THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE
 
 RELIGION AND THE 
 HIGHER LIFE 
 
 Talks to Students 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 1904
 
 COPYRIGHT 1904 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 September, 1904
 
 "1-3 I 
 
 Htf 
 
 TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER 
 
 IN HONOR OF 
 
 THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
 OF THEIR MARRIAGE 
 
 5732G6
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THERE have been gathered together in this volume 
 some of the talks, more or less informal, which it 
 has been my privilege to address in these last years 
 to companies of young men and women, particularly 
 students. Three of these papers have been published 
 before. 
 
 The topics are those that all young men and 
 women are compelled to consider, whether they will or 
 not. I have not supposed that in these talks any 
 new thought was presented. I have felt, however, 
 that something perhaps was accomplished, if a fair 
 consideration of the old thought might be secured. 
 
 I am more confident today than ever before that 
 the universities and colleges are not performing their 
 full function in the matter of religious education. 
 There is need of a reconsideration of this whole sub- 
 ject. Who will undertake the task? Meanwhile, 
 the least one can do is to present to the students of 
 each scholastic period of four or five years the prac- 
 tical questions of the religious life. 
 
 Do I think that anyone was really helped by these 
 talks ? Some have acknowledged that they received 
 help; but this acknowledgment was made, perhaps, 
 only as a matter of courtesy. In any case, I have 
 in this way discharged in a measure a respon-
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 sibility which has weighed upon me more heavily 
 than any other connected with the office which I 
 have been called to administer. 
 
 This fact brings comfort to me, if to no one else. 
 And yet I have noticed that, with each recurring 
 year, it has required a greater effort on my part to 
 undertake this kind of service. I have asked myself 
 whether, as a matter of fact, it was growing more 
 and more difficult to deal with subjects of this kind 
 in a university atmosphere ? Perhaps someone will 
 answer this question. It is quite certain that there 
 are many who will be interested in the answer. 
 
 Those who know my father and mother, and 
 their lifelong interest not only in the religious life, 
 but in higher education, will approve my desire to 
 acknowledge this interest, as it has manifested itself 
 in connection with my own life, by inscribing to 
 them this small collection of "talks to students." 
 WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 26, 1904.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I PAGE 
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE i 
 
 II 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 21 
 
 III 
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION SERVICE ... 36 
 
 IV 
 TRIALS OF LIFE 57 
 
 V 
 LOYALTY TO SELF 69 
 
 VI 
 DEPENDENCE 78 
 
 VII 
 
 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY AS FACTORS IN LIFE . 88 
 
 VIII 
 OUR INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES 101 
 
 IX 
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE AN EPITOME OF LIFE . .113 
 
 X 
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEF AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS . . . 132 
 
 XI 
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 141 
 
 XII 
 
 AMERICA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD 173 
 
 be
 
 I 
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 IT was a great moment in the history of spiritual 
 progress when the individual man became a factor; 
 for till that moment came the ascent of man was 
 largely physical. But when man the individual 
 came to be fully recognized, when what he was or 
 might be had for its largest determining element 
 himself, then modern civilization had its beginning. 
 The powers and the possibilities of the individual, 
 as distinguished from those of the family, the clan, 
 or the nation; the responsibility of the individual, 
 as distinguished from that of the family, the clan, 
 or the nation these constitute the real basis of sub- 
 stantial growth; these furnish the true incentive 
 toward forward movement; these supply the ele- 
 ments required for the realization of the higher life. 
 
 The higher life beginning with the first steps of 
 civilization, inseparably related to the effort of the 
 individual man, and taking on higher and higher 
 form as individual effort became more distinct and 
 determinative has manifested itself in widely varied, 
 yet closely related, forms of thought and action ; and 
 the characteristics of these forms, always plainly dis- 
 cernible, distinguish it from that which is below, and 
 also from that which we may call the highest.
 
 2 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 In several fields of art individual men and women, 
 through all the centuries, have created works which 
 have lifted not only themselves, the doers of the 
 work, into the higher life, but likewise all of their 
 fellow-men who have sincerely sympathized with 
 such work and entered into its appreciation. As 
 evidence of this higher life, and as its fullest vindica- 
 tion, stands out the long line of the world's master- 
 poets and writers, its artists and musicians, with the 
 millions upon millions whom they have helped and 
 inspired. 
 
 In the department of philosophy, in which men 
 have made gigantic efforts to secure knowledge and 
 to ascertain the origin of things and their relations, 
 we see another sphere of the higher life a sphere 
 broader, perhaps higher and deeper, than that of 
 art ; but less attractive to the ordinary man, and cer- 
 tainly more difficult to appropriate. Yet every man 
 who really thinks, or who intelligently questions his 
 world, is something of a philosopher; and the num- 
 ber of those who in this way touch only the border 
 of the higher life is probably as great as the number 
 of those who, in spite of wings clipped by nature, 
 would follow the lofty flights of the artist. And in 
 company with the philosopher and his disciples are 
 the scientist and his devoted followers. These, too, 
 seek knowledge and wish to know the origin of things. 
 And all these, though their gropings be in darkness, 
 though the light revealed is in every case but the
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 3 
 
 smallest gleam, lift themselves, by force of the very 
 effort made to see the light, to a place whence they 
 may catch a vision of other gleams while, with each 
 new gleam thus possessed, the next becomes more 
 clear. 
 
 The higher life includes as one of its several 
 spheres that of ethical purpose, moral effort. Here 
 the element of individualism is clearly marked. 
 Every man who endeavors to live a righteous life, 
 to be honest and pure; every man who puts forth 
 energy to perform his obligations as a member of a 
 family, as a member of society, as a citizen of the 
 state, holds his place, high or low as it may be, in 
 the constituency of the higher life. That all men 
 may not be found in this constituency is apparent. 
 Is it not, therefore, presumptuous that we should 
 count ourselves therein ? We may not assign others 
 of our fellow-men here and there; we may be grossly 
 deceived in any estimate we may hazard as to our 
 own positon; but if we are sincere, we should be able 
 easily to determine in which of two directions we 
 are moving: whether downward and away from all 
 that is beautiful and uplifting, or upward and toward 
 that which incites, elevates, and purifies the soul. 
 For this sphere of moral effort is, after all, the one 
 in which all the others are contained; with which all 
 the others are identified. 
 
 The line between the higher and the lower life is 
 not the same for any two individuals. If, for any
 
 4 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 reason, we permit ourselves to dwell, either intellec- 
 tually or morally, on a lower plane than the very 
 highest which nature and our environment have 
 made possible, we live the lower life. It is only the 
 man who lives the highest life possible for him to live, 
 that may be said to live the higher life; the failure, 
 at any time, to put forth his utmost endeavor a 
 failure of which in every case he is unquestionably 
 conscious degrades him, from a higher to a lower 
 position. On the other hand, the man who has been 
 denied opportunities of culture, or has been sur- 
 rounded by abnormal and injurious influences, 
 actually enters upon a stage of the higher life at the 
 very moment when his mind and his life are turned 
 away from that which has pulled him down and are 
 lifted upward. 
 
 There is a question we must now put to ourselves. 
 Do those of us who are associated with university 
 work sustain any peculiar or special relation to this 
 constituency which lives, or tries to live, the higher 
 life? Yes, a double relation; in that, first of all, 
 we make public profession of membership; for in 
 the very act of becoming associated with an institu- 
 tion of higher learning, whether as student or as 
 instructor, one openly announces to the world his 
 purpose to be of those who interest themselves in the 
 higher things of thought and life. And, further, in 
 this act we proclaim ourselves leaders in this life. 
 This may, indeed, be an act of presumption on our
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 5 
 
 part; but it is an act which will bear no other inter- 
 pretation. It is what every man does who makes 
 effort, in a public way, to lift up either himself or 
 his fellow-man. If all this be true, it follows, of 
 course, that the university should furnish the high- 
 est ideals for life, and by its discipline make possible 
 examples of the highest type of living. 
 
 The artist and the student of art, whether in 
 literature or painting, the philosopher and the stu- 
 dent of philosophy, the scientist and the student of 
 science, the moralist and the student of morals, are 
 expected to be the leaders and, as experience shows, 
 have been among the leaders in the higher life. 
 It is, therefore, an appropriate thing that, at this 
 time, I should ask a question concerning this higher 
 life a life with which, at least professedly, we are 
 so much concerned. The question may be put 
 briefly in these words: What has religion to do with 
 the higher life? The answers to this question are 
 both negative and positive: Religion is not the 
 mother of art, science, philosophy, and ethics. 
 Religion is not to be identified with one or all of 
 these. Religion is not the enemy of art, science, 
 philosophy, or ethics. Religion is independent of 
 these phases of the higher life, but closely akin 
 in fact, the oldest sister of the family. Religion is 
 essential for the fullest development of these phases 
 of the higher life. Religion must have certain char- 
 acteristics to work in harmony with them.
 
 6 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 In the use of the word "religion "I am not think- 
 ing of the church, for the church is of a transitory 
 and variable character; she takes on different forms 
 at different periods of her growth and under different 
 environments, and at times, and in certain places 
 passes out of sight; while religion is something as 
 imperishable as the mind itself, of which it is a 
 necessary condition; something that is permanent 
 and not a mere passing phenomenon. 
 
 Religion, as has been said, is a condition of 
 the mind; but, in its outward form, it is a kind of 
 life; in fact, the life which is the outcome of the 
 mental condition. Religion, therefore, takes on 
 many forms, and in each case that form which is 
 best adapted to the stage or phase of development 
 already attained by the person or community 
 concerned. In this way religion adapts itself to 
 varying conditions and demands, and this capa- 
 bility of adaptation, it should be noted, instead of 
 weakening religion, strengthens it. The capability 
 of such adjustment to different personal tempera- 
 ments, to different classes of society in the same 
 community, and to communities as widely separated 
 as are nations themselves this indicates a strength 
 and power the existence of which, on a priori con- 
 siderations, one would be compelled to deny. 
 
 I may not even attempt to state what is to be 
 regarded as the essence of religion, whether it be 
 worship, belief in the supremacy of God, the act
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 7 
 
 of faith, or the spirit of piety. But as a concrete 
 type of the religion of this day and of this land I 
 may use Christianity, for, since religion has kept 
 pace with civilization, and since civilization, con- 
 trolled by religion, has made progress, Christianity 
 must be the highest and most perfect form of 
 religion thus far developed. This means, of course, 
 Christianity in its broadest sense, and not any one 
 of the special forms of Christianity which have 
 appeared. 
 
 Coming back now to the higher life, we may ask : 
 What has religion to do with the higher life ? 
 
 i. I am not one of those who would ask a place 
 for religion in the higher life upon the ground that 
 each of the different phases of this life, whether art, 
 philosophy, science, or ethics, owes its origin to 
 religion. This contention cannot be maintained; 
 but even if it be true, it fails to bring us to the neces- 
 sary conclusion, since the child, in time, may grow 
 to be independent of its mother. 
 
 The suggestions that the first attempts of art had 
 to do with the expression of religious thought, and 
 that consequently religion is the mother of art ; that 
 the earliest literature is religious literature, and that 
 therefore religion is the mother of literature ; that the 
 first philosophers and scientists and lawgivers were 
 priests; that astronomy grew out of astrology, medi- 
 cine from sorcery; and that, in view of this, philos- 
 ophy and science and ethics are the offspring of
 
 8 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 religion, I may not now discuss. Today I do not 
 wish to base an argument or an exhortation for the 
 cultivation of religion upon this foundation. 
 
 As against the idea expressed in these suggestions 
 it has been asked: 
 
 2. May not art, philosophy, science, or ethics each 
 constitute a religion in itself, at least for those who 
 are its devotees or followers? Renan maintained 
 that religion (and he was thinking of Christianity) 
 was nothing but an expression of the aesthetic feel- 
 ing in other words, art. Many other writers have 
 urged that religion is but a crude form of philosophy, 
 and that when a pure philosophy prevails, religion 
 will disappear. Furthermore, it has frequently been 
 suggested that science itself would serve as religion, 
 or at all events take its place. Matthew Arnold 
 understood by religion "morality touched with emo- 
 tion." This conception would make the moral and 
 the religious life identical, except that the former 
 would be the ideal, and the latter only an imperfect 
 and undeveloped form. 
 
 It is plainly to be seen, however, that to propose 
 the substitution of one or another of these phases 
 of the higher life for religion is merely to claim that 
 these are identical with religion, and that they do 
 for man what religion aims to do. For myself, I 
 have found the words of Professor Tiele 1 on this 
 point particularly illuminating: 
 
 1 Elements o} the Science 0} Religion, Vol. II (1899), pp. 246 f.
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 9 
 
 The difference consists chiefly in this, that, while science, 
 art, and morality yield a certain satisfaction, or even a consid- 
 erable measure of happiness, they never produce that perfect 
 peace of mind, that entire reconciliation with one's self and 
 one's worldly lot, which are the fruits of religion, and have ever 
 characterized the truly pious of all ages. The greatest genius, 
 the acutest investigator, and the profoundest thinker, who have 
 studied the most difficult of problems, and have made darkness 
 light for themselves and others, will be the first to confess the 
 limitations of their knowledge and the insolubility of many of 
 their problems, and to admit that faith alone can answer the 
 momentous and vital questions Whence and whither ? Poetry 
 and art may brighten this earthly life with their luster, they 
 may mitigate sorrow and soothe the troubled mind; but they 
 can only give true rest to the soul when they serve to bring 
 home to it some great religious truth in a beautiful and striking 
 form. And even the strictly moral man, who can boast of 
 having kept all the commandments from his youth upward 
 unless utterly deluded by self-satisfaction must often feel that 
 he lacks something, the one thing needful. 
 
 Religion, then, is something in itself and for itself, 
 fulfilling a separate role, and not in any way to be 
 confounded with art, or philosophy, or even with 
 morality. 
 
 3. But whatever may be the true relation between 
 religion and these departments of human activity, 
 there are many who think that religion has been and 
 is the enemy of the higher life as exhibited in art, 
 philosophy, science, and morality. They will ask 
 you : Did not the law of Moses prohibit the making 
 of any image of anything in the heaven above, in 
 the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth,
 
 io RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 and was not the artist condemned by Israel's proph- 
 ets in words most severe? Did not the reformers 
 destroy all that was beautiful in the churches, and 
 make their worship something devoid of all softness 
 and beauty? Have not philosophers whether of 
 sacred or profane history, been treated in all ages, as 
 skeptics and mischief-makers ? Has not the church 
 persecuted and even executed the leaders of science ? 
 Has not morality lost ground whenever and wherever 
 formal religion has gained ground? So it is fre- 
 quently maintained; but these statements, even if 
 admitted as facts, do not bring us so easily to the 
 conclusion which is urged upon us. Certain dis- 
 tinctions should be noted. 
 
 There are times when art degrades, and there 
 are uses of art which are always degrading. Is that 
 influence hostile to literature which would take away 
 from it the obscene ? There are professed scientists 
 and philosophers who step beyond their sphere of 
 knowledge, and in arrogant spirit make strange 
 statements concerning that with which their science 
 has no connection. Is it hostile to science to oppose 
 the presumptuous denial of the existence of God ? 
 There are times when immorality becomes an epi- 
 demic ; but is it the truly religious man who becomes 
 immoral, or rather that man who has merely put 
 on the form of religion ? Is it hostile to morality to 
 assist one who is immoral to become pure ? 
 
 Furthermore, religion must not be held responsible
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 1 1 
 
 for the deeds of all who profess to act in her name. 
 As there is a distinction between religion and the 
 church, so there is a distinction between the church 
 of today and that of the Middle Ages. There may 
 be a religion, as Tiele says, "one of those transient 
 forms of religious life which, having served its time 
 and fallen into decay, cannot tolerate those revela- 
 tions of progress in the spiritual domain which mark 
 the awakening of a new life." 1 Such a religion, 
 however, should not be confounded with the normal 
 religious spirit. Again, disease must always be 
 differentiated from health. It is the sane, not the 
 insane, man who most truly represents humanity. 
 Abnormal forms of religion have undoubtedly an- 
 tagonized the progress of truth and the growth of the 
 higher life; but the truth and the higher life have 
 been all the stronger for an opposition that was 
 ephemeral. 
 
 4. But if religion does not furnish the starting- 
 point, is not the origin of this higher life ; if religion 
 is something quite independent of one or all of the 
 phases of this life ; and if religioa is not the enemy of 
 art, science, philosophy, and ethics, how shall the 
 relationship be designated? Perhaps religion may 
 be called the sister; and, if a sister, surely the oldest 
 member of the family. That religion is a sister, 
 and not the mother, would appear from certain 
 facts in the history of art, literature, science, and 
 
 ' Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 258.
 
 iz RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 ethics. For example, so far as can be ascertained, 
 art is synchronous with religion, while mythology is 
 not religion, nor does it come from religion, but is 
 an early form of philosophy. The priestly caste is 
 something comparatively late, and its mastery of 
 learning and law was obtained after long struggle. 
 In the earliest days every man was his own priest, 
 and there was no such caste. Like a family of lan- 
 guages descended from a parent stem, among which 
 there is an oldest and a youngest, with others grow- 
 ing up between, so religion, art, literature, philosophy, 
 ethics, and science are to be regarded as closely akin, 
 each to the other. 
 
 But though of a common origin, there are im- 
 portant points of difference between religion and 
 these other phases of the spiritual or higher life. It 
 has already been said that no other of these phases 
 may take the place of religion, since no one of them 
 gives that kind of satisfaction, of peace of soul, 
 which is the gift of religion. As has often been 
 pointed out, however, the kinship between what 
 religion and these other phases give is so great as to 
 minimize their difference. 
 
 In the ethical life, as in the religious, peace of mind is one 
 of the objects sought for, and it is only to be found in a state 
 of unceasing development. Nor does the man of science rest 
 satisfied with knowing. He desires also to understand, and 
 to systematize and unify his knowledge. The philosopher 
 tries to fathom the origin of things, but he also expects that 
 philosophy will reconcile him with himself and the world. So
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 13 
 
 that scientists and philosophers alike, to a certain extent, also 
 seek for contentment of soul. And does the artist never aim, 
 in the pursuit of his art, at something beyond aesthetic enjoy- 
 ment ? Does he not often throw his whole soul into his works, 
 and thus stake his happiness upon their success ? * 
 
 The fact, after all, which at the same time marks 
 the relationship and the separation, which makes it 
 impossible for religion to be taken as the mother, or 
 to have one or another of these take her place, is 
 this: in art the imagination and emotion predomi- 
 nate; in science, the intellect and judgment; in mor- 
 ality, the will; while in religion these various facul- 
 ties must be held in an even balance. Undue em- 
 phasis on any one or another results in an abnormal 
 and degenerate form, such as mysticism, or fanati- 
 cism, or moralism. Religion, many-sided, and well- 
 rounded, is broader than any of its sister-forms of 
 spirituality. It calls into exercise a man's whole 
 being; and when its development is normal, it 
 strengthens every function of his life. 
 
 All this, we can see, is equivalent to saying that 
 hi working for the highest and fullest and truest 
 development one must not ignore religion. The 
 artist cannot be a scientist and thus strengthen his 
 intellect and judgment; he would only destroy his 
 power as an artist; but he may cultivate the frame 
 of mind which constitutes religion, and in this way 
 obtain something of which he stands much in need. 
 The scientist may not become an artist, and thus 
 
 * C. P. TIELE, op. dt., Vol. II, p. 246.
 
 i 4 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 find opportunity for the play of his imagination and 
 his emotions (we remember the experience of 
 Darwin with music). Yet in religion he may find 
 that which will remove the charge that is made and 
 sustained against so large a portion of the scientific 
 fraternity, the charge of narrowness, of lack of 
 interest in humanity, of dogmatic and arrogant 
 conceit. The moralist, furthermore, cannot become 
 religious by receiving a touch of emotion, for religion 
 demands more than the exercise of will and of 
 imagination. It requires also the strong and con- 
 stant cultivation of the judgment. 
 
 Art, then, if it will, may find in religion its closest 
 friend and neighbor, for there can be no religion 
 without sentiment, the essential element in art. 
 Has this not appeared in the history of art? To 
 what has she more frequently turned, with what 
 has she been more closely united in all her history 
 than with religion in poetry, in architecture, in 
 painting, in sculpture, and in music? Science and 
 philosophy, too, if they will, may find in religion 
 their closest friend and neighbor. It is true that a 
 religion which lacks the intellectual energy which 
 enters into philosophy and science may be tainted 
 with superstition or mysticism or fanaticism, still it 
 cannot be true religion. And have not philosophy 
 and science always been driven, in their last analysis, 
 to God ? And belief in God is the very essence of 
 religion. Ethics, surely, will find in religion a sym-
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 15 
 
 pathetic companion, for there has never existed a 
 religion which did not, in forms more or less crude, 
 try to influence its votaries to live purer lives. Have 
 not preachers and religious sages, from the times of 
 earliest history, striven with their followers to be 
 truthful and honest and pure? Can we not see, 
 therefore, that since religion has something in com- 
 mon with each of these other phases of the higher 
 life, and since religion in each case furnishes some- 
 thing which these others lack, religion is essential to 
 their full fruitage? 
 
 It may be well to note briefly, in conclusion, some 
 of the characteristics of the religion which is best 
 adapted to the needs of those whose lives and sym- 
 pathies are in harmony with the higher life. Here 
 we must speak of a religion as distinct from religion, 
 for nothing is clearer than that there are as many 
 different religions in the world at large, and even 
 among those immediately about us, as there are dif- 
 ferent tastes and sympathies. These differences are 
 not merely differences of creed, nor of forms of wor- 
 ship, but of standards of morality, of external ac- 
 companiments, and of subjective ideals. The reli- 
 gion of an artist will be different, no doubt, from 
 that of a scientist, and that of a scientist from that of 
 a moralist ; yet there must be some things in common 
 between the religion of a man who is spiritually 
 inclined and that of a man whose mental faculties are 
 exercised only slightly or not at all. One need but
 
 16 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 read history to learn that the leaders of the world's 
 thought, the men who, in one capacity or another, 
 have made the highest contributions to the higher 
 life, have for the most part been men of strong reli- 
 gious character. 
 
 We may ask, therefore: What has been the 
 nature of this religion ? What is the nature of the 
 religion which today will prove acceptable to men 
 and women of higher thought? 
 
 a) This religion will be simple in its nature. 
 Truth is always simple; never complex or com- 
 pound. The greatest teachers have thus presented 
 it. It was Amos who said: "Hate the evil, and 
 love the good, and establish judgment in the gate." 
 (Amos 5: 15 a.) Another prophet said: "He hath 
 showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth 
 Jehovah require of thee but to do justly, and to love 
 kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 
 (Micah6:8.) It was Jesus who said : "Verily I say 
 unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom 
 of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter 
 therein." (Mark 10:15.) 
 
 In respect of simplicity, then, religion is "like a 
 work of art, a picture, a symphony, a cathedral. 
 Its genius does not forbid ornament and variety. 
 But its greatness is in its grand, simple, and total 
 effect, toward which all ornamentation contributes." 1 
 Simplicity need not shut out aesthetic form; indeed 
 
 1 DOLE, The Religion of a Gentleman.
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 17 
 
 it must not, for otherwise many of those for whom 
 it has a mission will ignore it. 
 
 b) It will be reasonable; else the scientist and 
 the philosopher will reject it; that is, it must stand 
 the test of investigation. It must make no false and 
 pretentious claims. It must make no unreasonable 
 demands upon the weak credulity of man. It must 
 appeal to the judgment and the reason, in order 
 that those of aesthetic predilections may find in it 
 what they do not find in their special field. 
 
 c) It must be a religion of toleration. One's 
 neighbor must be allowed to differ. No single 
 religion, not to speak of a phase of religion, can be 
 regarded as the only one containing religious truth 
 or affording religious help. There must be whole- 
 some respect for the sincere adherents of other 
 faiths, even though they be far removed. Religious 
 expression must be regarded to some extent, per- 
 haps to a large extent, as the product of historical 
 circumstance, of geographical situation, of heredi- 
 tary transmission. 
 
 d) It will be a religion characterized by idealism ; 
 for otherwise those inclined toward the artistic could 
 not endure it. Think of a religion devoid of poetry 
 and music; a religion with no prophetic vision; a 
 religion with no reaching out toward the invisible and 
 the infinite ! There can be no place for such a reli- 
 gion in the minds of those spiritually inclined. 
 
 e) It will be an ethical religion in order to meet
 
 1 8 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 the demands of the moralist and the needs of the 
 artist; and in order that it may be capable of inciting 
 to righteousness the lives of those who accept it. 
 "Let judgment roll down as water and righteousness 
 as a mighty stream." For righteousness the cry goes 
 up on every side, and nowhere more loudly or more 
 continuously than from among those whose lives 
 have been molded in the atmosphere of the college 
 and the university. It was the ethical side of proph- 
 etism that made it mighty in its influence, though 
 it was handicapped in so many ways. 
 
 /) It will be a religion capable of affording com- 
 fort in the time of trouble, consolation in the hour 
 of distress; for this is what neither art, nor science, 
 nor philosophy, nor ethics can do ; and this, after all, 
 is the greatest demand of the human soul when it 
 becomes fully aware of its utter weakness. There 
 are seasons (who has not experienced them?) when 
 life has nothing to offer that will please the human 
 soul. Torn and bleeding, as it were, healing is 
 needed; but the power of healing has been given 
 only to religion; and without religion there is no 
 health, no whole condition. 
 
 I wish, finally, to say three things, the truth of 
 which I am persuaded you will more and more 
 appreciate as you go forward in the higher life. 
 
 i. Religion has much to do with the higher life; 
 much to offer those who are spiritually minded. It 
 is an essential factor in a fully developed, well-
 
 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 19 
 
 rounded life. Without it you lack that which 
 would give you breadth and strength and vigor; calm- 
 ness and tenderness and peace. 
 
 2. It is worth your while carefully to consider 
 the kind of religion, the particular form of religious 
 culture, which you will cherish. It is no longer a 
 question of creeds or denominations. The dividing 
 line runs, not between this and that form of religious 
 faith, but through all forms. The name is insig- 
 nificant; the serious thing is the character of your 
 religion. Is it adapted to your needs, and is it lifting 
 you upward? or is it something foreign to your 
 nature and is it dragging you down ? Is your reli- 
 gion a source of anxiety and pain ? or does it bring 
 rest and peace of mind ? If it is not what it ought 
 to be, do not be satisfied until it has been set aright; 
 for every individual must have his own religion, and 
 that of no other will answer his purpose. 
 
 3. The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion 
 capable of adjustment to any and every individual, 
 however peculiar his temperament, however exact- 
 ing his demands. Its simplicity, as the Master him- 
 self presented it, is marvelous. In its proper form 
 it has always stood the most rigid tests; and it 
 appeals as strongly to the reason as to the heart. It 
 will permit you to respect your friend's religion; if 
 he is a Jew, because it came out of Judaism; if a 
 sincere follower of Islam, because much of Islam 
 came from it; if a disciple of some eastern faith,
 
 20 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 because its founder, Jesus, was broad-minded and 
 tender, and saw truth wherever truth existed, with- 
 out reference to the name it bore. It is a religion of 
 ideals, not weird and fanciful; but chastened, strong, 
 and inspiring to true service. It is ethical in a 
 sense peculiar to itself, for it is the religion of the 
 Beatitudes and the Golden Rule. It is a religion 
 that says: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 The greatest minds of nineteen centuries have 
 found this religion helpful. I do not urge upon you 
 any special form of this religion, for I have in mind 
 its very essence, that which is common to all forms, 
 that which makes it the power history shows it to 
 have been through all these centuries. This, as 
 found in the teaching of Jesus, is, in the words of 
 old Hebrew philosophy, the fear of the Lord i. e., 
 belief in and acceptance of One who has power to 
 help, even to the uttermost. This step, this posi- 
 tion, this opening of the mind and heart to an in- 
 fluence of the highest spiritual character, will prove 
 to be the beginning, and indeed, the chief part, of 
 that higher life which lies before you, that higher life 
 upon which you have already entered, and in which, 
 we trust, your walk will continue, until there comes 
 the next step forward the step that will usher you 
 into the life still higher, the highest life the life 
 beyond.
 
 n 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 
 
 THE religious side of man's nature will always 
 furnish new and fresh material for study. Every 
 manifestation of the religious spirit, whether in the 
 individual or in the nation, deserves careful exam- 
 ination and consideration; and these manifestations 
 are as numerous and as varied as are the individuals 
 and the nations in which they appear. It may be 
 said, with truth, that there is a religious spirit for 
 every individual, and, in a slightly different sense, a 
 religious spirit for every closely connected group of 
 individuals. 
 
