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^Br 1653 East Main Street

y.a Rochester, New York 1460-^ J5A

'^S (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone

^B (716) 288 - 5989 - Fox

THE

ATTRACTIVE

WAY

WILFRED

GRENFELL

M.D.

^74 l

/s-

4^^

"I AM \BSOLmiiLY CON-
VINCI I) rilAr TO IGLLOW
CHRIS I IS THF. BLSr WAV.'

MmMm

National Library Bibliolheque nationale
of Canada dj Canada

/^ y^ ^«*- ^tf -,

£.

/^ "-^

X t9

'TO FOLLOW CHRIST IS
THE MOST PROFITABLE A^sD
CONLMON SENSE THING FOR
US rO TRY TO DO."

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

I THE

ATTRACTIVE WAY

WILFRED T. GRENFELL, M.D.

THE PILGRIM PRESS

BOSTON NEW TORK CHICAGO

I I!

CONTENTS

CHAPTR

I. How TO Find It '^°l

II. "Don't" vebscs "Do" |2

III. "Ccbbt-Holinq" Relioion .... 2s

IV. The Doctor to the Minister

A DULOQUE gjj

V. The Minister to the Doctor

Another Dialogue 43

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

HOW TO FIND IT

rpHAT all human life, and mine in
-■• particular, can have a high purpose
and a glorious future is with me an
axiom. I have no message for any man
who insists that life is purposeless and
fruitless; thcigh I would certainly agree
that it is fruitless if purposeless, and
purposeless if fruitless. That we want
to win whatever prize our life makes
possible is a corollary; and that there is
a way to win it, is another. I look upon
myself simply as a wayfarer quite ca-
pable of losing the way, as I have often
done in our arctic snow-helds and among
these impenetrable fogs. I am abso-
lutely convinced that to follow Christ is
the best way and that if that way does
not attract every one to it the fault is
ours, who claim to be trying to walk it.
In other words, to follow Christ is the
[3]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

most profitable and common-sense thing
for us to try to do. I am certain that if
it were rightly represented, his work and
way have met with such success already,
and mankind has been so altered by his
influence, that his way would make an
attractive, natural, and effective appeal,
whereas now many men are indifferent
or averse to it.

Life is a current. Yet we need not be
always trying to dam it up and bring
it to a standstill. The conservatism of
to-day is the liberalism of yesterday.
God can still look after his own business,
as he has done through the ages, with-
out having us denounce, criticize, and
judge those who do not see eye to eye
with us. The criticism of others, by
men who think they possess a monopoly,
is worse than any gossip of the tea-
table. We are repeatedly forbidden to
judge others; and yet we who t.ank we
are on "the way" do not seem able to
forgo the pleasure which weak humanity
finds in promoting criticism and scandal.

W^e have forgotten that humility is
an essential characteristic of "the way."
The most intellectually humble men are
[4]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

invariably to be found among the
world's greatest scholars and famous
scientists, while the most self-assertive
and oflfensive have been found, too often,
among those who were professedly the
most earnest representatives of the
Christ; and, alas, they have many ex-
ponents to-day. More humility, more
common sense of a cheerful kind, and
more hard work are what are needed in
us, whose lives are the real advertise-
ments for "the way," if we wish to make
it attractive to the modem young men,
the maker;:, of the future.

Many Paths, One Goal

Of course not all men can agree at one
time as to what is really most desirable.
You have only to go into the street and
ask the first half dozen men whom you
meet the simplest question, to find that
in methods scarcely two men ever agree,
even while the main aim of all may be
identical. Yesterday three of us started
to go to the hospital over a distance
of some ten miles, for at ten o'clock I
had an important operation to perform.

[5]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

After disagreeing as to whether dog,
sledge or boat would be quicker, two
voted for boat, and so we went in that
way. Three miles out we met floe ice
tight to the land. One of. the two who
had voted for boat now wanted to re-
turn and take a dog sledge. One voted
for hauling the boat up on the rocks and
walking, and one for punting through
the ice if possible. We ended by agree-
ing, for expediency's sake, that all
should adopt the sami method, and
work hard at it; and we plumped for
the boat.

For the first ialf-hour leads of open
water close to the feet of the cliffs, in
spite of the breaking seas, allowed us to
gain about two miles; then it became
imperative to keep off among the ice,
now jumping on the pans and poling or
dragging the boat, now hauling her over
flat, level sheets. At the end of an
hour's hard pounding, with our eyes
fixed on the immediate work, we hap-
pened to look up to the hills. The floe
had been carrying us bodily north, and
we were exactly where we had started.
However, we "plugged at it," and even-
[6]

ATTRACTIVE WAY

tually made our app<.lntmeiit with five
minutes to spare.

On looking back we calculated that
we would have accomplished the task
equally well by any of the three methods,
if we had been in earnest, and worked
as hard. I fail to see now, even by the
light of experience, which was the ideal
way. The trouble was we did not know
which way was ideal and had no means oi
finding out. We had no guide to whom
to appeal and could only judge by our
past experience. If we had been pro-
vided with fast, strong horses, or a
railway train, land would have been the
ideal way; if our ice-protected motor
boat had not been still buried deep under
a snow-bank, sea would have been the
ideal way; if we had had an aeroplane
— well, we might or might not have
arrived — we should have tuought it
ideal anyway. The road is very hilly,
and a long-winded runner subject to
seasickness would have won out best by
land; a short, stocky, fat fellow, best by
boat; — and none of us could drive an
aeroplane in any case.

No human being can devise any one
[71

r^K^

THE ATTRACTIVE

plan which is best to help every kind of
man, since men differ so radically that
what helps one hinders another, ^aul
claimed thai all knowledge or science is
a current thing, transitory, passing away
with the flight of time and the evolution
of wisdom. His has certainly passed
away in every single intellectual position
which can to-day be called science. We
hold neither his chemistry, physiology,
physics, • stronomy, botany, geology, or
any othe:- "ology." Only those advo-
cates of any plan of life are attractive
and persuasive who show humility and
charity.

