring them to the point of revolt against conditions which are inhuman or unfair, or which cannot be brought to square with the higher standard of education which they may receive. i am sure when the community come to understand that it is a natural and even a proper sense of revolt on the part of the masses of the people they will not regret their education. out of all this feeling of discontent in the minds of the industrial population there has in the last thirty odd years grown very strong organisation. the trade union movement, which i mention first as a very great factor in all these matters, is a most powerful and important factor, and the country will have to pay greater regard to the steps which trade unionism may take than the country has been disposed previously to do. the trade union movement was stimulated and developed by the conditions which it was brought into being to remedy. the trade union was not the growth of mere agitation. the average briton must be convinced that there is something really wrong before he will try to remedy it at all, and you cannot by lectures, and by telling the people that they have been and are being oppressed, stir the people of this country to any resistance. particularly you cannot get them to pay a contribution for it. it was because of the experience of the mass of the workers, their low wages and long hours and the bad conditions of employment, that they organised and used the might that comes from numbers, and paid contributions which in the sum total now amount to many millions of pounds in the way of reserve funds. no apology was needed for the working classes and no defence is required for this step taken by the workers to unite themselves in trade unions, and thereby secure by the unity of numbers the power which, acting singly, it was impossible for them to exercise. this trade union movement is quite alive to the division which exists among our classes, and i am going to suggest that the movement might be used, might be properly employed, in obtaining that unity of classes which we are here to consider. well, then, we may, whilst not overlooking other helpful activities of a large number of people in this country, seek this unity among three main divisions of our people, viz. (_a_) in industries, (_b_) in agriculture, and (_c_) in businesses. given unity of interest and oneness of purpose and aim in those three broad divisions of the nation, the rest must be attracted and brought into harmony by mere force of example, if nothing else, with the unity which might be secured in the three broad divisions to which i have referred. one of the hopeful things, the significant things, recently uttered in other quarters from which i am going to quote, is clearly seeking this tendency to unity instead of the different interests and classes being driven by the waste and folly of the disuniting lines upon which so far we have persisted. i observe that only a few days ago lord selborne, who is one of our principal mouthpieces on agricultural matters, presided at a new body called into existence within the past few weeks and to be known as the national agricultural council. now, that is not a body which will consist of landowners, or of farmers, or of farm workers; it is a body to consist of all three. the landowners, the farmers, and the agricultural workers have come to recognise that they all have something in common touching agriculture, touching the trade or industry in which they are brought into close touch day by day. i know as a matter of fact that only a very few years ago the farmers' union would not tolerate the idea of the farm workers having a union, and the land workers looked with real dread upon the farmers having a union, and now all three have come to the stage when they agree to join in one council, and, though it was admitted that the interests of those three classes were primarily in conflict, it was recognised that by holding meetings, by the representatives of all these quite distinct interests frequently coming together, much good might be done. for what? as they say, for agriculture. so, though none of them will forfeit any rightful interest anyone of them may have in the pursuit of a special claim, they will all recognise a higher sense of duty, and feel there is an obligation upon them to make agriculture in this country a greater thing not only for themselves as the three partners, but for the mass of the community at large. and if it is necessary to do that in the farmers' interest or the landowners' interest, it was at least as necessary to do it in the interest of the agricultural worker, and i put his claim first, not because he is the sole contributor to any yield that may come from the land, but because he is the most numerous body, and numbers in this as in other respects may well be the determining factor; and because if he withholds his labour there will be none of the fruit of the soil for which we look year after year. i follow up this statement by an authoritative one from another quarter. lord lee, who as we know was the director of the food production department at the board of agriculture, spoke some time ago on this aspect of the case, and said: "take the agricultural labourer for example. does anyone suppose, or suggest, that he should return from the trenches--where he has distinguished himself in a way unsurpassed by any other class in the community--to the old miserable conditions under which, in most parts of the country, he was under-paid, wretchedly housed, and denied almost any pleasure in life, except such as the public house could offer him? those conditions were a disgrace to the country, and i shall never be content until they are swept away for ever. i do not say this only in the interest of the man himself; it is necessary these conditions should go, in the best interests not merely of the labourer but of the farmer and of agriculture." so it may be that unity and oneness of purpose and of action will be driven upon us as one of the bye-products of war conditions. for your simple plain agricultural worker will come back feeling that as he has fought for the liberties of his country he will be entitled to enjoy a little more of it than ever before, that if the land is to be freed from designs of the tyrant abroad it must be freed also from any wrong at home, and that he must have a larger share in the fruits of his labour than he has enjoyed before. my own view is that you will not on that account make the farm worker a less efficient harvestman, but you will make him a happier father, you will be making him a more contented citizen, and may make him a more profitable worker than he has ever been. various remedies have been tried or thought of to give effect to what are our common aspirations. one i have seen referred to frequently is one i would like to see always avoided. it is the remedy of placing before workmen as a necessity a greatly increased output from their manual labour in the future; not that i am opposed to an increased output, but i am not going to demand it as part of the bargain which should itself be arranged and carried out, even if it did not necessarily secure for us any greater sum total of wealth than we now enjoy; for poor as we may have accounted ourselves we have seen in the past few years how vastly we can spend and lend in support of any high purpose to which the country may devote itself. poverty can never again be claimed by the nation as a whole whenever there is a proper and reasonable demand for any social change or reform which may be necessary and proper. men are asking for a greater yield, for a greater output, for building up our wealth higher than ever before, so as to repair the ravages of the war, if for no other purpose. with all those objects i agree, but we must not make them as terms to the worker in exchange for those conditions of unity which we are asking our workers to arrange with us. greater output, increased efficiency, a bigger and better return of wealth from industrial and agricultural energy, can well come out of a better working system, a better rearrangement of combined effort, a more extensive use of machinery, a more satisfactory sub-division of labour, a wider employment of the personal experience and technical skill of our industrial classes, a higher state of administrative efficiency and management in the workshops, the creation of a better and more humane atmosphere in the workshops. out of all of these things a greater yield of wealth could be produced, and it is along those lines we must go in order not merely to convert but to convince the workman that he is not being used as a mere tool for some ulterior end for the benefit of some smaller class in the country. it has been said by some that trade union restrictions and limitations must go. i candidly admit there have been trade union regulations and conditions which perhaps have stood in the way of some increased output, but i am not here to apologise for trade union rules. every class has its regulations and rules. the more powerful and the more wealthy the class the more rigid and stringent those rules have been. however, the class which was most in need of regulations and rules, the working class, was the first to set the example of setting them aside as a general war measure when the country called upon the workers to take action of that kind during . we must, therefore, keep in mind the fact that workmen are naturally suspicious. that suspicion is the growth of the workshop system, into which i have not now the time to go, and we must avoid causing the workman to suspect that our unity, the unity we are seeking among classes, is a mere device for getting him to work harder and produce greater wealth and perhaps labour even longer hours than ever. the first great step towards this unity is to secure the good will of the trade unions. having secured that, the next thing is to proceed upon lines which will bring at once home to the individual workman in the workshop some sense of responsibility with regard to the response which he must make to the appeal which we put before him. in short, better relations must precede any first step that could effectively be taken to secure this greater unity, and better relations are impossible in industry until we have given the individual workman a greater sense of responsibility of what he is in the workshop for. let me briefly outline how that might be secured. it was put, i think, quite eloquently if simply in an address to the trade union congress a short time ago by the president of the congress, who said that the workman wanted a voice in the daily management of the employment in which he spends his working life, in the atmosphere and in the conditions under which he has to work, in the hours of beginning and ending work, in the conditions of remuneration, and even in the manners and practices of the foremen with whom he had to be in contact. "in all these matters," said the president, "workmen have a right to a voice--even to an equal voice--with the management itself." i know that is a big, and to some an extravagant claim to make, but to set it aside or ignore it is to provoke and invite further trouble. industry can no longer be run for the profit which it produces, or even because of the wealth which collective energy can make. that, indeed, was the mistake out of which, as i said at the beginning, this disunion, and this suspicion, and this selfishness, have grown. we have had greatly to modify our doctrines of political economy during the course of the war, and all the things which many teachers told us never could be done have come as natural to us under war conditions which we could not resist, and of which we were the creatures. where now is the law of supply and demand? indeed, if the law of supply and demand were operating at this moment, there are few workmen in the country who would not be receiving many, many pounds more a week than they are. the workman is not paid to-day according to the demand for his labour. a very much higher obligation decides for him what his remuneration is to be. i have in mind, of course, the fact that a considerable number of workers, who are employed upon munition services and so on, are enjoying very high wages, but that is not at all true of the masses of the industrial population, and we ought not to be deceived by these rare instances which are quoted of men coming out of the workshop with _£_ or _£_ . speaking of the industrial population in the main, what was the outstanding economic doctrine?--the doctrine that the demand for labour and the volume for supplying that demand determined the remuneration. that doctrine has had to go by the board like so many other things that could not exist under war pressure. then, how are we to give effect to this general workshop aspiration for bringing the workman into closer unity with the conditions which determine that part of his life which is the bread-winning part, for which he has to turn out in the morning early and often return home late in the evening? there was established some time ago what can be described as a quite responsible committee to report upon how better relations not only between employers and employed through their associations, but in regard to employers and employed in the workshops, might be established. that committee issued the report commonly known to us now as the whitley report, of which i am quite sure more will be heard in a few years. the men who had to frame that report were drawn from the two extremes of the employers and trade unions. we had men with very advanced views, like mr smillie, on the one hand, and we had quite powerful employers of labour, like sir gilbert claughton and sir william carter, on the other. i had the privilege of sitting on that committee, and for some months we laboured to frame some definite terms which might be accepted by those who were concerned in our recommendations. i very often hear the suggestion that people will have little of it because it is not ideal, not grand or great enough, but we have to come down to the earth upon these matters, and we have to recommend only what we feel is likely to be accepted lest our labour should be wasted. we must avoid, therefore, throwing our aims too high, and we must suggest only what practical business men and workmen are likely seriously to consider. having decided to reach that conclusion, and feeling the sense of responsibility which, opposed as so many of us were to each other, drove us to reach a conclusion, we expressed ourselves in these terms: "we are convinced that a permanent improvement in the relations between employers and employed must be founded upon something other than a cash basis. what is wanted is that the workpeople should have a greater opportunity of participating in the discussion upon an adjustment of those parts of industry by which they are most affected. for securing improvement in the relations between employers and employed, it is essential that any proposals put forward should offer to workpeople the means of attaining improved conditions of employment and a higher standard of comfort generally, and involve the enlistment of their active and continuous co-operation in the promotion of industry." previously, the view was that the workman had nothing whatever to do with this phase of the management of business, and that is a phrase still very much used. we make no claim in this report that workmen should have the right to interfere in the higher realms of business management, in, say, finance, in the general higher details of organisation, in the extension of works, in all those more important and urgent matters which must come before the board of managers or the manager himself. these are things which belong properly and exclusively to those who have the responsibility of managing our great industries, but in all the other things affecting the conditions of the workman, the manner in which he is to be treated, hours, wages, conditions of employment, relations between section and section, and working division and working division, all those things which were regarded previously as the private monopoly of the foreman or manager must in future become the common concern of the workmen collectively, and they must have some voice in how these things are to be settled. the country and its industries, of course, may refuse to hear that voice, but really we have to choose between reconciling workmen to a given system of industry or finding workmen in perpetual revolt against their conditions. and it will pay the country to concede a great deal, not only for peace in the workshop but for a higher standard of peace generally in the whole community. the appeal that must be made to the workman must be followed up by asking him to receive it in a very different spirit from the spirit sometimes shewn in certain workshops. i am not here by any means to pour praise altogether upon the working classes, and i am conscious of the mistakes and wrongs which have sometimes been done in their names, and i am therefore anxious that the spirit of the workshop should be so tempered and altered as to be fit to receive and make the best use of the approaches which are to be made to it to participate in workshop management upon the lines which i have indicated. so this appeal which has been made by the whitley committee, and which has been followed up by some other departments of government, is put as an appeal to the common-sense and reason of the men in the workshop, and does not rest upon any of the many agencies which have been employed previously in the pursuit of definite trade union ends. this spirit can be fostered only when the masses of workmen are reached by the consciousness that they themselves are being called upon to share in the undertakings of which they are so important a part. the importance of workmen has been revealed in a most startling way during the period of the war, and the war has shewn in many trades that recurring differences between capital and labour can be adjusted without strikes and without lock-outs if methods are provided in the workshop which are acceptable to both sides, and are made to operate fairly and satisfactorily between the different interests. think how important the workman has become because of the war. consider how much the workman is now pressed and drawn into all manner of services which previously he could either remain in or leave at his will. the war has made such a demand upon national industrial energy that there is no service now for which there is not a demand. indeed, you have seen the effect in that services in the workshop include men who previously would have been ashamed to have had it known that they had ever soiled their hands at any toil at all, but who have been glad to get a place in the workshop because it was work of national importance. war experience has shewn us how high manual service stands in the grades of service which can be rendered for community interest. this new spirit does not appeal to force as a means of settling differences, nor to compulsory arbitration, nor to the authority of the state, nor to the power of organisation on either side. it is an appeal to reason, an approach to both sides to act in association on lines which will give freedom, self-respect, and security to both sides, whilst enabling each of them to submit to the other what it feels is best for the joint advancement of the trade and those engaged in it. in short, i would like to see inside the gates of every workshop the cultivation of the same spirit in british industry as has been hinted at already as the first essential for the future development of agriculture in england. those processes of calling in the individual workman through committees, to which i will refer briefly in a moment, are not intended to take the place of the great organisations. they are to be supplementary to the trade unions, and are not intended to supplant them. trades union leadership has changed hands to a great extent during the past year or two, and the virtual leaders of the men are now men themselves employed at the bench and in the mine. they are exercising very great authority and influence over masses of their fellow workmen, and often the authority, and decisions, and advice of executives and leaders are set aside and the advice of the men employed in the workshop, given to their fellow workmen as mates, is followed. so with this change, due to conditions into which we have not time to go, there must be recognised the need for applying new remedies in considering this question of improving the relations between employer and employed. it will not do now merely to have discussions between association and association. we might improve upon that and supplement it as i have said by having discussions direct in the workshop with the workmen themselves, who would be brought into touch at once with persons who were responsible for what action must be taken. so leadership having been to some extent transferred from the trade union to the workshop, the workman must be followed there and must be shewn how essential it is to recruit his good will and his aid in improving workshop conditions, not for the betterment of the management, but as much, if not more, for his own betterment as a workman in the shop. this may not touch certain industries in the country that are non-organised. some of those trades, much to our shame, in former years were known as sweated industries, but even there it is found that the workers, men and women alike, are coming gradually into the trades unions, and should they not be in the trades unions to any great extent they are to be reached by other ways and means which this committee has developed. it is intended to apply to them, so as to establish the necessary machinery for better relations, the personnel of the trades boards acts, those boards which, in the absence of trades unions, deal with the sweated conditions of thousands of workers employed in those sweated trades. so i have no fear myself of the non-organised trades being left altogether out of the range of the spirit to which i have referred. in addition to the committees there is to be in every district, it is proposed, a representative council, drawn from the employers and employed of the particular industry, and some scores of these councils are now being set up. in addition, there is to be in relation to every principal industry a national council, and many of us are now engaged in the creation of those several bodies. the public may not hear much about them, but they are the foundation upon which this structure of better relations is to rest, and, so far as we can spare some small margin of our time for those duties, considerable headway has been made in establishing these different organisations. but i attach most importance to the workshop committees, and so i want to pursue this idea a little further. what are those committees to be? they would have to be free representative bodies, chosen by the men themselves. they could be empowered to meet the management, possessed of a sense of responsibility, to discuss in their own homely way matters which would have to be settled between them. indeed, we know from experience that many of the big trade disputes in this country have grown out of trifles, out of small nothings comparatively, which could well have been settled inside the workshop gates by bringing master and man together, empowered to discuss matters which both understand as matters of personal experience. the committees when created, in this atmosphere and spirit to which i refer, would exist not in rebellion against the trade unions or against the trade union system, or exist as being in revolt against the management of the works, or the employer of labour. the committees would be vested with responsibility for negotiations. they would be able to use the personal knowledge derived from contact with the questions arising day by day. they would develop a sense of independence and a sense of just dealing, so that the doctrine of "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work" should apply not only to the wages but to the work to be done, a thing which sometimes does not occur. these committees could check the driving methods of some persons in authority, and, whilst getting the best from those who are above them, they could give the best, as i am sure they would provided the spirit is created, from the workmen in return for the fairer treatment they would enjoy. these committees could deal not only with manual service and ordinary work and wage questions; they could develop a better use of industrial capacity and technical knowledge in matters of workshop life. but the spirit is everything, and the best desires of equitable workshop management could find expression through those committees if they were created. the committees would give a chance to the many workmen who now talk a great deal about democracy to express that democracy through the persons of the workmen themselves. i fear there are many of our friends in the labour movement, as we term it, who are given freely to talking of democracy without clearly understanding all that is covered in that term. it is a term which, it is a pleasure to see, has recently found its way not merely into the phrases of statesmen, but into the king's speech itself. we are now speaking commonly of all the sacrifices that are being made, of all the blood and treasure that is being spilt, in order to have a wholesome democratic system of world government. well, we must begin in the workshops, for you cannot have peace on a large scale the country over, or between nation and nation, unless you have peace in our places of employment. they are the starting points and there it is that your contented millions must first be found. if they are not happy and if they are not at ease in connexion with their national service, you cannot expect any of those larger results for which highminded statesmen are seeking the world over. upon two main lines, in my judgment, democracy will require the most sane guidance and most sagacious advice which its leaders are capable of giving to it. it will not do for leaders merely to say that the future of the world must be decided, not by diplomats or thrones or kaisers, but by the will of peoples. the will of peoples can find enduring and beneficial expression only when that will seeks social change by reasonable and calculated instalments, and not by any violent act of revolution. peaceful voters on their way to the ballot boxes and properly formulated principles will in the end go further than fire and sword in the internal affairs of a nation. i say this because of the loose talk we have heard from many labour platforms recently of revolution and its benefits. revolution may well be in any country the beginning and not the end of internal troubles, often expressed in a more painful and more violent form than ever. we need only look at our former great partner, russia, to find full confirmation of all i have now implied. the red flag marches with the machine gun and the black cap when a certain stage of physical revolt is reached. the theory of new methods of life can only find rational application when democracy is wisely guided in taking slow but sure steps peacefully to turn its theories into an applied system, wherein the people of a nation and not merely a section or a class shall find their proper place and security for service, and find an assured existence under conditions of comfort for themselves and advantage to the state. democratic leaders must tell these things to the people time after time if need be. they must repeat them so that the masses may understand them, because the tendency in labour has been to narrow the meaning of democracy. democracy is not, and ought not to be, limited to those who now constitute the industrial population. democracy is not a sect or a trade union club. democracy is wider than the confines of the manual worker. democracy should strive to reach the highest level of morality in doctrine and aspiration. it is not a class formula. it is a great and elevating faith which may be shared by all who believe in it. democracy stands for the general progress of mankind and means the uplifting of men, and the liberation and unifying of nations. it does not mean the dominion of one class over another, nor the violent wresting of position or authority by some dramatic act of physical force, which if used would still leave a nation in a state of unreconciled and contending factions. democracy, again, is a spirit whereby vast social and economic change may be effected through a medium approaching common consent or at least by the application of the political power of the people acting through representative institutions and resting upon ideas which majorities accept and understand. the spirit which has already accepted vast political changes can be made to apply to vast economic and industrial changes. this spirit must be cultivated by the leaders of democracy. they have now opportunities as great as their responsibilities. the success of parties, in the old sense of the term, is a trivial thing to the success of the great ends to be secured. these ends will justify the use of any constitutional means for dethroning that form of power upon which privilege and the mere possession of wealth have rested. but democracy must not be duped by phrases, nor be swayed by any influence which does not lead to a lasting advance for the nation as a whole. nor should its leaders think that fundamental and enduring changes in our social system can be reached by any short cut to which the great mass of the people have not been converted. progress will be faster in the future if impatience and folly do not retard it. having said a little with regard to the position of the poorer people, let me before i close respectfully address a few words to the richer and more favoured in the country. should all rich folk in the country work? that is a very plain and i dare say it will be regarded in some places as quite an impudent question. but really, rich people who have never had cause in any way to earn their living have always been a danger to the state, just as they have been the greatest instance of wicked waste to be found in any country. there is nothing more melancholy, and even degrading, to a country than the sight of educated people who have nothing to do. wealth is the fruit of service and endeavour. work is the only medium by which the ravages of the war can be made good. ignorance and idleness present a most pitiable spectacle, but the most criminal of all sights is education and idleness combined. finally, let me say that whilst i have addressed myself mainly in terms of appeal to the workers, i am not unmindful at all of the difficulties of the great employers of labour and those covered by the phrase "our captains of industry." i know that many of them work very hard under the greatest and most trying mental pressure, and have duties and trials unknown even to the workmen, but with those duties and trials come reliefs again unknown to the workmen--holidays, change, and rest, and the meeting of men of their own class whose very company is an intellectual joy, so that the worst off your employer of labour as a human being may be he is far better off than the average workman. think of the housing conditions of so many thousands, hundreds of thousands, of workmen, and how intolerable it would be for you to live under those conditions, how discontented you would be, how discontented the rich would be were it their fate to drag on an existence in some of those places which are commonly described by the term "houses." why, the very waiting room of the employer's ordinary office is a much more cosy and pleasant place than the homes of many of the most industrious workers of england. i plead that the elements of the human order should begin to pervade the relations of the workshop, that the workman should be less of a drudge and more of a human asset than he has been, that he should be brought into partnership in the undertaking and in the management; that incidentally he should have a more secure remuneration and not have to bear the penalties and ordeals of employment as he has had alone to bear them during times of trade depression and unemployment in previous years. the human side of the workshop has, therefore, to be built up, and you cannot hope to build it up upon any foundation of drudgery such as the workmen in the main have had to live under, and, as i have said, it will pay the country to conciliate the men on these terms. it is a high ideal, but it is attainable. i believe it is attainable because we have seen it in another sphere of sacrifice where it has already been secured. the war has brought all classes together. in the trenches, at sea, and in all theatres of danger, men of all classes are now labouring shoulder to shoulder. there you have had a sinking of individual interests. there you have had a common sacrifice, a common endeavour for a common cause. surely, as all classes have been able to unite in their sacrifice and in their resistance of the aggression of a foreign foe, it is, i hope, not asking too much that when they come back and take their places in peaceful pursuits again, and become masters, workmen, managers, and foremen in our enterprises and businesses, when they return from danger and come back to take their places amongst us,--surely it is not too much to hope that those who are able to unite abroad will be able to unite for the ends of peace and joy here at home. unity in the empire by f. j. chamberlain, c.b.e. the word "unity" in relation to the empire has a deeper meaning to-day than it had five years ago. then it was a watchword, a theme for imperial conferences and for speakers at demonstrations. the sanguine were sure, the pessimists and that great body of britishers of moderate views and moderate faith regarded it as one of the things hoped for. with dramatic suddenness the event clarified the situation, england awoke at war. there was no time for preliminary councils. the supreme test of the empire had been reached. it is no exaggeration to say that the whole world watched with eagerness for the result. it was in that moment that the great discovery was made. the british empire stood fast. from that day until now, from end to end of the world has been seen an object lesson of unity that has justified the sanguine, and been an inspiration to the allies. that revelation has been more inspiring because the world is aware that it is in spite of the most sinister and subtle campaign against it, planned and brilliantly executed by an enemy under the cloak of friendship. i do not forget the tragic circumstances of one small nation within the empire. but ireland has given more evidence of her faithfulness to empire on the fields of france and flanders than of her treachery at home, and to-day we have more reason to count her ours than has the enemy. examine the position in cold blood, if you can, and you are still aware of a substantial, solid, and effective unity running round the empire, binding it in one as with a girdle of scarlet and gold. the war is not responsible for the unity; it has only discovered or uncovered it. the storm does not establish foundations; it may reveal them. a century of building has created the structure that the storm has failed to destroy. the british empire is a successful experiment on the lines of the longed-for league of nations. the race contains no more diverse elements than are found within its borders; one-third of the land surface of the world, and one-fifth of the inhabitants, have been held together in a living federation and have been kept until this day. upon our generation rests the awful and splendid responsibility of proving to a questioning world that this unity can be made permanent, and of illustrating how a still larger unity may be achieved. you will forgive one or two homely pictures of our unity that cannot fail to strike the imagination. it has been our privilege to meet thousands of men from the overseas dominions. how many times have boys, whose forefathers emigrated from england or scotland, who were themselves born in australia, or on the western plains of canada, said, "i have been wanting to come _home_ all my life"? these islands are the "home" of the empire, and there is no more wonderful word in the language. or think of botha and smuts, within the memory almost of the youngest of us, fighting with all their heart and mind against the empire, and, to-day, dominant personalities proclaiming their loyalty, and proving it in unrivalled service. or picture, if you can, young india, pouring out her life-blood with pride and ready sacrifice, in france, in egypt, and in mesopotamia, for the "british raj." the most moving scene in the history of the british commons was on that evening in , when the princes of india stood amidst the representatives of the people of the homelands and paid their homage. how much such things mean will depend on the vision of those who hear them; but they have in them the stuff that holds the future. this ghastly war, not of our choosing, has transferred the seats of learning for young britain from their peaceful sites to the battlefield. if the object of education is the cultivation of the power of thought and observation, the kindling of imagination, and the extension of knowledge; then "over there" is a university set in full array, with ghostly as well as human tutors, a curriculum without precedent, and such a body of undergraduates as cambridge or oxford might covet. it is not for nothing, as regards the empire, that your sons, the children of the east end, and the boys of canada, australasia, and south africa, are meeting and mingling with gurkha and sikh, and with each other. they are sharing a common discipline, a common adventure, making sacrifice together. they are seeing each other with eyes from which the scales are falling, and knowledge and understanding are growing out of their contact. the farthest reaches of empire have been brought nearer to the empire's heart by this brotherhood in arms, and the barriers between classes have been lowered until a man can step across them without climbing. the distance between east and west has been immeasurably shortened, whether we are thinking in terms of london, or of the empire. in our consideration of this whole subject we are to take the christian standpoint. to us, the words "thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven," on divine lips were more than a pious wish. they were a great intention, the expression of age-long purpose. we believe that the gains of the centuries--the harvest of the past which is worth conserving--have been secured by moral and spiritual conquest, rather than by military or political achievement. there may be elements in our present forms of unity which we may well allow to go by the board. the things that make for permanence will abide not only with an enlightened statesmanship, but with a growing understanding, an ever broadening interpretation of christian teaching about the kingdom of god on earth, the universal fatherhood of god, and the brotherhood of man, leading the nation to see that the knowledge of god and of his christ is the rightful inheritance of every son of the empire. as these great ideals of social life have been interpreted in the life of either sovereign peoples or subject peoples, so, we believe, and only so, have bonds been forged that can be trusted to stand the strain which time and changing condition and circumstances impose. unity, even the empire itself ultimately, depends, as we believe, on a broad-based statesmanship, carrying up the main principles of our government to their highest power in action, and, constantly throughout the empire, mediating those doctrines to the peoples concerned as they are able to bear them, with ever-extending inspiration and encouragement to growth and development. our imperial aims are neither antagonistic to nor inconsistent with our christian programme. that should constitute a challenge to the christian churches, and is in itself a matter for high and solemn pride. the war has cleared the air. as stated during this period, the ideal of a federation of nations, free, independent, and at the same time interdependent, each working out its national destiny, each contributing, in terms of opportunity, to the well-being of the whole, bringing to bear on imperial matters the heart, brain, will of the whole, gives us a picture of a commonwealth in advance of any contemporary political programme, with the one conspicuous exception of that of the united states of america, between whom and ourselves is being established a unity which may well be more valuable to the world at large and to ourselves than any formal union. here, as we see it, is our opportunity. the christian forces of the empire have the onus of maintaining the national outlook at this high level. our faith, our audacity, our leadership will be needed if lesser counsels are to have no chance of prevailing. there must be no swing of the pendulum back to smaller views. with the coming of peace, the temptation to the nation to take off its armour, to come down from the pedestal, to revert to pre-war conditions, to re-act in self-indulgence from the strain of war, or to let materialism defeat idealism, will be well-nigh overwhelming. to give way to that temptation will be to rob victory of any permanent values. it will be a poor thing to have taught germany her lesson, if we fail to learn our own. we see no hope of successful resistance of that temptation apart from the mobilisation of the christian forces within the empire into an army committed to the sacred task of making the conscience of the nation effectively christian, leading the way in bringing about a closer approximation between the politics of the state and the programme of the kingdom of god, and proclaiming that kingdom at hand. if we are agreed so far it behoves us to look for the practical implications of the position. these islands are still the heart and home of the empire. this was the rock whence its younger peoples were hewn. our nation has produced the men and the machinery that govern our commonwealth. the lonely places, farthest removed from us, will be peopled largely by and through the work of children of the old country. there, wherever her children go, is england. england is a treasure house, where the very stones are eloquent. her history, her buildings, her national and civic life, her denominations and movements are all of them of vital interest to her children. it is a place of pilgrimage and remembrance. it is more. they find here the mature growths from which their institutions have sprung. they love our historic places, they love our crowded cities, they love our seashores and our quiet country-side, for everywhere they go they find not only the story of our past, but that of their own. this is their spiritual home. our art, our literature, our movements are parts of a common inheritance, and it is the pride of the motherland that her children have never outgrown their love of the old home, their veneration for its sanctions and restraints, and that on their own homesteads they have reproduced in new settings and often in fresh forms so much that is native here. one would like to see a larger share in this priceless inheritance offered to our peoples oversea. think for one moment of our great cathedrals, unique and wonderful. they can never be reproduced. they might be copied; but canterbury and westminster, lincoln and durham, york and the rest would still remain all that they are to us and to them. you cannot transplant history. in the homeland we are but trustees of these treasures, and we ought to make them the home and centre of our imperial christianity. in every one of them the priests of the church in the overseas lands should not only be seen but heard. is there no room in cathedral chapters for overseas representatives, so that in our daily services in a new and living way we may be linked together in sacrament, praise and prayer, and in the proclamation of christian truth? one canonry for each historic building would mean more to unity than many resolutions at congress. perhaps that is as far as one ought to go in suggestion, but there are other splendid possibilities that one would love to discuss. no one thinking of unity in the empire can fail to rejoice in the growing desire manifest among christian denominations for unity. i will not trench on another's subject beyond saying that the way to union is unity, and that it would be tragic if in these momentous days any stone was left unturned that would lead to better knowledge, deeper understanding and sympathy between those who name the name that is above every name. and our people overseas have much to teach us in this matter. over great areas of social opportunity and service the catholic church may act unitedly and must do so, if she is to enter on offensive warfare and not stand for another generation on the defensive. the war has made a difference here. men, who in the conventional days of peace rarely met, have joined hands in service. catholic and protestant, churchman and free churchman, have found joy in fellowship. that does not mean that differences have disappeared, it means that, recognising and estimating their differences, it has been possible to establish a basis of co-operation, in knowledge, understanding, and sympathy, and to recognise in one another the hall-mark of christian faith and character. is this to be a war measure only? or is it to be one of the great gains to be carried over into the days ahead? one other question clamours for treatment: the problem of the evangelisation of the empire. christianity must be given its chance in every corner of the empire. there may be divergent opinions as to the methods to be used, but if christianity contains in its gospel the pearl of great price, there can be no two opinions as to the obligation that rests on us to bring to the nations federated with us this supreme gift. nothing can release us from that responsibility. to postpone the presentation of the christian gospel for any of the time-honoured excuses: ( ) our pre-occupation in matters of more urgent importance elsewhere, ( ) any fear of the effects of christianity on our political or commercial interests, ( ) the desire to live down prejudice and establish confidence, ( ) the preparation of a people's mind by education before introducing a new religion, --any one of these is treachery to the all-father and to the family of man, and a vital _praeparatio evangelica_ is being made. let me illustrate. it happened in a great marquee in france. on a summer evening in the place was crowded with indians. there was a group playing indian card games, there was a crowd round a gramophone with indian records, at the writing tables with great torment of spirit men were writing to their homes. at the counter foods they loved were being provided. against one of the poles of the marquee stood a stately indian of some rank. he had been seen there often before. he rarely spoke but seemed intensely interested. on this particular night the time arrived for the closing of the tent. the little groups gradually disappeared and the tent curtains were being replaced when the leader of the work found himself addressed by the indian: why do you serve us in this way? you are not here by government orders. you come when you like and you go when you like. there is only one religion on earth that would lead its servants to serve in this way, christianity. i have been watching you men, and i have come to the conclusion that christianity will fit the east as it can never fit the west. when the war is over i want you to send one of your men to my village. we are all hindus, but my people will do what i tell them. one of the ghastly tragedies of the war is that two great nations nominally christian are at each other's throats. in the world's eyes christian civilisation has broken down. we know better, but our explanations will not carry far enough to correct the impression. our defence must be an offensive. it is certainly within the truth to say that we have not yet seen what christianity can do for a community or a nation where, as i put it before, "it is given a chance." may it not be that in the providence of god the first great revelation of what christianity can do for a nation will be seen in one of the lands that have come under the flag, and among a people living under less complex conditions than ourselves? if that is a possibility we ought to see that wherever the flag flies, there comes, with the unfurling of the flag, the gospel of christ. this is directly in the interest of unity, and many problems that have so far remained insoluble to our statesmen might discover the solution in christian leadership. i shall be pardoned i know for suggesting that the highest purposes of unity may be served by the extension and development throughout the empire of such international organisations as the student christian movement, the y.m.c.a., the y.w.c.a., and, used at its highest values, the boy scout movement. there are others, but these are typical. they are established movements built up on definite principles capable of universal application, and yet each of them able to develop its organisation on lines that recognise national psychology and character. each of them may become and aims at becoming indigenous everywhere, giving freedom of method and action and free play to the moral and intellectual activities of the people concerned, while they have certain essential elements that are universally characteristic of them. in addition, they give large numbers of christian people an opportunity of expressing their unity in service of the right kind. what was said about the cathedrals is equally true of our two ancient universities. mr fisher's education bill may well mean more for imperial unity than almost any other single factor. it will mean an ever increasing number of men to whom "cambridge" and "oxford" will be magic words. if our view of culture is broad enough we shall see to it that these two universities become increasingly places where the children of the empire who are fit to graduate in them shall not lack the opportunity of doing so. because these ancient foundations link with the past, because of all they may mean to the present and to the future, the way to them should be made broad enough to admit the living stream of greater britain's children, who by dint of gifts and industry have proved their fitness to meet their peers in these delectable cities, where the very air breathes the romance of british culture. their right of entry ought not to be won by the benefactions of private citizens, though all who love knowledge are grateful enough for these, but should be theirs by their citizenship in the empire and their own tested fitness. nothing again is more hopeful in the present situation than the manifest desire, widely felt and expressed, that the old class-antagonisms should never be revived. surely this is _the_ strategic moment in which we may make the war once more contribute to a better state of things. our politicians are awake to the need and are inventing every kind of machinery for bringing capital and labour together in council chambers as co-partners in the commerce of the empire. but there are sinister forces also at work, and this machinery can only run if it is controlled by men of resolute good will. the war has been a great bridge-builder linking up in the fellowship of discipline and sacrifice people between whom chasms yawned before. there are knowledge and understanding and sympathy to-day amongst us. yet many of us are convinced that no purely political machinery can be made effective in achieving so great a task as the making permanent of this new and better condition. we need a new and abiding spirit of conciliation, a deeper determination than political action can produce, that things shall not relapse, that the forces of re-action shall not triumph. the one hope of carrying over into permanence this new understanding and appreciation lies in the nation becoming impregnated with those spacious spiritual ideals that the churches together represent. nothing is impossible to faith, and faith in god and man will be kept astretch in the discipline that will be demanded of us all, in the breaking down of false barriers that have grown up through the years and the destruction of long-lived prejudices that will die hard. the empire itself is a unity. it is not easy for english people to realise all that is implied here. my great name-sake urged us in this country to "think imperially." another voice asks us "what do they know of england who only england know?" but it is hard for us to think except in terms of england. for example, i have referred to this country as the great treasure house of the empire's history, and to the care and devotion shewn by our kinsmen from overseas in their study of our country and its institutions. all of us realise how right that is, but ought we not to reciprocate their devotion and regard, by much more intense interest and study of their life and the developments of their institutions? our unity demands this wider culture, this reciprocity. the motherland must not only teach, she must be prepared to learn. she may lead, but she must be prepared to follow. we have much to contribute, but in religion, in political and social ideals, and in commerce there is much we need to receive. if our land is the great treasure house, are not these other lands great laboratories where we might see, if we would only look, how some of our accepted ideas, and notions, and watchwords are tested in a larger arena? are we so sure of ourselves that we are prepared to hold on to our own experience as the final test of the truth and value of our theories? or are we big enough in the light of imperial experience to revise our judgment, to sift our theories, and to go forward carrying those which stand the test of the wider arena, and being prepared to surrender those which only seemed right and proper in the conventional setting of these small islands? in conclusion, the empire has come to power and unity on certain great principles. our imperial ideals have been evolved out of experience all over the world, and with all kinds of people, under the guidance of distinguished leaders of many-sided gifts. in an empire so diverse in its constituent parts, including peoples at varied stages of development, it is impossible that those ideals should be everywhere expressed at their highest power. in many places our methods of government must be tentative, but everywhere they must be progressive, placing upon subject peoples the burden of government as rapidly as they are able to bear it, providing every inspiration that can call them upwards and onwards. our tentative methods must never be allowed to become permanent. we may be tutors, we must never become tyrants. we may lead, direct, even control, but we may never be content until our people are free, self-governing, rejoicing in the liberty that enables them to choose whole-heartedly to remain in that commonwealth of free peoples we call the empire. along this path lie permanence and closer unity. in our imperial destiny it is the part of those who would be the greatest to become the servants of all. thank god for all who have laboured in this spirit to build our goodly heritage. unity between nations by the rev. j. h. b. masterman, m.a. in the previous lectures of this course you have been considering the problem of home reunion. my task to-day is to remind you of the fact that beyond the reunion of the churches at home there lies the larger problem of the realisation of the christian ideal of a universal brotherhood. how can this ideal be realised in a world divided into nations? i am going to treat the subject historically; firstly because i find myself incapable of treating it in any other way, and secondly because you can only build securely if you build on the foundation of the historic past. the state may ignore the lessons of the past, the church can never do so. how can we deal with the apparent antagonism between the centrifugal force of nationality and the centripetal force of the catholic ideal? there are two possible answers that we cannot accept. it is possible for religion to set itself against the development of national life, and claim that a world-religion must find expression in a world-state. that is the mediaeval answer. or it is possible for religion to become subordinate to nationality at the cost of losing the note of catholicity, so that the consecration of national life may seem a nobler task than the gathering of humanity into conscious fellowship in one great society. this is the modern answer. with neither of these solutions can we be satisfied. the existence of nations as units of political self-consciousness within the larger life of humanity does, we believe, minister to the fulfilment of the purpose of god. whatever may be the case hereafter, the establishment of a world-state, at the present stage in the evolution of human institutions, would mean the impoverishment of the life of humanity. yet a church that is merely national or imperial has missed the true significance of its mission. at the beginning of the christian era, the greatest attempt ever made to gather all peoples into a universal society was actually in progress. the roman empire was founded on the basis of a common administrative system, and a common law--the _jus gentium_. it needed a common religion. the effort to supply this passes through three stages. the earliest of these is the stage of universal toleration which was made possible by polytheism. a second stage soon follows. the various religions of the empire overflow one another's frontier-lines and a synthesis begins, leading to the stoic idea of the universal truth expressed in many forms. but the popular mind was unable to rise to this high conception, and the third stage begins towards the end of the first century in the formal adoption of the worship of the emperor as the religious expression of the unity of the empire. it was the opposition of the christian church that did most to bring to naught this effort to give a religious foundation to the unity of the empire, and the attempt of constantine and theodosius to make christianity an imperial religion came too late to save the empire from disintegration. for the unity of the christian church had been undermined. when christianity shook itself free from the shackles of jewish nationalism, it came under the influence of greek thought. the theology and language of the early church were greek. even in rome the church was for at least two centuries "a greek colony." hence the growth of christianity was slow in those western parts of the empire that had not come under the influence of greek culture--gaul, britain, spain, north africa. latin christianity found its centre in north africa, where roman culture had imposed itself on the hard, cruel carthaginian world. it is carthage, not athens, that gives to tertullian his harsh intolerance and to st augustine his stern determinism. so the way was prepared for what i regard as the supreme tragedy of history--the falling apart of eastern and western christianity. then, in the west, the unity of the church is broken by the conversion of the teutonic peoples to arianism, so that the contest between the dying empire in the west and the tribes pressing on its frontiers is embittered by religious antagonism. the sword of clovis secured the victory of orthodoxy, but at what a cost! when the storm subsides, there emerges the august conception of the holy roman empire. for the noblest expression of the ideal of a universal christian empire, read dante's _de monarchia_. the history of the holy roman empire is too large a subject to enter upon. it is important to remember that the struggles between the popes and the emperors that fill so large a space of mediaeval history were not struggles between church and state. western europe was conceived of as one christian society--an attempt to realise the city of god of st augustine's great treatise--and the question at issue was whether the pope or the emperor was to be regarded as the supreme head of this great society. the unity of western christendom found a crude, but real, expression in the crusades, and it is significant that the decline of the crusading impulse coincides in time with the rise of national feeling in the two western states, england and france. what was to be the attitude of the catholic church towards this new national instinct? in the th and th centuries the question becomes increasingly urgent, and the council of constance may be regarded as the last sincere effort to find an answer. the answer suggested there, to which the english church still adheres, was the recognition of a general council of the church as the supreme spiritual authority. such a general council might gather the glory and honour of the nations into the city of god, and might even, it was hoped, restore the broken unity between east and west. how the council failed, how constantinople was left to its fate, how a papacy growing more and more italian in its interests brought to a head the long-simmering revolt of the nations--all this you know. the reformation was, in part, a struggle of the nations to give religious expression to their national life. the threefold bond that had held together the church of the west--the bond of common language, law and ceremonial--was broken. at the threshold of the new order stand the figures of luther and machiavelli, as champions of the supremacy of the state. true, luther thinks of the state as a christian society, while machiavelli is the father of the modern german doctrine of the non-moral character of state action. but the augsburg compromise, _cujus regio_, _ejus religio_, was a frank subordination of the church to secular authority. the tudor sovereigns adopted the doctrine with alacrity, and imposed on the church of england a subjection to secular authority from which it has not yet been able to disentangle itself. while lutheranism tended to treat religion as a department of the state, calvinism claimed for the church an authority that threatened the very existence of the state. calvinism represents the second attempt to give practical expression to st augustine's _civitas dei_, as the holy roman empire was the first. it failed, in part, because it lost its catholic character, and became (as, for example, in scotland) intensely national. the disintegration of the catholic church in the west was helped by two influences. the first was the return to the standards and ideals of the old testament. the appeal of the reformers to holy scripture involved the elevation of the old testament to the same level of authority as the new. the crude nationalism of judaism obscured the christian idea of a universal brotherhood--st paul's secret hidden from the foundation of the world, to be revealed in the fulness of time in the christian gospel. even now we hardly realise how largely our ideas of religion are derived from the imperfect moral standards of the old testament. the other influence was the identification of the papacy with the antichrist of the book of revelation--the protestant answer to the roman excommunication of heretics. the idea of a common christianity deeper than all national antagonisms hardly existed in the europe of the later half of the th century. nearly a century of wars of religion was followed by seventy years of war in which the national idea played the leading part. the internationalism of the th century was a reaction against both religion and nationality. the napoleonic struggle, and the romantic revival, with its appeal to the past, re-awakened the national instinct. in france, spain, russia, prussia, and eastern europe, national self-consciousness was stirred into life. in russia and spain, and among the balkan peoples, this national awakening took a definitely religious character. but it was italy that produced the one thinker to whom the real significance of nationality was revealed. mazzini recognised, more clearly than any other political teacher of the time, how nationalism founded on religion might lead to the brotherhood of nations in a world "made safe for democracy." the last century has been an epoch of exaggerated national self-consciousness. against the aggressive tendencies of the greater nations, the smaller nations strove to protect themselves. italy, poland, bohemia, serbia, greece, strove with varying degrees of success to achieve national self-expression. nation strove with nation in a series of contests, of which the present war is the culmination. the influence of christianity was impotent to prevent war; though it was able to do something to restrain its worst excesses. where the centrifugal force of nationality comes into opposition to the centripetal force of the christian ideal, it is generally the former that wins. how is this impotence to be accounted for? four reasons at least maybe noted. ( ) the "inwardness" of lutheranism, combined with the cynicism of the machiavellian doctrine of the non-moral character of public policy led, especially in germany, to an entire disregard of the principles of christianity in the public policy of the state. nations did not even profess to be guided by christian principles in their dealings with each other. the noble declaration of alexander i remained a piece of "sublime nonsense" to statesmen like metternich and castlereagh, and their successors. ( ) the internal life of the nations was, and is, only partially christianised. nations cannot regulate their external policy on christian principles unless those principles are accepted as authoritative in their internal affairs. ( ) the influence of christianity has been hindered, to a degree difficult to exaggerate, by the unhappy divisions that, especially in england and in the united states, have made it impossible for the church to speak with a united voice. ( ) the idea of the sovereignty of the state and its supreme claim on the life of the individual, with which dr figgis has dealt with illuminating insight in his _churches in the modern state_, has prevented the idea of the churches as local expressions of a universal society from exercising the corrective influence that it ought to exercise on the over-emphasis of state independence. the state is only one of the various forms in which national life expresses itself. it is the nation organised for self-protection. and wherever self-protection becomes the supreme need, the state, like aaron's rod, swallows all the rest. but in many directions, the world has become, or is becoming, international. science and philosophy, and, to a lesser degree, theology and art, have become the common possession of all civilised nations. the effort to make commerce the expression of international fellowship, with which the name of cobden is associated, failed, largely as the result of the german policy of high tariffs, but its defeat is only temporary, and the commercial interdependence of nations will reassert its influence when the present phase of international strife is over. the function of the church is to express the common life and interests of nations, as the state expresses the distinctive character of each. so the church holds to the four universal things--the authority of holy scripture; the creeds; the two sacraments, and the historic episcopate. we believe that the retention of the historic episcopate is essential to the maintenance of the catholic ideal of the church. for the bishop is the link between the local and the universal church; the representative and guardian of the catholic ideal in the life of the local community; and the representative of the local community in the counsels of the catholic church. i have often wished that at least one bishop from some other church than our own could be associated with the consecration of all bishops of the anglican church. for by such association we should bring into clearer prominence the fact that the historic episcopate is more than a national institution. so we reach the final question: what can the churches do to promote the unity of the nations? an invitation was recently issued by the archbishop of upsala for a conference of representatives of the christian churches, to reassert, even in this day of disunion, the essential unity of the body of christ. for various reasons, such a conference at the present juncture seems impracticable, but the time may come when, side by side with a congress of the nations, a gathering of representatives of the churches may be called together to reinforce, by its witness, the idea of international fellowship. for a league of churches might well prepare the way for a league of nations. such a league of churches would naturally find expression in a permanent advisory council--a kind of ecclesiastical hague tribunal. historical antagonisms seem to preclude the selection of rome or constantinople as the place of meeting of this council. surely there is no other place so suited for the purpose as jerusalem. here the appointed representatives of all the churches, living in constant intercourse with one another, might draw together the severed parts of the one body, till the glory and honour of the nations find, even in the earthly jerusalem, their natural centre and home. thus, and thus only, can the spiritual foundation for a league of nations be well and truly laid. two things are involved in any such scheme for a league of churches. no one church must claim a paramount position or demand submission as the price of fellowship; and all excommunications of one church by another must be swept away. christ did not come to destroy the local loyalties that lift human life out of selfish isolation. these loyalties only become anti-christian when they become exclusive. the early loyalty of primitive man to his family or clan was deemed to involve a normal condition of antagonism to neighbouring families or clans. turn a page of history, and tribal loyalty has become civic loyalty. but civic loyalty, as in the cities of greece or italy or flanders, involves intermittent hostility with neighbouring cities. then civic loyalty passes into national loyalty, and again patriotism expresses itself in distrust and antipathy to other nations. and this will also be so till we see that all these local loyalties rest on the foundation of a deeper loyalty to the divine ideal of universal fellowship that found its supreme expression in the incarnation and its justification in the truth that god so loved the world. to the christian man national life can never be an end in itself but always a means to an end beyond itself. a nation exists to serve the cause of humanity; by what it gives, not by what it gets, will its worth be estimated at the judgment-bar of god. "whoso loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" must have seemed a hard saying to those to whom it was first spoken; and "whoso loveth city or fatherland more than me is not worthy of me" may seem a hard saying to us to-day; yet nothing less than this is involved in our pledge of loyalty to christ. christian patriotism never found more passionate expression than in st paul's wish that he might be anathema for the sake of his nation; yet passionately as he loved his own people, he loved with a deeper passion the catholic church within which there was neither jew nor greek, barbarian, scythian, bond nor free. it is because the idea of the catholic church has become to the majority of christian people a matter of intellectual assent rather than of passionate conviction that the church seems impotent in international affairs. the last four centuries of european history have had as their special characteristic the development of nations. it may be that after this war we shall pass into a new era. the special feature of the period now closing has been the insecurity of national life. menaced with constant danger, every nation has tended to develop an exaggerated self-consciousness that was liable to become inflamed and over-sensitive. if adequate security can be provided, by a league of nations, or in some other way, for the free development of the national life of every nation, the senseless over-emphasis of nationality from which the past has suffered will no longer hinder the growth of a true internationalism. i believe that the real alternative lies not between nationality and internationalism but between an internationalism founded, like that of the th century, on non-christian culture and materialism, and an internationalism founded on the consecration of all the local loyalties that bind a man to family, city and nation, lifting him through local spheres of service to the service of the whole human race for whom christ died. the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations grows only in the city of god. the christian forces in the world are impotent to guide the future, because they are entangled in the present. yet it is in the holy catholic church that the one hope for humanity lies. it may be that that hope will never be realised; that the holy catholic church is destined to remain to the end an unachieved ideal. but it is by unachieved ideals that men and nations live; and what matters most for every christian man is that he should keep the catholic mind and heart that reach out through home and city and country to all mankind, and rejoice that every man has an equal place in the impartial love of god. cambridge: printed by j. b. peace, m.a., at the university press file was produced from images produced by core historical literature in agriculture (chla), cornell university) transcriber's note minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. all other inconsistencies are as in the original. the evolution of the country community the evolution of the country community a study in religious sociology by warren h. wilson the pilgrim press boston new york chicago _copyright, _, by luther h. cary the pilgrim press boston to miss anna b. taft who found the way of rural leadership in service on the neglected borders of new england towns preface the significance of the most significant things is rarely seized at the moment of their appearance. years or generations afterwards hindsight discovers what foresight could not see. it is possible, i fear it is even probable, that earnest and intelligent leaders of organized religious activity, like thousands of the rank and file in parish work, will not immediately see the bearings and realize the full importance of the ideas and the purposes that are clearly set forth in this new and original book by my friend and sometime student, dr. warren h. wilson. that fact will in no wise prevent or even delay the work which these ideas and purposes are mapping out and pushing to realization. the protestant churches have completed one full and rounded period of their existence. the age of theology in which they played a conspicuous part has passed away, never to return. the world has entered into the full swing of the age of science and practical achievement. what the work, the usefulness, and the destiny of the protestant churches shall henceforth be will depend entirely upon their own vision, their common sense, and their adaptability to a new order of things. embodying as they do resources, organization, the devotion and the energy of earnest minds, they are in a position to achieve results of wellnigh incalculable value if they apply themselves diligently and wisely to the task of holding communities and individuals up to the high standard of that "good life" which the most gifted social philosopher of all ages told us, more than two thousand years ago, is the object for which social activities and institutions exist. in one vast field of our social territory the problem of maintaining the good life has become peculiar in its conditions and difficult in the extreme. the rural community has suffered in nearly every imaginable way from the rapid and rather crude development of our industrial civilization. the emigration of strong, ambitious men to the towns, the substitution of alien labor for the young and sturdy members of the large american families of other days, the declining birth rate and the disintegration of a hearty and cheerful neighborhood life, all have worked together to create a problem of the rural neighborhood, the country school and the country church unique in its difficulties, sometimes in its discouragements. to deal with this problem two things are undeniably necessary. there must be a thorough examination of it, a complete analysis and mastery of its factors and conditions. the social survey has become as imperative for the country pastor as the geological survey is for the mining engineer. and when the facts and conditions are known, the church must resolutely set about the task of dealing with them in the practical spirit of a practical age, without too much attention to the traditions and the handicaps of an age that has gone by. it would not be possible, i think, to present these two aspects of the problem of the country parish with more of first hand knowledge, or with more of the wisdom that is born of sympathy and reverence for all that is good in both the past and the present than the reader will find in dr. wilson's pages. i welcome and commend this book as a fine product of studies and labors at once scientific and practical. franklin h. giddings. table of contents chapter page introduction ix i the pioneer ii the land farmer iii the exploiter iv the husbandman v exceptional communities vi getting a living vii the community viii the margin of the community ix newcomers in the community x co-operation xi common schools xii rural morality xiii recreation xiv common worship introduction the church and the school are the eyes of the country community. they serve during the early development of the community as means of intelligence and help to develop the social consciousness, as well as to connect the life within the community with the world outside. they express intelligence and feeling. but when the community has come to middle life, even though it be normally developing, the eyes fail. they are infallible registers of the coming of mature years. at this time they need a special treatment. like the eyes, the country church and country school register the health of the whole organism. whatever affects the community affects the church and the school. the changes which have come over the face of social life in the country record themselves in the church and the school. these institutions register the transformations in social life, they indicate health and they give warning of decay. in a few instances the church or school require the attention of the expert even in the infancy of the community, just as the eyes of a child sometimes need the oculist, but with normal growth the expert is called in for problems which have to do with maturity. in these chapters the center of attention will be the church, regarded as an institution for building and organizing country life. it is not the thought of the writer that the church be treated in ecclesiastical terms. it is rather as a register of the well-being of the community that the church is here studied. the condition of the church is regarded as an index of the social and economic condition of the people. the sources of religion are believed by the writer to be in the vital experiences of the people themselves. in the process of religious experience the church, the bible, the ministry and other religious methods and organizations are means of disciplining the forces of religion, but they are not the sources of religion. the church in the country above all other institutions should see what concerns country people as a whole. if vision be not given to the church, country people will suffer. the christian churches are rich in the experience of country people. the bible is written about a "holy land." the exhortations of scripture, especially of the old testament, are devoted to constructive sociology, the building and organizing of an agricultural people in an asiatic country. many of the problems are oriental, but some of them are precisely the same as are today agitating the american farmer. religion is the highest valuation set upon life, and the country church should have a vision of the present meaning as well as the future development of country life in america. the country church ought to inspire. it is the business of other agencies, and particularly of the schools and colleges, to impart practical and economic aims. but these will not satisfy country people. no section of modern life is so dependent upon idealism as are the people who live in the country. mere cash prosperity puts an end to residence in most country communities. commercial success leads toward the city. the religious leaders alone have the duty of inspiring country people with ideals higher than the commercial. it remains for the church in particular to inspire with social idealism. education seems hopelessly individualistic. the schoolmaster can see only personalities to be developed. it remains for the preacher to develop a kingdom and a commonwealth. his ideals have been those of an organized society. the tradition which he inherits from the past is saturated with family, tribal and national remembrances. his exhortations for the future look to organized social life in the world to come. he should know how to construct ideals out of modern life, which are organic and social. beyond these two duties i am not sure that the churches in the country have exceptional function. the writer is not a teacher, and what is said in this book about the country school is said solely because of the dependence of all else upon this institution. the patient, detailed and extensively constructive work in the country must be done by the educator. it is well for the church to recognize its limits, and to magnify its own function within them. vision and inspiration are the duty of religious leaders. the application of these in a variety of ways to the generations of young people in the country is an educational task which the church can do only in part. but the great necessity of arousing the church at the present time to its duty as a builder of communities in the country is this. in all parts of the united states country life is furnished with churches. perhaps not in sufficient degree in some localities, but in general the task of religious organization is done. these religious societies hold the key to the problem of country life. if they oppose modern socialized ideals in the country, these ideals cannot penetrate the country. if the church undertake constructive social service in the country, the task will be done. the church can oppose effectively; it can support efficiently. this situation lays a vast responsibility upon all christian churches, especially upon those that have an educated ministry; for the future development of the country community as a good place in which to live depends upon the country church. this is not the place to discuss whether a population can be improved and whether a community can be saved. the pages that are to follow will discuss these questions. it is the writer's belief that a population can be improved by social service, that the community is the unit in which such service should be rendered in the country, and that by the vision and inspiration of the church in the country, this service is conditioned. he believes with those who are leading in the service among the poor in the great cities that the time has come when we have sufficient intelligence to understand the life of country people, in order to deal with the causes of human action; we have sufficient resources wherewith to endow the needed agencies for the reconstruction of country life; and we have a sufficient devotion among men of intelligence and of means to direct this constructive social service toward the entire well-being of country people and of the whole commonwealth. the writer is indebted for help in the preparation of this book to miss florence m. lane, miss martha wilson and to miss anna b. taft, without whose assistance and criticism the chapters could not have been prepared and without whose encouragement they would not have been undertaken; also to his teachers in columbia university, especially professors franklin h. giddings and john bates clark whose teachings in the social sciences furnish the beginning of a new method in investigating religious experiences. new york, july, . evolution of the community i the pioneer the earliest settlers of the american wilderness had a struggle very different from our own, who live in the twentieth century. their economic experience determined their character. they appear to us at this distance to have common characteristics, habits and reactions upon life; in which they differ from all who in easier times follow them. they have more in common with one another than they have in common with us. they differ less from one another than they differ from the modern countryman. the pioneer life produced the pioneer type. to this type all their ways of life correspond. they hunted, fought, dressed, traded, worshipped in their own way. their houses, churches, stores and schools were built, not as they would prefer, but as the necessities of their life required. their communities were pioneer communities: their religious habits were suitable to frontier experience. modern men would find much to condemn in their ways: and they would find our typical reactions surprising, even wicked. but each conforms to type, and obeys economic necessity. there have been four economic types in american agriculture. these have succeeded one another as the rural economy has gone through successive transformations. they have been the pioneer, the land farmer, the exploiter and the husbandman. prof. j. b. ross of lafayette, ind., has clearly stated[ ] the periods by which these types are separated from one another. it remains for us to consider the communities and the churches which have taken form in accordance with these successive types. prof. ross has spoken only of the middle west. with a slight modification, the same might be said of the eastern states, because the rural economy of the middle west is inherited from the east. his statement made of this succession of economic types should be quoted in full: "the agrarian occupation of the middle west divides itself into three periods. the first, which extends from the beginnings of immigration to about the year , is of significance chiefly because of the type of immigrants who preempted the soil and the nature of their occupancy. the second period, extending from to , had as its chief objective the enrichment of the group life. it was the period in which large houses and commodious barns were erected, and in which the church and the school were the centers of social activity. the third period, which began about the year , and which is not yet complete, is marked by a transition from the era of resident proprietors of the land to that of non-resident proprietors, and by the fact that the chief attention of the land owners is paid to the improvement of the soil by fertilization and drainage and to the increasing of facilities for communication and for the marketing of farm products." each of these types created by the habits of the people in getting their living, had its own kind of a community, so that we have had pioneer, land farmer, exploiter and husbandman communities. indeed all these types are now found contemporaneous with one another. we have also had successive churches built by the pioneer, by the land farmer, by the exploiter and by the husbandman. the present state of the country church and community is explained best by saying that it is an effect of transition from the pioneer and the land farmer types of church and community to the exploiter and husbandman types. the pioneer lived alone. he placed his cabin without regard to social experience. in the woods his axe alone was heard and on the prairie the smoke from his sod house was sometimes answered by no other smoke in the whole horizon. he worked and fought and pondered alone. self-preservation was the struggle of his life, and personal salvation was his aspiration in prayer. his relations with his fellows were purely democratic and highly independent. the individual man with his family lived alone in the face of man and god. the following is a description by an eye witness of such a community which preserves in a mountain country the conditions of pioneer life[ ]. "it is pitiful to see the lack of co-operation among them. it is most evident in business but makes itself known in the children, too. i regard it as one reason why they do not play; they have been so isolated that they do not allow the social instinct of their natures to express itself. this, of course, is all unconsciously done on their part. however, one cannot live long among them without finding out that they are characterized by an intense individualism. it applies to all that they do, and to it may be attached the blame for all the things which they lack or do wrongfully. if a man has been wronged, he must personally right the wrong. if a man runs for office, people support him as a man and no questions are asked as to his platform. if a man conducts a store, people buy from him because he sells the goods, not because the goods commend themselves to them. and so by common consent and practise, the individual interests are first. naturally this leads to many cases of lawlessness. the game of some of our people is to evade the law; of others, to ignore the law entirely." the pioneer had in his religion but one essential doctrine,--the salvation of the soul. his church had no other concern than to save individuals from the wrath to come. it had just one method, an annual revival of religion. the loneliness of the pioneer's soul is an effect of his bodily loneliness. the vast outdoors of nature forest or prairie or mountain, made him silent and introspective even when in company. the variety of impacts of nature upon his bodily life made him resourceful and self-reliant; and upon his soul resulted in a reflective, melancholy egotism. his religion must therefore begin and end in personal salvation. it was a message, an emotion, a struggle, and a peace. the second great characteristic of the pioneer was his emotional tension. his impulses were strong and changeable. the emotional instability of the pioneer grew out of his mixture of occupations. it was necessary for him to practise all the trades. in the original pioneer settlement this was literally true. in later periods of the settlement of the land the pioneer still had many occupations and representative sections of the country even until the present time exhibit a mixture of occupations among country people most unlike the ordered life of the eastern states. adam smith in "wealth of nations" makes clear that the practise of many occupations induces emotional conditions. between each two economic processes there is generated for the worker at varied trades a languor, which burdens and confuses the work of the man who practises many trades. this languor is the source of the emotional instability of the pioneer. the pioneer's method of bridging the gap between his many occupations was simple. when he had been hunting he found it hard to go to plowing: and if plowing, on the same day to turn to tanning or to mending a roof. when the pioneer had spent an hour in bartering with a neighbor he found it difficult to turn himself to the shoeing of a horse or the clearing of land. for this new effort his expedient was alcohol. he took a drink of rum as a means of forcing himself to the new occupation. the result is that alcoholic liquors occupy a large place in the economy of every such pioneer people. in the mountain regions of the south, where the pioneer remains as an arrested type, the rum jug occupies the same place in the economy of the countryman as it occupied in the early settlements of the united states generally. these "contemporary ancestors" of ours in the appalachian region have all the marks of the pioneer. their simple life, their varied occupations, and the relative independence of the community and household, sufficient unto themselves, present a picture of the earlier american conditions. it is obvious among them that the emotional condition of the pioneer grew out of his economy and extended itself into his church. this emotional instability of the pioneer shows itself in his social life. the well known feuds of the mountain people exhibit this condition. feeling is at once violent and impulsive. the very reserve of these unsmiling and serious people is an emotional state, for the meager diet and heavy continued strains of their economic life poorly supply and easily exhaust vitality. the frontier church exhibited emotional variability. it expressed itself in the pioneer's one method; namely, an annual revival of religion. in the pioneer churches there were few or no sunday schools or other societies. in those regions in which the pioneer has remained the type of economic life sunday schools do not thrive. societies for young people, for men, women and children do not there exist. the church is a place only for preaching. religion consists of a message whose use is to excite emotion. preaching is had as often as possible, but not necessarily once a week. essential, however, to the pioneer's organization of his churches is a periodical if possible an annual, revival of religion. the means used at this time are the announcement of a gospel message and the arousing of emotion in response to this message. there is little application of religious imperative to the details of life. there is no recognition of social life, because the pioneer economy is lonely and individual. the whole process of religion consists in "coming through": in other words, the procuring of an individual and highly personal experience of emotion. "beneath the surface of life in these people so conservative, and so indifferent to change as it is, there runs a strain of intense emotionalism. when storms disturb the calm exterior, the mad waves lash and beat and roar. and in religion this is most apparent. with them emotionalism and religion are almost interchangeable quantities,--if they are not identical.[ ] "it is in the revival service that you see the heart of the stolid mountain man unmasked. the local mountain preachers know this fact well and use it with great effect. a word must be said about these men who work all through the week alongside of their fellows and preach to them on sunday. in some places there is a custom of holding service on saturday and sunday. these men have generally 'come through'--a term used to describe the process beginning with 'mourning' and continuing through repenting and being saved. and generally they are men of personality. they have a certain power with men, anyway, and they are keen to see the effect of things on their audiences. some of them have learned to read the bible after they have been converted. it is not so much what they say that counts. if people looked for that they would go away unfilled. but they have another thing in mind. they want to feel right. they go to church occasionally during revival drought, but always during revival plenty. they go to get 'revived up.' the preacher who has the best voice is the best preacher. he sways his audience. the more ignorant he is, the better, for then the spirit of god is not hindered by the wisdom of man. the spirit comes upon him when he enters the pulpit. he speaks through him to the waiting congregation. of course they do not know what he is saying for the man makes too much noise. but they begin to feel that this is indeed the place where religion can be found and where it is being distributed among the people. "generally revivals occur as they have always done, about three times a year. at these services the method requires that exhorters should be present and perform. several do so at the same time. the confusion is great but the people breathe an atmosphere that begins to infect them. sooner or later weeping women are in the arms of some others' husbands begging them to come to the mourning bench. young girls single out the boys that they like best and affectionately implore them to begin the christian life. all the time the choir is singing a swinging revival hymn; the preacher is standing over his audience shouting 'get busy, sinners,' and two or three boys are scurrying back and forth carrying water to the thirsty ones, while little groups of the faithful are hovering over a penitent, smothering sinner, trying to 'pull her through.' during this kind of a meeting which i attended at one time a woman 'got happy' and went around slapping everyone she could get her hand on, and skipping like a schoolgirl." the pioneer church has not fully passed away. its one doctrine and its one method have still a place in the more elaborate life of the modern church. like the rum jug which is preserved for medicinal purposes, the revival has a use in the pathology of modern church life. the doctrine of personal salvation which is of chief concern, in the ministry to the adolescent population[ ] of the modern church, is just as vital as ever; though it is not the only doctrine of the church of the husbandman, which has come in the country. a relic of the pioneer days is the custom known as the "group system." by this a preacher comes to a church once a month, or twice, and preaches a sermon, returning promptly to his distant place of residence. the early settlers of this country who originated this system were lonely and individualized. they believed that religion consisted in a mere message of salvation, so that all they required was to hear from a preacher once in a while. but the districts in which the "group system" is used have grown beyond this religious satisfaction and the "group system" no longer renders adequate religious service. religion has become a greater ministry than can be rendered in the form of a message, however well preached. like all outworn customs, this one breeds abuses as it grows older. its value having passed away, it has forms of offensiveness. in sections of missouri where the farmers are rich they say with contempt, "none of the ministers lives in the country." the "group system," in a territory of missouri comprising forty-one churches, organizes its forces as follows: these forty-one churches have nine ministers who live in five communities and go out two miles, ten miles, sometimes thirty miles, in various directions, for a fractional service to other communities than those in which they live. each of the two big towns has more than one minister and none of the country churches has a pastor. thus the value of the family life of the preacher is cancelled. after all this organization and division of the men into small fractions among the churches, there are sixteen of these churches which have neither pastor nor preacher. this "group system" can be improved, as is done in tennessee, by the shortening of the journeys which must be made by the minister from his home to his preaching point. nevertheless, it gives to the country community only a fraction of a man's time. he can interpret religion in only three ways; in the sermon, the funeral service and the wedding. unfortunately mankind has to do many other things besides getting married, buried or preached at. the country community needs a pastor. it is better for the minister who preaches to the country to live in the country. there are some parts which cannot support a pastor, but the minister to country churches should know the daily round of country life. religion can never be embodied in a sermon; and when religion comes to be limited to a formal act it is tinged with suspicion in the eyes of most men. sermons and funerals and weddings become to country people the windows by which religion flies out of the community. especially among farmers, religion is a matter of every-day life. what religion the farmer has grows out of his yearly struggle with the soil and with the elements. his belief in god is a belief in providence. his god is the creator of the sun and the seasons, the wind and the rain. the man who does not with him share these experiences cannot long interpret them for him in terms of scripture or of church. the policy of the newer territories of the church must be to translate the "group system" into pastorates. the long range group service should be transformed into short and compact group ministry; the pastor should live in the country community and the length of his journey should never be longer than his horse can drive. a group of churches which are not more than ten miles apart constitute a country parish. some few active ministers are able to make thirty to forty miles on horseback on a sunday, among a scattered people. this is well, but as soon as the railroad becomes an essential factor in the monthly visit of ministers to the country, religion passes out of that community. the service of the country preacher, in other words, is essentially confined to the country community, and the bounds of the country community are determined by the length of the team haul or horseback ride to which that population is accustomed. within these bounds religious life and expression are possible. immersed in his own community, the life of the minister and of his family attain immediate religious value. the whole influence of the minister's home, the service of his wife to the people, which is often greater than his own, and the development of his children's life, these are all of religious use to his people. a recent speaker upon this matter said, "i doubt if even the lord jesus christ could have saved this world if he had come down to it only once in two weeks on saturday and gone back on monday morning." the pastor, then, is the type of community builder needed in the country. the pastor works with a maximum of sincerity, while sincerity may in preaching be reduced to the lowest terms. he is in constant, intimate, personal contact. the preacher is dealing with theories and ideals not always rooted in local experiences. the pastor lives the life of the people. he is known to them and their lives are known to him. the preacher may perform his oratorical ministry through knowledge of populations long since dead and by description of foreign and alien countries. it is possible to preach acceptably about kingdoms that have not yet existed. but the work of a pastor is the development of ideals out of situations. it is his business to inspire the daily life of his people with high idealism and to construct those aspirations and imaginations out of the daily work of mankind, which are proper to that work and essential to that people. an illustrious example of such ministry is that of john frederick oberlin,[ ] whose pastorate at waldersbach in the vosges consisted of a service to his people in their every need, from the building of roads to the organization and teaching of schools. it would have been impossible for oberlin to have served these people through preaching alone. being a mature community, indeed old in suffering and in poverty, they needed the ministry of a pastor, and this service he rendered them in the immersion of his life with theirs, and the bearing of their burdens, even the most material and economic burden of the community, upon his shoulders. the passing away of pioneer days discredits the ministry of mere preaching, through increasing variation of communities, families and individuals. the preacher's message is not widely varied. it is the interpreting of tradition, gospel and dogma. his sources can all be neatly arranged on a book shelf. one suspects that the greater the preacher, the fewer his books. on the contrary, the pastor's work is necessitated by growing differences of his people. he must be all things to many different kinds of men. in the country community this intimate intercourse and varying sympathy take him through a wider range of human experience than in a more classified community. he must plow with the plowman, and hunt with the hunter, and converse with the seamstress, be glad with the wedding company and bear the burden of sorrow in the day of death. moreover, nobody outside a country community knows how far a family can go in the path to poverty and still live. no one knows how eccentric and peculiar, how reserved and whimsical the life of a household may be, in the country community, unless he has lived as neighbor and friend to such a household. the preacher cannot know this. not all the experience of the world is written even in the bible. the spirit shall "teach us things to come." it is the pastor who learns these things by his daily observation of the lives of men. the communities themselves in the country differ widely, even in conformity to given types, and when all is said by the general student, the pastor has the knowledge of his own community. it belongs peculiarly to him. no one else can ever know it and there are no two communities alike. in the intense localism of a community, its religious history is hidden away and its future is involved. the man who shall touch the springs of the community's life must know these local conditions with the intimate detail which only he commands who daily goes up and down its paths. this man is the pastor. except the country physician, no other living man is such an observer as he. the end of the pioneer days means, therefore, to religious people, the establishment of the pastorate. the religious leader for the pioneer was the preacher, but the community which clings to preaching as a satisfactory and final religious ministry is retrograde. in this retarding of religious progress is the secret of the decline of many communities. the great work of ministering to them is in supplanting the preacher, who renders but a fractional service to the people, by a pastor whose preaching is an announcement of the varied ministry in which he serves as the curé of souls. the pioneer days are gone. only in the southern appalachian region are there arrested communities in which, in our time, the ways of our american ancestors are seen. the community builder cannot change the type of his people. he can only wait for the change, and enable his people to conform to the new type. for this process new industries, new ways of getting a living are necessary. the teacher or pastor can do something to guide his people in the selection of constructive instead of destructive industry. in east tennessee and in the mountain counties of north carolina lumbering industries are for the time being employing the people. the result will be a deeper impoverishment; for the timber is the people's greatest source of actual and potential wealth. the leaders of the mountain people should teach reforestation with a view to maintaining the people's future wealth. in a mountain county of kentucky a minister seeing that his people needed a new economic life, before they could receive the religious life of the new type, organized an annual county fair. to this he brought, with the help of outside friends, a breed of hogs better than his mountain people knew. he cultivated competition in local industries, weaving and cooking; and started his people on the path of economic success of a new type. in conclusion, the pioneer was individualistic and emotional. these traits were caused by his economic experience. while that experience lasted, he could be made no other sort of man than this. to this type his home and his business life and his church conformed. within these characteristics the efficiency of his social life was to be found. footnotes: [footnote : "the agrarian changes in the middle west," by j. b. ross, in american journal of economics, december, .] [footnote : rev. norman c. schenck.] [footnote : rev. norman c. schenck.] [footnote : "youth," by g. stanley hall.] [footnote : story of john frederick oberlin by augustus field beard, .] ii the land farmer i shall use the term land farmer to describe the man who tilled the soil in all parts of the country after pioneer days. he is usually called simply the farmer. this is the type with which we are most familiar in our present day literature and in dramatic representations of the country. the land farmer, or farmer, is the typical countryman who in the middle west about succeeded the pioneer, and about was followed by the exploiter of the land. in the eastern states pioneer days ended before . the land farmer was the prevailing type throughout new england, new york, new jersey and pennsylvania as early as . in the south the contemporary of the land farmer was the planter or slave holder. the modified type in the south was due to an economic difference. the labor problem was solved in the south by chattel slavery; in the north by the wage system. it is true that throughout much of the south the small farmer held his own. these men conformed to the type of the land farmer. but in the south they did not dominate social and political life as the slave holder did. in the eastern states the whole social economy was, until a generation after the civil war, dominated by the land farmer. the characteristics of the land farmer are: first, his cultivation of the first values of the land. his order of life is characterized by initial utility. he lived in a time of plenty. the abundance of nature, which was to the pioneer a detriment, was to the land farmer a source of wealth. he tilled the soil and he cut the timber, he explored the earth for mines, seeking everywhere the first values of a virgin land. as these first values were exhausted, he moved on to new territories. all his ideas of social life were those of initial utility. the rich man was the standard and the admired citizen. the policies of government were dominated by the ideas of a land holding people. individualism proceeded on radiating lines from any given center. the development of personality is the clue to the history of that period. the second characteristic of the land farmer was his development of the family group. he differed from the pioneer, whose life was lonely and individual, in the perfection of group life in his period. he differs from the exploiter who succeeds him in the country today in the fact that exploitation has dissolved the family group. the experience of the land farmer compacted and perfected the household group in the country. the beginnings of this group life were in the pioneer period, but there was not peace in which the family could develop nor were there resources by which it could be endowed. the classic period of american home life is that of the land farmer. the typical american home, as it lives in sentiment, in literature and in idealism, is the home of the land farmer. third, the land farmer owned his home. he built upon his farm a homestead which in most cases represented his ideal of domestic and family comfort. he built for permanence. so far as his means permitted he provided for his children and for generations of descendants after them. he consecrated the soil to his people and to his name by setting apart a graveyard on his own land, and there he buried his dead. fourth, the land farmer had neighbors. his well-developed family group would not have been possible without other groups in the same community and the independence of the family group was relative, being perfected by imitation and economic competition. the land-farmer type came to maturity only when the whole of the land was possessed, when on every side the family group was confronted with other family groups, and neighborliness became universal. the family group is dependent through intermarriage and relationship upon other groups in the community. family relationships thus came in the land-farmer communities to be very general. some rough and crude forms of economic co-operation also grew up in this period, as modifications of the competition on which the land-farmer type is based. "the farmer type produced a definite social life," says prof. ross. "the second period, extending from to , had as its chief objective the enrichment of the group life." fifth, the land farmer competed, by group conflict, with his neighbors. property was regarded by the land farmer as a family possession. competition was between group and group, between household and household. the moral strength as well as the moral deficiencies of this type of man flow from this competition. he considered himself essentially bounden to the members of his own group by obligations and free from moral obligations to others. the son received no wages from his father for work on the farm and the daughter did not dream of pay or of an allowance for her labor in the house. the land farmer conceived of his estate as belonging to his family group and embodied in himself. therefore he had no wage obligations to son or daughter and he felt himself obliged so to distribute his property as to care for all the members of his household. this economic competition compacted the family group and formed the basis for the social economy of the country community. the land farmer had no ideal of community prosperity. his thought for generations has been to make his own farm prosperous, to raise some crop that others shall not raise, to have a harvest that other men have not and to find a market which other men have not discovered, by which he and his farm and his group may prosper. it is hard to convince the land farmer, because of his immersion in this group conflict, that the farmer's prosperity is dependent upon the prosperity of other groups in the community. the presence of the small group is the sign of normal social life. the group is not complete in itself, but is a unit in human association. so that the farmer economy had its social life and its own type of communities. the economy of the farmer period represents the ideals born in the pioneer nation. the community of the farmer is the destination of the life of the pioneer. the farmer still practises a variety of occupations. his tillage of the soil and his household economy are the most conservative in all american population. he uses modern machinery in the fields, but to a great degree his wife uses the old mechanisms in the kitchen and in the household. the laborers employed on the farm are received into the farmer's family under conditions of social equality. the man who is this year a laborer may in a decade be a farmer. the dignifying of personality with land ownership has been such a general social experience in the country that every individual is thought of in the farmer period as a potential landowner. the institutions of the rural community of the land-farmer type are the country store, the rural school, and the church. the country store deals in general merchandise and is a natural outgrowth of the stores of the pioneer period in which barter constituted the whole of the commerce of the community. in the pioneer store but a few commodities were imported from the outer world. the greater part of the merchandise was made in the community and distributed in the store. but the farmer's rural economy is the dawning of the world economy and the general store in the farming community becomes an economic institution requiring great ability and centering in itself the forces of general as well as local economics. the general storekeeper of this type in the country is at once a business man, a money lender, an employer of labor and the manager of the social center. he sells goods at a price so low as to maintain his local trade against outside competition. he loans money on mortgages throughout the community, and sells goods on credit. judgment of men and of properties is so essential to his business that if he can not judiciously loan and give credit he cannot maintain a country store. around his warm stove in the winter and at his door in summer gather the men of the community for discussion of politics, religion and social affairs. in addition to all else, he has been usually the postmaster of the community. the one-room rural school which is the prevailing type throughout the country is a product of the land-farmer period. its prevalence shows that we are still in land-farmer conditions: and the criticism to which it is now subjected indicates that we are conscious of a new epoch in rural life. it fits well into the life of the land farmer because it gives obviously a mere hint of learning. it has been the boast of its advocates that it taught only the "three rs." its training for life is rudimentary only: it gives but an alphabet. the land farmer expected to live in his group. secure in his own acres and believing himself "as good as anybody," he relied for his son and daughter not upon trained skill, but upon native abilities, sterling character, independence and industry. of all these the household, not the school, is the source. so that the one-room country school was satisfactory to those who created it. in another chapter the common schools are more fully discussed. here it may be said only that the creation of such a system was an honor to any people. the farmers who out of a splendid idealism placed a schoolhouse at every cross roads, on every hilltop and in every mountain valley, exact a tribute of praise from their successors. the unit of measurement of the school district, on which this system was based, was the day's journey of a child six years of age. two miles must be its longest radius. the generation who spanned this continent with the measure of an infant's pace, mapped the land into districts, erected houses at the centers, and employed teachers as the masters of learning for these little states, were men of statesmanlike power. the country school is a nobler monument of the land farmer than anything else he has done. the rural "academy" was the most influential school of the land farmer's time. situated at the center of leading communities, in new england, pennsylvania and the older eastern states, it was often under the control or the influence of the parish minister. it generally exerted a great influence for the building of the church and the community. its teachers were men of scholarly ideals. its students were from the locality, being selected by ambition for learning, and by their ability to pay the tuition. the development of the high schools has generally resulted in the abandonment of the academies. a few have survived and have adapted themselves to new times. but it is to be doubted whether the common schools have so far done as much for building and for organizing country communities, for providing local leadership, for building churches, as did the rural academies of new england, pennsylvania and other eastern states. the farmer's church is the classic american type of church at its best. the farming economy succeeded to the pioneer economy without serious break. the troubles of the country church have their beginnings in the period of the exploiter which is to follow, but the farmer developed the church of the pioneer with sympathy and consistency. the church of the farmer still values personal salvation above all. the revival methods and the simplicity of doctrine have remained, but the farmer has added typical methods of his own. the effect of this individualism is exhibited in the multiplication of churches among farmers. so long as it is admitted that the church is for personal salvation, it does not need to be a social institution. a small group is as effective as a large one for securing salvation for individuals. two churches or three may as well serve a community as one, if personal salvation be the service rendered. the gospel is for the farmer good tidings,--not a call to social service. the result of the farmer period has been, therefore, the multiplication of competitive country churches. an instance of this competitive condition is: the community in kansas in which among four hundred people resident in a field, there are seven churches, each of them attempting to maintain a resident pastor. in centre county, pa., in a radius of four miles from a given point, there are twenty-four country churches. in the same territory within a radius of three miles are sixteen of these country churches. this condition is satisfactory to the ideals of the farmer. if the farmer type were permanent these churches might serve permanently for the ministry of personal salvation. they are well attended by devout and religious-minded people. their condemnation is not in the farmer economy but in the inevitable coming of the exploiter and the husbandman with their different experience and different type of mind. in this period the minister frequently is himself a tiller of the soil. many of the older churches had land, ten or twenty or forty acres, which the minister was expected to till, and from it to secure a part of his living. a church at cranberry, n. j., had a farm of one hundred acres until the close of the nineteenth century. but with the coming of the exploiter and the husbandman the minister ceases to be an agriculturist. like unto the tillage of the soil by the minister was the "donation" to the minister, of vegetables, corn, honey and other farm products. at one time this filled a large place in the supply of the minister's living. in various communities the custom has remained with fine tenacity in the presentation to the minister of portions of farm produce throughout the year. but the portions so given are fewer, as years pass, and the total quantity small. the donation of vegetables and farm produce has survived in but a few places. the modes of life which succeeded to the farmer economy are dependent on cash for the distribution of values, and the "donation," if it remain at all, is a gift of money. frequently the "donation" has survived as a social gathering, being perpetuated in one of its functions only, its earlier purposes and its essential form being forgotten. the church of the land farmer corresponded by logical social causation to the social economy of this type. it was seated with family pews generally rented by the family group and sometimes owned in fee. in the south the slave-holding churches, which have all passed away, had galleries for the slaves, who worshipped thus under the same roof with their masters. the preaching of this period was directed to the development of group life. its ethical standards were those of the household group, in which private property in land, domestic morality, filial and domestic experiences furnished the stimuli. the land-farmer's church had some organizations to correspond to the differences in social life. the presence of the children in the family group is represented in the sunday schools and parochial schools built during this period. the schools are in many cases highly organized, with separate recognition of infancy, adolescence and middle life. in protestant churches the particular concerns of women and the religious service rendered by them take form in women's societies in the churches, mostly charitable and missionary. finally, at the close of the land-farmer period, about , there sprang up the young people's societies, which in the ten closing years of the land-farmer period reached a membership of hundreds of thousands among the protestant churches. these societies of young people were organized in the churches to correspond to the growing self-consciousness among adolescent members of the land-farmer's household. the young men and women in the maturing of the family group came to have a life of their own. as frequently happens, the family group reached its highest development and perfection just before it was to pass away. the church of the land-farmer is the typical protestant church of the united states. so influential has the farmer been in national life that organized religion has idealized his type of church. it has been transported to villages and towns. it has become the type of church most frequent in the cities. nearly all the protestant churches in new york city are land-farmer churches; "and that," says a noted city pastor, "is what ails them."