 The differences which may be noted are so strik- 
 ing and so bewildering in our contemplation of them 
 that one may fairly question the propriety of using 
 such a term as "the religious spirit." Is it possible, 
 for instance, that the degrading, licentious, and cruel 
 religious rites of one nation, and the elevating, puri- 
 fying, and ennobling practices of another, are mani- 
 festations of the same spirit ? z May we suppose that 
 the man who, so far as concerns religion, seems cold 
 
 1 Contrast, for example, the base and sensual conceptions 
 associated with the ceremony of circumcision among other nations 
 with the holy and spiritual thought connected with that rite 
 among the Hebrews.
 
 22 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 and indifferent and unaggressive, has in him any of 
 the spirit which makes his neighbor warm, enthusi- 
 astic, and zealous ? But more than this is true : the 
 religious spirit in individual and in nation is always 
 changing. The spirit of the child is not that of the 
 mature man, and the latter, in turn, differs from 
 that of the man of old age. The same man exhibit- 
 ing the spirit in one form, in this environment, will, 
 if suddenly transferred to other surroundings, make 
 a quite different manifestation. 
 
 Nothing in history is more significant than the 
 changes through which a nation passes, in the course 
 of several centuries, in respect to the outward form 
 and the inward content of its religious faith. Trace 
 the history of the Hebrew nation from the primitive 
 and simple ritual of early times, to the highly devel- 
 oped and complicated service of the second temple. 
 Study the strange, almost incredible, movements in 
 the history of Christianity itself; the peculiar, almost 
 endless, variety in forms of worship and belief, 
 which characterize the different bodies of Christians 
 today; and there will be found full illustration of 
 what has been said. 
 
 There are three elements which enter into the 
 religious spirit, and which may be said to constitute 
 it. The presence of these three elements, in varying 
 proportions, determines largely the nature of the 
 religious spirit in any particular case. The first of 
 these elements may be expressed in the single term
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 23 
 
 "worship." This term means here the attitude of 
 an individual, or a group of individuals, toward the 
 outside and higher world of supernatural or divine 
 existence. It includes the outward acts which in 
 various forms symbolize the inward thought. In 
 some cases so simple and unconventional is it as to 
 pass almost unnoticed. In other cases it is so elab- 
 orate and complex in its various forms and mani- 
 festations as to win our aesthetic admiration, though 
 at the same time suggesting the query as to whether 
 the participant, in the maze of outward ceremony, 
 may not lose sight of the essence which the particular 
 act is intended to represent. 
 
 I have just said that this element, called worship, 
 includes the outward acts which in various forms 
 symbolize the inward thought. Now one may ask: 
 Does the thought precede the act and determine it, 
 or does the act waken the thought which it is sup- 
 posed to represent ? At different times and under 
 different circumstances each of these things happens. 
 We must suppose that in the institution of any par- 
 ticular form or act in a ritual of worship, whether 
 simple or elaborate, the intention and effort were to 
 embody in a tangible form some conception sug- 
 gested by the religious spirit; and that in the mind 
 of individuals possessing a sensitive temperament, 
 and controlled by the same general influences, the 
 performance of the act would later produce that 
 phase of feeling, or reflect that phase of thought,
 
 24 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 which originally suggested, whether consciously or 
 unconsciously, the institution of the ceremony. 
 
 But how easy and how natural it is for the act to 
 lose its significance after a long period of time has 
 passed, or when the ceremony is performed in situa- 
 tions entirely distinct from that with which it was 
 first connected ! In the history of religion one finds 
 multitudes of these institutional ruins. Our modern 
 religious life abounds in rites and ceremonies which 
 no longer express the thought originally intended for 
 expression, and in the performance of which we who 
 take part are perhaps in many cases only performing 
 a farce. They do not reflect our spirit; they do not, 
 as they are performed, create in our hearts a corre- 
 sponding emotion. These observances, unless per- 
 formed with the right spirit, are a mockery, and we 
 who perform them are little better than hypocrites. 
 They constitute, however, the conventionalities of 
 religion, and we are under the same obligations to 
 observe the conventionalities of religion as to observe 
 the conventionalities of social life. To violate these 
 conventionalities is, in the opinion of many, to strike 
 a fatal blow at religion itself. This of course, is a 
 mistake in so far as the violation is a violation only of 
 conventionality. But we ought gravely to consider 
 just where the line may be drawn between what shall 
 be called conventionality, and the real expression of 
 our inner self in its relation to God. 
 
 The second element which enters into and con-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 25 
 
 stitutes the religious spirit is the element of belief or 
 faith. This is never quite independent of the first 
 element. Thus, in most cases, it determines sooner 
 or later, the form of worship. In this second ele- 
 ment there is again at times the same simplicity and 
 the same elaborateness which, in different instances, 
 characterize worship. A simple faith or belief, 
 however, is by no means always found with a simple 
 form of worship ; and a complicated ceremonial does 
 not necessarily presuppose, on the part of the ordinary 
 worshiper, a more fully developed theological system. 
 In respect to the exercise of belief, the individual has, 
 of course, a larger freedom than is possible in the 
 exercise of worship. It is necessary in the economy 
 of life that men unite in forms of worship. It is not 
 necessary that any two men should think alike. 
 The desire for system and co-ordination, and the 
 influence of the ceremonial, have led, in the course 
 of our ecclesiastical history, to the separation into 
 distinct bodies of those whose beliefs were similar; 
 for the opinion has generally prevailed that, in order 
 to work together in the religious field, men must 
 have the same theological beliefs, and must exercise 
 the same forms of worship. 
 
 But the experience of most recent years shows us 
 that this opinion was wrong, and in the future the 
 tendency in the direction of union of effort on the 
 part of those holding different theological views and 
 practicing different forms of worship may surely be
 
 26 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 expected to increase. No one, moreover, can fail to 
 recognize the fact that in these separate bodies, 
 whose separation from each other was effected in 
 order to bind those who held the same views more 
 closely together, there is coming to exist the widest pos- 
 sible divergence of opinion on many questions which 
 have been regarded as of paramount importance. 
 The third element which, together with worship 
 and theological belief, enters into the religious spirit, 
 is the ethical standard of a man's life one's con- 
 duct in relation to himself and to his fellow-men. 
 This element may not be entirely separated from 
 either of the other two. The effect upon conduct of 
 the other two elements of the religious spirit is 
 marked. Thus the form of worship may be the 
 strongest possible incentive toward either right living 
 or wrong living. One's belief, however, may exert 
 an even stronger influence upon conduct than one's 
 ritual. Nothing is easier to understand than the 
 sensuality of many ancient nations when we recall 
 that their conception of God was best represented 
 by the bull, the animal representation of sexual 
 reproduction. Character, it must be conceded, is 
 largely determined by belief. The hue and cry so 
 common today against creeds can be justified only 
 on the ground that it is directed against the effort to 
 compel men to accept some form of belief, or to 
 accept all the details of any so-called system of 
 belief, which, it is thought, must be accepted or
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 27 
 
 rejected as a whole. From any other point of view 
 this hostility to creeds must be judged puerile, for 
 where is the man who does not believe something, 
 and does not therefore have a creed? It is to be 
 noted, however, that the element of belief does not 
 now occupy the same position that it once did. A 
 man's life, at least in civilized countries, is not 
 dependent upon his theological belief, as it once was. 
 His position in a particular body of the Christian 
 faith is not so definitely determined. The range 
 within which he may exercise his belief, without 
 injury to his influence and without the necessary 
 change of ecclesiastical standing, is constantly widen- 
 ing. In other words, the present is an age of tolera- 
 tion, with which no past age of history may be com- 
 pared. Though at first it may seem paradoxical, 
 it is true that in proportion as less emphasis is placed 
 upon a particular form of belief, greater emphasis is 
 laid upon conduct. In proportion as larger liberty 
 of thought, within reasonable limits, prevails, ethical 
 standards are elevated. 
 
 These then, briefly described, are the three ele- 
 ments which enter into the religious life and deter- 
 mine the religious spirit. Every true manifestation 
 of this spirit will include all three of these elements, 
 and the character of every such manifestation will be 
 determined by the proportion in which the three ele- 
 ments are combined. 
 
 May I now, before making a personal application
 
 28 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 of what has been said, dwell for a moment upon two 
 points bearing directly upon our subject? 
 
 The history of religion furnishes us some inter- 
 esting facts touching the mutual relationship of these 
 three elements in the progress of their development. 
 In the ancient religions only the element of worship 
 existed. There was no dogma. The rite, as 
 Robertson Smith has pointed out, was connected 
 with a myth, but, "strictly speaking, this mythology 
 was not an essential part of ancient religion, for it 
 had no sacred sanction, and no binding force on the 
 worshipers." There may have been several accounts 
 of the origin of a given ceremony. It made no dif- 
 ference what the worshiper believed in reference to 
 the ceremony, if only he performed it regularly and 
 accurately. He did not understand that any 
 special favor was to be obtained from the gods by 
 believing this or that thing. As a recent writer has 
 said, "what was obligatory or meritorious was the 
 exact performance of sacred acts prescribed by 
 religious tradition." In these ancient religions, of 
 course, the ethical standard was very low. The 
 religious spirit, therefore, found its manifestation 
 almost exclusively in the acts of ritual service. At 
 a later period the element of faith or belief was 
 introduced. Few of us appreciate the fact that this 
 element entered the history of religion very late. 
 It is largely the controversies between the various 
 divisions of the Christian church that have led us to
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 29 
 
 think that in the history of religion dogma or belief 
 has been prominent. The controversy in reference 
 to the ritual in the Christian church has been, after 
 all, a controversy in reference to belief, for it is only 
 the interpretation of the ritual that has been thought 
 important. It was when the prophets of the Old 
 Testament began to preach one God as against many 
 gods that religion, as we are acquainted with it, first 
 really emphasized belief. The denunciations of the 
 prophets were directed for the most part, it will be 
 remembered, against the formality and hypocrisy of 
 the Israelitish worship. It is also true that in the 
 Old Testament religion the standard of right living 
 was at first very low, and although it was lifted 
 higher and higher through the centuries, it never 
 reached a plane which, from the modern point of 
 view, could be called a high one. Briefly, then, the 
 religious spirit of the Old Testament shows itself 
 most largely in the act of worship. The Levitical 
 service occupied the largest share in the attention 
 of the people. Then in the work of the prophets the 
 elements of belief and right living were introduced 
 and inculcated. In the later days the sages, who 
 held a broader point of view than that of the prophets, 
 gave practically all of their thought, as religious 
 teachers, to ethics, and, while not ignoring the ele- 
 ment of belief, found little or no use for the element 
 of worship. The historical development of these 
 three elements in Israel's history is essentially their 
 history everywhere.
 
 30 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 The second point may be briefly stated. We 
 notice in individual and in ecclesiastical life here 
 and there abnormal manifestations of the religious 
 spirit. In some of these the spirit is so strong as to 
 overthrow the judgment, and, indeed, at times to 
 dethrone reason. At others it has associated itself 
 with immorality of the grossest type, and indescrib- 
 able cruelties. Of all wars, religious wars have been 
 the most dreadful; of all controversies, theological 
 controversies have been the most implacable. We 
 have often been at a loss to understand why, in the 
 case of men whose hearts were right with God, there 
 could be standards of life so utterly degraded; or 
 why, in the case of men whose lives were pure and 
 upright, there should be an utter disregard of church, 
 and of church relationship. The explanation of 
 these anomalies and abnormalities will be found in 
 the historical background of the nation, or in the 
 psychological constitution of the individual. This we 
 may never be able to understand, but the character of 
 their manifestation is clear. In each case one ele- 
 ment of the religious spirit has been emphasized 
 unduly, and the others neglected or ignored. Each 
 case presents a one-sided development. The nation 
 and the individual has acted or lived at times with- 
 out heart, again without mind, still again without 
 heart or mind. This being true, ought we to be 
 surprised at the result ? 
 
 We may now return to the personal application 
 of what has been said.
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 31 
 
 The cultivation of this religious spirit is for us 
 as serious an obligation as the cultivation of the body 
 or the mind; for without this spirit, our life is as 
 deficient as would be our body if it had no heart, our 
 mind if there were no brain. Rule out of life this 
 element, described under the word "worship," the 
 great truths for which religion in the highest sense 
 stands, and the principles of conduct of which religion 
 is in the highest sense today an advocate rule these 
 elements out of life, ignore them all or any of them, 
 and you are not a man or woman in the full sense 
 intended by your Creator. 
 
 Granting now that you, the individual, feel the 
 force of the obligation to cultivate this spirit, how 
 can it best be done ? Many and long answers have 
 been made to this question, but mine shall be short 
 and simple. Accept this unique, wonderful character, 
 Jesus Christ, as your leader and guide in the work of 
 developing in yourself the qualities which he pos- 
 sessed. In any other kind of work you would go 
 for direction to that person within your reach who 
 in himself and in his own actions best represented 
 the thing which you were seeking. For be assured 
 that Jesus Christ is the best representative of this 
 religious spirit, and, likewise, that he is within your 
 reach, within the reach of everyone who will stretch 
 his hands out after him. Accept him, if you have 
 not already done so, and try him. If when honest 
 and sincere effort has been made, you find him lack-
 
 32 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 ing in the qualities of a good guide, you may recon- 
 sider your step; but first and foremost give him a 
 trial. You surely need guidance. To whom else 
 will you go ? 
 
 If, now, you have accepted him, study his life as 
 it is narrated to us, and his teachings concerning 
 God. The Christian world has been trying to be 
 Christian without a true or full conception of the 
 Christ himself. Indeed, Christianity had almost 
 forgotten that there was a Christ, or, perhaps more 
 accurately, had so changed him that he could no 
 longer be recognized as Christ. It has been the 
 glory of more recent thought that it has in some 
 measure restored the Christ who had been forgotten 
 or ignored. But, as a matter of fact, each indi- 
 vidual must perform for himself this work of restora- 
 tion; and it can be accomplished only by constant 
 and close study of his words and works. 
 
 And to this end you must study yourself. In 
 which of these three elements are you most deficient 
 worship, belief, or conduct? In your secular life 
 you have ascertained that your taste and talent lie 
 in a particular direction business, politics, perhaps 
 science or literature. When this tendency was 
 definitely discovered, you undertook to cultivate the 
 special line for which your ability seemed adapted. 
 This was right, but in the cultivation of the religious 
 spirit the opposite policy is to be adopted. We 
 want no specialists in the manifestation of the reli-
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 33 
 
 gious spirit. It is the all-round, the symmetrically 
 developed, religious character that you should work 
 for. The day of special priesthood is past every- 
 one must be his own priest ; the day of special proph- 
 etism is past everyone must be a prophet; the 
 day of specialism in morality has never existed and 
 will never come. If then you find yourself espe- 
 cially weak in one or another of the elements which 
 we have considered, cultivate that element in par- 
 ticular, remembering that the bigots of religious 
 history have been the specialists in the manifesta- 
 tion of the religious spirit; that the dark ages of 
 Christianity have been those in which the church 
 has emphasized one or two of these elements to the 
 neglect of others. 
 
 I desire to say a word, in conclusion, in regard 
 to the religious spirit as manifested in university life. 
 Here are special difficulties. By nature we each 
 represent different tendencies; this is true of any 
 group of individuals. In the university we come, 
 each from different communities and environments; 
 we represent many phases of belief and unbelief; 
 and, besides, we have a greater or less variety of 
 opinions, forms of worship, and religious activity. 
 And, in addition to all this, we are, for the most 
 part, so busily occupied in our daily work, in our 
 several occupations, that there seems to remain little 
 time for the cultivation of the religious spirit. Our 
 minds are engaged in adjusting themselves to new sur-
 
 34 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 roundings, and there is a confusion of ideas and' 
 interests in connection with which, and as a result 
 of which, we suffer the religious life to be pushed 
 aside. 
 
 And just as there rests upon each of us as an in- 
 dividual the obligation to cultivate the religious 
 spirit, there rests also upon us as a university the 
 obligation to cultivate the religious spirit. This 
 may not be done in any such manner as to interfere 
 with our separate individualism; and it is extremely 
 difficult to find in such multiformity of belief and 
 unbelief, of practice and non-practice, any unity. 
 But unity must be found ; for an institution of learn- 
 ing which does not possess a strongly pronounced 
 religious spirit of some kind may do as much harm as 
 good. How shall this be cultivated? My answer 
 here must be still briefer than to the former questions. 
 
 As individuals, first of all, we must do our work. 
 The whole cannot be what the parts are not. Each 
 individual should, therefore, recognize his responsi- 
 bility for the whole, and for the sake of the university, 
 as well as for himself, make urgent effort. And 
 then we must assist each other, and in so doing 
 bring ourselves more closely together. Common 
 sympathy alone produces unity. We may surely 
 find, as the days and years pass on, a more and more 
 satisfactory way in which, with zest and profit, we 
 may express our feelings of gratitude and rever- 
 ence to the Power above and around us, to whom
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 35 
 
 we are indebted for all that we have and are. We 
 may surely agree, not only to permit, but indeed to 
 encourage, the widest possible divergence of thought 
 and belief within reasonable limits; and such diver- 
 gence should serve, not as a mark of separation, but 
 rather as the token of that freedom which alone is 
 found in Jesus the Christ. We may join in a com- 
 mon effort to elevate the life of the community, the 
 state, and the nation; the effort to establish right- 
 eousness and truth on every side. Such efforts serve 
 not merely as an expression of the religious spirit, 
 but they serve also to tie more closely the bonds of 
 those who thus work together, and to make that work 
 stronger and more lasting. As with individuals, so 
 with universities: the full religious spirit finds ex- 
 pression in maintaining a true worship, in cultivating 
 a reverence for truth, and in putting forth strong 
 effort for the upbuilding of humanity.
 
 m 
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION- 
 SERVICE 
 
 THE worlds we live in grow in number and in 
 size as life proceeds. Each stage onward reveals a 
 new world to us; and the strange thing is that as 
 from time to time we enter into these new worlds, 
 we still remain dwellers in those into which we had 
 before gained entrance, each being superadded to 
 another, until at last all are included in the world 
 beyond. Each stage onward also reveals to us in 
 these worlds heights and depths of which before we 
 had no idea heights and depths of pleasure and 
 pain, of love and hate, of faithfulness and unfaith- 
 fulness, experiences so varied and so vital as to excite 
 surprise that humanity can pass through even one 
 of them and live. 
 
 The worlds we live in grow in number and in size 
 as life proceeds: 
 
 First came that inner and most sacred world, the 
 family, into which we were ushered without re- 
 sponsibility of our own, and in which we found our- 
 selves the object of attention and love on every side. 
 In this world, with its almost infinite detail of rela- 
 tionship and with its utter lack of selfishness, we 
 
 3 6
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 37 
 
 have gone on living, and with each year of life its mys- 
 teries have become more marked, its responsibilities 
 more heavy, its points of contact more numerous 
 and complex. In this world the tie that binds us 
 to our fellow-members is the tie of blood. This 
 bond, however, sometimes does not count for much, 
 for when time and space intervene, even the parent 
 may forget the child, or the child the parent. This 
 bond does grow stronger and stronger with the close 
 associations which the family life makes possible; 
 for it is a natural bond, and one which is strength- 
 ened by cultivation. Or it may be broken off at 
 will; family feuds are often the bitterest. But, after 
 all, even when the bond seems broken, it is there; 
 perhaps only a thread remains still connecting those 
 whom God and nature intended should be bound. 
 This world one enters without responsibility of his 
 own; and he may not really abandon it, even if he 
 will to do so. 
 
 Life does not go far before another world opens 
 its portals. It soon appears that fellowship is pos- 
 sible with those outside the family circle a fellow- 
 ship pure and simple, in which blood-kinship plays 
 no part; a fellowship in some cases restricted in the 
 number of those among whom it exists, in others 
 not so restricted; but in all cases maintained within 
 a limit hardly larger than that of the family. This 
 relationship we ordinarily call friendship. We are 
 accustomed to say that we choose our friends; that,
 
 38 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 in other words, we enter this world upon our own 
 responsibility. This, if true at all, is only true in 
 part. We enter into the friendships of life, whether 
 in youth or in age, because of something in our 
 friend which appeals to us, something which we can- 
 not resist; because of an affinity which is as real, 
 though not as tangible perhaps, as the tie of blood. 
 The bond of friendship is a spiritual one; and so 
 close is it that men will sometimes do for friends 
 what they would not do for blood-brothers. In this 
 circle changes occur; friendships sometimes are 'out- 
 grown. Yet, as time goes on, it generally proves 
 true that the bond of fellowship once formed may 
 not be broken, and in the later days of life, as one's 
 mind goes back to the days of early family experi- 
 ences, these may not be separated from others in 
 which the friends of youth had part. 
 
 Most of us have enjoyed the fellowship of another 
 world the university. In entering this world each 
 individual assumes for himself responsibility; but 
 this world, like the others to which reference has 
 been made, is one from which no man withdraws 
 who has once entered it. The fellowship here pos- 
 sesses elements which would seem to have been 
 drawn, some from the family, some from the sphere 
 of friendship. The relationship of teacher and pupil, 
 when rightly apprehended, is only less sacred and 
 only less helpful than that of parent and child. In 
 some sense, indeed, it is a substitution for that rela-
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 39 
 
 tionship. The relationship between student and 
 student is at once that of brother and sister and 
 that of friend; the friendships formed in college life 
 are usually the warmest and the most lasting of all. 
 The associations of college life are often as hallowed 
 as any that man makes. 
 
 The college world and its significance cannot be 
 appreciatied by those who have not lived in it, and 
 those who have lived in it will never clearly know 
 how different their lives would have been if they 
 had never entered. The college world is a kind of 
 epitome of the great world. With its temptations 
 and struggles, with its successes and failures, with 
 its ambitions and despairs, its life is hardly to be 
 distinguished from the life of the great world. It 
 is the natural transition between the narrow life of 
 the family and the world at large. It exhibits the 
 world at large in its varied relationships, and shows 
 how and when entrance to it may be gained most 
 advantageously. 
 
 There is, however, another world, of which every 
 man is a member, and in which every man must 
 live. There may be a few who have not known 
 life in the world of family; there may be a few who 
 have not tasted the experience of that spiritual life 
 called friendship; the many do not know the college 
 world. But there is no man who, soon or late, does 
 not enter into the life of the great world the world 
 at large. What then, is the relationship between
 
 40 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 the members of this world ? Are men of human- 
 kind all brothers? Is there, indeed, a kinship of 
 every man with every other man? 
 
 The Scripture statement as to the essential unity 
 of mankind appears to be corroborated by modern 
 science in every department in which the subject 
 has been investigated. The biologist tells us that 
 we are one in structure; the physiologist tells us 
 that we are one in functional arrangement; the phi- 
 lologist tells us that our languages may be carried 
 back to stems which themselves form families, and 
 between these families there is evidence of relation- 
 ship; the psychologist tells us that we are so con- 
 stituted that under the same circumstances and in 
 the same environment we will do in large measure the 
 same thing, whatever be the country of which we 
 are citizens. The fact of the relationship seems to 
 have been clearly established, and is the basis for 
 the changes which are now being made throughout 
 our social structure. 
 
 It follows, of course, that wherever relationship 
 is found, there will be found fellowship; and there 
 exists, therefore, a world-fellowship, as well as a 
 family fellowship, or the fellowship of friends. 
 This world-fellowship manifests itself in various 
 ways. With some we are brought into direct touch, 
 with others the contact is indirect. In the mass of 
 individuals each individual of the mass may touch 
 comparatively few. The relationship may be that
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 41 
 
 of business, or of religion, or of a civic or social char- 
 acter; but whatever the specific form it may assume, 
 it is of such a nature as to illustrate the common 
 sympathy of men the common fellowship which is 
 always possible and which expresses itself whenever 
 circumstances permit. Every man is of kin to every 
 other man, and the multiform fellowships of life are 
 but an exhibition of the fellowship which exists 
 between members of the human race a fellowship 
 which justifies the phrase "our common humanity." 
 This fellowship is, from one point of view, only the 
 extension of the family fellowship, for here as there 
 the bond is that of common blood. From another 
 point of view it is the enlargement of that fellowship 
 which is seen in the close association of a group of 
 friends, or an enlargement of that life of which so 
 perfect a type is seen in the university. The bond 
 is that of common interest or sympathy a bond 
 which may be stronger even than blood. 
 
 And into this great world, as I have said, every 
 man soon or late comes. It is here that, notwith- 
 standing family ties and bonds of friendship, a man 
 must form new relationships, and upon the char- 
 acter of these will depend his career. This world 
 includes many worlds besides those which I have 
 mentioned, each sufficient in itself to limit the life 
 and the influences of any individual. In taking 
 one's position in this world, he does not give up his 
 position in the other worlds to which reference has
 
 42 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 been made, and sometimes membership in worlds 
 so different from each other and so much in conflict, 
 makes life and living all the more complex and 
 difficult. Do we hesitate sometimes to enter ? Yes, 
 but this counts for nothing; for, whether we will or 
 not, we find ourselves numbered with the great 
 throng and treated on every side as members. May 
 we then, having entered, withdraw quietly to one 
 side and give ourselves no concern over the affairs 
 of the world at large ? If we are cowards, we may 
 surely do this; but the training and the blood of 
 many men render cowardice for them impossible. 
 It only remains, therefore, to take up the burden of 
 this life and carry it as best we can. And the burden, 
 as we carry it, will grow heavier and heavier, until 
 perhaps we sink crushed by its overwhelming weight. 
 But this matters little, for we may interpret it as 
 perhaps the true glory granted by the world to its 
 favored children. 
 
 In this world-fellowship the college man has a 
 place. Others may be cowards and shirk responsi- 
 bility. Disturbed by the conflict which rages every- 
 where so continuously; distressed by the misery 
 which cries out to heaven from every quarter; con- 
 fused by the various sounds and noises which fill 
 the air on every side, many may selfishly shut out 
 the world, and live for and by themselves, with eye 
 and ear closed to all that goes on about them. And 
 many live thus. But of this many the college man
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 43 
 
 may not be one, unless, to be sure, his college life 
 is to count for nothing. 
 
 His position is like that of a man going through 
 the world the second time. As we look back over 
 life, we think in fact, we know that in many ways 
 we would have acted differently. We see now what 
 at the time of action was entirely obscure. We appre- 
 ciate the mistakes and blunders that were made, and 
 understand how they might have been avoided. 
 The experience of the college man in later life is 
 something like this. He has lived one life. When 
 he enters into the world at large, he is beginning life 
 a second time, and has before his eyes its probabili- 
 ties, or at all events its possibilities. Such a man 
 sustains a peculiar relation to the world and must 
 occupy a peculiar place in its fellowship. He it is 
 who must, in some measure, occupy the place of 
 the parent in the family, of the instructor in the 
 university. 
 
 We may stop here to ask: Why is it that the 
 parent is fitted to guide and direct the life of the 
 child through its early periods? Because the par- 
 ent has passed through this period, and by experience 
 has learned the dangers and difficulties which beset 
 childhood. Why is it that the instructor is fitted to 
 guide and direct the work of the pupil through the 
 various stages of his educational development or 
 in special fields of research ? Because the instructor 
 has himself gone through this work and profited by
 
 44 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 its experiences; has gone over the ground of the 
 special department. Just so, the college man, in 
 general has been fitted by the life which he has lived 
 (if it has been lived properly) to assist those about 
 him because, while they, for the most part, are 
 going through the world for the first time, he is 
 living through it a second time. This, then, is his 
 position and the relationship which he sustains. 
 Or, to use another analogy, he is an elder brother 
 in the family; not elder, perhaps, in years, but in 
 experience; for experience comes not merely with 
 days of life, but with days of thought and action. 
 Each year of preparatory and college life contains 
 five years of ordinary, routine life. The student of 
 twenty is, therefore, not a man of twelve plus eight, 
 but of twelve plus forty. I do not forget that occa- 
 sionally there are those who in life outside the college 
 find a discipline and a training which contains many, 
 if not all, of the elements of college training. These 
 are the exception. Nor do I forget that frequently 
 there are those who have passed through the college 
 without having lived the college life, and who, there- 
 fore, enter upon the life of the world as if living for 
 the first time. These, although many, are, I trust, 
 the exception. 
 