No Universal Method

In the most recent text-books which
tell us how to restore to health the poor
fellow upon whom I was hastening home
to operate this morning, there are at
least ten different methods, all equally
highly recommended. Each individ-
ual's method is often the result of the
clinic in which he was brought up, or of
his own peculiar intellectual gifts; and
the stronger these influences are, the
more convinced the man is that his is the
[8]

':JSi^

Ll THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

only way. Fortunately in matters deal-
ing with physical life the exponents of
methods have never be< ,ed to offer the
abuse, inflict the injuries, and express
the contempt for those who differ from
them which have so unworthily charac-
terized many who claim pre-eminence of
infallibility for their own methods of
restoring to moral and spiritual health
the sick in heart and soul.

In the endeavor to restore physical
healtii there have arisen many schools
and each has its ardent adherents.
But with the increase of knowledge we
have come to recognize that the most
successful way is always that which is
most natural, or which most closely imi-
tates Nature's way, — which means
simply the way of the great Giver of Life.
Humanity has not discovered an ideal
way in things pertaining to physical
life, and we have no right to suppose
that there is any possibility of our fully
attaining the ideal, viz., the power to
prolong mortal life till it shall become
eternal. We know of no surgically in-
fallible representative of God here on
earth, in the past or the present, to whom

19]

kimmh

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

we can go, so that by receiving his in-
struction or imitating his methods we
may reach, or ever even agree on, a
universally acceptable » "'hod.

The Desire to be Helpful

Christ restricted himself to laying
down great principles, applicable to all
ages, leaving mankind to adapt them to
peculiarities of time and place. A life
which adorns these principles and illus-
trates them in a common-sense way is
now attractive to all men. Men to-day
are more chivalrous than were the blood-
thirsty Knights of the Round Table, and
enjoy doing helpful things, and that at
personal cost, even though they do not
wish and will not acknowledge any
labels. Ti.e ideal is no longer "not
do'ng wrong," or even the ^: 'lilelessness
of the Colonel Newcome type; modern
young men love " something doing," that
is achievement. I remember Phillips
Brooks' words, "What, you say, the man
who imperfectly understands Christ,
who doesn't know anything about his
divinity, who denies the great doctrines

[10]

[k^Mti^

f I

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

of the church regarding him, is he a
Christiau? Certainly he is, my friends.
There is no other test than this, the
following of Jesus Christ. I cannot
sympathize with any feeling that desires
to make the name of Christian a nar-
rower name. I would know any man as
a Christian, rejoice to know any man as
a Christian, whom Jesus would recognize
as a Christian, and Jesus Christ, I am
sure, in those old days, recognized his
followers even if they came after him
with the blindest sight."

DON'T VERSUS DO

FOR many years I had been inter-
ested in what, for lack of other
description, I am bound to call "the
religious life" of the people in a certain
fishing village. Young men had grown
to beyond middle age since I first knew
them and were still steadily adhering to
three Sunday services and three week-
day meetings. I had already pointed it
out as a place where the beautiful results
of a true Christian religion were beyond
question.

Some of the leading men had been
discussing the morality of one or two
richer men in the harbor who had taken
out grants for the land, were cutting it
up into lots, and making newcomers pay
for it. They had decided that it was
not Chriitian. A little later I was talk-

[121

f^afSr£^„®

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

ing to one of them, a really first-class old
fellow.

"Uncle Joe, didn't you take a Govern-
ment grant?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Haven't you sold four lots already?"

"Why, yes. Doctor. It gives me a
few cents in my old age."

"I thought you said it was wrong to
take up the land and sell it to new-
comers."

"So it is. Doctor, so it is. But you
see we be only poor men." Religion
here was theory, not practise; none of
the others had any land to sell.

Applying Religion to Forestry

Another time the best thinking men
in the place had agreed that in order to
try and save the beauty of the harbor
and to attract visitors there, who would
spend money for the benefit of those
incapacitated for earning their living
by fishing, a law should be passed for-
bidding the cutting of the trees within
a certain radius of the harbor. During
a trial of one of the men for breaking

[131

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'(T .-^^y ^

ATTRACTIVE

WAY

the law, one or two men asked leave to
speak. One of them was the leader of
the "revival" services' which were being
held in the harbor. He wanted to state
his opinion that "the fishermen were
not 'out for beauty, but for comfort.'
They didn't see why the men should
not cut down the few little trees left
and grub up the roots as well, as has
been done in other places." The Bench,
which had not "got religion" by their
standard, tried to point out that it would
be only for a short while that they would
derive the slightest benefit, and that
it would injure the place permanently.
Moreover, a beautiful home and harbor
always help one to Hve a beautiful life.
Cutting the trees spoiled the gardens,
as the snow all drifted away and left
the bare ground. It kept all those who
were unable, like him, to go fishing
without a chance of employment. No
ma? could live to himself anyhow.

But the man went away declaring that
he did not see what he was going to get
out of it, and he thought a man should
do as he liked for his comfort. Business
being over, he could now go back to
[14]

F^«3

■'..»

li^^^ m^c^^ -m^:^ p, c^^-w

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

religion for the evening. Even these
trifling instances suggest how such paro-
dies o' Christ's way have made it seem
contemptible in the minds of thinking
men.

The Doer Always Acclaimed

The healthy human mind rejects, the
vigorous youthful mind rejects, and the
younger and more healthful they are
the more they do not care to hide the
fact that they hate the doctrine that the
ideal way is "not to do." The policy
of Fabius Cunctator is possibly com-
mendable only when it corresponds with
the Scotch ideal of biding one's time,
or getting fully ready to deliver a crush-
ing blow. The surgeon who refuses lc»
operate in an early stage of the disease,
fearing for his own reputation, really
neglects to operate. The w.^yfarer who
does not help his neighbor in trouble,
for fear of spoiling his clothes, or even
of his life, is neglecting his duty, and hio
philosophy is contemptible. The beat
spirit in every man acclaims him only
as ideal who does things, at whatever
sacrifice.

[151

ill!

i !!

