UC-NRLF LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OK Received Accessions No. 7 3^ Shelf No. ESSENTIALS NON-ESSENTIALS IN RELIGION. "Res ipsa quas nunc religio Christiana nuncupatur, erat apud antiques, nee unquam defuit, ab initio, genere humano, quousque Christus venisset in carnein, undo vera reiigio qua jam erat, coepit appellari Christiana." ST. AUGUSTINE. Ketract. I: 13. ESSENTIALS NON-ESSENTIALS IN RELIGION SIX LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE MUSIC HALL, BOSTON, BY JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, \\ AUTHOR OF "ORTHODOXY: ITS TRUTHS AND ERRORS," "STRPS OF BELIEF," "TEN GREAT RELIGIONS," "CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER," "COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION," ETC. AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION, 25 BEACON STREET. 1890, is-j Copyright by AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 1877. UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. These &ix Lectures were delivered in the Music Hall, in Boston, this winter (1877), at the re- quest of the American Unitarian Association ; and) as they seem to have met the needs of many minds, are now published as they were delivered, with scarcely any alterations. J. F. C. BOSTON, Dec. 14, 1877. CONTENTS. 1. PAGE FAITH AND BELIEF. ESSENTIAL BELIEF CONCERNING GOD . 1 II. CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY . 33 III. 4 THE BIBLE 57 IV. THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP 81 V. CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 103 VI. THE FUTURE LIFE 127 ^ 11 ENTIALS AND NON-ESSENTIALS IN RELIGION. I. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN FAITH AND BELIEF. I PROPOSE to speak of essentials and non- essentials in religion. My purpose is, not to. defend a creed or a sect, but to point out that common ground of essential religion on which all good men can stand side by side. For it is mostly about non-essentials that men differ : on what is most vital or important, they usually agree. If, therefore, I can show the essential unity of faith, or life, which underlies all seeming opposition and contradiction of sects or creeds, J shall do a more important work than by making the most triumphant argument in favor of my own opinions, or against those of other sects or parties. 1 2 FAITH AND BELIEF. I therefore intend to show what are the essen- tials and what the non-essentials in the faith of the Christian church concerning God, Christ, the Bible, the Church, Christian experience, and the Future Life. I know that, to many, .all such attempts seem hazardous. Religion is so important a matter that they cannot believe any thing belonging to it to be unessential. The Holy Spirit sanctifies to their minds every sacrament of their church, every word of their liturgy, every part of their creed, every sentence in their Bible. It seems to them sacrilege to say or to hint that any of these great helps to religion are not essential to it. If not the very citadel, they are at least outworks to be defended to the last, as a necessary protection to the citadel. The inevitable result of this is division and strife in the church. To each sect and party its own special forms of faith and worship seem not only useful, but vital : it is dangerous to permit any other. The Episcopalian thinks that with- out bishops there is no church ; the Presbyterian clings to every chapter and section of the Assem- bly's Catechism; the Baptist cannot take the Lord's Supper with the most saintly Christian FAITH AND BELIKt*. 3 who has not been immersed. There can be but one truth, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, say they, and that is ours. We honestly believe that we are right, and therefore we must believe others to be wrong. Can two walk together unless they are agreed? Paul said of himself and his fellow-Christians, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels;" but to the majority of Christian believers now, the vessel which contains their faith is as impor- tant as the faith itself. Because I drink the water of salvation out of a Unitarian glass instead of a Methodist cup or an Episcopal vase, it is thought that I cannot be partaking of the water of life. Nearly twenty-five centuries ago, ^Esop told the story of the twigs which could not be broken when united together, but were easily snapped when separated. The Christian church, in its numerous divisions, still illustrates the sad moral of that fable. Here, in Boston, we have one hundred and eighty Protestant churches, but they are divided into eight or ten different sects, which work entirely independently of each other. Sup- pose thej should form one grand union for Chris- tian work, to attack the evils around us. What 4 I-'AITII AMJ RKLII-IF. an immense influence for good might these one hundred and eighty churches exercise, if the} r co- operated against the evils of pauperism, intem- perance, licentiousness, ignorance, and crime ! Suppose they had one central building, to which delegates from these churches should come to consider and act as one body in making Boston more pure, sweet, and safe. The Baptists might still immerse ; the Episcopalians keep their bish- ops and liturg} r , but, being thus united in one body against practical evils, how sure and soon might not God's Kingdom come among us ! The difficulty in the way of this consummation is that the church still confounds essentials and non-essentials. There being confessedly but one end, one thing needful, as the object of all relig- ion, they suppose that there can be but one true and right way to that end ; though Paul has taught that there are differences of administra- tion, but one Lord, and diversities of operation, but one God. A great city, like New York or Chicago, has but one purpose, the bringing together of those within and those without for mutual advantage. But each city has numerous avenues by which it .8 entered. There are roads which concentrate FAITH AND BELIEF. 5 toward it from all quarters. There are numerous lines of railroads, which bring to it long trains of passengers and freight, entering the city on all sides ; steamers come to it b}- the lake, the river, the sea. But we imagine that the vast city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, has only one entrance, and that, the turnpike, where we collect the toll. The Lord has made his children very different from each other, and, being thus different, he has provided many different ways by which they shall come to him. Other and very great evils arise from this want of religious perspective which confounds the spirit with the letter, the substance with the form, the permanent with the transient, the kernel with the shell, the soul with the body. The spirit and substance of religion are one and eternal ; the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The form changes, the body decays and dies, the kernel in its growth shatters its shell. The law of change applies to the body of religion, as to that of all other human interests. If religion in its spirit is divine and eternal, in its body it is human and changing. Every church form, ritual, sacrament, is human, therefore temporary. Every church- creed is elaborated by the wit of man, therefore 6 FAITH AND BELIEF. none can last for ever. The Christian church must say, as the Apostle Paul said, " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child ; but, when I became a man, I put away childish things." This great apostle, possessing one of the most majestic of human intellects, declared that his own cnvd, precious as it was to him, was to pass away, and be forgotten. " I know in part," said he ; " and I teach in part. But, when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see, as in a mirror, darkly [ivii'iTing to the metallic mirrors of his time], but then face to face." The light of the intellect is reflected light, therefore we call it reflection ; hereafter it will be intuition. From the accuracy of each man's thought, even the wisest, there are to be made three deductions : we must first cor- rect it for the human equation, since all belief is relative ; then we must correct it again for the personal equation, since each man's idiosyncrasy colors his thought ; and finally we must correct it for the aberration produced by progress and development. It was a great discovery in astron- omy, when Bradley found that the progress of the earth through space caused an aberration of the FAITH AND BELIEF. 7 light coining from the stars, and that this aberra- tion must be allowed for. So we must allow for the aberration of light in our own minds, caused by the fact that we are in progress. The individ- ual, as he grows, puts away childish things ; and so society and humanity, moving swiftly forward in the vast orbit of its heaven-ordained progress through the ages and eternities, must also put awa} T its childish things, and for ever be learning more and more the language of manly thought and manly piety. The soul which has no singleness of aim is dis- tracted and divided, and loses its power. If the eye is single, the whole body is full of light ; if the eye is double, the whole body is full of dark- ness. It is so in ever} r thing else. It is so also in religion. The superstition which makes second- ary things of equal importance with the primary clouds and degrades the soul. When Jesus came to the house of the Jewish maidens and saw Mar- tha's mind distracted with a thousand cares, while Mary, recognizing what was then of supreme im- portance, used this great opportunity by devoting herself solely to listening to the divine truth which had entered her home, Jesus saw in it the images of dissipation and of singleness of soul. " Martha, OP THE foUTIESITT 8 FAITH AND BEL1KF. Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things ; but one thing is needful." The church has always had its many Marthas and its few Marys, its Marthas, careful and troubled about creeds and rituals, sacraments and sabbaths, priesthood and altar ; and its Mar} r s, not indeed wishing that these should be left undbne, but never letting them interfere with the one thing needful, love to God and love to man. To all this what do the Marthas reply? What did the original Martha reply to Jesus ? Probably she said, "It is all very well for Mary to be neg- lecting her duties, in order to listen to you ; but who is to help me get the dinner? " So the Mar- thas in the church reply: "It is all very well to say that love is the one thing needful ; that love fulfils the whole law ; that he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. But how are we to get that love, except we use the means? He who wishes the end wishes the means? Piety and charity are, we admit, the only essential ends ; but the means are equally essential. It is essen- tial, in order to have love, to be in the true church ; for cut of this there is no salvation. It is essen- tial to have the true belief, for we are saved by the word of truth, and without faith no man can FAITH AND BELIEF. 9 be justified. It is necessary also to be converted ; for unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. In future lectures, I shall discuss the essentials and the non-essentials in regard to the church and conversion. I now ask you to attend to this sec- ond point made by our friends, the Christian Marthas. They speak thus: " The New Testa- ment says we are justified by faith. When the Apostle was called upon by the jailer to tell him what he must do to be saved, he did not reply, ' Love God and man/ but he said, ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved/ And Paul was right, for that was the step he could take at once, and by an immediate act of obedience accept Christ as his Saviour; then, having done that, he would reach at last the end, which is love. Love, therefore, is the essential end ; but a true faith is tfye no less essential means to that end." This is their argument. If this be true, and if a true faith means a cor- rect belief of the great doctrines of Christianity, then it follows that the one thing needful for us is, first of all, to study theology, in order to find out what the true and vital doctrines are. We ought carefully to read the innumerable contro- 10 /-M/77/ AM) />/:/,//;/<'. versics about the Trinity, Total Depravity, the Atonement, the Deity of Christ, and the Way of Salvation. Until this is done, and done correctly, and the true belief is reached. there is no safety. I low much mental misery, anxiety, i:loom, de- spair, have come from this doctrine that a sound belief on such points as these is essential to the salvation of the soul! Moreover, the moment you assume that any accurate statement of belief is essential, 3*011 can find no place where yon can logically stop. For in any system of doctrine ever}' part is logically dependent on every other part, and the whole must stand or fall together. As an illustration of this, let me state a fact from ecclesiastical history. The Presbyterian church of the United States has a creed, and that creed is the Assembly's Catechism. Now, parts of that statement are so behind and below the convictions reached by modern thought that it has l.een held ver}' loosely in man}* places, and accepted merely for substance of doctrine. In the year 1837, an earnest theologian, Robert J. Breckinridge, in- duced the General Assembly to excommunicate four s}*nods, containing some forty thousand mem- bers, for heresy ; tfye error being in relation to the origin of sin. The belief of the Old School FAITH AND BELIEF. 11 was this : that God could have prevented sin, but would not do it, because it was essential to a moral system. The error of the New School, for which the synods were excommunicated, was in believing that God would have prevented sin, but could not, because it was essential to a moral sys- tem. Now this distinction seems to us a small matter ; but a trained theologian sees that it is essential to the integrity of the whole system that the "could" should precede the "would" in this statement. So, when a single leading proposition of a creed is made essential, every minute infer- ence becomes also essential. A creed is like a chain, whose strength is measured by the strength of the weakest part. An acute theologian is like a skilled engineer building a dam, who knows that, if he leaves the smallest leak in any part, the whole dam will be finally swept away. What, then, is our..reply to this argument? We admit that faith is an essential element of human progress, essential as a means to the growth and perfection of man. But we deny that belief is the same as faith, and we deny that the belief of any proposition is essential to human salvation. We fully agree with John Wesley, who once said that ' c a string of opinions is no more Christian 12 FAITH A.\/> lil-lLIKF. ftiith than a string of beads is Christian prac- tice." When the jailer at Philippi believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was his theological belief ? What were his opinions about the Trinity or the Atonement? 1 1 is faith was simply a trust in the superior power and goodness of that being of whom these wonderful persons before him declared themselves the messengers. The sen-ant, he thought, could not be greater than the master; nor he that was sent greater than he that sent him. Therefore, he was willing to trust to this new ad- vent of light and power, and joins this persecuted body whose souls were so full of calm and joy, and who seemed so protected by a present Provi- dence. His faith was trust in something higher and better than himself. What was the theological belief of those whom Jesus healed? What was the creed of the sinful woman whom he forgave, and to whom he said, " Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace"? What were the doctrinal opinions of the Roman soldier, of whom he declared, " I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel" ? What were the speculative dogmas held by all those whose faith is commemorated in the eleventh chapter of FAITH AND BELIEF. 13 the Hebrews? What were the views of Abel, in regard to the Trinity ? Was Enoch a Calvinist or an Arminian ? What doctrines were held by Noah and Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Gideon, Barak, and Samson ? In all these cases, what was their faith but this : a looking up with trust to something higher than themselves ; better than themselves ; something above this visible and sensible world ; a confidence that, besides all that is seen and temporal, there is something divine, invisible, eternal? This was their faith, and this is the substance of all faith. For this their faith, Samson and Gideon are commended as examples to us all. This faith we believe and know to be essential to progress. We can only rise to a higher plane by trusting in some power better than ourselves. In order to go up, we must look up. God gives, in the morning of life, a great pro- vision of faith as an outfit. Little children are full of trust, and by this trust they learn rapidly. Because men and women are larger and stronger than themselves, they naturally look upon them as knowing every thing and able to do every thing. They may often be deceived and misled by their infantile credulity ; but without it they could 14 /<M/7Y7 AND B/:/J/-'/\ never make such rapid progress, rndctenvd either by vanity or doubt, they ask a thousand questions every day of every one about them. This perpetual looking up for guidance, knowl- edge, help, is what makes the soul of a child unfold, as the buds open in the warm airs of spring. As children grow up, they do not outgrow the need of perpetual faith in their fellow-men. The more highly civilized society becomes, the more men are obliged to trust in each other. Savage life is filled with distrust and suspicion. The backwoodsman trusts in himself, and depends on himself to supply his own wants. But as" society is developed through its dim-rent stages, from the savage state to that of the hunter, from the hunter's life to the pastoral state, from that to the highly complex condition of modern society in Christian lands, mutual trust increases. We sleep in peace, trusting to the protection of the police. We go to our affairs, trusting our homes to the guardianship of the laws. We trust in the merchant to sell us the article we need ; to our physician to understand and treat aright our ill- ness ; to our lawj'er to defend our rights when assailed. All our societ}* is built on the perpetual FAITH AND BELIEF. lo faith of man in man. We walk by faith all day long. True, there is deception, knavery, cheat- ing ; but society would stand still to-morrow if there were not a hundred times as much truth as falsehood in the transactions of common life. When we trust our brother, whom we have seen, we are learning to trust God, whom we have not seen. Our faith in man is really faith in the great laws of human nature : it is faith that humanity is essentially good, not evil, made by God and a manifestation of him. The difference between faith and belief is ob- vious, and the distinction very important. Belief is purely an intellectual act, the result of argu- ment and evidence. Where the evidence is before us, belief is involuntary. The object of belief is a proposition, and there are no degrees about it. We either believe the proposition or we do not. If we hesitate about it, and are not quite ready to assent to it, then we do not yet believe it. And a belief does not necessarily make a man any better. The devils believe and tremble. You find good men and bad men believing all sorts of creeds. Some men are uninfluenced by the noblest creeds, though they assent to them ; some are uninjured by the lowest and basest. 16 l-MTll AND BELII.r. In all these respects, how different is faith ! This involves an intellectual element imUvd, for we trust in some power or person whom we know. He that cometh to God or to man must believe that they are. But faith has also a moral rlcment, for we trust in good, not in evil. Hope is also involved in it. We have faith in something bet- ter than we yet see. Love is in it, for we do not give our faith except where we also give some- thing of our affection. And, moreover, faith is an act. We give ourselves in trust, we lean, we confide, we repose on the good which we know and to which we look up. And this faith, like all other acts, increases and strengthens by habit. We can have a little faith, and we can acquire more. And this trust in something higher, better, nobler, wiser, always makes us better ourselves. By looking up, we rise. And thus we realize the truth of those lines of Daniel which Coleridge was so fond of quoting : " Unless above himself be can Erect bimself, bow poor a thing is man ! " Individual man is weak, ignorant, liable to de- ceive and be deceived. But the human nature of which he partakes is higher than he, better than any individual. for it is that common human FAITH AND BELIEF. 17 nature which contains the law of progress, and the power of an endless development upward and onward. Our faith in man is therefore still the same. It is looking up to something higher. It is trust in man not only as he is, but as he is made and meant to be. It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But the most wonderful fact of human nature remains to be stated. It is man's religious nature and his religious faith. Wherever man exists, he believes in God. His belief may be of a low and rudimentary kind, but it is there. A creature of time and sense, sur- rounded with the engrossing interests of this life, this life never satisfies him. He looks out of the seen into the unseen, looks up out of the sunlight of this sensible world into the mystery of the all- surrounding world outside of space and time. " Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great ; Chaos of thought and passion all confused ; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise and half to fall, Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all ; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, The glory, jest, and riddle of the world." 