f 
 
 
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 REESE LIBRARY 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Received . .^.*ts^.: l88 * 
 A c cessions No. ^3 <*/- $-*?& Shelf No. 
 
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VEXED QUESTIONS IN THEOLOGY 
 
 A SERIES OF ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE 
 
 -*^ '" ^^ 1 1 
 
 * 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 GEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET 
 1886 
 
COPYRIGHT, 
 BY GEORGE H. ELLIS, 
 
 1886. 
 3 // 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE FIVE POINTS OF CALVINISM AND THE FIVE POINTS 
 
 OF THE NEW THEOLOGY, 9 
 
 THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST, 19 
 
 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS, 36 
 
 THE INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, .... 64 
 OLD AND NEW IDEAS CONCERNING THE DIVINITY OF 
 
 JESUS, 92 
 
 Is PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE? . . . 112 
 
 THE SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY WHICH? 126 
 
 OLD AND NEW VIEWS CONCERNING THE BIBLE, .... 139 
 
 THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST, 157 
 
 AGNOSTICISM vs. POSITIVISM, 168 
 
 THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY ; OR, STATE 
 
 HELP vs. SELF-HELP, 180 
 
 RECENT DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE AND ITS 
 
 DEVELOPMENT, 191 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER, 206 
 
 THE MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER AT 
 
 THIS TIME, 216 
 
 SOME REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE, . . 229 
 
The Five Points of Calvinism and the Five Points 
 of the New Theology. 
 
 "And thou shalt make . . . five pillars, and overlay them with 
 gold, . . . and shalt cast five sockets of brass for them." EXO- 
 DUS xxiv., 37. 
 
 THE number five has acquired as great significance 
 in theology as it has in nature. The largest family of 
 plants is that of which the flowers have five petals ; 
 and the most popular theology of modern times is that 
 of Calvin with its five points of doctrine, which relate 
 to Absolute Decrees, Atonement by Christ for the 
 Elect only, Original Sin, Effectual Calling, and the 
 Perseverance of Saints. 
 
 Such have been the main and essential doctrines of 
 Orthodoxy in the past. These doctrines have revolved 
 around the ideas of sin and salvation. The creeds are 
 as remarkable for what they omit as for what they 
 assert. They scarcely allude to those truths which 
 Jesus makes the chief burden of his teaching, love 
 to God, love to man, forgiveness of enemies, purity 
 of heart and life, faith, hope, peace, resignation, tem- 
 perance, and goodness. It is certain that the the- 
 ology of the future will dwell on something else than 
 
10 FIVE POINTS IN THEOLOGY 
 
 the five points of Calvinism, and I have thought it 
 well to consider the counterparts of this ancient sys- 
 tem in five points of the coming theology. Let us 
 endeavor to see what they will be. 
 
 i. I believe the first point of doctrine in the theol- 
 ogy of the future will be the Fatherhood of God. The 
 essence of this is the love of the father for his children. 
 Fatherly love is a wise love, a firm love, and a pure 
 love, which seeks the best good of the child. Thus 
 this idea of fatherhood includes that of the holiness, 
 the truthfulness, and the justice of God, in a word, 
 all the divine attributes. The justice of God as a 
 father is not, as in the old theology, an abstract justice, 
 which has no regard to consequences. God's justice 
 is only another form of mercy. It is the wise law 
 which brings good to the universe, and is a blessing 
 to every creature. 
 
 Jesus has everywhere emphasized this truth, that 
 God is a father. We find it pervading the Gospels 
 and coloring all his teaching. We find it already in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, which tells us that we are 
 to let our light shine, not to glorify ourselves, but to 
 glorify our Father in heaven ; that we are to love our 
 enemies, that we may be like our heavenly Father, 
 who loves his enemies, and makes his sun rise on the 
 evil and the good. Jesus tells us that, when we pray, 
 we are to pray to our Father, not to infinite power 
 or abstract justice or far-off sovereignty. We are to 
 forgive others, because our Father in heaven forgives 
 us. We are not to be anxious, remembering that our 
 heavenly Father feeds the little birds of the air. We 
 are to pray, confident that our heavenly Father will 
 
FIVE POINTS IN THEOLOGY II 
 
 give good things to those who ask him. Thus, this 
 idea of God pervades the earliest as it filled the latest 
 teachings of Jesus. 
 
 This idea of the divine fatherhood goes down so 
 deep into the human heart that it becomes the source 
 of a childlike obedience, trust, submission, patience, 
 hope, and love. It brings consolation to us in our 
 trials, gives us earnestness in prayer, makes it less 
 difficult to repent when we have done wrong. We 
 look up out of our sin and weakness and sorrow, not 
 to an implacable law, not to an abstract king, but to 
 an infinite and inexhaustible tenderness. Thus, this 
 doctrine is the source of the purest piety. 
 
 2. The second point of doctrine in the new theology 
 will be, I think, the Brotherhood of Man. 
 
 If men are children of the same father, then they 
 are all brethren. If God loves them all, they must all 
 have in them something lovable. If he has brought 
 them here by his providence, they are here for some 
 important end. Therefore, we must call no man com- 
 mon or unclean, look down upon none, despise none, 
 but respect in all that essential goodness which God 
 has put into the soul, and which he means to be at last 
 unfolded into perfection. 
 
 As from the idea of the fatherhood of God will come 
 all the pieties, so from that of the brotherhood of man 
 will proceed all the charities. This doctrine is already 
 the source of missions, philanthropies, reforms, and 
 all efforts to seek and save those who are surrounded 
 by evil. It leads men to feed the hungry and clothe 
 the naked, to teach the blind, to soothe the madness 
 of delirium, to diffuse knowledge, and carry glad tid- 
 
12 FIVE POINTS IN THEOLOGY 
 
 ings to the poor. And this doctrine, when fully 
 believed, will be the source of purer moralities and 
 nobler charities. 
 
 This truth, also, Jesus has taught by his words and 
 his life. He went about doing good, feeding the 
 hungry, making the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the 
 lame to walk, cleansing the leper, preaching the gospel 
 to the poor. He was the friend of publicans and 
 sinners, of the Roman centurion, the woman of Phoe- 
 nicia, the woman of Samaria. He was the friend and 
 helper of all who needed him. In the story of the 
 Good Samaritan, he taught that all men are brethren. 
 And his last recorded words were the command to 
 preach the gospel to every creature. 
 
 3. The third point of doctrine in the new theology 
 will be, as I think, the Leadership of Jesus. 
 
 The simplest definition of a Christian is one who 
 follows Christ. This was his own definition : " My 
 sheep hear my voice, and follow me." " I am the way 
 and the truth and the life/' " Come to me, all ye who 
 labor and are heavy laden." When Mary sat at the 
 feet of Jesus, and heard his words, he said that she 
 had chosen the good part, and had done the one thing 
 needful. 
 
 A Platonist is one who studies the teachings of 
 Plato, and takes him for his teacher and guide in phi- 
 losophy. A Swedenborgian is one who studies the 
 teachings of Swedenborg, and takes him for his guide 
 in theology. A Christian is one who takes Jesus as 
 his guide in religion, and who goes directly to his 
 teachings for religious truth. 
 
 But hitherto, instead of considering those as Chris- 
 
FIVE POINTS IN THEOLOGY 13 
 
 tians who have studied the words of Jesus, and sought 
 to know the truth, the name has usually been given to 
 those who accepted some opinion about him. Not 
 what he himself teaches, but what the Church says he 
 teaches, has been made the test of Christian fellow- 
 ship. Men have been told to go to Jesus, but on the 
 understanding that they shall learn from him only the 
 same thing which the Church has already learned. 
 Instead of sending us to the teacher himself, we are 
 sent to our fellow-students. We, therefore, in reality 
 take them, and not Jesus, for our leader. 
 
 The Athanasian Creed asserts as unquestioned veri- 
 ties certain metaphysical statements in regard to the 
 nature of the Deity and the relations which existed 
 between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before the 
 creation. These speculations are read four times a 
 year in the Church of England, and the people are told 
 that those who do not believe these superhuman mys- 
 teries shall without doubt perish everlastingly. Is it 
 not evident that the Church, in doing this, takes the 
 unknown author of the creed as its leader and teacher 
 instead of taking Christ himself? All human creeds 
 which are made the tests of what Christ taught are in 
 reality put in his place. Compared with his teaching, 
 they are all narrow and unspiritual. They emphasize 
 some purely intellectual statements which chanced to 
 be popular when they were written. The makers of 
 these creeds tell us to call Jesus teacher, but to learn 
 from themselves what he teaches. They show thus 
 that they dare not trust us to go to him ; and they 
 show that they have no real faith in him as the Way, 
 the Truth, and the Life. 
 
14 FIVE POINTS IN THEOLOGY 
 
 Of course there is no harm in a creed, when it 
 merely states what a man believes at the present time 
 or what any number of men believe at any particular 
 period. The harm comes from making the creed a 
 perpetual standard of belief, a test of Christian char- 
 ; acter, and a condition of Christian fellowship. Such 
 creeds, instead of uniting the Church, have divided it 
 into endless sects and parties. Let men take Jesus 
 himself as their leader and teacher, and the Church 
 will be again one. Then Christians will come into 
 communion not only with the mind, but also with the 
 heart of the Master. When the whole Church is like 
 Mary sitting at the foot of Jesus and hearing his words, 
 it will be more full of his spirit. Bigotry and secta- 
 rianism, which have cursed Christianity, will disappear, 
 and be replaced by the large generosity and ample 
 charity of Jesus himself. We shall then, according to 
 his striking Oriental image, eat his flesh and drink his 
 blood. Instead of merely accepting propositions about 
 him, we shall assimilate his character and feed on it 
 in the depths of our heart. Then will be fulfilled his 
 saying : " My sheep hear my voice, and follow me. I 
 know my sheep, and am known of mine." 
 
 4. The fourth point of the new theology will be Sal- 
 vation by Character. 
 
 Salvation means the highest peace and joy of which 
 the soul is capable. It means heaven here and heaven 
 hereafter. This salvation has been explained as some- 
 thing outside of us, some outward gift, some outward 
 condition, place, or circumstance. We speak of going 
 to heaven, as if we could be made happy solely by being 
 put in a happy place. But the true heaven, the only 
 
FIVE EOLOGY ^ 
 
 jjf? f 
 
 heaven which Jesus knew, is a state of 
 inward goodness. It is Christ found within. It is the 
 love of God in the heart, going out into the life and 
 character. The first words which Jesus spoke indi- 
 cated this belief. The poor in spirit already possess 
 the kingdom of heaven. The pure in heart already see 
 God. " This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true 
 God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." He who 
 has the faith which Jesus possessed has eternal life 
 abiding in him. The water that Jesus gives becomes a 
 spring of water within the soul, "springing up into 
 everlasting life." Do not look for a distant heaven, 
 saying, " Lo ! here," or " Lo ! there " ; " for the king- 
 dom of heaven is now with you." When we come 
 to study the words of Jesus as we study human the- 
 ologies, we shall find that he identifies goodness with 
 heaven, and makes character the essence of salvation. 
 As long as men believe that heaven is something out- 
 ward, to be attained by an act of profession or belief, 
 they will be apt to postpone such preparation as long 
 as possible. But when we apprehend the inflexible 
 law of consequences, and know that as a man soweth 
 so shall he reap ; when we see that spiritual tastes and 
 habits are not to be formed in an hour; and that all 
 formal professions, prayers, and sacraments avail noth- 
 ing, unless the heart is pure, the soul upright, and the 
 life one of integrity, then a new motive will be 
 added to increase the goodness of the world. Then 
 the formation of character will be the fruit of Christian 
 faith to an extent never before realized. 
 
 5. The fifth point of doctrine in the new theology 
 will, as I believe, be the Continuity of Human Develop- 
 
1 6 FIVE POINTS IN THEOLOGY 
 
 ment in all worlds, or the Progress of Mankind onward 
 and upward forever. 
 
 Progress is the outward heaven, corresponding to the 
 inward heaven of character. The hope of progress is 
 one of the chief motives to action. Men are con- 
 tented, no matter how poor their lot, so long as they 
 can hope for something better. And men are discon- 
 tented, no matter how fortunate their condition, when 
 they have nothing more to look forward to. The great- 
 est sufferer who hopes may have nothing, but he pos- 
 sesses all things : the most prosperous man who is 
 deprived of hope may have all things, but he possesses 
 nothing. 
 
 The old theology laid no stress on progress here or 
 progress hereafter. The essential thing was conver- 
 sion : that moment passed, the object of life was at- 
 tained. A man converted on his death-bed, after a life 
 of sin, was as well prepared for heaven as he who had 
 led a Christian life during long years. And there was 
 no hint given of farther progress after heaven should 
 be reached. Eternity was to be passed in perpetual 
 thanksgiving or in perpetual enjoyment of the joys of 
 paradise. Such, however, was not the teaching of 
 Jesus. The servant, in the parable, who earned two 
 pounds, was made ruler over two cities : he who earned 
 five pounds had the care of five cities. And the Apos- 
 tle Paul tells us that one of the things which abide is 
 hope. If hope abides, there is always something to 
 look forward to, some higher attainment, some larger 
 usefulness, some nearer communion with God. And 
 this accords with all we see and know : with the long 
 processes of geologic development by which the earth 
 
FIVE POINTS IN THEOLOGY 17 
 
 became fitted to be the home of man ; with the slow 
 ascent of organized beings from humbler to fuller life ; 
 with the progress of society from age to age ; with the 
 gradual diffusion of knowledge, advancement of civili- 
 zation, growth of free institutions, and ever higher con- 
 ceptions of God and of religious truth. The one fact 
 which is written on nature and human life is the fact of 
 progress, and this must be accepted as the purpose of 
 the Creator. 
 
 Some such views as these may constitute the the- 
 ology of the future. This, at least, we see, that many 
 of the most important elements in the teaching of 
 Jesus have had no place, or a very inferior place, in the 
 teachings of the Church in past times. As the good 
 Robinson foretold, " more light is to break out from the 
 Word of God." The divine word, revealed in creation, 
 embodied in Christ, immanent in the human soul, is a 
 fuller fountain than has been believed. No creed can 
 exhaust its meaning, no metaphysics can measure its 
 possibility. The teaching of Jesus is not something to 
 be outgrown ; for it is not a definite system, but an ever 
 unfolding principle. It is a germ of growth, and there- 
 fore has no finality in any of its past forms. " Of its 
 fulness," says John, "we have all received, and grace 
 added to grace." The Apostle Paul regarded his own 
 knowledge of Christianity as imperfect and partial. 
 "We know in part," said he, "and we teach in part." 
 Christianity in the past has always had a childlike 
 faith, which was beautiful and true. But its knowledge 
 has also been that of a child. It has spoken as a 
 child, it has understood as a child, it has thought as 
 a child. This was all well while it was a child. The 
 
l8 FIVE POINTS IN THEOLOGY 
 
 innocent prattle of an infant is sweet, but in a youth 
 or man it is an anachronism. Let us have a child- 
 like faith, but a manly intelligence. " In malice be 
 children, but in understanding be men." Let us en- 
 deavor to see God and nature face to face, confident 
 that whoever is honestly seeking the truth, though he 
 may err for a time, can never go wholly wrong. 
 
THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 THE chief passage in which the sin against the Holy 
 Ghost is spoken of is Matt. xii*, 31, 32, and is as 
 follows : 
 
 " Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy 
 shall be forgiven unto men ; but the blasphemy against the Holy 
 Ghost " (or rather the blasphemy of the Spirit) " shall not be for- 
 given unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the 
 Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh 
 against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in 
 this world, nor in the world to come." 
 
 The sin here spoken of is commonly called the 
 Unpardonable Sin. The corresponding passage is in 
 Mark in., 28, 29, and in Luke xii., 10. 
 
 There has been much investigation as to the nature 
 of this sin against the Holy Ghost. I think that the 
 majority of Christians have no distinct idea what it 
 means. Many are troubled for fear lest they should 
 ignorantly commit it. Many are rendered miserable, 
 thinking that they have committed it. Some people 
 suppose that it is possible to commit this sin igno- 
 rantly, and almost accidentally. Some think that it is 
 an exceptional and peculiar sin, having no parallel, be- 
 
20 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 longing to no class, standing quite alone. It is thought 
 not possible to explain its nature or give a reason for 
 its fatal penalty : hence, it is made an arbitrary act of 
 God. God is thought to have made this sin worse 
 than others in its nature and penalty for good reasons 
 of his own, of which we can know nothing. Now, all 
 this partakes of the nature of superstition, and there- 
 fore is injurious. Superstitious fears do us no good, 
 only harm. The only fear which does us good is 
 rational fear. Midnight, ghostly, spectral fears do no 
 one any good. It is the mid-day fear of what we see, 
 and comprehend to be evil, which helps us, and no 
 other kind of fear. Let us see, then, if we can throw 
 a little of the daylight of reason and common sense 
 on this subject. 
 
 First, then, as to the opinion that this is a sin which 
 may be committed ignorantly and accidentally. 
 
 If any one should leave a deep but concealed hole in 
 a place where people were walking to and fro, so that, 
 without knowing it, they might suddenly fall in, and 
 be killed, we should think him a bad man. We should 
 say, " If he cannot cover up the hole, he can at least 
 put a distinct mark over it, so that all may know where 
 it is, and be able to avoid it." But what shall we say 
 of those who think that God has left a concealed place, 
 through which men may fall, in a moment, not into 
 temporal, but eternal death ? It is a dreadful thing to 
 believe concerning the Almighty Father. I, for one, 
 can never believe it. 
 
 It may be that the meaning is simpler than we sup- 
 pose, and that there may be a significance which we 
 can comprehend and make use of. The best way to 
 
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 21 
 
 understand it is to read the whole passage, and find 
 when it was said and why it was said. 
 
 It was said to the Pharisees ; and it was said to 
 them because they attributed the good works of Christ 
 to an evil power. He healed a man who was both 
 blind and dumb. They said, " He casts out devils by 
 Beelzebub, prince of the devils." Jesus said that this 
 was not blasphemy against him, but against the Spirit 
 of God. Why so ? The Holy Spirit had not been 
 mentioned. The Pharisees had said nothing about the 
 Holy Spirit, but they had attributed his good actions 
 to an evil power. How did that blaspheme the Holy 
 Spirit ? The blasphemy was not in words, but in the 
 meaning of their words. It is the Holy Ghost, or 
 Spirit of God within us, which teaches us what good- 
 ness is. Now, in denying that the action of Jesus had 
 a good source, they denied, virtually, that it was a good 
 action ; for the devil does not do good actions : if he 
 did, he would not be the devil. Good actions must 
 come from God, from whom cometh down every good 
 and every perfect gift. We must either make the tree 
 good and the fruit good, or else we must make the 
 tree corrupt and the fruit corrupt. Therefore, in say- 
 ing that Christ cast out demons by Beelzebub, they 
 said that casting out demons was not a good, but a 
 bad action. Now, they knew better than that. God's 
 spirit in their heart taught them that to cast out 
 demons was not a bad action, but a good one. The 
 blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, con- 
 sisted, therefore, in denying that goodness was good. 
 For the sake of putting down Jesus, they contradicted 
 the most fundamental convictions of their own souls. 
 
22 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 Accordingly, to say that a thing comes of evil, which 
 our moral instincts and spiritual intuitions teach us to 
 be good, is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. 
 
 There are certain fundamental moral convictions, 
 which God bestows upon us, which are the founda- 
 tions of all other convictions. These are primitive, all 
 others are derivative : these are certain, other things 
 probable. Doubt or deny these, and the whole fabric 
 of knowledge, faith, belief, opinion, totters. If you are 
 not sure of your intuitions, you are uncertain of every- 
 thing. But this is not the worst ; for not only does all 
 knowledge, but also all goodness, rest on this founda- 
 tion. Deny your moral convictions, and there is no 
 right or wrong, no good or evil, no duty, no God. 
 
 Since these fundamental convictions are so impor- 
 tant, God has rooted them in the soul, so that we can- 
 not escape from them : they are there when we deny 
 their existence. We cannot believe that goodness is 
 not good ; but we can say that it is not good, and 
 to speak thus against our own highest convictions is to 
 blaspheme the Holy Ghost. This is just what the 
 Pharisees did, and this is the essence of the unpardon- 
 able blasphemy. 
 
 Some commentators have narrowed down the mean- 
 ing of the sin, in order to show that we are not in 
 much danger of committing it now. To relieve anxious 
 minds, they say that it is only doing what the Pharisees 
 did at that time ; namely, ascribing Christ's miraculous 
 acts of healing to the devil : so, as no one nowadays 
 does this, no one now is in danger of committing this 
 sin. This explanation will, no doubt, relieve the anx- 
 ious minds who believe it, but at the expense of re- 
 
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 23 
 
 ducing the doctrine to a nullity. It also leaves an 
 unreasonable character attaching to the words of Jesus, 
 and does not explain his purpose in such a declaration. 
 
 The sin against the Holy Ghost is, in our opinion, 
 not a single outward action, but conduct and words 
 proceeding from a fixed inward state. It is a deter- 
 mination of the mind not to receive what is seen to be 
 truth, and not to accept what is known to be good, 
 because this truth and this goodness conflict with its 
 own prejudices, interests, or desires. It is the mind 
 hardening itself against goodness, sophisticating itself 
 against right. It is essentially a state of mind. 
 
 Nor is this sin, therefore, an unconscious act, done 
 ignorantly. Men sometimes fear that they may igno- 
 rantly, and without knowing it, have committed the 
 unpardonable sin ; but this is not possible. Whatever 
 we do ignorantly and unconsciously may be pardoned. 
 " I obtained mercy," says the apostle, " because I did 
 it ignorantly, in unbelief." " Father, forgive them ; 
 for they know not what they do." No one need ever 
 fear that he has committed an unpardonable sin with- 
 out knowing it. 
 
 Nor is this an isolated and exceptional doctrine, 
 standing alone, and unconnected with the other teach- 
 ings of Jesus. This is the only place that it is called 
 by this name as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, 
 but the same doctrine is implied everywhere else. The 
 whole gospel of Christ, in all its teachings, is based 
 upon the idea that man can be helped by God and by 
 his brother-man out of all evil states but one. So long 
 as he does not wilfully resist God's truth and love, he 
 can be forgiven and sanctified : but he cannot be for- 
 
24 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 ghen against his will ; he cannot be saved against his 
 will ; he cannot go to heaven against his will. This 
 state of mind, whether it shows itself in blasphemy 
 against the Spirit of Goodness, in a heart hardened 
 against right, a conscience seared as with a hot iron, 
 or in acts of resistance to the cause of right, is always 
 the same. 
 
 Thus far, we have reasoned from the context, from 
 the words of Scripture here : now let us reason from 
 the analogy of faith. Scripture is a unit. At all 
 events, the gospel is a unit : it cannot contradict 
 itself. The doctrine, therefore, which is taught 
 obscurely here, is, I believe, taught very plainly else- 
 where. 
 
 The danger of committing the sin against the Holy 
 Ghost is the great penalty of abused freedom. God 
 has determined that man shall be free. He has not 
 made man for simple happiness, for such enjoyment 
 as he gives to the fish in water or the bird in air : he 
 has made him for the higher happiness which comes 
 from goodness. He shall not be happy at all, he shall 
 be gnawed inwardly by a divine unrest, he shall be 
 inwardly dissatisfied, till he can be satisfied through 
 truth and right. Nor does God intend that he shall 
 become good till he can become so freely. There was 
 a Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple, into which no 
 one went but the high priest, and he only once a year. 
 In the centre of the human soul there is a Holy of 
 Holies, the sacred seat of personality, the private 
 place of human freedom, which only the individual 
 himself can enter. The key of that door God has 
 given to him alone. Even God will not enter it 
 
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 25 
 
 i 
 
 against his will. He can shut out God and man, he 
 can shut out truth and goodness. That he may be; 
 wholly free, the power is given him of believing false- \ 
 hood and loving evil. From that centre of the 
 soul, everything which proceeds is free. If goodness 
 comes from it, it is the man's own ; if evil, that is also 
 his own. But the great power carries with it a great 
 danger. If we retire into the citadel of our soul when 
 we are resisting truth, no power, divine or human, can 
 follow us in to change us or to help us. 
 
 This, then, it is to sin against the Holy Ghost. It 
 is to shut out truth, to resist good, to harden the con- 
 science against the Spirit of God ; and the punishment 
 is what the Saviour announces : " This is the con- 
 demnation " (or " damnation" ; for it is the same word 
 which is elsewhere translated "damnation" or " judg- 
 ment"), "this is the damnation, that light is come 
 into the world, and men loved darkness rather than 
 light." The punishment for resisting light is that 
 we remain in darkness : that is punishment enough. 
 Eternal damnation, or spiritual damnation, as opposed 
 to temporal damnation, is absence from the truth and 
 love of God : it is the absence from God's presence. 
 He who shuts out God is away from God, that is all ; 
 but that is enough. And as forgiveness means, in the 
 New Testament, God coming into the soul with a sense 
 of his love, those who shut him out cannot be forgiven, 
 because he will not enter their soul against their will. 
 
 We may now see what is meant when it is said that 
 blasphemy against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven 
 in this world or that which is to come. It means that, 
 in this and in every other world, God will leave us 
 
26 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 free, free to accept, free to resist, his truth and his 
 goodness. When we knowingly and wilfully resist 
 goodness, he allows us to do so, and to take the 
 consequences. 
 
 "In this world or in that which is to come." The 
 literal meaning here is, " in this present age and in the 
 coming age" ; i.e., of the Messiah. The present age 
 was the age of the Law : the coming age would be 
 the age of the Gospel. Now, the people thought, and 
 thought truly, that, in the age of the Messiah, many 
 sins would be forgiven which were not forgiven then. 
 The coming of Christ was to be a new coming of God's 
 forgiving love, " God in Christ, reconciling the world 
 to himself." The prophets foretold that, in the time 
 of the Messiah, God would forgive their sins. "In 
 those days, saith the Lord, I will forgive your iniquity, 
 and I will remember your sin no more." The law of 
 Moses said, "Do this, and thou shalt live " : Christ said, 
 " Believe in God's forgiveness, and be forgiven." The 
 domain of forgiveness is, therefore, much wider under 
 the Gospel than it was under the Law. There is no 
 parable of the Prodigal Son in the Old Testament. 
 Neither Moses nor Elijah ever said, "Be of good 
 cheer : thy sins are forgiven thee." God is always 
 the same ; but his revelations are different and pro- 
 gressive. Christ revealed the forgiving love of God 
 as it had not been revealed before ; and he revealed it 
 not by word only, but by action. He communicated 
 forgiveness : he had power on earth to forgive sin. 
 
 But there was one sin which even he could not for- 
 give ; and that was the sin of a heart deliberately shut- 
 ting itself up, in its citadel of freedom, against God's 
 
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 27 
 
 revelation of love. Not in this age nor in the age to 
 come not in any age, any place, any time can this 
 sin be forgiven. The conditions of forgiveness are 
 wanting, humility, penitence, a desire to be forgiven. 
 
 For again we ask, What is forgiveness ? We know 
 what is meant by human forgiveness. Man forgives 
 when he ceases to be angry, and ceases to punish. 
 But God cannot forgive in either of these ways :, he 
 can neither cease to be angry, nor cease to punish. 
 He cannot cease to be angry, for he never is angry 
 as man is angry. His anger is infinite indignation 
 against sin, joined to an infinite pity for the sinner : 
 he can never cease from either. Nor can God cease 
 to punish sin as long as sin continues ; for his punish- 
 ments are blessings : they are what we need ; they are 
 for our good ; they are the established consequences 
 of faults ; they come by laws which can never be 
 broken. To suffer while we sin is the best thing 
 which can befall us. God, therefore, never forgives 
 by remitting penalty. How, then, does he forgive ? 
 
 God's forgiveness is reaching out and finding the 
 sinner, and drawing him to himself. It is loving us 
 while we sin, and making us feel his love. It is remov- 
 ing the alienation which sin always causes ; for, when- 
 ever we do wrong, we turn away from God. It is 
 God's love, coming to find us, and to reconcile us to 
 himself, which constitutes forgiveness. God does not 
 forgive us because we have repented, but to lead us 
 to repentance. We must, indeed, have the beginnings 
 of repentance, the sense of the evil of our sin ; the 
 feeling of emptiness and want while away from God ; 
 and a sincere desire for goodness. Then he comes, 
 
28 SIX AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 reconciling us to himself. He sends some sweet influ- 
 ence into the soul ; he draws our heart toward him ; 
 he awakens the conviction of his nearness ; he brings 
 a sense of reunion ; he enables us again to say, " My 
 Father ! " This is God's forgiveness, and it is what 
 Christ came to reveal and to impart. 
 
 All manner of sin and blasphemy, therefore, Christ 
 could forgive. He could forgive the thief on the cross, 
 the woman taken in adultery, the other sinner who 
 brought her box of ointment, Peter who denied him 
 thrice, Pilate who condemned him, the soldiers who 
 crucified him, Paul who persecuted him. He could 
 forgive these ; for he saw in them all either penitence, 
 capacity for penitence, honest error, or ignorant un- 
 belief. But, in the heart of the Pharisees, he saw 
 neither humility nor ignorance, but a determined pur- 
 pose not to submit to the truth ; and he could not for- 
 give them : they had made it impossible. 
 
 " Whoever shall blaspheme the Son of man, it shall 
 be forgiven him." The Apostle Paul was a remarka- 
 ble instance of this. He had blasphemed the Son of 
 man ; he had persecuted and abused those who be- 
 lieved in him. "And yet," said he, "I obtained 
 mercy, because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief " ; and 
 he obtained mercy, not after he had repented, but in 
 the very act of going on with his persecutions. Christ 
 saw in his heart an ignorant honesty, capable of be- 
 coming penitence when more light should come. It 
 was not his repentance which led to his being for- 
 given, but he was forgiven that he might repent. 
 " The goodness of God leads us to repentance," said 
 he afterward. And so, ever since, it has happened 
 
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOS 
 
 that infidels and deists have been converted in the 
 midst of their blasphemies, and changed into friends 
 of Christ : their hearts were not so bad as their heads. 
 
 When, therefore, men commit sin from ignorance or 
 from passion, God's mercy may come to them at any 
 time to humble them and to bring them to repentance ; 
 but those who harden their heart against the truth 
 make themselves incapable of this divine mercy, and, 
 as we read in the parallel passage, " are in danger of 
 eternal damnation." 
 
 What is this eternal damnation ? According to the 
 common idea, it is an everlasting outward hell, from 
 which one cannot escape. The word, however, sig- 
 nifies simply "judgment," as it is translated in almost 
 every instance ; or, as we have seen above, it may 
 mean "condemnation," as it is translated in John: 
 " This is the condemnation, that light has come into 
 the world ; but that men chose darkness rather than 
 light, because their deeds were evil." 
 
 According to this text, the damnation, or judgment, 
 of those who blaspheme the Holy Ghost is in the fact 
 that they choose darkness rather than light. So, like- 
 wise, we are told of those who shall go away into outer 
 darkness. They choose to go away from Christ, and 
 therefore go into darkness, loneliness, and spiritual 
 death. They are not driven : they go. 
 
 Does this passage teach the common doctrine of 
 everlasting punishment in the future life for sins com- 
 mitted in the present world? Olshausen is inclined 
 to think that it does ; though he says, "The statement 
 that there is one sin which cannot be forgiven in the 
 world to come allows us to conclude that all other sins 
 
30 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 can be forgiven in the world to come." But, accord- 
 ing to the explanation just given, though it teaches 
 eternal punishment (like the whole of the New Tes- 
 tament), it does not teach that this is the same as 
 never-ending punishment. Eternal punishment is the 
 punishment of eternity, as distinguished from the pun- 
 ishments of time. It comes from within, and not from 
 without ; from the sight of eternal truth, and not from 
 temporal changes. 
 
 Close observers of the language of the New Testa- 
 ment must have noticed this phrase, " are in danger 
 of eternal damnation." How in danger of it ? We 
 should say, according to common orthodox ideas, that 
 those who could not be forgiven in this world or that 
 which is to come were not only "in danger " of eternal 
 damnation, but were at least certain of it, if not 
 already damned. Poor Cowper believed himself eter- 
 nally damned already for having sinned against the 
 Holy Ghost. But Christ does not say this : he says 
 they are "in danger si eternal damnation." 
 
 The explanation is that this sin is not a single act, 
 but a state of mind, having degrees. We gradually 
 harden ourselves against any truth, and are in danger 
 of hardening ourselves so completely that it will be- 
 come impossible for us to see it. We at last find our- 
 selves in a condition in which the soul is wholly 
 directed to something foreign from God and his will. 
 God is totally shut out, and we are contented and self- 
 satisfied in being away from him. This is eternal or 
 spiritual death, as distinguished from all temporal loss, 
 pain, and evil. 
 
 Now, when one has reached this point, and has shut 
 
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 31 
 
 God out by hardening the heart against his truth, what 
 remains for him ? Nothing but to go on, and to see 
 his evil out ; to carry it out to its last results, and so 
 by the road, not of forgiveness, but of utter evil, to 
 reach good and truth again. When, how, where, no 
 one can say ; for no one can sound the mysteries of 
 free will. When one has wholly set his will to oppose 
 truth, how far and how long he may go in that direc- 
 tion no one can say. He must go through with it, 
 and see it to the end. 
 
 We said above that God could not forgive by 
 remitting the natural consequences of evil, for this 
 natural penalty is what is best for the offender himself. 
 Perhaps we went too far in saying this. God may 
 sometimes forgive, even in this sense, those who have 
 not committed the unpardonable sin. The natural 
 consequence of opposing Christ is to be without 
 Christ ; but, in the case of Paul, God remitted this 
 penalty, and brought him to know and love Jesus by 
 a special act of mercy. He often forgives us all in 
 like ways, and remits by special favor the natural pen- 
 alties of our sins. The natural consequence of self- 
 ishness is not to be loved ; but how many selfish 
 persons are forgiven the full measure of this penalty 
 and continue to be loved by affectionate wives and 
 children ! Therefore, it is true, even in this sense, 
 that all manner of sins and offences may be forgiven, 
 except this one of hardening the heart against the 
 truth by a wilful resistance. 
 
 Those who are most likely to commit the unpar- 
 donable sin are not atheists, deists, heretics, profane 
 persons, Sabbath-breakers, drunkards, thieves, but, on 
 
32 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 the other hand, bigots and sectarians, who think them- 
 selves the only orthodox and religious characters 
 extant. 
 
 Nothing hardens the heart so much against the 
 Holy Spirit as dogmatic or ecclesiastic bigotry. There 
 are those to whom goodness is not good, if oat of 
 their own sect ; to whom love and generosity go for 
 nothing in a heathen or a heretic ; who call the most 
 noble virtues "mere morality," if not attended by the 
 technical tests of conversion received in their own 
 puny party. The better a man is, the worse he is in 
 their esteem, if he denies their creed. When they 
 see the demons of pride, lust, selfishness, cast out of 
 the soul by the power of conscience, charity, purity, 
 and faith, they say, virtually, that this is done by the 
 power of Satan. We have even heard it stated in 
 terms by a champion of Orthodoxy that heretics are 
 apt to be better men than the orthodox, because the 
 devil uses their goodness as a bait to allure men into 
 their heresies. This, and the like declarations, come 
 as near to the precise sin against the Holy Ghost, 
 which Jesus rebuked, as can well be. 
 
 I once had this conversation with a young lady, who 
 had recently joined the Catholic Church : 
 
 " You say that out of the Church there is no sal- 
 vation. What do you do, then, with all the good Prot- 
 estants you have known, your own father and mother, 
 for example, or Dr. Channing and Henry Ware, and 
 such persons ? " 
 
 " Oh ! we allow for those who are in invincible igno- 
 rance. They, though out of the Church, may yet be 
 saved." 
 
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 33 
 
 " True ; but such men as I have named had ample 
 opportunity to investigate the claims of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, and yet rejected it. They were not 
 in any invincible ignorance. They, therefore, must 
 be damned, must they not ?" 
 
 " I admit it : they must." 
 
 " Then God damns good people, does he ? " 
 
 " But the goodness of those not in the Church only 
 seems to be goodness. It is not really goodness, 
 unless it comes from the true Church." 
 
 " Very well. This is the point to which I wished 
 to bring you. We cannot know goodness when we see 
 it : that is the logical result of your Catholic doctrine. 
 This is striking at the foundation of all faith. We 
 believe in God as the infinitely good Being ; but we 
 must know goodness first, in order to believe that God 
 is good. We believe in Christ because of the good- 
 ness of his life, his word, his works, his gospel ; but 
 we must know goodness first, in order to believe that 
 Christ and his religion are good. But, according to 
 your Catholic principle, we cannot tell goodness when 
 we see it. Consequently, we cannot have any ground 
 for belief in God or Christ ; still less, therefore, in the 
 Church founded by Christ : so that your principle 
 legitimates atheism and deism, and overthrows your 
 own Church into the bargain." 
 
 Most Churches reverse this teaching of Jesus, and 
 teach the precise opposite. Those who blaspheme the 
 Holy Spirit may be forgiven, but not those who say a 
 word against the Son. They see all generous and 
 noble actions done ; and, because not done by the 
 " evangelical " sects, they deny them to be the work 
 
34 SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 of God. The goodness of heretics, of the heathen, of 
 deists, of atheists, has nothing divine in it to them : 
 it is a mere trick of the devil to deceive souls. Peo- 
 ple may thus reject and blaspheme the Holy Spirit, 
 and it will be forgiven them ; but, if they deny the 
 deity or atonement of Christ, it cannot be forgiven 
 them. So the Church curses him whom Christ has 
 blessed, and absolves him whom Christ has condemned. 
 The result of this investigation, then, has brought 
 us to these results : 
 
 1. The sin against the Holy Ghost is denying the 
 divine character of goodness, and resisting the power 
 of truth and love, in order to maintain some private 
 conviction, purpose, or prejudice. It is simply resist- 
 ing good by the force of the will. 
 
 2. This sin against the Holy Ghost, therefore, is 
 not a singular or exceptional act, but is frequent and 
 very common in all men, but especially common among 
 the religious, and in those who lay the greatest stress 
 on their having the true faith or the true Church. 
 
 3. It is a sin which cannot be forgiven, because it 
 closes the mind against the very truth which would 
 bring repentance and make forgiveness possible. 
 
 4. It is a sin, therefore, which must be expiated by 
 suffering, and which can only find its solution by being 
 carried out to its last result, producing its full fruits, 
 and showing itself so conclusively to be evil as to 
 make further persistence in it at last impossible. 
 
 5. Finally, there are these two classes of sins, 
 venial and unpardonable. The first are committed by 
 those who love truth and goodness, but fail through 
 ignorance, weakness, force of habit, bad example, etc. 
 
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST 35 
 
 The second are wilful sins, sins committed against 
 the truth. The first may be pardoned ; that is, their 
 evil consequences removed by the mercy of God. The 
 second must be expiated ; that is, their evil conse- 
 quences must be borne, even to the end. Of these, it 
 may be said, " Verily, thou shalt not come out till thou 
 hast paid the uttermost farthing." 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS/ 
 
 THE subject, brethren, of my address to you at 
 this time is one which concerns us all as Christian 
 preachers and as Alumni of a Liberal School of The- 
 ology. It is " The Coming of Christ and of his Anti- 
 christs " ; or, to put it into less Biblical phrase, 
 "Christianity, and its Substitutes in Human History." 
 
 Is there any one of us who has not attempted to 
 enter into the mind of Christ, and to understand 
 his thoughts, feelings, and purposes in relation to his 
 mission ? From the hints and suggestions of the Gos- 
 pels, have we not endeavored to construct some con- 
 sistent image of Jesus, the Son of man, penetrating 
 into his thought and heart ? Here is my picture, as I 
 see him across all these centuries. There are two or 
 three windows through which I look into his mind: 
 one is the History of the Temptation; another, his 
 Quotations from the Old Testament; a third, his 
 Parables concerning the Kingdom of Heaven ; a fourth, 
 what he says concerning his Future Coming. 
 
 During those thirty years of which we have scarcely 
 a record, I seem to see him receiving inward illumina- 
 tion, and becoming acquainted with the realities of the 
 spiritual world and the laws of the divine government. 
 
 * An address to the Alumni of the Divinity School, Cambridge, July, 1861. 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 37 
 
 Above all men, in him was active the intuitive faculty 
 by which we look from earth into heaven. Of those 
 thirty years, we have only this information, that he 
 "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with 
 God and man." His wisdom and goodness were, like 
 those of other men, a growth. So far, it was natural. 
 How far it was also supernatural, I do not now inquire. 
 In my judgment, it was both natural and supernatural, 
 natural in being strictly, purely, absolutely human; 
 supernatural in being divinely ordered, providentially 
 guarded, celestially inspired and helped, all the way 
 through. 
 
 But Divine Providence, in selecting him to be the 
 central figure of the human race and its future leader, 
 had arranged the conditions. Born of the great 
 Semitic family, from which all the religions with a 
 catholic tendency have emanated, a mysterious Prov- 
 idence prepared the fine organization which was to 
 be the servant and medium of this wonderful soul. 
 His education was from nature, inspiration, and the 
 historic records of his people. Gradually there devel- 
 oped in him the power of seeing with the spiritual eye 
 as accurately as other men see with the bodily eye : so 
 that, when he came to speak of the laws of God and 
 the facts of heaven, there was no hesitation, haze, or 
 obscurity in his description : all was definite outline. 
 He therefore spoke with authority, the authority of 
 perfect insight. He saw that God was One ; that he 
 was Spirit ; that he was Truth and Love ; that he was 
 Love, because he was the Universal Father, loving 
 all his children alike, loving the good and the evil : 
 longing to pardon; inviting the sinner to repent and 
 
38 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 return ; hearing prayer ; giving his Holy Spirit to those 
 who asked it. He saw that he was also Truth ; that he 
 was holy; that he acted by law; that he maintained the 
 great moral order of the universe ; that his laws were 
 unchanging and eternal, because part of his own being. 
 
 The perfect insight of Jesus, therefore, concerning 
 God, brought him to this knowledge, that God is 
 both Nature, or Law, and Freedom, or Love ; that he 
 is Spirit, or Perfect Freedom, but that this freedom acts 
 according to an order of laws, and for the perfect good 
 of creation, that is, God is Spirit acting from Love, 
 through Truth, for Good. 
 
 Concerning individual souls, Jesus saw that every 
 soul was at once limited by circumstance, and free by 
 will and knowledge ; and that the destiny appointed to 
 each soul, in its own order of development, is to rise to 
 God by knowledge, obedience, and love. The limita- 
 tions to this ascent he states to be twofold, the divine 
 order, or providential conditions of time and place ; and 
 the freedom to accept or to refuse good, belonging to the 
 individual. 
 
 If, now, you ask me how I know that Jesus beheld 
 all this so clearly, I reply, first, that I see it in the 
 pages of the Gospels. I am obliged to say, " Never 
 man spake like this man." The parables and the 
 Sermon on the Mount, the deeds and words of Jesus, 
 give the inevitable inference of one sure of himself, 
 one who has no doubt or hesitation, who sees every 
 fact and law with perfect distinctness. This is one of 
 the strongest proofs of the truth thus seen and re- 
 ported. If a teacher of astronomy comes to me, or a 
 teacher of botany, who is at home in his science, with 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 39 
 
 every fact and law familiar, able to explain to me the 
 whole, I do not need external proof that he knows it. 
 The knowledge is its own proof. So of Jesus. 
 