I i

'"-^ismm^wmrsf^Sim

^ iWAitM A^r

Sl^

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

One winter the leading exponents of
a sect for which I have the highest re-
spect, and among whom I number some
of my best friends with the highest
ideals, adopted and imported for their
instruction in the way of life a be ok
issued by their church for the guid-
ance of its members. Not to drink,
smoke, dance, play cards, go to the
theater, work on Sundays, swear, and
other indulgences and occupations were
scheduled and "indexed," as were many
sms of immorality which go without
saymg and would have been just as well
omitted. Taboos were laid on certain
forms of art which appeal to many, on
entertainments which many advocate
as being especially regenerative, and
on forms of clothing which in some
countries are positively national. It
so happened that a most ardent young
medical man and proud adherent of a
noted Scotch clan was spending the
winter with me at his own expense, for
no other reason than to try and realize
his own ideal of the way of life, and had
brought with him the special garments
It was his proud distinction to be allowed
[16]

i
, f II

I v.-

.r>-

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

to wear. As he had arrived in the late
fall, he had not yet found the climate
here specially adapted to bare knees,
but all the same he was looking forward
to displaying these garments to honor
some special occasion. I can still re-
member his face when I pointed out
that they were included in this Index
Expurgatorius.

It might be supposed that to make
every seventh day one of rest, and to
call that day the one now almost uni-
versally agreed upon, and to insist upon
its observance, now that it has been
scientifically and philosophically demon-
strated as advisable, is at least more or
less ideal and not calculated to "stir up
evil." But the problem as to which is
the day we must not do things has been
one of our worst troubles. There came
into our harbor a teacher who insisted
that the day before was a better day,
the real and only ideal day, and its
observance, instead of oar chosen day,
essential to the way of life. A very
few left their old church and followed
him. They ostentatiously went out
fishing while their former comrades
[17]

tw^

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

way," stai studied and followed
the precepts of the expurgatory book.
I can still see being thrown from ihe
church on Monday the firewood which
had been carefully cut on Sunday and
brought freely for the humble ministry
of fuel. My Scotch friend had left
the Coast, but here at least he stands
avenged. Many beUeve that even dogs
are affected by ridicule, and certainly
nothmg can be more harmful to any
human cause than that it should be
obviously ridiculous.

The Beauty of the Open Mind

The recognition of this is of primal
importance in these days for the wel-
fare of the kingdom of God. Gentleness
now IS needed, not so much of action,
for that is forced upon us, but gentle-
ness—gentle manliness — of thought.
Self-assertiveness is one of the most
repellent attributes of any man. No
great man can be so or he is not great.
Fancy Lord Lister sneering at and de-
nouncing even those whose "old ways"
his immortal discovery was to revolu-
[18]

■I

! i

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

tionize. On the contrary they de-
nounced the way of the man who
conferred one of the greatest blessings
mankind has ever received. Harvey
gave mankind the inestimable boon of
the knowledge of the circulation of the
blood, but the old school of his day only
accepted it practically at the point of
the bayonet. Jenner and Pasteur saved
millions of Uves through their patient
and masterful work. The old school
abused them, and still, in spite of facts,
the shallow denounce them.

It has been the same with every
advance which can be named which has
helped to revolutionize human knowl-
edge and advantage human life. It
seems it must be so. But at least let
us not do this ignorantly, defeating our
own ends and debarring men from
following the Christ avowedly, because
of our intellectual conceit or overslept
conservatism. Science suggests to us
now that there is no such thing as
matter, all is a form of motion and
we merely the expression of perpetual
vortices of whirling motion. Can we
not be content with merely judging
[1»J

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

ourselves and criticizing our own
methods ?

The Wholesome School op
Experience

Experience would teach me that as
men grow older the strong bias of youth-
ful days, like the rills in thawing snow,
tends to become obliterated, and the
refreshing streams do run at last into
larger and more beneficent channels.
Ihis, to us medical men, is not a symp-
tona of defective processes in the machine
which makes thought possible. Mean-
while we have broadened the meaning of
the word "monomania" to include and
qualify as needing control the whole
genus of those whose misfortune it is to
arrogate to themselves intellectually that
which they most certainly do not possess,
liocperience was suggested by the great
Master as the one school in which all can
learn whether his teachings as to "the
way •' were of God or man. This school
for doing things may cost us dear, but
It has the merits of no undeserved in-
vectives, and even if we do make failures
m our attempts, even if we do uninten-
I20J

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

tionally select wrong methods, such
wanderings as those of Kim and his
lama ended in the haven where they
would be because they kept on, and
Tyl and Mytil found the Blue Bird by
much doing. Shall we not concede at
least that this may be equally as true
of any man's groping, even if his
methods are not ours?

I am now speaking to those who are
m earnest about life. Eternity is not
long enough to convince the blase in-
differentist who cares nothing for life
or believes that neither the way nor the
goal exists at all. It seems futile to spend
time arguing about ideals with those in
whom physical or intellectual wealth has
only aroused a contempt for life and a
chronic condition of boredom. Nor does
it seem more profitable to expect words
to alter the way of life of those in whom
either wealth or illiteracy has permitted
an unreasoning bias against life to de-
velop. The foolishness of mere word
preaching can only save the few anyhow.
Dean Hodges is not the only authority
who has put on record that he is a fortu-
nate man who, because of its mystery,
[21]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

sees the dignity of life, and he quotes
Mazzini as saying that a man has learned
nothing unless he has learned to wonder.
Bishop Brooks says the outlook into
mystery has ever a stronger intellectual
influence than the inspection of discov-
ered facts.

Certainly if entrance to het i de-
pends on an intellectual nttitude, quite
the majority will be left out, while our
colored friends in the Sou*h will probably
be far more generously represented. A
mixture of Revelation and a minstrel
show always left me as a boy with the
idea of heaven as a place especially
adapted for pleasing them, as a loud
noise does the adherents of certain sects.
I have positively heard men hide what
should be their despair at this fact by
quoting the Master as saying that we
cannot expect the wise or rich in God's
gifts to be largely represented. Such a
view of heaven obviously does not make
it very attractive to young manhood.

