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 No. 
 

THE 
 
 Religion of Evolution. 
 
 BY 
 
 M. J. SAVAGE, 
 
 '/ 
 
 AUTHOR OF "CHRISTIANITY THE SCIENCE OF MANHOOD." 
 
 BOSTON 
 GEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET 
 
 1897 
 
3 
 
 Copyright, 1876, 
 BY LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, & CO. 
 
TO 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE UNITY; 
 
 WILLING TO BEAR THE PAIN OF THOUGHT, BRAVE ENOUGH 
 
 TO HEAR WHAT IS NEW, AND HAVING FAITH 
 
 THAT GOD WILL LEAD THE FREE 
 
 AND THE EARNEST TO 
 
 HIMSELF, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In some form the theory of evolution is now 
 accepted by nearly all the leading scientific and phil- 
 osophic students of the world. It is rapidly giving 
 its own shape to the thought of civilization. Science, 
 art, human life, religion, and reform are becoming its 
 disciples ; and their tendencies in the near future 
 must be largely determined by it. 
 
 Workers in many departments of thought have 
 already reshaped their teachings into accordance with 
 its principles ; but so far as I know, in this country, 
 no book has been devoted to a discussion of its effect 
 upon religion. 
 
 This volume makes no claim to completeness. It is 
 only an essay in answer to the question, " If evolu- 
 tion is true, what have we left in the way of reli- 
 gion ? " Some scientists affirm, and some frightened 
 religionists exclaim, that evolution is essentially athe- 
 istic and irreligious ; and that, if it is true, we have 
 
 5 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 left no religion at all. The writer believes that it is 
 the business of both science and religion to seek first 
 and always for the truth ; for the truth only leads to 
 God. He further believes that it is waste of time to 
 seek to reconcile assumed truths. Truths are already 
 at one, and need no reconciliation. Find and apply 
 truth, then : the result is God's. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Science and Religion 
 
 II. Theory of the World . . 
 
 III. The God of Evolution . . 
 
 IV. The Man of Evolution . . 
 V. The Devil; or, The Nature of Evil 
 
 VI. The Evolution of Conscience 
 
 VII. Love in Law 
 
 VIII. Prayer 
 
 IX. Bibles and the Bible 
 
 X. The Doctrine of Atonement 
 
 XI. Christianity and Evolution 
 
 XII. Immortality 
 
 PAGE. 
 II 
 
 31 
 
 49 
 
 73 
 
 93 
 
 112 
 
 I3 1 
 150 
 170 
 194 
 215 
 234 
 
" Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." 
 
 Paul. 
 
 " Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
 But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
 That mind and soul, according well, 
 May make one music as before, 
 But vaster." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 The truth-seeker is the only God-seeker. 
 
 The curse of both religion and science, in all ages, has been the thought 
 that there was somewhere an ultimate, — a place to stop. Here we are, 
 finite minds in the midst of infinity. And, for the finite that is moving 
 toward infinity, there is nowhere a place to anchor, but only the privilege 
 and the opportunity of endless exploration. 
 
 Beneath all the various, wide-spread, and disconnected labors, discoveries, 
 and experiments of the great body of scientific workers, there is the common 
 belief that all scientific truth is one ; that the universe is all of one piece ; 
 that distant troths are only different parts of one divine pattern that runs all 
 through the whole visible garment of God. This scientific faith is grander 
 than any that the religious world has yet attained. But we must come to 
 this. Religious truth is one, as God is one. Go forth, then, ye religious 
 explorers, and seek only for truth ; knowing that all truth-seekers are 
 brothers, and must come to hand-clasping and looks of recognition by and 
 by! S. 
 
 " I apprehend that there is but one way of putting an end to our 
 present dissensions ; and that is, not the triumph of any existing system over 
 all others, but the acquisition of something better than the best we now 
 have." Channing. 
 
" It is popularly said abroad, that you have no antiquities in America. 
 If you talk about the trumpery of three or four thousand years of history, 
 it is true. But in the large sense, as referring to times before man made 
 his momentary appearance, America is the place to study the antiquities of 
 the globe. The reality of the enormous amount of material here has far sur- 
 passed my anticipation. I have studied the collection gathered by Prof. 
 Marsh of New Haven. There is none like it in Europe, not only in extent 
 of time covered, but by reason of its bearing on the problem of evolution. 
 Whereas, before this collection was made, evolution was a matter of specu- 
 lative reasoning, it is now a matter of fact and history as much as the 
 monuments of Egypt. In that collection are the facts of the succession of 
 forms, and the history of their evolution. All that now remains to be asked 
 is kow, and that is a subordinate question." — Prof. Huxley, before the 
 A merican Association for tlie A advancement of Science, A ugust, 1876. 
 
The Religion of Evolution. 
 
 i. 
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 
 
 The phrase, "the conflict between religion and science," 
 has become a very common one in newspaper, in maga- 
 zine, in public address, and in sermon ; and it represents 
 the observed fact that there is a grand division running 
 through the thinking minds of civilization, on one side of 
 which stand the advocates of religion, and on the other 
 the advocates of science. Not, by any means, that there 
 are no religious men on the scientific side, and no scien- 
 tific men on the religious side, but that this division does 
 represent a real and general fact, and that these two sides 
 stand in a certain antagonism to each other. But yet, 
 strange as it may seem, I suppose it to be still true that 
 there is not a scientific man living who would claim that 
 a real truth of science can by any possibility come into 
 conflict with a real truth of religion ; and there is not a 
 religious man living but would confess that it was simply 
 an impossibility that a real religious truth should stand in 
 antagonism to a real scientific truth. But the antagonism 
 of the attitude still remains, because it is true that on 
 
 it 
 
12 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 both sides there are large bodies of men that are very 
 much more concerned in establishing their positions than 
 they are in finding out what is the truth. It seems to 
 me a very strange thing that any man should be willing 
 to hold such an attitude as this, either on the side of 
 science or religion. There is no possibility of its being 
 for the permanent interest of any man that he should be 
 able to establish himself in a falsehood ; for though he 
 may build him a house as wide as the earth, and as high 
 as the heavens, if its foundation be in the sand, the floods 
 of the eternal movements of the divine forces will some 
 time undermine and sweep it away. There can, then, be 
 no interest in any man's holding to a position that is not 
 true ; so that one might suppose that the chief anxiety of 
 men would be, not to prove that they were right, but to 
 find out whether they were right. And yet I have met 
 men among my own personal friends, who would tell me 
 candidly, and with their whole hearts, that so dear to 
 them had become the positions that they had inherited, 
 even if they were false, they did not wish to find it out ; 
 they did not wish to be disturbed; they did not wish 
 to be compelled to re-adjust their thinking to any new 
 truths : for it is one of the inevitable facts of the world 
 that a new truth is an " unsettler " everywhere. It comes 
 in to disturb and to shake old institutions, and to demand 
 of men that they do not build forever their house in the 
 place where their fathers builded, but that they regard it 
 simply as a tent, to be folded and taken with them on a 
 forward march towards something which is higher and 
 grander and broader in the way of truth. 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION 13 
 
 This fact to which I have alluded — that there is this 
 antagonism between men on account of their being 
 anxious to establish their own positions rather than to 
 find out truth — I suppose to be true in a larger degree 
 of the defenders of religion than it is of those that stand 
 on the side of science; and I conceive that there is a 
 very natural and, in one sense, a satisfactory reason for it. 
 You cannot make any scientific man feel anxious about 
 any supposed scientific truth on the ground that its truth 
 or falsity will endanger the welfare of his soul, either in 
 this world or in any other world. But when a man has 
 inherited some religious belief that is intertwined with all 
 the sacred associations of the past, with the present 
 affections of the soul, and with all the dearest and 
 grandest hopes of the future, it seems to him, when you 
 touch it, that you are unsettling the universe, that you are 
 sweeping away from him every thing that is dear, every 
 thing on which he has been accustomed to rely. You 
 take away the anchor of his soul ; you cut the cable which 
 bound him to any sure hope and abiding-place, and he is 
 set adrift to float, nobody knows where. 
 
 I say, then, that it is natural to a person who has had 
 a training like this that he should be jealous of the in- 
 coming of something that claims to be scientific truth, 
 that conflicts with what he has been taught to regard as 
 religious truth. 
 
 Now, in order that we may understand something of 
 the principles of this conflict that has been going on since 
 f !-ie dawn of civilization, and in the midst of which we are 
 
14 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 still engaged, — in order that we may understand some- 
 thing of the methods of it, and that we may be able to 
 forecast with some degree of probability the outcome of 
 the battle of the present hour, it will be needful for us to 
 go back, and glance for a moment at a few of the fields 
 that have been fought over and won in the past. 
 
 Religion held a universal sway over the mind of man 
 before science was even born; for religion is as old as 
 the instincts of hope and fear in the human soul, and has 
 bound itself up with these hopes and fears ; so that this 
 conflict has not simply arisen under Christianity: it is 
 older than Christianity. I say this because some scien- 
 tific men speak as though Christianity, and no other 
 religion, was the grand obstacle that had stood in the 
 way of scientific progress. It is not because Christianity 
 is any different in this respect from any other religion in 
 the world, but simply because Christianity happens to be 
 the religion of a civilization where this conflict has been 
 going on. But the conflict began before Christianity was 
 born. The old Greeks supposed that the sun, in his 
 grand march across the heavens from the east to the 
 west, was a god driving his flaming chariot; and they 
 worshipped this god with incense and with temples and 
 with offerings ; so that his ritual was widespread all over 
 the ancient world. When, then, some thoughtful philoso- 
 pher came forward first, and, as the result of his study, 
 dared to broach the heresy that the sun was no god, after 
 all, but only a ball of flaming fire, he was unsettling the 
 foundations of the religion which was dear to the popular 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. i 5 
 
 heart ; and the people resented it, and fought against it 
 with just as bitter a feeling of opposition as that which 
 actuates the hearts of the theological defenders of what 
 they claim to be essential religion at the present day. 
 
 But the first great battle between the advocates of 
 science and the advocates of religion was that concerning 
 the geography of the world, — the question as to whether 
 it was round, or whether it was a flat surface. It seems 
 strange and incomprehensible to us, to-day that it could 
 possibly make any difference to the advocates of religion 
 whether the world was round or flat ; and yet one of the 
 bitterest contests of the world raged over this question for 
 ages. And so high did the feeling run, and so bitter was 
 the opposition on the part of the priests of the Catholic 
 Church (and the ministers of the Protestant Church, as 
 well, — for they were linked together hand in hand in 
 fighting that battle), that one of the priests of the middle 
 ages went so far as to say that the Church could better 
 endure having the existence of God called in question, or 
 the immortality of the soul, or the religious nature of man, 
 than that it should listen to the damnable heresy that the 
 world was a globe, and not a flat surface. And Luther 
 and Melanchthon, those grand lights of the Reformation, 
 went quite as far in their opposition to this new science as 
 the priests of the Catholic Church. And what were their 
 arguments ? Why, such as these : That the Bible spoke 
 everywhere of " the face of the earth," and said nothing 
 about any other side but the face. Again : that, if there 
 were any antipodes living on the other side of the world, 
 
16 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 then the character and government of God were im- 
 peached, because he had made no provision for their 
 salvation. And again : the command had been given to 
 the apostles to go into all the world, and to preach the 
 gospel to every creature; and since the apostles had 
 never visited any nations at the antipodes, therefore there 
 were no such nations. These were their arguments, — 
 arguments brought from a superficial understanding of the 
 biblical use of language. And they went so far as to 
 construct their theory of the world after the precise pat- 
 tern of the Jewish tabernacle in the wilderness, saying 
 that that was the divine copy of the universe ; and that, 
 as the tabernacle was twice as long as it was wide, and 
 had just such and such proportions, therefore the universe 
 was in just this same shape, — an oblong square ; and 
 that the world was supported by pillars, as the tabernacle 
 was supported by pillars ; and they invented some sort of 
 a grand mountain at one end of this oblong square, be- 
 hind which the sun was pulled at night when it was dark. 
 So far did they carry this battle over the question as to 
 whether the world was round or flat. And one thing 
 which seems very remarkable to us who are accustomed 
 to go to Nature and interrogate her, when we wish to get 
 an answer, is, that it never seemed to occur to these men 
 to find out whether the world was round by travelling 
 over it, by sailing around it, by measuring an arc of its 
 surface to see whether it was curved or not. It never 
 seemed to occur to them to go to the natural phenomenon 
 itself, and ask it the question. Instead of that, they went 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION 17 
 
 to certain old books, that they regarded as sacred, to find 
 out what somebody who lived thousands of years before 
 had thought about it. This, then, is an indication of the 
 battle that was fought over the question of geography. 
 
 The next great conflict was over the position of the 
 earth in the solar system, — as to whether the earth was 
 the centre, or the sun was the centre. And here, again, 
 instead of looking to find out whether their theory was 
 true, instead of prosecuting the study of astronomy, 
 instead of opening their eyes, they seemed to think that 
 to dare to scrutinize the works of God was impiety and 
 heresy ; and so science was fought against with every 
 weapon, not only of the civil power in the way of persecu- 
 tion, but with the most opprobrious epithets and with 
 social ostracism. And here, again, the arguments are very 
 strange that they bring. Luther laughed at and ridiculed 
 the foolish scientific men of his day who said that the sun 
 was the centre of the solar system, and that the earth 
 revolved about it, and clinched his argument by saying 
 that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the 
 earth ; and therefore it could not possibly be that the 
 earth moved around the sun, instead of the sun moving 
 around the earth. And then, when Galileo invented his 
 telescope, so that he could see the moons of Jupiter, 
 instead of looking through his telescope, and finding out 
 whether he really did see the moons, they charged him 
 with being in league with Satan, and said, that, through 
 Satan's help, he had invented an instrument which created 
 the heavenly bodies which he claimed to see. And here, 
 
18 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 again, with these old ideas inherited from the past, they 
 fought against finding out what were the real facts in the 
 realm of nature concerning the way in which God had 
 constituted this wondrous universe of ours. 
 
 The next battle that I shall speak of (I dwell on these 
 very lightly, simply by way of illustration) is one that you 
 are familiar with yourselves, that has been fought out in 
 the lifetime of almost every one that has attained to the 
 age of twenty-five years, — the battle over the antiquity of 
 the earth and of man. The battle started in the new dis- 
 coveries of geology. Here, again, the same old weapons 
 were used in the fight against this new, grand, and higher 
 truth. When sea-shells and the fossil bones of fishes 
 were discovered upon the sides, and near the summits, of 
 high mountains, instead of believing what geology taught, 
 — that the mountains had themselves been under the sea, 
 and had afterwards been raised by the natural action of 
 the forces of the earth, — they claimed that the presence 
 of these things must be explained upon the theory that 
 the flood had carried them there, and had left them behind 
 when it had passed away: or they claimed that these 
 were false creations of Satan, made as an imitation of, 
 and a parody upon, the works of God : or they claimed 
 that they were the first attempts of God in the way of 
 creation; that he had to try several times before he 
 succeeded, and that these were the remnants of his 
 failures ; that he had thought out better ways afterwards, 
 and created the existing specimens of life on the face of 
 the earth after newer and finer patterns. And at that 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 19 
 
 time the grand obstacle to the reception of the new and 
 magnificent truths that geology taught was simply the old 
 interpretation of Genesis. Because Archbishop Usher 
 had ciphered it out that the world was only six thousand 
 years old, therefore geology could not be true ; and 
 because of the institution of the sabbath, based on the 
 supposition that God worked six days, was then tired, 
 so that he wanted to rest on the seventh, and therefore set 
 apart that day, — this was again used as a conclusive argu- 
 ment against the facts that could be seen by simply looking 
 at them. But this battle is at last fought out and ended ; 
 and the antiquity of the world, and the antiquity of man, 
 reaching back, not six thousand years, nor ten thousand, 
 nor twenty thousand, but possibly, in the case of humanity 
 itself, a hundred thousand, certainly in the case of the 
 world thousands of thousands, if not thousands of 
 millions, — this question is at last absolutely settled for 
 the mind of every man who is at all familiar with the 
 facts that go to prove it. 
 
 And then there is one battle more that I will glance at, 
 — one which is raging very furiously at the present time, 
 represented on one side by men like Herbert Spencer, 
 Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, the German Haeckel, and on 
 the other by the leading men of the theological world ; 
 and this battle is nothing more nor less than concerning 
 the methods of creation, and what was the origin of life 
 upon the globe, and by what process living creatures have 
 developed from the first simple beginnings in the primeval 
 oceans up to the grandest manifestations of the intellect 
 
20 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 of humanity. This is the battle in the midst of which we 
 are living to-day. I shall say nothing in regard to the 
 merits of it at this time, because it does not come in as 
 a necessary part of my subject. 
 
 But now let us look for a moment, and see what are 
 some of the principal results of these battles between reli- 
 gion and science. And, in the first place, I should think 
 it would be a very discouraging fact for those who are 
 so afraid of science, that, in every single one of the grand 
 conflicts of the past, the advocates of the popular religion 
 of the time have been beaten out and out ; so that to-day 
 there is not a remnant left of them. There has not been 
 a well-thought-out and well-arranged contest between the 
 advocates of science and the advocates of religion in the 
 history of the past, in which the advocates of science have 
 not been completely and permanently triumphant. What 
 is the next result ? The next result is, that religion, so far 
 from receiving any detriment on account of the overthrow 
 of those that have assumed to be her champions, has 
 grown grander and more magnificent every time. Re- 
 ligion, in other words, has been helped, advanced, uplifted, 
 magnified, and made grander by the conquests of science. 
 And how? Not that certain definite forms of religion, 
 certain theories of theology, certain sectarian claims, have 
 not been injured ; for these have been overthrown, and 
 ground to powder. But these are not religion : these 
 are simply the false and mistaken theories of men. 
 These have been trodden down in the track of the 
 advancing thought of humanity ; but religion has been 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 21 
 
 made grander. Just think of it for a moment ! The God 
 of that little universe which was patterned after the Jewish 
 tabernacle was simply a gigantic and non-natural man. 
 He was simply the autocrat of a little kingdom not so 
 large in the conception of the world, at that time, as the 
 United States is to-day ; simply a sovereign ruler, who 
 could make the mountains tremble with his footstep, the 
 rumbling of the thunder being the roll of his chariot- 
 wheels, or the threatening tones of his voice, while the 
 lightning was the gleam of his sword, or the flash of his 
 eye. Think of a God like that! — not grander than the 
 Olympian Jupiter. And now words and time both fail 
 me to do more than ask you to think of the infinite 
 enlargement of the conception of God that has come 
 from the revelations of science, — the world a magnifi- 
 cent globe, though the smallest of all the worlds with 
 which we are familiar, yet sweeping around the sun 
 in its wondrous orbit ; and this system, mighty and 
 grand as it is, one of the very least with which we 
 are acquainted, and the universe made up of a countless 
 number of unspeakably grand systems and galaxies that 
 stretch off and off and off, until we know not whether 
 this material universe of ours be not itself absolutely 
 infinite and unbounded. Think of the difference in the 
 human conception of the God that resides at the centre, 
 who is the life and force and power and beauty and glory 
 of a universe like this. And this is the object of our 
 religion, that the advance of science has given us, — an 
 advance right in the teeth of the defenders of religion, 
 
22 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 and made at the cost of overthrowing and trampling 
 down that which the religious advocates of the time 
 regarded as essential to the very existence of religion 
 itself. This is an indication, an illustration, of how science 
 has exalted our conception of God, of the universe, of 
 the nature of man and the grandeur of human destiny ; 
 so that religion has been an unspeakable gainer by being 
 defeated in its conflicts with science. And yet there has 
 resulted one incidental evil, — an evil not growing out 
 of the fact that religion was defeated ; for it would have 
 been the worst possible thing for humanity if religion 
 had gained in this contest with the science of old : but 
 this incidental evil has followed from the simple fact that 
 religionists put themselves in the way of the advance of 
 truth concerning God and his universe. And how has 
 the evil been wrought ? It has been wrought in this 
 way : Scientific men have come to look upon the church 
 and theology as simply superstitions, outworn obstructions 
 in the pathway of the progress of discovery. And they 
 have been justified in regarding those who have put them- 
 selves forth prominently as the advocates of religion as 
 obstructionists in the way of the advance of truth ; for 
 every single time that there has been made a proposal to 
 enlarge the kingdom of definite knowledge, there has 
 been the s une old tiresome outcry of " Science falsely 
 so called ! ' md the opposition of religion, on the ground 
 that they were driving God out of his universe. Why, 
 when Newton discovered the law of gravitation, that 
 which all ministers now for a hundred years have been 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 23 
 
 speaking about as one of the grandest illustrations of 
 the power and greatness of God, — when Newton first 
 made that discovery, he was branded as an atheist and 
 an infidel by the Church, because, as they said, he had 
 taken the universe out of God's hands, and had given 
 it into the keeping of a law. And so every time that 
 there is a new law discovered, the same old cry is raised, 
 until to-day the crowning objection that is urged against 
 the law of evolution is, that it is driving God clear 
 out of his universe ; as though a law were any thing 
 more than simply a name for a method of divine work- 
 ing. And the broader you make the law, the more com- 
 prehensive and sweeping, the longer its reach, only the 
 more grand and magnificent become the thought, and 
 the conception of a God who is able thus to weave a 
 network of law that shall cover the universe, and reach 
 through all time. 
 
 And now let us stop for a moment, after reviewing 
 these contests, and let us dare to look this thing called 
 science in the face. What is science ? Why should reli- 
 gious men be afraid of it? That they are afraid, and 
 that even liberal men and women are afraid of it, I have 
 found out by personal conversation with some of my own 
 parishioners and friends. And there is a sort of uneasy 
 feeling on the part of many, that when a minister says 
 " science " in the pulpit, he has somehow temporarily 
 dropped his real vocation ; that he has left the work of 
 preaching God's truth, and is talking about man's theories 
 and ideas ; that he is really trenching on the ground of 
 
24 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 secularism, doing work appropriate for Monday, but not 
 for Sunday. Let us, then, I say, for a moment look this 
 matter of science in the face, and see if we can find out 
 what it is. Science is nothing more nor less than the 
 arranged, organized, definite, verifiable knowledge of the 
 world. It is nothing more fearful than that. We know, 
 for example, that a stream of water cannot possibly rise 
 higher than its fountain. Having established that as a law 
 of the movement of water, we have established so much as 
 being a part of science. Again : we know, as another ex- 
 ample that certain chemical elements brought together in 
 solution will arrange themselves, under certain conditions, 
 into a crystal of a certain form ; that they will do it every 
 time. There, again, is simply another fact of science. We 
 know now, since the battle is fought out and won, that the 
 earth turns around on its own axis once in twenty-four 
 hours, and that it revolves around the sun. These, again, 
 are simple facts of science. That is, any thing concerning 
 man ; concerning human society ; concerning the earth ; 
 concerning the animals that inhabit the earth, the grasses, 
 the herbs, the flowers that spring out of its soil ; concern- 
 ing the clouds that sweep through the air ; concerning the 
 atmosphere itself; concerning the sun and the stars, — 
 any thing that we know and can prove about any of these 
 things is science. It is real science when it can be veri- 
 fied, and when it is not somebody's guess or supposition. 
 Now, there are a great many things that are simply 
 believed, a great many theories that are called hypothe- 
 ses. They are assumed as the working implements of 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 25 
 
 science. They are not science until they are established. 
 Things that are proved, and that can be proved again, are 
 science. And here is one grand advantage that scientific 
 truth has over any other, — that which is true in science 
 is true everywhere, and it is true always. I do not accept 
 it on the basis of a man's dream who lived five thousand 
 years ago ; I do not accept it because somebody comes to 
 me, and says that he talked with an angel, and the angel 
 told him so ; I do not accept it because some man says, 
 " I was inspired to write such and such things, and this 
 was one of the things that I was told to write ;" I do not 
 accept it on testimony from anybody. It is a truth of 
 the living, working God, right before my eyes to-day; 
 and I can prove it now, and I can prove it to-morrow, 
 just as well as it was proved yesterday ; so that there is 
 no possible chance for contradiction or conflict as to 
 whether it is true or not. That is the one grand thing 
 that is claimed in favor of the methods and facts of 
 science. 
 
 And now, is this science sacred, or is it secular ? There 
 is no possible way by which I can absolutely settle it that 
 every part of the Bible was inspired by God. There is 
 no possible way by which I can find out how much of the 
 Pentateuch Moses wrote, or whether he was inspired to 
 write that which he did write, or whether he wrote it out 
 of his own human wisdom. There is no possible way, I 
 say, by which I can establish questions like these. And 
 yet these things by many, by the multitudes of Christen- 
 dom to-day, are held out before us as the things that 
 
26 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 are peculiarly and especially sacred ; and our reverence 
 is demanded for them. But whether I know any thing 
 else in the world, if there be a God at all, I know that he 
 is the author, the life, the force, the beauty, the glory, of 
 this universe that he has made. And when I look upon 
 some little flower bursting through the sod, I am look- 
 ing directly into the secrets of God's beauty and God's 
 taste. And when I look into the eyes of my friend, and 
 when I see the self-sacrifice, the self-denial, the love that 
 is prompted by his heart, I am looking at a fact of sci- 
 ence, something that I can recognize and prove as a part 
 of human nature ; and I am at the same time looking 
 into the divine mystery of the love and the self-sacrifice 
 of God. When I look at the stars coursing their ways 
 through the blue deeps of heaven, I am, as Kepler 
 said of old, "thinking over after him again God's own 
 thoughts." And so, anywhere where God has been, or 
 where God is now (for he is now where he ever has been), 
 wherever God is, I look upon his very footstep, and I can 
 put my finger into his own finger-prints ; and I can see 
 God's life in the growth and progress of nature about 
 me ; I can feel the divine pulsations in the air, and in the 
 life of my body ; I am living in the midst of the only 
 temple that God himself has consecrated, and that I can 
 be absolutely sure is a representation of God's own work. 
 Whether there are mistakes about any thing else or not, 
 this is certain. Here, then, in nature, — in sun and star, 
 and sky and cloud, and ocean and earth, and grass and 
 flowers and trees, and human nature, — I am looking 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 27 
 
 directly into a revelation of God ; and if I can read it, I 
 can read the very thoughts and processes and methods 
 of the divine working and development. W- 
 
 This, then, is science, that men dare call irreligious ; 
 that men dare decry in the name of human traditions, and 
 human systems, and human dreams, and human follies, and 
 human superstitions. If there be any one thing that is 
 the sacred book and teaching and life and outcome and 
 revelation of God's own heart and God's own power, it is 
 that which is called science. 
 
 And now, in just a word, what is religion ? and why 
 need religion be afraid of science ? and what ought to 
 be the real relation existing between science and religion ? 
 Religion, — I am going to give you a very short definition ; 
 and yet, if you will think about it as long as you will, I do 
 not believe you can find any thing that reaches beyond its 
 limits, — religion simply means the relationship, as to right\ 
 or wrong, in which man stands to his God and to his fel- 
 low-man. This is the whole sum and substance of x&\\-/ 
 gion. It covers and includes it all. 
 
 Now, then, what can science do for this religion ? Sci-^ 
 ence has been doing for hundreds of years one of the 
 greatest services possible. It has been destroying the 
 superstitions, the crudities, the falsehoods, the misconcep- 
 tions of men concerning religion. For example, the doc?' 
 trines of astrology, of demoniacal possession, of witchcraft, 
 the doctrine of the material resurrection of the body, of a 
 material hell just under the surface of the ground, and 
 many others that were once considered central and essen- 
 
28 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 tial parts of religion, — these things which were only hurts 
 and damages, barnacles on the ship that hindered its 
 sailing, — these things science has stripped off, and thrown 
 away, and utterly destroyed. 
 
 I do not wonder that men have cried out against sci- 
 ence because it has done these things ; for if once a man 
 identifies his own thought with the very central life and 
 thought of the universe, of course, when you touch him, 
 he thinks the throne of God is giving way. But science 
 has reconstructed religious thought : that is one thing that 
 it has done for it. Another thing I have already enlarged 
 upon. It has heightened infinitely the objects of religion,N 
 giving us a grander God, a nobler humanity, a more 
 magnificent universe as the theatre for human action./ 
 Another thing : if I am to understand definitely what is 
 right and what is wrong, if, in other words, I am to be 
 intelligently moral, if I am to educate my conscience 
 after the true pattern, I must learn definitely what are 
 the facts concerning human nature, concerning its origin, 
 concerning its history, concerning its relationships. I 
 must study out these, and definitely settle them ; and in 
 that way alone can I be sure that I am living a truly 
 moral life. For example, as illustrating what I mean : the 
 larger part of the religion of the past has been simply 
 ritual. It has been said, " You must obey the priest, you 
 must go to church, you must pay tithes, you must partake 
 of the sacraments, you must do this thing, you must do 
 that thing." Now we believe, and, in the light of science, 
 it is perfectly clear to us, that none of these things have 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 29 ^ 
 
 any essential relation whatever to religion ; and a man 
 may be religious, and disregard every one of them, and a 
 man may do every one of them, and a thousand more, 
 and be utterly and through and through irreligious. 
 
 Science, then, is definitely settling for us what is right 
 and what is wrong, by observing the facts in regard to. 
 human nature. 
 
 And, then, one thing more, science is gradually giving 
 to religion its methods, — its method of study and of proof. 
 Why is it that intelligent and thoughtful men to-day are 
 disputing so largely the great central questions, as they 
 are claimed to be, of religion ? It is one of the strange 
 things of the world, if the claims of the Church are true, 
 that thoughtful, intelligent, earnest, religious men all over 
 the world are disregarding them. Why, no man thinks 
 of disregarding the law of gravitation, because he knows 
 he would be a fool to do it. Whether he disregards it or 
 not, it is a grand fact of the universe, and, if he comes in 
 its way, it will crush him. No man disregards the laws 
 of fire, because he knows that fire is a fact of the uni- 
 verse that it will not do to disregard. No man questions 
 as to whether the earth moves around the sun, because it 
 can be proved that it moves around the sun. But the 
 reason that religion is so disputed, that it is so bandied 
 about, that it is so fought against, is, that theology has 
 sought to identify with religion a hundred or a thousand 
 things that no man on earth can prove. As an illustra- 
 tion of what I mean, Mahomet claimed to be inspired 
 of God, and to teach the doctrines of the Koran under 
 
30 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 inspiration ; Swedenborg claimed to be inspired of God , 
 Peter and Paul claimed to receive visions direct frorn^ 
 God. Now, whether they did or not, nobody can tell./ 
 There is no possible way of proving that they did or did 
 not. In other words, to state very definitely and very 
 clearly what I mean, many of the asserted truths of 
 religion have been heretofore "all in the air," — truths that 
 nobody could touch, nobody could feel, nobody could see, 
 nobody could prove ; so that you could accept them if 
 you wished to ; but you could not make it a rational 
 necessity for another man to accept them. But once\ 
 bring the methods of science into the sphere of religion,' 
 establish the existence of God ; establish the laws of God 
 as manifested in the universe, establish the nature of 
 man, and his religious nature as a part of it, — establish 
 these on the firm foundations of investigated and verified 
 truth, and no reasonable man will then think of ques^ 
 tioning them, or questioning whether he ought to be 
 religious, and lead a religious life. He will no more/ 
 think of questioning these than he will the fact that the 
 earth moves around the sun. 
 
 And so science more and more ought to come into the 
 sphere of religion, and bring with it its methods of inves- 
 tigation and proof. And so, as the result of the present 
 conflicts, there is coming a grander revelation of religion, 
 and an establishing of it on immovable foundations, such 
 as heretofore the world has never seen. 
 
II. 
 
 THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 At the National Unitarian Conference in Saratoga 
 (1874), one of our most widely known ministers was 
 making a speech on our missionary work ; and, in the 
 course of his remarks, he took occasion to speak slight- 
 ingly of those who were wasting their time on such 
 unpractical questions as the antiquity of the world and 
 the origin of things. He thought there were enough prob- 
 lems of real, pressing, living importance right about us 
 to absorb all our attention, and consume all our energy. 
 And a year ago (1875), in Music Hall, in the course of a 
 lecture on " Our Scandalous Politics," Mr. Parton took 
 occasion to ridicule those who were troubling their brains 
 over the theories of Darwin and Spencer, instead of 
 grappling vigorously with the political evils and social 
 reforms of the day. 
 
 Thoughts and utterances like these are natural enough 
 to one who does not look beneath the superficial move- 
 ments of the time for the hidden, and oftentimes remote, 
 springs and causes of the conditions of things. If one 
 
 3> 
 
32 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 knew nothing of the interior mechanism of a watch, he 
 might think he could make it keep good time by turning 
 the hands round on the face ; but a wiser person would 
 take it to a watch-maker, and have the origin of the outer 
 movements looked after. 
 
 Men who pride themselves on their reputation as 
 " practical " workers are often very impatient of theories 
 and theorizers. Theorist to them means visionary. They 
 regard him as dwelling in a cloud-land, and dealing with 
 unsubstantial fancies. They think his fitting representa- 
 tive is the fabled dog on the foot-bridge, who dropped his 
 bone while clutching at a finer looking shadow. They 
 propose to hold by the bone. And yet, if you'll think of 
 it, every man living has his theory of every thing he does ; 
 and all his practice is the result of his theory. The 
 farmer who sneers at his neighbor for adopting the " new- 
 fangled notions," — the knowledge of chemicals and soils 
 that modern science has revealed to him, — and who 
 pins him to the walls of his kitchen with the stigma 
 " theorizer ! " is himself a theorizer just the same ; only 
 he keeps working away on a theory that consists in bun- 
 gling tools, — and guessing experiments, and back-break- 
 ing hand-labor, — a theory that kept his grandfather poor, 
 a theory long since exploded as deficient and half-way, — 
 instead of accepting that theory that new investigation 
 and successful practice have proved true. Should a boy 
 at school attempt a problem in mathematics, and pay no 
 attention to the theory, the underlying principles accord- 
 ing to which the question could be solved, you would say 
 
THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 33 
 
 he ought to exchange his seat for the dunce's block. 
 Watt and Stephenson succeeded in laying the foundations 
 of our present railway system, when they discovered the 
 true theory of the laws and application of steam. Von 
 Moltke is the greatest of modern generals, because he has 
 the brain to conceive and carry out the most nearly 
 perfect theory of the laws of war. All of us are theo- 
 rizers who have brains enough to think out, and work 
 along, the lines of any efficient plan in our business. 
 The banker, the merchant, the lawyer, the physician, the 
 minister, each has his theory ; and he is successful just 
 according to his ability to discover the true theory of his 
 position, and to carry it out in effective practice. So you 
 might as well talk of practically growing an oak without 
 an acorn as to think of successful practical work divorced 
 from theory. 
 
 And now, for a moment, glance at the absurdity of the 
 position assumed by the preacher and lecturer just re- 
 ferred to. Society and state are sick with various mala- 
 dies which they desire to heal : so, without stopping to 
 waste time and strength on the unpractical questions of 
 the remote origins and causes of the disease, they propose 
 to blister and bleed and cauterize, without any loss of 
 time. An intelligent physician, when called to a patient, 
 does not consider it any waste of time to stop and investi- 
 gate, and study the symptoms, in order to find out what 
 the matter is ; and, the more serious and urgent the dis- 
 ease, the more careful he is to do this. 
 
 Now, there is not a single personal, social, political, or 
 
34V THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 religious question of the day that does not run back and 
 root itself in the remotest antiquity of the race. They all 
 grow out of the original nature of humanity, just as the 
 topmost twig or leaf of a two-thousand-year-old tree is 
 the outgrowth of the first germinal principle from which 
 the ancient trunk has sprang. Here is the trouble with^ 
 most of the " reforms " of the age. They are the outy 
 come of transcendental notions, purely empirical study, or 
 the hasty guesses of enthusiastic persons, who propose to 
 finish in a year a structure the foundations of which God 
 has been centuries in laying. Any true reform must\ 
 know the drift of the ages, and work in the line of the 
 eternal movements of the universe. / 
 
 We are now prepared to raise the question as to 
 whether a study of the " theory of the world " is a practi- 
 cal matter. And, in the first place, glance at the facts. 
 All nations on the face of the earth who have been 
 civilized enough to have any thought-out and organized 
 religion have always connected their popular religion with 
 a cosmogony, or theory of the origin of the universe. The 
 character of their gods, their conception of humanity, 
 their codes of morals, the rights of rulers and subjects, 
 their hopes and fears of a future life, have all been the 
 outcome of their conception of the universe. Their whole? 
 practical life has been the simple result of their theory of. 
 the origin of things. 1 » 
 
 And how is it with Christendom to-day? The populai 
 
 1 Carlyle has said, "Tell me what a man thinks of this universe, and I will tell 
 you what his religion is." 
 
THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 35 ^ 
 
 conception of the nature and attributes of God, the nature 
 of man, the origin and nature of evil ; the practical ques- 
 tion of sin ; the ecclesiastical schemes of salvation, heaven 
 and hell; the prevailing theories of government and of 
 social progress ; the status of woman ; the rights of chil- 
 dren, — all the great practical questions of humanity are\ 
 the direct outgrowth of the Mosaic cosmogony, the Jew- 
 ish theory of the origin of the universe. And the present* 
 condition, together with the past battles and progress of 
 science, is the natural result of this same cause. Not 
 practical, or of present importance ? There is not a single^ 
 question of the age, that for present, practical, pressing 
 importance, begins to approach the one that Spencer and 
 Darwin and Haeckel have raised. You might as well say/ 
 that because the sun is ninety-two millions of miles away, 
 its influence, and the laws of its life and shining, are of no 
 practical importance to Boston. Boston is an outgrowth ' 
 of the sunshine, from the granite that paves its streets to 
 the brains that rule in its counsels. So the present active 
 world, with all its widespread and multiplied interests, is 
 the outgrowth of the far-off origin of things. 
 
 To specialize a little more particularly, and let you see 
 how intimately religion is connected with the theory of 
 the world, I ask you to look at the Church of the last two 
 thousand years. Please observe that the whole orthodox 
 system is the natural and logical outgrowth of the Mosaic 
 account of the beginning of things in Genesis. The 
 prevailing beliefs about God, the nature and fall of man, 
 total depravity, the need and the schemes for supernatural 
 
36 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 redemption, the whole structure, creed, and ritual of the 
 Church, the common belief about the nature and efficacy 
 of prayer-meetings, the whole system of popular revivals, 
 limited salvation and everlasting punishment, — every 
 single one of them is built on the foundation of the 
 Mosaic cosmogony. And there is not one of them all 
 but will be destroyed or modified when it shall become 
 popularly settled that the Mosaic cosmogony is not a 
 correct account of the facts. 
 
 Having made it appear, then, that as practical, earnest 
 men of to-day, it is well worth our while to look into and 
 investigate this question, I now ask you to go with me to 
 a consideration of the only theories that need detain us. 
 Of course we need not stop even to glance at the 
 fantastic notions that prevailed among so many nations 
 in the childhood of the world. Only two theories, the 
 Mosaic and the Evolution, even pretend to claim the 
 sober belief of our nineteenth-century civilization. To 
 these, then, we must confine our attention. 
 
 I. The Mosaic Cos7nogony. 
 
 Before going any farther, I wish to make two or three 
 remarks that are worth careful attention. 
 
 (i) The account of creation in Genesis holds its place 
 in the popular belief, not because it has been proved, or 
 is capable of proof, but solely because of its supposed 
 necessary connection with the truths of Christianity. 
 This is, at any rate, a strange and questionable basis on 
 n'hich to found a scientific belief. 
 
 (2) It is an old-world traditional belief, not for the first 
 
THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 37 
 
 time revealed to Moses, but one that came down from a 
 time long before the foundation of the Hebrew nation. 
 
 (3) It does not even claim to be the result of a study 
 of the facts that it proposes to explain. No such study 
 was then possible, or had even been attempted ; so that 
 Moses is not telling what either he or any one else at that 
 time had any way of knowing. It is only the traditional 
 belief of that age. 
 
 (4) These traditions get a great deal of hardly de- 
 served reverence and belief from the fact of their hisrh 
 antiquity ; just as a man is proud of his ancestry, though 
 the roots of his family-tree run down into outright bar- 
 barism. But, if you'll think of it, the reverence belongs 
 here. We are the real ancients. The present is the 
 hoary antiquity of the earth. 'Tis a man's old age, and 
 not his childhood, that wears wisdom and gray hairs. 
 This story of Moses is one of the fancies of the world's 
 childhood. Never was civilization so old, and never had 
 it such stores of accumulated knowledge, as now. In fact, 
 never, until within the last hundred years, has the world 
 gathered enough about the facts of the universe, so that 
 mankind was competent to frame a reasonable theory of 
 the world out of its acquired knowledge. If, then, in the 
 history of humanity, there has ever been a time when 
 there was a possibility of settling this question, now is 
 that time. 
 
 (5) The Mosaic cosmogony has no scientific claim to 
 be called a theory at all ; for the simple reason that it ex- 
 plains nothing whatever. Its very claim to be an explana- 
 
38 V THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 tion is merely a leap into the incomprehensible. It simply 
 says, " God made it." But that does not at all explain 
 the method of creation, — how, by what process, and 
 according to what laws and forces, things have come to 
 be as they are. I do not explain the mystery of life when 
 I tell my child that God made the new baby, and that the 
 angels brought it down to me. I do not explain a tree, 
 when I tell a child that God made it. I do not explain a 
 question in arithmetic, when I tell a pupil that I worked it 
 out, and that so and so is the answer. But all these are 
 explanations just as much as Genesis explains the world. 
 Men seek the causes and the methods by which results 
 have been produced. The solar system is explained by 
 the law of gravitation, not by saying God or the angels 
 make the planets move. 
 
