LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Marie B. Wol ford
 
 Beto. <8tovyt ft. (Sjnrtoon, 3D. D. 
 
 ULTIMATE CONCEPTIONS OF FAITH. Crown 
 8vo, gilt top, $1.30 net. Postage extra. 
 
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 top, $1.50. 
 
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 ULTIMATE CONCEPTIONS OF 
 FAITH
 
 ULTIMATE 
 
 CONCEPTIONS OF 
 
 FAITH 
 
 BY 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 ;<Ct)c ftitoerpifcr pretf?, 
 1903
 
 COPYRIGHT 1903 BY GEORGE A. GORDON 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published October igoj
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 TO THE STUDENTS 
 
 TO WHOM IT WAS MY PRIVILEGE TO SPEAK 
 AND TO THE YOUNGER MINISTRY 
 
 WHOM THEY REPRESENT 
 WHOSE VOCATION IT WILL BE 
 
 IN AN AGE OF TRANSITION 
 TO FORM THE MIND IN CHRISTIAN BELIEF 
 
 AND TO SHAPE THE LIFE 
 
 IN CHRISTIAN RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS book contains the lectures delivered in the 
 autumn of 1902 in Yale University on the 
 Lyman Beecher foundation. The first and third 
 chapters were not given as lectures, but they 
 are deemed essential to the course of thought ; 
 and of the remaining chapters only about two 
 thirds could be read within the reasonable limit 
 of time prescribed. While the book was origi- 
 nally written for publication, and substantially 
 as it stands, it owes its existence wholly to the 
 invitation with which its author was honored as 
 Lyman Beecher lecturer. Although nothing 
 could exceed the kindness with which the lec- 
 tures were received both by the students and 
 the faculty of the Divinity School, it should be 
 said that upon the writer alone rests the re- 
 sponsibility for the opinions expressed and main- 
 tained. 
 
 A great tradition of power has descended to 
 the Congregational ministry of New England, 
 and through it to the Christian ministry through- 
 out the country. In the opinion of the great
 
 Vlll PREFACE 
 
 representatives of this service, the preacher was 
 not a mere exhorter, or one whose duty was dis- 
 charged by reading his people a practical lesson 
 once or twice a week. He was the teacher of 
 the people, the former of their minds in Chris- 
 tian belief, the thinker who covered their exist- 
 ence with the power of a consistent thought 
 of the universe. The character both of the 
 preacher and of the people rose up out of the 
 high philosophy which they together held con- 
 cerning man and man's world. It is impossible 
 to measure the strength and the solace that 
 came to the heroic generations of New England 
 men and women from the ministry that con- 
 trolled the issues of the heart through the au- 
 thority of its teaching over the mind. The 
 freedom of living under occasional and vagrant 
 insights is dearly bought. The loss to life in 
 the death of a ruling system of ideas is inex- 
 pressible. When the controlling scheme dies 
 before its successor is born, all wise men must 
 mourn. Chance thoughts, vagrant insights, may 
 be all that can be obtained ; but this is our sor- 
 row, and not our boast. We look back upon 
 our fathers, and behold for them the sweet 
 heavens built into unity and dominion and 
 power, and under them the obedient, awestruck, 
 and yet hopeful world of men. We revere the
 
 PREFACE IX 
 
 faith that commanded the reason while it ex- 
 alted the soul. 
 
 The American pulpit has fallen, not upon evil 
 days, but upon other days. The teaching that 
 controlled our fathers has lost its authority. 
 The loss has been inevitable. That teaching 
 has gone into comparison with the whole higher 
 thought of the world. Phoenix-like it must rise 
 from its ashes; for in it are the "the truths 
 that wake to perish never." That old teaching 
 must rise out of the higher thought of the world 
 purified, enriched, matured, no longer an ideal- 
 ism under the shadow of despair, but an idealism 
 warranted by the best reason of the race, veri- 
 fied and anointed in the humanity of Christ and 
 in the heart of his disciples. For those who are 
 willing to tread this path, and to give themselves 
 wholly to their ministry, the vocation of the 
 preacher will become, more and more, the power 
 that forms the intellect in Christian belief, and 
 that shapes the life in Christian righteousness. 
 
 Another tradition of worth has descended to 
 the New England preacher. The representative 
 preachers in former times were accustomed to 
 publish their systems of reasoned belief, that 
 they might influence more widely the Christian 
 community, and that they might acquaint their 
 brethren in the ministry with their position in
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 the great world of faith. It is an easy, an alto- 
 gether too easy triumph over these thinkers to 
 quote against them Tennyson's famous lines : 
 
 " Oar little systems have their day ; 
 They have their day and cease to be." 
 
 It is unjust thus to serve them while we reserve 
 for others a different fate. There is but one 
 sentence for all things human, executed in one 
 case sooner, in another later. Let Tennyson 
 broaden the special judgment into the uni- 
 versal : 
 
 " We pass ; the path that each man trod 
 Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds : 
 What fame is left for human deeds 
 In endless age ? It rests with God." 
 
 The men to whom reference is made served their 
 generation; to do more than this is given to 
 few. This limited definable service is great, 
 and hi the character of a people it becomes an 
 enduring service. Thus viewed these New Eng- 
 land thinkers are seen to be of heroic size. 
 Those ponderous volumes of divinity, with the 
 shadow of death resting upon them, become pro- 
 foundly significant. In purpose and in scope 
 they are alive with human interest. Thus 
 preachers honored their calling in those pro- 
 phetic days ; thus they honored the brotherhood 
 of preachers ; thus they fought their brave bat-
 
 PREFACE 
 
 tie under the sense of a vanishing world. For 
 upon their world, as upon a scroll, the judgment 
 was written : 
 
 " The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 Leave not a rack behind." 
 
 In recognition of the spirit and of the high 
 custom of our predecessors the present volume 
 is issued. It contains, in outline, the working 
 theology of one who considers his calling the 
 greatest opportunity for service that God has 
 given to man. It is sent forth, not without a 
 deep sense of its unworthiness, in the hope that 
 it may do something to stimulate interest in the 
 vocation of the preacher as the teacher of re- 
 ligion, and of the ideas essential to the life of 
 the spirit ; that it may animate among those now 
 entering the ministry men of intellectual genius, 
 and help to draw from them a contribution 
 worthier than itself, toward the creation of the 
 greater theology of the future ; that it may aid 
 in promoting among the brotherhood of preach- 
 ers mutual understanding, and the sense of happy 
 fellowship in the service of the highest ideals. 
 GEORGE A. GORDON. 
 
 OLD SOUTH PARSONAGE, Boston, 
 April 15, 1903.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 PAG 
 
 I. The subject and its limitations 3 
 
 1. Definition of theology and of the theologian . . 8 
 
 2. The professional and non-professional theologian 4 
 
 3. The professional theologian a permanent neces- 
 
 sity 8 
 
 H. The preacher's opportunity as theologian .... 13 
 
 1. His closeness to religious experience 15 
 
 2. His stimulus to creative thought 18 
 
 3. His vocation a discipline in things essential . . 22 
 
 4. His perspective on the whole sound 24 
 
 III. The origins of theology 27 
 
 1. In the Hebrew prophets 27 
 
 2. In the teaching of Jesus 28 
 
 3. In the letters of Paul 29 
 
 4. In the leaders in the church 31 
 
 IV. Preaching as a test of ideas 35 
 
 1. The purification of doctrine 38 
 
 (1) Election 38 
 
 (2) Depravity 39 
 
 (3) Atonement 40 
 
 (I) Retribution 44 
 
 2. The verification of doctrine 44 
 
 V. The definition of the preacher 47 
 
 1. He applies noble ideas to life 47 
 
 2. He is not limited to application of ideas .... 48 
 
 3. Life and ideas equally his study 48 
 
 4. The preacher's opportunity as thinker .... 50
 
 xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 I. The distinction between religion and theology . . 52 
 
 1. Religion an original necessity, theology a derived 
 
 and limited necessity 53 
 
 2. Religion essential to man, theology essential to 
 
 the teacher of religion 54 
 
 3. Theology stands for intellect in the service of the 
 
 heart 57 
 
 II. The theological tradition of the church 60 
 
 1. The apologists 61 
 
 2. The Greek and the Latin theologians .... 64 
 
 3. The reformers and their successors 66 
 
 III. The theological tradition incompetent 74 
 
 1. As yet only the promise of a theology for to-day 75 
 
 2. The mastery of the new science 76 
 
 3. The discovery of the new Bible 78 
 
 4. The encounter with new philosophies .... 80 
 IV. A typical theological experience 82 
 
 V. New principles and their prophetic quality .... 91 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 THE CATEGORIES OF FAITH 
 
 I. The world as an aggregate of individuals in interre- 
 lations 100 
 
 1. Knowledge is of the significant aspects of things 
 
 and persons 102 
 
 2. The psychology of knowledge in the infant mind 103 
 
 3. The moral world and moral knowledge .... 107 
 II. The work of the intellect in the categories of know- 
 ledge 110 
 
 1. The early Greek philosophers Ill 
 
 2. Socrates and his vocation 112 
 
 3. The categories in the hands of Plato 113 
 
 4. Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel in this evolution of 
 
 mental forms 116 
 
 5. The progress and incompleteness in the process . 119
 
 CONTENTS XV 
 
 III. The work of the intellect in the categories of 
 
 faith 120 
 
 1. The categories of Augustine and traditional the- 
 
 ology 123 
 
 2. Their fundamental merit 124 
 
 3. Their defects 126 
 
 4. The revision of theology inevitable and inevitably 
 
 incomplete 130 
 
 IV. The scheme advanced here 131 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE: PERSONALITY 
 
 L The subject introduced 137 
 
 1. Hume on personality 139 
 
 2. A characteristic of Buddhism 139 
 
 3. Personality the abiding and unique reality of the 
 
 single human being 141 
 
 II. Witnesses to personality in the personal mind . . . 142 
 
 1. The combining or unifying function of mind . . 143 
 
 2. The fact of judgment and its meaning .... 150 
 
 3. The will as a witness to personality 151 
 
 III. Other witnesses to personality 154 
 
 1. Science as an organization of knowledge .... 155 
 
 2. The conception of a universe and its source . . 159 
 
 3. Art as a world of unity 159 
 
 4. The personal centres of historic influence . . . 160 
 
 5. Personality as the condition of human society . . 161 
 
 6. Personality and religion 162 
 
 7. Personality and immortality 166 
 
 IV. Personality as a capacity to be realized 169 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE: HUMANITY 
 
 I. The various moods in which man regards man . . 175 
 
 1. Carlyle, Emerson, and Phillips Brooks . . . .175 
 
 2. The old debate between realist and nominalist . 177 
 
 3. The judgment parable of Jesus 178
 
 xvi CONTENTS 
 
 4. The definition of humanity 180 
 
 II. The perils of humanity 185 
 
 1. The naturalistic view of existence 186 
 
 2. The survival of the fittest 190 
 
 3. The idea of conditional immortality 194 
 
 4. An inhuman view of the universe and an inhuman 
 
 spirit 197 
 
 III. The permanent guardians of humanity 199 
 
 1. Man's personality 199 
 
 2. The Christian idea of stewardship 201 
 
 3. The gospel of Jesus Christ as a doctrine and as a 
 
 spirit 206 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE : OPTIMISM 
 
 I. The various moods in which history may be viewed 211 
 
 1. That human affairs are going from bad to worse . 211 
 
 2. That human affairs are steadily improving . . 212 
 
 3. Hypothetical optimism 213 
 
 4. Optimism and character 213 
 
 5. The position of the writer 214 
 
 II. Optimism and pessimism and the preacher .... 218 
 
 1. Individual men not the sole aim in preaching . . 220 
 
 2. Families, communities, nations, races come into 
 
 view 221 
 
 3. The social faith of the Hebrew prophet .... 222 
 
 4. Jesus Christ and the social whole 222 
 
 HI. The difficulties in the way of optimism 225 
 
 1. The conception of a coming golden age may be a 
 
 delusion 225 
 
 2. If real, it will be for those who do not deserve it 226 
 
 3. Pain resulting from maladjustment of organism 
 
 to environment 228 
 
 4. The limit upon genius as a bequest* 229 
 
 6. The fact of death 229 
 
 6. The moral failures of history 230 
 
 a. Those through deplorable inheritance and en- 
 vironment 230
 
 CONTENTS xvii 
 
 b. Those through perversity 231 
 
 7. The personal equation 232 
 
 IV. The foundations of optimism in fact 237 
 
 1. The great fact of general human progress . . . 237 
 
 2. Organism and environment coming into harmony 238 
 
 3. Science aiding the work of natural selection . . 239 
 
 4. Improvement in the condition of labor .... 240 
 
 5. Education for freedom 241 
 
 6. Work and character and happiness, 242 
 
 V- The foundations of optimism in faith 243 
 
 1. God's world-plan for the education of mankind . 243 
 
 2. The strong man and the worthy cause .... 244 
 
 3. The weak and the worthy cause 245 
 
 4. The perverse man and the process of experience . 246 
 
 5. Historic optimism and the eternal world . . . 248 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE: JESUS CHRIST 
 
 I. The just attitude toward Jesus 257 
 
 1. The critical spirit 259 
 
 2. The spirit of discipleship 261 
 
 II. The worth of Jesus for life 264 
 
 1. The testimony of individual experience .... 264 
 
 2. The testimony of historic experience 265 
 
 3. The testimony of religious genius ...... 266 
 
 4. The verdict of life a verdict for Jesus . . . . 267 
 
 III. The judgment of Jesus about himself 271 
 
 1. The practicalness of his religion 273 
 
 2. The beauty of his teaching 276 
 
 3. The finality of his thought and spirit .... 279 
 
 IV. What is meant by the consciousness of Christ ? . . 281 
 
 1. The disciple's consciousness of his master . . . 281 
 
 2. The mind of Christ as the law of the spiritual 
 
 man 282 
 
 3. The ways in which this mind is reached .... 286 
 V. The person of Jesus Christ 290 
 
 1. The doctrine of God the logical precedent . . . 291 
 
 2. The perfect manhood of Jesus 292
 
 xviii CONTENTS 
 
 3. The unique union between the Eternal Son and 
 
 Jesus 293 
 
 4. The positions of Origen upon this subject . . . 293 
 6. Jesus the sovereign assurance of God .... 295 
 
 CHAPTER VIH 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE: THE MORAL UNIVERSE 
 
 I. Fundamental and secondary questions 297 
 
 1. Science and the reality of its object 298 
 
 2. Anthropology and personality 299 
 
 3. Eschatology and immortality 300 
 
 4. The higher criticism and a self -revealing God . . 308 
 II. The reality of the moral world 311 
 
 1. Human society is such a world 311 
 
 2. Man discriminates between his world and nature . 311 
 
 3. And between his world and the animal world . . 312 
 
 4. And between the actual and the ideal in himself . 314 
 
 5. Law as an expression of man's moral world . . 315 
 
 6. Moral criticism and its significance 316 
 
 7. The moral criticism of the universe 317 
 
 III. The moral universe and its witnesses 319 
 
 1. Organism and environment 319 
 
 2. The three forms of the faith in the moral universe 322 
 
 a. The cosmos favors the moral cause .... 323 
 
 b. The moral conflict of man a universal conflict . 324 
 
 c. The intercommunion of the human and the di- 
 
 vine 327 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE : GOD. 
 
 L The meaning of the idea of God 332 
 
 1. For the reason 333 
 
 2. For the artistic sense 334 
 
 3. For the conscience ., 334 
 
 4. God the full account of humanity 335 
 
 II. The existence of God 338 
 
 1. Revelation and discovery 338
 
 CONTENTS xix 
 
 2. The idea of God man's supreme achievement and 
 
 comfort 340 
 
 3. Theistic education and theistic thought .... 341 
 
 4. Beginnings of theistic proof and how they event- 
 
 uate 346 
 
 III. The mode of God's existence 356 
 
 1. The unitary conception of God 366 
 
 2. The social conception of God 370 
 
 3. Man the measure of all things 375 
 
 4. The significance of the Trinity 382
 
 ULTIMATE CONCEPTIONS OF 
 FAITH
 
 ULTIMATE CONCEPTIONS OF 
 FAITH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 I 
 
 THE Greek equivalents of our English words 
 theology and theologian are important as bring- 
 ing one face to face with a fundamental and uni- 
 versal human interest. For the Greeks the theo- 
 logian is a speaker about God or divine things, 
 and in their language he is styled OtoXoyos. His 
 vocation is indicated by a verb, a noun, and an 
 adjective transformed into a substantive, 0eoAoyc'a>, 
 to speak about God ; 0eoAoyia, the act of speaking 
 about God, the calling or vocation of the person 
 who thus speaks ; Oeo\oyiKrj, speaking about God 
 in the order of reason. Theology is thus, pri- 
 marily, speech about the Supreme Being fired 
 with insight, informed with knowledge, and 
 guided by method ; the theologian is one who 
 discourses upon the sovereign meanings of exist- 
 ence. The discourse is that of a trained intel-
 
 4 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 ligence ; the speech is presumed to be coherent 
 speech. It is, of course, inevitable that where 
 this speech is thought to be of value it should 
 be recorded, and thus become literature. It 
 must be added that while this exposition pro- 
 vides for the theologian, it does not provide for 
 the Christian theologian. He is one who thinks 
 and speaks about God and divine things in the 
 light of the teaching and achievement of Jesus 
 Christ. He is one who studies the Ancient of 
 Days under new conditions, who reads the sov- 
 ereign meanings of existence in new light, and 
 whose speech is supposed to be ordered, wise, 
 reasonable speech. 
 
 Theologians are of two kinds, the professional 
 and the non-professional. Theology is the ex- 
 clusive calling of the professional theologian. 
 He pursues his object with an outfit of learning, 
 and with a precision of method peculiarly his own, 
 and in a technical manner suited to his purpose. 
 The vocation of the non-professional theologian 
 is preaching ; for him theology is not an interest 
 standing alone or supreme. It is indispensable 
 to him as a teacher and inspirer of 'religion; and 
 he is a theologian because of the sovereignty of 
 the religious interest A parallel might be found 
 in the bad fashion now prevailing of expounding 
 the science of logic by mathematical formulae ; 
 in order to be a logician it is necessary to become
 
 RELIGION ISSUES IN THEOLOGY 5 
 
 a mathematician. The business man may be a 
 political economist, the physician a biologist, the 
 lawyer a contributor to the science of juris- 
 prudence. Again, all the natural sciences as- 
 sume the reality of the external world ; therefore 
 the scientist, because of his interest in physics or 
 chemistry, may raise the ultimate question, What 
 is the nature of the external world ? He thus 
 finds that his science leads inevitably to meta- 
 physics. The history of science bears out the 
 truth of this remark. Tyndall, Huxley, Haeckel, 
 Wallace, and even Darwin, the purest of scien- 
 tists, became involved in ultimate questions. 
 They are transformed by the strength of their 
 primary interest into non-professional metaphy- 
 sicians. Herbert Spencer is an extreme instance ; 
 he is first scientist and then philosopher. He 
 will serve to show how an intermediate vocation 
 leads on to an ultimate, how inevitably any call- 
 ing whose interests concern the character of the 
 universe forces its radical and serious servant 
 back upon fundamental issues. The man whose 
 vocation is preaching is forced back by this very 
 interest upon theology. Indeed, in the original 
 and august meaning of the word, the preacher 
 finds that theology is inseparable from his call- 
 ing, that it is the essence and soul of it. Speech 
 to God is the prayer which he offers for his peo- 
 ple and for himself, and speech concerning God
 
 6 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 and divine things is the burden of his message. 
 He may not claim to stand among professionals ; 
 he falls below his privilege when he does not 
 assert his right and vindicate it to stand among 
 theologians. 
 
 In the vigorous and confident presentation of 
 a single line of thought, it is nearly inevitable 
 that one shall seem to make extravagant claims, 
 and perhaps appear to fail in justice toward other 
 ideas. It is Very difficult to discuss the theory 
 of state rights without appearing to nullify the 
 power of the federal government. It is equally 
 difficult to present the conception of federal sov- 
 ereignty without seeming to obliterate the auto- 
 nomy of the individual state. The same may be 
 said of egoism and altruism in ethics, of indi- 
 vidualism and socialism in the industrial order, 
 of particularism and universalism in philoso- 
 phy, of free-will and predestination in theology. 
 These are examples of the acute form of the 
 apparent injustice to one truth which is apt to 
 result from the energetic presentation of another 
 and complementary truth. All that a writer can 
 do, where his purpose limits him to a particular 
 aspect of a complex subject, is to make a general 
 disclaimer, and then to trust to the good sense 
 and honor of his reader. In writing of the 
 preacher as a theologian, I shall try to be fair 
 to the professional theologian. His vocation
 
 THE PROFESSIONAL THEOLOGIAN . 7 
 
 seems to me to be absolutely indispensable. The 
 work that he is set to do is of fundamental mo- 
 ment, and no one can do it who is without the 
 learning or the leisure of the professional student 
 and thinker. There are two sides to the shield, 
 and it can do no harm to look at both. In an 
 essay on the vocation of the preacher in its bear- 
 ings upon theology, we should not expect to find 
 praise of another vocation. Some things may be 
 said in favor of the non-professional theologian, 
 and " with charity toward all, and with malice 
 toward none," I purpose to say them. 
 
 The professional theologian has played an 
 immense part during the last fifty years. The 
 old custom according to which the minister was 
 the chief educator of young men for the preach- 
 er's calling has wholly disappeared. The train- 
 ing of those who aim at becoming preachers has 
 passed entirely into the hands of the professional 
 scholar. The professional theologian is a scholar 
 and a teacher ; he is in constant and ever wider 
 contact with books, and he is in fellowship with 
 elect youth. He has a further advantage. He 
 goes over the same ground with a new class 
 every year. He has the inestimable benefit of 
 class suggestion, questioning, and criticism. He 
 becomes a master in his subject ; every great 
 light upon it, historic and contemporary, is at 
 his command. Thus the results of his study
 
 8 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 ripen into a body of mature teaching, and he is 
 in a position to issue books that may be justly 
 regarded as the books - of an authority in his 
 subject. The equipment of the scholar and the 
 vocation of the teacher have given an immense 
 opportunity to the professional theologian. 
 
 When we consider the product of the profes- 
 sional theologian in literary achievement or in 
 influence, his position is equally commanding. 
 To the professional scholar we are indebted for 
 the corrected texts of the Old Testament and of 
 the New. To him we are under obligation for 
 the new view of these Scriptures that has taken 
 possession of the educated world ; to him we go 
 for scientific exegesis, historical learning, and 
 results ; and not infrequently he is the author- 
 ity for the just sense of the relation of Chris- 
 tianity and its historic forms to the culture of 4 
 mankind. In our own country the professional 
 theologian is an increasing necessity and an in- 
 creasing influence. He alone has the adequate 
 learning and leisure to enter and occupy the 
 new fields of interest ; he alone can undertake 
 thorough and fruitful research ; he and his 
 guild have become so essential that it would 
 seem as if they possessed the right of eminent 
 domain over the whole expanse of theology. In 
 view of the achievements and influence of the 
 last fifty years must we not confine the term
 
 THE TEACHER AND THE PREACHER 9 
 
 theologian to the eminent members in a society 
 of scholars devoted to the study of religion ? In 
 view of the work that remains to be done is it 
 not presumption in a preacher to think of his 
 vocation as consistent with that of the theolo- 
 gian ? Since theology has formed itself into a 
 trust in the hands of professionals, and since the 
 people are becoming more and more alive to the 
 immense public benefits of this trust, is there 
 any room left for the non-professional theologian, 
 or any reasonable hope of influence ? 
 
 Another question arises, Are the functions of 
 the teacher and the preacher incompatible ? Are 
 those calls sometimes extended to ministers, in 
 which they are invited to become the pastor and 
 " teacher " of the church, framed upon an obso- 
 lete pattern ? Is he the ideal preacher to whom 
 the words of the Fifth Spirit in " Manfred " can 
 be applied 
 
 " I am the Rider of the wind, 
 The Stirrer of the storm ; 
 The hurricane I left behind 
 Is yet with lightning warm " ? 
 
 Is inspiration the only function of preaching? 
 Is it no longer possible to trust to the power of 
 ideas ? Has the standard of intelligence fallen in 
 the church while it has risen everywhere else in 
 the community ? Has the prophet himself sunk 
 to the position of those who wait on tables ? Is
 
 10 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 the cry obsolete, " Ye shall know the truth, and 
 the truth shall make you free " ? Is a great 
 character a product possible without the media- 
 tion of an enlightened mind ? Is belief about the 
 universe of no account ? Have believers ceased 
 to care for coherent belief ? Is there no hope for 
 the churchgoer of gaining, through the some- 
 what grievous discipline, a wider vision, a nobler 
 order of ideas, a more reasonable scheme of 
 faith? 
 
 The ideas of faith and the order of ideas that 
 we name theology belong to man as man. For 
 certain purposes the technical treatment of these 
 ideas is necessary; for certain ends a rigorous 
 scientific procedure in theology is indispensable. 
 Still this is only one form of theology. The 
 same ideas may be treated with equal depth in 
 another way. The method of Butler in the 
 " Analogy " in dealing with the question of the 
 future life is severer far than the method of 
 Plato in the " Phaedo." Is it on that account 
 profounder, or more comprehensive, or more 
 adequate? It is a conviction of mine that the 
 profoundest of the essentially vital ideas of the 
 race may be presented in forms level to the aver- 
 age earnest understanding. Kant's great ques- 
 tion, " What makes experience possible ? " as 
 answered by him would be a hopeless puzzle to 
 even the enlightened reader unaided by a good
 
 THEOLOGY A HUMAN INTEREST 11 
 
 teacher. But it is possible for that teacher to 
 answer Kant's fundamental question in a man- 
 ner level to the understanding of an earnest and 
 open-minded farmer. Kant's question concerns 
 the intelligence of man ; his answer concerns 
 man. And in the universal human interest of 
 the question and the answer lies the possibility 
 of a version of them not only for professional 
 thinkers, but also for earnest and inquiring minds 
 of every class. Theology is the work of the few. 
 To do this work well, to supply versions of faith 
 of a high technical order, will require the equip- 
 ment and learning of the professional scholar 
 and thinker. Theology is the work of the few 
 for the many. It must appear in versions for 
 the many. It is a national interest, it is a hu- 
 man interest ; and in giving form to this inter- 
 est the preacher may rise to the position of the 
 theologian. 
 
 The requisite knowledge seems to many be- 
 yond the preacher. Art is long and time is fleet- 
 ing. Even the scholar confesses his inability to 
 reach a synthesis of belief. We live in depart- 
 ments, and the vision of the whole is a thing of 
 yesterday. Let it become the hope of to-morrow. 
 The width of the theologic field should not be 
 a permanent discouragement. We have come 
 upon a strange epoch, and we must not govern 
 the world of man by its law. Long views are
 
 12 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 essential if we would deal justly with great ques- 
 tions. Times of revolution in the thoughts of 
 mankind are infrequent, and it would be unwise, 
 when they do come, to find in them the law and 
 limitation of intellectual work. The permanent 
 results of learning and discovery are indefinitely 
 compressible. A generation ' hence evolution 
 with its new natural history of animal life and 
 of man ; the modern view of the Bible ; the 
 greater development of the teaching of Jesus ; 
 the spirit of justice and humanity, in the light 
 of which we are trying to find the meaning of 
 existence and the character of the universe, will 
 be mastered as swiftly and as easily as the chil- 
 dren now master the theory of the solar system 
 inherited from Copernicus and his time. Fifty 
 years ago there was not in Great Britain or in 
 America a single scholar who comprehended the 
 purpose of Immanuel Kant in his " Critique of 
 Pure Reason." To-day thousands of educated 
 youth, whose tastes incline that way, leave col- 
 lege for the differing vocations of life with a 
 clear sense of Kant's purpose, and of the move- 
 ment of German philosophy in the nineteenth 
 century. The consensus of thinkers and scholars 
 simplifies knowledge, and this consensus is bound, 
 under scientific method, to cover ever wider 
 fields of intellectual interest. The frontiers of 
 learning have, in our time, called for the reclaim-
 
 SCIENCE SIMPLIFIES KNOWLEDGE 18 
 
 ing of the whole territory, but it cannot be so 
 always. The frontiers must always remain a 
 place of some confusion, but the normal thing 
 is a vast and peaceful procession behind them. 
 The human outlook has been for nearly a cen- 
 tury heterogeneous and bewildering, and we are 
 apt to conclude that we have entered upon a mil- 
 lennium of surprises, shocks, revolutions, and 
 contradictions of historic opinion. These epochs 
 have come ; they will doubtless come again : 
 but they come infrequently, and the interval is 
 blessed with the vision of returning homogene'ity 
 and order. Axioms are the uncontradicted 
 wisdom of mankind ; under rigorous scientific 
 method axioms are bound to multiply, and ax- 
 ioms are easily learned. We predict, therefore, 
 an easier mastery of the intellectual world for 
 the coming student and thinker, and a new 
 chance for the non-professional theologian. 
 
 II 
 
 The generative nature of experience one 
 of the great insights of Aristotle 1 has an 
 important bearing here. Every science is a 
 thought-structure growing out of the appreci- 
 ation of fact. The ascertainment of the facts 
 and the discovery of their value are the marks 
 of true science. The initial necessity of every 
 
 1 Prior Analytics, Book I. chap. xxx. 10-28.
 
 14 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 science is the appropriate substance or matter of 
 fact. Many there are who can conduct the con- 
 ventional argument from the conventional pre- 
 mises ; the hope of progress lies chiefly in the 
 discovery of new premises. Theology has been, 
 in certain periods not very remote, a matter of 
 text-building, as of hewn stones from the quar- 
 ries of the Old and the New Testaments. The 
 theologia sacra is gone. A Bible infallible in 
 all its parts, the perfect truth in every word, 
 made theology an easy science in the light of 
 traditional thinking. Historical study, and the 
 acquisition of the historical sense, and the power 
 to rest all thought on the strength and validity 
 of its insight, have discredited theologia sacra. 1 
 This easy method is no longer respectable. 
 Words, sentences, histories, letters, literatures, 
 are symbols. They must be dissolved into the 
 life of the spirit before a beginning can be made 
 in the rational appreciation of them. A scientist 
 without eyes and ears and hands, a scientist with- 
 out senses, incapable of life through the senses, 
 or wholly careless of life through the senses would 
 be a novelty in his class. The scientist with the 
 greatest initial advantage is he whose life through 
 the senses is the widest and richest. Theology 
 is an intellectual world either well or ill founded. 
 The test is in the relation of this building of man 
 1 Harnack, Protestantism, p. 24.
 
 THEOLOGY AND LIFE 15 
 
 to the spiritual experience of man. Fantastic 
 theologies curiously and elaborately wrought exist 
 in vast dead volumes. There is in these volumes 
 an abundance of vigor and acuteness ; their dead- 
 ness is in their unresponsiveness to the spirit 
 in man. They have eyes that glare, but with no 
 speculation in them. The theologian with the 
 greatest initial advantage is he whose share in 
 the sane spiritual life of mankind is deepest, in 
 whom the significant religious moods find the 
 noblest expression, and who is a constant and 
 sympathetic student of contemporary religious 
 experience. Valid theology is the just and in- 
 evitable expression in the forms of the intellect 
 of the life of the spirit. It presupposes life ; it 
 is an expression in terms of reason of that life ; 
 the expression is called for by the implicit en- 
 ergy of the religious spirit, and in the call there 
 is a note of rigor, a pressure as of moral neces- 
 sity, which some day will be the great distin- 
 guishing mark of the resulting theology. 
 
 Here, then, is the commanding advantage of 
 the preacher. If he is fit for his vocation he is 
 in the spiritual life of the world. The genera- 
 tive power of experience is in constant operation 
 under his eyes. He may be unequal to his privi- 
 lege ; the privilege is nevertheless his. Many a 
 scholar has written about the Bible during the 
 last fifty years with no living faith in religion,
 
 16 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 and with no sympathy with the spiritual experi- 
 ence of which the book is the monumental sym- 
 bol. In such cases the critic, literary and his- 
 torical, is dealing with the coat of many colors, 
 emptied of its human treasure, trying to conjec- 
 ture from the circumstances in which the coat 
 was found, and the condition of it, the fate of 
 the beloved youth who wore it. To a critic of 
 this character the Bible is at best but the sacred 
 and sad surviving garment of a vanished race, 
 of a perished religion. Much good guessing has 
 been done by higher critics of this temper, and 
 much clearing up of points of history. But for 
 the thinker in this mood there are no premises 
 for a theology. Even where the temper is be- 
 lieving and the spirit sympathetic the scholar 
 who is in isolation from contemporary religious 
 experience is at a disadvantage. Science is not 
 to-day studied in books ; it is conducted by ex- 
 periment. The laboratory is the essential con- 
 dition of modern science. The eyes must rest 
 on the process of things ; thought must wait 
 upon reality. The world of learning is a world 
 in books and in the minds of scholars and 
 teachers. It is a world of infinite value; and 
 yet it is incomplete. The scholar needs a share 
 in contemporary religion and in contemporary 
 religious activity. He needs access to the souls 
 of men as they religiously bear in our time the
 
 THE PREACHER'S PRIVILEGE 17 
 
 burden and heat of the day. He must look 
 upon the contemporaneous religious life, he must 
 observe the vast present-day operation of the 
 human conscience, and catch, if he can, the song 
 of the spirit immanent in the immediate process 
 of the soul : 
 
 " At the whirring loom of time nnawed, 
 I weave the living mantle of God." 
 
 Here is the generative source of theology ; here 
 are the materials for a building of God, the 
 premises for a valid construction for faith. 
 
 Sightless eyes will discover no stars even 
 when the heavens are bright with their light. 
 This does not mean that the wilderness is the 
 place to find flowers. Opportunity is of inex- 
 pressible moment. The great procession is for- 
 ever passing under the preacher's eyes, birth 
 and its sacrament of love, youth and its world 
 of burning ideals, home with its burden and 
 privilege, its history of unutterable depth and 
 sanctity, its experience whose precious meanings 
 no words can hold, its hopes like light piercing 
 black clouds, its entire existence a texture woven 
 of sunbeams and of darkness ; man in the sum 
 of his human relations, man in his attitude to- 
 ward the Infinite, man at work and at rest, in 
 sickness and in health, in shame and under the 
 shadow of the cross, a doubter and a believer, 
 defiant and in entire reconciliation to the will
 
 18 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 of the Most High. The preacher is a dweller 
 on the shores of the eternal deep. Its tides ebb 
 and flow under his vision ; its murmur and 
 thunder are the minor and major of an anthem 
 to which he is always an eager listener. If the 
 preacher is without an understanding heart all 
 this will avail nothing; but given the insight, 
 here is an unequaled opportunity for discourse 
 about God and divine things, in the grand uni- 
 son of reason and passion. The preacher should 
 be beyond all others prism-eyed, and what is to 
 ordinary vision but common day should be to 
 him full of auroral fires and sunset hues. 
 
 The vocation of the preacher is a stimulus to 
 creative activity. It is this in two ways. It 
 prohibits the scholar's ideal from taking exclu- 
 sive possession of the preacher, and it calls for 
 the fresh and, if possible, original treatment of 
 the needs of the soul and of God's historic 
 answer to them. It takes courage to say that 
 learning may sometimes be a hindrance. It was 
 said of Paul that much learning had made him 
 mad ; it is further said that of this kind of mad- 
 ness his accuser was a poor judge. There is no 
 immediate dauger of an epidemic of this malady 
 among modern preachers. Probably the last 
 charge to be brought to the preacher's door will 
 be that of too much learning. If we should 
 thank God for our ignorance the famous retort
 
 LIMITATIONS OF LEARNING 19 
 
 of the Methodist would be in order : " Brethren, 
 you have a great deal to be thankful for." This 
 is, however, not the whole case. John Stuart 
 Mill, hi accounting for the philosophic failures 
 of Sir William Hamilton, lays great stress upon 
 the fact that Hamilton gave so much of his in- 
 tellectual strength to mere acquisition. There 
 remained for the independent treatment of the 
 problems of philosophy only a fraction of Ham- 
 ilton's time and strength. The ideal of the 
 scholar crowded into a corner the ideal of the 
 thinker. And here the remark may be perti- 
 nent that hi the history of philosophy only two 
 minds of the first order have been scholars in 
 the strict sense of the word. These two are 
 Aristotle and Hegel. Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, 
 Locke, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant were 
 educated men, with free access to the previous 
 intellectual treasure of the world ; but not one 
 of them was a high technical scholar, not one 
 of them was, properly speaking, a learned man. 
 The distinction of these men was not learning ; 
 it was constructive genius. They were men of 
 original insight, makers and builders in the world 
 of thought. The same remark is of nearly equal 
 application to the makers of theology. Origen 
 and Calvin are exceptions ; they were great 
 thinkers and great scholars. With these ex- 
 ceptions, the governing thinkers in theology were
 
 20 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 not scholars ; as we shall see later, they were 
 preachers. The conclusion that the ideal of the 
 scholar is in all but the rarest instances inim- 
 ical to the ideal of the thinker is, therefore, not 
 so audacious as at first sight it might seem. 
 General mastery of the world's wisdom, and 
 valid insight into the meaning of one's genera- 
 tion and its movements of thought and life, do 
 not make one a scholar ; they are possible for 
 the preacher, and they leave him free, while 
 they enrich and direct his powers, for original 
 work. 
 
 The call for the first-hand treatment of man's 
 higher needs, and of God's historic response to 
 them, is of great moment. The pure in heart 
 shall see God. There is no beatitude more 
 needed than this for the preacher ; and to reach 
 it no other man has an equal opportunity. The 
 work of making sermons in the intelligent and 
 reverent service of life has this for its issue, 
 sometimes its far-off issue, always its delayed, and 
 yet for the competent its sure issue, the steadier 
 vision of divine things. The intellectual life of 
 a competent and worthy minister puts on a form 
 of its own. He looks at the moral order of life, 
 at the operation of human nature under the 
 light and by the power of the gospel, not 
 through the learning of the scholar, not through 
 the crowding opinions and theories of other men,
 
 IMMEDIATE VISION 21 
 
 but with his own intelligence. However well 
 informed he may be, however industrious he 
 may be to share more widely and deeply in the 
 best wisdom of the race, his perception of his 
 subject is immediate. His intellectual world 
 may be far less elaborate than that of others, 
 still it is whole and his vision of it is immediate 
 and abiding. Here is an advantage with many 
 disadvantages ; yet it is an advantage. When 
 we have said, and said truly, of a writer that he 
 is less systematic, less learned, less mature in his 
 thinking, less closely reasoned in his opinions 
 than we could wish, than we can find in another, 
 we cancel all these defects when we add that 
 in his utterance we discover original vision of 
 divine things. The seer, the witness of God 
 and his doings, is of superlative value for theo- 
 logy ; and into this mood of beholding, the com- 
 petent preacher is pressed by the whole strength 
 of his vocation. Among the worst preachers 
 that have ever cursed the churches have been 
 those who learned a system of theology in the 
 seminary, and then went forth to preach it, 
 knowing little or nothing of the vast moods of 
 insight and love that gave to the theology in 
 question whatever note of reality it may have 
 possessed. The wreck of the traditional system 
 of theology has issued in this infinite boon : it 
 has forced the preacher into the supreme privi-
 
 22 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 lege of his vocation, the immediate and abiding 
 vision of the divine world in man and in man's 
 history. 
 
 The preacher's vocation is a discipline in 
 things essential and enduring. The permanent 
 is the only stuff of which to construct a theology. 
 The world of learning, like the world of fashion, 
 has its fads. The human . heart is an abiding 
 reality, and the God who answers its needs is 
 the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. It is 
 true that things eternal come through things 
 temporal, that ideas and facts go together, that 
 the actual is precious because it carries in its 
 heart ideal meanings, that history is the great 
 field for the study of man and the knowledge of 
 God. It is likewise true that there are things 
 essential and things accidental. The essential 
 holds in itself the meaning of the world of pass- 
 ing detail, as the abiding tree holds the secret 
 of its leaves. Facts are representative. For 
 the purposes of Sir Isaac Newton one falling 
 apple is as good as a million. Seize the queen 
 bee and you control the swarm. After the re- 
 presentative fact has spoken, the rest have no- 
 thing new to add. They can but confirm. 
 There were twelve apostles, twelve chosen wit- 
 nesses of the career and spirit of Jesus Christ ; 
 and when the testimony became record the origi- 
 nal number was reduced to three. The writings
 
 THE VOCATION OF THE SCHOLAR 23 
 
 of Peter and John and Paul represent apostolic 
 Christianity ; the silent apostles are providen- 
 tially silent. Their case had been put in the 
 best way before the world ; they did not care to 
 multiply words and add no new content to apos- 
 tolic faith. Research is the vocation of the 
 scholar, and no sensible man will cherish for it 
 any sentiment other than honor. The scholar 
 is often, as in the study of antiquity, the restorer 
 of lost worlds, the recoverer of a vanished hu- 
 manity. There are few things more affecting 
 than the eagerness with which the literary and 
 monumental remains of antiquity are sought for, 
 the pious care with which they are collected, and 
 the patient humanity by which through these 
 symbols glimpses are obtained into the life of 
 extinct civilizations. There can be no doubt 
 that the gains are worth the pains. The single 
 gain in an extended and chastened sense of hu- 
 manity is more than recompense for all the toil. 
 And yet it must be added that there is large 
 waste of power and time in research. Think of 
 the vast dust heaps of opinion that the scholar 
 must sift for the sake of the grain of gold that 
 may be in them. So much of the greatest learn- 
 ing is of baseless opinion. The vocation of the 
 scholar is necessarily so much of a criminal pro- 
 cedure against the doings of knaves and fools. 
 He must spend so much strength as intellectual
 
 24 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 sheriff in running down and in executing imme- 
 morial errors. And while the scholar is thus 
 engaged, for him the quarries are unworked, and 
 the building of the house of the Lord has ceased. 
 If the preacher is without the intellectual spoils 
 of these incursions against the barbarians, he is 
 secure against the diversion of power. " I have 
 set the Lord always before me ; because he is at 
 my right hand I shall not be moved." This es- 
 sential and devouring interest is the life of the 
 preacher. For high and serious discourse about 
 God and his world there is surely an advantage 
 here. 
 
 The perspective of the preacher is on the whole 
 the sounder. This is often denied, but I think 
 without good reasons. That great teacher of the- 
 ology and strangely interesting man, Edwards 
 A. Park, is reported to have said to his students 
 that in his system, which he naturally regarded, 
 and not without weighty reasons, as the perfected 
 Calvinistic system, there were many doctrines 
 that could not be preached. I suppose that he 
 had in mind the doctrines of predestination, elec- 
 tion, inherited depravity, moral inability, and 
 those akin to them. Whether Professor Park 
 did or did not make the remark attributed to 
 him, it is still true of every variety of the Cal- 
 vinistic scheme. Universal determinism to all 
 good might conceivably enough be preached ;
 
 PERSPECTIVE IN THEOLOGY 25 
 
 for preaching might be one of the ways of bring- 
 ing to pass this universal decree. But partial 
 determinism is of no conceivable use, unless the 
 Infinite himself does the preaching. For only he 
 can know whom he has predestinated to eternal 
 life. And while it is confessed that some are 
 not predestinated to eternal life, this confession 
 must fall like a paralysis upon the moral en- 
 deavor of mankind. Zeno, Calvin, Spinoza, and 
 all other thinkers who find in what is what must 
 be, and who make the necessity that now works 
 for the elevation of men and again for their de- 
 basement the original and controlling principle 
 of their scheme of the universe, are far away from 
 the revelation of God in the life of the race. 
 Again let it be said that the trouble is not with 
 the presence of a sovereign moral necessity. That 
 might be an infinite inspiration to the human 
 soul. The difficulty is with a double, or a partial, 
 or a contradictory necessity. And the court 
 of final appeal is not the needs of a system of 
 thought, but the profounder needs of human ex- 
 istence. To say of certain doctrines that they 
 cannot be preached is from my point of view a 
 complete confession of their worthlessness. The 
 saying attributed to Professor Park reveals the 
 perspective of the professional theologian, the 
 man of system, the thinker away from the deter- 
 mining influence of life. A genuine preacher
 
 26 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 would hardly have made this mistake ; with him 
 the primacy of life is an established fact. What- 
 ever in the intellect is without meaning for man 
 as he struggles up into the complete realization 
 of his humanity is not even the shadow of truth. 
 It must be for the servant of life a baseless 
 fiction. The real is everywhere the minister to 
 life ; anything without which man can attain full 
 manhood falls outside the circle of essential truth. 
 A look into professional theology may be no more 
 disheartening than a glance into the pastoral ver- 
 sion of the same thing. Yet against the profes- 
 sional must be set the sin of jumbling together 
 fundamental aspects of the universe and super- 
 ficial, the essentials of faith and the accidents of 
 human culture. For the genuine preacher life 
 is an immense purifier of faith. In the service 
 of the spirit the years bring the philosophic mind. 
 The non-essential is shed like the morning dew 
 from the wings of the bird. The creed is en- 
 larged by reduction ; the energy of belief, like 
 Gideon's host, is increased by being cut down. 
 The really great things stand out clear and high, 
 and the mind elects to study them and to allow 
 the rest to go. True perspective takes the place 
 of conventional ; where MacGregor sits, there is 
 the head of the table. The priest at the altar 
 of life is under many limitations, yet is his call- 
 ing an emancipation from superficial interests
 
 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY 27 
 
 and side issues. Other things being equal, he 
 is more likely than other men to carry into the 
 work of the thinker a sure sense of the just gra- 
 dation of values in life and in faith. 
 
 in 
 
 It should be borne in mind that if there is any 
 theology in the Old Testament it is the theology 
 of preachers. Moral theism is the creation of 
 the Hebrew prophets. And the immense con- 
 tribution to a true conception of God made by 
 Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the prophet 
 of the exile is a contribution from non-profes- 
 sional theologians. If the more we search the 
 message of these men of transcendent spiritual 
 genius the more we discover its incompleteness, 
 at the same time it must be added that their 
 originality is beyond doubt, and the imperish- 
 able residuum of their thought is as great as 
 it is precious. Nor must it be forgotten that 
 the supreme mind in theology is the mind of a 
 preacher. Jesus Christ was a preacher. His 
 discourse was ever about God ; all human inter- 
 ests were lifted in his treatment of them into the 
 presence of God. In a manner that for origi- 
 nality, simplicity, depth, and beauty is unap- 
 proachable he spoke the amazing content of his 
 mind upon the meanings of human existence 
 read in the light of the Infinite love. The syin-
 
 28 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 1 >:it hies of Jesus are so divine, the tenderness and 
 majesty of his character are so absorbing, that 
 men neglect the mind that shines in the frag- 
 ments of his teaching that remain. Whose lec- 
 tures or sermons could bear the condensation to 
 which the teaching of Jesus is subjected ? What 
 historic thinker would live as a thinker were only 
 about fifty pages allowed for the expression of 
 his thought, were he compelled to crowd into 
 a pamphlet, in the form of a report, the entire 
 order of his ideas? And under limitations which 
 would prove fatal to any other great mind in 
 history, the teaching of Jesus, as it appears, for 
 example, in the concluding chapter of Wendt's 
 book, is of the utmost impressiveness. What 
 Wendt calls the "grand inner unity," the 
 "unswerving consistency," in contrast, for ex- 
 ample, with that of Augustine and Luther, the 
 " purely religious " and the perfectly " moral " 
 nature of the teaching of Jesus and its complete 
 representation in his own spirit are undeniable. 
 From the position, not of discipleship, but of 
 the scholar, Wendt adds that when viewed as a 
 great system of thought the teaching of Jesus 
 " is on a par with the most complete philosoph- 
 ical and religious systems of thought which have 
 been founded by men." 1 This reminds one 
 of John Stuart Mill's famous judgment about 
 1 Wendt, voL iL p. 393.
 
 JESUS AND PAUL 29 
 
 Jesus : " But about the life and sayings of Jesus 
 there is a stamp of personal originality combined 
 with profundity of insight, which, if we abandon 
 the idle expectation of finding scientific precision 
 where something very different was aimed at, 
 must place the Prophet of Nazareth, even in the 
 estimation of those who have no belief in his in- 
 spiration, in the very first rank of the men of 
 sublime genius of whom our species can boast." l 
 These judgments about Jesus fall far short of 
 the judgment of faith concerning him. Still 
 it would be well for theology not to forget what 
 Mill calls the " preeminent genius " of Jesus. 
 If theology is discourse about God and divine 
 things, the teaching of the sovereign preacher 
 is the sovereign theology. 
 
 Many books have been written on the theology 
 of Paul. His teaching is worthy of the devotion 
 that it has received from scholars. Its strength 
 lies in the fact that it is a discovery of the 
 meaning of human experience apart from Christ 
 and as his happy disciple. The moral idea was 
 from youth the sovereign reality in Paul's life. 
 Judaism stood condemned because there was no- 
 thing in it to lift Paul into peace with his ideal. 
 Christianity was the final religion. Jesus was 
 the Lord of men, because in Jesus and in his 
 teaching Paul found strength, wings rather, to 
 
 1 Essays on Religion, p. 234.
 
 30 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 fly in the fiery path of his ideal, as in the glow 
 of the retreating sun. Paul's theology is the 
 theology of an educated mind ; it is the issue 
 of profound and passionate thinking ; and in his 
 letters it receives anything but careless expres- 
 sion. Still the theology of this apostle is the 
 theology of a preacher. Its origin in experience, 
 its attempt to set forth the meaning of experi- 
 ence, human and Christian, its purpose as the 
 servant of life, the freedom and simplicity of its 
 method, its essence as religion filled with insight, 
 penetrated with thought, consubstantiated with 
 reason, attest its source. It is the theology of 
 one of the greatest preachers. If one shall con- 
 sider method, and method alone, there could 
 hardly be a greater blunder than the judgment 
 that described the author of the Fourth Gospel 
 as the theologian. But if we consider him a 
 theologian who in a large and noble way views 
 all life in the light of the Eternal, then surely 
 the writer who dates the career of Jesus from 
 the mind of God, who recites the leading events 
 of his ministry as of unique significance as mani- 
 festations of God, and who in thus regarding the 
 history of Jesus gathers up into it the history of 
 mankind, must be looked upon as the typical 
 theologian. The conclusion reached from a sur- 
 vey of the Old Testament and of the New is 
 that if there is in these sacred books anything
 
 PATRISTIC THEOLOGY 31 
 
 deserving to be called theology, that theology is 
 undeniably the theology of preachers. 
 
 It is not without interest to observe that 
 whether for good or evil the dominating minds 
 in the theology of the church, with a few notable 
 exceptions, have been the minds of preachers. 
 It would be absurd to say that all great preach- 
 ers have been theologians. It would not be wide 
 of the mark to say that by far the larger num- 
 ber of the great historic theologians have been 
 preachers. Clement, and especially Origen, are 
 professional scholars and thinkers ; Athanasius 
 was a thinker and an administrator. It may be 
 said that the fundamental excellence of Greek 
 theology is owing in some measure to the fact 
 that it was elaborated by competent scholars and 
 trained thinkers. It may be further contended 
 that if Augustine had been more of a scholar 
 and less of a preacher his theology would have 
 been of a higher type. Augustine was a preacher, 
 and his theology had the great merit of being a 
 generalization from experience. Augustine was 
 a typical nature. He represented in his experi- 
 ence the dominating notes in the experience of 
 Europe for more than a thousand years. Here 
 is the source of the vast vitality of his theology. 
 He stood near to men in their distress and in 
 .their hope. His faults are owing less to want 
 of scholarship, and much more to the abnormal
 
 32 THE PEEACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 excesses and sorrows of the human experience 
 from which he generalized. His method is on 
 the whole sound, and the instinct that guides 
 Augustine the theologian is the feeling of Au- 
 gustine the preacher. 
 
 Among the reformers Melancthon is the pure 
 scholar, and his vocation is one of light, if not 
 always one of peace. Luther is many things, 
 but in them all he is supremely the preacher. 
 Calvin is a scholar and professional thinker; yet 
 in the "Institutes" it is impossible not to feel 
 the passion of the preacher. Zwingli is a man 
 of action, and his share in the social concerns of 
 his people and in their political struggles tells 
 for good upon his attitude as a theologian. In 
 England the leading minds in theology from 
 Wiclif to Maurice have been the minds of 
 preachers. Scotland has never had a profes- 
 sional theologian in the sense in which she has 
 had professional philosophers. This is not said 
 to her credit ; for the absence of the pure thinker 
 is a grievous limitation. Such theologians as 
 she has had have been of the preacher type, 
 Samuel Rutherford, Thomas Chalmers, Thomas 
 Erskine, McLeod Campbell. 
 
 In New England, the nursing mother of great 
 theologians, the same type has been the prevail- 
 ing type. The founder of New England divinity 
 was a man bred to the vocation of the preacher.
 
 NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY 33 
 
 Again the influence of the preacher is seen in 
 the best work of the theologian. In his great 
 work on " Religious Affections " Edwards is ex- 
 ploring the experimental sources of theology to 
 which he had been led as a preacher. It should 
 be noted that our American theology originated 
 in the mind of one of our preachers. Hop- 
 kins, Emmons, Channing, Parker, Bushnell, and 
 many influential thinkers of lower rank than 
 those named, were non-professional theologians. 
 Nathaniel Taylor and Edwards A. Park are 
 among the first of our New England profes- 
 sional theologians. They did very great ser- 
 vice to the cause of Christian faith, and they 
 have been followed by worthy successors. Yet 
 even in the two great teachers just named the 
 preacher never died ; even in the most technical 
 and elaborate of our divines the influence of the 
 preacher's calling was potent and lasting. 
 
 Two men, both preachers, have had a very 
 wide influence on theology in this country. 
 Channing was a preacher, and his doctrine of 
 man, his anthropology, has had through his 
 teaching and through the men whom he inspired 
 an immense influence. It has been a precious 
 influence. It has held on its way because it 
 was truth, and because no weapon formed 
 against it has been able to prosper. Channing's 
 doctrine of man, his prevailing teaching about
 
 34 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 man, is the teaching of Jesus ; to Channing 
 more than to any other single influence we are 
 indebted for the revival of the New Testament 
 interpretation of human nature. And on the 
 same level as a popular theologian must be 
 placed Henry Ward Beecher. He did more 
 than any other teacher to break up and abolish 
 the Calvinistic Moloch. He pled for the Infi- 
 nite Father of mankind when all the seminaries 
 of the land, with their prestige, their learning, 
 their opportunity and power, were putting first 
 God the Sovereign, God the Moral Governor of 
 the world. It was an immense battle, like that 
 of David and a host of Goliaths. Men in mid- 
 dle life will recall the opinion industriously dis- 
 seminated, that Beecher was no theologian. It 
 was said that the great preacher was neither a 
 scholar nor a consistent thinker. The indict- 
 ment drawn by a whole generation of scholars 
 and teachers seemed strong enough to send the 
 great commoner into speedy and everlasting ob- 
 livion. Contrary to all expectation the profes- 
 sionals failed. As in the case of the shepherd 
 lad in the day of battle, the simple apparatus of 
 the preacher, the sling and the five smooth 
 stones from the brook, the insight and passion 
 and eloquence of Beecher the great pulpit hu- 
 manist of his time, backed by the sympathy of 
 the Lord of Hosts, prevailed. Greater influence
 
 BELIEF WITHIN BELIEF 35 
 
 upon the religious belief of the people of the 
 United States has been exerted by none than 
 by William Ellery Channing and Henry Ward 
 Beecher. Both are examples of the good work 
 which the non-professional theologian may do 
 for his generation. 
 
 IV 
 
 Whatever doubts may exist concerning the 
 preacher as a source of theological ideas, there 
 can be no doubt that his calling gives him an 
 unequaled opportunity for testing theological 
 ideas. Under the process of genuine preaching 
 there sometimes issues a scheme within the 
 scheme of general belief. Dr. Chalmers of Scot- 
 land was for many years a teacher of the Calvin- 
 istic divinity. Yet as a great preacher there was 
 generated within him a vital faith to which his 
 theology could not do justice. The passage of 
 poetry which was oftenest upon his lips is the 
 utterance, not of Chalmers the theologian, but of 
 Chalmers the preacher : 
 
 " The man 
 
 That could surround the sum of things, and spy 
 The heart of God and secrets of his empire 
 Would speak but love. With love the bright result 
 Would change the hue of intermediate things, 
 And make one of all theology." 1 
 
 The contradiction of the general traditional 
 
 1 Hanna, Life of Chalmers, vol. iii. p. 206.
 
 36 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 scheme of divinity has been inevitable under 
 the process of large and loving service to men. 
 Preachers who have continued to rank them- 
 selves in the school of Calvin have done so with an 
 increasing accumulation of mental reservations. 
 The divine thing was the gospel of Christ, their 
 sense of its infinitude, their service in its power 
 to the permanent and noble need of men. The 
 authority of the traditional divinity became sec- 
 ondary to that of the law of the spirit of lif e in 
 Christ. Toward the end of life, in the case of 
 many eminent preachers, it became a deposed 
 authority. The scheme was overwhelmed in the 
 presence of the fact of which it professed to be 
 the account. The intellectual element in faith 
 sank into insignificance when compared with the 
 rich and vast possession of the heart. This 
 quiet surrender to silence of bodies of divinity 
 found incommensurate with the light and the 
 love generated in the heart of the preacher is 
 a large and a significant phenomenon. 
 
 In a vast number the contradiction between 
 the ideals and the best life of the spirit and the 
 traditional divinity led to a revolt from all the- 
 ology. The time had not come for a new phi- 
 losophy of the Christian life and faith. Mean- 
 while the accepted system of belief was found 
 worthless, and the preachers of whom I am 
 now thinking abandoned theology for literature.
 
 A SUBSTITUTE FOR THEOLOGY 37 
 
 They read the Bible as the literature of the 
 spirit ; they read the great literatures of the race. 
 They found in this field a world of noble ideas. 
 These ideas were fresh from the heart of hu- 
 manity, and they stood expressed in monumental 
 power. The "Odyssey" was preferred to the 
 " Institutes " of Calvin or the " Systematic The- 
 ology " of Hodge ; the crimes of a wanton and 
 fascinating goddess as set forth by the poet were 
 less revolting than the awful disregard of his crea- 
 tures ascribed to the Creator by the theologian ; 
 while in the bald and questionable propositions 
 of the traditional divinity there was nothing to 
 match the sweet and stainless humanity of a 
 Nausicaa, or the invincible loyalty of a Penel- 
 ope, or the high domestic honor of an Odysseus. 
 Here was a chance to see the pathos and the 
 grandeur of man. A glorious creature like the 
 Antigone of Sophocles had, for this class of 
 preachers, more true theology in her being, and 
 more of the essential truth about human nature, 
 than the entire extant divinity of the church. 
 There was, doubtless, a good deal of exagger- 
 ation in the mental estimates of these rebel 
 preachers. They stand, nevertheless, for a 
 wholesome movement. They were unable to 
 accept the old scheme, and they were unable 
 to construct a new and a better scheme ; they 
 abandoned, therefore, all schemes ; they went
 
 38 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 straight to life, and to life's great and free ex- 
 pression in literature. 
 
 Under the process of genuine preaching there 
 has resulted a vast purification of the scheme of 
 belief. There have been in the ministry men 
 who could not work with a contradiction in their 
 heart, and who could not give up the hope of 
 a philosophy of the religious life. These men 
 have driven out false doctrine by the power of 
 life. Election, not in the sense of the choice of 
 the eminent person as the servant of all, like 
 Moses for Israel, like Jesus for mankind, but 
 election as the selection of some and the rejec- 
 tion of others, seemed to the preachers now re- 
 ferred to, an incredible belief. All the texts in 
 the Bible could not prove this doctrine compat- 
 ible with Infinite justice against the verdict of 
 the human conscience. They felt that this was 
 an immoral doctrine. It must be distinctly re- 
 jected as unpreachable and incredible. It was 
 unpreachable for many reasons, but for this one 
 reason above all others, that whenever a doc- 
 trine forces itself upon man against the clear 
 protest of his conscience, that doctrine is worse 
 than useless. To continue to teach it is to 
 endeavor to break down the moral nature of 
 man, and ultimately to make faith in the moral 
 character of God impossible. The doctrine is 
 incredible because it professes to embody the
 
 HUMAN DEPRAVITY 39 
 
 disposition toward man of the Eternal justice. 
 It has been abolished by the preacher. 
 
 The doctrine of human depravity has gone in 
 the same way. The doctrine was unjust to life 
 as a whole. There are men, no doubt, who 
 illustrate that doctrine with appalling fullness 
 and success. Wickedness is one of the intense 
 and awful facts of human history. Selfishness 
 is one of the persistent and terrible forces in 
 human society. But an indictment justified by 
 exceptional cases must not be drawn against 
 mankind. Nor can we justly present as a full 
 account of human nature the base side only. 
 The image of God remains uneffaced even in 
 the basest human existence, and in the most ex- 
 alted career there is the constant pressure of the 
 animal. There is no such hard and fast distinc- 
 tion in life between the converted and the un- 
 converted as exists in the traditional theology. 
 Here is the imperfect life bravely pursuing a 
 glorious ideal ; there is the far more imperfect 
 life that is practically without a moral ideal. 
 This nature is not depraved. It is full of 
 weakness, and at the same time it is full of 
 instinctive worth. And this description holds 
 over the larger number of human beings. The 
 image of God is in partnership with the brute in 
 all, and the great question is as to which of the 
 two is the head of the firm. A doctrine of man
 
 40 THE PREACHER A8 A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 generalized from exceptional instances of human 
 baseness ; supported by the animal in man and 
 ignoring the divine in man ; ignoring, too, the 
 indissoluble connection, given in the image of 
 God in the soul, between the Eternal Father 
 and his children in time, has been eliminated 
 from the preacher's scheme because it was found 
 untrue to the facts. 
 
 The doctrine of the atonement has undergone 
 transformation at the hands of preachers. The 
 simple basis of peace between the Infinite con- 
 science and the dark and sinful conscience of man 
 is revealed once for all, with noonday clearness, 
 in the teaching of Jesus. That ground of peace 
 is the love of God, of whom Jesus in his life 
 and in his death is the sovereign assurance. The 
 career of Jesus, the death of Jesus, is sacrificial 
 because it is ruled by love ; and this career con- 
 summated in death reveals the Father who makes 
 it possible, who lives in it, who finds in it the 
 perfect human expression of the eternal sacri- 
 fice in his nature. This atonement through love, 
 this reconciliation by the almightiness of charac- 
 ter, the character of God revealed in the char- 
 acter of Jesus, this proclamation of peace in the 
 name and in the strength of the moral universe, 
 and the eternal Personal tenderness in which the 
 moral universe is centred, is true to the heart of 
 the gospel, and it is true to the heart of human
 
 CONCEPTION AND SYMBOL 41 
 
 life. It is an atonement in fundamental reality, 
 and it is one of infinite moral sublimity. 
 
 This simple law of peace and hope in Christ 
 Jesus was viewed in a priestly manner by the 
 apostles. There was no other way of getting its 
 meaning into the mind of a people in bondage to 
 the temple and the priesthood. There was no 
 other way of interpreting it to the nations with 
 whom sacrifice was a constant element in re- 
 ligion. The altar imagery was the most effective 
 for the apostolic audience. And no one can 
 read critically apostolic literature without feeling 
 the danger besetting this idiom of the priest, 
 without observing the constant effort to cancel 
 this danger. The great letter to the Hebrews 
 is the strongest illustration of both points. It 
 employs in the largest way the priestly terms 
 and customs for the interpretation of Christ and 
 his gospel. It supersedes the whole tradition 
 and custom of the priest in the endless spirit- 
 ual priesthood of Christ. In reading this great 
 composition one sees that the writer uses the 
 idiom of the priest as a convenient symbol and 
 no more ; just as Spenser in his " Faerie Queene " 
 uses the world of chivalry as a symbol for his 
 moral ideals. For Paul, John, and the author 
 of Hebrews, the priestly practice of Hebraism is 
 a symbol of the power and process of the Eternal 
 Spirit in Jesus, a symbol, nothing more.
 
 42 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 It became a doctrine for the church, and it 
 has assumed in the course of history a variety of 
 forms, each a little less objectionable than its 
 predecessor. The death of Christ came to be 
 regarded as a debt paid to Satan for the recovery 
 of mankind. In consequence of Adam's fall, 
 involving as it did mankind, Satan acquired pos- 
 session of the race. The race could be delivered 
 only by an offering to Satan ; that offering was 
 the death of Christ. This curious conception is 
 evidently the product, not of the enlightenment, 
 but of the superstition of the age. It could not 
 remain; it must pass away. Then came the 
 Anselmic conception, the conception of sin as an 
 infinite affront to God, an affront which could be 
 atoned for only by the death of an Infinite being 
 of perfect holiness. For this purpose God be- 
 came man. This conception, which lifted into 
 infinite relations the whole temporal existence of 
 man, and which put upon the career of Jesus an 
 interpretation so sublime, took deep hold upon the 
 imagination. And yet it could not always pre- 
 vail. It made human weakness responsible for 
 infinite guilt ; it arraigned the character of God 
 in thus regarding man ; and it placed its confi- 
 dence in an artificial scheme of reconciliation, 
 and not in the fundamental order of justice and 
 love. As the moral consciousness grew in sim- 
 plicity and strength, the Anselmic conception
 
 INFLUENCE OF BUSHNELL 43 
 
 passed away. Then came, among other ideas, 
 the governmental theory of reconciliation. God 
 is a lawgiver. Man as sinner has insulted the 
 majesty of the law. He cannot be forgiven 
 until satisfaction has been made to the injured 
 majesty of moral law. Christ alone could make 
 this satisfaction, and his death is this satisfac- 
 tion. This view has played a large part in the 
 religious life of New England since the days of 
 the younger Edwards. It is one of the least 
 real, least credible, of the various conceptions of 
 atonement. It has little relation to the moral 
 experience of man ; it is a doctrine developed 
 from analogy. It makes the enormous assump- 
 tion that civil law and civil administration are 
 the analogies of the divine law, the divine ad- 
 ministration. It was elaborated with great full- 
 ness and ingenuity ; it was defended by expert 
 logicians. But it could not last. It was of no 
 use except in pathological cases ; it was an es- 
 sentially unpreachable doctrine. The profound 
 moral experience of Bushnell, his genius for the 
 soul of Christianity, and his obedience to the 
 heavenly vision at first checked the sway of the 
 governmental view, then drove it back upon its 
 scholastic strongholds, and finally shut it up there 
 to starve to death. Bushnell the preacher, and 
 the host of preachers whom he has inspired, have 
 given another great example of the purification
 
 44 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 of doctrine under the process of genuine preach- 
 ing. 
 