[ ] this church centers its activities in preaching, rents or assigns its pews to families, and organizes societies for the various factors of the family group. it has sunday schools, women's, men's and young people's societies, with only one minister to supervise them all. the transformation of this type of church, so deeply rooted in the idealism of the whole people, into a church better suited to city, factory, town and mining settlement, has been the problem for protestant bodies to solve in the past twenty years. the beginning of this transformation, it is striking to observe, came at the end of the land-farmer period, about . the land-farmer, then, whose period according to prof. ross, extended from to in the middle west, is the best known agricultural type. he is the typical countryman as the countryman is imagined in the cities and recorded in our literature. it has been the american hope that he should be the land-owner of the days to come. in east tennessee the farmer is still the type of landowner in country communities. in some portions of michigan and minnesota the farmer type gives character to the whole population, but generally throughout the country the processes described by prof. ross have undermined the integrity of the farmer type and broken his hold upon leadership of the country population. within the last two decades, since , the farmer has been gradually discouraged and has realized that his economy is not suited to survive. the most representative farming communities today are those of scotch or scotch-irish people, whose instinctive tenacity, their "clannishness," has perpetuated longer than in other instances the rural economy and the country community. in using the term land-farmer i am aware of its close resemblance to the term exploiter. the word itself points to exploitation of land. the land farmer has used the raw materials of the country. he has tilled the soil until its fertility was exhausted and then moved on to the newer regions of the west, again to farm and to exploit the virgin riches of a plenteous land. the planter in the south, possessing frequently more than a thousand acres, was accustomed to till a portion of one hundred, two hundred or four hundred acres, until its fertility had been exhausted. then he moved his slaves to another section, cleared the land and cultivated it until its power to produce had also been exhausted. the difference between land-farming and exploitation is the absence of speculation in land in the former period. footnote: [footnote : rev. charles stelzle.] iii the exploiter the third type in american agriculture is the exploiter. between the farmer and the husbandman there is an economic revolution. in fact the exploiter himself is a transition type between the farmer and the husbandman. "the fundamental problem in american economics always has been that of the distribution of land," says prof. ross. the exploiter is, i presume, a temporary economic type, created in the period of re-distribution of land. the characteristic of the exploiter is his commercial valuation of all things. he is the man who sees only the value of money. it was natural that with the maturing of an american population, the exploitation of the natural resources should come. we have exploited the forest, removing the timber from the hills and making out of its vast resources a few fortunes. we wasted in the process nine-tenths for every one-tenth of wealth accumulated by the exploiter. we have exploited the coal and iron and other minerals. the exploitation of the oil deposits and natural gas reservoirs has been a national experience and a national scandal. the tendency to exploit every opportunity for private wealth has characterized the past two decades.[ ] there are those who exploit the child vitality of the families of working people, and the states have put legal checks in the way of child labor. the exploitation of the labor of women has gone so far as to threaten the vitality of the generation to be born, and laws have been passed which forbid the employment of women except within limits. the ethical discussion of the past decade is largely a keen analysis of the methods of exploitation of resources, of men and of communities, and an attempt to fix the bounds of the exploitation of values for private wealth. there are those who exploit the farm. "farms which from the original entry until had been owned by the same family, or which had changed owners but once or twice, and whose owners were proud to assert that their broad acres had never been encumbered with mortgages, since have been sold, in some instances as often as ten times, in more numerous instances four or five times, and a large part of the purchase price is secured by encumbering the estates!"[ ] agriculture, especially of the middle west, is affected in all its parts by the exploitation of land. to a traveller from the eastern states, the selling and re-selling of farm land, without fertilization or improvement by any of the successive owners, is a source of amazement. "the new lands opened under the homestead act of half a century ago were often exploited for temporary profit by soil robbers who were experts of their kind. owing to such farm management, the yield of the acre in the united states gradually decreased. very little intensive farming was done."[ ] the commercial exploitation of land dissolves every permanent factor in the farm economy. the country community of the land-farmer type is being undermined and is crumbling away under the influence of exploitation. the pioneers were a westward emigration, pushing westward the boundaries of the country at the rate of fifty miles in a decade; but since emigration has been eastward, and it is made up of farmers who move to ever cheaper and cheaper lands to the east, the tide of higher prices coming from the west. already in central illinois the values of land seem to have reached the high water mark. about galesburg "the swedes have got hold of the land and they will not sell." among the last recorded sales in this district were some at prices between two hundred and two hundred fifty dollars per acre. it is not generally understood that this exploitation of farm lands has extended over nearly the whole country. its spread is increasingly rapid in the last two years. in the gulf states and the carolinas and in tennessee and kentucky prices of farm land have increased in the last five years from twenty-five to one hundred per cent. even in the most conservative counties in pennsylvania the prices of farm land have increased twenty to twenty-five per cent. the sign of this exploitation is a rapid increase in the market values of farm land, due to frequent sale and purchase. this increase is independent of any increase in essential value to the farmer. the net income of the farmer may have been increased only five per cent, as in the state of indiana, whereas the values of farm land have increased in the same period more than one hundred per cent. that is, the speculative increases have been twenty times as much as the agricultural increase. along with this change in farm values goes the increase or decrease in the number of tenant farmers and the shifting of the ownership of land to farm landlords. in some parts of the country this exploitation has taken a purely speculative form. in all parts it is speculative in character, but in some sections of the country the exploiters are themselves farmers and the process is imposed upon the farmers themselves by economic causes. this is true of the illinois and indiana lands, which are under the influence of a system of drainage, but there are other portions of the country in which the process is chiefly speculative. in some western states the exploitation of farm land is in the hands of speculators themselves, doing real estate business purely as a matter of trade. it would be a mistake, however, to attribute a process so general as this one to the power exerted by a class of real estate agents. its causes are deeper than the commercial process. they go into the very roots of modern life. this should be clearly understood, because when frankly realized it compels the adjustment of social, educational and religious work to the period of exploitation. the effect of this process is upon all the life of country people. it has created its own class of men. there was no intention in the mind of earlier americans that we should ever have a tenant class in america. the assumption on which all our ideals are built has been that we would be a land-owning people, but we are confronted with a tenantry problem as difficult as any in the world. the process of exploiting land has added to the social and economic life of the country the farm landlord, whose influence upon the immediate future of the american country community, church and school, in all sections will be great, and in many communities will be dominating. the exploitation of land has produced the retired farmer. he is a pure example of the weakness of the exploiter economy. originally he was a homesteader, or perhaps a purchaser of cheap land in the early days. he expected not to remain a farmer, but hoped for removal to the east or to a college town. the motives which animated him were varied, but among them none was so prominent as a desire for better education than was provided for his children in the country community of the farmer type. so that at forty or fifty years of age he seized an opportunity to sell his land, as the prices were rising, and retired to the town with a cash fortune for investment. immediately the economic forces to which he had submitted himself made of him a new type, for the retired farmer in the middle west is a characteristic type of the leading towns and cities. some whole streets in large centers are peopled with retired farmers. the civic policies of scores of small municipalities are controlled in a measure by them, so that journalists, religious leaders, reformers and politicians have very clear-cut opinions as to the value of the retired farmer. the analysis of this situation is as follows. while the land which he sold continued to increase in value, his small fortune began to diminish in value. the interest on his money has been less every ten years; whereas he formerly could loan at first for six and sometimes seven per cent, he cannot loan safely now for more than five or six per cent. meantime the prices of all things he has to buy are expressed in cash,--no longer in kind as on the farm; and these cash prices are growing. in the past decade they have almost doubled. this means that he is a poorer man. his money has a diminished purchasing power and he has a smaller yearly income. in addition to this, his wants, and the wants of the members of the family are increased two or three times. they cannot live as they lived on the farm. they cannot dress as they dressed in the country. the pressure of these increasing economic wants, demanding to be satisfied out of a diminished income, with higher prices for the things to be purchased, keeps the retired farmer a poor man. the result is that the retired farmer is opposed to every step of progress in the growing town in which he lives. he opposes every increase of taxation and fights every assessment. he dreads a subscription list and hates to hear of contributions. although an intelligent and pious man, he has come to be an obstacle to the building of libraries, churches and schools and opposed to all humane and missionary activities. he is suffering from a great economic mistake. before leaving the exploiter it is to be said he also has his church. the exploiter has built no community. he has contributed the retired farmer to the large towns and small cities of the middle west. it is natural, therefore, that few exploiter churches are found in the country. but in the larger centers there are churches whose doctrine and methods are those of the exploiter. indeed, at the present time the exploiter's doctrine in ethics and religion is highly popular. it is the doctrine of the consecration of wealth. there are in the larger cities churches whose business is to give; sunday after sunday they hear pleas and consider the cases of college presidents, superintendents of charities, secretaries of mission boards and other official solicitors. these churches have systematized the discipline of giving. their boards of officers control the appeals that shall be made to their people. such churches are highly individualist in character, and the preacher who ministers in such a church has a doctrine of individual culture and responsibility. the exploiter's doctrine of systematic giving has gone into all of the communities in which prosperous people live. it has become a moral code for millionaires, and the response to it is annually measured in the great gifts of men of large means to institutions which exist for the use of all mankind. but not all the farm exploiters retired from the farm. the stronger and more successful have become absentee landlords. these men have invested their cash in farm lands. distrusting the investments of the city market, and fearing wall street, they have purchased increased acreage in the country, and when the local market was exhausted, they have invested in the southwest and the far west, buying ever more and more land. they have proven that "it is possible to maintain a vicious economic method on a rising market."[ ] these landlords have leased their land in accordance with mere expediency. no plans have been made in the american rural economy for a tenantry. the lease, therefore, throughout the united states generally is for only one year. this gives to the landlord the greatest freedom, and to the tenant the least responsibility. neither is willing to enter into a contract by which the land itself can be benefitted. the landlord is looking for the increase of the values of land, and is ever mindful of a possible buyer. moreover, he is watchful of the market for the crop and of the size of the crop, so that he desires to be free at the end of the year to make other arrangements. the tenant on his part is somewhat eager to do as he pleases for a year. he expects to be himself an owner, and he does not expect to remain permanently as a tenant on that farm. he reckons that he can get a good deal out of the land in the year, and is unwilling to bind himself for a long period. "the american system of farm tenantry is the worst of which i have knowledge in any country."[ ] it is true that in some parts of the country leases of three and five years are granted to tenants by the landlords. at penn yan, new york, a reliable class of danes secure such leases from the owners. i am aware, also, that in delaware, in an old section dependent upon fertilization for its crops, where the land is in the hands of a few representatives of the old farmer type who have held it for generations, that the tillage of the soil shows specialization. the landlord and the tenant co-operate. the leases, while they are for but a year, specify how the land shall be tilled, how fertilized. they require the rotation of crops and the keeping of a certain number of cattle by the tenants. the landlord personally oversees the tillage of several farms. this seems the beginning of husbandry, instead of exploitation of the land. another instance of the landlord who is more than a mere exploiter is that of david rankin, recently deceased. in the last years of his life mr. rankin owned about thirty thousand acres of land in missouri. it was said in that he had seventeen thousand acres of corn. he had a genius for estimating the values of land, the expensiveness of drainage, and the possibilities of the market. he was an expert buyer of cattle, and a master of the problems entering into progressive farming on a large scale. from his vast acreage mr. rankin sold not one bushel of corn. all his crops "went off on four legs." "he drove his corn to market," as they say in the middle west. he bought cattle from the ranches, for none were bred on his own land. he fattened them for the market, translating corn into beef and he was well aware of the values of pork in the economy of such a farm. nothing went to waste. according to the formula in nebraska, "for every cow keep a sow, that's the how." mr. rankin made large profits from his cattle and hogs. it is true that he cared nothing for the community or its institutions. on his wide acres family life was replaced by boarding-houses. schools and churches were closed, and many farmhouses built by the homesteaders rotted down to their foundations. but david rankin was a husbandman, if not a humanist. his tillage of the soil was successful in that it maintained the fertility of the soil, that it produced large quantities of food for the consumer, and that it was profitable. the following is a description of community life under the influence of such great landlords, by a western observer:-- "the city of casselton, north dakota, was originally started about the year . thirty years ago the first settlers came to this great prairie region from the new england and central states. it was shortly before this or about this time that the northern pacific railroad was built across this western prairie. the government gave to the road every other section of land on each side of the railroad for thirty miles as a bonus. that land was sold in the early days by the railroad to purchasers for fifty cents an acre. it was some of the finest farming land in the wide world. out of those sales grew some of the immense farms that have been so famous over the country and while they are great business concerns managed with fine business ability, yet they are not much of a help in the settling of the country. here within one mile of casselton is the famous dalrymple farm of twenty-eight thousand acres. this farm employs during the busy season what men it needs from the drifting classes and puts no families on its broad acres. these men are here a short season in the summer, then are gone. they are rushed with work for that season, sundays as well as other days from early morning to late at night, making it almost impossible to touch their religious life or even to count them a part of the community life. "another farm is the chaffee farm of thirty-five thousand acres. mr. chaffee is a thorough business man but is a fine christian and places a good family on each section of land. he allows no sunday work. has a little city kept up in beautiful condition in the center of his land where he lives with his clerks and immediate helpers. here they have a neat little congregational church and support their own minister. his fine influence is felt all over the country. the partners in this farm also have a land and loan corporation and also a large flour mill in casselton which employs about twenty-eight men, running day and night during the busy season. "there are many farms smaller, from one thousand acres and up. many also of a quarter section. casselton was built simply as a center for this beautiful and rich farming region. it is in the center of a strip six miles long and twenty-five miles wide which is said to be one of the finest sections in the land. there are other towns sprung up in the same section also. through the past thirty years farmers have retired, well to do, and moved into the city. here are now maintained excellent schools." in conclusion: the exploitation of farm lands is a process with which the church in the country cannot deal by persuasion. it is an economic condition. they who are engaged in this process or are concerned in its effects are in so far immune to the preacher who ignores or who does not understand these economic conditions. their action is conditioned by their status. they will infallibly act with relation to the church in accordance with the motives which arise out of their condition. that is, they will act as tenant farmers, as retired farmers or as absentee landlords. they must be treated on these terms. their whole relation to organized religion will be that of the condition in which they live and by which they get their daily bread. this is a matter independent of personal goodness. the church is dependent not on personal good influences, but upon the response which a man makes in accordance with his economic and social character. for instance, in wisconsin a church worker found that thousands of acres in a certain section were owned by a milwaukee capitalist. he found that the tenant farmers on these acres were poor and struggling for a better living, and he could not, among them, finance an adequate church. he promptly went to milwaukee and secured five minutes of the time and attention of the absentee landlord. when he had stated the case and the reasons why this large owner should give to the country church on his acres, the man promptly said, "you have stated what i never before realized and i will give you a contribution of one hundred dollars per year for that church until you hear from me to the contrary." in contrast to this there is in central illinois a large estate of five thousand acres. the owner lives in a distant city and his son tills the land. it is known among the neighbors that the son has orders to oppose all improvements of churches and of schools, "because there is no money for us in the church or the school." it is useless to complain of the position in which a man is. the minister's duty is to utilize him in his own status and to enable him to practise the virtues which are open to him. the retired farmer can become an active and devoted evangelist, preacher or organizer. he should be made a leader in the intellectual development of the farmer's problem of the region. he has leisure and intelligence and is often a devout man. it is the business of the minister to transform this into religious and social efficiency. the temperance movement in the middle west has had generous and devoted support from the retired farmers living in the towns. the families of these one time farmers are seeking after culture. the literary and aesthetic aspects of the community can well be committed to members of these families. their value for the community is probably in these directions. above all it is the business of the minister to sympathize with the life they are living and to enable them to live it to the highest advantage. the energies of the church should be devoted to the tenant farmer. of this more will be said in another place. he also must be treated in sympathy with his social and economic experience and the religious service rendered to him must be the complete betterment of his life as he is trying to live it. he is not a sinner because he is a tenant and what he does as a tenant is therefore not a misdemeanor, but a normal reaction upon life. the church can help him in purging his life from the iniquities peculiar to a tenant and a dependent. the noblest motives must be brought out and the life he is to live should be given its own ideals. above all the period of exploitation must be understood by the teacher and the preacher to be a preparation, a transition through which country people are coming to organized and scientific agriculture. gradually the influence of science and the leadership of the departments and colleges of agriculture are being extended in the country. little by little, whether through landlord or tenant, farming is becoming a profession requiring brains, science and trained intelligence. the country church should promote this process because only through its maturity can the country church in the average community find its own establishment. the reconstruction of the churches now going on corresponds to the exploitation of the land. the duty of the church in the process of exploitation is to build the community and to make itself the center of the growing scientific industry on which the country community in the future will be founded. the religion of the exploiter moves in the giving of money. consecration of his wealth is consecration of his world and of himself. the church that would save him must teach him to give. his sins are those of greed, his virtues are those of benevolence. his own type, not the least worthy among men, should be honored in his religion. no man's conversion ever makes him depart from his type, but be true to his type. therefore the religion for the exploiter of land is a religion of giving, to the poor at his door, to the ignorant in this land, and to the needy of all lands. footnotes: [footnote : the conservation of natural resources in the united states, by van hise.] [footnote : j. b. ross--"agrarian changes in the middle west."] [footnote : secretary of agriculture, james wilson at the united states land and irrigation exposition, chicago, nov. , .] [footnote : the rural life problem in the united states, by sir horace plunkett.] [footnote : dean chas. f. curtiss, state college of iowa.] iv the husbandman the scientific farmer is dependent upon the world economy. he is the local representative of agriculture, whose organization is national and even international. he raises cotton in georgia, but he "makes milk" in orange county, new york, because the market and the soil and the climate and other conditions require of him this crop. he is dependent upon the college of agriculture for the methods by which he can survive as a farmer. tradition, which dominated the agriculture of a former period, is a disappearing factor in husbandry of the soil. the changes in market conditions are such as to impoverish the farmer who learns only from the past. tradition could teach the farmer how to raise the raw materials, under the old economy, in which the farmhouse and community were sufficient unto themselves. but in a time when the wool of the sheep in australia goes halfway round the world in its passage from the back of a sheep to the back of a man, the sheep farmer becomes dependent upon the scientist. he cannot afford to raise sheep unless the scientific man assures him that in the production of wool his land has its highest utility. "the american farm land is passing into the hands of those who will use it to the highest advantage."[ ] the dependence of the scientific farmer or husbandman upon the world market and upon the scientists who are studying agriculture enlarges the circle of his life from the rural household to the rural community. in the rural community agriculture can be taught; in the household it cannot. the only teaching of the household is tradition; the teaching of the community is in terms of science. the country school and the country church take a greater place as community institutions just so soon as the farmer passes out of the period of exploitation into that of scientific husbandry. the husbandman is the economist in agriculture. he is to the farm what the husband was to the household in old times. one is tempted to say also that the husbandman is he who marries the land. american farm land has suffered dishonor and degradation, but it has known all too little the affection which could be figuratively expressed in marriage. the bible speaks of "marrying the land."--"thy land shall be called beulah for thy land shall be married." side by side in this country we have the lands which have been dishonored, degraded, abandoned, dissolute, and the lands husbanded, fertilized, enriched and made beautiful. the husbandman or rural economist cares more for qualities than for quantity. he works not merely for intensive cultivation of the soil, but also for the preservation of the soil and use of it in its own terms, at its highest values. the principle at work is not the increase in the farmer's material gains or possessions. the husbandry of the soil is not a mere increase in market values. it is a deeper and more ethical welfare than that which can be put in the bank. "agriculture is a religious occupation." when it sustains a permanent population and extends from generation to generation the same experiences, agriculture is productive in the highest degree of moral and religious values. in the words of director l. h. bailey, of cornell, "the land is holy." this is especially true at the present time, when the land is limited in amount. already the whole nation is dependent upon the farmer in the degree intimated by the statement of dean bailey. "the census of showed approximately one-third of our people on farms or closely connected with farms, as against something like nine-tenths, a hundred years previous. it is doubtful whether we have struck bottom, although the rural exodus may have gone too far in some regions, and we may not permanently strike bottom for sometime to come."[ ] the service of the few to the many, therefore, is the present status of the husbandman. the very fact that one-third of the people must feed all the people imposes religious and ethical conditions upon the farmer. the dependence of the greater number for their welfare upon those who are to till the soil brings that obligation, which the farmer is well constituted to bear and to which his serious spirit gives response. this means that with the growing consciousness of the need of scientific agriculture there will arise, indeed is now arising, a new ethical and religious feeling among country people. the church which is made up of scientific farmers is a new type of church. a notable testimony to the influence of the church in developing husbandry is by sir horace plunkett,[ ] who testifies to the religious influence that led to the agrarian revolution in denmark. "my friends and i have been deeply impressed by the educational experience of denmark, where the people, who are as much dependent on agriculture as are the irish, have brought it by means of organization to a more genuine success than it has attained anywhere else in europe. yet an inquirer will at once discover that it is to the 'high school' founded by bishop grundtvig, and not to the agricultural schools, which are also excellent, that the extraordinary national progress is mainly due. a friend of mine who was studying the danish system of state aid to agriculture, found this to be the opinion of the danes of all classes, and was astounded at the achievements of the associations of farmers not only in the manufacture of butter, but in a far more difficult undertaking, the manufacture of bacon in large factories equipped with all the most modern machinery and appliances which science had devised for the production of the finished article. he at first concluded that this success in a highly technical industry by bodies of farmers indicated a very perfect system of technical education. but he soon found another cause. as one of the leading educators and agriculturists of the country put it to him: 'it's not technical instruction, it's the humanities.' i would like to add that it is also, if i may coin a term, the 'nationalities,' for nothing is more evident to the student of danish education or, i might add, of the excellent system of the christian brothers in ireland, than that one of the secrets of their success is to be found in their national basis and their foundation upon the history and literature of the country." every observer of these danish folk high schools testifies to their religious enthusiasm, their patriotism and above all to the songs with which their lecture hours are begun and ended. a graduate of these schools living for years in america, the mother of children then entering college, said, "those songs helped me over the hardest period of my life. i can always sing myself happy with them." the spirit which pervades the schools was influential in danish agriculture, as expressed in the title of grundtvig's best known hymn, "the country church bells." under such an influence as this has the agricultural life of denmark taken the lead over its urban and manufacturing life. the modifying influence of husbandry upon the church and its teaching is illustrated in the following incident. a farmer in missouri had a good stand of corn which promised all through the summer to produce an excellent crop. abundance of sun and rain favored the farmer's hope that his returns would be large, but in the fall the crop proved a failure. the farmer at once cast about for the cause of this disappointment. he had his soil analyzed by a scientist and discovered that it was deficient in nitrogen. the next year he devoted to supplying this lack in the soil and in the year following had an abundant return in corn. "now that experience turned me away," said he, "from the country church, because the teaching of the country church as i had been accustomed to it was out of harmony with the study of the situation and the conquest over nature. i had been taught in the country church to surrender under such conditions to the will of providence." the country church of the husbandman must therefore be a church in harmony with the tillage of the soil by science. like the farm households about it, the church will possess a large wealth of tradition, but the church of the scientific farmer must be open to the teachings of science and must be responsive, intelligent and alert in the intellectual leadership of the people. a church of this sort is at west nottingham, maryland. the minister rev. samuel polk, had been discouraged by the inattention of his people to his message. he had come to feel that this is an unbelieving age and had surrendered himself to the steadfast performance of his duties, the preaching of the truth faithfully and the ministry to his people so far as they would receive it. in addition he had the task of tilling forty acres of land which belongs to the church. this he was doing faithfully, but without much intelligent interest. an address on the country church in an agricultural college sent him home with new ideas. he saw that his life as a farmer and as a preacher had to be made one. he determined to preach to farmers and to till his land as an example of christian husbandry. he began as a scholar by studying the scientific use of his land. he found at once that the farmers about him were forced to study the tillage of their soil, because it had been exhausted of fertility by methods of farming no longer profitable. in the first year the preacher raised, by means of a dust mulch through a dry summer, a crop of one hundred and seventy-five bushels of potatoes. meantime his preaching had been enlivened with new illustrations and he was enabled to enforce, to the amazement of his hearers, new impressions with old truths. the scripture teaching which had become dull and scholastic became live and modern, as he preached the old testament to a people who were recognizing the sacredness of land. his audiences began to increase. his influence on his people very shortly passed bounds and reserves. when at the end of the season his potato crop came in, the farmers gave sign of recognizing his leadership as a farmer and as a preacher. within a year this man had taken a place as a first citizen, which no one else in the community could hold. because he was a preacher he could become the leading authority upon farming and because he must needs be a farmer he found it possible to preach with greater acceptance. this pastor gave up the methods of bookish preparation for preaching. he preached as the old testament men did, to the occasion and to the event. he spoke to the community as being a man himself immersed in the same life as theirs. on a recent occasion when a woman was very sick in one of the farm houses and had suffered from the neglect of her neighbors, his sermon consisted of an appeal to visit the sick. that afternoon the invalid was called on by thirty-eight people and sent a message before night, begging the minister to hold the people back. there are a few ministers throughout the country who are successful farmers. many ministers are speculators in farm land. they belong in the exploiter class. one more instance should be given of the preacher who promotes agriculture. in a recent discussion the writer was asked, "do you then believe that the minister should attend the agricultural college," and he replied, "no. the agricultural college should be brought to the country church." at bellona, new york, the ministers of two churches, methodist and presbyterian, united with their officers in a farmers' club, to which others were admitted. this club under the leadership of rev. t. maxwell morrison, makes the nucleus of its work the study of the agriculture of the neighborhood and the improvement of it. lecturers from cornell university are brought throughout the year into the country community to take up in succession the various aspects of farming which may be improved. the market is studied, by chemical analysis the nature of the soil is determined, and the possibilities of the community are raised to their highest value by careful investigation. this farmers' club has social features as well. other topics besides farming are occasionally studied but the business of the club is economic promotion of the well-being of the community. incidentally, it has furnished a social center for the countryside. the churches which have had to do with it have been enlarged, their membership extended and even their gifts to foreign missions have been increased in the period of growth of the farmers' club. the elements of permanent cultivation of the soil are found in greater numbers among the mormons, scotch irish presbyterians, pennsylvania germans, who are the best american agriculturists, than among the more unstable populations of farmers. those elements, however, are, simply speaking, the following. a certain austerity of life always accompanies successful and permanent agriculture. by this is meant a fixed relation between production and consumption.[ ] successful tillers of the soil labor to produce an abundant harvest. they live at the same time in a meager and sparing manner. production is with them raised to its highest power and consumption is reduced to its lowest. this means austere living. such communities are found among the scotch irish farmers. lancaster county, pennsylvania, is peopled with them and their tillage of the soil has continued through two centuries. a notable illustration is in illinois. the permanence of the conditions of country life in this community is indicated by the long pastorate of the minister who has just retired. coming to the church at forty-eight years of age, after other men have ceased from zealous service, he ministered forty-two years to this parish of farmers, and has recently retired at the age of ninety, leaving the church in ideal condition. "the middle creek church is distinctly a country charge, located in the southwest corner of winnebago township, of the county of winnebago. "the church was organized in june, , in a stone schoolhouse. the present house of worship was erected and dedicated in . five ministers served the church as supplies until , when the rev. j. s. braddock, d. d., became the pastor and carried on a splendid work for forty-two years, when he laid down his pastorate in , at the age of ninety." "this community was settled by homesteaders and pioneers in the early days of the west. many of them came from pennsylvania and some of them were of scotch descent. the history of the community has been but the history of the development of a fertile western prairie country. it was settled by strong presbyterian men, and their descendants are now the backbone of the community. there has been little change, but steady growth." the second element in the community of husbandmen is mutual support. professor gillin of the university of iowa has described to me the community of dunkers whom he has studied,[ ] being deeply impressed with their communal solidarity. whenever a farm is for sale these farmers at the meeting-house confer and decide at once upon a buyer within their own religious fellowship. in the week following the minister or a church member writes back to pennsylvania and the correspondence is pressed, until a family comes out from the older settlements in the keystone state to purchase this farm in iowa and to extend the colony of his fellow dunkers. reference is made elsewhere to the communal support given to their own members who suffer economic hardship. the serious tillage of the soil necessarily involves mutual support and the husbandman's life is in his community. the third factor in communal husbandry is progress. everyone testifies to the leadership of the "best families" in the transformation of the older modes of the tillage of the soil to the newer. it is impossible for the scientific agriculturist to make much improvement upon a country community until the more progressive spirits and the more open minds have been enlisted. thereafter the better farming problem is solved. there can be no modern agriculture in a community in which all are equal. the communities of husbandmen will be as sharply differenced from one another, so far as i can see, as men are in the great cities. leadership is the essential of progress. gabriel tardé has clearly demonstrated that only those who are at the top of the social scale can initiate social and economic enterprises. the cultivation of the soil for generations to come must be highly progressive. to recover what we have lost and to restore what has been wasted will exhaust the resources of science and will tax the intelligence of the leaders among husbandmen. for this reason the ministers, teachers, and social workers in the country should be not discouraged, but hopeful, when confronted with rural landlords and capitalists. the business of the community leader is to enlist in the common task those persons whose privileges are superior and inspire them with a progressive spirit. without their leadership the community cannot progress. without their privileges, wealth and superior education, no progress is possible in the country. if these pages tell the truth, then agriculture is a mode of life fertile in religious and ethical values. but it must be husbandry, not exploitation. religious farming is a lifelong agriculture, indeed it involves generations, and its serious, devoted spirit waits for the reward, which was planted by the diligent father or grandfather, to be reaped by the son or grandson. men will not so consecrate themselves to their children's good without the steadying influence of religion. so that agriculture and religion are each the cause, and each the effect, of the other. if this is true, then the country church should promote the husbandry of the soil. the agricultural college should be brought into the country parish, for the church's sake. indeed the minister would do well if his scholarship be the learning of the husbandman. no other science has such religious values. no other books have such immediate relation to the well-being of the people. the minister is not ashamed to teach greek, or latin,--dead languages. why should he think it beneath him "to teach the farmer how to farm," provided he can teach the farmer anything? if he be a true scholar, the farmer, who is a practical man, needs his learned co-operation in the most religious of occupations, that the land may be holy. footnotes: [footnote : rural economics, by prof. thos. nixon carver.] [footnote : "the country-life movement," by l. h. bailey.] [footnote : "ireland in the new century," by sir horace plunkett.] [footnote : professor thomas nixon carver.] [footnote : see chapter v.] v exceptional communities most of this volume is devoted to the average conditions which prevail throughout the united states. the attempt is made to deal with those causes which are generally operative. it is the writer's opinion that the causes dealt with in other chapters are the prevailing causes of religious and social experience in the most of the united states. as soon as the community, after its early settlement, becomes mature, these causes show the effects here described. but there are exceptions which should be noted and the cause of their different life made clear. these exceptions are represented in the mormons, the scottish presbyterians and the pennsylvania germans. "the best farmers in the country are the mormons, the scotch presbyterians and pennsylvania germans." this sentence expresses a general observation of prof. carver of harvard, speaking as an economist. the churches among these three classes of exceptionally prosperous farmers show great tenacity and are free from the weakness which otherwise prevails in the country church. there is a group of causes underlying this exceptional character of the three classes of farmers. these exceptional farmers are organized in the interest of agriculture. the mormons represent this organization in the highest degree. perhaps no other so large or so powerful a body of united farmers is found in the whole country. they have approached the economic questions of farming with determination to till the soil. they distrust city life and condemn it. they teach their children and they discipline themselves to love the country, to appreciate its advantages and to recognize that their own welfare is bound up in their success as farmers, and in the continuance of their farming communities. this agricultural organization centers about their country churches. they have turned the force of religion into a community making power, and from the highest to the lowest of their church officers the mormon people are devoted to agriculture as a mode of living. this principle of organizing the community consciously for agriculture results in the second condition of the life of these three exceptional peoples. they build agricultural communities. the mormons are organized by an idea and by the power of leadership. they have recruited their population through preachers and missionaries. this new population is woven at once into the fabric of the community. they are not merely employed in the community: they are married to the community. the organization on which the mormon community is based becomes embodied at once in a society, with its own modes of religious, family, and moral feeling and thought. these two principles are discovered in the pennsylvania germans. for more than two centuries they have continued their settlements in pennsylvania. they are today a chain of societies loosely related to one another through religious sympathy and a common tradition, but united only in the possession of certain characteristics. they also are an organization for agricultural life, though not so consciously organized as the mormons. their societies are older and they have replaced with instinctive processes that which is among the mormons a matter of logic and shrewd application of principles. the life of the pennsylvania germans is expressed in the community. they have as much aversion to other people as they have fondness for their own. their religion consists of a set of customs in which to them the character of the christian is embodied. these customs can be expressed and embodied only in the life of common people working on the land. they make plainness, industry, and patience, austerity of life and other agricultural virtues constitute sanctity. it is impossible to believe sincerely in their mode of life and not be a farmer. it is easy to believe the pennsylvania germans' code, if one is a farmer, and it is profitable as well. the scotch and the scotch irish presbyterians represent a third principle of agricultural success. their churches are tenacious and their country communities outlive those of the average type. in them is represented in the highest degree the principle of austerity. by this i mean, as defined by an economist, the custom of living so as to produce much and consume little. these people look upon life with severity. they have little sympathy with the expansive and exuberant life of the young. the men of the community, who are the producers, occupy a relatively greater position than the women, who are the consumers. they exemplify to a slight degree the conscious organization for agriculture, and in a high degree the resultant social life which we have noted among the mormons and the pennsylvania germans; but to the highest degree the scottish presbyterians represent this self-denial and rigidity of life--which appears in the others also--and they embody it in their creed. this austerity gives to them a forbidding character, and robs them of some of the esthetic interest attaching to the other two, but it is possible that they are more nearly the ideal type of american farmer because of certain other traits possessed by them. the scotch farmer has not in the united states settled in communities or colonies, as he has in canada, but the typical farming community of this stock is scotch irish. as prof. r. e. thompson has shown,[ ] the emigrants from the north of ireland, who are themselves of scotch extraction, have colonized extensively. that is, they have settled their populations so as to cover a territory and possess it for themselves. but the scotch, from whom they derive many characteristics, have settled no colony in the world except in the north of ireland.[ ] the peculiarity of these scotch irish farming settlements, as shown especially in pennsylvania, is their capacity to produce leaders in sympathy with the whole of american life. the mormons produce leaders, but their influence is compromised by religious prejudices. the pennsylvania germans have produced no leaders whom they can call their own, and very few writers or educators. the scotch irish, on the other hand, considered as farmers, have contributed an extraordinary proportion of the leadership of the united states. they have been able to maintain their own communities in the country and to find for these communities a sufficient leadership, and they have sent forth into the general population a multitude of men for leadership in the army, in the legislatures, in the colleges and universities, and above all, in the pulpit. in these three types of successful farmers religion is an essential factor. no history can be written of the mormons, of the "pennsylvania dutch" or of the scotch presbyterian without recording their religious devotion, their obedience to leaders, to customs and to creed. one cannot live among them without feeling the peculiar religious atmosphere which belongs to each of them. they are admirable or obnoxious, according as one likes or dislikes this religious character of theirs, but it pervades the whole life of the community. if it be true that there is no type of farmer--except the scientific farmer of the past few years--who has succeeded as these three types have succeeded, and there is no country community so tenacious as their communities are, and if it be true that these farmers more uniformly than other farmers are religiously organized, then it follows that there is an essential relation so far as american agriculture goes, between successful and permanent agriculture and a religious life. the country church becomes the expression of a permanent and abiding rural prosperity. agriculture is shown by its very nature to require a religious motive. an element of piety appears to be necessary in the makeup of the successful farmer. in these three types of successful farmer there appears another principle which is common to them all. they are not only organized for farming, but they are organized as a mutual prosperity association, based on their consciousness of kind. prof. gillin has called attention to the habit of the dunkers in iowa, who are of the pennsylvania german sects, by which they extend their farming communities. "the thing that is needed is to make the church the center of the social life of the community. that is easier where there is but one church than where there are several, but federation is not essential. thought must be taken by the leaders to make the church central in every interest of life. i know of a community where that has been done. it is the community located south of waterloo, ia., in orange township. it is composed of an up-to-date community of pennsylvania dutch dunkers. from the very first they have made the church central. when these great changes of which i have spoken began to occur, the leaders of that community began to take measures to checkmate the attractions of the towns for their young people. for example, fourth of july was made a day of celebration at the church. when the people of other communities were flocking to town by hundreds, the youth of that community were gathering, in response to plans well thought out beforehand, to the church grounds where patriotic songs were sung, games were played, a picnic dinner was served, and a general good time was provided for the young. they have also arranged that their young people have a place to come to on sunday nights where they can meet their friends. the elders look to it that provisions are made for the gatherings of the young people on sunday so that they shall 'have a good time,' with due arrangements for the boys and girls to get together under proper conditions for their love-making. even their church 'love feasts' held twice a year, are also neighborhood gatherings for the young people. the church is the center of everything. is a farmers' institute to be held in the community, or a teachers' institute? the church until very recently was open to it. is a farm to rent or for sale? at once the leaders get busy with the mail, and soon a family from the east is on their way to take it. this country church has not remained strong and dominant in the country just by accident or even by federation. it has survived because it had wise leaders who have met the changes with new devices to attract the interest of the community and make the church serve the community in all its affairs, but especially on the social side. such thought takes account of the 'marginal man' too. the hired man and the hired girl, the foreigner and the tramp are welcome there. no difference is made. there is pure democracy. with the growth of the class spirit i do not know how that can survive. these hirelings are not talked down to; they are considered one with the rest. they will some day get enough to buy a farm and become leaders in the community, perhaps. the church is theirs as much as anyone's else. it looks after their interest, not only for the hereafter, but here and now. under its fostering care they form their life attachments, it provides for their social pleasures, it is the center to which they come to discuss their farming affairs or whatever interests them. and in spite of the fact that the preaching has little contact with life and its interests, so strong is the social spirit that the preaching can be left out of account. what could be accomplished were the preaching as consciously directed to forwarding the social interests of the community one can only speculate."[ ] thus they work for the propagation and extension of their own community. the scotch presbyterians in like manner favor their own kindred and their kindred in the faith, though, i think, in a lesser degree. the mormons are consolidated both by formal organization and by instinctive preference for their own in a multitude of co-operating habits, through which they build up their communities and contend with one another against their economic and religious opponents. it is not enough to say that this is clannishness; it is a mingling of kinship and religious preferences. it constitutes the strongest form of agricultural co-operation to be found in the united states. a quaker community represents ideal community life. there is none poor. the margin of the community is well cared for by the conscious and deliberate service of the central and leading spirits in the community. at quaker hill, new york, there has been for almost two centuries a community of friends. the meeting has now been "laid down" but the customs and manners by which these peculiar people maintain their community life have been wrought into the social texture of the present population of quaker hill. during two centuries this community has cared for its own members in need. it was not beneath the dignity of the meeting to raise money and purchase a cow, early in the eighteenth century, to "loan to the widow irish," and at the close of the nineteenth century, the few quakers and the many irish and other "world's people" took part more than once in subscriptions by which the burden was borne, which had fallen upon some workingman or poorer neighbor through the death of horse or cow, or even to bear the expense incidental to the death of his child. these quakers co-operated in their business life. they made themselves responsible that no member of their meeting should be long in debt. from for years and more, the records of the meeting show that marriage was made impossible and other vital experiences were forbidden by the meeting, unless the individual quaker paid his debts and maintained his business on a level dictated by the common opinion of the quaker body.[ ] in , oblong meeting of quaker hill, new york, began the legislative opposition of the society of friends to the institution of slavery. this great economic movement expressed the degree to which the quaker discipline merged the religious life in the economic life. this consolidation of religious and economic life was essential in the community building of the quakers. it is surprising to many to discover that the "pennsylvania dutch" were part of the same movement of population which brought the quakers into pennsylvania. william penn spoke german as well as english. his mother was a german. when he inherited his father's claim against the british crown, and received from charles the second the grant of that extensive territory in america on which he launched his holy experiment, he began to advertise and to seek for settlers on the continent as well as in england. william penn was a quaker, and on the continent he found immediate response in the greatest number of cases among the various branches of mennonites, anabaptist, and other sects, who shared a common group of beliefs and experienced at this time a common persecution. william penn, therefore, reaped a harvest of responses in the territory between the mouth of the rhine and the alps. his proposal made its own selection, and brought to america a population calculated like the quaker population for the building of communities. the largest single contribution was made by the palatinates, who were at that period undergoing extreme persecution. the communities founded within the first century after the opening of pennsylvania have remained to the present day, and the earliest establishments of mennonites and quaker communities in pennsylvania have been duplicated in the westward stream of immigration, especially in ohio and in iowa. these people are roughly called the "pennsylvania dutch." even when one meets them in michigan, iowa or minnesota, this name clings to them, and the form of social organization which they elaborated in eastern pennsylvania still persists. this social organization has varying characteristics. it is somewhat difficult to analyze the intricate windings and entanglements of doctrinal and practical belief in custom among the mennonites, amish and dunkers. old school and new school have been formed in almost every one of these sects. eccentric and peculiar principles of belief in organization have formed the lesser and the least permanent groups; but there is a common principle in them all. their ability to form communities in the midst of hostile populations and adverse conditions has been due to the co-operation between their religious and their economic habits. the "pennsylvania dutch" have simple doctrinal characteristics. they have never worked out in detail the logic of their beliefs. they put the weight of their organization upon practical customs, as the quakers did. in some cases, this applied to clothing; in some or all of these sects to the manner of speech; to family customs; but, the one peculiar principle in it all, which has been vital to the success, to the persistence, to the wide extension of these sectarian groups has been that the religious life has penetrated the economic life. they have not permitted members of their community to be poor. they have turned the attention of their religious sympathies to the economic margin of the community. they have enforced the payment of debts, and they have governed and controlled marriage conditions. by subtle enforcement of custom having the power of laws, they have governed the community in its vital relations, and perfected the system by which the poorest man shall make his living and by which the richest man shall make his fortune. recently, i was in lancaster, penn., and passing through a market i was told by a resident that all the truck farming of the market for that city had come into the hands of the amish, and my friend added, "if you go at an early hour to buy, and ask the price of certain vegetables, you will probably be told, 'we do not know the price yet; we will have to wait until all the farmers come in.'" that is, after two hundred and more years of living as farmers in this section of pennsylvania, these sectarians maintain their community life, co-operate in the monopolizing of an industry, and in fixing the price of the monopolized product in the markets of a pennsylvania city. this survey of community-building peoples in america may throw light upon the recommendations of sir horace plunkett for the organization of country life upon an economic basis. the present writer heartily agrees with him that the center of the community must be economic. he says that "better business must come first" in constructive policies for american country life, but "by failing to combine, american and british farmers persistently disobey an accepted law." social division is the impending danger which threatens the future of the american community in the country. for if the analysis of agricultural success in this chapter is correct, then the farmer is exceedingly dependent upon his neighbor, and the permanence of rural populations depends upon the social unity of the farmers in the community. the highest expression of this social unity is in the farmer's religion. worship thus becomes a symbol of agricultural prosperity. the writers and the orators have then truly spoken who symbolized the beauty of rural life in the church steeple. the farmer himself seems to recognize, in the church spire rising above the roofs of the hamlet, the symbol of prosperous and satisfactory life in the country. as the tillers of the soil come to the necessity of co-operation in the new order of life in the country, as the old isolation passes away and the modern farmer comes to recognize his necessary dependence upon other farmers in the community, a common place of worship will become necessary to the community. one church will of necessity express the life of the community and the periodic meeting of all the people in one house of worship will be the highest and most essential symbol of the feeling and the thought and the aspirations of that community after true prosperity and permanence. the purpose of this chapter has been to present the general characteristics of the most exceptional communities in the country. these are mormon, scotch presbyterian and pennsylvania german. by their very names they indicate religious organization of the community and "birthright membership" associations. they are grouped under the one principle, that in them the religious organization is an expression of their social economy. their social and economic life is under the domination of their religion. these farmers are organized in the interest of agriculture. the resultant social life constitutes a most intense organization in which voluntary and conscious combination matures in instinctive union embodied in blood relationship, neighborliness and economic union. these populations show the correspondence between economic and religious austerity. thrift takes the form of dogmatic repression and finally their organization and their relationship express themselves in organized efforts for the well-being of the community. they deliberately as well as instinctively co-operate. it is the writer's belief that these exceptional communities exhibit the principles on which american life must be organized, if the farmer is to be a success, if his schools are to progress, his churches to be maintained, and if the country community is to be a good place to live in. none of these populations can be imitated. it would be impossible for a community to take over their modes any more than it could imbibe their motives. the study of them throws light upon the problem of country life in america. above all things it illustrates the especial union of the country church with the social economy of the farmer and his household. it shows that the life of country people is co-operative, that it is undermined by division and disunion and that in the open country where man is least seen his society is most evident. the dependence of each man upon his neighbor is increased in modern times by the thinning out of the rural population and the increased economic burden laid upon the farmer. finally, the exceptional populations present an exceptional victory over economic and natural forces. they abolish poverty within their own bounds. every one of the communities just described turns the power of its common organization upon the problem of maintaining the lower margin of the community. they who are in danger of falling behind are sustained and carried on. none in these communities is permitted to fall into pauperism. the workingman without capital, whether he be in their meetings or only employed on their farms, is kept from want. the widow with her little house and one cow is insured against the loss of any feature of her small property. this seems to me to be the greatest triumph of these communities. it is the test, i am convinced, of their organizations and of their success. in this they demonstrate one of the greatest possibilities of country life. they show that in the open country it is possible for men to live without the suffering and degradation of poverty. footnotes: [footnote : history of american presbyterianism, by r. e. thompson.] [footnote : an exception to this statement must be noted, in the scotch settlements in canada and nova scotia.] [footnote : professor john l. gillin, in american journal of sociology, march, .] [footnote : quaker hill, by warren h. wilson.] vi getting a living the core of a community must be economic. the main business of life is to get a living.[ ] the reason for existence of any community is found in the living which it supplies its residents. men are attracted to a community by the increases in their living furnished by that community. the first element in the getting of a living is the securing of daily bread, shelter, clothing and the satisfaction of physical needs. it is a mistake to think of the community as beginning in religious institutions--narrowly understood--or in social gatherings or in educational service. the initial human experience is the finding of food. but the getting of a living is a long process. a living is more than bread, and a roof and a coat. in quest of a living men go from the country to the town and from the town to the city. they migrate from the small city to the large. in each of these moves they secure a further element in their living. each of these communities is characterized by the increase which it contributes to the living of its citizens, but in every community the initial experience is the securing of daily bread, shelter, clothing and material economic gains. whatever is done, therefore, for the community in a service to all the people must have initial concern with the purely economic welfare of the people. sir horace plunkett's book, "the rural life problem of the united states," develops this principle very clearly. he shows that in the country life movement in ireland it was necessary to go into the very heart of the people's aspirations, and organize their economic needs. it is necessary to understand the word "economic" if one would read these pages aright. economic matters are not those of mere money. the word has a greater meaning than has the word finance. it connotes poverty as truly as wealth, and is greater than both. the economic motive animates men in the quest of those vital satisfactions which the individual craves, and the social group requires. professor john bates clark has somewhere described this motive as the desire to preserve the present status, with slight improvement, for oneself and one's children after him; the desire to live on the same economic standard in one's own generation; and to be reasonably assured of the same security for one's children. this is not the desire to get rich, though in individual cases it is changed into a desire for wealth. but it is a far more general, indeed a universal aspiration, which inspires most of the work of the world. industry is based on it. civilization is propelled by it. it is the desire to get a living and the quest of a living. i believe that this economic motive is religious. it is the quest of what a man has not, but feels to be his. it engages his utmost efforts. it is labor for his wife and children and for all his group fellows, and therefore is involved in his holiest, most self-forgetting feelings. it takes him back to his parents and reminds him constantly of his ancestors. he forms his ideas of justice in his economic experiences. his ultimate conviction as to the goodness or the badness of the world are the outgrowth of his experience in getting a living. therefore his economic life is his wrestle with nature and with society. it generates in him all the religion he has. i suppose it was for this reason that jesus said "i am come that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly." probably his meaning was economic, in part, in the saying, "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god." the quest of a living is a satisfaction of successive economic wants, of which bread is but the first. every truth that mankind knows involves men in an economic want. education is one of the most general wants. it comes in the series somewhat later than bread. the love of music is an economic want, which comes generally later than education. but both are a part of a living. i believe that the quest of education and the love of music are religious, just as much as the desire for daily bread. one might enumerate the whole series of economic wants, to satisfy which is to live, but religion is the total of the reflections, and the complex of customs which result from the lifelong quest for a living among common folk. at its highest it is expressed by st. augustine, "o god, thou hast made us for thyself, and our souls are not at rest until we find ourselves in thee." bread is the first economic want, and god is the greatest and the last. economic wants among common folk are usually the source of religious feeling. few people desire to be rich; a lesser number strive to get wealth; and very few attain a fortune. the most of men seek and get a living. the best of men, and the most religious, are those whose economic experience brings them a series of satisfactions, beginning with bread, clothing, shelter, education in the essentials, music and a little aesthetic culture, and gradually extending into higher forms of human enjoyment. the simplest religious craving is for economic assurance of supply. "the lord is my shepherd: i shall not want," is on the most thumbed page of the bible. the play of these economic aspirations among poor people results in all the simpler and most general religious feelings. with the rise of the aspirations of the individual, and the ideals of the group, toward higher satisfactions, the religious experiences should become nobler, more refined. the penniless college student who prays for an education should be a nobler worshipper than the fisherman who asks his mud-divinity for a good catch. the group of oberammergau players who present the passion play, a highly complex satisfaction of wants, should be nobler believers and worshippers than herdsmen who out on the hills pray for the increase of their flocks and for a better price for wool. communities differ from one another according to the living which they supply, or the wants which they satisfy. modern men will not live in a community that does not satisfy a pretty long series of wants. for instance, a graduate of the american common schools will desire bread, clothing, shelter--all of comfortable quality--and education for his children better than his own, musical enjoyment, aesthetic culture, the possession of some books, access to many magazines and the reading of a daily paper; and varied opportunities for the exercise of the play spirit. the country community satisfies, in most of the united states, only the first of these. it is a place for securing food, clothing and shelter of a comfortable sort. country people have in the past ten years secured also a better supply of reading matter. almost all the rest of the series is lacking. the reason for the rural exodus is in the most of cases the quest of education and of music, the craving for aesthetic culture, and the desire for recreation. country towns and small cities therefore have come to be centers of education, of amusement and of "culture." they are the first step upward on the series of economic satisfaction. men who have made some money on the farm "move into town," for the satisfaction of the later wants in the series. none of these wants is itself sinful, for all of them make up life. they are the steps on the way from bread to god. the business of the teacher and preacher of religion is to know the wants of his people: study those which are satisfied in his community, and so to build the community that for most of its people and for the most desirable people, all the vital necessities of life shall be satisfied, in the community in which the desire for bread is satisfied. the problem of amusement exhibits these principles clearly. farming is austere, and few farming communities have recreation adequate to the demand of the young people and the working people who live on the farms. agriculture is becoming more systematic and more exacting in its demands: and systematic work creates a demand for organized play. as this demand is not satisfied in the country--indeed it is less generally satisfied now than in former times--the youth and workingman from farming communities go to the towns and larger villages for amusement. these centers of population have a disproportionate burden therefore of cheap vaudeville shows, saloons, professional baseball games, and moving-pictures. these amusements are, to a degree, abnormal in character because those who enjoy them are away from their home community, and are suffering a reaction from pent-up desires. just as the lumberman or cowboy or sailor when he comes to town "tears loose and paints the town red," so, in a milder degree, the farmer's son or hired man, because he has at home no recreations supplied by his church or school, patronizes in the town or small city a cheaper and nastier theatre than one would expect to find either in that town, or in his home community. the remedy is to make the country community adequate to the wants of those who live there. the church should promote recreation. the public school should supply entertainment of a high standard, both to satisfy the play instinct and to elevate the youth's ideals of amusement. the community which works should be dependent on no other community for play. common-school education is a function which country communities have surrendered to the centers of population. the one-room country school has long been inadequate; but the farmer has not improved it, preferring to rely upon the town schools to which he will remove his family after he has made enough money on the farm. i am told that about crete, nebraska, a recent census revealed that half the normal child population is missing from the country districts; and double the normal child population is found in crete. the quest of adequate schooling explains the condition, which speaks ill for the country community of nebraska. in all these cases religious service consists in completing the community. the supply of wants, which are widely and keenly felt, is a religious act. this has been the reason for the success of the du page presbyterian church in illinois.[ ] the minister, mr. mcnutt, in a religious spirit so well supplied the recreative life needed in the community, that the community has been made whole. just as jesus made sick or maimed men whole, as a religious act, so the community builder who supplies to working farmers something besides labor on the land, is making the community whole. the perfecting of the common school system in mcnabb, by mr. john swaney and other friends, and in rock creek by mr. r. e. bone and other presbyterians, was a religious act for their communities in illinois. the farmers who have money can move to the town, but to complete the country community is to satisfy the economic wants of the poor. the wants of the poor are always of religious value. moreover, the satisfaction of all wants in the community itself is a moral gain. if individuals live this life in the bounds to which their group and family associations are confined, the steadying influence of society is at its greatest. jacob riis[ ] noted among immigrants the working of a lower sense of obligation due to absence from accustomed home associations. communities are compacted of the strongest moral bonds. if churches would make men righteous they cannot do better than to complete the community, especially in the country, as a place to live in: making it a place for education as well as profit: of play as well as work, of worship as well as of material comfort. unfortunately churches in the country are too often recruiting stations for the cities and colleges. the ministers are respectable pullers-in for the city show. nothing rejoices them so much as to help their young men and women find a position in the city; unless it be to have a bright lad or girl go off to college. when a country minister was reminded that all these departures weakened the country community, and that very few of them benefitted the lad or girl who goes to the city, he replied "you cannot blame them; there is nothing here to keep them." "the rural exodus" has had its moses in the rural college student, its aaron in the country minister, and its miriam in the country school teacher. these three have led a generation out of the country to perish in the wilderness. for only a pitiful few of those who leave the country come to prominence in the city. the most gain but a poor living there, and very many go to ruin. the church should be the savior of the community, as her master is of the soul. it seems to me that this is done in a church in ottumwa, iowa, of which dr. w. h. hormell is minister. it is in a stock-yards district, and the daily occupation of many of the members is unclean, of some revolting. but the church is a dynamo of spiritual forces. it supplies the experiences most opposite to those of the slaughter-house. a half-dozen chapels in surrounding neighborhoods, most of them in the country, are outposts of the church, for each of which a superintendent is responsible: and thus a man who is an underling at the slaughter-house is a leader in the quest of eternal life. the whole company of workers with the pastor, constitute a spiritual cabinet of the district. it is not surprising that this church fascinates men. the minister cannot be persuaded away, and a like devotion pervades his group of workers. the intensity of the industrial labor is matched by the intensity of bible study, prayer and evangelism. the degradation and repulsion of the leading industry of the place are equalled by the unworldly nobility and optimism of the leading church. this church does not attempt to mend the community--which might be found impossible--but only to serve the community by supplying the satisfaction for spiritual wants. according to the law of diminishing returns, the first satisfactions of any want have infinite value. what does this mean but that they have religious value? the first drink of water to a famished man calls forth a fervent "thank, god." the first book printed is a bible. the first landing on american soil was a solemn religious occasion--and still is for the immigrant. so the first gains of money are of religious value to the poor. the first hundred dollars to a mechanic's family is invested in a dozen benefits. the first thousand dollars which a working farmer saves go into a home, a piano or books, or an education for a child. it is all moral and spiritual good. later thousands have diminishing moral and spiritual values. most of the churches and homes in america were paid for out of the tithes of men and women who owned at the time a margin of less than a thousand dollars. this is the reason for the religious character of economic life. the most of people spend their lives with less than a thousand dollars. they are poor, and money does them good, not harm. they need to know how to use it. but the getting of their living is a process prolific in religious feeling, because economic matters have to them the infinite value of first satisfactions of all the simplest wants of life. the salvation of the community will be accomplished in satisfying the higher wants of those whose lower wants are satisfied. for those who "have made money" supply schools; for those who work supply recreation; for the sick hospitals; for the invalid build sanitariums; and for all men supply social life, the greatest need of human life on earth. for those who are thus united to the community, and to one another in the intricate network of associations, the opportunity of worship together, and of sharing common spiritual interests becomes the highest economic want. footnotes: [footnote : "i come that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."--jesus, in john : .] [footnote : "modern methods in the country church," by matthew brown mcnutt.] [footnote : "the making of an american," by jacob riis.] vii the community the country community is defined by the team haul. people in the country think of the community as that territory, with its people, which lies within the team haul of a given center. very often at this center is a church, a school and a store, though not always, but always the country community has a character of its own.[ ] social customs do not proceed farther than the team haul. imitation, which is an accepted mode of social organization, does not go any farther in the country than the customary drive with a horse and wagon. the influence of leading rural personalities does not extend indefinitely in the country, but disappears at the boundary of the next community. intimate knowledge of personalities is confined to the community and does not pass beyond the team haul radius. within this radius all the affairs or any individual are known in minute detail; nobody hopes to live a life apart from the knowledge of his neighbors; but beyond the community, so defined, this knowledge quickly disappears. men's lives are housed and their reputations are encircled by the boundary of the team haul. the reason for this is economic and social. the life of the countryman is lived within the round of barter and of marketing his products. the team haul which defines the community is the radius within which men buy and sell. it is also the radius within which a young man becomes acquainted with the woman he is to marry. it is the radius of social intercourse. within this radius of the team haul families are accustomed to visit with ten times the frequency with which they pass outside this radius. indeed, for most of them, one might say that social intercourse is a hundred times as frequent within the team haul as without it. the average man would define the community as "the place where we live." this definition contains every essential element, locality, personal and social relations, and vital experiences. the community is that complex of economic and social processes in which individuals find the satisfactions not supplied in their homes. the community is the larger social whole outside the household; a population complete in itself for the needs of its residents from birth to death. it is a man's home town. this conception of the community as a vital common possession explains the relation of religious, educational, ethical, economic institutions to one another. the community is the clearing-house of all these influences. it is the medium by which they exchange with one another, in the interest of human life. the perfection of this exchange and the abundance of communal influences makes the community good and desirable, or poor and undesirable. sometimes one says that the community is "a good place to live in." when it is ample for the needs of individual lives men move into it, and the average man finds there a contented and satisfied life. the decay of the community is indicated by the departure of individuals and of families in quest of a better centre for the supply of vital human needs. some go to make more money elsewhere, some depart for educational advantages and some move away because social life is lacking or religious privileges are not suitable. but these four vital essentials, economic, ethical, educational and religious, make up the elements in the community's service to the individual. the community is sometimes corrupted by vicious principles in its construction; and then its members are in proportion defective. it produces in excessive degree idiots, blind, deformed, neurotic, insane or criminal individuals. the community, thus defined, is normally furnished with certain institutions essential to the life of the people. in earlier days the community was sufficient unto itself. very little was imported. everything for use in the community was raised therein and manufactured in the households. a system of exchange gradually was effected through the country store. the country store of in duchess county, new york, had an amazing relation to a wide population. the radius of the life dependent upon it was the same as the radius around the quaker meeting, beside which this store was placed, and all the goods used in the community with few exceptions were produced and manufactured in this radius of the team haul of ten miles.[ ] nowadays the country community has normally a store, a blacksmith shop, a church and a school. in the recent past certain classes of peddlers regularly visited the country community, though their place in the rural economy is diminishing. the country store in many communities is already closed and its maintenance is surrounded with increasing difficulty. so long, however, as the horse drawn vehicle is the type of transportation in the country, the elements of the country community must remain substantially the same.[ ] the economic life of the community is necessarily a part of the general economic life of the population as a whole. the world economy has in the past hundred years, with the perfection of the means of transportation, taken the place of the communal economy. in every country community was obliged to manufacture its own raw products so far as possible within its own limits. in it was no longer profitable for even a country community to do so. the result is that the economic life of the community is usually expressed in a specified industry to which the whole community is primarily devoted. if it be a rural community this organization takes the form of a "money crop." in the corn belt there are other products raised from the soil besides corn, but the world economy assigns to that fertile section the producing of corn as the most profitable and the simplest task. in the coal region it tends to the highest efficiency for the labor of the region to be concentrated upon the supply of this fuel, although in addition the surface of the soil may be cultivated and in the larger population centers other industries are coming in to exploit the superfluous labor. none of these competes with the primacy of the coal industry, which the world economy assigns to that community. it is essential that in every community there should be one or more industries by which men may live. it tends to the highest well-being of the community, that is, to its possession of a maximum of vital attraction for individuals, that this industry should supply a variety of sources of income; that is, wages, profits and interest. if the community can retain in its own bounds the owners of its industries, at least in some numbers, and the capitalists whose wealth is invested in these industries, it is of great service. if it can make life attractive for wage-earners in these industries, the completeness of that community has its testimonial in this variety and wealth of attraction. the weakness of many american communities is shown in their inability to retain within their bounds the owners of the businesses and the employers of labor. the ideal character of some communities in massachusetts is due to the fact that in the same streets there daily meet capitalists, superintendents, foremen and wage-earners who are alike interested in the local industries. this power of the community to attract and hold individual lives, supplying them with the vital necessities for which the individual craves, is dependent in america upon educational institutions more than upon any other factor. the french philosopher desmoulin has said that the anglo-saxon supremacy is due to the anglo-saxon love of the land and of education. the american represents these two passions, and of the two the love of education is at present, the stronger. the community which is weak in its schools will not hold its people. the generation who at present are the largest owners of american wealth are eager for educational advantage: and the incoming stream of immigration promises that in the days to come this craving for education will not diminish, but will increase. the country community has been peculiarly weak in its educational facilities, by a strange dullness and inertia due to the economic prostration of the farming industry. for the two decades following the country schools have failed to keep pace with the city schools. prof. foght says, "while the public attention has been centered on work and plans for the improvement of the city schools a great factor for or against the public weal has been sadly neglected. this is the rural school. one-half of our entire school population attend the rural schools, which are still in the formative stage. the country youth is entitled to just as thorough a preparation for thoughtful and intelligent membership in the body politic as is the city youth. the state, if it is wise, will not discriminate in favor of the one as against the other, but will adjust its bounties in a manner equitable to the needs of both. heretofore the rural schools have received very little attention from organized educational authority."[ ] the effect of this neglect of the country school in the face of the constructive statesmanship which has led in perfecting the city school is seen in the exodus from the country community of very large numbers of the most successful farmers. evidences are abundant that this exodus from the country community is primarily a quest of educational advantage. not in every case would the departing family confess that they were seeking better schools: but it is probable that the majority of them while giving a variety of primary reasons for moving would assign the desire for education as the uniform secondary reason for departing from the country community. it is impossible for the country church to retain its best ministers. many reasons enter into this, but always at the top of the list is the desire for better educational opportunities for the ministers' children. the advice has become proverbial in theological seminaries, "go to the country for five years." it is said that in new england there are three classes of country ministers and the first of them is the bright young man who will not long be in the country. the ethical, sometimes called the social factor in the community's life, is no less essential. organized work requires organized recreation. every community which has a systematic economy by which its residents get their living is found to have a systematic though usually informal and unrecognized provision for recreation. somewhere in the bounds of every working town in america is a playground. it is not the result of "the playground movement," but of the play necessity in human nature. the open lots where the town is not built up, the railroad yard, the yard of a factory or the town common are used by common consent by the young people and the working-people of the town as a playground. the departure of many persons from country communities is due to the lack of social life: and the fascination of the city for bright and energetic young men and women is due to the variety of recreation and interest which it provides to those who expect to work and are willing to work. regular work means regular play. this fact cannot be too well learned by those who study the religious and moral life of modern men. the need of play is as real as the need of food or of sleep. this recreational life is highly ethical. the craving of the young and of working-people for common places of recreation is a normal craving due to the development of conscience as well as to weariness of body. the exactions of modern labor create a craving for free and voluntary movement. those who are hired to work, and those who if they are employers are bound to the routine of the desk or of the bench, seek to breathe deeply the air of happy and self-expressive action. the result is that play, especially team work, is highly moral. it is not only personal and self-expressive, but it involves co-operation, self-surrender, obedience and the correlation of one's own life with other lives in a glorious complex of experiences, unexampled elsewhere in modern life for their ethical value in developing adolescent minds in the common humanities and moralities. the playground is an essential field in the preparation of good citizens and it is not to be wondered at that in country communities, where all provision of recreation is difficult, and no public provision of playgrounds is thought of by those in authority, that young people and working people, indeed all classes of the population, tend to move away. the religious attraction of the community has just as real a value for the satisfaction of individual life as the economic or ethical or the educational. "mankind is incurably religious," and the life from birth to death cannot be complete in average cases without religious experience. indeed the conscious testimony of men to the community's religious value for them is greater than any of the others. religious experience is indeed a form of community conscience. to many men the church and the community are one. we cannot within our definition grant this; but the testimony to the religious character of the country community is a classic in american thought. the early days of every community are hopeful and optimistic. the tendency has been therefore for each religious communion to establish its own church. these early protestant churches were expressions of the community sense on behalf of these people. the average american can best think of the community in terms of a church and a school. for building up the community, therefore, the maintenance of religious institutions is essential. we are concerned in these chapters most of all with the american community in the country. not because it is more important, but because it is easier to understand and affords a better model for interpreting other communities more complex and highly organized. in it one may see the processes which affect the town and city communities; shifting of population, economic changes, educational improvement or retrogression and the processes of social life which express themselves in moral conditions. the community is the field in which may be observed the prosperity of the people as a whole. it is the local exhibit in which the average man shows what has come to pass throughout the commonwealth as a whole. american rural communities have been under the influence of swift and sudden changes during the years of railroad development. this is exhibited in the country community very clearly. there almost all the causes which are at work in the city are seen and their operation is easier to observe and to measure than in a city community. it is the general impression that the country community has suffered greatly though the loss of population. this is probably due to the diminishing agricultural activity of the country. thirty-four counties in ohio are producing less than the same counties were producing before the civil war. it is natural that the population of these counties should be on the whole smaller than at that time. but it is more probable that the social, educational and moral life of the people of these counties who stayed in the country is slacker and less vigorous than in . sometimes the population of a community remains stationary but the economic weakness expresses itself in a retarded social, ethical and religious life. there is high authority for the statement that the sifting of the country community in recent years has on the whole improved it. wilbert l. anderson says, "if this emigration of the best were the whole story, it would be impossible to refute the charge of degeneracy. there is, however, another aspect of the matter. the industrial revolution has put a pressure upon rural life that is more important even than the attraction of cities. that pressure has aggravated the severity of the struggle for existence, and this grinding of the mill of evolution has crushed the weaker strata of the population. among those who have gone are laborers and their families, the owners and occupants of the poorest lands--the famous abandoned farms, and the weaklings and dependents. many of these have swollen the crowds of the factory towns; others have supplied unskilled labor to the cities; in not a few cases they have gone to their destruction in the slums, where residues of decadent folk finally disappear. the human material that was most susceptible to alcohol has gone into the mills of the gods. when all is summed up, the clearance at the bottom is not less significant than the loss at the top of the social scale. natural selection works as effectually in toning up the species by weeding out the worst as 'natural selection reversed' works for degeneracy through the removal of the best. this purgation has been overlooked; whether it offsets the injury in the highest stratum is a fair question, but obviously no man is wise enough to answer it. the opinion may be hazarded that when the two influences are compounded, it will be found that the average child has moved but a little way up or down the scale. this is a local question to which there are as many answers as communities. the net result of these changes is a gain in homogeneousness; in the country town the dream of equality is nearer realization to-day than ever before."[ ] it is the writer's belief that, allowing for local variation, this statement is the best generalization of the condition throughout the country. the rural population has been specialized. the country community is finding its own kind of people. it has not yet, through suitable institutions, learned to cultivate its problems and to train its own leaders. that is precisely what will be accomplished through the building up of the country community with which we are here concerned. but already the country population is homogeneous and is selected with a view to fitness for the environment of the rural community. as the city is breeding its own stock, who are possessed with the problem of city life and devoted to the interests of the city, so the country in the shifting of modern populations is coming to have its own kind of people; among whom the problems of the country community are beginning to be discussed and the interests of the country community are being provided for by suitable organizations. the building of communities, therefore, will provide the positive agencies requisite for the needs of the present population in the country. the purpose of those who serve the country population shall be the construction of suitable institutions by which country life shall be made worth while. these institutions must be economic, for the securing of prosperity to country people, social institutions which shall build up their moral character and life, educational institutions whereby the problems of country life shall be understood in the light of all human life, and religious institutions which shall crown the life of country people with hope and animate the individual with the spirit of self-sacrifice on behalf of all the people of the community and of the world. the church should be a community center. there may be other centers of the community where other functions are assembled, but the church should lift up her eyes to the horizon in which she lives and comprehend all the people in her service and affection. this does not mean that they shall all be members of that church. the community spirit is itself growing. frequently the country community has attained a unity which the churches ignore. for the church to become a community center means that it represents in itself the united life of the people. whatever be their common interest that interest dwells in the church. in hernando, mississippi, the people are united. the interest of one is the concern of all. under the leadership of the families of old land-owners the whole community responds to common impulses and is organized under common ideals. no poor child of either a white or a negro household is neglected or is overlooked. yet in this community churches have no federation and ministers have no regular means of working together. a charity organization was recently formed in this community as an organ by which the community should care for its poorer members. this society was formed outside of the churches, no one of which had the right to be a center for the community. it is true that ministers and members of these churches were leaders in this community enterprise, but the churches as organizations were not a part of it, although its purposes are purely christian. prof. alva agee insists that "the country church does not serve the community's needs as the community sees those needs." his meaning is that when a community enterprise is to be launched the promoter of it finds it necessary in the country to avoid the churches, lest his enterprise be entangled in their differences. he is embarrassed also by their lack of a community spirit. frequently the same persons who to the church contribute no community spirit are in the community itself leaders of common enterprises. in contrast to these conditions the instance of du page church at plainfield, illinois, of which rev. matthew b. mcnutt was recently the minister, exhibits the power of a country church to make itself the center of a whole community. this church, which in a year became famous throughout the land, has earned its repute by ten years of devoted service of its minister and the growing affection and union of its people. the church serves so well the social needs of the community that a social hall once popular has been closed and three granges in succession have attempted to organize in the community and have failed. yet du page church is passionately devotional and intensely missionary. its social life is but a legitimate expression of its community sense. the minister and his people have had the power to see and to inspire a common life among the people in the countryside. this chapter has been intended as a definition of the country community. its radius is the team haul, because the horse has been the means of transportation in the country. the community is the round of life in which the individual in the country passes his days: it is his larger home. the definition of this greater household of the country must be flexible, but however it be defined, it is the characteristic unit of social organization among country people. the map of the united states outside the great cities is made up of little societies bordering sharply upon one another, differing from one another socially and religiously. these little societies are the proper fields in which the life of the church and the school is lived. of these small societies the church and the school are the expressions. in church and school the country community has its highest life. footnotes: [footnote : the author expresses his indebtedness for this definition to dr. willet m. hays of the department of agriculture at washington.] [footnote : quaker hill, by warren h. wilson.] [footnote : professor c. j. galpin of university of wisconsin has done precise work of great value, in defining the country community, as it centers in the village. see his pamphlet, "a method of making a social survey of the rural community," a bulletin of the agricultural experiment station of the university of wisconsin.] [footnote : "the american rural school," by harold w. foght.] [footnote : "the country town," by wilbert l. anderson, d.d.] viii the margin of the community the change of ethical consciousness among church people in recent years takes the form of a transference of interest from the individual to the community. the literature of religious and ethical thought is full of appeal to "serve the community." the working out of any religious or ethical force in modern society is guided by the closely compacted and highly organic character of present-day social life. in the old times in america, which have so recently gone, men were of one class; the community was homogeneous; universal acquaintance prevailed. the unit of value in american life until recent years was the successful man, because we faced a continent unexplored. unpossessed commercial resources were before the people. the standard of the time of horace greeley was the standard of individual success, of initial utility. the town boasted of the man it had "turned out." the church measured its value by the rich and benevolent farmer or merchant, and by the individuals whose piety or literary success seemed to express the life of the church. there was an opportunity for all, because crude resources, numberless openings offered themselves to every one who had character, industry and brains. within a decade the american people have become conscious that their resources are numbered. the free lands of the west are assigned. the tons of coal under the ground are estimated. the amount of timber, of copper and of iron still unexploited is known, and public discussion is centered upon the limits to the growth of the american population, and the possibilities of more economical organization of life. we can no longer waste as once we could. the problem is now a problem of economy. instead of the standards of a time of plenty we are confronted with problems of bare subsistence. in times of plenty, when resources are not yet exhausted, men's lives diverge and the individual is the unit of thought and feeling. the natural result of a time of plenty is the development and the endowment of personality. but in times when a bare subsistence is the condition with which many are confronted, men are drawn together and the community becomes the unit of thought and feeling. industry as it matures brings men together. it becomes evident that they depend upon one another. men who in a time of plenty would seek an independent fortune, under conditions of bare subsistence are contented to secure employment and to become dependent upon others. the problems of subsistence open opportunities for exploitation and the stronger become related to great numbers of weaker members of the community. thus men's lives are intensified, and the conditions out of which thought and feeling arise are social conditions rather than individual. the country community under these circumstances rises into new significance. in the early pioneer days the country community for a similar reason was much in thought and feeling, because then men were seeking a bare subsistence in the contest with nature. this consciousness was lost as soon as the pioneer days were past and the abundance of nature began to enrich mankind instead of antagonizing him. now, again, the country community has come into prominence because men are confronted with a struggle to maintain an acceptable standard of living. in dealing with a social whole, to accomplish certain purposes one must deal with it in social terms. social service is not quantitative, but qualitative. ministry to a community is not uniformly applied to all the members. in social service there is no such thing as equality of all the population. the differing values of men in a social population are determined, as other values are measured, by the working of the law of diminishing returns. roughly stated, this law is that successive additions of any valued thing bring ever diminished returns. the first quantity of anything is of infinite value. for later increments the value is measurable, and ever less with the increase. the application of this law in economics is stated as follows by professor john bates clark: "labor, as thus applied to land, is subject to a law of diminishing returns. put one man on a quarter section of land, containing prairie and forest, and he will get a rich return. two laborers on the same ground will get less per man; three will get still less; and, if you enlarge the force to ten, it may be that the last man will get wages only." "modern studies of value, show that doses of consumer's goods, given in a series to the same person have less and less utility per dose. the final utility theory of value rests on the same principle as does the theory of diminishing returns from agriculture; and this principle has a far wider range of new applications." "we have undertaken to generalize the law that is at the basis of the theory of value. in reality, it is all-comprehensive. the first generalization to be made consists in applying the law, not to single articles, but to consumers' wealth in all its forms. the richer man becomes, the less can his wealth do for him. not only a series of goods that are all alike, but a succession of units of wealth itself, with no such limitation, on its forms, becomes less and less useful per unit. give to a man not coats, but 'dollars,' one after another, and the utility of the last will still be less than that of any other. the early dollars feed, clothe and shelter the man, but the last one finds it hard to do anything for him."