 Thus it is perfectly safe to say that no one would think 
 of resting in the Mosaic story, were it not supposed to be 
 a part of their religion to do so. And evolution has been/ 
 opposed, not because it could not give good reasons for 
 itself, but because it has been regarded as hostile to the 
 popular religion. 
 
 With these remarks, then, in mind, we are ready to look 
 at Genesis. The popular belief has been simply this: 
 God had lived alone, complete and happy in himself, from 
 all eternity. Suddenly, for no conceivable reason, he 
 concluded to create the world. Previously, however, he 
 had made the angels, that they might serve and praise 
 him ; though what service or praise he needed, who was 
 complete in himself, it were hard to tell. If he had any 
 
THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 39 
 
 motive in creating the world, it was thought to be that he 
 might glorify himself, and receive the admiration of his 
 creatures. The chief result was to be, that, after the world 
 had passed away, his goodness in saving a few, and his 
 justice in damning the many, might be seen as the result 
 of his scheme of redemption. When, then, he was ready, 
 by the word of command, he created matter out of nothing, 
 and of this matter built the world. This world, a flat 
 surface, he anchored in the midst of space, "setting k 
 fast forever, so that it could not be moved." Then he 
 elaborated the solid concave arch of the firmament, and 
 placed it like a dome over the earth. In this he arranged 
 the sun, moon, and stars, to divide the seasons, the days, 
 and the nights, and to give light to this earth. He sepa 
 rated the waters, making the oceans of that which he 
 left on earth • and in his storehouses " above the firma- 
 ment," he treasured up the rains to water the earth, which 
 watering was to be done by opening the windows of the 
 sky, and letting the water through. Then he made the 
 different forms of life, creating fishes and reptiles, and 
 birds and animals, out of the dust. When this is done, it 
 occurs to the Deity that none of these creatures can think 
 of or praise him : so he consults, and concludes to make 
 man in his own image. He forms Adam out of the dust, 
 and then breathes in his nostrils, and he becomes alive. 
 Then, seeing that he is lonesome, he concludes to make a 
 woman to keep him company. So he puts him to sleep, 
 takes out one of his ribs, — which, strange to say, has 
 never been missed, — and from it constructs Eve. All 
 
40 * THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 this has taken him six days. He is now tired, and gives 
 one day to rest. This is the origin of the sabbath. If by 
 resting is meant letting creation alone, we should suppose 
 it might have fallen into disorder during the neglect. 
 But if it means simply ceasing to create, then he has been 
 resting ever since, on this theory ; and it is hard to see 
 why it is stated that he took only one day. But we know 
 now that the process of creation has never ceased : so 
 that we can get no meaning out of it at all. Even Jesus 
 declared that his Father was working still. 
 
 Now, it is not my intention to insult your intelligence 
 by proving to you that this is not true. The conception 
 of God and of his methods is such as the world's child- 
 hood might ignorantly imagine ; but no free intellect of 
 the present age cares even to refute it. Only to look at it * 
 is sufficient refutation. Genesis contains contradictory*/ 
 accounts even of the original creation; and the inspira- 
 tion of the Old Testament was not such as to prevent 
 the most palpable mistakes being made in describing / 
 natural things. 
 
 We may now pass on to consider, 
 
 II. The Theory of Evolution. 
 
 It would transcend our limits to attempt even an out- 
 line of the proofs of this theory. These are to be found 
 in the works of the masters of science, specially prepared 
 for that purpose. I must, therefore, content myself with 
 remarking some of the surface probabilities, and then 
 placing the theory itself alongside the Mosaic, that you 
 may compare them. 
 
THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 41 
 
 (1) It is a fact that ought to make men stop and think, 
 before rejecting it, that almost every trained scientific 
 man living, who is competent to give a judgment on the 
 question, is a believer in evolution. If all the skilful 
 doctors were agreed about a certain disease, it would 
 hardly be modest for us to say they were wrong. When 
 all the generals are at one about a military question, 
 the probabilities are decidedly their way. When all the 
 architects agree about a building, and when all the paint- 
 ers unite in defence of a question in art, outsiders should 
 at least hesitate. Nearly all the present opposition tc 
 evolution comes from theology ; but theology does not 
 happen to know any thing about it. As though I should 
 attempt to settle a disputed point in music by the sense of 
 smell, or a case of color (red or white) by hearing ! The 
 men who oppose evolution may be generally divided into 
 two classes, — those actuated by theological prejudice, and 
 those who know nothing about it. 
 
 (2) The theory of evolution is constructed out of the 
 observed and accumulated facts of the universe : it is not 
 guess-work. The men who have elaborated this answer 
 to the old question, How did things come to be as they 
 are ? are men who have gone to the facts themselves, and 
 asked the question. They went to the earth and studied 
 it, and so developed the science of geology : they looked 
 at the stars to see how they moved, and so made astrono- 
 my : they studied animals to see how they grew, and so 
 made zoology : they studied man, and so made physiology 
 and anttropology. If anybody, then, in the world, has 
 
42V THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 any right to an opinion on the subject, it is those who 
 have looked at the facts to find out about them. And 
 it is simply absurd to see people offer an opinion, who 
 have no better stuff than ignorance or prejudice to make 
 it out of. 
 
 (3) It stands the very highest test of a good theory; 
 that is, it takes into itself, accounts for, and adjusts, al- 
 most every known fact ; while there is not one single fact 
 known that makes it unreasonable for a man to be an 
 evolutionist. 
 
 Now, what is the theory ? Simply this : that theV 
 whole universe, suns, planets, moons, our earth, and every 
 form of life upon it, vegetable and animal, up to man, 
 together with all our civilization, has developed from a 
 primitive fire-mist or nebula? that once filled all the space 
 now occupied by the worlds ; and that this development 
 has been according to laws and methods and forces still 
 active, and working about us to-day. It calls in no un- 
 known agency. It does not offer to explain a natural fact 
 by a miracle which only deepens the mystery it attempts to 
 solve. It says, " I accept and ask for only the forces that/ 
 are going on right before my eyes, and with these I will 
 explain the visible universe." Certainly a magnificent 
 pretension, and, if accomplished, a magnificent achieve- 
 ment, of the mind of man. 
 
 Look at the theory a little more in detail. Evolution 
 teaches that the space now occupied by suns and planets 
 was once filled with a fire-mist, or flaming gas. This 
 mist, or gas, by the process of cooling and condensation, 
 
THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 43 
 
 and in accordance with the laws of motion naturally set 
 up in it, in the course of ages was solidified into the stars 
 and worlds, taking on gradually their present motions, 
 shapes, and conditions. This is the famous "nebular 
 hypothesis." In favor of this theory is the fact that the 
 earth is now in precisely the condition we should expect it 
 to be, on this supposition. The moon, being smaller than 
 the earth, has now become cold and dead. Jupiter and 
 Saturn, being larger, are still hot, — halfway between the 
 sun's flaming condition and the earth's habitable one. 
 And then all through the sky are clouds of nebulas, still in 
 the condition of flaming gas, whirling, and assuming just 
 such shapes as the evolution theory alone can explain. 
 The theory further teaches, that, when the cooling earth 
 had come into such a condition that there were land and 
 water and an atmosphere, then life appeared. But how ? 
 By any special act of creation ? No. It introduces no 
 new or unknown force, and calls for no miracle. Science 
 discovers no impassable gulf between what we ignorantly 
 call dead matter, and that which is alive. It does not 
 believe any matter is dead : so it finds in it " the prom- 
 ise and potency of every form of life." It has discovered 
 a little viscous globule, or cell, made up chiefly of nitrogen 
 and albumen. It is a chemical compound, the coming 
 into existence of which is no more wonderful than the 
 formation of a crystal, and calls no more urgently for a 
 miracle than a crystal does. This little mass, or cell, is 
 not only the lowest and most original form of life, but it is 
 the basis of every form. There is no single form of life 
 
44 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 on the globe, from the moss on a stone up to the brain of 
 Sir Isaac Newton, that is not a more or less complex com- 
 pound or combination of this primary, tiny cell ; and there 
 is no stage in the process of development, where ascer- 
 tained laws and forces are not competent to produce the 
 results. There is no barrier between the vegetable and 
 animal kingdom. No naturalist living can tell where the 
 one leaves off, and the other begins, so insensibly do they 
 merge into each other, like day passing through twilight 
 into night. Neither is there any barrier between species, 
 either of plants or animals. This point is now settled. 
 Evolution also (what no other theory does) explains the 
 distribution of plants and animals over the surface of the 
 earth. It explains the present condition of the races 
 of mankind, — the progress of some, the stagnation of 
 others, and the cases of gradual decay and dying-out. It 
 explains social, political, and religious movements and 
 changes, rises and falls. It is gradually proving its ca- 
 pacity to grapple with and solve the great enigmas and 
 questions of the ages. And when generally understood 
 and accepted, it will modify and direct all the forces and 
 movements of the modern world. 
 
 From the primeval fire-mist, then, until to-day, the 
 world has grown, without any necessity for, or help from, 
 special creations, miracles, or any other forces than those 
 known and recognized as at work right around us. It has 
 taken millions of years to do this ; but what are they in 
 eternity ? There have been no cataclysms, nor breaks, nor 
 leaps. The sun has shone, the rain has fallen, the winds 
 
- / 
 
 THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 45 
 
 have blown, the rivers have run, the oceans have worn the 
 shores, the continents have risen and sunk, just as they 
 are doing now ; and all these things have come to pass. 
 
 But some one will say, "This is blank and outright 
 atheism. You have left God entirely out of the question. 
 Where has he been, and what has he been doing, all these 
 millions of years ? From the fire-mist until to-day, all has\ 
 gone along on purely natural principles, and by natural 
 laws, you say ? " Yes, that is just what evolution says. 
 But, before we call it atheism, let me ask you a question/ 
 Here is a century-old oak-tree. The acorn from which it 
 sprung was the natural product of some other oak. It 
 fell to the earth, and the young oak sprouted. From 
 that day to this, — a hundred years, — the oak has simply 
 grown by natural law. You want no miracle to explain 
 it. Is your theory of the oak, then, atheistic ? Is it any 
 less strange that the oak should grow than that thou- 
 sands of other oaks, and other forms of life, should do the 
 same ? When a child is born, it grows, you say, by natu- 
 ral law. Is it any more wonderful that it should be born 
 bv natural law? and that all life should be born, and 
 should develop, by natural law ? You are just as atheistic 
 to say that a tree or a child grows by natural law, as evo- 
 lution is, when it says the world did the same. Suppose 
 science should put its God back in the past some millions 
 of ages, while Moses puts his back only six thousand 
 years, would the difference in time make one theory more 
 atheistic than the other ? But I should call pushing him 
 back six thousand years, or a hundred million years, or 
 
^ — 
 
 46 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 five minutes, even, more atheistic than I should like to 
 believe. So I would do neither the one nor the other. 
 What if we see the life and power and movement of God^ 
 in the fire-mist, in all the growing worlds, in the first 
 appearance of life on the planet, in the forms that 
 climb up through all grades to man ? What if we see him/ 
 in the dust of the street, in the grasses and flowers, in the 
 clouds and the light, in the ocean and the storms, in the 
 trees and the birds, in the animal, lifting up through 
 countless forms to humanity ? What if we see him in the 
 family, in society, in the state, in all religions, up to the 
 highest outflowerings of Christianity? What if we see 
 him in art, literature, and science ? What if we make the 
 whole world his temple, and all life a worship ? All this^ 
 we may not only do in evolution, but evolution helps us 
 do it. I shall be greatly mistaken, if the radicalism ofy 
 evolution does not prove to be the grandest of all conser- 
 vatism in society and politics not only, but in religion as 
 well. It will turn out to be the most theistic of all the-^\ 
 isms. It will give us the grandest conception of God 
 that the world has ever known. It is inconsistent with 
 "orthodoxy," but not with religion. It is charged by the 
 thoughtless with being materialistic ; but in reality it is 
 any thing else. It so changes our conception of matter 
 as utterly to destroy the old "materialism." It not only* 
 does not touch any one of the essential elements of true 
 religion, but, on the other hand, it gives a firm and broad 
 foundation on which to establish it beyond the possibility 
 of overthrow. To illustrate this will be the work of futurey 
 treatment of the special topics. 
 
THE THEORY OF THE WORLD. 47 
 
 It only remains for me now to suggest a comparison 
 as to grandeur and divinity between the two theories of 
 creation. So many thoughtless sneers have been flung at 
 the theory that dared talk of man's relationship to the 
 ape, that a comparison like this may help change the sneer 
 to admiration. 
 
 We marvel at Watt, the first constructor of a steam- 
 engine ; but it has taken many a brain beside his to 
 bring it to its present perfection. What if he had been 
 able to build it on such a plan, and put into it such a 
 generative force, that it should go on, through long inter- 
 vals of time, developing from itself improvements on 
 itself, until it had become adapted to all the needs of 
 man ? It should fit itself for rails ; it should grow into 
 adaptation for country roads and city streets ; it should 
 swim the water, and fly the air ; it should shape itself to 
 all elements and uses that could make it available for the 
 service of man. Suppose that all this should develop 
 from the first simple engine that Watt constructed ; and 
 should do it by virtue of power that Watt himself im- 
 planted in it ? The simple thought of such a mechanism 
 makes us feel how superhuman it would be, and how 
 worthy of divinity. Is it not infinitely more than the 
 separate construction of each separate improvement ? 
 And yet this supposition is simplicity and ease itself, 
 compared with the grand magnificence of creation after 
 the Darwinian idea. Who can pick an acorn from the 
 ground, and, looking up to the tree from which it has 
 fallen, try to conceive all the grand and century-grown 
 
48 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 beauty and power of the oak as contained in the tiny 
 cone in his hand, and not feel overwhelmed by the might 
 and the mystery of the works of God ? How unutterably 
 grander is the thought that the world-wide banyan-tree of 
 life, with all its million-times-multiplied variety of form 
 and function, and beauty and power, standing with its 
 roots in the dust, and with its top " commercing with the 
 skies," and bearing on its upper boughs the eternal light 
 of God's spiritual glory, is all the godlike growth of one 
 little seed in whkh the divine finger planted such fructify- 
 ing force 1 
 
III. 
 
 THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 The manifestation of the life and power of the universe 
 has been a gradual evolution ; that is, a continuous un- 
 folding, a growing revelation, the less becoming more, the 
 simple becoming complex, through an apparently infinite 
 development and specialization. The whole is recapitu- 
 lated in every flower that blooms. The rose is first a 
 seed ; it pushes up through the soil, then branches, sends 
 out bud and leaf, bursts into beauty and fragrance of 
 flower, and then develops from its loveliness the germ of 
 something more to come. So of the mountain-pine, that 
 has stood on its watch-tower overlooking whole centuries 
 of human history. Its potential life was once wrapped 
 up in one little seed, sheltered in the protecting grasp of a 
 tiny cone that one might hold in his hand. The might 
 and the marvel of this life are not to be seen by simply 
 looking at seed or cone, but by studying the processes 
 and results of the wondrous unfolding, or evolution. 
 
 The universe, so far as at present we are able to trace, 
 was once contained in the world-seed of the fire-mist, or 
 
 4 49 
 
50 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 primitive nebula. We might guess all sorts of things, as 
 to where the fire-mist came from, and how it came : but 
 science means knowledge ; and it is my purpose, so far as 
 possible, to keep myself strictly to what is known. The- 
 ology assumes God, and thinks thus to escape all diffi- 
 culties. But should science take to assuming, it has the 
 same right to declare that the fire-mist made itself, or that 
 it always existed, as theology has to say that God made 
 himself, or always existed. I am willing frankly to admit 
 that it is just as easy to think that the universe always 
 existed, or that it made itself, as it is to think that God 
 always existed, or made himself. It is simply impossible 
 to imagine or comprehend either the one or the other. As, 
 then, I wish to speak to and command a respectful hear- 
 ing from those who are not content to rest in tradition or 
 assumption, but who wish to find out if religion has any 
 basis of knowledge to stand on, I propose to avoid assum- 
 ing any thing, even the existence of God. I wish to find 
 him, if I can ; and then there will be no need of assump- 
 tion. 
 
 We begin, then, with the fire-mist, because that is the 
 first thing we know. This fire-mist, by cooling and con- 
 densing, became suns and planets and worlds, — the won- 
 drous heavens of our present telescopic astronomy. Our 
 system was slowly born. The sun, so large that it has 
 not yet cooled, is the source of our life and light and heat. 
 The moon, so small that it is already cold and dead, 
 exists now only for the sake of the earth. Other mem- 
 bers of the system are still half-sun and half-planet, not 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 5* 
 
 yet ready for the abode of life. When it was ready, 
 the lowest forms of life, having nothing of limbs, or bone, 
 or brain, — no organization, — appeared in the primeval 
 oceans of the world. Then there were long ages, during 
 which the highest type of life on the earth were fishes. 
 The finny vikings were the lords and the nobility of 
 the time. Then these climbed up into the higher form 
 of reptiles. Huge creatures, half living in the seas, half 
 on the land, or with great dragon-wings flying heavily 
 through the air, now reigned over the earth for thousands 
 of years. Then came the birds ; and for centuries they 
 were the highest form of life upon the globe. Next ani- 
 mal shapes appeared, climbing up from the lowest types 
 and simplest forms, until the great tree of life flowered 
 out into humanity. But the first being that could be 
 properly called human was, as compared with later devel- 
 opments, no more than the insignificant blossom of a 
 wayside weed when placed beside the perfumed glory of 
 the rose, or the gorgeous tropical outflowering of the 
 century-plant. The gulf that separates the highest ani- 
 mals from the lowest men is as nothing compared with 
 the wider differences that divide between those lowest 
 men and the Dantes, the Shaksperes, and the Newtons 
 of the race. And above these the moral grandeur of one 
 like Jesus towers like a mountain, that, above all its range, 
 looks down on its fellows from the clouds. 
 
 Thus the panorama of creation has unfolded. The 
 first scene was the fire-mist : the last that we have looked 
 on is the present hour, including the highest social, politi- 
 
52 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 cal, and religious life and aspirations of the race. And 
 the end is not yet : the creation is not still : the scene is 
 moving and unfolding to-day. And if we may guess the 
 future from the past, the imagination must confess that it 
 has no colors bright and grand enough to paint the possi- 
 bilities of the ages to come. 
 
 You can now see that the manifestation of the life and 
 force of the universe has been a gradual evolution. And 
 if, at any particular stage of the progress, there had been 
 some person present trying to find out what the life was 
 by looking at " the things made," of course he would have 
 had to make his idea of this life, or God (if he gave it that 
 name), out of the then condition of things. His god 
 would have been on the level of the fire-mist or the fishes, 
 like the Philistines' Dagon \ or of the reptiles, like the 
 deities of the serpent-worshippers ; or of the animals, like 
 the sacred bull of Egypt ; or simply a physical man, like 
 the Roman Hercules or Jupiter, or the early Hebrew 
 Jehovah (for Jehovah at first was only a gigantic man) : 
 as David says, " Jehovah is a man of war." As such he 
 appears all through Genesis. 
 
 This manifestation of the life of things has thus been 
 a gradual and growing one. And it is curious and in- 
 structive to notice that the idea of God in the human 
 mind has recapitulated, or lived over again, this evolution 
 of the facts of the world. Have you ever thought over 
 the first conceptions that men had of God, and how they 
 have developed to what we think and believe to-day ? 
 The first men of the world, of course, had no fire, no 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 53 
 
 houses, and no weapons with which to defend their lives, 
 or to hunt for food. The most important invention of the 
 world was discovered when some man first made a spear 
 out of a stick. Defenceless as they were in the midst of 
 hunger and cold and storm and wild beasts, the pre- 
 dominant motive and feeling of the time must have been 
 fear; and from this would naturally develop their first 
 religion. As they saw each other and the wild animals 
 moving about, and crying, and making noises, and saw 
 that they were alive, they, like the child-men they were, 
 thought that every thing that moved, or made a noise, 
 was also alive. And as the wild beasts hurt and killed 
 them, when they got a chance, and as the storms and cold 
 hurt and killed them, their most pressing thought was 
 one of safety. They saw the trees move when the wind 
 blew ; they felt the motion and power of the wind that 
 they could not see ; they saw the waters run ; they saw 
 the lightning flash, and twist itself like a huge serpent 
 in the clouds ; they saw the clouds go across the sky, and 
 the sun and moon rise and set ; and as they saw all 
 these things moving in this way, they thought they were 
 living beings, who might hurt them if they were angry, or 
 might help them, if they chose. Thus they turned all 
 these things into gods. Then they began to pray to 
 them, and to give, or offer, them things they thought they 
 would like, and to try to find out how they might influ- 
 ence them to do what they desired. This was the original 
 polytheism, or, in its lowest manifestation, fetichism. 
 But after a good many ages, some of the races of men 
 
54 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 grew wiser. They found out that stones and trees and 
 rivers and clouds and the sun were not gods. They 
 learned that praying to them did no good. They dis- 
 covered that, instead of moving about as they liked, they 
 were governed by some higher power, and moved accord- 
 ins to certain definite laws. Should a barbarian look at 
 a complicated piece of machinery, he would be likely to 
 think, at first, that every several wheel and lever and 
 piston and band was going all by itself. But study would 
 teach him that a central force moved it all according to 
 the laws of its construction. Something like this men 
 found out about the world. They learned that there was 
 somewhere a hidden mainspring that controlled the whole 
 life and movement of the universe, and so gave unity to 
 it all. This was monotheism. 
 
 But, as I have said, the first development of mono- 
 theism only thought of God as a gigantic and superhuman 
 man. The Jehovah of the Old Testament makes himself 
 a local habitation, appears in the temple, walks and talks, 
 and thinks and plans, loves and hates, gets angry, takes 
 vengeance, and changes his mind, very much after the 
 fashion of an Oriental despot. This is not to be won- 
 dered at ; for as water cannot rise above its source, so 
 the human mind cannot think of God as being any thing 
 higher than its highest and best conception of what is 
 worthy of divinity. Humanity cannot escape itself ; and 
 so its thought of God is always the best it is capable of 
 thinking at the time. As man grows and develops, so 
 does his idea of divinity. The divine does not change ; 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 55 
 
 but as you can put only twelve quarts of the Atlantic in 
 a twelve-quart pail, so in a finite brain you can put only so 
 much of the Infinite as the finite can contain. As the 
 thought of man gets larger, its contents increase. 
 
 The next grand step in the development of monotheism 
 is when Jesus says, " God is a spirit," "The hour cometh 
 when ye shall neither in this mountain [Gerizim], nor yet 
 at Jerusalem, worship the Father." Thus, to the highest 
 thought of men, God has become a power, whose centre is 
 everywhere, and his circumference nowhere. 
 
 This developing idea of God is a fact of human experi- 
 ence. But now the question meets us, Is this idea any 
 thing more than an idea ? Has it any real validity, or 
 right to exist ? Do we know that there is any God corre- 
 sponding to the idea ? Knowledge is popularly supposed 
 to have for its province all the regions of the tangible and 
 definite ; while the indefinite, and the intangible, and the 
 unseen, are turned over to faith and imagination. And 
 a great many hard-headed people are beginning to think 
 that what they cannot see and feel is of no practical 
 consequence. Even Tennyson, speaking of religion, per- 
 mits himself to write : — 
 
 " We have but faith : we cannot know ; 
 For knowledge is of things we see." 
 
 We are accustomed to say, " I know the earth. I know 
 a crystal. I know my friend." But when we come to 
 matters of religion, ws say, " I hope, or I believe, that 
 God exists." 
 
56 i » THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 Now, I protest against this use of language, as not 
 being true to the reality of things. I know it will be 
 regarded at first, and by many, as daring and presump- 
 tuous ; but I propose to make and substantiate the claim 
 that the God of evolution, the hidden life and secret forced 
 of this unfolding universe of ours, may be just as truly 
 and really known as a grass-blade, a star, or your next- 
 door neighbor. Please take notice that I do not say a.& 
 well known, as completely known, but known as truly and' 
 really, as far as the knowledge goes. There is nothing in 
 the universe that is completely known. For the universe, 
 like the seamless garment of Jesus, is all of one piece : 
 every thread runs through it all ; so that to trace one 
 thread completely is to unravel the whole mystery. As 
 Tennyson says with such force and beauty, — 
 
 " Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies, 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower ; but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is." 
 
 To justify this statement, I must ask you to consider, 
 for a moment, what it is that you know about any thing. 
 Is it the thing or the person in itself, or manifestations of 
 the thing or person ? In what sense do you know youA 
 next-door neighbor ? You know the general size and fea-/ 
 tures of his person, the color of his hair and eyes, his gait 
 and style of movement, the clothes he ordinarily wears. 
 You know the tone of his voice, something of his past 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 57" 
 
 experience and present character, and, in some general 
 way, his intellectual and moral attainments; that is, you'Jr 
 know certain external manifestations of this mysterious 
 personality you call neighbor and friend. And no matter 
 how intimate you may be, the general fact is not changed^ 
 In the secret recesses of his life, there is a whole unvisited 
 world. There are oceans on which you have never sailed, 
 continents you have never looked upon, and skies whose , 
 stars have never caught your eye. In short, you know\ 
 nothing about the essential personality of this mysterious 
 being you call friend. You simply know certain outer 
 manifestations of the inner life: And the same is true of/ 
 a flower, of a piano, or of a chair, just as really as it is of 
 the sun, or of God. All these have certain qualities that 
 manifest themselves to your senses. You have five senses 
 to receive the manifestations. But that your five senses 
 and these manifestations are all there is, is the boldest of 
 all assumptions. As reasonably might a deaf and blind 
 mute assert that there was nothing in the world but hard- 
 ness and shape, because these were all he could feel. 
 
 " There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 
 
 We have a fairly accurate knowledge of manifestations. 
 It is not perfect; for our senses sometimes make - mis- 
 takes. But one thing more certain than any other item 
 of our knowledge is, that beneath all manifestations is a 
 life and a force of which the manifestations are the out- 
 come. I may mistake as to some special fact about my 
 
58 V THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 friend ; but that there is a personal, conscious life that I 
 call my friend is matter of absolute certainty. I may be\ 
 color-blind, and so mistake the red or the purple of a 
 rose ; but that there is something that manifests itself to 
 me as a rose, this I absolutely know. And so the one\ 
 thing that we know about the universe more certainly 
 than we know any thing else is, that, underneath all the 
 forms and movements and manifestations, there is a life, 
 or a force, that manifests itself as form and movement, 
 And as our knowledge of a grass-blade or a friend is 
 only a series of facts of manifestation, so we have con- 
 cerning God precisely the same means of knowledge.^* 
 Let us go on, then, to indicate the outlines of what we 
 can know about the life and force of the universe that 
 theology calls God, and that science may call " nature " 
 or "law," if it chooses, since the name, whatever it be, 
 cannot change the essential reality. 
 
 (i) We have that whole class of manifestations, which, 
 taken together, make up the material universe. And 
 what can we spell out of these wondrous hieroglyphs ? 
 They certify, at the outset, that this which religion calls 
 God, and which science names force, or power, or nature, 
 really exists. The universe is, and therefore that which 
 the universe manifests is. Next, here is everywhere 
 the movement of life ; and beyond motion there is order, 
 — an order that speaks of a cosmos, or system. I do not 
 care to assert that this order demonstrates a designing 
 mind. It is sufficient for my purpose, at this stage of my 
 argument, to say that this order is such an one as agrees 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 59^ 
 
 with the highest development of what we call intellect; 
 so that, looking up to it from our human plane, it is 
 proper for us to call it an intellectual order. And, further 
 still, we see everywhere, on leaf and flower, on sunlit 
 cloud, on curl of ocean surf, in mountain outline, and in 
 wildwood glade, an inexpressible beauty that becomes 
 the inspiration of artist and of poet. 
 
 Here, then, in inanimate nature, we see and know exist-X 
 ence, motion, order, and beauty, and know them as the 
 outcome, as the real and true manifestation, of the inscru- 
 table and ineffable life of the universe. So far as they 
 go, they are reliable and adequate revelations of they 
 Unknowable One. 
 
 (2) As our next step up and on, let us glance at the 
 lesson of human history. I do not here enter into any 
 analysis of human nature, but wish simply to ask your 
 attention to the way in which the universe has dealt with 
 the race, taken in the mass. What is the lesson of the 
 drift of our human destiny, taking the world as a whole ? 
 It is twofold, and may be indicated by the two words, 
 "progress " and "righteousness." From the lowest forms 
 of primeval life up to the topmost height of our modern 
 civilization, there is evident a force of uplifting and on- 
 looking. 
 
 " Every clod feels a stir of might, 
 
 An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
 And, groping blindly above it for light, 
 Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers." 
 
 What the poet here sings of the lower life of the 
 
6o " THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 spring may be taken as typical of the grand truth that 
 binds together the Alpha and the Omega of creation. 
 
 And not only do we see progress along certain definite 
 lines of law that suggest the Tightness of this life-force 
 of the universe, but this progress has lifted up into what 
 we call the sphere of morals, and has been along certain 
 other definite lines of what we call righteousness ; so 
 that the lesson which Matthew Arnold so finely deduces 
 from the history of Israel may be read with more empha- 
 sis still in the history of the race. This power of progress 
 is also a power of progress toward a moral ideal, — "a 
 power that makes for righteousness." I need hardly 
 illustrate this ; for I suppose no one but a pessimist will 
 hesitate to accept it. A full illustration would be an out- 
 line of universal history. This power making for right- 
 eousness has been that by which nations have grown, or 
 the rock on which they have foundered. The nations 
 which to-day stand highest in civilization are those which, 
 on the whole, best conform to and live out this law. 
 
 And, indeed, not only is this so, but it is easy to see 
 that it must be so. For as, in the body, if once disease 
 gains supremacy over the healthy powers, death must 
 ensue, so in the universe, if the lawless and evil forces 
 were really in the majority, the cosmos would tumble into 
 chaos. 
 
 This inscrutable power of the universe, then, is prog^ 
 ress and righteousness as manifested in the outlines and 
 drift of human history. / 
 
 (3) Come, now, to man, individual and social, and see 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 61 
 
 what is manifested here. And just at this point I must 
 stop to notice, and protest against, that which seems to me 
 the height of what is irrational and strange in the reason- 
 ing of many, on the side of both science and theology. 
 Theology, in its attempt to exalt man, takes him out of, 
 and sets him apart from, the order of nature, and then 
 abuses nature as an untrustworthy guide in religious 
 things, because it does not find moral qualities — love 
 and mercy — in stones and mountains and trees. It 
 takes the soul out, and then wonders that it does not have 
 any soul. And many scientists, as if willing to take 
 theology at its word, go ranging through the inanimate 
 universe, as though they were examining some mechanism 
 with which they had nothing to do, and declare that they 
 do not find what nobody supposed they would find in the 
 material forms of the world. As if the mainspring of a 
 watch should start into independent life, and go to search- 
 ing through the rest of the machinery in the attempt to 
 find that of which itself was the representative, and 
 should then declare, on its honor as a good piece of steel, 
 that the watch showed no signs of a mainspring, and thus 
 was radically defective ! 
 
 Whether or not there be any thing about man rightly 
 called supernatural, we know, that, at any rate, he is 
 natural. He is a part of the life and order of the world ; 
 and thus, in all the myriad manifestations of his varied 
 life, he is an outcome of the central power and life of the 
 universe. He is a part of the divine manifestation. 
 What, then, are the things that he reveals ? 
 
62 V THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 ■/Yip /> . 
 
 In him, first, so far as we know, does the world come\ 
 up into a consciousness of personal existence. While 
 this does not prove that the inscrutable power of the 
 world is a person, it does prove that this power is, at least, 
 as much as, and as good as, personal. / 
 
 Then, beyond this personality that consciousness re- 
 veals, man manifests all those qualities that we call social,^ 
 moral, and spiritual, — love, devotion, self-sacrifice, purity, 
 integrity, patriotism, heroism, and the "enthusiasm of 
 humanity." The mother watches tirelessly over some/ 
 sick child ; or she gives herself to the care of one idiotic 
 or deformed. She forgets selfishness, and finds pleasure 
 in wasting away, and wearing out her life, for the sake of 
 her mother-love. Men ride at the front of embattled 
 armies, meeting danger, nor shunning death, for the tri- 
 umph of some noble sentiment or intangible principle. 
 Winkelried takes the spears of the foe into his own breast, 
 that he may make a breach through which his followers 
 may pour to a patriotic victory. Mattie Stephenson goes 
 to plague-stricken Memphis, and gives her life to a pure 
 pity for the helpless sufferers. John Brown " counts not 
 his life dear," so he may be able to help a degraded mass 
 of slaves up into freedom and manhood. The religious 
 martyr stands chained to the stake, with the kindling 
 fagots about his shrivelling limbs, when one false word 
 would set him free ; and when the last flame leaps up, his 
 life goes out on the air that still trembles with his song of 
 triumph — and all for what he holds as sacred truth and 
 divine light. A Jesus or a Socrates dies peaceful and 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 63 ' 
 
 calm, while with his last breath he forgives, or prays for, 
 the ignorant rage, or pitiable malice, that puts him to 
 death. 
 
 Now, this whole realm of the moral and spiritual is a 
 real country. These things are facts of human life and 
 history, — just as much facts as the labelled fossil bones 
 and the flint arrow-heads of scientific museums. These 
 facts are real and verifiable manifestations of the power 
 of which all the phenomena of the universe are expres- 
 sions. And if this power cannot be adequately expressed 
 in these terms of humanity, it is at least certain that it is 
 as much and as good as these. The partial expression is 
 not false : it is only inadequate. This power, then, is as^ 
 good and loving, and pitiful and devoted, as the best 
 manifestations of itself in humanity. S 
 
 (4) One step more we will take. Above the common 
 level of our humanity there rise the exceptional and 
 towering summits of those mountainous men — seers, 
 prophets, poets, lawgivers, leaders of every kind — that 
 have served as landmarks and observatories for the race. 
 
 Consider, for a moment, the significance of the fact that 
 there have been such men. If a daisy springs out of the \ 
 
 sod, it is because there was a daisy in the sod. If such^j' 
 men spring out of humanity, it is because there is in 
 humanity the stuff of which such men are made. If a/ 
 man admires the grand and sublime, it is because there is 
 grandeur and sublimity in him to respond to the outer 
 appeal. And thus the fact that the race is seen on its"^ 
 face, adoring the idealized forms of these sublime and 
 
64 s7 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 divine men, is proof that humanity is potentially such as 
 they. / 
 
 Now, these seers and great ones of the world have 
 manifested something still more and higher than the 
 common life of the race. They have seemed to be con- 
 scious of the divine and eternal as other men are con- 
 scious of themselves. Above the low-hanging clouds, 
 like mountain-peaks that forever look in the face of the 
 clear heaven, and gaze on the unsetting stars, they have 
 looked on the face of the divine, and have been conscious 
 of fellowship with it. And they have so dwelt in the 
 unchanging and permanent principles of life and truth, 
 that they have felt that they tasted immortality. I claim 
 for these grand visions and hopes only what they were, — 
 grand visions and hopes. But, as such, they were facts, 
 had a source and meaning ; for the vision of an ideal can 
 no more come out of nothing than can a mountain or a 
 world. 
 
 Humanity, then, at its summit, has had these outlooks,"^ 
 gained these glimpses of something better than it ever 
 saw realized, and gazed at a " light that never was on seaN 
 or land." 
 
 What, now, has been so far developed ? The material^ 
 world is a manifestation of existence, order, beauty, and 
 power. History, in the physical world and in humanity, 
 is the manifestation of progress. Human history tells of 
 a "power that makes for righteousness." The ordinary 
 life of humanity speaks of love, devotion, hope, self-sacri- 
 fice, purity, pity, and all the range of powers and faculties 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 65 
 
 that we call moral and spiritual. The seers have had 
 visions, and have dreamed dreams, of a divine life with 
 which they could commune, and of an immortality they 
 could consciously taste. 
 
 And these things all are facts of human knowledge. 
 And they all are outcomes and manifestations of the 
 infinite and inscrutable life and power of which all 
 phenomena are expressions. So much, then, we know; 
 about God. The claim is not made that they are ade- 
 quate, or that God is any one of these things, or all of 
 them put together. But the claim is made, that these are\ 
 manifestations of God just as really and truly as color and 
 odor are manifestations of a lily ; and though we cannot/ 
 say, "These are God," or "God is one or all of these," we 
 can say that " He is as much as and as good as these not 
 only, but that he fills all these conceptions, and overruns 
 them infinitely on every side, just as the light fills and 
 overflows the goblet of the sun." God is, then ; and he 
 is infinitely beyond any conception we can frame, or any 
 manifestation we have seen ; and Paul was right when he 
 wrote, " The invisible things of him from the creation of 
 the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things 
 that are made." 
 
 From "the things that are made," then, and as matter \ 
 of pure science, we know that God is. And we know that 
 in him are qualities that manifest themselves as power, 
 order, intellect, beauty, love, pity, devotion, and all that 
 we call by the terms " moral " and " spiritual." You may/ 
 call them attributes ; you may call them b}* some other 
 5 
 
66 ^ THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 term ; you may not call them at all : but the fact that 
 these qualities are manifested remains just the same. 
 
 And now I must call attention to two or three ancient, 
 still unanswered, and perhaps I may safely say unanswera- 
 ble, objections that lie against the nature and character 
 of God as conceived by the old creation theory of the 
 world. 
 
 (i) If he is objective to and outside of the universe, as 
 the architect is outside of the house that he builds, then 
 he is not infinite, and so falls short of our necessary idea 
 of Deity. Men speak of nature as separate from God\ 
 and of God as making and ruling nature, as though it 
 were a sort of machine which he constructed and runs. 
 But the infinite must include the all. If there is any realX 
 entity that is not divine, then God is not king. If he be 
 not in the dust of our streets, the bricks of our houses, 
 the beat of our hearts, then he is nowhere. The oldy 
 theory destroys the infinite, and only gives us two finites 
 in its place. This is a relic of the old dualistic belief that 
 modern thought is swallowing up in its all-inclusive unity. 
 If no other objection could ever be brought, this alone 
 would be sufficient to make the common idea intel- 
 lectually untenable. This difficulty is perfectly met and"" 
 answered by the evolution theory. 
 
 (2) If God consults and thinks and plans, as Genesis\ 
 represents him doing, then he is simply a magnified man 
 made in our image. This kind of deity is only the spectrey 
 of the Brocken, the gigantic shadow of man himself pro- 
 jected against the clouds. Against this might be brough*- 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 67^ 
 
 the old prophet's accusation, where he represents God as 
 saying, " Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an 
 one as thyself; but I will reprove thee." 
 
 (3) Then, again, on the old theory, it is impossible to\ 
 relieve God of the responsibility of the authorship of evil./ 
 Brave old Lyman Beecher may say, " I don't want any 
 son of mine to defend the character of God. He is able 
 to look after himself." But the popular God of Chris- 
 tianity needs the defence, nevertheless. And all the theo- 
 logical works on the divine government ever written have 
 not defended him, either. Milton started out to " justify 
 the ways of God to man," but succeeded only in leaving 
 it a question as to whether Satan were not the hero of his 
 poem. Edward Beecher postulated pre-existence as the 
 answer ; but this only made the charge more ancient, 
 without clearing it up. There is no use in trying to evader- 
 it. An all-wise, all-powerful, and all-loving God might 
 have made a better world. And to say that he made iy 
 all — good and bad, and both eternal — "for his own 
 glory " is only to add infinite selfishness and egotism to 
 the original difficulty; also that, being God, he had a 
 right to do as he chose, is only to justify the Neros and 
 Napoleons of history by making divine the infamous 
 cruelty that "might makes right." The world is neither 
 physically nor morally perfect ; and John Stuart Mill only 
 voices the thought of all earnest and honest minds, when 
 he praises his wife as one " free from that superstition 
 that ascribes a pretended perfection to the universe." 
 He says, if God made the best world he could, then he is 
 
68 \ 
 
 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 not almighty; and if he could have made a better, and 
 did not, then he is not perfect goodness. If the Church 
 says, " The earth is cursed for the fall of man," then who 
 made man fall ? If it answer, " The devil," then who 
 made the devil ? and if it still say, " Either devil, or man, 
 or both, chose freely to sin," then why did God permit it? 
 or why make them so that they would fall ? The difficulty 
 only shifts and changes : it is not removed. It always 
 comes back on God, after all. 
 
 But evolution at least hints a satisfactory reply. By'-— 
 this theory, the universe is still growing ; and by the very 
 terms of the conception, any thing that is growing is 
 never, at any particular stage of the growth, complete. 
 You would not criticise a picture still on the easel : wait 
 till the artist is done. The summer-sweeting is bitter the / 
 first of June. The old hymn, then, is good science : — 
 
 " His purposes will ripen fast (slow), 
 Unfolding every hour ; 
 The bud may have a bitter taste, 
 But sweet will be the flower." 
 
 And then the drift of science is pointing toward the 
 probability that evil is not a real thing at all. It is only 
 temporary maladjustment, a condition to be outgrown. 
 Evolution, then, may believe in a perfect God. It asks 
 not unreasoning faith. It plants itself on the solid facts 
 of the past, and waits to see the same forces unfold ever 
 new and newer glories, and justify grander and still 
 grander hopes. 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 69 V 
 
 It remains to notice one or two questions or objections 
 that must be disposed of before our subject is complete. 
 