 The doctrine of retribution is of infinite mo- 
 ment to faith because it is of infinite moment 
 to life. That doctrine has been content to wear 
 for more than fifteen centuries the form of an 
 Inferno. This reign of terror is approaching its 
 end, and still it is true that whatsoever a man 
 soweth that shall he also reap. The conception 
 of retribution purified in the Christian conscience 
 is alive with awful and elemental power. It is 
 the work of this generation of preachers to show 
 the punitive process of God in the moral life 
 of man, to show that hope for man is sound be- 
 cause God is a punitive process in the courses of 
 human existence, that optimism builds its foun- 
 dations upon the prevailing strength of the mo- 
 tives to goodness which God is generating in the 
 tormented humanity of sinful souls. It is for 
 this generation of preachers to scorn the poor 
 refuge of annihilation in their flight from an 
 eternal hell, and to ground their message to man 
 in the relentless rigor and .redeeming strength of 
 the conscience of God in the history of the world. 
 
 In addition to this process of doctrinal puri- 
 fication under the genuine preacher, there is the 
 yet vaster process of verification conducted by 
 preachers. There was a time when science was 
 learned from books. That time is gone. To-
 
 FAITH AND EXPERIENCE 45 
 
 day science is taught in the fields of nature ; 
 scientific theories are brought to the test of the 
 living process of nature. The biological, the 
 chemical, the physical, the physiological, the 
 psychological conceptions that are to remain 
 as valid must find verification in the order of 
 nature. Science is the progressive refutation 
 of one set of conceptions, the progressive verifi- 
 cation and the final demonstration of another 
 set of conceptions. The scientific process is 
 gradually clearing the human mind of fictions 
 concerning nature. It is steadily adding to the 
 sum of attested truths. We go to life with our 
 scheme of belief. Our scheme of belief is for 
 the sake of life. It is purified and exalted as 
 a philosophy under the influence of life ; and 
 as a provisionally adequate scheme it seeks veri- 
 fication in the life of men and nations. It is a 
 faith while it waits for complete attestation. It 
 is an assumption while it is wanting in full veri- 
 fication. It is an order of conceptions while 
 untranslated into the process of living, while un- 
 accepted and unapproved by that process. The 
 preacher superintends this vast field of interest. 
 His vocation is to press the faith to complete 
 attestation, to urge the assumption into full 
 verification, to conduct an order of ideas into 
 the process of living, and to show this order of 
 ideas thus accepted and approved as the eternal
 
 46 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 truth. Professor James says in his richly re- 
 warding and yet somewhat disappointing " Vari- 
 eties of Religious Experience " : " I do not see 
 why a critical Science of Religions of this sort 
 might not eventually command as general a pub- 
 lic adhesion as is commanded by physical science. 
 Even the personally non-religious might accept 
 its conclusions on trust, much as blind persons 
 now accept the facts of optics it might appear 
 as foolish to refuse them. Yet as the science 
 of optics has to be fed in the first instance, and 
 continually verified later, by facts experienced 
 by seeing persons, so the science of religions 
 would depend for its original material on facts 
 of personal experience, and would have to square 
 itself with personal experiences through all its 
 critical reconstructions. It could never get away 
 from concrete life, or work in a conceptual 
 vacuum." 1 These words express exactly the 
 vocation of the preacher. He is testing ideas 
 in the living process and laying to heart the re- 
 sult. He brings to the field of existence an order 
 of ideas, and he watches the verdict of fidelity 
 to these ideas in the conduct of life. It is the 
 vision of this process and the observation of its 
 results that give the preacher confidence in the 
 truth of his philosophy of human existence, that 
 make him regret the meagre issues to which 
 Professor James leads in a book abounding in 
 i P. 456.
 
 REGULATIVE EXPERIENCE 47 
 
 rare insight and paragraphs of classic fidelity 
 to the life of the religious man. We may hope 
 for an order of ideas concerning religion as the 
 result of the study of religious experience ; so 
 far we thank Professor James, and we agree with 
 him. We take the ideas that have risen out 
 of the supreme religious experience, the ideas of 
 Jesus as delivered to him by his experience ; 
 and we may hope that these ideas may find full 
 verification in the increasing and ascending ex- 
 perience of man. All experience is not of equal 
 value even in religion ; Professor James is too 
 broad. The ideal religious experience sets free 
 the latent capacity of the average man. Work- 
 ing upon him and upon his fellows, we may hope 
 for the verdict of life in behalf of the great ideas 
 of faith. We come to life with a faith ; we may 
 receive from it vision. 
 
 V 
 
 A better definition of the function of the 
 preacher could hardly be given than that con- 
 tained in the phrase of Matthew Arnold, " the 
 application of noble ideas to life." The sphere 
 in which the preacher should move is at the in- 
 tersection of ideas and life. In this view of the 
 function of preaching, the vocation is an inclu- 
 sive one. I have met few able and earnest men 
 who were not preachers according to this defini- 
 tion. Preachers abound in science, in art, in
 
 48 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 literature, in economics, in political and in philo- 
 sophical subjects in our time because it is a time 
 of faith and moral earnestness. The vocation 
 of the preacher is honored to-day hi a manner 
 unusual, and to an extent unknown to other gen- 
 erations. The belief is nearly universal among 
 us that human life is amenable to ideas, that in 
 the government of life by noble ideas is the only 
 hope of mankind. No contempt for the preacher 
 of the gospel as a mere exhorter should discour- 
 age him when he sees his vocation fast becoming 
 the vocation of the scholar, when he looks upon 
 the distinction with which it is crowned. 
 
 If the function of the preacher be the appli- 
 cation of noble ideas to life, need he be wholly 
 confined to the application ? Should there not 
 be a study of life in order to ascertain its needs ? 
 Should there not be a comparison of ideas in order 
 to discover which are the noble ones ? Doubt- 
 less the peculiar gift of the genuine preacher 
 is in fitting truth to life, and not in adjusting 
 idea to idea. This, however, does not exhaust 
 his calling. The preacher should seek not only 
 for ideas, but also for a comprehensive order of 
 ideas, for a theology. His interest in ideas 
 because of their bearing on life should help him 
 as a thinker, as an explorer among ideas, as 
 a purifier and an adjuster of ideas. The navi- 
 gator is not an astronomer ; his first concern is to
 
 THE INTELLECT AND THE HEART 49 
 
 sail by the heavens, not to make a map of them ; 
 yet the interest which the navigator takes in the 
 stars can be no barrier in the way toward shar- 
 ing in the vision of the astronomer. The ideas 
 that gather about life to serve it, that plead for 
 and secure the sovereignty of the good will, that 
 keep men strong and pure and tender in the 
 great process of existence, gain in power thereby 
 over the mind of the student. If one could go 
 deep enough, one would discover that the inter- 
 est of the remotest reach of the intellect is a 
 human interest. The real things, TO. ovra, of the 
 metaphysician are as full of humanity to him as 
 the foundations of the house that he is about to 
 build are to the lover. Behind the pale tables 
 and blank names of the genealogist is a warm 
 and tender and beautiful human world upon 
 which his eye rests with delight. Human inter- 
 est is the source of all good thinking ; the more 
 there is of it in the preacher, other things being 
 equal, the deeper he will be as a thinker. Since 
 ideas are a necessity, a limited necessity perhaps, 
 to the genuine preacher, it would seem that he 
 must possess some kind of a theology. And the 
 higher the work of intelligence in his calling, 
 the profounder and more coherent will be the 
 order of ideas by which he ministers at the altar 
 of human need. The preacher may well feel it 
 incumbent upon him to assist in the emergence
 
 50 THE PREACHER AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 from the richer Christian life of to-day of an 
 ampler, nobler, and more coherent order of ideas. 
 Let him, where he can, contribute something 
 toward the appreciation of the faith that saves 
 man. Let him not put this duty wholly upon 
 the professional scholar. The expert is here to 
 stay. The worlds of opportunity are more and 
 more rolling into view. History in the largest 
 sense of the word is the sphere of ideal revela- 
 tions. The equipment of the scholar, his leisure, 
 judgment, patience, and authority are indispen- 
 sable to progress. No one but the expert can 
 do the work of the expert. Once for all that is 
 settled. Further, the pure thinker is one sent 
 from God ; as the hue of the sky is on the sea, 
 so whether we would or would not have it so, 
 the cast of thought of thinkers like Aristotle, 
 Kant, and Hegel is on the mind of educated 
 men the world over. The task of human pro- 
 gress calls for a vast multitude and a vast vari- 
 ety of servants. The work of religious progress 
 calls for a great company of workmen each 
 trained to do some one thing well. 
 
 This is the truth, yet I am persuaded that 
 it is not the whole truth. The sphere of the 
 preacher is the sphere of the theologian. Where 
 there is the requisite intellectual power the voca- 
 tion of the preacher will, as in other times, ex- 
 press itself in an order of ideas. It should not
 
 THE PREACHER'S POSITION 51 
 
 be forgotten that the best ethical work in the 
 English language is a volume of sermons. But- 
 ler was a preacher ; he knew human nature ; 
 he knew the leading ideas of the gospel ; he 
 knew well how to adjust the ideas to the life. 
 It was this insight and equipment that enabled 
 him to write a book on ethics of permanent and 
 priceless value. The man whose daily task puts 
 him where he must see the outgoings of morn- 
 ing and evening may not be a poet ; it cannot . 
 be denied that his calling includes the oppor- 
 tunity of the poet. The man whose vocation 
 bids him look through the vision of Jesus upon 
 birth and death, childhood and youth, work and 
 rest, trial and victory, love and marriage, joy 
 and sorrow, hope and fear, the fierce egoism 
 that would desolate the world and the self-sur- 
 render that carries into humanity the sense of 
 God, the demand of the individual conscience 
 for a pure heart, the demand of the social con- 
 science for a new heaven and a new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness, above all, the 
 man whose vocation bids him look with the eyes 
 of Christ upon souls carried away by the Spirit, 
 stands on hallowed ground. Here, if anywhere, 
 great ideas come into view ; here a comprehen- 
 sive order of ideas arises to reward vision ; here 
 may be seen in its grand outlines the theology 
 that will prevail in the city of God.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 IT was the remark of an eastern Massachusetts 
 farmer that religion and theology are not the 
 same thing by a great deal. The ministerial 
 tradition, which dates from the excellent Uni- 
 tarian preacher Dr. Putnam, is that the farmer's 
 remark was still more emphatic, too emphatic 
 altogether for literal quotation. This distinction 
 between religion and theology is important and 
 should never be overlooked. While the differ- 
 ence between these two interests may be unduly 
 emphasized, less harm is likely to come from the 
 exaggeration of the contrasts which they present 
 than from the sheer identification of the interests 
 themselves. The identification of the incarna- 
 tion with the philosophy of it, of the atonement 
 with the governmental theory of it, of the pro- 
 cess of the spiritual life and the Calvinistic or 
 Arminian account of it, is no new thing in the 
 history of the church. Dogma and faith are 
 alike and equally the work of man and the work 
 of God, and yet the sheer identification of them
 
 THE STANDARD OF TRUTH 53 
 
 has been a blunder and a calamity. Confusion 
 between the mood of the spirit and the work 
 of the intellect has resulted ; to those hungering 
 for bread a stone has thus been offered ; and 
 when religion and a given interpretation of it 
 have become identical, persecution with sword hi 
 hand has gone forth on her fanatical and bloody 
 mission. The canonization of anything but the 
 Infinite is a mistake. To fix the standards of 
 truth and of goodness in any utterance save the 
 utterance of God in Christ, in any character save 
 the character of God in Christ, is of the na- 
 ture of an outrage upon humanity. There is no 
 standard of truth or of goodness short of the In- 
 finite truth and goodness to which Jesus Christ 
 conducts men. But of all mistakes the canoni- 
 zation of a given theology is the most fatal. It 
 is to hold that it is the only intellectual form of 
 the life of the spirit ; it is to identify the highest 
 in man with a particular phase of mental devel- 
 opment. It is to identify navigation and astro- 
 nomic theories. It is to regard as one ocean 
 tides and scientific explanations of them. The 
 one phenomenon is elemental, irresistible, and 
 it goes in the power of the universe ; the other 
 has indeed discerning eyes, but it is slow-paced 
 and uncertain. Religion is the original human 
 necessity ; theology is but a derivative and limited 
 necessity.
 
 54 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 Religion is essential to man ; it is his mood 
 and bearing toward the universe, the spirit in 
 which he regards human society, the attitude of 
 his heart toward God. Theology, while valuable 
 to all, is essential only to the teacher of religion. 
 The teacher of religion is the producer of re- 
 ligion, and he finds that he is stronger as a pro- 
 ducer when he is intelligent and sincere as a 
 student of the science of religion. The farmer 
 is a producer of wealth, and he is at his best as 
 a producer when he works in the light of a true 
 political economy. Religion is primarily feel- 
 ing ; intellect is in it only in an instinctive way, 
 and it comes to action at first by its own pure 
 impulse. Edwards shows his careful insight in 
 his doctrine that " true religion, in great part, 
 consists in holy affections." The affections are 
 indeed penetrated with instinctive reason, and 
 will is always in supreme desire. " Whom not 
 having seen ye love." The picture of the unseen 
 Christ is in the love, and the love flows out 
 in the stream of heroic life, unchecked even by 
 " manifold temptations." Still religion is best 
 described as feeling over against theology as an 
 expression of the meaning of this feeling. Theo- 
 logy inquires after the source of this high ex- 
 perience, its character, its assurance, its worth. 
 Religion may be viewed as life, and theology as 
 the expression of this life in fundamental ideas
 
 PRACTICAL INTERESTS AND SCIENCE 55 
 
 set in their true order. Religion is thus the pri- 
 mary and universal interest ; theology is second- 
 ary and limited. Religion is material ; theology 
 is form. Religion is master ; theology is servant. 
 And for this reason whoever wishes to be an 
 effective minister of religion should strive to 
 compass a clear and commanding theology. 
 
 Practical interests breed the sciences. They 
 are organized and carried forward by chosen 
 persons for the sake of the interests that are 
 practical, universal, and imperative. Political 
 economy results from the necessity man is under 
 to create wealth ; it is an attempt at an interpre- 
 tation of the economic situation ; it is an instance 
 of the understanding working in the interest of 
 practical ends. The science of ethics has risen 
 out of the endeavor on the part of man to ren- 
 der his life reasonable. It is the expression of 
 a great human interest, and it is the permanent 
 servant of that interest. Chemistry, physics, 
 biology, physiology, psychology, represent the 
 interests of living men served through the scien- 
 tific intellect. A science with no conceivable 
 relation to human welfare, in the largest sense 
 of that term, is a piece of altruism for which no 
 sane man should be competent. The science of 
 astronomy has obvious practical relations, as in 
 navigation ; but beyond these, and in its most 
 abstract form, it is the expression of the intelli-
 
 56 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 gence without which human life would be worth- 
 less. In its utmost reach of remoteness from 
 the affairs of men it is still the high expression 
 and the noble servant of an essential human in- 
 terest. Even if one shall take a humorous view 
 of the intellectual effort of the race, one must still 
 confess its essentialness. Even if one shall re- 
 gard the successive dynasties of science and art 
 and philosophy as like the soap bubbles which 
 the children blow and with which they amuse 
 themselves, still these brilliant and unsubstantial 
 creations must be admitted to be expressions and 
 servants of a genuine human impulse. They are 
 the signs of life and humor, they are the tokens 
 of growth and joy. Thus, upon any view of 
 their value, even the lowest, the theoretic inter- 
 ests of man rise out of his living, practical inter- 
 ests and they return upon them. These scientific 
 pursuits are related to the business of living as 
 the exhalations from the sea are to the fruitful 
 earth. Mists rise out of the deep, gather into 
 great clouds laden with blessing, and this bless- 
 ing is poured from the open windows of heaven 
 back upon the earth from which it came. No 
 one science can be named whose vital interest is 
 independent of the business of living. With- 
 draw the practical world, and the theoretic world 
 would die ; cancel the theoretic world, and the 
 practical world would lapse into the original
 
 THE UNIVERSITY IDEAL 57 
 
 darkness. The university is one great symbol 
 of the union of these two interests. The uni- 
 versity represents the intelligence of the world 
 organized round the great living interests of man. 
 Science is inseparable from applied science, cul- 
 ture from applied culture, knowledge from know- 
 ledge in the service of society. The old division 
 of learning into the sciences and the humanities 
 is wholly artificial. The studies of biology, ana- 
 tomy, and physiology, which go to fit the phy- 
 sician for his profession, deserve the name of 
 humanity no less than the studies in language, 
 history, and literature, which qualify the writer 
 for his vocation. The task of the university is 
 to discover the permanent interests of man, and 
 to organize the intellect of the world for the pro- 
 motion of the whole circle of these interests. 
 
 Here is the true description for the character 
 and vocation of theology. It is intellect in the 
 service of the heart ; it is Christian intellect or- 
 ganized for the promotion of the Christian life. 
 Theology bears the same relation to the soul that 
 science does to farming, mining, manufacture, 
 navigation, sanitation, hygiene, the treatment of 
 the body, the construction of public works, the 
 general promotion of the interests of civilized 
 man. Theology, like science, stands for know- 
 ledge whose whole value is in its use.. A priori 
 science and a priori theology are alike and
 
 58 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 equally absurd. True science and sound theo- 
 logy have an experiential basis. Neither can 
 create anything ; each is dependent for material 
 upon the generative power of life. The exter- 
 nal world is a world in the senses ; it is a world 
 to be understood through the senses ; it is pri- 
 marily a world in one side of human life. Sci- 
 ence comes with her torch and her high inven- 
 tions and her laborious hours to enable life to 
 seize its great inheritance, to understand and to 
 turn to use the world that lies in its heart. The 
 object of science is given ; it is to be under- 
 stood ; it is to be understood that it may be 
 enjoyed. And back to the world given in sense 
 science must bring her work for judgment. 
 There is only one sure way of getting rid of 
 false science, and that is by subjecting it to the 
 test of fact. There is only one sure way of vin- 
 dicating true science, and that is by showing its 
 complete comformity to fact. This is part of 
 the axiom that the validity of thought is every- 
 where to be tested by life. Thought may become 
 widely generalized, highly abstract ; that is, the 
 point of resemblance among things over a vast 
 expanse of being seized by the mind may be but 
 a thread in the mighty fabric of existence, may 
 look like a brook in the valley seen from an 
 Alpine peak. This fine aspect of existence may 
 be isolated, for the purposes of thought, from its
 
 THE WORLD OF FACT 59 
 
 great context of reality, may be compared or 
 contrasted with other aspects, and a whole body 
 of ideas may be deduced from this comparison 
 or contrast. Color may be treated apart from 
 the colored object, shades of color may be singled 
 out of the general mass of color, other finer tints 
 still may engage the mind, and these may be 
 brought into comparison and contrast among 
 themselves, and a body of ideas come into exist- 
 ence exceedingly remote from the world that lies 
 in the sunlight. This is an inevitable procedure 
 in all science and in all thought. The point 
 made, however, is that this world of general 
 ideas must come back to the world of fact for 
 judgment. It is a world of fancy and not of 
 truth unless it is in conformity to the world of 
 fact. 
 
 Nowhere should this procedure be more strictly 
 applied than in theology. It should be made 
 clear that the Christian life is the source of 
 Christian theology. There is the fountain of its 
 material. There is the world that it is to under- 
 stand and explain. God and the moral universe 
 are for the soul ; and theology is here as guide, 
 interpreter, passionate lover, and wise servant. 
 Theology becomes highly general, highly ab- 
 stract ; its ideas are aspects of life as a whole ; 
 and these aspects of life as a whole, when com- 
 pared and contrasted among themselves, give
 
 60 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 rise to other still remoter views of existence. 
 And sometimes theology takes wings and flies 
 away from the real world altogether. Then it 
 should be discredited, or treated as a work of 
 imagination. Genuine theology will always be 
 known through the test of fact. Bring all the 
 theologies face to face with the deep and devout 
 Christian heart ; confront them with the heart 
 of Christ. In so far as they conform to that 
 test they are true ; in so far as they fail they 
 are not true. The best protection against false 
 science is a good command of the facts which it 
 professes to treat ; the surest defense against 
 bad theology is a great vital Christian experi- 
 ence. Aristotle thought that young men were 
 poor students of ethics because they were defi- 
 cient in the experience out of which the science 
 of ethics rises ; and it is certain that without 
 profound Christian experience theology will be 
 an unreal and dismal structure. The quest for 
 a theology throws one back with tremendous 
 emphasis upon the grand primacy of life. That 
 once established, the vocation of theology is clear ; 
 that once established, the necessity of theology 
 for the minister to the soul is evident. 
 
 II 
 
 Until within the last five-and-twenty years 
 theologies were ready-made, waiting to be under-
 
 THE CHOICE OF A THEOLOGY 61 
 
 stood and appropriated. Two competing theo- 
 logies were on hand, the Calvinistic in several 
 varieties, and the Arminian. The function of 
 the theological student was generally one of 
 mere scholarship; it was, with now and then 
 a notable exception, to learn, to understand, to 
 choose between rival schools, to appropriate and 
 use. The panoply of Calvin reduced in size was 
 kept on hand for the young fighter for right- 
 eousness ; and it was not difficult to obtain the 
 armor of Arminius similarly made over. Here 
 and there a David was found who rejected this 
 theological armor, and who went forth against 
 the enemy with the five smooth stones from the 
 river of God and the sling; who took his re- 
 ligion and did his valiant deeds wholly in the 
 name of the Lord of Hosts. This was, however, 
 the exception ; it was the daring method of 
 genius sure of its purpose and its divining skill. 
 Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, 
 as a rule, the quest for a theology was not a dif- 
 ficult one. As I have said, the student had but 
 to understand, adopt, and employ the past think- 
 ing of the church. 
 
 It is intensely interesting to watch the church 
 emerging from the mists of the first third of the 
 second century without a theology. How sorely 
 beset the brave apologists were as they found 
 the new religion with its glorious life coming
 
 62 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 into contact both sympathetic and hostile with 
 the old world and its intellectual habits and pos- 
 sessions. The time had come, not simply for the 
 utterance of a common faith or for the appeal 
 to conscience, but for the large use of reason in 
 religion. The time had gone when the sufficient 
 medium of Christian utterance was sympathy, 
 when the poetic method of symbol or the throw- 
 ing out of words at their great objects was ade- 
 quate. The preacher could no longer depend 
 upon the hearer for sympathetic insight, still 
 less for receptivity. The time had arrived for 
 definition, for telling the meaning of the new 
 faith in an order of ideas. What has the new 
 faith to say about the universe, concerning its 
 Founder, in reference to the origin of the world, 
 respecting its sacred books, regarding the goal 
 of history and the age to come? A world of 
 educated Greeks and Romans, swayed by definite 
 conceptions of the universe, or controlled by a 
 profound skepticism, was the environment in 
 which theology became a necessity. The com- 
 munities in which Platonism, Aristotelianism, 
 Stoicism, and Epicureanism were the intellectual 
 possession made it impossible that the office of 
 the preacher who had no theology should be a 
 bed of roses. Sufficient honor is rarely felt for 
 the apologists. They were the men who made 
 a beginning ; and their task was like creation.
 
 THE APOLOGISTS 63 
 
 They had to make a theological world out of 
 nothing. Materials there were, elements pre- 
 existed in abundance; but the design of a 
 reasoned expression of the new faith for the new 
 time was originated by the apologists. You 
 can see them Aristides, Justin, Fabian, Athen- 
 agoras, Theophilus, the satirical Hermias, the 
 vehement Mencius standing in the mist of 
 that early morning and working bravely and 
 well for the Eternal gospel that they loved. 
 There should be immense sympathy between 
 those apologists and students of theology to-day. 
 They found nothing ready-made that could serve 
 their need ; and that is the crisis upon which we 
 have come. They stood with four great rival 
 systems of philosophy confronting them as dis- 
 ciples and defenders of the new religion ; and 
 to-day the preacher delivers his message in an 
 environment similarly charged with forces both 
 kindred and alien. They appear in the mists 
 of a new day, busy with beginnings in the be- 
 wildering fogs of the dawning epoch, flitting 
 about like shadows in their morning time of 
 cloud and sun. If we shall appear to as good 
 advantage eighteen centuries hence, in the dim 
 twilight in which we are working with so little 
 comprehension of the new epoch and so great 
 hopes, we may well be thankful. As we see 
 Justin take the great Stoic thought of the Xoyos,
 
 64 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 the Divine reason immanent in the universe, im- 
 manent in man, the thought that accounts for 
 the intelligibleness of the universe and the in- 
 telligence of man ; as we see Justin take this 
 insight of the highest minds of his age and 
 declare that that Divine reason became incarnate 
 in Jesus Christ, we may well aspire to make as 
 wise and as fruitful a use of philosophic ideas 
 for the service of our faith as he did for his 
 faith. 
 
 In Clement and Origen we witness great cre- 
 ative activity. In a less, and still in a remark- 
 able degree, the creative mood is present in 
 Athanasius and the Gregories. What we have 
 to note here is the necessity for a theology that 
 works through these wonderful men. In the 
 West a parallel necessity is seen working in 
 Tertullian, and yet more in Augustine. Man 
 is the subject of the new religion, and he needs 
 to be understood in his nature and history. 
 The demand for an anthropology is as impera- 
 tive as the call for a theology. The romance 
 lying in those old thinkers, the poetry hidden 
 under their outgrown discussions, is discovered 
 when one thinks of their work as a vast and 
 joyous response to the divine necessity of the 
 time. They stand for an infinite spiritual pos- 
 session beset with the gravest peril, calling 
 for intellectual forms suitable to the age, forms
 
 PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 65 
 
 of preservation for the Christian faith and forms 
 of power for it. They stand for an immense 
 creative movement in theology. And because of 
 the creative spirit that is in them these theo- 
 logies will always have life. They are related 
 to theology to-day as Plato and Aristotle are 
 related to philosophy. The great Greek think- 
 ers are in part still classic. In his disclosure 
 of the importance of general ideas in the So- 
 cratic Dialogues Plato is still unequaled ; in his 
 treatment of the dignity of the soul in the 
 " Phaedo," the " Phaedrus," and the " Republic " 
 he remains unsurpassed ; in his idea of the Good 
 as related to the invisible and rational world as 
 the sun is to the visible he continues an inspir- 
 ing teacher ; while in his conception of the ideal 
 society there is much to instruct the preacher of 
 the kingdom of God. In his definition and ex- 
 position of syllogistic reasoning Aristotle is yet 
 master; in his wavering account of reality as 
 existing in the union of the individual and the 
 universal he touches this age at a vital point ; in 
 his treatment of the family, in his idea of friend- 
 ship, in his entire ethical and political philo- 
 sophy, he is strong enough to incite a beneficent 
 revolution. And his conception that the material 
 for all science and all philosophy is furnished 
 from experience, from the living soul in a living 
 social order, is a lesson of immense moment
 
 66 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 for thinkers, and especially for theologians, to-day. 
 These two Greek philosophers are here and there 
 still classic ; in larger sections they remain the 
 world's teachers ; and in the grandeur of their 
 creative movement they continue to inspire the 
 organism of thought which as a whole has gone 
 beyond them. Not quite so much can be said of 
 these theologians of the third and fourth and 
 fifth centuries, and yet something like this may 
 be said of them. Here and there they say things 
 with surpassing wisdom ; for example, Clement's 
 teaching on the education of mankind, Origen's 
 movement backward from Jesus Christ into the 
 Godhead, the Nicene Creed as an expression 
 of faith, Augustine on the relation of faith to 
 knowledge, that is, experience to theology, and 
 on love. In a larger way these theologians are 
 still an enriching study ; but best of all, while 
 in contact with them one feels in company with 
 first-hand thinkers, creative minds, struggling 
 with unequal conditions to put their spiritual 
 possession into adequate and commanding intel- 
 lectual form. 
 
 From the fifth century to the Reformation the 
 creative spirit vanishes from theology. Even 
 then what we witness is a theological revival and 
 not a new creation. Luther and Calvin are ex- 
 positors of Augustinianism. New ideas are in 
 society, but they are crushed by John Calvin
 
 REVIVED AUGUSTINIANISM 67 
 
 into the old categories. The originality of Ed- 
 wards lies outside of his system. It is to be 
 found in his essays on " The Will," " The True 
 Nature of Virtue," " The Ultimate End in Crea- 
 tion," and " Religious Affections." There is in 
 Edwards no radical reorganization of theology ; 
 there is, however, the basis of it. His one great 
 idea is the absoluteness of God. It is God for 
 whom Edwards stands from first to last, and his 
 conception of God is the promise of a new world 
 in theology. When Edwards's thought of the ab- 
 solute moral perfection of God shall obtain care- 
 ful, fearless, and consistent expression, a new 
 day will dawn upon theology. MacLeod Camp- 
 bell broke away from traditional opinion at one 
 point, the value of the cross as an expression of 
 God's love for mankind. At this point Horace 
 Bushnell broke away, and through his impatience 
 with formal theology and his spiritual genius it 
 is easy to exaggerate the measure in which he 
 abandoned the traditional position. He was the 
 inaugurator of a movement greater than he knew, 
 and he was full of impulses the significance of 
 which even he did not understand. There was 
 in him the old creative spirit, with the literary 
 method as opposed to the formal, and his break 
 with the past at one supreme point atonement 
 and at two or three subordinate points was a 
 prophecy of the coining inevitable reorganization
 
 68 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 of theology. Still this conception is hardly in 
 him; and it is certain that he did not use it. 
 Until the final third of the nineteenth century I 
 can find no thinker, except F. D. Maurice, whose 
 mind is creative over the whole domain of dog- 
 matic belief. The mention of Maurice recalls 
 the fact that concerning no other eminent name 
 in the nineteenth century is there so wide a dif- 
 ference of opinion. In 1856 Dr. Martineau 
 writes of Maurice : " We do not deny that his 
 meaning is at times difficult to reach ; for it is 
 apt to be delayed too long by his scrupulous 
 candor of concession, his modest shrinking from 
 self-assertion, his preference of the sympathetic 
 to the distinctive attitude. But we venture with 
 some confidence to assert that for consistency 
 and completeness of thought, and precision in 
 the use of language, it would be difficult to find 
 his superior among living theologians." l Upon 
 this Martineau's friend F. W. Newman responds : 
 " As to Maurice I am sure that you understand 
 him, and on your testimony I believe there is in 
 him a noble and self-consistent religious theory ; 
 but that will not enable me to suspect that it is 
 my fault and not his that I find him obscure." 2 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen thinks that the reason why 
 Green the historian broke away from the influ- 
 
 1 Essays, vol. i. p. 258. 
 
 2 Life and Letters of Dr. Martineau, vol. i. pp. 288, 289.
 
 FREDERICK D. MAURICE 69 
 
 ence of Maurice was Maurice's lack of clear- 
 headedness. In another connection Mr. Stephen 
 says : " Though Maurice was far from clear- 
 headed, I fully believe that his liberal and hu- 
 mane spirit was of the greatest value, and that 
 he did more than most men to raise the so- 
 cial tone in regard to the greatest problems." 1 
 Froude comments upon what he is pleased to 
 call Maurice's " strange obliquity of intellect 
 which could think that black was white, and 
 white because it was black, and the whiter al- 
 ways, the blacker the shade." 2 The curious 
 stupidity of Froude's judgment finds a parallel 
 in the noble condescension with which a very 
 slender writer sums up his opinion on Maurice : 
 "A very generous and amiable person with a 
 deficient sense of history, Maurice in his writing 
 is a sort of elder, less gifted, and more exclu- 
 sively theological Charles Kingsley, on whom he 
 exercised great and rather unfortunate influ- 
 ence. But his looseness of thought, wayward 
 eclecticism of system, and want of accurate learn- 
 ing, were not remedied by Kingsley's splendid 
 pictorial faculty, his creative imagination, or his 
 brilliant style." 3 It is a relief to turn from 
 this to the judgment of Dr. Fairbairn : " Fred- 
 
 1 The English Utilitarians, vol. iii. p. 476. 
 - Thomas Carlyle, vol. iii. p. 109. 
 
 8 George Saintsbury, A History of Nineteenth Century Liter- 
 ature, p. 370.
 
 70 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 erick Maurice was a personality of rare charm, 
 with a soul ever turned toward the light, with a 
 large range of vision, and a love of love and 
 light that makes him the most mystical thinker 
 of our century." * John Stuart Mill, who knew 
 Maurice and who had met him in debate, and 
 who was grieved over the use that Maurice made 
 of his powers, writes : " With Maurice I had for 
 some time been acquainted through Eyton Tooke, 
 who had known him at Cambridge, and although 
 my discussions with him were almost always dis- 
 putes, I had carried away from them much that 
 helped to build up my new fabric of thought, in 
 the same way as I was deriving much from 
 Coleridge, and from the writings of Goethe and 
 other German authors which I read during these 
 years. I have so deep a respect for Maurice's 
 character and purposes, as well as for his great 
 mental gifts, that it is with some unwillingness 
 I say anything which may seem to place him 
 on a less high eminence than I would gladly 
 be able to accord to him. But I have always 
 thought that there was more intellectual power 
 wasted in Maurice than in any other of my con- 
 temporaries. Few of them certainly have had 
 so much to waste. Great powers of generaliza- 
 tion, rare ingenuity and subtlety, and a wide 
 perception of important and unobvious truths 
 
 1 Catholicism, Roman and Anglican, p. 317.
 
 MILL ON MAURICE 71 
 
 served him not for putting something better into 
 the place of the worthless heap of received opin- 
 ions on the great subjects of thought, but for 
 proving to his own mind that the Church of 
 England had known everything from the first, 
 and that all the truths on the ground of which 
 the church and orthodoxy have been attacked 
 (many of which he saw as clearly as any one) 
 are not only consistent with the Thirty-nine Ar- 
 ticles, but are better understood and expressed 
 in those articles than by any one who rejects 
 them." l This roll of witnesses may fittingly 
 end with the testimony of Tennyson. Speaking 
 of the members of the London Metaphysical 
 Club, and recalling the names of many eminent 
 men, including those of Huxley and Martineau, 
 Tennyson refers to Maurice as " probably the 
 greatest mind among them." 
 
 Speaking for myself, the Maurice whom I seem 
 to know is the Maurice defined by Mill as a 
 person of " great powers of generalization, rare 
 ingenuity and subtlety, and a wide perception 
 of important and unobvious truths." Mill's 
 criticism is also well-founded. Maurice tried to 
 make room in the creed of the Anglican church 
 for the richer truth of the modern world. The 
 new wine and the old wineskins do not belong 
 together. Something should have been defi- 
 
 1 J. S. Mill, Autobiography, pp. 152, 153.
 
 72 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 nitely and thankfully abandoned. Definite and 
 vigorous rejection of the intellectually discredited 
 is the duty to which Maurice was unequal. But 
 this failure need not mislead, nor should it 
 greatly embarrass the student of his writings to- 
 day. Maurice was a vastly larger intellect in 
 theology than any other of his time. He found 
 himself in an age of transition, where it is so 
 easy to break with history like F. W. Newman, 
 or to take refuge under authority like J. H. 
 Newman. Maurice saw in the theological tradi- 
 tion of the church something infinitely precious. 
 This treasure was contained in an earthen vessel, 
 the gold was sadly mixed with alloy, and work- 
 ing on the safe and conservative principle of de- 
 velopment, Maurice made it the business of his 
 teaching to discover and announce the higher 
 meanings in the creeds of the church. He is 
 doubtless open to criticism in much of his work ; 
 yet it seems to me his position is essentially 
 sound. The tradition of faith is of infinite mo- 
 ment ; it should not be abandoned ; it should be 
 put under the process of evolution. 
 
 Personally a spiritual splendor, Maurice is in 
 his writings generally without form or comeli- 
 ness. There are in him passages of great 
 beauty ; indeed it would not be difficult to 
 quote from him sentences of classic excellence ; 
 and occasionally of his work as a whole much
 
 THE MERIT OF MAUEICE 73 
 
 might be said in praise of its form. For exam- 
 ple, a clearer, better-ordered, sounder volume 
 a volume with distinction in title, in design, and 
 in execution down to the last sentence than 
 that on " Social Morality " it would be difficult 
 to name. On the whole, however, as an author 
 there is in Maurice little beauty that men should 
 desire him. In a profound way he answers to 
 the prophetic conception of the suffering servant 
 of Jehovah. Besides the lack of form, the num- 
 ber of Maurice's books creates dismay. Except 
 in his " Theological Essays," his most difficult 
 book, Maurice nowhere condenses his thought 
 into one great expression. For these reasons 
 he is read only by the few ; but for those who 
 have patience there is no name among the illus- 
 trious dead of the nineteenth century, not ex- 
 cepting Schleiermacher, who in range and sanity 
 of vision, in due assertion of both the objective 
 and the subjective in religion, the historical and 
 the personal, in steadfast sense of the Eternal, 
 and in the movement of essential reason rea- 
 son cleared of its poor scholastic impedimenta 
 is on the same level with Maurice. He will 
 be found to cover an immense range of belief, 
 with a depth infrequent in British thought, and 
 to operate theology upon Edwards's foundation 
 of the absoluteness of God as no other thinker 
 has yet done.
 
 74 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 in 
 
 We have come upon a new day in theology. 
 Within the last twenty-five years in Great Brit- 
 ain and in New England the traditional theology 
 has passed away. Like the ice fields that move 
 south, these traditional beliefs have disappeared, 
 melted under the power of the new intellectual 
 climate into which they have floated. In the 
 far north similar fields exist, and in the polar 
 regions they always will exist in absolute safety ; 
 and in certain latitudes beliefs that cannot en- 
 dure elsewhere are completely secure. They are 
 embalmed in ignorance ; they are shielded by 
 excess of darkness ; they are increased by at- 
 mospheric frigidity. From Calvinistic Scotland 
 there has floated out into nothingness a great 
 body of obsolete divinity. There has been no 
 controversy about it. Progress has, like a flood, 
 carried it away. The same is true of English 
 Nonconformity. The traditional theological 
 system has silently passed out of belief. The 
 Arminianism of the educated Anglican is wasted 
 to a shadow. Religion there is in abundant, 
 happy power ; but for the new religion there 
 is only the promise of an adequate theology. In 
 New England, and in all the enlightened por- 
 tions of the country, the same fact is obvious. 
 If we regret it, the regret cannot mend the
 
 THE PROMISE OF A THEOLOGY 75 
 
 condition of affairs. If we think that the tra- 
 ditional theology was not a burden, but a high 
 distinction, we must still add as we survey the 
 educated world : 
 
 " It is not now as it has been of yore ; 
 Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
 By night or day, 
 The things which I have seen I now can see no more." 
 
 Within a quarter of a century a body of theo- 
 logical opinion, which had endured with only 
 minor modifications for fifteen hundred years, 
 has become obsolete. Not since the beginning 
 of preaching has there been any time so hard 
 upon the educated and honest minister. 
 
 There is still only the promise of a theology 
 to replace that which has gone. And when we 
 think what it means to elaborate a theology for 
 a nation, for Christendom, one that shall appeal 
 to men to-day as the old did during its millennial 
 dominion, conforming the intellectual habit of so- 
 ciety to itself for centuries and shaping thought 
 upon all supreme issues, the promise of a theo- 
 logy is fitted to gladden the Christian heart and 
 to stimulate able and honest men everywhere 
 to do what may be done to carry the prophecy 
 to fulfillment. This is the hope that is so mighty 
 upon the educated minister. He knows that in- 
 tellectual form is essential to the best condition 
 of religious life. He knows that the evolution
 
 76 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 of the new intellectual form must take time. 
 The process cannot be forced. But if the ideal 
 is secure, and if the process that moves toward 
 it is real and living, the hope thus inspired 
 is sufficient to make every thinker do his best 
 to contribute something toward the final grand 
 result. If it took the church five centuries to 
 elaborate and perfect the Greek and the Latin 
 theologies, we shall be open to the charge of 
 impatience if we look for corresponding results 
 in a generation. 
 
 The last five-and-twenty years have been 
 immense years. During that time a new scien- 
 tific conception has had to be mastered, the 
 conception of evolution. This conception has 
 given rise to a new natural history. The history 
 of life upon the earth has been rewritten, and 
 it has had to be read. This new history of 
 animal life has issued in an astonishing natural 
 history of man. Even this amazing volume 
 could have been mastered much sooner had not 
 pride and prejudice stood in the way. The 
 story that Dr. Drummond was fond of telling 
 illustrates the initial mood of a generation. A 
 society lady and her daughter happened to be 
 present at a lecture on evolution, in which man 
 was described as the descendant of ancestors 
 differing but little from the ape, and at the 
 close of the lecture the mother remarked to her
 
 EVOLUTION AND FAITH 77 
 
 daughter, " How shocking ! It seems to be 
 true ; but let us try to hush it up." For about 
 a decade this was the task which many good 
 men set themselves. They wasted much pre- 
 cious time trying to hush it up. They forgot 
 that " murder will out." It should be noted 
 that the credit of mastering this new scientific 
 conception of nature, of animal life, and of man, 
 and of bringing it into harmony with the per- 
 manent intellectual and spiritual possessions of 
 the race, belongs primarily not to scientific men, 
 but to poetic and religious genius, and to men 
 whose insight is due to the discipline of faith. 
 Tennyson was, perhaps, first on the field with 
 the sword of the scientific Goliath wrought over 
 into the sword of the Lord. Browning followed 
 with the step and the spirit of a conqueror. Dr. 
 Drummond and John Fiske have done their best 
 work as interpreters of the larger and nobler im- 
 plications of Darwinism. Alfred Russel Wal- 
 lace, one of the brightest scientific names of the 
 period, should be gratefully remembered as an 
 exception to the limitation that rested upon the 
 vision of his brethren. A host of thinkers and 
 writers have followed these leaders, and the re- 
 sult is that behind the frightful mask in which 
 evolution rushed upon the stage, the face of a 
 friend, the face of one sent from God, has been 
 recognized. To achieve this mastery of a revo-
 
 78 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 lutionary scientific conception within a quarter 
 of a century is, of itself, a notable distinction 
 for one generation of Christian thinkers. 
 
 Side by side with this, however, there has 
 been a new theory of the Bible to be understood 
 and adjusted to faith. The passage has had to 
 be made from the letter to the spirit in the 
 mode of viewing the Bible. The fact is no 
 doubt true that the smaller Bible has gone and 
 the immeasurably greater Bible has come. But 
 a quarter of a century ago few could foresee this 
 result. To set aside the authority even of the 
 imprecatory psalms seemed to be opening the 
 windows, not of heaven, for a second deluge. 
 To break up the Old Testament into history 
 and poetry and legend, to see in the history a 
 predominant homiletical purpose, and to correct 
 one sacred historian by another ; to canvas the 
 circle of prophetic ideas, and to discover limits 
 to their availability for the modern world ; to 
 hint that the apostles were not always in abso- 
 lute agreement with one another; to intimate 
 that Paul becomes deeper and more adequate in 
 his views as he grows older ; to cherish the 
 suspicion of a possible divergence in thought 
 between the New Testament writers and Jesus 
 Christ, appeared to be the signal of doom for 
 the Bible as the word of God. That this ap- 
 pears so no longer implies an immense achieve-
 
 THE BIBLE AND ITS TRIAL 79 
 
 ment. That the Bible has emerged from this 
 fiery trial a greater book, is due first of all to 
 its own intrinsic worth. The alloy in it does 
 not constitute the gold, and the removal of the 
 alloy only adds to the incontestable worth of 
 the precious metal. The Bible has never been 
 mighty because of the human weakness in it, nor 
 on account of the imperfections that have gath- 
 ered round the pure substance of its truth. And 
 the criticism that has separated the weakness 
 from the power, the judgment that has divided 
 the sheep from the goats in it, has been the 
 Lord's vindication of the Bible. But if it is 
 primarily on account of the intrinsic merit of 
 the Bible that it has come out of the fiery fur- 
 nace of criticism a more glorious book, it is due 
 to those who have managed the furnace that we 
 recognize their faith, their courage, and their 
 toil. That the issue of this ordeal has been to 
 set Christ on high, to make the Bible into a wit- 
 ness for the Master, to turn attention from even 
 the highest literary record to the Divine life, to 
 force the appeal from the book to the transcend- 
 ent Person from whom it obtains its imperish- 
 able meaning, has been the joyous surprise of 
 students. And it should be added that there 
 was at the beginning of this trial little to indi- 
 cate the nobler results that have been won to 
 faith. No scholar could foresee the issue of his
 
 80 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 labors. He went out, like the first Hebrew, not 
 knowing whither he went. He had but one clue, 
 and it was enough, his belief in the truth. That 
 truth is always for the interest of religion, that 
 truth is forever the only trustworthy minister of 
 Christian faith, the last quarter of a century is 
 the shining demonstration. The intellect of the 
 church said, " Let us know the truth about the 
 Bible if the heavens fall." With that solitary 
 and supreme interest as guide, the toil of a gen- 
 eration of scholars has discovered and declared 
 the truth about the Bible, with the result that 
 the heavens of religious reverence for the book 
 have not fallen, with the result that they are 
 higher, purer, more secure. To have done this, 
 and to have done it through homage to truth, is 
 an everlasting honor to Christian scholarship. 
 
 New philosophies have been encountered. In 
 the period under review a powerful materialis- 
 tic movement has been met. Old Lucretius has 
 been preached with all the master's sincerity and 
 passion, and with immeasurably more than the 
 master's knowledge by modern philosophic ma- 
 terialists. An immense agnostic mood has beset 
 the church. German idealism has been here, to 
 be welcomed and to be feared ; to be welcomed 
 because in its strength Thomas Hill Green has 
 given the only thorough and conclusive answer 
 to the Humian individualism that is the ulti-
 
 MASTERY OF A NEW WORLD 81 
 
 mate inspiration of the materialistic and agnostic 
 mood ; to be feared because from the ambitious 
 movement of this essentially noble philosophy 
 much that is imperishable in Christian faith has 
 had hard fare. The moods of the great thinkers 
 are sure to overspread society. Kant and Hegel 
 have gone where Calvin and Edwards were wont 
 to go. Theology has made in Bitschl and his 
 disciples a brave struggle not, however, with 
 highly satisfactory results to do its own think- 
 ing. The entanglement of Christian theology 
 with the dominant philosophies of the world has 
 hitherto been inevitable ; and he would be bold 
 who should deny that it has been providential. 
 Still theology is a distinct and supreme interest ; 
 and while it is born to learn it is also ordained 
 to rule. The last five-and-twenty years have 
 thrown open to the Christian intellect a new 
 world. The mastery of this new world has been 
 the task of the generation now in power. It 
 cannot, therefore, seem strange to the sympa- 
 thetic student that criticism and destruction have 
 been without corresponding theological construc- 
 tion. The old temple of dogmatic belief has 
 been pulled down, the foundations have been 
 cleared and laid anew in the abundance of the 
 Eternal gospel. The new building is still at an 
 unsatisfactory and even an unsightly stage of 
 erection. Meanwhile ministers, with notable
 
 82 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 exceptions, receiving in the seminaries either a 
 theology which afterwards they had to get rid 
 of, or none at all, have had during this unpar- 
 alleled period to present their religion unclothed, 
 or clothed upon by some house of their own poor 
 manufacture. The sketch of such a production 
 in times of great emergency may not be alto- 
 gether without interest. 
 
 IV 
 
 A friend has kindly furnished notes of his 
 student days from which the writer is able to 
 construct what he thinks is a typical theological 
 experience. This student began his work in 
 theology near the middle of the seventies. The 
 framework of faith was the system of Professor 
 Park of Andover, one of the keenest of logicians 
 and one of the most accomplished and powerful 
 of teachers. This discipline in the theology of 
 Professor Park our student did not receive di- 
 rectly from that master ; he received it indirectly 
 through Professor Barbour, a vigorous disciple 
 and a noble man. This theology thus mediated 
 was thoroughly absorbed by our friend, who went 
 out as a home missionary in Maine, believing it 
 to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth. After a year of preaching, the time 
 had come for an attempt at a full academic edu- 
 cation. Harvard University was chosen, and
 
 IS NOT REALITY IN LIFE? 83 
 
 our student felt himself at once introduced to 
 the thought of the world. The size of the intel- 
 lectual world and its richness amazed and de- 
 lighted him. The great philosophic thinkers of 
 Greece, France, Great Britain, and Germany 
 threw over him their wonderful fascination. It 
 seemed to him that he had been introduced to 
 the companionship of the intellectual kings of 
 mankind. They vexed him by their problems 
 and by their controversy one with another, but 
 the vexation easily turned itself into serious in- 
 spiration. They puzzled him with a tentative 
 spirit where he looked for a dogmatic one, with 
 inconclusiveness where he hungered and thirsted 
 for certainty. They moved under the spell of in- 
 vestigation, happy in the high mood of search, se- 
 rene in the flow of their questions, while he was 
 consumed with the passion for results. They 
 brought his narrow and poorly built dogmatic 
 world into confusion, and forced upon him the 
 question, How can the old theology live with the 
 new philosophy ? This question started others. 
 Is not reality in life, in being? Does not the 
 world live independently of philosophy ? Does 
 not the spirit go in the strength of religion, 
 careless of the truth or the error of any given 
 theology, regardless of the possibility or impos- 
 sibility of theology ? Is not the sunlit and nour- 
 ishing air given in the peaceful breathing of the
 
 84 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 healthy child, and in the normal life of a true 
 man is there not present the spirit of God ? May 
 a man not keep reality, even if for the time 
 being he can retain no philosophic account of 
 it ; may he not rest in the being of the eternal 
 silence when no dogmatic faith is possible ? Are 
 not philosophy and theology priestesses at the 
 altar of reality, and in behalf of the infinite 
 meaning that lies in the instinctive reason, in 
 the conscious life of man ? 
 
 How can the old theology live with the new 
 philosophy? That question still pressed for an 
 answer. It led to another still more funda- 
 mental, How does philosophy live? To this 
 there could be but one reply. Philosophy lives 
 by proving itself true, by adequately accounting 
 for facts, by satisfying life with its interpreta- 
 tions. Philosophy lives through profounder re- 
 conciliation with human existence ; and against 
 its rivals it lives by the sword of the spirit. The 
 critical construction of human life, the critical 
 treatment of philosophies, is the business of phi- 
 losophy and the process in which it exists and 
 grows. Is it otherwise with theology? Is it 
 anything but construction through criticism? 
 Must it not for the sake of its health stand, like 
 philosophy, exposed to all the winds that blow ? 
 Is not a protective tariff as bad in theology as it 
 is in philosophy ? Even in industry it is a con-
 
 THE APPEAL TO CAESAR 85 
 
 fession of weakness, a measure of safety in the 
 interest of the helpless against brutal strength, 
 the function of the nurse for the infant. Even 
 in trade the idea of it as everlasting is a dis- 
 grace. Can it be otherwise in the supreme work 
 of mankind, where freedom of competition and 
 criticism would seem to be essential to the high- 
 est product ? And can we not trust the con- 
 sumer in these affairs of the intellect as we do 
 the consumer in trade ? " You can fool all of 
 the people some of the time, and some of the 
 people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of 
 the people all of the time." Could there be, for 
 the interests of philosophy and theology, a better 
 platform than these famous words of the greatest 
 ruler of the nineteenth century? 
 
 In the conflict of opinions the appeal must 
 always be to Caesar. The problems of the reason 
 can find their solution only through the reason. 
 Philosophy and theology are alike in this: they 
 are reasoned expressions of certain aspects of 
 life. Where they deal with the same subject 
 and differ they must fight out their battle on the 
 field of reason. There is no possible excuse for 
 shielding Augustine or Calvin or Edwards from 
 the free and searching criticism to which Des- 
 cartes and Spinoza, Locke and Hume, Kant and 
 Hegel are subjected. And where the theologian 
 and the philosopher differ, the difference can
 
 86 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 be justly settled only in favor of the thinker 
 with the stronger reason on his side. The prize 
 should go to the deepest and most adequate 
 interpreter of life. Where philosophy and theo- 
 logy agree they must combine against the two 
 fundamental enemies of civilization, atheism and 
 inhumanity. 
 
 It will be seen that some clearness and quiet 
 have come into the dark and troubled environ- 
 ment of our student. It is, however, easy to 
 overestimate the relief that has actually arrived. 
 He has obtained an immensely wider outlook 
 upon the world of thought, and he has come to 
 a few conclusions about the primacy of life and 
 the function of reason in the service of it. But 
 he has taken no decisive steps toward the recon- 
 ciliation of traditional theology and historical 
 philosophy. He sees indeed that at many points 
 they are in dead antagonism ; and he thinks that 
 the world should treat them alike. It does not 
 seem fair to expose philosophy to the fire of 
 criticism and to cover theology from that ordeal. 
 But beyond these preliminaries he has thus far 
 been unable to go ; and there is the imperious 
 cry of the spirit that requires instant attention. 
 Accordingly our student looks about him for a 
 resource, a city of refuge, until these calamities 
 are overpast. Here is the New Testament in 
 Greek. In the New Testament here are the
 
 FAITH AND PATIENCE 87 
 
 words of Jesus. They are not always certainly 
 ascertainable, embedded as they are in the re- 
 ports of disciples ; and yet they are, for the most 
 part, clear and authentic. Rest here for a while. 
 Take this spiritual discipline under the unques- 
 tionable Master of the soul. Listen to the ad- 
 dress that he makes to life. Brood over this 
 surpassing ethical idealism that dates itself from 
 the heart of the ethical God. Consider this 
 Divine man as the prophet of the Highest, 
 struggle to lay to heart his wisdom, merge man- 
 hood in discipleship to him, lift up the spirit in 
 the joy of an infinite moral hope, bend low that 
 all the waves and billows of his cleansing grace 
 may go over you ; do this and wait. Wait upon 
 the Lord, a strong city in the day of trouble. 
 
 " A mighty fortress is our God, 
 
 A bulwark never failing ; 
 
 Our helper he amid the flood 
 
 Of mortal ills prevailing." 
 
 And under the shelter of this Presence let the 
 philosophic and theologic discipline go on. 
 
 An emergency has risen in the life of our 
 student. He has accepted a pastorate in Con- 
 necticut. Here is a pulpit to be fired with faith. 
 That he does not fear. For in his city of refuge 
 he has received the Christian faith into his 
 blood, and in his joy he is absolutely without 
 fear. He is conscious of life in the presence of
 
 88 THE QUEST FOX A THEOLOGY 
 
 an infinite spiritual possession, and he is indif- 
 ferent to the theological denudation which he 
 has undergone. But here is an ecclesiastical 
 council to be satisfied, not with high moral feel- 
 ing, generous evangelical appreciations, pro- 
 nounced Christian purpose, and cold neutrality 
 toward New England theology, ready, under 
 suitable conditions, to pass into torrid antago- 
 nism, but with definite old-fashioned doctrine. 
 The notes of our student's fate at this stage in 
 his progress are illegible in the highest degree. 
 But a general reflection can be made out to the 
 following effect, which may be of some interest. 
 It is matter of regret to all those who have 
 been in mortal danger, and who have made good 
 their escape, that they threw away so much of 
 their property in the panic of peril. The apos- 
 tolic ship is a symbol. In the exceeding labor 
 of the ship in the storm, overboard went the 
 freight ; and the next day the tackling. In this 
 case it was wise, because the ship was lost, and 
 might have been sooner but for the precaution 
 taken. If, however, the ship had been saved, 
 the regrets over the unnecessary loss of the 
 cargo would have been deep and lasting. The 
 theological peril is nearly always accompanied 
 by unnecessary indifference to possessions. Tra- 
 ditional beliefs are apt to seem to the soul rocked 
 in the tempest as in league with the depths that
 
 MAN THE MASTER OF HIS SOUL 89 
 
 would engulf all faith and all life. And when 
 the peril is past, and one is securely at home in 
 his faith, and laboring to refurnish it, regrets 
 will come that so many useful and historically 
 inspired articles should have been so foolishly 
 thrown away. The blue of the sky is upon 
 every sea, and the light of God is in all the high 
 and serious beliefs of the Christian church. The 
 freshness that the meadow wins so abundantly 
 from the upper air one will discover in some 
 measure repeated in the oasis surrounded by 
 burning sand ; and the grace of God that over- 
 spreads the New Testament is sure to find spots 
 upon which it can rest even in the wildernesses 
 of theological opinion. 
 
 Our student has his regrets, but regrets are 
 usually vain. They rarely arrive in time to pre- 
 vent unwise action, and for the present both 
 philosophy and theology are gone. Only faith 
 abides, living, tempestuous, invincible. Two or 
 three definite beliefs serve as form to this faith. 
 Man is responsible for his life ; his power over 
 himself, call it owing to grace or owing to will 
 or because of anything else that you please, is 
 indubitable. Man is the master of his soul; he 
 is the maker of his character. By the grace of 
 the universe or against it, here is fact. Our 
 student, now a young preacher, went in the 
 power of this consciousness and in the fury of
 
 90 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 it ; and if his sermons were not sound there was 
 in them a moral gale. Another belief was that 
 Jesus was the supreme master of himself, and 
 that he is, on that account, the supreme master 
 of all who aspire to put life under the sover- 
 eignty of the moral ideal. Our preacher here 
 first learned the strength of the Son of Man, 
 first felt and confessed the grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, first entered into the vicariousness 
 of the supreme human life, first knew the com- 
 fort of an insight out of which were to come a 
 new heaven and a new earth. A third belief 
 was that on the whole the universe sides with 
 the man who sides with righteousness. This is 
 not a long creed, and yet it is worthy of all 
 respect, on its own account and also on account 
 of what may issue from it. It is not an in- 
 coherent faith. The man who sees and feels 
 that it is his vocation to become the moral mas- 
 ter of himself discovers the Christ who is the 
 supreme master of himself, and who, on that 
 account, is to be accepted as the divine guide 
 to freedom ; and finally the insight is obtained 
 that declares the universe as on the side of 
 Christ and his disciple. The moral idealist 
 meets the Christ who is ideal and real at once, 
 and together they fare forward in the sympathy 
 of the Infinite Idealist who is at the same time 
 absolute reality. In the happy possession of
 
 THE POWER OF GROWTH 91 
 
 these great convictions, our student trusts to 
 the years, with their intellectual toil and their 
 spiritual obligation and privilege, to bring into 
 vision greater compass and richness and order 
 and sympathy. 
 
 V 
 
 It is clear that our student cannot perma- 
 nently remain in this attitude. If his three 
 burning convictions are sound, he must go on ; 
 if they are illusory, they will speedily exhaust 
 his interest in them. Nothing is diviner than 
 this test of time. The wood, hay, stubble, and 
 the silver, the gold, and the precious stones, are 
 revealed beyond the possibility of doubt by the 
 day, the furnace of time seven times heated. 
 Stationary truth turns out to be not truth at 
 all ; the fact that it is without the power of 
 growth condemns it. And the feelings and in- 
 stincts that exhaust themselves in the highest 
 service that man can render to man are thereby 
 chargeable with a certain measure of falsehood. 
 Somehow they have passed for more than they 
 are worth. They have taken the place of some- 
 thing greater than themselves. Their failure, 
 their exhaustion, should turn the mind to that 
 deeper thing upon which they drew for their 
 passing strength and charm. 
 
 The meadow that rests upon the springs that
 
 92 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 never run out, and that lies under the happy 
 ministry of sun and cloud, is the permanent 
 basis of the unbroken succession of harvests ; 
 and the soul in Christian experience, resting 
 upon God and open to his discipline, is the great 
 generative source of the convictions that support 
 the higher work of the world. The soul in ex- 
 perience is indispensable to science ; the soul 
 in Christian experience is indispensable to theo- 
 logy. For her materials science is dependent 
 upon the eyes and the ears and the hands ; for 
 the sources of reality she must go to the senses. 
 The science that is not a rational procedure 
 through sensuous experience is foolishness ; the 
 task of science is not that of an originator of 
 facts it is that of an appraiser of facts. She 
 is not a creator of material ; her work lies in 
 the endless process of ever completer valuation. 
 Theology creates nothing that has worth in it. 
 Abstract theology that is, theological theory 
 devised apart from the pressure of facts is sim- 
 ple imposition. It is a world of fancy floating 
 among realities and claiming to be one of them. 
 The soul in Christian experience is. the founda- 
 tion of theology. Science without senses is as 
 reasonable as theology without God in the pro- 
 cess of life. The outward world is unreachable 
 until it melts through the senses into experi- 
 ence ; the spiritual world is unattainable until
 
 THE INTELLECT INSTRUMENTAL 93 
 
 it has dissolved in the conscious soul. It is 
 the heart that makes the theologian ; that is, the 
 spiritual nature is the generative source of the 
 facts upon which theology is to put its construc- 
 tion. Faith precedes intellect ; that is, the pro- 
 cess of the spiritual life goes before the know- 
 ledge of that process. Or as Saint Schopenhauer 
 says, the intellect is as much instrumental " as 
 teeth and claws." 
 
 Our student thinks that he has made a great 
 discovery. He has hit upon the truth that the 
 spiritual world is unattainable except in and 
 through experience. In order to be a great 
 spiritual thinker one must first gain a great 
 spiritual life. This suggests several interesting 
 inquiries, and these are the sources of theology, 
 the method of theology, the task of theology, 
 and the helps to theology. The source has been 
 already indicated as experience ; but so far it 
 might appear that this meant individual experi- 
 ence. It does mean that, but it also means 
 something far greater than that. The individ- 
 ual is in society, society is world-wide, and it has 
 an immeasurable history behind it. Without 
 their consent men are members of a moral com- 
 munity ; and the total life of the race is the 
 experience of a moral race. Morality is not a 
 superstructure upon a prior and pure physical 
 basis ; it is the temper which, as in iron, per-
 
 94 THE QUEST FOR A THEOLOGY 
 
 vades human life. The physical is completely 
 in the moral sphere because it is the inevitable 
 subject of this temper, good or bad. The pri- 
 mary source of theology is man, individual, 
 social, historic, under inevitable and everlasting 
 moral organization. This organism of man in 
 the spirit has operated in a twofold way. It has 
 been working under the law of sin and death ; 
 and this vast and lurid chapter in the experience 
 of mankind is momentous in its concern. Man 
 has gone into activity under the law of the spirit 
 of life in Christ ; and here there is a world of 
 institutions, customs, literatures, to be studied 
 as symbolic of life. Finally there is the Bible, 
 the supreme expression of the supreme spiritual 
 experience of mankind. In and under the phy- 
 sical life of the race, under its sin and shame, 
 under its righteousness and hope, under the 
 church contemporaneous and historic, under 
 the Old Testament and the New, is the total 
 spiritual experience of man. That is the deep 
 into which, through every symbol, the theologian 
 must look. That is the form of God, the pre- 
 sence of the Infinite with which he must reckon. 
 The old Norse god thought he could easily empty 
 the horn given him to drink. He was amazed 
 to find that after his mightiest draughts the 
 horn was still as full as ever. He did not know 
 that below the lower end of the horn lay the
 
 THE METHOD OF THEOLOGY 95 
 
 sea, the unfathomable sea. Beneath human ex- 
 perience and filling it is the Holy Ghost. Men 
 know that they are sinners because he is in them. 
 They are able to love and believe in righteous- 
 ness on account of his indwelling. They are 
 organized into homes, societies, nations, and into 
 a humanity through his prevailing persuasions. 
 Great literatures rise out of the human heart 
 because he is there ; Bibles are born through his 
 strength. To him we owe through human life 
 the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian. Jesus 
 is Lord by the authority of the Spirit. And this 
 is the Infinite in human life and behind it that 
 offers itself to the heroic purpose of the theolo- 
 gian. 
 
 The method of theology is the endeavor of 
 the spirit. So far as may be, dogma must be 
 dissolved in life. The endeavor to reproduce 
 the great moods that lie behind the great theolo- 
 gies is essential. What Paul and Luther meant 
 by justification can be surely compassed in no 
 other way. The exigencies of the spirit are 
 concerned in dogma; and the dogmatic sur- 
 vivals are almost sure to be the more or less 
 imperfect utterance of some precious experience. 
 Even the New England doctrine of willingness 
 to be damned for the glory of God is grand 
 through the moral idealism, the high ethical dis- 
 interestedness for which it stands. In disown-
 
 96 
 
 ing the form here it would be an unspeakable 
 loss to miss the spirit. We must break through 
 the form of the doctrine into the life of which it 
 is often a sorrowful memorial. Under the sys- 
 
 4/ 
 
 tematic exhibition of the decrees of God, under 
 election, atonement, regeneration, justification, 
 and sanctification, under heaven and hell and 
 the whole vast edifice of traditional theology, 
 there is a vital meaning that one cannot afford 
 to miss. Scholarship is presupposed ; the care- 
 ful and laborious method of the thorough stu- 
 dent is taken for granted. These are indispen- 
 sable, and yet they are insufficient. Work by 
 the intelligence alone is barren ; it can never 
 compass the secret of Christian history. Work 
 by the spirit must be added. One must en- 
 deavor to relive the greater life of mankind; 
 one must endeavor to reproduce the whole high 
 experience out of which the great things and 
 the small in theology have come. Once in pos- 
 session of the precious life, criticism that means 
 the death of immemorial error, and thinking that 
 means the birth of truth, are possible. Coperni- 
 cus overthrew the Ptolemaic astronomy by get- 
 ting a profounder possession of the stars. He 
 got in a better way at the reality which the old 
 astronomer loved and served to the best of his 
 ability. The new astronomer kept the old real- 
 ity ; he only discredited a memorable but poor
 
 THE TASK OF THEOLOGY 97 
 
 account of it. This is the method of the genu- 
 ine theologian. He will possess himself of the 
 spiritual reality of the world, and if he discred- 
 its past forms of thought, he will do it because 
 of his consciousness of the Divine reality that all 
 true servants of God have loved and served. 
 