2 18 FAITH AM> Yes, man is all that, but something more. Some convictions, some ideas, deep rooted in his inmost nature, hold him fast to the infinite am! eternal. He looks back through the long geologic ages, but the}' cannot content his reason : he finds an eternity behind them all. He looks through the immensities of the universe to the faint star- clusters at frightful distances in the enormous space which surrounds our little globe, and his reason commands him to believe in an infinite space beyond. He looks up, in imagination, through a long vista of intelligences higher than man. angels and archangels, cherubim and sera- phim. Analogy teaches him to believe that higher than thought can climb, or the fancy conceive, or the understanding comprehend, there must be seiies above series, rank above rank of powers ; a hierarchy of spiritual beings extending without end up to the throne of God. But he cannot rest in this conception : he must go beyond, and gaze on the one great central power of the universe, above all height, below all depth, the Almighty, the Eternal, the One above. He is so made that he can never stop in any lower worship, but passes up through all mythologies of old religion to the First Cause, the perfect Being. FAITH AND BELIEF. 19 This is the natural faith of man, not of one sect or creed ; and the primal faith, which Jesus came to restore and to exalt. Abraham saw his day, because Abraham believed essentially in the truth of Jesus. Something of his day was also seen by Socrates, by Zoroaster, by Confucius, by Buddha, for they also lifted their race to a higher faith in some unspoken majesty of truth and goodness ; some radiance seen, though but in a glass darkly, of the holy spirit of truth. This faith, at least, they all had in an unseen Power, higher than any thing seen, who would help those who came to Him. I am a transcendentalist. I do not believe that man's senses tell him all he knows. Man is more certain of those truths which come to him through his reason than of those which come through his senses. " All his knowledge," according to the statement of Immanuel Kant, ' ' all his knowledge begins with sensible experience, but all does not come from experience." He knows the ideal realities received through reason better than he knows those transmitted through sense. He knows cause and effect, phenomenon and sub- stance, right and wrong, the infinite and the eter- nal, his own identity, his power of free choice, 20 FAITH AMJ These ideas are divinely created within him, di- vinely rooted in the very texture of his reason. By the unalterable and majestic laws of nature, which pervade the world, unchanging and per- sistent, God has bound the outward universe to himself, and established all its variety into one vast order. And by the ideas, equally fixed and unchanging, in the soul of man, he holds fast to himself every created intelligence in a similar unity, and is the centre of the visible and invisible universe. To this statement, however, I hear this reply : " This may be all true, as far as it goes. This is pure theism, and is no doubt a vast step upward from sheer unbelief. But it is not Christian faith. That is more than a mere instinct of trust in God : it is trust in him, because of what he has done for us through his Son. It is trust in God's grace, mediated through the sacrifice of Christ." 1 gladly admit and proclaim that Christ has lifted the world to a higher faith than it had be- fore, or has now outside of Christianity. But is it a different faith ? or is it not the same, deepened, purified, and elevated ? When Paul spoke to the Greeks at Athens, he did not tell them he had brought them another God or a new religion ; but FAITH AND BELIEF. 21 that he had come to make clear to them the being whom the}' already worshipped. " Whom ye igno- rantly worship, him declare I unto 3*011." If Paul believed that the Greeks were ignorantty wor- shipping the true God, why should we deny that the Chinese and Hindoos, the ancient Persians and Egyptians, the negroes of Africa and the In- dians of North America, have also been ignorantly worshipping the true God? Have not they also, in all their different idolatries and superstitions, been feeling after God, if haply they might find him? When the Indian mother, whose infant had fallen into the river, stretched out her arms and cried, " O Thou Great Everywhere ! save my child ! " was she not crying out to the living God, as David was when he fasted and prayed for his child, as any Christian mother is who calls on God to-day ? To see what is the essential element in Chris- tian faith, let us analyze it, as we find it developed in Christian experience. For this purpose we will select some of the most perfect specimens, the highest types in the history of our religion. In the fourth century of our era, there lived a man whose influence on human thought has been so vast, so continued, so unbroken, that it fills us 22 FAITH AND BELIEF. with astonishment at the power sometimes dele- gated to a single man. The theology of Europe has been moulded during fourteen centuries by this master-mind. He was one of those "Fiery souls, which, working out their way, Fretted the puny body to decay, And o'er-informed their tenement of clay." There is not a little Baptist church to-day in Kansas, not a Methodist church in Florida, not a Scotch farmer or English statesman, but is influ- enced by that AiVirau bishop. Not a Roman Catholic missionary in .Japan and Brazil but is guided by the ik-ad hand of Aurelius Augustine. His theology we know, and we ivject it. But what was his faith ? Read his ''Confessions," and see. In that book, he has unlocked his heart. There is the deepest, sweetest essence of his re- ligion. And, changing possibly a few words or phrases, there is not a sentence, not a line of that most devout of all appeals to God, but could be uttered as the prayer of a Unitarian Christian, and meet the deepest wants of a Buddhist and Lama in the mountains of Thibet. It is a cry of the child to his father and mother ; a simple utterance of perfect trust in an infinite love ; it is human love casting- itself on the infinite tender- FAITH AND BELIKF. '2X ness, with perfect confidence that he hears and that he pities. And now come down twelve centuries later. The Roman Catholics regard Augustine as the Father of their theology. Let us take tbe foun- der of Protestantism, Martin Luther. The battle- cry by which this hero broke the sleep of ages was the echo of Paul's words, " We are justified by faith." What led Luther to his great work? His own profound experience. A poor monk in an Augustinian monastery, he tried to save his soul by prayer and fasting, penance and sacrament. But all in vain : these monkish practices only made him feel more heavity the burden of his sins. At last, by the mediation of a brother monk, Luther was led to go to God himself, and find a Saviour in him. God, in Christ, reconciled Luther to himself. Henceforth all the ceremonies and sacra- ments of the church, all acts of ascetic denial, all hope of salvation by priestly absolution or papal indulgence, were cast aside. Simple faith in God, through Christ, had created- a joy in Luther's heart, a sense of heavenly peace and hope, that was like a new moral force sent into the world. It shook the seat of the papacy in Rome ; it pen- etrated the emperor's palace and the peasant's 24 FAITH AND BELIEF. hut. Pardon freely bestowed, unbought grace and goodness, this was the living experience which made a new world and a new civilization in Europe. Compare Luther's faith with that of Augustine, and you will find them essentially the same. Their views of church and of life were a thousand miles apart ; their faith was the same simple trust in the divine love. One more example from later times. During the last century there arose in England a relig- ious movement, which, to 1113- mind, combines in itself more depth and breadth, more freedom and more elevation than any other since .that of Luther. And the root of this was another return to the same simple element of childlike trust in God. When John Wesley was crossing the At- lantic on his way to Georgia, to become a mis- sionary to the heathen, he was what we now call a Ritualist, or Puseyite, in religion. The method of salvation to him was to fast and pray, to re- nounce the world, to save his soul by fidelity to all the minutest requisitions of the church, by daily communion, hours of prayer, and the like. But on this voyage they encountered a fearful gale ; and in the confusion and terror of the storm, when the awful tempest laid the vessel on its FAITH AND BELIEF. 25 beam, and they seemed about to perish, some Moravians on board were calmly singing hymns of trust to God. The honest Wesley, looking into his own heart, found no such tranquillity there, but a secret, unconqtiered fear of death and judgment. After the gale had blown out, he asked the Moravians why they felt no fear. They replied, " We trust in God." " But your women and your children, they also were so calm," said Wesley. "Our women and children are not afraid to die ; they also trust in God." Here was a mystery to Wesley. He had believed in all the orthodoxy of the church ; had practised all the ceremonies of his religion more than others ; had been accounted a man of the most eminent piety. What was this faith, then, that he needed? This idea haunted him during his stay in Georgia, and gave him no rest. It sent him back to England. There he took no counsel with bishops or doctors, or those called leaders of the church, but found his poor Moravian friends to learn their secret. At last, after many struggles and prayers, he learned the truth, that " A man's best things are nearest him, Lie close around his feet." The living faith, which he had missed so long in 26 FAITH AND Hl-.LlKF. his arduous struggle for salvation, was the fVith of a little child, who knows nothing about sin u- salvation, but trusts without a doubt in a Father' love. It was because it was so simple that he had missed it so long. He had looked for a s;ilv:iti<m strange, m}'sterious, and difficult, to be bought by sacrifice and worship, and the solemn fun us of an ancient church. But it was simply an<- only to forget about himself and his salvation, to leave penance and prayers, and to put himself into the arms of the heavenly Father, thinking nc more about himself or his own soul, but about saving the souls of others in the strength of the Infinite love. Thus Wesley passed through ex- actly the same experience as that of Paul, Angus tine, and Luther, and arrived at last at the s:mu essential faith, and found the truth of Christ's, great saying, that to be conviTh-d was only to be- come again as a little child. Then was revealed to him the meaning which our translation misses, of that other profound saying of the Master : u He who would save his soul loses it ; but he who is willing to lose his soul for the sake of the gospel love and work, he finds it." Not when we think about saving our soul can we save it ; but when we think about God's love and his children's FAITH AND BELIEF. 27 needs, then it is saved for us, while we are caring for others. In that hour, Wesley passed up out of the religion of ritualism to a higher plane. In that hour, and not before, was Methodism born, Then, through this new experience of Wesley, was a fresh impulse of heavenly love poured into human hearts, and a vast movement began which has brought blessings to millions on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus, in all these cases, we see that faith is essentially the same thing. It is casting all our care for body and soul on Him who cares for us. It is trusting in God as a faithful Creator, in Christ as a dear friend and helper, who teaches us to say, " Our Father." Man} T theologies, but one faith. There may be a hundred beliefs, as there may be a hundred roads to London or New York. But, when we have entered the city, we are all in the same place, side by side. There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither Trinitarian nor Unitarian there ; neither Catholic nor Protestant, but all are one in Christ Jesus, and in the love of the great Father. Faith may even sometimes appear under what seems to be unbelief. A soldier, dying on a field of battle in our war for freedom and union, was S* OF l8 FAITH AND BELIEF. asked by a chaplain, who tells the story, to trust in the atoning blood of Christ, and ask God foi pardon. u No, not now," said the soldier: U I did not do it when I was strong and well : I will not do it now merely to please God and to pre- vent him from sending me to hell. That would be the act of a coward." Though the chaplain did not see it, this was really an act of trust in God. The soldier preferred rather to trust him- self to God as he was than try to pacify the Almighty by a death-bed confession. And that was faith. So when John Stuart Mill wrote his famous sentence, protesting against the notion of Mr. Mansell that the goodness of God could be essentially different from ours, and declared that " if he must go to hell for believing in the good- ness which seemed to him good, then to hell he would go," he also was really expressing faith in God as a faithful Creator, who, having made the human mind to believe in right and in truth, would not demand of it to believe differently. And this saying of Mill's is also in essence one with the doctrine of those New England divines who thought no man truly converted till he was willing to be damned for the glory of God. For John Stuart Mill said that he was ready to be FAITH AND BELIEF. 29 damned for the cause of honest}' and truth, and that is for the glory of God, so far as an}' thing we do can glorify him. Being honest, being true, standing by our true convictions, that glorifies God. The old Arab sheik, Job, said the same when he refused to confess himself a sinner until he could see how and why he was a sinner, and answered the pious persuasions of his friends with this immortal utterance : " Shall I speak words of wind to the Almighty? Can I please him, as I would please a man, by outward submission and empty flattery?" The same thought is expressed in another way in one of the poems of our New England Robert Burns. It is the same essential, universal faith, which, beginning low down in the heart of the savage and the Pagan, unfolds into higher forms in the Christian, but is always the same in Cath- olic or Protestant, Methodist or Unitarian. And so we find it expressed in the tender strain of our Quaker poet, who says, as Jesus said in the gar- den, and as all true faith responds everywhere, " Not my will, but thine, be done : " " The autumn-time has come On woods that dream of bloom, And over purpling vines The low sun fainter shines. 30 FAITH AND BELIEF. " The aster-flower is failing, The hazel's gold is paling ; Yet overhead, more near, The eternal stars appear. " And present gratitude Insures the future's good ; And for the things I see I trust the things to be, " That, in the paths untrod And the long days of God, My feet shall still be led, My heart be comforted. " Others shall sing the song, Others shall right the wrong, Finish what I begin, And all I fail of, win. " What matter, I or they ? Mine, or another's day, So the right word be said, And life be sweeter made ? " Hail to the coming singers ! Hail to the brave light-bringers ! Forward I reach, and share All that they sing, or dare. *' The airs of heaven blow o'er mo, A glory shines before me, Of what mankind shall be, Pure, generous, brave, and free. FAITH AND BELIEF. 31 " Ring, bells, in unrearcd steeples, The joy of new-born peoples ! Sound, trumpets, far-off blown. Your triumph is my own." This is the very breath and essence of that faith which trusts the great God, the Divine Friend, the Infinite Tenderness, the dear Father of us all ; above, below, around, within ; from whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things. n. CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. THE two views on this subject which are the most significant, influential, and interesting, stand as opposite extremes. First comes the grand orthodoxy of the Church, which declares Christianity to have been a miraculous interposi- tion of the Supreme Being for the rescue of the human race ; declares that Christianity is the only true religion, out of which there is no possible salvation ; that Christ was very God and very Man, Prophet, Priest, and King. Prophet, as teaching infallibly supernatural truth. Priest, as dying to make an atonement to God for the sins of the human race. King, as God himself, second person in the Trinity, whose right it is to demand absolute obedience from all his creatures. This view stands at one end of the scale of religious belief. We will call it SUPERNATURALISM. At the other end of the scale is the view of those who deny any supernatural character to Christ or Christianity, the view of such writers as Strauss 34 CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. in German}', Renan in France, Conway in Eng- land, Frothingham in America. According to them, Christianity was a natural development of humanity, like every other religion ; better in some things than they, good and useful once, but now outgrown, discredited, and passed by. Instead of it we are to have either no religion, but instead thereof science, art, and literature, or else a larger and better religion, that of Human- ity. We will call this view NATURALISM. Now, when we find two such opposite and ex- treme views, each advocated by earnest and in- telligent men, honest in their convictions, and bent on converting the whole world to their own faith ; where, probablj', does the truth lie ? The old answer was, " The truth lies some- where between these extremes, somewhere in the middle. Believe a little less than supernaturalism, believe a little more than naturalism, and you will be about right." But half views are feeble views. At each extreme there is an idea, a principle, and therefore strong conviction ; in the middle there is apt to be only confusion of thought and weak- ness of purpose. A better philosophy of the human mind has taught us that truth is not in the middle, but on both sides ; that one extreme CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 35 embodies one truth, and the other embodies its antagonistic truth. On either side is conviction ; in the middle, hesitation and lukewarmness. Goethe long ago expressed this view: " You think that truth is in the mean between extremes ; truth is not there, but the paradox." What truth, let us therefore ask, is there in the old supernaturalism, and what truth in the modern naturalism? Finding and accepting the truths on both sides, they will supply each other's defects, correct each other's errors, sift out non-essentials, and leave the essentials. This is the method of modern science, to find all the truth there is, sure that it will all be found at last to be in har- mony with itself. What is the truth in supernaturalism ? It is that Christianity is not only deeper, higher, broader, better than any other religion, but essen- tially different from every other, in this : that its truth is so absolute and so universal as to be fitted to become the religion of mankind. It is capable of doing all the work which can be asked of a religion ; that is, to teach ever essential truth, to give to man peace with God, and to purify him from evil. To prove Christianity to be a super- natural religion is not necessary ; neither is this 3G CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. an adequate distinction. For God, who is above nature, is always descending into nature, so Hint the supernatural is in all things. God, as Pnul declares, " is above all, and through all, and in you all." To say that Christianity is super- natural is to say, not too much, but too little. Nor is it enough to say, "Christianity is the exclusively true religion." We must go further, and maintain that it is the inclusively true religion. That which excludes and shuts out is not so grcnt as that which takes in and receives. So Christi- anity has received into itself all the good of many systems, the philosophy and art of Greece, the laws of Rome, the mysticism of India, the mono- theism of the Jews, the triad of Egypt, the war between good and evil taught by Zoroaster, the reverence for ancestors and the conservatism of China, the Scandinavian faith in liberty and progress. All the prophets who have been since the world began, and all the civilizations of the past, have, like the wise men of the East, brought their gifts to the infant Messiah. There is in this wonderful religion the power of assimilating to itself all that is true and good everywhere. It is like the sea, " into which all rivers run, and yet it is not full." CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 37 The only progressive religion in the world to- day is Christianity. All others are decayed, arrested, or retrograde. But Christianity is capa- ble of self-development. It unfolds itself into new forms, puts forth new branches, and makes every day a new heavens and a new earth. In ages of universal war, it unfolded into monastic institutions, islands of peace in the midst of the stormy ocean ; oases of knowledge in the desert of ignorance. When all society seemed falling apart amid the deluge of barbarism, it created the Papacy, as a central force to hold Christendom together. When this force became excessive and tyrannical, it suddenly produced the Protestant Reformation, which saved personal liberty in Europe. And when this outbreak of n'ery lava had become too rigid, it again burst forth in such fountains of thought as Puritanism, Presbyterianism, Quakerism, Methodism, and the multiform varieties of modern opinion. I am told that Christianity stands in the way of progress ; that it is an incubus on human thought. Explain then, if you can, the manifest fact that the progress of humanity in science, art, litera- ture, is co-extensive with Christendom. Who goes to-da} T to study in Mohammedan universities 9 38 CURIST AND CHRISTIANITY. What astronomical discoveries are made in the observatories of China? Was it a Hindu who invented the steam engine, the locomotive, the photograph, the electric telegraph ? Who are the great painters and sculptors of Turkey, Russia, Japan? Mention, if you please, the poets, his- torians, mathematicians, orators, novelists, phi- losophers among the Buddhists. In Christendom alone is the human race in progress, and it is the only religion which is itself progressive. We have a right to claim that it will become more and more the light of the world. The principle of this wonderful vitality is to be found in