 If, then, the college man's position in the world 
 is that of one about to live a second life or that of 
 an elder brother, what is his responsibility, his obli- 
 gation? There is, of course, the responsibility
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 45 
 
 which attaches to membership in the human family, 
 the responsibility of fellowship, of man to man, of 
 brother to brother the responsibility which rests on 
 every man, which all men bear in common. I shall 
 not here attempt to define this. 
 
 But there is also the responsibility which rests 
 upon the elder brother, or the leader; there are also 
 the responsibility and obligation which rest upon 
 those who have been permitted to receive special 
 gifts and to enjoy special advantages. And just 
 here, as it seems to me, lies the solution of the prob- 
 lem which today is disturbing the minds of so many. 
 Granting that the world's affairs are under the general 
 guidance of an all-wise and omnipotent God a 
 God who is at the same time just and impartial 
 why is it that upon some men greater gifts are be- 
 stowed than upon others? Why is it that to this 
 man wealth is given, and to that man high position ? 
 Why is it that you have been permitted to enjoy the 
 advantages of college life ? Why are men of wealth 
 placed in a class by themselves, and not infrequently 
 looked upon with reproach simply because they are 
 wealthy ? Men who have had college training are 
 sometimes in similar fashion regarded with sus- 
 picion merely because they have something which 
 the mass of men do not possess. Why, I ask, do 
 a certain few have gifts which the masses do not 
 have ? Before answering the question, let me make 
 this suggestion :
 
 46 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 Life for these few is no easier, on the whole, than 
 for the many. In fact, it is more difficult and 
 more hazardous. In the majority of cases, the men 
 and women who occupy high positions, and who 
 have had the advantage of education, are carrying 
 burdens to which the men of lower rank are utter 
 strangers; burdens heavier and more grievous even 
 than those brought by poverty and sickness. Pain 
 of body is not so great as pain of heart and mind. 
 With every increase of knowledge there is an increase 
 of the capacity for sorrow. To the unthinking mind 
 the man of wealth, living in his mansion, is an object 
 of envy. If the real facts were known, the life of 
 such a one would be found, in most cases, to be a 
 life of care and responsibility, for which the satisfac- 
 tion of physical life is no fair remuneration. To the 
 unthinking mind the man who occupies a high posi- 
 tion in the affairs of government, or in affairs of 
 business, is an object of congratulation and some- 
 times of envy. If the real facts were known, in 
 almost every case it would be found that such a man 
 is being crushed literally crushed by the weight 
 of the burdens which he is compelled to carry. He 
 may find satisfaction in the prominence which is 
 accredited him, but such satisfaction is not a sufficient 
 reward for the anguish of mind and heart he is 
 called upon to suffer. 
 
 Again, therefore, the question comes: Why is it 
 that to some are given what seem to be special gifts
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 47 
 
 and special advantages? Because they deserve 
 them ? No ! In order that, having them, they may 
 secure a greater measure of enjoyment in life ? This 
 may sometimes be the result, it is not the purpose; 
 and even when such enjoyment comes, there come 
 also with it a burden and responsibility which in 
 large measure often counterbalance the enjoyment. 
 Is it because these men have greater energy and 
 ability? This answer merely begs the question. 
 Why is it then, that they have been given the ability 
 to acquire wealth or to secure an education ? The 
 answer is that every such gift or opportunity placed 
 within the reach of an individual is his, not for per- 
 sonal advantage, but to be used by him for the ad- 
 vantage of others. Every individual to whom has 
 been given such gift or opportunity, if he is true to 
 himself and true to the world-fellowship of which 
 he is a part, will use the gift or the opportunity, not 
 for himself, but for those with whom he is associated ; 
 and in every such case the burdens which he assumes 
 and the weight of responsibilities which he carries, 
 the suffering of mind and heart which is imposed 
 upon him, will counterbalance all satisfaction that 
 comes to him from the enjoyment of these privi- 
 leges; and the God who has thus distributed his 
 gifts will in the end be found to have been just and 
 impartial. For if he has given to this man a special 
 gift, it has not been for that man's pleasure or ad- 
 vantage. It has been given that he might help his
 
 48 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 brother that humanity might be lifted higher; and 
 if the man has been equal to the trust committed, 
 his life will have been no less hard and difficult 
 than that of the men whom he has helped. Do 
 you say that many who have received these gifts are 
 faithless to the trust committed, and receive the 
 benefits without incurring the responsibilities and 
 the pains? Well, this is in accordance with the 
 nature of things. In order that man may be good, 
 there must be an opportunity to sin. In order that 
 there may be men who will accept this trust, and 
 the obligations which it imposes, there must be the 
 opportunity to prove recreant to the trust. Vice is 
 permitted to exist for the sake of virtue for without 
 one the other could not be. 
 
 The obligation which rests upon the college man 
 is, therefore, one of service service to his fellow- 
 men. The man of wealth who does not use the 
 wealth given to him for the benefit of humanity is 
 a curse to the world of which he is a member. The 
 college man who does not use the advantages gained 
 by a college experience for the help of those about 
 him is a curse to humanity. To help humanity is 
 to serve humanity to be a servant to enter service. 
 An obligation which rests upon you, my friends, in 
 part because you may not deny your relationship to 
 every member of the human family with whom you 
 come in contact; in part because of the very consti- 
 tution of your mind and body which brings you into
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 49 
 
 close relationship with others of the human family; 
 but especially because you have been accorded 
 privileges not ordinarily enjoyed by the members 
 of the human family. If in your home you are given 
 wealth or advantage of any kind, would you not 
 share it with the other members of the family? 
 The principle is the same. The obligation is the 
 same. Advantage has been given you, not because 
 you deserve it, not because you are better than many 
 another man or woman, but in order that, having 
 received this advantage, you may thereby be better 
 fitted to serve your fellow-men. 
 
 I would have every college man and woman ac- 
 knowledge, as most other men and women cannot, 
 the obligation which is imposed by the fellowship of 
 humanity. This obligation can be acknowledged by 
 the college man better than by any other, because 
 he appreciates it more fully; his eyes have been 
 opened to see it more clearly in all its bearings. 
 
 I would have every college man and woman 
 assume the special obligation imposed by member- 
 ship in the human family upon those of its members 
 who have had special advantages, such as you have 
 enjoyed. In the ordinary obligation, that which 
 rests upon all, there is something of service; the 
 special obligation, which rests upon the few those 
 who have had advantage of one kind or another 
 is wholly one of service: a service hard and rigorous; 
 a service continuous and never ending; a service
 
 50 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 which will require you, in one form or other, to give 
 to others everything that has been given to you; a 
 service the pain of whose performance will equal 
 any satisfaction or pleasure which you may derive 
 from the enjoyment of the advantage accorded. 
 
 This service will be toward your equals, those 
 blessed with as great advantages as yourself. These 
 will need your help for themselves; for where you 
 are strong they may be weak; and in this respect 
 they will require your aid. For your own sake 
 you will serve them also ; since where they are strong 
 you may be weak; and the joint service thus 
 secured will uplift you both. Many a strong man 
 has fallen because of a weakness which was not 
 soon enough discovered by himself or by his 
 friends. Many a strong cause has perished for the 
 lack of timely service at the hands of those who 
 might have warded off disaster. Too often we for- 
 get the duty we owe to those in our own station of 
 life our duty to those engaged in the same occupa- 
 tion with ourselves. Even when the thought of serv- 
 ice is in our minds, and the desire to render service 
 has taken possession of our hearts, we ignore the 
 fundamental principle that service rendered the 
 strong, when it is needed, is of more value than 
 service rendered the weak. Why is it so ? Because 
 the strong, when strengthened and kept strong, may 
 in turn help others; whereas the weak, if only 
 slightly strengthened, are still unable to render much 
 assistance.
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 51 
 
 It will also be well for you, my college friends, to 
 keep in mind the fact that your equals will not all 
 be found in the ranks of college men and women. 
 Some of your brothers and sisters, better gifted by 
 nature in some directions than yourselves, have in 
 large measure accomplished without the aid of col- 
 lege what you have done with the aid of college. 
 These individuals would tell you that what they 
 have gained has cost them far more than you have 
 paid for your advantage. They will tell you that, 
 if it were to be done over again, they would adopt 
 your plan; they would go through the college life. 
 But, however true this is, be on the lookout for 
 such ; recognize them at their true worth ; join hands 
 with them in every good work. They are of the 
 college fellowship, though they have not seen the 
 college. They are your equals, and upon them rests 
 the obligation which rests on you. 
 
 Is this service due those who are, as we say, 
 above you those who have had even greater ad- 
 vantages than yourselves? The man who cannot 
 serve another well cannot himself be leader. Wher- 
 ever you may be, or in whatever station, there will 
 be those above you who both need and deserve your 
 hearty service. They will stand in need of it in 
 order that by your service, organized with that of 
 others, great results may be accomplished. It is, 
 after all, united service that counts. There cannot 
 be union of service without grading of service as
 
 52 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 higher and lower. This is the point I have in mind. 
 Do not be chary about doing the lower service when- 
 ever it is needed and you can do it. Most of us 
 find life occupied largely in performing the lower 
 service. The amount of this kind of service is 
 relatively very large. The real fact is that in service 
 one always takes the lower place. If the truth were 
 told, those who hold the highest positions are, in 
 proportion to the honor of the position, performing 
 the lowest service. This service, as has been said, 
 will be needed. In most cases it will be deserved, 
 because, upon close investigation it will be seen 
 that they are serving you. 
 
 Surely, then, these higher ones deserve your serv- 
 ice. If they are true to the high position which they 
 occupy, they will be using every gift or advantage 
 of wealth or power or endowment to serve you and 
 those who, like you, need help. The case will be 
 entirely different if they are recreant to their trust. 
 In my experience, I have found none so eager for 
 help and aid as those who were commonly supposed 
 to have been raised by their wealth or position be- 
 yond all need of help. It is here that gratitude finds 
 the possibility of expression. Those who serve us 
 deserve in turn our service, and there is no sin that 
 may be committed which is so black as the sin of 
 ingratitude. Remember, therefore, that your educa- 
 tion obligates you to serve those who by directing 
 you and your work can at the same time help you
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 53 
 
 and benefit humanity at large. The world today 
 needs more of the spirit of voluntary sacrifice and 
 less of that spirit, called independence, which is in 
 essence real selfishness. 
 
 I have one thing more to say perhaps the most 
 important. The service expected of you will be, in 
 large measure, service for those who, as the world 
 reckons them, are below you. I cannot myself 
 think that the world's reckoning is correct. There 
 is no real sense in which they are below you. The 
 world, as it is constituted, has not been able to fur- 
 nish them the opportunity which it has given you 
 that is all. I am optimist enough to believe that 
 in the end it will be shown that the laws which 
 regulate the universe have been the best which 
 could be devised under all circumstances to attain 
 the highest and greatest results. These laws being 
 what they are, millions of people are unable or un- 
 willing to obtain the advantages which you have 
 gained. This places upon you an obligation to 
 render an account for what has been entrusted to 
 you; the account will be given to humanity at large, 
 and the masses of humanity at large belong to those 
 who, as I have said, have been reckoned as below 
 you. 
 
 When we compare the situation of the masses 
 today with that of a hundred years ago, or five hun- 
 dred years ago, or a thousand or five thousand years 
 ago, we see, as clearly as we see the light of the sun,
 
 54 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 that progress is being made, but we feel that it is 
 not being made rapidly enough; and it is equally 
 clear that the progress would be greater if the men 
 who have been given a mission for humanity I 
 mean by that the men who have been given the 
 advantages of wealth or knowledge would in every 
 case perform their whole duty. It is not for me to 
 indicate how this service for the poor and needy 
 shall be performed. There are a thousand methods, 
 any one of which you may adopt. The question 
 that concerns us at this time is: Have you along 
 with the preparation for service the spirit of 
 service ? 
 
 If in your college work you gain the preparation, 
 and do not acquire the spirit, your life will be an 
 injury to the world, and not a benefit. You will 
 retard the onward movement, instead of assisting 
 it. This is why progress is so slow. So many who 
 have been given opportunity to serve and benefit 
 humanity have used the preparation given them, 
 and the facilities placed within their grasp, to do 
 injury. Has the spirit of service been inculcated 
 by those who have instructed you ? If not, it 
 would be better for the world if those instructors 
 had not lived. This, of all questions, is the one 
 question. It matters not how much knowledge 
 you acquire; since the amount, however great, is 
 as nothing compared with what you have not learned. 
 It matters not how little knowledge you have ac-
 
 FELLOWSHIP AND ITS OBLIGATION 55 
 
 quired; for the amount, however little, will be great 
 in comparison with that of the tens of thousands 
 with whom you will be associated. The question 
 is: Have you acquired the spirit which will lead 
 you to use your energy and ability in the interests 
 of those who have been less favored than yourself ? 
 And this service, as I take it, is the real essence, 
 not only of true manhood, but of divinity itself. 
 We no longer think of God as a taskmaster, seated 
 on a throne, imposing tasks upon a burdened people. 
 This conception is a thing of the past. We now 
 think of him as actually existing in every human 
 being, and as working out through man in all the 
 multiformity of man's activity. God himself is the 
 great servant of humanity; and in the ideal man, 
 Jesus, this spirit of service found its highest example. 
 The question is: Will you permit the great servant 
 of humanity, by whatever name you call him, to 
 work in you and through you for the improvement of 
 humanity? Will you consecrate your body, your 
 mind, and your heart to the cause of humanity? 
 Or will you be a miser, and, like the rich man who 
 gathers wealth for its own sake, or for his own self- 
 gratification, use your wealth that is, your training 
 and knowledge for selfish ends, and thus become 
 something to be despised and spurned and cursed ? 
 It cannot be: it has not been; college men and 
 women, throughout the world, stand for the spirit 
 and for the work of service in behalf of all who need,
 
 56 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 and for service in every cause in which service may 
 legitimately be rendered. 
 
 It is the prayer of the University with which your 
 lot has been cast, and with the name and work of 
 which your name and work will always be associated, 
 that this spirit the spirit of University life through 
 the ten centuries since universities began, the spirit 
 of the true church, in whatever form the church 
 through all ages has exhibited itself, the spirit of 
 the Divinity existing in all and working through all 
 it is our prayer that this spirit may be your spirit in 
 the years and in the days and in the very moments 
 of your life, however or wherever you may live it.
 
 IV 
 TRIALS OF LIFE 
 
 SOME of us this afternoon are wondering what is 
 ahead. Is it success or disappointment? Is it 
 happiness or suffering? 
 
 That each member of the University shall achieve 
 a marked success in life is the University's expecta- 
 tion. That to each member there may come many 
 days and many years of unmingled happiness and 
 prosperity is the University's hope. The chances 
 for success and happiness are greater surely than 
 they would have been without the discipline and 
 knowledge gained in years of university residence. 
 Life ought to be a better life in proportion as fit 
 preparation has been made; otherwise all prepara- 
 tion would be a waste. If "a sound mind in a 
 sound body is the best description of a happy state 
 in the world," those who have made earnest effort 
 to train the mind and body have in this effort made 
 long strides toward happiness. If "to be strong is 
 to be happy," happiness is more likely to become 
 the possession of those who have cultivated the 
 methods that produce strength. If we believe that 
 
 "True happiness never entered at an eye, 
 True happiness resides in things unseen," 
 
 we should expect that those who have learned to 
 
 57
 
 58 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 think of the spiritual in contrast with the material, 
 of that which is eternal instead of that which is 
 transient, of that which is holiest of all things 
 truth in whatever form it may clothe itself we 
 should, I say, expect these to be happy. God is 
 generally on the side of the large battalions. 
 
 But every life cannot be successful in the same 
 way, or to the same extent; and to every life there 
 will come hours of disappointment and days of 
 suffering. Many times the man who, as the world 
 thinks, has achieved great success will feel with 
 Macbeth that "the wine of life is drawn and the 
 mere lees is left this vault to brag of." Indeed, even 
 in the most successful life every day will contain a 
 record of suffering. There is no life, there is no 
 kind of life, there is no form of life, which escapes; 
 for suffering is universal. There is suffering most 
 intense among the plants in the "green sward beneath 
 our feet," for here a never-ending struggle goes on 
 in which the weaker suffer until there comes entire 
 extermination. The trees of the forest about us are 
 engaged in a similar daily struggle, and the history 
 of the centuries shows a work of ruin and devasta- 
 tion almost indescribable; the suffering among ani- 
 mal life multiplies in intensity in proportion to the 
 complexity of that life. 
 
 It is, however, among human beings that suffer- 
 ing shows itself keenest and most poignant. Wher- 
 ever we look, our eyes see pain and labor, sorrow
 
 TRIALS OF LIFE 59 
 
 and disappointment, sickness and death. The 
 world's traditions, rightly or wrongly, point back to 
 a time of innocence and freedom from suffering. 
 Each tradition, however, tells a story of a change, 
 and testifies to the universality, to the absolute cer- 
 tainty, of trouble and sorrow in every life. There 
 are times in every man's life when, as he regards the 
 world, it seems to be as a "great battlefield heaped 
 with the slain, an inferno of infinite suffering, a 
 slaughter-house resounding with the cries of a cease- 
 less agony." x There are times also when his heart 
 is filled with despair; when so thick a darkness en- 
 velops him that not even the midday sun may pierce 
 it. This is everywhere, and will come sooner or 
 later in every experience. At times it will be some- 
 thing which one must carry quite alone. The soul 
 has sinned, and "sin let loose speaks punishment at 
 hand;" or, perhaps, a parent has sinned, and the 
 wound is one so deep that many generations of suf- 
 fering will not heal it. In silence and in solitude, 
 the agony of life continues; while prayer for relief, 
 whatever be the form, is all in vain. 
 
 If one looks about and numbers the men and 
 women of his acquaintanceship, what a meager few 
 of this number does he find to whom a beneficent 
 Providence has given release from such suffering! 
 And if the inner life of our neighbors were known to 
 us, the ache and pain of heart and soul revealed 
 
 1 DRUMMOND, Ascent of Man.
 
 6o RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 would be so great that human strength could not 
 endure to face it. Occasionally the veil is lifted, 
 and, for a moment, humanity at large, through the 
 medium of the daily press that mighty power for 
 good, and yet a power as great for evil gazes into 
 the inmost recesses of the privacy of a life, upon a 
 sickening spectacle of woe and misery. Such was 
 the life of David in olden times, as we read it in the 
 disclosures of the prophetic recital. 
 
 We see him as a shepherd boy trusting innocently 
 in the God whose pastures and quiet waters fur- 
 nished food for life and thought. We see him as 
 courtier at the court of Saul, tempted and flattered, 
 abandoning the simple faith and habits of home life, 
 trusting and at last joining those who are hostile to 
 his own countrymen and his God. We see him as 
 king of Israel, the beloved of the people, the favor- 
 ite of the people's God, cruelly torturing to the death 
 those who fall into his hands. Selfish docs he seem 
 beyond belief when, though himself a warrior, he 
 sends his armies to the field while he remains behind 
 in the ease and luxury of his court ; and how sensual 
 and murderous, when, after seducing the wife of his 
 brave captain Uriah, he arranges, in the hope of 
 covering his guilt, for Uriah's death. From this 
 day forward to the end of life David suffered in pri- 
 vate and before the world. In the months that 
 follow his agony is so great that his very bones cry 
 out in anguish of pain. The child that is born to
 
 TRIALS OF LIFE 61 
 
 him sickens and dies; his daughter is violated by 
 his own son. He himself is forsaken by his country- 
 men, who place another son, Absalom, upon the 
 throne; and the same Absalom, in the full light of 
 day, takes to himself his father's wives. Then 
 Absalom, gives battle, and perishes miserably, to 
 David's indescribable grief. The years pass on, 
 but they are years of confusion and strife, of death- 
 bringing pestilence, of harsh reproach and stinging 
 rebuke; and finally, as David lies sick unto death 
 in his palace, the tumult of conflict sounds in his 
 ear, plots and counterplots thicken the air about 
 him, the queen is occupied with the question of 
 succession; and so the king, forgotten at the last, 
 gives up a life covered with the dishonorable scars 
 of sin. David's life is a type, and history is full of 
 such lives. Every life, indeed, has in it something 
 of the sorrow of David suffering for sin. 
 
 It is not only, however, our personal disappoint- 
 ments and sufferings that we must bear. We must 
 suffer with others; and we must suffer for others. 
 The calamity which befalls any one of those with 
 whom we live always brings some pain to us. Our 
 individuality is so bound up with that of others that 
 we often fail to ask ourselves whose burden we are 
 bearing, our own or a friend's. It is this close asso- 
 ciation that cements friendships and takes away 
 from life something of its bitterness, and yet at times 
 it is this very suffering which seems most bitter.
 
 62 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 One's utter inability to afford relief, in an hour of 
 distress, finds expression in the entire willingness 
 with which the mother would take the child's place, 
 the sister the brother's place, even if that place stands 
 in the shadow of death. Suffering with another 
 thus passes into suffering for another, the most vital 
 factor in life, without which no life is complete, 
 with which any life, though otherwise most degraded, 
 may become a life of glory. 
 
 Consider in this connection of vicarious suffer- 
 ing how sad was the condition of those faithful Jews 
 who were torn from home, temple, and country, and 
 carried into Babylon. In their faithfulness to 
 Jehovah they could not comprehend why such suf- 
 fering should be theirs. They bore this foreign 
 captivity for a sin committed, not by themselves, 
 but by their brethren who now disloyally with bitter 
 taunts and reproaches spat upon them and said: 
 "Where is the great Jehovah in whom ye so strongly 
 profess to believe ? Why does he not give aid ? " 
 But for them saddest of all must have been the 
 thought that Jehovah had abandoned them: "My 
 God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" They 
 suffered because others had sinned; but not alone 
 for this. They suffered that they might become 
 purified and developed; that through their suffering 
 light should come to the world, and deliverance to 
 all humanity. 
 
 For us, then, pain and disappointment are ahead,
 
 TRIALS OF LIFE 63 
 
 and at times we must endure them alone; at times, 
 with those whom we call our friends; sorrow and 
 anguish which, perhaps, we deserve to experience, 
 or which we must accept as the legacy of heredity; 
 suffering and agony through which we pass because 
 others have been faithless to their trust, or, perhaps, 
 in order to secure for others blessings which we may 
 not enjoy. 
 
 When we come to apply to ourselves what has 
 been said, two questions present themselves: How 
 may we best meet these pains and disappointments 
 when they come? and, What preparation shall we 
 make for the sorrows and agonies of life which, soon 
 or late, we must suffer ? 
 
 My answer to the first is: Face to face, just as 
 you would meet an enemy. With the courage of a 
 stout-hearted warrior, who will not brook defeat, 
 you must stand firm. Then each assault beaten off, 
 your enemy will be weaker, while you are stronger. 
 Take advantage of every favorable factor in the 
 situation; keep in readiness every available weapon; 
 and fight, for, whether you know it or not, you are 
 fighting for your life. To yield is to die. You 
 must conquer, or forever be a slave a slave to doubt 
 or apprehension ; a slave sinking deeper and deeper 
 in the bondage of self-distrust. 
 
 But you must also meet this pain and suffering 
 face to face, as you would meet a friend for, para- 
 doxical though it may seem to be, every pain in the
 
 64 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 physical world, and every disappointment in the 
 world of spirit, if rightly reckoned with, is a good 
 friend, from whom we may gather great assistance. 
 This friend has come, perhaps, to bring a word of 
 warning, which, if heeded, will render unneces- 
 sary visits of an equally friendly, though probably 
 more painful, character. Study this friend closely. 
 Though its attitude may at first seem hostile, attach 
 yourself to it as you would attach yourself to a well- 
 beloved companion. Standing face to face with it, 
 allow your eye fondly and lovingly to rest upon it 
 until you have read the thought which only the eye 
 of a friend would disclose. Receive the message as 
 you would receive the loving words of a friend, even 
 though such words may cut you to the soul. Do 
 not be tempted into impatience or irritation, for 
 this will be an indication of distrust. No lukewarm 
 attachment will be helpful. Remember that in a 
 close friendship both friends are masters, the one 
 of the other. In battle only one may be victorious. 
 Treating this experience as a friend, willingly permit 
 it to have full mastery of you; for in so doing you 
 in turn gain complete mastery of it. Cherish it, 
 hold it close; for unless you are absolutely loyal, 
 your treachery will be discovered, and, abandoned 
 by the influences which would gather around you, 
 you will be separated farther and farther from the 
 true life which you are making so earnest an effort 
 to live.
 
 TRIALS OF LIFE 65 
 
 And further, let me say that you must meet the 
 sorrows and disappointments of life face to face as 
 you would meet God himself, were he to be presented 
 to you. If there is a God, and if he has to do with 
 mortal man, his messages are delivered in the events 
 which make up life's experience. When does God 
 speak to men, and how ? When he would have them 
 know more of himself some new phase of his char- 
 acter which has not yet impressed itself upon them; 
 when he would for their own sakes teach them the 
 outcome of this or that kind of action, this or that 
 policy of life; when, perhaps, he desires to draw 
 them nearer to himself, to purify and make more 
 perfect their character. And how does the message 
 come? In great disaster and war; or in the inflic- 
 tion of loss, whether of property or of friends. That 
 man has not learned to live who does not recognize 
 in every event of life the hand of God stretched forth 
 to guide and lift him up toward heaven. When, 
 therefore, disappointment comes, and pain follows 
 close at hand, one must be reverent and not blas- 
 phemous as was Job of old, even though his blas- 
 phemy was accounted better than the piety of his 
 friends. One must be reverent and resigned; for 
 the struggle, if it is a struggle, is with God himself. 
 Face to face as with an enemy; face to face as with 
 the closest friend, and face to face as standing in the 
 very presence of God, one must meet the sorrows 
 and disappointments, the pains and the suffering, 
 of life.
 
 66 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 There remains, now, the second question: How 
 shall one best fit himself beforehand for the dis- 
 appointments of life, and for all its suffering ? And 
 my answer to this is: 
 
 Begin at once to suffer, if you have not already 
 begun. Try to find a disappointment. Not, of 
 course, your own; but someone's else. Enter into 
 his situation; put yourself by his side; give what 
 your sympathy alone can give; receive, in turn, 
 what sympathy alone can receive. Your advantage 
 will be twofold and direct. 
 
 First, the attitude of mind in him who suffers will 
 be for you a preparation, whether such attitude be 
 good or bad. For the effect of suffering is learned. 
 Association with those who are in distress ought not 
 to harden the heart, and does not harden the true 
 heart. Such familiarity tends, rather, to make all 
 the more tender the heart which has thus put itself 
 in the way of suffering. And besides, he alone knows 
 how to accept sympathy, and to get good from it, 
 who has learned to give it when and where it was 
 needed. If you would experience the blessing of 
 having sympathetic friends in days of trouble, be a 
 sympathetic friend before your trouble comes. 
 
 If you would anticipate the troubles of life, make 
 earnest and continuous effort to obtain a vision of 
 God. Too many of us rest satisfied because, having 
 heard of God, we think this sufficient. The heart 
 must see God, if the intellect would understand
 
 TRIALS OF LIFE 67 
 
 him. How much greater is the world's suffering 
 because men have heard of God only by the hearing 
 of the ear, whereas, if the eye were to see him, there 
 would come a vision so immediate and so full that 
 darkness would not seem to be darkness but light, 
 and suffering would be accepted with joy. 
 
