: § i & "...º.º.º. “... * , º, .º.º. . . sºlº.’, Nºvº º ºr ºxº 's Nº N,N'``. º º \\ . .x, Nº. < *, * “YS : i º &N §§§ Nº. N § ºw . º . . . . . . . ºvº ºğ º ' ' ' ', ', " ", "...º Nº. |ÉTVº \; JALUBJºJº Tº it sº jºb : fºLIBRARYºº Yolº THE i...ºrºRSITY OFMiGHits... º- *N - tº Ji <ſºvº * ºx: 22. ..? º ; ºSS§ ;* - 2º ºf- º 22 - - . . . Jº J.J. J.J.J. º.º.º.º.º.º.º.º.º. Nº Wºº-º-º/. J. Pºº. § 37 | : : 1 H---ala as a a e = e = ea as a -a as a sease a sea as a see a = ea = a- as a z = z = z = z = z = = - e. a = z = -- - - - 2: | Birmmr. A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION By DUREN J. H. WARD A.B., B.D., A.M., (Hillsdale); A.M. (Harvard); Ph.D. (Leipsic) OUR NEXT EMANCIPATION, (The Temperance Movement, 1883) How RELIGION ARISES THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS THE HUMAN RACES A Historico-Ethnological Classification ANTHROPOLOGY A Syllabus of the Science THE PROBLEM OF THE MOUNDS, ETC. THE MESKWAKI TRIBE GOVERNMENT Own ERSHIP IN THE HUNDRED PRINCIPAL COUNTRIES, ETC. A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION From Biblical Church with its Primitive World and Jewish Legends to Aryan Science with its Infinite Universe and Established Facts By ...cº. Q.'t weš C.'. *- DUREN J. H. WARD BOSTON THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY PUBLISHERS TB, L- eZ_4 O , Vay 2- 2 Copyright, 1922, by THE FOUR SEAs CoMPANY The Four Seas Press Poston, Mass., U. S. A. £2% . * ſº 421.Cô 4/) DEDICATION To MEN OF RELIGION The World’s former Trust, the time-honored source of goodness; TO MEN OF SCIENCE The World’s new hope, the modern fount of knowledge. May the one get the facts and the other the Zeal that shall Save their common charge— CIVILIZATION The White Race is facing its third Crisis. The first was at the Fall of Rome. The second was at the Reformation. The third is now—at the rise of Science. It took a thousand years to recover from the first. The second was a remedy for that first. For a hundred years that remedy has been failing. Either a lapse or a boost in Civilization is due soon. PREFACE To my neighbors, wherever in this world of haphazard advance they are longing for greater security through a more balanced progress, this work of love is offered. There is today an anxious multitude who do not see any way out of the present unparalleled and increasing mental turmoil with its attendant physical sufferings. Due to conditions which they hitherto could not avoid, their point of view has lacked the perspective of Evolution and History. They are fast becoming either discouraged or indifferent. Noble at heart, they cherish (they could hardly tell why) the unspoken hope that brighter days are somehow coming. To these I write. For their serious attention I plead. Into the new airplane of Scientific Progress I entreat them to enter. With the field-glass of constructive scientific criticism I beg them to survey with me that realm which men call Christendom. It is forty years since I began to realize that the views of mankind are being fundamentally transformed, and it now is getting clear that more than any other one thing, the majority stand in need of that new understanding which Modern Science is today amply able to give them. By “Science” is meant those inductions (regarding the world and its life) which have been sifted and verified. This, and nothing less, can be a safe basis for living-getting and patriotic action. And, yet, in this age of jostling views and hustling activities, how very difficult for the average person is that intellectual ascent. The greatest advances in civilization have been made during the two generations just past, and they are the direct result of the greater prevalence and more potent workings 7 8 PREFACE of the scientific spirit. Scientific knowledge now compre- hends such a body of well verified facts, so transforming in character, that it is actually a new “gospel.” A knowledge of its first principles is indispensable for the “salvation” of men and society from present and impending ills. It is already becoming the basis of a new and profounder faith for the civilized races. This gospel studies not one but all the faiths of the past, while it excludes none of the facts of the present. It is simple enough in its essential philosophy to be grasped by the child or the roadside laborer, yet profound enough in depth and scope to tax the wisest. It claims no monopoly of truth, but only demands the utter sincerity of every mind toward that which is highest and best to it (always taking for granted that what is highest and best today may yet be higher and better tomorrow). It admits no absolute perfections, and puts no limits to the scope of moral ideals. It insists on duty today, working courageously toward the highest perfectibility here and now of every son and daughter of the human family. It is here premised that a vast transformation of the biblical or Hebrew type of Aryan Religion (commonly called Protestant and Catholic Orthodoxy) began with the Scientific Movement about four centuries ago. Under these general names Semitic Neo-Judaism (“Christianity”) has held all Mediterranean and Nordic Aryan masses until recently. During the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century there got under way what may be broadly termed the doctrines of Evolution and of Socialism, together with the investigation known as the “Higher Criticism” of the authoritative books of the Christian (or Neo-Judaic) Church. These new Movements took generations for their development, but finally they have broken the spell of the “Age of Faith” which had held the Aryan Occident for some fifteen hundred years. (See Chap. XI Sec. “Christianity Exotic to Aryans.”) The signs are numerous and wide spread. In continental Europe hundreds of advanced thinkers have become radical. They are no longer quiet, tolerant and submissive. For PREFACE 9 half a century or more some of them have led destructive scholarly attacks with telling effects. Altogether, the free- thinking, speculative and historically critical movement has now become a colossal sociological phenomenon. The like has not been seen in history since Imperial Roman times. Of course, the Great World War had several causes, but the future historian will find that by far the greatest of these was the breaking down of the ruling Teutonic char- acter resulting from the decay of its religion without an accompanying building up of a newer, more up-to-date basis for a moral and social life. It had its close parallel with the break-up of all ancient faiths and the fall of ancient nations, and the final climactic decay of the old Roman religion after the Romans had gathered in all the decaying nations. Then they themselves went down for the same reason. Christianity came too late to save the political organization. The Roman world had religiously decayed i. was morally rotten even before the Christian movement egan. Today, a striking parallel is evident in Central Europe and is fast making its appearance throughout Christendom. The Germans as a people have been losing their old-time Christian faith earlier and more rapidly than any other branch of the Aryan race, and they are not yet replacing it with a natural endogenous growth of theory and ideal such as is beginning to appear among millions of individuals in Anglo-Saxon countries. Germans are yet predominantly Speculative. Science is the mode of a more matter-of-fact investigative people. The Anglo-Saxons produced the Science of Geology and consequently extended the time perspective of man. The English Darwin discovered the biological law of “Natural Selection,” but fortunately neither Darwin nor the English have made it a last word in philosophy and sociology. The dominant Germans, being well on the road to the negation of all traditions from the ancient times, seized upon this half-evolved Evolution Theory and made a social philosophy of it. Their Nietzsches and Bernhardis never saw the higher meaning. IO PREFACE They adopted as the State ideal the blind forces of crude nature and saw no further “selection” to be undertaken by man. They gave Evolution the primitive, materialistic interpretation—stopping with “Natural Selection.” The English and American biologists, sociologists and psycholo- gists have gone on to Purposive, Rational, Moral and Social Selection. Many German scholars would have done this too, but to the German official mind, Evolution meant following the brute ways of the wood and the jungle. To the British and American, Evolution has mostly meant growth, development, progress not only by Natural Selection in material things, but also by Purposive Selection in all those virtues and aspirations which have been the growing, instinctive yearnings of all finer spirits during the Christian centuries. And it has further meant growth toward an unlimited ideal future. The German Government’s misin- terpretation of Evolution has led to ruthless, self-centered, World-conquering ambition and an autocrat's vanity that will for centuries be a by-word of shame for the rest of the world. The Anglo-Saxon interpretation of Evolution is leading to international co-operation and a combined effort to put an end to reversionary primitive outbreaks and furnish a secure basis for political and finally industrial democracy. The ideal of an “Age of Science” has for a century been slowly—but now more rapidly—arising in the Anglo-Saxon lands, and is being tardily and grudgingly borrowed by all the other races. It is dividing the people into two types of believers—traditional minded and scientific minded. The decay of old doctrines is an evidence of intellectual growth, but if the growth is not rapidly reconstructive, there always threatens what Professor Goldwin Smith called a “moral interregnum.” History has made it plain that morality reverts to primitive impulses when a traditional religious foundation is destroyed and another foundation is not supplied. The self-centered instincts are deep because SO early evolved. The society-sustaining instincts are new, late, and hence less deeply seated. Traditions grow rapidly PREFACE II and are treasured and fostered to boost the newly evolved impulses. When by broader experience the traditions begin to be doubted, then the vastly older biological, primitive, self-centered inheritance at once claims sway, and Social institutions and all civilization are endangered. To go back and find safety is impossible. To go ahead and find better reasons for the better life is the only safety. This is the lesson from all decaying religions of all historic people. Our age is far advanced in the change. We face the danger. We should make the transit safely. Yesterday other peoples could not. We have a vast body of new and well-verified facts about the universe. We are spreading this under the name of “Scientific education.” These facts and our new civic life have given us a new social ideal— political and industrial democracy. The only really great danger ahead is in not getting a World-outlook, a Cos- mology, a Religion that is consistent with our facts of Science. The Church has been furnishing the Ancient Outlook for “the masses”. But if the Church continues to teach ancient legend in the face of the plain discoveries of Science, the Church will either face defeat and extinction by being superseded, or destruction by going down in the common wreck for which her obstinacy was the chief cause. No religion ever yet reformed of itself. Will the Chris- tian Church prove an exception? Or will Science organize a receivership? “No nation ever outlived its religion.” DUREN J. H. WARD Denver, Colorado Preface CONTENTS A Tribute to the Christian Church º Prologue—The Diminishing Church. Why? Chapter I. II. III. IV. V. VI. The Lines of Our Survey PART ONE THE DRAMA OF CHRISTIANITY Epitome—The Five Great Acts e e The Beginning of Protest in Act III—Wiclif . The Next Great Protest—Act IV—Luther Protestantism—Its Essence and Limitations . The Protest Movement—A Northern Race Awakening * tº o tº tº The Making of Modern Times by Protest PART TWO Page 14 15 25 29 37 64 76 82 THE GREATEST TRANSITION IN HUMAN HISTORY-ACT V. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. The Latest Organized Protestant-ism The Unorganized Protest-ants ſº * Resulting Changes in World Outlook . e The Old-Time Preacher 'mid the New Time Needs e & © * & The New-Time Preacher With the New-Time FactS e * * * * 89 100 111 121 135 XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. PART THREE THE AUTHORITY OF FORMER TIMES Beauties of the Old Bible * e Why Preach About the Bible? º * “Higher Criticism and Its Great Discoveries”. The Old Bible tº † e te * Inspiration, Revelation and Sacredness 153 161 167 176 183 I2 CONTENTS I3 PART FOUR THE SUBSTITUTED AUTHORITY OF SCIENCE Chapter XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. |XXXI. XXXII. The New Bible º te © e * The New Bible—Book I—Of The Heavens— Astronomy e e e & e The New Bible—Book II—Of The Earth— Geology tº wº e º & PART FIVE THE “INSCRUTABLE MYSTERIES” The Problem Of Evil e º Moral Sanctions from Brute to Saint Prayer and Law and Common Sense The Old Worship and The New On The Divide . ſº tº Freedom—Religion—Church PART SIX A HIGHER EFFICIENCY HAILED The Ought-To-Be Church tº e e The New Ministry Must Develop New Methods Collegiate Preaching—The Way to Success PART SEVEN RELIGIOUS RECONSTRUCTION URGENT Scientific Doctrine and Method Imperative Sample Close-ups of Thought Conditions Reticence of Science Dangerous © g If We Must Have a Creed—The Creed of Science § ſº e & RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT of Aryan Civilization Page 191 195 202 212 222 232 240 250 257 264 270 280 289 299 306 315 A TRIBUTE HE CHRISTIAN CHURCH has been the greatest and longest continued organizaion developed by mankind. It has included more individuals, has covered and molded more phases of their lives, has developed more social machin- ery, has planned more enterprises, has stimulated more art, has inspired more literature, has been the fountain of more heroic efforts, has planned more widely for human good, has built more buildings, has raised more money for social pur- poses, has enlisted more willing service, than any other institution aiming to control primitive human desire and alleviate human need. And yet this is not enough 1 Past deeds never fill present needs. No living organism, no social organism can continue on the basis of what it has done. Every living thing must live today, else it begins today to die. I4 PROLOGUE THE DIMINISHING CHURCH WHY? There is spreading through Christendom a feeling of alarm concerning the falling off in church membership, the decrease in church influence, and the increase in the non- church portion of the population. An Episcopal bishop at a convention in Philadelphia, not long ago, was reported as saying, that there is “a definitely anti-Christian drift which seems to be increasing in force.” The bishops of the Four- Yearly Methodist General Conference at Des Moines lately issued a very important statement declaring: “A new age is here. We cannot get back to the less troubled, more simple, placid days. We are now at a crisis; if we fail now, it will not matter what else we do.” Similar typical statements of such sad facts are heard throughout the land. - Future pages will make clear that this problem is far bigger than the best meaning church people imagine. Though there may possibly be 42,000,000 nominal members in all the various church organizations in this country; yet the steadily increasing un-churched population now numbers 64,000,000, in which recent church authorities include 20,000,000 young people in the present rising generation who will receive no religious training ! Why? But numbers would not signify so much, if we had to do with a new or growing cause. We are here dealing with only another bad symptom in an already long process of decay. Aside from this drop in figures, the Church has for two generations been very inefficient as an inhibitor of Crime, while it has steadily fallen down as a stimulator of advanced and higher ideals. Today it is scarcely twenty- five percent effective in the accomplishment of the things I5 I6 PROLOGUE for which it has historically stood. The world is teeming with moral and social problems before which the Church stands in helpless dismay. It cries out against some of the so-called evils in feeble, half-confident manner. Others it dare not speak of or does not know of. How different would be its mien if it had been keeping close to Science and proclaiming its truths these last two hundred years! The Church has made its own condition of embarrassment. We are here facing not merely a religious problem of our own day, but we are up against one of those rhythmic epochs in history. Species, races, nations, religions, all have their day. World conditions change. All life, all institutions must adapt themselves. Fitness is the only qualification for continuance. The fittest survive. It will be the object of these pages to try to portray the present conditions of Western Civilization as affecting religion and its propagating plant, the Christian Church. In the Middle Ages when the Church was intimately related to the life of the community, there were almost no people outside of it. Since the time of the Reformation, near the beginning of the 16th century, the number of non- members has steadily increased. Why is this? Is it going to increase until the whole population are non-members? Those who do not belong to the churches are of various classes, and for each class there is a different reason. Moreover, Some of the reasons are from the side of the Church. The conditions now are very different from either those of early Christianity or those of the Middle Age Church. In the early years of the Christian era, Christianity was a gospel, a human cause, a movement destined by its fitness to secure more and more adherents and to eventually become organized. At the beginning it was limited to Jesus, his Disciples, and a few enthusiasts. Near the end of this first period it included millions in every part of the far-reaching Roman Empire. After the decay of Rome and the inmixing of the Northern tribes with the Southern European peoples, the PROLOGUE • 17 Church organization became complete, and it gradually propagated its cause until its membership became coexten- sive with the whole population of the new Holy Roman Empire and with that of the lesser nations that grew out of the great interblending. Church and State were fused together. The rulers became Christian by profession,- champions and instruments of the Church Hierarchy. Indeed, their chief business came to be the maintenance of the Churchianity. THE REFORMATION AN EN COURAGEMENT OF INDIVIDUAL OPINION One chief meaning of the great Reformation (1517) was the assertion of individuality. This was the opening of the Church doors outward. Before this (since the days of Constantine) they had opened only inward. There had come about a great change in human intelligence. Ignorant men can be coerced and restrained. Not so men of know- ledge. These have choices and they demand the right to. make them. It was impossible, when once the doors were burst outward, to keep men in the church against their will. Gradually intelligence has spread, diversity of opinion has increased, and men have taken their liberty and gone whither they would. This individuality has shown itself in the very numerous sects of Protestantism. Also in the vast un- churched mass. Let us now try to determine some of the reasons why these 60,000,000 individuals are not a part of some of the many church organizations. These reasons will give a sort of classification of the unchurched masses. THE SELFISEI BUN CH I. The bottom reason is found in human selfishness. The selfish impulses are first in life. Social impulses which have the good of the race in view are regarded as enemies I8 - PROLOGUE to self. The child mind and the ignorant mind never see any good reason for yielding up their own will or desire. Now many people become willfully and habitually fol- lowers of their narrow selfish impulses. Against all this the Church has always been more or less arrayed. But badness never likes to be opposed. The Church’s preaching and labors are a disagreeable rebuke. People in this class resent rebuke, and they stay away if they can. They eventually hate the virtues which the Church (at its best) exists to inculcate. They dislike to realize that they are not as good as they ought to be, and they shun association with those who are better, or who would become better. When Aristides, surnamed The Just, was banished from Athens because of a sharp dispute with Themistocles, the vote was publicly taken. An unlettered citizen, a coarse obstinate fellow, who knew nothing of Aristides and who could not even write his vote, asked a man standing by to write it for him on a shell. The man whom he asked chanced to be Aristides himself. “And what name shall I write?” “Aristides.” “And, pray, what wrong has Aristides done you?” “Oh, none; but I am tired of always hearing him called The Just.” Similar people will never belong to the Church, if they can avoid it. In an age of liberty, they can avoid it. From them there is really no hope. THE ICON OCLASTS 2. Closely allied to them is another class whose vice is not in the way of immoral acts, but of an unrestrainable intellectual egotism. Under the same conditions as previ- ously described, liberty has become license, and then ignor- ance becomes assuming. Though having relatively little preparation, nevertheless they doubt not their competency to settle the greatest problems of the ages. This tendency becomes a habit, and shortly we have a human disposition that finds its delight in opposition. It always strives to find reasons to oppose what the Church asserts. To such minds, PROLOGUE I9 the Church presently becomes a hobby for the expression of their hatred. Iconoclasm is the passion of their lives. Their bigotry often becomes keener than that which they would destroy. Their enemies have no virtues. Some of these radicals are in every city. - THE SHIREQERS 3. There is another class who are not so bad in the way of positive immorality, and who have none of the unwhole- Some intellectual aggressiveness of the radicals just described; but who, though desiring to be counted with the aspiring and the good, are not willing to make the effort and sacrifice the means which are necessary. Many of them join the Church but shirk its responsibilities at every safe point. If times are hard, and if they must reduce expenses, they ask: “What shall we give up? Tea, coffee, tobacco, this or that luxury? No, we can’t get along without these. Let's see; we can give up the religious newspaper. We can divide our subscription by three. We can put in one-fourth as much in the collection. Altogether this is quite a re- trenchment; and nobody will know the difference. Our Standing will be just as good.” Or perhaps, worse than this, they shirk out of the respon- sibility entirely. They stay away for months or even years at a time. They give no reason. If ever accosted, they are “coming soon.” They refuse to see or say the real reason. THE IN AN E AND THE SLACK 4. The next class are too lazy to be bad, too weak to be egotistic, have too little self-respect to care much about their Social standing and too little idealism and sense of higher life to realize what their year-in and year-out staying at home will deprive them of. The newspaper and idle gossip with others of their own class are their sole substitute. And $9 they, in a half unconscious way, lie around and miss that higher improvement of all their higher faculties which 2O PROLOGUE might be within their reach. They thus remain ciphers in society, so far as the exertion of any influence for moral progress is concerned. Of this class there are doubtless hundreds in every town. They live only in the physical side of their existence. They perform the labors that fall to them in the struggle for a living on the animal plane. Of the profounder nature of life they never get a glimpse. To the higher enjoyments that come from the contemplation of great principles, they are strangers. And they must remain so. When the majority of the nation comes to be of their class, the nation will fall a wreck to the inanity, un- morality and immorality of its subjects. Of the great things that have been done for them by the earnest minds of former times, they are as ignorant as children. That great debt to the Past which we can pay only to the Future, they will never pay. They are filled with the most hopeless form of ingratitude, the one which has its roots in ignorance of what has been done for them. THE RECREATION ISTS AND SPORTS 5. There is another class of automobile, bicycle, and baseball sports, movie fans, Sunday picnickers, menders and tinkerers. This includes a very large number of most capable and most estimable people who through lack of system and earnest thought thereupon, allow many splendid opportunities in course of years to be lost. Each and all of the things which they do (in the way of things they could not do in other days) might have their place without de- priving them of the opportunity of attending meetings of common human inspiration, if such meetings were only more available. I speak from experience regarding this class. For them I have a tender sympathy. They are a class who would profit greatly from the ministrations and membership of a sensible unbigoted, up-to-date Church. PROLOGUE 2I CHURCH's DOCTRINES ITS OWN BIGGEST OBSTACLE 6. But the deepest and most prominent reason, the one which covers the case for the most influential and increas- ingly numerous class, is entirely the fault of the Church. And it is by far the most serious one. It is, directly and indirectly, the reason for many of the others. I refer to the enormous amount of bad thinking and wornout doctrines which come from its oracles. Sentimentalism, laziness, ignorance, and traditional fixed ideas keep the Church from occupying the advanced position which it ought to. At times and in places it is actually striving to live behind its opportunities. This results in bigotry, and bigotry is blind. New discoveries are made, new laws are opened up, and every thinking man sees that certain long-held doctrines must be modified or set aside. In the days when the Transcendentalists were examining the orthodox articles of faith, one devoted Presbyterian woman down east was much bewildered and not a little provoked to see the things which had been her sacred trust slipping away; but finally she came to this resigned conclu- sion: “I don’t care so much about predestination and free- will and them sort of things, but if they take away my total depravity, I shall feel as though I hadn't any religion at all.” Now one and now another doctrine is of chiefest importance. Prof. Henry Ware, Jr., used to tell his students at Harvard of a young minister who one day told the deacon of his doubts concerning the existence of the Devil. The deacon in amazement replied: “Not believe in the Devil! Why, you are an atheistſ” Every well-informed man knows many facts concerning the results of the discoveries from Archaeology, History, Biology, Geology, Astronomy, etc. And he knows that these now demonstrated truths must change the doctrines concerning the universe and man, and the origin of both. These discoveries come up in the form of objections to those things which have been thought to be true. The Church either ignores them altogether, or it does not answer them 22 PROLOGUE by the method of reason. It only denies them by citing its own authorities. But this is begging the whole question, since these “authorities” are a part of the very thing in dispute. Who does not know that the conception which reason can hold regarding God must be fundamentally changed? But when the Church does not make these changes, and in its utterances shows its ignorance of the fact of these discoveries, the thinking man who knows this cannot continue to go to Church. Truth is contradicted and his intellect is continually insulted. The threats and imprecations and so-called moral sanctions which it pro- claims are to him simply the ravings of incompetency or fanaticism. Many of the best people in the world thus stay at home, and they will continue to stay there until it comes to be rumored about that from the pulpit they can hear moral inspiration backed by good Science and authen- ticated History. The pulpits must echo the spirit of the present and not re-echo the echoes of the past. In various ages the Church has disgraced itself by the shameless blatant assumption of things which every man of intelligence knew were no longer even assumably true. I dwell upon this point because it is the one which is within the power of the Church to rectify. It is this point primarily which is the thesis of this book. For two cen- turies the Church has not commanded the respect nor retained the membership and support of those who have done the world's best thinking and who have accomplished its unparalleled advancement. CHURCH “A COWARD ON SocIAL PROBLEMs” 7. But there is another class arising who arraign the Church for its lack of attention to social problems. This is the most prevalent and most fashionable criticism in our age. The Church, which should be the believer par excell- ence in the redemption of humanity from misery here and now, has almost universally accepted that misery as the necessary part of life. In an easily accountable but most PROLOGUE 23 unfortunate manner, it has seized upon the most vulnerable point in the whole teaching of its Founder and taken as a fact of Divine foreordination the recorded remark: “The poor ye have always with you.” I doubt if he ever said it; but even if he did, it was certainly the baldest misconstruc- tion to take it as meaning the predetermined Providential necessity of poverty and misery. Nor does this view accord with the spirit of his teaching. His was the life of love and trust and hope. Even the Bible itself has much of that spirit. Often it commanded tenderness. More than seven hundred times does it enjoin that servants be treated with love and kindness. More than one hundred and fifty times are the poor and needy referred to tenderly and hopefully, while the word “rich” appears only twenty-one times. More than a hundred times are the widows and orphans spoken of, and always compassionately. Six hundred times do the ex- pressions “right” and “justice” appear; and “love” and “mercy” occur three hundred times. But why must the Church lean on tradition always and ever, good or bad? CHURCH SHOULD LEAD IN SOCIALIZATION ; BUT DOESN'T No ; a large part of the miseries of life are the fault of human ignorance and human selfishness; and the Church Ought to be the most hopeful and the most earnest of all bodies in teaching and working toward their dispersion. It ought to be the leader in social improvement; but instead of this, although it has been the greatest organization upon the globe and has been for centuries in this lead, it has allowed the world to lapse into or it has failed to redeem it from an immoral and unmoral condition which threatens social ruin. It ought to have cured the Roman Empire and saved it from its fall. But no; it gradually joined in the sins of the times, and it well nigh went down in the general crash. It was appropriated by the greed-mongers and became the chief instrument of support for that feature of life of which it should have been the chief opponent. 24 PROLOGUE OMINOUS SOCIAL CONDITIONS AGAIN IN SIGHT Another and similar time is upon us. The world is fast dividing into social classes. The Great War has further paved the way for this. It concentrated attention on condi- tions within nations. The classes are becoming more inimical toward each other. I need only hint the deplorable, threat- ening situation which confronts society in all parts of Christendom and Commercialdom. And it will take but Small powers of logic to discover that, in large degree, it has come about through lack of duty on the part of that organization which sets itself the task of redeeming the world, but doesn’t do it. Yielding to that human frailty which was its first business to conquer, it has in ten thousand instances sold itself to the enemy. And there are now in the world not a few true men and women who have the insight to see this. It is little wonder that they find no comfort in Church-going. This was the Sort of Church Jesus found. Against it his great intense Soul revolted. But he did not desert it, as those men of our day (to whom I have referred) have deserted the Church of their time. These are some of the reasons why some people do not care for the Church. There are still other reasons. I trust I have suggested the most important ones. Some of them must be rectified by the Church itself. Their existence is a great mortification to the few who realize them. To change this condition of things should be the joyous, earnest purpose of every one who regards the Church as a natural Sociological factor. In association for good there is strength and safety. The combination of the social impulses of the many can alone stem the selfish impulses of each. Aside from this, the Church has no excuse for continuance. Than this, there neither is nor could be any higher, grander, nobler labor. PROLOGUE 25 THE LINES OF OUR SURVEY If another crisis in human career is imminent, it will be by far the greatest yet encountered by mankind. A troubled minority are fretting before it; the thoughtless majority are tragically oblivious of it. Our world is a thousand times more complicated than at any ancient stage. The Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, reached a rela- tively simple eminence and failed,—shockingly, piteously, needlessly. They were all wrecked on the same rock. Political units (nations) flourish only so long as their patriotic enthusiasm is grounded on some progressive social ideal. The masses never, and the leaders rarely, have been able to see this clearly. On its larger affairs and interests, humanity to-date has proven itself near-sighted. He who could make mankind far-sighted enough to consider its career in evolution would be its greatest benefactor. If a considerable number could now survey a nearby bit of time —just a few centuries, it might save another collapse of civilization. In Part I, through six chapters, let us first glimpse “The Whole Drama of Christianity” and then see how it began to change its character in the later acts; how the deep-seated traditional notions and authority came to be protested under the leadership of Wiclif and Luther; what was the essence of the protest; how the protest grew to be a great movement in history; and finally a northern race awakening, a setting Out upon a really new career for mankind–Modern Times, to be sharply distinguished from all former times. In Part II, we shall try to grasp the present condition of the movement of protest, and we shall see in it “The Greatest Transition in Human History”. Protestantism organized is giving way to Protest-ants unorganized, and 26 PROLOGUE the World’s way of looking at the World is amazingly and profoundly changing. “The Old-Time Preacher 'mid the New-Time Needs” is a sorry misfit, and “The New-Time Preacher with the New-Time Facts” is hardly yet on the job. Hence, a dangerous chaos in world doctrine and Social practice. In Part III, it will be necessary to re-examine “The Authority of Former Times” in order later to contrast it with the now on-coming authority of these and future times. The description of “The Beauties of the Old Bible” is the most agreeable of all our duties, but the story of “The Higher Criticism,” the careful, honest judgment of what we had over-looked and the awful flaws and frauds revealed, are regrettable but necessary tasks. In Part IV “The Substituted Authority of our Modern Science” is a conception hard to grasp. The transition from the domination of a Book whose adherents for ages have forbidden all questions about it, to a new series of books scarcely dry from the press, is a psychological feat full of peril to faith. And yet whoso essays the task Succeeds to a ten-fold greater enthusiasm. The “New Bible” is “revelation” replete with truth to date. The contrast with Semitic mythology about the creation of the Heavens and the Earth will be shown in chapters outlining Books I and II of the New Bible. These epitomize the greater facts revealed through Astronomy and Geology. They are but simple samples of that noble enlargement which will follow in the guidance of life when Science shall treat every field. In Part V, some of the so-called “Inscrutable Mysteries” (which have been a millstone on the neck of progress) are Solved by the sciences of Biology and Psychology. Com- bining a false Theology and a short-sighted Ethics, the Semites over-burdened life with the doctrine of “The Fall of Man”, and thereby damned all the Aryan borrowers of their religion to regard the world as a hopeless “Vale of Tears” during these 3000 years. Around a fateful doctrine of uneScapable Heredity they twined all history and built PROLOGUE 27 up the most absurd system of implacable theology and blood atonement which the barbarisms of man have ever invented. “The Problem of Evil” bore men down till they came to regard this life as having no consequence save as a prepara- tion for another, into which none could enter by self- achieved merit, but only by belief in the inscrutable plans of an arbitrary deity. Intellectual action was damning. Hell glared and Heaven smiled as a reward for credulity. The affairs of this life were neglected, progress ceased and Dark Ages followed, as inevitable consequence. Elaborate systems of punishment and reward were devised to drive and bribe men to acquiesce in ancient belief. They were taught to pray and petition a wrathful tyrant for a mercy they could not understand and for blessings the desert for which came by the virtues of another. Today, when we study the central idea of all the historic religions, the awe- inspiring problem of worship resolves itself easily into the simplicity of noble earnestness; and the modern man, full of the facts of Modern Science, though he holds to no tenet of ancient dogma and performs no act of ancient abasement, yet leads a ten-fold more religious life and worships Deity while he searches for truth and goodness and beauty. In Part VI, we shall try to deduce the “Higher Efficiency” that will have to be inaugurated in order to accomplish the transition from Tradition to Science. The Old-Time Ministry, Saturated with its out-aged doctrines and practices, will have to be gradually replaced by truer ideas and better methods. It has served its day, and is no longer running the plant with profit. It must pass into a receivership before the corporation is bankrupted in barbarism, before Time disposes of the remaining assets at the “Sheriff's Sale” into ignorant “Dark Ages”. Only through the device of “Col- legiate Preaching” can the stockholders (humanity) realize any considerable salvage from the investment. In Part VII, follows the logical and urgent appeal for "Reconstruction by Science”—the only source of hope for help. “The sample Close-Ups of Thought Conditions” should be enough to produce a panic for re-organization. 28 PROLOGUE Conferences of those who have investigated various phases of the World should meet and name committees to tell man- kind, in simple language, the real facts and laws of life and being, as rapidly and as thoroughly as the great work can proceed. We expect to make clear the direful and pressing need that men of Scince should become practical, that they should push forward the application of the truths they dis- cover, that they should realize the peril to society, nation and world that lurks where vast bodies of natural facts and laws are uncovered and remain unapplied to life. Scientists must soon see that it was this very neglect by Greek and Roman thinkers (after their great discoveries and criticisms had undermined the popular religion and customs) that brought their nations to dust and left them only a memory —of glory and warning. To the Christian worker who sees, clearly or dimly, our place in history, our stage of both development and decay, I address this appeal—too heart- breaking to be plainly worded—as he cares for his race, as he reveres his God, as he loves mankind, as he hopes for his posterity in the years to come—I plead that he heed the truths and forgive the faults of this book. PART ONE THE DRAMA OF CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER I EPITOME THE FIVE GREAT ACTS All Creation may be thought of as a drama with the Divine Ether-Energy as playwright. From Nebulae to Solar System—How many acts? From Fire-mist to Green- Clad Orb—What variety of performers' So Life, on this one small star—from Moneron to Man— is but a lesser play. - And each special religion, even Christianity—from Jesus to Emerson—is a drama of prime interest, to the players at least. This latter world religion has now played through four acts. Through these it has been a “play”, more than a life. Its fifth is now on the stage. (Parenthetically and more accurately, I must remark that this fifth act is not a figure of Speech. A “drama” is an attempted imitation of some reality—not the reality itself. Christianity through these four acts has been mostly a drama. Its theories—in any of their transformations—were never facts. Through the first four acts, these theories were the now discredited philosophy of ancient tradition.) 29 30 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION ACT I. JESU-ANITY From A. D. 30 to 325 During the first period its essence was simple JESU- ANITY” the imitation of a life. As represented in Jesus, it was an original, more or less rational independent life; a reaction against corruption, degradation, formality, cant, hypocrisy, effete civilization. In the Disciples it was simply an admiration, a reverence, a devotion, a deference to a higher personality. It was submission to a superior character. In them, it was an enthusiasm of appreciation of virtues and truth concrete in another. Their under- standing, was too low to see these elsewhere. To them Jesus stood alone in certain excellencies. Hence, men became His “disciples”. Discipleship is dependence, the admission of individual weakness. To the disciple, the object of his devotion is a joy. He sings his praise. This is true of all discipleship. The case of Jesus is the one par excellence. Here the exaggeration has transcended all superlatives. In some recent instances of “Gospel Hymns” it has reached its extremest arresting perversions: “Oh, to be nothing, nothing, Only to lie at his feet, A broken and emptied vessel, For the Master’s use made meet.” “Rather be nothing, nothing, To Him let their voices be raised, He is the fountain of blessing, He Only is meet to be praised.” Men in such moods quote from their masters—quote all they can. It is all “good news”, all “gospel”. They never discriminate or question. Naturally then, the early Christianity was Jesu-anity i. e., it was “evangelical”, good-news-ical. (In so far as it has * For the sake of contrast and precision I have invented half a dozen Words to express the Stages of evolution in the Christian Religion. EPITOME THE FIVE GREAT ACTS 3I returned to the “evangelical” type today, Christianity is again a state of dependence, a belittling Submission to a traditional personality. It is a condition of arrested de- velopment.) This first act played on enthusiastically for over two centuries as evangelical Jesu-anity. Its participants in- creased. The Roman Empire was gradually going down. The world was decreasing in knowledge and losing indepen- dence. Personality was going out. Independent thought was dying away. The new religion came too late and was not vigorous enough to stem the ebbing tide of decay. It was savagely persecuted. But “the whip and the rack, the tigers, the hooks of steel, and the red hot beds” were unable to crush it. It had been launched amid peculiar economic and political conditions. It was the only morality left in the Roman World, but it had little strength of originality. It was merely traditional, and the fact that it had a future at all was due to the decaying environment. In 31 I A. D., the dying Galerius passed an edict of toleration. This struggle and success (such as it was) transformed it. Jesu-anity became Jesu-olatry, because persecution only made the founder the dearer, and hence exaggeration the greater. Act I was over. ACT II. CHRIST-IANITY From A. D. 325 to 600 Its second meaning was a Dogma. It passed from Jesu- altity to Christ-ianity, or as we have phrased it (losing the etymological significance) to Christianity; from imitation of life to belief about a life, from enthusiasm for conduct to bigotry for creed, from Discipleship to Dogmatism. The Council of Nicea (325 A. D.) finished the doctrine toward which enthusiasm tended. Devotion had finally Teached formulation, definite statement. Constantine, the Emperor, became a professed disciple. Imperial disciple- ship meant authority. The formulated enthusiasm, the good news” philosophized upon, became, under Imperial 32 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION adoption, a state-sanctioned religion. Here was a further developing power, and in a short time Christ-ianity went to the extreme of Christ-iolatry. A little more ignorance in the people, a little more decay in the state, a little weaker hand at the political helm, and Act III will begin. The Empire of Rome went out. Its last days were a slow death. The taking over by the Teutons in 476 was scarcely a formality. The little Romulus Augustulus was pensioned off, and Odoacer, the Herulian from the North, mounted the saddle of authority. Roman politics, as such, vanished. ACT III. CHURCH-IANITY From A. D. 600 to 1517 Church-ianity eclipsed Christ-ianity and even Christ- iolatry. Through geographical position and political assist- ance, the Bishop of Rome had gradually obtained the dominant influence. Others came to look up to him. The “papa” at Rome became the papa. By 600 the papacy was a fact. The centralization which was in Roman Emperor passed spiritually to Roman Pontiff. Doctrine ceased to be of paramount importance. The emphasis was laid on organization. Numbers, control, complete sway, became the aim. Individuality had no attraction. Each was lost in all. The Pope himself became only an instrument. The indi- vidual ceased to be. The Church came to be. And the more and more it came, the more and more freedom went. Enthusiasm for organized ecclesia had augmented and nearly replaced devotion to a person and likewise belief in a dogma. For centuries it rose. By the time of Gregory VII (IO73–85), it over-rode every opposition. A hundred years later, under Innocent (!) III, (1203–15) all kings ruled or fell by papal will. The Roman Papa became World Papa. The Roman Empire had become “Holy Roman Empire”, with the “Vicegerent of God” at the head. Thereafter kings vied with each other in devotion to reli- EPITOME THE FIVE GREAT ACTS 33 gious organization and centralization. Churchly zeal grew to be mania. Beggars and crowned heads swarmed to do it service. Fanatical and frenzied mobs set off in Crusades against imagined churchly enemies. Church-ianity reached the stage of Church-iolatry. Popular consciousness was servile to ecclesiasticism. The Papacy meddled in every- thing. It controlled birth and life and death. Only one in a million knew any other devotion or thought of any other end. Philip Augustus, who died in I223, said: “Happy Saladdin, who has no pope.” But even “God’s Vicegerent” can overreach. In American phrase “the Papacy paid.” Too many wanted it. The Great Schism occurred. From 1378 to 1417 there were two and sometimes three of “God’s Chief Pontiffs” cursing and telling the truth about each other, while they were burning Hus, Jerome, and others who told the truth about them all. During long, dreary centuries their underlings had grown more ignorant and morally stupid. At last the sensuality of the religious aristocracy got careless and forgot to be clandestine. It invented the open sale of “indulgences” to help bear its iniquitous expenses. This was one too much. Act III met its end. Luther nailed his protest on the very doors of the Church. . ACT IV. BIBL-IANITY From A. D. 1517 to 1830 Act IV was suddenly ushered in. The “Re-form-ation” broke out. The more honest “Protested.” They appealed from authority of ruling Church to ancient Source; from Papal College to Apostles' Records; from Council Decrees to Early Scriptures; from Church-ianity to Bible. Ecclesi- asticism faced Protestantism. Church-ianity (for Multi- tudes) became Bibl-ianity. And the mood that was Church- iolatry soon developed into Bibl-iolatry. It renounced justification by ceremony, penance, and purchase, and it assumed justification by faith on authority of “The Book of Books.” 34 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION It was a “Re-form-ation,” a reverting to first authority. It was also a re-form in ethics. It contained the seed that should by and by drive itself off the stage. It was the germ of the conception of freedom. The protest of a Luther would grow eventually to the protest of a world. But this protest had unsought help. The Protest-ants had no new thought. They simply reverted to a not-so-bad, old-time view. They knew no more about God, the World, or Man. They continued in the general adoption of the Ancient World-outlook. The World was getting astir. The hold of the Church had become loosened. Attention to luxuries and sensual indulgence had made inattention to control. Printing had been invented and had already spread too much information. Gunpowder, a dust of an impious origin, had already been turned against many a churchly champion. And even the Church Geography was being questioned. Against church wisdom and because of church impotence to forbid, Columbus sailed to find the setting sun. A few years later Magellan's command completed Columbus' voyage, sailing westward and returning from the east; and thus threw undying reproach on the sacred ignorance which had been held and proclaimed with Such holy assumption. One awakening begot another. Protests came thick and fast. Discovery and invention fairly swarmed. They came from every field. Knowledge grew so fast that new arrangements and systems were necessary. Classification began. The “Age of Science” was on. ACT V. SCIENCE From A. D. 1830— A new and altogether different act had been called. Tradition was sharply questioned, not credulously received. All the old books began to be studied, not merely learned or EPITOME THE FIVE GREAT ACTS 35 committed. The Classics were rediscovered. Archaeology (for the purpose of criticism) became an intense interest. Inquiry, observation, test, verification became the rule. Protesting begun by one man, Luther, became common custom. The mild protest beginning in the appeal from one authority to another is resulting in freedom from all authority. Bibl-iolatry is getting supplanted by Rationality. Protestant-ism is rapidly becoming Science-ism. And as a result, all the surviving crude dualisms, materialisms, and anthropomorphisms brought down by the firm hand of the Church are making way for the monistic, Ether-Spirit conception being furnished by the scientific mood. Discipleship, Dogmatism, Ecclesiasticism, Bibliolatry are passing off the stage. The individual’s use of his own powers (which even in the person of Jesus had so amazed his hearers as to make them fawning disciples) has, after all these long centuries, become an attitude of thousands of minds. By this germ of independent rationality, Jesus caught glimpses of a loftier God and Duty. By it (in co- operation with remarkable and unusually favoring political and economic circumstances) he became the central figure of the traditional period of human history. By lack of it, men became his disciples instead of his successors. By lack of it, men still remain his disciples—stranded, thwarted, dwarfed, in conditions of arrested mental and moral development. On the other hand, what a pageant of real, independent, Jesuistic successors (not followers) are taking part in this great Fifth Act of the religious movement inaugurated by him! He led the way, and these men who are doing their own thinking are the chiefest of his honors. Living in an age of greater knowledge than his, they are not dazed by his personality—great for that age. His life to them is inspiration and encouragement; no longer authority and Superhumanity. Thus living, thus using their own powers, they discover, for themselves and others, the true, the right, the divine in ever greater measure. They put fact to fact and find law 36 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION and principle. They have created for man a new heaven and a new earth. All doctrine and opinion they have trans- formed. Virtue and heaven, sin and hell, have changed location and character. Not Geo-centric but Psycho-centric is now the spiritual geography. Even “God” vanishes as an avenging old Hebrew king, and in the clearer light we see the Immanent Life-Universal. No labels—“sacred,” “holy,” or what not—can re-estab- lish traditional authority. No zeal based upon it can again turn the world to Discipleship, Dogma, Ecclesiasticism, or Book-worship. What was drama in the first four acts is becoming real life in the fifth. Much actual truth about the Cosmos has been discovered, and men are rapidly com- mitting themselves to the New Method. “Scientific” is the name they apply to it. It is is largely an attitude or disposition toward life and being. It is just being honest with things and facts and laws. It is putting intelligent character into word and deed. It is the setting aside of inherited prejudice in order to be square with the facts. The Drama has grown a thousand times more interesting since the curtain rose on Act V. Mind has broken the ropes of authority. It has enlarged the circle of its traditional tether. This is the greatest thing ever accomplished by human spirit. It sees that each new circle drawn round the circle of former efforts can still be enlarged by another concentric to it. It sees that the areas and scopes of know- ledge are Squared and cubed and infinitely multiplied with each removal from the center of former authority. Every- where it is now conceded that every noontide splendor of achievement is only another dawn to those who shall live beyond the horizon of our present view. CHAPTER II THE BEGINNING OF PROTEST IN ACT III JOHN WICLIF-I324-I384 To understand the present is to know something of its origin. Modern times grew out of former times. Christ- ianity has been a much muddled, yet a natural product of human affairs. Its first fifteen hundred years are relatively easy to comprehend. These were a long subservient mood with no deep or essential variations. How did variation arise? How came fundamental revolutionary dissent? Progress is generally more puzzling than stagnation. Variation toward the better and higher has proved more difficult to account for than retrogression toward the primitive. To realize how these wondrous, Startling, modern times came about, it will be necessary to Survey two pivotal lives and some events leading to the period of transition from Middle Age to Modern History. More than any others, Wiclif and Luther prepared the way for the “Age of Science,” though neither of them were modern minds nor did anything directly in the movement of Science.* THE HERO's STANDING The world is often dull and dilatory in its recognition of true greatness. Many a hero has to die without a word of thanks from the race for whose good he has risked and * In another work nearing completion, I am dealing with the leaders Who have changed our views of the Cosmos (Landmarks in Science from Columbus to Spencer), 37 38 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION sacrificed all. Yet later generations, for whom the fruitage of his labors falls more abundantly, rise up and call him blessed. Sooner or later humanity remembers its greater benefactors. Dear to its memory then are their names. Though the mead of praise be tardy, it is better late than never. So John Wiclif stands in higher esteem than ever before at the distance of over five hundred years from his death. That one is in advance of his age, is what we mean by a reformer. How then can his own time fully appreciate him? To be as they, were to be no hero. He who would urge great reforms must look to future ages for Sympathy. The unsympathetic times compelled Wiclif to wait for a biographer well-nigh two hundred years. The greater the benefactor, and the more he has to recommend, the more sparingly often will his own age deal out an appreciative recognition. Though the “New Learning” was already interesting many minds, yet the world in Wiclif's day was conservative in the extreme. Every appeal was made and every homage paid to the venerable past. THE ENGLAND OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY By the middle of the fourteenth century the moral and intellectual blackness of the “Dark Ages” had been changed to twilight by the universities, or high schools, founded two centuries before. The English nation, on account of for- tunate advantages, was in the van of this unconscious move- ment which was dissipating the gloomy mist of ignorance and superstition, blown over the Roman world with the flood of Teutonic barbarism. The natural outgrowth of this increase of intelligence was that demand for liberty and privilege which partially secured its objects by wrenching from King John the Magna Charta, the bulwark of English constitutional liberty (1215). Then ensued a struggle be- tween royalty and the commons under Henry III (1216– I272), lulled for a time during the reign of Edward I, more fiercely renewed under Edward II, and resulting finally in a THE BEGINNING OF PROTEST IN ACT III 39 triumph for the commons and in the dethronement and horrible death of the King. Edward III (1327-1377), in his long and uninterrupted warfare with the Scots and French, yet found time to resist the never ending claims made by the Papacy. In this he was supported by parlia- mentary “statutes declaring the independence of the English clergy.” Within the Church itself, on the other hand, this was a period of the greatest dissention. Such political and religious turmoil necessarily begot and fostered, at least in the more intelligent minds, a spirit of free inquiry into the civil and ecclesiastical rights of men. EIRTH OF WICLIF Into such a national condition as this came John Wiclif, “The Morning Star of the Reformation,” the eminent scholar, diplomatist, and preacher. Lechler says, “From the bosom of the tenacious Saxon people, Wiclif sprang . . . and his family belonged precisely to those families of the lower nobility in Yorkshire.” (G. V. Lechler, John Wiclif, etc., Vol. I, p. 124.) These facts furnish a genealogical basis for the spirit of the man. His name is spelled in at least twenty-eight different ways, of which the one used at the heading is the simplest. This shows the literary chaos of the times. Nor can the date of his birth be fixed by documentary evidence, but the lines of his life are commonly marked by the years I324–1384. EDUCATION IN THOSE TIMES His first teachers were probably parish priests. And when he went to Oxford “University” it must be borne in * Wiclif's part in the great movement of breaking down the Middle Age conditions has been so little understood and yet is So profound, that it will be necessary to dwell upon it with a little more detail than that of the other world-modifiers. In his life as a mirror we can see his times, their problems, and the great distance civilization has traversed. 4o A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION mind that he was simply attending a Latin school at which were gathered multitudes of boys under fourteen years of age. It must also be remembered that then the only source of natural and original thinking, Greek literature, was not even yet discovered. There began to prevail at Oxford in the first half of the fourteenth century a special zeal for mathematical and physical studies (of course of a very low order). These seem to have taken firm hold on the mind of young Wiclif. There had lived just before, and were living at that time, such men as Roger Bacon,” Thomas Bradwardine, John Eastwood and William Rede. But Wiclif's passion for knowledge included the seven liberal arts and theology, all intensely traditional and dogmatic. The course of theological study was of two sorts—biblical and systematic. In the latter he seems to have been a faithful student of the works of those scholastics, Thomas Aquinas, Robert Grossetete, and Richard Fitzralph. It is highly probable that his student life occupied at least ten years and it may have extended to sixteen or seventeen. We find him Master of Balliol in the year 1361. In 1365 he was appointed warden, head master, or president, of Canterbury Hall, a newly founded college at Oxford. A few years after this a controversy arose regarding the payment to the pope by the English of a thousand marks annual quit-rent. Wiclif entered into public affairs and took the side against its payment. This position placed him in more unfavorable light with the pope. Besides, in the course of this trial, he showed his determination to make the Holy Scripture the ultimate standard of all law. Probably in the year 1372 he received the degree of doctor of theology, after which he soon acquired a mighty influence by his lectures and writings, and daily took still stronger ground against the corruptions of the Church. * Roger Bacon was the first original mind, kindred in spirit to Our Modern Science. THE BEGINNING OF PROTEST IN ACT III 41 WICLIF’s PATRIOTIC CAREER Previous to the year 1365 or 1366, Wiclif was only a quiet scholar. As fellow and seneschal of Merton College, as Master of Balliol, as warden of Canterbury Hall, he had proved himself upright, circumspect, of energetic habits, and possessed of practical talent. His many-sided mind now began to participate in affairs of state, especially in defend- ing the rights of the kingdom against the court of Rome. His works evince the warmest patriotism. He frequently recalls the memories of events in English History, and manifests the most immediate concern in the welfare, liber- ties and honor of the nation; besides, his philanthropic heart went out beyond his own little island to the rest of the world. Urban V, in 1365, renewed the papal claim upon Edward III for an unusual payment of one thousand marks as feudatory tribute, and also the payment of arrearages for thirty-three years. This tax was first imposed upon the English crown in the reign of King John (1199-1216) by Innocent III. It had been discontinued for a long time without remonstrance. At this juncture Edward III eagerly and wisely laid the claim before his parliament, expecting its repudiation, and with this the support of the kingdom in resisting papal demands. The rising spirit of nationality caused the “Lords Spiritual and temporal along with the commons” to unite in opposing the papal assumption upon the ground that King John had acted beyond his authority in subjecting the realm without its consent. Moreover, the lords and commons promised the king the support of the whole national resources, if needed, to defend the dignity of the crown. The papacy understood the meaning of such a spirit, and from that time to this, Rome has never attempted feudal superiority over England. In this resist- ance Wiclif took an important part. In answer to a vehement anonymous document aimed particularly at him from the papal side, he wrote a most interesting tract pur- porting to give the “Views of Sevcn Lords in Parliament.” This little document was the first stalwart modern blow at 42 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION custom and tyranny, both of Church and State. . More tha" any other one thing, it was the beginning of the Great Reformation. For this reason the points are of great interest here. The first Lord takes the ground that might is right, and therefore if the pope's claim is right he must sustain it by force. The second, that a tax can only be paid to a person authorized to collect it, and the pope is simply a religious officer, and as such, in imitation of Christ, he has no claim to worldly dominion. The third, that taxes should be paid only for services rendered. The pope does not build up the realm either temporally or spiritually, but on the contrary appropriates its temporalities for the court at Rome. The fourth, that instead of the king being the pope's vassal, the pope is the king's vassal, for the pope is only clerical lord over one-third of the lands, and thus his lord- ship must be less than that of the king, therefore he is vassal to the king; and since he has always neglected his duty as the king's vassal he has forfeited his rights. The fifth, that the Church has no right to take money for absolution, i. e., it ought not to practice simony. “Freely ye have received, freely give,” (Matt. X, 8). The nation Ought not to suffer the king's sins, for this would seem to be instigated by avarice or usurpation rather than justice. The sixth, that if the pope had a legal right to make over the kingdom to John, he did very wrong to give away so much church property for so small an income, and thus he defrauded the Church, and another might at his pleasure demand it back again under this pretense of previous fraud or bad bargain. “It is necessary then to oppose the first beginning of this mischief, and we therefore hold our king- dom, as of old, immediately from Christ who is the Lord Paramount.” The seventh, that a hasty ill-considered treaty, brought on by the king's blame and without the people's sanction, cannot with constitutional right be allowed to operate mischievously. THE BEGINNING OF PROTEST IN ACT III 43 These speeches are substantially embodied in the act of parliament of May, 1366, which sustained the position of King Edward. (Wiclif must have written this tract while he retained his position at the head of Canterbury Hall.) The next we hear of him is his connection with an embassy of Edward III in 1374, to treat with commissaries from Pope Gregory XI, at Bruges, concerning certain high offices in England given to Italians. The embassy held plenary power to conclude such a treaty as shall “at once secure the honor of the Church and uphold the rights of the English crown and realm.” The fact that the grievances of the “Good Parliament” of April, 1376, (of which Wiclif was a member) were louder and bolder than those before, proved that nothing of permanent value was accomplished at Bruges. In 1377 he put forth a paper concerning the sworn obli- gations of the papal receiver, Garnier, the nuncio of Gregory XI, who was then collecting funds in England. This Garnier came with a train of servants and six horses. Before commencing his tour of the kingdom, he had, without the slightest scruple, taken an oath in which the interests of the crown and kingdom were protected on all sides. In this paper Wiclif accuses the pope's agent of perjury, in taking an oath not to violate the rights and interest of the Country and at the same time collecting, in order to carry away, a large amount of gold. He also shows up the incon- sistent action of the state in granting this permission and at the same time pretending to guard the interests of the Country. . These attacks not only tell the doings of a wonderful man, but reveal conditions which are hard for us to understand. Those strange “Dark Ages” in which a pompous religious institution dictated absolutely every phase of life and death, meddled in all affairs of every state, and whose doctrinal head claimed to be lord of all lords and king of all kings And yet the modern spirit is dawning. Here is a simple Englishman, who, without the prestige of aristocracy, by mere force of character and knowledge, dares to tell the 44 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Pope of his sins and refuses to obey his august commands. This anti-Roman activity at this period was truly wonderful. How original and courageous, we can Scarcely know. At this period, the political alliance of Wiclif with the duke of Lancaster party, together with his outspoken bold- ness on church reform, brought him twice in one year before the spiritual tribunals. The duke (the famous John of Gaunt, second son of Edward III) determined to protect Wiclif, and on the 19th of February, 1377, when he appeared before the convocation in London, he was accompanied by the duke and grand marshal, and a band of armed men. This meeting terminated in a general uproar, and nothing was accomplished except an increase of hatred between the duke and the clergy. Meanwhile the episcopate was stirring up the see of Rome against Wiclif as an alleged teacher of heresy, and for this purpose they had collected and sent to Rome many of his doctrinal propositions. That the problem of how to trap him had been ripely considered, is evident from the fact that no less than five papal bulls against him were issued in one day. - Meanwhile, Edward III dies (June 21, 1377), the young Richard II is crowned, the French attack the southern coasts in August, the Scots assume a threatening aspect in the North, the regency is unsettled, the new parliament is anti- Roman and with the zeal of its predecessor renews its complaints. Wiclif, acknowledged spokesman, drew up an opinion for the young king and his great council. In this he takes a decided stand in favor of the lawful competency of the kingdom to hinder the treasure of the land from being carried off. He supports his view by appeals to the law of nature, to the Scriptures, and to conscience. He cites attention to the objects for which this treasure is carried off, and to the ridicule to which Englishmen would be sub- jected in consequence of their “asinine stupidity.” After this parliament was prorogued, the prelates of London set about the execution of the papal order which they had judiciously deferred until a more opportune occasion. They now instructed the chancellor of the uni- THE BEGINNING OF PROTEST IN ACT III 45 versity to make the inquiries; and, if true, he was to cite Wiclif to appear within thirty days before the prelate in St. Paul's. It is noteworthy of Wiclif's standing that they do not conform to the instructions given, viz., to put him in prison; and so also is the entreating tone in which they addressed the chancellor, thus showing a possible doubt as to the good disposition of the university toward the papacy. And thus it turned out that the state of feeling at Oxford was entirely unfavorable to their project. In concurrence with the lothfully given summons of the chancellor, Wiclif appeared before the archbishop, not in St. Paul’s, but at his palace in Lambeth. Demands from the nobles, however, instigated by the princess regent, and threats from the common people, caused him to go away as free as he came, with the simple exception that he was prohibited from de- livering in lectures or sermons the questioned theses, but to this Wiclif did not himself agree The affairs of the year had the effect of inflaming his earnest and free spirit to full Strength, and of bringing to light “how many hearts were beating in sympathy with him and his efforts.” Then too, there occurred coincidently and opportunely, that Great Papal Schism which caused to totter the little moral prestige that was left to the Roman Church (1378-1417). Thus from the year 1378, we find Wiclif's attention devoted en- tirely to ecclesiastical matters, and therefore he appears in the specific character of a church reformer. WICLIF'S WORK As A CHURCH MODIFIER A few days after the last arraignment, on March 27th, I378, Gregory XI died at Rome, and twelve days later the archbishop of Bari was elected to the tiara as Urban VI. His first acts caused the hope to rise in the minds of many that he would himself undertake a reform. But alas ! too Soon these hopes were blasted. His “well-meant but incon- siderate zeal” separated from him a number of the cardinals, who in July declared his election illegal and elected another Pope, Clement VII. Both parties now looked to England 46 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION for support, but the Church there continued its adherence to Urban VI; even Wiclif himself for a time was inclined to the cause of Urban, as we infer from one of his sermons somewhat later. But the conduct of the rival popes tended to confirm his former conviction, that the papal office was a nuisance, the “anti-Christ” of Scripture. He was now well on the way toward his complete severance from papal adherence. The spirit of righteousness rose up within him and burst the bonds of partizanship. Each pope publicly, solemnly, and in God’s name declared his opponent as “a false pretended pope,” damned him as a schismatic, and Wiclif said that both were right in their judgments of each other. Everywhere, in his works, lectures and sermons, he spoke out without reserve against the violence of both parties. Each, in demanding the death of the other and his Supporters, practically admitted the right of every Christian to put his fellow Christian to death. Taking it all in all, Wiclif saw in the schism a providence to unbind men en- tirely from papal fetters. After the year 1381, after this immense change had taken place in Wiclif's mind, his work of translating the Bible was pushed forward with increased zeal and was completed probably in 1382. This was the first Bible in a modern tongue. Its influence cannot be overestimated. By this instrumentality he hoped to spread “the simple truth” throughout the land. This was a labor directly for the people who only learned of Bible teachings from an ignorant and bigoted priesthood. It was also no doubt between the years 1378 and 1382 that the training and sending out of his evangelical Itinerant Preachers began, for in the spring of 1382 they had roused the attention of the church judicatories. This too was a work the importance of which it is not easy to estimate. Wiclif had already begun his attack upon the church doc- trine. He must inevitably have been led into this by his Stern appeal to Scripture as a criterion, assisted by his external freedom because of the Papal Schism. In the Summer of 1381 he published twelve short theses THE BEGINNING OF PROTEST IN ACT III 47 upon the Lord's Supper and against “transubstantiation” as unscriptural, groundless, and erroneous. Of course, this was a step absolutely irreconcilable with the dogmas of the Romish Church. How far we are from that Middle Age quibbling we feel when we learn that this “produced a pro- digious sensation in Oxford” . The chancellor called to- gether a council of twelve of the doctors of law and divinity and unanimously pronounced the substance of these theses to be erroneous and heretical. Then came a mandate which did not mention Wiclif but condemned the doctrines and forbade their being taught on pain of dismission, excom- munication, and imprisonment. This order was read by the officers in Wiclif's own lecture room and in his presence, and it is said that at that very hour he was commenting upon the doctrine of the eucharist. Upon hearing it, he immedi- ately stated that “neither the chancellor nor any of his colleagues had the power to alter his convictions.” He appealed to King Richard II; but was obliged to refrain from lecturing on these subjects at the university. How- ever, this did not stop his writing. The same year, 1381, will ever be remembered in England for the terrible “Peasant War,” a social revolution in which the peasants, to use the language of Jack Straw, one of their leaders, “would have ended by taking the life of the king, and by exterminating out of the earth all land holders, bishops, landed monks, endowed canons, and parish priests.” Among the illustrious prey of this mob revolt was Simon Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury. The office was next filled by William Courtenay, bishop of London. This man was “a zealot for the papacy, an energetic and domineering churchman,” and was the man who in 1377 had set on foot the inquiry against Wiclif. With his increased power he began the work of crushing the constantly increasing strength of the Wiclifite party. A little later another royal patent led to the banishment from the university of “every member who receives, bears favor to, or has intercourse with Dr. John Wiclif, Nicholas Hereford, Philip Repington, John Aston, or any one else 48 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION of the same party.” Besides this, all the halls and colleges were to be searched for books and tracts by Wiclif and Hereford. Since the first royal patent was issued the per- secution of the itinerant preachers had been going on. Hereford, Repington, Bedeman, and Aston concealed them- selves for some months; finally the last three were appre- hended and one after another were brought to recant. Hereford went to Rome to place his case before the pope, who condemned his conduct and imprisoned him for life; but in 1385 he was unexpectedly released by a tumult in Nocera where the pope was beseiged by King Charles of Sicily. One leader only stood firm, independent and unattacked in this period of alarm. His “Articles” had been branded, and multitudes had suffered for their complicity; but the leader still preaches away to his parishoners at Lutterworth. Language has been exhausted in efforts to tarnish his honor and destroy his influence. Yet this “arch heretic,” this “anti-Christ,” “still possessed the right of delivering lectures, conducting disputations, and preaching before the university.” WICLIF’s LAST DAYS He was permitted to live his last two years in comparative quiet and many-sided literary activity at his Lutterworth parish. Although no longer surrounded by the old leaders, yet he did not want in these declining years for constant and confidential fellow-workers. The most noted and active of these were John Horn and John Purvey. During this period very probably were written the English sermons which have come down to us. About this time, when the preaching itinerancy was so menaced by the bishops, Wiclif more zealously undertook the task of instructing the people by short and simple tracts in the English tongue. (We will bear in mind that this was a hundred years before the invention of printing came into use.) In a Latin tract, “Cruciata Seu Contra Bellum Cleri- THE BEGINNING OF PROTEST IN ACT III 49 corum,” he compares the schism between the two popes to a quarrel of two dogs over a bone, and calls upon princes to take away the bone—i.e., the worldly power of the papacy from both. So far is he from being intimidated that in the very next year after the archbishop's inquisitorial proceed- ings against him and his party, he inveighs in the most fearless and emphatic manner against both popes and the crusades advised by Urban VI, sanctioned by the archbishop himself, and headed by an English bishop, and, astonishing as it may seem, he even had the courage to address a missive to the primate in which he informs him that “neither the slaying of men nor the imprisonment of whole countries is the outcome of love to the Lord Jesus Christ.” It was on December 31, 1384, that the brave, heroic and upright Johannes de Wiclif escaped forevermore the tyran- nical bigotry of the Romish hierarchy. But this did not end the controversy he started. The Council of Constance in 1415 condemned forty-five of his “Articles” as heretical, false, and erroneous, and ordered that his bones be dug up and cast on a dunghill; and in 1428, after a rest of forty- four years, the venom and vengeance of Roman intolerance glutted itself when, in addition to the most diabolical amathemas, his remains were inhumanly unearthed, burned and their ashes cast into the adjoining Brook Swift, from which, as Fuller in prose and Wordsworth in poetry have said, they were borne through Avon into Severn, from Severn into the sea, and thus disseminated over the world. “Wiclif is disinhumed, Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed, And flung into the brook that travels near: ForthWith that ancient voice which streams can hear, Thus Speaks—(that voice which walks upon the wind, Though seldom heard by busy human kind): AS thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear Into the Avon—Avon to the tide Of Severn—Severn to the narrow seas— Into main ocean they–this deed accurst An emblem yields to friends and enemies, How the bold teacher’s doctrine, sanctified By truth, shall spread throughout the World dispersed.” 