[ ] by this law successive deposits of immigrants and successive gains in the american population are reducing the valuation of men for religious, moral and educational use. the first man in any historic experience is of infinite value. the first american, columbus, will be famous forever, but not because of any talents or enterprises of his. as a matter of fact he blundered in discovering america and died ignorant of the feat he had actually accomplished. but because he was the first white man on a new continent he had infinite historical value. when the early europeans were increased to ten or to one thousand each of them entered into fame, though men like john smith were commonplace enough in their performances. their fame is measurable, but still great. when the number of americans was increased to eight millions everyone thought himself a great citizen, the founder of a family and a potential millionaire. those were still the days of exceptional personality. the type of man in those times was the landowner, the pioneer and the statesman. but now there are ninety million americans, all the valuable lands are assigned, all the best positions are filled, every job is taken, and ten million of the population are concerned about the problem of daily bread. these ten million people are the marginal americans. they are breadwinners, and the breadwinner is the unit of value on whom the standard of american social and religious life is measured. so far as there can be an american type on whom policies in public life are measured, that type is today the breadwinner. in the city the breadwinner is a working man or an immigrant. in the country the marginal man is the tenant farmer; or a working farmer, though he be the owner. the marginal man represents the value of all men in the community. the law of diminishing returns works in the factory for fixing the wages in any scale which prevails throughout a level of pay. it is equally efficient in leveling men in the community. the employer does not pay the working man on any level of wages in accordance with the value of the few brilliant, trusty or inventive men in that group, but he pays each man just that wage which he must offer to the last man he hires. the marginal man standardizes the wage. the religious values of men are standardized not upon the brilliant or saintly or accomplished, not upon the well-to-do members of the community, but upon the poor who are just able to stand and maintain themselves in the life of that community. the working of this law is not a matter of persuasion. it is the inflexible condition with which religious and ethical institutions are confronted. churches should therefore estimate their policies by the responses of the marginal people of the community. religious standards of value should be measured by final utility, not initial utility. the complaint against the church today is reducible to this: that she standardizes her ideals and her policies in accordance with the prosperous and well-to-do. the eloquence and the character of her ministers, the kind of music with which god is worshipped, the comfortable pews, the carpets on the floor, are all of them unlike the public hall which is supported by the dues of the poor. the taste expressed in church matters is rather literary and aesthetic than popular. the church which would appeal to the whole community must standardize her work upon the poor man, and make her appeal to him. this principle is not only scientifically correct, but it works out in practise. a minister who came into a well organized country community, where there were a few land-holders, many tenants and numbers of farm lands, found that the only appeal by which the whole community could be reached was an appeal directed to the marginal people in the community. when he sought the tenant farmer, he secured with him the land-holder, and when he went after the hired man on the farm, he secured the farmer who employed him. when he gained the adherence of the boys and girls he secured the support of their parents, and when he rendered service to little children, he could safely rely upon the gratitude and loyalty of their mothers and fathers. this was the kind of work which jesus did. he frankly made a selection of the people to whom he should minister.[ ] he knew no phrases about all men being equal, and he made no profession of impartiality such as today causes many ministers to loiter among the well-to-do, who care not for them. jesus said he had no time to spend with well people, because he was sent to the sick. but the philosophy of his action was seen in the fact that when he ministered to the sick he himself helped the well. he "preached the gospel to the poor," but not because he had any prejudice against the rich. by ministering to the poor he applied his gospel to the margin of the community. that gospel has been of equal value to the rich man, because the spiritual experiences of the poor are the experience also of the rich. the modern minister who goes after rich men specifically, or who goes after them with the same vigor with which he seeks the poor, will receive but a grudging welcome. but if he awakens the gratitude and support of the poor, he will find himself sought by the rich, and sustained by their abundant gifts. mr. gilbert k. chesterton, the english critic, has somewhere finely said that the master in his words to simon peter, "thou art peter, and upon this rock i will build my church," clearly recognized that peter was a shuffler and a weakling and a coward and it was upon just such common material that the church was founded. it was not to be an aristocratic organization. its foundations were not laid upon skill and genius in human character, but upon the weaker and commonplace traits, which universal mankind possesses. so definite was the appeal of jesus to the marginal people of his time, that he has been twice criticized unjustly; once in his own time by the pharisees, and again in our time by the socialists. the latter have claimed that jesus was "class conscious," that he was a partisan of the poor, a proletarian radical. the unscientific character of socialism is displayed in this comment upon jesus. his appeal was to the whole community, as through christian history his message has come uniformly to men of all degrees, rich and poor, ignorant and learned, bad and good. the religious genius of jesus is shown in the fact that he recognized what the socialist does not, that to appeal to the whole community a prophet must address his plea to the people on the margin of the community. his measure of value must be final utility. one may go at large into this tempting field in illustrations. the artistic experience of mankind is abundant in illustration of it. there is no beauty of the ocean save in its shores--the margin of the boundless expanse. literary descriptions of the experiences of human love are made up of descriptions of the margins of love. married life is depicted in courtship, and the sentiments of affection are described in scenes of parting and meeting, which are the margins of companionship. this principle should be fundamental in all policies of reconstruction of religious and ethical institutions. in the training of men for religious service and for ethical leadership they should be accustomed to think in terms of communal wholes, and this thinking will use as its units of measure the characteristics of the marginal life. it is for this reason that temperance reform in america has been so influential within the past two decades. it is a communal form of ethics. it demands that the community should act together in safeguarding the weaker members of the community, the young men, and the working people. the old temperance propaganda was individualistist. it recorded its results in the number of persons who signed the pledge. its results were almost as gratifying if the pledges were signed by well-doing and orderly people as if they were signed by drunkards. the modern temperance movement draws its influence from its proposed effect upon the agricultural laborer. the theological seminary of the past has been a literary institution. during the period of its development the typical christian was the bright and aspiring young man in a community of boundless resources. to such a man books are the interpreters of life. but in the modern period with the congested population and close social organization, human fellowship is an experience of greater value to most men than books. since the time of the invention of printing successive quantities of literature have been given to the world, and under the law of diminishing returns literature has come to have for many very small returns. at the time of the protestant reformation the value of books in the hands of the common people was infinite. for several generations along with the extension of universal education this infinite value of books continued for the people on the margin of the educated world. but nowadays everybody in american progressive communities can read and write: and in a universally educated population we arrive at the final utility of books in human use. great masses of poor people and also many people of means use books within narrow limits only. they do not buy them, they do not read them, they do not think in literary terms. yet they have access to books and they turn from them with a clear sense of intelligent preference for other human values. books are to them but an alphabet and social life is the story. my own impression is that the life of the marginal man is social rather than literary. his religion will be a social religion rather than a biblical religion. the weakness of protestantism is that it stubbornly insists upon literary interpretation of god and upon a biblical ministry, while the population around these protestant churches exemplifies the diminished value of literature for spiritual uses. the religious and ethical service of the days to come must interpret the social life of the people. the great mass of the people care as little for wealth as they do for books. the same argument as to the diminished returns of literature may be repeated to describe the diminished returns of private property. the economic revolution since feudal days has exhausted the values of private property in satisfying human need. the time was when property had an infinite value for expressing personality. in days to come private property will still have this value for many individuals. but among common folks generally private property does not seem to have boundless value for human satisfaction. working men as i have known them do not take pains to get rich. they know the way to wealth by economy and accumulation, but they do not take it. they have a vast preference for the social intercourse, friendly interchanges and mutual dependence by which their life is refreshed, strengthened and sustained. ethical policies of the future while using literature and private property as efficient implements must interpret social life itself as a flowing spring of religion and morality. the training of religious and ethical leaders should be undertaken in the theological seminary and in the university in such manner as to standardize the influence of these institutions, by the life not of the exceptional man, but of the common man. the influence of educated men must be used to reconstruct churches and societies upon the standards not of the wealthy, the learned, the genius and the well-to-do, but by the experiences of the poor, the workingman and the immigrant. the standard in all religious and ethical institutions which profess to represent the community is today graded up to the professional and exceptional. the reconstruction necessary is to grade down so that the appeal shall be to the poor and struggling man whose condition is in jeopardy, and whose status in the community is as yet undetermined. institutions which appeal to the community as a whole must standardize their policy to the level of the margin of the community. the reconstruction of the theological seminaries is necessary, if they are to fit men for service in communities. they render now a service which is so valuable that one cannot pass over them lightly. they train the candidate for the ministry by a process which develops and engages his piety. other university courses either ignore his religious feeling, or if they develop it, do not harness it to the task of social improvement. the theological seminary lays the yoke of service upon the neck of prayer. this alone justifies its existence as a servant of the church in the community. however, the instruction in the seminary is rigidly grouped around courses in dead languages; which are jealous of instruction in a living tongue. the history of discarded doctrines and of discredited teachers is minutely taught through months, to the exclusion of courses upon modern, living people, whose religious experience is rich and striking. the purpose of seminary instruction is personal culture instead of efficiency. it is the theory of the teachers wherein they disagree with all other professional teachers, that "we do not make preachers: the lord makes them." they try therefore to impart culture and personal distinction. the seminaries need first of all flexibility of courses. the whole traditional schedule should be made elective. the demands of the time would then have free course in the seminary, and would rearrange the instruction according to actual present need. the cultivation of practical piety should receive more attention. the social life of the students, in close association with their professors and under religious stimuli, should be made a more powerful force than it usually is, in creating a common ideal of service to which the seminary should commit itself. above all, the seminary of theology should teach sociology and economics, as a religious interpretation. students should after a year's class-room work be made to investigate and report upon actual conditions, should be delegated to study social movements, report upon them, and to lead in discussing them. they should be trained in the use of statistics, in graphic display of conditions, and in the use of public reports. in the senior year they should be employed definitely in practical work for populations, under instructors. after graduation the young minister should, more generally than now, be employed as an assistant to an older minister, in a large organization. the influence of such social training would itself reform seminary instruction. thrust into a present-day curriculum, social science is a foreign and alien intruder; but its value would soon be demonstrated and other courses would be made over in new harmony with it. if some courses be dropped, even if whole chairs be abandoned, it is better than that the whole theological seminary be abandoned by students--which is the apparent fate hanging over certain seminaries! what has here been said is true of the schools of theology in all denominations, and applies alike to both the conservative and the liberal. in conclusion, the writer believes that the church's future is with the self-respecting poor. jesus and nearly every leader of a great religious movement was of the poor and labored with the poor. the sources of religion are those named in the beatitudes: poverty, meekness, sorrow, hunger, ostracism; and those are all social experiences. the service of the church should be to these; and in serving the marginal people, whose life is composed of the beatitudes, the church will serve all men. footnotes: [footnote : "the distribution of wealth," by john bates clark.] [footnote : luke, : ff; : ff.] ix newcomers in the community one general cause is bringing new people into the average country community. the exploitation of land expresses the transition from the period of the land farmer to that of the scientific farmer or husbandman. the signs of this exploitation are the retirement of farmers from the land, the incoming of new owners in some numbers and of tenant farmers in a large degree, into the country community. the influence of the absentee landlord begins to be felt in communities in which the landowner was until the only type. in most of the older states immigration from foreign lands has not greatly affected the country community. in wisconsin, minnesota and other states of the northwest substantial sections of the community are invaded by people of sturdy germanic and norse extraction. in new england the poles, french, portuguese and some jews are settling in the country. but throughout the states of the union as a whole the population, both the newcomers and older stock, are american. the dates of this exploitation of land are, generally, from onward. reference is made elsewhere to the description of this process in the middle west.[ ] independent of these causes the same process has appeared in the south, in georgia, mississippi and in west tennessee, as well as other states. in sections in which the values of land have not been doubled, as in illinois and in indiana they have, the same exodus from the farm and invasion of the country community by new people has taken place. one cause of this exploitation of land is the shrinkage in size of the older families. everywhere the exploitation of land is the greatest where the soil is the richest and the farmers the most prosperous. even in the exceptional populations such as the scotch presbyterians and pennsylvania germans, this effect of agricultural prosperity is slowly at work. in chester county, pennsylvania, and in washington county, where the most substantial farmers in the country are found, the families in the present generation are small. many of the older stock have no children. families which have retained the title of their land for eight generations are losing their hold upon the soil, by the fact that they have none to inherit after them. another cause of this exploitation of land is the increasing number of small farms in certain regions. this means that in certain sections the farming population has a new element, for the holders of these small farms are many of them new to the community. the process, which is made clear by the census of , is this. the earlier retirement from the farms was by sale, the farmer taking money instead of land. the second stage of retirement from the farm was through absentee landlordism and the placing of tenants on the farm. this process has come to an end in many sections of the middle west, with the return of the sons of the landlord to the family acres in the country, so that there is a sort of rhythm in the flow of population from the country into the town and backward to the land. in this process there is no invasion by new people, except the temporary residence of the tenant farmer in the country, and some of these have in the process gained a footing by ownership of land. but this ebb and flow of population out of the country community and back again has weakened and strained the country church and school and has not yet begun to strengthen them. there is every evidence that with a pleasant and agreeable country life the country community can retain the best elements of this population, which comes and goes. the country church and school ought to take measures to retain the best of the country population through these changes. through all these causes the presence of a large proportion of aliens in the community who are american born, but locally unattached by birth or ownership, has effected great changes in the country church, and other community institutions. the state of illinois, which has a tenant farmer population of more than per cent in its richest sections, has suffered severely through the loss of many country churches. there is no precise measure of this loss, but a sociological survey recently made in illinois indicates that in the past twenty years more than fifteen hundred country churches have been abandoned in the state. this statement must be accepted as approximate, but the number is likely to be greater rather than less. this abandonment of country churches has come in the same period in which the proportion of tenant farmers has greatly increased. reference is made elsewhere to a similar condition in the state of delaware, in which the churches of the old land-owners have been abandoned and replaced at heavy expense with poorer churches built by the incoming tenant farmers. everywhere in the united states this process has in some measure affected the country. it does not much matter whether the proportion of tenants is increasing or decreasing, the present effect is one of instability. in new england where in the past ten years tenantry has been diminished ten per cent, the country churches are weakened as elsewhere. the churches have not yet had time to recover while the population is in a state of change. the old order in the country is crumbling. the church is an expression of stability. the people on whom the church always depends for its audiences, its enthusiasm and its largest accessions, are marginal people, working men, adolescent youths and those who are coming to a position in the community. the exodus of these from the country community, or the incoming of persons in these classes into the country community, has been unfavorable to the country church at the present time. it may be said at this point that a state of transition is for the time being unfavorable to ethical and moral growth. moral conditions are sustained by custom, and where customs are in change, moral standards must themselves be in transition. the country community is moral so far as adhering to the standards of the past is concerned. but the population themselves who have to do with the country are undergoing extraordinary moral change, with incidental loss, and many of the problems of the united states as a whole are made more acute by the waste of the country community. among these should be cited the amusement question in the small town, the decadence of the theatre in the cheaper vaudeville, the white slave traffic and the social disorders peculiar to unskilled laborers, many of whom come from country communities of the united states and europe. it must be remembered, too, that the rural free delivery and the telephone have entered the country community in the past twenty years and their effect has not yet been recorded. it has probably been in the direction of chilling instead of warming the social life of the country. the old acquaintance and the intimate social relations of the country community have not been helped by the telephone: and along with the presence of aliens in the community, one-fourth or one-half or three-fourths of the population, the telephone has had the effect of lowering the standards of intimacy and separating the households in the country one from another. the rural free delivery has put country people into the general world economy and for the time being has loosened the bonds of community life. in those states in which the trolley system has been extended into the country, for instance ohio and indiana, the process of weakening the country population has been hastened. sunday becomes for country people a day of visiting the town and in great numbers they gather at the inter-urban stations. the city and town on sunday is filled with careless, hurrying groups of visitors, sight-seers and callers, who have no such fixed interest as that to be expressed in church-going or in substantial social processes. for the time being inter-urban trolley lines have dissipated the life of the country communities. the duty of the church in the country under these conditions can be accomplished only under a widened horizon. the minister and the leaders of the church must lift up their eyes. they need not be discouraged if for the time being they accomplish little, for the period of exploitation must come to an end normally with the exhaustion of its forces, before the better day can come. but this period is one of enlargement. the units of social life will be spaced farther apart. the country community will advance as soldiers say, "in open order." this is true for the family life, in which the father, the mother and the children have greater freedom from one another; as well as in the community, in which neighbors become less intimately dependent on one another. the church must therefore preach the world idea. at this time of transition the country church should undertake its foreign missionary service. the great causes of the kingdom which are world-wide should be presented to country people when they are lifting up their eyes from local confines to look at the world and the city and the nation. as the daily paper comes into the farmer's household the farmer's church should interpret the history of the time in missionary terms. the literature of the great missionary agencies should be distributed in the farm household. wherever the catalogue of the big store in chicago or new york is found on the center table, beside it should be placed a modern book expressive of missionary evangelism. as the mind of the countryman develops to comprehend the world in his daily thought under the impetus of a daily newspaper, his conscience and his religious experience should be expanded correspondingly. in a time of exploitation of land the country church should regenerate its financial system. the system of barter passes away in the day of speculation in farm land; and the country church which can find means to endure the period of exploitation must put its financial system on a new basis. the tenant farmer is crudely striving through problems of scientific agriculture. he may, indeed, be a soil robber, but by his waste of economic values he and other men are learning to conserve. the financial system of the church should be placed at this time on a basis of weekly contribution, for with the tenant farmer comes system, cash payments, regular commercial processes. the business administration of the church must be made to correspond. the country minister and schoolteacher must therefore become prophets of the intellect and of the spirit, in the new order. if they cannot minister to the new intelligence of the farmer and his children, their institutions will necessarily decay. the farmer who succeeds in the new social economy of the country will not endure old sermons which were appropriate in his father's time. the emphasis must not be placed on tradition, but upon inductive study. the preacher must not feed the people on special instances, but upon representative cases. the intelligence of the new type of farmer will not be satisfied with sensations and with the unusual; but he demands to be trained in standards of the new day, when science, system, organization and world economy are making their demands on him and his very soul is concerned in his response to those demands. the task of dealing with newcomers in the country community is educational, financial and recreative. one should add that it is also evangelistic, but i have in mind the possibility that these newcomers may be catholics with whom protestant evangelism will not be successful. it is possible also that they will be of another protestant sect from that of the reader of this chapter, so that to evangelize them would mean proselyting. the writer believes very heartily in rural evangelism. it is an essential process in building the country church. these chapters are devoted primarily to the building of the country community and in that process the securing of members for the country church is preliminary only. leaving, therefore, the question of rural evangelism for treatment in another place, let us take up the educational treatment of the newcomer in the country community. the proper machinery for this education is the common school and the sunday school. as the common school is treated elsewhere, the use of the sunday school in organizing the rural population belongs here. few churches realize the power and value of sunday-school training. i am insisting that the life of country people is religious. the use of the sunday school is to train the young of the community in religion. all country people accept the bible as a holy book. they all believe in the education of their children and in much greater numbers than they will respond for a church service their children will respond to the work of religious culture on sunday at the church. the sunday-school organization is interdenominational. its lessons and its methods are a common heritage of the churches at the present time. the machinery is perfect, but the sunday-school leaders lack vision and they lack the progressive spirit. if only the teachers and ministers realized the value of the sunday school and its acceptance with the people, there would be needed no other machinery for building the country community. the sunday-school should be a close parallel to the day school. if the day school in the community has any progressive features, the sunday school should use these and improve them. between the two there should exist the closest sympathy, not formal or definitely organized, but actual and expressed in parallel lines of work. where the day school is graded, the sunday school should accept the same grading, strongly organizing all its classes. the pupils in the sunday school should pass by successive promotions from teacher to teacher and from grade to grade. if the day school in the country is unprogressive and is taught by a succession of indifferent persons, the sunday school should practise under the guidance of religious leaders those principles of modern pedagogy which should be used in the common schools. graded lessons, the organization of material and progressive development of religious truth from the simpler to the more complex, should find their place in every sunday school. the opportunity for service to the whole community thus offered through the sunday school is excelled by none in the country community. the upper classes of the sunday school should be organized. young men and women especially, who are in danger of finding the sunday school irksome because their intelligence has passed beyond its control, should be organized in classes which on week days have a club or society character. the sunday school should use as an ally their tendency to organization and should satisfy their social needs by giving them regular and approved opportunities for meeting and for pleasure. another principle which the sunday school can practise for the benefit of the community is the centralization of religious teaching. even if the common schools are not centralized, the children for the sunday school should be brought to the church from outlying regions in hired wagons every week. it is better that a large sunday school be maintained under efficient leadership than that a number of small schools with indifferent teachers should be maintained in various school districts. the larger body can have better leadership. it is more closely under the supervision of the minister, who is generally the superior in education of the laymen, and the social value of the meetings of the sunday school will be greater in the larger body. all the arguments which make for the centralization of the day school have force for the consolidation of sunday schools in one large school. the sunday school offers a basis for church federation. in the community it is frequently possible for sunday schools to be united and for the advantages of this common teaching to be made even greater because all the children of the various churches are in one body. the best leadership and the best teachers are thus secured and the community spirit is cultivated through the young people and more loosely attached members of the community. the older classes of the sunday school on a basis of study of the bible should be organized for practical ends. the adult bible class can be made to have all the influence of the grange in the country community. the fathers and mothers of the community may meet throughout the week socially. they may undertake together the study of the economic life of the community. lecturers from the agricultural college, representatives of the play ground movement, of the county work of the y. m. c. a., of historical societies interested in the community's past and other representatives of national movements, may be welcomed and heard by this organized class, the basis of which is religious education. what i am urging may be accomplished by any church in some measure, however divided the community may be. it is the business of the individual church which has a vision of the community as a whole to act as if it were a federation of churches. frequently ministers are in favor of church federation, as if that process were an end in itself. the writer believes that the individual church can accomplish the ends of federation if the union of churches can do so. the best means for effecting federation of churches is to practise the program of federation until it shall come about. the community made up in a degree of new families and the community in which the newcomers are young men and women, children of the residents, are bound to educate these invaders of the community, whether they come from without or whether they come by "birthright membership," in the spirit of benevolence. the giving of money to public uses is one of the cherished social forces of our time. the country community is just entering into the day of cash. the period of barter is over. the farmer therefore needs in his ethical and his religious training, to have definite culture as a philanthropist. the future of the farm-hand in america is still very hopeful. the tenant farmer expects to be an owner. the farmer's son believes himself to have a future. these hopes from earliest years should be disciplined by the practise of giving. for this end the church is a rarely well fitted means. the financial system of the church must be made democratic. the custom of renting pews belonged in the land-farmer period. the writer does not suggest that it be abolished because it can often serve a more democratic purpose in its mature forms under careful supervision than any substitute, but it is all important that the country church be a training-school in the consecration of money to the uses of the community and of the kingdom of god. for the average countryman the kingdom of god should be embodied in the country community. this is not to say that his vision should be narrow. on the contrary his vision is often of the spread-eagle sort. he overlooks the opportunities for benevolence which are near at hand. he believes in foreign missions sometimes, and contributes impulsively to the support of men in china who are paid a better salary than the pastor in his own community. he applauds the gifts of millionaires and of city people generally to hospitals, but he ignores the ravages of disease in his own community. the divine imperative is that the country community be first organized, by those who live there, for local well-being. for this, contributions of money are necessary and they must be made by all in the community. the question has been raised frequently whether an endowment is not necessary for the country church. the writer began his ministry in a country church which was generously endowed. he still believes in the value of endowment for some country communities. ex-president eliot of harvard recently commended the principle of endowment to the new england country church association, as a solution of the rural problem. president butterfield of massachusetts agricultural college has emphasized the same principle. it is quite likely that in the eastern states where the country community has been depleted by the departure of an extraordinary number of families and individuals, an endowment would be of value for the country church. one must not hold to a theoretic opposition to such a method. the important thing is to provide a trained pastor for the country community. in these eastern communities a larger proportion of the former members of the community have prospered than in western communities. many of them are very rich. in these cases it is but natural that an endowed church in the country community express the ministry of the more prosperous citizen to his poorer brethren, but everybody knows that these depleted communities--i will not say these excessive fortunes--are among the most lamentable factors in american life. the endowment of the church, however, is a very poor apology for a bad situation. it has but limited use, and the creation of a large fund to be used in the country community necessitates careful supervision by men of such business ability as are not usually found in a country community. to remedy such conditions as those with which president eliot and president butterfield are most familiar is a specific problem. it is not the general situation throughout the united states. the purpose of these chapters is to make plain the way by which the average american community may escape depletion, may retain the leadership of its best minds and may prosper in a democratic way. i am interested more in training the country population for the future than in mending the mistakes of the past. but i believe that for depleted country communities in new england, new york and pennsylvania an endowment of the country church would in many instances be effective: and for them alone. let the country church undertake its financial problem in a business-like way. at the beginning of the year make a budget of all the monies needed for the year's work. face the issues of the year frankly. pay to the minister and to other employees of the church a sufficient amount to provide them with needful things throughout the year. a living wage is not enough. the minister especially needs a working salary. with little variation throughout the country as a whole the minister in the rural community should have in order to minister to his people, to educate his children and to look forward without fear to old age, twelve to fourteen hundred dollars a year and a house. many country communities have a more expensive standard, and there are a few in which less is required. but in southern states and in western communities i have found the conditions, created by the prices which prevail throughout the country as a whole, at this standard. when the budget of the year is prepared, including missionary and benevolent gifts, it should be distributed by the officers through consultation with all the members of the church, young and old, rich and poor, in such way as to secure a gift from every one and to meet the obligations of the church as a whole. for the moral values of the situation the small gift of the poor and of the child are even more important than the large gift of the well-to-do. for the securing of these gifts the envelope system, especially the so-called duplex envelope, is the best means which can be generally used by churches. it is a method flexible enough to reach every member and it represents in its duplex form the double motive of giving to the community itself and to those larger national and missionary enterprises to which the country should contribute. the third method of developing the country community is recreative. i mention it here for completeness of statement. another chapter is devoted to recreation in the country community. the amusements and recreations of the country community are immersed in moral issues. the ethical life of the community is the atmosphere in which social pleasure is taken. therefore the recreations of the community are to be provided and supervised by those who would undertake to create a wholesome community life. a maximum of provision and a minimum of supervision are required. country life is devoid of means for recreation. some one must provide it. usually it is either neglected altogether, and the result is dullness and monotony; or it is provided for a price, and the result is an organized center of immorality. recreation requires but little supervision. the presence of older persons, and those of a humane friendly spirit, is usually necessary to the games. these are based on honor and with a few simple principles the young people and working people of the community will organize their own play and find therein a great benefit. to summarize this chapter, the acute problem in many communities today is the merging of the life of newcomers in the community into the organized social life which is older and more settled. this task belongs above all to the country church. many of the detailed applications are for the school to follow out, but the business of the church is to see and to inspire. if the church is not democratic, the community will be hopelessly divided. if the church welcomes the newcomer and finds him a place, the community will be inspired with a democratic spirit. the task of the church is indicated in the new prosperity of the country which tends from the first to remove from the community those who prosper. the church's business is to win to the community all who come into it and to release from its hold as few as possible. in a discussion of country life in a tennessee college town the question was asked of a professor of agriculture who was speaking about farm tenantry, "what should the church do for the tenant farmer?" "borrow money for him and help him to buy land," said the professor. such a solution might be the church's task, but the example of england's policy for ireland shows that the professor commended a governmental rather than a religious service. for it is found that the irish farmer--a tenant on land whereon his ancestors have for centuries been tenants--when he secures the land in fee through the new policies of the british government, frequently deserts the country community, selling his land to a neighbor. some sections of ireland are said to have a new kind of small tenantry and a new sort of small landlord. the task of the country community begins where the task of government leaves off. it is to inspire the resident in the country with a vision, and to lay upon him the imperative, of building up the country community out of the newcomers, who enter it by birth or by migration. footnote: [footnote : "the agrarian changes in the middle west," by j. b. ross.] x co-operation in contrast to other classes of the population country people have a marked preference for individual action and an aversion to co-operative effort. the causes of this are historical. in general these causes are of the past and they are not a matter of persuasion. the american farmer has not co-operated in the past because: first, the necessities of his life made him independent and impatient of the sacrifices necessary in co-operating with his fellows. we have still many influences of the pioneer in modern life. so long as agriculture is solitary work and its processes take a man away from his fellows, co-operation will be retarded. so long as the countryman has to practise a variety of trades, he will be emotional, and the social life of the country will be broken up by feuds, divisions, separations and continued misunderstandings. no mere education as to alleged right and wrong can plaster over the old economy with new ethical standards. until the loneliness and the emotion are taken out of farming country people cannot co-operate. a good part of the united states is still in the land farmer period. the characteristic of the land farmer is his cultivation of group life. the historical process by which this group life is broken up is exploitation. farmers whose lands have not been exploited and whose group life has not suffered the undermining influence of exploitation will not normally co-operate. i am convinced that in most farming territories the loyalty of the countryman to his group is the second reason for his refusal to co-operate. again, this refusal of his is not subject to persuasion. he is obeying an economic condition which shapes his life and controls his action. striking instances are furnished in many regions of the amazing disloyalty of farmers to one another, and to their own pledged word. these are to be explained by the type to which the farmer in these sections conforms. we must not expect the land farmer to obey the ethical standards of the husbandman. a good instance of this conformity to type was furnished in the case of meetings held in louisiana and western mississippi among the farmers who raise cotton. the occasion of the meetings was the approach of the boll weevil to their districts. the attendance upon the meetings was large, indeed universal. the situation was clearly understood and the speakers secured from the farmers present a promise quite unanimous to refrain from cultivating cotton for a year. the purpose of this was to meet the boll weevil with a territory in which he would find no food. thus his march eastward across the cotton field would be arrested. the farmers having made their promise and agreed heartily in the proposal, adjourned. weeks and months passed and the time approached for planting cotton. farmer after farmer, who had attended these meetings and given his promise, privately decided that he would plant a cotton crop and secretly expected that he would secure a larger price that year because so many of his neighbors were to raise other crops. when the full season for planting cotton had come it was discovered that so many farmers had planted cotton that the plan of co-operation was a failure, and the whole district went back to cotton, with full prospect of assisting the boll weevil in his course toward the east. the reasons for this action lie in the type of farmer who thus found it impossible to co-operate. each of these farmers regarded above all other things the success of his own farm and his own family group. in contrast to this interest no other claim, no exhortation and not even his word given in public had any lasting influence upon his action. the third element in the inability of country people to co-operate is the ideal of level democratic equality which prevails in the country. where universal land-ownership has been the rule every countryman thinks himself "as good as anybody else." so long as this ideal prevails, that subjection of himself to another, and the controlling of his action by the interests of the community, are impossible. the farmer cannot co-operate when he thinks of social life in terms of pure democracy. there must be a large sense of team work, a loyal and instinctive obedience to leaders, a devoted spirit which looks for honest leadership, before there can be co-operation. these things come not by persuasion, but by experience. co-operation is the act of a mature people. not until country people have passed through earlier stages and discarded earlier ideals can the preacher and the organizer and the teacher successfully inculcate a spirit of co-operation. country churches are highly representative in their present divided condition. this multiplication of churches in the country is lamentable chiefly because it registers the divided state of country life. it is true that divided churches are religiously inefficient, but it is vastly more important that divided churches are embodiments of what one country minister calls "the tuberculosis of the american farmer, individualism." it was natural for the pioneer to desire a religion in terms of a message of personal salvation. personality in his lonely life was the noblest, indeed the only form of humanity known to him, therefore the herald was his minister and emotion was his religion. it is very natural for the land farmer to organize religion in terms of group life. his churches were only handmaids of his household. they had but the beginnings of social organization. they taught the ethics of home life, of the separate farm and of a land-owning people. obviously the church for the pioneer and for the land farmer could be a very weak and indifferent organization, but efficient for the religious needs of those independent, self-reliant types of countrymen. for these reasons in all parts of the country the pitiful story is heard of divided communities. one need not recite it here. it usually is the account of three hundred or four hundred people with five or six country churches. at its worst there is a small community in which missionary agencies are supporting ministers who do not average one hundred possible families apiece in the community. the condition of center hall, pennsylvania, has been described in another chapter, in which there are within a radius of four miles from a given point twenty-four country churches. this community represents a condition of transition from the land-farmer type to that of exploitation. some of these churches are the old churches of the land-owning resident farmers, but the most of them are said to be the newer churches of tenants who have come into the community. our present concern is to recognize the relation of the divided churches to the divided social life of the community. the criticism of the country community must be made on an understanding of the stage of development to which that community has attained. whatever is planned for the upbuilding of the country community must be planned in harmony with the well-known facts of rural development. business life introduces into the community a new standard of values. cash and credit take the place of barter. the exchange in kind on which originally the community depended comes to an end. business life very shortly induces combination. the whole of modern business presents a spectacle of universal combination and co-operation. the farmer who is most conservative is surrounded on all sides by the aggressive forces of business. combined in their own interest they compete with him on unequal terms. he stands alone and they stand combined. americans are looking with growing interest on the experience of denmark where a multitude of co-operative associations represent the spirit of the people. this spirit has been deliberately cultivated in the land for forty years. it is the universal testimony of observers that the prosperity of denmark is dependent on these co-operative agencies and upon this united spirit. the exodus from the country has been arrested, agriculture has been made a desirable occupation, profitable for the farmer and most probable for the state, and the people as a whole have taken front rank in social and economic welfare. essential to this constructive period of denmark's life is co-operation.[ ] in sir horace plunkett's recent book, "the rural life problem in the united states," he develops this principle clearly. he says that in the organization of country life in ireland it was necessary to go into the very heart of the people's experience and organize their economic and social processes in forms of co-operation. "when farmers combine, it is a combination not of money only, but of personal effort in relation to the entire business. in a co-operative creamery for example, the chief contribution of a shareholder is in milk; in a co-operative elevator, corn; in other cases it may be fruit or vegetables, or a variety of material things rather than cash. but it is, most of all, a combination of neighbors within an area small enough to allow of all the members meeting frequently at the business center. as the system develops, the local associations are federated for larger business transactions, but these are governed by delegates carefully chosen by the members of the constituent bodies. the object of such associations is primarily, not to declare a dividend, but rather to improve the conditions of the industry for the members. "it is recognized that the poor man's co-operation is as important as the rich man's subscription. 'one man, one vote,' is the almost universal principle in co-operative bodies. "the distinction between the capitalistic basis of joint stock organization and the more human character of the co-operative system is fundamentally important. "in this matter i am here speaking from practical experience in ireland. twenty years ago the pioneers of our rural life movement found it necessary to concentrate their efforts upon the reorganization of the farmer's business. " . we began with the dairying industry, and already half the export of irish butter comes from the co-operative societies we established. " . organized bodies of farmers are learning to purchase their agricultural requirements intelligently and economically. " . they are also beginning to adopt the methods of the organized foreign farmer in controlling the sale of their butter, eggs and poultry in the british markets. " . and they not only combine in agricultural production and distribution, but are also making a promising beginning in grappling with the problem of agricultural finance. it is in the last portion of the irish programme that by far the most interesting study of the co-operative system can be made, on account of its success in the poorest parts of the island. furthermore, the attempt to enable the most embarrassed section of the irish peasantry to procure working capital illustrates some features of agricultural co-operation which will have suggestive value for american farmers. "a body of very poor persons, individually--in the commercial sense of the term--insolvent, manage to create a new basis of security which has been somewhat grandiloquently and yet truthfully called 'the capitalization of their honesty and industry.' the way in which this is done is remarkably ingenious. the credit society is organized in the usual democratic way explained above, but its constitution is peculiar in one respect. the members have to become jointly and severally responsible for the debts of the association, which borrows on this unlimited liability from the ordinary commercial bank, or, in some cases, from government sources. after the initial stage, when the institution becomes firmly established, it attracts local deposits, and thus the savings of the community, which are too often hoarded, are set free to fructify in the community. the procedure by which the money borrowed is lent to the members of the association is the essential feature of the scheme. the member requiring the loan must state what he is going to do with the money. he must satisfy the committee of the association, who know the man and his business, that the proposed investment is one which will enable him to repay both principal and interest. he must enter into a bond with two sureties for the repayment of the loan, and needless to say the characters of both the borrower and his sureties are very carefully considered. the period for which the loan is granted is arranged to meet the needs of the case, as determined by the committee after a full discussion with the borrower. once the loan has been made, it becomes the concern of every member of the association to see that it is applied to the 'approved purpose'--as it is technically called. what is more important is that all the borrower's fellow-members become interested in his business and anxious for its success. "the fact that nearly three hundred of these societies are at work in ireland and that, although their transactions are on a very modest scale, the system is steadily growing both in the numbers of its adherents and in the turnover,--this fact is, i think, a remarkable testimony to the value of the co-operative system. the details i have given illustrate one important distinction between co-operation, which enables the farmer to do his business in a way that suits him, and the urban form of combination, which is unsuited to his needs." the traditional economy that centered in the farm household was independent. the ethical standards of country life recognized but small obligations to those outside the household. farmers still idealize an individual, or rather a group, success. they entertain the hope that their farm may raise some specialty for which a better price shall be gained and by which an exceptional advantage in the market shall be possessed. the conditions of the world economy are imposing upon the farmer the necessity of co-operation. the prices of all the farmers' products are fixed by the marginal goods put upon the market. for instance, the standard milk for which the price is paid to dairy farmers, is the milk which can barely secure a purchaser. the poor quality, relative uncleanness, and the low grade of the marginal milk dominate the general market in every city, and the farmer who produces a better grade gets nothing for the difference. it is true that there is a special price paid by hospitals and a limited market may be established by special institutions, but we are dealing here with general conditions such as affect the average milk farmer and the great bulk of the farmers. it is on these average conditions alone that the country community can depend. co-operation is the essential measure by which the producer of marginal goods can be influenced. to raise the standard of his product it is necessary to have a combination of producers. so long as the better farmer is dependent by economic law upon those prices paid for marginal goods, the only way for the better farmer to secure a better gain is to engage in co-operation which shall include the poorer and the marginal farmer. in the kentucky counties which raise burley tobacco, a few years ago the tenant farmer was an economic slave. he sold his crop at a price dictated by a combination of buyers. he lived throughout the year on credit. his wife and his children were obliged to work in the field in summer. he had nothing for contribution to community institutions. indeed, he very frequently ended the year without paying his debts for food and clothing. the organizations of these farmers which have been formed in recent years for self-protection have been blamed for some outrageous deeds. persons in sympathy with these organizations have burned the barns of farmers unwilling to enter the combination. they have administered whippings and threats right and left in the interest of the farmers' organization. in their contest with the buyers to secure a better price they have reduced to ashes some of the warehouses of the monopoly to which they were obliged to sell their tobacco. these public outrages are worthy of condemnation. the writer believes that they were not essential to the process of co-operation by which the farmers fought their way to better success, though the effect of these acts is a part of the historical process. but the combination of farmers has redeemed the poorer, the tenant farmer and the small farmer from economic slavery. his representatives now fix the price of the product. there is one buyer and one seller, competition being eliminated; and the price at which the tobacco is sold is the farmers' price, not the manufacturer's price. as a result the farmers are able to hire help. the wife and children no longer work in the field. the bills are paid as they are incurred, instead of credit slavery binding the farmer from year to year. last of all this prosperity has taken form in better roads, better schools and better churches. it remains only to be said that among the farmers engaging in this co-operative union there were many preachers and pastors of the region. they took a large part in the combinations of farmers which affected this great gain. they recognized that the fight of the farmers for self-respect and for free existence was a religious struggle and that the church had a common interest in the well being of the population to which it ministered. another instance of co-operation is seen in delaware and on the "eastern shore" where the soil had been exhausted. methods of slavery days were unfavorable to the land and after the war it was long neglected. in recent years a new type of farmer has come into this territory. by intensive cultivation with scientific methods, he is raising small fruits, berries, vegetables and other products, for the nearby markets in the great cities. the success of these farmers has been dependent upon their produce exchanges. they have learned, contrary to the traditional belief of farmers, that there is a greater profit for the individual farmer in raising the same crop as his neighbor, than there is in an especial crop which competes in the market for itself. that is to say, in shipping a carload of strawberries the farmer gets a better price when the car is filled with one kind of berry than he would receive if the car was made up of a number of separate consignments under different names and of different varieties. co-operation has been better for the individual than competition. it at once becomes evident that co-operation is an ethical and a religious discipline. as soon as the farming population is saturated with the idea, which these farmers fully understand who have prospered by co-operation, the religious message in these territories will be a new message of brotherhood. the old gospel of an individual salvation apart from men and often at the expense of other men will be enlarged and renewed into a gospel of social salvation. no man will be saved to a heaven apart or to a salvation which he attains by competition or by comparison, but men shall be saved through their fellows and with their fellows. the country church, of all our churches, will teach in the days to come the gospel of unity. the writer's own experience as a country minister was a perfect illustration of this union of all members of a community. in the community quakers, irish catholics, episcopalians, presbyterians and baptists were represented in nearly equal numbers. with people widely diverse in their economic position, though dependent upon one another, it became evident to all that the only religious experience of the community must be an experience of unity. under the leadership of an old quaker who supplied the funds and of two others of gracious spirit and broad intellect, the whole community was united, on the condition that all should share in that which any did. one church was organized to receive all the adherents of protestant faith and one service of worship united all, whether within or without the church. even the roman catholics once or twice a year for twenty years have been brought together in meetings which express the unity of the countryside. other instances there are of co-operation among churches in the country, but their number is not great. there is a supplementary co-operation in the division of territory in some states. the church at hanover, n. j., has a territory six miles by four, in which no other church has been established. this old presbyterian congregation has peopled its countryside with its chapels and has assembled the chapel worshippers regularly at its services in the old church at the graveyard and the manse. in rock creek, illinois, the presbyterian church has a community to itself, and ministers in its territory with the same efficiency with which the baptist church across the creek ministers to its territory, in which it also has a religious monopoly. these two congregations respect one another and have a sense of supplementing one another, which is a form of co-operation. the ideal expressed in these two instances is cherished by many. it is hoped that religious bodies may agree in time to divide the territory, to give up churches, to sell or transfer property rights and to shift their ministers from communities which have too many to those communities not served at all. but the way for this co-operation as an active principle has not yet opened. its value is in those communities which have had it from the first as an inheritance. it has so far not proven a remedy to be applied for the cure of existing evils. the writer believes that the path of co-operation is the efficient and slow one of economic and social organization rather than the delusive short-cut of religious union. people cannot be united in religion until they are united in their social economy. the business of the church is to organize co-operative enterprises, economic, social and educational, and to school the people in the joy, to educate them in the advantages, of life together. co-operation must become a gospel. union requires to be a religious doctrine. it will be well for a long time to come to say but little about organic union of churches and to say a great deal about the union in the life of the people themselves. footnote: [footnote : "rural denmark and its lessons," by h. rider haggard. see also the bulletins of the international institute of agriculture at rome, italy.] xi common schools the weakness of the common schools in american rural communities shows itself in their failure to educate the marginal people of the community, in their failure to train average men and women for life in that community, in their robbing the community of leadership by training those on whom their influence is strongest, so that they go out from the community never to return; and in their general disloyalty to the local community with its needs and its problems. it is the boast of the people of the country school district that their school has "sent out" so many people of distinction. on a rocky hillside in a new england town there stands, between a wooded slope and a swamp, an unpainted school building. within and without it is more forbidding than the average stable in that farming region. but the resident of that neighborhood boasts of the number of distinguished persons who have gone forth from the community, under the influence of that school. this is characteristic of country places and country schools. the influence of the school, so far as it has any, is that of disloyalty to the neighborhood. it robs the neighborhood of leadership. it does nothing to cultivate a spirit of sympathy with the life that must be lived there. for every one whom it starts upon the exodus to other places it leaves two at home uninspired, indifferent and mentally degenerate. another fault of the one-room country school, which makes it a weak support of the country community, is its lack of professional support. among four hundred teachers in such schools, throughout the country, not one in a hundred expects to remain as a country schoolteacher for a lifetime. there is no professional class devoted to the country school. its service is incidental in the lives of men devoted to something else. it is a mere side issue. besides, its building is inadequate. too many needs, impossible to satisfy, are assembled in a single room. too many grades must be taught there for any one child to receive the intense impression necessary for his education. the third great fault of the country school is its total lack of intelligent understanding of the country. its teaching is suited to prepare men for trade, but not for agriculture. instead of making farmers of the sons of farmers, the majority of whom should expect to follow the profession of their fathers, the country school prepares them for buying and selling, for calculation and for store keeping. it starts the stream of country boys in the direction of the village store, the end of which is the department store or clerical occupation in a great city. the improvement of the one-room rural school is possible within narrow limits only. a recent book[ ] gives most sympathetic attention to this problem of improvement, while asserting that reorganization alone will be adequate to the situation. but there are improvements which, within the limitations of the one-room school, are possible. the supervision of these schools may be made closer and more efficient. by bringing to bear upon them the oversight of experts in education the grade of teaching may be elevated. the important principle is to discover the proper unit of supervision. the town is too small and the county unit too large. it is probable that with some rearrangement the county can be made the proper unit of supervision, but the school should determine its problems on a principle independent of political divisions. the first need of the country school at the present time is to be adapted, by such supervision of the district as shall correlate the country school with the units of population resident in the country. in some places the district to be supervised by one superintendent should be not much larger than a township, in other places it might approach the bounds of a county, but in all instances the supervising officer should have the relation of an employed expert to the problems of the country. it is not enough that untrained farmers or tradesmen occasionally visit the school in an indifferent manner. their indifference is the natural attitude of men untrained in the task assigned to them. the officer who supervises should be well adapted to his task and should visit with frequency, criticize with trained intelligence, and train his teachers in a constructive educational policy suitable to the district. another improvement in rural schools may be had in a better normal training of the teachers. at the present time the normal schools are inadequate to the task of supplying teachers and beyond the supplying of teachers for the city, they stop short. the training of teachers for country schools must become a part of the normal provision for the states. the minimum salary for teachers is a most important consideration. a primary difficulty in the present situation is that the country school teacher is ill paid. it is therefore impossible to secure and to retain in the country persons of adequate mental and cultural value. in order to secure funds for better payment of teachers, a readjustment of the taxation in the various states is probably necessary, but this will be slow of accomplishment. some results may be effected in another way by a minimum salary for teachers throughout the state. in this manner a better grade of teachers can be secured for all schools. the most important improvement, however, in the country schools is almost impossible in the one-room school. it is the teaching of the gospel of the land. out around the country school lies the open book of nature. first of books the pupils should learn to read the book of nature. the life of the birds and animals, so familiar to the children yet so little known; the growth of plants, their beauty and their use, and the nature, the tillage and the maintenance of the soil, are all lessons easy to impart to those who are themselves instructed, yet the present system of shifting teachers makes such instruction impossible. it is the opinion of expert educators that the study of agriculture is impossible in the one-room country school. with this opinion the writer agrees, yet so great is the necessity of this very improvement and so slow will be the changes which look to consolidation of schools, that effort should be made at once by those in charge of the country school to teach the children the lesson of the soil, of plant life, of animal and bird life and of the world about them. these lessons are necessary to their economic success. they are the very beginning of their happiness in the country and of love for the country. in teaching them the country school can best perform its duty to the present generation. the centralizing of country schools is the adequate solution of the present situation. by this means the children from a wide area are brought to a modern school building suitably placed in the country. when necessary they are transported to and from the schools in wagons hired for that purpose, in charge of reliable drivers. in this consolidated school building, which has taken the place of three, five or even seven one-room district schools now abandoned, there shall be at least two and it may be five teachers. this group of teachers forms a permanent nucleus and a center for the life of the country. the children are assembled in a sufficient number to provide a large group, and their social life is enjoyable as well as mentally stimulating. the weaknesses of the one-room district school are in this institution corrected. there is permanence in the teaching force, professional service, cumulative influence, and the interests of the community find in the school a loyal center of discussion. the consolidated rural school is an institution for the first time adequate to the task of building up the whole population. the first use to which the centralized rural school is adapted is to halt the exodus from the country. the country community has now no check upon the departure of its best people. the sifting of the country community is done, not by the community itself, but by outside forces, unfriendly and unintelligent as to the interests of the country. the centralized rural school will retain in the country those who should be interested in the country community. this will be accomplished by the study of agriculture, which can adequately be taught only in a graded school in the country. but much can be done even by the supply of an adequate system of education in the country community. at rock creek, illinois, the retirement of farmers to the cities and towns had gone so far in that the intelligent and devoted members of the community, who did not desire to leave the place where their grandfathers had first broken the prairie sod, took counsel as to the welfare of the community. the superficial fact of most consequence was the presence of tenant farmers in the community. these tenants, however desirable personally as neighbors, were of a short term of residence. from one to five years was their longest term on one farm. the social life of the community and its religious interests were beginning to suffer. the sons of the early settlers, therefore, laid their plans by which to control the selection of tenants. their first plan was to form a farmer's union or syndicate, which should undertake to run the farms of those who were retiring from the land. this plan seemed promising and the makers of it congratulated themselves upon controlling the future of the community. but reflection showed that this method would have the effect of retiring more farmers from the land and turning over the hiring of tenants to the few remaining loyal owners, who would come in a short time to constitute the local real estate agencies; while the majority of the owners would enjoy themselves in towns and villages round about. the result was that the farmers undertook not to control the tenancy, but to build up the community itself. they deliberately undertook the reconstruction of the schools. three school districts were merged in one. an adequate building in which a group of teachers is employed was erected. the children are transported in wagons hired for that purpose. the grounds about the school building are made pleasant; and the school, located near the manse and the church which had most influenced the change, forms now a strong community center for a wide region. the result is all that could be desired. the retirement from the farms has been checked; the neighborhood has become specially desirable for residence. farmers who had gone to the town find now that as good or better schools are to be had in the community where their property lies and where they pay their taxes. the rental price of land has increased and it is difficult for tenants to come into the community unless they are willing to pay an added rental in return for better school privileges. the whole countryside has received an impetus and the depression of country life has for this community departed. mr. r. e. bone, "the fourth red-headed presbyterian elder bone in the rock creek church," takes great pride in the building up of the community which has been effected through the consolidated school. a more mature example is the john swaney consolidated school in illinois. here the leadership and generosity of john swaney, a member of the society of friends, have effected the consolidation of four school districts at a point two miles from the village of mcnab. this purely rural consolidation was not effected without a contest. indeed the mcnab school has had to fight for the gains it has made from the very beginning. the school-house stands by the roadside, not even surrounded by a group of residences. the grounds are peculiarly beautiful, being shaded by great trees and extending in ample lawn about the building. in the rear are stables for the horses which transport the children daily from the outer bounds of the consolidated district. the school building contains four class-rooms with physical and chemical laboratories. in one room are apparatus for cooking and sewing. in the basement is a well-lighted shop where benches for manual training are placed at the use of the boys. in the third story is an auditorium so ample as to accommodate a basket-ball game and about two hundred spectators. frequent gatherings occur here in a simple spontaneous way. this common school has all the social and intellectual power of the old-fashioned country academy which once was so useful in the eastern states. a principal and four women teachers form the faculty of the john swaney school. the number of scholars in was one hundred and five, the number of boys slightly exceeding that of girls. of these about half were in the primary and the grammar grades and about half in the high school. of the latter some twenty-five were tuition pupils from outside of the district, so that the actual school group of the mcnab consolidated school, the children of the tax-payers, was in that year eighty in number. the difference between the social life of eighty young people and eight or eighteen young people, which one may find in a one-room school in the country anywhere, is very great. needless to say that the john swaney school has athletic teams, tennis tournament, baseball games, literary and debating contests and is a strong aggressive force lending life and vitality to the whole countryside. the older families of the neighborhood are quakers. the newer half of the population is of germanic stock. the influence of the school is upon all its pupils. the high school retains practically all the sons of the quaker families and some of the newer population whose interest in education is less. but the crowning distinction of the john swaney school is in its study of agriculture, or broadly speaking in its industrial training. for with agriculture must be classed manual training and domestic science. by john swaney's generosity twenty acres of land were presented to the state for an experiment farm. this land adjoins the school grounds and a regular part of the curriculum for the young men is the study of agriculture. the result of this interpretation of country life in forms of scholarship is that substantially all the graduates of the high school annually go to the state university for training in scientific agriculture, expecting to return to the farms and become rural residents of illinois. at the present time no more profitable training could be given these young men and women. but aside from this economic consideration, the social and moral value to the community in the return of these young men and women to their own soil and the scenes of their childhood is beyond estimation. the quaker meeting in this community is not "laid down;" the church is not abandoned. indeed all the activities of the community are built up and the best of the community perpetuated through the medium of this modern consolidated school. to sum up this chapter, the improvement of the one-room common schools is possible, but for the satisfaction of the needs of the modern country community that improvement is inadequate. the one-room country school is an institution which in itself cannot be made to minister to modern community life. it is simple and modern life is complete. it is casual and irregular while the forces with which it has to deal are steady-going and cumulative in their power. it is inexpert and served by no specialized professional class, while modern life calls for the service of experts in every direction. it has no social value, while modern life is always social in its forms of action and requires social interpretation for its best effects. a closing word should be said for a type of schools which has been perfected in denmark. they are known as the "folk high schools." these are popular schools, adapted to the teaching of adults to get a living. denmark has an adequate supply of technical schools, and these latter are not established to train scholars or scientists. their use is to fit men and women to meet the issues of life, at home, hand in hand, with skill and enthusiasm. they use few text-books and have no examinations, and six months are sufficient for a course of study. the schools are religious and their foundation was the work of rev. n. f. s. grundtvig. in songs and in patriotic exercises, all their own, they idealize country life and the work of the mechanic. the academies of earlier days in rural america were centers of a similar influence. but with the growth of the public-school system these have been generally abandoned. it is a question whether some of them would not serve a need which is felt today, if only they would train men for modern country life with the same success which they once had in training leaders for a former period. then all the people lived in the country. now only a third of the people are concerned with the farm. so that the education of the modern country boy or girl would require to be carried on in a different manner, in order to retain the best of them in the country. the example of the "folk schools" offers an analogy to what might be done in american country life, if the academy could be transformed into an institution for the education of the young in the country. all observers testify that the "folk high schools" have been the first influence in transforming denmark in the past forty years, from a nation economically inferior to a nation rich and prosperous. this change has been wrought through the betterment of the farmers and other country people, by means of education in country life; and this education has been economic, patriotic, co-operative and religious. so perfect has it been that it is hard to analyze; but the acknowledged center of it has been a system of schools in which the problem of living is taught as a religion, an enthusiasm and a culture. footnote: [footnote : "the american rural school," h. w. foght.] xii rural morality the moral standards of the pioneer type and of the land-farmer type prevail in the country. the world economy has precipitated on the farm an era of exploitation which has not yet reached its highest point. meantime, according to the ethical ideals of the pioneer and of the farmer, country people are moral. the investigations of the country life commission brought general testimony to the high standards of personal life which prevail in the country. in such a representative state as pennsylvania the standard of conduct between the sexes was found to be good. the testimony of physicians, among the best of rural observers, was nearly unanimous, in pennsylvania, to the good moral conditions prevailing in the intercourse of men and women in the country. this indicates that the farmer economy had superseded the economy of the pioneer. the moral problem of the pioneer period consisted of a struggle for honesty in business contracts, and purity in the relation of men and women. the story of every church in new england and pennsylvania, until about at which professor ross dates the beginning of the farmer period, shows the bitter struggle between the standard accepted by the church and that of the individuals who failed to conform. the standard was inherited from the older communities of europe. the conduct of individuals grew out of the pioneer economy in which they were living. church records in new england and new york state are red with the story of broken contracts, debt and adultery. the writer has carefully studied the records of oblong meeting of the society of friends in duchess county, new york, and from a close knowledge of the community through almost twenty years of residence in it, it is his belief that there were more cases of adultery considered by oblong meeting in every average year of the eighteenth century than were known to the whole community in any ten years at the close of the nineteenth century. the farmer economy in which the group life of the household prevailed over the individual life had by the nineteenth century superseded the pioneer period, in which individual action and independent personal initiative were the prevailing mode. the coming of the exploiter into the farm community brings a new set of ethical obligations concerning property and contracts. the farmer has perfected the individual standards of the pioneer but he is not yet endowed with social standards. he knows that it is right to give full measure when he sells a commodity, but he does not yet see the evil of breaches of contract. farmers of high standing in their communities for their personal character, who are truthful and "honest" in such contractual relations as come down from their fathers, have been known to use the school system of the town for their own private profit, or that of members of their families, and to ignore financial obligations which belong to the new period, in which money values have taken the place of barter values. a good illustration is that of a deacon in a country church, whom i once knew. his word was proverbially truthful. as widely as he was known his reputation for piety and simple truthfulness, for honesty and purity of life were universal. i do not think that he was consciously insincere, but as a trustee in administering a fund devoted to public uses he seemed to have a clear eye for only those enterprises through which he or members of his family could indirectly secure incomes. entrusted with a public service which involved the improvement of the school system, so far as he acted individually and without prompting by those who had been accustomed all their lives to modern methods, his action was that of loyalty to his own family and relationship. in so doing he regularly would betray the community and the public interest. yet he seemed to do this ingenuously and without any conception of the moral standards of people used to the values of money. i have known the same man, whose standing among farmers was that of a blameless religious man, to borrow money, and in the period of the loan so to conduct himself as to forfeit the respect of people used to handling money. to them he seemed to be a conscious and deliberate grafter. the explanation in my mind is that he suffered from the transition out of the pioneer and farmer economy into the economy of the exploiter. the history of the sale of lands in the country, in the recent exploitation of farm-lands, contains many stories of the breach of contract of farmers, and the inability of the farmer to sell wisely and at the same time honestly. contrasting the farmer in his knowledge of financial obligation with the broker in the stock exchange, the latter type stands out in strong contrast as an admirable example of financial honesty to contracts, even if they be verbal only. the farmer on the other hand has no conception of the relations on which the financial system must be built. he is not an exploiter to begin with, but a farmer. the transition from the older economy to the new is illustrated in the dairy industry which surrounds every great city. the dairy farmer has ideas of right and wrong which are purely individualistic. he believes that he should not cheat the customer in the quantity of milk. he recognizes that it is wrong, therefore, to water the milk, but he has no conception of social morality concerning milk. he gives full measure: but he cares nothing about purity of milk. he is restless and feels himself oppressed under the demands of the inspector from the city, for ventilation of his barns and for protection of the milk from impurity. i have known few milk farmers who believed in giving pure milk and i never knew one whose conscience was at ease in watering milk. that is, they all believe in good measure and none believes in the principle of sanitation. they stand at the transition from the old economy to the new. a story is told among agricultural teachers in new york state to the effect that an inspector following the trail of disease in a small city traced it to impure milk supplied by a certain farm. in the absence of the man he insisted on inspecting the dairy arrangements, being followed from room to room by the farmer's indignant wife. finally he said, "show me the strainer which you use in the milk," and she brought an old shirt, very much soiled. looking at it in dismay the inspector said, "could you not, at least, use a clean shirt?" at this the woman's patience gave way and she declared, "well, you needn't expect me to use a clean shirt to strain dirty milk!" the packing of apples for market illustrates the transition from the farmer economy in which the ethical standards are those of the household, or family group, to the world economy in which the moral standards are those of the world market. apples are packed by all classes of farmers, regardless of varying religious profession, in an indifferent manner. the typical farmer hopes by competition with his neighbors to gain a possibly better price. instances of such successes as come to certain family groups are endlessly discussed by farmers; and the highest ideal that one meets among farmers who sell apples throughout the eastern states is expressed in the instance of some family who have improved their own farm and their own orchard, so as to win for the family or the farm a reputation in some particular market and thus to gain a higher price. contrast with this the marketing of apples by the western fruit growers' associations. among them, as for instance in the hood valley, oregon, apples are packed not by the farm owner with a view to competing with his neighbors, but by the committee representing the whole district. the individual farmer has no access to the market. he cannot hide his poor fruit in an envelope of his best fruit, so as to deceive the buyer. the committee has a reputation to maintain on behalf of the association, not of the individual. the apples are marketed on their merits in accordance with a certain standard. the impersonal demands of the world economy are kept in mind. the individual farmer and farm are forgotten. the result is that these far western growers, whose fruit is said in the east to be inferior in flavor to the apples of new york and new england, can sell their product in the eastern market at a higher price per box than the new york or new england farmer can secure per barrel. the transition from farming to exploiting has brought out in full view the wastefulness of the farmer economy which is being succeeded by exploitation. the whole doctrine of conservation belongs in this transition. economy means, literally, housekeeping. the same meaning appears in the word husbandry. it is a principle of saving. its extraordinary value at the present time is due to our sudden sense of the wastefulness of farm life in recent years. edward van alstyne, an agricultural authority in new york, says, "we farmers think we are most economical, but we are the most wasteful of all men." the wastefulness of american farming begins in the tillage of too many acres. the farmer prefers wide fields even at the cost of poor crops. the new york central railroad, which is carrying on a propaganda of husbandry, has appointed a man as expert farmer who increased the yield of potatoes on his land from sixty to three hundred bushels per acre. this brings out clearly that his neighbors are still producing sixty bushels per acre, wasting four-fifths of their land values. this waste is a wrong that should be denounced in the country church just as sternly as doctrinal sins, which have occupied the attention of country ministers in the past. expert farmers say that if corn-stalks for fodder are left out in the field until they are fed to the cattle they lose forty to fifty per cent of their food values. this waste is sinful, but the sin is visible only in the new economy of exploitation which counts all values in terms of cash. no sooner is the sinfulness of waste observed than its connections with moral delinquencies of country people becomes clear. in the improvement of rural morality due to the sifting of country people during the farmer period, it becomes evident that among a people so serious-minded some delinquencies still remain. the immoralities that still lurk and fester in the country are due very largely to waste. this waste of human things is parallel to the waste of economic values. in a conference there was some difficulty in persuading a certain country minister to speak. when finally he arose he said, "i am not much interested in the scientific analysis of the country church. all i am interested in is sin." one wonders whether he was dealing with the sins of the country in their causes or in their effects, or was he simply concerned with the sins which consist in opposing the doctrines of his particular denomination, whatever it was. this wastefulness of the values in the soil enters into the social life of the country. farmers care as little for the social values as for land values. young men and women ignore the moral importance of little things. they are not taught that coarseness is wrong. they are not made to realize that cleanliness and courtesy and reverence for the human body are of vital importance in life. country people are prudish and they cover with a strict reserve all discussion of the moral relations of men and women. yet in the same communities there is loose private conversation and coarse references are common. the strict standard of the household prevails within its limits. books and magazines must not discuss, however seriously, the problems of life. but in the intercourse of the community there is not the same care. the moral life of country people requires cultivation of the leisure hours, the casual talk, the occasional meetings of men and women, and especially of young people. the sale of votes in every election is a fixed quantity in the life of certain country towns. it is to be counted on each year. the number of votes for sale in each town is a known proportion of the whole, and through certain counties the selling of votes is the political factor everywhere present. these uniform facts point to a common cause. that cause is the degeneration of a proportion of the rural population into peasantry. the growth of a peasant population in america is surely our greatest danger. a peasantry is a rural population whose moral and spiritual state are controlled by their material states. there may be rich peasants, though most peasants are poor. peasants are a specialized class, incapable of self-government and controlled by some political masters who exercise for them essential rights of citizenship. the peasants in europe are the last to receive the ballot. in america they are the first to surrender the ballot by selling their votes. a young minister called to a country parish denounced the sale of votes, in his first year, and publicly fixed the whole blame on a prominent political leader of the town, who was there present in the church. his criticism was resented by the whole community. he was right, and so were they. it is well to denounce the purchase of votes, but the duty of the country church to americanize the peasant class is the greater duty. the presence of such a class in a town infallibly leads to this iniquity. the sale of votes is as bad as the sale of woman's virtue, and both have an automatic tendency to degrade the population. the danger sign of peasantry is a degraded standard of life. in this town there is one household in which nobody works but the mother. "how they live beats me," is the public comment of the neighbors. through the winter into that house are crowded the father and mother, two sons and two daughters, the husband of one daughter and their two children, with three other small children, whose presence in the house is due to the loose good nature of the family. there is an indolent uncle of these children. none of the household follows any gainful occupation. the table is furnished with potatoes and pork. the attraction of the household is the easy, loose, good-nature of all its members. there is no one to complain of the indolence of the five grown men who lounge about through the winter days. the presence of such a household in a town means degradation. three of these men can be purchased for money to vote, though they cannot be hired for money to work. the daughters of the household are an equally dangerous factor in the countryside. the cause of this moral peril is the low grade of living to which the family has sunk. there is no known state of ill-health to account for their indolence. the first duty of the church in such a community is to regenerate such a household and to lift the standard of ambition of its members. slowly the country town is coming to realize that its reputation as well as its progress is determined by this grade of citizen. no exceptional success on the part of one or more families and no substantial goodness by a whole grade of the population can compensate for the lowering of the standard of the whole town by these people. the life and death, the reputation and the progress of the town are dependent upon the extinguishment of these peasant conditions. this is illustrated by the fact that where votes are for sale in a town those purchased votes determine the election in the majority of cases. they constitute the movable margin between the two parties; and by shifting them one way or the other the political policy of the town is determined. this fact illustrates the whole moral situation of the town, for just by the same flexible margin is the moral life of the town determined. the duty of the church therefore is with the people upon the economic and social margin of the life of the rural community. the farmer's moral standards are opposed to combination. he believes in personal righteousness and family morals. he does not believe in the moral control of the individual or the household by the economic group. it has been impossible, therefore, to combine the farmers in the east in any general way so as to control their markets by maintaining a high standard of product. the only control that is dreamed of by the leaders of the farmers is the control of the quantity of their products. they do not think of combination which will control themselves, and so maintain a higher quality of product in order that thus they may dominate the market in the great city. the present state of ethical opinion among eastern farmers is not in sympathy with the ethical demands of city populations. the western fruit growers' associations have fixed the standard for the farmers who raise the fruit, first of all, and by means of this standard they have conquered the market in distant cities. the standard to which they compel their members to conform is the standard of the demand in the world market. if the milk farmers about new york city are to combine they must first impose a self-denying ordinance upon their own members and furnish the city with a quality of milk in harmony with the demands of modern sanitary experts. this is an ethical principle not of the pioneer or the farmer economy, but of the new husbandry to which very few farmers have conformed. in the building of country communities, therefore, the ethical teaching must be of a new order. there is already a general teaching of morality in the country churches. the temperance reform is a moral propaganda born of the farmer economy. the expulsion of the saloon from country places has been in obedience to the farmer's conscience. the temperance reform exhibits the transformation from individual ethics which were advocated in to communal ethics which are represented in the local option aspects of this reform. in the individual was asked to sign the pledge of total abstinence. in those days it was as important that innocent children sign the pledge as that drunkards sign it. the lists of pledge signers were padded with the names of persons who had never tasted strong drink. in the anti-saloon league began its agitation, which has proceeded among country people with increasing influence. the individual is ignored and the pledge is signed now by the community, by the county or by the state. the attack is not upon the individual drunkard, but upon the community institution, the saloon. this is a great gain in the direction of social ethics. it illustrates the transformation from the pioneer whose impact was upon the individual to the standards of the exploiter period in which the impact is upon the commercial institution. the local option movement has had its growth in the period of exploitation dated by prof. ross from . in this movement the country churches have been distributing centers, the places of discussion and nuclei of moral energy. if the general moral standards of country people are to be transformed from the pioneer formulae to those of the modern world economy, the country churches must be led by men trained in economics and reinforced by a thorough knowledge of social processes. the temperance movement already begins to show the deficiencies of a propaganda purely negative. its leaders have shown no conspicuous sympathy with the play-ground movement, which is an essential part of the same ethical process. if the saloon is expelled something must be put in its place, but the temperance reformers have not been wise enough for substitution: they have only been skilful in expulsion. country life, in its representative communities, suffers today from monotony and emptiness. the ministers, teachers and other rural leaders need the training which will equip them in positive and aggressive social construction. as the economy of the exploiter comes in to transform the country community it is necessary for the preacher and the teacher to train the population in the ethical standards of the new time. naturally new contractual relations will prevail in business, and trusts will be committed to the leading men in the farming community, for which they need definite moral preparation. there is many a farmer in the united states who may be safely entrusted with the honor of a woman, but cannot be entrusted with a million dollars to spend in the interest of the community. in many a country community it is perfectly safe to leave the door unlocked, but it is not safe to purchase a quart of milk for a child. there is many a farmer from whom it is morally safe to purchase an acre of ground, but one cannot be sure in purchasing a cow from him that she will not be tuberculous. these are new standards not required by the old economy and not taught in the old meeting-house. one defect of the country church at the present time is that it has for the countryman no message appropriate to the struggle in which he is actually attempting to do right. many churches in the country teach only the standards of right and wrong to which the farmers already conform. for a short time a new minister is popular with them because his new voice and his fresh elocution contain a subtle flattery. he denounces the sins to which they are not inclined and praises the virtues which they have learned to practise from their fathers. but after about six months of such preaching the farmer wearies of a preacher with no new message. indeed the countryman is puzzled and perplexed by modern situations about which the minister has no knowledge. the farmer is forced to be an economist, but the minister has never studied economics. the farmer is face to face with problems of exploitation. the values not merely of land but of money are in his thought. but the preacher has had no training in finance and he cannot speak wisely or surely upon the marginal problems with which the farmer is perplexed. the household economy of the farm is no longer sufficient. the sins are not merely those of adultery and disobedience and disloyalty. they are the sins of the world market and the world economy. in these moral situations the minister is silent. he knows nothing about them. he is inclined merely to object if the farmer purchases an automobile. he does not see what the automobile is to do for the agriculturist. sunday observance, total abstinence, family purity, honesty as to personal property, these are his stock in trade and these alone. it requires, therefore, a genius to preach in the country, because only the most brilliant preaching can render traditional moral standards interesting among country people. it is proverbial among ministers that "the best preachers are needed in the country." the reason for this is that none of the preachers has any but an outworn standard to preach. they must reinforce it with extraordinary eloquence in order to keep it attractive. very ordinary men, however, if they understand the modern spirit, can hold the attention of country people. the grange has ministered to the farmer's conscience. yet its leaders have been commonplace men, unknown to the nation at large. the great movements which have influenced the farmer in the past twenty years have most of them been pushed to success by men unknown to any but farmers. what orator has come into national prominence out of the enterprises of agricultural life in the past two decades? the farmer does not need great eloquence, but he does need a thorough understanding of the moral and spiritual situations arising out of the exploiter process in which he is immersed. he needs moral teachers for the era of husbandry which is dawning in the country. "there is an actual and most conspicuous dearth of leadership of a high order in rural life. this is evident when we consider the economic and social importance of the agriculturists. the agriculturists constitute about half of our population, they owned over per cent of the total wealth in , and in their products had a value of $ , , , or just about one-third that of the entire nation for that year. yet this vast and fundamental element of our nation elects no farmer presidents, has scarcely any of its members in congress, but few in state legislatures as compared with other classes; it has no governors nor judges. in fact, this class is almost without leadership in the sphere of political life and must depend on representatives of other classes to secure justice. economically it is relatively powerless likewise, possessing practically no control over markets and prices through organization in an age when organization dominates all economic lines, accepting interest rates and freight rates offered it without the ability to check or regulate them, and buying its goods at whatever prices the industrial producers set. its leadership up to the present time has been of the sporadic and discontinuous sort. it has been individualistic, lacking social outlook and vision. consequently for community purposes its significance has been slight."