 And finally, if you would anticipate trouble and 
 would prepare yourself for suffering, hold relation- 
 ship with that unique character in the world's his- 
 tory who suffered as no man ever suffered before or 
 since alone in the agony of Gethsemane, upon the 
 cross, in the face of all the world ; whom men buffeted 
 and reproached and spat upon, and whose last words 
 were: "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me?" whose sympathy with a suffering humanity 
 was so great that only God himself could have ex- 
 perienced and expressed it; whose life and death, a 
 long series of indignities and sufferings, have brought 
 light and life to all who will accept them. 
 
 Hold relationship with this man, Jesus, for in so 
 doing you at once begin to suffer with him and with 
 the world for which he suffered; you are at once 
 coming into that attitude of sympathy with all about 
 you which will make it possible to give and to receive 
 blessing. He who is in sympathy with Jesus Christ 
 is in sympathy with suffering of every form, in every 
 clime. He who is not in such sympathy stands 
 alone, separated from the whole world of sympathy, 
 and from every other man who like himself lacks
 
 68 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 such sympathy. He stands alone, unable to give, 
 and, when trouble overtakes him, unable to receive, 
 true sympathy. 
 
 But furthermore, we have seen that not the hear- 
 ing of God, but the seeing of him, is the solution 
 of life's difficulties. How easy it is for us, in these 
 days, to have this sight, this vision of God ! It was 
 for this purpose that Jesus came to men, from God 
 the Father, to represent him as only he could be 
 represented to humanity. This, above all things 
 else, was his mission, to make God known to man; 
 Jesus, the brother, through whom the Father might 
 be revealed to those who also were brothers. To 
 see Jesus is to have had a sight of God. 
 
 In fellowship, then, with Jesus the sufferer; in 
 companionship with Jesus the friend and brother; 
 and in obedience to Jesus the Lord, one is best pre- 
 pared for the battle of life. 
 
 If my theme this afternoon has seemed a gloomy 
 one, its purpose, I can assure you, has only been to 
 suggest how burden and suffering may be averted, 
 or at all events relieved, and the lives of those who 
 are now so soon to leave us thus made the brightest 
 possible. "Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
 
 LOYALTY TO SELF 
 
 THESE are days in which men's minds and hearts 
 are filled with the thought of loyalty loyalty to 
 country. The nation is being quickened in every 
 fiber of its life by the strange and striking events 
 of the passing hour, and the sons and daughters of 
 the nation, while they bemoan the seeming necessity 
 of war, while they may think that this, perhaps, 
 could have been avoided, at the same time rejoice 
 in the new and lofty sentiments aroused by the 
 stories of brave and courageous acts which men of 
 our own blood and our own generation have per- 
 formed. The names of Dewey and Hobson and the 
 story of their deeds rouse an intense spirit of loyalty 
 within us a spirit far different from that slow stir- 
 ring of the blood we get from the perusal of brave 
 actions of passed generations. And more than this, 
 devotion to country becomes a stronger passion as we 
 are awakened to an appreciation of the country's 
 strength and opportunities. We see today what a 
 score of years ago would have been thought impos- 
 sible men who once fought against each other now 
 standing side by side in a struggle with a common 
 foe and the nation thus united will do what could 
 
 6 9
 
 70 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 not have been done until such union was a union in 
 fact as well as in name. 
 
 We see the coming of an alliance * with the 
 greatest of the world-powers greatest not only in 
 naval equipment and in financial strength, but great- 
 est likewise as a power for good ; an alliance, indeed, 
 of all who speak the English tongue; and this event 
 will signify as no single event since the coming of 
 Christ has signified, "peace and good-will to men." 
 
 We see our nation just passing from its period of 
 adolescence, from a youth with his vigor only par- 
 tially developed, into a manhood conscious of newly 
 acquired powers; a nation able henceforth to stand 
 side by side with other nations, and as one of them 
 to determine, the method and kind of progress which 
 the world shall make. 
 
 We see our nation still sensitive to the cry of the 
 oppressed and downtrodden; and may the day be 
 far distant when that cry, wherever uttered, shall 
 not be heeded! May it never be that the heart of 
 America shall fail, as the hearts of European 
 nations have failed, to respond to the voice of the 
 lowly and the suffering, when that voice is raised 
 for help ! 
 
 Events are taking place today which are fraught 
 with as heavy significance as any that have happened 
 within the century and a quarter of the nation's 
 history. And these events are creating a new spirit 
 within us a spirit of intense loyalty, a spirit pos-
 
 LOYALTY TO SELF 71 
 
 sesscd of all the strength and freshness of a new 
 creation. There is no man, who can be called a 
 man, to whom, in such times, the word "loyalty" 
 does not take on new meaning. 
 
 But these are days, too, in which men's minds 
 and hearts are filled with another thought of loyalty 
 loyalty to God. The world knows God at this, the 
 close of the nineteenth century, as he has not been 
 known in all past ages. The sum of truth known 
 to men is larger; but, better than this, the sum of 
 truth put into application is greater. It is not what 
 one knows that counts, but the use made of what 
 one knows. God is coming into contact with life 
 with an ever-increasing degree of force. Life is 
 responding to the touch of God with an ever-increas- 
 ing degree of appreciation. It is truth that makes 
 men free. But what is truth ? Any act or thought 
 which is in harmony with the will of God and with 
 God's laws is truth. To act or think out of har- 
 mony with his nature is to act or think that which 
 is not true. To be free is to live and move in touch 
 with him; to love him, and to show that love by 
 devotion to him and his cause. To love him is to 
 be free and to make others free. This is loyalty to 
 God. 
 
 The ignorant love of God, on the other hand, is 
 mere superstition. Real love, true loyalty, are pos- 
 sible only for those whose conception of him is an 
 intelligent conception. For God was known only
 
 72 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 in part before the day when Science began to make 
 her contribution toward a better knowledge of the 
 laws through which he works. And in proportion 
 as this contribution in the future shall become more 
 definite, our knowledge of him will become more 
 clear. And so it follows that the man who ignores 
 the contribution of Science thus far made is guilty 
 of disloyalty. 
 
 The connection between this loyalty to country 
 and loyalty to God is clearly to be seen. Thus the 
 interest in human kind, so intense in modern times; 
 the love of man for his fellow-man, as shown in so 
 many ways; the pouring out of life and property for 
 the purpose of helping those who need help all 
 this, seen today as the past has not seen it, is God 
 working through the hearts of men in behalf of 
 other men; and every such manifestation is a mani- 
 festation of harmony with God's will, of loyalty to 
 God. "Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did 
 it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, 
 ye did it unto me." "Verily, I say unto you, inas- 
 much as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did 
 it not unto me." 
 
 We all realize that the world is growing better; 
 that its ideals of life are gradually rising high and 
 higher. And this is so because the life of the indi- 
 vidual is moving on a higher plane. Herein, per- 
 haps, lies the most conspicuous evidence of God's 
 presence, and at the same time the most marked
 
 LOYALTY TO SELF 73 
 
 indication of loyalty to God. For when God finds 
 opportunity to enter a man's heart, when that heart 
 turns away from unrighteousness, then in all sure- 
 ness we see the working of the hand of God and the 
 sign of loyalty to his standards, and seeing this we 
 see God himself, just as in seeing Christ, the perfect 
 man, the world saw God. 
 
 With love of country thus incited by the things 
 we see and hear on every side, with love of God 
 quickened by what we see, that was not seen before, 
 in nature, in the lives of those about us, and perhaps 
 in our own individual life, we ask ourselves the ques- 
 tion: How may each life most thoroughly and most 
 perfectly possess itself of all these opportunities ? How 
 may one reach this high plane of true loyalty to 
 country and to God? 
 
 The answer to this question is my message to the 
 members of the University, on whom the University 
 will soon bestow its highest, and indeed its only, 
 honors. Briefly, the answer is this: In order to 
 be loyal to country and to God, first of all be loyal 
 to yourself. 
 
 For this loyalty to self, if cultivated and acquired, 
 will lead you to avoid those things which, left to exert 
 themselves upon you, must demoralize and ultimately 
 break you down. Such influences are many and 
 strong and all about you. They form an integral 
 part of the plan of life. Without them life would 
 be an insipid thing. Strength in life is, for the most
 
 74 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 part, secured by resisting them. Death comes by 
 yielding to them. Do many die thus? Yes; that 
 the few who live may live stronger lives. This is 
 the law of life. If, now, you would be loyal to 
 country and to God, if you would place yourself in 
 a position to give evidence of such loyalty, you must 
 first be sure of your strength to resist everything 
 that may weaken you, whether in body, in mind, 
 or in soul. The country has no use for a weakling. 
 The instruments of God must be the best and strong- 
 est. One cannot be true to God and country and 
 at the same time false to self. 
 
 "The first great task (a task performed by few) 
 Is that yourself may to yourself be true." 
 
 "To thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 It is easy enough to deceive ourselves in this mat- 
 ter. And though we sometimes endeavor to conceal 
 this fatal weakness, the effort always fails. A man 
 who has no self-respect is dead to every true feeling 
 of patriotism or piety. 
 
 Furthermore, this loyalty to self, to the extent in 
 which it is acquired, will enable you to overcome the 
 difficulties and disappointments of life. These, like 
 the temptations to which I have just referred, are 
 inevitable. No man ever achieved greatness who 
 was lacking in strength to overcome great obstacles. 
 The greatest men in history have been those whose
 
 LOYALTY TO SELF 75 
 
 greatness came because a kind Providence gave 
 them obstacles to overcome. 
 
 "Noble souls through dust and heat 
 Rise from disaster and defeat 
 The stronger." 
 
 Do not, then, misunderstand the meaning of 
 those difficulties with which life is so entangled. 
 One cannot gain strength without them. For they con- 
 stitute a preparation, each in itself for something more 
 difficult, and all together a preparation for the giving 
 up of life itself a renunciation which but for such 
 preparation would be the most difficult thing in life. 
 Thus loyalty to self means strengthening of self for 
 the battles of life, whether fought in the army of 
 the nation or for the kingdom of God. Whom can 
 you expect to believe in you, if you do not believe 
 in yourself? More men commit the sin of undue 
 self -depreciation than that of undue self-confidence. 
 
 Loyalty to self means also making the most of 
 self. Nature has so endowed each one of us that 
 life has something, at all events, for us to do. In 
 the case of many it is a particular thing clearly de- 
 termined by the character of the endowment given. 
 Loyalty to self's best interests demands that one's 
 effort be put forth to discover this particular thing, 
 and, when it is discovered, to undertake it, and not 
 something else for which an endowment was not 
 given. Thus the failures in life are of two kinds: 
 those in which the individual has not been able to
 
 76 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 discover what it was intended he should do. Oh, 
 what is so sad in life not sickness, nor insanity, 
 nor even death as an aimless life! The other 
 kind of failure is seen in the case of those who, at 
 heart knowing the nature of the life-work which 
 should be undertaken, are unwilling to undertake 
 it, and turn instead to something else because, 
 perhaps, this something else is thought to be easier, 
 or more dignified or lucrative. It is no sin to be 
 ambitious. To be ambitious in the true sense is 
 only to seek to bring one's self into harmony with 
 the will of God; to endeavor to fulfil the promises 
 which God has made in his constitution of one's 
 being; and not to be ambitious is to array one's 
 self against his Creator. 
 
 Loyalty to self means, I say, the making the most 
 of self; this, however, will not be a making the most of 
 self at the expense of others, but for others' welfare. 
 It is in this way that ambition becomes a virtue rather 
 than a vice; a command from heaven rather than a 
 word from hell. To make the most of self at the 
 expense of others is the greatest sin which man may 
 commit ; to make the most of self in order that others 
 may be benefited is the highest duty which man may 
 practice. The line of distinction is sharp, and ap- 
 plies alike to nations and to men. From an ambition 
 to secure self-aggrandizement may God deliver our 
 country! But may He also implant deep in our 
 hearts an ambition to develop our strength that we
 
 LOYALTY TO SELF 77 
 
 may be of service to the world! There was never 
 a time when temptation to do the thing which would 
 hurt was stronger or more insidious. There was 
 never a time when the problems of life were more 
 numerous or more difficult to contend with. There 
 was never a time when the world could furnish to 
 those taking up its duties greater promise of oppor- 
 tunity for success. To resist these temptations, to 
 battle with these obstacles, to achieve this success 
 in other words, to be loyal to self should be, and 
 indeed must be, the highest aim of every man who 
 would be true to the country of his adoption or his 
 birth; true to the God of his fathers or to the God 
 of his own experience. May the heart beat quicker 
 as we learn more clearly our country's mission among 
 the nations of the earth ! May it beat more lovingly 
 as we more clearly learn the method and the work 
 and the character of the world's Creator and Ruler ! 
 May it, to this end, beat more truly and sincerely 
 as we grapple with the powers of evil, as we rise 
 above trouble and despair, as we set ourselves to 
 undertake the work divinely appointed us to do!
 
 VI 
 DEPENDENCE 
 
 IN these days we find it necessary to lay stress 
 upon what is called independence independence 
 in spirit and independence in action. The neces- 
 sity arises because, as it would seem, this quality, if 
 I may call it such, is not even yet sufficiently culti- 
 vated. The desirability of acquiring it or of pos- 
 sessing it is never questioned. Upon those who 
 possess it we are accustomed to look with admira- 
 tion. The man who thinks for himself is the ideal 
 man. The imitator, on the other hand, who shows 
 at every step his entire dependence upon those 
 about him; who never thinks for himself, never acts 
 for himself; whose opinion is that of the man with 
 whom he last held conversation; who does, for the 
 most part, just what the world tells him to do this 
 man his fellows esteem lightly. 
 
 The real purpose of the intellectual work carried 
 on in all our schools and institutions of learning, 
 from the lowest to the highest, is to make those who 
 receive the discipline of the school capable of think- 
 ing, acting, and, in short, of living independently. 
 In so far as this end is attained, our institutions 
 succeed; and in so far as they fall short of attaining 
 it, they fail. This is the purpose is it not? of 
 
 78
 
 DEPENDENCE 79 
 
 our reading, of every kind of intellectual activity. 
 The things about us, here in America, are intended 
 to cultivate this characteristic. Our history, as we 
 read it, stimulates us in this direction. The study 
 of our civil institutions, whatever defects such study 
 may bring to light, encourages us to breathe more 
 freely, and to make every effort to throw aside the 
 fetters of tradition, many of which we still wear as 
 an inheritance from our fathers. In religious and 
 theological thought the tendency is the same. Who 
 does not see that men may speak and think more 
 freely, that men do speak and think more freely? 
 It is to this liberty of thought and action, this pos- 
 sibility of exercising independence, that we are 
 indebted for the rapid and forward movement 
 which within a century has taken place in every 
 line of human action, whether material or intellec- 
 tual. 
 
 What we need to inquire, first of all, in connec- 
 tion with this tendency is: Are there any indica- 
 tions that the liberty which we so prize will be 
 restricted? Will the movement forward become a 
 movement backward ? Will this independence, 
 which, after all, is but another name for individual- 
 ity, gradually, or perhaps suddenly, become a thing 
 of the past ? 
 
 The answer, if indications may be trusted, is that 
 the very reverse will be true. Individualism is the 
 doctrine of the future in religion, in business, and
 
 8o RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 in letters. It may be urged that combination is the 
 order of the day. But these combinations, when 
 examined closely, exhibit an individuality of the 
 most marked character. Indeed, it was not until 
 the days of specialists that combinations arose; the 
 underlying principle of all of them is that of special- 
 ism, or individualism. 
 
 There is no probability indeed, there is hardly 
 a chance that, in the future, we are to expect any- 
 thing even apparently reactionary. It is probable, 
 on the other hand, that the spirit of independence, 
 of individualism, will grow stronger and more intense. 
 Indeed, there is a danger that this spirit may grow 
 too strong and do great harm. There is danger 
 that men will forget the difference between being 
 independent and feeling independent. The man 
 who is independent is rarely conscious of the fact. 
 The man who feels independent, and takes occasion 
 to exhibit the feeling, generally lacks the thing which 
 he imagines himself to feel. The line between 
 spurious and real independence is sharply drawn. 
 The spurious and it is this which we all too fre- 
 quently meet soon develops into arrogance and 
 conceit ; for these are but the outer shell of an 
 inner emptiness. 
 
 There is also a danger in the genuine independ- 
 ence ; and this danger is twofold : it takes the forms 
 of narrowness and of self-dependence. 
 
 The cultivation of independence, as has been
 
 DEPENDENCE 81 
 
 said, is the development of the individual. The 
 individual, however, whatever may be the degree 
 of his development, never ceases to be part of a 
 whole composed of many individuals. The ques- 
 tion is: Shall the part, though to some extent sepa- 
 rate, and perhaps elevated, continue to be a part, 
 and as such to exert a strong and helpful influence 
 upon the other parts? Or shall it, though only a 
 part, exert a repellant influence on them, endeavor 
 to drive off the other parts, and then to usurp the 
 functions of the whole ? This is what happens 
 when one of our number, strong in the particular 
 thing which he professes, forgets the many things 
 which should occupy a position side by side with 
 that in which he has interest, and gradually comes 
 to believe that his, and his only, is of value, or worthy 
 of thought. In other words, while the proper culti- 
 vation of the spirit of independence will produce 
 breadth, the result, if it is wrongly cultivated, will 
 be narrowness; and, among all sins, narrowness 
 is near to the worst. 
 
 The other phase of the danger involved is that, 
 instead of independence, we acquire self-dependence. 
 This does not mean mere self-conceit, although it 
 would not be surprising to find the latter as an 
 accompaniment. It means dependence on self 
 carried too far so far, indeed, as to make self the 
 god at whose shrine all worship is conducted. The 
 sin of Babylon of old was this:
 
 8z RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 "Yea, he scoffeth at kings, 
 And princes are a derision unto him: 
 
 "He derideth every stronghold; 
 For he heapeth up dust and taketh it. 
 
 "Then shall the wind sweep by and he shall pass away, 
 For he is guilty, even he whose might is his God." 
 
 Nor was Babylon the ancient nation alone guilty 
 of this sin. Many individuals nowadays commit 
 the sin of self-worship. 
 
 Before continuing our direct study of this subject, 
 we must look at the obverse of it; we must consider 
 the relation of independence to dependence. For 
 my own part, I desire to see dependence encouraged. 
 Do you ask why? For three reasons: First, that 
 the independence of which we boast may be a real 
 independence. This is not a contradiction of terms. 
 True independence is based upon the right concep- 
 tion of the relations of things. This right concep- 
 tion will never be ours unless we recognize our own 
 insufficiency and weakness. To be able to do, one 
 must know what he is unable to do. I desire, there- 
 fore, to see dependence encouraged. 
 
 And, second, in order that humanity may secure 
 the good results which accrue when one depends 
 upon another. Benevolence, the greatest virtue 
 of God or man, is only exercised when there is on 
 the part of someone an act of dependence. It is 
 more blessed to give than to receive; but there can- 
 not be giving without receiving.
 
 DEPENDENCE 83 
 
 I desire to see dependence encouraged, finally, 
 in order that individualism may be kept within 
 bounds. There is no virtue that may not become 
 a vice. Individualism may be pressed too far. 
 
 The dependence which I have in mind, is how- 
 ever, of three kinds. The first I have already 
 spoken of to condemn it self-dependence. I speak 
 of it now to commend it, and at the same time to 
 utter a word of caution. It is one's duty, a sacred 
 duty, to ask for nothing which he can of himself 
 secure. It is wrong to ask from God, or to expect 
 of him, that which we ourselves can obtain. To 
 be sure, all things come from him, and yet he sees 
 to it that nothing comes but that for which we work. 
 To do for one's self is to do for others. For no 
 action is restricted in its influence to the doer of it. 
 Dependence on self carries with it, for all who make 
 up self's circle, blessings seen or unseen. But care 
 must be taken lest, as has been suggested, self- 
 dependence become self-worship. We may be 
 confident, but we must not be overconfident. Dis- 
 trust of self generally leads to ruin. Here, then, 
 is a vice which at times may be a virtue. Let us, 
 at least on rare occasions, distrust ourselves. For 
 it may be that such distrust will prevent our falling 
 into a pit-hole. 
 
 The second kind of dependence I shall call 
 inter-dependence. Our situation in this world is 
 a close relationship with each other and with
 
 84 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 nature. Whether we will or not, we are dependent. 
 Nature makes us dependent. Civilization has 
 increased the debt, if debt it is, that we owe our 
 contemporaries. We must use, but not abuse, 
 the privileges granted us. Let us lean upon each 
 other; for surely the brother upon whom we lean 
 increases his own strength in the effort to sustain 
 us. Life would be only half life if it included 
 giving without receiving, or yielding without securing. 
 
 Here again the word of caution must be spoken. 
 We must not lean upon broken reeds; and yet, 
 how shall we determine who is strong and who weak ? 
 So often a mistake is made, so liable is it to be made, 
 that we are almost ready to cry out with the prophet : 
 "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, 
 for wherein is he to be accounted of." Alas ! we are 
 in sore straits. We may not fully trust ourselves, 
 we may not fully trust our fellow-men. What 
 shall we do? The answer lies in what shall be 
 said of the third kind of dependence. This time 
 I have in mind, not self, nor inter-dependence, but 
 a dependence which is absolute. This time I shall 
 speak no word of caution. 
 
 Will you picture to yourselves a scene in ancient 
 Babylonia: the great city, with its immense walls 
 and battlements, the very embodiment of all that 
 was powerful; with an army regarded as invincible; 
 with a king whose prowess in war the whole earth 
 celebrates mighty Babylon, the mistress of the
 
 DEPENDENCE 85 
 
 nations ! And behold, in the midst of all this pomp 
 and power, that ragged captive remnant, the residue 
 of what was once the lion of Judah; a poor, 
 heart-sore, distressed folk, held in reproach by 
 man, seemingly abandoned by God. Never was 
 there a picture combining so strong an apparent 
 contrast of strength and weakness, pride and debase- 
 ment. But, hark! One says "Cry!" And the 
 prophet asks: "What shall I cry?" "Tell the 
 downtrodden captives," speaks the voice from heaven, 
 "not to be despondent. Babylon's walls are strong 
 and lofty; Babylon's king is fierce and terrible; 
 but all flesh and Babylon, after all, is flesh all 
 flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as 
 the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the 
 flower fadeth, when the breath of Jehovah bloweth 
 upon it. Babylon is grass. The grass withereth, 
 the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall 
 stand forever." The preacher of this sad period 
 had no occasion for the exercise of self-dependence; 
 less, if possible, for that of dependence upon those 
 about him. But there was one on whom he depended 
 God; and his trust in this one was not mis- 
 placed. 
 
 And as it was with the prophet, so with us. God 
 is the rock on which we may set our feet without 
 fear of danger. Some of us are just assuming the 
 responsibilities of life, the burdens of life none 
 too light, as even the few years we have lived
 
 86 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 clearly show. Each one of us, however situated, 
 with every new day finds new cares. It is, indeed, 
 a heavy burden. I have felt that every year, yes 
 every month, contributed to the weight of the burden. 
 And we are, as I have said, taking up new burdens 
 all the while. 
 
 Shall we ask ourselves now whether we are try- 
 ing to carry them alone ? Doubtless we are putting 
 forth every effort to do all that men and women can 
 do. We do not wish to lean too heavily upon our 
 friends. Our education has taught us independ- 
 ence; but have we also learned dependence? My 
 friends, we must do everything we are able to do. 
 We must secure all legitimate aid from our friends. 
 But we may not stop with this, or life will bring to 
 us nothing in comparison with what might have 
 been ours. Go one step farther. Put your trust, 
 and keep your trust, in God. Let us place ourselves 
 unreservedly in his hands, to be guided according 
 to his will. If we are weak, he will strengthen us; 
 if we are strong, he will make us yet stronger. 
 
 "Gracious is the Lord and righteous, 
 Yea, our Lord is merciful. 
 It is better to trust in the Lord, 
 Than to put confidence in men." 
 
 "It is better to trust in the Lord, 
 Than to put confidence in princes." 
 
 "Some trust in chariots and some in horses; 
 But we will make mention of the Lord our God."
 
 DEPENDENCE 87 
 
 "They that trust in the Lord 
 
 Are as Mount Zion which cannot be moved, but abideth 
 forever." 
 
 "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, 
 So the Lord is round about his people." 
 
 Be dependent? Yes. Be likewise dependent 
 on self? Yes, though with caution. On God? 
 Yes; without reserve, and with absolute confidence 
 that he will render help in every time of need.
 
 VII 
 
 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY AS 
 FACTORS IN LIFE 
 
 So CLOSELY interwoven are the many and various 
 elements which make up life that most of us fail to 
 recognize the complexity which sober thought shows 
 us to exist, and consequently to make due allowance 
 for it. Life, even in its simplest forms, is complex. 
 Nor is this more true of physical than of social life. 
 In the case of both, the ancients were innocent of 
 any true comprehension of the facts. Their ideas 
 of physiology as well as of the relationships of life were 
 crude and infantile. Where there is no adequate 
 knowledge of details there is, of course, a conception 
 that simplicity exists ; and so it remained for modern 
 times to discover and to make known the utterly in- 
 calculable complexity of life, physical and social. 
 
 One sometimes wonders whether this additional 
 knowledge is to be recognized as gain or loss. 
 Whichever it may be, it is coming into our possession 
 with a rapidity which often bewilders us. This be- 
 wilderment, however, exists not merely because we 
 are for the first time beginning to comprehend this 
 complexity, but also because in our times the complex- 
 ity is being greatly intensified. The life of the ancient 
 
 88
 
 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 89 
 
 peoples, even if it had been understood, would have 
 been a simple thing compared to the life which we 
 live. The century so soon to close has brought a 
 more marked advance in this respect than perhaps 
 any ten or twenty preceding centuries. That a still 
 greater complexity is something inevitable, no one 
 doubts. With the progress of civilization it is always 
 increasing. The lines run out in still more numer- 
 ous directions. They become finer and finer, so as 
 to be almost imperceptible, though having real 
 existence. The possible combinations grow in num- 
 ber and form, and no one may even dream of the 
 end of this seemingly boundless development. 
 There is, therefore, no advantage to be gained from 
 opposing it. It is creeping onward quietly, but 
 irresistibly, and opposition will only increase the 
 speed of its progress. Resistance to it would be 
 like the resistance of an isolated tree to the fierce 
 windstorm which tears it from its roots, or like that 
 of the unprotected hut to the power of the advancing 
 river-torrent which swallows it and leaves nothing. 
 Nor, indeed, are we for a moment to suppose that 
 it is undesirable. The word "development," just 
 used, furnishes us the explanation of it. For the 
 highest development there must be just such flexi- 
 bility, such interweaving, such combination, such 
 complexity. 
 
 But what is the fate of the individual in this 
 complexity? Here is the practical question to
 
 90 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 which we ought to make answer. If life in general 
 is thus complex, surely life in particular is a perplex 
 thing; a labyrinth or maze in which the individual 
 wanders now here, now there, without light and 
 without guidance, now up, now down; not knowing, 
 perhaps not even caring, what shall be the outcome. 
 It is for the individual to make the needed effort, 
 however great a struggle it may be, to find his place 
 in the midst of this complexity. How shall he know 
 where he belongs? One of millions, what is his 
 relationship to those about him ? Aiming to ac- 
 complish the best thing for himself, what is his 
 attitude to those in whose midst he lives ? But 
 whether right or wrong, whether conscious or un- 
 conscious, determined to find a place for himself, 
 to what extent shall he regard the rights of those 
 who are aiming for the same place ? Is not this the 
 practical issue of life that external thing for which 
 every man strives who has ambition in him ? And 
 is not the higher issue only another phase of this? 
 Various methods are employed; various routes are 
 followed ; but, after all, it is the essence of life to find 
 one's place in this complicated machinery of the 
 world, and thus to avoid, so far as may be, the dismal 
 perplexities, the uncounted miseries, of an aimless 
 existence. Does anyone suppose that his fellow, 
 however fortunate he may be, at last attains a posi- 
 tion in which struggle is no longer needed ? Does any- 
 one suppose that for any human being this perplexity
 
 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 91 
 
 ever has an end ? No man has lived for whom life 
 was not this thing of doubt, of perplexity. Heaven 
 is nothing but the elimination of this perplexity; 
 hell, its further intensification. In which direction 
 are we moving ? For we may well believe that the 
 future life is but a continuation of that which we 
 deliberately choose in this life. 
 