Christ himself. Christianity is not an abstract creed, a 83'stem of thought ; it is not a philosophical system, it is the personal influence of a great soul. Christendom may say, as the Apostle said, " The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God." One method by which the Creator causes the progress of humanity is by sending new impulses into the world through great men. Every civilization has been largely made what it is by the influence of great souls. Greece became Greece by means of Aristides and Milti- ades, Socrates and Plato ; Aristotle, Homer, ^Es- ch3 r lus, Pindar, Thucydides, Phidias. Take the CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 39 great men out of European history, its goodly company of heroes and saints, its noble army of prophets, poets, and statesmen, and it would collapse to the dead level of Africa. What would England be without its Shakespeare and Spenser ; its Locke, Newton, Milton ; its Alfred, and Crom- well, and Hampden ? What would America be if we had never had the Pilgrim Fathers, nor Samuel Adams, nor Washington, nor Franklin? These are the living lights, That from our bold green heights Shall shine afar, Till those who name the name Of freedom, to the flame Come, as the Magi came To Bethlehem's star. The great souls of history almost constitute history. But one towers above them all, so that, as Horace said of Zeus, "There is nothing like him, nothing next to him." When we think of China, we name Confucius. Zoroaster shines through the darkness of three thousand years from ancient Bactria. The mild Buddha has spread his benign influence over the whole of Eastern Asia during twenty-five centuries. The civilizations of which these were the inspiration 40 CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. are fading away ; but wherever the word of Jesus goes to-day, new life flows from it into the soul. Liberty of speech and thought grows out of it ; popular education attends it ; a government of laws, not force, has been created by it. It bal- ances order against freedom ; it combines conser- vatism and reform ; it brings consolation to the bereaved, comfort to the sorrowing, and help to the forlorn. And all this is simply an unfolding of the life of Christ himself. I have seen on the outskirts of our land a town spring up, like Jacob's gourd, almost in a night. I have been in such places where there might be a population of perhaps one or two thousand people, many of them outlaws and desperadoes, all of tlirin unrestrained by the civilities of life. There were no laws there but such as the population chose to fancy ; no churches, no schools, no newspapers ; but bar-rooms and gambling-houses, fighting and profanity, and the mastery of the red-handed murderer. Into such a place as I have described, there comes some poor Methodist or Baptist preacher, all his worldly goods in his saddle-bags. He preaches where he can, in a bar-room or a tavern, or perhaps in the street. lie goes in the strength of God among these moral maniacs, and CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 41 appeals to motives latent in their breasts and un- known to themselves. But conscience is roused ; the sense of an awe and mystery higher than this world enters their souls. They awaken as from a horrid dream ; they come to themselves, change their lives, and find a strange peace descending into their hearts. Our philosophers who write in their quiet studies in New York or Boston may believe that Christianity is outgrown, and that the splendid figure of Jesus has passed out of our philosophy. But while thousands of humble Christian preachers are thus, by the power of the divine word and life, laying the foundation of order in the land, I think that Christ is as near and as real to us to-day as he was to the Apostle Paul or the Apostle John. I believe, with Augustine, with Luther, and with Fenelon, with Wesley and Swedenborg, that Christianity is the life of Jesus himself, prolonged and unfolded on the earth. We are told by mod- ern critics that we cannot know much about the historic Christ, there are so many contradictions and difficulties in the gospel narrative, and no harmonious whole. So speaks the lower criticism, analytic, destructive, negative. But the higher criticism, sympathetic, synthetic, positive, crea- 42 CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. tivc, ever brings the historic Christ more near to our understandings, no less than to our hearts. As the world obeys him more faithfully, it learns to know him more truly. When he went up to God, he did not go away from man. He is still the great power in human history, the great motor in human progress. He is still " the Word made flesh, dwelling among us." And who was Christ? I do not accept the scholastic theology of the Church, the definitions of Aquinas, the phrases invented by Tertullian, because I think these formulas hide his real div- inity. I believe him more divine than the Church has stated him to be, not less. I see in him more of God, not less, than I can find in this technical theology. These mediaeval phrases do not reveal Christ ; they conceal him. I lose, when I listen to them, my all-loving Father and my most tender of brothers. My mind is confused and darkened, not enlightened. Leaving, then, all theological terms, and en- deavoring to find the secret of this wonderful virtue, which has gone out of Jesus into the world, we ask what Jesus claimed to be, and what the New Testament teaches concerning him. W<3 as- sume that however much the four Gospels may CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 43 differ in details, in spirit and substance they are agreed. Admit all that the minute critics may claim, there is no doubt that these four honest and simple narratives present a portrait so original that they could not have invented it ; so consistent with itself that it proves a real person behind it ; and so superior to all that the world has seen that this person is an adequate explanation of the origin of that sublime faith which we call Chris tianity. First. Then, whatever else he was, he is de- scribed as a perfect man, " made in all points like his brethren," tempted like a man, suffering like a man, calling all men his brother-men, piling to God like a man, and, at last, d} T ing like a man. Instead of beginning with his divinity, as is the custom, and going down, we will begin with his humanity, and see how far we can go up. Secondly. He was by birth a Jew, a patriot, loving his country, his people, and its city, rev- erencing Moses and the prophets, and saying that he did not come to destroy them. But yet he was wholly emancipated from Jewish prejudices, bigotry, and narrowness ; he was a radical in his treatment of the Jewish Sabbath, the Jewish tem- ple, ritual, and priesthood. The worship he taught 44 CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. was not Jewish, but the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth. The honest publican he counted nearer to God than the pious Pharisee. And, in his description of the great judgment, he declared that not those who prophesied in his name, but those who did acts of righteousness and mercy, should enter into the kingdom of his Father. His religion was not Jewish, but human, and the title he loved best was the Son of man, the man of men, the one in whom humanity fully appears. Thirdly. He calls himself " the Way, the Truth, and the Life;" he says, u For this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth." He bears witness to what he has seen of the Divine laws, to what he not only thinks or believes, but knows. We can therefore rely on his authorit}', for it is the authority of insight and knowledge. He speaks what he knows, and testifies to what he has seen. He saw, with the inward eye of inspi- ration, the facts and laws of the spiritual world, as we see with the outward eye the facts of the physical world. He could no more be mistaken about the one than we can be about the other. There are some things we all know infallibly, CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 4f> about which we are certain. I know that I exist, that you exist, that I am here to-night speaking to you. Authority accompanies knowledge always. The man who knows any thing becomes necessarily a leader in his department, and all take him as an authority. There is no hesitation in his tone, no theorizing in his statements, no confusion in his speech, no cloud on his thought. And just so Jesus speaks of spiritual things. When he says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," he is stating a law of God's universe. When he says, "Not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father," he states another law. Because the world recognizes in him this perfect insight, this clear vision, this infallible intuition of truth, it accepts him as its prophet, and sits at his feet as the great teacher of the race. Fourthly. He came to bring sinners to God, to bring pardon for sin, to make those who were afar off nigh, and to fill the human heart with a serene and blessed peace. This is his atoning or priestly work. I care not for any of the theories about it, I think them inadequate. I do not think, as the orthodox doctrine taught for the first thousand years, that Christ died to pay a 46 CHRIST AX I) CI1RIXT1AMTY. ransom due to the devil ; nor, as was taught for the next five hundred years, that he died to pay a debt due to God ; nor that he was a sacrifice in the Jewish sense of a sacrifice. I believe more than all this ; in an atonement larger, deeper, more universal, more in accordance with all Christ's teachings and the infinite love of God. I believe that Jesus, first of all men, clearly saw, and alone among men has fully declared, the in- finite pardoning love of God to the sinner. lie indeed teaches that God, when revealing himself in law, makes a perpetual distinction between right and wrong, good and evil; that every man must reap as he sows ; be rewarded and punished in this world, and in all worlds, ac- cording to his deed ; be judged by his works ; and, according to his practical fidelity, be rulei over five or ten cities ; according to his practical infidelity, go into outer darkness. This eternal law of God, Jesus does not destro}', but fulfils, carries out to its ultimates. But, meantime, he reveals the other side of divinity, showing the infinite tenderness and compassion of God, which makes no difference among his children, except this : that he cares most for those who need him most, so that there is more joy in heaven ovei CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 47 one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. Christ's death did not produce this love, or make it possible for God to pardon sinners ; but it revealed it. It showed that this love, binding the highest to the lowest, is the reconciling power in the universe, the great atonement by which evil can be fully overcome by good. While law divides and establishes a vast order of rank, power, position, love unites and pene- trates all this majestic hierarchy with a divine attraction. Law unfolds the power of God, and displays his glory in creation. Love holds to- gether in safety this infinite universe, and makes it all one. This is the great atonement, which is taught everywhere in the doctrine of free grace, by which thousands and tens of thousands of sinners are brought to God. And this was, is, and will be the very centre of Christian revelation, law made at one with love. And this great doctrine of the overcoming, all-conquering, omnipresent power of divine love to redeem the lowest and save the most abandoned, and lift the most for- lorn, this is nowhere taught as in the New Tes- tament, and there only is fully reconciled with the equal omnipresence of divine law. 48 CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. In my first chapter, I spoke of a soldier who, about to die, refused to say that he repented, or that he believed the atonement, because he thought if he did, it might be merely from fear of future punishment. Of course, I believe that sincere re- pentance is always necessary ; and that whenevci a m an sees that he is going wrong, whether on the death-bed or at any other time, he ought to repent. He should turn from wrong to right : first inwardly, in his soul ; then outwardly, in his conduct. But I commended the soldier for this : that he pre- ferred to trust himself to God as he was, rather than to profess repentance and faith when he was not sure that he did repent or believe. And, fifthly, I believe Jesus to have been Son of God, and Divine, because filled full of the Divine truth and love, and always abiding therein. He alone, of the sons of men, was always resting on the Infinite love. He has sent the same spirit, in less degree, into the world, and enabled us all to say, " Our Father." His divinity did not consist in any technical or metaphysical deity of person, but in living in constant com- munion with God, so as to be a perpetual mani- festation of the Divine truth and love. He is the unclouded mirror which reflects into the world the CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 49 glory and beauty of the Almighty. Therefore, we all, beholding as in a glass the glory of God, are changed into the same image from glory to greater glory. Christ's divinity consists in being the image of the unseen God, of God manifest in a man. God is manifest in Nature ; he is also manifest in Providence, in history, in the intuitions of the soul. But in Jesus God speaks to us through human lips and a human life ; and so, by our brother man, brings us to himself. This, very briefly and imperfectly stated, is the truth I have been able to see in the supernatural view of Christ and Christianity, dropping the non-essentials and retaining the essentials. Turn now to the opposite doctrine, which stands at the other extreme of thought, which rejects the whole system of orthodoxy, and with it rejects also Christianity, and loses faith in the sublime personality of Jesus. What shall we say of this ? It will not do to say, as is commonly said, that all such doubts and denials proceed from an evil heart of unbelief. I have seen and known numer- ous infidels in all parts of the land, and know that among them are many of the most upright and conscientious of men, whose lives would be a i 50 CllltitiT AND CHRISTIANITY. credit to any Christian church. What causes such men as these to become aliens to Christ? I think that their rejection of Christianity often comes from mistakes of the Church itself in mak- ing non-essentials into essentials, and constituting those doctrines a part of Christianity which do not really belong to it. For example, the}' object to supernaturalism, but to what kind? It is to Christianit} r , when considered as an interruption of the order of things, an interference by the Almighty, to cure the evils which had come into the world. This sort of supernaturalism has been taught b} r theology, but where is it taught by Christ or his apostles ? With them Christian- ity is no such temporary expedient, no after- thought, but was in the beginning with God, was before Abraham, was foreordained before the foundation of the world. The supernaturalism of the New Testament tells us of that Infinite Creator who, above nature, is for ever pouring his life into nature, " from whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things." Christ and Chris- tianity were the supplement of all that went before, coming in the fulness of time, prepared for by all past history, announced by all past prophecy, and taking their place on the stage of being in CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 51 accordance with universal law. And with this true supernaturalism true natuialism can have no quarrel. Again, naturalism objects to the Miracles of the New Testament ; but only to miracles when considered as violations of the laws of Nature, or considered as evidences of truth. But these defi- nitions are the explanations of theology, not ot the New Testament. The miracles of Christ are never called violations of law, but rather wonder- ful actions showing wonderful power. They are "single examples," as has been well said, " of laws boundless as the universe." And, so far from using miracles as proofs of his truth, Jesus rebukes those who asked for such evidence ; say- ing, " A wicked generation seeks for a sign, and no sign shall be given it." He also appears to teach, in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus, that one who is not convinced by the truth without a miracle, cannot be convinced by a miracle. The rich man, pleading for his brothers, says : "If one went from the dead to speak to them, they would repent." To this Father Abraham is made to reply : "If they hear not Moses and the proph- ets, neither would they be persuaded though one went from the dead." That a being endowed with f>2 CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. such exceptional power as Jesus should have per- formed wonderful works, naturalism cannot rea- sonably deny. But naturalism is right in main- taining that the God of Nature will not violate his own laws. And, again, naturalism objects, and justly, to any conception of the divinity of Christ which makes it physical instead of moral. Christ is not divine by manifesting the omnipotence and omni- presence of God in the physical universe, for this was not his mission. He was divine in revealing the spiritual laws of God, and becoming a media- tor of the divine love and truth. The Moral Law came by Moses ; ph} T sical laws come by science ; but grace and truth have come by Jesus Christ. A shallow naturalism and a narrow theology may be at war ; but a true science and a broad Christianity lend to each other a helping hand. When the world was believed to be in the centre of the universe, and all the stars to revolve around it every day, man, with his weakness, his ignorance, his feeble aspiration and faith, was also made the central object in creation. But how much nobler an idea we now have of the First Cause, who rules the immensities and eternities revealed by modern science ! How theology is CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 53 purified and elevated by every new access of truth ! All this progress of the human mind only makes Christ seem greater, and Christianity more noble. A higher Christian doctrine is to come, for the Spirit is to lead the world on from truth to truth. A broader, more inclusive Christian faith is to elevate mankind. We are only now at the thresh- old of the great Christian temple which is to be. Christ is to be lifted up, and so to draw all men unto him. If Christianity shall ever die, it will only die as Jesus himself died, when it has fin- ished the work given it to do. Only " when all things are subject unto him, shall the Son himself be made subject to him who did put all things under him, that God may be all in all." What God has joined together let no man put asunder. God has joined together reason and re- ligion, responsibility and freedom, faith and works, scientific progress and spiritual growth, the love of God and the love of man. Jesus, who is both Son of God and Son of man, is the natural leader of the human race. On the loftiest summit which the reason can climb, we still find him. In the lowest depths of human sorrow and sin, this great friend is still by our side. When our eyes close to all earthly sights, this divine brother is near us, 54 CURIS7 AND CHRISTIANITY. to sustain and cheer with a hope full of immor- tality. As the world advances on the vast high- way of progress, Christ will not become less human or less divine, but more so. Sometimes, in reading the New Testament, I find the proof of the inspiration of the writer not only in the grandeur, but also in the subtlety of his thought. One instance of this is in the ad- vice of the Apostle Paul to those scrupulous and somewhat narrow Christians in Corinth, who would not buy a piece of meat in the market until they had made sure that it had not come from the altar of Aphrodite or Zeus, where it had been laid as an offering. These punctilious Chris- tians would not touch the meat which had been once put upon the altar of an idol. The liberal Christians in Corinth ridiculed them for this, and laughed at all such narrowness. Paul said : u Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not ; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth." The keenness of his intuition made the apostle select the precise words which in all times express the feelings with which orthodox Chris- tians and liberal Christians are apt to regard each other. Narrowness judges breadth ; breadth de- spises narrowness. The man who considers him- CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 55 self an advanced thinker looks with contempt on what seems to him stupid conservatism. The servant of the letter, on the other hand, denounces as an infidel and a heretic whoever walks in the freedom of the spirit. Let us not judge each other, and let us not de- spise each other, but open our hearts to all the light and love which God shall send to us, know- ing that we shall all stand before the judgment- seat of the eternal truth of God. When there, we shall have little cause to be proud, whether of our orthodox opinions or of our rational Christi- anity, but shall be grateful if God has helped us to be any thing or to do any thing for him. III. THE BIBLE. WHAT is the Bible, and Where did it come from ? ' ' The Bible " means ' ' The Book," and it is " The Book of books." No other scriptures of man compare with it for wide, deep, and ever-growing influence. It is the highest work of its class, that is, of the sacred writings of mankind, and these sacred writings are, among all other writings, the most important and influ- ential. Every commanding race, every vast civilization, has been directed and controlled by its sacred writings. The hundred and fifty millions of Hindoos have been ruled, during twenty-five cen- turies, by their Vedas and Puranas. Chinese civilization has taken its stamp from ' c The Kings " and the ' ' Four Books." The brilliant career of the Persian empire was inspired throughout by the Zend-Avesta. The tribes of Arabia were gathered, moulded, banded, and wielded in a resistless tide of conquest, by the Koran. The 58 THE Blli LI.. sacred books of the Buddhists have been the leaven of civilization among a third part of the human race during a vast period of time. If we judge them by their influence, these are the great books of the human race. But, for various rea- sons, the Bible stands above them all. The others are the books of particular races, of the Hindoos only, or the Mongols, or the Persians, or the Chinese ; but the Bible has a constituency com posed of all the races of the world. The others belong to deca}ing, arrested, or dead civilizations ; the Bible, to the advancing and all-conquering races, who stand for the highest civilization at- tained on this planet. The others are either narrow or shallow in some directions : the Bible is a fountain whose waters feed intellect, heart, life ; promoting the highest worship as well as the largest humanity. This supreme value of the Bi- ble has been recognized by thinkers of all schools. Walter Scott expresses the orthodox idea in the lines which he puts in the mouth of the White Lady of Avenel : " Within this awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries. Happiest they of human race To whom our God hath granted grace Til K BIBLE. 