 But this evidence is made conclusive, because the 
 truths thus seen by Jesus have been verified by the 
 experience of mankind. So far as the moral law 
 which he taught has been put in practice, it has ap- 
 proved itself as in accord with the order of the 
 universe. 
 
 This, then, was the gospel, or good news, which Jesus 
 saw and declared concerning the individual soul. But 
 religion concerns not only the development of the indi- 
 vidual soul through eternity, but the progress of the 
 human race on earth in time. God's kingdom was to 
 come also to man on earth ; and Jesus had not only a 
 gospel for the individual, but also one for the race. 
 He believed that God was educating the race provi- 
 dentially in history. In the records of his nation, this 
 providential education was made clear; and, in these 
 records, he beheld prophetic visions of a much grander 
 figure, the reign of a Messiah. Comparing these 
 prophetic suggestions with the intuitions of his own 
 soul, he perceived that his own insight completely ful- 
 filled their foresight ; that all the lines of their thought 
 converged to himself. What an awful moment, when 
 to him it was shown that, of all human beings, he alone 
 understood the purposes of God, and that he was, 
 therefore, the agent to fulfil them ! It is said that 
 when Newton, by a long series of calculations on the 
 lunar motions, was testing the truth of his hypoth- 
 esis of universal gravitation, and, as the calculation 
 drew to its close, perceived that the hypothesis was 
 
40 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 about to be verified, he stopped, overwhelmed and 
 awed at the dawning of this great truth to the world. 
 But how much more vast the revelation which must 
 have come to Jesus, when he saw that he was to be 
 the Way to God, the Truth to the world, the Life to the 
 soul ; that he was really that Messiah who was to intro- 
 duce peace between man and God, peace between man 
 and man ; by whom men were to come to their Father ; 
 who was to unite all races and religions in one, and to 
 change a legal obedience of duty into a willing and 
 grateful love ; through whom God's kingdom was to 
 come, and his will to be done on earth as it is done 
 in heaven ! 
 
 Having realized this, the next step in the experience 
 of Jesus was to find out the appointed means ; and, on 
 this part of his experience, the story of the tempta- 
 tion throws great light. His perfectly lucid intellect 
 saw all the obstacles in the way of his work. He 
 knew what was in man, and perceived the resistance to 
 come from priest and people, from obstinate custom, 
 from self-interest, from pride, from habits of thought, 
 from superstition, from bigotry, from worldliness, from 
 sensuality, from hardness of heart. Yet he knew that 
 he possessed power sufficient to overcome this resist- 
 ance. The mysterious gifts of his nature, if directed 
 to that end, would be enough to bring all men to his 
 feet; and then he could do with them as he chose. 
 One concession, one compromise, one moment given to 
 expediency, and, after that, all might belong to God. 
 The stones would become bread; angels would bear 
 him up in their hands ; all the kingdoms of the world, 
 and their glory, would be his. That was the tempta- 
 tion. 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 41 
 
 The temptation was to use worldly means for a holy 
 end, the temptation to which so many noble souls 
 have yielded, from Mohammed and Hildebrand to the 
 great statesmen who have sold their eternal birthright 
 of truth for the pottage of temporal expediency. The 
 temptation was to obtain a strong outward position, to 
 build up an imposing visible kingdom, to draw together 
 by all motives the parties in the Jewish State, and 
 then to use this power for the conversion of the world 
 to God. 
 
 We know how Jesus passed through this terrible trial, 
 and how he came out of the furnace with no smell of 
 fire on his garments. Simple truth and love were to 
 be his only means. But, when he had thus decided, 
 he perceived that he was not to behold, in this life, 
 the coming of his kingdom. It was probable that he 
 would be put to death, that all would seem to be lost. 
 Then he rose into a contemplation of the vast future, 
 and spoke of himself as coming to reign as the Christ in 
 distant centuries. Of the day and hour of his coming, 
 not he nor any finite mind could know ; but he was to 
 come. The Son of man, the historic Jesus, was to 
 come as the ideal Christ, the Son of God. His divine 
 truth was to conquer at last, his peace was to prevail 
 over war, his love over selfishness. All races and' re- 
 ligions were to become one in him ; evil was to be over- 
 come by good. He was to come in the clouds of 
 heaven ; that is, according to Oriental speech, in the 
 changing opinions and advancing spirit of men : not 
 here or there, not in one place or another place, but 
 everywhere at once, like the leaven which leavens the 
 lump, like the lightning which lightens all round the 
 
42 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 sky at the same moment. Thus did he set aside 
 the idea of locality and visibility in his coming. 
 
 In this perfect faith he departed. After the last 
 agonizing struggle, in which he inquired of God if 
 there could not even yet be some way by which he 
 could now establish his kingdom, and found there was 
 none, he said, " Thy will be done," and departed. 
 
 Then came the resurrection, which was not merely 
 coming back to earth, but going upward and onward 
 into a higher state, from whence he could commune 
 more intimately and livingly with the souls of his dis- 
 ciples than when he was with them ; and so, having 
 filled their souls full of his truth and love, he passed 
 away outwardly, to become more and more present in- 
 wardly to the conscience and heart of the world with 
 each advancing century of human history. 
 
 Turn now from the Christ to the antichrists. 
 
 While speaking of his future spiritual and ideal com- 
 ing, Jesus gave this warning to his disciples and to the 
 whole church : " Take heed lest any man deceive you ; 
 for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, 
 and shall deceive many. . . . Then, if any man shall say 
 to you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not : for 
 there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and 
 shall show great signs and wonders ; insomuch that, if 
 it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. 
 Wherefore, if they say to you, Behold, he is in the des- 
 ert, go not forth ; Behold, he is in the secret chambers, 
 believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the 
 east, and shineth even to the west, so shall also the 
 coming of the Son of man be." 
 
 Who are these antichrists of history? Are they 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 43 
 
 only individuals, poor, passing impostors of the hour, 
 or are they not rather ideas, principles, institutions, 
 rising up in the Church, antagonizing the spirit and 
 power of the gospel ? So I esteem them. The anti- 
 christs are not the sin of the world, nor its unbelief ; 
 they are not infidelity nor worldliness : but they are 
 principles and systems in the Church, pretending to be 
 Christ. Sin does not pretend to be Christ, nor does 
 infidelity pretend to be Christ ; but these principles do. 
 They say, "We are Christ"; and they "deceive many." 
 They have come up, one after another, in the Church, 
 demanding the obedience, belief, and assent of men, on 
 peril of damnation if refused. According to the true 
 gospel, the soul is safe when it is filled with the spirit- 
 ual Christ, the Christ formed within, the love and 
 truth of God ; but these antichrists demand allegiance 
 to themselves. 
 
 THE CHURCH THE FIRST ANTICHRIST. 
 
 The first antichrist which appeared was THE CHURCH. 
 The Church has often come in the name of Jesus, and 
 said, "I am Christ," and has deceived many. The 
 Papal Church has claimed to be the only way to God, 
 has declared that out of her there was no salvation, 
 has made her sacraments essential media of religious 
 life ; and so she took the place of Christ as mediator 
 between man and God. Christ said, "I am the 
 door"; but the Church responded, "I am the door." 
 Christ says, " If any man believe in me, he has eternal 
 life abiding in him." The Church declared that no 
 one had any right to believe in Christ, unless he 
 
44 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 believed in her as Christ's visible body. The Church 
 has declared herself to be the door, the true shepherd, 
 the way of salvation, the truth, and the life. In mak- 
 ing these claims, she has made herself antichrist. She 
 has come in her Master's name, saying, "I am Christ." 
 She has localized Christ, saying, " Lo, here is Christ ; 
 and, lo, there." The very power she has shown, and 
 the astonishing phenomena she has developed out of 
 her corporate zeal, have completed the picture ; for 
 thus she has shown great signs and wonders, so as, 
 if it were possible, to deceive the very elect. She has 
 asserted Christ to be in her secret chambers, in the 
 Vatican; to be in her monasteries, in the desert. 
 According to the gospel, all believers are priests, and 
 holy ; but she has established a distinction between the 
 priests and people, making the one sacred and the 
 other secular. Christ says to his disciples, " Call no 
 man master, and no man father on earth ; for one is 
 your Master and Father in heaven, and ye are 
 brethren " ; and the Church calls the Pope Master and 
 Father, and requires submission to him instead of 
 submission to Christ. Christ says, "When ye pray, 
 use no vain repetitions " ; but she advises her children 
 to repeat the Paternoster fifteen times, and the Ave 
 Maria a hundred and fifty to each rosary. 
 
 Now, I recognize the goodness there is in the Roman 
 Catholic Church ; and I see that Roman Catholics are, 
 in some things, better than Protestants. But the Church 
 itself, with its immense pretensions, whenever it claims 
 to be the mediator between man and God, thereby 
 makes itself antichrist. It takes our faith and obedi- 
 ence from Christ, and transfers it to itself. But the 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 45 
 
 same principle is antichrist in Protestant Churches. 
 When any Church makes its rites and forms essential, 
 its ceremonies, its books, its creed, its holy days, 
 its holy persons, its holy times, essential, it be- 
 comes thereby an antichrist. When Episcopacy 
 claims that no one is a minister who has not been 
 touched by a bishop, and that no child is safe who has 
 not been baptized with water, it brings these forms be- 
 tween the soul and Christ. To make anything essen- 
 tial but faith in the Divine Truth and Love is to be an 
 antichrist. 
 
 The principle of authority in a Church and its rites 
 is hostile to the spirit of the gospel and to the spirit 
 of Jesus himself. He did not come to destroy the 
 law and the prophets, yet never was reformer so rad- 
 ical as he, since the destructive reformer is less radical 
 than the creative, positive, constructive one. Life, 
 advancing life, which forgets the things behind, not 
 stopping to quarrel with them, advancing to those 
 before, is the most radical reform of all. The in- 
 flowing life of nature, which takes up into itself the 
 ruins of the old year, is the type of this most radical 
 reform. 
 
 So wholly positive and creative was the work of 
 Christ that it is difficult for us to regard him sepa- 
 rately as a reformer. If we could, we should see that 
 there was never so bold or thorough an assault on the 
 body and form of religion ; never anything which so 
 completely cleared the ground of the past, and yet 
 without cutting away from behind one connecting line 
 of true historic life. He took into himself Moses, the 
 prophets, the Jewish ideal of the Messiah, the sub- 
 
46 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 stance and essence of them all, and then dropped and 
 let go the form. To be sure that we have the kernel of 
 a theory, this alone gives us courage to cast away the 
 shell. 
 
 The difficulty of the Protestant Church is just here : 
 it has not extracted the whole kernel of Romanism ; 
 and, therefore, it is afraid to throw away the shell. We 
 have not yet learned the whole secret of Romanism : 
 when we have, we shall be able to leave behind all its 
 forms ; we shall have no mitigated Romanism in the 
 form of episcopal apostolic succession, no simulated sac- 
 raments, no rags of Papacy. " The ghost of a linen de- 
 cency still haunts us," says John Milton. Such wise 
 and good writers as Miss Yonge and Miss Sewell, who 
 describe nature and life with the insight of masculine 
 English intellect, talk baby-talk about baptism and 
 confirmation. It seems, in fact, a peculiarity of the 
 English mind, with occasional magnificent exceptions, 
 to be unable to go back of the accepted statement, 
 precedent, or tradition of its own Church. " There 
 be," says Milton, in a passage often quoted, but which 
 I must quote once more, " there be who knows 
 not that there be ? of Protestants and professors 
 who live and die in as errant and implicit faith as 
 any lay Papist of Loretto. A wealthy man, addicted 
 to his pleasure and his profits, finds religion to be too 
 entangled a traffic for him : so he finds out some divine 
 of note, to whom he adheres, and resigns the whole 
 warehouse of his religion, with all its locks and keys, 
 and, indeed, makes the very person of the man his re- 
 ligion ; so that his religion is no more within himself, 
 but comes and goes near him as that good man fre- 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 47 
 
 quents his house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, 
 feasts him, lodges him : his religion comes home at 
 night, prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously laid 
 to sleep; rises, is saluted ; and after the Malmsey, and 
 better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite 
 would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany 
 and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and 
 leaves his kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day 
 without his religion." I do not think we have as yet 
 wholly outgrown this description. 
 
 But not merely the Episcopal Church relapses thus 
 toward the theory of Rome : in all our churches there 
 is a tendency to exalt the forms. The duties most 
 considered are church duties : the sins most feared are 
 offences against church rules. To take a walk on Sun- 
 day afternoon is in many places held a sin ; to go to the 
 theatre, another ; and, had the father of the prodigal 
 son belonged to some old-school churches, he would 
 have been disciplined for having music and dancing in 
 his house when his lost son was found. 
 
 When one of our Southern Presidents was on his 
 death-bed, it occurred to him that he had never paid 
 due attention to religion. He therefore proposed to 
 himself to make his peace with God. In what form 
 did that work come before him ? Was it to repent of 
 the evil done, when he precipitated the nation into a 
 war with Mexico ? By no means : that had nothing 
 to do with religion. No : the question which agitated 
 his mind in that serious hour was how to be baptized, 
 and whether by a Methodist or by a Presbyterian min- 
 ister. The important question was at last decided. 
 The duty he had been taught to believe so essential 
 
4$ CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 was performed, and he died in peace. Better, as it 
 seems to me, was the course of an eminent statesman, 
 who, on his death-bed, declined the offices of the min- 
 istry and the Church, saying that it was too late to 
 think of those things then, and with his dying lips 
 commanded his sons to support the Constitution, the 
 Union, and the Laws. TJiat religion, the religion of 
 patriotism, he at any rate possessed ; and to that he 
 meant to be true, and not to speak any "words of 
 wind" in his dying hour. 
 
 When Paul taught the great doctrine of justification 
 by faith, he laid the axe at the root of this tree of 
 church salvation, of relying on any forms as essential 
 to the life of the soul. Luther, in his single-handed 
 conflict with the colossal power of Rome, was obliged 
 to assert again and vitalize once more in human con- 
 sciousness this magnificent principle ; and, in its 
 strength, he conquered. He dealt a blow to the anti- 
 christ of Form. It lies half dead to-day : before long, 
 it will be quite dead. Yet 
 
 . . . " cinis ipse sepulti 
 In genus hoc saevit, tumulo quoque sensimus hostem." 
 
 The first antichrist developed in the Church of 
 Christ was, as we have seen, the Church itself, re- 
 solved into ceremony, ritual, form. The body of 
 Christ, which consists of faithful men and women 
 united around him, filled with his truth and love, doing 
 his work, was degraded to a mere external worship. 
 The minister (or servant) was changed into a priest. 
 The worship of spirit and truth, for which the Father 
 seeks, became a worship of time, place, person, ritual 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 49 
 
 The next great antichrist which arose in the Church 
 was the Dogma, claiming to be Christ, coming in his 
 name, and saying, "I am he." The dogma which asks 
 for faith in itself, instead of asking for faith in Christ, 
 becomes an antichrist. Every great doctrine of the 
 Church, no doubt, at first represented a vital truth. 
 The Deity of Christ meant, at first, simply this : that 
 those who see Christ see not him, but his Father, 
 looking through him to God; that God's truth and 
 God's love are fully incarnate in him. So of Total 
 Depravity and the Atonement : all meant something 
 real. They were, at first, insights of the soul. These 
 insights were put into formal statements, and so made 
 into doctrines ; and then men were asked to accept 
 them. As inspirations, they had led the soul to God : 
 and it was supposed that, as dogmas, they would do 
 the same. "This is Christianity," said the dogmatist. 
 " Here is Christ, in this creed of ours. Only assent to 
 it, and it will work like a charm. It will save your 
 soul." So, at last, it was not expected of men to see 
 the truth, but merely to assent to what others said 
 about it. Conformity was required, not faith. The 
 Church had claimed to be Christ, and said it alone 
 could save the soul ; and now the creed came, and said 
 that it was Christ, and that it alone could save the 
 soul. But both the Church and the creed, in making 
 these claims, proved themselves to be. not Christ, but. 
 antichrist. Salvation by dogma calls away the soul 
 from Christ to itself, as much as salvation by the 
 Church did before. 
 
 As the Church took the place of Christ in Romanism, 
 so the dogma took the place of Christ in Protestantism. 
 
50 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 Protestants saw that the Church of Rome was anti- 
 christ, but failed to see that their own system of 
 belief, when made essential to salvation, was another 
 antichrist, more subtle, and therefore perhaps more 
 dangerous, than the other. 
 
 To avoid misunderstanding, let me repeat that I 
 only call the Church of Rome, or any other church, an 
 antichrist, when it makes itself essential to the soul's 
 salvation ; and I call no creed antichrist till it makes 
 the same idolatrous pretension. Not till they come in 
 the name of Christ, saying, " I am he," do they become 
 antichrist. Whenever, therefore, in 'the hands of any 
 of its ministers, the Church of Rome forgets or omits 
 this sacrilegious claim, and simply does its work for 
 human souls, it becomes a part of the true body of 
 Jesus Christ on earth ; and whenever the dogma 
 comes, not claiming to be accepted as infallible and 
 vital truth, but offering its aid to human need, so far 
 as it can be honestly received, then it also becomes 
 a medium through which Christ may visit the soul. 
 When the Church or when the creed exalts itself, it 
 is abased ; but, when it humbles itself, it is exalted. 
 
 If it is true that an opinion about Christ is a differ- 
 ent thing from Christ himself, it is evident that to rely 
 on the opinion for salvation is not the same thing as 
 to rely upon Christ for salvation. Then the opinion 
 calls away our faith from Christ. True, as an opinion 
 or object of belief, it becomes false as an object of 
 faith or reliance ; and, if false, then, being a substitute 
 for the true, it is antichrist. 
 
 But is it not evident that trust in an opinion is one 
 thing, trust in Christ quite another ? Christ is not to 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 51 
 
 the true believer an opinion, a belief, a theory, a creed : 
 he is an inward life. The only true faith is faith in 
 Christ born within us, the hope of glory. The living 
 Christ, rooted in the heart, revealed by the Holy Spirit 
 to the soul, is the real object of faith, not the opinion 
 about him, formed by reflection in the region of the 
 understanding, and held in the memory. 
 
 All experimental Christians have seen and admitted 
 this distinction. " A string of opinions is no more 
 Christian faith," said Wesley, " than a string of beads 
 is Christian practice." Quotations to the same effect 
 might be multiplied from writers in every section of 
 the Church. Even a low stage of spiritual life shows 
 the difference between belief in a doctrine and faith 
 in a person. This distinction holds even in regard to 
 others whom we have not seen, and with whom we have 
 no such spiritual intercourse as r most Christians are sat- 
 isfied they have with Christ. I have faith in Milton, 
 in Washington, in Franklin, in Fenelon. They are per- 
 sonally my guides, masters, friends. They influence me, 
 through my faith in them, more than do others whom I 
 have seen. Of them as of Christ, I can say, " Whom, 
 not having seen, I love ; in whom, though now I see 
 them not, yet, believing, I rejoice." But suppose I 
 were to put my opinions of their character and mission 
 into the form of articles : would assent to those arti- 
 cles be equivalent to faith in the men themselves ? 
 Surely not. My creed about Milton might be signed 
 by many persons, who, accepting it intellectually, 
 would yet not receive the influence from Milton that 
 I do. The influence comes from Milton himself, as 
 inwardly known, loved, and imitated. 
 
52 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 The distinction above explained is, as I have said, 
 commonly admitted ; but it is not generally understood 
 that we lose one influence when we accept the other 
 in its place. When we look in one direction, we nec- 
 essarily look away from every other. When we rest 
 on opinions for our salvation, we cease to rest on 
 Christ for our salvation. One thing is needful as an 
 end, and one thing as means. The end of the com- 
 mandment is human love : the means to that human 
 love is the reception of the Divine Love, which flows 
 into the world through the living mediation of Christ. 
 Christ himself is the way, not Calvin's creed or Priest- 
 ley's creed about Christ, Christ himself, seen in the 
 Gospels or seen in the heart, seen in history or seen 
 in our own private experience, seen through the holy 
 mediations of maternal love and Christian goodness, 
 known through the inspired voices of sages, poets, 
 preachers, but seen and known in some way as a per- 
 sonal influence of truth and love, leading our hearts to 
 God. 
 
 Influence helps, but formulas hinder, the influx of 
 God to the soul. " It is the spirit that quickens : the 
 flesh profits nothing," said the Master himself. " The 
 letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," is asserted by 
 Paul ; and we have only been repeating this assertion 
 in all we have now said. " The letter kills." Can we 
 say more than that ? 
 
 Jesus carefully abstains from any formal or syste- 
 matic statement of his opinions. He teaches, not doc- 
 trine, but truth. His word is seed. It is spirit and life. 
 He utters it in vivid, poetic figures ; in homely, house- 
 hold illustration ; in penetrating, incisive antithesis ; in 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 suggestive aphorism ; not in systematic formula. He 
 asks for faith in himself, never for belief of statements 
 about himself. He recognizes the divine law of media- 
 tion through personality. He knows (as has been said) 
 that seed-truth must not be ground or baked into a 
 loaf. He demands the living consent of the soul, not 
 the formal assent of the understanding. Men shall 
 come into heaven, and sit at his right hand, on the 
 last day, who do not know intellectually that they have 
 ever seen him or done anything for him. THE PURE 
 IN HEART see God. God is seen by the heart more 
 than by the intellect. It is the Spirit of God in the 
 heart that quickens : the flesh of external formula 
 profits nothing. 
 
 For what we have been saying, we claim no origi- 
 nality. Several sections of the Protestant Church have 
 powerfully protested against this antichrist of dogma. 
 Eminent among them have been the Quakers, the 
 Methodists, the Swedenborgians, the Unitarians, and 
 the Transcendentalists. Each of these bodies, from its 
 own stand-point, has attacked with successful energy 
 the doctrine of salvation by Dogma. 
 
 The Quakers (whose extraordinary movement in 
 the seventeenth century anticipated the most advanced 
 philosophy, the most enlightened theology, the most 
 radical moral reforms, and the most thorough reorgan- 
 izing socialism of the nineteenth), the Quakers 
 attacked Protestant Orthodoxy in their profound doc- 
 trine of the Inner Light. " The soul," they said, " is 
 saved, not by what it believes intellectually, but by 
 what it sees spiritually." " Eternal life is to know 
 God," says Barclay; "and God is only known by his 
 
54 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 Son, and the Son only known by the Spirit, which 
 gives an inward sight of him." 
 
 This protest of the Quakers against the Dogma has 
 been frequently observed, but it has not been so often 
 noticed that the great movement of Wesley was also 
 a rising-up of the religious instincts against the two 
 antichrists of Church and creed. John Wesley had 
 himself been through all that religion of form which 
 we now call Ritualism before he arrived at the vital 
 experience which was the root of Methodism. At 
 Oxford, and afterward in Georgia, he was a zealous 
 Churchman, seeking to save his own soul by fidelity to 
 the church forms and church obedience, by ascetic 
 devotion, by self-sacrificing philanthropy, by fasting 
 and prayer ; but this brought him no peace. He re- 
 peated the experience of Paul the Pharisee, and of 
 Luther the monk, striving for salvation by works, and 
 ending with the same cry, " Wretched man that I 
 am ! " Thus, as Luther through Stapfer was led to 
 Christ in simple faith, so Wesley through the Mora- 
 vian was led to Christ in simple faith ; and the great 
 Methodist movement began when he passed from Rit- 
 ualism, and became a childlike believer in the unpur- 
 chased gospel of Christian love and truth. 
 
 This fact that, in the experience of Wesley, Rit- 
 ualism preceded Methodism is of great significance 
 in determining the respective positions of these two 
 systems to each other in the order of the advancing 
 Church. Agassiz founds a system of classification 
 based upon embryonic development. He fixes the 
 rank of a species of animals in the scale of being by 
 noticing which organization precedes the other, and 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 55 
 
 which is a subsequent development, in the same indi- 
 vidual. If an embryo breathes by gills, and these 
 gills afterward become replaced by lungs, he regards 
 the organization by lungs as higher than the organi- 
 zation by gills. If the embryo lobster has the organi- 
 zation of a trilobite, he argues that the trilobite is a 
 lower being in the scale of creation. Trilobites of 
 one period become lobsters in a subsequent one. 
 Now, if we can trace in Christian experience any 
 similar progress, we may determine the respective 
 order and rank of sects and systems. If the tend- 
 ency of Christian experience is out of Catholicism 
 into Protestantism, then Protestantism is the higher. 
 If the tendency, again, is out of Ritualistic Protes- 
 tantism into Methodistic, or from that of form to that 
 of inward experience, then we may say that Method- 
 ism is higher than Ritualism, and an advance upon it. 
 Now, the concurrent experience of Paul, Luther, and 
 Wesley, shows that they had exhausted the religion 
 of form before they attained to that of inward experi- 
 ence : they passed from the law to grace, from works 
 to faith. Paul passed from Jewish works to Christian 
 faith, Luther from monkish Christian works to Prot- 
 estant Christian faith, Wesley from High-Church-of- 
 England works to Methodist Christian faith. The 
 striking and important fact in the experience of 
 Wesley is that he thoroughly tried that system which 
 we now call Ritualism, and found it wanting, before he 
 passed into that other experience which made of him 
 one of the great lights of the Church and one of the 
 great benefactors of mankind. Methodism has its 
 errors and defects, no doubt. We shall presently 
 
56 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 see that its tendency toward emotional religion is its 
 peculiar danger. But it cannot be doubted by any 
 sagacious student of comparative Christian theology 
 that the Methodism of Wesley is one of the highest 
 forms of Christianity yet attained in the Church. 
 We may therefore say that conversions from Protes- 
 tantism to Romanism, and from spiritual Christianity 
 to formal Christianity, are but retrograde and sporadic 
 movements, having no large significance. They indi- 
 cate only eddies in the Church, not the main current. 
 There have been reactions in the Church from the 
 higher to the lower stages of spiritual life, which have 
 checked its development. These have usually been 
 importations from other religions and made no part of 
 the unfolding process. 
 
 Swedenborg, again, has, from the basis of a spiritual 
 insight, protested against the antichrist of Orthodoxy. 
 The profound mysticism of his soul, joined with a 
 most healthy intellect, has given to us in his writings 
 a system of rational spiritualism which no theologian 
 can neglect, except to his own loss. The great value 
 of it I think is, that it lifts us above dogma into the 
 light of the living facts and the permanent law of the 
 spirit. It is injured by the presence of Swedenborg's 
 strong individualism, 'and is to be used rather as sug- 
 gestion than as instruction ; but, as suggestion, it is 
 of great value. The reaction of his will against the 
 dead Calvinism of the Scandinavian Church sometimes 
 confuses his spiritual vision ; but his spiritual insight 
 was, perhaps, the most powerful vouchsafed to any 
 man in these later days. 
 
 Mr. Buckle, in his second volume, drew a vivid pict- 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 57 
 
 
 
 ure of the evils resulting to civilization from the anti- 
 christ of Form in Spain and the antichrist of Dogma 
 in Scotland. It is an historic warning of the most 
 important kind. Mr. Buckle wrote as a pleader and 
 advocate. He is the prosecuting officer of Positivism. 
 He gathers his facts in the interest of that too mate- 
 rial system. He is, therefore, to be read cautiously, 
 and remembering this bias ; but his light, being 
 thrown on history from a new point, illuminates much 
 which has before been left in shadow. 
 
 The next antichrist is religious emotionalism, or the 
 religion of fear and feeling. 
 
 With a large part of the Christian world, Christi- 
 anity, religion, and piety are synonymous terms : only, 
 Christianity is supposed to be a lower state of the soul 
 than religion, and religion a lower state than piety. 
 Piety is the culminating point to which we ascend 
 through religion from Christianity. A man, it is 
 thought, may be a Christian, in a low and common 
 sense of the word, without being religious ; and he 
 may be a religious man, in an external way, without 
 being pious. When he professes a belief in Christ 
 and Christianity, he is a Christian ; when he goes for- 
 ward from that point and devotes himself to religious 
 duties, becomes a member of the Church and a diligent 
 attendant on religious meetings, reads his Bible daily, 
 has family prayers, respects the Lord's Day, then he 
 is religious ; but when he goes still further, and 
 encounters an experience of emotion, being exer- 
 cised by fear and hope, tormented by a sense of sin, 
 and made happy by a feeling of forgiveness, and so 
 comes at last into devout relations of prayer and praise 
 
58 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 to God, he has ascended another step, and is pious. 
 His salvation is now fully assured. Before, it was 
 doubtful ; but, now, it is almost certain. 
 
 Emotional piety is therefore, by many, considered to 
 be a higher condition of the soul than Christianity or 
 religion. An intelligent trust in the truths of Chris- 
 tianity and an honest attempt to do God's will are 
 thought of less value in his eyes than an emotional 
 experience passing through certain definite states of 
 fear, hope, joy, and ecstatic emotion. 
 
 This emotional religion often becomes a substitute 
 for Christianity. Men trust for salvation to a present 
 or past experience of this sort, instead of trusting to the 
 truth and love of God as seen in Christ. They ask 
 concerning a man, " Is he pious ? " meaning, " Has he 
 passed through such and such a religious experience ? " 
 Men are taught to rely for their salvation, not upon the 
 divine idea of Eternal Love shown to them in Christ, 
 but upon some emotional experience of their own souls. 
 Piety then becomes an antichrist. It conies in the 
 name of Jesus, saying, " I am Christ," and deceives 
 many ; teaching men to seek for a life in themselves 
 rather than in a life from God. It produces morbid 
 self-analysis, sickly struggles after mere feeling, a self- 
 ish and personal religion, instead of the generous and 
 broad religion of the gospel. 
 
 It is a mistake to say that piety is more than relig- 
 ion, and religion more than Christianity. Piety is the 
 lowest stage of the religious life ; Christianity, the 
 highest. A man may be pious without being religious, 
 and religious without being Christian. For one may 
 experience religious emotion occasionally, without de- 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 59 
 
 voting his life to any religious object. A man may 
 pray fervently every morning, and fervently every night, 
 and yet spend the day in some purely worldly occupa- 
 tion having no relation to God or to duty. His ruling 
 motive in life may be power, wealth, reputation, knowl- 
 edge, or pleasure. Then he is not a religious man, 
 though he is at times a pious man. A religious man 
 is one who devotes his life to some high object, uni- 
 versal and unselfish. 
 
 The brigands of Italy, before they go out to rob and 
 murder, pray fervently to the Virgin. There is no 
 hypocrisy in this. Their devotion is sincere : it is 
 merely piety without religion. Walter Scott, in Quen- 
 tin Durward y describes the same psychological phe- 
 nomenon in the case of Louis XI. of France, who 
 prayed fervently to the Virgin for success in one little 
 crime he was about to commit ; promising her, if she 
 let him succeed, it should be the last. This is another 
 case of piety without religion. 
 
 It is also a fact that there is usually more of piety in 
 the lower forms of religion than in the higher. As we 
 descend, religion becomes more emotional, less intel- 
 lectual, less practical. It goes down, out of the reason 
 and out of the will, into the feelings. We see that 
 there is less of emotional piety in the Protestant 
 Church than in the Roman Catholic ; less in the 
 Roman Catholic Church than in the Mohammedan ; 
 less in Mohammedanism than in Buddhism ; less in 
 Buddhism than in Brahmanism. He who has been in 
 Catholic countries, and has seen the churches thronged 
 with worshippers on every festa ; has seen the peni- 
 tents kneeling at every shrine on every week-day ; and 
 
60 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 who learns how many hours are devoted to prayer by 
 the regular orders, and by all persons seeking to be 
 religious, knows well that there is more emotional 
 piety in the Roman Catholic Church than in the Prot- 
 estant. 
 
 In Protestant countries, men are seldom seen pray- 
 ing. People are reserved in their prayers. In Cath- 
 olic countries, men, women, and children kneel on the 
 floors of the churches, and are absorbed in their devo- 
 tion: they go on their knees up the Scala Santa, 
 repeating Paternosters and Ave Marias. Prayer has 
 become an evident part of the business of a portion 
 of the community. But, when you go into Moham- 
 medan countries, prayer is a part of the business of 
 the whole community. Five times a day, when the 
 muezzin proclaims the hour of prayer from the minaret, 
 all men fall prostrate on the ground, the Turkish 
 shopkeeper suspends his bargain, the Arab sailor falls 
 on the deck of the Nile boat. For a moment, all the 
 activity of life is suspended : every human being prays. 
 In Pagan countries, devotion is carried still further. 
 Rangoon, a city of Burmah, has a Buddhist pagoda two 
 miles from the city, the road lined all the way with 
 pagodas ; and the chief business of the inhabitants is 
 to pray at these shrines every day of every week. 
 Two thousand worshippers are to be found every day 
 prostrate in the chief pagoda, which is an enormous 
 building, gilt all over, standing on the top of a hill, cut 
 into terraces, with marble pavements, colossal lions, 
 lofty pillars, enormous stone jars for ablution ; but no 
 bloody sacrifices, only offerings of rice, flowers, and 
 green leaves, before the splendid images of Gautama. 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 6 1 
 
 In Brahmanism, human life is organized on devotion. 
 Prayers are so numerous that it would take years to 
 become acquainted with them, and the object of exist- 
 ence is devout absorption in the Infinite Being by 
 asceticism and prayer. But this piety does not make 
 the Brahmin better than the Buddhist, nor the Buddhist 
 better than the Mohammedan, nor the Mohammedan 
 better than the Roman Catholic, nor the Roman Cath- 
 olic better than the Protestant. 
 
 I wish we had more piety in Protestantism. I wish 
 we were not ashamed to pray. I respect the heathen 
 for their simple and sincere devotion. I saw lately, in 
 a school geography, a woodcut representing heathen 
 worship, and another representing Christian worship. 
 The heathen was represented prostrate on his face, on 
 the ground, before his idol ; the Christian, as sitting 
 comfortably in his pew, listening to a sermon. But 
 devout feeling is not Christianity ; and when substi- 
 tuted for it, and made the condition of salvation and 
 test of the soul's state, it becomes an antichrist. It 
 comes in the name of Jesus, and says, " I am Christ, 
 and I can save your soul." Then it becomes our duty 
 to say that it is not Christ, and that it cannot save the 
 soul. We must not forget, while we are admiring 
 these manifestations of devotion in Paganism and else- 
 where, who it was who rebuked those who prayed at 
 the corners of the streets ; who it was who said, " When 
 thou prayest, enter into thy closet " ; and who it was 
 who rebuked the endless repetitions and many prayers 
 of the heathen and the Pharisee. 
 
 Thus, we see that the external rites and formulas 
 which Christ put aside in his temptation, and the vis- 
 
62 CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 
 
 ible religion and piety to which he objected, have come 
 up again in the Church, one after another, each saying 
 in its turn, " I am Christ," and each deceiving many. 
 But their day is passing. The true Christ is near at 
 hand. " The hour cometh, and now is, when the true 
 worshipper shall worship the Father in spirit and in 
 truth ; for the Father seeketh such to worship him." 
 God is waiting and seeking for true piety, piety which 
 is not emotion, but love ; which is emancipated from 
 form, delivered from the yoke of fear, and which is a 
 spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. 
 
 Gentlemen and friends, Christian brothers, Alumni 
 of this school of Christian truth, I congratulate you 
 on the work to which you are called. No antichrist 
 of church authority, of Orthodoxy, or of emotional 
 religion, comes between your soul and the sight of 
 Christ at his coming. Stand fast in the liberty with 
 which Christ has made you free, and be not subject 
 again to any yoke of bondage, not to creeds, not to 
 churches, not to ceremonies, nor even to emotions. 
 Let the dead bury their dead : go ye and preach the 
 kingdom of God. Let your words be seeds of truth, to 
 bear fruit hereafter, if not now. Look forward to the 
 great day of Christ's coming in the clouds of heaven, 
 in an illumination of spiritual religion, in a wide-spread 
 flow of brotherly love, in a simple trust in God's 
 fatherly care. The day is sure to come in which all 
 churches, creeds, and parties shall be dissolved and 
 swallowed up in the light of love. Labor for the 
 coming of that day. We may not live to see it, 
 though methinks its dawn is already illuminating the 
 mountain-tops The advanced guard of many differing 
 
CHRIST AND HIS ANTICHRISTS 63 
 
 hosts are already meeting in the Valley of Decision. 
 Adopt for your maxim, then, the legend and device 
 on the seal of John Quincy Adams, an acorn 
 striking root, with the motto, " Alteri saeculo," " For 
 the coming age." 
 
 Let us not pine for any fleshpots of Egypt ; let us 
 not yield to any poor reaction from Christ to anti- 
 christ, like the foolish Galatians, bewitched by hollow 
 forms, empty of the best life of love. 
 
 As our brave brothers and friends to-day go gladly 
 to fight for freedom and union in the State,* so let us 
 contend as steadfastly for freedom and union in the 
 Church. Let us stand by our flag, the white, blue, 
 and red of Christianity, the white faith, pure and sim- 
 ple ; the hope blue as the heavens to which it aspires ; 
 and the glowing red of a divine and human love. And 
 as our late splendid visitor, who 
 
 " Fired the length of Ophiucus huge 
 In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair 
 Shook pestilence and war," 
 
 comes only occasionally, and soon disappears, while the 
 gentle and regular planets spin on soft axle through 
 their steadfast orbits, without haste or rest, attended 
 with silver ring or sparkling satellites, so let us leave 
 the fiery and ominous theologies to come and go ; 
 dreadful portents, shaking war on their way ; while we 
 circle ever more around God, seen in Christ, as the sun 
 of our system and the light of our souls. 
 
 *This paper was rea&at the beginning of the War for union and freedom. 
 
THE INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 THE writer of the Fourth Gospel (probably the 
 Apostle John) has introduced his narrative with a 
 deeply interesting preamble, which is at once so com- 
 pact with thought and so brimming with life as to 
 occupy and task the best thinkers in their best hours. 
 The interpretation of this famous passage has suffered 
 much from sectarian efforts to force it into the service 
 of narrow dogmas. Trinitarians on the one side, and 
 Unitarians on the other, have sometimes tried to make 
 it appear that this profound writer was merely arguing 
 in the interest of their special controversy. But his 
 theme is not partial, but universal. This brief passage 
 contains the history of all revelations. It gives us 
 the genesis, progress, and completion of the divine 
 manifestations. This is sufficiently evident from the 
 terms used, which are the largest, and used in the 
 widest sense, " the Word/' " Life," " Light," " Dark- 
 ness," "Grace," "Truth." 
 
 If we read this noble passage with no sectarian bias 
 or prepossession, but a simple desire to know its mean- 
 ing, its difficulties will soon begin to vanish, and its 
 real sense will become apparent. We must not seek 
 to put our own ideas into the passage, but to extract 
 out of it those of the writer. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 65 
 
 The first thing we notice, in reading the first verse 
 of John, is the peculiar use he gives to the term 
 "Word." We ask, naturally, What does he intend 
 by it? 
 
 " Word " means expression, utterance, speech. Man's 
 word is his utterance, and his utterance is his word. 
 In like manner, God's word is his utterance, and his 
 utterance is his word. 
 
 The usage of the Old Testament confirms this view. 
 In the Old Testament, we read of the eye of God, the 
 ear of God, the arm of God, the hand of God, and the 
 word of God. We have no difficulty in understanding 
 the meaning of these expressions. When we read that 
 " the eye of the Lord is in every place, beholding the 
 evil and the good," we understand by his eye his om- 
 niscient knowledge. When we read, " His ear is open 
 to their cry," we know that by this is intended that 
 the Lord listens to prayer. When we read that " his 
 arm brought salvation," we comprehend that this is the 
 power of the Almighty exerted to sustain and bless. 
 When we read that "by the word of the Lord the 
 heavens were made, and all the host of them by the 
 breath of his mouth," we see clearly that this implies 
 the utterance of his will. We do not argue that the 
 eye is a separate person in the Godhead, nor that the 
 arm is a separate person. Nor is there any more 
 reason to think that the "word" is a separate person 
 than to assert this of the eye, the arm, or the ear. 
 
 Before going further, let us consider the following 
 points : 
 
 (a) John must, of course, have expected to be under- 
 stood by his readers. His first readers were the in- 
 
66 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 habitants of Asia Minor, where he wrote his Gospel. 
 The term "Word," as used by him, could not have 
 been a new term never used by them, but one with 
 which they were familiar : otherwise, they could not 
 have understood what he was speaking of. 
 
 (b) The term "Word," thus used, is peculiar to John. 
 No one among the writers of the New Testament but 
 him uses the phrase in this absolute sense. The 
 others frequently speak of "the word of God," but not 
 of " the Word " by itself ; and, except in this passage, 
 John nowhere uses this expression without some quali- 
 fying adjunct. 
 
 (c) In the Old Testament and the New, we find the 
 term "word" used in a sense almost equivalent to this. 
 We find God's word spoken of as a person, running to 
 and fro, leaping down from the heavens, coming to the 
 prophets, creating the heavens and their host, etc. 
 
 ("The word of God came to Nathan," etc., I. Chron. 
 xvii., 3. "The word of God came to John in the 
 wilderness," etc., Luke iii., 2. "His word runneth 
 very swiftly," Ps. cxlvii., 15. " The worlds were framed 
 by the word of God," Heb. xi., 3. " By the word of 
 God the heavens were of old," II. Pet. iii., 5. "Thine 
 Almighty word leapt down from heaven from his royal 
 throne," etc., Wisdom of Sol. xviii., 15.) 
 
 (d) Not only the "word of God" is thus personified 
 in the Bible, but so also are the eye, the ear, the hand, 
 and the arm of God. We have no difficulty in under- 
 standing. what is meant in these cases, nor do we ever 
 suppose that personification implies personality. 
 
 (e) If, therefore, John had simply said, " In the be- 
 ginning was the word of God and the word of God was 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 67 
 
 with God, and the word was God himself," the Jews 
 would readily have understood him. They would have 
 understood him to mean that God spoke, or revealed 
 himself in some way, in the beginning ; that he mani- 
 fested his power at that time. But John does not say 
 this: he says "the Word" in a universal form. He 
 must therefore have intended by it revelation in a 
 more universal sense, not any particular revelation, 
 but the principle of all revelations. He meant to 
 speak of the divine principle, or that energy of the 
 divine nature which causes all manifestation on the 
 part of Deity. 
 
 (f) We find that among the Jews, in the time of 
 the apostle, there were persons who, by their study of 
 Plato, had been led to take up this very problem of the 
 principle of revelation or manifestation in the Deity. 
 "Why is it and how is it that God reveals himself?" 
 was a question with which Plato and the Platonists, 
 Philo and his followers, and afterwards the Gnostics, 
 were much exercised ; and, in their theories, they were 
 inclined to separate God's manifestation from God him- 
 self, and to make the revealing energy in the Deity 
 a kind of subordinate and separate being. John prob- 
 ably refers to their opinions, and means to oppose this 
 error, in the first and second verses of the passage. 
 