 (1) The materialist comes and says, "I grant that all v 
 these things that you have said are facts ; but how do you 
 know that every thing is not the result of the various 
 combinations of matter ? Who shall say that the poems/ 
 of Shakspere, the science of Newton, and the religion 
 of Jesus, are not the outflowering of the higher and finer 
 forms of matter, just as much as the rose is a blossoming 
 of the dust ? " Such questions as these are asked by 
 some of the best thinkers of the time. We cannot afford 
 to slight them. 
 
 I have two suggestions by way of reply. And, first, if 
 you say these things that we call intellectual and spiritual 
 inhere in and come out of matter, then you change the 
 whole conception of the term, and matter becomes some- 
 thing spiritual and divine. This is utter destruction of 
 the old materialism, and makes matter only a form of the 
 eternal. It simply converts matter into what we mean 
 when we say spirit. But, in the second place, I challenge 
 any man living to prove that matter is a real and substan- 
 tial existence in itself, and as separated from the force 
 and life that we call spirit. So far as any man can tell,'^ 
 matter is only the robe that spirit and life eternally weave 
 for themselves, and no more capable of separation from 
 them than light can be separated from sunshine. What 
 matter is, or what spirit is, in itself, nobody knows : so 
 that to say there is nothing but matter, is just as offensive 
 and unwarranted dogmatism as is any ecclesiastical claim 
 
70 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 whatever. Even a man like Huxley will say that the/ 
 idealism of Berkeley is more consonant with our present 
 knowledge than is dogmatic materialism. 
 
 (2) Another question : Is the God of evolution a peA 
 sonal God ? ' 
 
 Here, again, I must make a twofold answer. If your 
 term " person " implies what we mean when we say Gen. 
 Grant is a person, or Queen Victoria is a person, then any 
 thoughtful mind will have to say No : God is not a person 
 in that sense. This kind of personality is limited, out- 
 lined, localized. Any true thought of God recognizes himl 
 as infinite ; and the infinite cannot be bounded, outlined, 
 or localized. You must not paint God as Moses and/ 
 Michael Angelo did, as only a great man, exalted, and 
 sitting on a throne, even if you give him the brow of Jove, 
 and put the lightning in his grasp. Jesus asserted the 
 higher idea when he said, " God is a spirit." He is not 
 on Zion or Gerizim alone, but everywhere. But, on the 
 other hand, if by denying him personality you take away 
 from him something, and lower him in your thought, you 
 must not do it. He is not less than personal, but in- 
 finitely more. Personality, in man, is one of his minor 
 manifestations ; and that which is manifested is not some- 
 thing more, but something less, than that which manifests. 
 Nothing comes out of nothing ; neither does the greater 
 come out of the less. God, then, is all of good and great 
 and helpful that we mean by personal ; and beyond that 
 he is infin'tely more than the word " personal " can ex- 
 press. 
 
THE GOD OF EVOLUTION. 71 
 
 Who, then, is the God of evolution ? Not the mechani- 
 cal contriver, or the Oriental despot of the Old Testa- 
 ment; not the Zoroastrian Ahura-Mazda, ruling but half 
 the world ; not the Hindoo Brahm asleep in the heavens ; 
 not a deity dwelling in temples, and only to be sought 
 at special altars ; not the partial and implacable God of 
 Calvin ; not one sitting afar on his throne, to be reached 
 only through mediators. The righteousness which is by 
 evolution speaketh on this wise : Say not in thy heart, 
 Who shall ascend into heaven to bring him down ? nor, 
 Who will descend into the deep to bring him up ? But 
 what saith it ? God is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and 
 in thy heart. And it says this with a reality and meaning 
 never said before. Or it borrows the beautiful and mystic 
 tongue of Wordsworth, and speaks of 
 
 " A sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things." 
 
 Or, with Alexander Pope, it is ready to run its faith into 
 music, and sing, — 
 
 "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; 
 That, changed through all, is yet in all the same ; 
 Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame : 
 
72 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
 Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent, 
 Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
 As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; 
 As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns 
 As the rapt seraph that adores and burns ; 
 To him no high, no low, no great, no small : 
 He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all." 
 
rvr. 
 
 THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 One of the most noted sayings of the early philosophy 
 in Greece was contained in the two words, " Know thy- 
 self." And, however much we may be interested in stars 
 or earth or animals, yet history, biography, epic poetry, 
 and the universal love for novels, tragedy, comedy, and 
 stories, show that to man the most interesting thing in the 
 world is humanity. Even trivial gossip is only interest in 
 our fellow-creatures that has turned a little sour. Thus 
 the nature of man, his origin, and how he came into his 
 present condition, and the drift of his true progress — 
 these are the most practical of all questions. And all the 
 great concerns of the day, — religious theory and experi- 
 ence, matters of reform, how to deal with crime, methods 
 of politics and government, — all must find their ultimate 
 solution in the nature of man. The farmer, the physician, 
 die chemist, the carpenter, the worker in metals, all 
 practical laborers, know that their success depends upon 
 their knowledge of the materials in which they work. 
 The stonecutter cannot hammer his blocks into shape any 
 
 73 
 
74 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 more than the blacksmith can grind or chisel his. The 
 work all turns on an accurate knowledge of the material. 
 So it is beginning to be found out that much of the 
 religious, philanthropic, and political work of the world 
 has been thrown away for lack of a true knowledge of the 
 nature, the capabilities, and the needs of humanity. 
 
 But to what source shall we go to learn the nature of 
 man ? For ages men took all their ideas about the stars 
 and the earth and the animals from certain ancient 
 records of what the men of old time thought about these 
 things. But at last it occurred to them to study the stars 
 and the earth and the animals ; and from that study they 
 learned that all those ideas were wrong. It took the 
 world a long while to learn that the best way to find out 
 about them was to look at them. A few people are just 
 beginning to wake up to the notion that the best way to 
 learn the nature of man is to look at him. In the words 
 of Oliver Wendell Holmes, " We must study man as we 
 have studied the stars and the rocks. We need not go to 
 our sacred books for astronomy or geology. Do not stop 
 there. Say now bravely, as you will sooner or later have 
 to say, that we need not go to any ancient records for our 
 anthropology. Do we not all hope, at least, that the doc- 
 trine of man's being a blighted abortion, a miserable dis- 
 appointment to his Creator, and hostile and hateful to him 
 from his birth, may give way to the belief that he is the 
 latest terrestrial manifestation of an ever upward-striving 
 movement of divine power ? If there lives a man who 
 does not want to disbelieve the popular notions about the 
 
THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. 75 
 
 condition and destiny of the bulk of his race, I should like 
 to have him look me in the face and tell me so." And he 
 adds, "We have taken the disease of thinking in the 
 natural way. It is an epidemic in these times ; and those 
 who are afraid of it must shut themselves up close, or 
 they will catch it." 
 
 It is time, then, that we studied man to find out about 
 man ; he is not inaccessible, a great way off, and hard to 
 come at : he is the nearest fact of life. We can look at 
 him, and find out about him. And within the last fifty 
 years the records of his genealogy have been discovered. 
 We can now, in spite of some gaps in it, trace the line of 
 his descent, and find out where he came from, and by 
 what steps he has progressed. 
 
 There are two great and fundamentally opposite notions 
 concerning human nature, that, with sufficient accuracy, I 
 may call the Oriental and the Occidental, the Eastern and 
 the Western. The Chinese, the Hindoo, the Arabic, the 
 Jewish — these may represent the Oriental. The Greek, 
 the Roman, the German, the English, and the American, 
 may represent the Occidental. The Occidental is the 
 theory of self-respect. All our modern civilization is the 
 result of it. It believes in the grand capacity and noble 
 possibilities of the race. It seeks to make the most of 
 itself, and of the exhaustless resources of the world. The 
 Oriental is the theory of self-contempt. It casts dust and 
 ashes upon its head, and lays its mouth in the dust before 
 some supposed divine despot. It looks on life as mean, 
 and the body as vile. It is a part of the belief that all 
 
7 6 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 matter and all life are evil. The Brahmin and Buddhist 
 aspiration to escape the curse of life by absorption in 
 deity, or the calm of practical annihilation, is its natural 
 fruit in religion. Political stagnation, social degradation, 
 and a listless submission to cruel and fickle despots, are 
 the natural fruits in practical affairs. The absurdity of 
 the mixture of the two may be seen in church on almost 
 any Sunday, when some self-respecting, wealthy, and 
 ambitious man, who is doing his utmost to get on in the 
 world, mumbles over after the priest his Sunday creed — 
 so different from his Monday one ! — that life is a " vain 
 show," wealth a snare, the ambitions and successes of life 
 a delusion, and he himself a " miserable offender j " 
 when, if anybody else should call him a " miserable 
 offender," he would stand up in his dignified self-respect, 
 and knock him down. It only means that he is living an 
 Occidental life, and that he has inherited an Oriental 
 creed. 
 
 The orthodox conception of man and his relation to A ^ 
 God, total depravity, supernatural redemption, and eternal 
 punishment, these are the outcome of the Oriental theory 
 that is a part of our religious inheritance. In the East it iJ 
 took two forms ; one, that being connected with matter 
 at all, being born into fleshly bodies, was the source and 
 cause of all evil. This is Hindoo, Buddhist, and Plato ; 
 and, through the Alexandrian schools of Philo and Neo- 
 platonism, it has tainted and colored all our early Chris- 
 tian thought. The other is embodied in the story of 
 Genesis. This allows that there was one man pure and 
 
THE MAN OF EVOLUTION 77 
 
 holy in a natural body ; but he early fell under the power 
 of matter, and all his descendants are born immersed in 
 it, and depraved. 
 
 Now, as this story of Genesis is the basis of the popu- 
 lar theology, and as this and the evolution theory are the 
 only ones that earnest men in America are concerned 
 with, we will narrow down our discussion to these. 
 
 The popular belief is that somewhere in the valley of 
 Euphrates, God created, in the midst of the wilderness 
 world, a garden of delights, a paradise of perfect inno- 
 cence and beauty. In this garden, to dress and keep and 
 enjoy it, were placed Adam and Eve. They two were 
 physically and morally perfect. As old Dr. South ex- 
 presses it, " An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, 
 and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise." But right 
 on the heels of perfection came utter ruin. A serpent — 
 popularly supposed to be the devil, though the story says 
 nothing of the kind, and the devil was not invented till 
 ages afterward — is found equal to the task of frustrating 
 the work of God, and seducing the obedience of man. 
 There is little doubt that the serpent is only an allegorical 
 figure setting forth the supposed sinfulness of fleshly 
 desire, thus linking this story with the old notion that the 
 flesh was inherently sinful. Any way, Adam fell ; and 
 God had created him in such unity of relationship with 
 all his race that he dragged down with him all mankind. 
 Heaven and hell hung on an apple-bough ; and, when the 
 fruit was tasted, — 
 
 " In Adam's fall 
 We sinned all." 
 
■■ ■■ ■ ■■- ■ ■ ■ 
 
 7W THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 The race was hopelessly lost. For " one man's disobedi- 
 ence " God, who just before had pronounced his work 
 very good, turns all his love to hate. He curses the 
 earth, even, for man's sake, and dooms him and his 
 posterity to labor and sorrow. 
 
 Now, this is the corner-stone on which the whole system 
 of orthodox theology rests. Total depravity, moral help^ 
 lessness, infant-damnation, fore-ordination, limited vicari- 
 ous atonement, and everlasting punishment — these all 
 follow, with the fatal necessity of an irresistible logic, 
 from the fall in Adam. And in the light of this necessary 
 logic you may see the weakness of the positions occupied 
 by the " liberal orthodoxy " of the time. The moral 
 sentiment of the age has revolted against the dogma of 
 infant-damnation, which was once universally held ; and 
 now it is cast to the rubbish heap of cruel superstitions. 
 But he who believes in the fall of man must logically 
 believe infant-damnation. And why it is any worse to 
 damn an infant, than it is to damn a man who is born 
 and who lives a helplessly and hopelessly depraved life 
 of forty years, is difficult to see. The one was no more 
 responsible for himself than the other. Then there are 
 thousands who have rejected the fall, who yet cling to the 
 atonement. But if man is not fallen, there is no need of 
 an atonement. It must soon be seen that this whole 
 system is an arch of doctrine in which every stone takes 
 hold of, supports, and is supported by, every other stone. 
 Knock out one of these, and the whole fabric tumbles into 
 confusion; so that the only logical position is the old 
 
THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. 79^ 
 
 orthodoxy or reason. Such men as Dr. Gardiner Spring 
 of New York did not fear to face and accept the logic, 
 and say, " God saves and he damns just the number he 
 wishes to in carrying out his own purposes." 
 
 Now, this doctrine, that God created man physically, \ 
 intellectually, and morally complete, in a moment, and 
 that by one sin he fell into a condition from which the 
 present condition of humanity is the result, is surrounded 
 by difficulties that seem to be insuperable. Let us glance • 
 at some of them. 
 
 And, in the first place, there is absolutely no proof of 
 any thing of the kind. It is at the best an Old-World,/ 
 Oriental tradition. There is not a single known fact that 
 can be brought to its support, or that cannot be better 
 explained in some other way. Were it not supposed to be'v. 
 divine revelation, no one would think of arguing in its 
 favor. And the narrative is so mixed up with crudities/ 
 and absurdities and contradictions and immoralities, that 
 it is a dishonor to any high idea of God to suppose him 
 capable of doing the deeds, or of inspiring a record of 
 them. 
 
 In the next place, that God should make a man, or any s 
 thing else, full-grown in a minute, is utterly against all 
 that we really know of the divine method. All things./ 
 grow ; and there is not a flower, or shrub, or tree, or ani- 
 mal on earth, that does not have on it, not only the marks 
 of its individual development, but also the traces of an 
 ancestral growth that reaches back into the earliest dawn 
 of time. The thought is as absurd, and as incongruous 
 
8c/ THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 with all our knowledge, as the boy's question when, in 
 answer to his father's statement that God could do any- 
 thing he pleased, he asked him if God could " make a 
 two-year-old colt in fifteen minutes." 
 
 Again, the story of Genesis does not account for the 
 past history, the present abodes, and the different con- 
 ditions, of the various races over the face of the earth./ 
 That a being, of whom Aristotle was only the " rubbish," 
 should have produced descendants ranging all the way 
 from Newton to the South-sea Islanders, the Patagonians, 
 the Bushmen and Pygmies of Central Africa, is something 
 that the fall of man does not explain. There is nothing 
 in the nature of sin alone that can account for it. The 
 influence of nature and the laws of life can account for all 
 these varieties. And it is curious to notice, that, while 
 orthodoxy denies that nature has any such power over the 
 development and modification of man as evolution asserts, 
 it is yet obliged to call in just the forces that science pro- 
 claims to explain the facts which it cannot deny. Nature N 
 asks as large powers to make all the races out of Adam, 
 as she demands to make them out of protoplasm. 
 
 And then we know — it is no guesswork any longer : we 
 know — that great civilizations existed, that men were) 
 born, loved, hated, hunted, fought, and died, thousands 
 of years before Genesis says that man was created and x 
 fell. 
 
 And, once more, the theory (as I illustrated somewhatV 
 in the preceding paper) makes God a moral monster. 
 
 Whether, then, we can accept any other theory or not, 
 
/ 
 
 THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. %\V 
 
 even if we have to go without a theory, this one we cannot 
 hold. I might be content to say, " I know and can know 
 nothing about God : I must walk my path of life in the 
 dark, waiting to see what the future will develop ; " but I 
 cannot consent to say, " I love, I will worship, or even I 
 respect, such a God as is taught by the popular theology." 
 If there is a supreme power in the universe capable of 
 making such a humanity as is preached, and of treating 
 his child as he is represented as treating man, then 
 though I may have to submit to his power, as feeble 
 nations submit to despots, yet I will not, can not, love him, 
 nor bow to him my knee. And if I must go to hell with 
 the noble livers and the great thinkers of the world, then 
 I would choose it rather than the place of court favorite 
 in the presence of one who makes evil, and torture, and 
 everlasting prison-houses, for his own glory. 
 
 We come now to consider the evolution theory of hu- s 
 man nature, and to notice how far it corresponds with the 
 known facts of the world. What is the theory ? That all 
 life on the globe is a unit, like a tree, and that man is the 
 crowning blossom on the topmost bough. To confine our-, 
 selves to our immediate ancestry, it teaches that man has 
 developed from the animal life beneath him. I am aware 
 that the popular mind is full of prejudice on this subject, 
 and that a large part of its impressions have been derived 
 from newspaper jokes and caricatures. But I hope it will 
 be remembered, that those persons who set up in the busi- 
 ness of making people laugh are not particular about their 
 materials. They will ridicule any thing that the popular 
 
 6 
 
82 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. ' 
 
 taste will allow ; just as Aristophanes wrote comedies to 
 make Athens laugh at Socrates ; and as the London 
 " Punch " ridiculed and caricatured Lincoln because Eng- 
 lish opinion then favored it. I can sympathize with a 
 man who shrinks from recognizing the ape as among his 
 poor relations, particularly if there is a family likeness 
 that he fears will be discovered ; but really we must put 
 prejudice one side : this is a matter not of feeling, but of 
 fact. I, for one, am ready to think it far more wondrous 
 and honorable that my body should have come to its 
 present perfection by the marvellous pathway of the ani- 
 mal world, than that it came straight from the slime and 
 the mud. Which is the more honorable material, — \ 
 mysterious, complex life, or dirt ? I should be ashamed,, 
 of arguing this point, were it not for the prejudice. I am 
 not half as anxious to find out that I did not come from 
 an ape, as I am to know that I am not travelling toward 
 one. Where we came from, touches not the matter of 
 what we are. " Now are we the sons of God ; " and, if 
 evolution be true, well and grandly may we add, " It doth 
 not yet appear what we shall be." People who get up in 
 the world are sometimes ashamed of their parentage ; but 
 I think it much more important that we be careful that our 
 children have no reason to be ashamed of their parentage. 
 And since my line runs back millions of years, and ends 
 in God, I see no good cause for being ashamed of the 
 long and wondrous way by which it has come. Say it 
 plainly, then : we have derived our present life from the 
 animals. For the forces and laws of this development, I 
 
THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. 83 
 
 must refer you to the works devoted to their explana- 
 tion. It is sufficient for me to say that known laws 
 and forces are able to account for all the facts and re- 
 sults of evolution. As an illustrative hint of the power 
 of nature over humanity, you may take it as an approxi- 
 mately correct statement, that if a race could start at the 
 North Pole, and march southward, being some millions of 
 years on the journey, stopping long enough for all the 
 forces of its changing conditions to produce their effects 
 upon the new-coming members, such a race would pass 
 through all the changes, and exhibit all the peculiarities, 
 of all the races that have been actually subjected to these 
 various conditions. The natural force of development 
 worked on the body until it reached its upright attitude 
 and present comparative perfection. Then, when brain- 
 power became the winning element in the struggle for life, 
 the same force turned to brain. And now the moral is 
 gradually gaining supremacy; and the time will come 
 when this will be reckoned the mightiest, as it is now 
 admitted to be the noblest, force of humanity. The moral 
 power is coming to be the power that wins. 
 
 Thus, in accordance with these hints, evolution has no 
 more difficulty in accounting for intellect and righteous- 
 ness, than it has in explaining muscles and bones. 
 
 Let us now look at some suggestions and probabili- 
 ties. 
 
 And, first, there is a marvellous sense of sympathy in 
 our souls for the whole wide life of nature. Lowell talks 
 of trees being his ancestors, and of his lying under the 
 
84 '/ THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 willows and listening to their whispers. Who has not felt 
 the storm, or the stars, or the pines, speaking to his inner 
 consciousness? By more than poetic figure we call the 
 earth our mother ; and we love, in sunny spring, to go 
 back to our childhood, and lie upon her bosom. Every 
 sensitive nature has a subtle sense of kinship with all the 
 forms of natural life. Nature plays upon us, and creates 
 our moods. We sing with the birds, and cry with the 
 rain. The sunshine or gloom of the sky gets reflected in 
 our faces. The life of spring starts our blood into ting- 
 ling pulsation in unison with the waking activity of ani- 
 mals and the sap in the trees. Now, I believe all this 
 wondrous feeling of kinship is best explained by saying 
 we are akin. 
 
 And if you will notice the particular facts of animal^ 
 life, you will be surprised that the gulf between them and 
 us is so very narrow. What was once supposed to be an/ 
 impassable ocean is only a tiny rill. The animals shared 
 with us almost every one of our habits and faculties. 
 Animals think, reason, hope, fear, remember, laugh, and 
 cry. They are faithful to their marriage-bonds, and de- 
 voted to their offspring; they are organized in commu- 
 nities and governments ; they domesticate and use other 
 animals, even milking them as we do cows ; they have 
 social grades, aristocracies, soldiers, artisans, and slaves ; 
 they make war, and bring home captives ; they punish 
 for crime, and execute the death-penalty ; they lay out 
 and build cities ; they station sentinels, and have watch- 
 men ; they decorate and ornament their persons ; they 
 
THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. 85 
 
 care for each other, and will fight in each other's defence, 
 or in the common defence of home and country : in short, 
 there is hardly a single faculty of humanity they do not 
 share. The difference between these animal powers and 
 customs and those of man is chiefly one of degree. The 
 power of abstract thought and the development of the 
 religious faculty and life are the great essential intellec- 
 tual and spiritual distinctions. The animal world, then, 
 is only a step beneath us ; and that step evolution is 
 perfectly able to take. 
 
 Coming to and dealing with the body alone, it is a sig- 
 nificant fact that almost all forms of life have what are 
 called rudimentary organs ; that is, certain limbs or parts 
 that were fully developed in one grade of life, but, not 
 being needed in the higher grade, are outgrown, leaving 
 behind them only a rudiment to show where and what 
 they used to be ; just as, in an old tree, you often see 
 where a limb once was that has now died out. The 
 fishes in Mammoth Cave have rudimentary eyes. Os- 
 triches have rudimentary wings. These as simple illustra- 
 tions. I can only stop to say that man also has several 
 very striking rudimentary organs, which, if developed 
 to-day, would make him as thoroughly animal in his 
 appearance as is even his chimpanzee ancestor. 
 
 Another very remarkable thing I must only mention. 
 Every child, before its birth, in the course of its develop- 
 ment, passes through ever}' phase of animal life from the 
 lowest to the highest. Thus man recapitulates and takes 
 up into himself all the life beneath him. Every infant 
 
86 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 born passes over again the whole pathway of the progress 
 of life on the globe. 
 
 And then, after he is born, every child begins life an 
 animal, and grows up through and out of barbarism into 
 the civilization of culture and training. The child's play- 
 things are copies of barbaric weapons, — club, and bow 
 and arrow, and spear ; and the games of children in the 
 nursery and on the sidewalk, and the school playground, 
 are mimic copyings of old religious rituals ; and their 
 meaningless rhymes and formulas are the remnants of 
 Old-World stately ceremonials. So the child again, in his 
 training, recapitulates and lives over once more the whole 
 progress of civilization. 
 
 We are accustomed to say that such a man is foxy, 
 another is lion-like, a third is wolfish, there are " bulls 
 and bears " in the stock-market, others are swinish. 
 These are looked upon as purely figures of speech ; but 
 evolution fills such phrases with a meaning they did not 
 have before. Just as we may have the hair or eyes or 
 gait of not only our father or mother, but of ancestors a 
 hundred generations gone, so we may show still the good 
 or evil traits, propensities, and passions, that characterized 
 our animal ancestry a thousand ages ago. The thread of 
 a common life runs through, and binds together in one, 
 all forms of existence on the planet. 
 
 The battle of our moral life, on this theory, is ration- 
 ally explained to be just what we know it to be, — a fight 
 between the higher and the lower. The animal obeys his 
 impulses ; and, having no moral sense, of course there 
 
THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. 87 V 
 
 is no thought of wrong, nor any possibility of remorse. 
 The child, at first, does the same, and has no more moral 
 sense than the horse. But as this sense unfolds, the 
 conflict begins. It is the contest between impulses, 
 and duties toward our fellows and our higher self. " I 
 wish " and " I ought " are in antagonism. It is just the 
 fight that Paul so graphically pictures in the seventh 
 chapter of Romans : " I delight in the law of God after 
 the inner [higher] man ; but I find another law in my 
 members [body] warring against the law of my mind." 
 And, as many of us have exclaimed, he cries out, "O, 
 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me ? " 
 
 This theory, then, adequately explains the whole battle^ 
 of the moral life. Man is struggling up, out of the ani- 
 mal, toward mind and spirit. When the animal gains the^ 
 mastery, he is degraded, and falls back into a position 
 worse than that of the animal, by as much as he is capa- 
 ble of something higher ; and so when he misses it he is 
 self-condemned, and condemned by mankind. However 
 low or mean, you do not condemn a thing if it is all it 
 is capable of ; but, however high, you still condemn if it is 
 content to fall below its highest possibility. Sin, then, is -«r 
 not a substance or entity that either god or devil put into 
 a man, and that a priest can exorcise, prayer expel, or 
 baptism wash away. It is only the supremacy of the s 
 lower over the higher in man ; and guilt is the conscious- 
 ness of this. Righteousness is the supremacy of the 
 moral and spiritual, — a rational discernment of the laws 
 of our higher life, and an obedience to them. / 
 
88 v THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 But if man was once animal, and has grown up into 
 man, when and how did the soul come in ? some of you 
 may like to ask. Of any soul that is a distinct and 
 separate entity, apart from the conscious mental and 
 spiritual life ; a soul that a man has, and that can be 
 saved, apart from his mental and moral condition, accord- 
 ing to the teaching of the popular revivalists ; a soul that 
 is in a man and yet not simply and wholly himself, — of 
 such a soul I must confess that I know nothing whatever. 
 And if any one is disposed to be troubled on this point in 
 connection with evolution, perhaps it is well to remind 
 them that they will find no relief in Genesis. Moses 
 knows nothing of any such soul. The Hebrew word for 
 the soul of Adam, and for the souls, or life, of the animals, 
 is precisely the same. When it is written, " The Elohim 
 breathed into his nostrils, and he became a living soul," 
 it would be just as correct to say, " He became alive, or a 
 living being or animal." There is no hint that his soul 
 was any different from that of any other creature's soul. 
 This does not touch the question of the nature of the 
 soul, or of immortality : it only shows that there is no 
 more light in Genesis than there is in evolution. , 
 
 It was a favorite topic of discussion among the school- 
 men of the middle ages, as to whether we derived our 
 souls by birth from Adam, or whether they came direct 
 from heaven at every separate birth ; but I have never 
 heard that it resulted in any thing more profitable than 
 that other question, which they also expended their wits 
 upon, as to whether our hair and finger-nails, that we now 
 
THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. 89 
 
 cut off, will or will not form a part of the resurrection 
 body. 
 
 Evolution simply takes man as it finds him, traces his 
 origin, studies his nature, and, looking along the line of 
 his development, attempts to forecast his probable future. 
 If it cannot say as broadly as Paul does, " Now are we 
 [all men] the sons of God," it can say, " Now are all who 
 live after the law of their higher nature the sons of God." 
 Man, then, once animal, has climbed up into the possi- 
 bility of sonship to the Highest ; and in many cases he 
 has made the possibility a fact. " It doth not yet appear 
 what we shall be;" but along the line of knowledge, 
 obedience, and struggle, there stretches before humanity 
 an ascending pathway up to God, bright and grand as the 
 sloping beams of light that bridge the deeps of space 
 from the horizon's edge up to the unbearable glory of the 
 rising sun. Here lies the way of religious progress, phil- 
 anthropic labor, and all reform. It is to be trodden by 
 all those who subdue the animal, and climb up into the 
 mind and the soul. And the true help for our fellows is 
 to be offered in assisting them up, step by step, along this 
 same stairway of attainment. No man can be suddenly 
 " converted " into it, any more than ignorance can be sud- 
 denly converted into knowledge. One may be suddenly 
 waked up to the fact of his ignorance, and may suddenly 
 determine to go to school ; but the way of learning is 
 long, and so is the way of all progress. 
 
 In the light of human nature, as thus revealed, may be 
 seen the futility of some of the present prominent notions 
 
90 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 about reform, as in matters of temperance, social vice, 
 and the repression of crime. You cannot legislate char- 
 acter. The most that laws can do is to help on suitable 
 conditions for the development of character. 
 
 I have purposely passed by the question of a future 
 life for man. It only remains for me to glance at the 
 possibilities of his earthly outlook, as hinted by evolu- 
 tion. Man was first an animal, without shelter or fire or 
 clothing or weapons or domestic utensils of any kind. 
 We can trace him to the time when he fought the bear for 
 possession of his cave. His first weapon was a club; 
 then he discovered fire, and so was able to mould metals, 
 and manufacture utensils and weapons. All the forces of 
 nature were hostile to him, because he was ignorant of 
 their laws, and so was constantly transgressing and suffer- 
 ing. But gradually he learned to obey them, and so 
 became their master. When he obeyed the laws of the 
 wind, he made it sail his boats ; when he knew the laws of 
 water, he made it turn his mills ; when he learned the use 
 of fire, he cleared the forests and discovered manufac- 
 tures : to-day he has made conquest, by his knowledge, of 
 immense tracts of the globe. Lightning, light, heat, mag- 
 netism, chemical forces, are all become his servants. He 
 is just winning his crown and grasping his sceptre. But 
 though we call ourselves civilized, we can see enough of 
 the yet unattained possibilities of man and the earth to 
 make us feel that we are as yet only in the morning 
 twilight : the full day is before us ; conquests await us in 
 earth and air and sea. Government shall be perfected ; 
 
THE MAN OF EVOLUTION. 91 
 
 crime shall be outgrown ; most of the diseases from which 
 we now suffer shall be abolished. Accumulated wealth, 
 and knowledge of the yet undiscovered resources of the 
 earth, shall solve the problems of hunger and cold and 
 want, and deliver man from the crushing burdens of the 
 mere struggle for subsistence. Then man will be free to 
 go up and live in the affections, the mind, and the spirit. 
 It is perfectly within the scope of the forces and laws 
 now at work about us, to develop on earth a paradise as 
 much fairer than Eden as the noble plans and works of 
 manhood are higher and better than the dreams of the 
 nursery. Plato's republic and More's Utopia are only x 
 hints of what the future will realize. The whole earth can/ 
 be made a garden, and human life upon it so regulated in 
 accord with natural laws that all government and society 
 and individual life shall run as noiselessly and harmoni- 
 ously as the stars move in the sky. Evil and pain and v 
 disease will be outgrown. J 
 
 How long will it take ? Thousands of years. But God^ 
 is in no hurry, having eternity to work in. He has been/ 
 millenniums already, in developing us to what we are; 
 and yet we are only on the threshold of what is not only 
 possible but probable. The future stretches out a road so 
 long, that those who stand on the heights of the ages to 
 come may look back and think of human history from the 
 first until now, as we think of the first mile of a journey 
 across the continent; as we regard the time from Adam 
 to the flood, in the old story. 
 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; " and indeed 
 
92 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 " it doth not yet appear what we shall be." But the scroll 
 of earth-life that God is unrolling has in it wonders and 
 surprises of good and beauty and glory that we cannot 
 now even imagine ; but we may safely say that the blos- 
 som will be worthy of the root and the trunk. 
 
V. 
 
 THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 
 
 To the devil has been popularly attributed the author- 
 ship of all human ills. I propose, therefore, to trace in 
 rapid outline the more important phases of the develop- 
 ment of the satanic idea, that we may understand how 
 the belief has risen and grown. Then I shall pass to 
 what we really know of the origin and nature of evil. 
 A knowledge of what it is will suggest practical measures 
 for controlling or escaping it. 
 
 Let us begin by trying to understand the condition and 
 state of mind of the first men on the earth. You must 
 imagine yourselves divested of every thing that we include 
 under the term " civilization." Not only must you men- 
 tally blot out the cities, the telegraphs, the railways, the 
 roads, the ships, but you must also think of them as with- 
 out houses, without even the simplest domestic imple- 
 ments and utensils, without any knowledge of iron or 
 copper or other metals of which they could make weapons 
 for their defence. They had no clothing, except as they 
 could strip a tree of its bark, or rob an animal of its skin. 
 
 93 
 
94 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 They possessed no knowledge of fire. And then you 
 must not only strip their bodies of all the surroundings of 
 comfort : you must also strip their minds of knowledge, 
 and picture them in the midst of a world of which they 
 knew almost nothing. Hunger gnawed at their vitals, 
 the cold chilled and destroyed them, the thunder scared, 
 and the lightning smote them ; the earthquake, the storm, 
 and the darkness all seemed bent on their destruction. 
 Invisible diseases attacked them, and mysterious death 
 snatched away one after another. They knew nothing of 
 natural laws, or of how a generally beneficent force might, 
 because of their ignorance or disobedience, work them 
 incidental injury. So they, using the best powers of 
 reason they possessed, argued that all these things were 
 their enemies. And as they had no idea of power apart 
 from that possessed by persons like themselves, they 
 attributed personality and individual life to all the forces 
 about them. Winter and night and storm and lightning 
 and disease, to their thought, became superhuman beings, 
 or gods. And since the results of their action were evil, 
 so far as they could see, they concluded they must be 
 malicious gods, inclined not to help, but to hurt them. 
 The sun and the light and the blue sky were kindly and 
 good gods. For not knowing, as we know to-day, that all 
 these apparently evil forces were the result of the sun, 
 they gave him credit only for the pleasant effects of light 
 and warmth which they could see him produce. But the 
 good gods of light and comfort were afar off in the sky ; 
 while the bad gods of cold and darkness and hunger and 
 
THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 95 
 
 death were right about them. T^hus the first religion was 
 one almost exclusively of fear. " They worshipped theses- 
 gods, not because they loved them, but in the hope that, 
 by gifts and prayers and honors, they might gain their 
 favor, or induce them to be less cruel. Here, then, is the 
 germ-idea of the devil. He was born of the logic that 
 argued that suffering and death must be the work of a 
 wicked being. It was not one devil, or bad god, but ^ 
 thousand; for every thing that seemed to possess inde- 
 pendent power was personified. 
 
 In the Hindoo religion, though almost every thing was 
 deified, so that there were millions of gods, they yet took 
 one step ahead of the philosophic thought of primitive 
 man. They generalized the forces of the universe under 
 three grand gods, — Brahma the creator, Vishnu the pre- 
 server, and Siva the destroyer. The latter, who may be 
 called the Hindoo devil, was figured with a rope for 
 strangling evil-doers, a necklace of skulls, and earrings of 
 serpents. All evils were of his doing. And, as very 
 significant of the fact that popular worship concerns itself 
 much more about escaping evil than it does in getting 
 good, Siva is the most worshipped of all the Hindoo gods. 
 The idea seems to be to buy escape from his evil power. 
 
 Zoroaster, the religious teacher of Persia, took one 
 step more in advance. His religion was based in a 
 shadowy kind of monotheism ; but practically the uni- 
 verse was divided between two gods, a bad and a good 
 one, who were supposed to be in everlasting antagonism. 
 Ahura-Mazda was the god of light and good, while 
 
96 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 Ahriman was the god of darkness and evil. They were 
 engaged in a world-wide conflict very much as, during the 
 middle ages, Christ and the devil were supposed to be. 
 But, unlike the Christian teaching, it was believed that 
 sometime Ahura-Mazda would triumph even to the utter 
 destruction of all evil, and the redemption of Ahriman 
 himself. 
 
 It is worth your while to notice, in passing, how the 
 gods of an old religion become the devils in a new. 
 When a new and better god got the supremacy, it was 
 not supposed that the other gods were dead : they were 
 simply conquered and kept in subjection. In this condi- 
 tion they kept up a chronic rebellion, and did all they 
 could to injure their conqueror and his kingdom. Thus 
 the devils of Zoroaster were the gods of the older Hin- 
 doo religion. This is indicated in the very word "devil." 
 Deva, from which the word " devil " is derived, once 
 meant the good gods. The same use remains to-day; 
 for " divine " is only the old word deva in its modern 
 dress. So " devil " and " divine " are two words coming: 
 from the same root. The same is true of the Latin deus 
 and our English " deity." In like manner the old Pagan 
 gods became the devils of early and mediaeval Chris- 
 tianity ; except when some infallible pope put one of 
 them into the calendar by mistake, and made him a saint. 
 
 In the classic religions of Greece and Rome, there was 
 no devil ; for the gods were bad enough to get along 
 without one. The deities of Olympus were simply human, 
 except as to power and life ; and they helped or hurt 
 
THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 97^ 
 
 humanity, as all tyrants do, according to freak or favor- 
 itism, or as moved by gifts or honors. 
 
 We must now turn to the Old and New Testaments, and 
 trace the genesis of the devil here. There is no hint, forw 
 ages after, that the serpent in Eden was the devil, or that 
 he had any thing to do with him. Jehovah, at first, as^ 
 being the one God, the Creator of all things, is regarded 
 as the author of both good and evil, dark and light. In 
 Isaiah he is represented as boldly assuming the whole 
 responsibility to himself : " I form the light, and create 
 darkness ; I make peace, and create evil. I, Jehovah, do 
 all these things." (Isa. xlv. 7.) This, of course, could 
 not be true if evil originated with the devil. In other 
 places, the agency of the devil appears springing up, and 
 dividing the evil work of the world with Jehovah. When^' 
 David committed the supposed crime of taking a census 
 of his people, it is said in one place that Jehovah tempted 
 him to do it, and in another place that Satan did it. The 
 belief here is divided, and begins to waver. The firstJ 
 time that Satan appears clearly outlined is in the book 
 of Job. But he is not at all the Satan of theology, out^ 
 cast from heaven, the king of hell, and the ravager of 
 the earth. He is a member of the heavenly court, a sort 
 of prosecuting attorney for Jehovah, who goes forth only 
 on the divine permission, and to execute the divine will. 
 But after the Jewish captivity, and the national contact 
 with Persian life and thought, the Zoroastrian Ahriman 
 comes bodily into Jewish theology, and the devil is full 
 born. 
 
 7 
 
98 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 To account for the existence of evil at the dawn of 
 creation, the devil must be made older than the world ; 
 and hence arose the legend of a rebellion in heaven, and 
 the casting-out of Satan and his followers, a third part of 
 all the angels. To avenge himself for his celestial defeat, 
 he turns his malice against the new creation and the new 
 being, man, who was to take the place in heaven from 
 which he had been cast out. Then arose the idea that 
 the old serpent was only Satan in disguise ; and that, 
 through the tempting and fall of man, the devil " brought 
 death into the world, and all our woe." The devil was 
 thus supposed to have become the conqueror, lord, and 
 rightful owner of the world. This was his kingdom. So 
 ingrained did this thought become that even in the Church 
 Prayer-Book to-day the organized Church is God's king- 
 dom, and the world is Satan's ; and becoming a Christian 
 is " renouncing " loyalty to " the world, the flesh, and the 
 devil," and taking Christ as king. So perfectly was it 
 believed that Satan had come into ownership of earth 
 and man, that the early doctrine of the work of Christ 
 was shaped by it. Jesus made a bargain with Satan, by 
 which he surrendered himself into his hands as a ransom 
 for the deliverance of humanity ; and as Christ had 
 been his rival in heaven, he was willing to accept the pur- 
 chase. But Christ, being divine, was able to outwit the 
 devil, cheat him out of possession of himself, and save 
 humanity into the bargain. Such were the early Christian 
 ideas of God and Jesus and Satan. You can judge how 
 worthy they are of our respect. 
 
THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 99 
 
 Throughout the middle ages, the devil was supposed to 
 be everywhere. His armies camped over all the earth. 
 Calamities, sickness, deformity, earthquake, storm, down 
 even to the most trivial perplexities, were attributed to his 
 agency. Every man was surrounded by devils, as a swim- 
 mer was surrounded by the sea. Evil thoughts were his 
 whispers, and evil deeds were done at his instigation. In 
 short, whatever was evil was the work of the devil. Sin 
 was a new element or quality that came into human 
 nature, through his agency, at the fall. Thus it became a 
 part of the life of every new child born into the world. 
 By this sin, which linked man with Satan, he was under 
 the perpetual wrath of God, and condemned forever. 
 The Church ordinances, rituals, days, — these were the 
 machinery of Christ for the expulsion of sin, or the deliv- 
 erance of man from its power. 
 
 The devil has been the mainspring of theology, and 
 hell the corner-stone of the universe. So important a 
 personage has he become, that one minister asserts, as 
 against Mr. Conway's lecture, that " if there is no devil 
 there is no truth in the Bible." As if the Sermon on the 
 Mount must look to the devil for support ! And another 
 declares that "the devil constitutes an important element 
 in the means of grace established for the salvation of 
 sinners ; " though, since he gets the largest part of them, 
 one would suppose that it was their damnation, and not 
 their salvation, of which he was an " important element." 
 I suppose this minister means that he needs the devil as 
 a scarecrow, to frighten people into heaven ; though, by 
 
ioo M THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 the Church's own confession, he has proved a failure in 
 this direction. 
 
 Now, it is perfectly natural that the ignorance of 
 primitive man should invent the devil as a part of his 
 mythology. It was the simplest explanation of the facts 
 of evil, as they then appeared. But it is now being seen 
 by all earnest and independent thinkers, that the theory 
 of the devil must take its place with alchemy, the Ptole- 
 maic theory of the universe, and other beliefs that the 
 knowledge of the world has outgrown. The devil only 
 complicates, instead of simplifying or explaining, the 
 origin and nature of evil. If there is any devil, he either*^ 
 made himself, or God made him. If he made himself, he 
 is an independent deity ; if God made him, or permitted 
 him, then God is the author of evil : so the devil is no 
 relief. 
 