59 To read, to hear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch and force the way ; But better had he ne'er been born Who reads to doubt or reads to scorn." Another writer, who is not usually supposed to reverence the Bible too much, Theodore Parker, thus speaks of it. I gladly quote his words to show that he is not that merely destructive radical he is often believed to be : " This collec- tion of books has taken such a hold on the world as no other. The literature of Greece, which goes up like incense from that land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half the influence of this book from a nation alike despised in ancient and modern times. It is read of a Sabbath in all the ten thousand pulpits of our land. In all the tem- ples of Christendom, its voice is lifted up, week by week. The sun never sets on its gleaming page. It goes equally to the cottage of the plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into the literature of the scholar, and colors the talk of the street. ... It blesses us when we are born, gives names to half Christendom, rejoices with us, has sympathy with our sorrowing, tempers our grief to finer issues. . . . Now for such effects there must be an adequate cause. That nothing comes 60 THE BIBLE. of nothing is true all the world over. It is no light tiling to hold, with an electric chain, a thousand hearts, though but an hour. What is it, then, to hold the Christian world, and that for centuries? . . . Some thousand famous writers come up in this century, to be forgotten in the next. But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosed, nor its golden bowl broken, as tens of centuries go by. . . . There must be in the Bible mind, heart, soul, wisdom, and religion. Were it otherwise, how could millions find it their lawgiver, friend, and prophet? Some of the greatest of human institutions seem built on the Bible : such things will not stand on heaps of chaff, but on moun- tains of rock." (Discourse of Religion, pp. 302-304.) If, then, we ask, " What is the Bible?" the an- swer is, " The Word of God." But this answer takes two shapes, which I am now to consider. One answer and that the most common in the Protestant church says : It is "the Word," by being inspired throughout by God, in every book, every page, every chapter, every verse, every word. It is infallible all through. Every part is consistent with every other part, and with all truth. If it contradicts astronomy or geology, so THE RIHLK. 61 much the worse for them. If it contradicts his- toric monuments and records, then they are false. If it seems to contradict itself, this is only in appearance. It is the Word of God throughout, from Genesis to Revelation ; and " better had he ne'er been born, who reads to doubt" a word of any part of it, from Genesis to Revelation. This is the theory of infallible verbal inspiration. The other answer to the question, " How is the Bible the Word of God ? " is that it is filled with the Spirit of God. As we read the Old Testa- ment, we everywhere feel the presence of divine power and justice ruling the world. The world and its affairs are all guided and governed by God, who will reward good and punish evil. It is a revelation everywhere of Divine law. As we read the New Testament, we are in the presence of a heavenly Father of an infinite tenderness, who pours blessings on the good and the evil, and desires to save eveiy child. The Old Testament is inspired by the sense of Divine law, the New Testament by the sense of Divine love. But its unity, its sacredness, its power, is of the spirit, not the letter. There is no infallibility about its geology, astronomy, or histoy ; but its spirit is everywhere one. This spirit is developed <*,2 7V//-; KlIiLK. more and more from the earliest to the books. The Old Testament grows more spiritual in the Psahns and Prophets than in Kings and Chronicles. The New Testament comes to fulfil the Old, not to contradict it, but to complete it. The summit is reached in the life and words of Jesus, which are full of the highest truth. In order to discover which of these views is the true one, we must see where the Bible came from. Our Bible is the English Bible. But the English Bible is a translation, for the Bible was written originally in Hebrew and Greek. Therefore, if the doctrine of verbal inspiration is true, not only must the authors have been miraculously preserved from error, but the translators also. Our present English Bible is a translation (called the Author- ized Version) , made by fifty- four scholars by the command of James the First. They were not left free to translate according to their conscience and knowledge, but were ordered to follow certain rules. The}' were not allowed to make a new translation, but only to correct an older one. They took the liberty of translating the same Hebrew or Greek word sometimes b}* one English word, and sometimes by another. And now we ask whether the}* were infallibly inspired always THE BIBLE. 63 to choose the right word in their translation? No one pretends that they were; but, if not, the whole theory of infallible verbal inspiration falls to the ground. Take, for example, the Greek words, "krima" and "krisis," which are translated in our Bible sometimes "judgment," sometimes "condemna- tion," and sometimes " damnation." Our English Bible makes Paul say that he who eats the Lord's Supper unworthily " eats and drinks damnation to himself." But it does not make Jesus say, " For damnation I have come into the world ; " but, " For judgment I have come into the world ; " and yet the word is the same. Our translation does not translate, "This is the damnation, that light has come into the world ; " but, " This is the con- demnation." Here, too, the word is the same. So the word "hades" is translated in one place "the grave," and in other places "hell." If, therefore, we are to consider our English Bible verbally inspired, then the translators must have been inspired to decide whether in such texts it is hell that is spoken of, or only the grave. But, as no one believes this, it is certain that our English Bible, at any rate, cannot be verbally inspired. How is it, then, with the Greet or Hebrew Bi- 64 THE BIBLE. ble, from which they translate it? As Hie books of the New Testament were written in the first and second century, and as printing was not dis- covered till the middle of the fifteenth century, it is evident that these books were copied in writing by sciibes during thirteen or fourteen hundred years. Were these copyists all infallibly inspired, so as to make no mistakes ? Certainly not ; for then the manuscripts now extant would not differ from each other as they do. In the 1,500 manuscripts of the whole or parts of the New Testament which have been compared together, more than a hundred thousand various readings have been found, mostly unimportant, but some of great consequence. Now, unless some one is infallibly inspired to distinguish between these various read- ings, we cannot have a verbally inspired Bible. If you open your New Testament at 1 John v. 7, you will find the following verse: " There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." This passage is the only one in the New Testament in which the doctrine of the Trinity seems to be plainly taught. And this passage is wanting in all the Greek manuscripts except two modern ones ; in all the ancient versions ; even in THK BIBLE. T>5 the copies of the Vulgate, before the tenth cen- tury ; in ail the Church Fathers, even those who were discussing the Trinity, and -,vho quoted the verses before it and after it ; and is now uni- versally admitted to be no part of the Epistle of John. Yet it stands in all our English Bibles, and is read and quoted as if it were a part of the inspired Word. But let us suppose that somehow we have cer- tainly possessed ourselves of the original text of the inspired writers : there is still another ques- tion. Who collected the books of the Old arid New Testament, and decided that these were the inspired writers ? In other words, who fixed the canon? Who was infallibly authorized to say that these particular books, and no others, out of all Jewish and Christian literature, should be put together in the Bible? The answer is, No one. The Bible was not thus formed. It came together gradually, on the principle of the survival of the fittest. Books which were at first a part of the Bible dropped out of it. Others, which were rejected by many at first, have finally become established in the canon as a part of the sacred Scriptures. Not long ago, in the convent of St. Catherine 5 66 777 A,' niRLK. on Mount Sinai, a Russian scholar discovered an ancient MS. of the New Testament, which proved to be the oldest known. It goes back to the fourth century, and one way by which its age is determined is that it contains, among the other books, the Epistle of Barnabas, which ceased to be a part of the New Testament after the fourth century. Barnabas was the companion of Paul, and is called a prophet in the New Testament, and is said to be a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. He was sent to Jerusalem with Paul to attend the first Christian council. He joined the church at the very first, and showed his zeal by selling his land and giving the proceeds to his need} T fellow Christians. He introduced Paul to the church, went with him on his mission- ary journeys, and is called an apostle in the New Testament. Now, an epistle, believed to have been written by him, was, for this reason, put among the Scriptures of the New Covenant, and remained in them two or three hundred years. Then it dropped out, and, if you wish to know why, read it and you will see. Not because of any doubts entertained in those days of its authen- ticity, for it was repeatedly quoted by Clbment and Origen as a genuine work of Barnabas. But TV/A; BIBLK. 07 it is full of tasteless allegories, it has no weight, no substance, and evidently it was left out of the New Testament because it was not fit to stay in. What books belong to the New Testament has not been settled even now. The Roman Catholic church puts into the Bible the Old Testa- ment Apocrypha, which most Protestants reject. Criticism has not definitely settled in regard to two or three of the books of the New Testament, whether they are genuine. How, then, can we pretend that every part of the present Bible is in- fallibly the Word of God? Another objection to this doctrine of verbal inspiration is that it repels many persons from Chris tianhy, and is the cause of much infidelity. There are often honest and intelligent men who cannot receive the geology or astronomy of the Book of Genesis, or many of the miracles of the Bible. The}' are told that if they do not believe that Joshua stopped the sun in his course, and that the whale swallowed Jonah, they have no right to believe in Jesus Christ. So the}' are re- jected from Christianity. One remarkable illus- tration of this is to be found in the French philosopher Rousseau, whose name has been iden- tified with infidelity, when he was, in truth, the 68 TUI-: most religious man among the great thinkers ol his own time and land. In his book on education, " Emile," he gives his creed in regard to Christ. He puts Christ far above all other teachers the world has seen, and is ready to accept him as his master in religion, because of his wonderful life and death. " Do not compare him with Socrates," he cries. " Socrates died like a philosopher: Je- sus died like a God." As to his miracles, sa}-s Rousseau, I can neither receive them as facts, nor can I reject them. I admit my ignorance con- cerning them, they may have been true, only I cannot say that I believe them. But I can be- lieve in Christ on other grounds, because of his wonderful character and marvellous teaching. On these grounds I can be a Christian. But this. was not considered sufficient by the church, and he was banished from France because of this book and these statements. He went to Switzerland, and there, in a small town, in Neufchutel, found a lit- tle Protestant church, which received him on his own grounds, and there he had a religious home, and partook with them of the Lord's Supper. At the beginning of my ministry, I had a church in Kentucky. There I found many persons who were reputed to be infidels, and thought them- 777 K BIBLE. 69 selves so, and whose influence was against Chris- tianity, simply because they could not accept the verbal inspiration of the whole Bible. One man I knew, one of the best of men, upright and honorable, benevolent and kind, who was called an infidel. When I asked him about it, he said, u Yes, I have thought myself so, and for this rea- son, when I was young, I heard a minister say, taking a Bible in his hand, c Every thing between these lids is the Word of God, and if you do not believe it you will be damned.' I said, ' If this is Christianity, I must be an infidel.' But now I have changed my mind. I do not think that Christianity requires me to believe every word in the Bible, and so I can gladly be a Christian." Why, then, is this doctrine of the infallible verbal inspiration of the Bible still maintained? Not because the Scripture itself claims any such infallibility : it does not. It is indeed said that " all Scripture is given by inspiration," but not that this inspiration is infallible. Inspiration is one thing, infallibility another. The great poets, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, are called inspired, and truly, because they have an inward illumina- tion which shows them forms of truth and beauty and goodness unseen by common men. But this 70 7V//-; ItlHLK. inspiration docs not preserve them from mistakes. It does not make them infallible. Take the four Gospels and compare them with each other. One spirit, one life, pervades them all : it is the life of Christ. But they frequently contradict each other in details. If you demand verbal and minute accuracy, their whole story falls to the ground, and we lose our Master. They differ from each other openly and frankly all the way through as regards outward incidents. But, as to the substance of the story, they are one. They differ as to the details of Christ's resurrection, but that he really rose from the dead they are fully agreed. If it is necessary, in order to believe Christianity, to have verbal accuracy in the Scrip- tures, one cannot believe Christianit}' at all, for the Scriptures cannot be verbally accurate when the}' differ even in unimportant minutiae. But it is not necessary. What we need is to be certain as to the main facts of Christ's life, teaching, and char- acter. And we can be certain of these, just as we are certain of the main facts in the life and character of Alexander the Great, Dr. Franklin, Julius Caesar, General Washington. No one pre- tends that those writers from whom we derive our information concerning such persons were infal- THE BIBLE. 71 libly inspired, yet we are at least as sure of the main facts of their lives and character as we are of the main facts of the life of Abraham, Samuel, or David. We are more sure that Julius CiEsar crossed the Rubicon on his way to Rome, and that Dr. Franklin was in London before the Revo- lution, than that Jesus went to Jerusalem at the beginning of his ministry ; for all writers are agreed as to the one, and the four Evangelists are not agreed as to the other. Many arguments have been brought to prove the theory of verbal inspiration, some of them very ingenious. But the difficulty with them all is that they merely aim at showing that the Bible ought to be verbally inspired, not that it is so. The fact remains that it is not so inspired, since it is in some places 'opposed to science, in others to history, and in others to itself. One curious fact shows that this doctrine is supported by the fear that, if a single verse of the Bible is admitted to be unsound, the authority of the whole will be gone. Scholars of all denominations admit that tnere are mistranslations and interpolations in our Bible which ou^ht not to be there. Some years ago, the Committee on Versions of the Amer- ican Bible Society, containing eminent scholars, all 72 Tin-: of orthodox denominations, prepared an amended edition of the English version. They did not make a new translation, nor amend the errors of the old one, nor even improve the text where it is admitted to be fault}'. They only corrected some palpable misprints, and altered the headings of the chapters where these are incomplete or false, or where they are, in reality, comments on the Scripture. This amended version, indorsed by the secretaries, and adopted by the Board of Man- agers, was printed and circulated by them during seven years, and was then suppressed. This was done in consequence of a clamor, raised not merely by the ignorant, but in which even Reviews, Ecclesiastical Bodies, and Auxiliary Societies, did not hesitate to join. I asked one of the gentle- men, who was a member of the committee, why this was done ; and he said that it was owing to the fear that, if we once began to make corrections in the Bible, the people might lose their faith in it, altogether. It is said, " Unless we believe the Scriptures infallibly true, there can be no authority ; and we need some authority to rest upon, otherwise all will become uncertain : and then there will be no firm convictions about any thing." I admit that BIBLE. 73 we want firm religious convictions. I go further : I say we need to know spiritual things just as we know natural things. But I contend that the belief in a verbal inspiration does not give us that knowledge, but rather hinders it. I also maintain that we need to trust in the authority of Jesus. It is an immense help to have confidence in him as the wa} T , the truth, and the life. But to trust in the authority of a teacher is not knowl- edge : it is only the door to knowledge. You send your child to school, and it is right that he should trust in the teacher's authority and take what is taught on that authorhy. But, if it ends there, he has not learned any thing. Until he has made his teacher's instruction a harmonious part of his own knowledge, he does not know. Authority is a door by which we enter the vast temple of truth. .It is a guide who leads us through the wilderness to the Promised Land. But there its work ends. It does not give us knowledge, only the access to knowledge. The true authority of the Scripture is this, that it is a book made sacred by the love and respect of many generations, a book which has brought comfort and joy to thousands and tens of thou- sands of hearts, - -- which has been the means of 71 THE BIBLE. con veiling sinners and of edifying saints. Hence we ought to approach it with trust, expectation, confidence, and read it to find what it has to teach us, seeking for the spirit of life and truth which is in it. But, to have this faith in the Bible as full of truth, it is not necessar}- to believe in its perfect accuracy in every respect, nor that it has been preserved by a miracle from all error. No one believes that Humboldt was infallibly inspired ; but what authority his words carry ! No one believes that La Place was infallibly in- spired -to write the " Mecanique Celeste." It has been said that in America not five men can under- stand it ; yet his views of the universe are accepted by all. No one believes the " Nautical Almanac" an inspired book ; but it is such an authority that thousands of vessels trust themselves to its calcu- lations, and thousands of lives and millions of property arc confided to its accuracy. The true inspiration of the Bible is not of the letter, but of the spirit. Until we have caught that spirit, all the dogmas of its inspiration avail nothing. When we have that, we do not need them. The spirit of the Bible is one all through. From Genesis to Revelation, there is a sense of the power of God. It all brings us near to him TILE BIBLE. 75 Every thing is looked at as if he were near by. The book of Genesis teaches that God is the creator of all things. The Persians said that the stars and planets were gods. Genesis says : " God made them all." The Egyptians said that plants and animals were gods. Genesis says : " God said, Let the earth bring forth herbs and animals." It does not teach geologj T , but mono- theism. Pass on to the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. What inspiration is there in these ? 