 I am aware that some writers explain "word," or 
 " logos," to mean reason or wisdom : and others who 
 explain it to mean power. And it may, doubtless, 
 sometimes mean reason and sometimes power. But 
 these are derived and secondary meanings : the pri- 
 mary meaning is utterance. Power may be expressed 
 by the divine word, reason may be expressed by it; 
 
68 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 but the word itself is neither reason nor power, but the 
 utterance or expression of them. As the principal 
 office of human speech is to express a man's thought, 
 it easily happened, by a common figure, that the term 
 came to mean thought or reason. But the original 
 and primary meaning of logos, or word, we repeat, was 
 utterance or expression ; and, in the passage before us, 
 the primary meaning is the one which best suits the 
 purpose and aim of the writer. 
 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
 with God, and the Word was God." " In the begin- 
 ning," says the Book of Genesis, " God created!' " In 
 the beginning," adds this writer, "God spoke" ; for 
 creation itself was speech. " The Word was with 
 God " : it was nothing separate from him, no ema- 
 nation from him, no falling away from him, as the 
 Gnostics were beginning to think. But " the Word 
 was God " ; or, rather, " God was the Word." He was 
 utterance, he was revelation. When he created the 
 universe, he at the same time manifested himself. 
 Creation, therefore, was not something outside of God, 
 or God acting on some material foreign from himself ; 
 but it was an utterance of the divine thought, it was 
 the first spoken word of God. This word was, there- 
 fore, in the beginning with God. Revelation is no 
 new thing, but an old thing, old as God himself, who 
 has always spoken. , 
 
 This is what is intended by the last clause of the 
 first verse. " God was the Word," not "the Word was 
 God" (eed? $? 4 Alyoc is the expression). The object of 
 John was, not to prove the Deity of the word, not that 
 revelation was a divine being, but that the Deity was 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 his own revelation. He asserts here, n^FffigrSffity of 
 revelation, but the revelation of Deity. 
 
 His purpose, as continually shown, and repeated in 
 the second verse, is to assert that revelation is not 
 something which can exist away from God, but only 
 where God himself is. He teaches the immanence of 
 God in his revelation. This is the intention of the 
 second verse, which asserts that revelation was in the 
 beginning with God, and not away from him ; and 
 nothing was made which was not itself speech. By 
 the word of the Lord, the heavens were made ; but 
 the heavens themselves have ever since been a word 
 of the Lord. He said, " Let there be light " ; but the 
 light, when it came, came to speak of him. Thus, the 
 word is God speaking, and all things are made by God 
 speaking. So the whole inanimate creation, the things 
 made, were the first revelation of God. The visible 
 universe, the order and beauty of heaven and earth, 
 are a divine speech, are God speaking. 
 
 This was his first word. 
 
 But when God spake again, and uttered his second 
 word, then " in him," in this divine speech and 
 speaker, "was life." Life is a second word, because 
 it is an advance in the divine revelations. Life in 
 itself contains light. A living soul has an inward illu- 
 mination : God is always speaking in it and through it. 
 The soul, our inward life, is also our inward light. 
 "The life was the light of men." "It shines in 
 darkness " indeed, darkened by human sin, darkened 
 by human error. We do not comprehend the light 
 that is within us. We do not see God plainly. The 
 pure in heart see God. If we were pure in heart, we 
 
70 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 should see God as plainly with the inward eye as we 
 see the universe with the outward eye ; and, even as it 
 is, what we really know of God, we know by this in- 
 ward faculty, by this inward insight. This, then, is 
 God's second word, the life in the soul itself, which 
 is an inner light. 
 
 The light within us is " the true light, which lightens 
 every man who comes into the world." This light of 
 God is in every soul. There is enough of it to make 
 men feel after God, trying to find Him who is not far 
 from any one of us ; for in him we live and move, and 
 have our being. By this inner light we are enabled to 
 see something of the Eternal Power and Deity mani- 
 fested in outward creation. 
 
 God has therefore spoken to the whole race of men, 
 both in the outward universe and in their own souls. 
 But "the light shines in darkness." We are not pure 
 enough, truthful enough, generous enough, to see 
 God ; for there is an eternal law fixed in the order 
 of nature, that spiritual things are spiritually discerned. 
 Just as things of sense must be discerned through the 
 senses, so things of the spirit must be discerned 
 through the spirit. A man whose outward eyes are 
 blind cannot see the sun, no matter how pure his 
 heart may be. So a man whose heart is not pure can- 
 not see God, no matter how keen his intellect or how 
 clear his bodily senses. Now, it is a matter of fact 
 that men do not see God plainly. They are groping 
 and feeling for him through fifty different religions, 
 fifty different creeds, and who knows how many forms 
 of worship? The Buddhist in Eastern Asia is groping 
 after God with a prayer-mill, turning a winch with his 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 71 
 
 hand. The Brahman feels after God by his sacrifices, 
 his liturgy, his sacred books. The Indian woman, by 
 the river-bank, holds up her hands, and cries, " O thou 
 great Everywhere, save my child ! " Some nations 
 find in the sun the best emblem of the Deity. The 
 African has his fetich, a plant, a stone, or a stick, 
 in which, he finds something divine. Thus men look 
 abroad for the God who is within them. Therefore, it 
 was necessary to speak again. In his infinite love, 
 God uttered another word ; and this word was 
 Christ. There was nothing sudden or abrupt in the 
 coming of this later word. As the day comes upon 
 the earth in soft gradations, first a pale light in the 
 east, forerunning the dawn, in which hangs the morn- 
 ing star like a lamp, light-bearing Phosphoros, Luci- 
 fer, son of the morning ; then a redder tinge, a glow 
 of light in the opposite sky ; and so wave after wave 
 of light rolls up, extinguishing the stars, till the great 
 sun shoots his first level ray across forest tops or 
 ocean waves, so gradual, so well prepared, was the 
 rising of the Sun of Righteousness. All whose faces 
 were turned to the east saw this glow, saw the morn- 
 ing aurora, long before. Isaiah saw the first gleam of 
 the morning twilight, saw that the day was coming 
 in which law should change to love, and the inner prin- 
 ciple of religion be joy and peace, not duty or fear. 
 Many others saw it, and were called prophets; but 
 their foresight consisted in looking in the right direc- 
 tion. And just before the sun rose came honest, ear- 
 nest John the Baptist, .as a witness of the coming 
 light, to make men ready to receive it ; in his honesty 
 and humility, declaring that he himself was not the 
 
72 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 light, but only a witness of it, declaring that the 
 true light was already enlightening every man, if he 
 would only see it. Thus, God, who made the world, 
 was always in the world, and yet not known by it ; 
 always coming to his own people, yet never received 
 by them ; only received by a few here and there, who 
 so became his children, ceasing to be mere servants. 
 There were always a few true children of God, his 
 spiritual children ; not outwardly children, because de- 
 scended from Abraham, but inwardly children, because 
 born of God's Spirit. 
 
 Thus God spoke. His first word was in the begin- 
 ning, uttered in nature, providence, history ; his second 
 word was uttered in the human soul, giving it inward 
 life and inward light ; and his third word was spoken 
 in Jesus Christ, in the Word which was made flesh and 
 dwelt among us. 
 
 These are the three revelations which God has made, 
 his three utterances, his three words. So I under- 
 stand this passage to assert. But is this true ? And 
 in what sense is it true ? 
 
 That God speaks in nature, that nature is his word, 
 we all agree. " The invisible things of him from the 
 creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
 stood by the things that are made, even his eternal 
 power and Godhead " ; that is, the visible universe, 
 from the first day of its creation, has been a constant 
 revelation to man of an invisible Divine Power behind 
 and within it. 
 
 But what does Nature show us of God ? It shows : 
 
 I. Power. The universe is full of power. We see 
 great forces at work all around us, some apparent 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 73 
 
 and terrible forces, which, from their irregular action 
 and destructive effects, produce awe and transient feel- 
 ings of reverence among all nations. Such is the 
 power of wind in storms and hurricanes ; the power 
 of electricity in lightning ; of earthquakes, volcanoes, 
 floods. These apparently irregular movements first 
 awaken the human mind to the sense of the divine in 
 nature, because, as they seem not to come by law, they 
 appear to come by will. But, as man reflects, he sees 
 still more power in the regular movements of nature 
 than in those which are abnormal. In the great silent 
 movements of the seasons; the flood of life which 
 sweeps over the earth with each returning spring ; 
 the deluge which falls, not suddenly to destroy, but in 
 gentle rains, dews, and snows, softly distributed 
 through the equal year ; in the electric storms which 
 sweep round the world unnoticed, vitalizing the air; 
 in all-pervading heat, keeping every particle on the 
 globe in constant motion, we see more of power, as 
 we see more of order. 
 
 2. Law. Therefore, law is the next divine attribute 
 shown to us in nature. Force gives the blow, but law 
 directs the arm which wields it. The more that we 
 observe, the more we discover of law. Irregularities 
 become regular, transients disappear, constants multi- 
 ply ; accident is gradually banished from the world; 
 chance is found to have its laws also ; and we can 
 often calculate by the doctrine of chances how many 
 of some kind of casualties shall happen every year. 
 The Divine Will which we thought we saw in lightning 
 and tempest ceases to be Will and becomes Nature, as 
 we see that lightning and tempest have also their laws. 
 
74 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 3. Wisdom. But these laws are not blind : they are 
 full of meaning, they co-operate to certain ends, they 
 combine into a unity of purpose. There is some rein 
 which guides these powerful coursers, so that they 
 draw together and move toward a common result. 
 A single force, working regularly, does not imply in- 
 telligence ; but, the moment many laws are found co- 
 operating, intelligence is the inevitable inference. But 
 all these laws are working together in the world, 
 working toward an end which is progress or develop- 
 ment. Everything is advancing from death to life, 
 from life to greater life. Unorganized matter is be- 
 coming organized, low forms of organization are re- 
 placed by higher forms. So history comes in, first 
 physical history, then human history ; the idea of all 
 history being progress, and progress being the change 
 from death to life. 
 
 4. Goodness. Progress, then, involves a continual 
 creative activity, a continual addition to the amount 
 of life in the world, God constantly communicating 
 more and more of his own being, which is life. But 
 he who gives continually as much as others can re- 
 ceive, and who gives not merely what he has, but what 
 he is, must desire to communicate happiness ; that is, 
 he is good. Nature, therefore, shows us the goodness 
 of God ; and thus we see in nature first force or power, 
 then power resolving itself into law, then law proceed- 
 ing from intellect, next intellect manifesting itself as 
 intending progress, and progress showing goodness. 
 And here I think we have reached the highest point 
 in the revelation of nature. This is what God reveals 
 to us of himself in nature, and this seems to be all. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 75 
 
 The second revelation which God makes of himself 
 is in the human soul itself, in which is life ; and " in 
 life," says the apostle, "is the light of man." This is 
 what Jesus calls " the light within us." " If the light 
 within you be darkness, how great is that darkness ! " 
 Man's soul was made in the image of God : therefore, 
 by knowing himself, so far as he is uncorrupt, he can 
 know God. But is there anything in the human soul, 
 of a divine element, which is not in nature ? Does the 
 soul teach us only what nature has already taught, or 
 does it teach us something new ? 
 
 It seems to me that the second divine word, the 
 word spoken in the soul, is not the same revelation of 
 God as the word spoken in nature, but another word, 
 and a different one. 
 
 The idea which we have of God is a compound idea, 
 and not a simple one. Let me give the idea in a pas- 
 sage from the Vedas, translated by Sir William Jones : 
 " There is one living and true God, everlasting ; with- 
 out body, parts, or passion ; of infinite power, wisdom, 
 and goodness ; the Maker and Preserver of all things, 
 both visible and invisible." 
 
 This is pure monotheism. It teaches the simple 
 unity of God. It declares God to be a simple, indi- 
 visible substance, with a complex character. Whence 
 came this idea of unity to the ancient Hindu mind ? 
 If we set aside revelation, there only remain nature and 
 the soul. Did these Hindu sages derive it from nature ? 
 What is there in nature which conveys the idea of 
 simple unity, of a unit not composed of parts? 
 Everything which we see in the outward universe is 
 made of parts. Every single thing in nature is, there 
 
76 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 fore, a complex unit, not a single unit. The imperial 
 sun, lord of the day, fountain of light and heat, per- 
 vading space with his rays, making everything manifest 
 where his beams fall, is the best type in nature of the 
 Deity. But the sun is not a pure unit : it has parts, 
 an upper and lower side, a right and left side, a within 
 and without, a centre and circumference. The only 
 simple unit that we know is the soul itself, our own 
 personal, individual being, the self within. When we 
 say, " I think," " I feel," " I choose," we mean by this 
 " I " a substance, without parts, indivisible, wlych has 
 neither a right side nor left, an up nor down, neither 
 centre nor circumference. This " I " is a simple 
 invisible substance, with a complex character. It has 
 a faculty of thought, of love, of action ; but it is the 
 same thing which thinks, feels, and acts. It is not 
 one part of the soul which thinks, and another part 
 which acts ; but it is the whole soul which first thinks, 
 and then acts. It is not one part of the soul which 
 sees through the eye, and another part which listens 
 through the ear; but the whole soul looks, and the 
 whole soul listens. 
 
 i. The idea of unity, therefore, as applied to God, is 
 taken from the soul itself ; for it cannot be found any- 
 where else. With this idea, taken from our own soul, 
 we go to nature, and find it justified by what we 
 see there. In nature, we find a beautifully organized 
 body, but without a soul to it till we find a soul in 
 ourselves, and transfer that soul to nature. The re- 
 ligion of nature is either pantheism or polytheism : 
 before we become acquainted with the order of nature, 
 polytheism ; after we became acquainted with it, pan- 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 77 
 
 theism. The idea of divine personality does not come 
 from nature, but from the human soul. 
 
 2. And, again, the idea of God as a Creator comes 
 from the soul, and not from nature. Nature shows us 
 growth and development, not creation ; shows us no 
 pure beginning, but only birth ; shows us progress by 
 law, not miraculous commencement. Therefore, sci- 
 ence, studying nature, avoids the idea of creation, and 
 prefers that of development : it pushes creation away 
 as far as it can. We used to think the world was 
 created six thousand years ago ; but science says, "No : 
 there were a hundred thousand years of geological 
 changes before that." And science proves it by God's 
 rock-scriptures. Science turns over the rocky leaves 
 one after another, deciphers the fossil hieroglyphics, 
 afnd shows great cycles of time in which development 
 was going on. Well, we admit all this ; but still there 
 was a creation before that, of rocks, metals, gases, 
 fluids, and the germs of organized life. But science, 
 taking breath, says again : " Not so. We will have a 
 little more development first Before the solid world 
 there existed, for some millions of years, nebulous 
 matter, out of which the earth grew by law, as a plant 
 from its seed." Science has a right to prove this, if 
 it can : only, we theologians say, " There was a begin- 
 ning, somewhere, of this development ; for every pro- 
 gressive series implies a beginning, and that beginning 
 is creation." And this science cannot deny. 
 
 The idea of creation, not coming from nature, comes 
 from the soul ; and it is implied in every act of will, 
 every free act. Free will is, in man, what creative 
 energy is in God. To create is to originate a new 
 
78 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 movement, a new series of things : to act freely is to 
 originate a new series of events. Creation is the 
 same as causation ; but the idea of cause is not to be 
 found outside of us, but inside of us, in our own 
 freedom of will. Thus, we see God, as a Creator, by 
 a light reflected from our own souls. 
 
 Thus, too, the idea of holiness, or inward purity, is 
 not from outside of us, not from nature, but from the 
 soul. Beauty we see in nature ; holiness, in the soul. 
 A God who loves righteousness and hates iniquity is 
 a revelation of the soul. 
 
 We find, then, in nature a manifestation of God, 
 a word of God. We find in the soul another word of 
 God. 
 
 The word in nature utters power, wisdom, law, good- 
 ness. The word in the soul utters personality, unity, 
 creation, freedom, holiness. 
 
 We now come to the third word of God ; namely, 
 the Man Christ Jesus. The first word was God in 
 nature ; the second word was God in the soul ; the 
 third word is God manifested in a human life. 
 
 Two questions arise here. First, the historical ques- 
 tion : Was Christ, in this sense, a word of God ? Sec- 
 ondly, the theological question : How was he the word 
 of God ? To which we may afterward add a third, or 
 practical religious question : Why was he the word of 
 God? 
 
 The question of fact or history is, Was Jesus a 
 divine word in any other sense than all great men 
 and good men are divine words ? Is there any essen- 
 tial difference between Christ, on the one hand, and 
 Abraham, Moses, and Elias, on the other ? Or between 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 79 
 
 him and Socrates, Plato, Confucius, Solon ? Between 
 his inspiration and that of Homer, Dante, Sir Isaac 
 Newton? This is a question of fact, not a question 
 of theology ; a question to be decided not by specula- 
 tion, but by looking at the thing itself. 
 
 Now, we plainly see that there is a divine inspiration 
 in all greatness and goodness. We have said as much 
 in saying that God speaks in the human soul his second 
 word. But the question now is, Does God speak 
 another word again, and make a yet higher manifesta- 
 tion in Christ ? Is the word in Christ an advance on 
 the word spoken in the universal soul, making another 
 communication ? Is it the beginning of a new order 
 of truth or only the culmination of the old order ? 
 
 To answer this question, we must see, by going 
 back, what we have found revealed to us in nature and 
 in the soul, and so learn if there is anything in our 
 idea of God unaccounted for ; and, if so, whether that 
 has come to us specially through Christ. 
 
 Through nature, we saw manifested (i) power, (2) 
 law, (3) wisdom, (4) goodness. Through the soul, we 
 saw manifested (i) unity and personality, (2) creation 
 or freedom, (3) holiness. Now, if Jesus only shows 
 us these same qualities carried to their highest point, 
 he is not another word of God, but only a higher power 
 of the same word. But, if he adds some new element, 
 then he is a new manifestation. 
 
 Our writer says that the law was given by Moses, 
 but that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. What 
 is grace, and what is truth ? 
 
 The grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ 
 convey the idea of an influx of divine love and truth. 
 
So INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 It is a gift of God to the soul, an additional power 
 sufficient to enable it to conquer evil. It is not 
 enough to see goodness as a law : we need to feel it 
 as a power. Through Christ comes to us the power 
 of an eternal life, which shall abide within us, making 
 all things new, a new birth of the soul, lifting it to 
 a higher plane of being. Christ alone gives such a 
 perfect union with God as shall constitute moral affec- 
 tion. He is one who is himself without sin, who is 
 morally perfect, and who ascribes this perfection, not 
 to himself, but to the life of God flowing perpetually 
 into him. Jesus says, By the grace of God I have been 
 made free from sin to show you that you also shall be 
 free from sin, and perfect as your Father in heaven is 
 perfect. This is a very different idea of God from 
 that which we perceive in other revelations. Nature 
 teaches us the goodness of God : Christ teaches us the 
 love of God. These are different things. In nature, 
 God shows himself desiring to make us happy ; in 
 Christ, as seeking to unite us with himself. But God 
 is holy ; and, while we are sinful, we cannot come into 
 communion with him. We are conscious of sinfulness, 
 and we cannot by our own efforts escape from it. 
 Therefore, we need divine aid in order to be purified ; 
 and God, in Christ, offers us such aid. Neither nature 
 nor the soul says anything of forgiveness ; and the 
 forgiveness taught in the Old Testament is removing 
 the penalty of sin, but not removing sin itself. The 
 gospel shows us that God loves us, and so it enables 
 us to love him. This writes the law in the heart, 
 substituting joyful obedience for dutiful effort. The 
 goodness of God in the Old Testament is blessing, in 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 8 1 
 
 the New Testament it is communion. Forgiveness in 
 the New Testament is reconciliation, atonement, union, 
 something which does away, not merely with the 
 penalty of sin and the guilt of sin, but also with sin 
 itself. 
 
 We therefore find the love of God revealed in Christ 
 to the soul to be a new revelation of the divine char- 
 acter, and one not found in nature nor in the human 
 mind. It is not the general love or good-will of the 
 Creator for his creatures, but the individual personal 
 affection of the Father for his child. It is not the 
 desire to do good, but the need of loving and being 
 loved. It is not merely giving, but giving and receiv- 
 ing ; that is, communion. God's life flows forth from 
 him in creation. He gives part of himself in making 
 a world outside of himself. More of his life flows out 
 when he creates souls, individuals with a power of 
 resisting him and separating themselves from him. 
 His first word went out into an empty universe and 
 never returned, there was no echo to it; the second 
 went out in the creation of souls made free, so that 
 they could even resist their Maker, disobey him, and 
 turn away from him ; but the third Word goes out with 
 a still greater influx of divine life to unite all these free 
 individuals again with God in one grand union, so that 
 God shall be once more all in all. 
 
 I will illustrate this by a little parable : 
 There was once a king who determined to erect a 
 city. He sent architects and workmen and materials. 
 He laid out streets and squares, dug reservoirs and 
 brought in water in aqueducts, made roads and canals 
 leading from it to the surrounding country, and, when 
 
82 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 all was ready, sent a colony to inhabit it. These 
 inhabitants went to and fro through the streets, exam- 
 ined the city, and said to one another, "What a 
 powerful government it must be that was able to build 
 this city ! " And, as they looked further and examined 
 it more, they said : " What wisdom, what foresight, did 
 this power display in this city ! How wisely was the 
 site chosen ! What order and method in all the 
 arrangements ! What knowledge in the choice of 
 materials, in building, and in the general plan ! " And 
 then, looking still further, they say : " What goodness 
 to us ! How are our wants foreseen and all provided 
 for ! We have high walls to defend us from without ; 
 markets, aqueducts, bazaars, gas, paved and lighted 
 streets, within. Everything is arranged for our com- 
 fort. The government which built this city, whether 
 it be a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy, has 
 evidently power; wisdom, and goodness." 
 
 The inhabitants of the city have thus heard in the 
 city itself one word about the maker of the city. The 
 city itself speaks of its founder's power, wisdom, and 
 goodness ; but you observe that they are not yet able 
 to tell whether the founder of the city is one or many, 
 nor what his ideas are about right or wrong. 
 
 But now let us suppose that the founder of the city 
 sends a viceroy to live in it, who establishes himself 
 in a central palace, announcing the name of the king 
 for whom he governs, publishing the code of laws, 
 with penalties attached, rewarding the obedient and 
 punishing the disobedient. He does all this in the 
 name of his absent master. Now, the people know 
 more about the master. They know that he is one. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 83 
 
 They also know what his ideas are concerning right 
 and wrong. They have thus heard a second word 
 from him, which brings him nearer to them than the 
 first did. 
 
 But let us suppose that these citizens become dis- 
 orderly. They disobey the laws established for their 
 government. They rebel against the viceroy and his 
 authority. They plunge into vices and commit crimes. 
 They grow idle, intemperate, reckless. So come pau- 
 perism, disease, and crime. A famine arises, and many 
 starve to death. A pestilence follows, and they die 
 in the streets. Bands of robbers prowl the streets day 
 and night for plunder and murder. In this state of 
 things, the king who built the city comes to live in it. 
 He becomes personally acquainted with the citizens. 
 He shows them the misery of their course, explains 
 to them the importance of his laws, and the need of 
 obeying them. He establishes hospitals for the sick. 
 He feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits the 
 prisoners. The people become personally acquainted 
 with him, and learn to love him because he had loved 
 them. 
 
 And, now, it is evident that they have had a new 
 word spoken to them concerning their king. The 
 word is made flesh, and dwells among them ; and they 
 have come into personal communion with him. 
 
 This story illustrates the three steps of progress in 
 our knowledge of God. That which the citizens 
 learned about their king from the city itself corre- 
 sponds with what we learn about God from nature, 
 the city which he has built for us ; that which they 
 learned by the government of the viceroy corresponds 
 
84 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 with what we learn of God by means of his viceroy, 
 conscience in the soul itself ; and what they learned 
 of their king when he came to live among them corre- 
 sponds with what we learn of God in Christ " reconcil- 
 ing the world unto himself," and " formed within us, 
 the hope of glory." 
 
 It is in this sense that we may regard Jesus as a 
 new divine word, different from the word in nature, 
 also different from the word in the soul. And this is 
 the divinity of Christ : that as God's power, wisdom, and 
 goodness dwell constantly in nature, as God's holiness 
 and freedom constantly manifest themselves anew in 
 the soul's freedom and conscience ; so God's love to 
 individuals is constantly manifested in the life of Jesus. 
 
 This third manifestation of God was necessary to 
 harmonize the other two. The soul, as freedom, is 
 not in harmony with nature, as law. Love is neces- 
 sary to reconcile law and freedom. This is the true 
 atonement. 
 
 The question of fact being ascertained, we may next 
 consider the question of theology. We have seen that 
 God is in the life of Christ as well as in outward nature 
 and inward nature. But how was God in Christ ? To 
 answer this question belongs to theology. Let us look 
 at some of the theological answers. 
 
 First, we have the orthodox answer. This is the 
 answer given in most of the creeds, and to vary from 
 which exposes one to the charge of heresy in all the 
 great Christian communions. This answer is that 
 " Christ is the eternal Son of God, of one substance, 
 and equal, with the Father; who became man, and 
 continues to be God and man in two natures and one 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 85 
 
 person forever : so that two whole, perfect, and dis, 
 tinct natures are inseparably joined together in one 
 person, without conversion, composition, or confusion, 
 which person is very God and very man, yet one 
 Christ, the only mediator between God and man." 
 
 It is known that Unitarians object to this view 
 on grounds of reason and Scripture. On grounds of 
 reason, they assert that there could have been in 
 Christ but one person. They deny that there could 
 have been two natures in one person ; for the union 
 of two natures, one infinite and the other finite, in 
 one person, would imply that this person would, at the 
 same time and in the same sense, possess infinite 
 power and not possess it ; possess infinite wisdom, and 
 not possess it ; possess infinite goodness, and not pos- 
 sess it, which would be a contradiction in terms, 
 and it is impossible for the human mind to accept 
 such a contradiction. Thus, we must say (in order to 
 maintain the orthodox doctrine) either that Christ is 
 God and man at a different time, or in a different 
 sense. The first would imply that Christ could pass 
 from his divine nature to his human nature and back 
 again, so as to lose all consciousness, first of the one 
 and then of the other. But this contradicts the terms 
 of the statement. Hence, we must say that Christ 
 must have an infinite nature as God and a finite nature 
 as man, in some different sense of nature. But this is 
 equivalent to saying that the union is a mystery ; 
 which again is equivalent to saying that we do not 
 know what the union is ; which, finally, is to admit that 
 there is no orthodox doctrine on the subject. 
 
 This is the real objection to the orthodox doctrine 
 
86 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 concerning the divinity of Christ. We do not know 
 what it is. We cannot tell what it means. When 
 probed to the bottom, it resolves itself into a mystery 
 or an obscurity. The statement is no statement. 
 Now, it is very wise and right, when we are ignorant 
 of anything, to say, " I do not know." But, then, we 
 ought not to say that we do not know and to say at 
 the same time that we do know, and that those who do 
 not know what we know about it are heretics. Our 
 objection to Orthodoxy is that it calls upon us to 
 believe a certain theological proposition, under the 
 penalty of excommunication here and damnation here- 
 after ; and that, when we ask what the proposition is, it 
 replies that it does not know what it is. 
 
 The next theological answer is that of Emanuel 
 Swedenborg, who says that Christ was God, because 
 his human nature was his human body, animated by 
 God as its soul. According to this view, there is no 
 such thing in Christ as a human soul. Consequently, 
 he was in no real sense a human being. He merely 
 had a human body; but a human body without a 
 human soul is not a human being. Yet if Christ was 
 not truly a man, then the four Gospels are a mere 
 illusion ; for they everywhere represent him as having 
 a human soul as well as a human body. With his 
 human soul he was tempted, with his human soul he 
 prayed, with his human soul he suffered, with his 
 human soul he died. Mainly for this reason, we reject 
 the doctrine of Swedenborg concerning the Lord. It 
 destroys the human nature of Christ. 
 
 The third explanation declares that Christ was 
 divine, and was a word of God, because he was a 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 87 
 
 human medium through whom God revealed his divine 
 love. His human will was in perfect harmony with 
 the will of God, and so his life became a revelation 
 of his Father's will. When Jesus says, " I and my 
 Father are one," he does not intend one person (as the 
 orthodox say), nor one nature (as the Swedenborgians 
 imply), but one by becoming united in perfect sympa- 
 thy of thought, heart, and will. 
 
 By this statement,:- we do not assert, with " the 
 Arians, that Jesus was an exceptional person, out of 
 the order of nature, but that he was a representative 
 person, the representation of humanity. He is the 
 second Adam, man as he is meant to be. He is the 
 true type of human nature ; for man was not made to 
 be sinful, but sinless, to be perfect, as his Father in 
 heaven is perfect. The sinless man is the true man. 
 
 Let us now give a paraphrase of this passage, and 
 see how plain and beautiful is its meaning when we 
 apply to it this explanation of the term " Word." 
 
 Verse i. In the beginning of creation, at the com- 
 mencement of time, was the Divine Revelation. This 
 Divine Revelation was not a separate being from God, 
 it was not an Eon, but was with God, and was God 
 himself ; for God himself was Revelation. 
 
 Verse 2. Divine Revelation is, therefore, no new 
 thing, nor anything intermediate between God and us, 
 but was with God at first, and is with him now. 
 
 Verse 3. For revelation is the expression of God, 
 and, when God acts, he expresses himself ; and, there- 
 fore, by the expression of his will all things were made, 
 and everything made expressed and revealed him. 
 
 Verse 4. But not merely the inanimate creation, the 
 
88 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 physical universe, is an expression of God. All life 
 is also a manifestation of him ; for in him we live and 
 move, and through him we are. The living soul of 
 man is a light of God within, revealing God inwardly 
 in the reason and conscience. 
 
 Verse 5. But this inner light is obscured by our 
 ignorance and sin, and so another revelation is nec- 
 essary. 
 
 Verses 6 and 7. The first revelation of God being in 
 nature, and the second in the soul, the coming of the 
 third was heralded by a new prophet, John the Bap- 
 tist. 
 
 Verse 8. John was not sent to be a revelation, but 
 to bear witness to the revelation whenever it should 
 appear. 
 
 Verse 9. Though, even then, the light of God was 
 shining in every man's soul, enlightening him inwardly, 
 if he would only see it and obey it. 
 
 Verse 10. God was manifesting himself to the Gen- 
 tile world. His will made them, and in their creation 
 he revealed himself ; yet they did not know him. 
 
 Verse n. He came by his prophets to that which 
 was peculiarly his ; and his own people (the Jews) 
 never fully recognized him, nor obeyed his revelations. 
 
 Verse 12. But some (both Jews and Gentiles) did 
 receive these prior revelations, and thus, by their 
 faith in God, became his true children. 
 
 Verse 13. Not on account of descent from Abraham, 
 but because they were born of God. 
 
 Verse 14. And, at last, God's Revelation took a 
 human form, God speaking to man by man. And 
 now Revelation dwelt among us (not coming and 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 89 
 
 going, as in the transient inspirations of the prophets) 
 in the beauty of a perfect soul ; and we have seen his 
 glory, as of the Only-begotten, God's fulness revealed 
 in the life and words of Jesus. 
 
 Verse 15. And John, who was sent to bear witness 
 to the Light, did bear witness to it when he saw it in 
 Jesus Christ (though he knew not* that Jesus was the 
 Christ until his baptism, verses 31-33). 
 
 And John said, " This is he of whom I said, A man 
 comes after me [in time] who is preferred before me 
 [in rank] ; for he always was before me [in true worth 
 and desert]." 
 
 Verse 18. Therefore, though no man hath ever seen 
 God, Jesus, the Christ, has revealed him. 
 
 Object of John in this Preamble. Three different 
 objects are ascribed to John in this passage. Some 
 suppose he had a dogmatical, others a polemical, others 
 a religious purpose. Let us consider this point. 
 
 Had John a dogmatical purpose ? 
 
 It is supposed that his object was to teach that Jesus 
 was God. But he declares it to be the purpose of his 
 whole Gospel (chapter xx., 31) to lead men to believe 
 "that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God," and, 
 believing, to have life through his name. It would 
 seem an impotent conclusion, after having taught them 
 in a dozen verses that Jesus was the Supreme God, to 
 employ twenty chapters afterward to convince them 
 that he was the Messiah. Besides, if his purpose was 
 to teach that Jesus was the Supreme Being, why did 
 he not say so directly ? Why not say, " In the begin- 
 ning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was 
 God " ? There could not then have been any mistake 
 
90 INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 
 
 as to his meaning. John has certainly not taught 
 directly that Jesus was God : has he taught it indi- 
 rectly ? Is it a necessary inference from this passage ? 
 By no means. The only necessary inference is this : 
 that the Word, which was God himself speaking, 
 dwelt in Jesus, and abode in him, filling him with the 
 fulness of God. But to be filled with God is one 
 thing : to be God himself is another and a very differ- 
 ent thing. God dwells in all living Christians, and 
 they also may be filled with his fulness ; but it does 
 not follow that they are God himself. 
 
 So far as the purpose of John was doctrinal, it was 
 to teach that Jesus, the Christ, has become the final 
 expression of the divine will, and is filled with the 
 divine fulness ; and that, through this medium, we 
 also may have access to God. 
 
 Had John a polemical purpose ? 
 
 Besides the universal purposes which John had in 
 view in this passage, he may, no doubt, have alluded 
 to local and temporary opinions. Thus (verses i, 2), 
 he seems to deny the doctrine of his day, that an 
 emanation of God created the worlds, or that the 
 Logos was any thing other than God himself. Again 
 (verse 14), he refers to the Docetic opinions of his 
 day, that Jesus was human only in appearance (see 
 I. John iv., 1-3). Again, he refers (verses 8, 15, and 
 elsewhere) to those who would elevate John the Bap- 
 tist to an equality with Jesus. 
 
 The chief purpose of John was to teach that the 
 revelation made by Christ was no new thing, nor 
 essentially different from God's other revelations, but 
 that it was fuller and more complete, and brought us 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JOHN 91 
 
 into a filial communion with God. He teaches that 
 God has always revealed himself to man : first, in 
 nature and creation ; second, in the soul, with its living 
 faculties of insight and aspiration; and, thirdly, in 
 Christ, as the fulfilment of all positive revelation, or 
 God manifest in the flesh. 
 
 This was the intention of John, to bring into one 
 focus, in Christ, all the revelations of God, and to 
 show how his was to be the fulness of the universal 
 religion. There could be no profounder, no broader 
 aim than this ; and it invests the passage with a 
 grandeur^ which places it at the head of all Scriptures. 
 
OLD AND NEW IDEAS CONCERNING THE 
 DIVINITY OF JESUS. 
 
 A SERMON was recently delivered in Boston, before 
 the Young Men's Christian Association, by an eminent 
 preacher, on the Divinity of Jesus. I found a full and 
 carefully prepared report of this sermon in one of our 
 journals. As I read it, I said: "This is the way men 
 discussed this question fifty years ago. I perceive by 
 this sermon how far we have gone since, how much 
 better we now understand the vital meaning of Christ's 
 Divinity than we did then." And I think it may be 
 useful to show the difference of the two points of view, 
 what was then thought to be important in the mat- 
 ter and what is considered important now. 
 
 Our preacher began his discourse by declaring that 
 the great question of the present age is, " What think 
 you of Christ ?" and said it was the object of his dis- 
 course to help his hearers to a correct belief concern- 
 ing Christ. And, then, he went on to argue that Jesus 
 claimed to be the Eternal God, and that, if he was not 
 this, he was an impostor. 
 
 This is the way in which believers in the Trinity 
 argued fifty years ago. First, they asserted that the 
 important question the most important of all ques- 
 tions is an intellectual question, a question of correct 
 belief, of right opinion. Where, exactly, do we place 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 93 
 
 Jesus in the universe? What is his precise rank in 
 the scale of creation ? What title ought he to have ? 
 What ought we to say about his nature, dignity, power ? 
 
 Having thus made a mere intellectual question a 
 matter of opinion the most vital of all questions ; 
 the believers in the Trinity proceeded to teach what 
 they called the Divinity of Christ, declaring that he 
 claimed to be God, and was so considered to be by 
 his disciples. And, in proof of this, they quoted various 
 texts, taken here and there, without much regard to 
 their connection. One very favorite passage was that 
 in which the Jews accused him of making himself God 
 because he called himself son of God. The argument 
 was that, since the Jews understood him to say that 
 he was God, he must have meant so to be understood. 
 
 This argument has always seemed to me rather 
 weak. The Jews accused him of meaning to call 
 himself God when he only called himself son of God. 
 Therefore, he must have meant to call himself God ; for 
 how could the Jews be mistaken ? To this, the answer 
 would seem to be very simple. They were prejudiced 
 and captious, disposed to find fault, and to pervert the 
 meaning of all that he said. They accused him of 
 saying that he would destroy the temple ; they accused 
 him of saying that he would give them his flesh to eat 
 in a literal sense. In the same way, they accused him 
 of making himself God, when he had said he was the 
 son of God. If they perverted and misinterpreted his 
 language on these other occasions, why may they not 
 have also misinterpreted it on this occasion ? 
 
 Having thus agreed with the Jews who charged 
 Jesus with making himself God, the early Trinitarians 
 
94 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 did not explain what they meant by this statement. 
 If you say that Jesus is a divine being, if you say that 
 I must call him God, the first thing to be done is to 
 explain what you mean by it. If you do not explain it, 
 you are using words of wind, you are beating the air. 
 When you ask me to say that the man, Christ Jesus, 
 is the supreme God, you are bound, before all things, 
 to tell me how he is the supreme God. It is not what 
 we say, but what we mean, that is important. Is he 
 divine in the sense in which all nature is divine, all 
 life divine, the soul of man divine, truth, beauty, jus- 
 tice, love divine ? When you say that Jesus was 
 divine, do you mean that God was with him ; that he 
 was led, inspired, upheld by God ; that God was 
 revealed in his life, his words, his works ? If so, we 
 understand what it means, and we can accept that 
 meaning. We believe so, too. 
 
 But this explanation was not enough to satisfy the 
 old Trinitarians. They declared that it was not 
 enough to say that " God was in Christ, reconciling the 
 world unto himself," but that we must say that Christ 
 is God, co-equal with the Father, co-eternal, the Su- 
 preme Being, Maker and Ruler of the boundless 
 universe. 
 
 Then, again, we are obliged to ask what is meant by 
 saying that Jesus Christ is God ; that he, this person, 
 Jesus, is God ? The person is indicated by the per- 
 sonal pronouns " I," " he," " me," " him." Where does 
 Jesus say, " I am God " ; "I am equal with God " ; " I 
 am infinite in power, wisdom, goodness : I am the 
 Supreme Being"? He says, on one occasion, "My 
 Father is greater than I." Here the personal Jesus 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 95 
 
 is declared by himself to be inferior to God. On an- 
 other occasion, he says, " I can do nothing of my- 
 self." Again, .he says, " I am not alone : the Father is 
 with me," distinguishing his person from that of 
 his Father. He, the personal Christ, suffered; but 
 God cannot suffer. He was tempted, but God cannot 
 be tempted. He prayed to God, but God cannot pray 
 to himself. He was ignorant of the day and hour of 
 his own coming, but God knows everything. He 
 increased in knowledge and wisdom, in favor with God 
 and man ; but God, who is the All-perfect Being, cannot 
 increase and grow, and become more and more in favor 
 with himself. Christ died on the cross, but God 
 cannot die. For such reasons, the Unitarians thought 
 it improper to say that Christ was God, and declined 
 doing so. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is no doubt true that the Scripture 
 teaches a most intimate union between Jesus, the man, 
 and the Infinite Spirit, union, but not identity, 
 such a union as was probably never asserted of any 
 other human being. I think no one but Jesus ever 
 said, " I and my Father are one" ; " He who has seen 
 me has seen the Father " ; " Come unto me, all ye who 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " ; 
 "All power is given unto me, in heaven and earth." 
 No doubt, these great words assert an intimate relation 
 between Christ and God, explained by himself to mean 
 such a relation as also might exist between his disciples 
 and himself. If he has all power, it is given to him, 
 he receives it from God. He declares that he can do 
 nothing of himself. Nevertheless, we must always 
 come back to this : that in the personal consciousness 
 
96 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 of Jesus there existed a conviction of his intimate 
 relation with his Father, which sets him by himself 
 in the history of religion. 
 
 After all, then, the main question between Unita- 
 rians and Trinitarians is almost reduced to a question 
 of words. It is a matter, not of religion, but of logic, 
 of the proper use of language. It is not "What 
 shall we believe ? " but " How shall we express our 
 belief ? " 
 
 It is evident that, when Unitarians and Trinitarians 
 study the character of Jesus, they must see nearly or 
 quite the same things : the same revelations of divine 
 beauty, truth, love, come before the minds of both. 
 They both read the Sermon on the Mount, the story of 
 the Good Samaritan and of the Prodigal Son, the 
 pathos of the Garden of Gethsemane, and the last 
 conversation with the disciples. In these words, in 
 these scenes, God draws near to man. The infinite 
 tenderness shines through the human soul as the 
 sunlight passes through clear glass. The human soul 
 of Jesus is the glass : the sun that shines through him 
 is God. The poet Herbert says : 
 
 "A man who looks on glass, 
 
 On it may stay his eye ; 
 Or, if he pleases, through it pass, 
 And so the heaven espy." 
 
 When we stay our eye on the glass, we see the man 
 Christ Jesus, the Son of Man ; when we look through 
 him, we see God. Trinitarians, dwelling on the divine 
 light which shines through him, say, " He is God." 
 Unitarians think it more logical, and also more Script- 
 ural to say, u God is in him." 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 97 
 
 It is chiefly a question of words, of logic. Certainly, 
 as such, it is not unimportant. But it is not a ques- 
 tion of religion. Religion consists in the vision of 
 divine truth and beauty, not the way in which we 
 afterward talk about what we have seen. And, unless 
 we have that personal vision of God, all the arguments 
 of theologians and of the most powerful discourses 
 are only sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. A man 
 may come into the pulpit, and speak with the tongue 
 of a prophet or an angel. He may terrify us into 
 believing, by pictures of future woe and a day of judg- 
 ment, but the fear thus created by another's words is 
 not religion. Jesus blessed the faith of Peter, because 
 flesh and blood had not revealed it to him, but his 
 Father in heaven. It was not hearsay faith, not lazy 
 acquiescence in any popular theology, but the honest 
 utterance of what Peter saw and felt in his own soul. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are two fundamental laws con- 
 cerning Christ and his divinity which have divided 
 the Christian world, and divide it still. The first we 
 will call the metaphysical view of Christ's divinity, the 
 other the moral view of his divinity. The metaphysical 
 view was most widely held in the earliest ages : the 
 moral view prevails more extensively now. I will 
 attempt to describe them and to compare them. 
 
 During about four hundred years, from the year 
 300 to 700 of our era, the sharpest controversies 
 raged around the questions concerning the nature of 
 Christ. Six different discussions distracted the Church 
 during this period, and six doctrines were finally 
 decided to be heretical. These were the Sabellian, 
 Arian, Nestorian, Eutychian, Monophysite, and Mono- 
 
98 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 thelitic. All referred to the transcendental or meta- 
 physical nature of Christ, not what Christ is to us, 
 not what he shows us of God, not how he mediates 
 divine truth and reveals divine love, but what Christ 
 is in his essential being. What the majority finally 
 accepted became orthodox, and was put into the creeds 
 of the Church. The majority condemned the Sabellians 
 for considering the Father, Son, and Spirit as three 
 forms of the same being ; they condemned the Arians 
 for saying that Christ was a created being, the Nesto- 
 rians for making too much of a distinction between the 
 two natures of Christ, the Eutychians for making too 
 little of the distinction, the Monophysites for saying 
 there was only one nature in Christ, the Monothelites 
 for saying there was only one will. After all these 
 heresies had been condemned, one by one, the opinions 
 of the majority were finally summed up in the Athana- 
 sian Creed, which gives the whole metaphysics of the 
 Trinity, defines the nature of the Deity in all its 
 details, and ends by denouncing eternal damnation as 
 the unquestionable doom of all who do not accept its 
 unintelligible definitions. As some creatures which 
 belonged mostly to a fossil age have a few living repre- 
 sentatives still, so this Athanasian Creed, which belongs 
 to the Palaeozoic period of Christianity, survives in the 
 Liturgy of the Church of England. 
 