 The task of theology is now plain as it ap- 
 peared to our student. It is to find the meaning 
 of human experience, and particularly of the 
 Christian form of human experience. It is the 
 metaphysic of the spiritual life of man in its 
 Christian form. Ultimate meanings are the ob- 
 ject of its search. And the search will be most 
 fruitfully conducted in the old way. There is 
 the total Christian consciousness as found in our 
 own time, as it appears in the puritan and the 
 reformer, as it presents itself in the wonderful 
 mediaeval world, in patristic achievements, in 
 apostolic labors and literature, and above all as 
 it commands our homage in Jesus Christ. To 
 supply an interpretation of this Christian con- 
 sciousness that shall be provisionally adequate 
 and serviceable is the task of theology. To 
 present in terms of reason an account of this 
 amazing phenomenon, to lift the precious world 
 of Christian life into a reasonable orderly world 
 of meanings, is the high vocation of the theolo- 
 gian. He can fulfill it as he takes for his 
 model the Hebrew prophet who divined the
 
 98 THE QUEST FOB A THEOLOGY 
 
 meaning of the bush that burned on the hillside 
 and was not consumed, only after he had un- 
 covered and fallen awestruck as in the presence 
 of God. 
 
 The question of helps has been answered by 
 anticipation in treating of other points. They 
 need be no more than named. Old theologies 
 are an indispensable help. In Edwards, to take 
 a great example, there is a discipline in truth 
 and an exhibition of error that is nearly invalu- 
 able. To read Edwards with open and yet with 
 reverent eyes, and to divide him into the useless 
 and the useful, the exhausted and the inexhaust- 
 ible, the perishable and the imperishable, would 
 be to compass a theological education of the 
 highest order. What is true in his case holds 
 in some degree of all the greater names in Chris- 
 tian history. Even in their ashes live their 
 wonted fires. But old theologies must be supple- 
 mented with new philosophies. The last two 
 centuries have developed philosophic insight of 
 amazing range and richness ; and the worlds of 
 ideas upon all the great interests of life lying in 
 these philosophic systems cannot be neglected. 
 If Edwards were here to-day, he would make 
 spoil of these philosophies in behalf of his sub- 
 limer interest, and would make himself worthy 
 of the title of celestial thief bestowed upon Mil- 
 ton. The best science must not be overlooked.
 
 THE SCHOOL OF CHRIST 99 
 
 In our time the debt to science on the part of 
 the higher thinking is immeasurable. This will 
 continue to be the case for centuries to come, 
 and the best way to show gratitude for the gen- 
 eral results of science, put at the disposal of the 
 educated world, is to turn them, as the ideas of 
 force and evolution have been turned, to uses 
 which seem to lie beyond the power of the scien- 
 tific man himself. The general progress of the 
 world must be regarded. There is in the world 
 a universal movement forward upon better ends, 
 and in consequence a new atmosphere surrounds 
 the student and thinker. Above all one must 
 depend upon the insight and sympathy born in 
 the school of Christ. One must strive to have 
 one's theology worthy of the career and spirit of 
 Christ. The full meaning of Christ is the high- 
 est theology, and that full meaning is the ideal 
 toward which the student should press. We 
 may be sure of one thing, that the final theology 
 will not come from old theologies or new philo- 
 sophies, it will not come from the schools of 
 Origen or Augustine, Calvin or Edwards, Kant 
 or Hegel, although these great names and others 
 of kindred greatness are sure to be remembered 
 in it ; it will come from the school of Christ.
 
 CHAPTER m 
 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 IN the light of modern philosophic discussion, 
 the statement may safely be made that the world 
 exists as an aggregate of individuals in inter- 
 relations. No individuals exist without rela- 
 tions. Eveiy road leads from a beginning to a 
 goal ; every stream moves from its rise to the 
 sea. At both ends, in the cases of the road and 
 the stream, and all the way between, relations 
 are inevitably given. The single apple recalls 
 the tree from which it was plucked, the blossom 
 in which it began, the sap out of which it grew, 
 the long summer and the solar force through 
 which it was matured. The particular bird is 
 never a Melchizedek, without father, without 
 mother, without descent. It carries in its 
 flight the inevitable reminder of the nest in 
 which it was brooded, the winged industry by 
 which it was there fed, the procession of ances- 
 tors from which it drew its life. Its flight is in 
 the sky, and in its song there is a reminiscence 
 of the primeval bird-melodies. The terms father,
 
 EELATIONISM 101 
 
 son, brother, friend, citizen, man, when used of 
 individual persons, necessarily exhibit these par- 
 ticular persons in relation. The human body is 
 an organism, all the parts are in mutual rela- 
 tions, everything in this physical system is means 
 and end at one and the same time. The part is 
 for the whole, and the whole is for all the parts. 
 The human mind is an organism of thought. It 
 is a multiplicity in unity. Sensations, percep- 
 tions, memories, judgments, volitions, all are 
 penetrated with feeling, all are centred in one 
 soul, all exist for it, and it exists in and through 
 them. Society is organized in this way. Indi- 
 vidualism is but a half truth ; the other half is 
 relationism, the action and reaction upon one 
 another of the sum of the individuals. The 
 universe is a reality only through this fact. It 
 consists of an infinite number of individuals, in 
 relation to one another and to their Creator and 
 Preserver. This elemental view of the world is 
 strikingly pictured in Tennyson's familiar lines, 
 
 " Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies, 
 I 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." 
 
 This is an illustration of my contention that there 
 are no individuals without relations, without end- 
 less relations.
 
 102 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 It is equally true that there are no relations 
 without individuals. No relation ever walked 
 down the street except in the form of an indi- 
 vidual. Individuals are inconceivable out of all 
 relations; relations are inconceivable except 
 among individuals. To seize the individual and 
 to neglect the relation is to find your trout and 
 to forget to dress and eat it ; to grasp the rela- 
 tion and to ignore the individual is to dream of 
 eating the fish that has not been caught, that 
 does not even exist. Between these two ex- 
 tremes modern philosophy has swung. British 
 individualism has caught the fish, but found it 
 useless ; German idealism has in dreams eaten 
 the fish that was still uncaught. The atomism 
 of British thought and the relationism of Ger- 
 man philosophy must be combined into the con- 
 fession that the world exists as an aggregate of 
 individuals in interrelations. Nothing is wholly 
 for itself; nothing can be anything for others 
 unless it is at the same time something for itself. 
 
 What is knowledge ? If the world is a sum 
 of individuals in a community of relations, what 
 is the attitude of the human mind to this world? 
 Is the mental world a creation in correspondence 
 with the real world? Knowledge is of indi- 
 vidual objects in their relations, in their more 
 significant aspects, in their universal bearings. 
 For the philosophy of knowledge one is more
 
 THE INFANT MIND 103 
 
 and more constrained to go to childhood. The 
 subtle and marvelous process is best understood 
 through insight into its history. The infant 
 has no consciousness but of want, no language 
 but a cry. It would be the greatest romance in 
 the world if one could adequately and vividly 
 picture the emergence of the infant mind from 
 the awful isolation and darkness in which it 
 comes hither into the full society and light of 
 adult existence. It stands upon one clear and 
 firm position, physical demand and supply. 
 That is the star of hope for the struggling intel- 
 lect, the prophetic source of the cosmos that is 
 slowly to rise out of these endless confusions. 
 The infant's knowledge probably exists in the 
 strangest detachments. Does it know its mo- 
 ther? It is close to the blasphemous to raise 
 the question, and to say that the infant a month 
 old certainly does not know its mother may seem 
 to be too base to be forgiven. In the absence 
 of demonstration it is perilous to say anything 
 upon a subject lying so close to joy and pride ; 
 and yet it would appear that what the child 
 at first means by mother is a wonderfully com- 
 forting touch, a strangely soothing sound, a 
 heavenly but mysteriously fugitive smile. A 
 delightful sense of touch, that is one nameless 
 benefactor ; a reassuring sound, that is another ; 
 a blessed patch of color, that is still another.
 
 104 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 At first these three flying detachments are all. 
 The separate senses give separate sensations. 
 Touch, hearing, and sight are wholly isolated ; 
 and the friendly world that looks in upon the 
 brave infant soul struggling in the dim twilight 
 is broken up into three distinct worlds. At 
 first there is no dream that the touch and the 
 tone and the smile belong together, and that 
 they manifest a single object. A clear look into 
 the infant soul would probably reveal its know- 
 ledge as a series of sensational abstractions. The 
 sources of hope and fear to the small existence, 
 the forces of help and of pain, reveal themselves 
 through the five senses ; and originally there is 
 very likely no association between these sources 
 and forces. Probably the child has five distinct 
 and separate worlds, and not one. Its objects 
 are sensations that provoke and that pass under- 
 standing. Flavors, odors, peculiar sensations of 
 touch, certain tones, patches of color, make up 
 the five small worlds of infancy. The day ar- 
 rives, however, when one touch, one tone, and 
 one smile are united, held tight, waiting for a 
 name ; and the hour comes when to this synthe- 
 sis of sensations, and to the benign power behind 
 them, the term mother, or its equivalent, is 
 given. Here is the real beginning of mental 
 life, the grouping of the various sensations of 
 taste and smell and touch and hearing and sight,
 
 WHAT IS AN OBJECT? 105 
 
 not only as forming an inward experience plea- 
 sant or otherwise, but also as originating in a 
 single source or object beyond the mind. The 
 world breaks up for the adult mind so clearly 
 and inevitably into distinct objects into grass, 
 flower, tree, mountain, lake, stream, sea ; into 
 the forms of life in the ocean, in the earth, and 
 in the air ; and into the individuals that make 
 up human society that it can hardly imagine 
 a time when this certain order was not present ; 
 and yet it is evident to the student that the 
 world of sensational life evolves itself slowly 
 and with extreme, although unremembered diffi- 
 culty into the world of distinct objects. What 
 we mean by an object is a permanent source of 
 sensations of a given range and character ; and 
 the intellectual activity by which sensations 
 are grouped with reference to their sources be- 
 yond the mind is indeed unimaginably great. 
 The delimitation of one source from another is 
 a feat whose mystery has never been fully ex- 
 plored. Through the ceaseless repetitions of 
 experience the mind comes out at length in the 
 clearness of its great achievement. Its own sen- 
 sational life has gathered itself about the out- 
 ward forces from which it began ; it has referred 
 itself to a multitude of centres beyond itself ; it 
 has organized itself into things that appeal to 
 taste and smell and touch and hearing and sight;
 
 106 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 into a host of individual objects that are tangi- 
 ble, audible, and colored ; into a world of indi- 
 viduals existing in interrelations and in space 
 and in time. Kant's ^Esthetic and Logic, the 
 first and second parts of the " Critique of Pure 
 Reason," are justly regarded as a philosophic 
 masterpiece, but that masterpiece is poor in 
 comparison with the feat of the instinctive 
 reason in every child, by which a few vagrant 
 sensations related to physical want are developed 
 and^organized into the marvelous objective world 
 of the adult mind. The impressive thing about 
 Greek grammar, for example, is not the learn- 
 ing and judgment of the grammarian ; but the 
 fact that all these parts of speech, this declina- 
 tion of noun and adjective, this voice, mood, and 
 conjugation of verb, this wonderful syntax, should 
 exist in living, unconscious reproduction in He- 
 rodotus and Xenophon, in Plato and Thucydides, 
 and in the speech of all educated persons in the 
 Periclean Athens. The work of the instinctive 
 reason of a race embodied in a great language, 
 the work of the instinctive reason of the individ- 
 ual appropriating the achievement of his nation, 
 and employing it with complete accuracy in the 
 careless freedom of living speech, is indeed a 
 marvel. It is a parallel to that other and yet 
 greater marvel, the definite world of individuals 
 in interrelation into which man has organized
 
 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 107 
 
 his sensational life, and the conquest of this 
 world which, through a mystic, unfathomable, 
 and wholly unremembered process, every child 
 makes for itself. Surely one can view narrowly 
 neither the process of language-building nor that 
 of world-building without recalling the words of 
 a great thinker : " Work out your own salvation 
 with fear and trembling ; for it is God which 
 worketh in you both to will and to work, for his 
 good pleasure." 1 
 
 But there is another world to be accounted 
 for, and another kind of knowledge to be con- 
 sidered. The natural world has its analogue in 
 the spiritual, and the sensational experience that 
 ultimately organizes itself into a world of natu- 
 ral objects has its parallel in the moral experi- 
 ence that organizes itself into a world of moral 
 beings centred in the Supreme moral being. 
 The belief is common that the individual moral 
 being lives in a world of moral beings like him- 
 self, in a moral order declaring itself in human 
 history and through the supporting cosmic envi- 
 ronment, and in God over all. Whether one 
 considers this world as real or as an illusion, it 
 is still a wonderful piece of architecture. How 
 did it arise ? Out of the moral life of mankind, 
 interpreted by genius, lifted to the full measure 
 of its magnificence by Christ. It has its origin 
 
 1 Philippiana ii. 12, 13.
 
 108 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 in the individual sense of moral power and ac- 
 countability. There is no step into that world 
 possible until the spiritual self has been discov- 
 ered. That spiritual self, and its life, both of 
 honor and of shame, lead outward. The adult 
 person in a well-ordered moral community car- 
 ries with him a consciousness so clear and ma- 
 ture of the human fellowship in which he stands, 
 that the achievement which results in this amaz- 
 ing consciousness is nearly unrecognized. Edu- 
 cation makes the process much easier and shorter 
 than it otherwise would be. Education first 
 awakens the spirit to the sense of itself, and 
 then through a careful process, along a royal 
 road made by the supreme teachers, it draws it 
 on out of itself into a vast community of spirits 
 with a common history and a common destiny. 
 But powerful as education is, it is still nothing 
 but an awakener. It cannot force the process 
 of insight. The moral individual must see the 
 next step before it can be taken. For the indi- 
 vidual there is no moral world until it is seen 
 by that individual. Therefore the architecture 
 of the race is not available for the individual, 
 except as he is led to construct an image of it 
 out of his own moral experience. Out of the 
 sense of self-respect and shame, of things well 
 done and ill done, of accepted standards honored 
 and dishonored, of commanding ideals obeyed
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE 109 
 
 and defied, the individual moral person is accen- 
 tuated. Thus the consciousness of moral per- 
 sonality is heightened until it becomes the sov- 
 ereign fact in experience. But out of this same 
 class of feelings there is elaborated a world of 
 men, presided over by the God and Father of men. 
 What shall I do with my conscience ? That 
 is the cry of the individual. It must become 
 the consciousness of a world of individuals, each 
 having a conscience answering to his. The con- 
 science of our first individual involves this. It 
 overflows the channels of mere individuality; 
 it finds beyond itself a multitude of moral cen- 
 tres like itself ; it constitutes itself into a world 
 of moral persons, among whom it is one. It 
 goes farther. What shall I do with my con- 
 science ? It must rise into the consciousness of 
 God. The implication of the social conscience 
 and the individual brings the individual person 
 to the sense of the moral world ; the implication 
 of the Divine conscience with the human brings 
 the soul to the consciousness of God. The pro- 
 cess by which the conscience of the child be- 
 comes the consciousness of a moral world and a 
 moral God is the subtlest, the deepest, and the 
 most amazing in the life of man. The progress 
 of psychology enables one to sketch with some 
 vividness and some approach to truth the process 
 by which the intellect of the child becomes a
 
 110 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 world of natural objects ; but thus far there is 
 no effective help to deeper and more faithful in- 
 sight into the evolution by which the conscience 
 of the child becomes the sense of a community 
 of moral persons centred in a moral God. And 
 yet this evolution of the child conscience is the 
 supreme fact in human existence. To this evo- 
 lution we are indebted for the permanent ap- 
 preciation of the moral world of Jesus, and for 
 the moral God in whom the conscience of Jesus 
 fulfilled itself. Here, if anywhere, one feels that 
 there is a spirit in man, and that the inspira- 
 tion of the Almighty giveth him understanding. 
 Moral humanity is the building of God through 
 the Spirit and for the Spirit. 
 
 II 
 
 The instinctive intellect results in an aggre- 
 gate of individual objects in interrelation. This 
 bewildering total is turned over to the reflective 
 intellect. In order to do anything with it, it 
 must first be made manageable. Some short- 
 hand method must be found of recording our 
 thoughts about it. The categories are simply a 
 shorthand method of thought in an infinite world 
 of related individuals. The categories are the 
 leading affirmations which philosophic thought 
 makes about the world ; they bring into view 
 the more significant aspects of things. It is this
 
 THE CATEGORIES OF THOUGHT 111 
 
 function of the categories of thought, as setting 
 in conspicuous isolation the more significant 
 aspects of the world, that makes the history of 
 them a living interest, and that lends to logic a 
 permanent fascination. Where the comprehen- 
 sion of everything is out of the question, a se- 
 lection must be made. And the basis of this 
 selection is the fact that some things are more 
 significant than others. The world remembers 
 Shakespere, counts him as part of itself, not be- 
 cause he was more real as an individual than his 
 forgotten neighbor with whom he passed the time 
 of day for a generation, but because he was more 
 significant. It is significance that makes men 
 great and memorable. It is significance that 
 determines selection in the case of the genuine 
 historian, the scientific observer, the philosophic 
 thinker. Our human world thus comes to be a 
 significant world called out from the infinite and 
 unmanageable world of fact. As we cannot take 
 all, we take what we think is worthiest and best. 
 As has been said, this search for the more sig- 
 nificant aspects of things is the soul of all think- 
 ing. It gives life to the crudest of the early 
 philosophers. When Thales fixes upon water as 
 the chief thing in nature, he means that it is the 
 most significant. Anaximander dwelling upon 
 the unlimited, Anaximenes preaching the power 
 of air, Pythagoras fascinated by the sense of
 
 112 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 order and harmony, and speaking the great 
 word cosmos, Parmenides proclaiming the unity 
 of being, Heraclitus emphasizing the world-pro- 
 cess, the ceaseless becoming of things, Anax- 
 agoras striking out the pregnant sentence that 
 mind orders the universe, and Socrates turning 
 away from nature to man, are living thinkers to- 
 day, in different degrees to be sure, because they 
 one and all strive to isolate what was to them the 
 supremely significant aspect of the real world. 
 We may not like their taste, we may think their 
 judgment childish ; and yet we cannot fail to 
 note in them the genuine beginnings of the grand 
 philosophic vocation. They are after the things 
 that have in them the highest meaning ; and if 
 thinkers to-day are serious they are engaged in 
 the same great quest. 
 
 The confession of ignorance on the part of 
 Socrates was completely sincere. His vocation 
 was to discover the universally significant aspects 
 of man's life, and he was puzzled and baffled on 
 every hand. He found a multitude of shallow 
 persons calling this, that, and the other the chief 
 things. He found men speaking about temper- 
 ance, courage, friendship, righteousness, holiness, 
 and love as the great meanings of human exist- 
 ence. He did not deny that they spoke the 
 truth. He only wanted them to conduct his 
 mind to these supreme aspects of man's expe-
 
 SOCRATES AND HIS WORK 113 
 
 rience, and he discovered that the teachers who 
 used general words had no general views. He 
 saw that when they employed terms which, if 
 they mean anything, isolate some supreme aspect 
 of life, these teachers were really lost in the in- 
 dividual. To them all phases of an object were 
 equally significant ; for them the individual was 
 nothing but an individual. The dialectical tri- 
 umph of Socrates is so full of charm, it appeals 
 so strongly both to admiration and the sense of 
 humor, that one is apt to overlook the seriousness 
 of its purpose. It is the exposure of the mere 
 pretense of the possession of significant views of 
 human life. The exposure of this pretense was 
 the great negative preparation for the positive 
 appreciation of reality. Socrates doubtless found 
 and rested in certain highly significant aspects 
 of man's world ; but his work was not in pro- 
 claiming these and in vindicating them. His 
 business was by merciless criticism to get the 
 unmeaning and mock thinking out of the way. 
 He abolished a whole world of pretense, and thus 
 made room for a new world of sincere and valid 
 insight into the nature of man. 
 
 In the hands of Plato the categories, or the 
 more significant aspects of reality, expand and 
 contract with the power and witchery of his gen- 
 ius. What are called the Platonic ideas, and 
 which are presented chiefly in the " Meno," the
 
 114 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 " Phaedo," tbe " Phaedrus " and the " Republic," 
 are nothing but the highly significant aspects of 
 the universe lifted into independence, made to 
 constitute an eternal mental world, carried up 
 into identity with the Divine thoughts in accord- 
 ance with which God creates all things. This is 
 philosophic poetry. It is not true as it stands, 
 and yet no theist will deny that it is essentially 
 true. There is a multitude of significant as- 
 pects to the universe ; so far Plato is right. 
 They constitute a hierarchy, ranging from the 
 lower meanings that appear in things up to 
 the highest as it appears in the Good, or in 
 God. Again Plato is sound. But he is alto- 
 gether wrong in detaching his world of mean- 
 ings from the world of living facts, in creating 
 a universe of concepts or thoughts, and of sub- 
 stituting it for the reality. For the living world 
 as the subject of selective intellect, rejoicing over 
 the ability to reach partial appreciations, we find 
 in Plato when we take him in the letter, and 
 not in the spirit, " an unearthly ballet of blood- 
 less categories." Still, as the matchless poetry 
 of philosophy, the idealism of Plato enshrines an 
 imperishable truth. The task of the human 
 mind is to discover the general meanings of the 
 world, and this vocation of human thought is set 
 forth in the Platonic Dialogues mentioned above 
 with unexampled fascination.
 
 THE PHILEBUS 115 
 
 In the later Dialogue of the " Philebus " there 
 takes place a startling reduction of this world of 
 meanings. Here the categories, or chief aspects 
 of existence, are four. These are the unlimited, 
 the limited, the mixture of the unlimited and 
 limited, and cause. Existence is at first in- 
 definite ; in the process of being it breaks up 
 into individuals, which become such by putting 
 limits upon the unlimited, and the force in and 
 behind this process is cause. This list of the 
 chief meanings of existence is interesting for 
 two reasons. It shows that Plato is not satisfied 
 with the vast poetic scheme of his earlier days, 
 that he is attempting to reduce and to improve 
 it. And it indicates that in the appropriate 
 mixture of the unlimited and the limited, there 
 lay the philosophy of " health, music, harmony, 
 equable temperature, beauty, strength, virtue." 1 
 Thus the unlimited is pure, indeterminate ex- 
 istence, existence without accentuated signifi- 
 cance. In the process of being, existence be- 
 comes individualized, assumes a special character, 
 acquires limits. When the limit is the appro- 
 priate limit, there results the perfect individual 
 life, flower, animal, man ; there results, too, 
 the perfect art, music, harmony, beauty ; there 
 results, finally, the perfect character, tempera- 
 ment, strength, virtue. The imperfections of 
 
 1 Dr. Jacksoii, Journal of Philology, vol. x.
 
 116 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 the world are due to the union of the unlimited 
 with the inappropriate limit. The badness of 
 the world comes from a mixture wholly bad of 
 these two fundamental forces. And the cause 
 that works toward the perfect union of unlimited 
 and limited is creative mind. One can see how 
 significant these four strange ways of looking at 
 the universe were to Plato. 
 
 Aristotle did not like the earlier thought of 
 Plato about the chief ways of regarding ex- 
 istence, mainly for two reasons. It was a sys- 
 tem in the clouds, a poetic symbol ; and it did 
 not help forward the appreciation of the real 
 world. Both objections are valid. Aristotle 
 was compelled, therefore, to discover the cate- 
 gories for himself. He found his principle of 
 discovery in the several things that one can say 
 of an individual being. It exists ; existence, 
 therefore, is one way of looking at things. It 
 exists in a certain measure and in a given man- 
 ner ; magnitude and character, therefore, are as- 
 pects of reality. It exists in relation, in place, 
 and in time ; relation, place, and time are, there- 
 fore, further categories. It is possessed or it 
 has possession ; it is active or it is passive ; 
 these are still further ways of regarding things. 
 " Everything signifies either existence, or quan- 
 tity, or quality, or relation, or place, or time, or 
 position, or possession, or action, or passion." 1 
 
 1 Organon, Categories, iy.
 
 ARISTOTLE'S CATEGORIES 117 
 
 Such are the famous ten categories of Aristotle, 
 or the significant aspects of things. 
 
 It is easy enough to criticise the scheme. 
 Why should Aristotle think of things in ten 
 ways and in no more? No answer is given; none 
 can be given that shall be adequate. Clearly 
 also, his ways of looking at things run into one 
 another. They are not distinct in several in- 
 stances. Place, time, position, action and passion 
 are given as independent aspects of existence, 
 and yet it is clear that they are only different 
 forms of the category of relation. Being in 
 relations ; to this the entire scheme is reducible. 
 But while inadequate, the thought underlying 
 the scheme is deeply interesting. Here is one 
 of the greatest of human minds at work in the 
 morning of philosophic endeavor, when little 
 had been satisfactorily done anywhere, and all 
 high undertakings were new, searching for the 
 supremely significant aspects of the world. That 
 the search was not a success should neither de- 
 crease admiration for the clear adventure of the 
 great thinker, nor diminish the inspiration that 
 comes from the worthy representation of one 
 high aspect of the vocation of man. 
 
 Kant expanded the ten categories of Aristotle 
 to twelve. Upon this table, deduced from the 
 forms of the judgment, Kant bestowed immense 
 labor. And regarded, as we have regarded
 
 118 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 other attempts, as a new endeavor in happier 
 circumstances to discover the chief meanings of 
 the world, and to reduce to order the different 
 ways in which the mind looks at it, thanks, and 
 only thanks, are due Kant for his work. That 
 it has proved less complete than he esteemed it 
 is not strange. In the heat of creation every 
 poem, every philosophic achievement, seems to 
 its author great and final. It is only the Lord 
 who can look at everything that he has made 
 from the dispassionate mood of history and pro- 
 nounce it good ; and he can do it only because 
 his perfect ideal is ceaselessly realizing itself 
 through endless opportunity. 
 
 Hegel is the last great elaborator of the cate- 
 gories. He has shown, as no one has ever done, 
 and chiefly because he has worked by the light 
 of all his predecessors, that the universe is a 
 system of meanings, that this system of mean- 
 ings is in reality sunk in it like a network, and 
 that reality is in this system. The task of Hegel 
 is to evolve from the Absolute meaning the entire 
 system of meanings, and thus to exhibit the in- 
 most heart of reality and the process of its life. 
 If Hegel has failed, it is because the task is too 
 much for man. If he has failed, his failure has 
 yet filled the world with new insights. The 
 sense of meaning in the universe is stronger in 
 all genuine thinkers because of Hegel, and the
 
 INEVITABLE AND INCOMPLETE 119 
 
 growth of these meanings into an ampler and 
 surer order is due largely to his influence. He 
 is the only modern who is strong enough to be 
 ranked with the two great names of Greece; 
 and he is the worthiest successor to them in the 
 philosophic vocation. 
 
 This review of the endeavor on the part of 
 philosophers to discover the chief ways of look- 
 ing at the real world has made clear these two 
 things : the movement is inevitable ; it is pri- 
 marily a movement, not in philosophic, but in 
 human reason. The world of individuals in all 
 their interrelations is too vast for man. The 
 selective process must be applied to it. A gra- 
 dation of values clearly exists in it. Everything 
 is not as significant as everything else. Upon 
 this perception the human mind works ; it pro- 
 ceeds to discover in the endless real world the 
 world chiefly significant for man. Of this in- 
 evitable human movement the historic search for 
 the categories is the philosophic representation. 
 The movement is inevitable, and it is inevitably 
 incomplete. The endless real world concerns 
 man more deeply than he knows ; and the dis- 
 covery of this deeper significance of the real 
 for mankind upsets all the tables of categories 
 Platonic, Aristotelian, Kantian, and Hegelian. 
 The movement in search of the chief meanings 
 of being is inevitable, and it is inevitably sub- 
 ject to revision and expansion.
 
 120 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 III 
 
 The instinctive intelligence results in the in- 
 finite world of faith, and this world it hands 
 over to the reflective intelligence for profounder 
 appreciation. The selective process must be 
 applied to this world. In its grand totality it 
 passes understanding. In it God is involved 
 with the human spirit, with the human race, 
 through a vast historic movement. The reli- 
 gious soul, the religious community, is rooted 
 and grounded in the Infinite love. That unseen 
 grasp upon God sinks downward and spreads 
 abroad in a way that is past finding out. The 
 comprehension of Christianity as the life of the 
 world is out of the question. It is as much 
 beyond theology as the comprehension of the 
 natural world is beyond science. All that is 
 possible for theology is the appreciation of the 
 more significant aspects of the world of Christian 
 faith. Everything in faith is not of equal value 
 with everything else. A gradation of values is 
 perceived in the Bible, in Christian experience, 
 in the career of Christ, in the revelation of God 
 in Christ. In this infinite total those things 
 that most concern Christian faith are discov- 
 ered ; they are called out, and constituted into a 
 world by themselves. Our world of intelligent 
 faith is a world made out of the infinite world
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT 121 
 
 of Christian reality. The Old Testament is an 
 example. It was written by different men in 
 definite but widely divergent circumstances over 
 a period of nearly a thousand years. Each writ- 
 ing of which the Old Testament is composed 
 had a definite meaning for the time in which it 
 was written. The collection had an elastic and 
 yet a well-defined significance for the leaders of 
 Israel in her later years. And it is true that 
 for a century the increasing effort of Hebrew 
 scholarship has been to restore this local color- 
 ing of time, place, person, and original intention. 
 Some success has doubtless attended this toil. 
 But after all, the Old Testament in the times, 
 places, persons, and purposes of its original com- 
 position is beyond the reach of research, and if 
 it were open to research it would still remain 
 beyond comprehension. That old world in which 
 the Hebrew Scriptures originated has vanished, 
 not in the sense of ceasing to be, but in that of 
 having passed beyond our mental horizon. It 
 lives, but it lives in God. It lives in the sum 
 total of religious reality ; it is " lost in God, in 
 Godhead found." The Old Testament of to-day 
 is a book highly significant for the modern 
 world ; and the essential task of scholarship is 
 to develop these points of significance into lines. 
 All that scholarship can give is the modern 
 meaning of the Old Testament rooted in the
 
 122 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 ancient meaning. The same thing may be said 
 of Shakespere, Dante, Homer. The result of 
 scholarship never amounts to more than the 
 clear genesis of the modern appreciation from 
 the original intention. The classic is distin- 
 guished by its permanent susceptibility to mod- 
 ern appreciation. If one could know everything 
 significant, the fact that any writing once meant 
 something for somebody would be sufficient in- 
 ducement for one to read it. But since one can 
 know only a few things, the literature of the 
 past that has an accentuated susceptibility to- 
 ward modern appreciation, alone has a title to 
 one's attention. All this goes to illustrate the 
 selective process applied to reality. It is meant 
 to show that men live in a world of values, found 
 indeed in the real world, constituting, too, its 
 more significant aspects, but called out from it 
 for the service of life. 
 
 This is the true point of view from which to 
 ascertain both the merits and defects of the 
 great theological tradition that has come down 
 to us. Never in its saner moments did it ven- 
 ture to identify itself with the life of God in the 
 world and in the church. Its saner moments 
 became few and far between ; but it would seem 
 to be just to hold historic theology to those lucid 
 intervals when the work of man knew itself as 
 infinitely beneath the work of God. The study
 
 AUGUSTINE 123 
 
 of historic theology, in the mood into which it 
 fell in evil days, of identifying certain proposi- 
 tions agreed to by a majority of the members of 
 a council, sometimes from one class of motives 
 and sometimes from another, is a discipline in 
 disgrace. To be sure, here also the way of the 
 cross is the way of light, and this via dolorosa 
 must be covered. The higher mood, however, 
 is that in which to find the meaning of historic 
 theology. In reading Origen one sees an in- 
 tellect confronting a real spiritual world, con- 
 fessing its immeasurable magnitude, and girding 
 up the Joins of his mind that he may call atten- 
 tion to a number of its leading aspects. If we 
 think of the long succession in this way, their 
 work will have an abiding interest, and they 
 will no longer arrest or mislead the Christian 
 intellect. 
 
 The strength of Augustine is apparent when 
 one thinks that for about fifteen hundred years 
 he has supplied the categories to Christian 
 thought. From Augustine to Nathaniel Taylor 
 there are few fundamental differences in the lead- 
 ing theological tradition. The general mould 
 in which thought was cast is the same. Pre- 
 destination, depravity, atonement, regeneration, 
 and perseverance in the life of the spirit are 
 the common possession. The five points of 
 Calvinism date from the five points of Augus-
 
 124 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 tinianism, and they become the centres round 
 which Puritan theological discussion both in 
 Great Britain and in this country rages. It 
 was a great achievement thus to indicate for 
 fifteen centuries of Christian thought the points 
 of high concern in the world of faith. There is 
 no better way of discovering the essential con- 
 tribution of any historic thinker than by asking 
 what he had to say about the five points. To 
 study him under the Augustinian categories is 
 as sure a way as any to find his place in the 
 succession and to estimate the value of his ser- 
 vice. These five categories are the supremely 
 significant aspects of the Christian world as it 
 appeared to these historic thinkers. Their theo- 
 logies are appreciations of reality ; when studied 
 as such they will be found worthy of the admira- 
 tion in which they have been held, for order 
 and for fruitful thought. 
 
 The sense of their merit is best seen from this 
 point. Predestination is of fundamental im- 
 portance. It expresses the sense of the suprem- 
 acy of the Infinite will in relation to the finite 
 will, and in relation to the universe. No cate- 
 gory of thought could go deeper, none could be 
 of higher moment. Depravity deals with the 
 assertion of the finite will, in the individual and 
 in the race, against the Infinite will. Here 
 surely is an aspect of reality that cannot be
 
 THE HISTORIC CREED 125 
 
 ignored. Atonement is the utterance, in the 
 sacrificial career of Jesus Christ, of the Infinite 
 will as the ground of reconciliation for man 
 with himself and with the universe. Regener- 
 ation is the reinstatement in authority of the 
 spiritual will in man. Perseverance stands for 
 the optimism of the ancient creed. It is a de- 
 claration of the persistence and ultimate victory 
 of the spiritual will. Thus the five categories 
 are concerned with five vital and fundamental 
 aspects of the world of faith. They are, one 
 and all, a treatment of will, and an emphasis 
 upon will as the core of reality. In predestina- 
 tion the Absolute will is the object of thought ; 
 in depravity the human will, individual and 
 racial, receives attention ; in atonement there is 
 a return to the Absolute will as suffering love ; 
 in regeneration and in perseverance the will of 
 man is again the point of concern. Philosophy 
 has tended, for a century, to emphasize will in 
 the universe and in man as the central reality. 
 This profounder insight into the supremacy of 
 will in the constitution of being is a new and 
 permanent bond of sympathy between the an- 
 cient creed and the modern. The logical evo- 
 lution of the Augustinian categories may well 
 excite admiration. They are not isolated and 
 vagrant insights into truth, fundamental but un- 
 related affirmations. The general theme is will ;
 
 126 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 the original position is the Infinite will; the 
 movement from this is in the treatment of will, 
 the will of man successively manifested against 
 God as in depravity, in reconciliation to God 
 on the basis of atonement as in regeneration, in 
 the assurance of progress and eventual rest in 
 God as in perseverance. This much can be said 
 for the Augustinian categories, they deal with 
 fundamental reality, and they deal with it in a 
 profoundly vital and orderly manner. 
 
 The traditional theology is, however, broken 
 upon its own wheel. Its limitations and its posi- 
 tive errors clearly appear in the light of its own 
 categories. Predestination expresses the rela- 
 tion of the Absolute will to the universe and to 
 mankind. But the Absolute will is absolute in 
 goodness ; therefore the deduction that God is 
 on the side of some men and against others is an 
 illogical deduction. The derivation from this 
 will of absolute goodness of two decrees, one of 
 salvation for a certain portion of mankind, and 
 another of reprobation for the rest of the human 
 race, is a supreme instance of bad logic. Doth 
 the same fountain send forth sweet water and 
 bitter ? Can a good tree bring forth evil fruit, 
 or a corrupt tree good fruit ? The milder pre- 
 destinationism is no better except in words. 
 The reference to the Infinite will of an eternal 
 passion to save a given number of souls, and of
 
 INCONSISTENCIES 127 
 
 complete indifference to the remainder, is the 
 same logical error over again. It is another case 
 of fundamental discrepancy between the pre- 
 mises and the conclusion. If predestination is 
 to remain as an expression of the relation of the 
 Divine will to all things and to all men, it must 
 be cleared of its fatal historic inconsistencies. It 
 must express the will that is never at war with 
 itself, that is always and only on the side of 
 every soul that it has made. 
 
 The same errors and limitations appear in the 
 ancient creed in the treatment of the remaining 
 categories. The truth upon which the old think- 
 ers laid hold in their doctrine of depravity is 
 greater than their vision of it ; the human will, 
 individual and racial, has emerged for new con- 
 sideration. The old insights must be revised 
 and absorbed in the larger knowledge and 
 sounder vision of to-day. Atonement is not less 
 but infinitely more than the historic discussions 
 would seem to indicate. The need of reconcili- 
 ation in man is universal. It is a human neces- 
 sity ; and reconciliation other than upon the 
 basis of the good-will of God there can be none. 
 The relation of the ideal ethical career of Jesus 
 to the Absolute will waits for appreciation from 
 those whom God has trained to see that the 
 highest thing that can be said even about Christ 
 is that in the magnitude of his being he was
 
 128 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 completely dutiful. The plan of reconciliation 
 is in the Absolute will ; the method of its expres- 
 sion is in the complete and conscientious love of 
 Jesus Christ ; the manner of its operation is in 
 the demonstration, through the apostolical suc- 
 cession of holy lives, of the Spirit. Regenera- 
 tion tries to cover a truth with a metaphor. The 
 truth here is altogether greater than its tradi- 
 tional symbol. The Spirit in man needs to be 
 reinvested with authority; but it is alive even in 
 disaster. The optimism of the ancient thought, 
 expressed in the perseverance of the saints, is a 
 pathetic optimism. We can trust God for greater 
 things than that. 
 
 Another criticism that must be made upon 
 the traditional creed, in the light of its own 
 categories, has reference to its gnosticism. It 
 claimed to know too much. It was not satisfied 
 with the designation of the ethically perfect re- 
 lation of God's will to mankind ; it must work 
 up a system of Divine decrees ; and this system 
 could be nothing other than the dismal reflec- 
 tion of its own mental limitation and its ethical 
 immaturity. It was not satisfied with general 
 views of the process of salvation ; it went into 
 detail, and elaborated an order that only om- 
 niscience could support. Thus over-confidence, 
 vaulting ambition, touched with death the whole 
 unreal structure. Thus, too, all the fascination
 
 THE MOTIVE OF THEOLOGY 129 
 
 that goes with a modest order of great thoughts 
 was lost, and the high poetry that is the soul 
 of religion was rigidly excluded. There are 
 few things more unreal than the swollen bodies 
 of historic divinity, and few things less lovely. 
 The old theological system encounters two fatal 
 antagonists, the sense of truth and the feeling 
 for art. 
 
 Two conclusions would appear to follow from 
 this review. Theology is a necessity of the re- 
 ligious intellect ; for faith, categories, general 
 affirmations, significant aspects of reality are 
 inevitable. The theological toil of Christian 
 history is in response to an irresistible impulse. 
 The total world of faith is incomprehensible ; it 
 involves humanity, it includes the universe, it 
 implicates the Deity. In the presence of this 
 infinite world the Christian intellect awakes to 
 power. The task that confronts it is over- 
 whelming. Nothing can be done with this 
 infinite world as infinite. Selection must be 
 applied to it ; its highest values must be found, 
 called out, and set in an order by themselves. 
 This is the motive, this is the achievement, of 
 historic theology. It is pressed by the sense 
 of the incommensurateness that exists between 
 the whole reality and its own capacity to seek 
 only the highest values ; and its consciousness 
 of the highest values is on record. That record
 
 130 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 is historic theology. It is an achievement in 
 answer to an impulse that cannot be denied. 
 
 But if this process of theology is inevitable, 
 it is also inevitably incomplete. If it is certain 
 that the Christian intellect must endeavor to 
 discover and set in order the more significant 
 aspects of faith, it is also certain that these as- 
 pects will grow upon thought into an ever greater 
 order. The criticism that one is compelled to 
 make upon traditional theology is the glory of 
 the world of faith. It is a fundamental witness 
 to its vastness, and to the growing sense of its 
 preciousness. A new theology is essential to set 
 forth the new values discovered in the Eternal 
 gospel. The new categories of faith are affir- 
 mations of the larger meanings that have been 
 found in faith. The sum of the reality is sub- 
 ject neither to addition nor subtraction ; that is 
 the work of God. But the significant apprecia- 
 tion of this unchangeable reality admits of wide 
 variation. In fact it exists all the way from 
 the vagrant insights of the apostolic fathers to 
 the highest theological mind of the ancient and 
 of the modern church. With an Infinite reality 
 to study, it is evident that the process of signifi- 
 cant appreciation can never be complete. Theo- 
 logical thought is therefore inevitable, and it 
 is inevitably incomplete. The vocation of theo- 
 logy is to perfect her significant appreciations of
 
 THE PRESENT SCHEME 131 
 
 Christian reality, to carry them up into the com- 
 plete comprehension of reality, to lift them into 
 an image of the self-conscious intelligence that 
 has become the equal of the process of God in 
 the life of mankind. That is the ideal ; and the 
 pursuit of it makes every achievement provi- 
 sional. We think in the interest of life ; and 
 when life calls for the revision, the expansion, or 
 the expulsion of our thought, we should always 
 be ready to answer that call. 
 
 IV 
 
 The scheme that is advanced in this book has 
 several things that may be said for it. It is 
 reasonably modest. It does not beg pardon for 
 being, and it does not profess to understand all 
 mysteries. It is at least founded upon a valid 
 conception, the incommensurateness between 
 Christian reality and Christian intelligence whose 
 parallel is the incommensurateness between the 
 material universe and science. Here the truth 
 of God is held to be essentially independent and 
 transcendent, and theology is a self-renewing 
 order of less inadequate appreciations. The re- 
 ligion of Jesus is primarily a process in the in- 
 stinctive reason of his disciples. This process 
 is subject to the reflective reason, and yet it is 
 too vast and subtle to be comprehended by it. 
 The being of social man in the social God is the
 
 132 FAITJI AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 aboriginal interest ; and for the philosophic mind 
 at this stage of development, this aboriginal in- 
 terest as a whole is past finding out. We are 
 greater than we know ; and by this transcend- 
 ent reality in being theology is forever allured 
 and baffled. The task of theology has never 
 been better defined than in the words of Paul, 
 "to know the love of Christ which passeth 
 knowledge." * 
 
 The provisional scheme here advanced iden- 
 tifies theology with fundamental aspects of re- 
 ality. Herein it seeks to revive the great tra- 
 ditiou that has come down to us. The Greek 
 theology, as summed up in Clement, in Origen, 
 and in Athanasius, deals with supreme problems. 
 In its five categories we have seen that Augus- 
 tinianism is cardinal. Edwards is great because 
 of his grasp upon fundamental aspects of the 
 world of faith. In an era of rich and fascinating 
 scholarship one needs to be recalled to this high 
 tradition. The reformation of the Christian in- 
 tellect in knowledge that has been the object 
 of scholarship for a generation. This object is 
 not only worthy ; it is also indispensable. But 
 the reformation of the Christian intellect in his- 
 torical and literary knowledge, while it makes 
 possible the task of theology, leaves it unaccom- 
 plished. That task is the reorganization of the 
 
 1 Ephesians iii. 19.
 
 COHERENCE OF IDEAS 133 
 
 Christian intellect in thought. And this reor- 
 ganization should be in fundamental thought. 
 Theology should no longer permit its living in- 
 terests to be swamped in the debris of unimpor- 
 tant detail. The greater aspects of faith should 
 stand apart from the mass of minor things. The- 
 ology has, too often, been overwhelmed with ar- 
 tificial discussions. It has lost touch with reality 
 and has aspired to become something on its own 
 account. The demon of system has thus pos- 
 sessed it, and in this mood it has with prodigious 
 labor and endless ingenuity spun itself into a 
 world of wearisome and even monstrous detail. 
 This demon must be cast out. Theology must 
 be made to know that she is nothing for herself 
 by herself ; all that she is for herself she be- 
 comes through her service to life. And the 
 vaster values of this life set in the life of God 
 it is the business of theology to find and to put 
 forth in order. 
 
 There is coherence among the conceptions out- 
 lined in this volume. The aspects of reality 
 are significant, and they are graded up to the 
 Supreme significance. The ideas discussed are 
 in each case ultimate, and they constitute an as- 
 cending series terminating in the Absolute ulti- 
 mate. Personality is viewed as the individual 
 ultimate ; it is the most significant aspect of the 
 individual life. It is the last phase into which
 
 134 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 the single human being can be resolved. Abolish 
 this view, and the individual is nothing ; con- 
 serve it, and a fruitful beginning for thought has 
 been found. Humanity is regarded as the social 
 ultimate. The reality of the individual calls for 
 the definition of the whole to which he belongs. 
 Is this in class or caste or nation or race, or in 
 mankind ? Optimism is advanced as the histori- 
 cal ultimate. Historical ultimate of one kind or 
 another there must be. And it must be either 
 optimism or pessimism. From what has been 
 and from what is, it is open to anticipate what 
 will be. Upon the basis of insight some things 
 may, thus early in the historic process, be said 
 in favor of optimism. Christ is the religious 
 ultimate ; he appears in the religious world as 
 the supreme insight and love, the highest ex- 
 pression of the mind and heart of the Infinite in 
 reference to man. The moral universe is the 
 universal ultimate, and as the environment of 
 the moral process in history it is of inexpressible 
 moment. God is the Absolute ultimate, the 
 ground of man's world, the life of it and the 
 hope of it. Each of these ultimates faces an an- 
 tagonist equally fundamental. It is personality 
 against non-personality, humanity versus class 
 and caste and endless divisions. The conflict is 
 between the strong angel of optimism and the 
 powerful demon of pessimism. Christ and anti-
 
 EVOLUTION FROM GOD 135 
 
 christ are here in deadly combat. The concep- 
 tion of a moral universe has to meet and reckon 
 with the counter conception of a universe indif- 
 ferent to all conscience and love. Finally it is 
 either theism or atheism. Pantheism and ag- 
 nosticism and materialism are not fundamental. 
 The question is not whether God is all in all, 
 or whether God is knowable or unknowable, or 
 whether God is material or spiritual in being. 
 These questions are profoundly important, but 
 they are not the most important. The ultimate 
 demand is whether God is or is not. The final 
 duel in the world of thought is between theism 
 and atheism, and all other engagements and vic- 
 tories are to be esteemed important according to 
 their bearing upon this last battle. 
 
 It may not be without interest to note that 
 the order of this discussion when reversed gives 
 the author's view as optimism founded upon the 
 Divine intention. God is held as on the side of 
 his universe ; it is moral because he is in it. 
 Christ is of infinite worth because he has God 
 behind him. History is a sure campaign against 
 practical atheism and inhumanity because God 
 is in it. Humanity as one means social man in 
 his fullness, and social man has his being in the 
 social God. Personality is the capacity for ra- 
 tional sympathy and fellowship, and its reality 
 is in the inspiration of the Infinite. God is for
 
 136 FAITH AND ITS CATEGORIES 
 
 mankind, from first to last, in this world and 
 in all worlds. He cannot deny himself. This 
 scheme stands for intentional universalism on 
 the part of God. It is the will of God that all 
 men should be saved ; that is his purpose, for 
 that his gracious power is organized in life and 
 in history, for that he works, and for that he 
 must always work. But a consistent scheme is 
 not the same thing as reality ; intentional uni- 
 versalism is not universalism in fact. The battle 
 is on, and God has organized his grace for ab- 
 solute victory ; but the issues are still undeter- 
 mined, and those who hope in God are worse 
 than triflers, they are blasphemers, unless they 
 fight under his banner, unless they strive to win 
 the enemy over to the Divine side.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE: PERSONALITY 
 
 THE late master of Baliol, Benjamin Jowett, 
 writes of a Mr. Ward, a minor person in the Ox- 
 ford Movement : " He was the best arguer from 
 given premises that I have ever known. It 
 would be hardly an exaggeration to say that he 
 spent the greater part of the day in arguing." l 
 Carlyle remarks of Lord Jeffrey that he was so 
 swift and adroit in argument that there was no 
 hope of being able to meet him except with 
 greater depth of insight. The same author says 
 of John Sterling that he could argue victoriously 
 against a half dozen disputants at once, and in 
 the context we are told that this victorious de- 
 bater was properly no thinker at all. Dialec- 
 tical skill should imply intellectual power, but 
 unfortunately it does not always imply it. It is 
 a trick easily learned, and when associated with 
 high self-esteem, strongly developed polemic in- 
 stincts, slight intellectual integrity, a shallow 
 mind is capable of making a great display by 
 1 Sermons Biographical and Miscellaneous, p. 137.
 
 138 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 means of it. Ward and Jeffrey and Sterling 
 were doubtless honest men ; but their mental 
 dexterity was joined to an unmistakable super- 
 ficiality. They are types of the degeneration to 
 which the dialectical spirit is apt to fall. They 
 remind one of a class of men with whom they 
 have little else in common, the popular negative 
 thinkers who have so widely engaged modern 
 attention. With the single exception of Hume, 
 they are strikingly wanting in depth. Mon- 
 taigne, Voltaire, Huxley, John Stuart Mill even, 
 and other kindred writers do not get at the 
 heart of the matter. The mood to which refer- 
 ence is made is acute, adroit, persistent, belliger- 
 ent ; but it is wanting in deep prevailing insight. 
 English empericism from Hume onward, and 
 French sensationalism from the time of Locke, 
 are reflected in the works of a great number of 
 popular writers. They are an attack upon the 
 personality of man. Descartes had said, "I 
 think, therefore I am ; " that is, he had found in 
 thought the complete assurance of personal real- 
 ity. This is the fortress which is continually 
 assailed by the school of thought that regards 
 the great French thinker as an antagonist. The 
 vindication of human personality is the counter 
 and greater tradition of modern philosophy. It 
 is certain that we should not be in our present 
 clear and sure possession of this fundamental
 
 PERSONALITY 139 
 
 truth but for the adroit, persistent, and confi- 
 dent attack of negative opinion. So much must 
 be put to its credit. 
 
 Hume writes : " I never can catch myself at 
 any time without a perception, and never can 
 observe anything but the perception." l How 
 could Hume catch himself when he was trying 
 to catch something else ? He looked in sensa- 
 tions for himself, but he was not a sensation, an 
 impression. He looked for himself among the 
 faint images of impressions, among his ideas, 
 but he was not an idea. And because he could 
 see no impression or idea that was himself he 
 concluded that he himself was a fiction. And 
 so it comes to pass that Hume looking for him- 
 self means impression looking for itself and idea 
 looking for itself. Thus it turns out that in- 
 stead of one person trying to catch himself we 
 have a whole mindful of personalized impres- 
 sions and ideas trying to catch themselves. The 
 excellent thing about this hunt of Hume after 
 an ego abstracted from all mental life, and his 
 confession of failure, is that it opens up to the 
 heart the whole subject of human personality. 
 
 One of the three grand characteristics of 
 Buddhism is thus defined : " Whether Buddhas 
 arise, O priests, or whether Buddhas do not arise, 
 it remains a fact, and the fixed and necessary 
 
 1 A Treatise on Human Nature, Book I. p. 252.
 
 140 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 constitution of being, that all its elements are 
 lacking in an ego ; this fact a Buddha discovers 
 and masters, and when he has discovered and 
 mastered it, he announces, teaches, publishes, pro- 
 claims, discloses, minutely explains, and makes 
 it clear that all the elements of being are lack- 
 ing in an ego." l This is one of the best 
 conundrums ever invented. How a universe 
 wholly plural should be able to discover that it 
 was not a universe at all ; how a non-personal 
 Buddha should be able to discover and master 
 the fact of universal non-personality ; how he 
 should be able to announce and teach and mi- 
 nutely explain it to a multitude of non-personal 
 beings like himself, would seem to be the super- 
 lative marvel. The supposition is that there is 
 no ego anywhere. Now that might be the in- 
 conceivable fact. The puzzle is how it could be 
 discovered. How could ideas of unity and per- 
 manence arise in the absence of all unity and all 
 permanence ? It is like asking a dead man to 
 write his own obituary, insert it in the daily 
 newspaper, call the attention of his friends 
 to the fact that he is no longer living, and 
 to minutely explain it. One contemplates this 
 third grand characteristic of Buddhism with the 
 same ineffable wonder with which the Western 
 farmer looked upon the calf's tail sign over the 
 1 Henry Clarke Warren, Buddhism, p. xiv.
 
 PERSONALITY 141 
 
 tannery. His exclamation was, " How did the 
 calf get through the hole in which the tail 
 stuck ! " On pondering this third axiom of 
 Buddhism one exclaims, How did the ego es- 
 cape through the hole in which the knowledge 
 of its escape was caught ! Nothing is more hu- 
 morous than the unconscious contradictions of 
 earnest thought, and nothing could be a better 
 introduction to the fresh treatment of any part 
 of reality. The helpless and ludicrous mass of 
 contradictions into which Buddhism is brought 
 by the denial of the ego is profoundly interest- 
 ing. It shows the folly of man's attempt to 
 suppress man while endeavoring to do the work 
 of man. It demonstrates that every abolition 
 of personality is but a new assertion of it. 
 
 The definition of personality cannot be com- 
 plete, on account of what Tennyson calls its 
 abysmal depths. Definition is delimitation, but 
 no one can set bounds to the soul. Definition 
 is the synthesis of salient features, of significant 
 aspects ; and in the case of the human spirit, 
 this must always remain provisional. No man 
 can comprehend himself ; hence exhaustive de- 
 finition is impossible. Personality is found to 
 be the centre of contrary determinations, and 
 this adds to the difficulty of definite thinking 
 upon the subject. The one and the many, the 
 unique and the general, the incommunicable and
 
 142 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 the free sympathies, the sacred reservation of 
 individuality and the equally sacred communion 
 of soul with soul, are gathered in the reality of 
 personal being. A further difficulty is owing to 
 the fact noticed by Coleridge, who remarks that 
 Noah's ark affords a fine image of the world at 
 large, as containing a very few men and a great 
 number of beasts. The profounder aspect of 
 personality is moral personality ; and this re- 
 quires for its proper accentuation moral life. 
 As the permanent streams are reduced by 
 drought to mere shadows of themselves, so in 
 the destitution of moral experience the abiding 
 fact of moral being wastes to a line. Perhaps 
 it may serve as a provisional statement of per- 
 sonality if we say that it denotes the abiding 
 and unique reality of the single human being. 
 The meaning of this statement will appear in 
 the discussion that is to follow. 
 
 II 
 
 The unique and abiding reality of the single 
 human mind is revealed in the process of know- 
 ledge and in the force of character. Episte- 
 mology, or the science of knowledge, and eth- 
 ics, or the science of character, guide one to the 
 vision of the selfhood which is the ultimate real- 
 ity in the individual mind. Thorough insight 
 into the methods of knowledge would seem to
 
 PERSONALITY 143 
 
 result inevitably in the assurance of an ego. 
 Here Kant's work is fundamental ; it is, besides, 
 a step toward finality. Thorough insight into 
 the process of conscience would appear to lead 
 to the same conclusion. Here Butler's work is 
 of permanent significance. Kant finds the ego 
 necessary to knowledge, Butler finds it necessary 
 to character. Behind mental and moral life, 
 according to the German thinker, is the con- 
 structing person ; behind the process of the 
 conscience, according to the British thinker, 
 there is the accountable self. Butler and Kant 
 stand for great beginnings ; the work done by 
 both is solid and enduring. Both are guides to 
 the profounder and surer sense of the unique 
 and abiding reality of the individual mind. 
 
 Personality reveals itself through the com- 
 bining or unifying function of mind. Man is 
 indeed a series of states, but he is more. He is 
 these in combination, woven into the one fabric 
 of experience. There is in mind a flying shut- 
 tle; it is threaded through the senses. Thus 
 threaded with sights and sounds, with sensations 
 of taste and smell and touch, it goes on its swift 
 and marvelous service. It weaves the web of 
 experience according to its own design. Sensa- 
 tions are no more knowledge than threads are 
 cloth. Weaving turns the threads into cloth ; 
 combination, according to a given plan, turns
 
 144 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 sensations into knowledge. The Inferno, the 
 Purgatorio, the Paradiso are names for the suc- 
 cessive moods of the man Dante ; and speaking in 
 a general way they are signs for the successive 
 experiences of genuine men in all the centuries. 
 But the " Divine Comedy " is a whole, and 
 the isolated moods of its author are not isolated 
 at all ; they are parts in one great human con- 
 sciousness. The poet Burns is a succession of 
 states. A new feeling for nature rises in his 
 heart almost every day. He is in love with at 
 least fifty different persons, from Highland Mary 
 to Jane Armour. He is occasionally intoxicated; 
 but for the most part he is industrious, generous, 
 independent, brave. His life is like the fitful 
 weather of his country sunshine and ram, the 
 clouds heavy and dull or storm-driven and the 
 deep blue sky, the glory and the gloom of nature 
 in all degrees swiftly alternating. This strange 
 succession of moods, both mixed and contrasted, 
 sweeping onward like shadows over the corn- 
 fields, is the substance of the mind of Burns, as 
 it is the substance of the mind of man. But the 
 mind itself, the principle that holds the vast and 
 varied and fleeting succession through percep- 
 tion and memory and imagination and reason, 
 and that builds its moods into one human ex- 
 perience, must be added. Without that princi- 
 ple of combination and unification Burns is not,
 
 PERSONALITY 145 
 
 man is not. That knowledge is an organization 
 of the many into the one is nearly incapable of 
 doubt to any person who has the least metaphysi- 
 cal insight. Man is a conservative being. He 
 carries upon him the marks of descent from the 
 first man, who is of the earth earthy, and from 
 the second man, who is the Lord from heaven. 
 Conservation is a law illustrated in his physi- 
 cal organism, in his mental type, in his amen- 
 ableness to influence, in the process of vital 
 education to which he is subject ; it is further 
 illustrated in perception, memory, imagination, 
 reason, character. Through the activity of all 
 these powers the tendency of the mind is to 
 keep that which has been committed to it. This 
 principle of conservation, of unification of the 
 isolated and fleeting in mental life into a perma- 
 nent whole, is but an aspect of the ultimate, 
 indivisible human soul. 
 
 The alternative to this would be the auto- 
 matic view of mind. That mental life involves 
 unification no one would deny; the question 
 would be in what way, and by what means, it 
 comes about. Sensations group themselves ; 
 memories are these sensations over again, only 
 fainter ; imaginations are the endless quadrilles 
 and evolutions of the sensational content ; rea- 
 son is but the customary combinations of sensa- 
 tions and memories and hopes. The whole thing
 
 146 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 is automatic. Knowledge is the customary and 
 inevitable society among Hume's impressions 
 and ideas. Knowledge is society, but it is purely 
 mechanical society. This is the miracle in which 
 we are landed by the refusal to believe in the 
 clear sense of personality. The result is a count- 
 less multitude of personalities. All sensations, 
 all memories, all the members of the mental 
 content, are endowed with the attribute of per- 
 sonality. Like a well-drilled army, they go 
 through their evolutions, with here and there a 
 shout from Fate, the general who conducts the 
 review. For the substantiation of the man we 
 are asked to accept the substantiation of the 
 uncounted elements that make up the mental 
 whole. This is the Arabian Nights of psycho- 
 logy, the new Wonderland where the simplest 
 "thing becomes incredible, and where the impos- 
 sible is the real. 
 
 Unification is a conscious function. Habits 
 are made, and therefore are witnesses to the 
 conscious combinations, often enough prolonged 
 and severe, out of which they rose. Seeing, 
 hearing, all the senses, imply a process of read- 
 ing. There is a grammar of sense; it has 
 alphabet, words, parts of speech, rules of syn- 
 tax ; and the labor involved in the act by which 
 the child makes out an object through sight or 
 touch, or through all the senses together, is at
 
 PERSONALITY 147 
 
 first immense. The automatic action of the 
 mind has behind it a history of conscious and 
 painful origination. The useful spontaneities of 
 man are largely the returns to labor. Even in 
 a trained mind the directing intelligence can 
 never safely be discharged. Thinking by asso- 
 ciation, and not by insight, is the humorous 
 aspect of intellectual life. Into this mental ac- 
 tion by mere association, every thinker is in 
 danger of falling. A shrewd observer watching 
 a preacher who had ceased to move by the force 
 of rational vision, and who was hurried hither 
 and thither by chance thoughts, thus describes 
 him: "He reminds me of a foolish dog I once 
 heard of that was in pursuit of a deer, but com- 
 ing to a place where a fox had crossed the track, 
 he left the deer and ran after the fox. He had 
 not followed the fox far before he arrived at 
 a spot where a rabbit had crossed. Forthwith 
 he leaves the fox and pursues the rabbit; but 
 when the hunter came up he had left the rabbit 
 and was barking at a mouse-hole." Mere asso- 
 ciational thinking can never be sure of attaining 
 its end. The probabilities are that the grand 
 primary quest, the deer, will be given up for the 
 secondary interests that cross the mind's path. 
 Lift from the trained mind even the power of 
 conscious self -direction, and the end will be 
 " barking at a mouse-hole."
 
 148 THE INDIVIDUtlL ULTIMATE 
 
 In character this is obvious. Men do not 
 become what they are by chance. The soul be- 
 comes a bad habit or a good, a spontaneity for 
 shame or for honor, only as the issue of delib- 
 erate, forced, sustained drill. For the normal 
 human being the labor involved in attaining 
 facility in wickedness is great. The adept in 
 evil device and in unscrupulous action repre- 
 sents a history of conscious effort that is prodi- 
 gious. Headlong automatic force is an acquisi- 
 tion through long and laborious toil. It is in 
 the nature of wages. In this sense the way of 
 the transgressor is hard, and Plato is right in 
 pointing to extreme wickedness as a sign of the 
 vitality and power of the soul. 1 The perfected 
 habits of virtue and vice are ideals toward which 
 the best men and the worst make only distant 
 approximations ; moral excellence in the soul is 
 never self-sustaining ; and wickedness is never 
 without effort. Even if this were so it would 
 not follow that man is an automaton. The 
 devil as the symbol of perfected evil habit is 
 not thereby reduced to a mere machine. If the 
 diabolic life is a machine, the spirit in the wheels 
 is the moving power. God as the. absolute habit 
 of love must forever renew the divine organism 
 of his character by the presence of ineffable will. 
 Still in the mystery of human life the sense of 
 
 1 Republic, Book X. 610.
 
 PERSONALITY 149 
 
 effort that underlies the mental character of the 
 race is a welcome witness to the fact that uni- 
 fication is a conscious function. 
 
 Personality attests itself not only through the 
 function of unification but also through the fact 
 of judgment. The moods are united in one ex- 
 perience, and the judgment is passed upon its 
 worth or its worthlessness. The confessional 
 literature of the world is one great witness to 
 this personal judgment upon life. The peni- 
 tential psalms, Babylonian and Hebrew, the au- 
 thentic records of the spiritual life of mankind, 
 ancient and modern, reveal man sitting in judg- 
 ment upon himself. The ideal is always a judge, 
 first of the life that is, and then of the life that 
 should be. Ye shall be perfect as your heavenly 
 Father is perfect. That is the great legislative 
 enactment of the kingdom of God ; its applica- 
 tion to the individual citizen in that kingdom 
 is a judicial process. The Christian is first a 
 provisional legislator for himself ; he lays the 
 whole life, all its isolated states, under one law. 
 By that moral law he combines, consolidates, 
 unites. He is, in the second place, a provisional 
 judge of himself. He interprets the law, and 
 applies it in the ascertainment of the worth or 
 the worthlessness of his life. The publican with 
 his head in the dust crying, " God be merciful 
 to me a sinner," and Luther at the Diet of
 
 150 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 Worms declaring, " Here I stand, I can do no 
 other ; God help me, amen," are both under 
 self-legislation and self-judgment ; in both, and 
 by a double testimony, the reality of personality 
 is attested. 
 
 The fact of moral judgment cannot indeed be 
 denied, but it may be explained away. It may 
 be resolved into the feeling of attraction or 
 repulsion that goes with certain other groups 
 of feelings. The bird sheds its plumage every 
 year ; the old feathers go because they are 
 pushed from their places, sentence is passed 
 upon them, judgment is decreed against them. 
 Thus moods are displaced by moods, and what 
 seems the force of moral judgment is but the 
 action of repulsion in the succession of mental 
 states. But in reply it may be said that even 
 here the permanence of the bird is assumed, and 
 while it has no power over its successive coats 
 of many colors, it may conceivably have an opin- 
 ion about their relative merits. In all mental 
 succession a subject is assumed, a,nd even when 
 it is claimed that the subject is without power 
 over the succession, it is clear the judgment upon 
 its character is real. Associational psychology 
 has gone deeply into the feeling and imagination 
 of the Anglo-American mind. It must be treated 
 as it is, a huge superstition. It is the-swarm- 
 of-bees theory of the human mind. The hive is
 
 PERSONALITY 151 
 
 the bodily organism and the bees are the mental 
 content, and they tumble in and out in ceaseless 
 mystery. The only unity is the hive ; the only 
 law is the instinct by which the swarm some- 
 how holds together. Against the principle that 
 unites life into one experience, and that holds 
 that experience before itself for judgment, the 
 literature of Huinian psychology is to be classed 
 in the department of humor. 
 
 Personality reveals itself in the force of char- 
 acter. Character is the habit of acting in a 
 given way ; and this tendency toward action of 
 a given type expresses personal reality. Men 
 are seen to be men most clearly because they 
 bring things to pass. Professor Andrew Seth 
 has well remarked that the maxim for to-day is 
 not Descartes's famous Cogito ergo sum, but Ago 
 ergo sum. 1 As a New England preacher once 
 said, " We have too many resolutions and too 
 little action. The Acts of the Apostles is the 
 title of one of the books of the New Testament ; 
 their resolutions have not reached us." Apos- 
 tolic reality is finally assured through apostolic 
 achievement. In the sense that thought and 
 feeling are subservient to will, Christianity is 
 the religion of achievement. Greater than the 
 Sermon on the Mount is the Temptation, higher 
 than the assurance of spirit given in the para- 
 1 Man's Place in the Cosmos, p. 128.
 