[ ] footnote: [footnote : prof. john m. gillette, in american journal of sociology, march, .] xiii recreation the time has passed in which the amusements of the community can be neglected or dismissed with mere condemnation. in the husbandry of the country every factor must be counted. we are dealing no longer with a fatalistic country life, but with the economy of all resources. therefore the neglecting of the play life and ignoring the leisure occupations of a country people are inconsistent with the new economy. moreover the ancient method of condemning all recreations passed away with the austere economy of earlier days. the churches in the country no longer discipline their members for "going to frolics." the country community no longer is of one mind as to the standard by which recreation shall be governed. yet every event of this sort is closely inspected by the general attention. the experience of the cities, in which social control has gone much farther than in the country under the deliberate harmonizing of life with economic principles, has much to contribute for the building up of rural society through various means, among which is recreation. the need of recreative activities in the country is shown by recent surveys undertaken in pennsylvania, indiana, illinois, missouri and kentucky by the presbyterian department of church and country life. generally, throughout the farming population, it was discovered that no common occasions and no common experiences fell to the lot of the country community. in the course of the round year there is, in thousands of farming communities in pennsylvania, indiana and illinois, no single meeting that brings all the people together. the small town has its fireman's parade, to the small city comes once a year the circus and to the great city comes an anniversary or an exposition. every year there is some common experience which welds the population, increases acquaintance and intensifies social unity. the tillage of the soil in those farming communities from which the blacksmith, the storekeeper, the peddler and the shoemaker have departed, is very lonely. the telephone is the new system of nerves for the rural organism, but the telephone is a cold, steel wire instead of the warm and cordial personal meetings with which the countryside was once enlivened. in eighty country towns in pennsylvania, of which fifty are purely agricultural, we found in our survey only three that had a common leadership and a common assembling. the life of the people in these communities is so solitary as to be almost repellent. their social habits are those of aggressive loneliness. this isolation in the pioneer days made the country people cordial to the visitor: but in the coming of the new economy the farmer shrinks from strangers, because he has become accustomed to social divisions and classifications in which he feels himself inferior; so that the loneliness of country life has become not merely geographical, but sociological. the farmer is shut in not merely by distances in miles, but by distances of social aversion and suspicion. difference has become a more hostile influence in the country than distance. organized industry necessitates organized recreation. the subjection of mind and body to machine labor requires a reaction in the form of play. all factory and industrial populations, without exception, provide themselves with play-grounds of some sort. in the city where no public provision is made the streets are used by the boys for their games, even at the risk of injury or death from the passing traffic. jane addams has shown, in a fine literary appeal in her "the spirit of youth and the city streets," the necessity of some provision for the recreations of the young and of working people in a great city. this necessity is not primarily due to congestion of the population. its real sources are in the system and organization by which modern work is done. this necessity is as characteristic of the rural community as it is of the city, for on the farms as well as in the factory towns labor is performed by machinery. this means that through the working hours of the day, from eight to twelve in number, the attention of the worker must be concentrated upon one task, patiently and steadfastly pursued. the machine worker exerts himself in the control of great powers, horse power or steam power, committed to his charge. he has no opportunity for languor or rest. he has no choice. his job drives him. his movements are fixed and regulated by the nature of the machine with which he is working, and of the task to be accomplished. at the end of the day he has acted involuntarily and mechanically until his own powers of will and choice are accumulated. being repressed through long hours of prescribed labor he is ready for a rebound. his nature demands self-expression. this self-expression takes the form of play. the recreation which results is organized. the laborer in a factory or on a railroad is conscious of organization by the very nature of his work. he labors with a machine driven by powers unseen but of whose operation he is aware, in a great plant wherein his own labor is co-ordinated with that of other workers like unto himself. the hours of self-devotion and prescribed attention leave him free for sympathy with the other workers, whose action and whose toil are organized with his own, and on whose skill and devotion his life and limb and the continuance of his job are dependent. when he turns to recreation he naturally seeks to continue the silent communion with his fellow-workers. the repressed personal energies are already prepared for team work. he comes out of the factory bubbling over with good fellowship and seeking for comradeship in the self-expression which the long hours of the day have denied him. the result is that in every factory town the open spaces are devoted to playground uses. vacant lots, unoccupied fields, and the open street are used by men and boys for their games. exactly the same experience results from school and college organization of education work. the student in the common schools does not choose his course; it is prescribed for him by his family and by society. he does not go to school because he is mentally ambitious, but because the standards of universal education require it of him. especially in the colleges which inherit a great name and attract young men and women for social advantage, the students are characterized by an involuntary subjection to the routine of modern pedagogy. educational discipline is imposed upon them through the long hours of lectures and laboratory and recitations. the students in high school and college are accumulating a rebound of voluntary action. this organized self-expression takes the form of school and college athletics, which has long since been adopted as a part of the educational routine. no considerable number of educators are in favor of abolishing it, and only a few venture to believe in restricting college athletics. its moral value is everywhere tacitly recognized, and pretty generally it is consciously accepted by college and school faculties. play of this sort has great moral value. we are hired to work, and we do it without choice or enthusiasm, but in play the natural forces and the personal choice are at their maximum. every action is chosen and is saturated with the pleasure of self-expression. the result is that play has high ethical value. especially has organized recreation great moral power, because it involves team work, and the subjection of the individual to the success of the team. organized recreation teaches self-denial in a multitude of experiences which are all the more powerful because they are not prescribed by any teacher or preacher, but are the free natural expression of the human spirit under the government of chosen associates working out together a common purpose. therefore it is necessary to use play for the recreation of country life. the word is literal, not figurative. it is not a problem merely of games, nor the question of gymnasium, but a profound ethical enterprise of disciplining the whole population through the use of the play spirit. this question must be approached on the high plane of the teaching of modern theorists, and the experience of such practical organizations as the young men's christian association. the christian associations began their work in the lifetime of present generations and for accomplishing certain purposes they have used recreation. they provided a gymnasium, at first, in order to get men into the prayer-meeting. they offered social parlors in which young men could always hear the sound of sacred song. but the young men's christian association has traveled far from its crude and early use of recreation. some of the early association leaders are still living and still leading. they have steadily advanced with care and wisdom in the use of recreation. within very recent years the leaders of the associations have countenanced the use of billiard tables. no longer is the gymnasium an annex to the prayer-meeting. it has values of its own. without moralizing, these practical men have discovered that the social parlors were good for ends of their own and not merely as a place for hearing the distant sound of hymns. in other words, recreation is a form of ethical culture. rev. c. o. gill, who was captain of the yale football team in , has had an extended experience among farmers. he says, "the reason why farmers cannot co-operate is in the fact that they did not play when they were boys. they never learned team work. they cannot yield to one another, or surrender themselves to the common purpose." the writer, observing mr. gill coaching a university team, commented upon the good spirits with which a player yielded his place on the team just before the victory. mr. gill had removed him, as he explained to him, not because he played poorly, but because a new formation required a rearrangement of the team. in reply to comment upon the player's self-forgetfulness, mr. gill said, "football is the greatest school of morals in the country. i learned more ethics from the coaches when i was an undergraduate in yale, than from all other sources combined." it is this high ethical value of recreation which causes the working man to defend his amateur baseball team, and makes it so hard to repress sunday games. the working man admits the high value of the sabbath, but he sets a value also upon recreation, and without analysis of the philosophy either of the sabbath or of the play-ground, stoutly maintains the goodness of recreation and its necessity for those who have labored all the week. "i work six days in the week, and i must have some time for recreation," is the working man's answer to all sunday reformers. waiving for a moment the question of the sabbath, the human process to which the working man testifies is exactly as he describes it. organized labor and systematic industry will react on any population in the form of systematic recreation. the play-ground movement, therefore, is extending itself throughout the country by the very influence of modern industry. given intelligence to interpret it, and one understands at once the desire of philanthropic and public spirited men and women to provide "a playground beside every school building, open for all the people." dr. luther h. gulick, who was born of missionary parents, was trained in religious schools, graduated as a physician, employed for years in the young men's christian association, and then made play-ground director in the new york public schools, has become legitimately the heir of the experiences of the modern social conscience. he has summed up the philosophy of working men, students, and of the people whose lives are systematized, in a sentence: "there is a higher morality in the reactions of play than in the experiences of labor." the tradition of the church has been opposed to amusement and recreation. the church of our fathers recognized the moral possibilities of play by calling all play immoral. the early quakers filled their records in the eighteenth century with denunciations of "frollicks." consciously they denounced amusement, acting no doubt in a wise understanding of the rude, boisterous character of the pioneer's social gatherings. only unconsciously did the quakers cultivate the spirit of recreation in their social gatherings. it was permitted to have but few and repressed opportunities. the decadence of the quaker church is probably due, in a considerable measure, to their stubborn unwillingness to see both sides of this question. they saw that recreation was immoral. they refused to see that its possible moral value was as great as its moral danger. extensive correspondence with working pastors, by means of a system of questions sent out from a new york office, has brought this result. in answer to the question, "what amusements of moral value are there in the community?" the answer, "baseball, boating, tennis, golf, bicycling, etc." a smaller number of recreations was named in answer to the inquiry for immoral sports. the subsequent question, "what is your position before the community?" brought from the minister very often this answer: "i am known to be opposed to all sports." few ministers realize the inconsistency of this position. they stand before the community as the professed advocates of public and private morality, and they stand also before the community as the professed and violent opponents, often, of the public sports which are known to the young men and workingmen generally as promoters of ethical culture and moral training. is it any wonder that the churches, in these communities, are often deserted by the common people? in lewistown, pa., the old presbyterian church there, seeing the congested character of the town population and the need of breathing-places for the young people and working people, looked about for a recreation field. the only available ground is the old cemetery, in which the earlier members of the congregation have buried their dead. this, the only open spot in the center of the town, it has been proposed to turn into a playground, the bodies of the dead to be disinterred and laid reverently away in a quieter place, and the ground newly consecrated to the needs of the living, and of the young. the action contemplated by this fine old church is emblematic of the modern spirit. christianity is no longer a mere reverence for death and the other world. but it is an energetic service to the young, and the working people, in this present world. it is no longer a solemn reverence for the salvation of the individual soul in a heaven unseen, but it is a social service, no less serious, unto the living and unto the young and the employed. certain modern sports, such as baseball, are free from the corruption which has attached itself to horse-racing and pugilism. this corruption is not in racing a horse, or punching an opponent. it is in the dishonesty of the race, for horsemen believe that "there never was an honest horse-race," and the followers of the prize ring are constantly suspicious that the fight will be "fixed." the first question they ask after the decision of the referee is generally, "was it a frame-up?" the moral power of baseball, tennis, football and the other most popular sports, is in the confidence that the game is fairly played. this fairness of the game is the widest extended school of ethical culture that the american and british population know. honorable recreation trains in courage, manliness, co-operation, obedience, self-control, presence of mind, and in every other of the general social virtues. it makes men citizens and good soldiers when need comes. this was the meaning of the remark of the duke of wellington, when, after the conquest of napoleon, he returned to view the playground at eton, and said, "here the battle of waterloo was won." for the building up of a community, therefore, the promotion of recreation is an essential. just as necessary as the providing of common schools for all the people, is the provision of public play-grounds for all the people. as many as are the school houses so many, generally speaking, should be the play-grounds accessible to all, under the care of trained and responsible leaders, in which, without too much government, the free movements of the young and the abounding self-expression of the great mass of the employed shall have opportunity to work out their own education through play, into public righteousness. the training of citizens for days to come demands exactly the qualities which are imparted on the play-ground. morality is not taught and ethical culture is not imparted by precept, though precept and exhortation have their due place in the analysis of moral and spiritual matters, for the thoughtful. but the great number of people are not ethically thoughtful, and in the acquirement of righteousness all people are unconscious. the desired action in moral growth is universally spontaneous. the most sober and intellectual of men must be caught off his guard and must be lured into voluntary actions before any moral habits can be formed in him. mere analysis of truth or self-examination makes no man good. but men become good by doing things first, and thinking of them afterward. they can be just as good if they never think about them, though thinking about ethical matters renders a service to the community as a whole. it should be the duty, therefore, of the churches, who are acknowledged before the whole community as repositories of the conscience of men, to promote public recreation. where necessary the church should even provide a play-ground. in galesburg, ill., fifteen churches are co-operating, through their men's societies, in a central council of forty members. this council is made up in the form of four committees of ten. each committee considers one great interest of the community. one of these interests is recreation. it is the duty of this committee in winter to provide musical and literary entertainment and lectures. in the summer this committee has secured the use of the knox college recreation field, and employing a trained man, has opened it throughout the summer as a play-ground for all the children of the city. the use of recreation for the building up of a community seems to involve expensive apparatus and sometimes does so. mrs. russell sage at sag harbor, long island, has expended many thousands of dollars in the experiment. interested in the children, of whom there are about eight hundred in the town, through the experience of giving them a christmas tree, she determined to devote to their use a piece of land on the borders of the village, formerly used as a fair ground. this work is to have local value for the children of this community, and has been used as a demonstration center of the efficiency of recreation as a moral discipline among the young. but most communities have not so much money to spend. the proposal of a play-ground or of a gymnasium is itself sufficient to condemn the doctrine of play. "we cannot afford it," settles the whole question. in the country expensive apparatus is not necessary; nor do the farmer's son and daughter require in recreation so much physical exercise. the gymnasium is an artificial and expensive machinery for inducing sweat, but the farmer needs no such artificial machine. the problem is purely one of play, not of exercise. for this purpose a careful study of the community, and of its tendencies and inclinations, is necessary. the great essential of recreation in the country is the opportunity to meet and to talk. therefore the social life of gatherings in the church, and in the schoolhouse, no matter what their program, provided it be innocent, is valuable. farmers will attend an auction, and go a long way to a horse-race, or gather at a fair, without any intention of buying or selling. the fundamental service rendered by the county fair and the auction is an opportunity afforded to converse. this exercise of the tongue is far more important in rural recreation than the exercise of the biceps. but country people cannot talk without an occasion which unlocks their tongues. they must not be directly solicited to converse or they are silent. if the occasion is provided and is made to be sufficiently plausible its greatest success will be in conversation. in almost every country community, therefore, there should be revival, in various forms, of the old "bees," which had so much of a place in the former economy. if there is a widow who has no one to cut her wood, the men of the country church should assemble to do it. if there is a household whose bread winner and husbandman has died at the time of planting corn, let the men of the community gather at an appointed day and till the ground for the family, whose grief is greater at that moment than their need. let the women of the community assemble at noon to provide an abundant repast. this was recently done by a countryside, at the instigation of the minister, and the effect of it was lasting in its values as well as intense in the joy of the day's work. it seems, in view of the need of recreation, that no other quality is so important in the country community as a lively leader. resourceful, energetic and fertile men in the rural ministry can accomplish vastly more than conventional, orderly and proper men. the church in which i began my ministry used to have a play every christmas. we built out the pulpit platform with boards, we hung it around with curtains, giving dressing-room space, and we placed lanterns in front for foot-lights. the first play we gave made us anxious, for the neighborhood was an old quaker settlement; but we found that the quakers enjoyed the play immensely and were the best actors. we made it a genuine expression of the christmas spirit. we abolished the old "speaking pieces." our little stage offered the young people team work, instead of individual elocution. the rehearsals filled a whole month with happy and valuable meetings. everybody co-operated in the labor necessary to prepare the decorations and to take them down, during christmas week, and on the night of the play everybody was on hand, catholic, protestant and heathen. the holidays of the passing year suggest the recreations of the country church. these should not necessarily be productive of sweat, but the country boy and girl do need the recreation of laughter and happy meeting and social liveliness. farm work is lonely and monotonous. such immorality as there is in the country has direct connection with the tedium and dullness of long hours out-doors, alone. the recreations of country life should be meetings for the celebration of great events of the year. easter expresses ideas which are age-old among country people: it is both a pagan festival and a christian anniversary. if easter is developed in a celebration of song or procession, of sermon and of decoration, with full use of its symbolic value, it is sure to bring the whole countryside together, in an experience of the new year rising from the grave of winter and of the divine lord risen from the dead. most country communities have no such celebration. in very many the whole year passes without neighbors meeting for a common social experience. this is why people move to the city, because every city, great and small, has in the course of the year some events which bring all the people to the curbstone. country life has few such times and therefore it is dull, because the richest experience of mankind is the experience of common social joy. the best recreation is acquaintance and conversation. the farmer's son spends many hours in silence. he wants someone to help him to talk, and to talk unto some purpose. the fourth of july is celebrated in rock creek, an illinois community, by a "wild animal show." instead of explosives, which are discouraged, the boys of the community bring together in small cages their animal pets. the boys are encouraged to make small carts for the transportation of their pets, and the crowning event of the day is the procession of these carts, in an open place, before the great dinner, at which the countryside sits down together. recreation in the country, above all, should revolve about something to eat. the farmer's business is to feed the world, and country people love, above all things, the social joy of eating. farmers' wives are the best cooks and the country household perpetuates its culinary traditions. especially does a permanent farm population enrich its household tradition with delicious recipes and beautiful customs of the table. thanksgiving day should be the great celebration of the round year in the country. what a comment upon the country community it is that so few communities in the country meet together, in response to the president's proclamation of thanksgiving, to express gratitude unto the bountiful father of all. the country church should minister to country people in some effective gathering of all the countryside. a most fruitful method now in use is a corn judging contest for the boys. in the middle west the corn clubs for boys have had an extraordinary value, and in the south, also, the farmer's co-operative demonstration work has made use of the boys in the country community for demonstrating progressive methods on the farm. thanksgiving day can be prepared for in the preceding spring, and the boys and girls who have managed a garden, or half acre, through the summer can make their showing at that time. such a competitive showing in the country, in the production of the staple crop, is sure to bring together the whole countryside. the local history of the country community is a fruitful source of recreation. farmers look to the past, and even the new people in the country are keen to hear the story of the old settlers and of the early pioneers. nothing is of greater value in developing and refreshing country life than to enrich it by celebrating its early history. recreation is essential to the moral life of any people. it is the constructive method of making individuals into good citizens. especially valuable is it as a means of educating the young people and the working people of the community. the craving for this social training and ethical experience drives many out of the country community. conversely, training in social morality is to be undertaken especially by the church, which possesses the conscience of the country community. this training is expressed in the one phrase; the promotion of recreation. xiv common worship the worship of god is an expression of the consciousness of kind. "this consciousness is a social and a socializing force, sometimes exceedingly delicate and subtle in its action; sometimes turbulent and all-powerful. assuming endlessly varied modes of prejudice and of prepossession, of liking and disliking, it tends always to reconstruct and dominate every mode of association and every social grouping."[ ] this description by professor giddings is so near to a description of worship, that it is startling. of all human acts of the conscientious man worship is the most highly symbolic. they who worship are alike, and in their likeness are unlike to others. it is an expression of their awareness of resemblance and of difference. the definitions of consciousness of kind, as a sociological process, go a long way to explain without further comment, both the strength and the weakness of the churches in america. the churches have to struggle with a narrow and small social horizon. few people are so conscious of their kinship with all others in their community that they desire those others to worship with them. the sense of unlikeness to others is, unfortunately, as strong in their feelings as the sense of likeness unto their own. in the american community with many newcomers, and some foreigners, this sense of unlikeness is natural. it is not to be wondered that men should think themselves more like unto their old neighbors than unto the new. it is not surprising that with new economic processes men should ignore their unity with those who co-operate with them in getting a living, and should be conscious of their unity with those whose living comes in the same form. as a result, we have working men's churches and "rich men's clubs," "college churches," "student pastors," churches which minister to old families, and new chapels built by tenant farmers. but these phases of worship are peculiar to the times of transition in which we live. the immaturity of our economic processes, and the greater immaturity of our economic knowledge, explain the failure of worshiping people to assemble by communities; but the process which assembles men of kindred mind to worship together now is capable of bringing men together in larger wholes. the spirit of federation is in the air. the longing for religious unity is a response to the stimuli of common experience in the same locality. men who meet throughout the week, if they worship at all, discover a desire to worship together. the coming of great occasions and the celebrations of anniversaries, train them in some common assemblies. i remember how the tidings of the death of president mckinley brought together all the people of the community in an act of worship. their response to a profound sense of danger was a community response, and the church which was prompt to open its doors, found men of all faiths within. at a recent meeting of the national body of one of the greatest protestant churches, proceedings were halted by the moderator, who read a telegram announcing the friendly action of another religious body. this action looked toward union of the two denominations. it was a response to overtures from the body there in session. instantly the whole assembly sprang up, applauding and cheering, and led by a clear, musical voice, broke out in a hymn. that hymn is profoundly sociological in its language, and its use is increasing among christian people. it expresses that worship which is a consciousness of kind. its words are blest be the tie that binds our hearts in christian love: the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. before our father's throne we pour our ardent prayers; our fears, our hopes, our aims, are one, our comforts and our cares. we share our mutual woes, our mutual burdens bear, and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear. when we asunder part, it gives us inward pain; but we shall still be joined in heart, and hope to meet again. it would be hard to find a member of a protestant church in america, among the older denominations, who does not know these words, and is not accustomed to use them in response to the stimuli of kinship with other protestant christians. the consciousness of kind is an awareness of differences and resemblances. it is a finding of one's self among those to whom one is like, and an aversion to those unto whom one is not like. worship is an expression of this common likeness. it is an enjoyment of fellowship. the experience of worship is impossible in an atmosphere of difference. this is a reason for the cleavage of denominations, and the splitting of congregations. without this separating, men could not enjoy the uniting, and without the aversion, men could not taste the sweets of fellowship. this brings us very near to the sacred experiences in which men find god. a very early chapter in the bible describes god as the "friend" of a man. in the succeeding pages he becomes the king, the priest, the prophet, and the father of men. in every one of them the mind of the worshiper has expressed a profound sense, that god is found by the soul in society. herbert spencer has insisted that all religion is ancestor worship, that is, it grows out of the family group. simmel teaches that religion is the resultant of the reactions of the individual with his group fellows, and with the group as a whole. christian folk are accustomed to express this by calling one another "brothers" and "sisters," meaning clearly that religion is a social experience. this is not the place for extended biblical interpretation, but i am convinced that the whole course of scripture will testify to this, that in the peaceful, continuing, social unities men have found god, and in the differences, in their group conflicts, in their wars, and in the oppositions to their enemies, there has been found no religious experience. that is, such conflict has intensified unity, and the resulting unity has been ever richer in religion: but the thoughts for god have come forth clothed always in terms and titles of fellowship, unity and kinship. in country communities this principle explains the divisions and the unities of religious life. in many towns, the presbyterian church, for instance, is the church of the old settler and the earlier farmers. a new denomination has come in with the tenants and the invaders. that is, men have found it impossible to worship in a constant experience of difference. it is true that their difference is an element in their religion, because the consciousness of difference is an element in the consciousness of kind. in the southern states, the white slave-holders worshiped, before the war, in the same congregations with their negro slaves. they were conscious of the plantation group, and of the economic unity with their work-people. when emancipation came and the slaves were made free, they must needs worship apart; and today, throughout the whole south, the negro churches have been erected to express the consciousness of kind, both on the part of the white and of the black. if this argument has force, it goes to prove that religion is, in a small community, the strongest organizing force. the seeking after god requires as a vehicle the consciousness of likeness and difference. it can only proceed along those lines. the earnest desire of many common folk to know god is a working force, which follows the cleavage of social classification. the churches become expressions of social forms. in the country particularly, where life is simpler and changes are slower, the church becomes an almost infallible index of the social condition of the people. the duty, then, of the religious worker, and the task of the prophet and the seer, is to enlarge the consciousness of kind. worship is to be placed on a larger plane. americans must be taught to see their unity with immigrants. owners of land must be made to recognize that they are one with their tenants. the employer must be shown that his alliances are with those who help him to get his living. at once, when this task is put before us, we see the futility of the ideals of our time. church workers and other teachers have played up before the eyes of the people those ideals which separate men into artificial classes. the consciousness of kind has been a consciousness of money and consciousness of belonging to old families, or a consciousness of the ideals of higher education. a great many american families live in the ideal of sending their boys and girls to college. this leads them to feel a difference between themselves and the larger number of people who do not care for higher education, and who discover no energies in themselves that move on the path of learning. the result is that their worship is narrow; churches become culture clubs: the preachers are exponents of literature: the service of worship is a liturgy of esthetic pleasure. the true consciousness of kind must be economic and social. there is no escape from this for religious people. they must go deep down to the unities with men who co-operate with them in getting a living. the pittsburgh mill owner has no other unity by which he can find himself at one with his foreign born mill-hand, than the fact that he and the mill-hand are fellow workers in the mill. what other bond of union is there between the farm landlord and the farm tenant? they have no common idealism. the one reads books, the other does not. the one sends his son to college, the other sends his into the stable and the field. the one is enjoying a life of leisure and his hands are clean; the other sweats, saves, and produces, in soiled clothing, and with hard, coarse hands. they have only one basis of unity, namely, that they co-operate in tilling the soil, and in the producing of food and raw materials. the teacher, or preacher, who attempts in this case to escape the economic unity, will find no other. the trouble with most of the ideals which express themselves in diversified worship, is that they are peculiar to the life of leisure, they are a part of "the leisure class standard." many teachers and preachers reiterate similar demands which can only be responded to by people who do not have to work. from this leisure class standard our ideals must be changed to the standard of work, and the man who has vision is he who shall see the economic, the industrial unities, and who with compelling voice, will call men together to worship in a new consciousness of kind. ministers in the country are feeling this very deeply. the pastor who ministers to a whole community, boasts of it. he realizes he is serving a true social unit. this is the joy of many country churches which might be named, and the lack of it is the blight of many other country communities. it must be clearly born in mind, however, that the church can not organize a unity that is apart from the life of men. religion is the expression of social realities. there can be no "federation" of those who are not conscious of their likeness and of their resemblances. this means that the religious teaching of days to come must be a teaching of the real unities of mankind. for in these true bonds of union men are brought together. the efforts to assemble them in artificial bonds, however ideal, will be futile. footnote: [footnote : "descriptive and historical sociology," by prof. franklin h. giddings, p. .] selected bibliography books the conservation of natural resources in the united states, chas. r. van hise, the macmillan co. the rural life problem of the united states, sir horace plunkett, the macmillan co. principles of rural economics, thomas nixon carver, ginn and company the country life movement in the united states, l. h. bailey, the macmillan co. ireland in the new century, sir horace plunkett, e. p. dutton the american rural school, harold w. foght, the macmillan co. the country town. a study of rural evolution, wilbert l. anderson, the baker & taylor co. descriptive and historical sociology, franklin h. giddings, the macmillan co. rural denmark and its lessons, h. rider haggard, longmans, green & co. quaker hill, a sociological study, warren h. wilson, privately printed youth, g. stanley hall, d. appleton & co. the presbyterian church in the united states, robert e. thompson, chas. scribner's sons chapters in rural progress, kenyon l. butterfield, the university of chicago press the country church and the rural problem, kenyon l. butterfield, the university of chicago press the story of john frederick oberlin, augustus field beard, the pilgrim press the church of the open country, warren h. wilson, missionary education movement the day of the country church, j. o. ashenhurst, funk & wagnalls co. the distribution of wealth, john bates clark, the macmillan co. articles referred to in the text the american journal of sociology, march, , statement by john l. gillin. the american journal of sociology, march, , the drift of the city in relation to the rural problem, john m. gillette. modern methods in the country church, matthew b. mcnutt, missionary education movement a method of making a social survey in a rural community, c. j. galpin, university of wisconsin circular of information no. bulletins of international institute of agriculture, rome, italy the political science quarterly, december, , the agrarian changes in the middle west, j. b. ross index abandoned country churches, absentee landlords, - academy,--old new england, addams, jane, adult bible class, agee, prof. alva, agriculture, teaching of, amish, amusement, problem of, anabaptist, anderson, wilbert l., anti-saloon league, apples, marketing of, augustine, saint, austerity, bailey, l. h., "bees", bellona, n. y. boll weevil, bone, r. e., braddock, rev. j. s., breach of contract, breadwinner, type, butterfield, kenyon l., casselton, n. d., centralized school, chaffee, farm, chester county, pa., chesterton, gilbert k., christmas play, church, budget, envelope system, financial system, records, clark, john bates, , college athletics, columbus, christopher, community center, consciousness of kind, , corn clubs, country fair, promoted, country life commission, cranberry, n. j., church at, crete, nebraska, danish folk schools, , delaware, produce exchanges, demonstration work, denmark, , desmoulin, diminishing returns, law of, , donation, system, dunkers, , du page church, eliot, ex-president of harvard, endowment of churches, exploitation of land, - , , family group, shrinkage of, farm laborers, federation of churches, , foght, harold w., , fourth of july celebration, galesburg, ill., galpin, prof. c. j., giddings, prof. franklin h., gill, rev. c. o., gillette, prof. john m., gillin, prof., , , greeley, horace, group system, , , grundtvig, bishop, , , gulick, dr. luther h., haggard, h. rider, hanover, n. j., hays, willet m., hernando, mississippi, holidays, celebration of, homestead act, hood river valley, oregon, fruit growers, hormell, dr. w. h., illinois, survey of, immigrants, in country districts, indiana, survey of, ireland, christian brothers, co-operative organizations, - country life movement, john swaney consolidated school, - kentucky, co-operative organizations, survey of, lancaster county, pa., land values, leadership, lewistown, pa., mcnab, ill., mcnutt, rev. matthew b., , marginal man, massachusetts communities, mennonites, middle creek church, minimum salary, missouri, survey of, money crop, mormons, , - morrison, rev. t. maxwell, mountain community, mountaineers, , , new england country church asso., new york central r. r., oberammergau, oberlin, john frederick, oblong meeting, , ohio, counties less productive, ottumwa, iowa, over churching, , , palatinates, pastor, need of, passion play, penn, william, penn yan, n. y., pennsylvania germans, , - pennsylvania, survey of, planters, south, playground, playground movement, , plunkett, sir horace, , polk, rev. samuel, poor, ministry to, protestantism, quaker hill, , , quaker meeting, mcnab, quakers, , , rankin, david, recreation, importance of, , retired farmers, - retirement from farm, process described, revivals, , , riis, jacob, rock creek, ill., , , ross, prof. j. b., , , , , rural evangelism, rural exodus, , rural free delivery, sag harbor, l. i., sage, mrs. russell, schenck, norman c., school, country, , , , scientific farming, scotch-irish, , , - simmel, slave-holding churches, smith, adam, smith, john, socialism, social service, , xvi spencer, herbert, store, country, , sunday schools, , swaney, john, tardé, gabriel, teachers, training of, team play, ethical value, telephone, rural, , temperance movement, , , tenant farmers, tenants' lease, thompson, r. e., theological seminaries, - trolley, inter-urban, types, economic, utility, initial, marginal, van alstyne, edward, vote selling, washington county, pa., waterloo, iowa, community church, wealth, conservation of, west nottingham, md., church at, winnebago, ill., young men's christian association, , young people's societies, * * * * * transcriber's note the following changes have been made to the text: page xi: "ix" changed to "xiii". page : "are separated form" changed to "are separated from". page : "langour" changed to "languor". page : "this be brought" changed to "this he brought". page : "desti-period" changed to "destination". page : "estended" changed to "extended". page : "recorded in out literature" changed to "recorded in our literature". page : "individiuals" changed to "individuals". page : "in every country community" changed to "in every country community". page : "embarassed" changed to "embarrassed". page : footnote : "willett" changed to "willet" page : "proletarean" changed to "proletarian". page : "portugese" changed to "portuguese". page : "gradiloquently" changed to "grandiloquently". page : "addam" changed to "addams". page : "elf-expression takes the form" changed to "self-expression takes the form". page : "inmoral" changed to "immoral". page : "disintered" changed to "disinterred". page : "frutiful" changed to "fruitful". page : "expresssion" changed to "expression". page : "immaturity of our ecnomic" changed to "immaturity of our economic". page : "lewiston" changed to "lewistown". page : "xii" changed to "xvi". page : "tard" changed to "tardé". theology and the social consciousness a study of the relations of the social consciousness to theology by henry churchill king professor of theology and philosophy in oberlin college _second edition_ hodder & stoughton new york george h. doran company copyright, by the macmillan company set up and electrotyped september, reprinted february, ; july, ; august, ; april, . to the members of the harvard summer school of theology of the year in recognition of their interest in the lectures that formed the basis of this book preface there is no attempt in this book to present a complete system of theology, though much of such a system is passed in review, but only to study a special phase of theological thinking. the precise theme of the book is the relations of the social consciousness to theology. this is the subject upon which the writer was asked to lecture at the harvard summer school of theology of ; and the book has grown out of the lectures there given. in preparing the book for the press, however, the lecture form has been entirely abandoned, and considerable material added. the importance of the theme seems to justify a somewhat thorough-going treatment. if one believes at all in the presence of god in history--and the christian can have no doubt here--he must be profoundly interested in such a phenomenon as the steady growth of the social consciousness. hardly any inner characteristic of our time has a stronger historical justification than that consciousness; and it has carried the reason and conscience of the men of this generation in rare degree. having its own comparatively independent development, and yet making an ethical demand that is thoroughly christian, it furnishes an almost ideal standpoint from which to review our theological statements, and, at the same time, a valuable test of their really christian quality. in attempting, then, a careful study of the relations of the social consciousness to theology, this book aims, first, definitely to get at the real meaning of the social consciousness as the theologian must view it, and so to bring clearly into mind the unconscious assumptions of the social consciousness itself; and then to trace out the influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion, and upon theological doctrine. the larger portion of the book is naturally given to the influence upon theological doctrine; and to make the discussion here as pointed as possible, the different elements of the social consciousness are considered separately. it should be noted, however, that the question raised is not the historical one, how, as a matter of fact, has the social consciousness modified the conception of religion or the statement of theological doctrine? but the theoretical one, how should the social consciousness naturally affect religion and doctrine? in this sense, the result might be called, in president hyde's phrase, a "social theology"; but, as i believe that the social consciousness is at bottom only a true sense of the fully personal, i prefer myself to think of the present book as only carrying out in more detail the contention of my _reconstruction in theology_--that theology should aim at a restatement of doctrine in strictly personal terms. so conceived, in spite of its casual origin, this book follows very naturally upon the previous book. some of the same topics necessarily recur here; and references to the _reconstruction_ have been freely made, in order to avoid all unnecessary repetition. that this social sense of the fully personal has finally a real and definite contribution to make to theology, i cannot doubt. i can only hope that the present discussion may be found at least suggestive, particularly in the analysis of the social consciousness, and in the treatment of mysticism and of the ethical in religion, as well as in the consideration of the special influence of the elements of the social consciousness upon the restatement of doctrine. of the doctrinal applications, the application to the problem of redemption may be considered, perhaps, of most significance. henry churchill king. oberlin college, june, . contents introduction page the theme the real meaning of the social consciousness for theology introduction the point of view of the theologian chapter i the definition of the social consciousness i. the sense of the like-mindedness of men ii. the sense of the mutual influence of men . contributing lines of thought . the threefold form of the conviction iii. the sense of the value and sacredness of the person iv. the sense of obligation v. the sense of love chapter ii the inadequacy of the analogy of the organism as an expression of the social consciousness i. the value of the analogy ii. the inevitable inadequacy of the analogy . it comes from the sub-personal world . access to reality, only through ourselves . mistaken passion for construing everything iii. the analogy tested by the definition of the social consciousness chapter iii the necessity of the facts of which the social consciousness is the reflection, if ideal interests are to be supreme i. the question ii. otherwise, no moral world at all . the prerequisites of a moral world ( ) a sphere of law ( ) ethical freedom ( ) some power of accomplishment ( ) members one of another . the ideal world requires, thus, the facts of the social consciousness chapter iv the ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness i. how can it be, metaphysically, that we do influence one another? . not due to the physical fact of race-connection . we are not to over-emphasize the principle of heredity . not due to a mystical solidarity . grounded in the immanence of god ii. what is required for the final positive justification of the social consciousness, as ethical? . must be grounded in the supporting will of god . god's sharing in our life . the consequent transfiguration of the social consciousness the influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion introduction chapter v the opposition of the social consciousness to the falsely mystical i. what is the falsely mystical? . nash's definition . herrmann's definition ii. the objections of the social consciousness to the falsely mystical . unethical . does not give a really personal god . belittles the personal in man . leaves the historically, concretely christian chapter vi the emphasis of the social consciousness upon the personal relation in religion, and so upon the truly mystical i. the social consciousness tends positively to emphasize the personal relation in religion . emphasizes everywhere the personal . requires the laws of a deepening friendship in religion . requires the ideal conditions of the richest life in religion ii. the social consciousness thus keeps the truly mystical . the justifiable and unjustifiable elements in mysticism ( ) emotion, the test ( ) subjective tendency ( ) underestimating the historical ( ) tendency toward vagueness ( ) tendency toward pantheism ( ) tendency to extravagant symbolism . the protest in favor of the whole man . the self-controlled recognition of emotion chapter vii the thorough ethicizing of religion i. the pressure of the problem ii. the statement of the problem iii. the answer . involved in relation to christ . the divine will felt in the ethical command . involved in the nature of god's gifts . communion with god, through harmony with his ethical will . the vision of god for the pure in heart . sharing the life of god . christ, as satisfying our highest claims on life . the vision of the riches of the life of christ, ethically conditioned . the moral law, as a revelation of the love of god chapter viii the emphasis of the social consciousness upon the historically christian i. the social consciousness needs historical justification ii. christianity's response to this need the influence of the social consciousness upon theological doctrine chapter ix general results i. the conception of theology in personal terms ii. the fatherhood of god, as the determining principle in theology iii. christ's own social emphases iv. the reflection in theology of the changes in the conception of religion chapter x the influence of the deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men upon theology i. no prime favorites with god ii. the great universal qualities and interests, the most valuable iii. essential likeness under very diverse forms iv. as applied to the question of immortality v. consequent larger sympathy with men, faith in men, and hope for men vi. judgment according to light, and the moral reality of the future life chapter xi the influence of the deepening sense of the mutual influence of men upon theology i. the real unity of the race ii. deepening the sense of sin iii. mutual influence for good in the attainment of character . application to the problem of redemption . the consequent ethical and spiritual meaning of substitution and propitiation iv. mutual influence for good in our personal relation to god . in coming into the kingdom . in fellowship within the kingdom . in intercessory prayer v. mutual influence for good in confessions of faith . complete uniformity of belief and statement impossible . complete uniformity of belief and statement undesirable vi. the consequent importance of the doctrine of the church chapter xii the influence of the deepening sense of the value and sacredness of the person upon theology i. the recognition of the personal in man . man's personal separateness from god . emphasis upon man's moral initiative . man, a child of god ii. the recognition of the personal in christ . christ, a personal revelation of god . emphasizing the moral and spiritual in asserting the supremacy of christ . the moral and spiritual grounds of the supremacy of christ ( ) the greatest in the greatest sphere ( ) the sinless and impenitent one ( ) consciously rises to the highest ideal ( ) realizes the character of god ( ) consciously able to redeem all men ( ) complete normality under this transcendent god-consciousness and sense of mission ( ) the only person who can call out absolute trust ( ) the one, in whom god certainly finds us ( ) the ideal realized . christ's double uniqueness . the increasing sense of our kinship with christ, and of his reality iii. the recognition of the personal in god. . the steady carrying through of the completely personal in the conception of god. guarding the conception . god is always the completely personal god ( ) consequent relation of god to "eternal truths" ( ) eternal creation ( ) the unity and unchangeableness of god ( ) the limitations of the conception of immanence . deepening the thought of the fatherhood of god ( ) history, no mere natural process ( ) god, the great servant ( ) no divine arbitrariness ( ) the passibility of god . as to the doctrine of a social trinity . preëminent reverence for personality, characterizing all god's relations with men ( ) reflected in christ ( ) in creation ( ) in providence ( ) in our personal religious life ( ) in the judgment ( ) in the future life theology and the social consciousness introduction _the theme_ no theologian can be excused to-day from a careful study of the relations of theology and the social consciousness. whether this study becomes a formal investigation or not, the social consciousness is so deep and significant a phenomenon in the ethical life of our time, that it cannot be ignored by the theologian who means to bring his message to men really home. this book is written in the conviction that, while men are thus moved as never before by a deep sense of mutual influence and obligation, they have also as deep and genuine an interest as ever in the really greatest questions of religion and theology. interests so significant and so akin cannot long remain isolated in the mind. they are certain soon profoundly to influence each other. and this mutual influence of theology and the social consciousness form the theme of this book. two questions are naturally involved in this theme. first: has theology given any help, or has it any help to give, to the social consciousness?--the question of the first division of the book. second: has the social consciousness made any contribution, or has it any contribution to make, to theology?--the question of the second and third divisions. that is to say: on the one hand, have the great facts which theology studies any help to give to the man who faces the problem of social progress--of the steady elevation of the race? on the other hand, has the great fact of the immensely quickened social consciousness of our time, with all that it means, any help to give to the theologian in his attempt to bring the great christian truths really home to men, to make them more real, more rational, more vital? or again: on the one hand, do theological doctrines--the most adequate statements we can make of the great christian truths--best explain and best ground the social consciousness, so as best to bring our entire thought in this sphere of the social into unity? is the christian truth so great that it not only includes all that is true in this new social consciousness--is fully able to take it up into itself and to make it feel at home there--but also, so great that it alone can give the social consciousness its fullest meaning, alone enable it to understand itself, and alone furnish it adequate motive and power? is the social consciousness, in truth, only a disguised statement of christian convictions, and does it really require the christian religion and its thoughtful expression to complete itself? must the social consciousness say, when it comes to full self-knowledge,--i am myself an unmeaning and unjustified by-product, if there is not a god in the full christian sense? and, so saying, confirm again the great christian truths? this is the question of the first division. on the other hand, since the task of any given theologian is necessarily temporary, and since any marked modification of the consciousness of men will inevitably demand some restatement of theological doctrine, the question here becomes--to what changed points of view in religion and theology, to what restatements of doctrine, and so to what truer appreciation of christian truth, does the new social consciousness naturally lead? how do the affirmations of the social consciousness, as the outcome of a careful, inductive study of the social evolution of the race, affect our theological statements? this is the question of the second and third divisions of the book. our discussion must of course assume and build on the conclusions of sociology, and of new testament theology, especially the conclusions concerning the social teaching of jesus. the real meaning of the social consciousness for theology introduction _the point of view of the theologian_ first, then, what is the real meaning of the social consciousness, as the theologian must view it? the answer to this question involves a preliminary one: what is the point of view of the theologian in any investigation? one can only give his own answer. first of all, the theologian, as such, is an _interpreter_, not a tracer of causal connections. he builds everywhere upon the scientific investigator, and takes from him the statement of facts and processes. with these he has primarily nothing to do. with reference to the social consciousness, therefore, he does not attempt to do over again the work of the sociologist; he asks only, what does the social consciousness, in the light of the whole of life and thought, mean; not, how did it come about? the theologian, too, is a _believer in the supremacy of spiritual interests_; this is his central contention. he affirms strenuously, with the scientific worker, the place and value of the mechanical; but he is certain that the mechanical can understand itself even, only as it is seen to be simple means, and thus clearly subordinate in significance. his problem is, therefore, everywhere, that of ideal interpretation, not of mechanical explanation. but, while he has nothing to do with the scientific tracing of immediate causal connections, he recognizes causality itself as requiring an ultimate explanation, that cannot be mechanically given. the theologian must be in this, then, an _ideal_ interpreter, and an inquirer after the _ultimate_ cause. the theologian assumes, moreover, the legitimacy and value of the fact of _religion_; for theology is simply the thoughtful, comprehensive, and unified expression of what religion means to us. the meaning of the social consciousness to the theologian involves, therefore, at once the question of its relation to religious conviction. the point of view of the christian theologian involves, besides, the _reality of the personal god_ in personal relation to persons. theology is in earnest in its thought of god, and knows that god is everywhere to be taken into account; that, if there is a god at all, he is not to be exiled into some corner of his universe, but is intimately concerned in all, is at the very heart of all; and that, therefore, it is not a matter of merely curious interest or of subsidiary inquiry, whether we are to look at our questions with god in mind. finally, the christian theologian tries everywhere to make his point of view _the point of view of christ_. the theology, upon which he ultimately stakes his all, is christ's theology. he knows that there is much concerning which he cannot refuse to think, but upon which christ has not expressed himself either explicitly or by clear inference; but in all this unavoidable supplementary thinking he aims to be absolutely loyal to the spirit of christ. from this point of view of the christian theologian, now, what does the social consciousness mean? the answer may be given under four heads: ( ) the definition of the social consciousness; ( ) the inadequacy of the analogy of the organism, as an expression of the social consciousness; ( ) the necessity of the facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, if ideal interests are to be supreme; ( ) the ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness. these four topics form the subjects of the four chapters of the first division of our inquiry. chapter i _the definition of the social consciousness_ the simplest and probably the most accurate single expression we can give to the social consciousness, is to say that it is a growing sense of the real brotherhood of men. but five elements seem plainly involved in this, and may be profitably separated in our thought, if that is to be clear and definite:--a deepening sense ( ) of the likeness or like-mindedness of men, ( ) of their mutual influence, ( ) of the value and sacredness of the person, ( ) of mutual obligation, and ( ) of love. i. the sense of the like-mindedness of men[ ] if a society is "a group of like-minded individuals," if the "all-essential" requisites for coöperation are "like-mindedness and consciousness of kind," as giddings tells us, then certainly a prime element in the social consciousness is likeness and the sense of it--a growing sense of the mental and moral resemblance and "potential resemblance" of all men, and of all classes of men, though not equality of powers. "equality of need" among men, too,[ ] to which sociology comes as one of its surest conclusions, implies a common capacity, even if in varying degrees, to enter into the most fundamental interests of life, and so points unmistakably to the essential likeness of men in the most important things. so, too, sociology's unquestioning assertion that both smaller and larger groups of men constantly tend toward unity, assumes potential resemblance. and the uniform experience and prescription of social workers, that _really_ knowing "how the other half lives" brings increasing sympathy, also affirm the fundamental likeness of men. every painstaking investigation of a social question comes out at some point or other with a fresh discovery of a previously hidden, underlying resemblance between classes of men. from the careful, inductive study of social evolution, too, the men of our day see, as no other generation has seen, that the great force always and everywhere at work in that evolution has been likeness and the consciousness of it. for all these reasons, this generation believes, as men never believed before, in the essential like-mindedness of men; and this deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men is certainly one element in the modern social consciousness. ii. the sense of the mutual influence of men a second element in the social consciousness, and, perhaps, that which has most of all characterized it through the larger period of its growth, is the strong sense of the mutual influence of men--that we are all "members one of another." . _contributing lines of thought._--it is worth seeing how firmly planted the idea is. several lines of thought have united to induce men to emphasize--perhaps even to over-emphasize--this way of thinking of society. the influence of natural science, in the first place, has been inevitably in this direction. its root idea of the universality of law forces upon one the thought of a world which is a _coherent_ whole, a unity with universal forces in it, in which every part is inextricably connected with every other. so, too, the acceptance of the theory of evolution has led science to regard the whole history of the physical universe as an organic growth. psychology, also, with its present-day emphasis, in baldwin and royce, upon the constant presence and fundamental character of _imitation_, and its insistence upon the still more fundamental impulsiveness of consciousness which dewey believes underlies imitation,[ ] is really proclaiming exactly this element of the social consciousness. and the whole assertion by the later psychology of the unity of man--mind and body, and of the complex intertwining of all the functions of the mind, is in closest harmony with a similar view of society. philosophy, too, is exerting all along a half-unconscious pressure toward the thought of the organic unity of society. that philosophy may exist at all, it must start from the assumption of a universe, a real unity of truth, and its problem is to find a _discerned_ unity. it knows no unrelated being, and, consequently, whether it theoretically accepts the formulation or not, it must admit that, as a matter of fact, to be is to be in relations. it asserts as a universal fact, what natural science and psychology both affirm in their own respective spheres, the concrete relatedness of all. it cannot well deny the same thought when applied to society. its repeated attempts, moreover, to conceive all as a developing unity, and the profound influence of the analogy of the organism upon its history, both further sustain the organic view of society. christianity, as well, has been a powerful factor in this direction from the beginning, for it really first gave the idea of humanity.[ ] . _the threefold form of the conviction._--sustained, now, by all these movements in natural science, psychology, philosophy, and christianity, this thought of the mutual influence of men has taken three forms: that mutual influence is inevitable, isolation impossible; that mutual influence is desirable, isolation to be shunned; that mutual influence is indispensable, isolation blighting. ( ) this second element in the social consciousness has meant, then, in the first place, a growing sense of the inevitableness of the mutual influence of all men, and of all classes of men; that we are all parts of one whole, each part unavoidably affected by every other; that we are bound up in one bundle of life with all men, and cannot live an isolated life if we would; that we do influence one another whether we will or not, and tend unconsciously to draw others to our level and are ourselves drawn toward theirs; that we joy and suffer together whether we will or not, and grow or deteriorate together. ( ) but the mutual influence of men means more than this: not only that we do inevitably affect one another in living out our own life, but a growing sense of the fact that we are obviously not intended to come to our best in independence of one another; that we are made on so large a plan that we cannot come to our best alone; that we are evidently made for personal relations, and that, therefore, largeness of life for ourselves depends on our entering into the life of others. ( ) but even more than this is true. it is not only that entering into the life of others is a help in my life, it is _the_ great help, the one great means, the indispensable, the essential condition of all largeness of life; it is the very meaning of life,--life itself. we are to find our life only in losing our life. life is the fulfilment of relations. when we try to run away from the variety and complexity of these relations, we are running away from life itself. the indispensableness of these relations to others is assumed, also, in the assertion by the sociologist of an evolution toward a society, at once more and more complex, and more and more perfect. but if i grow in the growth of another, the other grows in my growth. if the only thing of value that i can finally give is myself, the value of that gift depends upon the largeness and richness of the self given. for love's own sake, therefore, i must grow, must strive to bring to its highest perfection that work which is given me to do. a person is a social being called to contribute to the whole, in the line of his own best possibilities. one's largest ministry to others is to be rendered, then, through sacred regard for one's own calling, considered as exactly his place of largest service. or, to put it the other way: i can come to my best only in work so great and in associations so large that i may lose myself in them in perfect objectivity. the mutual influence of men, therefore, is unavoidable, is desirable, is indispensable; isolation impossible, hindering, blighting. this is the true solidarity of the race, in which there is no fiction, no hiding in the inconceivable, and no pretense. iii. the sense of the value and sacredness of the person the third element in the social consciousness, the sense of the value and sacredness of the person, follows naturally from the sense of like-mindedness and of mutual influence, but needs distinct and emphatic statement. it is less easily separable than the other elements named, and, indeed, may be made to include all the others, and does, in a way, carry all with it. thus broadly conceived, it has seemed to the writer that--with the return to the historical christ--it might well be called the most notable moral characteristic of our time.[ ] but, though less easily and definitely discriminated, one who knows deeply the modern social consciousness would surely feel that the very heart of it had been omitted, if this growing sense of the value and sacredness of the person did not come to strong expression. reverence for personality--the steadily deepening sense that every person has a value not to be measured in anything else, and is in himself sacred to god and man--this it is which marks unmistakably every step in the progress of the individual and of the race. without it, whatever the other marks of civilization, you have only tyranny and slavery; with it, though every trace of luxury and scientific invention be lacking, you have the perfection of human relations. this sense of the value and sacredness of the person not only characterizes increasingly the whole social and moral evolution of the race, but it is to be seen in the clearly conscious demand for equality of rights, and, especially--to take a single example--in the growing recognition that the child is an individual with his own rights; that he has a personality of his own of a sanctity inviolable by the parent; that there are clear bounds beyond which no one may go without personal outrage. the recognition by psychology of respect for personality as one of the three or four most fundamental conditions--if not the most essential of all--of happiness, of character, and of influence, is explicit confirmation of the truth of this element of the social consciousness. iv. the sense of obligation but the elements of the social consciousness already named lead directly to a growing sense of obligation. every man carries in himself his only possible standard of measurement of all else. a growing sense of the likeness of other men to himself quickens at once, therefore, the sense of obligation, and leads naturally to the golden rule. recognition of mutual influence, too, inevitably carries with it a deeper sense of obligation; for, if we do affect others constantly, then we are manifestly under obligation not only to do direct service to others, but so to order our own lives as to help, not to hinder, others. the sense of the value and sacredness of the person plainly looks to the same deepening of obligation. as an element of the social consciousness, the sense of obligation means for a given individual, a growing sense of responsibility for all; and for society at large an increase in the number of those who feel the obligation to serve. the growth in each of these directions cannot be questioned. there is no privileged class, in whose own consciences there is not being recognized more and more the right of the claim that they must justify themselves by service which shall be as unique as their privilege. in consequence, the conception of the governing classes is steadily changing, for both the governed and the governing, to some recognition of christ's principle, that he who would be first must be servant of all. the sharp insistence of the sociologist that "organization must be for the organized" expresses the same thought. one must add sociology's double assertion, that society is really advancing toward its goal, and yet that a chief condition of the progress of society is unselfish leadership.[ ] this can only mean that there is, increasingly, unselfish leadership, more and more of conscious, willing coöperation on the part of men in forwarding the social evolution. none of us can return to the older attitude of comparative indifference, nor can we honestly defend it. we do have obligations and we own them; we are judging ourselves increasingly by christ's test of ministering love. v. the sense of love and the social consciousness ends necessarily in love, in the broader, ethical meaning of that word. we shall never feel that the social consciousness is complete, short of real love. all the other elements of the social consciousness lead to love and are included in it. even the sociologist must bring in as necessary results of the consciousness of kind--sympathy, affection, and desire for the recognition of others;[ ] and he finds these always more or less distinctly at work among men. these further considerations from the study of evolution confirm this result: that man is preëminently the social animal;[ ] that with man we have clearly reached the stage of persons and of personal relations;[ ] that the very existence and development of man required love at every step;[ ] and that the chief moral significance of man's prolonged infancy is probably to be found in the necessary calling out of love.[ ] so, too, it has become constantly more and more clear that our obligation, what we owe to others, is ourselves; and the giving of the self is love. it seems to be thrust home upon social workers everywhere that there is no solution of any social problem without a personal self-giving in some way on the part of some; that there is no cheaper way than this very costly one of love, of the giving of ourselves--whether in the family, or in charity, or in criminology. the point, already noted, that the progress of society depends on leaders who will serve with unselfish devotion, is only another emphasis upon love as an indispensable element of the social consciousness. and the social goal--equality, brotherhood, liberty, when these terms are given any adequate ethical content--is absolutely unthinkable in any really vital sense without love. any attempted definition of love, moreover, resolves at once into what we mean by the social consciousness. if we define love as the giving of self, this is exactly what, with growing clearness and insistence, the social consciousness demands. if with herrmann we call love, "joy in personal life"--joy, that is, in the revelation of personal life, this can only come in that trustful, reverent, self-surrendering association to which the social consciousness exhorts. if with edwards we call love, willing the highest and completest good of all, we reach the same result. or if with christ in the beatitudes, or with paul in the thirteenth of i corinthians, we study the characteristics of love, we shall hardly doubt that a complete social consciousness must have these marks of love. these elements, then, make up the social consciousness: the sense of like-mindedness, of mutual influence, of the value and sacredness of the person, of obligation, and of love; and all these, with their implied demands, only point to what a person must be if he is to be fully personal. with this definition in mind, we may now ask, whether the analogy of the organism can adequately express the social consciousness. [ ] cf. giddings, _elements of sociology_, pp. , , , , . [ ] cf. giddings, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] see _the new world_, sept., , p. . [ ] cf. lotze, _the microcosmus_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] see king, _reconstruction in theology_, chap. ix, pp, ff. [ ] see giddings, _op. cit._, pp. , - . [ ] cf. giddings, _op. cit._, pp. , . [ ] cf. giddings, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] see king, _reconstruction in theology_, pp. - . [ ] cf. drummond, _the ascent of man_, pp. ff. [ ] cf. john fiske, _the destiny of man_, p. ; drummond, _op. cit._, p. ff. chapter ii _the inadequacy of the analogy of the organism as an expression of the social consciousness_[ ] i. the value of the analogy the analogy of the organism has played so large a part in the history of thought, especially in the consideration of ethical and social questions, that it is well worth while to ask exactly how far this analogy is adequate, although the danger of the abuse of the analogy is probably somewhat less than formerly. it may be said at once that it is, undoubtedly, the very best illustration of these social relations that we can draw from nature, and it is of real value. it has had, moreover, as already indicated, a most influential and largely honorable history in the development of the thought of men. its classical expression is in the epoch-making twelfth chapter of i corinthians, which makes so plain the ethical applications of the analogy. ii. the inevitable inadequacy of the analogy . _comes from the sub-personal world._--but it ought clearly to be seen, on the other hand, that, considered as a complete expression of the social consciousness, it is necessarily inadequate; and it is of moment that we should not be dominated by it. too often it has been made to cover the entire ground, as though in itself it were a complete expression and final explanation of the social consciousness, instead of a quite incomplete illustration. for, in the first place, the very fact that the analogy comes from the physical world, from the sub-personal realm, makes it certain that it must fail at vital points in the expression of what is peculiarly a personal and ethical fact. we cannot safely argue directly from the physical illustration to ethical propositions. . _access to reality, only through ourselves._--moreover, in this day of extraordinary attention to the physical world, it is particularly important that we should keep constantly in mind that we have direct access to reality only in ourselves; that man is himself necessarily the only key which we can use for any ultimate understanding of anything; or, as paulsen puts it, "i know reality as it is in itself, in so far as i am real myself, or in so far as it is, or is like, that which i am, namely, spirit."[ ] we are not to forget that, in very truth, we know _better_ what we mean by persons and personal relations, than we do what we mean by members of a body and by organic relations; and, further, that in point of fact, all those metaphysical notions by which we strive to think things are ultimately derived from ourselves; and that then we illogically turn back upon our own minds, from which all these notions came, to explain the mind in the same secondary way in which we explain other things. . _mistaken passion for construing everything._--natural science, with its sole problem of the tracing of immediate causal connections, naturally provokes a persistent, but nevertheless thoroughly mistaken, "passion," as lotze calls it,[ ] "for construing everything,"--even the most real and final reality, spirit; which wishes to see even this real and final reality explained as the mechanical result of the combination of simpler elements, themselves, it is to be noted, finally absolutely inexplicable. such perverse attempts will be widely hailed, by many who do not understand themselves, as highly scientific. and one who refuses to enter upon such investigations will be criticized by such minds as "hardly getting into grips with his subject." but it is a false application of the scientific instinct that leads one to seek mechanical explanation for the final reality, or that urges to precision of formulation beyond that warranted by the data. it is from exactly this falsely scientific bias that theology needs deliverance. "for," as aristotle reminds us, "it is the mark of a man of culture to try to attain exactness in each kind of knowledge just so far as the nature of the subject allows." there is a wise agnosticism that is violated alike by negative and by positive dogmatism. it is often overlooked that there is an over-wise radicalism that assumes a knowledge of the depth of the finite and infinite, quite as insistent and dogmatic as the view it supposes itself to be opposing. "i know it is not so," it ought not to need to be said, is not agnosticism. the guiding principle in a truly scientific theology is this, as lotze suggests: just so far as changing action depends upon altering conditions, we have explanatory and constructive problems to solve, and no farther. no philosophical view can do without a simply given reality. and we shall never succeed in understanding by what machinery reality is manufactured--in "deducing the whole positive content of reality from mere modifications of formal conditions."[ ] we shall not allow ourselves to be misled, therefore, by the scientific sound of the _detailed_ application of the analogy of the organism to the facts of the social consciousness. and it is a satisfaction to see that the clearest sociological writers are coming to agree that there is strictly no "social mind" that can be affirmed to exist as a separate reality, supposed to answer to society conceived in its totality as an organism. iii. the analogy tested by the definition of the social consciousness when, now, we test the analogy of the organism by its competency to express the full meaning of the social consciousness, as it has been defined, we must say that the analogy but feebly expresses the likeness of men; it best expresses the inevitableness of mutual influence, though even here there is no understandable ultimate explanation; it fairly expresses the desirableness and indispensableness of mutual influence, but, of course, with entire lack of ethical meaning; and it quite fails to express the sense of the value and the sacredness of the person, the sense of obligation, and the sense of love. we need to see and feel exactly these shortcomings, if we are not to abuse the analogy. there is no social consciousness that will hold water that does not rest on what phillips brooks called "a healthy and ineradicable individualism," in the sense of the recognition of the fully personal. we are spirits, not organisms, and society is a society of persons, not an organism, in a strict sense. why should we wish to make society less significant than it is? [ ] cf. king, _op. cit._, pp. ff., . [ ] _introduction to philosophy_, p. . [ ] _the microcosmus_, vol. i, p. . [ ] lotze, _the microcosmus_, vol. ii, pp. ff. chapter iii _the necessity of the facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, if ideal interests are to be supreme_ i. the question with this positive and negative definition of the social consciousness in our minds, a third question immediately suggests itself to one who wishes to go to the bottom of our theme. why must the facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, be as they are if ideal interests are to be supreme? what has a theodicy to say as to these facts? why, that is, from the point of view of the ideal--of religion and theology--why are we constituted so alike? so that we must influence one another? so that the results of our actions necessarily go over into the lives of others? so that the innocent suffer with the guilty and the guilty profit with the righteous? so that we must recognize everywhere the claim of others? so that we must respect their personality? and so that we must love them? ii. otherwise no moral world at all the answer to all these world-old questions may perhaps be contained in the single statement, that otherwise we should have no moral world at all. there would be no thinkable moral universe, but rather as many worlds as there are individuals, having no more to do with one another than the chemical reactions going on in a set of test-tubes. . _the prerequisites of a moral world._ for our human thinking, assuredly, there are certain prerequisites, that the world may be at all a sphere for moral training and action. what are these prerequisites for a moral world? there must be, in the first place, a _sphere of universal law_, to count on, within which all actions take place. in a lawless world, action could hardly take on any significance--least of all ethical significance. that freedom itself should mean anything in outward expression, there must be the possibility of intelligent use of means toward the ends chosen. there must be, in the second place, some _real ethical freedom_, some power of moral initiative. we need not quarrel about the terms used; but, as paulsen intimates, no serious ethical writer ever doubted that men have at least some power to shape their own characters.[ ] without that assumption, we have a whole world of ideas and ideals--many of them the realest facts in the world to us--that have no legitimate excuse for being, that are simple insanities of the most inexplicable sort. the very meaning of the personality, indeed, which the social consciousness must demand for men, is some real existence for self, that is, some real self-consciousness and moral initiative. and freedom is not enough; there must be also _some power of accomplishment_. to ascribe mere volition to man seems, it has been justly said, sophistical. results are needed to reveal the character of our acts, even to ourselves--to make that character real. lotze's charge that the world is imperfect because it might have been so made that only good designs could be carried out, or so that the results of evil volitions would be at once corrected,[ ] is itself similarly sophistical. such a world, in which the outward results of action never appear, would be but a play-world after all--only a nursery of babes not yet capable of character. it could be no fit world for moral training. and still more, not less, must this law of the necessary results of actions hold in our relations to other persons. there can be, least of all, a moral universe where we are not _members one of another_. character, in any form we can conceive it, could not then exist. our best, as well as our worst, possibilities are involved in these necessary mutual relations. moral character has meaning only in personal relations. the results, therefore, which follow upon action, if the character of our deed is to have reality for us, must be chiefly personal. the realm of character has fearful possibilities. this _is_ no play-world. we can cause and be caused suffering, and our sin necessarily carries the suffering, if not the sin, of others with it. . _the ideal world requires, thus, the facts of the social consciousness._--all this could be changed in any vital way only by shutting up every soul absolutely to itself, and with that result life has simply ceased. for we cannot really conceive a person as having any reason for being without such relations. he would be constantly baffled at every point, for he is made for persons and personal relations. love, too, the highest source of both character and happiness, requires everywhere personal relations. religion itself, as a sharing of the life of god, would be impossible without some relation to others; for god, at least, could not be separated from the life of all. that is, persons, love, religion, in such a world, have gone. this, then, simply means that the ideal world ceases to be, with the denial of the facts that the social consciousness reflects. we must be full persons, social beings in the entire meaning demanded by the social consciousness--hard as the consequences involved often are--if ideal interests are to be supreme. indeed, the very moral judgment, that incessantly prompts the problem of evil for every one of us, is required, for its own existence, to assume the validity of the relations about which it questions. for it complains, for the most part, of those facts that follow inevitably from the necessary mutual influence of men; but the chief sources of the joy it requires, that it may justify the world, lie in these same mutual relations. it assumes, thus, in its claims on the world, the validity and worth of the very relations of which it complains in its criticism of the world. or, slightly to vary the statement, the major premise, even of pessimism, is that a really justifiable world must have worth in the joy it yields in personal life, impossible out of the personal relations of a real moral universe. and there can be no moral universe without the facts reflected in the social consciousness. the ideal world requires, then, the facts of the social consciousness. [ ] _system of ethics_, pp. ff. [ ] _philosophy of religion_, p. . chapter iv _the ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness_ the most important and fundamental inquiry as to the possible help of theology to the social consciousness still remains: what is the ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness? this question includes two: ( ) how can it be metaphysically that we do influence one another? ( ) what is required for the final positive justification of the social consciousness as ethical? theology's answer to both questions is found in the being and character of god, the creative and moral source of all. i. how can it be, metaphysically, that we do influence one another? first, then, how can it be that we do influence one another? what is the final explanation of the constant fact of our reciprocal action? for in our final thinking we may not ignore this question. . _not due to the physical fact of race-connection._--it may be worth while saying, first, that the physical fact of race-connection, if that could be proved, would be no sufficient explanation. the race may, or may not, be dependent upon a single pair, but in any case this is not the essential connection. the race is one by virtue of its essential likeness, however that comes about. men might have sprung out of the ground in absolute individual independence of one another, and yet if there were such actual like-mindedness as now exists, the race would be as truly one as it now is, and as capable of reciprocal action, and its members under the same obligation to one another. no ideal interest is at stake, then, in the question of the actual physical unity of the race as descended from one pair. one may say, of course, that the physical unity of the race would naturally result, according to the laws apparently prevailing in the animal world, in likeness. and this may, therefore, seem to him the most natural proximate explanation. but, even so, it is well to know that our entire _moral_ interest is in the essential likeness and mutual influence of men, however brought about, and not in the physical unity of men. theology has no occasion to continue its earlier excessive and quite fundamental emphasis upon this physical unity. moreover, such an explanation is necessarily but proximate. back of it lies the deeper question, why just these laws, and modes of procedure? . _we are not to over-emphasize the principle of heredity._--nor can theology, from any point of view, afford to over-emphasize the principle of heredity if it wishes to keep human initiative at all. it is a dangerous alliance which the old-school theology with its racial sin in adam has been so ready to make with the principle of heredity. that principle, as they wish to use it, proves quite too much; and careful thinkers, really awake to ideal interests, may well rejoice in the comparative relief which science itself, through the probably somewhat exaggerated protest of the weismann or neo-darwinian school, seems likely to afford from the incubus of a grossly exaggerated heredity. the main interest for the ideal view lies right here. we can see why this law of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics," in professor james' language, "_should not_ be verified in the human race, and why, therefore, in looking for evidence on the subject, we should confine ourselves exclusively to lower animals. in them fixed habit is the essential and characteristic law of nervous action. the brain grows to the exact modes in which it has been exercised, and the inheritance of these modes--then called instincts--would have in it nothing surprising. but in man the negation of all fixed modes is the essential characteristic. he owes his whole preëminence as a reasoner, his whole human quality of intellect, we may say, to the facility with which a given mode of thought in him may suddenly be broken up into elements, which re-combine anew. only at the price of inheriting no settled instinctive tendencies is he able to settle every novel case by the fresh discovery by his reason of novel principles. he is, _par excellence_, the educable animal."[ ] to over-emphasize the principle of heredity, then, is to strike at one of the most fundamental distinctive human qualities, and so to endanger every ideal interest. the growing like-mindedness of men and their mutual influence are not forthwith to be ascribed to an omnipotent principle of heredity. . _not due to a mystical solidarity._--nor is the mutual influence of men to be explained by any mystical solidarity of the race considered as a _finite_ whole. it is a simple and reasonable scientific demand, that we should not assume a mysterious, indefinable and incalculable cause, where known and intelligible causes suffice to explain the phenomena in question. do we need, or can we intelligently use, a mystical solidarity? the only solidarity of the race which we seem really to need, or with which we seem able intelligently to deal, is the actual like-mindedness and the actual personal relations themselves--the reciprocal action of spirits--the only kind of reciprocal action which we can finally fully conceive. any other finite solidarity than this, though it has often figured in theology, seems to me only a name without significance. in any case, we need to insist in theology, much more than we have, upon that unity of the race which is due to the actual likeness of men and their actual mutual personal influence. such a unity we know and can understand, and it is of the highest ethical and spiritual importance. but to make much of the physical unity is to ground the spiritual in the physical; and, on the other hand, to take refuge in a mystical solidarity--and this is often felt to be a rather deep procedure--for whatever theological purpose, is to hide in the fog of the obscure and unintelligible. . _grounded in the immanence of god._--but back of all finite phenomena, we may still ask for an ultimate explanation of the possibility of any reciprocal action even between spirits. and it is, perhaps, this ultimate explanation after which the idea of a mystical solidarity of the race is blindly groping. unless one chooses to accept reciprocal action as a necessarily given fact in any universe (and this position, i think with f. c. s. schiller, may be reasonably defended),[ ] he must somewhere in his thinking ask for its final explanation. and most of those, who try to think things through, feel this pressure. and metaphysics, we do well to remember with professor james, "means only an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and consistently."[ ] as lotze puts it: "how a cause begins to produce its _immediate_ effect, how a condition is the foundation of its direct result, it will never be possible to say; yet that cause and effect _do_ thus act must be reckoned among those simple facts that compose the reality which is the object of all our investigation. but there is an intolerable contradiction in the assumption that, though two beings may be wholly independent the one of the other, yet that which takes place in one can be a cause of change in the other; things that do not affect each other at all, cannot at the same time affect each other in such a manner that the one is guided by the other."[ ] this question is fairly thrust upon us by the facts of the social consciousness. how can it be that we do so influence one another? how is our reciprocal action metaphysically possible? the answer of theistic philosophy to this question is found in the being of god. upon the metaphysical side, theistic philosophy affirms that we can ascribe independent existence in the highest sense only to god. all else is absolutely dependent for its existence and maintenance upon him. the kind of reality that we demand for man is not that he be _outside_ of god, independent of him; this would not make man more, but less. every thorough-going theistic view must have this at least in common with pantheism, that it recognizes everywhere a real immanence of god. we are, because god wills in us. this metaphysical relation of the finite to the infinite, to be sure, is not to be conceived spatially or materially; nor, least of all, is it be so conceived as to deny a real self-consciousness and a real moral initiative to the finite spirit; but it does involve the absolute dependence of all the finite upon the will of god. as to our _being_, we root solely in god. and the unity and consistency of the being of god are the actual ground of our possible reciprocal action. only so is that contradiction of which lotze spoke avoided. we are not independent of one another, because we are all alike dependent for our very being upon god. and we are thus members one of another, ultimately, only through him. the further fact, that we are never fully able to trace causal connections anywhere; that even in the clearest case no possible analysis of one stage in the process enables us to prophesy, independently of experience, the next stage, also compels us to admit that the full cause is not really present in any of the finite manifestations we can follow; that we have always to take account of the "hidden efficacy of the infinite everywhere at work," and so must recognize once again the indubitable immanence of god, the absolute dependence of the finite upon his will, and our reciprocal action as possible only through him.[ ] or, to put the same thing a little differently, any adequate theory of causality seems to lead us up inevitably to purpose in god. as professor bowne states it:[ ] "the fundamental antithesis of purpose and causation is incorrect. the true antithesis is that of mechanical and volitional causality." and he intimates the probability that all causality, even in the physical world, is ultimately volitional. "it becomes a question," he says, "whether true causality can be found in the phenomenal at all, and not rather in a power beyond the phenomenal which incessantly posits and continues that order according to rule." the unity and consistency of the immanent will of god, then, are the ultimate metaphysical ground of all reciprocal action. the mutual influence, that is, even of spirits, finds its final full explanation only in god. the social consciousness, therefore, so far as it is an expression of the possibility and inevitableness of our mutual influence, is a reflection of the immanence of the one god in the unity and consistency of his life. but this, after all, is not the most important element of the social consciousness. so far as it is _ethical_ at all, it can have no final explanation in the metaphysical, considered as mere matter of fact. we are driven, therefore, to ask the second question involved in the subject of the chapter. ii. what is required for the final positive justification of the social consciousness as ethical? . _must be grounded in the supporting will of god._--it is not enough that we should be able to think of the unity of one life pervading all, or even of one will upholding all. if the social consciousness, as distinctly ethical, is to have any final justification, it must be able to believe that it is in league with the eternal and universal forces; that the fundamental trend of the universe is its own trend; in other words, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical purpose conceivable only in a person; that the ideals and purposes of finite beings expressed in the social consciousness are in line with god's own; that the loving holy purpose of the infinite will quickens and sustains and surrounds our purposes. let us distinctly face the fact that, unless the social consciousness can be so grounded in the very foundation of the universe, it must remain an illogical and unjustifiable fragment in the world, without real excuse for being. that is, if the social consciousness is not to be an illusion, it must be, as professor nash contends, cosmical, and not merely individual, and ethics must root in religion. this is the very heart of his stimulating book, _ethics and revelation_, expressed, for example, in such sentences as these: "nothing save a sense of deep and intimate connection with the solid core of things, nothing save a settled and fervid conviction that the universe is on the side of the will in its struggle for that whole-hearted devotion for the welfare of the race, without which morality is an affair of shreds and patches, can give to the will the force and edge suitable to the difficult work it has to do. but this sense of kinship with what is deepest and most abiding in the universe--what else is meant by pure religion." and again: "we, as founders and builders of the true society, find ourselves shut up to an impassioned faith in the sincerity of the universe and the integrity of the fundamental being. our religion is a deep and wide synthesis of feeling, whereby that personal will in us, which grounds society, comes into solemn league and covenant with the fundamental being. here is the focus-point of the prophetic revelation. at this point, the deep in god answers to the deep in man.... all that he is he puts in pledge for the perfecting of the society he has founded."[ ] paulsen expresses only the same fundamental conviction, from the point of view of the philosopher, and, at the same time, the heart of his own solution of the relation between knowledge and faith, when he says: "there is one item, at least, in which every man goes beyond mere knowledge, beyond the registration of facts. that is his own life and his future. his life has a meaning for him, and he directs it toward something which does not yet exist, but which will exist by virtue of his will. thus a faith springs up by the side of his knowledge. he believes in the realization of this, his life's aim, if he is at all in earnest about it. since, however, his aim is not an isolated one, but is included in the historical life of a people, and finally in that of humanity, he believes also in the future of his people, in the victorious future of truth and righteousness and goodness in humanity. whoever devotes his life to a cause believes in that cause, and this belief, be his creed what it may, has always something of the form of a religion. hence faith infers that an inner connection exists between the real and the valuable within the domain of history, and believes that in history something like an immanent principle of reason or justice favors the right and the good, and leads it to victory over all resisting forces." and paulsen holds that this implicit faith characterizes necessarily every philosophical theory. "what the philosopher himself accepts as the highest good and final goal he projects into the world as its good and goal, and then believes that subsequent reflections also reveal it to him in the world."[ ] we must be able, then, to believe that the best we know--our highest ideals--are at home in the world, or give up all faith in the honesty of the world, and all hope of philosophy, to say nothing of religion. ultimately, now, this means that nothing short of full christian conviction is needed to support the social consciousness. we need to be able to believe that the spirit of the life and death of christ is at the very heart of the world. nothing less will suffice. and this is exactly the support which the christian revelation offers to the social consciousness. . _god's sharing in our life._--but if the social consciousness is only a true reflection of god's own desire and purpose, then in a sense far deeper than the merely metaphysical, our life is the very life of god. he shares in it. and no man can really see what that means, and not find a new light falling on all the world, and himself carried on to take up a new confession of faith in the solemn words of another: "for the agony of the world's struggle is the very life of god. were he mere spectator, perhaps, he too would call life cruel. but in the unity of our lives with his, our joy is his joy, our pain is his." and from the vision of this self-giving life of god we turn back to our own place of service, saying with matheson: "if thou art love then thy best gift must be sacrifice; in that light let me search thy world."[ ] we probably cannot better express this unity of our highest ethical life with the life of god than by renewing our old faith that we are children of a common father, who have come, under god's own leading--so far as a social consciousness is ours--voluntarily to share in god's loving purpose in the creation and redemption of men. we do not work alone; nay, we are co-workers with god. . _the consequent transfiguration of the social consciousness._--and as soon as we have thus really and deeply come into the meaning of christ's thought of god as father, and into his revelation in his life and death as to what the spirit of that fatherhood is, we turn back to the elements of our social consciousness to find them all transfigured. our _likeness_ is the likeness of common children of god reflecting the image of the one father, capable of character and of indefinite progress into the highest. our _mutual influence_ roots in a real fatherhood, both in source of being and in the one purpose of love, alike creating and redemptively working for all. our _sense of the value and sacredness of the person_ now for the first time gets its full justification. men are not only creatures capable of joying and suffering, but children of god with a preciousness to be interpreted only in the light of christ, and with the "power of the endless life" upon them. concerning the value of the person, it is worth stopping just here, to notice that it is peculiarly true of the social consciousness, that it is not free to ignore such considerations upon immortality as those which weighed most with john stuart mill and sully. of the hope of immortality, mill says: "the beneficial influence of such a hope is far from trifling. it makes life and human nature a far greater thing to the feelings, and gives greater strength as well as greater solemnity to all the sentiments which are awakened in us by our fellow-creatures, and by mankind at large." and sully adds: "i would only say that if men are to abandon all hope of a future life, the loss, in point of cheering and sustaining influence, will be a vast one, and one not to be made good, so far as i can see, by any new idea of services to collective humanity."[ ] our _sense of obligation_ deepens with all this deepening of the value of men, and our conscience becomes only a true response to god's own life and character--in no mere figurative sense the voice of god in us. and our _love_ becomes simply entering a little way into god's own love, a sharing more and more in his life. and when one has once seen the social consciousness so transfigured in the light of christ's revelation, he must believe that then, for the first time, he has seen the social consciousness at its highest, and that it is impossible for him to go back to the lower ideal. if the social consciousness is not an illusion, christ's thought of god and of the life with god ought to be true; and if the world is an honest world, it is true. it is not only true that christ has a social teaching, but that the social consciousness absolutely requires christ's teaching for its own final justification. the christian truth _is_ so great that it alone can give the social consciousness its fullest meaning, alone can enable it to understand itself, and alone can give it adequate motive and power; for, in keim's words, "to-day, to-morrow, and forever we can know nothing better than that god is our father, and that the father is the rest of our souls."[ ] [ ] james, _psychology_, vol. ii, pp. , . [ ] _the philosophical review_, may, , p. . [ ] _psychology_, briefer course, p. . [ ] _microcosmus_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] see king, _reconstruction in theology_, pp. , , . [ ] _theory of thought and knowledge_, pp. , . [ ] _ethics and revelation_, pp. , , . [ ] _introduction to philosophy_, pp. , , . [ ] _searchings in the silence_, p. . [ ] quoted by orr, _the christian view of god and the world_, pp. , . [ ] quoted by bruce, _the kingdom of god_, p. . the influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion introduction from the question of the support which christian faith and doctrine give to the social consciousness, we turn now to the second part of our inquiry: how does this growing social consciousness, not by any means always consciously religious, naturally react upon and affect our conceptions of religion and of theological doctrines? in this inquiry, we cannot always be sure historically of the exact connection, and, for our present purpose, this is not of prime importance. but we can see, for example, in this second division of our theme, the relations of religion and the social consciousness, and how religion must be conceived if the social consciousness is fully warranted; and this is the main question. if the definition of theology which has been suggested be adopted--the thoughtful and unified expression of what religion means to us--then it is obvious that any change in conception or emphasis in religion will necessarily affect theological statement. our inquiry as to the influence of the social consciousness, therefore, naturally begins with religion. the discussions of this division, moreover, will really include all that part of theological doctrine which has to do with the growth into the life with god. the natural influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion may be, perhaps, summed up in four points, which form the subjects of the four succeeding chapters: ( ) the social consciousness tends to draw religion away from the falsely mystical; ( ) it tends to emphasize the personal relation in religion, and so keeps the truly mystical; ( ) it tends to emphasize the ethical in religion; ( ) it tends to emphasize the concretely historically christian in religion. chapter v _the opposition of the social consciousness to the falsely mystical_ i. what is the falsely mystical? two very clear answers made from different points of view deserve attention. . _nash's definition._--in trying to set forth the "main mood and motives of religious speculation" in the early christian centuries, professor nash takes, as perhaps the two strongest influences in determining the type of man to whom christian apologetics had then to appeal, philo and plotinus, and says: "by what road shall the mind enter into a deep and intimate knowledge of god? that is the decisive question. plotinus the gentile and philo the jew are at one in their answer. the reason must rise above reasoning. it must pass into a state that is half a swoon and half an ecstasy before it can truly know god. philo gave up for the sake of his theory, the position of the prophets. plotinus, for the same theory, forsook the position of plato and aristotle. the prophets conceived the inmost essence of things, the being and will of god, as a creative and redemptive force that guided and revealed itself through the career of a great national community. plato and aristotle conceived the essence of life as a labor of reason; and, for them, the labors of reason found their sufficient refreshment and inspiration in those moments of clear synthesis which are the reward of patient analysis. revelation came to the prophet through his experience of history. to the philosopher it came through hard and steady thinking. but philo and plotinus together declared these roads to be no thoroughfares. the greek and the jew met on the common ground of a mysticism that sacrificed the needs of sober reason and the needs of the nation to the necessities of the monk."[ ] mysticism is here conceived as unethical, unhistorical, and unrational. . _herrmann's definition._--herrmann's definition of mysticism is the second one to which attention is directed. he says: "when the influence of god upon the soul is sought and found solely in an inward experience of the individual; when certain excitements of the emotions are taken, with no further question, as evidence that the soul is possessed by god; when, at the same time, nothing external to the soul is consciously and clearly perceived and firmly grasped; when no thoughts that elevate the spiritual life are aroused by the positive contents of an idea that rules the soul--then that is the piety of mysticism. he who seeks in this wise that for the sake of which he is ready to abandon all beside, has stepped beyond the pale of christian piety. he leaves christ and christ's kingdom altogether behind him when he enters that sphere of experience which seems to him to be the highest."[ ] the marks of mysticism for herrmann, then, are: that it is purely subjective; that it is merely emotional and unethical; and hence that it has no clear object, and is abstract, unrational, unhistorical, and so unchristian. ii. the objections of the social consciousness to the falsely mystical against this neo-platonic, falsely mystical conception of religion, the social consciousness seems to be clearly arrayed, and, so far as the social consciousness influences religion, it will certainly tend to draw it away from this falsely mystical idea. . _unethical._--for, in the first place, this neo-platonic conception of religion has nothing distinctly ethical in it. the ethical is manifestly not made the test of true religious experience, as it is in the new testament. the social consciousness, on the other hand, is predominantly and emphatically ethical, and can have nothing to do with a religion in which ethics is either omitted or is wholly subordinate. at this point, therefore, the pressure of the social consciousness is strongly against a neo-platonic mysticism. . _does not give a real personal god._--in the second place, the social consciousness cannot get along with the falsely mystical, because it does not give a real personal god. let us be clear upon this point. is not herrmann right when he says that all that can be said of the god of this mysticism is "that he is not the world? now that is precisely all that mysticism has ever been able to say of god as it conceives him. plainly, the world and the conception of it are all that moves the soul while it thinks thus of god. only disappointment can ensue to the soul whose yearning for god in such case keeps on insisting that god must be something utterly different from the world. if such a soul will reflect awhile on the nature of the god thus reached, the fact must inevitably come to the surface that its whole consciousness is occupied with the world now as it was before, for evidently it has grasped no positive ideas--nothing but negative ideas--about anything else. mysticism frequently passes into pantheism for this very reason, even in men of the highest religious energy; they refuse to be satisfied with the mere longing after god, or to remain on the way to him, but determine to reach the goal itself, and rest with god himself."