' '.\

)

^la^iS^

III

CUBBY-HOLING RELIGION

THHE fear that Christ's way of life
-■■ involves communism and socialism
on the absolulely equal division of prop-
erty basis led largely to the boxing off of
religion from every-day life, and a sort
of tacit acknowledgment has arisen that
it is too radical a thing to mix with ordi-
nary business. The process has made
it such an er^feebled and unattractive
plant that many persons now think it an
exotic which needs a glass cover and
a cubby hole all to itself, otherwise it
would perish. The Oriental hyperbole
was perfectly understood in Christ's day.
To believe that he insisted on men hating
their parents and their own lives is a
direct contradiction of his own state-
ments that he came not to abolish but
to fulfil that law, which includes only
[23]

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THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

one with a spt'( ial promise attached to
it; viz., that we must honor our parents.
It would be positively suicidal for a
physician in the arctic not to have two
coats, even though I have seen children
and even adults without what one could
properly call one. Christ obviously
leaves us freedom to use common sense,
natural sense, sense the direct gift of
the Creator of the brain, in dealing
with property and business. We know
of only one rich man whom he told
to give away what was ruining his
character.

Raising the Moral Level

The wisest teachers of this age are one
with the Master in agreeing that no wav
is too expensive to attain that supreme,
prize of life, character. Thus some con-
sider that the man who comers food-
stuff, cuts down his workmen to the last
penny, squeezes the fishermen to the
lowest price, obtains special protection
for his wares at the consumer's expense,
can yet be a Christian if he believes
in the miraculous birth of Christ, his
resurrection, etc., and sings hymns and

[24]

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THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

prays prayers. We simply cannot con-
ceive God as valuing clothes and atti-
tudes and ceremonies as he do«>s life.
We must remember that unless our fol-
lowing of •• the way " leads us to raise
our entire standard of business morality,
to a common-sense Judge we are not so
good as other heathen who more nearly
live up to their high moral code. We
expect to answer before a tribunal char-
acterized by sanity and righteousness,
before a Judge whom Scripture suggests
is also gifted with a sense of humor.

WTiy should not every judge, as one
has shown us a judge can do, make it
the aim and object of his professional
work to cure the criminal ? Why should
it not be the absorbing interest of every
medical man to eliminate liimself hy add-
ing to his labors "social work" which
should tend more and more to eradicate
disease? Why should not manufac-
turers, as some do, make it their chief
aim to dignify and reward their laborers;
why should not retailers seek to do for
their customers as they would be done
by? Why should not the clergy seek
only for the advance of God's Kingdom,
[25]

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THE ATTRACTIVE

and not for that of the little church
which they call theirs ? Judge Lindsey,
Parson Worcester, Doctor Cabot, the
National Cash Register Company, Lever
Brothers are notable examples of what
such a spirit can do to help on righteous-
ness, joy, and peace.

Educators are certainly trying more
to-day to teach their pupils to select
and prepare for lives where they can
contribute most to the common good.
Property owners to-day see that it pays,
even in a mundane sense, to study their
tenants' interests. Statesmen are more
and more exhibiting the same spirit,
and the voters are ever increasingly
demanding it. vJhrist would have a far
better chance of occupying the White
House to-day than ever he had for
Herod's throne. The fact is we know
that Christ's way is the way for business,
for we have learned that lasting joy and
worth-while success are only to be
measured by what we give, and not what
we get. Only the shallow can afiFord to
laugh at Christ's teaching that it is more
blessed to give than to receive. Only
those who for some reason are behind
[261

^^f/^-

An Avoided Subject

The divorce of our religion from our
life has become so accepted that we
hardly notice it. For the ordinary busi-
ness man or college student to talk about
his relation to things eternal under every-
day circumstances is entirely abnormal,
however convinced we may be that we
[27]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY ^'

the times in knowledge can aflFord to-day
to laugh at the old alchemist who said
that precious stones can be made out of
dirt and gold o.<. of apparently ignoble
elements.

To many, ,m,oh mode n business does
seem inconsib.cuc v.i^h Christ's way of
life; one could not fancy him gambling
in stocks or squeezing unearned incre-
ment out of land grabbing. I remarked
to one friend last year who was pointing
out to me a section of land out of which
he had just mad( a big "scoop," "It
seems hard on the newcomers." He
looked puzzled, and then said, "That's
business. You can't expect to mix
religion and business"— as if they were
oil and water.

V»

. >.^ ::S^ Jr^f -^ 1^-? ^^^^1

^mz^ ~.

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

f; I

are Christians. It has almost become
immoral. We speak of it with bated
breaths as of something outside our lives,
instead of it being the very breath of our
life. Others again consider it so inti-
mate to their personality that they do
not wish to have to defend it, thinking
partly that it must be intuitive and
carries no credentials to convince the
ordinary mind, and partly deterred by
the exhibitions of that cheap emotion-
alism which so readily lends itself to
parody; and anyway they do not wish
to talk about it as being too sacred for
every-day life.

This divorce is not recent; it dates
back to childhood and training. Thus
it is probably right to say grace before
meals, but people would look askance
if you began to speak naturally about
Jesus Christ as if he were sitting at the
table. Dinner of course is a vital part
of your daily life. Yet the fact that the
religion of the churches seems to be
divorced from every-day life is certainly
not due to the fact that there is any
diminution of interest in or reverence
for the person of Christ.

[281

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THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

The absurdity of cubby-holing any
section of life cannot be better illus-
trated than in the one which unfortu-
nately affects the majority of men in
their most impressionable and formative
period of lif .

Everyone knows that if six chance
men were to be thrown together who
claimed that they were Christians, and
if some one were to ask them whether
a Christian man were to play cards —
say draw poker — there would be a
difference of opinion. I have heard two
clergymen argue that whist and bridge
were all right for Christians, whereas
euchre, poker, and forty-five were non-
Christian. One might have been back
in Judea listening to a discussion among
the Phar < about phylacteries. If
Jesus had id in, wouldn't he have

said, "Wha lever are you fighting about
in this cubby-hole, while all the rest of
the world outside is busy Hving? "

Varying judgments

Some Christian leaders and teachers
to-day are thoroughly opposed to the
[29]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

theater; others just as strongly biased
in its favor. Some denounce horse
racing; others men racing; still others
physical competitions to which they are
not inclined, such as the noble art of self-
defense. In the end one would expect
to see published a list of games and pas-
times especially designed for young
Christians; only when written down in
black and white it looks ridiculous.
Common sense realizes that in play as
well as in work a man cannot qualify
as a Christ follower by the games he
doesn't play. It results in the stigma-
tizing of drinking alcohol, smoking
opium or tobacco, taking unearned in-
crement in the one particular way of
getting it to which is given the name
of betting or gambling.