 152 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 Lies is that given in the cure of disease, in the 
 removal of insanity, in moving sinners to re- 
 pentance, in creating in a Zacchaeus the love of 
 righteousness, in educating the twelve. The 
 church is profoundly right in holding that the 
 agony in the Garden and the sovereignty of self 
 there maintained, the arrest, the trial, and the 
 mockery, and the sublime demeanor under them 
 constitute an ascending series of disclosures of 
 the heart of Christ. The church is right in 
 holding that the supreme revelation of Christ 
 is upon the cross. The alternatives by which 
 Jesus was confronted were desertion of his cause 
 or crucifixion for it. Moral supremacy is, there- 
 fore, given in the crucifixion. 
 
 To return to the discussion upon a lower level, 
 it may be said that thinking is not so sure a wit- 
 ness for the reality of the soul as action. Fichte 
 must be added to Descartes. " The Vocation of 
 Man " is the record of a great spirit bent upon 
 the certain assurance of itself. In the first book 
 of that remarkable work the writer describes 
 himself as the pupil of Spinoza. Necessity gov- 
 erns him ; in body and in mind he is but the 
 expression of the universal forces of extension 
 and thought. He has no life of his own ; he is 
 only as the mode of another being. The second 
 book discovers Fichte as the disciple of Kant. 
 Mind is essentially active; thought rebels
 
 PEBSONALITT 153 
 
 against the domination of the material world ; 
 it is free, and knowledge is an edifice built ac- 
 cording to the plan of the mind and by its own 
 hands. But the doubt returns that perhaps this 
 mental world is only a subjective dream, with no 
 valid relation to the universe, and no reality for 
 itself. From this doubt the philosopher frees 
 himself in the third book. Here is indicated the 
 ultimate vocation of man. He is finally a doer, 
 and in this vocation he sets agoing within him- 
 self, and in the universe beyond him, all the 
 bells of reality. Henceforth he lives in the 
 sense and inspiration of their music. The last 
 assurance of personal being and universal reality 
 is through action. In bringing things to pass 
 man discovers himself; in struggling to bring 
 righteousness to pass he is forever under the 
 power of the psalm of truth. 
 
 The unifying, judging, and creative functions 
 of the human mind will continue to attest to 
 the unsophisticated intelligence the personal re- 
 ality of man. A single analogous case may not 
 be superfluous in this summary. The United 
 States is one nation because there is for all the 
 states one ultimate law, one final judge of that 
 law, one chief executive. Congress legislates 
 for all the states ; the supreme court interprets 
 that law for all the states, and judges them in 
 their relations to it ; and the President sees
 
 154 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 that the judicial opinion is brought to pass in 
 the life of the people. The states are one na- 
 tion because they are united by legislative enact- 
 ment, judicial process, and executive power. The 
 states are one because they are under a govern- 
 ment whose reality is attested by one legal intel- 
 lect, one legal conscience, and one legal will for 
 all the people. Analogously, one out of many is 
 the primary account of the human mind. Judg- 
 ment upon the character of -the whole thus 
 achieved is the second fact, the application of a 
 law of righteousness either in approval or in dis- 
 approval. And the third and crowning phenom- 
 enon is the power that brings things to pass. 
 The legislative, the judicial, and the executive 
 functions of the mind are the three great wit- 
 nesses for the personal reality of man. 
 
 in 
 
 There are certain large and commanding 
 expressions of the human mind that shed light 
 upon personality. The maxim would appear to 
 be valid that the creator is known by the crea- 
 tion. The axiom holds in the intellectual no 
 less than in the physical and in the moral 
 world. By their fruits ye shall know them. 
 From nothing can come nothing. The stream 
 cannot rise higher than the fountain. It is im- 
 possible for one to give that which one does not
 
 PERSONALITY 155 
 
 possess. In the strength of these fundamental 
 discriminations of thought, wherever one finds 
 a work of art, something expressive of order, 
 unity, and beauty, one is bound to lodge the 
 sense of these things in the soul of the artist. 
 The Parthenon is great in itself ; it is also great 
 as an expression of the mind of Phidias. The 
 high mental expression is preceded by the high 
 mental power. 
 
 Science is from this point of view an expres- 
 sion of man's personality. It is hard to believe 
 that the mind could find order outside and be- 
 yond itself if it were unable to find order within 
 itself. The fact is that there is no outside be- 
 yond man. Nature is more than the mind of 
 man, yet it is full of the mind of man. Na- 
 ture exists for man as an organization through 
 the senses, and in accordance with the laws of 
 thought. Nature is not color ; that is in the hu- 
 man eye. It is not sound ; that is in the human 
 ear. It is neither smell nor taste ; these are in 
 human sensibility. It is not hardness nor soft- 
 ness, cold nor heat, rigidity nor elasticity ; these 
 are the product of the human organism in rela- 
 tion to nature. What is nature ? It affects and 
 feeds the senses ; it is in constant and influential 
 relation to the mind ; it is, therefore, real. But 
 what is the reality ? We cannot be sure that it 
 is anything other than force or will. And we
 
 156 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 could never know this were it not for the con- 
 sciousness of force or will that each one knows 
 as himself. Schopenhauer's phrase, "the objecti- 
 fication of will," seems to me to cover the case. 
 Casting about for an explanation of the cease- 
 less attack which nature makes upon the human 
 mind through the senses, the best possible ap- 
 pears to be that nature is will. Nature behaves 
 like will, and on this ground it is believed to 
 be will ; and this conclusion means simply the 
 justifiable objectification of will. So far man's 
 knowledge of nature is an expression of his 
 knowledge of himself. 
 
 But will and intellect are in an inseparable 
 association in man, and therefore man proceeds 
 further in his reading of nature. Sensations 
 come to him in orderly sequences. In this way 
 he reaches what he calls natural law. Neither 
 time nor tide waits for any man. The succes- 
 sion of day and night is invariable ; the proces- 
 sion of the seasons cannot be arrested. Fire 
 burns, water drowns, the summer sun scorches, 
 and the winter atmosphere freezes. Whatso- 
 ever a man soweth that shall he also reap bar- 
 ley from barley, wheat from wheat, tares from 
 tares. The oak, the maple, the birch, the wal- 
 nut tree, each reproduces itself and not another. 
 Everywhere from like causes flow like effects. 
 The elements of the world are indestructible,
 
 PERSONALITY 157 
 
 and the laws of their combination are discovered 
 and not invented by the chemist. Face to face 
 with nature one soon discovers that one is in the 
 presence of an independent and inviolable order. 
 But this beholding of order through the senses 
 is but the justifiable objectification of intellect. 
 When we say that the world is force we are 
 reading the attack which it makes upon the 
 senses through conscious will ; when we say 
 that the world is an order, a system of forces, we 
 are construing its meaning through intelligent 
 will. Historically the sense of ethical law pre- 
 cedes the discovery of natural law. We are 
 told that Aristotle's natural science is wild ; we 
 know that his ethical science is immortal. As 
 far as it goes his logic is a marvel of rational 
 order; his physics are only preserved because 
 they are his. This is simply a striking instance 
 of a universal law. Stoic ethics are of perma- 
 nent value ; stoic physics are valueless. The 
 sense of mental and moral order in its supreme 
 form is as old as the Founder of Christianity. 
 And this precedence of the inward over the out- 
 ward is of inexpressible moment. It is the sure 
 sign that we do not read the natural order into 
 the spiritual ; but that having found the spirit- 
 ual order, at a much later stage of experience, 
 we are able to construe in its light the natural 
 order. Early in history there comes the con-
 
 158 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 sciousness of an order in human life that man 
 did not make and that he cannot unmake. The 
 laws that govern the health of the body, the 
 continuance of man upon the earth, the due 
 training, the ever wider information, and the 
 rational expression of the intellect, and the de- 
 velopment of just character, are independent of 
 volition. They are in the nature of man. So- 
 cial well-being is in the keeping of an irrevo- 
 cable necessity. Right action and wrong, sane 
 methods of living and insane, are in each case 
 followed by irreversible consequences. No man 
 can serve two masters. The laws of life are 
 above and beyond volition. We may choose our 
 path, but the choice once made the consequence is 
 inevitable. Ethnic eschatologies are simply a le- 
 gendary presentation of the absoluteness of moral 
 law. The way into the abyss will never lead to 
 the heights ; the conduct that is an outrage upon 
 the individual life and an insult to society is 
 perdition. We cannot stay the planet in its 
 flight, arrest or change the ongoing stars, reverse 
 the tide before its time, invert the seasons, or 
 roll back the river upon its source ; and we are 
 led to perceive and understand this physical 
 impossibility because of the earlier sense of the 
 moral impossibility of overthrowing or altering 
 the laws that govern human life. In the light 
 of the order within, man is able to note and 
 understand the order without.
 
 PERSONALITY 159 
 
 But science runs into a philosophy of nature. 
 The assumption is that nature is one ; she is a 
 universe. And this thought, which has taken 
 possession to-day of almost every one who thinks, 
 is but the full objectification of man in nature. 
 Will is but an aspect of human life ; intelligence 
 and will together do not exhaust man. He is 
 unity in multiplicity, a permanent spirit in a 
 world of change, a self -identical being in a wide 
 experience of diversity. In this unity will and 
 intellect and feeling live ; they are aspects of 
 this unity, they do not exhaust it. And thus 
 possessed as man is with the sense of force and 
 order and unity he goes to the serious study of 
 nature. It too is force and order and still more. 
 Nature is one ; it is a universe. It is simply 
 self -stultification to assert that our scientific view 
 of nature is other than the expression of human 
 personality. Science as the organized knowledge 
 of the force and law and unity of the material 
 world is an impressive witness to the personal 
 spirit of man. 
 
 Art is another witness. It is a creation ex- 
 pressive of the spiritual life. Its greater notes 
 are order, freedom, beauty, unity. In the best 
 music, painting, poetry, building, and sculpture, 
 man is the being that he fails to be in the actual 
 world. The ideal creation is an expression of 
 the person who would live an ideal existence.
 
 160 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 Art is ideal beauty, as ethics is ideal right ; each 
 is a symbol of the personal spirit. And it is 
 inconceivable that a great artistic whole should 
 come out of a life that was in no sense a whole 
 in itself. Art is but the shadow of man ; and 
 in its freedom and unity it is a witness to his 
 freedom and unity. 
 
 We inevitably seek personal centres for the 
 best influences of the world. What are called 
 the humanities, the wisdom and sentiment of the 
 race as expressed especially in literature and his- 
 tory, centre in great personalities, and they could 
 have no conceivable interest for a being in the 
 image of the Humian psychology. 
 
 The true reading of the world's best books and 
 its great lives is a re-creation of the past. Lan- 
 guage is but a symbol ; the vast vital content of 
 the symbol is appreciable only through creative 
 imagination. The wisdom of the race is wrought 
 out through the personal history of leading men ; 
 and not until it is ideally replaced in the con- 
 sciousness from which it came is it understood. 
 In all high literature the authors are benefactors ; 
 they are lifted into an ideal world, they consti- 
 tute an invisible commonwealth. They are the 
 cloud of witnesses that encompass the noble 
 struggle of the world. The higher criticism has 
 its rights ; it must protest against the tendency 
 to believe a literary lie. But it is still the ser-
 
 PERSONALITY 161 
 
 vant of imagination. Make it clear that Homer 
 did not write the Iliad and Odyssey, that there 
 are two or three Isaiahs instead of one, that 
 there are no incontestably Davidic psalms, that 
 Moses has no claim to the authorship of the 
 ninetieth, the sublimest and most mournful of 
 all the psalms, and you simply impose a new 
 duty upon the creative imagination. The spir- 
 itual wisdom of the race cannot remain in the 
 air. Without name it may be, but not without 
 source in human souls. It is the human value 
 of history that lends it an everlasting charm. 
 And the result of the most destructive criticism 
 is but the opening up of a fresh opportunity 
 for the substantiation of wisdom and beauty and 
 heroism and hope in sublime personalities. Un- 
 der a philosophic sense of the force of person- 
 ality in the world, and through adequate learn- 
 ing, this new creation of the imagination will at 
 least serve as a symbol of the truth. The pa- 
 triarchs will live in spite of criticism ; the rich 
 legends of Genesis will continue as types of the 
 personal origins of human history. The modi- 
 fied Adam will shape evolution ; it will be the 
 horse and he the rider. Thus persistent, invin- 
 cible, and rationally valid is the human instinct 
 for personality. 
 
 Human personality is the condition of human 
 society. Human society is an organization in
 
 162 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 moral reason. The functions of personality in 
 knowledge and in judgment and in action extend 
 themselves in society. Personality stands for 
 two things, the uniqueness of the individual and 
 his universality. The uniqueness marks his re- 
 ality so that he does not blend in the social mass 
 as the drop does in the ocean. The universality 
 is his power of rational sympathy, the faculty by 
 which he is able to share the thought, the passion, 
 and the purpose of the widest and noblest social 
 whole. The genuine human home, as opposed to 
 the pairing of birds or the cohabitation of ani- 
 mals, is an institution through personality; the 
 inviolable reality of the man and the woman, 
 and the power of reciprocity in thought and love 
 and service, are essential assumptions. Through 
 instinct the human home is an institution of 
 moral persons. Nowhere are the sacredness and 
 the mutuality of personality, its uniqueness and its 
 universality, so clearly seen as here. The family, 
 the industrial order, the nation, and the commu- 
 nity of the race, so far as they are not brutal 
 but human, are based upon personality. 
 
 It is needless to say that personality in its two- 
 foldness of uniqueness and universality is essen- 
 tial to religion. The Infinite as personal has 
 alone interest for man ; nothing else can mean 
 anything to man. The Eternal must mean an 
 Absolute experience to whose perfection the ex-
 
 PERSONALITY 163 
 
 perience of a good man bears some likeness. The 
 aboriginal assumption of intelligent religion is 
 the personality of God, his uniqueness and ab- 
 solute universality ; and of that life men avail 
 themselves by the corresponding power of per- 
 sonality. Mutuality in thought, in love, in pur- 
 pose, and in activity is possible between God and 
 man on the ground that in the infinity of their 
 unlikeness they are still essentially akin. Job's 
 utterance, which is by common consent regarded 
 as the supreme expression of the religious spirit, 
 " Though he slay me yet will I trust in him," 
 is but the spoken confidence of a real lover in the 
 reality of the Eternal Beloved. All swamping of 
 man in God, all reduction of the soul to a mode of 
 the Infinite, to the bubble on the ocean, all excla- 
 mations that " he who truly loves God must not 
 desire that God should love him in return," are 
 pathological. Religion as worship, as trust, and 
 as service is from one real being to the reality of 
 the Supreme Being. Through the attributes of 
 distinction and community God and man unite ; 
 God with man through Infinite tenderness and 
 help, man with God through homage and trust 
 and obedience. 
 
 More, perhaps, than any one thing personality 
 means distinction from the universe and con- 
 scious involvement with it. Here is the core of 
 the matter, it seems to me, in the notes of per-
 
 164 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 manent distinction and of conscious sympathy. 
 The two aspects of personality may, perhaps, be 
 expressed in the single phrase " conscious in- 
 volvement with the universe." Everything is of 
 course related to everything else ; as Emerson 
 used to say, " strike the rock with your hammer 
 and the jar is felt in Jupiter." Animal life is in- 
 cluded in this complete circuit of being. Every 
 creature that has life is related to the living whole. 
 But when we ascend to man we come upon some- 
 thing besides the fact of universal relationship. 
 Man is related to nature, to human society, to 
 the Infinite, and he knows it. This involve- 
 ment with the universe reflected in conscious- 
 ness and made distinctive and serious is the 
 chief characteristic of man. To trace the con- 
 scious involvement of man with the universe is 
 to trace the meaning of his life, is to expound 
 its reality. 
 
 This consciousness makes the involvement 
 new in character. It is no longer an involve- 
 ment as of one thing with all things in a me- 
 chanical order ; nor is it the relation of one 
 being to another in a mere vital order. It is 
 the involution of consciousness with conscious- 
 ness, of spirit with spirit in the order of the 
 Absolute spirit. Things are ordered by attrac- 
 tion and repulsion, and they know it not; animals 
 are ordered by desire and aversion, and they pay
 
 PERSONALITY 165 
 
 no heed to it ; men are ordered by moral need 
 and hope, and their consciousness of moral need 
 and hope is their life. The German mystic is 
 right in his discrimination of man's world from 
 that of the animal, " The element of the fish 
 is the sea, the element of the bird is the air, 
 the element of the soul is God." At best the 
 highest animal life can do no more than come to 
 the borders of man's world and look up into it 
 in utter blankness of vision, as certain inhabit- 
 ants of the sea come to the surface and look up 
 into the sky. And the porpoise may be held to 
 understand modern astronomy when it is said 
 truly that the animal has the least rational ap- 
 preciation of man's distinctive world. Man lives 
 and moves and has his being in God ; that is, his 
 distinctive life is conscious involvement with the 
 universe. 
 
 This consciousness may put on either of two 
 forms. It may be the consciousness of the viola- 
 tion of this high relation, as in the case of the 
 psalmist when he cries, 
 
 " Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, 
 And done that which is evil in thy sight." 1 
 
 The outrage committed upon human life is felt 
 to be an insult offered to the Infinite life. The 
 sense of sin is the assertion of a calamitous con- 
 sciousness, and the calamity lies in the disavowal 
 
 1 Psalm I i . 4.
 
 166 THE INDIVIDUAL. ULTIMATE 
 
 of- righteousness. The mood of repentance is a 
 transitional one the dissolution of an evil con- 
 sciousness toward God into a good consciousness 
 toward him. Or it may be the consciousness 
 of ethical identity with God, as in the case of 
 Christ, " I and my Father are one." Judas and 
 Jesus present the ideals for these two contrasted 
 consciousnesses in which men live. At the low- 
 est extreme is the spirit that confesses its treason 
 against the Infinite, at the highest extreme is the 
 Master whose soul is at one with the rhythm of 
 eternal love. In the consciousness of involve- 
 ment with the Infinite, and between these two 
 extremes of despair and ecstasy, men live. This 
 is their world ; these are its extremes. 
 
 We come here within sight of a reasonable 
 faith in immortality. Every soul has the per- 
 manent distinction of conscious involvement with 
 God. Personality is exclusive only under one 
 aspect ; under another aspect it is the great 
 organ of inclusiveness. The exclusiveness is 
 only in order to secure its essential reality ; the 
 function of that reality is sympathy, the perva- 
 sive power of the spirit, the communion through 
 which brotherhood is realized and by which men 
 are perfected in the life of God. The mutualism 
 of humanity is thus expressed by the apostle : 
 " Ye are in our hearts to die together and live 
 together." 1 The mutualism of God and re- 
 
 1 2 Corinthians vii. 3.
 
 PERSONALITY 167 
 
 deemed man is thus set forth : " In whom ye 
 also are builded together for a habitation of God 
 in the Spirit." l And as Emerson sings, 
 
 " 'T is not within the force of fate 
 The fate-conjoined to separate." 
 
 The tree is yearly denuded of its leaves, but 
 while the tree lasts the structure remains ; the 
 universe has an immense range of transient 
 expression, but the spiritual organism of the 
 universe in God and in man would seem to be 
 forever. This reciprocity between God and man, 
 whether in terms of love, as in the case of all 
 the holy, or in terms of discipline, as with all 
 defiant souls, would appear to authenticate the 
 immortality of man. In his sin, man stands 
 before God as judge ; the unholy life and the 
 supremely holy are interlocked through con- 
 science. There would appear to be no end of 
 this reciprocity in terms of retribution and dis- 
 cipline save by the conversion of the offending 
 soul. What once interlocks with the Divine 
 conscience must surely remain interlocked. The 
 chain may be transformed from moral suffering 
 to moral joy, but it cannot be broken. What is 
 morally worth while for God once is morally 
 worth while forever. He is not a man, that 
 he should repent. And if this must be so with 
 wicked persons, it is clear that it must be so 
 
 1 Ephesians ii. 22.
 
 168 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 with those who love God. The mutualism of 
 this love means the soul's hold upon God and 
 God's hold upon the soul. 
 
 Personality, therefore, is the fundamental as- 
 surance of immortality. In virtue of it man is 
 real, and on account of it he shares in the best 
 life of the race and enters into and lays hold of 
 the life of God. The growth of the individual 
 in knowledge and in character means the increase 
 of his grasp upon the total achievement of man- 
 kind, the larger reproduction in himself of the 
 higher moods of the race, the sympathetic owner- 
 ship of the spiritual possessions of humanity. 
 Personality is this spirit of pervasiveness and 
 fellowship in knowledge, in duty, and in hope. 
 Learning is possible only through personality ; 
 and on account of the same fact it is possible 
 for man to partake of the life of God. The 
 world of human achievement is here, and God 
 is in it and above it ; and the capacity to per- 
 vade and possess more and more widely that 
 world, and to rise evermore into a vaster sense 
 of the Transcendent goodness, is perhaps the 
 deepest thing in the human soul. On account 
 of it the soul lays hold upon the highest in 
 history and in the universe, and in virtue of it 
 the highest in history and the universe lays hold 
 upon the soul. In and through this profound 
 and serious reciprocity of spiritual being, one
 
 PERSONALITY 169 
 
 can hear from the Creative heart the assurance, 
 " Because I live, ye shall live also." 
 
 " Till Death us join, 
 
 O voice yet more Divine ! 
 That to the broken heart breathes hope sublime ; 
 
 Through lonely hours 
 
 And shattered powers 
 We still are one, despite of change and time. 
 
 " Death, with his healing hand, 
 
 Shall once more knit the band, 
 Which needs but that one link which none may sever ; 
 
 Till through the Only Good, 
 
 Heard, felt, and understood, 
 Our life in God shall make us one forever." 
 
 IV 
 
 The capacity for expanding conscious involve- 
 ment in the best life of the universe, just noted, 
 leads to the general remark that personality is 
 a real capacity rather than a completely devel- 
 oped consciousness. It is a native and enduring 
 capacity whose realization is the ideal of exist- 
 ence. Such as it is, human experience is but an 
 approximation to unity ; besides, this experience 
 under adverse moral judgment is subject to dis- 
 integration. It must be broken up and pass 
 away, if the man is ever to come to himself. 
 Perverse realizations of this high capacity are 
 the central tragedy of life, and the thing that 
 man knows least about is often his own soul. 
 The ideal of personality is given in the great
 
 170 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 words, "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your 
 heavenly Father is perfect ; " l and again, in the 
 terms of Christ's prayer, " that they may be one 
 even as we are." 2 That is, experience must be 
 of the true type, and it must complete itself 
 through the vision of the Absolute experience. 
 From this ideal, men are far away. The catego- 
 ries of thought are incompletely applied to the 
 world in knowledge, and knowledge is at best 
 ill-organized. The moral ideal is still little more 
 than a light upon the wild deep of human pas- 
 sion, and the noblest characters in the world are 
 torn with contradictions. The will of man is 
 far from being a will wholly for righteousness ; 
 and where it is firmly set hi the resolve to bring 
 to pass the highest things, it is only a ship leav- 
 ing port, headed indeed homeward, but with 
 uncounted leagues of stormy sea intervening. 
 Man is enough of a person to see in God the 
 Absolute person, and to find in God the progres- 
 sive realization of his own human personality. 
 Capacities and ideals are the last and best 
 description of human existence. The discrimi- 
 nating instinct in sense, the organizing instinct 
 in intellect, the appreciation of moral values in 
 conscience, the aptitude for selection and action 
 in the will, and the capacity for the unity of 
 truth and of love in the soul, bring one close to 
 
 i Matthew v. 48. 2 John xvii. 12.
 
 PERSONALITY 171 
 
 the reality of the human mind. Everywhere 
 that mind is a genuine capacity matched with a 
 sublime ideal. If we look for complete realiza- 
 tions, we shall hardly find ourselves; if we 
 fasten upon capacities and ideals, we shall be 
 unable to miss ourselves ; and in the presence of 
 the profoundest capacity, the capacity for true 
 selfhood, and face to face with the sublimest 
 ideal, the ideal of a selfhood in the full image 
 of God, we shall know that we have made the 
 great primal discovery. 
 
 To appeal to this capacity, in the strength of 
 the personality of Christ, is the high privilege of 
 the preacher. Christ is the force by which this 
 capacity becomes conscious of itself, the force 
 by which this conscious capacity is heightened. 
 It must never be forgotten that profound moral 
 experience is essential to the due discovery of 
 the personal soul. In the brutal civilizations 
 of antiquity men were little more than things. 
 Prior to the era of the prophets there was little 
 sense of personality among the people of Israel. 
 The social moralism of the prophets was, in a 
 way, premature. It presupposed, what had not 
 yet been distinctly discovered, the personal soul 
 of the individual man. The experiences of great 
 souls like Isaiah and Jeremiah did much to edu- 
 cate men in the true direction. But not until 
 we hear Jesus preaching by the sea of Galilee
 
 172 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 and on the hillsides of Judaea do we witness the 
 message that brings man to the consciousness 
 of himself. The divine soul of Jesus wrought 
 within men the sense of soul. Here Christian- 
 ity is unique in human history. It opened at 
 men's feet infinite abysses ; it showed overhead 
 infinite heights. It led men into the conscious- 
 ness of moral evil, and into the sense of moral 
 good with a power that made the soul an awful 
 surprise to itself. Nothing is sublimer in the 
 annals of mankind than this sudden accentua- 
 tion of personality through the power of a tre- 
 mendous moral experience. Men like Paul and 
 Augustine and Luther and Edwards repeat in 
 themselves the aboriginal spiritual surprise. The 
 Prodigal Sou is man in the process of a powerful 
 moral experience. The conscious abuse of exist- 
 ence, the want, the shame, the horror of it ; the 
 possibility of recovering the lost grace, of re- 
 turning to the original integrity, issue in a sense 
 of personality that nothing can shake. " I Jiave 
 sinned ; " "I will arise and go to my Father ; " 
 when words like these are the serious utterance 
 of the soul, it is plain that the man has come to 
 himself. To make men see that the moral life 
 in every soul sinks into an Inferno, rises into a 
 Purgatorio, and is overhung by a Paradiso, is 
 the vocation of the preacher. He finds men 
 moving in worlds not realized ; there are depths 
 of moral suffering, heights of moral discipline,
 
 PERSONALITY 173 
 
 and distant regions of moral peace of which they 
 must be made aware. And through this process 
 of heightened moral experience the personal 
 spirit will steadily rise before him into the dis- 
 tincter and surer consciousness of self. 
 
 Personality is the word for the reality of the 
 individual human life. Whether one can give 
 an adequate account of that reality to the reason 
 or not, one must insist upon it. Human life 
 ebbs and flows, contracts and expands, is now 
 more and now less ; it is a history of mutation 
 and of difference. Still within this uncertain 
 circle there is somewhere a permanent centre. 
 The sense of a real, abiding, self-identical life is 
 the final fact in consciousness. Personality is, 
 therefore, the ultimate truth of the individual 
 human being; it is the one fixed point that 
 looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is 
 the necessary presupposition of all knowledge, 
 all moral judgment and feeling, all moral achieve- 
 ment and character. It is the attestation of 
 the reality of man. In the races that like the 
 Hindu are chiefly meditative and receptive, the 
 sense of personality is weakest ; in peoples that 
 like the Anglo- American are marked by creative 
 and governing instincts the consciousness of it 
 is strongest. It is like the rock in the river ; it 
 is always there, and in the normal flow always 
 visible ; but under the freshet it is covered up, 
 and then it is known only by the roar of the
 
 174 THE INDIVIDUAL ULTIMATE 
 
 stream over it. This freshet is one of the fea- 
 tures of modern life. The frequency and the 
 severity of it is the main reason for this dis- 
 cussion of what would appear to be the most 
 incontestible of all human certainties. Under 
 an incessant invasion of superstitions from the 
 world of learning, fads scientific and social, and 
 the swift incoming tide of incompatible inter- 
 ests, man is in danger of losing himself in a 
 completely unbiblical sense. The quest of the 
 ancient Diogenes was for a man ; the search of 
 the modern Diogenes is for himself. He has 
 disappeared in the labyrinth of nerves and 
 nerve-functions ; or he has been caught in the 
 machinery of habit, and in the whirl of the au- 
 tomatic wheel he has become invisible ; or among 
 the quicksands of the " states of mind " theory, 
 and in the mud that gathers in the channel 
 under the " stream of consciousness," he has 
 sunk out of sight. The utterance of the Greek 
 oracle assumed that the knower and his object 
 were real, and that they were together. That 
 oracle is dumb ; its assumptions are no longer 
 treated as divine ; and to know himself it is 
 to-day incumbent upon a man to find himself. 
 The answer to this challenge is through the as- 
 sertion of the soul in knowledge and in charac- 
 ter, in truth and in love ; and the study of man 
 as the creator of his own world.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE: HUMANITY 
 
 I 
 
 CARLYLE'S compassion for individual sufferers 
 is well known. In concrete instances of distress 
 no one could be more considerate. For the mass 
 of mankind he had little but scorn. His feeling 
 for the human race is expressed in his judgment 
 upon the population of Great Britain : " Forty 
 millions, mostly fools." He reminds one of the 
 New England minister who said : " I detest hu- 
 manity, but I love individual men." There is a 
 class of thinkers to whom the race counts for 
 little, to whom individual souls are the sole con- 
 cern. On the other hand is Emerson who con- 
 fessed : " I love man, but I hate men." The 
 general idea of man was full of attraction and 
 significance for Emerson, but the particular per- 
 sons in whom the general idea was embodied did 
 not at all interest him. They were inferior, and 
 they did not appeal to imagination and sympa- 
 thy. That Emerson yielded to this aristocratic 
 revulsion from the multitude is not for one mo- 
 ment to be admitted. He simply confesses, in
 
 176 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 absolute honesty, the strong current of desire. 
 The ideal man engaged and inspired his spirit, 
 the abstract man was to him immensely signifi- 
 cant, the concept humanity was his native air. 
 This is indeed the temptation of the idealist. I 
 happened to meet Phillips Brooks fresh from 
 the reading of Cabot's " Life of Emerson," and 
 he quoted with much merriment Emerson's con- 
 fession : " I love man, but I hate men " as an 
 expression of his own instincts. Never was there 
 a more democratic soul than Phillips Brooks, 
 never was there a man who served individual 
 cases of need with more intense and rapt devo- 
 tion ; and yet this great spirit knew his own 
 weakness. He saw at once the profound criti- 
 cism which Emerson made upon himself, and 
 which held good for the idealistic tendency in 
 all men. The realist cries that the individual 
 is everything ; the idealist contends that the 
 race is the great object of interest. 
 
 There is a mood in which both individualism 
 and racialism are reconciled. One can think of a 
 man like Livingstone traversing the Dark Con- 
 tinent, everywhere meeting the saddest sights. 
 Men and women appear before him apparently 
 but little above the brutes. The sight of the 
 eye affects the heart ; and yet this great mis- 
 sionary of civilization is somehow able to dis- 
 cern in every degraded human being the image
 
 HUMANITY 177 
 
 of God, the possible disciple of Jesus Christ. 
 That is no doubt the mood into which Emerson 
 fought his way ; it is the mood in which Phillips 
 Brooks lived his beautiful life ; it is the mood 
 in which every genuine believer in man must 
 finally rest. The concrete and the abstract, the 
 particular and the universal, the real and the 
 ideal must somehow be seen together, and as 
 together making up the whole truth of life. 
 
 Here one discovers how close to feeling and 
 practical interest are some of the strangest philo- 
 sophical formulas. At first sight nothing could 
 be more unpractical than the endless debate be- 
 tween the mediaeval realist and nominalist. But 
 when one carries the debate out of the heathen 
 hands of the schoolmen back to its origin in 
 Greek philosophy, one begins to see how pro- 
 foundly vital it is. The old Protagorean nomi- 
 nalism, is simply the theoretic account of Car- 
 lyle's compassion for the particular person, and 
 his contempt for the mass of mankind. Indi- 
 viduals are all that we have, says the Greek 
 sophist ; general views are fictions and the pro- 
 per objects of philosophic scorn. Emerson's 
 love of the universal and his disregard for the 
 individual man is nothing but Platonism in 
 feeling. The idea, the general view, the notion 
 is not simply real, it is the only reality. The 
 world of reality is extra-mental, extra-human ;
 
 178 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 it is a world where general ideas exist in a sub- 
 lime harmony ; and the vision of this supersen- 
 sible realm and not the fields of time and space 
 is the reward of wisdom. What is this but the 
 philosophic consecration of our love of man, and 
 the philosophic justification of our aversion to 
 men. Livingstone's vision of God in the poor- 
 est soul, his detection of the possible disciple of 
 Christ in the most degraded human being, is but 
 the great insight of Aristotle applied to life. 
 The individual and the universal, the particular 
 thing and the general truth, the real and the 
 ideal belong together, and together make up 
 the one world. Here is a witness in an unex- 
 pected quarter to the fact that all genuine 
 thinking concerns human feeling and conduct, 
 and that the grand philosophical debates of the 
 world need only to be translated into their origi- 
 nal interests in order to disclose their high and 
 enduring vitality. 
 
 The most august instance of the mood in 
 which the individual and the universal are re- 
 conciled has yet to be named. It is the Judg- 
 ment Parable of Jesus found in the twenty-fifth 
 chapter of Matthew. Nowhere is ethical nomi- 
 nalism so impressively condemned as here. No- 
 where does mere idealism meet with such con- 
 suming scorn as in these sublime utterances of 
 Jesus. The men who see nothing in human
 
 HUMANITY 179 
 
 suffering but animal suffering, and the men who 
 worship an ideal out of all relation to the suffer- 
 ing world pass under a terrible sentence. The 
 surprise of the ethical nominalist and abstract 
 idealist is in these words : " Lord, when saw we 
 thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or 
 naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister 
 unto thee ? " The answer is in these words : 
 " Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did 
 it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto 
 me." The surprise of the Christian is in his 
 unconscious Christianity : " Lord, when saw we 
 thee an hungred, and fed thee ? or athirst, and 
 gave thee drink ? And when saw we thee a 
 stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and 
 clothed thee ? And when saw we thee sick, or 
 in prison, and came unto thee ? " The answer 
 explains the mystery : " Inasmuch as ye did it 
 unto one of these my brethren, even these least, 
 ye did it unto me." 1 They looked upon men 
 as men ; they ministered to human suffering as 
 human suffering ; and they found that their ser- 
 vice to individuals involved humanity, that their 
 humanity involved Christian humanity. Thus 
 does Jesus bind person to person ; thus does he 
 lift the commonwealth of persons in their ordi- 
 nary animal needs into a life identified with his 
 
 own. 
 
 1 Matthew xxv. 37-45.
 
 180 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 What is humanity ? Is it possible to give a 
 definite answer to this question ? Humanity in 
 this discussion means several things. It means 
 that human beings constitute a kind, as birds or 
 quadrupeds constitute a kind. It is true that 
 no kind stands wholly by itself ; in every kind 
 differentiation rises, hi some instances, to great 
 heights, while in others it sinks almost out of 
 sight. There are difficulties of classification on 
 the boundaries of all forms of life. Is the bat 
 a bird or a mammal ? Is the flying fish to be 
 classified upward or downward ? On the bound- 
 aries of the human race similar difficulties occur. 
 These difficulties are illustrated by the famous 
 colloquy between the child and its attendant at 
 the menagerie : " Where is the bear ? There, 
 standing by the Irishman. Which is the Irish- 
 man? The animal with the umbrella." On 
 the evolutionary hypothesis these difficulties, at 
 an earlier date, must have been overwhelming. 
 At the present time, however, the general dis- 
 tinction of the human race is obvious. The 
 distinguishing traits of man are shared in a per- 
 ceptible degree by nearly all human beings, so 
 that they may be said to form a class by them- 
 selves. 
 
 Humanity means, in the second place, that 
 the significant mark of man is the capacity for 
 a life ordered in moral reason. Man is capable
 
 HUMANITY 181 
 
 of gaining a moral view of the world, and of 
 proposing for himself an end in accordance with 
 this view. Righteousness is the supreme inter- 
 est of human society, and the perception of this 
 fact and a life ordered in homage to it is a pos- 
 sibility for all men. In the carrying out of this 
 moral programme in a moral world, the need of 
 God and his reality are first discovered. And 
 that man has the capacity to enter 'into covenant 
 with the Supreme moral reason is but another 
 way of stating his essential characteristic. He 
 is made in the image of God ; that is, he lives in 
 a moral world, and his vocation is to live for 
 ends in keeping with that world. He is a son 
 of God ; that is, there is an essential kinship be- 
 tween God and man, and man's highest distinc- 
 tion is his capacity for moral response to God's 
 moral appeal. It is believed that this note is 
 universally distinctive of mankind. There is in 
 all men the capacity for a life ordered in moral 
 reason ; there is between all men and the Infi- 
 nite an indestructible affinity, an essential an- 
 swerableness as of the image to the original; 
 there is in all men the filial possibility which 
 when spoken to with prevailing power becomes 
 filial fact, filial experience, and distinct sonhood 
 to God. 
 
 Humanity means, in the third place, that 
 God's fatherly purpose in Christ covers all men.
 
 182 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 What God intends for one or some he intends 
 for all. This is one great meaning of the Incar- 
 nation. God's intention for Jesus Christ is sig- 
 nificant of his intention for mankind. He wills 
 holiness for the whole race, for each and for all ; 
 and in pursuance of this goal which he has set 
 up for every human being, he sends forth his 
 Spirit to strive with men. God is on the side of 
 every soul that he has made ; he is for it, and 
 not against it, forever and ever. Whatever 
 the issues of time and eternity may be, this 
 truth is clear to every believer in Jesus Christ, 
 that the will of God proposes for every man an 
 infinite good, and that the discipline of exist- 
 ence and the entire mechanism of retribution 
 are but God's ways of seeking to hold or to re- 
 cover the soul to the divine purpose of its being. 
 Without the shelter of God's loving intention 
 over eVery human life there is no gospel, there 
 is no humanity. We bind mankind into one by 
 the one purpose of infinite and everlasting love 
 that covers the race. The secret place of the 
 Most High, the shadow of the Almighty is his 
 purpose of good and only good in creating men ; 
 and it is nothing but the witness to the sincerity 
 of this purpose that he sends forth in its behalf 
 the Holy Spirit of realization. 
 
 Humanity means, finally, the universal an- 
 swerableness to moral standards, the universal
 
 HUMANITY 183 
 
 amenableness to the moral God. Here is the 
 universal distinction : man is subject to moral 
 judgment ; he is under the government of the 
 Supreme conscience. This does not mean that 
 class-interests are necessarily illegitimate. Privi- 
 leges and immunities are often essential to the 
 public service, as when the general commands 
 his army from a position miles away from the 
 zone of fire. The family is a private institution, 
 and yet it is essential to social good. The ser- 
 vice of the world is impossible otherwise than in 
 and through particular affections and special 
 interests. The rivers feed the sea ; but they 
 have their own distinct life as an essential ante- 
 cedent to this work. There is room for the 
 specialization of mankind; there is indeed a 
 demand for it. Under the life of the family, 
 the vocation, the clan, the brotherhoods of sci- 
 ence and trade, and the fellowship of the nation, 
 there is eternal fitness. But these interests are 
 subject to a reference beyond themselves. They 
 are brought to the judgment seat of the brother- 
 hood of man. Whatever in trade, in society, in 
 education, in government, and in religion, sets 
 itself against man as man, is base, and has no 
 business to be. The supreme characteristic of 
 man does not lie in those things which distin- 
 guish him from other men, but in those things 
 which he possesses in common with all men.
 
 184 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 Not in birth, endowment, position, wealth, power, 
 and fame does the great distinction lie, but in 
 the universal reason and conscience, in the moral 
 equality of mankind in the presence of the moral 
 God. In the Parable of the talents we find un- 
 equal ability expressed in equal fidelity equally 
 rewarded. To the man whose five talents be- 
 came ten, and to him whose two talents became 
 four, the same commendation is given : " Well 
 done, good and faithful servant ; thou hast been 
 faithful over a few things, I will set thee over 
 many things : enter thou into the joy of thy 
 lord." l In the Parable of the pounds we see 
 equal ability expressed in unequal fidelity, un- 
 equally rewarded. In the case where the pound 
 became ten pounds, the servant is distinctly 
 commended and set over ten cities ; in the case 
 where the pound became five pounds, the servant 
 is without special commendation set over five 
 cities. 2 In the Parable of the laborers we are 
 shown the value of motive in work. Those who 
 had labored the whole day, and those who had 
 labored only a part of the day, or even for one 
 hour, received the same wages. The three para- 
 bles belong together. One emphasizes unequal 
 ability and equal fidelity; another throws into 
 relief equal ability and unequal fidelity ; while 
 still another considers not the product, but the 
 1 Matthew xxv. 14-24. 2 Luke xix. 11-19.
 
 HUMANITY 185 
 
 motive of labor. 1 These parables are the politi- 
 cal economy of the kingdom of God ; and they 
 show human life in a grand equalization in the 
 presence of God. One kind, one kind whose 
 distinguishing mark is kinship to God, whose 
 career is covered with the purpose of Infinite 
 love, whose standing is upon the ground of con- 
 science in the presence of the Eternal conscience; 
 that is humanity. 
 
 II 
 
 In another volume I have treated of some of 
 the grand historic perils of humanity. 2 The 
 human interpretation of existence has had to 
 fight its way from the beginning. Never at 
 any time has it been a secure possession of man- 
 kind. It has been a militant interpretation ; it 
 has survived and conquered because those who 
 were for it have been stronger than those who 
 were against it. The historic campaign between 
 the man and the brute is far from an end. On 
 the various levels of the flesh, the intellect, and 
 the spirit, the conflict still goes on. Over the 
 whole field of time there is indeed an undeniable 
 and an immeasurably important victory of the 
 man over the brute. Upon the whole, history is 
 the record of the defeat of inhumanity. Still 
 
 1 A. B. Brace, The Parabolic Teaching of Jesus, pp. 178-225. 
 
 2 The New Epoch for Faith, chap. ii.
 
 186 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 this defeat has never been decisive. Human 
 interests and values have never been free from 
 the menace of the unsubdued brutality in the 
 world. An invasion from beneath, an incursion 
 of inhumanity, is still among the things to be 
 dreaded. The historic root of bitterness still 
 lives, and apples of Sodom continue to compete 
 with the fruits of the tree of life. 
 
 There are, however, special perils peculiar to 
 our time, surrounding the human interpretation 
 of existence. The grand historic danger is seen 
 by every serious person ; but the new forms of 
 menace are not universally discerned. The deep- 
 est, as well as the most general, of these forms 
 of menace is what may be called the naturalistic 
 view of life. According to this view, human 
 life is but the extension of the lower life of the 
 world. All life is essentially one in kind. Con- 
 tinuity is the great note in the vital concert. 
 The essential problems of all life are two, the 
 food problem and the race problem. Self- 
 preservation and self-reproduction are the heart 
 of all existence. All industry and all society, 
 all thinking and all behavior, have their meaning 
 with reference to these two problems. Life, 
 with its double task, is wholly of this world ; it 
 is concerned with no other ; it knows of no other. 
 Natural history covers the movement and be- 
 havior of life alike in the human and the sub-
 
 HUMANITY 187 
 
 human spheres. The main business of man and 
 beast is the same ; it is to maintain life and to 
 repeat it in descendants. Political economy, 
 ethics, social science, government, and art are as 
 truly, although not so fully, predicable of the 
 bee as of the human being. The intellectual 
 and moral life of man is sound only as it relates 
 to self-continuance and self -reproduction ; it is 
 genuine only so far as it is an amplification of 
 the intellectual and moral life of the animal. 
 Heaven and hell, other than happy or unhappy 
 terrestial moods and conditions, are unknown to 
 this view; the eternal consequence of human 
 behavior is a poetic exaggeration ; right and 
 wrong have an essentially biological meaning, 
 and transcendental significance they have none ; 
 the thirst of the human soul for the living God 
 is a fanaticism, a form of disease ; the question 
 of life after death is one that must be settled in 
 the negative. The whole supersensuous and 
 divine meaning of existence becomes mythologi- 
 cal ; the unique dignity and career of man is 
 lost in his complete identification with the life 
 below him. 
 
 This is the profoundest and the most serious 
 menace to the human interpretation of man's ex- 
 istence. It must be met with the whole power 
 of an inspired humanity. It is a caricature, and 
 as such excites indignation ; but it is not a con-
 
 188 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 
 scious caricature. It is the mood into which 
 
 men drop when the vigorous application of con- 
 science to life has ceased. The interpretation 
 of human existence downward is inevitable when 
 its upward affinities cease to be urgent, when 
 they become altogether passive and dim. The 
 natural man always looks for his kindred below 
 him, and where the spiritual man is as good as 
 non-existent, life sinks almost without protest. 
 This permanent tendency, in the absence of the 
 counter-pull of vigorous conscience, to construe 
 the man into the animal, has been immensely 
 strengthened by the scientific attitude of the last 
 fifty years. Natural inclination has been fixed 
 by culture; and the mood that meets the 
 preacher of the Gospel of the divine humanity 
 is that of spiritual incapacity and incredulity. 
 How can these things be ? is the strange ques- 
 tion that comes up from multitudes. 
 
 Much has been done to overcome this habit ; 
 but much remains to be done. The emphasis 
 must be laid upon the uniqueness of man. Con- 
 tinuity is an overworked truth ; it must be re- 
 lieved by the truth of human distinction. The 
 transformation of animal instincts in man by 
 moral reason must be exhibited as the normal 
 human life. The presence of love must be 
 shown to give a new character to the animal 
 endowment of mankind. The human home is
 
 HUMANITY 189 
 
 founded in instinct as transfigured by moral 
 reason. Business with all its outrages is still a 
 moral fellowship. This is attested by the legal 
 system of the land, which is an imperfect ex- 
 pression, but still an expression, of the sense of 
 social justice. That business is essentially a 
 moral fellowship is further attested by the fact 
 that it is the subject of unsparing moral judg- 
 ment. That ethics deals not only with results 
 but also with motives is evident. Behavior must 
 date itself from within, the pure act from the 
 pure spirit. Government is the highest expres- 
 sion of the social conscience, and as such is a 
 uniquely human institution. Obligation covers 
 mankind, and again the human race lives in a 
 moral order. The cry for the fellowship of the 
 Infinite is the superlative distinction of man. 
 He was made for God, and he cannot rest until 
 he rests in God. In him we live and move and 
 have our being ; and in consequence, human life 
 in its animal endowment and functions, in its 
 natural instincts and order is wholly transcend- 
 ent in its ultimate significance. It is a value to 
 which there is, on the earth, no parallel. Human 
 beings are a kind by themselves ; and the human 
 interpretation of existence is but holding the 
 race to its own uniqueness. The normal being 
 of man is in love, and love is of concern to 
 the Infinite ; it is part of the highest meaning
 
 190 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 of the world. The failure in love is man's su- 
 preme failure ; it is his sin. It is despite done 
 to the Highest, and again concerns all worlds. 
 Thus with the moral organization of human life, 
 with the power of its moral victory and the 
 shame of its moral defeat, and above all, with 
 the consciousness of the moral Deity whose in- 
 spiration is its understanding, the preacher is to 
 meet and defy this peril of humanity. 
 
 The scientific conception of the survival of 
 the fittest is begging hard to be adopted by 
 theology. The supply of food upon the animal 
 level is limited, and nature produces organisms 
 in bewildering profusion. These enter into the 
 sternest struggle with one another for a share 
 in the restricted food supply. Since there is 
 not food enough for all the forms of life, the 
 stronger crowd the weaker to the wall, obtain 
 possession of the treasure, and so survive. This 
 may be an admirable method for bringing up 
 to a high standard the physical excellence of 
 any race. There may be, upon the whole, little 
 objection to it upon the purely animal level. It 
 is obviously applicable to man upon the animal 
 plane. Population is still kept down in human 
 society by the same fatal pressure that rests 
 upon the lower races. More human beings are 
 brought into existence than can be adequately 
 supported. This insufficient support is extended
 
 HUMANITY 191 
 
 by the strong through their own better endow- 
 ment ; but the weak have no resource but death. 
 The appalling death-rate among the world's 
 children is an attestation of the fact that when 
 men live on the animal level the universe deals 
 with them on the animal method. 
 
 On the animal level death has been called the 
 servant of life. This is an ambiguous state- 
 ment. If a lion's family of male and female 
 and four cubs are in excess of the available 
 supply of food, the two weaker cubs die, and 
 two results follow. The reduced family are 
 now in far less straightened circumstances ; the 
 father and the mother and the two surviving 
 cubs become fat and flourishing. Their life has 
 been improved by the death of their weaker 
 relatives. And since the continuance of lion- 
 life has been committed to the stronger surviv- 
 ing cubs, death again becomes the servant of 
 life. But there is another side to the family 
 history. How would this improvement appear 
 to the two cubs that were killed because nature 
 had not given them sufficient strength to live ? 
 Of whose life is death the servant ? Not surely 
 of the dead cubs. There is, therefore, a vast 
 region of existence where death is not the ser- 
 vant, but the extinguisher of life. And this is 
 not the whole story. Death may indirectly im- 
 prove the life that it spares by sweeping out of
 
 192 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 existence competing forms of life, and by forbid- 
 ding them to express themselves in descendants. 
 But on the animal level, death and individualism 
 are in absolute enmity. Death is never the ser- 
 vant of the individual organism, it is always and 
 only its absolute destroyer. In so far as man is 
 a physical organism and nothing more, death im- 
 proves him by extinction. 
 
 Now the adoption by theology of the idea of 
 the survival of the fittest simply brings man back 
 to the animal level. Multitudes are produced 
 in order that nature may make a selection of the 
 strongest for the purpose of becoming parents 
 of the next generation. In each generation the 
 waste of life is enormous. Election to life covers 
 but the few finest specimens ; reprobation to 
 death is the fate of the overwhelming majority 
 among the lower races. This is the new Calvin- 
 ism that is tempting thinkers. It is the Calvin- 
 ism of nature ; it is a theology elaborated from 
 the method of the universe with animal life. 
 When applied to man it is the translation of the 
 method of the brute world into the human world. 
 It means that more souls come into existence 
 than can be educated into permanent power. It 
 signifies that the enormous multitudes of human 
 beings that are born are expressly produced 
 in order that a better selection for life may be 
 made, and that the finer election involves the
 
 HUMANITY 193 
 
 wider reprobation. On this ground one has one's 
 humanity to win, and one can never be sure that 
 one has been made strong enough to win it. 
 Humanity is thus an ideal which a few are born 
 to compass, but which for men in general is a 
 hopeless impossibility. The race of man thus 
 becomes a race in an animal world. As a whole 
 its affinities are with the beasts that perish ; as a 
 kind it has no original and everlasting relation 
 to the Infinite conscience and pity. It is im- 
 possible to stop here. The method of the animal 
 world must be imported as a whole. Natural 
 selection is in order to improve the breed ; the 
 individual is of account only as the progenitor 
 of the better race. Nature puts an end to him 
 when he can no longer serve her. If this is the 
 way in which the universe treats man, let us face 
 the consequences. The many are called, but only 
 the few are chosen as distinct citizens in the 
 commonwealth of moral worth. But these are 
 chosen only as the parents of a race of increasing 
 moral dignity ; when they can no longer promote 
 the end for which they were elected, death comes 
 and puts into execution the decree of final repro- 
 bation. Thus the mood that cannot accept hu- 
 manity as made in the image of God, that seeks 
 by scientific methods to discover a divine hu- 
 manity within the compass of an animal race, 
 ends with the loss even of its elect, the loss
 
 194 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 too of the God whose determinations are wholly 
 without moral character. The method of nature 
 with the animal transferred to the human sphere, 
 and converted into the method of the universe 
 with man, fails to elevate the animal, but it suc- 
 ceeds in deposing and degrading man. The con- 
 clusion is that the law of humanity is found 
 nowhere but in humanity. 
 
 A few words will suffice for the peril to hu- 
 manity from the idea of conditional immortality. 1 
 It is a compromise with difficulty and a compro- 
 mise at a fearful expense. It seeks to get rid 
 of endless punishment, and at the same time to 
 avoid the affirmation or implication of universal 
 salvation. It is an endeavor to escape from the 
 necessity of making brutal man immortal. It 
 tries to create a new motive for righteousness : 
 " Be good and you will live forever." On all 
 grounds it seems to me one of the least rea- 
 sonable of human opinions. It recognizes no 
 world-plan under man's historic struggle. The 
 universe is neutral toward man's conflict with 
 the brutality that means extinction. It has an 
 exaggerated notion of freedom. God creates 
 men free ; he provides the field of battle ; men 
 by their use or abuse of freedom fix either their 
 immortality or their mortality. Everything de- 
 
 1 For fuller discussion, see The Witness to Immortality, pp. 
 300-310.
 
 HUMANITY 195 
 
 pends upon the individual freeman ; and God 
 might as well not be. But environments differ, 
 and endowments differ, and the question comes, 
 Who made these things to differ ? The neutral 
 God becomes the old Calvinistic God of election 
 and reprobation. David did not kill Uriah ; he 
 only put him in the line of battle where he knew 
 that he could not live. God leaves it open to 
 all men to become immortal ; but some men he 
 brings into the world from an ancestry so high 
 and puts them into an environment so pure and 
 inspiring that their immortality is secure from 
 the moment of their arrival ; while other men he 
 sends into life loaded with an evil inheritance 
 and overwhelmed with a hostile environment, and 
 thus from the beginning decrees their extinction. 
 Freedom without a world-plan is a poor philoso- 
 phy of human life, especially since the world-plan 
 cannot be suppressed, but emerges in the im- 
 mense moral inequalities of inheritance and en- 
 vironment as an unconditional decree of some to 
 endless existence, and of others to final extinction. 
 But the criticism that concerns us here is that 
 the idea of conditional immortality breaks up the 
 sense of the uniqueness of mankind. We must 
 fight it in the name of the Fatherhood of God 
 from whom we date the human race. The link 
 between the saint and God is part of the chain 
 that binds the race to God. Men begin, con-
 
 196 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 tinue, and end in the moral will of God ; they are 
 covered by his Fatherly purpose. Their sin is 
 the sin of children against the Infinite Father ; 
 their life both in its goodness and baseness is in 
 everlasting relation to his. If the preacher is to 
 look upon every man as a child of God, if he is 
 to consider every human being as made expressly 
 to repeat in himself the image of Christ, he must 
 disown conditional immortality, and expose the 
 compromise in which it originates and the com- 
 pound which it is of superficialities and con- 
 tradictions. It wholly ignores the supreme 
 difficulty that besets belief in immortality, the 
 dependence of the mind upon the brain ; it dis- 
 regards the enormous inequalities of inheritance 
 and environment which make the question of fit- 
 ness to survive death unanswerable by man, and 
 which may show to the most worthy judge Eter- 
 nal that the criminal is, all things considered, a 
 higher moral value than the saint ; it introduces 
 Pharisaism and old-world notions of aristocracy 
 which have no place in an ethical view of the 
 universe ; it begins with an impossible conception 
 of freedom, and ends with an implicit world-plan 
 that operates with absolute immunity from jus- 
 tice ; and it breaks down the racial consciousness 
 into which Christianity has been bringing the 
 nations, reduces sonhood to God from a fact to 
 a bare possibility, and transforms humanity
 
 HUMANITY 197 
 
 from a reality into a bloodless and incompetent 
 ideal. 
 
 The media through which all the enemies of 
 the unique distinction of man work, past and 
 present, are an inhuman view of the universe and 
 man's inhumanity to man. Atheism and a full 
 humanity are mutually destructive. The extra- 
 physical life of the race, its higher wisdom, no- 
 bler morality, loftier love and spirit, must come 
 to appear as useless and vain under the fixed 
 indifference of a godless universe. Inside the 
 infinite domain of a brutal universe, men must 
 fall from their properly human ideals. The king- 
 dom of love in the heart of an atheistic world is 
 an impossible enterprise. The strain is too much 
 for mankind. The Christian conception of hu- 
 man society would seem to be the vainest dream, 
 if all things other than human are against it. 
 Man is no match for a wholly inhuman universe. 
 Sooner or later the most heroic must see that it 
 is but vaulting ambition for man to seek a king- 
 dom of love in the face of infinite brutality. Fix 
 in the human mind the idea that the character 
 of the Infinite is inhuman, and the ethical ideal- 
 ism into which the successive generations of youth 
 inevitably flower becomes merely subjective, the 
 play of imagination upon physical interests the 
 aurora borealis of a polar humanity. Stoicism 
 lived because it was able to put itself in league
 
 198 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 with the universe. Epictetus and Marcus Au- 
 relius ground their ideals upon the character of 
 the Infinite. Make the sum of things indifferent 
 to man, and Epicureanism becomes the creed of 
 the race. 
 
 The preacher must guard the character of 
 the Infinite as the highest human interest. All 
 theories that limit the Divine regard for man- 
 kind are indictments framed against the char- 
 acter of God. The idea of the survival of the 
 fittest, the conception of conditional immortal- 
 ity, and the progenitor of both in our time, the 
 naturalistic view of human existence, are finally 
 an attack upon the love of God. As they thrive, 
 faith in the absoluteness of God fades away. 
 They are steps toward the last and deadliest 
 peril of mankind, the enthronement of an in- 
 human interpretation of the universe. Under 
 the heavens that have become brass lies the 
 earth that has become iron ; under the universe 
 that has become inhuman is a humanity in re- 
 version toward brutehood. 
 
 Man's inhumanity to man is the other medium 
 through which all dangers to society, ancient and 
 recent, show their power. Lust and lies and the 
 unspeakable custom of the world's shame, the 
 dishonor of home, the injustice and cruelty that 
 live in the industrial order, the snobbery and 
 foppery of social life, the ghastly smile that cov-
 
 HUMANITY 199 
 
 ers the loveless heart, and the venomous tongue 
 that delights to destroy good repute and peace, 
 the commercialism that would convert the nation 
 into an advertising agent of its wares, the pro- 
 vincialism that cares nothing for man as man, 
 the poverty that is unrelieved, the suffering that 
 is unmitigated, and the brutal strength that is 
 indifferent to the cry of weakness, all are mo- 
 mentous and awful because they sum up, set 
 forth, and put into action man's inhumanity to 
 man. The entire inhuman custom of life is to 
 be defied in the name of the integrity and hope 
 of mankind. 
 
 in 
 
 Among the permanent guardians of humanity 
 there stands first man's own nature, his person- 
 ality. The admission of human personality is 
 eventually the trumpet of doom to slavery, serf- 
 dom, and caste. Kant's famous dictum that per- 
 sonality implies that man is an end to himself, 
 and that he should never become means either 
 to another's purposes or to his own inclinations, 
 is an availing protest. Use things, but use them 
 wisely ; use animals, but use them kindly ; use 
 men never ; that is the edict from the throne 
 of moral personality. Under the historic ex- 
 pression of moral personality, family exclusive- 
 ness, social snobbery, governmental injustice, and
 
 200 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 religious narrowness have slowly yielded. The 
 increasing pressure of manhood has been avail- 
 ing. The wider realization of personality among 
 the masses of men through education of the in- 
 tellect and the will is already effecting enormous 
 changes in the social order. As he rises in intel- 
 ligence and character man must continue to count 
 for more ; and as society is affected with the sense 
 of human personality its consideration for the 
 unfortunate must become deeper and more prac- 
 tical. Social groups have been formed upon 
 social distinctions ; and so long as these are not 
 exclusive they are legitimate enough. But the 
 admission that man is man, the increasing con- 
 sciousness of personality that has forced this 
 admission calls for the wider recognition of what 
 is common in the race. When moral worth is 
 the great title to consideration, and the capacity 
 for it the distinctive mark of man, a force is 
 liberated that will finally inaugurate the reign 
 of human brotherhood. Meanwhile practical 
 Christianity goes about building up moral per- 
 sonality. Ancient tyrannies would have been 
 impossible but for the absence of manhood 
 among the people. When Diogenes said that 
 he had never seen a man he uncovered the 
 whole opportunity of secular barbarity, social 
 exclusiveness, political injustice, and religious 
 quackery. Men's ideas of the race will be very
 
 HUMANITY 201 
 
 different when over great circles of population 
 they compel respect from one another. A whole 
 world of bad social ethics, and worse social prac- 
 tice, and equally reprehensible theology, would 
 utterly vanish, if suddenly men were to face one 
 another in the fullness and strength of a great 
 moral experience. The first witness that the 
 true social ultimate is mankind is the worth and 
 inviolableness of human personality. 
 
 The second is in the Christian idea of steward- 
 ship. The legal title to property does not end 
 the discussion. The legal right must rise into 
 a moral right ; otherwise it would seem to be 
 increasingly insecure. It is not difficult to fore- 
 cast the time when the control of wealth will 
 be conditioned upon the beneficent use of it. 
 Society will not always grant privileges to idlers 
 and rascals. The day is not far distant when 
 a man shall be compelled to justify the con- 
 tinuance of his privileges by reference to the 
 eminent public service which they enable him 
 to perform. Wanton wealthy individualism is 
 drawing toward its end. No reasonable person 
 will grudge a Washington or a Lincoln, a Glad- 
 stone or a Bismarck, his privileges. The great 
 servant of the public must have high qualifica- 
 tions ; and certain privileges are essential to the 
 development and maintenance of these qualifica- 
 tions. The scholar must have opportunity and
 
 202 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 leisure. The higher the endowment and the 
 more eminent the service to be rendered, the 
 larger must be the privilege. The distinction 
 of Christ is an example. His privilege in intel- 
 lect, in feeling, and in character, in what the 
 universe meant to him, in what he got out of 
 existence, and in the power to which he attained, 
 was just, because the whole distinction of his 
 being was held for mankind. The social prob- 
 lem seems to me to be less over the possession 
 by the few of large fortunes, and much more 
 over the use made of these fortunes. The fun- 
 damental contention is that one has a moral 
 right, a human right to wealth only in so far 
 as he holds it for the public good. That con- 
 tention seems to me to be ethically undeniable. 
 There is no other basis in Christian morals for 
 the inequalities of human existence. The whole 
 subject comes under the precept of the apostle : 
 " We then that are strong ought to bear the 
 infirmities of the weak, and not to please our- 
 selves." Strength is wholly inhuman unless it 
 is under the moral obligation of strength. 
 
 A true theory of expansion seems to be 
 needed. Expansion itself is a fact. In a com- 
 fortable home the ministry of the race is repre- 
 sented. More and more business tends toward 
 cosmopolitanism ; and through their representa- 
 tion at foreign courts or governments the civ-
 
 HUMANITY 203 
 
 ilized nations of the earth are in fellowship. 
 Annies and navies are simply the national and 
 international police, a good thing in time of 
 peace, indeed a pledge of its continuance. Edu- 
 cation has no bounds short of the ends of the 
 earth ; religious enterprise undertakes to bring 
 the world to the sense of God. The conception 
 of society in which these tendencies are at work 
 must be an inclusive one. Ideally at least any- 
 thing less than universal brotherhood will not 
 do. Private interests are admitted as legitimate, 
 but they must be adjusted to social good. In 
 theory and in practice one must follow the sun. 
 The sun is at the centre of the system and round 
 it in the narrowest circle and the most intimate 
 communion is Mercury. Then follow in ever 
 widening circles Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, 
 Saturn, Uranus, and on the far boundary, a veri- 
 table solar outcast and savage, is Neptune. The 
 duty of the central luminary is plain. It is to 
 shine first upon those that are nearest to it, but 
 not upon them alone. The solar volume spreads 
 over all, and fills the outermost circle with the 
 same tide of light and heat with which it kindles 
 and glorifies the innermost. There is no other 
 social ultimate for man. Love knows no bounds 
 short of the whole. It follows first upon fami- 
 lips, but it does not stop there. It rolls through 
 all the circles of human afiiliation ; and the
 
 204 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 force that rocks the cradle in which the mother 
 has laid her firstborn is the power that carries 
 the infant races into civilized manhood. The 
 issue of science in her nineteenth century free- 
 dom has been the discrimination of the human 
 races from all other forms of life upon this 
 planet. Evolution is but the imperfect record 
 of the amazing self-differentiation of man from 
 the lower orders of existence. Christian theo- 
 logy comes in to hold the achievements of 
 science. The one distinct race has with it as a 
 whole and forever the one true and living God. 
 And the social ideal is bound to equal the scien- 
 tific and the theological. Man must side with 
 man here and everywhere, now and forever. 
 
 Exclusive moods are inevitable, and they are 
 justifiable in their use. There are times when 
 the best man will wish to be alone, when the 
 thought of the endless multitudes of human be- 
 ings who have lived upon the earth or who to- 
 day live upon it, or who will inhabit it, is posi- 
 tively oppressive. The solitary mood has many 
 noble uses, no one of which, however, is now to 
 be mentioned. The mood goes too far when it 
 longs for a sparsely populated kingdom of God 
 either in this world or the next. And it may 
 serve to rid one of this exclusive mood to recall 
 the fact that the greatest debt of the individual 
 man is to his race. The science, the art, the
 
 HUMANITY 205 
 
 philosophy, the faith, the whole higher civiliza- 
 tion of the world, is an achievement of the human 
 race. It represents what man has done for 
 men. Genius is the highest expression of the 
 forces that vitalize it, that supply it with its 
 whole content, and that have their home in the 
 heart of mankind. And as it was not matter of 
 regret but of gladness to Wellington and his 
 hard-pressed soldiers at Waterloo when the sixty 
 thousand Prussians under Bliicher were seen in 
 the distance ; as it was not an occasion of grief 
 but of congratulation to the loyal American in 
 the civil war when the response rang out to 
 the call of the President, " We are coming, Fa- 
 ther Abraham, three hundred thousand strong ; " 
 so when it is seen that the normal man owes the 
 fullness and security of his spiritual possessions 
 to the race, numbers will then mean, not sources 
 of oppression, but of freedom and power. 
 