 Let us, then, turn away from these frightful dreams of 
 the past, and look at the facts of the world, so far as we 
 know them. I think we shall find, in the light of evolu- 
 tion, a pathway out of our difficulties. What does ourV 
 real knowledge of the facts of the world and the progress 
 of life tell us about the nature of evil ? It denies not only 
 the existence of any devil, but any necessity for him. It 
 denies the real existence of evil ; that is, it denies that 
 evil is a real entity, a substance, either in the world about 
 us, or, as sin, in man. Evil is simply a temporary and^ 
 passing condition. To put the whole thing in one word, 
 all evil is nothing more nor less than maladjustment/ 
 The devil, and sin, ar.d sorrow, and calamity, and sick- 
 
THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 101 
 
 ness, and tears, and death, all resolve themselves into this 
 one word. I am aware that as thus stated the sentence 
 may convey to you little meaning; but I wished to put 
 the whole thing into one word, as an acorn contains an 
 oak-tree. And now I will go on to explain and illustrate. 
 If you can find any form of evil that cannot be wrapped 
 up in the word "maladjustment," then you will find what 
 all my thinking has failed to discover. 
 
 At the outset of this explanation, notice the meaning 
 of life. Life means simply this : A real being, man or 
 woman, in the midst of, surrounded by, and related to, 
 the real facts of the universe. When he is rightly related 
 or adjusted to these facts, then the man finds safety, 
 health, happiness, and peace. When wrongly related, or 
 maladjusted, he finds disturbance, pain, calamity, sick- 
 ness, and death. This one principle, I believe, will 
 explain all evil, from the physical up through intellectual 
 and moral to the spiritual. Let us now start out with it 
 on our search, and see. 
 
 I. Physical Evil. 
 
 How came it about that the first men of the world 
 interpreted all the great forces of the world as being 
 mainly evil ? It was simply because of their ignorance 
 and helplessness. Not understanding the laws of nature, 
 they were continually breaking them, and so suffering the 
 penalty of broken law. The lightning, the storm, the 
 earthquake, the winds, the poisonous vapors of swamps, 
 all these were continually working them harm because 
 they had not enough knowledge of them to be an ade- 
 
102 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 quate defence. They were constantly getting into wrong 
 relations to these things. The great forces of nature 
 move on as resistlessly as a train of cars under full head- 
 way. If you get aboard the cars, the mighty power of 
 the steam will speed you smoothly on your journey : if 
 you get across the track, the same mighty power will crush 
 and mangle and kill. The whole thing depends on your 
 relation to the force of the steam. Right adjustment 
 makes it your servant : maladjustment makes it your ruin. 
 In the light of this principle, let us consider more directly 
 some of the prominent causes of physical evil. 
 
 It has been the popular belief of the Church and of 
 all Christendom, for the last two thousand years, that 
 earthquakes and tempests and floods and volcanic erup- 
 tions and pestilences and diseases and death were all 
 either the spiteful work of the devil, or else the vengeful 
 judgments of God for human sin. Sometimes the two 
 ideas were combined ; that is, it was thought that God, 
 being angry, permitted the devil to bring these evils upon 
 men. This belief was carried so far that it was even held 
 to be an impious resistance to God's will, when medical 
 men endeavored to counteract the natural sweep of a 
 pestilence, or to alleviate human suffering. Within a 
 hundred years, the world has witnessed the advocates of 
 the popular religion roused into a storm of opposition 
 against vaccination as a preventive of small-pox. Small- 
 pox was a judgment of God ; and it was wicked to stand 
 in its way. And, so late as forty years ago, the use of 
 chloroform was opposed because it was thought to be 
 
— _ 
 
 THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 103 
 
 impiety to fight against the pain that God had sent as a 
 punishment for sin. Now, let us look at it. and see. 
 
 Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are a part of the\ 
 natural and necessary process in the development of the 
 globe. The wrinkling and tremors of the earth's crust, in, 
 the process of the earth's cooling from its original molten 
 condition, are as necessary and natural as the wrinkling 
 and cracking of the surface of a pan of lard when it is 
 cooling in the farmer's kitchen. It is precisely the same 
 thing, only on a larger scale. And volcanoes are the 
 natural result of the same working. Now, when, and vaS 
 what sense, are they calamities? When men, through 
 ignorance of these natural laws, build their cities or homes 
 in the earthquake's track, or on a volcano's side, then 
 there come such calamities as that of the overthrow of 
 Lisbon, or the burial of Pompeii. These great convul- 
 sions are, on the whole, beneficent, for the good of the 
 earth ; the incidental evils are the result of a maladjust- 
 ment of human relations to them. So soon as men know 
 the laws, and adjust themselves to their working, the 
 power to injure is taken away. Take the case of floods^ 
 or the breaking of a great reservoir, like that in Western 
 Massachusetts a couple of years ago. When men know 
 enough to build out of the way of floods, and when the 
 public guardians know enough and care enough to pre- 
 vent the cupidity of contractors from slighting their work, 
 then these "judgments of God" will be found easily 
 preventable. It is a little curious that God has ceased 
 sending his lightning as a punishment for sin just as fast 
 
104 ' THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 and as far as Franklin's invention of lightning-rods has 
 been properly applied. Right adjustment to electricity 
 has disarmed it. When a ship is wrecked at sea, we know"** 
 that, in every case, it is for lack of proper adjustment be- 
 tween the vessel, and the powers of wind and wave. A 
 proper knowledge of, and a compliance with, the laws of 
 navigation, would make wrecks almost an unheard-of 
 thing. Pestilences, like the cholera, the plague, the / 
 yellow-fever, are perfectly within the control of human 
 intelligence. These punishments come not on sinners, in 
 the ordinary sense of the word, but confine themselves 
 exclusively to those cities and lands that disregard sani- 
 tary laws. And every intelligent physician knows that 
 almost all diseases are preventable, and that none ever 
 come except as the natural and necessary result of the 
 disregard of physical laws. In other words, all disease is 
 maladjustment between man and nature. He who builds 
 his home beside a malarious swamp may be ever so pious, 
 but he will shake with chills and fever just the same. 
 The wicked man who knows enough to keep out of such 
 places will escape. That is, transgression of physical 
 law brings physical evil ; and what you do or do not do 
 in spiritual matters does not touch this fact. Fire is one 
 of the grandest blessings of the race ; but if Mrs. O'Leary 
 does not know any better than to put a kerosene-lamp 
 where her cow will kick it over, the laws of fire are not 
 going to stop : Chicago will crumble into ashes. A man's 
 house tumbles about his ears ; not because gravitation is 
 not a good thing, but because he did not adjust his 
 
THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 105 
 
 timbers and his bricks to the laws of gravitation. And 
 so you may take any illustration you please, and you will 
 find the same thing true : all physical evil is maladjust- 
 ment between man and his conditions. Increasing knowl- 
 edge is disarming these enemies of humanity more and 
 more. And not only are they being disarmed : knowledge 
 of and obedience to these great laws is turning them into 
 gigantic servants of the welfare of man. The sea, which 
 the ancients regarded as a waste of useless waters, — the 
 separator of nations, the destroyer of those who braved 
 its perils, and which even the Bible speaks of as an evil 
 to be done away in " the new heavens and new earth, " — 
 " there shall be no more sea," — this is now known to be 
 the life of the world ; and knowledge of its laws is turn- 
 ing it into highways of human progress. The lightning 
 has turned mail-carrier ; and all the great forces are 
 being harnessed to the car of human advancement. 
 There is not a single physical evil on the globe, that 
 future knowledge may not turn to man's advantage and 
 uplifting. 
 
 Death, the great evil, as men have thought, and which^ 
 was supposed to be the result of Adam's sin, is now 
 known to be as natural and necessary as life. It existed/ 
 ages before Adam is supposed to have been created. The 
 evils of it are only incidents and accompaniments that 
 human advancement will leave behind. The time may^ 
 and will come when men will die as unconsciously and 
 easily as now they are born. In fact, it will only be 
 another and a higher birth. * 
 
io6 v THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 The devil of the physical world, then, is only ignorant \ 
 maladjustment. This is the great dragon ; and knowledge 
 is thi S*. George that will overthrow and slay him. y 
 
 II. Intellectual Evil. 
 
 I pass now to say that the same is true of intellectual 
 evil. This calls for no prolonged discussion. Its simple 
 statement will be its sufficient proof. The only evil of theN 
 intellect is error, a lack of true knowledge of the real 
 facts of the universe. The only and the sufficient cure 
 for this is knowledge. The straight pathway to this / 
 knowledge is the free and unhindered study that cares 
 only to find the truth. This is why I claim and defend 
 the right of free inquiry. Nothing is safe but truth ; and 
 truth is always safe. And I can conceive no interest that 
 any man can have to do any thing else but find the truth, 
 and obey it ; for truth is God. The man who builds on 
 it builds on the rock. The rains may descend, the floods 
 may come, the wind may blow and beat upon his house : 
 but it will stand ; for it is founded on a rock. Any thing 
 but truth is sand ; and whoever builds on it will live 
 only to see the ruin of his fall. 
 
 III. Moral Evil. 
 
 As our third point, consider the same principle of 
 maladjustment in relation to moral evil. The unfolding 
 history of humanity reveals nothing more plainly than that 
 there are great and universal laws of righteousness run- 
 ning through all the world. These laws are nothing more 
 nor less than the all-inclusive principles of equity or just 
 relationships in which men stand to each other. Within 
 
THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 107 
 
 i/ 
 
 these lines or laws of right is moral goodness. Breaking 
 over these lines or laws is moral injury and destruction. 
 Here, as everywhere, " sin is the transgression of the law.y 
 Now, I wish you to carefully separate in thought this 
 realm of morals, of righteousness, from the intellectual 
 and physical realms. Breaking physical law brings phys-\ 
 ical evil; breaking intellectual laws brings intellectual 
 evil, or error; breaking the laws of righteousness brings 
 moral evil, or the injury of the moral nature. These/ 
 three realms may run into each other. As, for example, 
 when a man breaks the moral law of his relationship to 
 another by some sensual crime, he at the same time may 
 break a physical law of his body; but the physical evil 
 results, not from breaking the spiritual law, but from 
 breaking the physical. A man may be a thief, or cheat 
 in his business, and it have no effect on his body. He 
 will be in health so long as he obeys the laws of his 
 body, however much he may break the higher laws. The 
 farmer may swear and cheat ; but this will not affect his 
 potato or wheat crops, if he is a good farmer. While 
 another farmer may be ever so noble and true in his 
 relations to his fellow-men ; still he will go hungry if he 
 does not manage his farming wisely. The higher moral 
 evils, then, result from disregard of the higher moral laws 
 of equity in which we stand to God and our fellow-men. 
 Thus society may be full of people who are successful in 
 their outward circumstances, because they know and obey 
 the laws of health and of business. They may be suc- 
 cessful in the pursuit of the scientific and philosophic 
 
ioS THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 truths of the world, because they obey the laws of this 
 search ; and at the same time they may be so out of 
 harmony, of right relationships, with the spiritual laws of 
 righteousness, that in this department of their being all is 
 only wreck and ruin. A man will be a good painter, if he 
 obeys the laws of his art ; but this will not teach him 
 music. He may be a fine mathematician ; but this will 
 not teach him sculpture. So, if one is to be morally and 
 spiritually developed and complete, he must recognize 
 and obey the higher and finer laws of his higher rela- 
 tionships. When evolution has carried man high enough, 
 this spiritual realm of relations will be as real to him 
 as is now the physical ; and the pang of pain following a 
 breaking of one of these finer laws of thinking and feel- 
 ing will be as keen and real as is now the burning that 
 follows the putting of a finger into the fire. 
 
 Moral evil, then, is only moral maladjustment, — a 
 man getting out of right moral relationships to God or his 
 fellow-men ; and the cure for evil here is parallel to the 
 cure for all other evils. Man universally desires his own 
 welfare, that which is for his good ; and when he gets 
 wise enough to know that obeying the divine laws must 
 always be for his good, then the whole force of self- 
 interest even will be turned toward doing right. Man 
 knows it now concerning physical evils. He does not 
 voluntarily seek them. They come through ignorance or 
 weakness or carelessness ; or sometimes he braves them 
 for the sake of what he thinks a larger good. He is 
 beginning to learn it concerning intellectual evil, or error. 
 
THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. 109^ 
 
 He will one day become wise enough to know that it is 
 always safe and for his interest to find and follow the 
 truth. But he has as yet learned very little of the same 
 great principle as applied to moral relations. I think no 
 man ever does wrong at first, unless he has come to think 
 it good for him, for his interest at the time. This is 
 always a blunder ; but he does not know it yet. For it is 
 for no man's real interest to do wrong. But the selfish 
 hunger is strong, and his moral sense is weak and blind. 
 The sense of duty is only partially developed. Habit 
 grows until it becomes disease ; and so the current sweeps 
 him away. But a proper knowledge of moral laws, at 
 the start, would have kept him out of the current. 
 
 Knowledge, then, is the devil-killer, and the extermi-^ 
 nator of evil. It is often objected to this teaching (it is,^ 
 indeed, the stock-argument of religious newspapers), that 
 many educated men are criminals, such as Ruloff and 
 Green and Prof. Webster, the murderers ; and therefore 
 it is said that education cannot save men from sin. But 
 a fatal fallacy underlies the objection. It is not claimed 
 that physical education will save from any thing but phys- 
 ical evils. Knowledge of scientific and philosophic prin- 
 ciples will only save from errors in their peculiar realm. 
 It is moral education, a true and adequate knowledge of 
 moral laws and human well-being as related to these, that 
 saves from moral evil. Ruloff and Webster and Green 
 were moral fools. They blundered concerning the great 
 moral relations in which they stood, and mistook their 
 own real welfare, as well as the rights of others. When 
 
no * THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 men are morally wise enough, they will know it is always 
 best to do right. 
 
 The perfect humanity will come, then, when there is a\ 
 complete knowledge of human relationships, and a com- 
 plete obedience to the physical, mental, and moral laws 
 of God. y 
 
 God, then, is not the author of evil. It is only human\ 
 maladjustment to laws that, when known and kept, are 
 the true servants and the mighty helpers of humanity. 
 The devil is a dream of the night and darkness of the 
 past. Let him be relegated to the museum of theological/ 
 curiosities, mummies, and skeletons, that the coming ages 
 will study to find out the world's thoughts that have 
 passed away. But meantime remember that unkept laws 
 are still capable of doing the works of destruction and 
 sorrow and ruin that have been credited to the devil in 
 all time. If physical, intellectual, and moral calamities 
 come, it will be small comfort to you to know that your 
 own ignorance or carelessness is the devil that brings 
 them. But in this destruction of the devil, and of a 
 wrong-doing God, we get the grand inspiration and the 
 hope that helps us face the future with good heart and 
 tireless endeavor. The way out and up being seen, and a 
 glimpse of light being visible as a herald of the dawn, 
 we " thank God, and take courage." Let our hope sing 
 itself in the lines of Tennyson : — 
 
 " O, yet we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill, 
 To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
 Defects of doubt, and taints of blood : 
 
THE DEVIL; OR, THE NATURE OF EVIL. Ill 
 
 " That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
 That not one life shall be destroyed, 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
 When God hath made the pile complete ; 
 
 "That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
 That not a moth with vain desire 
 Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, 
 Or but subserves another's gain. 
 
 m I can but trust that good shall fall 
 At last — far off — at last, to all, 
 And every winter change to spring." 
 
VI. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 You all remember the story of the boy Theodore 
 Parker ; how, when out in the field one day, he lifted a 
 stick to strike a turtle, but stood startled, and holding the 
 stick suspended in the air, because he seemed to hear 
 a voice distinctly saying, "It is wrong." On returning 
 home, he asked his mother what it meant; and she replied, 
 " It was the voice of God in your soul." And then she 
 went on to explain that, if he always listened to and 
 followed it, it would guide him in the way of right ; but, 
 if not, it would fade out, and leave him in darkness and 
 error. Now, this might all be true with the conscience 
 of the boy of Theodore Parker's mother ; for she was 
 exceptionally intelligent and religious. But a little obser- 
 vation would have discovered some remarkable exceptions 
 in the case of other boys in the neighborhood. Many of 
 them would have struck every tortoise they came across, 
 or have put coals on their backs to see them run, and 
 never have heard any voice of God say any thing about 
 it. What Theodore Parker thought a sin, they would 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 113 
 
 • 
 
 have declared to be only jolly fun. What I wish to hint 
 is simply this : that this conscience, whatever it be, is noA 
 uniform in its utterances, and does not declare any gen- 
 eral law of action. It tells one person that a thing is 
 wronp- ; it tells another that it is right ; it tells a third 
 nothing about it. ' 
 
 These words of Mrs. Parker undoubtedly express what 
 has been the popular doctrine of Christendom. Con- 
 science has been supposed to be a direct intuition of 
 right, or the voice of God in the soul telling a person 
 what was right and what was wrong. But let us look a 
 little over the world, and see if we can still hold this 
 belief. The first thing that we observe is that the utter- 
 ances of conscience in different parts of the world not 
 only are not all alike, but that they are even contradictory. 
 Hardly a question concerning God, the state, society, or 
 the individual, that you cannot find conscience engagedL . 
 on both sides of. In one nation, conscience command*' 
 the worship of Jehovah ; in another, with equal impera- 
 tiveness, it commands the worship of Jupiter, or Brahma, 
 or Moloch, or Venus, or a bull, or a stone, or some sacred 
 serpent. In the breasts of our forefathers, it commanded^ 
 resistance to tyrants, and a contest for human liberty, even 
 at the cost of property and life. In Turkey, conscience 
 makes it a sacred duty to heaven to be abjectly submiss- 
 ive to a most degrading despotism. Conscience, in the 
 better parts of Europe and America, commands a state 
 of society in which one husband is faithful to one wife, 
 and in which both live for the welfare of the children. 
 
ii 4 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 In Utah, conscience binds two or forty women to one 
 man. In other parts of the world, this same conscience 
 sanctions the possession by one woman of several hus- 
 bands. The conscience of Plato led him to recommend 
 an ideal community, where husbands and wives should be 
 held in common. The American conscience commands 
 the most tender care of children, and the watching over 
 and securing comfort to the declining years of parents. 
 In India, conscience bids the loving mother cast her child 
 to the crocodile; and in the South Seas it commands 
 children to strangle their parents, or bury them alive. It 
 is held a religious duty to do this before they get old 
 and decrepit, that thus they may enter their eternal life 
 young and strong. Conscience in Sparta commanded 
 people to steal. Conscience in America builds prisons 
 for thieves. Conscience used to forbid taking interest on 
 loans. Money-lenders now worship God, build churches, 
 and sustain missions on the interest of their capital. 
 Conscience once carried on the slave-trade, and estab- 
 lished the institution in America. Conscience at last 
 rose against it, declared it " the sum of all villanies," and 
 poured out blood and treasure to overthrow it. Con- 
 science hung John Brown; and it made John Brown 
 willing to be hung. Conscience crucified Jesus ; and con- 
 science deified him because he was willing to die for his 
 ideal of right. Conscience built the Inquisition ; and 
 conscience made men strong to bear its tortures. Thus 
 it appears that conscience gives contradictory statements, 
 and is not, by any means, the same all over the world. 
 
/ 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 115 
 
 There is hardly a namable crime that conscience has 
 not somewhere consecrated as a duty, and there is hardly 
 a namable duty, that conscience has not somewhere con- 
 demned as a crime; and not only is this true of the 
 condition of the world to-day, but there has been a contin- 
 ual change and progression in the doctrine of right and 
 wrong, along the line of the pathway of human history. 
 The conscience of the highest civilization is as much 
 above the lowest, as the highest types and forms of life on 
 the globe are above the fishes and the reptiles. But the 
 "voice of God," if it utter the constant and eternal truth, 
 cannot progress. The conscience of each man also 
 changes and develops in accordance with his own con- 
 ditions, education, and development from childhood to 
 age. He conscientiously drops some things he once re- 
 garded as duties, and he feels bound by new obligations 
 that before he did not recognize. 
 
 In the midst of all these changes and fluctuations, there 
 has been one and only one thing that has remained con- 
 stant and unmoved, like a rock in the midst of the sea. 
 This one thing is the fact that all men everywhere have^ 
 recognized and acknowledged the distinction between 
 right and wrong, and have confessed the meaning of 
 ought, — ought to do right, ought not to do wrong. Dis- 
 agreeing as to what was right, and what was wrong, they 
 have yet admitted that they ought to do the one, and avoid 
 the other. This basal rock we can rest on, and make it/ 
 the foundation on which to build a true doctrine. But we 
 are not quite ready for that yet. 
 
/ 
 
 1 1 6* THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 \ 
 I wish you to notice here that this universal conflict and 
 
 contradiction — a very Babel of consciences — utterly 
 disproves the teaching that the human conscience is, in 
 any exceptional sense, the " voice of God in the soul." It/ 
 is a purely human faculty, like the faculty for art or 
 music ; and it gets its authority, as they do, by being true, 
 and just in so far as it is true. Now, orthodoxy regards^ 
 these other powers as purely natural ; but it makes con- 
 science an exception, regarding it as a sort of permanent 
 inspiration, " inner light," or dwelling of God in the soul./ 
 But if God in the soul speaks like a hanger-on at the 
 White House, or a paid partisan, according to circum- 
 stances, it is hard to see what advantage there is in calling 
 it divine. The important question is, Does it speak the 
 truth ? Orthodoxy explains the fallibility of conscience N 
 by the fall of man, saying that this once divinely infallible 
 faculty is -now only a part of the general wreck of human- 
 ity; but this is only another way of confessing that the 
 accuracy of conscience depends on the individual con- 
 dition, training, and character of every man. And on thisy* 
 supposition, the consciences of all " converted " people 
 — those recovered from the fall — ought to agree. But 
 history teaches that the " saints " have hated and fought 
 each other, for conscience' sake, quite as cordially as 
 though they had been the chief of sinners. Evolution 
 regards every faculty as an unfolding of the divine life of 
 things, but conscience no more truly so than any other. / 
 But from this confusion on the part of the utterances of 
 conscience, many perplexed thinkers have hastily jumped 
 
7 
 THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 117 
 
 to the conclusion that there is no real and ultimate stand- 
 ard of right, that it is a mere matter of convention. Were 
 this so, every man and woman would be a law to them- 
 selves, and would be justified in doing " what was right in 
 their own eyes ; " and when a conflict arose between two 
 individuals, or between the individual and the state or 
 society, it could never rise to the dignity of a conflict of 
 principle. There would be no principle ; it would be on 
 the level of a bear-fight. It would consecrate and make 
 universal the doctrine that " might makes right." Any 
 man, then, who should be willing to die for what he called 
 right, would be simply a fool ; and the great calendar of 
 the world's saints and heroes and martyrs would be re- 
 duced to a list of candidates for a lunatic-asylum. 
 
 Conscience is not infallible : therefore, whether you call 
 it " voice of God," or natural faculty, it practically comes 
 to the overthrow of the old ideas concerning it. But the'\ 
 doctrine that right and wrong are conventional matters is 
 still less tenable. Which way, then, shall we turn for the/ - 
 truth ? The doctrine of evolution, as applied to the con- 
 science, will be found able to explain all the facts, and 
 solve all the difficulties. Let us, then, trace its root, and 
 mark the line of its development. 
 
 The root-meaning of the word " conscience " hints its 
 true significance. Conscience and consciousness are near 
 relations. They come from the same stock, and differ 
 chiefly in application and use. Consciousness is our own\ 
 knowledge of ourselves and of the relations between our 
 own faculties and powers. Conscience is our recognition 
 
nS THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 of the relations, as right or wrong, in which we stand to 
 those about us, — God and our fellows. Con-scio is toy 
 know with, in relations. 
 
 Now, let us see if we can find the basal principle of 
 morals, the very root of the distinction between right and 
 wrong. It is to be discovered in the fact of society, that 
 man is not alone, but exists in certain necessary relations 
 to others. If you will conceive a man utterly alone in the 
 universe, and not only so, but stripped of all those facul- 
 ties and powers that fit him for personal relations with 
 others, you will see that such a man would be incapable 
 of any moral action. He would not be moral, he would 
 not be immoral : he would simply be unmoral. He would 
 be incapable of doing, thinking, or suffering wrong : both 
 rijrhts and duties would be abolished. The first time that 
 two persons looked each other in the face, and became 
 conscious, or had a conscience, of the independent exist- 
 ence and rights of each other, then the first feeble moral 
 sense became an element of human life. The lowest sub- 
 stratum out of which this sense was born was just this rec- 
 ognition of personal relationship or society. The germ of 
 it may be found in the forms of life below the human, — 
 in a bird's nest, a lion's den, or a herd of horses. Some\ 
 highly developed dogs have been known to recognize the 
 rights of their fellows, and to show a sense of shame for 
 a mean action. But it was when primeval man developed^' 
 the first rudimentary society, that the human conscience 
 was born. It was the first feeble effort of the imagination 
 to "put yourself in his place," and thus conceive that/ 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 119 
 
 others were only other selves, having similar desires, and 
 capable of feeling similar pains. 
 
 Conscience, then, began in, and was commensurate 
 with, the first society. What was the first society ? Nat- 
 urally and of necessity it was the family. So at the first 
 there was a family conscience. The father, the mother, 
 and the children recognized certain relationships in which 
 they stood to each other, and certain rights and duties 
 as ^ringing out of these relationships. But while having 
 a conscience toward each other, they had no thought of 
 any rights or duties as pertaining to a family of strangers. 
 They could rob or murder or eat up another family with 
 no compunctions of the moral sense or qualms of con- 
 science whatever. 
 
 As the family developed into the tribe, there grew up, 
 along with the widened relationships, a tnbjdjaHiscience^. 
 All were bound together in the clan, by mutual rights and 
 duties. And this tribal conscience has usually been so 
 intense and strong that a member of the tribe could not 
 possibly live in disregard of it. And yet, beyond the 
 limits of the tribe, they have sometimes had no conscience 
 at all. Take, for example, a clan of Scottish Highland- 
 ers. Robbery, ravishment, and murder were supposed 
 <rood enough for the members of a hostile clan, while all 
 these things were sternly repressed or severely punished 
 within their own borders. Or look at the tribes of 
 American Indians. A Delaware could be chivalrous and 
 hi°-h-toned as a modern gentleman toward the members 
 of his own tribe ; and, at the same time, to lie to, to 
 
120 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 cheat, to ambush, torture, or scalp, an Iroquois, was a 
 virtue. 
 
 Then, as the tribes grew large, organized, civilized, and 
 settled in cities, there came the development of the city 
 conscience. The palmiest days of Greece can illustrate 
 this. The Athenian conscience was practically limited 
 to Athens. The citizen of Athens, proud of his city 
 and jealous of her rights, had no conscience toward 
 Sparta. 
 
 But now that governments are not limited to city walls, 
 when many cities and towns are leagued together under 
 one national flag, we have developed a national con- 
 science. The progress of civilization has hardly ad- 
 vanced beyond this as yet. Americans feel a wrong done 
 to an American citizen anywhere on the globe ; and they 
 feel justified in urging the government to demand redress, 
 even at the price of war. But they do not lie awake 
 nights, nor get righteously angry, over wrongs done to a 
 German or an Italian citizen. Yet in one case the wrong 
 is as great and real as in the other. We feel an insult 
 to the piece of bunting we call our flag, and are ready to 
 fight for the national honor. But instead of having the 
 same conscience of wrong when England is insulted, we 
 can most of us remember the time when thousands of 
 Americans would chuckle over it, and think it was good 
 enough for her. We sympathize at once with the faintest 
 scream of our eagle ; but the sorrow changes to a grin of 
 satisfaction when we hear the lion roar. 
 
 In regard to other and broader questions, however, we 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 121 
 
 bury the distinctions of nationality in the consciousness 
 of the race. 
 
 In some directions there is what may be called a 
 Caucasian, or white m an's, conscien ce. — It is only a little 
 while ago, that it had passed into a proverb that " negroes 
 had no rights which a white man was bound to respect." 
 It was this spirit that Nasby caricatured when he pro- 
 posed the sarcastic improvement of the New Testament 
 words so as to make them read, " Suffer the little (white) 
 children to come unto me." And to-day, in California, 
 Christian men look on, and see the Chinese subjected to 
 such treatment as is a disgrace to humanity. Such abuse 
 of white men would kindle a revolution. Yet the San 
 Francisco conscience is very comfortable over the matter. 
 
 The day will come when the present rudimentary 
 notions of the rights and wrongs of man will be devel- 
 oped into all the breadth and grandeur of a comprehen- 
 sive human conscience. All the old partial forms of 
 conscience still remain, and have their representatives 
 in other directions. In many the family conscience is 
 still dominant ; and the sense of right and wrong in their 
 hearts grows weak as they leave the home. Then there 
 is a church conscience. Even Paul could write, "Do 
 good unto all men, but specially to them who are of the 
 household of faith." And there is a club or corporate 
 conscience, illustrated by such orders as the Masons. 
 They feel obliged to help each other, not so much 
 because they are men as because they are Masons. The 
 church and the Masons are good, only they are partial. 
 
122 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 So there are professional and business consciences. Min- 
 isters, lawyers, bankers, merchants, mechanics, each too 
 often shut up their sympathies within their own limits, 
 making one set of rules for themselves, and another for 
 them "that are without." A true conscience will be 
 wider than this. It will issue in what has been finely 
 called " the enthusiasm of humanity." It will make 
 binding on every soul the saying of Jesus, "Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself;" and the word " neighbor " 
 shall be comprehensive enough to include every human 
 being. 
 
 And one step more must conscience take. Paul could 
 raise the question, and give a negative answer to his in- 
 quiry, as to whether God cared for oxen : " Doth God take 
 care for oxen ? " But that is a narrow and only partially 
 developed sense of right and wrong, that leaves out of 
 its account any living thing. There is a sentimental 
 regard for animals, as well as for men, that is some 
 times ready to oppose the justifiable sacrifice of a lesser 
 and personal to a greater and general good. A few 
 people care for pets. But the " Society for the Preven- 
 tion of Cruelty to Animals " is a living witness for the 
 fact that the human conscience is lamentably weak on the 
 side of our dealings with the brute creation. English 
 hunting scenes, Spanish bull-fights, as well as the practice 
 of American sportsmen, witness the same thing. An old 
 divine could speak of it as a proof of God's goodness to 
 men, that he made the animals for their delectation in 
 such delightful sports as bull and bear fights ; and Mac- 
 

 
 THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. ny 
 
 aulay said the Puritans in England opposed bear-baiting 
 not so much because it hurt the bears, as because it gave 
 pleasure to men. 
 
 Where there is any good reason for infringing the 
 natural rights of the animal world, of course those rights 
 are extinguished in a higher need. But I wish I could 
 burn into every human soul the righteous indignation and 
 contempt which the sensitive Cowper felt for any one who 
 was mean enough to " needlessly set foot upon a worm." 
 The rights of a worm are as sacred, in his degree, as^ 
 yours are ; and a true conscience will recognize them. / 
 
 Now, you will notice that in this upward development 
 and broadening of conscience it has been, all the way 
 and everywhere, governed by the same one principle that 
 we found to be its germ. It has everywhere sprung out\ 
 of relationships, or supposed relationships ; and it has 
 been commensurate with a knowledge and sense of these 
 relationships. Many real and vital relationships have/ 
 been unperceived ; and so in body, mind, and soul, men 
 have suffered, lost, and died on account of this ignorance ; 
 but they have had no conscience about it. On the other 
 hand, they have imagined a thousand relationships that 
 had no real existence. But since supposed facts have all 
 the force of real ones on the mind, they have manufac- 
 tured consciences answering to the imagined realities, and 
 so have invented a thousand duties that did not really 
 exist. Carrying this thought out now by some illustrations 
 from practical life, we shall be able clearly to mark the 
 distinction between a true and a false conscience. A true"\ 
 
124^ THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 conscience is one that answers to, and takes cognizance 
 of, the real relationships in which we stand to God, the 
 world about us, and our fellow-men. A false conscience 
 is one that answers to, and is formed in accordance with, 
 what the man supposes to be true, but which is really 
 false. Let us take some specimens from real life. y 
 
 I. A false co7iscience. 
 
 The early Greeks and Romans believed heartily in the 
 supposed fact that Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Venus and their 
 fellow gods and goddesses held a celestial court on the 
 summit of Mount Olympus. To their thought these were 
 real divinities, ruling the world, and holding in their 
 hands the destinies of nations and of men. Their moral 
 sense of right and wrong, their conscience of religious 
 obligation, took hold of, and adjusted itself to, these sup- 
 posed but really non-existent facts. Thus, out of what 
 we know was only inherited superstition that had no 
 objective reality, they constructed a whole religious sys- 
 tem by which they were bound with the strictest sense 
 of obligation. They built temples, and instituted rites, 
 and felt their whole life touched and shaped by what to 
 them was the real sense of the overlooking and ever- 
 present gods. We know to-day that what they so labori- 
 ously performed were no real duties at all. Their fears 
 were groundless, and their hopes were dreams. They 
 had a vital conscience of what did not exist. These 
 same people, believing that the proper burial of the body 
 was intimately connected with the future rest of the soul, 
 would suffer conscientious pangs for years on account of 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 125 
 
 any neglect of the funeral rites. We know that all this 
 fear was purely imaginary. I have spoken of tribes that 
 held it a religious duty to put their parents to death 
 before they grew old and infirm, because they believed 
 that, if they entered the spirit-land withered or old or 
 decrepit, they would remain so forever. Thus their 
 consciences turned murder of father and mother into 
 the most sacred religious duties. We, knowing that these 
 supposed facts are only superstition, regard as horrible 
 what they think religion. Paul, believing in Moses as 
 against Christ, thought it his duty to persecute the early 
 Christians. Afterward, when he changed his thought of 
 the relations in which he stood, he found out that his 
 first conscience in the matter was a false one. The first 
 Christians, believing that Christ was coming immediately 
 in the clouds of heaven to destroy and reconstruct the 
 world, held it their duty to oppose property and marriage,, 
 and the whole order of things on which civilization de- 
 pends. Their conscience in this matter was false because 
 their supposed facts were untrue. The Romanist wor- 
 ships Mary, and prays to saints, and trusts in relics and 
 superstitious ceremonies. His conscience binds him to 
 this ; but we know that his conscience is false, because it 
 is made to accord with a whole world of imaginations 
 that are no facts, and that do not at all touch the question 
 of his moral goodness, or real relation to God or man. 
 The early Puritans felt conscientiously bound to drive out 
 the Quakers, and burn the witches ; but theirs was a false 
 conscience, because the Quakers were as sincere religion- 
 
126 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 ists as themselves, and there were no such things as real 
 witches. Moody and Sankey believe in an angry God, 
 and an everlasting hell ; and their consciences are made 
 to answer to these supposed facts ; but, disbelieving what 
 to them are vital truths, we conscientiously oppose their 
 methods and their work as dishonoring to both God and 
 humanity. So, all about us, we see men and women who 
 have a false Sunday conscience, or business conscience, 
 or reform conscience, or prohibitionist conscience, or 
 political conscience ; and these men will be conscien- 
 tiously unjust and uncharitable and persecuting and cruel. 
 The most uncomfortable man in the world to get along 
 with is one who is pig-headedly obstinate in his conscien- 
 tiousness. He is so certain that he is doing God's work, 
 that he will be religiously inhuman about it. He gets so 
 anxious to drive men into heaven, that he will use the 
 spirit and weapons of hell in the work. 
 
 Now, all this false conscientiousness grows out of the 
 fact that men suppose they stand in certain relationships 
 that do not really exist. Thus the imagined duties are 
 no duties at all. 
 
 II. A True Conscience. 
 
 The nature of a true conscience appears in the fact 
 that it is the very opposite of the false. It is one that 
 answers to the real facts and relations of life. I am 
 under no real obligation to any imaginary God, whether 
 he be the dream of a Hindoo or Greek or Jew or Chris- 
 tian. Toward the God of Pius IX., or of the Sultan of 
 Turkey, or of the Emperor of China, or of the evangelist 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 127 ^ 
 
 Moody, I feel no gratitude, and admit no sense of duty 
 or obligation. The real duty lies toward the real and 
 true God who is manifested in the great laws, forces, and 
 realities of the world, and in the highest and purest life 
 and thought of humanity. Though each narrow reli- 
 gionist calls it infidelity and atheism, yet the truth of the 
 true God is the only true religion of which the true con- 
 science will be the echo. Orthodoxy regards the liberal 
 as derelict in duty because he does not join him in his 
 work of soul-saving. So does the Mohammedan look 
 upon the Christian because he does not seek his heaven 
 through Allah and his prophet. But the God, and the^ 
 heaven, and the hell, and the lost humanity, of ortho- 
 doxy, we believe to be purely imaginary. Thus their all- 
 engrossing work is not only no real duty to us, but it is 
 even effort thrown away, power wasted, that might be 
 rightly used in real help for man. A true conscience^ 7 
 then, is one that knows and is adjusted to the realities 
 of life. When men know the truth about God, about 
 themselves, — body and mind and spirit, — about the real 
 relations of equity in which they stand to their fellow- 
 men in state and church and society, and when they 
 appreciate these, and adjust their consciences to them, 
 then they will have a true conscience. An absolutely N. 
 true conscience of course cannot exist so long: as our 
 knowledge of the reality of things is only partial. We 
 can only make closer and closer approximations to the 
 ultimate truth. So conscience will keep step with the 
 progress of the race. Just as the old theories of the uniy- 
 
128^ THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 verse are being constantly corrected by the advancing 
 knowledge of the world, and the real facts of things are 
 coming to light more and more, so will the sense of duty 
 grow, broaden, and advance, re-adjusting itself continu- 
 ally to the higher intelligence of the time. It is only 
 beginning to be seen how conscience must have to do 
 with the care of the body, with sanitary regulations of 
 cities and homes, with the proper treatment of the crim- 
 inal classes, and with the whole physical life of the 
 world. "The thoughts of man are widened with the 
 process of the suns." And so the conscience of man 
 will widen to the measure of his thoughts. 
 
 But in the midst of this progress, and since the con-\ 
 science is not infallible, which way lies present, practical 
 duty? In the first place, I would say, Whatever any 
 man's conscience commands, that he must do. It is to 
 each soul the supreme voice of obligation ; and he must 
 obey it on penalty of violating and weakening and killing 
 out his moral sense. Evolution will insist on this just 
 as strongly as the old orthodoxy. Whatever you are/ 
 persuaded is wrong, that you have no business to do. 
 Whatever you think is right, you are under the highest 
 obligation to perform. Even though to others it be 
 only a whim or a prejudice, it is to you supreme duty. 
 Whether it is a Romanist refusing meat on Friday, or a 
 High-Churchman staying away from opera in Lent, or 
 an Orthodox refusing to ride in a street-car on Sunday, 
 still each one must obey the dictate of conscience. If 
 the pope thinks Luther is sending men to hell, then he 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE. 129 
 
 must seek to crush him ; and if Luther believes he is 
 standing for God, then he must defy the pope. And here, 
 in this clash and conflict of consciences, come the great 
 tragedies of history. Men and causes temporarily go 
 down ; but God and truth ultimately win the day for a 
 higher humanity. Out of the tempest comes a clearer 
 air in which the outlines of truth are more distinctly 
 visible. 
 
 But, secondly, each man must remember that his con-^ 
 science is not infallible, and that it may not represent the 
 real truth of things. So there comes in a duty that over- 
 tops all others, — the duty of perpetual, earnest search 
 for truth, that so the conscience may be made to accord/ 
 with the real facts of God. You must keep ever your 
 eyes open for light, and your heart open with a world- 
 wide welcome for whatever is pure and true. Remember 
 that we are finite minds in the midst of infinite realities. 
 " We know only in part ; " we must seek to know as 
 completely as we may. Throwing away prejudice and 
 conceit, seek to make your conscience like the magnetic 
 needle. The needle ever and naturally seeks the un- 
 changing pole. Ignorance and false teaching, and self- 
 confidence and passion, are side attractions that deflect 
 it from the right. Surround it only with truth, and it will 
 guide the way to God and the eternal life. " A good 
 conscience " is to be found only by finding out the 
 real truth of things, — truth that can be verified and 
 settled as true, — and then by a constant and sincere 
 obedience. With loyal heart, then, anxious to do the 
 
130 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 right when discovered, let our daily longing and prayer 
 be the sincere cry that the Grecian Ajax sent up out of 
 the darkness of his conflict before the walls of ancient 
 Troy, — for light. 
 
 " Walk in the light : so shalt thou know 
 That fellowship of love 
 His spirit only can bestow 
 Who reigns in light above. 
 
 " Walk in the light : and thou shalt own 
 Thy darkness passed away, 
 Because that light on thee hath shone 
 In which is perfect day." 
 
VII. 
 
 LOVE IN LAW. 
 
 Law, in the popular mind, means all that is cold, hard, 
 heartless, and cruel. This feeling has been fostered 
 somewhat by inconsiderate writing on the part of some 
 scientists, or by popular misconception of scientific writ- 
 ings. But the larger cause has been the tone of theol- 
 ogy and the pulpit. These have represented law as only 
 police and hangmen, thunders of Sinai, or torments of 
 hell. For ages the plan has been systematically pursued, 
 of making men feel that they were in the clutches of 
 cruel law bent on their destruction, and then of offer- 
 ing them deliverance from its iron power by means of a 
 gospel of mercy and love that was represented as being 
 outside of and above law. Thus the belief has been 
 created, that law and love were of necessity in a kind of 
 eternal antagonism. To the question, then, of the nature 
 and results of law, whether it is loving or cruel, we will 
 now address ourselves. 
 