I have now an old fisherman dying
of cancer. He can neither read nor
write, but lying in bed he contributes
to life the service which is now all he is
capable of rendering — by displaying a
patient spirit and a happy and contented
mind, now that we have allowed him
his pipe. We get as much benefit out
of the tobacco as he does. Often when
[30]

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I am tired out I find I can get mental
rest better by playing a game of cribbage
than m any other way. To some who
regard this as a game for old ladies
exclusively the above remark will sound
almost axiomatic.

We realize the dangers of all cumula-
tive drugs; so we do those of even too
much bread and butter. I never forget
a poor patient who choked himself by
pushing too much bread and butter
down his throat. We recognize the
dangers of fog and ice, of boats and
guns, of bad air and tight clothes, of
gomg upstairs and coming down again.
We realize the serious dangers of gam-
bling, card playing, prize fighting, loaf-
ing, of too much money, and of too little
of emotional excitement, of praying, of
singing, of asceticism, of thinking of self
too much from a worldly religious point
of view, of worldliness and unworldli-
ness, and of being in the world at all,
such as the "unco guid" would weep
over. I have known a man thank God
for carrying the latest addition to his
large family off to heaven and far from
the temptations of this wicked world.
I31J

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THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

No need to add here to the list of dan-
gers. SuflSce it to say that Christ
labeled and cubby-holed none of them;
it has remained for the arrogance of man
to affix the labels. I believe Christ did
label hypocrisy. Christ's way permits
one to be a life-long total abstainer. He
permits me to condemn alcohol as a
beverage, but not the man who takes
it. He stands or falls to God alone.

■

J ^ The Sentences that are Saving

THE World

Our lakes and fjords here in spring,
after the snows have melted, are per-
fectly clear, life-giving reservoirs; all
the useless matter sinks to the bottom.
But as soon as man comes along and
mixes up these God-given supplies for
cleansing and refreshing human life they
become useless for the purpose for which
they were intended and often harmful.
I believe that if the greatest minds in
the best equipped laboratories of earth,
amidst the man-made fog which now
obscures "the way," would search for
Christ's way just as now they search for
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THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

siderium or coronium or one of the new
elements known to exist in the heavens
but not yet found on earth, all they
would have left to offer their students
would be a guide-book of a few sentences.
But it vould be an appeal to the com-
mon sense of all time.

The pages of history are the sign
manual of the advance of Christ's King-
dom, and his teaching will always be
found to answer to the latest tests of
the ages. To win out we must want
to win. We must exercise choice, and
therefore "the way" should be made
especially attractive, and it can only
be that to real manhood if it is part and
parcel of everything else. So long as it
is in a separate box labeled " Religion "
it is obvious that a very small percent-
age of the desirable active element will
consciously select it as their department.

The need seems to be a sort of "back
to the land " movement and a remorse-
less tearing up of the weeds of supersti-
tion, tradition, fanaticism, conservatism,
and of well-meaning mental instabil-
ity, till once again it is just God's
own soil to sweeten and nourish and
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cause the human soul to fructify, instead
of a thorn-choked wilderness with a peren-
nial crop of sanctimonious selfishness.

The best revival we ever saw here was
when the tail end of a cyclone actually
took the building, which the folk had
mistaken for God's church, and whisked
it, seats, floor, and all, right into the
middle of the harbor. All hands found
refreshing supplies of God's grace in the
free labor cheerfully given and labori-
ously served for no cash return, and in
the new house of their public worship,
because of the personal labor every board
and timber represented to them. Poor
people who build their own little homes
love them out of all proportion to the
occupiers of even model tenements or
modern palaces. Enduring love is the
true test of real value. Even medicine
and cold still find love and gratitude
when they are understood.

The actual value of a diamond ring
for your nose or ear, or any other portion
of your anatomy, with the anxiety and
expense of properly protecting it, is prob-
lematical and deferred, except so far as
it carries cherished memories or poten-
[341

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THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

tial energy. Among the gold medals,
nobly earned, which have proved of most
value to mankind was the large one
given to General Gordon, and its value
was in the fact that a man could be
found who, because he was a follower
of Christ, when the poor Chinese were
starving by thousands, was a life citizen
of the world enough to scrape off the
inscription and send it to the famine
fund. That kind of religion is always
modern. It is what men think now
Christ would have done. It is what
they would like to have done. It is not
the result of a temporary supreme effort
which says "I will be religious today."
It is the natural fruit of the land, not
the spasmodic effort of a whilom hot-bed.

The Cure for Lukewarmness

If you want to save a man from temp-
tation, self, and despair, find him some
work to do. To show the world that
Christ needs a "Labor Party," and then
to show the members how to work, and
act as whip for the party is the rdle
which the church must play if it is
[3fi]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

not to atrophy out of existence. Luke-
warmness is becoming more and more
incompatible with manhood's digestion,
and the church which does not lay
supreme emphasis on work must in-
evitably, in the expressive language of
Scripture, be "Vomited out of the
mouth."

Two years ago I was discussing with
a young university graduate of con-
siderable wealth and no ties this very
question — where he could best put
in his life. His gifts were great, but
especially strong along a certain line.
We longed for his help here, but we
decider ^hat he had a larger field for
his talents in big cities.

Here again I believe most intensely in
the need of that arm of contact with
the live Rail, which we call "prayer."
I have never seen real prayer go un-
answered, and I have seen it remove
mountains. Yet it was made in secret
to the Father who seeth in secret.

The need for all which any man has
to give is a corollary also of the
axiom that life is given us for a pur-
pose, and this surely is high enough to
[36]

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appeal to anyone. Still in the world
there is merciless competition. Still
men, anxious to work, starve for the
need of it, while endless work goes
undone. God knows there exists a
need for really up-to-date doctors and
lawyers with Christ's spirit, to heal and
advise and save, if they will only go
where there is need and not necessarily
a cash return. The giving and not the
getting decides the location; though I do
not mean to say that any place where a
man's lot is thrown is not needy enough,
if he will only find out that need and try
to meet it. There are festering, over-
crowded slums, and lands are lying idle
wliile the world is in need of their pos-
sible products. The fear of the wolf of
hunger still overshadows the old age of
countless of our fellowmen and even-
tually drags them down to a miser-
able death. Vampires living on vice
and frauds living on ignorance still find
plentiful victims who might be saved.