3^011 ask. Of the letter, none ; but there is the spirit of trust in a providence, near by, guiding human feet evermore. Come down to David. He was a fierce soldier, a wild, passionate man, with maity faults ; but amid them all there was a love of right and goodness ; there was a profound sorrow for his sins, and a perfect trust in God. When David, tending his sheep on the hillsides of Judaea, sang his song of trust, and said, "The Lord is my shepherd," the Divine inspiration taught him a strain which will echo through all time. Then turn to the prophets. They were stern and solemn figures, awful and venerable shapes, ' ' going in the heat and bitterness of their spirit." But they were firmly convinced of the 7G TIIK HIULE. ever-present Divine power. They stood like a rock, hoping against hope. They cry out to a backsliding people, " Seek ye the Lord while he maj r be found." " It is he who hath measured the waters with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure." This is the in- spiration of the Old Testament. It is Divine power around us all, and Divine law above us all, and Divine providence guiding us all. In the New Testament, there comes another sense of sunny piety, a happy atmosphere of heavenly love. Listen to Jesus: " Not a spar- row falls to the ground without } T our Father ; and ye are of more value than many sparrows." "Be ye children of 3-0111* Father in heaven, who causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good ; and sends his rain on the just and the unjust." u Consider the lilies how they grow." "If God so clothe the grass of the field, how much more will he clothe you." "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me " that is, who accepts my truth and trusts in my word " shall never die." He does not die : denth is nothing to him. He passes on and up. THE IUBLE. 77 u Neither do I condemn thee ; go and sin no more." " What man among yon being a father, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? How much more shall your heavenly Father give his holy spirit to those that ask him." Is a theory of plenary inspiration necessary to enable us to believe the Sermon on the Mount or to utter the Lord's Pra}~er? Are not such say- ings their own authority? And what did Paul mean when he said, "God has made us able min isters of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" ? What did he mean but exactly what I have been contending for here? Do I need any theory of verbal inspiration to be satis- fied that he was filled by a Divine spirit when he said : "I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, can separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ"? Peter and James and John are not repetitions of Paul : they all speak in their own language, but one spirit runs through them all. When John gays, " He that loveth dwelleth in God;" when James says, " Pure religion is to visit the father- 78 Till': BIBLE. less, and to keep one's self unspotted from tho world," they said the same thing which Paul said in declaring that " Love is the fulfilling of the Law," and that Love is greater even than Faith or Hope. And all agree with the great words of Christ, when he taught that the chief commandment is to love God and love man. The spirit of the Bible is one : there is no con- tradiction, no opposition there. But when 1 '.-ml says, " The letter killeth," he utters a solemn warning; for care for the letter has always brought a chill of death to the soul. It is not, then, because we wish to have less respect felt for the Bible that we oppose this theory of the letter, but because we wish more. If this whole theory were dropped, we should, as I am convinced, enter far more into the spirit of the Bible. The Bible would then no more be re- garded merely as a master, but rather as a friend. Multitudes, now repelled, would be attracted toward it, and the Bible might say to Christian believers, as Jesus said : " I call you not servants," blindly obedient to an unintelligible command ; " but I call you friends," intelligently obeying what 3'ou see to be right, intelligent!}' accepting what }'ou see to be true, and able to comprehend THE BIBLE. 70 what is the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God. The power of the Bible is not in its letter, but its spirit. That spirit needs no support from dogmas or theories of a supposed infallibility. The Bible may be proved full of errors as regards science, often wrong in its chronology and history. Its saints may be very imperfect char- acters ; its prophets, mistaken in their predic- tions ; its apostles, men of like passions with ourselves, and sometimes going astray. It may be true of them, as they said of themselves : 4(1 We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." But what is the chaff to the wheat? The power of the Bible is that it brings God to man, and lifts man to God ; that it shows a provi- dence reaching through all history, and whose everlasting arms are below all things ; a Father, whose love comes down into the heart of every child, who cares for us all, and is the Saviour of all. The Holy Spirit which pervades this book is The Comforter. It brings us comfort in our sor- rows, light in our darkness, hope in our despair. When all the scaffoldings which surround the Bible are taken away, by which men have tried to 80 7V/ A' R1RLK. prop it up, the world will begin truly to reoogni/c its real glory. Kingdoms fall, institutions perish, civilizations change, human doctrines disappear ; but the imperishable truths which pervade and sanctify the Bible shall bear it up above the flood of change and the deluge of 3'cars. It will for ever remain " A sacred ark, which from the deeps Garners the life for worlds to be, And witli its precious burden sweeps Adown dark time's destroying sea." IV. THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP, WHAT IS TO BECOME OF THE CHURCH ? ANSWERS OF THE SCEPTIC, THE SECTARIAN, AND THE BROAD CHURCHMAN. THE subject of this chapter is, "The Chris- tian Church, and what is to become of it?" And I shall consider three answers : the answer of the man who does not believe in the Christian church, the sceptic ; the answer of the secta- rian ; and the answer of the broad churchman. This question of what is to become of the Chris- tian church, connects itself with the general sub- ject of the essentials and non - essentials in Christianity ; because only that which is essen- tial in the church if there is any thing essential in the church will be found remaining in the future. First, as to the sceptic. His answer is : " The days of the church have passed by. It is a dying institution. There will be no church in the future. 6 82 THE CHURCH AM) \\'(>ltti///r. There will be no church," he continues, " because the foundations of the church have been completely undermined and overthrown. It has rested on the belief of its supernatural authority, as founded by God and Christ, and as essential to salvation. Its worship, its sacraments, its priests, have been believed necessary to save the soul. But this be- lief is passing by, and will soon be wholly gone. As the world grows more enlightened, its faith in this supernatural church and its authority passes away. In the coming years, there will be none so poor as to do it reverence. " Besides," argue these reformers and critics, " what need is there of a church? We do not need its worship, we can pray to God, and worship him alone in our closet, or in the groves which were God's ' first temples." What need of listening to sermons, we can read books, or hear lectures on science, literature, and art. What men want is knowledge, not ceremonies. Newspapers and magazines, lectures and colleges, are the teaching church of our time, to which all men go. Philanthropic societies and reform societies are the working church of this age." "The church is not wanted," continue our critics, "and is even in the way. It usually Till': CHURCH AM) WORSHIP. 83 opposes progress, opposes reforms, or else wholly neglects them. It leaves the abolitionist to free the slave ; the temperance societies to reform the drunkard : it turns over the blind and the idiots to Dr. Howe ; the ignorant children to Horace Mann ; the insane to Dorothea Dix ; the prisoners to the Prison Discipline Societ}^ ; our suffering brute relatives to the Societ}- for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Every one of these re- forms lay directly in the way of the church, and it passed them by. The church should have preached deliverance to the captives, and eman- cipation to the slave ; the church should have preached knowledge for the people, should have carried help to the blind and deaf and insane and intemperate. It has notably failed in all these duties. Occupied with discussions about theology ; engaged in controversy about more or less water in baptism ; the exact consequences of Adam's sin ; the need of bishops to make a true church, or the proper sort of milliner}' to be worn by the priest, it has omitted judgment, mercy, and faith. It cares more for anise and cummin than for love to God and man. In Europe, the Roman Catholic Church is to-day exerting all its power as it always has done to help the kings and the 84 THE cuvncn A\H WORSHIP. nobles and to keep down the people. In this country, there was one great overshadowing evil and wrong, that of slavery, and the church never did any thing to remove it, not even with the tip of its fingers. Away with such a church ! we do not need it, and will have none of it." I have stated this argument in its full force, for you can never satisfactorily meet an opponent, nor answer his objections, unless you first see and ad- mit their entire weight ; and I think we must con- cede that most Christian churches to-day greatly fail in this duty of curing the miseries, the wrongs, and the evils of the world. Occupied in making converts to a creed, or proselytes to a sect, or in awakening men to seek salvation from a future hell into a future heaven, they have neglected the hells around them here and the heavens that might be brought down upon earth to-da}\ This is the account which Jesus gave of his mission, in his own town, in the presence of his friends and relatives, and at the beginning of his work: " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, be- cause he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind ; to set at libc rty them that are bruised ; to preach 777 E CHURCH AND WORSHIP. 85 the acceptable year of the Lord." In our daily prayer, we are taught to pray that God's " will shall be done on earth" The work of Christ, as declared b} T himself, is to heal the woes and wrongs of this world ; to bring liberty instead of slavery, peace instead of war. The highest, noblest name ever given to the church was when the Apostle called it " the body of Christ." When Christ was in the world, he had his own earthly bod}', his feet, with which to walk to and fro, doing good ; his friendly voice, speaking words of help and good will ; his blessed hands, touching to heal ; his eyes, full of love, looking on friends and foes with radiant benediction. Now he is no more here in outward form ; but his spirit is still here, and needs a body with which to act. The church is that body, so says the Apostle : " Now ye are the body of Christ." Christ should look love, through the e}~es of the church, on mankind ; should heal with the hands of the church ; the church should be his feet to go about doing good ; the church should be his voice speaking pardon and peace to the sinner. If it does not do this, it fails of its duty and neglects its work. But what then ? Shall we say that because it has not done all its work it must be abolished and 86 THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. destroyed? Here I think our friends the critics are mistaken. Man}', many years ago, when the abolition movement was comparatively young, I went to Hingliam to attend an anti-shivery meet- ing. Coming back in the steamer, it grounded on the flats in the harbor, and we were obliged to stay on board all night, waiting for the rising of the next tide. Having no room to sleep, we held meetings during the night. Frederick Douglass was on board, and in one of his speeches he denounced the indifference of the church to the wrongs of the slave ; and, calling it the bulwark of slavery, said that it must be broken down and destroyed before emancii ation could come. I recollect replying that, admitting it was the bul- wark of slavery, it need not follow that it must be destroyed in order that freedom should come. When, after the campaign of Leipsic, the allied armies arrived at Paris, they found it defended by Marshal Marmont with an army planted on the hill of Montmartre. This hill was then the bul- wark of Paris. But the allied armies did not say, "We must destroy it; we must tear it down." No: they said, "Let us take it. Let us occupy it with our own troops." And thus, if the church were the bulwark of slavery, we did not need, and THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. 87 ought not to tr} r , to destroy it, but rather take it and occupy it in behalf of freedom. That reason- ing still holds good. The church is a power. The roots of it are planted deep in the heart of man- kind. Grant that it is an imperfect institution. Let it then be improved. Others may call it, if they will, the Bride of Christ, the ark of safety, the pure and holy mother of souls, the infallible and spotless body. Let us rather name it, as Jesus did, a compan}- of disciples, of children met to learn. The word disciple means simply a learner, a scholar. You do not blame a learner because he is ignorant. Ignorance is his qualifi- cation for learning. Christians may not be very wise nor very good ; but, if they are sitting at Christ's feet to learn of him, then they are his disciples and members of his church. Men and women of culture and leisure, with opportunities for reading, for social intercourse, educated in principles of virtue, surrounded from childhood by examples holding them to goodness, breathing an atmosphere saturated with Christian influences, may not so much feel the need of the Christian church to keep them from going astray. But let them look round on society, and judge what would be the consequences if the institutions of religion should disappear. 88 7v//-; CHURCH AND WORSHIP. By the census of 1870, it appeared that there were then in the United States 63,000 church edifices, with accommodations for 21,000,000 of people. In most of these churches, religious services arc held every week. In 60,000 places in the United States, men and women and children assemble to recognize their relations to an infinite God, to be told of their obligations and duties, to listen to the words of the Bible. During one day in seven, the rushing tide of worldly cares is ar- rested, the hot struggle for wealth and power is calmed, and men look up out of time into eternity. In these 60,000 churches, people come together on the same broad platform of humanity, the dis- tinctions of life are set aside in tin- presence of God; parties, cliques, social separations have no place. Suppose all this to come to an end. The church fulfils the predictions of our critics, and disappears. No more Sunday rest, no more meeting for common prayer and praise, and for listening to the words of Jesus. Sunday soon grows to be like any other day, and one mo- notonous, unbroken flood of work, care, study, amusement, sweeps through the year from January to December. Children are born, and no baptismal water consecrates them to God ; our loved ones THE CHURCn AND WORSHIP. 89 die, and no words full of immortal hope are spoken over them. The Bible, no longer read in public, is forgotten. It no longer stands as a Divine Law, commanding man to love his neighbor as himself; to overcome evil with good ; to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Instead, we have the daily newspaper and the monthly mag- azine ; instead of apostles, political editors ; in- stead of prophets, lyceum orators. We shall have science, indeed, and art, and civilization ; but will these supply the place of religion ? Will chemistry and biology take the place of the love of God? Civilization is knowledge, wealth, luxury, art : but heap them up ever so high around you ; abolish poverty, give comforts and luxuries to all, have you abolished in the soul the need of God r The church alone, of all human institutions, speaks to us of immortality, of heaven, of an Infinite Father and Friend. It alone supplies the deepest need of the human heart, and is there- fore built on a rock ; and, no matter what stornis of revolution or floods of change may come, it will not fall. The rock on which the church stands is not a creed nor a miracle ; not a pope or a priest ; not superstition, nor ceremony, nor habit : but the everlasting need felt by the earthly child fo: Ms heavenly Father. 90 THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. European thinkers, alienated from the church, are excusable in not recognizing it as created by human needs ; for there it is an establishment supported by the power of the State. But in this country no one is obliged to go to church, or to pay for public worship. Yet consider its progress here during twenty years. In 1850, there were 38,000 churches in the United States ; in 1860, there were 54,000; and in 1870, 63,000. In 1850, the church property in the land was valued at 87,000,000 of dollars ; in 1860, at 171,000,000 ; in 1870, at 354,000,000. During those ten years, which included the ravage and desolation of the civil war, the church propc rty was doubled. This does not look as if the people of the United States think that the church is not needed, or as if it were soon to come to an end. So much for the answer to the sceptic : now for the answer of the sectarian. The sectarian is a man who is persuaded that his own particular denomination is to swallow up all the rest. If he is a Roman Catholic, then that is to be the only church in the future. If he is a Presbyterian or a Methodist, then he believes all Christians are to become believers in the Assembly's Catechism or followers of John Wesley. If he is an Epis- THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. 91 copalian, he calls that sect " the church," and somehow thinks that by calling it so he will make it so. If he is a Baptist, . he cannot recognize any body of Christians as a church of Christ, therein men are not baptized by immersion, and confession; and I ought to say for we have Bectarians among the Unitarians that, if he is a Unitarian, he is likely to believe that the world are to be followers of Dr. Channing. Thus, while the census, which is truly catholic, tells us that there are 63,000 churches in the country, the sec- tarian Roman Catholic sees only his own 4,000 ; the sectarian Episcopalian, his own 3,000 ; the sectarian Presbyterian, his own 6,000 ; the sec- tarian Baptist, his own 13,000 ; the sectarian Methodist, his own 21,000. These conceits are childish, and would be inno- cent, did they not weaken that union, co-operation, and brotherly love which are essential elements of Christianity. Sectarianism fosters spiritual pride ; it lays stress on forms ; it encourages making proselytes to a party instead of making converts to God. Instead of contending against evil, the churches fight with each other. Each tries to exalt itself at the expense of its neighbor, for- getting that those who exalt themselves shall be 92 THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. abased ; forgetting, also, that if one member suffer, all must suffer with it. How foolish it is to suppose that any one denomination is to swallow up all the rest ! If any one were likely to do so, it would be the Roman Catholic, the largest, the oldest, the best organized of all. There is some- thing imposing in its vast assumptions, in its un- changeable policy, its uniform aspect, in Europe or America, Asia or Australia. Many look with alarm on its rapid growth in this country, in numbers, in wealth and influence. Its organs speak with proud confidence of its coming power, when it is to conquer all the Protestant denominations and reign alone. .An idle hope ! If, in the sixteenth century, when it possessed all Europe, it was not able to resist the Reformation or to put it down, how can it succeed in regaining its power, when it is opposed not only by the Greek Church and the Protestant Church, but by the progress of civilization and the spirit of the age? As one church among many, it has done great services, and can do more. But, by claiming too much, it is in danger of losing all. The nations which rejected it Germany, England, Scandinavia, Russia, and the United States have advanced from weakness to power, and have become the THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. 93 leading States of the world. The countries which clung to it Spain, Italy, and Austria have gone down from power to weakness ; and these nations are now throwing off its authority, and are likely to become its most radical oppo- nents. Regarding the Catholic Church as a church, I respect its influence and wish it all success. Look- ing at it as a sect, seeking to conquer all the others, I regard it as pursuing an unattainable chimera. The success of every church, sect, party, is limited by its power of meeting certain human needs. There are men and women who are made to be Catholics ; others made to be Methodists ; others to be Presbyterians, Sweden- borgians, Quakers, Episcopalians, Unitarians. Each man is benefited and made happy by being in the place which suits him, where his mind and heart are most at home, where his soul is fed with meat convenient for* it. Some men can be made better by one form of faith and worship, some by another. Therefore, we need all churches and all denominations, in order to meet all wants. There is the same essential truth and the same essential love in all. All teach the same piety and the same morality. They teach from the same 94 THE CHURCH AXD \voitsn u\ Bible, they sing the same hymns, they offer the same prayers. There is not one sort of honesty for Baptists and another for Methodists. Epis- copalians and Quakers have the same kind of charity for the poor and sympathy with the suf- fering. There may be diversities of gifts, but there is the same spirit ; and there may be differ- ences of administration, but the same Lord ; and diversities of operations, but the same God. Among all these varieties, there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in them all. No one church will swallow up the rest, so long as the Lord makes men different from each other in tastes and qualities of mind. A Methodist, happy when he can be moved emotionally, and have a good warm time, is chilled by the atmos- phere of a Unitarian or even an Episcopal church. One man finds his joy in reading Swedenborg, while another would starve on that diet. Many members, but one body. We ought to rejoice that ours is not the only church, since we cannot feed all. We ought to thank God that, since we can- not become all things to all men, other things be- sides ours are provided, that all may be satisfied. Some denominations are the Master's eye and ear. THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. 