 This metaphysical notion of Christ's divinity still 
 remains, and is in the orthodox creeds. Meantime, a 
 very different and, as it seems to me, much higher 
 view has grown up, and is daily becoming more the 
 faith of the Church. This I call the moral view of the 
 divinity of Jesus. I distinguish the two as follows. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 99 
 
 The first view of Christ's divinity ascribes to him all 
 the infinite perfections of the Supreme Being. It calls 
 him co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, omni- 
 scient, omnipresent, omnipotent, God by his nature, 
 God in his person. It asserts that the man Christ Jesus, 
 born in Bethlehem, was the eternal God, without begin- 
 ning or end ; that the Christ who lived, taught, suffered, 
 and died in Palestine was the omnipresent being who 
 sustains the myriad suns and stars throughout the 
 universe. It claims a titular divinity for him ; asserts 
 that we must call him God, or that he will be offended, 
 as some foolish men are offended, if their titles are not 
 given them. It makes him divine because of a myste- 
 rious and unintelligible divinity of nature and sub- 
 stance, not because of a divinity of character. His 
 divinity is not the divine goodness which can be seen 
 and loved in his life and character, but some dark 
 background of being which must be believed and con- 
 fessed, though it cannot be understood. This is the 
 metaphysical view of the divinity of Christ. 
 
 The moral view teaches us that Christ is divine, \ 
 because we see in his character a manifestation of thev> 
 character of God, in his goodness a revelation of 
 divine goodness, in his hatred of sin a type of God's 
 displeasure with evil, in his tenderness to the sinner 
 the evidence of God's forgiving love. 
 
 And, now, what brings us nearer to God ? What 
 seems to us the most divine thing in the universe ? I 
 stand in awe before the vast mystery of creation. I 
 look out on the innumerable worlds which roll through 
 space, and am amazed at the thought that these mill- 
 ions of stars, with all their planets, are but the borders 
 
100 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 of that infinite universe which is everywhere filled, 
 moved, sustained by God. Each of these suns, with 
 all its attendant planets, is in rapid motion, each mov- 
 ing carefully along its invisible path, each obeying a 
 divine law. Some Great Power holds all in the hollow 
 of his hand, some mighty command guides these 
 terrific forces, so that no one'interferes with any other; 
 and the result is safe order, majestic peace. In all this, 
 I see Divine Power. 
 
 From the heavens, I come down to the earth. Here 
 I see innumerable adaptations, wonderful varieties, all 
 consenting to progress, growth, life. Infinite tribes of 
 living creatures people land, sea, and air. Each has 
 its home, its food, its occupation, each its instinct or 
 intellect which guides it, each its pleasures and activi- 
 ties. By some all-penetrating laws, they are kept in 
 their spheres. They come and go, live and die. Each 
 little infusorial creature, examined under the micro- 
 scope, has its subtle organization, its delicate limbs, 
 feelers, senses. "These all wait on Thee, and thou 
 givest them their food in due season ; thou openest 
 thy hand, they are filled with good." In all this, I see 
 and reverence divine wisdom. 
 
 I come to man. I see in every part of the world 
 human beings made for growth and development. I 
 observe the joy of childhood everywhere the same, the 
 happy love of youth and maiden, the delightful activity 
 of work, the satisfaction of knowledge, the triumph of 
 success. And I notice also that in all lands and times 
 man has been taught by some divine instinct to look 
 up out of the seen and temporal into the unseen and 
 eternal. He looks out of his little earthly day into 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS IOI 
 
 some heavenly world, and adores God, calling him 
 Brahma or Boodh, Amun-Ra, Zeus, or Jupiter. What- 
 ever the name, he believes in higher beings to whom 
 he can pray, and who will hear his prayer. He looks 
 out of the anguish of bereavement to the bliss of 
 reunion. He looks across the river of death to some 
 high immortality and peace. Conscious of sin, he 
 believes in a forgiving love. He is made strong to 
 endure ; he is enabled to cling to truth and right ; he 
 is lifted above himself by mighty convictions. He is 
 enabled to obey the awful voice of conscience, to 
 renounce selfish desires, and become generous. He 
 devotes himself to his country, and goes out to die in 
 her cause. He is able patiently to endure misrepre- 
 sentation and calumny in obeying the truth. He bears 
 all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures 
 all things, made strong within by some divine faith. 
 Whence comes to him this power of righteousness ? 
 God, when he created man, put into him this seed of 
 virtue, making him like himself in thus giving him 
 something of his own image. Thus, in these higher 
 qualities of the human soul, we find God, and see some- 
 thing more than his power or his wisdom : we see also 
 his love. He has made us to share his own highest 
 blessedness, the bliss of becoming capable of gracious 
 goodness. 
 
 Now, in all that we thus see of God, which is the 
 most divine element ? Is it power ? is it wisdom ? or 
 is it his goodness? Is not goodness the most divine 
 thing we can see in the universe ? 
 
 Man, we are told in the Old Testament, was " made 
 in the image of God." The New Testament tells us 
 
102 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 that we are " partakers of the divine nature." We are 
 in the image of God, because we are spiritual beings, 
 endowed with reason, with active power, and with 
 moral sentiments. All are divine, but which is most 
 divine ? 
 
 I see wonderful power of will in great conquerors, 
 like Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon. The mass of men 
 are dazzled by this kind of glory. They bow before 
 a great general, a strong man, who has shown energy 
 of will. This worship of outward success and military 
 ability seems to me dangerous, because of the great 
 danger of making military success the highway to dig- 
 nity, affluence, and honor. 
 
 I ask again, If power is divine, is not there some- 
 thing more divine ? What brings us nearest to God ? 
 It has been permitted us in our day to see men and 
 women giving themselves to some great human good, 
 something which promised them none of the rewards 
 of this world. Some have devoted themselves to 
 breaking the chains of the slave, and by their long 
 labors four millions of men have risen out of bondage 
 into freedom. We have seen others consecrating their 
 lives cheerfully to help the prisoner, the insane, the 
 poor, the blind, the deaf and dumb, to open the blind 
 eyes, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the 
 shadow of death. They have labored for education, 
 for peace, for human improvement ; to bring comfort to 
 the homes of the poor; to provide hospitals for the 
 sick. We have seen Livingstone wearing out health 
 and life among the savage tribes of Africa to bring to 
 them the knowledge of a Saviour's love. Which has 
 shown us most of God, the men of intellect and 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 103 
 
 power the orators, writers, statesmen, generals whom 
 fame attends or those men and women whose lives 
 were full of the simple desire to do good to their fellow- 
 men ? 
 
 Goodness is the highest, the most divine thing we 
 know. Thank God, the world is full of it. It is not to 
 be found solely in the missionary and philanthropist. 
 The best goodness is that we have seen in quiet homes, 
 silent, unpretending, ever faithful, always sure. It 
 is the goodness of conscientious lives, of upright con- 
 duct, of unfaltering integrity. It is the goodness 
 of humility, affection, truthfulness, self-sacrifice, gen- 
 erosity. 
 
 " The primal duties shine aloft like stars, 
 The charities which soothe and bless and save 
 Are scattered round the feet of men like flowers." 
 
 If we have any faith in God, any love for him, it has 
 come to us, I think, not chiefly from books or ser- 
 mons, but from the sight of good fathers and mothers, 
 noble friends, innocent children. Every trait of purity 
 has revealed to us something of the holiness of God. 
 Every act of self-sacrificing generosity has taught us to 
 believe in the divine love. By the goodness we have 
 , seen, we come to believe in the goodness of him whom 
 1 we have not seen. 
 
 And, now, Jesus Christ stands before the world as its 
 '.highest example of all this goodness?- Deny his mira- 
 jcles, if you please, criticise the letter of the Gospels as 
 Imuch as you can, you cannot deny that the life of 
 Jesus as shown in the Gospels has filled the world with 
 a new form of goodness, higher than any before 
 
104 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 known. He is the ideal in all our souls of the noblest 
 purity. He is the image in our minds of self-denying 
 love. He has taught the world to call God " Father ! " 
 He has made forgiveness of injuries, love of enemies, 
 devotion to mankind, seem possible. He has shown 
 us the most angelic loftiness of soul stooping to the 
 lowliest offices of love. If all human virtue is a revela- 
 tion of God, is not this, then, the highest of all revela- 
 tions ? He who has seen this life and love has seen the 
 Father. His elevation of soul makes him the image of 
 the invisible God, the first-born of the creation. This 
 is his true divinity, not any mysterious and meta- 
 physical consubstantiality of nature, but the actual 
 fact that he does reveal to us the divine love, and make 
 it a reality to our hearts. 
 
 Theologians who belong to the new period of larger 
 thought may be Trinitarians or Unitarians. But they 
 know that this difference is a question of logic, not 
 religion. It is like the question of meats of which 
 Paul treats : " I know that there is nothing clean or 
 unclean in itself." The Lord Jesus, Paul said, had 
 persuaded him so. He had shown him, by his own 
 teaching, that what goeth into the mouth doth not 
 defile a man. But Paul would not offend a brother 
 by disputes on this point. I am a Unitarian, my 
 brother is a Trinitarian. Each of us will keep his 
 opinion. But we know that our opinions and our 
 statements are not faith. Our faith consists in see- 
 ing God and trusting in him. 
 
 The modern Church is thus getting rid of its sec- 
 tarian rancor, its narrow bigotry, its theological bitter- 
 ness, by rising to a higher plane of thought. The in- 
 
THE DIVINITY OF 
 
 nocuous lightning flashes far below o 
 storms rage in a region lower down. This is the way 
 in which the prayer of Jesus will be fulfilled, and the 
 Church become one: "that they all may be one; as 
 thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also 
 may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou 
 hast sent me." Until the Church ceases from its 
 small disputes, the world will not be converted to the 
 Master. Sectarians will continue to wrangle and 
 debate, but serious thinkers will take another way. 
 They will try to find points wherein they agree, not 
 those where they differ. They will see what truth 
 there is on both sides, and will accept it. So, by 
 decrees, war will cease in the Church, and the Church 
 
 o * 7 
 
 be one. And then there will be a chance for the 
 world also to have peace, nations to have peace, social 
 life to have peace, and Christ to reign, the Prince of 
 Peace; and the angels once more may chant their 
 hymn of praise, and thank God that there is peace 
 among men. 
 
 / It is not what we think about Christ, or what we say 
 [about Christ, that avails anything, but what we see of 
 I God in him, and still more what we see and feel and 
 )c!o about Christ. He has said that the people of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah will condemn those who listened 
 to his words and did not repent. He has said that 
 many will come from the east and west to sit down 
 with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of 
 God, while the children of the kingdom are cast out. 
 There is probably many a free religionist with a mini- 
 mum of intellectual faith in his head, who is more of a 
 true Christian than some great preacher who is dealing 
 
106 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 damnation round the land against the enemies of God. 
 " For not every one that saith unto me, Lord ! Lord ! 
 shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that 
 doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven." 
 1 To believe in the divinity of Christ, then, is not to 
 \hold this or that opinion concerning him, but to see 
 jhis truth as divine, and obey it ; to see his character as 
 (divine, and imitate it ; to see his spirit as divine, and to 
 partake of it. 
 
 Jesus was very lonely in this world. No one under- 
 stood him. He sought, in every way, to teach his 
 disciples; but they continued very ignorant. He 
 longed for sympathy and affection, and his disciples 
 deserted him at the first alarm. But, though lonely, 
 he was not alone; for the Father was with him. He 
 rested always on that divine heart. This was part of 
 the divinity of Jesus, that he always trusted in his 
 Father's love, and leaned on that in the darkest hour. 
 
 We, also, are lonely in this world : all of us are more 
 or less lonely. There are hours in which we seem en- 
 tirely left to ourselves. There are times in which we 
 say, "No man cares for my soul." Then, if we can 
 trust in God, as Jesus trusted him, and can lean on that 
 infinite tenderness, we really see what was divine in 
 Jesus, though we may never have made up our mind 
 about his nature, or essence, or rank in the universe ; 
 though we have not even called ourselves by his name, 
 or said to him, "Lord ! Lord ! " in any sense whatever. 
 
 When Jesus was in the world, he went among publi- 
 cans and sinners. He said to the sinful, " Be of good 
 cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee." He was a channel 
 of God's forgiving love to his children. He spoke 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 107 
 
 peace to the souls broken by remorse, sunk in doubt, 
 who were without God and hope in the world. He 
 thus became the Mediator of heavenly peace. 
 
 We, also, are conscious of sin. We all have tempta- 
 tions which easily beset us, some of one sort, some of 
 another. There are hours in which we feel that we 
 have gone so far astray that we can never return. 
 Many persons who never use the word sin, or say they 
 are sinners, are yet tormented by their consciences, are 
 never contented with themselves, are never quite at 
 peace within. Life goes hard with them; duty is a 
 burden, a perpetual struggle. Then, if we can see the 
 divine fatherly compassion which Jesus has revealed, 
 if we can look at the face of the Father, and say, " My 
 Father, help me, save me, forgive me my sin, and make 
 me strong to do my work," we truly see the divinity of 
 Christ ; for God comes to us through him, to give us 
 rest, comfort, and peace. 
 
 And so, amid the sorrows and bereavements of this 
 earth, we see the divinity of Jesus, when we see God as 
 he saw him, the Universal Providence, without whom 
 not a sparrow drops dead on the ground. Then, in the 
 midst of death, we believe in life ; in the midst of dis- 
 aster and disappointment, we have confidence that all 
 things are right and good. We look up, and take our 
 Father's hand, and are led by him. 
 
 We have faith in what was most divine in Jesus, 
 when we do what he says. " Why call ye me Lord ! 
 Lord! and do not the things I say?" Whoever de- 
 votes himself to helping his fellow-men has the truest 
 faith in all that was most divine in Jesus. Christianity, 
 according to Jesus, consists in loving God with all our 
 
108 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 heart and our neighbor as ourselves. All worship of 
 God must lead to the service of man. All true prayer 
 to God consists in seeking strength, light, love, peace, 
 from him, that we may use it for others. And Christ 
 is truly divine to us when he leads us into this service 
 of his Father. 
 
 This view relieves us of all useless and pernicious 
 anxiety about our theology. So long as men thought 
 that their spiritual safety depended on correct opinion, 
 they could have no peace; for no one can ever be 
 certain that his opinions are the truest. They also 
 soon ceased to think for themselves, and let their 
 clergyman think for them. There is a book called 
 Margaret Percival written by an English High Church 
 writer, which illustrates this. The heroine is an Eng- 
 lish churchwoman, but meets a Roman Catholic priest, 
 who tells her she will be lost forever, if she does not 
 become a Roman Catholic. Thereupon, she is about 
 to join the Roman Catholic Church, when her uncle, 
 an English rector, arrives, and tells her she will be 
 guilty of the sin of schism, and will be lost forever, 
 unless she stays in the Church of England. The priest 
 threatens her with damnation, if she does not come; 
 her uncle threatens her with endless perdition, if she 
 does. She finally stays where she is, not from convic- 
 tion, but because she is there, and because blind re- 
 pose is no more dangerous than blind change. Here 
 the book ends, with this lame and impotent conclusion. 
 But I believe there is a supplement, called Margaret 
 Percival in America, in which she is led to see that a 
 person may be a Christian in all churches and all theol- 
 ogies ; because Christianity is not an opinion nor a 
 profession, but a life. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 109 
 
 Thus, whenever Jesus brings us to God, he is divine 
 | to us, in the highest and best way, the way he himself 
 j would most desire. He said that he did not come to 
 1 be ministered to, but to minister, and give his life to 
 break the chains of sin and set the oppressed free. 
 Nor did he come to claim high honors or demand a 
 high seat in the universe, or a great name above all 
 other names. He humbled himself, and was exalted. 
 He made himself of no reputation, and has become 
 the object of human worship. When I hear men say- 
 ing that we shall offend Jesus if we do not call him 
 God, and that he will refuse to save us unless we 
 accept some theory of his nature, I say sadly, " How 
 little you know the Christ of the Gospels ! " What did 
 he care for rank or title, for honor and position ? His 
 great glory is that he was willing to be despised and 
 I rejected, to be misunderstood and avoided, if only he 
 could bring the world to God, and help men to see the 
 Father as he saw him. He never wished men to say, 
 but to do. 
 
 If we see God in Christ, then we do what he desires. 
 He would willingly be forgotten, so that his Father be 
 remembered. Constantly, he asserts, concerning his 
 word and works, that it is not he who does and speaks, 
 but the Father who dwells in him. Jesus is most 
 divine when thinking least of his divinity, just as a per- 
 fect object-glass in a telescope is not seen itself, but 
 shows us the infinite heavens. 
 
 Let others, then, honor Jesus by calling him God : 
 we will give him the honor dearest to his heart by 
 seeing God revealed in his life. Let others explain as 
 well as they can the metaphysics of his divinity : we 
 
IIO THE DIVINITY OF JESUS 
 
 will be led by him to his Father and our Father, hi$ 
 God and our God. Let others teach that he is the 
 omniscient being : enough for us that he knows our 
 needs, our sorrows, our sins, and has known how to 
 bring us comfort and peace. Let others talk of his 
 omnipotence : we will rejoice that he has power on 
 earth to forgive sins, to reveal God's truth to babes, to 
 undo the heavy burden, to abolish death, and bring life 
 and immortality to light. This was the divinity which 
 he himself claimed. He did not say, " The spirit of the 
 Lord is upon me, because I am the second person in 
 the Trinity," but he said, "The spirit of the Lord is 
 upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the 
 gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken- 
 hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at 
 liberty those that are bruised." 
 
 Let us thank God that the metaphysical divinity of 
 Christ is passing out of men's minds, and that his 
 moral divinity is being better known and loved by all 
 sects of Christians. In the early centuries, the streets 
 of Alexandria and Antioch ran red with the blood of 
 Christians, killing each other because of their differ- 
 ence of opinion in regard to the nature of Christ or 
 of the Trinity. We have risen above this. A few 
 hundred years ago, any one who questioned the 
 scholastic doctrine of the Trinity would be put to 
 death in England. Because Servetus, a great man and 
 a reformer, denied the doctrine of the Trinity as held 
 by Calvin, Calvin used his influence to have him burnt 
 at the stake with the most barbarous cruelty, Calvin 
 himself acting the part of informer, prosecutor, and 
 judge. Such power did the metaphysical doctrine have 
 within a few hundred years. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS III 
 
 The true Christ, the Son of God, is no metaphysical 
 doctrine, but a brother, a friend, a human being like 
 ourselves, so full of divine light and love as to be the 
 best manifestation we have of the Living God. Not 
 Nature in all her majesty and beauty so reveals the 
 Creator as the divine life of the Son of Man. Well 
 might angels sing at his birth, Glory to God and peace 
 to men ! 
 
 The man Christ Jesus, this purely human brother of 
 ours, became the Son of God by entire obedience and 
 perfect trust. To him, God was always Father and 
 Friend ; and, by living in that spirit, he helps us all to 
 become also the sons of God. 
 
 He has no glory that he would not gladly share with 
 us all. He desires no title of honor that he would not 
 give to his brethren. This is his highest honor, to 
 have desired no exclusive honor. Because he humbled 
 himself, and became the servant of all men, God has 
 highly exalted him. But he tells us that all who hum- 
 ble themselves, to do good, will be exalted also. The 
 name which is above every name is the name he wishes 
 us all to share with him. And, therefore, we may well 
 keep Christmas with joy; for it is the birthday of our 
 best friend, our dearest helper, our elder brother, the 
 head of the household of mankind, who is most divine 
 because he is so human, and who, more than any other, 
 brings us near to the infinite love of God, and reveals 
 God to us as our Father and Inspirer ; " Path, Motive, 
 Guide, Original, and End." 
 
IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END 
 OF LIFE? 
 
 IN a number of the Independent, a liberal orthodox 
 newspaper, there was a full report of the examina- 
 tion (by an installing council) of Rev. Dr. Newman 
 Smyth, who was about to be settled over a church in 
 New Haven. This report contained Dr. Smyth's state- 
 ment of faith in regard to the main doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, and his answers to questions put to him by 
 members of the council. Dr. Smyth was appointed 
 Professor of Theology at Andover, and was rejected 
 by the Board of Visitors on the ground that, though he 
 might be sufficiently orthodox, he had an unfortunate 
 mode of expressing himself. To many persons, his 
 language sounded as if he were a heretic. 
 
 Dr.. Newman Smyth may be considered to represent 
 an advanced and advancing stage of theological de- 
 velopment. He is, to a certain extent, liberal and 
 progressive. He does not believe that man is " capa- 
 ble of formulating a perfect system of truth." He is 
 not satisfied with any of the orthodox theories of the 
 atonement, and prefers, like Dr. Bushnell, some view 
 which lays the main stress on the moral and spiritual 
 influence of Christ's work. He also believes in the 
 
IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 113 
 
 possibility, at least, of repentance and faith in the 
 other life for those who have had no adequate opportu- 
 nity here. Nor does he adhere to any Orthodoxy of 
 the past or present as perfect, but wishes " to press 
 on toward the full and final Orthodoxy of the kingdom 
 of God." His only statement in regard to the Trinity 
 is that he believes "in one God existing in three 
 eternal distinctions of being." 
 
 So far, Dr. Smyth is a liberal theologian. But he 
 still clings to ideas which may be regarded as essen- 
 tially orthodox. He looks on the Bible as containing a 
 special and supernatural revelation from God, and thinks 
 that Christ's death was somehow a vicarious atone- 
 ment. He believes in the possibility of everlasting 
 sin, and consequently of everlasting punishment, and 
 sees no ground for teaching, even as a hope, the final 
 reconciliation of all evil by the power of divine love. 
 The result of it all seems to be that he holds to an 
 imperfect Orthodoxy, but to a still more imperfect 
 liberal Christianity. 
 
 But what struck my attention most in this report, 
 and which I would chiefly examine now, is the stress 
 everywhere laid, both by Dr. Smyth and his examiners, 
 on the notion of probation. They all agree that man 
 is placed in this world by God to pass through a 
 probation ; to be tried and tested, in order to see if he 
 is fit to be saved. Dr. Smyth says, " I believe that 
 this world-age is the time of probation, and that every 
 person born into this world shall have one fair and 
 sufficient probation, under conditions of grace " ; and 
 that " the end of probation is, for the individual, his 
 confirmed self-determination for good or evil." It is 
 
114 IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 
 
 possible, he says, that some persons, "as infants, 
 idiots, antediluvians, etc.," may not have had a suf- 
 ficient probation here, and that God will then provide 
 them one hereafter. But each person will have one, 
 and only one, "decisive probation." He is to be tried 
 once, and only once, either in this world or the next ; 
 and the result of that trial is to be a condemnation 
 to everlasting death and despair, or an acquittal to 
 everlasting life and peace. 
 
 Now, here, it seems to me, we have indicated one 
 distinction between the old and new theologies, that 
 of the past and that of the future. The old theology 
 regards man as being sent into this world as a place 
 of probation : the new theology looks on life as a place 
 of education. According to one, it is a court-house ; 
 according to the other, a school. Orthodoxy says 
 man is placed here to be tried for his life : Rational 
 Christianity says he is put here to be educated for 
 a higher life. Let us look at these two systems of 
 thought, to see which accords most with Scripture, 
 reason, and experience. 
 
 According to Orthodoxy, even the most advanced 
 Orthodoxy, this life is essentially a place of proba- 
 tion. Man decides here his eternal destiny. "The 
 end of probation," says Dr. Smyth, " is for the indi- 
 vidual his confirmed self-determination in good or evil." 
 If this takes place here, it is doubtless the most essen- 
 tial thing which does take place here. If I am told, 
 " To-morrow, you are to be tried for your life," I must 
 doubtless consider this the most important event which 
 can happen to me to-morrow. If I am told that during 
 my earthly existence the question is to be settled of 
 
IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 115 
 
 my infinite bliss or unbounded despair hereafter, this 
 is surely the most important question in my present 
 life. Pleasure, culture, science, art, education, useful- 
 ness to others, philanthropic enterprises, patriotic 
 efforts, the affections of home, are all as nothing in 
 comparison with this. If life is really a place of proba- 
 tion, then everything else here is insignificant and 
 worthless in comparison. Moreover, until this matter 
 is settled, the chief attention of every sensible man 
 must and ought to be directed on himself. He is 
 bound to think chiefly about his own condition. It is 
 idle to ask him to love God with all his heart, and 
 his neighbor as himself. Can you ask a man strug- 
 gling for life in deep water to turn his attention from 
 his own safety to the goodness of God or to the 
 welfare of his fellow-men ? This view necessitates 
 self-love as the chief duty until our salvation is secured. 
 It is not necessary to indicate how foreign this is from 
 the ethics of Jesus. 
 
 What, then, is meant by saying that life is a period 
 of probation ? It means that the question is to be 
 tried whether we are fit for heaven and eternal joy 
 or only fit for hell and eternal woe. Our trial con- 
 sists in having the opportunity of repenting of our 
 sins and accepting Christ as our Saviour. Wherever 
 this opportunity is offered, men are on trial. If they 
 accept the offer, judgment is given in their favor; if 
 not, it is given against them. There may be some 
 persons to whom the offer is not made in this world, 
 and Mr. Smyth thinks it will be made to them here- 
 after. To this extent, his heresy goes, but no further. 
 
 What reason is there for believing that life is a 
 
Il6 IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 
 
 probation such as New England Orthodoxy assumes it 
 to be? The word "probation" is not to be found in our 
 Bible, nor is the idea there. Where in the Old or 
 New Testaments is it said that life is a scene of 
 probation ? No doubt, the idea of trial is there. But 
 what is it ? It is the trial which tests our faith and 
 our sincerity, shows a man to himself, enables him to 
 see what his weakness is, where he is liable to fall, 
 and so makes him humble, watchful, prayerful. It is 
 a trial which bears its fruits in time, not in eternity; 
 which makes a man better, and is a part of his earthly 
 education. Sometimes, it takes the form of tempta- 
 tion, to which we may yield or which we may conquer. 
 The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness was his 
 trial, and helped to fit him for his great work. Being 
 thus tempted or tried, he became able to succor those 
 who are similarly tempted. 
 
 There are two Greek phrases in the New Testament 
 which express the idea of this proof, trial, or probation. 
 One is dokimaso, with its derivatives ; the other, peira, 
 peirazO) peirasmos. The first term is used in such 
 passages as this : " The fire shall try [or prove] every 
 man's work, what it is " ; " Let a man examine [or try] 
 himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup." 
 Another instance is where Paul asked the Corinthians 
 to give to the poor Christians at Jerusalem, " that 
 I might prove the sincerity of your love." " Walk as 
 children of the light, proving what it is which is accep- 
 table to the Lord." This kind of probation is what- 
 ever tests men's character and conduct here, and 
 shows what is in them, and has nothing to do with 
 a future world. Even God is said to be tried in the 
 
IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 117 
 
 same way. " When your fathers tempted me, proved 
 me, and saw my works." That is to say, the conduct 
 of the Jews showed, or revealed, to them the character 
 of God. I said that the word "probation" did not 
 occur in the Bible. It is not to be found in the 
 authorized version ; but, in the new revised translation, 
 it occurs in one passage, in which in the old version 
 it is said that " tribulation works patience ; patience, 
 experience ; and experience, hope." The revisers have 
 it, " Patience works probation, and probation hope." 
 But all this certainly occurs in the present life. 
 
 The other Greek term is frequently translated temp- 
 tation, occasionally trial. It is sometimes said to be 
 a trial from God, sometimes a temptation from our 
 own desires ; now a trial to be shunned, and now one 
 to be welcomed. But, whether a temptation or a trial, 
 it is something which acts on our character here, 
 and has its work here. The language, then, of the 
 Bible does not support the thought that this life is 
 a place of probation, in the orthodox sense. We are 
 not put on trial, and examined to see whether or not 
 we are fit to be admitted into heaven. Nor is this 
 the teaching of Jesus or his apostles. It is the king- 
 dom of God in this world which they proclaim. John 
 did not say, " Repent, that ye may enter heaven 
 hereafter," but "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven 
 is at hand," here and now. The "kingdom of heaven " 
 of which Jesus spoke was the reign of God on this 
 earth, the truth and love of God in men's hearts and 
 lives. He taught us to pray every day, " Thy kingdom 
 come : thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." 
 Instead of preaching that this life is a trial which is 
 
Il8 IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 
 
 to decide whether we are fit for a future heaven 
 or a future hell, Jesus and the apostles taught that 
 God's truth and love had been manifested to make us 
 live soberly, righteously, and lovingly in this present 
 world. 
 
 According to Orthodoxy, man has offered to him 
 once, and perhaps only once, in this world, the salvation 
 of his soul. If he accepts it, he is safe; if he rejects 
 it, he is forever lost. This is his probation. As long 
 as life lasts, he may be able to accept the offer ; after 
 death, he will have no other opportunity. And the 
 test is this : Does he accept or reject Jesus Christ 
 as his Saviour ? for he can be saved from his sins in no 
 other way than by faith in Christ as the atonement for 
 his sins. 
 
 We have seen how little foundation there is in Script- 
 ure for this view of human life. Does it accord any 
 better with reason ? Is it reasonable that there should 
 be such a probation ? What is it for? Is this trial for 
 the sake of God, to enable him to know what the 
 character of each man is ? He knows it without any 
 such trial. Is it for the sake of man ? What good can 
 come to him from knowing what he is, when it is too 
 late to alter ? 
 
 This doctrine, that man's life is a scene of probation, 
 seems to be taken from human needs and human im- 
 perfections. When we make a machine, we have to try 
 it to find out whether it will work. We put it on pro- 
 bation. Watches are tested, guns are tested, ships' 
 compasses are tested, before we use them. A steamer 
 has its trial trip before it is allowed to cross the 
 Atlantic. A railroad bridge is tested by the weight of 
 
IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 119 
 
 a heavy train before it is opened for travel. There 
 are in Boston inspectors of milk, of provisions, of build- 
 ings, and the like. But this is owing to our imperfect 
 knowledge. God does not need to put us on probation ; 
 for he has made us, and knows what is in us. Proba- 
 tion is a purely human conception, based on human 
 weakness and ignorance, and cannot apply to the Al- 
 mighty. 
 
 Nor is it in accordance with the fatherly character 
 of God, which Jesus has revealed to mankind. What 
 sort of a father would he be who should say to his 
 children : " I will give you so many months or years 
 in which you shall be on probation. Those of you who 
 conform to my laws and fulfil the conditions I lay down, 
 I will take with me to a pleasant home I have prepared, 
 to live with me as my children. Those who fail I will 
 reject, and have no more to do with them. I will cast 
 them off forever." The conditions might be ever so 
 reasonable, but we would certainly say that this con- 
 duct is not that of a father. It certainly is not like the 
 conduct of the father in the parable of the Prodigal 
 Son. 
 
 But it is said: "Does not the Scripture speak of 
 a judgment to come, a judgment in which all are to 
 be rewarded or punished according to their works ? Is 
 it not said that for every idle word that men shall speak 
 they must give an account in the day of judgment ? 
 Are we not taught that the Son of Man is to be the 
 judge of all mankind, and that the Father hath com- 
 mitted all judgment to him ? And does not this show 
 that this life is a scene of probation, which is to end in 
 a day when God shall judge the secrets of men by 
 
120 IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 
 
 Jesus Christ ? And is not this right, because, in this 
 world, men blind themselves to their own character 
 and deceive themselves as to their conduct, so that it 
 is necessary that the truth shall be revealed, and that 
 they shall see themselves as they are, and God as 
 he is ? " 
 
 Yes : we all need a day of judgment. We deceive 
 ourselves and are deceived by others as to what is 
 right. We do not know ourselves as we are, and we 
 need that knowledge. But, then, let us remember that 
 these judgments are not always deferred to the next 
 world. They are taking place here, and taking place 
 all the time. It has been well said that " the history 
 of the world is the perpetual day of judgment." We 
 must put aside the notion of a great assize at the end of 
 the world, of the trumpet sounding and the dead rising, 
 of a vast collection of mankind in one place, of Jesus sit- 
 ting on a throne, of the sheep going to the right and 
 the goats to the left. All this is the picturesque form, 
 the figurative dress of the inward truth. It belongs to 
 the letter, not to the spirit. Though it is said that the 
 Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, yet 
 Jesus himself says elsewhere, "I came not to judge 
 the world, but to save it " ; and " If any man hears me 
 not, I judge him not; but the word which I have 
 spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." 
 
 In fact, the last day, the day of judgment, comes to 
 each of us whenever there is a judgment of God. The 
 day of judgment "cometh, and now is." It comes now 
 to nations, to institutions, to creeds, to religions, to 
 customs, to the individual soul. When the Jews re- 
 jected Jesus, the Messiah of truth and love, and pre- 
 
IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 121 
 
 ferred the Messiah of outward power and glory, that 
 was their day of judgment : the Temple was then 
 doomed to fall, and its worship to cease. When 
 Paganism rejected Christianity, it sentenced itself, 
 and died. When the Roman Catholic Church rejected 
 the Reformation, that was its day of judgment. 
 
 So it is with nations, so it is with' individuals. 
 "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salva- 
 tion." The present hour is the day of judgment for 
 us all. At every call of truth to which we listen or to 
 which we are deaf, we go to the right or to the left. 
 When any duty comes to us, and, though it be hard, 
 we accept it, a voice says in our soul, "Come, ye 
 blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
 you from the foundation of the world." When we 
 postpone obedience, and excuse ourselves, and disobey 
 the voice within, we are the v goats going to the left. 
 In every such crisis or judgment (for crisis means judg- 
 ment, and the critical moments of life are those which 
 sentence us), in every such crisis, we go away into 
 eternal suffering or eternal life. These judgments on 
 the soul are immediate, incessant ; and they are sent to 
 show us what we are, to show us our weakness and our 
 strength, to rebuke, to warn, to comfort, to encour- 
 age, in short, to educate us for time and eternity. 
 
 Perhaps it will be said : " There are probations in 
 this world which decide a man's fitness for future 
 success and enjoyment. Boys have a probation at 
 school : if they pass it well, their future position is 
 made secure." No doubt; but does a good father 
 give his son only one probation, only a single op- 
 portunity ? Does he make his child's whole destiny, 
 
122 IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 
 
 even for this life, depend on a single trial ? And will 
 God make our whole everlasting joy or misery, ages on 
 ages, to rest on the question whether we have once, in 
 this life, in our folly or our ignorance, rejected an offer 
 of mercy made through Christ ? If we, being evil, 
 know how to be better than that, shall not our heav- 
 enly Father be infinitely more merciful than we? I 
 believe, then, in probation, but in innumerable proba- 
 tions, many in this life, and many more, perchance, 
 in the life to come. 
 
 This sort of probation is not preparation for a fut- 
 ure judgment; but it is a perpetual judgment, and, 
 therefore, a perpetual education. "The trial of faith 
 worketh patience, and patience worketh experience, 
 and experience hope." To use the favorite language of 
 our time, it is the process of evolution, by which pas- 
 sion is tempered, desires chastened, the love of truth 
 unfolded, generosity developed, sympathy with the wel- 
 fare of others awakened, the power of relieving the 
 woes of others gradually learned. As youth passes 
 into age, life teaches these lessons whenever the soul 
 is open to receive them. It brings us nearer to God. 
 We pass from the idea of God enthroned above us, a 
 King, a Judge, a Sovereign Ruler, to that of a divine 
 presence, a benign providence, a perpetual care, an all- 
 surrounding love. We believe in God as the vast 
 mystery hidden below all things, and yet the great 
 revelation made through all things. He is all we see 
 and all we know. He is outside of everything, em- 
 bracing the whole universe ; inside of everything, 
 giving existence and being to the whole universe 
 Wherever there is life, there is he. Wherever the 
 
IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 123 
 
 solemn shadow of death falls, there is his benign power 
 and presence equally near. Our beloved dead are in 
 his arms. Our hopes rest on the foundation of his 
 love. Without God, we are without hope. But, be- 
 lieving in him as an all-loving Father, we know that 
 all things which seem evil must work together for 
 good. 
 
 " We dimly guess from blessings known 
 
 Of greater out of sight, 
 And, with the chastened psalmist, own 
 His judgments, too, are right." 
 
 One failure of Christians in the past, and largely in 
 the present, is their inability to rise to the highest con- 
 ception of the true and living God. The doctrine of 
 probation, as set forth in the New Haven Council, puts 
 the divine Friend of man outside of the world, as a 
 being who stands apart from our lives, giving us a 
 single chance, and then waiting to see if we will 
 accept it. This view of God is too cold, too distant. 
 Its tendency is to drive men from him. No doubt, 
 those who believe that their own salvation is sure may 
 regard God as their friend. But even they cannot 
 have that implicit and perfect confidence in his love 
 and care which belongs to the soul which can say as 
 Jesus said, "Our Father." It is a great deal to be 
 able to say, " My Father." But it is a great deal more 
 to say, "Our Father." Then we are able to see the 
 deep meaning of the prophet when, speaking in the 
 name of Jehovah, he said, " All souls are mine." 
 
 When we feel that every creature is dear to God, 
 that all are cared for by his special providence, that no 
 child ever is or ever can be disinherited by him, there 
 
124 IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 
 
 will come to us all a much more serene confidence in 
 the heavenly Father. So long as we think that some 
 of his children are to be forever lost, to escape perma- 
 nently from his care and his love, to be outcasts for- 
 ever and forever, we must doubt either the power or 
 the goodness of God. Either God is not able to save 
 them or is not willing to save them. Our faith in 
 him is, therefore, imperfect, not full, not entire, not 
 absolute. But when we are sure that, sooner or later, 
 "every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things 
 in earth and things under the earth," to the divine 
 truth and love ; that, "in the dispensation of the ful- 
 ness of time, he will gather in one all things in Christ, 
 both which are in heaven and which are on earth " ; 
 when we are able to believe that all evil will be 
 swallowed up in good ; all falsehood, error, and sin con- 
 quered, not by force, but by love, then we shall rise to 
 a loftier elevation of faith than the Church has ever 
 reached. Paul tells us, in a striking passage, that the 
 righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel of Jesus, 
 from faith to faith ; that is, I suppose, from faith to 
 greater faith. Under the Jewish law, the righteous- 
 ness of God was revealed in keeping his promises to 
 his chosen people ; and they had faith in him as the 
 God keeping his covenant with their fathers. The 
 prophets had a greater faith, for they foresaw a time 
 when the whole earth would be full of the knowledge 
 of God. The righteousness of God was revealed to 
 them as giving a knowledge of himself hereafter to all 
 his human children. Christianity came, and revealed 
 God as righteous in opening the door of salvation to 
 all mankind, to Jew and Gentile, Greek and Roman, 
 
IS PROBATION OR EDUCATION THE END OF LIFE 125 
 
 bond and free, showing that he could be just and yet 
 justify all who believed in Jesus. This was a still 
 greater faith. The faith of the Church thus far has 
 been a trust in God as the Saviour of all Christians, 
 but as leaving the heathen to mere outside possibili- 
 ties. Dr. Smyth goes so far as to believe that in a 
 few exceptional cases there may be probation in the 
 other world. The Roman Catholic has faith that God 
 will save those inside the true Church. Miss Yonge 
 believes that God will save those who are baptized. 
 Mr. Spurgeon and Mr. Moody think he will save those 
 who accept Christ as a Saviour. Such are the degrees 
 of faith in the Church. The Church trusts God in 
 part, not fully. It trusts him under certain conditions. 
 There are few who rise to the height of a perfect con- 
 fidence that all his creatures are safe in his hands; 
 that not one opportunity only, but countless opportu- 
 nities, will be given them ; and that whoever is in hell, 
 here or hereafter, will be so because he himself chooses 
 to be there, not because God chooses it. Faith will be 
 perfect when we see that law and love are the same ; 
 and that probation, punishment, judgment, are only 
 necessary steps in human progress. 
 
 The result of what we have said is this : Orthodoxy, 
 even in its most advanced stage, still seems to make 
 the purpose of life probation for a judgment to come. 
 A more rational Orthodoxy will see in it education and 
 development. It will see in God a universal Father, 
 in Christ a human brother, in salvation the steps of 
 progress, in heaven, here and hereafter, the harmony 
 of law and love. Toward this more rational Orthodoxy, 
 the Church and the world are tending ; and, in the ful- 
 ness of time, it must come. 
 
THE SABBATH-SUNDAY-OR THE LORD'S 
 DAY -WHICH? 
 
 " There remaineth, therefore, a rest " (or Sabbath keeping) " for the 
 people of God." HEB. iv., 9. 
 
 THROUGH the Jewish nation, God has bestowed on 
 mankind four gifts of supreme importance, the doc- 
 trine of monotheism as taught by Moses, the gospel of 
 love as taught by Jesus, the Bible, and the rest of the 
 seventh day. This day of rest is a peculiar blessing 
 to the poor and to the laboring man. The wealthy can 
 rest when they please ; but the poor would have no rest, 
 were it not for the return of this day. One day in 
 seven brings to the hard-working man the opportunity 
 to be with his family at home or walk with them in the 
 fields or parks of the city. The boys and girls rest 
 from school, and their teacher from teaching. The 
 horses rest in their stables, the din of wagons ceases 
 from the streets, the roar of trains is suspended on 
 the railroads, the factories are still, the shops are shut, 
 the hammer of the builder is silent, the steam-engines 
 cease to shriek, the theatres are closed, most of the 
 bar-rooms are shut, and a sense of repose rests on the 
 city and the village. If this were all, what a comfort 
 would it not be ! This merely negative blessing is a 
 very great one. 
 
SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 127 
 
 The Jewish Sabbath is so great an advantage to the 
 health of body and mind that Christian nations have 
 adopted it, and established it by law. They have de- 
 termined that most work shall cease on one day in 
 seven. This was necessary ; for there are some things 
 that must be done by all, or they cannot easily be done 
 by any. Unless all would agree to have streets and 
 roads, no one would have them. For the sake of the 
 public good, we must consent to give up some part of 
 our private liberty. If there were no general law for- 
 bidding shops to be open on Sunday, courts to be 
 held, post-offices and banks to do business, trades to 
 be carried on, it might be necessary for some to do in 
 self-defence what others do from choice. If my neigh- 
 bor should run his factory on Sunday, I might be 
 obliged to run mine ; and the working people would 
 lose their day of rest. Hence the laws for the observ- 
 ance of the Lord's day. 
 
 As to the propriety of such laws, most persons are 
 agreed. It is generally admitted that it is better for 
 the community that business should generally cease 
 one day in seven, and that all business should be sus- 
 pended on the same day. If nine-tenths of the com- 
 munity were Jews, then Christians should be willing 
 to suspend their business on Saturday. If nine-tenths 
 were Mohammedans, then we ought to agree to sus- 
 pend business on Friday. But, as in this country the 
 vast majority are Christians, it is proper that business 
 should be suspended on the Lord's day, which is the 
 legal title 'of the first day of the week. Accordingly, 
 all the States of the Union have laws making con- 
 tracts entered into on that day void, and ordinary work. 
 