 Human personality, the obligation of the 
 strong to the weak, and the universal reference 
 and logic of every truly Christian life are the 
 great forces that have broken down the social 
 exclusiveness of Christendom. The religion of 
 Christ is an ethical religion ; and its central 
 word is reconciliation. It shows the world the 
 sublime moral personality of Jesus operating 
 upon the moral personality of men, bringing 
 them into a new and inclusive social whole, and
 
 206 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 putting that social whole into the deepest com- 
 munion with God. And it is the influence of 
 Christ that has brought the world to the posi- 
 tion where every true man must be cosmopoli- 
 tan. The ultimate conception for the individual 
 life moral personality under Christianity 
 has completed itself in mankind as the social 
 ultimate. The terms that admit one admit all. 
 The recognition of the human element in any 
 man means the final recognition of it in the 
 entire race. Social order is slowly leaving feud- 
 alism behind it. The time is coming when the 
 badges of social exclusiveness will undergo the 
 change that long ago overtook the signs of 
 the Scottish clans. Like the tartans they will 
 remain interesting emblems of a social condition 
 that has gone, picturesque memorials of divi- 
 sion cherished by the generous soul of human 
 brotherhood. 
 
 The supreme guardian of the humanity of the 
 race is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It pushes 
 into prominence the personal soul of the indi- 
 vidual man, it accentuates the worth and the 
 possibility of worth that is present in every hu- 
 man being. The single parable of Dives and 
 Lazarus has in it elemental force as a witness 
 to human personality. The beggar who is yet 
 a moral value for the unseen world, and the rich 
 man who is a moral offense for that same world,
 
 HUMANITY 207 
 
 show the supreme emphasis that Christ put upon 
 the soul. His teaching renders legible the con- 
 stitution written by the finger of God upon the 
 heart. The invisible characters leap into light 
 under his speech, and man is able to read his 
 own name. And in and through the teaching, 
 there is in the Gospel a spirit that leads men 
 into a new world of moral experience. Con- 
 science counts for more and more until it counts 
 for everything. The struggle under the ideal, 
 and in its behalf, becomes the normal human 
 life ; temptation is the constant element of exist- 
 ence, and temptation overcome is life's increas- 
 ing achievement. Moral achievement in the 
 heart of grave difficulty is the law of the spirit 
 of life in Christ Jesus. Thus the human per- 
 sonality that is brought to light through the 
 teaching of Jesus is attested through the world 
 of moral struggle and victory into which he 
 leads men. 
 
 That the strong should help the weak is the 
 obligation of the human conscience. That ob- 
 ligation is developed under Christianity with 
 peculiar power. The struggle for life that one 
 finds in the cosmos is apt to be reproduced in 
 society as a natural law, and man is thus de- 
 graded to the level of nature. The supreme 
 protest against the doctrine of the survival of 
 the fittest comes from the Gospel. When self-
 
 208 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 seeking looks downward for the justification of 
 its hardness of heart, conscience looks toward 
 the cross of Christ for the more excellent way. 
 The struggle for the life of others, which Pro- 
 fessor Drummond was among the first to em- 
 phasize as a fact in cosmic existence, receives its 
 highest expression in the death of Jesus. He 
 died because it was his duty to die. He was set 
 for the defense of the weak, and to make that 
 defense availing he must himself lay down his 
 life. He was the divine struggler for the life of 
 others, and to carry that struggle into an assur- 
 ance of victory, he must pass through death. 
 The cross of Christ is the symbol of love as the 
 final law of life. It is the great antagonist of 
 the rule of conduct borrowed from the animal 
 world. Against the ethics deduced from the 
 survival of the fittest there stands the ethics of 
 the cross. 
 
 Time and space count for all that they are 
 worth in the teaching of Jesus ; neighborhood 
 is never emptied of its meaning by him. Still 
 there are no boundaries for him that do not 
 encompass all human beings. Foreign missions 
 are still in their crude state ; yet are they an 
 essential expression of Christianity. The unity 
 of love in the Godhead is to be reproduced in 
 hiunan society. Except the Lord build the 
 house they labor in vain that build it; except
 
 HUMANITY 209 
 
 the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh 
 in vain. In establishing the race in the con- 
 sciousness of its own unity and in conforming 
 behavior to this consciousness we look to the 
 Master. He has seen the divine meaning of 
 life ; his spirit is the spirit of revelation and 
 realization. The highest human interests are 
 under his protection ; and when one thinks of 
 the forces that threaten the humanity of man, 
 one must make a new application of the Hebrew 
 song: 
 
 " The Lord is thy keeper : 
 The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. 
 The sun shall not smite thee by day, 
 Nor the moon by night. 
 The Lord shall keep thee from all evil ; 
 He shall keep thy soul. 
 
 The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming in, 
 From this time forth and for evermore." 1 
 
 Two fundamental articles of faith for the 
 modern believer have now been won. He can- 
 not consider himself poor who is able to make 
 this beginning. To be sure of man as a citizen 
 of a moral commonwealth, and to include in that 
 commonwealth all the races that go to make up 
 mankind is a good foundation. The possibilities 
 of a great message and a joyful service begin to 
 dawn upon the believer. He has not yet found 
 all that he needs ; he may never be able to do 
 
 1 Psalm cxxi. 5-&
 
 210 THE SOCIAL ULTIMATE 
 
 that. But in finding himself and his brother 
 he has started upon discoveries which will put 
 him in the best kind of apostolical succession. 
 He has had his first bout in his great fight for 
 faith ; he has struck for simple human things 
 and he has won. And as the social ultimate 
 was given in the individual ultimate, as the pos- 
 sible worth for righteousness of all men was 
 involved in the possible worth of one man, as 
 the second was drawn out of the first like one 
 section of a telescope out of another, there is 
 hope that the logical evolution may go on.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE: OPTIMISM 
 
 VARIOUS opinions are possible concerning the 
 character and drift of human history. Pessi- 
 mism may be the final word for it. It may be 
 held that human affairs began in a bad way, 
 that they have been steadily going from bad to 
 worse, and that the goal can be nothing but uni- 
 versal and absolute disaster. It has, in fact, 
 been preached with unquestionable sincerity and 
 power that existence is a disease, that conscious 
 being is inevitable misery, that the denial of the 
 will to live is the only salvation, and that the 
 last and supreme consolation lies in the assur- 
 ance, 
 
 " This little life is all thou must endure, 
 The grave's most holy peace is ever sure." 
 
 On this view, history is a colossal Sodom and 
 Gomorrah ; the foul egoism breeds ever vaster 
 woe and despair ; and the fire and brimstone 
 that wiped out the cities of the plain are to be 
 regarded as angels of mercy and types of the 
 final whirlwinds that shall roll all human wretch-
 
 212 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 edness into the peace of extinction. According 
 to this view, death is the redeemer of mankind. 
 The opposite of this opinion may be enter- 
 tained. It may be held that human beings are 
 slowly moving from bad conditions into better, 
 and that an irresistible impulse is pushing the 
 race onward from one improvement to another 
 and a higher, and that it is not difficult to fore- 
 cast the time when man shall attain a new 
 character in the heart of a nobler social envi- 
 ronment. History, according to this view, is a 
 drama that is to be judged by its issues ; it is a 
 picture upon which the supreme artist is work- 
 ing, whose merits must not be inferred from the 
 first sketch, or from its appearance at any given 
 stage of advance, but from the ideal whose light 
 increasingly shines in it, and which shall yet con- 
 form the great canvas to its own divine character. 
 According to this view, life conquers all sorrow ; 
 the law of improvement and increase is written 
 on its heart ; no weapon formed against it can 
 prosper ; and human history is moving toward 
 final triumph. Because of the end upon which 
 the race is moving, optimism is applied to his- 
 tory; because of the contribution which all 
 worthy persons make toward the last great con- 
 quest, it is held that life, even under conditions 
 of hardship and suffering, is an unexpressible 
 boon.
 
 OPTIMISM 213 
 
 Hypothetical optimism may be the view taken 
 of the historical situation. The human world 
 seems to certain thinkers to be originally inde- 
 terminate, but convertible by human choice and 
 endeavor into either best or worst. " Behold, 
 I set before you this day a blessing and a 
 curse." l The human being is born equidistant 
 from optimism and pessimism. God has made 
 the dual possibilities of existence ; to man he 
 has left it to unify this dualism in either an 
 earthly inferno or paradise. This appears to be 
 the view taken by Professor William James in 
 his impressive book, " The Will to Believe." 
 The actual course of our human world is un- 
 predictable ; all that can be said of it is that 
 the indeterminate may be wrought over into 
 worst or best. Possible optimism is the phrase 
 that covers the case, an optimism which must 
 be taken out of the clouds of a hostile cosmos 
 and a brutal society by the high choice and the 
 heroic endeavor of man. According to this 
 view, man is his own saviour. 
 
 To many persons the question of optimism 
 concerns only the inward life. It is only inci- 
 dentally related to environment, cosmic or social. 
 The life of Dives is a pessimism in spite of a 
 royal environment ; the life of Lazarus is an 
 optimism, notwithstanding want and suffering. 
 
 1 Deuteronomy xi. 26.
 
 214 TUE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 In this view there can be no generalization 
 touching the historical career of man. Condi- 
 tion counts for nothing ; character counts for 
 everything ; and character is wholly an individ- 
 ual achievement. The dying Christ prays : " Fa- 
 ther, forgive them, for they know not what they 
 do ; " and his first great witness speaks for the 
 entire community of the brave and wise when he 
 cries in behalf of those who are stoning him to 
 death : " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." 
 The question of the success or defeat of life 
 belongs wholly in the sphere of the spirit ; and 
 its concern is entirely with the individual soul. 
 This mood answers the question of historic 
 optimism or pessimism with another question : 
 Wilt thou be a Dives or a Lazarus, a Stephen 
 or a shedder of innocent blood ? 
 
 Such are some of the varieties of opinion pos- 
 sible upon this grave subject. Risk is plainly 
 involved in making a selection. Like the Dutch 
 humorist who chose the twelve apostles for his 
 jury, and announced his willingness to wait for 
 the adjudication of his case until they arrived, 
 one must be prepared to admit that whichever 
 selection one may make of opinions bearing upon 
 the ultimate issues of history, there can be no 
 demonstration of its truth this side of the day of 
 judgment. Still opinions of one stamp or an- 
 other are inevitable ; and in regard to human
 
 OPTIMISM 215 
 
 history, the field is logically divided between 
 optimism and pessimism. Neither mood may 
 be dogmatic; either may stand for an incom- 
 pletely attested idea ; each may signify simply 
 an attitude of mind toward the career of man 
 upon the earth, an attitude of happy or of 
 unhappy expectation. Optimism and pessimism 
 are ultimately the result of contrasted judgments 
 upon the historical situation. After the fall 
 of Vicksburg and the battle of Gettysburg, 
 General Grant said he was sure that the rebel- 
 lion was doomed, that the United States was 
 safe. Many agreed with the general in this 
 judgment ; more perhaps disagreed. After these 
 victories of the Union armies, Grant was an 
 optimist upon the national situation ; looking 
 upon the same situation, there were eminent 
 men who had the gravest fears. Unquestion- 
 ably the fact that Grant was a mighty fighter 
 for union tended to inspire and sustain his 
 optimism ; while the pessimism of the mere 
 military critic was doubtless increased by his 
 inactivity. This example shows that there was 
 a time when an intelligent judgment upon the 
 issue of the conflict was impossible. That con- 
 dition of suspense, however, could not last ; things 
 must move toward a crisis, and the movement 
 must be an inspiration either to final hope or 
 fear. The parallel to this national instance is
 
 216 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 man in his historic situation. There may have 
 been periods when no reasonable man could ven- 
 ture an opinion upon the ultimate tendencies 
 and issues of history. Upon this subject there 
 have been in all periods agnostics ; and it would 
 be rash to deny that upon the final issues of 
 man's career on the earth, the agnostic has no- 
 thing to say for himself. Still suspense of 
 judgment is, for any considerable time, and 
 upon an intensely human question, a very pain- 
 ful and a nearly impossible condition. The 
 agnostic is almost sure to eventuate in optimism 
 or pessimism. According as history is believed 
 to be making for human progress or against it 
 will be the mood of hope or of horror. Thus 
 optimism and pessimism are of the nature of 
 prophecy. Over the birth of Jesus Christ 
 Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. 
 Over the same event the wise men rejoiced with 
 exceeding great joy. Each class had an ulti- 
 mate characterization of the event incompletely 
 attested ; each did their utmost for their con- 
 ception, and then awaited the confirmation or 
 confutation of the future. Upon the whole, 
 men must characterize history as working for 
 good or evil ; their ideas they must support with 
 their strength ; and for the supreme judgment 
 upon their quarrel they must appeal to the end. 
 In claiming that optimism is the valid mood
 
 OPTIMISM 217 
 
 in which to view the historic process, it must 
 be clearly understood that the movement toward 
 the best is ever in and through human choice 
 and endeavor. The historic process may even- 
 tuate in ideal character and conditions and yet 
 be in itself an agony and a bloody sweat. The 
 career of Jesus ends in resurrection from the 
 dead ; but the path to that bright goal was dark 
 enough surely. History may be held to be a 
 process of moral illumination, and yet the pass- 
 ing away of ignorance may involve inexpressible 
 human effort. History may mean the final con- 
 quest of unrighteousness, and still there may be 
 room for the severest action of retributive law. 
 There is no deliverance for man except with the 
 consent and cooperation of man. The gifts of 
 God are always, in the moral world, the achieve- 
 ments of man. Flowery beds of ease never 
 have carried any one to the skies, and they 
 never will. The judicial process is in the heart 
 of human life. I am inclined to think that it is 
 the deepest ground of hope for man. The fact 
 that egoism is filled with the sense of its own 
 horror and covered with the frown of the uni- 
 verse is the profoundest source of thanksgiving 
 and high expectation. Here the judicial process 
 is noted, not as inconsistent with, but as abso- 
 lutely essential to optimism. The exaction of 
 the utmost farthing is but the severe kindness,
 
 218 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 the austere benignity, of the moral order. In 
 upon light and love and the noble mastery of 
 nature men are led and men are driven. This 
 double inducement from high possession and 
 from wretched privation is presented and wielded 
 by honest and all-competent hands. In the doc- 
 trine of hope there is room for every aspect of 
 the treatment which man in his ignorance and 
 egoism, in his savage disregard of duty, and in 
 his cultivated evasion of moral obligation, re- 
 ceives at the hand of his world environment. 
 
 II 
 
 Optimism and pessimism are of supreme mo- 
 ment to the preacher of righteousness. So far 
 as these ideas are serious they are in life, and 
 the preacher confesses at once the great primacy 
 of life. Opinions that concern the happiness or 
 the misery of mankind may be mere philoso- 
 phies, idle theories to others, but for him they 
 are of vital interest. For the preacher, opti- 
 mism is the sunshine in which lie all the cheerful 
 ways of men, the light in which his own work 
 goes bravely forward. For him pessimism is 
 the great negation of his message, the black 
 contradiction in the face of which he sadly tries 
 to rescue the perishing. Confidence in his mes- 
 sage must turn the preacher into an optimist of 
 one degree or another ; while the settled sense
 
 OPTIMISM 219 
 
 of final failure must end in breaking down his 
 confidence altogether. 
 
 The world is a scene of moral conflict. Right 
 and wrong, truth and falsehood meet in a life 
 and death struggle. The use and the abuse of 
 existence is the vast and mixed phenomenon. 
 Confronting the lover and his sovereign rever- 
 ence is the brutal man whose existence is " an 
 expense of being in a waste of shame." Over 
 against each other in battle array stand light 
 and darkness, the world as a secular organiza- 
 tion and the same world as a divine institute, 
 Christ and Belial, the brute in man and the man 
 in association with the brute. The war is on ; 
 it is as if one were to ask, Is it Sparta or 
 Athens that is to gain, Carthage or Rome, the 
 old empire or the new prophetic nations that 
 swarm in upon it, French or British in America 
 and in Europe, Dutch or British in the control 
 of seas and continents, the United States as 
 slaveholder or as the greatest witness in history 
 for freedom? What is the relation of power 
 to misery in this world? Is it that of Dives to 
 Lazarus, simple and brutal indifference ? And 
 are we to look for anarchy and revolution, strife 
 and bloodshed, crisis and calamity as the issue 
 of this attitude of power to suffering ? Or must 
 we seek the parallel in Christ and his compas- 
 sionate response to blind Bartimeus ? The tu-
 
 220 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 mult is there. The voices are there that would 
 silence the appeal of distress. Those voices re- 
 mind one of the world. But the Master is there, 
 the appeal finds its way through all the tumult to 
 his soul, and the supreme man becomes the de- 
 liverer of his brother. Is there a Christ in his- 
 tory, a Christ in humanity ? Do the appeal of 
 the weak and the response of the strong meet in 
 the soul of man, and with high and serious hope? 
 Individual men must always be one great aim 
 of the preacher. The question rises, however, 
 is it possible to save a soul without thereby 
 doing much toward saving a family, a business 
 community, a social fellowship, a nation, a race ? 
 Is not the individual set into the social organ- 
 ism as the single tooth is into the head ? Is it 
 possible to extract the individual from society 
 and yet retain his worth ? Social hope is always 
 the best sign of individual renewal. Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim is true to Puritanism ; but Puritanism, 
 under one aspect, is an overdone individualism. 
 Christiana is truer far to the spiritual life than 
 Christian because she takes her children with her. 
 Here the maternal instinct controlled the great 
 Puritan ; and the maternal instinct is representa- 
 tive of the love that can accept nothing short of 
 social regeneration. The Pharisee turned apostle 
 cannot abandon his race. He bears toward them, 
 in the face of persistent persecution, a great
 
 OPTIMISM 221 
 
 zeal ; for his brethren's sake he could even wish 
 himself accursed. In the constitution of social 
 man Rachel still weeps for her children, refus- 
 ing to be comforted because they are not. The 
 beautiful mother of Israel even in the realm of 
 peace sits in eternal sorrow over this dispersion 
 and dishonor of her far-off descendants. Thus 
 does Jeremiah bind into a common destiny the 
 individual and the race. " O Absalom, my son ! " 
 That is the language of human love in all ages. 
 " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! " That exclamation 
 is eternally valid as an expression of the grief 
 of Christ over social disaster. 
 
 In order, therefore, to be able to save souls 
 one must believe in the possibility of saving 
 families, societies, nations, the human race. It is 
 indeed impossible to define the individual other- 
 wise than as implicated in the largest way with 
 society. Some one has defined the United 
 States as bounded on the north by the Aurora 
 Borealis, on the south by the Southern Cross, 
 on the east by the primeval chaos, and on the 
 west by the day of judgment. And in the same 
 way in defining the individual man the universe 
 must be taken into account. Considerations of 
 this nature make it plain that in the profoundest 
 sense individual and social salvation are nearly 
 identical. One of the first questions which the 
 Japanese ask the missionary concerning the
 
 222 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 world of moral beatitude beyond death, is 
 whether it is open to their ancestors. The ques- 
 tion is an overwhelming one to those who pro- 
 vide only for the appeal to the living individual, 
 and who have no Gospel for mankind. 
 
 The preacher is thus turned back to Hebraism 
 and its magnificent social faith. Isaiah, Jere- 
 miah, the great prophet of the exile, and indeed 
 in a way the entire prophetic chorus, preach 
 national regeneration. It may be said of them 
 all, including John the Baptist, that social re- 
 generation was their message, and that racial 
 redemption was their hope. In the writings 
 of these illustrious men appears the first rude 
 sketch of a moral philosophy of man's career on 
 the earth. Back to this Hebrew message for 
 the nation, and to this open fountain of social 
 optimism the preacher must go. Here in the 
 ancient Scriptures which he reveres is the first 
 great corrective of an overdone individualism, 
 the earliest light of historic hope. 
 
 The sane and sovereign strength of Christ no- 
 where appears more striking than at this point. 
 His kingdom is a society of individuals, and of 
 individuals in society. He works upon men as 
 individuals ; but that work is to call them out 
 of evil social relations into a new fellowship 
 with one another, and with himself and his 
 Father. He has no hope for society except
 
 OPTIMISM 223 
 
 through the leavening power of individual souls ; 
 and he has no hope for individual souls except 
 as inspired and sustained by a new social order. 
 And out of this interdependence of the indi- 
 vidual and society comes his optimism. The 
 new individual in the new society is matched 
 against the old individual in the old society. 
 Concerning this contest the familiar words take 
 on the profoundest meaning : The meek shall 
 inherit the earth. He shall not cry nor lift up 
 his voice in the streets ; the bruised reed shall 
 he not break, the smoking flax shall he not 
 quench till he send forth truth unto victory. 
 Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words 
 shall not pass away. I beheld Satan fall as 
 lightning from heaven. Fear not, little flock, 
 it is your Father's good pleasure to give you 
 the kingdom. 
 
 Regeneration of the individual was the su- 
 preme interest of the great preachers of the 
 past. What did this interest mean ? It meant 
 the call to the individual man to live under the 
 sovereignty of conscience, as conscience is trans- 
 figured and upheld in authority by the Spirit of 
 God. Regeneration meant the victorious asser- 
 tion in the name of Christ, and by the Holy 
 Spirit, of manhood against brutehood. Regen- 
 eration is still the chief interest of the preacher ; 
 but its meaning must be extended. Nothing but
 
 224 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 the vision of a new heaven and a new earth wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness can satisfy the prophetic 
 soul to-day. Every individual convert is another 
 pledge of the coming conversion of society. The 
 new society, whether it is called the church or 
 the kingdom, must be of utmost concern to the 
 preacher. By the social power of love he seeks 
 to break down the social power of wickedness, 
 by the fellowship of men in light he tries to 
 overthrow the solidarity of men in darkness. 
 
 Without faith in the invincibility of social 
 righteousness it is impossible to be a preacher. 
 The preacher is born in moral tumult and vic- 
 tory. His education repeats in his heart the 
 temptation and the triumph of Jesus. His ex- 
 perience has filled him with the assurance that 
 human life is amenable to moral ideas, that as 
 the tides go by the silent force of unseen worlds, 
 so the deeps in man are ruled out of ideal heights. 
 Moral discovery, moral achievement, and moral 
 hope make the preacher; and out of this dis- 
 covery, achievement, and hope come his ideal- 
 ism, his plan for the world, and his confidence 
 in its power of self-realization. The Hebrew 
 prophets and the Christian apostles found their 
 message through their conscience. The moral 
 view of life and the universe was supreme and 
 absolute. That view had taken possession of 
 them ; it had rung out a jubilee from the con-
 
 OPTIMISM 225 
 
 cert of powers which it had discovered within 
 them, and it claimed through them the whole 
 world as its own. Optimism is thus the product 
 of the moralist ; it is the discovery of the men 
 who have gone deepest into the ethical order of 
 the world. It began in the tremendous ethical 
 passion of the Hebrew prophet ; it owes its origin 
 to the preacher who met iniquity not with com- 
 promise and fear, but with heroic and consuming 
 hostility. And as thus it began only thus can it 
 be maintained. The victorious fighter for ideal 
 ends is ever the only genuine apostle of opti- 
 mism. Other men may play with the vocabu- 
 lary of hope ; on his words alone who is pushing 
 his personal life into moral triumph is the accent 
 of the Holy Ghost. The man who is without 
 reasonable hope for himself cannot hold a gos- 
 pel of hope for his fellowmen ; and he who is a 
 sound moral optimist for himself, unless he is a 
 Pharisee, cannot be other than an optimist with 
 reference to mankind. 
 
 in 
 
 Some account must now be taken of the chief 
 difficulties that beset an optimistic view of hu- 
 man history. The conception of a golden age to 
 which the Jew and the Christian and the evolu- 
 tionist look forward may be an illusion. In this 
 case the sincerest optimist may now and then feel
 
 226 T11E HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 " My dreams are bat the shadows of my hopes." 
 
 And yet the persistence of these hopes is in their 
 favor. A soap bubble may float about among 
 solid substances, and in a miraculous way sur- 
 vive ; and yet that survival cannot be long. 
 Either from expansion or collision it must soon 
 perish. The aeonian survival of the hope of an 
 immeasurably better future for mankind on the 
 earth would seem to prove that the hope is not 
 a mere dream, and that it is not wholly contra- 
 dicted by the stern environment in which men 
 live. Such a golden age as has fired the imagi- 
 nation of Hebrew seer, Christian apostle, French 
 encyclopaedist, and revolutionary scientist would 
 appear to be among the possibilities of the future. 
 It is something that may be true to the intention 
 and ultimate achievement of history. 
 
 But if possible, it is mainly for those who have 
 done nothing to bring it to pass. The founders 
 of the United States had mostly labor and sor- 
 row for their wages. The nobler freedom for 
 which they fought and died was not for them- 
 selves but for their descendants. In the career 
 of those who from 1861-65 redeemed the na- 
 tion from its division and dishonor the same 
 principle appears. Their achievement was not 
 for themselves but for their posterity. It is ad- 
 mitted freely by candid scholars that the brief 
 rule of Oliver Cromwell has permanently in-
 
 OPTIMISM 227 
 
 fluenced for good the course of English history. 
 English freedom has been a nobler thing since 
 the days of the great Protector and more secure. 
 The joy of this vast contribution to national well- 
 being was hardly for the author of it ; it was 
 mainly for after ages. Luther's achievement is 
 of great and permanent significance. Freedom 
 of opinion is more indebted to him, perhaps, than 
 to any other modern man. To him, for indis- 
 pensable conditions of life, science is under ever- 
 lasting obligations. For this inestimable service 
 his reward was largely suffering. He inaugu- 
 rated a new epoch, and left to other generations 
 the joy of it. In the New Testament this fact 
 is presented with surpassing impressiveness. In 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews the heroism of the 
 old dispensation is recalled, the faith and suffer- 
 ing which wrought for better things are recited, 
 the idealism and the bitter disappointment and 
 disaster of that whole high ancient world are 
 noted, and the conclusion is that the vision alone 
 was for the Hebrew, the fruition for the Chris- 
 tian. When Lord Roberts reviews his troops in 
 London after the conquest of South Africa, his 
 gallant son is not there ; and many who did most 
 to bring about the result are not there. Moses 
 leads his people within sight of the land of pro- 
 mise ; he gives them the discipline that fits them 
 for possession ; but the great leader himself dies
 
 228 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 in the wilderness. And the question comes, How 
 can there be a golden age, a happy condition for 
 human beings, where the creators of it are unre- 
 quited and forgotten, where the fortunate ones 
 are the undeserving? 
 
 The pain that results from an imperfect ad- 
 justment between the human organism and the 
 environment is another difficulty in the way of 
 optimism. To be sure the health of the race is 
 largely in excess of its sickness; and yet the 
 mass of sickness is far from inconsiderable ; be- 
 sides, the amount of discomfort that inevitably 
 belongs to existence is of serious proportions. 
 The law of heredity perpetuates this sad inequal- 
 ity. The incompletely equipped organisms of 
 to-day represent in their melancholy privation 
 the poverty and unfitness of a long ancestry of 
 organisms. The physical improvement of man- 
 kind is certainly arrested by the self-perpetu- 
 ating power of weakness. Every hospital and 
 every insane asylum proclaim the presence in 
 human society of an historic malady. If the 
 New Jerusalem is a city without a hospital, if 
 it involves ideal adjustments between man and 
 nature, it is still a great way off. 
 
 Here should be noted, in order that pessimism 
 may have fair play, the limit to the self -perpetu- 
 ating power of wisdom and goodness. Aristo- 
 tle dies ; he leaves his works for the instruction
 
 OPTIMISM 229 
 
 of mankind ; but of his intellectual power he 
 can make no bequest. Genius leaves behind it 
 its wonderful expressions in science, art, philo- 
 sophy, government, religion ; but its power of 
 insight and creation it cannot make over to the 
 world. The loss involved in every generation 
 through the intransmissibleness of intellectual 
 and moral power is inconceivably great. Books, 
 records, institutions, monuments, and other forms 
 of influence are wonderful devices for reducing 
 the loss to the world consequent upon the death 
 of great men. Even these devices are poor 
 when set beside the influence of the living in- 
 tellect and character. The New Testament is 
 great, but how poor it is in comparison with the 
 living Christ. Its chief value is as an aid to 
 recall him, to assist the mind to fashion some 
 image of him, to enter into the presence thus 
 recovered. Perhaps one may find in this be- 
 reavement of the race, particularly in the death 
 of Jesus Christ, a new meaning in the concep- 
 tion of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Unquestionably death is one of the hardest 
 facts with which optimism has to deal. By it- 
 self it seems to me fatal. Death as a finality 
 is the supreme sarcasm upon life. Everything 
 withers in its presence ; its shadow darkens the 
 universe. It involves a contradiction of individ- 
 ual aptitude and desire such as to take the
 
 280 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 heart out of life. It carries with it a sacrifice 
 of affection that must, ou the supposition of its 
 finality, either paralyze or brutalize mankind. 
 It is an engine for the destruction of human 
 values and high moral worth so absolute in its 
 operation as to create the denial of God, and to 
 carry it into overwhelming power. Death as a 
 finality is the reductio ad absurdum of all faith 
 in the moral character of the universe, the ex- 
 posure of the futility of optimism, the terrible 
 irony that turns to vanity and nothingness man's 
 best effort and spirit, the brutal power that 
 quenches in the one black abyss of oblivion the 
 treason of Judas and the love of Jesus. The 
 complete statement of the negation of God and 
 the worth of existence involved in death as a 
 finality opens the door out of this horror. The 
 point of extreme distress is the point of saving 
 help. The annihilation of our human world 
 cannot without protest be permitted. The con- 
 ception that involves this annihilation cannot be 
 valid. Whatever inverts the order of the world 
 is thereby branded with discredit. 
 
 This rapid survey of the main difficulties in 
 the way of hope for mankind would be incom- 
 plete without some notice of the moral failures 
 of history. These are of two kinds. There are 
 the failures that are chiefly due to deplorable 
 social conditions ; and there are the failures that
 
 OPTIMISM 231 
 
 come from perversity. The children born in 
 shame, the youth trained in the slums, the young 
 manhood and womanhood upon whose minds are 
 forced the standards of a base neighborhood, the 
 toilers in the unfortunate departments of the 
 great workshop of the world, the sufferers from 
 injustice and neglect who first lose heart and 
 then character, the multitudes for whom the 
 merciless social environment proves too much, 
 the tens of thousands who go to the wall from 
 want of sympathy, the millions that are crushed 
 out of existence by the sheer and awful sense 
 of failure, meet the optimistic view of human 
 history with silent and terrible contradiction. 
 Those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of 
 death, and whom society leaves unvisited with 
 light must regard the gospel of hope as the 
 cruelest mockery. Man's inhumanity to man is 
 still the ground upon which the character of the 
 universe is arraigned. The despair that issues 
 from the moral failure of man is a heavy indict- 
 ment against society, and until this fountain of 
 pessimism is stopped the vision of hope must be 
 sadly clouded. 
 
 Deeper still is the failure through personal 
 perversity. This presents a new kind of dif- 
 ficulty in the way of progress. There are the 
 apparently irreclaimable wills that prevent all 
 concord, that prohibit all peace. And when the
 
 232 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 moral question is suppressed, and the human 
 view is allowed to control attention, the case is 
 not improved. The deepest source of human 
 misery is in the will. It will be, as Schopen- 
 hauer has defined it, a purely selfish force, then 
 will and egoism, and egoism and unhappiness 
 are the same thing. Existence in its inmost 
 nature thus becomes the wild assertion of indi- 
 vidualism, the blind and terrible struggle to 
 compass the impossible. Life is will, will is 
 self-seeking, self-seeking is misery ; therefore life 
 is inevitable misery. Nothing is more impres- 
 sive in modern thinking than this passionate 
 and desperate arraignment of existence as evil. 
 Nothing is more instructive to the preacher than 
 this resolution of existence into will, and will 
 into pure unmitigated egoism. The whole mean- 
 ing of man's nature comes up anew for deter- 
 mination ; and the question of life as will, and 
 will as egoism, and egoism as wretchedness be- 
 comes full of hope when it calls up the counter 
 question of the possible transformation of the 
 will. If life is will, and if will may become 
 love, and if love is joy, life itself must flow on 
 in gladness and hope. 
 
 The question of optimism must make allow- 
 ance for the personal equation. There are born 
 optimists and born pessimists. They invert the 
 nature of the chameleon ; whatever lights upon
 
 OPTIMISM 233 
 
 them takes the color of their feeling. One man 
 counts up the joys of existence and they seem 
 to him to amount to nothing. Even the best of 
 life seems worse than non-existence. It is the 
 Sophoclean view. The best thing is not to be at 
 all ; the second best is to cease to be as soon as 
 possible. This mood perpetuates itself in the 
 heart of comfort, in spite of the consciousness 
 of genius, the sense of consequence in the world, 
 and the foresight of fame. Doubtless the mood 
 is in many ways influenced by the condition of 
 society, by the mysterious order of human exist- 
 ence ; but it has its origin from within. There 
 is nothing in the circumstances of Swift's life to 
 account for his melancholy habit of repeating 
 upon the successive anniversaries of his birth 
 the words of Job : " Let the day perish wherein 
 I was born." 1 Nothing short of the personal 
 attitude toward life can account for the excla- 
 mation of the apostle : " Behold what manner 
 of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that 
 we should be called children of God : and such 
 we are." 2 The optimism of Marcus Aurelius 
 and the pessimism of Nero date from the inward 
 man. Ecclesiastes tried all the great aspects of 
 the egoistic life, and with the same conclusion of 
 vanity and vexation of spirit. The point to be 
 noted is that environment alone does not deter- 
 
 1 Job iii. 3. 2 1 John iii. 1.
 
 234 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 mine the mood. Personal disposition is at the 
 root of happiness and unhappiness. The chil- 
 dren of the poor, ill-fed, ill-clad, and with but 
 the minimum of outward comfort, are often hap- 
 pier over their mud-pies than the children of the 
 rich over their vast toy shops. The appearances 
 of the world are frequently delusive. Under 
 the look of distress labor is often happy, while 
 under the aspect of pleasure capital is often 
 miserable. As Schopenhaur said, the secret of 
 pessimism is in the human will. Nothing could 
 be of deeper ethical importance than the pene- 
 trating discussions upon this subject of this great 
 writer. They amount to the discovery of Milton's 
 Satan, 
 
 " The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." 
 
 The German thinker has demonstrated once for 
 all that will in his conception of it, that is, 
 supreme and mad egoism, can be the basis only 
 of an existence that goes from bad to worse, 
 
 " Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell ; 
 And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep, 
 Still threatening to devour me, opens wide, 
 To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven." 
 
 The powerful and passionate insistence by 
 Schopenhauer upon will as egoism, and egoism 
 as evil, clears the way for the utilization in the 
 new discussion of pessimism of the highest ethi-
 
 OPTIMISM 235 
 
 cal insight of the past in combination with the 
 scientific helps of the present. It is a fact that 
 must not be passed unnoticed, that while one 
 man growls at the universe in the bed of luxury, 
 another sends up the shout : " I take pleasure 
 in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in per- 
 secutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for 
 when I am weak, then am I strong." l A change 
 of fortune is highly desirable for the majority of 
 the race, and it would in all probability bring a 
 large increase in happiness ; but after all, the 
 fundamental thing is disposition. John Bunyan 
 in Bedford Jail is happier far than Charles the 
 Second upon the throne of England. It is for- 
 ever true that 
 
 " The honest heart that 's free frae a* 
 Intended fraud or guile, 
 However fortune kick the ba' 
 Has aye some cause to smile." 
 
 It is further true, according to the same au- 
 thority, 
 
 " It 's no in titles nor in rank, 
 It 's no in wealth like Lon'on Bank, 
 
 To purchase peace and rest.. 
 It 's no in makin' muckle, mair ; 
 It 's no in hooks, it 'a no in lear, 
 
 To make us truly blest ; 
 If happiness hae not her seat 
 
 An* centre in the breast, 
 We may be wise, or rich, or great, 
 
 But never can be blest I 
 1 2 Corinthians xii. 10.
 
 236 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 Nae treasures nor pleasures 
 Could make us happy lang ; 
 The heart aye 's the part aye 
 That makes us right or wrang." 
 
 There could not be a better statement of the re- 
 lation to optimism of personal disposition. The 
 whole question is vastly more than this ; but 
 this and its implications are the deepest aspect 
 of the matter. It may be conceded to pessi- 
 mism that if life is will, and will is egoism, exist- 
 ence is vanity. Further, one cannot be thankful 
 enough for this radical analysis of pessimism. 
 The vanity of existence " finds expression in the 
 whole way in which things exist ; in the infinite 
 nature of time and space as opposed to the 
 finite nature of the individual in both ; in the 
 ever-passing present moment as the only mode 
 of actual existence ; in the interdependence and 
 relativity of all things ; in the continual Becom- 
 ing without ever Being; in constant wishing 
 without ever being satisfied ; in the long battle 
 which forms the history of life, where every 
 effort is checked by difficulties, and stopped un- 
 til they are overcome." 1 The only serious count 
 in this indictment against nature is in the clause, 
 " in constant wishing without ever being satis- 
 fied." We are brought back to the great pre- 
 mise of pessimism : Life is will, will is egoism, 
 
 1 Studies in Pessimism, p. 33.
 
 OPTIMISM 237 
 
 egoism is misery. It is adequately met by the 
 statement that this is not in any sense the pro- 
 per life of humanity. The counter and genuine 
 interpretation of existence is that life is will, 
 and will is love, and love is joy. The wish of 
 love forever exceeds the achievement of love ; 
 but the wish of the lover is divine, its excess is 
 but the everlasting sunset in which the world is 
 rolling forward. The deepest need of Schopen- 
 hauer was an old-fashioned conversion. That 
 remedy would go far toward relieving the world 
 of the gospel of despair ; it would leave it with- 
 out preachers, without a public, without a home. 
 It would reduce it to the wholesome shadow of 
 possible calamity that adds eagerness to man's 
 quest for the secret place of the Most High and 
 the shadow of the Almighty. 
 
 IV 
 
 The foundations of optimism in fact must 
 now be considered. And the one great fact 
 upon which it builds is the fact of progress. 
 Things have been immeasurably worse than 
 they now are. Granted that the ideal is no- 
 where in sight, the movement from the bad into 
 the better cannot be denied. If the world is 
 a patient, it is a convalescent patient. If this 
 convalescence is continuous and increasing, hope 
 of the largest kind is reasonable. And by hope
 
 238 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 men are saved. The challenge of the poet is 
 above reply : 
 
 " Who shall say that Fortune grieves him 
 While the star of hope she leaves him ? " 
 
 It is upon this solid basis of fact that the opti- 
 mistic view of history takes its first stand. 
 
 Between the physical organism of man and 
 his environment there is an increasing harmony. 
 Natural selection means nothing less. The fittest 
 survive and become the parents of the next gen- 
 eration, and the fittest are those between whom 
 and environment there is the best adjustment. 
 There is no reason why this adjustment should 
 not go on. Fichte's idea that the cosmos and 
 the human body are advancing each toward the 
 other, that neither is completely made, that both 
 are moving into a profounder reconciliation, 
 would seem to be verified by scientific theory. 
 The future is bright for the new nature and the 
 new physical man. The health of the race as 
 depending upon the ministry of nature would 
 seem to be assured by the conception of natural 
 selection. The best is yet to be for the human 
 organism. Upon that physical perfection toward 
 which history moves, optimism fixes her atten- 
 tion. The time may come when there shall be 
 no more pain. It is completely possible that 
 cosmos and organism should thus correspond;
 
 OPTIMISM 239 
 
 and it is a scientific fact that progress toward 
 this far-off goal is real and decided. 
 
 Natural selection is aided by science in mov- 
 ing toward the ideal adjustment of environment 
 and organism. The science of sanitation is only 
 in its infancy, and the available knowledge upon 
 the subject is perhaps in no case put to full use. 
 It is already within man's power to do much 
 toward the transformation of environment. If 
 all were done that could very well be done in 
 this direction, one fountain of pessimism would 
 at once run dry. The close connection between 
 practical detail and high philosophical ideas 
 is impressively felt, when one reflects that those 
 who devise a better system of city sewage, who 
 insist upon clean streets, who fight against the 
 tenement pest, who in remodeling the older 
 sections and in laying out the new provide width 
 and opportunity for air and sunshine, and who 
 seek to improve generally the sanitary condition, 
 are nothing less than apostles of optimism. The 
 reduction of the death rate is but one aspect of 
 the subject. The increased vigor and happiness 
 of the lives that survive in the bad condition is 
 nearly equal in importance. Pessimistic moods 
 and ideas are perhaps oftenest bred of low 
 physical vitality. A robust person is in a hope- 
 ful way toward reaching a sound view of human 
 existence. Unless devoted to unworthy ends,
 
 240 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 good health cannot be unhappy. And the sci- 
 ence that is supplementing the work of natural 
 selection in bringing about a better adjustment 
 between the human body and its environment 
 is one of the mightiest advocates of Christian 
 optimism. The results to be expected in this 
 direction in the near future it would be difficult 
 to exaggerate. Nature and science working to- 
 gether may yet produce a kind of organism 
 which, while not bearing a charmed life, shall 
 still be, so long as it endures, full of charm. 
 Every achievement of science opens up into 
 another greater possible achievement. It may 
 be that biological and medical science is to be 
 the great fulfiller of the ancient prophecy : 
 " They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my 
 holy mountain." l Every approach to that ideal 
 condition is a blow in the face of pessimism. 
 For it must be repeated that physical misery is 
 one of the great sources of despair. 
 
 Improvement in the condition of labor is sure 
 to come. There has been already great improve- 
 ment. Within the nineteenth century hours of 
 work have been regulated, and shortened from 
 extremes of twelve and fourteen hours to eight. 
 The continued introduction of machinery of 
 higher productive power must tend to further 
 reduction. The chief anxiety would seem to 
 
 1 Isaiah xi. 9.
 
 OPTIMISM 241 
 
 be not about the possibility of this change, but 
 about the character which alone can make it a 
 blessing. Wider intellectual interests, a taste 
 for refined pleasures and amusements, and a 
 distincter and stronger purpose for rectitude 
 would seem to be essential to the advent of 
 larger leisure for the multitudes, if it is to bene- 
 fit them. This would appear to be a chief rea- 
 son for the absence of philanthropic interest in 
 the matter. Work under good conditions suffi- 
 cient to absorb the strength of the workman is, 
 in the absence of intellectual tastes and virtuous 
 habits, a moral necessity. The main endeavor, 
 therefore, must be to qualify the masses of men 
 for the freedom that is sure to come ; and the 
 swifter the qualification is attained the speedier 
 will the leisure be exacted. 
 
 An education for freedom is the great neces- 
 sity of the time. Over-population is due to 
 rampant animalism. The standard of comfort 
 is set by ignorance and wretchedness. Intellec- 
 tual and moral elevation will always limit re- 
 production. The school for the people is the 
 supreme solicitude of the optimist. It has been 
 in existence only for a brief period. Its char- 
 acter has never received the attention which its 
 importance demands. Like all other good things 
 it must struggle into recognition and favor. 
 When it becomes what it might any day be-
 
 242 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 come, what it is bound to become at no distant 
 time, provision will be made for a new Amer- 
 ica, and a new America will be a vast help in 
 bringing in a new world. The physical evils 
 resulting from over-work, over-population, the 
 standard of comfort that is set by ignorance 
 and wretchedness will yield to the education 
 that fits the masses of men for the new privi- 
 lege. Nothing is hopeless for the disciple of 
 Jesus Christ. A better economic condition has 
 come ; a better still is bound to come. So cer- 
 tain is this that the chief concern of the lover 
 of his kind should be that the toiler shall be 
 adequate to his freedom. 
 
 It must be remarked that under all its present 
 severities the work of mankind is for the most 
 part a source of moral vigor and hope. The 
 virtue enshrined in the labor that keeps the 
 human race alive is beyond all calculation. 
 The heroism developed in the production and 
 transportation of the commodities that support 
 life is nothing less than sublime. The risk that 
 the miner ignores, the exposure that trainmen 
 and sailors scorn, the hardship that is encoun- 
 tered and laughed at in a hundred different lines 
 of activity, the high hurdles over which men go 
 with shouts of glee in the race of service, the 
 defiance flung in the face of broiling heat and 
 blinding cold by the multitudinous servants of
 
 OPTIMISM 243 
 
 mankind, their fine disdain for space and time 
 and tide and tempest, is one of the great sights 
 of the world. And the fine thing about it is that 
 work of this kind never thinks that it is heroic 
 or in any way morally meritorious, that it is the 
 supreme commonplace. Labor is the world- 
 maker ; capital and guiding intelligence are con- 
 ditions. The true Atlas that walks and frisks 
 with the world upon his shoulders is toil. This 
 primary department of civilization is great in it- 
 self. In Kipling it has found an understanding 
 heart and a noble voice. The best note in Kip- 
 ling's poetry is the recognition of the worth for 
 an empire of its humble and nameless servants, 
 their unconscious heroism, and their fundamental 
 manhood. Optimism is the note of Kipling's 
 work because his work is inspired by the world's 
 work. Pessimisms are not bred from the heart 
 of the self-forgetful victorious workman ; they 
 spring from the mean compassions of the un- 
 prophetic spectator and from the meditations 
 of disappointed and depraved egoism. 
 
 V 
 
 The deepest foundation of optimism is in 
 faith. God's world-plan is the education of 
 mankind ; that is the great assumption of reli- 
 gious faith. In the light of this fundamental 
 conception many things otherwise unaccountable
 
 244 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 become plain. The world-plan of God seen and 
 served secures joy and hope for all worthful 
 souls. What men most need for a happy life is 
 a cause worthy of their supreme devotion. The 
 sufferings of the apostles of Christ were great ; 
 and yet in their writings they appear among the 
 most joyous men who have ever lived. The des- 
 ignation of Jesus as a man of sorrows is one- 
 sided ; Goethe's description of Christianity as 
 the worship of sorrow is but a half truth. As 
 he appears in the Gospels Jesus is the most joy- 
 ous person known to history. He has been able 
 to impart to those who have followed him, and 
 who have suffered most for their Christian dis- 
 cipleship, a joy of which nothing could bereave 
 them. And if one shall inquire after the source 
 of this joy in the suffering servants of righteous- 
 ness, one shall find it to lie in their cause. It 
 is this that has given them a peace above all 
 earthly dignities. The vision of God's world- 
 plan for mankind has been the joy set before 
 them. In the strength of this vision they have 
 been able to endure the cross and to despise the 
 shame. Psalmist, prophet, apostle, martyr, and 
 reformer, worthful men in all times and among 
 all peoples, have seen some aspect of the king- 
 dom of God, and in beholding and serving it, 
 the God of peace and of hope has passed into 
 their lives. Under the shadow of the Infinite,
 
 OPTIMISM 245 
 
 chastened with its rebuke and exalted with its 
 benignity, the men and women who have changed 
 the world from glory to glory have lived. Their 
 vision has been their solace, and their cause has 
 been their comfort ; their suffering devotion has 
 been turned to joy. For the expulsion of pes- 
 simism we need goodness; the goodness that 
 consists in the vision of God's world-plan, and 
 in utter devotion to it. 
 
 Here too is the comfort of the weak. They 
 are a sorrow to themselves. In their ignorance, 
 in their moral failure, and in their weakness they 
 can find only misery. But beyond them and 
 including them is the educative purpose of God. 
 Its greatness and richness surpass all imagina- 
 tion. To be under that process of education is 
 a noble happiness, even if the result is mainly 
 an intensified consciousness of weakness. The 
 universe is thus conservative of the apparently 
 worthless ; it is dealing heroically with them 
 that the worthf ul soul may be set free ; it is rais- 
 ing within them reasonable expectations of an 
 existence wrought over into a new creation. 
 And along with this vision of the educative pur- 
 pose of God for the individual life there is the 
 sense of the world-process for the recovery of 
 sight to the blind. History is seen to be inex- 
 orably just, and for this reason infinitely kind. 
 Here again the cause is the source of endless
 
 246 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 satisfaction. The weakness is the weakness of 
 infancy ; the process goes on that out of weak- 
 ness makes men strong. More and more the 
 presence of a just pity is felt in life, and more 
 and more a just pity is seen at work in human 
 civilization. There is a call away from the 
 brute, and up to the full man ; and the call is 
 not entirely unanswered. The hope that wis- 
 dom and pity will be more and more potent in 
 the organization of society is a reasonable hope. 
 The faith that behind this larger organization of 
 society in wisdom and pity is the prevailing ac- 
 tion of the Infinite wisdom and pity is a reason- 
 able faith. The joy that comes to the weak 
 from the sense of the kingdom that includes 
 their ideals, that covers their interests, that works 
 for their exaltation, is a warrantable joy. In 
 their cause they are prophetically complete. 
 The evil of existence is overcome by experience 
 and anticipation. 
 
 The perverse man is not unamenable to this 
 illumination through life. Negative education 
 is precious. It is often an indispensable pre- 
 liminary to progress. A vast negation preceded 
 the great utterance: "I know myself now." 
 Indeed, much of the divine education is of this 
 cliaracter ; it is finally an availing protest against 
 cherished selfishness, a conclusive demonstration 
 of the insanity of the sinful life. And if that
 
 OPTIMISM 247 
 
 is the larger part of the work of God with the 
 majority of Christian people, it is not discour- 
 aging when we have to confess that it is nearly 
 the whole achievement of God with the mass of 
 mankind. It is a great thing to be convinced 
 that the way of the transgressor is hard. It is 
 much to have it demonstrated that the life with- 
 out God is the life without hope. It is not 
 unworthy of the Eternal spirit to reason wrong- 
 doing into the ground, to reduce egoism to the 
 sense of its fatuity, to expose the impossible 
 hope of the loveless soul, to obstruct the path to 
 moral perdition by an overwhelming negation. 
 
 This is the discipline to which individual 
 perversity is subjected ; the operation of this 
 relentless kindness is seen throughout the social 
 whole. Each generation makes for itself the 
 immemorial discovery that the wages of sin is 
 death, and that the recompense of high fidelity 
 is eternal life. The great commonplace of eth- 
 ical experience is that he who saves his life 
 shall lose it, and that he who loses his life shall 
 find it. This paradox of being, this immemorial 
 discovery of individuals and generations, is bound 
 to tell upon the coming race. The ancient blun- 
 der of self-seeking will not always be repeated ; 
 the joy of existence will not forever be sought 
 for, against the whole protest of the past, in 
 impossible fields. Light will, in the overwhelm-
 
 248 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 ing majority of cases, be welcome, and darkness 
 will be disowned. And in the cases of fierce 
 perversity the great negation of the loveless life 
 will be repeated with a certainty and an empha- 
 sis that cannot be unavailing. If good men 
 take their chief joy in God's world-plan for 
 mankind; if, when they are paid in outward 
 suffering and calamity for their great service, 
 they still find inexpressible solace in their cause ; 
 if the weak become oblivious of their affliction 
 through trust in the Infinite pity that remem- 
 bers them and that works for them, and if per- 
 verse men are finally driven into the consciousness 
 that egoism is the ideal of the fool, optimism 
 is a faith that has good foundations. 
 
 On this question of optimism, science gives 
 facts and tendencies in the physical and social 
 life of man; faith gives a history of the vic- 
 torious soul, a record of its endeavor to bring 
 the unbelieving world into its own light and 
 peace, and an insight into the world-plan of the 
 Infinite educator of human beings. These are 
 the facts ; these are the prevailing tendencies ; 
 these are the spiritual experiences and endeavors 
 of the world's life ; and this is its best insight. 
 Here we rest the case of historical optimism. 
 When we confine the vision to the history of 
 man on this earth, the facts are still facts, the 
 tendencies are still tendencies, the spiritual
 
 OPTIMISM 249 
 
 peace and power are still valid, and God's world- 
 plan is still the best account of what we see and 
 of what it is reasonable to hope for. It is true 
 that we cannot define the issue of earthly his- 
 tory. It had a beginning ; some time it may 
 have an end. What the history of man upon 
 this planet will be when the record is complete, 
 it is impossible even to guess. Infinite possi- 
 bilities of disaster exist ; infinite possibilities of 
 high character and happiness also exist ; and in 
 the historic process to-day we behold at work 
 forces that slowly eliminate the evil possibilities, 
 and that slowly realize the good possibilities. 
 That condition of human society may not be all 
 that one could wish ; it is the opportunity of 
 heroism and the warrant of hope. 
 
 Here we might leave the subject. The life of 
 man after he leaves this earth might be ignored. 
 We have been dealing with the outlook for time. 
 Why venture upon the outlook beyond time? 
 First, because death is the chief support of 
 pessimism. Second, because human history on 
 earth must ever remain incomplete. Death must 
 be transcended if optimism is to live ; and time 
 must be held to be but the earliest epoch of 
 man's endless career. For this second conten- 
 tion we find warrant in the soul. The cry of the 
 psalmist is true to the soul, individual, social, his- 
 toric, racial : " I shall be satisfied, when I awake,
 
 250 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 in thy likeness." Kantrs counsels of perfection 
 are a genuine rendering of the human con- 
 science. The moral law calls for the perfect 
 man, for the perfect society ; and to meet this 
 call from within, it is reasonable to assume time 
 from above. For an endless task there must be 
 an endless opportunity. Plato's "vision of all 
 time and all existence " has its function here. 
 The history of the soul and of the society of 
 souls is in the visible and yet more in the in- 
 visible. In the presence of the full career of 
 man as he stands in this Platonic vision, his life 
 upon the earth is insignificant indeed. It is 
 impossible that it should appear to be anything 
 great. 1 Scientific optimism should become phi- 
 losophic optimism ; the horizons that are fixed 
 for science should be transcended by the bound- 
 less outlook of philosophy. And it is here 
 impossible not to recall the words of the Sover- 
 eign teacher upon the meaning of human ex- 
 istence : " Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your 
 heavenly Father is perfect." 2 Than that ideal 
 there could be nothing more hopeless or absurd 
 if for man there is no history beyond this world. 
 God's world-plan for the education of man- 
 kind discounts the importance of death. For it 
 death is abolished ; for it there is no death. It 
 
 1 Republic, Book vi. p. 486 A. B. 
 
 2 Matthew v. 48.
 
 OPTIMISM 251 
 
 involves with its own reality the immortality of 
 man. In the presence of this plan all men are 
 one. 
 
 We are one in origin, in fortune, and in 
 destiny. The ideas of justice and of solidarity 
 should control faith here. The better civiliza- 
 tion of the world and its hope is the result largely 
 of unrequited service. What has become of those 
 heroic servants of man ? They saved others, them- 
 selves they could not save. Is, therefore, ex- 
 tinction of being the way in which the universe 
 rewards its best servants ? The justice of the 
 universe is here at stake, and one who feels that 
 the sense of justice is the best gift to man from 
 his Maker will not lightly conclude that his 
 Maker has given his conscience entirely away. 
 When we hold God to justice we hold him by 
 the supreme distinction which he has conferred 
 upon human beings. And it is easy to see that 
 if the past is incomplete without the better fu- 
 ture into which it is to be resolved, the better 
 future itself needs for its integrity a real union 
 with the past that has made it possible. The 
 purpose of goodness that works itself out in his- 
 tory is the ground of hope not only for time but 
 also for eternity. That purpose honors the great 
 ideas of justice and solidarity. It is but just, 
 and it is in line with the social nature of man, 
 that somewhere, somehow, and at some time the
 
 252 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 sower and the reaper should rejoice together. 
 The statement that this cannot be, owing to the 
 connection between the individual mind and the 
 physical organism, is simply idle chatter in the 
 face of victorious goodness working through his- 
 tory. All that is essential to the self-consistency 
 of victorious goodness must be assumed to be 
 possible. As Renan said that forty years of labor 
 and meditation had merely enabled him to arrive 
 at conclusions at which " a street Arab arrives 
 off-hand," l so it may be asserted that the deep- 
 est student of the connection of mind and body 
 knows as much about their ultimate relation 
 as the peasant, and no more. Objections to the 
 ethical argument for immortality founded upon 
 ignorance deserve no more deference to-day than 
 they received from Butler in his time. One who 
 has for the thousandth time gone over the uni- 
 versally accessible evidence for the close corre- 
 spondence of mind and organism, repeating to 
 one's self of faith in immortality, " How can 
 these things be ? " comes at length to suspect 
 that one is a logical fool. In an ethical world 
 ignorance of the final value for the soul of brain 
 organization can hardly count as an argument 
 against a future life for man. Too much de- 
 ference to ignorance in one direction and too 
 
 1 Bruneti&re, Manual of the History of French Literature^ p. 
 521.
 
 OPTIMISM 253 
 
 little respect for knowledge in another is the 
 source of the greater part of modern doubt over 
 future existence. Upon this subject, the moral 
 world hi which every true man lives has the right 
 to the last word. Over against the physiolo- 
 gist's ignorance the moralist sets his knowledge ; 
 and it would seem to be only sane to trust the 
 august moral world that one knows rather than 
 the physical world that one does not know. 
 
 It has been said that the function of the Pla- 
 tonic myth is to cover with the forms of imagi- 
 nation realities either inaccessible to the process 
 of reason or insufficiently apprehended by reason. 
 Every subject becomes infinite, and when the 
 subject under consideration is a fundamental 
 human interest, it is natural, and perhaps not 
 unfitting, in the last resort, to fall back upon 
 the poetry of faith. Optimism looks for a new 
 heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth right- 
 eousness. It lives in the vision of the holy city, 
 the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven 
 from God. It believes that the tabernacle of 
 God is with men. This is the first interest of 
 optimism. The fortune of mankind on this earth 
 is its great primary concern ; and its note of 
 hope is held for the sake of faith in the Maker 
 of man, and as the availing inspiration in all 
 high and serious work for man, no less than as 
 warranted, at least in a chastened form, by the
 
 254 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 fact of human progress. It is this primary in- 
 terest of optimism that guards its ethical value. 
 Mere expectation of a happier future for man- 
 kind on this earth is of little service. An un- 
 ethical optimism is hardly other than a calamity. 
 There are those who cry peace when there is no 
 peace. It is forever true that there is no peace 
 for the wicked. If wickedness cannot be ex- 
 pelled from the spirit and life of mankind the 
 expectation of a happier future is idle. Better 
 a thousand times the stern ethics of the despair- 
 ing prophet than the concealed decay, the gilded 
 corruptions, the whited sepulchres of the con- 
 scienceless dreamer. All the legitimate hopes 
 of man are bound up with the struggle for 
 righteousness. If the struggle for social right- 
 eousness is vain, optimism is vain. If social 
 righteousness is, all things considered, a growing 
 interest, a gaining cause, an invincible force, 
 optimism is justified. It is the vision of the ex- 
 alted humanity in the happier environment, 
 the angel of the apocalyptic writer standing in 
 the sun, in the strength of which the arduous 
 duty of the day and the hour is done. 
 
 This, however, is not the end. The poetry 
 of faith goes beyond time. It views as one the 
 church militant and the church triumphant. 
 
 " Part of the host have crossed the flood 
 And part are crossing now."
 
 OPTIMISM 255 
 
 In the New Testament, time and eternity are 
 never definitely separated, human history here 
 and beyond death. In one of the greatest writ- 
 ings of the New Testament the author, after 
 noting immense progress in faith and in oppor- 
 tunity, blends the present with its privilege in 
 the fellowship of the Eternal. " Ye are come 
 unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living 
 God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumer- 
 able hosts of angels, to the general assembly 
 and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in 
 heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the 
 spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus 
 the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood 
 of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of 
 Abel." 2 The vision of the Eternal God, the risen, 
 ascended, and reigning Master, the common- 
 wealth of the brave and pure in the unseen, in 
 fellowship with whom the community of believers 
 on earth forever stands, is a vision that accords 
 with the deepest necessities of faith. The dis- 
 cipline of mankind is continued in the invisible. 
 The ideals of humanity have their perfect reali- 
 zation in the Eternal. The solidarity of the race, 
 on earth and in heaven, is the fundamental truth 
 of our human world. The ground of hope is in 
 him who reveals the nature of man and of God, 
 who discovers in himself the goodness and the 
 
 1 Heb. xii. 23.
 
 256 THE HISTORICAL ULTIMATE 
 
 severity of the Father, and who interprets in the 
 interest of mankind the awful process of judg- 
 ment by which the universe is purified and glo- 
 rified. " Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that 
 cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby 
 we may offer service well-pleasing to God with 
 reverence and awe : for our God is a consuming 
 
 fire." 1 
 
 1 Hebrews x ii . 28.
 
 CHAPTER 
 THE BELIGIOUS ULTIMATE : JESUS CHRIST 
 
 IN the study of Jesus Christ the fitting attitude 
 of mind is of serious moment. It is not gener- 
 ally seen, even among teachers and investigators, 
 that the process of the intellect depends for its 
 validity not only upon scientific method, but also 
 upon purity of motive. Prejudice can distort 
 the whole method and process of science, and in 
 the name of science conduct to the barren and 
 foregone conclusion. The absence of the proper 
 interest, in the treatment of a fundamental ques- 
 tion, is likewise fatal. It is often observed of 
 writers that they are not at home in their sub- 
 jects. Through want of adequate learning or 
 discipline or interest they are in a foreign land. 
 And even when the learning and the discipline 
 are sufficient, if the fundamental and native im- 
 pulse is wanting, these writers are still hopeless 
 foreigners. Scientific method must complete 
 itself in the integrity that belongs alone to the 
 pure in heart. 
 
 It is a sound remark that piety without intel-
 
 258 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 ligence is a peril to religion. It is apt to issue 
 in fanaticism. It is likely to define in an un- 
 natural way the spirit and the scope of religion. 
 It is nearly sure to put a fixed gulf between the 
 mood in which a man worships God and the 
 mood in which he is to associate and work with 
 men. Piety without intellect is the opportunity 
 of the impostor, both orthodox and heterodox. 
 It is the gunpowder for the fire of the abuser 
 and blasphemer of great human interests. Noble, 
 elementary feeling, standing apart from the in- 
 tellect, and unserved by it, has wrought upon 
 the soul of religion inconceivable outrage. It 
 was this history of outrage that led the govern- 
 ing philosophers in France and in Great Britain 
 in the eighteenth century to regard religion as 
 little less than a disease and scourge. This dis- 
 cipline in extreme opinion has resulted, after 
 much wandering, in the conclusion that no feel- 
 ing, no interest is complete, without the service 
 of the intellect. It must be understood in order 
 to come to its best, it must pass through the 
 purifying fires of intelligence, find its relation 
 to other interests, come to a knowledge of itself 
 and its place in human nature through the ser- 
 vice of the reason. 
 
 But if piety without intellect is one peril of 
 religion, it is equally true that intellect without 
 piety is another peril of religion. There is in-
 
 JESUS CHRIST 259 
 
 deed no choice between the evils of a great inter- 
 est not understood and misunderstood. In the 
 one case, there is no attempt to know, to exalt, 
 to use lawfully the great interest ; in the other, 
 there is the evil done to religion by the under- 
 standing that works without genuine sympathy 
 with religion. After all that has been said in 
 praise of it, the critical spirit is good only in so 
 far as it springs from fear to believe a lie. The 
 critical spirit is a method for maintaining intel- 
 lectual uprightness ; it implies the love of truth 
 and the most serious devotion to it. The critical 
 spirit thus born shows itself only incidentally 
 in destruction ; its great distinction is discovery 
 and appreciation. If the object is truth the best 
 path to it is sympathy. Intellectual wariness is 
 not only compatible with sympathy ; in its high- 
 est development sympathy is essential to it. In 
 the eyes of his Sistine Madonna, Raphael has 
 depicted the consciousness of infinite possession 
 and infinite solicitude. The last thing to be im- 
 posed upon is intelligent and noble maternity. 
 The critical spirit is there in supreme incisive- 
 ness because it is tempered, edged, and used 
 by love. Christian discipleship at its best is 
 supremely critical because it is supremely de- 
 voted to reality. The devotion is primary, the 
 appreciation is the main interest ; the negative 
 process is an intellectual device in the service
 
 260 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 of the heart. At its best the believer's study 
 of Jesus Christ is the most authentic, not only 
 because he alone commands the facts, but also 
 because he has the deepest desire to reach the 
 truth and nothing but the truth. The expert's 
 criticism on the seaworthiness of a ship becomes 
 much more anxious and severe when the ship 
 is in a gale, and the expert's family are on 
 board. When Paul said, " I know whom I 
 have believed," he gave expression to a result 
 obtained by the searching criticism of love. He 
 had a great stake in the trustworthiness of his 
 Master, and he had taken the utmost pains to 
 reach the fact. In the Gospels Jesus appears 
 as lover and judge. His character as lover of 
 men fits him, and indeed compels him, to be 
 their severest judge. And the awful criticism 
 of love that a man finds applied to himself when 
 he opens his New Testament, he is in duty 
 bound to apply to the central person there. 
 Only let it be the criticism of love, the appre- 
 ciation that advances passionately and warily, 
 the sympathy that is insight and receptivity 
 and that cannot be mocked, and great results 
 must follow. The last person to take words for 
 power, the show of relief for actual deliverance, 
 is the man who identifies truth and life. One 
 may as well expect the Syrophoenician mother 
 to be satisfied with anything less than the heal-
 
 JESUS CHRIST 261 
 
 ing of her child. The spectator may be made 
 to believe that the semblance is the reality, but 
 the sufferer never. Criticism of Jesus Christ 
 is not new ; he was the subject of it from his 
 baptism to his ascension. The criticism of need, 
 and of love, he did not deprecate ; rather he in- 
 spired it, as in the case of Nicodemus, and made 
 it more profound. The criticism that he con- 
 demned was that of the Pharisee, the criticism 
 that was a cover for prejudice. Nowhere is it 
 more essential than here that the modern stu- 
 dent should be upon his guard. The criticism of 
 love means life ; the criticism that is a learned 
 concealment of aboriginal antagonism and culti- 
 vated bias is a movement away from truth. 
 Study your man, consider your critic, get at the 
 inmost spirit and motive of your adverse writer ; 
 in the sphere of moral truth the man is always 
 determinative of his work and its worth. 
 