95 with which he can see and hear ; another his feet, with which he can walk ; another his hand, with which to touch and heal. If the whole body were the eye, where were the hearing? If the whole body were hand, where the walking? Let not, then, the head say to the feet : " I have no need of you." For God hath set in the church, first, Roman Catholics ; next, the Greeks ; then the Lu- therans ; after that, Episcopalians, Baptists, or Presbyterians, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. I go some Sunday into an old school Presbj^te- rian church, and sit down. It is communion Sun- day, and the minister proceeds to "fence the table," as it is called ; in other words, to say who , must not partake of the Master's feast. I, being a Unitarian, am shut out. He can keep me from the bread and wine, symbols of my Master's truth and love ; but can he keep me from my Master himself ? No : if I have faith in Christ, the fences fall before it. I sit at my Lord's feet. I am blessed by his love. I hear him say : " Son, be of good cheer ; thy sins are forgiven thee ! " We are all one in Christ Jesus. The barriers have fallen away, and I am in the midst of my brethren. 96 utE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. Perhaps, then, I open the hymn-book, and, as I turn the leaves, I find in it hymns by Watts and Wesley, Heber and Montgomery, and the Roman Catholic Faber; and here, in the midst of this goodly compan} T of psalmists and saints, I find, " Watchman, tell us of the night," or " In the Cross of Christ I glory," by the Unitarian, Bow- ring ; or "Sleep, sleep to-diy, tormenting cares/' by the Unitarian, Mrs. Barbauld ; and directly my Presbyterian friends begin to sing, ' c Nearer, my God, to Thee," by the Unitarian, Sarah Flower Adams. Then I say, the hymn-book is the type of the truly Catholic Church which is to be ; for here are collected singers of every sect and every name ; and, as on the day of Pentecost, they all speak in our own tongue, in which we were born. The hymn-book shows that piety, or love to God, is always essentially one and the same thing, in all churches, all sects, all lands, all times. Mrs. Barbauld, whom I just now mentioned, has a little apologue to show that charity also, or love to man, is the same thing, in all sects and churches. A mother is walking with her little boy, on Sunday, in the streets of a large city. The street is filled with people, who turn into the different churches, some into the Established . THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. 97 church, some into the different chapels. And the little boy wonders why, since they have the same Master, they should go in such different directions. But when the services are o^er, and the people are on their way home, a man falls in the street with a sudden attack of illness ; and then a Pres- byterian runs up and lifts him from the ground, a Methodist runs for a doctor, a Baptist gets water and bathes his forehead ; and the mother, turning to her little boy, says: "You see, my child, that, though their modes of worship are different, their charity is the same." The broad churchman is one who sees and knows that all Christian churches are essentially one ; that piety and charity are the same in all ; and while evefy sect and denomination is an indi- vidual member, doing its own work, and having a right to its own place and sphere, it ought not to be separated from the rest. It is only in the lower conditions of organic life that organs can be separated from each other, and the animal con- tinue to thrive. In the higher orders and classes, each organ is necessary for the perfect life of the Thole. The Christian church is in a low condi- tion when its different parts are disunited a a foot here, a hand there, and the head apart from 7 98 THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. both. In the future and higher church, every branch will be more active in its individual sphere, and yet more vitally united with the whole. Their functions will remain different : their life will be the same. In order to act efficiently, the church of the fu- ture must be thoroughly organized. But, in order to meet the wants of all parts of society, it must include every thing valuable that is in all existing churches. It must take in Catholics and Protes- tants, and have place and work for all who love God and his truth sincerely. The Roman Catho- lic church has union, but not freedom ; the Protes- tant churches have freedom, but not union ; the church of the future must have both. Its unities will be those of the early church, " One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Its one Lord will be Christ himself; its one faith, trust in him ; its one baptism, the answer of a good conscience towards God ; its God will be the God and Father of Christ, who is the universal friend. All who so beh'eve in Jesus as to co- operate in doing good and getting good will be received as his disciples. The church of the future will contain differ- THE CHURCH AM) \VUKM111\ 99 ences of ceremony and ritual, and will allow per- fect liberty of opinion. It may include the solemn liturgy and the extemporaneous prayer, the ma- jestic anthem, and the Quaker silence. For some minds are most influenced by the one, and some by the other ; so the future church, like the Apostle Paul, will become all things to all men, that it may save all. If there are those to whom the light seems more religious when dimmed by passing through richly colored and storied windows, it will provide for them the vast cathedral with nave and choir and transepts and lofty spire. If any are benefited by having their clergy dressed in surplice and stole, in having holy water and incense, the benign church will furnish all this, but not make any of it essential. But, meantime, it will be a teaching church, a working church, a missionary church ; giving its strength to save mankind here as well as hereafter. Everywhere it will over- come evil by good, war by peace, hatred by love, error by truth, ignorance by light, vice by purity, unbelief by faith. The church of the future will convert the heathen to Christ, not by threats and terror, not by denunciation or pictures of Divine wrath ; but by making actual Christianity like that of Christ 100 mi: cuuRCii AX/) \vuiisiiir. himself. When Christendom is lifted up to a higher Christianity, it will draw all men unto it. When the Christian world grows more pure, upright, noble, generous, then the fulness of the Gentiles will come in. The great evils and wrongs which now oppress humanity will melt under the influence of this Christian love, as the icebergs from the pole dissolve in the warm currents from tropic seas. The time will come at last long foretold by prophet and sibyl, long retarded by unbelief and formalism when wars shall cease, and the reign of just laws take the place of force in the great federation of mankind. As soon as the church is at peace with itself and becomes one, it will be able to make the world also one. Christ will at last become in reality the Prince of Peace, put- ting an end 4o war between nations, war between classes in societ}*, war between criminals and the State. In trade, instead of competition we shall have co-operation, and all industry will receive its just recompense. Capital will be reconciled to labor ; science to religion ; reason to faith ; lib- erty to order ; the conservatism which loves the stable past to the spirit of progress which forgets what is behind and reaches out to that which is THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP. 101 before. This will be the coming of Jesus in the clouds of heaven with the angels of God, and the spirits of the just made perfect. This will be the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. This will be the tabernacle of God with men, when he will dwell with them and be their God. Then shall the Lamb of God be the light of the world, and the nations shall walk in the light of it ; and there shall be no more curse, and no more night, and no more tears, but all shall drink of the water of life freely. This great hope, so often disappointed, but for ever renewed, must at last be realized. It was dimly seen by the ancient patriarch herdsman, the founder of faith in one Supreme Being who might be the friend of man, to whom it was revealed, under the lonely stars which hung over Ararat, that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed. Further on, David and the prophets caught a clearer sight of the heavenly vision, and amid the rudeness of that primeval age declared that the time should come when the sword should be beaten into a ploughshare, and the heavens rain down righteousness upon the earth. Other races and nations had a like vision of a kingdom of heaven to come upon the earth. 102 THE CHURCH AND WORSllir. Virgil caught it from the mysterious Sibyl, and declared that a new order of ages was to begin, when all crime should end, and peace return to the world. The Christian church has, from age to age, prolonged the song of the angels, of a coming glory to God and good will to men. It has declared that Christ is to return and reign upon the earth in love and truth. Philosophies of a more material type have also chanted this same hymn of hope for humanity, and prophesied an earthty paradise to come from communism or the survival of the fittest. Such a hope, for ever renewed, in spite of perpetual disappointments, must indicate some conviction in the soul, so deep as to assure its own fulfilment. Modern poets look to America, and declare that the star of empire takes its way westward, and that Time's noblest drama is to find here its stage and its triumph. " The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay, Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away ; But fixed his word, his saving power remains ; Thy realm for over lasts, thine own Messiah reigns ! " V. HOW DOES A MAN BECOME AT ONE WITH GOD? CATASTROPHE AND EVOLUTION IN RELIGION. THE subject of this chapter is " The Essential and Non-Essential Elements in Christian Experience ; or, How does a man become at one with God ? " I have also added the title of "Catastrophe and Evolution in Religion," as indicating the two most common views as to the way in which every man in Christ becomes a new creature. This latter phrase is borrowed from geology, in which the two prominent theories of the formation of the earth are that of gradual and continuous development, of which Lyell was the chief supporter, and that which declares that the earth came to its present shape after nu- merous catastrophes, of which, among others, Clarence King has recently pronounced himself an advocate. As there are these two hypothe- ses as to the method by which the primitive, 104 HOW DOES A MAN BECOME chaotic world became a new creation, so there are two similar theories concerning the process by which the chaos in the human soul is trans- formed into a cosmos of order, and man is changed into a new creature. The church usually teaches that man has fallen into sin, and that his nature has become so depraved that every human being begins his moral career with an inevitable bias to evil rather than to good. However much the old doctrine of natural and total depravity may have been softened, every denomination claiming to be orthodox declares that every child is fatally inclined toward evil rather than good. Therefore, in order to become a child of God, he must be radically changed. He must become convinced of sin, sensible of guilt, filled with penitence ; and then, inspired by faith in the promises of the gospel, he must become con- verted, and so be made a new creature. Such an entire and radical change is usually violent, sudden, accompanied with deep convictions. When completed, the whole heart is changed, the man now loves what he hated, and hates what he before loved. After this, his life is wholly altered ; having done wrong and gone wrong before, he now begins to do right and to AT ONE WITH GOD? 105 go right, and is in truth and reality a renewed and transformed person. It will be seen that the logic of such a radical change is derived from the assumption of a universal primitive tendency to evil rather than to good. Grant this, and it fol- lows that a catastrophe must take place when man is converted, a beneficial and blessed catastro- phe indeed ; like those which changed the raging fires, boiling oceans, and bare strata of the an- cient world of death, into these fertile plains, for- ests and seas, full of life and joy. Every deep and long-held belief at last passes into language. Thus in the popular churches it is assumed, in the language of the pulpit, that all mankind are divided into two classes, the pen- itent and impenitent, the saints and sinners, the converted and unconverted, the Christians and the unchristians. As the people come out of the world and approach the gates of the sanctuary on the Lord's day, they seem very much alike : with no great difference among them. There are good people, and people perhaps not quite so good as they ; but it is impossible for any man outside the church to draw a line which shall divide them all into two classes. But the mo- ment they enter the building, and the clergyman 106 UOW DOES A MAN BECOME looks down upon them, at once they are divided into " my penitent hearers " and my " impenitent hearers ; " and are spoken of as converted or unconverted, just as they would be spoken of as Germans or Irishmen or Americans. The chief object of the church in all its work is to change the second class into the first, to convert sinners, and to bring them to repentance. It is assumed not only that this vital and radical change is to take place in all persons before they can be re- garded as God's children, but also that it is an evident and apparent one, that you can tell a con- verted man from an unconverted one, just as you can tell a Frenchman from an American. More- over, this belief when established works its own fulfilment. If children are taught from the first in their Sunday schools and churches that they are children of wrath, that they are radically sin- ful by their very nature, that they do not love God and cannot, until they are essentially changed, what is the natural result ? That they do not try to do what is impossible, they consider them- selves outside of the kingdom of heaven. God is not yet their friend, nor Christ their Saviour, not till they are converted. If they die uncon- verted, they die without hope. One of two things, AT ONE WITH GOD? 107 then. They become careless and indifferent, hop- ing to be converted at some future time, but meantime meaning to enjoy this world as much as possible. Or else they try to be converted, and pray and agonize to pass through this n^stical experience, till at last a reaction takes place, some rest comes to their mind, some comfort to their heart, and they joyfully take this as a proof that God loves them, and that they are converted to him. Then they, too, will always think that con- version is something sudden and painful, and will hold to the theory of catastrophe in religion. Generalizing their own history, they will assume that no religious experience is genuine which is not stamped with such marks as these. And now we ask, What truth is there in this doctrine ? It is certainly true that no man can serve two masters. Every one must be going in the right way or the wrong, aiming at truth and good, or not aiming at it. There is always some ruling motive in the soul, some chief purpose, eminent desire, overruling wish, to which, in case of conflict, all others must give way. Any psy- chology which ignores this fact is fatally deficient. Man was made, not to drift, but to steer. He must choose the good, and refuse the evil. If he does 108 HOW DOES A MAN BECOME not do so, he virtually chooses the evil ; just as a citizen who does not mean to obey the laws is at heart a criminal, ready to disobey them when any occasion comes. In an army, a soldier who does not mean to obe} T , means to disobey ; and is at heart already mutinous. In a nation, a citizen who does not mean to obey the government is at heart a rebel. So a human being, in whom God has placed a conscience, making distinction be- tween right and wrong, if he does not mean to obey his conscience, disobeys it. In this sense, it is certainly true that he who is not with God is against him. And in all such cases a change, to be thorough, must be a deliberate, conscious de- cision to do right and not wrong henceforth and Again, it is very certain that a large number of people, even in Christian communities, have no determined purpose of right-doing. Their highest rule is not the law of God in their conscience, but some human law, public opinion, or personal convenience. They are not steering, but really drifting. They have no infinite Master whom they obey, no infinite Father whom they love, and therefore cannot be considered as having any Christian aim. They are children of the world, AT ONE WITH GOD? 109 not children of God. As long as it is easy to do right, they will do it ; as long as it is prosperous to be just, they will be honest. But when the rains of adversity descend, and the floods of temptation arise, and the winds of trial blow, they will be likely to fall, for they have no rock of a divine con- viction and faith under their feet. Now, these people, though they may be very pleasant and agreeable persons, really need to be converted, just as much as any convict in the State prison, for they are no more serving God than he is. It will not do to assume that all respectable, decent, and well-behaved people are necessarily going the right way. They may be really going down, not up, slowly, insensibly perhaps, but steadily. And, if so, then they must be called upon to re- pent, and to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit. And that will probably be a sudden change, even though it may not be a public or open one. It is, therefore, no wonder that there should still be so much of what I have called catastrophe in religious experience. To one whose mind has not been imbued with the sight of eternal realities from childhood, their coming must be often like that of the earthquake, the fire, the hurricane, and the volcano, rather than that of the still, small voice. 110 HOW DOES A MAN BKCOM !: What are the essential facts in this Christian experience ? The}' are two, the two which Paul declared to be the sum and substance of his preaching both to Jews and Greeks; that is, the essence of Christianity, when disembarrassed of any thing merel}- Jewish or merely Pagan. He tells the elders of the church of Ephesus that he had kept back nothing profitable, but had taught them in public and private, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith, these are the two poles of Christian experience, around which it must ever revolve. Call them by other names, if you will, " sin and pardon ; " " determination to obey God, and trust in his love;" "doing our duty, and pra}'ing for help to do it right ; " " law and grace ; " " works and faith ; " or, more largely generalized, "the sense of responsibility and the sense of dependence," these are the two essen- tial elements of all vital religion. Man, born with a conscience which gives him the idea of an eternal law of duty, of an everlasting distinction between good and evil, light and darkness, right and wrong, knows well that he ought always to choose the good and refuse the evil. This is the AT ONE WITH GOD? Ill doctrine, not of Christianity or Judaism only, but of natural religion everywhere ; and this law of ob- ligation is unchanging and everlasting. This law of duty, which is above man, is also in man, rooted and fixed in the very texture of his soul, and we never can escape from it but by fulfilling it. Conscience sits supreme in every soul, an absolute autocrat, claiming our entire allegiance. We can turn from it, stultify it with sophistiy, sear it with sin ; but it is there always, ready to reawaken, and its awakening is terrible. Then there may be a shock like an earthquake, and the whole soul may tremble to its centre, listening to that awful voice as to the trumpet of the archangel. If the man hearkens to it and determines to obey it, and to live for what is right at all hazards, that is the first step of Christian experience. This is re- pentance or conversion. It is turning and begin- ning to go the right way. But that is not enough : that is only half of what all men need for spiritual life and progress. To determine to do one's duty, no matter how hard, in spite of all temptation, that is the beginning, the Alpha of all religion. But what shall help us to fulfil this purpose ? We are weak ; evil habit is strong ; we are beset by temptation 112 HOW 1>OK8 A MAN IWCOMK without and within, and we cry with Paul, u To will is present with me, but how to perform that which I will I find not." We resolve to do right, and presently we do wrong. We find a law in the flesh warring against the law of the mind. We need help of some sort, strength to do what we resolve to do, for a resolution alone is not enough. Then comes the second great fact of Christian experience, "Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." And what is the essential thing in this faith ? Is it any belief about his rank and power in the universe, such as the Greek theolo- gians quarrelled about for three centuries? Is it any metaphysical speculation as to the precise way in which the death of Jesus made it possible for God to forgive sin? Is it any profession of faith, or verbal declaration, as though merely saying something about Jesus was to save the soul? No. The saving faith in Jesus Christ is to believe as he believed, trust in God as he trusted, hope as he hoped, and love as he loved. Just as we eat and drink food, and it becomes a part of our body, it is to eat and drink Christ, so that his spirit shall enter into ours, and be the life of our soul. It is to trust in that infinite tenderness in which he trusted ; to receive that AT ONE WITH CODf 113 boundless compassion which Jesus made known ; to be pardoned, comforted, and made at peace with God by the truth and the love of which Jesus was the manifestation. If I were to say that " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself," I should say exactly what I myself believe. But I use the words in no dogmatic and doctrinal sense, but as expressing the fact that what