128 SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 
 
 except that of necessity or mercy, unlawful. The ques- 
 tion was even raised in Pennsylvania whether a mar- 
 riage on Sunday was a legal contract ; but this was 
 happily decided in the affirmative, the courts basing 
 their decision on the ground that it was a religious act, 
 for which Sunday was a proper day. 
 
 The exception in behalf of works of necessity and 
 mercy has been gradually widening, till it includes 
 some Sunday cars and trains, Sunday newspapers, con- 
 certs, steamboat excursions, and other acts which our 
 ancestors would have called Sabbath-breaking. But 
 the practical good sense of the people has shown itself 
 in a wise enlargement and limitation of these excep- 
 tions. A few important mails are carried, a few im- 
 portant trains run, the post-offices are opened for an 
 hour or two, museums of art, concerts, and public 
 libraries are opened ; but theatres are closed. And 
 these distinctions are not made by legal enactment, 
 but are determined by the controlling power of public 
 opinion. In this State, it was once a question whether 
 a dangerous washing away of the road might be re- 
 paired on Sunday. But it was promptly decided that 
 the town not only might, but ought to do it. And, 
 certainly, if even the strictly Sabbatarian Jews would 
 pull an ox or an ass out of a pit on the Sabbath, it 
 must be still more our duty to provide that men and 
 women should not fall into one. 
 
 As to these questions there is no great difficulty. 
 It is not hard to decide what ought not to be done on 
 Sunday. But how this day ought to be employed is 
 a more difficult and a more important inquiry. There 
 are three general views on this matter, from the stand- 
 
SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 129 
 
 point of those who look on this day as "the Sabbath/' 
 those who consider it as " Sunday," and those who 
 view it as " the Lord's day." 
 
 " Sabbath " is the Jewish designation, and implies a 
 Jewish view. Here, as elsewhere, Jewish morality has 
 been negative, narrow, punctilious, saying, " Thou shalt 
 not do this," rather than pointing out what ought to be 
 done. The treatise on the Sabbath in the Mishna con- 
 tains innumerable minute distinctions between what is 
 criminal and what is allowable. 
 
 Thus, the Mishna says that a tailor must not take a 
 needle out with him before the Sabbath begins, lest 
 he forget, and continue to carry it during the Sabbath. 
 Nets must not be set for game, unless there is time to 
 catch them before the Sabbath. Drugs must not be 
 immersed in water for dyestuffs, unless the dye will 
 be finished before the Sabbath. Bread must not be 
 put into the oven, unless there is time for a crust to 
 form on it before the Sabbath. A man may put out 
 his lamp on the Sabbath, for fear of robbers, but not 
 to save the oil. He may put food to be cooked, before 
 the Sabbath begins, in an oven heated with stubble, 
 but not in one heated with wood or olive stones. It 
 is lawful to tie some kind of knots on the Sabbath, 
 unlawful to tie others. If a heathen has lighted a 
 candle, an Israelite may use it ; but he must not light 
 it himself. A man may verbally count the number of 
 his guests, but he must not read from a written list. 
 There are twenty-four chapters of this treatise, full of 
 such details as these. 
 
 This is the character of the Jewish Sabbath, as 
 described in the Talmud, minutely scrupulous and 
 
130 SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 
 
 timid, conscientious about trifles. But there is not a 
 word in this whole treatise of any spiritual meaning 
 or purpose, any mental or moral refreshment connected 
 with these prescriptions. 
 
 But, when we turn to the New Testament, what a 
 change takes place in the point of view ! It is given in 
 a single sentence, " The Sabbath was made for man, 
 not man for the Sabbath " ; " It is right to do good on 
 the Sabbath day." Jesus walks in the fields with his 
 disciples on the Sabbath day. If he had done that on 
 his own day in New England two hundred years ago, 
 he and his disciples might have been arrested. The 
 Jewish Sabbath disappeared when the Christian 
 Church was founded. It is only once mentioned by 
 Paul in all his Epistles, and then by way of condemna- 
 tion : "Let no man judge you in regard to new moons 
 and Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come." 
 If the Jewish Christians wished to keep the Sabbath, 
 they might ; but it was not compulsory. If they kept 
 the Sabbath on the seventh day as Jews, they kept the 
 first day also as Christians. 
 
 The Sabbath, iherefore, was no Christian institution 
 at first, and never has been so, except among the Puri- 
 tans of England and America. They alone retained 
 the name " Sabbath," and applied it to the "Lord's 
 day." In Italy, if one speaks of the Sabbath, he 
 means Saturday; for Saturday is called "Sabbato," and 
 Sunday is called " Domenico," or Lord's day. 
 
 I was sorry, therefore, that a convention which once 
 met in our city should have professed as its object to 
 promote a better observance of "the Sabbath." I sup- 
 pose they did not mean by this that they wished to 
 
SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 131 
 
 promote the religious observance of Saturday. Why, 
 then, give it the Jewish name ? Why not give it the 
 Christian name of the Lord's day ? You may say this 
 is only a question of words, but words are things. 
 Those who call the first day of the week the Sabbath, 
 unconsciously or intentionally, give it a Jewish charac- 
 ter. One of the speakers at this convention referred, 
 with apparent approbation, to the spirit of the old New 
 England laws, which punished Sabbath-breaking with 
 fines, imprisonment, and death. 
 
 The old New England Sabbath was a day of gloom, 
 not joy; of constraint, not freedom; of fear, not hope. 
 Children must not play, no one must, look on God's 
 works in nature, people must pass the whole time 
 either in church or else shut up with their Bibles at 
 home. This method might have been invented by 
 Satan as an ingenious contrivance for making Sunday, 
 the Church, the Bible, and religious exercises distaste- 
 ful. And yet some of the members of this Sabbath 
 convention spoke as if they really wished that system 
 back again. 
 
 We do not want the Sabbath revived ; for that was a 
 day of restraint and gloom, and it was dropped by Chris- 
 tianity in the beginning. On the other hand, we do 
 not want a mere Sunday, a pagan and secular holy-day, 
 sanctified by no sense of a divine presence and love. 
 The Continental Sunday goes as far to one extreme 
 as the Puritan Sabbath went to the other. It should 
 not be for mere church-going, on the one hand, nor for 
 mere amusement, on the other. It should rest both 
 the body and the soul, the mind and the heart. It 
 should prepare us to go to our work next day in a 
 
132 SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 
 
 better spirit, with new hope, courage, devotion to prin 
 ciple, faith in God, love to man. The Jewish Sabbath 
 does not do this ; for it is too hard, cold, ascetic, for- 
 bidding. The pagan Sunday cannot do it. Passing 
 the day idly or lazily does not refresh us, mere empty 
 talk or frivolous amusement does not refresh us. Real 
 recreation is re-creation. It is what puts new life into 
 all our faculties. 
 
 We, therefore, wish to have not the Jewish "Sab- 
 bath " or the pagan " Sunday," but the Christian 
 "Lord's day." The Lord's day fulfils the Sabbath, 
 taking from it what is good, -its seventh part of the 
 week redeemed from work to rest. It fulfils the " Sun- 
 day," taking all that is good of the pagan holiday, 
 its freedom from heavy obligations, its absence from 
 care, its innocent pleasure. But it fulfils both in some- 
 thing higher: it fulfils the physical, rest of the Jewish 
 Sabbath by rest of the soul, by freedom from anxious 
 doubts and fears. It fulfils pagan pleasure by a deeper 
 joy, born of faith, hope, and love. 
 
 There are only two passages in the Epistles of the 
 New Testament in which the Sabbath is mentioned, 
 one in Colossians and one in Hebrews. Paul, in his 
 long letter to Rome, in which he treats the most 
 essential questions of Christian faith and practice, does 
 not so much as mention Sabbaths, Sabbath-keeping, or 
 Sabbath-breaking. In his two letters to Corinth, in 
 which he speaks of so many Christian duties, truths, 
 trials, and in which the whole of the life of the early 
 Church comes visibly before us, Sabbath-keeping is not 
 once mentioned. Nor is it spoken of in his letters 
 to Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, the two to 
 
SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 133 
 
 Timothy, the letter to Titus or Philemon. James does 
 not mention the Sabbath in his one letter, nor Peter 
 in his two, nor John in his three, nor in the Book 
 of Revelation. In Paul's Epistle to Colosse alone, he 
 mentions the Sabbath, there speaking of it as one of 
 the shadows which have passed away, like keeping the 
 feast of the new moon or like the distinction between 
 clean and unclean meats. The modern doctrine, that 
 Sunday is the Sabbath, transferred from the seventh 
 day to the first, is not once alluded to in the New 
 Testament. The other passage is in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, and in our translation reads, "There 
 remains, therefore, a rest to the people of God." In 
 the Greek, it reads, " There remains, therefore, a Sab- 
 bath-keeping for the people of God " ; that is, to Chris- 
 tians. The doctrine taught is that the Christian rest 
 consists in " ceasing from one's own works " ; that is, 
 in ceasing from vain attempts at being good alone, 
 without God, and in the rest of the soul which comes 
 from doing our duties with faith in our hearts, relying 
 not on ourselves, but on the inspiration of our heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 This turns the Jewish Sabbath and the pagan Sun- 
 day into the Christian Lord's day. The rest of the 
 Lord's day is not outward, but inward, a rest from 
 anxiety, sorrow, and sin. It is reliance on an infinite 
 care, trust in an infinite Providence, confidence in a 
 fatherly love waiting to forgive us whenever we turn 
 to God. This is the reason for coming to church : that, 
 together, in the company of Christian brethren, we 
 may enter into this peace of God. This is what the 
 Church ought to do for us all. He who conducts the 
 
134 SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 
 
 services should understand that this is the purpose of 
 them ; and he should pray to God for power, wisdom, 
 and inspiration of soul, that he may guide all the 
 services to this end. Those who come should come 
 for this. The end of church-going is not to hear 
 arguments and discussions about doctrines, not to 
 listen to a fine essay or to go through a ritual cere- 
 mony, but to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, 
 to be bathed once more by the spirit of God, and so 
 enter into rest. 
 
 The Jewish Sabbath bristled with minute regulations 
 in regard to what might be done and what ought not 
 to be done. But the Lord's day is not under law, but 
 under grace. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there 
 is liberty. 'Instead of regulations, we have principles. 
 Whatever refreshes the soul, recreates it, fills it with 
 peace and hope, is right. Whatever leaves it anxious, 
 dispirited, weak, is wrong, even though it is church- 
 going. 
 
 I have no doubt there are many cases where to 
 continue to go to a church which gives no peace to the 
 mind or the heart is really breaking the Sabbath, not 
 keeping it. I have known of Unitarians living in some 
 town where all the preaching was so foreign to their 
 convictions and their faith that it only disturbed their 
 soul, and did not refresh it. In such cases, it is better 
 to stay at home than to go to church ; for you break 
 the Sabbath, if you continue to go where you find by 
 experience that you lose the rest which is the essential 
 blessing of the Lord's day. 
 
 If the Christian Sabbath means inward peace and 
 rest, whatever disturbs that is Sabbath-breaking. 
 
SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 135 
 
 For keeping the Lord's day, we have principles, not 
 rules. Different people need different things. A hard- 
 working man may need some physical rest. It may be 
 a mistake for him to go to church two or three times a 
 day. Indeed, I think that this is too often for most 
 people ; yet, if any one finds that three or four relig- 
 ious services really comfort and strengthen him, he is 
 right in attending them. An English bishop has lately 
 said that museums and parks should be opened to the 
 people on Sunday, because a man could not spend the 
 whole day in praying ; and it would be far better for 
 him to spend part of the day in a picture-gallery than 
 sitting in a bar-room or asleep at home. This was 
 common sense and true religion in one. 
 
 The principle which should govern our use of the 
 day is, So to occupy its hours that they shall lighten 
 the burden of care and refresh us for our coming duties. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church very properly banishes 
 gloom from Sunday, makes it a festival, and forbids it 
 ever to be treated as a fast, even in Lent. My hope is 
 that the day shall be made more sacred, more holy, 
 and at the same time more free. We do not wish it 
 to be steeped in worldly and secular occupations, nor 
 frozen stiff in ritualism. Let us go up higher. 
 
 My system for the use of the day would be to divide 
 it into three parts, devoted to these objects : 
 
 In the forenoon, I would have people go to church, 
 there to come near to God, and look up to receive 
 strength and peace from him ; and there, also, to come 
 into communion with Christian friends, and feel that 
 all are brothers and sisters. The church should not 
 be a place for doctrinal controversy nor oratory, nor 
 
136 SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 
 
 discussions of questions of politics or finance, but for 
 spiritual life and growth, for looking at the foundations 
 of Christian faith and duty, for communing reverently 
 with the divine Father and eternal Friend. 
 
 Again, a part of the day should be devoted to others, 
 given in some way to the comfort of the lonely, the 
 unhappy, and in providing innocent amusements and 
 recreation for those who cannot have them at other 
 times. Besides those who go to church there is a 
 great outside mass who loiter in the streets. Some of 
 these fill themselves with drink, and their crimes on 
 Sunday fill the Monday morning papers. It should be 
 one part of our way of keeping Sunday to provide inno- 
 cent Sunday recreations for all persons who need them. 
 It is a grand thing that we have in Boston our Com- 
 mon and Public Garden, our out-door concerts, our Art 
 Museum and Public Library, all open on Sunday. The 
 Young Men's Christian Union is also open on Sunday ; 
 and our friend, Mr. Baldwin, says he would close on 
 any other day sooner than on this. Intelligent and 
 educated men and women might take classes, on Sun- 
 day, of young men and young women who had no 
 other time for study in history, art, social science, and 
 the like studies. If the first part of the day is given 
 to strengthening our souls by religious truth, the sec- 
 ond part might be given to helping the souls of others. 
 
 There remains the evening of the day to be disposed 
 of. And this might be devoted to home, to friends, to 
 social intercourse. Those who have no other time or 
 opportunity might make these evening hours the season 
 for reading aloud in their families, talking with their 
 friends, and making the acquaintance of their children. 
 
SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 137 
 
 I enjoyed, in France and Germany, the sight of family 
 life and friendly intercourse on Sunday, families 
 strolling together in the public parks, groups of friends 
 walking into the country two or three miles, and taking 
 tea together in the open air. I am glad to see these 
 customs coming in here. So far from being sorry that 
 gardens are opened around the city for the people, I 
 am glad of it. So long as liquor is banished, I am glad 
 to see families going in company into the country on 
 Sunday afternoon. Steamboat excursions down the 
 harbor, if quiet and orderly, do not seem to me bad 
 things. The advantage is that husbands, wives, and 
 children are able to go together for a little fresh air 
 and for the sight of sea and country. 
 
 So long as families go together, the effect must be 
 good. I am not afraid that church-going will cease in 
 consequence. I believe that people will always go to 
 church, because they will always feel the need of it and 
 the good of it. It will last, not because it is a custom 
 or a duty, but because it satisfies an everlasting need 
 of the soul. 
 
 Therefore, I hope that Christian men and women, in 
 conventions and elsewhere, will not oppose innocent 
 recreation on Sunday, will not endeavor to confine it 
 to religious exercises, or to bring back the old Puri- 
 tanic Sabbath, which neither we nor our fathers were 
 able to bear. But let Christian men and women, who 
 have happy homes and every opportunity for recreation 
 on other days, seek to bring suitable pleasure to those 
 whose lives through the week are hard and empty. 
 Let them try to make Sunday a bright and happy day 
 for all, a day to lift up the soul to God and bring 
 
138 SABBATH SUNDAY OR THE LORD'S DAY 
 
 man nearer to his brother. Let every Sunday sing the 
 angels' song to all human hearts of " Glory to God in 
 the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men." 
 
 Then we shall better understand Herbert's tender 
 verses to this day : 
 
 " O day ! most calm, most bright, 
 The fruit of this, the next world's bud ; 
 
 The couch of time, man's balm and bay, 
 The week were dark but for thy light, 
 Thy torch doth show the way." 
 
 " Thou art a day of mirth ; 
 And, when the week days trail on ground, 
 Thy flight is higher, as thy birth. 
 Then let me take thee with a bound, 
 Leaping with thee from seven to seven, 
 Till that we both, being tossed from earth, 
 Fly hand in hand to heaven," 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 
 
 I WILL next speak of the Bible, and describe and 
 contrast the old and new views of this venerable book. 
 I shall try to show that the broad and human views 
 of the Bible long taught by Unitarians are now largely 
 held by the best scholars and thinkers of all denomina- 
 tions. I would also show that they are higher, nobler, 
 more spiritual, more religious, than the old Orthodoxy. 
 But, before doing this, I will state the facts concerning 
 the Bible in which all agree, to which all scholars, 
 whether Trinitarians or Unitarians, orthodox or hetero- 
 dox, would assent. 
 
 All, then, agree that the Bible is not one book, writ- 
 ten at one time and on one subject, but a whole 
 encyclopaedia of religious literature. These books were 
 written by some forty different authors, and during 
 a period of at least a thousand years. By whom they 
 were first collected we do not know. At what time 
 they came together we cannot tell. On what prin- 
 ciples they were selected is a matter of conjecture. 
 Who the real writers were is doubtful. Their manu- 
 scripts have long since perished. The oldest manu- 
 script we have is three hundred years later than the 
 time when the last book of the New Testament was 
 written. Down to the time of the invention of print- 
 
140 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 ing, in the fifteenth century, the books of the Bible 
 were copied by hand. The result was that a large 
 number of errors crept in, and we have no means of 
 deciding with certainty what the original text of the 
 Bible was. Our present English version was made by 
 order of King James I., and printed in 1611. Neither 
 the translators were inspired, nor the printers, nor the 
 proof-readers; nor did they possess as good a Hebrew 
 and Greek text from which to translate as we have at 
 present. 
 
 These are simple matters of fact, in which all scholars 
 agree, no matter how orthodox they are. On the 
 other hand, all even the most heretical whose opin- 
 ions command our respect, will admit that the collec- 
 tion of Jewish and Christian works which we call the 
 Bible stands at the head of the religious literature of 
 the world. There is no book like it or second to it. 
 All the other sacred books of mankind, the Veclas, 
 the Kings, the Zend Avesta, the writings of Confucius, 
 the Koran, the Eddas, however much they may con- 
 tain of sound truth and moral beauty, are flat and 
 tame when compared to the depth, sweep, variety, 
 picturesque character, and heavenly charm of the books 
 of the Bible. The Book of Job is probably the noblest 
 poem in any literature ; the Book of Ruth, by the 
 testimony of such critics as Rousseau and Goethe, is 
 the tenderest idyl ; the Book of Ecclesiastes is more 
 terrible in its desperate despair than any tragedy of 
 jEschylus or Shakspere. The stories of patriarchal life 
 in Genesis, and of antique manners in the Book of 
 Kings, surpass even the undying charm of those in 
 Herodotus. The Book of Psalms goes so deeply into 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS 141 
 
 the spiritual experiences of man's nature his faith, 
 his doubt, his reason, his hope, his tender trust, 
 his ardent aspiration that it will probably remain 
 the best manual of devotion for the human race. 
 The prophetic literature of the Bible stands absolutely 
 alone, making a class by itself in the productions of 
 human genius. Those strains mount up into the sky 
 like the larks on the plains of Normandy, who ascend 
 higher and higher till they go out of sight in the 
 heavens, while their notes still fill the air with music 
 dropping from above. The writings of Paul contain 
 occasional bursts of fiery eloquence, of tender affection, 
 of concentrated thought, without a parallel in human 
 writings. And the words of Jesus, preserved in the 
 four Gospels, stand forever alone. For in them we 
 see a harmony of qualities elsewhere separated and 
 divorced. They show us a reformer free to the verge 
 of radicalism, yet a conservative unwilling that a jot 
 of the old law should pass away until the good in 
 it had been carried up to something better ; a philan- 
 thropist, in whose mind all barriers between man 
 and man had fallen away ; one with a zeal so deter- 
 mined that he took the direct course to death as a 
 martyr to the truth ; with a charity so large that it 
 included in its embrace all who wished to do the 
 will of his Father in heaven, however sunk in misery, 
 sin, and shame ; and a piety so high and so constant 
 that it enabled him to say what no other saint or 
 sage could ever dare to utter, " I and my Father are 
 one." And these powers of soul, heart, mind, are in 
 such perfect harmony that no one of them is prom- 
 inent, and that we never think of Jesus as reformer, 
 
142 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 philanthropist, saint, or martyr, but as a heavenly 
 brother, teacher, and friend. 
 
 The book which contains all this, and vastly more, 
 is justly called "The Bible" or "The Book." There 
 are two diametrically opposite views, however, taken 
 of its origin, inspiration, and authority. One of these 
 I call the theology of the spirit, and the other that of 
 the letter. 
 
 The theology of the letter says of the Bible that it 
 is "the word of God" in such a sense that every part 
 of it proceeded by direct revelation from God. It 
 is a supernatural revelation of God's truth, containing 
 everything necessary for the religious life of man, 
 for his happiness here and his hope hereafter. The 
 writers were supernaturally and miraculously inspired, 
 so that they could not make any mistake, and have 
 not made any. There are no errors and no contra- 
 dictions in the Bible. It is infallibly, verbally, literally 
 true from end to end. All between its lids is the 
 word of God. Its geology, astronomy, chronology, 
 are perfect, and leave nothing to be desired. Its great 
 men are saints to be admired and imitated, their 
 crimes excused and explained away. Its Jewish part 
 and its Christian part are in exact harmony; and he 
 who questions or denies anything in it is an infidel, 
 who had better never have been born. 
 
 This view of the infallibility of the letter of the 
 Bible or, as it was once called, its "plenary inspira- 
 tion" is not so very ancient, after all. It came up, 
 in its extreme form, since the Reformation. Tholuck, 
 the German theologian, a scholar highly esteemed in 
 orthodox circles, tells us, in his essay on Inspiration, 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS 143 
 
 that this doctrine arose in the controversy with the 
 Roman Church. The Jesuits said, " We, in our Church, 
 have unity, confidence, assurance. We have an outward 
 infallible church to lean upon, an outward authority to 
 which all can appeal, an outward judge to decide all 
 questions. You Protestants have no such authority, 
 nothing infallible, nothing sure. You have only your 
 own inward emotions, different opinions, changing 
 moods." Pressed by this argument, says Tholuck, the 
 Protestants came by degrees to maintain that they also 
 had an outward infallible authority, namely, the in- 
 fallible letter of the Bible, and at last were driven, 
 by the heat of controversy, to assert that not only the 
 sense of the Bible, but the words, the letters, the He- 
 brew vowel-points, and the very punctuation, proceeded 
 directly from God; and that the writers of the Bible 
 were merely the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit, the 
 pen with which he wrote, the flute through which he 
 breathed. 
 
 Now, I will call your attention to the fact that the 
 writers of the Bible lay no claim to any such infallibil- 
 ity as this. They nowhere say that they were inspired 
 to write books. Luke, for instance, gives his reason 
 for writing his Gospel. He does not even say, like 
 a modern Spiritualist, that "he wrote under influence/' 
 or that "his hand began to write by an irresistible 
 power." He simply says, just as you or I might 
 say in the dedication to the biography of a friend, 
 " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth 
 in order a declaration of those things which are most 
 surely believed among us, even as they (who were 
 eye-witnesses and servants of the word from the begin- 
 
144 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 ning) delivered them unto us, it seemed good to me, 
 also, having had perfect understanding of all things 
 from the very first, to write under thee, in order, most 
 excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the 
 certainty of those things wherein thou hast been in- 
 structed." If Luke were conscious of being divinely 
 inspired to write an infallible book, would he have 
 given such reasons as he does here ? He does not say, 
 "You may be certain of the truth of what I say, be- 
 cause I am infallibly inspired to write " ; but " You may 
 be sure of the truth of what I say, because I have 
 known all about it from the beginning, because I 
 heard of it from those who were eye-witnesses ; and 
 so I thought it well to write this narrative." 
 
 Two texts are quoted to prove this verbal inspira- 
 tion ; and, because thus perpetually quoted, we may 
 presume that they are the strongest which can be 
 found. One says that "holy men of old spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Spirit." But it does 
 not say that this made them infallible. Holy men 
 now declare that they are moved by the Holy Spirit, 
 but they do not profess to be infallible. The other 
 text says that "all Scripture is given by inspiration, 
 and is profitable for doctrine, instruction," etc. Yes, 
 profitable or useful ; but that is surely not the same 
 thing as infallible authority. These texts teach an 
 inspiration which I also gladly accept. They do not 
 limit inspiration to the Jews or to the Bible. They 
 teach that all holy men and all sacred books come 
 from God, and have more or less of his truth and 
 power and goodness in them. Yes, "all Scripture is 
 given by inspiration " ; the Scriptures of every race 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS 145 
 
 and every land ; every sacred book which has tamed 
 man's pride, taught him to look up and adore, in- 
 structed him to be just, humane, true, and generous. 
 No such books come wholly from the will of man. 
 There is a divine element in them all, whether they 
 are the Vedas of India, or the Koran, or the Dialogues 
 of Plato, or Wordsworth's Ode to Immortality. " For 
 every good gift and perfect gift is from above, and 
 cometh down from the Father of Light." 
 
 There are many serious objections to the doctrine 
 of the infallible inspiration of the Bible. 
 
 To say that every statement in the Bible comes 
 directly from God produces wide-spread unbelief. A 
 large part of the scepticism and infidelity of the present 
 time may be traced directly to this source. Men 
 are taught, from a thousand pulpits, that they are not 
 Christians unless they believe the Bible wholly true 
 from Genesis to Revelation. But they cannot believe 
 this : therefore, they think they cannot be Christians. 
 The Bible says that the world was created in six days ; 
 that by adding the genealogies from Adam to Abra- 
 ham, and Abraham to Christ, we learn that it was 
 created less than six thousand years ago ; that the 
 sun, moon, and stars'were all made at that time; that 
 the visible universe, as well as the human race, has 
 therefore existed only during that period. But geology 
 teaches by infallible documents, written on tables of 
 stone, that the life of the earth, with that of innu- 
 merable plants and animals, goes back for millions of 
 years ; and that the light which we receive to-day 
 from some distant stars left them hundreds of thou- 
 sands of years ago. Anthropology shows us by human 
 
146 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 bones and stone implements, found in ancient strata, 
 that man must have existed in long distant periods 
 of time, far beyond the epoch ascribed to the creation 
 of Adam. 
 
 Now, when men are told that they must renounce 
 the revelations of science and the truths of history, 
 or cannot be Christians, some will make, reluctantly, 
 that sad renunciation. They will abdicate reason, put 
 a bandage over their eyes, and refuse to see facts, 
 and' call this voluntary blindness faith. Others will, 
 I think more nobly, prefer to be called infidels rather 
 than to tell a lie for God, or profess to believe what 
 they know to be false. I have had persons tell me 
 that they were infidels, because they could not believe 
 that the whale swallowed Jonah or that Joshua made 
 the sun stand still. I assured them that, in order to 
 believe in Jesus Christ, it was not necessary to believe 
 in Jonah or to have any opinions in regard to Joshua. 
 Students of the Old and New Testaments find many 
 contradictions between different books. Look at any 
 harmony of the four Gospels, 1 and you will find the 
 same story told differently by the different Evangelists. 
 These contradictions are of little consequence. They 
 do not diminish our confidence in the truth of the nar- 
 rative, and rather increase our sense of the honesty of 
 the narrators, unless we adopt this theory of the in- 
 fallibility of the record ; and then they become fatal. 
 These Scriptures differ in details, as human testimony 
 will ; but they agree in essentials. 
 
 No one can tell how much misery has been caused in 
 honest minds by this doctrine of Scripture infallibility. 
 Some people are made with that sense of truth that 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS 147 
 
 they cannot shut their eyes to plain facts because they 
 wish to, cannot make themselves believe by pure will. 
 They reverence the character and teachings of Jesus, 
 and would gladly become his disciples, but do not dare 
 to do so, because they cannot accept as true what their 
 reason tells them is false. 
 
 How many superstitions and cruelties have been 
 sanctified by appeals to the letter of the Scriptures ! 
 During many centuries, thousands of poor wretches 
 were burned alive as witches ; and this belief rested on 
 the universal conviction of Catholics and Protestants 
 that the Bible clearly taught the reality of witchcraft. 
 A single bishop caused six hundred to be burned. A 
 French judge, Remy, boasted that he had burned eight 
 hundred witches. A thousand persons were executed 
 on this charge in one year in the Province of Como, in 
 Italy. Catholic bishops and Protestant clergymen led 
 the way. Luther said : " I would have no compassion 
 on witches. I would burn them all." And all these 
 horrors were triumphantly defended by the letter of 
 the Bible. 
 
 So, in our day, we have seen slavery defended and 
 despotism sustained by the letter of the Bible. Be- 
 cause Paul said, "Slaves, obey your masters," and "The 
 powers that be are ordained of God," it was thought 
 that God commanded men by Paul to submit to a des- 
 pot like Nero, and to support a system which made 
 of human beings chattels. So, too, single words are 
 quoted to defend the doctrine that God has made be- 
 ings who are certain to fall into sin, and that then he 
 punishes them for that sin with endless torments. 
 Such are the superstitions, dishonorable to God and 
 
148 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 bringing untold miseries on man, which have been 
 maintained in the world by this view of the Scriptures. 
 It has also brought about a confusion of Judaism and 
 Christianity. The Old Testament, in some minds, has 
 more authority than the New. In many pulpits, Moses 
 has greater influence than Christ. Men still keep the 
 Jewish Sabbath which Christianity abolished. The 
 Lord's day, intended to be a day of freedom and joy, 
 has been made a day of gloom by calling it " the Sab- 
 bath," and giving us Moses as our master to teach us 
 what to do in it. Though all that Christ said or did 
 in regard to it was such as to make him a Sabbath- 
 breaker in Jewish eyes, men prefer the law of Moses 
 on this point to his. The rest of the soul makes the 1 
 Christian Sabbath. Whatever does tha f , whether it be 
 a walk, a pleasant conversation, or restful book, is 
 keeping the Sabbath : whatever disturbs the soul with 
 unrest is Sabbath-breaking. The sacrificial worship of 
 the Jews, by which from morning till evening the 
 great altar of the temple ran with blood, has indeed 
 been long abolished ; but the influence of that system 
 continues in the Catholic Church in the daily sacrifice 
 of the mass, and in the Protestant Church in that blood 
 theology which teaches that God is unable to forgive 
 sin except by bloodshed, and that by the blood of an 
 innocent victim. The apostles, who were Jews, accus- 
 tomed to these perpetual sacrifices of the temple, 
 naturally said : " Christ is our sacrifice." " He is our 
 sin offering." "It is his blood, not that of goats and 
 sheep, which saves us." And literal theology builds 
 on these natural Jewish expressions a whole theory of 
 substituted suffering and vicarious sacrifice. 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 Thus is the progress of thought arrestedT~tBTFs ""is 
 unbelief created ; thus are we sent back from Christ 
 to Moses by this Christian literalism. Thus we have a 
 hard and dry theology, which studies the letter, broods 
 over the text, and does not rise to the spirit of the 
 gospel. To "read the Bible," whether it is under- 
 stood or not, has been made a Protestant sacrament. 
 Men carry the Bible in their trunk, or keep it on the 
 centre-table as a protecting charm, making the house 
 safer, or, at all events, more respectable. It was long 
 thought dangerous to make any corrections in the text 
 or in the translation, though it was known that there 
 are errors in both. 
 
 The chief objection to this doctrine of the verbal 
 infallibility of the whole Bible is that the spirit is 
 chained down by the letter ; that the living power of 
 the words and soul of Jesus is neutralized and nulli- 
 fied by being tied to the dead body of old traditions 
 which have long since lost their power. The strength 
 of a chain is only that of its weakest link, so by this 
 doctrine the power of the Bible is kept down to that 
 of its poorest part. 
 
 It is a dreadful thing to kill the life of the gospel by 
 low literal interpretation. "The letter killeth," says 
 Paul. It does so. 
 
 The New Testament teaches, for example, a resur- 
 rection of soul and body ; but this means ascent, prog- 
 ress, going up into a higher life of soul and a higher 
 life of body. This is animating and inspiring. The 
 New Testament, according to the spirit, shows us per- 
 petual resurrection, endless ascent and progress, heaven 
 above heaven, world above world. It shows us innu- 
 
150 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 merable homes, adapted to all conditions of being ; in- 
 finite variety there, as there is infinite variety here : 
 of life and joy ; of beauty, order, wonder, magnificence ; 
 plenty to know, plenty to do, plenty to love. This is 
 our future existence, according to the spirit of the New 
 Testament which gives life. 
 
 But the theology of the letter tells us, instead, of a 
 resurrection of the same particles of an earthly body, 
 of that flesh and blood which (we are told) cannot 
 inherit the kingdom of God, of that corruptible matter 
 which cannot see incorruption. The letter theology 
 says that these poor, sickly bodies are to be gathered 
 out of their graves, and then divided into two classes : 
 one, of saints, to go to heaven and sing psalms forever ; 
 the other, of sinners, to be sent to hell, there to blas- 
 pheme God forever. Which of these two views is 
 most worthy of the infinite Being, Creator of all, Father 
 of all, whose sun shines on the evil and good, and 
 whose inexhaustible power and love flow forever 
 through the universe? 
 
 And, because of these superstitions, we have fierce 
 attacks on the Bible, shallow criticisms on the Bible. 
 When it is made the tyrant instead of the friend, vio- 
 lent reactions come. Men go about the country de- 
 nouncing the Bible, quite ignorant of the nobleness, 
 freedom, emancipating power, and broad humanity of 
 this wonderful volume. Others are led by a critical 
 reaction, and write books to point out an inconsistency 
 here or a contradiction there, laboring to reduce to a 
 minimum our trust in these grand utterances of the 
 ever-present spirit of God. Because, in their opinion, 
 the Apostle John did not write the Fourth Gospel, 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS 151 
 
 all its sweet and sacred words are thought to be insig- 
 nificant. 
 
 The theology of the spirit rises above this level 
 waste of dreary controversy. It regards the Bible as 
 inspired, but not infallible, inspired in a higher degree 
 by the same Spirit which has also spoken to men in all 
 the great scriptures of the race. It believes in the 
 authority of the Bible, but it is the authority which 
 truth always has over honest and candid minds. It 
 does not think it essential to decide when the books 
 of the Bible were written* nor by whom, nor when 
 they were collected and put together in the canon. 
 The books remain the same, whoever wrote them. By 
 giving their author another name, you cannot rob them 
 of a single note of power or of love. We are sure that 
 the best books have remained, for they have been 
 guarded by the love of mankind. They are not super- 
 natural in any sense but that in which all our life is 
 overflowed by something from above, all nature filled 
 with a diviner beauty, and by which there is something 
 of God in all the best things said and done by man. 
 There is no truer word than that of Emerson : 
 
 " Out from the heart of Nature rolled 
 The burdens of the Bible old ; 
 The litanies of nations came, 
 Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 
 Up from the burning core below, 
 The canticles of love and woe." 
 
 I would believe more in divine inspiration than the 
 old doctrine allows, not less. That teaches an occa- 
 sional influx from God, coming and then going away ; 
 making a few prophets in a certain land and race, but 
 
I $2 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 nowhere else. I believe in " the prophets who have 
 been since the world began," in a God " who has never 
 left himself without a witness in the world," in a light 
 ''which lightens every man who comes into the world." 
 The old doctrine of inspiration is like a theory of water 
 which should only tell us of the deluge when it rained 
 forty days and forty nights, and when the waters 
 covered the earth. The new doctrine is like the other 
 view of water, which describes its perpetual descent in 
 dews by night, in showers by day, in winter snow and 
 tropical storms, making the whole earth glad and full 
 of life. " For as the rain cometh down and the snow 
 from heaven, and watereth the earth, making it bring 
 forth seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall 
 my word be that proceedeth out of my mouth, saith 
 the Lord." 
 
 It may be said, " If we know so little about the ori- 
 gin of the Bible and how it came together, how can we 
 be sure that we have the right books in it, and not the 
 wrong ones?" There is a principle which applies in 
 literature as well as in science, called " the survival of 
 the fittest." The best writings are preserved by the 
 love of mankind : the poor ones perish. Many of the 
 books of the Old Testament are lost. The present 
 books appeal to them as authority, quote the " Book 
 of Iddo the Seer " and the " Book of Jasher." But it 
 is not probable that we have lost much in losing them. 
 We see something of the New Testament in the proc- 
 ess of formation. Eusebius, about 325, tells us of 
 three classes of books, those generally accepted, those 
 generally rejected, those accepted by some and not by 
 others. One of the books which has now dropped out 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS 153 
 
 entirely was in the MSS. of the New Testament till 
 the fifth century. This was the Epistle of Barnabas. 
 
 The greatness of the Bible does not consist in the 
 tame monotony of one uniform revelation, the same 
 teaching in the Book of Kings as the Gospel of John, 
 but in the very opposite, in a variety which meets 
 every temper of the mind, every phase of life, every 
 tone of earthly experience. There are hours of dark 
 despair, when, of all the books of the Bible, only 
 Ecclesiastes is welcome as an adequate expression of 
 that black mood of the soul. There are hours of bold 
 questioning, when we call on the heaven above and the 
 earth beneath to explain the awful enigmas of human 
 life. And if then, in our most audacious flight of 
 thought, we open the Book of Job, we find a bolder 
 reason than our own, one which casts aside all pious 
 phrases and demands to know the exact truth, the 
 whole truth, and nothing but the truth, whether God is 
 thereby vindicated or not. 
 
 None have done more injustice to the inexhaustible 
 volume of inspiration in the Bible than the long series 
 of theologians who have made it their aim to put the 
 Bible into the press of their system, and to force every 
 part to conform to every other part. Those who find 
 the doctrine of the Trinity in the three angels of the 
 Book of Genesis ; the doctrine of total depravity in the 
 sad wail of Jeremiah over the sins of his time ; who see 
 Anselm's doctrine of atonement typified in the Jewish 
 scapegoat, and the Christian resurrection indicated in 
 Job's desperate cry to God to come and vindicate him 
 in the flesh on earth, such theologians have done 
 their best to squeeze the life out of the Bible. 
 
154 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 How much nobler is Dean Stanley, who speaks thus 
 of the Book of Esther ! 
 
 " It is expedient for us that there should be one book 
 in the Bible which omits the name of God altogether, 
 to prevent us from attaching to the mere name a 
 reverence which belongs only to the reality. . . . The 
 name of God is not there, but the work of God is." 
 "Let those who cling to the authority of every book 
 in the Bible be warned by this not to make a man an 
 offender for a word or the omission of a word. When 
 Esther nerved herself to enter, at the risk of her life 
 the presence of Ahasuerus, 'I will go in unto the 
 King ; and, if I perish, I perish ' ; when her patriotism 
 uttered itself in the noble cry, ' How can I endure to 
 see the evil that shall come upon my people ? how 
 can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?' 
 she then expressed, though she never named the name 
 of God, a religious devotion as acceptable to him as 
 that of Moses and David, who no less sincerely had 
 the sacred name always on their lips." 
 
 Thus speaks Dean Stanley, and adds that Esther in 
 this is the Cordelia of the Bible, the sister who refuses 
 to use words of praise to her father, but acts her grati- 
 tude in her life. 
 
 " Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least; 
 Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds 
 Reverberate no hollowness." 
 
 I wish the Bible to be more loved and honored than 
 it is now, not less. I wish it more a source of faith 
 and hope than now ; to bring us nearer to God than it 
 now does ; to make Christ more interesting, and more 
 
OLD AND NEW VIEWS 155 
 
 of a true Teacher, Master, and Friend. The better we 
 understand it, the more shall we revere it, not with a 
 blind homage, but with an intelligent admiration. The 
 more freely we use our reason, separating the chaff 
 from the wheat, the more will the genuine power and 
 beauty of the Bible be made manifest. God, who has 
 given the Bible, has also given us our reason with 
 which to examine and understand it ; and we are guilty 
 before him if we bury this talent in the earth and hide 
 our Lord's money. 
 
 If we preach a free and rational Christianity, let us do 
 it in order to make men more religious, not less so. 
 Teach them that God loves all his children in all worlds ; 
 that if they are punished for sin, here or hereafter, it 
 is that they may be made better; that God desires 
 1 even the wicked to be as happy as they are capable of 
 being ; that all suffering will be found at last to be the 
 means of greater good ; that we can all begin now to 
 love God, trust in him and serve him ; that to serve 
 him is to do good to our fellow-men ; that true religion 
 is not belief, but life, not creed, but conduct ; that, 
 since God has made us, he must have put something 
 good in all of us, and that we ought to cultivate what- 
 ever in us is good, and so put down the evil ; that God 
 is always near us, an all-surrounding love, ready to 
 help, inspire, and strengthen us ; that all true religion 
 must be in accordance with reason, at harmony with 
 science, art, and literature ; that there can be no war 
 between God's oldest revelation of himself in nature 
 and what he teaches by inspired men. Teach men to 
 see God in all things, in the stars and the rocks, the 
 ocean storms and the tropic calm ; in the infant's smile 
 
156 OLD AND NEW VIEWS 
 
 and the mild evening of a good man's life. Thus shall 
 we oppose best the progress of unbelief and irreligion, 
 and of that moral death which consists in living without 
 God in the world. Let us not be afraid of doubt, for 
 truth can never die. Instead of thinking much of death 
 and hereafter, let us make a heaven here below by 
 faithful lives, and leave our future to God in perfect 
 submission and entire trust. 
 
THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world 
 [age] ? " MATT, xxiv., 3. 
 
 SOME time ago there was held in New York what 
 was called in the programme a " Prophetic Conference " 
 of those who believe in a personal and visible coming 
 of Christ to reign on earth. They seriously and ear- 
 nestly declared their conviction, based on the letter of 
 Scripture, that Christ is to reign on earth with his 
 saints, in outward presence. When he comes, there is 
 to be an audible trumpet blown, and his disciples are to 
 be caught up to meet their Lord in the air. All these 
 Scriptures are to be taken literally, as representing 
 outward commotion, physical disturbance, and mani- 
 festations addressed to the senses. And the great result 
 looked for is the putting down of evil, and the establish- 
 ment of goodness, not by moral, but by physical agency. 
 The power of truth and love having been tried in vain 
 during eighteen centuries, the kingdom of heaven is to 
 be established at last by irresistible force. This is the 
 simple statement of the doctrine held by the excellent 
 and learned gentlemen who joined in the conference. 
 
 And, we must add, it is the belief which has been 
 held very extensively in the Christian Church. The 
 Church has never believed that the world would be 
 converted to Christ by moral and spiritual means 
 
1 58 THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 
 
 alone. It has always anticipated that, after a certain 
 number of years or centuries, the present method of 
 attempting to make men better by preaching Christ, 
 distributing Bibles, and founding churches, would end, 
 and be tried no longer. Instead of it, there would be 
 a day of judgment, an outward revelation of divine 
 power to punish and reward, the good forcibly taken up 
 to heaven, the wicked forcibly sent down to hell. The 
 belief of the Church has been that the moral agencies 
 of Christianity would be only partially successful, and 
 would be finally supplemented by irresistible divine 
 force. The truth and love of God, as shown in Jesus, 
 and the influence of the Holy Spirit on the mind and 
 heart, being found inadequate to convert the world, 
 this experiment will cease, and all spiritual agencies 
 will terminate in a peremptory winding up of the 
 Christian Church on earth, a general settlement of 
 accounts, payment of debts, and a legal adjustment of 
 the affairs of the human race, saints and sinners. 
 