50 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION CEIARACTER OF WICLIF Wiclif must be judged in the light of his own times and not by that of today. In intellectual pre-eminence he is signally contrasted with Luther, who was so much a man of feeling. Both opponents and adherents “look upon him as having no living equal in learning and scientific ability.” It was surely the proud consciousness of intellectual power which prompted him to say: “Since there are few wise men, and fools are without number, the assent of the greater part of mankind to an assertion only goes to show its folly.” His sermons and discourses are frequently illustrated by mathematical, physical, naturalistic, and social ideas. The critical spirit of Wiclif was far beyond the average for the period; and hence his frequent contemptuous utterances concerning the subtleties on which men dwelt so much, the usurpations of the papacy, the abuses of the hierarchy in general, and the foolishness of many particulars in Roman Catholic worship and doctrines. “It was for him to tug at the wheels of reform in the steepest of the ascent, to infuse into others his earnest undissembled spirit,” “to serve his country, his God and his Savior by bringing souls from the thraldom of Roman superstition into enlightened Christian liberty.” “He clearly anticipated,” says David Irving, “the most distinguished doctrines of the Protestants, and his Opinions on certain points present an obvious coincidence with those of Calvin.” Milton remarks in his Areopagitica, “Had it not been for the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of Wiclif, to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Huss and Jerome, no, nor the name of Luther or of Calvin, had ever been known, and the glory of reforming our neighbors had been completely ours.” HIS REFORMATIONAL WORK AND INFLUENCE In his attack upon church doctrine he first clearly and learnedly emphasized the fundamental, early “Protestant” principle that Holy Scripture alone is the infallible and absolute standard of truth. Next, he applies it to actual THE BEGINNING OF PROTEST IN ACT III 51 life by the institution of Biblical “itinerant preaching,” by the English translation of the Bible, by scripture commen- taries, and by popular tracts. His fiery zeal is now awak- ened and the dominant theology must be tested. The doctrine of the sacraments is examined, and in particular the article of transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is overturned. By his Scripture test, Christ alone becomes our Mediator, Savior, and Leader; and therefore is the only legitimate and governing head of his Church. Surely here is sufficient refutation of the saying of Luther, that “Wiclif and Huss had attacked only the life of the church under the papacy, whereas he fought not so much against the life as the doctrine.” Looking backward we find that what Arnold of Brescia, what the Waldensian communion, what Francis of Assisi, what the Mendicant Orders, what St Bernard and others had so devoutly sought to bring about—viz, “the return of the Church of Christ to an apostolic life and walk”—this burned in the soul of Wiclif in his early public labor. But in him there was added the modern idea of “The State.” This he utilized with great force toward the grand object of church reform. The attention paid to him and his ideas by his enemies is a fine proof of the greatness of his work. They claim that he comprehended in his person all previous “heretical notions,” which is nearly synonymous with what Protestants would call previous reforms. Alzog, a recent Catholic historian of high authority, says (Univ. Ch. Hist. II, 947): “John Wiclif seems to have been a representative of every false principle of philosophy and every erroneous doctrine of theology current during this age and throughout the Church of the West.” His doctrines were carried into Bohemia and became the origin of the Hussite Movement. How potent his influence was felt to have been by his adversaries immediately after his time, may be judged from the following words of Thomas Walsingham, a chronicler of that age: “On the feast of the passion of St Thomas of Canterbury [a mistake, as it was on Innocents' Day], John 52 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Wiclif—that organ of the devil, that enemy of the Church, that author of confusion to the common people, that idol of heretics, that image of hypocrites, that restorer of schism, that storehouse of lies, that sink of flattery—being struck by the horrible judgment of God, was struck with palsy, and continued to live in that condition until St. Sylvester's Day, on which he breathed out his malicious spirit into the abodes of darkness.” Against such bigoted and baseless innuendos the historic artist of today, at a point of distance five hundred years removed, contrasts the timely work of Wiclif, and the enduring substance of the latter completely overshadows the shifting mockery of the former. Professor Lechler of Leipsic, his latest, most appreciative, and, by far most original and thorough biographer, admir- ably says of him: “In the collective history of the Church of Christ, Wiclif marks an epoch . . . He is the first important personality in history who devotes himself to the work of church reform with the entire thought power of a master mind and with the full force of will and joyful self- sacrifice of a man of Christ.” (John Wiclif, etc. Eng. ed. II, 347.) “John Wiclif appears to us to be the center of the whole pre-Reformation history. In him meet a multi- tude of converging lines, and from him again go forth manifold influences, like wave pulses which spread them- selves widely on every side, and with a force so persistent that we are able to follow the traces of their presence to a later date than the commencement of the German Reforma- tion.” (The same, I, I4.) John Wiclif started the movement and broke the way that will lead all mankind, sooner or later, out of tradition and into continuous progress. - CHAPTER III THE NEXT GREAT PROTEST ACT IV BEGUN 400 YEARS AGO_NOW SPREADING WORLD WIDE MARTIN LUTHER I483–1546 THE MIDDLE AGE SITUATION Long before the time of Luther's outburst (1517) Church and State (as we have already seen) had become thoroughly assimilated in every political body of Europe. Every insti- tution was blended in its very nature with the Church, and Europe was for centuries in the bonds of an absolute theocracy. To such an extent had this assimilation gone on that a shock to the doctrines of the Church could not fail to convulse society in every part. The pope asserted a two-fold subjection of every soul in Christendom—as spiritual head domineering through the hierarchy; indirectly, as temporal head swaying the kings of nations by the Holy Roman Empire. The feeble monarchs of France, England, Sweden, Denmark, and the princes of the small states and free cities of Germany, had for centuries made an ineffectual resistance to papal encroachment. But at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a change brought about by the growth of a more national spirit in each country presented a formidable front to the tiara which was now becoming dizzy by its long, successful ascendency. OPEN REVOLT ONLY A MATTER OF TIME . Although the Reformation is a great and dominant cause in modern history, it must not be forgotten that like all other events, it was itself an effect of previous causes. It 53 54 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION was but one of the larger arcs of the ever-aspiring human ideal approaching the moral asymptote. It was but one mighty throe of writhing and struggling humanity to free itself from the tyranny of moral bondage. It was but one of the continued succession of reformations in the progress of civilization, some—indeed most of them—are silent and slow, this one loud, quick, powerful, and brilliant. The fuse that was lighted in the mind of Wiclif burned on and on, till, reaching a magazine in Luther, it rent the world of Super- stition by an explosion which threw the light of knowledge over all succeeding ages. The two objects now grown to be most dear to the heart of man, are the maintenance of his social rights and the independence of his religious opinions—liberty of civil action and liberty of conscience. Humanity has suffered so much from tyranny that these nearly equal the sum of tolerable existence. Man's enthusiasm knows no limits at the hope of their recovery; his despair is unfathomable at the prospect of their loss. Such hope and prospect stared in the face the nations of Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The flood of ignorance which the barbaric inundation swept over the already diluted mind of Southern Europe left a solution so weak as scarcely to con- tain a crystal of improvement. Gradually, as the reagent of time did its work, the scanty knowledge crystalized in the form of a dull scholasticism in the cloisters of monks. For centuries “study was rendered as inaccessible as possible to the laity; that of ancient languages (except Latin) was treated as a monstrosity and an idolatry.” “Roman Catholi- cism was diametrically opposed to the progress of know- ledge.” (See Villers, “Spirit and Influence of the Reformation,” pp 89, 186.) But day infallibly follows night. The Sun of knowledge must arise. Its light reveals the ridiculous garb and antics of men in mental darkness. The irrepressible tendency to know was rapidly giving itself the means in the newly founded universities. The unveiling of a New World had piqued inquisitiveness, and the dis- covery of the art of printing had furnished the means of THE NEXT GREAT PROTEST 55 its gratification to millions. From the banks of the Vistula, Copernicus (1543) has spied out the courses of the heavenly orbs, and Kepler and Newton afterwards furnished their laws, neither of which have pontifical bulls been able to revoke.” . Not a little fuel was added to the fire of excitement by the keen satires of Erasmus of Rotterdam. His mirth- making book, “The Praise of Folly,” was directed against the sensuality and stupidity of the clergy. Ulrich von Hutten, a young Franconian nobleman of ardent spirits and fine ability—warrior, poet, theologian, and littérateur, heaped mountains of ridicule upon the clerical body by his “Letters of Obscure Men.” THE APPEARANCE OF LUTHER (1483–1546) At this period of the drama there came upon the stage one of the foremost actors of all history, Martin Luther, a monk, priest, doctor of theology, and professor in the new university of Wittenburg, a man of tremendous earnestness, undaunted courage, immovable firmness, moral uprightness, and though not in any sense a man of Science, yet warmly devoted to the study of the “New Learning” of those times. To the reflecting student of history, what momentous conse- quences hung upon the character of this man! Had the papacy been more prudent, had the princes of Germany been more indifferent, had Luther been less inflexible, the child Protestantism might have been strangled in its cradle. So easy is it to doze away life, what but such fortuitous combi- nation of circumstances could have saved all Europe from the calamity of a continued universal theocratic monarchy, or the superstition of benighted Spain Speaking of the state of the European mind before the Reformation, Mr. Froude says: * We shall have occasion to refer to these great events again and again, and in later chapters show their nature, setting and DOWer. 56 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION “The theories and ceremonies of the Catholic Church suited well with an age in which little was known and much was imagined; when superstition was active and Science was not yet born.” THE FUTILE RESISTANCE But times change. These ceremonies were not living, but dead. Religion had lost its hold on the people. The people saw that the prelates did not believe their own teaching, and why should they? But could not an infallible Church have improved things? It might indeed, but reform was the last thing which it wanted. It tried (but too late) to cover its errors and rally its decaying energies. Twenty- five years after the explosion of Wittenburg, a solemn con- clave of theological dignitaries at Trent (1545) voted the doctrines of heavenly truth (?) and supported them by the invincible arguments of fire and fagot. But the spirit of liberty and independence which had burst open the gateway of superstition had fled so far and gained so many adherents that its recall was now ludicrous. In vain did pope and bishop in bigoted seclusion thunder their protests and pro- scriptions. And since the dawn of this reform, bulls of anathema have issued from Rome against every published work of doctrine, philosophy, science, history, or general literature which could be supposed directly or indirectly to counteract popish assertions or curtail popish authority. A single illustration of this narrow and oppressive spirit. Near the close of the seventeenth century the missionary LeComte published his “Nouveaux Memoires sur l’etat present de la Chine,” in which he had the candor to say what he thought, namely, that “the Chinese had adored the true God for two thousand years; that, among nations, they were the first who had sacrificed to their Creator and taught a true morality.” Such a clamor as resulted from this publication is to us inconceivable. The Sorbonne of Paris condemned the book and the feeble French Parliament ordered the hangman to tear and burn it! THE NEXT GREAT PROTEST 57 For a time during the intense excitement of men over religious topics, during the heat of the Reformation struggle, the studies in which the humanists, or lovers of advanced thought, were so much delighted, attracted much less atten- tion than in the period just preceding the breaking out of the trouble between Luther and the pope. Medieval philosophy was the handmaid of theology, and all knowledge was the abused monopoly of the clergy. Their greatest work for the thousand years preceding the Reformation period was to bridge the chasm between ancient and modern thought, to preserve and transmit through monasticism the ancient authors, “sacred and pro- fane”, who now survive. ; Yet even before the granaries of literature in Constanti- nople had been sown broadcast over the world, a little of the seed of thought had been scattered here and there and gave promise of a harvest: and it can hardly be doubted that if Constantinople had not fallen (1453) as it did, the revival of letters and consequent religious reformation would have taken place. But the permanent results of all this intellec- tual advantage had not been secured but for the reformation in moral and religious conceptions. The “Revival of Learning” would in all probability have terminated in the patronage of princes and in homage to genius and taste. There were real indications of a coming fruitage from the growth, ripening, and seed sowing of such minds as Wiclif, Dante, Petrarch and Boccacio. THE REFORMATION IDEA Before the Reformation, men's minds were bound. The Reformation was a process of partial unbinding from the restraints of the hierarchy of the Church and from many of the superstitions of men's own minds. When men felt free they thought; when they thought they stirred up others to think. Though the Reformation began ostensibly in an attempt to substitute Bible authority for pope, yet its essen- tial principle was freedom of mind; the right and duty, by 58 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION and by, for each man to think for himself. Against the results of this, Catholic writers loudly inveigh. Fletcher, Alzog, McQuaid, Capel, and others ascribe to the principles of the Reformation all the atheism and infidelity of modern Europe and America. Grimke replies to this: “Grant it, and so we may say, without Christianity the countless heresies of the primitive Church would never have existed; without the liberty of the press, its licentiousness would be unknown :” “Nor can they Be free to keep the path who are not free to Stray.” But they have not strayed. The intelligent mind of today now sees that the Church’s condemnation of Spinoza, Bruno, Montaigne, Voltaire, Paine, etc., as “atheists” and “infidels” was but the snarling of bigotry resisting the efforts of the men of real faith, who were only attempting to disturb its lethargy and make uncomfortable its vice. In ancient Egypt the artists were limited, by the laws of religion, in the colors that they might use, and as a result painting never reached excellence, but remained coarse and unrefined. In like manner, before the sixteenth century, there were multitudes of abuses adverse to the improvement of society. The Reformation did much to remove these and inspire the minds of men with new activity. In the north of Europe it called forth the powers of humanity, while in the south, the Reformation not having taken root, the Renaissance spirit was arrested and the promised glory of Italy and Spain was smothered. In those countries the greater dread of adopting Protest ideas permitted the gov- ernment to pass more completely into the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy, and they, being armed with the power, grew more jealous and intolerant. In the times just preceding and during the Reformation, there breathed a Spirit of life and progression in Italy and Spain which Subserviency and long degeneracy have rendered their people today apparently incompetent to repeat, even if it should be tolerated. THE NEXT GREAT PROTEST 59 Such a spirit of practical and speculative investigation had never before prevailed in the world. Ancient inquiry was generally theoretical and speculative and employed only a very limited part of the community. It had its “Augustan age,” extending perhaps from Thales to Seneca; but it per- ished, leaving little that tended to the substantial improve- ment of the people. The speculation resulting from the Reformation has taken a wonderfully practical turn. Through this the modern world has come “to live and move and have its being.” EFFECT OF THE PROTEST ON PHILOSOPHY The general awakening could not do otherwise than arouse the speculative or philosophical spirit and give it new form and being. Probably the man first impressed with the need of an improvement in philosophy was Melancthon, whose name we justly place second in reformational honors. He says, “I desire a sound philosophy, not those empty words to which nothing real corresponds.” Philosophy was then and is yet an indefinite something after which men strive, vainly hoping for some agreement. The reformers broke the chains of authority and thus allowed themselves and others to speculate freely concerning God, his works, and their relations. They reversed the doctrine of Anselm, which was, “Not to understand that I may believe, but to believe that I may understand.” They would understand before they believed. They started the tendency to examine the facts and then derive a theory, as opposed to the old method of being previously committed to a theory and then reading its proof from the facts, whether the facts sustained it or not. As someone has tersely said, “If the facts were not in accordance, then so much the worse for the facts.” Men tried to think in the Middle Ages and spent much time in intellectual gymnastics; but that curse of all the ages, the ban of heresy, confined all mental exertion within the limits marked out by the Church. Hence the world is dis- graced by the spectacle of all Christendom engaged in the prattle of children for a thousand years. 60 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION A little later the legitimate result of this mental emanci- pation was the development of that highest of speculative philosophical sciences, Natural Theology, an undreamed-of idea in pre-reformational Christendom. The seed planted by the reformers, having its germ in Melancthon's work on Physics, has produced abundant fruit in the works of later thinkers. Following naturally in the train of this more excellent method of theological conceptions, came a better philosophy of human life. Inquiring into the nature of man, we have more nearly ascertained his needs and how to meet them. With latitude for the work of the ancients, it may be said that modern moral philosophy dates from the Reformation. Here, too, Melancthon paved the way in his “Elements of Ethics” in 1550. He forsook Aristotle, and tried to refute Epicurus and the Stoics. Although he could not get beyond biblical authority, he yet defined virtue more liberally to be “obedience of the will to such rules of action as are in practical accordance with the command of God.” This was not much advance, but it was much for churchmen. Until very recently it may be truly said, that no branch of science has been cultivated with so much eagerness and success, by German, French, and English thinkers, as the application of philosophy to morality. How encouraging the changel How vastly more important to determine, first, what virtue and duty are, before ascertaining the number of angels that can stand upon the point of a needle, whether God could cause himself to die, or whether Christ could have appeared as a squash ! If the scholastic philosophers reasoned of rights at all, it was always the rights of the poor, downtrodden and abused (?) pope and clergy, never those of the people. And so with indomitable perseverance and dialectic quibbling, as silly as persistent, they whiled away the centuries. The new spirit drew from the monastic archives the manuscripts of Aristotle coated with the dust of centuries. Up to this time, the monkish logicians thought their systems were founded upon his. It had never occurred to any of them in two score generations that there might be an advan- THE NEXT GREAT PROTEST 6I tage in each studying him for himself. Aroused by the new Spirit, men took down the books and examined them. This revealed to a deluded world the fact that the revered system of the schoolman had scarcely any resemblance to that of the “Stagirite.” (Aristotle was discovered about I IOO. A Latin translation of his works was made by the Arabian Averroes in that year. First Greek edition, 1495.) By centuries of devotion to the idea of a political church which was infallible in its own eyes, the Christian world had been gradually lulled into intellectual stupor. At the time of which we are speaking, this had resulted very nearly in spiritual death. The new infusion of a more healthful method of looking at things brought with it a new spiritual life to the many who embraced it. The appetite of reason was afterwards treated with the newly discovered philoso- phies of Pythagoras, Plato, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and the rest of the Greek and Roman thinkers. The diet and atmosphere proved so healthful that an age of philosophers —doubters, speculators, reasoners—followed. Thus the race is blessed with the more independent lives of Bacon, DeS- cartes, Hobbes, Grotius, Spinoza, Gassendi, Pascal, Male- branche, Locke, Leibnitz, Wolf, Bayle, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Lotze, Spencer, etc. EFFECT OF THE PROTEST ON EDUCATION Previous to the time of the Reformation men seldom had the courage to look a new truth in the face. Freely specula- tive thought was not compatible with the immutable principles of traditional scholastic theology. The credulity of men had reached a climax in the belief of the teachings of priestcraft, and thus, from accumulated incapacity through silly faith and under mortal fear lest it should tread on holy ground, the mind of man remained almost stationary for ages. Proscription, then as now, was fatal to all free and manly exertion. Ecclesiasticism has always and every- where been a dominating power, and when strong enough this spirit makes an abject slave of mind. 62 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION But with the Reformation begins a new era in the educa- tional history of Europe. In fact it is the great era in the history of education. The best works of antiquity being unearthed, the problems which moved the ancient mind now moved the modern. Hitherto men had been led by authority, now it beamed upon them that a man's individual judg- ment determined the responsibility of his faith and practice. It became, therefore, a matter of great moment, that these convictions of individual judgment should be rightly and wisely formed. Hence, if all were to exercise their private judgments, all must be educated to the capacity of an intelli- gent exercise of them; i. e., if universal exercise of judg- ment, then universal education. Without this the Reforma- tion was seen to be a gigantic blunder. This was indeed one real difference between the traditional view of the Church and that of Protestantism. But reformers generally are liable to fail in discerning the effects of their measures on the minds of those less informed and less imbued with their spirit than they. Almost every person is a would-be reformer to the views which he holds. Yet each forgets to thoroughly extend in thought his theory as it would seem in general practice. Perhaps this was well in the case of the early reformers. Foresight of the result of their efforts would probably have been at the expense of courage to undertake. Thus, theoretically, there was opened up the notion of a possible and a necessary universal education. Every effort for this end put forth in modern times finds its beginning here. Luther proclaimed that the education of the people was a crying want of his day, and he wrote letters to the various town authorities urging attention to this necessity. In England the same object was earnestly labored for. Many bequests were made. So in Scotland we have the efforts of John Know and his coadjutors to establish parochial Schools and churches in every parish in the kingdom. In Germany during the last three centuries more than twenty universities have been founded, three-fourths of which are Protestant. Notwithstanding the fact that the THE NEXT GREAT PROTEST 63 Catholic population is double the Protestant in Germandom (including Austria), yet there were some years ago nineteen Protestant universities and only seventeen Catholic. Such facts show that the Protestants realize that the very existence of their “ism” depends on their being the best informed. But how was this unforeseen and prodigious necessity to be brought about—of making every class from royalty to lowest peasantry capable of a judgment of its own? The question is still waiting for a full answer after four hundred years of effort. But answer there must be; the security, comfort, and development of the race depend upon it. Education is now believed to be a question of national policy, a necessity to the people, and the business of every individual. For a long time naturally, on account of the revival of antiquity, antiquity was supposed to furnish the answer. But finally, that spirit of inquiry which has over- stepped the bounds of authority, had also re-explored (as was supposed) the whole field of ancient research. Then it spread into the fields of original investigation. The gram- mar, logic, and rhetoric of Galen, Celsus, and Aristotle no longer gave satisfaction. Comenius, Bacon, Sturm, Locke, Milton, and others changed the methods of teaching and laid the foundation of a better system of education. Emulating their example, Fenelon, LaChatolais, Schlaezer, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Spencer, Horace Mann, Montessori, and many others have given us our modern educational theories. The world has gotten into the habit of consulting the Book of Nature in preference to the Decretals of the Church and the classics of the Greek and Latin Languages. If Grimke's Statement made in 1827 was true then, it is twice true now : “More has been done in three centuries by the Protestants, in the profound, comprehensive, exact, rational, and liberal development, culture, and application of every department of knowledge, both theoretical and practical, with a view to public and private improvement, than has been done by all the rest of the world, both ancient and modern, since the days of Lycurgus.” CHAPTER IV PROTESTANT-ISM–ITS ESSENCE AND LIMITATIONS Protestantism historically includes all those religious denominations outside of Roman and Greek Catholicism who follow more or less the line of traditional, authoritative, or doctrinal Christianity. It is said to include upwards of three hundred sects, more than one hundred and forty of whom are represented in the United States. All use the Bible as chief authority. In the Greek and Roman Catholic churches the Hierarchy and its Council Canons are Supreme. ITS SIGNIFICAN CE AT FIRST Protestantism at its start was simply the protest of Martin Luther and a few of his compeers against certain abuses in the Roman Catholic Church. The special occasion of this outbreak was but one of a hundred incidents, viz., the preaching of a papal nuncio, named Tetzel, through Germany in the year 1517. The Pope, Leo X, was trying to raise money to build a great St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome. One of the methods was the open shameless sale of “indulgences.” This was especially hateful to some of the less corrupted Teutonic or Northern minds. Martin Luther led in opposing it. According to the custom then prevalent he nailed upon the church door at Wittenberg his accusation against church practices and doctrines. There were ninety- five theses, and these he proposed to defend publicly against Tetzel and all other comers. As may be imagined, the excitement was great, because the action was at bottom the calling in question of papal 64 PROTESTANT-ISM-ITS LIMITATIONS 65 authority. Three years later, 1520, it was seen by the church authorities that there was a serious, wide-spread rupture, and Luther was excommunicated. It was thought that this would end the matter by relegating the factious monk to obscurity. They were mistaken. The now more enraged reformer held a great meeting in a public square at Wittenburg, made a fiery denunciatory speech, and openly burned the papal Bull of Excommunication. This was the most audacious act that had occurred in Christendom for a thousand years. As the result proved, the times were ripe for a great movement. Luther had hundreds of sympathiz- ers, and their moral support paved the way for his further work. The movement thus begun became known as Protestant- ism, that is, as the Ism of Protest-ants. It has steadily increased. Let us now devote a little thoughtful attention to an analysis of its meaning, its limitations, its excellencies, its outcome. In making this survey, let us not do it by the dim twilight of ancient thought and ideals, but by the brighter day of the broader twentieth century science and culture. If you please we might say our topic is Protestant- ism from the standpoint of Science and Critical History. ITS ESSENCE I. Protestantism was a break with the Catholic Church. It was more of a break than even the courageous Luther realized. It was a thing of great significance in the history of the world. Erasmus, the greatest literary scholar of that day, could not have made this break, for he believed that “peaceful error was better than tempestuous truth.” He was a sample of those who in all time lack the courage of their convictions. They fear to break with authority. They make loyalty to conviction subordinate to loyalty to dead men. Such people can never be reformers. With the real reformer, if the past does not harmonize with his con- victions, so much the worse for the past. His determination requires a courage that exceeds all other kinds. To go 66 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION alone toward the new ideal is more perilous to most men than going to deadly battle accompanied by the hosts of one's nation. The Present never approves the reformer's act; but the Future gives him double praise. The growing ranks of truer Protestants will never cease to laud the Wittenburg monk who dared carry forth the movement for religious liberty. 2. Protestantism was an attempt to transfer goodness from external formality to internal actuality. In Catholicism, goodness had crystalized into formalism, thoughtless ceremonialism. “Justification by faith,” which was the watchword of the Lutheran Reformation, meant that inward attitude alone determines the worth. “In the sight of God,” said Luther. Protestantism insisted on more of the inward, and less of the outward; more of the personal and less of the formal; more of the substance, less of show. 3. Protestantism demanded freedom for conscience. Luther said at Worms: “It is not safe nor right to do anything against conscience; I cannot do otherwise; here I stand; God help me, Amen.” Out of this principle have grown all the various sects within its borders. Out of this principle has grown what- ever liberty now exists in Protestant lands. Puritanism was a revolt on conscientious scruples against the laxness and formalism of the seventeenth century English Church. Unitarianism in England and America was a revolt of reason and conscience against the dogmas of orthodox Protestantism. That revolt is still widening. Within the Specifically Protestant circles there are today tens of thou- Sands of protests in the name of conscience and reason against dogmas and doctrines imported from Ancient, Middle Age, and Early Modern times. And the reason for these protests is a doubt that Protestantism is living up to its fundamental principles. Has it been and is it yet fully consistent with this, its foundation doctrine? Even Luther persecuted Karlstadt, Calvin burned Servetus, the Puritans PROTESTANT-ISM–ITS LIMITATIONS 67 banished Roger Williams, and numerous Protestant bodies are even today occasionally busy with heresy trials and expulsions. For lack of this consistency, Protestantism collectively scathes the new movements outside of itself, although they are based on the same principle which caused its existence, and although they are undertaken for the accomplishment of the very work it has failed to do. 4. Protestantism is essentially and ultimately destructive of all isms. By this principle of freedom, which is its very nature, it started and is accomplishing the disintegration of itself as a distinct church tendency; yes, even the disintegration of all orthodox or standard types of Christianity (and even political authority). Through the spread of this principle, the old religious conceptions are gradually dissolving and passing away. Not all the censures of all the Voltaires and Thomas Paines and Robert Ingersolls have so much aided in this work, as the very spirit of Protestant freedom blossoming today in Science and Historical Criticism. Men who have never read these authors or such as these, who never hear “liberal” sermons or lectures, are looking at the world in a different way. The very atmosphere today seems to be full of an inspiration toward such freedom. Gradu- ally, silently, easily, are the old views of miracle, the future, the Bible, prayer, and providence dropping away. Men do not know that they have lost them. The difference between men of culture in and out of the Church is becoming beautifully less. The difference between people of different denominations is largely a dif- ference of birth, tradition, temperament, and culture. Religion has come to be “a reverence for goodness and a confidence that the universe is on that side”—though it is to many yet disguised by numerous pious names and phrases. Only the zealot or antiquarian is still very much interested in denominational differences. By degrees the principle of independent, honest freedom of thought, the conscientious reliance of the mind on its own perceptions, is supplanting 68 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION reliance upon church authority or book authority. Already there are thousands who read the Bible almost as honestly as they do other books. The true Protestant aspires toward the right use of every faculty, and believes that leaning either upon sacred hierarchies or sacred books is alike de- structive to the highest ends of living. Luther and other reformers from the ranks of Catholicism would have stood aghast at these consequences of their labors, and yet the relentless logic of the Protestantism which they inaugurated is fearlessly giving up the very type of religion which gave it birth. I mean of course the religion which rests upon outward authority. Surely Christianity must be said to exist in a different sense, when Jesus comes to be example and inspiration instead of authority. Humanity is ever laying off its old forms and institutions. So is it ever all-too-slowly laying aside its small and worn-out ideas of former days. There is a child- hood, a youth, and a manhood both for the individual and for the race, and neither the earlier clothes of the one nor the culture of the other is adapted to the later periods of either. 5. Protestantism is practically doing what its founders would have called “giving up the Bible.” It is gradually subjecting the book to reason. It is giving it up as an unquestioned authority. To the common people of the middle ages the Bible was a sealed book. The priests claimed it as an indisputable back-ground for their assumed divine authority. The Protestant movement brought Jesus and his apostles out of their vague and shadowy position as founders and pillars of the ecclesiastical empire, and set them before the world as figures in the common history of the race. In early Protestantism they were not wholly 11atural, but they have under the Protestant principle steadily grown more and more natural. When the Bible became the property of the common people its subjects began to be seen, without exaggeration—more and more as they actually were. Such a carrying-out of its fundamental principles may seem to require a long period; but the result is sooner or later PROTESTANT-ISM ITS LIMITATIONS 69 inevitable. This ancient sacred literature is not being thrown aside; it is being scen in its true position. It is coming to its true and grander meaning. The world is discovering that the former reverence was based on an ignorant and superstitious understanding. Because of this a few radicals here and there, under the spirit of reaction and without the genuine reform attitude, have cast it aside indiscriminately. But if the Bible does not occupy the authoritative sacro- central position of former days, it yet has a conspicuous literary and historical use in testifying to great creative periods in the religio-moral history of a most influential part of the human race. The inspiring utterances and lofty strains of those grand old prophets of the Jewish Canon, the parabolic, mystic, yet earnest, trusting teaching of Jesus, the fiery zeal and lofty morality of Paul, sprang from pro- found convictions of real men for whom religion was no shame and for whom life was the accomplishment of right- eousness, and to one who can distinguish the spirit from the letter, to one who can discern the moral and religious gems from their unintelligible and legendary settings, it will ever be a historic landmark of true moral inspiration. The righteousness with which it is studded gets its splendor not from the assumption that it was the tangibly written-out and handed-down law of a supermundane being. Nor is our confidence in the triumph of righteousness throughout the world increased by the picturesque dogma-threat in the form of future judgment. (For further expansion of “The Authority of Former Times” see Part Three). THE LIMITATIONS OF PROTESTANTISM I. Protestantism appealed to the Bible against Catholi- C1 S7%. This has not been a very successful weapon. It was more consistent than the assumption of Catholicism; but it is not wholly consistent. If the Bible does not say anything about or against Council or Pope, Purgatory or Intercession of 7o A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Saints; yet it proclaims other things which when it is re- garded as an authority, are by no means illogical producers of some later Catholic doctrines. What reason is there, in the nature of things, why, if one man could speak with authority or literally forgive sins, he should not have dele- gated this power to his followers? If prayers may avail for the living, why not for the dead? And especially if the prayers of the righteous here have power at the “throne of God,” much more so presumably may such prayers avail when the righteous have become saints in Heaven. These are Catholic doctrines which have been drawn from the Bible by the logical inference. Protestantism has not an- Swered and cannot answer them, so long as it assumes biblical authority. Protestantism itself is a tissue of doc- trines which do not have incontrovertible foundation, even in its Bible source. 2. Protestantism attempted to make the Bible man's continual rule of faith and practice, forgetting that the world moves, that all men think, and that the world of Luther's and our day is separated from the Bible world by many centuries of time, and, what is more important, by many centuries of thought and experience. We cannot think, nor believe, nor hope, nor live, as Bible writers exhorted and commanded in their times. The Bible stage of culture has been superceded by a higher, though the Bible ideal of righteousness, the passionate biblical moral attitude, is of perennial importance. Men in sympathy with the culture of our age can find little solace in the world outlook which they read in the New Testament. Law, not miracle, fills men's thought today. Nobody with a moderate supply of twentieth century culture can read these ancient books, using his natural powers, without protesting against many things therein asserted as literal facts. Today the cultured man is hoping for an increase of “righteousness on earth.” He expects this through natural means. He is not looking for a “kingdom of God” brought about by a power out of the clouds. If men now fancy themselves PROTESTANT-ISM ITS LIMITATIONS 71 believers of literally biblical statements and Middle Age doctrines therefrom drawn, it is because they have not really read with open eyes. They have not taken the pains to put those statements before themselves in unvarnished naturalness. They have not examined those thoughts in the light of the age and the conditions in which they were written. They have not compared their claims and merits with those of other sacred books of the world. They have not allowed the prevailing natural thought of their own times to have its due weight. 3. Protestantism has rejected parts of the old faith without adding anything new. Like Catholicism, it imported from ancient times its world-outlook. Its improvement was a rejection of certain degenerate details which grew up in degenerate ages. Of course it is much to be rid of numerous and gross errors of the old Church. This was a most valuable reform. It was indispensable as a basis for further reform; still, it is only a small part of the vast reform yet to take place. But this is negative work. This is just what Protestantism censures “radicals” for. Even at this date, Protestantism has scarcely reached that advanced attitude which amounts to willingness to have its faith examined. Nor has it as yet evinced a willingness to adopt the great multitude of new truths which have been discovered by the method of investigation since Luther's Reformation began. It clings with an unaccount- able tenacity to old authority, old traditions, old doctrines. While doing this it cannot renovate its faith nor can it assimilate the new ideas. Pres. Dewitt C. Hyde, D. D., of Bowdoin College, said: “The Current creed of Christendom is a chaos of contra- dictions. Truths and lies, facts and fancies, institutions and Superstitions, essentials and excrescences, are bound in one bundle of traditions, which the honest believer finds hard to swallow whole, and which the earnest doubter is equally reluctant to in toto reject. It is high time to attack this chaos, to resolve it into its elements, and to reorganize 72 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION our faith into a form which shall at the same time command the assent of honest and the devotion of earnest men.” Do the crying needs of life and Society receive sympa- thetic answer from Protestantism as a body? Does it have a new idea of life and society. Does it see the fact that the old ideas are worn out? Does it perceive the vast changes that have come over the world through the liberty which was gained by the first protesting rebellion and by the numerous inventions, discoveries, and demonstrations which have resulted from the partial employment of the Protestant principle? Organized Protestantism denies and denounces the most thorough-going adherents of the prin- ciple of Protestantism. It does not see that the great scien- tific discoveries, the great political and religious agitators are “Protestants” of the first rank. Instead of rejecting and disowning these for four centuries, should it not have espoused them and given them the first place in its history and upon its rolls of honor? Not the Bible, not logically nice exegetical explanations of the Bible, not revisions of the Bible, not a deeper under- standing of the Bible, not even a truer estimate of the life and work of Jesus himself, not one nor all of these is the crushing need of the world; but a conception of truth and social righteousness based on the new understanding of the Fountain of Nature. Not Church, nor priests, nor prayers, nor holy books, but a religion of justice and larger hope. That which the world calls Protestantism, as such, is not leading in developing these. Like its parent, Catholicism, it quietly and contentedly accepts and settles down into the forms, practices, and doctrines of society which it finds, and it neither feels nor exerts much impulse toward reorganiza- tion. Like the Old Faith, it is yet busy with other-world affairs. The fundamental premises of its creed are a con- demnation of this world. It has accepted as ultimate truth the opinions of thinkers who lived eighteen centuries or more ago. These men condemned this life and devised great Systems as to how a better state in some other was to be attained. Those thinkers through various influences PROTESTANT-ISM_ITS LIMITATIONS 73 have become authority for most of the Western World; hence, as they think this life is short, and the next long; as sin entered ineradicably into the race in the beginning; as man's true life is not attainable in the mundane sphere; it is scarcely worth while to waste time and effort in the fruitless task of undertaking ideal reforms here. 4. Protestantism keeps trying to get back to Jesus and Paul. In those few cases where notions of needed and possible reform in religious and social doctrine and life have sprung up within Protestant organizations, they have been based on the supposition that a return to the primitive pure teach- ing of Christianity was all that was needed to accomplish the reform of the World. Hence the modern effort in exegeti- cal historical research. To state the same fact in another way, it is probably yet believed by most of the Christian Church that an absolutely perfect moral and religious theory and ideal were developed more than eighteen centuries ago, and that all attempts of thinkers of the more advanced and enlightened later ages have not and cannot improve the system then proposed If this were not so pathetic in its world-wide degrading consequences, it would be ludicrous beyond words. Who could do justice to the spectacle of the vast Protestant organization which assumes for itself the office of giving the most uplifting ideals to mankind, and yet which persistently stands with its back to the future, and takes from the hands of the remote past whatever ideas it possesses, all forgetful of the crystal fountains within the minds of men, living in this hundred times more enlightened age 1 But where did this greater enlightenment come from? Whence arose these grander ideas which have outstripped the older Protestantism? The answer is easy. They came from the newer and truer Protestants. We owe them to those who have more consistently lived out the early Protest- 74 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION ant principle. Our supreme gratitude is due to those whom crystalized Protestantism continually ignores and disowns.” THE FINAL OUTCOME If this analysis of the nature and limitations of Protest- antism is nearly correct, it is only necessary to gather up the substance of it to realize the final outcome of the break. Protestantism has been one of the greatest changes in human history. It has proven far greater than its earlier projectors anticipated. It is difficult to give due weight to its tremen- dous influence. It was a protest against church authority and in favor of individual liberty. It demanded freedom for conscience and thus virtually, though unintentionally, demanded freedom for thought. This was not the purpose of the great re- formers. They tied the human mind up again to a more remote authority. They appealed from Church to Bible, from Pope to Jesus. This was illogical. Their right to this much of protest was based on the right to more. It was a right which they knew not of and did not desire. They did not know the nature of the freedom, and had never dreamed of being wholly free-men. The Protestantism which they began is in its essence destructive to every dog- matic and fixed ism. Looked at in a large way, it was a great break of the human mind for liberty. The break with one authority meant ultimately the break with all authorities, as such. It meant that henceforeward less and less should authority be taken for truth. It meant that increasingly more and more truth should be the only authority. It was the modern beginning of the grand movement for universal freedom in thought, in conscience, and in religion. Protestantism, in fine, is yet but half fledged. When it is full grown, it will have surpassed itself as an ism in the old sense. When it has done its work, the age of freedom * See further Chapters VIII and XVII to XIX. See also the coming “Landmarks of Science from Columbus to Spencer” by Duren J. H. Ward. PROTESTANT-ISM-ITS LIMITATIONS 75 will have arrived. There is no stopping place. If we are true Protestants we shall ever protest against every infring- ment upon reason. We shall do this in ever nobler manner. We shall ignore every priestly and political demand that rests on a reasonless faith. We shall smile at the demands of authority when they are based on credulity. The claim of a complete freedom is an increasing attitude in the human mind. There is gradually evolving in us an intelligence which sees its rights. This shall never rest until that free- dom is reached and until the privileges which it affords are universally conceded. CHAPTER V THE PROTEST MOVEMENT, A NORTHERN RACE AWAKENING EFFECT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE In recalling the intellectual consequences of this great historical movement, we naturally come next to that most wonderful of all developments, Modern Physical Science. At the beginning of its unshackling from tradition, the mind of man tended toward the speculative treatment of all prob- lems. This is the order even in the development of a single individual. Some practice in speculative and reasoning power is necessary before man can discern through investi- gation the physical forces of nature and turn them to his advantage. Since man has acquired the knack of investi- gating and reasoning on the basis of facts, his successes have been a constant source of surprise, delight, and added comfort. As we look about our homes and land, we see them crowded with articles of convenience, scarcely any of which, in their present perfection at least, antedate the Reformation. These are but the tangible results of our systematic investigative thought which we call Science. The Science of the ancients ends with theory; the Science of our age has only begun when it has theory. The modern mind insists on verification and reduction to practice. This reverence for fact and the prevailing trust in the universality of natural laws have wrought and are working wonders in Physical Science. It would require nothing less than a library to describe the post-reformational improvements in Physics, Chemistry, Boºstronomy History, and in 7 THE PROTEST MOVEMENT 77 Agriculture, Mechanical and Fine Arts. Since Luther nailed his theses to the church door at Wittenberg, how changed has been the life of the world ! Societies for the advancement of all that pertains to the material welfare of man have been organized in every part of the globe where the reformational ideas could work. Such gatherings as the Royal Society of England, the French Academy of Sciences, the German Royal Scientific Society and various Academies of Anthropology, the British and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and multitudes more of similar character, would have been impossible before on account of popish interference, even if other cir- cumstances had made them possible. Again and again has this statement been proved by the attitude of the Church of Rome toward the advances which have been made where it has had more or less power of interference. It seems almost as though it had set its face resolutely against en- lightenment and was determined that the people should remain in ignorance. The shout of “infidel, atheist, enemy of God” has been raised against every man who dared to publish to the world the results of his most careful investi- gations. So it was with the earlier conclusions of Science, and so it continues to be even now. When Galileo with his newly invented telescope discovered the moons of Jupiter, he was told by the priests that it was impossible, because there were only seven openings to a man's head ' What connection this has with the number of planets in the solar system, only a Middle Age mind could or can perceive. Because he said the world moved he was summoned to Rome, threatened, tried, condemned, and forbidden under pain of death from further advocacy of the Copernican theory, and compelled to live the remainder of his life in the strictest retirement. Copernicus himself, after twenty-three years of careful study of the heavens and of all previous astronomical systems, waited yet thirteen years longer to avoid “the baleful tooth of calumny,” before he proclaimed (I543) that our little world is not the center of the universe. Both the book and the ever-certain condemnation came too 78 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION late for him to rejoice or suffer on their account. When in a half-conscious state, a few hours before he drew the last breath of his busy life, a copy of his great work was placed in his hands. He never knew how great it was. No work of modern times has so much extended the range of human intellect, or so increased in the minds of men the thought of the majesty of the universe. Thus through such difficulties as these have the grandest achievements been accomplished. The world as a whole is too much given to condemning the new and clinging to the old. It would be difficult to find any great step of advance- ment which has not received an inconceivable amount of opposition. The great inventions of recent times have not been exceptions. The application of the powers of steam and electricity for the assistance of human agency are current instances. Dogmatic ecclesiasticism and supersti- tious fear have ever formed and, so long as they remain, ever will form, well-nigh irresistible barriers to progress. But since the blindfold of authority was snatched from before the eyes of the Christian world, it has seemed as if there was no limit to the devices which the cunning of intellect has conceived and the ready hand has fashioned. Along with an impartial and genuine increase of knowledge always comes an increase of faith in the possibilities of life, and likewise a belief that the true life of man consists in continued advancement. - EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION ON THE STUDY OF LANGUAGES The impulse given to the study of Scriptures by the reformers resulted in an assiduous study of the Hebrew and Greek Languages. These attainments served as a key to unlock other departments—History, Law, Antiquity, Geog- 'raphy, as well as Theology. Before the days of the great reformers, Hebrew and Greek were almost entirely unknown and neglected. When they were first coming to be known they were condemned by university authorities and doctors of the Church as a sure path to heresy. The opponents of Reuchlin had never seen a Greek Testament, and Hebrew was supposed to be a cunningly devised language of THE PROTEST MOVEMENT 79 sorcerers. When the Bible became recognized as the only rule of faith, it became necessary for every clergyman to know it in the original and for the laity to possess it in the vernacular. We may gather some idea of the previous prevailing ignorance of the clergy as to these languages in Reuchlin's time from what Heresbach relates in his “Orationes de Laudibus Literatis Graecis.” He heard a monk tell his audience: “They (the heretics) have introduced a new language called Greek; this must be shunned. It occasions nothing but heresies. Here and there these people have a book in that language, called the New Testament. This book is full of stones and adders. Another language is starting up —the Hebrew. Those that learn it are sure to become Jews.” (!) One result of the taste created was an extensive search for manuscripts. This labor was richly rewarded. With every success has come increased zeal for philological inquiry and the consequent intellectual advancement. The impetus given by the Reformation to philological study has ever since formed the basis of university education. Upon the development of modern languages, it must be noticed, has the effect of the Reformation been most salu- tary. Before the sixteenth century a learned Latin jargon was the language of schools and books. No nation can have a literature without a language of its own. Even should its thinkers write, its people could not read their productions. Some great and universally interesting event, a favorite topic for all, exciting all, was needed to stir the people to talk and the thinkers to write. This want the Reformation met. It was a marshalling of great ideas, and such a cause must have a great field of operation and great forces to Support it. Hence, instinctively, the reformers, at the very beginning, made direct appeal to the people. To do this, of course, they must use the language of the people. During the long struggle between papists and reformers in Germany, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, England, and Scot- land the different languages were elaborated, purified, and 8O A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION embellished in style. The German and English Bibles re- main literary monuments of this period. The muses, too, partook of the spirit of the times, and poetry in unprecedented profusion poured forth in the form of dramatic, epic, and lyric works in the languages of the people. In England the “Elizabethan Age” enriched our literature with numerous immortal productions. To it we are indebted for our Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. THE REAL AND DEEPER ESSENCE OF THE REFORMATION The Reformation was a race awakening. In Ethnological and Biological aspects it was the revival of the Teutonic, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian branches of the Aryan Race to new life. Ever since they emerged from the forests of the North, the tribes which constituted these peoples had been subjected to powers emanating from Italy. First they were politically conquered by the Roman legions commanded by Julius Caesar and his imperial successors. And when the arm of Roman power became weakened, and these Nordics tried to rise to independence, the ever-powerful Eternal City conquered them again by the new method of imposing the dogmas of its Roman Religion revised by the Hebrew Semites into the “Holy Roman Catholic Christian Faith.” Again, for over a thousand years (say from 476 to 1517), they were subjected children of Great Rome. But with the general waking-up of the world, begun in the fifteenth century, the Anglo-Saxons and Germans were leaders. As the last thousand-year stage of oppression had been reli- gious, so too the arousal, the break, came in religion, and thence spread to other fields. Wiclif in England in the fourteenth century and Luther in Germany in the sixteenth began their rebellions against Roman religion. But even at an early stage, it extended to a war against Roman Lang- wage, Roman Law, Roman Science, Roman Education, Roman Politics, and Roman Economics. The protest in re- ligion (though seemingly the one and only movement) was really but one phase or incident. There was a new world THE PROTEST MOVEMENT 8T movement rising. It involved a new cosmic outlook. It was destined eventually to throw off the ancient culture of every type. It set about the making of a New Science, a New Religion, a New Political and Democratic State, and a New Economic and Industrial World. Much, very much, of this has been done. Much is yet to do. We of today are carrying this on. In the new study of the Heavens the work is very ad- vanced. The old view is conquered. Astronomy stands a sublime science. In the new study of the Earth the victory is also achieved. Geology has stretched the strand of time to tens of millions for every thousand years before conceived. In the new story of Life, the old has been handed over to the children to be recited with their Mother Goose and Fairy Tales, and Biology in half a century has already occupied the civilized mind with its story of Evolution. In the study of Forces and Substances, the new sciences of Physics and Chemistry have dissolved the superstitions of transcendent ghosts and gods, and in their stead have led us to Monism with immanent substance and energy in oneness of world basis.” +. Only in the fields where man’s life is, are the studies incomplete and the battles unwon. In Anthropology, Psy- chology, and Sociology much remains to be done. The old Systems yet have deep roots. Men are dominated in Cus- toms, Politics, and in Economics by the lingering tyrannies of the old, still everywhere claiming the right to rule. But the challenge has been made. The “Theses” have been nailed upon the doors of the old institutions. Freedom, Democracy, and the Physical Basis of Life will be demanded for all—and will be won for all. * See further, Chapters IX and XVII. CHAPTER VI THE MAKING OF MODERN TIMES BY PROTEST THE RE-STUDY OF HISTORY The impulse given by the Reformation to the re-study of history is indeed very noteworthy. So much so that, before that great movement, we do not expect to find more than the material for history, and oftentimes poor material at that. The pretenses in the shape of annals, chronicles, etc., of the Middle Ages are almost invariably devoid of the scrutinising criticism of modern historical productions. The supersti- tions and ignorance of those who kept the records caused them to mistake the untrue for the true, the wrong cause for the real, the supernatural for the natural. Then again in the case of clurch chroniclers, their enthusiasm for their cause made them blind to the importance of other things, and, in many instances, excessively dogmatic in their treat- ment of the views of others. To such an extent was this carried for hundreds of years, that the writings of men who were supposed to differ from the common views were destroyed, sometimes even their names were suppressed, and history was treated as though they never existed. Some- times again, when a particular doctrine or practice was seen to lack the historical support which its advocates desired, documents were boldly and audaciously forged, assigned to some high authority in the age of the supposed origin of the doctrine or practice, and passed on into history as real. By such methods we now account for such writings as the Clementine Homilies, the Apostles' Creed, the Apocryphal and some other books of the New Testament, the document relating to the Donation of Constantine, etc. By such 82 MAKING OF MODERN TIMES BY PROTEST 83 treatment the true understanding of the past becomes irre- parably confused. We cannot be sure that we have yet eliminated anywhere nearly all such errors, let alone the impossibility of recovering the numerous documents that have been fraudulently destroyed or accidentally lost. But since the time of the Reformation a new historical altitude has begun to grow. Its spirit has given the discern- ment which is helping us to seize the “clew to the labyrinth of ages.” Through what we term the “philosophy of history” we believe there is now discovered a progressive tendency of humanity; that the race, like each individual, has a childhood and a manhood; and that the knowledge of its childhood and youth is neither satisfactory nor sufficient for the stage of manhood development. The time has nearly passed when men shall think that they have reached a finality in anything pertaining to doctrine or practice. From the scattered facts of human conduct we draw great precepts, lessons, and prophecies. And we must expect still more advanced ages who will regard our comparatively great ad- vancement with feelings akin to pity. The linguistic enthusiasm spoken of in the previous chap- ters had led to very extensive research in what may be collectively termed “Orientalism.” Instead of basing Scrip- tural interpretations upon “traditions, passages from the holy fathers, decisions of councils, pontifical bulls, decretals, charters, and other historical monuments true or counter- feit,” Protestant theologians “were obliged to investigate and attain exact knowledge of the places, manners, events, ideas, whole intellectual culture, and the political and private state of the different nations during the period when this prophet or that evangelist had written.” (Villers, p 195) Thus with wonderful zeal have the sacred and classic historians and poets been traced through Egyptian, Arabian, Syriac, Chaldean, Samaritan, Persian, Greek, and Roman antiquities. Incalculable service was rendered in this direction by all the reformers; and, up to the present time, the study of all that helps to the understanding of ancient literature has gone on With increasing interest. In fact, so extensive had been the 84 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION work done, that Villers could say at the beginning of the nineteenth century: “Whoever is anxious to be well informed in history, in classical literature, in philosophy, can use no better method than a course of Protestant theology.” (p. 20I) THE AWAKENING ON SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC QUESTIONS Our previous inquiry has indicated that the Reformation was the impulse which aroused a very great awakening in several fields of thought. A similar activity to that which has been already noticed took place in the realm of socio- logical subjects. An incalculable amount of literature upon questions of this character has been produced. This phase of the movement was late in starting (about I650), and made little headway for nearly one hunderd and fifty years more. During the nineteenth century it made great pro- gress. In our own century it has come forward with a still greater rapidity. It has become the chief topic of the time, and will doubtless engross a large part of popular interest for many years to come. The result upon nations can easily be seen by the most cursory comparisons of Protestant with Catholic countries. The nineteenth century conditions of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Austria, compared with those of England, Scotland, Holland, and Germany tell the story. On the one hand, poverty, indolence, and vice have been the most conspicuous features; on the other, some degree of comfort, industry, and virtue greeted us on every side. It is ascertained from statistics that the number of criminals in Catholic countries has greatly exceeded those in Protest- ant. What contrasts in agriculture, rural economy, and local government meet the traveler in these lands, where the mind and hand of man are at least on the way to freedom, knowledge, and activity Macaulay, who will not be accused of partisan leaning toward dogmatic Protestantism, corroborates this view. He tells us that under the sway of the Church of Rome— “The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellect- MAKING OF MODERN TIMES BY PROTEST 85 ual torpor; while Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and indus- try into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what four hundred years ago they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with that round Edinburg, will be able to form some judgment as to the tendency of papal domination. . The Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round them is in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise.” (Hist. of Eng. I, Carlyle, in his inimitable way, writing upon the influence of the Protestant Principle, says: “Austria was once full of Protestants, but the hide-bound Flemish-Spanish Kaiser element presiding over it, obstinate- ly for two centuries, kept saying, ‘No, we, with our dull, obstinate, Cimburgis underlip, and lazy eyes, with our pon- derous Austrian depth of habituality and indolence of intellect, we prefer steady darkness to uncertain light!’ and all men may see where Austria now is.” (Hist, of Fred. II, I, 2O2.) THE REACTION TRIED BY JESUITISM A very peculiar intellectual result of the Reformation is to be found in the work done by the Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius Loyola. At almost the same moment of Luther's advance upon the stage of history from the North, Loyola comes from the South. The one from wide- awake, out-spoken Saxony; the other from sleepy, insidious Spain; yet both curiously animated by untiring zeal. One, the open advocate of liberty and reform; the other, the Secret instrument of bigoted intolerance. Although it can hardly be strictly said that the order of Jesuits had its Origin in the Reformational movement, yet it was turned at once into a counteracting force against the supposed 86 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION object of the Reformation. It took on much of the educa- tional spirit of the age. The schools under its control helped much to spread the taste for philological and mathe- matical studies. Europe had tasted of the tree of knowledge. In fact the desire for knowledge was so wide- spread that it was no longer safe to oppose it openly. The next best thing was to get possession of the knowledge and guide it in the interests of the hierarchy. Against the plain facts of the reformers they opposed crafty, dogmatic expla- nation, and the ignorant were lulled again into security. In this underhanded maner the people were also taught to hate the new views of religion. On the one hand, the Jesuits manifested inconceivable talent in the cultivation and perfection of those branches of knowledge which threatened not the least danger to the hierarchical system. On the other hand, they exhibited an opposition just as decisive against the study of those branches which might throw light upon the misdecds of the Church, or in any way incite the people to a desire for liberty and a disposition to shake off the despotism of the papal system. The Jesuits hoped by perfection in such branches as mathematics and language to obtain the reputation of being the oldest and most learned scholars of Christendom, and thus to clear the Church of the reproach of the reformers. Possessed of this celebrity, they trusted they would be able to direct the study of history, science, philosophy, and theology at pleas- U1 re. It is not too much to say that the Jesuits strove eagerly to make difficult, ridiculous, and forgotten all those studies which tended to that enlightenment which made inquiry into history and evolution. Jesuitism has sent forth from its schools many fine Latin scholars, skilful translators and grammarians, keen mathematicians, great dialecticians, and eminent orators. Besides, it has no doubt acted as a won- derful stimulant to make the Protestant ranks labor more vigorously to check the power of Catholicism so greatly augmented by Jesuitism. Nevertheless, it is to be lamented that the Jesuits proved a mighty force in suppressing liberty, MAKING OF MODERN TIMES BY PROTEST 87 and in this way the spread of the intelligence which stimu- lates inquiry. Consequently those countries where they be- came strong—Italy, Spain, and Portugal—still wander in the darkness of mediaeval ignorance and superstition. Through its censorship of the press and its book-police, Jesuitism achieved wonders in suppressing Protestant thought. For example, it is known that hundreds of thousands of copies of the little book called “Of the Benefit of Christ’s Death,” were circulated in Italy for the purpose of popularizing the Lutheran doctrine of “Justification by Faith,” and it had been translated into many languages; but it was so utterly blotted out that when Ranke wrote his “History of the Popes” in 1834, he said no trace of the work existed. Hausser tells us that since then three copies of it have been found and thousands published again. - PROTESTANT SECTS The liberty of opinion to which the Reformation gave birth, itself became the parent of numerous denominations of Protestantism. These children, inheriting the spirit of authority and intolerance from grandmother Rome, have proved a very quarrelsome family. Down to the present moment the peace of the Christian world has been repeatedly broken by denominational bickerings. Men seem very slow to learn the lesson of charity, that the same demand which they make from others should in turn be granted by them; in other words that the truest and purest Christian liberty grants each man the right of forming a denomination him- self, if he so chooses. The first reformers clung to the hope of ecclesiastical unity through a settlement of all difficulties by a general council. (This thought has been again revived in the now prevailing movements for “church unity.”) Next came the effort to reform the “national churches” by abolishing abuses and reconstituting creed, polity, and ritual. But soon irreconcilable divisions arose. Notwithstanding all, perhaps “it is better to dispute on religion than to agree quietly not 83 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION to have any”; or to differ in opinion than to have no opinion at all. Surely, nothing but uncharitable bigotry would look upon the newly liberated Reason without expecting to forgive frequent mistakes. After so long captivity in the prison- house of scholasticism, the doors are burst, the chains are struck off, and Reason totters forth, pale, emaciated, and unsteady in step. No longer held by shackles of authority, she is bewildered. The unaccustomed light of knowledge blinds her eyes. Her brain becomes dizzy, and for a time her gait is very erratic. “Better have left her in the ignorant bliss of her prison quarters,” tauntingly and la- mentingly exclaims the ultramontanist. “A thousand times, No,” shouts the modern advocate of liberty of opinion. “Let Reason be free, she will gain strength by exercise !” And so it has proved. Enough has been accomplished since thought has been free to show the unpardonable wrong inflicted upon humanity for ages by a bigoted and selfish hierarchy. From the liberty claimed and asserted by Luther in the face of the most degrading tyranny the world has ever tolerated, have followed an age of higher philosophy, a new spirit in literature, the scientific method, a real history of the past, a beginning toward universal education and free schools, the first stages of a political and economic sympathy, our national independence, our civil and religious liberty, our unmolested press, our marvelous national enterprise, our glorious past, and our hope of a still more glorious future. Who could draw even the outline of the past and future changes upon the moral face of the globe caused by the mutual indignation of two Saxon monks? And when will these changes cease? Certainly, not till every tottering throne of temporal and spiritual despotism shall have hope- lessly fallen and broken. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which are prepared” for the world when Reason and Love shall walk side by side and together point the way for Life. PART TWO THE GREATEST TRANSITION IN HUMAN HISTORY ACT V. CHAPTER VII THE LATEST ORGANIZED PROTESTANT-ISM Human life is a procession—not very orderly. Even the van-leaders are a lot of unorganized stragglers, little inter- ested in each other. They are from many lands—these investigators, experimenters, discoverers, and correctors of the route to be traveled. The directions are surely and slowly leading to civilization and enlightenment. The great multitude of the procession refuse to listen to these living voices. They follow sullenly only when living conditions compel. They swear by the guidebooks of ancient leaders who long ago fell out of the procession. Of the vanguard —The Unorganized Protestants—we shall speak in the next chapter. Nearest to those foremost scouts are a number of exclus- ive bands, fairly organized within themselves, but paying no attention to each other. They hear the voices of the leaders and speculate endlessly about the journey. They follow on haphazardly, meanwhile always quoting the olden times and jangling as to whether it wouldn't have been better not to have come this way. 89 go A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION who ARE THEY 2 To limit our survey to Christian realms, there has grown up (under the liberty afforded by the Protest movement) a number of influential bodies who do not hold to the tra- ditional Church doctrines, even in the manner represented by standard Protestantism. During the last century these people have come forward as Universalists, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, Divine Scientists, Theosophists, New Thought-ists, etc. Besides these are various exceptional broad-minds and scholars within recognized traditional sects. These, one and all, ground their faith in some re-explained way, denying much of the old, yet adhering mostly to what they would like to have the world believe was the “true Christian principle.” But to all varieties of the orthodox who lean wholly on standard traditional authority, these newer Protestants seem to be undermining religion entirely. Yet though they are berated and denounced nearly as much as the vanguard their numbers steadily increase. Let us now gather up the religious affirmations of those who are trying to speculate with greater freedom and to treat history more critically. These points we shall not consider as a creed, but simply as characteristics of the beliefs of the latest organized Protestants. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEW PROTESTANTISM Three great features distinguish this type of religious attitude: FREEDOM, TRUTH, AND CHARACTER From one end of Christendom to the other, these some- what more widely cultured minds insist on freedom of the individual person as to his own beliefs, and freedom of each particular church or organization as to its government. In the same manner they insist on getting the truth from Sources both ancient and modern, foreign and domestic; and truth only shall be authority. And they are trying to hold that no authority of book or council or organization shall be regarded as truth because it makes such claims. They LATEST ORGANIZED PROTESTANT-ISM 91 are striving to insist that all claims must alike be submitted to test; that no assumed dignity can exempt any article, creed, or volume; that truth only has dignity; and that truth gets its dignity by having been demonstrated. What cannot be examined, needs to be, badly. They continually approach the spirit of Modern Science, yet all the while lay the greater stress upon and quote most frequently from the old-time sources. They insist that both freedom and truth get their values only because, when applied, they make character. Freedom is desirable only for right-doing, nor is there any real right-doing without it. Not less indispensable is truth. True character has truth at its base. All other sooner or later topples over. These bodies represent the highest and best types of re- ligious speculation the world has yet known. It will be utterly subversive of tradition in the end. It professes to be free from it now. But this speculation is only an osten- sible liberty that it is taking. Its masses always side with tradition when Science seems adverse. The leaders keep quiet. They are growing shy of appeals to the ancients. They make much use of the terms “modern” and “liberal.” In the following sections there is presented some of their chief characteristic attitudes. These are given not as a Creed, but as ways of approach to great problems. They are stated and supported, much as their adherents might desire. They do not cover any type literally, but are the gist of the new trends of modern religious thought. They never reach the scientific, but are fine speculative and mystic appeals. CHARACTERISTIC BELIEFS OF THE NEWER PROTESTANTS I. The authority of reason. This is supreme. No discussion, even of other authori- ties, can go on without it. If one accepts a creed, he does it by his reason, so far as he has any. If he believes the Bible or any other book divinely inspired, he does it by his reason. Hence, reason is the cultured individual's last appeal. 92 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Reason is higher than supposed inspiration, unless he reaches the absurd position of deciding by his reason that a book is inspired, and then decides again by his reason that his reason is thereafter not capable of examining and de- ciding upon what he finds in the book! It is thinking, knowing, being, doing, that make person- ality. One is not made better by believing. Belief that sets aside reason becomes credulity and leads to superstition and senseless action. In its very nature this destroys char- acter. There is no real character in blind obedience. Moreover, this tends to hypocrisy and pretense. Any system of belief must ultimately come to a stage where it more or less contradicts the reason which is based on a wider experi- ence. Then to stick to it is to smother reason, to grow to be a pretender. This is, always has been, and always will be the difficulty with creeds. 2. The unlimited improvableness of humanity. Man's up trend has been called dignity as opposed to depravity. The doctrine of depravity in Christendom is based on the story of Genesis. That story is a legend bor- rowed during the Jewish captivity in Babylon (586–536 B. C.) It is found in Persian and Assyrian books long before there was any Jewish record. Similar stories are now discovered in the mythology of various other peoples. The anecdotes of man's creation and antediluvian doings, as recorded on Assyrian tablets, have been shown to be primitive fancies. Everybody now knows something of the science of Geology, and through such knowledge he learns that the earth's crust consists of strata formed one upon another by the natural forces of heat, wind, rain, streams, Snow, ice, organic remains, animal work, etc. He knows that man made his appearance comparatively late as an in- habitant of the world. But he knows also that even man has been here hundreds of thousands of years—from fifty to five hundred times as long as the post-exilian account in Genesis would make it, LATEST ORGANIZED PROTESTANT-ISM 93 Moreover, everybody who has heard of the important biological discoveries made during the last two generations, knows that man himself is an evolution. Man has grown up from brute condition. He has been steadily rising during all these years of residence here. His fall has been up ! Mankind is slowly and steadily rising in knowledge and in inclination; ever more and more taking on the good and learning the true.* 3. The universality and therefore the naturalness of religion to man. This is a particular and positive statement, based upon the modern, wider study of the human races. It stands in strong contrast over against the older prevalent Church negation that the Chinese, Hindus, Persians, Mohammedans, skeptics, and all non-church-christians are heathen, super- stitious, atheistic, infidel, or irreligious. This definition of the scope of religion includes every normal human being. It comprehends the ancient founders: Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and the prophets and saints of every land and time. Of course, many of the newer organized Protestants would react against So human a claim, but most of their leaders generally admit it. . Many of them even include those re- jected by a shameless dogmatism as skeptics and unbelievers in dominant creeds. They see the profound piety of men like Thomas Paine, whose books are filled with the most ardent religious faith and true human enthusiasm. They See the futility and the wickedness of scorning a man who could say, “The world is my country, and to do good is my religion. I believe in one God, and no more.” This view of religion could include even the great founder of modern agnosticism—Professor Thomas Henry Huxley. Some claim that religion is a matter of life and attitude and allegiance, rather than of names and professed adherence * How Science is developing these problems, see especially Chapters XX, and XXI. 94 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION to traditions and creeds. Some are getting to feel that nothing but lack of understanding could deny the religious spirit to the man who said, “Science is creating a firm and living faith in the existence of immutable moral and physical laws, perfect obedience to which is the highest possible aim of an intelligent being.” 4. Devotion to the great Eternal Unifying power of whose being, action, and laws the Universe is evidence. To this, the most philosophical and metaphysical minds are above all devoted. They insist that all races and indi- viduals mean this when they talk of God. To be man, means it. To deny it to any, means to be a narrow man. All-dispensing World-life! Every race adores Thee, Finding Thee in rock or rill or in the Smiling sky; Bowing down from needless fear, Over-awed before Thee, Or lifting up their eyes in joy on high. In most of this latest organized Protestantism the word “Father” is figuratively used to designate the Eternal Source and Might. It is a method of expressing supposed quality and attributes. It is a worshipful phrase copied from Jesus. It refers to God as source and preserver of the race, and adds human attributes which are analogous and justifiable, they believe. 5. An understanding and an appreciation of Old-time Prophets never equalled. The later organized Protestants are the first to have for the spokesmen of old a reverence which would try to look up the facts. As they believe the end of each life is the development of character, that is, in its broadest sense, personality; therefore they revere those who have made great discoveries and achievements in character. Among the leaders of the ancient moral world, for example, they think none stands so high in the exemplification and embodi- ment of goodness as Jesus of Nazareth. Others excelled him in this or that erudition, but he at the right moment in LATEST ORGANIZED PROTESTANT-ISM 95 history discovered and preached the great doctrine of universal altruism, of unlimited human brotherhood. Thus he put all the later world under the greatest debt of grati- tude. He was practically the last of the line of those ancient Jewish idealists who led mankind to monotheism and monogenism, to the faith of one God and one humanity. His service and name have suffered distortion for centuries through being made the center of Superstitious dogmas. His character and mission they are striving to rescue from the disgraceful appropriation of a blatant selfish priesthood, few of whom ever glimpsed his real character and historic place. To them his name will ever be the dearest among those who have worked for a bettered social relationship. Some of them love to say, it will forever stand in Sociology where that of Columbus stands in Geography, where that of Copernicus stands in Astronomy, where that of Darwin stands in Biology—only it will be a hundredfold dearer to most human hearts than these, because his great contribution was to show heart's relation to heart. Such as these are the men who first gave mankind new points of view, real foundation truths in their several realms. Not until their discoveries in these realms could there be any real or per- manent Science, any stable system of knowledge. The ancient ethics was narrow in limits and negative in kind. It never transcended national borders, and it was rarely ever anything but primitive in its teachings. It was a catalogue of “Thou shalt nots.” The teaching of Jesus went beyond these bounds. It knew no limit of race or language. All men were brothers, and brothers were each other's natural helpers. He never reiterated the Decalog or the other old negations. In his Beatitudes there breathes the Spirit of unlimited aggressive good-doing; and in his daily life this spirit was nearly carried out. 6. The Bible in its proper place. The newer Protestants still honor Jewish and Christian Sacred books more than any other source of truth, and justify this by claiming to find truth in greater proportion 96 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION therein. They are taking pains to search elsewhere. They have spent years of hardest toil in solving the thousand and one mysteries connected with all ancient writings and the age-long claims made for them. They have dug up a score of ancient buried cities, and scanned every brick and stone with the greatest care. They have deciphered the hiero- glyphics of old Egypt, and studied their bearing upon con- temporary peoples. They have resuscitated the language of the old Assyrians, and have re-read tons of newly dis- covered cuneiform inscriptions of the old Babylonian and Ninevitish kingdom. They have compared every manuscript in every tongue. They have compared every sentence and word in every biblical book with every ancient quotation purporting or supposed to be taken from that book. They have looked up every reference in history making any allu- sion to biblical events, doctrines, personages, or literature. They have published these results in inconceivable quantity. And they are now refining and re-digesting all the informa- tion and knowledge obtained. (And they are becoming less certain about the value of ancient guide-books.) 7. “The Hope” of Immortality. We will observe the difference of Statement. The old faith in its narrow traditional outlook, claimed knowledge and expressed positive belief. Intelligent people are using words more carefully. Some say, “We hope.” Few of them quote so often Scripture texts for proof. Most of them are not quite sure that the ancients knew so much more about these baffling problems, even though they spoke with exceeding boldness. None of them would cite as proof the story of the resurrection of Jesus. Some of them would find support for their hope in the wide scope of this belief among mankind. Others would find further ground in the speculation and affirmations of philosophy; still others in the corroborative discoveries of facts and laws through scien- tific research; and perhaps more, in suggestions and hints from mysterious and not fully solved psychic phenomena. A few—the most careful among them—modestly regard it LATEST ORGANIZED PROTESTANT-ISM 97 as something over which men cannot dogmatize. They do not regard as proofs the reasons and statements drawn from books and phenomena which themselves need proving. Many of them think the human “soul” itself the deepest mystery which is offered for its study; and they reverently accept the problem, waiting and striving to aid in its Solu- tion; and, if perchance, it may be that the Soul becomes immortal by evolution upwards and into the Spiritual State, then this, too, they gratefully accept as an opportunity, and strive to attain that evolution. At all events the more thoughtful are learning that the most earnest longing must still wait for that serious, careful investigation neglected by former centuries and by those who put assertion for proof. They are confident that men will yet solve this great mystery, as they have a thousand others. Meanwhile it helps nothing to assume and quote and boast, to taunt each other for lack of faith. It is wise and it is honest to realize the difficulties of our convictions and to show that we realize them. In the full realization, then, of these things, in patient waiting for the great discoveries and investigations which shall make clearer these profound problems, and in the trust that the true, whatever it be, is better than brazen error, they wait. NEWEST PROTESTANTS NEED UNIFYING AND RE-ORGANIZING There are not a few in this vanguard and they should be better and more closely organized. They are now too numerous to struggle alone. They are too similar longer to miss the power of united influence. If they cared more for world Service than for their speculative prejudices, this would soon come about. We cannot yet see the beginning nor the end of the processes of evolution and life. We cannot see the cause nor the result of many things. We See enough to give confidence and hope. On the basis of the past, we try the future. By the light of the seen, we try the unseen. The larger the experience and understanding of what has been, the stronger the confidence in the final 98 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION outcome. Claiming this or that as true does not help. To think or to believe a speculation does not make a truth. Time eventually brushes away all these boasted unfounded dogmas. No amount of assertion, no boldness in preaching, no unanimity of voting in council, presbytery, convocation, or conference can add any iota of truth to statement of doctrine. Truth is outside of and independent of man’s wishes or prejudiced indorsements. He is to find it by in- vestigation, to test it by conference, and be wise. TENNYSON GROPINGLY SINGS : “Behold, I know not anything; I Can trust that good shall fall At last—far Off—at last, to all, And every Winter change to Spring. So runs my dream; but, What am I? An infant crying in the night; An infant Crying for the light; And With no language but a cry. I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares |Upon the great World’s altar-Stairs That slope through darkness up to God; I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To What I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.” CHAPTER VIII THE UNORGANIZED PROTEST-ANTS THEIR LONG LIN EAGE To many, the expression, “Prophets, Saints, and Scien- tists,” may seem a strange juxtaposition of terms. What can Prophets and Scientists have in common with each other? Little or nothing in matter of content of mind; everything in function. Let us try to go beneath the surface of popular belief and see the correspondence of meaning in institutions which transform and transform, but still persist during ages. All human conceptions and activities have a history, and their appearance is not just the same in different centuries. So much is this the case, that modern institutions often seem at first to have no ancestry. Science is generally supposed to be something entirely new, and Prophecy is thought to be entirely old—and unique. The writer of that fraudulent pamphlet called “The Second Epistle of Peter,” formulated the theory for Christendom during the seventeen hundred years since his day, in the much flaunted text: “For the prophecy came not in old times by the will of man; holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (I. 21.)* PROPHETS In olden times, the Prophets were believed to be men who enjoyed Some special Divine facilities for the realization of truth. They generally claimed Divine authority for what they said, and sought to give or point to some outward sign * Written not earlier than 175. A. D., and ascribed to Peter by authority at the Council of Carthage in 397 A. D. IOO THE UNORGANIZED PROTEST-ANTS IOI as evidence of their proclamations. The word “Prophet” is from the Greek and means to see before, or in old English, “seer.” It was assumed that he could look deeper and further than other people. In ages when no one saw very clearly, all sorts of common things were believed to have great significance. Hence the Prophets were expected to interpret dreams, visions, omens, special casualties, etc. The common people did not understand how they did it. Nor is it probable they themselves often understand the real process. They probably possessed minds somewhat superior, and when they occasionally discovered things beyond the ken of the common people, both thought it was by special supernatural inspiration or revelation. The actual truth lay in the inductive power of reasoning which the man possessed. His concentration on the problems of life enabled him to reach easily conclusions which to others were sealed mysteries. The prevailing ignorance of the times prevented anyone from seeing the nature of the method unconsciously practised. To minds untrained in observing mental processes, reason is ever performing won- ders. Hence the real essence of the prophet’s function was the inductive power of inferring what was or will be from what is. But this is exactly the fundamental nature of Science. They each deal with truth, or, as the ancients explained it, with the “Divine Will.” The discovery of it was “Revelation.” The amount and purity of it always depended on certain circumstances of facility for seeing, thoroughness in examination, seriousness and honesty of motive, and absence of hindering prejudice. PROPHETS COMMON TO ALL LANDS Our idea of the prophets is derived from the Old Testa- ment type. But they have been everywhere prevalent. The Shamans of Central Asia, the Dervishes of Persia, the Rishis of India, the Oracles of Greece, the Augurs of Rome, the Medicine Men of the American Indians, are all orders with the same general functions, Christian dogmatism has I O2 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION given an unjust stigma to these terms and this has effectually prevented our seeing the real nature and just side of these offices. Had Christendom taken the pains, it could have discovered among the borrowed Prophets before whom it bows a variety little less broad from the point of worthiness. The Old Testament furnishes samples among the Prophets of the crudest superstition and the grossest morality along- side of the highest idealism. PROPHETIC INSTITUTION DISAPPEARS Till after the beginning of the Christian era, there was no question as to the Prophet’s being the sole source for the obtainment of the Divine will. But in the second century, the institution disappeared. Usages had been changed by a new way of looking at religion. All converts of the new reformed Christian faith possessed the “spirit of God.” This caused an awakening of the common mind. Moreover, the Prophets’ functions had become vicious. They ventured too much, descended to common things, and their predictions failed so often, that people lost confidence in the later and trusted only the earlier prophecy. This helped the increasing growth of the authority of old “Revelation.” The old Prophets and the new Apostles grew in respect, and all revelation was finally believed to be summed up in them. All others were sifted out. The later writings have come to be known as the “Apocryphal Books.” This process could not have gone on without the increasing use of writing. Finally, when the Church became a political institution in the fourth century (325 A. D.) the base was entirely changed. THE OLD PROPHIET—HIS PERSON AND POWER As a man, the Prophet in the old times led a singular life, more or less ascetic, and generally celibate. He was usually of mystical turn, and like the rest of his contemporaries, knew neither the physical nor the social world in any THE UNORGANIZED PROTEST-ANTS Io3 systematic way, though he was patriotic and moral—some- times extremely so. His function was not so much to spread doctrine, as to furnish it. Hence Prophets were not so much officiating priests or preachers, as oracles in those fields which we now designate as religion, politics, land, usury, slavery, divorce, etc. They were the first, and for long, the only literary men, and thereby exercised a mysteri- ous authority. It is with difficulty that we realize the power of writing over minds who have never known the art. Ignorant and superstitious men attribute to supernatural and spirit power, the information which comes from the written lines. THE SAINTS The term “Saints” used in the New Testament, meant a member of the Church. But the “Saints” (e.g., at Ephesus) were spoken of by the Apostles as being a higher, holier type than the rest of the people. They enjoyed the special presence of the Holy Spirit in their souls. Gradually the older saints came to be regarded with great honor. In the fourth century the practice of commemorating and even of invoking them arose. The heroisms of the early Christians in withstanding the persecutions of the Romans, singled them out with especial meaning. Offerings were made at their graves. The Eucharist was celebrated at or near their burial places. Articles were often put on the altars in memory of them. This was undoubtedly a surviving cus- tom, namely, the old Roman offerings to the Manes, turned in a new direction. HOW THEY CAME TO BE INVOKED Next there arose the practice of praying for the peace of souls departed. Tertullian tells us it “originated by tradi- tion, was strengthened by custom, and observed by faith.” The martyrdoms greatly increased the tendency. Praying for and praying to the dead were easily intermixed. Those who died for their faith were holy. The holy were near to 104 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION God, and surely they had influence with him! Then, why not pray to them and procure their intercession? Cyril (A. D. 350) says: “We commemorate . . . patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs—that God at their prayers and intercessions would receive our supplications.” Acts like these are the relics of polytheism surviving unconsciously. FINALLY GIVEN POST-MORTEM TITLES Out of Invocation came Canonization. After the merits of the dead had been examined, the pope decreed, on proper recommendation, the title of “Saint.” Of course, orthodoxy was the first requisite. This is shown in many instances, e.g., the two greatest thinkers of the early church, Origen and Tertullian, have never been canonized. In the very earliest times, only martyrs received this eminence; then the pure; then, finally, the great Church workers—good or bad. Henry I was canonized by Pope Eugene III., and Edward the Confessor, by Pope Alexander III., each because of royal Support to papal measures. The custom now is to wait a hundred years, and the evidence has to be so strong, in this age of scientific and historic criticism, that the prac- tice is becoming rare. BEGAN TO LOSE AUTHORITY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY But the tendency which looked to either prophets or saints as the originators of truth has long since been shaken. It had sole sway till the beginning of the sixteenth century. The modification of Judaism which resulted in historical Christianity (more accurately Churchianity), was entirely a matter of ritual and ceremony. The theorizers made the death of Christ the last of the blood sacrifices. The deity was still the Jehovah of the Jews unimproved in character. The Jewish Scriptures held the same or even a stronger place of authority. Sacrifice was discountenanced, because in Jesus all Sacrifices were summed up, and he had made THE UNORGANIZED PROTEST-ANTS IoS morals the chief interest. His teachings were embodied partly in the Gospels and partly in the traditions of the people. By theorizing on his place in the world and on the decay of Judaism, Paul and others wrote a body of literature which afterwards came to be called the New Covenant or New Testament. JESUS BETWEEN– NEITHER PROPHET NOR SAINT We must not fail to note that in all this Jesus had had no part. He was not a prophet in any sense that had previously been accepted. He did not pretend to furnish new truth. He only sifted the old. He simplified, and lived. His position is unique among the revered holy men of history. Hardly one of his immediate followers really understood him. They were thinking of old meanings. In these he was not interested. They theologized. He lived. He dropped the dross of the old teachings. They held as much of it as they could, and tried to fix it over into a system. They mixed a little reason with a vast amount of Superstitions and traditions, and clung to it as Judaism, continued. He dropped it as Judaism, and saved the kernel of truth in it. They made changes in it only where it was necessary to connect their system to him and his amazingly good life. By the preachers who did not write, the stress was largely laid on the ethical side of life. This went on for the first three hundred years, during the period known as “Evangelical Christianity” (or Jesu- anity). But the doctrinizing tendency triumphed at the Council of Nicea in 325 A. D., and the long period of Dogmatism and Ecclesiasticism (or Christ-ianity and Church-ianity) began. The systematic development of dogma on the basis of traditions occupied the minds of men for the next 1200 years. And this was made possible by the necessity of a regrowth of nations. Rome fell by barbarian hands, and barbarian ignorance had to grow up again to civilization. 106 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION MORE RELIABLE ORACLES COMING We have realized the Middle Age conditions by the review in the chapter on Wiclif. We there saw the beginning of a great change. One of the first symptoms of a new ten- dency was in the work of Roger Bacon, who died in I294. Here and there minds became quickened and inventions and discoveries followed. The compass was devised by Gioja of Naples in 1302; powder by Schwartz of Cologne between 1320 and 1340 (though known to the Moors in Spain about IOOO); and printing by three different men, between I435 and 1458. Columbus, Luther, Copernicus, and Magellan were soon to be born. A FEW SAMPLE SCIENCE–PROPHIETS A natural mental activity had begun and was increasing. Wiclif, Petrarch, Boccacio, and Chaucer lived between 1300 and I4OO. Huss, Jerome, Savonarola, Columbus, the Cabots, and Vasco da Gama did their great works between I400 and 1500. Other great truth-lovers and progress- makers between 1500 and 16OO were Luther, Melancthon, Zwingli, Socinus, Knox, Magellan, Kepler, Galileo, Vesalius, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Bruno. In that century they were so numerous that they made what has since been named “The Great Reformation.” We have seen it as the grand breaking-up time—a period of physical, intellectual, political, and religious discovery, and consequently of turmoil. The old way of looking at things had become so absurd and so tedious, that the few men who did any thinking, rebelled. THE MASTERLY FAILURE OF THE CHURCH's REACTION We will keep in mind that the Church of Rome was the only church. Every new thing done by these men of moral courage was in opposition to church doctrines, and told the most damaging blows. We have seen that the Church made a most masterly attempt to stem the tide, to react against this destroying tendency. The Council of Trent was held, closing in 1563, after a memorable session of eighteen years! THE UNORGANIZED PROTEST-ANTS Ioy The Order of Jesuits was founded in 1534 and received full papal sanction in 1540; and the Massacre of St. Bartholo- mew was perpetrated in 1572. And, indeed, the Church would have succeeded in reconstructing its blighting System, had it not been for one discovery, viz. ; that of the actual position of the earth. That most revolutionizing of all books, Copernicus’ “De Orbium Celestium Revolutionibus”, was published in that eventful year I543.* It had been practi- cally finished in 1530, having cost him twenty-three years of study and observation. His work was supplemented by Galileo, who made the first practical telescope, and thus made proof of the Copernican System more easy. With it, men looked out into the heavens and saw undreamed of wonders—moons to Jupiter, rings to Saturn, phases to Venus, and mountains on the Moon | In that same I543 'year, Vesalius, the body physician of the Emperor Charles V, published a work less heralded but equally important in its field, viz., his “De Humani Corporis Fabrica.” As the other revolutionized tradition and began the true science of the Cosmos (the Universe), so this did the same for the Anthropos (Mankind). But the Church did not take kindly to this new universe. The popes issued pronunciamentos and bulls against it; yet all to no avail. It has demonstrated itself in a hundred new ways, and remains an impregnable denial of the orthodox Scheme of the world, of God, man, and man's origin and destiny. A METHOD HOLIER THAN ANY KNOWN TO ANCIENT SEER OR SAINT The men of Science, the new Prophets, have steadily in- creased in number; and beginning with Francis Bacon, they have again and again formulated the method of approaching the unknown, i. e., of obtaining Divine Revelation. And their rules succeed. * We shall have occasion to refer again and again to this and Several momentous and revolutionary events, IO8 A RECEIVERSHIP ITOR CIVILIZATION But it is not by prayers of faith, nor through magic or alchemy, that they learn the Divine will. It is rather the prayer of work directed by the most honest observation and overseen by the most righteous scrutiny of reason. And in it all, they show that faith which alone remains healthy. And even the bigotry and conceit of the old Church is be- ginning to see that Science is really the word of the Prophets who have actually heard “the voice of God.” “Facts are stubborn things.” So long as the earth was flat and the Jewish Jehovah was believed to be up above the blue dome of the heavens, the Church could not be contra- dicted. The Prophets and Saints of tradition were the sole sources of truth, and the future could have no hope of seeing intellectual and moral greatness. But when the good Copernicus and others proved those old foundations to be errors, all men who heard of it must forever cease to trust to Ecclesiastical assumptions. After this, then, what might we not expect since we discovered the greatest truths in 'regions forbidden by the Church 1 Gradually Science has shown that the highest truth and the best life come, not from abnegation, but from the closest understanding of Nature. It is fast becoming the ideal to use every means of arriving at a deeper acquaintance with her facts and laws. TH E N EW HOLY BOOKS This is not the place to review the great discoveries in regard to the character and development of our world (Geology), of life (Biology), of the constitution of things in atoms and masses (Chemistry and Physics). (See Chapter IX and The New Bible, Part Four). The three facts which have the greatest bearing on man's religious attitude are: the discovery of Copernicus (the Heliocentric System); the discovery of Kant, Laplace and others (its Nebular and Planetesimal Origin); and the dis- covery of Lyell (explaining all the changes, past and present, on the earth's surface by uniformity of force and law). THE UNORGANIZED PROTEST-ANTS 109 The three principles of widest bearing (which ought to be understood by everyone) are: the Baconian method of scientific investigation; the Darwinian law of Natural Selection, or Nature's mode of evolution of the lower life on the globe; and the power of Reason as a factor, Pur- posive Selection, man's mode of giving unlimited scope to improvability of life. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROPHETS The honest Prophet always found some truth. The new Prophet, the man of Science, finds more truth, because he proceeds in more honest ways. Truth is the reward of character (as we more and more realize by observing the results from the long and painstaking labors of men of Science). As of old, so now, there are some true prophets, some false; some broad, some narrow. So too, there are preach- ers of all these sorts of views, and there are still far more who preach mostly the views of ancient Prophets. The religion of the masses has always been the sort that belongs to the preceding age or ages. Religion is the sum of one’s cosmical and ethical outlooks. It may be a small sum or a large one. The materials for it come from the sources above pointed out. They may be antiquated entirely; they may be partly sound but worm- eaten by the errors of centuries; or they may be solid timber. OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THEM-THE EARLY AND THE RECENT All honor to all the men and women who have revealed to us any whit of the law of God! We pay a tribute of ºrespect and admiration to those who tried in olden time, even when we can no longer follow their ideas. So again, the world will ultimately place on the Prophets' Roll of Honor a long list of our modern men and women who have sought the truth more than aught else. I could not mention here even their names; but when (in addition to those I have spoken of) I name the words: Harvey, Newton, Priestley, Laplace, LeVerrier, Herschel, Jones, I TO A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Rawlinson, Lyell, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin, Von Baer, Joule, Maxwell, Thompson, Crookes, Flower, Helm- holtz, Schliemann, Quatrefages, Emerson, Max Muller, Marsh, Cope, Curie, Edison, Marconi, it will be seen what a multitude I have in mind, and what a debt of gratitude we owe to these earnest seekers after Divine things in our own time. These, and hundreds more in all fields, are re- vealing truths of the Most High by methods which we do not doubt. Holy men and women are always “moved by the Holy Ghost,” and they always teach as they are moved, and they never teach for truth what they are in doubt about. More- over, they never fear to use their own highest powers as the Divinely given instrument for reaching the truth. Character is the all-essential condition of discovery. To be square with the facts is a more serious thing than most of ws have yet realized. What a revolution it would work with the ills of life, should we undertake to each embody this simple secret of all true greatness! CHAPTER IX RESULTING CHANGE IN WORLD-OUT LOOK It is now time by brief survey to realize what and how great is this change from Middle Age to Modern outlook. Why is this age experiencing "The Greatest Transition in Human History”? The intense significance of our present life and our responsibility can only thus be brought home to us historically. A man does not include his clothes. No more can a re- ligion include all the dogmas that have accompanied it. Stripped to its actual spiritual essence or nature, Christianity includes very few of the hundred doctrines regarding the heavens, the earth, the Bible, man, God, the Devil, etc., which have been attached to it. It is merely and simply a doctrine of relations between man and man, and between man and God. It is “the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.” But of course this distinction has not been clearly seen by the majority of its adherents. This pure Christianity or Jesuanity has been accompanied by widely differing world-outlooks, i. e., astronomies, geogra- phies, etc. In the main, it brought down the centuries with its varying doctrines, the general view of the ancient minds regarding the world and the heavens above it. Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, so many discoveries have taken place, so many inventions have been made, that enlightened men no longer regard the universe as their forefathers did. Before the middle of the nine- teenth century men took their science, as unchanged as possible, from long ago ages. “Reverent ignorance of the past forbade their wisest minds to ask of Nature,” says Professor Henry Drummond. III II 2 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION THE MIDDLE AGE OUTLOOK CONDENSED The Heavens were to the men of Dante's time a firmament or sky of ten layers like concentric bowls inverted over a flat world. These different skies were peopled with great spirits of varying grades of intelligence and glory. In the zenith or Empyrean realms, above all, sat a manlike God upon a great white throne. (See Diagram). The Earth was to them a flat disk of which the firmament was the hemispherical, hollow cover. The world had a sea in the middle—Medi-terra-nean—was composed of some five elements: earth, water, air, fire, and sometimes light or something else. This Cosmos came about by God’s fiat, from four to seven thousand years B. C. Man was created instantly by God and in His image. He was originally as perfect as God (or as the gods). Men fell from God’s favor morally, and the tendency was inherited by all their progeny. Jehovah was an anthropomorphic king, a god who was good part of the time. Men pictured Him in the image of earthly kings. Imagination located him in the highest con- ceivable point of their primitive universe. Here He sat upon his great white throne surrounded by ministering angels, and dispensed his frowning providence to the little world of sinful men. The Devil was a second big king, a god with an ill-will all the time. He became the all-powerful ruler of another realm and contested against the King of Heaven for domin- ion upon the earth. This world-outlook of the former times will be found picturesquely and eloquently portrayed in those immortal literary works: Dante’s “Divine Comedy” and Milton's “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained”. Altogether, this world-scheme of the olden time was the science of that time, that is, it was the systematic statement of what they knew or thought they knew. EMPY B E A N casiº 5549s wis DRAwn F.Ron MIDD LE AGE T}ANTE'S DESCRIPTION WoRLD-OUTLOOK NOTE–See Dante's Convivio, II, 14-15. Dante stood at the climax of the Middle Age development and the beginning of the New Learning period. He died in 1321. 114 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION SOME OTHER TRANSITION CAUSES We have seen that four hundred years ago this outlook began to dissolve in men's minds. Like a kaleidoscope, it has transformed, and never will it appear again. The literary, political, educational, economical, and geographical causes have been mentioned in Chapters II to VI. Some of the material transformers should here be recalled. Of course, individuals were the cause of these Ca11S6S. Gunpowder. As a discovery this was a simple thing. But in its application it had the most far-reaching conse- quences. It broke down feudalism, changed the method of warfare, and made forever impossible the old sort of society. Soil serfdom was changed to wage relationship. Warfare changed its method. Conflict was no longer hand to hand. Brutality was greatly eliminated. Printing. By this invention ancient knowledge could no longer be hidden. Whatever men knew and recorded could no longer be the private property of the clerical class. Others could learn to read and their desire could find means of gratification. Literature gives to the ignorant the compan- ionship of the wise. Compass. This was the result of experiment and like other inventions grew out of necessity. By its application the unknown lands became known, and soon it produced a new theory of the earth. Led by the confidence which it inspired, men sailed the world around and proved the falsity of all old theories concerning it. Geography quadrupled and grew into scientific interest. Telescope. Experimenting to help the infirmity of weak eyes, men found an instrument which added a thousand fold to the penetration of strong eyes. They turned this instru- ment outward into space and beheld there—undreamed of glories. They discovered that our earth has sister worlds and that our Sun is but one of millions similar, each doubtless accompanied by terrestrial retinues. Astronomy RESULTING CHANGE IN WORLD OUTLOOK II 5 was revolutionized and added infinite grandeur to God and 1113.11. Microscope. From the infinite they turned to the infini- tesimal; from the macroscopic to the microscopic—by the refinement of an instrument based on similar principles, they were able to delve into the profound secrets of the material world. Chemistry and Biology were born and have not ceased to instruct and delight the knowledge-loving children of Nature. THE MODERN OUTLOOK CONDENSED By means of these and other inventions and experiments a new outlook has gradually come.* The Elements. Instead of five childish ancient notions of the fundamental or ultimate substances of earth, water, air, fire, and light, Science now knows some eighty or more elements: Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, iron, gold, uranium, radium, etc., and the modern mind has made still deeper analysis into molecules, atoms, electrons, ions, and etheric essence. The Eternal Energy exhibits itself in various types and aspects. It is behind all as the universal Spirit- power, self directing and teleological—“The Power, not Ourselves, that makes for righteousness,” the essence, the Substance, of which all else are but the manifestations. (Etheric Dynamics.) Creation. The man of today has learned that creation was not abrupt and sudden, but a gradual, evolving process. This applies to this world and to all worlds and to all things On all worlds. Creation is continuous. It is never finished. Evolution is the word now more rightly used. As Drum- mond says: “Evolution is simple history, a general name for the history of the steps by which the world has come to be What it is.” “Evolution has done for time what Astronomy has done for space.” * See Dr. Andrew D. White's work “The Warfare of Science” etc., two volumes—a monument of vast learning. II6 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION The Heavens. The new heavens have no measurable limit. The earth is not the center. Even the sun is not the center. Around it revolves its own little train of planets. But it is only one star in the galaxy. It is but a flitting point in the infinite abyss of Solar Systems. (Astronomy.) The Earth. The new earth is a sphere. The greater part of it was unknown to the ancients. Considered as a star, it is but a dusky dot in “yon myriad-worlded way.” Considered as a home for man it is unspeakably grand and is filled with amazing wonders. (Geology.) The Forces. It never occurred to the ancients to ask about gravitation, heat, steam, light, electricity, etc. In answer to our investigations, there has grown up a vast aggregation of facts about forces. These forces we utilize in a hundred aspects of daily life. (Physics and Chemistry.) Life. To the ancient mind life had small meaning. It was a mystery without a history. The biologist of today traces it through a thousand evolutions and amid its myriad laws. He knows the effect of environment, heredity, use and disuse, natural selection, sexual Selection, and purposive selection. He can modify it by the application of those laws. He can make it evolve or devolve at will. (Biology.) Man. The man who studies all this grandeur and vast- ness sees himself a natural part of the natural life of a natural globe. He is subject to the laws that govern other life. But he is less subject to the lower laws and more helped by the higher. By his reason he modifies environ- ment, heredity, and the future. He is helping his own destiny. He is taking part in creation. He is not the helpless worm his forefathers imagined themselves. He is getting close to the “Heart of Nature” and teaching his own heart to beat in unison. He is learning the law of tuning his life in harmony with the highest he can discover. He is changing the wilderness to a garden. He is overspanning continents and underspanning oceans. Nature mightily helps him in every realm. He rolls over land, sails over Sea, and Soars through the air at will, and does each better RESULTING CHANGE IN WORLD OUTLOOK II.7 than did his gods of yore. He communicates with his fellows instantly on any part of the globe. And he sees for his posterity a hundred fold greater life than the one which he now enjoys. He looks back over the past and sees his ancestry through thousands of centuries. Like the rest of life, his races have come up by gradual development. The distance lengthens until it reaches hundreds of thous- ands of years. Since the glacial epochs, between them and before, the archeologist sees traces of the handiwork of man among the works of Nature. (Anthropology.) Untellably much has the new view already enlarged the universe, the world, and human life. It is inspiring man to hopes and plans and schemes, impossible before. He dreams of Heaven here below. He plans for a social para- dise on earth. He sees his kinship through all races. His sympathy enlarges to include all life. He understands his fellows better. He is looking forward to a time of uni- versal, mutual, human helpfulness; and putting it all together, he has a far greater trust in the Eternal Might that makes for life expansion. PRECURSORS OF THE NEW OUTLOOK Geography. Columbus (1492), and those who followed him in the repeated succession of new discoveries, became the founders of a new Geography. The notion of the sur- face and form of the earth was by their works utterly changed. Astronomy. Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543 published the "nost revolutionizing of all books: “De Orbium Celestium Revolutionibus.” (Concerning the Revolution of the Heavenly Orbs.) He dethroned human conceit by making a heliocentric instead of geocentric world system. Such investigators as Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Young, the Her- schels, Lockyer, Huggins, LeVerrier, Adams, Proctor, and others have carried Astronomy and with it human thought, into realms before unthinkable. They have discovered a 118 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION previously unknown universe. They have described it. They have added worlds without end.