we see of God, as shown by Jesus, is that which brings the soul to him, and fills it with his peace. When we see Christ as he was and is, we look through the character of Christ and see that of God ; see, reflected in this human child, something of the love of the Infinite Father. This sense of God's pardoning and saving love is the Omega, as the sense of duty is the Alpha, of all Christian experience. But now we must ask again, Is it necessary that this experience should come in a moment, suddenly, and with a great commotion of the soul? May it not begin in the earliest childhood, be increased gradually by Christian education, and thus grow by a slow but continuous process of evolution and development into its full powei and efficacy ? A large part of the church declares that it may. In the first, place, this is taught by 8 114 HOW DOES A MAN BECOME all the sacramental churches, who believe that the unconscious infant begins its spiritual life when the baptismal water touches its brow and the benediction is pronounced over it. Admit- ting the doctrine of hereditary depravit}', they escape its consequences by the ordinance of infant baptism. The baptized child has become a child of God, just as if it had never inherited the curse of Adam. Now, all that it needs is Christian education and Christian sacraments, to keep it from going astray. And if the only way of escape from the cruel theology which declares every human being to be born in sin, if the only escape from this were to believe that this taint is wiped away at once by the rite of baptism, then I should pray God to enable me to believe it, and I should be glad to join the Roman Catholic and the high churchman in this sacramental rescue of the innocents. Let the evil introduced by one false theology be cured, if possible, by another. Two theological negatives might thus destroy the ne- gation. The rational Christian, however, takes another and a better way. He admits the fact, apparent to all, that we do inherit bodity tendencies which may be temptations to evil. Both right-doing AT ONE WITH GOU? 115 and wrong-doing become at last habits, and these habits become instincts, and are transmitted from generation to generation. But it does not follow that there is any irresistible bias to evil, or any tendenc}^ which may not be overcome by education and example. Faith in Christ requires us to believe that good is stronger than evil, and can overcome it. Instead of taking for granted that children must go wrong, let us rather show them that we expect them to go right. Let us believe that God has planted in every soul aspirations for goodness, capacities "for generosity, the love of truth, the sense of justice, and let it be the business of the church to develop these germs of a true life, so that no painful conversion shall ever be necessary. I suppose it is a matter of fact that the ma- jority of all church-members, even in those de- nominations which lay the most stress on sudden conversions, have become Christians by education and slow development. It has been repeatedly declared, in Sunda3 T -school conventions, that sta- tistics show the majority of church-members to be the children of Christian parents, brought up from childhood in the faith and practice of the gospel. The theory may require them to be suddenly con- 116 HO W DOES A MAN BKCOMK verted to religion : the fact shows that they were gradually educated to religion. The proportion of church-members suddenly cc ,n verted to those who were educated is much as it was at first in the company of the Apostles. Paul was con- verted in a moment ; but the rest of the Apostles were educated gradually by the influence and teaching of Jesus, by keeping company with him, hearing his words, and seeing his works. At the last, there came to them on the da}' of Pentecost the tongues of fire, enabling them to preach the word with efficacy. But that could hardly be called their Christian conversion. It was the promised power from on high, given them for the preaching of the Word. This history of the Apostles therefore shows that the chief method of the church in bringing souls to God should not be by catastrophe so much as by evolution. We should grow up in all things into Him who is our Head. Other arguments of the evolutionists, as we shall call them, who are in favor of bringing men to God by a gradual education rather than by a sudden conversion, are these: "Is there not," they say, " something unnatural in the very notion of these violent conversions ? We admit that, if AT ONE WITH GOD? 117 men have been estranged from God and Christ, living worldly, selfish, and sensual lives, they may find their return to the right way accompanied with a shock. If people have become lost in a forest, they may have difficulty in getting back to the road. But cannot Christians walk directly forward on the highway to heaven, from child- hood? Is there not such a way? Did not Christ declare himself to be the way ? According to the theory of catastrophes, there is no way, no reg- ular method. The Apostles were called the serv- ants of the most high God, who show the way of salvation. Modern Protestant Orthodoxy is in a most unsatisfactory attitude. The business of the church is to bring the world to God. Then it ought to know exactly how to do it, how to begin, how to go on, how to finish. Such is the case with all other work. If a man is to build a house, he does not bring together his materials, hire his masons and carpenters, and, when all are ready, sit down and wait for some sudden shock or emo- tion by which they shall be enabled to go on with their work. If we are merchants, lawyers, teach- ers, blacksmiths, we do not wait for a revival before we can fulfil our engagements. It is only in converting the world to God, the most im- 118 HOW DOES A MAN BECOME portant work of all, that this strange system is adopted. Here, there seems to be no regular method of growth in goodness ; but we must use the means of grace, and then wait for the result. Religion is to be obtained by some supernatural method, by a spasm, an agon}', a struggle, not by any regular, practical work. If a man wished to become a Christian in the days of the Apostles, he went to them and said, ' What shall I do to be saved ? ' and they answered at once, according to his case, either, ' Repent and be con- verted,' if he was committing some sin, or, 4 Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,' if what he needed was faith, or, c Be baptized,' if what was wanted was an open avowal. But now, if one asks, ' What shall I do to be saved?' no one can exactly say what is to be done. There is a prolonged struggle, an agony, pra} r ers, tears, finally there may or there may not come relief and comfort. If these come, it is assumed that the man is converted ; otherwise, he must wait and try again. All this confusion," say the evolution- ists, u is the result of this false method of reliance on catastrophes. The Roman Catholic Church does better, for that commits no such blunder. No doubt, it admits revivals into its s} r stem, and AT ONE W 1 Til GOD? 119 has its seasons of extraordinary attention to reli- gion. But it does not depend on them to create religion in the soul, but only to increase its glow and power. In the Roman Catholic Church, every baptized person is taught to believe himself a Christian, so long as he does not continue in mortal sin, but preserves his Christian life by a regular use of the sacraments. Every Roman Catholic who obeys the rules of his church is taught that he is safe and in the right way. In most Protestant churches, if its children born and brought up in it are Christians, it is, so far as theology is concerned, only a fortunate accident." Another bad result of this method, say the evolutionists, is that it discourages some and in- flates others. He who has not been able, for some reason, to obtain these inward experiences, considers himself as no Christian, having no part in the hopes of the gospel. He who has been through such an experience, and has attained a hope, thinks himself safe. He is safe, he believes, because of his past experience, not because of his present fidelit} 7 . He was converted at such a time, so he trusts that he is right. To work out his salvation by deeds of charity and by growth in goodness would, he thinks, be to rely on mere 120 HOW DOES A MAN BECOME morality. Therefore, the members do not grow in knowledge or in grace, as they otherwise would. Hence, the reproach often made, sometimes un- justly indeed but sometimes justty, that church- members are no better than others. They are not taught that any thing depends on being better. Most stress is laid on conversion, little on progress. Thus, they are exposed to great temptation, and may be led into spiritual pride, which so often goes before destruction. Is it not possible, it is asked, that some of the moral disasters which have befallen leading men in the church are owing to the false security which such men have felt in consequence of this theory that Christianity consists essentially in being converted, not in leading an upright life? Therefore, say the evolutionists, a wholly different method is neces- sary. We ought to take our little children at the beginning, and, instead of trying to torture them by an effort to obtain a change of heart, teach them that they already belong to God and Christ, and that they are in the kingdom of Heaven now. Teach them that so long as they try to correct their faults, obey their parents, and fulfil their duties, they are in the right way. Teach them to pra} T to God, not as aliens or outcasts, AT ONE WITH GOD? 121 but as his children, and to grow up from faith to greater faith. Make them understand that, while they are thus living in obedience and faith, they are in the peace of God, and have a right to all the promises and hopes of the gospel. Teach them that the work of life is to get good and to do good. Convert sinners b} T the same doctrine : make them understand that God is not hidden nor afar off; that he is not in some distant heaven, nor beyond some far-off gulf of space, but very nigh to us all, in our conscience and our heart, ready to help, to bless, and to save at every hour. These are the two theories in regard to the way of salvation, which is the true one ? One of these theories, it will be seen, lays the principal stress on the beginning of the Christian life, that is, on conversion ; the other, on the development of the Christian life, that is, growth in goodness. Now, according to any theory of Christianity, both are necessary. Is Christianity a journey, a " Pil- grim's Progress " to heaven ? Then it is necessary to begin the journey, to be sure that we really are intending to go, and that we have begun to go. It will not do not to assume that all men are on their way to heaven. They must adopt a purpose, commence a work, begin to go, put themselves in 122 1WW UOKS A MAN liKCOMK the right way ; and, until this is done, nothing is done. So far, the believers in catastrophes are right. But, on the other hand, what is the use of beginning the journey, unless we go forward? What good in being converted to God, unless we learn to obey God? The object of Christianity is to change this world into the kingdom of heaven ; but the kingdom of heaven is not meat nor drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It is to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with God. Unless we enter this kingdom of truth and love, what good in passing the portal? The only advantage in beginning to go on this journey is that *ve should keep on and arrive at the end. Is Christianity a life ? Then, in order to live, we must be born ; but, unless we grow up, what good in being born? The Christian life is one of faith, hope, love, obedience, the life of God in the soul of man. We are born into that life by a deter- mination to obey God and do his will. We grow up by daily obedience, daily trust, daily prayer. This life, as we have seen, consists of two parts : one, which depends on ourselves ; the other, which comes from God. The part which depends on ourselves begins with repentance and conver- AT ONE WITH GOD! 123 sion, and goes on by continued well-doing. It is work, all through. The part which depends on God is all of grace, it is from grace to grace, grace all through. It was by the grace of God that Christ came. God so loved the world that he sent his Son, our brother, to show the way of salvation. It is by grace that he comes to us, and that we are born amid the promises and hopes of the gospel. It is God's grace which forgives our sin when we repent. It is God's grace which leads us to repentance by inspiring faith in his love. It is the grace of God which invites us to pray, and it is his grace which answers our prayers, takes the burden from the heart, and fills it Tuth his peace. All we have to do in order to be saved is to work and to trust. There are no obscure mysteries to be believed, no awful bur- dens to be borne, no sin which cannot be pardoned if we repent, nothing to do but what God will give us strength to accomplish. We are saved by faith, and also b} T works. If we had not faith, we should not have the courage to work ; if we did not work, our faith would soon die, for faith without work is dead. Genuine Christian experience, therefore, may be sudden or gradual, or both. Conversion, or 124 HOW DOES A MAN BKCOMK turning round, is alwa} T s sudden. If one is doing wrong or going wrong, he cannot too suddenly begin to go right. But going forward is gradual, growth is gradual, progress is gradual. The com- ing of God's life in the soul is like the coming of spring. A little while ago, all was cold and hard and dead. Now, a soft breath of warm odor fills the air, the life stirs in a million buds, the grass begins to grow green over a thousand miles of mea- dow and prairie, a wave of verdure rolls slowly up from the south over the northern forests. Every majestic oak, every little bush, shakes out its tender leaves to welcome the coming sun ; in- sects hum, birds carol, the fish flashes through the stream. So is the coming of God's love and truth in the human soul. As the earth, in spring, turns itself upward toward the sun, so we turn our hearts upward to God in submission and trust. As the sun pours down his answering radiance, magnetizing every germ into advancing life, so the spirit of God descends softly into all willing hearts, creating a new vitality within. There en- ters the soul a sense of pardon, comfort, and peace ; and out of this there come the flowers of beauty and the fruits of goodness. " The wilderness and solitary place shall be glad for them ; the desert AT ONE WITH GOD? 125 shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." u The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water." "And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness : the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." On this deep foundation of Christian experience all Christianity rests. It is the solid rock beneath the church, like Peter's faith, which flesh and blood had not revealed to him, but the Father which is in heaven. Ah 1 belief in Christ and Christi- anity, founded on hearsay, which flesh and blood have revealed, is unstable. Human teaching ; the authority of others ; the belief of parents and - friends ; the outward blessings and advantages of religion, these are only like John the Baptist, sent to prepare the way of the Lord. Not till we come to God ourselves, by personal submission to the law of right, personal trust in his all-suffi- cient love, do we have any solid Christianity. After that, if we speak, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen. If men fall away from religion and become unbelievers, it is be- cause they have never really had any true reli- gious experience. For what we have once seen, once known, of God, Christ, duty, love, immor- 120 1IO\V DO WE BECOME AT ONE WITH GOD* tal hope, is a possession for ever. Heaven and earth may pass away ; but this Divine word, once seen and known, shall never pass away. On this solid personal experience, the whole future of Christianity must rest. This is still the rock on which Christ builds his church, and which will for ever resist all that can injure or destroy. Out of this deep, broad, living Christian experi- ence, shall come that future church of Christ which shall combine variety with unity, works with faith ; which shall be broad enough to adapt itself to all human diversity, deep enough to satisfy all human needs ; so progressive as to walk abreast with all human development; so aspiring as to bring down God's kingdom to this world and make heaven upon earth. But the Christian ex- perience, out of which all this grand future shall grow, will be nothing narrow, nothing formal, and not a mere confused emotion. It will be the vis- ion of God's truth and God's love, the light of things eternal. It may come suddenly or gradu- ally, but it will be always essentially the same. It will always consist in the sight of the Divine holiness, justice, truth, order, and law, producing obedience, and the sight of God's pardoning love, saving grace, spiritual influence to redeem and bless, producing faith, hope, love. VI. WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL REASONS FOB BELIEVING IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE, AND WHAT WILL THAT EXISTENCE BE? I HA VE to speak, in this closing chapter, of the essentials and non-essentials in regard to a future life. What are the essential reasons for believing in a future existence? First comes the remarkable fact that it has been the faith of the human race. In all ages, lands, civiliza* tions, races, religions, men have believed in a hereafter. All the great religions have taught it, Zoroaster and Buddha, from the far East, and from out of a gray antiquity ; Brahminism ; the religion of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome ; these all declare with one consent that, if a man die, he shall live again. Poetry, legend, romance, superstition, agree in looking out of time across that sea of one shore which we call death, and painting pictures of the other land which, as they take for granted, lies unseen beyond. The most savage races of Africa, or the islands of the Pacific, are haunted by the terrors of ghosts and 128 BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. spectres whose existence is a part of their fixed belief. And, when we ascend to the other ex- treme of the scale of human development, and commune with the demi-gods of thought, with men made little lower than the angels, we find the childish superstitions of the ignorant lifted into a calm faith in immortality. Among the events of this earth, that which, with one exception, touches our hearts most deeply, is the long conversation held by Socrates, on the day of his execution, with his disciples. This great truth-seeker de- votes the last hours of his life to considering the arguments for immortality and the objections to it, and, having replied to all the objections, looks forward with confidence to another existence. Calm, wise, tender, without fear, he advances toward death, sure that death will only touch his body, not his mind. When sunset was near, he said : " Let the poison be prepared, for it is best not to linger." Crito asked : " How should you like to have us bury you?" Socrates replied, with a smile : " Any way you wish, if you can only get hold of me. Have I not shown you, Crito, that I, who have been talking to you, am not the other Socrates who will soon be a dead body? Do not say, then, at my funeral, ' Let us BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 129 bury Socrates,' for such words are not only false, but they infect the soul with evil." And when we pass up from Socrates to one still greater than he, to the highest of all human souls, we find him saying not only that he is immortal, but that he is immortality. Immortal life and the resurrection, or the rising up of the human being, these he declares to be the very essence and cen- tre of the true man himself. ' ' I am the resur- rection and the life ; he that believeth in me " that is, he who believes in that truth which is the essence of my being " he shall never die." In other words, the soul itself is essential life, and death cannot touch it. I do not mean to say that this universal belief in a hereafter has no exceptions. There have always been a small number of doubters who have not been able to accept this doctrine. There have been two difficulties, and very important ones, which have staggered them. First, there is the impenetrable veil which hangs between us and the other world. It is so strange that those noble souls, so full of interest in this life and in human affairs, should pass away and never be heard of again ; that those hearts, bound to us by an affec- tion stronger than adamant, should leave us and U 130 BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. never come to us any more ! If they were alive, if the} r were anywhere, should we not somehow know of it? This vast human procession moves steadily on, and the instant it passes that low portal of death it disappears from our knowledge for ever. This fact is one of the great difficulties in regard to a future life. True, there has always been a vague belief in ghosts, in apparitions of the dead, and spiritual manifestations ; but these have been so vague as to be rather an alarm than an encouragement. Another great difficulty as to our continued existence is the dissolution of the body. All that we know of human life is in connection with body. Life in this world is in- evitably bound to body. But death dissolves body, how then can life continue? Considering these two facts, (1) that we know nothing of the continued existence of those who have left us, and (2) that we know of no life here except in connection with body, it is not at all wonderful that men should have hesitated in accepting a future existence. But what is wonderful, and very wonderful, is that, in face of these two facts, the immense majority of man- kind should yet have believed in immortality. This faith is a most amazing phenomenon, and is BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 131 to be accounted for. Am I told that the wish is father to the thought? that men believe in a future life because they desire a future life? I reply that this merely changes