 The early conception of the universe was that its great 
 forces were predominantly cruel. Cold, darkness, storm, 
 
 >3' 
 
I 3 2 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 hunger, wild beasts, death, all these were the work of evil 
 beings that had no love for man, and were instigated 
 by hatred and malice. Nature was cruel. It was not, 
 however, cruel law. These early men had no conception 
 of any such thing as law. Cause and effect had no 
 orderly relation in their mind. It was only cruel caprice. 
 Behind these great movements and forces were malignant 
 persons that loved the smell of blood, and rejoiced in 
 the infernal music of human groans, and eagerly licked 
 up the tears that sorrow let fall. This is true of all the 
 early religions. The popular conception of Jehovah 
 among the Jews was that he was hard and cruel, the 
 god of thunderbolts and hail, " a consuming fire," one 
 punishing children for the sins of the fathers. At first, 
 then, nature was cruel caprice. 
 
 In after-times there gradually grew up a belief in a 
 good god. But you must notice that he was not at all 
 the god of these supposed cruel forces of nature. They 
 were bad gods still in all their terrible reality. Only 
 another god appeared, who was good and kindly disposed 
 toward humanity, and who opposed and sought to de- 
 stroy the works of the wicked nature-deities. This good 
 divinity was outside of and wholly separate from nature, 
 so that nature was still regarded as evil. This belief was 
 fully developed in Persia, where Zoroaster had set in 
 eternal opposition the good Ahura-Mazda and the evil 
 Ahriman. A similar belief appears in early Greece, 
 where Prometheus is chained forever to the rock, while 
 a vulture eternally devours his vitals ; and all because 
 
LOVE IN LAW. 133 
 
 he had shown himself disposed to help mankind by 
 revealing some of the celestial secrets. He is the good 
 god overpowered by a majority of the Olympians, who 
 were evil disposed toward men. A similar idea appears 
 in early Christianity. God the Father, laying aside the 
 Old-Testament hardness, appears as one who loves and 
 wishes to save humanity. But the world of material 
 forms and forces is all opposed to him, being under the 
 dominion of the " Prince of this world." God in Christ 
 was to deliver from his power, and from the domination 
 of the world of sin and death, all who put their trust in 
 him, and renounced loyalty to the devil. Christendom 
 has generally stood for this phase of belief. There was 
 not yet any law, in the modern sense of that term : it 
 was only that God stood apart from and opposed to the 
 evil forces and dominion of nature, ready to save out of 
 it any who would accept the conditions. From this has 
 sprung up the present popular conception of nature and 
 law as something apart from and opposed to God, so 
 that the religious literature of the time is full of the sup- 
 posed need of a loving power to care for, protect in, and 
 deliver from, these great natural laws and powers. The 
 thought is, These laws are hard and cold and cruel : they 
 do not heed our tears ; they do not care for our prayers : 
 we want to believe in some one outside of and above 
 law, who will turn aside its wheels, and save us from 
 being crushed under the onward roll of this Juggernaut. 
 
 But in very modern times, and in spite of all senti- 
 ments of fear or feeling, wide and deep study has devel- 
 
£34 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 oped a knowledge and sense of law, as opposed to what 
 is regarded as the capricious action of will. And this 
 belief in law threatens to cover, with its network of cause 
 and effect, all the universe. Science recognizes every- 
 where in nature the dominion of law. It has also de- 
 monstrated the law of development, or evolution, that 
 brings into the general order the whole movement and 
 upward march of life on the globe. It talks now of laws 
 of history, laws of society, laws of virtue, laws of crime. 
 The most changeable and apparently capricious move- 
 ments and forces, it threatens to catch and hold in the 
 meshes of its universal order. And all the while, in the 
 popular mind, this law seems to exclude God and his 
 love, and to leave all things in the hands of a hard and 
 heedless fate. 
 
 Men wish to know, then, whether this is true. If law is 
 everywhere, is love shut out ? The popular conception 
 of love, as something outside of, above, and delivering 
 from law, is shut out. God himself is not above law; 
 for law is order and reason and the cosmos. Put God 
 outside of law, and you make him disorder and unreason 
 and chaos. Not that God is subject to any law higher 
 and stronger than himself ; but that he must live out the 
 law of his own being. That man is subject to the law 
 of his own being, is only to say that he is sane. Supe- 
 riority to law, order, and reason, is what we mean by 
 insanity. The condition, then, must be one of two, — 
 law without love, or else love in law ; law the expression 
 of love ; for love without law, or above it, or outside of 
 
V 
 
 LOVE IN LAW. 13s 
 
 it, is only unreason and chaos. Love in law, then, is 
 rhe thought of the highest and clearest thinkers j and it 
 must be the ruling thought of the future. 
 
 These three stages of thought the human mind has\ 
 passed through in its upward evolution. First, cruelty 
 as caprice ; next, love as caprice opposed to capricious 
 cruelty ; and, lastly, law, — first thought of as hard and 
 heartless, and then lifting up into all-dominant love, as 
 itself of necessity law and order, superior to caprice, and, 
 as being perfect, incapable of change. This last is the 
 position of "the religion of evolution." Let us now^ 
 see if we can comprehend something of its truth and 
 beauty. 
 
 And, first, we will see how broad and all-inclusive is 
 this universal "reign of law." As we have seen, the 
 early races put persons everywhere. There was a god of 
 the year. Day and Night were deities. The Dawn, a 
 goddess, led forth the dance of the rosy-fingered Hours, 
 twelve other deities. The Sun, a god, drove his flashing 
 chariot-wheels across the solid roadway of the sky ; and 
 at night the Moon, "pale goddess," ruled the dusky 
 Hours, and led out the Stars for their night-long choral 
 song. The wind, and the clouds, and the light, and the 
 sky, and the rivers, and the seas, and the trees all had 
 their god or goddess. Nothing ever came to pass except 
 as the work of some personal will. And these wills had 
 no conference or understanding together; but each did 
 " what was right in his own eyes." The god of the winds 
 made them blow to suit his own whim or caprice, or to 
 
136 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 help or harm, as he took a notion. The god of the sky 
 sent rain or dew or bright days, as best accorded with 
 his own convenience, or as moved thereto by prayers or 
 sacrifices. The god of the grapes gave plenty of wine, 
 or blasted the ripening harvest, as he pleased. Ceres 
 blessed the corn, or cut off the crop. Nothing was sup- 
 posed to occur according to fixed and calculable order. 
 All was practically chance, because no one knew before- 
 hand — except by oracle or prophecy — what any partic- 
 ular god might conclude to do. This was the condition 
 of thought throughout the so-called heathen world. 
 
 Among the Hebrews it was very much the same. 
 While, in their later centuries, they were monotheistic, 
 and recognized but one God, the supreme Jehovah, they 
 yet thought of all natural forces as under the direct and 
 constant superintendence of angels, who ruled as vice- 
 gerents, or satraps, over the different departments of the 
 world. There was an angel in the sun, an angel in the 
 moon, angels in the stars, angels of the winds and waters, 
 rivers and trees, angels of rain and storm and darkness, 
 angels of the growing crops and of flowers, angels every- 
 where, and the active agents in every thing. This sys- 
 tem differed from the " heathen " only in this, that these 
 angels were supposed to be subject and answerable to 
 Jehovah, who was the only king. But this difference was 
 partly broken down by the belief that sometimes these 
 angels were rebellious and faithless to God, and ruled 
 wickedly after their own evil thought and will. 
 
 Thus, at first, law was nowhere. This in general was 
 
LOVE IN LAW. 137 
 
 the condition of affairs until very recent times. Perhaps 
 few are accustomed to think how modern a thing is 
 this conception of law. Even in the time of Kepler, the 
 wisest astronomers must think of an angel in the sun and 
 moon and stars to account for their movements. The 
 first grand triumph of law was in Newton's discovery of 
 gravitation. This bound the orbs of the material uni- 
 verse in the perfect and beautiful order that to-day makes 
 astronomy the most exact and fascinating of sciences. 
 But by many the comet was still regarded as an excep- 
 tion, a lawless and unaccountable wanderer up and down 
 the heavens. But when it was found that gravitation was 
 able to calculate even his apparent irregularity, and to 
 tell, from the path of his departure, just the year and 
 hour of his return, even over the gulf of centuries, then 
 the comet himself began to keep time and step with the 
 orderly march of the "host of heaven," the armies of 
 God. From that day to this, the advance of knowledge, 
 and the discovery of law, have kept even pace. Caprice 
 and miracle and spirits are still sometimes called in to 
 explain what else is not understood. But we know from 
 the past that a thousand things considered miraculous and 
 inexplicable by natural law have at last been explained, 
 and are now thoroughly understood, so that from known 
 causes certain and definite results can be easily and 
 always predicted with an absolute certainty ; and, if any 
 thing can be learned from the logic of the past, it is 
 certain that the mysteries and unaccountable phenomena 
 of the world will one clay be known, and reduced to the 
 
133 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 natural and universal order of cause and effect. Caprice 
 and lawlessness are already driven into the dark corners 
 of the earth, where the light of knowledge has not yet 
 penetrated. But this is without exception true, that there 
 is absolutely nothing that is known which is not subject 
 to and explainable by law. Let us look about us a little 
 and see, so as to impress upon ourselves this truth. 
 
 Every sun and moon and star and comet is held in and 
 guided by the reins of an omnipresent law. Even their 
 perturbations and irregularities can be accounted for and 
 predicted beforehand. The development of the earth, 
 from its molten to its habitable condition, has been in the 
 hands and under the guidance of a law so perfect that 
 the most remote and various results might have been 
 seen and predicted from the beginning. The history of 
 the rise, the growth, and the decay of nations, also is 
 only another illustration of law. The nature of their 
 origin, their elements, and their surroundings, have deter- 
 mined their careers and the " bounds of their habita- 
 tion." It matters not that they themselves have not 
 recognized it. The drops of water in a stream do not 
 recognize the currents and the banks ; but one standing 
 on the shore can trace and formulate the law of its whole 
 movement from source to mouth. So, as we study the 
 past of humanity, we can see that the movements, the 
 wars, the conquests and defeats, the overturnings, were 
 not matters of caprice or chance, but were governed by 
 all-determining laws. So true is this, that one who studies 
 France, or Spain, or Germany, or the United States, can 
 
LOVE IN LAW. 139 
 
 trace the order of its destiny, and predict the main out- 
 lines of its near future. Even the fair forms below us, 
 the slightest and most frail, tell the same story. The 
 wild field-flower, in all its freedom of growth and grace 
 of development, is the handiwork of law. Down in the 
 little earth-hid seed, and in the invisible forces of the air, 
 are the powers that control its apparently wanton growth, 
 and unroll its tinted petals until they look up perfect to 
 the sun. It is the product of conditions so fixed that the 
 size and shape of its stem, the number of its leaves, the 
 shading of its colors, and the quality of its odors, could 
 not possibly have been other than exactly what they are. 
 And so far is this from marring its grace and beauty, that 
 it requires the perfect laws to produce the perfect finish. 
 Thus the nice hand of law has wrought for us the million 
 varieties of the grasses and the flowers ; and they are 
 what they are simply because they came up in " the law 
 of the Lord." 
 
 The same is true of those forces of nature that seem 
 the most lawless and uncontrolled. Even the wind, as it 
 "bloweth where it listeth," always "listeth" to blow in 
 the way appointed it. It has its fixed courses, its going 
 out and its return. It runs swiftly in well-defined chan- 
 nels, as truly as do the rivers in their banks. And while 
 seemingly loitering on, toying with a flower, or a lock of 
 hair, or fanning an invalid's cheek, its way is as sure as 
 that of the eddying ripple on the brook's surface. And 
 when the sweeping hurricane drags on through the wild 
 heavens its black car of desolation, it rushes on its 
 
140 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 appointed way as really as do mountain torrents that the 
 rains have swollen. So the lightning strikes no uncertain 
 blow j neither do the surcharged clouds of the tempest 
 drift aimlessly in the sky. Law sits as charioteer, and 
 holds the certain rein. Free, wild, unchanged, the fury 
 of the storm is as truly in the hands of law as is the 
 electric flash when bound to the continent-spanning or 
 ocean-diving wire, and bearing regular messages for man. 
 Gen. Myers sits in Washington, and, reviewing the winds 
 and the clouds all over the continent, is able to tell us 
 day by day, whether or not we shall need our overcoats 
 and umbrellas. 
 
 It is law, too, that gives us the order of the seasons. 
 Its mighty arm swings us through the circuit of the 
 zodiac, and fills our hearts and lives with the variety of 
 the year. In this confidence we know that " summer 
 and winter, seedtime and harvest, shall not fail." 
 
 So in our individual life. There is no part of our 
 being that law does not touch, mould, and direct. By 
 law we make every motion of our bodies ; by it we 
 breathe, and enliven and color the blood \ by it the 
 blood courses vein and artery, repairing nature's waste 
 and wear; by it the heart beats, and the brain thinks, 
 the eye drinks in beauty and the ear, sounds; it com-\ 
 passes us round, and hedges us in on every side; but 
 do we feel it a bondage ? Not if we are healthy. The 
 least lawlessness is incipient disease; more becomes 
 insanity or death : so law is life. S 
 
 And all this is just as true of thought and feeling, 
 
v 
 
 LOWE IN LAW. 141 
 
 the intellectual and the spiritual realms. Law and order \ 
 are everywhere the conditions of life, of happiness, of 
 goodness, and of beauty. So wide is its sweep, and so 
 grand is its unity, that Herbert Spencer has been able to 
 think and to formulate in a few sentences a law of the 
 universe, of which all things are only illustrations. This 
 is the grandest achievement of the intellect of man. / 
 
 Now, whether we like it or not, it is pretty well settled 
 that we shall have to accept this universality of law as a 
 fact. All the knowledge of the world points to it more 
 and more definitely as true. Law and order reign. 
 Curses do not bring storms, nor prayers avert them. 
 Every department of the universe has its own laws and 
 conditions ; and events are controlled solely by these. 
 Not only is this so, but the highest religious conception 
 of God is coming to demand just such a state of things. 
 A God who constructs a system, and then has to keep 
 coming in to regulate and re-arrange its working ; who 
 changes his mind, and fixes things over after another and 
 a new plan ; who could not see and order all things from 
 the beginning ; who submits to having his elbow jogged, 
 and to take wiser suggestions from men than any he had 
 before thought of ; who comes to help out of difficulties 
 that his own foresight might have provided against ; who 
 has to keep mending and looking after things in an 
 abnormal way, — such a God, it is beginning to be seen, 
 is only a being created in the image of man, and in the 
 image of a man who is not over-wise or over-good, either. 
 To him who has gained a higher conception of God, a 
 
142 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 conception so grand as to be in keeping with universal 
 and eternal law and order, it seems impiety and irrever- 
 ence to think of him after any lower fashion ; just as to 
 the ordinary Christian it would seem impiety to represent 
 his God as capable of being pleased with the groans and 
 the burning of a human sacrifice, or as being liable to 
 human ignorance. So any thought of God less high and 
 grand than that which embraces universal and eternal law 
 and order seems irreverent and degrading. 
 
 But now let us see if there is any place for love in such 
 a system. I am ready to admit that the heart cries out 
 for love just as loudly as the brain calls for law; and, 
 further, I am ready to admit that to gain order for the 
 head at the price of the loss of happiness and trust for 
 the heart is a most questionable advantage, or even a 
 positive loss ; for the heart and its needs are as real and 
 true and high a part of human life, as is the knowledge 
 and thought of the brain. I even believe that happiness 
 and peace are so necessary a part of life, that any life is 
 a failure that, in the long-run, does not gain them. If I 
 would hesitate to say, " Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly 
 to be wise," I would not hesitate to say that I would 
 oppose knowledge, did I not believe that its outcome 
 would result in the highest and truest welfare and happi- 
 ness of man. So I would not slight the heart and its 
 affections, even for the sake of the grandest truths and 
 laws. 
 
 Instead, then, of doubting about the answer to the 
 question as to whether there is any place for love in a 
 
LOVE IN LAW. 143 
 
 system of universal law, I am ready to make the claim 
 that there is no place in it for any thing but love. It is 
 all one complete, perfect expression of the wisest and 
 highest love. Consider, — 
 
 (1) That we know love and joy as facts of science. 
 They reach from the depth to the height, and sweep 
 through the whole length and breadth of animate life on 
 the globe. The whole natural and healthful creation is 
 one scene of sentient gladness. The fish balanced in 
 his crystal home, or darting here and there like a beam 
 of light, is full to his utmost capacity of gladness. 
 Healthy life itself is an ecstasy. The insects that glitter 
 and buzz in the sun are as full of joy as a liquid drop 
 is full of water. And in June 
 
 " The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
 A-tilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
 And lets his illumined being o'errun 
 With the deluge of summer it receives." 
 
 And so all through human life, just so far as there is 
 health, harmony, and right adjustment between man and 
 his conditions, there is a music of joy, like that of an 
 instrument when kept in tune. And from the mother- 
 bird in her nest, or the father-bird gathering food for the 
 young, clear up through every grade, till you sit beside 
 the human mother rocking her cradled babe, or watching 
 over the restless sleep of some sick darling, there is every- 
 where the all-pervading and ever-growing love and tender- 
 ness that are the glory of the highest humanity. Now, all 
 
V 
 
 *44 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 this love and tenderness are facts of life ; and as such 
 they are a part of the infinite manifestation of God. 
 They have a source as much as do mountains and fossil 
 bones. And we may justly reason that the fountain is 
 more than all the streams. For the growth of civilizations 
 is the growth of love and care and help. Since, then,/ 
 these are growing still, with no sign of diminution, we 
 may believe that the source is so much greater than all 
 we see as to justify us in asserting that all human love 
 and tenderness and care are only faint glimmers and 
 reflections of the divine. Your tenderest mother-love is 
 no more when compared to the divine love than the shim- 
 mer of moonbeams on the water is equal to the glory of 
 the noonday sun. 
 
 Law, or no law : so much we may say we know. 
 To see, then, whether this fact is contradicted or over- 
 balanced by the fact of universal law, let us go on, — 
 
 (2) To inquire, What is law ? On this point there is a 
 strange and wide-spread misconception. Theology has 
 so long taught that nature was opposed to, or at least 
 outside of and separate from, God, that it is a long and 
 difficult task to correct the error. Natural law, then, is 
 only God's method of working. The highest science 
 teaches that matter and force and law are only manifesta- 
 tions of God to human consciousness. This is the highest 
 wisdom of all the ages. Since God is equally every- 
 where, and in all things, science knows no distinction of 
 natural and supernatural, or of strange things from one 
 side breaking through and interfering with the reirular 
 
LOVE IN LAW. 145/ 
 
 on-going of affairs on the other side. All law, then,^ 
 everywhere is natural ; and this natural law is simply God 
 working. And even if we could not observe it all about . 
 us, the uniformity of his working would be a necessary 
 inference from his perfection. To speak after human 
 analogies, if, the first time God ever did any particular 
 thing, he did it the best way, then, under similar circum- 
 stances, he must always do it the same way : otherwise 
 he must do it in some poorer way, and that would be a 
 display of imperfection and unwisdom destructive of our 
 very idea of God. God's perfection, then, demands uni- 
 versal and eternal law as its natural expression. When 
 we wish for a break in this perfect system, we are wish- 
 ins: for the dethronement or the degradation of God. 
 But,— 
 
 (3) Take notice of the character of the working of\ 
 natural law. It is always and everywhere for good/. 
 There is no one single natural law in all the universe, so 
 far as we know, whose normal working is not for good. 
 Why, then, would we have them weakened, broken in 
 upon, or changed ? All evil is only law broken or dis- 
 obeyed. Even pain is only a signal marked " Danger ! " 
 that is set up along the railways, at the switches and 
 crossings of human life. If it were not painful for the 
 moths to get singed in the gas-flame, they would burn 
 themselves up in its luring brightness. If pain were not* 
 the result of breaking the laws of the body, who would 
 be careful to keep in health ? Were it not for the painsy 
 of discontent in low conditions, what force would have 
 
J 
 
 146 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 driven man on and up into civilization ? It is just this 
 perpetual unrest and sorrow in conditions of incomplete- 
 ness and maladjustment, that compel the perpetual strug- 
 gle for higher and still higher forms of life. It is a seriN 
 ous question as to whether any useless pain can anywhere 
 be found. Certain it is that the natural, healthful work-, 
 ing of all the forces of the world issue in goodness and 
 joy. Health and harmony and obedience are everywhere 
 music. Pain is simply God saying, " Get out of danger,'\ 
 or, " Go up higher." y 
 
 A fearful picture is sometimes drawn of the battles, the 
 rapine, the blood, the mutual devouring, of the animal 
 world ; and the argument for nature's cruelty is drawn 
 from it. It appears to me to be one huge fallacy. We 
 carry our human sympathies and hopes and fears down 
 into this lower life, and judge it by our standard. Look 
 at the facts. Animal life in the main, and all through, is 
 happy : they are content and satisfied. But death is a part 
 of the law of life : so all must die. This is no wrong. 
 A good that I keep for a year is not an evil, because it is 
 then withdrawn. Now, it is doubtless true that, in being 
 slain and devoured, the lower animals suffer less than 
 they would by lingering, and dying a natural death, per- 
 haps from starvation. They suffer from fear so long as 
 this fear can aid their escape ; but it is well known that, 
 in almost all cases when the prey is caught, fear is gone, 
 paralysis takes its place, and death is painless. Dr. Liv- 
 ingstone relates that, when the lion's paw was on him, he 
 was stunned, and had lost all fear; and a similar thing 
 
LOVE IN LAW. 147 
 
 is true of all the victims of carnivorous birds and beasts. 
 Natural law, then, everywhere works for good ; and until 
 some law is discovered whose normal working is evil, the 
 statement that law may justly be called an expression of 
 love must stand unimpeached. 
 
 Law, then, makes the order, beauty, and music of the 
 heavens. This is the true "music of the spheres." It is 
 only law that makes civilization possible. It is because 
 we know the laws of earth and iron are constant, that we 
 can build railroads ; and because the laws of steam are 
 changeless, we can run our engines upon them. With 
 faith in the unchanging laws of wind and wave, we build 
 and sail our ships all over the globe. On the laws of gas, 
 we build and arrange the lamps that turn our streets from 
 darkness into illumination. The law of electricity assures 
 us that the cable that to-day takes our message to London 
 will not be useless to-morrow. By the laws of nature we 
 erect the stores and houses, and lay out the streets, of our 
 cities. It is the stability of God in our bricks and stones 
 and timbers, that makes us rest at night, with no fear that 
 he will change his mind before morning, and let the whole 
 thing down about our ears. On our faith in the laws of 
 light, we put the plate-glass in our windows, and cut our 
 jewels. Because laws change not, we have to-day the 
 pictures and statues of the masters of the olden time. It 
 is the stability of the laws of human life that makes it 
 possible to frame constitutions and establish governments. 
 If, in the long-run, humanity were capricious, statesman- 
 ship would be impossible. Art and science would be 
 
1 48V THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 unknown but for law, that holds all things fast and firm. 
 Commerce means trust in the general stability of human 
 nature. Crimes and betrayals are only insignificant ex- 
 ceptions. That Shakspere and Homer hold their place 
 in human thought, is only because the law of human 
 thought is uniform. There could be no growth or devel- 
 opment of religion, were it not for the constant elements 
 of human thinking and human conduct. Were there no 
 law in character, if it were the caprice of a self-moved 
 will, how could we ever trust each other? That a man 
 had perilled his life for virtue to-day, would be no guar- 
 anty that he might not commit murder to-morrow. That 
 there is a cosmos at all, a universe in which life and 
 thought and knowledge and progress are possible, is just 
 because of the universality of law. 
 
 I do not wish any gospel, then, to deliver me from the 
 law. To deliver my heart from the law would be to make\ 
 me capricious, as likely to hate as love. To deliver my 
 brain from the law would simply mean insanity. To 
 deliver my body from the law would be disease or death^' 
 Whatever lives, lives in, and whatever grows, grows by, 
 law. Happiness and heaven were delusions without it. 
 Law, then, is the all-present, wise, loving God. God's/ 
 law comes in the light, and wakes me for my morning 
 labor. By his law I remember yesterday, and link the 
 past with the present. By his law I break my nightly 
 fast, and fit my body for duty and joy. By his law I live 
 and think and labor and play. By his law I build my 
 house, and do my work. By his law the world is full of 
 
LOVE IN LAW. 149 
 
 life and brightness and opportunity. By his law the 
 languor of sleep once more comes over me, while still his 
 law makes my bed, and rocks me to rest on the old earth's 
 bosom, " as she dances about the sun." 
 
 Do we, then, need any providence as a protection 
 against or deliverance from nature and law ? That could 
 only mean that we need to have God defend us against 
 himself. God is in law, and law is in God. This uni- 
 versal law is only universal, all-encompassing, tireless, 
 changeless providence. It hurts us only when we trans- 
 gress. But, then, it is for our good to be hurt, and so 
 warned, lifted up, and delivered. "The law of the 
 Lord," then, " is perfect," perfect wisdom, perfect power, 
 and perfect love. May we not, then, on our part, exclaim 
 with the old-time Psalmist, only with fuller meaning, " O, 
 how love I thy law ! it is my meditation all the day " ? 
 And may we not fitly close with the upward-reaching cry, 
 " Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall 
 keep it unto the end " ? For " the law is holy and just 
 and good." 
 
VIII. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 The place which prayer holds in the popular thought, 
 the controversy in regard to it, and the consequent doubt 
 and confusion, — these make it a topic of the first im- 
 portance both to the understanding and the heart. To 
 glance at its origin and development, and then to study 
 the popular beliefs in the light of modern knowledge, and 
 so, if possible, to gain a position both rational and devout, 
 — this is my present purpose. 
 
 I have shown that the early objects of human worship 
 were not persons to be loved. The gods of the childhood 
 of the world were beings who filled the souls of men with 
 dread. The first altars were built by fear ; and the first 
 prayers were deprecations, pleas, and entreaties intended 
 to ward off impending ill. It was common among the 
 early tribes to worship the spirit of their ancestor, who 
 was supposed to watch over his descendants, and to hold 
 their fortunes in his hand. This worship did not spring 
 from any special love or veneration; but they believed 
 that their tribal founder was jealous of his memory and 
 150 
 
PRAYER. 151 
 
 honor, and that, if they did not keep alive his name 
 and his worship, he had both the power and the dis- 
 position to do them incalculable harm. So their altars 
 and their prayers were only a sort of tribute paid to keep 
 their god in good humor, and thus to buy his favor and 
 protection. 
 
 And a similar idea prompted the aboriginal worship of 
 the forces of nature. The forces and movements that 
 pressed most closely upon them were those of hunger and 
 cold and storm ; forces that hurt them, and of which they 
 stood in continual fear. Thus their prayers were not at 
 all in the nature of loving communion, as of a child with 
 father or mother. They did not love their gods, nor care 
 for their friendship or fellowship for its own sake. They 
 only stood in dread of what the gods might do, and 
 thought it the safest way to keep on as good terms with 
 them as possible. So their worship took on a sort of 
 commercial aspect. They thought to buy favors, or at 
 least freedom from injury, as one would put a bribe into 
 the hands of an unjust judge, or purchase with a gift the 
 good-will of an irresponsible despot. When they went 
 out to war against their enemy, they first sought the altars 
 or temples of their god, endeavored to learn his disposi- 
 tion in the matter, appealed to his ambition as against the 
 honor that the enemies' god might gain if he did not 
 show himself the stronger ; they promised special worship 
 and offerings if they came back victor ; and then, after the 
 battle, they came and hung their trophies in his temple, 
 and ascribed to him the praise of their conquest. You 
 
152 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 find ideas like these even among the Hebrews. Moses is 
 represented as appealing to the pride and ambition of 
 Jehovah. Weary with the obstinacy and obtuseness of 
 Israel, Jehovah threatens to destroy them. Then Moses 
 pleaded with him, and said, " Only think how Egypt and 
 her gods will exult, if, after leading thy people into the 
 wilderness, thou leavest them to perish, as though thou 
 wast not able to lead them on to the conquest of the 
 Promised Land." And the plea prevailed, and the people 
 were spared. 
 
 The old-time gods were accustomed to pray to each 
 other ; for as each had his department of the world, if he 
 wished to gain any end beyond his control, he must do 
 it through the favor of the deity in command. /Eneas 
 and his followers are on their way from Troy to Italy, 
 when Juno, who is their enemy and wishes their destruc- 
 tion, goes to ^Eolus, the god of the winds, and by a con- 
 descending appeal to his pride and friendship, and by the 
 promise of a magnificent gift, she persuades him to let 
 loose his winds, and raise a tempest on the sea, so that 
 the Trojan fleet may be destroyed. At the same time, 
 Venus goes to Jupiter, and begs for their deliverance ; 
 and the king of the Olympians sends a messenger to see 
 that the storm is allayed, and the ships are permitted to 
 find a harbor of safety. 
 
 Such were the early ideas of the place and the work of 
 prayer. 
 
 All through mediaeval Christianity, similar ideas pre- 
 vailed. Each city or people or convent had its special 
 
PRAYER. 153^ 
 
 tutelary saint ; and to him. as to a favorite at court, their 
 petitions were addressed. He was supposed to have 
 influence in heaven, and to look after their peculiar and 
 personal wants. God, to them, was not the all-present, 
 watchful Father. They thought they needed special in- 
 tercessors and friends at the heavenly court. And even 
 to-day, throughout Romish Christendom, the great ma- 
 jority of prayers go up to the saints and to Mary, whose 
 tender mother heart is supposed to be most easily touched 
 and moved at their requests. And a thought like this 
 last seems to be infecting all Protestantism. The Bible 
 nowhere gives countenance to making Jesus the object 
 of prayer; and most intelligent and thoughtful writers 
 oppose it as unscriptural and wrong : but in the popular 
 mind the Father has come very largely to represent the 
 law, while Jesus is the embodiment of the loving and 
 saving God ; and thus to him the tenderness and love of 
 all hearts turn, and to him are addressed the pleadings 
 and the prayers of the anxious and fearful souls. 
 
 The common idea of prayer to-day is, in the main, 
 that of the ancient heathen world. As I have many 
 times heard it from the lips of a prominent evangelist, 
 " Prayer is the power that moves the arm that moves the 
 world." It is supposed that by it God can be prevailed^ 
 on to do many things he otherwise would not. Stilling!/ 
 fleet, an old English writer, says, " Prayer is supposed a 
 means to change the person to whom we pray." It is 
 believed to have power to bring to pass the things prayed 
 for all over the world. 
 
 
154 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 Within a few years, '.i Scotland, the whole Church was 
 ordered to hold a service of fasting and prayer for deliv- 
 erance from a severe disease among the cattle. Only a 
 year or two since, the whole Church of England was 
 holding a special service for the recovery of the Prince 
 of Wales, who was sick. Miiller, in his " Life of Trust," 
 claims that he has established, and that he constantly 
 supports, an immense orphan-house simply by prayer. 
 He seems entirely to overlook the fact that such a claim, 
 continually republished and kept before the popular mind, 
 is the most ingenious and effective kind of advertising 
 possible. It is a perpetual appeal and prayer to the pop- 
 ular sympathy and help. To one who at all appreciates 
 the springs that move the popular heart and the popular 
 imagination, there is nothing strange about it. Dr. Cullis, 
 of Boston, makes a similar claim concerning his Consump- 
 tives' Home ; and yet hardly an institution in the city- 
 is more persistently advertised. There are various 
 ways of appealing to the religious sympathy of the 
 churches, and thus of exciting the popular interest in 
 the piety and the wonder of the work he is doing. In one 
 of his books of sermons, Mr. Talmage ascribes the re- 
 markable success and safety of a certain line of ocean- 
 steamers to the fact that the wife of one of the head 
 proprietors makes each ship, as it starts from port, the 
 subject of special prayer. This theory is slightly inter- 
 fered with by the knowledge that another line, that has 
 no proprietor's wife to pray for it, has lost less ships in 
 thirty years than it has. And, besides, were this all true, 
 
PRAYER. 155 
 
 J 
 
 insurance-companies would be an impertinence, as well as 
 a useless outlay of money. Most of our churches in 
 America have ceased praying for rain ; though still the 
 annual fast is appointed, and is supposed to have some 
 influence on the general welfare of the people. 
 
 Now, all these illustrations simply point out and illus- ^ 
 trate the popular belief that prayer is able to induce God 
 to produce certain definite results in the natural world 
 that would not take place except for the prayers. You 
 will notice, also, that this whole conception of the nature 
 and office of prayer implies that God is a person outside 
 of and separate from natural forces and laws, who, at 
 the request of man, comes in to interfere with and change 
 the method of their regular working. / 
 
 Along with the progress of civilization, and the growth 
 of scientific knowledge of the world, there is a growing 
 a wide-spread doubt as to whether prayer has any such 
 power, or produces any such results. Whether for good 
 or evil, whether well founded or ill founded, this doubt is 
 a fact. It is a doubt that touches and paralyzes the arm 
 of the Church itself. The ordinary prayer-meeting is not 
 attended in any such way as indicates a vital belief that 
 it has power to convert the heathen, to save the husbands, 
 brothers, fathers, of its supporters. People go from a 
 sense of duty, or as they feel inclined ; and if it is made 
 a sort of lecture, and the lecturer is interesting, then the 
 room will be full. But if men believed that it was really^ 
 a power to move God to their wills, how could they excuse 
 their negligence? The constant appeal and devices of/ 
 
156 \l THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 the minister, to get even church-members to come, show 
 how little real faith they have in it. 
 
 Let us, then, inquire whence this doubt springs, and 
 whether it can be justified. There are certain great diffi- 
 culties in the way of holding the traditional faith that 
 press very hard on thoughtful minds. 
 
 (1) Prayers for changes in the natural course oA 
 things, so far as we can ordinarily see, are not answeredy 
 This is so generally admitted, that I have often heard 
 ministers tell their people that they prayed as though they 
 did not expect to get any thing ; and that probably noth- 
 ing would be so much of a surprise and astonishment to 
 them as to find their requests granted. Now, people in 
 that state of mind cannot have received what they asked 
 for, very often. And, for my part, I cannot be particu- 
 larly surprised that they do give up looking for it. " I 
 have been praying for the conversion of such a one 
 twenty years, and he is not converted yet," said a noted 
 minister. Is it strange that people ask, " What, then, is 
 the use of prayer ? " But it is said, more prayers are not 
 answered, because people do not pray in faith. So the 
 mediums tell us that the seance is not successful, because 
 sceptics are in the circle. But if the spirits are in ear- 
 nest, why do they not astonish and confute the sceptics 
 by offering facts that would compel belief ? and if God 
 really wishes to answer human prayers, in the ordinary 
 sense, why does he not astonish his listless children with 
 answers, so that they cannot help believing ? 
 
 It is this last rational thought that gave life to the 
 
PRAYER. 1 57 ^ 
 
 recent celebrated " prayer-gauge " controversy in Eng- 
 land. And if prayer is a real and definite power for the 
 healing of the sick, I see nothing irrational or impious in 
 the test that was proposed. In the Old Testament, God 
 is represented as complying with man-suggested condi- 
 tions so as to demonstrate his presence and power. Has 
 he changed, so that he is not willing to do it now ? 
 
 A few days since, the newspapers reported the miracu- 
 lous cure of a sick woman as the result of Dr. Cullis's 
 prayer. If true, why is not the road to Grove Hall 
 thronged with the lame, blind, and diseased, going to be 
 healed ? Why does he keep his " Home " at all, at an 
 enormous expense that might be used in other beneficent 
 ways ? Cure them all, and then travel the country as the 
 universal healer. I have it from a man who was a rela- 
 tive, that Joe Smith, the Mormon prophet, healed a child 
 of a chronic disease, by the laying-on of hands. There 
 is evidence to prove that Our Lady of Lourdes is continu- 
 ally curing her devotees. And a large mass of proof can 
 be brought to show how the bones of saints and bits of 
 the true cross have always exerted such power. 
 
 The simple facts are these : Talmage prays for his wifeA 
 and she gets well. Another man, presumably as pious as 
 he, prays for his wife, and she dies. A third man's wife 
 gets well although she is not prayed for. The laws of/ 
 health and disease work all over the world, and produce 
 their proper and natural results ; and, so far as we can 
 settle by the evidence, the praying or not praying has 
 nothing to do with it. Gen. Butler goes to New Orleans ; 
 
158^ THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 and the saints of the region pray that " Yellow Jack," as 
 they call the prevalent fever, may waste away and destroy 
 his army. Not being given to piety, he does not pray 
 against it; but having a sense of natural cause and 
 effect, he looks after the sanitary condition of the city ; 
 and " Yellow Jack " postpones his annual visitation. 
 
 (2) Superadded to this doubt growing out of observed 
 facts, is the essentially modern doubt that has its root in 
 the growing knowledge of the reign of law. There is 
 growing up an irresistible belief, based on facts that can 
 be verified, that this universe is one ruled by law andS 
 order. Cause and effect are so intimately linked together 
 that the slightest movement of the world's affairs to-day 
 is a link in a chain that stretches back into a past eter- 
 nity. The glance of a ray of this morning's rising sun,/ 
 the tremble of a twig in the wind, the form of the smoke- 
 wreath that hovered above your chimney and then melted 
 out of sight, the curl of a wreath of mist that floats on a 
 mountain's top, the eddy of the little cloud of dust that 
 the wind-gust whirls across the street, — these all are as 
 much a part of the fixed and determined order of the 
 world as Mont Blanc is a fixed and definite peak in 
 the Alps ; and to change the mist-form or the wind- 
 current were as much a miracle as to hurl Mont Blanc 
 with its roots upward into the Mediterranean. The 
 prayer that asks that this day's weather may be changed, 
 even to the blotting out of one cloud, or the adding or 
 taking away one rain-drop, asks so stupendous a thing 
 as that the whole order of creation from the beginning 
 
PRAYER. 159^ 
 
 may be changed to suit the whim or convenience of an 
 hour. 
 
 (3) Then, again, the common belief is rendered absurd* 
 by the contradictory prayers of men. You pray for a 
 bright day, that your excursion to the country may be 
 pleasant, or that your hay may dry in the field. Another 
 man prays for rain, that his parched potato-field may be 
 revived. Which will God hear? One prayer at least/ 
 must be denied. Two ships are at sea. One wishes an 
 east wind, and the other a west. Others want neither 
 east nor west. Dr. Bushnell once suggested that the ma- 
 jority prayer would win. A very large and very pious 
 crew would seem to be a necessity, then, so that they 
 might out-pray the other ship. When you think of it in 
 this way, it comes to look as though these prayers, instead 
 of being piety, might very easily come to be the quintes- 
 sence of selfishness. Is it not quite as well to leave God 
 to look after the general good, and not think to tease him 
 into the favoritism of neglecting the common interest, 
 that may demand dry weather, for the sake of watering 
 your flower-garden ? Heaven has larger interests on hand 
 than the making of itself your private watering-pot. It 
 looks very much like the little boy who wanted the cap- 
 tain to stop the ship, because he had lost his apple over- 
 board. / 
 But a stronger objection than all these roots in piety*' 
 itself, and gets its weightest reason in reverence and trust. 
 If God is indeed perfectly powerful, wise, and good, it 
 becomes the worst of all scepticism to suppose that God 
 
160 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 will neglect the smallest interest of any, the very least, of 
 his creatures. In the hands of such a God, the poorest 
 worm and the grandest archangel must be alike safe* 
 There is a mother in Boston who devotedly loves her 
 children. She is exceptionally intelligent, and knows 
 what is for their truest welfare. She is wealthy, and able 
 to command all means for carrying out her purposes. 
 One of her children is wayward, and gives her anxiety 
 and trouble. Another is sick and in danger of death. 
 Suppose you should go to her each morning, and with 
 tears in your eyes and sobs on your lips beseech and 
 entreat her to do her plain and simple duty by these chil- 
 dren, — beg her to be kind and helpful to the wayward 
 boy ; beg her to have a physician and nurse for the sick 
 girl. Such action on your part would be gross and inex- 
 cusable insult; and, if you repeated it, she would be justi- 
 fied in calling the police for your benefit. And yet half 
 of our prayers imply that, unless we keep jogging his 
 memory, or stirring up his benevolence and pity, the ten- 
 der and all-wise and loving Father in heaven will either 
 not remember, or will not care, to be decently kind and 
 regardful of the welfare of his children. I have often 
 heard prayers, that people thought were pious, that made 
 me indignant, and that seemed to me simple blasphemy. 
 A hundred times, as a boy, I have heard a man say in 
 prayer, " It is time for thee, Lord, to work ! " — as 
 though God did not know whether it was time, or not ! 
 Said another, " O God, won't you do any thing about it ? " 
 Said an evangelist, " I am going to be in this city only 
 
PR A YER. 161 
 
 two or three days longer, and, O Lord, if thou art going 
 to do any thing for the salvation of this town, do it 
 now ! " — egotism and blasphemy combined, with a doubt 
 as to which predominates. Said the same evangelist, 
 " Come to the meeting to-night, for there are going to be 
 wonderful displays of the divine power," — as though he 
 had served a writ on the Almighty, and was going to pro- 
 duce and display him at all hazards ! 
 
 Just because God is loving and wise and mighty, this * 
 kind of petition is not only useless, but insulting. And/ 
 I make the charge that the prominent evangelism of the 
 day, in its frantic appeal to God, as though it could not 
 trust him to do right, displays a worse and more open 
 infidelity than any it lays at the door of liberalism or of 
 science. The quiet, loving life of the child at home is 
 stronger proof of trust in father and mother than that 
 anxiety that appears to think its wants will not be at- 
 tended to unless as the result of perpetual begging. The 
 little child in mother's arms looks up and smiles, and 
 sinks off to sleep. It does not need to beg mother to 
 rock its slumber, and tuck it into its soft crib. Just this 
 child-relation toward God I believe to be the true and 
 pious one. Prattle your childish wants in the Father's 
 ear as much as you will : only remember they are child- 
 ish, and that he knows best, and that the best of all 
 prayers, after all, Is, " Not as I will, but as thou wilt." 
 