 Yet back of this question lies another as funda- 
 mental and as important: How are we moving? 
 Indeed, the two questions are one, for if the method 
 is indicated, one is inevitably made cognizant of the 
 direction likewise. There is a right and a wrong 
 policy of life. Failure, in general, is due to an 
 inability to grasp the right policy. In this policy 
 and I am now speaking only of the method of liv- 
 ing there are two elements, both of which are ne- 
 cessary, both of which contain promise of good out- 
 come; either of which, when exaggerated, brings 
 ruin and disaster. Has it occurred to you that the 
 dividing line between good and bad is very diffi- 
 cult to draw; that the character of the policy is often 
 determined, not by what it is, but by the extent to 
 which it is carried; that mistakes are made, not 
 simply in going, but in going too far or not going 
 far enough ? 
 
 Remembering, now, this complicated maze in 
 which every human being finds himself moving in 
 one direction or another; remembering that every 
 action has to do with the actions of others, every
 
 9z RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 thought connects itself with others' thoughts; re- 
 membering that all possibilities are wrapt up in the 
 kind of combinations made; that one cannot remain 
 alone; that there is no such thing as isolation; that 
 every effort must be put forth to find the particular 
 place in this great labyrinth which the individual 
 was intended to occupy, a place possibly near at hand 
 or possibly far removed picture to yourself the man 
 who refuses to put forth effort to find this place, who 
 fears to come in contact with other forms of life, 
 and so far as he may, stands still; who, finding him- 
 self in a certain groove, remains fixed and gradually 
 becomes hardened, impervious to influence; who 
 hears nothing, sees nothing, merely exists; who, 
 being out of place and unable to find a place, is 
 consequently out of connection with all about him, 
 and so constituted that those who would naturally 
 come into relationship with him are injured by con- 
 tact with him; who has become callous and unsym- 
 pathetic, out of touch with those about him except for 
 harm; who is unable to assist or direct others to the 
 place in the maze which they ought to occupy; who, 
 indeed, actually prevents others from taking the 
 place which is really theirs. What element in the 
 true policy of life does this man lack, or what ele- 
 ment does he possess which makes his life a failure ? 
 Remembering, further, that each life among all 
 lives has its part, that this part is a unique one, 
 and that the player of it must do a particular thing
 
 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 93 
 
 in order that it may contribute its share to the whole 
 and be in harmony with all; remembering that any 
 failure on the part of one life affects all, and that 
 life itself is too short in any single case to permit 
 many parts to be assigned to a single life, even if 
 they are fittingly assigned; remembering that it takes 
 time to fit one's self into one's surroundings, even 
 when the supposition is that one has found one's true 
 place, and that skill also is required in order that 
 the adjustment of each part to other parts may be 
 complete picture to yourself that other man who 
 in each successive month or year imagines that his 
 work is something different from that which he has 
 been pursuing; who imagines that his neighbor's 
 place is that which he was intended to occupy, and 
 forthwith makes effort to secure that place; who 
 today is here, tomorrow there, moving from one 
 point to another, regardless of the fact that he is one 
 of many and must connect himself with others of 
 his group in order that the work of the group may 
 be successful; who jumps from this path to that, 
 little appreciating that he is perhaps going farther 
 and farther away from the true path; who does not 
 seem to understand that he is mingling and con- 
 founding that which, though complicated, was defi- 
 nite and distinct; who finds himself, when he stops 
 to consider the situation, moving in a circle, and not 
 in a direction which would have indicated progress; 
 who is ready at any time and under any circum-
 
 94 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 stances to change or modify his course, moved as 
 he is by any wind that blows. What element in 
 the true policy of life does this man lack, or what 
 element does he possess, which makes his life a 
 failure ? 
 
 I have used general terms because I did not wish 
 to specify any one of the many realms of life's 
 activity. One's policy will probably be the same, 
 whether in business, political, or religious life. For 
 the sake of this general application, I may be allowed 
 to use general terms with which to designate these 
 elements in the policy of life. In one of the cases 
 described there was a fixity and rigidity, a self- 
 satisfaction and unwillingness to put forth effort, a 
 lack of flexibility. Here belong one-half of life's 
 failures, the occasion of the failure being an un- 
 warranted certainty that what one has is all that is 
 worth having; that what one knows is the whole 
 truth; that what one does is the right thing to do; 
 a certainty based upon lack of sufficient evidence; 
 a certainty involving immense risk to everyone pos- 
 sessed by it. 
 
 The dangers of certainty are many and serious. 
 The feeling of certainty begets a contentment which 
 dwarfs and stunts the life and soul of man; an in- 
 difference to truth which condemns before its utter- 
 ance every new form of statement, every new phase 
 of conception; a fixity of thought which soon comes 
 to be obstinacy and prejudice; a lack of sympathy
 
 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 95 
 
 which dries up the heart and starves the intellect; 
 a literalism which shrivels and destroys. This, we 
 must grant, is the most natural and most common 
 tendency of human life. It is from the lethargy 
 growing out of this that we must free ourselves, if 
 the race as a race, or if individuals of it, are to ac- 
 complish the great mission of the Almighty. The 
 results of this tendency have presented themselves 
 to every thinking man or woman. The disposition 
 to shut one's eyes to the facts about him, to accept 
 without sufficient evidence that which is presented, 
 to fail to hold these things subject to verification, is, 
 alas, too common a characteristic even of the leaders 
 of our times. God forbid that I should say any- 
 thing which would seem to be harsh! But when I 
 see on every side of me the monuments of the past 
 revered as if they had been handed down by God 
 himself, actually erected into gods for worship, 
 treated with a reverence and a holy fear worthy of 
 something higher and better, my heart sinks within 
 me at the proneness of men's minds to stand still 
 a tendency as great as is the proneness of the sparks 
 to fly upward. 
 
 But the element of uncertainty in life is even more 
 mischievous. Its presence leads to a shallowness 
 painful in its weakness; to an inability to grasp 
 truth even in the simplest form; to a flitting hither 
 and yon without purpose and without result; to a 
 dangerous radicalism, because of the lack of strength
 
 96 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 to resist that which is plausible, though false; to an 
 ignoring of the lessons of the past and a blindness to 
 the real possibilities of the future; to a failure to 
 appreciate the existence of great and fundamental 
 principles in accordance with which life and all that 
 goes to make up life shall be regulated. The lack 
 of honest convictions on important questions is a 
 source of uneasiness and disquiet. It must lead to 
 abject dependence upon others and an utter aboli- 
 tion of that feeling of independence which should be 
 the characteristic of every man. What more pitiable 
 spectacle than that of a man who never knows what 
 he himself thinks; whose life is one of credulity and 
 skepticism, of inconsistency and unfaithfulness ? 
 
 Here belong the other half of life's failures, their 
 occasion being an utter uncertainty as to what one 
 should think or should do, or should be; instability 
 of character, for which no better symbol can be 
 found than that applied by Jacob of old to Reuben : 
 "unstable as water." In one's contact with men he 
 finds many possessed of high qualities and great 
 ability whose lack of stability makes a life, that 
 would otherwise be most successful, an utter failure. 
 The absence of a continuity of purpose, the inability 
 to adhere to a plan of action, counterbalance all else 
 and condemn them to darkness and despair, pro- 
 vided they have a disposition serious enough to lead 
 them to understand their condition. It is one's busi- 
 ness, and I think I may say one's chief business in
 
 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 97 
 
 life, to succeed; to avoid the probability, and indeed 
 the possibility, of failure. The work which we do in 
 school and college and university is intended to re- 
 duce the chances of failure, or, if you please, to 
 increase the chances of success. It is not impos- 
 sible, of course, for a college man to fail. If, how- 
 ever, he has been able to read aright the commission 
 which has been given him by nature and nature, 
 that is God, has given a commission to every man 
 before his birth he will have attained ideals which 
 will enable him to understand this complicated sys- 
 tem in which he has been placed and to overcome 
 the perplexities of the situation. 
 
 The ideals of a university man in his efforts to 
 advance himself, and in his attitude toward those 
 about him, should be the highest. He must steer 
 clear of the dangers of certainty as well as those of 
 uncertainty; and he of all men knows that the world 
 is making progress, and that the best life is that 
 which is lived in its own times rather than in those 
 of a past generation. There must be strong convic- 
 tion, and sturdy adherence to a well-founded opinion, 
 if anything is to be accomplished. How, now, shall 
 he adjust himself to these two elements, each of 
 which contains some truth; either of which, as has 
 been said, when exaggerated brings disaster? He 
 should first of all repudiate mere partisanship. He 
 must be an independent, whether in matters of reli- 
 gion of or politics. He must not be a sectarian hi
 
 98 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 religion, a party politician in politics. Such adher- 
 ence to political or religious creed of the past, because 
 of historical or local influence, cannot be justified. 
 
 This does not mean that he shall not work in 
 connection with that religious denomination or with 
 that political party which seems to him, upon the 
 whole, best adapted to his needs and necessities, as 
 well as to his conceptions of truth. But the religious 
 denomination or the political party will be the means 
 employed by him to serve God and his country, not 
 the end of that service. He will put aside the pre- 
 conceptions of the local atmosphere which he has 
 breathed, and endeavor to reach for something 
 higher. But he will not, if his training has been 
 scientific, throw away what he has obtained before 
 securing something which shall serve as its substi- 
 tute. He will above all things go beneath the sur- 
 face and aim to understand the foundations of 
 things; for he will soon learn that it is only upon 
 strongly built foundations that later work of substan- 
 tial character can be established; or, to change the 
 figure, that, if his roots grow deep down into the 
 soil the tree will grow above and beyond the narrow 
 limitations which otherwise might have been set, 
 and that the tree with roots reaching far down is the 
 tree which stands firm and is less disturbed by the 
 storm. He will live and think and act in accordance 
 with principle rather than according to rule. And 
 here, after all, lies the great difference between the
 
 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 99 
 
 strong life and the weak. There are laws and prin- 
 ciples which govern our lives, and the life that dis- 
 regards these suffers. The petty rules and regula- 
 tions of one class or another signify nothing, accom- 
 plish nothing. They are of use only, if at all, for 
 training where the mind is not yet developed, or is 
 always to be weak. 
 
 Do you think that I have not had in mind in 
 these few words the religious life and its influence, 
 and the contribution which religion makes to this 
 complexity of situation and perplexity of life? I 
 answer that in my own mind I have thought only of 
 the religious. But it is easier to present religion in 
 the concrete than in the abstract and so, in closing, 
 I present to you the concrete example of one who 
 knew, as no other man has known, the complicated 
 structure of the universe and man's peculiar relation 
 to it ; who experienced, as no other man experienced, 
 the perplexities and bewilderments and wretched- 
 ness of this our life upon earth ; who steered his way 
 through the midst of all the dangers which attend 
 the life of one standing firmly for his convictions; 
 who represented to the world new thoughts and new 
 conceptions, and who gained reproach and death 
 because of his lack of adherence to the old; who 
 trampled upon the beliefs of his time, repudiated the 
 teachings of his fathers, introduced the sword of con- 
 tention among his brethren, climbed high above the 
 narrow and inconsiderate prejudices of his country-
 
 ioo RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 men, reached far down beneath the surface to dis- 
 cover and to proclaim principles, the adoption of 
 which should shake to their very foundations the 
 institutions of the world. Who was this man? 
 Jesus Christ the ideal of a humanity into which 
 divinity had been breathed ; in whom the complexity 
 of life is lost, unity and simplicity taking the place 
 of it ; in whom the perplexities of life find their solu- 
 tion. 
 
 Do we know this man Christ Jesus ? For not to 
 know him is not to know the true philosophy of his- 
 tory, and to be ignorant of the very purpose of our 
 existence. We, who have gathered here this after- 
 noon, are students. Let us see to it that we remain 
 students. And may I suggest, what surely has been 
 suggested many times before, that one subject of our 
 study during what is left us of life, indeed the subject, 
 shall be this perfect exemplification of the life and 
 character of an educated man; and that the purpose 
 of our study, as well as the purpose of our lives, 
 shall be not to treat as known that which is uncer- 
 tain, and not to hesitate in respect to that which is 
 certain.
 
 VIII 
 OUR INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 WE are all interested in the progress and growth 
 of the principles of Christianity. There may be 
 differences among us in respect to the application 
 of some of these principles; but in reference to their 
 substance, and in reference to the importance of 
 promulgating them, we are agreed. We are all 
 likewise interested in the work of higher education. 
 As instructors and students, as parents and friends, 
 we are closely connected with a great cause one 
 only less important than that of Christianity itself, 
 a cause which, indeed, may not be separated from 
 the highest life and teaching of Christianity. But 
 we have noticed that at times, and in the case of 
 certain individuals, perhaps even in ourselves, there 
 has arisen what may have seemed to be a conflict 
 between these two interests the religious and the 
 intellectual life. 
 
 At times in the history of the church, men have 
 reached conclusions in their investigation of great 
 themes which have been adjudged irreconcilable 
 with the creeds of the church, and these men have 
 been made to suffer, even death. At certain periods 
 in the history of some of our denominations, the
 
 102 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 people as a whole have been afraid of higher learning 
 and have frowned upon it. And the day of this evil 
 is not yet entirely past. 
 
 But what I wish to speak of here are certain 
 difficulties into which those who are engaged in 
 higher studies sometimes fall. They are especially 
 the difficulties of university men and women, 
 although many outside of the university circle have 
 to struggle with them; for is it not true that men who 
 think, whether in or out of the university, belong to 
 one great family ? 
 
 The first one is the disposition to doubt, a dispo- 
 sition which characterizes most men, whatever may 
 have been one's Christian experience, or even if one 
 has had no such experience. The time when we 
 first began to see things from the new point of view 
 may have been very definite so definite that we 
 can remember the hour and place when our thoughts 
 were turned, and our lives began to be different; or 
 the experience of change may have been so gradual 
 as to be almost imperceptible; or we may still be 
 looking forward to that time ; but in every case there 
 have been difficulties, and there are doubts. I use 
 the word broadly. 
 
 This Christian life is a strange thing; with some 
 of us it is comparatively easy and bright ; with others 
 gloomy and hard. We pass through what is utterly 
 incomprehensible; we grow uneasy; it is so dark at 
 times that we seem almost to have lost the light;
 
 OUR INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES 103 
 
 but the experience of those unfortunate ones who 
 never have had even a faint glimpse of this light 
 which lighteth the world must be darker and more 
 wretched still. 
 
 But these intellectual difficulties are certain to 
 exist. No man who really thinks can escape them. 
 It has sometimes seemed to me that to think and to 
 doubt were synonymous. Certain it is that in pro- 
 portion as a man thinks, in that same proportion 
 questions arise the answers to which are often hard 
 for him to discover. And since it is the chief busi- 
 ness of the student to think, he need not be surprised 
 if doubts crowd in upon him thick and fast. If 
 one's reading does not lead him to think and to ask 
 the wherefore of things, the why this is true, if it be 
 true, and the why this is false, though always believed 
 to be true it would be better for him not to read. 
 If one's reading has taught him to think about 
 the classics, and about art, about science, and about 
 history, and has not also led him to think (and I 
 mean by the word "think" the asking of questions, 
 the testing over again of truth supposed already to 
 have been tested, the interposing of a doubt as to 
 this or that thing not yet based on sufficient evidence) 
 if, I say, one's reading has not led him to think 
 about the great questions which are connected with 
 our religion and our faith, that reading or study has 
 been in part a failure. You must not misunderstand 
 me when I say that unless your intellectual work
 
 104 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 has taught you to doubt, at least to an extent which 
 will compel you in self-defense to make inquiries 
 the result of which will be the furnishing you a basis 
 on which to rest an intelligent faith, that intellectual 
 work has not yet gone far enough. Although you 
 will meet difficulties, if you think, do not, I beg of 
 you, stop thinking because you are afraid of diffi- 
 culties. They are certain to exist. 
 
 In the great majority of cases, these difficulties 
 are independent of a true profession of Christianity. 
 Thus you are not to suppose that because of their 
 existence you cannot become a Christian, or that, 
 having become a Christian, they will cease to exist. 
 They exist before, during, and after the change of 
 heart. Your faith in the essential verities of Chris- 
 tianity is largely independent of them. Let us sup- 
 pose that you and I are Christians. Certain diffi- 
 culties of belief arise the same difficulties for both 
 of us. You will probably settle yours, if at all, by 
 one method, and I mine by another; the result will 
 be one thing in your case, and quite a different 
 thing in mine. We are, however, both satisfied. I 
 may think that you are wrong, and you may think 
 that I am wrong, as to this specific point; but our 
 faith is the same. And so, all about us, Christian 
 men are settling their difficulties of belief in many 
 different ways; and, notwithstanding these differ- 
 ences, faith remains unaffected. 
 
 Nor is this all. These intellectual difficulties
 
 OUR INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES 105 
 
 may continue to exist without being settled in any 
 way, and still one's faith may remain unaffected. 
 Faith in Jesus Christ and in the living principles of 
 Christianity is not bound up or in any vital way con- 
 nected with the outside intellectual difficulties which 
 are all the while presenting themselves to us. You 
 have your difficulties; some one else has other diffi- 
 culties. The result should not and need not affect 
 one's active Christian life. 
 
 But suppose that you are not a Christian; are 
 you waiting until all difficulties have disappeared? 
 If so, you will wait until the end of life. If some 
 good friend labors with you until he has persuaded 
 you that these difficulties have been removed, and 
 begs you now to accept the Christ, he is deceiving 
 you; it is not so. Do not allow yourself to be thus 
 deluded. Many of these perplexities will continue; 
 but if your faith is real and simple, they will grad- 
 ually become less and less significant, until by falling 
 into their proper places they will leave you undis- 
 turbed. Be sure, thus, of this: if you wait until you 
 are argued out of these doubts, you will wait long 
 and hopelessly. 
 
 And now, as to the solution of these difficulties. 
 I insist that they are independent of our Christian 
 life and activity; that we may be good Christians, 
 and may rest in peace of soul, without having settled 
 them. But do not think that therefore I advise 
 you to let them go unsettled. That would be to
 
 106 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 stop thinking; and to do that you must cease to be 
 a student. You cannot pursue any line of investi- 
 gation without coming into contact with Bible 
 thought. If you are an honest thinker, you will be 
 compelled to make an effort to reach definite con- 
 clusions. 
 
 Nor must we leave the resolving of these questions 
 to the men who deny the existence of a God. They 
 are not to be left to be decided by the rationalistic 
 skeptic. It is the province of the thinking Christian 
 to discuss, and in due time to settle, them. And so, 
 my friends, although these questions are separate 
 from a simple faith, it is your business to grapple with 
 them and to settle them, in so far as they can be 
 settled through honest thought and work. But in all 
 such work it is to be remembered that first comes the 
 effort to cultivate a Christian life, and that the diffi- 
 culties stand second. 
 
 Just here someone may raise an important con- 
 sideration. "How," he asks and I understand 
 him to ask it honestly "How can I profess to accept 
 that about which I have doubt? A Christian life 
 is inseparably connected with a full acceptance of 
 Christian doctrines. If I cannot accept the doctrines, 
 how can I lead, or profess to lead, the life ?" 
 
 I answer: I know that life and conduct are affected 
 by opinion; but I know also that the doctrines neces- 
 sary to be accepted by him who would lead a true 
 life, are not many, nor abstruse. I remember that
 
 OUR INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES 107 
 
 the men and women of our Lord's times who accepted 
 him, and in him found rest and peace, were not 
 loaded down with theological systems; and, still 
 further, that their theological beliefs, so far as they 
 held such beliefs, were made up largely of the 
 ephemeral notions and ideas of their day. The sum 
 and substance of the Christian faith is found in two 
 words, "Follow me." The belief in this or that 
 thing may be important; it is not essential. The 
 simpler one's faith, and the more childlike, the more 
 helpful and satisfying it will prove to be. Again, 
 therefore, I urge you, do not hold back because this 
 or that thing is not clear, because this or that thing 
 cannot be accepted. Do not be all intellect; allow 
 yourself to be moved, at least to some extent, by 
 your heart. 
 
 But I have drifted somewhat away from the 
 question of the solution of these difficulties. Let 
 me tell you, out of my own experience, that during 
 several years before personally accepting the Chris- 
 tian faith I studied the Bible earnestly and carefully 
 for the purpose of discovering that which would 
 enable me to convince others that it was only an 
 ordinary book, and very ordinary at that. I could 
 not, if I would, here tell you of the work of those 
 years years spent in finding, not in settling diffi- 
 culties. The work was, of course, superficial, and 
 my point of view altogether wrong; but those diffi- 
 culties were still there, when, after a while, I began
 
 io8 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 to see some faint rays of coming light. And as the 
 light grew brighter the difficulties did not diminish 
 in number or in character. I desired to be a Chris- 
 tian, but no man told me what I now know, and 
 what I beg you to hear from me, that I could first 
 become a Christian and settle the difficulties later. 
 I went forward ; yet the difficulties remained. What 
 could I do with them? Only one thing: take up 
 again the study of the Bible, this time going deep, 
 and working from a different point of view; and it 
 was not long until I discovered two things: that the 
 difficulties were in some cases altogether imaginary; 
 and that from the new point of view, and with the 
 more scientific study, principles could be found 
 which, if followed out, gave to the whole case a 
 different aspect. 
 
 This, then, was my experience; and among others 
 I have found that perplexity is due almost always 
 either to ignorance of the representations of the 
 Bible or to a misunderstanding of its contents. The 
 man who will study it honestly and fearlessly, regard- 
 less of the mass of rubbish which tradition has 
 gathered about it, but, at the same time, with a spirit 
 of true reverence, will find his imaginary difficulties 
 vanishing one by one ; he will find his real difficulties 
 assuming a new and more manageable shape. He 
 will find great and fundamental principles, of the 
 truth of which he will be so confident that his feet 
 will seem to be standing on a rock, which doubt 
 cannot shake.
 
 OUR INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES 109 
 
 Do you believe the Bible, asks someone, because 
 of what is in it, or do you believe what is in it because 
 it is in the Bible ? How should one answer these 
 questions ? I would answer yes to both questions. 
 
 When I compare the early chapters of Genesis 
 with the similar stories in other literatures, and note 
 the spirit and purpose of one in contrast with the 
 spirit and purpose of the other; when I compare the 
 history and psalms of the Old Testament with the 
 history and psalms of the old Assyrians ; when I study 
 the story of the life of Christ, a story beside which 
 no other story may be placed; when I see what the 
 Bible has done for humanity and what it is today 
 doing I can say most strongly, I believe the Bible 
 because I find it to be a collection of books that have 
 stood the test of time. 
 
 But let me turn it around. I believe also what 
 is in the Bible because it is there. To be sure, I 
 reserve the right for myself to decide that one book 
 of the collection has more of religious truth in it 
 than another. Who, for example, would deny that 
 the ninetieth psalm was not more helpful than the 
 first chapter of Chronicles ? I reserve the right 
 also to decide whether this or that book is really 
 to be taken as one of the collection. Luther exercised 
 this privilege. Why should I not enjoy it also ? I 
 reserve the right, still further, to decide for myself 
 in what way I shall interpret this passage or that. 
 When I read:
 
 no RELIGION AND THE HIGHER L[FE 
 
 "The mountains skipped like rams, 
 The little hills like lambs," 
 
 I am at liberty to believe that it is poetry and not to 
 be taken literally. So likewise when I read, 
 
 "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, 
 And thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon ! 
 And the sun stood still and the moon stayed, 
 Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies," 
 
 and see that it is poetry, as it is shown to be in the 
 Revised Version, and that it is obviously quoted 
 from that ancient collection of poetical pieces, the 
 book of Jasher, I understand that I may believe the 
 Bible, without believing at the same time that the 
 sun and moon stood still. 
 
 Thus I find upon investigation that if it be prop- 
 erly interpreted, what the Bible says is true; I could, 
 therefore, easily believe that the things which are 
 in it are true because they are there. 
 
 But I do not wonder sometimes that some of our 
 students and investigators have thrown the Bible 
 aside. Here is the situation : In childhood they were 
 taught ideas concerning the Bible which were in 
 keeping with their ability to comprehend the subject. 
 As the years passed, the childish conceptions relating 
 to other subjects were displaced by more mature 
 conceptions ; the child grew to be a man. As a man, 
 however, he is unable to accept the teachings given 
 him when a child. And, meanwhile, he has not 
 been given other, better, and more mature instruc-
 
 OUR INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES in 
 
 tion. The old is gone; there is no new to take its 
 place. This is the explanation of a large part of the 
 skepticism in the world; and the responsibility for it 
 rests upon those who have given direction to the 
 curriculum of instruction. 
 
 But I have only talked about difficulties in general. 
 This is not the time to discuss questions of miracles, 
 or the question of inspiration, or the question of the 
 incarnation, or any of those subjects which are 
 ordinarily supposed to cause us most perplexity. I 
 have limited myself to talking about the question 
 as a whole, and all that I have said may be summed 
 up in very few words: 
 
 1. Have your difficulties; go on having them; 
 suspect that something is radically wrong when you 
 cease to have them. 
 
 2. You who have not yet accepted as your friend 
 and guide the Christ who lived and died for all men, 
 do not wait for a time when these difficulties will 
 grow less. Until you take this step, you may hope 
 for nothing. That step taken, all the rest, in time, 
 will follow. 
 
 3. You who have cast your lot with the church, 
 remember that these difficulties need not, must not, 
 interfere with your Christian work and life. It is 
 a mistake to suppose, as many do, that when diffi- 
 culties begin to arise, and faith to grow weak, you 
 should forsake communion with God and association 
 with his people until your faith grows strong again.
 
 ii2 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 This, of all times, is when you need such help as only 
 prayer and Christian activity can furnish. 
 
 For relief from difficulties of every kind, whether 
 of life or thought; for a help which may always be 
 obtained ; for a rock on which firm standing-ground 
 may be gained go to the Bible ; not as to some talis- 
 man possessed of magic power, but as to a book con- 
 taming story after story which tells of God's dealings 
 with man; to a book containing precept upon pre- 
 cept, richer in truth than any other of the world's 
 possessions a book which will guide your thought 
 unfailingly to the only source of wisdom, to the 
 source of all wisdom to God.
 
 IX 
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE AN 
 EPITOME OF LIFE 
 
 EVERYTHING repeats itself. The experience of 
 today is only that which happened yesterday; and 
 our experience of yesterday was much the same as 
 that of men who lived six or seven thousand years 
 ago. The child before birth repeats every stage 
 of that long ascent from the lowest life to the highest 
 which culminates in man. The child after birth 
 repeats every stage of that long process by which 
 primitive man has become civilized man. The 
 college life, with its temptations and struggles, 
 with its successes and failures, with its ambitions and 
 despairs, is an epitome of that larger life which 
 men are said to live when they go out into the world. 
 The fact is, of course, that when one enters college, 
 he enters the world, and life in the world is only the 
 repetition over and over again of the life lived in 
 college. If men and women could only be made 
 to see this when they first enter college, how different 
 would be for most of them their college life. 
 
 But now the question presents itself to those of 
 us who are soon to leave the University precincts, 
 and take up work in another and different atmos- 
 phere : What have we come in contact with here 
 
 113
 
 ii4 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 in this environment that will be repeated in the new 
 situation? What is it that we have had which we 
 shall experience again many times in later life ? If 
 I mistake not, one of the most striking things in 
 the life of the great majority of students is the nature 
 of the difficulties with which they are called upon to 
 contend. These difficulties vary in number and in 
 character as they do in life itself. 
 
 Some have had to fight against poverty. And 
 to one engaged in this battle the obstacles which 
 confront him seem at times insurmountable. To 
 go through college under these circumstances is to 
 be deprived of even the most reasonable recreations ; 
 to separate oneself from others, for lack of means 
 to share the necessary expense of even a simple 
 social life; to sacrifice the very necessities of living; 
 to submit to what, under other circumstances, would 
 be constant humiliation. Yet this struggle is under- 
 gone by a larger proportion of our numbers than 
 is ordinarily supposed; and in many instances the 
 struggle is more severe than the facts, as seen by 
 those on the outside, would seem to indicate. The 
 result of the struggle with poverty usually is either 
 discipline of the highest character or death; not 
 infrequently both. 
 