the form of the wonder. We then ask, Why do men wish to live hereafter, if there is no hereafter? If all they know and love is here, why this universal wish for a continued existence in some unknown world ? As Shelley says : This earth is the nurse of all we know, This earth is the mother of all we feel, And the coming of death is a dreadful blow To a brain unencompassed by nerves of steel, When all that we know, and feel, and see, Shall pass, like an unreal mystery ! If, in spite of all the reasons for doubt, in spite of our ignorance concerning the future world, there is a universal instinct in man to believe in such a world, this instinctive belief is itself a proof that we are to live again. Every other instinct has its appropriate object. There is an instinctive desire for food, and food is provided ; an instinctive longing for knowledge, and knowl- edge is given ; an instinctive joy in beauty, and beauty is shed over the world ; an instinctive social tendency, and society is here ; an instinct 132 BELIEF IN A FUTURE KXIHTKNCE. for construction and art, and the means of exer- cising this are given. If, therefore, there is planted in man an instinctive longing for im- mortality, universal, constant, permanent, we may be sure that God provides an existence to satisfy such a longing. As to the difficulty arising from the fact that bodily organization is necessary to all life here, we see that, in spite of this, men have usually believed in a soul which may exist independently of the body. The belief in ghosts, just referred to, is evidence of this. A ghost is assumed to be a being without a body, yet capable of thought, action, speech ; capable of being seen, of moving to and fro, of continued personal identity. In short, it is a soul existent without the bodily organization. Now, there either are ghosts, or there are no ghosts. If ghosts exist, then evi- dently the soul may exist without the body. But if there are no ghosts, then mankind has always believed it possible for souls to exist without the body, though they have no proof of it. This, therefore, must be an instinctive belief, and, like all other instincts, has something in reality corre- sponding to it. If, though there have never been any ghosts, men have always believed in ghosts, BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 133 it proves that there is something within us which feels itself capable of existing without the body. And such a consciousness can hardly be explained except by assuming the reality of such a soul, which, using the body but as the means of com- municating with this world, is capable of existing in some other way hereafter. The first reason for believing in immortality is that we are made to believe in it. There is no better evidence than that a belief accords with human nature. But, beside this, is the fact that our confidence in immortality increases as we have more and higher life. In a low condition of our existence, death is the "king of terrors." But as man becomes more alive in mind, heart, spirit, death loses its sting and the grave its vic- tory. This is one way in which Christ has abol- ished death, by making the human soul more full of life. This is one way, and his resurrection is another. It is a fact, explain it as you will, that the disciples of Jesus were emancipated from all fear of death. They explained this phenome- non by sa} r ing that they had not only seen their Master alive, after his crucifixion, but also arisen, ascended, gone into a higher world ; from which, nevertheless, he came to encourage them. It is 134 BELIEF IX A rUTURE i:\lSTE\CK. often said that the resurrection of Jesus is the great miracle of Christianity. But I believe its power consisted in its not being a miracle, but a revelation to the disciples of what was to come to them all. All were to rise, as Jesus rose. They saw that, instead of death being a descent into a dark under- world, it was an ascent into a world of higher life and larger light. The power of the resurrection for the disciples was that it bridged the gulf between this life and the next, and showed them Jesus gone up to glory, victory, and heaven. And the power of Christ's resurrec- tion to us is that the faith in a continuance and ascent of being has been transmitted in the church as a permanent possession, taught us in our in- fancy, breathed in with the very air around us, and reinforcing the original instinct of immor- tality. I am not one of those who refuse to the lower animals all hope of continued existence. I believe it very possible that the living principle in the animal may be capable of development into some higher modes of existence after the death of the bod} 7 . The reason why immortality is usually denied to animals is that their lives seem to be complete here. They have, apparently, no UI,.,T- BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 135 hausted capacities. The lower races of men are like animals in this, that they also manifest few tendencies reaching beyond their present life. But, as man's soul is developed by knowledge and culture, this surprising phenomenon appears, that while his body grows old and decays his mind continues to advance. The bodily life is limited to seventy or eighty years, then it must decay, and at last perish. But no such limitation applies to the soul. The mind of Michel Angelo at sixty-seven accomplished one of his greatest works, and at ninety his powers were in full ac- tivity. Milton finished and published l ' The Paradise Lost" only a few years before his death. The mists of age may indeed dim the radiance of the soul, as clouds collect around the setting sun ; but occasional gleams of glory show that the power is there, though partially hidden. These inexhausted and seemingly inexhaustible capaci- ties are a sign that we are intended for further being. Problems open before the mind whicli the mind is incapable of solving in this world. These prophesy some other state where they can be comprehended. The undying affection of the human heart for the loved and lost reaches beyond the grave, and assures us of some future reunion. l;5G BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. When the reason is unable to prove an immortal- ity, the heart asserts it on the evidence of its own imperishable love. The word " indenture" came from the old cus- tom of cutting a parchment contract into two pieces ; divided, not by a straight line, but by a jagged one, marked with indentations, each party to the contract retaining one piece. If we were to see such a parchment, with the lines thus abruptly cut asunder, we should infer from their incomplete sense that there was somewhere an- other piece, which would make the meaning entire and intelligible. The mind of man, in this world, is such an incomplete parchment. Intellectual questions are roused, which cannot be answered. Moral difficulties appear, which arc left unsettled. He has longings and aspirations for a good and a beauty which this world cannot supply. He sees all around him inequalities and apparent in- justice ; the triumph of evil, the defeat of good- ness ; bad men in power, patriots in exile, Truth for ever on the scaftbld, wrong for ever on the throne ; the false priest surrounded with admiration, the true prophet despised and rejected of men. Of BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 137 the child of genius, born under inhospitable au- spices, how often it must be said that " He came, and baring his heaven-bright thought, He earned the base world's ban ; And, having vainly lived and taught, Gave place to a meaner man." If this life were the whole, all such inequalities and discords would be inexplicable. In all ages, therefore, the conscience of man, no less than his reason and his heart, has predicted a future state, where the wrong should be made right, the tri- umphant falsehood exposed, injured innocence be vindicated, and the righteous judgments of God made known. The conscience does not so much demand retribution on the wrong-doer as vindica- tion of justice and right. It predicts a revelation of truth and the exposure of lies. I have seen a little infant die, one just come into the world. As yet it had developed no char- acter ; it had no conscious intelligence ; it was nothing but a promise, an expectation. But that promise, that faint prophecy of a coming future, had so taken hold of its mother's heart that the loss of her infant nearly drove her to despair. But that infant was God's child too ; more the child of God than of its earthly parent, for God 138 BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. himself had sent this bud of hope into the world. And shall the heart of the earthly father and mother cling thus to their darling, and the heart of the heavenly Father let it go for ever into emptiness and annihilation ? Shall we, who have so little power over its destiny, struggle and cry and pray, and use all means to save it, and he who holds it in the hollow of his hand let it slip into an abyss of destruction? No ! this yearning of ours for our loved ones is only a faint, far-off shadow of that Infinite love which envelops them and us, now and for ever. I know very well what materialism replies to all this. It tells me that life, thought, love, are mere results of organization ; that, when the organiza- tion perishes, these of necessity go too. A drop of blood in the human brain will put an end to the aspiration of the saint ; the lesion of a nerve destroy the courage of a hero. The poet's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy, turns from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. He is on the point of cre- ating a Hamlet or the Iliad : a little congestion of serous fluid arrests the conception, and it is gone for ever. True. The body, while we live in it, is the indispensable condition of our activity. But it docs not follow that we are the result of the BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 131) Rafaelle, while painting the Dresden Ma- donna, might have been stopped by some trifling defect in his brushes, or his oils, or his canvas. But that does not prove that Rafaelle himself was the result of his implements. The body is the organization which, in this world, the soul uses, without it, it is helpless. But that does not prove that the soul is the result of its organization. I have seen, in this city, great crowds collect to follow the body of some eminent person to the grave. So it was when John Andrew died, so when Charles Sumner died. The sense of a great loss fell upon the city. Business ceased ; the hurry of life was, for one hour, suspended. The whole community stood around these remains, once inhabited by a patriotic soul. And shall we, creatures of a day, thus mourn the loss of our human brother, and shall the Infinite Love dismiss him into the night and void of annihi- lation ? One of the last great discoveries of science is that of the conservation of force. So economical is nature that she never lets go one atom of mat- ter, one molecule of organized being, or one unit of power. All is changed, nothing is lost in the creation. But here is a soul, the greatest force 140 BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. of all, the fine result of a long series of develop- ments ; a soul capable of thought, of love, of intellectual creation. It is the soul of Newton, able to read the laws of the universe ; the soul of Fe'ne'lon, reaching a height of disinterested love which makes it like the seraph near God's throne ; the soul of Homer, whose song fills the world with music during twenty-five centuries. And do } T OU tell me that, while not a particle of carbon or Irydrogen can escape the omnipotent conservatism of the Almighty, he will allow such powers as these to be resolved back into nothing? With the religious man, this argument is all-sufficient. When we come to see God as a father and friend, death is abolished. We know that we can trust him with our life, and the lives of those dear to us, always. Therefore, the early Christians, hiding from the rage of their persecutors in the dark caves beneath imperial Rome, laid their dead away, and wrote over them inscriptions full of hope, love, and joy : " My dear Caius sleeps here." " Rest in peace, my Theodora." This same trust lias come down through all the intervening ages, and is ours to-day. Now, as always, faith overcomes death, and wins the victory from the grave. BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 141 The greatest impulse yet given to belief in im- mortality has come from the divine trust of Jesus in God as the Universal Father, the Father of the evil as well as of the good, whose sun shines and whose rain falls on the grateful and on the unthankful. This relation of the father to the child is a tie which death may not sever. It goes below all distinction of character, of capacity, of worth. The father and mother do not love their child because it is full of power and promise, full of affection and goodness, but because it is their child. The pity of their hearts accumulates the more around the weakest, the least attractive of their children ; the poor thing born with an irrita- ble temper, a weak purpose, or some inherited tendency to evil. And when the feeble infant, worn out with disease, at last lies in its little grave, the parents' love goes with it still. Long years after, that undying love holds the lost child in fadeless memory. If, then, these poor hearts of ours cannot forget our children, does the Infi- nite Heart of the universe cease to remember them? If we do not love them less because of their weaknesses and incapacity, how much more shall the Father of their spirits look down on them with inexhaustible love. Say not that his 142 BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. infinite tenderness can be exhausted by their sin, when ours, so much poorer, does not grow faint nor weary. If we must forgive our brother, not seven times, but seventy times seven, when shall an Infinite mercy grow unrelenting and implaca- ble? Our reason and conscience are disturbed b}' incompleteness and discord in this little world : shall the Perfect Reason permit an everlasting discord, an eternal hell of sin and misery to con- tinue, unconquered by his love, unredeemed by his gospel, for ever? Jesus himself has taught us this mode of reasoning, by analogy, from the poor love of earthly parents to the vaster tenderness of the heavenly Father. The only argument Jesus ever used against the Sadducees in defence of immortality is founded on this high conception of the fatherly character of God. If he calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then they must live ; for whatever belongs to him cannot die. If he is not willing that any should perish, then no one can perish. Evil must be overcome at last by good ; death must be swal- lowed up in life. Thus alone can God become all in all, the sovereign of the universe. Finite evil, if it ends in infinite good, ceases to be evil ; for the finite, compared with the infinite, is noth- BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 143 ing. But, if finite evil ends in eternal evil, then evil reigns by the side of good, sharing the uni- verse ; and God can never be the All-in- All. But J.esus and Paul have taught us that all men are to be drawn to Christ, and all are to be made alive in him. When this final consummation arrives, then all doubts will be answered, difficulties ex- plained, problems solved, and partial evil be seen as universal good. And now, if you ask, "What do we know about the other life?" we must reply that we know very little about it. It is evident that we are not intended to know much. Perhaps it would take our thoughts too far away from our duties here. This is our sphere while we remain in it. If we were able to look into the great world beyond, we might repine at being obliged to remain in this so long. Just as God has placed great gulfs of space between the planets, so that the inhabitants of each shall only know the affairs of its own globe, he has placed a gulf between this world and the future life. Thus, he makes it our duty to think, not of dying, but of living ; not of the hereafter, but of the here ; not of the world to come, but of the world that is. Every day we are to prepare, not for death, but 144 BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. for life ; for, if we live well and wisely here, we may certainly trust God as to our hereafter. This, however, I think we may say, that death, when it comes, must be considered not a bad thing, but a good thing. Since the Almighty sends death to every one of his creatures to whom he has given life, since death is as universal as life, death must be a blessing as well as life. It is a part of the same scheme, it is a step forward, only another phase of living. Some great advan- tage must be connected with this event which we call death. It is made fearful when we look for- ward to it from a distance, that we may not too rashly seek it, before we have had enough of the discipline of this world. But when it comes it usually is welcome ; and it m&y be that, when we look back upon it from the other world, we shall smile to think that we should ever have been afraid of it. This also we know of the other world : That it is created by the same Being who has made this world ; it is another mansion in the house of our Father. Consider, then, what he has done for us here, if you wish to know what he will do for us there. If there is infinite variety in this world, day and night, sleep and waking, changing sea- BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 145 sons, flowers and trees, lakes and rivers, moun- tains and plains, a vast flora and fauna, then there will, no doubt, be an equal or a greater variety there ; for surely the Creator has not ex- hausted himself in making this world. There, as here, there will be beauty for the eye and ear ; problems for the intellect to investigate ; work to do, full of utility ; society, intercourse, affection ; the power of progress, the sight of goodness and greatness above us to aspire to and reverence. There will be enough to know, enough to do, and enough to love. Perhaps we shall enter more into the interior life of nature, understand more of its mysteries, and come nearer to the working of the creative power whose plastic force flows through all things. The conception of heaven which has prevailed, as a paradise of delight, a garden of all enjoy- ments, is not likely to be realized. Such a heaven as this would soon become tiresome. Passive enjoyment is not what God intends for us. He educates us here by stern necessity to toil; he teaches us caution, prudence, industry, by a sharp discipline ; and it is probable that something of this kind of education may be con- tinued hereafter. One of the great blessings of 10 146 BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. this present life is the sense of progress, of im- provement. And as we are told that " hope abides," as well as faith and love, there will be alwa3 r s before us some new vision of beauty, truth, and love to which to aspire. There, as here, heaven will greatly consist in forgetting the things behind and reaching out to those that are be- fore ; in perpetual ascent toward the Great Source of all being. There is only one place in the New Testament where any thing is told us con- cerning the mode of existence hereafter, and that is by Paul in his chapter on the resurrection. In that wonderful passage, where he seems to pass the flaming bounds of space and time ; after assur- ing us that redemption will be coextensive with sin, he goes on to describe the end, when Jesus, having subdued all evil, shall give up the kingdom to the Father, to whom he himself shall be subject and subordinate. He lifts, for a moment, the corner of the veil which hangs between this life and the next, and allows us a glimpse into those diviner mansions of our Father's great building, the universe. He goes on to unfold what was before secret, and thus virtually gives us a new revelation in regard to the future life. There will be bodies, he saj-s, there as here, only of a higher BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE. 147 kind than these, more spiritual, more powerful, more glorious, incorruptible. Those bodies will possess faculties to us now unknown. They will furnish -means to the soul of much keener penetra- tion into nature, fuller communication with other minds, and far nobler intercourse with the angelic societies. And this is what we might expect. All is progress here. Every year brings us some new invention. We can now converse with friends across the Atlantic, call on the sun to paint por- traits and landscapes, and with a little prism of glass find out the chemistry of the sun and the stars. A few years ago all this would be regarded as an impossibility or as a miracle. In a future life, we may expect to find far greater manifesta- tions of the power of the advancing soul to use the laws of the universe for its ends, and to pene- trate mysteries of being stranger than any thing hitherto known. The great law of all existence is progress, progress accelerated as we ascend nearer to God. Knowledge shall pass away, resolved into higher knowledge. Earthly inter- ests, which now seem so vast, will by and by appear as the toys of childhood. We shall look back from a higher world on our present civiliza- tion, and on our present Christianity, as we now 148 BELIEF IN A FUTURE EXISTENCE look back on the monstrous strife and pertu mu- tton of past geologic ages. We may seem to our- selves hereafter as the Saurians and Trilobites seem to us now. But through all change, within all progress, something will for ever abide. Faith will abide. We shall cany with us into all worlds the same essential trust in the Infinite love which sustains us now. Hope will abide. For, whatever heights of being we ma} r ascend, what- ever depths of experience we may explore, there will ever open before us new vistas of knowledge, activity, and joy. And love will abide, the same, but better. Love, uniting us with God and all his creatures, li fling us into communion with all goodness in all worlds ; love making us, and keeping us, at one with God for ever and for ever. " And so, beside the silent sea, I wait the muffled oar ; No harm from him can come to me, On ocean or on shore." UIUTBKSITY VA 04203 ,