 The school of Christ is the place where judg- 
 ment is ripened into something like adequacy. 
 Christian discipleship should precede Christian 
 apostleship. The Master is too great to be made 
 the subject of extemporaneous judgment. The 
 magnitude of Jesus calls for reverent appreciation. 
 The easy manner in which Jesus and his teach- 
 ing are considered by a certain class of negative 
 writers, the high assurance of complete ability 
 to comprehend Christianity and its Founder
 
 262 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 with which they write, the monstrous assump- 
 tion with which they proceed to indicate the 
 limitations and the defects in the thought of 
 Christ, are a melancholy revelation of incurable 
 incompetence. There is in this mood total in- 
 sensibility to the majesty of Jesus in human 
 history. Jesus has been so much to mankind 
 that any scholar with ordinary historic imagi- 
 nation and common intellectual decency must 
 uncover in his presence. It is but homage to 
 reality to confess the transcendent greatness of 
 Jesus, and to study him in any other mood is 
 sheer impertinence. The great teachers of man- 
 kind have won the right to our deference. We 
 do not fear to test them ; but we fear to test 
 them except in the consciousness of their im- 
 measurable significance. Shakespere, Dante, 
 Homer, must be approached in this way ; other- 
 wise the critic is ridiculous. His opportunity 
 is to know men who knew life vastly better than 
 he knows it. The great thinkers of mankind 
 command this homage. Their size should save 
 them from impertinence. Plato, Aristotle, Kant, 
 Berkeley, Hume, and Hegel have worlds of wis- 
 dom in them; and if that wisdom has limita- 
 tions, these can best be discovered by the patient 
 and reverent learner. Criticism in general is 
 poor because it is ignorant, and again because it 
 proceeds from a mean spirit. Learning wide
 
 JESUS CHRIST 263 
 
 and deep is essential to worthy judgment, and 
 learning that sees beyond it the untraveled 
 heights of its alluring subject. The world is 
 tired of manufactured Christologies, whether or- 
 thodox or heterodox. The notice served upon 
 the Christian thinker is : Get your facts ; then 
 try, if you can, to compass their meaning ; admit 
 as the supreme fact the immeasurableness of the 
 Master ; and let this influence not only the in- 
 tellectual conclusion, but also imagination and 
 feeling. The preachers who most truly present 
 their Master are the men in whose imagination 
 and feeling lies the image of his unlimited sig- 
 nificance for human life. Dogmatic conclusions 
 concerning Jesus Christ are nearly a necessity 
 for the philosophic student ; but even this student 
 is comparatively powerless as a teacher until the 
 subject of his opinion transcends opinion, until 
 it calls to the deepest in humanity, 
 
 " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; 
 And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors : 
 And the King of glory shall come in." 1 
 
 The significance of Jesus for the religious need 
 is the proper subject of philosophic thought ; but 
 the thought is mad that does not confess the 
 incomprehensible greatness of that significance. 
 Even on a naturalistic conception of the charac- 
 ter of Jesus, the fact remains of his unique and 
 
 1 Psalm xxiv. 7.
 
 264 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 immeasurable greatness. The reflection in im- 
 agination and feeling of that fact is sufficient to 
 insure reverence and docility in his presence. 
 Charles Lamb spoke for authentic historic fact 
 when he said to a company of friends, " If 
 Shakespere should appear here, we should all 
 rise, but if He should appear we should all 
 kneel." 
 
 II 
 
 Christology is a human question, and its chief 
 form is this : What is the value of Jesus Christ 
 for the religious life of mankind? And the 
 basis for the true answer to this question is in 
 the Christian life. Discipleship is a process of 
 moral experimentation. Historic discipleship 
 is historic experimentation expressing itself in 
 results that gain in clearness and certainty. The 
 total power of the cause is not given in the in- 
 complete effect ; still the testimony of the effect 
 is positive and may be prophetic. 
 
 The first witness for Christ is the psalm of 
 the individual disciple. Hebrew words are filled 
 with the new wine of Christian experience, 
 
 " Come, and hear, all ye that fear God, 
 And I will declare what he hath done for my soul." 1 
 
 This testimony strengthens itself in the larger 
 witness of history : Hear what the Lord has 
 done for other souls. At this point an important 
 
 1 Psalm Ixvi 16.
 
 JESUS CHRIST 265 
 
 discrimination is made. Christ has meant most 
 to the greatest souls. Paul and John, Origen 
 and Augustine, Luther and Edwards, Maurice 
 and Bushnell, Channing and Brooks, surely were 
 among the greatest in their religious endowment. 
 The supreme significance of Christ to them is 
 fundamentally important. In this way, from 
 personal testimony to historical, from historical 
 witness to that of the great spiritual leaders of 
 the modern world, the conclusion is reached that 
 Jesus Christ has a message for the world, that he 
 himself is the world's incomparable spiritual pos- 
 session. Thus the believer arrives at his matured 
 conviction, living as he is in the quest for the 
 best, and in the open competition of the religious 
 world. 
 
 The verdict of historic discipleship is thus the 
 basis upon which some insight may be obtained 
 into Christ's character. Other great religious 
 teachers have laid powerful hold upon human 
 life. In order to exalt Jesus, it is wholly un- 
 necessary to degrade them. But for those who 
 hold that life is good, that moral achievement is 
 the great note of normal man, that human rela- 
 tions domestic, social, national, and racial 
 are the enduring and precious organism of exist- 
 ence, that under all, and in all, and over all is 
 the love of God with whose conscience arid heart 
 our entire humanity is forever implicated, there
 
 266 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 can be no teacher like Jesus Christ. For him 
 life is good. For him the relational life of man- 
 kind is existence. Society illumined and inspired 
 by love is his conception of normal human ex- 
 istence. For him there is the coming of the 
 Infinite holiness and joy into society. Our hu- 
 man world, in his sight, is vast, precious, full of 
 illimitable promise. He lives, he dies, that his 
 kingdom may come ; and his kingdom is conser- 
 vative of human life, it retains all by purifying 
 and perfecting all. According to Jesus the sub- 
 stance of existence is divine ; his aim is to redeem 
 it from abuse, and to fill it with the grace that 
 consecrates and completes it. The Buddhist 
 pleads for the holy life ; but with him existence 
 is misery, and his ideal is the beatitude of ex- 
 tinction. Paralysis is upon the heart of Indian 
 civilization. Social progress is no part of Indian 
 experience, no part of Indian dreams. Science 
 in the true sense of the word there is none. 
 Among the Hindus, effective social organization 
 there is none ; universal education there is none ; 
 the achievements in science, in philosophy, in 
 government, in institutional life that distinguish 
 the west, are not found in the east. Profound 
 and disordered metaphysical dreamings consti- 
 tute those huge systems of opinion. Imagina- 
 tion takes the place of intellect, prejudice of 
 conscience, endless brooding of will. The touch
 
 JESUS CHRIST 267 
 
 of peculiar climate is in all this; the deeper 
 influence of immemorial pessimism is also in it 
 all. So long as the ideal is extinction of being 
 by the path of holiness, Jesus Christ must seem 
 inferior to their own great teacher ; but we who 
 hold that this ideal is false, who set up as our 
 goal life in the path of service inspired by love, 
 must place our Master immeasurably above the 
 best. 
 
 The supremacy of Jesus among the religious 
 teachers of mankind rests upon the verdict of 
 life. One can predict the universal and final 
 rejection of Christianity only as one shall fore- 
 cast the universal and final denial of the will 
 to live. Universal and permanent pessimism 
 alone can succeed in relegating the Gospel of 
 Christ to an inferior position. Because the de- 
 sire for life is deep and ineradicable, because it 
 prevails more and more wherever existence is 
 normal, Christianity is bound to become the re- 
 ligion of the world. Victorious and passion- 
 ately aspiring life can never rest long under the 
 shadow of a pessimistic gospel. The leader for 
 an achieving humanity is he who came to give 
 the more abundant life. No teacher so identi- 
 fies his cause with life as Jesus does. As healer, 
 as prophet, as personal influence, as man of faith 
 and of works, his whole power is directed upon 
 human society to turn it into a vast and vital
 
 268 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 joy. Upon a theistic interpretation of the uni- 
 verse, and an optimistic view of history, Jesus 
 is the incomparable religious leader. Wherever 
 the instinct of life is imprisoned, there he is con- 
 fessed as the supreme deliverer; wherever the 
 desire for life prevails, there the Master of the 
 Christian world is recognized as rightful king ; 
 and if humanity as a whole shall rise into the 
 passion for the highest kind of life, we may be 
 sure that humanity will choose as its Lord, Jesus 
 Christ. For the race that wants to live, there 
 is among religious teachers no rival to him. 
 
 The power to renew the desire for life belongs 
 to Christ in a wholly incomparable way. All 
 human interests flourish where the Gospel goes. 
 The disciples of Jesus became possessed with 
 the joy and the hope of being. The good tid- 
 ings were uttered from the heart of exultant 
 manhood. Trial and sorrow became discipline, 
 that is, a severe process for the expansion and 
 exaltation of existence. The first revival that 
 followed the presence of Jesus in Galilee and in 
 Juda3a was a revival of the desire to live. The 
 surprise of being was the great primal inspira- 
 tion that came from him. Men paused and 
 wondered over the reversal of despair. In his 
 presence the contempt of life died out ; the sigh 
 of distress for relief in death was abolished. 
 The hum of human interests became universal ;
 
 JESUS CHBIST 269 
 
 men forgot their unbelief in the new and absorb- 
 ing passion for life with which Jesus filled the 
 land. The crowds of sick that were brought 
 to him, the multitudes that followed that they 
 might hear him speak, the parents who sought 
 him for their sons and daughters, and the mas- 
 ters who plead with him in behalf of their ser- 
 vants, the mothers who prayed for his blessing 
 upon their children, and the rulers, like Nico- 
 demus, who were fascinated into discipleship, all 
 tell the same story. Life can become a new 
 and an amazing interest, and Jesus was the 
 great inspirer of the prophetic passion. The 
 contempt of existence has never been able to 
 live where Christ lives. Wherever he has gone 
 he has filled his disciples with the surprise of 
 being. The angel that men entertain unawares 
 is their humanity. Wordsworth speaks for the 
 whole brotherhood of believers when he sings : 
 
 " Thanks to the human heart by which we live." 
 
 The normal interests of man, inspired and sus- 
 tained by Jesus Christ, are the greatest forces 
 in the world, and they are its inalienable joys. 
 Henry Ward Beecher said that the ministry 
 should be a band of music. Deeper still is the 
 power of the Gospel. It creates a concert in 
 the human heart that never ceases, that takes 
 up into itself the whole pathos of existence and
 
 270 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 blends it with the governing voices of joy, mak- 
 ing them softer and richer, making it a solace 
 and sanctity. 
 
 The Christian assurance of endless life is a 
 testimony to the unique power of Christ. Nor- 
 mal life doubtless desires to go on, and it natu- 
 rally builds heavens into which it is to enter 
 at death. But nowhere is the strength of the 
 desire for endless existence so tremendous as in 
 the Christian community. Life is love, and love 
 is full of joy, and not to long with utmost sin- 
 cerity and intensity for permanence would be 
 an incredible mood. Christ has made being so 
 full of surprise and joy and hope that the gen- 
 erations under him have eagerly accepted his 
 assurance of life after death. Whether the 
 conception of immortality be valid or not, the 
 consonance of it with the human heart, as that 
 heart is touched and stirred by Christ, is a new 
 witness to the Master's power to make existence 
 supremely desirable. And while he thus appeals 
 to the desire for life, renews it where it has 
 failed, and fills it with an endless ideal and 
 hope, it must be repeated that the verdict of 
 life is a verdict for the sovereign and incom- 
 parable worth of Jesus Christ as the religious 
 leader of mankind. The exalted genius of 
 Buddha avails nothing in his competition with 
 Jesus. We place these teachers side by side.
 
 JESUS CHRIST 271 
 
 We hear Buddha say that existence is desire, 
 that desire is egoism, that egoism is misery, and 
 that the highest hope of man is the hope of 
 extinction. The noble ethical discipline that 
 becomes the only path to the peace of nothing- 
 ness must be estimated in the presence of the 
 goal to which it is adjusted, in the presence also 
 of the universe which makes this goal the high- 
 est human beatitude. We hear Buddha speak, 
 and the whole life of our world is against him. 
 He is exalted, he is gracious, he is full of inde- 
 scribable pity, he is benign ; but he is, from our 
 point of view, the victim of an immeasurable 
 and a hideous mistake. We hear Jesus say that 
 existence is desire, that desire is ordained of 
 God to become love, that love is pure and glori- 
 ous joy, and that his mission is to fill humanity 
 with love that it may be filled with worth and 
 joy. Here our world is with Jesus. All be- 
 lievers in life, all reformers of life, all idealists 
 for life, and the whole soul of our civilization, 
 side with Jesus. And once more it must be 
 said that for the world that wants to live, to 
 live worthily, royally, and endlessly there is no 
 rival in leadership to Jesus Christ. 
 
 m 
 
 The verdict of Jesus Christ concerning him- 
 self is of chief importance. A complete in-
 
 272 THE EELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 duction is not here in place ; a single typical 
 instance is sufficient. Jesus says of himself " 1 
 am the light of the world." 1 In the simplest 
 and at the same time the most unmistakable 
 way, these words set forth his claim to be the 
 religious ultimate for mankind. As the new 
 Jerusalem has twelve gates opening into its 
 interior splendor so there are many approaches 
 to the soul of Christ. He is the bread of 
 heaven, the water of life, the resurrection and 
 the life, the good shepherd, the vine, the way, 
 the truth, and the life, the son of man, and the 
 son of God. These self-characterizations, and 
 others like them that might be named, are 
 avenues to the vision of the Master's spirit. 
 But the comparison of himself to the light is 
 perhaps the most significant ; at least, in this 
 discussion, it is the most convenient. And the 
 first thought implied in the comparison is the 
 immense practicalness of the Gospel. The light 
 is for sight and service. It brings into clear- 
 ness the abiding order of the material world, 
 and it animates man to his task in that world. 
 Light presupposes reality ; its primary func- 
 tion is revelation and inspiration. Christianity 
 assumes the independent reality of God's moral 
 world in humanity. It implies that that world 
 is from of old, and that it is everlasting. Its 
 
 1 John viii. 12.
 
 JESUS CHRIST 273 
 
 first office is to make it visible, and to induce 
 men to live in it. The moral world that is the 
 analogue of the material, it covers with its illu- 
 mination, and cultivates with its inspiration. 
 Christianity is preeminently a religion for this 
 world; above all it is a religion for business. 
 It is primarily for seeing and serving. In it 
 man first finds himself. The appetites and pas- 
 sions and reason and conscience and will that 
 compose man's life are organized in truth. The 
 magnitude and value of the soul, the family, the 
 nation, history, and humanity discover them- 
 selves here as nowhere else. The material, 
 domestic, social, political, scientific, and human 
 interests of the race shine as different aspects of 
 one vast whole. That whole is our human world, 
 and that human world is a moral world. And 
 from the Gospel a tide of light passes over the 
 face of society, and a new motive goes into the 
 higher endeavor of man. The true perspective 
 of existence and the cunning hand of the artist 
 are the gift of Christianity. The light that 
 reveals the reality of the world, in which men 
 plough and sow and reap and carry on the thou- 
 sand activities of existence ; the light that when 
 it is present puts out every other, and that when 
 it is absent is still the standard and incitement 
 for the invention of substitutes, is the great 
 parable for the revealing and inspiring function
 
 274 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 of Christ. To withdraw from the higher en- 
 deavor of mankind the influence of the Gospel 
 would be like a final sunset. The moral world 
 would still be here, but it would be without its 
 Divine interpreter. Outside of Christianity the 
 moral order is a world in darkness; and that 
 means blindness and stupidity. The vision and 
 the service that mean life for mankind are in a 
 pathetic sense limited to Christendom. Man 
 is seen, appreciated, understood, inspired, and 
 served only in the luminous atmosphere of Chris- 
 tian truth and love. To lose the memory of the 
 Gospel would be to forget the true aspect of 
 society, and the inspiration by which it is gen- 
 uinely served. 
 
 From Christianity as the divine condition of 
 moral industry, it follows that in the life of the 
 world it is both conscious and unconscious. It 
 is the master light of all our seeing ; yet reve- 
 lation and inspiration are often lost in the order 
 discovered and the impulse to serve it. The 
 thoughts and feelings and purposes that make 
 possible the best life of mankind are rarely 
 traced to their true source. The spiritual out- 
 fit for service is simply accepted ; it is here as 
 the light is here ; and as the farmer follows his 
 plough, and the sailor steers his ship unconscious 
 of the illumination that conditions the effort, so 
 men work in the sphere of the spirit. The im-
 
 JESUS CHRIST 275 
 
 mense moral health of mankind, and the amaz- 
 ing moral service from man to man that every 
 day records are the witnesses to a mighty uncon- 
 scious Christianity. Once for all a large section 
 of human interest lies in the light of the Gospel. 
 Men think of themselves and of their fellow- 
 men under the power of Christian inheritance 
 and environment. It is the old phenomenon re- 
 peated upon a grander scale. " Surely the Lord 
 is in this place ; and I knew it not." J The 
 integrity of the world is yet in its instinctive 
 stage ; and the best lives are far from self-com- 
 prehending. They move in forces of whose 
 scope and character and origin they take but 
 slight account. To the Christian morality of 
 the world there is an unconscious side. Men 
 cast out demons by the power that they do not 
 trace to its source. The failure in faith of the 
 man who is a hero in duty should be the com- 
 monplace that it is. He is simply the busy 
 farmer who never sees the light in which he 
 works. The Christian thinker should be the 
 broadest and most hopeful. The man to whom 
 Christ is the light of the world should set great 
 store upon the moral industry that Christ makes 
 possible, and little upon verbal or even scientific 
 admiration. The believer cannot be too thank- 
 ful for the multitudes who in a real way do 
 Christ's will " and know it not." 
 
 1 Genesis xxviii. 16.
 
 276 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 However, it is but natural that consciousness 
 should gain upon unconsciousness, reflection 
 upon instinct, a reasoned faith upon an intuitive. 
 The light passes through crises. Daybreak 
 and sundown are such, and the beginning and 
 the end of Christian discipleship are usually 
 marked epochs. Sad sometimes they are, like 
 Kipling's dawn of thunder, mournful as the 
 wreck of day at its close ; yet for the multitude 
 of devout disciples the beginning is the blush of 
 the Infinite and the end a banner of fire. The 
 crises through which Christian discipleship passes 
 serve to arrest its thought and send it upward 
 to the source of its insight and love. Character 
 in the making is a constant crisis. The more 
 will there is in the moral process, the more sense 
 is there of friend and foe. The point of deliber- 
 ate and forced moral gain is a kind of Niagara. 
 The roar is perpetual, the conflict unceasing, 
 the phenomenon something whose grandeur and 
 momentousness custom can in no wise lessen. 
 The strong temptation, the perplexing task, the 
 growing need of vision and motive, the sense of 
 dissatisfaction with the work done, the adverse 
 judgment upon life, the new tide of aspiration, 
 the sorrow and the hope, are the crises in the 
 day of the Lord which awakens thought and 
 turns the eager mind full upon the great Master. 
 
 Next to the practicalness of Christianity is
 
 JESUS CHRIST 277 
 
 the beauty of it. Whatever may be said of its 
 truth, no one can deny the beauty of Christ's 
 thought of God and man, human fellowship here 
 and hereafter. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is 
 the sovereign aesthetic wonder. The student of 
 ordinary sensibility is arrested at every step by 
 the scenery. The range of the insight is no 
 more remarkable than the quality. The Sermon 
 on the Mount has the beauty of truth. The 
 ethical seeds from the Old Testament become 
 under Christ's touch a world of full-grown and 
 finished loveliness. Morality ceases to be me- 
 chanical, ceases even to be stern ; it sinks into 
 divine depths and soars away to infinite heights. 
 It becomes as great and beautiful as the life of 
 God. This unlimitedness and perfection of the 
 moral life as conceived by Christ, especially in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, is an unspeakable 
 appeal to the sense of beauty. The Parables 
 continue this appeal. They are beautiful forms 
 for the world's most beautiful thought. God as 
 Jesus thought of him is a being of overwhelm- 
 ing beauty. There is no image anywhere for 
 this splendor of the mind of Christ. Nothing 
 in the extant intellectual or spiritual possessions 
 of mankind can match the idea of the God and 
 Father of Jesus Christ. Probably the best of 
 that thought is still beyond the deepest and most 
 sympathetic study. One can only dream of
 
 278 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 what it would be to entertain Christ's vision of 
 the Infinite. The symbols are here, the Greek 
 characters and sentences, the Gospels surrounded 
 by the best learning of the world. And under 
 these symbols, like a divine presence, waits the 
 vision of God and of man, out of which came 
 the Christian religion. 
 
 Christ himself is the chief part of his gospel. 
 Again in the category of beauty everything 
 ranks below Christ. The ineffable loveliness is 
 the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. From ad- 
 vent to ascension, in act and thought, in public 
 ministry and in private fellowship, from the be- 
 ginning to the end there is the same surpassing 
 beauty of character. And as those who work 
 in the light come to see and to love it, as light 
 becomes not only the indispensable condition of 
 industry but an open fountain of joy, so the 
 world that is learning to think of itself in the 
 glory of Christ is more and more coming to dis- 
 cern the revealing splendor and to rejoice in it. 
 If it cannot be doubted that in his use of light 
 as the comparison for his life, Jesus thought 
 first of the indispensable utility of his religion, 
 it is equally certain that next to that he must 
 have placed its ministry to the sense of beauty. 
 The moral refinement of Christianity at its best, 
 compared with Stoicism at its best, has its ex- 
 planation here. Refinement is a constant note
 
 JESUS CHRIST 279 
 
 in genuine Christianity. The vision of Christ 
 is ultimately incomparable with brutality. The 
 little child is again in the midst of society, and 
 the truth and delicacy of feeling in it are a sym- 
 bol of that which is inseparable from the sub- 
 stance of the Gospel. Fatherhood and mother- 
 hood, human nature and its great forces, have 
 been immensely modified by the grace of Christ. 
 To the condition of the world's best work we 
 must add, when we think of Christ, the source 
 of its grace. If Christianity is supreme for its 
 utility, it is again supreme for its aesthetic 
 value. 
 
 The finality of the Gospel grows out of Christ's 
 comparison. For its own purpose there is no- 
 thing better than light. Light at its best is the 
 final thing in that line. One can ask for nothing 
 other, for nothing higher, for nothing more. 
 The world rolling in the flood of light is in that 
 aspect of it absolutely perfect. And beyond the 
 teaching of Jesus thought cannot go. A God 
 better than the Father of Christ is for man in- 
 conceivable. A diviner interpretation of human 
 existence than that of Christ is unimaginable. 
 The great ideas of Christ the kingdom of 
 God, eternal life, the universe as essentially 
 moral, truth as ultimately personal in man, in 
 Christ himself, and in God, represent not 
 only the highest reach of spiritual intelligence,
 
 280 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 but also the height that has no beyond. Any- 
 thing better than the Gospel is simply incon- 
 ceivable. A higher or greater spirit than Jesus 
 Christ is unthinkable. It is no unimportant 
 service of the higher criticism that it has made 
 possible the discovery of the immeasurable im- 
 provement that Christ was upon Hebrew ideal- 
 ism. Until the present generation the Messianic 
 prophecies in the Old Testament were filled with 
 a Christian content ; and it was supposed that 
 the greater prophets had definite conceptions 
 of Jesus, and that six or seven hundred years 
 before his birth they supplied the world with 
 an outline biography of him. It is now seen, 
 or at least it is now possible to see, the infinite 
 surprise that Jesus was to his people. Hebrew 
 idealism points toward him ; he is its consum- 
 mate expression ; but he is beyond the fair in- 
 terpretation of its utmost dream. His kingdom 
 is other and infinitely greater than the kingdom 
 of the prophets, than the kingdom of John the 
 Baptist. In teaching and in character Christ 
 is the highest word and the best act of God to 
 man. Christ is the best conceivably that man 
 can be ; the best that God can do in man. He 
 is, therefore, at once the highest revelation of 
 God, and the sovereign example for man.
 
 JESUS CHRIST 281 
 
 IV 
 
 The value of Christ for the world may be said 
 to consist in the perfection of his religious con- 
 sciousness. The consciousness of Christ is a 
 phrase in current use, and it is an inevitable 
 phrase. It is, nevertheless, somewhat ambig- 
 uous. It may mean the believer's sense of his 
 Master's presence, as in fulfillment of the pro- 
 mise " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
 end of the world ! " 1 Here it signifies Christ as 
 he is wrought into the thought and feeling of the 
 disciple ; it stands for the consciousness of the 
 Christian. And it is needless to say that this 
 is a profoundly important meaning of the words. 
 The translatableness of the mind of the Master 
 into the mind of the disciple is a cardinal truth 
 of Christian faith. The Christian consciousness 
 is modeled on the consciousness of Jesus Christ ; 
 it aims at the reproduction in living men of the 
 spiritual distinction of Jesus ; its ideal is the 
 continuous and ever ascending repetition of 
 the faith and love of the Lord. The writings 
 of the New Testament are full of the witness 
 to this continuous and increasing presence of 
 Christ in the consciousness of his disciples. 
 Christ is born within them the hope of glory. 
 There is an identification between Master and 
 1 Matthew will. 20.
 
 282 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 servant as in the vine and the branches. Be- 
 lievers die with him in his death, and they rise 
 with him in his resurrection. This transfigura- 
 tion of mental being in the radiance of the 
 Lord's presence, this transfusion of the soul of 
 Christ through the soul of the Christian, is one 
 of the great notes of apostolic literature. And 
 it does not end with the apostolic age. Mystic 
 literature is never absent, and it testifies to the 
 same high experience. The early hymns and 
 prayers, passages in the " Confessions " of Augus- 
 tine, the " Imitation of Christ," the sermons of 
 Tauler, Luther's joy in the idea of justification 
 by faith, much of the " Religious Affections " of 
 Edwards, much in the writings of F. D. Maurice, 
 and a constant note in all genuine Christian 
 experience attest the fundamental and perma- 
 nent character of the claim that the mind of 
 Christ is reproducible in the mind of his sincere 
 and devout disciple. 
 
 Indeed this view of the consciousness of Christ 
 is primary. Unless the mind of Christ is essen- 
 tially translatable into human thought, it be- 
 comes inaccessible ; a reality it may be, but a 
 reality beyond all possible experience and for- 
 ever unknowable. But to contend that nature 
 is knowable only as it is translated into human 
 thought does not make nature merely subjective. 
 Nature is known through the social conscious-
 
 JESUS CHRIST 283 
 
 ness, through the historic consciousness of man, 
 and yet nature is other and more than that 
 consciousness. It is the object of experience, 
 present in human experience and yet regula- 
 tive of it, and going infinitely beyond it. It 
 is known ; it is knowable ; and still it is for- 
 ever ahead of knowledge. It is the Infinite 
 approaching the mind of the race through the 
 senses, intelligible through and through, and at 
 the same time, for the human intellect, forever 
 unexhausted and inexhaustible. To contend that 
 the consciousness belonging to Jesus Christ is 
 knowable is not to make it wholly subjective ; 
 it is not to identify it with the consciousness 
 belonging to Christian men of any generation 
 or of all the generations. The Christian con- 
 sciousness is created and sustained by Christ ; 
 it is the continuous witness for his permanent 
 presence in human society. But while known 
 through the consciousness of his disciples the 
 consciousness belonging to the Lord is other 
 and infinitely greater than that belonging to his 
 people. Of their mind his is the basis, of their 
 vision his soul is object ; he compels attention, 
 as nature does, by the variety and the inces- 
 sancy of his appeal ; his ineffable mental content 
 creates and orders and commands the mental 
 content of those who follow him. 
 
 The consciousness of Christ is thus the sever-
 
 284 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 eign object of Christian thought. It means the 
 content of the soul of Jesus Christ in its relation 
 to his Father and in relation to man individual 
 and social. To recover the vision that lived in 
 that supreme spirit is the highest aim of man. 
 To enter the sacred circle of light, and to read 
 there the meaning of the universe and the value 
 of human life is the ideal of the church at its 
 best. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 but the truth lies there. There faith lives in 
 its highest form, ethical insight is there thorough 
 and sovereign, humanity within that domain is 
 true to the God who made it, and to the race 
 of which it is the great expression. The man 
 Christ Jesus is the mirror of the God who is, 
 and the type and prophecy of the race that shall 
 be. That all faith and all life should come to 
 judgment here is inevitable ; but this is not now 
 the issue. That theology and conduct should 
 be ultimately amenable to the mind of Christ 
 is indisputable. The revolution that is under 
 way hi theology is due to the arraignment of 
 the historic systems at the judgment seat 
 of Christ. If they perish it is because of his 
 sentence upon them; if they survive, it is owing 
 to his approval. Nothing that contradicts his 
 spirit can forever go forward in his name. The 
 incompatibility between the mind of Christ 
 and the mind of Augustine and Calvin and
 
 JESUS CHRIST 285 
 
 Edwards explains the loss of empire that has 
 befallen these great thinkers. They are facing 
 him who is higher than the heavens ; they tried 
 to represent him ; in much they succeeded, and 
 in much they failed. A new utterance is de- 
 manded under the compulsion of the judgment 
 of Christ. This is plain, but it is not now the 
 point. The consciousness of Christ is the high- 
 est known to mankind ; the soul of Jesus and 
 its content Godward and manward is without 
 a rival ; his vision and his love are first, and 
 beside him there is no other. I cannot conceive 
 of a nobler calling or a worthier task than that 
 which seeks to master something of the vision 
 and love of Christ that it may make them the 
 vision and the love of mankind. We have found 
 the Christ ! that was the shout of gladness that 
 rang from Andrew to Peter, and from Philip 
 to Nathanael. It was the supreme discovery in 
 that age. It was the perpetual discovery of 
 those young men, and their brethren on through 
 trial and achievement to the end of existence. 
 It was this increasing discovery that clothed 
 them with power, and that turned them into 
 epoch-making men. They had found the su- 
 preme human soul, and in that discovery they 
 had a message for mankind. The world waits 
 for the renewal of this discovery. Still the 
 Messianic expectation lives in the conscious and
 
 286 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 unconscious longing to look upon a great soul. 
 Still the calling is supreme that finds the divine 
 soul, and that carries something of its vision and 
 love into the heart of the waiting world. 
 
 But how can we reach to-day the conscious- 
 ness belonging to Jesus Christ ? Where is his 
 dwelling, and where are the windows through 
 which we may look in upon the king in his 
 beauty ? Perhaps an example will be the best 
 guide in answering this profound and difficult 
 question. Paul said : " We have the mind of 
 Christ." How did he reach his great posses- 
 sion ? He doubtless knew, in a distorted way, 
 from the outset of his career the story after- 
 wards embodied in the Gospels. That of itself, 
 however, did him no good. Upon this know- 
 ledge, and as the issue, doubtless, of serious 
 questioning and much discipline there followed 
 the new mood into which his conversion brought 
 him. However we view the experience of Paul 
 on his way to Damascus it was but the bare be- 
 ginning of his Christian career. His account 
 of that experience assures us that he saw Jesus, 
 and that he received certain commands from 
 him. But nothing is said that would lead one 
 to believe that Jesus in this appearance to Paul 
 recited to him the evangelical history, or that 
 he gave to his new disciple a full and adequate 
 interpretation of that history. His conversion
 
 JESUS cmtiST 287 
 
 left Paul with the conviction that Jesus was 
 alive, with certain definite directions from the 
 unseen Lord, and with new sympathies and 
 hopes. At this point he could not have said : 
 " We have the mind of Christ." 
 
 Doubtless Paul obtained, in the natural way, 
 a full and accurate account of the public min- 
 istry of Jesus. His repeated assertions that his 
 gospel was not derived from the other apostles, 
 but that it was received directly from the Lord, 
 do not contradict this position. Paul's gospel 
 does not consist in facts, but hi the interpreta- 
 tion of facts. His insight into the career of 
 Jesus was the original thing in Paul's ministry ; 
 his message, gathered out of the common posses- 
 sion of fact, was his great distinction. But 
 to this full and accurate knowledge of Jesus 
 obtained in a natural way Paul now brought 
 new sympathies, fresh purposes, inspired insight. 
 The evangelical story now became to Paul a mar- 
 velous symbol. By profound and eager medi- 
 tation, by following Jesus in imagination from 
 city to city, by as it were hearing him speak, 
 by watching him in toil and in trial, among the 
 twelve, with the multitude, healing the sick and 
 lifting up the penitent and broken-hearted, be- 
 fore the chief priest and Pilate, on the cross 
 between the two thieves, and on the morning 
 of the resurrection as in his appearance to the
 
 288 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 disciples on their walk to Emmaus, or to Paul 
 himself on his way to Damascus, the apostle got 
 before his mind the wonderful symbol, and he 
 began to see behind it the mind of Christ. Dis- 
 torted history, new sympathies, full and accurate 
 history, this subjected to profound appreciation 
 and through years of thought and of service ; 
 such were the steps, as it would appear, by 
 which Paul passed into the vision of the mind 
 of Christ. To this must be added, partly as 
 the result of discipline in the service of Jesus, 
 the sense of spiritual companionship with him. 
 The unseen Jesus thus continued to reveal 
 himself to his disciple, opened up his mind in 
 greater fullness to this chosen servant, and lifted 
 him to higher altitudes of vision and to com- 
 pleter assurance as his Master's interpreter. 
 Paul never fails to distinguish between this 
 sovereign objective intelligence and his own ; 
 he sees clearly that the Lord's mind and his are 
 two, and that there is an immeasurable differ- 
 ence between them, and yet the apostle becomes 
 more and more dominated by his ideal. He 
 subjects himself to Christ so devoutly and com- 
 pletely, and through so many years and so much 
 trial that it comes to pass that he does not live, 
 it is Christ who lives in him and speaks through 
 him. 
 
 This process is, in a way, repeated in the
 
 JESUS CHRIST 289 
 
 experience of every Christian man. The evan- 
 gelical history known in an imperfect manner, 
 and understood not at all, perhaps misunder- 
 stood, that is the first step. Then there come, 
 through the serious discipline of life, the new 
 sympathies, the definite moral purpose, and the 
 clarified vision. The evangelical history is stud- 
 ied anew, with more attention, with profounder 
 interest. Slowly the person of Jesus seems to 
 come out of the mist, and to stand behind his 
 words and works, and back of the whole series 
 of events with which his name is associated. 
 The Gospel is now a living symbol ; and under 
 it is the living Lord. Appreciation, working 
 through study of the history, operating now by 
 the full power of the highest critical scholar- 
 ship, and again by the force of plain common 
 sense, goes deeper and deeper into the soul of 
 Jesus, sees its content more widely and clearly, 
 looks upon it with stronger assurance, and be- 
 comes conscious of it as accessible and yet tran- 
 scendent, as a possession and yet as the grand 
 objective of all search, the unceasing inspiration 
 of wisdom and the final home of all authority 
 and peace. Here too when the disciple is devout 
 the sense of spiritual communion with the Lord 
 follows. Through the words of prophet and 
 apostle, through the great words of Christ him- 
 self, the high dialogue goes on between the dis-
 
 290 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 ciple and his unseen Master ; and often through 
 his own thoughts and feelings, in outgoings of 
 his own soul and in returns upon him of the 
 soul of the Lord, the grand process of illumina- 
 tion goes forward. Thus through history sub- 
 jected to moral insight, and issuing in direct 
 communion of soul with the soul of Jesus, the 
 disciple is able to say : We have the mind of 
 Christ. The history is the symbol ; the know- 
 ledge of this history is the method, and here 
 there is room for the transformation of popular 
 study into scientific; but the power without 
 which the mind of Christ can never be reached 
 is moral sympathy, spiritual imagination, re- 
 ligious appreciation. Where the symbol and 
 the method and the power exist there the vision 
 of the soul of the Lord is found the supreme 
 wonder, the sublimest possession. 
 
 V 
 
 A few words will suffice upon the person of 
 Christ. Upon such a question the openness to 
 misunderstanding is great ; and the use of words 
 is always uncertain. To me the Christological 
 tradition of the church is unspeakably precious. 
 The church is not founded upon theism, but 
 upon Christian theism. The testimony of the 
 creeds is impressive when one recalls the fact 
 that the creeds are witnesses to what was vital
 
 JESUS CHRIST 291 
 
 in the life of the church. Nothing can be so 
 surely fatal to the pulpit as a meagre Chris- 
 tology. For the preacher of Christianity the 
 person of its founder is central and sovereign. 
 He kindles love where every other inspiration 
 fails; he sustains enthusiasm where without him 
 human nature would break down ; he commands 
 the homage of his people through their gratitude 
 and their hope. Wherever the church has been 
 living and mighty Jesus Christ has been felt to 
 be absolutely indispensable to its faith, its love, 
 and its power. He has thus identified himself 
 with his message. His religion lives in his life 
 among men. He stands in the historic experi- 
 ence of his disciples in a unique and in an in- 
 separable association with God. 
 
 To me, thinking in profound sympathy with 
 the highest Christological tradition of the church, 
 Jesus seems to be the perfect man. His manhood, 
 his perfect manhood, is the obvious truth of his 
 existence. This obvious truth becomes the pre- 
 mise from which is elicited the divine meaning 
 of his career. Jesus as the perfect man is fitted 
 for unique moral union with that in God which 
 the Fourth Gospel calls 6 Aoyos, which Paul desig- 
 nates 6 xprrds, which the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 names 6 wos, which the Nicene creed covers by 
 the same word. It will be seen that a social 
 conception of the nature of God is the logical
 
 292 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 precedent for the true appreciation of the person 
 of Jesus. Indeed a social conception of the 
 being of God is the logical precedent to the just 
 appreciation of mankind. As this general rela- 
 tion of humanity to Deity will emerge for con- 
 sideration in the final chapter of this book, it 
 need here detain us no longer. The point now 
 calling for definite statement is the unique asso- 
 ciation of the life of Jesus with God inside that 
 general association with God, in which a living 
 humanity must stand. The Filial in God, 
 Eternal in his being, wrought into our entire 
 humanity, in consequence of which men are men, 
 is hi perfect union with Jesus. The Incarna- 
 tion has its meaning in this unique identification 
 of the soul of Jesus with the Eternal filial in 
 God ; and this unique identification is through 
 the perfect manhood of Jesus. The conception 
 of God's being for which the Trinity stands, as 
 we shall see later, is the ground of humanity, 
 and the ground of the unique meaning of the 
 life of Jesus. He is the supreme historic utter- 
 ance of the Eternal Son ; he is in perfect moral 
 union with that in God so named. Before his 
 advent Jesus was not ; but the Son of God whose 
 perfect human expression he is, is eternal in the 
 heavens. The preexistence of Jesus I do not 
 find in the teaching of the great theologians, 
 with the exception of Origen, and he teaches the
 
 JESUS CHRIST 293 
 
 preexistence of all soul. It is not Jesus who 
 preexists before his advent ; it is the Logos, the 
 Christ, the eternal Son who preexists. Pre- 
 existence concerns primarily the doctrine of God, 
 and only in a secondary sense the person of 
 Jesus. The position here maintained is that 
 Jesus the perfect man is the sovereign historic 
 expression of the eternal Son in the bosom of 
 the Father, and that Jesus as perfect man is in 
 an association with God ideal, unique, and un- 
 searchable. 
 
 With the exception of the idea of preexistence, 
 this is essentially the position of Origen on the 
 Incarnation. In the teaching of Origen the doc- 
 trine of God is first, logically first. In himself 
 God is eternally the Father, and the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost. Before all worlds God was 
 thus an ineffable society in himself. Souls were 
 then in existence in that pre-temporal world. 
 According to the high use or the abuse of free- 
 dom they drew near to God, or fell away from 
 him into time. Among the uncounted multi- 
 tude of souls in that eternal world there was one 
 preeminent and perfect soul. Between all souls 
 and the Eternal Son there is kinship; between 
 this preeminent and perfect soul there is ineffa- 
 ble union. This preeminent and perfect soul 
 became, in the flesh, Jesus the ideal man, and as 
 such Jesus became the sovereign organ in time 
 of the Eternal Son in the Godhead.
 
 294 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 If we ignore the idea of preexistence in this 
 scheme, it seems to me to cover with remarkable 
 adequacy the thought of this generation concern- 
 ing Jesus. The kinship between God and man 
 is a fundamental position of faith to-day. It is 
 a living and fruitful truth. In virtue of it we 
 are able to discover in God an eternal humanity, 
 and in human existence an infinite significance. 
 It cannot be said too often or with too great 
 emphasis that there is between God and every 
 man an inseparable association ; that there is in 
 every man a genuine incarnation of God. But 
 the obliteration of the possibility of distinction 
 in the association between God and man is 
 against the facts of religious history, and it is 
 against the facts in the record of the life of 
 Jesus. His soul is easily seen to be the sover- 
 eign soul, the soul of unique and unapproach- 
 able distinction. And this soul of unique dis- 
 tinction has assigned to it a unique vocation. 
 That vocation is that Jesus serve as the supreme 
 organ of the Eternal Son in God. The need of 
 this vocation on the divine side, and on the 
 human, the reality of this vocation in the life of 
 Jesus, and the sovereign distinction of Jesus in 
 the fulfillment of his vocation, are positions that 
 belong together and that support one another. 
 The ancient insights into the monumental mean- 
 ing of the life of Jesus must not be allowed to
 
 JESUS CHRIST 295 
 
 fade from our faith ; they must be kept and 
 adjusted to the modern insights into the divine 
 worth of man as man ; insights for which we are 
 indebted to a new appreciation of Christianity 
 in the light of the general progress of society. 
 And having ventured to connect with my own 
 sense of the meaning of the Incarnation the 
 great name of Origen, I will add to this exposi- 
 tion his concluding words : " The above, mean- 
 while, are the thoughts which have occurred to 
 us, when treating of subjects of such difficulty 
 as the incarnation and deity of Christ. If there 
 be any one, indeed, who can discover something 
 better, and who can establish his assertions by 
 clearer proofs from holy Scriptures, let his opin- 
 ion be received in preference to mine." l 
 
 The point of chief moment is the moral aspect 
 of the subject. We have in Jesus the highest 
 expression of the wisdom and love of God, the 
 final single utterance of that in the Infinite 
 which chiefly concerns our race, his goodness, 
 his pity, his perfect moral being, and our com- 
 plete involvement with that being. Jesus is 
 thus the world's sovereign symbol for God, the 
 world's sovereign assurance of God. As prophet, 
 as priest, and as king, God is with him ; for 
 God he speaks, for God he suffers, for God he 
 rules. And if humanity is ever to be filled with 
 
 1 Origen, De Principiis, Book II. chap. vi.
 
 296 THE RELIGIOUS ULTIMATE 
 
 the eternal harmonies, it will be because the 
 song of good-will that brightened the heavens 
 over the manger in Bethlehem is played by the 
 power of Jesus Christ into all its thoughts and 
 sympathies, into all its achievements and hopes.
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE: THE MORAL UNI- 
 VERSE 
 
 THERE is a broad distinction to be noted between 
 questions that are interesting, and in a way 
 important, and those that are of fundamental 
 moment. Questions of uniform, of commissariat, 
 of arms, of infantry, and of cavalry, of this plan 
 of campaign and that, are of grave importance ; 
 still they may be answered in any one of a 
 considerable number of ways, without serious 
 inconvenience. But the question of men and of 
 a commander is fundamental. Without them 
 the campaign cannot begin. Hannibal might 
 have crossed the Alps into Italy by a different 
 pass ; his fifteen years of warfare in the enemy's 
 country involved a constant election from an 
 indefinite number of possible modes of advance 
 and retreat ; but that Hannibal himself should 
 be in command, and that he should have an 
 army to command, are ultimate necessities of the 
 situation. The distinction between the second- 
 ary issues in theology and the primary is too
 
 298 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 important to be safely disregarded. Indeed, it 
 is of such importance to genuine theological 
 perspective that a few words must now be given 
 to the illustration of it. 
 
 The question of the sciences is confessedly one 
 of great interest and utility. The exact study of 
 facts and the valid interpretation of them over 
 the whole domain of nature may well appear to 
 be an indispensable vocation. There is nothing 
 but honor for this calling among sensible men. 
 But even here there is a previous question. Is 
 nature real? Is science the study of a real 
 world beyond man ? Is the order impressed upon 
 nature by the mind of the scientific student, or 
 does nature put her order into a mind previously 
 empty, or do nature and human intelligence 
 meet as friends in the name of the law that is 
 power without, and thought within ? These are 
 questions that precede scientific study. They 
 are not the puzzles of an unsound mind. Science 
 is often drunk with the vanity of her certainties. 
 She has said strange things against faith ; and 
 it has been needful to remind her that the reality 
 of the ultimate object of her devotion is as much 
 assumed as anything to which faith is devoted. 
 At any rate, science is not the first question ; 
 before that, comes the question of the reality of 
 what we call the outward world. The study of 
 that question has had not a little to do with
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 299 
 
 forcing scientific men to the conviction that in 
 dealing with nature they are dealing with an 
 expression of cosmic mind. There are two ways 
 of building : we may build in dreams or we may 
 build on reality. Is our scientific habitation a 
 dream-structure or does it rest upon the real 
 world ? Until that question is answered science 
 is but an Abraham with the knife, the wood, 
 and the altar, the mere implements of research, 
 full of the hideous mistake that his child is 
 the victim for the sacrifice. Not until the 
 Patriarch saw the ram in the thicket did he 
 find the fundamental thing ; and the reality of 
 nature is to the scientific devotee the ram in the 
 thicket. Be sure of the implements, take care 
 that the wood and the altar are ready, and that 
 the knife is sharp ; but before all lay hold of 
 the ram. Is nature real? That question is 
 fundamental. 
 
 Man is the subject of immensely varied and 
 fruitful discussion. And yet one hears serious 
 voices proclaiming the fact that there is no such 
 thing as human personality. To proceed with 
 the discussion while there is serious doubt about 
 the reality of the subject of it is surely vain. 
 Anthropology assumes the reality of man. It 
 is the prior question to all inquiry directed upon 
 human life. As a separate chapter has been 
 given to it, nothing need here be added other
 
 300 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 than the bare statement that it is fundamental 
 to all thought upon things human. Here is a 
 case surely where one should not count one's 
 chickens until they are hatched. Said a gentle- 
 man to his cook, What is the first requisite for 
 hare soup ? The answer was, First catch your 
 hare. Before you dress man, and present him 
 for the edification of your hearers, make sure 
 that you have caught him. 
 
 An example of the chastening influence of a 
 great primary question is found in the subject 
 of human immortality. Look into the older 
 books upon Eschatology, and how confident you 
 find them about the details of heaven and hell, 
 especially of hell. It is only the symbolic worth 
 of Dante's " Inferno," its fitness to represent the 
 judicial process in history, that saves it from 
 the doom that has fallen upon all post-mortem 
 dogmatism. It is deplorable to think that for 
 perhaps eighteen hundred years the Christian 
 imagination has run riot in its detailed and hor- 
 rible representation of the state of wicked men 
 after death. Prof. A. V. G. Allen has well said 
 that the least original and characteristic part 
 of Edwards's teaching is found in his sermon 
 on " Sinners in the hands of an angry God." 
 In that deplorable discourse Edwards becomes 
 the spokesman of a tradition going back to very 
 early tunes. Such confident detailed represen-
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 301 
 
 tation had been an immemorial custom. I recall 
 now a sentence from a sermon of Dr. Griffin 
 from the text, "A man shall be as an hiding 
 place," which runs thus : " But to his own dear 
 people he will be a refuge from the waves that 
 shall eternally lash the howling millions of the 
 damned." How to stop this terrible Babel be- 
 came the serious consideration of a generation 
 of noble teachers. But their protest would have 
 availed nothing if the good providence of God 
 that evermore educates the world had not inter- 
 vened in its behalf. A vast suspicion of the 
 immortality of man was spread through the 
 educated world. A new and yet more funda- 
 mental interest sobered the old. The terrible 
 doubt arose whether both heaven and hell were 
 not mere superfluities. The thought pressed 
 itself home upon the dogmatist in Eschatology, 
 You may not need these places. It may be 
 that they are eternal vacancies. It may be that 
 nothing can be done to people them from this 
 earth. It may be that we are such stuff as 
 dreams are made of, and that our little life is 
 rounded with the sleep that knows no awaken- 
 ing. 
 
 One does not need to be very old in order that 
 one may have witnessed this vast and wholesome 
 silence fall upon the eschatological Babel. The 
 shadow was moved backward from man's future
 
 302 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 to man's nature. The shallow and heartless idiom 
 became obsolete by simply asking a profounder 
 question. The old, vague, and somewhat theat- 
 rical earnestness was converted into an anxiety 
 indefinitely deeper. For the fate of the wicked 
 after death there was substituted the fate of hu- 
 manity. The theologian was thrown back upon 
 himself, back upon his kind. Out of this change of 
 interest from the secondary to the primary has 
 come the new mood in which all questions of des- 
 tiny are faced. It is a mood of more pronounced 
 ethical rigor, yet this ethical rigor is suffused with 
 unwonted tenderness, and lighted with the hope 
 that is inseparable from goodness. Nowhere, per- 
 haps, is the example of widespread wholesomeness 
 arising from carrying the debate to its fundamen- 
 tal form so conspicuous as at this point, at least 
 for the present generation. Before we build the 
 judgment-seat in the future, we must first ascer- 
 tain what likelihoods exist that we shall live to 
 appear before it. Before dealing in detail with 
 the judgment of God in eternity, we must de- 
 cide whether or not there is any extra-mundane 
 meaning to human life. Such are some of the 
 questions that raise the great primary interests 
 of faith along this line, and that generate the 
 humanity and the insight and the candor that 
 are the hope of theology. 
 
 It seems as if there were but one sure way to
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 303 
 
 recall the Christian church from intellectual pet- 
 tiness. It appears as if that one way were to 
 throw into doubt the eternal verities. The sick 
 child on the verge of death hushes to silence the 
 social ambitions and miserable disappointments 
 of the fashionable home, and when faith itself 
 is at stake men begin to desist from their pious 
 trifling. It would seem as if God in his provi- 
 dential education of man were throwing his own 
 being and character into doubt, in order that all 
 theists may unite in a holy controversy against 
 all atheists. Christians are driven back upon the 
 question whether Jesus represents anything but 
 himself, that the great line of division may be be- 
 tween Jesus as the assurance of the moral being 
 of God and Jesus with nothing for background 
 but the eternal silence. Human destiny is in 
 doubt that human nature may be understood. 
 Forms are thrown into infinite discredit that the 
 true issue may be seen to be between truth and 
 falsehood, righteousness and iniquity, humanity 
 and inhumanity. The Roman centurion took 
 Paul and locked him up to protect him from the 
 mob. The Eternal Spirit would seem to be thus 
 securing believers against the crowd of their fierce 
 and foolish questions. What are questions of rit- 
 ual, of ecclesiastical order, of episcopal succession, 
 but the immeasurable pettinesses of the Christian 
 church ? How can this Babel be put to silence ?
 
 304 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 Only, it would seem, by the providential centu- 
 rion, taking all the poor debaters about trifles and 
 locking them up in the one awful controversy 
 over the reality of the fundamental things of 
 faith. 
 
 It is this constant catholic dealing with the 
 fundamental and the essential that makes the 
 teaching of Jesus the very bread of life. Read 
 the book of Leviticus, or listen to the report of 
 the rabbinical debates current in the time of 
 Jesus, or attend some gathering of Pharisees and 
 hear them speak, and then join the disciples of 
 Jesus and hear their Master. His questions are 
 questions of the moral being of God and the 
 moral nature of man. The Fatherhood of God, 
 the divine sonhood and the universal human 
 brotherhood of man, the reign of Infinite love in 
 the hearts of men as the ideal of faith and the 
 goal of history, the claims of justice and kind- 
 ness, the infinitely varied and supreme disclosure 
 of the moral organism of humanity, and the 
 tides of the Holy Spirit that keep it a living 
 organism, time as an epoch in the endless exist- 
 ence of the soul in the presence of God, and 
 eternal life the life of sovereign love as 
 the grand characteristic of normal and happy 
 existence in this world and in all worlds, these 
 teachings of Jesus recall the sphere in which he 
 moved. The petty interests then as now were
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 305 
 
 infinite ; the important but secondary interests 
 were imperious in that day as in this ; but Jesus 
 chose the eternal as his passion ; he lifted all 
 who heard him into the sense of it, and he re- 
 deemed the vocation of the teacher from barren- 
 ness into the discipline that enlightens and feeds 
 the rational nature of man. 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount is the supreme criti- 
 cism upon a superficial and errant civilization ; it 
 carries one into the consciousness of the profound- 
 est needs of the soul, and it matches these with 
 the sublimest assurances of God's love. In its 
 resolution of the law into the life and obligation 
 of the spirit it again carries one into an infinite 
 interest. In its discussion of the meaning of 
 righteousness, fasting, almsgiving, prayer, sincer- 
 ity, it takes the race into the presence of the 
 eternal realities of the moral universe. The 
 teaching of Jesus and the spirit of Jesus are a 
 divine discipline in the fundamental, the essen- 
 tial, the everlasting. The heart of all faith and 
 all life forever beats in the teaching of Jesus, 
 and therefore the heart of man in all ages 
 opens to him. He is the abiding teacher be- 
 cause he teaches with unapproachable depth 
 and nobleness abiding truth. The authority of 
 the Gospel is due to its insight and to its range 
 of subjects. The divine vision and the divine 
 world unite in the Gospel, and it is this union
 
 806 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 that gives it sovereignty over human interest. 
 In a generation flooded with incidental ques- 
 tions, compelled to spend much of its strength on 
 subjects of secondary concern, kept back for good 
 reasons and also for bad reasons from the vision 
 of the essential, nothing is more needed than 
 discipline in the teaching of Jesus. What he 
 chose to omit and to disregard is second in im- 
 portance only to what he elected as the substance 
 of his message. He scorned no human interest ; 
 ignorance of any kind finds no sanction in the 
 spirit of Jesus; growth in all genuine ways is 
 provided in the impulse which he communicates 
 to his disciples ; and yet the perspective of Jesus 
 is the thing that this generation needs above all 
 else to control the work of its intelligence. 
 
 This brings up for consideration the historical 
 and literary questions about the Bible. They 
 certainly are important. If one could have a 
 thoroughly scientific view of this collection of 
 books, and thus be sure which are parts and 
 which are wholes; and if one could further 
 assign to the proper person, place, and time 
 these several compositions, surrounding each with 
 its own environment, putting behind it its real 
 author, and before it its definite and immediate 
 object, one would be immensely enriched as a 
 student and teacher of the Bible. The local 
 meaning is the color in the east, the gateway of
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 307 
 
 morning through which the glory of the universal 
 significance comes. Universals are best seen 
 through particulars, things eternal through things 
 temporal. The motive, therefore, to historical 
 and literary scholarship is urgent and perma- 
 nent. The value of Shakespere's work is in a 
 way independent of his personal history, but his 
 great creations would mean more to us if we 
 could see them rising out of the times, circum- 
 stances, and fortunes of his own soul. The in- 
 dustry expended in research into the facts in the 
 career of a Luther, a Cromwell, a Burns, or a 
 Lincoln, is an attestation to the truth of the 
 assumption that the knowledge of the man is the 
 best introduction to the knowledge of his mes- 
 sage. There is nothing divine in ignorance. 
 The fact that any Christian century is dim is 
 not a credit to the believer. We have a right 
 to expect that historical inquiry will yet do 
 greater things for the church, that it will make 
 more vivid and palpable the environment of 
 Jesus, that it will present the transcendent figure 
 of the Master more and more in the rich detail 
 and complexion of nature, custom, belief, tradi- 
 tion, and need amid which he lived. In him the 
 Eternal came through the temporal. He is, 
 therefore, the highest vindication of the scientific 
 spirit, the spirit that would reach ideas through 
 facts, that regards the actual historic framework
 
 808 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 as alive with meaning, that seeks the universal 
 in the particular. Events are great. The web 
 of events woven by living men, the warp and 
 woof of- which are their sorrow and hope, their 
 defeat and victory, is too important to be neg- 
 lected. The rich detail of the great epochs of 
 the world, like the Biblical epoch, are nothing 
 less than windows through which we may look 
 upon the order, movement, and splendor of the 
 spiritual universe. Longfellow puts this tran- 
 scendent value of the particular with his usual 
 felicity. The Village Blacksmith hears his 
 daughter singing in the village choir ; that is the 
 single event, and here is the transcendent mean- 
 ing it has for him, 
 
 " It sounds to him like her mother's voice, 
 Singing in Paradise." 
 
 Biblical learning may be said to be the rediscov- 
 ery of the fact in time, place, circumstance, com- 
 position, person, utterance, object ; and the fact 
 is the window whereby we may look out upon 
 the idea in the peculiar light and shadow of a 
 special environment. 
 
 All this is true, and still it must be said that 
 these historical and literary inquiries are not 
 fundamental. Suppose that one has been able 
 to rearrange the Old Testament in exact accord 
 with the veritable history, one has yet to face 
 this problem, What is the worth of the Old
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 309 
 
 Testament ? To what is it a witness ? Does it 
 testify to anything but to Israel ? Has it any 
 value as a message for man ? Is it in any sense 
 a word from the Eternal ? Is it revelation ? 
 That is the fundamental question to which the 
 higher critics have paid no attention. Is there 
 a living God of whom Jehovah is but an imper- 
 fect conception ? Does he speak to men ? Is 
 there any monumental record of the grand dia- 
 logue which elect spirits have held with him? 
 In the presence of these questions those that 
 have absolutely dominated the Biblical scholar 
 for a generation become trivial. Believers do 
 not fear the higher criticism ; they fear the 
 scholar who asks no deeper question, and who 
 has no answer to the demand for ultimate real- 
 ity. If the rebellion is crushed, few will be dis- 
 turbed over the sifting of the documents in 
 which Grant and Lee recorded the event. If 
 there is a speaking God in the universe, believ- 
 ers in him will not be anxious under all honest 
 examination and cross-examination of even the 
 supreme historic witness to the fact. If God is 
 the " I am," God as the " I was " may be freely 
 considered without injury to faith. The critic 
 with no faith, and the critic with no sense of the 
 fundamental questions of faith are the menace 
 of the time. Mary the worshiper of the dead 
 Christ is appalled at the empty sepulchre.
 
 310 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 " They have taken away my Lord, and I know 
 not where they have laid him." Mary the dis- 
 ciple of the risen Christ turns away from the 
 empty grave in perfect peace. The sorrow is 
 that she should have ever identified the grave 
 and her Master. The more the critic says about 
 the dead portions of the Old Testament, while 
 saying nothing about the living God, the more 
 desperately does the devout believer cling to 
 them ; but when the critic is at the same time 
 the prophet of the living God, the shame of the 
 believer then is that he should have ever sup- 
 posed that these Hebrew superstitions and inhu- 
 manities, these Hebrew tombs, could have con- 
 tained him. The superficial inquiry when it 
 obscures the fundamental issue is simply intol- 
 erable. Stimulation will make the limbs of a 
 dead man perform wonderful feats of contraction 
 and repulsion, but are not these performances 
 ghastly when one thinks of the dead heart and 
 the vacant brain ? Historical criticism upon a 
 dead revelation is like that. We want to know 
 whether the man is alive whose hands are mov- 
 ing ; we desire to know whether there is life and 
 worth underneath historical learning. We go 
 to fundamental questions for relief. And one 
 of these questions is the question of this moral 
 universe.
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 311 
 
 II 
 
 About the reality of a moral world there is no 
 doubt. Human society is such a world. It has 
 its basis in man's nature, it is an attempt at the 
 realization of moral ideals. The ends of justice, 
 the sacredness of truth between man and man, 
 and the sense of the worth and awful sanctity of 
 human life are inseparable from the social con- 
 sciousness. The life of man is in society. Soci- 
 ety appears in the form of the family, the busi- 
 ness fellowship, the communities of art and 
 science, in the great relation of citizenship, and 
 in those ideas and feelings that assert the reality 
 of human brotherhood. Human life thus organ- 
 ized by moral reason both in its instinctive and 
 reflective operations is forever shadowed by the 
 vision of a better than its best. It is in duty 
 bound to become that better social whole. Hu- 
 man relationship is the primal moral fact. Rela- 
 tionships yield ideals, ideals impose obligations, 
 obligations in the long run enforce obedience, 
 and moral obedience is the great affirmation of 
 the reality of the moral order. The negative 
 witness to the same reality is disobedience and 
 its issue of pain and disaster. 
 
 The moral world of man is the ground of the 
 discrimination which he makes between himself 
 and nature. He does not expect from nature
 
 312 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 what he expects from his fellowman. The torrid 
 heat, the polar cold, the storm, the earthquake, 
 and the fire have no mercy upon man. He does 
 not look for this high attribute in nature. When 
 one of Sir Walter Scott's characters beats the 
 boat out of which his boy Steenie had been lost, 
 swears at it, and blames it for the deplored 
 event, we all see, as the fine old Antiquary saw, 
 that the poor father is crazed with grief. In 
 his senses no one blames the sea for sending the 
 ship upon the rocks, or the rocks for wrecking 
 it, or the fire for the destruction of property, or 
 wind and tide for the desolation of cities. No 
 one holds the volcano amenable to the moral 
 ideal of man. But the Italian and Spaniard 
 in the Inquisition, the Frenchman on the night 
 of St. Bartholomew, the riot of the Turk and the 
 Chinaman, are held in utter detestation. They 
 violate humanity, they commit outrage upon 
 man and his moral world. In the tenderest of 
 all English ballads, we do not blame nature for 
 starving the children ; but we load with execra- 
 tion the inhuman wretch who left them to starve. 
 Upon the basis of his moral world man dis- 
 tinguishes between himself and the animal. He 
 is quite ready to admit the struggle for the life 
 of others by which the animal struggle for exist- 
 ence is qualified. Still this precious anticipa- 
 tion of high social feeling does not carry one
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 313 
 
 far. No man expects the mother reptile or lion, 
 or tiger, in its struggle for the life of others, 
 to spare him. He does not look for sympathy 
 to that strenuous section of existence. He may 
 have a quick eye for the rudimentary altruism 
 in the wild beast, but he is not so foolish as to 
 think that his existence or happiness is any con- 
 cern to it. The concern of the lion for the lamb 
 is proverbial, and it is a standing illustration 
 of man's suspicion of the courtesies of the wild 
 beast. He must protect himself against it. He 
 cannot demand of it any consideration. It is 
 not in his world. It is not amenable to his 
 standards ; it is not the subject of his judg- 
 ments, it cares nothing for his ideals, and in 
 separating himself from the beast man asserts 
 his great and ineffaceable distinction. Even 
 the tame animal whose nature breaks loose and 
 works damage upon its owner and friend, like 
 the dog that in a fit of ill-temper attacks its 
 master, or the horse that knocks him down, 
 is not held accountable. In the same way the 
 fool and the madman are no part of man's 
 world. They are irresponsible. The life that 
 is held to be unanswerable to moral judgment 
 at once falls out of the human sphere. Amen- 
 ableness to moral judgment is the essential mark 
 of manhood ; without it there is no manhood. 
 Amenableness to the moral ideal of society is
 
 314 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 the seraphim with the flaming sword that guard 
 the entrance into the human paradise. 
 
 Upon the basis of his moral world man dis- 
 criminates between the actual and the ideal man, 
 between what he is and what he ought to be. 
 The apostle speaks for the race when he describes 
 the dualism in his life, the carnal mind and the 
 spiritual. The true selfhood is set over against 
 the false, in every morally awakened person, as 
 sharply as it is contrasted with nature or the 
 brute life of the world. Idealism is inseparable 
 from the normal human being. To the normal 
 man the ideal self is the true self. " To thine 
 own self be true." Here is the discrimination 
 between the authentic man and the spurious. 
 " I count not myself to have apprehended." 
 Here is the judgment rendered against the 
 actual self and in favor of the ideal. Where 
 there is little or no conscious schism in life, the 
 actual is but the seed out of which the blade, 
 the ear, and the full corn hi the ear are to come. 
 At best the actual is but the plan of the self in 
 the initial steps of the great process of fulfill- 
 ment. It is the acorn with the pattern of the 
 oak lying at its heart, beginning to take hold 
 of the soil, and looking forward to the vast 
 struggle through which the pattern is to be 
 turned into life. What is true of the individ- 
 ual man is true of social man. One permanent
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 315 
 
 element in society is the clear recognition of the 
 difference between the form which it wears and 
 that which it should wear. Man's moral world 
 declares itself through an idealism which over- 
 hangs the entire range of his interests. From 
 the position of this ideal selfhood man judges 
 the actual in himself, the animal beside him, 
 and the natural order beyond him. He feels 
 about the ideal as the Indian did when found 
 in the forest : " Indian no lost ; wigwam lost." 
 The centre of assurance is the ideal, the position 
 from which to discover what is lost is the ideal. 
 Law is but an expression of this peculiarity 
 of man's world. It is the embodiment in the 
 form of a statute of a judgment to which all 
 citizens are answerable. Law is the confession 
 of a social ideal and the enforcement of it. The 
 ideal may be low or high, in either case it is real. 
 All government originates in conscience ; all good 
 government has its primal support in conscience. 
 The moral judgment in man is the faculty of 
 vision for the better order and the higher well- 
 being of society ; and law is the continuous 
 enactment in less imperfect forms of the con- 
 tinuously improving vision of the moral judg- 
 ment. As the pattern in the mount was to the 
 tabernacle in the wilderness, so is law to the 
 moral judgment of the nation. The tabernacle 
 is immeasurably below the pattern, yet it is
 
 316 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 fashioned after it, and bears some resemblance 
 to it. Law is unmeasured distances behind the 
 best moral judgment of the time ; nevertheless 
 it is in pursuit of it. It is framed upon that 
 moral judgment as its model, and with all its 
 failures there are at least traces of the ideal 
 in it. 
 