[ ] now we have already seen that the social consciousness can find adequate support and power and motive only in faith that its purpose is god's purpose, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical purpose, conceivable only in a personal god; and, therefore, neither an empty negation nor pantheism can ever satisfy it. . _belittles the personal in man._--the false mysticism, moreover, belittles the personal in man as well as in god; for it does not treat with real reverence either the personality, the ethical freedom, the sense of obligation, or the reason of man. this whole thought of "a state that is half a swoon and half an ecstasy" is a sort of swamping of clear self-consciousness and definite moral initiative, in which the very reality of man's personality consists. it is a heathen, not a christian, idea of inspiration which demands the suppression of the human, whether in consciousness, in will, in reason, or by belittling the sense of obligation to others. but mysticism has at least tended toward failure in all these respects. and yet, from the time that paul argued with the corinthians against their immense overestimation of the gift of speaking with tongues, this fascination of the merely mystical has been felt in christianity. ( ) the very mystery and unintelligibility of the experience, ( ) its ecstatic emotion, ( ) its sense of being controlled by a power beyond one's self, and ( ) its contrast with ordinary life--all these elements make the mystical experience seem to most all the more divine, although in so judging they are applying a pagan, not a christian, standard. so far as these experiences have value, it is probably due to the strong and realistic sense which they give of being in the presence of an overpowering being. if thoroughly permeated and dominated with other elements, this sense is not without its value. but it is interesting to notice that, although paul does not deny the legitimacy of the gift of speaking with tongues, he nevertheless absolutely subordinates it, and insists that the most ecstatic religious emotions are completely worthless without love. evidently the considerations which weighed most with the corinthians in valuing the gift of unintelligible ecstatic utterance weighed little with paul; and one can see how paul implicitly argues against each of those considerations: ( ) god is not an unknown, mystic force, but the definite, concrete god of character, shown in christ. ( ) he speaks to reason and will as well as to feeling, and he best speaks to feeling when he speaks to the whole man. true religious emotion must have a rational basis and must move to duty. ( ) religion, he would urge, is a self-controlled and voluntary surrender to a personal god of character, not a passive being swept away by an unknown emotion. ( ) god has most to give, be assured, he would have added, in the _common_ ways of life. now, in every one of these protests, the social consciousness instinctively joins. it cannot rest in a conception of religion that belittles the personal in god or man; for it is itself an emphatic insistence upon the fully personal. and it can, least of all, get on with the mystical ignoring of the rational and the ethical, for it holds that the social evolution moves steadily on to a rational like-mindedness, and to a definitely ethical civilization. giddings puts the sociological conclusion in a sentence: "it is the rational, ethical consciousness that maintains social cohesion in a progressive democracy."[ ] now that which is clearly recognized as the goal in the relations of man to man will not be set aside as unwarranted or subordinate in the relations of man to god. and we may depend upon it. . _leaves the historically, concretely christian._--once more, the social consciousness cannot approve of the mystical conception of religion in its ignoring, in its highest state, the historically and concretely christian. with mysticism's subjective, emotional, and abstract conception of the highest communion with god, and of the way thereto, the historical and concrete at best can be to it only subordinate means, more or less mysteriously connected with the attainment of the goal, and left behind when once the goal is reached. the social consciousness, on the other hand, requires historical justification, and definitely builds on the facts of the historical social evolution. in the case of the prophets and psalmists, for example, who alone in the ancient world most fully anticipated the modern social feeling, the social consciousness plainly arose in the face of the concrete historical life of a people. no result of modern old testament criticism is more certain. so that, speaking of "the religious aspects of the social struggle in israel," mccurdy can use this strong language: "it is not too much to say that this conflict, intense, uninterrupted, and prolonged, is the very heart of the religion of the old testament, its most regenerative and propulsive movement. to the personal life of the soul, the only basis of a potential, world-moving religion, it gave energy and depth, assurance and hopefulness, repose and self-control, with an outlook clear and eternal."[ ] but it was this standpoint of the prophets that the falsely mystical conception of religion abandoned. we may well take to heart, in our estimate of mysticism, the gradual but steady elimination of ecstasy in the development of israel, and its practically total absence in those we count in the highest sense prophets.[ ] the social consciousness, moreover, has almost entirely to do with men, and hence naturally must lay stress on human history, rather than on nature, as a source of religious ideas. indeed, it will have no doubt that what nature is made to mean religiously will be chiefly determined by the prevalent social ideals. it can, therefore, least of all ignore the historical in christianity. the social consciousness recognizes increasingly, too, with the clearing of its own ideals and with the deepening study of the teaching of jesus, that it really is only demanding, in the concrete, and in detailed application to particular problems, and to all of them, the spirit shown in its fullness only in christ, as professor peabody's eminently sane treatment of the social teaching of jesus seems to me fairly to have proven. the social consciousness, therefore, cannot help becoming more and more consciously and emphatically christian. in a single sentence, because of the steps of its own long evolution, the social consciousness instinctively distrusts the highly emotional, unless it is manifestly under equally strong rational control, and unless it has equal ethical insight and power, and is historically justified. it tends, therefore, necessarily to draw away from the falsely mystical in religion, which is lacking in all these respects. and the same reasons, which array the social consciousness against the falsely mystical in religion, lead it into natural sympathy with a positive emphasis upon the personal, the ethical, and the historically concretely christian in religion. [ ] nash, _ethics and revelation_, p. . [ ] herrmann, _the communion of the christian with god_, pp. , . [ ] herrmann, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] giddings, _elements of sociology_, p. ; cf. also pp. ff, , , . [ ] mccurdy, _history, prophecy, and the monuments_, vol. ii, p. ; cf. pp. , ff. [ ] g. a. smith, _the book of the twelve prophets_, vol. i, pp. , , ; cornill, _the prophets of israel_, pp. , ; _the expository times_, jan., feb., , article, _prophetic ecstasy_. chapter vi _the emphasis of the social consciousness upon the personal relation in religion, and so upon the truly mystical_ i. the social consciousness tends positively to emphasize the personal relation in religion . _emphasizes everywhere the personal._--the social consciousness sees man as preëminently the social animal, made for personal relations, irrevocably and essentially knit up with other persons. it deepens everywhere our sense of persons and of personal relations. it may be itself almost defined as the sense of the fully personal. religion, then, if it is to be most real to men of the social consciousness, must be personally conceived, that is, must be distinctly seen to be a personal relation of man to god. and this conception, as the highest we can reach, is to be followed fearlessly to the end; only guarding it against wrong inferences from the simple transference to god of finite conditions, and recognizing exactly in what respects the personal relation to god is unique.[ ] the social consciousness, moreover, as we have seen, must have a conception of religion that can really justify the social consciousness, and, therefore, must do justice to the fully personal in god and man; and this need also leads the social consciousness naturally to the conception of religion as a personal relation. . _requires the laws of a deepening friendship in religion._--when this conception is carried out, it is found that growth in the religious life, in communion with god, follows the laws of a deepening friendship.[ ] these laws can, therefore, be known and studied and formulated; and religion, at the same time, ceases to be unintelligible and ceases to be isolated--cut off from the rest of life, and becomes rather that one great fundamental relation which gives being and meaning and value to all the rest. in absolute harmony, then, with the genesis of the social consciousness, religion, in this conception, is bound up with the whole of life; and we catch a glimpse of the real and final unity of life in true love, the relation to god and the relation to man each helping everywhere the other. if religion is truly a personal relation, and its laws are those of a deepening friendship, then every human relation, heartily and truly fulfilled, becomes a new outlook on god, a revelation of new possibilities in the religious life. and, on the other hand, in that mutual self-revelation and answering trust upon which every growing personal relation is built, every fresh revelation of god is an enlarging of our ideal for our relations to others. even biblical literature, perhaps, furnishes no more perfect example of the interplay of the human and divine relations than hosea's account of his own providential leading through the human relation into the divine, and back again from the divine to a still better human. . _requires the ideal conditions of the richest life in religion._--and if religion is to be justified in its supreme claims by the social consciousness, it must be felt to offer, besides, the ideal conditions of the richest life. as a personal relation to god, religion need not shrink from this test. our great needs are character and happiness. psychology seems to me to point to two great means and to two accompanying conditions of both character and happiness. the means are association and work; the corresponding conditions are reverence for personality, and objectivity--the mood of both love and work. the great essentials, therefore, to the richest life are ( ) association in which personality is respected, and ( ) work in which one can lose himself. now, when would these conditions become ideal? on the one hand, as to association, when the association is with him who is of the highest character and of the infinitely richest life, and relation to whom is fundamental to every other personal relation; when, secondly, god is made concrete and real to us in an adequate personal revelation of his character, and of his love toward us; and when, third, the association is individualized for each one, who throws himself open to god, in god's spiritual presence in us, constantly and intimately, and yet _unobtrusively_, coöperating with us. and, on the other hand, as to work, when the work is god-given work, to which one is set apart, and in which he may lose himself with joy. these are the ideal conditions of the richest life. just these ideal conditions jesus declared actualities. for the fulfilment of just these, in the case of his disciples, he prayed in his double petition,--"keep them," "sanctify them," "keep them in thy name," that is, through the divine association. "sanctify them"--set them apart unto their god-given work. "as thou hast sent me into the world, even so have i also sent them into the world." such a conception of religion can fairly claim to meet, broadly and deeply, the most exacting demands of the social consciousness for emphasis upon the personal relation in religion. ii. the social consciousness thus keeps the truly mystical i have no predilection for the term mystical, and would gladly confine it to what i have termed the neo-platonic or falsely mystical, were it not that, in spite of the dictionaries and the histories of philosophy and the histories of doctrine, the term is used in two quite different senses. many, it seems to me, are defending what they call the mystical in religion, who have no idea of defending what herrmann and nash call mystical. and many, on the other hand, are defending and teaching the falsely mystical through an undefined fear that else they will lose the truly mystical. theology and religion both greatly need a clear discrimination of terms here. many are involved, in both living and thinking, in a self-contradiction, which they feel but cannot state; and are urging with themselves and with others a means of religious life and a corresponding method of conception, which really contradict their highest convictions in other lines of life and thought. can we find our way out of this confusion? if one studies carefully the historical representatives of mysticism, and especially such a strong type as jacob böhme, whom erdmann calls the "culmination of mysticism," and still keeps his head, certain dangers in mysticism, it would seem, must become apparent. and it may be worth while to attempt a brief, but definite, analysis of the justifiable and unjustifiable elements in these mystical movements. . _the justifiable and unjustifiable elements in mysticism._--( ) the first danger in mysticism seems to me to be the tendency to make simple emotion the supreme test of the religious state. whether this emotion is thought of as ecstatic--such as some of the old mystics called "being drunk with god," or, as quietistic--in which imperturbability, passionlessness, become the highest good--is comparatively indifferent. the justifiable element here is the insistence that religion is real and is life; for feeling is perhaps the most powerful element in the sense of reality. so james says: "speaking generally, the more a conceived object excites us, the more reality it has."[ ] the unjustifiable element is the perilous subjection of the rational and ethical. such a view must always lack any positive and adequate conception of our active life and vocation in the world. ( ) a second closely connected danger in mysticism is the tendency toward mere subjectivism. there is here a justifiable element in the emphasis on one's own personal conviction and faith; an unjustifiable element in the tendency to underrate anything but the purely subjective, to ignore all correcting influences from others, from the church, and from the scriptures. ( ) a third danger follows from this: the marked tendency to underestimate the historical. the justifiable element here is, again, the emphasis on personal conviction and faith; the unjustifiable element is the tendency toward the greatest one-sidedness, and toward emptiness, especially of ethical content. advising our young people simply to "listen to god," without the strongest insistence upon the historical revelation of god at the same time, is exposing them to the great danger of mistaking for an indubitable, divine revelation the veriest vagary that may chance in their empty-mindedness next to come into their thought. with the reason in supposed abeyance, the door is thus thrown open to the grossest superstitions. honest attempts to deepen the religious life may thus become dangerous assaults upon true religion. ( ) a fourth danger in mysticism is so strong a tendency toward vagueness, that the common mind is not without warrant in identifying mysticism and mistiness. the justifiable element here is in the real difficulty of expressing the full content of the entire religious experience; the unjustifiable element is, once more, the slighting of the historical, the ethical, and the rational, especially in talking much of the contradictions of reason, and of what is above reason. mysticism naturally lacks positive content. ( ) another danger--the tendency toward pantheism--comes in partly, as herrmann has suggested, as a meeting of this lack of content, and partly as the logical outcome of such an insistence upon losing oneself in god as amounts to a being swept out of one's self--a loss of clear and rational self-consciousness, which is next interpreted speculatively as a real absorption in god, and is then made the goal. this is the familiar road of indian and neo-platonic mysticism, and its phenomena are real enough, but probably of only the slightest religious significance. tennyson tells somewhere of the immense sense of illumination that came to him once from simply repeating monotonously his own name--"alfred tennyson, alfred tennyson." this may be as effective as looking at the end of one's nose and ceaselessly reiterating "om," as does the hindu ascetic. a still shorter and more certain method is through nitrous-oxide-gas intoxication, of which professor james says: "with me, as with every other person of whom i have heard, the key-note of the experience is the tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical illumination. truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of almost blinding evidence. the mind sees all the logical relations of being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity, to which its normal consciousness offers no parallel; only as sobriety returns, the feeling of insight fades, and one is left staring vacantly at a few disjointed words and phrases as one stares at a cadaverous-looking snow-peak from which the sunset glow has just fled, or at the black cinder left by an extinguished brand." "the immense emotional sense of reconciliation," he felt to be the characteristic mood. "it is impossible to convey," he says, "an idea of the torrential character of the identification of opposites as it streams through the mind in this experience."[ ] now it is not safe to ignore such facts, when we are seriously trying to estimate the religious significance of intense emotional experiences, the reality of which we need not at all question. the vital question is, not that of the reality of the experiences, but that of the real cause of the experiences; and the only possible test of this is rational and ethical. but from this test, mysticism tends from the start to shut itself off, and so, assuming the experience to be truly religious, ends often in virtual pantheism. the justifiable element in this insistence upon absorption in god is the necessary moral relation of complete surrender to god. the unjustifiable element is in belittling the personal in both god and man, and in making essentially religious an experience that has almost nothing of the rational and ethical in it, and that, on that very account, fosters the irreverent familiarity with christ so deplored by more than one careful student of mysticism. a natural and common and most dangerous accompaniment of such an intense emotional experience is the tendency afterward, to excuse sin in oneself. in the case of the most conscientious, it is worth noting, such an emphasis upon intense experiences tends to lead them to distrust the reality of the normal christian experience if they have not had these intense emotions, or if they have had them, tends to bring them into despair when they find these marked experiences actually proving less powerful in effects upon life than they had expected. ( ) the last danger in mysticism, to which reference will be made, is the tendency to extravagant symbolism. this is closely connected with "the immense emotional sense of reconciliation," and is much stronger by nature in some than in others. the born mystic finds his own subjective views symbolized everywhere, and is in grave danger of being led into an ingenious, practically unconscious intellectual dishonesty. the justifiable element here is that sense of the unity and worth of things which is the most fundamental conviction of our minds. the unjustifiable element has been sufficiently indicated. the justifiable elements in mysticism, then, may be said to include: the insistence on the legitimate place of feeling in religion as a real and vital experience; the emphasis on one's own conviction and faith; the real difficulty of expressing the full meaning of the religious experience; the demand for a complete ethical surrender to god; and the faith in the real unity and worth of the world in god. now if one tries to bring together these justifiable elements in mysticism, the truly mystical may all be summed up as simply a protest in favor of the whole man--the entire personality. it says that men can experience and live and feel and do much more than they can logically formulate, define, explain, or even fully express. living is more than thinking. . _the protest in favor of the whole man._--the element to which mysticism has tried most to do justice is feeling, and so it has been liable to a new and dangerous one-sidedness. but the truly mystical must be a protest alike against a narrow juiceless intellectualism, against a narrow moralistic rigorism, and against a blind and spineless sentimentalism. it is a protest particularly against making the mathematico-mechanical view of the world the only view; against making logical consistency the sole test of truth or reality; against ignoring all data, except those which come through the intellect alone; that is, against trying to make a part, not the whole, of man the standard; in other words, against ignoring the data which come through feeling and will--emotional, æsthetic, ethical, and religious data, as well as those judgments of worth which underlie reason's theoretical determinations. man stands, in fact, everywhere face to face with an actual world of great complexity, that seems to him at first what james says the baby's world is, "one big blooming buzzing confusion;" "and the universe of all of us is still to a great extent such a confusion, potentially resolvable, and demanding to be resolved, but not yet actually resolved, into parts."[ ] in one sense, man's whole task is to think unity and order into this confusion. the problem really becomes that of thinking the universe through in several kinds of terms, and then finally bringing all together into one comprehensive view. all these are alike ideals which the mind sets before itself. the easiest of these problems is the attempt to think the world through, in mathematico-mechanical terms. but the attempt to think the world through in æsthetic or ethical or religious terms is equally legitimate, though it is more difficult. not only, then, is the mathematico-mechanical view not the sole justifiable view, but it really has its justification in an ideal, and success in this attempt affords just encouragement for the hope of success in the other more difficult problems.[ ] the truly mystical holds, then, that the narrow intellectualism is unwarranted, because natural science, the mechanical view of the world, is itself an ideal--the "child of duties," as münsterberg calls it--and so cannot legitimately rule out other ideals; because we have just as immediate a conviction concerning the worth, as concerning the logical consistency of the world; because a narrow intellectualism would make conscious life but a "barren rehearsal" of the outer world, without significance; because if we can trust the indications of our intellect, we ought to be able to trust the indications of the rest of our nature; and because, thus, the only possible key and standard of truth and reality are in ourselves--the whole self, and "necessities of thought" become necessities of a reason which means loyally to take account of all the data of the entire man. and the same point may be thus stated. we use the word rational in two quite distinct senses: in the narrow sense, as meaning simply the intellectual; in the broad sense, as indicating the demands of the entire man. the true mysticism stands for the broadly rational. so, too, we speak of the necessary fundamental assumption of the honesty or sincerity of the world; but this includes two quite distinct propositions: one, that the world must be thinkable, conceivable, construable, a logically consistent whole, a sphere for rational thinking,--where the test is consistency; the other, that the world must be worth while, must not mock our highest ideals and aspirations, must in some true and genuine sense satisfy the whole man, be a sphere for rational living,--where the test is worth. all our arguments go forward upon these two assumptions. now, a true mysticism contends that the second principle is as rational as the first, though it must be freely granted that it is not as easy to employ it for detailed conclusions, and it is consequently much more liable to abuse. the true mysticism wishes to be not less, but more, rational. it knows no shorthand substitute for the hard and steady thinking of the philosopher, or for the historical experience of the prophet; it needs and uses both. in all this, it is plain that the truly mystical is a legitimate outgrowth of the emphasis of the social consciousness upon recognition of the entire personality. phillips brooks finds just this in the intellectual life of jesus. "the great fact concerning it is this," he says, "that in him the intellect never works alone. you never can separate its workings from the complete operation of the entire nature. he never simply knows, but always loves and resolves at the same time."[ ] . _the self-controlled recognition of emotion._--moreover, it probably may be fairly claimed that all of the mystical recognition of the emotional which is valuable or even legitimate, is preserved, and far more safely and sanely conceived, in a strictly personal conception of religion. it may well be doubted, if it is possible in any other way, both to do justice to feeling in religion, and at the same time to keep feeling in its proper place. is it possible briefly to indicate both the recognition of emotion and the control of emotion in religion? the true mysticism recognizes that the supreme joy is "joy in personal life"--joy in entering into the revelation of a person; and it believes with reason that a growing acquaintance with god must have such heights and depths of meaning as no other personal relation can have. it is not, therefore, afraid or distrustful of true emotion--of joy or peace, of intense longing or of keen satisfaction--in the religious life. but the true mysticism knows at the same time that deep revelation of a person is made only to the reverent, that the conditions are in the highest degree ethical, and above all must be recognized to be so in religion. it does view, then, with deep distrust an emotional emphasis in religion that ignores the ethical. it cannot forget that christ thought that everything must be tested by its fruits in life. paul, too, insisted on applying the test of an active ministering love to the highly valued emotional experiences of the corinthians; and writes to the galatians that there is but one infallible proof of the working of the spirit in them--a righteous life: "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." and a true mysticism knows that the spirit, reverent of personality, leads to a self-restraint that does not seek the emotional experience simply as such on _any_ conditions; but, knowing the supreme psychological conditions of happiness and character and influence, it loses itself in an unselfish love and in absorbing work, and understands that it must simply let the experiences come. it will have nothing, therefore, to do with strained emotion, or with the working up of feeling for its own sake. it seeks health, not merely the signs of health. it prizes, therefore, the joy that simply proclaims itself as the sign of the normal life and so positively strengthens and cheers, but it will have nothing of the strain of emotion which is drain. it is interesting to notice that it is exactly this true psychological attitude concerning the emotional life that phillips brooks believed that he found perfectly reflected in jesus. "the sensitiveness of jesus to pain and joy," he says, "never leads him for a moment to try to be sad or happy with direct endeavor; nor, is there any sign that he ever judges the real character of himself or any other man by the sadness or the happiness that for the moment covers his life. he simply lives, and joy and sorrow issue from his living, and cast their brightness and their gloominess back upon his life; but there is no sorrow and no joy that he ever sought for itself, and he always kept a self-knowledge underneath the joy or sorrow, undisturbed by the moment's happiness or unhappiness."[ ] how far from this objectivity and this healthful emotional life is the atmosphere of most of our devotional books, and, one might say, of all the manuals of ordinary mysticism! that this difficulty should confront us in devotional literature is very natural; for such writing commonly aims to give the emotional sense of reality in religion; and is, therefore, particularly under the temptation to show and to produce a straining after the emotion, as for its own sake. moreover, the very introspection, almost inevitably involved in the reading and writing of devotional books, tends to bring about an artificial change in the religious experience, and so to introduce into it the abnormal. but the social consciousness, so far as it affects religion, not only tends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize the personal, and so to keep the truly mystical, but it is even more plain that it must tend to insist upon the ethical in religion. [ ] cf. king, _reconstruction in theology_, p. ff. [ ] _op. cit._, pp. ff. [ ] james, _psychology_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] james, _the will to believe_, pp. , . [ ] _psychology_, briefer course, p. . [ ] cf. james, _psychology_, vol. ii, - ; especially , , , , ; münsterberg, _psychology and life_, pp. - . [ ] brooks, _the influence of jesus_, p. . [ ] _the influence of jesus_, p. . chapter vii _the thorough ethicizing of religion_ i. the pressure of the problem the social consciousness looks to the thorough ethicizing of religion. if the social consciousness is to be regarded as historically justified, it must believe that this growing sense of brotherhood and consequent obligation is simply our response to the on-working of god's own plan, god's own will expressing itself in us. the purpose to recognize the will of god, thus necessarily involves the recognition of human relations, since, as soon as conscience is strongly stirred in any direction, religion can but feel, in this demand of conscience, the demand of god, and, therefore, must bring the convictions of the social consciousness into religion. indeed, it may be well believed that kaftan is right in his insistence that it is exactly through the practical, that is, in the realm of the ethical, that knowledge arises from faith.[ ] in any case, it is evident that the old problem of faith and works, of religion and ethics, of the first and second commandments, meets us here in a way not to be put aside. with an ethical demand so insistent as that of the social consciousness no religion can be at peace that is not with equal insistence ethical. we are bound, then, to show how communion with god, the supreme desire to find god, necessarily carries with it active love for men. we must show how we truly commune with god in such active service. the social consciousness, thus, positively thrusts upon every religious man, who believes in it, the problem of the thorough ethicizing of religion. or, to put the matter in a slightly different way, if the sense of the value and the sacredness of the person is one of the two greatest moral convictions of our time, then religion must be clearly seen to hold this conviction, or lose its connection with what is most real and vital to us. this is the problem. ii. the statement of the problem all will probably agree that religion is communion with god. we have seen why the social consciousness cannot accept a falsely mystical view of that communion. for similar reasons, it must make absolutely subordinate all non-ethical and simply mysterious means which make no appeal to the conscience and to the reason--the falsely sacramental. only the person is truly sacramental. much else may be of value, but the touch of personal life is the only absolute essential in religion. we have seen, also, why the social consciousness tends to regard religion as a strictly personal relation. our problem thus becomes: how does the desire for personal relation with god, the desire for god himself, lead directly into the ethical life--into the full and practical recognition of the ethical demands of the social consciousness? to guard against any possible misconception, it is, perhaps, well to say at the start that the desire for a personal relation with god has no purpose of returning by another route to the false position of mysticism, in the claim of special private revelations that are exclusively for it. it expects, rather, personal conviction of that great revelation that is common to all, and, moreover, it knows well that no personal relation is essentially sensuous, and it certainly looks for no sensuous relation to god. it may be worth while, too, to reverse our question for a moment, and ask how morality necessarily involves religion. the true moral life is the fulfilment of all personal relations, and as such can least of all omit the greatest and most fundamental relation which gives being and meaning and value to all the rest--the relation to god. the fully moral life, therefore, must include religion. the unity of the two may be thus seen. but the present inquiry looks at the matter from the other side, and seeks a careful and thoroughgoing answer to the question: why is the christian religion, as a personal relation to god, necessarily ethical? iii. the answer . _involved in relation to christ._--in the first place, then, it probably may be safely claimed that there is no test of the moral life of a man so certain as his attitude toward christ. setting aside, now, any special religious claims of christ altogether, and recognizing him only as earth's highest character, the supreme artist in living, who knows the secret of the moral life more surely and more perfectly than any other, he becomes even so the surest touch-stone of character; and the iron filings will not be more certainly attracted to the magnet than will the men of highest character be attracted to christ when he is really seen as he is. there is no test of character so certain as the test of one's personal relation to the best persons. the personal attitude toward christ is the supreme test. in receiving him, in becoming his disciples in a completer sense than we own ourselves the disciples of any other, we make the supreme moral choice of our lives; and, if no more is true than has been already said, we so accept as a matter of fact the fullest historical revelation of god at the same time. the ethical and religious here fall absolutely together. and all the subsequent choices of our christian life, if true to christ, are necessarily moral. . _the divine will felt in the ethical command._--in the second place, the sense of the presence of god, of the divine will laid upon us, if we have the religious feeling at all, comes to us nowhere in our common life so certainly and so persistently as in a sense of obligation which we cannot shake off, a sense of facing a clear duty. to run away from this, we are made to feel, is plainly to run away from god. is this not a simply true interpretation of the common consciousness? here, then, the religious experience is in the very sphere of the ethical, and identical with it. . _involved in the nature of god's gifts._--again, god's gifts in religion are of such a kind that they simply cannot be given to the unwilling soul; just to receive them, therefore, implies willingness to use them; and faith becomes inevitably both "a gift and an activity." however one names god's gifts in religion, so long as the relation is kept a spiritual one at all, receiving the gift requires a real ethical attitude in the recipient. a real forgiveness, for example, involves personal reconciliation, restored personal relations; and reconciliation is mutual. one cannot, then, be said in any true sense to accept forgiveness from god who is not himself in an attitude of reconciliation with god, of harmony of will with him. in the same way, peace with god, the gift of the spirit, life, god's own life, cannot be really given to any man without an ethical response on his part in a definite attitude of will. anything arbitrary here is, therefore, necessarily shut out. god's gifts in religion are of such a kind that they simply cannot be given to the unwilling soul. they are not things to be mechanically poured out on men. we have no need, consequently, to guard our religious statements in this respect. we cannot even receive from god the spiritual gifts of the religious relation without the active will. here, too, religion is certainly ethical. . _communion with god, through harmony with his ethical will._--or, one may say, desire for real communion with god seeks god himself, not things, or some experience merely. but the very center of personality is the will; any genuine seeking of god himself, therefore, to commune with him, requires unity with his ethical will. the deepest religious motive is at the same time, thus, an impulse to character. . _the vision of god for the pure in heart._--christ's own statement--"blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see god"--suggests another aspect of this essential unity of the religious and the ethical. the connection in the beatitude is no chance one. the highest and completest revelation of personality, human or divine, can be made only to the reverent. god reveals himself to the reverent soul, and most of all to the pure--to those souls that are reverent of personality throughout and under the severest pressure. therefore, the pure in heart shall see god. "the secret of the lord is with them that fear him."[ ] the vision of god requires the spirit that is reverent of personality, and this spirit is the abiding source of the finest ethical living. . _sharing the life of god._--but perhaps the clearest and most satisfactory putting of the relation is this. the very meaning of religion is sharing the life of god. as soon, now, as god is conceived as essentially holy and loving, a god of character, a living will and not a substance--and christianity to be true to itself, must always so conceive him--so soon religion and morality are indissolubly united. god's life, according to christ's teaching, is the life of constant and perfect self-giving. to share the life of god, therefore, to share his single purpose, is to come into the life of loving service. the two fall together from the point of view of the social consciousness. and we are "saved," we come into the real religious life, only in the proportion in which we have really learned to love. "everyone that loveth is begotten of god, and knoweth god."[ ] the old separation of religion and character is impossible from this point of view. . _christ, as satisfying our highest claims on life._--but we may still profitably press the question: is the christian religion--the special faith in the revelation of god in christ, the best way to righteousness? does it necessarily, most naturally, most spontaneously, and most joyfully carry righteousness of life with it? if this is to be true, christian faith, in herrmann's language, "must give men the power to submit with joy to the claims of duty."[ ] it may be doubted whether any one has dealt with this question as satisfactorily as herrmann himself, and a few sentences may well be quoted from his discussion. "we know that the ordinary instinctive way in which men seek the satisfaction of all the needs of life makes it impossible to submit honestly to the demands of duty, and we see, also, the falsity of the childish idea of the mystics that this instinct should be extirpated; it follows, then, that we can only seek moral deliverance in a true and perfect satisfaction of our craving for life.... now just such a feeling of perfect inner contentment is possible to the christian, and he has it just in proportion as he understands that god turns to him in christ.... this is redemption, that christ creates within us a living joy, whose brightness beams even from the eye of sorrow, and tells the world of a power it cannot comprehend. and the power that works redemption is the fact that in our world there is a man whose appearance can at any moment be to us the mighty word of god, snatching us out of our troubles and making us to feel that he desires to have us for his own, and so setting us free from the world and from our own instinctive nature."[ ] christ, that is, has no desire to withdraw himself from the test of the largest life. he is able to satisfy the highest demands for life. he courts the trial. he claims to offer life, the largest life. "i came," he says, "that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."[ ] his way of deliverance is not negative but positive, not limiting but fulfilling. he is able to give such largeness of life in himself, such inner satisfaction of the craving for life, as makes a lower life lose its power over us, the larger and higher life driving out the meaner and lower. this is positive victory, supplanting the lower with the higher; just as in literature, in music, in friendship, and in love, we expect the best to break down the taste for the lower. . _the vision of the riches of the life of christ, ethically conditioned._--but the thought of christ's satisfying our highest claim on life deserves to be carried further, if it is to be saved from vagueness and to have its full power with us. the highest value in the world is a personal life. so christ has made us feel. it is finally the only value, for all other so-called values borrow their value from persons. the highest joy conceivable is entering into the riches of another's personal life through his willing self-revelation. now it is no fine fancy that the supremely rich life of the world's history is christ's. god can only be known, if we are not to fall back into the vagaries of mysticism, in his concrete manifestation; and god opens out in christ, the new testament believes, the inexhaustible wealth of his own personal life. it is god's highest gift, the gift of himself. "no one knoweth the son save the father; neither doth any know the father, save the son, and he to whom the son willeth to reveal him."[ ] "this is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true god, and him whom thou didst send."[ ] so it seemed to paul: "unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the gentiles the unsearchable riches of christ."[ ] do we not here catch a glimpse of what the depth of that satisfaction with the inner life of god in christ may be? "for he who hath the heart of god sufficed, can satisfy all hearts,--yea, thine and mine." only the riches of a personal life can satisfy our claim on life, our desire for life; and, ultimately, we can be fully satisfied only with god's own life in the fullest revelation he can make of it to us men. only this can be "the unspeakable gift." the thirst for god, for the living god, is a simply true expression of the human heart when it comes to real self-knowledge. but the riches of the personal life of christ are necessarily hidden to one who does not come into the sharing of christ's purpose. the condition of the vision is ethical. the very satisfaction, therefore, of our craving for life constantly impels to a more perfect union with the will of christ; for such complete entering into the life of another with joy implies profound agreement. the desire for life, therefore, for god's own life, for communion with god, itself impels to character. faith does here give "the power to submit with joy to the claims of duty," and religion is ethical in the very heart of it. . _the moral law, as a revelation of the love of god._--the same unity of the religious and ethical life is helpfully seen, if we put the matter in one further and slightly different way. only the christian religion, faith in god as father revealed in christ, enables us to welcome the stern demands of duty and so gives us inner deliverance, joy, and liberty in the moral life; for now the moral demand is seen, not as task only, but as opportunity. for christ, the law of god is a revelation of the love of god; it is a gracious indication--a secret whispered to us--of the lines along which we are to find our largest and richest life; it is not a limitation of life, but a way to larger life. not, then, the avoidance, as far as possible, of the law of god, but the completest fulfilment of it is the road to life--following the hint of the law into the remotest ramifications, and into the inmost spirit, of the life. the other attitude which assumes that the law is a hindrance to life is a distinct denial of the love of god. it implies that god lays upon us demands which are not for our good. it refuses to accept as reality christ's manifestation of god as father. real belief in the love of god, on the other hand, must take the fearful out of his commands. to be "freed from the law," now, has quite a different meaning: not the taking off from us of the moral demand, but the inner deliverance, that would not have the command removed, but finds life _in_ it, and obeys it freely and joyfully. only a thoroughgoing and fundamental faith in the fatherhood of god can bring such inner deliverance, even as we have seen that only such a faith can really ground the social consciousness. and such a faith only christ has proved adequate to bring. with this light, now, we feel, in every demand of duty, the presence of god, and in this presence of god the pledge of life, not a limitation of life. the religious life desires god, and it finds god never so certainly as in the purpose fully to face duty. every one of the relations of life is, thus, turned to with joy by the religious man, as sure to be a further channel of the revelation of god. the thirst for god drives to the faithful fulfilment of the human relation. religion becomes joyfully ethical. nor is there any possibility of abandonment to the will of god _in general_, as the mystic seems often to feel. god's will means particulars all along the way of our life; and there is no communion with god except in this ethical will in particulars. at no point, therefore, can the religious life withdraw itself from the daily duty and maintain its own existence. the constant inevitable condition of the religious communion is the ethical will. our providential place is god's place to find us. where god has put us, just there he will best find us. this is further seen in the fact that the true christian experience is a constant paradox: god ever satisfying, and yet ever impelling--never allowing us to remain where we are, but holding up to us the always higher ideal beyond; the law is ever, "of his fulness we all received, and grace in place of grace."[ ] the deepening communion with god is only through a constantly deepening moral life. such a thoroughgoing ethicizing of religion as the social consciousness demands, we need not hesitate, therefore, to believe is possible. the truer religion is to its own great aspiration after god, the more certainly is it ethical. but the social consciousness, so far as it influences religion, not only tends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize the personal and the ethical, it also tends to emphasize in religion the concretely, historically christian. [ ] cf. _american journal of theology_, oct., , p. . [ ] psalm : . [ ] i john : . [ ] _the communion of the christian with god_, p. . [ ] _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] john : . [ ] matt. : . [ ] john : . [ ] eph. : . [ ] john : . cf. herrmann, _op. cit._, pp. , . chapter viii _the emphasis of the social consciousness upon the historically christian in religion_ the fact that the social consciousness tends to emphasize in religion the concretely historically christian, has been so inevitably involved in the preceding discussions, that it can be treated very briefly. i. the social consciousness needs historical justification the justification of the social consciousness, we have seen,[ ] must be preëminently from history. neither nature nor speculation can satisfy it. it needs to be able to believe in a living god who is in living relation to living men. it needs just such a justification as historical christianity, and only historical christianity, can give; it needs the assurance of an objective divine will in the world, definitely working in the line of its own ideals. it needs also to be able to give such definite content to the thought of god as shall be able to satisfy its own strong insistence upon the rational and the ethical as historical. ii. christianity's response to this need if religion is to be a reality to the social consciousness, then, there must be a real revelation of a real god in the real world, in actual human history, not an imaginary god, nor a dream god, nor a god of mystic contemplation. this discernment of god in the real world, in actual history, is the glory even of the old testament; and it came, as we have seen, along the line of the social consciousness. and it is such a real revelation of the real god that christianity finds preëminently in christ. it can say to the social consciousness: make no effort to believe, but simply put yourself in the presence of a concrete, definite, actual, historical fact, with its perennial ethical appeal; put yourself in the presence of christ--the greatest and realest of the facts of history,--and let that fact make its own legitimate impression, work its own natural work; that fact alone, of all the facts of history, gives you full and ample warrant for your own being. if this be true, it can hardly be doubted that, so far as the social consciousness understands itself and influences religion at all, it will tend to emphasize, not to underestimate, the concretely, historically christian. the natural influence of the social consciousness upon religion, then, may be said to be fourfold: it tends to draw away from the falsely mystical; it tends to emphasize the personal in religion, and so to keep the truly mystical; it tends to emphasize the ethical in religion; and it needs the concretely, historically christian. [ ] cf above, pp. ff. the influence of the social consciousness upon theological doctrine chapter ix _general results_ the question of this third division of our inquiry is this: to what changed points of view, and to what restatements of doctrine, and so to what better appreciation of christian truth, does the social consciousness of our time lead? the question is raised here, as in the case of the conception of religion, not as one of exact historical connection, but rather as a question of sympathetic points of contact. it means simply: with what changes in theological statements would the social consciousness naturally find itself most sympathetic? certain general results are clear from the start, and might be anticipated from any one of several points of view. i. the conception of theology in personal terms in the first place, the social consciousness means, we have found, emphasis on the fully personal--a fresh awakening to the significance of the person and of personal relations. its whole activity is in the sphere of personal relations. hence, as in the conception of religion, so here, so far as the social consciousness affects theology at all, it will tend everywhere to bring the personal into prominence, and it certainly will be found in harmony ultimately with the attempt to conceive theology in terms of personal relations. these are for the social consciousness the realest of realities; and if theology is to be real to the social consciousness, then it must make much of the personal. theology, thus, it is worth while seeing, is not to be personal _and_ social, but it will be social--it will do justice to the social consciousness--if it does justice to the fully personal; for, in the language of another, "man is social, just in so far as he is personal."[ ] the foreign and unreal seeming of many of the old forms of statement, it may well be noted in passing, has its probable cause just here. they were not shaped in the atmosphere of the social consciousness. they got at things in a way we should not now think of using. the method of approach was too merely metaphysical and individualistic and mystical, and the result seems to us to have but slight ethical or religious significance. the arguments that now move us most, in this entire realm of spiritual inquiry, are moral and social rather than metaphysical and mystical. it is interesting to see, for example, how such arguments for immortality as that of the simplicity of the soul's being--and most of those used by plato--and how such arguments even for the existence of god as those of samuel clarke from time and space, have become for us merely matters of curious inquiry. we can hardly imagine men having given them real weight. a similar change seems to be creeping over the laborious attempts metaphysically to conceive the divinity of christ. the question is shifting its position for both radical and conservative to a new ground--from the metaphysical and mystical to the moral and social; though some radicals who regard themselves as in the van of progress have not yet found it out, and so find fault with one for not continually defining himself in terms of the older metaphysical formulas and shibboleths. the considerations, in all these questions and in many others, which really weigh most with us now, are considerations which belong to the sphere of the personal spiritual life. ultimately, no doubt, a metaphysics is involved here too; but it is a metaphysics whose final reality is spirit, not an unknown substance--locke's "something, i know not what." the unsatisfactoriness of even so honored a symbol as the apostles' creed, as a permanently adequate statement of christian faith, must for similar reasons become increasingly clear in the atmosphere of the social consciousness. one wonders, as he goes carefully over it, that so many concrete statements could be made concerning the christian religion, which yet are so little ethical. the creed seems almost to exclude the ethical. it has nothing to say, except by rather distant implication, of the character of god, of the character of christ, or of the character of men. the life of christ between his birth and his death are untouched. the considerations that really weigh most with us--as they did with the apostles--in making us christians, certainly do not come here to prominent expression. this whole difference of atmosphere is the striking fact; and were it not that we instinctively interpret its phrases in accordance with our modern consciousness, we should feel the difference much more than we do. what the previous discussion has called the truly mystical--the recognition of the whole man, of the entire personality--is coming in increasingly to correct both the falsely mystical and the falsely metaphysical. we are arguing now, in harmony with the social consciousness, from the standpoint of the broadly rational, not from that of the narrowly intellectual. ii. the fatherhood of god, as the determining principle in theology one might reach essentially the same general results from the influence of the social consciousness, by seeing that, so far as it deepens for us the meaning of the personal, it will deepen immediately our conception of the fatherhood of god--the central and dominating doctrine in all theology--and so affect all theology. for, with a change in the conception of god, no doctrine can go wholly untouched. every step into a deeper feeling for the personal--and the growth of the modern social consciousness is undoubtedly a long step in that direction--deepens necessarily religion and theology. perhaps the possible results here can be illustrated in no way better than by recalling patterson dubois' putting of the needed change in the conception of the proper attitude of a father toward his child. we are not to say, he writes: "i will conquer that child, no matter what it may cost him," but we are to say, "i will help that child to conquer himself, no matter what it may cost me." now that change in point of view is a well-nigh perfect illustration of the social consciousness in a given relation, and it cannot be doubted that it is a true expression of christ's thought of the fatherhood of god; but has it really dominated through and through our theological statements? manifestly, what it means to us that god is father depends on what we have come to see in fatherhood. and principal fairbairn, in the second part of his _the place of christ in modern theology_, has given us a good illustration of how much it means for theology to be in earnest in making the fatherhood of god the determining doctrine in theology. iii. christ's own social emphases again, if the general influence of the social consciousness upon theological doctrine is to be recognized at all, it is evident that a christian theology must take full account of christ's own social emphases. by loyalty to these, it will expect best to meet the need of an enlightened social consciousness. it will strive thus--to use professor peabody's instructive summary of "the social principles of the teaching of jesus"--to be true to "the view from above, the approach from within, and the movement toward a spiritual end; wisdom, personality, idealism; a social horizon, a social power, a social aim. the supreme truth that this is god's world gave to jesus his spirit of social optimism; the assurance that man is god's instrument gave to him his method of social opportunism; the faith that in god's world god's people are to establish god's kingdom gave him his social idealism. he looks upon the struggling, chaotic, sinning world with the eye of an unclouded religious faith, and discerns in it the principle of personality fulfilling the will of god in social service."[ ] and every one of these three great social principles of jesus has obvious theological applications, not yet fully made. the social consciousness, indeed, well illustrates fairbairn's admirable statement of how progress is to be expected in theology. "the longer the history [of christ]," he says, "lives in the [christian] consciousness and penetrates it, the more does the consciousness become able to interpret the history in its own terms and according to its own contents. the old pagan mind into which christianity first came could not possibly be the best interpreter of christianity, and the more the mind is cleansed of the pagan the more qualified it becomes to interpret the religion. it is, therefore, reasonable to expect that the later forms of faith should be the truer and purer."[ ] now the social consciousness itself is a genuine manifestation of the spirit of christ at work in the world, and the mind permeated with this social consciousness is consequently better able to turn back to the teaching of jesus and give it proper interpretation. iv. the reflection in theology of the changes in the conception of religion once more, theology, as an expression of religion, will at once reflect any change in the conception of religion. the influence of the social consciousness upon religion, already traced, will, therefore, inevitably pass over into theology. this means nothing less than a changed point of view, in the consideration of each doctrine. for theology must then recognize clearly that it can build on no falsely mystical conception of communion with god; but, while keeping the elements in mysticism which are justified by the social consciousness, it will require of itself throughout a formulation of doctrine in terms that shall be thoroughly personal, thoroughly ethical, and indubitably loyal to the concretely historically christian. many traditional statements quite fail to meet so searching a test; but no lower standard can give a theology that should fully meet the demands of the social consciousness. the general results of the influence of the social consciousness upon theological doctrine, then, may be said to include: the emphasis upon the fully personal, and so conceiving theology in terms of personal relation; the deepening of the conception of the fatherhood of god, and making this the determining principle in theology; the application of the social principles of the teaching of jesus to theology; the reflection in theology of the natural changes in the conception of religion wrought by the social consciousness. now any one of these general results indicates the certain influence of the social consciousness upon theology, and any one might be followed out into helpful suggestions for the restatement of theological doctrines. but we shall probably most clearly and definitely answer the question of our theme, if we ask specifically concerning the several elements of the social consciousness: how does a deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men, of the mutual influence of men, of the value and sacredness of the person, of personal obligation, and of love, tend to affect our theological point of view and mode of statement? and our inquiry will follow these separate questions in separate chapters, except that for the purposes of theological inference, the last three may be appropriately grouped together. [ ] nash, _ethics and revelation_, p. . [ ] peabody, _jesus christ and the social question_, p. . [ ] fairbairn, _the place of christ in modern theology_, p. . chapter x _the influence of the deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men upon theology_ in definitely considering the influence of the social consciousness upon theological doctrines, our first question becomes: how does the deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men affect theology? obviously, here, the change will be largely one of mood. we shall look at our themes with a different feeling, and so speak differently, modifying our methods of putting things in those slight ways that do not seem specially significant to one who judges in the mass, but mean very much to one who feels the finer implications of personal life. these finer changes no one can hope to follow out in detail. certain of these finer changes will naturally find incidental expression in the course of the more formal treatment. but our attention must be mainly given to the statement of some of the most important of the plainer results of the principle in theology. i. no prime favorites with god in the first place, this conviction of the like-mindedness of men means that there can be no prime favorites with god. it can hardly help affecting the thought of election. election will, indeed, be thought of as qualified by the character of the chosen; for even paul's argument in romans clearly recognizes this, and is, in fact, itself a distinct argument against a narrow doctrine of election, as others have recognized.[ ] but, beyond this, the conviction of the like-mindedness of men will especially view election as a choice for service. the divine method of election must be in harmony with christ's fundamental principle of his kingdom, and with the developing social consciousness: "whosoever shall be first among you, shall be servant of all."[ ] it is no accident that this thought of election as choice for preëminent service, which is indeed soundly biblical, has come into special prominence in these days of the social consciousness. the same change is passing over our view of the "elect," as of the "privileged" and "governing" classes. we shall not return to the older feeling of prime favorites of god, and the problem of evil will find herein a certain alleviation. we shall feel increasingly that each race and each individual have their calling and have their compensating advantages; and that, when it comes down to the final test of opportunity, the differences in opportunity between individuals are far less than they seem; for to each one is given the possibility of the largest service any man can render--the possibility of touching closely with the very spirit of his life a few other lives. "there are compensations," as james says, "and no outward changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal meaning from singing in all sorts of different men's hearts."[ ] ii. the great universal qualities and interests, the most valuable moreover, since equality of need among men,[ ] implies, as we have seen, a common capacity--even if in varying degrees--of entering into the most fundamental interests of life, this belief in the essential likeness of men is likely to carry with it that most wholesome conviction for theology, that the great universal qualities and interests are the most valuable. not that which distinguishes us from one another, but that which we have in common is most valuable. as howells tells the boys in his _a boy's town_, "the first thing you have to learn here below, is that in essentials you are just like every one else, and that you are different from others only in what is not so much worth while."[ ] this consideration is no small help in facing that most difficult problem for any ideal view of the world--the problem of evil. in god's world, we feel that the most common things ought to be the best. and this growing conviction of the social consciousness comes in to confirm our faith. the constant and simple insistence of christ on receptivity as a fundamental quality in his kingdom is built, in fact, on an optimistic faith in the value of the common things. it is interesting to notice the varied confirmations of the value of the common. how often we have to feel that the deepest discussions come out with only deeper insight into the great common truths; and, on the other hand, that in stilted philosophizing, what seems at first sight a great discovery, proves only a perversely obscure way of putting a common truth. it is the very mission of genius--of the poet in the larger sense, we are coming to feel, to bring out the value of the common. his distinctive mark is that he has kept a fresh sense for the great common experiences of life. so kipling prays: "it is enough that through thy grace i saw naught common on thy earth. take not that vision from my ken." so, the greatest in art, hegel contends, has a universal appeal. it is a wholesome and heartening conviction, i say, to bring into theology, that the really best things are common, accessible to all, actually shared in, to an extent beyond that which our superficial vision seems to show. for, after all, this conviction of the social consciousness is only bringing home to us, in a new and appreciable way, christ's own optimism and his own faith in the love of the father. it is only another illustration of fairbairn's principle of the christian consciousness becoming more christian, and so better able to understand and interpret christ. and it leads us back by this route of the social consciousness, to emphasize in life, and in our theological thinking upon the conditions of entering the kingdom of god, christ's own insistence upon the two universally human characteristics found in every child--susceptibility and trust, which, voluntarily cherished, become teachableness and belief in love. if god is father indeed, and we are intended to come to our best in association with him, these qualities must be the most fundamental ones. and they imply no lack of virility, either, for the highest self-assertion, as professor everett pointed out in his criticism of nietzsche, is in complete self-surrender to such a will as god's. "when jesus said, 'he that loseth his life shall save it,' he said in effect--the self-surrender to which i call you is the truest self-assertion. we find thus in the teachings of christianity a summons to strength far greater than that implied by the self-assertion which is most characteristic of the teachings of nietzsche, because it is the assertion of a larger self."[ ] our outlook becomes well-nigh hopeless, when we make our tests of admission to the kingdom so much more exclusive than christ himself made them. iii. essential likeness under very diverse forms it is particularly important for theology that this conviction of the like-mindedness of men has come from a growing power to discern essential likeness under very diverse forms; for this consideration bears not only on the problem of natural evil, but also on the problem of sin and of the progress of christianity. we have taken some curiously diverse paths to this understanding of diverse lives. travels, history, biography, autobiographical fragments, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and--to no small degree--fiction, with its stories of out-of-the-way places and out-of-the-way peoples and of unfamiliar classes,--all have been thoroughfares for the social consciousness here. we are slowly learning to see the likeness under the differences, and so to transcend the differences even between occidental and oriental. all this means much, not only for our practical missionary putting of the truth, but also for our final theological statements. they will inevitably grow simpler, larger, more universally human, and at the same time more deep and solid. we are slowly learning, too, to discern a deep inner content of life under conditions that have no appeal for us, and to see like ideals and aspirations under very diverse forms of expression. take, for example, these three or four sentences--a small part of that quoted by professor james in his essay, _on a certain blindness in human beings_,--from stevenson's _lantern-bearers_: "it is said that a poet has died young in the breast of the most stolid. it may be contended rather that a (somewhat minor) bard in almost every case survives, and is the spice of life to his possessor. justice is not done to the versatility and the unplumbed childishness of man's imagination. his life from without may seem but a rude mound of mud; there will be some golden chamber at the heart of it in which he dwells delighted."[ ] and, later, on the side of ideals, stevenson is quoted once again: "if i could show you these men and women all the world over, in every stage of history, under every abuse of error, under every circumstance of failure, without hope, without help, without thanks, still obscurely fighting the lost fight of virtue, still clinging to some rag of honor, the poor jewel of their souls!"[ ] and now, having quoted howells and stevenson as theological authorities, i shall be pardoned if, for a moment, i erect kenneth grahame's _golden age_ into a "theological institute": "see," said my friend, bearing somewhat on my shoulder, "how this strange thing, this love of ours, lives and shines out in the unlikeliest of places! you have been in the fields in early morning? barren acres, all! but only stoop--catch the light thwartwise--and all is a silver network of gossamer! so the fairy filaments of this strange thing underrun and link together the whole world. yet it is not the old imperious god of the fatal bow--+herôs hanikate machan+--not that--nor even the placid respectable +storgê+--but something still unnamed, perhaps more mysterious, more divine! only one must stoop to see it, old fellow, one must stoop!"[ ] it means very much for the sanity of our outlook on life, and for any possible theodicy, that we can believe the heart of such a view as this for which stevenson and grahame are here contending. and what is all this attempt to get away from this "certain blindness in human beings," of which professor james speaks, but a growing into one of the fixed habits of jesus, what phillips brooks calls "his discovery of interest in people whom the world generally would have found most uninteresting?" "and this same habit," he adds, "passing over into his disciples, made the wide and democratic character of the new faith."[ ] iv. as applied to the question of immortality it may probably be safely said that this steadily growing conviction of the social consciousness, of the essential likeness of all men, which is daily confirmed afresh, and the more confirmed the more careful the study, is not likely to take kindly to the idea--which comes into a part of dr. mcconnell's argument concerning immortality, in his interesting book, _the evolution of immortality_--that living creatures classed as men on physical grounds are not, therefore, to be so classed on psychical grounds.[ ] the considerations and illustrations brought forward by dr. mcconnell, in connection with this proposition, i cannot think would seem at all conclusive to either the trained psychologist or sociologist. it is exactly the like-mindedness of men which the social consciousness affirms, and it has not come hastily to its conclusion. it will not quickly surrender that conclusion. there _is_ an "evolution of immortality," and it has been age-long, but it is pre-human. the belief in immortality so far as it does not rest purely on the question of the moral quality of a given human life (where the hypothesis of "immortability" may properly enough come in) is grounded upon characteristics--like that of the possibility of absolutely indefinite progress[ ]--which in sober scientific inquiry cannot safely be denied to any man, and must be denied to all creatures below man. in any case, the new theory of "immortability," so far as it is based upon the proposition here considered, has its battle to fight out with this established conviction of the social consciousness of the essential like-mindedness of all men. there are various considerations, not all of them wholly creditable, which will lead many to turn a willing ear to this new prophesying; but, though it makes much of evolution, it seems to me to have the whole trend of the social evolution against it, and to give the lie to that patient sympathetic insight into the lives of other classes and peoples, which is one of the finest products of the ethical evolution of the race. if one is tempted to believe that a good large share of the human race are really brutes in human semblance,--and our selfishness and pride and impatience and unloving lack of insight and desire to dominate may naturally tempt in this direction,--let him read that chapter of professor james to which reference has already been made, _on a certain blindness in human beings_, and its pendant, _what makes a life significant_. it may help his theology. let him recall the words of phillips brooks concerning this "strange hopelessness about the world, joined to a strong hope for themselves, which we see in many good religious people." "in their hearts they recognize indubitably that god is saving them, while the aspect of the world around them seems to show them that the world is going to perdition. this is a common enough condition of mind; but i think it may be surely said that it is not a good, nor can it be a permanent, condition. god has mercifully made us so that no man can constantly and purely believe in any great privilege for himself unless he believes in at least the possibility of the same privilege for other men."[ ] v. consequent larger sympathy with men, faith in men, and hope for men this whole conviction of the social consciousness, of the like-mindedness of men, leads naturally to increased _sympathy with men_, and this in turn to still better discernment of moral and spiritual realities. and this is of prime importance for the theologian; for sympathetic insight, it must never be forgotten, is the true route to spiritual verities. so far as our insight into actual human life becomes truer, so far our theology becomes clearer and more reasonable. this conviction leads also to increased _belief in men_, and consequently to increased belief in the effectiveness of the higher appeals. the temptation to disbelief in man was one of the underlying temptations of christ as he looked forward to his work; but he turned resolutely from it, and refused to build his kingdom on any lower appeal that implied a lack of faith in men. nothing seems to me more wonderful in christ than his marvelous faith in man; for, though he has the deepest sense of the sin of men, there is not the slightest trace of cynicism in his thought or life. this recognition of likeness under diversity, too, leads to increased _hope for men_, here and hereafter. in james' words: "it absolutely forbids us to be forward in pronouncing on the meaninglessness of forms of existence other than our own.... neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer.... no one has insight into all the ideals. no one should presume to judge them off-hand."[ ] this thought helps us to greater hope for men, because, indeed, it helps us to the discernment of genuine ideals under very different forms of life, of the universal sense of duty and some loyalty to it, though there is great diversity of judgment as to what is duty.[ ] but, it is here to be noted, also, that the thought of the like-mindedness of men brings greater hope, because it helps to the discernment of likeness, even under difference in important terms used. we are coming to see that there is sometimes, at least, a really strong religious faith where men do not acknowledge the term. thus, bradley says: "all of us, i presume, more or less, are led beyond the region of ordinary facts. some in one way, and some in others, we seem to touch and have communion with what is beyond the visible world. in various manners we find something higher, which supports and humbles, both chastens and transports us. and," as a philosopher he adds, "with certain persons, the intellectual effort to understand the universe is a principal way of thus experiencing the deity."[ ] even where the term deity would be entirely abjured, we have seen with paulsen,[ ] that a real faith essentially religious in character may be clearly manifest. we are even coming to see that men may seem to themselves to be contending upon opposite sides of so fundamental a question as that of the personality of god, and yet be near together as to their own ultimate faith and attitude, and possibly even as to their real philosophical views of god; but the same term has come to have such different connotations for the men, from their different education and experience, that they simply cannot use it with the same meaning. i have not the slightest desire to reduce the concrete, ethical, definitely personal religion of jesus to the ambiguities of philosophical dreamers; the world is going to become more and more consciously and avowedly christian. but i do not, on the other hand, as a christian theologian, wish to shut my eyes to great essential likenesses in fundamental faiths and ideals and aspirations, because they are clothed in different garb. the life and teaching of jesus have worked and are working in the consciousness of men far beyond the limits our feeble faith is inclined to prescribe. there is doubtless much "unconscious christianity," much "unconscious following of christ."[ ] and we are only following christ's own counsel, when we refuse to forbid the man who is working a good work in his name, though he follows not with us.[ ] certainly, if we accept the witness of a man's life against the witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is right, we ought to accept the witness of his life against the witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is wrong. with reference to all the preceding inferences from the deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men, it is particularly worthy of note, that this conviction of the essential likeness of men has come into existence side by side with the growing conviction of the moral unripeness of many men, and in spite of that conviction. the careful study of different social classes is forcing upon both the scientific sociologist and the practical social worker, the sense of the ethical immaturity of men. but deeper than this recognition of moral unripeness, deeper than the vision of the sad defectiveness of moral and spiritual ideals and standards, deeper than the clear sense of the immense differences among men as to _what_ is duty, deeper than the differences in even the most important terms used, lies this great conviction of likeness--that all men are moral and spiritual beings, made for relation to one another and to god; that they have ideals that have a wide outlook implicit in them, and have some loyalty to these ideals; that they do have a sense of obligation; that the moral and spiritual life is a reality, a great universal human fact. vi. judgment according to light, and the moral reality of the future life it is no accident, now, that accompanying this double social conviction, there has come into theology a new insistence upon the principle of judgment of a man according to his light, and consequently also, what professor clarke calls "a tendency toward the recognition of greater reality and freedom in the other life, and thus toward the possibility of moral change."[ ] our conception of the future life was certain to be modified by the social consciousness; and it may be doubted if any influence of the social consciousness upon theology can be more clearly traced historically than this. the motives that have been working in our minds here include, on the one hand, a wholesome sense of the imperfection of even the best human lives; a glad discernment, on the other hand, of the presence of genuine ideals in lives where we had thought there were none; the certainty that, as dr. clarke says, "for at least one-third of mankind the entire life of conscious and developed personality is lived in the other world;"[ ] an experienced unwillingness to say, where we cannot see, the precise point at which the very diverse lives of men under very diverse conditions come to full moral maturity; and the conviction that a life that is to be moral at all must be moral everywhere and through all time, and that where even we can see a little, god can see much more. all these motives, now, make us refuse, with christ, to answer the question, "are there few that be saved?" and both with increasing hope, and with that increasing sense of the seriousness and significance of life which so characterizes the social consciousness, to urge: "strive to enter in." the growing sense of the likeness of men does affect our thought of the future life. the best men, under the clearest light, have only begun; for the best, there is still much need of growth. who has not begun at all? for whom is there no growth? let us make no mistake here. it is no light-hearted indifference to character, to which the genuine social consciousness leads. no age, indeed, ever saw so clearly as ours that the most essential conditions of happiness are in character, or was more certain that sin carries with it its own inevitable consequences. it is not a less, but a more, profound sense of the seriousness of the problem of moral character, that makes us hesitate to dogmatize concerning the future life. to bring together, now, the conclusions of the chapter: the first element in the social consciousness--the deepening sense of the likeness of men--seems likely to affect theology, especially by modifying the thought of election through emphasis upon choice for service, and through the clear recognition that there are no prime favorites with god; by strengthening the conviction that the great common qualities and interests are the most valuable, and that genuine and largely common ideals may be found under very diverse forms and conditions; and thus, on the one hand, by opposing the denial of the psychical likeness of men, as applied to the problem of immortality, and, on the other hand, by bringing us to larger sympathy with men, to larger faith in men, and to larger hope for men; and, finally, by laying new emphasis upon judgment according to light, and upon the moral reality and freedom of the future life. [ ] cf. e. g., clarke, _outline of christian theology_, p. . [ ] mark : . [ ] james, _talks on psychology and life's ideals_, p. . [ ] cf. giddings, _elements of sociology_, p. . [ ] howells, _a boy's town_, p. . [ ] _the new world_, dec., , pp. , . [ ] james, _talks on psychology and life's ideals_, p. . [ ] _op. cit._, p. . [ ] p. . [ ] brooks, _the influence of jesus_, p. . [ ] mcconnell, _the evolution of immortality_, pp. ff. [ ] cf. james, _psychology_, vol. ii, pp. ff., p. ; lotze, _the microcosmus_, book v, especially vol. i, pp. , . [ ] _the candle of the lord, and other sermons_, p. . [ ] _talks on psychology and life's ideals_, pp. , . [ ] cf. above, p. ff. [ ] bradley, _appearance and reality_, pp. , . [ ] cf. above, pp. , . [ ] cf. fremantle, _the world as the subject of redemption_, pp. ff, ff; lyman abbott, _the outlook_, dec. , . [ ] mark : , ; cf. matt. : - . [ ] _an outline of christian theology_, p. . [ ] _op. cit._, p. . chapter xi _the influence of the deepening sense of the mutual influence of men upon theology_ from this first element of the social consciousness, we turn now to the second, and ask, how does the deepening sense of the mutual influence of men affect theology? i. the real unity of the race . first, then, taken with the sense of the likeness of men, it can hardly be doubted that sociology's strong feeling of the mutual influence of men deepens for theology the thought of the real, not the mechanical, unity of the race. the theologian believes, more than he did, in a race whose unity is preëminently moral, rather than physical or mystical. the truly scientific position for the theologian seems to be, to make no mysterious assumptions, where well-known causes are sufficient to account for the facts; and those causes which the social consciousness clearly sees to be at work seem, in all probability, adequate to account for the facts in discussion so far as those facts are finite at all.[ ] the theologian knows, then, a true moral universe, with a unity which is that of the close personal, mutual relations of like-minded spiritual beings. the natural goal of such a race, the only one in which they can truly find themselves, is the kingdom of god. this conception of christ is first thoroughly at home with us, when we see that the true unity of the race is that of personal moral relation. so far as men turn from that goal, this same racial unity of the inevitable and most intimate personal relations converts them into something approaching ritschl's conception of an opposing "kingdom of sin." are we prepared to be thoroughly loyal to just this conception of the unity of the race throughout our theological thinking; and so to give up cherished ideas of "common," "transmitted," "inherited," or "racial" sin or righteousness, of "mystical solidarity," and racial ideal representation, etc.? it probably may be said with truth that few, if any, theological systems have been thus loyal. indeed, under what seems a mistaken application of the social consciousness, and particularly under the misleading influence of the analogy of the organism, men have believed themselves attaining a deeper theological view, when they have, in fact, turned away from the sober teaching of the social consciousness. it may not be in vain for our theology to hear and receive with patience a sociologist's definition of the "social mind." upon this point professor giddings says explicitly: "there is no reason to suppose that society is a great being which is conscious of itself through some mysterious process of thinking, separate and distinct from the thinking that goes on in the brains of individual men. at any rate, there is no possible way yet known to man of proving that there is any such supreme social consciousness." nevertheless, he adds: "to the group of facts that may be described as the simultaneous like-mental-activity of two or more individuals in communication with one another, or as a concert of the emotions, thought, and will of two or more communicating individuals, we give the name, the social mind. this name, accordingly, should be regarded as meaning just this group of facts and nothing more. it does not mean that there is any other consciousness than that of individual minds. it does mean that individual minds act simultaneously in like ways and continually influence one another; and that certain mental products result from such combined mental action which could not result from the thinking of an individual who had no communication with fellow-beings."[ ] just so far, it may well be supposed, and no farther may we go, in theology, in moral and spiritual inferences from the unity of the race. we are members one of another for good and for ill, one in the unity of the inevitable, mutual influence of like-minded persons. ii. deepening the sense of sin and this conviction, in the second place, not only deepens our sense of the real unity of the race, it deepens also the sense of sin. and we can hardly separate here the influence of the third element of the social consciousness--the sense of the value and sacredness of the person. as against a rather wide-spread and often expressed contrary feeling, this deepening sense of sin may yet, it is believed, be truthfully maintained, _so far as the social consciousness is really making itself felt_. there are some disintegrating tendencies here, no doubt, like the tendency under some applications of evolution and evolutionary philosophy to turn all sin into a necessary stage in the evolution. but had not drummond reason to say: "there is one theological word which has found its way lately into nearly all the newer and finer literature of our country. it is not only _one_ of the words of the literary world at present, it is perhaps _the_ word. its reality, its certain influence, its universality, have at last been recognized, and in spite of its theological name have forced it into a place which nothing but its felt relation to the wider theology of human life could ever have earned for a religious word. that word, it need scarcely be said, is sin."[ ] contrast this modern sense of sin with the almost total lack of it among even so gifted a people of the ancient world as the greeks, and feel the significance of the phenomenon. but it is particularly to be noted that this sense of sin in literature is largely due to a keener social conscience. in fact, if the social consciousness is not a thoroughly fraudulent phenomenon, it could hardly be otherwise; for the social consciousness, in its very essence, is a sense of what is due a person; and sin is always ultimately against a person, failure to be what one ought to be in some personal relation, including finally all the relations of the kingdom of god. we simply cannot deepen the sense of the meaning and value of personal relations, and not deepen, at the same time, the sense of sin. the meaning of the golden rule, and so the sense of sin under it, deepens inevitably with every step into the meaning of the person. if the one great commandment is love, then the sin of which men need most of all to be convicted is lack of love. the self-tormenting and fanciful sins of some of our devotional books very likely are less felt. but the very existence of the social consciousness seems to be proof that there never was so much good, honest, wholesome sense of real sin as to-day--such sin as christ himself recognizes in his own judgment test. it may be that, in temporary absorption in the human relations, the relation of all this to the all-father may seem forgotten; even so, we may well remember christ's "ye did it unto me." but, in fact, we must go much farther and say, the social consciousness can only be true to itself finally, as it goes on to see its acts in the light, most of all, of that single, personal relation which underlies all others. we have already seen that the social consciousness requires for its own justification its grounding in the manifest trend of the living will of god. with this felt identification of the will of god with love for men, men can still less shake off easily the conviction of sin. probably, most religious men argue a diminishing sense of sin, because they feel that less is made of those consequences of sin which have been usually connected with the future life. there may be real danger here from shallow thinking; but here, too, the social consciousness has only to be true to itself to be saved from any shallow estimate of the consequences of sin here or hereafter. as the sin itself is always, finally, in personal relations, so the most terrible results of sin, in this life and in all lives, are in personal relations. what it costs the man himself in cutting him off from the relations in which all largeness of life consists, what it costs those who love him, what it costs god,--this alone is the true measure of sin. so judged, sin itself is feared as never before. surely, principal fairbairn is right in saying: "and so even within christendom, sin is never so little feared as when hell most dominates the imagination; it needs to be looked at as it affects god, to be understood and feared."[ ] but it is the inevitable result of the social consciousness to bring us to the deepest conviction of all these personal relations, and so to the deepest conviction of sin. another consideration deserves attention. we have a growing conviction that our social ideal is personally realized only in christ, and we have given unequaled attention to that life and have such knowledge of it, in its detailed applications, as no preceding generation has ever had. this simply means that we have both such a sense of our moral calling, and are face to face with such a living standard, as must steadily deepen in us a genuine sense of real sin, in our falling so far short of the spirit of christ. theology needs, further, to make unmistakably clear, and to use the fact, that _this mutual influence of men holds for good_ as well as for evil; that few greater lies have ever been told, than the insinuation that only evil is contagious, the good not. and this conviction of the contagion of the good, of mutual influence for good, concerns theology particularly in three ways, all of which may be regarded simply as illustrations or aspects of the one kingdom of god. we are members one of another ( ) in attainment of character, ( ) in personal relation to god, and ( ) in confession of faith. and each of these forms of mutual influence will need careful attention. in considering separately here attainment of character and relation to god, it is not meant for a moment to admit that separation of ethics and religion which has been already denied, but only to single out for distinct treatment the one most important and fundamental relation of life--relation to god. we are certainly never to forget that the indispensable condition of right relations to god, is that a man should have been won into willingness to share god's own righteous purpose concerning men. iii. mutual influence for good in the attainment of character we know no deeper law in the building of character, than that righteous character comes through that association with the best in which there is mutual self-giving. the problem of character implies not only a bare recognition of a man's moral freedom, but a sacred respect at every point for his personality. if a man is ever to have character at all, it must be absolutely his own; he must be won freely into it. in this free winning to character, no association counts for its most that is not mutual. i become in character most certainly and rapidly like that man with whom i constantly am, to whose influence i most fully surrender, and who gives himself most completely to me. we may analyze the phenomenon psychologically, as, indeed, we have already done in showing that a true personal relation to christ necessarily carries with it a true ethical life. and that which held true for religion cannot be false for theology, we may be sure. but, in any case, we always come back finally to the fact, that character is truly and inevitably contagious in an association in which there is mutual surrender. character is caught, not taught. the inner strength of another life to which we surrender is, as phillips brooks somewhere says, "directly transmissible." i suspect that the ultimate psychological principle at work here is that of the impulsiveness of consciousness. but, whether that be true or not, the witness to this contagion is wide-spread among students of men. "the greatest gift the hero leaves his race," one of our great novelists says, "is to have been a hero." in almost identical language, a great ethical and philosophical writer adds: "the noblest workers of our world bequeath us nothing so great as the image of themselves. their task, be it ever so glorious, is historical and transient, the majesty of their spirit is essential and eternal." but one might still think, here, only of an example. the other life, however, must be more to me than mere example. for the highest attainment in character i need the association of some highest one, who will give himself to me unreservedly. redemption to real righteousness of life cannot be without cost to the redeemer. and it is a psychologist, facing the ultimate problem of will-strengthening, who urges in words that might seem almost to look to christ: "the prophet has drunk more deeply than any one of the cup of bitterness; but his countenance is so unshaken, and he speaks such mighty words of cheer, that his will becomes our will, and our life is kindled at his own."[ ] it _is_ the one great certain road to character--as it is to appreciation of every value--to stay in the presence of the best, in self-surrender to it. no wonder christ said, "i am the way." . _the application to the problem of redemption._--it is hardly possible to ignore this one great known law of character-making, which the social consciousness so presses upon us, in any thinking that is for a moment worth while concerning our redemption by christ. and whatever our point of view, this consideration ought to have weight with us. nay, must we not make it necessarily the very center of all our thought here? for all the realities in this problem of redeeming a man from sin to righteousness are intensely personal, ethical, spiritual. now, are we to reach a deeper view of redemption, by turning away from the deepest ethical fact to the unethical? do we so ground our view the more securely? is there something holier than the holy ethical will seen realized in christ's life and death? for, if it is the will in his death by which we are sanctified,[ ] there can be no sharp separation of the life and death. must we not rather expect that the clearest light, on the holiest in god and our personal relation to him, will be thrown by the holiest we know in life, in our human personal relations? is not the precise method of redemption, then, to no small degree, cleared for us right here, in this conviction of the social consciousness of the contagion of the good in a self-surrendering association--the only solidarity of which we can be certain? christ saves us, in the only certain way we know that any man is ever saved to better living, through direct contagion of character, through his immediate influence upon us. the power of the influence of a redeeming person must depend upon two facts: the richness of the self that is given, and the depth of the giving. the supremely redeeming power must be the giving of the richest self, unto the uttermost. god has not yet done his best for men, until he gives himself in the fullest manifestation which can be made through man to men, and gives to the uttermost, with no drawing back from any cost. is it not because, after all, back of all theories and even in spite of theories, men have seen in the life and death of christ just this eternal giving of god himself, that they have been caught up into some sharing of the same spirit, and so felt working directly and immediately upon them the supremest redeeming power the world knows? the cross of christ has been god's not only _saying_, "i will help that child to conquer himself, whatever it costs me," but god doing it, and perpetually doing it. not less than that must be the cost of a man's redemption. character is directly transmissible in an association in which there is mutual self-giving. it is most easily so transmissible, only at its highest, in its most perfect manifestation, in its completest self-giving at any cost. the self-giving on the part of one trying to win another into character must precede the self-giving of the sinner; for the sinner's own willingness to yield himself to the influence of the character of the other must first of all be won. this initial winning of the coöperative will of the other is the heart of the whole battle. and here the power relied on is not only the unconscious contagion and imitation of character that enlists a man's interest almost by surprise, but also the mightiest influence men know in breaking down the resisting will and winning men consciously and with final abandon--the influence of a patient, long-suffering, persistent, self-sacrificing love that cannot give the sinning one up. most certainly, then, redemption cannot be without cost to the redeemer of men--not only that cost to the hero of the superior showing of superior character in a superior task, but that other cost, indissolubly linked indeed with this, of reverently, patiently, to the bitter end, helping another to conquer himself--the inevitable suffering of all redemptive endeavor for those whom one loves. this involves ( ) suffering in contact with sin, ( ) suffering in the rejection by those sinning, and most of all, ( ) suffering in the sin itself of those one loves because one loves them--suffering which is the more intense, the more one loves. . _the consequent ethical and spiritual meaning of substitution and propitiation._--can we go yet a step farther here? it may be fairly taken for granted that where the church has strongly and persistently stood for certain modes of putting a doctrine--though the precise putting may be unfortunate--that in all probability there is there some real and important truth after which the consciousness of the church is dimly feeling. starting, now, from this same great law of the contagion of character and the inevitable influence of an association in which there is mutual self-giving, is it not possible to show that there is a strict ethical and spiritual sense that we can understand, in which christ's suffering may be truly called vicarious, and himself a substitute for us, and a propitiation? it is, of course, not for a moment forgotten that, in dr. clarke's language, "a god who will himself provide a propitiation has no need of one in the sense which the word has ordinarily borne. some richer and nobler meaning must be present if the word is appropriate to the case."[ ] but it is not likely that a purely ethical and spiritual view of the atonement, which sees the problem as a strictly personal one--and this seems to the writer the only true position--can ever succeed in the hearts of the great body of the membership of the churches, if it cannot show, at the same time, that it is able in some real way to take up into itself these thoughts of substitution and propitiation. the writer finds much of the old language about the atonement as offensive to his moral sense as any man well can. but that there is an absolutely universal human need for something like that to which the old language of substitution and propitiation looked, he cannot doubt. it seems to show itself in this, that no man with real moral sense, probably, cares to put himself at the end of his life, say, in the attitude of the pharisee rather than in that of the publican. if one sets aside all spectacular elements in the judgment, and even denies altogether any great single final assize for all men, still he cannot avoid the thought of some judgment upon his life. as dr. clarke says again: "we are not our own masters in going out of this world; we go we know not whither. yet our going is not without its just and holy method. our place and lot in the life that is beyond must be determined righteously, in accordance with the life that we have lived thus far, that the next stage in our existence may be what it ought to be."[ ] however, now, that judgment of god may be expressed, no man can hope to face the test proposed by christ in the twenty-fifth of matthew, still less the test implied in christ's own life, and feel that he has _already_ attained. he knows himself to be at best only a faulty growing child, with some real spirit of obedience in his heart. and it is particularly to be noted, that exactly that man must stand most definitely for the reality of some genuinely ethical judgment, who has most insisted upon the necessarily ethical character of the religious life. moreover, the normal experience of the deepening christian life is an increasing sense of sin. upon this point, too, the social consciousness is witness. what, now, makes it possible for a man to expect, in any sense, a favorable judgment of god upon his life? if god makes any separation of men in the world to come, he certainly cannot divide them into perfect and imperfect men. judged by any complete standard, all are imperfect. or if, without separation, god in any sense, in the most inner way, passes judgment, how does approval fall upon any? and upon whom does it fall? must not every man who wishes to be clear and honest with himself fairly face these questions? and christ's own thought of god as father must be our key here. and the matter may well be counted worth a more careful analysis than it often gets. how does a father distinguish between what he calls an obedient and a disobedient child? both are faulty. how in any fair sense may one be called obedient? to the earthly father, that child is called an obedient child, not who is deliberately setting his will against his father's with no intention to coöperate with the father's purpose for him, but whose loyal intention is to do the father's will, really to coöperate with the father in the father's own purpose for the child's life. when, now, this child is carried away by some gust of temptation and disobeys, and then returns in penitence to the father, evidently viewing the sin, so far as his experience allows, as the father views it, and heartily putting it away, the father, _either with or without penalty_, restores the child to full personal relation to himself; and that is the vital point. and, though he neither judges the past life as without failure, nor expects the future to be without failure, he approves the child, as in a true sense obedient. he is an approved child. what is it that satisfies the father in such a case? upon what does he rely in his hope for matured character in the child? what, in biblical language, "covers" for the father the actual disobediences of the past and the certain disobediences of the future, and enables him in a sense to ignore both in his approval of the child? certainly, the present purpose of the child, the child's honest intention to coöperate with the father in the father's purpose for him. yes; but as certainly, it seems to the writer, _not that alone_. the father's hope for his child's steady growth in righteousness depends not only on the child's present intention, but much more upon the father's own intention never to give up in his attempt at any cost to help that child to conquer himself.[ ] the father may be said here in a true sense to propitiate himself; and his own fixed purpose has become a partial substitute for the wavering purpose of the child. and the child's full righteousness is seen, not merely in an attitude of immediate present obedience, but especially in his loyal acceptance of his filial relation--in his honest surrender to his father's influence. and the father can now say, because my child accepts heartily his relation to me, and honestly throws himself open to it to let it be to him all it can and work its own work in him, i may approve him; for this relation to me which he so takes has only to go on, to work out its complete results in a matured character. in the hearty acceptance of this filial relation to me, there is contained the promise of the end. just this attitude exactly, and no other, it seems to the writer, god takes toward men in his revelation in christ. christ is god's own showing forth of himself. "god was in christ reconciling the world unto himself."[ ] "propitiation," beysclag truly says, "is blotting out, making amends for sin in god's eyes. now what can cover the sin of the world in god's eyes? only a personality and a deed which contain the power of actually delivering the world from its sin."[ ] we have seen, it may be hoped, just how god's self-revealing in christ does have this actual power, and becomes, thus, a true propitiation in the highest moral sense, in the only sense in which god can wish a propitiation, and in the only sense in which we can ever need a propitiation. our final hope for that true salvation, which is the sharing of the life of god and the involved likeness of character with god, is in god's own long-suffering, redeeming activity. only as _that_ may be remembered, in connection with our surrender to it, may we hope to stand approved before the judgment of god. we are not judged alone before the judgment of god. in a very real sense the judge himself stands with us. not what god is able to believe about this man thought of as standing alone, but what he may believe about this man standing in a living, surrendering association with himself, is the ground of judgment. we may not separate here the work of god and the work of christ, as the new testament does not separate them. in constant reliance upon the constant redeeming activity of the father here and hereafter, we children go hopefully on our way. put into the language of the blood covenant, where the blood has all its significance as life--the giving of life, the sharing of life, the closest and most indissoluble union of lives--this is to say, there is no atonement, no reconciliation, no remission of sins, no forgiveness--and these are all essentially identical terms--without shedding of blood, that is, without complete giving of life on both sides, christ giving himself not only _for_ us in seeking us out, but _to_ us in complete reconciliation and renewal of life. it means that only god, the very life of god, sharing god's life, can really save one from his sins. god must pour his life into one, and he does, in christ. this seems to be the heart of the whole matter; but certain considerations may be still added, as indicating how far a purely ethical and spiritual view of the atonement may go, in meeting the human need expressed in these older terms of substitution and propitiation. there must be a wrath of god against wilful sin, a complete disapproval of it, and all the more because god loves the sinner. god is a consuming fire for sin in us, because he loves us. that wrath cannot be propitiated, that disapproval cannot be satisfied, in any effective way, so long as the sin continues. the punishment of the sin in its inevitable consequences, will go on in the very fidelity of god. but for any real satisfaction of god, the sin itself must cease, and there must be assurance of righteousness to come. the sinner must come to share god's hatred of the sin and god's positive purpose of love. hence the expiation of the sin, the propitiation of the wrath of god, the satisfaction of god--so far as these terms still have meaning, and so far as they express christ's work--consist ( ) in winning men to repentance, to sharing god's hatred of their sin, ( ) in helping men to a real power against sin, and ( ) in the assurance of perfecting righteousness which is contained in the relation to god honestly accepted by men. when, now, the unfilial spirit is thus changed into a completely filial spirit--through the fullest acceptance by the child of the father's purpose for him, and through the child's throwing himself completely open to the influence of the father--the personal relation _is_ thereby inevitably changed, personal reconciliation is achieved. it is impossible to think it otherwise. and so the chief pain in the previous relation is done away both for god and man; though the punishment, in the consequences of sin in other respects, is not thereby set aside. but, further, so far now as the power of this new personal relation to god in christ begins actively to counteract the consequences of sin in us, as it will assuredly do, god's work in christ becomes a direct substitute for that punishment of us that would else inevitably follow. and yet the process is wholly ethical; for the results of righteousness can actually occur in us, only in so far as we come into harmony with christ's purpose for us. even so far, we may believe, does the social consciousness, in its emphasis upon the mutual influence of persons go, in leading us into the secret of the attainment of character--into the heart of god's redemption of men. iv. mutual influence for good in our personal relation to god what, now, in the second place, does the mutual influence of men for good mean for theology in the individual relation to god? here it may be said at once, that faith is as directly contagious as character. . _in coming into the kingdom._--we are introduced through others into all spheres of value, including friendship even with god. in the atmosphere of those who already feel the value, our interest is aroused; we find it possible at least to take those initial steps of a dawning attention, which give the value opportunity to make its own impression upon us, and bring us to an appreciation, to a faith of our own. only so is that most difficult of all tasks in the redemption of a man--that first stirring of a new appetite, a new desire, a new aspiration, a new ideal--accomplished. we are members one of another here to an extent that deserves ever fresh emphasis. we cannot too often say to ourselves, had it not been that there were those who actually entered into the meaning of the revelation of god in christ--who, in john's language, "beheld his glory"--the record of that revelation never could have come down to us. christianity must have perished at its birth. "hence," in the vital language of herrmann, "the picture of his inner life could be preserved in his church or 'fellowship' alone. but, further, this picture so preserved can be understood only when we meet with men on whom it has wrought its effect. we need communion with christians in order that, from the picture of jesus which his brotherhood has preserved, there may shine forth that inner life which is the real heart of it. it is only when we see its effects, that our eyes are opened to its reality so that we may thereby experience the same effect. thus we never apprehend the most important element in the historical appearance of jesus until his people make us feel it. the testimony of the new testament concerning jesus is the work of his church, and its exposition is the work of the church, through the life which that church develops and gains for itself out of this treasure which it possesses."