* Geology. The first fact regarding the stratification of the earth's crust was stated by Arduino in 1756. This and other things aroused great speculation. Discovery was led by Hutton, Werner, Humboldt, and others. Discussion did not reach scientific form until Lyell in 1830 published his “Principles of Geology.” In this work he proclaimed the doctrine of Uniformitarianism, viz., that the forces now acting in the world have acted during infinite ages and have gradually produced the present condition. Anthropology. We will recall again that wonderful year I 543. Copernicus began the revolution of man's ideas of the heavens. There was also then published that other book destined to revolutionize man’s conception of himself. Andreas Vesalius put forth his “De Corporis Humani Fabrica.” (The Structure of the Human Body.) This was the beginning of Anatomy. It was the scientific and natural study of man. From it has grown a vast science, including all features and aspects of the human being. Two or three other dates are very significant as landmarks in the growth of the science of man. In 1735 Linnaeus (Carl von Linne) published his “System of Nature,” and it contained the first rational classification of plants and animals. In it he placed man at the head of the animal kingdom, a fact not in the least remarkable to us today, but of portentous significance then. In 1749 came Buffon's “Human Varieties.” Blumenbach graduated from the university of Gottingen in 1775. For his thesis, he pre- Sented a paper on the various races of man, their origin, characteristics, etc., since of world-wide celebrity. In 1846 Boucher de Perthes discovered numerous implements and other evidence of primitive men at very remote times along the valley of the river Somme in France. They were recognized as belonging to early Quaternary Strata, and attracted great curiosity and numerous investigations. * Further expansion of this will be found in Part Four. RESULTING CHANGE IN WORLD OUTLOOK I 19 Finally in 1863 Sir Charles Lyell published the work which completed the revolution, “The Antiquity of Man.” These most conspicuous labors have been supplemented by a host of others. I mention a few : Pritchard, Waita, Quatrefages, Broca, Joly, Darwin, Spencer, Tylor, Keith, Osborne, etc. They have developed a science of man by studying the natural history of man. THE GAIN OF IT ALL In changing from the old world-outlook, mankind has not lost, but has immeasurably gained. Instead of the little earth that surrounded the Mediterranean Sea, we have gained Asia, Africa, America, and Australia. Instead of the immovable disk on which the few men who started history lived, we have a sphere ten times as far around as their world was broad. Instead of standing in eternal still- ness, our world-star is whirling onward in space through starry realms at a speed inconceivable in their day. Instead of the fixed sky with ten layers shutting man in beyond possible knowledge of celestial mysteries, we behold an infinite realm, open and free, dotted with innumerable suns and worlds, spangled with unspeakable glories. Instead of a mankind which had irretrievably fallen under the disgrace and wrath of an arbitrary tyrant-God, we belong to a race which is rising during countless ages from lowest savagery and barbarism to unthinkable enlightened grandeur. And instead of a God too far removed from human access, a God dealing out his arbitrary commands with wrathful vengeance in primitive human fashion, we have an infinite, all pervading Spirit-God manifest in every atom and star, in lowest and highest life. - This is marvelous advance. We cannot be too thankful to the great and the good who have helped to make this change. It is the labor of ages. It came not at once nor by any one individual. It is the result of a tendency, an ideal, striven after by many for centuries. We speak of it as having been begun at the Reformation; as having been I2O A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION put into form by Bacon in his “Novum Organum.” Alto- gether, we sometimes call it the “Method of Modern Science.” No word nor words nor set of phrases can name it nor adequately describe it. It is a part of our great human heritage. It is a movement which the heritage has undergone in modern times. AN ADVAN CING OUTLOOK Modern knowledge never sits down. Science has no Ultima Thule. We must find the aim of life in living. The Cosmos and the Anthropo-cosmos are for us bottomless. Progress will never end. We must always say, “Ignoramus et ignorabimus.” We fill old hopes and new arise ! We are in the midst of an infinite progression. Science is always solving old ignorances, but it is always revealing new ones. There is now vastly more known than ever before, but there is also more known to be unknown. Nature ultimately answers every query, but in doing so, gives us a clue or a hint of a truth farther on and a life higher up. We follow the lead, and find we are made for upward living. And how untellably grand this is Could we reach a limit and know it, we would feel ourselves imprisoned. How much better the interminable vistas of the universe, with their partly understood yet always transcending nature and beauty, than a world of stale facts and laws in which the sole business of life was a routine of changeless sameness! What a meaningless, tiresome thing would a kaleidoscope be which turned ever the same forms to view Some have imagined it would be for the glory of God to turn our world into such a condition as this, to fix upon the men of all time the same views and forms of thought, of religion, of society, and so for ages they tried to check all spontaneity in them- selves and others. But the great life power that turns the Scenes brings on in time new elements, and ere we are aware of it, a new world appears. One of these millenial shakings the former thought-world is now undergoing. CHAPTER X THE OLD-TIME PREACHER 'MID THE NEW-TIME NEEDS Given the present world of facts and knowledge and social conditions, What ought the religious leader to be? We can answer this with a degree of intelligence only by inquiring what he is and was, and by seeing how the conditions have changed. That the coming preacher will be above reproach regard- ing all the vices of the ordinary forbidden list, I shall, of course, assume. He will be a man who knows and obeys moral laws as nearly as men can ; a man of clean life and habits. This is too evident to need discussion. The oughts to which I refer are inductions in an as yet little recognized field of ethics. They are mostly of an intellectual character and have grown out of greatly changed conditions. RELIGION IS WHATP My major premise will be the comparatively new defini- tion of religion. For if religion is the learning of Jewish literature and the conforming of life to its behests, then both Christian and Jewish religious leaders now are and have been for centuries, very nearly what they ought to be; but if religion is learning the world conception according to the known facts at a given time, and making this real in a high spiritual life, then is the preaching profession as a whole in greater need of reform than any other. I shall speak of religion as arising in some attitude of the human mind toward some phase of Nature. Complete religion is I2I I22 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION the whole soul going out to the universe, intellectually, morally, esthetically. Practical religion is the sense of duty in daily discovering and obeying the laws of man's being, of Nature's being, of man's relation to man, and of man's relation to Nature. The highest worship is habitual ad- miration and incessant consequent action in one or more directions. CHURCH A SOCIOLOGICAL PHENOMEN ON Since the beginning of man’s social differentiation the Church (or what is its equivalent) has been one of the two or three most important human interests. (I am, of course, thinking of it not as the definite Christian institution which had its origin something less than 1900 years ago, but as that far wider socialized function which has existed since man began to wonder and worship.) My message is to speak of the priesthood as a vast human institution, not in denomi- national relations. FAMILY, CLAN, TRIBE, AND CONSEQUENT CHIEFTAIN SHIP The earliest society was a clan of some sort. Of this the oldest or strongest father was head and leader in all affairs, after landed property became a custom. This natural headship was the result of male physical superiority, won while fighting for property through ages of conflict in combats with other males and with hostile Nature. When the primitive family increased to several sub-families, it became a clan. Of this clan, the strongest and shrewdest was naturally chief. When the chief grew old, he still held his headship by virtue of his supposed greater wisdom and experience. Finally the chief came to be called the patriarch or highest father. While the cluster was relatively small, the patriarch could be the domestic, political, and religious chief. When the clan grew large, it became a tribe. The duties of the chiefship gradually became more complex. The chief must delegate some of his offices. Before this occurred he had naturally given up many of the THE OLD-TIME PREACHER I23 functions of domestic headship. The father in each sub- family had become a family head. But tribal complexity was gradually forcing from the chief the delegation of other functions. First he sub-divides the departments of his rule and delegates many services but continues to maintain the chief place in the political and religious orders. This was the case of society in ancient Egypt, Assyria, Israel (David's time), Athens (under Archon kings), the Kingdom of Rome, the Empire of the Middle Ages (Charlemagne), the early Scandinavians, New Zealand, Madagascar, Sandwich Islands, and among Mexican Mayas, Peruvian Incas, the Siamese, Japanese, and Chinese. ORIGIN OF PRIESTS AND HIERAR CHY When the chief begins to appoint others to perform re- ligious functions, this makes the beginning of a priesthood. Parallel with this there goes on in the politico-social relation a differentiation into cabinet departments, and later into executive, judicial, and legislative machinery. But from the sociological standpoint all offices performed by others are proxy representations of the chief. In the religious order, complexity finally begot the position of chief-priest and then a complete hierarchy. Only in its most developed stages did the hierarchy ever attain to claims of superiority over the chief. In ancient Egypt and the modern Papacy, the head of the hierarchy rose to the assumption of “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Strabo relates that at one time the power of the Egyptian priests was so great that they occasionally ordered the king to kill himself, and that they were obeyed. Such, in brief, was the evolution of the priesthood. WHY ANY SUCH OFFICE 2 A few words now regarding the grounds, reasons, or causes for that evolution. Why any priestly function at all? And if any, why are they social? When the primitive men began to believe that those who died still lived as spirits, 124 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION they suspected their unseen influence. They believed these spirits were near and could exercise powers strong for good or evil. Hence there grew up the belief that they should receive attention and propitiation by offerings and prayers. This implied that they were to be treated with the greatest possible respect and dignity. According to the fitness of things, the chief only could properly mediate with them. Sons were inferior in rank, and women still more SO. Indeed, until within a century the position of woman has been so subordinate that officiation in any religious function was inconceivable; even now, it is rare. Where the old practice of family worship was kept up, women seldom took part. In course of time, ideas concerning the abode of the spirits became greatly modified. The good came to be supposed to dwell in realms of bliss above the sky and the bad in abodes of darkness and torture under the earth. Good and bad were of course defined as conformity or non-conformity to the political and religious commands. The spirits now being so far away and consequently not being supposed to meddle with human affairs, the efforts at propitiation that were formerly directed to them were then offered to the Great Spirit or spirits (the Deity or deities) who were supposed to rule over the spirit world (which men had created in the image of the sense world). One other ground for this development consists in the fact that all the way the priestly function has involved the work of explaining the moral side of human relations here, and the relations of the here to the hereafter. The reason for this was grounded in the deference paid to the deceased great. The highest moral duty with primitive minds always consists in obedience to the oldest commands. These com- mands lost nothing by the death of those who gave them. After the appointment and establishment of a priesthood, the commands of the most ancient and most revered fathers were learned only through the priests; hence when oblations and Sacrifices to spirits and finally to gods ceased, the moral duties of the priesthood yet remained. They were natural- THE OLD-TIME PREACHER I25 ists in the largest sense of the term. Indeed this was the real chief essence of their function from the earliest stage, but it was necessarily obscured by the supernatural elements. We are today able to trace it in all stages, either in actual history or by now existing communities. In the highest developed religious organizations, the preacher has come to be an expounder of the world-and-human-outlooks, of Cos- mology and Anthropology. There is left no fear, nor any idea of needed propitiation. The preacher endeavors to inspire the people to love and serve each other and to know and keep the laws of the Eternal. In the Catholic Church we can see the priestly development on a different plane. There he is still mediator. He preaches less. His most conspicuous service is to stand between the people and their avenging God and to perform the ceremonies supposed to appease his anger. In the various sects of Protestantism this evolution is seen in a hundred different stages. MAN IN DANGER FROM GOD The notion of an avenging God has probably been world- wide. It arose as a sort of reflected necessary support to the chief's authority in developing the social organism. It has had the most powerful influence. When the arm of the chief was not sufficient to restrain selfish passion, he threat- ened the vengeance of Divine assistance. He called attention to the power of God to kill by lightning or other- wise, or to scourge the tribe with famine, pestilence, or defeat in battle. , Men of the primitive type always need the bracing of physical threat to insure their social obedience. They have not enough intelligence on which to base the requisite goodness for any kind of social order. The selfish impulses are uppermost, and they suppose that some things are wrong only because they are forbidden. As with the Social commands, so with the Divine; the rightness and wrongness is not thought of as intrinsic. Indeed, the gods, as George Eliot has somewhere said, are but the reflections of human ideals cast in gigantic I26 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION shadows on the clouds of Heaven. Bad arbitrary people must have bad arbitrary gods. Robert Ingersoll has said, “An honest god is the noblest work of man.” This all means that as man develops, his knowledge and conceptions of God improve. In other words, improvement in character is the road to advancement in knowledge. FROM THEOCRACY TOWARD DEMOCRACY Very slowly, yet steadily, there has come about a separa- tion between religious and state duties. History seems to point forward to a time when this shall be complete. In the United States, among the survivals are the much laughed at annual thanksgiving and fast day proclamations issued by our presidents and governors. In monarchies, even in the most advanced type, there is still a considerable mixture of religious functions in civic affairs; but everywhere in civilization today in both political and religious development the tendency is toward democracy. In early times the priests were appointed by the chiefs, later by the chief- priests, then by popes or their proxies the bishops, still later by authoritative Synods, then by representative elective bodies. Finally the people choose their own priests and preachers independently either of state or hierarchical control. The limit of this separating evolution has not yet been reached, for there still exists between state and religious offices a sort of reciprocity of support. Many state officers are still consecrated by religious oaths and inauguration prayers at their installations. On the other hand, the clergy still perform the civil function of marriage and receive various political sanctions. PRIESTLY FUNCTION ALWAYS SAME ESSENCE Now if we look again at the primitive religious situation we see that the chief mediated, i. e., made the offerings and performed the ceremonies in behalf of all the family or tribe. So, too, in the later stages of development, even after the feature of offerings had dropped out, the priest mediated THE OLD-TIME PREACHER I27 for all. Finally, when it becomes manifest that the media- tion is assumed only during certain stages of ignorance, the priest still has for his function the inspiration of men to acts of obedience before the supposed commands of unseen powers. This was the real essence of the first offering ever made by the most primitive chief, and it is not different in kind with the latest, most up-to-date preaching. The preacher has for his function, the expounding of the best established laws of the great Eternal Energy, and the inspir- ing of men to make obedience to these the moral ideal of their lives. The first chief of the first-formed human tribe took the “facts” of his day and exhorted men to live up to the laws that were supposed to be revealed out of human experience. The last, most learned, most philosophical, most compre- hensive liberal religious exponent, after all these Christian and pre-Christian centuries, does the same thing out of that fountain of broader, verified human experience which we term “Science.” There is one striking difference. The early man based his appeal on threat and fear; the latest man bases his chiefly on human enthusiasm and hope.* For ages, the early attitude leaned on traditions and had authority for its Supposed truth; now the new attitude has the demonstrated truth for its authority. Once started, the former looked ever backward and got its inspiration from old traditions; the new-evolved attitude looks forward and gets its inspira- tion from hopeful inductions that become inspiring ideals. PRIESTHOOD ALWAYS DEVELOPED DOGMA AND FORMALITY From the first, the priesthood has dealt with life in a relatively large way. Many things within the scope of its attempted explanations were to the ordinary mind mys- terious. As an institution, the priesthood has from time immemorial taken advantage of this mysterious characteris- tic, and of the popular ignorance, for the purpose of * See chapter XXI. I28 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION deepening and intensifying its own authority. This has produced the most lamentable tendency to dogmas based solely on traditions, and to formality and hypocrisy. These dogmas have been propagated age after age in defiance of every new-discovered contradiction of them. So long as the priesthood was sufficiently powerful and in league with state authorities, it was able to silence objection and effec- tively prevent advances along the lines here previously termed the “human and world outlooks.” Because of this persistent adherence to outworn doctrine and to over-much ceremonialism, the priesthood has for at least 3000 years stood more or less discredited in the eyes of the Prophets. The word of the prophet has prevailed in the long run. Today the prophet is known by the name of “Scientist.” The prophets are always the real seekers and the first possessors of the truth. The priests in many historic in- stances have even discredited religion itself. HEN CE PROTEST-ANTISM AND MORE PROTEST In that period now known as the Renaissance, great con- fusion from many causes came into the religious thought of the Occident. Taking advantage of this confusion, one after another expressed and published religious dissent. That vast movement known as Protestantism arose. And now, at the end of four centuries, those so-called “unbe- lievers” number millions. A newer and more advanced Protestantism which we term “Modern Science” has during a century past chiefly undertaken to re-investigate the universe, including every human problem. The outcome of it all is either an absolute denial or a complete trans- formation of every traditional doctrine propagated by the established priesthood of former times. It is resulting in an entire reconstruction of human outlook. It has found another half to our world and discovered other worlds innumerable. It has revealed a universe never heard of before. It has shown this universe as a Unity of Material with a Unity of Law, held by a Unity of Power in a Unity THE OLD-TIME PREACHER I29 of Being. Throughout the blue concave it has revealed an Omnipresent, All-pervading, Eternally-Existent Spirit- Energy. Thus, for the first time in history, has religion been furnished with a Deity at once real and of illimitable dignity. In actual fact, religion now first begins to learn and worship the true God—the Etheric Basic Entity and Might of the Universe. THE VANISHING OF TRADITIONAL VIEWS As to the old doctrines, in the new light it is becoming clear that they are primitive theory. Only in the fancy of early man and in the prejudice of his too obedient children could they ever have been held. An enlightened man can have no discussion now as to the inspiration of the Bible in the old sense; and so with the question of Creation, the early perfection and Fall of the race, the Godhead of Jesus, human Salvation from an angry deity by blood sacrifice, or the early and barbaric Heavens and Hells. These are no- tions which held their place so long before the human mind Only by the backing of an authoritative, ignorant priesthood, and they have value now only as folk-lore and mythology are of assistance to history. Protestantism dropped a few of the greatest doctrinal errors and some of the primitive ceremonies. While accommodating itself somewhat more to the new spirit of the modern age, it still kept to the same world-outlook and to the same source of religion. It based all on authority, but referred the authority farther back. It made the study of the most ancient sacred authority (the Bible—if possible in the original tongue) and the ability to expound its doc- trines, the central requirements of the Protestant preacher. He must read these at every gathering of the people, he must teach them to the children, he must instil them in all possible ways, and he must explain away and stoutly deny all the difficulties. 130 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION PERSISTENCE OF ANTIQUATED FORMS Among forms retained, he must be installed into the mysterious office by an assumedly “holy ordination” done by “the true line” of apostles and the “laying on of their hands.” He must sermonize always from “sacred texts,” he must pronounce benedictions in “holy formulas,” he must make long prayers filled with petitions for everything im- perfect understanding might desire, and he must continue to officiate at various old-time ceremonies in the forms approved by his particular sect. Until very recently (and still in many places), he must condemn everything new, de- nounce every discovery of Science, piously (?) call every- body an “infidel” or an “atheist” who dares to take excep- tions to this old-time world-scheme, and tell them (as lov- ingly as he has the grace) that his angry god will send them everlastingly to the worst torture his profession has been able to invent. He was not to be a “man among men” but he was to be a pretended “unworldly saint.” Something like this has been the ideal preacher from Chrysostom, Augustine, Benedict, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Wesley, Edwards, down to Spurgeon, Talmage, Russell, and ten thousand other still existing survivals. TEIE FALLACY-OR WORSE Now the leader in religious forms is not and never was a “man of God” more than other men. But as a profession- alist he has assumed this and has so beaten it into the minds of the masses that millions would be mortally offended to have it assumed that their own labor is equally dignified and sacred The preacher as he ought to be will correct this superstition. He will not encourage it by singling him- self out as especially holy. He will be just a man—or a woman, and that will be enough. He will depend (as other people do) solely on the good qualities of the work he does for his respect and recognition. The days when military trappings and clerical vestments keep men in order will THE OLD-TIME PREACHER I31 have gone by. Words will then have no added weight because of the cut of the cloth which covers the anatomy from which they are uttered. The old-time minister is still being made, even in the midst of these new-time ways. He is educated apart from the world. He studies old-time thought. He talks about another world. He is so taught that he neglects present human problems. He denounces progress and terrorizes those who might otherwise yearn for it. Though the new-time thought is turning men around and facing them forward, the old-time preacher is still here threatening Divine retribution upon all who yield to the new and really human-divine impulse. CULTURED WORLD HAS LEFT HIM BEEIIIND Now it is the thesis of this volume that the thought- directing, thinking, investigating world is no longer believing the world outlook of this type of cult leader (though he is still in the organized majority). His strongholds are in the regions of least culture. A single example should suffice. The eight leading denominations (containing eighty-two per cent of the communicants) have forty-seven per cent of their strength among that one-third of our population called the Southern States, while this one-third of the people con- tains over two-thirds of the illiterancy. Among all this third of the population there are probably only three or four churches assuming the new-time thought and able to be also Self-sustaining ! Within ten miles of Beacon Hill, Boston, there have been sixty such for more than a generation YET HE GOES ON NOT KNOWING IT Yet the old-time, self-propagating priesthood, for the most part, is still installing men with holy ceremony to preach those antiquated notions ! The wrongness of this is not longer a matter of opinion. It is demonstrated that the world is round, that the world-system is heliocentric, not geocentric, that ºthere is no “heaven above” and “earth 132 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION below,” and so on for a hundred other facts and laws which form the very foundation of their religious statement. But old-time preachers still tell us of “up to Heaven” and “down to Hell,” of “God in Heaven,” of “man’s fall,” of “human depravity,” of “creation,” of the “four quarters of the world,” of the “four winds, of an “angry god,” of “blood reconciliation,” etc., etc. How unfathomable is the density, the ignorance, or something worse, that allows this sort of thing to continue ! PREACHING FOR THE NEW-TIME Does anyone in holy astonishment ask, “What should he preach then P” One need not be very inspired to reply, “Let him preach the truth as it is understood by the workers in Science.” This is what the waiting world is suffering for lack of. Let him learn enough of real history and of the various modern sciences to make their great facts and prin- ciples the basis and background of all he has to say. If a priest or preacher understood a little Astronomy he would not speak of “God in Heaven,” meaning by this some place away from the earth. And so on for countless other cases. Instead of so often citing David and Paul and Christian Fathers, let him cite men more recently inspired. We are all grateful beyond expression for the early—still more so for the later. Columbus, Magellan, Copernicus, and their followers have learned more about the world than did Moses, Joshua, Job, or Isaiah. And yet we have later and better exponents than even Columbus and Copernicus. They are already ancient and receive our gratitude as pioneers of new impulses in human progress, just as should the still more ancient men of Bible times. Galileo, Laplace, and scores of more modern star-students have telescopically examined the heavens of which St. John had but an unaided glimpse. “God” rehearsed the story of creation more fully to Darwin than to Moses. Humboldt and Lyell found a bottom for the “Bottomless Pit” and can tell us more about the “infernal regions” than David, Matthew, Paul, or even THE OLD-TIME PREACHER I33 Calvin, Edwards, or Talmage. A thousand archeologists today have learned more of “Eden” than was known to all Israel, Persia, and Assyria together. Spencer and Drum- mond (though not “preachers”) can tell us more about “God’s” real laws than all the priests and preachers who lived before 1860. Finally and above all, in Sociology should the old-time preachers exchange the old Leviticus for the new. As in Astronomy he cites Copernicus the dis- coverer of the solar system,-elaborated by Laplace, Her- schel, Proctor, Huggins, Ball, Lockyer, Newcomb, Lowell, See, Kelvin, and many more—so in moral, human, and spiritual knowledge should he cite Jesus the discoverer of Universal Altruism, elaborated and applied by his latest profound co-workers Spencer, George, Marx, Lester Ward, Ross, Bellamy, Flammarion, Howells, Wells, and an innum- erable list. Thus we could go over in detail each of the grand divisions of Science, the new human knowledge. These are the books of the new Bible. (See Chapters XVII, XVIII, XIX.) We answer the questions of what the preacher is for and what the preacher ought to be, by showing how the priest- hood came to be. The preacher has evolved to the function of striving to raise men to the highest outlooks in mind and character, to intellectual and moral heights. Just as in the most primitive times, so now he is to help them put together the supposedly now known facts of the universe into the most rational view of it. Having done that, he is to arouse their interests to the most active earnestness in high living. He ought to be the summariger of all that is true and good. He ought to be the bringer of “good news”—the ever newer, clearer, broader gospel,-as soon as it is known. He ought to be a popular science weekly, not in the sense of reporting every little detail of discovery, but in the larger, broader way of presenting and applying the great ground principles of man's latest, truest world conception. When the preacher is as he ought to be, he will be the greatest truth-lover in the world. Facts and demonstrated 134 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION laws will be to him the only “Sacred Word of God.” They will be his “Thus saith the Lord.” Books will be to him holy in proportion as they contain these. He will be an exponent and not an opponent of the movement known as Science. He will have the new brains of the new time, and his heart will beat up to his brain. CHAPTER XI THE NEW-TIME PREACHER WITH THE NEW- TIME FACTS In a curious little pamphlet called Ecclesiastes written about 130 B. C., the author puts his words as if coming from the traditionally wise Solomon and says: “Because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge.” It is a sort of heresy book. On the whole, the trend is pessimism. He does not talk much about God, and he re- gards money and power and wisdom as often failures in producing happiness. Man's notions are in general vanity. Without knowing exactly what it is for, he says: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” The best help toward this is the gathering of wisdom. We shall by this learn how to do nothing in excess, and shall worry not at all. I have cited these words with no intention of giving an explanation of them or of supporting what I have to say, but merely of showing that the liberal religious ancestry from very early times has made the preacher's or religious leader's work one of wisdom-seeking and teaching. ESSENTIALS ONCE As a general thing the Christian world has not been accustomed to think of ages as differing or of the preacher's mission as ever anything but the proclamation of “the Cross” with the doctrines that cling around it. Hence to them the essential religious truths were a definite fixed quantity. No additions were ever thought of, and transformations I35 136 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION were inconceivable. The whole body of doctrines and the institutions for their propagation were taken for granted as unique. If aught else put in an appearance, it was irrelevant. God had done all that was necessary in spreading before man his will and purpose. It was done once for all. Man's business was to study this and be saved MISTOOK THE CURTAIN-PICTURE FOR THE DRAMA This general attitude gradually gave to the religious mind a fixedness of type and character that is hard to realize. Perhaps a homely story may help to picture this unexpectant satisfied state. A lady residing in a wealthy quarter of a great city thought to give her country-bred servant-girl a gracious treat by sending her to the opera. The girl went, and got back before nine o'clock. “Why, Mary, what’s the matter? Didn't you like it?” asked the mistress. “Oh, ever so much It’s a fine painting,” replied the girl. “But why are you back so soon? Surely you didn’t see it at all.” “Oh yes, ma'am, I did. I went in and sat down, and looked at the beautiful large picture hanging up in front. People kept coming in and pretty soon there was a crowd, all looking at the picture. Then they took it away; and some men and women went to talking up there about something that didn't concern me, so I got up and came home.” Now, the simplicity of this poor girl is of the same kind as that which has for centuries characterized most of the religious world regarding religious truth. All they have seen is the picture on the curtain. Not the remotest concep- tion have they of the great drama as a whole. Some may have seen one act. It is hard for them to believe that there is more to see or know than they have known, hence they try to drive off the stage the players who come on for the next act. What they saw was all right, and they will not allow what may perhaps be a travesty or burlesque. They have somehow assumed that all the truths of religion were discovered in olden times, i. e., that the first act was all THE NEW-TIME PREACHER I37 there was to be. They found it very interesting. They continue to study and discuss it. They fondly believe and bravely insist that this is all, and when the stage manager sends on other characters, they send them off. Then they go on rehearsing, or rather, reading over the first act. It finally becomes ancient, but still they keep it up. Other players slip in and play parts here and there until it gets more or less modified in the course of centuries; and then we have what some one has characterized as “ancient and modern antiquity.” The admirers have not noticed the changes, and they honestly and zealously think that the parts they are reciting are substantially the same as the first actors played it, and that it should be just as effective.* On other things these people are endeavoring to let the actors carry forward the drama. (E. g., most of our col- leges try to be modern in the physical sciences and sometimes even in the mental. Not long ago a man, in bitter sarcasm, wrote me about taking a position in a state university, saying: “I fear it will be difficult for you to get it, for our Directors want a man modern in Psychology and mediaeval in Theology.”) OUR AGE YET VERY TRADITIONAL With some extensive exceptions, it is about as true as when in that famous Harvard Divinity School address of 1838 Emerson said: “Tradition characterizes the preaching of this country; it comes out of the memory and not out of the soul.” Again: “The stationariness of religion; the assumption that the age of inspiration is past, that the Bible is closed; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing him as a man, indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our Theology.” - * For examples, see the dates added at the top of pages in modern Bibles by authority of Archbishop Usher (1654-1656), the divisions in chapters and verses with headings by modern French printers (Stephanus) in the 17th century, the multitu- dinous references and senseless annotations filling modern handy editions. 138 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION I shall try to make clear the fact that it is this eternal effort to ape the past, instead of looking rationally upon it, which keeps the world in such poverty of faith. PREACHIERS STILL NEEDED There is a sense in which the preacher's mission has been and must always be the same, i. e., it has to do with human ideals. His business is to raise men to outlooks—outlooks of mind and character. There are men to fill other missions: scientists, investigators, explorers, to furnish the community with knowledge and facts in their detail; physi- cians, surgeons, physical culturists, to cure their bodies and correct their physical deformities; lawyers to draw their deeds, plead their causes, and write their wills; farmers to raise their food; tailors to make their clothes; carpenters and masons to build their houses and barns; engineers to run their railroads; and so through the division into more than 6,000 kinds of labor. With this division the wants of man have increased. Men single-handed cannot any more, as in primitive times, supply their many needs. Then these were few and simple. But supply has created demand, and demand now insists on the continual supply. Each trades- man's business is to seek out in his sphere the increasing and varying needs of men, and strive with all his powers to meet them. BUT SPECIAL ORDAININGS ARE PRETENSES But besides those which we commonly think of, men have other needs which demand other tradesmen. They have gradually set apart certain trades as not “trades,” and made of them something mysterious. I have wondered why they should single out the clergyman and install him in his labors with sacred rites and charges. Nor can I find any reason for such specific isolation. Would not such a sacred initiation be wholesome for other callings, if for this? The preacher is but a tradesman, He does a class of work for THE NEW-TIME PREACHER I39 which a special up-to-date training and special setting-apart of time and effort ought to be necessary. What more or what less do others do? Is his work holy? So is that of others. All work affects life, and that is what makes it holy—not the ordination. Such arbitrary divisions as certain professions have set up are farces. They are immoral. They imply license to slight other fields. Put- ting an overzeal on this hinders progress by the unwarranted assumption of some super-normal extra holiness. THE PREACHER's MISSION IN ANY AGE The preacher's mission then is, in general, to raise man- kind to the highest outlooks of mind and character, to intel- lectual and moral heights. In the former, he is to help them put together the facts and knowledge of their times into the most rational view of the universe; in the latter, he is to rouse their ambitions for the most active earnestness toward high living. These are the elements common to preaching in all ages. They are the differentiating characteristics of this labor. The substance or the content which shall fill this form or character is what differs from age to age. But in this feature, too, his work is not peculiar. Grinding is what the miller is ever doing, but he grinds neither the same things nor in the same way in B. C. I5OO and A. D. 1900. And so with every other trade. Times change, and what is standard in material or method cannot pass on with the centuries. We accept no ancient authority and follow no ancient custom to the letter—except mostly in the clergy- man's trade. AS AN INTELLECTUAL SUMMARIZER Everyone knows that for many centuries a certain very definite view of God and His creation, of the Bible and its authority, of man and his duty, of sin and its remedy, have governed the intellectual and moral conduct of the so-called civilized part of the world. They constitute the traditional 140 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Christian system. While they were universal, it was the preacher's business to comprehend them, to sum them up, to present them to his hearers, and to demand their uncondi- tional allegiance to them in the name of infallible and divinely revealed truth. The minister of the past spent much time in the study of his authority. He tried to make himself a master of it at first hand. He thought he was able to tell men its decision on all things, to explain its shades of meaning and its seeming discrepancies. He had a very definite task, and for the most part he knew it well and performed it, even though it did not further truth nor greatly impress the masses toward progress. THE NEW CONTENT FOR HIS SUMMARIES Today the condition of things is vastly changed. For some three hundred years other actors have been taking little parts in the play, and during a century or more their inter- ference has become so frequent that in our day a new act has actually begun. Most of those sects who have tried to keep the actors off have become less vigorous in their opposition. A few are yet vehement and look in holy dismay at the on-trooping groups and their to-them-profane antics. A new Geography was the first to innovate itself. The inquisitive Columbus disturbed all previous notions of the world by willfully taking a voyage which revealed a realm not included in Christian maps and schemes of creation and salvation. Then, Copernicus turned all notions of heaven Over by proving that we didn't know what the heavens were because we had never taken into account the fact that we Stand head down as much as feet down, or else that there is no up or down. Even if his discovery greatly enlarged the realm of creation and infinitely augmented the majesty of God, yet it was done at such a demonstration of the insignificance of our world and of the colossal egotism of man before, that it could hardly be gracefully accepted for a long, long time. THE NEW-TIME PREACHER I4I And then there came those who dug up the earth and went down into every pit and cave and climbed every moun- tain—men like Humboldt, who came back and told us that we were living on an old, old world,—so old that we have not yet gotten over the shock. And some, like Lyell, said that man too was old, and that the years of his life here could hardly be numbered. And others showed that his fore-fathers were not nearly the ideal parents of that poetical Eden, and that they had never fallen from perfec- tion but were so inconceivably animal-like that it had re- quired all these ages to bring man up to the level of our time. About the same time, Archaeological Searchers came back from Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Phoenicia, and elsewhere, loaded with stores of comparative history, comparative philology, and critical analyses of texts, all having a new conception regarding the origin, development, and conse- quently the authority of the Bible. Since these, have come other troops named Biologists and Psychologists and Sociologists, and they have told us a lot of things about life and protoplasm, cerebrations and reactions, environments and economic conditions; and they are still talking, and we can’t guess how much these are really going to tell us about ourselves. * * CONFUSION CONSEQUENT FROM SO MUCH NEW Altogether it has confused us a good deal. We are beginning to surmise that perhaps religion, too, is a good deal bigger and different thing than we have ever thought it. Before these innovators had so much to say, we supposed that all heaven and earth were very satisfactorily explained, and some, like the great Jonathan Edwards, could tell us what was “decent” for the different members of the Trinity to do. The change I am trying to depict was well illustrated in the life of the great American preacher, Henry Ward Beecher. When a boy, his father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, published some abstruse theological work. The child Henry, having heard of its profound learning and excellen- 142 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION cies, said to his older brother, “Only think! father's found out all about God.” This enthusiastic spirit grew apace with his age, and in his later years he found God and his world too vast for his superior eloquence. Yet his sermons on Evolution are a royal contribution to the cause of progress in treating religious themes. THE PREACHER’s ATTITUDE TO THE PAST Are we then to condemn the preaching of the past because it was based upon assumptions not fully true to us? By no means. The preaching of the past filled a need in the past, when working according to the facts and lights of its day. Exactly this is the work of preaching in the present. It will fill the supreme need of the present by exhibiting the light of the present. The pulpit it is which should hasten to gather up the already great complex of information bear- ing on a new and brighter human outlook. In one century, the nineteenth, the light which was shed on the nature and development of our world and that of the life upon it was greater than the combined products of all preceding ages. More than this, the practical means invented for spreading this knowledge are in like ratio ahead of all past facilities. Criticism, inquiry, investigation, experiment—in a word, Science—have ever been attempting to shed light and serve mankind, yet, till recently, by the mass of men these have been treated as sins. SCIENCE REPLACING TRADITION The change has come. Science has been so bountiful that the world is listening. To her belongs the future. I do not mean merely “physical science,” for this is not all Science. Science is not a thing or an ism. Science is only a method, an honest, systematic method of treating any line of facts. Religion, morals, mind are just as much its proper domain as are the laws of gravity or the experiments of the chemical laboratory. It has begun its work in every field, and one of these labors is, that a far greater transformation THE NEW-TIME PREACHER I43 and revolution in morals and religion is actually taking place before us and in us than that which occurred at the over- throw of the ancient religions by Christianity. By this is opened up an opportunity whereby the preaching profession may enter upon a new era of usefulness, if it seizes the opportunity before it is too late. Just so sure as effect follows cause, so certain is it (if moral decay does not set in too rapidly) that in a few years the common school, the secular and scientific newspaper, the reports of research, the additions of myriad inventions, and the needs and enterprises of our everyday business life will have instilled into the world the principles, explanations, and leading facts of what we collectively term “Science.” Altogether, it will mean— indeed, it has already begun to mean—a new content of mind and a new life for man. Will the preachers take some lead in this inevitable and glorious movement? Will they sum up for the people these results, and show their broader and deeper meaning, their profoundly religious bearings? Will they cultivate that true and deep morality in men which is the basis of all progress and continued national well-being? Their opportunity for this is unique. To them has been accorded a respect and a hearing which is not freely given to any other profession. For such a labor there should be a preparation of rare scope and a devotion of rarer quality. With this the office might remain what it has assumed of itself, viz., the first place in the world. But to do this, they will need a better prepara- tion. “Theological Schools” cannot furnish it. ABOVE ALL THE PREACHER SHOULD WARN AGAINST THE PAST The preacher, then, is to show the people why they should respect the past and how they are to get inspiration out of it. But he is to warn them not to follow it. The Eternal Might has better things in store for each succeeding age. We need have no fears that Evolution will stop. The old religious views did not make up the sum of religion any more than did the old nomadic tribal life under chieftans form the only mode of social organization and government. This struggle 144 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION f of fear, distrust, and opposition to the new is only a repeti- tion of the experiences of our forefathers. The reception of those very phases of our faith which we are now out- growing was at the start just as foolish and unholy to them as is the new faith to many of our time. But, it set aside the old of those days, as the new-coming views are setting aside the old of our days, and that too under vastly less favorable circumstances. CHRISTIANITY EXOTIC TO ARYANS We must remember that when the Christian religion began its conquering spread over Europe, it was an exotic, it came from another race. Scarcely a doctrine or a practice in it came from any source other than the Semites, a race very different in spirit and genius from the Aryans. The faith that is now spreading over Europe and the Aryan world, that is slowly and fundamentally modifying the system which conquered the Aryans of old, is itself a natural one. It is coming out of the heart of this race. It is based on the products of their own intellectual genius. For ages these western nations have had their own philosophy, their own science and literature to a great extent. But they borrowed their religion, because their old faiths were not ethical enough to meet the social new-coming conditions. That religion the Occident has been trying for 1500 years to assimilate. It has fully extracted the moral side, but the theological and ritualistic parts of the Asiatic-Semitic worship have never seemed quite natural. Although the whole Jewish literature was virtually adopted and consecrated, yet the Aryan thinkers have always been against it. Had it been done in a more rational way, it might have had greater influence. But the early Chris- tians, with the most curious blindness, made all parts of the Jewish writings equally sacred, whether it was supposed Mosaic commands to slay unmercifully men, women, and children in their Canaanitish invasion, or the Christlike ex- hortation to love one's enemies and pray for those who THE NEW-TIME PREACHER I45 despitefully use us; whether it was the villainous Deutero- nomic injunction to give carrion meat to the visiting stranger or sell it to the alien, or the lofty ethics of doing unto others as we would they should do unto us. (See Deut. XIV, 21.) ARYANS NOW DEVELOPING THEIR OWN FAITH But this uncritical and superstitious tendency is spent. The naturally powerful and investigative character of the European nature has begun to transform the whole body of its adopted faith. The new and resulting faith will be its own. It will be an organic product and not one mechani- cally spliced on. It will make liberal use of the faiths and facts of the past, but it will be even more vigorous in dis- covering and exhibiting the facts of the present. It will be taught by History, and will be more taught by Science. It will look to great and inspiring personages in the past for inspiration, and not less, even more, will it trust in the spon- taneity of the broadest and purest souls of its own day. THE PREACHER AS A MORAL STIMULATOR This leads naturally to my next point. The preacher is to stand for good and to exalt virtue. He is to insist on the potential good of the now. Neither in himself nor in others will he brook a servile goodness. He knows that real greatness does not come from following. He respects men and the books of men, but takes no orders from them. By their suggestions and doings he learns, but he wills to be himself. . A healthy virtue holds that it can and should be as much divine as was ever hero or demi-god. It insists on bringing the traditional ideals into the now. Was Jesus great? So can I be by truth. I am son of the same Divinity and will be just as “dearly beloved” when I live as true. His claims were high—none too high. Alas! men live so low that they thought this supernatural. In this sense will the preacher of insight hold up the character of Jesus, the “Divine man,” 146 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION not exactly as example but as inspiration, encouragement. And should he hold up others? Yes, others too, wherever he finds this embodiment. But in Jesus it was preeminent for the ancient world, since he probably placed a higher estimate on man than any other character in history before the nineteenth century—all in all considered. “I and the Father are one,” his followers put into his mouth. In our age this sounds strange; but it is the true Christianity and the true humanity to insist on the potential infinitude of IT1311. NO QUARTER TO EVIL In this and other ways will the preacher show the people that good deeds lift them at once, and that bad undermine. Goodness is the trend of life, and the man of goodness partakes of the divine majesty of Nature. But it must be real. Pretense will not bear the fruit of virtue. To those who have insight it is transparent; to others it is ineffective, for lack of soul. Like the artificial flower, it has no aroma, because it has no life. Virtue (insight) in its broadest sense is the only life of man. It is positive and healthful. All else has a vicious element—lacks vitality, is cold. But these are not real. They are only the vacant place where life—virtue—should be. All the great philosophers have seen evil to be only incompleted or yesterday's good. The assertion of the separate actuality of evil is the ultimate proposition of un- faith, the rankest atheism, the incurable blasphemy, the sheerest, profanest misconception of “God.” In Euripides we read— “Goodness and being in the Gods are one; He Who imputes ill to them, makes them none.” The very notion is contradictory; more so the thing. The Devil is an impossibility. The preacher must show this. Denying the Devil is the affirming of monistic entity, “God” is the power, the energy, the all-pervading potential THE NEW-TIME PREACHER I47 spirit of the universe. The universe cannot be deeply divided against itself. There is no place for the Devil, no place for a permanent bad. Bad, evil, are but imperfect conceptions. Under a broad view they melt like dreams on waking. The maintenance of the two is a confusion of ethics with ontogeny, of social relations with the basis of existence. The only bad is the surviving past interfering with the upward-moving present. As A PROPHET OF THE “LIVING GOD’’ I have insisted before that the preacher is to proclaim the present world-outlook. In this he is the philosopher of philosophers. He gets his truths from all ages and keeps up to date. He ought to see to it that religion is not de- graded by becoming stationary. He must learn and then proclaim an ever-present revelation,-his former “living God,” who is the knowledge and the truth in every advance. Human life, human progress, and our world are a Bible never closed. The “God power” is as well as was. Never has it spoken more than in the now, be that now any moment of eternity. Who has ears can hear the voice; who has eyes can see the hand. This is vital. Of it the people must ever be told, else they sink, as have the myriad races who have taken their knowledge second-hand and left no trace that they have lived. The Prophet is a mouthpiece of the ever-active “Holy Ghost.” When such, he is an influence immeasurable. When this is really true, men are inspired beyond applause. Why do they cheer the approaches to the good? Are goodness and truth so actually rare that it needs applauded bravery to draw them out? Is their “God” a minority that men should fear to mention his names and laws? Beware, when the best is so rare that its appearance has to be applauded. When this spirit of God, i. e., this highest human, is abroad, life is calm. Are the times loud? Then are the faults deep. Do men have to shout for hearings? Then 148 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION are the hearers depraved or primitive. Are men driven to acts of violence to get and keep life? It is growing law speaking against present conditions. Whether now heard or not, it will be obeyed. The “Providence” that moves the spheres (if such we call it) is the same Might that makes also for righteousness. If we are not with it, some of these days we shall die, and then will be removed our stupid, selfish hindrance. But still will go on the trend of Being: . . . “One law, one element, And one far off divine event, To which the Whole Creation moves.” That “Divine event” is for us, today, an enlightened, ennobled humanity. AS A VOICE FOR SIMPLICITY We make mystery where there is none. All truth is simple and easy to get at. We are our own obstacles by the shackles of formality and needless dogma with which we bind and blind ourselves. This is the superlative fault of ages and races. Books and rituals, persons and offerings, names and symbols, have been continually piled in the seeker's way. Over these none but the mighty can climb; or better, only the wise and strong can know and refuse them as useless. But those who do not understand do not know that it is understanding that is the way to grace. These must be helped to that understanding. This can the preach- er do, not by elaborate formalities but by going to the people with his high personal grasp and experience. Nor must they be allowed to follow or to be led. They must be taught to see and do by being inspired to try. Thus only can they learn what they term the “real God” and the “ever- present revelation.” - This is men's greatest need: to realize that their God did not write a letter to their forefathers ages ago and then go off and leave the world, but that the same Power is here, now, in their organisms—the law of things. So “infidel” THE NEW-TIME PREACHER I49 have so-called religious people become that it would cause them fright to realize suddenly that their “King of Heaven” is in their own household. Oh, the misconceptions! And who is to blame? Surely, more priest than people. Those “men of God” who are men of God, who have really seen and “communed with the Most High,” are full of longing that others might enjoy the “beatific vision.” They have a message. Seers only can say. This sounds mysterious, just because truth always Sounds mysterious to those who are not only ignorant of it, but worse, who are in ignorant moods about it. We find it difficult because the plain reality has been hedged round with doctrine and form and ancient interpretation. The preacher who conceives the “way to God” lies through these, has not been “called of God.” To quote the “Seer of Con- cord”: “The man who aims to speak as books enable, as synods use, as the fashion guides, as interest commands, babbles. Let him hush.” NEW GROUNDS FOR A BETTER FAITH Faith is never abundant. Man is always too ignorant and too hard pushed. Rite and outward form are every- where. A few know there is something higher and yearn for it. The mass are ever dissatisfied and know not why. And the preachers who should be their spiritual physicians are trying by the most ingenious doctrinal prescriptions to treat the moaning. One in a hundred sees that it is a famine, and a famine where good is immeasurably abundant. Scores are occupied with the unrealities of the past; scores more are preaching about the God that was; other scores are calling on God to come down from Heaven and do this or that; and some are scolding the people for omitting one observance and the other. Almost everywhere there is a sort of shamefacedness over this situation. Why are so many churches apologizing? Do truth and virtue need to * Cf. Emerson's Divinity School Address, 150 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION be afraid and to ask to be excused for daring to live? Nay, apology is undertaken only when there is feeling of wrong having been done. In New York only six per cent of the people are com- municants. And what does this mean? Some one who loved the right said: “On Sundays, it seems wicked to go to church.” To this the churchman should exclaim: “High Heaven l has it come to this? Have we lost our piety?” In truth, faith seems nearly defunct. Worship has nearly ceased—if we count heads. We have no new reverence yet to take the old’s place. With no trust in God, we make gods of ourselves. As Emerson says, Talent goes into politics and commerce. Even in science and literature, the talented investigate and write to order for pay. The ancient condition is repeated: “My people knoweth not God.” These things are truer today than when Emerson wrote in similar strain. THE NEW-TIME PREACHER's TASK Thus to know and see these things, and to portray them to the people are the chief business of the preacher today. If he do this he will be a busy man—too busy to deal in negations, too busy to say much against the old. Indeed, if the people have the “old views,” they will cling to them till they get something else. Only positive work will change these. If they have gotten beyond these, then surely they do not need to hear them preached against. Let the preacher talk constructively. Let him ignore the old intellectual errors, and in the flood of facts which he pours forth they will be washed away. Polemic never convinces. It only begets its kind. Let the preacher now take his people to explore the other faiths of the world. By this intellectual travel they will be enlarged. Such expeditions of investigation will open up to them the tremendous scope and depth of man's religious sense. There is much that he can take them to see in their own religious realm, the history of their Bible, the Jewish THE NEW-TIME PREACHER I5I people, the influence which Judaism received from Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, etc., and the elements which worked to found Christianity and make it what it has been historically. By telling them what the Bible is, he might be saved from the thankless task of telling them what is is not. - Even more important is his work in showing them through Popular Science the inestimable value of the study of Nature. It is life now that they must live, and to live it they must know the Eternal Power and the laws of the Infinite Realms. The preacher's work will be of incalcul- able benefit if he foster a love for the various fields of Science, which is “the book of the law” today. HIS RELATIVE POSITION As a method of reaching the popular heart with facts for intellectual conviction, with inspiration for moral action, with reverence for natural and eternal law, the weekly Sunday pulpit has had no equal, and no rival before the days of the cheap periodical and the moving picture. The school has long since taken the primary details of this work to itself. But this has raised the possible work of the pulpit to a higher place. There is even greater need than ever of the most earnest, honest, and highly cultured sum- maries of scientific knowledge on the great phases of human life. Again, the force of social organization as represented in the pulpit as a center, has no substitute as a humanizing power. Our political democracy is to some extent a help toward this, yet the transient character of the meetings and to a great extent of the subjects, but ill adapts this to meet the deepest needs. Only around the broader, deeper understanding of man's eternal relations to Nature and to his kind, do the feelings of reverence and sympathy thrive best. This finds one of its best agencies in the pulpit, if the pulpit possesses the virtue of simplicity. It belongs to the ideal types of char- 152 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION acter in different ages to furnish the substance-matter for the creeds or beliefs of those ages. In the ancient world it was the Prophet; in the early Christian and Middle Age times, the Saint; in our day, the Scientist, who furnishes the articles for the creeds,-while the Pulpit in each age through priest, preacher, lecturer, disseminates the doctrines and exhorts to their consequent duties. By departing from this, the Church and Clergy have ruined their reputation as advocates of truth. Among serious men of unbiased Science there prevails a suspicion of “clerical science.” They have also together discredited religion, so that the honest world has its doubts about it. People do not know that religion can be re-defined, and hence millions are “done with it.” It is evident that such a mission as here described can be carried out only by pulpits freed from dogmatic trammels. It requires but the same simple use of power in the workers of today which made the now old gospel when new take hold upon men. It is this essence at which an occasional preach- er is now aiming. It is that simplicity which is at the same time insight, breadth, and fearless earnestness. It has characterized the work of all imperial religious workers. PART THREE THE AUTHORITY OF FORMER TIMES CHAPTER XII BEAUTIES OF THE OLD BIBLE “It is not easy to define the popular theory of the Bible. Like its kindred theory of Papal infallibility, it is a true chameleon, changing constantly in different minds, always denying the ab- surdity of which it is made the Synonym, ever qualifying itself safely yet never ceasing to take On a vaguely miraculous char- acter. Various theories are given in the books in which theo- logical students are mis-educated, all of which unite in claiming that which they cannot agree in defending.” REV. R. HEBER NEWTON, D. D. The Bible as a whole is ancient literature, and the world must sooner or later learn to treat it as such. It is not a book, but a library bound together. In every library are some good books, and some trash. In every good book are some true and beautiful things, and some things neither true nor beautiful. In this manner, then, let us look through the ancient Jewish-Christian library—looking in this chapter only for the best features. We shall need to bear in mind the fact that modern hands have wrought a part of the final effort, that it comes to us not as an ancient book entirely. I53 154 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION RECENTLY ADDED BEAUTIES I. The first beauty which attracts us is the elegant exterior of embossed calf and gilt edges. But this is recent art and a modern veneer, and is only an evidence of present appreciation, something which may arise out of intelligent understanding, out of ignorant traditionalism, or out of pure bibliomaniac sentimentalism. Hence this is not the beauty we seek. 2. We open the lids and we are struck with the exquisite print, and as lovers of artistic work, we are pleased. But this is wholly a modern invention and the outcome of modern scientific study and appliances. . We turn a few leaves and (if it is a large Bible) we meet with bold fine engravings from works of Doré and others. These works of art charm us, and we exclaim, “How beautiful!” But here again we are dealing with Something utterly misleading, something which has nothing to do with the biblical narratives but only with the artists’ imaginations, which were fired by their dogmatic religious zeal. As pictures, apart from the text, they may be beau- tiful, but they do not come down from the olden time, and are no part of the book itself. 4. Over the pages, at the heads of chapters, at the end of the volume, and elsewhere, we find elaborate explanations of subjects and dates; concordances and dictionaries re- ferring and defining; maps, charts, and tablets; histories and biographies in profusion; and we exclaim, “How fine !” But here, again, we must bethink ourselves. These, too, are no part of the ancient literature. They are the outcome of modern devotion, and would only be helpful toward the understanding of the ancient thought, if they were true. Alas, like the art, before mentioned they are largely the outcome of enthusiasm working under prejudice. Not the half of them are more than ingenious insinuations of a certain scheme of interpretation. 5. We turn to Some book which we would read and we observe, “Why, it is all divided off into little paragraphs BEAUTIES OF THE OLD BIBLE I55 (verses) and chapters, and they are all numbered. How queer It must be awfully handy ſ” But this, too, is modern (1551). Is it handy? Perhaps so, to get “proof texts” for authoritative quoting. We begin to read. We find it checks the thought. The natural flow which we are accustomed to in other books is gone. The “verse-making machine” has chopped it up into short artificial sentences, which are not the natural pauses. The sense is made harder to obtain. We turn over to another place, and we find the poetry has been printed as prose. Its rhythm is spoiled and its nature concealed. In another part, we find the dramatic character has been blotted out by this childish, arbitrary verse-making process. Hence this feature too is a false and unreal beauty. 6. The language next attracts our notice. It is Old English. There is in it an agreeable quaintness. Much of it we enjoy. In places it is powerful, smooth, melodious. And we go on with much enjoyment, until the thought comes over us that we are perhaps not getting the full meaning of the originals through this less ancient medium. We wonder if the King James Translators understood it. We think of the vast researches of modern historical criticism, and we become convinced that they did not. Moreover, we also become convinced that we do not fully understand the Old English. And altogether the beauty of diction turns out to be a beauty in which we cannot trust. It is more or less an unreal beauty, and as such we do not enjoy it unalloyed. But there are other translations. We take up the “Revised Version,” and again turn over the pages. REAL AND DEEPER BEAUTIES Overlooking all these veneers (meant for beauty and of modern origin), we begin to read. I. Perhaps the first thing that we next observe is the eatreme earnestness everywhere met. A rare zeal is found on many pages. The writers speak with a profound convic- tion of the truth of what they say and of the moral import- 156 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION ance of it. The themes are mostly moral and religious; or, at least, everything is for religious ends. The spirit of devotion to an all-devouring cause possesses them all. The more we read, the more we are captivated with this. It is an infrequent sort of life. We can only match this charac- teristic by few instances in the history of any literature. Most writers are cold in comparison. Here is a feeling of the warmest service to God in the most unquestioned confi- dence of its necessity for human life. We admire it, and we do so without qualification, even when we most funda- mentally dissent from the positions taken by the authors. In them we find the purest patriotism and the keenest religious feeling. It is a beauty that atones for many errors of judgment. It grows in later times to a greater breadth. In the spirit of Jesus it broadens into an anxiety and interest for all humanity. Indeed, it is this very essence that has given it its influence in the world. It was this beautiful zeal for good that took the ancient Judaism out of its ex- clusiveness into the inclusiveness of Jesuism. In this the Jewish thought reaches its climax. 2. Next, in natural order, we observe the worshipful feature that is predominant in many portions. It is more formal in the histories and books of the law, more spiritful in the Psalms, Prophets, and New Testament. It is wholly absent in a few—Esther, Ecclesiastes, and so forth. In the better Psalms it reaches a degree of exaltation and purity which has served as a model for pious souls during 2000 years. It is of many grades, from the calm trust of the twenty-third Psalm to the tumultuous rapture of Isaiah forty-ninth. The first—the comfort of the centuries for resigned and obedient spirits: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my Soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. BEAUTIES OF THE OLD BIBLE I57 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” And the exultant confidence of Isaiah (ch. 49 verse 13): “Sing, O Heavens; and be joyful, O Earth; And break forth into singing, O Mountains. For the Lord hath comforted his people; And will have mercy upon his afflicted.” Or again, hear the confident exhortation of the sixty-sixth Psalm: “Make a joyful noise unto God, All ye lands: Sing forth the honor of his name: Make his praise glorious.” In the Psalms the worshipful is, of course, the burden of thought. But they are very unequal in value. The great majority breathe a lofty and pure spirit. All of them are earnest, while a few of them are examples of the narrowest and most vindictive temper. The Psalter is the poetical religious flowering of several centuries of writers, and has served as a liturgy during the twenty less original ones. succeeding them. 3. Perhaps the next feature which attracts us is that of the numerous and sagacious practical sayings. There is a considerable amount of sound human experience stored up in its collections of proverbial wisdom. These are often terse and beautiful. The book of Proverbs consists of little else. While Job, Ecclesiastes, and many of the sayings ascribed to Jesus furnish numerous examples. (Still others equally good are found in the Apocryphal books of Ecclesi- asticus and Wisdom of Solomon.) 158 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION “Iron Sharpeneth iron; SO a man Sharpeneth the countenance Of his friend.” “A fool uttereth all his mind; but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.” “Go to the ant thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” “Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.” “A Soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.” “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled Ox and hatred therewith.” “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty Spirit before a fall.” “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.” “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” “Let another man praise thee, and not thine Own mouth; a Stranger and not thine Own lips.” “The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion.” These nuts of wisdom might be multiplied by hundreds. Surely we are grateful to the old scribes who collected them and passed them on to the later centuries. We can only regret that stupid imitators should have palmed them off on a yet stupider world as the assumed wisdom of an almost unknown man, Solomon, and one who so far as known bore no likeness to the wise and righteous character shining from these composite sayings, gradually originating during many ages preceding their collection. We can but admire the Decalogue of “nots” found in Exodus (XX) and dating from the early social beginnings of Israelitish People. But the beauty of these is insignifi- cant when compared with that of the teachings in the positive Beatitudes of Jesus (Matt. V). Instead of the string of prohibitives found in most of the early Jewish morals, we find here the positive life held up to view. It is not any longer what a man does not do that makes him righteous, but virtue has grown to consist in the actual doing of the positively good. He who is engaged in good-doing BEAUTIES OF THE OLD BIBLE I59 needs not be told what he shall do. Good-doing precludes bad-doing. The bad has no longer any chance where the good fills the moral horizon. In these Beatitudes are roots of a higher life of humanity. Probably the idea of a life positive in goodness was proposed and illustrated with some- thing of fullness for the first time in Jewish history by Jesus. Hence we find here a moral beauty that has no complete parallel in olden times. Though it was scarcely ever well understood, it has given an ethical impetus to civilization that has been growing in force as the centuries have rolled away, and has now an embodiment in hundreds of heroic workers. 5. One of the beauties in this Literature-Book—and one which for some time yet will be but little appreciated—is its wealth of inspiring legend and story. So long as these are ignorantly regared as history, they will not fulfill their mission of folk-lore and illustration. Scores of the Old Tes- tament narratives are but myth, legend, and folk-tales handed down for generations. When so regarded, they offer food for thought and instruction. When taken literally, they are absurd and impossible narratives serving only as bones of contention among ignorant and dogmatic people. So, many of the illustrative stories (Jonah, Song of Songs, and so forth) and parables (especially in the Gospels) are ideals of absurdity when assumed as history; but become strong, use- ful, moral and religious lessons or problems, if taken as Oriental figures. (E. g., Dives and Lazarus, Prodigal Son, Talents, Ten Virgins, Good Samaritan, and so forth). Even then we need not—and do not—always agree with them in order to find them beautiful. 6. Lastly, I must point out one more moral beauty, viz., that many writers of the Bible (though not all of them) array themselves on the side of the poor and oppressed. In Leviticus (XXV) is a beautiful scheme for their ultimate relief. It is the Jubilee-Year solution of the “land prob- lem,” and is to be greatly commended for its attempt and its practical character in its own times. Then in many of the Psalms, in Proverbs, in some of the Prophets, and in the I6O A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION biographies of Jesus, the spirit of sympathy predominates. In other parts of the Pentateuch, in the older historic books, and in the writings of Paul, the past barbarities of slavery and the present inhuman wage slavery find a traditional support and sanction. In these, sin is less the condition of the heart and more an absence of ceremonialism or of belief in dogma. Thus they authoritatively make continuance in wrong-doing possible, and assume to justify life by other means than righteousness. * Thus, if we give the Biblical literature its due, it has beauties many. Make it an authority, assume in it a false unity, and we damn it to worse than uselessness. It posi- tively becomes a means of arresting development. Not till we take the books alone or bound in natural groups, shall we do them justice and benefit the world with them. As it stands, the “Authorized Version” is the worst hindrance now menacing civilization. Taken intelligently, human progress can find in the past no ally so helpful as the Jewish moral and religious idealists. The Bible is a most unequal literature. Unbind the books; unbind reason; use the latter upon the former; and then we shall be able to know good from evil. There is no substitute for reason. Truth, like precious metals, is seldom found native. With reason we must Smelt the ores of tradition and dogma before we Separate the moral and religious beauties from the dross of ignorance and superstition. CHAPTER XIII WHY PREACH ABOUT THE BIBLEP I. Because most preachers do not. They generally preach from it, not about it. Hence, people as a rule do not know its nature, origin, history, changes, truths, errors, values, and so forth. . Preachers assume it divine, infallible. This has been practiced for many centuries. The consequence is that in- vestigation has been forestalled and the errors have become as sacredly preserved as the truths. Preaching from it is called “textual literalism”; preaching about it, “higher criticism”. 