 In this view, it is evident there prevails a deep in- 
 fidelity. It is a declaration of unbelief in the moral 
 and spiritual power of Christianity to overcome evil with 
 good. It is saying to the world: "We know we shall 
 never beat you with our weapons, which are merely 
 moral. But take care : we shall get hold of yours, by 
 and by ; and then we shall conquer you." 
 
 Is this any exaggeration ? Is it not a fair statement 
 of the case ? Let us look and see. 
 
 Christianity teaches that Jesus came to save the 
 world and conquer sin by revealing God's truth and 
 love, by pardoning his enemies, by dying for them on 
 the cross. Christianity is the power which overcomes 
 
THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 159 
 
 evil with good. Christ's kingdom is not of this world. 
 The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy 
 in the Holy Spirit. Flesh and blood cannot see the 
 kingdom of God. When Nicodemus told Jesus that he 
 believed he was a teacher sent from God, because he 
 worked such astounding miracles of power, Jesus re- 
 plied that, with such ideas, he could not even see the 
 coming kingdom. Truth, love, goodness, are the great 
 forces of Christianity, to which it owes all its real suc- 
 cess in the world. If Christ is to reign, he must reign 
 by these means. If every knee bows to him, every knee 
 must bow from conviction and love. If men are com- 
 pelled to submit by a revelation of irresistible power, 
 they do not submit to Christ, and worship him : they 
 bow to force, and worship that. 
 
 This seems elementary. If Christ, who represents 
 the divine truth and love in the world, must finally be 
 placed on his throne by the interference of infinite, irre- 
 sistible power, it is evident that Christ will not reign, 
 but that irresistible power will reign. In that case, 
 Christ and Christianity will confess failure, and abdi- 
 cate, and be replaced by the old dispensation of omnip- 
 otent force. 
 
 This is what literalism leads to, or originates in. It 
 is infidelity disguised as faith. It is a return to the 
 Old Testament, a relapse into Judaism. It is sub- 
 stituting the letter, which kills, for the spirit, which 
 giveth life. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is no doubt true that the New Testa- 
 ment has much to say of the coming of Christ. Jesus 
 himself, at the request of his disciples, answers at 
 length their question in the text, "What shall be the 
 
l6o THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 
 
 signs of thy coming, and of the end of the age ? " It is 
 not "the end of the world," as our translators wrongly 
 have it, but the end of the first dispensation, the pres- 
 ent age of the \vorld. The time before the Messiah was 
 this age ; the time of the Messiah was the coming age, 
 or the world to come. When they asked, " What shall 
 be the signs of thy coming, and of the end of the age?" 
 they asked for the signs of his coming as the Christ. 
 Thus far, he had not come as the Christ, the king : he 
 had appeared only as a prophet, like any other Jewish 
 prophet. 
 
 The idea of a " second coming of Christ" is not in 
 the Bible. There is only one coming, that is, his 
 coming as the Christ, the king. This is the coming 
 everywhere spoken of in the New Testament, and 
 described in images and figures in the Book of Revela- 
 tion. It is the apocalypse, or revelation, of Jesus as 
 the Christ, the king. When he went about preaching 
 in Galilee, he had not come as the Christ, but as a great 
 prophet. When he died on the cross, he had not come 
 as the Christ, but as a great high priest. When would 
 he come as the Christ, as the king ; come to reign over 
 the earth, to put down his enemies, to exalt his friends ? 
 That was what they wished to know. 
 
 And Jesus, who foresaw, in that deep insight which 
 always produces foresight, the evils and woes which 
 would precede the spread of his religion, described 
 them all in words of infinite pathos. But he added 
 a few words which ought to show our modern prophets 
 how much they are mistaken in expecting his coming 
 to be only hereafter, since it had already begun to take 
 place centuries ago. " This generation shall not pass 
 
THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST l6l 
 
 away till all these things are fulfilled." If Christ spoke 
 truth, his coming began before that generation passed 
 away. That age came to an end; and his kingdom was 
 set up when Jerusalem fell, when the temple was de- 
 stroyed and the Jews dispersed. Then Christianity 
 took the place of Judaism as the great monotheistic 
 religion of the world. Down to that time, Moses had 
 been the religious leader of mankind ; henceforth, Jesus 
 became its religious leader. That was his coming, the 
 end of that age, and the beginning of another. 
 
 If this is so, then the coming of Christ was not out- 
 ward and visible, but in the power of his truth and his 
 love. And is not this always his true coming, the 
 coming of faith, hope, and love in the human heart ? 
 To each of us Christ comes, when he thus comes ; 
 when he is born within us the hope of glory. " The 
 kingdom of God cometh not with observation : neither 
 shall they say, Lo, here ! or, Lo, there ! for the king- 
 dom of God is within you." " Flesh and blood " do not 
 inherit that kingdom, the physical senses do not see it 
 nor hear it : it is a revelation of God to the soul. 
 Which is better, to be caught up outwardly, in the air, 
 to meet Christ; or to be caught up inwardly into 
 communion with his spirit ? There is nothing local or 
 material about Christ's coming. 
 
 When Christ described his coming and the events 
 which should precede it, he used the high poetic 
 language of the soul. Not only as a man of the East 
 he spoke in figures, but also as a prophet to whom 
 outward things were, as they always are, the types and 
 symbols of inward realities. Prosaic people took him 
 literally then, and they take him literally now. When 
 
1 62 THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 
 
 he told them they must eat his flesh and drink 
 his blood in order to get any good out of him, they 
 were displeased, and said, " How can this man give 
 us his flesh to eat?" "Flesh!" he answered, "the 
 flesh profits nothing. Only the spirit of what I say 
 will quicken your dead souls." "The letter kills," 
 said the apostle, even the letter of the New Testament. 
 But not the less from that day to this have prosaic 
 pedants clung to the letter of his words, building up 
 theories about a reign on earth of a thousand years, 
 of audible trumpets and visible angels, of material fire 
 and a great noise. That which babes in faith can 
 understand, these wise and prudent theologians fail to 
 see. Since Christ is spirit, his only possible coming 
 is a spiritual coming. Suppose he should come as 
 a flesh and blood Christ, how would that help us ? 
 Did not Paul say that he did not wish to know Christ 
 after the flesh ? His coming, if it is to bless us, must 
 be wholly spiritual. The angels who shall call his 
 chosen ones from the four quarters of the earth are 
 those mighty convictions which are to bring all human 
 souls together into one common faith. The heavenly 
 trumpet is the voice of truth, which rouses us from the 
 slumber of indifference and unbelief. The greatest 
 clamor in the air is not as glorious as the still, soft 
 voice in the heart, which awakens penitence and hope. 
 The burning of the sky and land in a material con- 
 flagration is a matter of little consequence compared 
 with the burning up of evil and sin in human hearts. 
 To substitute, then, an outward coming of Christ in 
 the air for an inward coming in the soul, a seen and 
 temporal coming for an unseen and eternal one, is to 
 
THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 163 
 
 degrade the gospel to the level of a commonplace 
 superstition. 
 
 Rightly understood, Christ's coming is perpetual 
 and continuous. We are not to stand looking up into 
 the sky expecting him, but to look into our hearts 
 and around into the world, and find him now. Do not 
 look for him to-morrow, or next year. Let to-morrow 
 take care of itself. Now is the accepted time, now 
 is the day of salvation. Christ comes to us every day, 
 when we are led to think right, feel right, do right. 
 
 Christ so identified himself with his gospel that 
 he knew that wherever that went he himself would be. 
 He lived in his disciples and in God. "I in them, 
 and they in me." Paul said that he himself did not 
 live, but that Christ lived in him, the hidden man of 
 his heart. So we also have a right to feel, whenever 
 we are lifted above ourselves, by any noble desire, any 
 generous purpose, any power by which we can do real 
 good to our fellow-men, Christ is now living within us, 
 and is nearer to us then than if we saw his visible 
 manifestation in the sky. 
 
 If Christ were to come to-day to Boston in outward 
 visible presence ; if he should come surrounded by 
 angels ; if he should come with power to raise the 
 dead, and to work mighty miracles, that would still 
 be no real coming of Christ to those unprepared to re- 
 ceive him. He would be no nearer to them than he 
 is now. 
 
 And to the humble, the upright, the honest seekers 
 after truth, to those who trust to the infinite tender- 
 ness of God, Christ is as near now as he would be 
 then. Looking at the outward Christ with the out- 
 
164 THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 
 
 ward eye is not seeing him. We do not see him till 
 we look at him inwardly, with the eye of the soul. 
 
 When Jesus described the judgment of the world, 
 which was to take place at his coming, when all the 
 heathen nations should come to be judged, and be 
 divided, the sheep from the goats, he described the 
 judgment which is always going on in the world. 
 Whenever a new truth comes to the world or to the 
 soul, it divides the sheep from the goats. Those who 
 are prepared for it by the love of goodness, those who 
 have their lamps burning, and keep oil in them, are 
 able to accept the truth, and go into the marriage feast 
 of law and gospel, faith and works, truth and love. 
 For let us remember that the essential coming of Jesus 
 is always the reconciliation of divine truth and love in 
 the soul. 
 
 Here is a man who believes in God's truth, but not 
 in God's love. He has a sense of duty, a feeling of 
 responsibility ; he is weighed down by the pressure 
 of sin ; he is worried by anxiety about doing his duties 
 in the right way. But he has no real confidence in 
 God or God's fatherly love. Perhaps, some day, in the 
 midst of his depression, a light streams in. All at 
 once, he sees that he can trust his heavenly Father, 
 just as his own child trusts himself. The moment he 
 sees this, and feels it, Christ has come to him. As 
 long as he feels it, Christ dwells in him. Life is new 
 to him, full of hope and joy. He may use the lan- 
 guage of Paul, and say, "The life I now live in the 
 flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God." 
 
 And here is another man, who has spent his life in 
 a routine of work, who has never doubted God's love 
 or his providence, but has labored in a narrow sphere, 
 
THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 165 
 
 only for himself and his family. He has not gone out 
 of himself in sympathy with others, he has not had 
 his share in that double blessing which comes to those 
 who are helping others. But, one day, he is led to take 
 an interest in some divine truth, to take hold of some 
 good cause not his own, to make some sacrifice to help 
 others. Then a new peace comes to him, a new life 
 is poured into his heart. Christ has now come to him, 
 and is born in him the hope of glory. 
 
 If we look for a Christ coming in the sky, sitting on 
 the clouds, surrounded with visible angels, blowing an 
 audible trumpet, we shall not see the real Christ who 
 is here at our side in the streets of Boston. That is 
 the objection to these prophetic expectations, that 
 they dull our souls to the ever-present realities of God 
 and heaven. 
 
 The real Christ will come to you to-morrow, if you 
 will. When you go to your work, if you ask of God a 
 right spirit ; if you begin the day with the desire to be 
 of use to some one, to be in a spirit of true sympathy 
 with those about you ; and go through it thus, trust- 
 ing in God's presence and help to enable you to do 
 some good to your fellow-men, you will have Christ 
 with you all the day. You will not see any shining 
 cross in the sky, but you will be able to bear your 
 earthly cross, and will find yourself brought into 
 kindly relations with others, able to help them in 
 simple ways, giving and receiving sympathy. This is 
 the real coming of Christ to us ; and thus we hear him 
 saying, "Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these 
 my brethren, ye did it unto me." 
 
 Christ also comes in the great events of history, 
 which contribute to the progress of the human race. 
 
1 66 THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 
 
 When Jerusalem was compassed with armies, and 
 terrible bloodshed and awful suffering fell on the na- 
 tion ; when the vast courts of the temple were slippery 
 with blood, and at last the holy place, so wonderful in 
 its majestic beauty, was wrapped in flames, that was 
 a coming of Christ. For, out of the midst of those 
 horrors, came a new and better day. The disciples of 
 Jesus, driven from Judea, went everywhere preaching 
 the word. Christianity, instead of continuing a Jewish 
 sect, was transformed into the religion of the world. 
 
 So, when the barbarians, pouring down on the 
 Roman empire, seemed about to destroy the civiliza- 
 tion of the past, treading with ruthless feet on litera- 
 ture, art, knowledge, it, nevertheless, was another 
 coming of Christ. For then the old worn-out races 
 and institutions gave way, and the new history began. 
 Modern Europe rests on the union of Roman laws and 
 customs with Teutonic freedom, and both are held to- 
 gether by Christian faith. 
 
 The Lutheran Reformation came with war, suffering, 
 bloodshed, and men's hearts failing them for terror. 
 Yet out of it all came freedom of thought, independ- 
 ence of religion, manly faith, and the spirit of modern 
 progress. Modern science and modern discoveries have 
 been influenced, if not created, by that vast movement 
 of free thought. That was also a coming of Christ. 
 
 When our Civil War came, amid its horrors there 
 came also an end to that evil which was itself a per- 
 petual war. With the end of slavery, with the begin- 
 ning of a real union of these States, a new epoch came 
 in the life of the world, in the progress of humanity. 
 
 Thus, the descriptions which Christ gave of the 
 
THE TRUE COMING OF CHRIST 167 
 
 signs of his coming and the end of that age are ful- 
 filled anew in every development of Christian history. 
 Mankind still marches forward, through evil into a 
 higher good, through war to a deeper peace, through 
 sin to a better salvation. 
 
 It advances through tempests, earthquakes, and fiery 
 outbursts of evil, hearing at last the still, small voice of 
 a divine faith and love. 
 
 Therefore, do not ask, When is Christ coming and 
 when is he to appear ? You will not find the answer 
 by the study of prophecy or by calculating the seventy 
 weeks of Daniel. Christ is here now, if you will open 
 your soul to him. He is not hidden, nor afar off. 
 Whenever you will try to do your duty, trusting in 
 God ; whenever you will help and comfort any weary 
 soul ; whenever you will forgive those whom you think 
 have injured you, and do good to those who treat you 
 with seeming scorn ; when you will put out of your 
 heart envy and low ambition, poor vanity, self-conceit, 
 and give yourself to what is generous, true, and lovely, 
 you will discover that Christ has already come; for 
 his hour cometh always, and is now. 
 
 Thou comest, O my Master, 
 
 'Mid shock of fire and steel, 
 In trouble and disaster, 
 
 To soothe and save and heal. 
 For thou art always nearest 
 
 When we are most alone, 
 And thy dear love is dearest 
 
 When other loves are flown. 
 When hearts are sick with sorrow, 
 
 When souls are torn by sin, 
 Then shines the better morrow, 
 
 Then dawns the peace within. 
 
AGNOSTICISM vs. POSITIVISM. 
 
 AN interesting work has lately appeared called The 
 Insuppressible Book. It contains, reprinted from mag- 
 azines, articles by Herbert Spencer and Frederic 
 Harrison, in which they carry on a discussion as to 
 the nature of religion and the object of worship. 
 Spencer is an agnostic, Harrison is a positivist. Both 
 believe that the worship of a personal God, who is at 
 once infinite in power, knowledge, and goodness, has 
 passed by. But they differ very strongly and radically 
 as to what is to take the place of the God and Father 
 of Jesus Christ, and as to what constitutes the essence 
 of religion. The book gives us a specimen of anti- 
 theological controversy quite as sharp and stinging as 
 were the old disputes among theologians. This shows 
 us that unbelief no less than belief may be the source 
 of controversy, and that polemical disputes do not 
 come from religion, but from human nature. It also 
 shows that men cannot live without faith, and that the 
 last scrap of faith that remains to them is so precious 
 that it cannot be relinquished without a severe struggle. 
 Herbert Spencer clings to his belief in an unknown 
 God as firmly as Athanasius did to his Trinity; and 
 Frederic Harrison cannot spare the luxury of worship- 
 ping that curious abstraction, the spirit of Humanity. 
 The aspirations of man toward the unseen and infinite 
 
AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 169 
 
 Source of all things may not be suppressed. No 
 sooner does a generation turn from its old faith than 
 it eagerly seeks for something to take its place. If 
 it does not believe in God, it believes in ghosts, or 
 in Esoteric Buddhism, or in Theosophic visions, or 
 the adoration of the Unknowable, or the worship of 
 Humanity. 
 
 There have been periods in which whole nations and 
 communities have held, without doubt or inquiry, a 
 traditional religion. They acquiesced in its tenets, 
 accepted its sacraments, and thought no more about it. 
 Our age is different. It is intensely interested in all 
 that relates to religious questions. Nothing is too 
 sacred to be examined : all questions are open 
 questions. This last is much the more hopeful condi- 
 tion of the two. Lazy assent is not faith, is not even 
 belief. A mind which is awake and active is sure, at 
 last, to arrive at truth : one which is asleep is inca- 
 pable either of belief or unbelief. 
 
 I find this discussion between Spencer and Harrison 
 very interesting, as showing how impossible it is to 
 rest long in negations. Herbert Spencer clings to the 
 conviction, which he calls " an absolute certainty," that 
 "all things proceed from an infinite and eternal 
 Energy," and that this is "the one indestructible 
 element of consciousness " ; and that belief in this 
 Power, which transcends phenomena, has the highest 
 validity of any of our beliefs. But for certain logical 
 reasons, which appear to me somewhat illogical, he 
 maintains that we know nothing of the nature of this 
 infinite Energy. 
 
 To this statement, Frederic Harrison replies by 
 
170 AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 
 
 saying that such a belief is not a religion, but the 
 ghost of a religion ; that no one can worship or obey 
 an unknown God. " The roots and fibres of religion," 
 he says, "are to be found in love, awe, sympathy, 
 gratitude, consciousness of inferiority and dependence, 
 community of will, . . . reverence for majesty, goodness, 
 creative energy and life. Where these things are not, 
 religion is not." And he adds that no one can worship, 
 love, or obey the Unknowable, and that therefore Mr. 
 Spencer's religion is no religion. " The something of 
 which we can neither know nor conceive anything is 
 practically nothing." " You cannot check vice, crime, 
 and war by the ' Absolute Unknowable,' nor train up 
 men and women by it to holiness and truth." Take 
 away the human element out of religion, and there is 
 no working religion ; and the new cry against anthro- 
 pomorphism, or seeing mind, heart, and will in God 
 like those in ourselves, Mr. Harrison finds absurd and 
 false. If there are no human elements in the Deity, 
 then we can neither love nor obey him. 
 
 In this criticism on Spencer, Mr. Harrison seems to 
 me essentially right. But, when he gives us his own 
 object of worship, I think he becomes essentially 
 wrong. Humanity alone, he says, is the object of 
 worship. We know nothing of the supernatural world, 
 but we do know the human world; and "the great 
 being, Humanity," is the grandest object of rever- 
 ence and love. 
 
 To this, Mr. Spencer replies, and with much force, so 
 far as Mr. Harrison's new religion is concerned. To 
 worship " the great being, Humanity," is to worship 
 human folly and ignorance, as well as human knowledge 
 
AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 17 1 
 
 and goodness ; it is to worship slaveholding, war, and 
 the public opinion which approves the oppression of 
 weak nations by the strong. If " humanity sweeps 
 onward," it is by an unconscious process, and not by 
 any deliberate purpose of human beings as a whole. 
 The veneration and gratitude due to this progress do 
 not belong to human nature, but to that great ultimate 
 Cause from which it comes ; not to the bubbles floating 
 on the river, but to the vast current which carries them 
 forward. This is the grand " stream of Creative 
 Power," unlimited in space and time, of which hu- 
 manity is a transitory product. The worship of Hu- 
 manity, then, can never be a religion, since, for man- 
 kind to worship and adore, it needs to look up to some 
 power higher and better than itself. 
 
 To this, Mr. Harrison answers that an unknown God 
 cannot be the object of faith and obedience, and that 
 these constitute religion. He maintains that the vast 
 majority of thinkers agree that the foundation of a 
 creed must rest on the known and knowable. So say 
 theists and atheists, Christians and sceptics, Catho- 
 lics and unbelievers. By the religion of Humanity, Mr. 
 Harrison says he means one of social duties, a regard 
 for the rights of others, living for one's fellow-men. 
 The religion of Humanity means these sentiments 
 "pushed to their full extent, and crowned by sympathy 
 and imagination." It is " morality fused with social 
 devotion and enlightened by sound philosophy." This, 
 Mr. Harrison believes, will take the place of all faith 
 in a higher power, all worship of God, and all sense of 
 dependence on him. But there will be no religion and 
 no progress, no fulness of generous love and devoted 
 
172 AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 
 
 affection, if we take a cynical view of human nature, 
 and regard men as no better than animals, and subjects 
 for contempt. 
 
 I will not follow this debate any further. Both of 
 our philosophers reject the Christian religion. Mr. 
 Spencer makes it a point of conscience never to enter 
 a church : Mr. Harrison hopes for the day in which 
 Christianity will come to an end. But, if we put to- 
 gether what each affirms, and leave out what each 
 denies, we shall have as the result the substance of 
 Christian faith and Christian conduct. . 
 
 It has often been remarked that, in a controversy, the 
 affirmatives on each side are apt to be true, and the 
 negatives false. The famous debate of the two knights 
 as to whether the shield hanging between them was 
 gold or silver illustrates this principle. Each was 
 right in what he asserted, and wrong in what he 
 denied. One said it was gold, and in this was right ; 
 for the side which he saw was gold. He denied that 
 it was silver, and in this was wrong ; for the other side 
 was silver. What we see we know and can assert ; 
 but there may be a great deal which we do not see, 
 and we are wrong if we deny its existence. 
 
 Mr. Spencer sees that there is an infinite Being be- 
 hind all phenomena, " an infinite and eternal Energy, 
 by which all things are created and sustained, the 
 ultimate Cause of all things." In this affirmation, he 
 is at one with the highest philosophy and theology 
 of all times, at one with Socrates and Plato, with 
 Augustine and Aquinas, with Leibnitz and Kant, with 
 Bishop Butler and Lord Bacon. But he denies that we 
 can conceive of this First Cause in terms of human 
 
AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 173 
 
 consciousness, that we can ascribe to the Unknowable 
 love, will, intelligence. In this denial, he is opposed 
 to the great thinkers I have mentioned, and opposed 
 to the universal religious experience of the human race. 
 
 That which Mr. Spencer denies Mr. Harrison 
 affirms. He contends for an object of worship known, 
 real, and in sympathy with human needs and human 
 aspirations. In this assertion, he puts himself in line 
 with the highest religion of mankind ; for Christianity 
 teaches that Jesus, the man of men, was the image of 
 the unseen God. It teaches that the intelligence, 
 freedom, and affection of the human soul are the best 
 revelations of that which is infinite and eternal. God 
 in nature is seen as the infinite and eternal source 
 of all things. God in Christ is seen as the Father, 
 Saviour, and Friend of his creatures. If, then, we 
 combine what Mr. Spencer and Mr. Harrison affirm, 
 we have at once the infinite Being and the personal 
 Friend. If we accept what each sees and reject what 
 each is unable to see, we find that the sincerest thought 
 of the world brings us back to the teaching of Jesus. 
 
 This discussion shows us also that the old method of 
 suppressing doubt and denial was far inferior to the 
 modern way of leaving thought free. The freest 
 thought is sure to bring us to the highest truth. But, 
 when we attempt to suppress thought, we are like those 
 who, to avoid the noise of escaping steam, fasten down 
 the safety-valve of a steam-engine. Then comes the 
 risk of explosion and disaster. 
 
 These are questions which cannot be suppressed, 
 which come to the surface again and again. They can 
 only be finally settled on the principles of truth and 
 justice. 
 
174 AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 
 
 It is interesting to observe how impossible it is for 
 man to ignore the relation he sustains to the Deity. 
 Here are two leading thinkers, one an agnostic, 
 declaring that we know nothing of God ; the other a 
 positivist, asserting that we only know material phe- 
 nomena. And they engage in a serious discussion con- 
 cerning the true object of worship. The agnostic 
 declares that we have an absolute certainty of the 
 existence of an infinite and eternal Energy above all 
 material phenomena, from which matter and mind both 
 proceed. He will not call this power God, but he 
 affirms it to be the infinite and eternal Being, Source 
 of all things ; and that is what Christians know as 
 God. When Paul saw the altar to the unknown God, 
 he told the Athenians that this was the power in 
 whom we live and move and have our being. 
 
 What reasons does Mr. Spencer give for denying to 
 the infinite Being the attributes of intelligence, affec- 
 tion, personality, and will, analogous to those in man ? 
 He thinks that, as the process of evolution goes on, 
 such human attributes drop out of the conception of 
 Deity, till religion ends in reverence for the mysterious 
 and unknown basis of all being. But why does he 
 thus believe? His objections, as he states them, to 
 all human conceptions of the Deity, are purely meta- 
 physical. They are not original with him; they are 
 borrowed, through Dean Mansel, from Sir William 
 Hamilton, who declared that the Infinite could not be 
 known, but must be believed. Herbert Spencer is 
 more logical, and declares that the attributes of Deity 
 which cannot be known cannot be believed; for how 
 can we believe that of which we know nothing? 
 
AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 175 
 
 The objections urged against our knowledge of God 
 by Hamilton, Mansel, Spencer, and Harrison are based 
 on a supposed impossibility of conceiving an infinite 
 Being occupying itself with finite ends or transactions. 
 Here is his statement in its most condensed form : " A 
 consciousness constituted of ideas and feelings caused 
 by separate objects and occurrences cannot be simul- 
 taneously occupied with all objects and occurrences. . . . 
 The willing of each end excludes from consciousness 
 for an interval the willing of other ends, and is there- 
 fore inconsistent with that omnipresent activity which 
 simultaneously works out an infinity of ends." That 
 is to say, that our human conception of intelligence 
 and will forbids us from conceiving of their being 
 occupied with more than one thing at a time. Such, 
 however, is not the case. A person playing on a piano 
 is at once directing the movement of his fingers, read- 
 ing the score, and perhaps listening to what some one 
 else is saying. If man can attend to two or three 
 things at once, why cannot an infinite Being attend to 
 all things at once ? Moreover, Spencer's argument, if 
 fatal to human conceptions of the Deity, is equally fatal 
 to his own conception of an infinite and eternal Energy 
 from which all things proceed. For all that we know 
 of force or energy is its operation in single instances, 
 in the fall of a particular stone or the movement of 
 a particular planet. An energy which causes all things 
 is as foreign from human experience as an intelligence 
 which comprehends all things. 
 
 Such purely metaphysical arguments produce no per- 
 manent conviction. To tell us that we cannot believe 
 what we are in fact believing is logical trifling. But 
 
176 AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 
 
 the whole foundation of the agnostic theory is such a 
 series of quibbles. The conception of a personal Deity, 
 it is said, is unthinkable, because personality, as we 
 know it, is finite and limited. But, as we do actually 
 carry in thought this belief in an infinite Person, it will 
 be difficult to persuade us that it is unthinkable. It 
 seems hardly possible that such an acute mind as 
 Spencer's should not have seen the fallacy of his 
 arguments against anthropomorphism, if he had not 
 confounded it with the low conception of Deity around 
 him. To him, a personal God means one who is angry, 
 who is changeable, who creates beings foreordained to 
 endless suffering. But the essence of personal being 
 is not found in such views as these. Fundamentally, 
 it means that unity of intelligence, love, and freedom 
 which are combined and correlated in the human soul. 
 The more perfect the harmony of these three elements, 
 the higher is personality in man. When the human 
 will acts freely, out of knowledge and toward love, man 
 is at his best. Pure knowledge is mental sight, and 
 has none of the limitations which belong to the reflec- 
 tive intelligence. Love is not a changing emotion, but 
 a permanent direction of the soul toward good. Will, 
 when perfectly free, does not imply effort, but pure 
 activity and fulness of life. Conceive of these ele- 
 ments, love, light, life, carried to the infinite perfection, 
 and you have the conception of Him who is eternal 
 goodness, perfect wisdom, and an unchanging law of 
 creative life. This is the true conception of the divine 
 personality. 
 
 And this conception of personality is higher than 
 that of energy or power. If God is by definition the 
 
AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 177 
 
 infinite Being and the perfect Being, we cannot exclude 
 personality from the idea of Deity without taking a 
 lower view of God in this respect than of man. Good- 
 ness is greater than power. An infinite but blind 
 energy is below a finite intelligence, and unconscious 
 creative force is inferior in kind to the quality of gener- 
 ous devotion in human hearts. If, then, we would 
 avoid the conception of an imperfect and finite Deity, 
 we must include in our idea of God intelligence, love, 
 and will, in perfect harmony of action. The great Greek 
 tragedian declared this long ago, when he made his 
 Prometheus wise, generous, and unchanging in his 
 resolutions, and thus superior to the despot who tor- 
 mented him by the exercise of infinite force. 
 
 " His godlike crime was to be kind ; 
 To render by his precepts less 
 The sum of human wretchedness, 
 And strengthen man in his own mind." 
 
 The advancing religious conception will not leave 
 behind any of the great convictions which have in- 
 spired the past, but will carry them upward to a higher 
 and larger idea. It will combine the faith in that 
 presence which the heaven of heavens cannot contain 
 with the providential care without which not a spar- 
 row falls to the ground. That which makes the Bible 
 the handbook of religious faith is that it unites these 
 conceptions of the eternal and infinite Being of beings 
 with that of the father, helper, and savior of every 
 trusting soul. It tells us that "from him and through 
 him and to him are all things," and also that we are 
 in him and he in us, and that he is faithful and just 
 
178 AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 
 
 to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un- 
 righteousness. The humblest Christian combines in 
 his simple faith the affirmations of Spencer and of 
 Harrison, and thus sees more of God than either. 
 
 Yet let us do full justice to the service rendered by 
 science to religion. It is a very short time since the- 
 ologians and preachers undertook to expound the in- 
 most mysteries of the Godhead, and to define the rela- 
 tion and office of each of the three infinite Persons. 
 It is not long since they talked familiarly of God's plans 
 and purposes, and ascribed to the infinite Mind the con- 
 ception of a "plan of salvation" and a "scheme of re- 
 demption," thinking God altogether such a one as 
 they themselves. It is only recently that they de- 
 nounced damnation from God against those who did 
 not receive their dogmas, or those who did not worship 
 according to their ritual. They limited the love of God 
 to a few of his children, and regarded him as chiefly 
 occupied with this world and the destiny of the Jewish 
 nation, interfering to reward or punish by special mira- 
 cles. They assumed that the universe of suns and 
 stars was created some six thousand years ago, and 
 that man was then placed in a garden in Meso- 
 potamia. 
 
 Then astronomy came, and showed what a minute 
 atom our earth is among the millions of suns and 
 worlds that are revealed by the telescope. Geology 
 came, and unrolled the rocky leaves of the history of 
 the planet, and showed us during what enormous 
 periods the creation of the earth was going on, and 
 that man has existed here not thousands, but probably 
 hundreds of thousands of years. Thus, science has 
 
AGNOSTICISM VS. POSITIVISM 179 
 
 caused us to lift up our eyes, and arrive at conceptions 
 of the Deity larger and far more worthy of him. And 
 so, in the progressive thought of the world, truth and 
 love will meet together, science and faith kiss each 
 other. Knowledge shall spring out of the earth, and 
 religion shall look down from heaven. 
 
THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 STATE HELP vs. SELF-HELP. 
 
 WE all remember in our ^Esop the story of "Her- 
 cules and the Wagoner." The wagon was fast in the 
 deep clay ; and the wagoner, instead of endeavoring to 
 pry it out, knelt and prayed to Hercules to get it out 
 for him. Hercules replied, "Take hold yourself, and 
 then I will help you." The moral of the story is still 
 timely and needed. How apt we are to seek the help 
 of others instead of doing the work ourselves ! Man 
 is naturally a lazy animal, who finds it easier to lean on 
 another's strength than to exert his own. Let me 
 illustrate the fable by present events. A custom is 
 growing up among us of calling on the national or the 
 State governments to do what the people are quite 
 able to do themselves. The nation is the wagoner; 
 and it is acquiring the habit of calling on its govern- 
 ment, which it regards as a sort of demigod, a Her- 
 cules, to help it out of its difficulties. 
 
 How impossible it is to help one who will make no 
 exertion on his own behalf ! The almsgiving conscien- 
 tiously taught as a duty by the Roman Catholic Church 
 in Europe produced a class of beggars who made 
 mendicancy their regular business. Protestants have 
 
THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY l8l 
 
 fallen into the same mistake, and by giving to all who 
 ask have often done more harm than good. There are 
 so many charitable societies in Boston that an ingenious 
 person who does not wish to bear his own burdens has 
 often been able to obtain a very good support, without 
 working, by going first to one benevolent association 
 and then to another. For this reason, the Associated 
 Charities was established, which keeps a record of such 
 cases ; and, by applying to this board, one can usually 
 learn whether an applicant ought to be helped or not. 
 
 But it is not merely private benevolence which some- 
 times does more harm than good. Aid given through 
 the government is still more likely to be abused. There 
 are some things which the government must do for 
 the community, because individuals are not competent. 
 That which is necessary for the welfare of the public, 
 and yet which the people are unable to accomplish for 
 themselves, may very properly be done by the govern- 
 ment ; that is, by the people acting in their collective 
 capacity. On this principle, the government lays out 
 roads, erects light-houses, establishes courts of justice, 
 organizes the army and navy for national defence, 
 conducts the postal service, and taxes the people for 
 public schools. As society advances, what was once 
 a matter of luxury outside of the sphere of government 
 becomes a necessity for human comfort and happiness. 
 Hence, we have public parks, a public library, and 
 various public improvements. 
 
 But here comes in the danger of assuming that 
 whatever the people want the government ought to 
 do. And that danger is increasing. I think it is be- 
 coming too much the fashion to call on the govern- 
 
l82 THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 
 
 ment to do what the people ought to do in their private 
 capacity. Formerly, the democratic theory required a 
 strict construction of the powers of the government. 
 Nothing must be done by Congress which was not 
 explicitly warranted by the letter of the Constitution. 
 The constant fear was that the legislative body would 
 assume powers which did not belong to it. Hence, 
 the opposition to the United States Bank, and to that 
 very modest form of internal improvement known as 
 the Cumberland, or National, road. This salutary 
 dread lest the legislative body might exceed its legit- 
 imate powers is rapidly passing away. Let us look at 
 some examples of the habit which has grown up of 
 asking the central government to do what it would 
 be much better for the people to do for themselves. 
 
 One of the most plausible propositions of this sort 
 is that which asks the government to appropriate an 
 enormous sum from the national treasury to support 
 Southern schools. It is plausible, because resting on 
 the fact that the colored freemen of the South never 
 had the opportunity in slavery times of going to school; 
 and, since they were emancipated, their whole energy 
 has hardly been sufficient to enable them to obtain the 
 necessities of life. Five millions of people came out 
 of slavery into freedom with absolutely nothing, not 
 really owning an acre of land nor the clothing upon 
 their backs, nor a plough or mule ; for these were the 
 property of their former owners. It is marvellous 
 that they should have done so well. They are fast 
 becoming owners of the soil ; they are eager to learn ; 
 they engage in various trades. It is asked, ought not 
 the government, which has given them freedom and 
 
THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 183 
 
 the ballot, to teach them how to use these privileges 
 aright ? It is a kind feeling which prompts the pro- 
 posed gift ; but is it wise ? The Southern States, so 
 Mr. Mayo tells us, are making great efforts for public 
 schools. He assures us that the white people of the 
 South are practically unanimous in their desire to have 
 the negro educated, and are making great exertions to 
 have him taught to read and write, which before the 
 war they took the greatest pains to prevent. The old 
 slave States are spending more than fifteen millions 
 for education, and increasing the amount every year. 
 They are bearing their own burden nobly. If the 
 United States undertakes to do it for them, their own 
 interest will be likely to slacken. We have had one 
 proof of this in the case of Connecticut. This State 
 received a sum of about two millions from the sale of 
 the Western Reserve in Ohio, and invested it as a 
 school fund. The result was disastrous. The people 
 lost their interest in the schools when they were no 
 longer obliged to pay for them, and the cause of edu- 
 cation went backward. So it will be in the South, 
 if this large government aid is given unconditionally. 
 If the amount of help given to each State should be 
 about half as much as the State should raise itself, the 
 effect of the donation might not be so bad, though 
 even then it would probably be injurious. Encourage 
 the colored people by private sympathy and private 
 help, but do not teach them to lean on the government. 
 Help them to help themselves. 
 
 Another proposition of the same sort is that of ex- 
 empting the soldiers of the war from the operation of 
 the civil service law. The old soldiers already have 
 
184 THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 
 
 a preference by law over others, when they are equal 
 to others on the examination. It is now asked that, 
 without passing any examination, veterans shall be pre- 
 ferred for appointment and employment over others 
 who have been examined under the civil service rules. 
 This proposal, which was defeated last year in our 
 legislature, is again being urged. There are three 
 serious objections to it, either of which ought to insure 
 its defeat. 
 
 i. It is an insult to the soldiers. It assumes that 
 their capacity and attainments are below those of the 
 rest of the community, and that they are unable to 
 pass the examinations to which other applicants for 
 office are subjected. It also assumes that they are 
 anxious to be excused from the operations of the laws 
 which are for the benefit of the community ; that they 
 wish for special privileges ; that they desire to have 
 offices for which they cannot show themselves fitted. 
 All these assumptions are false. The soldiers them- 
 selves make no such claim. They ask no special 
 favors. When the war ended, these men, who had 
 given up their occupations in order to save the country, 
 did not ask the government to take care of them, but 
 quietly returned to their homes, and found for them- 
 selves new means of support. Now, twenty years after, 
 it is assumed by those who profess to be their friends, 
 that they need some peculiar privileges denied to the 
 rest of their fellow-citizens. I contend that it is a 
 gross insult to the soldiers themselves to assume that 
 they desire any such favors. The great body of vet- 
 erans have never made any such request. This pro- 
 posal is, in part at least, the suggestion of those who 
 
THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 185 
 
 hope to win popularity by advocating it. But I trust 
 that the men who went to fight for their nation without 
 any thought of reward, and who feel it recompense 
 enough to have served and saved the country, will 
 reject such appeals to their selfish interests. 
 
 2. The second objection to this measure is that it is 
 an indirect attack on the principle of civil service re- 
 form. This reform is working so well that those who 
 dislike it, but are afraid to assail it openly, make use 
 of the popularity of the soldiers to break it down. 
 The civil service rules take the offices away from par- 
 tisan leaders, and open them to the whole community. 
 Those whose chief stock in trade has consisted in 
 managing the offices now find themselves without 
 influence. They hope to regain it by this plan, and to 
 bring back the times when offices were given, not to 
 those fitted for their duties, but to those who could 
 secure most votes for their party. 
 
 3. The third objection to k this proposal is that it is 
 anti-American. It will create a privileged class among 
 us, exempted from the conditions of the rest of the 
 community. Soldiers, of all men, need least to be thus 
 set apart as a distinct order. And I repeat that this 
 proposal did not originate with the soldiers themselves. 
 Some may have been led to indorse it, but it is not 
 a soldiers' movement. Our veterans have no desire to 
 be made into an aristocracy or an order apart from 
 others. If they saw the danger hidden in these plausi- 
 ble requests which others make for them, I think they 
 would indignantly refuse such favors. The danger is 
 real. We are drifting away from republican simplic- 
 ity. Government is asked to pension our Presidents, 
 
l86 THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 
 
 to erect costly monuments to our heroes, to increase 
 indefinitely the vast sums paid in pensions. Washing- 
 ton sleeps in his simple tomb at Mt. Vernon, his great 
 memory shedding a halo around the lowly resting-place. 
 Abraham Lincoln lies at Springfield, and he needs no 
 pile of marble to make us remember that he was the 
 savior of the nation and the emancipator of a race. 
 Grant's fame is forever enshrined in his deeds and in 
 the history which records them. What will he or the 
 nation gain by having' two hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars put into a heap of stone ? Each of these heroes 
 can say, "Exegi monumentum aere perennius." How 
 much more touching to the imagination and the heart 
 is the lonely tumulus at Marathon or the sacred mound 
 at Waterloo than the costly statues of admirals and 
 generals which crowd Westminster Abbey, where the 
 bad taste of the art is only matched by the insignifi- 
 cance of the subject! 
 
 The system of pensions in the Old World has 
 grown to such corrupt excess that it has been opposed 
 by all sound statesmanship. Here we seem inclined to 
 let it go all lengths. Certainly, no one objects to the 
 national hospitals, where disabled veterans are sup- 
 ported in comfort as long as they live. No one com- 
 plains when needy soldiers and their widows are 
 provided for by the nation. But the system of pen- 
 sions has now outstripped all possibility of being regu- 
 lated. Last year, sixty-five millions of dollars were 
 distributed among three hundred and forty-five thou- 
 sand nominal pensioners. How large a part of this 
 went to pension agents or into the pockets of those 
 who never saw a field of battle, no one can tell. The 
 
THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 187 
 
 effect, on the whole, of giving away such vast amounts 
 of money as a gratuity from the pockets of the tax- 
 payers must be demoralizing. As to pensioning Presi- 
 dents and their widows from the public funds, it is, 
 perhaps, enough to say that this had better be postponed 
 till it becomes difficult to find persons willing to accept 
 the Presidential office. We have not reached the con- 
 dition of England, where Lord Salisbury is to receive 
 $25,000 a year during life for having occupied the office 
 of Premier during three months, but we are rapidly 
 moving in that direction. 
 
 All the money which Congress can vote for such 
 purposes as these comes from the taxes paid by the 
 whole people, and ought to be used for the good of 
 the whole people. Members of Congress have no right 
 to vote it away to gratify their own tastes, or to make 
 themselves popular with their constituents, or because 
 they think the appropriation is for a useful object. It 
 must be shown to be for the real benefit of the people 
 and for something which they cannot do for themselves. 
 A light-house on the Atlantic may be only an indirect 
 benefit to a farmer in Wisconsin, yet it is a real benefit; 
 for it is a necessity for commerce, and the commerce of 
 the country brings comforts to every man's door. But 
 a monument to Grant may be built by his friends and 
 admirers, if they choose. They have not chosen to do 
 it, probably because they thought a monument would 
 add nothing to his renown. Why, then, should the 
 people be taxed to do that which the friends of the 
 hero have decided to be unsuitable or unnecessary ? 
 Perhaps these friends agree with Campbell : 
 
l88 THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 
 
 "What hallows ground where heroes sleep? 
 'Tis not the sculptured piles you heap. 
 
 "But strew his ashes to the wind 
 Whose sword or voice has served mankind, 
 And is he dead, whose glorious mind 
 
 Lifts thine on high ? 
 To live in hearts we leave behind 
 
 Is not to die." 
 
 The European principle has been that as much as 
 possible should be done for the people by the govern- 
 ment : our principle has been that as much as possible 
 should be done by the people for themselves. Our 
 system develops energy and manliness : the European 
 method keeps the people in a state of infancy. The 
 European system teaches the people that government 
 can and ought to cure all social evils. If they suffer, 
 it is the fault of the State; and, therefore, they hope 
 to help themselves by a revolution. They wish the 
 government to provide them with work, to determine 
 the amount of wages, to fix the price of food, and to 
 make provision for all needs. Ignorant Europeans 
 bring to this country the same notion of the omnipo- 
 tence of the State. The greenback agitation which 
 prevailed a few years since rested on the belief that, 
 if the State issued a large amount of paper money, every 
 one would be able to get some of it. The advocates of 
 such schemes do not see that, when you increase the 
 amount of the currency, you raise the price of every- 
 thing in proportion. Double the amount of dollars in 
 circulation, and each becomes worth only half as much. 
 This is not mere theory, but it is what all of us who 
 have lived long enough have seen happen over and 
 
THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 189 
 
 over again. In times of inflation, some speculators 
 will make fortunes ; but it is not the working people, 
 they always suffer. As Horace says : 
 
 " Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi." 
 (Whenever the leaders blunder, the people have to pay for it.) 
 