[ ] the christian is no melchizedek, then, without father or mother; he comes into life in a community of life, and usually, moreover, through the personal touch of some other individual life. it is the one primal law, of life through life. . _in fellowship within the kingdom._--and not only in coming into the kingdom, but also within the religious fellowship of the kingdom, we are emphatically members one of another. in bringing us into that love which is god's own life, god evidently has no intention of allowing us to cut ourselves off from our brethren, to climb up to heaven by some little individual ladder of our own. that humility or open-mindedness, which constitutes the first beatitude and the initial step into the kingdom, and that self-sacrificing love, which constitutes the last beatitude and the crown of the christian life, are both possible and cultivable only in personal relations to others. no man ever got them alone. and, for this very reason, in the discussion of the religious life, we found the new testament guarding most carefully against all over-estimation of marvelous experiences as such. for these tended to make a man feel that he had such an individual ladder of his own to heaven, and had no need, consequently, of his brethren; and so led him into the very reverse of the fundamental christian qualities--into unteachableness instead of humility and open-mindedness, and into censoriousness instead of love. that objective attitude which is essential in all character and work and happiness, cannot be unimportant in our specifically religious life. even in this most individual relation to god, then, men's outlook is varied and but partial. we need to share, and can share, one another's visions. the meaning of the many-sidedness of even a great human personality gets home to us only so--through the various impressions gained by different men. much more can god be revealed to us, even approximately, only so. the great and surpassing value of the new testament lies exactly herein, that it gives the varied impressions upon the first christian generation of god's supreme revelation--the most important individual reflections of christ. the new testament comes to stand, thus, in no merely external and mechanically authoritative relation to the life and faith of the church, but in the most interior and vital relation. and bible study gets a new significance for us, as we see it, as at one and the same time our chief way to our own vision of god's actual, concrete self-revelation, and our deliverance from our merely subjective dreaming. we come to share in some living way the vision of these others who have seen most directly and most largely. . _in intercessory prayer._--one particular application to our religious life, of this conviction of the social consciousness of our mutual influence, seems worthy of mention--its bearing upon intercessory prayer. few other things in religion, one may suspect, seem less real to modern men. can we ground the matter a little more deeply for ourselves, and give it reality, by showing its close connection with this deep-rooted conviction of the social consciousness? we have already seen,[ ] if character and love are to be realities to us, if the world is to be a real training-ground for moral character, and not a mere play-world--a nursery continually set to rights from without, that we must all be most closely knit together; that our choices must have effects in the lives of others; that we must be bound up in one bundle of life. and we do affect one another's lives in a thousand ways. in manifold directions we condition the happiness and temptations of one another. the unspoken mood of another, an expression of countenance, a tone, an emphasis, may affect our whole day. now, if the spiritual world is real at all, it is to be counted upon. apparently, there is such a thing, for example, as a spiritual atmosphere in an audience--not, it may well be supposed, a magical matter, but really determined by the tone of the minds composing the audience. the actual mood of the hearers and of the speaker makes a difference. results, great and important, are so changed often quite unconsciously. it may well be that god is the medium in all this. the attitude of the auditors is like unconscious, silent praying to god--the praying of their life, of their spirit. but, whether one cares to look at this special case in such a way or not, we are, in any event, in our spiritual lives in the deepest way members one of another. our spiritual condition inevitably affects others. we cannot sow to the flesh and reap life anywhere, in ourselves or in others. this is particularly true, of course, of those to whom we are bound in the closest life relations. that this is absolutely true in normal personal relations, when we are in the presence of our friends, all of us fully believe. the question simply is, may this law of mutual influence hold of those bound up with our lives even when they are distant from us or estranged? in giving the privilege of intercessory prayer, it may well be believed, god simply allows us to be, even then, what we are always so fully under other circumstances--an influence upon them, a condition of the good and growth of others. _he simply allows the regular law of the spiritual and moral world to hold without exception._ we are still, though distant or estranged, members one of another. it would be a very human, defective, faulty god, who could not put us thus in touch with our loved ones everywhere. but this is possible through _him_, and therefore in prayer, and under strictly ethical and spiritual conditions, and not as a matter of mere whimsical and wilful will on our part, and it opens no door to magical superstition. is not the recognition of the place and value of intercessory prayer, then, an only just extension of the prime conviction of the social consciousness? v. mutual influence for good in confessions of faith theology has, once more, in the third place, to recognize the importance of mutual influence for good in confession of faith, in creeds. when, to-day, we seek the common grounds of belief for christian thinkers, so far as the social consciousness really moves us, we approach the problem in a way somewhat different from that of previous generations. we do not now seek to elaborate a second, modern westminster confession; nor do we seek a mere average of christian ideas that in reality expresses no one's whole living thought. still less is there sought the barest minimum of christian belief. rather, in harmony with the social consciousness, we seek a unity that is organic. our age, therefore, must recognize that, in the confession of its faith as in all else, we are genuinely members one of another. the unity sought not only tolerates differences, but welcomes and justifies them, as themselves helps to a deeper unity. it believes in equality, but not in identity. it is true that christianity looks everywhere to life; and we may be sure that any statement of christian doctrine that does not obviously bear on living is still inadequate and incorrect. it is true that we do well to emphasize the strictly religious and practical purpose of the bible; that the bible is interested in both nature and history so far and only so far as either reveals god and inspires to godly living. it is true that in all christian thinking christ is our ultimate appeal. but, on the other hand, we must not confuse the issue. we cannot expect agreement in detailed intellectual statements even with fullest loyalty to christ, and the most earnest desire after truth. to each his own message. nor can we confine, nor is it desirable to confine, expressions of christian faith to the merely practical side. we need to seek to _understand_ the meaning of our christian experience, not only for the sake of our intellectual peace, but also for the sake of deepening our christian experience itself. now, it is here contended that in our confessions of christian faith we need one another, and that complete uniformity of belief and statement is both impossible and undesirable. . _complete uniformity of belief and statement impossible._--it is impossible, for, in the first place, it is difficult, in any case, to tell our real inner creed. some of its most important articles are quite certain to be implicit and unconfessed, even to ourselves. the only important creed, in the case of the individual, is that which finds its expression in life. there are assumptions implied in deeds and spirit; and the spirit of a man throws more light on his real creed than his formal statements do. his doctrines may be radical, his spirit thoroughly constructive, or _vice versa_. if all thought tends to pass into act, as modern psychology insists, we have a right to urge that those articles of a man's creed which find expression in living, are for him the really important articles. the will has a creed, as well as the intellect, and the real creed is the creed of life rather than of lips; it is wrought out, rather than thought out. and this real, inner, living creed probably no man can state with accuracy even in his own case. and if he is ever able even approximately to do so, it will be at the end, rather than at the beginning, of his life's work and experience. moreover, complete uniformity of belief and statement is impossible, for, even exactly the same words cannot mean the same to different individuals, for they are interpreted out of a different experience; they cannot mean precisely the same thing, even to the same individual, at different times, for his interpreting experience, too, is a changing thing. we need sometimes to remind ourselves that there is never any literal transfer of thought from mind to mind, still less from statement to mind; all thinking of even the most passive kind has an element of creation in it, for terms must be interpreted, and the interpretation is inevitably limited by previous experience. sabatier[ ] is quite right, therefore, in asserting that credal statements must change their meaning just as words change. but it is to be noted that this principle means not only that unalterable doctrine, in this sense, is impossible between the generations; but also that identical doctrine is impossible in the same generation. out of the different experiences, too, grow the different points of view and the different emphases. and these different points of view, and the different distribution of emphasis, give the same creed very different meanings for different men. it is as impossible to avoid this, as it is to avoid change and individuality. it is true of a man's creed as of his environment, that the only effective portions are those to which he attends--those which he emphasizes, not those to which he gives a bare assent; and this varying attention and emphasis cannot be the same in different individuals. the only logical outcome of a thorough-going attempt to reach an identical creed is the church of one member. . _complete uniformity of belief and statement undesirable._--but complete uniformity of belief and statement is not only impossible; it is undesirable. for, in the first place, it is only by these differing but supplementary finite expressions that we can approximate to the infinite truth. like leibnitz's mirrors in the market-place, it is only by combining the points of view of all that a complete representation is possible. we need one another here, as elsewhere; we need the fellowship of the church, and of the whole church; the strictly individual view must be fragmentary. our message needs the supplement of the messages of others; through each member god has something unique to say. they without us, we without them, are not to be made perfect. we need to share, in such measure as is possible, the experiences of others; but this is possible only through vital contact. moreover, we are not to forget how truth comes--not by surrender of convictions, not by the silence of each, but by each standing earnestly for the truth which is given to him, in a union of conviction and charity. for only he who has convictions can be tolerant, as only he who has fears can be courageous. once more, we cannot and must not simply repeat each other. nothing is so fatal to spiritual life as dishonesty. to attempt an identical creed involves something of such untrue repetition of the experience of others. for, as herrmann has said, doctrines are an expression of life _already present_, and are of value only so; they are not themselves a condition of life. if the doctrines we profess are not the honest expression of a real life in us, they are a hindrance, not a help. "conscious untruth tends to drive from christ." for every one of these reasons, now, it is positively undesirable to forbid varying theories or to check the varied expressions of christian faith, whether in accordance or not with certain standard formulas. a growing life requires a growing expression, which must be justified by its history, not dogmatically by reference to some supposed fixed standard of doctrine in the past. the very meaning and health of christian fellowship demand that we should welcome and encourage the honest expression of the varied manifestations of the one spirit, that we may be the more certain to get the whole truth, the whole life which god intends. we are members one of another, in doctrine as in life. it becomes increasingly clear, thus, where the real christian unity is, and where the common grounds of christian belief must be sought. the real unity of christians is in their common life, in the common experience, in the possession of the common personal self-revelation of god in christ, in the inworking of the one spirit. it is the meaning of this one central christian experience, which we strive to express in our doctrinal statements. our _expressions_ must vary; the life, the personal relation to god, is one. the best analogy we have of the case lies in what the same great friend means to different persons. our creeds are at best poor and partial expressions of the meaning for us of the divine friendship, of god's self-revelation to us. it is, then, precisely in our christian experience and in that personal relation to god revealed in christ which makes a man a christian at all, that all the common grounds of christian belief lie. the solution of christian unity here, that is, is not by increasing abstraction, but by frank concreteness; not by false simplicity, but by living fullness; not by relation to propositions, but by relation to facts; not by emphasis on natural religion, but by emphasis on historical religion; not by bringing nature into prominence, but human nature; not by relation to things, but by relation to persons, to the one great world fact, the one person, to christ. "i am the way." the christian faith is faith in a person; the christian confession of faith is confession of christ. and if we are really in earnest with this word christian, we already have our basis of unity in our personal relation to christ, our common lord. but that personal relation to god in christ is always more than a credal statement _can_ express, though we may never cease to attempt such expression; and for the sake of the larger realization, by ourselves and by the church, of the meaning of the personal relation to christ, we must welcome every honest expression of his christian life by another. altogether, we shall at best but dimly shadow forth its full meaning. and such a concrete relation to the personal christ is a far better test of genuine christian faith than any creed, whether more or less elaborate, since in the personal relation character inevitably comes out; and any test that allows even for the moment the ignoring of the ethical, cannot remain even intellectually adequate, for christian doctrine looks always and certainly to life. even if one is thinking _only_ of the correct intellectual expression of the common christian life--the maintenance of orthodoxy, so far as that is possible to us--it should be remembered that the most conservative of all influences is love of a person, and, by no means, subscription to a set of propositions. would christ so think? would he so speak?--these are questions far more certain to keep christian _thinking_ true, than any intellectual test of man's devising. we do not expect, therefore, we do not seek, any common grounds of belief for christian thinkers, other than are involved in the simple fact that we are christians at all, in the common recognition of the revelation of god in christ--of the lordship of christ. we confess christ. for, "no man can say, jesus is lord, but in the holy spirit." and "other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, which is jesus christ." now, in this common confession, it is here especially maintained, we are, as everywhere, "members one of another" and need one another; and the unity we seek, therefore, is not the unity of identical credal statement--which can only make us isolated atoms not necessary to one another--but the deeper and larger organic unity of the richly varying manifestations of the common life in christ. we may come, through the witness of another, to an appreciation of christ which is really our own, but to which we should not have come if the other had not spoken. men do mutually influence one another for good, in their confessions of christian faith. vi. the consequent importance of the doctrine of the church in this recognition of the vital and essential importance of mutual influence in the attainment of character, in the individual relation to god, and in creed, theology is brought to a new sense of the significance of the doctrine of the church. on the one hand, it cannot derive its importance from having to do with an unalterably fixed and infallibly organized external authority; and, on the other hand, it can be no longer an unimportant addendum concerned only with methods of organization and government, and with ecclesiastical ordinances and procedure. so far as the social consciousness has influence upon theology at this point, theology must see that the doctrine of the church is the doctrine of that priceless, living, personal fellowship, in which alone christian character, christian faith, and christian confession can arise and can continue. the doctrine of the church becomes thus the doctrine of the very life and growth of christianity in the world. it is the doctrine of the real kingdom of god, christ's own great central theme. [ ] cf. above, pp. ff. [ ] _the elements of sociology_, pp. , , . [ ] _the ideal life_, p. . [ ] _the place of christ in modern theology_, p. . [ ] james, _psychology_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] cf. hebrews : . [ ] _an outline of christian theology_, p. . [ ] _op. cit._, p. . [ ] cf. romans : - . [ ] ii corinthians : . [ ] _the theology of the new testament_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _the communion of the christian with god_, p. ; cf. p. . [ ] cf. above, p. . [ ] _the vitality of christian dogmas and their power of evolution._ chapter xii _the influence of the deepening sense of the value and sacredness of the person upon theology_ in the discussion of the influence of the social consciousness upon theological doctrine, we turn now to ask concerning the third element of the social consciousness, how does the deepening sense of the value and sacredness of the person affect theology? and with this sense of the value and sacredness of the person, we may well include, so far as the influence upon theology is concerned, the remaining elements of the social consciousness--the deepening sense of obligation, and of love. for, as we have already seen, the sense of obligation and of love follow so inevitably from a deep sense of the value and sacredness of the person, that it would be a needless refinement, probably, to try to analyze out their separate influence upon theological thinking. we should find them all leading us to essentially the same great emphases. when, now, through the social consciousness, the personal has become the supreme value for us, and regard for it our eternal motive and goal, we cannot fail to demand that theology give a real personality to god and man--a consciousness marked, in professor howison's language, with "that recognition and reverence of the personal initiative of other minds which is at once the sign and the test of the true person."[ ] i. the recognition of the personal in man in the first place, the social sense of the value and sacredness of the person will emphasize the full personality of man. . _man's personal separateness from god._--the sense of the value of the person cannot admit for a moment such a one-sided emphasis upon a universal cosmic evolution, or upon the immanence of god, as should make impossible a true personality in man. it seeks, in its view of both god and man, a really "_personal_ idealism." it does not forget, but earnestly asserts, the dependence of all other spirits upon god; and, consequently, looks for no metaphysical separateness in this sense from god. but a genuine recognition of the personality of man does require that man be conceived as separate from god in just this sense: ( ) that he has a clear self-consciousness of his own, and ( ) that he has real moral initiative, which makes his volition truly his own. these two factors constitute all of separateness that need be demanded for man. possessing these, he is "outside of god" in the only sense in which a "personal idealism" feels concerned to assert separateness. but for these factors it is concerned; for without them, it believes, no truly ideal view, no moral world, no religious life, are possible. . _emphasis upon man's moral initiative._--in particular, the application of the sense of the value and sacredness of the person in theology, means the emphatic recognition of the moral initiative of man--of the possession of a real will of his own. the whole social consciousness, especially in this third element of it, rests upon the assumption that man has worth, as a being capable of character as well as of happiness, and so deserves in some worthy sense to be called a child of god. if the social consciousness is, as we have seen, with any fairness to be called the recognition of the fully personal,[ ] this reverence for the personal initiative of men cannot be lacking in it. its influence upon theology at this point, therefore, is hardly to be doubted. and theology itself is vitally concerned. for the whole possibility of the conceptions of government and providence requires this. these terms are words without meaning, having absolutely no place in theology or philosophy, if man has no moral initiative. nor should it escape our notice, that we strike at the very root of all possible reverence for god, if we deny a real initiative to man. we have no possible philosophic explanation of either sin or error, consistent with any real reverence for god, if a true human will is denied.[ ] in professor bowne's vigorous language: in a system of necessity "every thought, belief, conviction, whether truth or superstition, arises with equal necessity with every other.... on this plane of necessary effect the actual is all, and the ideal distinctions of true and false have as little meaning as they would have on the plane of mechanical forces.... the only escape from the overthrow of reason involved in the fact of error lies in the assumption of freedom." moreover, if real human initiative is denied to men, we conceive god as having really less respect for persons in his dealing with them, than the most elementary ethics requires of men in their relations to one another. a one-sided doctrine of immanence, thus, degrades both man and god. it degrades man, in denying to him a true personality, and so making him simply a thing. it degrades god, in making him the real responsible cause of all sin and error, and in making him treat possible persons as things. the influence of the social consciousness, which leads us to measure the moral growth of a man and of a civilization by the deepening sense of reverence for the person, is fairly decisive at this point. it _must_ see in god the most absolute guarding of man's personality, and especially of his moral initiative. . _man, a child of god._--the christian faith, that man is a child of god, is a faithful expression of the insistence of the social consciousness upon the recognition of the full personality of man. it expresses both man's entire dependence upon god for his being and maintenance, and at the same time his infinite value and sacredness as a spirit made in the image of god, capable of indefinite progress, and capable of personal relation to god. it voices thus christianity's characteristic "humbly-proud" conception of man--humble in view of the eternal and infinite plans of god; proud, as "called to an imperishable work in the world." it is, indeed, but a concrete statement of that faith in love at the heart of things, and in the all-embracing plan of a faithful god, which we found required, if the social consciousness itself was to have any justification.[ ] ii. the recognition of the personal in christ in the second place, under this impulse of the sense of the value and sacredness of the person, theology is likely to insist on the recognition of the personal in the conception of christ. . _christ a personal revelation of god._--this recognition of the personal in christ will mean, first, that we are to conceive christ as a _personal_ revelation of god, rather than as containing in himself a divine substance.[ ] it cannot forget, that if god is a person, and men are persons, the adequate self-revelation of god to men can be made only in a truly personal life; and that men need above all, in their relation to god, some manifestation of his ethical will, and this can be shown only in the character of a person. a merely metaphysical conception of the divinity of christ in terms of substance or essence, as these are commonly thought, must, therefore, wholly fail to satisfy. we must be able to recognize and bow before the personal will of the personal god revealed in christ, if we are really to find god through him. a strong sense of the personal, then, such as the social consciousness evinces, must see in christ, above all, a personal revelation of a person. . _emphasizing the moral and spiritual in asserting the supremacy of christ._--this implies that the dominant sense of the value and sacredness of the person will certainly tend to bring into prominence the moral and spiritual in asserting the supremacy of christ, rather than the metaphysical or the simply miraculous. so far as these latter come into its representation at all, they will follow rather than precede, and be accepted because of the moral and spiritual, or as simply working hypotheses enabling us to bring into a thought-unity what we have to recognize in the moral and spiritual realm. if one faces the matter fully and frankly, is it not plain that christians of all shades of belief are increasingly finding the real reason for their faith in christ in his moral and spiritual supremacy? many may choose to _express_ their faith in him, when once reached, in terms of the miraculous or metaphysical; but the miraculous and the metaphysical are not the primary _reasons_ for their faith. it is the inner spirit of christ himself which really masters us and calls out our confident faith and our eager submission. and it is only when we have already gotten this sense of the stupendousness of his personality, that the so-called miraculous in his life becomes to our thought natural and fitting, and we are driven to think him standing in some unique relation to god and so requiring to be conceived in unique metaphysical terms. it is easy, no doubt, to indulge in a false polemic against the miraculous and metaphysical. one of the surest bits of autobiography we have from christ, the narrative of the temptations, implies, as sanday has acutely pointed out,[ ] the clear consciousness on the part of christ of the possession of what we call supernatural powers. it is a far less simple problem to rid the gospels of the miraculous element, than our age, with its greatly exaggerated estimate of the mathematico-mechanical view of the world, is likely to think. the so-called miraculous in connection with christ is not to be impatiently and dogmatically set aside.[ ] so, too, the demand of thought, that we form finally some metaphysical conception of the great personality which we meet in christ cannot be denied as wholly illegitimate. all this is to be freely granted and asserted. but it is of the greatest importance for christian thought, that it still keep christ's own absolute subordination of both the miraculous and metaphysical to the moral and the spiritual. the same narrative of the temptation, that so clearly implies supernatural powers in christ, has its whole point in christ's answering determination absolutely to subordinate these supernatural powers to moral and spiritual ends. his whole ministry evinces the greatest pains upon this point. and he evidently thinks a theory of his metaphysical relation to god (as ordinarily conceived) of so little vital importance that even such slight hints as we get of it in the new testament apparently do not come from him at all. the present tendency, therefore, naturally demanded by the social consciousness, to emphasize the moral and spiritual in christ in asserting his supremacy, is quite in harmony with christ's own insistence. he will be followed for what he is in himself. the real supremacy of christ, his truest divinity, we may be sure, comes out for our time in those statements which we are able to make concerning his inner spirit. here, and here only, the real power of his personality gets hold upon us. what are these grounds of the supremacy of christ? how is it that we come to god through him? . _the moral and spiritual grounds of the supremacy of christ._[ ]--( ) in the first place, _jesus christ is the greatest in the greatest sphere_, that of the moral and spiritual; and this, by common consent of all men. both the depth and the consensus of conviction concerning christ are profoundly significant. if our earth has ever seen one of whom it could be truly said, he is a moral and spiritual authority, preëminently the one great authority in this greatest sphere,--that person is jesus christ. seeing the moral problem more broadly than any other ever saw it, tracing the motives of life more deeply than any other ever traced them, applying those principles of the life which he sees with a tact and delicacy and skill that no other ever approached, speaking with an authority in this moral and spiritual sphere to which no other can for a moment lay claim,--this man is easily the greatest in the greatest sphere. it is, perhaps, to say only the same thing in a little different way, when one says with fairbairn, that christ is transcendent among founders of religion, "and to be transcendent here is to be transcendent everywhere, for religion is the supreme factor in the organizing and the regulating of our personal and collective life."[ ] the present age is, more than any other, the age of the scientific study of religion. the last forty years, indeed, have seen such attention to the study of comparative religion as the world never saw before. what has been the outcome of that study? to make the relative position of jesus among the founders of religion lower? i do not so understand it. no, the outcome is such that it is a manifestly inadequate statement to say, that he is transcendent among the founders of religion. the very most that we may hope to say about the founder of any other religion is, that in some single particular at a long distance he can be brought into comparison with jesus. but let one think for a moment what it means for a man to be a founder of religion. we talk of leadership. do we know what a founder of religion does? he makes the light, in which millions of men look upon all the events of their life, in which they see the past of the world's history, in which they look forward to the entire future. the very mood and atmosphere of men's lives are determined by these founders of religion; and among these preëminent leaders, jesus, beyond all mistake, is transcendent. let the nature of his kingdom, too, be his witness. he calmly aims to found a kingdom that shall be spiritual, universal, eternal. one must face the fact that this man of nazareth in syrian galilee, purposes in coolness of deliberation to found a kingdom that shall be absolutely spiritual, that shall make no appeal to any of the lower elements of man; one must see that this man, in those temptations through which he passed concerning the form of his work, deliberately set aside the kingdom by bread, the kingdom by marvel and ecstasy, and the kingdom by force, and purposed to found a kingdom solely upon moral and spiritual forces. and observe that he confidently expects this kingdom to be universal--appealing to men of all races and of all times, and to be eternal--still standing when all else shall have passed away. and upon his belief in this character of his kingdom he stakes his life, and calmly gives to himself as the goal of his life the establishment of just such a kingdom; and remains to the end confident of his success. the mere vitality of will in such a purpose is hard to take in, and alone may well give us pause. and because he is the greatest in the greatest sphere, transcendent among founders of religion, the founder of a kingdom spiritual, universal, and eternal, he becomes for us a "personalized conscience," a spiritual, moral authority for us even beyond our own conscience--an authority that grows upon us with our growth, and submission to which is earth's highest moral test. ( ) and there must be added to this first proposition, that jesus is the greatest in the greatest sphere, a second: _he alone is the sinless and impenitent one._ and it is to be noticed that it is this man who sees more clearly than any other the moral and spiritual, who knows, as no other does, what character is and what moral life means,--it is he, who claims to be the sinless one. no other ever intelligently made this claim; for no other was it ever intelligently made. the words of the great historian ranke seem to us to be simple truth when he says: "more guiltless and more powerful, more exalted and more holy has naught ever been on earth than his conduct, his life, and his death. the human race knows nothing that could be brought even afar off into comparison with it." only such an one could intelligently make for himself the claim of sinlessness. and for no other was this claim of sinlessness ever intelligently made. men know each other too well to make it for others when moral consciousness has fully awakened. but he fights his battle in the wilderness, and there is no record of failure so far as he himself can see it, and none that disciple ever ascribed. and this claim of sinlessness for christ is to be urged, not so much because of any special statements by christ as because of that remarkable fact to which dr. bushnell has called attention,--his impenitence. jesus alone among all good men is a man of "impenitent piety;" and by this he is marked off absolutely from every other good man. what happens in the life of any other good man is this: that, as he goes forward, the sense of sin grows upon him, the ideal rises before him and he feels increasingly that his own life is inferior to it. of jesus this is not true. he shows no sign of consciousness of failure. there is no evidence that he feels that he has fallen short in any degree. he is absolutely without that universal characteristic of all other good men, absolutely without penitence. contrast him for a moment with the man, who perhaps all would agree was the greatest of all his disciples, the man to whose devotion there seems to be no limit--the apostle paul; and notice, that years after his persecution of the church and of the cause of jesus, with growing sense of what jesus is, and of his own inexhaustible debt to him, there comes over him with increasing, not lessening, power the sense of his sin, and he writes to the ephesians, "unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given me that i might preach unto the gentiles the unsearchable riches of christ;" and in one of the very last letters that comes down to us from him, says again, "faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptation, that christ jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom i am chief." what evidence have we that christ ever felt in the slightest degree such penitence? ( ) but more than this is true. _with the highest ideal, jesus not only does not consciously fall short of it, but consciously rises up to it_, and, as herrmann says, "compels us to admit that he does rise to it." it were very much that a man with any ideal, however inferior, should be able to say to himself, i have not fallen short of this ideal; but that one, who sees more clearly than any other in the realm of the moral and spiritual, and who has an ideal of simply absolute love and of unbounded trust in god,--that he should show not only no consciousness of falling short, but should consciously rise to his ideal and compel us to admit that he rises to it: this is a fact unparalleled in the history of the world. it is far more than mere sinlessness; there is here a positiveness of moral achievement so great--a fact so tremendous--that we seem able but feebly to take it in. ( ) and even that is not all. _jesus has such a character that we can transfer it feature by feature to god_, not only with no sense of blasphemy, not only with no sense of his coming short, but with complete satisfaction. i do not now ask at all as to any man's metaphysical theory about jesus christ; i only ask that it be noticed that those who question common theories altogether still get their ideal of god from jesus christ; and that this is the wonderful thing that has happened on our earth: that there has once lived a man--daily moving about among men, a concrete circumstantial account of whose life in many particulars we have--the features of whose character one can transfer absolutely to god and say, that is what i mean by god. one simply cannot add anything to the character of god himself in the highest moments of his imagination, that is not already revealed in jesus christ. i take it that the words of fairbairn are literally true: he was "the first being who had realized for men the idea of the divine." when, therefore, philip said to him, "lord, show us the father and it sufficeth us," he could only reply as he might any day to us, "have i been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the father." ( ) and one cannot stop here. _jesus is consciously able to redeem all men._ with such sense of the meaning of sin and of moral conduct as no other ever had, understanding, therefore, the sin and need of men as no other ever did, and having such a vision of what it is perfectly to share the life of god as no other ever had, still, facing the masses of men, he could say to himself, "i am able to take these men and lift them into the very presence of god and present them spotless before the throne of his glory." have we taken in what it means, that, in the consciousness of a man in form like ourselves, there could be, even for a moment, the actual belief that he was the one that was to take away the sin of the world, and had power to redeem men absolutely unto god? in another's words: "jesus knows no more sacred task than to point men to his own person." he is himself god's greatest gift, himself "the way, the truth, the life,"--not only fighting his own battles, but consciously able to redeem all men. ( ) this simply implies, as dr. denison has suggested, that _jesus has such god-consciousness and such sense of mission as would simply topple any other brain that the world has ever known into insanity_, but which simply keeps him sweet, normal, rational, living the most wholesome and simple and noble life the world has ever seen. how are we to explain that fact? on the one hand, the sense of being of even a little importance in the kingdom of god proves singularly intoxicating to men. how often, when one is strongly possessed by the idea that he is a special channel of manifestation for god, do moral sanity, influence, and character all suffer! on the other hand, there is no burden of suffering that men can bear so great as suffering in the sin of one loved--thus bearing the sin of another. but here is one who can believe that, when men come to him and simply see him as he is, they catch their best vision of god; here is one who bears consciously the sin of all men, and who can believe that he has absolute power to revolutionize the lives of other men and make them what they were meant originally to be, children of god; and yet, believing this, can, under that consciousness, keep sweet and normal, wholesome and simple, energetically ethical and thoroughly rational,--can keep sane. indeed, he lives a life so sane, that, to pass even from some of our best religious books into the simple atmosphere of the story of his life often seems like passing from the super-heated, artificially lighted, heavily perfumed and exhausted atmosphere of the crowded drawing-room into the open fresh air of day under the heaven of god. in the very act of the most stupendous self-assertion, jesus can still characterize himself as "meek and lowly of heart," and we feel no self-contradiction--so completely has he harmonized for even our unconscious feeling his transcendent self-consciousness and his humble simplicity of life. has the world anywhere a phenomenon comparable to this? ( ) in consequence of all this, _jesus is in fact the only person in the history of the race who can call out absolute trust_. as little children, we knew something of what it meant to have complete trust. there were a few years when it seemed to us that there was nothing in either power or character that was not true of our fathers and mothers. we soon lost such trust, even as children. is there any way back to the childlike spirit? let us ponder these golden words of herrmann: "the childlike spirit can only arise within us when our experience is the same as a child's; in other words, when we meet with a personal life which compels us to trust it without reserve. only the person of jesus can arouse such trust in a man who has awakened to moral self-consciousness. if such a man surrenders himself to anything or any one else, he throws away not only his trust, but himself." there has been one life lived on earth, in whose hands one may put himself with absolute confidence and have no fear as to the result. jesus, and jesus alone, can call out absolute trust. ( ) moreover, _jesus is the only life ever lived among men in whom god certainly finds us, and in whom we certainly find god_. and, once again, i am not now asking whether one is able to come to any theory of the nature of christ. that is a matter of comparative indifference. the great fact is this: that there has been lived among us men such a life that, if a man will simply put himself in the presence of it and stay there, he will have brought home to him with unmistakable conviction the fact that god is, and is touching him and that he is touching god; that, coupled with such a sense as he never had before of his sin, there will be also the sense of forgiveness and reconciliation with god, and so, such evidence of the contact of god with his life as he can find nowhere else. so harnack believes: "when god and everything that is sacred threaten to disappear in the darkness, or our doom is pronounced; when the mighty forces of inexorable nature seem to overwhelm us, and the bounds of good and evil to dissolve; when, weak and weary, we despair of finding god at all in this dismal world,--it is then that the personality of christ may save us." ( ) and all this means, finally, that _jesus is for us the ideal realized_. let not the commonplaceness of the words rob us of their meaning. the fact is far enough from the commonplace. philosophy must always tell us that we have no right to expect anywhere a realized ideal, except in the absolute whole of things. certainly, we never find in any of the inferior spheres a fully realized ideal. what does it mean, then, that in this highest of all spheres, the sphere of the moral and spiritual life, we have the ideal realized; that our very highest vision is a fact? what is there that one would add to, what, that one would take away from, the life of christ, that it might be more completely than it is the ideal realized? "but thee, but thee, o sovereign seer of time, but thee, o poet's poet, wisdom's tongue, but thee, o man's best man, o love's best love, o perfect life in perfect labor writ, o all men's comrade, servant, king or priest,-- what _if_ or _yet_, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, what least defect or shadow of defect, what rumor, tattled by an enemy, of inference loose, what lack of grace even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's, oh, what amiss may i forgive in thee, jesus, good paragon, thou crystal christ?" . _christ's double uniqueness._--it seems hardly possible to do justice to the facts now passed in review, without recognizing, at least, that they point to a double uniqueness on the part of christ in his relation to god, reflected in his own language concerning himself and in the spontaneous confessions of his disciples in all times. he alone, in the emphatic sense, is _the_ son. the contrasts between christ and other men, which the simple facts of the life and consciousness of christ have compelled us to make, naturally, then, demand recognition from thought. the recognition of the facts _is_ the vital matter, but thought can hardly see them unmoved. how are we to _think_ of christ? with clear remembrance, now, that christian teaching itself insists upon the kinship of god and men; that absolute barriers, therefore, cannot anywhere be set up; that a revelation unrelated to all else could be no revelation; and that christ himself often pointed out the likeness between his own life and work and those of his disciples;--still we may not ignore actual differences, and must honestly strive to do justice to them in our own conception of christ. one may not forget that there is much here that we can hardly hope ever to fathom; and that into this secret of christ's relation to the father theology has often tried to press with a precision of statement that was quite beyond its possible knowledge, and that damaged rather than helped the religious consciousness; but one may try to think in simple, straightforward fashion what the facts mean. now these actual and momentous moral and spiritual differences already pointed out seem, at least, to assert, i say, a genuine double uniqueness in christ. christ's relation to god is absolutely unique, that is, in two senses: in the absolutely unique purpose of god concerning him; in the absolutely perfect response of christ to that purpose. if one chooses to use the language, he may say, that the first uniqueness is metaphysical; the second, ethical.[ ] first, then, god has a purpose concerning christ, that he has concerning no other, for he purposes to make in him his supreme self-manifestation. this sets him apart from all others. his transcendent sense of god and sense of mission only correspond to the absolute uniqueness of this eternal purpose of god concerning him. we are utterly unable to see that they could be borne by any being that we know as man. he is the manifested god--"the visible presentation of the invisible god." this cannot be said, in the same sense, of any other. now, our only adequate statement of the inner reality--the essential meaning--of any being, can be given only in terms of the purpose which god calls that being to fulfil. to see, then, that god's purpose concerning christ is absolutely unique, and that god's purpose is, to make in christ the completest possible personal manifestation of himself, is to see that christ's essential relation to the father is absolutely his own, unshared by any other. and, it may be added, there is no reason why this purpose of god concerning christ should not be regarded as an eternal purpose, eternally realized. but christ is as clearly unique in his simply perfect response to this purpose of god. our facts seem to point directly to the conclusion, that in him there was no moral hindrance to the fullness of the revelation god would make through him. his life is perfectly transparent, allowing the full glory of the character of god to shine through it. the harmony of his will with god's will is complete. if it be said that this last uniqueness is, after all, only difference in degree from other men, it must be answered, first, that degree here is so vast as to be practically kind. this is the perfect of christ set over against the varyingly imperfect of all other men. moreover, to ask here for difference in kind in any other sense, is probably to make an unintelligent and impossible demand; for, in the nature of the case, the relations involved are spiritual and personal, and there cannot be, in strictness, in the fulfilment of such relations any real differences in kind. . _the increasing sense of our kinship with christ, and of his reality._--side by side with this recognition of the nature of christ's uniqueness, there deserves to be set, as another outcome of the emphasis upon conceiving christ as a personal revelation of god, the increasing sense of our kinship with christ and of his reality. the connection here is by no means accidental, though it may seem almost paradoxical. we have plainly come in our day to our clearest recognition of the divinity of christ through the sense of his transcendent character. but revelation in character requires the reality of his human life. the very route, therefore, by which we have most certainly reached our sense of christ's divinity, leads also to an increasing sense of kinship with christ, and so of his reality. so long as we seemed driven to conceive the divinity of christ in terms that had no relation and no meaning for human life, just so long must he seem to us to be really moving in another world and to take on the unreality of that other world quite hidden from us. but now christ's life has meaning; we can enter into it and feel that it is real. with all its transcendence, the life does not move now simply in the sphere of the mysterious. it is no unreal drama, no play-struggle,--utterly failing to meet our real moral and spiritual needs. least of all, in this supreme work for man, can the revealing life be only a show. it feels real. it is real. and, with clear sense of the inevitable inadequacy of the analogy, we still rest confidently in the conviction that god's relation to christ may be best conceived after the analogy of the relation of the spirit of god to our spirits; and that, when we try to press beyond that, we are attempting to rise into that sphere of a supposed supra-personal, for which we have no possible organ of vision, and where, therefore, we are thinking not more, but less, truly.[ ] with this sense of the reality of the personal, spiritual life of christ, there naturally comes home to us the appropriateness and _practicability of his ideals_. they are seen to belong to us more surely, and properly to make demands upon us. it is, probably, not too much to say that, under the influence of the social consciousness, there has been a definite, growing approach to christ's way of thinking, and to his ideal of life. this means a consciousness increasingly christian in tone, and, therefore, in turn, increasingly better able to interpret the teaching and life of christ, and so to give promise of a more christian theology. none of us, probably, are fully conscious of the more subtle inconsistencies of even our best theological thinking, when measured by a completely christian spirit. at least, with the insistence upon christ as a personal revealer of a personal god, it must become more true that the meaning of all terms for the work of christ shall be more clearly reasonable, more consistently ethical, and more completely spiritual; and then the immediate rooting of christian theology in the christian religion can be seen and felt. iii. the recognition of the personal in god the sense of the value and sacredness of the person must lead to the special recognition of the personal not only in man and in christ, but also in god. we have already seen reasons for believing that the social consciousness is peculiarly bound strongly to emphasize the personality of god, as in the end absolutely essential to its own justification. the social consciousness represents an ethical movement that can live only in the atmosphere of the personal. . _the steady carrying through of the completely personal in the conception of god. guarding the conception._--this pressure of the social consciousness toward an imperative faith in the fully personal god is most valuable, as offsetting the tendency in many quarters toward a scientific or even idealistic pantheism or monism that is quite impersonal. "for," in the language of professor howison, "the very quality of personality is, that a person is a being who recognizes others as having a reality as unquestionable as his own, and who thus sees himself as a member of a moral republic, standing to other persons in an immutable relationship of reciprocal duties and rights, himself endowed with dignity, and acknowledging the dignity of all the rest."[ ] as this is preëminently the spirit of the social consciousness, it is plain that we have in the social consciousness an increasingly powerful motive for guarding the full personality of god. it needs particularly to be noted, that we know no _definite_ "supra-personal." pantheism or any impersonal monism is forced, therefore, when it leaves the personal conception of god, to take a lower line of development, not a higher. the result is, that it is obliged to deny the highest attributes to god, and then, as browning is fond of arguing, man steps at once into the place of god. men cannot permanently remain satisfied with a philosophical view, of which that is the logical outcome. certainly, such a view can get no support from the social consciousness, with its deep conviction of the supreme value and sacredness of the person. moreover, it is not to be forgotten, in estimating the value of a cosmic monism, that what the cosmological really means, ethically and religiously, to a people, must always depend upon their social ideals. the natural in itself contains no command. for any effective vital interpretation, therefore, even of its impersonal absolute, pantheism is constantly thrown back upon the personal. only a clear, steady carrying through by theology of the completely personal in its conception of god can ultimately satisfy this sense of the value and sacredness of the person. professor nash does not speak too strongly when he says: "to fulfil her function the church must develop the doctrine of a divine personality. she has not always been true to it in the past. too often, by her sacraments, by her theology, by her theory of inspiration, she has glorified the impersonal."[ ] now, such an attempt, it is perhaps worth saying once more, is not to be thought of as a running away from a thorough-going metaphysical investigation. it rather takes the ground, indicated in the earlier discussion, of what may be called, in professor howison's language, personal idealism; and holds that spirit, person, _is_ for us the ultimate metaphysical fact: the one reality to which we have immediate access; the reality from which all our metaphysical notions are originally derived; and, in consequence, the one reality which we can take as the key to the understanding of all else. and it believes that even essence and substance, the great words of the old metaphysics, can be really understood only as they are interpreted in personal terms. ultimately, theology would hold, this would mean the interpretation of the essence of things in terms of the purpose of god concerning them--what he meant them to be. in the attempt, then, clearly and steadily to carry through the conception of god as completely personal, theology may well guard carefully certain points. in the first place, theology does not mean to transfer to god human limitations; rather, it conceives him to be the only complete personality with perfect self-consciousness and full freedom, no part of whose being is in any degree foreign to himself. nor, in the second place, does it mean to forget that the personal relations in which god stands to other persons are unique, and that, in three definite respects: that conviction of the love of god, as of no other, must underlie, as a great necessary assumption, all our thinking and all our living; that god is himself the source of the moral constitution of man, which must thus be regarded as an expression of the personal will of god, and the personal relation to god so have universal moral implications such as no other personal relation can have; and in that god is such in his universal love for all, that it is impossible to come into right personal relation to god, and not at the same time come into right relation to all moral beings.[ ] . _god is always the completely personal god._--if, now, theology is to do justice to the demands of the social consciousness for a full recognition of the personal in god, it must see clearly that god is _always_ the completely personal god. certain conclusions, not always admitted, are believed to follow from this position. ( ) _the consequent relation of god to "eternal truths."_--in the first place, there can be no sphere of eternal truths, thought of as either created outright by the will of god, or as existing of themselves independently of god and only to be recognized by him. the difficulty is not merely that at least one of these views would put god in the same dependent relation to truth as we finite beings, and thus practically put a god above god. nor is the difficulty merely that it is impossible to think the real existence of such a sphere of eternal truth, since truths or laws can be said to exist only in one of two ways: either as the actual mode of action of reality, or as the perception and formulation in an observing mind of that mode of action. and these difficulties are both sufficiently serious. but, from our present point of view, the great difficulty is, that trying to conceive god as either creating or coming to the recognition of truth, assumes, as lotze points out, a _fragmentary_ god, a god for whom truth is _not yet_. it assumes an action of the will of god apart from his reason, that is, a god not yet completely personal, not yet the full god of truth and character. a god for whom truth and duty are not yet, is certainly no true person. most, if not all, of our metaphysical puzzles connected with the relation of god to what we call eternal truths, seem to me to grow out of this thought of an essentially fragmentary god. we are driven, consequently, to a denial of both the scotist and thomist positions, as ordinarily conceived. it is true neither that the truth is true and the good is good because god wills it, nor yet that god wills the true because it is true and the good because it is good. both views alike assume the possibility of a fragmentary god, a god for whom at some time truth and goodness were not yet. but god has _always_ been the completely personal god of truth and love, never a bare will and never a bare intellect. hence, neither as an independent object to be recognized, nor yet as the external product of his will, can we think of the realm of eternal truth and goodness. we must rather say, god alone is the eternal being and absolute source of all, always complete in the perfection of his personality; and, therefore, what we call the eternal truths are only _the eternal modes of god's actual activity_. this alone seems to the writer to give a thorough-going theistic view, free from self-contradiction.[ ] ( ) _eternal creation._--but, further, if god is to be thought as _always_ the completely personal god, we are led, also, immediately to the doctrine of eternal creation. if god has had always a completely personal life, his entire being must have been always in exercise. can we really think of such a god as simply quiescent, and not as always active? is not his activity involved in his complete personality? the thought of his possible quiescence arises probably out of an unconscious, but nevertheless unwarranted, transfer to god of our finite separation of will and act. but god is here, too, no fragmentary god; he has always been the completely personal god, always acting. a second consideration carries us to the same conclusion. theologians have felt that they have made a distinct step in advance in tracing creation to love in god, as, for example, principal fairbairn does. but this gives no real help as an explanation of creation as _beginning in time_; for one must at once ask, was not the love of god eternal, and if this were the real reason leading to creation, must not, then, creation be eternal? so far as i am able to see, there is nothing to lose and much to gain in clearness and satisfactoriness of thought in a frank acceptance of the doctrine of eternal creation. not, of course, in the sense of an eternal dualism, in the sense of the thought of an eternity of matter set over against god, but in the clear sense of the eternal creative activity of god. and to such a doctrine of eternal creation, the social consciousness, in its emphasis on the completely personal, seems to me to lead. ( ) _the unity and unchangeableness of god._--and, once more, if god is always the completely personal god, we shall conceive his own unity not as monotonous self-identity, but only as consistency of meaning. we shall not, therefore, transfer to god, pluming ourselves meanwhile upon a highly philosophical view, the mechanical unchangeableness of a rock; but we shall be rather concerned with the consistency of his character and the unchangeableness of his loving will, which would be the very reasons for his changing, adapting attitude toward his changing children. from this point of view, too, the sphere of law and the sphere of the actual, will seem to us, necessarily, to root in the sphere of the ideal; the _is_ and the _must_, to rest in the _ought_; though we may not hope to trace the connections in detail. in a god, then, who is a completely harmonious person, never acting in fragmentary fashion, whose will and whose reason and whose love are never at cross purposes--only in such a god can the world find its adequate and unifying source. the world itself has real unity only in so far as it is the expression of the consistency of meaning of the purpose of god concerning it. and this same thought of the consistency of the meaning of the purpose of god, i have elsewhere argued,[ ] saves us from the necessity of a self-contradictory conception of the miraculous or supernatural, by its recognition of the dominant spiritual order. it also enables us to see, with professor nash, if the word personal is given sufficient breadth, that "the true supernatural is the personal, and wheresoever the personal is discovered, whether in the life of conscience or the life of reason, whether in israel or greece, there the supernatural is discovered. upon this conception of the supernatural as the personal, apologetics must found the claims of christianity. the divine and the human personality stand within 'nature,' that is, within the total of being. but they both, the human as well as the divine, transcend the scope and reach of visible nature."[ ] ( ) _the limitations of the conception of immanence._--indeed, it ought to be clearly recognized on all sides by those who believe in religion at all, that we cannot so exclusively emphasize the immanence of god, as many are now doing, and have a god at all, beyond the finite manifestations. when the matter is so conceived, there is no real personal god with whom there can be any personal communion. religion, thus, in any ordinary sense of it, is by this process made simply impossible; positivism is the only logical result, and frederic harrison becomes the one sole, clear-sighted prophet among us, a lone voice crying in the wilderness. such an outcome is possible for any, because, and in so far as, they are not true to the social consciousness in its demand for the completely personal god, who, in martineau's language, is a genuinely "free spirit."[ ] . _deepening the thought of the fatherhood of god._--but the influence of the social consciousness in its deepening sense of the value and sacredness of the person, of obligation and of love, not only tends to insist upon the completely personal in the conception of god, but also tends to deepen our thought of the fatherhood of god. ( ) _history no mere natural process._--no mere on-going of an unfeeling absolute, whatever name be given it, will ever satisfy the social consciousness. the new sense of the sorrow and ethical meaning of the historical process demands, in the first place, that history shall not be regarded as a mere necessitated development, but a movement in which men effectively coöperate, never more consciously and clearly than to-day; and secondly, it demands a _god_ who cares, who loves, who guides. history cannot be a mere holocaust to god. ( ) _god, the great servant._--rather, as we saw in the fourth chapter, the social consciousness requires a god whose purpose shall completely support its own purpose, and so requires us, with fairbairn, to put fatherhood before sovereignty, not sovereignty before fatherhood, and requires us definitely to conceive god after christ, as self-giving ministering love. it is one of the anomalies of christian history, that the church has been so slow to cast off a pagan conception of god, and to come to a truly christian view. we can hardly take in christ's own revelation of god without some sharing in his sympathy for men. some experience of our own is needed to unlock the revelation. and, so, the steady deepening of the social consciousness, both as to the value of the person and as to the sense of obligation, has certainly helped us to see that if god is to be highest, he must be love, and thus the great servant, with transcendent obligations, entering really and sympathetically into all our life. ( ) _no divine arbitrariness._--with such a conception of god, every trace of arbitrariness disappears. calvinism, however strenuously insisted upon, means a far different thing for any man who really feels the pressure of the modern social consciousness, who has come to some real sense of the value and sacredness of the person, that is, who really sees god in christ. the great truth of calvinism, that god is the ultimate source of all, was perhaps never more secure than to-day; but that god, who is the absolute and ultimate source of all, is the fully personal god, whose will is never divorced from his reason and love, who knows no such abstraction as a bare and empty omnipotence without content or direction, but who is himself always living love. the bane of much so-called calvinism is in this supposition of a fragmentary god, like a motion without direction or rate of speed. arbitrary decrees are conceivable only from such a fragmentary god, not yet full and complete in his reality and personality. ( ) _the passibility of god._--it would seem, also, that any vital defense of the fatherhood of god, required by the social consciousness, involves further the frank admission of the passibility of god, whether it has the look of an ancient heresy or not. we must unhesitatingly admit that, without which god can be no real god to us. "theology has no falser idea than that of the impassibility of god. if he is capable of sorrow, he is capable of suffering, and were he without the capacity for either he would be without any feeling of the evil of sin or the misery of man. the very truth that comes by jesus christ may be said to be summed up in the passibility of god."[ ] with the growing sensitiveness of the social consciousness, the problem of suffering and of sin presses increasingly, and itself almost compels the assertion of the passibility of god. nothing less can satisfy our hearts, nor indeed allow us to keep our reverence for god. certainly, with the increasingly clear vision, which the social consciousness is giving us, of sympathetic, unselfish, definitely self-sacrificing, loving leadership even among men, we shall not rest satisfied with less in god. we must have a suffering, seeking, loving god; because our father, suffering in our sin, bearing as a burden the sin of each, and not satisfied while one child turns away; no mere on-looker, but in all our afflictions, himself afflicted. the cross of christ, then, is only an honest showing of the actual facts of god's seeking, suffering love. . _as to the doctrine of a social trinity._--one inference for theology widely drawn from the social consciousness, it ought in fairness, perhaps, to be said, seems to me unjustified,--the doctrine of a so-called "social trinity." one must question the constant cool assumption made in these discussions of a social trinity, that this view is the only alternative to what is called an "abstract simplicity." in any case, one would suppose, we must have in god all the richness and complexity of a complete personal life, freed from the limitations of finite personality. something of the much that that involves we have been trying to point out. here certainly is no "abstract simplicity." moreover, the conception of a social trinity, so far as the writer can see, carries us inevitably to a tritheism of the most unmistakable kind. "social" involves full personality. nothing requires more complete personality than love, which the view affirms to exist between the persons of the immanent trinity, between the distinctions in the very godhead. the relations of christ to god were, of course, distinctly and definitely personal; but it must not be forgotten that we are not permitted, on any careful theological view, to transfer these directly to the immanent relations of the godhead. the distinction drawn by dr. w. n. clarke,[ ] between the doctrine of the biblical trinity and the doctrine of the triunity, i count of decided value; but after one has made the distinction, one may doubt the value of the contribution made by the doctrine of the triunity. the really immanent relations of the godhead are necessarily hidden from us, and are, also, so far as the writer can see, without ethical or religious significance for us, except in the way of possible injury through substituting some supposed altogether mysterious and incomprehensibly sacred, for the well-known and truly sacred shown in the ethical relations of common life. the doctrine of the triunity seems to have been originally intended to enable the church to hold the divinity of christ. if we now get at that and hold that from quite a different point of view, the older way becomes less essential. we must, indeed, keep the ancient treasure, but we need not keep it in the same ancient chest. none of us--not the most orthodox--really find the _reasons_ for holding the divinity of christ in the doctrine of the triunity. it is interesting to observe how widely separated from the doctrine of the triunity are the considerations which really move men to faith in the divinity of christ. that doctrine is, at the very most, only our philosophical supplement intended to bring that, which on other grounds we have come to believe, into unity with our thought of god. but, at least, we must so conceive the divinity of christ, as not to get two or three gods. and a "social trinity" does not seem to me to avoid that, except in terms. however, therefore, we are to solve our problem, we are not to take _that_ way out. what dr. clarke calls the biblical doctrine of the trinity, on the other hand, seems to me to contain the very heart of christianity, whatever philosophical theory we put beneath it; and it became, therefore, as expressed in the baptismal and benediction formulas, the great daily confession of the church, since it strongly expresses that of which we have been speaking,--the living love of god, a life of absolutely self-giving love, of eternal ministry. the biblical trinity is, in truth, what it has sometimes been called, the trinity of redemption; and, for me, directly emphasizes the great facts of redemption. here there are three great facts: first, the fatherhood of god, that god is in his very being father, love, self-manifesting as light, self-giving as life, self-communicating, pouring himself out into the life of his children, wishing to share his highest life with them, every one. second, the concrete, unmistakable revelation of the father in christ, revealed in full ethical perfection, as an actual fact to be known and experienced; no longer an unknown, hidden, or only partially and imperfectly revealed god, but a real, living god of character, counting as a real, appreciable, but fully spiritual fact in the real world. and, third, the father revealing himself by his spirit in every _individual_ heart that opens itself to him, in a constant, intimate, divine association, which yet is never obtrusive, but reverent of the man's personality, making possible to every man the ideal conditions of the richest life. what metaphysical theory we put under that confession of our full christian faith, does not seem to me to be of prime importance. men may count it of great importance; but it can hardly be of first importance, since, at the very most, only the beginnings of such a theory can be found in the great new testament confession of christ. . _preëminent reverence for personality, characterizing all god's relations with men._--but the very heart of the conviction, on the part of the social consciousness, of the value and sacredness of the person, is its _reverence for personality_; and this thought has much significance for theology, for, if this judgment of the social consciousness is justified, it must be regarded as preëminently characterizing god in all his relations with men. ( ) _reflected in christ._--when, in the first place, we turn to christ as the supreme revelation of god, we cannot fail to see that this reverence for the personal marks every step he takes. it begins, of course, in the priceless value which christ gives to each person, as a child of the living, loving father. and it seems to determine his _whole method_ with his generation and with his disciples. it is shown in the initial battle in the temptations, as to the form his work was to take, and as to the means to be employed. there was here, as we have seen, from the start an absolute subordination of all unspiritual and unethical methods in the building of the kingdom. there is to be no over-riding of the free personality anywhere. he faced successively the temptations to place his dependence on the mere meeting of men's material needs--the kingdom by bread; the temptation to place his dependence on that which appealed most strongly to the oriental mind--the use of wonder-working power--the kingdom by marvel or ecstasy; the temptation to place his dependence on force--the kingdom by force. but christ sees clearly that god is no mere supplier of bread; that god is no mere wonder-worker, no mere giver of wonderful experiences; and that god is not a tyrant to conquer by force. everywhere, therefore, he sets aside whatever may override the free personality. he would replace all the attractive and seemingly rapid methods of the kingdom by bread, the kingdom by marvel, and the kingdom by force, with the slow and tedious and costly but reverent method of the spiritual kingdom by spiritual means, the kingdom of god by god's way--of a trust freely won, a humility spontaneously arising, a love gladly given. he can take no pleasure in any kingdom but one of free persons. in the same way, in his dealings with the inner circle of his disciples, there seems to have been the most scrupulous regard for their own needed initiative. he apparently makes no clear announcement of himself as messiah even to the disciples until late in his public ministry, and, then, only after they have been brought, through weeks, if not months, of unusually close personal contact and impression of his spirit, into their own confession of him. he steadily abjures, that is, all dogmatism about himself, and leads them along by a purely spiritual method to a confession of him, that may be truly their own. there is no piling up of proof-texts from the old testament, to show that he is the messiah. he seems never to have attempted any proof with his disciples. indeed, he seems purposely to have chosen the rather ambiguous title, "the son of man," that men might be left free to come by moral choice to him. the surpassingly significant fact, that christ's chief work in the establishment of the kingdom of god, as seems to me beyond doubt, was his personal association with a few men; that, probably, a full third, perhaps more, of his very brief so-called public ministry was taken up with a period of definitely sought comparative retirement with the inner circle of the disciples--all this points to the same recognition of the fundamental importance in christ's eyes of such a reverence for the person. the kingdom of god can be founded only by the full winning of free persons into his discipleship. the kingdom is first and last a kingdom of free persons, in dr. mulford's language, always a "republic of god." professor peabody's emphasis on the essential importance of christ's individualism, that "jesus approaches life from within, through the inspiration of the individual,"[ ] it need not be said, goes upon the same assumption of christ's reverence for the person. in his really public ministry the same spirit appears; for jesus seems to me here constantly to be standing with a kind of moral shudder between the spirit of contempt in the pharisees and sadducees, and the outraged personality of the common people, even of the publicans and sinners. he feels the contempt even for these least, as a blow in his own face. that glimpse which the revelation gives us of christ standing and knocking at the heart's closed door, is a true picture forevermore not only of the attitude of christ's earthly life, but of god's eternal relation to us. men may over-ride and outrage us, and even think that they show the more love thereby; god, never. this principle, then, we may take as absolutely crucial, in our judgment of god's dealings with us. ( ) _in creation._--it is fundamental even in creation. the very fact of the creation of persons implies it. such a creation can have no significance, if, in the language already quoted from howison, god's "consciousness is void of that recognition and reverence of the personal initiative of other minds which is at once the sign and the test of the true person." and if love is, for a moment, to be thought of as the motive of creation, it required for any satisfaction of it, persons who could freely respond to that love. the definite bestowal of the fateful gift of moral freedom, with the practical certainty of sin--the creation of beings who could choose against him--shows how deeply planted in the very being of god is this principle of reverence for the person. here, too, the impossibility of arbitrary divine decrees meets us. this would be treating a person as a thing, and god himself may not do that and remain god. if a man cannot see his way to a faith both in the divine foreknowledge and in the moral initiative of men, therefore, he must not hesitate to choose even the divine nescience of the free acts of men, rather than think of god as compelling men. our whole moral universe tumbles about our ears, if he who is the source of all is not in earnest with persons. and yet there is much theological thinking, of which the common notions of a personal reign of christ on the earth may be taken as an example, that practically looks to a kingdom by compulsion. a kingdom of free spirits cannot be merely decreed. ( ) _in providence._--and this same principle of reverence for personality must be felt to be the guiding motive and key, as well, in the providence and government of god. god keeps his hands off. he must so act as to call out, not to suppress, individual initiative. this is, perhaps, the deepest reason for a sphere of law, that there may be a realm in which a person can have his own free development, uninterfered with by any moral compulsion. if, now, this sphere of law is to be any true training ground for character, as we saw in the third chapter, results must not be forthwith set aside, the mutual influence of men must hold all along the line. even in the case of great evils, god does not step in at once to set things right. character is an exceedingly costly product. this is no play-world, either as to mutual influence or as to freedom. god guards most jealously the freedom and personality of men. he never forgets that character must be from within. he will not accept, as christ would not, a faith compelled by "signs." hence, too, we are left to _ask_, and much is left to depend on our asking. so, also, god does not remove all difficulties and give sight in place of faith. he seems even careless, often, of how things go; for he would not only appeal to the heroic in us, but he wishes to make it impossible for us to confuse prudence and virtue in ourselves or others, and so to give us the opportunity and the joy of a real moral victory, of knowing that we have made a genuinely unselfish surrender to the right. in the light of this deep-lying principle of god's sacred reverence for the person, one learns to hush his former complaints, and with full heart to thank god that he lives in a world where righteousness and happiness do not always seem to fall together, and where, therefore, he can "serve god for naught." oh, let us know, that it is not that god does not care, but that he cares so much--too much to sacrifice to present comfort the character of the child he loves--too much to shut him out from his highest opportunity. ( ) _in our personal religious life._--and the same principle holds in our personal religious life. the unobtrusiveness of god's relation to us, of which we often complain, is rather to be taken as evidence of his sacred respect for our own moral initiative, and proof of his careful adaptation to our moral need. wherever a strong personality is in relation to a weaker, the stronger must maintain a conscientious self-restraint, lest he dominate the personality of the other, to the other's moral injury and to the hindering of his individuality. it _is_ possible for a boy to be injuriously "tied to his mother's apron-strings." much more is it necessary that god's relation to us should not be obtrusive. god must guard our freedom and our individuality. he must even take pains to hide his hand, as a strong, influential, but wise friend would do. as we go higher, our life is and must be increasingly one of faith, the father's relation less and less obtrusive.[ ] the times of vision are given to make us patient in our progress toward the goal. and after the vision comes often what rendel harris calls "the dark night of faith, when every step has to be taken in absolute dependence upon god and assurance that the vision was truth and was no lie."[ ] we need the invisible god for character. it is for this reason, no doubt, that god makes so rare use of overwhelming experiences in the religious life. he would be chosen with clear and rational self-consciousness, and so he rarely overpowers. and even in experiences which seem most overpowering, if the person is really awake to their true ethical and spiritual import, they will probably be found delicately adapted to call out the individual's own response. but for most of us such experiences prove a real temptation, because we allow the passively emotional to absorb our attention, and so lose the ethical and spiritual fruit. where these marvelous experiences have been most marked, and have plainly given real help, they seem still, usually, to have been needed because of some false conception of god and the spiritual world that required a powerful corrective. here they seem really to have been granted, as probably the transfiguration of christ was to the disciples, as a concession to men's weakness, god consenting reluctantly to use for the time a lower line of appeal, because men are unable to rise to the higher appeal. we have already seen the danger of the neo-platonic over-estimation of emotional experience, and of sudden and magical crises in religion; and this danger is especially seen in much that is said concerning the work of the holy spirit. it seems as if it were simply true, for many earnest and sincere christians, that the superstitions, which they had conscientiously put aside elsewhere in religion, all came back in their thought of the work of the spirit. here their relation to god has ceased to be thought of as a personal or moral or truly spiritual one; and they are looking more or less definitely for bodily thrills, for marked and overwhelming emotional experiences, or for sudden transformations--hardly to be called transformations of character--in the passive half-magical removal of temptations altogether. that is, they are looking for moral and spiritual results from unmoral and unspiritual processes. the exact point is this: doubtless we are not narrowly to limit what the personal influence of the personal spirit of god may do in transforming human life--the possibilities probably far transcend what we think--but we are clearly to see that the relation is personal, that the influence is spiritual and under strictly ethical conditions, if we are to escape from simply pagan superstition. let us see that, if god is a personal spirit and not an impersonal substance, then, as herrmann says, he "communes with us through manifestations of his inner life, and when he consciously and purposely makes us feel what his mind is, then we feel himself."[ ] and, then, let us add, as has been already earlier said, that the deepening life in the spirit becomes plainly a deepening personal friendship and communion with god, with laws--those of a growing friendship--that we may study and know and obey; and among these laws, none is of more central importance than this of the reverence for the person. ( ) _in the judgment._--and when we turn to god's relation to us in the judgment, we can be sure, i think, of a further application of this principle, contrary to common teaching and expectation. we have no reason to look forward to a time when the secrets of all, or of any, hearts shall be laid bare to all. in so doing, god would violate, it seems to me, the principle of his entire dealing with men, and give the lie to his own revelation in christ and in history. for myself, dr. clarke's words carry immediate conviction: "no man needs to know the secrets of his neighbor, and be able to trace the justice of god through his neighbor's life, and no man who respects the sacredness of individuality will desire it. neither revelation of his own secrets nor knowledge of another's seems a good thing to a self-respecting soul."[ ] even the judgment itself proceeds, no doubt, in clear recognition of the free personality. we are "judged by the law of liberty." and we really choose our own destiny, as phillips brooks suggests in one of his most striking paragraphs. "by this law we shall be judged. how simple and sublime it makes the judgment day! we stand before the great white throne and wait our verdict. we watch the closed lips of the eternal judge, and our hearts stand still until those lips shall open and pronounce our fate, heaven or hell. the lips do not open. the judge just lifts his hand and raises from each soul before him every law of constraint whose pressure has been its education. he lifts the laws of constraint, and their results are manifest. the real intrinsic nature of each soul leaps to the surface. each soul's law of liberty becomes supreme. and each soul, without one word of commendation or approval, by its own inner tendency, seeks its own place.... the freeing of souls is the judging of souls. a liberated nature dictates its own destiny. could there be a more solemn judgment seat? is it not a fearful thing to be judged by the law of liberty?"[ ] and we may be most certain, that, in any judgment by god, there can be no thought of "human waste." the man must remain for god, to the end, a child of god, a person of sacredness and value, to be dealt with always as capable of character. and it is along just this line that, independently of exegetical grounds, it seems to me, we are led to a decisive rejection of the doctrine of annihilation. and i know no more convincing putting of the matter than this brief but comprehensive statement of fairbairn: "if there is any truth in the fatherhood, would not annihilation be even more a punishment of god than of man? the annihilated creature would indeed be gone forever--good and evil, shame and misery, penalty and pain, would for him all be ended with his being; but it would not be so with god--out of his memory the name of the man could never perish, and it would be, as it were, the eternal symbol of a soul he had made only to find that with it he could do nothing better than destroy it."[ ] ( ) _in the future life._--doubtless our difficulties are not at an end even so; but, at least, our conception of god is saved from self-contradiction; and the father is seen as suffering in the sin of the son, and perpetually desiring and seeking his return, never satisfied so long as any child of his still refuses his place in the father's love. this deep-going principle of reverence for personality, with which we are dealing, is the finest flower of human ethical development, and seems completely to shut out the possibility of compulsion by god at any time in the future life. a person will never be treated as a thing. the soul that turns to god must be won voluntarily. and if, then, the abstract possibility of endless resistance to god by men cannot be denied; so neither can the possibility--perhaps one might even say, the practical probability--be denied that god, in his infinite love and patience and wisdom, may finally win them all out of their resistance. and the eternal hope is at least open; but it is open, it should be noted, only upon the fulfilment by men of precisely those moral conditions which hold now in the earthly life, and which ought now to be obeyed. there will never be an easier way to god. it is shallow thinking that supposes that, if there be any possibility of turning to god in the future life, it is of small moment that one should now put himself where he ought to be. the full results of all our evil sowing, we must receive. the utmost that on any rational theory, then, can be held out to men, is the hope that, facing a greater heritage of evil than now they face, they might return to god under the same condition of absolute moral surrender, which now holds, and the fulfilment of which is now far more easily possible to them. and it ought not to be overlooked that, even if the principle of reverence for personality be much less far-reaching than is here affirmed, the annihilation of a soul by god could seem justified only upon the assumption that god foresaw the entire future, and knew that the soul would never turn to righteousness and god. but if the doctrine of annihilation is to be justified on _that_ ground, it is to be observed, that the same foreknowledge would have enabled god to know before creation all the finally incorrigible, if there were to be any such, and so he need not have called these into being at all. a goal, therefore, as great if not far greater, than that offered by the annihilation theory would be, thus, attainable simply upon the same assumption that must rationally be made by that theory, and, at the same time, the great objection to that theory--its violation of personality--would be avoided. it seems probable that this very principle of reverence for personality contains the chief reason why more has not been revealed to us concerning the future life. christianity is very far from satisfying our curiosity here. it gives little more than the absolutely needed assurance of the fact and worth of the life beyond. details are either quite lacking, or given only in broadest symbols. this reticent silence of revelation seems needed if our individual initiative is not to be hindered, either by excess of motive on the one hand, or by the depression of an unappreciated ideal on the other hand. on the one hand, that is, so far as we could understand a detailed revelation of the future life, to set it forth with the realism of the present life would be to interfere with that unobtrusive relation of god to us, which we have seen to be so necessary to our highest moral training. we need, in this time of our training, a certain obscurity of spiritual truth; we need to walk by faith, not by sight. to be able so obviously to weigh the eternal realities against the temporal, would hinder rather than help our growth in loyal, unselfish character. on the other hand, if a complete and indubitable revelation of the future life were given us, no doubt there would be much that could make but small appeal to us, and might even prove positively depressing, because we have not yet the experience which would interpret to us its meaning and open to us its joy. our earthly life may furnish us an analogy. the joy of a grown man is often preëminently in his work, but he would find it difficult to explain to a child the source of his joy. and if the child were told that there would come a time in a few years when his chief joy would be found in work, the prospect would probably not seem to him inviting. the wisest of us may be as little prepared to enter in detail into the meaning of the future life. we may be content to know that the future life is, and is of value beyond that which we can now understand; and we may be assured that at least what we have already seen to be the ideal conditions of the richest life,[ ] as now we understand life, will be fully met in the future life. we can hardly doubt, therefore, that the two great centers of the life beyond must be association and work; though we may not know the precise forms that these will take, nor how greatly both may deepen beyond our present conception. steadily deepening personal relations, rooted in the one absolutely satisfying relation to god in christ, there must be; and work, in which one may lose himself with joy, because it is god's work. this, at least, the future life will contain. we can hardly go farther with assurance. but perhaps even this may suggest, that men may vary much in the proportionate emphasis laid upon these two great sources of life, and still alike come into a genuine and rewarding relation to god. that god has counted individuality among men to be of prime significance, the facts of creation hardly allow us to doubt. possibly it is only another application of this same principle of reverence for the person, in the recognition of that individuality which has its great joy in work, which is to be found in what professor george f. genung suggestively calls "an apocalypse of kipling." in kipling's poem to wolcott balestier, professor genung sees "the discovery of a religion, or assignable and eternally rewardable relation to god, in those whose inner life is not introspective or self-expressive." their spiritual life "serves god with the joy which comes of following and satisfying, in the sphere of his plans, the eager bent of a conquering will." "it is the religion of work and of daring." and "it is only in the open vision of an eternal world that their secular ardor, which was unconsciously serving god all along, begins to come to the perception of a transcendent master and to be transformed into an adoration, an obedience and loyalty, a 'will to serve or to be still as fitteth our father's praise.'" it is quite possible that through our very failure to enter into god's own deep reverence for the person, in the recognition of man's divinely given individuality, as well as through failure to recognize the essential like-mindedness of men, we have been shutting the door of hope, where god has not shut it, and have limited beyond warrant the divine mercy. even in the life of heaven men cannot be all alike. "who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. yea, he shall be made to stand; for the lord hath power to make him stand."[ ] [ ] _the limits of evolution_, p. x. [ ] cf. above, pp. , , . [ ] see especially bowne, _theory of thought and knowledge_, pp. , , ; james, _the will to believe_, pp. ff. [ ] cf. above, p. ff [ ] see king, _reconstruction in theology_, pp. ff. [ ] hastings, _dictionary of the bible_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] see king, _reconstruction in theology_, chaps. vi and vii. [ ] i aim here to bring out with some fullness the significance of the propositions briefly summarized in the _reconstruction in theology_, p. ; and i venture to repeat, also, two quotations from that book, because they fit so closely into the argument here. [ ] _the place of christ in modern theology_, p. . [ ] cf. king, _reconstruction in theology_, pp. , , , . [ ] see king, _reconstruction in theology_, p. ; and below, p. . [ ] _the limits of evolution_, p. . [ ] _ethics and revelation_, p. . [ ] cf. king, _reconstruction in theology_, pp. ff. [ ] cf. lotze, _the microcosmus_, vol. ii, pp. ff. [ ] see _reconstruction in theology_, chapter vi. [ ] _ethics and revelation_, p. . [ ] see the fuller statement in the _reconstruction in theology_, pp. - . [ ] fairbairn, _the place of christ in modern theology_, p. . [ ] _outline of christian theology_, pp. , ff. [ ] _jesus christ and the social question_, p. . [ ] cf. fairbairn, _the place of christ in modern theology_, pp. , . [ ] _union with god_, p. . [ ] _the communion of the christian with god_, p. . [ ] _an outline of christian theology_, p. . [ ] _the candle of the lord and other sermons_, p. . [ ] _the place of christ in modern theology_, p. . [ ] see above, pp. ff. [ ] romans : . index abbott, lyman, reference to, . _american journal of theology, the_, reference to, . analogy of organism. see organism. annihilation, doctrine of, why rejected, ff. arbitrariness, excluded in god, ff. aristotle, quoted, ; his position abandoned by mysticism, . association, personal, in redemption, ff; in personal relation to god, ff; in confessions of faith, ff. assumption of the book, . atonement, in the light of social consciousness, ff, ff; the cost of, ; substitution and propitiation in, ff; analogy of father and child in, ff; blood covenant applied to, . baldwin, j. m., reference to, . biblical trinity, , . blood covenant, as applied to doctrine of atonement, . böhme, jacob, referred to, . bowne, b. p., on causality and purpose, ; on freedom, , . bradley, f. h., on the religious feeling in philosophy, . brooks, phillips, reference to, , ; on the intellectual life of jesus, ; on the emotional life of jesus, ; on the universal interest of jesus, ; on the likeness of men, ; on judgment according to the law of liberty, . bruce's _the kingdom of god_, reference to, . bushnell, h., on impenitence of jesus, . calvinism, . causality and purpose, , . christ, see jesus. christian, the historically, emphasized by the social consciousness, ff. christianity, as contributing to sense of mutual influences, ; sometimes unconscious, . church, the, importance of the doctrine of, ff. clarke, w. n., referred to, , ; quoted, , , ; on propitiation, ; on doctrine of trinity and triunity, ; on revelation of inner life at judgment, . common qualities and interests, most valuable, ff. confessions of faith, christian fellowship in, ff; uniformity in, impossible, ff; and undesirable, ff. corinthians, first, twelfth chapter of, as expression of analogy of organism, ; against false mysticism, - , . cornill, reference to, . creation, eternal, ff; reverence for person in, ff. creed, christian fellowship in, ff; uniformity in, impossible, ff; and undesirable, ff. denison, j. h., referred to, . devotional literature, difficulty in, ; referred to, . dewey, john, referred to, . drummond, h., reference to, ; on sin, . du bois, patterson, on true spirit of fatherhood, . edwards, jonathan, referred to, . election, in paul, ; a choice for service, . emotion, extreme emphasis on, a danger in mysticism, ; cf. ff. eternal creation, ff. "eternal truths," god's relation to, ff. ethical, the, in religion, ff; proofs that religion must be, ff. ethicizing of religion, ff; involved in relation to christ, ; the divine will in ethical command, ; involved in nature of god's gifts, ; communion with god through harmony with his will, ; the vision of god for the pure in heart, ; sharing the life of god, ; christ, as satisfying our claims on life, ; attraction to christ, ethically conditioned, ; the moral law, a revelation of the love of god, . ethics and religion, , ff. everett, c. c, criticism of nietzsche, . _expository times, the_, reference to, . fairbairn, a. m., his _the place of christ in modern theology_, mentioned, ; on the christian consciousness, ; referred to, , , , ; on sense of sin, ; on christ as transcendent, ; on passibility of god, ; on annihilation, . faith, necessity of, in life, , . faith in men, increased by sense of likeness, . father and child, the analogy of, applied to redemption, ff. favorites, none with god, ff. fellowship, christian, help of, in coming into kingdom, ff; within the kingdom, ff; in intercessory prayer, ff; in confessions of faith, ff. fiske, john, reference to, . freedom, in man, ff; bowne on, , ; references on, . fremantle, w. h., reference to, . friendship, laws of, as holding in religion, . future life; moral reality of, ff; reverence for person in, ff. galatians, epistle to, referred to, . genung, g. f., on "an apocalypse of kipling," . giddings, f. h., reference to, , , , , , ; on the "social mind," . god, immanence of, as related to social consciousness, ff; his will, ethical basis of social consciousness, ff; sharing in our life, ; will of, felt in ethical command, ; his gifts require ethical attitude to receive them, , ; our sharing his life, ; we cannot do his will in general, ; a thoroughly personal conception of, needed, ff; guarding the conception of, ff, ; suprapersonal in, ; nash on doctrine of personality of, ; always completely personal, ff; relation to eternal truths, ff; as eternally creating, ff; unity and unchangeableness of, ff; limiting conception of immanence of, ff; deepening thought of fatherhood of, ff; as the great servant, ; no arbitrariness in, ; passibility of god, ; trinity in, ff. grahame, kenneth, on love, ; referred to, . harnack, a., on christ, . harris, j. r., quoted, . hegel, on greatest in art, . heredity, not to be over-emphasized, ; james, on, , . herrmann, w., referred to, , , ; his definition of mysticism, , ; on pantheistic tendency in mysticism, , ; on our satisfaction in christ, ; on the help of the fellowship of the church, ; on christ's rising to his ideals, ; on christ's calling out absolute trust, ; on personal relation to god, . historical, the, under-estimated by mysticism, . historical justification needed by social consciousness, ff, ff. historically, the, christian, emphasized by the social consciousness, ff. history, no mere natural process, ff; god in, vii, . holy spirit, doctrine of, often made superstitious, . honesty of the world, double meaning of, . hope for men, increased by sense of likeness, . hosea, as illustration of inter-play of human and divine relations, . howells, w. d., his _a boy's town_, quoted, ; referred to, . howison, g. h., on the person, , , ; referred to, . humanity, idea of, from christianity, . ideal view, requires the facts of the social consciousness, ff, ff. imitation, to be avoided, ff. immanence of god, as metaphysical ground of facts of social consciousness, ff; lotze on, , ; limitations in conception of, ff. "immortability," discussed, ff. immortality, j. s. mill on, ; sully on, ; doctrine of, as affected by sense of likeness of men, ff; references on, . indian mysticism, . israel, significance of its social struggle, ; ecstasy among its prophets, . james, william, on heredity, ; on metaphysics, ; on sense of reality, ; on nitrous-oxide-gas intoxication, ; on the world as a confusion, ; reference to, , , , ; on compensations, ; on varied ideals, ; on catching faith and courage, . jesus, brooks on his intellectual life, ; on his emotional life, ; relation to, necessarily ethical, , , ; satisfies our highest claims on life, ; his social emphases, ff; brooks on his interest in the uninteresting, ; the great christian confession, ff; loyalty to, best assurance for doctrine, ; the personal in, ff; a personal revelation of god, ff; the moral and spiritual in his supremacy, ff; grounds of his supremacy, ff; among founders of religion, ff; his sinlessness, ff; his impenitence, ; rises to highest ideals, ff; shows character of god, ff; consciously able to redeem all men, ; transcendent god-consciousness and sense of mission, ff; calls out absolute trust, ff; in him god certainly finds us, ff; the ideal realized, ff; his double uniqueness, ff; sense of kinship with, and reality of, ff; divinity of, as related to trinity, ; reverence for person in, ff. judgment, according to light, ff; how god's can be favorable, ff; reverence for person in, ff; according to law of liberty, ff. kaftan, j., referred to, . keim, quoted, . king, references to his _reconstruction in theology_, , , , , , , , , , , , , . kipling, r., on the value of the common, ; g. f. genung on, . lanier, s., quoted, on christ, . leibnitz, referred to, . life, the richest, ideal conditions of, ff. like-mindedness of men, ff; an element of social consciousness, ff, ; influence on theology, ff; summary on, ; seen under diverse forms, ff. lotze, reference to, , , , , , ; on passion for construing everything, , ; on immanence of god, . love, sense of, ; element in social consciousness, , ; as motive in creation, . man, the personal in, ff; separateness from god, ff; freedom in, ff; a child of god, ff. matheson, george, on sacrifice, . mcconnell, s. d., objection to one part in his argument as to immortality, ff. mccurdy, on the significance of the social struggle in israel, . metaphysical, not to be emphasized, in conception of christ, ff; how to be thought, as to christ, , ; in doctrine of trinity, . mill, j. s., on immortality, . moral world, prerequisites of, ff; sphere of law, ; ethical freedom, ; some power of accomplishment, ; members one of another, . mistiness in mysticism, . moral initiative in men, ff. moral law, a revelation of the love of god, . mulford, e., referred to, . münsterberg, h., referred to, ; reference to his _psychology and life_, . mutual influence of men, ff; contributing lines of thought, ff; threefold form of the conviction, ff; as element of social consciousness, ff, ; influence upon theological doctrine, ff; for good, ff; in attainment of character, ff; in personal relation to god, ff; in confession of faith, ff. mystical, the falsely, opposition of the social consciousness to, ff, ff; nash's definition of, , ; herrmann's definition of, , ; unethical, ; no real personal god, ; belittles personal in man, ; paul's rejection of, , ; leaves historically christian, ff. mystical, the truly, emphasized by the social consciousness, ff, ff; requires laws of a deepening friendship, ; requires ideal conditions of the richest life, ; protest in favor of whole man, ff; its self-controlled recognition of emotion, ff. mysticism, its relation to the social consciousness, ff; false, ff; true, ff, ff; justifiable and unjustifiable elements in, ff; its dangers: emotionalism, ; subjectivism, ; under-estimating historical, ; mistiness, ; pantheism, ff; symbolism, . justifiable elements in, summed up, . nash, h. s., on ethical basis of social consciousness in will of god, ff; his definition of the mystical, , ; referred to, ; on doctrine of divine personality, ; on the supernatural, . neo-darwinian school, referred to, . neo-platonic mysticism, ff, . _new world, the_, reference to, , . neitzsche, criticism of, by everett, . obligation, sense of, ff; element in social consciousness, , . organism, analogy of, ff; value of, ; classical expression in i cor. ; inadequacy of, for social consciousness, ff: comes from the sub-personal world, ; access to reality only through ourselves, ; mistaken passion for construing everything, ; tested by definition of social consciousness, ff. orr's _the christian view of god and the world_, reference to, . pantheism, tendency to, in mysticism, , . paul, his rejection of the falsely mystical, , , . paulsen, on key to reality, ; reference to, , ; on necessity of faith, , . peabody, f. g., referred to, ; on the social principles of jesus, ; on christ's individualism, . person, value of, ff, ; influence of sense of value of, on theology, ff; reverence for, characterizing all god's relation to men, ff. personal, the, recognition of, ff; recognition of, in man, ff; recognition of, in christ, ff; recognition of, in god, ff. "personal idealism," , , . personal relation, in religion, emphasized by social consciousness, ff; leads to the truly mystical, ff. philo, as representative of mysticism, . _philosophical review, the_, reference to, . philosophy, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, . plato, his position abandoned by mysticism, . plotinus, as representative of mysticism, . prophets, the, their standpoint abandoned by philo, ; their sense of the significance of the social struggle in israel, ; ecstasy in, . propitiation, ethical meaning of, ff, , ff. providence, reverence for person in, ff. psychology, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, . purpose and causality, , . race-connection, not prime cause of unity of men, ff. race, real unity of, ff; its solidarity, how conceived, , , , . ranke, on christ, . rational, two senses of, . _reconstruction in theology_, references to, , , , , , , , , , , , , . redemption, as viewed from point of view of mutual influence for good, ff; the cost of, ; substitution and propitiation in, ff. religion, and theology, , ; influence of the social consciousness upon, ff, ff; the personal relation in, emphasized by the social consciousness, ff; its thorough ethicizing demanded by social consciousness, ff; and ethics, ; a supreme factor in life, . reverence for the person characterizing all god's relations to men, ff; reflected in christ, ff; in creation, ff; in providence, ff; in the personal religious life, ff; in the judgment, ff; in the future life, ff. ritschl, a., referred to, . royce, josiah, reference to, . sabatier, a., reference to, . sanday, w., reference to, . schiller, f. c, s., reference to, . science, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, . scotist position as to god, . separateness from god, meaning of, ff. sin, sense of, deepened by social consciousness, ff; drummond on, ; lack of sense of, among greeks, ; when most feared, . smith, g. a., reference to, . social consciousness, definition, ff; elements in, ff; meaning of, for theology, ff; analogy of organism, inadequate for, ff; analogy, tested, ff; necessity of its facts for ideal interests, ff; the question, ; else, no moral world, ff, ff; ultimate explanation and ground of, ff; metaphysical ground, ff: not due to physical race-connection, ff; nor primarily to heredity, ff; nor to mystical solidarity, ff; but to immanence of god, ff; ethical basis, ff; supporting will of god, ; nash on, ; paulsen on, ; god's sharing in our life, ff; consequent transfiguration of, ff. its influence upon religion, ff; opposed to the falsely mystical, ff; emphasizes personal relation in religion, and so the truly mystical, ff; demands the ethicizing of religion, ff; needs historical justification, ff; its influence upon theological doctrine, ff: general results, ff; influence of like-mindedness of men, ff; of mutual influence of men, ff; of sense of value of person, ff. "social mind," real meaning of, ; giddings on, . "social trinity," ff. solidarity, a mystical, not to be pressed, . solidarity of race, often falsely conceived, , , , ff. stevenson, r. l., on the poetical and ideal in men, ; referred to, , . subjectivism, tendency to, in mysticism, . substitution, ethical meaning of, ff, ff. sully, j., on immortality, . supra-personal, the, in god, . symbolism, strong tendency to, in mysticism, . sympathy with men, increased by sense of likeness, . tennyson, his self-hypnotism, . theme of the book, ff. theologian, the, an interpreter, ; a believer in the supremacy of spiritual interests, ; assumes the fact of religion, ; assumes a personal god, ; takes point of view of christ, . theologian's, the, point of view, ff. theology, and religion, , ; in personal terms, ff; fatherhood of god, determining principle in, ; as influenced by social consciousness, ff; general results in, ff; influence of likeness of men on, ff; influence of mutual influence of men on, ff; influence of value of person on, ff. thomist position as to god, . trinity, doctrine of, ff; biblical, , . "trinity, social," ff. tritheism, involved in a real social trinity, ff. triunity of god, doctrine of, ff. "truths, eternal," god's relation to, ff. unchangeableness of god, ff. unconscious christianity, . uniqueness, a double, in christ, ff; metaphysical, , ; ethical, , . value and sacredness of person, ff; sense of, element in social consciousness, , . weismann, referred to, . transcriber's notes: page , "god" changed to "god". inconsistent hyphenation retained. apparent printer's punctuation errors corrected. italics indicated by _underscores_ and transliterated greek by +plus signs+. transcriber's note: every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible, including some inconsistencies of hyphenation. some changes of spelling and punctuation have been made. they are listed at the end of the text. italic text has been marked with _underscores_. the university of chicago the transformation of early christianity from an eschatological to a socialized movement a dissertation submitted to the faculty of the graduate school of arts and literature in candidacy for the degree of doctor of philosophy department of church history in the graduate divinity school by lyford paterson edwards the collegiate press george banta publishing company menasha, wisconsin contents chapter i. political theories of the early christians chapter ii. the early church and property concepts chapter iii. the early church and the populace chapter iv. chiliasm and patriotism chapter v. chiliasm and social theory chapter i the political theories of the early christians when christianity came into the world it found a number of different political theories already in existence. these various conflicting concepts; hebrew, greek and roman, influenced christianity in varying degrees and in varying degrees were influenced by christianity. christianity as such added no new ideas to the current stock of political notions. the hebrew christian retained his jewish theory; as did the greek and the roman in perhaps a less degree. the development of the christian conception of the state, the church, and history generally is a process of elimination, selection, adaptation, and synthesis of the various elements of political theory current in contemporary hebrew and pagan thought. the characteristic modern separation of church and state, the divorce between religion and government, existed as a matter of fact in early christianity. but it was forced upon the christians by the historical situation. as an idea it was foreign alike to jews and christians, greeks and romans. it was contrary to the whole body of contemporary political theory. the union of church and state in the fourth century, which has been so deplored by many modern historians and moralists was in reality perfectly inevitable. the social mind of the whole ancient world made any other course impossible either to christians or pagans once christianity had developed to the point where it was the most powerful religious force in society. the theocratic nature of jewish thought and practice is generally recognized but the close connection of religion and government in the pagan educational system is not perhaps so much emphasized. to quote pollock: "it costs us something to realize the full importance of philosophy to the greek or roman citizen who had received a liberal education. for him it combined in one whole body of doctrine all the authority and influence which nowadays are divided, not without contention, by science, philosophy, and religion in varying shares. it was not an intellectual exercise or special study, but a serious endeavor to gather up the results of all human knowledge in their most general form, and make them available for the practical conduct of life."