 Moral criticism is another expression of man's 
 moral world. Every honest man encamps at the 
 foot of Sinai ; and if he has advanced to Mount 
 Zion, it is to a moral judge infinitely more severe. 
 Every honest man lives under the shadow of his 
 own rebuke. Our hearts condemn us because 
 we live in a moral world that is purer than we. 
 The passing of judgment upon our fellowmen is 
 inevitable. It is impossible to look with the 
 same feeling upon Moses and Pharaoh, Samuel 
 and Saul, Ahab and Josiah, Paul and Pilate, 
 Marcus Aurelius and Nero, Luther and Leo X., 
 Washington and Benedict Arnold. The moral 
 contrast that one finds between Jesus and Judas 
 is a contrast which in less emphatic form, often 
 indeed greatly toned down, is wrought into the 
 history of mankind. The sentence passed upon 
 others may be just or unjust ; in either case it 
 attests the presence of the moral judge in man. 
 In a similar way institutions are regarded. The 
 governments of the world are arraigned before 
 the moral sense of mankind on two counts. They
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 317 
 
 are arraigned on the question of the adequacy 
 of their constitution; they are brought into 
 court to answer for the administration of that 
 constitution. The church stands in the same 
 great process of judgment. Is its form the best 
 practicable institutional embodiment of the Gos- 
 pel? Is its administration in accord with its 
 Christian ideal? The moral world of man is 
 nowhere more evident than in the vigilant eye 
 that the community keeps upon the church and 
 its ministers. They must be clean who bear the 
 vessels of the Lord. 
 
 The application of conscience to the behavior 
 of the universe is the last and highest expression 
 of man's moral world. Moral criticism of the 
 universe is indeed part of the supreme consola- 
 tion. It may amount to a terrible indictment ; 
 yet the shadow which it throws upon the face of 
 nature is cast by the light in man. One cannot 
 be thankful enough to thinkers like Lucretius, 
 Lucian, Hume, Schopenhauer, Mill, and Huxley 
 for the immense assertion of the moral world 
 of man which they inevitably make in their 
 fierce criticism of the cosmos. When a great 
 succession of thinkers regard the operation of 
 nature as immoral, when they curse the universe 
 for its inhumanity, they are giving one of the 
 strongest testimonies to the moral world of man, 
 and they are inaugurating a vast return to that
 
 318 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 faith in the universe which they have set them- 
 selves to abolish ; for the greater that we make 
 man, even when this greatness is at the expense 
 of the universe, the deeper do we lay the founda- 
 tions of faith. The man who finds something 
 divine in himself and in his kind sooner or later 
 will be sure to discover the source of it in God. 
 This criticism of the cosmos becomes a censure 
 upon theology for seeking the moral God where 
 he cannot be found. It inaugurates the return 
 of man to himself, the search for God through 
 his best work ; it leads back to the religion of 
 the Incarnation, to the faith in God that is 
 founded upon the Divine man. 
 
 The reality of the moral world may thus be 
 taken for granted. The human race lives in this 
 world. But is there such a thing as a moral 
 universe ? Human society is a fact in the many- 
 sided history of this planet. It is enfolded in 
 an immeasurable cosmical order. Is it an alien 
 in the heart of immensity ? Is it an island and 
 the only one in the universe ? Is there no con- 
 science anywhere except in man's spirit, no love 
 except in man's heart, no moral reason and no 
 law of righteousness beyond human society? 
 Is the moral world merely human, a phase of 
 the highest development of life upon the earth, 
 the brilliant explosion of the rocket that has 
 run its swift course, something real but local,
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 319 
 
 true but without universal significance? Is the 
 moral order a stranger in a strange land and that 
 forever? or, like the first Hebrew in Canaan, 
 is the universe prophetically its possession ? 
 Through the terrestial fact of man's moral world 
 are there indubitable intimations of the reality 
 of a moral universe ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 From the fact of correspondence between or- 
 ganism and environment, it would seem to fol- 
 low that there is something in the universe that 
 answers to the moral life of man. The sea, the 
 earth, and the air constitute different environ- 
 ments for different forms of life, and the fish, 
 the quadruped, and the bird attest the reality of 
 these environments. Organism and environment 
 are as essential each to the other as upper and 
 nether millstone ; and the existence of the organ- 
 ism and its growth is proof of the reality and 
 hospitality of its environment. Life is its own 
 witness ; it is besides a witness to the sympathy 
 of the cosmos. The fossil is proof that nature 
 once had room for animal life ; the actual living 
 creature is the attestation that she is still kind. 
 The successive generations of the organisms that 
 survive declare while they survive that suste- 
 nance and shelter exist for them in nature. Up 
 from the life of the sea, over the broad earth,
 
 820 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 from domestic animal and wild, from gentle and 
 fierce, and from the sky and its singing inhabit- 
 ants comes the one great assertion that the real 
 world and the real organism belong together. 
 
 Waiving for the moment the Christian claim 
 that the pure in heart see God, that the moral 
 universe is given in moral experience, that the 
 reality of the soul's environment is not a matter 
 of inference but of insight, it may be urged that 
 a moral organism without a moral opportunity 
 would be contrary to the analogy of life. From 
 the fact that everywhere else organism and op- 
 portunity go together, one is led to expect a simi- 
 lar correspondence between the moral organism 
 of society and the moral environment. And as 
 life is always the witness of the reality both of 
 the organism and its opportunity, so again the 
 persistence and improvement of moral life is 
 proof of the organism and its answering environ- 
 ment. It would be strange if there should be 
 waterbrooks corresponding to the need of the 
 hart that pants after them, and no living God 
 or divine universe answering to the thirst of the 
 soul. And further, if the refreshed hart is a 
 good witness for the reality of the waterbrooks, 
 it is difficult to see why the abounding soul is 
 not an equally good witness of the reality of the 
 streams that make glad the city of God. In an 
 interesting essay upon " The Everlasting Reality
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 321 
 
 of Religion," 1 John Fiske has restated in modern 
 terms the ancient argument for the existence of 
 God from analogy. His fundamental position 
 is that organism and environment match each 
 other throughout the domain of physical life ; and 
 from this position it is claimed, upon the strength 
 of analogy, that it is reasonable to assume the 
 reality of the Divine being who answers to the 
 organism of the human soul. This argument 
 should be pressed to a yet stronger conclusion. 
 Life should be called in as a witness for that 
 without which it could not be. As in the physi- 
 cal domain it is the persisting life that is the last 
 and best testimony to the correspondence between 
 organism and opportunity, so in the spiritual 
 sphere it is life that is the supreme witness. The 
 big, fat, glossy tiger in the jungle is a living wit- 
 ness to the correspondence between organism and 
 environment, and the soul of the saint is a sim- 
 ilar witness to the correspondence between the 
 moral organism and the moral environment. 
 That moral life in the persons that constitute 
 society should persist is the final attestation to 
 the sympathetic reality of the moral environ- 
 ment. 
 
 This then is the fundamental position. Life 
 is the sure witness for the reality of that without 
 which it could not exist. This self-evident con- 
 
 1 Through Nature to God, pp. 132-194.
 
 322 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 viction may be reduced to the form of analogy. 
 Upon the justifiable assumption that as it is with 
 life in the physical kingdom so it is with life in 
 the kingdom of the spirit, we may advance to a 
 somewhat closer consideration of the signs of the 
 reality of the moral universe. The belief in its 
 reality is of immemorial antiquity. The saying 
 that " the stars in their courses fought against 
 Sisera " is one expression of the belief. The 
 remark embodies the faith that the cosmos favors 
 the moral cause. Another expression of the con- 
 viction is the prophetic cry, " My sword hath 
 been bathed in heaven." Here the idea is that 
 the conflict between truth and falsehood, right- 
 eousness and iniquity, is a universal conflict. A 
 third form of the same feeling is the vision of 
 Jacob and the realization of this vision in Jesus 
 Christ. 1 In the vision of the first Israelite the 
 ladder reached from earth to heaven, and minis- 
 tering beings under an august commission went 
 and came between the human dreamer and the 
 Infinite life. In the consciousness of Jesus the 
 heavens were open. The intercommunion of 
 the human and the divine became fact. The 
 sympathetic reality of the moral universe was 
 given in the moral life of the Supreme Man. 
 Taking these three forms of the belief as con- 
 
 1 Judges T. 20 ; Isaiah xxxiv. 5 ; Genesis xxviii. 12 ; John 
 L51.
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 323 
 
 venient guides in the examination of it, the first 
 question is, Does the material world upon the 
 whole favor man's moral world ? Do the moral 
 races become the ascendant races ? Do the stars 
 in their courses fight against the moral cause ; 
 or are they completely neutral ; or are they 
 upon the whole a sublime ally ? The answer of 
 evolutionary science is that the cosmos is on 
 the side of human morality. In the struggle 
 for existence morality has been for human soci- 
 ety a help and not a hindrance. In the long 
 run morality tells in favor of survival ; it tells 
 for the survival of the individual, the family, and 
 the nation. Morality gives greater endurance ; 
 it promotes the development of intelligence ; it 
 leads to larger, compacter, and more fruitful 
 social combinations. In the passage of empire 
 from Egypt to Assyria, from Assyria to Baby- 
 lon, from Persia to Greece, from Greece to 
 Rome, from Rome debauched to the peoples out 
 of whom modern Europe has come, from France 
 to Great Britain, and from Spain to the United 
 States, there has been upon the whole a moral 
 gain to mankind. To the extent that the moral 
 races become the dominant races, it may be said 
 that righteousness has the cosmos on its side. 
 It should be added that all the facts that attest 
 the reality of human progress likewise attest the 
 moral sympathy of man's environment. Against
 
 324 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 the will of that environment progress could not 
 live. Upon the supposition of cosmic indiffer- 
 ence morality and immorality would have an 
 equal chance ; which is not the case. The fact, 
 therefore, of the moral progress of mankind is 
 evidence of the prevailing sympathy with the 
 moral aim, not indeed of every aspect of the en- 
 vironment, but of the environment as a whole. 
 
 The second form of the belief in the reality 
 of the moral universe, the sword that has been 
 bathed in heaven, leads to another question. In 
 what sense is it true that man's moral battle is 
 the battle of the universe? In the sense at 
 least that nature allows the moral cause to gain 
 through the historic process. Nature is both 
 friendly and unfriendly to man. Her friendli- 
 ness is the basis of life ; her unfriendliness is 
 one of the impulses that lead to civilization. 1 
 Both her sympathy and her antipathy do more 
 and better for the wise than for the foolish. 
 The parable of the two builders with which the 
 Sermon on the Mount closes is an illustration. 
 Nature in her true character enters into the 
 mind of the wise builder ; while but a single 
 aspect of her order reaches the understanding 
 of the foolish builder. But the cosmos is not 
 the total of man's environment. It is essential 
 that one should ask for the origin of man's 
 1 The New Epoch for Faith, chap. iii. pp. 102-124.
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 325 
 
 moral outfit and inspiration. Thomas Huxley 
 has been widely praised and blamed for his fa- 
 mous Romanes lecture in which he described 
 man and nature as at war one with the other. 
 The praise is deserved, because man is other and 
 higher than nature. He finds his programme 
 not in the procedure of nature, but in his own 
 soul. He is under obligation to stand upon his 
 humanity and for the preservation of his human- 
 ity to defy the brutality of nature. There is no 
 procedure more insane than the attempt to re- 
 concile man's world with the worlds beneath 
 him. If man is a mere prolongation of nature, 
 the simple pulling out of another part of the 
 cosmic telescope, then it follows that man's hu- 
 manity, the more completely it is developed, is 
 nothing but ornamentation, perhaps excrescence. 
 In setting man and the cosmos in essential 
 antagonism Huxley has done well. But he is 
 clearly open to blame in asserting the absolute 
 antagonism of nature and human ethics. As 
 nature is the older and the stronger, ethics could 
 not live long enough to define the issue were 
 nature wholly hostile. Nature is not the source 
 of the ethical ideal, but it is clear as day that 
 to some extent she is friendly to it. And even 
 her unfriendliness, when taken in connection 
 with the total human environment of which 
 nature is a part, may be an essential blessing.
 
 326 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 The unfriendliness may be but the resisting air 
 to the bird, to borrow Kant's illustration. That 
 Huxley is still more absurdly in error in putting 
 human society and its total environment at war, 
 is obvious the moment one fixes attention upon 
 the moral outfit of man. That moral outfit is 
 not self-originated. If it is largely matter of 
 inheritance it is still essentially a superhuman 
 bequest. It is, therefore, false for the strong 
 moral character to cry that the universe is 
 against it. To the extent that one's ideal is 
 realizable, one must feel that the universe is 
 sympathetic. The will that holds out against 
 evil, the love that shapes the home to a new 
 soul of worth, the moral strength that is not 
 permanently defeated, that easily and inevitably 
 tends toward recovery even when the particular 
 battle has gone against it, and that upon the 
 whole surely advances upon its ideal ends, should 
 not find it difficult to believe in the reality of 
 the moral universe. The moral world of man 
 in its ideals, endeavors, and achievements ; in its 
 recovery from defeat and disaster ; in its gain 
 upon its adversary, slow as a glacier's move- 
 ment, but like it resistless, is a continuous and 
 unequivocal witness to the truth of the moral 
 character of his environment. If man and the 
 cosmos are in conflict, as, under certain limita- 
 tions, they surely are, man must owe to some
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 327 
 
 source his militant outfit, and the pluck and suc- 
 cess with which he fights his battle. In the 
 universe somewhere he must have a maker and 
 backer. If the cosmos is representative, man is 
 likewise representative. If it is impossible to 
 unify them in one original character, it is at 
 least desirable to see that the source of humanity 
 is as much a part of the universe as the source 
 of the cosmos. Unless he is self-created the 
 energy and wisdom with which man defies his 
 great adversary and gains his ethical ends argue 
 somewhere a superhuman friendship. The fact 
 is that the moral hero is the expression and ser- 
 vant of the moral universe. Cosmical hostility 
 to man is but a single aspect of reality ; and it 
 would appear to be the gymnasium in which 
 the universal moral order trains its hero. The 
 strong will is the assurance of superhuman en- 
 dowment and support, and the genuine fighter 
 for righteousness always wields a sword that has 
 been bathed in heaven. 
 
 The third form of the belief in the reality 
 of the moral universe is associated with Christ. 
 The perfect man is the complete assurance of 
 the equal perfection of his source in the unseen. 
 The life of Jesus taken as a simple fact yields 
 this conclusion. His moral outfit must be ac- 
 counted for ; his ethical equipment has its par- 
 entage in the invisible. His original moral
 
 328 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 capacities and sensibilities, the ideal that through 
 the activity of his nature spontaneously shapes 
 itself, the will that is equal to its ethical duty 
 and that turns vision to fact, dream to reality, 
 idea to truth at every stroke are a witness for 
 the universe of the most impressive order. The 
 section of the universe that opposes Jesus must 
 be taken in connection with the section that pro- 
 duced him. If the dualism of the earth must 
 be carried into the heavens, still upon this 
 ground a universe partly ethical is better than 
 a universe wholly hostile to supreme ethical 
 ends, and this qualified sympathy with right- 
 eousness is at least true of the universal order. 
 The advent of the man Jesus Christ is the at- 
 testation of this conclusion. 
 
 It must be observed that this supreme man 
 lives out of the unseen. He of all men moves 
 most among worlds unrealized. He renews his 
 intelligence, refreshes his heart, reinvigorates his 
 will through communion with an ideal world. 
 In his kingdom, which is not of this world, he 
 finds the truth and the power of his character. 
 That the order which thus renews the exhausted 
 servant of righteousness, supplies him with meat 
 and drink, and becomes the source of his aims 
 and his powers is unreal, is simply past belief. 
 The universe that produces Jesus Christ and 
 that supports him thereby reveals its own
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 329 
 
 Christly character. The advent of such a life 
 opens an avenue back into the moral life of the 
 universe ; the persistence of such a soul is proof 
 of the friendship between it and the heart of 
 things. The moral world of Jesus Christ is 
 proof of the reality of the moral universe. 
 
 The cause of Jesus must come into the ac- 
 count. At first it commends itself to the mass 
 of his countrymen ; it then encounters the oppo- 
 sition of the ruling classes ; later its fate seems 
 to be sealed in the death of its great originator 
 and advocate. But the defeat is only tempo- 
 rary. The scattered disciples return, and with 
 an invincible courage begin to carry out the 
 programme of their crucified Master. The cause 
 goes forward with immense power ; and the story 
 of the outrage and infamy to which Jesus had 
 been subjected becomes one of the mightiest of 
 the forces that rally men under his banner. The 
 destructive force has become conservative, the 
 engine of death an instrument for multiplying 
 the life of Christianity. This conversion of 
 enemies to friends, of ill fortune to good for- 
 tune, of the cross to the crown, is a witness to 
 the power of the Gospel and to the sympathy 
 of the universe. The history of Christianity is 
 the history of the moral conquest of man, and it 
 has been made by men to whom the unseen was 
 but another name for Infinite friendship. Thus
 
 330 THE UNIVERSAL ULTIMATE 
 
 the dream of the solitary Israelite comes true. 
 It was of a ladder that rested upon the earth 
 and against heaven, that united the visible and 
 the invisible, that constituted a highway between 
 the moral world of man and the moral universe. 
 The Israelite did not know that his own soul in 
 its moral outfit and experience was that ladder. 
 The presence of the Divine was felt, but it was 
 not understood. And the same remark applies 
 to men to-day. There is still the dream of a 
 real connection between the moral order here 
 and the universal order. There is often a mys- 
 tic consciousness of the Divine indwelling ; but 
 there is little appreciation that man himself 
 stands with his feet on the earth and his head 
 in heaven. The source of his moral endowment, 
 ideal, aspiration, and experience is in the eter- 
 nal. Out of the eternal he comes, and from its 
 fullness he renews his moral being. And yet he 
 is tempted to conclude that in origin, meaning, 
 and destiny his being is wholly terrestrial. He 
 must therefore take himself at his best. Christ 
 is man at his best, and in his moral endow- 
 ment, ideal, experience, cause and its fortune, 
 the heavens are open. In his moral world the 
 moral universe lives and works and attests its 
 supreme and transcendent reality. 
 
 The question of the moral order of the uni- 
 verse is indeed vexed with mystery. Like the
 
 THE MORAL UNIVERSE 331 
 
 earth while the flood lasted, the moral structure 
 of the universe is covered by the inhumanity of 
 man to man, and by the stern severity of man's 
 natural environment. But even while the flood 
 lay upon the earth Ararat appeared, and there 
 the wandering ark rested. Then, too, the flood 
 did not last forever. The waters began to abate ; 
 they continued to abate; finally the dry land 
 everywhere appeared, and again the ancient and 
 everlasting order of the world stood forth. Even 
 in the worst conditions of human society there 
 have been discernible here and there a soaring 
 witness to the moral structure of the universe. 
 The tops of the mountains cannot long remain 
 submerged ; through the aspirations of human 
 souls the deepest becomes the highest. And 
 moral evil is not here to stay. History is the 
 record of the great abating process in the 
 mystery of iniquity. It is man's privilege to 
 accelerate this decrease, and to receive for his 
 recompense the vision of a brighter future for 
 his kind in the earth. Some day the flood will 
 be gone, and men will build an altar to the 
 Most High in the unveiled and glorious presence 
 of the moral universe. Then will be verified 
 the sublime insight of Jesus, which to-day is our 
 comforting and yet audacious faith, that the 
 universe is our Father's house.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE : GOD 
 
 THERE is in one of the books of the Old 'Testa- 
 ment a familiar and noble parable which may 
 fittingly introduce the supreme conception to 
 which we have now come. The command is 
 issued to the prophet, " Go forth, and stand 
 upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, 
 the Lord passed by, and a great and strong 
 wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces 
 the rocks before the Lord ; but the Lord was 
 not in the wind : and after the wind an earth- 
 quake ; but the Lord was not in the earthquake : 
 and after the earthquake a fire ; but the Lord 
 was not in the fire : and after the fire a still 
 small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard 
 it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and 
 went out, and stood in the entering in of the 
 cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto 
 him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah ? " 
 The superficial contrasts in this scene between 
 the tumultuous and the silent powers of the 
 
 1 1 Kings xix. 11-13.
 
 GOD 333 
 
 world have been often noted. We do not get 
 at the heart of the parable when we sink deeper 
 and set over against each other the stormy 
 movements that have no divinity in them and 
 the peaceful but prevailing ways of the conscien- 
 tious life. The fundamental contrast in the 
 story is between the inhumanity and the hu- 
 manity of it, between the noise that is mere 
 sound, and the sound that is a voice. Mean- 
 ings, beautiful meanings, ethical meanings, 
 meanings that have in them the power of self- 
 realization and that are centred in the life of an 
 Infinite Person, these are the great notes in 
 man's consciousness of God. Nature is without 
 divinity while she remains mere sound and fury. 
 Not until she becomes law does she witness to 
 anything beyond her wilderness of facts. Not 
 until man becomes a conscious ethical order does 
 he testify of the Divine. The voice, significant, 
 lovely, awful, mighty, personal, is the symbol for 
 the universe filled with the being of God. 
 
 If then we are compelled to say what we think 
 God is, while with Simonides we may beg for 
 more and more time that our answer may not be 
 altogether foolish, we can at least outline a reply. 
 We can call upon the intelligence, the aesthetic 
 sense, the moral instinct, and the will for their 
 report. For the intellect, God is the final mean- 
 ing of the universe. As there can be no arch
 
 334 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 without a keystone, so there can be no final in- 
 telligibleness to the universe without God. He 
 is for reason the last and highest necessity. 
 Without him we cannot, upon any subject, think 
 ourselves into permanent light and peace. And 
 as the circle is more than the sum of its parts, 
 as it is the meaning of this sum, so God is more 
 than the total of the universe, he is the meaning 
 of this grand total. For the aesthetic sense, God 
 is the significant beauty of the universe. Beauty 
 is the spirit that lives in the artistic whole, 
 whether it be a picture or a poem, a statue or a 
 building or a symphony, whether it be nature or 
 human character. The beauty of the universe is 
 its significant loveliness, and for the artistic sense 
 its significant loveliness is God. Thus it is that 
 all high art is an appreciation of God, and the 
 sincere and inspired apostles of beauty are 
 prophets of the Most High. For conscience, 
 God is the final moral meaning of the universe. 
 The distinction between good and evil, right and 
 wrong, has its last explanation in his nature. 
 The defeat of evil and the triumph of goodness 
 are hopes that live because he lives. The ethi- 
 cal ideal that guides the historic process of hu- 
 man development is but the image of his purpose. 
 He is moral fruition for the eonian promise of 
 man's great and pathetic struggle. He is the 
 moral whole in which all the broken lives, all the
 
 GOD 335 
 
 shattered characters, are to be refitted. God is 
 the ideal life of the universe, and as such the 
 ineffable pledge of ideal life to the race that is 
 made in his image. For the will, God is the 
 doer of righteousness, the bringer to event and 
 fact of the ideal, the personal grace that trans- 
 forms the soul and that works in the race its 
 renewal in righteousness. Finally, for man, 
 God is the person in whom the ideal meanings 
 of life and the universe are gathered and authen- 
 ticated, from whom comes the moral assurance 
 without which individuals and races could not 
 continue hi the strenuous path of achievement, 
 to whom men look as aboriginal inspiration, 
 unerring leader, and perfect goal to the ethical 
 endeavor of the world. 
 
 Our God, then, is the Person whose life is an 
 infinite content of meanings. These meanings 
 are in man and man's world ; and he lifts them 
 into an Eternal Person as their logical issue and 
 assurance. This is the absolute ultimate among 
 the conceptions of faith. The conceptions of 
 human personality, humanity as a social whole, 
 optimism as the truth of history, Jesus Christ 
 as the supreme religious teacher, the universe as 
 moral in its last intention, terminate here. They 
 are roofed in by this final conception ; they are 
 taken up into the Infinite and made parts in an 
 Ineffable whole.
 
 336 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 Toward this great conception what shall be 
 our attitude ? Shall it be simply the highest 
 tradition of humanity, the supreme thought of 
 mankind? or shall we affirm, in one degree or 
 another, its validity ? Here is the final question 
 of faith. Is the world's best conception nothing 
 but a conception, or is it a verifiable, and there- 
 fore a real conception ? The answer is sure to 
 vary, according to the type of individual experi- 
 ence, from the extreme of agnostic hesitation to 
 the rapt certainty of the pure in heart. Bacon 
 thinks that no opinion about God is better than 
 an unworthy opinion. In his classification su- 
 perstition ranks below atheism. Atheism is 
 simply unbelief, while superstition is the re- 
 proach of the Deity. A parallel to this mood 
 is found in Carlyle's remark that it is better 
 to be unremembered than to be misremembered. 
 And there is doubtless some reason both for 
 Bacon's thought and Carlyle's. Still unbelief 
 is barren, while superstition implies at least a 
 beginning in faith. Unworthy opinions of God 
 would be a calamity if they were fixed ; but they 
 are subject to enlightenment and complete trans- 
 formation. Unbelief, therefore, is to be counted 
 out, in dealing with the supreme conception of 
 faith, as unproductive, as falling below the task 
 of verification. Superstition is to be counted in, 
 as being a genuine, although a crude attempt at 
 verifying the idea of God.
 
 GOD 337 
 
 Beyond this is the mood of the reasoner in 
 the school of probability whose position is il- 
 lustrated by the prayer of the soldier going 
 into battle : " O God, if there be a God, save 
 my soul, if I have a soul." Here the supreme 
 meaning of the universe and of human life is 
 in extreme uncertainty. God and the soul are 
 to this mood an infinitely vital, but an ex- 
 tremely uncertain hypothesis. The honesty and 
 the vitality of the mood are its prophetic notes. 
 In contrast with this is the prayer of another 
 soldier : " O God, if in the day of battle I for- 
 get thee, forget not thou me." The ultimate 
 meaning of the universe is here assured; and 
 in that assurance the uncertain life of man is 
 covered and secured. This glimpse at the va- 
 riety of moods in which men face the conception 
 of God lends intensity to the question which we 
 now ask, In what ways may the idea of God 
 be seen to be real, and further, how may one 
 gain some insight into the nature of that reality ? 
 Where is the path to the assurance that God 
 lives, and where is the mount of vision from 
 which we may see a little way into how he lives ? 
 We now face the question of the existence of 
 God and of the mode of that existence.
 
 338 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 II 
 
 Every true idea may be looked at in two ways. 
 It may be regarded as a revelation or as a dis- 
 covery, something presented to the human mind 
 or an achievement by it, the product of the 
 Divine appeal or the outcome of man's answer 
 to that appeal. It may be said that light re- 
 veals itself to man or that man discovers it, that 
 vision is the effect of the solar stimulus or the 
 consequence of response to it. Either statement 
 is true ; both together make the complete truth. 
 For the theist every valid conception is, from 
 the Divine side, revelation, and from the human, 
 discovery. For the consistent believer in God 
 all genuine knowledge is an apocalypse, and all 
 real apocalypse is knowledge. The mental pro- 
 duct called knowledge always implies two things : 
 the foreign stimulus and the native response. 
 The universe acts upon the mind and the mind 
 reacts upon the universe, and the product is 
 knowledge. The highest action of the universe 
 upon the mind is the appeal of God ; the highest 
 reaction of the mind upon the universe is man's 
 answer to God's appeal. Here the product is 
 valid, it is according to the real, and it may be 
 properly regarded either as the gift of God or 
 the achievement of man. It is both. Until this 
 position is gamed it is impossible to get any
 
 GOD 339 
 
 large insight into the way in which the race has 
 come into the possession of its highest wisdom. 
 When revelation is wholly non-human, and 
 knowledge is completely non-Divine the moral 
 and spiritual progress of man becomes a hopeless 
 puzzle. Nothing can bridge the chasm between 
 the bloodless revelation and the godless know- 
 ledge but the mechanism of miracle. And when 
 miracle is thus abused its real value is sure to 
 be swiftly discredited. The fundamental posi- 
 tion of faith is that God and man are implicated 
 each in the other's life, as Jacob and the angel 
 were implicated. They are interlocked in a tre- 
 mendous midnight wrestle. Everything that 
 God bestows man wins, and everything that man 
 wins God bestows. It is true that the angel 
 came to the Israelite ; the priority, therefore, 
 belonged to him. It was the pressure of his 
 mighty arms that awoke the strength and that 
 sustained the struggle of the human wrestler. 
 Still if the blessing was a gift it was also an 
 achievement ; if the new name was a revelation 
 it was likewise a discovery ; if the Divine pre- 
 sence disclosed his character, as midnight wore 
 on to daybreak, the exultant human antagonist 
 felt that he saw God face to face. The story is 
 a parable of the higher and properly human life 
 of the race. We love God because he first 
 loved us. The priority belongs to God. Man's
 
 340 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 activity is the answer to God's appeal. And yet 
 the daily bread for which men pray comes as 
 the return to toil, and the word of God is im- 
 parted to the soul whose hunger has become 
 great through struggle. The full and final 
 truth would seem to be that God's best gifts 
 come through man's achievements, and man's 
 best achievements are God's gifts. 
 
 The Christian idea of God is a revelation ; it 
 is likewise a discovery, and it is the human side 
 that comes up for emphasis in this discussion. 
 The Christian idea of God is man's supreme 
 achievement. It is the intellectual and spiritual 
 summit of the race. The discipline among the 
 Hebrews and Greeks that prepared the way for 
 Christ's conception of God is among the greatest 
 things in human history; and the struggle 
 through which men are led to the ever larger 
 appreciation of Christ's thought is of inexpress- 
 ible moment. The race comes to its best in 
 Jesus Christ ; in him the eonian struggle rises 
 into monumental achievement. One can dream 
 of nothing higher, and the task of the individual 
 now is to repeat in his own soul more and more 
 of Christ's ineffable vision of God. The child 
 repeating in broken accents and amid dim appre- 
 hensions at its mother's knee the Lord's Prayer, 
 and the saint uttering life's last aspiration in the 
 same great words represent the sublimest thing
 
 GOD 341 
 
 in the soul, the endeavor of the individual man 
 to renew the vision of God to which the race has 
 risen in the Divine man. 
 
 If the idea of God is the supreme achieve- 
 ment of man, it is also his supreme comfort. 
 Without God life is too much for the genuine 
 man. It is infinite and it cries out for the sup- 
 port of the Infinite. The soldier in the line of 
 fire cannot always comprehend the purpose of the 
 fight ; the passenger on the ship cannot always 
 see the highway in the trackless sea ; and in the 
 same way comprehension and control of the world 
 is for the wisest out of the question. It is the 
 supreme solace to be able to confess God, to 
 allow him to plan and command, to serve under 
 him, to sail with him, to turn over to him life 
 with its thousand problems and the universe 
 with its myriad mysteries. Indeed it would 
 seem that the sanity of the educated mind is 
 ultimately dependent upon faith in God. Know- 
 ledge is chiefly a revelation of the Infinite. With 
 every advance of science the universe grows 
 more complicated. The torch of discovery leads 
 only farther in upon the Eternal mystery. The 
 shoreless universe surrounds man, and as he ad- 
 vances in civilization his own humanity becomes 
 to him of infinite concern. Love is the crown 
 of life, and as it comes to its coronation it is 
 with the gravest solicitude. To allow love to
 
 342 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 take its way, to permit the heart to mellow, to 
 throw out a thousand tendrils, to involve its 
 peace with the welfare of kindred, with the hap- 
 piness of communities and peoples, with the for- 
 tune of humanity, is to run a fearful risk. Love 
 must go mad or it must go to God. Without 
 God humanity must break down ; it cannot, in 
 a godless universe, support the burden of its 
 own heart. To defeat the movement that means 
 recurrence to the condition of the brute, man 
 lays hold upon the idea of God ; to escape in- 
 sanity he makes over his problem to the Eternal 
 mind. Men who keep their humanity and yet 
 deny God end in despair ; and men who deny 
 God and who do not fall into despair shed their 
 humanity as mere impedimenta in the brutal 
 march of existence. 
 
 Normal believers in God do not begin belief 
 upon the finished proof of the reality of his 
 being. They inherit the great bequest; they 
 are heirs of the highest wisdom of the race upon 
 the ultimate meaning of the universe. They 
 come into a world where the Christian idea of 
 God is in power as the best that the human 
 intellect can do upon this supreme subject. 
 The Christian idea of God is the accepted truth ; 
 education applies that accepted truth to the new 
 mind and the new generation. The devout 
 mother's piety and prayers and sacramental love
 
 GOD 343 
 
 weave the high conception into the warp and 
 woof of the young soul ; the sense of ancestry 
 gives power to belief. God is our fathers' God. 
 Social feeling is a tide setting toward the same 
 shore. The young are drawn into faith through 
 sympathy with the faithful. Patriotism makes 
 for the same goal. The God of Israel was 
 primarily a national God, and it was because 
 Jehovah had reality for the nation that he had 
 infinite significance and attraction for the indi- 
 vidual. The religion of a nation tells power- 
 fully upon its patriotism. The nation whose his- 
 tory and ideals are essentially Christian draws 
 its lover irresistibly into the mood of reverential 
 sympathy. It was a patriot who said of his 
 people, " Thy God is thy glory." Great patriots 
 from Demosthenes to Gladstone, in a succession 
 but rarely broken, have been carried upon the 
 strong current of their sympathy with all sides 
 of the nation's life into belief in the national re- 
 ligion. Lincoln delivering his second inaugural 
 stands for the combined patriotism and faith of 
 his country. The battle for righteousness on 
 earth supports itself through belief in the Eternal 
 righteousness. 
 
 Somewhere in this process of education the 
 current philosophy of theism makes its power felt. 
 The world as a dependent wonder and as burning 
 with intelligence, human society as set in its
 
 344 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 material environment for high ends, and human 
 history as a record of unimaginable progress, 
 impress every thoughtful mind, and yield, in 
 one form or another, the great rational vindi- 
 cations of the inherited belief. Thus when the 
 normal believer is questioned as to the source 
 of his belief in God his answer should be that 
 he found the idea in power upon his arrival 
 here, that his earliest and holiest education made 
 it part of his being, that the sense of ancestry, 
 the social impulse, the patriotic passion, and 
 finally the reigning philosophy confirmed him in 
 his new possession. The normal believer finds 
 God, in the first instance, as he finds his mother. 
 He grows into the feeling and the perception 
 that this person is his mother because he has 
 been trained toward this issue from the begin- 
 ning. The love in which he finds himself en- 
 folded, the ministry that unweariedly waits upon 
 him, the presence that renews his life and peace 
 and that daily draws out into stronger and 
 happier forms the sense of sonhood, carries him 
 into the unquestioning belief that this woman is 
 his mother. Should he doubt the reality of his 
 assurance he would instantly suspect himself a 
 fool. His faith that this woman is his mother 
 rests upon the witness of love and life. He was 
 brought up to think that way, he has looked 
 upon the world from this centre and through
 
 GOD 345 
 
 this light, and that he is right in his attitude 
 and conviction he has not even the shadow of a 
 doubt. Theistic education is simply domestic 
 education in its widest form. The idea of God 
 is the enfolding atmosphere of thought and feel- 
 ing; it modifies all early associations and in- 
 terests; it stands over the growing life in an 
 incessant unconscious ministry ; it is the undis- 
 cerned fountain of the progressive idealization 
 of existence, the centre from which all things 
 are regarded and the light in which they are 
 beheld. The consciousness of God thus goes 
 with the normal youth as the day goes with 
 him. He lives in it, society has its being in it, 
 the universe moves in it. Thus close to the 
 mind of youth in Christian society and insep- 
 arable from it, thus inevitable, universal, and 
 gloriously real is the conception of God. 
 
 But this is only the beginnings of faith. The 
 unconscious psychology of belief must give an 
 account of itself to the metaphysics of belief. 
 Professor James profoundly says that reasons 
 shoidd be given why men do pray rather than 
 why they should pray. Prayer is a psycho- 
 logical fact and should be made to yield its law 
 and logic. Similarly reasons should be stated 
 why men do believe in God ; but this belief is a 
 psychological fact. The idea that has been im- 
 parted by education must become a witness for
 
 346 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 itself. While the educational aspect and the 
 psychological genesis of the idea are profoundly 
 important, the appeal should be made for the 
 great idea to the highest tribunal. The believer 
 in God must test his inheritance ; that which he 
 has accepted from others he must justify to him- 
 self. The highest idea of faith cannot rest upon 
 the grounds of tradition and education. The idea 
 of source is important, the idea of worth and 
 validity is infinitely more important. The day 
 comes when the believer, knowing well the origin 
 of his faith in God, begins to consider the truth 
 of it. 
 
 What is the proof of God's being to which 
 one may come who longs to rest only upon ascer- 
 tained reality ? The answer to this question is 
 both close at hand and of infinite significance. 
 God is known as the ideal strength of the soul ; 
 and thus he comes to be known as the ideal 
 strength of the world. The Jewish temple had 
 three concentric inclosures ; the court of the 
 Gentiles, the holy place, and the holy of holies. 
 The traditional philosophy of the being of God, 
 the argument, ontological, cosmological, teleolo- 
 gical, is of the court of the Gentiles. It is a 
 respectable place, and the crowd is great and im- 
 pressive ; but it is not even in the temple. It 
 is significant as an outside witness, an imposing 
 introduction, an affecting preliminary. The re-
 
 GOD 347 
 
 ligious history of mankind at its best, the story 
 of apostles, prophets, martyrs, and saints, the 
 record of Christianity in the nations, is the holy 
 place. It is indeed sacred and beautiful, a vast 
 interior witness to the reality of the living God. 
 But beyond it is the supreme sanctuary of the 
 soul. There in silence and awe and loneliness 
 the believer sees God face to face. Moses on the 
 hillside looking upon the burning bush, Isaiah in 
 the temple in the hour of his awful vision, Paul 
 on his way to Damascus, Luther climbing the 
 papal stairs with the consciousness of direct 
 access to God making him wild with joy, Ed- 
 wards walking on the banks of the Connecticut 
 full of the sense of the Eternal beauty, are types 
 of what is meant. Highest of all, Jesus in the 
 wilderness temptation, in the Tabor transfigura- 
 tion, in the Gethsemane agony, hi the hour of 
 mortal passion upon the cross, is the revelation 
 of the path into the holy of holies. 
 
 In the light of the personal ideal God's face 
 first appears. Is it an illusion or a reality ? The 
 answer to that question covers the fundamental 
 issue between theism and atheism. The water- 
 shed of belief and unbelief lies in the difference 
 of attitude toward the personal ideal. The ne- 
 gation of God occurs first of all in the spirit. It 
 is not a speculative movement ; in the majority 
 of instances it is not a conscious mental process.
 
 848 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 It is something infinitely deeper and closer to the 
 heart of life. It is primarily a practical opera- 
 tion, a decision and bent of the will, a cherished 
 mood of the spirit. The speculative denial of 
 God is trivial compared with the vital denial. 
 The philosophic negative rises into serious im- 
 portance only as the reasoned justification of the 
 practical. Life is not only deeper than thought ; 
 it is also the source of one's interest in thought. 
 Atheism means, therefore, in its profoundest as- 
 pect, settled selfishness, contented earthliness, 
 mad desire for pleasure, indifference to the cries 
 of men suffering from immemorial inhumanities, 
 the conservation of the pitiless soul, the expul- 
 sion of the ideal. Obviously this sort of atheism 
 is compatible with any amount of nominal belief. 
 It is a beggarly business to confine attention to 
 the speculative denial of God in the world and 
 ignore the only supremely serious mood both in 
 the world and in the church, the practical denial. 
 The legend that should most concern the true 
 theist is that which is written upon the banner 
 of the majority of believers and which describes 
 an inward personal condition : " Our lamps are 
 gone out." 
 
 The real affirmation of God begins with the 
 serious acknowledgment of the ideal. It makes 
 a requisition upon the personal will. It calls for 
 honor in the centres of baseness, valor in the
 
 GOD 349 
 
 heart of cowardice, purity in the midst of shame, 
 self-sacrifice in the ways of self-indulgence, right- 
 eousness in an environment crowded with bribes 
 to unrighteousness. Examples are here essential 
 to clearness. When one, in the strength of the 
 ideal, overcomes the incentive to cowardice, like 
 Jacob upon meeting his brother, the appeal of 
 shame with Joseph, the enticement to ease, the 
 deception of a false humility, the current of head- 
 long error as in the instance of Moses, of Jere- 
 miah, and of Paul; when one goes into every 
 sphere of life, and there, in the name of the ideal, 
 meets and overwhelms the baseness, sees and 
 struggles to do the duty, notes and tries to improve 
 the privilege, confesses and endeavors to carry the 
 burden, feels and longs to transfigure the whole 
 sorrowful actual of existence, he is in the holy of 
 holies. One is then coming within sight of the 
 real proof of God's being. The midnight wrestle 
 of the ancient wayfarer is repeated ; once more 
 the soul is interlocked with the Infinite. Life 
 preserved, advanced in spite of failure, pushed 
 on through penitence, kept in forward movement 
 in the teeth of hostility, carried up into more and 
 better, making covenant only with the best, like 
 a mountain-climber looking away toward the sum- 
 mit of human character ; life thus conserved, in- 
 creased, guided, and crowned with hope goes in 
 the strength of the undeniable God. The grace
 
 350 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 by which the human spirit gains upon its moral 
 goal is the grace of God. The proof of God's 
 existence that is final (for the fact) is given with 
 every genuine moral achievement. The victo- 
 rious moral will, marching in the light of the 
 moral ideal, is the great witness for God. 
 
 The witness for God is open to increase. The 
 best is yet to be. Insight is not the first but 
 the final mood of the doer of righteousness. 
 The philosophy of the divine life in man is the 
 issue of that life. Hegel's beautiful comparison 
 of philosophy to the owl of Minerva should be 
 freed from its note of sadness. It is true that 
 the day is far spent, that it is towards evening 
 as it deepens into dusk before the divine bird 
 sets out upon her flight. But to this the day 
 has come ; this is its meaning and consecration. 
 There need be no sigh that the morning was 
 unconscious of the issue to which it was sure to 
 come in the evening. The owl of Minerva was 
 present from the beginning, and although seen 
 only in the evening, she gave divinity to the 
 whole day. It is true that life must be lived 
 before philosophy can do its perfect work. But 
 her power is in the entire process of the strenu- 
 ous career. She herself is withheld as the in- 
 finite reward of the servant of the ideal. She is 
 the sunset into which the day struggles through 
 all its stress of storm. The man who as son and
 
 GOD 351 
 
 brother, friend and lover, husband and father, 
 citizen and sharer in the world's industry, ser- 
 vant of his kind and of the Infinite, has gone in 
 the strength and holy passion of the ideal comes 
 to his best faith at the last. The exceptions are 
 owing to physical causes. For the normal be- 
 liever the full truth is the glorious sundown at 
 the earthly limit of love and service. 
 
 Here is the real beginning of the theistic 
 argument. Man must find God in himself if 
 he would find God beyond himself. It is with 
 theism as Plato found it to be with righteous- 
 ness. For the sake of weak eyes it is useful to 
 look at righteousness as it is written in large 
 style in the order of the ideal state ; but this is 
 only introductory to the final vision of right- 
 eousness as it lives in the soul of the ideal man. 
 There one finds the true ethical beginning and 
 the standard to which one must ever return for 
 light. It is the man who has found God in his 
 own moral life, who in following the ideal of 
 personal righteousness has become conscious of 
 superhuman support who is best able to see 
 whatever divine meaning there may be in nature 
 and in human history. The moral idealist is a 
 being of ends, of ends that are of infinite worth 
 and that are in progressive realization. He is 
 on his way home and the highest is his place 
 of rest. From this luminous interior he looks
 
 352 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 upon nature, as one looks upon the cathedral 
 window from the inside ; he notes colors, de- 
 signs, figures, symbols, and great meanings that 
 do not exist for the person who is without moral 
 purpose, and who looks upon the wonder from 
 the outside. Evolution would seem to be a true 
 reading of natural history. It is natural history 
 read in the light of its end. Bacon deprecated 
 the presence of final causes in science ; but 
 modern science is chiefly the interpretation of 
 the facts of nature upon the assumption of ends. 
 The movement of the cosmos from the fire mist 
 to the heaven of modern astronomy, of life in 
 the earth in its primitive form to man, can be 
 understood only by the idealist. Nature as 
 idealist is knowable only to man the idealist. 
 Development in the cosmos means most to the 
 person who is undergoing in his own life the 
 largest and noblest development. He who in 
 his personal evolution has seen God face to face 
 is best qualified to trace his footsteps in rocks 
 and stars, and to read his mind in the growth 
 of the living world. Nature at first means no- 
 thing to the mind. It is man's vast and dumb 
 brother ; and after the human spirit has learned 
 to think and speak, the next duty is to unseal 
 the lips of nature. The great wonder is finally 
 known as living through personal life, as having 
 behind it a mighty history through personal his-
 
 GOD 353 
 
 tory, as beating forward in a great silent aspira- 
 tion and setting with inevitable strength toward 
 some far-off goal through the personal move- 
 ment upon the moral ideal. Nature in human 
 thought necessarily becomes a kind of larger 
 and lower man ; it is the name for the life that 
 seeks through an infinite aggregate of forms re- 
 newed and higher expressions of itself. And 
 because nature is a life advancing upon ends 
 that are upon the whole successively higher, it 
 becomes a witness for the Intelligence that is 
 revealed as Moral Intelligence in the history of 
 the faithful soul. 
 
 Human history is significant only from the 
 inside. One may as reasonably expect a child 
 to construe a passage from Thucydides as to 
 look for an appreciation of the theistic value of 
 history from a man who honestly entertains no 
 exacting moral ideal. The world is appreciable 
 on all sides only through the appropriate powers. 
 For the blind there is no color even when the 
 earth is dyed in the hues of sunset. For the 
 deaf there is no music even when the streets are 
 full of the cheerful speech of man to man, even 
 when the summer woods are one great sym- 
 phony. The earth is out there, but for the ap- 
 preciation of it one must bring the senses in 
 their keen integrity. Philosophy is here as the 
 great and growing world-thought of mankind ;
 
 354 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 art is here as the monumental expression of 
 beauty ; the accumulated intellectual and spirit- 
 ual treasure of the race is here ; and yet the 
 treasure can be appreciated only when the indi- 
 vidual brings his awakened intelligence to bear 
 upon it. Human history is the blank landscape 
 of the blind, the mute world of the deaf, the 
 unsuspected intellectual treasure of the race to 
 the dormant mind, until the moral ideal takes 
 possession of the individual soul. The theistie 
 inference from the annals of mankind can be 
 intelligently drawn only by the man who lives 
 in the stress of the moral process. It is the 
 brook that may understand the river ; both have 
 source and movement and end. It is the inland 
 sea that may appreciate the ocean ; both have 
 tides and answer to the same ruling power. It 
 is the individual fighter for righteousness who 
 sees the reality of the racial fight for the same 
 end ; and as he knows that the single combat is 
 in the light and strength of the Divine ideal he 
 is able to believe that the universal battle has 
 its impulse and aim from this high presence. 
 The soul with its own epochs carries the key to 
 the epochs of history. It is from the elevation 
 to which one is lifted by the Lord that one is 
 able to survey the land that is promised to the 
 Lord's people. 
 
 Upon this question of the proof of God's ex-
 
 GOD 355 
 
 istence the conclusion is that all theistic argu- 
 ment that is worth anything begins in the moral 
 history of the individual man. Without this 
 interior personal discovery of God the discus- 
 sions about his being are infinite in their dreary 
 unproductiveness. The key to the universe lies 
 in personality, otherwise there is no key. The 
 key to the moral universe is in the moral per- 
 sonality, or again there is no key. Nature is 
 but a sphinx, and human history a tragedy until 
 the eyes of the lover and doer of righteousness 
 rest upon them. It is the God within who finds 
 the God without, and in the calling of deep to 
 deep the voice that breaks the silence and that 
 begins and that sustains the divine dialogue is 
 the voice of the dutiful soul. The philosophical 
 argument for the being of God is but the render- 
 ing, in universal form, of the intellectual and 
 moral demand of the personal spirit ; and where 
 this demand does not exist the scientific process 
 of theistic proof awakens no response. The 
 pursuit of the moral ideal is the path to cer- 
 tainty about God. Where the universe has be- 
 come helper in the struggle to overtake the 
 moral best, one can run no risk in calling the 
 universe God. And where one is a successful 
 pursuer of ideal ends, one can appreciate nature 
 in so far as she lives in the pursuit of an ideal 
 end ; one can, further, appreciate the grand his-
 
 356 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 toric movement of mankind upon an ideal end. 
 Thus ideal ends explain both nature and human 
 history, and God is given in the grand pursuit, 
 in the strength that makes it possible, in the 
 dfchievement that makes it noble, and yet more 
 in the light that guides it. 
 
 " Not of the sunlight, 
 Not of the moonlight, 
 Not of the starlight ! 
 O young mariner, 
 Down to the haven, 
 Gall your companions, 
 Launch your vessel, 
 And crowd your canvas, 
 And, ere it vanishes 
 Over the margin, 
 After it, follow it, 
 Follow The Gleam." 
 
 ni 
 
 The existence of God is thus an assurance to 
 man through man ; the reality of God is a dis- 
 covery by man for man. The ultimate position 
 is that God is the necessity of humanity. If we 
 did not need him, we should not seek him. If 
 God were not essential to man's life, even were 
 his existence forced upon the mind, man would 
 take no vital interest in him. The God who 
 does not answer to man's needs can never 
 satisfy man's reason. Reason is the supreme 
 servant of life, and in the service of life reason 
 hears the footsteps of the advancing God, and
 
 GOD 357 
 
 goes onward to meet him. Power may account 
 for much, wisdom and power may account for 
 more ; but both together cannot account for 
 man. It should always be borne in mind that 
 the quest for God is essentially the search for 
 the full account and final meaning of human 
 life. Before they can suffice as the maker of 
 man wisdom and power must rise into love. For 
 the genuine life of mankind is love ; as it comes 
 to itself, that life comes to love. The love of 
 man seeks for the origin of itself in the love of 
 God. 
 
 The mode of the Divine existence is a ques- 
 tion raised by the claim that his character is 
 love. The series of questions covered by the 
 symbol " The Trinity " concern the moral being 
 of God. We have a social humanity. Have 
 we a social Deity as the ground of it ? In this 
 social humanity the individual person is not 
 only no obstruction ; he is essential. Humanity 
 is a fellowship of personal spirits. Is there any 
 hint here as to the nature of the archetypal 
 fellowship behind humanity. Out of what, out 
 of whom, did the social whole constituted by the 
 sum of human persons come ? Has the human 
 effect anything to say concerning the Divine 
 cause ? Further, social humanity is an altruistic 
 humanity. Genuine egoism is perfected through 
 genuine altruism. Selfhood comes to its best
 
 358 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 in love ; love is a mood of man in the great 
 organism of society. If you take away the 
 social life of the individual would love remain ? 
 Is not man the lover, one among many, one who 
 shares the life of others, one whose life is shared 
 by others ? Is not love dependent upon the in- 
 tegrity of the individual, and of the society in 
 which he lives ? Without the individual there 
 could be no love ; of that we are clear. Is it 
 not equally clear that without society there 
 could be no love ? A being out of all relation 
 to other lives, with no other beings to whom he 
 can stand related, who is neither son nor hus- 
 band nor father nor brother nor citizen nor 
 child of God, could never become a lover. 
 Lover means altruist, and therefore the closed 
 egoist excludes the lover. 
 
 This is the truth about man. Humanity is a 
 social whole made of individual persons in one 
 vast intercommunion of being. Humanity is 
 created on the altruistic plan, and the education 
 of life consists in taming its wild egoism, in 
 realizing the genuine selfhood of the individual 
 through respect for others, through service, fel- 
 lowship, and love. Has this truth about the 
 nature of man anything to tell us about the 
 possible nature of God ? If God is the Lord 
 and Giver of our humanity, can we in any mea- 
 sure divine the character of the Giver from
 
 GOD 359 
 
 the nature of his gift ? Here is our problem : 
 we seek for the God who is the full and final 
 account of humanity. Here is our method in 
 dealing with the problem : we find the essential 
 nature of humanity, and we try to read the char- 
 acter of God through that essential humanity. 
 
 I am aware that the conception of the 
 Divine nature for which the Trinity is the 
 symbol is widely held to be a hopeless tangle 
 of contradictions. I am aware that it is by 
 many considered the supreme absurdity of theo- 
 logy. In his comments upon Berkeley's " Siris," 
 John S. Mill remarks that the treatise begins 
 with Tar-water and ends with the Trinity, and 
 he adds that the sections on Tar-water are the 
 best part of the work. This remark of Mill is 
 due to the fact that in his judgment tar-water 
 had some value for afflicted humanity, while the 
 Trinity had none. But for a popular exhibition 
 of the supposed absurdities of this doctrine we 
 must go to the pages of Matthew Arnold. In 
 " Literature and Dogma " this famous passage 
 occurs on the Trinity as seen in the doctrine of 
 justification. " In imagining a sort of infinitely 
 magnified and improved Lord Shaftesbury, with 
 a race of vile offenders to deal with, whom his 
 natural goodness would incline him to let off, 
 only his sense of justice will not allow it ; then 
 a younger Lord Shaftesbury, on the scale of his
 
 360 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 father and very dear to him, who might live in 
 grandeur and splendor if he liked, but who pre- 
 fers to leave his home, to go and live among the 
 race of offenders, and to be put to an ignomin- 
 ious death, on condition that his merits shall 
 be counted against their demerits, and that his 
 father's goodness shall be restrained no longer 
 from taking effect, but any offender shall be 
 admitted to the benefit in simply pleading the 
 satisfaction made by the son ; and then, finally, 
 a third Lord Shaftesbury, still on the same 
 high scale, who keeps very much in the back- 
 ground, and works in a very occult manner, but 
 very efficaciously nevertheless, and who is busy 
 in applying everywhere the benefits of the son's 
 satisfaction, and the father's goodness ; in an 
 imagination, I say, such as this, there is nothing 
 degrading, and this is precisely the Protestant 
 story of Justification. And how awe of the first 
 Lord Shaftesbury, gratitude and love toward 
 the second, and earnest cooperation with the 
 third may fill and rule men's hearts so as to 
 transform their conduct we need not go about 
 to show, for we have all seen it with our eyes. 
 But after all, the question sooner or later arises : 
 Is it sure ? Can what is here assumed be veri- 
 fied ? And this is the real objection ... to the 
 Protestant doctrine as a basis for conduct, not 
 that it is a degrading superstition, but that it
 
 GOD 361 
 
 is not sure; that it assumes what cannot be 
 verified." In plain words the doctrine of the 
 Trinity in itself and in its operation may be 
 classed as a wholesome myth or legend. It is 
 not a degrading superstition ; but it is the pro- 
 duct of the metaphysical imagination taken as 
 fact, as exact truth. The fine sarcasm of the de- 
 scription makes unnecessary any violent repudia- 
 tion of the doctrine of the Trinity as inherently 
 absurd. It is the wholesome legend of the three 
 Lord Shaftesburys. For many years among 
 " devout women " and among men who are like 
 them this legend will pass for truth. For them 
 a difficulty of the intelligence does not count. 
 " To think they know what passed in the Coun- 
 cil of the Trinity is not hard to them; they 
 could easily think they knew what were the 
 hangings of the Trinity's council-chamber." l 
 
 Disregard for the doctrine of the Trinity is 
 not confined to writers like Mill and Arnold. 
 There are many teachers of Christianity to whom 
 it is only an extra-Christian speculation, wholly 
 foreign to the sublime but simple ethical idealism 
 of the Gospel. Others there are who do not 
 object to the Trinity on the ground of its alien 
 origin, but because it is devoid of meaning for 
 the moral life of mankind. In an able and in- 
 teresting paper in the " Independent," Dr. Ward 
 
 1 Literature and Dogma, pp. 278-280.
 
 362 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 writes : " The doctrine of the Trinity is not 
 essential to Christianity because it has nothing 
 to do with love." 1 If this objection were valid, 
 if indeed the reality for which the word Trinity 
 stands had nothing to do with love, I for one 
 should have no further interest in it. It is 
 because I believe that the moral life of God is 
 bound up with the reality of which the Trinity 
 is the symbol that I hold it to be essential to 
 an enduring faith. It is because I believe the 
 nature of God as conceived by the Trinity to 
 be the ground of the moral life of man that I 
 regard it as of fundamental moment. Doubt- 
 less the Trinity has been discussed as if it were 
 merely an intellectual puzzle. It has been taught 
 as an absolute mystery into which human reason 
 could not advance a step. Teachers of the Trin- 
 ity and historians of ecclesiastical history have 
 too often been content to show that the doctrine 
 had its origin in the necessity of making room 
 for Christ in the Godhead, and in the further 
 necessity of lifting into the heart of God the 
 transforming spirit of the Christian religion. 
 These contentions of learned men are no doubt 
 in a great measure true. When it is added that 
 the doctrine of the Trinity is an evolution of 
 thinkers who construed Christianity in terms 
 of Greek philosophy, who looked upon the new 
 1 Independent, June 12, 1902.
 
 GOD 363 
 
 religion that had risen like a second sun upon 
 midday, through the colored windows of Hel- 
 lenic civilization, something important is added 
 to the history of the origin of the doctrine. The 
 question of origin is important, and yet it is sub- 
 ordinate. The great question is that of meaning, 
 and of truth. The deepest objection to Professor 
 Paine's book on " The Evolution of Trinitarian- 
 ism " is that he regards his subject so much as 
 a field for dialectical sport, and that so far as I 
 now recall he does not devote a single page to 
 the meaning of the doctrine. What was Athana- 
 sius contending for? What was the human worth 
 of the conception for the sake of which he stood 
 against the world ? Behind the dialectical move- 
 ment there must be the human sense of meaning, 
 of worth, of truth. To play off the whole sub- 
 ject as the history of the vain and even ridicu- 
 lous endeavor to hold to three Gods, and yet to 
 claim that these three are one, may issue in 
 an entertaining, but surely not in a profound or 
 profitable book. Barren discussions are plenti- 
 ful upon every article of the Christian creed. It 
 needs no ghost to tell us that. Much like the 
 wilderness with no hope of ever bursting into 
 bloom are vast sections of the Trinitarian dis- 
 pute. We must not, however, doom a subject 
 by judgment upon its barren treatment. Nor 
 because the history of discussion upon the Trin-
 
 364 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 ity shows an endless seesaw between three Gods 
 and one God in three modes of manifestation 
 will a lover of truth turn away from the alluring 
 theme. He will insist upon the search for the 
 meaning of this world-old discussion ; more im- 
 portant still, he will seek the reality behind the 
 symbol. This is my purpose. I do not care for 
 a word or a symbol in itself considered ; but I 
 am convinced that underneath this word and sym- 
 bol is a truth without which the life of faith 
 cannot last. 
 
 What is that truth? The essentially social 
 nature of Gbd ; the faith that he is in his inner- 
 most being an eternal family. The Trinity is 
 a word, and it should call up that which stands 
 behind it. The discussion about three distinct 
 persons in one God and a God in absolute sim- 
 plicity of being should reduce itself to its ulti- 
 mate form. There is little to be gained from a 
 new edition of the old Trinitarianism and the 
 old Unitarianism. There is little profit in a 
 mere rehearsal of the Nicene and the Ante- 
 Nicene dispute. Dialectics have exhausted their 
 interest, if not their power, in the formal treat- 
 ment of the subject ; and history has told her 
 accurate and impartial tale a hundred times. 
 The old battlefield has been pretty much deserted 
 by both parties, one might almost say by all 
 parties. The Trinitarian tradition seems to me
 
 GOD 365 
 
 of immeasurable worth ; but the Trinitarian dis- 
 cussion must take on new form. It must reduce 
 itself to a consideration of the comparative worth 
 of the two competing conceptions of the Divine 
 nature the unitary and the social. This is the 
 fountain of our interest in the ancient debate. 
 We are brought by it face to face with the ques- 
 tion whether God is a bare individual or a so- 
 ciety in himself. A psychology of God, or a 
 definition of the mode of the Divine being, I 
 regard as impossible ; but this does not, in my 
 judgment, close the debate. It simply puts limi- 
 tations upon it and gives it a new and more fruit- 
 ful direction. We are thrown back upon the 
 question, Which conception of God, the unitary 
 or the social, is for mankind the freer from em- 
 barrassment and of the greater worth ? 
 
 It is conceded among believers that man is 
 for man the type of God, in other words that 
 God is an infinite man. Here the assumption 
 is that the best possible conception of God is of 
 an ideally perfect man set free from all limita- 
 tions. And without doubt this is the path to 
 the highest thought of God. That it should 
 appear in this way to the profoundest theistic 
 thinkers is another witness to the fundamental 
 influence of Christianity upon philosophical dis- 
 cussion. For the idea that man plus infinity is 
 God, if it does not originate hi the announce-
 
 366 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 ment that God minus infinity is in the man Je- 
 sus Christ, is at least made living and fruitful 
 by it. Christianity is the interpretation of God 
 through the perfect man, and the exaltation of 
 man through this interpretation. The Master 
 says " He that hath seen me hath seen the Fa- 
 ther," J and the disciple responds " Now are we 
 children of God." 2 The question before us is, 
 therefore, what does the building of the idea of 
 God after the pattern of the perfect man imply 
 as to the mode of the Divine existence ? Is God 
 a bare unit, a pure individual, or is he social, 
 triune in his being ? 
 
 To superficial thinking the bare unitary con- 
 ception of God seems to be the simplest and the 
 most consistent. The standard of simplicity and 
 consistency, be it remembered, is man. No man, 
 it is contended, is really three in one. Every 
 man is a unit, and if man is the guide to God, 
 God must be a pure individual. The Trinitarian 
 conception of three persons in one God seems 
 to involve a fatal departure from the human 
 type. It appears to many vigorous and devout 
 minds to issue in a Divine monstrosity. They 
 tell us that their hearts are often moved by 
 Trinitarian passion, but their heads always rebel 
 against Trinitarian mysticism and monstrosity. 
 Let these noble rebel heads be turned for a 
 
 1 John xiv. 9. 2 1 John iii. 2.
 
 GOD 367 
 
 moment upon the simplicity and consistency of 
 the unitary idea of God. Consider here three 
 things ; the individualist God and knowledge ; 
 the individualist God and love ; the individual- 
 ist God and the social humanity of which he is 
 assumed to be the full and adequate account. 
 
 The unitary God is a being by himself. He 
 is the shadow expanded to infinity of the human 
 individual. The man who thinks personality 
 complete in itself apart from other personalities, 
 to whom it is related and in whom it finds moral 
 h'fe, takes this distorted image of himself, ex- 
 pands it to infinity, and turns it into a lonely 
 individualist Deity. But when a man takes 
 himself as type in his quest for God, it is of the 
 utmost importance that he shall understand 
 himself. 
 
 Mistaken anthropology is the root of impossi- 
 ble theology. The person who thinks of himself 
 as a sort of Melchizedek, without father, without 
 mother, without genealogy, as standing outside 
 the circle of human relations in a false self-suffi- 
 ciency, naturally thinks of God under the same 
 conception. But if the maxim is true that one 
 man is no man, it is no less true that a bare uni- 
 tary God is no God. Man is a person in rela- 
 tion to other persons ; only thus are knowledge 
 and love real. And if knowledge and love are 
 real in God his nature must be essentially social.
 
 368 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 If then knowledge is real in God, he must 
 have an eternal object of thought. Man cannot 
 think without an object, and again, be it remem- 
 bered, man is our guide. The first object of 
 thought for man is some aspect of the universe ; 
 and it may be said that God is a bare unitary 
 intelligence with an eternal universe for his ob- 
 ject. But to assert the eternity of the material 
 universe in the ordinary conception of it is sheer 
 nonsense. For the material universe, as man 
 knows it, takes its specific character from human 
 receptivity. That color is not in things is the 
 first commonplace of philosophy. That hard- 
 ness and softness and all the other qualities of 
 bodies that imply relation between object and 
 subject are not in things is another common- 
 place of serious reflection. Space as the form 
 for experience whose origin is exterior, and time 
 as the form for all things and ideas in succes- 
 sion, are part of the constitution of the human 
 mind. Force, the ultimate quality to which the 
 material universe is reduced, is indeed immut- 
 able. But force is not man's concrete universe ; 
 it is the inferential and philosophized ground of 
 it. Man's universe is force in color, in sound, 
 in resistance, in human sensibility generally ; 
 and the peculiar manifestation of force which 
 constitutes our human universe began when man 
 began. The idea of an eternal universe is eter-
 
 GOD 369 
 
 nal nonsense. The universe as it is for man 
 began to be with man; and like Samson and 
 the Philistines, when man dies his universe dies 
 with him. As colored, resounding, tangible, 
 sensuous, as ordered in space and in time, it has 
 its birth and death with mankind. 
 
 But force remains. What then is force ? The 
 best answer would seem to be that it is will ab- 
 stracted from the intelligence with which it is 
 always in association as known. Will thus ab- 
 stracted, made unconscious and blind, and put 
 behind the attack which the universe makes 
 upon human sensibility, would seem to be force. 
 If then the universe is ultimately force, it is 
 ultimately will ; if it is ultimately will, it is ulti- 
 mately intelligent will ; if it is ultimately intel- 
 ligent will, it is ultimately God himself. And 
 the unitary God in his prehuman isolation is 
 thus left without a universe, without an object, 
 without reason for being. 
 
 Following the analogy of man, God may be 
 an object to himself, and in this way the Divine 
 knowledge remain real. But if this analogy is 
 to be used, it would seem that it should be con- 
 sistently used. No man is an object to himself 
 in isolation from society. Man is an object to 
 himself in a hundred ways as a physical organi- 
 zation, a mental power, and an ethical charac- 
 ter, but always with reference to other persons.
 