 With others the obstacle which stands in the path 
 of progress is ill-health. Strangely enough, the 
 author of existence has not always seen fit to adapt 
 the body of man to the vigor of his mind; and so,
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 115 
 
 many of us suffer in long-continued agony because 
 the body will not fulfil the mandates of the brain; 
 because we see as if within our very grasp possi- 
 bilities of life and living which, after all, are as far 
 from realization as heaven is from earth. This 
 constant failure to attain what in all reason might 
 have been expected disheartens us. The struggle 
 is indeed maddening; the sense of disappointment, 
 keen and ever-present. 
 
 And often both these things a lack of means 
 and a lack of health are coincident. In such a 
 coincidence the case would seem to be hopeless; 
 and yet even this combination the human will is 
 sometimes strong to combat and conquer. But 
 great and varied and numerous in college life as are 
 those difficulties which have their origin in lack of 
 means and in ill-health, and sad and pathetic as is 
 the result of the struggle in many cases to overcome 
 them, there are other conditions which give rise to 
 difficulties greater and more numerous, with results 
 sadder and more pathetic. 
 
 There are sometimes found within the university 
 circles those to whom nature refused to give a strong, 
 vigorous mental equipment; those who are styled, 
 in common conversation, slow and dull. Conscious 
 of the fact that nature has thus despoiled them; 
 realizing that every forward step costs them twice, 
 or even ten times, the effort required of others about 
 them; knowing that, at the best, only a mediocre
 
 n6 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 attainment is possible, these souls plod on and on 
 day after day. In these cases the difficulties of 
 progress are magnified tenfold, since for them every 
 hill is a mountain. To feel during each moment of 
 existence that for oneself only this little thing is 
 possible, while for that other nothing is quite impos- 
 sible, is to have one's life, whatever kind it be, 
 enveloped in a cloud of darkness the density of 
 which will be appreciated only by those who, once 
 swallowed up in it, have passed beyond into an 
 atmosphere of comparative clearness and rarity. 
 It is here that strength of will is developed the 
 determination to do or die. Many, to be sure, give 
 up the struggle in an early stage; many others fight 
 as with death itself, and in the end triumphantly 
 win the battle. 
 
 I wish, however, to mention still another source 
 of difficulty which confronts men and women in 
 the college life. I have referred to lack of means, 
 to lack of physical endowment, and to lack of intel- 
 lectual equipment ; I have in mind now lack of strong 
 moral purpose, or, more briefly, lack of character. 
 I may not here consider how this deficiency has arisen 
 whether by heredity, or from the sin of early youth 
 long since put aside, or from an evil habit still prac- 
 ticed. Nor do I wish to refer to those men and 
 women who are sunk so low in depravity that they 
 are unconscious of being in depravity, or who, being 
 conscious, justify themselves. I am thinking rather
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 117 
 
 of that one whose ambition is to be good and to do 
 good, who knows what good is, and who really seeks 
 it; but who is nevertheless morally weak; who cannot 
 withstand temptation; who, now and again, in spite 
 of honest effort, in spite of the influences with which 
 friends seek to surround him, falls; and who, when 
 he has fallen, is conscious of his degradation. 
 
 This man or woman may or may not have ample 
 means for the prosecution of his work, he may or 
 may not have the blessing of a good physical consti- 
 tution, he may be brilliant or he may be dull; at all 
 events, he lacks moral purpose, his conduct is not 
 guided by moral principle, and he knows what his 
 lack is. For this man, just in proportion to the 
 degree of his consciousness of his shortcoming, 
 life is a torture. A merciful providence has decreed 
 that in most instances in which there is moral defect 
 there is a lack of consciousness of the defect. But 
 this is not always the case. The struggle of a soul 
 tending thus to fall, and apparently too weak to 
 resist the impulse, is a struggle far more pathetic 
 than any to which reference has thus far been made. 
 When the downfall is one which takes on outward 
 significance and is apparent to all eyes, the man 
 soon leaves college; but often this lack of character 
 does not assume an objective form; it may manifest 
 itself in secret sin, and so the man goes on and on, 
 now rising superior to it, now again falling. The 
 details of such a contest are known only to himself
 
 n8 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 and God; except when, by the keenness of his suffer- 
 ing, he is impelled to lay bare to some friend the 
 secrets of his life and heart. It has been my privilege 
 to hear the confession of many a soul thus burdened 
 and to see the pressure relieved in part by such con- 
 fession. 
 
 If, then, the story which we hear almost every 
 day of some worthy student's lack of food is sad; 
 if the picture of disease, and sometimes of death 
 itself, seen on the face of one striving for intellectual 
 advancement, is still more sad; if the desperate 
 determination, hopeless yet full of confidence, of 
 those whom nature has, as it were, branded with a 
 mark that tells of something lacking which neither 
 money, nor love, nor work may supply this dogged 
 determination to fight at all hazards and at every 
 cost is pathetic; how much more sad and pathetic, 
 indeed how truly pitiful, is the struggle of the man 
 who has been denied the strength to maintain him- 
 self in the path in which he knows he ought to walk 
 the path of moral rectitude? 
 
 These difficulties I mention are, however, not the 
 only ones that you have encountered in college and 
 university life. Some of you have had too large an 
 allowance of money. Some of you have found the 
 very vigor and physical strength with which nature 
 endowed you a source of trouble and difficulty. In 
 many cases it is brilliancy of intellect that proves a 
 man's ruin; and sometimes it is the effort to be con- 
 scientious that brings the most bitter sorrow.
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 119 
 
 These, I repeat, are not the only difficulties to 
 be met with in college life ; but they are the chief ones 
 and are typical. Not all of you have had to contend 
 with these difficulties; but there are few men or 
 women who leave the university without having 
 fought some of them. And these are precisely the_ 
 difficulties you will continue to encounter in the days 
 to come. Your weakness or defect, whether material 
 or physical, whether intellectual or moral, is certain to 
 disturb you in the future. You have been poor in 
 this world's goods today; the chances are that this 
 poverty will be your constant companion. If you 
 are to practice law, you must face the fact, apparent 
 on all sides, that the average lawyer is scarcely able 
 to support himself. If it is the ministry, you are 
 told that the average salary of a minister in the state 
 of Illinois is less than five hundred dollars a year. 
 Are you to be a physician? Then the number of 
 young physicians who actually starve while they are 
 waiting for a practice to grow up is appalling. Is 
 business your choice ? More than 90 per cent, of all 
 business undertakings fail. Is it the teaching pro- 
 fession ? Listen to the cry which goes up every day 
 from the hearts of the teachers of Chicago for an 
 increase of remuneration a cry entirely justified; 
 and yet Chicago teachers are among those who 
 receive the highest salaries paid in the profession. 
 Whatever the field of work, then, which you may 
 decide to enter, the gaunt specter of poverty will
 
 izo RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 pursue you. The experiences of one period of life 
 are but repeated in another. I would have you 
 remember, however, that the experiences of your 
 college life have prepared you to meet these very 
 conditions. It is well that your mind has been 
 broadened, that your taste has been cultivated, 
 and that your capacity for enjoyment has been 
 increased. It is also true that in college you must 
 have learned some self-denial and self-sacrifice; 
 you have been disciplined to some self-restraint; 
 you may have acquired entire control of self. You 
 are an example of the law of the survival of the 
 fittest. Many once among you, weakened by 
 their terrible discipline, have fallen by the way; 
 you have been strengthened, and with the strength 
 and courage growing out of many victories you will 
 be able to take your place in the world and main- 
 tain yourselves, when otherwise you would have 
 failed. You will find the same difficulties in the 
 outside world that you found here; but you will 
 not find the same helpful shelter that has been 
 afforded you in the college environment. To be 
 sure, you no longer need this, for you have acquired 
 a strength of your own, on which you must hence- 
 forth rely. 
 
 This same principle holds good, as well, for those 
 in the college who have been battling other diffi- 
 culties, and who, as is indicated by the honorable 
 completion of the college life, have in a measure
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 121 
 
 triumphed over them. If you have reached this 
 stage of life, and have not yielded to a dread disease, 
 nor been discouraged and deterred by lack of bril- 
 liant endowment, nor discomfited in your struggle 
 with evil habit or weak moral purpose, you enter 
 upon the next stage of life with a capital of 
 strength which, if not drawn upon too unguardedly, 
 will continue to grow, and with the gradual 
 accumulations of interest, will soon become a per- 
 manent insurance against failure. This means 
 success; for success simply consists in always 
 maintaining a reserve, whether of money, or intel- 
 lect, or spiritual power; and in allowing that reserve 
 to increase. Every man who finishes rightfully 
 the college or university course is a man who has 
 saved more of his income than he has spent, and 
 with this balance to credit he goes on practically 
 as before. The difference is that he has a balance 
 to credit. If you have no balance to credit, you 
 are slipping through college without the right to 
 do so. Your future will be determined by the 
 amount of this balance to credit; because this 
 balance represents the foundation on the basis of 
 which you are to work; it is the capital which you 
 are to keep invested; it indicates the measure of 
 the discipline which you have secured. It may 
 be capital in money, in physical strength, in intel- 
 lectual power, or in moral force. It may include 
 some of all. But however large or small it is, and
 
 122 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 whether of one kind or another, husband it, and 
 with it go on fighting as you have been fighting. 
 
 In your college and university life you have found 
 many restrictions. Even in those institutions in 
 which the largest liberties are given and we think 
 that this institution is one of them there are restric- 
 tions, and rules, and regulations. Some of them, 
 doubtless, are unnecessary; some, unquestionably, 
 are only the outgrowth of the mind-wandering of 
 some high or low official. But, after making allow- 
 ance for all such, there exists a residue of "red 
 tape," of form, of conventionality, which it has 
 been found necessary to observe. There has been 
 a certain routine, unpleasant perhaps in some of 
 its features, which all have been compelled to follow, 
 even though every effort has been made to adapt 
 the details of the institution's policy to the needs 
 of the individual. This kind of thing, however, 
 is what you will find all about you in life when you 
 are outside of the university walls. This is what 
 some persons of a peculiar cast of mind occupy their 
 lives in opposing I mean, the ordinary conven- 
 tionalities of life. The man who has never enjoyed 
 college life scarcely knows what it is to breathe an 
 atmosphere comparatively free; for soon or late 
 you will learn that the restraints and restrictions 
 and conventionalities observed during college life 
 are as nothing in comparison with those of profes- 
 sional and business life, and those of life at large.
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 123 
 
 It is because college life, even when strictly 
 regulated, partakes so much of what is some- 
 times called "the Bohemian," the "do as you like" 
 element, that men in after-years invariably look 
 back upon the days spent within the precincts of 
 their alma mater as the happiest of their lives. 
 Constantly, and sometimes very roughly, you will 
 find your head set directly against the high and inex- 
 orable wall of some kind of conventionalism. 
 
 It is unfortunate for the reputation of institutions 
 of higher learning that too large a proportion of 
 those who have enjoyed the privileges of freedom 
 accorded in these institutions have fancied that 
 they might do away with much, if not all, of this 
 necessary conventionalism. These representatives 
 of ours, deploring the fact that they might not live 
 without reference to the happiness and comfort of 
 others, have so ordered their living that the very 
 freedom of the university life has injured them as 
 members of society. In general, of course, the 
 university life has had the other effect. One of 
 its greatest lessons has been aptly described by the 
 Psalmist who, though he never knew of a university 
 in the modern sense, was certainly well informed 
 concerning the purpose of a religious society: 
 " Behold how beautiful and how fair it is for brethren 
 to dwell together in unity." 
 
 This living together of brother and sister employed 
 in the one work of search for truth, older and younger
 
 124 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 working side by side, each contributing his part to 
 the work as a whole, is a picture of that ideal life 
 in which every man and every woman will work in 
 the spirit of brotherhood. The few occasions when 
 the younger brotherhood in the university finds 
 itself at variance with the older, the few restrictions 
 which here and there are placed by the older brother- 
 hood upon the younger these will prove to be but 
 survivals of ages long past, and themselves will 
 disappear in that joyous time which will first be 
 realized on earth in the college environment the 
 time when all men shall see, as they walk shoulder 
 to shoulder, that the restrictions their alma mater put 
 upon them were but part of their preparation for 
 the still greater ones of the life in the larger world. 
 
 But difficulties and restrictions make up only 
 one side of the life which you have been living here 
 in the university. There is another side, the ele- 
 ments of which will be found also to repeat them- 
 selves in the life outside. I may speak of only two 
 of these. 
 
 The following statement I hold to be literally true : 
 In the college as in no other circle among human- 
 kind do the members show so consistently and so 
 fully a true appreciation of each other's efforts; in 
 no other circle are the members so alert and so 
 magnanimous in their appreciation of the successes 
 of their fellow-members. When one of you has 
 shown special excellence in class-room work, there
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 125 
 
 were several ways of having that success noted, of 
 recognizing it, and of proclaiming it to every other 
 member of the brotherhood. Honors and prizes, 
 scholarships and fellowships, are only the expression 
 of appreciation. The same is true in athletic work, 
 though here indeed appreciation goes even too far; 
 and there arises something which too closely resem- 
 bles hero-worship. Nor is this appreciation con- 
 fined to the student ranks. Among the instructors 
 it takes the form of promotion and honors. Still 
 further, this appreciation is by no means limited to 
 official recognition; the largest part, and the part 
 most esteemed, is that which is expressed so fre- 
 quently in a word spoken privately, or perhaps only 
 in the glance of the eye or the pressure of the hand. 
 This it is that makes life worth living. It is not 
 praise that most men long for, but rather the word 
 or the sign of appreciation; and sooner or later every 
 man in the university circle who does aught to make 
 him worthy of it receives it. There may be delays 
 growing out of misunderstanding; but in time true 
 worth will be seen and understood for its real value. 
 How is it now in the world outside ? 
 
 I cannot count myself among those who believe 
 that in general the world fails to judge a man at his 
 true worth. The world, of course, makes great 
 blunders. Not a little of its appreciation is lav- 
 ished where it does not belong; and there are too 
 many the true estimate of whom comes after long
 
 126 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 lapse of time. But, in spite of occasional blunders, 
 the majority of which time corrects, the world in 
 general treats a man according to his deserts. To 
 hold any other view is to adopt the philosophy of 
 pessimism. But the words "in general" are very 
 indefinite. The question is: What may you expect 
 in the way of appreciation? I answer: You will 
 receive it if you deserve it, and if you need it; if 
 you give it to others when it is deserved and needed ; 
 and if you do not indicate that you are reserving to 
 yourself all of it that your nature is capable of 
 expressing. 
 
 It may be, you will not deserve it. This will 
 certainly be true if you are one of that class of per- 
 sons who never see in others anything worthy of 
 appreciation; it will be true likewise if you are 
 thought by others to be too appreciative of yourself. 
 It is just here that college training shows its worth; 
 the college-trained man, however successful he may 
 be, never boasts that he is a self-made man. The 
 college training is expected to teach two things: the 
 satisfaction which one feels in being shown apprecia- 
 tion. And this should serve as a constant incentive 
 to exhibit appreciation of the work of our fellows, 
 in the proper form and under suitable circumstances. 
 But college training is supposed also to teach one 
 such a sense of humility as to make undue self- 
 appreciation impossible. 
 
 In mingling in the world, however, do not allow
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 127 
 
 your college experience to lead you to expect this 
 expression of appreciation to an undue degree. 
 Remember that the circle is larger; that the atmos- 
 phere is colder; that the contact is not so close; 
 that competition is greater; that the prizes are not 
 so numerous in proportion to the number of con- 
 testants; and that the number of fellowships is small 
 absolutely. Remember, too, that the course is 
 longer than that of three or four years, being some- 
 times thirty or forty, or even fifty; that it is for the 
 most part in a single department ; and that the honor, 
 the mark of appreciation, may come only at the end. 
 
 And though all these things must be kept in mind, 
 we may nevertheless be assured that true work and 
 true worth will sooner or later be recognized at its 
 market value. More than this we cannot ask; 
 for in the exchange of life artificial values do not 
 long maintain themselves. 
 
 There is one thing now about which I desire to 
 say a word. Whatever else your college life has 
 been to you, whatever else you have found in it, 
 one thing has stood out more prominently than any 
 other. In this thing, poverty has been forgotten; 
 by it, physical and intellectual weaknesses have 
 been corrected; and through it moral purpose has 
 been incited. In connection with this, there has 
 been no restraint, no restriction. It was this thing 
 which itself, more than all else, has developed in 
 your hearts the spirit of appreciation. There is
 
 128 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 no word in the English language which serves in 
 so true a sense as a synonym of college or university, 
 not even the well-worn word "discipline," or the 
 still more common word "education." That for 
 which college and university stands above all other 
 things is opportunity. 
 
 A college life is opportunity opportunity to 
 grow with the smallest possible number of obstacles 
 to growth. This is true even for those of you who 
 have had to encounter the largest number of obstacles. 
 You could have found no other place so free from 
 obstacles. College life is opportunity opportunity 
 to free oneself from the bonds of ignorance; bonds 
 which seem almost hopelessly fastened upon us; 
 bonds which many of us, indeed all and the very 
 best of us, are able to remove only in part. 
 College life is opportunity opportunity to discover 
 what the great God has placed within us in the way 
 of mind and heart ; a discovery essential to life itself, 
 and yet one which so many fail to make; and the 
 consequence of their failure is something worse than 
 death. College life is opportunity opportunity 
 to see the world of the past and of the present, and 
 from this sight to learn how best one may enter it, 
 and become a part of it in the future; opportunity 
 to note the mistakes of men and the blunders of 
 nations, and to profit thereby; opportunity to learn 
 the laws of God, which are the laws of life. 
 
 But however true all this is of the college and
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 129 
 
 university, it is just as true of the life that comes 
 after the university. All life is opportunity. What 
 you have found in college you will find now in the 
 life that follows. The opportunity may, to be sure, 
 have lost something of its freshness; it may no 
 longer seem so attractive; realism may have taken 
 the place of the idealism of early youth. Yet the 
 opportunity still remains. The world is organized 
 upon a single principle, viz., to furnish opportunity 
 for effort. 
 
 There have been moments in our lives when we 
 have thought ourselves to be standing, as it were, 
 before a high and immovable wall; but after a time 
 the wall apparently vanished, and we have been able 
 to look far and wide, and indeed to roam almost at 
 will in the fields beyond. 
 
 There have been times in our national history 
 when darkness seemed to have settled down upon 
 us, so dense as to render fatal every effort to act; 
 but in each instance the darkness has passed away, 
 and the sunshine afterward has been all the brighter 
 because of the darkness which preceded it. 
 
 There have been periods in the world's history 
 when seemingly everything was at a standstill; 
 when progress of every kind was arrested; when 
 individual and nation, so far as man could see, 
 were impotent ; but such periods have always proved 
 to be the precursors of reform, or revolution, and 
 are now regarded as most important periods in the
 
 130 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 world's progress the periods, indeed, of highest 
 opportunity. 
 
 The life of individual, of nation, of race, has no 
 moment in which opportunity is denied it. Life 
 and opportunity are synonymous; it is only in death 
 that opportunity ceases; and perhaps death itself, 
 if rightly interpreted, is the greatest opportunity 
 of all. 
 
 Do not, then, be over anxious. The opportunity 
 which you have already found will continue yours. 
 And there never was a period in human history 
 when opportunity was greater or more glorious 
 than it is today. 
 
 My friends, let me repeat what I said in the 
 beginning: You will find in the next period of your 
 lives just what you have found in this which is 
 closing difficulties and restrictions without ques- 
 tion, but also appreciation of true worth, and oppor- 
 tunity to live and grow. If this be true, it behooves 
 us to battle on against the difficulties; to make all 
 proper and consistent effort to meet the demands 
 made upon us as members of society; to cultivate 
 a true appreciation of all that is high and good and 
 noble; and to regard every movement in life as an 
 opportunity to be employed for that which heaven 
 will regard as something holy. 
 
 When the next great change in life shall come, 
 and we stand on the other side, we shall find, if our 
 great teachers have correctly informed us, no diffi-
 
 THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE 131 
 
 culties and no restrictions. Every act will be worthy 
 and noble and deserving of approval; and every 
 moment of every life will be an opportunity supreme. 
 May the God who has us in his keeping grant 
 that we may prepare ourselves for this life beyond 
 by living, as we may live it, the life that is still ours.
 
 X 
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEF AMONG COLLEGE 
 STUDENTS 
 
 IT would be curious, and something very sad, 
 if the institutions founded by our fathers as training 
 schools for Christian service should come to be 
 centers of influence destructive to that same Chris- 
 tianity. The first purpose of the college was the 
 defense of Christianity, together with the education 
 of men to foster its interests. No one will deny 
 that this purpose has been most effectively realized 
 during the past two centuries of church and college 
 history. 
 
 But what is the situation today ? Is it true that 
 there has been a remarkable decrease in the actual 
 teaching of Christian truth, while a large and grow- 
 ing emphasis has been placed upon the teaching 
 of branches altogether devoid of religious character ? 
 Yes. Is it true that of the students who enter 
 college only a meager few look forward to Christian 
 service of any kind, the larger number having, as a 
 matter of fact, but the slightest possible interest 
 in religious matters? Yes. Is it also true that 
 many college men who might otherwise enter the 
 ministry turn aside to teaching, or to business, or 
 perhaps to some other line of work because of the 
 
 132
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEF IN COLLEGE 133 
 
 influence of the purely technical instruction given 
 in the colleges? Yes. Is it certainly a fact that 
 many men and women who entered college as 
 Christian workers in their home churches take 
 little or no active part in church life after they have 
 completed their college work? Yes. 
 
 If, now, all this is true, or even half of it, one 
 need not be surprised to find the feeling frequently 
 expressed throughout the religious world that 
 college education is tending to decrease Christian 
 faith, and that institutions founded and conducted 
 for distinctly Christian ends are, in fact, educating 
 their students away from the church; in a word, 
 that religious skepticism is increasing in our colleges. 
 Is this conclusion to be accepted? The answer 
 now is: Yes and no. 
 
 It seems certain that two tendencies are constantly 
 discernible. The first is that many men and women 
 in their college life grow careless about religious 
 matters, and in some cases actually give up, or 
 think that they give up, Christianity. This class 
 of persons will, of course, include those who before 
 they entered college either had no interest in religion 
 or were hostile to it. There has been a peculiar 
 and a fatal lack of proper religious instruction for 
 the young during the past twenty years, and we are 
 just beginning to feel its terrible effects. 
 
 But there belong also here the cases of those 
 who in the course of their college studies are led to
 
 134 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 question the truth of the teaching received in early 
 years from teacher, parent, and even pastor. This 
 teaching, however true or false, was accepted on 
 the basis of authority. The scientific attitude of 
 mind cultivated in most colleges as well as univer- 
 sities distinctly opposes the acceptance of truth on 
 the basis of another person's authority. The college 
 student passes through an evolution both intellectual 
 and moral. He is taught to question everything. 
 He is brought into contact with men who are investi- 
 gating problems in every department of thought 
 problems supposed by the rank and file of humanity 
 to be settled, or else of the very existence of which 
 the ordinary man is quite ignorant. 
 
 This same questioning attitude must inevitably 
 include matters of religion. Difficulties are certain 
 to arise, and unless during this period the young man 
 or woman is brought under proper and appre- 
 ciative influences, and the right kind of assistance 
 is given, skepticism is liable to pass over into 
 infidelity. The question of miracles, which to 
 many minds presents no difficulty, to the young 
 man or woman under the influence of scientific 
 study becomes a matter of very serious importance. 
 Unless such students are helped to see the true rela- 
 tion of the biblical narratives to Christianity, it is 
 almost an invariable rule that they pass through a 
 period of great religious depression and uncertainty 
 which in some cases results either in a religious
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEF IN COLLEGE 135 
 
 indifference or in a half-cynical contempt for the 
 teaching of the church. 
 
 Then, again, experience shows that besides the 
 college students who do give up entirely their faith 
 in God and there are very few of these there is 
 an increasing number of those who with more or 
 less good judgment are training themselves to dis- 
 criminate between what they regard as the essential 
 and the unessential elements of religion. The effect 
 of the college environment is to produce this habit 
 of mind. Nor is it difficult to see why it should. 
 Education that does not help a man thus to dis- 
 criminate is a poor education. 
 
 Yet in this separating of the two elements of 
 religious faith, the college student is almost certain 
 to include among those elements which he judges 
 to be unessential, matters which many persons deem 
 essential. From the point of view, therefore, of 
 such persons, these college men are infidels. But, 
 after all, such a charge is in most cases too sweeping. 
 That ebullition of omniscience which at some time 
 in their career marks all college students hardly 
 demands so severe a term. The influence of scien- 
 tific study is, therefore, on the whole not unsettling, 
 but constructive, i If men believe fewer things, they 
 believe fundamental things more intensely. If they 
 question, it is for tfiF"3SKe~ of finding true answers, 
 and, finding these answers, they go on to even larger 
 truths.
 
 136 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 ^Thus we are led to the second answer which we 
 must give the question. Does college education 
 lead men into infidelity? No. 
 
 If we mean to define infidelity as a general dis- 
 trust of the existence of a divine being, a downright 
 denial of immortality and of the truth of the gospel, 
 and a refusal to bring one's life under the teaching of 
 Jesus, I maintain that infidelity, so far from increas- 
 ing, is rapidly decreasing. A comparison of the 
 religious condition of the older colleges today with 
 that of the same institutions fifty years ago will show 
 indubitably that there is in them today a far more 
 sturdy belief in the fundamentals of the Christian 
 religion. Further than this, there is to be found today 
 religious interest in our colleges which is absolutely 
 unparalleled. It is not only that Young Men's and 
 Young Women's Christian Associations are more 
 prosperous and more influential than ever before, 
 but the colleges themselves are awakening to 
 their responsibility for the religious life of their 
 students. Everywhere we see the establishment of 
 chairs for biblical instruction; the formation of Bible 
 departments; the institution of preacherships espe- 
 cially adapted to the needs of the college mind ; the 
 outgoing of the earnest life of the students in college 
 settlements; great conventions of college men and 
 women under the direction of religious leaders. 
 The college student who grows up among these 
 influences is already making himself felt. From
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEF IN COLLEGE 137 
 
 all quarters come repoits of the awakening of reli- 
 gious earnestness because of the energy and broad 
 vision of educators and si rodents. And the Religious 
 Education Association, which has just begun its 
 work under such auspicious circumstances, would 
 ten years ago have been impossible. It is unques- 
 tionable that the life of students today is more 
 natural, more wholesome, more pure than in any 
 previous period in the history of education. This 
 fact speaks volumes. 
 
 Infidelity, let us thank God, so far from increasing 
 in the colleges, is being conquered there. In some 
 particulars the Christian faith is passing through a 
 transitional period, but it is not being destroyed. 
 Possibly it is growing less ecclesiastical, but certainly 
 itJsgTowmg more practical. Just as the modern 
 conception of education is growing unscholastic, 
 and is emphasizing life rather than information, 
 so the religion of the educated man is becoming less 
 based upon theological philosophy, more based upon 
 demonstrable truths, more determined to find 
 expression in better social conditions and larger 
 social sympathies. It would be a most disastrous 
 situation if the case were otherwise. To separate 
 the educated man from the religious man would 
 mean infinite loss to the world. Our colleges may 
 be less determined to support some peculiar view 
 of God and theology, but they are producing men 
 and women who are not content to live in a universe
 
 1 38 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 in which there is no God. If education tends to 
 lead college students to adopt the shorter form of 
 every creed, it is teaching them at the same time 
 that religion is an elemental fact in human life, and 
 that no man can be thoroughly educated who does 
 not know the fear of the Lord. 
 
 Infidelity has always been, is, and probably 
 always will be, present in the world. The greatest 
 danger to which the church today is exposed, how- 
 ever, is not the infidelity of the college student, or 
 of the educated person, but that of the great mass 
 of men and women who are being estranged from 
 the church because of the unwillingness of Christians 
 to make the love of man co-ordinate with professions 
 of loyalty to a creed. It is too easy to distrust any 
 institution which teaches that one must love a God 
 he has not seen, but which does not lead a man to 
 love his brother whom he has seen. 
 