A man need not recognize a label, but

that he should recognize and avow his

, own definite decision to be a worker is

' ii essential for his development and for

[37]

I V ^■^i ^""/T-^ / ,-9,-1- ^.-T^---- -pi/n n.r?^ ^T - -< rr-\ ^"^ ■^■'

tiif^w^

I .

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i ;

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.-^-,—7

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

his full usefulness to others who are
following the same "way." Among the
many university students who each year
come to help out down here I have
never yet found one whom the whole
lot will characterize as worth while
who has not been not only willing
literally to go into the drain to dig, but
spoiling for it or any useful work. No
man who appeals to manhood has false
shame about avowing such a purpose.
The term "Christian" was never in-
tended to be a final judgment on a
closed career — only to characterize the
follower of the way of life of the Naza-
rene carpenter. It has only again to
become synonymous with unselfish aims
and solid work, and no longer be a term
for intellectual orthodoxy, and it will
attract a hundred where it now attracts
one.

[38]

THE DOCTOR TO THE MINISTER
A DIALOGUE

/^NE Sunday after church I was
^■^ talking to ray friend the minister.
"Did you know Jim Mathew's w^ife had
a baby last night? I was there till day-
light. She hasn't a solitary thing in
the house; not a rag for the baby, and
only a mouthful of dry flour for herself.
She only got through at all owing to
the hospital feeding her these last two
months." She lived only about two
hundred and fifty yards from the little
church, and we are a small village.

" No, " he replied ; ' ' the Orange Lodge
looks after its members, and Jim's an
Orangeman."

"That may be true, but the whole
family is starving, and your people are
doing nothing except to talk about feed-
[39]

i§

THE ATTRACTIVE W

ing the hungry. Don't you recognize
a need for definite organization of Christ
followers just for this piupose and others
similar to it? "

"Yes," he replied; "but on a scattered
coast like this it is all a man can do to
get around and do his preaching/*

"Preaching is only a way to an end.
However, it is a good thing you've got
in that boy's club," I replied. "It is
the first thing which ever came to this
harbor that really reached the boys.
If I want to know about any lad in
trouble, that good fellow Jones can
always tell me; the boys just love him."

"Oh, our church hasn't anything to
do with the club. You see, they keep
it open prayer-meeting nights, and the
older members don't believe in it."

"But you do yourself, surely?"

"Of course. But you know. Doctor,
one has to make concessions, and some
people are so bigoted. These are our
very best people too, in every other way.
But they are terribly afraid of anything
new."

"What kind of people are bigoted?"
I answered. "Are they Christians?"
(401

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

He smiled and looked, as I know
he was, sorely troubled. He had been
taught to cubby-hole religion and was
just b^inning to wake up to the evil
and the waste of it; and yet he had an
honest fear that God needed convention
more than conmion sense.

So I went on, "You just tell the next
minister when you go, to be on the look-
out for a cross and crown of thorns,
which I know he'll get, if only he will be
brave enough and have faith enough to
stand for some of these things in which
your older members do not believe. He
must at first expect to lose on a count
of heads. But you see religious people
will have to answer to a rational tribunal.
Spontaneous gi ^ may be all right and
very enjoyable, but it isn't meeting the
problem. If we are to try and act as
Christians in relation to this problem
of poverty, we must give it as much
thought and effort, organized and com-
bined, as we possibly can — in fact as
if we were arranging for some one we
really cared about, like our wife, or our
children, or shall we say ourselves?
What do we expect when we have to
[41]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

acknowledge to a righteous Judge that
whatever we did, you as a clergyman
and I as a doctor, or anyone else in his
special occupation, was most unbusiness-
like and a failure? The hungry were
not fed, and we were. The young men
and women did go wrong in spite of us.
We had no time to devote to trying to
train their tastes, to occupy their waste
time, or develop their latent talents; to
teach them industries to add to their
earning capacities; to improve their
sanitary conditions; to teach them the
laws of health and the values of food;
though some of these things were all
some of us had to give the world.

"What do you think Christ would
be doing if he came here and saw folk
suffering the curse of the damned from
scurvy, just from want of knowing how
to lay out the value of their fish? If he
saw them with beri-beri because they
couldn't cook decently, and wouldn't
use the whole meal flour and beans to
prevent it; and miserable children,
crooked legged and narrow chested,
because one cannot feed cows in this
country unless one is well off — can't
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you see him giving cooking lessons?
Can't you see him smashing window
panes to let in fresh air to consumptive
houses, so as to let people know by
experience what can save them? Can't
you see him holding night schools to
teach men to manage better and econo-
mize such gifts as he has given them?
I can see him night after night saying to
a class of our old graybeards, 'Three
times three is nine; two times four is
eight,' and chalking it up on the wall
till poor old Jim could read his count k id
so save a few cents here and there to
have *a s'prise tin o' milk in t' locker,
to have it to give to t' missis when dere
comes a pinch.*

"I see him starting schemes to sell
necessities cheaper; fighting to find
markets for better prices for our staple
products. I see him training voters or
serving in the assembly; I see him a
statesman negotiating treaties. I see
him helping fellows to go to college,
to go to technical schools. If you had
lived in Nazareth, Parson, and seen
'Carpentry done here' on a sign over a
house, and if you knew that Jesus and
[43]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

Joseph were the men who were going
to take on your job, would you expect
the doors to jam and the windows to
stick? If a carpenter did a shoddy
piece of work for me I should strongly
suspect his Christianity, and all his
professions and confessions of faith
wouldn't induce me to give him another
job."

"But how can a church do all those
things?"

"A church? What is a church but
a body of live men and women, united
so as better to relive Christ's life? It
must surely keep trying to do these
things, and do them in Christ's way, or
it isn't a Christian church at any
rate."