[ ] it was this fact which made christianity's progress among the educated classes so slow. once it had made its way, however, the taking over of political control by the church was both easy and natural. one of the most notable characteristics of the new testament and of all early christianity in its relation to the existing political system was the doctrine of obedience to the constituted authorities. that a man like st. paul should advocate submission to a man like nero seems like the negation of elementary morality. the reasons for this attitude are many. in this paper we are concerned only with one of them--but possibly the most important one. the submissiveness of the early christians to tyranny and despotism was not due primarily to impotence nor yet to excessive mildness of disposition. many emperors before constantine were deposed and slain by political groups smaller and feebler than the christians. st. paul and st. ignatius, to go no farther, were not by nature pacifists. it would be difficult to find a book of a more militant tone than the revelation of st. john. the main reason for the political non-resistance of the early christians is to be sought in their philosophy; their views of the world. these views were of a very special and very peculiar kind. they were in large part either directly inherited from jewish thought or adapted from it. while they are in some respects inconsistent with one another, they have a common element. they are all catastrophic. in all of them the catastrophe is more or less immediately imminent. the old testament prophets taught the establishment, in the indefinite future, of an eternal messianic kingdom on this present earth. for a long time this hope was cherished by every jew. but some time before the beginning of the first century b.c. a change took place. the old conception was abandoned, slowly indeed, but at last absolutely. in its place arose a belief which developed into chiliasm or millenarianism. perhaps the first clear statement of this new idea is to be found in the book known as i enoch. in this work which dates from - b.c., the messianic kingdom is for the first time conceived of as of temporary duration. the resurrection and final judgment which in the preceding form of belief were the prelude to the everlasting messianic kingdom on earth, are now transposed to the end of the transitory, early kingdom of the messiah. this temporary earthly kingdom is no longer the final abode of the risen righteous. they are to enjoy a blessed immortality in the eternal heaven.[ ] we have in this author a practically complete statement of later christian chiliasm. there is indeed one important feature missing. the specific duration of the messianic kingdom is not given. the advent of the kingdom also is not pressingly imminent. in the parables - b.c. we find certain other elements. this writer holds to the eternal messianic kingdom but the scene of this kingdom is not the earth as at present existing but a new heaven and a new earth. the messiah is no longer a mere man but a supernatural being. four titles characteristic of the new testament are for the first time applied to him: "the christ," "the righteous one," "the elect one," "the son of man." he executes judgment on man and enjoys universal dominion. the resurrection is not of the old body but of a body of glory and light, of an angelic nature, in short a spiritual body, though the specific word spiritual is not used.[ ] in the other eschatological works of this period: e.g. psalms of solomon - b.c. judith (circa b.c.) [one reference]; the sibylline oracles iii - (before b.c.); the epitomiser of jason of cyrene (between - b.c.) and the fragmentary zadokite work, b.c., the tradition of the temporary kingdom is carried on but without the addition of any concepts essential to our purpose. in the first century a.d., still confining ourselves to specifically jewish apocalyptic literature we find various changes taking place. the eternal messianic kingdom passes largely out. the temporary messianic kingdom becomes an eternal national one. the interest of the individual jew comes to center on his own lot in the future life.[ ] we have to pass a number of writers; assumption of moses, philo, etc., before we come to the specific statement of chiliasm proper, i.e., the duration of the messianic kingdom for years. in the book of the secrets of enoch commonly known as ii enoch ( - a.d.) we find for the first time the doctrine which was taken over to make the christian millennium. the writer of ii enoch was an egyptian jew. he says that as the world was made in six days, its course will run for six thousand years. the years will be followed by a messianic kingdom of rest and blessedness lasting years. after that follows the final judgment, "the great day of the lord." passing now to the new testament, it is only necessary for our purpose to enumerate three different concepts of the messianic kingdom that are found therein. in these concepts contemporaneous jewish ideas are taken with more or less transformation. the first conception perhaps holds the idea of a present world kingdom but puts emphasis on the futurity of the kingdom. its ultimate consumation is not by gradual, natural development, but by the catastrophic reappearance of christ. this second advent is to be preceded by tremendous portents of the most terrible sort. the second conception is that the kingdom is already present in christ's appearance as the messiah. it is to grow by the natural laws of spiritual development to its full realization. a considerable length of time is conceived as necessary for the attainment of mature growth. the consumation of the kingdom in the second advent is to be unexpected and sudden and none but the father knows when it will take place. the third conception, that of chiliasm, is that the second advent of christ is close at hand. anti christ and his confederates are to be destroyed at megiddo. satan is to be bound for years during which is the millennium, when the martyrs are raised in the first resurrection and reign with christ at jerusalem. this conception is found in the revelation and perhaps i cor. xv, - . all the essential elements of it are to be found in pre-existing sources, e.g., the years in ii enoch, the reign of the saints in testaments of the xii patriarchs, etc. these three conceptions were variously confused in early christianity. all the new testament writers hold, for instance, to the immediately imminent second advent. how many of them were chiliasts we have no way of knowing. the earliest, christian writing extant outside the new testament, which deals with this subject is perhaps papias, - a.d. he is a most materialistic chiliast and quotes ii baruch as an authentic utterance of christ handed to himself by apostolic tradition.[ ] barnabas is another apostolic chiliast. he expressly teaches a millennial reign of christ on earth. the six days of creation are the type of six periods of years each. the seventh day is the millennium, since with god "one day is as a thousand years." the earthly, millennial sabbath is to be followed by an eighth and eternal day in heaven. the millennium is near at hand. barnabas does not quote revelation. his views can be drawn equally well or better from ii enoch, i enoch and other jewish sources. the first chiliast we know of to get into disrepute was the famous heretic, cerinthus, (last part of first century). his heresy had nothing to do with his chiliasm, as it seems to have been a sort of judaistic gnosticism and gnosticism in general was not favorable to chiliasm. however the fact that so abhorrent a heretic held chiliastic views did not help those views in the judgment of later christians. about the end of the first century also chiliasm came into rather disreputable prominence as a leading doctrine of the ebionites, a sect of antitrinitarian judaistic-christian heretics. this sect was wide spread though not particularly numerous and aroused the bitter antagonism of the orthodox. as in the case of cerinthus, their heresy had nothing necessarily to do with chiliasm. but here again chiliasm had the misfortune to get into bad company. in the middle of the second century chiliasm appears to have been the belief of the majority of christians though it never found formal expression in any creed. justin martyn, - a.d., tells us that christ is to reign with the patriarchs for years in a rebuilt jerusalem. he bases this belief on rev. xx, - and says he holds this doctrine as part of the body of christian faith. he adds, however, that "many good and true christians think otherwise." this later statement is the more notable as it is the only difference between orthodox christians which he mentions. he places the ebionites outside the christian pale. the first non-chiliasts we meet with in christian history are the gnostics. of their actual position on chiliasm we know practically nothing except by inference. they did not apparently fight it. they simply tacitly ignored it. in the long and minute descriptions of various gnostic systems that have come down to us nothing is said on the subject; but the systems as outlined leave no place for the chiliastic doctrines. the first open enemies of chiliasm that are to be found in the church are the alogi, a sect that flourished in asia minor about - a.d. according to harnack: "the representatives of this movement were, as far as we know, the first in the church to undertake a historical criticism, worthy of the name, of the christian scriptures and the church tradition."[ ] they were rationalisticly inclined, desired to keep prophecy out of the church and denied on essentially the same internal grounds as modern students, the johannine authorship of the revelation and also of the fourth gospel. with less reason they ascribed the revelation to the heretic cerinthus. unfortunately we know but little about them. hippolytus wrote against them and defended the apostolic authorship of revelation and the fourth gospel in two books now lost. but the alogi are criticised only mildly, and indeed irenaeus does not class them as heretics at all. opposition to chiliasm was manifestly not looked upon as an important matter in the last quarter of the second century--at least in rome.[ ] to this same period belong the writings of gaius of rome who asserts that the heretic cerinthus wrote the revelation, and also those of bishop melito of sardis, a saint of great repute, who was an ardent chiliast. so that at this period both chiliasm and non-chiliasm would seem to be perhaps equally wide spread and certainly equally permissable. irenaeus, bishop of lyons - a.d., was a strong chiliast. he describes in minute detail the overthrow of the roman empire, the reign of anti-christ for days (three and half years) the visible advent of christ, the binding of satan, the joyful reign of christ in the rebuilt jerusalem with the risen saints and martyrs over the nations of the world for a thousand years. then follows the temporary raging of satan, the last victory, the general resurrection and judgment, and the consumation of all things in a new heaven and a new earth. the ascription of genuine divine inspiration to the sibylline oracles by the early church writers is well known. it is a noteworthy fact that the chiliasts[ ] seem to be much more inclined to quote the oracles than the non-chiliasts. the christians' addiction to the oracles called forth the derision of celsus.[ ] origen makes no defense and it is at least possible to conjecture that the reason is that he disapproved of the use made of the oracles by the chiliasts. the oracles were of course made use of by all sorts of agencies which for any reason wished ill to the roman authority and yet dared not indulge in secular sedition. some enthusiastic chiliast put forth an oracle, probably in the reign of marcus aurelius, which was more definite than prudent. according to this prediction the end of rome and the final consumation of all things was due in the year - a.d.[ ] there is reason to believe that this prophecy represented the belief of a considerable number of christian chiliasts. while there is no extant evidence to that effect, it is a rational deduction, that when the year - a.d. passed without any unusual occurrences, the prestige of the persons trusting the oracle would be damaged. so far as these persons were chiliasts, chiliasm would suffer in repute. that this was actually the case is as nearly certain as any logical conclusion about psychological reactions well can be. about the year a.d. there arose in phrygia the movement called montanism. essentially it was a reaction against the growing secularization of christianity. it spread to the rest of asia minor, egypt, italy, spain, and especially carthage and surrounding districts in north africa. it was the strongest movement in favor of a revival of primitive puritanism that occurs in early church history. it lasted in the east almost till the arab invasion; in the west it did not die out until the time of augustine. the montanists are the most pronounced chiliasts we meet with. not indeed in their theory but in their practice. one syrian montanist bishop "persuaded many brethren with their wives and children to go to meet christ in the wilderness; another in pontus induced his people to sell all their possessions, to cease tilling their lands, to conclude no more marriages, etc., because the coming of the lord was nigh at hand."[ ] the montanist prophetess, prisca, about a.d. said: "after me there will come no other prophetess but the end." a peculiarity of eastern montanistic chiliasm was the idea that christ would reign not in jerusalem but in pepuza, a small town in phrygia. in accord with this idea montanus tried to get all believers to settle in this town to await the lord's coming. the western montanists however, of whom tertullian was chief, held to the regular belief that the messianic kingdom would be centered in jerusalem. because of certain theological beliefs aside from chiliasm, the montanists aroused the antagonism of the church authorities. the earliest church councils to be met with after new testament times were called for the purpose of dealing with montanism which was finally denounced as a heresy and after the triumph of the church some imperial edicts were issued against the sect. for the first time in the attack on montanism at the end of the second and early part of the third century we find chiliastic beliefs referred to as 'carnal and jewish.' there is no formal condemnation of chiliasm as such, but once more, and much more seriously than in the case of the ebionites, chiliasm suffered from being associated in the minds of orthodox christians with heresy and schism. it would however be very easy to exaggerate the effect of this and it is necessary to bear in mind that while the literature of montanism is fairly considerable, chiliasm is an entirely subordinate matter in the controversy and indeed seems sometimes to be mentioned merely casually. the chiliastic writers are perhaps more inclined to view montanism leniently. irenaeus does not include it in his list of heresies. its association with montanism brought chiliasm into disrepute and suspicion with the church hierarchy and it is not surprising that beginning with the last years of the second century we find a deliberate system of suppression adopted by certain ecclesiastical authorities--notably in egypt. as we shall try to show later, the declension of chiliasm can be only very imperfectly explained by official antagonism. but so far as this declension can be ascribed to individuals, the three great alexandrian divines; clement, origen, and dionysius have a prominent part. the influence of these men counted the more as it was consistently exercised in the same locality with increasing force during a period of more than half a century. the first of these writers, clement ( - a.d.) does not specifically refer to the chiliasts but there are a number of passages where he evidently has them in mind.[ ] however the probability is that this very refraining from direct attack made his efforts the more successful. he emphasizes the fact that scriptural statements--particularly scriptural numbers--are not to be taken literally but are to be understood as of mystical significance. if clement consciously aimed at the extirpation of chiliasm (which is not absolutely certain) he at any rate took the most effective means for accomplishing that result. the great presupposition upon which christian chiliasm has been based is that of the literal interpretation of scripture. by attacking that presupposition clement caused the doctrine to be questioned by many persons whose attachment to chiliasm would doubtless have only been strengthened by direct attack upon that tenet in particular. he prepared the way for the open and far more powerful attacks upon chiliasm made by his great successor in the catechetical school, origen ( - a.d.). the position of this great theologian is the most equivocal of any writer who has attained eminence in christian theology. how far anything he wrote is to be considered as orthodox is a most difficult matter to determine. the fact that origen opposed chiliasm, taken by itself, apart from the subsequent fate of the doctrine, could just as easily be made a commendation as a condemnation of that belief. almost alone among christian men origen has been removed from the calendar of catholic saints after having been duly received as a saint for the space of more than a hundred and fifty years. this unique fact, which is of course of far more importance for theology than for history, has nevertheless a bearing on our subject. the condemnation of origen came too late to save the chiliastic apologetic in the east but it very possibly may have had an indirect influence in the matter of continuing the repute of western chiliasm. origen attacked chiliasm in two vital points: first he insisted even more strongly than clement upon the figurative or mystical or 'typical' interpretation of scripture. in this regard he specifically quotes a number of chiliastic passages of scripture and definitely says that their meaning is to be taken figuratively.[ ] but more important than that, he definitely substitutes the theory of progressive development of the intellectual and spiritual element of man for the physical and sensuous earthly kingdom of the chiliasts. this was certainly a great gain for the anti-chiliastic theory which for the first time took a logical and comprehensible if a somewhat metaphysical form. however it must be admitted that the argument of origen though wonderfully clear headed and almost miraculously modern[ ] is too purely intellectual and cast in too philosophical a form to have any direct influence on ordinary individuals. it was doubtless quite in place in the catechetical school and among scholars in the great centers of ancient learning but outside those limits its influence--at least directly--must have been very small. nepos, an egyptian bishop, answered origen in a book entitled: "refutation of allegorists." this book is lost but we know that it was considered by the chiliasts to be a work of the most powerful and indeed irrefutable sort. in the arsinoite nome (on the west bank of the nile south of memphis) the chiliastic doctrines were held by whole villages together and dionysius the great (bishop of alexandria - a.d.) found it necessary to visit this region and hold a public argument and instruction in order to avert a schism. by the tact and conciliatory attitude of the bishop the chiliasts were either won over to the non-chiliastic view or at least expressed their gratification at the conference. it would appear, however, as if this synod or meeting was not sufficient to destroy the influence of nepos' book so dionysius wrote in refutation of it two books "on the promises." except for a few fragments these books have perished. we know merely that the first book contained a statement of the non-chiliastic view and the second a detailed discussion of the revelation in relation to chiliasm and to the views of nepos. however, dionysius, who was well aware that as long as the 'revelation of st. john' was received as a genuine work of the apostle it would be difficult to oppose chiliasm, gives a very strong argument against the apostolic authorship while diplomatically saying at the beginning of his discussion that he is able to agree that the revelation is the work of a holy and inspired man.[ ] there is no reason to doubt that this refutation of nepos by dionysius met with success wherever christian hellenisticism exercised influence. but it by no means extirpated chiliasm in egypt. for many generations after its author's death chiliasm was still believed by the monks of the thebiad. in fact a large number of jewish apocalypses which the early christians accepted as inspired are preserved to us bound up in coptic and ethiopic copies of the scriptures. the alexandrians had, however, succeeded so well that in the subsequent period there are only two defenders of chiliasm in the eastern church that are worthy of mention. these two are methodius of tyre and apollinaris of laodicea. methodius - a.d. was bishop first of olympus and patara in lycia and afterwards of tyre in phoenicia. he is notable for his opposition to origen and for his relatively more spiritualized chiliasm. he maintains that in the millennium, death will be abolished and the inhabitants of the earth will not marry or beget children but live in all happiness like the angels without change or decay. he is very careful to insist upon the literal resurrection of the body, however, and emphasizes the fact that the risen saints while like the angels do not become angels.[ ] he died a martyr at chalcis in greece. apollinaris of laodicea ( ?- a.d.) is a notable figure in christological controversy but unfortunately very little that he wrote has come down to us, and of that little the authenticity is not entirely unimpeachable. we are constrained to get his chiliastic views from the writings of his theological opponents and unfortunately there is not wanting evidence to the effect that these opponents, basil the great and gregory nazianzen, notable christians as they were, were not lacking in bias. gregory[ ] calls the chiliastic doctrine of the apolinarians 'gross and carnal,' a 'second judaism' and speaks of 'their silly thousand years delight in paradise.' basil[ ] calls the chiliasm of apolinaris 'mythical or rather jewish,' 'ridiculous,' and 'contrary to the doctrines of the gospel.' this is, so far as the writer is aware, the first instance in which any great theologian goes to such extremes and basil's language, though strong, is not altogether without an element of hesitation and questioning. in short it would seem that he asserted more than he felt sure of being able to prove--no rare phenomenon unfortunately in certain of the great contraversialists. if basil's statements are to be taken at their face value apollinaris was indeed the most judaizing christian in his chiliasm of any of whom we have record. he would seem to justify basil's jibe 'we are to be altogether turned from christians into jews,' for in his messianic kingdom not only is the temple at jerusalem to be restored but also the worship of the old law, with high priest, sacrifices, the ashes of a heifer, the jealousy offering, shew bread, burning lamps, circumcision and other such things which basil indignantly denounces as 'figments,' 'mere old wives' fables' and 'doctrines of jews.'[ ] although apollinarianism was condemned by a council at alexandria as early as a.d. and roman councils followed suit in and and the second ecumenical council in and though imperial degrees were issued against it in , and it persisted for many generations. the last condemnation on record is that of the quinisextum synod a.d. in this case, as in others mentioned, we see the unfortunate fate of chiliasm in getting mixed up with heresies with which it, as such, had nothing to do. the extraordinary detestation which overtook apollinaris as arch-heretic par excellence seems to have finally discouraged chiliasm in the eastern church. it was reckoned as a heresy thereafter and though it appears sporadically down to our own day it is of no more interest for our purpose. in the western church chiliasm prevailed until the time of augustine. it seems to have provoked very little discussion or controversy. hippolytus, a.d., carries on the chiliastic tradition of irenaeus but with a certain degree of assured futurity about the second advent not found in the earlier writers. this pushing of the second advent into the future is a marked feature of western chiliasm. by a weird use of 'types' hippolytus proves with entire conclusiveness to himself that the second advent is to occur in the year a.d.[ ] the overthrow of rome has a prominent part in his elaborate description of the last times but he veils his statements with a certain amount of transparent discretion.[ ] he has in all other essential respects the same ideas as irenaeus but expressed in a less naïve form. he is a transition figure. his second advent is far enough off to allow some considerable latitude for the building up of the ecclesiastical hierarchy which was the business of rome and he emphasizes the point that the "gospel must first be preached to all nations." john the baptist reappears as the precursor of christ. commodianus, a north african bishop, a.d., represents the generation after hippolytus. his two poems present rather different versions of chiliasm. the first is a simple and rather pleasing version.[ ] the only notable variation it contains is that the risen saints in the millennial kingdom are to be served by the nobles of the conquered anti-christ. the second poem is an apologetic against jews and gentiles. "the author expects the end of the world will come with the seventh persecution. the goths will conquer rome and redeem the christians; but then nero will appear again as the heathen anti-christ, reconquer rome and rage against the christians three years and a half. he will in turn be conquered by the jewish and real anti-christ from the east, who, after the defeat of nero and the burning of rome, will return to judea, perform false miracles and be worshipped by the jews. at last christ appears with the lost tribes, as his army, who had lived beyond persia in happy simplicity and virtue. under astounding phenomena of nature he will conquer anti-christ and his host, convert all nations and take possession of the holy city of jerusalem."[ ] this double anti-christ is perhaps the most notable variation. this idea reappears later, as does the nero return which would seem to have been current belief. there are perhaps only two other writers before augustine that are worthy of mention, victorinus and lactantius. victorinus, bishop of poetovio, i.e., petair in austria, martyred a.d., is the earliest exegete of the latin church. his 'commentary on the apocalypse' has come down to us in bad shape. the chiliasm is of a type which may be described as formal and ritualistic in the sense that it is expressed in a matter of fact way as something not needing explanation, much less proof. there are only two new ideas: "the first resurrection is now of the souls that are by the faith, which does not permit men to pass over to the second death"[ ] and "those years wherein satan is bound are in the first advent of christ even to the end of the age; and they are called a thousand according to that mode of speaking wherein a part is signified by the whole--although they are not a thousand."[ ] lactantius the preceptor of crispus, son of constantine, brings us to the chiliasm of the established church. the end of the present age and the coming of the millennial kingdom are at the latest years in the future, probably nearer, but the event instead of being looked toward to, is dreaded. the forthcoming destruction of rome is bewailed. the world is safe as long as rome stands. nero is to be anti-christ. "they who shall be alive in their bodies shall not die, but during those thousand years shall produce an infinite multitude, and their offspring shall be holy and beloved of god; but they who shall be raised from the dead shall preside over the living as judges. the nations shall not be entirely extinguished, but some shall be left as a victory for god, that they may be the occasion of triumph to the righteous and may be subjected to perpetual slavery."[ ] the chiliasm of lactantius is proved from the sibylline oracles and from the philosopher chrysippus, a stoic. for the rest lactantius repeats the traditional christian and pre-christian jewish chiliastic concepts with very little variation, but it is evident that the fact that the fall of rome is dreaded will work out a change. the chiliasm of lactantius is unstable, not that there is the slightest breath of doubt about it, but that the attitude of mind which looked forward with dread to the second advent could be depended upon to find a theory for postponing it. chiliasm is ready for its transformation. in the century between lactantius and augustine there is no chiliast of note in the west. it is abundantly evident however, from the works of augustine that chiliasm was common during that period as well as in the time of augustine. indeed augustine himself was a chiliast though probably not an exceedingly literal one, during his early period in the church.[ ] it is certain that he never regarded the doctrine as heretical. even in the very book in which he puts forth the doctrine which eventually superseded chiliasm he says: "this opinion would not be objectionable if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that sabbath[ ] shall be spiritual and consequent on the presence of god."[ ] we have in this quotation a hint as to the reason why he abandoned chiliasm. he elaborates this in the immediately following passage: "as they say that those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed only by the carnal."[ ] disgust with this literal interpretation of the scripture was thus one of the reasons which drew augustine away from chiliasm. a more direct reason was that he had an idea of his own as to how the chiliastic scriptural passage[ ] should be interpreted. the discussion in which he vanquishes the chiliastic concept is a model of contraversial method. it would be difficult to find its superior either in sacred or profane polemics. perfectly conscious of his own powers to make chiliasm appear at once absurd and ridiculous he refrains from doing so. abundantly able though he was to refute the millennians point by point he deliberately foregoes that method of attack. his argument which overthrew an ancient, famous, and widespread doctrine of primitive christianity contains hardly a line either of refutation or condemnation. it is perhaps the finest example in christian literature of the 'positive apologetic.' the chiliastic literature, even that which has come down to us, contains so much that is fantastic and ludicrous that it would have been very easy for a man of far less power than augustine to hold it up to contempt and scorn. it abounds in the same kind of absurdities and incongruities as the pagan myths which provoked so many stinging pages from the early apologists and from augustine himself. the fact that augustine did not yield to the temptation to make his opponents ridiculous is in the highest degree creditable to his head and his heart. he did not violate the precepts of christian charity and he obtained a victory greater than would have been within even his power had he yielded to the natural temptation of a great intellect to show up the mental inferiority of his opponents. it is interesting to compare augustine's treatment of chiliasm with origen's. the two men are very comparable as regards extent and variety of knowledge, intellectual power, and philosophic insight. they are very unlike however, in their treatment of the subject. origen simply explains away the whole chiliastic concept or rather so spiritualizes it that nothing resembling the original idea is left. his whole insistence is that it must be taken figuratively, and without the least warrant he asserts that his interpretation is "according to the understanding of the apostles."[ ] he makes the whole subject so subjective, so intellectual, so metaphysical that there is left no content for the ordinary man to hold to in place of that which is demolished. in the overthrow of eastern chiliasm origen holds as conspicuous a position as augustine in the overthrow of western. he did away with a doctrine, too carnal perhaps, but at any rate concrete and comforting, and he substituted an intellectual abstraction. for instance in explaining, or better explaining away, the chiliastic feasts in the new jerusalem he says:[ ] "the rational nature growing by each individual step, enlarged in understanding and in power of perception is increased in intellectual growth; and ever gazing purely on the causes of things it attains perfection, firstly, viz., that by which it ascends to the truth, and secondly that by which it abides in it, having problems and the understanding of things and the causes of things as the food on which it may feast. and in all things this food is to be understood as the contemplation and understanding of god, which is of a measure appropriate and suitable to this nature, which was made and created, etc." this kind of thing is the intellectual equivalent of the process in physics by which the scientist takes some tangible solid body and proceeds first to liquify it, then to volitilize it and finally to blow it entirely away. we strongly suspect that the eastern chiliasts felt that the whole thing was a kleptistic legerdemain by which they were deprived of a favorite doctrine without receiving anything in place of it. augustine's method differs toto caelo from this. while origen handles the subject like a metaphysician, augustine handles it like a statesman. his doctrine is just as concrete as the one he displaces. he takes nothing away without giving something equally tangible and of better quality in its place. the transition from chiliasm to the origenistic conception of the future, would be, for the ordinary person, an incredible and almost impossible intellectual feat. the transition from chiliasm to the augustinian conception of the future is natural, easy, and perfectly within the power of a very ordinary and commonplace mentality. as a matter of fact it made its way without the smallest difficulty into the religious consciousness of the whole of western christianity. any person who aims at changing the theological opinions of others can find no better manual of method than the twentieth book of the city of god. augustine was very careful to keep all the symbols, catch words, and paraphernalia of chiliasm. he was careful not only to keep them all but to keep them all in their literal sense. he explains away none of them and allegorizes none of them. by carefully preserving the ancient shibboleths he was easily able to empty them of their former content. he holds to the millennium, the idea that is, of thousand years, as firmly as any chiliast but he says the thousand years is to be reckoned as dating from the establishment of the church on earth i.e., the first coming of christ. so he is careful to preserve the phrase: "the reign of the saints"; he merely substitutes for the chiliastic content of that phase the very comfortable and plausable doctrine that the saints are his own christian contemporaries. he is very skillful, not to say flattering, in his method of 'putting this across.' so he retains similarly the old formula about the two resurrections--but makes the first resurrection out to be the marvelous transformation and participation in the resurrection of christ which the christian experiences by virtue of the sacrament of baptism. more important still is his new content for the phrase "kingdom of heaven." this instead of a state of future blessedness becomes the already existing church on earth. finally he indulges in a long and apparently straight faced discussion as to whether the reign of anti-christ--which he preserves in its most literal form with the regulation duration of three years and a half--whether this is to be reckoned as part of the thousand years or not. this inconsequential detail is labored at length in such a manner as to delight the soul of any good bible reading chiliast. by preserving till the last this single element of chiliasm which he leaves untouched and then treating it in the good, old, religious fashion of irenaeus or some other primitive worthy, he very skillfully disarms criticism and it is only by a strong effort that the reader realizes what a tremendous blow has been struck at the original chiliastic doctrine. let us see what the changes of augustine amount to. it is not less than the total destruction of chiliasm, or at the very least the postponement of the end of the world till the year a.d. augustine's doctrine is essentially that of the ordinary, orthodox, bible christian today. sometime in the future--augustine said possibly in the year a.d.--christ was to come again to the earth. then follows the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and heaven and hell. the questions about the three years and a half of anti-christ, together with gog and magog--great favorites with the chiliasts--are held to be insoluble as to the time of their appearance; whether to be reckoned as part of the thousand years or immediately succeeding it. it is commonly said that augustine is responsible for the belief that the world was to come to an end in the year a.d. this is not strictly correct. augustine nowhere makes that direct assertion. he nowhere--so far as the writer is aware--even implies it. what he does is to offer it as a possible alternative hypothesis to the idea that the thousand years, (since is the cube of ,) is to be taken as a statement of the total duration of the world. as the matter is of some interest we give the original passage in dod's translation:[ ] "now the thousand years may be understood in two ways so far as occurs to me: either because these things happen in the sixth thousand of years or sixth millennium (the latter part of which is now passing) as if during the sixth day, which is to be followed by a sabbath which has no evening, the endless rest of the saints, so that, speaking of a part under the name of the whole, he calls the last part of the millennium--the part that is which had yet to expire before the end of the world--a thousand years; or he used the thousand years as an equivalent for the whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fullness of time. for a thousand is the cube of ten.... for the same reason we cannot better interpret the words of the psalm. "the word which he commanded to a thousand generations," than by understanding it to mean, "to all generations." the above sketch summarizes essentially all that has survived about the chiliasm of the early church. the chiliastic passages in the church literature up to and including augustine, though rather widely scattered, are not great in bulk. if printed together they would make only a moderate sized pamphlet. but their importance is by no means to be measured by their size. chiliasm, better than any other movement of the early period, serves as a standard for measuring the degree of the socialization of christianity. it comprises the only body of doctrine which passed from practically universal acceptance to practically universal repudiation during the period when the church changed from a small esoteric cult to a dominant factor of society. considered from this point of view, the causes of the decline of chiliasm possess a historical importance out of all proportion to the importance of chiliasm itself. more than any other religious movement of the time chiliasm was free from the direct pressure of distinctly religious influences. its declension was more nearly a case of unconscious social and psychological determinism than any other contemporary theological phenomenon. its chief supporters and opponents are not to be regarded so much as factors in its history, as points where the socializing forces operating in the early church become for the moment visible. certain facts stand out even in the short epitome we have given. chiliasm never became powerful in the great cities. it survived longest and was most popular in regions[ ] comparatively cut off from the great centers of civilization. hellenizing influences were unfavorable to it, romanizing influences indifferent to it. the reasons for this are numerous and most of them have been treated sufficiently by previous investigators, but in the writer's judgment certain other important influences have been either slighted or entirely ignored. we shall consider one or two. the supremely important fact in early christian history is the development of the concept of "the church" as an independent, self-existing, metaphysical entity. this metaphysical entity was conceived as embodying itself in the whole body of believers; living, dead, and yet to be born. the entity was eternal, indestructible, and in its essence immutable. although partially embodied in a visible society its essential being was conceived as independently sustained in the nature of the universe. it was an idea in the strict platonic sense. no concept like this is found in the contemporary pagan cults. even the jewish concept of the 'chosen people' is ethnic or national rather than purely religious and it has no tinge of that metaphysical existence which is the most notable element in the catholic concept of the church. the elements out of which 'the church' concept was constructed were four: two roman, one greek and one hebrew. the roman lawyers, in the process of fitting a municipal legal system to a world empire, evolved the twin legal entities, 'state' and 'sovereignty.' these entities were endowed with divers qualities; eternity, immutability, etc., but especially with the quality of having existential reality apart from any individual embodiment thereof. greek philosophy contributed the idea of the cosmopolis, the ideal world-city in which the fullest development of human personality was to be attained. this concept was as purely metaphysical as the self-existing, absolute 'state' of the roman law, but unlike the roman concept it had no concrete existence. the jewish contribution was that of the 'chosen people,' 'the elect nation.' these four concepts were transferred from their original loci to the christian society. the fact that all of these concepts were combined and centered on the same social group and the further fact that each of these concepts supplemented the others in a remarkable way resulted in the formation of one of the most powerful ideas in religious history. this church concept, thus built up, had already become widespread in the time of augustine and this fact helps us to understand the otherwise unintelligible success of that saint in combatting chiliasm. the real truth is seen to be that augustine's ideas succeeded because they were not peculiarly his at all--they already existed, implicitly but really, in the mind of the generation which he addressed. the elements of the concept 'the church' being what they were, augustine's explanation of, or rather abolition of, chiliasm follows of inevitable logical and intellectual necessity. it was the genius of augustine that he recognized and gave formulated, concrete expression to this accomplished fact and it is no derogation of his genius to say that had he never existed the accomplished fact would eventually have been given expression to by some one else. another little considered element in chiliasm is that of masochism, and sadism, the two being merely the opposite sides of the same psychical phenomenon. this element is found more or less prominently in all the chiliastic literature from the early fragment of papias to the elaborate discussions of augustine. the masochistic phenomena are the most remarkable characteristics of the early martyrdoms and if a collection were made of the masochistic passages of the writings of the chiliasts, the bulk of them would be as great as that of the chiliastic passages proper. it is necessary to bear in mind that masochism necessarily, in any advanced society, disguises itself under some socially acceptable form of sentiment or emotion, i.e., admiration for the constancy of the confessors or martyrs, suffering as a mark of the true church, etc. it is always associated with the reality or idea of struggle. it has a high 'survival value' in the struggle for existence by heightening individual power in conflict. like other human characteristics it is seen most clearly in the exaggerated form it assumes in its crowd manifestations. its most evident expression is in the 'mob mind.' our problem, then, is to discover how the declension of chiliasm is to be explained by the transfer of the masochistic element in it to other vehicles of expression. the masochistic element was a vital factor in chiliasm; without it almost the whole force of 'the thousand years reign of the saints' is lost. the explanation of the transfer is difficult. undoubtedly some of the masochistic values of chiliasm were taken over by the various, previously mentioned concepts that combined to make up the idea of the catholic church. 'extra ecclesia nulla salus' accounts for part of the phenomena previously expressed chiliastically. it is notable in this connection that there is no word of chiliasm in cyprian. but a more important transfer was that which took place in the course of the development of the doctrine of purgatory. it may perhaps seem incongruous to say that purgatory took over the values of the millennium and from the point of view of formal theology it is so. but the only point we are trying to make here, namely, the fundamental fact of the expression of masochistic impulses, is as evidently shown in the purgatory as in the millennium concept. the desire for a heightened sense of self-realization, a richer content of experience, is the cause of the appearance of both concepts and they are closely allied psychologically. this fact comes out in the large part played by the chiliasts in the evolution of the purgatory concept.[ ] what we find here is a concurrent declension of chiliasm and development of purgatory. for about two centuries the two concepts existed side by side; then the superior social value of purgatory asserting itself, that doctrine gradually took over the masochistic values of chiliasm; the supersession of the later being rendered thereby more rapid and easy. however it is probably that the transfer of the psychological values from chiliasm was more to be ascribed to the rising asceticism of the early church than to the concept of the church as such, or even to the rise of the purgatory concept. asceticism in some form is a permanent element in any wide spread religion and the values later expressed in christian asceticism were in the earlier period mediated through chiliasm. when st. paul advocated abstinence from marriage 'because the time is short' he was not expressing asceticism. he was expressing a sensible idea based on belief in one of the chief chiliastic doctrines, the immediate imminence of the second advent. in the case of such teachers as tertullian the doctrine of marriage is the result of a combination of chiliasm and asceticism. at a later date asceticism took over the doctrine of celibacy as meritorious on its own account but it never outgrew the original chiliastic view that it was a logical preparation for the second advent. in other words restriction in matrimony whether chiliastic or monastic is due to the same inherent element in human nature, i.e., the masochistic. similarly those good phrygian chiliasts who abandoned all their possessions and went out into the desert to meet the lord were moved by the same psychological impulse that actuated the monks of the thebaid. historically the one set of concepts imperceptibly gave way to the other. those same thebaid monks are a good illustration of the fact. some of them, at least in the earlier stages of the movement, were influenced more by chiliastic concepts than by monastic ones. many were influenced by both. here again the superior value of the ascetic concepts for the ecclesiastical organization determined the eventual survival of the monastic institution. but whatever the conceptual images employed to give expression to the masochistic impulse, that impulse was psychologically the same. organized monachism furnished a more convenient outlet for the stronger masochistic impulses than chiliasm and so superseded it. the fact that monachism grew in proportion as chiliasm declined is in this respect merely a case of trans-shipment. the vehicle was different but the goods carried were the same. there are numerous other social and psychological, as well as economic causes for the declension of chiliasm but they can perhaps be more conveniently considered in connection with the socialization of the early church. footnotes: [ ] f. pollock, essays in jurisprudence and ethics, p. . [ ] cf. i enoch xci-civ. [ ] cf. parables in i enoch xxxvii-lxxi. [ ] cf. apocalypse of baruch; ezra, maccabees. [ ] irenaeus adv. haer. v . ii baruch xxix. [ ] hist. of dogma, vol. iii, p. . [ ] ens. h. e. vi - . [ ] justin martyn, tertullian, lactantius. [ ] ad. celsus lxi. [ ] sib. orac. viii, seq. [ ] hippolytus, com. on daniel. [ ] strom. vii, ; vi ; iv ; v , . [ ] de princ, ii, . [ ] cf. e.g., a. r. wallace, the world of life. [ ] eus. h. e. vii . [ ] discourse on the resurrection, i, seq. see also conviv. ix, , . [ ] ep. cii, . [ ] ep. cclxiii, . [ ] cp. cclxv, . [ ] frag. dan. i, , . [ ] de christo et antic. . [ ] instructions, lxxx. [ ] schaff hist., ii, . sec. lxvii of poem. [ ] comm. xx . . [ ] comm. xx . . [ ] div. ins. bk. xxiv. [ ] c.d. xx . [ ] i.e., the millennium. [ ] c.d. xx . [ ] rev. xx. [ ] de prin. ii, , . [ ] de prin. ii, , . [ ] city of god in nicene and post nicene fathers, st series, vol. ii, p. . [ ] e.g., lydia, phrygia, the thebaid. [ ] clem. alex. paed., iii, strom. vii. origen, hom. on num., xxv. hom. on ps. xxvi. lactantius, vii, . chapter ii the early church and property concepts the chiliasm of the early christians had a direct bearing upon their attitude toward the property institutions and property concepts of the time. neither the declension of chiliasm nor the progressive socialization of the church can be understood without some consideration of the attitude of the christians toward property, and conversely the effect of the existing economic system upon the christians. the early church made its appearance in a world where the institution of private property was supreme in fact and very largely unquestioned in theory. it is recognized with perfect clearness by all the ancient thinkers who refer to the subject that their civilization was based upon the property rights of man in man. it is not true that slavery was invariably considered part of the unalterable law of nature. aristotle expressly states that a sufficient development of mechanistic technology would abrogate slavery. but such a technological development was not expected nor indeed wished for. contempt for mechanical processes of industry was universal, with the dubious exception of the application of science to military engines. there is a similar unanimity in regard to commercial enterprise. money obtained by ordinary mercantile methods was considered as dishonestly acquired. it was assumed as self-evident that the merchant had to be a thief. interest on money was of course reprobated as contrary to nature.[ ] return from landed property was almost the only socially reputable form of income--with the exception of spoils of war. free wage labor was so unimportant that the roman law did not even develop a set of legal principles regarding it. the jewish property system, which originally had some notable peculiarities of its own, had by the first century a.d. become of necessity so like the roman that the differences may for our purposes be disregarded. the more so as christianity very early came almost exclusively under the influence of the roman institutions and concepts in this regard. it is perhaps unnecessary to add that roman practice in regard to property was widely at variance with roman theory, with the result that serious moral disintegration came over persons engaging in commercial enterprises. the moral lapses of the early christians are largely to be set down to this cause, on the principle that a destruction of moral integrity in one respect makes other delinquencies easy. with respect to the attitude of christ towards contemporary property institutions, it is unnecessary for our purpose to regard any conclusions of modern criticism. the synoptic gospels were uncritically accepted by the early church and we are concerned merely with what was commonly accepted as the teaching of christ. perhaps as convenient a way as any of illustrating the breadth of view in christ's attitude toward property institutions would be to take a single illustration and apply to it the whole range of property concepts found in the teachings of christ. no single illustration is so applied in the gospels as we have them, but the principles will be the clearer for the consistent use of the same illustration. we shall take as our type case one which christ himself used; the case of a thief who steals a coat. the teachings of christ about property can conveniently be put down under four heads, each illustrating, by a different way of treating the thief, a different property concept. first: the ordinary or conventional manner of treating the thief, based on the concept of the morality and sacredness of private property; i.e., catching the thief, recovering the stolen property and punishing the crime by fine or imprisonment or torture. this conventional standard of morality and attitude towards property is illustrated, e.g., in the story of the man with one talent in the parable. it is very concisely summed up in the expression: "to him that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." second: what may be called for convenience the socialistic manner of treating the thief--no implications either good or bad being intended by the use of the term socialistic. this treatment would consist of catching the thief, recovering the stolen property but letting the thief go free with merely an admonition to future good behavior. this treatment is based on the concept that the institution of private property has only a partial validity and that violations of private property rights are to be blamed not alone upon the violator but upon society at large in equal degree. this attitude is illustrated in the case of the woman taken in adultery: "neither do i condemn thee; go and sin no more." the illustration is perhaps more apt than appears at first glance for female chastity is and was legally possessed of tangible economic value i.e., adultery was viewed as a violation of a property right belonging to the husband of the adultress. third: what may be termed the anarchistic manner of treating the thief--here again no implications either good or bad are intended by the employment of the term anarchistic. this treatment consists essentially in pacificism, in tolstoi's non-resistance. it is purely negative and allows the thief to get away with the stolen coat without anyone making any move to recover the property. this treatment is based on the concept that private property institutions have no validity at all, but that the only valid property arrangement is that of pure communism. this attitude toward property is illustrated by such sayings of christ as "of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again;" "resist not him that is evil," etc. fourth: what may be distinguished as the specifically christian manner of treating the thief--using the word christian as appertaining strictly to the founder of the church. this treatment consists of running after the thief not for the purpose of capturing and punishing him; not even for the purpose of recovering the stolen coat but for the purpose of giving him a vest and an overcoat in addition to what he has stolen. it amounts to the direct encouragement and reward of the thief for doing what is presumably a meritorious action by stealing. this way of treating a thief is not socialistic, or communistic; it is not even anarchistic. it is something as far beyond anarchy, as anarchy is beyond socialism, or socialism beyond ordinary conventional individualism. it is specifically and peculiarly and uniquely christian, using that word as above defined. this treatment is not based on any concept of any kind of property institution. its logical, intellectual position is the denial of the validity or worth of any property institutions, private or communistic. it involves indeed the destruction of the very concept property as implying possession by right of social agreement. this attitude of christ toward property finds expression in such sayings as: "from him that taketh away thy cloke withhold not thy coat also." "blessed are ye poor." "woe unto you that are rich." it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, etc. etc. the great bulk of christ's statements about property are to be classified under this fourth head. the views are probably connected, with just what degree of closeness it is impossible to say, to the belief in the immediately imminent catastrophe of the world. with somewhat less certainty, it may be ventured that certain of christ's sayings which we have listed as anarchistic are perhaps influenced by the same idea. it is of course obvious that the above four fold division is not exact in the strict scientific sense, or that any teaching of christ concerning property can be unhesitatingly classified under one head or another. still less is anything intended to be implied as to the existence or non-existence of any underlying, universal, theological principle which would reconcile apparent divergencies. theological metaphysics as such, lie outside the scope of this chapter which is intended as an objective study of concepts of property. from an objective point of view it is evident that the four divisions imperceptibly shade into one another and form a continuous series, nevertheless for the sake of convenience it may be considered as approximating a rational organization of the material under distinct heads. immediately after the time of christ the christians in jerusalem developed a communistic organization. "all that believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need." "neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."[ ] it is doubtless true that the participants in this communistic society believed themselves to be living according to the principles and precepts of christ. yet there is some evidence which would lead to the conclusion that perhaps this experiment was less a deliberate and reasoned out endeavor to organize a permanent society on a new economic basis, than an instinctive movement, entered upon under the influence of a belief in the immediately imminent second advent of christ and therefore expected to be of only very limited duration. the collections subsequently taken up in other christian communities 'for the relief of the poor saints in jerusalem' would seem to lend color to this view of the matter. in st. paul's teaching about property there is a fundamental inconsistency. he makes statements which taken separately are applicable to particular situations but which are not in harmony with one another. he loyally supported the established right of private property, even in slaves. but at another time he pronounced that property right depended upon service rendered. in one place we have: "slaves obey your masters" in another: "if any will not work neither let him eat." but if a man's slaves obey him he can eat without working. there is no suggestion of communism in st. paul's writings. if all the 'property passages' in the epistles are collected and read in connection with their contexts two facts come into prominence, first: property institutions as such have only a relative validity. they are not viewed as ends valuable in themselves but are subordinated to religious ends, and the concept of an immediately imminent second advent lies at the base of this relative valuation.[ ] second: economic arrangements of the existing social order, like similar political arrangements, are to be strictly conformed to, in spite of their merely relative validity, for fear of jeopardizing the more important religious movement.[ ] st. paul whether consciously or not, is, in regard to social institutions, an evolutionary revolutionist. he would doubtless have been the first to admit that his doctrine of human brotherhood, for example, would eventually overthrow his doctrine of slavery, supposing--as there is no ground for thinking he did suppose--that time enough elapsed for his doctrine of brotherhood to permeate the general social consciousness. in so far as property concepts are concerned it would probably be difficult to maintain that there is any essential divergence between the teachings of st. paul and some at least of the teachings of christ. st. paul was by nature an ecclesiastical statesman. he seems to have taken such of christ's property concepts as served his purposes and ignored the others. in the epistle of st. james are to be found very bitter complaints as to the working of property institutions. these complaints are so serious as to suggest the inevitable attempt to make over the institutions and the fact that no such attempt is indicated is due to the manifestly lively expectation of the second advent. yet even so it was necessary for the writer to council patience to his brethren.[ ] in the revelation there is a passage, xviii, seq., quite in the manner of the most violent of the ancient prophets or the modern anarchists. in this passage property is conceived as evil and the destruction of civilization as it then was, is conceived as a cause of rejoicing to saints, apostles, and prophets. on the other hand the new jerusalem in the same book[ ] is a 'wholesale jewelers paradise' and involves the property concepts of those cities of asia minor who did most of the jewelry manufacturing of the roman empire. it is very doubtful how far anything in such a description can be said to embody property concepts but the ideal put forth is the communistic enjoyment of incredible luxury. the epistle of clement of rome has only incidental references to property. they can be well summed up in the quotation:[ ] "let the rich man provide for the wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless god, because he hath given him one by whom his need may be supplied." there is manifestly no question of tampering with received property institutions and concepts on the part of the writer of such a sentence. it is equally evident that such an attitude in regard to property is eminently well calculated to enable the holder to propagate specifically theological opinions with a minimum of interested opposition. the didache holds a naïve and touching communistic creed.[ ] "thou shalt not turn away from him that hath need but shalt share all things with thy brother and shalt not say that they are thine own." this passage, the only one on the subject in the didache, would seem to indicate that the institution of private property existed as a matter of fact in the writer's community, but that the validity of it was not acknowledged. the position may perhaps be called one of conceptual and constructive communism. the epistle of barnabas holds exactly the same view in almost exactly the same words:[ ] "thou shalt communicate to thy neighbor all that thou hast, thou shalt not call anything thine own." early in the second century we come upon the ebionites who in the matter of property held very strong views.[ ] the stricter of them made poverty a condition of salvation. they refused to acknowledge the validity of the concept property--that is in theory. in practice some of them seem to have been influenced by the doctrine and practice of the essenes in regard to communism. all through the second century we find a continuous succession of heretical sects, gnostics and others, who held either the doctrine of the wickedness of property-ownership as such, 'holy poverty,' or else objected to individual ownership of property and preached or practiced communism in such degree as might be possible under the circumstances. of these sects it is sufficient to name the marcionites a.d. the carpocratians a.d. the procidians a.d.(?) the basilidians a.d. it is evident that there was in progress in the second century an ascetic movement which later took on the forms of manichaeism and christian asceticism. the church consistently opposed all these sects and maintained the validity of private property without condemning communism as such, except in extreme cases, such as that of epiphanes of alexandria, a carpocriation, who in a book on justice, a.d., defined virtue as consisting in absolute communism of goods and women. to return to orthodox christianity, hermas shows very clearly the inconsistencies which beset christian theory and practice in the first half of the second century. all who are rich must be deprived of their wealth in order to be good christians.[ ] yet this deprivation of wealth must be only relative; there must be wealth enough left for the giving of alms.[ ] there is no trace of communism in hermas and no praise of poverty as such. the chief justification for the existence of property institutions would seem to be that they are social structures which can be utilized for the giving and receiving of alms. perhaps one paragraph is worth quoting as giving possibly the earliest formulation extant of the property concepts that finally became dominant. "the rich man has much wealth but is poor in matters relating to the lord because he is distracted about his riches and he offers very few confessions and intercessions to the lord and those which he does offer are small and weak, and have no power above. but when the rich man refreshes the poor and assists him in his necessities, believing that which he does to the poor man will be able to find its reward with god--because the poor man is rich in intercessions and confession and his intercession has great power with god--then the rich man helps the poor in all things without hesitation; and the poor man, being helped by the rich, intercedes for him, giving thanks to god for him who bestows gifts upon him. and he still continues earnestly to interest himself for the poor man, that his want may be constantly supplied. for he knows that the intercession of the poor man is acceptable and influential with god. both accordingly accomplish their work. the poor man makes intercession; a work in which he is rich, which he received from the lord, and with which he recompenses the master who helps him. and the rich man in like manner, unhesitatingly bestows upon the poor man the riches which he received from the lord. and this is a great work and acceptable before god, because he understands the object of his wealth and has given to the poor of the gifts of the lord and rightly discharged his service to him."[ ] the inconsistent and irreconcilable nature of the evidence about early christian property institutions is well illustrated in justin martyr. two short extracts are sufficient for the purpose. "we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock and communicate to every one in need."[ ] "we carry on us all we possess and share everything with the poor."[ ] the second of these passages would indicate that the first is not to be taken in a too literal and comprehensive sense. it may perhaps be ventured as an opinion that the truth of the matter, as regards the christians of whom justin wrote, is that the concept of private property was largely invalidated and that personal possessions were thought of as owned in common while the 'common stock' consisted in reality of contributions--it may be large contributions--given for the relief of necessity among the members. the account preserved to us in lucian of the christian communities of judea in the later half of the second century would seem to bear out this opinion. lucian says: "the activity of these people in dealing with any matter that affects their community is something extraordinary. they spare no trouble, no expense. peregrine all this time was making quite an income on the strength of his bondage. money came pouring in. you see these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self devotion which are so common among them and then it was impressed upon them by their original law giver that they are all brothers from the moment that they are converted and deny the gods of greece and worship the crucified sage and live after his laws. all this they take quite on trust with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property."[ ] in tertullian we find the same contradiction as regards private ownership and communism which has already been noted in justin. the contradiction is more glaring, but possibly the explanation of the real situation is similar. the following two extracts from the same chapter bring this contradiction out in high relief: "family possessions which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us. one in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. all things are common among us but our wives." "on the monthly collection day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure and only if he be able, for there is no compulsion, all is voluntary."[ ] tertullian was a montanist and one of the most serious charges made against the montanists was that some of their prophets received interest on money loaned by them.[ ] tertullian is above suspicion in this respect. he demonstrates by quotations from both the old and new testaments that it is absolutely contradictory to christianity. interest on money is the only property institution in regard to which the teaching of the early church is consistent. every reference we have in regard to this practice condemns it--not mildly as a venial offense--but fiercely and savagely as a heinous crime like incest or murder. "fenerare est hominem occidere" is a favorite formula. in this respect the most pronounced apologists of private wealth like clement of alexandria are in perfect accord with the most pronounced communists like tertullian. the only difference to be noted is one of emphasis. in the earlier writers there are relatively few references to interest, which may perhaps be due to the fact that in the earlier time there were relatively few christians possessed of surplus means requiring investment. as might naturally be expected, the writers of the period after the establishment of christianity as a legal religion make more frequent and more bitter reference to the matter. the vehemence of denunciation indulged in by these later writers almost exceeds credibility. the most improbable and strained exegesis is resorted to in an effort to explain away the words of christ in the parables of the pounds and talents. but this vehemence is by no means confined to the nicene and post-nicene fathers. so statesmanlike a bishop as cyprian, in a long railing accusation against certain opposition bishops brings forth as their final sin that they had "multiplied gain by usury."[ ] usury is not to be taken, of course, in its present sense of excessive or burdensome interest and it is evident that cyprian did not use it in such a sense. he is simply condemning interest as such. in the minds of the early christians the difference between taking five percent interest or fifty percent was exactly the same as the difference between stealing one dollar or ten. the sin was essentially the same irrespective of the particular amount involved. indeed this comparison is scarcely a valid one; for taking interest was conceived as a much worse sin than plain robbery. it is perhaps worth noting that the moral distinction between interest and usury is of very late development. the credit, if it be such, of making it, is to be ascribed to calvin and is not unconnected with the predilection of certain types of pecuniary interest for that reformer's system of ecclesiastical polity. the roman law did indeed fix a maximum legal rate of interest, varying at different times and even at the same time for different forms of commercial risk. during the first three centuries a.d. it was, for example, consistently twelve percent on ships and varied from six to twelve percent on other forms of investment. but this has little moral connotation. early christian condemnation of interest on loans was by no means confined to the expression of opinion by church writers. council after council legislated against it with ever increasing severity. the forty-fourth apostolic canon prohibited the practice to clerics. the council of elvira a.d. forbade it to both clerics and laity. the council of arles a.d. provided that clerics guilty of the practice should be deposed from the ministry. the seventeenth canon of the council of nicea a.d. provided that they should be excommunicated. the penalty is reiterated in the twelfth canon of the first council of carthage a.d. there is no need to continue the list. it is sufficient to say that nearly every council whose canons have come down to us has legislation against interest. again and again it is absolutely forbidden to clergy and laity alike under the severest ecclesiastical penalties--and it is necessary to remember that after a.d. these penalties could, if need be, be enforced by governmental authority. this attitude of the early church toward interest on loans is a matter of very considerable historical importance. although, as we shall endeavor to show later, the ecclesiastical laws were frequently and largely evaded, they still had such influence that their contribution to the sum of economic forces which accomplished the overthrow of ancient civilization is by no means an insignificant one. nor did the influence of this attitude cease at the fall of rome. it rather increased thereafter and for several centuries, the so-called "dark ages," civilization was strangled by the power of this idea of the sin of usury. to this day the roman church regards interest on money as a reprehensible thing which, however, is not, for practical reasons, to be spoken of as sinful by the clergy.[ ] this attitude has been no inconsiderable factor in the relatively late industrial development in catholic countries. the early christian concept of interest was not an idea original with christianity. it was not derived from christ at all. it was taken over bodily from old testament judaism and contemporary pagan philosophy. it is a well known fact that the views of plato and aristotle, of cicero and seneca on interest, correspond in a very astonishing way to the views of deuteronomy and isaiah, of the psalms and ezekiel. the strength of the concept in the early church was due to this fact. in regard to no other concept was there such a unanimity of opinion. the christian convert found that the sacred scriptures of his new faith confirmed in the strongest language the condemnation of interest which he had become familiar with from the writings of the noblest pagan philosophers. when reason and religion were in accord it is not wonderful that their judgment was accepted--as a theory. in spite of this union of pagan philosophers and hebrew prophets, of christian fathers and ecclesiastical canons, the condemnation and prohibition of interest on money was a theory only. a very ordinary knowledge of classical civilization is sufficient to explain the reason of this. more nearly than any other institution, the financial machinery of antiquity corresponds to that of modern life. trusts and millionaires were phenomena of their economic life as of ours. banks were numerous and ubiquitous. they were of all sizes and degrees; from the great metropolitan corporation with correspondents all over the civilized world, to the hated money lender in a shabby office on a side street. the great bankers were men of the first importance in society. from their number were regularly recruited the officials of the imperial treasury. they were almost without exception men of the strictest financial integrity. the roman banking laws protected the depositor more securely than the laws of any modern nation, and these roman laws were rigidly enforced. every banking institution had to obtain government authorization in order to do business and this authorization was withdrawn on the discovery of the smallest discrepancy in the accounts. the regular rate of interest on ordinary deposits was four percent; under certain peculiar conditions the rate went as low as two and a half and as high as six percent. the rate published by a bank had to be paid even though payment swept away the banker's entire private property. the banker lost everything before the depositor lost anything. the banks were used by the government in carrying out such fiscal measures as could not be conveniently handled by the treasury department directly. they played a still more important part in the ordinary commercial life of the times. a relatively small volume of business was, or could be, carried on by transfers of specie. the great bulk of commercial transactions were of necessity carried on by checks, drafts, discounts, bills of exchange and similar instruments of credit. it was a matter of simple impossibility for any man in ordinary commercial or industrial life to carry on his business for even a single day without participating directly or indirectly in transactions involving loans and interest. our excuse for reciting these commonplace details of roman commercial life is that their very commonplaceness explains the discrepancy between early christian theory and practice in the matter of interest. it would be an easy task to convict the early christians of hypocritical pretense in this regard. nothing more would be necessary than to print their theory in one column and their practice in a parallel one. yet the early christians were not hypocrites. as regards sincerity of profession they compare very favorably with any religionists of any age. as a matter of fact the historians have long ago shown that it is altogether impossible and unjust to argue from a sect's opinions to their feelings and actions. to quote macauley[ ] "only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess or act up to all that they believe. imagine a man acting on the supposition that he may safely offer the deadliest injuries and insults to everybody who says that revenge is sinful; or that he may safely intrust all his property without security to any person who says it is wrong to steal. such a character would be too absurd for the wildest farce." "the law which is inscribed on the walls of the synagogues prohibits covetousness. but if we were to say that a jew mortgagee would not foreclose because god had commanded him not to covet his neighbor's house, everybody would think us out of our wits."[ ] yet that jew is no hypocrite in his religion. he is sincerely and honestly devoted to his faith and will sacrifice time and money; will undergo social obloquy and contempt in support of it. so it was with the early christians. by the process of abstracting their theory and practice of interest from the social matrix which alone makes the theory or practice intelligible, it is easy to show a logical inconsistency. it would be equally foolish and false to deduce from this inconsistency any conclusions one way or the other as to early christian morality. it is if course no aim of this thesis to attack or defend any religious or moral opinions. it is a matter entirely apart from our present concern to evaluate interest or non-interest in ethical terms. our purpose is not to explain away the inconsistency of the early christians. admitting the inconsistency in the fullest degree, our aim is to explain it as natural, and, under the social conditions then prevailing, practically inevitable. the early christians left funds to care in perpetuity for the family burial lot.[ ] under any religious creed; pagan, jewish, or christian, decent provision for the care of graves of relatives was not only admissible, it was a positive demand of social reputability; to say nothing of the demand of natural affection. similarly annual agapes were established by bequests as a charity to the poor brethren.[ ] these agapes were no innovation. as an institution they were perfectly familiar and in universal observance among the pagans. the agapes were simply ordinary roman silicernia with the name changed. to the romans, founding a silicernium was like wearing a toga or going to a bath. it possessed the sanction of law and the benediction of religion; but its real compulsion lay in social custom. no person could escape this pressure of the mores and retain self respect, to say nothing of the respect of others. the pagan silicernium was morally respectable; it perpetuated friendship and promoted good feeling. there was no reason for avoiding it, if avoidance had been possible--as it was not. the christians not only preserved this pious institution; they improved it. their annual agapes fed the poor, which the silicernia, excellent as they were, seldom did. the explanation we have endeavored to give of the endowment of family burial lots and annual agapes is applicable, mutis mutandis, to other cases of interest. it therefore is not surprising to learn that callixtus (pope - a.d.) was a banker previous to his elevation to the papacy; that large numbers of christians, particularly widows and orphans--entrusted their money to his bank, and that he had large loans out at good interest to jewish bankers.[ ] the truth is that the early christian horror of interest, while absolutely honest and even desperately sincere, was a strictly legalistic, ceremonial, and ritualistic horror. it was purely formal and was not at all concerned with any economic principle. the thing that was wicked, was not income from capital invested, but income _in the form of interest on money_. to own a ship and sail it and make profits from ownership by freight charges was perfectly honest, but to invest money in a shipping corporation and receive dividends was wicked. so it was honest to own a building and get money as rent. it was immoral to invest money in the construction company that erected that building and receive income in the form of interest. rent, profit, and interest are merely three forms of the same thing, income from invested capital. any endeavor to distinguish between them in this respect is entirely devoid of moral or economic justification. the ancient church fathers were as well aware of this as we are. the real point and importance of their concept of interest was their defense of that concept. that defense was a curious one and illustrates the difference between ancient and modern reasoning on economic matters--and on other matters also. the difference in a word is that of mistaking means for ends on the theory of course that we moderns are right and the prophets, philosophers, christian fathers, et al. wrong. according to modern social science, interest is merely a means adopted for the attainment of certain ends--economic, educational, religious or whatever. the goodness or badness of interest is to be judged strictly and solely by the convenience and economy with which it serves these ends. if any other property institution can, in a given situation, serve a given end more easily and more cheaply than the institution of interest, then, in that situation, the institution of interest--other things being equal--is immoral and should be abolished. if, in the given situation, no other property institution can serve the given end more easily and more cheaply than the institution of interest, then that institution is moral and should be retained. that is, from the modern sociological point of view, the institution of interest is inconceivable except as a means to some end outside itself. as a means it is to be judged in a purely objective and pragmatic manner by the ordinary standards of cost price, economic, social, and other. the method of the ancients is entirely otherwise. assuming still the correctness of the modern viewpoint, which viewpoint be it said is not unassailable and indeed is assailed by divers radicals, socialists and others, but for the most part persons lacking in pecuniary reputability; the mistake then, that the early church fathers make is that of taking the means for an end. they have many arguments against interest but all these arguments can be criticised for this one error. the fathers elevate interest to the dignity of an end in itself. interest, qua interest, is condemned. it is taking advantage of a brother's necessity. it is grinding the face of the poor. it is producing pride, luxury, and vice. as soon as moral value is attached to anything, it of course, is viewed as an end in itself. if it be true that interest is an end in itself, then the fiercest diatribes of the fathers are none too severe. assuming their premises, their conclusions follow inevitably. the modern man--he is not unknown--who talks about the "sacred rights" of private property is guilty of the same error as the ancient christians, the error of mistaking means for ends. the early christians could not see that the property institution of interest is neither good nor bad except as it is good or bad _for something_. the _something_ determines the judgment. as a matter of historical fact the condemnation of interest developed in certain early stages of human civilization and at those stages interest was socially detrimental. at those stages, however, it was exceedingly rare and correspondingly infamous. in any country where there is abundance of good, free land the phenomenon of interest on money will disappear, provided labor is free. so it disappeared in the northern states of this union in the later part of the th century. these phenomena caused the southerners to adopt slavery though all their english traditions had declared it immoral for more than three centuries. the relation of interest to slavery under a condition of free land is the relation of cause and effect, i.e., the requirement of interest will produce slavery and the abolition of interest will abolish slavery.[ ] these social phenomena are of importance in our consideration of the early christian doctrine of interest. that doctrine was largely evaded and disobeyed but it still had great effect and that effect was toward the abolition of slavery. we do not mean that this economic doctrine alone resulted in the abolition of slavery, or even that it was a chief cause in the abolition of slavery, it was not obeyed well enough to be such a chief cause; but so far as it was obeyed, it tended in that direction. the net result of all christian teaching together was to prolong the existence of the institution of slavery for two centuries, perhaps for three. the doctrine of the sinfulness of interest however, worked toward emancipation and forced slavery in its later end to become almost wholly agricultural, i.e., to yield income as rent. slaves cannot be employed in commerce or industry in sufficient numbers to be profitable where the institution of interest is banned as it was in the 'dark ages.' the christian concept of interest undermined ancient civilization by abrogating, slowly but surely, the institution of property by which such gangs of 'manufacturing slaves' as made the fortune of crassus, could alone be made profitable. it is an historical curiosity that it accomplished this result without any attack on the institution of slavery itself. as soon as christian doctrines became widespread enough to produce important social results we find christian slave owners manumitting their slaves in considerable numbers. it is no derogation to the influence of the doctrine of human brotherhood or to the humanity of the christian slave owners to mention the fact that the doctrine of the sinfulness of interest, by tending to make slavery unprofitable, aided in the process of bringing to light the real content of the doctrine of human brotherhood, and of making the humane practice of manumission easier by the removal of certain economic impediments. in order to understand properly the working of the prohibition of interest and its relation to manumission, it is necessary to carry the analysis one step farther to its ultimate physical basis, which was the conditioning factor of actual practice and eventually of theory also. the exhaustion of the soil of western europe which was the result of ancient methods of agriculture, together with the rising standard of living and the competition of other more fertile agricultural regions like egypt and north africa resulted in the substitution of the latifundi for small landholdings.[ ] as the pressure continued the latifundi in turn became economically unprofitable under forced labor (slavery) and large tracts of land were abandoned. in order to put this land under agriculture again the charge upon it had to be reduced by the substitution of (relatively) free associated labor, villeinage or serfdom. but this change cut off the economic margin upon which the structure of ancient civilization was built and is the ultimate economic reason assignable for the fall of rome. of course the collapse of the empire could, theoretically, have been avoided had the romans of the first three centuries a.d. been content to live the toilsome and frugal life of the romans of the early republic. but this was an utter impossibility in practice. this slowly working and hardly understood decline in the relative and actual ability of ancient agriculture to sustain the weight imposed upon it, enables us to see why the sinfulness of interest could be steadily indoctrined even though steadily evaded, by christians from the beginning, while manumission was not taught at all in the beginning and only worked up to the dignity of a pious action relatively late.[ ] it also explains why manumission of household and personal slaves preceded that of agricultural slaves. of course there is nothing peculiarly christian about this later phenomenon and the operation of other causes is discernable, but it is important for our purpose to observe that christian practice, and christian theory in property matters in the long run, followed the broad lines of the underlying economic evolution.[ ] the application of this to the origin of christian monasticism and to the revival of communistic theories by the later church fathers lies at the very outside limit of our study but will be briefly touched on after we have considered the final overthrow of the communistic property concept as they appear in the earlier fathers up to and including tertullian. clement of alexandria - a.d. has the distinction of being the first christian theological writer who clearly expounds the concept of private property which has held sway without substantial change in the church until the present time. this statement does not apply to the doctrine of receiving interest on money. in respect to this doctrine clement is in perfect accord with all other early christians both before and after himself. indeed he specifically states that the mosaic prohibition against taking interest from one's brother extends in the case of a christian to all mankind. but in regard to all other property institutions clement's attitude is essentially that of any modern christian of generous disposition. in all that clement has to say about property, and the 'bulk' of his 'property passages' is as great as that of all previous christian writers together, he speaks like a man on the defensive. indeed there has come down to us no other christian writing earlier than his time which presents his view, with the dubious exception of some passages in hermas. the fact seems to be that while clement is undoubtedly presenting an apologetic for the existing practice in the church of his day, that practice was felt to be more or less open to attack in the light of certain scripture passages. communism as an existential reality was gone by the time of clement--whatever may have been the extent--probably a limited one--to which it had existed in the earlier ages. but while communism as a fact was dead, communism as an idea or ideal of christian economy was not dead. indeed clement's views about the morality of wealth were so different from those of previous writers that a great modern economist[ ] in treating of this subject ventures the opinion, though doubtfully, that the reason why clement, alone among the great early theologians, was never canonized by the church was that he ran counter to popular belief on this subject. this opinion is probably erroneous. clement's theological opinions have a semi-gnostic tinge quite sufficient to explain the absence of his name from the calendar of saints. clement justifies the institution of private property. he justifies, on the highest ethical and philosophical principles, the possession by christians of even the most enormous wealth. his apologetic is not an original one. he borrows it bodily from plato. indeed he quotes plato verbatim, invocation to pan and the other heathen gods included.[ ] the originality lies in applying this platonic doctrine to the exposition of christian scripture. clement's method is strictly that of biblical exegesis. in the well known sermon or essay on: "who is the rich man that shall be saved" he takes up practically all of the scriptural passages which seem opposed to the institutions of private property and explains them in so modern a spirit that the whole sermon might be delivered today in any ordinary church and would be readily accepted as sound and reliable doctrine. his thesis is that wealth or poverty are matters in themselves indifferent. that riches are not to be bodily gotten rid of, but are to be wisely conserved and treated as a stewardship intrusted to the owner by god. that charity to the poor should be in proportion to one's wealth and that a right use of wealth will secure salvation to the upright christian even though he possesses great riches all his life and leaves them to his heirs. the wealth that is dangerous to the soul is not physical possessions, but spiritual qualities of greed and avarice. his views can be best expressed by himself. we give two characteristic passages from the sermon above referred to.[ ] "rich men that shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom, is to be apprehended in a scholarly way, not awkwardly, or rustically, or carnally. for if the expression is used thus, salvation does not depend upon external things, whether they be many or few, small or great, or illustrious or obscure or esteemed or disesteemed; but on the virtue of the soul, on faith and hope and love and brotherliness, and knowledge, and meekness and humility and truth the reward of which is salvation." "sell thy possessions. what is this? he does not, as some off hand conceive, bid him throw away the substance he possesses and abandon his property; but he bids him banish from his soul his notions about wealth, his excitement and morbid feeling about it, the anxieties, which are the thorns of existence which choke the seed of life. and what peculiar thing is it that the new creature, the son of god intimates and teaches? it is not the outward act which others have done, but something else indicated by it, greater, more godlike, more perfect, the stripping off of the passions from the soul itself and from the disposition, and the cutting up by the roots and casting out of what is alien to the mind." "one, after ridding himself of the burden of wealth, may none the less have still the lust and desire for money innate and living; and may have abandoned the use of it, but being at once destitute of and desiring what he spent may doubly grieve both on account of the absence of attendance and the presence of regret."[ ] we have now come to the beginning of what is in many respects the most interesting period in the history of property concepts. it is a period in which everything is upside down and wrong end to. in that strange age we find a famous archbishop, one of the world's noblest orators, a man of the most spotless integrity and the most saintly life, publicly preaching in the foremost pulpit of christendom doctrines of property, the implications of which, the most hardened criminal would scarcely venture to breathe to a gang of thieves.[ ] we find the most learned scholar of the century, in the weightiest expositions of christian scripture, penning the most powerful apologetic of anarchy that is to be found in the literature of the world.[ ] we find one of the greatest of the popes, a man whose genius as a statesman will go down to the latest ages of history, setting forth in a manual for the instruction of christian bishops, property concepts more radical than those of the fiercest jacobins in the bloodiest period of the terror.[ ] stranger still, these incredible performances are the strongest proofs of the wisdom and piety of the men responsible for them. these men are today honored as the saviors of civilized religion and their images in bronze and marble and painted glass adorn the proudest temples of the most conservative denominations of christians. the strange history of these famous men: athanasius, the two gregories, basil and chrysostom in the east; augustine, ambrose, jerome and gregory in the west, lies outside the limits of our study. but the explanation of their desperate and uncompromising communism can be given in a word. it was the communism of crisis: the communism of shipwrecked sailors forced to trust their lives to a frail lifeboat with an insufficient supply of provisions. these great christian scholars, enriched by all the accumulated culture of their civilization, saw that culture falling into ruin all around them; they felt the foundations of that civilization trembling beneath their feet. to vary the figure, they beheld the rising tide of ignorance and barbarism rapidly engulfing the world and with desperate haste they set to work rebuilding and strengthening the ark of the church that in it, religion, and so much of civilization as possible, might be saved till the flood subsided. their task, perhaps the most important and most urgent, that men have ever had to perform, was of such a nature that they cared not what they wrecked in order to accomplish it. they ripped up the floor of the bridal chamber for timber and took the doors of the bank-safe for iron. these rhetorical figures are violent; but they are less violent than the reality they are intended to express. monasticism was the last desperate hope of civilized christianity and these men knew it. to establish monasticism they degraded the sanctity of marriage and denounced the sacredness of property. they conferred the most sacred honors upon the lowliest drudgery;[ ] they turned princes into plowmen and nobles into breakers of the soil. some historians, judging them by the different standards of a later age, have pronounced them fanatics led astray by vulgar superstition. but judged by the needs of their own age, judged by the inestimable services rendered to the world by the monastic system they instituted, they are entitled to a place far up in the list of the wisest and the ablest of the human kind. sketchy and imperfect as the above study necessarily is, it nevertheless gives the primary facts which are essential to an understanding of the important part played by property concepts and property institutions in the transformation of early christianity from a predominantly eschatological to a practically socialized movement. we have seen,[ ] that the earliest generations of christians took over from contemporary judaism a strongly chiliastic eschatology. the logical consequence of such an eschatology is an indifference to, or undervaluation of, the existing social arrangements including the property concepts and institutions. one form easily taken by this indifference and undervaluation is that of practical communism. we accordingly find in the acts and in such early writings as the didache and the epistle of barnabas a distinctly communistic theory and the traces of more or less effort to put this theory into some degree of practical effect. chiliasm and communism in these writers go together naturally. pari passu with this logical, communistic chiliasm we can trace the development of an illogical, individualistic chiliasm in st. paul, clement of rome and hermas. it is already manifest even at this early stage, that the weight of influence and power of control in the christian societies is on the side of the individualists. this is due to two causes. in the first place the communists among the christians worked under a great handicap. the underlying economic institutions of society can indeed be changed. but they can be changed--on any considerable scale--only very slowly and by enormous effort. at any attempt to change them a thousand interested and determined antagonists at once arise. it is not too much to say that had all christians insisted upon communism as an essential element of the christian faith and practice, christianity in the roman world could never have developed into anything more than an unimportant sect. the very fact that christianity spread as rapidly as it did in the first century of its existence is proof that the communists in the church made very little headway. it was hard enough to combat pagan religion and philosophy. had the property institutions been attacked also, the primary religious objects would have been lost sight of in the conflict. in the second place the more practical minded christian leaders would be antagonistic to a doctrine and practice which alienated many persons who might otherwise be won to the church, and practically minded persons outside the church regarded the individualists with more favor and were more easily influenced by them to become christians themselves. the early importance attained by the church of rome is to be largely ascribed to the predominance in its councils of such practical persons.[ ] communism had no hold there at all and chiliasm was never allowed to interfere with the practical workings of society. by the time of justin the three concepts; chiliasm, communism, and individualism had arrived at a modus vivendi. according to this arrangement chiliasm and communism held sway as theories while individualism ruled in the world of fact. this agreement proved very satisfactory and for more than half a century was the accepted thing. it is seen in full force in tertullian. there is a general tendency, due to the natural effects of use and disuse, for theories which do not correspond to realities to become discredited, even as theories. conversely realities which at first lack theoretical justification tend to accumulate such justification with the lapse of time. it is therefore not surprising to find by the beginning of the third century, a movement to discard theoretical chiliasm and communism and to validate by theoretical apologetic the actually existing individualism. these two processes in the nature of the case are closely connected with one another and it is not by mere chance that they find a common exponent in clement of alexandria. that famous opponent of chiliasm is equally well known as the justifier of an extreme individualism. he greatly facilitated the spread of christian theology by liberating it from the burden of an eschatological theory increasingly hard to reconcile with reality and also by bringing the economic teachings of christianity into conformity with current practice. as noted above, there was one economic doctrine which neither he nor any other early christian teacher ever attempted to reconcile with the facts, and it is undoubtedly true that the doctrine of the sinfulness of interest was alike detrimental to the spread of christianity and to the general well being of society as it then existed. the reasons why this particular reality i.e., interest on money, was so slow in receiving its theoretical justification are numerous. the only ones that need concern us here are that the opposition to be overcome in this case was much more formidable than in the cases of chiliasm and communism and the fact that this inconsistency on the part of the christians did not in reality offer any very serious obstacle to the growth of the church. communism had no great body of biblical authority at its back. there are indeed some texts in its favor but there are plenty of an opposite nature. the doctrine had no great popular prejudice in its favor. in addition it was insuperably difficult of realization in fact. it was otherwise with interest. the theoretical prejudice against interest was almost as great among the jews and pagans as among the christians themselves. the scriptures were unequivocal in their denunciation of it. furthermore the correlative institutions of rent and profit offered so many opportunities to disguise the fact of interest that it was exceedingly easy to retain the theoretical opposition without ceasing the actual practice. although clement's condemnation of interest was probably merely an inherited prejudice it is by no means impossible that he considered that an attempt to justify it would endanger his defense of the more fundamental institution of private property. at any rate his course can be defended as a practical one under the circumstances. whatever may be said of its consistency, the christian custom of condemning the theory and winking at the practice of interest worked well. the inconsistency which seems so glaring to us, was probably very largely unperceived by the ancient pagans--they had exactly the same inconsistency themselves. in regard to chiliasm and property, practically the same attitude prevailed. it worked indeed even more easily. in the west there seems to have been a considerable chiliastic tradition. so long as this tradition did not result in any practices which interfered with the actual progress of the church, the fathers were content to let it alone. it did not, till at least the third century, hinder the acceptance of christian doctrine by the pagans and may even have aided the process among some of the lower classes. its long survival can be taken as sure proof that it did not effect either the development of the hierarchy or the institution of property. as regards property of man in man, the superior power of the christian religion to keep slaves in subjection accounts in no small measure for its relatively rapid rise to power in the ancient world. the pagan religion was inferior in usefulness to the christian religion because it could not keep the slave contented with his position. the next world in the pagan theology was only a worse copy of this world. christianity, in glaring contrast to paganism, proclaimed that the despised and afflicted were to sit on golden thrones in the next life. the more they were exploited in this life, the brighter their crown in the next one. the pagan slave was dangerous. the whole pre-christian literature of classical antiquity shows the ever present fear of a servile outbreak. there were good grounds for that fear. outbreaks were frequent and of a most ferocious character. on more than one occasion they threatened the very existence of the ancient civilization. christianity was able to make the slave contented to be a slave. it was economically an enormous advance over paganism. a master whose slaves were christians was not afraid of being murdered by them. not only was the master's life secure, his property was secure also. the pagan slaves were notorious thieves. the christian slave did not rob his master. these facts gave christianity an enormous leverage in its efforts to force its way into social recognition. it went far toward securing a favorable disposition toward the new religion on the part of the influential, wealthy, and conservative elements in the population. into the general economic changes which began to operate toward the end of our period it is not our purpose to enter, but it is worth notice that the efforts made by the church to save itself in the general ruin which overtook the ancient world, chiefly the institution of monasticism, were such as to secure more firmly than ever the hold of the church upon society. the church rapidly became an economic factor of the first importance. the only secure basis of lasting social influence is economic. christianity by teaching the virtues of honesty, frugality, simplicity, and charity laid the foundations of her subsequent triumph, and when she had great societies of men and women working hard and living plainly and adding all their accumulations to institutions belonging to the church and directly under the supervision and control of the ecclesiastical authority, the church paved the way for her subsequent domination of the civil government. monastic communism, being economically superior to chiliastic communism, inevitably superseded it. footnotes: [ ] cf. plato, laws, v, . aristotle, politics, :x, xi. cicero, de officus, ii, xxv. seneca, de beneficus, vii, x. [ ] acts iv. [ ] i. cor. vii . [ ] rom. xiii . [ ] jas. chap. v. [ ] chaps. - . [ ] chap. xxxviii. [ ] did. iv. . [ ] barn. xiv. . [ ] schaff, vol. . [ ] past. v. vi. . [ ] past. s. ix. xxx. . [ ] past iii. . [ ] apol. i. iv. [ ] apol. i. xiv. [ ] de mort. per. xiv. [ ] apol. xxxix. [ ] eus., e. h., v. . [ ] de lapsis, vi. [ ] see pronouncement of the sacred penitentiary, feb., . [ ] sir james macintosh. [ ] civil disabilities of the jews. [ ] lourie, monuments of the early church, chap. ii. [ ] lourie, _ibid._ [ ] cf. hypolytus. [ ] a. loria. cf. economic basis of society. (int.) [ ] cf. a. loria, economic foundations of society. (int.) [ ] circa (?). [ ] cf. k. marx, das kapital, vol. . [ ] f. nitti in catholic socialism. [ ] phaedus, the laws, in strom. ii, . [ ] chap. xiv. [ ] chap. xxxi. [ ] chrysostom, sermons rich man and lazarus, etc. [ ] jerome, commentaries. [ ] gregory, pastoralis cura. [ ] laborare est orare. [ ] chap. i. [ ] e.g., clement and hermas. chapter iii the early church and the populace the transformation of early christianity from an eschatological to a socialized movement was the result of the interaction of three social groups--three 'publics'--the jewish, the pagan, and the christian. it was a single movement, working itself out through these three 'crowds'. christianity, like all other great religions, was in its first beginnings essentially a mob phenomenon--that is to say it was a very slow movement which had a long history back of it. perhaps no current opinion is more unfounded than the notion that mob movements are sudden and unpredictable. they are almost incredibly slow of development. the range of action found in the mob is more narrowly and rigidly circumscribed than in almost any other social group. a crowd is open to suggestions that are in line with its previous experience, and to no others. the initial success of christ with the jewish crowds was only possible because for generations the whole jewish public had been looking forward to a messiah and a messianic kingdom. in so far as christ appeared to fulfill this preconceived expectation he gained popular support. when he disappointed it, he lost his popularity and his life. the early and enormous success of the apostles on the day of pentecost and immediately afterwards was due primarily to the fact that the chiliastic expectation preached to the jerusalem crowds was very closely in line with their inherited beliefs. as soon as christianity began to develop doctrines and practices even slightly at variance with those traditional to judaism it lost the support of the jewish public. beginning as a strictly jewish sect, it alienated practically the whole jewish race within little more than a generation. this alienation was the inevitable effect of an idea of universalism opposed to the hereditary jewish nationalism. this idea of universalism was not a new thing. it was to be found in the ancient jewish scriptures. but it had never become popularized. it formed no part of the content of contemporary public opinion among the jews. christianity met with success in the great cosmopolitan centers, like antioch and alexandria, where universalism was a tradition and had become a part of the crowd sentiment. it succeeded best of all in rome where universalism reached its highest development. yet even here a limitation is to be noted. christianity was universal in its willingness to receive people of all races and nations. it was not universal in its willingness to acknowledge the validity of other religions. this variation from the traditional greek and roman universalism had momentous results. it made the propagation of the christian gospel much more difficult and involved the church, at least temporarily, in the current syncretism which was a popular movement. so e.g., we find justin calling socrates a christian and asserting that the stories of noah and deucalion are merely versions of the same event. the main characteristics of crowd psychology are familiar enough. crowds do not reason. they accept or reject ideas as a whole. they are governed by phrases, symbols, and shibboleths. they tolerate neither discussion nor contradiction. the suggestions brought to bear on them invade the whole of their understanding and tend to transform themselves into acts. crowds entertain only violent and extreme sentiments and they unconsciously accord a mysterious power to the formula or leader that for the moment arouses their enthusiasm. any movement in order to become popular, in order to 'get over' to the general public, has to operate within the limits set by this psychology. the amount of change, adaptation, and development necessary before a movement can fit into these limitations and express itself powerfully within them is so considerable that no historical example can probably be found where the required accommodation has been accomplished in less than three generations. it is the purpose of this chapter to trace, so far as the surviving source material permits, the steps of this accommodation in the case of early christianity. for some time before christ the jewish people had been restless. their desires and aspirations for national and religious greatness had been repressed and inhibited. the unrest thus generated took various forms; patriotic uprisings, religious revivals, etc. christ was at first considered merely as another theudas or judas of galilee or john the baptist. in the pagan world the pax romana produced a somewhat similar restlessness. travel increased; wandering, much of it aimless, characterized whole classes of people;[ ] there was a marked increase in crime, vice, insanity, and suicide which alarmed all the moralists. this condition of affairs was eminently suitable for the first beginnings of a crowd movement; indeed no great crowd movement can begin except under such circumstances. the wanderings of st. paul and the other christians apostles--called missionary journeys--were really only particular cases of a general condition. the same organic demand for new stimulation, the same sense of shattered religious and philosophic ideals prevailed in the pagan as in the jewish world. it would be hard to find a greater contrast of character than christ and lucian. yet the fiery earnestness with which christ denounces contemporary jewish religiosity and the cool cynicism with which lucian mocks at the pagan piety of the same age have a like cause. economic pressure on the lower strata of society contributed to the unrest. the slave, the small shopkeeper, and the free artisan had a hard time of it in the roman world. economically oppressed classes are material ready to the hand of the agitator, religious or other. in the crowd movements recorded in the acts we can trace the first beginnings of the christian populace.