 The evils in the situation, then, so far as college 
 students are concerned, may in great measure be 
 avoided. Let me point out three things which the 
 remedy for these evils must include: 
 
 Better training and more of it in the earlier years. 
 Every academy, college, and preparatory school 
 should have an instructor of broad sympathies and 
 large knowledge whose entire time is devoted to the 
 work of preparing the boys and girls for the changes 
 through which in college life they are to pass; in 
 other words, a biblical chair, to be filled by one who
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEF IN COLLEGE 139 
 
 will anticipate the coming struggle, and provide 
 beforehand that which will be of service at the time 
 of the student's crises. 
 
 But, besides more and a better training, there 
 must be stronger preaching, and a different kind 
 than there has been during the college years. It 
 is absurd to suppose that the same kind of preaching 
 will satisfy, at the same time, the inquiring, anxious, 
 soul-disturbed student, and the self-satisfied, inert, 
 lifeless person of the same age in an ordinary church. 
 Nor will a single preacher meet the needs of any 
 considerable number of students. For different 
 temperaments and different points of view there 
 must be preaching of different men and different 
 sympathies. 
 
 And, finally, there must be specific teaching of a 
 definite character, adapted to individual needs and 
 necessities. This calls for chairs of Bible instruc- 
 tion in every institution. These chairs should be 
 filled by men who rank in scholarly ability with the 
 men who occupy the other chairs in the institution. 
 The religious side of instruction must not be ignored 
 or treated half-heartedly. The best talent is none 
 too good. For are not the interests involved the 
 very highest? 
 
 Let us not croak, then, about the amount of 
 infidelity now in our colleges. We may well be 
 surprised that it is not even greater than it is, when 
 we take into account the wretched conditions which
 
 140 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 exist as to the religious education of boys and girls 
 who have not reached the college age. We our- 
 selves, as parents and church members, are largely 
 responsible for such infidelity as does exist in college 
 since, in most cases, we have failed to take even the 
 most simple measures to prevent it. The college 
 can hardly be expected to repair the mistakes of the 
 home, or the teacher to overcome the indifference 
 or irreligion of the parent.
 
 XI 
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND THE RELIGIOUS 
 LIFE 
 
 I HAVE come with the sincere feeling that I have 
 for you a message. I may be unable to express 
 this message in forceful style, but I shall use my 
 utmost endeavor to make it definite. If it does 
 not seem to be new, at least you must agree with 
 me that, since the days of Jesus and the apostles, 
 men have not delivered many messages altogether 
 new. Human effort has, in great measure, been 
 expended in ascertaining, explaining, and illustrating 
 that old, old message, the truth of which has become 
 more firmly established with each cycle of the years. 
 
 My message may, then, be imperfectly expressed, 
 and it may be lacking entirely in the new, the strange, 
 or the startling; but I ask permission in advance to 
 assure you of two things: first, that the positions 
 suggested are those which I have tested by my own 
 personal experience an experience, you will allow 
 me to say, of more than twenty-five years in Bible 
 study and Bible teaching; an experience likewise 
 including contact of the closest kind with young 
 men passing through almost every phase of life; 
 secondly, my purpose in presenting these points is 
 sincere, and honestly meant to be helpful. God 
 
 141
 
 1 42 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 knows how many men in trouble and in misery it has 
 been my lot to meet, and in some small way perhaps 
 to help; too many, I can vouch to you, to permit me 
 to say a single word that would be other than helpful. 
 
 The phrase "personal experience" is inter- 
 changeable with two other phrases which relate to 
 the individual: "religious experience" and "religious 
 life." We have here, in fact, a specific use of the 
 word "experience," as applied to religious feeling. 
 It is something through which a man goes; some- 
 thing, perhaps, which comes to him a feeling, an 
 emotion, though always more than this: it is a state 
 of being, a life in which, as Emerson has expressed 
 it, the "individual soul mingles with the universal 
 soul;" or, as it is more commonly put, in which the 
 individual soul comes into sympathetic touch with 
 God. And first I wish to remind you that this 
 religious life or experience may be regarded from 
 two points of view, one largely outward, the other 
 inward. 
 
 The outward expression of this experience is seen 
 in all that enters into worship. This the Psalmist 
 had in mind when he said: "Bless the Lord, O my 
 soul, and all that is within me, bless his Holy Name ! " 
 This is the effort of the soul to express its feeling 
 toward the higher world of supernatural or divine 
 existence; an effort in some cases so simple and 
 unconventional that it passes almost unnoticed, in
 
 other cases so elaborate and complex as to bewilder 
 and confound. The various acts of worship, whether 
 of sacrifice, prayer, or praise, symbolize in various 
 forms the inward thought. At times it is the thought 
 that makes effort thus to express itself; at other 
 times the expression leads up to the thought and 
 stimulates it to a higher achievement. As^ndividual 
 temperaments differ from each other, as national 
 characteristics separate great bodies of humankind 
 from one another, so the outward expression of the 
 same thought frequently varies, and men finoT many 
 different ways of giving expression to the varied 
 religious thoughts which fill their souls. While 
 these outward forms, indicative of the religious life, 
 are all the time undergoing change and modification, 
 it is evident from the history of religious thought 
 that they are carefully to be observed, not merely 
 as we observe the conventionalities of social life, 
 but even more rigidly and more sacredly, because 
 they constitute the agency for the preservation of 
 that long and helpful experience of religious life 
 which has been transmitted to us from the begin- 
 nings of human thought. 
 
 But the religious life finds outward expression 
 in another form in the system of belief, or the creed. 
 It is important to keep in mind that creeds, as we 
 find them in the various religions, and in the various 
 historical stages of Christianity, are mere outward 
 expressions of the religious life, not the religious life
 
 144 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 itself. Here, again, we find the same simplicity and 
 the same complexity as in the forms of worship. 
 But no one, in face of the facts confronting us every 
 day, would dare to assert that the religious experience 
 of any man is to be measured by the definiteness or 
 vthe completeness of his system of theology. Some 
 of the purest and noblest lives ever lived were largely 
 innocent of even the simplest knowledge of creeds 
 or theology. At the same time, it is a fact easily 
 capable of demonstration that life and character 
 are influenced in the highest degree by the nature 
 of the religious belief. In illustration of this, con- 
 trast the ancient belief in the bull as the representa- 
 tive of deity, and the revolting consequences which 
 ensued, with the more modern Puritan conception 
 of God and the sturdy virtue accompanying it. 
 
 What a childish thing it is, therefore, to raise a 
 hue and cry, as so many do, against creeds ? What 
 man is there that does not have a creed? His 
 creed is but the outward expression of his inner 
 thought. No doubt in our day less emphasis is 
 placed on the factor of belief than was done in former 
 times. A man's life in civilized countries is no 
 longer dependent upon his theological belief. Nor 
 is his position in a particular body of the Christian 
 faith so definitely determined as it once was by his 
 special form of creed. This means simply that we 
 live in an age of toleration. But though men's 
 beliefs are not so strongly contested, they are not 
 on this account any the less vigorous.
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 145 
 
 Still a third outward form of expression for the 
 religious life is conduct or ethics, for we are told that 
 "pure religion an3^uno!enled before our God and 
 Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in 
 their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from 
 the world." The external acts of life that is, one's 
 conduct in relation to himself and to his fellow-men 
 constitute perhaps as clear an expression of personal 
 religious life as can be found. "By their fruits ye 
 shall know them." The regular performance of 
 the various acts of worship in a given ceremonial 
 reveals some characteristics of one's religious experi- 
 ence; the sincere acceptance of this or that form of 
 dogmatic creed is also a token; but much is left to be 
 discovered from a study of the ethical standard of 
 life which a man holds up to himself. And in all 
 these ways you and I tell the world something of 
 that inner experience which we, as Christian men, 
 say we have passed through and are now living. 
 
 But we must ask ourselves this question: What 
 constitutes this inner life, this spiritual life, this reli- 
 gious experience of which the acts of worship, the 
 formulation of creeds, and the conduct of life are 
 but the outward expression? What does it mean 
 to have one's soul in sympathetic touch with God ? 
 What, after all, is actually to be understood as being 
 included in the second phase of our topic, personal 
 or religious experience? What is the very essence 
 of it? And, it seems to me, no answer to this
 
 146 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 question can be sufficient that does not show the 
 spiritual life to include these three elements : a con- 
 sciousness of sin, a fellowship with God, and a love 
 for God. 
 
 The religious experience must invariably include, 
 then, a consciousness of sin. The depth of the 
 experience may most accurately be estimated as in 
 proportion to the keenness of this consciousness. 
 No modern expression of this feeling is more vivid or 
 more pathetic than that of the Psalmist of old: 
 
 There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine indignation : 
 
 Neither is there health in my bones because of my sin. 
 
 For mine iniquities are gone over my head: 
 
 As a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. 
 
 My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolish- 
 ness. 
 
 I am pained and bowed down greatly; 
 
 I go mourning all the day long. 
 
 For my loins are filled with burning; 
 
 And there is no soundness in my flesh. 
 
 I am faint and sore bruised: 
 
 I have groaned by reason of the disquietness of my heart. 
 
 Ps. 38:3-8. 
 
 When I kept silence, my bones wasted away 
 
 Through my groaning all the day long. 
 
 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: 
 
 My moisture was changed as with the drought of summer. 
 
 I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity did I not 
 hide: 
 
 I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; 
 
 And thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. 
 
 Ps. 32:3-5.
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 147 
 
 It is hardly worth our while to ask whether this 
 consciousness of sin is to be regarded as the recogni- 
 tion of a high estate once held by man, but long 
 since lost; or as the recognition of the survival of 
 animal conditions out of which in his ascent upward 
 he is gradually but surely being lifted. It is the 
 fact, not the explanation of the fact, which forms 
 a part of the religious experience. Do I feel this 
 awful, this terrible lack, in my own soul ? this falling 
 short of the standard clearly fixed before my eyes ? 
 this tendency to be dragged downward in spite of 
 constant struggle? this separation by an almost 
 impassable gulf from all that is high and pure and 
 holy? This is the question. And for my part, I 
 can conceive no true religious experience that has 
 not in it some such feeling. It will assume varying 
 forms with different individuals, and even entire 
 nations may exhibit characteristic features in their 
 experience of this feeling; but it will always be 
 present, and with it a corresponding longing for 
 truth and righteousness. The latter is but the com- 
 plement of the former. One is the negative, the 
 other the positive, side of the same phase of feeling. 
 To be sure, in some individuals the negative may 
 seem to be all that exists, but a closer study will 
 reveal at least the germs of that insatiable longing 
 for truth and righteousness as they are represented 
 in divinity. 
 
 In every true experience there must likewise be
 
 1 48 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 found a sense of fellowship with God, together with 
 that realization of divine aid in the struggle of life 
 which has brought comfort and consolation to all 
 who have experienced it ; in more common language, 
 trust in God's goodness and mercy. This phase of 
 the religious experience, which, however violent 
 and antagonistic may be the character of the imme- 
 diate situation, always brings calmness and peace, 
 is in striking contrast with that just described as 
 consciousness of sin. And, again, you will notice 
 that it is just in proportion to the strength of the 
 feeling of divine fellowship that one is conscious 
 of sin. It is the touch received from contact with 
 divinity, the appreciation of the divine character 
 in other words, the consciousness of God that 
 brings one to a proper sense of his own utter mean- 
 ness, his humble lowliness in the sight of his Creator. 
 But the sense of fellowship with God, and trust 
 in his goodness, do not constitute the highest form 
 of the religious experience. This was not all that 
 religious development had achieved even in Old 
 Testament times. There had come to some the 
 experience of love for God not fear, nor merely 
 reverence, but a love represented to be like that of 
 son for father, or of wife for husband. Do you 
 recall how often the Old Testament prophets tried 
 to picture this idea, at that time so new to all about 
 them ? Was not God a father, and his true followers 
 sons? Are not the latter often described as chil-
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 149 
 
 dren that have rebelled, children that "deal cor- 
 ruptly"? and yet again as those whom Jehovah 
 draws with "cords of a man, with bands of love," 
 for "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
 pitieth them that fear him." Was he not also a 
 husband, while the true believers, the church, were 
 represented as the bride, sometimes faithless and 
 adulterous, but after all to be "betrothed to Jehovah 
 forever in righteousness, and in judgment and in 
 loving-kindness, and in mercies and in faithfulness" ? 
 And then the bride would "know Jehovah." The 
 full significance of this word "know" can scarcely 
 be overestimated. 
 
 Perhaps in these utterances the fuller emphasis 
 is on the love of God for man, rather than man's 
 love for God; but the latter is always included, and 
 finds ideal expression in the words of another psalmist 
 "I have said unto the Lord, thou art my Lord, I 
 have no good beyond thee" (Ps. 16:2). Wherever 
 love for God exists, there is the corresponding feeling 
 of love for one's fellow-man. If the first four com- 
 mandments of the Decalogue deal with the attitude 
 of man toward God, the remaining six have to do 
 with his attitude toward his fellow-men. Hosea, 
 whose greatest thought is the love of God for man, 
 is no less urgent in his plea for the proper treatment 
 of one's fellow-men than was Amos, who viewed 
 the Deity chiefly as a God of justice. The attitude 
 of Jesus was clearly marked. After all, the greatest
 
 150 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 contribution of the new religion introduced by him 
 was the conception of love instead of fear as mani- 
 fested toward the Deity, love instead of selfishness 
 as manifested toward one's fellow-men. "But 
 now abideth faith, hope, and love, these three; but 
 the greatest of these is love" (i Cor. 13:13). 
 
 The religious life, then, although expressed in 
 acts of worship, articles of belief, and standards of 
 conduct, really consists in a consciousness of sin and 
 a longing for truth; in a sense of fellowship with 
 God and trust in his goodness ; in a consciousness of 
 love for God as well as for one's fellow-men. The 
 religious life is a spark, more' or less brilliant a 
 spark of the divine life in man. This spark may 
 have gone out ; or it may still be in existence, although 
 it no longer appears to the human eye. It may just 
 be growing warm and bright under the influence 
 of a breath blowing upon it, a divine breath; it may 
 be very bright and brilliant, giving warmth and 
 guidance to all who see it. Or, if we were to use 
 the figure of the seed, the germ, the thought would 
 be the same. The outward expression of this divine 
 element in the human soul may be indeed imperfect. 
 When we recall the history of individuals and of 
 nations; the cases in which even reason itself has 
 been dethroned as a result of the experience; the 
 instances in which immorality of the grossest type 
 has been associated with it; the wars and contro- 
 versies which are termed religious the most bitter
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 151 
 
 of all history; when we recall the names of men like 
 David, whose hearts seemed right with God, whose 
 lives nevertheless represent much that was utterly 
 degraded; and the names of other men whose lives 
 seemed pure and upright, who nevertheless have 
 shown utter disregard for all religious convention- 
 alities we ask ourselves whether in all this there 
 has really been evidence of the existence of religious 
 life. I answer: Yes, but the spark was shining 
 in different degrees of brightness, or perhaps already 
 so nearly quenched as to appear black; the germ 
 was exhibiting different stages of growth, or was per- 
 haps almost destroyed. 
 
 All this only emphasizes the truth that one's 
 conception of God, one's attitude toward him, is 
 the fundamental thing in life, whether it be that of 
 the individual or that of the nation. Nations have 
 existed whose names have long been lost. Of some 
 nations only a name has come down to us. These 
 have done nothing for the world, have added nothing 
 to its history. They have maintained for a longer 
 or a shorter period merely the dead level of monoto- 
 nous existence. In the case of other nations the 
 very opposite is true. Separating themselves in 
 an early period from the environment of which they 
 formed a part, they have lifted themselves gradually 
 away from that environment to higher and higher 
 planes of life and thought. It is the story of these 
 nations that makes up the world's history.
 
 152 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 Of the many millions of human beings that have 
 lived, the mass are as if they had not existed. 
 There is no tangible evidence of their life. They 
 have been born, they have existed, and they have 
 died this is all. There has been no contribution 
 to life or thought. In the case of some, however, 
 this does not hold true. Imbued with a spirit eager 
 to secure that which was higher, driven by an impulse 
 growing out of a desire to help humankind, con- 
 trolled by a power which they themselves could not 
 comprehend, these men have led the world in each 
 step of its progress. What now, in each case, was 
 the factor which differentiated the few nations from 
 the many, the few individuals from the masses? I 
 answer: Their conception of God. In proportion 
 as this conception was true and clear and strong, 
 in that proportion did the nation or the individual 
 rise out of darkness into light; to that extent nation 
 or individual entertained true and clear and strong 
 conceptions of life and the relationships of life, of 
 death and the significance of death. In other words, 
 if we may point out the idea concerning God which 
 prevails in any nation, or is accepted by any indi- 
 vidual, there is furnished at once the key to the laws 
 of the nation, the habits of the individual, the litera- 
 ture of the nation, the soul of the individual. 
 
 If you would tell me, my friends, what you think 
 of God, or the relationship which you sustain to him, 
 I could determine the character of your religious
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 153 
 
 life nay, more, the measure of your influence in 
 the world. Is it possible that you have no thought 
 of God; that you have not come to realize the existence 
 of God and your dependence on him; that you do 
 not yet understand the goodness of God and his power 
 to inspire your soul ? Then, indeed, you are to be 
 pitied; for you are one of the vast multitude whose 
 hands have worked without avail. The great and 
 controlling influence needed in order that your work 
 shall count has been lacking. I do not have in 
 mind the meaning of the creeds, nor the work of the 
 churches. It is something higher and deeper the 
 contact of the human soul with the power that created 
 it; the communion of that soul with the spirit that 
 continues its existence. Just as light and progress 
 have come into the world with the coming of the 
 truer conception of God, so light will enter the soul; 
 and the life of that soul will make progress with 
 the increasing appreciation of the goodness and 
 the greatness of God. Religious life is largely 
 the outward expression of thought, and thought 
 is most ideal when.it is thought of God. Let us 
 free ourselves, so far as we may, from the things 
 which fetter the spirit in its effort to come into 
 contact with the great spirit of which it is a part. 
 Let us break down the barriers which stand between 
 us and the God in whose image we were made. 
 Let us avail ourselves of every opportunity to grow 
 upward rather than downward. Let us earnestly
 
 154 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 seek that higher life in which spirit meets spirit, 
 and the ideal of man's creation is at last attained. 
 What is it to be free ? It is to be in touch with 
 the Divinity. What is it to be strong? It is to 
 be a companion spirit of the Great Spirit. What 
 is it to be true? It is to be in harmony with the 
 truth of the universe, which is itself the reflection 
 of the character of God. 
 
 And now, what has Bible study to do with all 
 this ? What relation has been found to exist between 
 this inner and outer religious life, this personal 
 consciousness of sin and righteousness, of God and 
 his goodness, of love for God and for man all this 
 on the one hand, and, on the other, the study of the 
 Bible? 
 
 My question does not put on one side the religious 
 life and on the other the Bible. For the Bible is 
 of no more value to you in the struggles of your 
 religious experience than the trashiest ten-cent novel 
 unless directly or indirectly you make use of it. 
 Do you remember that most interesting discovery 
 made in the days of King Josiah in Jerusalem, the 
 discovery of a long-lost Bible? Shaphan read it 
 before the king. "And it came to pass, when the 
 king had heard the words of the book of the law, 
 that he rent his clothes." Then there followed 
 that reformation, one of the most remarkable in 
 history, the reformation under Josiah. My point
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 155 
 
 is that an unused Bible, an unstudied Bible, is not 
 helpful. It is also true that a mere knowledge of 
 the contents of the Bible is insufficient. I know 
 men who can repeat entire chapters and even books 
 of the Bible, not to speak of verses, whose lives and 
 thought, so far as one can judge, remain wholly 
 uninfluenced by the knowledge. There is likewise 
 a certain scholastic knowledge which, so far as the 
 religious life is concerned, avails little or nothing. 
 You will not misunderstand me. The most accu- 
 rate and extensive learning is needed in connection 
 with the archaeological, exegetical, and theological 
 examination of biblical material. But this may 
 exist and yet render but an indifferent service to the 
 man whose heart calls for consolation, whose soul 
 needs lifting up from the depths of misery and 
 wretchedness. It is therefore the Bible studied, 
 not the unused Bible, that is the subject of our theme ; 
 and the Bible studied with special reference to the 
 religious life, not to archaeology, nor exegesis, nor 
 even theology. 
 
 The fact is that the exercise which we call study 
 is in itself a good religious discipline. It produces 
 accuracy of thought, and this is only another phrase 
 for truth; it creates a desire for knowledge, and all 
 knowledge rightly considered leads to God. This 
 exercise of study, when it is taken up seriously and 
 honestly in connection with the sacred books that 
 form our Bible, is the highest function of the human
 
 156 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 mind, and the function which produces the largest 
 and most valuable fruitage. For, if we regard the 
 matter closely, we perceive that Bible study is the 
 act of furnishing nourishment to the seed of divine 
 life which exists in the individual soul; or, if we use 
 the other figure, it is the force which keeps alive the 
 spark of divine life, increasing its brilliancy and 
 constantly adding to its power. 
 
 Let us consider this thought from three points 
 of view. 
 
 First, the spiritual life within us stands as much 
 in need of nourishment, of assistance in its growth, 
 as do the physical and the intellectual life. We may 
 not say that the religious or spiritual life will take 
 care of itself, because it is divine. God has given 
 us bodies and minds, but they are so constituted 
 that they will starve and die, if not fed; the same 
 law holds good in the religious life. 
 
 Second, everything which contributes toward 
 the legitimate development of the inner religious 
 life will deepen and enrich one's personal experience 
 in all of its phases, the outward as well as the inner. 
 
 Third, of all agencies which may serve as sources 
 of help in the training and strengthening of the 
 religious life, the Bible, when studied, is the most 
 helpful, and, in a word, is indispensable. I shall 
 ask your attention in what follows to this third 
 proposition, omitting further reference to the first 
 and second.
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 157 
 
 Looking at the matter externally, and, as before, 
 from the point of view of worship, or the cultivation 
 of the devotional spirit, no literature, not even those 
 of Christian nations and of modern times, contains 
 such helps to prayer and praise and holy communion 
 with the spirit in and around us as do the pages of 
 the Bible. We realize that for most of us the ritual 
 of ancient Israel has been supplanted by the simpler 
 ceremonial of New Testament times. But we do 
 well to remember that the old ritual, as it stands in 
 Holy Writ, was one used largely by Jesus himself; that 
 this ritual, complex and mysterious as it may now 
 seem to be, was, at one time, the honest and sincere 
 expression of the relationship of man to God and 
 of God to man, on the part of a people rightly called 
 holy, because they had been the agency chosen by 
 God himself for the revelation of himself to all 
 humanity. This ceremonial, expressing the reli- 
 gious life, which was the divinely authorized pre- 
 cursor of the Christ, must contain rich food for those 
 who, like all the people of those times, have not yet 
 reached in their religious growth the higher things 
 of Christianity. Even believers require different 
 kinds of food; some may be ready for the strong 
 meat of the gospel; while for others a better diet 
 will be found in the milk of an earlier stage of develop- 
 ment. I make bold to say that even today children 
 and many adults will be better nourished if they 
 take their food in the order in which God has seen
 
 158 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 fit to give it to man; namely, first "the blade, then 
 the ear, then the full corn in the ear." 
 
 Furthermore, as a manual of prayer and praise 
 the old Hebrew Psalter still stands unsurpassed. 
 It is the highest and purest expression known to 
 man of the soul's communion with God. It has 
 for nearly twenty-five centuries served as the mouth- 
 piece of untold millions of God's saints, and is 
 destined, so far as we can see, to continue thus to 
 serve a suffering humanity for all time. Its adapta- 
 tion to human needs has been well summarized in 
 the following utterance: 
 
 What is there necessary for man to know which the Psalms 
 are not able to teach? They are to beginners an easy and 
 familiar introduction a mighty augmentation of all virtue 
 and knowledge in such as are entered before a strong con- 
 firmation to the most perfect among others. Heroical magna- 
 nimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, exact wisdom, 
 repentance unfeigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries of 
 God, the sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the com- 
 forts of grace, the works of Providence over this world, and 
 the promised joys of that world which is to come, all good 
 necessarily to be either known, or done, or had, this one 
 celestial fountain yieldeth. Let there be any grief or disease 
 incident unto the soul of man, any wound or sickness named, 
 for which there is not in this treasure-house a present com- 
 fortable remedy at all times ready to be found. 1 
 
 The same thought has been finely expressed by 
 another writer: 
 
 He only who knows the number of the waves of the ocean, 
 
 and the abundance of tears in the human eye; He who sees 
 
 1 HOOKER, Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, chap, xxxvii, sec. 2.
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 159 
 
 the sighs of the heart before they are uttered, and who hears 
 them still when they are hurled into silence He alone can 
 tell how many holy emotions, how many heavenly vibrations, 
 have been produced and will ever be produced in the souls 
 of men by the reverberation of these marvelous strains, of 
 these predestinated hymns, read, meditated, sung in every hour 
 of day and night, in every winding of the vale of tears. The 
 Psalter of David is like a mystic harp, hung on the walls of 
 the true Zion. Under the breath of the Spirit of God it sends 
 forth its infinite varieties of devotion, which, rolling on from 
 echo to echo, from soul to soul, awakens in each a separate 
 note, mingling in that one prolonged voice of thankfulness 
 and penitence, praise and prayers. 
 
 These quotations point to another fact of a 
 practical character. The study of the Bible, when 
 properly presented, is inspirational; for the intel- 
 ligent acceptance and appropriation of its mater- 
 ials, incorporated into creeds, has moved and 
 controlled the greatest spirits of nineteen centuries, 
 and through them the civilized world. No great 
 man has wrought among his fellows, no nation has 
 made history, except under the influence and inspira- 
 tion of these books we call the Bible. Space permits 
 here no illustration; still we may recall how the 
 Roman empire passed into Christian hands, and 
 the great movements since the Reformation, the 
 War of Independence, and even the French Revolu- 
 tion. This Bible of ours has been the incentive; 
 the truth gathered from its pages, even when mingled 
 with the false error of human interpretation, has 
 been the basis of the world's most helpful, most
 
 160 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 efficient, and most startling forward steps through 
 all these ages. And it has happened thus because 
 this truth has entered into religious life and experi- 
 ence. If it has affected the life of men in days gone 
 by, if it is affecting their lives today, you may well 
 believe that you, as well as they, may receive inspira- 
 tion and direction; that the study of the Bible will 
 lift you to a higher plane of usefulness to your fellow- 
 men. 
 
 Still again, in this matter of life as men see it I 
 mean standard of life, conduct where else, pray, 
 than in the Bible is there to be found more vivid 
 presentation of life as it should be lived, or of life 
 as it should not be lived ? Where else is there given 
 more pathetic illustration of the consequences of 
 sin than in the story of David; or more definite 
 presentation of the rewards of righteousness ? 
 
 One may study history outside of the Bible and 
 fail to find anywhere a commingling in any true 
 proportions of the various elements which make up 
 the religious life. Sin has made such headway 
 in the world that apparently no instance can be 
 found of a well-rounded religious life perfect in 
 every particular. We look in vain for a nation that 
 has produced or expressed this ideal religious life. 
 We look in vain for an association or organization 
 of any kind that has furnished the world an experi- 
 ence that might be accepted as the true type. Indi- 
 vidual men have approached this ideal more nearly
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 161 
 
 than nations or organizations. But the men who 
 have reached the highest place in this effort of trans- 
 cendent interest to all humanity have, after all, 
 exhibited characteristics of weakness and evidences 
 of innate sinfulness which have made it clear that 
 humanity in itself may not attain this supreme 
 thing. 
 