"But, Doctor, it's impossible for a
minister to have time to instruct in all
those things. Isn't it his business to be
preaching the Gospel? "

"My dear Parson, do you honestly
think you have given us one single piece
of information since you came on this
shore that we did not know already?
Don't you think that before you go into
the pulpit we know by the cut of your
44]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

clothing, even if we don't know your
name, the pith of what you are going
to say? Words are only man-made ways
to convey ideas, and pretty poorly they
often enough express them, especially
if they are addressed to those who
cannot speak the particular language or
cannot read or write like some of your
folk here. Everyone understands lives,
and like experience they are the most
reliable teachers — read of all men, too.
Doesn't it seem to you that the deeper
a man's experience is, the less ready he
is to try and be an oracle on the one
subject which your very office binds
you to claim to be an authority?

"Will your successor, as did your
predecessor, confine all his God-given
gifts to telling us the same story, the
same maxims, and the same illustrations
which we have heard a hundred times?
When our minds awaken, and the prog-
ress which has opened the minds of
laboring men in other places awakens
our intelligence as well, and we come to
weigh the church's work in the balance
of our common sense, won't you. Parson,
have any fear of the decision of a jury

[45]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

of, say, the best twelve good and true
men in our harbor? What will the gre«t
all-knowLQg Judge say? 'What did
you do to elevate the intelligence of my
young men?' 'I talked to them and
asked you to do the rest.' 'Did you
do nothing more?' 'Nothing.' 'What
did you do to improve the condition of
the poor?' *I told the congregation
to feed and clothe them and gave away
all I had.' 'Did you do nothing
more?' 'Nothing. I hadn't time.'
'What did you do for the health and
homes and economics of my people?'
*I talked to them and told them to
obey and not complain.' 'Did you
do nothing more, nothing to improve
them?' 'Nothing. I had no time.'
'Did you use all the common sense
with which I endowed you to educate,
uplift, prevent suffering from reaching
my people, with the same intelligent
interest you showed in your own
wife, in your own boys, in yourself?
Are you satisfied with your method
of advertising "the way"? Was your
love as intelligent as you could make
it?*

[46]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

"What can you answer? I am not
for a moment trying to lay down what
such a Judge will or will not say about
your sermons, preachings, and prayer
meetings; but what would you say?"

THE MINISTER TO THE DOCTOR
ANOTHER DIALOGUE

IT was his turn now and he began m
good earnest. "Doctor, don't you
think we ought to be insisting that Jesus
was the Son of God?"

"I'd answer that. Parson, by saying
that I certainly do. For my part, I
believe he was whatever he claimed to
be, even if men differ as to what they
conceive that really was."

"You believe he was different from us
as being God?"

"I have said I believe he was what-
ever he claimed to be. I think abso-
lutely that each honest man must have
his own intellectual interpretation of
what he did claim, and that depends on
the gray matter of the brain which God
has given any particular individual. A
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man's life and actions depend on the
attitude of his moral and spiritual
being."

"Isn't a clergyman bound to preach
his own interpretation?"

"Well, I'm not a clergyman, but I
should say he was bound only to uplift
men to follow Christ. He is neither
bound to deny his own convictions or
express all of them. I am inclined to
think that each denomination expects
its clergy to teach what it teaches."

"Would you have a minister a casuist
or a sophist, then, by telling only half
that he thinks?"

"I know men in every profession who
never say in public what their intellect
leads them to say to chosen friends,
who understand them just as Christ
himself did. When the disciples, whom
Christ wanted especially to understand,
as they were to be his teachers, asked
him questions, he didn't always answer
them. There is a man next door to
you with, in all probability, a fatal
disease. The object of the contact of
my life with his is to save him, not to
kill him. There is a chance that any
[49]

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THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

human brain may misinterpret. If I
went to him and told him that he was
going to die, knowing him as I do and
his wife as I do, I am morally certain I
should kill him. If you went and said,
'If you don't believe as I do, you'll he
eternally damned,' it would be simple
murder; and if I thought you such a
criminal, and cared one jOt for Joe's
little children, I'd have you locked up."

"Then you don't think he will be
eternally damned?"

"My object, like the Master's, is to
try and save his life; so is yours. Not
what I believe, but what I am going to
tell him is the point. I have seen both
practises during these last twenty odd
years, and I am sure that the wiser men
very often withhold what they think
and get better results thereby. Is nc
the sole cause for the existence of o uf
faith to attain results ? Or is it to have
a pleasing feeling that we have done
our duty? Like the lady who sent her
loaves of bread to the hungry by a
liveried footmau, who with each loaf
told tb^m not to be gluttonous or to
sell it i_- whisky. Though she believed,
[50]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

as I think rightly, that total abstinence
is far the best way in life, her way of
telling the whole of what she thought
did not benefit either the cause or the
people."

"Then you think Christ wouldn't tell
all he thought to our people?"

"Look here, Parson. A year or two
ago I gave a series of lantern talks to
the people of this very place. The first
was local views. It was greeted enthusi-
astically. Number two was ' the great-
est wonders of the world.* It was
received somewhat skeptically and with
much less interest. The third was on
'starland, or astronomy made easy.'
Most of the audience said that they must
have been working extra hard that day,
they all felt so sleepy.

"Our folk don'l see the good of learn-
ing to swim. The water is too cold
and it takes a lot of time and trouble,
and they have an instinctive dread of
ever getting beyond their depth. I've
got to recognize that it is instinctive
and treat it seriously. I'm advising you
to do the same. Who are the men round
here who are laying down the law to
151]

iil

others most loudly, as if they possessed
infallible information concerning the
inspiration of the Scriptures, the future
of the soul, etc.? You know they aren't
the best educated. Why, Parson, do
you know that from a series of most
carefully collected statistics . ver a large
area it has been found that, with the
decline of the r'.'Ai>al camp meeting
tjT)e of religion, there has been a pro-
portional rise in the morality of the
people, who have substituted greater
lignity, a more 'reasonable service,'
and have lost none of the zeal for Christ
and his kingdom when they got rid of
the emotionalism which was stultifying
them and their view of religion?

" Hasn't it always seemed odd to you
that those who know least about any-
thing which can be disproved claim to
know most about what I take it, from
Christ and from Paul, our brains cannot
conceive ? "

"Then you don't believe in the in-
spiration of the Bible and that all of
it is true?"

"When two men give different ac-
counts of the same thing, Parson, I

[52]

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

believe it is in the thing, but not in the
accounts. I don't credit the authors
with evil motives, only with being
human beings. Don't forget, however,
before I say more, that what I now say
to you I wouldn't now say to your con-
gregation if I stood in your shoes,
for fear of being misunderstood. One
should not destroy unless one does
it only in order to rebuild a better
structure.