2. Because hundreds and thousands of new facts have been discovered about the Bible and about the things it treats, which the people have a right to know and which the people ought to know ; e. g., that the books usually ascribed to Moses are the work of several authors long after his time, and that these were edited and fused into the form of a single history about the middle of the fifth century B. C.—IOOO years after the date the Church has mistakenly assigned for Moses’ death ! I451 B. C. For example, the book named “Isaiah” is from two principal and several minor sources. The “Psalms of David” are hymns composed during several centuries, very few, if any, having been sung by David. The same is true of the “Proverbs of Solomon.” The book of “Daniel” was written 165 B.C., 400 years after Daniel's time! Not one of the “Gospels” was written by the disciples and apostles whose names are now attached to them, but they are in their present forms the products of the second century A. D., from 70 to 150 I61 I62 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION years after the death of Jesus! Several of the Epistles (Eph., Titus, I & II Tim., I, II, III John, II Pet.) are forgeries of the 2nd century ascribed to Paul, John, and Peter in order to give them greater authority. The unity of Biblical theory is an assumed and not a real one, and there are numerous errors and contradictions in historical and doctrinal statements. 3. Because the real value and the proper use of the Bible is obscured or totally lost by these gross misconceptions of its origin, nature and character. It is probably the most interesting collection of ancient religious records that could be made. But the most interesting and valuable features are not apparent while it is so wholly misunderstood. Its nature as a record of developing monotheism and ancient higher ethical feeling is lost to those who learn it by rote and hold it as an authority to be consulted. 4. Because much of its teaching is superseded, and people generally do not see why. They do not realize that in taking the Bible statements about God, creation, man, sin, right, duty, reconciliation, punishment, future, and so forth they are accepting theories from 1700 to 3000 years old, and that this ignores the experience and investigations of all the later, and of this most enlightened of the ages. On all these topics the Bible views are nearly always relatively primitive. They were the thoughts of minds, for the most part, very poorly informed or utterly uninformed as to the things they wrote about. About God, it is doubtful whether half a dozen Bible passages can be cited which would bear the light of modern facts in a comparison. Some New Testament statements approach the higher conception of today, but as a whole the Biblical ideas of God are anthropomorphic. They neither describe the nature or character of the Infinite and Eternal Spirit-Energy known to us through the discoveries of that Science which the Church still steadily opposes. About Creation, the Bible statements are puerile, and the Bible assumptions are (with very few exceptions) false. There was no “beginning” and God never “created” any- WHY PREACH ABOUT THE BIBLEP I63 thing. God evolves. All things and all worlds are the manifestations of His infinite active nature. And Man is no exception. He, too, is a product of the world growth. He never experienced a Fall. His progress, like the rest of nature, is steadily on. Sin was not a lapse. It is and always has been merely a failure to go forward voluntarily to make progress, to work for the higher ideal. The Bible teaching about it is utterly inadequate. God does not rule man by the “moral government” theory. Reconciliation to God is not accomplished by “believing on his Son Jesus Christ.” Belief does not elevate life. This is done by understanding, and by living up to the laws of life. There is no reconciliation with law once violated. And for this the “punishment” or rather the consequence is not put off to some “future state.” It begins at once, and from it there is no escape. The real “God” is not appeased by blood— even though it be that of the so-called “only begotten Son of God.” The “Final Judgment” is pronounced in the violation of every law. It is going on all the time. Hence, the common assumptions based on the Bible doc- trines are unjustified. Many of these assumptions are ab- Solutely at variance with demonstrated truths of Science, and others must be qualified by a better understanding. 5. Because the attitude of deferring to Bible authority kept the western world in barbarism for over rooo years (approximately from 400 to I500 A. D.). And it emerges therefrom only so fast as it throws off this authority. The age of really great progress from 1450 till today is limited to the period of the criticism of that very authority which before kept men bowing superstitiously to the dictates of a so-called “Word of God.” In proportion to the thorough- ness of the opposition to it there has been genuine human progress. The Renaissance was a revolt. All modern physical science has been a progressive fundamental denial of the Biblical and Ecclesiastic views. In the middle of the eighteenth century the scientific spirit entered the field of Biblical history, and since the work done by Astruc (1753) the world has been very largely set free, so far as it knew 164 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION it, from the spell of unquestioning credulity. A long line of noble workers in the field of “Higher Criticism” has enriched the world with a vast amount of most valuable knowledge. 6. Because by this Bible authority and assumptions of divine and completed truth, the Church has set itself in opposition to every discovery regarding Nature. It denied the possibility of another half to the world and scoffed at the undertaking of Columbus. It paid no attention at first (for nearly a hundred years) to Copernicus's great discovery of the solar system and the earth's true place, and after- wards condemned his book and kept it on the “Index.” It denied the results of Galileo’s work with the telescope in finding moons for Jupiter, phases for Venus, mountains on our moon, and other worlds than ours; as well as his discoveries regarding the natural laws of falling bodies and of pendulums. It refused to accept Newton's discoveries regarding the great law of gravitation and the consequences or corrollaries of causality resulting from it. It denied Arduino’s discovery and Buffon's and Humboldt’s explana- tion of the stratified condition of the earth’s crust; and to this day, it remains ignorant of and does not accept the now secure science of Geology. It has ridiculed and perse- cuted every biologist from Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck down to Charles Darwin, Huxley and Spencer, and though they have triumphantly established the sufficiency of natural forces in accounting for all the varieties of life, yet it wilfully preaches to the ignorant people that they were “created in the image of God.” It will not see that the infinite pervasive Spirit cannot have an “image” and conse- quently never “makes” or “creates.” Again, it persistently denies, on Bible authority, the incontrovertible evidence from Geology and Archaeology of the vast age of man on the globe; while it anathematizes as “infidels” and “atheists” Such truthseekers of the world’s first rank as Lyell, Boucher de Perthes, Keith, and Osborne. It has scarcely yet yielded its age-long doctrine that lightning and thunder are the vengeful instruments of a man-like sky-God, or of the why PREACH ABOUT THE BIBLE: 165 y “Prince of the power of the air:” while for many decades after Franklin's discovery of this natural and now indis- pensible force, it refused to “fly in the face of Providence” by putting lightning-rods on its churches' At the same time, inside of those churches, with ignorant zeal it referred to this splendid human benefactor, Franklin, as an “arch- infidel.” + But the instances are too numerous to cite. From every field of Science there is found a like record. I know of no great discovery, no new-found truth of far-reaching conse- quence that has not been despised and resisted by the Church that rests on Bible authority. For centuries it was an abso- lutely irresistible barrier to progress in the discovery of truth. Even now, though it has received the blow which may prove fatal, yet it possesses a proclivity for reversion which stamps it as the most deep-seated evil of the western or Aryan World. - 7. Because very few people believe it as they think they do. They read it (so far as they do so at all) as an au- thority. They assume its absolute reliability and expect its commands to be binding. This utterly destroys all their powers of discrimination as they read. Although they are personally far better than much of what they read, their moral sense is not affronted because they at start have shut out their reason. Let any one of common school education honestly read, and think as he reads, the stories of Noah and the Flood, of Abraham, Jacob, Lot, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, etc., or let him look up these references: Deut. XIV, 21, XXI, 10-14; Judg. III, 14-30; Ps. XXXV, LVIII, LXIX, CIX; Ezek. XIV, 9; Rom, XIII, I ; I Cor. XI, 14-15, XIV, 35 ; Gal. I, 9; II Thes. II, II; I Tim. II, I2; and I Pet. III, I. Then let him continue to be honest while he asks himself, whether these things, instead of being the “Word of God,” do not deserve his heartiest moral twentieth century contempt? If he already has that moral contempt for these particular things but still holds to some sort of wholesale allegiance to the volume, then has he been contaminated. He is holding I66 A. RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION in confused hypocrisy to an authority which he does not respect. He is trying from Some policy purpose to belong to an age which he has consciously outgrown. He will experience atrophy of character and manhood till he again becomes true to his moral reason. These and a score of other reasons explain why the Church should preach about the Bible. Is it not possible for even people of limited time to take toward it a rational attitude? Is it always necessary to be more credulous and stupid about religious things than others? If it is only possible for us to study the thoughts of one period (though I doubt it), then a thousand times better were it to learn the elements of modern knowledge—of the stars (Astronomy), of the earth (Geology), of life (Biology), of man in general (Anthropology), of society, (Sociology and Ethics), and of mind (Psychology). From these we have a religion which will keep us in a hundredfold more sacred nearness to God. These are the laws of God. These are Revelation at its latest—not its primitive stage. Know all times, as far as we can. But whatever else we do, know and live the proven truths of today. CHAPTER XIV “HIGHER CRITICISM’’ “There is no history but critical history.”—VON RANKE. History, till recently, was usually written to embellish. Someone, who was strongly partisan toward a movement, a cause, a people, or an individual, wrote about it, narrated its career purposely to extend its fame or influence. Naturally, the writer omitted or polished out whatever was derogatory. Hence, historians have mostly been hero- worshippers or ardent advocates. With the oncoming of the spirit of Modern Science and the consequent growth of a greater love for the truth, History is more and more becoming a record of facts un- glossed by interest and prejudice. Realizing this and that earlier historians have impressed their views of the olden times until they have become dogma to the masses, it is small wonder that the newer writers are regarded as “audacious infidels.” But it will be interesting to know these critical historians and what they did. It was surely daring to re-examine books pronounced “sacred, holy, and infallible” by bishops So long ago as the fourth Christian century. Let us inquire. - This “ruthless profane” work seems to have begun in the middle of the twelfth century. Aben Egra (died 1167) doubted that Moses wrote the account of his own death and burial (See Deut. XXXIV). But Aben said, “let him who understands hold his tongue.” This is even yet con- sidered very “safe doctrine.” During the next 400 years all writers seem to have held their tongues, whether they understood or not. - 167 I68 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Just before the Protestant Reformation, Nicholas Cusa (died 1464) undertook to write more critically, but only aroused opposition. After the Protestant rebellion, Carl- stadt said that the authorship of the Pentateuch was un- known. But he was soon suppressed by his co-Protestant workers, the whole essence of whose movement was an appeal to the Bible as the absolute authority. Next, a Catholic, Andreas Maes, made the astonishing claim that Ezra the Scribe had edited the Pentateuch and given it to us in its present form as late as about 450 B. C. The old Church promptly put his work on the “Index.” Valla, Erasmus, and the Scaligers, in the sixteenth century made many examinations, but accomplished no great results, save the development of a scholarly tendency. In the seventeenth century, Hobbes, the English moral philosopher, openly denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch in his great work “Leviathan” (1651). For this he lost his high political standing. Then La Peyrere, a Frenchman, wrote a book on “Pre-Adamites.” For this he was thrown into prison. The work was “refuted” by seven churchmen during the first year, and by thirty-six others during the next fifty years. The Parliament at Paris had it burned in public by the common hangman. In 1670, Spinoza, the greatest of Dutch Philosophers, published his “Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.” In it he showed, as Dr. White sums it up, that “Moses could not have been the author of the Pentateuch in the form then existing; that there had been glosses and revisions; that the biblical books had grown up as a literature; that, though great truths are to be found in them, and they are to be regarded as a Divine revelation, that the old claims of inerrancy for them cannot be maintained; that in studying them men had been misled by mistaking human conceptions for Divine meanings; that while prophets have been inspired, the prophetic faculty has not been the dowry of the Jewish people alone; that to look for exact knowledge of natural and Spiritual phenomena in the sacred books is an utter “HIGHER CRITICISM’” I69 mistake.” He believed that the Pentateuch was written long after Moses, though possibly Moses may have written some things in it. For this most valuable service Spinoza was denounced as a heretic by both Jews and Christians. He was cut off from the synagogue with the vilest public curse. Against all this he showed no resentment. He lived in retirement, ground glass for a living, and wrote books for the world which did not know better than to hate its greatest benefactors. The Church, ever since, has called him atheist and infidel; but minds great enough to under- stand his greatness have pronounced him “a God-intoxicated man” (Novalis), and “a Saint” (Schleiermacher). Robert Stephanus (1526-59), of the celebrated publishing house in Paris, searched the texts and found over 2000 variations among the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testa- ment. In 1680 Capellus published his “Critica Sacra.” He showed the modern date of the Hebrew vowel points, also that the modern text from which our translations are made has very many errors due to carelessness, ignorance, and doctrinal zeal of the copyists. In 1680 appeared Richard Simon’s “Critical History of the Old Testament.” Simon was a Catholic and a priest of the Oratory. He combined the great qualities of an acute scholar, a genuine critic, and a truly religious man. In his book he denied the Mosaic authorship of the Penta- teuch, showed that other Old Testament books were com- piled from older sources, and refuted the notion that Hebrew was the primitive language of man. His book passed the censor and was printed in 1678. Some pages of the preface and contents were shown to Bishop Bossuet, who denounced it as “a mass of impieties and a bulwark of irreligion.” It at once aroused his intense opposition. He rushed away (on Holy Thursday !) to the chancellor and persuaded him to stop the publication and * Andrew D. White, History of The Warfare of Science with Theology. 2 Volumes. 17o A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION have the edition burnt. A few copies, however, got away. Two years afterwards a translation of it was published in England, and it was also published in Holland a few years later. For writing other books of a scholarly and liberal character Bossuet succeeded in driving him from the Oratory. Jean Le Clerc (formerly of Geneva, later of Amsterdam) published various works on Hebrew and on Scriptural in- terpretation. About 1685 he introduced questions as to Elohim, the serpent, Babel, Sodom, Lot's wife, the dividing of the Red Sea, and so forth. In 1753 a French Catholic physician, Astruc gave to the world one of the greatest contributions to Biblical criticism, in a work entitled, “Conjectures upon the original memoirs which Moses used in composing the book of Genesis.” He detected the different words used for God (Elohim and Yahweh) and found two principal narratives written sep- arately and later fused together. Of course he got no credit, and was sneered at as a heretic and an ignoramus. What could a physician know about Hebrew and other sacred things | But he proved his points, and they have remained. This line was followed up in 1779 by Eichhorn, who did much to show the world the great fact that the Bible is not a book but a literature. Its style is not supernatural but Oriental, and this in a large degree accounts for its peculiar effect on oriental minds. From his time the term “Higher Criticism” has been used to describe this broader, larger study and survey. The German poet-philosopher, Herder, gave out in 1782 his “Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.” He showed that the Psalms were from different periods and by different authors. Herder was probably the first to dissipate the haze of mysti- cism that had for 2000 years hung round the Song of Solomon. . He cleared up the numerous divine allegories and found beneath merely an ancient Oriental love poem. As ever, he was bitterly assailed and had to flee from place to place, & “HIGHER CRITICISM’” I7I Ilgen, 1798. Next came a Catholic Scotchman, Alexander Geddes, with a volume of critical remarks on the Old Testament, in 18OO. He said the Pentateuch was not written by Moses, but was the work of many hands, and could not have been written before David's time. Geddes was a man of acknowledged piety and great scholarship, but he was condemned as a “misbeliever,” “infidel,” and “a would be corrector of the Holy Ghost.” Theodore De Wette kept the battle open by his “Introduc- tion to the Old Testament,” in 1805-6. He proved Deu- teronomy to be a late priestly review or resume of the law. For this splendid service he received the usual thanks—i.e., he was driven from Germany and had to be content with a Swiss professorship. Theodore Parker some years later took up his work in America, translated his books, and spread the newly discovered truths. He too received the Church’s curses, even from the so-called “liberal Church” (the Unitarian). But the fashion of study was set. Even “the faithful” took up the study of these topics, since they must appear learned. Of such was Gesenius, Tholuck, Julius Mueller, Christlieb, and a host of others, the champion of whom has been Hengstenberg. Graets, 1812, Schleiermacher, 1817. In a long series of the most learned works from 1823 to 1875, Ewald took a middle ground. He is far from a radical, and yet not conservative in the traditional orthodox Sense. But this did not save him from considerable perse- cution. Milman, 1829, Stahelin, 1830. The philologian and Hegelian philosopher, Vatke, pub- lished at Berlin in 1835 his “Religion of the Old Testament.” In it he showed that the Jewish literature was a natural development. His lectures as a professor in the University were very celebrated. They were largely attended, and many more would gladly have heard them, yet “fear of 172 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION failing in examinations, through knowing too much, kept students away from Vatke’s lectures.” The critical work in the New Testament began with great power in the publication of Strauss’s “Life of Jesus” in 1835. The extreme opinions which he advanced made all New Testament subjects open questions from then on. About the same time there began in the work of F. C. Baur a movement known as the “Tuebingen School.” Its radical views have had an extremely powerful influence. Von Bohlen, 1835, George, 1835, Berthau, 1840, Koestlin, I853. Hupfield, an especially great man in this field, published in 1853 a work entitled “The Sources of Genesis.” This was just one hundred years from Astruc's epoch-making book. Hupfield showed beyond any scholar's later doubt that there are three true documents combined in Genesis, each having its own special characteristics. But the Church had not changed its attitude toward the truth and those who would discover it. Finally in 1865 a vigorous attempt was made to punish him. He was accused of irreverence and brought before the Prussian Government. Other professors espoused his cause, and the accusation came to naught. Hupfeld was a careful student of the Bible, and he could not see how it was that Samuel, David, Elijah, and all the men of note after Moses and before the Exile knew nothing about and never mentioned the great “Mosaic Law " Reuss of Strassburg, one of the best writers of this whole line, was a professor in the University, but for many years did not publish his researches because he was overawed. His students (Graf, 1866, and Kayser, 1874) developed his tenets and gave them out. Since about 1870 Reuss has given to the world much that is of the highest order. We have now come to the active period. Germany was the great headquarters of Biblical scholarship. But in England, Holland, and France, some of the best work has been done. In 1860 there appeared at London a book entitled “Essays and Reviews.” It was the work of seven men, all within the English Church, and it was saturated “HIGHER CRITICISM’” I73 with the new thought. In October of the same year Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford made an “elephantine attack” on it. (He it was who a few months before had proved his hatred of investigation by his attempted demolition of Darwin's doctrine of natural selection in the origin of Species.) Professor Jowett, one of the writers had said, “Interpret the Scriptures like any other book.” The mad Bishop called this “sophistry.” Another, Mr. Goodwin, had spoken of the origin of man from the point of view of the scientifically demonstrated facts. This the bishop declared “sweeps away the whole basis of Inspiration and leaves no place for the Incarnation.” He called the writers “infidel,” “atheistic,” “false,” and “wanton.” Of course, at this late date, this put the book in great demand. The more orthodox clergy and laity were frantic with rage and fear. They begged the bishops to save Christianity and the Church 1 Stories of good Christian abuse filled the air. Petitions were circu- lated urging people to sign “for love of God,” (!) One of them had II,000 signatures. Archdeacon Denison said, “Of all the books in any language which I ever laid my hands on, this is incomparably the worst; it contains all the poison which is to be found in Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason,’ while it has the additional disadvantage of having been written by clergymen.” The hysterical Wilberforce urged the Church to clear itself publicly from men who “gave up God’s Word, Creation, Redemption, and the work of the Holy Ghost.” Finally some test cases were carried into Court before Baron Westbury, Lord Chancellor. The High Court decided that it could not punish clergymen for hoping the ultimate pardon of the wicked | | Some cynic put the ver- dict thus: “The Court dismissed Hell with costs.” This was the first great victory of scientific scholarship in investigating traditional books and dogmas. The “holy infallible Church” and its “sacred inerrant books” became thereafter subjects of scientific analysis and investigation. I can only add the names of some of the recent leaders in this great army of truth-seekers. They belong to that greater army of Science that has made these later years 174 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION more memorable than any in human history by the unparalleled number and value of its discoveries. (The dates attached, as heretofore, are those in which these writers’ greatest contributions appeared.) ColenSO 1862-69 Juelicher 1880 Davidson *62-93 W. R. Smith ’81 Holtzman '63 Giesebrecht 9 y Renan 3 ſº Budde 93 Reim '67 Riehm ’84 Noeldeke '69 Roenig 32 PKuenen '69-89 Schrader ’85 Arnold *73 Dillman ’86 Hollenberg ’74 Stade ’87 Hilgenfeld *75 Rittell ’88 Delitsch *76 Baerthgen y y Wellhausen 99 Baudissin ’89 Stanley 277 Brugsch '91 Ryssel *78 Sayce ’93 Hausrath '79 Addis ’93 To these should be added the names of Weiss, Weissaeck- er, Hanson, Reville, Tiele, Pfleiderer, “Supernatural Reli- gion” (anonymous,) Zeller, Schenkel, Bredenkaump, E. A. Abbott, Ezra Abbott, Driver, Westcott, Sandy, Cheyne, Smend, Cornhill, Reichter, Samuel, Thayer, Toy, Ball, Harnack, Haupt, Cheyne and Black's Encyclopedia Biblica, Hasting's Bible Dictionary, Hasting's Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, etc., etc. One transcending event must be listed separately. This is the “Code of Hammurabi” discovered (1901-2) by Jacques de Morgan at the Acropolis of the ancient city of Susa. It is the most elaborate document from ancient times, and has enormous importance in tracing origins of customs, laws and other phases of civilizations. It details an aston- ishing amount of information about ancient conditions, and refutes hundreds of assumptions made by biblicists for cen- turies. It was written before the date assigned to Abraham and over a IOOO years before Moses's time. It dates as far back of Alexander the Great as he does from us. It portrays a Semitic-Babylonian civilization which was the “HIGHER CRITICISMI” I75 source of the Jewish, but was much loftier than the Hebrews ever attained to. It shows the loss to culture and progress by the lapse of the Mesopotamian peoples into oblivion. The list is intended to be suggestive rather than complete. It is probable that I have omitted many, and perhaps some of the greatest. Thought of together, they inspire us with the vastness of the labor and research expended in putting the Bible before mankind in a rational way. The grand results of these numerous and age-long investigations were expected to be summed up in the “Polychrome Bible” edited by Prof. Paul Haupt, Ph. D., of Johns Hopkins University. But alas! In the twentieth century, this, too, had to stop— because of Church opposition Yet the principle of “Higher Criticism” has triumphed. Its day of sway is near at hand. CHAPTER XV THE OLD BIBLE WHAT IS IT THEN ? WHERE DID IT COME FROM 7 HOW AND WHEN WAS IT WRITTEN ? WHAT IS ITS RELATIVE IMPORTANCE AND AUTHORITY” Writing is a wonderful thing—most wonderful to those who do not know the process. A missionary in the Fijis was working some distance from his cottage. He needed his handsaw, and wrote on a chip a message for his wife to send it by the native who was helping him. The fellow delivered the chip, received the saw and returned. He be- lieved there was a spirit in the chip which told the woman what her husband wanted. To insure the continued service of that spirit, he bored a hole in the chip and hung it around his neck. A book is only more of the same mysterious message- making. The ignorant are awed by it. Mystic reverence commands them. They have no way of explaining its origin save by supernatural, invisible power. By and by the writings become a fetich. If they do not contain an actual Spirit, they are the vehicle of the spirit's will, They are its inspired message. “Bibles” are the collections of old and assumably wise and Sacred traditions of ancient peoples. All the historical races had them. Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Persians, Hindus, Chinese, Scandinavians had sacred writings and many barbarous peoples have oral sacred traditions. These books contain their thought and early theories about the world and God and man. In cases where they cover the thought of centuries, they are unique history of the evolu- 176 THE OLD BIBLE 177 tion of the people. In them are found the germs of all that the race has striven for, all that it has feared and hoped, hated or loved; and that which it has laid most stress upon has lived. I am to speak of the Jewish and Christian Bibles; but I might treat in similar way the sacred traditions of each of the great races prominent in the Ancient World. The book we call “The Bible” contains pieces composed 2900 or 3000 years ago, while its later portions are 1200 years younger. Hundreds of authors have had a hand in it, and the national, ethical, and religious interests that have centered there have finally given us a body of thought greatly different from the original sources. As it stands, it is a collection of pamphlets, all regarded as equally sacred, bound in one volume, and designated by the meaningless expres- sion, “The Bible,” i. e., The Book. This title is only about five centuries old. It is the Latin expression made English. The Greek Bible, Ta Biblia (The Books) was used down to the time when the Church became absolute in its authority. Then the fiat of bigotry assumed a unity where there was 110116. Again, even the title Ta Biblia (The Books) was not used till the 5th century A. D. The word “Scriptures” then in- cluded the Old and New Testaments. After the return of the revived Jewish nation (536 B. C.), there were few more original “Writings,” and the whole effort thereafter was to preserve the inheritance of the past. Under this inspiration the Old Testament was collected. Against all this conservatism and devotion to the past, the fresher spirits arrayed themselves. The greatest of these and the one who made by far the greatest impression was Jesus. He was the open enemy of the Scribes. His tragic death was seized upon by Paul to turn the current of Judaism into new channels. And he succeeded on a great Scale. . To do this, he preached and founded new organiza- tions (churches), and later wrote letters of exhortation to some of those ecclesia (assemblies). These letters (epistles) were preserved, and they became “sacred writings.” Fol- 178 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION lowing his inspiration, many others wrote “epistles” and “gospels.” Before two centuries had passed a considerable body of new sacred writings had appeared. During the third and fourth centuries these were gathered and sifted and rewritten and grouped into a body called collectively the “New Covenant” or “New Testament.” The various overflow writings, those rejected by the coun- cils, came to be called “apocryphal.” Of these 25 are pre- served and over 70 have perished. As to Language—the Old Testament and Jewish Apocry- phal Pamphlets were written in Hebrew. Most of the New Testament was first written in Greek. Most of the Old Testament was translated into Greek in the second and third centuries B. C. In the third century A. D. both Old and New Testaments were translated into Latin. And in that tongue they remained (accessible only to the priest) until Wiclif of England in the fourteenth century, Hus of Bohemia in the fifteenth and other reformers later translated them into their native tongues. The originals were written on skins and papyrus rolls. The letters were in large capitals, and were run together without division of words, without punctuation, without accents or breathings, and in the Hebrew without the vowel points. The books had no heading-titles nor signatures. There were no verses nor chapters. (The first Bible with chapters and verses was printed by Henry Stephens in Paris, I551.) Now in the work of the old copyists and translators hun- dreds and thousands of errors got in. There were many slips of the eye, many mistakes of judgment, and many intentional changes and additions. They “improved” the grammar, the style, the thought, or the doctrine “so that they should be correct!” They interpolated passages from the Old Testament into the New or from other manuscripts. They did not feel the strict moral sense that we now insist on. . . It was all in the interest of truth, and for the glory of God! Often they made explanations in the margin, and the next copyist put these into the text as “better!” The grand THE OLD BIBLE I79 result is, of the ancient manuscripts none agree with each other | Now as to the Sacredness of the books or the writings. Only the Old Testament has been “sacred” to the Jewish People; only the Old and New Testaments to the Protestant Christians; while the Old and New Testaments together with the Apocryphas are revered by the Roman and Greek Catholics. The Arrangement of these books in our common Bible is not the original one, nor is it the order in which they were written. Genesis was not written first nor Revelation last. The order which we find in our Bibles was only very gradually adopted, and did not reach the present fixed arrangement until since the rise of Protestantism in the sixteenth century. - The Canon of the Scriptures, i. e., the list of the so-called genuine books and their proper order, has been repeatedly changed. Our common Protestant English version includes thirty-nine writings in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New. We divide the Old Testament into two parts, prose and poetry, the prose ending with Esther. We make other divisions of Law, History, Prophecy, Psalms, Pro- verbs, and so forth. But this was not at all the Jewish arrangement. During two or three hundred years before the Christian era began, they reckoned them as the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Law included only the first five books; the Prophets included Joshua, Judges, Sam- uel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets; and the Writings included the rest, and at times certain apocryphal works. Until after the return from the Babylonian Captivity (536 B. C.) there was no canon and no “sacred” writings among the Jews. What little literature existed was regarded as precious, but not “sacred authority.” After the return from the Captivity the most vigorous attempts were made for a revival of the old Jewish nation. All possible ancient writings were re-copied and re-edited. The “Law” took on an extended form. Histories and Prophecies and I80 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Psalms were collected. The people were exhorted to return to the virtues of their forefathers. Solomon, David, Moses, Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham became national heroes in a far greater emphasis than before. All great deeds and sayings of unknown origin were ascribed to them and there- after recorded as their teachings. Of course this was not all equally easy. Some of the books and stories gained their title rank with great difficulty. There was often much opposition. But most of the records of opposition have perished and have not reached us. Had it not been for the ambition to increase their authority by making the body of sacred classics as large as possible, such books as Ecclesias- tes, Esther, Song of Solomon, and Ezekiel would not have been included. Ecclesiastes is positively sceptical and irre- ligious. Esther contains no mention of the name of God. The Song of Solomon is a sensuous love poem bordering on the unchaste. Ezekiel in the last eight chapters contains an account utterly contradicting the statements in the Penta- teuch containing the origin of the priestly class. As to Dates—modern scientific historical research has unearthed such a vast body of fact and error that one knows not where to begin or what to leave out. The Jewish and the Christian priesthoods have added confusion to chaos. For 2500 years they have been doctoring history and religious literature to prove their systems | They have combined and re-written book after book, and have put headings and signatures to every work to suit their doctrinal and sectarian interests. They interpolated and left out where they pleased. They have mutilated everything they have touched, and where they have not been able to do this, they have written notes and commentaries explaining away the manifest meaning and substituting allegorical or doc- trinal Ones. They have fictitiously made a canon which never before existed; and to climax all, they have claimed for their own stupid forgeries and historical distortions the seal of a Divine inspiration.* * I must here refer to the higher critical chronological recon- struction of the Old and New Testaments and Apocryphal litera- THE OLD BIBLE I8I I shall not, and need not, say many words regarding The Authority of such a patchwork of literature as the priest- hood of ignorant and barbarous ages has handed on to more enlightened times. To those who know some of the leading facts there neither is nor can be any “authority” about it. Even the very name “Testament” is a mistrans- lation of the Greek word which means “covenant,” and the word “Bible,” which implies a unity, has no deeper meaning than the thread and sheepskin which hold together pamphlets often utterly incongruous and inharmonious in their teach- ings. “Bible” means book, but this is not a book in any other sense than a Jewish miscellany or religious collection book. It is a very miscellaneous and very curious collection of writings from 1700 to 3000 years old, mostly written by unknown people, translated from ancient and poorly under- stood tongues by men whose positions and livlihoods de- pended on the correspondence of the results with traditional doctrines, and upheld as an “authority” by the largest, the oldest, the most bigoted, and the most unprogressive insti- tution the Occident has developed. Such is the “authority” of “The Bible.” Some of it (a small part) speaks the highest moral pre- cepts and ideals; some of it (a larger part) speaks the lowest moral hatreds and passions; some of it (a still larger part) 'speaks nothing at all helpful (except as aids to history) to the latest and most enlightened civilization. That the claim of Infallibility, that the pretense of being the foundation of religion should have been made for this unique literary muddle, are monstrous beyond conception; and are only to be accounted for by the past and present bar- barism out of which they sprang and in which they survive. Religion based on “The Bible”! And all the ages before its forged collections and all the nations and races who have lived and built up civilizations that are the lasting wonder ture. A very readable and popular statement of this is given in Rev. John W. Chadwick’s “The Bible of Today.” I82 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION of all who know enough to admire greatness—all these had no religion worth the name ! No, religion is not based on writing, bound or unbound ! Much of “The Bible” is not even religious. As a whole, it is but a much-meddled-with record of the struggles and troubles and trials of one religion. Your religion and mine are between us and our God; and the actual “God,” whether we know him well or little— is the same, now and forever. No book, nor man, nor church, nor God, nor “Son of God” can save us. We can save ourselves here or hereafter, by learning and living the always present, actual, natural conditions, (which are the only “Divine” laws). For every violation we must bear the consequences—not in some future hell, but from now on. Therefore let us learn the truth—whether from ancient or modern sources. CHAPTER XVI INSPIRATION, REVELATION, AND SACREDNESS THEIR EARLY AND LATER MEANING; THEIR APPLICATION TO JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN WEITINGS “Inspiration” is an English form from the Latin verb Inspirare, to breathe into. The Greek word was Theopneu- stia. This shows better the old-time meaning, “God- breathed.” Old-time meanings are impressive to those who think old- times were better and fuller of opportunities. To an Evo- lutionist, old-time means a time of less development. He sees the growth of the world, and finds former ages, on the whole and in most particulars, lower than the present, the more so as the times are more remote. The Traditionalist, on the contrary, sees the perfect in the past. “Edens of blissful innocence are behind. In the days that were men lived near to God. To the men of yore God made known his will.” This attitude is to be found among all primitive and all ancient races. It has universally been the mode of sus- taining authority, viz., to appeal to its divine origin. The Christian religion is not in the least exceptional. The Classics of Greece and Rome abound in phrases and allu- sions of the same sort. In Homer, Aeschylus, Plato, Virgil, Plutarch, and many others, there are numerous expressions of the same theory; but ignorance of other religions and literatures has made prevalent the belief that the Christian traditions alone possess the peculiar claim and merit of having been supernaturally breathed into the minds of Sacred writers in long ago ages. This ludicrous egotism is I83 184 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION lost as soon as men come to study other sacred books and religions besides their own. Formerly all gifts and talents of whatever desirable sort were ascribed to special divine origin. The ability to read or write, to draw or paint, to preach or poetize, to help or heal,—in fact, anything beyond the most common-place living-getting capacity was either specially “given of God” or “called of God.” The history of this belief is a long one, and has had its many transformations. It is still held by a majority of the population. It is now and has been for many centuries one of the central features of the popular religion. By this theory the collection of books called “The Bible” is accounted for. They form the “Revelation of God to mankind.” They are “The Word of God.” They were written by “holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” For 1800 years the changes have been rung upon this idea. Many modifications and subtleties have been introduced in order to meet the continually rising objections to its unnatural and preposterous claims. Whether one believes in, or whether one could believe in, a special supernatural or providential inspiration will at the start depend on how much or how little he knows of God and Nature. If his God is anthropomorphic and has human attributes, if Deity is to him a being outside of or above the world, there can be no difficulty in his mind about Divine intervention at Divine pleasure. But if God is the all- pervading Spirit-Energy in the world known to man as Causal-Power and Law and Life, that Power of which the universe is but the manifestation, then the notion of outside inspiration or special assistance is a weak and dogmatic absurdity. For each and everyone, the problem of “Divine inspiration” of book or man must be settled by his own reason. Reason (cerebral, associational activity) is the highest authority, for if the Bible is “inspired” we have to determine this by reasoning. Those who say it is directly from God, say it because their reason affirms it, Those who reject this, do INSPIRATION, REVELATION, SACREDNESS 185 so because their reason refuses the dogma. Look at it as we may, it is a question of evidence. Neither assumptions of higher powers nor high-toned scorn of the conclusions of others have the least effect in the settlement of such a prob- lem. What presuppositions do you start with? What are the evidences? What are you thinking about when you say “God?” What do you mean by‘‘inspiration?” Then, on the basis of these premises, is the Bible inspired for you? To me, “God” is the Infinite and Eternal Energy pervad- ing and filling all space; the Power that is at one and the same time the Evolver and the Essence of all worlds, all life, all growth, all change, and all beauty. As there is nothing outside of God, so there is no God outside of Nature. God is nature and Nature is all. God participates in all being—in my being. There is no God outside of, over against, or entirely separate from the world. There is not and cannot be anything super-natural. God never did and cannot do a super-natural thing. Whatever is, is a part of Divine Nature. Divinity equals Nature. Nature is Divinity. God is Nature and Nature is natural. Divinity is not outside of Nature. There is nothing outside of Na- ture. This is the induction of that great body of Know- ledge, the Modern Sciences. It is virtually the highest demonstrated result of these combined studies. Now let us apply this idea. “Inspiration,” as previously held by Christian and Pagan, implies a God outside of you and outside of Nature. It was believed that God trans- cendentally or supernaturally breathed into men his spirit and will, as well as the history of the past and the forecast of the future. It belongs to those who hold this to first find and exhibit their god or to give evidence of his exist- ence. Of such an external supernatural being there is not and never was the slightest evidence. Such a conception has its origin in an entire misconception of the Divine Nature. Such ideas arose in uncritical, untrained, and un- Scientific minds, and they only continue to be held by such minds. Now if there is no external super-natural god, there is no I86 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION possibility of a transcendental, super-natural in-breathing of a Divine will, spirit, and so forth. If God is in Nature, in- cluding man, then the Divine spirit or will is out-breathed or expired and the doctrine becomes one of expiration instead of “inspiration.” (I am here using the terms in their purely etymological sense.) But according to the demonstrated proofs of the nature of God and of his working, there is nothing super-natural in the process. Nature's or God's laws or conditions are revealed. They have been being re- vealed in all the ages. There is an ever-present Revelation. It is not, however, God's face that is being unveiled; it is man's. This unveiling has taken place in and through human experiences. Man in them has observed the working of the laws. Those laws he has studied in further experi- ences, and finally verified hundreds and thousands of them. This is Science and this is Revelation, and both are one, and both are equal or identical. It is the law of God out- breathed or expired by the perfectly natural process of human effort learning and working in accord with the Divine (or Natural) laws in man and in his surrounding circum- StanceS. Moreover, man needs no other revelation. When he works with the open eyes of reason in his experiences, the Divine or Natural ways and laws are continually and easily revealed. All the so-called “revelations” are revelations only in so far as they embody the real truths of human discovery by experience. Doubtless they one and all contain many such truths. But this is an utterly different thing from the claims made by which they are held up as the only holy and sacred word to man. Now let us apply these Principles to the Jewish-Christian Bible, and the claims made for it. The first thing we meet is the inscription “Holy Bible” on the cover. In nine churches out of ten, the clergymen refer to the volume as the “Word of God.” So in the schools of theology it has been treated and defended as “the inspired and infallible revelation” of a super-natural God by a super-natural INSPIRATION, REVELATION, SACREDNESS 187 method. Surely the plain and honest meaning of this is, not that part of it, but all of it is sacred. whAT MAKES IT HOLY AND SACREDf Let us ask some serious questions. Do not think me unkind if they seem almost profane. We must be honest. We must each answer them before the bar of the indwelling God, our rationalized self-respect, according to the light of our intelligence. We are dealing with profound facts. Is the whole volume holy and sacred because one part of it gives two contradictory accounts of a creation that never occurred P Is it all holy and sacred because it describes a god who never existed as “walking in the garden in the cool of the day?” Is it all holy and sacred because it relates as true the primitive legend of woman being created from a rib of man by a bungling man-god? Is it holy and sacred because it relates the absurd story of Cain and his “mark” and the “City” which he built all alone for himself alone? Is it holy and sacred because it gives two contradictory geneologies of the race of man, one from Cain and another from Seth P Is it holy and sacred because it relates the myth of a deluge (which science has demonstrated could not have occurred) as if it were real history?” Is it holy and sacred because it sets up as the most revered the righteous patriarch, Abraham, a man whom the records say betrayed his servant-girl, Hagar, and then turned her and the child out into the desert to starve? Is it holy and sacred because it pretends that this man was chosen of God to be the ancestor of the people through whom the world was to be taught religion and salvation? * The total Saturation of the earth's atmosphere at the utmost could precipitate a rainfall of only four inches! 188 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Is it holy and sacred because this god promised to steal for this barbarian and his descendants all the country “from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates” (Gen. XV. 18), (“to thee will give it, and to thy seed forever.”) (Gen. XIII, 15); and because only a small part of it was ever in their possession, and even that part was taken from them several times; and because for over a thousand years hardly one of his descendants has held a foot of it? Is it holy and sacred because it makes this god sanction and elevate to the patriarchate the man, Jacob, who took advantage of his starving brother and cheated him out of his birthright, and whose record in many other matters was like that of the men whom we keep in our state prisons today? Is it holy and sacred because it elevates to the first place as a religious teacher the man, Moses, whom the records openly describe as a murderer, a sorcerer, and a cruel barbarian? Is it holy and sacred because it makes Joshua and his army, by command of God, enter the neighboring land of Canaan and kill not only men, but women and children, and finally take violent possession of all the lands and chattels of peoples who had done them no wrong? Is it holy and sacred because it holds up as a model and a man after God’s own heart the barbarous chieftain, David whom the righteousness of the Sioux Indian, Sitting Bull, would put to shame? Is it holy and sacred because it holds up as the wisest of men the tyrant, free-lover, and libertine, Solomon, who gave himself 700 legal wives and added to his household also 300 prostitutes? Is it holy and sacred because the ancient Jewish people whose history it records never reached as a whole a stage of civilization nearly so high as Greeks, Romans, and Egyp- tians, whom they always despised? Is it holy and Sacred because we do not know even one- fifth of its writers? Is it holy and sacred because many of its books are a INSPIRATION, REVELATION, SACREDNESS 189 patch-work made from various writings by unknown hands? Is it holy and sacred because a number of books are forgeries by unknown men in times later than those from which they pretend to come? Is it holy and sacred because the accounts of Jesus’ life were written by men who only knew of him by hearsay and who without exception wrote from sixty to one hundred and forty years after he was dead? Is it holy and sacred because Paul, the man who founded the Christian system of dogma, never saw Jesus on whom he based it, and wrote his first accounts or letters about it over twenty years after Jesus was gone? Is it holy and sacred because half a dozen of the epistles written to support that Pauline doctrine are forgeries attri- buted to Paul, John, and Peter in order to give them greater authority? Is it holy and sacred because its writings were never put together and officially pronounced as “holy and sacred” till 3OO years after all its events had occurred, and then only by political aid of the crafty Emperor Constantine? Is it holy and Sacred because in it there are several hundred direct contradictions and irreconcilable statements? Is it holy and sacred because even the noblest doctrines it propounds are too primitively stated for the leading thinkers in this hundred-fold more enlightened age? - And, finally, is it actually and really any more holy and Sacred because men for I500 years have made a fetich of it? I do not answer for you when I say, no: these are glaring defects which only an amazing ignorance or an awful selfish- ness could overlook. Considered as the bulk of the ancient Jewish literature, the “Bible” has great value in many ways. Of these I have often spoken, and especially in the chapter on “The Beauties of the Old Bible.” But considered as “religious authority” today, it is the most baneful influence now opposing human progress. Instead of being the cause 190 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION of progress, (as its mistaken devotees assert) it continually diverts human attention from the now known facts and keeps millions facing backwards. It is the nucleus for an organized effort to arrest the development of the masses. In proportion as its authority is breaking is man advancing. The times when this authority was greatest were the “DARK AGES.” From the Renaissance till now, the men to whom the world owes its marvelous advance in enlightenment have denied its authority in every discovery and demonstration. As literature let us prize it as an invaluable historical treasure. Let us unbind it. Let us separate the books and be as honest with them as we are with other ancient litera- ture. Let each writing stand on its own merits. Nor let us further tolerate the old pretense of an extraordinary merit for all its parts, a claim which has no deeper virtue than that of the binding that holds them together. Thus regarded, some of the writings will go to deserved oblivion; others will rise to their true dignity, and these will be to man an inspiring instead of a reversionary influence. The degrading power of authority will vanish only when the books are thus honestly considered. Then shall men see the real truth, that like all other collections, ancient or modern, they contain the good, the bad, and the indifferent. The good we shall always love and praise. PART FOUR THE SUBSTITUTED AUTHORITY . OF SCIENCE CHAPTER XVII THE NEW BIBLE WHAT IS IT? WHO WRITES IT? “The Word unto the prophets Spoken Was Writ on tables yet unbroken; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning Wind, Still WhisperS to the Willing mind.” EMERSON “Bible” means sacred text-book authority—written source of truth regarding God, the heavens, the world, life, man, morals religion, and the future. The Old Bible has two parts: one tells of God, the origin of the heavens, the earth, life, one race of men, their morals, religion, future life; the other is mainly a later addition limited mostly to morals, religion, and the future life. One is styled “Old Testament” (or Covenant); and one “New Testament.” The “Old Testament” was the old Science, or fundamental authoritative knowledge for about 400 years B. C. The I9I 192 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION “New Testament” was a little newer Science (on Ethics, Sociology, and Religion.) The newest Testament or the New Bible is the newest Science about all these and other themes, developed mostly during the last I50 years. The New Bible has no old testament. It might be perhaps called a “New Old and New Testament.” It is simply the body of Modern Science, or the latest edition of man's verified knowledge. It is a fuller revelation of “God’s truths” with less intermixture of error. The books are written by men of broader knowledge with a keener sense of the true. The New Bible has many versions, and is continually appearing in new editions. No edition can be so complete as to be fully up to date. The fields of knowledge are vast, and are yearly becoming more so. The New differs con- spicuously from the ancient and traditional Bibles in being a progressive revelation. Neither its writers—nor its readers for them, claim infallibility; but they are striving to be truthful and honest. They insist upon absolute Free- dom. They use this to get at the Truth. The truth applied to life is Character. The Titles of the Books, may be stated as follows. (A few of the many writers’ names are added. They will be helpful and suggestive of others.) Book I. The wonders and laws of the Heavens— Astronomy according to Lockyer, Proctor, Langley, Fla- marion, Newcomb, Ball, Young, et al. Book II. The formation and development of the Globe- World we live on—Geography and Geology according to Lyell, Geikie, Reclus, Bonny, LeConte, Davis, Hinman, et al. Book III. The masses, molecules, elements—the Energy forming the substratum of the World—Physics and Chem- istry according to Tyndall, Helmholtz, Mendola, Maxwell, Thompson, Crookes, Dolbear, et al. Book IV. The Life that has evolved from moneron to man in perhaps IOO,000,000 years—Biology according to THE NEW BIBLE - I93 Darwin, Haeckel, Wallace, Huxley, Spencer, Cope, Martin, Sherrington, Loeb, et al. Book V. The evolutionary synopsis of Human Origin and Uprise—Anthropology according to Peschel, Quartre- fages, Lubbock, Brinton, Tylor, Ratzel, Mason, Starr, Chamberlain, Drummond, Keith, Keane, Osborne, et al. Book VI. The evolution of Languages and Literature from the cries and gestures, the babbling and vocal yearn- ings, the pictographic scrawls and final abstract scribblings of early and later man in his ceaseless strivings to communi- cate his conscious states to his fellows—Philology according to Bopp, Sleicher, Fr. Mueller, Max Mueller, Sayce, Boeckh, Delbrueck, Whitney, et al. Book VII. The growing and expanding sensibility of the Original protoplasm into the intelligent, volitional Mind of man—Psychology according to Spencer, Wundt, Sully, Ribot, Ladd, Romanes, James, Flechsig, Barker, Mills, Campbell, et al. Book VIII. The laborious disentanglement of Human Career through buried savagery, barbarisms, and civiliza- tions, through myth and legend, through tradition and forgery, through chronicles and government records— Archaeology and History according to Gibbon, Layard, Rawlinson, Boucher de Perthes, von Ranke, Brugsch, Mommsen, Lecky, White, Fiske, Fisher, Wells, et al. Book IX. The Sanctions and Motives of conscious life, Subordinating self-centered impulses and adjusting conduct to care-taking and coöperative ends—Ethics and Sociology according to Bagehot, Maine, Westermarck, Geddes, Thom- Son, Lecky, Spencer, Marx, Lester F. Ward, Loria, Ferri, Ross, et al. Book X. The intenser Expression of the harmonies which man has sensed and understood from Nature in her various realms—Esthetics (including Music, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Literature) according to Arnold, Symonds, Ruskin, Tolstoi, Morris, Raymond, Winchester, et al. Book XI. Man’s Aspirations as seen in his search for 194 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION God during his quarter of a million years; from animism, fetichism, and polydemonism through polytheism and an- thropomorphic monotheism to scientific, spiritual monism— Religiology (or Eusebiology) according to Tiele, Mueller, Spencer, Fiske, Everett, LeConte, Powell, Savage, Crookes, Kelvin, et al. These seem to be natural divisions of knowledge at this date. If the field becomes broader by new discoveries, new books will be added to this present New Bible. Most of the books are already vast, and each is divided and sub- divided. Even the study of the Old Bible falls in as a part of the New. Only by Archaeology, History, and Philology is the Old any longer regarded as intelligible. It is this method of Science, applied to all previously regarded sacred things, which has discovered their natural order of development and their larger, deeper, sacred significance. Dr. Andrew D. White says: “The revelations made by the sciences which most directly deal with the history of man all converge in the truth, that during the early stages of this evolution moral and spiritual teachings must be in- closed in myth, legend, and parable . . . In making this truth clear, Science will give to religion far more than it will take away, for it will throw new life and light into all sacred literature.” If it ever was important to have high authority in know- ledge of the greatest topics, it is now of supremest import- ance to know the elements of this New Bible. It will be education; it will be religion. Could we do this as piously as our fathers and mothers learned the Old one in their day, we should make life safe and progressive. It is in reality the same disgrace not to know the leading teachings of the New Bible in this age that it was not to know the Old Bible in days of old. CHAPTER XVIII THE NEW BIBLE : BOOK I* THE HEAVENS (ASTRONOMY) “And yonder Lights! . . . O tireless-swinging Orbs! Not in a trillion years one hair's breadth free From paths the Energy which all absorbs Marked out from vast eternities for thee! A “Bible” ye indeed! Wherein I scan Forces which never tire, retrace nor bend; From which I solve, or seem to solve, for Man, The Law on-urging him to some fine end.” JAMES H. WEST “But one truth must ever grow clearer—the truth that there is an Inscrutable Existence everywhere manifested, to which he (man) can neither find nor conceive either beginning or end. Among the mysteries which become the more mysterious, the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty, that he is ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed.” —HERBERT SPENCER Our fathers went to the blacksmith to have their tires reset. We go to the auto-supply house. They bought their plows and sickles from the village store or hardware shop. We buy our tractors and reapers from international har- vester companies. They read Genesis to find out about creation. * Illustration of the character of “The New Bible” Will be here given in two chapters covering a brief survey of only the first two books, Astronomy and Geology. I95 196 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Few people now living would have the curiosity to inquire about the bespangled dome above their heads, without at the same time having the sense to know that their questions must be answered by the science of Astronomy. By such acts, it is acknowledged that the “Old Bible” teachings about the sky are superseded. Our trust has been transferred from the first book of the Old Bible to the first book of the New Bible—Modern Astronomy. Doubtless for a hundred thousand years man has had mental ability enough to admire the stars and to speculate more or less about them. Before he began to write history, he became so impressed with their importance that he con- ceived for them a fateful or providential participation in all the affairs of his own self-centered life. His musings and speculations gradually developed into a system of star- lore and astrological rules for the universal guidance of his conduct. When he would know beforehand the advisa- bility of any contemplated undertaking, he consulted or put the stars together, i. e., he “con-sidered” (from con together and sidera a star group). And if his undertaking turned out badly, it was because it had been ill-starred, and he named it a “dis-aster” (from dis wrong or opposing and aster a star). By and by, he named the month and the names of the months, the day and the names of the days after his gods in the sky. The moon’s circuit became “a moon,” “a mond” (German), or a month. A sun's journey he called a “dies” (Latin), i. e., a day or a sun. The week came from the fourth of a moon, and the days of the week get their names from the seven greater planets, including the Sun. The more he thought of those bright faces in the night skies, the more their mystery baffled him; till finally these weird creatures of his untrained imagination became veritable tyrants over his life from birth to death. His ignorance was the mother of superstition, and his abstract theoretical superstitions peopled his mind with base and abject fears. Eclipses, comets, variable stars, and the or- dinary movements of the planets often created the most widespread terror. Tens of thousands and probably mil- THE NEW BIBLE : BOOK I I97 lions of lives have been sacrificed or blasted by the stupid and barbarous beliefs held as to the fateful influence of those unaccountable specks above. But there came at last a break with tradition. There was born a Copernicus who preferred observation to tradition and speculation; and since him, a host of others, by honest search systematically conducted, have tried to be square with the facts. They have learned that our earth is a star, and that the stars, those “patines of bright gold,” are vast worlds and systems soaring through immensity. They have measured their distances, have spanned and weighed their masses, and have discovered a hundred things about their physical conditions. They have exploded that grossest of errors, the Geocentric notion. They have followed the track of the earth and traced it round the sun. They have done the like for all the wandering stars, and in this process have discovered a Heliocentric or Solar System. In doing this, new problems have arisen, and the solution of them has led to the revealing of two other vast worlds (Uranus and Neptune) and some hundreds of lesser ones (the Asteroids). The Sun himself has received a great amount of attention. The ancient notion of his twelve-mile distance and the Mid- dle-Age estimate of 2,000 miles has grown to an accurate measurement of something over 93,000,000 miles! His Shining face, imaged as only a yard or two across, is found to be the incandescent disk of a molten globe 866,000 miles in diameter—a volume equal to over 1,300,000 worlds like this. And Science by its instruments (the telescope, spec- troscope, and camera), has been able to penetrate that awful light and heat and find out the very nature of the solar stuff. The Moon, too, has ceased to be an object of superstition (at least, among the enlightened). Her course has been determined with profoundest accuracy, the phenomena and times of eclipse have been reduced to fractional exactness, and even the problems of lunar attraction and the tides fill a book with abstruse mathematical demonstrations. With newer and better instruments of search, Astronomy looks beyond the six billion mile circle of our own solar 198 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION system and studies the neighboring suns. . It finds them of a kind with our majestic Day-source. Our Sun is but a near-by star. The stars are but far-off Suns. In the vast scale of suns, some are larger, some Smaller; some are younger, some older. So far away are these interesting neighbors from our little quick whirling world, that the light of the nearest is over three and a half years old as it comes flashing into our eyes. And though light-pulses of the inter- vening ether show the bewildering speed of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second, yet the glimmer of the faintest far off specks must have left those ponderous orbs many thousands of years ago! To the wisest Ancients, the number of the stars was less than 6,000, while their best star-map contains but I2OO. Modern astronomy with its gigantic eye (the telescope) and sensitive retina (the camera plate) has made a celestial map of probably one hundred million stars! And it is practically sure that around each of these are many times one hundred millions of worlds which sooner or later pass through stages analagous to those of our own precious earth. In the depths of immensity it finds yet other hosts of wonders, all unknown to former ages and so unique as to be baffling for want of analogies in any realm of terrestrial experience. Centers of double, triple, and even of sextuple type are seen. Polaris, Sirius, Rigel, Algol, and many others are twin systems. Theta in Orion is a sextette of Suns in one super-splendid whorl. Suns of every rainbow hue lend their various beauties to the celestial panorama. Sirius is white, Capella yellow, Betelgeuse red, Castor green, and Lyra blue. Gamma in Andromeda is a triple system of one orange-red and two emerald-green suns. Psi in Cassiopeia is another triple group of suns, red, blue, and green. Even their periods of revolution around each other have in numerous cases been measured by methods most ingen- ious. Algol's companion is a dark or burnt out sun, yet their mutual period is known to be two and one-half days THE NEW BIBLE : BOOK I I99 around an orbit of some eleven million miles. Mizar (at the bend in the big dipper-handle) is a double whose period is one hundred and four days, covering an orbit of over five hundred million miles, and at a speed of about fifty miles a second This the new Astronomy has learned, though the double character of the system is invisible with even the most powerful telescope The process is that known as spectroscopic analysis. I will mention one last wonder, viz., that of the Nebulae. Since the higher telescopic aid came into use, Astronomy has recorded many thousands of cloud-like patches of varying form and grandeur in different regions of the Universe. None of these were known to the Ancient World. Those in Andromeda and Orion are barely visible to the keenest eyes. These world-clouds shine by their own light and are of great variety of forms, as seen from our home-star. Some resemble rings, others spirals, double- spirals, fans, dumb-bells, and so forth. Their dimensions are vast. The one in Andromeda fills as much as seven times the orbit of Neptune—and even this is nearly six billions of miles across | By the spectroscope they are found to consist of substances similar to the other orbs of space, only in rarified conditions. Studying all worlds with the suggestions which these fleecy fire-mists offer, and taking into consideration other hints found in our Sun and his system, man has reached what seems in magnitude to be the climax of his mental achievements in the all-comprehensive world-theories, the so-called “Nebular” and the “Planetesimal” Hypotheses. The first was independently suggested by both Kant (1755) and the Elder Herschel, and again independently developed on a mathematical basis by Laplace in 1796. By it each System was once an immeasurable, contracting, whirling, fiery, cloudlike ball. Its axial revolution caused polar flattening and consequent equatorial bulging, till finally huge, rolling rings of the ever shrinking vapor broke away. Then slowly these monstrous annular masses drew together into cometary form or polywog worlds, the tails being ultimately 200 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION absorbed in the completed spheres. This grand conception was little modified for a hundred years, but has now several suggested additions and modifications. These are man's modern understanding of the first chapter in the Story of Creation. They are a few—only a few—of the wonders revealed in the First Book of the New Bible. A hundred laws—I would I could rehearse them—from that same Creative Energy have come with these marvelous facts. It was the Prophet Newton who, from the analogy of a falling apple, figured out and finally demonstrated the application of the King of all laws (gravitation) to the moon, the sun, and eventually to the whole universe. Kepler and others have given us the most detailed analyses of the facts and have found other laws the difficult character of which will make their names both eminent and dear to all succeeding genera- tions. Altogether this long, grand strain of work has revealed a Universe, that Whole of which our world has always been but a tiny part. It has dispelled the narrow illusion that man lived on a little flat earth with a little sea in the middle (Mare-medi-terra-neum) and a “firmament” of waters all around and above it. It has shown this Universe as a unity of Material with a unity of Law, held by a unity of Power in a unity of Being. Throughout the blue concave it has revealed an Omnipresent, All-pervading Spirit-Energy. Thus, for the first time in history, has religion been fur- nished with a Deity at once real and of illimitable creative might. When I am Overmatched by petty cares And things of earth loom large and look to be Of moment, how it sooths and comforts me To step into the night and feel the airs Of heaven fan my cheek, and, best of all, Gaze up into those all-uncharted SeaS Where Swim the Stately planets! Such as these Make mortal fret Seem slight and temporal. I muse on what of life may Stir among Those Spaces knowing naught of metes Or bars; Undreamed of dreams played On outmost Stars, And lyrics by archangels grandly Sung. I grow familiar with the solar runes And comprehend of Worlds the mystic birth, Ringed Saturn, Mars, whose fashion apes the earth, And Jupiter, the giant, with his moons. Then dizzy with the unspeakable sights above, Rebuked by vast on vast, my puny heart Is greatened for its transitory part, My trouble merged in wonder and in love. RICHARD BURTON 2OI CHAPTER XIX THE NEW BIBLE : BOOK II THE EARTH (GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY) “The present state of the Solar System is a living picture of the entire history of a Single planet. From the Sun's fire-mist to ring-girt Saturn; from Saturn to storm beaten Jupiter; from Jupiter to the Sunny Summer-time of our own planet; from Earth to autumn-browned Mars; and from Mars to the Wintry Silence and desolation of the dark gulches of the Moon, there is a Series of stages that carries the thought back into the eternity long passed, as well as onward into the measureless depths of the future and confers upon human intelligence a sort of exemp- tion from the limitations of finite existence.” —PROF. ALEXANDER WINCHELL “This Earth was doubtless once a glowing star, like the sun. Its crust is only the ashes and cinders of that fearful conflagra- tion. The rocks are all burnt bodies. The atmosphere is only the gas left over after the fuel was all consumed. Every organic object has been rescued by plants and the sunbeam from the grasp of oxygen.”