 370 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 Comparison, contrast, obligation, privilege, and 
 fellowship forever enter into all man's thoughts 
 of himself. If a man should succeed in thinking 
 only of himself he would absolutely contradict 
 his nature; for the individualist in thought is 
 the contradiction of the socialist in being ; and 
 the socialist in being is man. When, therefore, 
 following the human analogy, God is made an 
 eternal object to himself, he is thereby conceived 
 as an essentially social being. He is not an 
 eternal egoist in eternal isolation. For nothing 
 could ever come of such a God, and such a God 
 man does not arrive at when he takes his own 
 nature as type. God is a real thinker, upon a 
 real object, in a real way. His thought must 
 be the type of all true thought, his object the 
 standard of every permanent object, his way the 
 pattern for all real relation between subject and 
 object. He must be the personal thinker, the 
 personal object, the personal truth between these 
 two ; he must be infinite reality covered by the 
 most sacred of all symbols, the Father and the 
 Son and the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Granting, however, that a unitary God who 
 knows is conceivable, he is conceivable only as 
 a self-sufficient eternal egoist ; and as such he 
 must be without love. An eternal altruistic 
 God to whom from all eternity there is no 
 other, in whom there is no other, is about as
 
 GOD 371 
 
 palpable an absurdity as can be put into words. 
 Love in man is the passion for another ; its ex- 
 istence depends upon the society in which man 
 is placed. Love in God must mean the pas- 
 sion for another ; its reality depends upon the 
 society in the Godhead. God's love for him- 
 self can be called love only on the ground that 
 in himself he represents society, and if he re- 
 presents in himself society, say human society 
 possible or actual, his own Godhead is essentially 
 and eternally social. From man's point of view 
 and confessedly this is the only point of view, 
 unless there is society, of an ineffable kind in- 
 deed, in the Godhead eternal existence would 
 be eternal misery. God is sincerely to be pitied 
 if he is a bare unit, existing alone from eternity. 
 His being is the image of calamity, and life such 
 as his is cannot appear to social man as other 
 than the superlative horror. Greek mythology 
 with all its crude anthropomorphism is much 
 nearer the truth than the ghastly deity obtained 
 by means of the elimination of the social ele- 
 ment in man. These primitive Greeks took 
 their entire humanity with them in their search 
 for God ; and their gods were at least real, social, 
 and happy. Their existence was the object of 
 man's admiration and aspiration. The Christian 
 doctrine of the Trinity is the full statement of 
 the truth at which Greek mythology aimed ; the
 
 372 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 discovery of the social nature of God through 
 the social nature of man at his highest. Put 
 into the Godhead some reality answering to the 
 words the Father, and the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit, and one is able to think of the divine 
 knowledge and love as real, one is able to con- 
 ceive of God's existence as ineffably blessed, 
 and as containing in itself the ground of human 
 society. 
 
 For the problem presented by a unitary Deity 
 becomes still more pressing when one looks for 
 the eternal basis of humanity. How can a social 
 humanity come out of an unsocial deity? Under 
 whatever name, all fullness must be conceived to 
 dwell in him. An archetypal humanity must be 
 in God as the eternal precedent of our human- 
 ity. What can an eternal egoist know of altru- 
 ism ? How can God reconstitute his being with 
 the advent of man ? How can an unsocial God 
 know parenthood ? He is not a father, he has 
 no eternal son ; are not a father's passion and a 
 mother's love incomprehensible to him ? He is 
 not a son ; how then can he understand the filial 
 soul ? He is not eternally joined in himself in 
 the substantial power of love; how should he 
 be able to enter into the communion in which 
 humanity stands, in which it comes to ever sub- 
 limer consciousness of itself? A God who is a 
 father and a son, and a holy spirit, by courtesy
 
 GOD 373 
 
 only, is absolutely out of all relation to human 
 life. Such a deity may have an ornamental use, 
 but he can be in no way essential to man as 
 man. 
 
 This is so inevitably true that the social or 
 Trinitarian conception of God has passed over 
 into the Unitarian. Dr. Martineau thinks that 
 the Eternal Son of Trinitarian faith has become 
 the Unitarian object of worship. 1 The truth is 
 we have stolen the anthropology of the Unitari- 
 ans, and they have stolen the essential theology 
 of the Trinitarians, and thus far neither we nor 
 they have had the courage to acknowledge the 
 theft. The prayers of Theodore Parker reveal 
 this appropriation of essential truth. God is 
 the Parent of man, the Father and the Mother 
 of mankind. And if these expressions are words 
 flung out at an ineffable meaning, that ineffable 
 meaning must be the archetypal humanity in 
 God, and an archetypal humanity must be a so- 
 cial humanity. The great wild soul of Parker 
 is representative of the heart of even the sober- 
 est Unitarianism. Unitarians assume that par- 
 enthood and sonhood completed in love or com- 
 munion are eternally in the Godhead. They 
 go on using this great assumption without al- 
 ways seeing where they found it, without paus- 
 ing to think out consistently its meaning. There 
 1 Essays, vol. ii. p. 535.
 
 374 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 are devout and brave men among them who say 
 frankly that they employ family terms as the 
 highest symbol for the Ineffable. Even this I 
 understand to be essentially Trinitarian ground. 
 The contest is not between any given articula- 
 tion of Trinitarian doctrine and any given expres- 
 sion of Unitarian teaching. It is profounder 
 than that. Compared with the essential, funda- 
 mental issue, the formal dispute is a dispute on 
 the surface. It should not long delay the seri- 
 ous and progressive thinker of to-day. To re- 
 hearse an old battle is an easy task ; to fight the 
 real battle of the hour is something harder and 
 worthier. The contest to-day is between God 
 as an eternal egoist and God as an eternal so- 
 cialist. If God is an eternal egoist he is the 
 contradiction of humanity ; and as history shows, 
 the distance from deism to atheism, from an un- 
 meaning God to no God at all, is short. If God 
 is an eternal socialist, he is in himself the ground 
 and hope of mankind. The race came out of 
 his being ; men are his offspring ; and back of 
 the human family is the Eternal family. The 
 Trinity is indeed a mystery, but it seems to me a 
 mystery that saves the reality of God to the 
 world. When one seeks the truth underneath 
 the symbol, and does not put too much stress 
 upon the arithmetical paradox, the Trinity stands 
 for a social God, the only God who can mean 
 anything great to man.
 
 GOD 375 
 
 Having considered the unitary conception of 
 the Deity, and the objections to it from the real- 
 ity of knowledge and love in God, and from his 
 relation to our social human life as ground and 
 hope, it is important at this point that the phi- 
 losophical path to theistic belief should be clearly 
 seen. Atheism, Deism, and Christian Theism 
 are the positive thoughts about the universe 
 that concern us here. It will be found that 
 they result from the different measures of con- 
 sistency with which man employs man as the 
 key to the final meaning of the universe. Ag- 
 nosticism must here be counted out. When 
 genuine it is a logical position. It refuses to 
 apply the human personality as the guide to the 
 nature of the Infinite. When the refusal is 
 genuine, and not a mere trick in the dialectical 
 game, the ground taken is defensible. Any one 
 has a right to be dumb upon the ultimate mean- 
 ing of life and the universe, on condition that 
 he shall remain dumb. In taking this position 
 one asks simply to be counted out of the discus- 
 sion ; he begs, like the unprepared student in 
 the class-room, to be excused. But in refusing 
 to speak he thereby pledges himself to silence. 
 And the difficulty with the average nineteenth 
 century agnostic is that he does not keep the 
 pledge. He is the preacher of a theory of the 
 universe usually of the materialistic type, and
 
 376 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 his agnosticism is but a shield held up in the day 
 of battle against a spiritualistic theory. Athe- 
 ism thus uniformed and armed is none the less 
 atheism. Agnosticism as the logical device and 
 strategy of a positive belief about the universe 
 is agnosticism only in name. It is the belief 
 that is the real antagonist, and not its agnostic 
 mask. Still it is to be allowed that pure, self- 
 consistent agnosticism in the presence of the 
 universe is a defensible attitude. When it can 
 say of itself with truth " I was dumb, I opened 
 not my mouth," it must be admitted that in its 
 absolute silence it is impregnable. It is one 
 way of behaving toward the Infinite ; it is a way 
 whose principle is human ignorance and incapa- 
 city. It may have a silent piety of its own, and 
 a spirit of truth and love in the heart of the 
 humanities. It is no concern of this discussion ; 
 therefore peace be to its dumb and sorrowful 
 soul. 
 
 Every creature that thinks must think of the 
 Infinite according to its own nature. " The lions 
 if they could have pictured a god would have pic- 
 tured him in fashion like a lion ; the horses like 
 a horse ; the oxen like an ox." So far old Xeno- 
 phanes is right. The difficulty with his exam- 
 ples lies in the assumption, " if they could have 
 pictured a god." They do not think about the 
 universe, and therefore they are freed from the
 
 GOD 377 
 
 necessity of distorting the Infinite. But man 
 thinks about the universe, and he can think 
 about it only in the terms of his own nature. 
 He may plead that thought in man implies 
 thought in the Maker of man, and therefore that 
 mind in the creature is the highest path to the 
 mind of the Creator. He may claim that hu- 
 man personality is the supreme fact in the finite 
 world, and therefore is the best witness for the 
 meaning of the infinite world. But whether with 
 justification or without it, it is self-evident that 
 man can interpret the universe only by the use 
 of himself as interpreter. The fundamental 
 position is here repeated that every being that 
 thinks about the universe must think in the form 
 of its own nature. 
 
 Atheism is negative only in form. It denies 
 that intelligence is the source of life, and in 
 this denial it affirms the opposite view. It 
 elaborates this antitheistic view. It develops 
 the cosmos from matter, motion, energy, force. 
 Upon this force, blind, heartless, irresponsible, 
 it builds the universe. And the criticism to be 
 made upon this procedure is that it is a distorted 
 procedure. It uses man in a distorted form as 
 the guide to its conclusion ; and the remark must 
 be made that only one of two courses is possible. 
 Either discredit man as the measure of all things, 
 and fall back into agnosticism, or cease distort-
 
 378 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 ing the human measure and go on to Christian 
 theism. Force is found only in will; what is 
 called force in nature is but an interpretation of 
 an alien through the conscious human will. If 
 then the world beyond man is to be labeled 
 with a human name, why should it receive one 
 so ghostly ? Why should force which is known 
 only as a form of mental life be divorced from 
 it, emptied of its real content, and in the guise 
 of the palest abstraction pasted upon the uni- 
 verse ? Materialism, the popular form of athe- 
 ism, is simply the interpretation of the uni- 
 verse through will minus intelligence. It is the 
 abstraction of force from all connection with 
 consciousness, and the assumption that this is 
 the final reality. 
 
 It should be clearly noted that this material- 
 istic or atheistic procedure is both unscientific 
 and unphilosophic. It is a mutilation of fact ; 
 power is known nowhere apart from mind ; there- 
 fore it is unscientific. It is unphilosophic; it 
 takes man as guide to the meaning of the uni- 
 verse, and it refuses to follow where the guide 
 leads. It distorts man, reduces him to an un- 
 conscious blind will, and through this dissected 
 man, using the member with which it is pleased 
 to fall in love, it judges the nature of being. 
 Atheism is the result of the worst kind of an- 
 thropomorphism. It robs man of his distinctive
 
 GOD 379 
 
 attributes, takes away his mind, reduces him to 
 blindness and then employs him as guide to the 
 ultimate truth. It is strange that men do not 
 see that a non-human view of the universe is 
 an absolute impossibility. Even nihilism is pre- 
 ceded by the effacement of the human person- 
 ality. The vanishing ego utters the incantation 
 under which the worlds melt into thin air. It 
 is equally strange that thinkers who admit that 
 they are compelled to use man as the measure of 
 all things should starve their man into a blood- 
 less and mindless abstraction. The fool hath 
 said in his heart, There is no God ; and the phi- 
 losopher who employs the fool as his typical man 
 can come to no other conclusion. 
 
 Deism interprets the universe according to the 
 same human standard ; but the man of deism is 
 more of a man than the pale abstraction of athe- 
 ism. The deistic man is an individual being 
 with intelligence, moral feeling, and will ; and 
 therefore the God of deism is a thinker, some- 
 what of a lover, and an eternal doer. He is the 
 individual human being plus infinity. He is not 
 the mere shadow of reality, a will emptied of all 
 purpose, divorced from all intelligence, and re- 
 duced to blind power. He is living and real. 
 Both from the scientific and philosophic points 
 of view deism is a vast improvement upon ma- 
 terialism or atheism. The human standard, the
 
 380 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 deistic man, is real and so far undistorted ; and 
 to a given limit deism is true to its own prin- 
 ciple of procedure. Man is the guide to God ; 
 and man is an individual being. 
 
 Still deism is an inconsistent position. It is 
 a half-way house between atheism and Chris- 
 tian theism. Like atheism, deism employs only 
 an emaciated man. The deistic man is a Mel- 
 chizedek. He has no ancestry and no posterity. 
 He is an individual thread taken out of the 
 social fabric in which he is found, and in which 
 his life has its meaning. Eliminate from man 
 his social nature, and the result is a part and 
 not the whole, a residuum that is not man. And 
 the God of deism is conceived in accordance 
 with this human Melchizedek. He is an infi- 
 nite Melchizedek. He is not a father, he is not 
 a son, he is not a holy community in himself. 
 Such a God is unintelligible save through his 
 human type. Deism is constructed upon a mon- 
 strous man, and Unitarianism when taken at its 
 word is built upon the same foundation. If 
 God is necessarily the image of man plus in- 
 finity, why should he not be the reflex of the 
 full man ? The individual man is no man ; and 
 the God to whom the individual man leads is 
 an abstraction that can be of no service to the 
 universe. Thus it is that deism cannot survive. 
 Atheism makes merry over its lonely individual-
 
 GOD 381 
 
 istic God who is in no vital relation to the uni- 
 verse ; and Christian theism exposes its suicidal 
 inconsistency. The deistic God can be of no 
 posssible use to our human world; an egoistic 
 God and an altruistic humanity are in hopeless 
 contradiction to each other. An altruistic God 
 may convert an egoistic man on the ground of 
 the latent social nature in the egoist ; but an 
 altruistic humanity can do nothing with an ego- 
 istic Deity. According to the terms in which it 
 is conceived, his nature is eternally unitary and 
 unsocial. The fact is that the deistic God is 
 the reflex of men who have forgotten the truth 
 of their own humanity. Again bad anthropo- 
 logy leads to bad theology. The selfish man 
 gives rise to the selfish God ; the man who has 
 not yet come to the sense of the society in which 
 alone he is real, conceives of God as like himself 
 a pure individualist. For the person to whom 
 love is the final reality in human life, and for 
 whom the society in which love exerts its power 
 is essential, the deistic God is morally incon- 
 ceivable. For social and loving man a unitary 
 Supreme Being has no interest. 
 
 Christian theism tries to be faithful to the 
 whole man in its endeavor through man to find 
 God. With atheism and deism it is eager to 
 pass over the incidental and to fix attention 
 only upon the essential in man. But against
 
 382 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 atheism it keeps together will and intelligence 
 and real being ; against deism it refuses to 
 separate the individual man and the social man. 
 Man is man only in society. Parenthood, son- 
 hood, and the essential social relations are part 
 of man's being. Without them he could not 
 be ; in them he is what he is. And it is pre- 
 cisely this social man who needs God, for whom 
 God has moral meaning. This man with an- 
 cestry, with posterity, with a life that is a life 
 in humanity, seeks for an adequate fountain of 
 moral life, and for the eternal ground of it. If 
 God is man plus infinity it must be the social 
 man carried to his highest. Eternal fatherhood, 
 eternal sonhood, eternal love must be the truth 
 of the Godhead ; there must be in God the arche- 
 type of humanity. The whole man is man in 
 society, and if the human principle is faithfully 
 used, the whole God must be a God with an 
 ineffable society in himself. 
 
 The line of argument here used may be sum- 
 marized as follows. The consistent use of man 
 as the guide to God necessitates a God with 
 society in himself. Any other kind of God is 
 the result of a meagre, emaciated, and unreal 
 man. Further, no other God is worth anything 
 as cause and fountain of mankind. An indi- 
 vidualistic Deity can yield only an individual- 
 istic universe ; a society in the glory of love is
 
 GOD 383 
 
 an absolute contradiction to such a supreme 
 egoist. If, therefore, the cause must equal the 
 effect, the social man can be accounted for only 
 by the social God. " And God said, Let us 
 make man in our image, after our likeness." l 
 The working of our principle is obvious in the 
 grand old words. The social man is the reflex 
 of the social God ; the social God is the reflex 
 of the social man ; thus the earliest faith and 
 the latest meet in the same great conclusion. 
 Finally, any other kind of God is an enigma, 
 and the symbol of eternal misery. He is an 
 enigma because an individualist God as the au- 
 thor of a social universe is an impenetrable mys- 
 tery. The eternal life of such a Deity cannot 
 be the archetype of the universe in time ; his 
 pretemporal being is without any conceivable 
 relation to temporal being ; he and our human 
 universe fall apart, and between them there is 
 a great gulf fixed. The unitary conception of 
 God is the symbol of misery. The pretemporal 
 Deity in utter loneliness, inhabiting by himself 
 his own eternity, is a picture of unhappiness 
 wrought up, by supreme art, to the highest and 
 most exquisite torture. Solitary confinement for 
 an eternity is appalling even for the Eternal. 
 In contrast to this the full man finds the living 
 God. He is a God out of whose nature human 
 
 1 Genesis i. 26.
 
 384 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 society has come ; his pretemporal life is a type 
 of the human world in time. God is thus in 
 himself ideal society, ideal humanity ; and the 
 name for this living God, the vision of whom is 
 man's highest joy, is the Father, and the Son, 
 and the Holy Spirit. Thus the conception that 
 seems self-contradictory turns out to be the only 
 consistent and enduring idea of God. It is 
 properly claimed that the problem of the person 
 of Christ led the church into the doctrine of the 
 Trinity. Jesus Christ, the Divine man, as the 
 guide to God, could lead only to the God who is 
 in himself an eternal archetypal society. The 
 uniqueness of Jesus Christ here, as elsewhere, is 
 that he is the light of the world. His perfec- 
 tion forced the issue between the social and the 
 unsocial Deity. He did it for himself, and for 
 his brethren ; and what he did is the sign of 
 what he was. Man must rise to Christ before 
 he can see the true God. Anthropology must 
 first rise to Christology ; then it may rise to 
 true theology. 
 
 In dealing with the nature of God, we are 
 dealing with the nature of man set free from all 
 limitation. It is true that modesty and tenta- 
 tiveness should lie in the spirit of our reasonings 
 upon this ineffable theme. To certain minds, 
 hints, suggestions, intimations of possible truth, 
 are more acceptable in this region than definite
 
 GOD S85 
 
 conclusions. Other minds finding a sure princi- 
 ple of interpretation hold to it honestly and 
 courageously. They do this without in the least 
 forgetting either the uncertainty that forever 
 shadows human speculation or the unexplorable 
 mystery of God's being. To this class the writer 
 belongs. He knows what doubt is ; it is indeed 
 part of his existence. He believes, however, 
 that the true path to God is along the line of 
 human personality. And thus believing, he sees 
 no reason to waver or hesitate in the full logical 
 expression of his fundamental assumption ; or to 
 apologize for his confidence in the resulting con- 
 clusions. 
 
 All the more is the writer inclined to this 
 confidence since the principle is one which every 
 man can test for himself. We go to God on 
 account of our human life ; and we seek a God 
 answering to the nature and vocation of human- 
 ity. Can a unitary Deity suit the need ? Can 
 an individualist God match our nature and op- 
 portunity ? Can an infinite Melchizedek be the 
 ground of human society? Ask thought, and go 
 deeper ; ask life to say what its nature is and 
 what its needs are ; then reason from the social 
 creation to the social maker. And if this seems 
 like reaching the Trinity on the strength of our 
 humanity, and apart from the revelation in 
 Jesus Christ, let us resist this antithesis as un-
 
 386 THE ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE 
 
 real. Humanity is here, and God is here, and 
 the glory of Jesus Christ lies in the light that 
 he has poured upon both. He has taught us 
 that the final truth about man is life in the 
 fellowship of love ; he has taught us that this 
 fellowship on earth is possible because of the 
 ineffable fellowship of love in God. 
 
 Once more it must be said that the way to 
 God is not so much through the organization of 
 thought as through the order and necessity of 
 life. The word is nigh man ; it is in his heart, 
 in the structure and hunger of his being. Theism 
 has gone far away for its ground when it should 
 have remained at home. The mightiest witness 
 is there. The telescope is nothing to the child 
 or the savage ; it is little to the ignorant. These 
 persons may have it near them for years and yet 
 miss the glory of the heavens. It is the person 
 who studies it, who discovers its character, who 
 can turn it to amazing uses, and by it fill his 
 heart with the vision of a universe of splendors 
 before unimagined and unimaginable. For the 
 majority of even serious people human life is 
 the least understood of all great things. It is 
 the least respected. When will men come to 
 know themselves ? When will they uncover their 
 heads and unsandal their feet in the sacred pre- 
 sence of life ? When will they take human life 
 with its divine weakness, its immortal hunger,
 
 GOD 387 
 
 its ranges of regret and grief , its whole uplift of 
 toil, suffering, and aspiration, and turn it full 
 upon the being of God? Then indeed God 
 shall be brought near to man ; and he who is 
 over all in his Fatherhood, and through all in 
 his Sonhood, shall be in all as the might of the 
 Holy Spirit.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ACTS OF TOT APOSTLES, 161. 
 
 Adam, the modified, 161. 
 
 Agnostic, the, cannot predict Issue 
 of man's career, 216. 
 
 Agnosticism, 375 ; not fundamental, 
 135. 
 
 Allen, Prof. A. V. G., on Edwards's 
 teaching, 300. 
 
 Altruism, the rudimentary, of the 
 wild beast, 313. 
 
 America, a new, 242. 
 
 Analogy, argument for the moral 
 universe from, 320-322. 
 
 Anaxagoras, 112. 
 
 Anaximander, 111. 
 
 Anaximenes, 111. 
 
 Anglo-American peoples, sense of 
 personality strong in, 173. 
 
 Animal life in its relation to the 
 whole, 164, 165. 
 
 Annihilation, poor refuge from an 
 eternal hell, 44. 
 
 Anselmic conception of sin, 42. 
 
 Antigone of Sophocles, a glorious 
 creature, 37. 
 
 Apologists, the, men who made a 
 beginning in theology, 62, 63. 
 
 Apostles, providentially silent, 23 ; 
 their manner of viewing Christ, 
 41; find their message through 
 conscience, 224. 
 
 Apostolic ship, the, unnecessary loss 
 of cargo, 88. 
 
 Arabian Nights of psychology, 146. 
 
 Argument, versus intellectual 
 power, 137. 
 
 Aristides, the apologist, 63. 
 
 Aristotle, 262; the generative na- 
 ture of experience one of his great 
 insights, 13; and Hegel, 19; influ- 
 ence on all educated men, 60; 
 thought young men poor students 
 of ethics, 60; is yet master in 
 many points, 66 ; his categories, 
 116 ; criticism of, 117 ; his natural 
 science wild, his ethical immortal, 
 167; cannot bequeath hia intel- 
 lect, 228. 
 
 Arminius, competitor with Calvin, 
 61. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, application of 
 noble ideas to life, 47; on the 
 Trinity, 359. 
 
 Art, a witness to the personal spirit 
 of man, 159. 
 
 Athanasius, 132, 363; thinker and 
 administrator, 64. 
 
 Atheism, final duel between theism 
 and, 135 ; and a full humanity 
 mutually destructive, 197 ; versus 
 superstition, 336; means selfish- 
 ness, 348; distance from deism to, 
 short, 374; discussed, 377-379. 
 
 Athenagoras, 63. 
 
 Atlas, the true, 243. 
 
 Atomism of British thought, 102. 
 
 Atonement, doctrine of, trans- 
 formed by preachers, 40; the ut- 
 terance of the Infinite will as 
 ground of reconciliation, 125, 127. 
 
 Augustine, 172, 265, 284; both theo- 
 logian and preacher, 31 ; necessity 
 for theology works in him, 64; on 
 the relation of faith to know- 
 ledge, 66, 85, 99; supplied cate- 
 gories to Christian intellect for 
 fifteen hundred years, 123, 124; 
 " Confessions of," 282. 
 
 Automatic view of the mind, 146. 
 
 Axioms, bound to multiply, 13. 
 
 BABEL, the eschatological, 301. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, on opinions about 
 God, 336 ; deprecated final causes 
 in science, 362. 
 
 Barbour, Professor, 82. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, 34, 269. 
 
 Believer, normal, finds God as he 
 finds his mother, 344. 
 
 Bible, the, monumental symbol of 
 spiritual experience, 1C ; the 
 smaller Bible has given way to the 
 greater, 78 ; emergence from its 
 fiery trial, 79 ; truth about, 80 ; 
 the supreme expression of su- 
 preme spiritual experience of
 
 390 
 
 INDEX 
 
 mankind, 94 ; historical and liter- 
 ary questions about it, 306* 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, 177, 265. 
 
 Buddha, a, finds elements of being 
 lacking in an ego, 140 ; to him 
 the highest hope of man is the 
 hope of extinction, 271. 
 
 Buddhism, one of its three grand 
 characteristics, 139 ; conundrum 
 of, 140; ludicrous contradictions 
 through denial of the ego, 141. 
 
 Bunyan, John, happy in Bedford 
 jail, 235. 
 
 Burns, Robert, unity of his life, 144 ; 
 quotations, 235 ; facts of his ca- 
 reer introduction to the man, 307. 
 
 Bushnell, Horace, 265 ; checked the 
 sway of the governmental view of 
 Christ's death, 43; inaugurator 
 of a movement greater than he 
 knew, 67. 
 
 Business, a moral fellowship, 189. 
 
 Butler, Bishop, 252; his method of 
 dealing with the future life in the 
 "Analogy," 10; his sermons the 
 best ethical work in the English 
 language, 91 ; finds ego necessary 
 to character, 143. 
 
 CALVIN, John, great thinker and 
 scholar, 19, 25; his " Institutes," 
 32, 37 ; panoply of, 61 ; expositor 
 of Augustinianism, 66. 
 
 Calvinism, five points of, 123 ; of 
 Nature, 192. 
 
 Campbell, MacLeod, 67. 
 
 Canonization a mistake, 53. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, on Lord Jeffrey 
 and John Sterling in argument, 
 137, 175, 336. 
 
 Categories, the, a shorthand method 
 of thought, 110 ; historic search 
 for them inevitable, 119 ; the five, 
 of Augustine, 124-126 ; errors in 
 treatment of them, 127. 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas, preacher, 32; 
 quotation oftenest on his lips, 35. 
 
 Channing, W. E., 265 ; debt to, 34. 
 
 Character, wholly an individual 
 achievement, 214 ; in the making 
 a constant crisis, 276. 
 
 Charles the Second, 235. 
 
 Christ, interpretation of, in priestly 
 terms, 41 ; his death as a debt paid 
 to Satan, 42; his death as a satis- 
 faction of the moral law, 43 ; 
 school of, 99, 261 ; moral life 
 lifted to full magnificence by, 107 ; 
 the religious ultimate, 134 ; his 
 highest virtue that he was com- 
 pletely dutiful, 127, 128; and 
 antichrist in conflict, 134, 135; 
 
 the cross his supreme revelation, 
 152 ; the force by which the capa- 
 city for true selfhood becomes 
 conscious, 171 ; his privilege, 202; 
 influence of, makes men cosmopol- 
 itan, 206; contest with Belial, 
 219 ; in history, 220 ; grief of, over 
 social disaster, 221 ; his kingdom 
 a society of individuals, 222 ; first 
 witness for, 264 ; his power to re- 
 new the desire for life, 268 ; many 
 approaches to the soul of, 272 ; 
 the light of the world, 275; sur- 
 passing beauty of, 278 ; source of 
 the world's grace, 279; a greater 
 spirit unthinkable, 280 ; perfection 
 of his religious consciousness, 281 ; 
 the mirror of God and the type of 
 the race, 284; the supreme discov- 
 ery, 285 ; the person of, 290 ; in- 
 dispensable to a living church, 
 291 ; is man at his best, 330; his 
 conception of God, 340; problem 
 of his person led to the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, 384. 
 
 Christian discipleship, 261, 276. 
 
 Christian experience, the soul in,92. 
 
 Christian intellect, a new world 
 thrown open to it, 81 ; its refor- 
 mation in knowledge, 132; its re- 
 organization in thought, 133. 
 
 Christian life, the, 264. 
 
 Christian reality and Christian in- 
 telligence incommensurate, 131. 
 
 Christiana, truer to spiritual life 
 than Christian, 220. 
 
 Christianity, apostolic, represented 
 by Peter, John, and Paul, 23; its 
 comprehension beyond theology, 
 120; unique, 172 ; unconscious, 
 179, 275 ; bound to become the 
 religion of the world, 267 ; a reli- 
 gion for business, 273 ; the divine 
 condition of moral industry, 274 ; 
 beauty of, 277 ; moral refinement 
 of, compared with stoicism, 278 ; 
 the interpretation of God through 
 the perfect man, 366. 
 
 Christological tradition, 290, 291. 
 
 Christologies, manufactured, 203. 
 
 Christology, a human question, 264 ; 
 a meagre, fatal to the pulpit, 291 ; 
 anthropology must rise to, 384. 
 
 Civilization, fundamental enemies 
 of, 86. 
 
 Classic, the, distinguished by per- 
 manent susceptibility to modern 
 appreciation, 122. 
 
 Clement, scholar and thinker, 31, 
 61; education of mankind, 66, 132. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., his simile of Noah'* 
 Ark, 142.
 
 INDEX 
 
 391 
 
 Comforter, the, 229. 
 
 Commonwealth, a moral, 209. 
 
 Conscience, its relation to individu- 
 ality, 109, 110; counts for more 
 and more, 207 ; government origi- 
 nates in, 315. 
 
 Consciousness, of sin, 165 ; of ethical 
 Identity with Ood, 166 ; gains on 
 unconsciousness, 276 ; of Christ 
 and of the Christian, 281 ; of Christ 
 primary, 282 ; how reached, 286. 
 
 Conservatism of man, 145. 
 
 Continuity, an overworked truth, 
 188. 
 
 Copernicus, his method as an as- 
 tronomer, 96. 
 
 Cosmos, the, 318, 319 ; on the side 
 of human morality, 323, its move- 
 ment from mist to present order, 
 352. 
 
 Creative activity of the old thinkers, 
 64,65. 
 
 Creator, the, known by the creation, 
 154. 
 
 Creeds, witnesses to what was vital, 
 290. 
 
 Criminal, the, may be higher in 
 moral value than the saint, 196. 
 
 Critic, the, with no faith, 309; a 
 prophet, 310. 
 
 Critical spirit, good only in its fear 
 to believe a lie, 259. 
 
 Criticism, of love, the, 260 ; of the 
 Pharisee, 261; poor, when igno- 
 rant or proceeding from a mean 
 spirit, 262 ; moral, 316, 317. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 226 ; 307. 
 
 DANTB, 262; unity of his "Divine 
 Comedy," 144 ; Why his " Infer- 
 no" survives. 300. 
 
 Darwin, involved in ultimate ques- 
 tions, 5. 
 
 Davidic psalms, 161. 
 
 Death, the servant of life on the 
 animal level, 191 ; and individu- 
 alism in absolute enmity, 192 ; 
 one of the hardest facts with 
 which optimism has to deal, 229 ; 
 abolished by God's world-plan, 
 250. 
 
 Definition, exhaustive, is impossible, 
 141. 
 
 Deism, discussed, 379-381. 
 
 Deni.-.l of Ood, practical and specula- 
 tive, 348. 
 
 Depravity, assertion of the finite 
 will against the Infinite Will, 124, 
 125, 127. 
 
 Descartes, 138, 151, 152. 
 
 Determinism, universal and partial, 
 24, 25. 
 
 Diogenes, the ancient and the mod- 
 ern, 174, 200. 
 
 Doctrine, often a sorrowful memo- 
 rial of life, 96. 
 
 Dog, anecdote of, 147. 
 
 Dogma must be dissolved in life, 
 95. 
 
 Dogmatism, post-mortem, 300. 
 
 Drummond, Henry, anecdote of, 76 ; 
 interpreter of evolution, 77; the 
 struggle for the life of others, 208. 
 
 Dualism, the actual and the ideal 
 man, 314 ; of the earth extended, 
 328. 
 
 Duty, savage disregard of, 218. 
 
 ECCLESIASTES, pessimistic, 233. 
 
 Education, an awakener, 108; of 
 man, God's world-plan, 243 ; 
 happiness from God's, 245 ; nega- 
 tive, is precious, 246 ; consists in 
 taming the wild egoism of hu- 
 manity, 358. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 347; his "Reli- 
 gious Affections," 33, 282 ; " true 
 religion," 54 ; his originality out- 
 side of his system, 67; his foun- 
 dation the absoluteness of God, 73 ; 
 discipline in truth and exhibition 
 of error, 98 ; grasp upon fundamen- 
 tal aspects, 132 ; his " Sinners in 
 the hands of an angry God," 300. 
 
 Ego, Humes' hunt for the, 139 ; its 
 lack in Buddhism, 140. 
 
 Egoism, its sense of horror, 217 ; 
 identified with will and unhappi- 
 ness, 232 ; genuine, perfected, 
 through genuine altruism, 357. 
 
 Election, felt to be an immoral doc- 
 trine, 38. 
 
 Elijah and the still, small voice, 
 332,333. 
 
 Emerson, quotations, 164, 167; his 
 aristocratic revulsion from the 
 multitude resisted, 176, 177. 
 
 Empire, the passage of, 323. 
 
 Endless task requires endless oppor- 
 tunity, 250. 
 
 Environment, and organism, 228, 
 238, 319 ; does not determine the 
 mood, 233 ; transformation of, 
 239; of Jesus, 307. 
 
 Epictetus, 193. 
 
 Epicureanism, 198. 
 
 Epistemology, one guide to the 
 vision of selfhood, H'J. 
 
 Eschatology, the older books upon, 
 300 ; dogmatist in, 301. 
 
 Ethics, has risen out of practical in- 
 terests, 55 ; the science of charac- 
 ter, 142. 
 
 Evolution, a generation hence, 12 ;
 
 392 
 
 INDEX 
 
 has Riven rise to a new natural 
 history, 76, 352 ; record of self- 
 differentiation of man, 204; of 
 Triuitariauism, 363. 
 
 Expansion, a true theory, 202, 203. 
 
 Experience, spiritual, world unat- 
 tainable without, 93 ; necessary to 
 the theologian, 94 ; of every Chris- 
 tian, 289. 
 
 External world, its reality assumed 
 by the natural sciences, 5. 
 
 FABIAN, 63. 
 
 Faith, and vision, 47 ; abides, 89 ; 
 precedes intellect, 93 ; two funda- 
 mental articles won, 209 ; the 
 deepest foundation of optimism, 
 243; reasonable, in Infinite Wis- 
 dom and pity, 246; poetry of, 
 263, 254 ; failure in, of hero in 
 duty, 275 ; its final question, 336 ; 
 earliest and latest meet, 383. 
 
 Fate, compared to a general, 146 ; 
 of humanity, importance of, 302. 
 
 Fichte, his development, 152, 153; 
 his idea of the cosmos and the 
 human body, 238. 
 
 Fiske, John, interpreter of Darwin- 
 ism, 77 ; his " Everlasting Reality 
 of Religion," 321. 
 
 " Follow the Gleam," 356. 
 
 Force, as will abstracted from the 
 intelligence, 369 ; in nature, 378. 
 
 Freedom, poor philosophy without 
 a world-plan, 195 ; and power, in- 
 creased by numbers of the race, 
 205 ; English, nobler since the 
 Protector, 227 ; an education for, 
 241. 
 
 Froude, J. A., his opinion of Mau- 
 rice, 69. 
 
 GENEALOGIST, warm human world 
 behind his blank names, 49. 
 
 Genesis, the legends of, 161. 
 
 German idealism, why welcomed 
 and why feared, 80. 
 
 Gnosticism of traditional creed, 128. 
 
 God, a primitive process, 44 ; the 
 Absolute ultimate, 134, 135, 332- 
 387 ; intentional universalism of, 
 136 ; the absolute habit of love, 
 148 ; swamping of man in, patho- 
 logical, 163 ; on the side of every 
 soul he has made, 182 ; the Calvin- 
 istic, 195 ; attack upon the love of, 
 198 ; gifts of, in the moral world, 
 217 ; world-plan of, 244 ; work of, 
 with the mass of mankind, 247 ; 
 his overwhelming beauty in the 
 thought of Jesus, 277 ; the father 
 of Chriat, 279 ; nature of, 291, 
 
 358; filial, 292; without Him, the 
 universe unintelligible, 334 ; the 
 Person, whose life is an infinite 
 content of meanings, 335 ; the 
 existence of, 337, 355 ; appeal of, 
 to man, and man's answer, 338- 
 340 ; the idea of, 341, 345 ; with- 
 out him humanity must break 
 down, 342 ; of Israel, 343 ; proof 
 of His being, 346, 350, 351, 355 ; 
 negation of, in the spirit, 347 ; 
 necessity of humanity, 356; love 
 of, 357 ; for man, an Infinite man, 
 365 ; the unitary, 367 ; an object 
 to himself, 369 ; not an eternal 
 egoist, 370 ; love in, 371 ; as an 
 egoist and as a socialist, 374; an 
 altruistic God may convert an 
 egoistic man, 381 ; the whole, 
 
 382 ; an individualist, an enigma, 
 
 383 ; the mystery of His being, 
 385 ; the way to him through life, 
 386. 
 
 Goethe, calls Christianity, worship 
 of sorrow, 244. 
 
 Golden Age, a future, 225, 226, 228. 
 
 Gospel, the, its immense practical- 
 ness, 272 ; the aesthetic wonder, 
 227 ; its finality, 279. 
 
 Grammar of sense, 146. 
 
 Grant, Gen., his optimism after 
 Vicksburg, 215, 309. 
 
 Greek and Latin theologies, 76. 
 
 Greek anthropomorphism nearer 
 the truth than an unsocial God, 
 371. 
 
 Greek grammar, its living reproduc- 
 tion in literature, 106. 
 
 Greek philosophers : Plato and Aris- 
 totle still classic in part, 65, 66. 
 
 Green, Thomas Hill, 80, 
 
 Griffin, Dr., quotation from, 301. 
 
 HANNIBAL, 297. 
 
 Health of race in excess of sickness, 
 228. 
 
 Heaven and hell, doubt whether 
 they were not superfluities, 301. 
 
 Hebraism, its social faith, 222. 
 
 Hebrew, prophets, 224 ; scriptures, 
 the world in which they originated 
 has vanished, 121. 
 
 Hebrews, author of the epistle 
 to, 41 ; shows that fruition was 
 for the Christian, not the Hebrew, 
 227. 
 
 Hegel, a scholar In the strict sense 
 of the word, 19 ; his influence on 
 educated men, 50 ; the last great 
 elaborator of the categories, 118 ; 
 the only modern strong enough to 
 be ranked with Plato and Aristotle,
 
 INDEX 
 
 393 
 
 119 ; his comparison of philosophy 
 to the owl of Minerva, 350. 
 
 Heracletus, 112. 
 
 Heredity, a difficulty in the way of 
 optimism, 228. 
 
 Hermias, 63. 
 
 Higher criticism, a protest against a 
 literary lie, 160 ; believers do not 
 fear it, 309. 
 
 Hindu races, sense of personality 
 weak in, 173. 
 
 History, kind through justice, 245 ; 
 human, significant only from the 
 inside, 353. 
 
 Holy of Holies, entered when we 
 will the ideal, 349. 
 
 Home, the genuine human, 1C2 ; 
 founded in instinct as transfigured 
 by moral reason, 189. 
 
 Homer, 161, 262. 
 
 Human depravity, the doctrine of, 
 unjust to life, 39. 
 
 Human fellowship, adult conscious- 
 ness of, 108. 
 
 Human interest, the source of all 
 good thinking, 49. 
 
 Human relationship the primal 
 moral fact, 311. 
 
 Human weakness responsible for 
 Infinite guilt, 42. 
 
 Humanities, the, centre in great 
 personalities, 160. 
 
 Humanity, means several things, 
 180-183 ; as shown in the parables, 
 185 ; hopeless ideal in light of 
 survival of the fittest, 193 ; its law 
 found only in humanity, 194 ; its 
 supreme guardian, the Gospel, 
 206; a fellowship, 357, 358; the 
 basis of, 372 ; reaching the Trinity 
 on the strength of our, 385. 
 
 Hume, David, a negative thinker, 
 138, 139 ; value of his criticism, 
 317. 
 
 Huinian individualism, 80 ; psychol- 
 ogy, 151, 160. 
 
 Huxley, T. H., his Romanes lecture, 
 325, 326. 
 
 IDEALISM, German, 102; of Plato, 
 114. 
 
 Ignorance, no argument, 252 ; of 
 physiologist versus knowledge of 
 moralist, 253. 
 
 Immortality, within sight, 166 ; au- 
 thenticated by reciprocity be- 
 tween Ood and man, 167 ; con- 
 ditional, 194, 195 ; the supreme 
 difficulty in the way of its be- 
 lief, 1% ; objections of ignorance 
 deserve no deference, 252 ; the 
 desire for it strongest in a Chris- 
 
 tian community, 270; suspicion 
 
 of, 301. 
 Incarnation, its meaning, 182, 292, 
 
 318. 
 Indian civilization, paralyzed by 
 
 want of social ideals, 266. 
 Individual, the, no moral world for, 
 
 till he sees it, 108 ; one great aim 
 
 of the preacher, 220; and society, 
 
 Individualism, a half truth, 101; 
 British, 102; and racialism recon- 
 ciled, 176. 
 
 Infant, the emergence of its mind 
 from isolation, 103-106. 
 
 Inhumanity, man's, medium of dan- 
 gers, 198. 
 
 Insight, the end, not the beginning 
 of righteousness, 350. 
 
 Intellectual pettiness, 303. 
 
 Isaiah, 222. 
 
 Isaiahs, two or three, 161. 
 
 Israelite, the dream of, interpreted, 
 330. 
 
 JACOB, and the angel, 339, 349. 
 
 James, Professor, "Varieties of Re- 
 ligious Experience," 46; "The 
 Will to Believe," 213; reasons 
 why men do pray, 345. 
 
 Japanese, ask if heaven is open to 
 their ancestors, 221. 
 
 Jeremiah, 221, 222. 
 
 JESUS CHBIST, condensation of his 
 teaching, 28 ; the sacrificial death 
 of, 40 ; his the supreme religious 
 experience, 47 ; words of, 87 ; su- 
 preme master of himself and hence 
 of all who aspire morally, 90 ; the 
 relation of his ideal ethical career 
 to the Absolute will, 127 ; religion 
 of, 131 ; Judas and, 166; wrought 
 sense of soul in men, 172; Judg- 
 ment Parable of, 178; influence of 
 the moral personality of, 205 ; 
 divine straggler for the life of 
 others, 208 ; different views of 
 the birth of, 216; most joyous 
 person known to history, 244; 
 fitting attitude of mind in the 
 study of, 257 ; the believer's study 
 of, the most authentic, 260 ; criti- 
 cism of, 261 ; insensibility to his 
 majesty, 202 ; the significance of, 
 263; the world's incomparable 
 spiritual possession, 265, 2(U> ; liia 
 supremacy among religious teach- 
 ers rests on the verdict of life, 
 267 ; his verdict concerning him- 
 self, 271 ; as light, 272-275; over- 
 whelming beauty of his thought 
 of God, 277 ; an infinite surprise
 
 394 
 
 INDEX 
 
 to his people, 280; the perfect 
 man, 291 ; preexistence of, 292 ; 
 unique vocation of, 294; the 
 world's sovereign symbol for God, 
 295 ; teaching of, the bread of life, 
 304 ; perspective of, 306 ; environ- 
 ment of, 307; the realization of 
 Jacob'* vision, 322; his moral out- 
 fit implies a moral universe, 327, 
 328; the cause of, 329, 347; is 
 God minus infinity, 366. 
 
 Jewish temple, the, 346. 
 
 Job, his supreme expression of the 
 religious spirit, 163. 
 
 Jowett, Benjamin, on arguing of Mr. 
 Ward, 137. 
 
 Justification, the Protestant ; illus- 
 trated by Matthew Arnold, 360. 
 
 Justin Martyr, 63, 64. 
 
 KANT, his great question, 10, 11 ; 
 his "Critique of Pure Reason," 
 12; influence, GO; Esthetic and 
 Logic, 106; his expansion of Aris- 
 totle's categories, 117, 118; finds 
 the ego necessary to knowledge, 
 143; Fichte, his disciple, 152; 
 his famous dictum of personal- 
 ity, 199; counsels of perfection, 
 260. 
 
 Kindness, relentless, 247. 
 
 Kinship between God and man, a 
 fundamental of faith to-day, 294. 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard, his optimism, 
 243; 276. ' 
 
 Knowledge, nature of, 102 ; always 
 implies foreign stimulus and na- 
 tive response, 338 ; chiefly a revela- 
 tion of the Infinite, 341. 
 
 LABOR, improvement in the condition 
 of, 240 ; the wof Id-maker, 243. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, quotation about 
 Shakespere and Christ, 264. 
 
 Law, the confession of a social ideal, 
 315. 
 
 Leviticus, 304. 
 
 Life, the struggle for, 207, 208 ; the 
 desire for, renewed by Christ, 
 268. 
 
 Livingstone, David, 177, 178. 
 
 Logic, expounded by mathematical 
 formulae, 4; whence its permanent 
 fascination, 111. 
 
 Logos, the, 293. 
 
 Longfellow, H. W., detail in " The 
 Village Blacksmith," 308. 
 
 Love, the failure in, man's supreme 
 failure, 190 ; must go mad or it 
 must go to God, 342 ; requires 
 both the individual and society, 
 358; and the Trinity, 362; fellow- 
 
 ship of, Christ's final teaching, 
 386. 
 
 Lucretius, compared with modern 
 materialists, 80 ; deserves thanks 
 from us, 317. 
 
 Luther, Martin, 172, 265, 282, 307, 
 316, 347 ; great preacher, 32 ; not 
 a creative theologian, 66 ; his 
 "Ein feste burg," 87; his idea 
 of justification, 95; at the Diet 
 of Worms, 149; his achieve- 
 ment of permanent significance, 
 227. 
 
 MAM, the master of his soul, 89; 
 knows his relations, 164 ; his nor- 
 mal being in love, 189; condition 
 of his deliverance, 217; reality of, 
 prior question to discussion of hu- 
 man life, 299 ; the ideal and the 
 actual, 314 ; his moral outfit a 
 superhuman bequest, 326 ; must 
 find God in himself, 351 ; plus in- 
 finity is God, 365 ; can think of 
 the universe only in terms of his 
 own nature, 377 ; the selfish, gives 
 rise to a selfish God, 381. 
 
 Manfred, words of the Fifth Spirit 
 in, 9. 
 
 Manhood, its essential mark, anien- 
 ableness to moral judgment, 313. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 198, 233, 316. 
 
 Martineau, Dr., quotation from, 
 about Maurice, 68 ; on the Son of 
 the Trinitarian as Unitarian object 
 of worship, 373. 
 
 Mary, the worshiper of the dead 
 Christ, 309; the disciple of the 
 living Christ, 310. 
 
 Materialism, not fundamental, 135 ; 
 the popular form of atheism, 378. 
 
 Maurice, F. IX, his mind creative 
 over the whole domain of dogmatic 
 belief, 68 ; opinions about, 68, 69 ; 
 lack of form, 72, 73; writings 
 show mind of Christ reproducible 
 in his disciples, 282. 
 
 Melancthon, his vocation light, 32. 
 
 Melchizedek, 100 ; a symbol for a 
 unitary God, 367 ; the deistic man 
 is a, 380; an infinite, 385. 
 
 Mencius, 63. 
 
 Messianic prophecies, 280. 
 
 Metaphysics, science leads inevit- 
 ably to, 5. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, accounting for 
 the philosophic failures of Sir 
 William Hamilton, 19; the pre- 
 eminent genius of Jesus, 29, 
 opinion of Maurice, 70 ; assertion 
 of the moral world in his criticism, 
 317 ; on the Trinity, 359.
 
 INDEX 
 
 395 
 
 Milton, John, celestial thief, 98 ; his 
 Satan shows that "the mind ia 
 its own place," 234. 
 
 Ministers, invited to teach, 9; in- 
 tellectual life of, 20; never so 
 hard a time a now for educated 
 and honest, 75. 
 
 Missions, an expression of Chris- 
 tianity, 208. 
 
 Moral beings, a world of, centred in 
 the Supreme moral being, 107. 
 
 Moral failures of history, the, 230- 
 232. 
 
 Moral judgment explained away, 
 150. 
 
 Moral world, a, real, 311 ; a discrimi- 
 nation between man and nature, 
 312 ; and between man and the ani- 
 mal, 313. 
 
 Moses, 31 C, 347; and the ninetieth 
 psalm, 161 ; dies in the wilderness, 
 227. 
 
 Mother, the meaning of, to an in- 
 fant, 103. 
 
 Mutualism, of humanity, 166 ; of 
 love between God and man, 1C8. 
 
 NATURAL Law, 156 ; sense of ethical 
 law precedes its discovery, 157. 
 
 Natural Selection, gives hope for 
 future health, 238. 
 
 Naturalistic view of life a menace, 
 186, 187. 
 
 Nature, full of the mind of man, 
 155 ; explained as will, 156 ; is 
 both one and a universe, 159; and 
 science working together, 240; 
 more than consciousness, 283 ; 
 reality of, 298 ; viewed as immoral, 
 317 ; her friendliness and her un- 
 friendliness both helpful, 324. 
 
 Nausicaa, sweet and stainless hu- 
 manity of, 37. 
 
 Negative thinkers, Hume, Mon- 
 taigne, Voltaire, Huxley, Mill, 
 138. 
 
 Nero, his pessimism, 233, 316. 
 
 New Jerusalem, a city without a 
 hospital, 228. 
 
 Newman, F. W.. replies to Martin- 
 eau's words about Maurice, 68, 72. 
 
 Newman, J. H., 72. 
 
 New Testament, the, a refuge from 
 doubt, 87 ; poor in comparison 
 with Christ, 229 ; in it, time and 
 eternity never definitely sepa- 
 rated, 255; witness to the in- 
 creasing presence of Christ in the 
 consciousness of his disciples, 
 281. 
 
 Niagara, point of moral gain com- 
 pared to, 276. 
 
 Nicene Creed, 66, 291. 
 
 Nicodemus, Jesus inspired his criti- 
 cism, 261. 
 
 Non-existence better than the best 
 of life, 233. 
 
 Norse Ood, trying to drink the sea, 
 94,95. 
 
 OBLIGATION, cultivated evasion of, 
 218. 
 
 Odysseus, high domestic honor of 
 an, 37. 
 
 Old Testament, the, its local color- 
 ing, 121 ; ethical seeds from, 277 ; 
 its worth, 308 ; its dead portions, 
 310. 
 
 Optimism, founded on the Divine 
 intention, 135; in history, 212; 
 hypothetical, 213; Grant's, in- 
 spired by his being a mighty 
 fighter, 215 ; the valid mood for 
 viewing history, 216 ; sunshine 
 for the preacher, 218 ; of Christ, 
 comes from inter-dependence of 
 the individual and society, 223; 
 the product of the moralist, 225 ; 
 difficulties in the way of, 225- 
 237 ; its futility in presence of 
 death, 230; allowance for the 
 personal equation in, 232 ; of Mar- 
 cus Aurelius, 233 ; foundations of, 
 237-248 ; apostles of, improve 
 sanitary condition, 239; science 
 advocate of Christian, 240; its 
 deepest foundation in faith, 243 ; 
 historical case rested on facts and 
 tendencies, 248; death must be 
 transcended if it is to live, 249 ; 
 scientific, should become philo- 
 sophic, 250; fortune of mankind 
 on earth its primary concern, 253 ; 
 unethical, a calamity, 254. 
 
 Optimist, the, bis supreme solici- 
 tude, 241. 
 
 Optimistic view of human history, 
 difficulties that beset it, 225. 
 
 Order, in the light of that within, 
 man can note that without, 158. 
 
 Organism and opportunity, 320, 
 321. 
 
 Origen, great thinker and scholar, 
 19, 31, 64 ; movement backward 
 from Jesus Christ into the God- 
 head, 66 ; an intellect confronting 
 a real spiritual world, 123; only 
 great theologian who teaches the 
 preexistence of Jesus, 292; his 
 position on incarnation, 293, 295. 
 
 Over-population, due to animalism, 
 241, 242. 
 
 PANTHEISM, not fundamental, 135.
 
 396 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Parable, the judgment, 178 ; of the 
 talents, 184 ; of the pounds, 184 ; 
 of the laborers, 184 ; political 
 economy of the kingdom of God, 
 185 ; Dives and Lazarus, 206. 
 
 Parables, the, appeal to the sense of 
 beauty, 277. 
 
 Paradox, the arithmetical, of the 
 Trinity, 374. 
 
 Park, Edwards A., 82 ; on the Cal- 
 vinistic system, 24. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, as representative 
 of Unitarianism, 373. 
 
 Parmenides, 112. 
 
 Parthenon, the, 155. 
 
 Patriotism, increased by religion, 
 343. 
 
 Paul, 172, 265, 291, 316, 347; his 
 theology that of a preacher, 29, 30; 
 his use of priestly symbols, 41 ; 
 how his idea of justification can be 
 realized, 95; his searching criti- 
 cism of love, 260 ; experience of, 
 286-288 ; locked up by the Roman 
 centurion, 303. 
 
 Penelope, invincible loyalty of a, 
 37. 
 
 Perfect man, the, such an ideal de- 
 mands immortality, 250. 
 
 Perseverance stands for the opti- 
 mism of the ancient creed, 125, 
 128. 
 
 Personality, consciousness of moral, 
 109 ; the individual ultimate, 133 ; 
 its vindication in modern philoso- 
 phy, 138; subject opened by 
 Hume's hunt for the ego, 139 ; 
 its definition incomplete, 141 ; 
 centre of contrary determinations, 
 141, 142; revealed through the 
 combining function of mind, 143 ; 
 attests itself through fact of judg- 
 ment, 149 ; reveals itself in force 
 of character, 151 ; in society, 161, 
 162 ; of God, 163 ; two aspects of, 
 164; its inclusiveness, 166; the 
 assurance of immortality, 168 ; a 
 real capacity rather than a com- 
 pletely developed consciousness, 
 169 ; the word for reality, 173 ; 
 guardian of humanity, 199; the 
 edict of moral, 199. 
 
 Perverse man, the, 246-248. 
 
 Pessimism, as the final word in his- 
 tory, 211; man born equidistant 
 from optimism and, 213 ; life of 
 Dives a, 213 ; the great nega- 
 tion of the preacher's message, 
 218; fair play to, 228; of Nero, 
 233 ; secret in the human will, 
 234 ; radical analysis of, 236 ; one 
 fountain of, would run dry, with 
 
 transformation of environment, 
 239 ; a blow in the face of, 240 ; 
 goodness needed to expel, 245 ; 
 death, its chief support, 249. 
 
 Philebus,the, its four categories,! 15. 
 
 Philosophic vocation, to find the 
 things of highest meaning, 112. 
 
 Philosophy and theology, their op- 
 position, 83, 84 ; their similarity, 
 85. 
 
 Piety without intelligence a peril 
 to religion, 257, 258. 
 
 Pilgrim, Bunyan's, true to Puritan- 
 ism, 220. 
 
 Plato, his method of dealing with 
 the future life in the "Phaedo," 
 10; his great distinction, 19; his 
 relation to philosophy to-day, 65; 
 expansion and contraction of the 
 categories in his hands, 113; his 
 philosophic poetry, 114; his 
 pointing to extreme wickedness 
 as a sign of vitality in the soul, 
 148; his vision of all time, 250, 
 262; righteousness in the ideal 
 state, 351. 
 
 Platonic myth, its function, 253. 
 
 Preacher, the bearings of his voca- 
 tion upon theology, 7, 9-11 ; his 
 vocation a stimulus to creative ac- 
 tivity, 18 ; a discipline in things es- 
 sential and enduring, 22 ; without 
 intellectual spoils, secure against 
 diversion of power, 24; his per- 
 spective sounder than that of the 
 scholar, 24-26; Jesus Christ a, 
 27; his vocation to press the 
 faith to complete attestation, 45 ; 
 compared to a navigator in fitting 
 truth to life, 48 ; opportunity of, 
 51 ; must believe in social right- 
 eousness, 224. 
 
 Predestination, of fundamental im- 
 portance, 124, 125; illogical de- 
 duction from the Absolute will, 
 126, 127. 
 
 Privileges, the right of the great ser- 
 vant of the public, 201, 202. 
 
 Prodigal Son, the, 172. 
 
 Progress, a great fact leading to 
 optimism, 237. 
 
 Prophets, creators of moral theism, 
 27 ; prior to them, little sense of 
 personality in Israel, 171 ; once 
 supposed to have had definite con- 
 ceptions of Jesus, 230. 
 
 Protagorean nominalism, 177. 
 
 Protective tariff in theology, 84, 
 85. 
 
 Psychology, associational, 150. 
 
 Puritanism, as an overdone individ- 
 ualism, 220.
 
 INDEX 
 
 397 
 
 Putnam, Dr., tradition of the fann- 
 er's view of religion and theology, 
 52. 
 
 Pythagoras, 111. 
 
 RACHEL, 221. 
 
 Realist and nominalist, 177. 
 
 Reason, the appeal to, necessary, 
 85; the supreme servant of life, 
 356. 
 
 Refinement, constant note in gen- 
 uine Christianity, 278. 
 
 Reflection, gains upon instinct, 276. 
 
 Regeneration, the reinstatement of 
 the spiritual will, l'J.~>, 128; its 
 meaning to the old preachers and 
 to the new, 223, 224. 
 
 Relations inconceivable without in- 
 dividuals, Ml. 
 
 Religion, definition of, 54 ; primary 
 and universal, 55. 
 
 Reuan, contrasting himself with a 
 street Arab, 252. 
 
 Retribution, the doctrine of, 44. 
 
 Revelation and discovery, the Chris- 
 tian idea of God is both, 340. 
 
 " Rider of the Wind," 9. 
 
 Righteousness, universal conflict be- 
 tween iniquity and, 322. 
 
 Ritsclil, 81. 
 
 Roberts, Lord, 227. 
 
 SAINTSBURY, George, on Maurice, 
 O'J. 
 
 Satan, Milton's, 234. 
 
 Schleiermacher, ranked with Mau- 
 rice, 73. 
 
 Scholar, the, must spend strength 
 as intellectual sheriff, 23; could 
 not foresee the issue of his labors 
 on the Bible, 80 ; must have op- 
 portunity, 202. 
 
 Schopenhauer, Saint, 93 ; his phrase, 
 " the objectiflcation of will," 166 ; 
 his idea of will, 232, 234 ; his need 
 of an old-fashioned conversion, 
 237 ; our debt to, 317. 
 
 Science, dependent on the senses, 
 92; the bast way to show grati- 
 tude for its results, 99 ; an ex- 
 pression of man's personality, 
 155; not the first question, 298, 
 299. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, illustration from 
 " The Antiquary," 312. 
 
 Selfhood, true, 171. 
 
 Self-seeking, the blunder of, 247. 
 
 Sermon on the Mount, has the 
 beauty of truth, 277 ; supreme 
 criticism on a superficial civiliza- 
 tion, 305 ; its parable of the build- 
 ers, 324. 
 
 Seth, Prof. Pringle - Pattison, Ago 
 ergo turn, 151. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, used as an illus- 
 tration in " Literature and Dog- 
 ma," 359-361. 
 
 Shakespere, significant, 111, 262; 
 his work independent of his per- 
 sonal history, 307. 
 
 Simonides, 333. 
 
 Sinai, and Mount Zion, 316. 
 
 Sistiue Madonna, the, 259. 
 
 Social conception of God, 292. 
 
 Social distinctions, legitimate only 
 when not exclusive, 200. 
 
 Social exclusiveness, broken down 
 by Christian life, 205. 
 
 Social hope, always best sign of in- 
 dividual renewal, 220. 
 
 Social regeneration the message of 
 the prophets, 222. 
 
 Socrates, sincere in confession of 
 ignorance, 112; his exposure of 
 pretense, 113. 
 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, history 
 viewed as a colossal, 211. 
 
 Solidarity, the, of the race, funda- 
 mental truth, 255. 
 
 Sophoclean view of existence, 233. 
 
 Specialization of mankind demand- 
 ed, 183. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, first scientist 
 and then philosopher, 5. 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, chivalry in his 
 " Faerie Queene," 41. 
 
 Spinoza, 152. 
 
 Stephen, Leslie, on Maurice and 
 
 Green. 69. 
 
 Stewardship, the Christian idea of, 
 201. 
 
 Stoic, ethics of permanent value; 
 physics valueless, 157. 
 
 Stoicism, 278. 
 
 Superstition, why better than un- 
 belief, 336. 
 
 Survival of the fittest, 190, 192 ; su- 
 preme protest against it in the 
 Gospel, 207. 
 
 Swift, Jonathan, quotes Job on his 
 birthdays, 233. 
 
 Sympathy, the best path to truth, 
 259. 
 
 Syrophcenician mother, the, 260. 
 
 TARTANS, of Scottish clans, like 
 badges of social exclusiveness, 206. 
 
 Tauler, 282. 
 
 Taylor, Nathaniel, 123. 
 
 Temptation, the, greater than the 
 Sermon on the Mount, 151 ; over- 
 come, life's increasing achieve- 
 ment, 207. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, his opinion of
 
 398 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Maurice, 71 ; first to apply poetic 
 insight to evolution, 77 ; abysmal 
 depths of personality, 141. 
 
 Tertullian, 64. 
 
 Thales fixes on water as chief thing 
 in nature, 111. 
 
 Theism, Christian, the church 
 founded on, 290; discussion of, 
 381-384. 
 
 Theologia sacra, 14. 
 
 Theologian, the Christian, 4 ; voca- 
 tion of the professional, indispen- 
 sable, 7; his opportunity as a 
 teacher, 8 ; his share in the spiritual 
 life of mankind, 15; author of 
 the Fourth Gospel not a, 30; the 
 heart makes the, 9,3; work of the, 
 to lift Christian life into an or- 
 derly world of meanings, 97. 
 
 Theologians, professional and non- 
 professional, 4; of Scotland and 
 New England, 32, 33 ; of the early 
 centuries still an enriching study, 
 66. 
 
 Theological student, typical experi- 
 ence of a, 82. 
 
 Theology, Greek equivalent of the 
 word, 3; inseparable from the 
 calling of a preacher, 5 ; a trust 
 in the hands of professionals, 9; 
 the work of the few for the many, 
 11 ; once % matter of text-build- 
 ing, 14; generative source of, in 
 contemporaneous religious life, 
 17, 59 ; of the Old Testament, 27; 
 Paul's, that of an educated mind, 
 30 ; valuable, but not essential, 
 54 ; intellect in the service of the 
 heart, 57 ; experiential basis of, 
 58-60 ; historical beginning of, 62; 
 a new day in, 74; promise of a, 
 75; without God, 92; sources of, 
 93-95 ; method of, 95 ; task of, 97, 
 132; helps to, 98, 99; historic, 
 122, 123 ; its relation to reality, 
 132 ; must cast out demon of sys- 
 tem, 133 ; a necessity of the re- 
 ligious intellect, 129 ; a new, es- 
 sential to set forth new values 
 discovered, 130 ; a self -renewing 
 order of less inadequate apprecia- 
 tions, 131 ; Christian, holds 
 achievements of science, 204 ; and 
 conduct, ultimately amenable to 
 the life of Christ, 284 ; secondary 
 and primary issues in, 297 ; the 
 hope of, 302 ; a true, rises out of 
 Christology, 384. 
 
 TheophiluB, 63. 
 
 Trinitarian conception of God has 
 passed into the Unitarian, 373. 
 
 Trinity, the, 292 ; as a Social Deity, 
 
 357 ; ridicule thrown on the con- 
 ception of the, 359 ; treated as a 
 myth, 361 ; Dr. Ward's view, 362; 
 origin of the doctrine of, 363 ; the 
 truth behind the doctrine of, 364; 
 full statement of the truth at 
 which Greek mythology aimed, 
 371 ; a mystery that saves the 
 reality of God, 374 ; the doctrine 
 grew out of the problem of Christ, 
 384; reached through humanity, 
 385. 
 Truth not truth if stationary, 91. 
 
 ULTIMATE, the individual, 133 ; the 
 social, the religious, the Absolute, 
 134. 
 
 Unification, a conscious function 
 146, 149. 
 
 Unitarians, have absorbed the essen- 
 tial theology of the Trinitarians, 
 378. 
 
 Unitary God, the, 367 ; without love, 
 380 ; symbol of misery, 383. 
 
 United States, the, analogous to the 
 human mind, 153 ; bounded, 221 ; 
 wages of its founders, labor and 
 sorrow, 226. 
 
 Universalism, intentional, not in 
 fact, 136. 
 
 Universals, best seen through par- 
 ticulars, 307. 
 
 Universe, the moral, a fundamental 
 question, 310, 318 ; given in moral 
 experience, 320; its sympathetic 
 reality, 322; its battle man's 
 moral battle, 324 ; the moral hero 
 its expression, 327 ; mystery of it 
 compared to the earth covered by 
 the flood, 331 ; and mind, action 
 and reaction of, 338; the material, 
 takes its character from human 
 receptivity, 368 ; the unitary God 
 left without a, 369. 
 
 VANITY of existence, 236. 
 
 WALLACE, Alfred Russel, service in 
 explaining evolution, 77. 
 
 Watershed of belief and unbelief, 
 347. 
 
 Weak, the, their comfort the edu- 
 cative purpose of God, 245; a 
 warrantable joy for them, 246. 
 
 Weakness, of infancy, 246. 
 
 Wealth, basis of human right to, 
 202. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, glad of relief 
 at Waterloo, 205. 
 
 Wendt, " grand inner unity " of the 
 teaching of Jesus, 28. 
 
 Will, in the Augustinian categories,
 
 INDEX 
 
 399 
 
 124-126 ; an aspect of human life, 
 159; ita transformation, 232; its 
 relation to force, 369. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, quoted, 269. 
 
 Work, a moral necessity, 241, 242. 
 
 World, the practical and the theo- 
 
 retic, 56 ; a convalescent patient, 
 237 ; pre-temporal, 293. 
 Worthless, the, why conserved, 245. 
 
 XJWOPHANKS, quoted, 376. 
 ZWLNGLI, a man of action, 32.
 
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