"For instance, I personally believe
that the gospel according to Matthew
was the gospel according to Matthew. I
believe that the gospel according to Luke
was the gospel according to Luke, and
that the gospel according to Mark was
not the gospel according to Mark."
"Why not?" "Well, because it flavors
too strongly of Peter."

"You mean that Peter dictated it,
as he was an unlearned and ignorant
man?"

"Exactly. I believe it was Peter's
version of the matter."

"Don't you think, then, that he was
inspired differently from what we are
today?"

153]

S-^,

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

"My dear Parson, I fear he did pos-
sess, as a matter of fact, more of Christ's
actual nearness than you or I. Though
I only accept that because of the record
of his life subsequently. But beyond
that, surely our lives if not our words
are capable of exactly similar inspiration.
Would you believe in Christ more or
follow him better if he had turned that
stone into bread and so avoided suffer-
ing; had used superhuman methods
rather than human?"

"No."

"Then why would you want to judge
any man as no true follower of Jesus
Christ who loves him all the better
because he thinks Christ never used us
men as machines but as his friends,
allowing us to be men that he might
have something to praise us for and
we something to work for ? You'll have
a hard battle. Parson, as knowledge goes
on, to have a man call himself a Chris-
tian at all if you try to make men
swallow what it has become impossible
for their stomachs to bear. They will
be forced to throw it up. You cannot
thumbscrew men or ostracize men or

^IK>

punish men anyhow for having diflferent
opinions. That is the trouble with my
sick man now; I cannot make him keep
his food down."

"If I were to go out and preach all
that here, Doctor, they would rise in a
body and drive me out."

"That would be a pity, Parson. Don't
you do it. But I am going down now
to see the sick man in your house. That
excellent loaf we have just been eating
makes me feel fit for work and a walk.
But if I w^re to go there and give it to
Joe it would kill him inside six hours.
Perhaps I may give ! to him six weeks
from now with advantage."

"But, Doctor, I feel I ought not to
hide the truth as I see it."

"Well then. Parson, you shouldn't
want to be wiser than your Master.
When he came to the conclusion that
the intellect of the Galilean Jew of a.d.
SI wasn't able to grasp his wisdom, he
gave them just enough of the water of
life in parables not to choke them and
just enough of the bread of life not to
give them spiritual indigestion. 'Ex-
cept in parables, spake he not at all.'
55]

ATTRACTIVE WAY

He explained them to the disciples to
whom he could devote plenty of time.
Even when they asked him direct ques-
tions he didn't always answer them.
I have sometimes thought that they
showed mighty little intelligence to
need those long explanations, and after
all they showed very little real appreci-
ation of his teaching. I never forget,
when I think of inspiration, James and
John quarreling as to which of them was
to get the most out of it, just after they
had had the Last Supper. Yet I half
liked them for it, because it made them
so human — more like myself. I ad-
mired them more when I believed that
they minded those floggings and ston-
ings and loneliness and misunderstand-
ing more because of it. They must
have lain awake in bed and worried just
as I do, instead of being like those
ecclesiastical e£Sgies on tombs, or as
they are shown in 'religious' pictures,
with an unnatural enjoyment of arrows
through their vital organs.

**Come on, Parson. My sick man
needs me and you have some one who
needs you. If you will confess, as I
[66]

.dix.

ATTRACTIVE

know you will, that you don't know all
about the right treatment yet, and will
go out and ask Him who does know to
make you wise as a child of light should
be, you will get the knowledge necessary
to help you win men to the way of life;
and you will be a happier man if you
use your God-given manhood and com-
mon sense to give or withhold rather
than, when any earnest or needy man
asks you how he can win out in the
battle with sin, feel you must reply,
'Say Shibboleth,' and if he can't say it
with an *h,' slay him everlastingly, even
in your own mind."

To sum up. One of the inevitable
lessons of the medical profession has,
alas, to be emphasized in the post-mor-
tem room; viz., that all human intelli-
gence is human still. No lesson is more
needed than this by would-be advocates
of Christ's way of life. That such a
■tader of men as Joshua, who so suc-
cessfully brought his people into their
promised land, should allow to go on
record the repeated divine entreaties to
keep up his courage suggests the recog-
nition on his part of another of our
[57]

ATTRACTIVE

greTptest needs. Others besides popes
have lacked courage to abandon inde-
fensible positions, such as that the world
was flat, until they were forced to do
so at the point of the bayonet. Their
reason was simply the hoary antiquity
of the point in question and their own
lack of wisdom. "Let them say" is a
far better answer to "^Vhat will men
say?" than any dictated by fear, which
does despite to such common sense as
we do possess.

The clinic of two surgeons at the in-
significant town of Rochester in Minne-
sota has become world famous and world
useful because of their willingness, their
eagerness in fact, to abandon methods
or theories which new knowledge had
superseded, even though in their day
and generation they might have served
to save life.

Fearlessness is a vital factor in real
faith. To boast of the little we believe
is a confession of weakness. It is an
evidence of manliness and the road to
achievement to be able to believe much.
It was no sign of credulity in Fulton that
he should have wished to be buried on
[581

uTii-fa"

THE ATTRACTIVE WAY

*?-'-^

the banks of the Ohio, so sure was he
that some day the sound of vessels pro-
pelled by steam would resound over its
waters.

Men will always flock to the colors at
the call to service, if only they are the
right colors. Not infallibility, but com-
mon sense and unselfish courage; not
denunciation, but courageous optimism
and the humility which characterizes
aspiration are the colors the display
of which will without fail to-day and
every day rally men to the company
of Jesus Christ.

[Ml

It i

-.••>,-*'

WILL ALWAYS*
FLOCK TO THE COLORS AT
THE CALL^TO SERVICE. IF
ONLY TH^Y ARE THE
RIGHT COLORS."

I :

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ij#«^'i««fa*kv

"NOT INFALLIBILITY, BUf
COMMON SENSE AND UN-
SELFISH COURAGE; NOT
DENUNCIATION, BUT COUR-
AGEOUS OPTIMISM."

■■•*•

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