 All this it has seemed needful to say before coming to 
 that which is most important of all. The whole question 
 finds simple, natural, and satisfactory solution when 
 ii 
 
1 62 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 looked at in the light of the principles of evolution. 
 What is that principle ? This : All the myriad forms, 
 forces, movements, and life of the ui.iverse, are only the 
 varied manifestation of the divine life that lives in and 
 works through it all. The divisions between natural and 
 supernatural, sacred and secular, are broken down. All 
 is natural, and all is divine and sacred. God is as much 
 in the law of gravitation as in the moral law, " Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself." The sun, the winds, the 
 clouds, the rivers, the growing fields, all speak his mys- 
 terious name, and reveal his present life and power. The 
 law of the unfolding flower is just as divine as is the 
 impulse to gratitude or prayer. It is just as rational and 
 religious to expect prayer to yield to gravitation, as it is 
 to expect gravitation to give way to prayer. God does 
 not undo with one hand what he is doing with the other. 
 Nature is no longer — as was once universally, and is 
 still too commonly, supposed — a realm opposed to or 
 outside of God, into which he comes at times to counter- 
 act its forces, or to deliver from its power. Nature is 
 God at work, executing his own wise and perfect will. 
 It is not to be supposed, then, that the impulsive requests 
 of men are going to persuade him to contravene his own 
 purposes, or interfere with his own wise work. It be- 
 comes not simply unreasonable, but a lack of intelligent 
 piety, to expect it. 
 
 Do I take the position, then, that man can bear no 
 active part in the midst of the divine operations of the 
 world ; that he is only to sit still, and let the great forces 
 
PR A YER. 163 * 
 
 drift him on their current, like a leaf on the surface of a l j 
 
 torrent? By no manner of means. Man's whole life, > \*l 
 physical, intellectual, and spiritual, depends on just how ^ 
 much and how wisely he " interferes " with God's work- 
 ing, bringing to pass results that else would not occur. 
 But he must do this intelligently, and according to the 
 laws of that department in which he expects his success, y* 
 
 To illustrate what I mean : You are perfectly aware 
 of the practical use of my principle in the common 
 affairs of life. You do not abdicate your reason here. 
 If you wish to move a piece of stone or timber, you use a 
 lever or some mechanical force : you never think you can 
 argue it, or pray it, or wish it, or will it, from one place 
 to another : you meet mechanical force with mechanical 
 force. If you desire to gain admission to a man's favor, 
 you do not think you can pry his heart open with a hand- 
 spike, or blow it open with nitro-glycerine : you meet 
 emotion with emotion. If you wish to convince a man's 
 intellect of a doctrine in political economy, you never 
 think of applying electricity or steam : you meet logic 
 with logic, argument with argument, proof with proof. 
 All this only means that you recognize the natural order 
 and fitness of things which teach that, in any particular 
 department of life, you must seek for results in accord- 
 ance with causes that naturally belong to work in that 
 department. Apply this principle now to our subject. 
 
 A man desires a profitable crop of wheat in a certain\ 
 field. The laws and forces of agriculture are divine laws, 
 and they never change. Let the man, then, see to it that 
 
1 64 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 his field is one naturally adapted to the raising of wheat 
 Then let him look after tillage and dressing, and the 
 quality of his seed, and its proper sowing. In all ordi- 
 nary seasons he can thus make his harvest sure. But/ 
 prayer, a spiritual force, has no relation to sunshine or 
 rain or frost, or any of the laws of agriculture. And to 
 expect that he can neglect his proper work, and then 
 guard against or retrieve his failure by prayer, is simple 
 impiety. It is expecting that God will put a premium on 
 laziness and ignorance and neglect, — crops which the 
 divine Husbandman does not care to grow. Through the 
 physical laws of my body, God speaks to me with a voice 
 as sacred and commanding as that said to have been 
 heard on Sinai ; and he says, Obey these laws, and you 
 shall have and keep your health. Ignorantly or wilfully 
 I break them, and am sick. God still says to me, These 
 my laws point out to you the divine way back to health ; 
 but, still neglecting these, I expect to circumvent God's 
 own methods, and get back to health again by a super- 
 stitious talisman, a saint's relics, or some ignorant enthu- 
 siast's prayers. It is just as presumptuous, impious, and 
 foolish, as it would be for me to jump off Bunker Hill 
 Monument, and then pray to God to suspend gravitation 
 and make my fall easy ; or as if I should touch a match 
 to a keg of powder, and ask God to keep it from explod- 
 ing. The laws of health are just as fixed and certain, and 
 just as divine, as those of powder or gravitation. Moody 
 teaches that a minister has no right to look after his 
 worldly affairs ; and says that when he wants a barrel of 
 
PR A YER. 165 
 
 flour, he asks God for it, and it comes. This is all very 
 well so long as Mr. Farwell of Chicago believes Mr. 
 Moody is doing a good work, and stands ready to back 
 him up with both money and flour ; but it is nonsense to 
 suppose that prayer would bring the flour if no one had 
 any confidence in the utility of his work. All over the 
 world, and in all time, men and women and children have 
 hungered and cried for bread, and starved with a prayer 
 as their very last breath. Is Moody a special pet, that 
 only his prayers are answered ? A man wants a factory 
 on the bank of some running stream. Can he build it 
 with prayer, or out of logical syllogisms, or emotions of 
 the heart ? He can build it only in the use of natural 
 forces, and in accordance with natural laws. In the 
 building of the dam, the raising the walls, the construc- 
 tion of the machinery, the adaptation of wheels to the 
 water-power, every step must be a knowledge of natural 
 laws, and a rigid obedience to them ; and just in accord- 
 ance with the knowledge and the obedience will be his 
 success. He combines and adapts laws and forces, and 
 so produces results that otherwise would never have come 
 to pass. Man is no idle spectator of God's working in 
 nature ; or, if he were, there would be no civilization. 
 So man does " interfere " with and materially modify the 
 natural order; but so far as he succeeds he interferes with 
 law lawfully. He combines, adjusts, and adapts, and so 
 accomplishes his results. All the forces that are repre- 
 sented in a train of cars, or the Atlantic cable, are natural, 
 divine forces ; but nature alone would never have made 
 
i66 vJ THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 either. And yet man does not contravene the laws in 
 making them : he combines simple forces for the produc- 
 tion of a complex result. 
 
 But all these things come through obedience to God in 
 the special department where the result is reached. Mr. 
 Frothingham has been cried out against for saying that 
 the popular notion of prayer is immoral ; but a little 
 thought will teach you that he is right. To disregard 
 God's methods in one department of life, and expect to 
 escape the consequences by resort to the methods of 
 another department, is nothing more nor less than to 
 expect that God is going to take one hand to deliver you 
 out of the other. Men say practically, " O God, I will not 
 obey your conditions of health ; but I expect that when 
 I pray you will make me well. I will not pay any heed 
 to your law of gravitation; but you must keep me from 
 falling and being injured. I will not regard your laws of 
 steam ; but I hope you will make my engine work just as 
 well as if I did. I will not study to know the laws of gas ; 
 but I trust, for the sake of my prayers, you will make my 
 house as light as my neighbor's. I will not pay any atten- 
 tion to your laws in the strength of materials ; but I pray 
 that my store may stand as strong and as safe as any 
 on the street. I will not keep your laws of morality and\ 
 character ; but I will become as good as anybody else by 
 praying that you will suspend the general rules in my 
 particular case." That is just what the common idea of 
 prayer means. It puts a premium on laziness and ignor- 
 ance and incapacity and wilfulness. If it is true, there is 
 
PR A YER. 167 
 
 no need of knowledge, of labor, of training, of skill, of 
 foresight, of care. In the truest and deepest sense of 
 the word, it is immoral. Carried out logically it would/ 
 make civilization impossible. What is the use of mer- 
 chandise if God brings flour to the door of every man 
 who asks for it ? Mr. Moody ought to go a step further, 
 and save his wife the housekeeping trouble by having the 
 flour ready made into bread. On his theory, a breath 
 could do it. What is the use of skilled physicians when 
 prayer alone can heal the sick ? What is the use of 
 trained captains and drilled sailors, much more of insur- 
 ance companies, if prayer will always insure a safe voyage 
 at sea ? 
 
 These natural conditions and laws are the present, 
 active, working God. He who knows and obeys the con- 
 ditions becomes master of the divine omnipotence. The 
 whole force of divinity helps him. 
 
 Must we not, then, pray ? If there be spiritual life in 
 you, you cannot help praying, any more than a rose can 
 help exhaling its fragrance. The child does not sit dumb 
 in the presence of father and mother, because it knows 
 the love and care of his parents do not depend on regular 
 asking for them. The child-heart seeks rest and love in 
 the parent-heart, and naturally pours out its thoughts, 
 hopes, fears, and wishes, into the sympathetic ears ; but, 
 if the child be a wise one, he does not expect to make his 
 wishes prevail against higher and better wishes. 
 
 And yet the prayer may be a very vital thing in the 
 matter of our character and relation to God. What does 
 
i6S* THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 compliance with divine conditions do in nature ? Simply 
 this : It does not change any single law or force ; it only 
 sets us in new relations to them. Gravitation will hold 
 me firmly on my feet, or it will fling me down an abyss, 
 according to the relation in which I stand to it. When I 
 obey them, laws help me : when I disobey, they hurt me. 
 Thus prayer may set me in new and higher relations to 
 God, so as utterly to change, and grandly to elevate, my 
 character. When by spiritual, aspiring prayer, I reach out 
 after God, I comply with the conditions of spiritual health 
 and strength. If I open my shutters toward the east, the 
 morning sun will shine in. It will shine any way, but will 
 do me no good unless I obey the conditions of its shining, 
 on me. So, if I open the windows of my soul toward* 
 God, the light of his divine truth and life will shine in. 
 In this spiritual realm it is knowledge and obedience to 
 divine laws and conditions, precisely the same as in the 
 material. It is one God and one order in both. Study 
 and work, then, are material prayer; and prayer is spirit- 
 ual study and work. " I will, therefore, that all men pray 
 everywhere." 
 
 " For, what are men better than sheep and goats, 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If, having hands, they lift them not in prayer 
 Both for themselves and those that call them friend ? 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 
 
 So far, then, as both natural and spiritual are con\ 
 cerned, when we make the request, — " Lord teach us to 
 
PRAYER. 169 
 
 pray," the answer comes, that the way for us to find 
 God, and get his forces as helpers on our side, is by 
 knowing and obeying the divine will — the laws and 
 conditions — in whatever department we wish the results 
 produced. Thus the highest prayer is, " Not as I will, 
 but as thou wilt." God's will is the only power; and/ 
 it works out our purposes when we have obeyed the 
 conditions, so that the divine forces flow in the channels 
 that we have intelligently dug out for them. 
 
 " And yet the spirit in my heart 
 Says, Wherefore should I pray 
 That thou wouldst seek me with thy love, 
 Since thou dost seek alway ; 
 
 " And dost not even wait until 
 I urge my step to thee ; 
 But in the darkness of my life 
 Art coming still to me ? 
 
 " I pray not, then, because I would : 
 I pray because I must ; 
 There is no meaning in my prayer 
 But thankfulness and trust. 
 " I would not have thee otherwise 
 Than what thou ever art : 
 Be still thyself, and then I know 
 We cannot live apart." 
 
 Correction.— In this chapter, page 134. fi«t edition, an unintentional injustice 
 is done to Dr. Cullis. A friend tells me that he does not have children travelling over 
 the State on behalf of his work. I have confounded his method with that of another 
 institution. I gladly call attention to and correct the mistake. Of course the reader 
 will see that this does not at all change the line of thought or detract from the force of 
 the argument. ra. J- 
 
IX. 
 
 BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 The clothing, the buildings, the institutions, the arts, the 
 commerce, the rites, the ceremonies, the books, the gen- 
 eral habits and customs of a people are the natural out- 
 come and expression of that people's life. So all these 
 things change as the people change. They rise, they 
 progress, they decay, as the people rise, progress, or 
 decay. None of these things, then, can be permanent 
 in any special form, unless humanity could stagnate, and 
 come to a permanent standstill. And since we believe 
 that man began at the animal level, and is rising as the 
 ages advance, we must also believe that none of the outer 
 manifestations of the life of man has yet reached its 
 completest manifestation. The art, the architecture, the 
 literature, the statesmanship, of barbarous man, are all 
 barbaric. As he develops, they develop and take on 
 new forms. And unless we believe that humanity has 
 gotten its growth, and will never be any wiser and 
 stronger and better, we must expect that all our outer 
 170 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 171 
 
 life — that we comprehend under the word " civilization " 
 — will in the future 
 
 " Suffer a sea-change 
 Into something rich and strange," — 
 
 becoming richer and finer than we now know; and, 
 though strange to our present thought, yet familiar to 
 that which shall be. But all this change will be in the 
 order of growth; new and strange only as manhood is 
 new and strange to a child. 
 
 This law of change and growth, which is true in all 
 other things, holds also with equal force in matters of 
 religion. The religious rites, institutions, and books of a 
 people, are and must be the natural expression of that 
 people's religious thought and grade of civilization. In 
 rude and savage nations, where the art is grotesque, and 
 the whole life is on the barbaric level, the religious 
 thought and form correspond. The images and pictures 
 of the gods are rude, the cultus is coarse, sometimes 
 obscene, always rude and gross; and the hopes and 
 fears find expression in such rough and material shapes 
 as are fitted to impress rough and material people. As 
 civilization develops, these things grow, — a few thought- 
 ful men always ahead of the crowd, — until the cultus 
 becomes stately and grand, the idols masterpieces of art, 
 and the Scriptures the highest religious aspirations and 
 inspirations of the time. 
 
 These things, which we know to be historic truth, are 
 precisely what evolution demands ; for it teaches that the 
 
172 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 whole outer life of man must be but the natural unfold- 
 ing of that which is within him. The religious writings 
 of the nations, that they have come to look upon as 
 bibles, — divine revelations, — are no exception to this 
 rule. They have been, at the time, the natural out- 
 growth of the people's religious life. That they have 
 been produced only rarely, and at special epochs of 
 upheaval or change, no more militates against their 
 natural development than the fact that the century-plant 
 blooms only once in a hundred years takes it out of the 
 category of flowers. To say that, if bibles are natural 
 developments of humanity, they ought to be more com- 
 mon and in perpetual process of manufacture, is no more 
 conclusive than as if you should say, since Shakspere 
 is not miraculous, we ought to expect to find a Shak- 
 spere in every country village. 
 
 The rudest religions have no bibles, just as the rudest 
 peoples have no literature. Every race that has become 
 so cultivated as to have a literature has also had its 
 sacred literature, or bible, — the one the natural expres- 
 sion of its religious life, as the other is the natural 
 expression of its intellectual. So the Chinese have the 
 writings of Confucius ; the Hindoos have the Vedas and 
 Brahmanic scriptures ; the Buddhists, the works of their 
 master ; the Persians, the Zendavesta ; the classic na- 
 tions, their hymns and oracles ; the Norsemen, their 
 Eddas ; the Hebrews, their laws, prophets, and psalms ; 
 the Christians, their Gospels and Epistles ; the followers 
 of Joe Smith, the Book of Mormon ; the New Church, 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 173 
 
 the writings of Swedenborg; and the Spiritualists, the 
 books of Andrew Jackson Davis, and a host of others. 
 One thing, if you will notice it, is common to all. Noble 
 or ignoble, wise or unwise, inspired or uninspired, all 
 these various scriptures have on them the birthmark of 
 their nationality and their time. They are all the natu- 
 ral and necessary outgrowth of the religious thought 
 and life, hopes and fears and aspirations, of their age. 
 They partake of the ignorance and limitations and preju- 
 dices of their time. Not one of them betrays any verita- 
 ble knowledge higher than the high-water mark of their 
 epoch. This means simply that they were growths of 
 the earth, and not exotics transplanted from heaven. 
 
 One other thing I wish you to notice, that is true of 
 them all : not one of them came to men with such cre- 
 dentials of revelation as to make them take their place, 
 from the outset, as the " word of God." The sacredness 
 with which they are regarded is a matter of growth. 
 The reverence that surrounds them is chiefly the halo 
 of antiquity. Paul was personally despised, and his let- 
 ters cast out and abused, by the majority of his fellow- 
 Christians. Only after ages have passed away have 
 books taken on sacredness. As the earthly authorship 
 grows dim and distant, the heavenly claim is brought 
 forward and emphasized. It seems to be true, that the 
 less people know about a religious claim, the more they 
 will believe in it. 
 
 And another habit of humanity needs emphasizing. 
 When they once come to believe in the sacredness of a 
 
174 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 thing, they will not give it up even for something that is 
 manifestly better — as though any stronger proof could 
 be given for the divine authorship of a thing than its 
 truth, beauty, and utility. Take one striking illustration 
 of this : In the earliest times, the use of metals was un- 
 known. The priest then used a stone knife in sacrifice, 
 for the very good reason that a stone knife was all and 
 the best he had. Through use, the stone knife became 
 sacred. So, when metal knives were at last invented, the 
 people dare not use them ; and they kept to the worse, be- 
 cause it was old and sacred. How much wiser or more 
 sensibly religious are we ? Because the Bible sanctioned 
 slavery, thousands defended and fought for it. Though 
 manifestly inhuman, they thought, because it was in the 
 Bible, it must be divine. And to-day the question of 
 Sunday and our centennial cannot be argued on the 
 ground of human fitness and utility, because of religious 
 prejudice. So all causes must be brought, not to the test 
 of reason, of sense, of experience, of utility, but must 
 come to the Book. And yet the writers of the Book 
 wrote in other times and with other peoples, and with less 
 of knowledge and experience of humanity than thousands 
 possess to-day. What Buddha and Zoroaster and Confu- 
 cius and Moses and Paul thought and said, are of bind- 
 ing force to-day — if they are true; but their mistakes 
 and limitations should not bind us simply because they 
 are in bibles, and are called canonical. 
 
 All this will be admitted by everybody, and in all 
 nations, concerning every other bible but their own. The 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 175 
 
 practical question, then, for us to settle, is, as to whether 
 our bible is an exception. All religionists regard their 
 own bible as a divine revelation; and they reject all 
 others. They know theirs is true ; and they know all 
 others are not. What, then, is ours ? 
 
 The common claim of the Church that the Bible is, and 
 ought to be, the court of final appeal, and the end of 
 human reason, rests on the other claim that the Bible is 
 inspired, and so infallible. The foundation of this latter 
 claim, then, is the thing for us to examine. 
 
 As specimens of the ordinary argument, and of the use 
 of texts as proof, we will just glance at the two pillar 
 passages that are supposed to support the common belief. 
 In 2 Pet. i. 21, it reads: "For the prophecy came not in 
 old time by the will of man; but holy men of God 
 spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Three 
 considerations take all value from this passage as proof. 
 First, the words "prophecy" and "holy men " are indefi- 
 nite: they do not cover special men or books with any 
 such certainty as makes us know just what is meant. 
 Second, it is more than questionable as to whether or not 
 Peter is the author of the second letter that bears his 
 name. Third, even if it were settled that Peter wrote it, 
 still it remains to be proved that it is any thing more 
 than fallible Peter's fallible opinion. The other passage 
 is in 2 Tim. iii. 16 : " All scripture is given by inspira- 
 tion of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction in righteousness." This 
 passage, being written long before the New Testament was 
 
176 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 brought together, of course has no reference to any thing 
 but the older writings. But, more than this, the present 
 translation is incorrect. Bishop Ellicott, a leading Church 
 authority in England, makes it read, " Every scripture, 
 inspired by God, is profitable," &c. You will notice that 
 this leaves wholly unsettled the central question, as to 
 what scripture is inspired by God. Our judgment, then, 
 must be made up from other sources than any special 
 texts. 
 
 There is one vital distinction that is frequently lost 
 sight of in discussions of this subject. I refer to the 
 distinction between inspiration and infallibility. Proving 
 that a book is infallibly true does not prove that it is in- 
 spired, in the ordinary sense of that term, as used among 
 the churches ; and, on the other hand, proving that a 
 book is inspired, does not necessarily establish its free- 
 dom from error : but as the two things are so often con- 
 founded, or claimed together, any clear view of the theme 
 must notice them both. How stands the case, then, in 
 regard to biblical infallibility ? 
 
 To begin with, it is a fact worthy of earnest atten- 
 tion, that the Bible nowhere makes any claim to be infalli- 
 ble. We have already seen how little the strongest pass- 
 ages of the kind to be found are able to bear any such 
 strain of interpretation : and, as a fair specimen of 
 the style and real pretensions of the writers, notice the 
 opening words of Luke's Gospel. Here he says, that, 
 as others were writing down their accounts of the life and 
 sayings of the Lord, " It seemed good to me also, having 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 177 
 
 traced down every thing from the first, to write unto thee 
 in order, most excellent Theophilus ; " and one " ortho- 
 dox " commentator remarks upon this, that " inspiration 
 did not render it unnecessary to use every available 
 source of information." Luke merely says that, having 
 had means of information, it seemed good to him to write 
 his Gospel. 
 
 And, — what is not true, — even though some one writer 
 should claim to be infallible, and should make good that 
 claim, his infallibility would be no guaranty of the infal- 
 libility of any one else; for there is no reason better 
 than the bookbinder's, or simple convenience, why all the 
 books of the Bible should be together in the same covers. 
 What one says, therefore, does not necessarily hold true 
 of, or represent, any of the others. 
 
 What are the real facts about the Bible as a book ? 
 The different books were composed by different authors, 
 of different nationalities, and at periods so widely apart 
 that the time of their writing stretches across a space of 
 fifteen hundred years. Of some of them, nobody knows 
 when, where, or by whom, they were composed, or how 
 they have come to be in their present places or shapes. 
 Of others, the authorship, though not quite so obscure, is 
 still in dispute ; and this not of certain unimportant ones, 
 but of the very central books of the New Testament. 
 The authorship of the Gospel of John is not yet deter- 
 mined ; neither is it known that we have either of the 
 Gospels in its original form. 
 
 And then, even though we knew who wrote them all, 
 
178 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 and where and when, we have no sort of guaranty that 
 they have been handed down with such textual accuracy 
 as to justify any bishop or church in pronouncing judg- 
 ment on the basis of its present verbal utterances. We 
 have only modern copies of books from two to three 
 thousand years old. They floated about in the hands of 
 persons or organizations for generations before they were 
 collected as we have them now. In copying they were 
 purposely or blunderingly altered — sometimes, we know, 
 to the extent of whole paragraphs : how much more, we 
 do not know. In no case have we an original manuscript. 
 The most ancient one we possess was written at a time 
 farther from Christ than we now are from Shakspere. 
 And when you think of the disputes of commentators 
 over the text of the dramatist, — and this in an age of 
 printing, — and remember that even his personality has 
 been called in question, you can judge something of what 
 probability there is that we can be so sure of the mere 
 words of the Bible as to warrant us in using them as 
 instruments of hatred and warfare, and even of present 
 and future damnation of our brethren. 
 
 And even if we knew all about the separate books, and 
 were sure we had accurate copies, we do not know with 
 certainty as to what is bible, and what is not. I mean 
 by this that the sacred canon has never yet been defi- 
 nitely settled, even by the Church itself. The Council 
 of Trent, and all the Roman Church until now, not only 
 declare the whole Apocrypha canonical, but anathematize 
 all who dissent. The whole Protestant world rejects it. 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 179 
 
 And the best scholarship of the Church is still unsettled 
 about Hebrews, James, Jude, the second epistle of Peter, 
 the second and third of John, and the Revelation. 
 
 If there be infallible books, of which to make an infal- 
 lible bible, and if these be infallibly preserved and trans- 
 mitted to us, we are still undecided and in trouble, unless 
 we have also an infallible catalogue to tell us which they 
 are. If there are two or three guide-posts, and one is 
 infallibly correct, and the others not, it matters little to 
 us, unless some one is able to tell us which is right. 
 And then, if words be so important, how comes it that 
 the New Testament writers quote the Old loosely and 
 incorrectly? In one place, the Septuagint is followed 
 where its translation from the original Hebrew is blun- 
 deringly wrong, and even reverses the sense; and not 
 only are these things so, but there are in the Bible palpa- 
 ble errors and inconsistencies and contradictions that no 
 one would think of trying to cover up, were it not for the 
 pressing necessities of special pleading. Not only is it 
 confessedly impossible to reconcile Genesis — I do not 
 say Moses, because it is extremely doubtful as to whether 
 Moses wrote the Pentateuch — with the words of God's 
 great world-book that we know he wrote, whether he 
 wrote any thing else or not ; but even the New Testa- 
 ment writers do not always agree, and, in some cases, 
 were most certainly mistaken. I have not time to dwell 
 separately on the contradictions of the evangelists con- 
 cerning the birth of Jesus, the length of his ministry, 
 the date of the supper and the crucifixion, and the inci- 
 
180 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 dents connected with his resurrection. In regard to 
 these, I content myself with the general statement that 
 they never have been successfully reconciled. Let me, 
 however, emphasize the point by two or three examples. 
 
 In the first place, I refer you to the genealogy of Jesus 
 as contained in Matthew and Luke, as compared with 
 each other, and with the Old Testament records. The 
 table of Matthew is not correct : it is not the genealogy 
 of Jesus, in any sense, unless he is the natural son of 
 Joseph ; and it is wholly irreconcilable with the table of 
 Luke or with that of the Chronicles. It has a suspi- 
 cious look to find that the genealogical table is divided 
 into three perfectly equal parts ; and it is found wholly 
 indefensible when we notice that this even division is 
 obtained by changes and omissions. The matter is 
 confirmed by the discovery that, while Matthew gives but 
 twenty-six generations between David and Joseph, Luke 
 gives forty-one; and then, both Matthew's and Luke's 
 tables give the genealogy of Joseph, which is nothing 
 at all to the point, unless Jesus be the son of Joseph. 
 
 In the next place, the evangelists quote the Old Testa- 
 ment inaccurately not only, but they quote as prophecies 
 of Christ words that have no reference to him whatever. 
 In one place, a passage from Zachariah is attributed to 
 Jeremiah ; and, in another, a passage is professedly quoted 
 which has no existence in the Old Testament, nor any- 
 where else. 
 
 Once more, notice the long address attributed to Jesus 
 concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and the " end of 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 181 
 
 the world." False Messiahs and great wars were to pre- 
 cede the downfall of the city. We know from history 
 that neither of these things occurred. Christ was to 
 come again in the clouds of heaven, immediately after its 
 overthrow, and before that generation passed away. He 
 did not so come. 
 
 Paul was mistaken on this same point. He teaches dis- 
 tinctly, in i Thess. iv., that Christ was to come and raise 
 the dead, and set up his Messianic kingdom, before " we 
 who are alive " have passed away. 
 
 And then, this doctrine that the Bible was infallible, and 
 not to be touched, criticised, and judged of, by individual 
 students, was not prominently held out till the sixteenth 
 century. Luther needed an infallible book to set up in 
 opposition to infallible Rome, and so claimed he had one ; 
 and, while he affirmed the "right of private judgment " as 
 against the pope, he did not hesitate to deny it, even to 
 the point of persecution by the civil power, as against 
 Luther. 
 
 Again : Peter and Paul were at swords' points on the 
 question of receiving the Gentiles into the Christian 
 Church. Are we to assume that they immediately became 
 infallible on taking a pen in their hands, while they were 
 mistaken about the gravest matters when talking and act- 
 ing, and while they were even capable, when hard pushed, 
 of dissimulation or falsehood? And, once more, Jude 
 was not so infallible but that he could quote from the 
 apocryphal book of Enoch, written but a little while be- 
 fore his own time, and all the while suppose himself re- 
 
i82 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 peating the words of " the seventh from Adam," who was 
 translated. 
 
 "But if the Bible is not infallible," say some, "how are 
 we to get along for a guide ? We must have an infallible 
 guide." 
 
 I am perfectly aware that this kind of reasoning is 
 much more common than it is logical or honest. Such 
 arguments — and books and pulpits are full of it — are 
 mere appeals to passion and prejudice, that would not be 
 needed were not facts sadly wanting. Never forget one 
 thing : the consequences of a fact can never invalidate it ; 
 and that you want a thing is not quite sufficient ground 
 for believing it true. Suppose you thought yourself worth 
 fifty thousand dollars, but wake up to find you have not a 
 cent. " It can't be ! I must have money ! I hate the 
 man who brought the news ! " These and like expressions 
 would hardly add much to your bank account. It is well, 
 it is honest, and it will pay in the end, though temporarily 
 painful, to find out and face the exact truth. 
 
 But what am I saying about its being painful to face 
 such facts as these ? In a certain sense, it is painful to 
 give up any old and cherished belief. It is not pleasant to 
 find that the rock you had anchored to is only an ice-cake, 
 and melting at that. It is such a comfort to feel that you 
 have an unchangeable standard to refer to. 
 
 I have two remarks to make about this ; and, first, all 
 this talk of a fixed standard in the Bible, outside of the 
 last decree of the Church of Rome, is pure illusion. 
 There is hardly a do:trinal passage in the Bible that 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 183 
 
 "orthodox" Christendom is agreed about. It is hardly 
 satisfactory to a person seeking exact truth, to have half a 
 dozen doctors of divinity each giving the only correct 
 interpretation of a text, and all anathematizing the other 
 five. Looked at through the medium of denominational 
 commentators, the various doctrines assume as many 
 shapes as the cloud in Hamlet : — 
 
 Hamlet. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a 
 camel ? 
 
 Polonius. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. 
 Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel. 
 Pol. It is backed like a weasel. 
 Ham. Or like a whale. 
 Pol. Very like a whale. 
 
 All this talk of an infallible standard is meaningless 
 and delusive, unless you have, as Romanists claim, an 
 infallible interpreter. 
 
 And the second remark is this : So far from its being 
 painful to give up the doctrine of biblical infallibility, I 
 hesitate not to say that, just in so far as one has the spirit 
 and love of Christ, and at the same time comprehends 
 intelligently the points at issue, he will rejoice to be able 
 to give it up ; and what little comfort there may be in 
 thinking he has an infallible guide, he will gladly sacrifice 
 to the larger and better results. So far from there being 
 any justification for " orthodox " writers and preachers, 
 when they say that those who question the infallibility of 
 the Bible are undermining the hope of man, it is true, on 
 the other hand, that bald and blank materialism gives a 
 
1 84 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 nobler, juster, and more blessed picture of human life and 
 destiny, than does "orthodoxy." He who has in his heart 
 something of the love and devotion and self-sacrifice of 
 Christ would rather take the boon of his brief life be- 
 neath the stars, and then at its close go down into dark- 
 ness and silence and nonentity, than to grasp eagerly 
 after the gift of immortality, if, along with that, he must 
 also take the appalling fact of the unending sorrow and 
 wail of one single human soul. I do not say that our 
 feelings or preferences touch the fact of the matter in any 
 way whatever : I am talking of the question as to which 
 side has the right to charge the other with teaching horri- 
 ble and hopeless doctrine. I would rather die like a dog, 
 and see no to-morrow, than selfishly take a heaven while 
 one single soul is in endless torment, even on the outer- 
 most verge of creation ; and I do not envy that man his 
 Christian charity, who would not surrender his immortality 
 for the sake of the abolition of hell. 
 
 Am I not right, then, when I say that the " orthodox " 
 hope of heaven, alongside an everlasting hell, is more 
 horrible than the materialist's hope, that, though it do not 
 contain any heaven, is also destitute of a hell ? 
 
 A belief in the infallibility of the Bible is one of the 
 greatest evils of our Christianity and civilization. It per- 
 verts and makes childish, partial, despotic, and horrible, 
 the character of God. It misrepresents and maligns the 
 nature and destiny of man. It warps moral perceptions, 
 clogs progress, and hinders civilization. It makes the 
 churches, instead of reformers and evil-slayers, sectarian 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 185 
 
 and jealous clans in perpetual feuds. It turns them into 
 system-makers and riddle-guessers and Chinese -puzzle- 
 arrangers. In short, not one single valuable thing will be 
 lost when the fiction of infallibility is surrendered; and 
 many and grievous evils will be thrown off. 
 
 So much for infallibility. I have given time to it 
 because of its importance, and because of the ignorance 
 and prejudice current concerning it. I will despatch the 
 second part of my subject as briefly as I can, though I 
 do not wish to slight it on account of haste. Turn now, 
 then, to inspiration. 
 
 This, as I have already said, is quite a different thing 
 from infallibility. The Bible writers do claim for them- 
 selves inspiration, — that they speak and act under a di- 
 vine guidance and influence. 
 
 Before proceeding to investigate and define this claim, 
 let us glance at the different theories of inspiration that 
 have obtained. By so doing, we shall find that we have 
 already incidentally replied to some of them ; and so we 
 shall clear our way, and see what path we are to follow. 
 
 And, first, the prevalent theory, from the time of the 
 Reformation until forty or fifty years ago, was the one 
 called the verbal. This taught that every word of the 
 Bible was the direct communication of God to the mind 
 of man, and this as much as though God held the hand 
 and directed the pen of the writer. Old Dr. Owen, a 
 prominent English Puritan divine and commentator, held 
 that even the points and accents of the original Hebrew 
 — which we now know were invented for convenience' 
 
1S6 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 sake, long after the time of Christ — were divinely in- 
 spired. And as these masoretic points, as they were 
 called, stood for vowels in the Hebrew tongue, and as a 
 different point or vowel might make a different word, he 
 rightly held that, unless they were inspired, he had no 
 certainty as to the meaning. Owen's successors have been 
 compelled to surrender his premises; though they still 
 illogically cling to his conclusions, so far as infallibility is 
 concerned. But as verbal inspiration is not now claimed 
 by any, so far as I know, it is not needful to give it any 
 further attention. 
 
 The theory that followed that, and is the " orthodox " 
 one of the present day, is that which is called plenary 
 inspiration. It gets its name from the Latin pknus, mean- 
 ing full, complete. It teaches that the Bible writers were 
 so inspired as to put them fully, completely, in possession 
 of truth, and enable them to teach that which was wholly 
 free from error. 
 
 This theory has already been overthrown by the same 
 arguments and facts that overthrew the doctrine of infal- 
 libility; for of course, if there are any mistakes or false 
 teaching in the Bible, that proves that the writers were 
 not possessors of plenary inspiration. 
 
 There is one more theory left, which may perhaps, with 
 sufficient propriety, go under the name of the Liberal. 
 This theory teaches that every soul — being made in the 
 image of God, and so capable of communion with him — 
 is open to the divine influx, and does in its measure 
 receive it, just as every gulf and bay and inlet and 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 187 
 
 shallow and sinuosity, on the ocean-shore, is open to the 
 inflow of the tides. But human capacity for the recep- 
 tion of this inspiration is conditioned and gauged by con- 
 stitution and character: so that as, on the seashore, the 
 openings for the sea range all the way from gulfs to shal- 
 lows, so the capabilities of human souls mark gradations 
 that reach all the way from the evanescent impulse and 
 uplifting of a common man in common daily life, up to 
 the magnificent spiritual insight of Paul. And it holds 
 out the hope that, by faithfulness to what we have, we 
 may grow to an ever-enlarging capacity, on the principle 
 that "to him that hath shall be given," so that by and 
 by we may walk under a whole heaven full of light, and 
 read the law so perfectly written on our hearts that we 
 shall be a law unto ourselves. Perhaps I need hardly say 
 that this is my own belief. 
 
 Before proceeding to speak of its sufficiency or value, 
 let me indicate to you what seems to me its reason- 
 able, scientific foundation. However great the havoc that 
 science has made with the forms and supports of theology, 
 it has given utterance, through its most distinguished 
 mouthpiece, Herbert Spencer, to what it confesses must 
 be an eternal basis for science not only, but also for reli- 
 gion. It shows us how all things run back and down 
 into an underlying, changeless, and yet inexplicable force 
 and life. This life or force science may call one thing or 
 another, as it will. A name cannot annihilate it; and we 
 will call it God. This life and power of God is the only 
 possible explanation of any thing. How does the grass 
 
1 88 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 grow ? Science answers, " Nature, force ; " religion an- 
 swers, " God." How came the stars in heaven, and how 
 comes their light to us ? Science says, " Nature, force," 
 once more; and religion again replies, "God." How 
 came man to be, and whence his powers of thought and 
 love ? Once more science repeats, " Nature, force ; " and 
 once more religion says, " God." 
 
 This unseen and incomprehensible God, which is a 
 Bible doctrine as well as a teaching of Spencer, is the 
 life of all that lives, and the motion of all that moves. 
 Every good and holy thought, every noble deed, every 
 high endeavor, is by and through so much of God as 
 works through humanity; for without him we can do 
 nothing. He dwells in us, both to will and to do. " In 
 him we live and move and have our being." This is 
 nothing more nor less than the doctrine of the immanence 
 of God in the universe and in man, — all things by God, 
 and through God, and for God. 
 
 Inspiration, then, is natural to the human soul, and its 
 degree is determined by character and capacity ; and it is 
 not confined to the teachings of formal religious truth. 
 Even the Old Testament teaches that certain men were 
 inspired of God to work in linen and brass and cedar and 
 gold. Why not, then, Shakspere and Michael Angelo, 
 and Socrates and Epictetus, make good a claim to think 
 and work by the inspiration of God ? 
 
 Let us see. All truth, of whatever kind or degree, is 
 from God. All light is from the sun. Whether it shine 
 from moon or planet ; whether it be reflected by brook 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 189 
 
 V 
 
 or mirror; whether it stray, a broken beam, into some 
 prison-celi ; whether it flare in the gaslight, or glow in 
 the coal of our evening grate, — all light is, first or last, 
 just so much sunlight. So, whether a truth be in Bible 
 or science, in Christianity or Paganism, on the banks 
 of the Jordan or the Ganges, wherever found, and by 
 whatever path it come, being true, it must be from 
 God. 
 
 The Bible, then, though not in any exclusive sense the\ 
 word of God, yet does contain the word of God ; and, in 
 so far as it is true, so does any and every other book ; 
 and every -book, so far as true, is sacred, as being a 
 reflection of the divine. / 
 
 Do I, then, put the Bible on the same level with all 
 other books ? By no manner of means. Here is a 
 primer, and here is Sir Walter Scott ; both are books. 
 Does saying that degrade Sir Walter to the level of the 
 primer ? Here is Tupper, and here is Shakspere. Be- 
 cause you call them both poets, does that bring Shak- 
 spere down to Tupper ? Does calling a third-rate painter 
 an artist make him equal to Raphael ? I would still put\ 
 the Bible apart by itself, as, in a certain grand and real 
 sense, what the ages have agreed to name it — the Book.f 
 I would do this, because, after all that has been or can 
 be said, it still, by the degree of its inspiration, and by 
 the quantity and quality of truth it contains, outranks the 
 literature and religion of the world. 
 
 What I have said has not been against, and does not 
 invalidate the work of, the Bible. It is not against any 
 
-4 
 
 i go THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 claim that the Bible makes. It is only against false and 
 unfounded claims made on its behalf, — claims, the nature 
 of and failure to prove which, are constant hinderances 
 to a perception of its real worth, and so injurious to the 
 simple, magnificent, and divine truth of Christianity. 
 
 The central teaching of the Christianity of Jesus, con- 
 tained in the Bible, is the true theory of humanity, and 
 the inspired truth of God. Much that has passed un- 
 der its name is superstition, Pharisaism, and Paganism. 
 The truth of the latter statement may be easily proved 
 by study and comparison. The truth of the first may 
 be verified by reason, and demonstrated by trial. Jesus' 
 conception of God is the grandest that the mind of man 
 can yet conceive; and his theory of human life is the 
 outline of the best we can hope for. The underlying 
 principles of Christianity, and the underlying principles 
 of humanity, as it moves on toward perfection, are per- 
 fectly identical. This alone is demonstrative of its truth ; 
 and that it is true is the highest of all conceivable 
 authority, and is absolute proof that it came from, or 
 was inspired by, God. Any amount of evidence or 
 human testimony could not be so authoritative. 
 
 So far, then, as the central truths of Christianity are 
 concerned, here is certainty beyond any thing that any 
 theory of " verbal " or " plenary " inspiration could 
 give. 
 
 As for that further question, so often asked, How ano 
 I to know whether a particular teaching is, or is not, true, 
 if all the Bible is not to be received? I reply, By the 
 
BIBLES, AND THE BIBLE. 191 
 
 general consent of the highest moral sense of the world." 
 How do men test works of art, and assign them their 
 rank? By the general consent of artists, cultured men, 
 and those of the highest taste and sense of beauty. 
 There is no standard that one can carry in his pocket, 
 that is able to guide a boor in the selection of a fine 
 painting. He who has taste knows at a glance. So no/ 
 amount of Bibles can help unspiritual and selfish men to 
 discern spiritual truth. Can a book in the pocket or on 
 the parlor table of a miser help him discern the star-like 
 glory of "It is more blessed to give than to receive"? 
 How many inspired volumes would it take to help a rake 
 see the truth of " Blessed are the pure in heart " ? The 
 purest, best, and noblest men of the world are the highest 
 standards of moral and spiritual truth, just as the greatest 
 statesmen and jurists are standards in their specialties, 
 or as the greatest poets and artists are standards in 
 theirs. Shakspere is a criterion by which to judge the 
 world's dramas ; and Titian and Angelo are the last ap- 
 peal of artists. They are all we have ; and they are 
 enough. They bound the horizon of human vision in 
 the direction of the beautiful. And so Jesus and John 
 and Paul are moral and spiritual seers. They overtop 
 the mass of the world, and gaze afar. They bound 
 the horizon of earth in the direction of character and 
 God. 
 