 Is it not time, then, to stop this downward career, 
 which is taking the strength and manliness out of the 
 people, and to return to the old maxim, that the 
 government is best which governs least? 
 
 I should not do justice to my own convictions if I 
 closed this paper without suggesting how largely this 
 custom of depending on the government for aid has 
 come from the protective system, which has taken such 
 an immense development in our time. At first, it was 
 only applied to infant industries, which the government 
 was called on to foster until they should harden into 
 the bone of manhood. But their manhood has come ; 
 and, instead of needing less aid, they require more. 
 A powerful body of manufacturers and producers have 
 combined to demand that the people shall be taxed 
 to support their special industries. It is the power of 
 this ring which has made it impossible to reduce the 
 duties on such raw materials as iron ore, pig iron, wood, 
 lumber, which are the basis of so many manufactures. 
 I only say here that, whether this system be right or 
 wrong, it is fast educating the nation to the belief that 
 the business of the State is to interfere in the indus- 
 trial pursuits of the people, and that, whenever Con- 
 gress believes that one or another manufacture needs 
 its aid, it has a right to help it from the national re- 
 sources. On the theory that Congress is able to decide 
 
1 90 THE HERCULES AND WAGONER OF TO-DAY 
 
 what industries need assistance, and that such occupa- 
 tions have a right to governmental interference, protec- 
 tion is piled on protection till the native energy of the 
 people is likely to be seriously impaired. There ap- 
 pears to be no limit in the application of this protective 
 principle. While manufacturers demand protection 
 on the one hand, the raw material which they use calls 
 for protection on the other. At last, when everything 
 is protected, it will be found that nothing is protected ; 
 for what is received by the right hand is paid out again 
 by the left. One evil result, however, must certainly 
 remain : that the nation has been taught to look for 
 support, not to its own enterprise, but to the help of 
 the State. And this disease it will take a long time 
 to cure. 
 
Recent Discussions concerning Conscience 
 and its Development. 
 
 FEW subjects have been recently more discussed, 
 both in this country and in Europe, than conscience 
 in man, and its relation to universal law. What is 
 conscience ? Is it a moral instinct, an intuition ; or 
 is it the result of education and experience ? Is con- 
 science the voice of God in the soul ; or the voice of our 
 own character and our own belief, determined by the 
 past education of our lives, combined with tendencies 
 inherited in our organization ? What is its authority ? 
 Is it an absolute standard, always infallibly correct ; or 
 the mere sum of our opinions concerning duty, which 
 we have attained as we have reached the rest of our 
 belief? Is it not, after all, often a matter of taste 
 and personal choice ? Do we not call it our duty to 
 do that which we wish to do ? Do we not sometimes 
 
 " Compound for sins we are inclined to 
 By damning those we have no mind to " ? 
 
 Before we can decide such questions, we must see 
 what facts there are in regard to conscience which are 
 indisputable, and therefore undisputed. 
 
 In all times, and among all nations, so far as we 
 know, the idea of duty has existed among men. 
 Everywhere, men believe not only that some things 
 are pleasant and others unpleasant, but that some 
 
192 CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 
 
 things are right and others wrxmg. In the thousand 
 languages of mankind, words are to be found which 
 mean " ought" and "ought not," " right and wrong," 
 " sin and sinner," " responsibility," "reward," "pun- 
 ishment," "remorse," "penitence." No one ever 
 thinks of confounding these words with those which 
 express the feelings belonging to pleasure and pain, 
 desire and regret. Continually, we hear such expres- 
 sions as these : " I wish I could do it, but it would 
 not be right " ; "I had a great deal rather do some- 
 thing else, but I think I ought to do this." 
 
 No one ever confuses in his mind or his practice 
 these two classes of feelings. We often do what is 
 wrong from ignorance. We also often refuse to obey 
 our conscience, and do what we know we ought not to 
 do. But no one, except an idiot or a metaphysician, 
 ever failed to see the distinction between these two 
 classes of sentiments in his soul. Pleasure is not the 
 same thing as duty, remorse is essentially different 
 from regret. 
 
 A second fact is equally certain : when these two 
 sets of motives are in conflict with each other, the one 
 always has the supremacy. When I say, " I wish I 
 could do this, but I believe I ought to do that," no 
 one doubts on which side is the voice of command. 
 The one persuades, the other orders. This made the 
 great philosopher Kant give to conscience the name 
 of the categorical, or unconditional, imperative, and 
 to affirm that by this voice of command within us 
 we know God. For who or what else can require of 
 us implicit, entire obedience but the Supreme Being ? 
 It is not our own will which speaks, for that would 
 
CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 193 
 
 often tell us to do something which we should like 
 better. It is the voice in the soul of some will higher 
 than our will, which has a right to command and to 
 require our absolute and entire obedience. We have 
 no right to refuse the voice of duty, but we have a per- 
 fect right to relinquish the object of desire. We may 
 deny ourselves pleasures, or choose between them ac- 
 cording to our taste ; but we must not refuse what is 
 right, no matter what our distaste to it may be. 
 
 When the voice of conscience is obeyed, it gives 
 us a peculiar sense of inward satisfaction, quite differ- 
 ent from the gratification of our desires. The pleasure 
 of gratified desire is soon over, that of a satisfied con- 
 science endures. The one belongs to the element 
 of time and change, the other to that of eternity and 
 permanence. Again, pain or sorrow for what is 
 merely loss or suffering soon passes away of itself; 
 but the sense of having done wrong abides in the soul 
 till it is relieved by repentance and pardon from on 
 high. 
 
 The sense of pleasure or pain corresponds largely 
 with the quantity of pleasure enjoyed or pain suffered. 
 But ever so small a sin, when seen to be a sin, ever so 
 little wrong, known to be wrong, arouses the same re- 
 morse which comes from a larger offence. A friend 
 once told me that, when he was in a rather gloomy and 
 depressed state of mind, he went out of his way to do 
 a very little act of kindness. Immediately, he felt a 
 sense of peace come into his soul. He said to himself, 
 " I have the power, then, of doing a thing because it is 
 right." That made him happy. 
 
 The Christian martyrs suffered themselves to be torn 
 
194 CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 
 
 with rods and thrown to the lions, rather than deny 
 their Master or worship the image of the emperor. 
 Our soul is thrilled at the authority of conscience 
 shown in such acts as these. But here is a little girl 
 who has taken a book from the table, which she has been 
 forbidden to have. Her mother looks at her, and says, 
 " Put that back, dear ; you know you ought not to have 
 it." The little one stops ; tears come into her eyes ; 
 she hesitates a moment ; finally, she conquers herself, 
 and puts it down. The great chord of duty, reaching 
 from heaven to earth, which vibrated when the martyr 
 died, gives a like thrill of divine harmony at the child's 
 little act of self-denial. 
 
 " There is neither great nor small 
 To the soul which moves in all." 
 
 Whatever it may have been originally, it is evident 
 that right is not the same thing as enjoyment now, nor 
 wrong the same thing as pain. There is an impassable 
 gulf fixed between them in every man's consciousness. 
 Righteousness may lead to happiness ; but in them- 
 selves, and as motives of action, righteousness and hap- 
 piness are very different. 
 
 In what, then, does an act of righteousness consist ? 
 Three elements enter into it : 
 
 1. TJie moral sense, or the perception of the dis- 
 tinction between right and wrong. 
 
 2. Ethical knowledge, or a belief that a certain act is 
 right, and another wrong. 
 
 3. Moral freedom, or the power to choose the right, 
 and refuse the wrong. 
 
 In other words, we must know there is such a thing 
 
CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 195 
 
 as right and wrong; we must believe what we are 
 doing to be right ; and we must have the power to do it. 
 
 This conviction in the soul of an absolute command- 
 ing righteousness, to which we can cleave in the wild 
 rush of passion, the mad conflicts of desire, amid the 
 influences of worldly opinion, selfish custom, or the 
 blind forces of nature, this is an anchor to the soul. 
 This is the place which Archimedes sought for outside 
 the world, from whence he could move the world. This 
 is the light which lightens every man who comes into 
 the world. The philosopher Kant, before mentioned, 
 in words often quoted, said of this, " Two things there 
 are which, the oftener and more steadily they are con- 
 sidered, fill my mind with an ever-new reverence and 
 awe, the starry heavens above me, and the moral law 
 within me." 
 
 Thus far, all schools of thought agree. Those who 
 contend that everything in our consciousness consists 
 of transformed sensations, readily admit that now all 
 men have a sense of right and possess intuitive con- 
 victions concerning the moral law. Prof. Clifford, a 
 determined evolutionist, says, " When Socrates puzzled 
 the Greeks by asking them what they meant by good- 
 ness, justice, and virtue, the very use of the words 
 showed that the people, as a whole, had a moral sense, 
 and felt that certain things were right and others 
 wrong." He also grants the authority of conscience, 
 saying "that the dictates of the moral law must be 
 obeyed or disobeyed by every human being who is not 
 hopelessly and forever separated from the rest of man- 
 kind." By which, I suppose he means that every man 
 must choose between obedience or disobedience to the 
 
196 CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 
 
 moral law. Shakspere, whose writings are the best 
 mirror of the conduct and motives of mankind, con- 
 stantly shows the power and function of conscience. 
 He shows it active in every type of character, from the 
 highest to the lowest ; in Lady Macbeth, trying in vain 
 to forget the murder of the old king ; and in Launcelot, 
 in "The Merchant of Venice," debating with himself 
 whether or not to run away from his master. " The 
 fiend tempts me," he says, "saying, 'Good Launcelot, 
 run !' My conscience says, * No ! do not run,' " and so 
 on. He makes the conscience of Macbeth place before 
 him the airy dagger, and Richard to tremble in his 
 sleep, dreaming of his victims. He speaks of the 
 "gnawing worm of conscience," the "wild sea of con- 
 science," the "testimony of a good conscience," "the 
 thing within us called conscience," " quiet given to 
 a wounded conscience," "an armor buckled on by 
 conscience," "conscience that makes cowards of us" 
 when we are doing wrong, and conscience that makes 
 us bold to do right. I find that Shakspere uses the 
 word conscience one hundred and eighteen times, show- 
 ing that to his mind it was a constant element in the 
 human soul. 
 
 The New Testament attests the power of conscience 
 in man. Especially does the Apostle Paul show con- 
 tinually his belief in the universal presence of this 
 faculty. "I have lived in all good conscience," he 
 says. "My rejoicing is this: the testimony of my 
 conscience that I have lived in simplicity and godly 
 sincerity." " I have endeavored to have a conscience 
 void of offence toward God and man." He believed 
 that the Gentiles, who had no outward law, had " a law 
 
CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 197 
 
 written in their hearts," which approved or condemned 
 their conduct. 
 
 Thus we find a universal consent to the presence in 
 the human soul of this commanding power, which 
 shows man that he is the minister and servant of a 
 truth above himself; that he is under the control of 
 an invisible law of righteousness ; and that he has the 
 power to resist evil and do good, the power to fight 
 against and conquer his temptations, to overcome the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil. 
 
 How did we come by this power? How was con- 
 science born ? To this, only two answers can be 
 given. It either came from below or from above. It 
 is either an influx from on high, the voice of God 
 within us, or it is a natural development from some 
 lower form of life. If " every good gift and every per- 
 fect gift is from above, and cometh down from the 
 Father of light," then this power is a divine power, 
 the light of God within us, graciously sent to lead his 
 children to himself. 
 
 But there is a school of teachers who believe that 
 everything in the consciousness consists of " trans- 
 formed sensations." Reason, love, imagination, faith, 
 were once sensations of pain and pleasure, but by a 
 slow process have grown up into what they now are. 
 This hypothesis is innocent, provided we weight it 
 with one or two conditions. The first depends on the 
 fact that there can be no evolution without a previous 
 involution. What is to be unrolled must be previously 
 rolled up. The tree, which comes from a seed, must 
 be potentially in the seed before ; and no process of 
 development with which we are acquainted would 
 
198 CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMEN1 
 
 evolve an oak from a grain of sand. If the solar sys- 
 tem came from a nebula, as it may have done, then all 
 that is now there must have been there originally. 
 Either this, or else a continual influx of new elements 
 into nature. There must be a Creator at the begin- 
 ning, or a Creator all the way along, or both. 
 
 Of these two theories, the last seems to me the 
 one to be preferred. One shows us a Creator who acts 
 only on the rudiments of things, gives only the initial 
 impulse, sets in motion a series of causes which work 
 according to foreordained laws, and who watches their 
 operation from above. This makes him too much 
 like an earthly workman, who creates a machine, and 
 then leaves it to work by itself. The other idea is 
 of a Being who never ceases from his creative activ- 
 ity, from whom life forever flows into nature and 
 into the human soul, whose regular and constant 
 methods of action constitute what we call the laws of 
 nature. According to this view, if the world was de- 
 veloped from a nebula, then God was present along 
 the whole line of that evolution, and by a perpetual 
 spiritual influx carried it upward and onward. This 
 seems to be the hypothesis most worthy of an infinite 
 Creator. He is the perpetual fountain of life, the con- 
 stant support of the world; and he is best revealed 
 by the highest and best moments of our being. Every 
 pulsation of generosity, every movement of unselfish 
 devotion, every heroic impulse, every aspiration of 
 faith, is from above. God never interrupts the course 
 of nature, for he is the course of nature. And this 
 awful voice of conscience, this absolute authority of 
 the moral law in the soul, this is the constant pres- 
 
CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 199 
 
 ence within of the power, not ourselves, and above 
 ourselves, which makes for righteousness. 
 
 But, if so, it may be said, Why is conscience so often 
 wrong ? Why does it make such mistakes ? Why do 
 equally conscientious men differ as to what is right ? 
 Why are men conscientiously intolerant and bigoted? 
 Paul was as conscientious when he persecuted the 
 Christians as afterward, when he preached the gospel. 
 How can the faculty be divine which is capable of 
 such perversion as this ? 
 
 I said before that, in every right act, there are three 
 elements, the moral sense, which prompts us to do 
 right, the intellectual perception of what is right, and 
 the free effort of the will to perform it. The divine 
 element that which we will venture to call a power 
 transcending sense, and coming direct from God is 
 the idea of duty, the presence of " I ought " in the 
 soul. That is not the result of a long growth. It 
 lightens every man who comes into the world. But 
 the second element, the knowledge of what is right, is 
 the result of ever-increasing thought and investigation. 
 This is slowly developed in the individual man and 
 the race. Here, the process of evolution comes in, 
 which shows how every increase of moral insight as 
 well as every habit of virtue is preserved by the force 
 of hereditary transmission. Some great moral truths 
 are universally seen. They are recognized on the 
 tombs of ancient Egypt, in the earliest scriptures of 
 the Buddhists, in the islands of Polynesia, among the 
 African tribes, when first seen by the European mis- 
 sionary. The law of truth and the law of love are 
 everywhere acknowledged. But the practical applica- 
 
2OO CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 
 
 tion of these laws comes by experience. The knowl- 
 edge of what is right and the power habitually to 
 choose the right are the results of social development. 
 In this sense, the conscience of a race may be grad- 
 ually elevated, till the virtues of a Fenelon become the 
 habit of a whole people. 
 
 The idea of duty includes that of power. The com- 
 mand to do right and not wrong involves freedom to do 
 right or to do wrong. But here come in other difficul- 
 ties. Is man really free to choose the good and refuse 
 the evil ? Many thinkers are unable to believe this, 
 and on different grounds. Some say a man's character 
 is determined by his organization, not by his choice. 
 It depends on who his ancestors were, not on his own 
 efforts. All thought results from the molecular action 
 of the brain, say others. The brain secretes thought, 
 will, choice. Others say that the uniformity of law 
 demands that behind every action there shall be a 
 motive, and to the strongest motive the will must yield. 
 And others argue from the ascertained facts of aver- 
 ages that crime and virtue do not depend on human 
 will, but on the state of society. 
 
 Of course, we have not time to consider these diffi- 
 culties ; but one or two statements may show that they 
 have not the weight that is often supposed. 
 
 Let us at once grant, what is evidently true, that 
 every man's character is the result of at least three 
 factors. Giving to freedom of the will its full power, 
 it cannot certainly wholly create or change human 
 character. We are born with certain temperaments, 
 passions, tendencies. Every little child shows very 
 soon a special character of its own, and he will retain 
 
CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 2OI 
 
 this all his life, more or less. Physical organization is 
 one factor of character, which begins when we are 
 born, goes with us as long as we live, and only ceases 
 to act with our last breath. 
 
 Organization is one factor, call it the molecular 
 action of the brain, or by any other name. The sec- 
 ond influence which goes to make character is educa- 
 tion, and that is almost as irresistible as organization. 
 Take two infants with exactly the same organization, 
 and let one grow up in Sumatra, and the other on a 
 farm in Vermont, and they must become very different 
 persons. 
 
 So much we fully admit. Now we ask, Is this all ? 
 The answer given by facts and observation is "No." 
 There is a third factor of character which may work or 
 may not. It is free choice, or the self-determining 
 power. It is the man's own effort. It appears in his 
 determination to do all he ought ; to become all God 
 meant him to be ; to make use of every opportunity ; 
 to waste no time ; to live a sober, pure, righteous life ; 
 to cultivate his powers, and grow up in all things 
 toward an ideal standard. This is what we call free- 
 dom of choice. This constitutes the domain, and these 
 are the powers, of human freedom. 
 
 But this faculty of freedom is practically inefficient 
 unless it have some ideal standard of truth. Man has 
 the faculty of free choice by nature, but it does not 
 make him free until he exercises it and pursues a fixed 
 aim. The loftier the aim, the more free he becomes. 
 Human freedom is, therefore, not one thing in all men. 
 It is not absolute, but relative. It is the power of 
 choosing good and refusing evil. To do this, one must 
 
202 CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 
 
 have the knowledge of good and evil, and the will to 
 exercise that power. The natural faculty which we call 
 the self-determining power in man may do nothing, do 
 much or more. Freedom is a thing of more or less. 
 
 The majority of men in most communities have no 
 strong purpose or distinct ideal aim. They have no 
 high object of life which they steadily pursue. They 
 drift rather than steer. Therefore, their conscience fol- 
 lows the public opinion around them ; their characters 
 are moulded by the usual influence of society. Their 
 freedom is then small. To them, the law of averages 
 will certainly apply ; and it is only to this portion of 
 the community that this law does apply. The average 
 number of letters put into the post, which the writers 
 have forgotten to direct, is said to be about the same 
 every year. True. But this only means that there 
 are about so many careless letter-writers in the place, 
 not that every individual in the place is obliged by a 
 mysterious law to forget to direct one in so many let- 
 ters. Some persons have risen above that necessity, 
 and commit no such mistakes. The average number 
 of suicides, burglaries, and wife-murders in the city of 
 Paris, M. Quetelet has found to be nearly the same, 
 year in and year out. That proves that, in Paris, there 
 is always a large population existing in a depressed 
 state ; that there is a large dangerous class there, a 
 large class who drift and do not steer. To them, the 
 law of averages applies. But this does not prove that 
 every man in Paris runs a certain percentage of danger 
 of committing suicide or committing a murder. There 
 is probably another large class in Paris who are in no 
 danger of either. The law of averages means that 
 every man is likely to commit a mistake or a crime in 
 
CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 203 
 
 the direction in which he does not guide his life by a 
 sense of duty, or has not guarded it by a fit education. 
 I myself may very possibly run every year a certain 
 definite risk of not directing my letters. In that mat- 
 ter, I am subject to the law of averages. But I am in 
 no possible danger, I suppose, of committing a burg- 
 lary. In that direction, I think I am free from the do- 
 minion of the law of averages. 
 
 Prof. Huxley has declared his opinion that man is 
 an automaton, a machine, in whom every choice and 
 act is determined by mechanical forces, and not by 
 any imaginary ruling power called self, or freedom of 
 will. A volition, he says, is not caused by a " master- 
 ful ego" but by hidden mechanical forces, by cerebral 
 molecular movements. He compares man with an in- 
 geniously contrived clock ; and, as the hands of the clock 
 obey hidden forces behind, so our thoughts and volitions 
 obey hidden movements of the brain and nerves within. 
 This theory, identical with that of La Mettrie, published 
 more than a century ago, destroys the' basis of morality, 
 and is pure materialism. It regards the total contents 
 of consciousness as the result of movements of matter. 
 But, fortunately for our belief in freedom, these molec- 
 ular movements are "hidden" movements; that is to 
 say, movements of which neither Huxley nor any one 
 else knows anything. The theory reduces itself to this : 
 "I believe," says Prof. Huxley, "that man would turn 
 out to be a machine if I could only know something of 
 which I now know nothing." 
 
 There is another form of the doctrine of necessity 
 which is not materialism, that of Mill, Bain, Clifford, 
 and others, namely, that a volition is an effect follow- 
 ing necessarily a corresponding moral cause, and that 
 
204 CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 
 
 the same motive in the same circumstances will be fol- 
 lowed by the same moral action. And this, it is 
 thought, is demanded by the uniformity of law. If 
 man could escape the uniform action of cause and effect 
 by an effort of will, it is feared it would introduce 
 chance into the universe, and destroy the uniformity of 
 nature. 
 
 I reply that this is merely a logical argument as 
 against a matter of fact. Our consciousness assures us 
 that we are not bound by the strongest motive, in the 
 sense in which the stone is bound to fall in the direc- 
 tion of the least resistance. We know, by the voice of 
 universal human consciousness, that we are always free 
 to choose, to consent to a motive or resist it. Whether 
 we are able to carry our freedom of choice out into free- 
 dom of action depends on the force of habit, the press- 
 ure of outward influence, and the like. But we are 
 always free to choose, to try, to do our best ; or to re- 
 fuse, to submit, not to make an effort. It is for this 
 choice and effort that we are responsible : this is in our 
 power, the outward result is not always in our power. 
 
 In this respect of freedom, man is a supernatural 
 bein^-. able to escape the domain of purely physical law. 
 He is a creator, like God, able to add new spiritual 
 forces to those already in the world. Such souls as 
 Augustine, Luther, Wesley, Channing, have increased 
 the actual sum of moral force among men. They have 
 advanced human progress by hundreds of years. But 
 all this was no violation of law. It was not the intro- 
 duction of caprice or chance into the world. A wilful 
 or capricious will is not really free. It accomplishes 
 nothing. A man escapes the dominion of lower laws 
 by submitting willingly to higher laws. Until we are 
 
CONSCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPM^^J ; ' 2o~ j) 
 
 ready to obey the law of duty and right, we areTubject 
 to the lower influences of custom and desire. Human 
 freedom, in its active and effectual state, consists in 
 being free from the dominion of lower motives which 
 warp and narrow the soul, and accepting the sway of 
 the higher motives which enlarge and vitalize it. This 
 freedom comes by exercise : it is not born in us, nor 
 suddenly created in us. " Herein do I exercise myself, 
 to keep a conscience void of offence toward God and 
 man." 
 
 We escape from the control of law only by fulfilling 
 law in love. The truth makes us free, and love makes 
 us free. All knowledge emancipates us. Love alone 
 is full emancipation. 
 
 " Love is an unerring light, 
 And joy its own security." 
 
 When we love right, and practise it because we love 
 it, duty is transfigured and becomes perfect freedom. 
 
 Meantime, this wonderful idea of right, planted deep 
 in every human reason, binds each human soul to God, 
 so that it must belong to him forever. As the law and 
 force of gravitation bind every atom of matter to God, 
 and are, in fact, the power of God holding the whole 
 universe in his hand, so the idea of duty in the mind 
 is God's power holding every soul by the great moral 
 gravitation of the spiritual world. This prevents any 
 soul from being finally and forever lost It cannot 
 wholly die, so long as the ideas of right and duty are not 
 extinguished. These ideas testify that it still belongs 
 to God. As long as man is capable of remorse, he is 
 bound to the infinite Love by an adamantine chain. 
 He is still God's child, and, though a great way off, 
 his Father always sees him. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER. 
 
 THE subject of which I shall next speak is "The 
 Scientific Basis of Prayer." It is often supposed that 
 science is hostile to faith in the efficacy of prayer. 
 It is supposed that an answer to prayer implies an 
 interruption in the order of nature. If God should 
 answer our prayers, he must do it by suspending the 
 operation of law. But the very foundation of science 
 is belief in the permanence of law. Astronomy would 
 not be a science if the law of gravitation might be 
 interrupted in any instance. Any such interruption of 
 law would introduce an element of uncertainty into 
 every astronomical calculation. The same thing is 
 true in all the sciences. No scientific man can believe 
 in a miracle, if a miracle means a violation of law. 
 Nor can he believe in any real answer to prayer, if 
 that answer means an interruption of the course of 
 cause and effect. 
 
 Some persons try to escape the force of this argu- 
 ment by saying that by means of prayer man puts 
 himself into a state of mind in which good things come 
 to him more easily. God does not answer the prayer, 
 the man answers it himself. The only result of prayer 
 is that it reacts on the soul to its benefit. But this 
 way of reasoning is not to defend prayer, but t& sur- 
 render it. If we ceased to believe that God hears and 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 207 
 
 answers prayer, prayer would be a deliberate self- 
 deception. On this theory, self-communion and medi- 
 tation would take the place of supplication, as being 
 more honest. 
 
 It is a fact, however, which science must take into 
 account, that in all times and lands, among all races, 
 in every stage of culture, human beings have sought 
 help from an unseen world. How is this fact to be 
 explained ? It is said sometimes that such a habit 
 of prayer comes from human weakness and supersti- 
 tion. Not being able to help themselves in any other 
 way, men sought aid from the unseen world. Yes ; 
 but why do they continue to seek it if it never comes ? 
 If all experience shows that no good is ever gained by 
 praying, why does the delusion continue? Why is 
 not prayer outgrown ? Other delusions are exposed, 
 and come to an end ; but this remains, and has re- 
 mained, a permanent activity of the soul for thou- 
 sands of years. Prayer is the very heart of religion. 
 Every religion of mankind has taught the power 
 of prayer. Brahminism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, 
 Judaism, all teach men to pray. In ancient times, 
 men prayed in Persia to Ormazd, in India to Vishnu, 
 in Egypt to Osiris, in Greece to the gods of Olympus, 
 in Rome to the gods of the Pantheon. And Jesus, 
 as we know, also inculcated the duty and the power of 
 prayer. 
 
 A traveller tells us that in the city of Lassa the 
 Buddhists hold prayer-meetings every evening in the 
 open squares. In Mohammedan countries, at the 
 hour of prayer, the sailor prays on the deck of his 
 ship, the merchant in his shop, the laborer in the street. 
 
208 THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 
 
 For a few minutes, all business is suspended, and the 
 whole population turns its thought upward to the 
 invisible realm of Deity. In Roman Catholic coun- 
 tries, men and women passing a church turn in, kneel 
 on the floor, and go out again, with a little more rest 
 and peace in their soul. The day must come when 
 Protestant churches shall also be open for daily 
 prayer and meditation. 
 
 There has been a practical unanimity among relig- 
 ious teachers of every sect, name, and opinion, on this 
 point. All have inculcated the value and use of 
 prayer. Deduct as large a percentage as you think 
 reasonable for the force of custom, habits of belief, 
 inculcated prejudices, and the like, the testimony of 
 universal religion to the power which resides in prayer 
 will remain a fact of great significance, and one not to 
 be neglected by scientific observers. The substance 
 of this testimony is that results are obtained by means 
 of prayer which cannot be realized without it. 
 
 And now look for a moment at the objection that, 
 if prayer is actually answered, that is, if any actual 
 result is thus obtained, it implies a suspension or 
 interruption of law. This objection rests on a misun- 
 derstanding. When the volcanoes in the East threw 
 stones and ashes miles upward, no one imagined that 
 the law of gravitation was suspended. 
 
 Mr. George P. Marsh published a book on Physical 
 Nature as modified by Human Action. He showed 
 how the will of man has changed the face of the world. 
 Man cuts down forests and dries up rivers, and so 
 changes fruitful regions into a wilderness. He dams 
 up the streams, and distributes the water over desert 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 209 
 
 plains, and makes the wilderness to blossom as the 
 rose. But no one assumes that the laws of physical 
 geography have been suspended by human influence, 
 though their outcome has been thus modified. Pro- 
 ceeding from that mysterious centre of hidden force, 
 the soul, this power of human will modifies the ex- 
 ternal world. What the advocates of prayer assert is 
 this : that the same force of will, proceeding from the 
 same living centre of energy, but turned inward toward 
 God in prayer, may modify the results of spiritual law. 
 In other words, it is a part of the order of the uni- 
 verse that the will of man, exerted outwardly, in co- 
 operation with natural laws, shall modify their results 
 in nature ; and exerted inwardly, in co-operation with 
 spiritual laws, shall modify their results in the soul. 
 Thus, prayer is a real force, when it works in accord- 
 ance with law, but not otherwise. 
 
 If we turn to the teachings of Jesus on this subject, 
 we shall notice that he constantly indicates that 
 prayer, to be effectual, must act in accordance with 
 law. Prayer is not addressed to any divine caprice. 
 It depends on fixed conditions. The condition which 
 includes all others is that we shall be in a Christian 
 attitude of soul. "If ye abide in me, and my words 
 abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be 
 done unto you." "That whatsoever ye shall ask the 
 Father in my name " (that is, " in my spirit ") " he will 
 give it to you." 
 
 This one condition includes several, of which Jesus 
 speaks separately. One is, not to pray "to be seen of 
 men," that is, to exclude all thoughts of what others 
 think of our prayer; for such thoughts change its 
 
210 THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 
 
 direction, turning it downward and outward, instead 
 of inward and upward. "Thou, when thou prayest, 
 go into thy closet, and pray to thy Father in secret.'* 
 Private, solitary prayer must have the upward direc- 
 tion. A man may pray in public, provided his 
 thoughts keep that upward direction, but not other- 
 wise. Another condition is faith. "Whatsoever ye 
 shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Un- 
 less we believe that prayer is a real power, by which 
 some actual result can be obtained, it will degenerate 
 into an empty form. Unless we believe in it as a 
 force, it will not be a force. And, again, no selfish 
 prayer that is, one which ends in our private good 
 can be effectual ; because this is opposed to the law, 
 " Give, and it shall be given you." We must receive, 
 in order to give. We must pray in harmony with the 
 nature of God, which is love. A sick man may pray 
 for health, but that this health may be of use to others 
 -as well as to himself. 
 
 Jesus says, " When ye pray, use no vain repetitions, 
 nor think to be heard for your much speaking." To 
 say so many prayers a day, to count off your prayers 
 on a rosary, to repeat over and over again the same 
 words, all this tends to turn the thought from the 
 substance of prayer to its form. We then think of the 
 outward words, and the inward life of the prayer is 
 weakened. In prayer, we must, first and last, have in- 
 tegrity, reality, truth. Without this, it is only a shell 
 without a kernel. 
 
 This shows that Jesus regarded prayer, not as op- 
 posed to law, but as working in harmony with certain 
 spiritual laws and conditions. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 211 
 
 The conditions of effectual prayer may be summed 
 up thus : (i) We must pray in truth, that is, we must 
 ask for what we really wish. (2) We must pray in 
 spirit, that is, we must ask for the right thing. (3) 
 We must pray in faith, believing that our prayers will 
 be heard and answered. 
 
 It often happens that, though we may mean to be 
 sincere and honest in our prayer, we are misled by cus- 
 tom, and so lapse unconsciously into the prayer of 
 form. In public prayer, whether in a liturgy or with- 
 out it, we are often called on to join in aspirations 
 which belong, only to the highest spiritual state. 
 People come into church with minds harassed with 
 worldly cares and duties, vexed by ill-treatment, with 
 little hope or courage or faith in their souls ; and they 
 are asked to join, not in the prayer of sinners, but in 
 that of saints. We are called on to express the most 
 rapt devotion, when we hardly feel the Divine Presence 
 at all ; to express remorse for sin, when our sense of 
 sin is very slight. When full of life and energy, we 
 are asked to sing, 
 
 " Fain would I quit this weary road, 
 And sleep in death, to live with God." 
 
 Often, we find our thoughts wander, and we take no 
 interest in the supplication or adoration. Then we 
 blame ourselves ; but, in truth, we are not so much to 
 be blamed. It is best to be honest always, and it is 
 our honesty which prevents us from joining in thoughts 
 which are not ours. The prayers which Jesus com- 
 mended were honest prayers, and usually short ones, 
 like that of the publican, who only said, "Lord, be 
 
212 THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 
 
 merciful to me a sinner " ; and the Roman, who said, 
 " Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." 
 Like them, let us always ask for what we really wish ; 
 not for what we think we ought to wish ; not for that 
 for which others ask ; not for what it is usual to ask. 
 We must always have truth, as a condition of real 
 prayer. 
 
 Next, we must pray in the spirit ; that is, ask for 
 what is really good. We need, every day of our lives, 
 inward spiritual power, in order to do our daily work. 
 We need a new infusion in our souls of good temper, 
 wisdom, courage, fidelity, peace, faith,. modesty, tem- 
 perance. We shall be likely else to be vexed, put out 
 of temper, led to say unkind words, to postpone our 
 duties, to do harm, not good, to others. Therefore, we 
 can always ask for a good spirit to be imparted to our 
 souls. This is the daily bread we need most of all. In 
 asking for this, we are sure we are asking for the right 
 thing, and therefore can ask in faith. 
 
 In asking for any outward blessing, we are never 
 sure that we are seeking for the best thing. There is 
 no harm in praying, and in praying earnestly, that God 
 may spare the life of one we love ; but, then, we must 
 in all such cases add, as Jesus did, " Nevertheless, not 
 my will, but thine, be done." It may be in accordance 
 with divine law that we shall receive even such a bless- 
 ing as this, in consequence of our prayer. We send 
 for our wise and kind physician when our child is ill, 
 because we know that he may help the child. So 
 prayer may help the child. But the physician may 
 fail, and prayer may fail ; for God's ways are higher 
 than our ways, and his thought than our thoughts. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 213 
 
 Thus it is in asking for outward blessings. But when 
 we ask for an inward blessing, for power to do good, 
 we may be sure that this prayer accords with universal 
 law, and will never be breathed in vain. 
 
 All science rests on the basis of observation, induc- 
 tion, and experience. It first collects its facts, then 
 groups these facts according to law, then verifies the 
 law by new experiments. And this is the foundation 
 of our faith in prayer. We first observe the fact of 
 the universality of prayer, showing that man stands 
 in a relation of dependence to an unseen world. Next, 
 we study the conditions of prayer, to learn what are 
 its laws ; and we verify the truth of those laws by our 
 personal experience. When we really feel the need of 
 divine help, we pray. We put out of our mind vanity, 
 the thoughts of human praise and censure, all self- 
 deception, and ask our heavenly Father to help us to 
 rise out of our dreary and empty life into his strength 
 and peace. We ask him to take away our anxieties, 
 and give us trust and hope. We ask him to lead us 
 into kind and friendly relations with those about us. 
 We ask him to make us faithful, honest, true in our 
 daily work. 
 
 The answer to these prayers may not be any percep- 
 tible emotion or remarkable change. We are no more 
 conscious of the influence of the Spirit than we are of 
 the working of our brain or our heart. A spiritual 
 energy may come into the soul when we pray, modifying 
 our feelings, our purposes, our convictions, but only 
 known by its results. After a while, we feel that the 
 distraction and distress of our soul are gone, that we are 
 fit for work, able to meet the demands of the soul. We 
 
214 THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 
 
 know not whence the wind comes, nor whither it goes ; 
 but its soft breath fans our cheek, its murmur is heard 
 in the tops of the pine-trees. The hot air of the sum- 
 mer day is cooled. So is every one that is born of the 
 Spirit. By this personal experience, we verify the law 
 according to which prayer is answered. 
 
 In physical science, it is not necessary for each man 
 to test the truth of a law by new experiments. Being 
 once proved to the satisfaction of experts, it is accepted 
 by others on their authority. But spiritual laws, work- 
 ing in the region of the soul, can only be verified by 
 each one for himself. A man of science once proposed 
 as a prayer-test that a hospital should be selected, and 
 that believers in prayer should pray for the sick in that 
 hospital, to see if it would have a larger percentage of 
 recovery than a hospital not prayed for. This, how- 
 ever, would be no test at all ; for one of the essential 
 conditions of true prayer would be wanting, that is, 
 sincerity. Such a prayer would not be offered from a 
 wish that the sick should recover, but from the wish to 
 know if prayer was efficacious. When we pray sin- 
 cerely for what we really desire, and pray in the spirit 
 of Christ, we shall then be able to verify, each one for 
 himself, the reality of this spiritual power. 
 
 It is sometimes said, " To work is to pray." But this 
 statement implies a confusion of thought. To work is 
 to turn the energy of the mind to outward men and 
 things, to pray is to turn it inward toward the Spirit 
 and God. The two movements of the soul make the 
 complete life. They are supplementary, not the same. 
 When we are working, we are under a sense of responsi- 
 bility ; when praying, we are in a spirit of dependence. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF PRAYER 215 
 
 Prayer and work make the two halves of a good life. 
 All true prayer leads to work, and all good work leads 
 to prayer. They are mutually helpful, but not the 
 same. 
 
 What will be the prayer of the future ? It will have 
 less of the form and more of the spirit : it will be less 
 tied to hours and methods, but more full of the sense of 
 a divine presence. It will be more childlike, simple, 
 sincere. The child puts its hand into that of its father 
 and mother, and walks secure in their double love. 
 But it does not ask them to protect it : it feels itself 
 protected. Thus, the evolution of prayer will lead to 
 what the Scripture calls " living in the Spirit " and 
 " walking in the Spirit." When we have a sense of the 
 Divine Presence and Love, we open our souls without 
 words to that inspiration, we feel beneath us the ever- 
 lasting arms, we walk overshadowed by a divine ten- 
 derness. We do not need to go into a cloister to 
 pray. Our prayer 
 
 " is the soul's sincere desire, 
 Uttered or unexpressed." 
 
 The prayer of mere form is passing away, but the 
 prayer of the spirit is increasing more and more. 
 The soul, conscious of a divine presence in nature and 
 life, waits on the Lord, and renews its strength. 
 
THE MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S 
 SUPPER AT THIS TIME. 
 
 THE Lord's Supper is the most ancient, the most 
 universal, the most authentic of Christian institutions. 
 The simplest of all at first, it has been developed step 
 by step into the most mysterious sacrament, every one 
 of its original incidents having been changed or dropped. 
 At first only a feast of loving memory, it has been 
 made the battle-ground of violent, bitter controversy. 
 But it survives all these changes, and in some form or 
 other remains a touching service, in which we remem- 
 ber Jesus as a personal friend, in which we unite lov- 
 ingly with all who love the common Master, in which 
 we gather up strength for new duties, and endeavor to 
 resist any current which may be sweeping us away from 
 the old landmarks of faith and goodness. 
 
 There are some, however, who think that the time 
 for this institution has passed by, that it may now be 
 laid aside. In several of the Churches, I know not 
 how many, it has ceased to exist; in many more 
 where it is continued, it has a feeble and uncertain 
 life. Many excellent people and sincere Christians do 
 not attend this particular service, while they make a 
 point of being regular at the rest. This is partly owing 
 to their not precisely seeing the meaning of the use of 
 
217 
 
 it ; partly because they think it looks like a profession 
 of some faith they do not have; partly because it 
 seems to them to be claiming some kind of superior 
 piety ; or, sometimes, because they think they are not 
 -good enough to partake of this ordinance. There is, 
 no doubt, an increasing indifference to it in most of 
 the Churches called liberal. I therefore think it well 
 that we should consider seriously the question, "Has 
 the Lord's Supper any meaning and value now ? " and, 
 if so, "What is its meaning, and what its use?" 
 
 Let us first, however, look at its origin, and see what 
 it was in the beginning. The account of its institution 
 by Jesus rests on the most solid foundation. It is not 
 only given with remarkable uniformity in the first three 
 Gospels, but also almost in the same form in Paul's 
 First Epistle to the Corinthians. That letter of Paul is 
 much older than the Gospels, and its authenticity has 
 never been disputed by any school of critics. Even 
 Strauss admits without question that the supper was 
 founded by Jesus. The whole account of it is natural 
 and simple. There are no miraculous portents, no mys- 
 tery, no difficult doctrine. It is fully marked with the 
 character of Jesus, his affection for his disciples, his 
 wish to comfort them, his wish to be remembered by 
 them, his enjoyment of the feast, his gladness in par- 
 taking it. 
 
 All this remains ; but the form has changed entirely, 
 and in all Churches, Catholic and Protestant. Inwardly, 
 the Lord's Supper is what it was at first, a meeting of 
 the friends of Jesus to remember him. Outwardly, it 
 has been altered in all respects. It was instituted on 
 Thursday, in the evening. We keep it on Sunday, in 
 
2l8 MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 
 
 the morning or afternoon. It was a cheerful feast, at 
 which there was meat; at which the wine was mixed 
 with water in large bowls, and probably drunk stand- 
 ing; in which the bread was like our ship biscuit. 
 They stood or sat round a table, and conversed to- 
 gether, asking and answering questions. Jesus talked 
 with them in the most familiar way, illustrating his 
 teaching by the humble images of a vine bearing 
 grapes, a shepherd leading his flock, an open door by 
 which children could go into the house and see their 
 Father. This took place in a private room, the upper 
 room of a house. Luther, with his genial sense of 
 nature and love for reality, says : " It was just cheerful, 
 pleasant table-talk between Jesus and his disciples. 
 Never since the world began has there been such 
 a happy meal as that." 
 
 When we next hear of it, it was the same thing. 
 It was in Corinth, in a church made up mostly of 
 heathen converts. Paul says he had given them an 
 account of this feast ; and it seems they made of it 
 a kind of picnic or basket festival, in which each 
 family took its meals by itself, eating and drinking, 
 and so the sense of a common brotherhood was lost. 
 Paul tells them that, when Jesus said of the bread,. 
 "This is my body," he meant them to feel while they 
 took it that the were all one in him. "We, being 
 many, are one bread and one body; for we are all 
 partakers of one bread." " Now we are the body of 
 Christ, and members one of another." 
 
 The pendulum of thought swings first to one ex- 
 treme and then to the opposite. At first, when Jesus 
 said, "Do this in memory of me," it was a happy but 
 
MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORDS SUPPER 219 
 
 serious feast, in which all were united in one thought 
 and love. Then, at Corinth, twenty years after, it 
 swung to the extreme of selfish amusement and self- 
 indulgence. Then it swung back to the other extreme, 
 and became an awful sacrament, surrounded with mys- 
 tery ; and those who partook it on their knees believed 
 they had God himself on their lips. Then, among 
 the descendants of the Puritans, it was considered a 
 privilege granted to the converted only, which is the 
 very opposite idea to that of Jesus, that "those who 
 are whole do not need a physician, but those who are 
 sick." 
 