[ ] "in iconium a great multitude both of jews and of greeks believed but the jews that were disobedient stirred up the souls of the gentiles and made them evil affected against the brethren. but the multitude of the city was divided and part held with the jews and part with the apostles." at lytra there was a typical case of mob action where the apostles were first worshipped and then stoned. in the cases of the mobs at philippi and ephesus we see the economic motive, the threatened loss of livelihood, entering along with anger at an attack on the received religion. in the case of the jerusalem and athenian crowds we see acceptance, or at least acquiescence, on the part of the crowd up to the point where christianity breaks with their tradition. in general we see anger on the part of the crowds only after agitation deliberately stirred up by interested parties; priests, sorcerers, craftsmen or the like. generally speaking the antipathy is no part of the crowd psychology, and on occasion the crowd may be on the side of the missionaries of the new religion. in general also the christians were not sufficiently numerous to make a counter crowd demonstration of their own. in pliny's letter to trojan, although it is a generation later than the acts and refers to a region where christianity had been preached for a considerable period of time, we find a marked instability in the attitude of the public: "many of every age, every rank and even of both sexes are brought into danger and will be in the future. the contagion of that superstition has penetrated not only the cities but also the villages and country places and yet it seems possible to stop it and set it right. at any rate it is certain enough that the temples deserted until quite recently begin to be frequented, that the ceremonies of religion, long disused, are restored and that fodder for the victims comes to market, whereas buyers for it were until now very few. from this it may easily be supposed that a multitude of men can be reclaimed if there be a place of repentence."[ ] there seems no reasonable ground for doubting that pliny's judgment was correct. while the blood of the martyrs is doubtless the seed of the church, a continuous, general, and relentless persecution can extirpate a religion in a given nation; as the history of the inquisition abundantly proves. still more easily can propaganda for the older religion win back its former adherents of the first and second generations. it is not, in general, till a generation has grown up entirely inside a new religion that such a religion is well established. the generation which at maturity makes the rupture with the older faith can be brought back to it by less expenditure of energy than was expended by them in breaking away in the first place. the success of the jesuits e.g., is quite inexplicable on any other hypothesis. the generation who are children at the time their parents make the break with the old religion are notoriously undependable in the religious matters. it was in all probability these people that pliny had to deal with. it is at least permissable to hazard the guess that the laodiceans who aroused the wrath of the author of the revelation were of this generation. it is certain that many of the 'lapsi' who caused so much trouble to christian apologists and church councils belonged in this chronological class. in justin martyr we have a hint of a further development in the crowd attitude toward the christians. justin says: "when you (jews) knew that he had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven as the prophets foretold he would, you not only did not repent of the wickedness you had committed, but at that time you selected and sent out from jerusalem chosen men through all the land to tell that the godless heresy of the christians had sprung up and to publish those things which all they, who knew us not, speak against us. so that you are the cause not only of your own unrighteousness but that of all other men."[ ] irrespective of the exact historical accuracy of this statement, it is indicative of the process, technically known as 'circular interaction,' which is so essential a step in the development of popular opinion and the building up of crowd sentiment. before any group of people can become either popular or unpopular there must be a focusing and fixation of public attention upon them. even in the new testament we find the jews sending emissaries from city to city to call attention to the christian propaganda. prejudice against the christians was thus aroused in persons who had never either seen or heard them. the basis of 'circular interaction' is unconscious or subconscious emotional reaction. a's frown brings a frown to the face of b. b's frown in turn intensifies a's. this simple process is the source of all expressions of crowd emotion. by multiplication of numbers and increase in the stimuli employed it is capable of provoking a vicious circle of feeling which eventually causes individuals in a crowd to do things and feel things which no individual in the crowd would do or feel when outside the circle. it is to the credit or discredit of the jews that they first set this 'vicious circle' in operation against the christians. of course the same psychological principle operated to produce zeal and enthusiasm and contempt of pain and death in the christian 'crowd'. by this process of 'circular interaction' the name, 'christian,' had already in the time of justin become a mob shibboleth. it seems to have operated precisely as the shibboleth 'traitor' operates on a patriotic crowd in war time, or 'scab' on a labor group. it became a shibboleth of exactly opposite significance in the christian 'crowd'. the way was thus prepared for the next step in the process of developing the ultimate crisis. this step--the disparate 'universe of discourse'--is exhibited in process of formation in the account of the martyrdom of polycarp. the account, as we have it, undoubtedly contains later additions, but these additions even of miraculous elements, do not necessarily invalidate those portions of the story with which we are alone concerned. the martyrologist certainly had no intention of writing his story for the purpose of illustrating the principles of group psychology and the undesigned and incidental statements of crowd reactions are precisely the ones of value for our purpose. a few brief excerpts are sufficient to illustrate the stage reached in the growth of the disparate 'universe of discourse.' "the whole multitude, marvelling at the nobility of mind displayed by the devout and godly race of christians cried out: "away with the atheists: let polycarp be sought out."[ ] he went eagerly forward with all haste and was conducted to the stadium where the tumult was so great that there was no possibility of being heard."[ ] "polycarp has confessed that he is christian. this proclamation having been made by the herald, the whole multitude both of the heathen and jews who dwelt in smyrna cried out with uncontrollable fury and in a loud voice: "this is the teacher of asia, the father of the christians and the overthrower of our gods, he who has been teaching many not to sacrifice or to worship the gods." speaking thus they cried out and besought phillip, the asiarch, to let loose a lion upon polycarp. but philip answered that it was not lawful for him to do so seeing the shows of beasts were already finished. then it seemed good to them to cry out with one voice that polycarp should be burned alive."[ ] "this then was carried into effect with greater speed than it was spoken, the multitude immediately gathering together wood and fagots out of the shops and baths, the jews especially, according to custom eagerly assisting them in it."[ ] "we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels and more purified than gold and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing the lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom both in memory of those who have already finished their course and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps."[ ] in the disparate universe of discourse in its complete form common shibboleths produce entirely different mental reactions--usually antagonistic ones. there is also complete accord as to the shibboleths. the cry here is at one time against the atheists, then against the christians. but the christians could and did deny the charge of atheism. they were as antagonistic to atheism as the pagans. an incomplete development of crowd feeling is evident on the part of the pagans. the jews are still the inciters and leading spirits of the mob. the very statement that the jews acted 'according to custom' shows that mobbing christians was still looked upon as a peculiarly jewish trait. it was not yet entirely spontaneous on the part of the pagan public. most noticeable of all is the indifference of the mob toward the christians' adoration of relics of the martyrs. no effort was made to prevent the christians from obtaining the bones of polycarp. either the cult of relics was not known to the pagans and jews--though it seems to be firmly established among the christians--or else, the effect of the cult in perpetuating christianity had not yet had time to make itself manifest to the pagan public--or to the jewish. in any case we have here the plain evidence of the imperfectly developed condition of the crowd mind, owing perhaps to a too short tradition. our next evidence is the martyrdoms of lyons and vienne preserved in a letter quoted by eusebius. "they (the christians) endured nobly the injuries inflicted upon them by the populace, clamor and blows and draggings and robberies and stonings and imprisonments and all things which an infuriated mob delight in inflicting on enemies and adversaries."[ ] "when these accusations were reported all the people raged like wild beasts against us, so that even if any had before been moderate on account of friendship, they were now exceedingly furious and gnashed their teeth against us. "when he (bishop pothinus) was brought to the tribunal accompanied by a multitude who shouted against him in every manner as if he were christ himself, he bore noble witness. then he was dragged away harshly and received blows of every kind. those men near him struck him with their hands and feet, regardless of his age, and those at a distance hurled at him whatever they could seize, all of them thinking that they would be guilty of great wickedness and impiety if any possible abuse were omitted. for thus they thought to avenge their own deities."[ ] "but not even thus was their madness and cruelty toward the saints satisfied. wild and barbarous tribes were not easily appeased and their violence found another peculiar opportunity in the dead bodies. for they cast to the dogs those who had died of suffocation in the prison and they exposed the remains left by the wild beasts and by fire mangled and charred. and some gnashed their teeth against them, but others mocked at them. the bodies of the martyrs having thus in every manner been exposed for six days were afterwards burned and reduced to ashes and swept into the rhone so that no trace of them might appear on the earth. and this they did as if able to conquer god and prevent their new birth; 'that', as they said, 'they may have no hope of a resurrection through trust in which they bring to us this foreign and new religion.' "[ ] we have in this account a marked advance, as regards the development of the mob mind, over what is found in the martyrdom of polycarp. many of the 'crowd' phenomena are indeed the same but the differences are even more striking than the similarities. we find in lyons no body of jews or other especially interested persons leading the mob on by manifestations of peculiar zeal and forwardness. when the accounts are compared in their entirety it becomes at once manifest that there is a consistency of attitude, a whole heartedness in the actions of the lyons mob that is lacking in the case of the syrmnaens. there is a degree of familiarity with christian doctrine--especially the doctrine of the resurrection--which denotes a much more thorough permeation of the public mind by christianity. there may be no difference in the hatred of the two mobs for the new faith, but it had more content in the mind of the gallic crowd. the degree of thought and pains taken by the lyonese persecutors--the guards placed to prevent the christians from stealing the relics of the martyrs, the elaborate efforts to nullify the possibility of a resurrection--the very extent and thoroughness and duration of the persecution are different from anything to be found in the other martyrdom. the difficulty to be explained--if it is a difficulty--from the point of view of crowd psychology is that there is difference of only eleven years--taking the ordinary chronology--between the two persecutions. it is true that the lyons persecution is the later, but the difference in the mob behavior is such as might well demand the lapse of a generation had the phenomena been exhibited by the public of the same city. there must unquestionably have been a great difference in the demotic composition of the populations of lyons and smyrna; the reference to barbarians in lyons shows as much, but the behavior of mobs as controlled by the time needed for the focusing and fixation of attention and the development of a disparate universe of discourse is very little effected by difference of demotic composition. it has indeed been suggested by one critic,[ ] that the persecution at lyons belongs in the reign of septimus severus instead of that of marcus aurelius. this would explain away the difficulty, but there seems no necessary reason for adopting this opinion. it would rather appear that there existed peculiar conditions in lyons and vicinity which account for the fact that the persecution, so far as we know, was confined to that locality and also for the fact that the mob mind was in a maturer state of antagonism to christianity. just what these peculiar conditions were, it is impossible to say with entire certainty. however there is at least a very suggestive hint in a paragraph by the greatest modern authority on roman gaul[ ] contained in his well known volume on ancient france.[ ] the paragraph is also worth quoting as giving a valuable insight into the psychology of the peoples of the ancient roman world. "the roman empire was in no wise maintained by force but by the religious admiration it inspired. it would be without a parallel in the history of the world that a form of government held in popular detestation should have lasted for five centuries. it would be inexplicable that the thirty legions of the empire should have constrained a hundred million men to obedience. the reason of their obedience was that the emperor, who personified the greatness of rome was worshipped like a divinity by unanimous consent. there were altars in honor of the emperor in the smallest townships of his realm. from one end of the empire to the other a new religion was seen to arise in those days which had for its divinities the emperors themselves. some years before the christian era the whole of gaul, represented by sixty cities, built in common a temple near the city of lyons in honor of augustus. its priests, elected by the united gallic cities, were the principal personages in their country. it is impossible to attribute all this to fear and servility. whole nations are not servile and especially for three centuries. it was not the courtiers who worshipped the prince, it was rome, and it was not rome merely but it was gaul, it was spain. it was greece and asia." while no dogmatic assertion is justified, it does not, perhaps, exceed the limits of reasonable inference to suppose that the existence of this noted center of emperor worship in the immediate neighborhood of lyons may account, in part at least, for the especial hatred of the populace of that city for persons who refused to sacrifice to the emperor and also for the maturity of their feeling against the christians, who were as far as we are aware, probably the only persons who refused thus to sacrifice. this stray bit of evidence is admittedly not conclusive. it is offered merely for what it may be worth. there is evidence that by the middle of the second century popular opinion was sufficiently inflamed against the christians to render the administration of justice precarious because of mob violence. edicts of hadrian and antonius pious specifically declared that the clamor of the multitude should not be received as legal evidence to convict or to punish them, as such tumultuous accusations were repugnant both to the firmness and the equity of the law.[ ] this attitude seems to have persisted with relatively little change for about a century. during this period the official 'persecutions' were neither numerous nor severe. from the very few scattered and incidental references which have alone survived regarding the mob feeling of the time, we can assert no more than that it was an exasperated one, likely to break out upon provocation but under ordinary circumstances more or less in abeyance. on the whole it was undoubtedly more violent at the end of the period than at the beginning. fortunately from the middle of the third century onwards we have a fairly continuous history of a single 'public' (alexandria) which is lacking before this time. the alexandrian populace were noted for their tumultuous disposition, but we have no reliable account of their behavior towards the christians until the time of severus, a.d. in the account given by eusebius of the martyrdom of the beautiful virgin, potamiaena, it is stated that: "the people attempted to annoy and insult her with abusive words." as however the intervention of a single officer sufficed to protect her from the people on this occasion, the public sentiment cannot have been inflamed to any alarming extent. if we may trust palladius, her martyrdom was the result of a plot of a would-be ravisher and in any case it was not the product of any spontaneous popular movement. in the period between a.d. and a.d. a well developed tradition of hatred and violence grew up in the popular mind. we have no record of the steps in the process but the extant accounts of the decian and valerian persecutions in alexandria leave no doubt of the fact. these persecutions can only be called 'legal' by a violent stretch of verbal usage. they were mob lynchings, sometimes sanctioned by the forms of law, but quite as often without even the barest pretense of judicial execution. they were quite as frequent and as savage in the later part of the reign of philip, as in the time of decius. they were not called forth by any imperial edict--they preceded the edict by at least a year and were of a character such as no merely governmental, legal process would ever, or could ever, take on. mobbing christians had become a form of popular sport, a generally shared sort of public amusement--exciting and not dangerous. the letter of bishop dionysius makes this very clear. to quote: "the persecution among us did not begin with the royal decree but preceded it an entire year. the prophet and author of evils to this city moved and aroused against us the masses of the heathen rekindling among them the superstition of their country and finding full opportunity for any wickedness. they considered this the only pious service of their demons that they should slay us." then follows a long list of mob lynchings of which we take a single specimen: "they seized serapion in his own house and tortured him and having broken all his limbs, they threw him headlong from an upper story."[ ] "and there was no street, nor public read, nor lane open to us night or day but always and everywhere all them cried out that if anyone would not repeat their impious words, he should be immediately dragged away and burned. and matters continued thus for a considerable time. but a sedition and civil war came upon the wretched people and turned their cruelty toward us against one another. so we breathed for a while as they ceased from their rage against us."[ ] the mob broke loose against the christians again the following year, but there is no object in cataloguing the grewsome exhibitions of crowd brutality. it is evident that what we have in this account is no exhibition of political oppression by a tyrannical government, but a genuine outbreak of group animosity which had been long incubating in the popular mind. all the phenomena which are characteristic of fully matured public feeling are found complete; circular interaction, shibboleths, sect isolation devices and the rest. when public feeling has developed to such a degree of intensity as this, the accumulated sentiment and social unrest must of necessity discharge themselves in some form of direct group action. this direct action however may take the from either of physical violence or, under certain conditions, of some sort of mystical experience; conversion, dancing, rolling on the ground, etc. in exceptional cases the two forms are combined. an illustration of this latter phenomenon is given by bishop dionysius in this same letter; "in cephus, a large assembly gathered with us and god opened for us a door for the word. at first we were persecuted and stoned but afterward not a few of the heathen forsook their idols and turned to god."[ ] it is necessary to mention perhaps the largest, and certainly the most dignified and respectable crowd that is to be met with in connection with this persecution--that of carthage on the occasion of the martyrdom of bishop cyprian. we find here neither rage on one side nor unseemly exaltation on the other. pagans and christians alike behaved with decent seriousness at the death of that famous man who was equally respected by all classes of the population. but martyrs of the social eminence of cyprian were very rare, and orderly behaviour in such a vast multitude as witnessed his end was still rarer. to return to the populace of alexandria. the long peace of the church which intervened between the persecution of valerian and that of diocletian witnessed in alexandria, as elsewhere, a great growth of christianity in numbers, influence, and wealth. it would perhaps be going beyond the evidence to say that in this interval, the majority of the population of the city were won over to the new faith, but it is certain that the number of christians became so great as to intimidate the pagan portion of the people. the alexandrian mob was still very much in evidence but it gradually ceased to harrass the christians except under the most exceptional circumstances. the dangers of such action became so considerable and the chances of success so problematical that we find a period when a practice of mutual forbearance governed the behavior of the hostile groups. the study of crowd psychology presents no more impressive contrast than that exhibited by the people of alexandria during the diocletian persecution compared with their behavior during that of decius. in the last and greatest of the persecutions, in the most tumultuous city of the empire, the mob took no part. like the famous image of brutus, it is more conspicuous by its absence than it would be by its presence. the persecution was a purely governmental measure officially carried out by judges and executioners in accordance with orders. in one obscure and doubtful instance we are told that the bystanders beat certain martyrs when legal permission was given to the people to treat them so. in another case we are told that the cruelty of the punishments filled the spectators with fear. these are the only references to the public that occur in the long and minute account of an eye witness of famous events extending over a considerable number of years. both before and after this period the mob of the egyptian metropolis exhibits the utmost extreme of religious fanaticism. during this period that mob had to be most carefully considered by the government in other than religious matters. but as a religious power it did not exist. had the persecution of diocletian happened a generation earlier it could have counted on a very considerable degree of popular support, had it happened a generation later it would have caused a revolt that could only have been put down by a large army. happening at the precise time it did, it provoked no popular reaction at all. this strange apathy is not peculiar to alexandria. practically without exception the authentic acts of the martyrs of this persecution are court records taken down by the official stenographers in the ordinary course of the day's work. they are dry, mechanical, and repetitious to a degree. they exhibit, in general, harrassed and exasperated judges driven to the infliction of extreme penalties in the face of a cold and skeptical public. one imperial decree ordered that all men, women, and children, even infants at the breast, should sacrifice and offer oblations, that guards should be placed in the markets and at the baths in order to enforce sacrifices there. the popular reaction in caesarea is thus recorded: "the heathen blamed the severity and exceeding absurdity of what was done for these things appeared to them extreme and burdensome."[ ] "he (the judge) ordered the dead to be exposed in the open air as food for wild beasts; and beasts and birds of prey scattered the human limbs here and there, so that nothing appeared more horrible even to those who formerly hated us, though they bewailed not so much the calamity of those against whom these things were done as the outrage against themselves and the common nature of man."[ ] the one thing to be said of this type of mob mind is manifestly that it is transitional. the pendulum has swung through exactly half its arc and for the brief instant presents the fallacious appearance of quiescence. how transitory this quiet was on the part of the alexandrian mob is evidenced by the history of athanasius. that great statesman conciliated and consolidated public opinion in egypt. backed by this opinion he practically cancelled the power of the civil authorities of the country and negotiated as an equal with the emperors. for the first time in more than three centuries the will of the common people again became a power able to limit the military despotism which dominated the civilized world. the re-birth of popular government in the fourth century through the agency of christian mobs is the most important preliminary step in the growth of the political power of the catholic church. a study of the mobs of alexandria, rome, constantinople and other great cities shows beyond question that the political power of the church had its origin in no alliance with imperial authority, but was independent of and generally antagonistic to that authority. the history of these christian mobs lies outside the limits of our study but it is worth while in the case of the alexandrian populace to give two or three brief extracts illustrating the final steps of the process which changed a fanatically pagan mob into an equally fanatical christian one. what we have to consider is only the last stage of an evolution already more than half complete at the time of the nicene council. under extreme provocation and certain of imperial complacency at their excesses, the pagan mob during the reign of julian indulged in one last outburst against the exceedingly unpopular george of cappadocia who had been forcibly intruded into the seat of athanasius. to quote the historian socrates: "the christians on discovering these abominations went forth eagerly to expose them to the view and execration of all and therefore carried the skulls throughout the city in a kind of triumphal procession for the inspection of the people. when the pagans of alexandria beheld this, unable to bear the insulting character of the act, they became so exasperated that they assailed the christians with whatever weapons chanced to come to hand, in their fury destroying numbers of them in a variety of ways and, as it generally happens in such a case, neither friends or relations were spared but friends, brothers, parents, and children imbued their hands in each others blood. the pagans having dragged george out of the church, fastened him to a camel and when they had torn him to pieces they burned him together with the camel."[ ] in this account we see the last expiring efforts of the pagan mob movement. any mob movement collapses rapidly when it turns in upon itself, and the evil results of its violence react immediately upon the members of the mob. by this time it is evident that the number of christians in alexandria was so large that any public persecution of them brought serious and unendurable consequences upon the populace generally. then the movement ended. but in the two centuries or more that the pagan movement lasted, a contrary christian mob movement had been developing along the same general lines as the other. this movement, being later in its inception, came to a head correspondingly later and reached its crisis under the patriarch cyril. its violence was first directed against the jews whom the christians appear to have hated even more than they hated the pagans. the jews were the weaker and less numerous faction opposed to the christians and as the pagans seem to have liked them too little to support them against the christians, it is not surprising that the christian mob, which had pretty well reduced the political authorities to impotence, should vent its rage against the jews and their synagogues. "cyril accompanied by an immense crowd of people, going to their synagogues, took them away from them and drove the jews out of the city, permitting the multitude to plunder their goods. thus the jews who had inhabited the city from the time of alexander were expelled from it."[ ] sometime after the expulsion of the jews, the christian mob, now directing its spite against the rapidly disappearing paganism, perpetrated perhaps the most atrocious crime that stains the history of alexandria--the murder of hypatia. this beautiful, learned, and virtuous woman, 'the fairest flower of paganism' is one of the very few members of her sex who has attained high eminence in the realm philosophical speculation. she enjoyed the deserved esteem of all the intellectual leaders of her age--christian as well as pagan--and to the latest ages her name will be mentioned with respect by all those speculative thinkers whose respect can confer honor. socrates describes her murder as follows: "it was calumniously reported among the christian populace that it was she who prevented orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. some of them therefore hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named peter, waylaid her returning home and dragged her from her carriage; they took her to the church called ceasareum where they completely stripped her and then murdered her with oyster shells. after tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called cinaron and there burned them."[ ] christian crowd sentiment when hardly yet at its full power was deprived of its original object of animosity by the collapse of paganism. being under the psychological necessity of expressing itself, this mob feeling happened to take as shibboleths some current theological catchwords. the subsequent history of alexandria and other great cities presents therefore the strange scene of rival sects disturbing public order and profoundly agitating vast throngs of people in a struggle over the most abstruse and recondite metaphysical concepts. for the sake of clear thinking it is necessary for us to remind ourselves that these concepts are merely weird garments fortuitously snatched up to cover the nakedness of a profound social and economic revolution. the above sketch, imperfect as it is and full of lacunae due to the inadequacy of the primary source material, is yet perhaps complete enough to enable us to summarize the chief steps in the process of the socialization in its aspect of a crowd movement. we have seen that this crowd movement, like all others, had its origin in social unrest due to shattered private and community ideals. the customary forms of expression being inhibited or repressed, the balked disposition experienced an organic demand for new stimulation. this new stimulation was sought in various ways; aimless or practically aimless travelling or local wandering, local disorder and agitation, increase in crime--and insanity. gradually this unrest focused itself and public attention became fixed on christianity. by the process of circular interaction, the so-called 'vicious circle', public sentiment increased in intensity, the name 'christian' became a shibboleth. when applied to an individual it let loose upon him the pent up emotion of the mob--an emotion or unreflective rage and anger. by the further process of idealization or sublimation, using the terms in their technical sense, the populace came to believe that christianity was the great and superhuman (daemoniac) source of all evils; earthquakes, disease epidemics, famine etc. seeking release for psychic tensions which were not understood and largely subconscious, they found it in a reversion to the oldest of the 'releasing instincts' that of hunting. the primary thing about the persecutions is that they were man hunts. the cruelty exhibited, while also serving as a tension release for mob feeling, is psychologically a secondary form of such release--though a very old form. the discharge of the accumulated public sentiment and of the severe social tensions produced group action of two kinds: (a) direct action: tearing the victim in pieces, gathering wood to burn him, striking him with sticks, stones, etc. (b) expressive action, taking the form of shouts, cries and ejaculations which became customary and traditional, 'christianos ad leones.' the very methods of lynching became ceremonial and even ritualistic. the beasts were first choice, then burning and then other forms in descending scale. the narrow range of the mob mind is illustrated by the closeness with which it adhered to contemporary judicial methods of punishment. the most obvious method of killing, and one which had the advantage of enabling a great number of people to see what was going on, the method of hanging, which is in such common use by mobs of our day, does not seem to have been employed by the ancient crowds--at any rate its use was rare in the modern form, strangling. there are some cases of hanging naked women by one foot. expressive action also took the form of wild and fantastic legends of cannibalism, child murder and such like. the crisis of this pagan mob movement came about the middle of the third century. the decian persecution appears to have been 'popular' in the strict etymological sense of that word. the persecution of diolection, though the most severe, seems to have had no great force of pagan public sentiment behind it. that sentiment was not hostile; it was neutral. the populace did nothing to hinder the measures of the government and it did nothing to help them. in another generation the pagan movement had spent itself. this analysis of the pagan mob sentiment against the christians is applicable mutatis nominibus, to the christians' mob movement against the pagans and to the movement of the 'orthodox' christians against the 'heretics.' perhaps we should say here, in defense of human nature, that these mob movements were not due to human depravity; they were, in strict literalness, diseases, epidemics of nervous disorder induced by pathological social conditions. before any persecuting attitude became habitual to the pagan populace pagan common sense had exhausted argument, persuasion, expostulation and every other intellectual device. only after reason and religion (in the pagan sense) had been employed in vain; only after long exasperation at a hopeless situation, when absolutely nothing else could be done, was popular violence aroused. social conditions being what they were, traditional mental attitudes common to pagan and christians alike required that something be done and mob action was the last desperate alternative to the admission of a new intellectual concept. the function of chiliasm in this crowd movement is plain from its history as previously sketched. it was a christian shibboleth peculiarly valuable for securing group cohesion, and for arousing individual staying power in times of persecution. of the numerous characteristics of successful 'sect shibboleths' three are perhaps especially note worthy: (a) satisfaction of the demand for mystical experience. (b) operation as an isolating device. (c) revolt against the prevailing moral order. in the period of greatest need chiliasm fulfilled these requirements very well. many a christian of little education was lifted out of himself to endure martyrdom by somewhat crass imaginations of participation in the reign of the saints in the rebuilt jerusalem. many a little band of sectaries maintained their group solidarity because of the belief that they were the elect people 'chosen of god' for future glory in the millennial kingdom. many a faithful one who would otherwise have given up in despair, must have gained strength and courage from the thought of that happy era, soon to come, when the cruel persecutors of the church would be slaves suffered to live only that their servitude might augment the dignity and honor of the saints in the beatific kingdom. the relation of the chiliastic expectation to that strange insensibility to pain which was so remarkable a characteristic of the early martyrs cannot be stated with exactness. it was probably close--at least in numerous cases. we have what seems to be entirely trustworthy evidence that not only strong men but even delicate and sensitive women exhibited the power of inhibiting the normal reactions to the most excruciating torments. this almost incredible power of inhibition can only be explained as the result of the building up of a pathologically intense, ecstatic, mental state. this ecstatic mental state would appear to have been acquired by a series of psychic changes and organic, neuronic adjustments requiring, ordinarily, a fairly considerable amount of time. this peculiar psychological condition had not merely to be built up. it must have attained an extraordinary degree of habituation in order to render its subjects impervious to such extreme sensory excitations. the requisite degree of imperviousness can hardly have been acquired without such permeation of consciousness by imagination as constituted a complete subjective universe. many of the martyrs would seem to have lived, more or less habitually, in a mental world of their own which shut them off from susceptibility to external stimuli. this condition is frequently found in artists and thinkers, and with the accompanying insensibility to pain, is a common phenomenon in the 'trance' state as well as in some forms of insanity.[ ] it would go beyond the evidence to claim that chiliastic concepts functioned exclusively, or even predominantly, in the production of the 'martyr psychosis,' but the evidence does point to the conclusion that apocalyptic expectations held a more prominent place in the consciousness of the martyrs than in that of the generality of christians. it is certain that chiliasm became especially manifest in times of persecution but chiliasm must have operated even in ordinary times to produce the phenomena which persecution brought into prominence. even today, in the entire absence of persecution, chiliastic excitement among certain groups of secretaries produces types of religious psychosis closely similar to those exhibited by the martyrs.[ ] on the whole the conclusion appears warranted that the increasing power and progressive socialization of the church, which made persecution at first hopeless and at last impossible, rendered chiliasm, as a crowd shibboleth, gradually useless and finally pernicious to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. had further persecutions been possible chiliasm would no doubt have been retained longer, but its usefulness was fatally impaired when the majority of people nominally embraced christianity. it was of little or no value in those struggles with heretical christian sects which engaged the activities of orthodox mobs from the time of constantine onwards. other shibboleths such as 'the church' and 'catholicism' were more effective in this contest. similarly for the larger purpose of ecclesiastical polity, agencies like monasticism and missionary enterprise were employed, which conserved the shibboleth values of chiliasm and were free from its defects as an instrument of hierarchical ambition. the aims of the rulers of the church became increasingly social and political and with such aims chiliasm was fundamentally incompatible. footnotes: [ ] e.g., the pagan philosophers. [ ] acts : - . [ ] pliny, ep. xcvi. [ ] dialogue xviii. [ ] mart. poly. iii. [ ] _ibid._, viii. [ ] _ibid._, xii. [ ] _ibid._, xiii. [ ] _ibid._, xviii. [ ] hist. ecc. vi. [ ] hist. ecc. v, i. [ ] hist. ecc. v, ii. [ ] prof. j. w. thompson. [ ] fustel de coulanges. [ ] hist. des insts. politique de l'ancienne france. par. ii. [ ] eus. h. e. iv, . [ ] eus. his. ecc. vi, . [ ] eus. his. ecc. vi, . [ ] his. ecc. vii, . [ ] eus. mart. pal. ii. [ ] _ibid._, chap. ii. [ ] hist. ecc. iii, . [ ] socrates hist. ecc. iiii, . [ ] hist. ecc. vii, . [ ] cf. e. underhill 'mysticism.' [ ] e.g., the dukhabours. chapter iv chiliasm and patriotism perhaps the most pronounced characteristic of pre-christian, judaistic chiliasm is its nationalistic or ethnic patriotism. of course any attempt to rigidly differentiate the nationalistic and religious concepts of the hebrews of the two centuries preceding the advent of christianity would be foredoomed to failure. never perhaps were patriotism and religion more nearly synonymous than at this period among this people. that their chiliasm has a strongly nationalistic content is therefore natural and inevitable. the same patriotic animus is to be found in a great number of their other religious tenets and practices. the emphasis is perpetually upon the enhancement of the value of the jewish race and nation and the corresponding depreciation of other nations and faiths. but while it is true, that, owing to the inseparable integration of church and state in judea, in the first two centuries before christ, we find a very considerable proportion of the religious beliefs and observances highly charged with nationalistic patriotism; this is perhaps more noticeable in the case of chiliasm than in the case of any other contemporary theological concept. the nature of the millennial belief was such as qualified it to function with especial ease and success in that particular historical situation. for considerably more than half a century before the birth of christ the dominant fact in hebrew history is the increase of the power and influence of the roman state in the political life of the jewish people. this increase was perfectly natural. indeed it was inevitable. that the petty judean state would eventually be absorbed in the world wide republic was a fact patent to any reasonably intelligent student of the situation.[ ] under the circumstances it could hardly fail to take place even without any direct provocation to overt action on the part of either jews or romans. it is not our purpose to follow the long, hopeless struggle of the jews against the inevitable extinction of their political independence. the jew was fighting against fate. from the first interference of rome in the affairs of palestine to the last execution of bar cochba rebels, the end was never in real doubt--humanly speaking. the inevitableness of the catastrophe in this long drawn out tragedy is, in the writer's judgment, in some measurable degree connected both with the nature and subsequent history of jewish chiliasm. later hebrew chiliasm is a very peculiar form of belief. it is characterized by what can only be called a crass and exaggerated anthropomorphic supernaturalism. it would seem as if pari passu with the increasing conviction of the futility of opposition to the power of rome, there was an increasing conviction of a catastrophic supernal manifestation, which manifestation in its details became ever more and more crude and vulgar. the developing knowledge and conviction of the invincible power of rome is sufficient to explain the increasing dependence upon supernatural aid for deliverance--but the peculiar crassness of the supernaturalism is the arresting element in the later jewish chiliastic writings. when every allowance has been made for the natural exuberance of the oriental imagination something still remains to be accounted for. it is at least possible that the, to our taste, repulsive features of supernalistic vengeance and glory are the result of a long process of selection. in no people of whom we have historical knowledge is the spirit of nationalistic patriotism more deeply rooted than in the jew. we may take it that practically all the hebrews of the generations under discussion believed in an eventually triumphant jewish state. differences of education, and religious faith, however, conditioned the opinions as to the time when this triumphant state would appear and still more the method by which it would appear. the better educated jews, who were conversant with the political conditions of the contemporary world and whose belief in supernatural aid was perhaps weakest, appear to have adopted a laissez-faire attitude. they seem to have been advocates of a pro-roman policy; to make the best of the existing roman supremacy waiting for the unpredictable time when rome should follow the path of egypt, assyria, and other world powers who in their several ages had subjugated the children of abraham. this party would perhaps have been willing to take advantage of any condition of affairs which offered a reasonably safe opportunity of successful revolt but under existing conditions they were opposed to armed resistance to the mistress of the world. at the other end of the scale was a party of bigotedly and fanatically zealous patriots obsessed with the idea that immediate supernatural assistance would be forthcoming in the event of armed revolt. between these two parties was another party--if it may be called such--partaking in various degrees of the characteristics of these two extremists parties. the apocaliptic and chiliastic literature of the period was extensive. it would be possible to arrange even such fragments as remain, according to the preponderance of supernal elements. it would seem to be a rational deduction that if we possessed this literature in its completeness we should be able (bearing in mind that we are dealing with a relatively considerable period of time) to follow the whole process of the supersession of more rational chiliastic concepts in favor of the more crudely supernaturalistic ones. rome was at once strongly repressive of movements for political liberty and tolerant of religious liberty. those writings in which chiliastic expectations took the form of advocating the active preparing for and co-operating with the expected messiah would suffer extinction. on the other hand those chiliastic beliefs which inculcated absolute and entire dependence upon supernatural aid for the achievement of national independence would be politically harmless and exuberance in such imaginings might flourish unhindered. the more fantastic and absurd the expectations the less likely they were to be suppressed by the imperial authorities. whatever the measure of truth in the above conjecture it is certain that jewish chiliasm developed to the last extreme of extravagance. with the doubtful exception of some hindu legends, there is nothing, which more exceeds the bounds of reason and common sense, in the literature of the world. it is perhaps not too much to say that jewish chiliasm died of excess development--a method of extinction of which nature makes liberal use. the later history of jewish chiliasm does not concern us. under the constantly repeated blows of disappointment it changed its form and content into the more rational concept of salvation and glorification of the individual human soul after death. what does concern us is that this jewish chiliasm in all but its most extreme form was taken over by christianity. the intellectual background of hebrew patriotism of course persisted in the christians of the first generation who were largely jews or proselytes. the imminent divine kingdom of christ does indeed take the place of the lower concept of a rigidly nationalistic kingdom. the kingdom of christ even to the first generation of christians must have had a larger content than the previous jewish belief which it fulfilled and supplemented. yet the essential thing to remember is that so far at least as the jewish christians were concerned chiliastic expectations, though somewhat further extended, were still a form of expression for the forces of hebrew nationalistic patriotism. the kingdom of the jews had been transformed, or perhaps better, transmogrified, into the kingdom of christ and his saints[ ] but its essential content was unchanged and so long at least as a considerable proportion of christians were converted jews this condition of affairs persisted. the constant criticism of chiliasm by gentile christians is that it is judaizing. it is perhaps not exceeding the limits of permissable hypothesis to suppose that one of the reasons why chiliasm failed to make a permanent place for itself in the belief of the universal church is to be found in this very fact that it was in essence a form of political, jewish, nationalistic patriotism, to which the other portions of the christian world, perhaps unconsciously, but not the less effectively, objected. the success of roman imperialism in denationalizing conquered peoples was truly remarkable. in this most difficult task of practical statesmanship its accomplishments far surpass those of any other empire, ancient or modern. but this success, great and unparalleled as it was, nevertheless was not absolute. except in particular cases it was never really complete. the measure of its accomplishment was very different in different parts of the empire. in italy, gaul, spain, and perhaps britain its success may fairly be considered complete, but these were countries where the proportion of roman settlers and colonists was very large. they were countries, furthermore, which were early conquered--countries, which, at the time of the roman conquest, had not advanced a great distance toward the attainment of national solidarity in politics, religion, art, literature, war or social intercourse. this lack of development of local, national institutions and psychology left the ground relatively free for the development of distinctively roman civilization and habits of thought. the comparative freedom of these western provinces of the empire from religious heresies at the time that the eastern provinces were so prolific of them, is commonly ascribed to inferior aptitude of these western peoples for metaphysical speculation. we do not attempt to deny such inferiority, though the subsequent development of metaphysical speculation in western europe during the time that the reviving sense of nationality first began to be felt in the middle ages and reformation era, suggests another cause as operative. if we consider three regions where chiliasm, and also unquestionable heresies, were particularly rife; i.e., phrygia, egypt, and roman africa we see at once that these regions were seats of old, deeply rooted, and thoroughly developed civilizations. to go into the subject merely a little way we find that a nationalistic tradition existed in phrygia at the time of the composition of the iliad.[ ] this nationalistic tradition was considerably more than a thousand years old at the time of the introduction of christianity. roman political power had by this time been thoroughly established in the country and there is no reason to believe that political rebellion was contemplated at the time of the rise of chiliasm and the heresies. but while armed revolt may not have been considered as practicable, or even as desirable, the fundamental, nationalistic characteristics of the underlying strata of the population do not seem to have been very greatly altered. long before the advent either of the roman political power or the christian religion a homogenous, national psychology had become characteristic of the phrygian population. the phrygian seems to have put on christianity very much as he put on the toga. he wore the toga regularly and easily enough it may be, but in gestures and action, in speech and manner, he was still a phrygian. this typical phrygian seems to have been commonly regarded in the contemporary world as a bucolic sort of individual, much perhaps as a kansan is regarded in the united states, and with perhaps as much or as little reason. the fact is that while ancient phrygia without question possessed a large rural population, it also possessed numerous cities where the graces and amenities of life were as fully developed as in any of the neighboring provinces which did not suffer from the attribution of rusticity. the human instinct to botanize a neighboring people while doubtless adding to the gaiety of nations has to be taken _magno_ cum grano salis by the historian. whatever may be said of their other cultural institutions it is a fact that the phrygians at the time of the introduction of christianity had already developed certain distinctively national, religious characteristics which marked them off from their neighbors. the phrygian mysteries while doubtless in certain broad characteristics similar to the eleusinian mysteries had peculiarities of their own and were cherished by the people as something particularly expressive of their especial form of the philosophy of life. in spite of any decay and degradation which may have overtaken these mysteries in the course of a long history, it is certain that their primary object was the elevation and enhancement of life. the national religious consciousness of phrygia was peculiar in the prominent place given to women. to this day it is impossible to say with certainty whether the superior place in their religious system is held by the male or female concepts of deity. perhaps on the whole the female concept preponderates.[ ] what is true of theology is also true of cultus. priestesses and prophetesses held a position of marked prominence and importance. possibly the most pronouncedly distinctive mark of phrygian religion was the emphasis upon inspiration, immediate divine revelation, exstatic conditions of religious excitation, the well known "phrygian frenzy." if now, with even this meagre, historical, nationalistic background in view, we examine the expression of chiliasm in phrygia we see at once how it took the form and color of the national psychology. the most pronounced chiliastic expectations are found in montanism, which was so strongly marked by characteristics of its place of origin that it was known throughout the rest of the christian world as the 'phrygian heresy.' so strong was the influence of national sentiment that a very marked change was introduced in one, most important particular. christian chiliasm, originating as a jewish form of nationalistic patriotism, emphasized the fact that in the millennium christ was to reign in jerusalem, which was to supplant rome as the center and ruler of the world. in this respect phrygian chiliasm makes a complete break with the hebrew tradition. christ was to appear and reign, not in jerusalem, but in pepuza. an insignificant town of phrygia was to become the capital of the world wide kingdom of christ on earth, displacing both rome and jerusalem. nationalistic patriotism--not to say megalomania--could scarcely go farther. so too phrygian chiliasm is remarkable for the prominence and importance of the position of women in the movement. the women, prisca and the others, seem to have been fully as prominent in the movement as montanus himself and they exercised a degree of influence to which it would be difficult to find a parallel in contemporary christian movements in other countries. similarly, visions, revelations, inspirations, extraordinary conditions of religious excitation are a marked feature of phrygian chiliasm. they are of course the old 'phrygian frenzy' in christian guise. not to pursue this phase of the subject in more detail, it is evident that phrygian chiliasm bore in a marked degree the impress of the national, religious psychology. those bishops of pontus and syria who persuaded their people to settle all their worldly affairs and go out into neighboring deserts to await the coming of christ in glory, exhibit in a more naïve form the power of local group habits of thought to transform concepts intruded from outside the group. in the case of egypt it is gratuitous labor to dwell upon the fact that the native population at the advent of christianity had developed a nationalistic like-mindedness. this nation even in the year a.d. had an historical antiquity greater than any other nation can show today--with the doubtful exception of china. in no other nation in the world has there been such an opportunity for climatic and geographic influences to work their full effect in producing psychological homogeneity among a population on the whole remarkably little disturbed in demotic composition. it is to be remarked also that the climatic and geographic environments are themselves remarkably homogeneous throughout the whole extent of the nation. the deterministic school of historians have a model made to hand in the history of egypt--a model of which it must be confessed they have made very skillful use.[ ] this is not the place, even if the writer had the requisite knowledge, to enter into any extended discussion of the national psychology of the egyptian populace. it is sufficient to mention one predominating feature of that psychology, a feature so persistent and ubiquitous that the study of it alone, enables the investigator to obtain a true insight into much that is otherwise obscure in almost every variety of social expression among the egyptians; law, politics, government, art, science, literature, and religion. this predominating feature can perhaps be best defined as a certain low estimate of the value of individuality in the common man, a cheap appraisal of the worthwhileness of the life of the ordinary person. it seems to have a relatively slight ethnic element--if indeed it can be truthfully said to have any. it makes its appearance substantially unchanged in all subtropical countries situated in the same general physical environment as egypt; e.g., southern china, india, mesopotamia, mexico and yucatan; in all countries that is, where the natural conditions for sustaining and propagating human life are relatively easy and where the economic surplus of productive physical, as opposed to intellectual, labor is unusually great. nevertheless the fact that egypt is in this category is due to a highly special geographic phenomenon, the overflow of the river nile. so that by comparison with the nations immediately contiguous to egypt, this psychology may be truly said to be distinctively national in spite of its similarity to that of other peoples more remote geographically. it is perhaps unnecessary to do more than mention a very few of the ways in which this characteristic of egyptian psychology has affected the national life. it has rendered the population largely passive under the successive yolks of persians, greeks, romans, arabs, turks, and englishmen, to mention only some of the more prominent exploiters. it has made possible the erection of those vast pyramids of stone, devoid alike of necessity or use, which remain to this day one of the wonders of the world. it has enabled religions at once superstitious and debasing to flourish in the midst of a high degree of material civilization. for our purpose it is sufficient to call attention to the fact that this mental bias makes any change, even in the acquired concepts of the people, especially difficult of accomplishment. this is very well illustrated, in the study of egyptian chiliasm. in no other country were the efforts necessary to overthrow chiliastic concepts so long drawn out, so persistent, so futile of immediate success. indeed they did not finally succeed till long after the period embraced in this study. when the good bishop dionysius of alexandria - a.d., held his conference with the village chiliasts of the arsinoite nome, some of them were indeed won over, but we are told that 'others expressed their gratification at the conference'. it is evident that they were 'of the same opinion still', dionysius himself[ ] was not the first of the alexandrians to oppose chiliasm. there was much effort, both by him and others, to eradicate the concept before and after this arsinoite conference. yet we know that later on, villagers from this region became monks in the thebiad, and manuscripts still surviving from the thebiad, show that apocalyptic and chiliastic literature was popular with the monks, generations, and even centuries, after the death of dionysius. it is a notable example of the national character of the egyptians. they let their aggressive and dominating superiors have their own way in appearance--but in appearance only. the underlying currents of thought remained essentially unchanged among the commonality. the resistance was passive--perhaps almost imperceptible--but it was real and persistent. in the case of roman africa--the country north of the sahara desert and west of egypt--the problem is more complicated. in roman times down to the vandal invasion, the population of this region, leaving out of account certain small and relatively negligible numbers of greeks, egyptians and others found mainly in the larger cities, the population was composed of three distinct strata. at the top were the dominant romans, insignificant in point of numbers but having the monopoly of government, law, and administration. they were practically undisguised exploiters; government officials whose main business was to forward corn and oil to rome and incidentally enrich themselves; agents of the great roman landlords intent on transmitting rents to their patrician employers--already in the time of nero the senatorial province of africa was owned by as few as nine landlords--absentee landlords living in rome,--and finally, the numerous body of inferior agents; lawyers, money lenders, and estate managers whose services were indispensable to the carrying on of the vast system of economic exploitation. beneath this thin, dominant, roman upper crust was a vast population of artisans, tradesmen, agricultural and other laborers, serfs, and slaves. this great body of the commonality was to a remarkable degree still very purely punic even in late roman times. they differed ethnically, linguistically, religiously, and otherwise from their rulers.[ ] we find st. augustine, centuries after the roman conquest, writing a letter in latin to one of his clergy, but requesting him to translate it into punic and communicate it to his congregation. it is useful to remind ourselves of the fact that the population of north africa in the first centuries of the christian era was much greater than it is now. centuries of mohammedan mis-government account for this in part but the chief cause is to be found in those profound climatic changes, the origins of which are still obscure, that have reduced to desolate and barren wilderness whole regions which in roman times abounded in populous cities and in rich and fertile agricultural lands. this large population had the cohesion which results from centuries of similar and essentially unchanged social habits and it had also that sense of strength which comes from large numbers, and that pride which results from the inheritance of a proud history. they never wholly lost that spirit which had made their ancestors great. they never forgot that in former ages they had competed as the equals of rome for the lordship of the world. to the south toward the desert and the atlas mountains dwelt a third section of the population. they were nomads or semi-nomads, troglodytes, and mountain peoples. their manner of life remains essentially the same today as it was in roman times and as it was for centuries before rome set foot in africa. the romans never succeeded in subduing this population except temporarily and for short periods. the imperial government did what it could, and by means of military posts and patrols kept a kind of order, but its success was only moderate. christianity in roman africa reflects this threefold division of the population, as is to be expected. cyprian, in spite of the sincere religious faith and high moral character which elevates him so high above the social class to which he belonged, is still the most typical hierarch of his age. in his writings we find the whole philosophy of the governing class translated into ecclesiastical language. it is highly significant that in all the numerous and voluminous writings of this father there is not a line about chiliasm. ideas of such a nature found little reception in the minds of men daily engaged in the practical duties of making as much as possible out of the management and control of a vast population economically and politically subordinated to them. it would seem that chiliasm was in fact very largely confined to the punic commonality. tertullian is the great representative of this class. the very considerable success of his views can only be ascribed to their being acceptable to the general body of his local, christian contemporaries. it is at least imaginable this success was due to the fact that the personal characteristics of this great african; his impetuosity, his boldness, his sternness, his pride, his vengeful spirit were truly representative of the psychology of the people whose spokesman he was. it is notable that he was perhaps the greatest of the chiliasts. the reader who has followed the argument thus far may be saying to himself at this point: "if it be granted that the national characters of the peoples of phrygia, egypt, north africa or elsewhere, conditioned their acceptance of chiliastic beliefs and the ways in which these beliefs found expression, what has that to do with the subject of this chapter which is chiliasm and patriotism?" it is to that point we shall now direct our attention, but what has been said above is necessary to the proper consideration of the matter. we have endeavored to show that in phrygia, egypt, and north africa there existed nationalistic psychologies in the commonality. it will be recalled that we have shown in an earlier chapter the curious fact that chiliasm, though originally a perfectly orthodox doctrine--indeed one of the most important portions of the true faith, nevertheless in the course of its historical development, became mixed up with heresies to a degree beyond any rational explanation by the law of chance or the rule of average. it would seem almost as though there was some natural affinity between this particular orthodox doctrine and almost any heresy; which finally resulted in its being itself condemned as heretical. the reason for this was that chiliasm, like the heresies, was a psychic equivalent for patriotism. no stranger or more unwarranted delusion is to be found in the whole range of church history than the one still unfortunately common, to the effect that for several centuries at the beginning of the christian era the populace of whole religions were obsessed with incredible zeal over the most abstruse, metaphysical speculations. it is indeed true that the ostensible objects of the conflict were philosophical ideas but the realities behind these symbols were tangibles of a very genuinely mundane order; economic exploitation, social inequality, and suppressed national patriotism. this is evident enough in cases like the donatists in africa, but a little consideration of the evidence in the light of the developments of the freudian psychology, will make it clear in almost all of the heresies, and in the case of orthodoxy also, when the imperial government chanced to be itself heretical. so far as the writer is aware no study of any great length has been made of this matter, which would richly repay investigation; but our concern is more directly with chiliasm and the larger problem must be left to others for solution. freud has shown beyond reasonable hope of successful refutation, that experiences which the mind has completely forgotten leave emotional 'tones' which remain active and are the determining cause of physical and mental conditions. a thought 'complex' is a system of ideas or associations with an especially strong emotional tone. a complex may be of extreme interest to an individual by reason of his social education and hereditary mentality and yet be out of harmony with e.g., security of life and property: so a conflict arises in the mind. this conflicting complex is gotten rid of in various ways; rationalization, repression, disassociation, or what not, but the energy or interest which initiated the complex remains none the less and something must become of its force. this undirected emotional force is the cause of dreams, neuroses, and psychic trauma.[ ] such in the most sketchy outline is freud's idea. the application to the case under consideration is obvious. patriotism was a repressed 'complex' to the peoples of phrygia, egypt, and roman africa. the mental conflict brought on by the repression was rationalized easily enough, no doubt, so far as the conscious mind of the populace was concerned, but the disassociated emotional energy was let loose on other concepts with which it had no proper connection originally, i.e., problems of philosophical speculation. chiliasm was a speculative concept of a sort to make an especial appeal under the circumstances. so far as his conscious mind was concerned the phrygian might be perfectly reconciled to roman political supremacy. he might rationally prove to his own satisfaction that such political supremacy was really to his own advantage in the long run. any idea of resistance was sure to be repressed by the certainty of losing his property and life. yet the emotional energy of his patriotism remained and it naturally associated itself with any idea that lay at hand. chiliasm happened to be at hand. the glorified, divine kingdom of the saints of god on earth was the psychic equivalent of that phrygian kingdom whose national existence had been forever extinguished by rome. similarly that national patriotism which under other historical circumstances might have found satisfaction in the glory of an independent egypt now found expression in the borrowed phraseology of jewish and christian apocalyptical literature. the same is true of course of the punic and nomadic strata of the population of roman africa. to the new jerusalem which was to come down out of heaven from god, these peoples transferred their now useless and hopeless longing for the carthage of the days of hannibal and for jugurthan numidia. if, as we have endeavored to show, chiliasm represented the strivings of repressed, national patriotisms, we can readily understand the increasing opposition it encountered on the part of the great dignitaries of the church. as the christian hierarchy became increasingly perfected, the desire of the prelates for unity and cohesion in the church became correspondingly greater. but national patriotism is essentially a disrupting and disintegrating force to any imperialistic organization, civil or ecclesiastical. chiliasm being associated with this separatist tendency, naturally came to be regarded as heretical, and as such, was suppressed. footnotes: [ ] cf. r. charles, doctrine of a future life. [ ] cf. s. j. case, the messianic hope. [ ] cf. il., iii, . [ ] cf. w. m. ramsay., art. _phrygians_, enc. of religion and ethics. [ ] cf. buckle, intro. to the hist. of civilization in england. [ ] cf. eusebius, eccl. hist., vii, seq. [ ] cf. alex. graham, roman africa. [ ] cf. a. h. ring, psychoanalysis. chapter v chiliasm and social theory we have seen that in the first generations of the church's existence the rapidly approaching end of the world was a doctrine firmly held by almost all christians. we have seen how by the fifth century this doctrine, though doubtless still believed by small numbers of individuals and isolated groups, was practically dead. we have endeavored to show some of the more important political, economic, social, and religious effects of this belief and of its declension. the changes which took place almost imperceptibly during the course of more than three centuries in the status of this doctrine make any evaluation of its influence very difficult. it is, however, probably well within the truth to say that the transformation of early christianity from an eschatological to a socialized movement is, in some respects, one of the most important changes in its history. the change was actual and objective rather than formal and theoretical. it profoundly influenced the practical lives of christians, but it produced no alteration whatever in the creeds of the church. as has been shown in the preceding chapters it is for these reasons at once more difficult to investigate and more troublesome to evaluate. the difficulties of the subject itself, considerable as they are; lack of adequate source material, doubt as to the authenticity and reliability of such sources as we have; and ever present theological prepossession, these difficulties after all do not offer such hindrances to fruitful investigation as another factor, the present condition of sociological methodology. the writer is not learned in the various forms of scientific method, but he doubts whether any other science is, in this respect, in such a chaotic condition as sociology. it is reasonable to expect of any science that it will have some general rules for the investigation of the data in its field, and some general principles for the interpretation of the results of investigation. sociology is no exception in this respect. in fact the number of sociological 'principles,' so called, is almost incredibly great. a mere descriptive enumeration of them, and a by no means exhaustive one, fills a considerable volume.[ ] but so far as the writer is aware, no effort has been made to apply these principles or any considerable number of them, systematically, to the elucidation of any movement, contemporary or historical. in general each principle has had its own advocates who have applied it to varying ranges of historical phenomena--generally to the total or at least considerable, exclusion of other principles. these sociological principles are not only very numerous--they are of very various value. no successful classification of them has thus far been made. it is very possible that in the present state of the science no successful classification can be made. yet no study of an historical movement can, without loss, dispense with the aid given by these general sociological principles. the writer will, therefore, in the briefest possible manner, try to show some of the aspects of early chiliasm as they appear in the light of a few of these principles. the list of principles employed is not an exhaustive one. it can not even claim to be comprehensive of all the principles which might fairly be said to be important. on the other hand it perhaps includes some principles which some sociologists would probably consider of minor importance. there is as yet, unfortunately, no considerable agreement on this matter among sociologists of different nationalities and schools. the reason of course, is that the social reality which these principles endeavor to explain contains facts which are intellectually incompatible but which nevertheless, do actually exist together. one of the most important and one of the most convenient methods of investigating social phenomena is the statistical method. in all cases of social pathology this method is so valuable as to be almost indispensable. in other cases its use needs to be more carefully guarded. in the problem we have considered the use of the statistical method has been evidently impossible except in the most incidental manner. we do not know how many christians expected any particular kind of second advent to take place within any given length of time. if we had information for each decade to the time of augustine, of the number of 'convinced' chiliasts and the number of 'adherents' who were inclined toward that belief, together with information as to the number of years within which each of these groups expected the second advent, it is needless to say that such facts would enable us to judge the movement with a considerable approach to historical certainty. even such incidental and fragmentary information as has come down to us in regard to the number of chiliastic believers is most valuable and such use has been made of it as may be. if the use of the statistical method has not been more extensive, it is because of lack of data. perhaps the most widely known of all sociological principles is that called economic determinism, or the economic interpretation of history, or historical materialism. more and more, of recent years, this principle has been employed by historians. the classic statement of the doctrine is found in the communist manifesto. the introduction to the second edition states: "in every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class, struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes."[ ] in the application of this principle to our subject we are lead to expect a genuine, though not necessarily direct, connection between the declension of eschatological expectations, the increase of socialization in early christianity and such broad economic movements as resulted from the soil exhaustion of western europe and the decreased productivity of compulsory associated labor. in the substitution of serfdom for slavery and in the growth of monasticism we certainly have two movements which profoundly affected the church, and had a considerable part in altering the attitude of mind which made chiliastic expectations tenable. it is probably true that what we have here is considerably more than a mere coincidence of time, i.e., that chiliasm declined as serfdom developed and was dead by the time the patronage system was established on the great estates. indeed, in the west at least, chiliasm was dead before the country regions were to any measurable degree christian at all. it is not too much to say that the apologetic used by st. augustine to extirpate primitive, chiliastic belief was only made plausable, or even possible, by profound changes, of an economic nature, in the early church. the central point of augustine's apologetic is that the church, as actually existing at the time, was the promised kingdom of christ and the reign of the saints on earth. such an explanation would have been absurd in the days when the christian church consisted only of a few, small companies of sectaries, lost among the lower strata of the population of the cities on the mediterranean litoral. but by augustine's time the church was something quite different. it was enormously wealthy; owning farms, orchards, vineyards, olive yards, mines, quarries, timberlands, horses, cattle, sheep, goats, slaves and serfs, to say nothing of the purely ecclesiastical properties like churches, schools, bishops' residences and similar structures, and the land they occupied. the possession of this great wealth inevitably brought with it social position, prestige, and political power. the psychical reaction produced by wealth, rank, and power was naturally unfavorable to the growth of any lively desire for the termination of the existing order of things. indeed it was an active force in displacing and eliminating chiliasm from the minds of the hierarchy. on the reverse side we have seen that the times of persecution, when the property of the church was confiscated and the lives and liberty of christians endangered or lost, coincided with the recrudescence of messianic expectations. so that, whichever way the subject is approached, it would seem that the contentions of the advocates of the economic interpretation of history can make out a very good case in the instance of the early christian church and chiliasm. without raising economic determinism to the rank of a dogma and while admitting that it has very real limitations, it would nevertheless appear from the present study, that the following contention of one of its leading exponents contains an important degree of truth. "the relations of men to one another in the matter of making a living are the main, underlying causes of men's habits of thought and feeling, their notions of right, propriety, and legality, their institutions of society and government, their wars and revolutions."[ ] a principle somewhat allied to the doctrine of economic determinism, is that of progress by 'group conflict.' perhaps the most notable exponent of this principle is the austrian sociologist, ludwig gumplowicz, who states: "when two distinct (heterogen) groups come together the natural tendency of each is to exploit the other to use the most general expression. this indeed is what gives the first impulse to the social process.[ ] according to this principle we should expect to find the cause of the transformation of early christianity in the conflicts of various groups within the christian community and in the conflicts between the christians as a group, and various other groups in the world of that time. the truth of this is so obvious that it is a mere waste of words to point it out. that christian theology evolved by a series of conflicts with various pagan theologies on the one side, and with various groups within the church on the other side, which were successively branded as heretical, is the most patent fact in the theological history. what is true of the theology in general is true of chiliasm in particular. it was very largely during the conflicts with a long series of heretical groups; gnostics, ebionites, alogi, montanists and apolinarians that the blows were given which finally vanquished chiliasm. its elimination, or at least the rapidity of its elimination, was very measurably due to the fact that it was involved in these group conflicts, and as it was almost invariably associated with the losing group, it suffered the natural fate of the vanquished. while the principle of which gumplowicz was so able a supporter leads us to expect changes in the chiliastic doctrine wherever it appears in connection with the phenomenon of group conflict, both within and without the church, this principle does not, in itself, enable us to state anything definitely concerning the nature of these changes. there is, however, another sociological principle which we can call to our aid--the principle of imitation. according to m. tarde: "the unvarying characteristic of every social fact whatever is that it is imitative and this characteristic belongs exclusively to social facts. this imitation however, is not absolute and the various degrees of exactness in imitation and the complexes resulting from the various combinations and oppositions of imitations form the dynamic of progress."[ ] by the help of this principle we can in a certain measure estimate the general nature of the changes which took place in early christianity during the process of its socialization. the conversion of the roman empire to christianity is, according to this principle, merely half of the actual occurrence. the other half might be called the conversion of christianity to the roman empire. the fact that this second conversion took place; that the christian church became a hierarchic, bureaucratic, legalistic, monarchical imperialism is evidence enough that the principle of imitation operated powerfully in early christian history. what is true of the early church as a whole is true of chiliasm in particular. there was no very powerful second adventist or other chiliastic influence in the heathen world with which the early christians were in contact. their beliefs were, therefore according to this theory, weakened by dilution; vice versa the pagans were gradually converted to an enfeebled eschatological belief by imitation of the christians, but the net result was a compromise, i.e., a far off and indefinite eschatology. the concrete evidence in support of this contention is not abundant being confined to a few lines in the sibylline oracles, hippolytus, lactantius and augustine. such as the evidence is, however, it is entirely on the side of the theory of imitation. it is moreover a very defensible position that if we were not dealing with such a stereotyped literary form, the evidence would be much stronger. one arresting feature of the chiliastic passages that have come down to us, is their uniformity. they are repetitions, very often actual, verbal repetitions of one another. what is of real interest in this connection however, is not the form of words, used, but the varying degrees of earnestness, sincerity, and eagerness with which the beliefs, embodied in the form, were held. this is a thing difficult if not impossible of measurement. practically our only means of arriving at the facts is to compare the relatively slight changes in the _form_ of the chiliastic tradition. this has already been done[ ] and favors the contention which the theory of imitation seeks to maintain. the passage in the oracles, while undoubtedly chiliastic, is doubtfully orthodox and is found in a context showing the influence of paganism in almost every line. similarly hippolytus and still more lactantius and augustine being situated so as to be peculiarly susceptible to the pagan environment show a marked tendency to make the second advent a far off event. st. augustine, whose contact with the contemporary pagan world was more complete at more points than that of any other church father, puts the second advent out of all connection with his own generation. another sociological principle of considerable importance for our purpose is that sometimes spoken of as the transfer of the allegiance of the unproductive laborers. the most prominent upholder of this principle is probably the italian economist achille loria. according to loria, the history of civilization is the history of the struggle for the economic surplus. the existence of an economic margin above the necessities of subsistence at once divides society into three classes: exploiters, unproductive laborers,[ ] and productive laborers. "in order to exert moral suasion enough to pervert the egoism of the oppressed classes, the cooperation of unproductive laborers is required. the decomposition of an established system of capitalistic economy carried with it a progressive diminution of the income from property and consequently involves a corresponding falling off in the unproductive laborers' share therein. this in turn dissolves their partnership with capital and puts an end to their task of psychologically coercing the productive laborers. the bandage is thus suddenly removed from the eyes of the oppressed and the systematic perversion of human egoism up to this time in force, is abruptly brought to an end. "but scarcely has the inevitable course of events hounded to its grave the existing order of oppression, when there arises another. under the new system of suppression the ancient alliance between capital and unproductive labor is reestablished and at once inaugurates a new process better adapted to pervert the egoism of the productive laborers."[ ] the importance of this principle for the understanding of our subject cannot easily be overstated. the socialization of early christianity proceeded in almost direct ratio to the number of 'unproductive' laborers coming over to it. if christianity had had in the first century, such an array of theologians, philosophers, apologists, statesmen, and intellectuals generally, as it had in the fourth century, there can be no reasonable doubt that its triumph would have been much more rapid and complete. on the other hand had the pagan cults been able to show as numerous and as able a body of intellectual defenders in the fourth century as in the first, the success of the church must have been much retarded. the declension of the artistic, literary, and general intellectual level of ancient, pagan civilization during the first three or four centuries of the christian era is a fact so well known as to call for no remark. what is not perhaps, so well recognized is that during the very time that the pagan world presents an almost incredible degree of intellectual feebleness and sterility, the actual proportion of intellectually able men in society was remarkably great. rome, never, perhaps in her whole history, had to her credit so many men of statesman-like ability as at the time her empire was falling to pieces. the explanation is simple. the men of genius and ability were no longer interested in the political fortunes of the pagan empire. they had gone over to a new allegiance, and expended in the foundation of the catholic church a degree of intelligence and ability which, had it been placed at the service of the empire, might very conceivably have enabled that empire to survive to this day. it is certain that one of the leading causes of the collapse of the pagan cults was their increasing inability to command the support of the intellectual leaders in society, and it is no less true that the increasing success of the church was to be ascribed to the ever larger number of men of intellectual gifts who enrolled themselves in her support. the fact, of course, is that christianity offered increasingly an outlet for the expression of abilities and capacities of mind and soul such as no pagan cult could provide. the most superficial comparison of the intellectual forces for and against christianity in the first century, with the corresponding array in the fourth or fifth centuries is sufficient to show the enormous progress made by the process of socialization in the interval. our more particular concern is, however, with the eschatological concepts. a comparison of the supporters and opponents of chiliasm at different periods brings into clear view the rate of its decline. without repeating what has been dealt with already,[ ] it is sufficient to recall that in the first century chiliasm had the support of men like st. paul and the authors of the gospels and other new testament books, notably revelation. indeed, as far as we can judge, every intellectual leader of the christian movement for nearly a century supported the apocolyptic concepts. but as time went on the proportionate number and ability of its defenders declines. finally in the person of origen in the east and augustine in the west we find the undisputed intellectual leaders turning the whole intellectual class against it, and so bringing about its overthrow. still another sociological principle of high importance because of its pervasiveness and ubiquity is that propounded by prof. veblen in what is perhaps the best known of american works on sociology.[ ] this principle, which may be summed up by the words conspicuous honorific consumption, is that beliefs and customs, in order to establish themselves and to survive as socially reputable, must involve their holders in purely honorific consumption of time and economic goods. this consumption may be, and in fact very largely is, vicarious. in this case the functionaries of the vicarious extravagance must be distinguished from their masters by the introduction of the element of personal inconvenience into the performance of their functions. of the various sociological principles, so far brought to our attention this one of conspicuous honorific consumption gives us what is probably the most useful clew to follow for the understanding of the relatively rapid decline and the immediately subsequent social disrepute of the eschatological elements in early christianity. no set of theological concepts can be easily imagined which are more antagonistic to the canon of honorific, conspicuous consumption than are the eschatological ones. but the principle of the reputability of waste is so intercalated into every form of social usage; it plays so large a part in all moral, religious, literary, artistic, political, military, and other judgments, that in a society like that of the roman empire where pecuniary emulation and invidious comparison were the forms taken by the 'instinct of workmanship'--the propensity for achievement--no set of beliefs or observances which ran counter to this principle could, in a prolonged contest, stand the smallest chance of success. in this respect, early christianity was the more unequal to the struggle in so much as it was the strongest in the cities. the trend of affairs is observable in the church as early as the appearance of the epistle of james. under urban conditions the law of conspicuous consumption works with peculiar power and it tended toward the rapid elimination of those doctrines and observances which operated to keep out of the church the wealthy, powerful, and fashionable elements of society. within a relatively short time, by the operation of this principle, the originally respectable doctrine of millenananism was rendered disreputable and even heretical. it was an important agency in bringing into sharp relief the distinction of clergy and laity, while in the appearance of monasticism we see the working out of this principle among the strongest (theoretical) opponents. had christianity in the beginning found a considerable proportion of its adherents among the laboring classes in the rural regions there can be very little doubt that it would have maintained the purity of its early doctrines for a much more considerable period of time than was actually the case. there is no reason to doubt that, in that event, chiliastic expectations would have survived in christian theology far longer than they did. "among the working classes in a sedentary community which is at an agricultural stage of industry in which there is a considerable subdivision of property and whose laws and customs secure to these classes a more or less definite share of the product of their industry, pecuniary emulation tends in a certain measure to such industry and frugality as serve to weaken in some degree the full force of the principle of honorific, and more especially of vicariously honorific wastefulness." that is to say such conditions tend to conservatism in general and possibly to religious conservatism in particular. but for this very reason christianity made its way only very slowly into the rural regions. in the west, indeed, chiliasm was already dead before the church had won any great headway among the agricultural population--which was not until the sixth and seventh centuries. had chiliasm been able to hold its own until the conversion of the rural regions, it would certainly have survived there for generations if not centuries--even if it had died out in the urban centers. in the east, where christianity made its way among the rural population, at least in some degree, considerably earlier than was the case in the west, chiliasm did get a hold in certain agricultural regions of phrygia, syria, egypt, and elsewhere, and it was in precisely such regions, as we have already seen, that it was held most tenaciously and abandoned most slowly. prof. f. h. giddings of columbia university is the sponsor of the last sociological principle which will be mentioned in this connection. his principle is known as the "consciousness of kind." according to prof. giddings: "consciousness of kind is that pleasurable state of mind which includes organic sympathy, the perception of resemblance conscious or reflective sympathy, affection and the desire for recognition."[ ] "this consciousness is a social and socializing force, sometimes exceedingly delicate and subtle in its action, sometimes turbulent and all powerful. assuming endlessly varied modes of prejudice and of prepossession, of liking and of disliking, of love and of hate, it tends always to reconstruct and to dominate every mode of association and every social grouping."[ ] by means of this very comprehensive principle many otherwise merely stray and isolated items of information that have come down to use regarding early christianity can be given a place and a meaning in the graduated series of phenomena which mark the transition from the eschatological to the socialized movement. such, for instance, are the exhibitions of consciousness of kind according to differences and similarities of sex, age, kinship, language, political beliefs, occupations, rank, locality, wealth, and the like. the very number of ways in which consciousness of kind exerts influence makes this principle of very great use when the task is that of forming a general conclusion from the investigation of sources which are incomplete, inconclusive and sometimes contradictory. the different sociological principles mentioned above are intended as specimens only. the list is not in any sense complete. no attention is paid to other principles held as coordinates or as correlates of those referred to. whole classes of principles, the anthropological and geographic, for instance, are consciously omitted. the list is in the highest degree a hit-and-miss selection and the more casual it is, the better for the purpose in hand. this purpose is to show that any given series of principles elucidated by students of our contemporary modern civilization, will be found to have been operating in discernable fashion in the case of an obscure form of theological speculation in the first centuries of the christian era. that chiliasm was the natural result of the heredity and environment of the early christians, or perhaps better, the natural result of the reaction of inherited elements in vital contact with the contemporary world, will probably be admitted readily enough by anyone who has followed the discussion thus far. but the aim of this thesis, particularly of this last chapter, is something more than that. its aim is to uphold the contention that the forces now operating in society to shape and reshape beliefs and opinions are the very same in kind as operated in the society of the roman empire. in short, any explanation of early christian chiliasm which seeks to bring in the operation of any social principles which cannot be shown to be objectively operative in contemporary society is to be viewed with a certain measure of doubt, if not of suspicion. it may be taken as a safe assumption that all attempts to obtain a complete explanation of any historical event in terms of one principle of one science are foredoomed to failure. the same is true, in less degree, even if we take all the so far discovered principles of any one science. in order to give anything like a really comprehensive explanation of the historical process which forms the subject of this thesis there would be required the contributions of the principles of economics, political science, psychology, and the other social sciences. such a synthesis of principles is beyond the ability of any one individual. the application of them all to our subject would be a task requiring the cooperation of many specialists in many lines for some not inconsiderable period of time. the writer's task will not perhaps have been utterly in vain, if he has, even in the slightest measure, helped to bring home to a single reader, this important fact. footnotes: [ ] l. m. bristol, social adaptation, _harvard economic studies_, vol. xiv. cambridge . [ ] communist manifesto. authorized english translation, chicago, . [ ] w. j. ghent, mass and class, chap. . new york, . [ ] grundriss der sociologie; moore's translation, p. . annals am. acad. pol. sci. phil. . [ ] g. tarde, social laws, p. . new york, . the laws of imitation, p. . new york, . [ ] see chap. i. [ ] i.e., the so-called, intellectuals. [ ] economic foundations of society, pp. seq. new york, . [ ] cf. chap. i. [ ] the theory of the leisure class. new york, . [ ] inductive sociology, p. , new york, . [ ] descriptive and historical sociology, p. , new york, . transcriber's notes: the following is a list of changes made to the original. the first line is the original line, the second the corrected one. in all of them the catastrophy is more or less immediately in all of them the catastrophe is more or less immediately and final judgement which in the preceding form of belief were and final judgment which in the preceding form of belief were is to be preceeded by tremendous portents of the most terrible sort. is to be preceded by tremendous portents of the most terrible sort. thebiad. in fact a large number of jewish apocalyses which the thebiad. in fact a large number of jewish apocalypses which the he maintains that in the mellennium, death will be abolished he maintains that in the millennium, death will be abolished apolinaris was indeed the most judaising christian in his chiliasm apollinaris was indeed the most judaizing christian in his chiliasm indignantly denounces as 'figments,' 'mere old wives fables' and indignantly denounces as 'figments,' 'mere old wives' fables' and 'doctrines of jews.'[ ] although apolinarianism was condemned 'doctrines of jews.'[ ] although apollinarianism was condemned of note in the west. it is aboundantly evident however, from the of note in the west. it is abundantly evident however, from the and incongruities as the pagan myths which proviked so many and incongruities as the pagan myths which provoked so many chiliasts--are held to be insoluable as to the time of their appearance; chiliasts--are held to be insoluble as to the time of their appearance; dead, and yet to be born. the entity was eternal, indestructable, dead, and yet to be born. the entity was eternal, indestructible, the otherwise unintelligible success of that saint in combatting the otherwise unintelligible success of that saint in combating expression to this accomplished fact and it is no derrogation of his expression to this accomplished fact and it is no derogation of his words restriction in matrimony whether chilastic or monastic is due words restriction in matrimony whether chiliastic or monastic is due of the movement, were influenced more by chilastic concepts than of the movement, were influenced more by chiliastic concepts than [ ] cf. parables in i enoch xxxvii-ixxi. [ ] cf. parables in i enoch xxxvii-lxxi. [ ] cf. apocalypse of baurch; ezra, maccabees. [ ] cf. apocalypse of baruch; ezra, maccabees. fourth: what may be distinguished as the specifically christain fourth: what may be distinguished as the specifically christian the pupose of giving him a vest and an overcoat in addition to what the purpose of giving him a vest and an overcoat in addition to what and rightly discharged his service to him.[ ] and rightly discharged his service to him."[ ] the inconsistent and irreconciliable nature of the evidence about the inconsistent and irreconcilable nature of the evidence about references to interest, which may perhpas be due to the fact that in references to interest, which may perhaps be due to the fact that in condeming interest as such. in the minds of the early christians the condemning interest as such. in the minds of the early christians the prediliction of certain types of pecuniary interest for that reformer's predilection of certain types of pecuniary interest for that reformer's system of eccliastical polity. the roman law did indeed fix a system of ecclesiastical polity. the roman law did indeed fix a or act up to all thay they believe. imagine a man acting on the or act up to all that they believe. imagine a man acting on the institution they were perfectly familar and in universal observance institution they were perfectly familiar and in universal observance it was immoral to invest money in the consrtuction company that it was immoral to invest money in the construction company that economic and matters--and on other matters also. the difference in a economic matters--and on other matters also. the difference in a as soon as christain doctrines became widespread enough to as soon as christian doctrines became widespread enough to villange or serfdom. but this change cut off the economic margin villeinage or serfdom. but this change cut off the economic margin that of bibical exegesis. in the well known sermon or essay on: that of biblical exegesis. in the well known sermon or essay on: pyhsical possessions, but spiritual qualities of greed and avarice. physical possessions, but spiritual qualities of greed and avarice. that shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom," is to be apprehended that shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom, is to be apprehended the reward of which is salvation." "sell thy possessions." what is the reward of which is salvation." "sell thy possessions. what is expositions of christian scripture, penning the most powerful apologitic expositions of christian scripture, penning the most powerful apologetic honors upon the lowliest drugery;[ ] they turned princes into plowmen honors upon the lowliest drudgery;[ ] they turned princes into plowmen institutions of society can indeed be changed. but they can be changed--or institutions of society can indeed be changed. but they can be changed--on lack theoritical justification tend to accumulate such justification lack theoretical justification tend to accumulate such justification the spread of chriatian theology by liberating it from the burden the spread of christian theology by liberating it from the burden influence is economic. christianity by teaching the virtues of honesty influence is economic. christianity by teaching the virtues of honesty, penticost and immediately afterwards was due primarily to the fact pentecost and immediately afterwards was due primarily to the fact began to develope doctrines and practices even slightly at began to develop doctrines and practices even slightly at motive, the threatened loss of livlihood, entering along with anger motive, the threatened loss of livelihood, entering along with anger of the crowds only after agitation diliberately stirred up by interested of the crowds only after agitation deliberately stirred up by interested also the villages and country places and yet it sees possible to stop it and also the villages and country places and yet it seems possible to stop it and teaching many not to sacrifice or to worship the gods. speaking teaching many not to sacrifice or to worship the gods." speaking pagan public. most noticable of all is the indifference of the mob pagan public. most noticeable of all is the indifference of the mob clamor and blows and draggings and roberies and stonings and clamor and blows and draggings and robberies and stonings and more through permeation of the public mind by christianity. there more thorough permeation of the public mind by christianity. there very extent and throughness and duration of the persecution very extent and thoroughness and duration of the persecution belongs in the reign of septimus severns instead of that of marcus belongs in the reign of septimus severus instead of that of marcus circumstances more or less in obeyance. on the whole it was undoubtedly circumstances more or less in abeyance. on the whole it was undoubtedly more violent at the end of the period tham at the beginning. more violent at the end of the period than at the beginning. serverus, a.d. in the account given by eusebius of the martydom severus, a.d. in the account given by eusebius of the martyrdom case it was not the product of any spontanious popular movement. case it was not the product of any spontaneous popular movement. they were not called forth by any imperial edict--they preceeded the they were not called forth by any imperial edict--they preceded the governmental, legal precess would ever, or could ever, take on. governmental, legal process would ever, or could ever, take on. persecution among us did not begin with the royal decree but proceeded persecution among us did not begin with the royal decree but preceded accumlated sentiment and social unrest must of necessity discharge accumulated sentiment and social unrest must of necessity discharge perhaps be going beyong the evidence to say that in this interval, perhaps be going beyond the evidence to say that in this interval, away from them and drove the jews out of the city, permiting the away from them and drove the jews out of the city, permitting the being reconciled to the bishop. some of them therefore hurrried being reconciled to the bishop. some of them therefore hurried people in a struggle over the most obstruse and recondite metaphysical people in a struggle over the most abstruse and recondite metaphysical to the christians mob movement against the pagans and to the to the christians' mob movement against the pagans and to the experience. (b) operation as an isolating device (c) revolt against experience. (b) operation as an isolating device. (c) revolt against were free from its defects as an instrument of hierarchial ambition. were free from its defects as an instrument of hierarchical ambition. town of phrygia was to become the capitol of the world wide kingdom town of phrygia was to become the capital of the world wide kingdom produced no alternation whatever in the creeds of the church. as produced no alteration whatever in the creeds of the church. as ever possible, by profound changes, of an economic nature, in the even possible, by profound changes, of an economic nature, in the of men to ane another in the matter of making a living are the main, of men to one another in the matter of making a living are the main, associated with the loosing group, it suffered the natural fate of the associated with the losing group, it suffered the natural fate of the but scarcely has the inevitable course of events hounded to its "but scarcely has the inevitable course of events hounded to its