 Then this inspiration is not something once given for a 
 while, and then forever after withdrawn. It is too great 
 
1 92 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 for any book ; it breaks out of the Bible, and becomes a 
 living stream, to follow us in all our lives, and humanity 
 through all time, as the brook that burst out of the rock, 
 under the rod of Moses, is said to have followed and 
 quenched the thirst of Israel in the wilderness. It says, 
 "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world." God is not shut up in covers. "The word of^ 
 God is not bound " by the bookbinder, any more than in 
 any other way. Neither is it dependent on the Bible, like^ 
 a physician on his medicine-chest, so that if that be gone 
 he can do no healing work. All heathendom is not "with- 
 out God ; " for in " all nations those that fear God are 
 accepted of him." He is a living, loving, guiding spirit^ 
 He sives lisrht to the eyes, and strength to the heart, of 
 the nations. He has more truth than is in the Bible ; 
 and the process of the ages is but the unrolling of his 
 divinely written scroll. What matter, then, though we do/ 
 not certainly know each step we are taking? Are the 
 children of a ship-captain less safe because they do not 
 understand the log-book, the quadrant, the path of the 
 vessel through the waves? A wise head and a loving 
 heart are in the cabin, and a strong and wakeful hand is 
 on the wheel. The captain knows where he is going; 
 and he knows his route ; and the smallest, weakest, and 
 most ignorant child shall go sailing up the harbor, and 
 when the anchor is dropped, and the boat lowered, shall 
 set foot on the wave-washed, sandy beach of the everlast- 
 ing shore, just as surely and safely as the captain himself. 
 
BIBLES, AXD THE BIBLE. 193' 
 
 Have faith, then, not in churches, nor creeds, nor coun^ 
 cils, nor books : "have faith in God;" for / 
 
 "I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs. 
 
 Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range ; 
 Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. 
 Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day." 
 
 I have a great deal of doubt of men, — their thoughts, 
 their creeds, and their systems ; but with all my heart and 
 soul I believe in God and the future. He has inspired 
 and led in all the past ; he inspires and leads to-day ; he 
 will inspire and lead to-morrow; for " he is the same yes- 
 terday, to-day, and forever." 
 
 13 
 
X. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 The atonement is the central doctrine of Christianity, 
 and of right and necessity is it so ; for, if the fundamental 
 principles of the popular system be once admitted, then 
 the necessity of this doctrine of atonement logically fol- 
 lows. Without any t/ie, it is the central doctrine of all 
 religion. It always has been, and it always will be. To 
 understand the truth of this statement, let us ask what 
 atonement means. Atonement, of course, can have 
 relation to the situation in which two human beings stand 
 to each other. If there has been estrangement between 
 friends on account of an injury rendered one by the other, 
 or on account of an innocent mutual misunderstanding on 
 the part of both, atonement means bringing them together 
 again, reconciling between them, clearing away the mis- 
 understanding, and bringing them once more into the 
 position of their old sympathy and friendship. Of course, 
 from the religious standpoint, atonement must always 
 have relation to the position which humanity occupies in 
 regard to God. What does atonement mean here, then, 
 194 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 195 
 
 and what shape must it necessarily assume ? It will be 
 determined always, in the character of its definition, by 
 the conception which any special age in the history of the 
 world shall have of God, of humanity, of the actual rela- 
 tion in which they stand to each other, and of the ideal 
 relation in which they ought to stand. If you will think 
 of it a moment, you will see that you must understand 
 these four points before you can get at the conception of 
 the doctrine of atonement, as held at any particular time 
 in the history of the world : What is God ? what is man ? 
 what relation do they actually sustain ? what relation 
 ought they to sustain ? And then atonement comes in as 
 the means by which the actual is changed into the ideal, 
 — by which the fact becomes what ought to be the fact. 
 
 If I should prove my statement, that atonement is the 
 central doctrine of all religion, the bringing of God and 
 man at one, it would involve the necessity on my part of 
 giving you the universal history of the religious thought 
 and the religious life of the world. Of course, within 
 my present limits, I can only point out two or three of 
 the more important stages in the development of this 
 thought, along with the applications that will naturally 
 follow from them. Following, then, the line up the 
 pathway of humanity by which the progress has been 
 attained of which we are to-day the representatives, and 
 coming down from the most ancient times to the present, 
 you will recognize three distinct and separate stages in 
 the thought of man concerning this great doctrine of 
 atonement. Go back to the earliest times. Atonement 
 
~1 
 
 196 THE RELIGION- OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 then possessed nothing whatever of any moral element, 
 or what we should now call " religious." What was 
 the conception of God, the conception of humanity, and 
 their relations by which the form of the doctrine was 
 determined, in those earlier ages ? The gods themselves 
 were not moral beings ; they did not represent any moral 
 idea; they did not stand for the human conception of 
 righteousness. They were simply the personified forces 
 of the world; and the relations which men sustained to 
 those gods were not moral relations. Men never bowed 
 down before Jupiter, or before Odin, or before Brahma, 
 with the consciousness of sin such as men speak of to-day, 
 and with the desire to be made purer in heart, and recon- 
 ciled to this god, who to them was the ideal of righteous- 
 ness and truth ; for, as I have said, those old nature 
 deities were not the representatives of righteousness and 
 truth. They were simply forces, powers, having a certain 
 influence over men, being able to help or to damage 
 them, and which they stood in fear of, or whose favor 
 they wished to gain. So that atonement, as I said, in\ 
 this first stage of the world's religion, possessed no 
 moral element ; it was not a reconciliation between 
 human unrighteousness and divine righteousness. What/ 
 was it, then ? Suppose there came some dire calamity 
 upon a person, a family, or a nation, so that they con- 
 ceived that some one of the gods was angry : what did 
 they do ? Why, they endeavored to find out, by the best 
 means they had at their disposal, what it was that they 
 had done, and why it was that they had incurred the 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. \yj 
 
 divine displeasure ; and atonement, to their minds, was\ 
 simply an endeavor to placate the wrath of offended dehyy- 
 It meant building him an altar, erecting a temple, bring- 
 ing to him offerings, burning sacrifices, pouring out obla- 
 tions, establishing rituals, — doing something by which he 
 should be appeased. Or, if one of the gods was indif- 
 ferent, and they wished to gain his favor, it was simply 
 bringing to him some offering that they supposed he 
 would desire, that would enlist his interest on their behalf. 
 Then, as I have said, the first form that the doctrine of 
 atonement assumed (this attempt to bring humanity and 
 God together) was not a moral form, and had nothing 
 whatever to do with righteousness or with morals ; but out 
 of this conception of the Divine, and of man's relation- 
 ship to him, grew one of the most important elements of 
 all religions, an element that has not been outgrown, an 
 element that largely forms and gives color to the popular 
 Christianity even of to-day. I refer to the element of 
 sacrifice, not as the giving of something for the attain- 
 ment of something else, but sacrifice as a religious cere- 
 mony, — burnt offerings, the bringing of the fruits of the 
 field, the firstlings of the flock, as offerings to God. This 
 idea of sacrifice was once universal ; and it grew out of a 
 conception of God as a cruel being, who delighted in suf- 
 fering, who rejoiced in the smell of the burning fat of the 
 victims that were consumed upon the altar ; a God who 
 was ready to take from you your sacredest and your dear- 
 est, as a punishment for something that you had done by 
 which you had given him offence. I say this world-wide 
 
X9S THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 doctrine of sacrifice, this doctrine, false in its form (for 
 the doctrine of sacrifice itself is universal and eternal), — 
 this false doctrine of sacrifice grew out of this false 
 and partial conception of God, and of his relation to 
 humanity. 
 
 The second stage in this development of the doctrine 
 of atonement is represented by the growth, in humanity, 
 of the moral conception of God. It is represented well / 
 enough, and perhaps best of all for our purpose, in the 
 later life of the Jewish people ; for at first the gods of the 
 Jews, just as well as the gods of other nations, were 
 nature-deities, and did not represent the ideal of right- 
 eousness as Jehovah came to represent it in later ages. 
 There grew up, I say, a conception of God as a moral ^ 
 being, as representing the highest ideal of righteousness 
 and of truth ; and there grew up, along with this, a con- 
 viction of sin on the part of humanity ; for, when once 
 their grandest ideal of righteousness was placed on the 
 throne of the universe, then there came into their hearts 
 a conviction that the one thing that God demanded of 
 them was righteousness in heart and in life. But they stilly 
 attempted to satisfy this moral demand by the old, false 
 form of sacrifice ; that is, when a man felt a conviction 
 of sin in his heart, recognized the fact that he had not 
 lived out the divine ideal of righteousness which he felt 
 was demanded by the law of his own conscience, not 
 knowing what else or what better to do, he still brought 
 to the altar of his God an offering, the firstlings of his 
 flock, or the fruits of his vineyard. He still brought 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 199 
 
 some gift, as though he could take some of the things 
 that belonged to God, and, by giving them to him, make 
 up for his own moral deficiencies. This was the weak- 
 ness, the central weakness, of the old Jewish system of 
 religion ; and this began to be recognized after a time by 
 the highest thinkers, and the best religious teachers, of 
 the Jewish nation. You will remember, perhaps, how in 
 the first book of Samuel it is recorded that Saul was com- 
 manded by Jehovah to do a certain thing, and did not 
 obey ; but afterward, to make up for the deficiency in his 
 own character and his own obedience, he brought large 
 offerings to the altar of God ; and then the prophet 
 Samuel rebuked him, saying, "Has the Lord as great 
 delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying 
 the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than 
 sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams;" thus 
 echoing this universal and world-wide consciousness that 
 liberal religion stands for to-day, and stands for, in a 
 certain distinct way, above and beyond all others, — that 
 obedience, righteousness of character and of life, are the 
 things that are acceptable to the Divine. This same idea 
 comes out in the writings of David, in the touching and 
 beautiful psalm where he says, " For thou desirest not sac- 
 rifice, else would I give it ; thou delightest not in burnt- 
 offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a 
 broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not de- 
 spise." And then, in the later prophets, particularly in 
 Micah, it is brought out more clearly still, that the one 
 good which God demanded was righteousness, and not 
 
—J 
 
 200 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 the offering of "thousands of rams, or ten thousands of 
 rivers of oil." " To do justly, and to love mercy, and to 
 walk humbly with thy God," is the thing that the prophet 
 demands as the way by which we can bring humanity 
 into accord with the divine life. This old doctrine of 
 sacrifice is tried in the realm of morals, in the effort of 
 humanity to atone for its sins, and to make reconciliation 
 between itself and God, — is tried, and is found wanting. 
 
 The third great form of the doctrine of the atone** 
 ment is that which is represented in popular Christianity/A 
 In order that it may be understood, I must give, just 
 as I did in the other case, the fundamental concep- 
 tion of God, of humanity, and of what people supposed 
 human salvation meant. There had grown up in the 
 later Jewish life a belief in immortality, — a belief which 
 was not apparent in their early history and teaching. 
 There had grown up the doctrine of the fall of man, — 
 a doctrine also not apparent in the earliest teaching and 
 belief of the Jews. It was believed that, on account of 
 this fall of man, death had come into the world ; that, if 
 man had not sinned and fallen, he would have lived here 
 forever. It was further believed that, on account of this 
 fall, man had come under the wrath of God, into the 
 hands of Satan and his angels : so that after death, 
 unless there was some redemption found for him, he 
 must endure the misery and torment of a never-ending 
 hell. The one thing, then, according to this conception 
 of God, of the nature of man, and of their relations, — 
 the one thing that was needed was some power, not 
 
i 
 
 or 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF ATOAEMEJVT. 20 
 
 necessarily touching the present life of humanity, bu*. 
 some power that should reach beyond the grave, that 
 should grasp humanity in its fallen condition, rescue it 
 from the clutches of the Evil One, save it from the wrath 
 to come, and, delivering it from its dark destiny of abid- 
 ing in the midst of torment forever in one place, open 
 for it the gates of the city of life, and suffer it to enter 
 into the bliss and joy of God forever. This was the 
 problem to be solved. How was it solved ? There grew'* 
 up the doctrine that Christ was the atoning sacrifice that 
 had been prefigured through all ages, whom all the world 
 had looked forward to, and who now had wrought the 
 one work by which humanity was to be saved in the 
 future life. That there is no consistent revelation in, 
 regard to this Christian doctrine of atonement, that 
 makes it binding on the thought of all honest persons, 
 is apparent from one or two very remarkable facts. In 
 the first place, you may search all through the history of 
 the words and teachings of Jesus himself, and you may 
 search in vain, to find any doctrine whatever of atone- 
 ment, as it is popularly understood to-day. There is 
 not one single word that teaches or supports it in any 
 accredited utterance of Jesus ; so that we are brought 
 face to face with this remarkable fact : if Jesus did come 
 into the world to bring about such results as are claimed, 
 he utterly failed to speak one word in regard to the 
 great central object of his mission, — apparently forgot 
 entirely the burden of the message he had been sent to 
 deliver. And the other remarkable fact is this : that the 
 
202 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 doctrine of the atonement, as held by Christendom, has 
 itself undergone changes and transformations, and has 
 followed the line of a definite progress from the first 
 until now. It has assumed some fifteen or twenty differ- 
 ent shapes, during the history of Christendom. In the 
 first place, Jesus was supposed to be a price paid to the 
 devil for the purchase of humanity. That is, humanity, 
 by sin and the fall, had become the property of Satan, 
 he having a right to own and control it. Jesus was his 
 ancient rival in heaven, as represented in the poetry of 
 " Paradise Lost ; " and so there was a bargain made, 
 by which Jesus was to be delivered over into the hands 
 of Satan, that he might work his will on him, in considera- 
 tion of the salvation of certain numbers of the human 
 race, who were to be redeemed by this purchase, and who 
 were to take the place vacated by him in heaven. But 
 Jesus being divine, so that, as the New Testament says, 
 he could not be "holden of death," when he had de- 
 scended into hell, broke away from the power of Satan 
 by which he was held, burst the gates of Hades, and 
 escaped, leading a great multitude of followers, who for 
 ages had been chained in the dark abysses of despair : so 
 that Jesus, by his superior wit and his superior power, 
 outwitted Satan, and delivered not only himself from his 
 clutches, but all those who thereafter should believe on 
 him. This was the first form of the doctrine of atone- 
 ment, which was held in the Church for ages. You will 
 find traces of it all through the New Testament, if you 
 read it in the light of this fact; and we read it in the 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 203 
 
 Prayer-Book to-day. It is recited in the Episcopal, the 
 Anglican, and the Catholic churches every day, how Jesus 
 actually descended into hell, and how he delivered him- 
 self thence. 
 
 Then the doctrine of the atonement was changed, and 
 took on the form of Christ being a sacrifice to appease 
 the wrath of an angry God. This was held, also, foj^ 
 ages. Then it took on the form that is prominently held 
 in what is called "New England theology" to-day, — the 
 doctrine that God somehow must sacrifice Christ as a 
 governmental necessity. That is, here was this great 
 moral government of God, on which the life and safety 
 and peace of humanity depended ; and it was claimed that 
 he could not forgive humanity, and still maintain the dig- 
 nity and the power of his moral law intact, unless there 
 were found some sacrifice, some one who would give 
 himself voluntarily as a victim, so that it might be made 
 manifest to the universe that no man could disobey the 
 laws of God with impunity; and so Christ was found, 
 and he gave himself thus. And then the doctrine has 
 taken on the form of substitution, that has been preached 
 by the evangelists very forcibly and very prominently 
 during the last two or three years. Christ became the 
 purchase for the elect, — a certain part of humanity cho- 
 sen from all eternity. Christ came, and suffered the 
 precise amount which they would have had to suffer, if 
 they had been chained in darkness and torment through 
 all eternity, and thus he purchased their redemption j 
 and they, through the power of God and by faith in him, 
 
•J 
 
 204 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 are redeemed and set free, and permitted to enter on the 
 divine life. 
 
 The last form that I care to notice at this time, and 
 which is a recent one, is that which is received and 
 promulgated by the younger clergymen of the country; 
 the one that is popularly held and taught by what is called 
 "liberal orthodoxy;" the one which is intimately associ- 
 ated with the name and fame and life-work of the cele- 
 brated Dr. Bushnell, recently deceased ; the doctrine that 
 Christ, by his life, by his teachings, by his sufferings, by 
 his death, revealed the righteousness and love of God, 
 and became a power for the conviction of sin, and an 
 impulse toward a life of righteousness on the part of 
 humanity. This is the moral view of the atonement \J 
 and this, I believe, contains in it a central kernel of truth, 
 of power, of life, that will abide forever: for Christ, by 
 his life, by his teachings, by his sufferings, by his death, 
 did reveal the majesty and the glory and the love and the 
 righteousness of God ; and he did convince men, when 
 they contrasted their life and character with his own, — he 
 did convince men of sin ; and he has become a moral 
 impulse to renovate the life of thousands and thousands 
 of men, and will become such an impulse still in the ages 
 of the future. 
 
 The doctrine of the atonement, that I believe to be the 
 one that shall be permanent and universal in the future 
 history of the race, does not slough off and leave behind 
 this moral view of the atonement which I have just de- 
 scribed. It takes it up into itself, and carries it along as 
 
— ./ 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 205 
 
 part of the universal and world-wide doctrine : for the 
 moral power of Christ for the renovation of humanity is 
 not expended ; and it does not depend at all upon the 
 theological conception of Christ's person, or his nature, 
 or his birth, or his death, or his resurrection. Christ has 
 become part of the moral and religious life of humanity, 
 a part that cannot be eliminated, a part that shall in- 
 crease, and become mightier and mightier yet, as it takes 
 its proper place in the history of the religious thought 
 and life of the world. 
 
 What, then, is the universal doctrine which I believe 
 must bear sway in the future ? And here, again, I must 
 start with new definitions. We have rejected the doctrines 
 of the fall of man. It is not something that we have/ 
 speculatively cast aside for the simple reason that it does 
 not please our thought, or because we have chosen to take 
 up with some new-fangled notion. The doctrine of the * 
 fall of man is proved, absolutely proved, to have been 
 untrue ; and precisely the reverse of that is established 
 as a matter of fact and demonstration to-day. Humanity 
 has never fallen. Humanity has never been so high, so 
 noble, so pure, so true, as it is to-day. Starting in the/ 
 dust, it has, through struggle and sorrow and toil and 
 tears, climbed up to its present position of grandeur and 
 of glory, where it catches an outlook of the future that is 
 cheering, inspiriting, and divine. Of course, then, the fall 
 being given up as a part of the doctrine of the religion 
 of to-day and of to-morrow, there is no necessity for any 
 contrivance, on the part of God or man, by which the sup- 
 
2o6 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 posed fall is to be retrieved. The old doctrine of atone- 
 ment has no place in such a conception of humanity as 
 leaves out the doctrine of the fall ; and there is one weak 
 position of what is now called "liberal orthodoxy." I 
 know a great many ministers, and a large number of per- 
 sons, who still claim to be orthodox, who have totally 
 rejected the doctrine of the fall ; and yet, illogically, 
 they retain the doctrine of the atonement : for, if there \ 
 was no fall, there is no need of atonement, in the theo- 
 logical sense. Then, the salvation that humanity seeks/ 
 to-day has undergone an entire and important change. It"^ 
 is no longer a salvation simply from future peril. The/ 
 salvation we need is a salvation that shall take us right 
 here to-day ; that shall take us in our homes, that shall 
 take us in our social life, that shall take us in our busi- 
 ness life, that shall make us faithful in all departments of 
 our career. This is the salvation that the age is longing 
 for, and reaching out after the attainment of. We care 
 very little to-day, comparatively, as to the chances that 
 await us when we have passed beyond the veil that 
 separates between this life and the next ; for we know 
 that if as true, faithful men and women, clean-hearted and 
 clean-handed, we can pass under that veil when the 
 divine hand has lifted it, we may stand unabashed in 
 the presence of our loving Father, who has led us 
 through this life, and has taken us to himself. The sal- 
 vation we need then is a present salvation. V 
 And one more change has come. It is no longer a sal- 
 vation of the soul simply : it is a salvation of the man./ 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 207 
 
 We recognize no longer any soul that man carries about 
 with him as a piece of property, that he can get insured, 
 that he can provide for the safety of in all contingencies 
 and changes in the future of life. We recognize no 
 division in human nature. Human nature is one ; and 
 body, mind, and spirit are only different forms of the 
 manifestation of this one conscious life that we call self. 
 The salvation that is needed, then, is not salvation of the 
 soul : it is salvation of the body ; it is salvation of the 
 mind; it is salvation of the spirit; it is something that 
 regards humanity as a unit, and that seeks to save man 
 all over and all through. 
 
 And there is another change. There has been growing 
 lately in the thought of the intelligent part of the world, 
 and it is to grow more and more in the future, a doctrine 
 which, in philosophical language, is called the " solidarity 
 of humanity ; " that is, the doctrine that not only the 
 individual is a unit, but that humanity collective is one, 
 and that there is no possibility of saving myself, or saving\ 
 yourself, while we leave the rest of humanity " out in the 
 cold." Humanity is a unit: we must go up or down 
 together. We recognize it sometimes, — wake up to \y 
 occasionally here in Boston, or in the other great cities of 
 the world. Now and then there comes the sweep of a 
 pestilence : what does it mean ? It comes creeping about 
 the doorways of the great, looking into the windows of 
 the rich, striking down the fair, the beautiful, the edu- 
 cated, the cultivated, from the highest circles of society. 
 What does it mean ? It means that the culture and edu- 
 
2oS THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 cation and wealth of a city have neglected the lowest, the 
 poorest, the outcast, and the mean. It means that some* 
 where in the city there is collected a centre of ignorance, 
 a centre of crime, a centre of filth, a centre of neglect, 
 that has turned at last into a centre of disease ; so that 
 the breath of God's heaven, as it sweeps over the city, has 
 taken this suffering and plague that was neglected and 
 left on one side, or in one spot in the city, and has swept 
 the infection into every house and into every home. It 
 means that the city was one life, and that the head of the 
 city could not with safety neglect the feet ; that the upper 
 circles of the city could not with safety to themselves 
 neglect the foundation; that the city life was one; and 
 that there is no possibility of saving the upper while 
 neglecting the lower. This lesson has been taught, if one 
 will look for it, hundreds of times in the history of the 
 world. Take the old Roman civilization, surrounded on 
 every hand by barbarism. By and by the grandeur of 
 that classic life, that classic thought, that classic writing, 
 that classic art, is swept to the winds by the down-coming 
 from the North of the avalanche of barbarism that they 
 had looked upon with scorn and neglect. They had tried 
 to save the Grecian and the Roman world, without saving 
 the rest of it ; and the barbarism overwhelmed and swal- 
 lowed up the civilization. Take another hint from the 
 life of France, just preceding the French Revolution. 
 Never has there been a period in the history of the world 
 when culture and refinement and art and pleasure were 
 carried to a higher pitch than in the last years of the 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 209 
 
 French empire. But beneath it was a life looked down 
 upon with scorn and neglect by the rich and the great; 
 and that life by and by rose beneath this fabric that 
 was resting upon it as a foundation, — rose as the flood 
 rises under the ice in spring, broke it into atoms, and 
 whelmed the fair life that was above it, beneath its 
 cold, dark, slimy, and muddy waters. The sans culottes 
 were in the palaces and the houses of the great. There 
 was no possibility of saving a few, while leaving the many 
 outcast and neglected. 
 
 The atonement, then, of the religion of the present, 
 and that shall be the religion of the future, — the doctrine 
 of atonement that is permanent, that is universal, — must 
 be something capable of taking this living, throbbing, 
 pulsating humanity of ours in its entirety, and bringing 
 it, body and mind and soul, into sympathy with the life 
 of God right here, now; not to-morrow, not in another 
 world. 
 
 Who, then, are doing this work of atonement ? Who 
 are the saviors of the race in this universal sense ? 
 Jesus is one of them. For, as I said, the moral teachings 
 and the life and power of Jesus have entered as perma- 
 nent elements into the religious life of the world; and, 
 thank God for it ! they cannot be eliminated. But this 
 doctrine shall not hereafter be confined to Jesus. In 
 their sphere, and according to individual power, individual 
 effort, and individual achievement, it is possible, and it 
 shall be a fact, that every man, woman, and child in the 
 world shall help on the work of universal atonement 
 
210 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 between humanity and God. The great army of truth- 
 seekers over the world, — those who patiently and per- 
 sistently, in loneliness and neglect, misunderstood and 
 outcast, day and night, are seeking after truth, — they are 
 helping on such an understanding in regard to God and 
 man, and the relationship existing between them, as shall 
 culminate at last in this perfect work of atonement 
 between God and man. Studying the stars, reading the 
 records of creation as the hand of God has written them 
 in the hieroglyphics on the rocks, that have been laid 
 down slowly, age after age, from the first dawn of the 
 world until to-day ; tracing back the record of the life of 
 man, finding out what man is, where he came from, how 
 he came to be what he is to-day; tracing the dim and 
 distant records of the earliest civilization, the experiments 
 that man has tried, succeeded in, failed in, tried again, 
 in the work of bringing to pass a perfect society, — the 
 experiments of man in government, in attempting to bring 
 about the time when the statute-book should represent the 
 really high life and thought and justice of the best men 
 of the world, — this great army of truth-seekers, I say, 
 are first and foremost in this grand world-wide work of 
 atonement. And then there is the army of reformers : 
 not those self-constituted reformers who expect to save 
 the world by passing a series of resolutions, or calling 
 public meetings ; but those men who are studying the 
 early facts of the world, who are attempting to adjust the 
 relations between the rich and the poor, between labor 
 and capital ; those men who are attempting to bring about 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT 211 
 
 a mutual understanding on the part of the alienated ele- 
 ments and classes of society; those men who are engaged 
 in what seemed to be at first purely secular work, — the 
 discoverers, the inventors, of the world, — those men who 
 are studying the laws of nature, who are making them 
 obedient servants and helpers of humanity. Why, some 
 of the purely physical discoveries of the world bear a 
 closer relation to the religious life and the future welfare 
 of humanity, than do some of the great religions of ages 
 in the history of the past. To-day the telegraph and 
 steam are doing more, and they have done more in fifty 
 years, to bring about a sense of universal brotherhood, to 
 help humanity feel that it is one, and that all humanity is 
 related to every other part of humanity, — I say these two 
 agencies, the telegraph and steam-power, have done more 
 to bring about this, than all the preaching and all the 
 churches of the last eighteen hundred years. So the men 
 who are seeking to regulate the sanitary life of cities, to 
 give the poor, the outcast, the down-trodden, an opportu- 
 nity to live, physically, according to the laws of health, 
 of decency, — these men are doing more than hundreds 
 of those who simply preach and pray, in the work of lift- 
 ing up humanity toward God, in bringing about such a set 
 of conditions as shall make it possible for those who are 
 lowest in the scale of humanity to climb up into decency 
 and self-respect, and so to find out that they have brains, 
 that they have hearts, that they have spiritual natures that 
 link them to God. And then the great army of witnesses 
 for righteousness and truth, the sufferers and martyrs, 
 
212 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 those who have had some insight of the divine principles 
 of righteousness, and who have stood for them in the face 
 of mobs and angry crowds ; who have stood for liberty, 
 who have stood for the rights of the down-trodden, who 
 have been the martyrs of the outcast races of the world, 
 — those men who have dared to stand in the face of 
 death, while the flames were kindling about them, or, 
 stretched on instruments of torture, have dared to die 
 rather than yield one jot or tittle of truth, — such are the 
 men who are bringing about this grand, universal work 
 of atonement between the human and the divine. And, 
 more than that, there is not, as I have said, one single 
 person who reads this, nor a single human being alive, 
 who may not, in his sphere, become as divine a savior as 
 Jesus, or any of the grandest and sweetest souls of his- 
 tory. 
 
 Be faithful and true in your relations where you are 
 placed. Stand by the principles of right as you see them 
 to-day. Be true, be honest, be faithful, be fearless. See 
 what you can of the divine, and embody it as far as you 
 can in your own life, and in the lives of those about you ; 
 and you atone, you help bring on that time when the life 
 of all humanity shall be pervaded by the spirit and the 
 life of God. 
 
 I wish to call attention to just one thought as my last. 
 I pointed out at the first how a false conception of 
 sacrifice was the central principle in the idea of atone- 
 ment in the early ages of the world. All are well aware 
 how the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is claimed as the 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 213 
 
 central idea of the doctrine of atonement, as held in the 
 popular religion ; and the idea of sacrifice remains, trans- 
 formed, taking on a new shape, having a new significance. 
 Sacrifice shall still be the central idea of the world-wide 
 and universal doctrine of atonement, — the sacrifice of 
 the lower to the higher, the sacrifice of ease, the sacrifice 
 of wealth, the sacrifice of whatever be needful to enable 
 you to stand for the highest ideal you can discern of truth 
 and right. Nothing that is worthy of attainment has ever 
 been gained in the history of humanity, and never will be, 
 except by the pathway of the cross, as Jesus used the 
 term, — the cross, in its grand and central significance. 
 If you wish to become rich, it must be by the sacrifice 
 of ease and pleasure, the sacrifice of ten thousand other 
 pursuits that you might like to follow. If you wish for 
 pleasure, you must sacrifice every thing that stands in the 
 way of pleasure. If you wish for fame, for power and 
 influence, you must study, and struggle, and train your- 
 self, and sacrifice, to attain it. And so you find the law 
 universal : whatever you wish to gain, you can gain it only 
 by the way of the cross, — by the giving-up of something 
 that stands in the way of attainment. Look through 
 every nation, every religion, every civilization of the past, 
 and you find it a world-wide truth, that the men who have 
 stood for the highest, who have helped on the progress of 
 humanity, who have lifted men up toward God, have been 
 the men who have been misunderstood, who have been 
 maligned, who have been outcast, who have been lonely, 
 forsaken by friends, forsaken by kindred, out of sympathy 
 
214 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 with their time, daring to stand alone with God, to sacri- 
 fice fame, to sacrifice reputation, to sacrifice money, to 
 sacrifice ease, to sacrifice every thing that stood between 
 them and God, They have been the men who dared to 
 trample pleasure and wealth and fame underneath their 
 feet ; marching ahead, the pioneers of humanity, and 
 awaiting praise when, by and by, grateful after-times are 
 willing to write their epitaphs, and honor them on their 
 tombstones. So that still it is true, applying the words to 
 any individual who works for the atonement of humanity, 
 applying them to humanity collective, applying them to 
 Jesus, applying them to any and every one who has in any 
 measure been a savior of his kind, still those words are 
 true, " Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our 
 sorrows : yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, 
 and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgres- 
 sions, he was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement 
 of our peace wis upon him \ and with his stripes we are 
 healed." 
 
V 
 
 XI. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 If evolution is true, what becomes of Christianity? 
 Are the two antagonistic, so that one necessarily excludes 
 the other ? That depends upon definitions. Prof. Tayler 
 Lewis said, not long ago, that the dogma of the super- 
 natural and instantaneous creation of man, by the fiat of 
 a purely personal God, was the very foundation of Chris- 
 tianity, and essential to its existence. But I utterly fail to 
 see how the two have any necessary relation to each other. 
 So I would answer our opening question by saying, Since \ 
 evolution is true, therefore Christianity, one of its prod- 
 ucts, is also true. This statement will hold only of its/ 
 essential life. Forms and statements may change indefi- 
 nitely, while the same life that created the forms remains. 
 The life that animates the caterpillar, as it crawls slowly 
 along the ground, is the same life that soars and floats 
 and glitters in the butterfly. The transformation extin- 
 guishes not the life. One of the results of evolution can-^ 
 not possibly contradict evolution itself. I am none the/ 
 less a Christian, then, because I am an evolutionist. I 
 
 215 
 
2i6 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 will even say I am a Christian because I am an evolution- 
 ist. To justify this position, to trace the progress of reli- 
 gion until it culminates in Christianity, and to show the 
 relation it sustains to those religions that have preceded 
 it, — this is my present purpose. 
 
 The first form that the religious thought of the world 
 clothed itself in was fetichisrm It sprung up naturally 
 and necessarily out of the best and highest thought of the 
 time. It is nothing to be contemptuously despised, any 
 more than the infant's first efforts at speech. It accorded 
 with all the philosophy and facts then known, quite as 
 well as Christianity to-day harmonizes with the knowledge 
 of to-day. It agreed perfectly with what was known of 
 the universe, and sprang out of that knowledge. It was 
 just as necessary a phase of the religious life of humanity, 
 as twilight is a necessary phase of sunrising. Look at 
 the process of thought out of which it sprung. Man 
 recognized his own personal will and choice as the source 
 of all his movements and power. This was the only kind 
 of power he knew any thing about : therefore, whenever 
 he saw exhibitions of life and power, he could account for 
 them only on the ground of his knowledge and experi- 
 ence. Man can never conceive of any thing that tran- 
 scends all his knowledge. Thus his experience com- 
 pelled him to endow with personal will and choice every 
 thing about him. His dreams made him familiar with the 
 thought of spiritual beings existing apart from substantial 
 bodies; and these souls he thought of as the source of 
 life and power. And it was natural for his crude thought, 
 
or tbh 
 
 TJNIVEF 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 217 
 
 to endow all things with souls. Thus, when a savage 
 buried along with the dead warrior his horse, his bow and 
 arrow and spear, his kettle and his cooking utensils and 
 tent appurtenances, he was not so silly as to suppose that 
 he was going to take these material things with him to 
 the happy hunting-grounds : he believed that the souls of 
 these things would accompany and still serve and be use- 
 ful to the soul of the warrior. Stones, sticks, trees, rep- 
 tiles, birds, springs, rivers, — all things were thus alive to 
 him, and represented a personal consciousness like his 
 own. 
 
 And, as I have already shown, since the principal 
 forces encompassing early humanity were forces that hurt 
 them, on the action of which they could not calculate, and 
 of which they were therefore afraid, they thought that 
 most of these beings were evil-disposed toward them. 
 They did not know nature enough to control it, and make 
 its powers serve them, and they had not philosophy 
 enough to see how apparent evils might become real 
 good : so, of necessity, their first gods were devils, and 
 the earliest religions were devil-worship. Even to-day, 
 should you go to people in this condition of mind (and 
 fetich-worship is still widely prevalent), and tell them 
 about God, they would perhaps inquire, " But what if this 
 great being should eat me ? " and the effect would very 
 likely be, that they would run off affrighted into the 
 jungle, to get away from God. 
 
 You will notice here what you will find to be true 
 always and everywhere, that the prevailing thought of 
 
218 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 God accords with, and is on the same level as, the preva- 
 lent philosophy of the universe, the theory of the world. 
 
 The next step in the evolution of religion was to 
 polytheism. This is only fetichism partially generalized. 
 That is, instead of making each tree a god, they rose to 
 the thought of one god for all the trees. Instead of each 
 frog or serpent being a deity, they had thought of a 
 king, or god, of all the frogs or all the serpents. They 
 divided nature off into departments, with a deity supreme 
 in and ruling each. Thus ^Eolus became god of the 
 winds, Neptune of the oceans and seas, Jupiter of the 
 heavens, Pluto of the under world of spirits, and so on. 
 The individual spirit in each individual thing was not at 
 first destroyed : only there was one chief, like the chief of 
 a tribe, who held the allegiance of all. You see here the 
 social and political condition reflected in the religion. 
 This only shows how all the different departments of 
 human thought and life, social, political, philosophical, 
 and religious, keep even step and progress side by side. 
 One side of humanity does not outrun another. Not only 
 did they have gods of the several departments of nature ; 
 but they gradually rose to the conception of abstract 
 ideas, and had deities to represent the departments of 
 thought and the various mental life. So Apollo was the 
 god of eloquence, Minerva the goddess of wisdom, the 
 Muses superintended poetry and the arts. 
 
 One step more brought the human mind to anthropo- 
 morphic mon otheism ^ That is, they generalized still 
 more ; and instead of gods supreme in their different 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 219 
 
 departments, like the kings of sovereign states, they con- 
 ceived a universal monarchy of the world. But as yet 
 this universal monarch was only a mighty and gigantic 
 being in the image of man ; for they could think of no 
 higher power than that which humanity represented. And, 
 though he was supreme, the other gods were not dead. 
 The conception was very much like the theory of our 
 government, in which the president is supreme executive, 
 while still the governors rule, as subject to him, over the 
 several states. Even Israel at first had no higher idea 
 than this of their Jehovah. They sing of him as being 
 "a great king above all gods." The "all gods" are real 
 beings: only Jehovah is "king above" them. In the 
 progress of thought these subject gods at last die out, or 
 else become degraded to the position of rebellious but 
 yet conquered and subject devils. This last was the con- 
 dition of things in the popular thought of early Christi- 
 anity ; and it is the condition of things in popular Chris- 
 tianity to-day ; only that the people who still believe in 
 the devils have forgotten where they came from, and how 
 the belief originated. God is still to most minds only a 
 gigantic man, acting on human motives and impulses, and 
 according to human methods. 
 
 But among the higher thinkers of all ages, there has 
 been a tendency to take the fourth and highest step of all, 
 — that leading to a purely spiritual monotheism. Jesus 
 gave it its purest old-time expression, when he said, " God 
 is a spirit," and taught that he did not dwell in any 
 one material place, like the ark, the temple, Gerizim, 
 
220 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 or Moriah. Modern science, culminating in evolution, 
 rounds out and completes this conception by teaching that 
 God is the spirit and life, underlying and giving form to 
 all things, while yet he transcends all thought, and eludes 
 all attempts to give him shape, and slips through the 
 finest-wrought meshes of all the creeds. This is the per- 
 fect monotheism, " God over all, and in all, and through 
 all." 
 
 The outward forms of all religions have, of necessity, 
 taken their shape from the prevalent thought of the time. 
 Thus the growth has been from the sorcery and charms 
 of fetichism, through animal and human sacrifices, prosti- 
 tutions, symbol-worships, idolatries, rituals, and stately 
 ceremonies, up to the high spiritual thought that true wor- 
 ship is the aspiration and adoration of the heart, and that 
 mercy and justice and truth are more than all altars and 
 sacrifices. Only the finest thought and the finest living 
 can appreciate this last even yet. It seems unsubstantial 
 and unreal to the multitude ; just as this same multitude 
 cares more for a minstrel than a symphony, for a farce 
 than for Hamlet, for a chromo than a Raphael. 
 
 We must now pass to the evolution of the ethical side 
 of religion. Morality and religion are closely connected 
 in our minds ; but originally they had no relation to each 
 other. At first men prayed and sacrificed to and wor- 
 shipped the gods, not because they thought of it as a 
 moral duty, but because they feared them, and wished to 
 ward off some supposed danger ; or because they wished 
 some favor, and hoped to gain it in this way. So far was 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 221 
 
 the fetich-worshipper's mind from connecting any moral 
 ideas or thoughts of right or wrong with the worship of 
 his gods, that he did not conceive his gods themselves 
 as moral, or as caring for right. One does not seek to 
 please the devil with righteousness. The only morality 
 of that time grew out of the simple human relationships 
 in which they stood to each other ; and the gods and reli- 
 gion had nothing whatever to do with it. The same was 
 and is true of polytheism. In Greece and Rome, the 
 popular religion was in no way connected with the popu- 
 lar morality. The gods were simply the kings and rulers 
 of heaven and earth; and they represented, in their own 
 characters, all phases of human character, even its vices 
 and crimes. They even patronized and protected vices 
 and crimes, so that licentiousness and theft and murder 
 were sometimes a main part of religion. There were, in- 
 deed, supposed to be Fates and Furies that punished the 
 more flagrant outbreaks of wickedness ; and in later ages 
 they thought of future rewards and punishments. But 
 they were only after-thoughts. Men could even pray to 
 the gods for help in some deed that now would ostracise 
 a man from society, or shut him behind prison-bars. 
 
 The moral motive and sanction in communities like 
 ancient Athens were purely social and political ; so that, 
 though religion and morality were growing side by side, 
 though they re-acted on and modified each other, they yet 
 sprung from different sources, and flowed like parallel 
 rivers before they come to a junction. 
 
 During the early history of Israel, religion and morality 
 
V 
 
 222 v THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 were quite as distinct as among other people. Good wor- 
 shippers of Jehovah also worshipped Baal and Ashera 
 with obscene rites ; they could lie and steal, and be 
 drunken, and murder, could neglect father and mother, 
 and play false to all the moralities of life, and yet not 
 forfeit their allegiance to the national God. But the later 
 conception of Jehovah represented him, through the 
 mouths of the prophets, as a moral God, who demanded 
 " clean hands and a pure heart " on the part of his 
 worshippers. 
 
 In the teachings of Jesus, religion and morality came> 
 into still closer combination. In his highest thought they 
 became identical. To love God with all the heart, and 
 the neighbor as ourself, became at once the summing-up 
 of all religion, and, at the same time, the perfect formula 
 of morals. But in the hands of his immediate followers, 
 and of those who gave shape to Christianity as an institu- 
 tion in the world, religion and morality became separated 
 once more. Religion was metamorphosed into a " scheme 
 of salvation." The thing to be saved from was not unright- 
 eousness, but hell ; and the means of salvation were not 
 right thinking and living, but baptism and faith. So the 
 grand work of Jesus was partly undone by his disciples, v 
 Indeed, his thought was so far beyond his age, that only a 
 few could comprehend it, and it was necessarily degraded 
 to the level of the common intelligence. The Church 
 became a close corporation, holding the keys of heaven as 
 a corporate privilege, for the exclusive use of its members. 
 And one "without," however moral and godlike, could 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION". 
 
 only find refuge among the devils in hell ; while those 
 "within," though ever so vile, had become partakers of 
 the corporate spirit and grace, and so had gained a " right 
 to the tree of life, and could enter into the city." This is 
 Romish doctrine still. The brigand of modern Italy 
 looks to his saint to help him plunder, and returns the 
 favor by offering at his shrine a saint's share of the booty. 
 So it is nothing strange that Tetzel should travel through 
 Europe selling papal indulgences, the privilege beforehand 
 of committing all sorts of sins and crimes, so only that he 
 recompensed the Church, which, " for a consideration," 
 promised to keep the gate of heaven ajar for him till he 
 got ready to go in. 
 