—JOEL DORMAN STEELE, Ph. D. One of my college classmates came from a small town in Illinois. He had a blind brother who chummed a good deal with a dull-witted village loafer. One summer this fellow made a trip (the first in his life) to Peoria, some seventy-five miles away. After his return he had much to say to his blind comrade about the wonders of his travels. My college friend overheard this: “I tell you, Merv, this world is a pretty big place. If it’s as big every way as it is down toward Peory, it’s a mighty big world !” Primitive man was timid. Curiosity and the venturesome spirit have been of slow growth. Even had he possessed 2O2 THE NEW BIBLE : BOOK II 2O3 this spirit in great degree the necessities of food and protec- tion would have made the work of exploring the world but a slow process. To go far from his cave or cliff home involved peril. If night overtook him at a distance, the chances were he would fall a victim to the prowling car- nivora or the inclement weather. There were no late trains, good roads, electric lights, horses and carriages, or automo- biles, nor even the protection of fire-arms to aid his safe homegetting. Hence his geographical interest was small. Danger was so imminent from both nature and life forces, that his imagination pictured it large. Stories of super- natural goblins and demons made terror more terrible. We will not wonder then that man’s interest in regions of the world beyond his neighborhood had to wait the time when he could go with protection and food supply. For this he must have animal help—camels, elephants, oxen, asses, horses, and, later, engines to carry the burdens, and dogs to guard off the foes. It has been a long and weary way as we look back over it from today. But we must also bear in mind that the motive was always booty. Until recent times, expeditions have never been made for the general increase of knowledge, and are even yet seldom so undertaken. Before men would or could reduce their knowledge of country seen to practical advantage for future experience, they must also have arrived at the stage of writing and elementary drawing. At first and for long, these must have been crude, inaccurate, and vague; and even since history be- gan we find them of erroneous and most uncertain character. From Heroditus and Eratosthenes we have received the ideas of the Ancient Greeks as to the world, its shape, size, and so forth. The more adventurous Romans understood it better. During the Middle Ages no positive advance toward systematic description was made. A few roving characters like Marco-Polo and Sir John Mandeville brought home curious and exciting accounts of far away lands and peoples which served to rouse interest in a larger world. So, too, the incessant wars among the petty rulers, as well as the more 204 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION coöperative undertakings known as the Crusades. This curiosity culminated in the projected ocean explorations of the fifteenth century. Portuguese and Spanish mariners visited Iceland and coasted along the shores of Africa. Finally by Spanish aid, the Italian Columbus, boldly set his sail across the trackless main. His unparalleled success in finding half a world roused an interest which spread every- where, and has left a permanent desire to know all the earth. Slowly during the four centuries there has been growing a description of the Earth—a Geo-graphy. But Geography was only description. It is scarcely yet science. Its phenomena have a deeper basis. It rests upon the foundation of the newer Science of World Principles, viz., Geology. Geology is young, very young indeed, when we thing of its hoary-headed sister Astronomy. Except Astronomy, all the concrete sciences are of recent origin. The early states of all advances were appallingly slow. To make a science, a vast number of experiences must be passed, and even after they begin to be arranged and systematized, their natural relations and laws are not hastily found. Then again, experiences are never complete. We never finish any know- ledge. Every limit finds fields beyond. Gate after gate opens into the farther-on. Every science is but an incom- plete excursion. Fact after fact and principle after prin- ciple are observed and settled on the basis of previously settled ones. If an error happened to be taken for a fact, then the way was barred against the discovery of further facts and principles. And if prejudice became so firm and dogmatic that it would not retrace its steps or re-examine, there was the end to growth and advance. It was an enormous error of this kind that forestalled the increase of human knowledge regarding the earth for over two thousand years. Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato thought the earth was a sphere. But this was regarded by everyone as a ridiculous, impractical speculation, only “worthy of a philosopher.” It was so utterly contradictory to what the senses seemed THE NEW BIBLE : BOOK II 2O5 to teach that it was rejected for twenty centuries after its proposal. There could be no true beginning of a Science of the earth till there was something to base it on. In other words, there must be a good start in the Science of Worlds before there could be any start in the Science of this World. Geology is based on Astronomy. While the great mistake was continued of assuming the earth as the flat-center of all things, every other attempt was more than likely to lead to nothing. But after Copernicus through the cracks in his attic had caught the earth in the act of going round the Sun, and after Columbus had dared the western sea and actually sailed over its perilous edge, and after Magellan had put a girdle round the globe and had seen the blue sky from every point, and after Galileo had with his new long-eye discovered other worlds and mountains on the moon, and after Newton had found the same laws there that prevail here, and after Herschel had found nebulae in the depths of the star- studded sky, and after Laplace had put all this together in a Cosmical Doctrine of Worlds,--then only could a Science of this World begin with its details on a sound basis. And sc, we find it. In the early years of the nineteenth century the opposing schools of Hutton and Werner were disputing and speculating over the origin and formation of the globe. At this juncture came the great founders of modern Geology —Humboldt and Lyell. Once given the Solar start, the igneous origin, the forma- tion of the world from the sun, there follows the contrac- tion of that world first into a cometary body, then into a globular form. This vast sphere quickens its rotation by the process of its further contraction. An oblate spheroidal form results. Radiation of heat means cooling of the outer surface, and this (at some 2,000 degrees F.) began the building of the crust or floor of the world. Air, water, and mineral matters arrange themselves by their relative gravi- ties. Air and vapors envelop the globe. O'er all its surface lie the liquid masses. Below is the slow-hardening 2O6 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION mineral crust. Within all the envelopes are the molten metals forming the heavy heart of the Earth.* Ever and anon, the great masses of accumulating gases (caused by steam from water trickling down) react against the increasing crust contraction. Explosions, wrinklings, and upheavals on a prodigious scale result. Large areas are slowly lifted above the watery coating and become conti- ments for future life-dramas. Here and there through the thinner places the igneous forces continue to act from be- neath, while the protruded areas are hoisted into position to receive the action of atmospheric, aqueous, etherial, and later of organic forces. These are the agents, which by their eons of ceaseless action, have built and rebuilt, and are still building over the once molten fire-ball into a world for higher and higher life. The hissing, viscid, cooling granite-crust must be broken and crumbled, ground and reground; must be washed and worn, sifted and silted, smoothed and pressed, compounded and recompounded. In Archaean time, protoplasm was one of these results— perhaps in the form of Dr. Dawson’s “Eozoön.” From then onward, the process of better preparation and the progress of life have run parallel. Immensities of energy have conspired and brought about a world. The very vast- ness hints to us the price of the “far off Divine event Toward Which the Whole creation moves.” In a couple of verses Hattie Tyng Griswold has sung the Creation strain: “The Sun must be evolved The World to swing in Space, Ages of coal and glacier Prepare the Soil to place, * It matters not for Our thesis here whether the Planetesimal Or Some other hypothesis be transposed to take the place of the Nebular Theory. On any basis, the Biblical Creation scheme is set aside forever. THE NEW BIBLE : BOOK II 2O7 Eons the Sun must shine To make a fitting air, Millenniums of time Must make its food their care, Reptiles and mammals grow To die and add their part, Rocks must be ground, peat burned, All vegetation start, Ere o'er a waiting World God could in ordered way A rose Swing on its stalk, To bloom but for a day.” I have but barely entered upon that part of our World- Science known as Dynamical Geology. And this is hardly a seventh part of the great field of knowledge now compre- hended within the Science of the Earth. It is my business here merely to cite a chapter from one division of this great book of revelation. Another, the Physiographical, treats the form, magnitude, and so forth of the surface character- istics of the earth; another, the Petrographical discusses the material of the crust; another the Petrogenetic, the origin and constitution of the rocks; another, the Architectonic or Structural, the strata, their kinds and arrangements; another, the Stratigraphical, classifies the rocks in the order of their appearance, and interprets the events of which they in their varied forms are the record; and lastly, Historical or Palaeontological Geology studies the evolution of the Globe and of the past life upon it by the plant and animal fossils embodied in the strata. It is grand; and yet it is simple. The leading features of it all are easy to read. He who learns the alphabet of this holy book will find its words of instruction on every road and in every field and hill. It is the love of the wisdom which it teaches which has cast out the terror men once continually felt before its gigantic phenomena. From time immemorial they have attributed to gods and demons the terrific activities known as earthquakes, volcanoes, tides, floods, storms, winds, lightnings, and so forth. They have 2O8 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION regarded them now as vengeful dealings, now as righteous judgments of extramundane beings. Or becoming sceptical of these, they beheld them only as the wild erratic move- ments of blind and aimless forces. But in this larger view of Science the old horror-based notions are turning into ad- miration and love of fact and law. The love is turning out the fear. The world is seen as natural and the forces are innate. They are the titanic workings of the Divine Energy in its magnificent world-building processes. Man finds him- self relatively inconspicuous. He sees that one of his func- tions is not that of parleying with imaginary gods about the constitution and government of a world, but rather the laws of Divine Immanence, and the adjustment of his life to the conditions of his environments. He is learning to lay the blame for his ills not altogether on “natural forces,” but increasingly to his selfish passions, conceited prejudices, and beastly inertia. He has discovered that the once “unavoid- able calamities” coming from Nature's giant thrusts, are partly avoidable, and that if he can rid himself of the woes he wrecks upon himself in the wholesale butcheries which he ever tries to mollify by calling them “manly contests in war,” he will then only know how much life is worth the living. He is realizing that the fevers and plagues which he once classed with other “Providential inflictions” are largely the natural misery resulting from unnecessary ignorance. Indeed, so large a portion of his ills he now knows are ignorantly borne or self inflicted that he is already doubting all his former views. Through the study of worlds men are coming to think of God as illimitable Spirit-Energy filling the stellar abysses. By this only are we able to say Universe. This is Cause and Essence in Oneness of Being. It possesses cosmic attributes. It is manifest in all things, in all laws, in all phenomena—not more in the greatest than in the least. Science shows us that all thoughts extending human quali- ties to Nature, about manlike trinities and social pantheons, are speculations of childlike minds. They are on the way toward knowing the great World and the Force and Law THE NEW BIBLE : BOOK II 209 that bind it like a whirling drop as part of an infinite realm. Only by Science have we learned how this world-drop has grown; how it has brought forth life; how it has evolved that life from moneron to man; how, ever and all the way, the intellectually and morally higher have steadily super- seded the lower; how in man they became dominant influ- ences; how in man they are steadily gaining; how beauty is found in all aspects and all realms; how things once thought to be curses, under man’s advancing knowledge, come to serve useful ends in world formation and extension; how, more and more, as man learns the facts, he sees everywhere a cosmic grandeur beyond his ken. & By all these, Science has revealed thus much of the nature of the Power from which the universe flows; Infinity, Eternity, Etheric Substances, Might, Beauty, and a hundred laws of the ever changing order. And the climax of all; man is learning that the secret of the best life consists in rapidly conforming himself in every way to the ever change- able environment. By this he is made strong. In learning and obeying these laws he finds freedom. In reverent phrase Tennyson has put it: “Our wills are ours; we know not how; Our Wills are ours, to make them. Thine.” More than any others the leaders of modern thought have been students of this great Nature. They see in it not the corrupt and debased matter of the old theology, but the manifestation and the very essence of the only real “God”. They see not the old time “vale of tears,” but as yet the only celestial life-star. They see through Nature thus broadly comprehended, the God the ages have been striving to know. (Though it may not prove to possess the attri- butes they humanly clothed it with.) It was always at the very door of their senses; only too great for their faint and undiscerning vision. And this larger view is kindling their souls to a devotion as much greater as their insight is broader and deeper. 2IO A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION NOTE–These two chapters, XVIII and XIX, are intended as Samples giving the Synopsis or gist of two books of The New Bible as outlined in Chapter XVII. Any reputable text-book On any of the legitimate sciences, as taught in the universities, is a compendium guiding one safely to that field of man’s know- ledge about the universe. There are no other reliable guides. Every educated person will acknowledge this. The One Life thrilled the Star-dust through In nebulous masses whirled, Until, globed like a drop of dew, Shone out a new-made world. The One Life on the ocean Shore, Through primal ooze and Slime, Crept slowly on from less to more Along the Ways of time. The one Life in the jungles old, From lowly, creeping things, Did ever Some new form unfold,— Swift feet or soaring wings. The One Life all the ages through Pursued its wondrous plan, Till, as the tree of promise grew, It blossomed into man. The One Life reacheth Onward still ! As yet no eye may See The far-off fact man’s dream fulfil, The glory yet to be. MINOT J. SAVAGE 2II PART FIVE THE “INSCRUTABLE MYSTERIES” SOLVED CHAPTER XX THE PROBLEM OF EVIL In Genesis second and third chapters we have the most notorious myth of all the world: “And the Lord God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Then some days later this Lord God made a woman out of man's spare rib. It was not long till she was gossiping with the serpent, (who for some reason or other had developed a grudge against the “Lord God”). The serpent told her, “Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” But they did not die! 2I2 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 2I3 It depends on which side one takes how he feels toward a writer who permits the serpent (the Devil) to show his “Lord God” up in a deliberate lie, so early in history. That this fairy-tale twaddle passed as sacred fact to credulous grown-ups for twenty-five hundred years should be evidence in plenty of their low state of knowledge and reason. Good and evil conduct in the moral sense, began when people began to live in close proximity. Frequent associa- tion compels mutual consideration. The conduct of others that interfered with each was adjudged by all as bad. The good aroused no thought with primitive minds. Evil as a problem to be explained arose when moral re- flection began. Then man began to classify all actions, whether in Nature or among his fellows. Man is born to live, and it is his nature to view all phenomena from the standpoint of their effect on himself. What helps him is good, what hinders bad. The primitive man thought that all forces were animate. And every force had its character and was good or bad according as it affected his life fav- orably or destructively. In his simple thought he imagined living conscious spirits behind the various phenomena of heat, cold, rain, drouth, hunger, pain, disease, death, and a hundred other experiences. Those that helped him were benevolent and the others were malevolent. GOOD AND BAD SPIRITS When he came to think of creation he ascribed to good spirits the good things and to bad spirits the so-called evil things, as many spirits as there were things. Finally men came to think themselves surrounded and jealously watched over by a multitude of workers for weal and for woe—the hosts of good and the hosts of evil. As the centuries rolled on they reduced these powers to two; one infinitely good, the other infinitely bad. This was a great step, a profound advance. Steps like these require ages of experience and thought. With a wider knowledge of Nature, a broader experience and keener insight man is now taking another 214 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION step. He is advancing from Dualism to Monism. Gradually, as this progress becomes more complete he is seeing that the seeming evil is largely the result of his own misunderstand- ing or lack of understanding. EVIL OF TWO KINDS In their analysis, the thinkers of the ages have divided evils into: (1) External or natural evil; and (2) Internal or moral evil. Examples of the first are found in cold, sunstroke, earthquake, cyclone, etc. Examples of the second are homicide, theft, slander, deceit, etc. HISTORICAL EXPLAN ATION Where did evil and sin originate? The history of the doctrine of these great themes is a vast one. The question of the origin of evil has baffled philosophy everywhere in the past. Three principal theories, single and commingled, have been discussed for some three thousand years. (I) God made everything, therefore He made the evils; but he made the natural evils as a punishment for man's moral evils. In Isaiah XIV, 7, we read, “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord (Yahweh), do all these things.” This was the highest and best explanation of evil the Jewish mind had reached in the sixth century, B. C. (2) The Devil made the evils. God could not have made them because he is good. God permits them and they thus become punishments for man's sins. This theory is of Persian origin. It was borrowed by the Jews during their captivity and had become widely accepted in the first century of our era. The writer of the Epistle called James says: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (I, 17. (3) The “Fall of Man” brought about all the evils. The world was “Paradise” before then. Moral sin caused THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 2I 5 both physical and moral evil. Earthquake and storm are forms of divine wrath which God either produces or permits as punishment or consequence of sin. Historical investi- gators have found this story of man's fall in Assyrian works of much more ancient date than the Jewish Genesis. Among the Jews this was developed as a sort of appendage to the first two views after their return from Babylon. In Saint Paul’s time it was a formally established doctrine. “By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.” (Rom. V. I2.) These are the principal historic explanations of this great theme. In the light of science they are insufficient. The old theories of the world and of man were necessarily based on incomplete data. LEGENDARY POWERS OF EVIL In the history of religious thought, the powers of nature which man did not understand called for the greater share of his attention. He imagined them conscious and hostile. Hence they had to be propitiated or outwitted. They re- quired his constant attention. The powers for good need only be thanked. This explains why all primitive peoples devote so much of their attention to reconciling their in- visible tormentors. In some instances the evil spirits monopolize all attention, though the good spirits are believed in. , Roskoff (Gesch. des Teufels, 1, 47.) tells of a Madagascan hymn which speaks of Zamhor and Niang as creators of the world, and further states that Zambor has no prayers offered to him because he is the good god and does not require them. Such is also the theological opinion of some Hottentots and certain Congo Africans. (Peschel, The Races of Man, 279.) Other similar instances have been found among negroes of the Slave Coast, Patagonians, Abipones, and some tribes of Guiana in South America. The worship of Siva, the Destroyer, in India is a striking example of attempted conciliation of an evil god. 216 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION As in man's gods, so in man, the kindlier sentiments are of latest origin. Love only gradually displaces fear. Hence the appearance of grateful emotions toward the gods is indicative of a stage of comparatively great moral advance- ment. No longer fear, but gratitude brings out the act. When impulses of gratitude and love of acting according to the conditions of life shall suggest every act of homage and every fulfilment of human relations, then shall be reached the stage toward which the best individuals of the great religions have striven. Alas, how unevenly the course of civilization has run. Among the most advanced peoples, there still linger those with the primitive point of view, while beside Christians and Buddhists in the higher order of moral development may be set some of the Australians of New South Wales, (people who except in this, are in the very lowest rank of civilization). They ignore Potoyan (their Devil), and offer to Koyan (their Good Spirit) all their homage and sacrifices. (Peschel, 280.) The old Spanish priest Gumilla, positively asserted that the Indian tribes on the Orinoco, though believing in a bad spirit, give him no homage. Such instances show an advanced moral stage in the midst of very low material developments. THE BEGINNING OF A SOLUTION The old Assyrian notion of original perfection and moral lapse of the progenitors of the race became so widespread and took so deep root in many cases that a solution of the problem of evil was rendered as difficult as it could be. Any natural study of the facts was out of the question. Very gradually after the Copernican Astronomy began to de- anthropomorphize God and to replace the Geocentric by the Heliocentric conception of the world (the Ptolemaic by the Copernican system), it became possible to think of man from another point of view. With the re-explanation of the mode of world-creation according to the Kantian- Laplace hypothesis (nebular theory), and of the earth’s development according to the geological theories of Hum- THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 217 boldt, Lyell, and others, there came the possibility of a new conception of human career. If the whole solar system was the result of an evolution, if the world and its crust and its life forms were products of gradual development, might not the Divine Eternal Energy have also produced man by the same methods which it employs in other realms of the Universe? And thus the problem was opened for the real study of sin and evil. Science in this century has learned that the earliest men were the least perfect, that they were, as we term it, the least developed, the least civilized. They were at the bottom. They were too low to fall. The ideal Paradise was not in their direction; it is in the future. Men are evolving toward it. The first men did not reason. They felt very little if any sense of sin. They killed and plundered like animals with little notion of its being wrong. They felt no higher moral sanctions, and therefore violated no higher consciences. They were not evolved to perfection, and therefore left no hereditary entailment of depravity. They had narrow moral feelings toward even their own kindred. For ages they had no moral feeling beyond their own tribe. STAGE OF MORAL REASON Man, like the rest of Nature, is an evolved product—not a creation. He and all his faculties are developments from simpler life germs and forms. Once the stage of reason is reached, comparisons gradually and continually follow. If reason led a man to make a better club or spear, it would also lead him to make a better idea of conduct in cases here and there. As soon as he saw the better possible club the old one became bad. As soon as he saw the better possible act the former practice was bad. There is no difference. The new in all cases becomes an ideal. As such, it was a command not to do the other. This is the character of all early commands. Look over the Decalogue, the Ten Com- mandments in Exodus XX. Observe the negative character of these; and yet each one of them was a discovery, and 218 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION therefore an ideal. The discovery of the new and the better way made the old one bad. There was no bad until the better came. The good was good by comparison with what had been. This is the nature of all sin and all evil. Sin is sin because it is not up to the ideal, because it is instigated by promptings developed yesterday instead of today. Nothing is good or bad in itself. Goodness and badness come in the contrasts made by conscious comprehension of facts and conditions. We decide this to be good and that to be bad by its effect in our lives. A still higher good or science of good will consider its effects upon all lives. It takes the use of the moral reason to make the decision. The broader the moral reason the broader the ideal. Not until the better is seen is there any sin—that is, for the indi- vidual. If he has tasted the “fruit of the tree of knowledge” he is capable of sin. And so—not more and not less, in any stage of development. Tasting the good new-better makes the old-bad bitter. It turns out then that the “Fall of Man” was a rise. It was the reaching of a capacity to discern higher things. Our Scriptural account and the various oriental stories are poetical statements which have been abused by literal in- terpretations and doctrinal exaggerations. Grand indeed is the thought expressed in Genesis, “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” This, more than any other, marks the arrival of man at the stage of the so-called “image of God.” This evolution to the capacity of moral reason is doubtless the grandest period in the development of man, either as a race or as an individual merging beyond child- hood. The moral reason takes the initiative. It is forever comparing and forming ideals. It is year by year getting more clearly before the mind an understanding of what is and an insight into what may be. It is making the suppos- edly hostile forces of Nature into human helpers. And in a few hearts it has begotten the confident hope that man will yet find his best friends and a Diviné Helper in all these natural powers whose action only struck terror into the men of earlier time, THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 2I9 From Heaven or toward? This is the contrast. It is finely stated by Mary F. Butts in some lines “To a Water Lily.” “O star on the breast of the river, O marvel of bloom and grace! Did you fall Straight down from Heaven Out of the Sweetest Place? You are white as the thought of an angel, Your heart is steeped in the Sun, Did you grow in the Golden City, My pure and Shining One? “Nay, nay, I ‘fell” not out of Heaven, None “gave” me my saintly white; It slowly grew from the blackness Down in the dreary night, From the Ooze of the silent river I won my glory and grace White Souls “fall” not, O my poet, They rise to the Sweetest Place.” ORIGIN OF GOOD The feeling of wrong or sin has poignantly affected life. Hence the many theories of its origin. This consciousness of wrong is increased with intelligence. The more man knows the more consciousness of sin is possible. There is not necessarily more sin, but there is more thought con- cerning moral relations. It has been the enigma of the ages. Men have reasoned over this problem untiringly. Where did the evil and sin come from? The good God could not and would not have made them. If he is all- powerful he would not let a bad being make them. Hence they must come by inheritance from wicked ancestors. This little paragraph tells the little that men achieved by thousands of years of traditional adherence and half-hearted speculation. But in their reasoning the men of the past have made two mistakes. They assumed perfection behind them, and they hunted for the wrong thing. They persistently asked: How did sin and evil enter the world?—while they all the 220 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION time assumed a state of original perfection. We now See that sin and evil did not enter the world. It was the good that came, the good that entered the world. It was the ideal, the higher conception that was new. Everything was right before, i.e., right to the consciousness of the individual. The good is the only reality. Evil is only a contrast between goods. Actions become evil or bad only if better ones are realized as possible. In general, selfishness was not bad until the neighbor-regarding feeling became conscious. Then the moral reason decided against selfishness or self- centeredness as the narrower view. We see that the problem has been inverted. It is the origin of good that men should have been seeking. There was no evil till the instinct of altruism had grown and reason had made the former practice bad by showing the better way. When the higher is seen the present becomes bad. Sin consists and will ever consist in following a lower when man sees a higher way. Sin is not the violation of an external command. Sin is hindering life or violating the rights or chances for the growth of life. This is a most tremendous and solemn fact. Man is accountable to his ideals. To each one these ideals are “God’s will” revealed through reason. They may not be clear, they may be blurred by half understanding; yet the very nature of things holds us responsible for effort toward their attainment. Broadly speaking, good means obedience to the ever- evolving laws of the Nature-God. Bad means remaining in what was and is, or determining to so remain. The past and present become bad when the better future is seen. Toward this higher future away from the lower past, we must ever strive. The highest rest—perhaps the only rest that man can ever know—is longing and striving toward the Most High. The aim of life, the satisfaction of life is the process of attaining higher life. IN EMERSON'S ELOQUENT VERSE: “Eden With its angels bold, Love and flowers and coolest Sea, Is not ancient story told, But a glowing prophecy. In the Spirit's perfect air, In the passions tame and kind, Innocent from selfish care, The real Eden. We Shall find. When the Soul to sin hath died, True and beautiful and sound, Then all earth is sanctified, TJpSprings Paradise around.” 22I CHAPTER XXI MORAL SANCTIONS FROM BRUTE TO SAINT OLD MOTIVES TOO LOW The moral sense appears in the world below the stage of man. All gregarious animals have made a start in moral conduct. In rare cases this has reached the stage of altruism, an actual solicitude for the welfare of others besides mates and offspring. A blind pelican was found on the banks of the Great Salt Lake being fed by its social comrades. What was the motive? \ In our age there is greatly increased interest in this topic. Many former motives and sanctions are now being tran- scended. We have a newer and broader point of view. This not only requires a new grounding of the moral life, new explanations and new arrangements of moral facts; but it demands that men act from higher points of view. It expects that they have higher and better reasons for their conduct than their forefathers had. It insists that because more knowledge and light exist in this age, this age should live on a higher plane. It believes that the facts have been discovered which form the basis for these new explanations and bettered life. It points out that we stand at the later end of the ages, and have, therefore, all their experiences, mistakes and discoveries to help us solve what they did not. It accepts not only the task of getting the truth and solving the problems but also the responsibility of leading life up to this higher moral idealism. Although the new evolution view was at first believed to degrade man, it is now seen that it immeasurably increases his dignity. All old views implied, more or less, a hopeless 222 MORAL SANCTIONS FROM BRUTE TO SAINT 223 depravity. The new view regards every fault or blemish as outgrowable. It sets no limit to either material or moral progress. It makes life when it is high one continual period of hopefulness. It looks forward to infinite ages of human betterment. It sees the past and the future as one continu- ous up-trend. It furnishes better reasons for that future and is making better conditions in the present. It has gone so far in the way of being established that every well- informed person is today as much of an evolutionist as he is a gravitationist. FCINDS OF MORALITY Morality may be classified as negative and positive. Negative Morality is obedience to privative or hindering commands. It is the life that remains within prescribed limits. The negative morality of former times does not do this and that. It was careful about transgression. It was the effort to avoid penalties. It is still the morality of primitive peoples and of the more common minds the world over. Such people conceive duty to be done when certain forbidden things are not done. They have been good when they have done nothing bad! Positive Morality lays no stress on not doing. The “thou- shalt-nots” are irrelevant. Where these are motives, there reigns the rule of force. Brainless life in nature and natures with relatively little brains follow force exclusively. With higher types comes the dawn of higher law. It begins below man, and yet many men have comparatively little of it. Real man, up-to-date moral man, is distinguished by con- Scious effort toward its realization. In many ways he attempts to substitute affection and moral reason for force. He strives not only to exist by avoiding the consequences of violation, but also to definitely bring himself into harmony with law. His ancestors in early times developed “deca- logues” of things not to do. For centuries this satisfied their ideals. By-and-by arose the Christ-spirit. According to this, mere non-doing is not human living. To be truly 224 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION human, men must do. To be good, men must be good for something. Negative morals gradually give place to posi- tive. The privative commands were superseded by the beatitudes of love. In religion, to their “Fatherhood of God” there was added the “Brotherhood of Man.” They believed that Nature was helpfulness itself, that Nature was all giving. Then man is truly a child of Nature only when filled with the spirit of helpfulness. The human life is achieved by eternally living. Moral living is earnest, for- ward living. The more this is conscious, the more is the primitive hated, indeed, as we have seen, the advancing good continually creates the receding bad. There neither was nor is any bad until the better is conceived. Sin is the remainder or residuum of the proto-human and animal-human life becoming more and more conscious. Feeling this, man turns toward positive well-doing. Good-will becomes active good-will. Good-will that is not active is not even Christian good-will. It is not will or character at all. It is mere passivity of being. Will that is character is the energy of being acting in the direction of attention that is conscious. In its lowest stages the thing we here allude to is not good will. It is more accurately good-letting alone; harmless passivity. We see the good-will crop out further up in the scale of moral sanctions. MORAL SAN CTION'S DEFINED By moral sanction I understand the reason for doing right, for being good, for considering other people when we undertake anything. For all conduct there is some external or internal circumstance or condition which operates on the human mind to deter from certain actions or to incline or impel it to a certain opposite line of action. For example, if a man knows that if he beats his wife he will have to be publicly flogged by an officer of the law acting under the approval of the community, and if he refrains from wife- beating because of the officer's lash and because of the social disgrace, these become moral sanctions. They are reasons MORAL SANCTIONS FROM BRUTE TO SAINT 225 for his behavior. It matters not whether they are the highest reasons. They are his reasons. They are induce- ments toward a higher line of conduct, a less selfish behavior than he would otherwise follow. They are first class moral sanctions for his grade of intelligence. Perhaps a higher motive might not be operative in his case. Now if we look over society in different regions and at different times in the past we discover a long list of incen- tives toward good or better conduct. Some of them are what we would call very low, and yet they have been useful. Some of them we should call high, and yet they are not as useful as we could wish. Some of them have been based on threats of vengeance, Some upon promises of rewards, and some are just appeals to self-respect, justice, and love. Some of these threats have been promised in the present life and some of them are put off to some future existence. And so with the promises of reward. Still another distinction is to be found in the classes of these sanctions. Some of them are called political, some ethical, and some religious. The political type have refer- ence to individual conduct in its relation to the state or nation. The ethical refer to individual behavior in the family or neighborhood. And the religious consider life in a large way and refer to one's relations of allegiance to the gods or God. Behind all three spheres of duty stand the general motives to which religions have appealed, namely the motives of the consequences which it is stated the gods will impose in a future life. Heaven and Hell have been invented and preached as definite places where the gods will extend rewards or inflict punishment. In all things there is progress—religion and morality not excepted. Some moral sanctions are new, others old. The newest should be the highest, and in most cases they probably are. These moral Sanctions have their roots in instinctive promptings resulting in fear, hope, and love. Observe the order. The first is lowest; the last, highest. The lowest Sanctions make man strive to avoid Something; the next group make him strive to obtain something; and the highest 226. A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION make him strive to give something. These series of moral sanctions belong to different grades of intelligence. The ignorant fear; The would-be-shrewd expect or desire; The truly wise yield themselves wholly to the Law, the Life, and LOWe Universal. MORAL SANCTIONS FROM BRUTE TO SAINT 227 2. . : CLASSIFIED LIST OF MORAL SANCTIONS The Evolutionary Order GROUP I. FEARS–AVOIDANCE; ESCAPING— Of injury—by fist, club, lash, dagger, revolver, or natural forces. - Of custody—in Stocks, pillory, ball and chain, jail, or peniten- tiary. Of death—by knife, Sword, ax, gallows, stake, guillotine, bullet, or electric chair. Of future life torture—days of Judgment, Purgatory, Hells. (Hot are of Persian Origin; Cold, of Scandinavian) GROUP II. HOPES-GETTING; EXPECTATIONS.– Of sexual favoritism—approval of the opposite Sex—chivalry, gallantry, foppery, dudism, prinking. Of material rewards—in bribes, Wages, co-operative advan- tages; divine favors. Of social rewards—by public approval, office, fame, Social invitations, vanity-fair prizes. Of future life joys—through approval of manlike gods, deities, giving heaven, happy hunting grounds, elegant mansions, golden streets, perpetual music, crowds, no work. GROUP III. LOVES-GIVING RESPECT- In family feeling—maternal, paternal, fraternal, regard for kindred. Tribal or national feeling—regard for the gens, citizenship, legislation, law and order leagues, good government clubs, anti-vice societies, etc. In humanity feeling—interest in history, progressive evolu- tion of mankind by natural Social laws. In vicarious sympathy—joining in the Sacrificing labors and trials of the good. In sense of justice and equity—responsiveness to impersonal right, conscious effort of the individual will. In love of the true, the good, and the beautiful—culminating in earnestness toward all that is natural, i. e., to all that is potentially innate in the physical and psychical realms. (“The true is what is; the good is what ought to be; the beautiful is what is as it ought to be.”) 228 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION SIZING UP LIVES This table is a moral yard stick. By it lives can be sized up. It tells motives for the highest and lowest human acts. These motives all co-exist yet in the highest civilization. Each of the lower types still survives here and there in the lower grades of society. Each of them is found contem- porary with, or belonging to certain stages of intelligence. The horse and the ass must have the bit, the spur, or the whip. The lion is humbled by the lash and the club; and so in proportion as there is little sense, little conscious comprehension, and strong instinctive impulse. Fear re- strains, but does not develop. It is negative and not positive. It is not a motive to good conduct; it is a motive from certain self-impelled but socially undesirable types of con- duct. It is a misconception to think that the world has made or makes its best or its human progress on the “Thou- shalt-nots.” They are simply socially protective. The progress now is accomplished by the few who have got beyond these motives. The conversion that had only fear at the bottom is not a character conversion at all. By-and- by it may become a habit. But such natures are not changed in a brief time to mercy, justice, purity, and moral beauty. Hence fear is only in a very distant way a motive to pro- gressive morals. Such conduct is not moral in any civilized Sense. Christian morality is positive. It is not the Deca- logue but the Beatitudes. In our day the great majority have reached the stage which makes possible the use of some higher motives and Sanctions. The Middle Age threats and promises of Hell and Heaven are now very little useful as moral appeals. As the warmth and light and moisture break the hard seed and make it sprout and grow and ultimately blossom and bring forth, So it is the highest group of incentives that are more influential. Particularly we should suspect and make little use of the lowest group. If heat and light and moisture will not open the life expanding tendencies of the seed, it probably will not grow. It is hard to believe in the higher MORAL SANCTIONS FROM BRUTE TO SAINT 229 moral incapacity of any human being, and yet anthropolo- gists have shown that there is such a thing as inability to grasp certain important moral truths as well as intellectual ones. But if they are to be reached at all, reached for character, it must be by alluring, enticing, drawing out. To use a paradoxical expression, they may be color-blind morally, but if so we shall not make them see morally by driving them to this or that action. The motive that builds character is from before, not from behind. Someone has well said: “Fear is only the hangman of the Divine Govern- ment.” But hanging a man does not reform him. A hangman is not a reformer. He only forever restrains the man he hangs. So we can only make man better by making the view of the higher life clearer, by picturing the loveliness and beauty and glory of the higher law as seen in human hearts. We must present the innate facts and laws of nature and life not in the old way of redeeming man from some god's unforeseen wrath, but in the intelligent light of explained conditions. Information alone produces reforma- #1071, Our age is re-defining God and Law. The revelations of demonstrated science picture something vastly different from yesterday's notions. As fast as men come to realize this they take on a helpful, universal, caretaking nature; they enter upon an upward life. They will see that there is no outside law-giver, but that an ever-upward, ever- onward progress is the nature of life. They will see them- selves as living in and through that nature, and safe only when their lives blend in harmony with its latest activities. In harmony with that nature, they will realize in themselves an ever transcending goodness, a goodness that does not clear the guilty, a goodness that never pardons, a goodness, however, that always makes new possibilities, a goodness which once known is longed for. “And such a love casteth out fear.” One of the best expressions of the later orthodox view of God's part and man's in this sorry matter of man's thought about their relations, is found in a poem of thirteen 230 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION stanzas by Rev. Frederic W. Faber, D. D. Parts of it have been widely used as a hymn, and it has met with unusual favor in various denominations wherever English is spoken. No Sweeter statement was ever penned. But its art cannot make it live. This conception of God and man is not longer holding in the minds of those who are looking up the facts of the Universe. There's a wideness in God’s mercy, Like the wideness of the sea; There’s a kindness in his justice, Which is more than liberty. There’s a welcome for the Sinner And more graces for the good; There is mercy with the Savior, There is healing in his blood. There is no place where earth’s sorrows Are more felt than up in Heaven; There is no place where earth’s failings Have such kindly judgment given. There is plentiful redemption In the blood that has been shed; There is joy for all the members In the Sorrows of the Head. For the love of God is broader Than the measure of man’s mind, And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind. If our love were but more simple, We should take him at his Word; And our lives would be all Sunshine In the sweetness of Our Lord. The following paraphrase of The Faber Hymn is sug- gested as expressing today's longing on the basis of today's facts: THE NEW REDEMPTION There’s a wideness in Life's outlook, Like the wideness of the sea; There’s a kindness sometime coming, Hand in hand with liberty. There’ll be chances for the erring, Still more graces for the good; For there’s always room for rising Into higher humanhood. There is plentiful redemption Into nobler better life; There’ll be ways found for avoiding Human troubles, earthly strife; For man’s love will yet be broader Than the measure of his mind; In the heart will be included Every form of humankind. Clinging to the old-time notions— “Fall of Man” and “Vale of Tears,” Missed we thus the Heaven around us In the Hell of groundless fears. When our love has reached that broadness It will banish every awe; And our lives will be all gladness In our loyalty to Law. DUREN J. H. WARD 23.I CHAPTER XXII PRAYER AND LAW AND COMMON SENSE So long as man believes in gods of his own make, so long will he keep trying to make them do the odds and ends that he shirks. He will lead only a half-hearted life while he thinks his god will look out for him when life reaches a pinch. For the most part mankind are kids shirking their duties and trying to get out of the punishments they know are coming. One little boy had been repeatedly told to do a certain thing and just as often neglected it. On the way to the dark closet in the strong grasp of his father, he shrieked, “O Lord, if you want to help a little boy, now’s your chance l’” There are various “reformations.” The one on prayer is yet to be. And after any reformation has started, ages have to pass before all men embody it. For 50,000 or more years the one idea, that “prayer is petition” and that the gods will hear it and answer it, if it is done in accord with their way—this one idea has prevailed. And yet the infinitely astonishing fact is that the gods, nor any God, never answered any prayer in all human history ! Infinite Power working by Infinite Law over Infi- nite Realms has prevailed through Infinite Time. There neither is, nor was, nor can be any room for special change from inherent and immutable causal relations. (This I shall not here argue further than to cite the whole body of Modern Science. He who does not now believe it will change his mind after he has read a text-book or taken a course each in Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Physics, Chem- istry, Psychology, and Sociology.) 232 PRAYER AND LAW AND COMMON SENSE 233 The belief in prayer has become a habit of the race. Moreover, it is a bad habit which men expect of each other. As Rev. Geo. Batchelor says, “Men pray because they dare not cease to pray. They pray as a duty that is required of them, an observance that they are afraid to omit.” If more people only dared to tell the truth, they would say, “You are right Mr. Batchelor.” Yet thousands and tens of thou- sands are praying who do not expect to get a thing they ask for, while millions are not praying at all. PRAYERLESS ARE EQUALLY RELIGIOUS Now there must be some reasons, some sound reasons for this. They who do not pray are not “Atheists,” “Infidels,” “Immoral.” It is too late in the history of the world to call names and charge their lack of faith to these. There are today more people who are instigated by a sense of duty than ever before in the history of the world. If many of them do not want to pray, it is not that they want to get rid of one of their duties. It is because they have come to understand the universe in a new way. They have experi- enced a profound change of opinion regarding God, His nature and His mode of work. And these new opinions are modified by or based on the demonstrations of science. If the universe was not operated with some regularity it would not be the subject of reason. Science can only pro- ceed in realms where causal relations hold with nearly absolute certainty. But Science has built up an enormous body of knowledge, and hence every successful step it takes is but another proof of the irrefutability of its founda- tion principle. Following its lead, the general transforma- tion of conception from the transcendent, superatural, and more or less mechanically operative God to that of an Immanent, All-pervading, Natural, and Immutable Energy, has wrought an equally extensive change in the conception of our relations to the Heart of Things. 234 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION THE NEW UNIVERSE In 1543 Copernicus published a discovery that utterly changed man's notion of the universe, and it utterly changed the notion of God for all those who have used their brains enough to know the meaning of the discovery. The differ- ence is too great for one thought or for one sentence. Before, there was a little flat, plain earth covered by a solid blue dome, above which was the City of God, and the earth itself was the great work of the manlike wonder-working God who made a man “in His own image.” After Coperni- cus there was a round earth, an insignificant orb in a mighty system, and this system, one among millions of similar ones, these all soaring at inconceivable velocities through illimit- able space, and in and through and amidst the infinitude of burning suns and shining worlds, there was the All-pervad- ing, Eternal Spirit, the Energy and the Essence of it, the “God” whom man had in all the ages seen and felt, and yet had not known. Heaven and Hell as antitheses were forever destroyed. All was Heaven. God was no more up in Heaven than he was down in Heaven. He was no more there than here. Only by the most childish boasting assumption could we speak of being “made in His own image.” He cannot be “imaged” at all, and we are not “made” at all. Before the thought of him we can but place our hands upon our mouths and hold our breath. And shall not this vast change in the idea of the world and of the nature of God change our idea of the mode of our approach to Him? All the prayer of the past—and most of the prayer of the present—is man-centered instead of God-centered, egoistic instead of theistic. This is the reverse of both the physical and the moral facts. The physical fact is and always has been, that God was unchangeable and that if man was to enjoy His blessing man must do, and not God. The moral fact is and always has been, that man became better not by God's hearing but by man's doing. Man has unceasingly called on God to come down to him or to listen to him. PRAYER AND LAW AND COMMON SENSE 235 Nearly all the known forms of prayer show this. “God bless us!” “God have mercy upon us!” “God grant this l’’ “O God! wilt thou hear, and do this and that l” What are all these beseechments for? Do they not show that men expect that by so praying they will get God to do something that he will not do unless they entreat and remind him? FINDING OUT LAW But all intelligent people now know that the Conditions or Laws of God (or Nature) are not subject to our wish, that they are impartial, and that effects only come when their natural causes have preceded them. Man did not know this (except here and there an individual) until recent times. Now that he does know this great fact, has he not reversed his former idea of prayer? Can he not now see that God does not (and never did) bring the blessings to him, but the blessings are now (and always were) obtained by man’s going where they were? Man knows that all bless- ings are within the gate of natural law, and that the getting of them is only accomplished by the learning and the living of that law. Asking for them, praying, has nothing what- ever to do with the getting of them. Praying is no more effective in getting things we want or ought to have, than the Sailor's whistling would be in getting a ship across the Ocean. Not those who whistle, but those who set the sails and handle the rudder reach the port they wish. So in every realm, not those who lift their hands and voices in .*. are blessed, but those who learn the law and comply with it. And who will undertake to say that this is not true in “Spiritual” things as well? Can the most ardent of those who “wait in prayer” teach Emerson aught concerning the things of the soul or of God? Would any of them presume to call him poor in “spiritual and divine things?” And would he have had more by asking? Nay, did he not make his greatest “spiritual attainments” after he left off the ceremony of prayerful address? Do we not know that it is 236 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION just because of his great spiritual insight that men cite him? Why then, have they not thought before to learn from him how to get that on which they lay so great store? It is hard now to find any one who does not believe that good comes from learning, doing, and being. If so, why do they go through the mockery of asking God to give it to them? Do they not have the intelligence also to see that petitioning prayer is hindering ceremony? that they are cheating them- selves by keeping their attention off from the real way to the blessing they need? This petitioning prayer was the best possible in the days when men really thought that God came to those who asked. They did not have mind enough to distinguish between incidental and causal connections. But it is different now. Modern investigations have given us a deeper insight, and it is a new revelation. This makes us see the Eternal Con- dition of life and being, and that whenever there is an honest soul with average sense, there is also there the Eternal Condition (God), which means the opportunity for discernment, for doing, and for reaping the good that follows as consequence. And this would come alike to “heathen” or “Christian,” simply because law was seen and obeyed, nature was lived up to, life was put into harmony with its highest conditions. NO PETITION This all leads to the startling and solemn fact, that if prayer is to be retained in any sense whatever, it must be in a higher one than that which is commonly practiced. Petition is worse than useless. It is a farce. There should never be a breath of it. Now, can there be, or is there any other way? Of course, all prayer had its origin in a feeling of need and of imperfect life. The old way in primitive minds was to call on God for help. This he never did for or because of the asking. By the experience of our ancestors, by the results of our studies in Science, by our own experience and rational PRAYER AND LAW AND COMMON SENSE 237 powers, God the Eternal Condition, (the Illimitable Energy) has shown us how, is showing us how, and ever and only thus will show us how to live. We must get up and help ourselves, or sit still and gradually die. God is immovable till we move. Or, better say, God is always acting, higher life is always possible, but we are so nearly always not moving, and so unceasingly deluding ourselves into the belief, that if we ask we shall receive, that the good we yearn most for we never get. EXPRESSING AWE AND ASPIRATION The prayer that is helpful then must not violate our “common sense” or our reason. If it is to help the soul, it must be the soul trying to tell the truth. Part of the truth is the expression of its sense of depend- €71 C & . Another part is its feeling of awe and adoration at the grandeur and infinitude of God and His manifestations. Still others are the lofty appreciation of the powers and beauties and ever higher adaptations seen in all life and nature. And lastly, the expression of keen and profound yearning and aspiration for higher and better states felt by every soul that possesses both a reasonably familiar understanding with the “new universe” and a genuine effort to fall in with the upward trends of the Spirit Power that is in and through it all. If such words and thoughts form our prayers they are more or less consistent, and they may be subjectively helpful in all things, both Spiritual and material. If our prayers are marred with the incongruities of intermingled petition, then they are inverting the process of life. We are asking from God what we must get for ourselves under the condi- tions laid down in the very nature of our existence. By the survival of the ingrained bad habit of petition, we are blind to its incompatibility with our other beliefs. Our prayers and our geography do not agree. We are making 238 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION a farce of our lives, and do not realize it. We are so bound to a theory “for righteousness' sake,” that we commit the highest (or lowest) act of unrighteousness in adhering to it after it is outgrown, or in making the absurd assertion that it is not improvable. It would be vastly better if we could drop the term “prayer” and agree upon a term which expressed the true and uplifting idea alone. It is a calamity to have so noble a feature of life as our higher yearnings go handicapped by a name historically effete. Whatever we call the act, our purpose is to uplift the soul to the Highest, and not to down-pull God to the soul. Our prayer is not enlightened if we attempt in it more than the expressions of our deepest meditations concerning na- ture and life and our aspirations concerning their relations.” * My earlier ministerial practice followed the standard bad habit of unprepared petitioning prayer. During the first eight years of attempted liberal preaching, the prayer took on the form of an apostrophe to the Infinite along the lines just stated. In the last five years of my preaching, the serious and religious impressions and feelings grew stronger. I ceased to lecture the audience indirectly by familiar address to the Interstellar Energy, and used the prayer time for some specially interesting or profound fact of Science bearing on life. This required much study, but it interested the people, produced greatly increased seriousness, and left lasting impressions. The hundreds of Warm and appreciative Congratulations that followed were a constant Surprise as Well as Satisfaction. “O Thou that art! Ecclesiastes calls Thee Omnipotent; the Maccabees call Thee Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls Thee Liberty; Baruch calls Thee Immensity; the Psalms call Thee Wisdom and Truth; St. John calls Thee Light; the Book of Kings calls Thee Lord; Exodus calls Thee Providence; Leviti- cus, Holiness; Esdras, Justice; Creation calls Thee God; man calls Thee Father; but Solomon calls Thee Mercy.” VICTOR HUGO 239 CHAPTER XXIII THE OLD WORSHIP AND THE NEW “WORSHIP Is ADMIRATION.”—WORDSWORTH To realize the element common to all worship is to de- termine the unalloyed nature of worship. Worship (always and everywhere, whatever else it is and by whatever for- malities it is carried out) is the more or less conscious effort of the mind to put itself into earnest and ideal activity. Religion is lofty seriousness of purpose. It is the dwelling of the mind in a state of high earnestness of yearn- ing. Formerly, and still very largely, this was accomplished by oft-repeated forms and ceremonies brought down from former times. Today, among those who are getting free from the trammels of tradition, Religion is life pushing out toward the higher unattained, in truth or conduct. It is the soul's elernal reach for that which is just beyond its grasp. It is that noble earnestness found in all times and climes. This is the heart of all the religions. There is something to get away from. There is something to get forward to. But this again is simply good living, the effort for “The Better Life.” When labeled and dressed up with dogmas and cults, it becomes some form of historical religion. For these, men have gone through fears and agonies, performed sacrifices and penances, wailed incantations and prayers. And yet, for lack of understanding, they have made only limited advances in higher life and character. HOW THE OLD RELIGIONS ANSWER Religion as theory and dogma is an explanation of the world—a Cosmology. As dogma it requires loyalty to this 24O THE OLD WORSHIP AND THE NEW 241 supposedly great truth. Hence, each great historical reli- gion has both, i. e., some large explanation of God, man and the world; besides some relatively grand central ideal of life. Each finds exercise for some special feature or activity of the human mind. Each has a special and limited psychology. Each lays stress on Some evil in human life. Each presents a way of escape from that evil. That way of escape is the way of “Salvation”—in that particular re- ligion. Some idea of salvation is central to all religion. The stress is laid or the emphasis is given upon the relief from some great evil to some great good. Each approaches it in a different way. - Notice here that we are dealing with these great religions as historical movements. We are not thinking of them in the Special sense in which we may have been brought up, but rather in their larger meaning as shown by their history as world-movements. We might in the same manner con- sider all lesser religions. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREAT RELIGIONS+ BRAHMINISM Evil or error to be saved from ; Ignorance. - Cause; Illusion, illusory character of whole material world. Means of salvation; Right knowledge (spiritual monism). Characteristics of Brahminism; Intellectual, reflective, philosophical. BUDDEIISM Evil; Sorrow, trouble, pain. Cause; Desire; yearning to live in this illusory existence. Means; Suppression of desire, nihilism, attainment of Nirvana. Spirit and matter, joy and pain alike unreal. * Prof. C. C. Everett of Harvard Divinity School was wont to analyze the historical religions on the basis of some psycho- logical faculty emphasized by each. I have followed this Sug- gestion out with more detail. t - 242 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Characteristics of Buddhism; Sympathetic—fellow feel- ing. PERSIANISM OR ZOROASTRIANISM Evil; Impurity or uncleanness—essentially bad material world. Cause; Birth, life in Ahriman's realm, material existence —with the Power of Darkness. Means; Spiritual rebirth, death, purification, siding with Ormuzd, the Power of Light, realizing dualism. Characteristics; Fear and formality—intense struggle and ceremonialism. GRECIANISM Evil; Ugliness of the unpolished uncouth world and man. Cause; Lack of training, beautifying. Means; Polish, physical and mental; beauty, imitating the gods and reaching their perfections in body, wisdom, art, music, eloquence. Characteristics; Esthetic—artistic yearning. JUDAISM Evil; Sin as national disobedience—ruin of the national theocracy. Cause; “The Fall” and renewed lapses of Israel from Yahweh’s moral commands in the Law and the Prophets. Means; National regeneration—return of Israel to Yah- weh’s kingdom, the only divine social order. Characteristics; Subjugated wills—theocratic monarchy. CHRISTIANITY (NEO-JUDAISM-PAULINISM) Evil; Sin, personal moral wrong-doing. Cause; “The Fall” and inherited depravity. Means; Individual’s regeneration—death of individual will in will of God; spiritual extension of Judaistic idea to all the world. * Characteristics; Good Will—spontaneous human interest, active morality. THE OLD WORSHIP AND THE NEW 243 WHAT IS COMMON TO ALL We should observe that all these religions condemn the common every-day world. All of them look for an ideal world. All of them emphasize real evils in the common world life. All of them promise relief and final salvation from their special evil. Nearly all of them make the mis- take of looking for or expecting this relief only in a future state. They are nearly all pessimistic regarding the possi- bilities of a better condition for man here and now, and all are utterly hopeless as to any sort of ideal life on earth. HOW EACH IS IN COMPLETE The most superficial view will see that (as historically represented) they are each defective and incomplete. They have all been narrow. None of them approach the twentieth century conception of “the better life”—NOW. Brahminism was devoid of Christian earnestness. The makers of the Persian Zoroastrian theory made a false dualism of nature hard and fast, and fancifully intro- duced it into all moral and religious conceptions, while it degraded God by reiterating and clinging to crude and base anthropomorphic forms. Judaism lacked the intellectual ideals of Brahminism and the esthetic excellencies of Grecianism. - Christianity in nearly all of its historic types needed the intellectual interest of the old Hindu thinkers. On the other hand it borrowed many of the errors of Parseeism and Judaism. - THEIR DIFFERENT VALUES If we study the philosophy of these religions deeply we shall see that their values as means of human improvement are widely different. There is no doubt but that Christianity has laid hold upon the psychological factor which develops social organization most, and this directly and indirectly pushes man on toward civilization fastest. In many of its 244 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION earlier historic phases it was by no means broad or inclusive. Since the Reformation it has been reaching out. Today at its best, it is taking up or including many of the various aspects of human life. Brahminism made the error of putting a discount on action. It left out of account the will, and consequently the active side of man's nature. Buddhism sealed its fate by discounting both the intellect and the will. Its fundamental principle of sympathy is one of the grandest and most needful of human features. But it is only one. The Greek religion was sensuous. It led easily to sensu- ality. Sensuality is individual or self-centered. Hence Grecianism could never evolve a human world that is social and co-operative. Christianity might have gone on for indefinite centuries, as it did during the Middle Ages, exalting volitional activity and commending intellectual suppression. This was not enough. It would thus have eventually produced its own decay. From the first it has always advocated, nay, it has largely consisted in, or had its dynamic, in moral energy. All systems of Hindu thought and of most other ancient thought lack this. The Chinese thought possessed in high degree a passive morality. But passivity does not mean growth. Hindu thought and systems never aspired to making man true and good. They left out character, except incidentally. They taught men to think and feel, but not to act. The typical Hindu does not yearn to improve or better life, but rather he flees from the miseries of life. His remedy is negative. He conceives salvation to be best attained by inaction. Hindu systems lack the elements which lead to Social betterment. They have no psychological basis for this. Christianity in most of its types has made liberation de- pend on certain forms of activity. In recent times it has here and there been taking on a still higher form. Christi- anity today is in some respects higher than itself in any THE OLD WORSHIP AND THE NEW 245 previous age. In occasional instances it is passing into brighter hope, a broader world conception, and consequently into a new and brighter activity and usefulness. In a few organizations it is outgrowing its earlier limitations. In these it is coming to include the action of other human faculties. Such leaders are being corrected by the know- ledge of Science. They see that past practices and doctrines do not reach to the full potentiality of “Christian” manhood. CEIRISTIAN ASCETICISM In former ages Christians fasted, remained celibate, praised bodily weakness, frowned upon vigor, and exhorted men to ascetic abasement. In those times, too, the Church (organized Christianity) held itself as the steady implacable enemy of all new knowledge. In the esthetic, also, Christian ideals often reach their highest expression in the monk’s robe and the nun’s veil. The most devoted were the most prosy. Often did they denounce every kind of adornment. Fits of plainness have become epidemic and carried away whole sects—Quakers, Puritans, Dunkards, Free Methodists, etc. On the other hand, large bodies of Christian advocates (Catholics and Episcopalians) have steadily developed doc- trine and practice along esthetic lines. Its oldest historic branches have made beauty in temple and symbol one of the chief ends of religious devotion. This is a grand and mighty feature of historic Christianity. But it has not been its distinguishing aim. CHRISTIANITY THE ONE SOCIAL RELIGION The Specifically Christian salvation, if we have understood the previous comparisons, is easy to determine. It exercises the moral will and urges the individual to active service toward others. Christianity in this sense is social. Grecianism was esthetic, Egyptianism was mystic, Brahmin- ism was philosophical, Buddhism was sympathetic, emo- tional, Persianism was formal, Judaism was negatively 246 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION moral, but Christianity is positively, aggressively moral, i. e., it is social. This element enters into all the various Christian religions. It is their one thing in common. Consequently every form of Christianity is a proselyting religion. They all make the demand “Save Men.” Why? Because you are supposed to have a good will. You have been “born again.” Your first birth was to selfishness. (Of course this is not quite true, since all men are born with some social feeling, even though they begin life with wholly self-regarding instincts.) Your second birth is to unselfishness. If it is genuine, you will take on the Christian enthusiasm for humanity. That made Jesus “the Christ.” In your earlier life perhaps you have obeyed the negative law, the Decalogue of nots. He did more. His real followers have done as he. Hence Christianity has been the most aggressive of religions. Its enthusiasm for the social regard has sent missions all over the world. Their theory has not always been clear but their root was social. Sisters of Charity, Brotherhoods of Mercy, Schools, churches, have followed wherever even a low Christian spirit entered. Other religions do other things, and important things— not these. Gradually, in this spirit, man is being elevated in other ways beyond the social. The newer Christian theory of man's worth is advancing. The old Christian view set man so low and God relatively so high that progress was discour- aged. The new Christian view is placing man higher and God here and everywhere. Someone has quaintly expressed this change in verse. “The parish priest Of Austerlitz Climbed up a high church steeple, To be near God, That he might hand God's word down to the people. THE OLD WORSHIP AND THE NEW 247 In Sermons grave, He daily wrote What he thought sent from heaven; And dropped this on The peoples’ heads, Two times one day in seven. In rage God said, “What meanest thou?” The priest cried from the steeple, “Where art thou Lord?” The Lord replied, ‘Down here among my people.’” v. CHRISTIANITY CAPABLE OF EXPANDING The evidence for Jesus's human enthusiasm is found in such original teachings as the parables of the Good Samari- tan, Pharisee and Publican, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Great Supper, the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son, the Ten Virgins, the Sheep and Goats, and so on. We need not take them in any literal or doctrinal sense. They are full of the idea of action and interest, of the conception of regenerated will. The Beatitudes teach self-discipline, the Parables teach self-sacrifice. Both together mean moral development. And morality is active good-will. In the New Testament this is not elaborated. There we have simply the germs of the great discovery. There are the seeds of the Christianity which in our times might flower into a greater fruitage. THE COMING WORSHIP The Christianity which ought to be today realized, the Christianity which as an ideal fills the minds of thousands, is not what Jesus said. It is not what the New Testament taught. It is not the historic Church doctrines. It is a more expanded exemplification of the spirit and tendency which filled his life. The great desideratum is to add to his spirit our twentieth century enlightenment. This shall solve 248 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION the knotty problems of life. With it the pains of man and society shall disappear. In more traditional religious phrase, it will be “the power of Jesus” plus “the power of Science,” the power of noble character added to the power of great knowledge. These are the two greatest powers the world has ever known and together they will combine into a still greater. It is clear that there is now taking place a wondrous change in the human outlook. It is a change which is not destructive. It is the most broadening and constructive movement ever experienced by mankind. It is saving the vital elements from the old; while at the same time it is enlarging and quite remaking the Christian outlook. Though differ- ently explained, the primitive Christian seriousness and essence is the same, but it is getting a larger setting and a broader and more splendid application. Because of their unsocial psychological natures, this would probably have been impossible with every other ancient religion. Chris- tianity is comparatively flexible and capable of growth, and the reason for this is, it is grounded in broader psychology. But it has yet to adopt a deeper strength than “belief”; a better foundation than myth or legend, infallible book or infallible pope; better arguments than wrathful gods and infernal threats; and better occupation than praying for things which man himself must accomplish. Indeed, the Christianity of today must yearn for more truth than the old Brahmins knew; for purity more thorough than the old Persians imagined; for sympathy more helpful and inclusive than a Buddhist ever dreamed; for a social harmony and righteousness eclipsing any Hebrew concep- tion; for an art and a beauty molding and infusing all life into that splendor with which Phidias’ hand bedecked the Greek Acropolis. The Spirit and zeal of Jesus, filled with the enlightenment of Modern Science, enthused by the lessons of history, in- spired by other rare lives of the past—such religion is THE OLD WORSHIP AND THE NEW 249 possible today. It will fill man with a higher love for truth, replace tradition by demonstration, substitute investigation for memory, and teach hope and growth to all men. This will bring out what has been called the potential Divinity of humanity. This might give some color to the fond remark that men are gods in embryo. CHAPTER XXIV ON THE DIVIDE BREAKING CAMP For many centuries, the part of humanity called Christen- dom has been comfortably camped on the level plains of a social and religious territory bequeathed through traditions from ancient peoples. It is now clear that in recent times, the explorations of numerous men called Discoverers and Scientists have been so extensive, so profound, in every department of human interest, that an entire reconstruction of world-outlook (Cosmology) has taken place in their minds. They have “broken camp,” and moved the van of thought forward. They have “climbed the range”—are “above timberline,” “on the Divide.” From this height they discover that the world is not the stationary, flat plain of the Ancients, but is a revolving sphere. They are telling the story of how this globe-world came into being, They are reading its history from the leaves of its strata. They are tracing out the records of the myriad forms of evolving life on its surface. They are peering out into interstellar depths and finding “creation” in all stages of development. They are now restudying man's record and pedigree and learning things marvelously inter- esting. BY ORDER OF SCIENCE They have backed up their statements with facts. At least most of us are quietly accepting them as facts. We are allowing them to be introduced as text-books into all 250 ON THE DIVIDE 25I our schools and colleges under the titles of Astronomy, Geology, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Botany, Zoology, Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, etc. Through these texts they have given orders for the whole race to break camp, to scale the range, and behold a cosmos of greater opportunity—but they are not enforcing the orders. WEHAT THE ORDERS LACK They have summed up everything, written on everything, pushed the claims of the “Scientific Method” for everything —except Religion and Sociology. Here their work is feeble. On these they hesitate. The chief reason is because of the supposedly strongly organized character of the surviving representatives of ancient religious outlooks. These repre- sentatives (desiring to appear progressive) have climbed the foothills of knowledge with much parade, and with their backs toward the majestic heights beyond, they resurvey the old traditional plains and Ostentatiously re-announce these to the people as the limits of Divine intention. These leaders are educated “exclusively.” They study only (or mostly) the ancient world-outlook (in Cosmology and Anthropology); and they do this systematically and thoroughly in their “Schools of Theology.” By a world- wide system of “Churches” (popular schools for religious traditions), they keep before the masses and nearly control their general view of things. Hence the situation—that although “The Scientific Move- ment” is a century old, and although it has now nearly complete control in every civilized land over all the affairs of material and mental advancement, it has made only a beginning in the direction of religious and social reconstruc- tion. In this aspect of life we are between two ages. As things now stand, we are in confusion. The clergy and their adherents are “touched by Modern Thought.” They are in a position of apologetic explanation. They are putting the ancient doctrines forth less boldly, and with the attempt to 252 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION read into them modern facts and meanings. They have not grasped the gist of scientific advance, and consequently do not realize the hopelessness of their own efforts. LEAVING TRADITION.—NOT YET TO SCIENCE The period of the breaking down of old religious outlooks is not merely interesting—it is dangerous. On religious confidence rests character. On character rest conduct and patriotism. On these rest social and national stability. Their decay undermines nations. Several times during human history has this train of conditions been clearly shown. The procession and then the fall—these make “history.” The mistakes were made and the great breaks came through thinking of religious doctrines as unchangeable. They became so fixed as to crystallize. Then modification was impossible. Great waves of thought came, but the clerically inculcated misoneism of the masses, their hatred of the new, resisted until the power to lift them onward was spent and gone. EIITTING TEIE TRAIL In the process of the centuries, such a condition is again here. New and better knowledge is abundant. Old methods and conclusions are being deserted. But new methods and conclusions are not fully ready to take their place. Many and earnest efforts are under way. They are doing good work. The inroads against hereditary dogma are consid— erable. And yet the clearly understood substitutes for it are meagre, poorly arranged, and inadequately supported. The great and lamentable fact is, the majorities are mov- ing little or none. Small bands are struggling up the range. Here and there one is nearing the heights. These are shout- ing about the glorious views, fore and aft—of the vast perspective over past and future. ON THE DIVIDE 253 TUGGING UP TOGETHER Seeing thus the need, what is our part? To continue the figure every individual on the trail is striving toward that reconstruction spoken of above—more especially in religious outlook, and thus is helping onward the consequent Social reorganization. Along with others—we are all trying to— Sum up the new truths, EnCOurage the new Science, Quicken the new reasoning conscience, Make Way for the new aspirations, Point mankind forward, not backward, Replace old gloom. With new hope, Broaden religion to coincide With knowledge, Widen sociology till it plans for mankind instead of classes. SOME VANGUARD PROSPECTS AND HOPES To represent and recommend Scientific facts as the basis in religious and social thought. To do this by discourses, investigations, Scientific results, and suggestions bearing on these fields. To afford opportunity for learning the nature of the great religious movement magnificently forwarded by Emerson and continued by a host of noble workers and investigators. To stimulate the work of social reorganization believed in by the most humane thinkers from Plato till today. To show the further advance of these movements on the basis and with the aid of myriad discoveries. To speak plainly and tell truths calmly which, though often told, are yet little heeded by the general public. To be kindly critical of doctrines and practices, obsolete, yet surviving. To be definitely constructive in trying to show the direction of advancing thought. To encourage inquiry and call attention to the folly and infl- delity of those who try to stifle it. To keep clear the fact that we are between ages, that we are leaving the “traditions of the past” and that we have not yet arrived at the “faith of the future.” To point out the dangers of a Religious Interregnum. To do all possible to answer the question—during the uncer- 254 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION tain interim—What? What may We believe today? How must We act? To lend no encouragement to the puerile and immoral Custom of making fantastic claims in religion and Sociology that are preposterous in other fields of life. To affirm nothing merely on yesterday's authority—Supported Only by yesterday’s so-called “Sacred books.” To strive to substitute natural reasons for Jewish reasons. To avoid, also, claims based on Speculation, on mystical senti- ments, as well as on proof by numbers and majorities. To be always open to those thoughts—and those only, which are reasonable teachings based On facts acknowledged by today’s light. To greet heartily discoveries, discussions, articles, books, magazines, etc., which aim in these directions. To make chiefly prominent the fact that what is true and, in the long run, helpful in any religion, is the part which accords with natural law as revealed by the tests and verifications of Science. To do this work in the Spirit of profound reverence for all that is true and good and beautiful. GET USED TO IT We might as well practice and get the habit. Sooner, not much later, we shall all question nearly all of the the- ories, the practices, the morals, and the institutions of the past. Its intellect was too limited, its interests too narrow, its sympathies too selfish, and its methods too unscrupulous to satisfy the ideals of this age of increasingly honest scien- tific research. I said “all.” I mean that all who have awakened enough and have morals enough will doubt and discard as rules of their lives, all the narrow conceptions and ideals of the world's yesterdays. Their little Medi-terra-nean world and their tribal and racial morals are in ridiculous contrast to the Cosmos of Science, the Limitless Universe, the Evolu- tional Morality, the Universal Kinship of Life, the Common Human Brotherhood of Mankind that fill the minds of all people who are really alive today. It will take all the intelligence, courage, honesty, love of truth, righteousness, and honor that we can muster to rise to these questions. It is a test of manhood few in former ON THE DIVIDE 255 generations could stand to have things, theories, examples that have been cherished for centuries put in doubt and de-idealized. But it’s coming. Not by our degenerating to or accepting lower standards. We are going on to broader, higher ones. We have better reasons, and we are getting more of them. Our expansion of knowledge, our scientific methods have taught better things than the Past ever knew. They have given us depth of moral insight and breadth of moral sym- pathies that no ancient ever felt. To hesitate and sulk and quote will only further show how little we are living in today's light. We cannot believe in development, progress, evolution and still cling to tradition. Traditions are useful to hold in check the passions of the vicious and ignorant— the classes who cannot grow. Those who are not arrested in development, those who are normal products of evolution, are now too numerous to further tolerate attempted hin- drance to their growth. “New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, Who Would keep abreast of truth. LO, before us gleam her camp-fires; We ourselves must pilgrims be; Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly Through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portals With the Past’s blood-rusted key. Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth With Falsehood, For the good or evil side.” LOWELL–Present Crisis. 256 CHAPTER XXV FREEDOM.–RELIGION.—CHURCH How FAR COMMENSURABLE 2 FREEDOM.–WHAT FORP The “American Sentinal” awhile ago said: “It is the inalien- able right of every man to profess any religion or none, just as he chooses. No association of religious people has any right to compel those who are not religious to act as though they were, or to conform to any religious observance, or to recognize any religious institution.” This statement is based on misconception or upon narrow or traditional use of the term religion. Society is now in a position to allow much individual freedom. When freedom is granted, half-informed and noisy people indulge in a deal of after-bravado about it. “Men are free.” Yes, but only to make progress. They are not free not to make progress. “Every man has a right to profess any religion he chooses,” but he has no right to profess no religion if that means to live irreligiously, i. e., unseriously or unearnestly. He can make new definitions or new religions, if he knows enough, and if those he finds do not accord with his reason. Every man born into the world learns something about that world and holds what he learns as his “faith.” He has no right not to learn. No other individual should meddle with his learning; but society holds him responsible and demands that he do learn, and that he act according to the light he obtains. He owes this to society which gives him birth and protection, and society demands it of him. Not that he join or recognize this or that religious institution, but that he 257 258 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION join some movement or that he start another and thus use his force. Every individual is, whether he wills or not, a responsible member of society. He has no right to do as he pleases, if he pleases to yield to primitive impulses or not to strive toward higher. His rights are to do all he can in the way which seems to him wisest and best. Hence the fallacy of the boast that a man has a right to do as he chooses. All history contradicts this. Society never recognized it. Its assertion is but wildness. It is seldom claimed by people filled with the sense of duty. The loudest ravings about freedom often come from those who misuse, or do not use, the freedom they have. Sometimes they are the idle, the vicious, the irate, the uncurable. THE RIGHT OF PROTEST Except when the State is in common danger from with- out, men have ever the natural right to dissent, if their judgment contradicts, but dissent carries with it always a still greater responsibility. He who dissents from what is, is bound by the very nature of human life to try to establish something better. But the average faultfinder is not always this sort of person. There is today a type who dissents not because he is going to set up something better, but because he is going to sit down and do nothing. On some such negative grounds do a part of that 64,OOO,OOO unchurched people seek a sham justification for their shirking practices. FREEDOM TO DO NOTEIIM G When in the course of human events civilization had advanced far enough to grant the demands of those who were intelligent enough to ask for freedom, there was be- lieved to be great danger that in giving it to these it would be taken by those who would use it as license. To Luther and the reformers who protested against too narrow Church authority, the demand for freedom might have been un- grudgingly and perhaps safely granted. And the cause of FREEDOM.–RELIGION.—CHURCH 259 righteousness did not suffer when they wrenched it from the grudging authorities, since they with redoubled energy undertook to substitute for the old a more practicable and effective new. But the doors that swung open to let out these heroic workers let out also tenfold as many would-be- idlers. There are now, and have been in every age, a host of survivals who will perform no more of their public duties than the public compels them to. Hence when the public gives them liberty to choose, they simply choose not to choose at all. Taken as a whole, no people or nation has ever been developed far enough so that the granting of freedom to all has proven a thoroughly safe thing. Not even that most admirable people the Greeks. Among them were many too ignorant and too selfish to profit by the enjoyment of such a boon. So too the Hebrews, the Romans, the Swiss, the French, and even that great people who live beneath the wings of the American Eagle. These and others have tried the experiment of popular government. This means freedom to vote. But freedom to vote implies the intelligence of knowing how, and it carries with it the responsibility of not Slinking out of the duty. OTHER “RIGHTS” And so of all human rights. They are “rights” only when there is intelligence and character enough to insure their being used. No man has any “right” to political or religious freedom who does not know enough or is not good enough to strive to use that freedom for the world of which he forms a part. Every man who would neglect his politi- cal duties or his religious associations ought to be under a department of social vigilance which would insure the per- formance of such duties as can be extracted from such ignorance and selfishness. But this is too difficult for com- plete achievement. * 260 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION WHY REPUBLICS HAVE FAI.LEN And we now come to the uncovering of a great secret. It is just because of these reasons that the republics and liberal churches of the world have not been greater suc- cesses. They require freedom. Freedom without intelli- gence is ruin. This tells us why Greece went down, why Rome fell into the hands of her plutocratic ambitious schemers, why the French Republic cut off the heads of so many of its own citizens that there were not left enough freedom-lovers to sustain a government, and why these United States of America are now in such a condition of turmoil. And again it explains to us why Unitarianism has not faster advanced, and why other “liberals,” so called, have made such feeble efforts to reform the world. On the very face of it is written as large as its history the fact that the desire for liberty and opportunity of a large proportion was not the desire for liberty and opportunity to think freely and to world for humanity. They wanted the liberty and opportunity to do nothing, to gratify their self-regarding instincts unmolested, to be free even from the restraints which the old and less intelligent order placed upon them. WHO Is To DO THE RESTRAINING P The restraint may come from the wrong source. Those in authority who would restrain others are themselves often the very class who deserve the most restraining. This is notorious. Frequently senatorial and executive bodies are among the greatest misusers of the freedom granted by our present stage of evolution. Again, we are always mistaking the place where the re- straint is most needed. The wealthy, well-to-do rulers of Society and church keep the world's attention off themselves by continuously raising the question as to whether “those ignorant lower classes” should be allowed “a measure of freedom.” Their complacency and assumption have hyp- notized nations all down the centuries. The middle class FREEDOM_RELIGION.—CHURCH 261 thus fails to see the need, and the so-called lower class has stupidly allowed it to be assumed that they are the least deserving. Their complacent acceptance balances the com- placent assumption of the others. The fact is, most of those who have made the best use of freedom have not come from “higher” realms of society. Those who have made the worst use of it are not always from the so-called lower classes. - The “upper classes” have everlastingly told the world that the “great problem” is the “lower classes.” The fact is that their unrestrained greed helps both to make and continue that “lower class,” who are the petty abusers. But this great problem of civilization is quite as much the self- assuming “upper class” itself, the colossal abusers of freedom. YET FREEDOM MUST NOT BE RESTRAIN ED This then is the crucial difficulty. Men want freedom; but society wants it used for good. The progress of the world continually brings more of it. There are ages when it comes exceedingly slowly. There are other ages when it comes almost too fast. Ours is one of these, and yet we would not have one whit of it taken back. It is a too dearly bought product. It must be liberally granted. And then its right use must be diligently urged. There are masses in the Church who neither desire, de- Serve, nor get any religious freedom. So too there are multitudes outside the Church who do not deserve their political opportunities, and who daily misuse the religious freedom which they have inherited from our common ancestry. They take this opportunity as license for their do-nothing tendency. WHENCE THE PROBLEM P Now one of the greatest causes for this indifference and license lies at the door of the Church itself. Its own lethargy gives a pretext for the lethargy of those who lounge 262 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION outside its doors. Had it the intelligent life it ought, it would infuse life and purpose into the world without. Humanity as a whole has been changing its authorities and its standards. The Church as a whole retains as nearly as possible the same authorities, and doggedly insists on the same standards, while all around it is clear that development has reached a stage in which these cannot be. Hence the Church is deserted by hundreds of the more intelligent and by thousands of the more indifferent. Somehow or other, the belief is spreading that the Church does not and cannot fill the needs, that it is not in possession of the ideals which are interesting in our conditions. And for this belief there is not a little ground. He who has the least understanding of the situation will admit that it is partly true. I am not unkind nor bold when I say, that had the Church (as a whole) a doctrine which it could make reasonable to men they would not be crying out in friendless social discontent. We would not have our thousands of multi-millionaires greedily appropriating everything and our hundreds of thousands of begging starving, unemployed men going with- out anything. There would not have been that intemperance which has been costing the nation from one to two billions a year, twenty times as much as for all educational enter- prises combined. And there could not be the results of these conditions by which crime is increasing five times as fast as the population increases. Through luxury on the one hand and through need on the other, such vices as prostitution and theft are practically necessitated. Where the rich make pleasure their occupation, the necessities of the poor make them the prostitutes of the rich. Once started and under headway, these conditions increase them- selves. THE CHURCH ITSELF HAS CHIEF NEED OF BEING SAVED Among the forces designed to stem the tide against such conditions, the Church is first and fundamental. Unless it wakes up and gets the needed information to see and teach FREEDOM. RELIGION_CHURCH 263 the direful consequences of these evils, a still greater age of license is ahead. The great material successes of our nation and of the whole modern world still further foster such deplorable possibilities. Our only safey consists in arousing ourselves for the work by great scientific and moral movementS. To help in this we cannot depend upon large masses in the Church. They have become a part of the thing to be corrected. Some of it already is a vast and unwholesome political power. Some of its ranks are filled, to a great extent, by ignorant devotees, and it will become the tool of unscrupulous political or of bigoted ecclesiastical aspirants. The greater part of the religious world lacks an adequate, intelligent, doctrinal foundation on which to labor for a safe and reconstructed social order. A few of the churches and quite a number of the ministers are doing royal work in pro- claiming the glad tidings of Science and of better days and of warning men against “the wrath that is to come” from the violations of natural social laws. But in so far as they are doing this they are going beyond their system. It does not belong to their doctrine. In theory they hold this world to be a wreck. And man is to be saved only by God's de- ferring grace in some future state. The true logic of their premises would be to destroy society as soon as possible. Auguste Comte said: “No nation or people ever outlived its religion.” The decay of ancient nations was preceded in every case by the decay of their religions. Modern enlightenment is again doing away with traditional religious beliefs. Are we getting a truer religion in their place? Or are we indifferent? And if so helping on national doom? One or the other is not very far away. PART SIX A HIGHER EFFICIENCY HAILED CHAPTER XXVI THE OUGHT-TO-BE CHURCH THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION Religion at its best is idealization. Thus considered it is life aspiring, yearning for better conditions. The Church is assumed to be organized effort for propagating ideal disposition, inclination. Hence true religion is a pioneering movement. Traditionalism is a living in the old country. Traditionalism is therefore unreligion. An ideal is an idea leaning forward. Religion is eager, it is rational selection. It exists in planes. What is religion to low intelligences, is ignorance, superstition, unreligion to higher grades. Hence arise con- flicts, heresy, creed revisions. Hence also expulsions of the higher by the lower. The Church must therefore inevitably represent various grades of intelligence, varying temperaments and differing psychological attitudes—i. e. denominations. An organiza- tion cannot hold together elements that are too different. The Church then cannot include all in one type of organi- zation. All elements cannot co-exist in one compound. Given a sufficient psychological likeness of individuals, 264 THE OUGHT-TO-BE CHURCH 265 WHAT CAN AND SHOULD A CHURCH INCLUDEP This can not be settled by tradition. Tradition prevents variation and hinders the new. We must appeal to facts as they are, now, today. A church is necessarily a group of individuals with some sort of affinities. They are grouped because they can group. Grouping is coöperation. It is for this. Religion is for inspiration, for renewing energy, life, for reaching onward. The Church is or should be the union of minds in this state in coöperative effort. SOME AN ALOGIES Nature's mode of being is in ions, electrons, atoms, mole- cules, masses, worlds, systems. Man’s mode of existence is the same in all sorts of efforts. A great newspaper has its departments to procure news of the week; American, Foreign, Sociological, Literary, Ar- tistic, Scientific, Religious, etc. The American Association for the Advancement of Science exists in sections for Astronomy, Geology, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Botany, Zoology, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology. Each sec- tion is a molecule of the greater mass. And so of states and nations and all their divisions. THE CHURCH MAKES ITSELF AN EXCEPTION IN ALL NATURE In all these there is system and the study of fact. In these, men do not study ancient facts, nor magic, nor commit ancient books. Only in one backward survival do they do these things. Everywhere, but here, men are making pro- gress purposely. Here it is accidental or compulsory. *Everywhere but here invention of methods and means, and depth of insight are welcomed. The theological schools and the clergy as a professional group have now reached the foot of the class. They have for centuries given the prize to dullness, until they are today the most backward of the professions. They have for ages expelled their most original Minds. Hence the present deplorable condition; 266 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION uninformed men preaching a world-outlook that the in- formed world has left behind. HENCE THE CHURCH IS OPPOSING RELIGION Now this is the opposite of religion. Real Religion is the encouragement of variation. It is forward reaching. It is the doing away with unhelpful survivals, and not the fostering of them. RELIGION GROWING ANEW–OUTSIDE OF CHURCH The most religion, the best religion, the truest religion, is now outside the Church. (There may be some numerically trifling exceptions.) But this outside religion does not know itself as such. It thinks itself irreligious, infidel, be- cause the definitions have been made by the Church during its long opposition to advance. This unorganized multitude does not know its power. It has not come together. It is miscellaneous. It thinks of church and religion in tradi- tional senses—and will have none of them. This will not always last. It will study these other facts also some day. Many readers of these pages are of that body. Earnest thinkers in general are a part of it. They are largely out of the acknowledged Church. They are often disowned. They have left many of the traditions. (Not all.) They are trying to study facts—as yet, mildly trying—not vigor- ously earnest about it. They have not tried hard to get to the bottom facts. Surely, it is high time they were looking into this problem more thoroughly. THE CHURCH COULD EASILY REGAIN ITS REAL FUNCTION The Church ought to exist to propagate by coöperative efforts the ideals of its individuals. It ought to do this by various means. Many of these means it already has. These methods and ideals are in many other realms today. Here is a list, traditional and otherwise, THE OUGHT-TO-BE CHURCH 267 THE CHURCH OUGHT TO WORK BY- Sunday Meetings. It does, but these are mostly con- ducted with good music wasted by myths in rhyme, good opportunity lost by ancient readings, by senseless prayers, by harmless sermons. And these are its highest ideals, as a whole ! Sunday Schools. Yes, it does, but with music and lessons à la church, mostly having reference to antiquated world views and inefficient morals. Young People's Unions. Again with music, entertain- ment, speaking, socials, dancing, and so forth, all for the enjoyment of the moment—light weight. Woman’s Societies. Industrious with needle-work, din- ner serving, artificial sales, listless readings, amateur papers, and re-editing respectable gossip, while unserious and obli- vious to their own deeper needs, the great world-burning problems, and the larger outlook. Philanthropies. Many types—the needy are listlessly looked after, the sorrowing and the sick are superficially diverted by hired help paid from the funds raised from dramatics, charity balls, and other entertainments in which the benevolent (?) donors have “enjoyed” themselves. Reforms. The customary things are gently advocated— temperance, city government, school management, public improvements—but never heartily espoused, and mostly when the periodic excitements are on. Music. For church and for other interests—choirs, choruses, orchestras, and certain specialties, all for the passing hour of the individuals, rehearsing thought mostly antiquated. Missions. Local and foreign, most laudable fancies, but undertaken in the way that eternally considers the subject as “heathen” and fosters the bigoted “better-than-thou” spirit. Study and Culture Groups. These are very numerous and are the very best feature of present church work. They include many types of knowledge and culture, and are 268 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION often supplemental to deficient education. Sometimes they are even advanced, pioneering into new fields. For example, the modern Child Study movement and the extension of the Kindergarten arose chiefly through a few liberal church laborers. This division includes the effort to get acquainted with the “New Bible”—from its “Genesis” to its “Revelation”— and it is all revelation. It covers the customary— I. Literary Classes or Clubs, studying Chaucer, Shakes- peare, Browning, Emerson, etc., but almost never awake to the hundred-fold greater importance of studying those near- er in time who treat present day ideals and problems— Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Shaw, Wells, France, etc. 2. The History of Religion. Good for comparison, often a starter in breaking into bigoted minds, but at most only a comparison of traditional dogmatisms, and merely the mildest form of starting and stimulating growth. It exists in an infantile stage in a few of the theological “train- ing” schools. 3. Philosophy. Especially in the form of an attenuated mystery-seeking Psychology. Occasionally we hear of some half-fledged child study or some “new thought” (or non- thought) metaphysics. 4. Popular Science. The best, but the rarest of this line. Descriptive Astronomy; Evolutional Geology; Biolo- gy enough to learn the a-b-c of the great molding forces of life; Anthropology sufficient to start the realization of man's great antiquity, his Savage beginnings, his varied races, and his slow but wonderful progress; Hygiene, the arrival of cvolving man at a stage of conscious, purposive care of himself and his kin, in health and in illness, by proper food, proper uses of air, water, temperatures, and exercise; Domestic Science (most advanced of all the crying needs); and Eugenics (Family-ology) (most vital of all, but not even begun)—husband culture, wife culture, fatherhood, motherhood, sex knowledge, sex hygiene, family ethics, and THE OUGHT-TO-BE CHURCH 269 the extension of home virtues into civic and finally into human virtues. Nothing less than the most active and enthusiastic propa- gation and practical carying out of these and other lines of fundamental human interests can justify the Church. Then will the Ought-to-be Church supplant the present pretense. CHAPTER XXVII THE NEW MINISTRY MUST DEVELOP NEW METHODS Is there something the matter with “The Ministry” also? Are not only its doctrines, but many of its methods inefficient survivals 2 The unchurched class is rapidly growing. Who is to blame—the Church or the multitude that is staying out of it? The school, the newspaper, the magazine, the lecture, the theatre are taking the place of the Church intellectually for thousands of people. Thousands more get their fellowship in society functions, the lodge, the club, and the public house. Other thousands get their gospel of hope in the labor unions and the social movement. Now, in the face of all this, the Church as a whole goes on preaching its patchwork of traditions in its traditional manner It dwells almost wholly upon its old-time themes, modifying them, only as much as it must. No other busi- ness or enterprise does this. Other institutions are striving to fit their age in fact and method. The world, by letting the Church so much alone, shows its declining interest in those abstract and traditional reitera- tions. The hierarchy keeps holding aloft the authority of “The Book” and “the inner spiritual light.” It holds out the inducements of Heaven and (though increasingly less) the threats of Hell. And the world looks on indifferently 27O NEW MINISTRY DEVELOP NEW METHODS 271 THE APPARENT EXCEPTIONS Unitarians and some others are, theoretically, beyond this. They hold that religion is life; that it includes all life—past and present, higher and lower, Christian and Pagan. But in their preaching it includes only a small part of life. Life today is rather large. And if religion covers human life, then religion is a large subject. Really then, isn’t it rather too big for any one individual to handle well ? Wouldn’t the average preacher be pretty thin by the time he had spread himself all over the field? Does any one minister know enough or can he know enough to properly cover more than a limited part of life? COLLEGIATE PREACHING COMING This suggests the prospect of Collegiate Preaching in the near future. Every church needs more than one minister. But since it can hear but one at a time, the others can be preaching at other places. Hence several churches could co-operatively have several ministers. Each could preach within his own specialty. CHURCHES NON-ASSIMILATIVE Combination is the order of the day. The Church is the last institution to work in the spirit of union. Its holy assumptions stand in its way. Perhaps these are incurable. Perhaps each Church will insist on its “Special Divine Origin” till it becomes extinct - In nearly every city, we have now one system of water Works and ten to twenty systems of spiritual works. In nearly every city we have now one gas plant and one electric plant (owned by the same company or better by the city). But we have ten, twenty or more companies running Sunday Schools (someone says as “fire escapes”). In every city, we have one high school and four or five or a dozen branch schools, all under the one school board; 272 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION and if we have twenty churches they are under twenty boards. In the schools of all cities (with the exception of the reactionary parochials), we have practically all the children included. In the score or more of churches and Sunday- schools together, we probably have not to exceed one-fifth of the total population of these cities. In some parts of the country there is a little red school- house every three miles with a handful of pupils and a very poor teacher. In other parts there is a central township school with all the children of the township daily brought in automobiles and spending their time with relatively ex- cellent teachers. Almost everywhere the Church is in the- little-red-schoolhouse condition. CHURCH PROCLAIMS MANY KINDS OF TRUTH SCIENCE PROCLAIMS B (JT ONE KIND The “Church” professes to be the institution par excel- lence for proclaiming truth. The so-called “Church” has not less than 170 kinds of truth about God, the World, Man, and Man's relation to God. Science has but one kind of truth about the stars, about numbers, about matter, and so forth. All the schools of Science teach that the earth is a sphere, and so on for the other ten thousand facts and truths. With great ostentation these 17O odd kinds of preachers talk much about preaching “Truth” and about the “Word of God.” It is questioned by those outside the Church whether they have any really established truth. The Church as a whole is almost a stranger to the methods of real truth- getting. The Church as a whole is so hypnotized by the old doctrines and so habituated to its old ways, that it fails to see the meaning of Science and the trend of the times. LIBERAL CHURCHES STILL IN STATE OF OLD METHODS The Unitarian Church and some exceptional individual churches have passed beyond much of the out-aged “Truth.” These have got hold of much of the newer, truer truth. NEW MINISTRY DEVELOP NEW METHODS 273 And what is said of them applies also of other religious bodies that have begun the break with the traditional doc- trines and methods. But to the most of mankind the state- ments of these liberals seem etherial, far-off, impractical, and their methods appear too much like the others. The “liberals” have not found out how to change this. They are not students of biological psychology and its new pedagogy. As a body, they have yet to discover that new ideas are not learned from statement; that there must be investigation and experience, that experience must be con- crete. The new idea about God comes by dealing with the new facts; not by hearing that some one else has seen them. The new understanding of the Old Bible comes by seeing and studying the New Bible. Preaching on Biblical Criti- cism must be backed by the concrete facts in the hands of the people or before their eyes. People can only believe that there are good things in other religions when they see these things in unmistakable print or in the people who profess those religions. The statement that other religions are ex- cellent in many ways carries no weight to most minds. Because of inexperience in the pedagogical side of their work, most “liberals” in churches seem to suppose that twenty or thirty minutes of explanation once a week, addressed to the unthinking and little-reading world will in a few years turn the thoughts and habits of the ages aside and make their denomination what the Catholic church once was How little they study the reports in their own Year Books 1 Our non-realization of the fact that it took each of us five or ten years (or a lifetime) to grasp what little we know in these lines is astonishing! We think we are evo- lutionists—we say we are; and yet— • • NEW METEIODS NECESSITATED BY NEW THOUGHT Now as to forms and methods all “liberal” churches yield to and mostly follow the traditions of the orthodox Church as to the ways of inculcating religious thoughts and inspira- tion. It took them a long while to cease negating, to realize 274 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION that with more liberal thoughts should go more liberal conduct, that with civilized conceptions should go a civilized manner. These they have very nearly learned. They know how to state their new doctrine without denying the old. But they have invented little of improved method for bringing about new religious conceptions. Astronomy never was developed by the methods of Astrology. Alchemy changed its ways before it became Chemistry. Catholicism and Protestantism have yet to change their ways. When they do, great things will result. “Liberal” Churches have mostly given up the “Book,” the written “Creed,” the “Communion,” “Baptism,” etc. They do it without denying these. They let them alone as irrele- vant. They yet have the “Service,” the “Sermon,” “Prayers,” “Petitions,” the “Sacred Hours of Worship,” the “Benediction,” etc. These are not so wholly inexcusable, because a practically new content has been added, yet this is probably three-fourths untrue. And these people are as quick to object as the more thoroughgoing traditionalists when any one suggests further change, especially in form. Possibly it is a mistake to suggest a change. Perhaps the best way would be simply to change. UNLESS FORMS CHANGE, DECAY FOLLOWS Human History shows that nothing but certainty of total defeat will ordinarily drive people to drop their old prac- tices. Surely the Liberal Church will not insist on retaining the terms “Unitarian,” “Universalist,” “Church,” “Prayer,” “Petition;” on clinging to Sunday morning “Services” and thirty minute “Sermons” and “Solemn Postures” and ab- stract statements, in face of the fact that the larger part of the population is tired of and done with these things! Is the gratification of one's belief and habit to stand in the way of his usefulness? Are we to insist on our forms, when people show by their absence that these forms are of no use to them? Liberal causes get few recruits from other NEW MINISTRY DEVELOP NEW METHODS 275 churches. They get those who are out of churches—(when they get any). Workers for advanced views get their recruits by addressing those who are out. These are more likely to be the susceptibles. They are out because they do not want to be in ; because they are done with most of the Church doctrines and practices. VAGUE BASIS IN LIBERAL ORGANIZATIONS The average liberal audience of any type is composed of individuals who are variations from the supposed religious standard. All they have in common at first is the self- centered yearning for freedom and the vague notion of progress in religious things. Necessarily, then, they do not coalesce readily in strong substantial organizations. Aside from the idea of freedom, they have nothing in their con- sciousness to organize for. There is no concensus on any positive or affirmative ideas. Hence the ever prevalent lack of strong attachment in so-called liberal organizations. DEEPER BOND IN UNIVERSAL IDEAS Now to get these variations into some concensus of views, into some common agreement about life and the great source and support of life—this is the problem. But first, you must collect your variations. This you can not do by your own individual more highly evolved conceptions. Of these they know little or nothing. You must collect them by emphasis on those universal ideas and ideals which they and you and those they have varied from, all possess in common. These form a bond. Their exposition is a comfort. It creates a Sympathy. This is the beginning of organic helpfulness. Next must follow education. Though they know many of these they must be taught more definitely and systemati- cally the facts of life and its conditions. The source for this is in Science. It need not and can not be done in university fashion. It must be done through the portrayal of phases of life. It could be rapidly done by the pulpit, books, and journals. 276 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION A LITTLE EXPERIMIENT IN FORMS To partly practice what I am preaching, I will state one little concrete experience. For two years and a half, in a former ministerial effort, I put all possible unction and much variation of thought into the customary forms for getting people interested in the liberal church cause. We changed the name to All Souls’ Church, we did the usual things, and we hired the best singing we could afford. But the cause merely held its own. A few churches are doing this, avowedly the Unitarian and Universalist denominations. But they are not keeping pace with the United States Census ! In the great universities I studied the new methods of teaching. When I came to the Church, I was told that “the pulpit was no place for teaching !” Booker Washington forcefully illustrated this hair-splitting. An old colored woman strayed into an Episcopal church. She heard some familiar phrases. They stirred her emotions of approval. She shouted out, “Glory to God!” One of the wardens immediately waited upon her and told her she must keep quiet. “But I’se done got religion,” she replied. “Yes, but don't you know this is no place to get religion?” whispered the embarrassed man. Though two theological schools, one orthodox and one liberal, told me the pulpit was no place for teaching, I never believed it. Somehow I thought the teachers needed a little more of the preacher's fervor, and the preachers a good deal more of the teacher's truth. Still I tried to obey the spirit of the Church authority. I had for years seen and prac- ticed as a teacher the more objective method. I had proved it true by experiment in the school room. “Of course, you are to preach the truth in the pulpit. But then religious truth is different! You do not teach it. You preach it. You are to proclaim it as the gospel.” At another time they tell you, we have a “new gospel”— which means that the people do not know it, else if they did, the liberalizing work would be superfluous. Is it not rather NEW MINISTRY DEVELOP NEW METHODS 277 refined to say you shall preach something they do not know, but you must not teach it? It was about Christmas time when the break came. I could not longer stand it. I sent for fifty views on the home of Santa Claus, hired the electric company to put in the current, and then set up my stereopticon in the Sunday School room. The announcement was made. Twice the Inumber of children came ! We moved the apparatus up- stairs and kept it blazing Sunday evenings for five months. The audience averaged more than one hundred and fifty. In the morning it averaged sixty. One was to hear “lec- tures” and the other “sermons.” It was the same speaker saying things in the same spirit each time. As they say in Algebra, I changed the form without altering the value: 3a equals Ia plus 2a. It is still 3a. The next year I fell still farther from the grace of the “sacred service.” When the cold weather (or something else) kept twenty of the sixty people at home in the morning, we simply said, very well, we’ll have the meeting in the still colder evening and use the lantern for three months or so. And instead of forty there came two hundred to three hundred. Fifty of them were children. The subjects were worded, Japan, Russia, Berlin, Paris, Greenland, and many titles from history and science, all with moral and Social sub-topic attachments. But the substance of it was Evolution, God, Human Brotherhood, Progress, and indi- vidual Growth. Was it wicked P. “It was bad form.” EVOLUTION IN FORMS The way to mind is through the senses. Worship had its beginning in an appeal to the eye by sacrifices. When the “Law and Prophets” had evolved, the Sacrifice was accom- panied by the “Reading of the Law” to the ear. Later, the Law was expounded and around the Altar the people were seated. By and by came the Sermon and less Law, and no Sacrifice. This was fortified by pillars, mosaics, frescoed 278 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION walls, and colored windows. Then came Music another type of auditory appeal interspersed between readings, prayers, recitals, chants, sermons. Forms and environment were all made to fit the doctrine. Now the doctrine has decayed. The old forms are already obsolete to two-thirds of the population. A new doctrine is growing. A new form and environment is evolving to be its vehicle. It will be baffling for a time. Such junctures always are. But it is near at hand. Our experience was but one of the many possible things. Suppers, dinners, refreshments, afternoon teas, socials, choirs, organs, pianos, musicals, dramatics, games, dances, sewing circles, fairs, rummage sales, excursions, receptions, gymnastics, cooking classes, kindergartens, manual training, Browning and Emerson clubs, reading circles, reading rooms, illustrated lectures, moving pictures, mothers’ meetings, sewing schools, social settlements, and a few other innova- tions are taking on religious atmosphere. These and more, one and all, are already here, new methods and forms of creating and maintaining interest in religious things. But they are not enough. The preaching is still old-fashioned. To put it in a word—it will have to become objective. The age of listening to theories is well past. Physics and Psychology are taught by illustration. Morals and Theology will fall into line. “We es'say too much and essay' too little.” I can think of difficulties that may possibly arise in some minds regarding this suggestion. I had them myself awhile ago. They will vanish when thorough effort begins. Every truth is a “God’s truth,” a statement of the nature of things. Every subject or fact has truth in it. All truth is inspiring and tends to goodness. The harmony of truth is beauty. These are all religious, and the sphere of religion covers them all. A generous, knowledge of history, science, art, and Society will furnish the background; and tact and in- NEW MINISTRY DEVELOP NEW METHODS 279 genuity will supply the means of handling objects, pictures, charts, and other concrete illustrations in preaching. Such appealing will get very close to life. To make life religious, to make people serious, to bring the realization of Immanent Divine Law into human consciousness, I conceive to be the great end of religious effort. CHAPTER XXVIII COLLEGIATE PREACHING MINISTERS SHOULD SPECIALIZE. THEIR ONE HOPE OF REINSTATEMENT TO FAVOR. THEY TALK ON TOO MANY SUBJECTS AND ARE SEL- DOM SPECIALISTS IN ANY. SOME IN CREASING FACTS The churches in general are not keeping pace with the age in fact and doctrine. The churches are not keeping pace with the population in membership. The churches are not keeping up with the age in respect. The churches are not in step with the age in methods and 111622.1].S. SOIME CHANGES IN METEIOD Everywhere the age has tended to specialism. To command attention or to be in demand today every one must do something well. Ministers “scatter”, or essay too many themes, and as things are they can scarcely avoid this, nor do their work up to standard. The field of the really religious and moral things is too large now for any man's mastery. Under present methods and customs, the ministers must assume to cover this field, and, hence, their views are assumed to be superficial. It has come about that religion and ethics are full of wncertainties and mooted questions. 