 No reason for not attending the communion is more 
 frequently given than this : "I do not think I am 
 good enough." But, if the purpose of the Lord's Sup- 
 per is to make us good, I should think that those who 
 feel thus are the very ones to come. If a man thinks 
 he is good enough to come, then he is too good to 
 come. Suppose a sick man should refuse to call a 
 physician, because he was not ill enough. Suppose 
 a man should refuse to eat, because he was hungry. 
 Suppose a boy should decline going to school, because 
 he had not a perfect knowledge of everything taught 
 there. The proper qualification for a student is igno- 
 rance, combined with a desire to learn ; the proper 
 qualification for taking one's meals is hunger ; the 
 proper ground for calling in a physician is that we 
 are unwell; and the true reason for wishing to come 
 into communion with Christ is that we are not as good 
 as we should like to be. 
 
 No doubt there are some who are deterred from 
 joining in this feast of sacred memory by an honest 
 
220 MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 
 
 fear lest they should seem to be professing more 
 belief in Christ than they really have. But what sort 
 of a belief does any one profess by this act ? Abso- 
 lutely none, except faith in Jesus as a dear friend and 
 noble teacher whom we love to remember. Now, this 
 is what the greatest radical can also believe. What 
 does Renan say ? " Jesus is now a thousand times 
 more living, a thousand times more loved, than he was 
 during his short passage through life. He still pre- 
 sides, day by day, over the destinies of the world. 
 He started us on a new direction, and in that direction 
 we are still moving." At the communion table, we 
 are not thinking of any doctrinal question about 
 Christ's nature, but of his pure and holy life, his 
 mighty spiritual influence, his heavenly human love to 
 the sufferers and sinners, his unflinching faith in the 
 goodness of God and the immortality of man. Those 
 who believe nothing else about Jesus believe in thib. 
 John Stuart Mill and Jean Jacques Rousseau both 
 believed that this goodness of Jesus surpassed that of 
 any other character in history. There was no reason 
 why they should not come to the supper. Dean 
 Stanley, in one of those noble passages which show 
 the courage of speech which comes from a clear con- 
 viction, says, " When Bishop Pearson, in his work on 
 the Creed, vindicates the divinity of Christ without 
 the mention of any of those moral qualities by which 
 he has bowed down the world before him, his grasp 
 on the doctrine is far feebler than that of Rousseau or 
 Mill, who have seized the very attributes which con- 
 stitute the marrow and essence of his nature." 
 
 One of the very advantages belonging to a symbolic 
 
MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 221 
 
 action is that it is not a dogma, and cannot be made 
 one. When I take the bread and the wine, I put my 
 own thought into what I do, not that of any other 
 person. It is not like reciting a creed. Probably 
 each person who comes to the communion means 
 something different by this act from any one else. To 
 one, it means self-surrender, a purpose of obedience ; 
 to another, receptive trust, giving one's mind and 
 heart to be fed by God. To one, it is communion by 
 memory and sympathy with Christ and the good of 
 all time ; it is sitting at the feet of Jesus, to be taught 
 by him ; it is memory of the dear friends who have 
 gone, and are now perhaps near Jesus. To another, it 
 is a eucharist ; that is, a feast of gratitude for all the 
 blessed hours of life, and all its hopes. To others, it 
 is a period of self-examination, a time to bethink 
 ourselves and take a new departure. Bread and wine 
 mean strength and joy, "wine which maketh glad the 
 heart of man, and bread which strengthens man's 
 heart." Bread and wine may mean all these things 
 and a great many more. Our purpose at the com- 
 munion table is not to express any opinion about 
 Christ, but to come near to Christ himself in trust 
 and love. 
 
 There is another advantage in this service, that it 
 is the only act of worship in which every one is his 
 own minister. Each one who takes the bread and 
 wine is his own priest, officiating at the altar in his 
 own soul. He is doing identically the same thing 
 which the early inhabitants of the world performed by 
 their unbloody sacrifice of the fruits of the earth. 
 Jesus, by his own death, put an end to all the blood- 
 
222 MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 
 
 shed which had polluted the ground by the death of 
 so many innocent victims. In that hour, the highest 
 form of religion known to man dropped all animal 
 sacrifices ; and Jesus, by his own death, put an end to 
 the idea that God could be propitiated by the death 
 of any of his creatures. The meat of the Paschal 
 Lamb was on the table, but Jesus passed that by. 
 That lamb was the essential part of the Passover ; but 
 Jesus only took the fruits of the earth, the bread and 
 wine. The result was that no animal sacrifice was 
 imported from Judaism or Paganism into Christianity. 
 The blood of no victims has ever smoked on the 
 innocent altars of our faith. One of the early relig- 
 ions of the world has shared this merit. The worship 
 of Buddha has never demanded or received animal sac- 
 rifices. 
 
 " This bread is henceforth to be my body, this wine 
 is the blood of the new covenant." When we take 
 the bread and wine, we go back through long centuries 
 to the early days when the simple cultivator, in offer- 
 ing the fruits of the earth to God, expressed his 
 trust, obedience, and love. Each one of us, in the 
 solitude of his heart, offers the sacrifice of the soul to 
 his heavenly Father. 
 
 But the chief reason why serious men and women 
 do not come to the communion is that they do not 
 see any meaning in it for them, any value for them. 
 They say : " We can see its meaning for the Roman 
 Catholics, who believe that they are receiving God 
 through their lips into their souls. We can see 
 its meaning for Trinitarians, who believe they are 
 commemorating the death of an atoning God. But 
 
223 
 
 what meaning has it for Unitarians, to whom Christ 
 is a brother man, made in all things as we are, to 
 whose life and death we attach no mystery, save 
 the mysterious beauty of perfect human goodness ? " 
 
 I wish to meet this question fairly. Unless this 
 ordinance has a real meaning, carries real good, we do 
 not wish it to survive. We do not wish to continue 
 it merely as a time-honored usage. 
 
 If we should ask those who love to attend the ser- 
 vice, "What good does it do to you?" I think they 
 might reply thus : " We value it as the one service 
 which connects us personally with Christ, and unites 
 us with the body of his disciples in all lands and times. 
 In this act, we join with the Universal Church, and 
 become one with all believers. We are one with Cath- 
 olics, Protestants, and Greeks, orthodox and hetero- 
 dox. We are sitting with them all at the feet of Jesus. 
 In this quiet hour, the noise of disputes is silent. 
 Through long centuries of time, Jesus holds out his 
 hand to each of us. He becomes a present Saviour, a 
 living Master. We belong to his fold, and know that 
 he belongs to us, that he loves us, and that we are of 
 the sheep who know his voice." 
 
 "We value it also as a period, returning at regular 
 intervals, which calls us to reflect, to return to our- 
 selves, to consider where we are and what is the ten- 
 dency of our lives. In the silent moments of the 
 Communion Service, we collect ourselves and take a 
 new departure in life. We are so apt to drift with 
 the current, to let ourselves go where fashion, habit, 
 circumstances, impel us, that we are glad sometimes to 
 stand still and consider. Then we find which way we 
 
224 MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 
 
 are going, and whether in anything we are going 
 wrong. Every day at noon, the captain of a vessel at 
 sea takes an observation, to get his position and to 
 learn where he is. In the progress of the soul, it is 
 well to take an observation from time to time, and 
 see if we are on the right track. To change the figure, 
 the Communion Service is an anchor for the moral 
 nature, to keep it from drifting unconsciously the 
 wrong way. How many persons have been led to 
 take a new purpose in life, or to hold firmly to their 
 course, by the simple habit of attendance on such a 
 service ! How many might have been saved by it 
 from a seductive downward career, if they had kept up 
 such a habit ! " 
 
 It also seems to me as if this service has great mean- 
 ing to those who believe in Jesus, not as the Man-God, 
 but as the Divine Man. In him dwelt the fulness of 
 the Godhead bodily, because in him humanity rose to 
 its highest point, where it is at one with God. He is 
 our living, ever-present brother, at one with God 
 because of his entire filial obedience and love, at one 
 with us by his perfect human universal sympathy. No 
 matter how low down we are, he comes to bring us to 
 God. No matter how weak and foolish and sinful we 
 may be, he feels himself our helper and Saviour. 
 Hope, long dead in our souls, revives, when we thus 
 place ourselves by his side. We talk with him by the 
 way ; we meet him, as he asked us to do ; we say to 
 him in our hymns, 
 
 " Lord Jesus, come ! for here 
 
 Our paths through wilds are laid : 
 We watch as for the dayspring near, 
 Amid the breaking shade." 
 
MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 225 
 
 There are, perhaps, no hymns which show a more 
 genuine faith in the present love and help of Christ 
 than some of those written by Unitarians. 
 
 In our arguments, we say that only God, the Father, 
 is to be addressed in prayer ; but, in our hymns, we 
 gladly sing with Doddridge, 
 
 " Jesus, my living head, 
 
 I bless thy faithful care, 
 
 My advocate before the throne, 
 
 And my forerunner there." 
 
 With Bowring, we speak to Jesus, and say, 
 
 " Yes, we will remember thee, 
 
 Friend and Saviour ; and thy feast 
 Of all services shall be 
 Holiest and welcomest." 
 
 With Heber, we gladly cry to our friend : 
 
 " Bread of the world, in mercy broken ; 
 
 Wine of the soul, in mercy shed ; 
 By whom the words of life were spoken, 
 And in whose death our sins are dead, 
 
 " Look on the hearts by sorrow broken, 
 Look on the tears by sinners shed, 
 And be thy feast to us the token 
 
 That by thy grace our souls are fed." 
 
 There is nothing in this which shocks our intelli- 
 gence. We talk thus with Jesus, as we should have 
 done when he was alive on earth. If we had known 
 him then, we should have said: "Let us be joined in 
 thy name, O Master ! Come, Master, come quickly ; 
 
226 MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 
 
 for our path is through thorns ! Thou art the bread 
 of the world, the wine of our souls ! Look on our 
 broken hearts and our falling tears, and feed us with 
 thy grace ! " Such words as these to a present, visi- 
 ble friend would not have implied any belief that he 
 was God. Why should they, when he is invisible, if 
 he is still present to us by our convictions ? It is still 
 our dear human brother to whom we speak. It is 
 reasonable to believe that he is with us always, even 
 to the end of that age through which his Church is 
 now struggling. Did he cease to care for the triumph 
 of God's truth and love, for the redemption of man 
 from sin and ignorance, when he went up into a higher 
 life ? That ascent did not take him away : it brought 
 him nearer to us all. Going into a heaven of love, he 
 does not love his friends here below less : he loves 
 them more. We certainly must believe that this great 
 heart still beats with warmest sympathy for earthly 
 sorrow, that this vast intelligence still labors for 
 human salvation. Jesus has not gone away from us : 
 he has come to us. He himself foresaw this, and said, 
 "I go away, and come to you." In going, he came. 
 The translators of the New Testament have inserted 
 the word " again " in this place, making him say, " I 
 go away, and come again to you " : whereas, in the 
 Greek, it stands, " I go away, and come to you." The 
 whole doctrine of a future, long-deferred, distant, sec- 
 ond coming of Jesus has been built on such mistakes 
 as these. When Jesus seemed to go away from earth, 
 he really came nearer to it ; and, as Renan says, he 
 never was so near to us as now. His spirit is perme- 
 ating all thought. Men do not talk so much about 
 
MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 227 
 
 him, but they feel more with him. They do not say, 
 " Lord ! Lord ! " as much as formerly ; but they have 
 more of the mind and heart of Christ. 
 
 It is sometimes proposed, as a good plan, to have 
 the bread and wine stand on the table, to be looked at 
 as a symbol, but not partaken of. My objection to 
 this is that I fear the service would cease soon to be 
 an individual act of each person, which now makes its 
 distinctive worth. It is the outward personal act of 
 taking the bread and wine which, as it were, crystal- 
 lizes the thoughts into an inward act of self-surrender 
 and trust. The outward action fixes the moment for 
 the inward action. It makes an inward crisis, a turn- 
 ing-point in the soul. I fear that, without this special 
 individual act, the service would become one in which, 
 like so many others, people would come -to be talked 
 to and to listen. Now, each one has something to do 
 himself ; and the very fact that it is such a little thing 
 to do takes us the more into ourselves, to perform the 
 inward act of self-consecration and inward faith. 
 
 I cannot but think it would be a good thing for all 
 those who are serious believers in Christ, and who de- 
 sire his cause to triumph, to keep in the line of this 
 long tradition. Christianity is not so much a belief as 
 a current of spiritual and moral influence flowing on 
 from age to age. The great religions of the world are 
 all, in the same way, spiritual streams, rivers of moral 
 life, surrounding, enveloping, bearing on successive 
 generations of men. Islam is such a current, Buddh- 
 ism is such a current. Christianity is the broadest, 
 deepest, purest of all. If we keep ourselves in the 
 stream, we are borne onward by its vitalizing forces. 
 
228 MEANING AND VALUE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 
 
 We can have our own belief, think freely our own 
 thoughts, and yet keep in a sympathy of faith and love 
 with our fellow-men. It may sometimes be necessary 
 to be a come-outer, but it always implies a loss. Let 
 us belong to the Universal Church, the communion of 
 saints. Though it may withdraw from us, we need 
 not withdraw from it. No excommunication can sep- 
 arate us from the body of Christ, unless we excommu- 
 nicate ourselves. 
 
 In this one act of the Lord's Supper, nearly all 
 Christians are at one. This little symbol, established 
 without any formality, has come down to us across 
 the rolling waves of centuries, surviving revolutions 
 and reformations. From Palestine to New England is 
 a long way ; from Oriental symbolism to prosaic, un- 
 poetic Puritanism is a wide step. But this Eastern 
 image of bread and wine has come safely down to us, 
 preserved by the memories and affection which cling 
 to the name of Jesus. Let us hold fast to it still. Let 
 us make it whatever it can become. Its form may 
 change again, but the heart of love in it will continue 
 always. The more each of us puts into it, the better 
 it will be for all. 
 
SOME REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 WHY do the vast majority of mankind believe in a 
 future life ? Such has been the fact in all times. The 
 long history of the progress of the soul after death was 
 written on Egyptian monuments and papyri forty cen- 
 turies ago, and the belief in some form of existence 
 hereafter is taught in all religions of mankind to-day. 
 Buddhism, long thought to be an exception to this, is 
 now admitted by the best scholars to be no exception. 
 Socrates, the wisest man of antiquity, believed in im- 
 mortality, and passed the last day of his life in giving 
 the reasons of that belief to his disciples. Goethe, 
 one of the wisest men in modern times, affirmed im- 
 mortality as a necessary belief of the human mind ; 
 and the most savage and ignorant races, in Africa or 
 the islands of the Pacific, share this belief with Soc- 
 rates and Goethe. The highest philosophy and the 
 most elementary instincts meet here in a common 
 conviction. 
 
 But whence came this universal belief in a here- 
 after? All is dark beyond the boundary of this world. 
 We get no glimpse into the great Beyond. Not a cor- 
 ner of the veil is lifted. Generation after generation 
 passes through that low portal which we call death, and 
 
230 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN 'A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 not one speaks to us out of the hereafter with any 
 voice which convinces mankind. I know well that 
 there are hundreds of thousands who firmly believe 
 that they have intercourse, daily intercourse, with de- 
 parted friends. I, for one, do not deny the reality of 
 these experiences. But, granting that the Spiritualists 
 are right, and that they do receive such communica- 
 tions, why is it that the world is not convinced that the 
 dead return to the earth ? If a great discovery in phys- 
 ical science is made, like the photograph or the tele- 
 phone or the spectroscope, it is soon accepted by man- 
 kind. Why is not this infinitely greater discovery ac- 
 cepted in the same way ? The answer, I think, is, first, 
 that to believe in spiritual communications we must be 
 inwardly disposed to believe in them ; for the spiritual 
 presence has not power to overcome a reluctant mind. 
 And, secondly, there is no actual knowledge of the fut- 
 ure life communicated. The spectroscope tells us what 
 we did not know before in regard to the chemical con- 
 stituents of the sun and stars. But I doubt whether 
 the spiritual communications of the past quarter of a 
 century have told us anything of the conditions of the 
 future world which were not already a part of the faith 
 of free and thoughtful minds. 
 
 Those who disbelieve in a future life do so because 
 of our ignorance concerning it, and also because we do 
 not understand how the soul can exist when separated 
 from the body. While the body lives, we live. When 
 the body is in a healthy state, the mind acts easily. 
 When the body is diseased, the mind weakens. When 
 the bodily organization can no longer operate, the mind 
 ceases to manifest itself. It appears to come to an 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 23! 
 
 end. The doubters say : " Since all we know of the 
 mind is its action by means of the body, and since the 
 moment the body dies the mind disappears from our 
 knowledge, how can we believe in its continued exist- 
 ence ? Are not thought and feeling, then, the outcome 
 of material conditions ? Is not the soul the result of 
 the body?" 
 
 Let me give a few examples of this agnosticism in 
 regard to a future life. They shall all be taken from 
 the lips of serious thinkers, who believe themselves 
 speaking in the interest of truth, and who have a right 
 to use the expression of the apostle, and say, " We 
 believe, and therefore speak." They honestly deny 
 that we have any adequate reason for believing in a 
 hereafter. 
 
 In a discourse delivered December, 1881, Moncure 
 D. Conway thus speaks : " Candor compels us to admit 
 that there is, as yet, no certainty of a future life for 
 the individual consciousness." John Stuart Mill was 
 of the opinion that there was a possibility of a future 
 life, but a total absence of evidence either way. At 
 present, he says, we know that there can be no thought 
 without the help of the brain ; and experience would 
 seem to show that, without such cerebral action, no 
 consciousness can exist. And yet Mr. Mill admits 
 it is as easy to imagine a series of mental states 
 without bodily conditions as with them. He grants 
 that our thoughts and feelings may, for aught we 
 know, continue under some other conditions as well 
 as under these. 
 
 One of Mr. Mill's commentators, Mr. Morley, thinks 
 that he here concedes far too much to the believers in 
 
232 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 immortality. All we know about consciousness is that 
 it is necessarily connected with the normal action of 
 the brain. What right have we, then, to imagine that 
 it can continue without it ? When the brain is dis- 
 solved by death, why should we believe that conscious- 
 ness can continue? Professor Clifford, in his essay 
 on "Body and Mind," takes the same view. To him, 
 thought, feeling, will, are the results of molecular move- 
 ments in the brain. So, too, Chauncey Wright. The 
 life which survives death was, in his view, only the 
 influence which a life leaves behind it to influence 
 other lives. 
 
 In all these cases, the argument against immortality 
 is the same. The method of science is assumed to be 
 this : We ought to begin, so it is said, with outward, 
 sensible things as realities, as real causes. Then we 
 must conceive of thought, love, and will as the effects 
 of these causes. One movement in the brain must 
 therefore cause love, another hatred, another will pro- 
 duce an argument, another an effort of the will. But 
 why begin there ? Why not begin at the other end of 
 the scale ? We ought certainly to begin with what we 
 know best. Now, we are more certain of the existence 
 of our thoughts and feelings than we are of the move- 
 ments of the brain. We know our mental states im- 
 mediately and directly : we know the bodily states only 
 indirectly. In short, we know our soul better than we 
 know our body. If one, therefore, is the cause, and the 
 other the effect, why should we not say, if we follow 
 the methods of science, that the mind is the cause 
 of the movements of the brain, of the action of the 
 heart, the whole economy of the bodily activity? 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 233 
 
 There is the root of the whole matter. Our belief 
 in immortality comes and goes, rises and falls, accord- 
 ing as mind or matter seems to us to be the most real. 
 If we look on the soul as the substantial reality, and 
 the body as its temporary companion, then, when death 
 takes the body, it leaves the soul untouched, unchanged. 
 But, if we habitually consider the body as the only sub- 
 stance, and the mind as its manifestation, then it is 
 evident we shall conclude that, when the substance is 
 dissolved, all its manifestations will cease. 
 
 This last way of thinking has become common in 
 late times. It was very natural that it should be so. 
 It is only the swing of the pendulum from one extreme 
 to the other. Formerly, all thought ran to meta- 
 physics, philosophy, theology. The outward world was 
 neglected. Only the soul of man was studied. In- 
 numerable systems arose about the nature of the soul, 
 the laws of spiritual being ; vast speculations concern- 
 Ing the origin of things, the essence of God, the free- 
 dom of the will, foreknowledge, predestination, the 
 relation of the infinite to the finite. These speculations 
 became more and more subtle, visionary, unsubstantial. 
 Thus, when the mind of man turned back from 
 heaven to earth, from the infinite to the finite, from 
 things unseen and eternal to things seen and temporal, 
 it was found that we lived in an outward world full of 
 wonder and beauty, all governed by unchanging laws, 
 all throbbing with mysterious forces. Nature was seen 
 to be a mighty Sphinx, sitting alone in the desert, 
 ready to tell her mystical story to those who knew how 
 to ask aright. Tired of airy speculation in the skies, 
 man comes down to solid earth. The physical sciences 
 
234 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 spring into being. Instead of dogmatizing, man be* 
 comes a simple inquirer. He asks, and receives ; he 
 seeks, and finds. He asks the earth from whence it 
 came, and the answer is geology. He asks the atoms 
 of their laws, and the reply is chemistry. With his 
 telescope, he patiently watches the movements of the 
 stars ; and astronomy enlarges its scope. He applies 
 his microscope to minute forms of life, and biology re- 
 wards his tender investigation. In all nature, he meets 
 with unchanging law, order, permanence. What won- 
 der that the result of all these studies in the outward 
 world is to make that seem alone real ? The world of 
 soul becomes an illusive vision, that of matter a solid 
 reality. God disappears as a personal friend seen 
 within the soul, and becomes a vast plastic force moving 
 in the outward world. He is no longer the object of 
 prayer; for who can pray to a force or a law? He is no 
 longer the Divine Providence, the Father and Mother 
 who watches over us for our good, but an implacable 
 order to whom it is in vain to appeal. The soul is no 
 longer a monad, a personal unit, a moral substance, but 
 only the result of bodily organization. Therefore, 
 belief in immortality necessarily disappears. We die, 
 and there is the end of us. This infection has invaded 
 philosophy and theology. Even some of our theolo- 
 gians can no longer firmly believe in the miracles of 
 Christ or his resurrection. They think the miracles 
 are the myths of an unscientific and unobserving age, 
 and that the resurrection is an evident impossibility. 
 Thus far, the pendulum of thought has swung from 
 one extreme to the other. 
 
 But this is only a transition state. It is due to the 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 235 
 
 difficulty in all thought of grasping more than one 
 thing at a time. When the object under considera- 
 tion was mind; then the outward world was neglected 
 and ignored. Now that the object is the outward 
 world, the inward world is in its turn neglected. Such 
 are the revenges of nature. 
 
 But, after all, there is nothing so real and so inter- 
 esting as spirit. Of all wonders, the soul itself is the 
 greatest wonder. The mind which grasps the universe 
 is the mightiest power on earth. The will of man, 
 joined with intelligence, animated by love, has grown 
 up into a majestic mastery of outward nature. Mind 
 has searched the records of the past, unrolled the 
 sacred scroll in which the history of many millions 
 of years is written, and deciphered their rocky hiero- 
 glyphics. It has weighed the planets in scales, and 
 analyzed the fiery atmosphere of the sun. It devotes 
 itself with a mighty love to great deeds and vast 
 reforms. It pours itself forth in art, poetry, music. 
 Is not mind the most real thing in nature, that for 
 which nature exists? A single soul, like that of 
 Longfellow, whose tender song has soothed the heart 
 of nations, is a more important factor in the universe 
 of God than a whole train of meteoric planets informed 
 with no such divine life. Who can believe that he 
 has come to an end, because no longer ushig the 
 jodily instrument with which he was connected? 
 Who can believe that Emerson ceased to be, when 
 some particles in his brain or lungs refused to do their 
 work ? Does God create such spirits, educate them 
 by the long developed life of civilization and Chris- 
 tianity, teach them by the great discipline of life, and 
 
236 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 then leave their existence at the mercy of a blast of 
 cold air or the influence of a malarial soil ? The lower 
 as well as the higher reason of man rebels at such a 
 thought. The lower reason, which we call instinct, 
 has led all primitive races, with scarcely an exception, 
 to believe in the immortality of the soul. The highest 
 development of reason, in such minds as that of Soc- 
 rates and Plato, has taught the same doctrine. The 
 common sense of mankind and the loftiest flight of 
 the most sublime genius agree in the same conviction. 
 Great intelligences like those of Pascal and Sweden- 
 borg, inclining naturally to faith, see the future life 
 as an undoubted reality. The opposite class of spec- 
 ulative thinkers, inclining to criticism and to doubt, 
 like Aristotle, Bacon, and Theodore Parker, hold firmly 
 to the same belief. We may say, then, that the human 
 race as a whole, in spite of the great darkness which 
 hangs over the future, and notwithstanding all the 
 arguments of the keenest scepticism, has universally 
 held to a belief in a future life. 
 
 The arguments of unbelief are on the surface, evi- 
 dent to all. They require no science or philosophy 
 to discover them. Every human being who loses a 
 dear friend feels their full force. And yet, in spite 
 of them, the vast majority of men have believed in a 
 hereafter. Is there not, then, an instinct of immor- 
 tality planted within us ? The convictions which are 
 practically universal, and which do not come from out- 
 ward experience, which are even opposed to outward 
 experience, must come from some inward instinct of 
 the soul itself. 
 
 "Not at all,"- answers the doubter. "The wish is 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 237 
 
 father to the thought. People believe what they like 
 to believe. We are fond of life, and wish to continue 
 to live. But that is no evidence that we shall live." 
 
 This answer, however, merely changes the form of 
 our argument. We therefore will put our question in 
 other words, and ask : Why do men wish to live, if it 
 is their nature to die ? In other things, our wishes 
 follow the law of our nature. What we are made to 
 do we like to do. Man was made for society, affec- 
 tion, home; and he enjoys them. He was made for 
 work, study, progress ; and these give him pleasure. 
 Why, then, as the body decays, does not the wish for 
 immortal life decay, too ? If the soul is only the result 
 of the body, just as the movement of the hands of a 
 watch is the result of the machinery within, why is 
 not the decay of the bodily mechanism constantly 
 accompanied with the decay of the spiritual nature ? 
 Why do not faith, hope, and love diminish regularly 
 with the wearing away of the physical system ? But 
 there is no such correlation. The body reaches its 
 highest development, say, at forty or fifty years : after 
 that, it begins to decline. But the mind goes on accum- 
 ulating knowledge ; the heart becomes larger, purer, 
 more loving; the soul lifts itself to loftier regions of 
 spiritual life. This shows that the soul is not merely 
 a bodily result. 
 
 This is eminently apparent in great souls. Schiller, 
 the poet, was not a healthy man : he suffered con- 
 stantly from disease. Yet his best friend says of him : 
 " If I did not meet him for a week, I found that his 
 mind had made perceptible progress in that interval. 
 And so he went forward, ever forward, for forty-six 
 
238 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIF 
 
 years. Then, indeed, he had gone far enough for this 
 world." Think of Dr. Charming, with his feeble body, 
 so weak that a wind might almost blow him away, and 
 yet with an ever advancing soul, which saw more and 
 higher truth every year ! If mind is the result of 
 body, how is it that the feeble and decaying bodies 
 produce such vigorous and progressive minds ? More 
 than this. The soul, while in the body, is, indeed, 
 often influenced by its bodily conditions. But it has 
 the power of reacting upon them. By force of will, it 
 subdues its bodily weakness, resists pain, and even 
 conquers disease. Men given over to death by their 
 physicians have been known to recover, because they 
 have resolved not to die. If the soul were the mere 
 result of bodily organization, it could not thus react 
 upon it. The soul has been compared to the music 
 which is produced by a flute, a violin, or a music-box. 
 It is the spiritual result, men say, from mechanical 
 machinery. But you cannot imagine the music react- 
 ing on the violin or music-box to repair its defects, or 
 force it, when out of order, to produce perfect melody 
 and harmony. 
 
 Between the nature of the body and that of the soul 
 there is a mysterious and impassable gulf. We cannot 
 express the one in terms of the other. We are con- 
 scious of our soul as one indivisible substance, the 
 personal self. It has no attributes in common with 
 material things. It has no form, no color, no inside 
 and outside, upper part and lower. Hence, in all ages, 
 men have believed in the soul as an individual essence, 
 connected with the body, but not deriving its existence 
 from it. It is the body's guest, dwelling in it for a 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 239 
 
 time. This is the deep conviction in us all, that we 
 are not body, but some essence which moves and con- 
 trols the body. 
 
 This consciousness of self, as something apart from 
 matter and above it, has been, no doubt, the ground 
 of man's universal belief in our existence after death. 
 No sensuous philosophy, no doctrine of materialism, 
 no logic, however ingenious, can prevail against this 
 deep-lying conviction. But, in order that this belief 
 should be a practical, living faith in a future life, some- 
 thing more is necessary. 
 
 I said just now that, though there has been a very 
 frequent belief that from time to time departed souls 
 have appeared to men, this belief has not had many 
 permanent or practical results. There is one memora- 
 ble exception to this. The belief of Christians that 
 Jesus was raised from the dead has had a vast influ- 
 ence on the world. It has brought life and immortal- 
 ity to light. It has practically abolished death. Faith 
 in Christ's resurrection has been a working power, a 
 spiritual motor among men. Men, as we have seen, 
 have always believed in a hereafter. But the rising 
 of Jesus intensified this belief into a practical power, 
 such as it never had before. The future life became 
 a reality to the apostles and first believers, lifting 
 them above the fear of death, and has continued to do 
 so in Christendom from century to century. It has 
 not been regarded as an hypothesis or theory, but as 
 a matter of fact. 
 
 The event which took place on the first Easter 
 Sunday was the beginning of a moral reform which 
 purified Roman and Greek civilization, and brought 
 heaven down to earth. 
 
240 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 It did this in two ways. First, it produced a living 
 faith in God as the Father and Friend of man. Sec- 
 ondly, it created faith in Jesus and his truth as a power 
 to overcome the evils of the world. 
 
 Our confidence in our own immortality and in the 
 immortal life of the human race is derived chiefly and 
 depends mainly on our faith in God. The present 
 unbelief in the continued existence of mankind has its 
 chief root in doubt concerning the supremacy of good- 
 ness. If, instead of the God of Love, the universal 
 Father, the heavenly Friend to whom Jesus prayed, 
 we have only a dark, inscrutable power, a mighty but 
 blind force, a background of impersonal being, then it 
 follows almost inevitably that we shall doubt and deny 
 the future life. For then we shall say with the Buddh- 
 ists that "all things rise and fall, come and go, by 
 Nature " ; that Nature, by the working of blind laws, 
 develops man out of protoplasm, and that Nature, by 
 equally blind laws, will restore him again to protoplasm. 
 So we fall back on the gloomy creed of the Book of 
 Ecclesiastes, and say that all things revolve in cycles 
 of perpetual change, without meaning and without 
 progress. This view of the universe makes of man an 
 insignificant atom, the sport of blind chance and iron 
 fate. He came without any reason for his coming, he 
 will go without any reason for his going. 
 
 The Book of Ecclesiastes paints in colors darker 
 than any that Rembrandt or Salvator ever used this 
 phase of human thought. It was a cry of despair 
 from a heart which was without God in the world. It 
 shows us what a dreary waste life becomes, when we 
 lose our faith in a Divine Providence. Then it is 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 241 
 
 better to be dead than alive, and better than both 
 never to have been born. A world without God is a 
 world without meaning or purpose, a world so empty 
 of interest that we should at last not care for anything, 
 and hate life, longing for death, though it come not, 
 and digging for it as for a hidden treasure. 
 
 This phase of thought returns occasionally in human 
 history, and most of us at times find ourselves passing 
 through it. Many of us, I suppose, have had hours 
 in which we were without God in the world, when all 
 things seemed to go on by a dead mechanism, when 
 we had lost sight of the infinite tenderness, the per- 
 fect providence. A great writer of the last century, 
 who lived much among atheists, being asked if he 
 never doubted the existence of God, replied : "Yes : in 
 my darkness, when I sit alone, in the night, thinking 
 only of my misery and my sin, then I doubt. But in 
 the morning, when the sun rises, when he bathes 
 earth in glory, when a thousand little birds welcome 
 his coming, when ineffable beauty is poured over the 
 clouds, and joy unutterable seems to be falling from 
 the skies, then I come to myself. The shadows leave 
 my soul, and I bless the infinite goodness which fills 
 the universe." 
 
 When we believe in God, the Friend of man, the 
 Father of every soul, who has made every soul for him- 
 self, to whom we all belong, we cease to doubt our 
 immortality. " Can a mother forget her little child ? 
 Yes : she may forget, yet will I not forget thee ! " He 
 loves every soul; and, if he loves us, he will not let us 
 go. We are safe in that perfect, infinite love. In our- 
 selves, we are nothing ; but, because we belong to him, 
 we are of value. 
 
242 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 When the English clergyman who owned the house 
 in which Shakspcre lived had it taken down because 
 he was annoyed by visitors, the civilized world cried 
 out against that piece of vandalism. Do we grieve 
 for the destruction of a house in which a great genius 
 has lived, and will our heavenly Father who made us, 
 and educated us, and has given us powers by which 
 we are able to love him and love each other, will he 
 be willing that all the generations of mankind shall drop 
 out of existence ? Not only does his love hold us to 
 himself, but his wisdom, also. Can we conceive of 
 the long processes of creation by which the human 
 race is brought upon the stage of being, and each soul 
 unfolded into capacities of thought and will, ending in 
 their being destroyed as soon as they are made? 
 What a waste of spiritual force, what an inconsequence, 
 what an unreason ! 
 
 We read in the Old Testament that Jonah was told 
 to prophesy against Nineveh, and say that in forty 
 days Nineveh should be destroyed. But Nineveh 
 repented, and the Lord spared it. Then Jonah was 
 angry because his reputation as a prophet was dam- 
 aged. So he sat down under the shadow of a gourd, 
 and said he had better die, since his prophetic infalli- 
 bility had become suspected. Then the Lord pre- 
 pared a worm, which smote the gourd, and it withered ; 
 and Jonah was again angry because of the loss of his 
 gourd. And the Lord said: "Thou hast had pity on 
 the gourd, for which thou hast not labored, neither 
 made it grow, which came up in a night and perished 
 in a night. And should not I spare Nineveh, that 
 great city, wherein are more than six score thousand 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTUR 
 
 persons, that cannot discern between their right hand 
 and their left hand, and also much cattle ? " 
 
 The only argument which Jesus uses for immortality 
 is founded on faith in this divine love of the Creator 
 for his creatures. He quotes the words of the Lord 
 to Moses, " I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and 
 Jacob," and adds, " God is not the God of the dead, 
 but of the living." When the Lord spoke to Moses, 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead some four 
 hundred years. Jesus said that, because God spake 
 of them as his, they must be alive. So, if God thinks 
 of us as his children, his very thought is life-giving 
 and life-preserving. As an argument, this has not 
 much logical force ; but it gives us a sight in our souls 
 of the heavenly love, and so takes away the fear of 
 death. And that experience is more than any argu- 
 ment. 
 
 When Martha said to Jesus, " I know that my 
 brother will rise again, in the resurrection, at the last 
 day," Jesus replied, "I am the resurrection and the 
 life : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet 
 shall he live ; and whoso liveth and believeth in me 
 shall never die." It was as if he said : "Do not think 
 of a future resurrection at the last day. I am the res- 
 urrection. The power of spiritual life which I impart 
 to your soul will raise you now above all thought of 
 death. I am the resurrection, because I am the life. 
 He who believes in me, who trusts in my truth, in the 
 divine love which I show to you, even if he were dead 
 in sin and misery, would come up into life ; and he 
 who is alive in me, full of my faith, cannot die, cannot 
 have any idea of death, except as a point in the prog- 
 ress of being/' 
 
244 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 The resurrection of Jesus was not merely a return 
 to this earthly life ; for, in that case, it would have had 
 little more significance than the raising of Lazarus. 
 But it was a manifestation of the higher life. The 
 disciples saw their Master ascended, yet the same ; 
 risen up to a sphere where pain and sorrow and sin 
 could not touch him, yet the same dear Lord whom 
 they knew and loved. They saw that he loved as 
 before, that they were still his. He had gone up, but 
 not gone away. No matter how high he went in the 
 heavenly world, he was nearer to them than before. 
 So were fulfilled his words, "I go away, and come to 
 you." He went away outwardly to come inwardly. 
 And so he filled them with a sense of their own 
 immortality. If he was in them, and they in him, if he 
 and they were made so perfectly at one, he was their 
 resurrection and their life. 
 
 No intelligent student of history, however sceptical 
 he may be concerning Christianity as a supernatural 
 religion, entertains any doubt that Jesus lived as a 
 teacher in Galilee early in the first century; that he 
 taught a religion the substance of which is contained 
 in the Gospels ; that he was put to death by the insti- 
 gation of the priests and by the order of the Roman 
 procurator, Pontius Pilate. All this is sufficiently 
 authenticated by writers who had nothing to do with 
 Christianity. The rise of the Christian religion at that 
 period, its rapid development and vast influence on 
 mankind, are also undeniable facts, which are to be 
 accounted for. They can only be reasonably accounted 
 for by the actual life and teaching of that Jesus to 
 whose supreme spiritual majesty the whole early 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 245 
 
 Church bore continual testimony. Pliny, writing to 
 the Emperor Trajan, a little after the year 100 A.D., 
 describes the multitude of Christians in Bithynia 
 meeting together and singing hymns to Christ, as to a 
 God. The same was true in all parts of the Roman 
 Empire. Within one hundred years from the birth of 
 Jesus, he had great numbers of followers, who went 
 calmly to die as martyrs to their faith in him. 
 
 But there is another fact. The doctrine which was 
 everywhere preached concerning Christ the central 
 and pivotal belief of the Church was that of the 
 resurrection of Jesus. Whether Jesus rose or did not 
 rise, it is certain that the whole Church believed that 
 he rose from the grave into a higher life. That was 
 the rock on which the Church was built. "If Christ 
 be not risen," says the Apostle Paul, "your faith is 
 vain," we are false witnesses; the whole of Chris- 
 tianity is a delusion and an error. That Christ's res- 
 urrection was the animating principle of Christian 
 belief is evident. This was the one fact regarded 
 as essential to Christianity. In all of Paul's Epistles, 
 he scarcely mentions the miracles of Jesus ; he says 
 nothing about his parables, the sermon on the mount, 
 the events of his ministry. But one fact is with him 
 all-important, and that is the fact of the resurrection. 
 
 There is something else equally certain. Faith in a 
 risen Master was the source of the courage, energy, 
 enthusiasm, hope, of the early Church. Their Master 
 had not gone down into a cold underworld. He had 
 gone up to God, and was near them still. His arms 
 were open to welcome and receive them when they 
 died. As he had gone up, so they would go up. This 
 
246 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 was the "power of his resurrection." It abolished 
 death. It made them sit in heavenly places even then. 
 They lived in sweet communion with the heavenly 
 world while yet here. While doubt in regard to a 
 hereafter darkened the rest of the Roman Empire, the 
 Christians walked in the light of an eternal life. 
 
 I know that it is the custom to say that belief in 
 immortality is not necessary to human virtue or human 
 happiness. The highest and noblest virtue, it is de- 
 clared, does not need the stimulus of future reward 
 and punishment. If there is no hereafter, good men 
 will continue to be good for the sake of goodness. 
 And, if there is no hereafter, men will continue to 
 enjoy this life because of its own interest. The 
 earthly paradise is enough for us, it is said : we need 
 no future paradise. 
 
 This is partially true. Goodness may not need 
 future reward and punishment as a motive. But the 
 influence on life which immortality furnishes does not 
 act mainly as the expectation of reward. We are 
 made better, stronger, nobler, by our faith in immor- 
 tality, because we have around us the mighty influence 
 of the great cloud of witnesses who have gone up. 
 We belong to their world as well as to our own. Is it 
 nothing to know that the spiritual universe above us 
 is not empty, but full of immortal souls, advancing on 
 forever, in sympathy with all that is good here ? Is 
 it nothing to believe that the saints and martyrs of all 
 time, the prophets and heroes of every age, are still 
 full of the same powers, still devoted to the same gen- 
 erous activities ? Will our lives be the same whether 
 we believe that all the regions of being above man are 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 247 
 
 full of intelligence, energy, and love, or that they are a 
 vast emptiness, an infinite and inane void ? 
 
 And as regards human happiness. We know that 
 much of our happiness lies in hope rather than in pos- 
 session. It is not what we have, but what we look 
 forward to, which makes our satisfaction. It is hope 
 which lightens toil : it is perpetual progress which 
 gives us interest in existence. If we believe all prog- 
 ress stops with the grave, can we take much interest 
 in life? All our work is incomplete, our knowledge 
 insufficient, our virtue rudimentary, our religion ele- 
 mental. Yet we are forever led by an infinite ideal 
 toward a divine perfection. All is imperfect here, yet 
 the hope of perfection alone satisfies us. Take away 
 this hope, and interest will fade out of life. The intel- 
 ligence of man demands an infinite end for its scope 
 of action. The heart of man cries out for a perfect 
 love. We lay our dead to rest, and we can have no 
 peace except in the hope of a reunion beyond. Man 
 is made for immortality. Every fibre of his being 
 demands it. And God would not have created us 
 with such necessities, such vast capacities, if they 
 were all to end with the few and sad years of our 
 earthly life. 
 
 Therefore, we rejoice, and must always rejoice, in 
 the great hope of immortal being. We rejoice to 
 believe that the highest being this earth has ever seen 
 has shown to us that it is the nature of man to live, 
 and not to die. If anything can be proved by evidence, 
 if any historic fact can be established by human testi- 
 mony, it is the fact that Jesus appeared to his friends, 
 living, loving, helping them, after his death on the 
 
248 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 cross. We have not merely the testimony of the four 
 evangelists, not merely the added testimony of Paul, 
 but we have the very existence of the Church itself to 
 prove the return of Jesus. When Christ died, Chris- 
 tianity died. The resurrection of Christ was the res- 
 urrection of Christianity. No mere delusion, no fan- 
 tastic imagination, could have given those ignorant 
 and cowardly disciples their depth of conviction, faith, 
 courage, their spirit of martyrdom. The whole Church 
 from the beginning has declared its faith in the resur- 
 rection of Jesus. Easter Sunday, still a day of trium- 
 phant joy, is a perpetual witness to this greatest fact 
 of time. That faith in immortality which poured forth 
 out of Judea, and revived the dying heart of Roman 
 thought, has its only reasonable explanation in this 
 event. The rising of Jesus is the source of comfort 
 to a thousand broken hearts, to fathers and mothers, 
 husbands and wives, friends and lovers. We look up, 
 and see the heavens opened. We see dear and noble 
 friends standing in that divine light, dwelling in the 
 fulness of that heavenly love. As we live from God, 
 as we dwell in things unseen, as we love and hope, 
 the unseen world becomes more near and present. If 
 we look down, we see only the earth. When we look 
 up, we behold the everlasting stars and the city of God. 
 If, then, we would believe in immortality, we must 
 live an immortal life. If we live in the presence of 
 God and immortality, our eyes will be opened to see 
 them. The eternal life then abides in us. We sit 
 then in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. The vast 
 future surrounds and embraces the present, and gives 
 dignity to our finite life. We belong, every one of us, 
 
REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN A FUTURE LIFE 249 
 
 not only to earth, but to heaven, to a never-ending 
 future, a perpetual progress. "All things are ours, 
 whether God, or life, or death, or things present, or 
 things to come." 
 
 Our dear and noble friend, the poet Longfellow, now 
 sees in heaven what he foresaw on earth, that 
 
 " There is no death ! What seems so is transition ; 
 
 This life of mortal breath 
 Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 
 Whose portal we call death." 
 
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