 And this same idea taints Protestantism still. The 
 ecclesiastical conditions of salvation are held in such hi^h 
 esteem that even to-day a heresy is less easily forgiven 
 than an immorality. Mr. Moody stands up in New York, 
 with all New York Protestantism at his back, and, without 
 one audible undertone of dissent, asserts that morality 
 " don't touch the question of salvation." It is still only 
 an ingenious ecclesiastical " scheme," by which God is 
 enabled to snatch sinners with his one hand, called sal- 
 vation, out of his other burning, dark hand, called dam- 
 nation. If only church-members are logical, it is no 
 special wonder that Washington should be full of " Chris- 
 tian statesmen " who dabble in " Credit Mobiliers," and 
 that ministers like Winslow should find it convenient to 
 go to Rotterdam. It is not enough that the Church 
 should preach that its members ought to be moral, so 
 
224*/ THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 long as it also preaches that its great end and aim, 
 salvation, hangs on something not connected with mo- 
 rality. 
 
 Evolution goes back, and, taking up the pure word ofA 
 Jesus, completes and enforces it with all the knowledge 
 and emphasis of modern science. When it makes all law, 
 physical, intellectual, and spiritual, only the manifestation 
 of the living, loving, righteous God, then it absolutely 
 identifies religion and morality, or makes morality only a 
 part of the greater and grander thing, religion. God is 
 not any longer a being sitting apart, to be pleased or dis- 
 pleased by what you do, or do not do, as pertaining per- 
 sonally to him, while life here in the world is something 
 disconnected from him. But God is here, all about us 
 and in us. He is in sun and air and ocean and earthy 
 He is in heart-beat and brain-throb, in every fibre and 
 muscle and thrilling nerve of the body. He is not only * 
 in the truths of religion, but he is in the truths of science/ 
 The laws of the intellect are his laws ; the light of truth 
 is his licrht ; the moral relations in which we stand to our 
 fellow-men are the expression of his thought and life in 
 humanity. So that duty to God becomes absolutely iden- 
 tical with all human duty. Righteousness before God is 
 absolutely identical with all human righteousness. Pleas-\ 
 ing God is obeying all his laws. Salvation can possibly/ 
 be nothing more nor less than coming into perfect accord 
 with the whole life and movement of things. A man is 
 saved just in so far as he knows and obeys the laws of 
 God Perfect salvation is perfect knowledge and obedi 
 
V 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 225 
 
 ence. A man in this condition is of necessity perfectly 
 moral and perfectly religious. 
 
 Thus the teaching of evolution completely accomplishes^ 
 what Jesus began, but what popular Christianity failed to 
 carry out, — it identifies and makes one the moral motive 
 and the religious motive. The gods have become one y/ 
 that one has become spirit ; and that spirit has become 
 the life and inspiration of all goodness and truth and 
 beauty in state, in society, in the individual, in art, in 
 letters, in science. Indeed, in the grandest sense, God 
 has become " all and in all." 
 
 If evolution be true, the life of the universe is one life. 
 And since religion is a part of this life, if evolution be 
 true, the religious life of the world must be one. Let us, 
 then, search for the essence of religion, see whether it 
 exists everywhere, and, therefore, whether there are many 
 different religions, of which Christianity is one ; or 
 whether there is only one religion, of which Christianity 
 is the highest outgrowth and expression. Science teaches 
 us that there is only one life on the globe. From the 
 little viscous globule that palpitates in primeval seas, or 
 the lichen that creeps over the rock, up through all 
 ascending forms of plant and animal, till you reach the 
 infinitely involved brain of Newton working a problem in 
 the differential calculus, the imagination of Praxiteles 
 seeking the hidden god in the block of marble, or the 
 complex arts, societies, and politics that issue in our 
 world-wide civilization, — everywhere and all through and 
 all up, it is one life that beats in it all. So evolution 
 
226 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 teaches that the blindest gropings in the realm of religion 
 were only poor, weak human hands and feet feeling after 
 the lowest step in "the world's great altar-stairs, that 
 slope through darkness up to God." The fetich-worship- 
 per, with the best light and knowledge he had, went "feel- 
 ing after God, if haply he might find him," who is " not 
 far from any one of us." It was not depravity on his 
 part when he stood in awe of, and worshipped, and sacri- 
 ficed and prayed to, a stick or a reptile. He saw therein' 
 the infinite mystery and life of the world, and interpreted 
 it as well as his ignorance permitted ; and so constructed 
 a religion as high for him as ours is for us, — that is, a 
 religion as true and high as his philosophy enabled him to 
 think. He was not so foolish as to worship the stick : it 
 was the mysterious and wonderful life in the stick, he 
 adored. He who to-day reverences the church, the altar, 
 a day, or the Bible, is doing the same, with the difference 
 there is between a man and a child. The child thinks 
 and feels and imagines as a child ; but it is the same life, 
 the same brain, the same heart, that make the after man. 
 So that which the child-man reached after and thought of 
 was the best interpretation he could give of the same God 
 in nature that " the heavens declared, and the firmament 
 showed, and day and night uttered speech " of, to the 
 Psalmist, — the same that we see in all things to-day. 
 And when, in after times, they offered to God their chil- 
 dren in human sacrifice, it was not human depravity that 
 prompted the (to us) murderous deed. Jephthah tenderly 
 loved his daughter ; Abraham's heart yearned over Isaac ; 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 227 
 
 the Ganges mother clung to her babe with the same heart- 
 wringing mother-love that throbs in your bosoms. But 
 the gods were inexorable ; and they gave with heart-break 
 and tears that which was dearest, because heaven de- 
 manded the precious gift by all the sanctions of religion. 
 Though the deed was horrible, it was reverence and fear 
 for the gods, that nerved the arm, and steeled the heart. 
 It was the same religious motive in the heart as that 
 which made the martyrs, and has been the inspiration, in 
 all ages, of heroism and noble deeds. And even the ser- 
 vices of impurity had behind them the motive of supposed 
 divine sanction and religious obedience. So that when the 
 Santal uses his fetich for a charm, when the Parsee fire- 
 worshipper bows before the rising sun, when the Hindoo 
 lies down to be crushed by his Juggernaut, when the 
 Chinaman offers incense before the image of his ances- 
 tors, when the Buddhist devotee sits beneath a tree, and 
 all day recites some holy and magic word, when the 
 Romanist bows to the crucifix, when the Ritualist recites 
 from his book, when the Quaker sits silent and waits for 
 the spirit, when the Protestant bows in prayer, or when 
 the philanthropist goes out on some deed of mercy, 
 believing that " he prayeth best who loveth best," — in all 
 these human bosoms beats the one throbbing, human 
 heart ; and each, according to his knowledge, seeks to 
 worship the mysterious life of all things, that we call God, 
 after the highest and most sacred fashion which he has 
 learned. However inadequate his conception of God, he 
 still seeks to find the 
 
228 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 " Father of all, in every age, 
 In every clime, adored, — 
 By saint, by savage, and by sage, — 
 Jehovah, Jove, or Lord." 
 
 The thought of God that is held may be wild, chaotic, 
 and, to our mind, wicked. But his art and his govern- 
 ment and his civilization are the same ; and he thinks, in 
 the one case, on a level with his thought in the other. 
 Religion can have no expression higher than the age is 
 capable of: so it advances with the advance of man. 
 But the point is, that all religions are reaching out after 
 the same God that each one of them fancies it has found. 
 It is the same religious nature of man in all the varied 
 manifestations. Thus religion is one just as art is one, 
 or literature is one. Each age and each nation finds its 
 own expression ; and each one is true or false according 
 as it approximates more or less nearly to the perfect truth 
 of things. 
 
 But when I say that religion is one, do I then say that 
 one religion is as good as another, and that Christianity is 
 no more divine than any other ? Let us see. Human 
 thought is one; that is, it is all alike the product of 
 human brains, and differs only in quality and degree: 
 do I therefore say that Newton's thought is on a level 
 with, and no better than, that of a clown ? Poetry is one : 
 is therefore Shakspere no higher or more divine than 
 Tupper or Walt Whitman ? Art is one : is this to say 
 that the snow-man that makes the holiday frolic of a lot 
 of boys is to be put on the same level as the Moses 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 229 
 
 of Angelo, or the Christ of Thorwaldsen ? In all these 
 cases, the infinite range of production is the work of 
 precisely the same faculties, that differ only in the kind 
 and quality of work. And each special work is true and 
 valuable just in so far as it expresses the true and the 
 divine in its department. So all religions are the out-\ 
 growth of the divine, the religious nature, in man. But 
 there are all degrees of truth, of excellence, and therefore 
 of divinity, ranging from the deformities of the rudest 
 fetich, up to the divinest thoughts and scriptures and 
 hymns and prayers of the loftiest seers of the world/ 
 Christianity, then, is not something thrust into, but apart 
 from, the growing order of the world, any more than 
 Handel's " Messiah " is out of tune and accord with all 
 the music of humanity that, beginning with the rudest 
 song and pipe of reeds, leads up to and culminates in its 
 grand harmonies. Christianity is the highest outcome of? 
 religious evolution, just as man is the highest outcome of 
 animal life. It is no more severed from the rest than the/ 
 full-blown rose is severed from the little twig that broke 
 the seed, and developed into the bush. It is the bright- 
 colored, sweet-scented, and consummate flower on the top- 
 most bough of the religious life of man. 
 
 Since, then, Christianity is the result of evolution, is it 
 to be expected that evolution will still go on, and ulti- 
 mately outgrow and leave Christianity behind ? This is 
 the hasty logic of some. Christian schemes of salvation,\ 
 Christian cosmogonies, Christian ecclesiasticisms, Chris- 
 tian rituals, — these may and probably will be outgrown^ 
 
230 V THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 Much of what is called Christian theology will be 
 sloughed off and left behind, as a growing bean rejects 
 its pod. All life takes to itself form, and clothes itself 
 in outward symbols and institutions; but these are only 
 clothes that are cut and worn after the fashion of the age. 
 A boy may change the cut and style of his clothing with 
 every year ; and he must put on larger as he grows, to 
 suit the developing size and figure of his body; and he 
 may wear as many fashions as ingenious tailors can in- 
 vent ; but all through, from infancy to age, it is the same 
 boy becoming youth and man. If, therefore, ChristianityX 
 does put off its old clothes, and put on larger ones as it 
 gets larger, it will not necessarily follow that Christianity 
 itself will be outgrown and left behind. If it contain in 
 itself any touch of the universal and eternal, it must live 
 forever ; and if this something that is eternal in it be of 
 its very essence, as Jesus taught it, we may still logically 
 hold that it is Christianity. / 
 
 As I have already shown, when Jesus said, "Thou\ 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy 
 neighbor as thyself," he gave utterance to words thay 
 absolutely identified religion and morality, and linked all 
 life with God in the same sense in which it is to-day done 
 by the doctrines of evolution. These words Jesus made 
 central; and they are the formula of a perfect human* 
 life. So that, so far as we can see, the utmost progress' 
 of evolution in human life — individual, social, political 
 — can only approximate more and more closely to this, 
 infinitely progressive and expansive ideal. It means the 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 231 
 
 command to be perfect ; and even God himself cannotN 
 outgrow perfection. ' 
 
 While, then, the popular forms and creeds and institu- 
 tions may be outgrown, and replaced by better, the essen- 
 tial spirit and life of Christianity will become more and 
 more the essence and spirit of evolution itself, so far as 
 it bears on humanity. The whole force of evolution, 
 henceforth, will lift up and urge on humanity toward the 
 fullest and highest Christian life. 
 
 Is evolution, then, a radical or a conservative element 
 in religion ? It is both. It is radical in so far as it 
 eats away, tears down, and leaves behind,, the transient 
 and perishable forms ; for these things, when decayed and 
 fallen, only become obstructions in the pathway of human 
 progress. But so far as essence and life are concerned, 
 evolution is conservative. It teaches that the one, all- 
 important thing is life. The forms live for it, and not it 
 for the forms : so it does not regard a partial, incomplete, 
 or even grotesque form, so objectionable that it is to be 
 got out of the way at so great a cost as the risk of the 
 life it holds. It will keep a flower in a cracked flower- 
 pot, rather than risk the flower itself, by knocking the pot 
 away. It will leave a man the inadequate shelter of his 
 hut, rather than tear it clown about his ears in a storm, 
 before it can invite him into a better house. Regarding 
 all things as a growth from small beginnings, it does not 
 teach the top of a tree to ignore its roots, nor a man- 
 sard house-roof to despise the mudsills, nor a man's head 
 to scorn his feet. It is, therefore, tolerant of ignorance 
 
232 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 and half-development, and the slow process by which a 
 little comes to be more. Since it took God millions of 
 a^es to get the earth habitable even for reptiles, it does 
 not ask him to lift the reptiles up into humanity, and 
 make humanity absolutely complete, in six days. 
 
 Thus evolution is tolerant even of fetichism. It would 
 not knock an idol out of an ignorant religionist's hands, 
 except as it can replace it by a purer and truer symbol. 
 It would not destroy Mohammedanism, except by repla- 
 cing it in the minds of its devotees by a nobler God than 
 Allah, and a better morality than that of the Koran. It 
 will permit the Romanist Irish girl to keep her beads and 
 her mass until she can grow into a conception of a higher 
 and more spiritual religion. To take these away, and 
 leave her empty-handed and empty-hearted, is against its 
 whole spirit, and seems to it impiety. It lets the boy 
 keep his toys until, having become a man, he is ready to 
 "put away childish things." So the attitude of evolution 
 toward orthodoxy is such as makes it rejoice that men will 
 cling to orthodoxy until they can see and feel that some- 
 thing else is better. The moral and religious life first and 
 highest. Religious forms and creeds and rituals are only 
 the expression of its life, and made to serve it. As the 
 life lifts and broadens it will lift, break up, and sweep 
 away its covering that threatened to be its bond, as the 
 spring freshet tosses on its bosom and sweeps away the 
 ice that covered it, but was not strong enough to hold it 
 in chains. 
 
 Evolution, then, in religion, will seek to find and spread 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION. 233 
 
 abroad all truth, believing that the inner life is able to 
 stretch the bark, and fit it to its various stages of life and 
 growth. It tolerates the twilight because it leads to the 
 sunrise. Its trust is in time, light, growth, and God. It 
 is patient with the lower form of life, and also with the 
 lower life of man ; for it knows that these are but the 
 necessary childhood of life, that at last shall grow up to 
 and culminate in 
 
 " The crowning race 
 
 Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 
 On knowledge ; under whose command 
 Is earth, and earth's, and in their hand 
 
 Is nature like an open book ; 
 
 " No longer half akin to brute ; 
 
 For all we thought and loved and did, 
 And hoped and suffered, is but seed 
 Of what in them is flower and fruit." 
 
 And so, holding always any present to be but the seed 
 of a better future, it trusts in and waits for the still larger 
 unfolding of 
 
 *s> 
 
 " That God which ever lives and loves, 
 One God, one law, one element, 
 And one divine, far-off event 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
XII. 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 The belief in some kind of a future life seems to be as 
 old as humanity. The testimony on this subject is much 
 more ancient than any written records. It speaks to us 
 from the excavations where have been discovered the 
 remains of prehistoric man. So the old question of Job, 
 " If a man die, shall he live again ? " had been asked by 
 the same human heart thousands of years before his 
 day; and, rightly or wrongly, it had been answered in 
 the affirmative. 
 
 So far as we know, the animals are not perplexed over 
 the problems of life; they do not try to settle right and 
 wrong. They shelter themselves from storm; they bask 
 in the sunshine; they eat and drink and sleep; and, when 
 the hour of death approaches, the sheep or horse or dog 
 lies down with no anxious questioning as to what may 
 come after death. It never pauses on the edge of des- 
 tiny, like Hamlet, to soliloquize : — 
 
 " To die — to sleep, — 
 To sleep ! perchance to dream : ay, there's the rub ; 
 For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 
 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
 Must give us pause." 
 234 
 
IMMORTALITY. 235 
 
 Such thoughts and speculations as these are confined 
 to humanity. 
 
 At what precise point in the upward lifting of animal 
 to man, the newly developed human heart began to raise 
 these questions about a possible future, it is now impossi- 
 ble to tell. But we can go back far enough to trace the 
 probable course of reasoning out of which the belief first 
 rose. Indeed, we may find this same primeval belief and 
 primeval reasoning in existence to-day. If you wish to 
 see how a century-old oak-tree sprouts and grows, all you 
 have to do is to look at a bursting acorn, and watch the 
 unfolding of the tiny stem. So the thoughts of the 
 world s childhood can still be read in the mental pro- 
 cesses of those races that are in their childhood still. 
 In this way we can come at the origin of the world's 
 belief in a future life. 
 
 These first men reasoned well, considering their knowl- 
 edge and their mental powers. It seems to have been 
 something in this way. They looked on the body of 
 some one who had died : here were the feet that were 
 so swift in the chase, or on the war-path ; here, the hands 
 that bent the stiff bow, or hurled the spear ; the eye, that 
 was quick and sure as the hawk's for his prey, was dull 
 and sightless ; the heart beat no longer ; and the ear 
 that was never deaf to the shout of a comrade or the 
 taunt of an enemy was now equally indifferent to both. 
 And they said within themselves, as they saw him stiff 
 and cold and still, " This is not all there was. He who 
 loved us, and fought our enemies, and hunted with us the 
 
236 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 common prey, — he is not this body : he has gone away. 
 and left it. He was more than this, and different from 
 it." Thus, of necessity, there grew up the thought of 
 life, as separate from the body. 
 
 Other lines of reasoning led to the same result. They 
 saw forms and heard voices in their dreams. Knowing 
 nothing of their true origin and explanation, of course 
 they must explain them as best they could. They saw 
 no reason why their dreaming experiences were not as 
 real as their waking ones. So these shadowy forms that 
 came and hovered about them, and talked with them, 
 they learned to look upon as real persons. And when, 
 after a friend had died, he came to them in dreams, this 
 seemed to solve for them the mystery of death ; for here 
 was the same old face and figure smiling upon and speak- 
 ing to them, though the body was in the grave. So they 
 were compelled to believe that every person was double, 
 having a body and another self, a spirit or shadowy one. 
 They knew nothing of the laws of sunlight, by which 
 every object casts a shadow when the light falls on it ; 
 and they saw that at times, when it was cloudy, or when 
 they went under the trees or into their huts, these mys- 
 terious shadows went away, or hid themselves. Thus 
 they began to identify their shadows with this second 
 self that came and went in dreams, and that went away 
 and left the body entirely at death. It was this second 
 self that looked up into their faces from the surface of 
 glassy lakes or springs. So real to their minds was this 
 belief, that they held it dangerous to walk along a river's 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 bank where their shadow would fall into the water, lest a 
 crocodile should seize it, and so cause their death. They 
 learned to believe that all dreams were real spirit life, 
 their souls going off on a journey, or else other souls 
 coming to visit them. From this grew the world-wide 
 belief in visions as revelations from the unseen world. 
 And all the modern superstitions about dreams as being 
 warnings, or signs, have had a similar origin, and are 
 only survivals from these old times. 
 
 They identified the soul with different parts of the 
 body. It was the pupil of the eye, or the heart, or the 
 blood, or the breath. In Hebrew thought, God was 
 supposed to have breathed the soul into the nostrils of 
 Adam; or, as in the law it is said, "the blood is the 
 life." In Homer, the "shade" or soul of the warrior 
 rushes out through the wound that causes his death. 
 Among other peoples, they talked of the heart's going 
 away, or coming again, as the life ebbed or flowed. 
 
 So much, then, by way of explanation of the way in 
 which the thought of a dual life in man first sprung up. 
 A word now as to the nature and location of this future 
 life from the first, until to-day. The earliest notion 
 seemed to be that the soul of the dead would still con- 
 tinue to love its old-time body and place of abode. So 
 it was supposed to hover about the spot of burial, or 
 wander through the village that was its home. This 
 oldest of all ideas still lingers in the thrills of supersti- 
 tious fear that many yet feel in passing a graveyard at 
 night. It is the survival of the ancient thought that the 
 
238 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 spirit still stays about the grave. And the stories of 
 haunted houses are only remnants of the old-world belief 
 that the soul still clings to its earthly abode. And the 
 Egyptian custom of preserving the body in the form of 
 a mummy is not only connected with their belief about 
 a bodily resurrection, but also grew out of the thought 
 that, so long as they kept the body, they could also pre- 
 vent the soul from going far away. 
 
 The next stage of belief is higher. It was thought that 
 the ancestor of the tribe was still interested in it, and 
 retained his authority over it, after he had passed away. 
 So it was supposed that he was engaged in preparing a 
 home and kingdom for the spirits of his descendants in 
 the other world. They believed that in this kingdom he 
 received and ruled over the souls of his tribe as they 
 entered the shadow}' land. Dying, then, to them, was 
 simply going to the fathers of the tribe. 
 
 A third stage in this belief was that which is repre- 
 sented by the Elysian Fields of the Greeks and Romans, 
 the Islands of the Blest, or the Halls of Odin, as they 
 were imagined by our Scandinavian forefathers. Socrates, 
 on the eve of his death, talked with his disciples of his 
 expectation that in the Elysian Fields he should meet and 
 converse and walk with the wise and the great and the 
 good of the olden times. And he so separated his body 
 from himself, that, when one of his friends spoke of his 
 burial, he said playfully, "You may bury me as you 
 please, if you can catch me." He expected to be away, 
 though the body was left behind. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 2 39 
 
 The Jews at first had no knowledge of any future life ; 
 but, when the notion of the Messianic kingdom grew up 
 among them, they believed that the coming deliverer of 
 David's line would raise the dead, and establish an ideal 
 and everlasting kingdom on the renovated earth. So 
 their hope was purely a material one. 
 
 I would have you take notice that thus far there is 
 almost no trace of any friendship with the gods, or of any 
 heaven to be spent in their company. The Halls of Odin 
 are really no exception to this statement; for this eternal 
 feast was only for the bravest of the warriors who died 
 fighting in battle. Common humanity had no part in it. 
 
 The last historic step of which I wish you to take notice 
 is the early Christian conception of heaven with God. 
 This, at first, was only the Hebrew Messianic idea some- 
 what modified. John, in the Apocalypse, pictures "the 
 new heavens and the new earth," and describes "the city 
 of God descending from God out of heaven," to abide on 
 the earth. In this gem-gated and gold-streeted city, the 
 " nations of them that are saved " were to " dwell ; and 
 God was to dwell with them, and be their God." Re- 
 inhabiting their resurrected bodies, the redeemed were to 
 live in this material and glorious city. They would need 
 no sun nor moon, for God was to be their light. They 
 were never to go out, and death was never to enter. 
 Such was the immediate expectation of the early Church. 
 But, as this delayed, they began to imagine the city of 
 God as just above the solid arch of the firmament, and 
 to think that there their friends were gone. When mod- 
 
240 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 ern astronomy destroyed this old-time firmament, and the 
 world learned that it was only an optical illusion, of 
 course the location of heaven must be changed. (For 
 now we know, though it is very recent knowledge, that 
 the arch of heaven is only light and air, like that which is 
 all about us.) Then speculation placed heaven in the 
 moon. By others, books have been writted to prove that 
 it is in the sun. " The To-Morrow of Death " twists 
 science in the most fantastic way, to support this last 
 idea. Some have thought heaven might be on the star 
 Alcyone, which is supposed to be the centre of the great 
 star-system to which our solar-system belongs. And in a 
 recent sermon Mr. Talmage (who talks as if he had been 
 there, and knows) asserts that it is located on the central 
 sun of the universe, which he supposes to be millions of 
 times larger than any other. Since Mr. Talmage has 
 given the weight of his tremendous authority on this 
 point, of course it is of no practical importance for me to 
 add that no other man living knows any thing about the 
 existence or the nature of any such orb. We know that 
 there are stars so distant that the more than lightning- 
 like velocity of light requires some millions of years to 
 travel the distance that separates them from the earth. 
 But though Mr. Talmage's heaven is farther off than 
 these, he assures us that souls can make the journey in 
 a fractional part of a second. This is a great comfort ; 
 for otherwise we might be left to fear that even Adam, 
 during these six thousand years, had hardly got started 
 out on his journey even yet. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 241 
 
 One of the standing charges of the Church against 
 science is, that it is materialistic. I wish, in passing, just 
 to call your attention to the fact that the whole ecclesi- 
 astical conception of the future life has been, and is still, 
 pure materialism. The material body is to rise and dwell 
 in a material heaven. 
 
 Such, then, have been some of the more prominent 
 speculations of the world concerning the nature and loca- 
 tion of heaven. We can think and believe and hope ; but 
 any intelligent and thoughtful man will hesitate before he 
 will assert that he knows any thing about it. Ignorance is 
 confident ; for it has always been true, as Pope says, that 
 " Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." But reverent 
 knowledge will wait for light. 
 
 All these forms, then, under which the hope of a future 
 life has been held, have been disproved and outgrown by 
 modern knowledge. And here comes in the great ques- 
 tion, Must we therefore give up the hope as irrational ? 
 Is it only a dream of the world's childhood from which its 
 larger-grown intelligence awakes ? As a hope, it is most 
 magnificent ; as a dream, it is beautiful and grand. And 
 it argues strange and high capacity in man, that he should 
 even hope or dream of such a thing. Of course we will 
 give it up if we have to ; but most certainly we cannot be 
 expected to till then. Let us, then, raise the question as 
 to whether there is any theory left that an intelligent and 
 rational man can hold. As I look over human thought, I 
 find two, which I must try and make clear to your minds. 
 
 (1) There is, then, first, a materialistic theory which 
 
242 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 our present knowledge cannot disprove nor make absurd. 
 It is well known that all our senses have only a certain 
 narrow range within which they are able to bring us into 
 sensible contact with the world about us. All outside 
 this range we are unable to reach. For example, we do 
 not see all forms and colors ; we do not hear all sounds ; 
 we do not smell all odors ; we cannot consciously touch 
 all substances; we cannot taste all flavors. Vision de- 
 pends on the wave-motions of light. If these motions 
 are less than a certain number in a second, they do not 
 produce on the eye the sense of vision : if they are more 
 than a certain other number, we cannot see them. Thus 
 the narrow range between two definite numbers that rep- 
 resent the quantity of wave-motion in a second, is the limit 
 to our sense of sight. A whole world of things may lie 
 on the one side, and another world on the other side, of 
 this limit, in the presence of both of which we are totally 
 blind. So there are forms and colors all about us on 
 every hand, that we do not, and can not see. And a simi- 
 lar thing is true of our ears. We can hear only within 
 certain definite limits. Were our senses acute enough, 
 the silence of a summer midnight would become to us a 
 thunderous tumult. We could hear the flowers grow in 
 our garden until the stillness broke into a noise as loud 
 as the waves on the seashore in a storm. Huxley tells us 
 that, if we could hear the movements in the growth of a 
 stinging-nettle, it might become to us as loud as the rattle 
 and roar of a great city. 
 
 For any thing we know to the contrary, then, a refined 
 
IMMORTALITY. 243 
 
 and spiritualized order of existences may be the inhabit- 
 ants of another and an unseen world all about us. Mil- 
 ton has said, — 
 
 " Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
 Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep." 
 
 Of course, the poet's words do not prove this true ; and 
 all I care to say about it is, that such a thing is possible. 
 That we do not see or hear them, is no proof that they 
 do not exist. The inter-planetary spaces may be the 
 home of a universe of life, for all our senses can say to 
 the contrary. I suppose that some such idea as this lies 
 at the base of modern Spiritualism. I have never yet 
 been convinced that it is proved ; but certainly any 
 knowledge we now possess cannot say that such exist- 
 ence is impossible. 
 
 A remarkable book has been recently published, called 
 " The Unseen Universe." It is the work of two promi- ■* 
 nent English men of science. It attempts, on a scientific 
 basis, to establish the possibility of the existence of an 
 unseen world, closely connected with this, from which the 
 visible universe came, and to which it will return again. 
 It would take too long for me to give you the outlines of 
 their argument. They do not prove the fact; but they 
 do prove the possibility. And this is all I care for now. 
 
 It is not unreasonable, then, to believe in the possi^ 
 bility of another life, even if your theory of it be only a 
 refined form of materialism. /* 
 
 (2) But there is another possible theory that is purely 
 
244 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 spiritual. Ever since the first man saw his shadow, and 
 talked about his other self, it has been common to speak 
 of man as a combination of mind and matter. To find 
 out what mind is, whether it is a product of matter, or 
 something distinct from it, has been the study of all ages. 
 But the question is not settled yet. Some scientific mate- 
 rialists claim that they have settled it, that thought is 
 a product of the brain, just as bile is a product of the 
 liver. Moleschott — as though the saying decided the 
 question — declared, " No thought without phosphorus ; " 
 but that hardly proved that thought was the product of 
 phosphorus. No flash of lightning without the proper 
 atmospheric conditions ; but that does not prove that 
 these conditions create electricity. What, then, is the 
 belief of the best modern thinkers, about the relation of 
 mind to brain? It is inclined to believe that the only 
 real things that exist are the mind and God, and that 
 the universe is only the infinitely varied manifestation of 
 God to the human consciousness. For instance, let us 
 see what it is that we know about a desk. I touch it 
 with my hand, and feel the sensation of touch. Now, 
 all I really know is my own sensation, and that some- 
 thing outside of me has produced this sensation. But 
 that all this outside something that I call the universe is 
 any thing other or more than the manifestation to me 
 of the infinite God, I do not know. 
 
 And so far from mind's being explained as the product 
 of the brain, all we know is, that the action of mind 
 coincides with certain molecular movements in the brain 
 
IMMORTALITY. 245 
 
 But all these movements can be explained and formu- 
 lated without any reference to the. mind at all. The 
 movement of electricity along a telegraph-line is accom- 
 panied by certain molecular changes in the wire itself ; 
 but the wire is not electricity, neither does it produce it. 
 Thus modern science has found it utterly impossible to 
 explain mind either as a part or a product of matter. 
 
 It is perfectly reasonable, then, for any man to believe 
 in a purely intellectual and spiritual existence, apart from 
 any material form or substance. 
 
 You will notice that I have not claimed to prove either 
 the materialistic or the purely spiritual theory of a future 
 life. My only purpose has been to show that there are 
 theories that intelligent people can hold, even in the clear- 
 est light of modern science, without laying themselves 
 liable to the charge of beinir irrational. 
 
 Having this basis, then, to stand on, let us review some 
 of the probabilities of the case. No intelligent man, I v 
 suppose, will claim that he can demonstrate immortality./' 
 The most we can do is to weigh the probabilities, and see 
 how strong a foundation we have on which to build our 
 hopes. What are some of the stones, then, that go to the 
 making of this foundation ? 
 
 (1) I wish to make one negative point. Our present^ 
 ignorance concerning the nature or even the fact of an 
 immortal life is no valid argument against its reality^ 
 Humanity knows nothing beyond the range of the experi- 
 ence of humanity. By the very terms of our supposition, 
 the immortal life is something above and beyond the 
 
246 v THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 earthly experience of man. The caterpillar probably 
 knows nothing about any life higher than that of his toil- 
 some crawling on the ground ; but that is no proof against 
 the fact that we know he is to become a butterfly. The 
 boy knows nothing about manhood, and cannot know. 
 Though he sees men and their labors all about him, he 
 has and can have no conception whatever of what it 
 means to be a man : it transcends all his experience. 
 
 So, if there is a life very much different from, and verj\ 
 much higher than, our present one, it is not strange that 
 we are ignorant of it. It is perhaps impossible that it/ 
 should be otherwise. I could not, with all my trying, 
 make you understand any thing entirely unlike all you 
 have ever seen or heard. So, if an angel should come 
 and tell of another life, it would mean nothing to us, 
 unless he could translate it into terms of our own experi- 
 ence. We could not understand a " light that never was 
 on land or sea." Our ignorance, then, is not even a 
 probability against the belief. 
 
 (2) I ask you to notice that the belief exists, and has\ 
 the field. It holds the position, and will stay, unless dis* 
 lodged ; and, of right, it ought to stay. It is practically 
 true to say that all men everywhere have believed in a 
 future life : no matter under what form, the fact remains. 
 The exceptions have been hardly enough " to prove the 
 rule." The burden of proof, then, lies with the doubters. 
 If the universal belief is a falsehood and a cheat, it is foi 
 them to prove it so. The universal human instinct ar 
 longing is well uttered by Tennyson, — 
 
 
IMMORTALITY. 247 
 
 " Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 
 Thou madest life in man and brute ; 
 Thou madest death ; and lo ! thy foot 
 Is on the skull which thou hast made. 
 
 " Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why ; 
 He thinks he was not made to die ; 
 And thou hast made him : thou art just." 
 
 No man can call me unreasonable for holding the\ 
 world-wide creed until he has proved to me that it is not 
 true. 
 
 (3) As the process of evolution goes on, life grows\ 
 fuller and more intense. And the more intense the life, 
 the stronger grows the belief in its continuance. There/ 
 are times of sorrow and weariness when we feel thatlife 
 itself is a burden, and that the only real rest and peace 
 are to be found in long and dreamless sleep. I have 
 heard of some who felt tired at the thought of living for- 
 ever, and who hardly wished for the certainty of such 
 belief; and it is fabled that old Tithonus begged the 
 gods to take from him the gift of an earthly immortality, 
 it grew to be such a burden. But, in all these cases, the 
 weary ones cumber their thought of immortal life with the 
 burdens of endless earthly cares. So it is not life that 
 men grow weary of : it is only the troubles and sorrows 
 that take away from the sum and fulness and power of 
 life. Life, of itself, is always joy and strength. So, in 
 spite of suicides, of the poetry that longs for the grave, 
 
24S THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 of the weariness that would even push away the prof- 
 fered cup of everlasting life, it is still true that 
 
 " Whatever crazy Sorrow saith, 
 No life that breathes with human breath 
 Has ever truly longed for death. 
 
 " 'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, — 
 O, life, not death, for which we pant ; 
 More life, and fuller, that we want." 
 
 If it were true that, the larger and grander life be- 
 comes, the more nearly it seemed to culminate and reach 
 its completion, there might then be room for the thought 
 that some day it would reach its limit, and so naturally 
 and contentedly come to an end; but just the reverse of 
 this is true. It is the narrow and stinted life that thinks 
 it knows all, and is contented. It is men like Newton 
 that talk of standing and gathering a few pebbles on the 
 shore of an infinite ocean that lies all unexplored before 
 them. The larger life and knowledge grow, then, the 
 more they reach out and hunger for the infinite still 
 unattained. 
 
 (4) It is a law of evolution, that, when it reaches 
 the highest form, its whole force, which destroyed lower 
 forms in the interest of higher, now turns to the perfect- 
 ins: and continuance of this highest form. It climbed 
 through lower animals to man. But in man the highest 
 physical form is apparently reached. So now it works 
 only to perfect and continue humanity. It creates no 
 
IMMORTALITY. 249 
 
 «ol/ 
 
 new brain, but only lifts brain higher. It creates no 
 new moral life : it only lifts and continues and intensifies 
 the old moral life. It makes no new mind or spirit : it 
 only broadens and deepens mental power, and increases 
 the consciousness of the divine and eternal. The hiebA 
 est result of evolution, then, is to increase and strengthen 
 in man his consciousness of the divine and spiritual in 
 life, —the beauty, the truth, the right, the ideal, the 
 eternal. He comes thus into conscious possession of/ 
 things that must be a part of the everlasting life of God. 
 
 To many men, poetry is nothing. It has no real or 
 appreciated existence for them. They have developed 
 in themselves no poetic faculty to which it can appeal. 
 But to Milton or Dante it was the most real and intense 
 of all facts. And they, and such as they, prove that it 
 is a part of humanity. There are many for whom music 
 is no reality \ but Beethoven and Mozart ask for no 
 demonstration of its life and power. Their very life was 
 music. Praxiteles and Angelo, and Titian and Powers, 
 need no proof of the reality of art. To such men, the 
 universe is art. And you will notice that men become 
 conscious of poetry or music or art, only as they develop 
 and live in those faculties of their bein? that find ex- 
 pression in these. Why, then, is it not reasonable to 
 suppose that the great religious masters of the world so 
 developed the spiritual, the divine, the eternal, in them- 
 selves, as Hi become conscious or ihcsc hings, as lower 
 men are conscious of the material ? Emerson says, " I 
 admit tnai you shall find a good deal ot scepticism on 
 
250 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 this subject, in the streets and hotels, and places of coarse 
 amusement. But that is only to sav that the practical 
 faculties are developed taster than the spiritual. Where 
 there is depravity, there is a slaughter-house style of 
 thinking." That is, the man who lives in the spiritual 
 and eternal believes in the spiritual and eternal. 
 
 (5) The man who denies immortality must explain^ 
 why it is, if it is not true, that men possess the thought, 
 the hope, the dream. The most flitting fancy has its/ 
 cause as much as has a mountain. And it is the funda- 
 mental doctrine of modern science, that human faculties 
 are the result of outside forces that created them, and to 
 which they respond. For example, the existence of eyes 
 proves light and objects to be seen; for it is the play of 
 light and external objects of vision, on the human organ- 
 ism, that made the eyes. Sound created ears; and so 
 the very existence of ears proves the reality of sound. 
 The sense of justice, of beauty, of truth, can thus be 
 explained only by supposing some external realities that 
 made them, and which they thus represent. So the most 
 natural explanation of these hopes and longings after 
 immortality is, that they are created by, and that they 
 represent, some eternal reality from which they have 
 sprung. 
 
 (6) No creature can think beyond himself. The art— 
 of the world proves that art is a native element of hu- 
 manity. The poetry of the world proves that humanity 
 
 is capable of poetry. A thousand martyrs prove that 
 heroism is a part of humanity. That man, then, can^ 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 251 
 
 think of God and the infinite, proves that there is some- 
 thing of the divine and the infinite in man. If a horse/ 
 could sit down and meditate ; if he could study his own 
 structure, scan the universe, put noble thought into noble 
 verse, think and speculate about the nature and destiny 
 of horses, — it would be held to prove that he had capa- 
 cities that lifted him out of the plane of the equine, and 
 gave him brotherhood with the human. If man, then, 
 can think and study and speculate beyond his present 
 self, it indicates that there is in him the possibility of 
 overstepping his present limitations, and emerging upon 
 a higher plane of existence. 
 
 (7) Then there is the sense of justice, the imperish- 
 able belief that somewhere and somehow all things shall 
 come out right. We are perpetually pained here with/ 
 the sense of wrong. Like the Psalmist we cry out that 
 " all the foundations of the earth are out of course." 
 The wicked prosper; and good is persecuted. The prob- 
 lem of the Book of Job is the problem of all the world 
 and of all time. But Job did not answer it; and this 
 world never has answered it. What is the end of all the 
 sorrow and all the wrong? If there be no justice and 
 right at the heart of things, then whence came this hu- 
 man sense of just and right ? It must be the response 
 in us to some eternal reality. And, if just and right do 
 represent an eternal reality, then all must some time be 
 well; we must 
 
 " Trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill." 
 
252 THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 But we see it not here and now ; and so, out of this long- 
 ing, men have always built a better future. And to the 
 
 question, — 
 
 " What hope of answer or redress ? " 
 
 has always come the response, — 
 
 " Behind the veil, behind the veil." 
 
 What, then, is our thought? The belief in a future\ 
 life is a natural and an universal one. It may claim the 
 credit of being native and essential, unless it can be 
 disproved. It cannot be disproved. The most that 
 doubt can do is to say it does not know. It may stand, 
 then ; and no one may justly charge it with unreason. 
 Beyond this there are many indications that point toward 
 this belief as their most rational solution. This hypothey' 
 sis of a future is the one that most naturally accounts for 
 all known facts. Such being the case, we may as logi- 
 cally claim it as the astronomer claims a new planet, as 
 yet unseen, as the needed explanation of the perturba- 
 tions and movements that ask for some such cause. 
 
 The most important thing for us to consider practi- 
 cally is the work of personally co-operating with those 
 forces and tendencies in us that are fitted to lift us up 
 into vital relationship with the spiritual and the eternal. 
 Progress sloughs off, and leaves behind those things that 
 are not fit to endure. We can make no better prepara- 
 tion, then, for the future, than to develop in ourselves so 
 full and noble a life that God cannot afford to lose us. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Let us make ourselves a part of the permanent good of 
 things, a portion of the eternal order. Then, because 
 that lives, we may live also. 
 
 As illustrating how out of darkness comes grander 
 revelations than day could make, and as indicating how 
 the truth may be a better one than many doubts and 
 fears would sometimes indicate, I cannot close better 
 than by quoting Blanco White's sonnet on " Night and 
 Death:" — 
 
 " Mysterious night ! when our first parent knew 
 Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue ? 
 
 Yet 'neath the curtain of translucent dew, 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 Hesperus with the host of heaven came, 
 
 And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 Within thy beams, O sun ! or who could find, 
 
 While leaf and fly and insect lay revealed, 
 
 That to such countless orbs thou madest us blind 1 
 
 Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife ? 
 
 If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? " 
 
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