 Does it follow, then, that the world has seen no 
 perfect example of this life? In order that the 
 world might have such perfect illustration of it, 
 an illustration which all men might see and study, 
 and by which humanity might be lifted to a still 
 higher plane than that which it had reached through 
 the divine help already furnished in other ways, 
 Jesus Christ was born, and therefore he lived and 
 taught and died. His attitude of reverence and 
 homage toward God, in its simplicity and sublimity, 
 in its prayerful dependence, and in its irrepressible 
 aspiration, was the perfect presentation of the true 
 worship, in itself, and in its relation to the other 
 factors which constitute the religious experience. 
 His teaching concerning God as Father of the world, 
 of humanity as a single, closely related family, every 
 member of which had responsibility for every other 
 member, his teaching of the kingdom of heaven, 
 and the ideal social life in which justice and peace 
 shall reign, constitute a creed from which nothing 
 may be subtracted; while the making of additions 
 to it, as history has shown, leads surely to confusion
 
 1 62 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 and controversy. His life, in the perfection of its 
 purity, in the pathos of its self-sacrifice, in the lofti- 
 ness of its unselfish achievement, has furnished the 
 world principles which underlie and control all 
 right li ving. In proportion, therefore, as the worship 
 of nations, or of organizations, or of individuals, 
 is as sincere and honest as that of Jesus Christ; in 
 proportion as their belief is as broad and deep and 
 true as was his belief; in proportion as their life is 
 as pure and self-sacrificing and lofty as was his life 
 in just such proportion will nation, or organization, 
 or individual give illustration of the true religious 
 experience. 
 
 Suppose we grant, for the sake of argument, that 
 a man of earnest religious temperament might be 
 able to find elsewhere than in the Bible the material 
 which would serve him fairly well for purposes of 
 devotion, for basis of belief, and for standards of 
 ethical life. What shall be said in reference to the 
 material which will serve his purpose in the realm 
 of his inner religious life the experience of the 
 consciousness of sin and the longing for righteous- 
 ness; the experience of a sense of fellowship with 
 God, and appreciation of receiving God's help in 
 time of trouble; the experience of love for God and 
 love for man ? Can the best material for the nour- 
 ishment of spiritual life be found elsewhere than in 
 the Sacred Scriptures ? 
 
 Let me stop here to answer a point sometimes
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 163 
 
 made against the necessity of Bible study. It is 
 said, with apparent plausibility, that, in one form 
 or another, our modern literature contains all of 
 the biblical element really needed for the nourish- 
 ment of the divine life in man; that in the lines of 
 poetry and the discussions of philosophy, in the 
 treatises on ethics and the pages of history, one may 
 find a really excellent substitute for the prophecies 
 of Isaiah and his disciples, the utterances of the 
 sages, the ethical narratives of the Old and New 
 Testaments, the letters and discourses of the apostles 
 and their co-workers. Two replies may be made: 
 first, the very fact alleged shows all the more clearly 
 the power of the Scriptures, for if they possessed 
 not a special power and value given from on high, 
 their influence could not have permeated as it has 
 all modern literature; but, beyond this, it is to be 
 noted, the source of the wonderful influence thus 
 exerted is conceded by all to have been and to be the 
 Bible. In these days, if never before, we are expected 
 to go to the original sources for our information. 
 The one source, the only source, as well as the original 
 source, for help of the kind here considered is the 
 Bible. My friends, do not waste your time and 
 strength in the effort to find this most precious 
 material in a diluted form, when you can so easily 
 obtain it pure; and remember that the dilution of a 
 pure article is often only another term for adultera- 
 tion. It is not an uninteresting piece of work to
 
 1 64 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 follow this or that author in his effort to reproduce 
 the truth of the biblical writings according to his 
 own fancy; but it is a far more profitable thing to 
 study the biblical writings themselves writings so 
 strong and so helpful, and so necessary to man's 
 true life that even in their adulterated form they 
 have been found most valuable. I have a feeling 
 of profound pity for that minister of the gospel who 
 finds it necessary to place side by side with his text 
 or as a substitute for it, a quotation, however excel- 
 lent, from a secular writer. 
 
 Lack of time forbids me to consider separately 
 the three great ideas which constitute the controlling 
 thought of the inner spiritual life. Indeed, in what 
 has already been said I have largely anticipated 
 what I might say at this point. No one can deny 
 that in our Old and New Testament Scriptures we 
 find the fullest and clearest presentation of the char- 
 acter of God. We may interpret this revelation in 
 one way or in another; but whatever way we adopt, 
 the fact remains that the material to be interpreted 
 is biblical material. If God is himself the ultimate 
 source of all religious experience, it may surely be 
 predicated that the richest and fullest experience will 
 come, can come, to those only who best know him 
 as he has made himself known; to those only who 
 by such knowledge are in closest touch with him. 
 In the olden days the prophet Hosea repeated 
 pathetically the bitter complaint: "My people are
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 165 
 
 destroyed for lack of knowledge" (4:6); "they do 
 not know Jehovah" (5:4). In these modern days 
 men are even more foolish and go awhoring after 
 every absurd notion which the human mind can 
 invent. In very truth, they do not know the God 
 of the Scriptures; and why not? Because they 
 have not studied his character as it is revealed in 
 the Word, and in the flesh; or because they have 
 studied it, alas, through glasses so dimmed with 
 human error that the true light has been shut out. 
 
 This is true, likewise, of the two great corollaries 
 of the teaching concerning God that of sin, and that 
 of man's relation to man. No man, good or bad, 
 has ever lived whose picture has not been painted 
 in Holy Writ. You cannot read many chapters 
 before clearly to your eyes your own portrait appears. 
 There is no sin so damnable, no virtue so exalted, 
 that it has not found full illustration in these sacred 
 narratives. You will find nowhere else so clearly 
 presented your own religious needs, your short- 
 comings. You will find no writings which, by their 
 insistence upon ethical ideals, appeal so strongly 
 to your conscience. You will find nowhere else 
 so definite a placing of responsibility for sin upon 
 the individual. If you read sympathetically the 
 words of an Old Testament prophet, or of a New 
 Testament apostle, you will, in spite of yourself, 
 wonder at the deep and overwhelming sense of sin 
 which he exhibits. In other words, your own con-
 
 1 66 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 viction of sin will be so deepened as to bring you by 
 reaction into that state in which you may assume 
 the right relation to your Maker. No other litera- 
 ture will produce this effect, unless it be a literature 
 so saturated with biblical truth as in itself to repro- 
 duce the biblical thought. 
 
 Think, too, of the educative element in the records 
 of the lives of great leaders, now following the right 
 path, now turned aside; at one time crowned with 
 all the favor of a loving God, at another punished 
 with all the severity which characterizes an impartial 
 judge. I have already spoken of the unique life 
 pictured to us the life of Jesus. This is the climax 
 of the whole; all else might perhaps be dispensed 
 with, so long as this remained ; and yet all else forms 
 the background on which this picture rests. 
 
 Let me then repeat: The study of the Bible is 
 to be thought of as the eating of food food not for 
 the body or the mind, but for the soul. One may 
 at times find nourishment for his soul elsewhere 
 in diluted form. If it is desired pure and at first 
 hand, the Bible is the one source of supply. This 
 work of Bible study is indispensable, if one's religious 
 life is to be strong and sturdy and alert, and if it is 
 to be at all equal to the demands made upon it in 
 this world of struggle and temptation. 
 
 I desire to state in conclusion certain propositions 
 which seem to me to grow out of this discussion 
 and which belong to it.
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND. RELIGIOUS LIFE 167 
 
 In your study of the Bible do not expect to find 
 all portions of it equally helpful to you in your 
 Christian life. The Bible is for universal use. 
 If every part of it were of equal value to you, how 
 narrow and provincial and even valueless it would 
 be for many others of your fellow-men! Its truth 
 is so presented that children may go to it with satis- 
 faction; the deepest thinker also may find that of 
 which he stands in need. This is the Bible's greatest 
 worth. Every stage of individual and national 
 religious development is provided for. The art in 
 all this, that which makes it possible, is something 
 far beyond human understanding. We cannot 
 fail to see that it is so, however futile our attempt 
 may be to explain how it is so. We know quite well 
 why it is so; for otherwise it would not be what it is 
 universal, the only collection of writings which 
 may seriously claim to be universal. 
 
 In your study of this collection do not lose sight 
 of the large amount of history in its content; and 
 keep in mind that every utterance of prophet, law- 
 giver, and sage, of disciple, apostle, and teacher, 
 has an historical basis; that is, it grew out of some 
 historical situation intended in the divine providence 
 to serve as the occasion of the utterance and as its 
 basis. An important historical event happens 
 among us in these days the assassination of a presi- 
 dent, the rumor of war, the centennial of the birth 
 of a city and the teachers and preachers seize this
 
 1 68 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 as the basis for lessons in religious instruction. A 
 certain condition of things exists in this or that 
 country, a great awakening is needed, and from 
 every pulpit there comes the word of exhortation 
 and demand. Just so in ancient times. And if 
 by the study of sacred history we are able to dis- 
 cover the event or circumstance, the situation or 
 occasion, of a prophecy or a letter, whether it be 
 the approach of an invading army or the corrupt 
 condition of one of the churches of New Testament 
 tunes, a new light is shed upon the words; they take 
 on a new significance; they live, as they did not live 
 before. Too much cannot be said in favor of the 
 effort thus to connect the sacred words with the 
 sacred history which furnished their occasion. And 
 then, we may not forget that, after all, the events 
 were the principal thing. For example, the suffering 
 and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are his- 
 tory; that is, they are facts. Now, suppose no gospel 
 story of them had ever been written, would they 
 have altogether lost their historical value? And, 
 as such, would not the divine purpose sought for 
 in them have been accomplished? Is it not true, 
 then, that the historical fact back of the record is 
 the thing on which we must build our faith, the solid 
 rock on which we may take our stand ? 
 
 Some of us in our Bible study are troubled with 
 the so-called difficulties. I am afraid that the number 
 of such persons is too small. To be thus troubled
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 169 
 
 indicates two things: that one has actually been 
 engaged in study; and take my word for it no 
 student ever worked in any subject who did not 
 find difficulties. It shows also that the man is 
 honest. There is much that I should like to suggest 
 on this phase of our subject; for I have had very 
 sad and bitter experiences of my own along this line. 
 I wish, however, to make a single suggestion: Do 
 not, for the sake of all that you hold sacred, allow 
 the existence of intellectual difficulties to interfere 
 with the progress of your practical religious life. 
 Many men think that unless all their intellectual 
 problems are settled it is impossible to live a truly 
 religious life. A more mistaken notion never 
 entered a man's head. If you are a thinking man, 
 you will always have difficulties; new ones will 
 probably come forward even more rapidly than old 
 ones are settled. Be not too greatly disturbed by 
 these difficulties. If you are not yet a Christian, 
 do not put off becoming one until they disappear 
 Such a time will never come. Go forward in Chris- 
 tian work and service, follow the paths pointed out 
 to you so clearly in Sacred Scripture, and let the 
 difficulties be settled as your Christian faith grows 
 stronger and your Christian character becomes more 
 firmly established. 
 
 I cannot bring myself to forego just here a quota- 
 tion from one of the greatest of modern Bible students, 
 the late Professor Davidson, of Edinburgh. It is
 
 170 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 found in his Commentary on Job, in the chapter 
 containing Jehovah's answer out of the storm: 
 
 It is God who now speaks to Job; and in his teaching of 
 men he never moves in the region of the mere understanding, 
 but always in that of the religious life. He may remove per- 
 plexities regarding his providence and ways from men's 
 minds: He does not do so, however, by the immediate com- 
 munication of intellectual light; but rather by flushing all the 
 channels of thought and life with a deeper sense of himself. 
 Under the flow of this fuller sense of God, perplexities dis- 
 appear, just as rocks that raise an angry surf when the tide is 
 low are covered and unknown when it is full. 
 
 It goes almost without saying that if your religious 
 life is based upon a study of the Scriptures, it will 
 be largely shaped by the way in which you handle 
 these Scriptures. There is no error of the human 
 mind or heart which has not supported itself by the 
 use of Scripture; for instance, here polygamy, there 
 slavery; here spiritualism, there I might mention 
 twenty abnormal, absurd religious developments 
 which flourish in the very heart of our strongest and 
 most intelligent centers. The origin of all these 
 is false interpretation, failure to see aright the thought 
 intended to be conveyed by the sacred writer, and 
 an ignorance of God so great as to allow it to be 
 thought that such absurdities are pleasing to him 
 and represent aright his truth to men. The responsi- 
 bility, therefore, of interpretation is very great so 
 great that in certain divisions of the Christian church 
 it is a privilege denied the ordinary Christian and
 
 BIBLE STUDY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 171 
 
 granted only to those holding high ecclesiastical 
 position. There is in this a great lesson for us all; 
 and yet, it is better to have error stalk high through 
 the land than to deprive a single man of the privilege 
 of interpreting for himself and of accepting for him- 
 self the significance of the Sacred Writings. But 
 where privilege is granted, there responsibility rests; 
 and you may never shift upon another the responsi- 
 bility which is solely yours. 
 
 It follows that one can well afford to put forth 
 the greatest possible effort to secure in correct form 
 this food for the nourishment of his spiritual life. 
 The strange thing is that men who profess to value 
 this food so highly satisfy themselves with so small 
 an amount of it. The most serious act of hypocrisy 
 which a Christian can commit is to boast loudly on 
 the street corner, or on the housetop, of the value 
 and authority of the Sacred Scriptures, assigning 
 each and every word literally to the finger of God, 
 and then to accord to these same Scriptures less 
 thought and attention by far than he gives to the 
 daily newspaper. In how many Christian families 
 of the city of Chicago do you suppose the reading 
 of the morning paper at the breakfast table has 
 supplanted the morning reading of the Bible so com- 
 mon in these same families less than twenty years 
 ago? Every Christian man should face this ques- 
 tion: "Is the Bible what I have supposed it to be? 
 If so, it is for me to treat it differently, to make it
 
 172 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 the subject of systematic study, and, through acquaint- 
 ance with it, to come closer to God; to know him 
 better, and, having this knowledge, to realize, as I 
 have not hitherto realized, my responsibility to my 
 fellow-men." No man need ever fear that he will 
 attain too large a knowledge of these sacred books. 
 It is promised many times in these same Scrip- 
 tures that to him who approaches God in this attitude 
 of mind the Holy Spirit, in turn, will come with 
 blessings of mercy and comfort and peace. This 
 promise, the saints of all ages assert, has always 
 been fulfilled. Let it be our prayer that it may find 
 large fulfilment in the case of every man or woman 
 who, in earnestness and sincerity, determines to 
 study this sacred volume in the future more carefully 
 more assiduously, and more systematically than 
 hitherto.
 
 XII 
 AMERICA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD 
 
 THE world has had sixty centuries of history. 
 How many centuries of life man lived on earth 
 before the dawn of history we can only guess, as 
 new discovery pushes back still farther the date 
 of history's beginnings. These sixty centuries fall 
 quite naturally, and with a peculiar symmetry, 
 into three divisions of about twenty centuries each. 
 During the first twenty the great civilizing forces 
 came from the fertile region of the lower Euphrates 
 and the Tigris, Babylonia a country whose petty 
 kingdoms were first organized into an empire by 
 Sargon of Accad 3800 B. C.; a civilization which, 
 through two thousand years or more, pervaded and 
 uplifted the countries west of the Mediterranean. 
 Egypt all this while was developing a second civiliza- 
 tion, but the aggressive spirit seized her much later. 
 
 The end of the twentieth century B. C. was 
 marked by the movement westward through Meso- 
 potamia to the Palestine seaboard of a group of 
 nomadic tribes under Abraham, one of which, in 
 the providence of God, was to bring to humanity 
 the true conception and apprehension of a personal 
 God. These twenty centuries of Babylonian civil- 
 ization on one side, and Egyptian civilization on 
 173
 
 174 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 the other, had furnished the preparation of Syria, 
 and of those who were to be Syria's inhabitants, 
 for the great work which was to follow. It is true 
 that after this both Babylon and Egypt flourished, 
 but their real work had reached its culmination, 
 and their continuance only assisted the later steps 
 in Syria's development. Babylonia was the great 
 power in the first twenty centuries, Syria in the 
 second. The close of the first saw the coming of 
 the Hebrew tribe under Abraham's leadership; the 
 close of the second was marked by the coming of 
 the Son of man, the ideal Hebrew, to whom Syria, 
 with sore travail, at last gave birth. The work of 
 centuries of Greek and Roman history was but a 
 contribution to this, the crowning event of forty 
 centuries. 
 
 The third period of twenty centuries is but now 
 drawing to its close. The Hebrew, though not born 
 as a nation till nearly half the period had passed, 
 was the central influence of the second period. In 
 this third period the central figure has been Eng- 
 land, although in her case, too, a good portion of 
 the period had elapsed before she took her place 
 among the nations. Babylonia, Syria, England! 
 
 Another great period is just being ushered in, 
 which promises to eclipse its predecessor even as 
 that predecessor eclipsed those that preceded it. 
 The lines separating these great periods are not 
 sharply drawn. Perhaps we are already fairly
 
 AMERICA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD 175 
 
 under way in the new period. A thousand years 
 from now men will be better able to determine. 
 In any case, we know, and the world knows, that 
 what Babylonia was in the first period, what Syria 
 was in the second, what England was in the third, 
 all this and more America will be in the fourth. 
 
 This westward movement has been synchronous 
 with the history of the progress of civilization. And 
 the history of civilization has been synchronous with 
 the development of a pure and true conception of 
 God, and of his relation to man. 
 
 Did God enter into this wonderful development 
 for the first time when Abraham was called ? And 
 did he take a journey into a far-off country when 
 Jesus Christ ascended into heaven? Was not God 
 acting throughout the period of Babylonian influence 
 just as truly as through the period which began with 
 Abraham and closed with Jesus? May we not 
 believe that he has been as closely identified with the 
 period which is now closing as with that which pre- 
 sented the Sacred Scriptures to humanity? The 
 Babylonian, Syrian, and English periods are passed. 
 The American is coming. Will there be new revela- 
 tions of God in this period ? Surely we may expect 
 them. Does not the world know God in a new way 
 because of the events in the world's history during 
 the past two thousand years ? Does not the world 
 know God in a new way because of the dis- 
 coveries made by science in these latest years dis-
 
 176 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 coveries which teach us nothing, if they do not teach 
 of God and of his laws? It must be remembered 
 that the revelations which God has seen fit to make 
 of himself in the past have been accepted as such 
 by very few of those to whom they were first given. 
 The Christ himself was rejected by the mass of those 
 who saw and heard him. It has taken centuries for 
 most of these revelations to gain recognition as divine. 
 
 For myself, I am compelled to believe that during 
 these centuries words have been uttered and ideas 
 developed which later generations will recognize 
 as a revelation from God himself. What, now, 
 is the nature of this revelation which has not yet 
 been clearly discerned? and toward what does it 
 point? In Christ the Son we are accustomed to 
 say, and we believe, that God the Father revealed 
 himself. But it is also true that in him for the first 
 time ideal man and ideal humanity were revealed; 
 and the discovery that such a revelation was given 
 is only gradually coming to us in these last centuries 
 of Christian progress. 
 
 The social rights, which aforetime had been 
 limited to a few lords and vassals joined in solemn 
 compact, were acquired by the great non-feudal 
 classes only at the breaking up of feudalism. It 
 was through the great political revolutions of Eng- 
 lish history that humanity learned that political 
 rights were not the grants of a sovereign in a charter, 
 as under the Norman kings, but the God-given
 
 AMERICA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD 177 
 
 possession of the people themselves to be admin- 
 istered according to the will of the people. It was 
 in the Reformation that humanity began to appre- 
 ciate the true conception of religion as something 
 not to be mediated to men by other men of special 
 sanctity or authority, or by an institution of peculiar 
 divine appointment, but rather as the appropriate 
 prerogative of every individual. 
 
 I need not give further illustration. My point 
 is this : The contribution of these nineteen centuries 
 in other words, the contribution of Christianity 
 has not been simply a better, truer knowledge of 
 God. Men knew very much about God before 
 Christ came. It has been a better, truer knowledge 
 of man himself, of whom men knew next to nothing 
 at the dawn of the present era. The powers and 
 rights which had supposedly belonged to classes 
 are now known to belong to individuals as such. 
 Every idea of individual right, as distinguished from 
 the privileges of caste or class or guild, has been 
 worked out into definite expression since the birth 
 of Christ. 
 
 This idea of individualism, of the paramount 
 dignity of the individual, has expressed itself, more 
 clearly and more specifically, in every advance of 
 civilization. In the increasing effort to control the 
 powers of nature every man today is, potentially, a 
 thinker, a scientist; for to no man is there denied 
 the privilege of securing such control; in the effort to
 
 178 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 make provision for the conflicting claims of persons 
 with similar interests every man is, potentially, a 
 producer, an economist; in the effort on the part 
 of a constantly increasing number of persons to 
 secure the full enjoyment of the highest life every 
 man is, potentially, a co-operator, a citizen; in the 
 effort to secure the highest privilege, that of freedom 
 of opinion on religious subjects, every man is, poten- 
 tially, a worshiper, a priest. Within the bounds 
 of the various fields, every man has come to be 
 recognized as by nature endowed with the power 
 of a freeman. This is the teaching of nineteen 
 centuries of Christian civilization; in other words, 
 of Christianity. 
 
 But, now, these ideas have been demonstrated 
 only "piecemeal, and incoherently, in separated 
 times and places." However clearly they may 
 have been taught in the new Testament, they have 
 not yet received their perfect demonstration in human 
 history. The question of individualism as a whole 
 is still on trial; the real test of Christianity's success 
 is still in the future. She cannot be said to have 
 achieved final success until her founder Jesus Christ 
 has been everywhere recognized. The arena in 
 which the great trial shall be conducted is America. 
 The old countries, with their traditions and institu- 
 tions which obstruct their performance of full human 
 functions by the masses, cannot work out the prob- 
 lems which confront us.
 
 AMERICA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD 179 
 
 The history of the church during these centuries 
 is sufficient evidence of this proposition. Here 
 in this great country, provided by God himself 
 with all the facilities needed, preserved in large 
 measure by God himself from the burdens and 
 trammels of dead institutions and deadly traditions, 
 the consummation of Christian life and thought 
 will be realized. This is the message written on 
 every page of our nineteen centuries of history. It 
 is a wonderful and significant message. 
 
 Is its meaning appreciated? God is in the 
 world as of old. He may move slowly in further 
 revelations of himself; yet when the days are placed 
 together, each will be found to have furnished some 
 such revelation. And the days that are coming 
 will surpass any that have gone; except that one 
 day which saw God take the form of man, the day 
 which saw him live as man, and die as man, and 
 rise again as God. And of all that is coming, 
 America, broadly speaking, will be the scene of 
 action. 
 
 We remember that in Babylonia the masses were 
 only beasts in their filth; and we realize how much 
 more rapid the advance of true thought and life would 
 have been had the highest ideals permeated that 
 empire. We remember that Syria, and even Jeru- 
 salem, were rotten with the putrefactions of debauch- 
 ery and sin; and we can see that the battle waged 
 for centuries between the prophets and the people
 
 180 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 would have brought much sooner the long-expected 
 Messiah, but for the fact that the time was not yet 
 come, the world was not yet ready. 
 
 Today we see the vileness of life even in Christian 
 England, and among her children in every section 
 of the world; and we wonder how, with such vileness 
 at home, progress in heathen lands can be expected. 
 We need only to look at our own country to see how 
 burdened it is with vice and crime, with skepticism 
 and indifference. If, now, our faith is sure that 
 there has been committed to us this great mission, 
 shall we not purify ourselves ? Shall we not organize 
 ourselves as a nation for the work that lies ahead ? 
 
 Purification and organization, that is Christian- 
 ization. But the Christianity of the future will be 
 something different from that of the past. When 
 one thinks of the battles fought, the men and women 
 slain, the prisons filled, the crimes committed, the 
 closing of the door to efforts for progress, and the 
 closing of the ear to cries for help all in the name 
 of Christianity one may well be excused for sus- 
 pecting that, after all, not Christ but Satan has been 
 at God's right hand. How did this all come to be ? 
 Simply because of ignorance. The new Christianity 
 will have no room for ignorance. Education will 
 be its watchword. The ideal purification is a puri- 
 fication from vice and immorality, from sin of every 
 kind and from impurity; but it is more it is a 
 purification (I use the word advisedly) from ignor-
 
 AMERICA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD 181 
 
 ance and prejudice, from narrowness of every kind, 
 and from intellectual dishonesty. What is needed ? 
 The gospel and education. The gospel, as it is 
 commonly understood (again I speak advisedly) is 
 not sufficient. It will free men from vice and 
 impurity; but, when thus freed, the converts would 
 better be permitted to die, unless they are provided 
 with an education which will free them from narrow- 
 ness and prejudice and dishonesty. But, happily 
 for humanity, the gospel has in itself, if only it be 
 permitted to exercise them, the elements which incite 
 to education; and, in the future, education will con- 
 stitute a larger part of the work of evangelization 
 than in the past, both at home and abroad. 
 
 The call to mission work in America is a call 
 from heaven. Can this be doubted by anyone who 
 reads the pages of history and is familiar with the 
 achievements of the last half-century? It includes 
 a call to educate the Indian poor outcast, for whose 
 extinction even Christendom itself has, by its attitude, 
 petitioned heaven. It is a call to the education of 
 the negro, anticipating thus by thousands of years 
 what by natural development would have been the 
 career of a downtrodden race. 
 
 It is a call to work out the problems of the city 
 problems appreciated many centuries ago, when the 
 sacred writer described the building of the first city, 
 and connected with it all the woes and wickedness 
 of advancing civilization; problems avoided by the
 
 1 82 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 Rechabites of old, whose ancestor forbade residence 
 in cities because of the attendant temptation and 
 wrong-doing; problems which today appall the 
 stoutest heart. It is a call to take in hand and 
 organize that element which has not yet become a 
 true part of our American civilization, and which, 
 if Christianized and guided, will, by the intermixture 
 of blood, make America just what Palestine was; 
 which, however, if left to itself and its anarchistic 
 socialism, will bring down speedy ruin on our heads, 
 and plunge us into grief more bitter even than that 
 with which civil war overwhelmed us. 
 
 It is a call to evangelize this great West of ours 
 a land so boundless and so full of possibilities as to 
 make even reasonable calculation seem like visionary 
 dreaming. It is a call to establish here at home the 
 foundations for the evangelization of the world; for 
 if the world is to be evangelized, America must do 
 it; and if America is to do the work of evangelizing 
 the world, she must first Christianize, that is, purify 
 and educate herself. America is the world's great 
 mission field, because of what she is, and because 
 of what she is to be. It is a call to train the boys 
 and girls in all our churches; for has not history 
 shown that he who is to lead must be trained ? If 
 as Christians, we are to make progress, we must have 
 our own leaders leaders whom we ourselves have 
 trained. It is a call to equip all our academies and 
 colleges and theological seminaries, and to see to it
 
 AMERICA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD 183 
 
 that the instruction given in these institutions bears 
 upon its face the mark of truth ; has its roots in the 
 established principles of the faith. 
 
 America, then, is to be the leader of the world's 
 influence and thought during the next twenty cen- 
 turies, just as Babylonia, Syria, and England, each 
 in turn, has been leader during the past centuries. 
 
 But, more than this, she is to be the arena of an 
 intellectual, social, and spiritual conflict, in which 
 Christianity must vindicate itself against all opposing 
 forces a conflict more serious than any which has 
 yet been waged. No man or woman in our num- 
 ber doubts for a moment the ultimate triumph of 
 our Christianity; but, in order that the triumph 
 may be decisive, in order that the agony of the strug- 
 gle may not be too greatly prolonged, let us use 
 foresight and farsight. Let us purge our ranks, 
 putting aside everything that will not be of service 
 in the conflict. Let us organize our forces, strength- 
 ening at every point the places of vantage-ground. 
 Christianity's contribution to the world is a single 
 thing, and a simple thing : to teach the meaning of 
 love ; for this includes God and humanity, each in its 
 relation to the other. The message has been received, 
 but the lesson has not been learned. Mankind still 
 lingers in the kindergarten. The lesson, though in 
 itself single and simple, is very complicated in its 
 applications. The Great Teacher is patient; no one 
 knows better than himself the importance of funda-
 
 1 84 RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 mental training. Centuries will pass; and gradually 
 humanity will come to recognize the significance of 
 love; gradually Jesus the Christ will come to reign 
 in the hearts of men. In this work of educating 
 humanity to understand God and itself, America is 
 the training-school for teachers.
 
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