28O COLLEGIATE PREACHING 28I Every minister preaches from fifty to one hundred times a year, and on many topics upon which he has read only as other people read. He has really studied very few of them. which way IS THE REMEDY f If ministers could treat, say eight to a dozen themes a year, instead of fifty to one hundred, and could give all their time and energy to these limited themes, they would be pursuing the method of the age. Thus each could work on his specialty, his forte, the field in which he is more gifted. Thus each could hope to know, as men of science know. Thus (like college men and other investigators) they could, as a profession, soon become discoverers of truth and the practical appliers of it to life. Thus, each preacher could shortly become “a specialist” (“an authority”) on some line. Thus, each would be sure of a much better hearing, because this is the way of the age, this is the expected practice. Thus, his utterances might again finally have the ring of confidence and almost command the deference that announcements from scientific research command. Thus, these utterances could, in a few years, become a body of truth based on profound research. WHAT IS THIS RELIEF P Such a condition has in Some measure arrived in that circle of churches which has reached the broader outlook. Some remedy is, for them more urgent, more practical and more possible. A FIRST REMEDY LIES IN “COLLEGIATE PREACHING” “Collegiate Preaching”, will provide the opportunity for specializing among the ministers, and, at the same time, do for the churches what “University Extension” does for the 282 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION people outside the university circles—only it could do it better. Since there should be meetings in every church every Sunday; since every minister during the year preaches on five times too many themes; hence, to treat only a legitimate number, he must arrange with several, say four other ministers for mutual relief, mutual opportunity, and help. Therefore, let each remain the minister of the church where he now is settled, and let him continue to perform its usual clerical and pastoral duties—for the present. Let each (months beforehand) work out, say, four themes, and at the beginning of the church year expound them to his resident church during four Sundays, in stronger, better sermons. Let each then go for four weeks to one of the other four churches in the combine and expound the same four themes —studying them deeper, doing the work better, and thinking, reading, and investigating for coming series. Let each continue to speak his special phase of truth and gospel, his best and profoundest message to each of the five churches. Half of the church year has thus been filled and during it (and also long before), each minister has been thinking, investigating, reading about, and planning his next four themes. Each of the five then proceeds to preach the second round in a similar way. THE RESULTS TO THE MINISTERS Each minister has had what he never had before a chance to approach his best. Each minister has grown deep in the line of his greatest ability and power. Each minister has grown fertile and ingenious in methods of making clear and interesting the themes he handles. Each minister has grown in confidence, and, therefore, in capacity for inspiring others. y Each minister has seen four new congregations and fields, COLLEGIATE PREACHING 283 has experienced the enlarging influence of new circum- stances, and has applied new experience to the broadening and testing of his messages. Each minister is thus becoming an investigator, and is learning at first hand the highest and truest road to those Divine things which before he admired and proclaimed mostly from hearsay. THE RESULT TO THE CHURCHES Each church has heard of the higher things from several personalities. Each church has had the very rare benefit of hearing a specialist every Sunday on a variety of phases of the great field of life. Each church may thus experience an advantage several times greater than it could from the prevailing custom of hearing the stale exhortations of limited minds. Each church and neighborhood will in time, come to re- gard the Sunday meeting as a great opportunity, just as people look forward to the coming of any public speaker who is supposed to know his field (as far as knowledge has penetrated.) THE RESULT TO THE CHURCH IN GENERAL The Church in general will thus begin to redeem its lost prestige and will approach again the front rank of human respect. It can take up actual problems of present life and interest. It can speak out on matters of civic life and social well- being. It can espouse the cause of justice and raise its voice for the down-trodden. It can again have a gospel. The Church could thus open the way for the gradual over- hauling, reinvestigating and rectifying of its doctrines and the justifying of its place as a social institution in the minds of that large thinking class, who are now in doubt about it. The power of the Church everywhere would thus increase, 284 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION its influence would grow irresistible within its realm, it would become an authority in that realm, and the every-day reading world would soon cease to regard it with indiffer- ence or sneers. EASY AND PRACTICABLE Collegiate Preaching is far easier of accomplishment than University Extension. It is made practicable today— By the relatively short distances between churches. By the cheap and quick modes of travel. By the easy communications with the home pastorate. By the abundance of books. By the great advantage everywhere for nature study and every sort of investigation. By the wondrous and helpful trend of general public opinion toward unifying enterprises and combining forces in business and philanthropy. By the essential helpfulness of the method itself in culti- vating breadth of appreciation and sympathy. By the incurable tendency of the people to be expectant of new things and strong influences, and to tire of the reg- ular, the unchangeable, the old-fashioned. This latter may be ever so regrettable, but it is an irremediable fact. Besides in no other profession is it so strongly felt as in the ministry. The teacher, professor, lawyer, physician change audiences every year or oftener, while their audiences are at the same time compelled. In religion there is more liberty regarding adherence than in any other field. Everyone must go to school, must have a physician—but he doesn’t have to go to church. There are just a few symptoms that enough of church leaders will see the situation to save the wreck of the institution. A dozen years ago I had large hopes. The decay has gone on more rapidly of late. The Social Re- formers, Socialists, and so forth, are going after the job of human betterment in a more or less pretendedly scientific manner. It has become a gospel to hundreds of them, COLLEGIATE PREACHING 285 They are organizing. Does it mean the equivalent of what a renovated, rejuvenated church would be? The Church as a whole is yet not only a bulwark of certain features in a social system that has now become the great iniquity, but most of the Church is yet an advocate of ancient religious theory. Openly against these is the Scientific Evolutionary trend which revolutioniges religious theory by providing a new world outlook and a new world power, and the Social Justice trend which arises from the new views of life and man and the industrial and economic awakening of the working world. Together, these will destroy all views and all institutions of the past which do not re-form themselves to the new facts and the juster morals and social life. Will the Church adopt the means to fit itself to the world it is in now? Or will it go the way of other religions when analagous conditions came? We shall know within another generation. NOTE–The main points of this chapter were first given as a Sermon in All Soul’s Church, Iowa City, Ia., Jan. 4, 1903. An Outline was published in the “Iowa City Republican.” The Ser- mon Was after Wards delivered in Humboldt, Des Moines, Daven- port and Burlington, Ia., and in Fort Collins and Greeley, Colo. The times are more urgent now. 286 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION EMINENT CORROBORATION NOTE–This thought is of such vital import that I here append a considerable excerpt on “The Collegiate Church” from The Christian Register, Boston, June 30, 1910. It was Written by Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, D. D., President of the American Unitarian ASSociation. “Has not the time come when we must revise our ideas about the duties and functions of ministers? Must not the ministry follow the changing habit of every other profession? The general practitioner in Medicine is gradually disappearing. The same is true in Law. If I have need of the services of an attorney, he usually refers me to some comrade who can give me the special advice I need. We used to think of Engineering as a profession, but now we must speak of civil engineers, mining-engineers, electrical engineeers, and the like. We may not like this readjustment, but we are forced by changing Condi- tions to adapt ourselves to it. I am led, therefore, to raise the Question. Whether the time has not come for Similar differentia- tion and vocational training in the ministry. “The original theory of the Congregational minister was that of a man set apart for a lifelong settlement as the sole spiritual guide and moral teacher of a single town or parish. At first the ministerial function was regarded as essentially connected With such settlement, and a minister without a parish had no professional Standing and no legal rights. The theory that the ministerial office could be discharged only by those ministers Who were actually settled in parishes was overthrown by the ministers themselves, who insisted that their ordination as min- isters was for life and not merely for the years in which they Served a particular parish. The lifelong settlement gradually gave Way before the changing habits of the people and has now, With rare exceptions, totally disappeared. “The reasons for ministerial restlessness are not hard to find. One reason is, the legitimate desire for more adequate remun- eration. The pitifully Small Salaries paid by too many churches require that a self-respecting minister with a family dependent upon him should be constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to improve his financial condition. Another reason is that many churches have an insatiable and not altogether blameworthy desire for novelty, a change of direction or of impulse. A third reason is the necessarily inadequate equipment of many minis- ters, a lack of resources so that the intellectual and Spiritual supplies run low. No One of these reasons necessarily involves any reproach to ministers or parishes, but all of them add to the indictment against Our present theory of the ministry. COLLEGIATE PREACHING 287 “The fact is that the demands of our age upon the single min- ister of the single parish have become insupportable save by the rarest spirits. There are still a few remarkable ministers Who are able to respond with reasonable efficiency to the modern requirements, and there are a few more whose special brilliancy in Some one department of a minister’s many-chambered activity COmpounds for his shortcomings in other departments. But the great majority of ministers simply cannot be expected to mea- Sure up to the standards which compel success in the work of a modern church. It is too much to expect that a man can be all at once an intellectual leader, well versed in the learning of the Schools and keeping abreast of advancing knowledge; a faithful and industrious pastor, quick to sympathize with all the various moods and caprices of the flock, ready to rejoice With those who are glad and to weep with those who weep; an inter- esting and inspiring preacher able to lift his hearers to higher levels of thought and conduct, to make truth clear and duty imperative; an expert in religious education, eager to guide the children into ways of right thinking and living; a social leader, resourceful, tactful, popular, able to be at ease in any COmpany and conversant with all sorts and conditions of men; a skillful administrator, who can raise money, promote the business inter- ests of a parish, and oversee its temporal concerns; an expert in charitable work, co-operating with all the agencies that make for the welfare of the community; a public spirited citizen, intelligently active in the promotion of civic reforms and Well informed about all public discussions and obligations. I have only begun to catalogue the duties of a modern minister, and yet it is enough to prove that it is impossible to expect any One man to meet all these requirements. The inevitable failure and the resulting friction embitter many a faithful minister’s life. “What is the remedy? Is it not to be found in the gradual aban- donment of our traditional theories of the ministerial office and the adoption of a conception of the ministry which will permit of our churches utilizing the diversities of gifts and operations for the advancement of a common cause? Must We not gradually take up the idea that, on the one hand, a single preach- er can often serve two or three churches, and one director of religious education serve an entire conference, or one expert in philanthropy a whole group of churches, and, on the other hand, that a single church can and often should avail itself of the services of a group of ministers each especially fitted by temperament and training for the efficient administration of some particular branch of the church's work? Shall we not look forward to the working out of the ideal of what Someone has called ‘the Collegiate Church’? “This change of conception obviously involves a corresponding 288 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION change in our methods of preparation. Already Several Divinity Schools are adapting their courses to meet the new demand. “Courses of study are outlined and recommended Which lead (1) to the work of the regular pastorate, (2) to expert Service in the province of religious education, (3) to employment in the foreign field, (4) to work among our fellow-citizens of foreign birth and speech, (5) to social service under Christian auspices and in connection with institutional religion. Must not this process of differentiation go on in all the Schools which have heretofore carried on their work with the Sole purpose of pre- paring their students for the pastoral and preaching functions? “I cannot but believe that this change in the conception of the ministry and in the training for the ministry which Such a change involves, will make the ministry more attractive to Strong men. It is too often unattractive now because the min- ister seems to be in such a large measure confined to the limited round of relatively Small functions. He must do so many things that he has not time to do any One Of them thoroughly. Should he not be made to underStand that henceforth he is to be trained as an expert in Some particular field, that he is to employ his Special aptitude in the Ways where it can be most efficient, that he is to serve a whole fellowship, a whole community, along the lines in which he can be most useful? That is an inspiring challenge, and its acceptance Will mean the upbuilding of an efficient and happy ministry and of our churches through that ministry.” PART SEVEN RELIGIOUS RECONSTRUCTION URGENT CHAPTER XXIX SCIENTIFIC I)OCTRINE AND METHOD IMPERATIVE NOW If we today have not reason for anxious, enthusiastic, vigorous efforts in trying to wake up those within reach to the realization of religious and Social conditions and the incalculable consequences threatening, then never was there cause. Alfred Noyes in The Saturday Evening Post re- cently had an alarming article entitled “Civilization Imper- iled.” To him the peril is that the world is letting loose from the old views of God and Man and Bible. True, it surely is imperiled. But this is not peril. It is part of the relief. Is not I900 years about long enough to try out a theory? All the world is alarmed except the more literal church contingent, and some of these (like children) are more or less scared because others are—they do not know why. Anarchists and monarchists, socialists and capitalists, republicans and democrats, catholics and protestants, editors and authors—everybody, whose mental activity extends beyond neighborhood gossip, is getting more or less a feel- ing of uncertainty and dread. They are all afraid of this, that, and the other group or gºve They have all practi- 289 290 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION cally ceased to believe in the traditional moral restraints and sanctions, but only a few are aware of it, and not many have a clear idea of what would take their place. There is no doubt much truth in the accusations of every party or group against the others, but thinking it and saying it and slurring and slamming without reconstruction are very primitive and unconvincing ways of obtaining agree- ment. The agreements in those fields which have boosted the world during the last century have come from investiga- tion and conference. But in religious and social matters most people do not investigate—they hear, learn, commit. They do not confer—they preach, blame, bluster. There has not yet taken place one general, serious effort to investi- gate and thoroughly confer upon religious problems. Churchmen, as a rule, are utterly unfamiliar with the mood and procedure of the men who are investigating the prob- lems which are included under the terms Physics, Chemistry, Electricity, Biology, Psychology, and other sciences. The leaders in Religion for a couple of centuries have boasted that they were dealing with something entirely apart from the rest of man's interests. But this is now regarded as only a childish relic of a professional mood left over from the times when priests dogmatized, commanded, and threat- ened all the population with notions and theories left over from still earlier times. Religious doctrine has, in consequence of this long per- Sistent lack of renovation and corrective readaptation, be- come an atavistic portion of the general social organism. It is a principle in Biology that rudimentary organs endanger the whole organism. Evolution everywhere tends to set aside by atrophy the organs which new environments can no longer profitably stimulate to helpful use. But when the Organ's use is outgrown and it still persists in enfeebled, inadequate reactions, inflammation sets in and the whole Organism is threatened with destruction. The instances are found by millions. In the human body the “appendix” (a rudimentary remnant of a very early stomach) often gets in the way of progress and has to be cut out. SCIENTIFIC IDOCTRINE IMPERATIVE NOW 291 The same law prevails in psychological, Sociologoical, and not less in religious realms. By this law the Church is in gravest danger of either wrecking the whole social body or of being excised. No organ can survive without health and wholesome, useful functioning. Evolution must go on. Evolution will go on, even if it has to destroy civilization again and again, and begin all over at Some lower stage. The social body must have its organs and instruments to furnish its nourishment and activities. Will the Church continue to be one of these? Sincerely do we hope so. But just now (for a century past), it is not filling the bill. Both from within and without the Church's ranks come the most tremendous alarms. ALARM CRIES ABOUT SOCIAL CONDITIONS Dr. Lyman Abbott published a book in 1910 called The Spirit of Democracy.” In that book he discussed the prob- lems of modern industry. Here are some of his sentences: “Under this system a comparatively small body of men own all the tools and implements with which industry is carried on : the land, the mines, the factories, the railways, the forest; and a great body of men do the work with these tools and implements, not owning them. The men who own these tools and implements we call capitalists, and the men who do the work with these tools we call laborers. “Many persons imagine that the wages system has lasted from eternity and will last to eternity, because they have never known any other system. In point of fact, it was born about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and I do not believe it will outlast the twentieth century. The evils of the system are many and great, and have been often recognized by scholars of every class. “I do not believe that either regulation or gradual moral reform or charity will set the world right. I do not believe that the evil of our present system will be cured by anything less than a radical change.” And this was all deliberately written several years ago by 292 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION the editor of THE OUTLOOK, a revered minister, and a man who holds in millions of minds the place of one of the soberest thinkers in the world. He is no youthful “muck- raker” or “red reformer,” no radical mind, for he was in his seventy-fifth year at the time he finished the book. Rev. DuBois H. Loux, Ph. D., a Congregational Minister of Meriden, Conn. and formerly of Broadway Tabernacle, New York, is reported as follows, on the occasion of his quitting the Church: “Organized Christianity is not Christi- anity, but ecclesiasticism. I hold it without question that organized Christianity today is dissolute. It is playing fast and loose with the principles for which Christ died. It dares not be true. It must preach doctrines that are con- genial and undisturbing. Out of its necessities, it feels that it must keep its ear to the ground to make sure that the world of wealth is not offended in it.” To Christian leaders of Commerce, this preacher declares, “All the world knows that your profit does not create any- thing, and is only an excuse for polite brigandage. You make prices and plunder the land of its health and liberty. If you did your duty, for democracy, your citizens would have time for art, for literature, for religion, for righteous- ness, for health, for recreation, for home, for life. But the ten that toil have never seen the light, while you are content to paint the land lurid with your profits.” Now Rev. Dr. Loux may be undiplomatic and blunt, but he is not a morally indifferent man. He is neither an “infi- del” nor a “grafter.” Nor is he alone. Scores and hun- dreds of ministers are getting clearer headed, and, perhaps, getting honest. But it will need many more of them—and wiser manners. If they were evolved far enough to form a nation-wide union, they might then back each other and preach on present day problems, But— Woe to the Church in any age when it lets out or puts out its Luthers, its Wesleys, its Channings, its Emersons, its Parkers. Greece did this with its Socrates, its Plato, its Aristotle,_and fell at once a prey to inner decay and outer attack. SCIENTIFIC LOCTRINE IMPERATIVE NOW 293 Mr. Thomas A. Edison before the Civic Federation in New York made these clear cut statements not long ago: “Poverty will be abolished from the world within the next century. Political revolutions are imminent in both Europe and America. Within a short time England will be dominated by labor. I think in a decade this country may also be. Civilization is on a false basis and must change by elimination of the means by which any man may take that which he has not made. Universal peace or gen- eral political revolution will come within a short time.” Are we going to realize these great facts, and help bring about the wondrous change in an orderly way? Unless we and thousands more do so, it will make the effort to arrive with ignorance, violence, bloodshed, and by a revolution that will bring not a thousandth part of its possible good. Mr. Frederick Townsend Martin (millionaire, banker, writer), in Everybody’s Magazine, back in April, 1911, said: “Tomorrow in this land there will be one of two things— either an Evolution or a Revolution. “I do not want to be considered an alarmist, nor to cry panic from the housetops. Yet in the light of facts, I cannot see how the business world of America can long escape a reckoning that has for years been overdue. There has to be in this country an adjustment that will shake the financial and business world to its foundations. It is possi- ble, though not probable, that the necessary social changes of the next decade can be accomplished without a cataclysm. But the concurrent business changes, the necessary shifting of the bases of our industrial system, the inevitable scaling down of the extravagance to which the nation as a whole has become accustomed, are, I should say, utterly impossible without an overwhelming industrial disturbance. “The rank and file of the class I represent is blind and careless . . . As a class, we are, today, obstructionists. “Then what are we going to do about it?” The opinion is widespread, that Life is getting more and more tangled. Dispositions are getting more and more 294 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION crooked. Crime increases above and below. An orderly state of society is fast becoming impossible. Professor William Herbert Carruth has wonderfully ex- pressed the situation in a poem: THE TIME TO STRIKE My God! I am weary of waiting for the year of jubilee. I know that the cycle of man is a moment only to Thee; They have held me back with preaching what the patience of God is like, But the world is weary of waiting; will it never be time to strike? When my hot heart rose in rebellion at the wrongs my fellows bore, It was, “Wait until prudent saving has gathered you up a store; ” And, “Wait till a higher station brings value in men’s eyes; ” And, “Wait till the gray-Streaked hair shall argue your counsel Wise.” The hearts that kindled with mine are caught in the Self-same net; One waits to master the law, though his heartstrings vibrate yet; And one is heaping up learning, and many are heaping up gold, And some are fierce in the forum, but slowly we all wax old. The rights of men are a byword; the bones are not yet dust Of those who broke the shackles and the shackles are not yet rust Till the masters are forging new ones, and coward lips are Sealed, While the code that cost a million lives is step by step repealed. The wily world-enchantress is working her Cursed charm, The spell of the hypnotizer is laming us, head and arm; The wrong dissolves in a cloud-bank of “whether” and “if” and “still,” And the subtleties of logic inhibit the sickly will. The bitter lesson of patience I have practiced, lo, these years; Can it be that what has passed for prudence was prompted by my fears? - Can I doubt henceforth in my choosing, if such a choice I must have, Between being wise and craven or being foolish and brave? SCIENTIFIC IDOCTRINE IMPERATIVE NOW 295 Whenever the weak and weary are ridden down by the strong, Whenever the voice of honor is drowned by the howling throng, Whenever the right pleads clearly while the lords of life are dumb, The times of forbearance are over and the time to strike is COIſle. These criticisms are not from enemies. They are from friends. They are not merely strong. They are prophetic thunderings, foreboding direful outcomes. They are the lamentations of new Jeremiahs, Isaiahs, and Micahs. They are alarming exhortations and inspirations towards Social righteousness. But, if these and hundreds of such prophets see the still bigger truth, they mostly fail to say it. That further awe- inspiring truth is, that— We cannot change the social structure on the basis of the old faith. Christian traditional doctrine contains no principles or beliefs that are capable of handling the new social order that is coming, and that will be wrecked in the building, if it is attempted to rear it on the narrow basis of by-gone ignorance. No church creed, no bible ever knew or hinted a hundredth part of the complications that the twentieth century is socially up against. Right is no such simple thing as Hebrew minds assumed. To deal with today, to save civilization from another reversion, we must have directing committees who know the discoveries in geological evolution, in biology, in embryology, in heredity, in physiological psychology, in evolutional sociology, in psycho-social politics, and in history seen over millenial stretches. These were utterly wanting in any ancient mind. We have the facts. We have the men. They are available. It is imbecile to continue to allow out-of-date, self-seeking, clique-mooded, political and religious mongerers to continue to control human affairs. There must be by this time sev- eral millions who through college, university, and general reading know the elements of the various sciences. Set these people at work in scientific conference on unsolved 296 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION social and religious problems. These sciences are the new human outlook. They constitute what should be man’s Cosmology or World Conception today. They furnish the facts for the religion of the intelligent. This completely overshines all former views. It has created a new heaven, a new earth, a new man, and is now on the way to a new social order. It has an entirely new idea of God, his nature, his modes of creation, his might, his presence in the illimit- able abysses of space, and his transformational existence through endless cycles of worlds and systems. It is RELIGIOUS RECONSTRUCTION that is most needed. All other would follow naturally and rapidly. It is the world- outlook which the Church preaches that blocks or impedes the way. The men who teach and control in the religious and social institutions are doomed to confess that the world- theory they are now incompletely floating is narrow or wrong or inadequate. THE PREACHING NEEDED The preachers who will save the nations from that peril- ous moral degeneration which has already begun and which has in previous ages always followed religious decay will build up faith anew not only by appealing still to “God’s ancient revelations,” but far more to the broader modern ones. They will make themselves familiar with the “Old Bible” in the new light and with the New Bible as an in- creasing light. They will know the leading facts about the Heavens and our own Solar System (Astronomy), about our Earth and its long-eonian evolution (Geology), about the laws of Substance and Energy (Physics), about Life and its untellable years of upward progress (Biology), and about Man and his rise out of animal savagery toward universal human brotherhood (Anthropology). When they know the larger “revealed word,” they will cease talking of “the conflict between Science and Religion.” They will know that this only means the disharmony between old and new Science. They will correct the impression that SCIENTIFIC I)OCTRINE IMPERATIVE NOW 297 “Science” is something modern. They will see the truism that only “Modern Science” is modern; that what the an- cients learned in their schools, their temples and elsewhere was their “Science,” i. e., their systems of supposed know- ledge. In fewest words, let preaching now be— Prospective in place of retrospective. Contemporary in place of traditional. Constructive in place of destructive. Affirmative in place of negative. Inclusive in place of exclusive. Evolutionary in place of revolutionary. Sympathetic in place of vindictive. MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT A WHOLE LOT OF STILL PLAINER TALK IS OVER-DUE ABOUT THIS TIME – On Education: regarding new truths of life; elimination of old, formal, “disciplinary” stuff; getting after what definitely helps; new preparation for new environment; relegating college abstractions; chasing off professorial truckling; and making un- comfortable every other resistance to progress calling itself “learning” or “culture.” On Marriage: sex, children, common-sense mating, family, home-making, divorce, companionship, partnership in life, rights and spheres of man and woman, especially of woman, etc. On Defective Humanity: degenerates, delinquents, haphazard breeding; effective elimination, penal abominations, fool esti- mates of what crime is; the little crimes, and the colossal ones Still called virtues. On Economics: the unmoral, un-Christian, unhuman ideas on labor, work, slavery, poverty, riches, robbery, “justice,” villainy (masquerading as captaining industry), generosity (with stolen and worse than Stolen goods), “public charity” (the present fad in Social hypocrisy), luxurious remuneration of idlers, and the obtuse despoilment of toilers. On Religion: credulity and reason; facts of the Universe vs. old whims; priestly Sciolism, ministerial machiavellism; cere- monial farces; and the age-long, lost-to-shame bluff about “holy Office” and “Sacred book.” 298 CHAPTER XXX SAMPLE CLOSE-UPS OF THOUGHT-CONDITIONS Thousands, perhaps millions in the Church are feeling the upward, onward pull. To get away from dogmas that have become absurd and ridiculous in presence of twentieth cen- tury enlightenment is now an anxiety of progressive minds in many denominations. A short time ago the New York Presbytery voted sixty-four to three in favor of accepting for the ministry three Union Theological Seminary gradu- ates all of whom denied the virgin birth of Christ and other miracle stories of both New and Old Testaments' And the newspaper editors who report these one-time “sacrileges” take open sides against the old views. They go far afield to tell the world that “Dogma faces severe test today. It can- not speak with ex-cathedra voice and command obedience. It is interrogated on every side by men who read and think and question, and who prove it by its value when applied to the real problems of life. Once able to dwell aloof, buttressed by ecclesiasticism, it must now meet the issues that arise out of men's social, business, political, and inter- national relations. Once asking only that men believe, it is now compelled to accept the fact that men reason. Dogma yields ground, but the sphere of spiritual service and fellowship widens.” (Chicago Post) “The Christian Herald” and other professedly orthodox religious periodicals are seeing in this “a new spiritual awakening that is sweeping the world.” Some of the world is Surely getting aroused to higher things, but it is not con- sistent for the Church to call it a “spiritual awakening.” It is everywhere a definite departure from all that the Church vocabulary has heretofore included under “spirit- 299 3oo A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION ual.” So far as it goes it is a mental and moral betterment far superior to anything the former religionists ever knew. But it is not “sweeping the world,” unless we mean that it and other things are sweeping away all former forms of faith, while this new faith is not yet put into gospel form to replace the decaying views. From “liberal” sources the momentous change is seen with an entirely different interpretation. The Unitarian Layman’s League, (a national organization of highest stand- ing) in “A Statement to the Country” at the end of 1920 says: “We are rapidly becoming a nation without religion. . A historic change, grievous in its injury and perhaps ominous of disaster, is befalling this heir and hope of the ages, the United States of our Republic. Along with this loss of religiousness have gone scorn of moral principles and threats against ordered liberty. We see this all about us. The moral order in industry, in the family, in personal life, is not only often thrust aside as impertinent, but is denounced as the mere tyranny of arbitrary convention, . . Here is a crisis . . . We Americans are falling from our greatest tradition; we are endangering our character and Our soul as a people . . . It is time for plain speech and vigorous action.” Rev. John Haynes Holmes of New York says, “The Great War has thrown down all denominational lines between Protestant churches.” “It was a colossal assumption to believe that the Protestant churches on old denominational lines, could exist after the War. There must be a recon- struction all along the line.” Dr. Holmes has recently claimed to take the old and well- known Church of the Messiah out of the Christian class, has “put the Social-Democratic stamp indelibly upon its work, and has made it take “rank with the school, the library, the community center as a public institution for public Service.” This act retains the Church as a method of effective work on the social body, while it changes from ancient Jewish Doctrine to Modern Science Outlook. It puts the new modern content into the old institution. Be- CLOSE-UPS OF THOUGHT CONDITIONS 301 lief in this or that theological speculation is no longer a basis for membership. It is nothing short of a general breakdown of former church assumptions that is indicated by this loosening up of doctrinal lines and this effort to sink differences and fall in with the practical interests of an age rapidly changing its views under pressure of investigation. On the part of many church people, it is simply a yielding laxity in doctrine (without the understanding of the facts), mainly in order to retain their foothold, to be popular, to secure membership, and to maintain the institution. With a smaller number, it is a growth in intelligence and a genuine yearning for a larger social usefulness and a better world. Some one has aptly termed this an effort toward “Christian International- ism.” But nine-tenths of them do not know that for its accomplishment, all former dogmatic meanings of “Chris- tian” are bound to be outgrown. Christianity has stood for a now antiquated World-Conception, a primitive Cosmology. It cannot quietly cease to emphasize this and try to regain popularity by merely falling in with the social ideals and regime that belong to the new Scientific Cosmology. It cannot play two ways—read from the old books and urge the new social order. It cannot longer continue to read into the old authorities the new doctrines. It cannot read Geology into Genesis. Nor can it read Evolutional Sociology into the Neo-Judaic Gospels and Epistles. After-War rallies are the order of the day—conventions galore—projected unions at every point of the compass— coöperation in Social movements—calls for revivals. The religious press resounds with these. But nearly all of them are efforts to re-rally interest in old doctrines, to try to make them serve recognized modern social needs. Beautiful in purpose, yet more and more failing in efficiency. As an inhibitor of primitive conduct, the Church is not fifty per- cent efficient. As a stimulator to truth-seeking, it is not five percent efficient. Its service under out-of-date doc- trines and with empty forms is so lacking in accomplishment that it could not hold its job under any modern business 302 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION manager. It “soldiers on the job,” simply because it has an immense economic plant and a long-standing organization. But the age has arrived when revivals cannot save it. “Revival” is not and never was progress. Revival is simply reiteration, to the stage of excitement. Once, revival could spread and affect the masses. Now, the masses cannot be affected even by the most frenzied and threatening reitera- tion. Once the ancient doctrines permeated literature and were backed by government. Now our national and state governments, through universities, museums, Smithsonian, Rockefeller and Carnegie Institutions, are expending millions yearly to discover, publish, and propagate Science, the truth on which is based the religion urged in these pages. Not a cent do they spend directly toward maintaining forms of religious traditionalism. This tells the story. The final outcome is in sight. The eminent English writer, Samuel Laing, in the wide- ly known book, “Modern Science and Modern Thought,” says: “The conclusions of Science are irresistible and old forms of faith, however venerable and however endeared by a thousand associations, have no chance in a collision with it.” “The creeds must be transformed or die.” Sir John Lubbock (later Lord Avebury) in his “Origin of Civilization” wrote: “To Science we owe the idea of progress. It is not going too far to say, that the true test of the civilization of a nation must now be measured by its progress in Science.” This attitude now inspires a large part of the journalism of leading nations. It is increasingly imbuing the literature of the world. Clearer and clearer it is being realized that the out-aged traditionalism has been one of the two chief causes that has kept the world nearly static for so long. Walter Bagehot in “Physics and Politics” says: "The Ancients had no conception of Progress; they did not so much as reject the idea; they did not even entertain it.” Then why should we, generation after generation and cen- tury after century, keep on taking them and their books as CLOSE-UPS OF THOUGHT CONDITIONS 303 authority, as the basis for our education, our religion, our morals? We can read them, but not in college, and only after we have arrived at powers of discrimination. They are instructive as history. They are ideals only to people who are not abreast of these far greater times. Parker H. Sercombe has tersely put the case thus: “Man has reached thought-integrity in every field of research, inquiry, discovery, and organization in which traditional in- stitutions have kept their hands off; but the world still re- mains in a sordid condition of stupidity in every field in which traditional institutions have retained their clutch, and thus perverted the onward march toward honesty, accuracy, health, and peace.” will THE CHURCH COME OVER TO SCIENCEP Can the Church change from an association of “believers in old traditions” to an organization proclaiming the results of recent investigation and thinking? Will it cease to be a close corporation of Salvation seekers and become a volun- teer band of truth seekers and civic servers? In the course of centuries, the Church has become a hollow organization. I am not thinking of it morally. Morally, the Church is as good and better than the part of the community that neglects it. The Church's chief difficulty is in lack of knowledge and facts. The Church does not know the world it is talking about. Its “facts” have been mostly ancient guesses. When the Church came into being as an organiza- tion it accepted the ideas of the ancient world about the heavens, the earth, God, man, morals, society, state, time, Space, matter, life, growth, education, books, authorities, etc. In not a single instance does the modern world hold these views. Everything ancient in theory is discounted to so great an extent as to be no longer currency. Hence to longer cling to the concepts of the Classic or Hebrew minds is preposterous. No One does it, except in those moments when he is under the domination of fixed ideas inculcated in his early years, before he began to think. The mood is 3o4 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION a habit of centuries. It arrests the development of millions. And it does not accomplish the pacification or the unification of humanity. MAN KIND NOW REACHING UNITY The old traditional religions have preached and threatened and stewed for ages to bring humanity into their camps or to make their various camps conterminous with the world. So, too, the old politics in the form of military monarchism has tried by might and by diplomacy to bring the peoples into one realm of influence. They have both failed—shame- fully, if we pair their insignificant achievements with their loud claims and boasts and demands. Indeed, there never was the slightest chance that either traditional religion or traditional politics could solve the world’s problems. But the real unifier is arriving. Science in the form of a thousand inventional improvements in methods of defense, aggression, living-getting machinery, transportation, com- munication—all ending in world-commerce, is doing the job. The unparalleled achievements in the use of powers of na- ture for carrying out the wants of man by wind and water and steam and gas and electricity and ether have begun to make the earth one neighborhood, and its people are in sight of Seeing themselves one people. Barbarians and savages can no longer keep civilization out of their jungles or fast- nesses. No band of bandits in Abyssinia or Mexico can long escape the eagle eye and bombing talons of modern airplanes and dirigibles. “Come into the League of Hu- manity, now, if you will—but soon, whether you will or not.” And no imprecations to hoary gods with ancient feelings, no attenuated dogmas passed down by priests of such imagined creatures, no books collected in ignorant ages by traditional bigots—no, not these nor any other opposition can stem the tide of this new stage of man. Science and Commerce are the world's hope. These and their facts (not preaching and its legends) are bringing progress, pros- perity, and comfort. - CLOSE-UPS OF THOUGHT CONDITIONS 305 To collect these facts, to announce them, to show the needy masses their meaning, to urge the just distribution of their benefits, to be untiring Sentinels guarding against past forms of life, past ideas, or past conduct intruding themselves into these glorious prospects—this will surely be enough to occupy those who believe in church assemblies and church social relations as methods of human betterment. CHAPTER XXXI RETICENCE OF SCIENCE DANGEROUS Modern investigators are, as a class, not given to pushing their views, if these views affect social or religious theory. Their deep-seated aversion partly explains the slow spread of the broadening movement, in matters social and religious, 'mid the present otherwise rapid progress. The investigator in things mental is afraid of giving offense, or he dreads the possible reaction upon his own welfare, if he talks. His practice is in strong contrast with the many moral and Social theorists who are always loud in proclaiming their generally borrowed speculations and isms. These moral reformers are usually yet in dogmatic mood. They have outgrown some of their former traditions and have adopted a new vocabulary on a few problems, but they have not changed their manners or methods. They deal in condem- nations and authorities. On the other hand, few of the scientific mooded people have yet reached a sense of social solicitude. They have still to learn that those who attain advanced and proven ideas shall also be heralds of them. The honor carries an obligation. All honors do. IT'S UP TO YOU—MEN OF SCIENCE | Before the “Age of Science,” progress was made by Speculators, moralists, fanatics. Seldom did anybody in- vestigate. Around the occasional new guesses sects formed, committed the new authorities to memory and built up new traditions. These ran the usual gamut and became so effete as to produce new speculations. An entirely new type of 306 RETICENCE OF SCIENCE DANGEROUS 307 mental activity is now taking possession of human conduct. The contrast between the traditional mentality that domin- ated all the yesterdays and the investigative inquiry that alone is satisfying to the twentieth century brain, is so great as to be realized by very few people yet. And this outlook —rivalling in distinctness that between Geological eras— is already laying down new mental and Social strata, or conditions of history. It is burying every sort of Orthodoxy. It is becoming ludicrous and absurd to cater to Superstition and apologize for placing our faith and practice in the Series with others in historic analyses. But with all the advance, it is clear to long-range observers that our progress has been mostly made by the very mass of it, rather than by purposive, intentional plan. The time is fully ripe for direct and concerted coöperation in the effort to organize this mass of newly established facts into helpful movements. There is unspeakable danger in waiting. “Dark Ages” are quite possible again. There is nothing to lose by action. The Superstitious and ultra-traditional are not very powerful any longer. Mostly they do not half believe their own professions. They are shilly-shally and only pretendedly loyal. They are not to be feared. An English Canon has lately undertaken to estimate the number of people who seriously read the Bible. His con- clusion (published broadcast through the London Daily Chronicle) is, that in Great Britain and Ireland only one person in 22,000 reads the Bible with the serious view to making it the guide of life! This is an amaging admission. It has a startling meaning. If traditional Christian propa- gators have deserted their own source of dogma, why take them seriously any longer? “The Sunday School Times” recently printed an article by J. Stuart Holden, D. D., (Editor of “The Christian”) in which he said: “Great expectations of a stupendous re- vival as an outcome of the War have been disappointed. Many of those who for the time being turned from the aggressive ministry of God's Word literally to serve tables excused themselves by the hope that the profound and 308 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION searching experiences through which nations and individuals were passing would create a God-ward movement, and that when the excitements and anxieties were well over we should find a new and religious world in being. “How far otherwise is the actual state of things today? The majority of men who are returning home are no more interested in religion than they were before they went out. . . . That they are heroes, no one for a moment denies. That they are saints—simply because of their matchless courage under battle fire—they are themselves the first to repudiate. They were not much impressed by the churches before the War, and they are certainly no more impressed now. In many cases they are even more indifferent . The only apparent revival is of worldliness, selfishness, and open godlessness.” But Dr. Holden has no remedy except to redouble our energies to give the world more of the things it is more and more repudiating ! From every quarter, within and without, come the most humiliating admissions and scathing criticisms of Church failure. Rev. E. Guy Talbot in “The Christian Work” has just said a lot of things under the title “Is The Church a Failure?” He even takes the pains to collect the most damaging condemnation, quoting and citing articles in mag- azines and great papers. An especially notable passage is from an editorial in the “St. Louis Republic,” which says: “The Church has been losing its influence, there is no man- ner of doubt, and the reasons are not hard to find. It is getting further away from Christ and nearer to Croesus. The Church has departed from the masses to take up with the classes. The Church, today, is not preaching the gospel of that Christ who drove the money changers out of the Temple. The money changers are being chased into the Temple amid paeans of joy and escorted by smiling, ingra- tiating preachers of the Word. They are an ornament to the Church under the new Dollar Divinity.” The wide difference between the simple old doctrinal traditionalism of our fathers, trying to renovate human life RETICENCE OF SCIENCE DANGEROUS 309 by turning it back to olden ideas, and that of the semi- speculative, semi-scientific work so often tried today, is very clearly seen in a 1918 book on “Human Nature and Its Remaking” by Professor William Ernest Hocking of Har- vard University. It is a profound study and a long advance from the antiquated church theories, but it lacks the direct- ness and simplicity of a scientific application of the facts of today. The time has come for conferences striving to reconstruct the cosmical and social outlooks. A few plain unostenta- tious meetings, like those of the American or British Asso- ciations for the Advancement of Science, quietly and seriously formulating the results of modern investigations on social and religious problems, and the great change would be under way. THE MEN AEHEAD The men of Science are, for the most part, paid to teach in established ways. Their advanced research has mostly to be done “after hours,” or as an avocation. Seldom do original men earn a livelihood through their most advanced ideas. They continually have to resort to something only half as interesting, and they undoubtedly waste three-fourths of their invaluable time. This is altogether true in the later sciences and in those fields not yet fully reduced to scientific cultivation. The further development and application of Scientific labors depend very largely on donations, aids, and privileges from generous and more or less appreciative people. The only incentives of the leaders must be the breath of expectation, fame, passion for human progress, or disposi- tion to be helpful. But their best results are never possible because of their necessitated toil for bread and butter. It has come about that the really advanced worker is supposed and expected to give his life for “The Cause.” Why so? Is there any more reason why he should do it than why the rest should do likewise or, at least, support him in it? As 31o A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION now practised, he takes the lead, spends every possible extra moment in producing new facts and getting them into prac- ticable form; but others pick up the new opportunities, boss the later jobs, and get the emoluments and first honors. All this is worse than wrong. It is absurd. It is an incalculable loss to the society that perpetrates it. It is, in modern phrase, “inefficient” human living.” Either our civilization will go down to defeat because of unequal progress between the material and the ethical sides of life, or some body of men who know the higher, larger facts will call themselves together and formulate what Science now holds to be these facts about the universe, the world, life, man, mind, society, nation, race, progress, duty, and purpose. The Preachers and Priests do not know— and do not want to know. The Scientists do know—and do not want to tell. If there should not take place in the near future various patriotic movements among men of Science to confer and proclaim in popular language the facts and laws of life and progress, then various bodies of people who understand Science more or less must get together and do this. The Schools are getting paid for doing it, but they lose nine- tenths of their students in bookish pedantries and proprieties before graduation. They turn out enough annually to re- deem the world, but they forget to tell them the world needs redemption. Surely, ere this, the men engaged in discovery and its explanation should have seen to it that their facts reached the people. But the truth is that very few of them are writing for the people. They write with a view to each other's criticism. Hence their books are “hard to under- stand.” If scientists are not seeing to this because of * “The world is turning a critical corner. Mighty things are doing. Civilization is in the awful throes of rebirth and this Stupendous upheaval will, in all probability, vitally change your life and the lives of every living man and woman about you.” —From W. J. Funk of the “Literary Digest” (October, 1920), Vice President of The Funk and Wagnalls Publishing House. RETICENCE OF SCIENCE DANGEROUS 311 thoughtlessness or indifference, then those who are not in- different must diffuse the knowledge. The noisy erudites in church and school and politics will deny the need. But multitudes are no longer asking their views on these mat- ters. They have had their day. None ever had so great opportunity. They neither see the conditions nor have the social solicitude. Organized efforts, here, there, and everywhere, are the pressing need. The facts, truths, laws, principles are known. They can be easily gathered. The dominance of superstition can be ended. The danger of the collapse of civilization can be set aside. Such an effort will soon smoke out the traditionalists who are the cause of the stagnation. When this movement is actually under way, the men of Science will realize where their work stands sociologically. They will get a far wider credit for their discoveries, and will be publicly held responsible for their truth and genuine- ness. Then they will soon perceive the danger of discredit from their previous impractical neglect in not taking a hand in furthering both publication and application to human life. They will see that they cannot stand aside like the philoso- phers of old or the monks of the Middle Ages, while society stumbles on to ruin. It will be clear to them that it is better to come out and lead than to risk misrepresentation by half- informed enthusiasts. Such movements will bring the dis- coverers and investigators out of unsocial seclusion and into conference and practical action. If not for life’s betterment, why gather we our facts? Shall we wait as did former thinkers till the State is pulled down over our heads? Archimedes dawdled with his puz- zles while Syracuse and Sicily crashed. Aristotle tutored the very tyrant who was getting ready to destroy his own dear Hellas. He and his compeer thinkers doubted the old and did not get together on any new, while the people went into indifference, and Greece became easy prey for the greedy Macedonian Alexander. - To bring truth to the people by heart to heart conference on human interests surely is the only excuse for discovering 312 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION it. In appealing tones Life is now calling for all investi- gators to get together and write and tell the world their findings. In mutual fears, in cynical criticisms of each others’ books and in obliviousness of the needs of the Social Order, lurks catastrophe for civilization. To wait for natural selection would be cruelty unnamable. To be sure, it will slowly kill off the unfit and perhaps build a half- fledged race in a hundred thousand years or more Man, the thinker, could build a grand humanity in one short hundred years by rallying to a Theology that is Natural grounded in a Science that is Modern. THEREFORE, WANTED : People who think it normal to desire to know the latest and uttermost facts. People who love truth and fact enough to welcome in- vestigation—even of their cherished traditions and sacred prejudices. People who see the failure of traditional theories not only in material fields, but also in economic, moral, and religious. People who will deeply sympathize with others who are alike troubled. People who, though comfortable, are yet human. People who have learned that the highest things are attained only by combining. People whose ideals are not to be “Knights” of old faiths going out in crusades against champions of other old faiths. (E. g., Crusaders' attacks on Moslems, both of whom drew their muddled traditions from the same ancient Jewish legends.) People who examine and think, who are looking for facts, and who have the heart to spread scientific enlightenment to the belated millions. People who will work with might and main to build Modern Schools and Modern Churches—institutions which will not make and then graduate comfortable and unawak- RETICENCE OF SCIENCE DANGEROUS 313 able indifferents, educational and religious bigots, political and commercial thieves. People who are bent on establishing an education that cares for life that is living, more than for life that is dead. People who will not set themselves up as educators till they are beyond putting the stress on languages long dead, on square and cube root, on alligation and alliquot parts, on complex fractions and algebra, on antiquated spelling and parsing; while they stupidly ignore physiology and hygiene, sex and parentage, biology and heredity, eugenics and eco- nomics, psychology and sociology, living-getting and voca- tional examinations. People who will dread the laugh of the twenty-first cen- tury enlightenment over the puerile bluff and polished cant which our times called “Education.” People of wealth and vision who wish to assist the be- wildered many by undertaking world-wide propaganda, spreading already demonstrated truth, thus replacing de- moralizing conditions by glorious progress. People who can write and who will use literary art to portray the wondrous demonstrations of today and replace the childish vagaries of yesterday. People of these types who will get together in spirit and effort, by thousands and millions. CAN THE CHURCH SAVE CIVILIZATION and, thus only, preserve its own Grand Organization and Equipment? YES By graciously Speeding a Receivership into the Facts, Truths, and Doctrines of the All-compassing Inquiry and the Irrevocable Authority of MODERN SCIENCE 3I4 CHAPTER XXXII IF WE MUST HAVE A CREED To the traditionalist, no creed is possible, unless drawn from his “sacred books.” All other formulations are to him “infidelity” or “heathenism.” This volume is full of affirmations in which he can see only negation of everything precious. But it is a fact that will grow clearer with years of scientific mood, that the speculative doctrines of the yester- times were the real negations, in that they became so dog- matically held as to arrest the development of millions and billions of human minds. They made men live with “fixed ideas” So long and so earnestly, that they came to regard growth as destruction. To leave the worn-out behind is not and never was nega- tion. It is just the way of Nature. It is merely natural exolution. To put our load on the motor-truck now is better transportation—even though we are sorry to leave the old wheel-barrow by the roadside. To tour in the auto- mobile, the pullman car or the aeroplane, of course, means to part with the dear old ox-team. But who is going to stay behind? THE CREED OF SCIENCE I. I BELIEVE that in recent times the Discoveries of honest, truth-telling men—Scientists—have been so numer- ous, so extensive, so profound in every department of human interest, that an entire reconstruction of ideas about the Heavens, the Earth, the Life, and the Powers, and conse- quently of religious and social belief, is made essential for 3I5 316 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION every person who puts the possession of truth above in- difference or error. II. I BELIEVE our “Creeds” should be summaries of what we individually now think to be true regarding the Universe and Man, and that as knowledge increases and our reasoning powers grow into greater scope, our creeds should be frequently and carefully revised. III. I BELIEVE that there is back of all else an Infinite, Eternal Energy, a Self-existent Essence and Source, an Illimitable Power that evolves all worlds, all life and growth, all death and decay, an All-pervading Ether or Spirit Back- ground, a Universal and Unfathomable Basic Condition of Existence—“God.” - IV. I BELIEVE that man’s constant discovery of facts and truths is to him “Revelation,” that revelation is an un- veiling not of “God’s face” but of man's, and that the way of life is made known to us in the verified discoveries and teachings of Science and in the examples and lessons of History, Art, and Literature. V. I BELIEVE that “Prayer” is simply longing for a higher type of existence shown by labor, by aspiration, by gratitude to men and women, and that petitioning address to “God” is meaningless, irrational, and insincere, as soon as we are intelligent enough to realize the immensity of the universe and the irrevocableness of its laws. VI. I BELIEVE in Mankind—the highest life on earth, born in lowliest simplicity (a million years ago), but with “divine” potentiality, taught by experience, with the ages ever reaching greater results, never perfected, always aspiring, always growing. VII. I BELIEVE that “Sin” is the survival or residuum of the pre-human and early-human life breaking out anew and becoming conscious in after thought; that there neither is nor was any bad till the better came; that it is the good in sight that makes the existing bad; and that man's real interest is in the problem of the origin of the good rather than in the origin of evil. VIII. I BELIEVE that Life is for living, that living IF WE MUCT HAVE A CREED 317 is growing, that growing is outgrowing; that “the end of life is growth, and that the end of growth is the beginning of death.” IX. I BELIEVE that the Ideal Character has only been intimated by the sage and Saintly types of past ages, and that no character of far-away times is a sufficient guide or pattern for this or future centuries. X. I BELIEVE in the “Beatitudes of Jesus,” and in other beatitudes of other lives, in unlimited, aggressive good-doing, not in merely avoiding bad-doing; that the keeping of the Decalogue (commanding things not to be done) is scarcely the beginning of character and personality. XI. I BELIEVE in the Oneness of Nature, so also in One Human Family, biologically and ethnically related, im- pelled by the same basic instincts, engaged in an age-long diminishing conflict, more and more perceiving their mutual dependence, now rapidly learning the spirit of sympathy and coöperation, and already entering upon the era of Human Federation. XII. I BELIEVE that Science is the concensus of the investigators—the latest and highest phase of man's devel- opment; and that its exercise in social relations will bring about “the union of all who love in the service of all who Suffer.” XIII. I BELIEVE that the best possible preparation toward any “Future Life” is an informed personality—not a selfish yearning or a credulous sentimentalism; that the fullest present life will find the truth sooner than either idle speculation based on ancient traditions, or shadowy seances bewildered by legerdemain. XIV. I BELIEVE that “Heaven” is a way and not a goal, that “Heaven” and “Hell” have no legitimate meanings today, except as states of mind independent of place. XV. I BELIEVE that these things are a chief part of Religion in the twentieth century. And I stand ready to believe in any discovery or fact that careful, scientific investigation may formulate. With kindly suggestion. 318 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION 538 B. C. 331 B. C. Arbela 322 B. c. 323 B. C. 146 B. C. After 509 B. C. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT OUR RACIAL PAST The Scepter of World Power passed into Aryan hands at the Fall of Babylon, when the Semitic Bel Shazzer fell before the Persian Cyrus leading the on-coming hosts of a rising mightier race. Thereafter, Persian glory thought to live on pride of former days; and, in two centuries of luxury and infidelity, it lay down and ignomin- iously died before Alexander's handful of Greeks. But the Hellenic hand was even then trembling in death. The Greeks had spent their “Golden Age.” Their last grand character, the world- famed Aristotle, finished his life just after Alex- ander the Great had seated himself on the world- throne at Babylon. Then, in a debauch of glory, Alexander too died. With him went out the flickering life of all the former 5000 years of Oriental, Asiatic, Semitic, Persian, and Greek civilizations. Greece and her farcical democratic glitter sank in impotence. Her cynic philoso- phers despoiled but did not replace her faith. She killed and exiled her potential saviors. A little later the Romans completed the wreck. And then the memory and inspiration of her Socrates, of her Platos, and of her Aristotles had to slumber through I 500 years before they rose again to rejuvenate the world. Meanwhile, Westward and Northward the sphere of empire had wended its way. The tiny Latin kingdom had evolved into the conquering Roman Republic. Once more Civilization had grown into promise. “The grandeur that was Rome” had come on. Its ruthless ambition trampled down and swayed the world. It ran its ÍF WE MUCT HAVE A CREED 3I9. indifferent course—I2OO years. And died its ignoble death—as all the rest. The hopes of a hundred ancient nations had faded, and their civilizations lie buried beneath the dust of centuries. And when Rome winked out, a thousand years of arresting blight o'ertook mankind. - Out of the wreck of the “Dark Ages,” at last arose many petty peoples. The greatness of some of their ancestral kin, preserved in long lost manuscripts, was rediscovered; and by the inspir– ation of this Hebrew-Greek-Roman literature (which to European Middle Age ignorance seemed “sacred” and “classic”), they soon out- grew those very thoughts they hugged so dearly. Since the ages began to lighten, Romanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples have vied for power. Spanish-Romanic won first; but clung with blind- ing bigotry to the rule of the past—and failed— in one short century. Again the Scepter Passed, when the “Invincible Armada” went down. We Anglo-Saxons since have borne it round the world. No sun e'er sets beyond our sway. OUR POSSIBLE FUTURE O Yet-Great Aryans! Is this our “Golden Age?” And are we beginning “The Decline and Fall,” as Gibbon wrote of Rome? A million hearts are anxious. Thousands now see that a traitorous few have long been importing lower races to cheapen labor. The mixture is already darkening our skin and paling our blood. It is insidiously sapping our Nordic strength and blurring our mental clear- 1162.SS. From 753 B. C. to 476 A. D. 1 100 A. D. and after 1492 A. D. 1588 A. D. 1611 to 1921 in British Empire and United States 320 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Religious, Political, Educa- tional, since 1543 More thousands see that for professional gain, the traditionalists have long been refusing proven facts. They have preached yesterday notions to propagate prejudice against growth, thus robbing most of the race of their birthright of continuous enlightenment. And now that their “dear old faiths” are fading and carrying away their last exploiting chance, they are raising tearful alarms and making frantic efforts at revival. “Failing” Of course—all faiths fail—mostly by unworthy collapse and decay when they might have developed by natural growth and respectable evolution. Only new faiths urge on to new vic- tories. Only faiths kept glowing by new truths can rouse new aspirations. Only while growing purpose lasts do nations live. Why then must every glory be followed by dis- grace? Racial decay is needless, and worse—it becomes a historical scandal for all time. The Philosophy that made Plato original and grand and wise could have saved his precious Athens. The Ethics that singled out Seneca for our ad- miration could have purified the Roman domain. The Beatitudes that glorified Jesus might have renovated the formalism of Judea. But they did not—and why?—apathy and indi- vidualism among the thinkers and ignorance and bigotry among the controllers. Opportunity Is Yet Ours. Science can illume the way. The hopes of all races center in it. The world is an unlimited fount of progress. We cannot wish beyond its capacity to supply. Enlightened by the galaxy of scientific achieve- ments, aur Aryan Race can lead on through inde- finite ages with increasing triumph. Conference of those who know and see and love will save it, by substituting, always and everywhere, the newer modern for the older ancient. |F– INDEX A Abbott, Lyman, 291. Aben, Ezra, (1167), 167. “Age of Science,” 10, 34. Alzog, Historian, 51. Anglo-Saxons and Evolution, 10. Anselm, 59. Anthropology, 115, 116. Aquinas, Thomas, 40. Archaeology, 35, 141. Aristotle, 50. Arnold of Brescia, 51. Aryan Prospect, 319. Aryan Retrospect, 318. Aryans Developing Their Own Religion, 145. Astruc, 170. Authority of Former Times, 153, 181, 189. Babylonian Captivity, 179. Bacon, Roger, 40. Baconian Method, 109. Bagehot, Walter, 302. Eatchelor, George, 233. Baur, F. C., 172. Beauties of Old Bible, 153. Beecher, Henry Ward, 141. Bernard, Saint, 51. Bible, 72, 79, 95. Bible, A Literature, 160. Bible, as Literature, 190. Bible Authority, 189. Bible, Beauties of, 153. Bible Beatitudes, 159. Bible Canon, 179. Pible Cases of Teaching, 165. Bad Moral Bible Chapters, Verses, 154, 178. Eible Dates, 180. Bible Decalogue, 158. Bible Earnestness, 155. Bible God, 162. Bible, Holy and Sacred, 187. Bible Infallibility, 181. Bible Inspiration, 183, 185. Bible Language, 155, 178. |Bible Legends, 159. Bible, Polychrome, 175. Eible Proverbs, 157. Bible, The New, 191. Bible Title, 177. Bible, What Is It? When, How, Where? 176. Bible, Why Preach About It? 161. Bible Revelation, 184, 186. Eible Sacredness, 179, 187. Bible—“Word of God,” 163. Bible, Worshipful Feature, 156. Bibl-ianity, 33. Bibl-iolatry, 33. Biology, 116. Blumenbach, 118. Boccacio, 57. Brahmanism, 241. Breaking Camp, 250. Bruno, 57. Buddhism, 241. Buffon, 118. Burton, Richard, 201. Butts, Mary F., 219. C Canonization, 104. Capellus, 169. Carlstadt, 66, 168. Carlyle, 85. 323 324 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Carruth, William Herbert, 294. Chadwick, John W., 180. Chief in Early Society, 122. Christian Asceticism, 245. Christ-ianity, 31. Christianity Capable of Ex- panding, 247. Christianity Exotic to Aryans, 144. Christianity, Psychology of, 242. Christianity, The One Social Religion, 245. Christ-iolatry, 32. Church “A coward on Social problems,” 22. Church Atavism, 290. Church Diminishing, 15. Church Doctrines Greatest Ob- stacle, 21. Church Instruments, 267. Church Needs Saving, 262. Church Opposing Religion, 266. Church's Reaction A Masterly Failure, 106. Church, The Ought-to-be, 264. Church, A Tribute to, 14. Church-ianity, 32. Classics, 35. Clement VII, 45. “Clerical Science,” 152. Collegiate Preaching Coming, 271. Collegiate Preaching, The Rem- edy, 280. Columbus, 34, 117, 140, 205. Constance, Council of, 49. Constantinople, Fall of, 57. Copernicus, 55, 79, 117, 140, 205. Creed of Science, 315. Curtain Picture Mistaken for Drama, 136. Cusa, Nicholas, 168. D Dante, 57. Dante’s World-Outlook, 113. Darwin, 9. DeWette, Theodore, 171. Discipleship, 31. Dogmatism, 31. Drama of Christianity, 29. Drummond, 115. E Early Society, 122. Earth, Development of, 205. Ecclesiasticism, 33. Economic Awakening, 84. Education, 63. Educators, The Great, 63. Edison, Thomas, 293. Edward III, 38. Eichhorn, 170. Eliot, Samuel A., 286. Elizabethan Age, 80. R}ngland in 14th Century, 38. Emerson, 29, 149, 150, 191, 221. Erasmus, Desidarius, 55, 168. “Essays and Reviews,” 172. Euripides, 146. Evil Means Unevolved, 220. Evil, Nature of, 146. Evil, Old Explanations, 214. Evil, Problem of, 212. Evolution in Forms, 277. Ewald, 171. F Faber, Frederick W., 230. Final Outcome of Protest, 74. Five Great Acts, 29. Forms Retained, 130. Francis of Assisi, 51. Franklin, 165. Freedom-Religion-Church, 257. Froude, John Anthony, 55. Funk, W. J., 310. G Galileo, 77. Geddes, Alex, 171. Geography and Geology, 202. Geology, 116, 209. Geology, Divisions of, 207. Geology, Inspiration of, 207. A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION 325 Germans Losing Religion, 9. German Universities, 52. God, 36, 94, 129, 162, 185, 200, 208, 209, 229, 231, 316. God an Avenger, 125. Good, Origin of, 219. Great Schism, 33, 45. Grecianism, 242. ty Gregory VII, 32. Gregory XI, 43. Grimke, 58, 63. Griswold, Hattie Tyng, 206. Gunpowder, 34. H Haupt, Paul, 175. Heliocentric System, 197. Herder, 170. Higher Criticism, 167. Higher Critics, List of, 174. History, Restudy of, 82. Hobbes, 168. Hocking, William Ernest, 309. Holden, J. Stuart, 307. Holmes, John Haynes, 300. Hugo, Victor, 239. Humboldt, 118, 140, 205. Hupfield, 172. Hutten, Ulrich von, 55. Hutton, James, 118. Huxley, Thomas Henry, 93. Hyde, Dewitt C., 71. Immortality, Hope of, 96. Ingersoll, Robert, 67. Innocent III, 32. “Inscrutable Mysteries” Solved, 212. Irving, David, 50. Itinerant Preachers, 46. J Jesus, 69, 73, 317. Jesus and Christianity, 247. Jesus—Neither Prophet nor Saint, 105. Jesu-anity, 29. Jesu-olatry, 31. Jesuitism, 85. John of Gaunt, 44. John, King, 38. Judaism, 242. K Kant and Laplace, 108. Kepler, 55. Knox, John, 62. L- Laing, Samuel, 302. Lancaster, Duke of, 44. Language Study, 78. Laws of Nature, 235. Lechler, Prof. G. V., 38, 52. LeClerc, Jean, 170. Leo X, 64. Lines of Our Survey, 25. Linnaeus, 118. Lord's Supper, Wiclif's, 47. Loux, DuPois H., 292. Lowell, 256. Lubbock, Sir John (Lord Avebury), 302. Luther, Martin, 22, 33, 45. Lyell, 108, 118, 142, 213. M Macaulay, 84. Maes, Andreas, 168. Magellan, 34. Mankind Reaching Unity, 304. Martin, Frederick Townsend, 293. Melancthon, 59. Middle Ages, 80. Middle Age World-Outlook, 112, 113. Milton, John, 50. Ministry, The New, 270. Modern Science A More Advanced Protestantism, 128. Modern Thinkers, 61. “Moral Interregnum,” 10. Morality, Kinds of, 223. Moral Sanctions, 222. 326 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION Moral Sanctions, Table of, 237. Moral Yard Stick, 228. N Natural Selection, 109. Natural Theology, 60. Nebular Hypothesis, 199. New Bible, The, 191. New Bible—Book I—Astronomy, 192, 195. - New Bible—Book II—Geology, 192, 202. New Bible—Book III—Physics and Chemistry, 192. New Bible—Book IV—Biology, 192. New Bible—Book V–Anthropo- logy, 193. New Bible—Book VI—Philology, 193. New Bible—Book VII—Psycho- logy, 193. New Bible—Book VIII—Archae- ology & History, 193. New Bible—Book IX—Sociology, 193. New Bible—Book X—Esthetics, 193. 4. New Bible—Book XI–Religiolo- gy, 193, 200. New Bible, Many Versions, 192. New Bible, Titles of Books, 192. New-Time Needs, 121. New-Time Preacher, 153. Newton, Sir Isaac, 55. Newton, R. Heber, 153. Nicea, Council of, 31. Noyes, Alfred, 289. 133, 136, O Old Bible, Beauties of, 153. Old Bible, What Is It? 176. Old-Time Preacher, 121. Ominous Social Conditions, 24. Origin of Priesthood, 123. Our Age Yet Traditional, 137. Oxford University, 39. P Paine, Thomas, 57. Papacy, 32. Parker, Theodore, 171. Paul, Saint, 73. Peasant War, 47. Persianism, 242. Petitioning Prayer, 236. Petrarch, 57. Philosophy and The Reformation, 76. Physics, 116. Plainer Talk, 298. Planetesimal Hypothesis, 199. Polychrome Bible, 175. Prayer, The Aspiring, 237, 316. Prayer and Law and, Common Sense, 232. JPrayerless Equally Religious, 233. Prayer, The Petitioning, 236. Preacher as He Ought to Be, 131. JPreacher Left Behind, 131. Preacher's Mission in Any Age, 139. I’reacher's Mission Today, 139. JPreacher Modern, 124. JPreacher A. Moral Stimulator, 145. Preaching Needed, The, 296. Preaching for The New-Time, 132. Treacher, The Old-Time, 121. Treacher and The Past, 142. Priesthood Beginnings, 123. Priestly Functions, 126. Primitive Man, 202. Printing, 34. Prophet, The New, 107. Prophets, Old-Time, 94. Prophets, Saints, and Scientists, 100. Prophetic Institution Disappears, 102. Prospect, Our Racial, 319. Protest, Beginning of, 37. Protest, The Right to, 258. Protest-ants, 33. IProtestant Sects, 87. Protestants, Latest Organized, 89. Protest-ants, The Unorganized, 100. Protestantism Dropped A Few Errors, 129. A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION 327 Protestantism, Essence of, 64. Protestantism, Limitations of, 69. Protestantism, The Newest, 90. Puritanism, The Newest, 90. Puritanism, 66. Purposive Selection, 109. R Race Awakening, A Northern, 76. Reason, Authority of, 91. Redemption, The New, 231. Reformation, A. Race Awaken- ing, 80. Reformation, Meaning of, 17, 33, 53, 55. Reformers, 62. Religion Defined, 121. Religion Growing Anew, 266. Religion is Idealization, 264. Religion Natural, 93. Religion is Noble Earnestness, 264. Religions, Different Values, 243. Religions, Incompleteness of Each, 243. Religions, Psychology of, 241. Religious Reconstruction Urg- ent, 289. Renaissance, 58, 128. Retrospect, Our Racial, 318. Reuchlin, 78. Reuss, 172. Revivals Only Reiteration, 302. Richard II, 44. S Saints, 103. Sample Close-ups, 299. Savage, Minot J., 211. Science, 34, 315. Science of The Ancients, 76. Science and Character, 109. Science, Modern, 76. Science, No Bounds, 119. Science, The Orders of, 250. Science, Orders Lacking, 251. Science-Prophets, 106. Science, Reconstruction by, 27. Science Replacing Tradition, 142. Scientific Doctrine Imperative, 289. Scientific Movement Began, 8. Scientific Movement, 80. Scientific Reticence Dangerous, 306. Scientists, An Appeal to, 310. Scientists' Creed, 315. Sercombe, Parker, 303. Servetus, 66. Simon, Richard, 169. Sin, Genesis Story, 212. Smith, Prof. Goldwin, 10. Spencer, 195. Spinoza, 58, 168. Spirits, Good and Bad, 213. Stars, To the Ancients, 197. Stars, To the Moderns, 197. Steele, Joel Dorman, 202. Stephanus, 169, 178. Strauss, 172. T Talbot, E. Guy, 308. Tennyson, 99. Theocracy to Democracy, 126. Transition to Modern Times, 114. Trent, Council of, 56. Tribute to The Church, 14. U Unchurched Masses, 15. TJnchurched, Reasons for, 17. Unchurched, Types of, 17. TJnitarianism, 66, 90. TJniverse, 128, 200, 234. TJniverse, The New, 234. TJrban V, 41. TJrban VI, 45. Usher, Archbishop, 137. V Vanguard Prospects, 253. Watke, 171. Vesalius, 107, 118. Villers, 83. Voltaire, 57. Von Ranke, 16. 328 A RECEIVERSHIP FOR CIVILIZATION W Wilberforce, Bishop, 173. Winchell, Alexander, 202. Walsingham, Thomas, 51. Wordsworth, 49. Wanted, 312. World-Outlook, The New, 111, 115. Werner, 118. World-Outlook, The Old, 111. West, James H., 195. World War's Causes, 9. White, Andrew D., 169, 194. Worship, The Coming, 247. Wiclif, John, 38, 41, 45. Worship, Old and New, 240. THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DATE DUE APR3 02001 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIG 3 9015 051.41 6355 Nº. N R § § §§ § º sº º N § § § § N § § § § § º º § §§ º § § § N N § N § sº Y § §§ § º § N N § §§ N Nº * N N § N § N º N § º N N S § § º N NS N § N § N S N WN § N § Y § º N § §§ § § N N N N sº § º § § § §§ º sº § y W y § &N N § N s § §§ § º § § § N WN sº §N. N º § N N §§ Nº º N º § º N § § wºn wº N § N § § s N § N N §§ § § § sº § § § § § º º N N § s § º * N N N N. N § § - º § §§ §§ N§ § § N § Nº N , sº º N NºN N § N §§ º §§ º N º § § § § N §§ § N § § § N N NS § § § º º §§ § § § º § N N W § § º § N N Vº § § N º N § § N § WNS º º N § W * N º § §N R º º